diff --git "a/articles/2017-12.json" "b/articles/2017-12.json"
--- "a/articles/2017-12.json"
+++ "b/articles/2017-12.json"
@@ -1 +1 @@
-{"title": ["Madrid explosion leaves three dead - BBC News", "UK and EU in row over bloc's diplomatic status - BBC News", "Coronavirus: French students promised one euro lockdown meals - BBC News", "Biden inauguration: Step forward after bumpy period - Boris Johnson - BBC News", "Food supply problems in NI clearly a Brexit issue - Coveney - BBC News", "Covid: Gavin Williamson hopes England's schools will reopen by Easter - BBC News", "Low-deposit mortgages return after Covid slump - BBC News", "Covid: House party-goers face £800 fines in England, Patel says - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: No more 'easy wins' for hospital staff - BBC News", "Storm Christoph in pictures - BBC News", "University tuition fees frozen at £9,250 for a year - BBC News", "Storm Christoph in North West England: Flooding and evacuations - BBC News", "Covid: How a £20 gadget could save lives - BBC News", "Birmingham mosque becomes UK's first to offer Covid vaccine - BBC News", "Uber: London cabbies plan to sue for damages - BBC News", "Storm Christoph flooding: Financial help offered to victims - BBC News", "Storm Christoph: Travel disruption as snow and rain sweep in - BBC News", "Troubles victims: Thousands of relatives call for action - BBC News", "Glastonbury 2021: Festival axed 'with great regret' - BBC News", "Covid rules: What are the restrictions in your area? - BBC News", "Biden's inauguration speech calls for unity - it won't be easy - BBC News", "Saga cruises says all customers must be vaccinated - BBC News", "Amanda Gorman: Inauguration poet calls for 'unity and togetherness' - BBC News", "Kamala Harris becomes first female, first black and first Asian-American VP - BBC News", "Covid: Infections 'must be brought down' to help NHS - BBC News", "Covid-19: What might a 'tighter' NI lockdown look like? - BBC News", "Manchester sinkhole: Houses collapse in Gorton street - BBC News", "Covid: £800 house party fines to be introduced in England - BBC News", "Brexit: 'I was asked to pay an extra £82 for my £200 coat' - BBC News", "Storm Christoph: Homes evacuated as storm batters Wales - BBC News", "Fulham 1-2 Man Utd: Paul Pogba fires United back to the top of the Premier League - BBC Sport", "Full transcript of Joe Biden's inauguration speech - BBC News", "Covid: 'Too early' to say if lockdown will end in spring - Boris Johnson - BBC News", "Paddy McElhone: Farmer shooting by Army unjustified, inquest rules - BBC News", "Covid: Nine million people forced to borrow more to cope - BBC News", "As it happened: Biden presidency: Covid deaths 'likely to exceed' 500,000 by February - BBC News", "As it happened: Foster and O'Neill give coronavirus update - BBC News", "Covid: Young people asked how pandemic has affected them - BBC News", "Next pulls out of race to buy Topshop-brands - BBC News", "Liverpool 0-1 Burnley: Ashley Barnes scores winner as Reds' unbeaten run ends - BBC Sport", "Kamala Harris and a 1986 snapshot of that Howard generation - BBC News", "Storm Christoph: More than 2,000 homes in Manchester evacuated - BBC News", "Covid: Nearly 2m UK people got first Covid vaccine in last week - BBC News", "Covid: UK reports 1,820 deaths as Johnson warns tough weeks to come - BBC News", "Inauguration fashion: Purple, pearls, and mittens - BBC News", "Covid-19: Military to assist NI medical staff - BBC News", "Covid: 'Two-month' vaccine wait for housebound woman, 84 - BBC News", "Covid-19: Bridgwater Muller worker dies and 95 staff self-isolating - BBC News", "As it happened: Inauguration: Biden signs orders ending key Trump policies - BBC News", "Author Terry Pratchett's 'inspiring' house for sale - BBC News", "Covid-19: Unison 'not opposed' to military help - BBC News", "Elephants counted from space for conservation - BBC News", "Meghan letter: Royal aides 'won't take sides', High Court told - BBC News", "Covid-19: NI lockdown to be extended until 5 March - BBC News", "Covid: Assaults on emergency workers 'most common' virus-related crimes - BBC News", "Marmite maker Unilever to insist suppliers pay 'living wage' - BBC News", "President Joe Biden inauguration speech: 'Democracy has prevailed' - BBC News", "Dartford mother-of-three died after liposuction in Turkey - BBC News", "Biden inauguration in pictures - BBC News", "Covid vaccine: 'Patience and perspective' needed in Wales - BBC News", "Racism in ballet: Black dancer's 'humiliation' at racist comments - BBC News", "Lockdown children forget how to use knife and fork - BBC News", "Coronavirus: BMJ urges NYT to correct vaccine 'mixing' article - BBC News", "Edinburgh's giant pandas may 'return to China' over Covid losses - BBC News", "Families rescued in Peak District after getting trapped in snow - BBC News", "Covid: Liverpool's leaders call for new national lockdown - BBC News", "Covid-19: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine arrives at hospitals - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Scottish cabinet to consider further measures - BBC News", "Cold snap creates 'pop-up' ice hockey rink - BBC News", "Covid in Wales: Schools' phased return defended by first minister - BBC News", "Covid: Sweden official defends Christmas trip to Canary Islands - BBC News", "Irish Eurovision singer and Bagatelle frontman Liam Reilly dies - BBC News", "Zoe Davison: Racing trainer dies on same day two of her horses win at Plumpton - BBC Sport", "West Brom 0-4 Arsenal: Arsenal see off Baggies in ruthless display - BBC Sport", "Covid in Scotland: New strain of virus 'accelerating' spread - BBC News", "Coronavirus: India approves vaccines from Bharat Biotech and Oxford/AstraZeneca - BBC News", "Reading stabbing: Five teenagers arrested after boy, 13, dies - BBC News", "EuroMillions: Jackpot of more than £39m won by UK ticket-holder - BBC News", "Covid rules: What are the restrictions in your area? - BBC News", "Covid: Not much room for lockdown changes, Wales' first minister warns - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Twelve fined for playing dominoes in Tier 4 breach - BBC News", "Boris Johnson says indyref vote should be once-in-generation - BBC News", "Liverpool FC anthem singer Gerry Marsden dies aged 78 - BBC News", "New Year snow flurries fall across England - BBC News", "Covid-19: New variant 'raises R number by up to 0.7' - BBC News", "Suspected Islamists kill dozens in attacks on two Niger villages - BBC News", "Covid: What could 'tougher' measures mean for us? - BBC News", "Pep Guardiola: Man City boss may stay in management longer than planned - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: Anti-lockdown protesters arrested at Hyde Park demo - BBC News", "Benjamin Mendy: Man City 'disappointed' after defender breaches Covid-19 protocols - BBC Sport", "Ryan Garcia stops Luke Campbell after surviving knockdown in Dallas - BBC Sport", "County Antrim poultry flock to be culled after bird flu detected - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Restrictions 'could continue' amid rising cases - BBC News", "Hospitals across UK 'must prepare for Covid surge', senior doctor warns - BBC News", "Covid: Regional rules 'probably going to get tougher', says Boris Johnson - BBC News", "Covid: Cardiff Central MP Jo Stevens in hospital with virus - BBC News", "As it happened: Boris Johnson warns of tougher measures amid Covid surge - BBC News", "US Election 2020 - BBC News", "Covid: Snowdonia National Park wardens 'getting abuse' during lockdown - BBC News", "Leicester City 2-0 Southampton: James Maddison and Harvey Barnes send Foxes second - BBC Sport", "Covid: Nurseries 'teetering on the edge' during pandemic - BBC News", "Archie Lyndhurst: CBBC star died in his sleep, says mother - BBC News", "SLS: Nasa's 'megarocket' engine test ends early - BBC News", "Covid-19: Protect us from unlawful killing charges - medics - BBC News", "Phil Spector: Pop producer jailed for murder dies at 81 - BBC News", "Covid-19: Man said he had travelled 100 miles 'for a McDonald's' - BBC News", "RAF veteran receives Covid jab at Salisbury Cathedral - BBC News", "Covid-19: France begins 6pm curfew - BBC News", "Liverpool 0-0 Man Utd: Alisson saves thwart leaders at Anfield - BBC Sport", "Chris Cramer: Tributes paid after former BBC and CNN journalist dies aged 73 - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: 'Patchy supply' hampering vaccine rollout - BBC News", "Covid-19: NI hospitals prepare for peak of latest virus surge - BBC News", "Branson's Virgin rocket takes satellites to orbit - BBC News", "Covid-19: Nisra records highest ever weekly deaths - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Parents' joy as free childcare resumes - BBC News", "Online clothes sellers targeted by 'creepy' messages - BBC News", "Covid-19: BBC's Fergal Keane revisits St Mary’s and Charing Cross Hospital 10 months on - BBC News", "Sudan's Darfur region: 'More than 80 killed' in clashes - BBC News", "Lai Chi-Wai raises HK$5.2m for charity climbing Nina Towers - BBC News", "Covid: Airport support scheme to open in England - BBC News", "As it happened: NHS England under extreme pressure, says NHS chief - BBC News", "Virtual library gives children in England free book access - BBC News", "Gerry Marsden: Funeral held for Pacemakers star - BBC News", "Covid: Church of England services hit by pandemic - BBC News", "Sri Lanka v England: Tourists wobble chasing 74 after Jack Leach takes 5-122 - BBC Sport", "Universal Credit: Benefit increase only 'temporary', says Raab - BBC News", "G7: UK to host Cornwall seaside summit in summer - BBC News", "Statues to get protection from 'baying mobs' - BBC News", "Home Office 'working to restore' lost police records - BBC News", "Eurostar: Government urged to 'safeguard' rail firm's future - BBC News", "Covid-19: Running a roadside van when a pandemic cuts traffic - BBC News", "Coronavirus: William and Kate hear from emergency workers - BBC News", "Covid: People broke lockdown rules in 200-mile drive to see friends - BBC News", "Covid-19: More mass jab centres, airport support and a virtual library - BBC News", "Covid-19: England delivering 140 jabs a minute, says NHS chief executive - BBC News", "Mount Semeru: Erupting volcano spews ash above Indonesia's Java island - BBC News", "Universal credit: MPs urge PM to keep £20 benefit 'lifeline' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Further 1,295 deaths recorded in the UK - BBC News", "Archbishop of Glasgow Philip Tartaglia dies with Covid aged 70 - BBC News", "Covid-19: Bedworth Pokemon player fined for lockdown breach - BBC News", "Manchester Arena and Parsons Green bombers charged with prison officer attack - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Freeman targets 400,000 vaccinations every week - BBC News", "Lockdown Christmas hits: Lidl pink prosecco and takeaways - BBC News", "Covid-19: BBC's Fergal Keane revisits St Mary’s and Charing Cross Hospital 10 months on - BBC News", "'Discriminatory' mental health system overhauled - BBC News", "Fresh calls for NI mother and baby homes inquiry - BBC News", "Covid-19: Welsh Government update - BBC News", "Covid: Police cancel fine for couple visiting care home - BBC News", "Human remains found in search for missing cyclist Tony Parsons - BBC News", "Johnson: 24-7 Covid-vaccine hubs as soon as supply allows - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: The six new lockdown rules - BBC News", "Coronavirus: British tourist blamed for Lauberhorn ski race cancellation - BBC News", "Coronavirus: 'How long can we keep going like this? About a week' - BBC News", "Covid-19: We can make this the peak by following rules, says Hancock - BBC News", "Morrisons to be first UK supermarket to pay minimum £10 an hour - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: How do the rules compare to last year? - BBC News", "Edinburgh Woollen Mill rescue deal to save 2,000 jobs - BBC News", "Furlough fraud: I'm still registered as furloughed for a job I quit' - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Stricter rules within days - BBC News", "China: Senior Conservatives call for reset of UK policy - BBC News", "Media billionaire David Barclay dies, aged 86 - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Lockdown lifting 'unlikely' as deaths pass 5,000 - BBC News", "Huawei patent mentions use of Uighur-spotting tech - BBC News", "PMQs: Some food parcels are an 'insult to families' - PM - BBC News", "Earl of Strathmore admits sex attack at Glamis Castle home - BBC News", "Covid rules: What are the restrictions in your area? - BBC News", "Sinovac: Brazil results show Chinese vaccine 50.4% effective - BBC News", "Covid-19: More than 100,000 vaccine doses administered in NI - BBC News", "Customs staff: Vaccinate us to keep trade flowing - BBC News", "Four arrested over 'public nuisance' at Redditch and Birmingham hospitals - BBC News", "Covid: Birmingham hospitals move 200 doctors to intensive care duties - BBC News", "Plastic bag charge to double to 10p from April in Scotland - BBC News", "Naomi Campbell's Kenya tourism role causes row - BBC News", "Heavy snow causes widespread disruption in Scotland - BBC News", "Covid-19: New test rule for England arrivals pushed back to Monday - BBC News", "David Attenborough to front government-funded 5G AR app - BBC News", "GCSE and A-level pupils could sit mini exams to aid grading - BBC News", "Covid-19: Lockdown measures 'starting to show signs of some effect' - PM - BBC News", "Covid-19: Alabama crowds ignore coronavirus to celebrate championship - BBC News", "Covid-19: New treatment, NHS staff struggles and free meals row - BBC News", "Trump impeachment process: Who are the key players? - BBC News", "Gurlitt's last Nazi-looted work returned to owners - BBC News", "Cramlington woman celebrates 100th birthday with covid jab - BBC News", "People's sonic boom surprise caught on camera - BBC News", "Libby Squire murder trial: Pawel Relowicz 'prowled streets for victim' - BBC News", "Battery lodged in baby's throat for four months - BBC News", "As it happened: Record number of daily deaths reported in UK - BBC News", "Covid vaccine: Pfizer v Oxford AstraZeneca v Moderna - BBC News", "Covid-19: Special school staff want jab priority - BBC News", "Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Fulham: Ivan Cavaleiro earns a point for Premier League strugglers - BBC Sport", "Call for better coronavirus masks for all medical staff - BBC News", "Covid: Play your part in fight against virus, says Patel - BBC News", "YouTube suspends Donald Trump's channel - BBC News", "Covid: UK reports record 1,564 daily deaths - BBC News", "Mohamud Mohammed Hassan: Hundreds march over arrested man's death - BBC News", "Covid: Three Democratic lawmakers test positive after Capitol riot - BBC News", "Tesco, Asda and Waitrose ban shoppers without face masks - BBC News", "Trump impeached for second time - BBC News", "YFN Lucci: US rapper wanted in Atlanta for suspected murder - BBC News", "Covid: Many NHS staff 'traumatised' by first wave of virus, study shows - BBC News", "Duchess of York: From Budgie the Helicopter to Mills & Boon - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Who broke into the building? - BBC News", "Britain's Got Talent: Filming postponed due to coronavirus concerns - BBC News", "Boris Johnson condemns 'disgraceful scenes' in US - BBC News", "National Express to suspend all services - BBC News", "Fears schools will be overwhelmed by laptopless pupils - BBC News", "Trump allowed back onto Twitter - BBC News", "Trump auction for Arctic oil rights sees little interest - BBC News", "Reading stabbing: Three teenagers charged with murder after boy, 13, dies - BBC News", "Capitol riot: Biden says BLM protest would have been treated 'very differently' - BBC News", "Essex lorry deaths: Dad learned of son's fate on social media - BBC News", "As it happened: PM sets out Covid vaccine rollout plan - BBC News", "Teachers' grades to replace A-levels and GCSEs in England - BBC News", "Adrian Chiles confirmed in Emma Barnett 5 Live slot - BBC News", "Covid: Seven mass vaccination hubs announced for England - BBC News", "Capitol riots: World media see Trump ignite an 'insurrection' - BBC News", "Coronavirus: 'How long can we keep going like this? About a week' - BBC News", "Breonna Taylor: Two Louisville officers fired over roles in shooting - BBC News", "Stella Tennant: Family confirms model's death was suicide - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: 'Well over half' of care home residents vaccinated - BBC News", "Two more life-saving Covid drugs discovered - BBC News", "Capitol riot: What does a deadly day mean for Trump's legacy? - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Belfast Trust cancels urgent cancer surgeries - BBC News", "Capitol riots: How a Trump rally turned deadly - BBC News", "Capitol riots: A visual guide to the storming of Congress - BBC News", "Muted response as Clap for Heroes returns - BBC News", "Capitol riot: Five startling images from the siege - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Moment protesters storm US legislature - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Boris Johnson condemns Donald Trump for sparking events - BBC News", "Ryanair scraps most UK and Irish lockdown flights - BBC News", "Covid: UK travel curbs to keep out South Africa variant - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Pro-Trump protesters storm the US legislature - in pictures - BBC News", "'Mr Christmas' lights switched off for last time in Croxley Green - BBC News", "Inside one GP surgery's Covid vaccine roll-out - BBC News", "Covid-19: Baby's mother issues mottled skin warning - BBC News", "Trump’s Twitter downfall - BBC News", "ICU hospital staff: 'Scared, sad, petrified, worried' - BBC News", "Elon Musk becomes world's richest person as wealth tops $185bn - BBC News", "Capitol siege: Trump's words 'directly led' to violence, Patel says - BBC News", "Reading stabbing: Murder-accused teenagers appear in court - BBC News", "US Election 2020 - BBC News", "McDonald's pauses walk-in takeaways in lockdown - BBC News", "US Capitol riots: World leaders react to 'horrifying' scenes in Washington - BBC News", "'Show us it's safe' to be open, say nursery staff - BBC News", "Alex Rodda murder: Matthew Mason guilty of killing schoolboy - BBC News", "Covid-19: Boris Johnson makes daily jab pledge as Army helps rollout - BBC News", "Organ donor mum wishes she could help her children in need of kidneys - BBC News", "Meat factories warn Covid absences could hit supplies - BBC News", "Covid tests for Channel hauliers to continue 'until further notice' - BBC News", "Aston Villa plan to play youngsters against Liverpool in FA Cup after Covid outbreak - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: Vaccine rollout widens as hospital pressure rises - BBC News", "Sainsbury's Christmas sales rise despite smaller turkeys - BBC News", "Analysis: Can lockdown stop the new coronavirus variant? - BBC News", "Covid: China places 11m under lockdown after outbreak in northern city - BBC News", "The Wanted's Tom Parker says brain tumour has 'shrunk significantly' - BBC News", "Lockdown: 'I've borrowed £4m just to remain closed' - BBC News", "Capitol siege: An eyewitness account from inside the House chamber - BBC News", "Asos frontrunner to buy Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge brands - BBC News", "Boohoo 'set to buy Debenhams brand and website' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Top adviser warns France at 'emergency' virus moment - BBC News", "Covid-19: Essex student helps 600 refugees out of 'period poverty' - BBC News", "Covid: Israel vaccinates 16 to 18-year-olds ahead of exams - BBC News", "Covid: School return in Wales 'unlikely' for all in February - BBC News", "Care home worker thought cancer misdiagnosis was a 'cruel joke' - BBC News", "Skewen flood victims could be out of homes for days - BBC News", "SpaceX: World record number of satellites launched - BBC News", "England in Sri Lanka: Tourists complete six-wicket win and take series 2-0 - BBC Sport", "Boeing 737 Max cleared to fly again 'too early' - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Pressure on NHS front line 'relentless' - Hancock - BBC News", "Covid: Teachers 'not at higher risk' of death than average - BBC News", "Fraud epidemic 'is now national security threat' - BBC News", "Snow: Severe weather warnings in place across UK - BBC News", "Covid-19: MPs call for school reopening plan, and will France have a third lockdown? - BBC News", "Putin condemns Navalny protests as Western concern grows - BBC News", "Covid: 'Not a moment to ease measures,' says Matt Hancock - BBC News", "Robert Rowland: Former Brexit MEP dies in Bahamas diving accident - BBC News", "Pandemic prompts Super Bowl ad rethink in US - BBC News", "Covid: Schools will be told of reopening plans 'as soon as we can' - BBC News", "South Africa coronavirus variant: 77 cases found in UK - BBC News", "US police vehicle ploughs into crowd watching 'burnouts' - BBC News", "Barclaycard customers face higher minimum payments - BBC News", "Skewen flood: Is Wales' coalmining past behind home evacuations? - BBC News", "'Droves' of Pampas grass pickers at South Shields beach - BBC News", "Covid-19: Mansfield newlyweds, 90 and 86, in vaccination plea - BBC News", "'Knackered and confused.' That's just the parents - BBC News", "Covid: Call for long-term plan to help 'burnt-out' nurses - BBC News", "Heatwave sweeps Australian cities and raises bushfire danger - BBC News", "Dylan Freeman: Mother admits killing disabled son - BBC News", "'Running Man' robber jailed after nearly 13 years on the run - BBC News", "Travellers: Shocking lack of pitches for families, charity warns - BBC News", "Skewen flood victims face 'months' before returning home - BBC News", "Jenners: Building's owner says store 'will remain' despite Frasers move - BBC News", "PTSD: Eyes can reveal previous trauma, study reveals - BBC News", "Covid: 'More deadly' UK variant claim played down by scientists - BBC News", "Moderna vaccine appears to work against variants - BBC News", "Channel 4 Deepfake Queen complaints dropped by Ofcom - BBC News", "Debenhams shops to close permanently after Boohoo deal - BBC News", "Covid: Dutch curfew riots rage for third night - BBC News", "Gordon Brown: Trust has broken down in way UK is run - BBC News", "Q&A: Cwm Taf maternity problems - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Over-70 vaccine letters start but blue envelope delay - BBC News", "Cwm Taf maternity: Failings 'affected two-thirds of women' - BBC News", "Mastercard to push up fees for UK purchases from EU - BBC News", "Frank Lampard: Chelsea sack manager with Thomas Tuchel expected to replace him - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: Mexican President López Obrador tests positive - BBC News", "Janet Yellen to be first female US treasury secretary - BBC News", "Covid: Hays Travel to close 89 shops as lockdown delays 'bounce back' - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer self-isolates for third time - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Ways to 'accelerate' vaccine plans being examined - BBC News", "Welsh Valentine's Day: 'Why we mark St Dwynwen's Day' - BBC News", "Cwm Taf maternity: Mothers ignored and made to feel worthless - BBC News", "Keon Lincoln: Mother 'heard gunshots' that killed teen - BBC News", "Covid-19: Police investigate potential breaches at republican funeral - BBC News", "Skewen flooding: Villagers warned not to return to homes - BBC News", "Kickstart: Most job roles for youths not yet filled - BBC News", "Covid: Volunteers in Maesteg clear snow for vulnerable to get vaccine - BBC News", "Manchester United 3-2 Liverpool: Bruno Fernandes settles FA Cup thriller - BBC Sport", "Covid: Early years staff safety 'cause for concern' - BBC News", "Couple killed in Cameron House Hotel fire named - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Police support Crown probe into care home deaths - BBC News", "Covid: Sir Billy Connolly receives his first vaccine jab - BBC News", "Covid: Fire Brigades Union safety demands 'unworkable', says report - BBC News", "Shipping crisis: I'm being quoted £10,000 for a £1,600 container' - BBC News", "Covid: School return in Wales 'unlikely' for all in February - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Majority of discretionary self-isolation support applications rejected, Labour say - BBC News", "Festival season 'still possible' despite Glastonbury cancellation - BBC News", "Coronavirus: 'New variant may be associated with higher mortality' - PM - BBC News", "Inquiry uses legal powers to seek Salmond evidence - BBC News", "Bus driver jailed after passenger's death in Swansea crash - BBC News", "Covid: James Bond film No Time To Die delayed for third time - BBC News", "Covid: How a £20 gadget could save lives - BBC News", "Birmingham mosque becomes UK's first to offer Covid vaccine - BBC News", "Hotel quarantine for UK arrivals to be discussed - BBC News", "St Agnes Cold War bunker for sale - BBC News", "Covid: Side-by-side in a London mosque - funerals and a food bank - BBC News", "Brexit: Retailers warn they could burn goods stuck in EU - BBC News", "Skewen flood: Is Wales' coalmining past behind home evacuations? - BBC News", "Coronavirus: UK R number 'between 0.8 and 1' - BBC News", "Covid-19: 'Unrealistic' to expect NI lockdown to end on 5 March - BBC News", "From Sea Shanty TikTok to a record deal - BBC News", "Trump 'prank-called by Piers Morgan impersonator' - BBC News", "Keon Lincoln murder probe: Boy dies after Handsworth attack - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Thirteen residents die in Bishopbriggs care home - BBC News", "Covid-19: Ministers mull £500 Covid payment and retail sales suffer record annual drop - BBC News", "Covid: Museums and galleries 'fighting for survival', Art Fund says - BBC News", "Paula Badosa: Australian Open player 'sorry' after revealing she has Covid - BBC News", "Biden's inauguration speech calls for unity - it won't be easy - BBC News", "Your pictures of Scotland 15 - 22 January - BBC News", "Covid: Wedding party in Stamford Hill broken up by police - BBC News", "Covid-19: No plans for universal £500 self-isolation payment, No 10 says - BBC News", "Essex lorry deaths: Men jailed for killing 39 migrants in trailer - BBC News", "Covid: 'Significant failure' over handling summer exam grades - BBC News", "Covid: £800 house party fines to be introduced in England - BBC News", "Cyber criminals publish more than 4,000 stolen Sepa files - BBC News", "Covid: 'Too early' to say if lockdown will end in spring - Boris Johnson - BBC News", "Paddy McElhone: Farmer shooting by Army unjustified, inquest rules - BBC News", "Police arrest 320 dangerous UK child sex offenders - BBC News", "CCTV captures moment hotel fire takes hold - BBC News", "Chorley 0-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers: Vitinha's superb goal sees Wolves past non-league opponents - BBC Sport", "Cameron House: Fire caused by ash left in cupboard - BBC News", "Next pulls out of race to buy Topshop-brands - BBC News", "Coronavirus: UK variant 'may be more deadly' - BBC News", "Shoppers stuck at home shun new clothes in 2020 - BBC News", "Liverpool 0-1 Burnley: Ashley Barnes scores winner as Reds' unbeaten run ends - BBC Sport", "Brexit: Nissan commits to keep making cars in Sunderland - BBC News", "Detentions and warnings over Navalny protests - BBC News", "Skewen flood: Mine shaft 'blow out' may have flooded village - BBC News", "Australian Open 2021: Andy Murray's hopes of playing in tournament over - BBC Sport", "Cameron House: Mum 'tortured' by son's death in hotel fire - BBC News", "Cladding crisis: 'Delays could bankrupt us' - BBC News", "Covid lockdown rule breakers could 'make pandemic longer' - BBC News", "Beckhams pay themselves £21m despite business losses - BBC News", "Covid-19: Bridgwater Muller worker dies and 95 staff self-isolating - BBC News", "Covid-19: Couple in 'only chance' wedding in Milton Keynes Hospital - BBC News", "As it happened: Biden White House 'will tackle domestic extremism' - BBC News", "Covid-19: NI lockdown to be extended until 5 March - BBC News", "Mick Norcross: Towie star and businessman dies aged 57 - BBC News", "Covid-19: Two £10,000 fines for '150-person' funeral - BBC News", "Dartford mother-of-three died after liposuction in Turkey - BBC News", "Coronavirus: EU vaccine woes mount as new delays emerge - BBC News", "Manchester sinkhole: Houses collapse in Gorton street - BBC News", "Covid: Royal Glamorgan Hospital nurse felt 'overwhelming fear' - BBC News", "Meng Wanzhou: Bullets sent in mail to Huawei's finance chief - BBC News", "Covid-19: BBC's Fergal Keane revisits St Mary’s and Charing Cross Hospital 10 months on - BBC News", "BBC licence fee is 'least worst' option, says new chairman Richard Sharp - BBC News", "Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra: Does stylus spell end of the Note? - BBC News", "Covid: Infections levelling off in some areas - scientist - BBC News", "Fresh calls for NI mother and baby homes inquiry - BBC News", "Covid: Police cancel fine for couple visiting care home - BBC News", "Covid-19: Brazil hospitals 'run out of oxygen' for virus patients - BBC News", "Covid-19: South America travel ban and NHS 'crisis' warning - BBC News", "Past Covid-19 infection may provide 'months of immunity' - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: The six new lockdown rules - BBC News", "Covid-19: Packed hospitals raised death risk by 20% - BBC News", "Over-50s rush to book holidays as vaccine boosts confidence - BBC News", "Coronavirus: British tourist blamed for Lauberhorn ski race cancellation - BBC News", "Covid: Hospitals in Wales' hardest-hit area pause some urgent surgery - BBC News", "Covid-19: High Street chemists start vaccinations in England - BBC News", "Covid: Students' rent strike threat over accommodation - BBC News", "Covid: Asylum seeker camp conditions prompt inspection calls - BBC News", "TikTok level crossing stunt 'staggeringly stupid' - BBC News", "Armie Hammer: Actor pulls out of film over 'vicious' online abuse - BBC News", "Covid rules: What are the restrictions in your area? - BBC News", "Twitter boss: Trump ban is 'right' but 'dangerous' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Insurance fears stop care homes taking patients - BBC News", "Covid-19: More than 100,000 vaccine doses administered in NI - BBC News", "As it happened: Travel from South America to UK banned - BBC News", "UK snow: Yorkshire ambulance service declares 'major incident' - BBC News", "Pimlico Plumbers to make workers get vaccinations - BBC News", "Coronavirus variants and mutations: The science explained - BBC News", "Cyberpunk 2077: We underestimated difficulties - BBC News", "Portishead mum mistakes pregnancy for lockdown weight gain - BBC News", "Marcus Rashford and top chefs demand free school meals review - BBC News", "Coronavirus: PM says UK 'taking steps' over Brazil variant - BBC News", "Covid-19: Passengers told to check train times as routes cut - BBC News", "Heavy snow causes widespread disruption in Scotland - BBC News", "Covid-19: New test rule for England arrivals pushed back to Monday - BBC News", "Covid-19: Schools get more time to decide on admission criteria - BBC News", "Brexit shellfish delays leave Scottish seafood rotting - BBC News", "Teen detained over 180mph stolen motorbike pursuit - BBC News", "Super Nintendo World opening delayed by Japan's virus outbreak - BBC News", "Covid-19: North-east England leads race to vaccinate over-80s - BBC News", "Covid: UK travel curbs to keep out South Africa variant - BBC News", "Tesco: Brexit disruption 'is a challenge not a crisis' - BBC News", "Bitcoin: Newport man's plea to find £210m hard drive in tip - BBC News", "Gurlitt's last Nazi-looted work returned to owners - BBC News", "Africa secures 270m Covid-19 vaccine doses - BBC News", "Covid-19: Surge leaves key hospital services 'in crisis' - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Government's rough sleeping strategy 'out of step' - BBC News", "Row over half term free school meals plan - BBC News", "Americans react to historic second Trump impeachment - BBC News", "Covid-19: Belfast doctor warns oxygen supplies under 'extreme pressure' - BBC News", "US Election 2020 - BBC News", "Covid-19: Brazil travel ban to be discussed over new variant - BBC News", "Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Fulham: Ivan Cavaleiro earns a point for Premier League strugglers - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: Bracknell couple's 'final meeting' in hospital - BBC News", "Call for better coronavirus masks for all medical staff - BBC News", "Covid: WHO team probing origin of virus arrives in China - BBC News", "Covid: UK reports record 1,564 daily deaths - BBC News", "Patel: No new Covid rules 'today or tomorrow' - BBC News", "Sri Lanka v England: Dom Bess takes 5-30 as tourists dominate in Galle - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: Guide dog delays like 'losing eyesight all over again' - BBC News", "Firms told to look out for domestic abuse signs - BBC News", "Australian Open: Andy Murray tests positive for coronavirus - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: NI to introduce international travel Covid tests - BBC News", "Trump impeached for second time - BBC News", "Siegfried Fischbacher: Member of magic duo Siegfried and Roy dies aged 81 - BBC News", "Richard Leonard quits as Scottish Labour leader - BBC News", "Primark refuses to go online despite £1bn lockdown loss - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: hospital numbers at new record high - BBC News", "Woman arrested after two men die at house in east London - BBC News", "Covid-19: Nurse isolating in caravan for nine months moves back home - BBC News", "Covid: Families 'devastated' by cancer surgery cancellation - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Company's apology after £5,000 vaccine offer - BBC News", "Online retailer Ocado warns of shortages as suppliers cut choice - BBC News", "Covid-19: Priti Patel defends police lockdown fines - BBC News", "Covid-19: Queen and Prince Philip receive vaccinations - BBC News", "Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' - Hancock - BBC News", "Covid-19: Drop 'absurd' 5% council tax increase - Starmer - BBC News", "Bench arrest video 'stage-managed by anti-lockdown protesters' - BBC News", "WW2's 'Spitfire Women': Eleanor Wadsworth, one of last female pilots, dies - BBC News", "Covid-19: Rapid tests for asymptomatic people to be rolled out - BBC News", "Covid: Aberfan survivor Bernard Thomas dies, aged 63 - BBC News", "Covid-19: Every adult to be offered vaccine by autumn says Matt Hancock - BBC News", "Covid-19: Hancock warns flexing of rules 'could be fatal' - BBC News", "Pakistan power cut plunges country into darkness - BBC News", "The 65 days that led to chaos at the Capitol - BBC News", "Storm Filomena: Spain races to clear snow as temperatures plunge - BBC News", "Crawley Town 3-0 Leeds United: Marcelo Bielsa's side suffer huge FA Cup upset - BBC Sport", "Pompeo: US to lift restrictions on contacts with Taiwan - BBC News", "Analysis: Can lockdown stop the new coronavirus variant? - BBC News", "Police arrest 16 at Clapham Common anti-lockdown protest - BBC News", "Covid-19: Fordingbridge farm chickens risk cull over egg demand - BBC News", "Cladding building owners told not to talk to press - BBC News", "Brexit: Edwin Poots warns of job losses and food shortages - BBC News", "Man Utd 1-0 Watford: Scott McTominay heads early FA Cup winner at Old Trafford - BBC Sport", "Coronavirus: Virtual Mass tour across Ireland for 107-year-old - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: ICU numbers rise amid tighter lockdown warnings - BBC News", "Storm Filomena: Spain sees 'exceptional' snowfall - BBC News", "Covid vaccine: Wales has delivered 70,000 of 275,000 doses - BBC News", "Parler: Amazon to remove site from web hosting service - BBC News", "Covid: Protect family incomes, Starmer urges ministers - BBC News", "Covid vaccine: Wales lagging behind rest of UK with rollout - BBC News", "Happy Mondays star Bez in bid to rival Joe Wicks with lockdown fitness classes - BBC News", "Indonesia landslide: Rescuers buried as they help victims - BBC News", "Covid: UK reports more than 80,000 deaths - BBC News", "NHS Covid-19 jab letters 'confusing over-80s' - BBC News", "'Status quo isn't working' for Scotland, says Starmer - BBC News", "Covid: Warnings 'blatantly ignored' as cars turned away - BBC News", "Covid: Boris Johnson set to announce new England lockdown - BBC News", "Schools to close and exams facing axe in England - BBC News", "New £5 coin to mark Queen's 95th birthday - BBC News", "Reading stabbing: School 'reeling' after boy, 13, dies - BBC News", "Colchester Hospital: Covid deniers removed from 'at capacity' hospital - BBC News", "Ecclestone burglary: Four cleared over £26m celebrity raids - BBC News", "Boris Johnson says indyref vote should be once-in-generation - BBC News", "Covid: Brian Pinker, 82, first to get Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Scots ordered to stay at home in new lockdown - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: First doses of Oxford vaccine administered - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Dr Radha's five mental health tips for lockdown - BBC News", "Covid: Sweden official defends Christmas trip to Canary Islands - BBC News", "Zoe Davison: Racing trainer dies on same day two of her horses win at Plumpton - BBC Sport", "Covid in Scotland: New strain of virus 'accelerating' spread - BBC News", "Covid-19: Oxford vaccine, schools row and the future of gyms - BBC News", "Covid rules: What are the restrictions in your area? - BBC News", "Google workers form tech giant's first labour union - BBC News", "Nóra Quoirin: 'Misadventure' verdict for girl found in Malaysian jungle - BBC News", "Covid: 'No question' restrictions will be tightened, says Boris Johnson - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: New lockdown from midnight - BBC News", "As it happened: First week after Brexit trade deal poses big test - BBC News", "Covid in England: Professional sport to continue in national lockdown - BBC Sport", "Covid: Keir Starmer in 'back to March' lockdown call - BBC News", "Covid-19: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine rollout begins in Northern Ireland - BBC News", "Edinburgh's giant pandas may 'return to China' over Covid losses - BBC News", "Families rescued in Peak District after getting trapped in snow - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Scottish cabinet to consider further measures - BBC News", "Covid in Wales: Schools' phased return defended by first minister - BBC News", "Brexit: Call for urgent action over deliveries to NI - BBC News", "UK expats prevented from returning home to Spain - BBC News", "Reading stabbing: Five teenagers arrested after boy, 13, dies - BBC News", "Police arrest MP over 'Covid rule breach' - BBC News", "Covid: What could 'tougher' measures mean for us? - BBC News", "Woman's Hour: The Queen sends 'best wishes' to show on its 75th year - BBC News", "As it happened: PM announces new England lockdown in TV Covid address - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Restrictions 'could continue' amid rising cases - BBC News", "Niger village attacks: Death toll rises to 100 - BBC News", "Covid: Regional rules 'probably going to get tougher', says Boris Johnson - BBC News", "Tanya Roberts: Bond actress and Charlie's Angel dies at 65 - BBC News", "US Election 2020 - BBC News", "Covid: Derby County players test positive for Covid-19 - BBC News", "England in Sri Lanka: Moeen Ali tests positive for Covid-19 - BBC Sport", "Zara Holland faces court for 'breaking Covid rules' in Barbados - BBC News", "Covid: New lockdowns for England and Scotland ahead of 'hardest weeks' - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Extended period of remote learning for NI schools - BBC News", "Liverpool FC anthem singer Gerry Marsden dies aged 78 - BBC News", "Ladbrokes owner Entain receives offer from MGM Resorts - BBC News", "Covaxin: Concern over 'rushed' approval for India Covid jab - BBC News", "Co-op and Morrisons payment problems investigated - BBC News", "Covid: Highest weekly deaths in Wales since pandemic began - BBC News", "Covid: Shut schools 'like systematic neglect' to disadvantaged pupils - BBC News", "Harvey Weinstein: Court agrees $17m payout for accusers - BBC News", "Covid-19: Five days that shaped the outbreak - BBC News", "Covid deaths: 'Hard to compute sorrow' of 100,000 milestone - PM - BBC News", "Costa Book of the Year: 'Utterly original' Mermaid of Black Conch wins - BBC News", "Covid: UK virus deaths exceed 100,000 since pandemic began - BBC News", "Covid: Floella Benjamin receives first vaccine dose - BBC News", "HS2 protesters dig tunnel to thwart Euston eviction - BBC News", "Facebook News feature launches in UK - BBC News", "Beware fake Covid vaccination invites, NHS warns - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Cut jury size to clear courts backlog - Labour - BBC News", "Scientists address myths over large-scale tree planting - BBC News", "Covid home-schooling: Parents' 'nightmare' juggling work and teaching - BBC News", "Covid: Quarantine hotel plans set to be announced - BBC News", "Covid-19: PM 'deeply sorry' as UK deaths exceed 100,000 - BBC News", "Storm Christoph flooding: Financial help offered to victims - BBC News", "Covid: 'Not a moment to ease measures,' says Matt Hancock - BBC News", "Chris Grayling leads MPs' charge to save hedgehogs - BBC News", "Pandemic prompts Super Bowl ad rethink in US - BBC News", "Covid: Schools will be told of reopening plans 'as soon as we can' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Hotel quarantine expected to be announced, and UK unemployment rises - BBC News", "Covid: Oldham school to withdraw places for lockdown-breach pupils - BBC News", "Xbox sales boom as virus maintains grip on economy - BBC News", "Skewen flood: Is Wales' coalmining past behind home evacuations? - BBC News", "Manchester Arena operator denies 'sacrificing safety' - BBC News", "'Droves' of Pampas grass pickers at South Shields beach - BBC News", "Covid-19: UK deaths likely to come down slowly, Whitty warns - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Seafarers stuck at sea ‘a humanitarian crisis’ - BBC News", "Rape prosecution changes by CPS unlawful, court told - BBC News", "British Asian celebrities unite for video to dispel Covid vaccine myths - BBC News", "Covid-19: Met Police officers in haircut lockdown breach - BBC News", "Skewen flood victims face 'months' before returning home - BBC News", "Covid-19: Vaccine minister 'confident' of supplies amid production delays - BBC News", "Transfer test: RBAI to use primary school test scores - BBC News", "Covid deaths: Four stories in 100,000 - BBC News", "Covid: Cancel developing countries' debt, MPs urge - BBC News", "Covid: Dutch curfew riots rage for third night - BBC News", "UK government backs birth control for grey squirrels - BBC News", "Covid deaths: Why is the UK's death toll so bad? - BBC News", "Inquiry judge's media ban 'unlawful', Court of Session hears - BBC News", "Sport England to direct extra £50m for grassroots sport due to Covid - BBC Sport", "Coronavirus: AstraZeneca defends EU vaccine rollout plan - BBC News", "Storm Christoph: '18 months' for plans to repair Llanerch bridge - BBC News", "Frank Lampard: Chelsea sack manager with Thomas Tuchel expected to replace him - BBC Sport", "Janet Yellen to be first female US treasury secretary - BBC News", "Twitter pilot to let users flag 'false' content - BBC News", "Covid: School closures 'throwing children under the bus' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Five days that shaped the outbreak - BBC News", "Harriet Tubman: Biden moves to put anti-slavery activist on $20 bill - BBC News", "Covid: Hays Travel to close 89 shops as lockdown delays 'bounce back' - BBC News", "NI mother-and-baby home report to be published - BBC News", "Home-schooling: Parents of Welsh-medium pupils 'need more support' - BBC News", "Covid: Curfew stays despite 'scum' riots in Dutch cities - BBC News", "Covid: Teacher dies with virus on 25th birthday - BBC News", "100,000 Covid deaths: A grim milestone in an abnormal year - BBC News", "Covid-19: Police investigate potential breaches at republican funeral - BBC News", "Keon Lincoln: Mother 'heard gunshots' that killed teen - BBC News", "Covid vaccines: Over-80s target missed by Welsh Government - BBC News", "House delivers impeachment charge against Trump - BBC News", "Australia unlikely to fully reopen border in 2021, says top official - BBC News", "Alex Davies-Jones MP 'lost most of cervix after delaying smear' - BBC News", "BBC apologises for Phil Spector death headline - BBC News", "Covid: Paramedic questioned job after being spat at - BBC News", "Sheku Bayoh death: Witness says stamping attack ‘never happened’ - BBC News", "'I'm stranded at Madrid Airport' - BBC News", "Covid-19: 'Toughest week yet' of pandemic for NI hospitals - BBC News", "Covid: UK closes all travel corridors until at least 15 February - BBC News", "Phil Spector: Pop producer jailed for murder dies at 81 - BBC News", "Youngest person in UK convicted of terrorism offence can go free - Parole Board - BBC News", "Trampoline prices 'to soar 50% on shipping costs' - BBC News", "Sri Lanka v England: Tourists win first Test by seven wickets - BBC Sport", "Covid: Tesco staff pay tribute to colleague John Deacy - BBC News", "BT faces £600m lawsuit over 'overcharging' - BBC News", "Liverpool 0-0 Man Utd: Alisson saves thwart leaders at Anfield - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: NI hospitals prepare for peak of latest virus surge - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: 'Patchy supply' hampering vaccine rollout - BBC News", "Chris Cramer: Tributes paid after former BBC and CNN journalist dies aged 73 - BBC News", "Nóra Quoirin death: Girl's body 'placed in the jungle' - BBC News", "Branson's Virgin rocket takes satellites to orbit - BBC News", "Jonathan Peter Brooks: Doctor charged over plastic surgeon attack - BBC News", "Keelan Wilson: Four guilty of Wolverhampton boy murder - BBC News", "Covid: Brazil approves and rolls out AstraZeneca and Sinovac vaccines - BBC News", "'Relentless' dog attack on Richmond Park deer prompts police warning - BBC News", "M1 deaths: Coroner calls for smart motorway review - BBC News", "Lai Chi-Wai raises HK$5.2m for charity climbing Nina Towers - BBC News", "England: Phil Neville leaves Lionesses and joins Inter Miami - BBC Sport", "Covid: £9,000 for 'anxiety and stress' university degree - BBC News", "Github apologises for firing Jewish employee who warned about 'Nazis' - BBC News", "Eurostar: Government urged to 'safeguard' rail firm's future - BBC News", "Biden inauguration: Fortified US statehouses see some small protests - BBC News", "Covid-19: China's economy picks up, bucking global trend - BBC News", "Brexit: Fishing firms hold London protest over disruption - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Matt Hancock says more in hospital than any time in pandemic - BBC News", "Scots TV and theatre star Andy Gray dies aged 61 - BBC News", "Covid: Aberystwyth University tells students to stay home - BBC News", "London Ambulance Service: 'We take thousands of calls every day - it's tough' - BBC News", "Chip-shortage 'crisis' halts car-company output - BBC News", "Covid: People broke lockdown rules in 200-mile drive to see friends - BBC News", "Universal credit: MPs urge PM to keep £20 benefit 'lifeline' - BBC News", "US Election 2020 - BBC News", "Covid-19: Critical care wards full in hospitals across England - BBC News", "Brithdir Nursing Home: Inquest into six residents' deaths opens - BBC News", "As it happened: Democrats plan to introduce Trump impeachment articles on Monday - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Who broke into the building? - BBC News", "Covid: Royal Glamorgan Hospital nurse felt 'overwhelming fear' - BBC News", "Stricter Covid supermarket rules being considered in Wales - BBC News", "IGCSE exams taken in private schools still going ahead - BBC News", "Loughton school hit-and-run: Terence Glover detained for killing Harley Watson - BBC News", "National Express to suspend all services - BBC News", "Hunt for fake vaccine fraudster who injected woman, 92, in Surbiton - BBC News", "Moderna becomes third Covid vaccine approved in the UK - BBC News", "Little Mix's Sweet Melody finally tops chart as Christmas songs vanish - BBC News", "Eurovision Song Contest 2021 to 'definitely' go ahead, Graham Norton says - BBC News", "Covid deaths in Scotland 'distressingly high' - BBC News", "Phone footage reveals chaotic scenes inside US Capitol - BBC News", "Michael Apted: TV documentary pioneer and film-maker dies aged 79 - BBC News", "'Racist and sexist' Hampshire police unit officers dismissed - BBC News", "Brexit: M&S temporarily cuts hundreds of products in NI - BBC News", "Covid rules: What are the restrictions in your area? - BBC News", "Students pledge rent strike over unused uni rooms - BBC News", "As it happened: Moderna vaccine approved in UK for spring rollout - BBC News", "Dame Barbara Windsor's funeral held with 'Queen Peggy' tribute - BBC News", "Google Chrome browser privacy plan investigated in UK - BBC News", "Brexit: Edwin Poots warns of job losses and food shortages - BBC News", "Stella Tennant: Family confirms model's death was suicide - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Panel of Americans ‘shocked’ and ‘disgusted’ - BBC News", "Two more life-saving Covid drugs discovered - BBC News", "New Zealand: Woman dies in rare suspected shark attack - BBC News", "Capitol riots: A visual guide to the storming of Congress - BBC News", "Muted response as Clap for Heroes returns - BBC News", "Soaring house prices in 2020 likely to slow this year, says Halifax - BBC News", "COP26: Alok Sharma leaves business job to focus on climate role - BBC News", "Ambulance waiting times in parts of England 'off the scale' - BBC News", "Lockdown fashion: 'People are back in their pyjamas' - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Boris Johnson condemns Donald Trump for sparking events - BBC News", "Isle of Wight oil tanker 'hijacking' case dropped against seven men - BBC News", "Covid: UK travel curbs to keep out South Africa variant - BBC News", "US Capitol riot: Police officer dies amid pressure on Trump over inciting violence - BBC News", "Depop seller's crop top made from Chiltern Railways train seat cover 'violates terms' - BBC News", "Covid-19: 'Major incident' declared by London Mayor Sadiq Khan - BBC News", "Lockdown: Police get stuck in snow stopping rule-breakers - BBC News", "Hyundai's confusion over Apple electric car tie-up - BBC News", "Covid: Fines reviewed after women 'surrounded by police' - BBC News", "'Show us it's safe' to be open, say nursery staff - BBC News", "Covid-19: Boris Johnson makes daily jab pledge as Army helps rollout - BBC News", "Covid: Families 'devastated' by cancer surgery cancellation - BBC News", "Your pictures of Scotland 1 - 8 January - BBC News", "Climate change: 2020 in a dead heat for world's warmest year - BBC News", "Covid tests for Channel hauliers to continue 'until further notice' - BBC News", "Covid-19: UK sees highest daily toll of 1,325 deaths - BBC News", "Covid-19: Welsh Government update - BBC News", "Prince William talks about NHS and Covid with his children 'every day' - BBC News", "Salmond accuses Sturgeon of misleading parliament - BBC News", "The Wanted's Tom Parker says brain tumour has 'shrunk significantly' - BBC News", "Covid cases 'up almost a third in week after Christmas' - BBC News", "Ex-MP quits Labour ahead of sexual harassment disciplinary process - BBC News", "David Bowie remembered: Streamed shows, unheard songs and TikTok debut - BBC News", "Surge in pupils at school in lockdown sparks call for limit - BBC News", "Marion Ramsey: Police Academy and Broadway star dies at 73 - BBC News", "Schools to close and exams facing axe in England - BBC News", "Reading stabbing: School 'reeling' after boy, 13, dies - BBC News", "1.3 million in UK have had their Covid vaccine - BBC News", "Ecclestone burglary: Four cleared over £26m celebrity raids - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Scots ordered to stay at home in new lockdown - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: First doses of Oxford vaccine administered - BBC News", "US intelligence task force accuses Russia of cyber-hack - BBC News", "Cyclone Imogen: Downgraded storm brings flood warnings to Queensland - BBC News", "Singapore reveals Covid privacy data available to police - BBC News", "Covid-19: 1.3m in UK have received vaccine as cases soar - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Dr Radha's five mental health tips for lockdown - BBC News", "Proud Boys leader released after arrest for burning BLM flag - BBC News", "Covid rules: What are the restrictions in your area? - BBC News", "BBC to put lessons on TV during lockdown - BBC News", "Mexican fisherman 'dies after attack on Sea Shepherd conservationists' - BBC News", "Government offers firms new grants to survive lockdown - BBC News", "Covid: PM acted 'decisively' on England lockdown - Sunak - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: New lockdown from midnight - BBC News", "Covid in England: Professional sport to continue in national lockdown - BBC Sport", "Online schooling: Calls to cut data fees during Covid lockdowns - BBC News", "Covid-19: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine rollout begins in Northern Ireland - BBC News", "UK 'cannot duck' post-Covid inequalities, report warns - BBC News", "Brexit: Call for urgent action over deliveries to NI - BBC News", "UK expats prevented from returning home to Spain - BBC News", "'Let police fight crime with facial recognition' plea - BBC News", "Virgin joins Tui and Thomas Cook in cancelling holiday bookings - BBC News", "Covid: Sir Keir Starmer calls for 'round the clock' vaccinations - BBC News", "Police arrest MP over 'Covid rule breach' - BBC News", "Covid: Urgent cancer ops cancelled in parts of London - BBC News", "Covid-19: UK daily coronavirus cases top 60,000 for first time - BBC News", "Supermarket websites struggle amid new lockdown - BBC News", "Much is an echo of March - but a lot is different too - BBC News", "Conjoined twins Marieme and Ndeye settling at Cardiff school - BBC News", "Tanya Roberts: Bond actress and Charlie's Angel dies at 65 - BBC News", "Colin Bell: Manchester City great dies aged 74 - BBC Sport", "US Election 2020 - BBC News", "TalkRadio: YouTube reverses decision to ban channel - BBC News", "Celtic in Dubai: Nicola Sturgeon says aspects of trip 'should be looked into' - BBC Sport", "Paperchase on the brink of administration - BBC News", "Call for better coronavirus masks for all medical staff - BBC News", "Buckingham Palace thief jailed for stealing medals and photos - BBC News", "Vocational exams allowed to go ahead in England - BBC News", "Reading stabbings: Man motivated by 'religious jihad' - BBC News", "Zara Holland faces court for 'breaking Covid rules' in Barbados - BBC News", "Covid: New lockdowns for England and Scotland ahead of 'hardest weeks' - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Extended period of remote learning for NI schools - BBC News", "Topshop's flagship Oxford Street store up for sale - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: 'Stay at home' order comes into force - BBC News", "Strangling: Calls for a new non-fatal strangulation offence - BBC News", "Covid lockdown: Joe Wicks online PE classes to return next week - BBC News", "Boeing 737 Max cleared to fly in UK and EU after crashes - BBC News", "Insurers defend covering ransomware payments - BBC News", "Covid-19: Cough, fatigue, sore throat 'more common' with new variant - BBC News", "Covid hotel quarantine: 'It's the luck of the draw' - BBC News", "Covid deaths: 'Hard to compute sorrow' of 100,000 milestone - PM - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon says Boris Johnson visit 'not essential' travel - BBC News", "HS2 protesters dig tunnel to thwart Euston eviction - BBC News", "Covid: Floella Benjamin receives first vaccine dose - BBC News", "Philippa Day: Benefit errors 'predominant factor' in mum's death - BBC News", "US actress Jane Fonda to get Golden Globes' lifetime achievement award - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Cut jury size to clear courts backlog - Labour - BBC News", "Covid: Mum-of-five Karen Hobbs dies, aged 40 - BBC News", "Boris Johnson says independence debate 'irrelevant' to most Scots - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Boy sentenced for racist street attack - BBC News", "Covid-19: NI health and social care workers to get £500 payment - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Your tributes to those who have died - BBC News", "Contactless limit could rise to £100 - BBC News", "South Africa coronavirus variant: 77 cases found in UK - BBC News", "Footage shows officer 'rammed' off motorbike in Oldbury - BBC News", "Covid: English schools could return 8 March 'at the earliest' - PM - BBC News", "Covid-19: PM promises roadmap to 'steadily reclaim our lives' - BBC News", "100,000 Covid deaths: ‘I cursed the sterile white room where Ann died’ - BBC News", "Xbox sales boom as virus maintains grip on economy - BBC News", "Apple Christmas sales surge to $111bn amid pandemic - BBC News", "Spanish Armada maps 'saved for the nation' - BBC News", "Covid-19: UK deaths likely to come down slowly, Whitty warns - BBC News", "'Knackered and confused.' That's just the parents - BBC News", "Covid: Wrexham vaccine production resumes after suspect package - BBC News", "100,000 Covid deaths: ‘I cursed the sterile white room where Ann died’ - BBC News", "Covid-19: Met Police officers in haircut lockdown breach - BBC News", "Elliot Page: Juno actor to divorce Emma Portner - BBC News", "Chelsea Flower Show: Event moved to autumn for first time in history - BBC News", "Covid-19: Vaccine minister 'confident' of supplies amid production delays - BBC News", "Covid-19: 'Poor decisions' to blame for UK death toll, scientists say - BBC News", "Extinction: 'Time is running out' to save sharks and rays - BBC News", "Covid deaths: Four stories in 100,000 - BBC News", "Euston tunnel protesters: HS2 begins eviction - BBC News", "Covid: Scotland 'could go further' on quarantine rules - BBC News", "UK government backs birth control for grey squirrels - BBC News", "Leon Briggs inquest: Luton man who died said 'help me' amid police restraint - BBC News", "Covid deaths: Why is the UK's death toll so bad? - BBC News", "Covid-19: Basildon nurse meets her baby after months in hospital with virus - BBC News", "Coronavirus: AstraZeneca defends EU vaccine rollout plan - BBC News", "Covid: Wary Johnson careful not to raise hopes - BBC News", "Victims typically lose £45,000 each owing to investment scams - BBC News", "Jagtar Singh Johal: British man 'tortured to sign blank confession' in India - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Vaccinate teachers at half-term - Starmer - BBC News", "Covid-hit New Orleans turns homes into floats for Mardi Gras - BBC News", "PMQs: As it happened - 27 January - BBC News", "Covid: Teacher dies with virus on 25th birthday - BBC News", "Facebook apologises for Plymouth Hoe 'error' - BBC News", "100,000 Covid deaths: A grim milestone in an abnormal year - BBC News", "Covid-19: Welsh Government update 27 January 2021 - BBC News", "Goldman Sachs boss gets $10m pay cut for 1MDB scandal - BBC News", "Cyclist Josh Quigley has multiple fractures in second serious crash - BBC News", "Boris Johnson promises plan next month for 'phased' easing of lockdown - BBC News", "Legal threat over bee-harming pesticide use - BBC News", "Global health insurance card to replace EHIC under new rules - BBC News", "Reading stabbings: Khairi Saadallah jailed for park murders - BBC News", "Sol Bamba: Cardiff City defender being treated for cancer - BBC Sport", "Irish 'laughing dad' goes viral - BBC News", "Covid: Women fined for going for a walk receive police apology - BBC News", "UK economy 'to get worse before it gets better' - BBC News", "Trump-Biden: Security fears cloud build-up to inauguration - BBC News", "Brexit: UK driver has ham sandwiches confiscated at Dutch border - BBC News", "UK's biggest union elects first woman leader - BBC News", "Covid: UK at 'worst point' of pandemic, says Hancock - BBC News", "James Brokenshire steps back from ministerial role for cancer surgery - BBC News", "Covid: Wrexham hospital stretched as cases rise rapidly - BBC News", "Online retailer Ocado warns of shortages as suppliers cut choice - BBC News", "Covid: All over-50s in Wales to be offered jab by spring - BBC News", "Marks & Spencer snaps up Jaeger fashion brand - BBC News", "SmartDot radiation-protection phone stickers 'have no effect' - BBC News", "Covid-19: UAE dropped from UK travel corridor list - BBC News", "Covid-19: Southend Hospital oxygen supply reaches 'critical' situation - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Sturgeon urges football not to 'abuse privileges' - BBC News", "Covid deaths: The emergency mortuary in a Surrey woodland - BBC News", "Covid-19: Vaccination hubs, Whitty's warning and lockdown learning - BBC News", "Bench arrest video 'stage-managed by anti-lockdown protesters' - BBC News", "Pupils in Scotland struggle to get online amid Microsoft issue - BBC News", "Covid-19: Rapid tests for asymptomatic people to be rolled out - BBC News", "Luke Evans: The Pembrokeshire Murders sees actor return to Wales - BBC News", "Covid-19: Hancock warns flexing of rules 'could be fatal' - BBC News", "Storm Filomena: Spain races to clear snow as temperatures plunge - BBC News", "Crawley Town 3-0 Leeds United: Marcelo Bielsa's side suffer huge FA Cup upset - BBC Sport", "Europe's slow start: How many people have had the Covid vaccine? - BBC News", "Analysis: Can lockdown stop the new coronavirus variant? - BBC News", "FA Cup draw: Manchester United to host Liverpool in fourth round - BBC Sport", "Inside Newcastle's Covid mass vaccination centre - BBC News", "'My spending has gone up, not down, in lockdown' - BBC News", "Sex and the City: New series announced but Kim Cattrall won't return - BBC News", "Cladding building owners told not to talk to press - BBC News", "Covid: 'I’m one of those people who’s been left out' - BBC News", "As it happened: New tech unveiled at CES 2021 - BBC News", "Croydon University Hospital doctor: Covid 'not fake news' - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Boris Johnson criticised over bike ride seven miles from home - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Home schooling issues & vaccine rollout - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: All over-80s to be vaccinated by February - BBC News", "Terra Carta: Prince Charles asks companies to join 'Earth charter' - BBC News", "Covid: Dubai added to Scotland's travel quarantine list - BBC News", "Covid: Morrisons and Sainsbury's ban maskless shoppers - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: ICU numbers rise amid tighter lockdown warnings - BBC News", "Celtic 1-1 Hibernian: Depleted hosts denied win by injury-time strike - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: Welsh Government update - BBC News", "New strangulation law planned to tackle abusers, says justice secretary - BBC News", "Lisa Montgomery: Looking for answers in the life of a killer - BBC News", "Covid vaccine: Wales has delivered 70,000 of 275,000 doses - BBC News", "Covid: Protect family incomes, Starmer urges ministers - BBC News", "Parler social network sues Amazon for pulling support - BBC News", "Indonesia landslide: Rescuers buried as they help victims - BBC News", "BBC Bitesize to be free for BT and EE customers - BBC News", "NHS Covid-19 jab letters 'confusing over-80s' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Hancock says UK at 'worst point' as vaccine brings hope - BBC News", "Covid: 'Most dangerous time' of the pandemic, says Prof Whitty - BBC News", "Biden Twitter account 'starts from zero' with no Trump followers - BBC News", "UK weather: Snow and ice warnings for England and Scotland - BBC News", "Toby Young: Telegraph coronavirus column 'significantly misleading' - BBC News", "TikTok level crossing stunt 'staggeringly stupid' - BBC News", "Covid-19: New test rule for England arrivals pushed back to Monday - BBC News", "Covid-19: Schools get more time to decide on admission criteria - BBC News", "Halam stabbing: Surgeon Graeme Perks 'fighting for his life' - BBC News", "Scottish fishermen 'sailing to Denmark to land catch' - BBC News", "Your pictures of Scotland 8 - 15 January - BBC News", "Covid lockdowns prompt fears over child obesity rise - BBC News", "Covid-19: Bracknell couple's 'final meeting' in hospital - BBC News", "Post-Brexit customs systems not fit for purpose, say meat exporters - BBC News", "Covid-19: Welsh Government update - BBC News", "Brexit: No plans to dilute workers' rights, minister says - BBC News", "Covid-19: South America travel ban begins and UK economy shrinks - BBC News", "Covid: UK to close all travel corridors from Monday - BBC News", "Sylvain Sylvain: New York Dolls guitarist dies aged 69 - BBC News", "Covid: UK's ban on South America and Portugal travellers comes into force - BBC News", "Covid-19: Nisra records highest ever weekly deaths - BBC News", "North Korea unveils new submarine-launched missile - BBC News", "Tory candidate Craig Ross dropped for 'unacceptable' remarks - BBC News", "Technical issue resolved after '150,000 police records lost' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Insurance fears stop care homes taking patients - BBC News", "BBC licence fee is 'least worst' option, says new chairman Richard Sharp - BBC News", "As it happened: Not the time for slightest relaxation, PM says - BBC News", "UK economy shrank by 2.6% in November as services suffered - BBC News", "'Being sectioned felt like a punishment' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Brazil hospitals 'run out of oxygen' for virus patients - BBC News", "Covid: Fake news 'causing UK South Asians to reject jab' - BBC News", "Covid-19: A-level and GCSE results planned for early July - BBC News", "Covid: 'Convalescent plasma no benefit to hospital patients' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Brazil virus already in UK ‘not variant of concern’, scientist says - BBC News", "Police probes compromised after computer records deleted - BBC News", "Covid vaccine: Gwynedd pharmacy 'first in Wales to offer jab' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Early signs of lockdown restrictions working - BBC News", "Covid: Intensive care patients transferred from London to Newcastle - BBC News", "Dustin Diamond diagnosed with cancer - BBC News", "Part of rail bridge collapses near fatal Stonehaven derailment site - BBC News", "Covid-19: NI to introduce international travel Covid tests - BBC News", "Indonesia earthquake: Dozens dead as search for survivors continues - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Police describe a 'medieval battle' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Belfast doctor warns oxygen supplies under 'extreme pressure' - BBC News", "Wayne Rooney: Derby County confirm ex-England captain as manager - BBC Sport", "Covid: Man charged after woman, 92, given fake vaccine - BBC News", "Marcus Rashford and top chefs demand free school meals review - BBC News", "Richard Leonard quits as Scottish Labour leader - BBC News", "East West and Northumberland rail lines get £794m boost - BBC News", "Alexei Navalny: 'More than 3,000 detained' in protests across Russia - BBC News", "Covid-19: Doctors want less wait between jabs as EU struggles with supply - BBC News", "Covid-19: Futures of drinking Senedd members questioned - BBC News", "Cladding crisis: 'Delays could bankrupt us' - BBC News", "Covid: 'More deadly' UK variant claim played down by scientists - BBC News", "Coronavirus: 1,348 more deaths recorded in UK - BBC News", "Keon Lincoln murder probe: Second teenager arrested - BBC News", "Covid: Police injured breaking up Chelsea party with '200 people' - BBC News", "Covid: Number of patients on ventilators passes 4,000 for first time - BBC News", "National Guard: President Biden apologises over troops sleeping in car park - BBC News", "Covid: Rural GPs to run new vaccine hubs amid roll-out criticism - BBC News", "Shipping crisis: I'm being quoted £10,000 for a £1,600 container' - BBC News", "Paul Davies: An understated Tory Senedd leader - BBC News", "Up to 500 new cells to be built in women's prisons - BBC News", "Skewen flood victims could be out of homes for days - BBC News", "Covid vaccine: Betsi Cadwaladr boss warns against queue jumping - BBC News", "Chorley 0-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers: Vitinha's superb goal sees Wolves past non-league opponents - BBC Sport", "Covid hand-outs: How other countries pay if you are sick - BBC News", "Covid-19: New variant 'raises R number by up to 0.7' - BBC News", "Covid: Peaky Blinders' Black Country Museum is vaccine hub - BBC News", "Covid: Four vaccine centres shut amid snow alert for Wales - BBC News", "Larry King: Veteran US talk show host dies aged 87 - BBC News", "Sri Lanka Minister who promoted 'Covid syrup' tests positive - BBC News", "Covid vaccine: 'No impact' on delivery after Storm Christoph floods - BBC News", "PM talks to Biden in first call since inauguration - BBC News", "Covid-19: Couple in 'only chance' wedding in Milton Keynes Hospital - BBC News", "Coronavirus: UK variant 'may be more deadly' - BBC News", "Wuhan marks its anniversary with triumph and denial - BBC News", "Covid: Wedding party in Stamford Hill broken up by police - BBC News", "Covid: Gap between Pfizer vaccine doses should be halved, say doctors - BBC News", "Covid-19: Nurses call for better masks to protect all staff - BBC News", "Cheltenham Town 1-3 Man City: Six-time winners avoid FA Cup shock - BBC Sport", "Essex lorry deaths: Men jailed for killing 39 migrants in trailer - BBC News", "Detentions and warnings over Navalny protests - BBC News", "Covid-19: Two £10,000 fines for '150-person' funeral - BBC News", "Hotel quarantine for UK arrivals to be discussed - BBC News", "Covid: Side-by-side in a London mosque - funerals and a food bank - BBC News", "Coronavirus: EU vaccine woes mount as new delays emerge - BBC News", "Coronavirus: UK R number 'between 0.8 and 1' - BBC News", "Covid in Wales: 'We've lost five patients in a single shift' - BBC News", "New Forest crash: Four ponies killed - BBC News", "Covid-19: UK reports a record 55,892 daily cases - BBC News", "Covid: Illegal New Year party at Essex church broken up - BBC News", "Brexit: Boris Johnson's father applies for French citizenship - BBC News", "Activists cheer as 'sexist' tampon tax is scrapped - BBC News", "Tokyo 2020: Olympics and Paralympics will go ahead, says Japan's PM amid rising infections - BBC Sport", "Covid: 'Nail-biting' weeks ahead for NHS, hospitals in England warn - BBC News", "The KLF's songs are finally available to stream - BBC News", "Newyear 2021: NHS and BLM celebrated in light display - BBC News", "Comedian John Bishop joins Doctor Who cast - BBC News", "Joe Anderson: Liverpool mayor in police probe will not seek re-election - BBC News", "Tommy Docherty: Former Man Utd and Scotland boss dies - BBC Sport", "Covid in Scotland: New strain of virus 'accelerating' spread - BBC News", "Manchester United 2-1 Aston Villa: Bruno Fernandes penalty puts Red Devils joint top - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: London's NHS Nightingale 'ready to admit patients' - BBC News", "Reward offered after Monmouthshire nativity scene destroyed - BBC News", "Police disperse crowd amid muted Hogmanay events - BBC News", "Covid: All London primary schools to stay closed - BBC News", "First Minneapolis police death since George Floyd captured on bodycam - BBC News", "As-it-happened: Hospitals under 'extreme pressure' as virus surges, NHS trusts say - BBC News", "Covid-19: New variant 'raises R number by up to 0.7' - BBC News", "Covid: Councils call for all London schools to stay shut - BBC News", "MF Doom: Hip-hop star dies aged 49 - BBC News", "New Year's Eve: UK sees in 2021 with fireworks and light show - BBC News", "Brexit: Are the borders ready? - BBC News", "Adieu to the single market created by the UK - BBC News", "Brexit: 'Plans in place' to minimise port delays in Wales - BBC News", "Covid vaccine rollout at 'very beginning' in Wales - BBC News", "Norway landslide: Body found as rescuers search Gjerdrum landslide - BBC News", "Ontario finance minister Rod Phillips resigns over Caribbean vacation - BBC News", "Covid: 12-week vaccine gap defended by UK medical chiefs - BBC News", "Brexit: First goods cross Irish Sea trade border - BBC News", "Brexit: New era for UK as it completes separation from European Union - BBC News", "In pictures: New Year, but not quite as we know it - BBC News", "The Archers: Radio 4 to mark 70th anniversary - BBC News", "Brexit: Gibraltar gets UK-Spain deal to keep open border - BBC News", "Omar Elabdellaoui: Norway star hurt by firework on New Year's Eve - BBC News", "Covid-19: England lockdown compliance 'more vital than ever' - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: hospital numbers at new record high - BBC News", "Kim Jong-un pledges to expand North Korea's nuclear arsenal - BBC News", "Covid: Fines reviewed after women 'surrounded by police' - BBC News", "Covid: 'I've relied on parents to keep my family afloat' - BBC News", "Capitol riots: A visual guide to the storming of Congress - BBC News", "Covid: Families 'devastated' by cancer surgery cancellation - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Company's apology after £5,000 vaccine offer - BBC News", "Covid: Royal Glamorgan Hospital nurse felt 'overwhelming fear' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Act like you've got the virus, government urges - BBC News", "Brexit: M&S temporarily cuts hundreds of products in NI - BBC News", "Covid-19: Queen and Prince Philip receive vaccinations - BBC News", "Stricter Covid supermarket rules being considered in Wales - BBC News", "Covid rules: What are the restrictions in your area? - BBC News", "Covid-19: UK sees highest daily toll of 1,325 deaths - BBC News", "Covid: Aberfan survivor Bernard Thomas dies, aged 63 - BBC News", "Covid-19: Hackney gym owners fined for breaching rules - BBC News", "Covid fine review welcomed by 'intimidated' women - BBC News", "Loughton school hit-and-run: Terence Glover detained for killing Harley Watson - BBC News", "Air disasters timeline - BBC News", "David Moyes: West Ham manager says footballers must not be 'picked on' for coronavirus breaches - BBC Sport", "Covid: Flintshire councillor dies month after mum's funeral - BBC News", "Pompeo: US to lift restrictions on contacts with Taiwan - BBC News", "Analysis: Can lockdown stop the new coronavirus variant? - BBC News", "Google suspends 'free speech' app Parler - BBC News", "Europe's slow start: How many people have had the Covid vaccine? - BBC News", "Police arrest 16 at Clapham Common anti-lockdown protest - BBC News", "Dame Barbara Windsor's funeral held with 'Queen Peggy' tribute - BBC News", "Covid-19: Fordingbridge farm chickens risk cull over egg demand - BBC News", "Prince William talks about NHS and Covid with his children 'every day' - BBC News", "Salmond accuses Sturgeon of misleading parliament - BBC News", "Covid-19: Praise as angling given lockdown go-ahead - BBC News", "Brexit: Edwin Poots warns of job losses and food shortages - BBC News", "Covid cases 'up almost a third in week after Christmas' - BBC News", "Trump’s Twitter downfall - BBC News", "Depop seller's crop top made from Chiltern Railways train seat cover 'violates terms' - BBC News", "Ex-MP quits Labour ahead of sexual harassment disciplinary process - BBC News", "Michael Apted: TV documentary pioneer and film-maker dies aged 79 - BBC News", "Eva Williams, 10, dies one year after brain tumour diagnosis - BBC News", "Storm Filomena: Spain sees 'exceptional' snowfall - BBC News", "Happy Mondays star Bez in bid to rival Joe Wicks with lockdown fitness classes - BBC News", "Covid-19: Lockdown needs to be stricter, scientists warn - BBC News", "Covid: UK reports more than 80,000 deaths - BBC News", "Covid-19: 'Major incident' declared by London Mayor Sadiq Khan - BBC News", "Covid: Warnings 'blatantly ignored' as cars turned away - BBC News", "Covid: UK records new daily high of 1,610 deaths - BBC News", "BBC apologises for Phil Spector death headline - BBC News", "Storm Christoph: Flood warnings in parts of England - BBC News", "Sheku Bayoh death: Witness says stamping attack ‘never happened’ - BBC News", "Government narrowly sees off Tory revolt over anti-genocide trade deal law - BBC News", "'I'm stranded at Madrid Airport' - BBC News", "UK and US fail to do mini-trade deal as Trump exits - BBC News", "Covid: Woman given vaccination on 108th birthday - BBC News", "Covid: How is Europe lifting lockdown restrictions? - BBC News", "Covid court delays: Weeds, leaks, and four-year waits for justice - BBC News", "Japan: One dead as snowstorm causes 130-vehicle pile-up - BBC News", "Schools may reopen region by region, says medical adviser - BBC News", "Duchess of Sussex claims privacy and copyright breached by paper group - BBC News", "Past Covid-19 infection may provide 'months of immunity' - BBC News", "Only 1% of UK university professors are black - BBC News", "'Lack of investment' behind delayed court cases - BBC News", "Will the UK really refuse trade deals over human rights? - BBC News", "Johnson 'glad' to see Trump go, says ex-Civil Service head Lord Sedwill - BBC News", "Brithdir Nursing Home: Inquest into six residents' deaths opens - BBC News", "Covid: Health secretary Matt Hancock self-isolating after app alert - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Your tributes to those who have died - BBC News", "Coal mine go-ahead 'undermines climate summit' - BBC News", "Covid-19: 'Toughest week yet' of pandemic for NI hospitals - BBC News", "Covid: Tesco staff pay tribute to colleague John Deacy - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Schools to stay closed as lockdown extended - BBC News", "Covid-19: UK deaths hit new daily high and Scotland extends lockdown - BBC News", "Brexit: Government considers scrapping some EU labour laws - BBC News", "Verbier: British skier killed in avalanche in Swiss Alps - BBC News", "Brexit: Fishing firms hold London protest over disruption - BBC News", "Parents' stress and depression 'rise during lockdowns' - BBC News", "Alex Davies-Jones MP 'lost most of cervix after delaying smear' - BBC News", "Manchester Arena attack: Man tried to comfort Saffie-Rose Roussos - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Lockdown until 'at least' mid-February - BBC News", "Trump: 'Movement we started only just beginning' - BBC News", "Stolen 500-year-old painting found in Naples cupboard - BBC News", "Covid: Cash refusal 'creeping into UK economy' - BBC News", "Peaky Blinders film confirmed following final TV outing - BBC News", "Motor neurone disease: Edinburgh scientists reveal breakthrough - BBC News", "Conservative rebel MPs pressure government over genocide clause - BBC News", "Epiphany: Orthodox Christians across Russia brave icy dip - BBC News", "Conquering K2 in winter 'together' - BBC News", "Theresa May: PM's foreign aid cut damaged UK's moral leadership - BBC News", "London Ambulance Service: 'We take thousands of calls every day - it's tough' - BBC News", "Universal credit: MPs urge PM to keep £20 benefit 'lifeline' - BBC News", "BBC Radio 4 - File on 4, Locked Up in Lockdown", "New legislation protects Scottish shop staff from customer abuse - BBC News", "Australia v India: Rishabh Pant & Shubman Gill lead tourists to stunning series win - BBC Sport", "Covid in Scotland: Sturgeon to announce outcome of lockdown review - BBC News", "Covid: Positive antibody tests doubled since autumn - BBC News", "M1 deaths: Coroner calls for smart motorway review - BBC News", "Covid-19: Highest UK deaths as Scotland extends lockdown - BBC News", "Covid self-employment income support scheme unfair say mothers - BBC News", "Covid-19: No vaccine postcode lottery in NI, say doctors - BBC News", "Covid: Marylebone rail workers 'held lockdown baby shower' at closed station patisserie - BBC News", "Depop: 'I felt so violated when my account was hacked' - BBC News", "HSBC to close 82 branches this year - BBC News", "Storm Christoph: Amber alert for northern and central England - BBC News", "Boris Johnson condemns 'disgraceful scenes' in US - BBC News", "Covid-19: West Midlands Ambulance Service records busiest day - BBC News", "Eric Jerome Dickey: Best-selling US author dies at 59 - BBC News", "1.3 million in UK have had their Covid vaccine - BBC News", "Former banker Richard Sharp to be next BBC chairman - BBC News", "UK new car registrations in 2020 sink to 30-year low - BBC News", "Greggs faces first loss for 36 years as lockdown bites - BBC News", "US intelligence task force accuses Russia of cyber-hack - BBC News", "Capitol riot: Biden says BLM protest would have been treated 'very differently' - BBC News", "Georgia Senate: ‘I've never seen this energy before' - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Deaths up by 68 as 33,000 more people get vaccine - BBC News", "Covid: Doctors call for rapid rollout of vaccines - BBC News", "Islington street robbery: Man left partially blind after attack - BBC News", "Lockdown: Clap for Carers to return as Clap for Heroes - BBC News", "JoJo Siwa: YouTuber denounces 'gross' board game bearing her image - BBC News", "Teachers' grades to replace A-levels and GCSEs in England - BBC News", "Dr Dre: Rap legend in hospital after brain aneurysm - BBC News", "Reading stabbings: Killer's interest in Islamic jihad 'fleeting' - BBC News", "Covid: Seven mass vaccination hubs announced for England - BBC News", "Coronavirus: 'How long can we keep going like this? About a week' - BBC News", "BBC to put lessons on TV during lockdown - BBC News", "Breonna Taylor: Two Louisville officers fired over roles in shooting - BBC News", "Nursery staff 'torn between duty and fear' - BBC News", "Neil Young sells song rights in '$150m' deal - BBC News", "Trump bans Alipay and seven other Chinese apps - BBC News", "Covid variant 'spreading rapidly through Wales' - BBC News", "Senate debate suspended as protesters enter Capitol - BBC News", "Covid-19: Lockdown latest, exams update and car sales slump - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Moment protesters storm US legislature - BBC News", "Covid: WHO team investigating virus origins denied entry to China - BBC News", "Georgia election: Trump voter fraud claims and others fact-checked - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Pro-Trump protesters storm the US legislature - in pictures - BBC News", "Covid: Sir Keir Starmer calls for 'round the clock' vaccinations - BBC News", "Fake NHS vaccine messages sent in banking fraud scam - BBC News", "Inside one GP surgery's Covid vaccine roll-out - BBC News", "Albert Roux: Chef and culinary 'legend' dies aged 85 - BBC News", "Netflix raises UK prices to cover cost of content - BBC News", "Covid-19: UK daily coronavirus cases top 60,000 for first time - BBC News", "Covid-19: Welsh Government update - BBC News", "Shoppers told not to buy more than normal - BBC News", "Conjoined twins Marieme and Ndeye settling at Cardiff school - BBC News", "Covid: Wuhan scientist would 'welcome' visit probing lab leak theory - BBC News", "UK records coldest night of the winter so far - BBC News", "Colin Bell: Manchester City great dies aged 74 - BBC Sport", "Alaska: Trump opens wilderness up for oil drilling - BBC News", "Baby death motorist admits dangerous driving in Kirkcaldy - BBC News", "Tanya Roberts: Bond actress and Charlie's Angel dies at 65 - BBC News", "US Election 2020 - BBC News", "Julian Assange loses extradition bail bid - BBC News", "McDonald's pauses walk-in takeaways in lockdown - BBC News", "Cancelled GCSEs and A-levels in England must avoid 'shambles' - BBC News", "US Capitol riots: World leaders react to 'horrifying' scenes in Washington - BBC News", "TalkRadio: YouTube reverses decision to ban channel - BBC News", "'Deepfake porn images still give me nightmares' - BBC News", "Vocational exams allowed to go ahead in England - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Arrivals in UK could soon need negative test - BBC News", "Covid: New lockdowns for England and Scotland ahead of 'hardest weeks' - BBC News", "Analysis: Can lockdown stop the new coronavirus variant? - BBC News", "As it happened: MPs back England's new Covid lockdown - BBC News", "FTSE 100 chief executives 'earn average salary within 3 days' - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Medics concerned over 12-week gap between vaccine doses - BBC News", "Covid-19: Johnson warns England's lockdown won't end 'with a bang' - BBC News", "Covid: Hackney railway arch rave attended by '300 people' - BBC News", "Robert Rowland: Former Brexit MEP dies in Bahamas diving accident - BBC News", "Sturgeon: I did not mislead Scottish Parliament over Salmond - BBC News", "Asos frontrunner to buy Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge brands - BBC News", "Pike River: The 29 coal miners who never came home - BBC News", "Spanish flu: Anglesey search for New Zealand family of flu victim - BBC News", "Alexei Navalny: 'More than 3,000 detained' in protests across Russia - BBC News", "Firms planned record 800,000 redundancies last year - BBC News", "Boohoo 'set to buy Debenhams brand and website' - BBC News", "South Africa coronavirus variant: 77 cases found in UK - BBC News", "UK firms told 'set up in EU to avoid trade disruption' - BBC News", "Covid: 'More deadly' UK variant claim played down by scientists - BBC News", "Covid: Number of patients on ventilators passes 4,000 for first time - BBC News", "US police vehicle ploughs into crowd watching 'burnouts' - BBC News", "Covid: Israel vaccinates 16 to 18-year-olds ahead of exams - BBC News", "Smart motorways are dangerous, says Yorkshire police chief - BBC News", "Learning disability vaccine plea: 'Don't leave us to rot' - BBC News", "Covid: DVLA staff in Swansea 'scared to enter the workplace' - BBC News", "Covid vaccine: Betsi Cadwaladr boss warns against queue jumping - BBC News", "Vaccine volunteers: 'It's felt good to fight back against Covid' - BBC News", "Covid-19: New variant 'raises R number by up to 0.7' - BBC News", "Covid: Four vaccine centres shut amid snow alert for Wales - BBC News", "Border poll would be 'absolutely reckless', says Arlene Foster - BBC News", "Larry King: Veteran US talk show host dies aged 87 - BBC News", "SpaceX: World record number of satellites launched - BBC News", "Sri Lanka Minister who promoted 'Covid syrup' tests positive - BBC News", "PM talks to Biden in first call since inauguration - BBC News", "Keon Lincoln murder probe: Three more arrested - BBC News", "Andrew RT Davies returns as Welsh Conservatives leader - BBC News", "McGregor v Poirier 2: Irishman shocked in UFC rematch at Fight Island - BBC Sport", "As it happened: Hancock says 75% of over-80s get first Covid jab - BBC News", "Manchester United 3-2 Liverpool: Bruno Fernandes settles FA Cup thriller - BBC Sport", "In pictures: Tens of thousands gather for pro-Navalny protests - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Over-70 vaccine letters start but blue envelope delay - BBC News", "Cheltenham Town 1-3 Man City: Six-time winners avoid FA Cup shock - BBC Sport", "Covid: Birmingham student party guests 'travelled 200 miles' - BBC News", "Snow: Severe weather warnings in place across UK - BBC News", "Covid: Vaccinated people may spread virus, says Van-Tam - BBC News", "China mine rescue: The moment a miner is rescued - BBC News", "Jim Haynes: A man who invited the world over for dinner - BBC News", "Global health insurance card to replace EHIC under new rules - BBC News", "Irish 'laughing dad' goes viral - BBC News", "UK economy 'to get worse before it gets better' - BBC News", "Covid: UK at 'worst point' of pandemic, says Hancock - BBC News", "Anita Rani to join Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour - BBC News", "20-year-old Covid patient couldn't tell parents 'I love you' - BBC News", "Covid: Stick with the rules during lockdown, says Patel - BBC News", "Inside Newcastle's Covid mass vaccination centre - BBC News", "As it happened: New tech unveiled at CES 2021 - BBC News", "John Lewis suspends click and collect due to virus safety - BBC News", "Reading stabbings: Father demands answers on Saadallah freedom - BBC News", "Royal Mail names areas hit by Covid postal delays - BBC News", "Reading stabbings: Khairi Saadallah jailed for park murders - BBC News", "Vogue editor defends cover photo of US Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris - BBC News", "Edinburgh Woollen Mill rescue deal to save 2,000 jobs - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Hundreds will be charged over violence - FBI - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Lockdown lifting 'unlikely' as deaths pass 5,000 - BBC News", "Sir David Attenborough receives Covid-19 vaccine - BBC News", "Covid-19: UAE dropped from UK travel corridor list - BBC News", "Earl of Strathmore admits sex attack at Glamis Castle home - BBC News", "Covid rules: What are the restrictions in your area? - BBC News", "Covid: 'Loads of people without masks' in supermarkets - BBC News", "Covid-19: London's Nightingale hospital taking patients - BBC News", "Covid: Around half of intensive care patients in Wales are dying - BBC News", "Four arrested over 'public nuisance' at Redditch and Birmingham hospitals - BBC News", "Covid: Birmingham hospitals move 200 doctors to intensive care duties - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Boris Johnson criticised over bike ride seven miles from home - BBC News", "Retail sales in 2020 'worst for 25 years' - BBC News", "Covid: 2020 saw most excess deaths since World War Two - BBC News", "Eugene Goodman hailed for guiding Mitt Romney to safety - BBC News", "Naomi Campbell's Kenya tourism role causes row - BBC News", "Covid-19: Rule-breakers, eyesight warning and retail gloom - BBC News", "Covid-19: Rule-breakers 'increasingly likely' to be fined - Cressida Dick - BBC News", "Brexit: UK driver has ham sandwiches confiscated at Dutch border - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: NHS staff shortages 'major problem' - BBC News", "In pictures: Aurora Borealis lights up sky above Scotland - BBC News", "Covid: Gwynedd care home 'frightened' over vaccine delay - BBC News", "Covid: Johnson's bike ride 'didn't break rules' - BBC News", "Covid-19: Alabama crowds ignore coronavirus to celebrate championship - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Families remember loved ones lost to coronavirus - BBC News", "Covid rules: What could be done to tighten lockdown in England? - BBC News", "Cramlington woman celebrates 100th birthday with covid jab - BBC News", "People's sonic boom surprise caught on camera - BBC News", "Covid vaccine: Pfizer v Oxford AstraZeneca v Moderna - BBC News", "Covid: Women fined for going for a walk receive police apology - BBC News", "Covid-19 deaths pass 5,000 mark in Wales - BBC News", "Covid: Eyesight risk warning from lockdown screen time - BBC News", "Covid: Play your part in fight against virus, says Patel - BBC News", "Bill Belichick: NFL coach turns down Presidential Medal of Freedom - BBC News", "Mohamud Mohammed Hassan: Hundreds march over arrested man's death - BBC News", "Europe's slow start: How many people have had the Covid vaccine? - BBC News", "Cuba placed back on US terrorism sponsor list - BBC News", "Covid-19: Williamson promises 300,000 extra laptops - BBC News", "Tesco, Asda and Waitrose ban shoppers without face masks - BBC News", "Croydon University Hospital doctor: Covid 'not fake news' - BBC News", "Covid: Morrisons and Sainsbury's ban maskless shoppers - BBC News", "Parler social network sues Amazon for pulling support - BBC News", "Covid: What next for restrictions as hospital cases rise? - BBC News", "Sonic boom heard over East of England as RAF intercepts civilian plane - BBC News", "Leicester City 2-0 Southampton: James Maddison and Harvey Barnes send Foxes second - BBC Sport", "Coronavirus vaccine: India begins world's biggest drive - BBC News", "Covid-19: Rise in suspected child abuse cases after lockdown - BBC News", "UK weather: Snow and ice warnings for England and Scotland - BBC News", "Archie Lyndhurst: CBBC star died in his sleep, says mother - BBC News", "Brexit: Irish hauliers 'bypassing Welsh ports', say bosses - BBC News", "SLS: Nasa's 'megarocket' engine test ends early - BBC News", "Storm Christoph: Homes evacuated as storm batters Wales - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: How a pilot ended up producing PPE - BBC News", "Joanna Lumley 'shocked' at claims disabled workers unpaid - BBC News", "Toby Young: Telegraph coronavirus column 'significantly misleading' - BBC News", "Halam stabbing: Surgeon Graeme Perks 'fighting for his life' - BBC News", "Boris Johnson says girls' education key to ending poverty - BBC News", "Coronavirus doctor's diary: Karen caught Covid - and took it home - BBC News", "Covid-19: Protect us from unlawful killing charges - medics - BBC News", "Scottish fishermen 'sailing to Denmark to land catch' - BBC News", "RAF veteran receives Covid jab at Salisbury Cathedral - BBC News", "UK weather: Disruption fears lift as snow moves on from UK - BBC News", "Covid: UK to close all travel corridors from Monday - BBC News", "Covid-19: France begins 6pm curfew - BBC News", "Covid-19: Nisra records highest ever weekly deaths - BBC News", "Covid: UK staycation boom predicted once lockdown lifts - BBC News", "Covid-19: BBC's Fergal Keane revisits St Mary’s and Charing Cross Hospital 10 months on - BBC News", "Covid-19: Travel industry 'crisis' and was there Christmas virus spike? - BBC News", "As it happened: Coronavirus: 37, 475 patients in UK hospitals - BBC News", "Sri Lanka v England: Lahiru Thirimanne leads hosts' fightback in Galle - BBC Sport", "Gerry Marsden: Funeral held for Pacemakers star - BBC News", "Home Office 'working to restore' lost police records - BBC News", "Armin Laschet elected leader of Merkel's CDU party - BBC News", "Covid: UK variant could drive 'rapid growth' in US cases, CDC warns - BBC News", "Covid-19: A-level and GCSE results planned for early July - BBC News", "Covid: 'Convalescent plasma no benefit to hospital patients' - BBC News", "Coronavirus: William and Kate hear from emergency workers - BBC News", "Police probes compromised after computer records deleted - BBC News", "Part of rail bridge collapses near fatal Stonehaven derailment site - BBC News", "Capitol riots: Police describe a 'medieval battle' - BBC News", "Covid: Man charged after woman, 92, given fake vaccine - BBC News", "Nóra Quoirin: 'Compelling evidence' of abduction - BBC News", "Mount Semeru: Erupting volcano spews ash above Indonesia's Java island - BBC News", "Covid-19: Further 1,295 deaths recorded in the UK - BBC News", "Covid: UK records new daily high of 1,610 deaths - BBC News", "Madrid explosion leaves three dead - BBC News", "Storm Christoph: Flood warnings in parts of England - BBC News", "Covid: UK records highest daily virus deaths - BBC News", "£80m for treatment services in drug crackdown - BBC News", "Biden inauguration: Step forward after bumpy period - Boris Johnson - BBC News", "Covid: Woman given vaccination on 108th birthday - BBC News", "PMQs: As it happened 20 January - BBC News", "Duchess of Sussex claims privacy and copyright breached by paper group - BBC News", "Low-deposit mortgages return after Covid slump - BBC News", "Donald Trump insists he has 'complete power' to pardon - BBC News", "Doris Hobday: Identical twin among UK's oldest dies with Covid - BBC News", "US election: Bannon Twitter account banned amid clampdown - BBC News", "Musicians 'failed by government' over EU touring, stars say - BBC News", "Biden Inauguration: What will Joe Biden do first? - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Your tributes to those who have died - BBC News", "The 65 days that led to chaos at the Capitol - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Schools to stay closed as lockdown extended - BBC News", "Biden inauguration: How the White House gets ready for a new president - BBC News", "Brexit: Government considers scrapping some EU labour laws - BBC News", "Biden's inauguration speech calls for unity - it won't be easy - BBC News", "Saga cruises says all customers must be vaccinated - BBC News", "Police records: Boris Johnson 'doesn't know' impact of deleted files - BBC News", "Joe Biden inauguration: 46th US president takes oath of office - BBC News", "Amanda Gorman: Inauguration poet calls for 'unity and togetherness' - BBC News", "Kamala Harris becomes first female, first black and first Asian-American VP - BBC News", "Covid smear-test delays prompt calls for home HPV tests - BBC News", "£23m support fund for struggling fishing firms - BBC News", "Lockdown: Police officers fined £200 for cafe meeting - BBC News", "Fulham 1-2 Man Utd: Paul Pogba fires United back to the top of the Premier League - BBC Sport", "Full transcript of Joe Biden's inauguration speech - BBC News", "Covid: Llangollen 'Pimm's and Hymns' reaches Brazil - BBC News", "Covid: 'No furlough because they shut the company' - BBC News", "Epiphany: Orthodox Christians across Russia brave icy dip - BBC News", "Scrapping £20 benefit could see Tories called 'nasty party' - Casey - BBC News", "Kamala Harris and a 1986 snapshot of that Howard generation - BBC News", "Storm Christoph: More than 2,000 homes in Manchester evacuated - BBC News", "NHS Tavistock child gender clinic rated 'inadequate' - BBC News", "Covid: UK reports 1,820 deaths as Johnson warns tough weeks to come - BBC News", "Theresa May: PM's foreign aid cut damaged UK's moral leadership - BBC News", "Biden cabinet: Does this diverse team better reflect America? - BBC News", "Joy Morgan: Murdered student 'may have been given drugs without knowing' - BBC News", "Steve Bannon: The Trump-whisperer's rapid fall from grace - BBC News", "New legislation protects Scottish shop staff from customer abuse - BBC News", "Trump presidency: A flashback through four turbulent years - BBC News", "Covid-19: Military to assist NI medical staff - BBC News", "BBC faces 'financial risk' over licence fee income, watchdog says - BBC News", "US historians on what Donald Trump's legacy will be - BBC News", "Rollout of daily testing of close contacts paused in English schools - BBC News", "Monklands ICU staff are 'physically and emotionally' drained - BBC News", "As it happened: Inauguration: Biden signs orders ending key Trump policies - BBC News", "Author Terry Pratchett's 'inspiring' house for sale - BBC News", "Supermarket delivery driver rescued from Westgate ford - BBC News", "Joe Biden: 'Middle Class Joe' vows to 'finish the job' - BBC News", "Covid-19: No vaccine postcode lottery in NI, say doctors - BBC News", "Meghan letter: Royal aides 'won't take sides', High Court told - BBC News", "Biden inauguration: Americans' hopes and fears for next president - BBC News", "Melania’s jacket and nine other defining images of Trump's presidency - BBC News", "Emotional Biden bids farewell to Delaware - BBC News", "President Joe Biden inauguration speech: 'Democracy has prevailed' - BBC News", "Storm Christoph: Evacuations and flood warnings in England - BBC News", "Biden inauguration in pictures - BBC News", "Natural wonder: Wing 'clap' solves mystery of butterfly flight - BBC News", "Burnley 1-1 Fulham: Clarets hit back to frustrate Cottagers - BBC Sport", "Coronavirus: BMJ urges NYT to correct vaccine 'mixing' article - BBC News", "New Forest crash: Four ponies killed - BBC News", "Covid: Illegal New Year party at Essex church broken up - BBC News", "Paris St-Germain: Mauricio Pochettino replaces Thomas Tuchel as head coach - BBC Sport", "Covid in Wales: Beauty spots 'busy' despite lockdown rules - BBC News", "Covid-19: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine arrives at hospitals - BBC News", "Tokyo 2020: Olympics and Paralympics will go ahead, says Japan's PM amid rising infections - BBC Sport", "Covid: 'Nail-biting' weeks ahead for NHS, hospitals in England warn - BBC News", "Comedian John Bishop joins Doctor Who cast - BBC News", "West Brom 0-4 Arsenal: Arsenal see off Baggies in ruthless display - BBC Sport", "Manchester United 2-1 Aston Villa: Bruno Fernandes penalty puts Red Devils joint top - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: London's NHS Nightingale 'ready to admit patients' - BBC News", "Covid: Metal detecting 'an escape from pandemic stress' - BBC News", "EuroMillions: Jackpot of more than £39m won by UK ticket-holder - BBC News", "Lisa Montgomery: Only woman on US federal death row to face execution - BBC News", "US election: Legal bid to get Pence to overturn results rejected - BBC News", "Covid: All London primary schools to stay closed - BBC News", "First Minneapolis police death since George Floyd captured on bodycam - BBC News", "France: More than 2,500 break virus restrictions at illegal rave - BBC News", "Thousands raised for East Horndon church 'trashed' by revellers - BBC News", "Covid-19: New variant 'raises R number by up to 0.7' - BBC News", "Covid and dementia: Rhondda woman, 51, feels 'lost' during lockdown - BBC News", "Covid-19: Anti-lockdown protesters arrested at Hyde Park demo - BBC News", "Norway landslide: Body found as rescuers search Gjerdrum landslide - BBC News", "Hospitals across UK 'must prepare for Covid surge', senior doctor warns - BBC News", "Tottenham: Jose Mourinho 'disappointed' after three players attend party - BBC Sport", "Irish Eurovision singer and Bagatelle frontman Liam Reilly dies - BBC News", "Bitcoin tops $34,000 as record rally continues - BBC News", "Suspected Islamists kill dozens in attacks on two Niger villages - BBC News", "US Election 2020 - BBC News"], "published_date": ["2021-01-21", "2021-01-21", "2021-01-21", 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deposit.", "People who attend house parties of more than 15 people will be fined, the home secretary says.", "Medics at Glasgow's QEUH are seeing the effects of people delaying healthcare during lockdown.", "The storm brought heavy rain, flooding and snow to parts of England and Wales.", "Tuition fees in England are being frozen for another year and ministers outline plans to reform post-16 education.", "Latest updates from North West England at Storm Christoph brings snow, rain, evacuations and disruption.", "Doctors say people should buy a pulse oximeter to monitor their oxygen levels at home.", "The imam, Sheikh Nuru Mohammed, hopes the centre will dispel false information about the vaccination.", "Thousands of the capital's taxi drivers have already signed up to the planned group legal action.", "Major incidents were declared in north and south Wales as Storm Christoph causes flooding.", "An amber alert has passed but yellow warnings for snow and rain remain in place across Scotland.", "Some 3,500 people sign an open letter, published in three newspapers.", "The Worthy Farm event has been scrapped for a second year running due to the global pandemic.", "Use our search tool to find out about coronavirus rules and restrictions where you live.", "'This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge' - the new president knows how daunting his task is.", "Holidaymakers in 2021 must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the travel firm says.", "The 22-year-old from LA is the youngest poet to perform at a presidential inauguration.", "Kamala Harris makes history as she is sworn in as US vice-president.", "Researchers warn that unless something changes, hospitals will continue facing significant pressure.", "With Stormont ministers extending the current lockdown, could other measures could be on the table?", "Investigations are ongoing into what caused the road surface to give way, United Utilities say.", "Fines of £800 will be handed to anyone attending a house party of more than 15 people from next week.", "Shoppers buying items from Europe now have to pay customs or VAT charges on those above a certain value.", "Heavy rain is causing flooding and travel disruption, with a warning for ice also forecast.", "Paul Pogba scores a superb winner as Manchester United reclaim top spot in the Premier League by coming from behind for a club-record equalling away win at Fulham.", "'This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge'. Read the 46th president's address in full.", "Boris Johnson says England's measures will be reviewed once the priority groups have had the vaccine.", "Paddy McElhone, 24, was shot in the back by a soldier near his home outside Pomeroy in August 1974.", "There is a \"widening financial gap\" between households because of the pandemic, says the ONS.", "The new president warned it could take months to turn things around.", "Northern Ireland’s coronavirus lockdown restrictions will be extended until 5 March.", "A survey is launched by the children's commissioner for Wales to help assess the impact on them.", "A consortium including the fashion chain will no longer bid to buy Topshop and Topman out of administration.", "Liverpool's 68-game unbeaten home run in the Premier League comes to an end as Ashley Barnes fires home a late winner from the penalty spot to secure a famous victory for Burnley.", "They are all laughing at the camera, but what are the stories of the women next to Kamala Harris?", "More than 2,000 properties in Manchester are affected as police warn some occupants will have Covid.", "Around 200 vaccines are being given every minute, the health secretary tells the Commons.", "A further 1,820 people die in the UK within 28 days of a positive test - another all-time high.", "With the world watching, who created fashion moments on inauguration day?", "The health minister asks the Ministry of Defence to help out, primarily at a number of hospitals.", "An immobile woman says she was told if she could not get to her GP surgery she would have to wait.", "Muller Milk & Ingredients in Somerset confirms 47 dairy workers have tested positive for Covid-19.", "President Biden inked 15 executive orders, moving to rejoin the Paris climate accord.", "His most famous Discworld novels were written in the house in Somerset, the estate agent says.", "Unison clarifies position on military personnel helping at hospitals after drawing criticism.", "Satellite imagery is being used to count elephants in a breakthrough that could aid conservation.", "The Duchess of Sussex is suing the Mail on Sunday over the publication of a letter to her father.", "The curbs may even continue until Easter in an attempt to drive down Covid-19 case numbers.", "Many coronavirus-related prosecutions involved police officers being coughed and spat on by suspects.", "Unilever says that by 2030 suppliers must pay staff enough to cover a family's basic needs.", "Joe Biden makes his inaugural address as the 46th president of the United States.", "Abimbola Ajoke Bamgbose had been fed up with people asking if she was pregnant, an inquest hears.", "Images from Joe Biden's swearing-in and first day as the 46th US President.", "Wales has made a \"very good start\" on delivering jabs, a former chief medical officer says.", "Chloé Lopes Gomes says she has faced humiliating racial harassment while being a ballet dancer in Berlin.", "The pandemic has seen children slipping back in learning and social skills, Ofsted inspectors warn.", "The medical journal's editor says UK guidelines don't recommend giving different coronavirus jabs.", "Lockdown losses mean renewing the 10-year contract to lease Yang Guang and Tian Tian may be unaffordable.", "Police help dozens of motorists who became stranded after heavy snow fell in the Peak District.", "Council leaders say it is \"self-evident\" the tiers system is not containing the new strain of Covid.", "The first doses of the latest coronavirus vaccination to be approved are due to be given on Monday.", "Parliament will be recalled for Nicola Sturgeon to make an \"urgent statement\" as case numbers rise by 2,464.", "A farmer's field in Scotland has been transformed into a \"pop-up\" ice hockey rink.", "Schools in Wales given a flexible approach to ensure a \"safe return\", despite concerns by unions.", "Dan Eliasson, head of the civil contingencies agency, flew to the Canary Islands to see his daughter.", "The frontman, who found success with songs such as Summer in Dublin, \"passed away suddenly\" aged 65.", "Tributes have been paid to trainer Zoe Davison, who died from cancer on the same day two of her horses claimed wins at Plumpton.", "Arsenal continue their Premier League resurgence with a ruthless victory over strugglers West Brom at The Hawthorns.", "The first minister warns Scotland could be entering the most dangerous period since the outbreak began.", "It aims to inoculate some 300m people this year in one of the world's largest vaccination campaigns.", "Four boys and a girl are held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder after the Reading attack.", "Just one ticket matched all seven numbers in the New Year's Day draw.", "Use our search tool to find out about coronavirus rules and restrictions where you live.", "Wales' first minister doesn't \"see much headroom for change\" ahead of a review of lockdown measures.", "Twelve people are caught playing the game in darkened backroom at an eatery in east London.", "Boris Johnson says the gap between referendums on Europe - 41 years - is \"a good sort of gap\" for independence referendums.", "The Gerry and the Pacemakers singer's number one hit became a football terrace anthem.", "Driving conditions on many roads will become \"hazardous\" next week, the Met Office warns.", "A study finds the new coronavirus variant is responsible for pushing the R rate above the crucial 1.0 mark.", "The government said soldiers had been sent to protect the area, close to Niger's border with Mali.", "After the PM hints at tighter measures in England, our science editor looks at what they could entail.", "Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola says he may stay in management much longer than he anticipated.", "Up to 300 people gather in London's Hyde Park to protest at Covid-19 restrictions.", "Manchester City say they are disappointed after defender Benjamin Mendy breaches Covid-19 rules by hosting a New Year's Eve party.", "Mexican-American Ryan Garcia gets up from the canvas to stop Britain's Luke Campbell with a body shot in Dallas, Texas.", "About 30,000 birds are to be culled at the farm near Clough in north Antrim.", "The latest government figures show a further 2,137 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Scotland on Friday.", "It comes as a further 57,725 people test positive for the virus, a new daily high.", "Boris Johnson says more areas may need tougher rules, as Labour urges England-wide curbs within 24 hours.", "Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer describes her as a \"dear friend and colleague\", and wishes her well.", "Boris Johnson says regional restrictions in England are \"probably about to get tougher\".", "All the latest news and results for the US Election 2020 from the BBC.", "The decision to keep car parks open is under \"constant review\", says one national park.", "Leicester City edge a keenly contested Premier League encounter with Southampton to maintain their push for a top-four place.", "Calls are made for \"front-line\" nursery staff to be supported with funding and vaccines.", "CBBC star's mother, Lucy Lyndhurst, says his death has had a \"catastrophic effect\" on their family.", "A critical engine test for Nasa's new \"megarocket\" - the Space Launch System (SLS) - ends early.", "Health groups say NHS staff fear prosecution over decisions if hospitals are overwhelmed.", "Spector, who was jailed for killing actress Lana Clarkson, transformed pop music with his \"wall of sound\".", "He told police he drove to Devizes for a McDonald's even though the town does not have a branch.", "Louis Godwin, 95, said he was \"so pleased\" to get his Covid-19 vaccination at Salisbury Cathedral.", "Prime Minister Jean Castex said the measures would be in place for at least 15 days.", "Leaders Manchester United are thwarted by the second-half heroics of keeper Alisson in a goalless draw with title rivals Liverpool at Anfield.", "The \"fiercely competitive\" but \"kind, thoughtful and caring\" news executive has died aged 73.", "Doctors say the \"patchy supply\" of vaccine to GPs is slowing down efforts to deliver it to patients.", "Northern Health Trust chief says system is under \"huge pressure\" with patients waiting for beds.", "Sir Richard Branson's rocket company succeeds in putting its first satellites in space.", "Statistics agency Nisra says 145 deaths were registered last week, bringing its pandemic total to 1,976.", "Mother Sara Powell-Davies welcomes its return, but nurseries say they fear for the future.", "Women are sent sexually explicit messages and requests for \"worn\" garments.", "As the UK records its highest death toll, Fergal Keane has been to see the strain the NHS is under for the second time.", "Fighting erupted after a man was stabbed in a row between two men from different ethnic groups.", "Former climbing champion Lai Chi-Wai raised HK$5.2 million for spinal cord patients.", "The government is aiming to provide grants by April to mitigate the impact of Covid travel rules.", "Patient numbers have risen by 15,000 since Christmas, but infections are stabilising, says Sir Simon Stevens.", "Pupils in England can read works by popular authors online while schools stay closed in lockdown.", "The Gerry and the Pacemakers singer died from a blood infection at the age of 78.", "More than half of the Church of England's 14,000 parishes will not open for Sunday services later.", "England need 36 runs on the final day to win the first Test against Sri Lanka despite losing three wickets in a chaotic final session in Galle.", "A decision on whether to extend £20 Universal Credit rise is unlikely before March's Budget, minister says.", "The leaders of the US, France, Germany and other leading economies will meet in Cornwall in June.", "The government is planning new laws to stop England's monuments being removed \"on a whim\" by protesters.", "Hundreds of thousands of DNA and arrest records were deleted after a human error, the Home Office says.", "A group of London firms has written to ministers calling for financial support for the rail firm.", "With traffic down and more people working from home, what is the future for these lay-by businesses?", "Prince William says he \"really worries\" about the effect of the pandemic on front-line workers.", "Drivers from Scotland and Portsmouth caught breaking lockdown rules in north Wales.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Sunday.", "But Sir Simon Stevens says the health service has never been in a more precarious situation.", "Mount Semeru has erupted, pouring volcanic matter miles into the air and placing locals on alert.", "Pressure grows on PM after non-binding motion on universal credit top-up is passed by 278 votes.", "The latest death and case figures should be a \"bitter warning for us all\", Public Health England says.", "The Most Reverend Philip Tartaglia tested positive for the virus shortly after Christmas but the cause of his death is not clear.", "The man told police he had travelled 14 miles from his home to search for the fictional characters.", "Hashem Abedi and Ahmed Hassan are accused of assaulting an officer in HMP Belmarsh in May.", "Scotland's health secretary says 400,000 jabs could be administered every week by the end of February.", "Lidl, Just Eat and Asos say demand for fizz, takeaways and clothes all rose during December.", "As the UK records its highest death toll, Fergal Keane has been to see the strain the NHS is under for the second time.", "Black people are more than four times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act in England.", "Amnesty International says the issue of forced adoptions also needs close scrutiny.", "Details and reaction to a briefing by Wales' chief medical officer and NHS Wales chief executive.", "Carol and David Richards had been fined £60 for driving 20 minutes to see her mother.", "Tony Parsons from Tillicoultry vanished more than three years ago during a charity cycle ride.", "The prime minister wants round-the-clock vaccination but adds supply is currently the limiting factor.", "Nicola Sturgeon announces the areas where restrictions will be tightened in Scotland from Saturday.", "The famous Lauberhorn ski event is cancelled after a spike in Covid-19 cases linked to one tourist.", "Staff at one of London's busiest hospitals say it's not going to take much for services to soon break.", "The health secretary urges people to follow rules, saying \"individual decisions\" make a difference.", "Rival supermarkets defend their pay, with Asda saying looking at hourly rates does not tell the whole story.", "Some restrictions have been tightened amid concerns the \"stay at home\" message has not had the same impact.", "Investors have agreed a deal to save the chain, along with Ponden Home and Bonmarché.", "Amid reports of mass furlough fraud the BBC hears from one worker who quit work but still gets furlough pay.", "First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says because of the \"precarious\" situation in relation to the pandemic more restrictions will be brought in.", "A report from a group of Tory MPs adds to internal pressure on the government to harden its stance.", "Together with his twin brother, Sir David built a business empire spanning hotels, retail and newspapers.", "Scotland's first minister says the current restrictions are \"very unlikely\" to be lifted at the end of the month.", "The company denies selling technology that can identify the ethnic group and plans to reword the patent.", "Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer challenged Boris Johnson over the provision of \"disgraceful\" food parcels.", "The Earl of Strathmore attacked a woman in her room during an event he was hosting at Glamis Castle.", "Use our search tool to find out about coronavirus rules and restrictions where you live.", "Latest results show Sinovac's Covid-19 vaccine is less effective in Brazil than previously suggested.", "The health minister says it is a \"strong start\" but there is more to do.", "One operator told the BBC his staff were working up to 16 hours a day to help traders.", "Earlier this month videos showing supposed empty hospitals were shared on social media.", "A leaked memo warns several Birmingham hospitals risk being \"overwhelmed\" by coronavirus patients.", "The increase is to further discourage shoppers from buying single-use plastic bags.", "Tweeters query why it has not been given to a prominent Kenyan like actress Lupita Nyong'o.", "A Met Office yellow weather warning for ice is in place after heavy snow caused road closures and travel disruption.", "A negative test had been due to be required from Friday, but ministers said people needed time to prepare.", "Sir David will showcase an augmented reality app as part of a drive to prove the uses of 5G.", "Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said this would help teachers to decide \"deserved grades\".", "But Boris Johnson does not rule out tougher restrictions in England, saying they are kept under review.", "Fans of the University of Alabama football team gathered in the streets of Tuscaloosa, ignoring social distancing.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday morning.", "These are the lawmakers with a big influence on the impeachment process against the former president.", "The last of 14 works identified as looted from Jewish collectors is returned to the owner's heirs.", "Isabella Curry said she now feels safe and will be able to go out and meet friends soon.", "An RAF aircraft breaking the sound barrier causes a loud bang in skies across the East of England.", "Pawel Relowicz committed \"sexually motivated\" burglaries before Libby Squire's death, jurors hear.", "Doctors believed 11-month-old Sofia-Grace Hill was rejecting food because she had tonsillitis.", "It comes as Boris Johnson is quizzed by MPs on the government's coronavirus response.", "Three vaccines have been approved in the UK - what are the differences between them?", "Parents of disabled children are calling for teachers in special schools to receive the Covid-19 vaccine.", "Ivan Cavaleiro's late header earns Premier League strugglers Fulham a hard-fought draw against Tottenham in their hastily rearranged London derby.", "Doctors leaders' want staff to be given the type of high-quality masks usually only worn in intensive care.", "The home secretary says she will back police to enforce virus rules, as another 1,243 die in the UK.", "The Google-owned service said the president had broken its rules over the incitement of violence.", "The prime minister warns there is a \"very substantial\" risk of intensive care being \"overtopped\".", "Mohamud Mohammed Hassan was arrested at home on Friday but released without charge on Saturday.", "The Democrats say they sheltered in a safe room alongside others who refused to wear masks.", "It follows similar moves by Morrisons and Sainsbury's, but those with medical reasons will be exempt.", "Ten members of his own party voted against the president over his role in the deadly riots at the US Capitol.", "Police in Atlanta want to question YFN Lucci, 29, over a fatal shooting in the city last month.", "More than 700 intensive care staff at nine hospitals were asked about their experiences for a study.", "Her novel Heart for a Compass is a fictional historical saga inspired by her great-great-aunt.", "There's speculation over who was involved in the protests and whether they belong to organised groups.", "Production was to begin later this month but filming and transmission will now be later than hoped.", "The PM leads UK politicians from all parties condemning the riot at the US Capitol building.", "The firm says tighter Covid restrictions and falling passenger numbers have prompted the decision.", "Allowing pupils without laptops into schools could limit the impact of the closures, say head.", "The president will be banned \"permanently\" if he breaks the platform's rules again.", "An Alaska state agency emerged as the main bidder at the sale, which was opposed by environmentalists.", "Two boys and a girl, all aged 13 or 14, are charged with murder after the death of Olly Stephens, 13.", "Joe Biden says it is \"totally unacceptable\" police showed more leniency in the Capitol riot than at anti-racism protests.", "Nguyen Huy Hung was one of 39 people who died in a container en route from Belgium to Essex.", "Boris Johnson has \"no doubt\" there is enough supply to vaccinate the first four priority groups by 15 February.", "Gavin Williamson will \"trust in teachers rather than algorithms\" in awarding this year's results.", "The broadcaster will be a part-time replacement for the new Woman's Hour host.", "The sites, including football stadiums and racecourses, will begin operations next week.", "Events in Washington spark dismay and criticism of America's politics and leader.", "Staff at one of London's busiest hospitals say it's not going to take much for services to soon break.", "The police officer who the FBI said fired the fatal shot is dismissed for breaching policy.", "Her family said the British model, who died in December aged 50, had been \"unwell for some time\".", "More than 113,000 Scots have now been given their first dose of a vaccine against Covid-19.", "The drugs, which save an extra life for every 12 intensive care patients treated, can be used immediately, say experts.", "The president is accused of inciting a riot with his divisive rhetoric - he's unlikely to stay silent.", "Health officials say it was the only option due to the demand for beds as a result of Covid-19.", "A ceremony meant to showcase a peaceful power transfer turns into a dark day. Here are the key moments.", "Breakdown of what happened when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol amid a key Senate vote.", "The weekly applause is back - but its founder distances herself from the initiative.", "News photographers captured extraordinary scenes as Trump supporters stormed the building.", "The US Capitol has gone into lockdown amid violent clashes between police and Trump supporters, who broke security lines and are inside the building.", "The UK prime minister also says the US president is \"completely wrong\" over his election fraud claims.", "The airline warns few, if any, flights will operate to or from Ireland or the UK from the end of January.", "Travellers from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Botswana and Mauritius will be barred from entry.", "US lawmakers and staff are seen wearing protective gas masks as police draw guns on protesters.", "Dave Edwards lit up his home for 42 years but died before the recent festive season.", "At Fullwell Cross Medical Centre in north London, they are now vaccinating almost 1,000 people a week.", "George is recovering after spending three nights in hospital with coronavirus.", "How Trump's favourite social media site banned him - permanently.", "On Wednesday the UK recorded more than 1,000 daily Covid deaths and hospitals are struggling to cope.", "The Tesla and SpaceX owner replaces Jeff Bezos as the richest man on the planet.", "The home secretary says the US president fuelled the violence, as the PM condemns the \"disgraceful scenes\".", "Two boys and a girl are accused of murdering 13-year-old Olly Stephens in Reading.", "All the latest news and results for the US Election 2020 from the BBC.", "Drive-through and delivery services will still be available while it reviews its safety procedures.", "Leaders from around the world call for peace and a peaceful transfer of power in Washington.", "Worried childcare staff call on ministers to prove it's safe for them to open in England.", "Matthew Mason beat 15-year-old Alex Rodda to death to stop their sexual relationship being revealed.", "Boris Johnson says the armed forces will use \"battle preparation techniques\" to help vaccinate millions.", "Sarah Bingham's son and daughter have the same rare illness and she is a donor match for both.", "Industry body calls for the early vaccination of workers to keep supply chains running smoothly.", "Lorry drivers will need a negative result to cross into France until further notice, the government says.", "Aston Villa are preparing to field a team of youngsters in Friday's FA Cup third-round tie at home to Liverpool.", "GPs in England receive doses of the Oxford Covid jab as medics warn of \"stretched\" wards.", "Families had smaller gatherings, but sales still rose 9.3% in the Christmas trading period, it says.", "There are concerns the new variant may spread too easily to be controlled by lockdown.", "Residents of Shijiazhuang are banned from leaving and will be tested en masse after an outbreak there.", "The Wanted member shares some good news with his fans, three months on from his cancer diagnosis.", "The new lockdown has pushed pubs and restaurants into yet more debt, some of which may never be repaid.", "Jamie Stiehm was in the House of Representatives press gallery when protesters smashed at the door.", "The online retailer wants to buy the brands, not their shops, suggesting any deal would cost jobs.", "The fast fashion retailer is not purchasing the stores or taking on its staff, the BBC understands.", "The head of France's scientific council suggests a third lockdown is needed amid spread of variants.", "Ella Lambert says the period pain she experiences inspired her to help others.", "Israel has vaccinated more than a quarter of its population and now high school students are eligible.", "Ministers have said schools would stay closed until half term unless Covid cases fall significantly.", "Janice Johnston had 18 months of needless chemotherapy, causing her numerous physical problems.", "Underground investigations are due to begin on Saturday after flooding linked to old mine shaft.", "Entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX company delivers 143 satellites to orbit on a single rocket flight.", "England complete a thrilling victory on day four of the second Test against Sri Lanka to take the series 2-0.", "A former Boeing manager says more investigations are needed on the plane, grounded after two crashes.", "Nearly 38,000 people are in hospital in the UK with coronavirus, the health secretary says.", "The highest-risk job roles were in restaurants, care work and manufacturing.", "From credit card fraud to benefit fraud, the problem costs the UK up to £190bn a year, a report says.", "Motorists are urged to take care with sub-zero temperatures forecast into Monday.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning.", "The crackdown on Alexei Navalny and his supporters fuels calls in the EU for tougher sanctions.", "The health secretary says it is \"difficult\" to put a timeline on when England's lockdown will be lifted.", "Tributes are paid to Robert Rowland following the accident near his home in the Bahamas.", "Budweiser will not advertise during the Super Bowl for the first time in 37 years.", "Boris Johnson says he understands parents' frustrations but the infection rate is \"still very high\".", "Ministers are due to meet on Monday to consider whether to tighten the UK's border restrictions further.", "Footage shows a police car apparently driving through a group at a street race in Washington state.", "The changes affecting some customers take effect as finances are squeezed by Covid and Christmas.", "A geologist says tens of thousands of old mine shafts must be monitored to help stop more flooding.", "An interior decor trend is blamed for the removal of the grass, which forms part of a wind defence.", "Geoff and Jenny Holland married in August after having to twice postpone their wedding.", "The lack of certainty about schools returning is fraying the exhausted nerves of parents.", "A Royal College of Nursing survey found almost 80% were more stressed because of the Covid pandemic.", "As temperatures continue to remain high, parts of Australia are facing their worst fire risk in a year.", "Three psychiatric reports found Olga Freeman was suffering from a severe depressive illness.", "Ambrose O'Neill disappeared after the first day of his trial in 2008.", "Only 18 out of 251 registered traveller sites have any available spaces, research from a charity suggests.", "Some will be able to return on Tuesday but others are urged to stay away due to safety fears.", "The building's owner vows it will continue as a department store despite the departure of current tenant, the House of Fraser.", "The eyes of people with PTSD behave differently when they see exciting images, researchers say.", "One says he is surprised Boris Johnson shared the early data when it is \"not particularly strong\".", "Laboratory tests suggest antibodies can recognise and fight the UK and South Africa variants.", "The media regulator decided not to pursue complaints about decency over the channel's satire.", "Online retailer Boohoo will buy the brand for £55m, but not its shops, putting 12,000 jobs at risk.", "Police describe it as the worst unrest in the Netherlands for decades, with more than 180 arrests.", "The UK's nations and regions are being treated as if they were \"invisible\", the former PM warns.", "What is behind the review of specialist care for mothers and babies in the south Wales valleys?", "Vaccination appointments for over-70s in Scotland will arrive on Monday as planned - but in white envelopes.", "A new report focuses on the experiences of pregnant women at Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board.", "The move sparks concerns that customers could see prices rise if merchants pass on the higher cost.", "Chelsea sack manager Frank Lampard after 18 months in charge, with former Paris St-Germain and Borussia Dortmund boss Thomas Tuchel expected to replace him.", "Andrés Manuel López Obrador, 67, announces he is receiving medical treatment for the coronavirus.", "The Senate has confirmed Janet Yellen as first female treasury secretary in US history.", "The third national lockdown and travel ban meant the travel firm \"had to act\", a spokeswoman says.", "Sir Keir Starmer says he will be working from home until next Monday.", "A pilot programme for 24/7 vaccinations is among options being considered by the Scottish government.", "Why one family finds St Dwynwen's Day - the Welsh patron saint of lovers - more relevant to their heritage.", "Mothers speaking to the Cwm Taf maternity review \"overwhelmingly\" had distressing experiences.", "The mother of Keon Lincoln, 15, who was shot and stabbed, pleads for information about his death.", "Images circulated on social media show mourners at the funeral of an IRA man in Londonderry.", "First Minister Mark Drakeford earlier visited the site of the flooding which led to 80 people being evacuated.", "About 118,000 placements for young people are yet to be filled due to coronavirus lockdowns.", "Community spirit praised as helpers clear 7cm of snow so vulnerable patients could get Covid jab.", "Bruno Fernandes comes off the bench to fire Manchester United past fierce rivals Liverpool in a pulsating FA Cup fourth-round tie.", "Nurseries, pre-schools and childminders call for rapid testing and priority access to vaccines.", "The two men were guests at Cameron House Hotel on the shores of Loch Lomond when the blaze broke out.", "The force said its role is designed to inform prosecutors and does not indicate a crime has taken place.", "The 78-year-old Scottish comedian received his first dose of the vaccine near his home in Florida.", "A report criticises the union after it told its members not to volunteer due to safety concerns.", "A shortage of shipping containers, rising costs, and congestion at ports are holding back imports from China.", "Ministers have said schools would stay closed until half term unless Covid cases fall significantly.", "The majority of applications for the discretionary part of the test and trace grant are unsuccessful.", "Despite Glastonbury's cancellation, smaller festivals could still go ahead, experts say.", "Boris Johnson says it's more important than ever to be vigilant in following rules and staying home.", "The probe into the handling of harassment claims against Alex Salmond wants to see messages between SNP and government officials.", "Eric Vice, 64, was driving to Swansea University when he hit a bridge.", "The premiere of No Time To Die, Daniel Craig's final 007 outing, is pushed back again due to Covid.", "Doctors say people should buy a pulse oximeter to monitor their oxygen levels at home.", "The imam, Sheikh Nuru Mohammed, hopes the centre will dispel false information about the vaccination.", "Boris Johnson has not ruled out further action to secure the borders amid concerns over Covid variants.", "A bunker built during the Cold War is being auctioned with a guide price of £25,000.", "Worship has been suspended as burials average 15-a-day, yet still there is denial about the disease.", "UK retailers may abandon goods EU customers want to return because it is cheaper than bringing them home.", "A geologist says tens of thousands of old mine shafts must be monitored to help stop more flooding.", "The UK's chief medical adviser warns that \"a very small change and it could start taking off again\".", "Health Minister Robin Swann warns restrictions are likely to continue after latest extension.", "Scottish postie Nathan Evans has quit his job and signed to a record label after storming TikTok with sea shanties.", "The TV presenter says Mr Trump went on with the conversation, believing it to be Morgan.", "A 14-year-old boy is suspected of murder over \"inconceivable violence\" before Keon Lincoln's death.", "The Mavisbank care home in Bishopbriggs was recently rated \"weak\" by the care inspectorate for its Covid response.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Friday morning.", "A national charity renews its plea for donations to help museums hit by the coronavirus pandemic.", "Paula Badosa reveals she has the virus and apologises for making complaints about quarantine rules.", "'This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge' - the new president knows how daunting his task is.", "A selection of your pictures of Scotland sent in between 15 and 22 January.", "The chief rabbi has described the event as a \"shameful desecration of all that we hold dear\".", "A £500 payment is already available for those on low incomes who cannot work from home, No 10 says.", "Thirty-nine Vietnamese migrants suffocated in a sealed container en route to Essex in October 2019.", "A teachers' union says a review delivers a \"scathing\" verdict on how exams were handled in 2020.", "Fines of £800 will be handed to anyone attending a house party of more than 15 people from next week.", "Thousands of files hacked from Scotland's environment watchdog appear on the \"dark web\" after it rejected a ransom demand.", "Boris Johnson says England's measures will be reviewed once the priority groups have had the vaccine.", "Paddy McElhone, 24, was shot in the back by a soldier near his home outside Pomeroy in August 1974.", "Investigators have been targeting offenders who operate online since the first coronavirus lockdown.", "CCTV footage has been released showing fire breaking out in a hotel after a porter put a bag of ash and embers in a cupboard.", "Vitinha's superb goal sees Wolves into the fifth round of the FA Cup at the expense of non-league Chorley.", "Two people died in the blaze at the Cameron House hotel in West Dunbartonshire three years ago.", "A consortium including the fashion chain will no longer bid to buy Topshop and Topman out of administration.", "Evidence suggests the variant that emerged in the UK may be more deadly as well as faster-spreading.", "Clothing was the hardest-hit sector last year, seeing a 25% drop in sales overall.", "Liverpool's 68-game unbeaten home run in the Premier League comes to an end as Ashley Barnes fires home a late winner from the penalty spot to secure a famous victory for Burnley.", "The Japanese car maker has told the BBC its Sunderland plant is secure for the long term.", "Police hold aides to Putin critic Alexei Navalny as opposition activists start a string of rallies.", "Parts of Skewen remain underwater with people unable to return to their flooded homes.", "Andy Murray will miss the Australian Open after failing to find a \"workable quarantine\" solution following his positive test for coronavirus.", "Simon Midgley's mother says she still does not have answers about how her son died in the fire at Cameron House.", "Campaigners say a government fund to pay for the removal of dangerous cladding is woefully inadequate.", "The minority \"blatantly flouting\" restrictions will face enforcement action, a senior officer says.", "The couple paid themselves the sum despite heavy losses at Mrs Beckham's fashion brand.", "Muller Milk & Ingredients in Somerset confirms 47 dairy workers have tested positive for Covid-19.", "NHS staff rally to arrange a wedding for a couple as the groom's condition deteriorates in hospital.", "Many of those who took part in the Capitol riot are believed to have subscribed to extremist views.", "The curbs may even continue until Easter in an attempt to drive down Covid-19 case numbers.", "Stars of the Essex-based reality show pay tribute to a \"true gentleman\" and \"one of the good guys\".", "Under coronavirus restrictions a maximum of 30 people are meant to attend a funeral.", "Abimbola Ajoke Bamgbose had been fed up with people asking if she was pregnant, an inquest hears.", "AstraZeneca is the latest company, after Pfizer, to warn of delivery issues, frustrating officials.", "Investigations are ongoing into what caused the road surface to give way, United Utilities say.", "As Covid patients waited at Royal Glamorgan Hospital the nurse had a fear of \"wanting to leave\".", "Under house arrest in Canada on bank fraud charges, Ms Meng has reportedly received death threats.", "As the UK records its highest death toll, Fergal Keane has been to see the strain the NHS is under for the second time.", "Richard Sharp says the BBC represents good value, but how it is funded \"may be worth reassessing\".", "The S21 Ultra's support for an S Pen will fuel speculation that the Note range's days are numbered.", "But the expert says the new Covid variant means any relaxation of rules will be a \"gradual process\".", "Amnesty International says the issue of forced adoptions also needs close scrutiny.", "Carol and David Richards had been fined £60 for driving 20 minutes to see her mother.", "Reports from Manaus say medical staff are begging for help in a critical situation due to Covid-19.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Thursday evening.", "But researchers warn there is still a risk of catching and passing the virus on to others again.", "Nicola Sturgeon announces the areas where restrictions will be tightened in Scotland from Saturday.", "One in three trusts in England was running above safe levels of bed occupancy by the end of 2020.", "Tui, the UK's largest tour operator, says 50% of bookings on their website are currently by over-50s.", "The famous Lauberhorn ski event is cancelled after a spike in Covid-19 cases linked to one tourist.", "Some urgent procedures including cancer surgery are postponed in one health board area due to Covid.", "Six chemists have been chosen initially, with 200 more offering vaccinations in the next fortnight.", "Hundreds of students say it is not right they will have to wait months for rebates during Covid-19.", "Some housed in the military camp say the conditions are so bad it causes them psychological trauma.", "Police and rail bosses condemn a social media post featuring a car parked on a level crossing.", "Armie Hammer dismisses supposedly leaked messages and says he can now not be apart from his children.", "Use our search tool to find out about coronavirus rules and restrictions where you live.", "Jack Dorsey acknowledges that banning the president undermines the ideals of an open internet.", "Homes worry about being sued if people contract the virus while they are staying there.", "The health minister says it is a \"strong start\" but there is more to do.", "Arrivals from most of South America - and from Portugal - will be stopped from Friday.", "Dozens cancel Covid jabs and poor road conditions have a \"severe impact\" on Yorkshire's ambulances.", "Founder Charlie Mullins says it is a \"no-brainer\" that workers should get immunised.", "Scientists are racing to find out more about variants of the coronavirus that are spreading fast.", "The co-founder for Cyberpunk 2077's developer is explaining what went wrong with the launch.", "Samantha Hicks attributed her baby's kicking to sickness having been in hospital with Covid-19.", "The footballer joins celebrities and campaigners to call for action in a letter to the prime minister.", "The prime minister has suggested there could be restrictions on travel from Brazil to the UK.", "Services in England are being cut from 87% of normal levels to 72%, the Rail Delivery Group says.", "A Met Office yellow weather warning for ice is in place after heavy snow caused road closures and travel disruption.", "A negative test had been due to be required from Friday, but ministers said people needed time to prepare.", "Post-primary schools get extra time to decide how they will admit pupils after transfer tests are cancelled.", "A Scottish shellfish firm owner says he is on the brink of bankruptcy as EU customers desert his business.", "The 19-year-old mounted pavements and jumped red lights through London and three counties.", "Nintendo's first theme park, modelled on levels of its Mario games, was due to open on 4 February.", "More than 45% of this priority group has now been vaccinated, compared with about 30% in London.", "Travellers from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Botswana and Mauritius will be barred from entry.", "New Brexit trade rules mean Britain's biggest supermarket faces problems importing some fruit, meat and ready meals.", "James Howells threw away a hard drive containing bitcoin - now worth £210m - by mistake in 2013.", "The last of 14 works identified as looted from Jewish collectors is returned to the owner's heirs.", "It tops up doses already promised as officials worry that Africa is at the back of the vaccine queue.", "England's cancer, critical care, A&E and routine treatments all hit as hospitals accommodate virus patients.", "Boris Johnson pledged to end rough sleeping by 2024, but a watchdog says plans need reviewing post-Covid.", "The government defends its plan to switch to a grant scheme to feed children at half term.", "Our voter panel is divided over the charge of incitement with Trump supporters warning it will deepen divisions.", "A respiratory doctor at the Mater Hospital warns that oxygen supplies are under \"extreme pressure\".", "All the latest news and results for the US Election 2020 from the BBC.", "Ministers could bring in possible measures after a new Covid variant was found in South America.", "Ivan Cavaleiro's late header earns Premier League strugglers Fulham a hard-fought draw against Tottenham in their hastily rearranged London derby.", "The couple, who both have coronavirus, were given \"precious\" time together, their daughter says.", "Doctors leaders' want staff to be given the type of high-quality masks usually only worn in intensive care.", "The scientists investigating the origins of the coronavirus have landed in the city of Wuhan.", "The prime minister warns there is a \"very substantial\" risk of intensive care being \"overtopped\".", "The home secretary says her focus is on enforcement but doesn't rule out tougher restrictions next week.", "Dom Bess takes 5-30 as a dreadful Sri Lanka batting display leaves England in control after day one of the first Test at Galle.", "A blind social media star could wait years for a new guide dog due to delays linked to the pandemic.", "The government wants bosses to do more to help victims as reports of domestic abuse soar in lockdown.", "Andy Murray is still hopeful of playing in the Australian Open despite not travelling to Melbourne after testing positive for coronavirus.", "On Thursday, 16 more deaths related to Covid-19 were recorded along with 973 new positive cases.", "Ten members of his own party voted against the president over his role in the deadly riots at the US Capitol.", "Illusionist Siegfried Fischbacher and partner Roy Horn were an institution in Las Vegas and beyond.", "Mr Leonard says it is in the best interests of the party if he stands down as leader immediately.", "The retailer insists it has no plans to move online, despite warning shop closures could cost it £1bn.", "A total of 1,596 patients are in Scottish hospitals with Covid as pressures on the NHS continue to build.", "The woman, who was Tasered by officers, is taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries.", "Sarah Link lived in a caravan on her own drive so she could carry on working and protect her mother.", "Vincent Kane does not know when his operation will happen, having been delayed due to the pandemic.", "The property investment firm is accused of trying to \"jump the queue\".", "It said there may be \"an increase of missing items and substitutions over the next few weeks\".", "Officers \"will not hesitate\" to take action against those breaking the rules, home secretary says.", "The vaccines were administered on Saturday by a household doctor at Windsor Castle, a royal source says.", "Health Secretary Matt Hancock says social media giants are \"taking editorial decisions\".", "The Labour leader urges ministers to give councils more money instead to protect family budgets.", "Three people were arrested during an anti-lockdown protest, including the woman seen in the video.", "Eleanor Wadsworth flew hundreds of aircraft, including Spitfires and Hurricanes, to the front line in WW2.", "People who cannot work from home should be prioritised for rapid tests in England, the government says.", "Bernard Thomas was rescued from the rubble of Pantglas primary school on 21 October, 1966.", "But for now, people must stay at home during lockdown and alleviate 'serious' pressure on the NHS.", "Health Secretary Matt Hancock says the NHS is under \"very serious pressure\" and warns people to stay home.", "Electricity is gradually being restored after a huge outage triggered by a power station fault.", "The riots of 6 January took many by surprise, but to those tracking conspiracy and extreme right groups online, the warning signs were all there.", "Extra measures are taken to distribute Covid vaccines amid fears the snow could turn to ice.", "Crawley Town produce one of the FA Cup third round's most emphatic upsets as they stun Premier League side Leeds United.", "US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says contact between officials should no longer be \"shackled\".", "There are concerns the new variant may spread too easily to be controlled by lockdown.", "At least six police vans are deployed to Clapham Common where about 30 protesters gathered.", "The farm has been left with over 4,000 surplus eggs after schools suddenly closed to most pupils.", "The government says a draft agreement saying flat owners need its approval first is \"standard\".", "Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove says \"work is ongoing\" to improve trade from GB to NI.", "Scott McTominay celebrates captaining Manchester United for the first time with an early winner to see off Watford in the FA Cup third round.", "A 107-year-old woman from County Meath is attempting to attend a virtual Mass in every county.", "Increasing numbers of seriously-ill patients add to the pressure facing Scotland's health service.", "Four deaths are reported as Storm Filomena dumps snow and triggers floods across the country.", "A \"significant step-up\" in rolling out vaccines is promised by the health minister.", "If Parler fails to find a new web hosting service by Sunday, the entire network will go offline.", "The Labour leader calls for tougher coronavirus restrictions and says help for low earners must continue.", "Almost 50,000 people in Wales have been given a first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.", "He hopes to beat his own lockdown bulge with his \"Get Buzzin' With Bez\" YouTube classes.", "Two landslides hit the same village in Indonesia within hours, leaving emergency teams trapped.", "Another 1,035 people have died, taking the total since the start of the pandemic to 80,868.", "Patients, many shielding, have been offered appointments miles away from their homes.", "The Labour leader rejects a second independence referendum but calls for other changes to devolution.", "More than 100 cars are turned away from a beauty spot in north Wales, police say.", "Boris Johnson will make a televised address at 20:00 GMT to outline further steps as virus cases rise.", "Lockdown measures will see schools closed until half term, and GCSEs and A-levels unable to go ahead as normal.", "The British coin collection will also mark the 75th anniversary of the death of novelist HG Wells.", "Four boys and a girl are held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder after the Reading attack.", "An NHS chief executive says it 'beggars belief' people took pictures of empty corridors.", "Four people were accused of being a \"supporting cast\" for burglars who targeted west London homes.", "Boris Johnson says the gap between referendums on Europe - 41 years - is \"a good sort of gap\" for independence referendums.", "The PM says the number of vaccine doses will amount to \"tens of millions\" by the end of March.", "Mainland Scotland faces tougher restrictions from midnight, and schools will remain closed until February.", "The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine programme is being rolled out less than a week after it became the second approved in the UK.", "Dr Radha Modgil shares tips on staying mentally and emotionally well during the coronavirus lockdown.", "Dan Eliasson, head of the civil contingencies agency, flew to the Canary Islands to see his daughter.", "Tributes have been paid to trainer Zoe Davison, who died from cancer on the same day two of her horses claimed wins at Plumpton.", "The first minister warns Scotland could be entering the most dangerous period since the outbreak began.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning.", "Use our search tool to find out about coronavirus rules and restrictions where you live.", "The group of more than 200 engineers say Google must live up to its 'Don't be evil' pledge.", "Nóra Quoirin's family say they are disappointed at the ruling and still think she was abducted.", "Boris Johnson warns of \"tough\" weeks ahead, as coronavirus infection rates continue to surge.", "The first minister says restrictions \"similar to March\" will come into force in mainland Scotland from midnight and schools will not re-open in January.", "The border crossings between the UK and the European Union face their first day of significant traffic under new rules.", "Professional sport in England will be allowed to continue behind closed doors, despite a new national lockdown announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.", "The Labour leader calls for an immediate lockdown in England to get the virus \"back under control\".", "The Department of Health's aim is for all people older than 80 to receive a jab by the end of January.", "Lockdown losses mean renewing the 10-year contract to lease Yang Guang and Tian Tian may be unaffordable.", "Police help dozens of motorists who became stranded after heavy snow fell in the Peak District.", "Parliament will be recalled for Nicola Sturgeon to make an \"urgent statement\" as case numbers rise by 2,464.", "Schools in Wales given a flexible approach to ensure a \"safe return\", despite concerns by unions.", "Economy Minister Diane Dodds writes to Cabinet Office Secretary Michael Gove over the issue.", "UK nationals resident in Spain say they were wrongly turned back when their flight landed in Barcelona.", "Four boys and a girl are held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder after the Reading attack.", "Rutherglen MP Margaret Ferrier is charged by police with \"alleged culpable and reckless conduct\".", "After the PM hints at tighter measures in England, our science editor looks at what they could entail.", "Her Majesty said the now 75-year-old show had \"played a significant part in the evolving of women\".", "Schools will close for most pupils from Tuesday as people are told to stay at home in new lockdown.", "The latest government figures show a further 2,137 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Scotland on Friday.", "The government said suspected jihadists ambushed the two villages near Niger's border with Mali.", "Boris Johnson says more areas may need tougher rules, as Labour urges England-wide curbs within 24 hours.", "The news comes following confusion after her death was prematurely announced on Monday.", "All the latest news and results for the US Election 2020 from the BBC.", "The Championship club said \"several first-team staff and players\" had tested positive.", "England all-rounder Moeen Ali tests positive for Covid-19 upon arrival at Hambantota airport in Sri Lanka.", "The Love Island star is alleged to have \"breached quarantine\" regulations on holiday in Barbados.", "Stay-at-home orders are issued in England and Scotland, as UK classrooms face further disruption.", "The executive also plans to give its stay at home message legal force, with new travel restrictions.", "The Gerry and the Pacemakers singer's number one hit became a football terrace anthem.", "The bid approach is the latest attempt by a casino operator to tap into the online gambling boom.", "The locally-produced Covaxin jab was approved on Sunday before completion of third stage trials.", "Supermarkets say card payment problems that led to long queues are resolved, but cause still unknown", "Total deaths involving Covid pass 6,000, including 467 in the week ending 15 January.", "A Cardiff head teacher says keeping schools closed affects disadvantaged pupils most severely.", "The money comes from the liquidation of a firm co-founded by the disgraced film producer.", "Before Wuhan was locked down in January 2020 officials said the outbreak was under control - but the virus had spread inside and outside the city.", "Boris Johnson says he takes \"full responsibility\" for the UK government's response to the pandemic.", "Trinidadian-born British writer Monique Roffey says she is \"pinching herself\" over her win.", "Another 7,700 registered with coronavirus on the death certificate brings the total to nearly 104,000.", "The 71-year-old Lib Dem peer says she is wearing her \"I've had the jab\" badge with pride.", "The tunnel is a danger to public safety, an HS2 spokeswoman told the BBC.", "The UK is the second market - after the US - to get Facebook's latest news feature.", "The NHS says any invitation which asks for vaccine payment or bank account details is a scam.", "The shadow justice secretary calls for seven-member juries to deal with cases delayed by the pandemic.", "Scientists propose 10 golden rules for restoring forests to maximise benefits for the planet.", "Parents reveal the perils of juggling teaching with work and family life.", "The new measures are likely to apply to British residents arriving in England from high-risk countries.", "Boris Johnson says he takes \"full responsibility for everything that the government has done\".", "Major incidents were declared in north and south Wales as Storm Christoph causes flooding.", "The health secretary says it is \"difficult\" to put a timeline on when England's lockdown will be lifted.", "Ex-cabinet minister wants \"Britain's favourite animal\" to get same protections as bats and badgers.", "Budweiser will not advertise during the Super Bowl for the first time in 37 years.", "Boris Johnson says he understands parents' frustrations but the infection rate is \"still very high\".", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Tuesday morning.", "Several pupils at the school admitted visiting other households, breaking Covid-19 lockdown rules.", "Demand for the video game and cloud computing services helped push Microsoft sales to a new quarterly record.", "A geologist says tens of thousands of old mine shafts must be monitored to help stop more flooding.", "Lawyers for SMG deny claims it was penny-pinching before the 2017 Manchester Arena attack.", "An interior decor trend is blamed for the removal of the grass, which forms part of a wind defence.", "There will be \"a lot more deaths\" before the effect of vaccines is felt, England's chief medical officer says.", "Crew are asking to be designated 'key workers' so they can go home without risking public health.", "Campaigners claim changes to the way decisions were made led to a \"shocking\" fall in cases going to court.", "Comedians Meera Syal, Romesh Ranganathan and Adil Ray make a video urging people to get the vaccine.", "The Met says it was a \"poor decision\" to hire a barber to give cuts to 31 officers in the workplace.", "Some will be able to return on Tuesday but others are urged to stay away due to safety fears.", "Nadhim Zahawi says supply is tight, but he expects the UK to meet its February target of 15 million doses.", "The Belfast grammar school says it will use \"other academic criteria\" in the absence of transfer tests.", "As the UK records its 100,000th death from Covid within 28 days of a positive test, Catherine Burns speaks to some of the people behind the figures.", "It comes as the foreign secretary says the UK will return to spending 0.7% of GDP on aid \"as soon as possible\",", "Police describe it as the worst unrest in the Netherlands for decades, with more than 180 arrests.", "The government gives its support to a project to use oral contraceptives to control grey squirrels.", "As the number of people who died reaches six figures, the factors that led to this terrible total.", "The BBC brought a judicial review over reporting restrictions in a now abandoned legal case against Scotland's child abuse inquiry.", "An extra £50m is being directed towards grassroots sport after a \"significant hit\" to activity levels amid the coronavirus pandemic.", "The pharmaceutical giant said the late signing of contracts limited time to sort out supply glitches.", "Part of the grade II-listed bridge over the River Clwyd was swept away during Storm Christoph.", "Chelsea sack manager Frank Lampard after 18 months in charge, with former Paris St-Germain and Borussia Dortmund boss Thomas Tuchel expected to replace him.", "The Senate has confirmed Janet Yellen as first female treasury secretary in US history.", "The company acknowledges its \"Birdwatch\" idea could be \"messy\", but says it is worth trying.", "Parents and teachers are frustrated and worried about the impact of school closures on children.", "Before Wuhan was locked down in January 2020 officials said the outbreak was under control - but the virus had spread inside and outside the city.", "A plan to put the anti-slavery activist on the banknote was delayed under ex-President Donald Trump.", "The third national lockdown and travel ban meant the travel firm \"had to act\", a spokeswoman says.", "The Stormont-commissioned research examined institutions run by churches and other religious groups.", "English-speaking parents whose children go to Welsh-language schools say they struggle to help them.", "Three nights of rioting will not halt night curfews aimed at stopping coronavirus, say Dutch ministers.", "Claudia Marsh had recently qualified as a teacher and also volunteered for two charities.", "We must remember that every one of the lives lost during the pandemic leaves a legacy of sorrow.", "Images circulated on social media show mourners at the funeral of an IRA man in Londonderry.", "The mother of Keon Lincoln, 15, who was shot and stabbed, pleads for information about his death.", "The Welsh Government misses its target of giving 70% of over-80s the vaccine by last weekend.", "Leaders in the House have brought their article of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate.", "The border closure is likely to remain even with widespread vaccinations, a top official says.", "Alex Davies-Jones said \"like so many others\" she put off having a test for months.", "The convicted murderer and music producer was described as \"talented but flawed\" in an online story.", "The Welsh Ambulance Service boss warns that difficult weeks lie ahead in Covid-19 fight.", "An eyewitness speaks publicly for the first time about the 2015 death of a man being restrained by police.", "Lisbet Stone was turned away from her flight to London due to having an outdated Covid test.", "The number of people needing intensive care is expected to continue rising for at least two weeks.", "Passengers must also quarantine for up to 10 days following the closure of all UK travel corridors.", "Spector, who was jailed for killing actress Lana Clarkson, transformed pop music with his \"wall of sound\".", "At the age of 14, he sent encrypted messages inciting an Australian teenager to murder police officers.", "The owner of a toy retailer says high transport costs may mean larger toys become more expensive.", "Jonny Bairstow and Dan Lawrence help England seal victory over Sri Lanka on the final morning of the first Test in Galle.", "Ex-Marine John Deacy, 81, died with Covid-19 just two weeks after his last shift at the supermarket.", "A group of pensioners seek compensation for what they say was the excessive pricing of landlines.", "Leaders Manchester United are thwarted by the second-half heroics of keeper Alisson in a goalless draw with title rivals Liverpool at Anfield.", "Northern Health Trust chief says system is under \"huge pressure\" with patients waiting for beds.", "Doctors say the \"patchy supply\" of vaccine to GPs is slowing down efforts to deliver it to patients.", "The \"fiercely competitive\" but \"kind, thoughtful and caring\" news executive has died aged 73.", "Nóra Quoirin's parents do not accept the findings of an inquest into her death in Malaysia.", "Sir Richard Branson's rocket company succeeds in putting its first satellites in space.", "Jonathan Brooks is charged with the attempted murder of Graeme Perks, who was attacked in his home.", "Police have described the killers of 15-year-old Keelan Wilson as a \"pack of animals\".", "Brazil has the world's second-highest Covid death toll but has seen delay and discord over vaccines.", "A red deer had to be put down after being savaged by a red setter in London's Richmond Park.", "David Urpeth says smart motorways without a hard shoulder carry \"an ongoing risk of future deaths.\"", "Former climbing champion Lai Chi-Wai raised HK$5.2 million for spinal cord patients.", "Phil Neville leaves his role as manager of England's women and takes over at Major League Soccer side Inter Miami.", "Students call for more support as they continue their studies through another lockdown.", "The Jewish employee had warned co-workers about the danger of Nazis during the Capitol Riots.", "A group of London firms has written to ministers calling for financial support for the rail firm.", "Small armed groups gathered in several US cities but most state capitols were quiet amid high security.", "Annual growth of 2.3% puts China on course to be the only major economy to have expanded in 2020.", "Boris Johnson promises £23m in compensation for exporters which have lost orders due to delays.", "Someone is being admitted to hospital with coronavirus every 30 seconds, the health secretary says.", "The Perth-born actor was best known for screen roles including \"Chancer\" in City Lights and \"Pete Galloway\" in River City.", "Students at Aberystwyth are told not to return unless \"absolutely necessary\".", "Ambulance service staff in London explain the unique pressures of working during a pandemic.", "A shortage of computer chips is leading to car factories shutting down for days at a time.", "Drivers from Scotland and Portsmouth caught breaking lockdown rules in north Wales.", "Pressure grows on PM after non-binding motion on universal credit top-up is passed by 278 votes.", "All the latest news and results for the US Election 2020 from the BBC.", "There are very few spare beds for the most seriously ill patients in parts of the country, the NHS says.", "Police found evidence of sub-standard care at the Caerphilly home, an inquest hears.", "Democrats plan to start impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump on Monday, for inciting the invasion of the US Capitol, sources say.", "There's speculation over who was involved in the protests and whether they belong to organised groups.", "As Covid patients waited at Royal Glamorgan Hospital the nurse had a fear of \"wanting to leave\".", "The Welsh Government is in discussions with supermarkets about bringing \"more visible\" regulations.", "While GCSEs and A-levels are cancelled, IGCSEs, often used in independent schools, will continue.", "Terence Glover \"ploughed\" into a group of children in his car as they were leaving school.", "The firm says tighter Covid restrictions and falling passenger numbers have prompted the decision.", "The man charged the 92-year-old £160 and came back a week later asking for a further £100.", "Seventeen million doses have been ordered by the UK and are expected to arrive in spring.", "Sweet Melody becomes the band's fifth number one, and their first since Jesy Nelson left.", "But some performances may be pre-recorded if artists can't travel to Rotterdam.", "The deaths of a further 93 people have been recorded - with the number of patients in hospital at record levels.", "When Trump supporters stormed the Capitol they took out their cameras to record the chaos inside.", "He is remembered for the 7 Up documentary series which followed the lives of 14 children since 1964.", "Secret recordings revealed \"enough profanity, casual sexism and racism to last a lifetime\".", "Criticism of new Brexit trade rules is growing as firms warn of more bureaucracy, higher costs and delays.", "Use our search tool to find out about coronavirus rules and restrictions where you live.", "Students say they will refuse to pay for accommodation they cannot use during lockdown.", "It is the third vaccine to be approved for UK use, after the Pfizer and Oxford jabs.", "Ross Kemp and Christopher Biggins do readings at the funeral of the EastEnders and Carry On actress.", "The Competition and Markets Authority will explore whether Google is abusing its market dominance.", "Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove says \"work is ongoing\" to improve trade from GB to NI.", "Her family said the British model, who died in December aged 50, had been \"unwell for some time\".", "We asked people around the US how they responded to the chaotic scenes from the US Capitol.", "The drugs, which save an extra life for every 12 intensive care patients treated, can be used immediately, say experts.", "Shark attacks are rare in the country and it is thought to be the first such death since 2013.", "Breakdown of what happened when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol amid a key Senate vote.", "The weekly applause is back - but its founder distances herself from the initiative.", "The lender says it expects \"downward pressure on house prices\" in 2021 following annual rise of 6% last year.", "Business Secretary Alok Sharma becomes full-time president of November's COP26 conference in Glasgow.", "Data leaked to BBC News shows a rise in the number of hours before patients are offloaded.", "Marks & Spencer's clothes sales overall fall nearly a quarter, but pyjamas are back in fashion.", "The UK prime minister also says the US president is \"completely wrong\" over his election fraud claims.", "The men were detained when special forces stormed the Nave Andromeda off the Isle of Wight.", "Travellers from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Botswana and Mauritius will be barred from entry.", "Top Democrats call for the president to be removed as he commits to an \"orderly\" transition of power.", "A London fashion student made the \"social distancing bandeau\" out of a Chiltern Railways seat cover.", "The mayor says in some parts of London 1 in 20 people has Covid-19, as he declares a \"major incident\".", "It comes as all of Wales has snow and ice warnings for the next few days.", "The Korean car company originally said it was in talks with the tech titan before backtracking.", "Two women were fined £200 after driving five miles to walk around Foremark Reservoir, Derbyshire.", "Worried childcare staff call on ministers to prove it's safe for them to open in England.", "Boris Johnson says the armed forces will use \"battle preparation techniques\" to help vaccinate millions.", "Vincent Kane does not know when his operation will happen, having been delayed due to the pandemic.", "A selection of your pictures of Scotland sent in between 1 and 8 January.", "Satellite data shows that 2020 and 2016 are essentially tied as the hottest years since records began.", "Lorry drivers will need a negative result to cross into France until further notice, the government says.", "A record 68,053 cases are also reported as a third vaccine is approved for use in the UK.", "Details and reaction as First Minister Mark Drakeford confirms an extended closure of schools.", "The Duke of Cambridge says he wants his three children to appreciate sacrifices made during Covid.", "He claims her evidence to an inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against him was \"untrue\".", "The Wanted member shares some good news with his fans, three months on from his cancer diagnosis.", "Meanwhile almost half of people took advantage of Christmas bubble rules, a national survey suggests.", "Kelvin Hopkins has previously denied claims by a party activist of inappropriate physical contact.", "A series of streamed music events, shows and releases will mark five years since the singer's death.", "With attendance as high as 50% in some areas, heads call for pupil limits in England's lockdown schools.", "Ramsey was loved by fans for her role as Officer Laverne Hooks in the Police Academy film series.", "Lockdown measures will see schools closed until half term, and GCSEs and A-levels unable to go ahead as normal.", "Four boys and a girl are held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder after the Reading attack.", "That includes some of the most vulnerable patients who should soon have \"significant\" protection against the virus.", "Four people were accused of being a \"supporting cast\" for burglars who targeted west London homes.", "Mainland Scotland faces tougher restrictions from midnight, and schools will remain closed until February.", "The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine programme is being rolled out less than a week after it became the second approved in the UK.", "President Trump initially accused China of the hack against US government agencies in December.", "The first cyclone of Australia’s season has been downgraded but continues to cause danger.", "Reversing earlier assurances, officials say tracing data can be used for criminal investigations.", "Boris Johnson tells a briefing that nearly a quarter of people over 80 have received a Covid-19 jab.", "Dr Radha Modgil shares tips on staying mentally and emotionally well during the coronavirus lockdown.", "Enrique Tarrio was detained as he entered the city ahead of a pro-Trump protest this week.", "Use our search tool to find out about coronavirus rules and restrictions where you live.", "BBC Two and CBBC will show content for primary and secondary pupils to watch without the internet.", "Sea Shepherd says the collision happened after it came under attack in the Gulf of California.", "Business groups welcomed the new help as a good start but said more aid and a clear plan would be needed.", "Boris Johnson made the decision on restrictions \"in the face of new information\", the chancellor says.", "The first minister says restrictions \"similar to March\" will come into force in mainland Scotland from midnight and schools will not re-open in January.", "Professional sport in England will be allowed to continue behind closed doors, despite a new national lockdown announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.", "The children's commissioner for England and Labour's leader call on firms to help low-income families.", "The Department of Health's aim is for all people older than 80 to receive a jab by the end of January.", "A growing divide over education, jobs, and ethnicity threaten the fabric of society, says Nobel laureate's study.", "Economy Minister Diane Dodds writes to Cabinet Office Secretary Michael Gove over the issue.", "UK nationals resident in Spain say they were wrongly turned back when their flight landed in Barcelona.", "You may be happy to let your phone recognise your face - but what about the police?", "Virgin Holidays joins Tui and Thomas Cook in cancelling holidays after latest coronavirus restrictions.", "In a TV address, Labour's leader says millions of doses need to be given each week by the end of January.", "Rutherglen MP Margaret Ferrier is charged by police with \"alleged culpable and reckless conduct\".", "The cancellations, although rare, reflect the pressure some hospitals are under from Covid.", "Roughly one in 50 people in England has got the virus, Prof Chris Whitty says.", "Demand surges as shoppers rush to secure online delivery slots following news of another lockdown.", "In the tightening of restrictions across the UK there is much that's an echo of March - but a lot that's different too.", "It's been a \"Herculean achievement\" for Marieme and Ndeye, who survived against the odds.", "The news comes following confusion after her death was prematurely announced on Monday.", "Former Manchester City and England midfielder Colin Bell dies aged 74 after a short illness, the Premier League club announces.", "All the latest news and results for the US Election 2020 from the BBC.", "YouTube says the broadcaster posted banned Covid content, but it has decided to reinstate its channel.", "First Minister Nicola Sturgeon thinks Celtic have questions to answer on the grounds for their winter trip to Dubai and says the club's social distancing \"should be looked into\".", "The stationery chain which has 127 stores and around 1,500 employees says shop closures hit it hard.", "Doctors leaders' want staff to be given the type of high-quality masks usually only worn in intensive care.", "Former Buckingham Palace caterer Adamo Canto attempted to sell some items on eBay, a court hears.", "Vocational exams such as BTECs are not being cancelled by the lockdown like GCSEs and A-levels.", "A hearing will decide whether Khairi Saadallah was motivated by a religious or ideological cause.", "The Love Island star is alleged to have \"breached quarantine\" regulations on holiday in Barbados.", "Stay-at-home orders are issued in England and Scotland, as UK classrooms face further disruption.", "The executive also plans to give its stay at home message legal force, with new travel restrictions.", "The famous building on London's Oxford Street has been put on the market by administrators.", "Strict new Covid-19 restrictions come into force in Scotland, prohibiting people from leaving their homes.", "A fresh move to make non-fatal strangulation a specific criminal offence is under way.", "The personal trainer says he wants to \"give children structure\" during lockdown.", "Regulators say the plane is safe to resume service after two fatal crashes led to its grounding.", "Insurers reject claims that by covering ransomware bills they are funding organised crime.", "But loss of taste and smell may be less likely to affect those with the new strain, a study suggests.", "Travellers share their experiences of isolating in hotels, as the UK announces a similar scheme.", "Boris Johnson says he takes \"full responsibility\" for the UK government's response to the pandemic.", "Nicola Sturgeon says she is \"not ecstatic\" about reports the PM will visit Scotland on Thursday.", "The tunnel is a danger to public safety, an HS2 spokeswoman told the BBC.", "The 71-year-old Lib Dem peer says she is wearing her \"I've had the jab\" badge with pride.", "Philippa Day was found collapsed beside a letter rejecting her request for an at-home assessment.", "The 83-year-old Hollywood royalty is also known as an active climate change campaigner.", "The shadow justice secretary calls for seven-member juries to deal with cases delayed by the pandemic.", "Karen Hobbs' sister says she is in shock, and urges people to follow lockdown rules.", "Boris Johnson says most people in Scotland are focused on defeating Covid rather than another referendum.", "Images of Jonathan Mok's swollen eye were posted on Facebook and shared thousands of times.", "Robin Swann says all health workers are valued and have worked tirelessly during the pandemic.", "A collection of your tributes to some of the thousands of people in the UK who have died with coronavirus.", "The financial regulator will consult \"shortly\" on a rise from the current limit of £45.", "Ministers are due to meet on Monday to consider whether to tighten the UK's border restrictions further.", "Footage shows a banned driver in a stolen car drive into a police officer on his motorbike.", "The PM sets the date he hopes England's lockdown will begin to ease, but warns of a \"perilous situation\".", "Boris Johnson also says he shares the \"frustration\" of parents who want to get children back to school.", "Already 100,000 people in the UK have died with Covid. This is the story of one of them.", "Demand for the video game and cloud computing services helped push Microsoft sales to a new quarterly record.", "Families loaded up on the latest technology and sales increased in China.", "The maps depict the famous sea battle in which the English fleet was victorious in 1588.", "There will be \"a lot more deaths\" before the effect of vaccines is felt, England's chief medical officer says.", "The lack of certainty about schools returning is fraying the exhausted nerves of parents.", "The Army sends a bomb disposal unit to a site where the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is produced.", "Already 100,000 people in the UK have died with Covid. This is the story of one of them.", "The Met says it was a \"poor decision\" to hire a barber to give cuts to 31 officers in the workplace.", "The Oscar-nominated actor and his choreographer wife describe as \"difficult\" their decision to split.", "It is the first time the world-famous event will take place in the autumn.", "Nadhim Zahawi says supply is tight, but he expects the UK to meet its February target of 15 million doses.", "A \"legacy of poor decisions\" in 2020 and before the pandemic led to 100,000 deaths, scientists say.", "Scientists say sharks and rays are disappearing from the world's oceans at an \"alarming\" rate.", "As the UK records its 100,000th death from Covid within 28 days of a positive test, Catherine Burns speaks to some of the people behind the figures.", "Bailiffs move in to remove people who dug a 100ft tunnel to block the high-speed rail line.", "Nicola Sturgeon says she is concerned the UK's travel restrictions will not go far enough.", "The government gives its support to a project to use oral contraceptives to control grey squirrels.", "Leon Briggs was \"like a child crying out for a toy\" as he was held down by officers, a jury hears.", "As the number of people who died reaches six figures, the factors that led to this terrible total.", "Nurse Eva Gicain says when she held Elleana for the first time she \"didn't want to let go\".", "The pharmaceutical giant said the late signing of contracts limited time to sort out supply glitches.", "Has the PM effectively admitted we're heading for a full year of limits on our lives?", "Lockdown led to a surge in reports of fraudsters imitating genuine investment firms, regulator says.", "Jagtar Singh Johal has been held in an Indian jail without conviction for more than three years.", "Labour calls for key workers to be added to the first phase of the vaccination programme.", "Residents hit upon the idea after the annual street parade was cancelled because of the pandemic.", "Boris Johnson faced questions from MPs why the UK's coronavirus death toll is the highest in Europe.", "Claudia Marsh had recently qualified as a teacher and also volunteered for two charities.", "The social media platform removed posts after wrongly identifying the place name as offensive.", "We must remember that every one of the lives lost during the pandemic leaves a legacy of sorrow.", "Details from a briefing by the chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser for health.", "David Solomon is being punished for the bank's involvement in the fraudulent Malaysian investment fund.", "Josh Quigley, from Livingston, suffered multiple fractures after coming off his bike at 40mph while training in Dubai.", "The “phased” lifting of restrictions will depend on data on hospitalisations, deaths and vaccinations.", "The government faces legal action over its decision to allow the use of a pesticide that harms bees.", "UK residents can apply for the new card to access emergency medical care when their EHIC card runs out.", "Khairi Saadallah murdered three friends in a Reading park in a \"ruthless and brutal” terror attack.", "Cardiff City defender Sol Bamba is undergoing chemotherapy after being diagnosed with cancer, the Championship club has announced", "County Mayo man howls with laughter while trying to record a birthday message for his son.", "Derbyshire Police apologises to two women fined £200 for driving five miles for a countryside walk.", "New Covid curbs are necessary but they will hit the economy, Chancellor Rishi Sunak warns.", "Thousands of National Guard troops are being deployed to bolster security in Washington DC.", "Dutch TV films officials confiscating ham sandwiches from UK drivers under new food import rules.", "Unison chooses Christina McAnea to replace Dave Prentis, who has been in the job for 20 years.", "Health Secretary Matt Hancock says 2.3 million people in the UK have now had a Covid-19 vaccine dose.", "James Brokenshire will take leave from his Home Office job during further surgery for lung cancer.", "Medical director warns Wrexham Maelor is under huge pressure as numbers of seriously ill patients rise.", "It said there may be \"an increase of missing items and substitutions over the next few weeks\".", "The new Welsh Government vaccine plan says all eligible adults will be offered a jab by the autumn.", "M&S is buying the brand out of administration, but not Jaeger's scores of shops and concessions.", "University of Surrey tests for BBC News found no evidence of any effect.", "The decision follows a rise in cases across the emirates in the past week, officials say.", "A document advises doctors that the minimum level of oxygen required in the blood is being reduced.", "Scotland's first minister says she has doubts about whether Celtic's trip to Dubai was \"really essential\".", "\"Numbers are increasing not decreasing\" - inside an emergency body storage facility in Surrey.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning.", "Three people were arrested during an anti-lockdown protest, including the woman seen in the video.", "A number of Scottish schools, pupils and parents report Microsoft Teams running slowly or not at all.", "People who cannot work from home should be prioritised for rapid tests in England, the government says.", "Luke Evans portrays the policeman who brought John Cooper to justice for two double murders.", "Health Secretary Matt Hancock says the NHS is under \"very serious pressure\" and warns people to stay home.", "Extra measures are taken to distribute Covid vaccines amid fears the snow could turn to ice.", "Crawley Town produce one of the FA Cup third round's most emphatic upsets as they stun Premier League side Leeds United.", "As countries look to quickly vaccinate people, BBC reporters explain what's happening across Europe.", "There are concerns the new variant may spread too easily to be controlled by lockdown.", "Manchester United will host Premier League champions Liverpool in the fourth round of the FA Cup.", "Seven mass vaccination centres have opened across England to help deliver the Coronavirus vaccine.", "A study finds that the financial burden on poorer families has increased during the pandemic.", "The much-loved TV series is back with a new name but only three of the original four leads will star.", "The government says a draft agreement saying flat owners need its approval first is \"standard\".", "An industry group wants more state help for people like Jon Wilding, whose business is hit by the pandemic.", "Kitchen robots, new TVs, smart masks and a toilet that analyses your poo are among the new products.", "Doctors at the hospital say they're treating more younger patients than in the first wave.", "Boris Johnson was spotted at the Olympic Park on Sunday, despite government advice to \"stay local\".", "Nicola Sturgeon acknowledges technical problems on the first day the vast majority of pupils in Scotland begin the new term at home.", "About 560,000 people will have been vaccinated by the beginning of next month, the health secretary says.", "He wants businesses to do more to protect the planet as he marks 50 years of environmental campaigning.", "It comes after a Celtic player tested positive less than 48 hours after the squad returned from a training trip there.", "People refusing to wear face coverings who are not medically exempt will not be allowed to shop inside.", "Increasing numbers of seriously-ill patients add to the pressure facing Scotland's health service.", "Celtic's only regret about their Dubai trip was Chris Jullien contracting Covid-19, said coach Gavin Strachan, after the draw with Hibernian.", "Details and reaction to Health Minister Vaughan Gething's vaccination rollout plan.", "Justice Secretary Robert Buckland says too many abusers' sentences are not tough enough.", "Lisa Montgomery's lawyers argued she was a mentally ill victim of abuse who deserved mercy, but her victim's community said otherwise.", "A \"significant step-up\" in rolling out vaccines is promised by the health minister.", "The Labour leader calls for tougher coronavirus restrictions and says help for low earners must continue.", "The social network has hit back asking a federal judge to order it to be reinstated.", "Two landslides hit the same village in Indonesia within hours, leaving emergency teams trapped.", "The content will not count in a mobile data allowance to help keep costs of online learning down.", "Patients, many shielding, have been offered appointments miles away from their homes.", "The health secretary says UK vaccine rollout is on track but urges everyone to play their part by following Covid rules.", "The warning from England's chief medical officer comes as seven mass vaccination centres open.", "Joe Biden's presidential Twitter account launches with no followers transferred from President Trump.", "Some areas could see freezing temperatures and 5-10cm of snow on Saturday, the Met Office says.", "The Daily Telegraph must publish a correction over Covid claims, press regulator Ipso rules.", "Police and rail bosses condemn a social media post featuring a car parked on a level crossing.", "A negative test had been due to be required from Friday, but ministers said people needed time to prepare.", "Post-primary schools get extra time to decide how they will admit pupils after transfer tests are cancelled.", "Plastic surgeons express shock at the stabbing of \"highly respected\" Graeme Perks in his home.", "Red tape plus a \"poor\" Brexit deal mean fishermen fear for the future, says an industry body.", "A selection of your pictures of Scotland sent in between 8 and 15 January.", "In one health board, 30% of four and five-year-olds are overweight or obese.", "The couple, who both have coronavirus, were given \"precious\" time together, their daughter says.", "Even experienced exporters are struggling with the system, says the British Meat Processor Association.", "Details and reaction as First Minister Mark Drakeford promises more protection to shop workers.", "It comes after reports that protections including the 48-hour work week could be dropped.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Friday morning.", "Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the action is needed to protect against the risk of new Covid strains.", "He helped kick-start punk and new wave, and was an influence on the Sex Pistols and Guns N' Roses.", "Move follows concern over a new Covid variant which an expert says has already been found in the UK.", "Statistics agency Nisra says 145 deaths were registered last week, bringing its pandemic total to 1,976.", "The show of military strength comes days before the inauguration of Joe Biden as US president.", "Craig Ross was quoted as saying food bank users were \"far from starving\" and more at risk of diabetes.", "The Home Office says it is working to \"assess the impact\" of the issue, which has been resolved.", "Homes worry about being sued if people contract the virus while they are staying there.", "Richard Sharp says the BBC represents good value, but how it is funded \"may be worth reassessing\".", "Scientists warn UK deaths will continue to rise as the global death toll passes two million.", "Coronavirus restrictions in England affected services, with pubs and hairdressers badly hit.", "Antonio says he felt he was discriminated against because of his skin colour when he was sectioned.", "Reports from Manaus say medical staff are begging for help in a critical situation due to Covid-19.", "The NHS fears some communities are being targeted with misinformation, a leading doctor says.", "Replacement exam grades are likely to arrive earlier and be decided by teachers and a test.", "Donations of plasma from people who have recovered from the virus have been suspended.", "A variant that is thought to be more infectious has not been found in the UK, scientist says.", "A letter from police chiefs also says 213,000 records were lost - more than first thought.", "Pharmacist Llyr Hughes said 50 patients would be given the Covid vaccine at his pharmacy on Friday.", "The R number in the UK is officially estimated at 1.2-1.3 as a further 1,280 deaths are reported.", "Hospitals with large critical care capacity are taking patients from other areas to ease pressures.", "The Saved by the Bell actor became ill last week and was taken to hospital.", "Network Rail said a 24m section of side wall fell away from a bridge between Carmont and Stonehaven.", "On Thursday, 16 more deaths related to Covid-19 were recorded along with 973 new positive cases.", "The earthquake struck the island of Sulawesi on Friday, injuring hundreds and destroying a hospital.", "US police held back a mob for hours in a \"barbaric\" battle at the Capitol. Here are their stories.", "A respiratory doctor at the Mater Hospital warns that oxygen supplies are under \"extreme pressure\".", "Wayne Rooney is named as Derby County's new manager, with the ex-England captain also announcing his retirement from playing.", "David Chambers is accused of charging the woman £160 for a bogus jab.", "The footballer joins celebrities and campaigners to call for action in a letter to the prime minister.", "Mr Leonard says it is in the best interests of the party if he stands down as leader immediately.", "The government says the funding will connect \"left-behind\" communities.", "Tens of thousands of people join some of the largest rallies against President Vladimir Putin in years.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Saturday morning.", "It is claimed they were seen drinking on Welsh Parliament premises when a ban on its sale in pubs was in force.", "Campaigners say a government fund to pay for the removal of dangerous cladding is woefully inadequate.", "One says he is surprised Boris Johnson shared the early data when it is \"not particularly strong\".", "It brings the total number of deaths to 97,329.", "Keon Lincoln was attacked by a group of youths in the Handsworth area of Birmingham.", "Police uncover a string of late-night \"incredibly selfish\" parties in Kensington and Chelsea.", "Pressures on intensive care units are seeing one in 10 patients transferred to a different site.", "Photographs of National Guard members sheltering underground spark anger among lawmakers.", "Some elderly people have been told to travel miles to get the jab or face having to wait to get it.", "A shortage of shipping containers, rising costs, and congestion at ports are holding back imports from China.", "Presented as a safe pair of hands, he struggled to make himself heard during tumultuous times.", "Some will enable women to have overnight visits with their children, the Ministry of Justice says.", "Underground investigations are due to begin on Saturday after flooding linked to old mine shaft.", "Booking a jab by following a link in an email meant \"depriving someone else\" of a vaccine, he said.", "Vitinha's superb goal sees Wolves into the fifth round of the FA Cup at the expense of non-league Chorley.", "As the UK rejects £500 Covid pay outs, how are others countries getting people to stick to the rules?", "A study finds the new coronavirus variant is responsible for pushing the R rate above the crucial 1.0 mark.", "Injections are to be delivered at Black Country Living Museum where the series has in part been filmed.", "The vaccination centres temporarily closed in south Wales as a weather warning was extended.", "The popular US broadcaster conducted about 50,000 interviews, from Nelson Mandela to Lady Gaga.", "Pavithra Wanniarachchi, Sri Lanka's health minister, tested positive for Covid on Friday.", "Anybody struggling to get to an appointment will be able to rearrange, a health board says.", "Boris Johnson said he looked forward to \"deepening the longstanding alliance\" between the UK and US.", "NHS staff rally to arrange a wedding for a couple as the groom's condition deteriorates in hospital.", "Evidence suggests the variant that emerged in the UK may be more deadly as well as faster-spreading.", "In the city where the virus first emerged there is now an insistence that it came from elsewhere.", "The chief rabbi has described the event as a \"shameful desecration of all that we hold dear\".", "Delaying second Pfizer doses to give more people their first is \"difficult to justify\", says BMA.", "Inadequate PPE and a new variant may be putting the lives of nurses at risk, says nursing union.", "Manchester City score three times in the last 10 minutes to defeat League Two side Cheltenham and avoid one of the biggest shocks in FA Cup history.", "Thirty-nine Vietnamese migrants suffocated in a sealed container en route to Essex in October 2019.", "Police hold aides to Putin critic Alexei Navalny as opposition activists start a string of rallies.", "Under coronavirus restrictions a maximum of 30 people are meant to attend a funeral.", "Boris Johnson has not ruled out further action to secure the borders amid concerns over Covid variants.", "Worship has been suspended as burials average 15-a-day, yet still there is denial about the disease.", "AstraZeneca is the latest company, after Pfizer, to warn of delivery issues, frustrating officials.", "The UK's chief medical adviser warns that \"a very small change and it could start taking off again\".", "An intensive care doctor says medics are seeing \"unprecedented\" numbers of people dying.", "They were hit while licking freshly laid salt on a road which is a black spot for animal accidents.", "And another 964 people died within 28 days of a positive test, only slightly down on Wednesday's figure.", "Objects are thrown and officers threatened as they break up the New Year's Eve party in Essex.", "As the UK prepares to sever EU ties, Stanley Johnson says he has always regarded himself as French.", "Campaigners say cutting of the 5% VAT rate on tampons and sanitary towels ends a 'sexist' tax.", "Japan's prime minister says the delayed Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will go ahead this summer despite concern over rising coronavirus cases.", "Doctors urge public to \"take it seriously\" and follow coronavirus restrictions amid rising cases.", "The British dance band make some of their biggest hits available for the first time.", "The new year celebrations featured a tribute to the NHS and a message from David Attenborough.", "Bishop, who recently tested positive for Covid-19, said boarding the Tardis was \"a dream come true\".", "Joe Anderson says Labour should pick another candidate while he seeks to clear his name.", "Former Manchester United and Scotland manager Tommy Docherty dies at the age of 92 following a long illness.", "The first minister warns Scotland could be entering the most dangerous period since the outbreak began.", "Manchester United move level on points with Premier League leaders Liverpool as a Bruno Fernandes penalty seals victory over Aston Villa.", "NHS England says the facility is available to help the capital's hospitals as Covid-19 cases rise.", "The designer of the scene says it is not the first time it has been targeted.", "Several hundred people gathered at Edinburgh Castle despite warnings to stay away.", "Education Secretary Gavin Williamson drops plan to keep primaries open in 10 boroughs in the city.", "Footage is released of the first police-involved death in the US city since George Floyd's in May.", "Staff absences and the new Covid variant are creating a \"challenging situation\", NHS Providers warn.", "A study finds the new coronavirus variant is responsible for pushing the R rate above the crucial 1.0 mark.", "Primary schools in only 10 of London's boroughs are due to reopen next week.", "One of hip-hop's most influential MCs, masked rapper MF Doom died in October, his family confirm.", "It comes as most people heeded warnings to stay home - but police issued fines to those who didn't.", "With a Brexit deal done, we look at the challenges to come at British borders.", "The UK’s new single market is not as big as the country, it now needs to encompass the whole world.", "Some lorries heading for Ireland have already been turned away from Welsh ports over wrong paperwork.", "Health Minister Vaughan Gething urges \"patience\" as the vaccine programme steps up in Wales.", "Nine people are still missing, two days after a hillside collapsed due to flowing clay mud.", "The finance minister had visited the Caribbean while his province is under strict Covid lockdown.", "The UK will now leave a 12-week gap between both parts of the Covid vaccination, rather than 21 days.", "The trade border means most commercial goods entering NI from GB now require a customs declaration.", "Boris Johnson celebrates the \"freedom in our hands\" as the long Brexit process comes to a conclusion.", "Firework displays and some religious rituals go ahead, although Covid mutes celebrations.", "The station will reflect on the world's longest-running serial drama across its output on Friday.", "The deal - yet to become a treaty - enables Spanish workers to continue entering Gibraltar freely.", "Omar Elabdellaoui, who plays for Turkish club Galatasaray, suffers burns and is taken to hospital.", "A new campaign is launched to urge people not to become complacent about the Covid restrictions.", "A total of 1,596 patients are in Scottish hospitals with Covid as pressures on the NHS continue to build.", "Kim Jong-un calls the US his \"biggest enemy\" and says plans for a nuclear submarine are nearly complete.", "Two women were fined £200 after driving five miles to walk around Foremark Reservoir, Derbyshire.", "A self-employed father-of-three calls on UK government to be \"more flexible\" with its Covid support.", "Breakdown of what happened when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol amid a key Senate vote.", "Vincent Kane does not know when his operation will happen, having been delayed due to the pandemic.", "The property investment firm is accused of trying to \"jump the queue\".", "As Covid patients waited at Royal Glamorgan Hospital the nurse had a fear of \"wanting to leave\".", "Advertising campaign warning people not to get complacent comes as 1,325 deaths are recorded in the UK.", "Criticism of new Brexit trade rules is growing as firms warn of more bureaucracy, higher costs and delays.", "The vaccines were administered on Saturday by a household doctor at Windsor Castle, a royal source says.", "The Welsh Government is in discussions with supermarkets about bringing \"more visible\" regulations.", "Use our search tool to find out about coronavirus rules and restrictions where you live.", "A record 68,053 cases are also reported as a third vaccine is approved for use in the UK.", "Bernard Thomas was rescued from the rubble of Pantglas primary school on 21 October, 1966.", "The gym owners were given a £1,000 fine after three people were found inside on Friday.", "The friends said they were relieved people would not have to fear being fined for taking a walk.", "Terence Glover \"ploughed\" into a group of children in his car as they were leaving school.", "A timeline of international air crashes from 1998 to the present.", "West Ham manager David Moyes says footballers must not be \"picked on\" for breaching coronavirus guidelines.", "Councillor Kevin Hughes missed his mother's funeral after testing positive for coronavirus.", "US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says contact between officials should no longer be \"shackled\".", "There are concerns the new variant may spread too easily to be controlled by lockdown.", "Apple will also remove the social network from its App Store if it does not change its policies.", "As countries look to quickly vaccinate people, BBC reporters explain what's happening across Europe.", "At least six police vans are deployed to Clapham Common where about 30 protesters gathered.", "Ross Kemp and Christopher Biggins do readings at the funeral of the EastEnders and Carry On actress.", "The farm has been left with over 4,000 surplus eggs after schools suddenly closed to most pupils.", "The Duke of Cambridge says he wants his three children to appreciate sacrifices made during Covid.", "He claims her evidence to an inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against him was \"untrue\".", "Thousands more people have taken up fishing during the pandemic, figures show.", "Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove says \"work is ongoing\" to improve trade from GB to NI.", "Meanwhile almost half of people took advantage of Christmas bubble rules, a national survey suggests.", "How Trump's favourite social media site banned him - permanently.", "A London fashion student made the \"social distancing bandeau\" out of a Chiltern Railways seat cover.", "Kelvin Hopkins has previously denied claims by a party activist of inappropriate physical contact.", "He is remembered for the 7 Up documentary series which followed the lives of 14 children since 1964.", "Eva Williams was unable to travel to the United States for treatment due to coronavirus.", "Four deaths are reported as Storm Filomena dumps snow and triggers floods across the country.", "He hopes to beat his own lockdown bulge with his \"Get Buzzin' With Bez\" YouTube classes.", "The new more infectious variant requires tougher measures to control the spread of Covid, say scientists.", "Another 1,035 people have died, taking the total since the start of the pandemic to 80,868.", "The mayor says in some parts of London 1 in 20 people has Covid-19, as he declares a \"major incident\".", "More than 100 cars are turned away from a beauty spot in north Wales, police say.", "The total number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test during the pandemic is now above 90,000.", "The convicted murderer and music producer was described as \"talented but flawed\" in an online story.", "Police in Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire say they are expecting flooding in their regions.", "An eyewitness speaks publicly for the first time about the 2015 death of a man being restrained by police.", "Tory rebels hope to get another chance to outlaw trade deals with countries involved in mass killings.", "Lisbet Stone was turned away from her flight to London due to having an outdated Covid test.", "US tariffs on Scotch whisky and cashmere remain in place as UK fails to reach deal with Washington.", "Marion Dawson from Renfrewshire is the third oldest person in Scotland to be given the vaccine.", "Europe is gradually easing lockdown measures ahead of the tourist season.", "People accused of crimes in England and Wales - and alleged victims - wait years for a resolution.", "One person is killed and at least 10 are injured after vehicles collide on the Tohoku Expressway.", "Top medical adviser suggests schools in England may reopen region by region after lockdown.", "The Duchess of Sussex is suing the Mail on Sunday over the publication of her letter to her father.", "But researchers warn there is still a risk of catching and passing the virus on to others again.", "Out of 23,000 professors in UK universities only 155 are black, official figures reveal.", "Court cases face serious delays in the UK and lawyers say more investment in technology would help.", "The government is being scrutinised over trade deals with countries with poor human rights records.", "People who say Boris Johnson does not want Joe Biden as president are \"mistaken\", says Lord Sedwill.", "Police found evidence of sub-standard care at the Caerphilly home, an inquest hears.", "Matt Hancock says he will stay at home and urged others to do the same if \"pinged\" by the app.", "A collection of your tributes to some of the thousands of people in the UK who have died with coronavirus.", "The UK's push to secure a deal over fossil fuels is being undercut by a decision to allow a new coal mine, MPs warn.", "The number of people needing intensive care is expected to continue rising for at least two weeks.", "Ex-Marine John Deacy, 81, died with Covid-19 just two weeks after his last shift at the supermarket.", "Mainland Scotland and some islands to remain under toughest coronavirus rules until at least mid-February.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Tuesday evening.", "Labour accuses Kwasi Kwarteng of \"unpicking\" workers' rights, as minister confirms he will review rules.", "The unnamed man lived in Verbier, where the incident happened, police said.", "Boris Johnson promises £23m in compensation for exporters which have lost orders due to delays.", "Many parents struggle to meet their children's needs during the pandemic, say researchers.", "Alex Davies-Jones said \"like so many others\" she put off having a test for months.", "Paul Reid was the first person to reach Saffie-Rose Roussos, eight, after the bomb was detonated.", "Nicola Sturgeon says although there is \"cautious grounds for optimism\" on case numbers, the strictest rules will remain in place.", "Live updates from Trump's last hours in office before Democrat Joe Biden is sworn in as president on Wednesday.", "The artwork has been returned to an Italian museum - whose staff were unaware it was missing.", "A survey by consumer group Which? raises concerns over coronavirus leading to more cashless stores.", "Creator of the BBC crime drama says he \"always wanted to end Peaky with a movie\".", "University of Edinburgh scientists are a step closer to being able to reverse the damage caused by MND.", "Tory MPs want Parliament to debate ending trade deals with countries deemed responsible for genocide.", "Orthodox Christians, Putin among them, take an icy dip to commemorate a special day.", "The BBC speaks to Nirmal Purja, from the team of the first climbers to reach the K2 summit in winter.", "The UK has not always \"lived up to its values\" under Boris Johnson, his predecessor Theresa May says.", "Ambulance service staff in London explain the unique pressures of working during a pandemic.", "Pressure grows on PM after non-binding motion on universal credit top-up is passed by 278 votes.", "Are court backlogs creating miscarriages of justice? Helen Grady investigates.", "The Protection of Workers Bill will make it a new specific offence to assault, abuse or threaten Scottish retail staff.", "India pull off an astonishing run-chase to inflict Australia's first defeat at the Gabba since 1988 and take one of the all-time great series.", "The first minister says her statement to MSPs will concern the duration of Scotland's restrictions.", "Some 10% of the UK population is showing signs of recent infection, a doubling since October, says ONS.", "David Urpeth says smart motorways without a hard shoulder carry \"an ongoing risk of future deaths.\"", "A further 1,610 people die with Covid in the UK as Scotland extends its lockdown to mid-February.", "Campaigners are bringing a judicial review for indirect sexual discrimination on Thursday.", "All practices will have their own rollout plan but they have to meet official targets, says GP committee.", "Staff say there was a Covid outbreak after the \"party\" in a shut patisserie at Marylebone station.", "Hackers are selling Depop app account details on the dark web for as little as 77p each online.", "The bank has named the branches that will close between April and September, but aims to avoid redundancies.", "Large parts of northern and central England are expected to face sustained heavy rain from Tuesday.", "The PM leads UK politicians from all parties condemning the riot at the US Capitol building.", "One hospital boss said a two-week \"lag\" meant things could get worse before they get better.", "He wrote 30 novels about relationships and adventures involving young African American characters.", "That includes some of the most vulnerable patients who should soon have \"significant\" protection against the virus.", "He will lead negotiations with the government over the future of the licence fee.", "New 2020 car registrations sink to a 30-year low and see biggest one-year drop since the Second World War", "The bakery chain says it does not expect profits to return to pre-Covid levels until 2022 at the earliest.", "President Trump initially accused China of the hack against US government agencies in December.", "Joe Biden says it is \"totally unacceptable\" police showed more leniency in the Capitol riot than at anti-racism protests.", "All eyes are on the Senate runoff in Georgia, a key race that could help define Biden's presidency.", "Latest figures show more than 90,000 people in Scotland had received a first vaccination by late December.", "But there are fears bottlenecks in the system may hamper how fast NHS can deliver vaccines.", "The 19-year-old suffered life-changing injuries during the \"vicious\" assault in north London.", "Founder Annemarie Plas says the initiative will return on Thursday under the new name of Clap for Heroes.", "The US star says she had \"no idea\" what questions were included in a game bearing her image.", "Gavin Williamson will \"trust in teachers rather than algorithms\" in awarding this year's results.", "The hip-hop star and producer says he is \"doing great\" and \"getting excellent care\".", "A hearing is deciding whether Khairi Saadallah was motivated by a religious or ideological cause.", "The sites, including football stadiums and racecourses, will begin operations next week.", "Staff at one of London's busiest hospitals say it's not going to take much for services to soon break.", "BBC Two and CBBC will show content for primary and secondary pupils to watch without the internet.", "The police officer who the FBI said fired the fatal shot is dismissed for breaching policy.", "The government closed schools to help reduce the virus spread but says nurseries should stay open.", "Investment company Hipgnosis buys a half share of 1,180 songs by the Canadian folk rocker.", "The latest executive order by the US president will only take effect after he has left office.", "Cases have fallen below England's but the new variant is spreading fast, the health minister says.", "As Trump supporters entered the US Capitol building, politicians halted debate inside.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday morning.", "The US Capitol has gone into lockdown amid violent clashes between police and Trump supporters, who broke security lines and are inside the building.", "The investigators were turned back, with Beijing saying \"there might be some misunderstanding\".", "President Trump and others have made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in two Senate election run-offs.", "US lawmakers and staff are seen wearing protective gas masks as police draw guns on protesters.", "In a TV address, Labour's leader says millions of doses need to be given each week by the end of January.", "One scam tells recipients they are \"eligible to apply for your vaccine\" with a link to a bogus NHS website.", "At Fullwell Cross Medical Centre in north London, they are now vaccinating almost 1,000 people a week.", "Gordon Ramsay remembers late chef Albert Roux as \"the man who installed gastronomy in Britain\".", "The streaming giant is criticised for \"unfortunate\" timing during the new lockdowns.", "Roughly one in 50 people in England has got the virus, Prof Chris Whitty says.", "Details and reaction to a briefing by Wales' chief medical officer and the head of NHS Wales.", "Stores seek to reassure shoppers that there is no need to bulk-buy in new lockdown.", "It's been a \"Herculean achievement\" for Marieme and Ndeye, who survived against the odds.", "A top Chinese scientist addresses claims the coronavirus leaked from her lab in the city of Wuhan.", "The overnight temperature plunged below -12C in the north west Highlands.", "Former Manchester City and England midfielder Colin Bell dies aged 74 after a short illness, the Premier League club announces.", "The Trump administration pushes ahead with first oil lease sales in an Arctic wildlife refuge.", "A driver, who caused a Fife crash that led to his passenger losing her baby, admits causing death by dangerous driving.", "The news comes following confusion after her death was prematurely announced on Monday.", "All the latest news and results for the US Election 2020 from the BBC.", "Judge rules he has an incentive to abscond if allowed to leave jail before major appeal hearing.", "Drive-through and delivery services will still be available while it reviews its safety procedures.", "Head teachers warn replacement grades for GCSEs and A-levels must not repeat last year's \"disaster\".", "Leaders from around the world call for peace and a peaceful transfer of power in Washington.", "YouTube says the broadcaster posted banned Covid content, but it has decided to reinstate its channel.", "Poet Helen Mort is calling for a change in the law after images of her were edited with porn.", "Vocational exams such as BTECs are not being cancelled by the lockdown like GCSEs and A-levels.", "The government says it is considering the move to prevent the virus spreading \"across the UK border\".", "Stay-at-home orders are issued in England and Scotland, as UK classrooms face further disruption.", "There are concerns the new variant may spread too easily to be controlled by lockdown.", "The House of Commons approves the government's decision to impose tough restrictions across the country.", "FTSE 100 chiefs will by Wednesday have earned more this year than the average worker's annual wage.", "The BMA in Scotland says it is concerned about the potential impact of delaying the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.", "There will be a \"gradual unwrapping\" of England's lockdown, Boris Johnson tells MPs ahead of a vote later.", "Police say organisers padlocked the door from the inside to stop officers getting in.", "Tributes are paid to Robert Rowland following the accident near his home in the Bahamas.", "The first minister denies claims she knew about harassment allegations earlier than she told parliament.", "The online retailer wants to buy the brands, not their shops, suggesting any deal would cost jobs.", "It's been 10 years since New Zealand's Pike River mine disaster, and families of victims still feel raw.", "Philip Gannaway served in Wales in World War One and his grave lies thousands of miles from home.", "Tens of thousands of people join some of the largest rallies against President Vladimir Putin in years.", "Despite the furlough scheme, employers decided to cut a record number of jobs during 2020.", "The fast fashion retailer is not purchasing the stores or taking on its staff, the BBC understands.", "Ministers are due to meet on Monday to consider whether to tighten the UK's border restrictions further.", "Firms say they have been advised by officials to set up EU hubs, but the government says it is not policy.", "One says he is surprised Boris Johnson shared the early data when it is \"not particularly strong\".", "Pressures on intensive care units are seeing one in 10 patients transferred to a different site.", "Footage shows a police car apparently driving through a group at a street race in Washington state.", "Israel has vaccinated more than a quarter of its population and now high school students are eligible.", "The claim comes after a coroner ruled two deaths on the M1 motorway were avoidable.", "As high risk groups continue to be immunised there are growing concerns that people with learning disabilities have been missed out.", "Ministers are urged to intervene amid rising Covid infection numbers at the Swansea office.", "Booking a jab by following a link in an email meant \"depriving someone else\" of a vaccine, he said.", "Some of those leading the nation's vaccination effort have told of their experiences.", "A study finds the new coronavirus variant is responsible for pushing the R rate above the crucial 1.0 mark.", "The vaccination centres temporarily closed in south Wales as a weather warning was extended.", "A Sunday Times poll shows 51% of people in favour of holding a border poll in NI within five years.", "The popular US broadcaster conducted about 50,000 interviews, from Nelson Mandela to Lady Gaga.", "Entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX company delivers 143 satellites to orbit on a single rocket flight.", "Pavithra Wanniarachchi, Sri Lanka's health minister, tested positive for Covid on Friday.", "Boris Johnson said he looked forward to \"deepening the longstanding alliance\" between the UK and US.", "Keon Lincoln was attacked by a group of youths in the Handsworth area of Birmingham.", "He replaces Paul Davies who quit after drinking alcohol with other politicians in the Senedd.", "Conor McGregor is left stunned on his return to the UFC as Dustin Poirier wins their rematch at UFC 257 by technical knockout.", "The UK health secretary also says the UK has identified 77 cases of the Covid South Africa variant.", "Bruno Fernandes comes off the bench to fire Manchester United past fierce rivals Liverpool in a pulsating FA Cup fourth-round tie.", "Tens of thousands braved a police crackdown to show support for jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.", "Vaccination appointments for over-70s in Scotland will arrive on Monday as planned - but in white envelopes.", "Manchester City score three times in the last 10 minutes to defeat League Two side Cheltenham and avoid one of the biggest shocks in FA Cup history.", "Some guests were found hiding in cupboards when police raided student flats in Birmingham.", "Motorists are urged to take care with sub-zero temperatures forecast into Monday.", "England's deputy chief medical officer urges those who have had the jab to stick to lockdown rules.", "TV footage from China shows the first miner being brought to the surface, as emergency workers applaud.", "The extraordinary life of an American who invited hundreds of thousands to his Paris home for dinner.", "UK residents can apply for the new card to access emergency medical care when their EHIC card runs out.", "County Mayo man howls with laughter while trying to record a birthday message for his son.", "New Covid curbs are necessary but they will hit the economy, Chancellor Rishi Sunak warns.", "Health Secretary Matt Hancock says 2.3 million people in the UK have now had a Covid-19 vaccine dose.", "The Countryfile star will present the Friday and Saturday editions of the BBC Radio 4 programme.", "A 20-year-old man who spent a week in intensive care says many young people are in denial about Covid.", "Home Secretary Priti Patel says the \"horrifying\" death toll underlines the need to follow restrictions.", "Seven mass vaccination centres have opened across England to help deliver the Coronavirus vaccine.", "Kitchen robots, new TVs, smart masks and a toilet that analyses your poo are among the new products.", "Customers will only be able to collect from Waitrose stores following a \"change in tone\" from the government.", "The father of a Reading terror attack victim asks why the killer was not considered a danger.", "Deliveries may be delayed in 28 areas due to \"resourcing issues\", the postal group says.", "Khairi Saadallah murdered three friends in a Reading park in a \"ruthless and brutal” terror attack.", "Anna Wintour hit back at claims that the informal picture downplayed Ms Harris's achievements.", "Investors have agreed a deal to save the chain, along with Ponden Home and Bonmarché.", "Officials say 170 individuals involved in deadly Capitol riots have been identified, and many more will be.", "Scotland's first minister says the current restrictions are \"very unlikely\" to be lifted at the end of the month.", "The celebrated 94-year-old broadcaster is the latest celebrity to have a first dose of the vaccine.", "The decision follows a rise in cases across the emirates in the past week, officials say.", "The Earl of Strathmore attacked a woman in her room during an event he was hosting at Glamis Castle.", "Use our search tool to find out about coronavirus rules and restrictions where you live.", "A supermarket worker says door staff are facing abuse when they challenge those not wearing masks.", "The facility at the ExCeL Centre also has the capital's first mass vaccination centre on site.", "Overall, patients are now more likely to survive, but death rates are high in intensive care.", "Earlier this month videos showing supposed empty hospitals were shared on social media.", "A leaked memo warns several Birmingham hospitals risk being \"overwhelmed\" by coronavirus patients.", "Boris Johnson was spotted at the Olympic Park on Sunday, despite government advice to \"stay local\".", "A slump in demand for fashion and homeware during lockdown left many retailers struggling.", "Last year saw 697,000 deaths registered in the UK - 14% above what would be expected.", "Eugene Goodman was hailed for luring a mob away from the Senate - now new heroics have emerged.", "Tweeters query why it has not been given to a prominent Kenyan like actress Lupita Nyong'o.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Tuesday morning.", "People are still holding house parties, raves and gambling gatherings, the UK's most senior police officer says.", "Dutch TV films officials confiscating ham sandwiches from UK drivers under new food import rules.", "The increasing number of staff off work could prevent the NHS Louisa Jordan opening to Covid patients.", "The Northern Lights were visible overnight from Shetland, Moray and the Highlands.", "The manager of a care home says they were promised the jab on New Year's Eve - but none have arrived.", "Downing Street defends the PM, while the Met Police chief says he did not act \"against the law\".", "Fans of the University of Alabama football team gathered in the streets of Tuscaloosa, ignoring social distancing.", "We share the stories of some of the 12,000 people who have died with coronavirus in Scotland.", "There has been speculation over moves to make lockdown stricter, as infection rates remain high.", "Isabella Curry said she now feels safe and will be able to go out and meet friends soon.", "An RAF aircraft breaking the sound barrier causes a loud bang in skies across the East of England.", "Three vaccines have been approved in the UK - what are the differences between them?", "Derbyshire Police apologises to two women fined £200 for driving five miles for a countryside walk.", "Cwm Taf Morgannwg saw the highest number of weekly deaths and the highest number since April.", "More than a third of people using screens more in lockdown reported eyesight changes, a study suggests.", "The home secretary says she will back police to enforce virus rules, as another 1,243 die in the UK.", "New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick turns down Donald Trump's offer, citing the Capitol riots.", "Mohamud Mohammed Hassan was arrested at home on Friday but released without charge on Saturday.", "As countries look to quickly vaccinate people, BBC reporters explain what's happening across Europe.", "Donald Trump made the decision days before Joe Biden, who wants friendlier US-Cuban ties, takes office.", "The laptops and tablets will be delivered to schools in England to support disadvantaged pupils.", "It follows similar moves by Morrisons and Sainsbury's, but those with medical reasons will be exempt.", "Doctors at the hospital say they're treating more younger patients than in the first wave.", "People refusing to wear face coverings who are not medically exempt will not be allowed to shop inside.", "The social network has hit back asking a federal judge to order it to be reinstated.", "Ministers are reluctant to make the rules even tougher at the moment - but would never rule it out.", "A Typhoon aircraft \"safely escorts\" a civilian aircraft to Stansted Airport, an RAF spokesman says.", "Leicester City edge a keenly contested Premier League encounter with Southampton to maintain their push for a top-four place.", "Health and frontline workers are first in line for jabs at vaccination centres across the country.", "The number of incidents reported to the child safeguarding panel in England rose by a quarter.", "Some areas could see freezing temperatures and 5-10cm of snow on Saturday, the Met Office says.", "CBBC star's mother, Lucy Lyndhurst, says his death has had a \"catastrophic effect\" on their family.", "Sea port managers fear the shift may be part of a long-term trend to ship from the Irish Republic.", "A critical engine test for Nasa's new \"megarocket\" - the Space Launch System (SLS) - ends early.", "Heavy rain is causing flooding and travel disruption, with a warning for ice also forecast.", "Douglas Jones had been enjoying his dream job before the pandemic forced him to return home to southern Scotland.", "Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Joanna Lumley speak out about employees allegedly owed a total of £200,000.", "The Daily Telegraph must publish a correction over Covid claims, press regulator Ipso rules.", "Plastic surgeons express shock at the stabbing of \"highly respected\" Graeme Perks in his home.", "The UK prime minister wants girls' education in developing countries to be a key international focus.", "Everyone has heard about doctors and nurses catching Covid-19 but cleaners and porters have been worse hit.", "Health groups say NHS staff fear prosecution over decisions if hospitals are overwhelmed.", "Red tape plus a \"poor\" Brexit deal mean fishermen fear for the future, says an industry body.", "Louis Godwin, 95, said he was \"so pleased\" to get his Covid-19 vaccination at Salisbury Cathedral.", "People in parts of eastern England woke to a thick covering of snow on Saturday morning.", "Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the action is needed to protect against the risk of new Covid strains.", "Prime Minister Jean Castex said the measures would be in place for at least 15 days.", "Statistics agency Nisra says 145 deaths were registered last week, bringing its pandemic total to 1,976.", "Holiday firms are expecting a \"bumper year\" once lockdown restrictions are lifted.", "As the UK records its highest death toll, Fergal Keane has been to see the strain the NHS is under for the second time.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Saturday.", "The latest UK government data also shows a further 1,295 deaths with 28 days of a positive test.", "Lahiru Thirimanne's unbeaten 76 frustrates England as a spirited Sri Lanka rally on the third day of the first Test in Galle.", "The Gerry and the Pacemakers singer died from a blood infection at the age of 78.", "Hundreds of thousands of DNA and arrest records were deleted after a human error, the Home Office says.", "Centrist Armin Laschet is now in a good position to succeed Angela Merkel as Germany's chancellor.", "Health officials warn the highly contagious UK Covid variant could become the dominant strain in the US by March.", "Replacement exam grades are likely to arrive earlier and be decided by teachers and a test.", "Donations of plasma from people who have recovered from the virus have been suspended.", "Prince William says he \"really worries\" about the effect of the pandemic on front-line workers.", "A letter from police chiefs also says 213,000 records were lost - more than first thought.", "Network Rail said a 24m section of side wall fell away from a bridge between Carmont and Stonehaven.", "US police held back a mob for hours in a \"barbaric\" battle at the Capitol. Here are their stories.", "David Chambers is accused of charging the woman £160 for a bogus jab.", "A Belfast mother says there is \"compelling evidence\" that her daughter was abducted in Malaysia.", "Mount Semeru has erupted, pouring volcanic matter miles into the air and placing locals on alert.", "The latest death and case figures should be a \"bitter warning for us all\", Public Health England says.", "The total number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test during the pandemic is now above 90,000.", "At least three people have died in a suspected gas blast that destroyed four floors of a building.", "Police in Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire say they are expecting flooding in their regions.", "Some 1,820 deaths have been reported in the past 24 hours - surpassing yesterday's previous high.", "The package will also see police target dealers and health services help people with addictions.", "Congratulating Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the PM said it was a \"big moment\" for the UK and US.", "Marion Dawson from Renfrewshire is the third oldest person in Scotland to be given the vaccine.", "Boris Johnson faced questions on the UK's border policy, and the deletion of police records.", "The Duchess of Sussex is suing the Mail on Sunday over the publication of her letter to her father.", "There has been a fourfold increase in mortgage products for those offering a 10% deposit.", "The president responds to reports he is considering presidential pardons over alleged Russia collusion.", "Doris Hobday's family say they are \"totally heartbroken\" to lose her in this way.", "The big social networks are clamping down on threats of violence amid a tense wait for results.", "Some of the UK's biggest music stars sign an open letter demanding action over post-Brexit touring.", "The President-elect has a laundry list of priorities for his first 100 days in the White House.", "A collection of your tributes to some of the thousands of people in the UK who have died with coronavirus.", "The riots of 6 January took many by surprise, but to those tracking conspiracy and extreme right groups online, the warning signs were all there.", "Mainland Scotland and some islands to remain under toughest coronavirus rules until at least mid-February.", "Taking down pictures and clearing out desks is part of a huge operation readying for a new president.", "Labour accuses Kwasi Kwarteng of \"unpicking\" workers' rights, as minister confirms he will review rules.", "'This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge' - the new president knows how daunting his task is.", "Holidaymakers in 2021 must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the travel firm says.", "Boris Johnson calls it an \"outrageous\" error which officers are working \"round the clock\" to rectify.", "The new president is sworn into office by Chief Justice John G Roberts.", "The 22-year-old from LA is the youngest poet to perform at a presidential inauguration.", "Kamala Harris makes history as she is sworn in as US vice-president.", "Delays to smear tests in lockdown prompt cervical cancer charities to call for home-testing kits.", "It comes as industry workers warn their livelihoods are at risk due to Brexit border problems.", "Nine Met Police officers who broke lockdown rules have been asked to \"reflect on their choices\".", "Paul Pogba scores a superb winner as Manchester United reclaim top spot in the Premier League by coming from behind for a club-record equalling away win at Fulham.", "'This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge'. Read the 46th president's address in full.", "Online audiences for singalongs in the Llangollen church have \"exploded\", Father Lee Taylor says.", "Out-of-date tax systems mean people are falling through the cracks for help, MPs say.", "Orthodox Christians, Putin among them, take an icy dip to commemorate a special day.", "The ex-government adviser said the Tories would be seen as the \"nasty party\" by ending the top-up.", "They are all laughing at the camera, but what are the stories of the women next to Kamala Harris?", "More than 2,000 properties in Manchester are affected as police warn some occupants will have Covid.", "Services and waiting times must improve at the NHS's child gender-identity service, inspectors say.", "A further 1,820 people die in the UK within 28 days of a positive test - another all-time high.", "The UK has not always \"lived up to its values\" under Boris Johnson, his predecessor Theresa May says.", "The role of a president's inaugural cabinet goes beyond just policy - let's take a closer look.", "The body of Joy Morgan was found two months after a man was convicted of her murder.", "From \"the best talent in politics\" to \"Sloppy Steve\" and fraud charges - what went wrong for Steve Bannon?", "The Protection of Workers Bill will make it a new specific offence to assault, abuse or threaten Scottish retail staff.", "Donald Trump won a surprise victory in 2016 partly because he promised to shake things up. And boy, did he.", "The health minister asks the Ministry of Defence to help out, primarily at a number of hospitals.", "A National Audit Office report calls on the corporation to produce \"a long-term financial plan\".", "The last four years have been a whirlwind - we asked the experts to break down Trump's key moments.", "More work is needed to understand its benefits in schools in England given the new variant, health officials say.", "The BBC's James Cook returns to Monklands Hospital eight months on to find the staff struggling against the odds.", "President Biden inked 15 executive orders, moving to rejoin the Paris climate accord.", "His most famous Discworld novels were written in the house in Somerset, the estate agent says.", "Police say the van \"careered\" off the road and the man was rescued from the overturned vehicle.", "President Biden has said that democracy and 'freedom' are at stake in the upcoming 2024 election.", "All practices will have their own rollout plan but they have to meet official targets, says GP committee.", "The Duchess of Sussex is suing the Mail on Sunday over the publication of a letter to her father.", "Members of our voter panel all wish Joe Biden well, but they're divided over his chances of success.", "As Donald Trump prepares to leave office, here are some of the key moments of his presidency.", "A tearful President-elect Joe Biden says goodbye to his home state on the eve of his inauguration.", "Joe Biden makes his inaugural address as the 46th president of the United States.", "Parts of England prepare for widespread floods as Boris Johnson announces emergency Cobra meeting.", "Images from Joe Biden's swearing-in and first day as the 46th US President.", "The cupped clap of a butterfly's wings may be the key to their flying abilities and their survival.", "Relegation-threatened Fulham lose some of the momentum built up by their win at Everton but show battling qualities to claim a point at Burnley.", "The medical journal's editor says UK guidelines don't recommend giving different coronavirus jabs.", "They were hit while licking freshly laid salt on a road which is a black spot for animal accidents.", "Objects are thrown and officers threatened as they break up the New Year's Eve party in Essex.", "Former Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino is named Paris St-Germain boss following Thomas Tuchel's sacking.", "People driving to visit beauty spots in Wales are breaking Covid rules, a Snowdonia park warden says.", "The first doses of the latest coronavirus vaccination to be approved are due to be given on Monday.", "Japan's prime minister says the delayed Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will go ahead this summer despite concern over rising coronavirus cases.", "Doctors urge public to \"take it seriously\" and follow coronavirus restrictions amid rising cases.", "Bishop, who recently tested positive for Covid-19, said boarding the Tardis was \"a dream come true\".", "Arsenal continue their Premier League resurgence with a ruthless victory over strugglers West Brom at The Hawthorns.", "Manchester United move level on points with Premier League leaders Liverpool as a Bruno Fernandes penalty seals victory over Aston Villa.", "NHS England says the facility is available to help the capital's hospitals as Covid-19 cases rise.", "New detectorist Owen Thomas says \"the link with a life that's gone\" appeals to him.", "Just one ticket matched all seven numbers in the New Year's Day draw.", "A court has ruled that Lisa Montgomery can be executed on 12 January, despite appeals from lawyers.", "A last-ditch attempt to overturn the result is overturned, days before the White House changes hands.", "Education Secretary Gavin Williamson drops plan to keep primaries open in 10 boroughs in the city.", "Footage is released of the first police-involved death in the US city since George Floyd's in May.", "The New Year's Eve event, held in a warehouse in a village in Brittany, was shut down on Saturday.", "Volunteers at All Saints Church in East Horndon have praised those who donated £8,700 for repairs.", "A study finds the new coronavirus variant is responsible for pushing the R rate above the crucial 1.0 mark.", "Amanda Quinn, diagnosed with rapid early onset dementia, says lockdown has been a \"scary\" time.", "Up to 300 people gather in London's Hyde Park to protest at Covid-19 restrictions.", "Nine people are still missing, two days after a hillside collapsed due to flowing clay mud.", "It comes as a further 57,725 people test positive for the virus, a new daily high.", "Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho says he is \"disappointed\" after three of his players breached coronavirus rules by attending a party over Christmas.", "The frontman, who found success with songs such as Summer in Dublin, \"passed away suddenly\" aged 65.", "The cryptocurrency's gain so far this year was almost $5,000 - after the value surged 300% in 2020.", "The government said soldiers had been sent to protect the area, close to Niger's border with Mali.", "All the latest news and results for the US Election 2020 from the BBC."], "section": ["Europe", "UK Politics", "Europe", "UK Politics", "Northern Ireland", "Family & Education", "Business", "UK", "Glasgow & West Scotland", "In Pictures", "Family & Education", "Manchester", "Health", "Birmingham & Black Country", "Business", "Wales", "South Scotland", "Northern Ireland", "Entertainment & Arts", "UK", "US & Canada", "Business", "Entertainment & Arts", "US & Canada", "Health", "Northern Ireland", "Manchester", "UK", "Business", "Wales", null, "US & Canada", "UK", "Northern Ireland", "Business", "US & Canada", "Northern Ireland", "Wales", "Business", null, "US & Canada", "England", "UK", "UK", "US & Canada", "Northern Ireland", "Wales", "Somerset", "US & Canada", "Bristol", "Northern Ireland", "Science & Environment", "UK", "Northern Ireland", "UK", "Business", null, "Kent", "In Pictures", "Wales", null, "Family & Education", "UK", 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Video footage showed the aftermath of the deadly explosion\n\nAt least three people have died following an explosion that caused a building to partially collapse in centre of the Spanish capital, Madrid.\n\nA fourth person was missing and several others were hurt, officials said.\n\nCity officials said the blast, which destroyed four floors of the building, had been caused by a gas leak.\n\nMayor José Luis Martínez Almeida told reporters after the blast that a fire was raging inside the building, which belongs to the Catholic Church.\n\nThe blast happened shortly before 15:00 local time (14:00 GMT) as gas workers were repairing a boiler at the back of the building in the central Puerta de Toledo area of Madrid.\n\nAn 85-year-old woman passer-by and two men were killed while a third man who had been working on the boiler was missing, Spanish media reported. One of the injured was in a serious condition and taken to hospital, according to officials.\n\nSpanish reports said the upper floors affected were being used to house local priests.\n\nRescue workers evacuated more than 50 people from a care home next-door to the building in Caille de Toledo, but a school on the other side was closed at the time of the blast.\n\nFour floors of the building were destroyed in the explosion, which could be heard in many areas of Madrid. Images shared on social media showed billowing smoke and debris strewn along the street.\n\nEmergency services said nine fire crews and 11 ambulances were at the scene and some of those caught up in the blast were treated on the street.\n\nFour floors of the building were destroyed in the explosion\n\nPolice officers cleared the area, closing it to all traffic and pedestrians, and appealed to local residents not to come near.\n\n\"The noise was very loud, very loud, really,\" Lorenzo Fomento, who was working from home at a nearby apartment, told AFP news agency. \"I never heard anything so loud before,\" he added.\n\nThe director of the nursing home, Antonio Berlanga, said all the elderly residents were fine and places were being found for them to spend the night.", "The EU has maintained its diplomatic mission in the UK after Brexit\n\nA diplomatic row has broken out between the UK and EU over the status of the bloc's ambassador in London.\n\nThe UK is refusing to give Joao Vale de Almeida the full diplomatic status that is granted to other ambassadors.\n\nThe Foreign Office is insisting he and his officials should not have the privileges and immunities afforded to diplomats under the Vienna Convention.\n\nIt is understood not to want to set a precedent by treating an international body in the same way as a nation state.\n\nAs it stands, the ambassador would not have the chance to present his credentials to the Queen like other diplomatic heads of mission.\n\nThe British decision is in marked contrast to 142 other countries around the world where the EU has delegations and where its ambassadors are all granted the same status as diplomats representing sovereign nations.\n\nJosep Borrell, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, has written to the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, to express his \"serious concerns\".\n\nThe issue is expected to be discussed by EU foreign ministers next Monday when they meet for the first time since the post-Brexit transition period ended on 31 December.\n\nThe Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office wants to treat the EU delegation only as representatives of an international organisation.\n\nThis means EU diplomats would not have the full protection of the Vienna Convention, giving them immunity from detention, criminal jurisdiction and taxation.\n\nThe rights given to staff of international organisations are more ad hoc and less fixed.\n\nThe EU argues it is not a typical international organisation because it has its own currency, judicial system and the power to make law.\n\nIn his letter to Mr Raab last November, seen by the BBC, Mr Borrell says: \"Your service have sent us a draft proposal for an establishment agreement about which we have serious concerns.\n\nAmbassadors of nation states have certain privileges - including being able to present their credentials to the Queen\n\n\"The arrangements offered do not reflect the specific character of the EU, nor do they respond to the future relationship between the EU and the UK as an important third country.\n\n\"It would not grant the customary privileges and immunities for the delegation and its staff. The proposals do not constitute a reasonable basis for reaching an agreement.\"\n\nEU officials privately accuse the Foreign Office of hypocrisy because when the EU's foreign service - known as the External Action Service - was set up in 2010 as a result of the Lisbon Treaty, the UK signed up to proposals that EU diplomats be granted the \"privileges and immunities equivalent to those referred to in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 18 April 1961\".\n\nOne EU source said: \"It seems petty. This is not about privileges, it's about principle. What does it say about the UK, about how much the British signature is worth?\"\n\nSome in the EU also fear hostile states might copy the UK and downgrade the protections granted to EU diplomats in their own countries. This could open them up to being harassed and make them easier for them to be expelled.\n\nA European Commission spokesman said: \"The UK, as a signatory to the Lisbon Treaty, is well aware of the EU's status in external relations, and was cognisant and supportive of this status while it was a member of the EU.\n\n\"The EU has 143 delegations, equivalent to diplomatic missions, around the world. Without exception, all host states have accepted to grant these delegations and their staff a status equivalent to that of diplomatic missions of states under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and the UK is well aware of this fact.\"\n\nHe added: \"Nothing has changed since the UK's exit from the European Union to justify any change in stance on the UK's part.\n\n\"The EU's status in external relations and its subsequent diplomatic status is amply recognised by countries and international organisations around the world, and we expect the United Kingdom to treat the EU Delegation accordingly and without delay.\"\n\nA Foreign Office spokesperson said: \"Engagement continues with the EU on the long-term arrangements for the EU delegation to the UK. While discussions are still ongoing, it would not be appropriate for us to speculate on the detail of an eventual agreement.\"", "\"You need to take care of each other,\" President Macron told students in Paris\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron has promised all university students two meals a day for one euro (88p; $1.21) to help them cope during lockdown.\n\n\"We must be able to provide better support,\" he said at a meeting with students in Paris on Thursday.\n\nIt follows protests in which students called for more help to tackle loneliness and financial problems.\n\nFrance is currently under a 18:00-06:00 curfew, and coronavirus cases have risen steadily in recent weeks.\n\nMr Macron, who addressed students at Paris-Saclay university, also said the government would provide subsidies to pay for counselling and other mental health services.\n\nThe subsidies would take the form of a voucher which students can redeem if they feel the need to talk to a mental health professional, the president said.\n\nHe added that the discounted meals would be available from university canteens and other nearby outlets that are providing takeaways.\n\n\"We remain in a period of uncertainty,\" Mr Macron said. \"We will have a second semester that will have the virus and a lot of constraints.\"\n\n\"You need to take care of each other,\" he added.\n\nThe president spoke a day after students took to the streets to demand more attention from the government. They sought to raise awareness of the rising mental health problems many say they are suffering as a result of the pandemic.\n\nA combination of isolation, inactivity and concerns about the job market has left many students close to breakdown, according to university psychologists.\n\nRyan Kennedy says the French government is failing to take student issues seriously\n\n\"I've lived alone in a studio apartment since September - it's the first time I've ever lived alone,\" Ryan Kennedy, a 19-year-old law student in Montpellier, told the BBC.\n\nHe added: \"Not a day goes by without a friend calling me because they're struggling with their mental health.\"\n\nHeïdi Soupault, a political science student from Strasbourg, sent a letter to Mr Macron last week. \"I no longer have dreams,\" she said. \"If we have no hope or prospects for the future at 19, what do we have left?\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"Our mental health goes downhill in situations like this.\"\n\nMany of the protesting students are calling for a return to face-to-face teaching. Some first-year students will be able to return to the classroom from 25 January.\n\nBut, on Thursday, Mr Macron said all students should be allowed on campus once a week providing certain measures are in place.\n\n\"Given what your generation has already gone through, we cannot but take into account your right to some on-site presence, to exchange with your teachers, and to meet with other students,\" he said.\n\nFrance has had a curfew in place since December, but this was tightened on 16 January to the current hours of 18:00-06:00.\n\nBars, restaurants, theatres, cinemas and ski resorts remain shut. Schools, however, are open with extra testing in place.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Johnson: \"It's a big moment for us - we have things we want to do together.\"\n\nThe inauguration of President Joe Biden is a \"step forward\" for the United States, which has \"been through a bumpy period\", Boris Johnson has said.\n\nCongratulating Mr Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, the UK PM said it was a \"big moment\" for the UK and the US and their \"joint common agenda\".\n\nMr Johnson said he looked forward to working with the US on tackling climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nMaking his inaugural address, Mr Biden said \"democracy has prevailed\".\n\nHe promised to be a president \"for all Americans\" and said his \"whole soul is in putting America back together again\".\n\nOutgoing President Donald Trump, who has not formally conceded to Mr Biden, did not attend the ceremony.\n\nPresident Biden began work straight away on reversing a number of his predecessor's policies, including rejoining the Paris climate change agreement - gaining the praise of Mr Johnson.\n\nThe PM tweeted it was \"hugely positive news\", adding: \"I look forward to working with our US partners to do all we can to safeguard our planet.\"\n\nEarlier this week the former head of the civil service Lord Sedwill suggested Mr Johnson would be glad Mr Trump had not been re-elected for a second term as US president.\n\nWriting in the Daily Mail, Lord Sedwill said those who believed Boris Johnson would have preferred Mr Trump to win again were \"mistaken\".\n\nThe former cabinet secretary - who stepped down in September - said a second term for Mr Trump \"would not have been to the benefit of British or European security, to transatlantic trade, let alone the environmental agenda to which the prime minister is so committed\".\n\nBoris Johnson with Donald Trump at the G7 summit in 2019\n\nMr Johnson's public stance toward the former president has varied over the years.\n\nIn 2015, when he was Mayor of London, Mr Johnson accused Mr Trump of \"stupefying ignorance\" over his comments about violence in the city.\n\nBut as foreign secretary, following Mr Trump's election as president, he said there was a \"lot to be positive about\", and in 2019, praised his \"many good qualities\".\n\nFor his part, Mr Trump has appeared largely supportive of Mr Johnson, backing his flagship Brexit policy and at one point saying of the British PM: \"They call him Britain Trump.\"\n\nAnd echoing his predecessor, in 2019 Mr Biden described the UK prime minister as a \"physical and emotional clone\" of Mr Trump.\n\nAfter winning the presidential election Mr Biden phoned Mr Johnson ahead of other European leaders and expressed his desire to strengthen the historic \"special relationship\" between the two countries.\n\nSpeaking on Wednesday, Mr Johnson said it was the job of all UK prime ministers to have a \"good, close working relationship\" with US presidents but, right now, there were many things the two countries \"wanted to do together\".\n\n\"When you look at the issues which unite me and Joe Biden, the UK and the US right now, there is a fantastic joint common agenda,\" he said. \"For us and America, it is a big moment.\"\n\nHe said he hoped the UK could help the US commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 in the run up to the climate change conference COP 26, to be held in Glasgow this year.\n\nUK prime ministers like to consider American presidents as their best diplomatic friend.\n\nThat relationship, particularly when it comes to security and defence, is unusually close.\n\nWhen, as with Donald Trump, that friend has been unpredictable and unconventional, that has made for some very awkward political moments.\n\nSo for the government, this a really important and positive turning of the page.\n\nThe terribly over-used phrase the 'special relationship', which provokes neurotic behaviour on this side of the Atlantic, has meant the most when there has been a genuine personal chemistry between the two leaders - whether Thatcher and Reagan, or Bush and Blair.\n\nThere is nothing automatic about Mr Biden and Mr Johnson developing that kind of political friendship.\n\nBut in the words of one former senior minister, for the UK Biden means \"we will lose exclusivity but gain predictability: easier to work with, less cringeworthy and more dependable, but we may not be the only girlfriend on speed dial\".\n\nSpeaking to the Guardian, shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy described Mr Biden as \"a woke guy\".\n\nAsked if he agreed, Mr Johnson said: \"I can't comment on that. What I know is that he's a firm believer in the transatlantic alliance and that's a great thing.\"\n\nHe added that there was \"nothing wrong with being woke - I put myself in the category of people who believe that it's important to stick up for your history, your traditions and your values, the things you believe in.\"\n\nOpposition leader Sir Keir Starmer also sent his congratulations to the new president and vice-president.\n\n\"The US begins a new chapter in its history, one of hope, decency, compassion and strength,\" the Labour leader said, adding \"together, our two nations can build a better, more optimistic future for our world.\"\n\nAnd First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: \"Warm congratulations and best wishes to President Biden and Vice President Harris.\n\n\"Scotland and the USA share long-standing bonds of friendship and co-operation. We look forward to building on these in the years ahead.\"\n\nWriting in the Daily Mail, former UK Prime Minister Theresa May said Mr Biden's election presented the UK with a \"golden opportunity\" for Western democracies to reverse the trend towards \"absolutism\" - and a \"few strongmen facing off against each other\" - in global affairs.\n\nThe Queen sent a private message to Mr Biden before his inauguration, Buckingham Palace has said.", "Food supply problems into Northern Ireland from Great Britain are \"clearly a Brexit issue\", Ireland's foreign affairs minister has said.\n\nSimon Coveney said the shortages were \"part of the reality\" of the UK leaving the EU.\n\n\"Let's not pretend Brexit doesn't force that kind of change,\" he said, speaking on ITV's Peston programme\n\nOn Tuesday, the NI secretary said images of empty supermarket shelves had \"nothing to do with the protocol\".\n\nRather, Brandon Lewis argued the disruption caused by coronavirus before Christmas was responsible for the shortages of some food products.\n\nThe Northern Ireland Protocol between the UK and the EU requires health certifications on animal-based food products entering NI from the rest of the UK.\n\nMr Coveney said it meant \"very real change\" for some businesses, as there now had to be a \"certain number of checks\" on goods from Britain into Northern Ireland.\n\nHe said that some companies were not ready for this.\n\nMr Coveney said the Republic of Ireland would work with the UK and EU to \"make sure\" supermarket shelves were not empty in the future.\n\nHe said the Brexit divorce deal agreed with the EU by then-prime minister Theresa May would have caused less separation from Northern Ireland from the UK.\n\nAsked about Mr Coveney's comments, International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said the disruption had been \"down to both\" Covid and Brexit - but defended the situation.\n\nSpeaking on the Peston programme she said \"there was always going to be a period of adjustment for businesses\" and \"we are now seeing a more rapid flow of goods into Northern Ireland those supermarket shelves are being stocked\".\n\nMs Truss said the government would continue to support businesses, and that \"predictions of Armageddon haven't happened\".", "The education secretary has said he would \"certainly hope\" schools in England could reopen before Easter.\n\nGavin Williamson said he was \"not able to exactly say\" when pupils would go back but schools would be given two weeks' notice before reopening.\n\nPrimary and secondary schools remain closed, apart from to vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers.\n\nDowning Street said the prime minister wanted schools to open as quickly as possible but would follow the evidence.\n\n\"If we can open them up before Easter then we obviously will do but that is determined by the latest scientific evidence and data,\" the prime minister's official spokesman said.\n\nThe Downing Street spokesman was also less specific about the promise of two weeks' notice, saying: \"We want to give schools as much notice as possible.\"\n\nSchools have been closed to most pupils so far this term, with primary schools closing after one day back, in response to rising Covid levels.\n\nPupils have been told they will be learning at home until at least half-term in mid-February.\n\nBut Mr Williamson was pressed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme whether he could guarantee that schools would reopen at all this term, before the Easter holidays.\n\n\"I want to see them, as soon as the scientific and health advice is there, open at the earliest possible stage - and I certainly hope that would be certainly before Easter,\" said the education secretary, who's responsible for schools in England.\n\nHe said schools and parents would have \"absolutely proper notice\" of when children were going to return, which he said would be a \"clear two weeks\" for teachers and families to get ready.\n\nA lesson from the first lockdown was that it's much harder to reopen schools than to close them.\n\nParents and teachers have to be persuaded again it's safe to go back, families need advance notice to plan their work and childcare, schools need to organise their staffing.\n\nAnd there are other parents who will be pushing for schools to go back as soon as possible, in addition to the vulnerable and key workers' children already attending.\n\nFor Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, already under pressure, it means a high-stakes balancing act - and it clearly remains uncertain whether this will happen for all schools before the Easter holidays.\n\nWhat seems likely, from Mr Williamson and England's deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries, is that this could be a patchwork return beginning after half-term, rather than a single starting date, depending on local levels of the virus.\n\nThe biggest teachers' union, the National Education Union, said schools and parents needed certainty and not a \"stop-start approach\".\n\nLast week Mr Williamson indicated to the Commons education committee that schools in some parts of the country might stay closed at the end of the lockdown, with a return to the \"contingency\" arrangements, under which schools in areas of high infection would be shut.\n\nOn Tuesday, England's deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries also said schools might reopen region by region in a phased return after half-term.\n\nLabour has accused the education secretary of causing \"chaos and confusion\" and called on him to resign.\n\nParty leader Sir Keir Starmer said providing two weeks' advance notice of opening was \"good news coming from an education secretary who normally gives them about 24 hours' notice\".\n\nSir Keir said the government needed to \"give children the ability to learn at home now\" and \"get on with the blindingly obvious\" task of getting testing in place in schools.\n\nAsked about his own future, Mr Williamson said: \"Our focus is making sure that we get the very best of remote education out to all children across the country, making sure that we return schools at the earliest possible moment.\"\n\nIn terms of his own achievements, the education secretary said: \"I'll let other people do the grading.\"\n\nSchools have also been closed by other governments in the UK. In Scotland and Northern Ireland they will remain closed until at least the middle of February, while in Wales the next review of restrictions will be on 29 January.\n\nThe government has also paused plans to roll out rapid daily coronavirus testing in all but a small number of secondary schools and colleges, with health officials saying the new variant meant the risk of missing infections had risen.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Keir Starmer on Gavin Williamson: \"You would struggle... to find many people who would give him more than an F.\"\n\nBut Mr Williamson emphasised that mass testing in schools would continue, clarifying that it was the daily tests for those who had been in contact with a positive case which had been stopped.\n\nThe education secretary was also challenged on the fairness of setting tests as part of the replacement for cancelled GCSEs and A-levels, considering pupils will have missed different amounts of time in school.\n\nMr Williamson said the tests were only \"one element\" for deciding replacement results, which would be based on teachers' grades.\n\n\"That's why we're asking teachers to make a judgement in the round. We're asking teachers to look at the work they've been doing over the whole period of time they've been studying the course,\" he said.", "Low-deposit mortgages have made a return as the market emerges from a Covid-related slowdown.\n\nMortgage products for homeowners with a deposit of 10% of their property's value have risen more than fourfold compared with last summer's low.\n\nThe increase, based on figures from financial information service Moneyfacts, could offer some relief to first-time buyers.\n\nBut the cost of mortgages will remain an issue for many.\n\nIn early September last year, there were only 44 mortgage products available for those able to offer a 10% deposit. At the same time, first-time buyers putting money aside for a deposit were faced with pressures of poor savings rates and rising house prices.\n\nThat choice has now risen to 197 products, according to the Moneyfacts figures, with some big lenders returning in recent weeks.\n\nMortgage products for those able to offer a 15% deposit have also risen sharply, although the choice was already much greater.\n\n\"First-time buyers who may have been concerned that with record low savings rates and increasing house prices, their homeownership dreams may have had to be shelved, may have been pleased to note that we are now seeing some providers return products for those with 10% deposits,\" said Eleanor Williams, from Moneyfacts.\n\nLenders had been grappling with the practical effects that the coronavirus pandemic brought to their business.\n\nWhile some new businesses targeted first-time buyers on social media, many traditional lenders withdrew products from the market.\n\nStaff shortages, and employees working from home, meant they were unable to process applications as fast as they had before the pandemic.\n\nThere were also concerns among lenders that, despite strong activity in the housing market, riskier - and younger - first-time buyers could find it difficult to make mortgage repayments during an economic slowdown caused by the pandemic.\n\nResearch has shown that younger workers are more at risk of redundancy.\n\nAaron Strutt, from mortgage broker Trinity Financial, said lenders were now working more efficiently despite staff still being at home.\n\nHe said that some of the biggest mortgage lenders had returned to the market. Some of the mortgage rates they were offering were not as attractive as they had been, but competition would help push down costs.\n\n\"If you are planning to purchase a property and have a 10% deposit the mortgage rates are not as cheap as they used to be, but they are getting better,\" he said.\n\nMany thousands of existing mortgage-holders who had struggled to make their repayments during the pandemic had taken payment \"holidays\", which are deferrals on payments.\n\nThe latest figures from UK Finance, which represents lenders, show that 130,000 mortgage payment holidays were in place at the end of December 2020, down from a peak of 1.8 million in June last year.", "US President Joe Biden is now speaking from the White House about how his administration will tackle the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nHe says he has been meeting with his Covid response team, and it will “take months” to turn around the situation in the country.\n\nToday he is going to unveil a “national strategy” on Covid-19, he says, which is “comprehensive” and is based on “science and not politics”.\n\nThe plan, which consists of 198 pages, will start with an “aggressive, safe and effective” vaccination campaign.\n\nBut it will take months to protect everyone, he says, so in the meantime, \"mask up\", he tells the American people.\n\nWearing a mask, he says, is \"a patriotic act\".\n\nTo follow our coverage of his first day, head here.", "The emergency department at Glasgow's Queen Elizabeth University Hospital is the biggest and busiest in Scotland.\n\nAmbulances keep arriving, bringing more patients. In a curtained cubicle, one man is explaining to the doctor that he's been in pain for days, but he put off coming in \"because of everything that's going on\".\n\nDr Alan Whitelaw, who runs the department, says that while there might be fewer patients coming through his door, there are no longer any \"easy wins\".\n\n\"Those that are coming are the sick people,\" he says. \"We are undoubtedly seeing the effects of people not seeking healthcare for six to 10 months.\n\n\"We are seeing disease that we wouldn't always see and we are seeing it further down the road.\n\n\"We are making more diagnoses that potentially would be made in primary care or outpatient clinics. On top of that we've got lots of Covid patients coming through the door.\n\n\"So it is those two things together that currently put the NHS under that significant pressure.\"\n\nAll over Scotland, hospitals are under severe pressure, with some treating significantly more coronavirus patients than they did during the first wave of the pandemic.\n\nPublic visitors are not allowed at the QEUH, but BBC Scotland was given special permission to film to highlight the impact of Covid and the importance of following lockdown rules.\n\nOn the day of the BBC's visit, there are 244 Covid patients. Critical care is running at capacity, and across the whole hospital it's a constant challenge to find space for new patients.\n\nDr Whitelaw says the level of unpredictability is extreme. His team has run out of spare beds.\n\n\"We are ten months into strange and difficult times. It's winter, no-one's had a holiday, no-one's had much downtime.\n\n\"Hospitals are fuller in winter, beds are tighter and patients are sick\".\n\nUpstairs, one ward that previously treated patients with infectious diseases like flu or norovirus, is now a Covid ward. All 28 beds are full.\n\nSome patients here are recently diagnosed, others are coming to the end of their isolation, while some have been stepped down from critical care, but need rehabilitation.\n\nSenior charge nurse Karen Paton says it feels like patients are now sicker for longer.\n\n\"We've had this going on for more or less a year now and staff are beginning to feel the emotional distress of it,\" she says.\n\n\"Having to deal with patients succumbing to coronavirus, and just having the emotions of all the patients not being able to have contact from their families.\n\n\"I think it's beginning to take its toll on everybody.\"\n\nCovid patient Gerry Gilroy says QEUH staff have been \"superb\"\n\nIn one room on the ward is Gerry Gilroy, who tested positive for Covid in late December. By 8 January, the day of his 66th birthday, he could barely get out of bed and couldn't eat.\n\n\"It just hit me and I knew there was something not right,\" he says.\n\n\"I know how serious it is. I never thought it would hit me. It's been a bit of an experience but thankfully I'm on the mend.\n\n\"The staff here are superb. When I get out of here, if I can do something for the NHS I'm going to. Doctors, cleaners, nurses, all top drawer.\"\n\nThe impact of Covid is being felt across the hospital. The acute receiving area used to be the first stop for people who needed urgent surgery.\n\nNow it's where medics like Dr Colin Perry assess Covid patients sent in by their GP or NHS 24. It's another area that's full.\n\n\"In the first wave our ICU was busy and it remains very busy, but during that period we had free beds,\" says Dr Perry.\n\n\"This time we have much more pressure on the downstream ward areas, so it is harder to manage the wider needs of the hospital and make room for patients to move through the system.\n\n\"The numbers are far higher than they were a year ago.\"\n\nRepurposing so many wards to treat coronavirus patients has meant some routine work had to be postponed, but staff are working to prioritise all different kinds of treatment.\n\nHelen Dorrance is a senior surgeon who specialises in bowel cancer at the QEUH. On the day the BBC visits she is operating on patients from another hospital to help relieve pressures there.\n\nDemand for critical care makes it difficult to operate some services, but cancer treatment is still running.\n\n\"We work together as a team across the region to make sure people who are the highest priority get dealt with,\" she says. \"But everyone gets their fair share and access to the care they need.\n\n\"It's not a choice, we do have to provide the best care we can for Covid patients and my critical care colleagues are stepping up to the mark.\n\n\"But the rest of us are making sure the rest of the service runs the way it should, so if you have your heart attack or stroke the right people are there to give you the best care.\"\n\nComing to hospital for any reason during the pandemic is a different experience, and services are stretched.\n\nBut the emergency department's Dr Whitelaw adds that no matter what happens, they will cope.\n\n\"We don't come to work to worry or be fearful, we come to work to do our best and to help,\" he says.\n\n\"I think there's an uncertainty about what the next two to three weeks look like.\n\n\"It might be very, very challenging but I have absolute faith that the staff here will continue to do everything that is required.\n\n\"I think the public should be reassured that no matter what is thrown at us we will definitely get through it.\"", "A council worker in Didsbury, Manchester, checks a bridge for damage, after heavy rainfall. On Thursday morning, there were more than 200 flood warnings in place across the country", "There is still no long-term decision on whether to cut fees as a review recommended\n\nUniversity tuition fees in England will be frozen at a maximum of £9,250 for the next academic year.\n\nThe Department for Education (DfE) said a longer-term decision on cuts to fees would be delayed until the next Comprehensive Spending Review.\n\nBut education sector groups said the government \"is wasting an opportunity\" to help university students.\n\nMinisters also set out plans to improve post-16 vocational education including student loans for adult learners.\n\nThe DfE also launched a consultation on changing the timetable for applying to university - to a so-called \"post-qualification admissions\" system.\n\nThis would mean admissions being based on the grades achieve by students, rather than not relying on predictions.\n\nThe government outlined its plans for higher education reforms for over-18s in response to a landmark review, commissioned by the government from finance expert Philip Augar. Its recommendations were published in May 2019.\n\nPlanned reforms include making £2.5bn available for technical qualifications for adult learners through the National Skills Fund, a lifelong student loan entitlement for up to four years of higher education and the prioritising of funding for STEM subjects.\n\nBut the Augar review's recommendations to reduce tuition fees to £7,500, alongside implementing reforms to minimum entry standards and foundation years at universities, were not addressed in this latest response.\n\nThe DfE said given the pandemic \"now is not the right time to conclude the review in full\".\n\nAny further reforms are expected to be announced at the next Spending Review.\n\nMr Augar also suggested the return of maintenance grants for poorer university students as part of his review, but there was not mention of this in the interim response.\n\nUniversity and College Union general secretary Jo Grady said: \"Sadly this interim response confirms that there will not be a radical change to the current system.\n\nThe Augar review recommended tuition fees should be cut to £7,500 and maintenance grants reintroduced\n\n\"The Westminster government is wasting an opportunity to make a real difference for students and institutions.\"\n\nProf Julia Buckingham, president of Universities UK , welcomed the prospect of lifelong loans, saying \"it is encouraging to see government's commitment to making lifelong learning opportunities more accessible to all\".\n\nHowever, Prof Buckingham said \"government should provide maintenance grants for those who need them the most, including those considering studying shorter courses on a modular basis\".\n\nAs part of its Skills for Jobs White Paper, published alongside higher education reforms, the DfE said it wanted to \"put an end to the illusion that a degree is the only route to success and a good job and that further and technical education is the second-class option\".\n\nA white paper is a policy document produced by the government to set out their proposals for future legislation.\n\nIn December, the government announced that tens of thousands of adults without an A-level or equivalent would be able to benefit from nearly 400 fully-funded courses from April.\n\nIt was the first major development in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Lifetime Skills Guarantee (LSG) scheme, which was launched in September.\n\nThe government wants to boost the status of vocational education\n\nMr Johnson said it would mean \"everyone will be given the chance to get the skills they need, right from the very start of their career\".\n\nEducation Secretary Gavin Williamson said: \"These reforms are at the heart of our plans to build back better, ensuring all technical education and training is based on what employers want and need, whilst providing individuals with the training they need to get a well-paid and secure job.\"\n\nBritish Chamber of Commerce director general Adam Marshall welcomed the plans to put the skills needs of businesses at the heart of further education.\n\n\"As local business leaders look to rebuild their firms and communities in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it is essential to ensure that the right skills and training provision is in place to support growth,\" he added.\n\nBut organisations representing school and college leaders are also sceptical that there is enough funding for the further education sector to deliver on the proposals.\n\nIn November, an the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said FE colleges and sixth forms faced significant financial uncertainty.\n\nChief executive of the Association of Colleges David Hughes said: \"Colleges have been calling for this, after years of being overlooked and underutilised, but government has to not only recognise the vital college role, it also needs to increase funding.\"", "Video caption: David Olusoga learns the stories of the first inhabitants of the house in the 1840s-50s.\n\nDavid Olusoga learns the stories of the first inhabitants of the house in the 1840s-50s.", "One of the mysteries of Covid-19 is why oxygen levels in the blood can drop to dangerously low levels without the patient noticing.\n\nIt is known as \"silent hypoxia\".\n\nAs a result, patients have been arriving in hospital in far worse health than they realised and, in some cases, too late to treat effectively.\n\nBut a potentially life-saving solution, in the form of a pulse oximeter, allows patients to monitor their oxygen levels at home, and costs about £20.\n\nThey are being rolled out for high-risk Covid patients in the UK, and the doctor leading the scheme thinks everyone should consider buying one.\n\nA normal oxygen level in the blood is between 95% and 100%.\n\n\"With Covid, we were admitting patients with oxygen levels in the 70s or low-or-middle 80s,\" said Dr Matt Inada-Kim, a consultant in acute medicine at Hampshire Hospitals.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's Inside Health: \"It was a really curious and scary presentation and really made us rethink what we were doing.\"\n\nDr Inada-Kim became the national clinical lead of the Covid Oximetry@home project.\n\nA pulse oximeter slips over your middle finger and shines a light into the body. It measures how much of the light is absorbed in order to calculate oxygen levels in the blood.\n\nIn England, they are being given to people with Covid who are over 65, younger but have a health problem, or anyone doctors are concerned about. Similar schemes are being rolled out across the UK.\n\nPeople measure and record their oxygen levels three times a day.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by Health Education England - HEE This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nIf oxygen levels drop to 93% or 94%, then people speak to their GP or call 111. If they go below 92%, people should go to A&E or call 999 for an ambulance.\n\nStudies, which have not been reviewed by other scientists, have shown even small drops below 95% are linked to an increased risk of dying.\n\nDr Inada-Kim said: \"The point of this whole strategy is to try to get in early to prevent people getting that sick, by admitting patients at a more salvageable point in their illness.\"\n\nChris Harris, who is 70, was one of the first patients to benefit from the scheme.\n\nHe was being treated for a urinary infection in November last year, but then when he developed unexpected flu-like symptoms his GP sent him for a Covid test. It was positive.\n\n\"I don't mind admitting I was in tears, it was a very stressful, frightening time,\" he told Inside Health.\n\nHis oxygen levels dropped a couple of percentage points below the normal zone, so after a call with his GP, he went to hospital.\n\nAt this point he was still feeling fine, but things changed the day after he was admitted.\n\n\"My breathing started to get a little bit laboured, I had a high temperature as the days went on, [my oxygen levels] were progressively getting lower, they were in their 80s,\" he told me.\n\nChris was treated, did not need intensive care and has made a full recovery.\n\nHe said: \"I may have gone [to hospital] as the very last resort and that's the frightening thing. It was the oxygen meter that forced me to go, I would have just sat it out thinking I would recover.\n\n\"I am extremely lucky and very, very grateful.\"\n\nHis GP, Dr Caroline O'Keefe, says she has seen a massive increase in the number of people being monitored.\n\nShe said: \"On Christmas Day we were monitoring 44 patients, today I have 160 patients who I am monitoring daily. So we are certainly busy.\"\n\n\"We've had to quadruple the size of our team in the last two weeks.\"\n\nOverall, NHS England has supplied around 300,000 pulse oximeters for the home-monitoring scheme.\n\nDr Inada-Kim says there isn't definitive proof that the gadget saves lives and it could take until April to know for sure. However, the early signs are all positive.\n\n\"What we think we can see are the early seeds of a reduction in the length of stay after a hospital admission, an improvement in survival and a reduction in the pressures on the emergency services,\" he said.\n\nHe is so convinced of their role in tackling silent hypoxia that he said everyone should consider buying one.\n\n\"Personally I would, and I know a number of colleagues who have bought pulse oximeters to distribute to their loved ones,\" he said.\n\nHe advised checking they had a CE Kitemark and to avoid apps on smartphones, which he said were not as reliable.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA mosque has become the first in the UK to open as a Covid vaccination centre.\n\nThe Al-Abbas Islamic Centre in Balsall Heath, Birmingham is expected to vaccinate up to 500 people a day.\n\nThe imam, Sheikh Nuru Mohammed, said he hoped it would help dispel false information that the vaccine was forbidden in Islamic law.\n\nNHS England said it fears disinformation could be causing some in the UK's South Asian communities to reject the Covid vaccine.\n\n\"It will send a strong message to our Muslim brothers and sisters. We are doing this to say a big 'no' to fake news and a big 'yes' to the vaccine,\" Sheikh Nuru said.\n\n\"Muslim scholars advise us to get the vaccine because the sanctity of life is important in Islam.\"\n\nImam Sheikh Nuru Mohammed said he hopes the opening of the vaccination centre will help dispel false information\n\nDr Rizwan Alidina, a trustee of the mosque and member of the Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group said: \"The significance of the venue is obviously quite evident with particularly the Muslim community being one of the communities with a bit of a lower uptake than we would otherwise have expected.\"\n\nHe said there had been a good response to the opening of the centre at the mosque and hoped it would soon be carrying out between 300 and 500 vaccinations a day.\n\nNHS England regional medical director for London Dr Vin Diwakar told a Downing Street press conference some communities had \"legitimate and understandable concerns about the vaccines\".\n\nHe said despite it being a \"safe and effective vaccine\", for some Asian and black communities there were \"longstanding concerns\" that \"go back generations\".\n\nDr Diwakar said some people were \"told by their grandparents that experiments were done in the early part of the last century, that unethical experiments were done way back in the 60s\".\n\nSpeaking at the Downing Street briefing, Home Secretary Priti Patel also sought to counter disinformation targeted at people from minority ethnic backgrounds.\n\n\"This vaccine is safe for us all,\" she said.\n\n\"It will protect you and your family... So I urge everyone from across our wonderfully diverse country to get the vaccine when their turn comes to keep us all safe.\"\n\nOne of the first to get the jab at he Birmingham mosque, retired GP Dr Masud Ahmad, said his message to others in the local community was \"that it's quite safe to have it and they should have it\".\n\nOther places of worship, including Salisbury Cathedral and Lichfield Cathedral, opened as vaccine centres last week.\n\nThe Al-Abbas Islamic Centre is administering the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Thousands of London taxi drivers plan to sue Uber for damages alleging the ride-hailing firm operated unlawfully.\n\nThe planned group legal action could, if successful, hit Uber with a bill for millions of pounds.\n\nThe action, part of a planned anti-Uber campaign by black-cab drivers this year, claims it didn't follow private hire rules between 2012 and 2018.\n\nUber said it \"operates lawfully in London and these allegations are completely unfounded\".\n\nThe group action, which will be launched by law firm Mishcon de Reya, will allege that for six years Uber operated unlawfully in London.\n\nTaxi rules in London mean that people have to contact a centralised office for minicabs, whereas they can hail a black cab on the street.\n\nThe lawsuit will claim that between 2012 and 2018, Uber let people hail its drivers directly, contravening those rules.\n\nLitigation specialist RGL Management, which is also working with the cabbies to bring the case, said more than 4,000 had signed up so far.\n\nThere are about 5,200 further registrations being processed, with hundreds of enquiries per day, it said. The firm is funding a marketing campaign, and is looking to sign up as many as 30,000 eligible drivers.\n\nA full-time driver over those six years could claim about £25,000 in lost earnings, it added. The group action is aiming to bring a case to the High Court no later than the first quarter of 2022.\n\nThis is not the first time that London's black cabs have done battle with Uber, but today's announcement shows neither side have conceded defeat.\n\nThe proposed claim itself is huge - loss of earnings for up to 30,000 drivers for nearly 6 years - and comes at a time when London black cabs and private hire vehicle drivers are struggling for work after nearly a year of lockdowns and restrictions.\n\nUber might now have its licence back, but the black cabs aren't willing to give them an easy ride.\n\nAn Uber spokeswoman said: \"Uber operates lawfully in London and these allegations are completely unfounded.\n\n\"We are proud to serve this great global city and the 45,000 drivers in London who rely on the app for earnings opportunities, and are committed to helping people move safely.\"\n\nUber has had a torrid history in the UK capital including previous lawsuits.\n\nIn February 2019 cab drivers lost a legal challenge which argued that Uber's London operating licence was granted by a biased judge.\n\nUber then went on to lose its licence to operate in London in November 2019 after safety concerns.\n\nBut in September last year it was spared a London ban after a judge upheld an appeal against Transport for London's decision over safety.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drone footage captures the extent of the damage the bridge over the River Clwyd\n\nFinancial help has been promised to those affected by serious flooding, the Welsh Government has announced.\n\nPeople have been forced to leave their homes and a major incident declared after Storm Christoph struck.\n\nAbout 80 people were evacuated during flooding thought to be related to mine works in Skewen, Neath, while 30 were evacuated in Bangor-on-Dee, Wrexham.\n\nThe Welsh Government said it would work with councils to deliver £500-£1,000 payments to affected households.\n\nEnvironment minister, Lesley Griffiths, said people across Wales were facing the \"twin problems\" of floods and the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nShe said: \"We will support people in these circumstances just as we did in the aftermath of storms Ciara and Dennis last year, by working with local authorities to make support payments of between £500 and £1,000 available for each household flooded.\"\n\nSevere flood warnings remain in place across Wales as river levels remain high.\n\nIn the Lower Dee Valley a severe flood warning remains in force, from Llangollen to Trevalyn Meadow, and a major incident was declared in Bangor-on-Dee.\n\nWrexham council leader Mark Pritchard said teams worked to ensure the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, made on Wrexham Industrial Estate, was not lost in the floods.\n\nFirefighters in Skewen waded through water up to their thighs amidst reports of evacuated homes\n\nAbout 80 people were evacuated in Skewen, including residents of a care home, after at least eight streets were left under water.\n\nEmergency services said there were no injuries and all those evacuated had been found accommodation, but people are asked to avoid the area.\n\nIn Denbighshire, a bridge linking Trefnant to Tremeirchion over the River Clwyd collapsed in the storm. The council said it would be investigating the cause of the flooding, which forced road closures and evacuations.\n\nNatural Resources Wales (NRW) said the River Dee, which runs through Bangor-on-Dee, was at its highest recorded level since the water gauge became operational in 1996 - 16.45m (54ft).\n\nIt urged people across Wales to remain vigilant, with river levels not set to have peaked until late Thursday evening, adding they would remain high until Friday morning.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Met Office said over the past two days Wales had the highest rainfall of the four UK nations.\n\nBetween 19 and 21 January, Aberllefenni in Gwynedd saw 188mm (7.5in) of rain, more than average rainfall for Wales for the whole of January, which is 156.89mm (63in).\n\nThat was followed by 180mm (7in) in Crai reservoir, Powys, 169.8mm (6.6in) in Treherbert, Rhondda Cynon Taf, and 166mm (6.5in) in both Maerdy, RCT, and Capel Curig, Conwy.\n\nLlechryd bridge in Ceredigion has been completely submerged by the River Teifi\n\nUp to 30 people were forced out of their homes in Bangor-on-Dee, Wrexham\n\nNatural Resources Wales said the River Dee was at its highest level since the water gauge became operational\n\nThe flooding threatened the supply of the coronavirus Oxford vaccine, which is produced at Wrexham Industrial Estate.\n\nWrexham council leader Mr Pritchard said it had to work to \"make sure we didn't lose the vaccinations in the floods\".\n\n\"I've been up all night... it's a very difficult time for us,\" he added.\n\nNorth East Wales Search and Rescue helped people whose homes were flooded in New Broughton, Wrexham\n\nWockhardt UK, which manufactures the vaccine, said at about 16:00 GMT on Wednesday, excess water surrounded part of its buildings.\n\n\"The site is now secure and free from any further flood damage and operating as normal,\" it said.\n\nThe clean-up has begun in Ruthin\n\nA multi-agency statement described the situation in Bangor-on-Dee as a \"major incident\".\n\nIt said: \"As a severe weather warning indicates that there is a risk to life...\n\n\"The evacuation effort continues, with all routes in and out of the village currently closed to the public due to the flooding.\"\n\nEarlier, some residents in Ruthin were told to leave their homes - people have been told Covid rules allow them leave their homes in an emergency.\n\nMeanwhile, a man's body was recovered from the River Taff near Blackweir in Cardiff.\n\nDozens of ducks and chickens, and 12 huskies were rescued by the RSPCA from a flooded farm in Bangor, while they also took hay to two donkeys stranded by flood water in Mold.\n\nSome 12 huskies had to be rescued after their kennels flooded\n\nDave Brown said the flooding in his home in Broughton, Flintshire, was horrific and his mother-in-law was rescued by firefighters.\n\n\"You don't realise the damage water does and everything that floats - the sheer volume of water. I am 6ft tall and it almost took me out,\" he said.\n\nDave Brown's mother-in-law was rescued from their home in Broughton, Flintshire\n\nWrexham council said some of the people forced to leave their homes were with relatives, while it found others accommodation after having to initially seek refuge in a church hall.\n\nNine properties in Berse Road in New Broughton were also evacuated.\n\nThe situation in Ruthin, Denbighshire, overnight was \"horrendous\", town councillor Stephen Beach said.\n\n\"The whole of Ruthin was on edge,\" he said.\n\n\"Some people were accommodated at the leisure centre, and others were offered places to stay by local residents. The community was superb.\n\n\"It was the sheer volume of water that came down - there was no stopping it.\"\n\nA yellow weather warning for ice for Wales has been issued by the Met Office until 10:00 GMT on Friday, with concerns it could lead to travel disruption, slips and falls.\n\nNumerous flood warnings and alerts remain in place across Wales, including two severe flood warnings.\n\nThe agency said flood defences were being used and river levels at Holt, Wrexham, would remain high for some time.\"There is therefore a significant risk of localised flooding problems and due to that the severe flood warning will remain in place until the levels drop,\" Keith Iven of NRW said\n\nIn Monmouthshire roads were closed following flooding, and the council said while water levels at the River Usk were dropping, a \"second peak\" on the River Wye had been expected on Thursday night.\n\nThe council had warned people living in Riverside Park, Monmouth, may be impacted and council workers were prepared to offer support.\n\nRiver Tywi has burst its banks in Carmarthen, affecting nearby businesses\n\nMid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service said it had attended 98 flooding-related incidents\n\nIt said it deployed swift water rescue teams to rescue 13 people from vehicles in floodwater. It also winched vehicles from water and pumped water from properties.\n\nIn Cardiff, emergency services attended a crash involving a number of vehicles at about 07:40 on the A4232 between Culverhouse Cross and the M4.\n\nNo-one was seriously injured, but both carriageways were closed for just over an hour. The road has since reopened.\n\nIn Carmarthen, people were treated for the effects of fumes after using a generator to pump water from their homes.\n\nIn Knighton and Crickhowell in Powys, crews spent Wednesday night pumping out a number of properties.\n\nIn Borth, Ceredigion, floodwater hit the water treatment plant, an electrical substation and eight properties.\n\nOgwen Valley Mountain Rescue Team had to rescue a man from the roof of his car.\n\nIt said he had tried to drive through the river ford along the road from Llandygai to Bangor, in Gwynedd, but had become stuck in deep water and had climbed onto the roof. He was not injured.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Derek Brockway - weatherman This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRhondda Cynon Taf council said it was aware of a minor landslip on the mountainside above Pentre.\n\nIt said an initial inspection determined there was no immediate threat to the area and a further detailed inspection would be carried out on Friday. It asked people to avoid the area.\n\nBangor-on-Dee has been badly hit by Storm Cristoph\n\nDozens of roads have been closed across Wales, and while Covid rules are in place stopping people from travelling apart from for essential reasons, people are being warned not to travel in affected areas due to widespread flooding.\n\nChris Lloyd from North Wales Mountain Rescue Association warned people to not visit flood-hit areas to view the damage.\n\nHe told BBC Radio Wales: \"People who are going out to look at the floods are not only putting themselves at risk, but putting additional people on the roads which professional emergency services don't want - we don't want any more incidents.\"\n\nDenbighshire council said Ysgol Bodfari in Denbigh and Ysgol Caer Drewyn, Corwen, which had been open for vulnerable children and the children of critical workers, have been closed.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The A9 south of Inverness was among the worst affected routes\n\nHeavy snowfall during Storm Christoph has caused travel disruption in parts of Scotland.\n\nVehicles were stuck on the A9 south of Inverness and many roads in the Borders were affected by snow.\n\nThe Queensferry Crossing was closed for a time earlier due to the risk of falling ice before later reopening.\n\nAn amber alert for south-east Scotland was lifted at 08:00 but yellow alerts are in place in other parts of the country until Friday.\n\nTraffic was queued on the A9 after lorries and cars became stuck in snow between Tomatin and Carrbridge.\n\nTractors were used to tow lorries on to cleared stretches of the road.\n\nHeavy snow has also closed the main route to Applecross at the Bealach na Ba.\n\nThe Queensferry Crossing has been reopened after being closed earlier due to the risk of falling ice\n\nThe A939 Cock Bridge to Tomintoul road in Moray was closed after Police Scotland shut the snowgates due to the wintry conditions.\n\nSnow had also affected traffic on parts of the M8.\n\nOn the Highlands' Far North Line, a landslip between Fearn and Tain stations has affected services.\n\nNetwork Rail Scotland said a section of the railway was open with a 5mph speed restriction in place.\n\nChris Tracey, Bear Scotland's south east unit bridges manager, said the Queensferry Crossing was temporarily closed for the safety of bridge users.\n\nHe said: \"We had already mobilised additional ice patrols in response to the weather forecast and the bridge was closed at 04:00 when staff observed ice falling from the structure.\"\n\nThe bridge was reopened after the risk had passed.\n\nEdinburgh is one of the areas where heavy snow has fallen\n\nPolice Scotland has urged people to avoid travelling in the affected areas.\n\nChief Superintendent Louise Blakelock said: \"Government restrictions on only travelling if your journey is essential remain in place and with an amber warning for snow, please consider if your journey really is essential and whether you can delay it until the weather improves.\n\n\"If you deem your journey is essential, plan ahead and make sure you and your vehicle are suitably prepared by having sufficient fuel and supplies such as warm clothing, food, water and charge in your mobile phone in the event you require assistance.\"\n\nAvalanche debris on Turnhouse in the Pentland Hills photographed from Penicuik\n\nPeople heading for the Pentland Hills, south-west of Edinburgh, have been urged to be aware of potential avalanche risk after avalanche debris was spotted on Turnhouse Hill.\n\nTweed Valley Mountain Rescue Team said the \"full depth\" avalanche had enough snow to knock a person off their feet, or even bury them.\n\nTeam leader Dave Wright said avalanches in the Pentland Hills were unusual and walkers, skiers and snowboarders might not appreciate the potential risk.\n\nHe said there had been heavy snowfalls in the hills this week and the avalanche occurred at some point on Thursday afternoon.\n\nMeanwhile, the potential avalanche hazard in all six mountain areas covered by the Scottish Avalanche Information Service - Glen Coe, Lochaber, Creag Meagaidh, Torridon and Northern and Southern Cairgorms - has been classed as \"considerable\".\n\nThe amber weather warning for snow covered a slice of Scotland from south of Edinburgh to close to the Scotland-England border and was valid until Thursday morning.\n\nHowever, further alerts remain in place.\n\nA Bear NW Trunk Roads' tractor clears snow ahead of a lorry on the A9 at the Slochd\n\nIn north-east Scotland and Orkney, a yellow warning for heavy rain and potential flooding is in place until 04:00 on Friday.\n\nYellow warnings for snow and ice are also in place in parts of northern and western Scotland until 12:00 on Friday.\n\nTransport Scotland said it was \"closely monitoring\" the road network and a multi-agency response team would be operational during the weather warnings.\n\nA snow-covered car in Carlops, in the Scottish Borders\n\nDrivers woke up to snow-covered cars in Haddington, East Lothian\n• None In pictures: Scotland in the snow", "Last March, the government set out new thinking on dealing with Northern Ireland's past\n\nThousands of relatives of Troubles victims have signed an open letter calling for the British and Irish governments to fully investigate decades of violence.\n\nIt calls for the long-delayed set up of an independent team of detectives to pursue new prosecutions and other measures to recover information.\n\nThese are measures included in the 2014 Stormont House Agreement.\n\nThe letter is addressed to Taoiseach Micheál Martin and UK PM Boris Johnson.\n\nIt asks for their assurances that their \"human rights as victims will no longer be disregarded or denied\".\n\n\"The peace process has repeatedly failed to deliver on our rights to truth, justice and accountability,\" they said.\n\nThe letter, signed by 3,500 relatives, is being published in the Irish News, Andersonstown News, and US publication the Irish Echo.\n\nThe letter is being printed in several newspapers\n\nMore than 3,600 people were killed during the 30 years of Northern Ireland's Troubles and thousands more injured.\n\nThe UK government has pledged to \"intensify\" engagement with victims' groups in addressing the legacy of the past.\n\nThe Stormont House proposals included a new independent investigation unit to re-examine all unsolved killings and a separate truth recovery mechanism to enable families to gain answers in cases where prosecutions are unlikely.\n\nLast March, the government set out new thinking on dealing with the past, which radically departed from what had been proposed in the Stormont House Agreement.\n\nHe proposed that after a paper review exercise, most unsolved cases would be closed and a new law would be enacted to prevent the investigations from being reopened.\n\nMark Thompson, chief executive of Belfast-based lobby group Relatives for Justice, said about half of those who signed the open letter are 35 years and under.\n\nHe said the letter \"represents the current and future generations\" and that it \"underlines the ongoing trauma and intergenerational impact that the killing of a relative has also had on surviving families\".", "Glastonbury Festival has been cancelled for a second year running due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nThe news was announced on Thursday on the Worthy Farm event's Twitter page.\n\n\"With great regret, we must announce that this year's Glastonbury Festival will not take place,\" said festival organisers Michael and Emily Eavis.\n\n\"And that this will be another enforced fallow year for us. Tickets for this year will roll over to next year. Michael & Emily.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Glastonbury Festival This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIt comes in the same week that the future of UK music was up for debate at a DCMS inquiry into streaming, and in Parliament regarding post-Brexit music touring visas.\n\nThe full statement on the festival website read: \"In spite of our efforts to move heaven and earth, it has become clear that we simply will not be able to make the Festival happen this year. We are so sorry to let you all down.\"\n\nIt confirmed that as with last year, anyone with a ticket will now be offered the opportunity to roll their £50 deposit over to next year, when the festival will hopefully resume. It had been due to take place in June 2021.\n\n\"We are very appreciative of the faith and trust placed in us by those of you with deposits, and we are very confident we can deliver something really special for us all in 2022!\"\n\nCulture Secretary Oliver Dowden shared his \"disappointment\" at the lack of a Glastonbury 2021, on Twitter.\n\n\"This regrettable but understandable decision is recognition that public health comes first\" he posted, \"and that right now, getting 200k fans together in just a few months looks very difficult to make safe\".\n\nHe added: \"We continue to help the arts on recovery, including looking at problems around getting insurance. I'm Glastonbury will be back bigger and better next year.\"\n\nJulian Knight MP, chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee, said news of this year's cancellation was \"devastating\".\n\nSir Paul McCartney headlined Glastonbury in 2004, and was supposed to do so again in 2020\n\n\"We have repeatedly called for ministers to act to protect our world-renowned festivals like this one with a government-backed insurance scheme. Our plea fell on deaf ears and now the chickens have come home to roost,\" he said.\n\n\"The jewel in the crown will be absent but surely the government cannot ignore the message any longer - it must act now to save this vibrant and vital festivals sector.\"\n\nOn 5 January the government responded to a report by UK Music called Let the Music Play: Save Our Summer 2021, which outlined a range of measures that could help the industry get back up and running.\n\nThe government said: \"We know these are challenging times for the live events sector and are working flat out to support it.\n\n\"Our £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund has already seen more than £1bn offered to arts, heritage and performance organisations to support them through the impact of the pandemic, protecting tens of thousands of creative jobs across the UK, including festivals such as Deer Shed Festival, End of the Road and Nozstock.\"\n\nLast year's 50th anniversary Glastonbury was meant to be headlined by Sir Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar, but it was cancelled during the initial national lockdown in March 2020.\n\nMichael and Emily Eavis previously said that Glastonbury \"lost millions\" after cancelling in 2020\n\nLast month, organiser Emily Eavis told the BBC she hoped this year's festival could go ahead, despite the \"huge uncertainty\" surrounding live music in the pandemic.\n\n\"We're doing everything we can on our end to plan and prepare,\" she told the BBC, \"but I think we're still quite a long way from being able to say we're confident 2021 will go ahead.\"\n\nEavis said Glastonbury lost \"millions\" in 2020. Her father, Michael, has previously warned the festival \"would seriously go bankrupt\" if they had to cancel again next year.\n\nBut that scenario is unlikely \"as long as we can make a firm call either way in advance\", Eavis clarified to the BBC.\n\nNo line-up details had been confirmed for 2021. But just before Christmas, Sir Paul McCartney told the BBC the event was not in his calendar, as it would be a \"superspreader\".\n\nAt the start of January, MPs were told that some of the UK's biggest music festivals could be called off by the end of this month.\n\nThe festival normally welcomes 200,000 people to Pilton in Somerset every year\n\nEvents are \"rapidly approaching the determination point\", after which they'll have to pull the plug, said the Association of Independent Festivals.\n\nOrganisers will be in \"absolutely dire straits\" financially if the season is cancelled, added Anna Wade, of Winchester's Boomtown Fair.\n\nThey were speaking to MPs examining the plight of music festivals in the UK.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Some Covid restrictions are being reintroduced in response to the Omicron variant.\n\nCheck what the rules are in your area by entering your postcode or council name below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. What are the rules in your area? Enter a full UK postcode or council name to find out\n\nIf you cannot see the look-up, click here.\n\nThe rules highlighted in the search tool are a selection of the key government restrictions in place in your area.\n\nAlways check your relevant national and local authority website for more information on the situation where you live. Also check local guidance before travelling to others parts of the UK.\n\nAll the guidance in our search look-up comes from national government websites.\n\nFor more information on national measures see:\n\nFind out how the pandemic has affected your area and how it compares with the national average by following this link to an in depth guide to the numbers involved.", "At 12:01, in the midst of his inaugural address, Joe Biden officially became the 46th president of the United States.\n\nHe was already well into outlining exactly how daunting a task he - and the nation - have ahead in what he called its \"winter of peril\".\n\nAmerica is facing a devastating pandemic which has resulted in massive job losses and business closures, a threatened environment, urgent cries for racial justice and resurgence in \"political extremism, white supremacy and domestic terrorism\".\n\nHis speech was not a laundry list of proposals and solutions. Those were reserved for his first 17 executive actions as president - on immigration, climate change, transgender rights and public health, among others.\n\nThe Biden administration has also frozen all of Trump's last-minute regulations pending further review.\n\nInstead, Biden used his speech to offer hope - and to argue, at times forcefully, that the nation must be united in facing the challenges ahead; that it has to move past its current \"uncivil war\".\n\n\"Without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury,\" he said. \"No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos.\"\n\n\"This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge,\" he continued. \"And unity is the path forward\".\n\nAt times, Biden's speech seemed a direct rebuttal to his predecessor's administration, although he did not mention Donald Trump by name.\n\nWhere Trump frequently spoke of American greatness and glorified its founders, Biden noted that the nation's history has been a \"constant struggle\" between its ideals and sometimes harsh realities.\n\nWhere Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway spoke of \"alternative facts\" almost four years ago, Biden said: \"There is truth and there are lies - lies told for power and for profit.\"\n\nBiden wrapped up his inaugural address by warning that America must not \"turn inward\" - both as individuals retreating into \"competing factions\" and as a nation on the world stage.\n\n\"We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again,\" he said.\n\nRhetorically, Biden turned the page from Trump's days of \"America first\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe first 100 days of any administration are always important to a new president. What are his priorities? What will he try to accomplish when his political capital is at its highest?\n\nJoe Biden and his presidential team have had nearly three months to plan out his first actions upon taking the oath of office, but executive action is the (relatively) easy part.\n\nHis speech reflected the reality that he enters office with his top priorities already determined for him.\n\nHis government will be responsible for distributing the coronavirus vaccine in an efficient and equitable way. After that, he will have to focus on the societal and economic disruptions caused by the pandemic.\n\nThe virus has exacerbated income inequality and pushed many households to the brink of economic ruin. It's devastated the travel and hospitality industries and placed incredible strain on the finances of state and local governments.\n\nHis pledge to seek unity will be tested early, as he pushes a sharply divided Congress to pass another, massive round of pandemic stimulus aid. If he wants to enact it quickly, he will need Republican support in the Senate, and already there are signs that some on the right may be lining up in opposition to more spending.\n\nThen there's Trump's Senate impeachment trial, which will present yet another challenge to national unity. It will keep Trump's name in the news for weeks, as his defenders rally to his side and his detractors call for consequences for his actions.\n\nAfter that, Biden's potential political paths diverge. He has said he wants to improve healthcare in the US, address growing college debt, make new investments in infrastructure and tackle climate change.\n\nHe's pledged to push immigration reform legislation that includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants - a political lightning rod that helped fuel Trump's first presidential run.\n\nWhat he prioritises, and how successful his first efforts are, could determine the overall success of his administration. To make lasting change - policies that can't be undone by future presidents - he will have to work with Congress.\n\nThe inauguration ceremony is over. But, as Biden noted in his speech, the American people face one of the most challenging times in their nation's history.\n\n\"We will be judged by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era,\" he said.\n\nBiden campaigned against Trump for the opportunity to face those crises. Now he has his chance.", "Anyone going on a Saga holiday or cruise in 2021 must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the tour operator has said.\n\nSaga, which specialises in holidays for the over-50s, said it wanted to protect customers' health and safety.\n\nThe firm said it would delay restarting its travel packages until May to give customers enough time to get jabs.\n\nPeople over 50 in the UK have been rushing to book holidays as vaccinations boost confidence.\n\n\"The health and safety of our customers has always been our number one priority at Saga, so we have taken the decision to require everyone travelling with us to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19,\" Saga said in a statement.\n\n\"Our customers want the reassurance of the vaccine and to know others travelling with them will be vaccinated too.\"\n\nThe firm's holidays were due to restart in March and its cruises in April after a long hiatus, but they will now both be delayed.\n\nSaga said that meant all trips before May would no longer go ahead as planned, acknowledging it would be \"a huge disappointment\" to customers.\n\n\"We will be contacting all guests affected to discuss their options,\" it said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Singapore's 'cruises to nowhere' set back by Covid scare\n\nThe firm said its vaccination policy added to stronger safety processes already planned for when its holidays resume.\n\nThese include requiring cruise passengers to have a Covid-19 test before their trip, as well as a full medical screening.\n\nCapacity on its ships will also be kept to a maximum of 800 people.\n\nThere were some severe covid outbreaks on cruise ships early on the pandemic, before coronavirus restrictions were imposed.\n\nBritish-registered ship the Diamond Princess, owned by the company Carnival, was quarantined for nearly a month in February in the Port of Yokohama in Japan.\n\nMore than 700 of its 3,711 passengers and crew were infected, and 14 died.\n\nThe UK has embarked on a mass vaccination programme as Covid-19 cases surge.\n\nPeople in England are being vaccinated at a rate of 140 jabs per minute, NHS England boss Sir Simon Stevens said this week.\n\nExperts believe in future that airlines, concert venues and restaurants could routinely ask customers to prove that they have been vaccinated.\n\nAnd last week, London plumbing firm Pimlico Plumbers said that all of its staff would be contractually obliged to get the jab.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Hill We Climb: Watch 22-year-old Amanda Gorman's poem reading at Joe Biden's inauguration\n\nAmanda Gorman has become the youngest poet ever to perform at a presidential inauguration, calling for \"unity and togetherness\" in her self-penned poem.\n\nThe 22-year-old delivered her work The Hill We Climb to both the dignitaries present in Washington DC and a watching global audience.\n\n\"When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?\" her five-minute poem began.\n\nShe went on to reference the storming of the Capitol earlier this month.\n\n\"We've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy,\" she declared.\n\n\"And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.\"\n\nThe poet was applauded by Vice President Kamala Harris\n\nIn her poem, Gorman described herself as \"a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother [who] can dream of becoming president, only to find her self reciting for one\".\n\nAmerica's first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate did her job, which was to find the right words at the right time.\n\nIt was a beautifully paced, well-judged poem for a special occasion, but it will live long beyond the time and space of the moment.\n\nAmanda Gorman delivered her piece with grace, the words it contained will resonate with people the world over: today, tomorrow, and far into the future.\n\nThe writer and performer, who became the country's first National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, followed in the footsteps of such famous names as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.\n\n\"I really wanted to use my words to be a point of unity and collaboration and togetherness,\" Gorman told the BBC World Service's Newshour programme before the ceremony.\n\n\"I think it's about a new chapter in the United States, about the future, and doing that through the elegance and beauty of words.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUS broadcaster and actress Oprah Winfrey tweeted that she had \"never been prouder to see another young woman rise\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Oprah Winfrey This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAlso on Twitter, Joanne Liu, the former head of aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières, described the poem as \"the most inspiring 5:43 minutes for the longest time\".\n\nFormer First Lady Michelle Obama praised Gorman's \"strong and poignant words\" adding: \"Keep shining, Amanda!\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Michelle Obama This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nUS politician and rights activist Stacey Abrams said the poem was \"an inspiration to us all\".\n\nFormer presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted that Gorman had promised to run for president in 2036 and added: \"I for one can't wait.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Hillary Clinton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIllinois poet laureate Angela Jackson said the recitation was \"so rich and just so filled with truth\".\n\n\"I was stunned that she was so young and so wise,\" Jackson told the Chicago Sun-Times.\n\nGorman said she \"screamed and danced her head off\" when she found out she had been chosen to read at President Biden's swearing-in ceremony.\n\nShe said she felt \"excitement, joy, honour and humility\" when she was asked to take part, \"and also at the same time terror\".\n\nAnd she added that she hoped her poem, completed on the day supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, would \"speak to the moment\" and \"do this time justice\".\n\nGorman, pictured with actor Morgan Freeman in 2018, became LA's youth poet laureate at 16\n\nBorn in Los Angeles in 1998, Gorman had a speech impediment as a child - an affliction she shares with America's new president.\n\n\"It's made me the performer that I am and the storyteller that I strive to be,\" she said in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times.\n\n\"When you have to teach yourself how to say sounds [and] be highly concerned about pronunciation, it gives you a certain awareness of sonics, of the auditory experience.\"\n\nGorman became LA's youth poet laureate at 16. Three years later, while studying sociology at Harvard, she became National Youth Poet Laureate.\n\nShe published her first book, The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough, in 2015 and will publish a picture book, Change Sings, later this year.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kamala Harris was sworn into office by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.\n\nKamala Harris has made history as the first female, first black and first Asian-American US vice-president.\n\nShe was sworn in just before Joe Biden took the oath of office to become the 46th US president.\n\nMs Harris, who is of Indian-Jamaican heritage, initially ran for the Democratic nomination.\n\nBut Mr Biden won the race and chose Ms Harris as his running mate, describing her as \"a fearless fighter for the little guy\".\n\nPrior to taking the oath at the US Capitol, Ms Harris paid tribute to the women who she says came before her.\n\n\"I stand on their shoulders,\" she said in a video.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kamala Harris This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEugene Goodman, the Capitol police officer who was hailed as a hero for steering a pro-Trump mob away from Senate chambers during the 6 January riot, escorted Ms Harris at the inauguration.\n\nMs Harris, 56, was born in Oakland, California, to two immigrant parents: an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father.\n\nKamala, left, as child with her mother and younger sister Maya\n\nShe went on to attend Howard University, one of the nation's preeminent historically black colleges and universities. She has described her time there as among the most formative experiences of her life.\n\nMs Harris says she's always been comfortable with her identity and simply describes herself as \"an American\".\n\nAfter four years at Howard, Ms Harris went on to earn her law degree at the University of California, Hastings, and began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.\n\nShe became the district attorney - the top prosecutor - for San Francisco in 2003, before being elected the first female and the first African American to serve as California's attorney general, the top lawyer and law enforcement official in America's most populous state.\n\nIn her nearly two terms in office as attorney general, Ms Harris gained a reputation as one of the Democratic party's rising stars, using this momentum to propel her to election as California's junior US senator in 2017. She was only the second black woman ever elected to the US senate.\n\nShe launched her candidacy for president to a crowd of more than 20,000 in Oakland at the beginning of 2019.\n\nBut Ms Harris failed to articulate a clear rationale for her campaign, and gave muddled answers to questions in key policy areas like healthcare.\n\nShe was also unable to capitalise on the clear high point of her candidacy: debate performances that showed off her prosecutorial skills, often placing Mr Biden in the line of attack, most notably criticising his praise for the \"civil\" working relationship he had with former senators who favoured racial segregation.\n\nShe dropped out of the presidential race in December 2019.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBut Mr Biden chose her as his number two in August, calling her \"one of the country's finest public servants\".\n\nAfter Mr Biden was announced as the next president in November, Ms Harris tweeted a video of her congratulating her running mate.\n\n\"We did it, we did it Joe. You're going to be the next president of the United States!\" she beamed.", "Scientists tracking the spread of coronavirus in England say infection levels in the community may have risen at the start of the latest lockdown.\n\nInfections in 6-15 January were up by 50% on early December, with one in 63 people infected, Imperial College London's initial findings suggest.\n\nSwab tests from 143,000 people indicate 1.58% had the virus during in early January - up from 0.91% in December.\n\nMinisters say the report does not yet reflect the impact of the lockdown.\n\nThe latest round of results from Imperial College's React-1 infection survey - one of the country's largest studies into Covid-19 infections - are interim with the full set of results to be published in a week's time.\n\nBut Imperial College London's Prof Paul Elliott warned if the high prevalence continues \"more lives will be lost\".\n\nThe report also says there are \"worrying suggestions of a recent uptick in infections\" and Prof Elliott said the third lockdown - introduced on 6 January - was not having the same impact as the first, in April.\n\nLondon had the highest level in the January period - 2.8%, up from 1.21% in early December.\n\nProf Elliott old BBC Radio 4's Today programme the current R rate - which represents how many people an infected person will pass the virus on to - was \"around 1\".\n\n\"We're seeing this levelling off, it's not going up, but we're not seeing the decline that we really need to see given the pressure on the NHS from the current very high levels of the virus in the population,\" he said.\n\n\"To prevent our already stretched health system from becoming overwhelmed, infections must be brought down,\" Prof Elliot added.\n\nBefore the Covid rules were tightened, the restrictions faced by people in England varied depending on where they lived.\n\nThe researchers say the government's latest daily case figures, which show a slowdown, may reflect a drop in cases just after Christmas, which is only now being registered.\n\nAnd they suggest infection levels may have gone up in early January as a result of people's activity increasing after the Christmas holiday period.\n\nThey admit there is some uncertainty in their data amid a \"fast-changing situation\" but say it is more up to date than the daily government figures because it does not rely on those being tested developing symptoms and then waiting to have their infections confirmed by a laboratory.\n\nThe UK recorded another all-time high of daily coronavirus deaths on Wednesday. A further 1,820 people died within 28 days of a positive Covid test, according to government figures - taking the total number of deaths by that measure to 93,290.\n\nThe findings of the study are seemingly at odds with recent figures from NHS Test and Trace, which has been reporting recent decreases in daily infections and has prompted some experts to suggest that we might be beginning our journey out of the woods.\n\nThe researchers behind the study say the test and trace figures may be reflecting an initial drop in infections just after Christmas, which is only now being registered on the official figures.\n\nThe study's more up to date findings indicate that infection levels did not continue to fall in the first two weeks of January and may even have gone up. So why has this happened?\n\nData on people's movements has shown that there's been increased activity which the scientists involved say has kept transmission of the virus at a high level. The Department of Health says that the study does not yet reflect the impact of the lockdown in England.\n\nBut if this trend continues, say the scientists, the numbers admitted to hospital with severe Covid illness, will not fall in the short term, as some had hoped.\n\nThis is one set of figures over a short number of days so there might be a more optimistic picture when the study reports its full set of results in a week's time. But there is no getting away from the fact that ministers will be disappointed not to have seen a fall at this stage.\n\nUnless things change, even tougher measures will have to be considered.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said there will be \"tough weeks to come\" but he hoped there would be a \"real difference\" by spring as the vaccine programme accelerates.\n\nIt comes as another 60 NHS Covid-19 vaccination centres in England, including a mosque in Birmingham and a cinema in Aylesbury, will welcome their first patients later.\n\nMinisters have sought to reassure people in the top four priority groups for the Covid vaccination that they will get their jab by the government's mid-February target, following complaints from some GPs about unpredictable supplies.\n\nSome 4.6m people in the UK have now received the first dose of a Covid vaccine.\n\nFacebook mobility data, which tracks people's movements, suggested a fall in activity at the end of December but a rise at the start of the new year.\n\nAnd Prof Elliott said everyone should \"reduce their mobility as much as we can\".\n\nA new, more transmissible variant and the fact larger households and deprived communities were more likely to be affected, may also be factors.\n\nThe Imperial survey is one source of data used to estimate the UK's reproduction (R) number, along with other surveys, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for example, and figures on confirmed cases and hospital admissions.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said the React findings showed \"we must not let down our guard over the weeks to come\".\n\n\"It is absolutely paramount that everyone plays their part to bring down infections,\" he said.\n\n\"This means staying at home and only going out where absolutely necessary, reducing contact with others and maintaining social distancing.\"", "Police checkpoints have seen officers questioning people about whether their travel is essential\n\nNorthern Ireland has been in lockdown since 26 December, in a bid to control the spread of Covid-19.\n\nRestrictions had been eased in the run-up to Christmas, which led to a sharp spike in cases in January, causing severe pressure on the health service.\n\nMedically-trained military personnel will be deployed to help, but a union has questioned the move and said NI should have entered a stricter lockdown sooner.\n\nWith Stormont ministers extending the current lockdown, could other measures could be on the table?\n\nIt's worth bearing in mind that NI is already in tight lockdown restrictions and has been for almost a month.\n\nBut the current measures are now set to remain in place until at least 5 March.\n\nDeputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said health officials had not requested any other measures be toughened up at this time, given the duration and extent of the current rules.\n\nThe initial lockdown began last March, with non-essential retail not permitted to open again until 12 June.\n\nBy law people are required to stay at home during the lockdown unless they have a reasonable excuse, such as going out for exercise, medical or food needs.\n\nPeople are also required to wear face masks in shops and on public transport, with only a limited number of exemptions.\n\nThose who breach the rules can face fines, with businesses that break the law also able to be fined if they do not follow the rules.\n\nHowever, DUP minister Edwin Poots has expressed concern that not enough has been done by the PSNI to enforce the laws.\n\nIt is a difficult balance for the executive to strike.\n\nThey previously announced that \"Covid marshals\" would be deployed in the retail sector to ensure social distancing in queues and adherence to the rules.\n\nMinisters want to ensure as many people as possible follow the restrictions voluntarily while ensuring the PSNI has enough powers to manage the situation.\n\nHealth Minister Robin Swann has not ruled out revisiting whether the level of fines people can face should be increased, and said he would raise the matter with his executive colleagues.\n\nThe 2020 lockdown saw many businesses right across Northern Ireland forced to close, with retail and hospitality among them.\n\nThere was confusion over whether construction and manufacturing should stop, with the executive later clarifying that essential work on building sites could continue.\n\nIn the latest lockdown, the sector has been permitted to remain fully open.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, all non-essential construction has been ordered to stop during a fresh lockdown there.\n\nLike in the previous lockdown, people have again been told to work from home unless they cannot.\n\nBut it is worth pointing out many companies have had time to prepare since last March, making their workplaces Covid-secure to allow more staff to attend in person.\n\nThe executive has a defined list of essential businesses here.\n\nFace coverings in shops are mandatory in Northern Ireland's shops\n\nThere has also been confusion about what elements of the retail sector can operate.\n\nAll but essential retail shops were told to close on 26 December, and click-and-collect is only allowed for those essential retailers.\n\nBut concerns were later raised that some larger chains were \"gaming\" the regulations by selling non-essential items, with smaller independent shops who had to close arguing they were being treated unfairly.\n\nThe executive met with retailers last week to discuss this, but it seems unlikely it will act to define essential items in regulations.\n\nA similar situation in Wales last year led to criticism after supermarkets were told by law not to sell certain items.\n\nThe majority of pupils are in an extended period of remote learning until after half-term in February, but some children of key workers and vulnerable children are still permitted to attend the classroom.\n\nLast week it emerged that at least eight times as many pupils in Northern Ireland attended schools in the first week of term in 2021 compared to the first lockdown in 2020.\n\nThough part of this is due to special schools remaining open for all pupils, unlike in March to June last year.\n\nThe executive could potentially revisit the list of services it defines as meeting the \"key worker\" definition for childcare, if it wanted to reduce this further.\n\nIt is also possible schools could remain closed to most pupils for a longer period, in line with extending the lockdown to 5 March.\n\nThe executive says workers, builders, tradespeople and other professionals can continue to go into people's houses to carry out work such as repairs, installations and deliveries.\n\nBut it does not define further what this type of work should include.\n\nIt is possible ministers could tighten the circumstances in which work can be carried out in someone's home, but the guidance already specifies a limited number of exemptions for allowing others inside your home during the lockdown.\n\nHouse moves are also allowed under the regulations, although they were paused in the first lockdown.\n\nMusic lessons and private tutoring are permitted in someone's home, with mitigations.\n\nDuring the first week of lockdown from 26 December, people were told not to leave their homes between 20:00 and 06:00 every day - effectively amounting to a curfew.\n\nMinisters could decide to impose the measure again, if they felt that was necessary - but initially it was imposed to stop house parties over New Year's Eve.\n\nAll but essential travel is not permitted outside of Northern Ireland, and anyone entering Northern Ireland must self-isolate for 10 days on arrival or face a fine.\n\nHowever, there is no formal travel ban on passengers from Great Britain or the Republic of Ireland entering Northern Ireland.\n\nThe executive had voted by a majority before Christmas not to impose such a ban, despite calls from Sinn Féin for it to happen.\n\nOther parties argued that the public health advice did not propose a ban in law, and that travel from the Republic of Ireland to NI should be restricted as well due to its rise in cases.\n\nThe current guidance states that anyone coming into NI from within the Common Travel Area who is staying for more than 24 hours should self-isolate for 10 days, but there are exemptions for those who \"cross the border\" regularly for work or other essential reasons.\n\nThe executive also does not have a formal limit in law for travelling to exercise, unlike in the Republic of Ireland where it is 5km (3 miles).\n\nJustice Minister Naomi Long said there is an \"advisory limit\" of 10 miles for exercise in Northern Ireland.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nTwo houses have partially collapsed after a sinkhole measuring 10ft (3m) opened up on a Manchester street.\n\nFour homes were evacuated on Wednesday evening after the hole appeared on Walmer Street in Abbey Hey, Gorton.\n\nFire crews returned hours later after the front of two of the empty properties crashed to the ground.\n\nUnited Utilities said it was dealing with a collapsed sewer but was investigating all possible causes including the recent heavy rain.\n\nThe fire service was first called to Walmer Street just after 21:00 GMT on Wednesday to reports an unoccupied car had fallen down a hole in the road.\n\nA cordon was put in place and residents evacuated as a precaution, the fire service said.\n\nAfter leaving the scene four hours later, the fire service was alerted to the partial collapse of two houses at 11:00 on Thursday.\n\nNo-one was injured in either incident.\n\nEmergency services remain at the scene on Walmer Street\n\nNearby residents Maureen and Louise Kennedy spoke of their shock after the houses collapsed.\n\n\"You're just waiting for your world to crumble. It's not just the bricks and water, said Ms Kennedy.\n\n\"I've lived in there since I was three. It's the memories.\"\n\nResident Nathaniel OKeleafor said he was \"terrified\" when the sinkhole appeared in the street on Wednesday evening.\n\n\"This morning we are out. We are just trying to find somewhere to live,\" he added.\n\nUnited Utilities said it was dealing with a collapsed sewer on Walmer Street\n\nThe collapse comes as rising levels on the River Mersey in Manchester came \"within centimetres\" of breaching flood defences following heavy rain caused by Storm Christoph.\n\nStation Manager Andrew O'Brien, from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, praised firefighters who worked \"at the height of the stormy weather\".\n\n\"The safety of the public was our primary concern overnight and again today, and I'm pleased to say no-one has suffered any injuries,\" he said.\n\nUnited Utilities said: \"When it is safe for engineers to go back into the immediate area we will set up emergency drainage and water supply connections to restore services to the area and begin to assess how best to carry out repairs.\n\n\"It is not known what caused the sinkhole but this will be investigated.\"\n\nBBC Radio Manchester and BBC Radio Lancashire will be on air throughout Storm Christoph, bringing you all of the latest information and news updates\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Home Secretary Priti Patel says police have her \"absolute backing\" to enforce coronavirus restrictions\n\nFines of £800 for anyone attending a house party of more than 15 people will be introduced in England from next week, under new Covid measures.\n\nThese will double for each repeat offence to a maximum of £6,400.\n\nAt a No 10 news conference, Home Secretary Priti Patel said there remained a \"small minority that refuse to do the right thing\".\n\n\"To them my message is clear. If you don't follow rules then the police will enforce them,\" she said.\n\nCurrently in England the fine for those attending illegal indoor gatherings stands at £200 - or £100 if paid early.\n\nFines of up to £10,000 for holding large illegal gatherings of more than 30 people will still only apply to the organisers.\n\nPolice will continue to follow the strategy of engaging with the public, explaining the rules and encouraging compliance, but the Home Office has warned that in severe breaches of lockdown rules, offenders should expect to receive a fine.\n\nMs Patel said the government would \"not stand by while a small number of individuals put others at risk\".\n\nShe was joined at the briefing by NHS England regional medical director for London Dr Vin Diwakar, who compared breaking the rules to turning on a light in the middle of a blackout during the Blitz.\n\n\"It doesn't just put you at risk in your house, it puts your whole street and the whole of your community at risk,\" he said.\n\nWelcoming the fines announcement, Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs' Council, said large gatherings were \"dangerous, irresponsible, and totally unacceptable\".\n\nHe added: \"I hope that the likelihood of an increased fine acts as a disincentive for those people who are thinking of attending or organising such events.\"\n\nOfficial figures will be released next week showing how many fines have been given out since the start of this latest national lockdown, Mr Hewitt said.\n\nHowever, he stressed that \"forces are telling us there has been a significant increase\" in recent weeks.\n\n\"That's reflecting the fact that we've had more officers out on dedicated patrols taking targeted action against those small few who are letting everybody down,\" he said.\n\nAccording to Mr Hewitt, three police officers were injured in Brick Lane, east London, last week, after more than 40 people were found cramped indoors at a house party.\n\nMeanwhile, more than 150 people were found at a party in Hertfordshire, complete with music equipment including mixing decks and amplifiers, and another officer was injured.\n\nHe said forces in England had issued 250 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) to people organising large gatherings between late August, when regulations were introduced, and 17 January.\n\nIn some other recent examples of lockdown breaches:\n\nThe latest fines announcement comes after figures showed that assaults on emergency workers made up more than a quarter of Covid-related crimes prosecuted in the first six months of the pandemic.\n\nThe Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said there were 1,688 such offences between 1 April and 30 September in England and Wales.\n\nThey were among almost 6,500 crimes related to coronavirus in that period.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSome 1,137 charges were brought for breaking coronavirus laws, according to the figures published by the CPS - which cover completed prosecutions.\n\nOn Thursday, it was reported that another 1,290 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK, bringing the total to 94,580.\n\nAnd a further 37,892 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus were announced, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 3,543,646.\n• None What powers do police have?", "\"I had no idea at all I was going to be charged any more for deliveries after Brexit. The extra costs were definitely a bit of a shock.\"\n\nEllie Huddleston, a 26-year-old Londoner, thought she would treat herself to some new work clothes in the January sales.\n\nHaving spotted a bargain, she placed an order for a coat and a number of blouses from two of her favourite clothes brands based in Europe.\n\nBut both deliveries were delayed, held up in customs checks for at least a week, she says.\n\nShe was surprised when she then received a text from courier company DPD, containing a link asking her to pay £58 in customs duties, VAT and additional charges for her £180 order.\n\nOn top of that, the UPS courier for the second parcel showed up at her door several days later, asking for an extra payment of £82 for her £200 coat.\n\nThese charges, imposed by new government rules, have to be collected by the courier firms on the authorities' behalf.\n\n\"I didn't even know when the parcels would be coming - so I sent both back without paying the extra fees and won't be ordering anything from Europe again any time soon,\" Ellie says.\n\nWhen the UK was part of the European Union's customs union, goods could move freely between the country and other member states without import taxes being charged.\n\nBut Ellie was one of the shoppers caught unaware of the fact that those rules have changed since the UK's official exit.\n\nEU retailers sending packages to the UK now need to fill out customs declaration forms. Shoppers may also have to pay customs or VAT charges, depending on the value of the product and where it came from.\n\nHowever, customs charges are the responsibility of the customer, not the retailer, who often has no idea of how much the eventual extra cost might be.\n\nThey cannot be paid in advance and are levied only when the item reaches the UK.\n\nAnother unhappy customer, Graeme from Manchester, paid £300 to buy two pairs of suede winter boots from a German firm online.\n\n\"You couldn't get them anywhere in the UK, so I had no choice but to order them from Europe,\" he told the BBC.\n\nThe next thing he knew, courier UPS had sent him a text message saying he had to pay £147 extra before the boots could be delivered. He paid up, but is still waiting for the goods to arrive.\n\n\"It was virtually impossible to find out what the charges would be beforehand,\" he says, \"so I had to take a shot in the dark.\n\n\"I didn't imagine that it would be half as much again.\"\n\nCourier companies are adding charges to some deliveries from the EU\n\nUnder the new rules, anyone in the UK receiving a gift from the EU worth more than £39 may now face a bill for import VAT - with many items charged at 20%.\n\nFor goods costing more than £135, customs duties may also apply, which can range from 0% to 25% of the product you're buying if they have not been paid by the sender already.\n\nThe extra charges are usually collected by the courier on behalf of the government, with customers asked to pay before they can pick up their package.\n\nSome specialist European retailers, such as bicycle part firm Dutch Bike Bits and Belgium-based Beer On Web, recently said that they would stop all deliveries to the UK because of the VAT changes, which came into force on 1 January.\n\nSome firms have started charging additional \"handling fees\" to shoppers to cover costs associated with extra customs checks and paperwork that must be filled out.\n\nRoyal Mail, for example, is charging an £8 fee it says \"reflects the cost of clearing items through customs and presenting them to Border Force\".\n\nMeanwhile, delivery firm DHL says it is charging UK customers 2.5% of the amount paid to clear customs, with a minimum charge of £11.\n\nMail and freight company TNT is also adding £4.31 on all shipments from the UK to the EU and vice versa. It has said this reflects the increased investment it has had to make in adjusting its systems to cope with Brexit.\n\nA spokeswoman for Logistics UK told the BBC that the handling fees were \"a commercial decision by individual businesses\".\n\nBut Michelle Dale, senior manager at accountants UHY Hacker Young, said that new charges could present a major problem for firms in the coming weeks.\n\n\"I think what we'll find is that a lot of trade with the EU from a business-to-customer perspective will come to a stop until some of these rules are eased,\" she said.\n\nA government spokesperson said: \"The new VAT model ensures goods from EU and non-EU countries are treated in the same way and that UK businesses are not disadvantaged by competition from VAT-free imports.\n\n\"The new system also addresses the problem of overseas sellers failing to pay the right amount of VAT when they sell goods in the UK. We anticipate this will bring in £300m in tax every year, to fund essential UK public services.\"\n\nThere is speculation the rules may change, but until they do, Ellie says she won't be buying from European firms.\n\n\"With all that uncertainty around things and whether or not these charges might change, I'd rather just avoid the hassle,\" she says.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHomes have been evacuated as Storm Christoph batters Wales with a three-day rainstorm.\n\nNorth Wales Police were called to help some residents in Ruthin who were being told to leave their homes.\n\nThey tweeted that \"people who do not live locally are driving to the area to 'see the floods'\".\n\nA rain warning issued by the Met Office is in place until midday on Thursday, with an ice warning for parts of north and mid Wales.\n\nSouth Wales fire crews pumped out water from homes in Pontypridd and Porth, in Rhondda, and roads were blocked in Powys and Flintshire.\n\nVehicles were pulled from floods by firefighters in Tenby, Llandovery, Llandeilo and Whitland, Mid and West Wales fire service said.\n\nUp to 20cm (8in) of rain is expected to fall, with the heaviest rain forecast for the north west of Wales.\n\nThere were flood warnings in 58 areas as forecasters warned heavy rain and melting snow could affect roads. There were also 57 flood alerts - meaning flooding is possible.\n\nA yellow warning for ice was issued for the north and parts of mid Wales, starting at 01:00 on Thursday and lasting until 10:00, as rain clears.\n\nA minor landslip was reported on the mountainside above Pentre in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Natural Resources Wales, who have responsibility for the land, said there is no immediate threat after an initial inspection, but the council urged residents to keep away from the area.\n\nThe River Taf at Llanglydwen in Carmarthenshire\n\nFlood warnings are in Carmarthenshire - the River Towy and isolated properties between Llandeilo and Abergwili, the River Gwendraeth Fawr at Pontyates and Ponthenry, the River Hydfron at Llanddowror and the River Taf at Trevaughan in Whitland.\n\nThe other flood warnings cover the River Ely at Peterston-Super-Ely in Vale of Glamorgan, the River Vyrnwy in the Meifod area in Powys, the River Rhyd Hir at Riverside Terrace in Gwynedd, two for the River Wye at Glasbury and Builth Wells, the Lower Dee Valley from Llangollen to Trevalyn Meadows, the River Dyfi at Pont ar Dyfi, the River Usk from Brecon to Glangrwyne, two at the River Severn at Abermule to Fron and Aberbechan and the River Lower Clydach at Clydach Bridge, Swansea.\n\nIn River Aeron at Aberaeron, in Ceredigion, the River Loughor at Ammanford and Llandybie and the River Wye at Builth Wells, Powys, are also covered by the warning.\n\nA person had to be saved from a car stuck in floodwater in Corwen, Denbighshire, North East Wales Search and Rescue tweeted.\n\nRest centres have been opened in St Asaph and Ruthin after some localised flooding following heavy rainfall throughout the day. Denbighshire council invited affected residents to use the facilities at the towns' main leisure centres.\n\nAnd Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service said crews were called to help a motorist whose vehicle had become stuck in 3ft of water in Machynlleth.\n\nThe waters lapped the doors of Ruthin's Ocean Pearl restaurant\n\nIn Broughton, Flintshire, Ray and Jacqui Littler said they and their daughter waited all afternoon for help at their flooded bungalow after emergency services told them they were \"flat out\".\n\nThey eventually decided to leave their home on Main Road, which was under 10 inches of water, to stay with friends.\n\nNeighbours blamed a blocked culvert on the fields opposite the road. Police closed the road at about 16:00 GMT and Flintshire council attended, after three houses were affected, with the gardens of two pensioners' bungalows also under water.\n\nOverflowing banks of the River Usk at Brecon\n\nSouth Wales Fire and Rescue Service said it had been called to two incidents overnight with reports of water entering properties in Pontycymmer in Bridgend and Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent.\n\nOn Wednesday morning, it dealt with flooding at properties in Tyfica Road, Pontypridd, and Trebanog Road in Porth, Rhondda, where a crew was helping residents divert and pump out water.\n\nFirefighters also had to rescue 46 sheep from land surrounded by water at Merthyr Road, Llanfoist, Monmouthshire.\n\nCrews from Abergavenny and Ebbw Vale were called to help the stricken animals near the River Usk.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service\n\nIn Rhondda Cynon Taf, there were also reports of flooding in properties at Pembroke Street, Aberdare and Clydach Vale, Tonypandy.\n\nA tweet from Pontypridd Plaid Cymru councillor Heledd Fychan showed fast-flowing water in the River Taff which runs through the town.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Heledd Fychan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nWater in the grounds of Gwydir Castle in Llanrwst\n\nJudy Corbett, owner of 16th Century Gwydir Castle in Llanrwst, Conwy, which flooded last year, told BBC Radio Wales things were \"looking pretty dire here this morning\".\n\nShe said: \"We've been obviously monitoring the levels overnight so we've had another sleepless night worrying about the weather but the levels are rising and the water is very violent this morning and of course, we've got another a whole day ahead of us.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Sabrina Lee This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSeveral roads have been hit by flooding, including the B5106 between Llanrwst and Trefriw\n\nThe Met Office warned spray and flooding could lead to \"difficult driving conditions and some road closures\" and the downpours could cause delays.\n\nTraffic Wales said restrictions were in place on the M48 Severn Bridge where traffic is coming off eastbound at junction two or westbound at junction one before being directed back on to cross the bridge, which remains open.\n\nIn Flintshire, the A548 Coast Road has been closed at Tan Lan and Mostyn, the A5118 at Padeswood, the A541 between Llong to Pontblyddyn, Bagillt High Street and the B5101 between Treuddyn and Llanfynydd.\n\nThe A485 in Garreg is also closed from the Brondaw Arms to Pont Aberglaslyn.\n\nThe Dyfi Bridge near Machynlleth is closed\n\nIn Powys, the A487 over the Dyfi Bridge, near Machynlleth, is closed while the A458 at Llanfair Caereinion is blocked in both directions from Bridge Street to Guilsfield turn-off because of flooding.\n\nThe A483 in Builth Wells at the station is also closed along with the bridge over the River Wye.\n\nCapel Bangor in Ceredigion has temporary traffic lights on the A44 at Lovesgrove Roundabout due to flooding, which is affecting traffic between Aberystwyth and Llangurig.\n\nIn Bridgend, New Inn Road has been closed in both directions at The Dipping Bridge, affecting traffic between Ewenny village and the A48.\n\nSouth Wales Police warned people not to attempt driving through floodwater after the A4118 at Llanddewi on Gower became blocked.\n\nIn Gwynedd, the council tweeted that Ffordd Siliwen, Bangor, had been closed following a landslip.\n\nA section of the A470 Dolgellau Bypass has also been closed along with the A4085 at Garreg.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by South Wales Police Swansea This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNational Rail said some lines between North Llanrwst, Conwy, and Blaenau Ffestiniog in Gwynedd were blocked due to heavy rain while services were also disrupted between Shrewsbury and Machynlleth in Powys.\n\nAlterative road transport will run in place of cancelled services, it said.\n\nThe Met Office said 56mm (2.2in) of rain had fallen at Capel Curig in Snowdonia by 18:00 GMT on Tuesday.\n\nA yellow warning for rain is in place for virtually the whole of Wales until Thursday\n\nForecasters also said fast flowing and deep floodwater \"could cause a danger to life\".\n\nThe Met Office warned flooding could lead to some communities being cut off and possible power cuts.\n\nStrong winds will also follow the torrential rain, with forecasters predicting this may cause \"travelling difficulties across areas higher and more exposed routes\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nPaul Pogba scored a superb winner as Manchester United reclaimed top spot in the Premier League by coming from behind for a club-record equalling away win at Fulham.\n\nIn what is becoming a familiar pattern for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side outside Manchester this season, they fell behind early in the game, with Ademola Lookman beating the offside trap before firing in an angled drive.\n\nBut for the seventh time away from Old Trafford in 2020-21, United found a winning response - taking their run to 17 games unbeaten away in the Premier League - courtesy of a gift from their opponents and a bit of magic from their French midfielder.\n\nGoalkeeper Alphonse Areola has been a good addition for the Cottagers but in dropping Bruno Fernandes' cross at the feet of Edinson Cavani, he gifted his former Paris St-Germain team-mate the simplest of equalisers.\n\nAnd on the hour mark, Pogba stepped up to decide the contest, firing a superb angled drive across the diving Areola and into the far corner from 20 yards.\n\nThe France international has come in for criticism at times this season but received nothing but praise from his manager after his winner.\n\n\"I am very happy with his performances,\" said Solskjaer.\n\n\"I know what he can do. He does everything. Now he is putting all the elements together in his performances and it is great to see.\n\n\"It was about getting him fit. He is enjoying his football, he is happy and physically in a good shape.\"\n\nThe win takes United to 40 points, two more than both Leicester and Manchester City, who had briefly taken top spot from the Foxes with a 2-0 win over Aston Villa on Wednesday.\n\nSolskjaer, though, was reluctant to get drawn into discussing his side's title credentials with so much of the campaign to go.\n\n\"It is always going to be talked about that when you are halfway through and top of the league, but we are not thinking about this, we just have to go one game at a time,\" he added. \"It is such an unpredictable season.\"\n\nFulham remain in the bottom three, four points behind 17th-placed Burnley.\n• None Man Utd or Man City to end day top? Cassia bassist Lou Cotterill takes on Lawro\n\nSolskjaer felt his side missed a big opportunity to fully assert their title credentials in failing to make the most of their chances in Sunday's 0-0 draw at champions Liverpool.\n\nUnited were clearly in no mood to repeat such a mistake at a wet and windy Craven Cottage on Wednesday against a less daunting and defining opposition, but one that is far more robust now than they were in the season's first month.\n\nThe visitors fell behind, but this is par for the course for this side, who once again did not panic, wrestled control of the game away from their opponents and took the win.\n\nIt is a handy trick for a title-challenging side to have in their locker, although one they would rather not have to repeatedly pull.\n\nIn truth, they should have won more handsomely.\n\nThey had the far greater share of possession and territory and were well ahead of their opponents on shots taken until a frantic finale in which the Cottagers threw in all they had in pursuit of a point.\n\nFred felt he should have had a penalty in the first half courtesy of being caught in the box by a loose challenge from Ruben Loftus-Cheek, but both on-field and VAR officials disagreed.\n\nHarry Maguire twice headed wide from corners, the first from a far less forgivable, unmarked position than the second.\n\nEqually, though, it is a game that could have seen them drop points, especially in light of Fulham's late barrage, which saw David de Gea save superbly with his legs to deny Loftus-Cheek, and the ball pinballing around the United box on more than one occasion.\n\nThe Cottagers demonstrated that they are no pushover, but they are making of habit of being on the rough end of fine margins.\n\nFive straight draws followed by two defeats by a single goal suggests their battle against the drop will go right down to the wire.\n\n\"I'm really pleased but I'm disappointed at the same time, which shows how far we've come,\" said Cottagers boss Scott Parker.\n\n\"I saw a team today that looked threatening and tried their hardest to get back into the game, but we go again. The next challenge is to maintain where we are and don't let defeat sink us.\n\n\"No doubt we can win and operate in this division and we just need to push on and keep improving.\"\n\nUnited lead the way in early concessions\n• None No side has conceded more goals in the opening five minutes of Premier League games this season than Manchester United (4). Manchester United have won seven Premier League games having gone behind this season - only Newcastle in 2001-02 (10) and Man Utd themselves in 2012-13 (9) have done so more in a single campaign.\n• None Manchester United are unbeaten in their last 17 Premier League away games (W13 D4), equalling their longest ever unbeaten run on the road in top-flight history (17 between December 1998 and September 1999).\n• None This was the 41st different game in which Fulham had led in all competitions under Scott Parker, but the first time they had lost such a game (W34 D6).\n• None Edinson Cavani became the first Man Utd player whose first four Premier League goals for the club were all scored away from home.\n• None Since his return to the club in 2016, no Man Utd player has scored more league goals from outside the box than Paul Pogba (6).\n• None Ademola Lookman has been involved in more Premier League goals than any other Fulham player this season (6 - 3 goals, 3 assists).\n• None Bruno Fernandes has gone three Premier League games without a goal or assist for the first time since his Manchester United debut in February 2020.\n\nFulham's next game is in the FA Cup, against Burnley on Sunday (14:30 GMT). Their next league fixture, an away game on Wednesday, 27 January, is a big one. Opponents Brighton are two places and five points above them in the table.\n\nManchester United host Liverpool in the FA Cup on Sunday at 17:00, live on the BBC. They are also in league action the following Wednesday hosting the league's bottom club Sheffield United in a 20:15 kick-off.\n• None Attempt missed. Aleksandar Mitrovic (Fulham) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Kenny Tete with a cross following a corner.\n• None Attempt blocked. Ademola Lookman (Fulham) left footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Mario Lemina.\n• None Offside, Fulham. Aboubakar Kamara tries a through ball, but Kenny Tete is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Mario Lemina (Fulham) right footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by Aboubakar Kamara.\n• None Attempt blocked. Joe Bryan (Fulham) left footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt missed. Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Fulham) right footed shot from the centre of the box is high and wide to the right following a fast break.\n• None Attempt blocked. Fred (Manchester United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Harry Maguire with a headed pass. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None You can stream five fourth-round games live on the BBC this weekend, including Liverpool's trip to Manchester United. Find out more here.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThis is America's day. This is democracy's day. A day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve. Through a crucible for the ages, America has been tested anew and America has risen to the challenge. Today we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate but of a cause, a cause of democracy. The people - the will of the people - has been heard, and the will of the people has been heeded.\n\nWe've learned again that democracy is precious, democracy is fragile and, at this hour my friends, democracy has prevailed. So now on this hallowed ground where just a few days ago violence sought to shake the Capitol's very foundations, we come together as one nation under God - indivisible - to carry out the peaceful transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries.\n\nAs we look ahead in our uniquely American way, restless, bold, optimistic, and set our sights on a nation we know we can be and must be, I thank my predecessors of both parties for their presence here. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. And I know the resilience of our Constitution and the strength, the strength of our nation, as does President Carter, who I spoke with last night who cannot be with us today, but who we salute for his lifetime of service.\n\nI've just taken a sacred oath each of those patriots have taken. The oath first sworn by George Washington. But the American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us. On we the people who seek a more perfect union. This is a great nation, we are good people. And over the centuries through storm and strife in peace and in war we've come so far. But we still have far to go.\n\nWe'll press forward with speed and urgency for we have much to do in this winter of peril and significant possibility. Much to do, much to heal, much to restore, much to build and much to gain. Few people in our nation's history have been more challenged or found a time more challenging or difficult than the time we're in now. A once in a century virus that silently stalks the country has taken as many lives in one year as in all of World War Two.\n\nMillions of jobs have been lost. Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed. A cry for racial justice, some 400 years in the making, moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer. A cry for survival comes from the planet itself, a cry that can't be any more desperate or any more clear now. The rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism, that we must confront and we will defeat.\n\nTo overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy - unity. Unity. In another January on New Year's Day in 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. When he put pen to paper the president said, and I quote, 'if my name ever goes down in history, it'll be for this act, and my whole soul is in it'.\n\nMy whole soul is in it today, on this January day. My whole soul is in this. Bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause. Uniting to fight the foes we face - anger, resentment and hatred. Extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness, and hopelessness.\n\nWith unity we can do great things, important things. We can right wrongs, we can put people to work in good jobs, we can teach our children in safe schools. We can overcome the deadly virus, we can rebuild work, we can rebuild the middle class and make work secure, we can secure racial justice and we can make America once again the leading force for good in the world.\n\nI know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real. But I also know they are not new. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal, that we are all created equal, and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism and fear have torn us apart. The battle is perennial and victory is never secure.\n\nThrough civil war, the Great Depression, World War, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifice, and setback, our better angels have always prevailed. In each of our moments enough of us have come together to carry all of us forward and we can do that now. History, faith and reason show the way. The way of unity.\n\nWe can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbours. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury, no progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge. And unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America.\n\nIf we do that, I guarantee we will not failed. We have never, ever, ever, ever failed in America when we've acted together. And so today at this time in this place, let's start afresh, all of us. Let's begin to listen to one another again, hear one another, see one another. Show respect to one another. Politics doesn't have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn't have to be a cause for total war and we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.\n\nMy fellow Americans, we have to be different than this. We have to be better than this and I believe America is so much better than this. Just look around. Here we stand in the shadow of the Capitol dome. As mentioned earlier, completed in the shadow of the Civil War. When the union itself was literally hanging in the balance. We endure, we prevail. Here we stand, looking out on the great Mall, where Dr King spoke of his dream.\n\nHere we stand, where 108 years ago at another inaugural, thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote. And today we mark the swearing in of the first woman elected to national office, Vice President Kamala Harris. Don't tell me things can't change. Here we stand where heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion rest in eternal peace.\n\nAnd here we stand just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground. It did not happen, it will never happen, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Not ever. To all those who supported our campaign, I'm humbled by the faith you placed in us. To all those who did not support us, let me say this. Hear us out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart.\n\nIf you still disagree, so be it. That's democracy. That's America. The right to dissent peacefully. And the guardrail of our democracy is perhaps our nation's greatest strength. If you hear me clearly, disagreement must not lead to disunion. And I pledge this to you. I will be a President for all Americans, all Americans. And I promise you I will fight for those who did not support me as for those who did.\n\nMany centuries ago, St Augustine - the saint of my church - wrote that a people was a multitude defined by the common objects of their love. Defined by the common objects of their love. What are the common objects we as Americans love, that define us as Americans? I think we know. Opportunity, security, liberty, dignity, respect, honour, and yes, the truth.\n\nRecent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and a responsibility as citizens as Americans and especially as leaders. Leaders who are pledged to honour our Constitution to protect our nation. To defend the truth and defeat the lies.\n\nLook, I understand that many of my fellow Americans view the future with fear and trepidation. I understand they worry about their jobs. I understand like their dad they lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling thinking: 'Can I keep my healthcare? Can I pay my mortgage?' Thinking about their families, about what comes next. I promise you, I get it. But the answer's not to turn inward. To retreat into competing factions. Distrusting those who don't look like you, or worship the way you do, who don't get their news from the same source as you do.\n\nWe must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts, if we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we're willing to stand in the other person's shoes, as my mom would say. Just for a moment, stand in their shoes.\n\nBecause here's the thing about life. There's no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days you need a hand. There are other days when we're called to lend a hand. That's how it has to be, that's what we do for one another. And if we are that way our country will be stronger, more prosperous, more ready for the future. And we can still disagree.\n\nMy fellow Americans, in the work ahead of us we're going to need each other. We need all our strength to persevere through this dark winter. We're entering what may be the darkest and deadliest period of the virus. We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation, one nation. And I promise this, as the Bible says, 'Weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning'. We will get through this together. Together.\n\nLook folks, all my colleagues I serve with in the House and the Senate up here, we all understand the world is watching. Watching all of us today. So here's my message to those beyond our borders. America has been tested and we've come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances, and engage with the world once again. Not to meet yesterday's challenges but today's and tomorrow's challenges. And we'll lead not merely by the example of our power but the power of our example.\n\nFellow Americans, moms, dads, sons, daughters, friends, neighbours and co-workers. We will honour them by becoming the people and the nation we can and should be. So I ask you let's say a silent prayer for those who lost their lives, those left behind and for our country. Amen.\n\nFolks, it's a time of testing. We face an attack on our democracy, and on truth, a raging virus, a stinging inequity, systemic racism, a climate in crisis, America's role in the world. Any one of these would be enough to challenge us in profound ways. But the fact is we face them all at once, presenting this nation with one of the greatest responsibilities we've had. Now we're going to be tested. Are we going to step up?\n\nIt's time for boldness for there is so much to do. And this is certain, I promise you. We will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era. We will rise to the occasion. Will we master this rare and difficult hour? Will we meet our obligations and pass along a new and better world to our children? I believe we must and I'm sure you do as well. I believe we will, and when we do, we'll write the next great chapter in the history of the United States of America. The American story.\n\nA story that might sound like a song that means a lot to me, it's called American Anthem. And there's one verse that stands out at least for me and it goes like this:\n\n'The work and prayers of centuries have brought us to this day, which shall be our legacy, what will our children say?\n\nLet me know in my heart when my days are through, America, America, I gave my best to you.'\n\nLet us add our own work and prayers to the unfolding story of our great nation. If we do this, then when our days are through, our children and our children's children will say of us: 'They gave their best, they did their duty, they healed a broken land.'\n\nMy fellow Americans I close the day where I began, with a sacred oath. Before God and all of you, I give you my word. I will always level with you. I will defend the Constitution, I'll defend our democracy.\n\nI'll defend America and I will give all - all of you - keep everything I do in your service. Thinking not of power but of possibilities. Not of personal interest but of public good.\n\nAnd together we will write an American story of hope, not fear. Of unity not division, of light not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing, greatness and goodness. May this be the story that guides us. The story that inspires us. And the story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history, we met the moment. Democracy and hope, truth and justice, did not die on our watch but thrive.\n\nThat America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world. That is what we owe our forbearers, one another, and generations to follow.\n\nSo with purpose and resolve, we turn to those tasks of our time. Sustained by faith, driven by conviction and devoted to one another and the country we love with all our hearts. May God bless America and God protect our troops.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. PM: It's too early to give a lockdown end date\n\nIt is \"too early\" to say whether England's Covid restrictions will be able to end in the spring, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.\n\nOnce the four priority groups have been vaccinated, by mid-February, \"we'll look then at how we're doing,\" he said.\n\nNearly two million people in the UK have had their first dose of vaccine in the past week, government figures show.\n\nScientist Marc Baguelin, who advises the government, has said restaurants and bars should not reopen before May.\n\nEducation Secretary Gavin Williamson has said he \"certainly hopes\" schools in England can fully reopen before Easter, while Downing Street refused to be drawn on whether this would happen by then.\n\nA further 1,290 people have died within 28 days of a positive Covid test and there have been another 37,892 cases, according to the latest government figures.\n\nAnd almost five million people in the UK have had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.\n\nSpeaking after a study suggested infections might have increased at the start of the latest lockdown in England, Mr Johnson said it was \"absolutely crucial\" that people observed the restrictions.\n\nReferring to figures from the Imperial College London survey, he said they showed the new variant of the virus was \"not more deadly but it is much more contagious and the numbers are very great\".\n\nFigures published by Public Health England show cases - meaning people who come forward to get tested while they are infected - have fallen across England since early January.\n\nWith the two sets of figures pointing in different directions, it will be some time before it is known for sure how long it will take for lockdown to relieve the pressure on hospitals.\n\nDr Baguelin, from Imperial College, who sits on a sub-group of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said the premature opening of the hospitality sector would lead to a \"bump\" in Covid-19 cases.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme even a partial reopening would generate \"an increase in the R number\". An R number above one means the epidemic is growing.\n\n\"Something of this scale, if it was to happen earlier than May, would generate a bump in transmission, which is already really bad,\" he said.\n\n\"So you have a lot of pressure on hospitals, you will have another wave of some extent. At best you will keep on having very, very unsustainable level of pressure on the NHS.\"\n\nNHS England figures show one in 10 major hospital trusts had no spare adult critical care beds last week.\n\nThis is a debate that is going to start to dominate public discourse.\n\nWith the vaccination programme under way, there is huge clamour to know what will happen once the most vulnerable are vaccinated, by mid-February.\n\nThe problem is there are still so many unknowns.\n\nFirstly, it is hard to predict by how much lockdown will have reduced infection levels, considering there is a new faster-spreading variant to deal with.\n\nThe level of uptake will also be crucial. Surveys suggest as many as one in five may not have the vaccine - although the older, more vulnerable groups tend to be the most willing to be vaccinated.\n\nAnd the fact that no vaccine is 100% effective means come February there could still be significant numbers of very vulnerable people who are not protected.\n\nAnother factor is whether the vaccine stops transmissions - so-called sterilising vaccination.\n\nTrials have shown the vaccines are good at stopping symptoms developing. But that does not mean someone who has received a jab will not pass on the virus.\n\nIf it does not, that, of course, has implications on how many control measures have to be kept in place. It will take us at least until spring to know the answer to this.\n\nAt this stage, it seems hard to see much beyond the possible reopening of schools come March.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was an \"impossible question\" to ask how long the lockdown would need to last.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons.\n\nThis includes for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nIn Northern Ireland, coronavirus lockdown restrictions will be extended until 5 March, BBC News understands.\n\nIn Scotland, lockdown has been extended until at least the middle of February, with most school pupils to continue learning from home.\n\nAnd in Wales health minister Vaughan Gething has said no \"significant easing\" of Wales' Covid restrictions should be expected when the current guidelines are reviewed this month.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSir Keir added that the coronavirus vaccines were \"really good news\" but \"should not mask the fact that we have still got a very serious problem\".\n\nThe government is aiming to offer a vaccine to all over-70s, the extremely clinical vulnerable and health and care workers by mid-February.\n\nSixty-five new vaccination centres are opening in England, including a mosque in Birmingham and a cinema in Aylesbury.", "Paddy McElhone was shot in the back by a soldier in 1974\n\nThe shooting dead of a man by the Army in County Tyrone in August 1974 was unjustified, a coroner has ruled.\n\nPaddy McElhone, 24, a farmer, was shot in the back near his home in Limehill, Pomeroy.\n\nAn inquest heard the shot was fired by a soldier from the First Battalion, Royal Regiment of Wales.\n\nJudge Siobhan Keegan said Mr McElhone was an \"innocent man shot in cold blood without warning when he was no threat to anyone\".\n\nThe soldier, now deceased, had been cleared of murder but the circumstances were re-examined in a new inquest ordered by the Attorney General.\n\nPaddy McElhone's family said he was killed without justification, explanation or apology\n\nAfterwards, a statement issued by the McElhone family said it had been a \"very long road\" to reach Thursday's ruling and that the truth \"has been heard\".\n\nIt reads: \"Our family always knew that Paddy was an innocent young man, taken from his home and shot by a British soldier for no reason.\"\n\nEvidence presented to the inquest found Mr McElhone was not on any list associated with the IRA and was an innocent man from a humble background.\n\nThe family said Mr McElhone's parents \"went to their graves broken-hearted knowing that their innocent son had been killed, without justification, explanation or apology\".\n\n\"We feel that, today, Judge Keenan at this inquest has, at long last, exonerated Paddy in full,\" the statement continued.\n\n\"As a family we can grieve Paddy, and respect his memory as an innocent young man.\"\n\nThe inquest into Mr McElhone's death was the first in a series of coroners' investigations into deaths associated with Northern Ireland's Troubles.\n\nIt was held in Omagh courthouse in County Tyrone.", "Nearly nine million people had to borrow more money last year because of the impact of coronavirus, government figures show.\n\nSince June last year, the proportion of workers borrowing £1,000 or more had increased from 35% to 45%, said the Office for National Statistics.\n\nSelf-employed people were more likely than employees to borrow money.\n\nThere was also a large increase in the proportion of disabled people borrowing similar sums, the ONS added.\n\nThis was adding to a \"widening financial gap\" between households.\n\nOverall, young people and low earners have been worst hit by the pandemic, according to the ONS survey.\n\nThose aged under 30 and those with household incomes of less than £10,000 were about 35% and 60% respectively more likely to be furloughed than the population as a whole.\n\nMeanwhile, higher-paid workers were more likely to be on full pay if they were unable to work.\n\nThere has been much focus on a glut of savings ready to be unleashed into the economy when pandemic restrictions are lifted.\n\nThis ONS report shines a light on the reality of this for many ordinary Britons, having to borrow more, amid a hit to incomes during the recession.\n\nDisproportionately this has hit the low paid and the young, and this would have been far worse without the government's support package.\n\nMore homeowners and the over-30s by December expected to be able to save for the year ahead. Fewer renters and under 30s expected to be able to save.\n\nThough the analysis does not include the latest national lockdown, the economic impact of schools closure is also clear.\n\nEmployed parents were twice as likely to experience income loss, though that gap closed when schools reopened. The fear is that this trend will have returned over the past month.\n\nGueorguie Vassilev from the ONS said: \"Many people took a financial hit in the first months of the pandemic, either being furloughed or working fewer hours.\n\n\"What we are seeing now, though, is a widening financial gap between households, where some people are relying on savings or borrowing to make ends meet. Those hardest hit are people on low pay, young people and parents of dependent children.\"\n\nParents living with children were almost twice as likely to report a reduction in income as the rest of the population, the ONS added.\n\nThis gap gradually narrowed throughout the year as schools reopened. Parents were less likely to have a reduced income during the November lockdown than in the first lockdown, as schools stayed open.\n\nHave you needed to borrow a substantial amount of money because of the impact of the pandemic? Tell us your story by emailing: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Biden invited Taiwan's envoy to his inauguration - what does it mean?\n\nBiden’s inauguration was marked by many historic “firsts”, and one of them could be a sign of potential future clashes between Beijing and Washington. Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s top envoy to the US, was formally invited to the inauguration - the first time this has happened in more than four decades. A video shared on her social media shows her standing in front of the US Capitol ahead of the inauguration ceremony. “Democracy is our common language and freedom is our common objective,” Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the US said. China views the self-ruled island as part of its territory that it will eventually retake, by force if necessary. And the status of Taiwan has long been a thorny issue in US-China relations, as the US is by far Taiwan’s most important friend. Hsiao’s presence at the inauguration signals the US may continue to demonstrate strong support for Taiwan, despite the fact that many Taiwanese people are concerned that Biden will take a less confrontational stance towards Beijing compared with Trump. By contrast, it’s unclear whether China’s ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, attended Biden’s inauguration. Earlier today, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Cui had been invited, but did not confirm whether he was present in the ceremony. Hua reiterated China’s position of opposing official interactions between Taiwan and the US. It’s a long-running unspoken rule that Beijing and Taipei’s top diplomats in Washington do not attend the same event, because sharing a stage could be seen as Beijing acknowledging Taiwan as an independent sovereign country.", "Education Minister Peter Weir says that from an educational point of view, he wants \"to keep the extent to which they [children] are out of school to a minimum\".\n\nBut Mr Weir said that decisions about schools during the Covid-19 pandemic must \"be weighed up against the wider public health advice\".\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Evening Extra programme after it was announced that current restrictions will be extended, Mr Weir said that \"nobody wants to see restrictions last longer than they have to\".\n\nHe said the decision to extend lockdown was taken \"very reluctantly but there is a broad consensus in the executive that these are necessary measures that have to be taken to ensure we remain on top of the virus\".\n\nMr Weir added that schools have operated on a slightly different timetable to the rest of the restrictions, and that next week's discussions will consider keeping them closed until 5 March, in line with decisions taken by ministers today.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. While some young people have found it hard at times, others have learnt new skills\n\nYoung people have been asked to share their experiences of how they have coped during the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nChildren's Commissioner for Wales Sally Holland said her national survey was important because sometimes views of younger people can be \"surprising\".\n\nShe said the information provided would also help inform the Welsh Government ahead of some tough decisions it will need to make in the future.\n\nA similar survey was carried out in the first lockdown last year.\n\nA recent Prince's Trust Youth Index survey asked young people across the UK about their thoughts and feelings towards the pandemic.\n\nMore than 2,000 responded including 200 from Wales.\n\nIt found 63% of 16 to 25-year-olds said the pandemic had left them \"always\" or \"often\" feeling anxious - 64% said they were feeling like they were \"missing out on being young\".\n\nBBC Wales spoke to a number of children and young people about their thoughts on a variety of issues including home schooling, loneliness and finding out what they are doing to stay positive.\n\nAngel, 16, from Cardiff, is studying for her GCSEs.\n\n\"I've just been confused a lot of the time. All the information out there and it's really hard to process and get to a point where you're in a mindset where you know what's happening.\n\n\"There's such a high level of uncertainty you're constantly worried or actually doubting what's going to happen next.\n\n\"When you have goals for the future it's something to help you get through this but when you're in the circumstances we're in now, it's really hard to find the motivation and a purpose for what you're doing now.\"\n\nTo try and stay positive Angel has been trying to get out for walks during her school breaks or watch Netflix.\n\nShe said she has also tried to learn some sign-language during lockdown and attempted yoga.\n\nEmrys and Clara have been learning home skills\n\nEmrys, 11, from Bridgend, said he misses not having the structure of a school day and seeing his friends.\n\nHe added: \"I'm a social person. I have friends, I chat with them, I play with them, and it's hard not being with my friends but I mean the family will have to do.\"\n\nHe and his six-year-old sister, Clara, have enjoyed going for walks with their parents and have been learning some new skills including washing dishes, cooking dinner and baking cakes.\n\nMeanwhile, 11-year-old Sophie has found it difficult to not get bored during long periods of time in the house.\n\n\"I'd say I cope OK with it at some points, but then not okay with it at other points,\" she added.\n\nSophie said it can be hard sometimes to find things to do\n\nAlicia is studying for her A-levels and has friends who have dropped out of their studies this year because of the stress and anxiety caused by the uncertainty about exams and their futures.\n\nThe 17-year-old also said it was \"heart-breaking\" not being able to see many of her close friends for almost a year.\n\nShe added: \"My thoughts are, it's less of a luxury now, I need to be able to go out to see them and to work.\"\n\nBefore the pandemic, Sarah, 16, from Swansea enjoyed going to her local youth club and took part in a local drama group but it how now moved online, giving a different experience.\n\n\"It's quite sad because I used to enjoy being able to do those things whenever it was on, but I think I'm getting used to do everything online,\" she said.\n\nAs a person who does not cope very well with not knowing what will happen next, the pandemic has caused anxiety at times for Sarah.\n\n\"I am finding it quite scary but hopefully things will change and I'll be able to go back soon,\" she said.\n\n\"I think if you're really struggling with something, talking really helps so it would be nice to see people in person.\"\n\nChildren's commissioner Sally Holland conducted a survey of pupils in Wales during the first lockdown\n\nChildren's helpline MEIC Cymru said it had seen a 10% increase in the number of calls from young people, parents, and carers during the pandemic compared with previous years.\n\nStephanie Hoffman, Head of Social Action at Promo Cymru, the charity which runs the helpline, said: \"We're seeing what I'd say are many more substantive contacts, so a lot more contact dealing with really serious issues to do with social well-being, mental health and relationships, as opposed to what we might have seen more of in the past.\n\n\"Now we're dealing with situations which can be quite complicated.\"\n\nOf the survey, Ms Holland said: \"We've heard a lot from adults showing concern for children at the moment, such as parents, carers and professionals working with children about the potential impact of the lockdown on children.\n\n\"Those voices are important to hear, but it's also important we hear directly from children and young people because sometimes they can be surprising.\"\n\nWe know that Covid-19 vaccinations have been on people's minds in Wales - with many wanting to know when they or their loved-ones will receive theirs.\n\nIf you have a question about this issue, a story you'd like to share or a query about anything else related to coronavirus, you can sent it to us using the form below.\n\nIn some cases your question will be published, displaying your name and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read the terms and conditions.\n\nIf you are reading this page on the BBC News app, you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question on this topic.", "Fashion chain Next has said it will no longer bid to buy Sir Philip Green's Arcadia retail brands Topshop and Topman out of administration.\n\nIt comes after a consortium including the fashion chain was named as frontrunner to buy the brands.\n\nIn a short statement, Next said the consortium had been \"unable to meet the price expectations of the vendor\".\n\nSome 13,000 jobs were put at risk when Arcadia, which also owns Burton and Dorothy Perkins, went bust in November.\n\nIt leaves a clutch of others in the race to buy the 440-store group, including Mike Ashley's Frasers Group, which owns House of Fraser and Sports Direct.\n\nAccording to reports, Authentic Brands, the US owner of the Barneys department store, and JD Sports have tabled a joint offer, while online retailers Asos and Boohoo are also said to be interested.\n\nAdministrators Deloitte have been looking for buyers for some or all of Arcadia, after a slump in sales caused by the pandemic triggered its collapse.\n\nNext, which has 550 UK shops and has weathered the pandemic well, was seen as a good fit to take over the group's assets.\n\nIt had been bidding in partnership with the US hedge fund Davidson Kempner, which was going to put up most of the money.\n\nNext said it wished \"the administrator and future owners [of Arcadia] well in their endeavours to preserve an important part of the UK retail sector\".\n\nExperts expect Arcadia to be broken up, with bidders taking on different parts of the business and brands potentially hived off from their stores.\n\nIn December, Australian collective City Chic said it would buy Arcadia's Evans brand, commerce and wholesale business for £23m but not its store network.\n\nLast year was the worst for the High Street in more than 25 years as the coronavirus accelerated the move towards online shopping, according to the Centre for Retail Research (CRR).\n\nNearly 180,000 retail jobs were lost, up by almost a quarter on the previous year, as shops faced strict curbs and prolonged closures.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nLiverpool's 68-game unbeaten home run in the Premier League came to an end as Ashley Barnes fired in a late winner from the penalty spot to secure a famous victory for Burnley.\n\nBarnes was tripped in the box by goalkeeper Alisson with seven minutes remaining and converted the spot-kick as Burnley won at Anfield for the first time since 1974.\n\nLiverpool's last league loss on their own ground came nearly four years ago, against Crystal Palace in April 2017, and they are now six points behind leaders Manchester United at the midway point in the campaign.\n\nDivock Origi was given his first start of the season and should have scored when he ran free on goal after pouncing on Ben Mee's error but struck the crossbar.\n\nThe hosts pushed to find the net in the second half but ran out of ideas, Nick Pope making a stunning save to deny Mohamed Salah and fellow substitute Roberto Firmino flicking an effort wide.\n\nBurnley's shock win lifts them up to 16th in the table, seven points clear of the relegation zone.\n• None Klopp takes blame but what has happened to Liverpool?\n\nJurgen Klopp said before the game he was \"not worried\" by his side's poor run, but the latest setback means this has now turned into a real problem for the Liverpool manager.\n\nAfter 19 games, Liverpool are out of form and out of confidence, failing to find the net in their last 440 minutes of top-flight action and awaiting their first league victory of 2021.\n\nThey looked to be hitting their stride on 19 December when they took apart Crystal Palace 7-0, but have not won in the league since and scored just a solitary league goal in that time, against relegation strugglers West Brom.\n\nTheir drop-off from the same stage last season is extraordinary - after 19 games last term the Reds were 13 points clear at the top with 55 points, but they have 21 fewer points now.\n\nAside from Pope's save to thwart Salah and stops from Origi and Trent Alexander-Arnold, Liverpool did not look a side who were threatening to find the net.\n\nThey had 72% possession but much of it was slow and ponderous, and although they had spaces out wide and put 30 crosses into the box, the resolute Burnley defenders headed and hacked clear every ball that came in.\n\nLiverpool won 18 of 19 league games at Anfield as they cantered to the title last term.\n\nBurnley were the spoilers on that occasion - earning a 1-1 draw in July 2020 - and they bettered that showing here with another solid and well-organised display.\n\nCaptain Mee had 14 clearances and made two tackles, while centre-back partner James Tarkowski contributed five interceptions and won the ball back four times.\n\nBurnley are a well-drilled outfit and know their limitations, happy to sit back and soak up the pressure before looking to take their chances on the counter-attack.\n\nThey had sniffs on the break but were unable to get the final ball right and while Barnes forced an excellent save out of Alisson, the assistant referee's flag would have ruled it out.\n\nThey remain the lowest scorers in the league with just 10 goals - level with bottom side Sheffield United - but their defensive solidity means they will always pose a threat, even to the biggest teams.\n\n'We dealt with the basics' - manager reaction\n\nBurnley boss Sean Dyche to Match of the Day: \"Performance, we had to work very hard, as you do in these places, be diligent and do your jobs - shape was good, energy was good.\n\n\"We had a golden chance, kept searching, but you have to deal with the basics and we did that very well.\n\n\"We were close last year, you get a feel of a performance and I said 'you are used to playing against these players, working without the ball, there's always a chance and you have to take it'. Barnsey sticks it in there, gets a toe, it's a penalty and he sticks it away very well.\"\n• None This was Burnley's second Premier League win away against the reigning champions (also v Chelsea in August 2017). Indeed, since the 2017-18 season, Burnley are the only side with two away league wins over the reigning English champions.\n• None Liverpool have gone four league games without scoring for the first time since May 2000. The Reds have had a total of 87 shots since Sadio Mane's 12th-minute strike against West Brom, 25 days ago.\n• None This is the first time a Jurgen Klopp side has gone four league games without scoring since his Mainz side did so in the Bundesliga from November to December 2006.\n• None Liverpool have gone five Premier League games without a win (D3 L2) for only the second time under Klopp (also from Jan-Feb 2017).\n• None Liverpool have conceded two penalty goals at Anfield in this season's Premier League (also Sander Berge for Sheff Utd); they had only conceded two penalty goals at the ground under Klopp before 2020-21.\n• None Liverpool had 27 shots without scoring against Burnley, the most they have had in a single league match without finding the net since April 2013 v Reading (28), and most at Anfield since April 2012 v West Brom (30).\n• None Ashley Barnes' penalty for Burnley was his first away goal in the Premier League in 11 appearances on the road, since netting against Watford back in November 2019.\n• None Since the start of last season, no goalkeeper has made more saves against a single opponent in the Premier League than Burnley's Nick Pope against Liverpool (19). Pope has made 14 saves in his last two games at Anfield, including six tonight.\n\nLiverpool have another big game on Sunday against rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup. That game is live on the BBC (17:00 GMT). Burnley travel to Fulham in the same competition on the same day (14:30).\n• None Offside, Burnley. Dwight McNeil tries a through ball, but Chris Wood is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Takumi Minamino (Liverpool) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt missed. Dwight McNeil (Burnley) left footed shot from the left side of the box is close, but misses the top left corner. Assisted by Ashley Barnes.\n• None Attempt blocked. Roberto Firmino (Liverpool) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Trent Alexander-Arnold.\n• None Attempt missed. Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool) right footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Sadio Mané with a cross.\n• None Joel Matip (Liverpool) is shown the yellow card for hand ball.\n• None Attempt blocked. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) left footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Sadio Mané.\n• None Goal! Liverpool 0, Burnley 1. Ashley Barnes (Burnley) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom right corner.\n• None Penalty conceded by Alisson (Liverpool) after a foul in the penalty area.\n• None Attempt blocked. Sadio Mané (Liverpool) right footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Andrew Robertson. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None You can stream five fourth-round games live on the BBC this weekend, including Liverpool's trip to Manchester United. Find out more here.", "There is a photograph of Kamala Harris, taken in 1986, while she was a student at Howard University.\n\nShe and two other friends, all shoulder pads and plaid, are smiling and laughing, a crowd behind them. It's a picture brimming with energy and hope.\n\nIt's been used a lot in telling the extraordinary story of her rise to become the first black and Asian American woman to be vice-president and the first person who attended one of America's HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) to get to such a position.\n\nBut this is the story of the other women in the photograph, her two best friends - Valarie Pippen and Karen Gibbs - as well as of others who might have been milling about in the background there.\n\nThis was the 1980s, when the children of America's civil rights generation came of age. Being at Howard University, an HBCU at a time when solidarity with the global anti-apartheid movement was reaching fever pitch and at the height of Reaganism, was a formative experience for many of them.\n\nNow they are about to witness one of their own become vice-president. What have their journeys been like and what does this moment feel like?\n\nHistorically Black Colleges, like Howard University, were founded in order to educate African Americans who were otherwise prohibited from attending college, after slavery.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAlthough that has now changed, a core part of the Howard message remains its focus on cultivating black leaders - it is not just about academic achievement, but social activism too.\n\nKamala Harris has made clear the influence Howard University had on her career and life goals. Last week, on the anniversary of her sorority's founding date, she posted on Instagram, paying homage to her Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, and referring to her days at Howard, attending anti-apartheid marches and being part of the debate team: \"Howard taught me that while you will often find that you're the only one in the room who looks like you, or who has had the experiences you've had, you must remember: you are never alone.\"\n\nLike Ms Harris, I also went to Howard University and became a member of that same sorority decades later.\n\nI became intrigued by the stories of the other women and graduates who ventured out into the same world during the same time as Kamala.\n\nIn that photograph, Valarie Pippen is on the right and smiling with confidence at the camera.\n\nHer parents attended historically black colleges after moving north with the great migration, which was the movement over decades of millions of African Americans to the North from the South, where economic uncertainty and segregation prevailed. They settled in the Chicago region and forged successful careers.\n\nShe was led to Howard, specifically, after her older brother attended and brought home a yearbook that intrigued her.\n\nHoward had a festive celebratory atmosphere that the friends made the most of while they were there\n\n\"The culture was festive and lively yet focused on academic and cultural advancement of oppressed people,\" says Ms Pippen. \"We knew that our generation would make a difference with our success.\"\n\nMs Pippen says that at Howard University \"we all had more of a striving to do well, a striving to live with integrity and to make your mark on the world\".\n\nComing from a high-achieving and proud black family with high expectations of their children, she was brought up knowing that her college experience was going to be important.\n\nShe is now a healthcare consultant, and after graduating from Howard she attended medical school at Yale.\n\nShe recalls the commitment to academic excellence, the need to prove your worth out there in the world and how that also translated into many nights studying with her good friend Kamala.\n\n\"There was one year at Howard, we both stayed for summer school. We worked during the day, did night classes and we studied together afterwards. We did that for the whole summer and we had fun.\n\n\"She was born for the job. Her dedication - like mine - was to academics, being an all around good person and to integrity.\"\n\nIn the 1990s, 52% of black pharmacy recipients, 30% of dentistry degree recipients, and 27% of theology degree recipients were all educated at HBCUs.\n\nToday, the two oldest HBCU medical schools - Meharry Medical College and Howard University - are responsible for more than 80% of black doctors and dentists practising in the US.\n\nHBCUs have educated three-quarters of all black people holding a doctorate; three-quarters of all black officers in the armed forces; and four-fifths of all black federal judges, according to the US Department of Education.\n\nThe culture they fostered was hugely important for many ambitious and successful middle- and upper-class class black families going out into a world to become leaders in their field, within one generation of getting the right to vote.\n\nKaren Gibbs, pictured on the left in that photo, remains best friends with the vice-president elect and Valarie Pippen.\n\nShe is now an attorney and speaks of her time at Howard in the same way Kamala Harris has in the past.\n\nThere was \"a lot of black pride and a lot of black love\" in the Howard community, says Ms Gibbs.\n\n\"We had black professors who loved us. That was the beauty of going to Howard. They nurtured us, they groomed us. They were realistic to tell us what we would confront when we left Howard - but they equipped us to realise and achieve our dreams.\"\n\nThat environment was especially important as an escape from the realities of society.\n\n\"I was raised in a rural area in Delaware, and the people there were really racist. I had been called bad names by a lot of people, despite having a black family and smaller community filled with educators and proud of their roots,\" says Ms Gibbs.\n\nThat is one of the reasons that she wanted to attend Howard University, to become a civil rights lawyer. She made the move so that she could be surrounded by \"love\" and \"support\".\n\n\"It was never a matter if I would go to an HBCU,\" it was just a matter of which she would go to.\n\nMs Gibbs and Ms Pippen's experience at Howard University strikes a chord with others who were also there in the 1980s.\n\nThey speak of the open fostering of social awareness and political activism in movements happening off campus.\n\nBeing in the nation's capital, Howard in particular had a front-row seat to some memorable episodes in politics.\n\nThe debate team in 1981 at Howard University. Kamala Harris was one of the few women to join the club.\n\nDexter Cole, a Howard alumnus and now top executive at TV One, told the BBC that \"our parents actively participated in the civil rights movements and were at the forefront, and we came to Howard with a sense of commitment to not only improve the lives of ourselves, but others as well\".\n\nAcross the nation, HBCUs were training a generation who would have a large impact on the world, and the progression of the broader African-American community.\n\n\"We understood that we were agents of change.\"\n\nMr Cole explained that \"social unrest was very prevalent, but as a student body we knew that we had a seat at the table because of those we saw who went before us\".\n\n\"I remember marching on Capitol Hill on the National Mall. There was a group of students going to protest to make Martin Luther King Jr's birthday a national holiday, and now I look there is a memorial just where I marched.\n\n\"We knew what our rights were and we were determined to invoke our right. That's why there were so many of us active in the anti-apartheid movement - we saw it play out in the US,\" says Ms Gibbs.\n\n\"It was a time when a lot of people from the era transcended into important places in different parts of society,\" says Lita Rosario-Richardson.\n\nMs Rosario-Richardson is currently an entertainment lawyer. On campus, she recruited Ms Harris on to the debate team.\n\n\"The election of Kamala Harris has really made crystal clear that Howard prepares you for anything,\" she adds.\n\nAlthough it is no surprise to those who knew Kamala Harris that she is now the vice-president of the United States, it feels like a vindication for their own personal journeys and the philosophy they took forward with them into the wider world.\n\n\"It was instilled that with your education comes a responsibility to improve the world - specifically our own people. And, we see that that has benefited everyone in America.\n\n\"Kamala is a child of desegregation, like myself. Her nomination seemed historically fit, and she's the right person for it,\" Ms Rosario-Richardson adds.\n\nDexter Cole is now a top executive at TV One\n\n\"Alumni like Thurgood Marshall - the first black Supreme Court Justice - who attended Howard laid the framework.\"\n\nEven during their time as students, these alumni felt that they were connected to greatness and expected to make big strides in the world.\n\nIt was not a feeling confined to Kamala Harris. The stories of these women show many have become movers and shakers in their own fields.\n\n\"All this has come full circle,\" says Andrea Holmes, a graduate who is now a marketing executive.\n\n\"The vice-presidency is where she belongs. She is the role model of the world and to all women and little girls.\"\n\nThe original photograph of Kamala, Valarie and Karen was taken in 1986 at Howard University's famous Homecoming.\n\nAt most schools in the US, homecoming is an annual tradition marked by an American football game and partying. At Howard University, homecoming is marked by a football game as well as a week of events where all generations come back to meet and celebrate. Notable graduates as well as celebrities and artists come to perform, join discussions, and be part of the week.\n\nAs a graduate, I know Homecoming remains a highly anticipated annual event, an experience like no other. That picture captures the energy, friendship and ambition of a group of women, at Howard in an electric era, who felt capable of anything.\n\nValarie Pippen remembers the moment: \"The weekend was truly exhilarating, and you can see from the looks and smiles on our faces we were having the time of our lives.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMore than 2,000 homes in parts of Manchester are being evacuated due to flooding caused by Storm Christoph.\n\nThe Environment Agency (EA) has issued two severe flood warnings, which means danger to life, for the Didsbury and Northenden areas.\n\nAssistant Chief Constable Nick Bailey of Greater Manchester Police has warned some of those affected would \"be Covid-positive or isolating at home\".\n\nHe said the government was working to ensure it was \"totally prepared\" for floods \"in every part of the UK\".\n\nA major incident was earlier declared for the Greater Manchester area where up to 3,000 properties were feared to be at risk.\n\nMr Johnson urged people not to stay in their homes if they were told to evacuate.\n\n\"If you are told to leave your home then you should do so.\n\n\"People may think this is a minor issue at the moment, still relevantly minor by standards of previous floods, but never underestimate the suffering, the misery, that floods can cause people.\"\n\nUnder government restrictions due to the current national lockdown people are allowed to leave their homes to escape harm.\n\nIn an alert to those affected, ACC Bailey said: \"A basin at Didsbury to take water from the Mersey is full. It will over-top in the next few hours. As a result we will be issuing a flood warning to homes.\n\n\"This will be through texted flood alerts to some people, and police officers, PCSOs, firefighters, and volunteers will be knocking on doors.\"\n\nHe said police will be supported by North West Ambulance, the British Red Cross and St John Ambulance.\n\n\"I think it's important to stress that if you are contacted and advised to evacuate then we would strongly urge you to do so,\" he added.\n\nWater levels in the area were expected to peak at about 23:00 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nA major incident has also been declared in Derbyshire, where authorities believe a small number of evacuations are \"likely\" on Thursday morning, when the River Derwent is expected to peak.\n\nCounty council leader Barry Lewis said it could rival levels seen in November 2019, depending on the weather overnight.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The PM says the government is making sure it is “totally prepared in every part of the UK” for flooding after Storm Christoph.\n\nSpeaking after a Cobra emergency meeting on Wednesday, Mr Johnson said work was under way to ensure transport and energy networks, and local council services, were prepared.\n\nHe added that work was also taking place to ensure the necessary numbers of sandbags were available.\n\n\"We want to make sure that we are totally prepared in every part of the UK for flooding, because it is coming on top of the stress people are already under fighting Covid,\" he said.\n\n\"We looked at particularly Manchester, we've got a situation potentially developing there,\" Mr Johnson said.\n\n\"We are looking at a pattern of rainfall possibly not as bad at the end of this week, maybe worse next week.\"\n\nPeople in Greater Manchester have also been advised not to travel.\n\nStephen Rhodes, from Transport from Greater Manchester, said there was disruption across the network.\n\n\"Let's work together and not put our emergency services and the NHS - who are already working extremely hard due to the Covid-19 pandemic - under any more pressure,\" he said.\n\nIn Merseyside, the M57 has been closed in both directions between junction 6 and 7 due to flooding.\n\nThe Environment Agency has issued more than 100 flood warnings, meaning flooding is expected and immediate action required, while there are also more than 200 flood alerts, meaning flooding is possible.\n\nRiver levels have risen rapidly in parts of northern England\n\nThe North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands have been preparing for widespread flooding following the Met Office's amber weather warning for heavy rain until midday Thursday.\n\nThe Met Office said some isolated areas could see up to 200mm (7.8in).\n\nSandbags have been distributed as Storm Christoph batters parts of England\n\n\"Once again the government's response to inevitable flood events has been slow and uncoordinated,\" the Barnsley East MP said.\n\n\"We must ensure councils are supported to protect people, businesses, and local communities, and that all of the necessary precautions are also in place to protect those fighting the floods in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Sheila Evans was among those to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine at the Al Abbas Mosque in Birmingham\n\nNearly two million people in the UK have received their first dose of a Covid vaccine in the past week, government figures show.\n\nBy the end of Tuesday 4.61 million people had received their initial jab, up from 2.64 million the week before.\n\nBut Boris Johnson warned there were \"unquestionably going to be a tough few weeks\" while the vaccine was rolled out and urged people to observe lockdown.\n\nSpeaking during a visit to flood-hit Didsbury in Manchester, the prime minister said it was still \"too early\" to say when some lockdown restrictions could be lifted in England.\n\nHe said figures from an Imperial College London survey showed the new variant of the virus to be \"not more deadly but it is much more contagious and the numbers are very great\".\n\nThe study suggests there was a rise in infections in the community at the start of the latest lockdown in England.\n\nMeanwhile, NHS England figures show one in 10 major hospital trusts had no spare adult critical care beds last week.\n\nThe UK recorded another all-time high of daily coronavirus deaths on Wednesday. A further 1,820 people died within 28 days of a positive Covid test, according to government figures - taking the total number of deaths by that measure to 93,290.\n\nSixty-five new vaccination centres have opened in England, including a mosque in Birmingham and a cinema in Aylesbury.\n\nTwo million jabs a week are needed for the government to achieve its target of offering a vaccine to all over 70s, the extremely clinical vulnerable and health and care workers by mid-February.\n\nGiving a statement in the Commons, Health Secretary Mr Hancock said the country had an \"immense infrastructure in place that, day by day, is protecting the vulnerable and giving hope to us all\".\n\nDescribing this as a \"huge feat\", he said the government was making \"good progress\" towards its target.\n\nAsked about difficulties in getting vaccines to rural areas and whether the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine could be prioritised for these as it is easier to store, Mr Hancock said the challenge was that supply was \"lumpy\", with manufacturers working \"as fast as possible\".\n\nShadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said new variants of the virus showed vaccination needed to go \"further and faster\".\n\nHe asked if there was a contingency plan in place in case vaccines needed to be redesigned to contain mutations.\n\nMr Hancock said the early indications were that the new variant was dealt with by the vaccine \"just as much as the old variant\".\n\nHe also said 63% of residents in elderly care homes had now received a vaccine.\n\nFormer Conservative health secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is now chairman of the Common's Health Select Committee, asked about establishing \"quarantine hotels\" to combat new strains, as well as whether there should be further restrictions on household mixing outside bubbles and mandating FFP2 masks in shops and on public transport.\n\nMr Hancock said the clinical advice was that the current guidelines on personal protective equipment (PPE) were \"right and appropriate\" and said \"very significant measures\" had been brought in for international travel.\n\nIn Northern Ireland more than 160,000 people have received a first vaccine dose, while in Wales, where more than 175,000 people have received a jab, people waiting for theirs have been urged to show \"patience\" and \"perspective\".\n\nScotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon insisted her country's vaccine programme was not lagging behind, during First Minister's Questions on Wednesday.\n\nIn England the rollout of the vaccine started with people aged 80 and over. In some regions where the majority of these have been vaccinated, the programmes are now moving on to the over 70s.\n\nHome Secretary Priri Patel, who will lead a Downing Street press conference later, said ministers were working to ensure police and other front-line workers are moved up the priority list, while Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told BBC Breakfast he hoped teachers and support staff could be moved up the list.\n\nMeanwhile, pumps and sandbags were brought in to protect supplies of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from the risk of flood water at a warehouse in Wrexham, north-east Wales.\n\nYoung people in Wales have been asked to share their experiences of the pandemic in a survey by the nation's Children's Commissioner.", "Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned there will be \"tough weeks to come\" as the UK reported another all-time high of daily coronavirus deaths.\n\nA further 1,820 people have died within 28 days of a positive Covid test, according to government figures.\n\nIt means the total number of deaths by that measure is now 93,290.\n\nMr Johnson said there was now a \"race against time\" to vaccinate the vulnerable but he hoped there would be a \"real difference\" by spring.\n\nIn an interview with broadcasters, he said the high number of deaths was \"appalling\" and a reflection of the peak infection rates seen a couple of weeks ago.\n\nHe said: \"I must warn people there will be tough weeks to come, but as the vaccine goes in and that programme accelerates, there will be, I think, a real difference by spring.\"\n\nJust under half of the newly reported deaths occurred on Tuesday, while a further quarter took place on Monday or Sunday with the remainder last week or even earlier.\n\nThe previous highest number of daily deaths was the 1,610 reported on Tuesday.\n\nSome 4,609,740 people have now received the first dose of a vaccine - a rise of 343,163 from yesterday.\n\nThere were also a further 38,905 cases, with 3,887 more patients admitted into hospital.\n\nIt is the second consecutive day deaths have hit a new high.\n\nThat, sadly, was to be expected as it is a reflection of the surge in cases seen during December.\n\nIt takes a week or two from the point of infection for someone to become seriously ill - and they can then spend some time in hospital. The high number is also a result of delays reporting deaths - a quarter happened last week or even before.\n\nBut make no mistake the death toll is going up. If you look at the average over the course of a week, the numbers being reported at the moment are twice what they were just two weeks ago.\n\nHowever, we also know they should soon start coming down. Daily infections are falling, with signs lockdown is taking effect. For four days in a row new diagnoses have been below 40,000 - after averaging 60,000 at the start of year.\n\nIt could be another week or so before we start to see the impact of that in the death figures. The hope then would be that within a few weeks we could start seeing a more rapid fall as the impact of the vaccination programme begins to bite.\n\nBut before that happens the daily totals reported could, sadly, go even higher.\n\nNew coronavirus cases are down by 21.5% over the last seven days. But the number of patients being admitted into hospital in the same period has not yet fallen (up by 0.5%).\n\nThe prime minister said it looked as though infection rates across the country overall might now be peaking or flattening, but he cautioned that \"they're not flattening very fast\".\n\nAsked if daily deaths would continue to rise, he said it was \"difficult to predict\".\n\nHe added: \"We must hope that by getting the numbers of daily infections down in the way that perhaps has been happening since the lockdown that will feed through into a reduction in deaths as well.\n\n\"But I must stress that we have tough weeks to come now as we roll out the vaccine.\n\n\"The light will only really begin to dawn as we get those vaccination numbers up.\"\n\nEarlier, the government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, told Sky News: \"This is very, very bad at the moment, with enormous pressure, and in some cases it looks like a war zone in terms of the things that people are having to deal with.\"\n\nHe said there was \"light at the end of the tunnel\" in the form of the vaccination programme.\n\nBut he said vaccines were \"not going to do the heavy lifting for us at the moment, anywhere near it\".\n\nMilitary personnel are going to be deployed to a number of hospitals to help staff cope with high numbers of cases, including in Northern Ireland and Exeter.\n\nAnd this week 10 hospital trusts across England consistently reported having no spare adult critical care beds.\n\nIn other developments, Home Secretary Priti Patel said ministers were working to ensure police and other frontline workers were moved up the priority list for the Covid vaccine.\n\nMr Johnson said the government must rely on advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, but wanted front-line workers to be immunised \"as soon as possible\".\n\nHe also said the vaccination programme remained \"on track\" despite \"constraints on supply\".", "Politicians in pearls, the colour purple and warm woollen mittens - these are just a few of Washington's favourite things from the 2021 Inauguration.\n\nWith America's leaders in the spotlight on the inauguration - and world - stage, sometimes what they wear can say more than their speeches.\n\nDC-based fashion consultant Lauren Rothman says Americans have always taken an interest in what political leaders don for inaugural celebrations. And in 2021, with an ongoing pandemic and economic crisis as well as the swearing-in of the first female vice-president, things feel \"even more loaded\".\n\nIt's all about optics for the politically fashion-minded, says Ms Rothman, who helps style politicians for events including inaugurations past.\n\nSo let's see how outspoken this year's inauguration crowd really was, from the Bidens to Bernie Sanders - with a little help from some real fashion experts.\n\nVice-President Kamala Harris' purple ensemble has already made an impact.\n\n\"Symbolically, it's a bipartisan colour because it marries [Republican] red and [Democratic] blue,\" says Ms Rothman, noting a number of elected officials or spouses had opted for purple today.\n\nBut that's not the only reason purple has a special place for US women in politics. The suffragettes often wore the colour in the 1900s while campaigning for women's right to vote.\n\nProfessor Elka Stevens, coordinator of the fashion design programme at Howard University, also notes it's a colour of significance in the black community - one tied to the Christian experience as well. Ms Harris' pearl necklace also made reference to a tradition in her Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the oldest all-black sorority in the US.\n\nAdd it all up and Ms Harris' choice of pearls and a purple sharp-cut Christopher John Rogers coat was \"an excellent first building block on what the legacy is of how to look like a woman in power\", Ms Rothman says.\n\nBoth Mrs Biden and Ms Harris also took care to choose emerging US brands for their inaugural looks. Ms Harris' outfit, from head-to-toe, showed off African-American designers.\n\nAnd we can't forget Doug Emhoff either, America's \"first second gentleman\".\n\n\"He chose to do everything that he should, which is to not distract and perfectly fit in,\" says Rothman.\n\nWe can't discuss political fashion without bringing up Michelle Obama.\n\nHer purple Sergio Hudson sweater and palazzo pants plus coat look, along with perfectly curled hair, did not disappoint fans of the former first lady.\n\n\"It's a different dress code and different expectation for women who are first ladies versus people who aren't, like women who are elected,\" says Ms Rothman.\n\nFrom baring her arms to wearing both high-end and High Street fashion, Mrs Obama was \"legacy-making\" in a way that hearkened back to Nancy Reagan and Jackie Kennedy, Ms Rothman says.\n\nShe also put many \"independent and ethnic American designers\" on the map during her eight years in the White House.\n\nNewly former First Lady Melania Trump, too, had a clear style, often spotted in sleek looks from well-known brands (think Chanel, Hermès).\n\nOne of her favourite designers was French-American Hervé Pierre, but Prof Stevens also notes she faced a challenge dressing all-American as many US labels said they would not dress her.\n\nFor her final look of the day, Melania swapped out the all-black suit she left the White House in for a Gucci dress with a bold orange print.\n\n\"The curtain is down and she's onto the next phase of her life,\" says Ms Rothman of the sharp contrast. \"I think that's what she's using her clothing to signal: that DC is over.\n\nHe may not win the best-dressed award any time soon, but veteran Senator Bernie Sanders certainly won Twitter with his extra large mittens.\n\nMr Sanders' pair of eye-catching woolly mittens were given to him two years ago by a Vermont schoolteacher who made them from repurposed sweaters and recycled plastic bottles. Those, coupled with a snap of him alone in a crossed-arm pose, made for prime meme fodder.\n\n\"What we love about it is that it's so authentically Bernie,\" says Ms Rothman.\n\nWhen asked for his thoughts on all the stir his inauguration look caused, Mr Sanders simply said: \"In Vermont we dress warm...and we're not so concerned about good fashion. We want to keep warm. And that's what I did today.\"\n\nInauguration 2021 featured performances from Jennifer Lopez (in a crisp white ensemble) and Lady Gaga.\n\nBut it was Gaga's custom black-and-red Schiaparelli gown that stole the show or, more specifically, the large golden dove-shaped brooch she wore atop it.\n\nAside from the Hunger Games comparisons, the almost operatic outfit served another fun purpose in Ms Rothman's eyes.\n\n\"She brought the inaugural ball to the stage in a year where you're not going to get all of the dress up, the ball gowns that we have come to look at and adore and criticise.\"\n\nYouth poet laureate Amanda Gorman was another star on today's stage.\n\nThe self-described \"skinny black girl, descended from slaves and raised by a single mother\", touched on many heavy themes in her verses, but her outfit was a breath of fresh air.\n\nYellow is a colour of hope, energy, light. And her bright red Prada headband was a bold complement. To Prof Stevens, it was almost crown-like.\n\n\"It also honed attention on her hair, because no one else had that particular hairstyle. And we know that hair can be political as well.\"\n\nOur last noteworthy youthful garb of the day was Ella Emhoff, stepdaughter to the vice-president.\n\nHer dainty white collar atop a bejewelled plaid Miu Miu coat was particularly striking - or in the words of Teen Vogue, \"just *chef's kiss*\" - and to Prof Stevens, reminiscent of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.\n\n\"I really thought about our democracy, justice, the collars [Ginsburg] wore and the messages she would send. I think this was [also] an ode to femininity.\"\n\nAnd as for her brother Cole's look? Prof Stevens' takeaway was: \"You need some gloves, young man.\"\n\nAnd last but not least, let's consider the new president and first lady.\n\nProf Stevens says the political dress mirrored a desire to project comfort and to reassure the nation that US democracy is safe and its way of life is \"going back to something familiar\" despite Covid-19.\n\nThere may not have been anything ground-breaking in Mr Biden's Ralph Lauren suit; perhaps the more interesting aspect is the way he wore it.\n\n\"As a Washington insider he's been wearing suits for decades,\" says Ms Rothman. \"He showed that he knows what works.\"\n\nAlso notable with both Biden's ensembles today: the colour blue. Prof Stevens notes that blue is recognised as a colour of trustworthiness; of stability; of confidence, especially for men.\n\nAs for Jill Biden's custom-made, Swarovski-crystal-accented aquamarine coat from the up-and-coming New York Makarian label?\n\nBoth Prof Stevens and Ms Rothman say it signalled responsibility and modesty.\n\n\"We already know [the Bidens] are very united, but it signalled that they're here and ready to do the work,\" Ms Rothman says.", "More than 100 medically-trained military personnel will be deployed\n\nMembers of the military are to be brought in to help medical staff in Northern Ireland in the fight against Covid-19.\n\nHealth Minister Robin Swann has asked the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to help out, primarily at a number of hospitals across NI.\n\nMore than 100 medically-trained military personnel will be deployed.\n\nThose brought in will assist nursing staff and help on the wards in a move designed to ease the pressure on staff.\n\nIn the past, the use of the military in Northern Ireland has provoked controversy.\n\nWhile military help has already been used during the pandemic to transport equipment and patients, this is the first time military staff will be used in hospitals.\n\nIt is thought the first military staff will be made available as early as next week.\n\nMr Swann said it would have been an abdication of responsibility if he did not avail of help from the military.\n\nHe said while coronavirus cases were lower than two weeks ago, the challenge posed remained \"intense\" and intensive care pressures were expected to increase further in the next eight to 10 days.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Brandon Lewis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHe confirmed that a request for military assistance for NI's health service had been accepted by the MoD.\n\nThe health minister thanked the MoD for the Military Aid to the Civil Authorities agreement, which is being provided in other UK regions.\n\n\"The armed forces have provided invaluable support in this pandemic, including aeromedical evacuation, real-estate and ongoing logistical planning,\" he said.\n\n\"Our hospitals are under immense pressure and an additional staffing complement will be very welcome on the front line.\n\n\"This is a health decision and I am confident it will be supported on that basis.\"\n\nNI Secretary Brandon Lewis tweeted: \"Battling #COVID19 is a national effort. I'm pleased that 110 medically-trained personnel from our Armed Forces will support health and social care teams across Northern Ireland in their vital work on the frontline against coronavirus.\"\n\nThe move has been welcomed by the Democratic Unionist Party.\n\nWhen it was announced last April that the health minster had made requests for military help, Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill said Mr Swann had taken that decision unilaterally.\n\nHowever, she later said her party would not rule out any measure necessary to save lives.\n\nReacting to the latest request for help, Sinn Féin said its priority throughout the pandemic had been to save lives, keep people safe and protect the health service.\n\n\"The Minister of Health has made a request for staffing support from the British Ministry of Defence,\" the party said.\n\n\"We do not rule out any measures to do so, and any effort to make the threat posed by Covid-19 into a green and orange issue is divisive and a distraction.\"\n\nAs of Wednesday, there were 832 people in hospital in Northern Ireland with coronavirus, of whom 67 were in intensive care, with 57 ventilated.\n\nA further 22 people with coronavirus died, bringing the Department of Health's total to 1,671 while there were 905 new cases.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, 61 new Covid-19-related deaths were recorded on Wednesday, bringing the country's death toll to 2,768.\n\nA further 2,488 new cases of the virus were also confirmed by the Irish Department for Health.\n\nSpeaking at Stormont's press briefing on Wednesday, Mr Swann confirmed the executive would review the current lockdown regulations on Thursday.\n\nNorthern Ireland began a six-week lockdown on 26 December, in a bid to bring the virus under control.\n\nMinisters promised to review the regulations after four weeks.\n\nMr Swann said he would not pre-empt the outcome of Thursday's meeting but confirmed he would bring recommendations from his officials to the meeting.\n\n\"This is not the time to open floodgates or take premature decisions that would lead to another spike in cases,\" he added.\n\n\"We must stay the course.\"\n\nThe minister also provided the latest update on the number of vaccinations - 160,396 doses have now been administered in NI, with 21,690 of those second doses.\n\nHe said he understood the frustration of some people that they were still waiting to hear when their elderly or vulnerable relatives would receive their vaccine, but he urged patience.\n\n\"We cannot go faster than supplies allow,\" he said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Relatives of some older people in Wales called the vaccinations \"poorly organised\"\n\nA housebound 84-year-old woman said she was told she may have to wait up to two months to have her coronavirus vaccine if she could not get to her GP surgery.\n\nStuart Wilson said his mother Julia was immobile and she required two people with a hoist to get her up.\n\nHe said her surgery in Sketty, Swansea, called on Tuesday offering a jab but they were told it would take time to arrange a house visit.\n\nWelsh Government said a mobile service could take a jab to the housebound.\n\nDr Chris Johns, from Sketty Medical Centre, said: \"I can give assurances that no housebound patient is being asked to wait this long for their vaccination.\n\n\"This is a massive undertaking by GPs and we would ask older patients, if they are mobile, to attend one of our vaccination clinics instead.\"\n\nHe said teams have already made close to 200 house calls to vaccinate those unable to come to the surgery and over the next few weeks GPs would continue to go to patients' homes \"where necessary\".\n\nMore than 175,000 vaccines have been administered across Wales so far.\n\nUnder Welsh Government plans, the goal is for everyone over the age of 70 to be offered a vaccination by mid-February.\n\nMr Wilson said the call left his mother \"concerned and distressed\" so with her permission he spoke to the GP surgery himself.\n\nShe has been with the surgery, which is the Sketty branch of Sketty and Killay Surgeries, for about five years, and they are familiar with her condition as she receives home visits for flu jabs.\n\n\"What I can't understand is how they can invite somebody for a vaccination and then turn around and say because you're housebound, they can't give it yet,\" he added.\n\n\"I'm not asking for preferential treatment; we're not asking to be bumped up the list. I was disgusted by the total lack of information.\"\n\nMr Wilson said he knew of three other cases where patients have been given the same information.\n\nHe said disabled people should receive equal treatment. He has also taken the issue up with the disability rights association, Disability Wales, who have been asked to comment.\n\nA Welsh Government spokesperson said: \"Those who cannot attend their appointment or cannot travel to the vaccination venue can let your health board know through the NHS booking system. They will then be offered another appointment on another day or at a more convenient location.\n\n\"There are also plans in place for people who are housebound and for care homes, which will mean the vaccine can be safely taken to them using a mobile service if they are unable to attend a GP surgery or mass vaccination centre.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the Welsh Government has been criticised over the speed of rolling out vaccines to the over 80s age group.\n\nSteve Hockridge's 92-year-old mother Sheila suffers from Alzheimer's disease and lives alone in Cardiff.\n\nHe contacted her surgery but was told they had \"no information\" about when she would receive a vaccine.\n\n\"My confidence in the Welsh Government has been knocked,\" he said.\n\n\"After all the clarity during this pandemic, with this area they seem to be very, very secretive, giving different messages [which are] quite often conflicting.\"\n\nIn Wrexham, Helen Field said her mother, Eileen, 94, was also still waiting to hear about her vaccine.\n\n\"Our relations over the border in the Wirral area who are in a similar age group of over 80s and 90s have all received their second vaccine,\" she said.\n\n\"The difference is quite alarming and I just want to know what's going on in Wales and why they are so slow in putting the vaccines out?\n\n\"Nobody can seem to give us any information and it seems to be so poorly organised.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government spokesperson said: \"Every day in Wales we are speeding up the vaccination programme.\n\n\"Thousands more people are receiving their first dose of the Covid vaccine and more clinics are opening with 45 vaccination centres operating or due to be operating shortly, and more than 250 GP surgeries being involved by the end of this month. As of 20 January, more than 175,816 people in Wales have been vaccinated.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The company said its milk processing was highly automated with no risk to the products caused by the virus outbreak\n\nOne worker at a dairy has died after contracting coronavirus and 95 others are self-isolating.\n\nMuller Milk & Ingredients said 47 staff members who work at the company's dairy near Bridgwater, Somerset, have tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nIt said it was now testing all 300 workers at its site in North Petherton.\n\nA spokesman for the firm said the safety of its products had not been affected by the outbreak at its factory.\n\nIt was working with Public Health England and the council to help with mass testing, he added.\n\nThe employee was taken to hospital but died. The firm said its thoughts were with the worker's family and friends.\n\nProduction has since been reduced at the site.\n\nThe spokesman added: \"It is important to stress that fresh milk processing is highly automated ensuring no risk to products, with our Bridgwater facility one of the most modern dairies in the UK.\n\n\"As we have done throughout the pandemic, we are placing the safety of our employees first and following best practice as set down by the Health and Safety Executive.\n\n\"Standard measures in place include the use of facemasks, distancing, enhanced deep cleaning and hygiene, underpinned by a programme of e-learning, information and audits to ensure compliance and awareness of the measures.\"\n\nSomerset County Council said it was working closely with Public Health England and the factory and that further testing was being done throughout Thursday.\n\n\"The [council's] rapid outbreak testing team is carrying out further workforce testing today, for workers who were not present on Monday shifts.\n\n\"The testing on Monday identified a number of staff who were positive but asymptomatic, who are now isolating,\" a spokesman said.", "Gabriel is an ardent 'Latino for Trump' who is active in New York Republican circles. He wishes the Biden/Harris administration well but doesn't believe Democrats really want unity and thinks they'll reverse a lot of good Trump policies.\n\nHow did Joe Biden's inaugural speech on unity sit with you?\n\nI caught bits and pieces of the inauguration, but I did not watch the speech. I'll give it a watch when I'm not as busy. Hopefully, his message is not like what we saw on 6 January, when he tried to lambast people as white supremacists for showing up at the Capitol, because that will just alienate people.\n\nThis country has come a long way in terms of race relations and, if we really want unity, let's regain the sense of what an American is. An American isn't white, black or Jewish; it is a person within the United States that takes part in our republic.\n\nWhat do you think of the executive actions he is taking today?\n\nI knew Biden would come out swinging while he stills holds the majority in the legislative branch. It's certainly a statement in the same vein as President Trump's first few days of office, but I think it's horrible. As someone of Hispanic descent, the idea of potentially granting 11 million immigrants citizenship is a slap in the face to everyone who came through the legal process.\n\nJoining the Paris climate agreement again is widely regarded as a farce, even by some ecologists, because nations that are members in the agreement didn't actually hit their targets. The removal of the Keystone Pipeline is not only going to cost people jobs but it could potentially increase our carbon footprint. When it comes to the WHO, they failed us during the Covid pandemic. It's all just smoke and mirrors to undo what President Trump did and stick it in the face of Republicans.", "The former Western Daily Press journalist lived in the property from 1970 until 1994\n\nAn \"inspiring\" house previously owned by fantasy writer Sir Terry Pratchett has been put on the market.\n\nThe creator of the Discworld series lived in the 18th Century property, called Gaze Cottage, in the village of Rowberrow, Somerset, from 1970 until 1994.\n\nSir Terry died aged 66 in 2015, eight years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.\n\nHe wrote more than 70 books during his career and completed his final book in 2014.\n\nAt the turn of the century, Sir Terry was Britain's second most-read author, beaten only by JK Rowling.\n\nIn August 2007, it was reported he had suffered a stroke, but the following December he announced that he had been diagnosed with a very rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease.\n\nThe fitted kitchen is in the older half of the house\n\nRuth Treasure-Smith, from Robin King Estate Agent, said: \"He wrote most of his most famous novels in that house in the 80s.\n\n\"The house must have been inspiring. The current owner purchased the property from Terry Pratchett and has lived at the house since.\"\n\nShe said he had received letters to the house addressed to the \"Hogfather\", a quirky and satirical character from the Death collection in the Discworld series.\n\nThe sitting room has an inglenook fireplace complete with bread oven\n\nThe house is being sold at a guide price of £800,000\n\nThe first floor houses the master bedroom which overlooks the garden\n\nThe property has four bedrooms\n\nThe cottage sits on a plot comprising almost a third of an acre\n\nFollow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk", "More than 100 medically-trained military personnel will be deployed\n\nNI's largest healthcare union has said it has not objected to military personnel being brought in to help medical staff deal with Covid-19.\n\nHowever, Unison said it had questions over the move and there had \"disappointingly\" been no consultation.\n\nAn initial statement from the union on the subject was criticised by some politicians.\n\nUlster Unionist leader Steve Aiken described it as \"appallingly inappropriate\".\n\nA new statement issued on social media, from the union's regional secretary Patricia McKeown, said the first statement had been \"misunderstood\".\n\nSpeaking to Good Morning Ulster, she acknowledged the initial statement had caused \"stress and hurt\" to Unison members and apologised for that.\n\nHealth Minister Robin Swann has asked the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to help out, primarily at a number of hospitals across NI.\n\nMore than 100 medically-trained military personnel will be deployed.\n\nIn the union's initial statement, issued on Wednesday, it said it would ask Mr Swann for \"detailed reasons\" for the move.\n\nIt said this would include \"seeking information as to what other avenues of support have been sought, such as securing additional staffing from private sector healthcare providers\".\n\nHowever, following criticism, Ms McKeown said in a new statement on Thursday morning that the union was \"happy to clarify\" its position.\n\n\"To be absolutely clear, Unison has not objected to assistance from military personnel.\"\n\nShe added: \"In our experience the deployment of military personnel into public services is a decision taken as a last resort.\n\n\"We were immediately concerned that a request for aid of this nature indicates a crisis that is moving out of control.\n\n\"This is why it is important that we know in advance what options are being explored.\"\n\nThe union said it was important to get detailed information on how, when and where external personnel would be deployed and what the management and accountability structures will be in place for them.\n\nSteve Aiken described the first Unison statement as appallingly inappropriate\n\nSpeaking on Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster on Thursday, Ms McKeown said: \"We put a statement out last night, it said what we were going to do, but it didn't say why we were going to do it.\n\n\"That caused stress and hurt to our members and I am very, very sorry for that. That's why we corrected it.\"\n\nShe added that if military personnel were being brought in \"it means that all options have been exhausted, there's a big decision facing us now and that decision is a stronger lockdown\".\n\nThe earlier statement from the union, issued on Wednesday night, had been criticised by some politicians.\n\nUlster Unionist leader Steve Aiken said: \"Judging by the number of healthcare workers who have contacted me tonight they are absolutely incredulous at the Unison statement this evening.\n\n\"Getting help is what is needed - time for Unison to withdraw its appallingly inappropriate remarks.\"\n\nDUP assembly member Jonathan Buckley said: \"This statement from Unison is extremely disappointing and is out of step with both Unison's own members and the wider public.\n\n\"I have already been contacted by health service staff making clear that this does not represent their views.\"\n\nHis party colleague Paul Frew tweeted: \"Utterly appalling. A lot of anger tonight for a union that is supposed to support its membership.\"\n\nSpeaking on Good Morning Ulster, West Belfast People Before Profit assembly member Gerry Carroll said: \"We all recognise that we're in a really desperate situation, a really difficult situation.\n\n\"But people want to see the health service expanded permanently and not just a short-term fix which people have questioned on a number of grounds.\"\n\nHowever, Ulster Unionist Doug Beattie said nurses and doctors were exhausted.\n\n\"What we're really talking about here is a surge of some personnel in order to support out frontline nurses who are dead on their feet,\" he said.\n\n\"The here and now is about saving lives.\"\n\nOn Wednesday, Sinn Féin responded to Mr Swann's decision by saying it would not \"rule out\" any measures that help save lives and that \"any effort to make the threat posed by Covid-19 into an orange and green issue is divisive and a distraction\".\n\nThe chief executive of the Belfast Health Trust, Dr Cathy Jack, told Stormont's health committee that the move would ensure staff can continue to deliver care to as many patients as possible.\n\nShe said the military personnel are \"band 4 medically-trained technicians\" who will \"be working under normal management structures\".\n\n\"This is another group of highly-trained individuals that will support staff and I welcome this.\"\n\nDr Jack said discussions were \"ongoing\" about how private health care providers could help in this phase of the pandemic.\n\nShe said a small number of private lists were being used for surgeries with low-risk cancers and more would be freed up in March \"to allow us to try and catch up on the backlog\".\n\nThe Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA) request means armed forces staff will assist nurses and help on the wards in a move designed to ease the pressure on staff.\n\nIt is thought the first military staff will be made available as early as next week.\n\nMr Swann said the Army has previously carried out pandemic roles in Northern Ireland with \"aeromedical evacuation, real-estate and ongoing logistical planning\".\n\nThe health minister added it would have been an abdication of responsibility if he did not avail of help from the military.\n\nHe said while coronavirus cases were lower than two weeks ago, the challenge posed remained \"intense\" and intensive care pressures were expected to increase further in the next eight to 10 days.\n\nAs of Wednesday, there were 832 people in hospital in Northern Ireland with coronavirus, of whom 67 were in intensive care, with 57 ventilated.\n\nA further 22 people with coronavirus died, bringing the Department of Health's total to 1,671 while there were 905 new cases.", "An algorithm is trained to pick out an elephant against a complex backdrop such as a forest\n\nAt first, the satellite images appear to be of grey blobs in a forest of green splotches - but, on closer inspection, those blobs are revealed as elephants wandering through the trees.\n\nAnd scientists are using these images to count African elephants from space.\n\nThe pictures come from an Earth-observation satellite orbiting 600km (372 miles) above the planet's surface.\n\nThe breakthrough could allow up to 5,000 sq km of elephant habitat to be surveyed on a single cloud-free day.\n\nAnd all the laborious elephant counting is done via machine learning - a computer algorithm trained to identify elephants in a variety of backdrops.\n\n\"We just present examples to the algorithm and tell it, 'This is an elephant, this is not an elephant,'\"Dr Olga Isupova, from the University of Bath, said.\n\n\"By doing this, we can train the machine to recognise small details that we wouldn't be able to pick up with the naked eye.\"\n\nAfrican elephants are listed as vulnerable to extinction\n\nThe scientists looked first at South Africa's Addo Elephant National Park.\n\n\"It has a high density of elephants,\" University of Oxford conservation scientist Dr Isla Duporge said.\n\n\"And it has areas of thickets and of open savannah.\n\n\"So it's a great place to test our approach.\n\n\"While this is a proof of concept, it's ready to go.\n\n\"And conservation organisations are already interested in using this to replace surveys using aircraft.\"\n\nConservationists will have to pay for access to commercial satellites and the images they capture.\n\nBut this approach could vastly improve the monitoring of threatened elephant populations in habitats that span international borders, where it can be difficult to obtain permission for aircraft surveys.\n\nThe scientists say it could also be used in anti-poaching work.\n\n\"And of course, [because you can capture these images from space,] you don't need anyone on the ground, which is particularly helpful during these times of coronavirus,\" Dr Duporge said.\n\n\"In zoology, technology can move quite slowly.\n\n\"So being able to use the cutting-edge techniques for animal conservation is just really nice.\"", "Four royal aides say they do not wish to \"take sides\" over a letter from the Duchess of Sussex to her father, the High Court has been told.\n\nIn a letter lawyers for the four said they believed their clients could \"shed some light\" on the letter's drafting but the four were \"strictly neutral\".\n\nMeghan is suing the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online publisher over articles that reproduced parts of the letter.\n\nShe claims her privacy and copyright were breached by the newspaper group.\n\nHer lawyers are asking for summary judgement - a dismissal of Associated Newspapers' (ANL) defence instead of a trial.\n\nThe five articles, published in February 2019, were a \"triple-barrelled invasion\" of the duchess's privacy, correspondence and family, the lawyers claim.\n\nShe is seeking damages from the newspaper group for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act over the articles.\n\nANL claims Meghan wrote her letter \"with a view to it being disclosed publicly at some future point\" in order to \"defend her against charges of being an uncaring or unloving daughter\", which she denies.\n\nOn the second day of the hearing on Wednesday, ANL's barrister Antony White QC told the court that a letter from the so-called \"palace four\" showed that \"further oral evidence and documentary evidence is likely to be available at trial which would shed light on certain key factual issues in this case\".\n\nHe said it was \"likely\" there was also further evidence about whether Meghan \"directly or indirectly provided private information\" to the authors of an unauthorised biography of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Finding Freedom.\n\nThe four aides are: Jason Knauf, former communications secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Christian Jones, their former deputy communications secretary, Samantha Cohen, formerly the Sussexes' private secretary, and Sara Latham, their ex-director of communications.\n\n\"None of our clients welcomes his or her potential involvement in this litigation, which has arisen purely as a result of the performance of his or her duties in their respective jobs at the material time,\" their lawyers said in a letter sent on their behalf.\n\n\"Nor does any of our clients wish to take sides in the dispute between your respective clients. Our clients are all strictly neutral.\n\n\"They have no interest in assisting either party to the proceedings. Their only interest is in ensuring a level playing field, insofar as any evidence they may be able to give is concerned.\"\n\nTheir letter said that their lawyers' \"preliminary view is that one or more of our clients would be in a position to shed some light\" on \"the creation of the letter and the electronic draft\".\n\nIt also said they may be able to shed light on \"whether or not the claimant anticipated that the letter might come into in the public domain\" and whether or not the duchess \"directly or indirectly provided private information, generally and in relation to the letter specifically, to the authors of Finding Freedom\".\n\nBut Justin Rushbrooke QC, representing the duchess, said the letter from the four \"contains no information at all that supports the defendant's case on alleged co-authorship (of Meghan's letter), and no indication that evidence will be forthcoming that will support the defendant's case should the matter proceed to trial\".\n\nMeghan, 39, sent a handwritten letter to her father in August 2018, following her marriage to Prince Harry in May that year, which Mr Markle did not attend. The couple are now living in the US with their son Archie.\n\nThe full trial of the duchess's claim had been due to be heard at the High Court this month, but last year the case was adjourned until autumn 2021.\n\nAt the conclusion of the hearing on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Justice Warby reserved his judgement, which he said he would deliver \"as soon as possible\".", "Michelle O'Neill and Arlene Foster were advised restrictions may have to remain in place until after Easter\n\nCoronavirus lockdown restrictions in Northern Ireland will be extended until 5 March, the first and deputy first ministers have said.\n\nThe executive backed the health minister's proposal on Thursday and will review the move on 18 February.\n\nBut ministers were also told that restrictions may have to remain in place until after the Easter holidays.\n\nA lockdown closing non-essential retailers and encouraging employees to work from home began after Christmas.\n\nFamily gatherings are prohibited and people have been ordered to stay at home for all but essential reasons.\n\nSchools are closed to most pupils until after February's half-term but a paper looking at reopening will be put to ministers at next week's executive meeting.\n\nThe lockdown came in response to a spike in the number of cases of coronavirus, which followed a relaxation of some rules in the run-up to Christmas.\n\nFirst Minister Arlene Foster said extending the restrictions was an \"appropriate and necessary response\" to tackle the \"imminent threat\" posed by Covid-19.\n\nShe said she understood it would be difficult for many people to accept, given the uncertainty facing families and businesses, but added: \"To not press forward would risk all of the hard-won gains.\"\n\nThe first and deputy first ministers were right to state just how tough this decision will be for many people.\n\nBut there's an acceptance among the public that restrictions would have to be extended, given how bad things are in our hospitals.\n\nTheir decision also suggests politicians have perhaps learned from the last wave of the pandemic, when restrictions were turned on and off sporadically, and the impact that had both on cases and the messaging.\n\nThey're not alone in sustaining tough lockdown measures, with other UK nations and the Republic of Ireland also keeping their restrictions in place for several more weeks.\n\nBeyond that, it is thought health officials also want to ensure the vaccination programme is also \"well advanced\" before any restrictions are relaxed.\n\nThe hope is that, by spring, the picture will have improved significantly.\n\nUntil then the price we are paying for relaxations before Christmas looks likely to keep rising.\n\nDeputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said she recognised the executive was asking a lot of everybody but insisted the measures were important.\n\n\"We don't know what will come after [5 March],\" she said.\n\nMs O'Neill said there was a commitment not to keep restrictions in place longer than necessary but decisions would have to be taken in line with the health advice and concerns about a new variant of the virus which is more transmissible.\n\nThe executive's decision comes as another 21 deaths were recorded by the Department of Health on Thursday.\n\nThe reproductive rate of the virus - known as the R-number - had risen to about 1.8 due to Christmas relaxations.\n\nBut the latest estimate from the Department of Health says it is sitting between 0.65 and 0.85 for cases within the community but is still above one for hospital admissions and intensive care.\n\nWhile some may wonder why are restrictions are being extended when the executive's policy has always been based on this rate of infection, the difference is that this time around there are three times as many people in Northern Ireland's hospitals than there were in last April's peak.\n\nDaily case numbers are still significantly higher too.\n\nWhile ministers have agreed to keep the current restrictions in place until March, Health Minister Robin Swann said it was possible they could be needed until Easter, which this year falls in the first week of April.\n\nMinisters say they understand the extension of the lockdown will be difficult for people\n\nIt is understood this plan is being discussed across the four UK nations but ministers will have to consider that in the review next month.\n\nMinisters were also warned that restrictions would be eased on a step-by-step basis in line with reducing pressures on the health service and ensuring the vaccination programme is \"well advanced\" before any relaxations are agreed.\n\nMrs Foster pleaded with people struggling with their mental health during the lockdown to \"please seek help\".\n\nMore than 100 medically-trained military personnel are to be deployed to help health staff deal with the pressure the latest phase of the pandemic is placing on hospitals.\n\nThe chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said the \"sustained pressure on our health service\" would probably last for three to four weeks.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, 51 Covid-19 related deaths and 2,608 new cases of the virus were recorded on Thursday.\n\nSimon Hamilton, the chief executive of the Belfast Chamber of Trade and Commerce, said the extension of the lockdown would be of \"little surprise to most businesses\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Simon Hamilton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Stormont executive has agreed how to allocate almost £300m to help businesses, education, tourism and transport during the next phase of the lockdown.\n\nA total of £100m is going towards the Local Restrictions Support Scheme, the grant for business premises forced to closed due to the restrictions.\n\nThere will also be £16m for tourism and hospitality, two sectors which have largely been unable to operate.\n\nIn addition, two more support schemes for the sector have been opened.\n\nOne aimed at large tourism and hospitality businesses is offering a pot of £26m, with the Department for Economy having identified 250 businesses that will be eligible.\n\nThe other is a £4m scheme to support those who provide bed-and-breakfast accommodation.\n\nMore money is being made available to help businesses affected by the lockdown\n\nJanice Gault from the trade body the Northern Ireland Hotels Federation said the schemes were a \"real lifeline for the sector\".\n\n\"Trading over the last year has been limited with reserves now severely depleted and businesses operating in survival mode,\" she added.\n\nAlso among those to receive the extra cash will be limited company directors, who had not received support since March.\n\nLast week, a scheme was announced to give directors £1,000 grants which one director described as a \"kick in the teeth\" given that he had little to no income for the past 10 months.\n\nBut that scheme is to be boosted with another £20m so the payments on offer will more than treble to £3,500.\n\nLocal newspapers will also benefit from 12 months of rates relief.", "Assaults on emergency workers made up more than a quarter of Covid-related crimes prosecuted in the first six months of the pandemic, figures show.\n\nThe Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said there were 1,688 such offences between 1 April and 30 September in England and Wales.\n\nMany of these involved police officers being \"coughed and spat on\" by suspected rule-breakers, the CPS said.\n\nThey were among almost 6,500 crimes related to coronavirus in that period.\n\nAssaults on emergency workers, which were the most common prosecution, were \"particularly appalling\" and incidents were still taking place, said director of public prosecutions Max Hill.\n\nHe added: \"I will continue to do everything in my power to protect those who so selflessly keep us safe during this crisis.\"\n\nAccording to the figures published by the CPS - which cover completed prosecutions - there were 1,137 charges brought for breaking coronavirus laws.\n\nThese included a man who claimed 15 people having a party at his house in Manchester were part of his support bubble and another man in Wales caught travelling between counties to solicit the services of a sex worker.\n\nOverall, 2,106 defendants were prosecuted for 6,469 coronavirus-related offences, with a conviction rate of 90%, according to the CPS.\n\nOther crimes flagged as being coronavirus-related by the CPS, included 480 charges for public order offences, 466 for criminal damage and 464 for common assault.\n\nThese included offences such as coughing and spitting while threatening to infect another person with the virus, thefts of essential items and fraudsters taking advantage of the crisis.\n\nMr Hill added: \"The CPS has had to adapt to a raft of new laws and regulations intended to keep the public safe during the pandemic.\n\n\"Our guiding principle throughout has always been to support the police in ensuring the right person in charged with the right offence.\"", "Marmite is one of Unilever's many brands\n\nUnilever has said that by 2030 it will refuse to do business with any firm that does not pay at least a living wage or income to its staff.\n\nThe consumer goods giant defined a living wage as one that covered a family's basic needs \"and helped them break the cycle of poverty\".\n\nIt said it wanted to raise wages for people outside its own workforce in order to promote economic inclusion.\n\nUnilever is one of the first big companies to make such a commitment.\n\nOxfam called the move a \"step in the right direction\".\n\nUnilever, whose products include Marmite, Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Dove soap, said it was committed to helping to build \"a more equitable and inclusive society\".\n\n\"Our ambition is to improve living standards for low-paid workers worldwide,\" it said.\n\n\"We will therefore ensure that everyone who directly provides goods and services to Unilever earns at least a living wage or income, by 2030.\"\n\nThe wage should be enough to cover food, water, housing, education, healthcare, transport and clothing, and also include a provision for unexpected events, Unilever said.\n\nThe firm said it was working with partners to establish exact rates of pay in the 190 countries where it operates.\n\nHowever, Unilever's chief human resources officer Leena Nair said it would pay twice as much as the minimum wage in some countries.\n\nUnilever said it already paid its own employees at least a living wage, but it wanted to secure the same for more people beyond its workforce, specifically focusing on the most vulnerable workers in manufacturing and agriculture.\n\nWhile there is no doubting Unilever's desire to improve the lot of those who make its products, there is also a commercial reason for its living wage initiative.\n\nIt wants all of its suppliers to pay their staff a decent wage by 2030, a plan that has the potential, given Unilever's enormous size and global reach, to change the lives of millions of people.\n\nBut the company also believes the move will give it an advantage in the fierce battle to attract buyers.\n\nAlan Jope, Unilever's Scottish-born chief executive, says customers want to buy products with good credentials, and that this desire has only increased during the pandemic.\n\nMr Jope's comments suggest that the next consumer battlegrounds might not be price, convenience or range of product, but environmental and social considerations.\n\nUnilever wants to get ahead of that trend, and plans to do well by doing good.\n\n\"We will work with our suppliers, other businesses, governments and NGOs - through purchasing practices, collaboration and advocacy - to create systemic change and global adoption of living wage practices,\" it added.\n\nIt has more than 60,000 direct suppliers worldwide, from smallholder farmers to major companies.\n\nAll of them will be covered by its commitment, it said, with millions of people set to benefit.\n\nUnilever already audits its suppliers over climate change commitments, and will use these existing arrangements to make sure workers are being paid a living wage.\n\nSuppliers not willing to sign up may lose their contracts with the firm, Ms Nair said.\n\nAlso by 2030, Unilever said, it would equip 10 million young people with essential job skills.\n\nAdditionally, it committed to spending €2bn (£1.8bn) with suppliers owned and managed by people from under-represented groups by 2025 in an effort to improve diversity.\n\n\"The two biggest threats that the world currently faces are climate change and social inequality,\" said Unilever chief executive Alan Jope.\n\n\"The past year has undoubtedly widened the social divide, and decisive and collective action is needed to build a society that helps to improve livelihoods, embraces diversity, nurtures talent, and offers opportunities for everyone.\"\n\nUnilever chief executive Alan Jope says the firm wants to be a \"positive force in the world\"\n\nHe told the BBC's Today programme that Unilever wanted to be a \"positive force in the world in tackling this persistent and worsening issue of social inequality.\"\n\n\"Without healthy societies, we don't have a healthy business,\" he said.\n\nThe move is the latest in a series of ethical initiatives by Unilever, including promoting vegan food products and experimenting with a four-day working week.\n\nGabriela Bucher, executive director at Oxfam International, welcomed Unilever's announcement, calling it \"an important step in the right direction\".\n\nShe said: \"Unilever's plan shows the kind of responsible action needed from the private sector that can have a great impact on tackling inequality and help to build a world in which everyone has the power to thrive, not just survive.\"\n\nLaura Gardiner, director of the Living Wage Foundation, said commitments such as Unilever's show how some employers \"are leading the way in spreading the living wage through both their business networks, and across their global operations\".\n\nFood services giants Sodexo and Compass Group, which are on the Living Wage Foundation's list of recognised service providers, have made similar supply chain commitments in the UK.", "Joe Biden has been sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, at a low key inauguration ceremony outside the US Capitol in Washington DC.\n\nIn his maiden speech as president, Mr Biden said: \"We've learned again that democracy is precious, democracy is fragile, and at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.\"\n\nRead more: Joe Biden replaces Trump as US president", "Mr Olowo said his wife was \"as near perfection as it's possible to be\"\n\nA woman who died after having liposuction in Turkey had been fed up with people asking if she was pregnant, an inquest heard.\n\nAbimbola Ajoke Bamgbose, 38, of Dartford, Kent, died in August after having the treatment in Izmir.\n\nHusband Moyosore Olowo said he believed she was on holiday with friends until she called to say she was in pain.\n\nHe went to Turkey after she stopped calling and found she had been rushed to hospital for more surgery.\n\nMrs Bamgbose, who also had a Brazilian butt lift, died there two weeks later, the inquest in Maidstone heard.\n\nMr Olowo, a rail safety officer, said his wife paid £5,000 for the package with Mono Cosmetic Surgery as UK treatment was too expensive.\n\nDescribing why she wanted it, he said: \"When a woman is unhappy and getting feelings about her looks, the clothes she buys do not fit and people ask if she is pregnant because of her tummy, sometimes there is nothing we can do. We are powerless.\n\n\"I wasn't concerned. I told her 'you have three children'. I told her my tummy is bigger than hers.\"\n\nHe said his wife, a social worker who graduated with a first class degree, was \"as near perfection as it's possible to be\".\n\nMr Olowo said the medical director in Turkey \"confessed it had been a mistake\".\n\nAssistant coroner Alan Blundson recorded a narrative conclusion, and said: \"This is a tragic case, the more so because the surgery was elective cosmetic surgery.\n\n\"Whilst Mrs Bamgbose was determined to have it performed, her husband had not seen it in any way as necessary.\"\n\nA post-mortem examination found Mrs Bamgbose had a perforated bowel and her death was caused by peritonitis with multiple organ failure as a complication of liposuction surgery.\n\nMr Olowo has said he is suing Mono and the surgeon, Dr Hakan Aydogan, for £1m in the Turkish courts, claiming medical negligence.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Mr Biden took his oath on a Bible that has been in his family since 1893 and was also used each time he was sworn in as Delaware senator. The book itself is five inches (12.5cm) thick with a Celtic cross on the cover", "Wales' former Chief Medical Officer Dame Deirdre Hine thinks the vaccine targets are achievable\n\nPeople waiting for the Covid vaccine need to show \"patience\" and \"perspective\", Wales' former chief medical officer has said.\n\nDame Deirdre Hine said Wales had made a \"very good start\" on delivering jabs.\n\nAged 83, she needs the vaccine herself and accepted there was \"understandable anxiety\" for those still waiting, but said: \"I think we should all quieten down and wait.\"\n\nThere has been criticism of the speed of the roll-out in Wales.\n\nStuart Wilson said he was \"appalled\" his 84-year-old housebound mother had been told she may have to wait up to two months to have her coronavirus vaccine if she cannot get to her GP surgery.\n\nDame Deirdre is regarded as one of Wales' leading medical experts, having not only held the chief medical officer post, but being the woman who established the Welsh breast cancer screening programme.\n\nA past president of the British Medical Association and Royal Society of Medicine, she also oversaw the official inquiry into the 2009 swine flu pandemic in the UK.\n\nIt's not surprising that people are worried and concerned... but I would say to them, let's keep it in proportion, let's look at the perspective\n\nShe told BBC Wales the response from governments had moved forward since then.\n\n\"I can detect some lessons that have been learned from the previous pandemic, the one I reported on. Because, although we had a vaccine then, the arrangements for delivering it were very much less clear and much more protracted than it has been this time.\n\n\"The arrangements for the GPs to deliver, and now pharmacists to deliver, all of that is a tremendous improvement on what I saw at the last pandemic.\"\n\nIn September, Dame Deirdre accused successive governments across the UK of taking \"their eye off the ball\" and failing to prepare for a global pandemic.\n\nShe also correctly warned of the \"real danger\" of a damaging second wave of Covid and has remained critical of failures to get adequate testing and tracing capability up and running in the early stages of the pandemic.\n\nShe added: \"I would say the testing and tracing is another matter, and I think there has been justifiable criticism of that.\"\n\nDame Deirdre, who lives in Cardiff, said she was still \"waiting impatiently\" for her vaccine appointment, but called on people to see the bigger picture.\n\n\"Let's get it in perspective. This is a massive logistical exercise, together with a narrow pipeline of supply of the vaccine, and so I'm not a bit surprised that it's taking as long as it is to get round to everybody. But I have every confidence that they will.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government, along with other UK nations, has committed to vaccinating all four of the highest priority groups by the middle of February, including the over-80s.\n\nLatest figures on vaccination in Wales show that, as of 20 January, there had been 175,816 people to get a first dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.\n\nThis accounts for 5.6% of the population in Wales, while 7.1% have received a vaccination in England, 7.3% in Northern Ireland, and 5.7% in Scotland.\n\nHealth Minister Vaughan Gething has denied Covid-19 vaccines were being held back, following comments from First Minister Mark Drakeford that the supply had to last until February to prevent \"vaccinators standing around with nothing to do\".\n\nMr Drakeford later said on social media that \"nobody is holding back vaccines\" and Mr Gething added: \"We're rolling out the vaccination programme as quickly as possible.\"\n\nDame Deirdre said she believed the targets were achievable, but people's anxieties were \"understandable\".\n\nShe added: \"Some recent research by Imperial College shows that people in my age group, people over 70, are the people most worried about this pandemic and about their own safety.\n\n\"So it's not surprising that people are worried and concerned, dismayed, when they don't get the letter and then that turns to anger. But I would say to them, let's keep it in proportion, let's look at the perspective.\n\n\"If you'd asked me last May and June whether we would even have a vaccine, I would have been highly sceptical.\n\n\"Then once you've got the vaccine, there is the whole logistical exercise of the publicity, letting people know what's likely to happen, getting the personnel assembled to do that, getting the premises.\n\n\"And it's not easy, it's not easy to do all that very, very quickly.\"", "Chloé Lopes Gomes says she has faced racial harassment while being a ballet dancer.\n\nThe French performer is the first black female dancer at Berlin's principal ballet company Staatsballett.\n\nMs Gomes claims she was told she did not fit in because of her skin colour, and was asked to wear white make up so she would 'blend in' with the other dancers.\n\nThe company has responded by saying her allegation \"deeply moves us\" and an internal investigation is underway into racism and discrimination at Staatsballett.", "The pandemic has seen most children in England slipping back with their learning - and some have gone significantly back with their social skills, says Ofsted.\n\nA report from the education watchdog warns some young children have forgotten how to use a knife and fork or have regressed back to nappies.\n\nOlder children have lost their \"stamina\" for reading, say inspectors.\n\nThe Department for Education says it shows the need to keep schools open.\n\nOfsted has examined the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children, based on visits to 900 schools and early years providers this autumn - and found that it has been a very divided experience.\n\nThe chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, says there are three \"broad groups\" to describe what has happened:\n\nBut Ms Spielman says this did not divide along the lines of advantage and deprivation, but instead factors such as whether parents were able to spend time with children and families having what she described as \"good support structures\".\n\nAmong older children, Ofsted warns of a loss of concentration among those returning to school and that \"online squabbles\" that started on social media during the lockdown are now \"being played out in the classroom\".\n\nThere are also reports of a loss of physical fitness, while other pupils are showing \"signs of mental distress\", with concerns over eating disorders and self-harm.\n\nThere are concerns about pupils who have so far not returned to school - and in a third of schools there has been an \"increase in children being removed from school to be educated at home\".\n\nBut inspectors say schools are still \"firefighting\" practical problems about keeping going during the pandemic, with the challenge of operating bubbles and responding to Covid outbreaks.\n\nGeoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, said the report \"starkly shows the educational and emotional impact of school closures, and why we need to do everything possible to keep schools open\".\n\nBut he warned that it was becoming financially unsustainable to keep schools running, with the cost of safety measures and the need to pay for supply staff when teachers had to self-isolate.\n\nA Department for Education spokeswoman said: \"The government has been clear that getting all pupils and students back into full-time education is a national priority.\"\n\nShe said the £1bn catch-up fund, including support for tutoring, would help to make up for lost learning.", "The editor of the British Medical Journal has asked the New York Times to correct an article that says UK guidelines allow two Covid-19 vaccines to be mixed.\n\nThe US publication reported that UK health officials would allow patients to be given a second dose that is a different vaccine to their first.\n\nFiona Godlee pointed out in her letter to the NYT that it was not a recommendation.\n\nShe said the NYT's headline claiming UK guidelines say such substitutions \"may happen\" was \"seriously misleading\".\n\nThe UK has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab - but both require two doses which are now to be administered 12 weeks apart\n\nMs Godlee said the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) does not make any recommendation to mix and match - in other words, having a shot of one vaccine and then a different one 12 weeks later.\n\nDr Mary Ramsay, Public Health England's head of immunisations, said: \"We do not recommend mixing the Covid-19 vaccines - if your first dose is the Pfizer vaccine you should not be given the AstraZeneca vaccine for your second dose and vice versa.\"\n\nDr Ramsay added that on the \"extremely rare occasions\" where the same vaccine is unavailable or it is unknown which jab the patient received, it is \"better to give a second dose of another vaccine than not at all\".\n\nMs Godlee urged the New York Times to print a \"highly visible correction\" as soon as possible.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Princess Royal Hospital at Haywards Heath was among the hospitals receiving a delivery\n\nMeanwhile, health staff have criticised the paperwork needed to gain NHS approval to give the coronavirus vaccine, with some medics being asked for proof they are trained in areas such as preventing radicalisation.\n\nThe first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are due to be given on Monday after the jab was approved for use in the UK last week.\n\nThe Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first vaccine approved in the UK, and 944,539 people have had their first jab.", "Tian Tian arrived in Scotland, along with Yang Guang, from China in 2011\n\nEdinburgh Zoo's giant pandas may have to return to China next year because of financial pressures.\n\nYang Guang and Tian Tian cost about £1m a year to lease from China.\n\nThe zoo, which had hoped to breed the pair, is nearing the end of its 10-year contract with the Chinese government and may be unable to renew the deal.\n\nCovid lockdown closures led to a £2m loss for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which runs Edinburgh Zoo and the Highland Wildlife Park.\n\nDavid Field, chief executive of the society, said the charity would have to \"seriously consider every potential saving\", including its giant panda contract.\n\nMr Field said closures had had a \"huge financial impact\" on the charity because most of its income was from visitors.\n\n\"Although our parks are open again, we lost around £2m last year and it seems certain that restrictions, social distancing and limits on our visitor numbers will continue for some time, which will also reduce our income,\" Mr Field said.\n\n\"Yang Guang and Tian Tian have made a tremendous impression on our visitors over the last nine years, helping millions of people connect to nature and inspiring them to take an interest in wildlife conservation.\n\n\"I would love for them to be able to stay for a few more years with us and that is certainly my current aim.\"\n\nYang Guang was given a new enclosure in 2019\n\nThe zoo has already taken a government loan, furloughed staff, made redundancies and launched a fundraising appeal, but was not eligible for the UK government's zoo fund, which was aimed at smaller zoos.\n\n\"The support we have received from our members and animal lovers has helped to keep our doors open and we are incredibly grateful,\" Mr Field added.\n\n\"At this stage, it is too soon to say what the outcome will be. We will be discussing next steps with our colleagues in China over the coming months.\"\n\nThe zoo is part of a number of conservation projects, including one to reintroduce Scottish wildcats.\n\nWork to reintroduce Scottish wildcats in to the Highlands may also suffer from the Zoo's funding problems\n\nHowever, Mr Field said projects like that may also have to be scrapped because of Brexit and being unable to apply for grants from the European Union.\n\n\"We received a £3.2m grant from the EU Life programme to support our Saving Wildcats partnership project, which aims to restore wildcats in Scotland by breeding and releasing them into the wild.\n\n\"Wildcats are on the brink of extinction in Britain and this is the last hope for the species' survival.\"\n\nHe added: \"As we are no longer part of the European Union, our charity is no longer eligible to apply for funding from programmes like EU Life, which have proven critical for our wildlife conservation work and wider efforts to protect animals from extinction.\"\n\nEdinburgh Zoo's conservation genetics laboratory, which supports conservation projects around the world, has lost access to both funding and other researchers as a result.\n\nIt also faces challenges around moving animals, many of which are part of European endangered species breeding programmes.\n\nThe programme is currently about £900,000 short, meaning it may have to be cancelled.\n\nMr Field said: \"We still need to reduce costs to secure our future. It may be that some of our incredibly important conservation projects, including the vital lifeline for Scotland's wildcats, may have to be deferred, postponed or even stopped.\"", "Police rescued 22 people from the snow in Cheshire including a two-year-old child\n\nDozens of people, including a two-year-old child, had to be rescued when they became stranded on rural roads.\n\nPolice and volunteers came to the aid of people whose vehicles were stuck in the Derbyshire Peak District on Saturday.\n\nThere were similar scenes in Cheshire where 22 people, had to be rescued from stranded cars.\n\nThe wintry weather is set to continue with a Met Office warning for ice in the East Midlands and North East.\n\nAt around 20:00 GMT on Saturday, Derbyshire Police reported \"sudden snow\" had left dozens of vehicles and their occupants stranded in the Goyt Valley.\n\nSome visitors to the area were caught off-guard by how quickly the weather changed.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Adam White This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nDerbyshire Police posted on Twitter: \"We are shuttling people back to Buxton as quickly as we can.\n\n\"Sit tight and we will get to you.\"\n\nThe A57 Snake Pass - a road notorious for becoming dangerous in the snow - had been closed earlier in the day because of the weather.\n\nIn Cheshire, police spent three hours helping families stuck in their vehicles in the White Peak area.\n\nIn total 22 people, including eight children - the youngest of whom was two - were recovered from nine vehicles.\n\nCheshire Police Rural Crime Team said: \"The snow had well and truly caught them all out on the back roads.\n\n\"We were three miles (4.8km) from the nearest village, and the light was fading on us quickly.\n\n\"It was decided to get everyone out of their cars and so began a mile walk in the snow.\"\n\nThey were led to a nearby farm where they could be taken to safety in police vehicles.\n\nMost of those rescued from snow in Cheshire had travelled to the area despite coronavirus restrictions\n\nThe force was critical of the families for travelling into the area, that is under tier four coronavirus restrictions.\n\nIt said: \"All except one car was from out of Cheshire. We had people from Sale, Stockport and Salford with the closest being Congleton.\n\n\"Sadly these people have put all of us at risk today.\"\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Liverpool City Council issued their call after local cases nearly trebled in the past fortnight\n\nLiverpool's leaders have called on the government to impose a new nationwide lockdown to halt the spread of the new variant of Covid-19.\n\nActing mayor Wendy Simon and the city council's cabinet said urgent action is needed because the rise in coronavirus cases had reached \"alarming levels\".\n\nThey said it was \"self-evident\" the tier system has not curbed the variant.\n\nIt had been concentrated in London and south-east England but is believed to be spreading north.\n\nCases in Liverpool have almost trebled in the past two weeks to 350 per 100,000.\n\nThis is despite the city successfully leading the national pilot for community testing, which resulted in it becoming the first city to be taken out of tier 3 and moved into tier 2.\n\nHowever, the recent rise in cases meant Liverpool returned to tier three on Thursday.\n\nWendy Simon is the acting mayor for Liverpool\n\nSpeaking to the BBC News Channel, Ms Simon said: \"I think the difficulty with this new strain of the virus is the speed at which it is infecting.\n\n\"What we have seen in these last weeks is that the tier system hasn't worked with this particular strain of the virus.\n\n\"The way the numbers are going, we're likely to go into tier four very, very quickly.\"\n\nMs Simon said officials wanted to \"pre-empt that catastrophe\" and \"recover the economy quicker\", adding: \"We feel these three things - the mass vaccination, the mass testing and certainly a lockdown for a period - is what we need to get the city up and running again.\n\n\"There's a responsibility on us all to act promptly and bring it under control as soon as we can.\"\n\nIn an earlier statement, Ms Simon joined officials at the Labour-run city council to urge the government to \"listen to those at the frontline, both in our hospitals and frontline services\".\n\n\"We as a nation can cope with a lockdown,\" the statement said. \"We have before and we can again.\"\n\nThe city's leaders also called for \"an additional package of welfare and economic support\" to address the \"pain for our retail and hospitality sectors\".\n\nA further 57,725 confirmed cases were announced by the government on Saturday.\n\nThe sharp rise in numbers is partly down to a lag in reporting over the holiday period but, according to Public Health England, is \"largely a reflection of a real increase\".\n\nAlthough the new variant is now spreading more rapidly than the original version, it is not believed to be more deadly.\n\nLiverpool launched the national pilot for community testing in November\n\nOn Sunday, the prime minister said regional restrictions in England were \"probably about to get tougher\".\n\nHe said possible changes included keeping schools closed, although this is not \"something we want to do\".\n\nBoris Johnson said the government was \"entirely reconciled to doing what it takes to get the virus down,\" and warned of a \"tough period ahead\".\n\nHe said increasing vaccination would provide a way out of restrictions and that he hoped \"tens of millions\" would be vaccinated in the next three months.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk", "The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has started to arrive in hospitals, with the first doses due to be given on Monday.\n\nThe Princess Royal Hospital at Haywards Heath in West Sussex was one of the hospitals taking a delivery on Saturday.\n\nThe UK has ordered 100 million doses of the new vaccine - enough to vaccinate 50 million people.", "The Scottish cabinet will meet later to consider further measures to help tackle coronavirus, as 2,464 new cases are reported.\n\nThe Scottish Parliament will then be recalled for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to make an \"urgent statement\".\n\nMs Sturgeon said the \"rapid increase in Covid cases driven by the new variant\" was of \"very serious concern\".\n\n\"We are in a race between this faster spreading strain of Covid and the vaccination programme,\" she tweeted.\n\nShe warned on Friday that the next few weeks could be the most dangerous period for Scotland since March in the fight against Covid.\n\nThe latest government figures for coronavirus cases showed that 15.2% of Saturday's 17,328 tests were positive.\n\nIt is higher than the 2,137 cases reported on Friday, but still lower than Thursday's 2,539 positive results.\n\nFigures for hospital admissions and deaths over the holiday weekend will not be published until Tuesday.\n\nThe cabinet is likely to consider a further delay to the return of Scottish schools and restrictions that are closer to the stay-at-home lockdown in March.\n\n\"All decisions just now are tough, with tough impacts,\" Ms Sturgeon wrote on twitter. \"Vaccines give us way out, but this new strain makes the period between now and then the most dangerous since start of pandemic.\"\n\nThe Scottish government's emergency resilience committee heard on Saturday that \"quick and decisive action is needed\" as the new variant of the virus is becoming the dominant one in Scotland.\n\nA Scottish government spokesperson said: \"The even steeper rises and severe pressure on the NHS that is being experienced in some other parts of the UK is a sign of what may lie ahead in Scotland if we do not take all possible steps now to slow the spread of the virus, while the vaccination programme progresses.\n\n\"The strong message remains - people should stay at home as much as possible and avoid non-essential interaction with others.\"\n\nThis is just the fifth time the Scottish Parliament has been recalled and the second time within the last week.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prof Linda Bauld says Scots should be prepared a longer period living with level four restrictions\n\nPublic health expert Prof Linda Bauld, from the University of Edinburgh, has said Scotland should be prepared for Covid restrictions to be extended as infection rates continue to rise.\n\nShe said there were no signs yet that the infection rate was levelling off, having risen suddenly from a daily rate of fewer than 1,000 to more than 2,000 per day in recent days.\n\nShe told BBC Scotland: \"It definitely is a fragile situation and you can see that we have more cases than we would expect at the current time.\n\n\"We may be starting to see some of the impacts of the Christmas mixing, but also we know around four in 10 cases, from recent data, are of the new variant.\n\n\"I would imagine that the new variant is playing a role in these higher rates of infection and if these numbers continue to sit at where they are we are going to have more people in hospital in a week or two's time, and that is very worrying.\"\n\nThe new year offers new hope in the struggle against coronavirus with two vaccines now authorised for UK use - but it looks as if the situation will get worse before it gets better.\n\nMinisters are worried by the rapid spread of the new strain of coronavirus during a holiday period when the highest level of restrictions are already in place.\n\nThey think more needs to be done to suppress the virus, to give the vaccination programme a chance to accelerate and give increasing numbers of people protection.\n\nWhen the Scottish cabinet meets they are likely to consider tightening the current restrictions to something closer to the stay at home lockdown of March 2020.\n\nThat will almost certainly mean a further delay to the return of schools into February.\n\nMinisters will take decisions on Monday morning with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon expected to make a statement at Holyrood in the afternoon.\n\nDaily confirmed cases in Scotland reached record highs on the last three days of 2020, rising to to 2,622 on Thursday.\n\nMs Sturgeon warned last week there might be changes to the plans for reopening schools. Children start online learning from 11 January and are set to return to class by 18 January.\n\nThe education recovery group will meet on Monday.\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the situation was \"deteriorating and fast-moving\" but any decision to extend school closures should be clearly explained to parents and teachers.\n\nHe said: \"We have been here before so if schools remain closed, the Scottish government must show that it has learned from past mistakes in order to minimise disruption to education.\"\n\nScottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said the Scottish government should prioritise teachers and school staff as vaccines were rolled out.\n\nHe added: \"We must be honest and accept that most pupils, teachers and support staff cannot go back to schools until the situation is brought under control.\"\n\nScottish Labour leader Richard Leonard called for ministers to publish the evidence behind all of its decisions to ensure public consent and compliance.\n\n\"What is clear is that we need to see an acceleration of the vaccine rollout and a step-change in testing,\" he said.\n\n\"It is also clear that financial support from government has simply not been nearly sufficient to make up for the damage that lockdown measures have done to jobs, livelihoods and businesses. The SNP government must distribute additional funds to the frontline now.\"\n\nScottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: \"With tighter restrictions on movement and in schools comes a greater responsibility on the government to show its workings.\n\n\"If we are to restrict people's movement then we need to see what the benefit will be. We need an exit plan to give people hope, as well as to show them what is required to ease the restrictions on our freedoms.\"", "A farmer's field in Scotland has been transformed into a \"pop-up\" ice hockey rink.\n\nLocals in Bishopton, Renfrewshire, have been taking advantage of the clear skies and icy conditions.\n\nOne said the frozen rink had been playing host to skaters and hockey players of all ages and abilities, from six to 60.", "Some schools are due to reopen this week in Wales\n\nSchools are being given a flexible approach to ensure a \"safe return\", according to Wales' first minister.\n\nMark Drakeford said experts would be \"looking at all the evidence again early next week\".\n\nUnions have called for a national decision on reopening schools rather than leaving it to local councils.\n\nAccording to local authorities many secondary schools aim to return from 11 January, with some fully open on 6 January.\n\nA joint statement from nine unions called on the Welsh Government to give a \"centralised, coherent response\" regarding all educational settings \"rather than leaving decisions at local levels\".\n\nThe statement from ASCL Cymru, GMB, NAHT Cymru, NASUWT Cymru, NEU Cymru, Ucac, Unison, Unite and Voice continued: \"We are extremely worried that schools will be opening for face-to-face learning from next Monday, whilst Welsh Government continues to gather information about the nature and impact of the new variant of Covid-19...\n\n\"We strongly believe that we need to err on the side of caution and ensure, in advance, that we have the medical 'evidence and information' to ensure that any decisions are the correct ones.\"\n\nThe National Education Union Cymru has called for in-person learning to be delayed until at least 18 January.\n\nThe NASUWT has also threatened \"appropriate action in order to protect members whose safety is put at risk\", while head teachers' union NAHT Cymru said it had taken legal action.\n\nBut Mr Drakeford said: \"We reached an agreement with our local education colleagues that in Wales we will have a phased and flexible return to school.\"\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday parents should send their children to primary school as long as they are open in their area.\n\nMark Drakeford: \"No evidence that young people get the illness more severely as a result of the variant\"\n\nJackie Parker, head of Crickhowell High School in Powys, which reopens for some form years from Wednesday, said \"it would have been more sensible to have had a national decision for the time being until the 18th\".\n\nShe said it would have allowed time to see if cases of Covid had increased over the holiday period.\n\n\"People may have been together during the Christmas holiday,\" she said.\n\nFigures published by Public Health Wales on Sunday showed 56 new deaths from Covid and 4,011 new cases of the virus.\n\nWales has been in lockdown since 20 December with restrictions on people meeting others on all but Christmas Day when it was limited to another household and a person living alone.\n\nMr Drakeford said: \"There is no evidence that young people get the illness more severely as a result of the variant.\n\n\"Our technical advisory group will be looking at all the evidence again early next week.\n\n\"And, of course, we will continue to make decisions in the light of the best knowledge, research and information that's available to us at the time,\" he told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement.\n\nHe also said mass testing in schools would begin as planned this month, in a decision which has been criticised by NAHT Cymru.\n\n\"It will allow more children and more teachers to stay safely in the classroom without having to be sent home because another child or another staff member has tested positive,\" he said.\n\nThe joint unions' statement also said the Welsh Government's testing proposals were unworkable for most schools.\n\n\"Due to the chaotic and rushed nature of this announcement, the lack of proper guidance, and an absence of appropriate support, the Welsh Government's proposals will be inoperable for most schools and colleges,\" it said.\n\nThe statement continued: \"Any suggestion that schools can safely recruit, train and organise a team of suitable volunteers to staff and run testing stations on their premises by an as yet unspecified date in the new term is simply not realistic.\"\n\nSian Gwenllian, Plaid Cymru's education spokeswoman, said \"parents and teachers need to know what the plan is for the next few weeks\".\n\n\"We don't really know very much about this new variant in the way that it transmits within the school community,\" she said.\n\n\"And if it is becoming inevitable that schools will have to close, well, an early decision is better for everybody.\"\n\nWelsh Conservative education spokeswoman Suzy Davies said: \"We've had conflicting reports in the press and on social media about the effect of the new variant on younger children and their role in transmitting the disease - complete confusion reigns...\n\n\"The Welsh Government hasn't succeeded in reassuring teachers and in some cases parents as well.\"", "A top Swedish official involved in the coronavirus response has defended a Christmas holiday in the Canary Islands in the face of heavy criticism.\n\nDan Eliasson is head of the civil contingencies agency, which earlier in December had texted all Swedes urging them to avoid travel.\n\nHe was photographed in Las Palmas airport on the island of Gran Canaria.\n\nMr Eliasson insisted the trip was necessary \"for family reasons\".\n\nHe told Swedish media that he had \"given up a lot of trips during this pandemic\" but thought this one was necessary because he had a daughter living in the Canaries.\n\n\"I celebrated Christmas with her and my family,\" he told Expressen newspaper. He also said he had been worked remotely while in the Canaries.\n\nSweden has had 437,000 confirmed cases and 8,700 deaths - many more than its Scandinavian neighbours. The country has never imposed a full lockdown.\n\nHowever, alarmed by rising numbers of cases last month, the Swedish government reversed some of its guidance and sent a text message to all Swedes asking them to read updated guidelines.\n\nThe guidelines included asking Swedes to avoid unnecessary trips and not to make new contacts during a journey or at the destination.\n\nMr Eliasson was then photographed several times in Gran Canaria, including at the airport.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Expressen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThere have been calls for Mr Eliasson, an experienced official who has worked at several important departments, to be fired.\n\nPrime Minister Stefan Löfven and other ministers have not yet commented, according to Swedish media.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. From the pandemic to measles, Smitha Mundasad looks at global health challenges in 2021", "Liam Reilly fronted Bagatelle for more than 40 years\n\nIrish Eurovision singer and frontman of the rock band Bagatelle, Liam Reilly, has died aged 65.\n\nA family statement confirmed that Mr Reilly \"passed away suddenly but peacefully at his home\" on 1 January.\n\nMr Reilly fronted Bagatelle for more than 40 years and they had success with songs including Summer in Dublin and Second Violin.\n\nHe also came joint second at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1990 with the song Somewhere in Europe.\n\nThe song finished on 132 points, joint with France's entry sung by Joëlle Ursull, in the contest in Zagreb.\n\nMr Reilly, from Dundalk, County Louth, also composed Ireland's Eurovision entry for the contest in Rome in 1991, when Kim Jackson performed his song Could It Be That I'm In Love, which was placed 10th.\n\n\"We know that his many friends and countless fans around the world will share in our grief as we mourn his loss, but celebrate the extraordinary talent of the man whose songs meant so much to so many.\" the family statement added.\n\nJoe Gallagher, the band's promoter from Strabane, County Tyrone, told BBC Radio Ulster \"the talent that Liam brought to the music industry in Ireland is second to none\".\n\n\"Some of the songs that he has written are up there with some of the better songs written in Ireland,\" he said.\n\n\"He is one of the best singer-songwriters Ireland has ever seen or produced.\"\n\nMr Reilly also wrote songs for others, including The Wolfe Tones. The Irish group paid tribute to him on social media, describing him as \"a master songwriter\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by The Wolfe Tones 🇮🇪 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by The Wolfe Tones 🇮🇪\n\nStephen Travers, a member of the Miami Showband, said Mr Reilly was a \"national treasure\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Stephen Travers This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Horse Racing\n\nTributes have been paid to trainer Zoe Davison, who died from cancer on the same day two of her horses claimed wins at Plumpton.\n\nDavison, who had breast cancer for four-and-a-half years, died at her Shovelstrode Racing Stables in Sussex.\n\nBrown Bullet and Mr Jack, both trained at the family's stable, had raced to victory at the Sussex track on Sunday.\n\nSimon Clare, part-owner of Brown Bullet, said: \"Zoe was just the most wonderful human being imaginable.\"\n\nHer husband Andrew Irvine - who she married in 2018 - was by her side, along with family.\n\nHe said: \"She was the most wonderful, incredible person. I am blessed to have spent the last 24 years of my life with her.\"\n\nDaughter Gemelle Johnson, who was assistant to her mother, said: \"I just feel a bit numb inside because of everything.\n\n\"I'm a bit overwhelmed we've had a double for mum. Hopefully we have made her proud. It's surreal. Our team is a family business and we put everything into it. She will be thoroughly missed as she is the glue that holds us together.\n\n\"We've had a few winners around here and it is one of our local tracks. It means everything to us as we want to do her proud.\"\n\nDavison sent out the first of over 100 winners when Sails Legend, with AP McCoy in the saddle, won at Towcester in November 1997.\n\nShe enjoyed her best season with 15 winners in the 2017-18 campaign.\n\nJockey Page Fuller has a long association with the stable and should have ridden Mr Jack but had been stood down from an earlier fall.\n\nShe said: \"You couldn't have written it any better today. She was just a kind and genuine person who was a real horsewoman. She loved her horses and did her best by them.\n\n\"She has been struggling for a long time, but fortunately her strength has rubbed off on everybody else and they showed that by sending out the winners today.\n\n\"It has been a great team effort and it is great she has gone out like that. I don't know anybody who would have a bad word to say about her - she was just one of those really nice people.\"\n\nEd Arkell, ex-Fontwell clerk of the course and now at nearby West Sussex track Goodwood, said: \"Zoe was a huge part of the southern racing circuit. I'm so sorry for her family and she will be very much missed. She was a friendly, happy person who everybody loved.\n\n\"As a trainer, she ran a wonderful family operation. There are less of those these days. She supported her local tracks and became a big part of them.\"\n\nClare added: \"Zoe was the most talented horsewoman imaginable. What she didn't know about horses wasn't worth knowing.\n\n\"She is so incredibly well loved and will be desperately missed by everyone who knew her.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nArsenal continued their Premier League resurgence with a ruthless victory over strugglers West Brom at The Hawthorns.\n\nDefender Kieran Tierney's excellent solo run and curling finish put the Gunners in front in the first half, before the impressive Bukayo Saka rounded off a stunning passing move to make it 2-0.\n\nAlexandre Lacazette added the third and fourth goals after the break - smashing in a rebound from Emile Smith Rowe's shot before he was set up by Tierney.\n\nIt was Arsenal's third league victory in a row after they had failed to win their previous seven.\n\nWest Brom, playing their fourth match under new manager Sam Allardyce, remain second from bottom and six points from safety.\n• None Confidence? Youth? How have Arsenal turned relegation talk into European hopes?\n\nArsenal boss Mikel Arteta said he wanted his players to \"show confidence\" at The Hawthorns, and they certainly did that in a dominant and eye-catching display.\n\nHector Bellerin forced Sam Johnstone into a save within two minutes after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang broke down the left, and Saka tormented full-back Dara O'Shea on the opposite wing constantly during the opening half.\n\nIt was Saka's ball that fizzed past the back post, inches away from the toe of Aubameyang, after the 19-year-old had got the better of O'Shea and hit it straight at Johnstone.\n\nWest Brom were being suffocated and Tierney's burst of pace to get around Darnell Furlong, before bending it into the far corner, was the perfect way to open the scoring.\n\nSaka made it 2-0 by rounding off a slick, one-touch passing move that former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger would have been proud of.\n\nWest Brom could offer no response after the break either and Arsenal were 3-0 up on the hour when Lacazette eventually blasted in the rebound from a catalogue of errors by defender Semi Ajayi.\n\nThat was game over but Lacazette was allowed to add a fourth when he was left unmarked to divert Tierney's cross into the roof of the net four minutes later.\n\nArteta, knowing the job was done, was able to bring off Saka and Emile Smith Rowe following impressive performances from both youngsters, while Arsenal continued to create chances to round off a very enjoyable evening in the snow.\n\nAllardyce's first match in charge of West Brom - a 3-0 drubbing by Aston Villa after captain Jake Livermore had been sent off - was a sign of just how tough this job was going to be.\n\nThen that 1-1 draw with Liverpool at Anfield provided hope. The Baggies were resilient, organised and tireless.\n\nBut heavy back-to-back defeats by Leeds United and now Arsenal at home have brought things back down to earth.\n\nWest Brom were overawed in defence, out-run in midfield and frustrated by a lack of opportunities in attack throughout this confidence-crushing defeat.\n\nTheir rare sniffs at goal came from a Granit Xhaka error in the first half - Matheus Pereira chipping it through to Matt Phillips who struck it straight at Bernd Leno - before Callum Robinson's finish was ruled out for offside in the second half.\n\nSubstitute Rekeem Harper's long-range strike deep in stoppage time was also comfortably turned behind by Leno.\n\nIt was West Brom's third home loss in three under Allardyce and they have conceded 12 goals with no reply in those games.\n\n'Everything looks much better' - what they said\n\nWest Brom manager Sam Allardyce: \"Another game gone by where we learn more about the players we have. We have learnt an awful lot about what we can and cannot do.\n\n\"We need to work out a way of not trying to be as sloppy as we have been at conceding goals. It appears when we try to open up we leave opportunities for the opposition and we cannot cope.\"\n\nArsenal manager Mikel Arteta: \"We had a big week, three games in seven days, and we managed to win them and everything looks much better. It was difficult conditions but the team looked sharp from the start. It's a big win.\n\n\"After the results we had before we had to lift things straight away. Now we have got some discipline back. We look more creative in the final third and we look solid at the back.\"\n\nThe best of the stats\n• None West Brom are the first side to lose consecutive home Premier League games by at least four goals since Wigan in August 2010.\n• None Arsenal have scored in all 25 of their Premier League meetings with West Brom, the best 100% scoring record by one side against an opponent in the competition's history.\n• None There were 20 passes in the build-up to Arsenal's first goal scored by Kieran Tierney - since Mikel Arteta's first game in charge on Boxing Day 2019, the Gunners have scored more goals following a sequence of 20+ passes than any other Premier League side (3).\n• None Tierney became the first Scottish player to score an away Premier League goal for Arsenal and the first to do so in the top flight since Charlie Nicholas against Ipswich Town in March 1986.\n• None Alexandre Lacazette has scored five away Premier League goals in 2020-21, his best such tally in a single season in the competition.\n\nWest Brom travel to Blackpool for an FA Cup third-round tie on Saturday, 9 January (15:00 GMT kick-off), before returning to Premier League action on Saturday, 16 January against Wolves (12:30 GMT).\n\nArsenal host Newcastle in their FA Cup match on the same day (17:30 GMT), before facing Crystal Palace at home in the league on Thursday, 14 January (20:00 GMT).\n• None Offside, West Bromwich Albion. Charlie Austin tries a through ball, but Kyle Bartley is caught offside.\n• None Attempt saved. Rekeem Harper (West Bromwich Albion) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Matheus Pereira.\n• None Attempt saved. Willian (Arsenal) left footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Dani Ceballos.\n• None Attempt missed. Joseph Willock (Arsenal) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Willian with a cross.\n• None Attempt saved. Conor Gallagher (West Bromwich Albion) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Callum Robinson.\n• None Attempt blocked. Charlie Austin (West Bromwich Albion) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Dara O'Shea.\n• None Dani Ceballos (Arsenal) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt saved. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal) left footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Kieran Tierney.\n• None Attempt missed. Charlie Austin (West Bromwich Albion) right footed shot from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Matt Phillips. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None A special and exclusive one-off chat with the music icon\n• None How has their rise come to define our culture?", "Cases have reached record highs in the past week\n\nThe next few weeks could be the most dangerous period for Scotland since March in the fight against Covid, the first minister has warned.\n\nNicola Sturgeon said the new variant of the virus was \"accelerating spread\" across Scotland.\n\n\"If you first foot someone today, or hug/kiss/handshake them HNY, you are putting yourself, others and the NHS at risk,\" she tweeted.\n\nA further 2,539 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed on Friday.\n\nThe number is slightly down on Thursday's figure, but Ms Sturgeon said cases numbers were still \"worryingly high\".\n\nDaily confirmed cases have reached record highs on each of the previous three days, rising to to 2,622 on Thursday.\n\nThe percentage of positive cases also reached 14.4% on Wednesday - the highest it has been since the second wave of the pandemic began in the summer.\n\nMs Sturgeon tweeted: \"Today's case numbers are worryingly high again. The new variant is accelerating spread.\n\n\"PLEASE do not visit other people's homes just now, even today - if you first foot someone today, or hug/kiss/handshake them HNY, you are putting yourself, others & the NHS at risk.\"\n\nShe said the \"vaccine cavalry\" was on the way, offering \"real hope for 2021\", but she added: \"With this new variant, the next few weeks may be the most dangerous we've faced since Mar/April.\n\n\"We must act together to suppress it, to save lives and protect the NHS. Folded hands stick with it.\"\n\nThe number of daily confirmed cases has reached record highs this week\n\nA new study by London's Imperial College has found that the new variant of Covid-19 is \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version.\n\nIt concludes the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.\n\nThe UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nThe Scottish government's most recent estimate of the R number in Scotland has put it between 0.9 and 1.1.\n\nEmma Thomson, a professor of infectious disease at the University of Glasgow, said it was important to get people vaccinated quickly.\n\nThe professor, who has been working on the sequencing of the new Covid mutation, told the BBC that lockdown was not controlling the infection \"on its own\".\n\n\"At least we come in armed into the new year with two vaccines which are highly effective at preventing severe disease. We have that,\" she said.\n\n\"We need to roll it out now to add to the public health measures.\"\n\nParties, traditional \"first-footing\" and social events were banned this Hogmanay, with all of mainland Scotland and Skye being under the highest level of Covid restrictions.\n\nAll official events were cancelled, but police had to disperse a crowds of people who gathered at Edinburgh Castle and Calton Hill to see in the new year.\n\nIt has also emerged that 32 people were charged with reckless conduct after police found them gathered at a rented property in Aberfoyle on 27 December.\n\nA Scottish government spokesperson said: \"As the first minister has pointed out, the sharp rise in cases is evidence that the new strain seems to be speeding up transmission.\n\n\"This is why we are asking people to please stay at home as much as possible and avoid non-essential interaction with others.\n\n\"There is light at the end of the tunnel, but we ask everyone to be patient as we work our way through the vaccination programme, and continue to follow FACTS to keep us all safe.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIndia has formally approved the emergency use of two coronavirus vaccines as it prepares for one of the world's biggest inoculation drives.\n\nThe drugs regulatory authority gave the green light to the jabs developed by AstraZeneca with Oxford University and by local firm Bharat Biotech.\n\nIndia plans to inoculate some 300 million people on a priority list this year.\n\nIt has recorded the second-highest number of infections in the world, with more than 10.3 million confirmed cases to date. Nearly 150,000 people have died.\n\nOn Saturday India held nationwide drills to prepare more than 90,000 health care workers to administer vaccines across the country, which has a population of 1.3 billion people.\n\nThe Drugs Controller General of India said both manufacturers had submitted data showing their vaccines were safe to use.\n\nHowever, opposition politicians and some doctors have criticised a lack of transparency in the approval process.\n\nDr Swapneil Parikh, an infectious diseases researcher based in Mumbai, told the BBC doctors were in a difficult position.\n\n\"I understand there is a need to go through the process quickly, remove regulatory hurdles,\" he said. \"However... [governments and regulators] have a duty to be transparent about the data they have reviewed and the process involved in making the decision to authorise a vaccine, because if they don't do this, it can affect the public's faith in the process.\"\n\nThe Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is being manufactured locally by the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer. It says it is producing more than 50 million doses a month.\n\nAdar Poonawalla, the company's CEO, told the BBC in November that he aimed to ramp up production to 100 million doses a month after receiving regulatory approval.\n\nThe jab, which is known as Covishield in India, is administered in two doses given between four and 12 weeks apart. It can be safely stored at temperatures of 2C to 8C, about the same as a domestic fridge, and can be delivered in existing health care settings such as doctors' surgeries.\n\nThis makes it easier to distribute than some of the other vaccines. The jab developed by Pfizer/BioNTech - which is currently being administered in several countries - must be stored at -70C and can only be moved a limited number of times - a particular challenge in India, where summer temperatures can reach 50C.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Adar Poonawalla This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe local vaccine, however, was approved despite the absence of data on how efficient it can be. It has yet to go through large-scale trials.\n\nThe Drugs Controller General, V.G. Somani, said Bharat Biotech's Covaxin was \"safe and provides a robust immune response\".\n\nMr Somani said it had been approved \"in public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, to have more options for vaccinations, especially in case of infection by mutant strains\".\n\nIndia, which makes about 60% of vaccines globally, plans to immunise about 300 million people by July 2021. It will prioritise health care workers, the emergency services, and those who are clinically vulnerable because of age or pre-existing conditions.\n\nIndia's existing vaccination programme already reaches about 55 million people a year, administering 390 million free jabs against a dozen diseases. It stocks and tracks the vaccines through a well-oiled electronic system.\n\nIndia immunisation programme is one of the largest in the world\n\nPfizer, whose vaccine has already been approved for use in jurisdictions including the UK, the US and the EU, is also seeking emergency authorisation in India.\n\nIn all, some 30 vaccine candidates are being developed in India.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Olly Stephens was pronounced dead in Bugs Bottom fields in Emmer Green, Reading\n\nFour boys and a girl have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder after a 13-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Reading.\n\nOliver Stephens, known as Olly, was pronounced dead at Bugs Bottom fields, Emmer Green, on Sunday.\n\nThe five teenagers, all aged 13 or 14, remain in custody, according to Thames Valley Police.\n\nDet Supt Kevin Brown said: \"Our thoughts remain with Olly's family at this incredibly difficult time.\"\n\nHe added: \"This is a tragic and shocking incident which has resulted in the death of a young boy.\"\n\nThe victim's family are being supported by specially trained officers.\n\nFloral tributes to Olly have been left outside Highdown School\n\nHighdown School and Sixth Form Centre said it was \"reeling from the tragic news\".\n\nIn a statement, head teacher Rachel Cave said: \"This student was part of our community and many students and staff knew him well.\n\n\"For a life to be ended at such a young age is a total tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.\"\n\nThe school, in Emmer Green, said it was arranging counselling support for students and setting up an electronic book of condolence.\n\nThames Valley Police said a \"considerable police presence\" would be in place in the area for several days\n\nOfficers were called just before 16:00 GMT on Sunday following reports of an attack.\n\nOfficers are appealing for anyone who was in the area between 15:00 and 16:30 who might have taken photos or camera footage to contact them if they notice anything suspicious.\n\nDet Supt Brown said he believed there would have been witnesses to the \"dreadful incident\" as the area is popular with dog walkers.\n\nA man said his wife was walking their dog through the park on Sunday afternoon when she saw a boy on the ground with several people around him trying to give him first aid.\n\nAnother dog walker said she saw a group of young people standing in the woods in Bugs Bottom fields at about 15:30 and described it as \"slightly unusual\".\n\nReading East MP Matt Rodda has offered his \"deepest condolences\" to the boy's family.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Matt Rodda This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSt Barnabas Church in Emmer Green has invited residents to pray and light a candle in memory of the boy.\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A UK ticket-holder has started the new year by winning the EuroMillions jackpot of nearly £40m.\n\nOne ticket matched all five regular numbers and two lucky stars in the draw on Friday night to win the £39,774,466.40 prize.\n\nCamelot's Andy Carter, senior winners' adviser at the National Lottery, said: \"What an amazing start to 2021 for UK EuroMillions players.\"\n\nA ticket-holder has now come forward to claim their prize.\n\nCamelot, which operates the lottery, said checks were being made on the claim.\n\nMr Carter said: \"It is fantastic news that the jackpot winning lucky ticket-holder has now claimed this enormous prize. We will now focus on supporting the ticket-holder through the process.\"\n\nThe winning numbers were 16, 28, 32, 44 and 48 with the lucky stars 01 and 09.\n\nTen other ticket-holders each won £1m in the UK Millionaire Maker New Year's Day event.\n\nIn 2019, a UK ticket-holder won the full £170m EuroMillions jackpot, making them Britain's richest ever lottery winner.\n\nAnd last year, a £57m EuroMillions prize claim was validated just before the deadline. The ticket had been bought in South Ayrshire.\n\nThe winning ticket holder's newfound cash means they are now wealthier than former One Direction singer Zayn Malik, who is worth £36m, according to the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List.\n\nAnd if they have a bit more money in the bank, they could buy one of the UK's most expensive homes, which went on the market last year.\n\nNobody won the EuroMillons Hotpicks jackpot on Friday, which uses the same numbers as the main draw, but one winner scooped the Thunderball top prize of £500,000.\n\nThe Thunderball numbers were 13, 17, 30, 34, 35 and the Thunderball was 01.", "Some Covid restrictions are being reintroduced in response to the Omicron variant.\n\nCheck what the rules are in your area by entering your postcode or council name below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. What are the rules in your area? Enter a full UK postcode or council name to find out\n\nIf you cannot see the look-up, click here.\n\nThe rules highlighted in the search tool are a selection of the key government restrictions in place in your area.\n\nAlways check your relevant national and local authority website for more information on the situation where you live. Also check local guidance before travelling to others parts of the UK.\n\nAll the guidance in our search look-up comes from national government websites.\n\nFor more information on national measures see:\n\nFind out how the pandemic has affected your area and how it compares with the national average by following this link to an in depth guide to the numbers involved.", "Wales went into a new lockdown on 20 December\n\nWales is likely to remain in lockdown for the rest of January as the first minister said he does not \"see much headroom for change\".\n\nMinisters are to review restrictions ahead of an announcement on Friday.\n\nBut Mark Drakeford said it was \"very hard to see where the room for manoeuvre is at the moment\" with the NHS \"under huge pressure\".\n\nWithout further changes, restrictions could be kept until the next three-week review at the end of January.\n\nMr Drakeford also said the Welsh Government was unlikely to tighten restrictions despite the emergence of a new more contagious variant of the virus.\n\nHe said there could be some tweaks \"at the margins\" but no wholesale changes because \"it's difficult to see what more could be done\".\n\nThe government introduced a new four-level system of Covid-19 restrictions on 20 December with people told to stay home and avoid all but essential travel.\n\nA study has found the new variant of Covid-19 to be \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version.\n\nThe Imperial College study suggests transmission of the new variant tripled during England's November lockdown while the previous version was reduced by a third.\n\nBut Mr Drakeford does not believe the Welsh Government needs to change the system of restrictions it introduced before details of the new variant emerged.\n\n\"We'll keep our plans under review but level four restrictions in Wales are very strict indeed and it's difficult to see what more could be done to them,\" he said.\n\n\"If they need to be tweaked at the margins to take account of the new variation that's what the cabinet here will consider.\"\n\nHe has dismissed calls by teaching unions to suspend the phased return of face-to-face teaching.\n\nThe government's cabinet will meet on Wednesday to review the current restrictions ahead of an announcement by the first minister on Friday.\n\nBut when asked whether he expected any changes, Mr Drakeford said: \"It's very hard to see where the room for manoeuvre is at the moment.\n\n\"Our health service remains under huge pressure and the coming weeks will be very difficult indeed with winter pressures on the one hand and growing numbers of people suffering with coronavirus in our hospitals on the other.\n\n\"We'll review it, as we said we would, but when I look at the figures I don't see much headroom for change.\"\n\nThe Welsh Conservatives have not criticised the decision to remain in lockdown, but have called for greater scrutiny.\n\nSuzy Davies, Member of the Senedd for South Wales West, said questions would remain \"about how legitimate the decisions of the Welsh Government are\" until MSs had the opportunity to question them in the Welsh Parliament.\n\nPlaid Cymru leader Adam Price said the announcement was unsurprising given the pressures on the NHS, but called on the Welsh Government to ensure a \"rapid rollout\" of the Covid vaccine.\n\nMr Price also called for financial support for people forced to self-isolate and businesses \"during the hardest winter of our time\".\n\nAfter Friday's decision, the next three-week review announcement is not expected until 29 January.\n\nA further 56 people have died after contracting coronavirus in Wales, along with 4,011 new cases, according to data published by Public Health Wales on Sunday.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A dozen people were fined in London for playing dominoes\n\nTwelve people have been fined after they were caught playing dominoes in a restaurant in east London.\n\nPolice officers found the group hiding in a dark room when they entered the building in Whitechapel on Tuesday.\n\nThe owner initially claimed those inside were workers, before admitting they were playing the game.\n\nTower Hamlets Council has been asked to consider issuing a fine to the owner of the restaurant for breaching tier four Covid-19 restrictions, the Met said.\n\nA video released by the Met shows the restaurant owner saying: \"They're playing dominoes.\"\n\nCh Insp Pete Shaw said: \"The rules under tier four are in place to keep all of us safe, and they do not exempt people from gathering to play games together in basements.\n\n\"The fact that these people hid from officers clearly shows they knew they were breaching the rules and have now been fined for their actions.\"\n• None Met breaks up more than 50 New Year's Eve parties\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Boris Johnson has reiterated his position that a Scottish independence referendum should be a \"once-in-a-generation\" vote.\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, the prime minister said the gap between referendums on Europe - the first in 1975 and the second in 2016 - was \"a good sort of gap\".\n\nHowever, Mr Marr suggested that now \"things had changed\" for Scotland.\n\nNicola Sturgeon wants to see an independent Scotland join the EU.\n\nAndrew Marr asked the prime minister what a voter in Scotland should do if they decided that a second independence referendum was now something they wanted, and what were the \"democratic tools\" to now do that?\n\nMr Johnson replied by saying: \"Referendums in my experience, direct experience, in this country are not particularly jolly events.\n\n\"They don't have a notably unifying force in the national mood, they should be only once-in-a-generation.\"\n\nAsked what the difference was between a referendum on EU membership being granted and one on Scottish independence being requested, he said: \"The difference is we had a referendum in 1975 and we then had another one in 2016.\n\n\"That seems to be about the right sort of gap.\"\n\nThe 2014 independence referendum resulted in a 55.3% vote against Scotland going alone.\n\nOn Hogmanay, Nicola Sturgeon said Europe should \"keep a light on\" as Scotland will be \"back soon\".\n\nThe first minister tweeted just after the Brexit transition period formally ended at 11:00 on 31 December 2020.\n\nScotland's trading and travel relationships with EU countries will now be governed by the agreement announced by the UK government on Christmas Eve.\n\nMs Sturgeon reiterated the SNP's call for an independent Scotland to join the EU.\n\nTweeting a picture of the words Europe and Scotland joined by a love heart, she wrote: \"Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the light on.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nicola Sturgeon This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSNP depute leader Keith Brown said: \"It may be a new year but it's the same old incoherent bluster from Boris Johnson. The prime minister pretends otherwise but he knows he can't keep on denying democracy.\n\n\"Even his American pal Donald Trump has learned that if you try to stand in the way of the democratic choice of a nation you get swept away.\n\n\"The people who will decide our future are the people of Scotland, not Boris Johnson and the Westminster Tories.\"\n\nFormer Labour prime minister Tony Blair said it was \"extremely difficult\" to challenge the SNP on independence when the party was \"virtually uncontested\" in Scotland.\n\nHe said: \"We had a referendum that rejected Scottish independence, but Brexit put it back on the agenda again. And it's going to require very careful management. The truth of the matter is it's still not in Scotland's interest to separate from England.\n\n\"There are huge economic and political reasons for the United Kingdom to stay the United Kingdom but we're going to have to examine whether there's different constitutional settlements.\n\n\"I also think it's incredibly important, the single most important thing politically to my mind, is that we get a really capable opposition in Scotland - which should be the Labour Party - that's capable of contesting the Scottish nationalist position in Scotland in a way that prevents them from doing what they do at the moment, which is govern Scotland but pretend they're in opposition.\"\n\nScottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater said: \"Only the people of Scotland have the right to determine Scotland's future.\n\n\"Seventeen consecutive opinion polls have demonstrated majorities in favour of independence, with the most recent indicating a record 58% support.\n\n\"Whether it's the botched handling of the coronavirus crisis, the Brexit catastrophe or just the heartlessness of Tory governments we haven't voted for, it's clear that the UK isn't working for Scotland.\"", "Gerry Marsden was awarded an MBE in 2003 for services to Liverpudlian Charities.\n\nGerry and the Pacemakers singer Gerry Marsden, whose version of You'll Never Walk Alone became a football terrace anthem for his hometown club of Liverpool, has died at the age of 78.\n\nHis family said he died on Sunday after a short illness not linked to Covid-19.\n\nMarsden's band was one of the biggest success stories of the Merseybeat era, and in 1963 became the first to have their first three songs top the chart.\n\nThe band's other best known hit, Ferry Cross The Mersey, came in 1964.\n\nIt was written by Marsden himself as a tribute to his city, and reached number eight.\n\nMarsden was made an MBE in 2003 for services to charity after supporting victims of the Hillsborough disaster.\n\nAt the time, he said he was \"over the moon\" to have received the honour, following his support for numerous charities across Merseyside and beyond.\n\nGerry Marsden in 2009 on the Mersey ferry, which he made famous with his song Ferry Cross The Mersey, as he received the Freedom of the City in Liverpool\n\nMarsden's daughter, Yvette Marbeck, said he went into hospital on Boxing Day after tests showed he had a serious blood infection that had travelled to his heart.\n\nMs Marbeck told the PA news agency: \"It was a very short illness and too quick to comprehend really.\"\n\nHe died in hospital, Ms Marbeck said, adding: \"He was our dad, our hero, warm, funny and what you see is what you got.\"\n\nLiverpool FC posted on social media that Marsden's words would \"live on forever with us\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Liverpool FC This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nGerry and the Pacemakers worked the same Liverpool club circuit as The Beatles in the 1960s and were signed by the Fab Four's manager Brian Epstein.\n\nEpstein gave Marsden's group the song How Do You Do It, which had been turned down by The Beatles and Adam Faith, for their debut single.\n\nSir Paul McCartney described Gerry and the Pacemakers as The Beatles's \"biggest rivals\" on the Merseyside scene.\n\n\"I'll always remember you with a smile,\" Sir Paul said in his tribute to Marsden.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Paul McCartney This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd the other surviving Beatle, Sir Ringo Starr, sent \"peace and love\" to Marsden's family in a tribute on Twitter.\n\nWhile Marsden was a songwriter as well as a singer, his most enduring hit was actually a cover of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical number from 1945, which he had to convince his bandmates to record as their third single.\n\nIn many interviews over the years, he explained how fate played a part in his band ever recording the song. He was watching a Laurel and Hardy movie at Liverpool's Odeon cinema in the early 1960s and, only because it was raining, he decided to stay for the second part of a double feature.\n\nThat turned out to be the film Carousel - which featured that song on its soundtrack - and Marsden was so moved by the lyrics that he became determined that it should become part of his band's repertoire.\n\nIn a 2013 interview, Marsden told the Liverpool FC website how You'll Never Walk Alone was adopted by the club's fans as soon as it topped the chart in 1963: \"I remember being at Anfield and before every kick off they used to play the top 10 from number 10 to number one, and so You'll Never Walk Alone was played before the match. I was at the game and the fans started singing it.\n\n\"When it went out of the top 10 they took the song off the playlist and then for the next match the Kop were shouting 'Where's our song?' So they had to put it back on.\n\n\"Now, every time I go to the game I still get goose pimples when the song comes on and I sing my head off.\"\n\nSir Kenny Dalglish, who managed Liverpool at the time of the Hillsborough tragedy, tweeted that he was \"saddened\" by the news of Marsden's death, and that You'll Never Walk Alone was an \"integral part of Liverpool Football Club, and never more so than now\".\n\nLiverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram posted a tribute on Twitter, saying he was \"devastated\" by the news.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Steve Rotheram This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nGerry was an entertainer. He loved being an entertainer; he loved people seeing him in the street and asking him for his autograph and the like.\n\nHe had a very distinctive voice, and that is terribly important. You knew instantly it was him on those records. He was best on those ballads.\n\nI think he really did them very well indeed. You'll Never Walk Alone was a big show song that had been around for years and years, and lots of people had done it.\n\nJust before Gerry brought his version out, Johnny Mathis brought his out. If that version had been played on the Kop, I don't think the Kop would have taken to it because you couldn't sing along with Johnny Mathis - he had too big a range and too perfect a voice.\n\nBut Gerry sounded like everyman and it was absolutely perfect for the Kop. I think it's the greatest football anthem of the lot.\n\nAs well as being a Liverpool anthem, You'll Never Walk Alone has also been adopted by fans at both Celtic in Scotland and Borussia Dortmund in Germany.\n\nMarsden's career began at legendary live music venue, The Cavern Club, where The Pacemakers played nearly 200 times.\n\nThe club said on Twitter that Marsden was \"not only a legend, but also a very good friend of The Cavern\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by The Cavern Club This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 4 by The Cavern Club\n\nGerry and The Pacemakers achieved nine hit singles and two hit albums between 1963 and 1965, before splitting up.\n\nMarsden pursued a solo career before the band reformed in 1974 for a world tour.\n\nIn 1985, Marsden was back in the pop spotlight when he was invited to be one of the vocalists of a charity version of You'll Never Walk Alone, which was released to raise funds for victims of a fire at a Bradford City match.\n\nIn doing so, Marsden set another chart record by becoming the first person to sing on two different chart-topping versions of the same song.\n\nSo when, after the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989, the other Pacemakers classic of Ferry Cross The Mersey was chosen to raise funds for its victims and a group of famous Liverpudlian singers was gathered, Marsden was again included and was back at number one once more for a cause he held dear for the rest of his life.\n\nMarsden was awarded the Freedom of Liverpool in April 2009, an occasion he marked by boarding a ferry across the Mersey and getting out his guitar to sing his famous hit which described the scene.", "A woman takes her dog for an early walk in Allendale in Northumberland\n\nMany parts of England have seen snow flurries accompany the arrival of New Year.\n\nAreas which welcomed in 2021 with several centimetres of snow included Northumberland, parts of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.\n\nThe Met Office has warned worse is to come with more wintry showers forecast.\n\nDriving conditions on many roads will become \"hazardous\" as the cold weather continues next week, it said.\n\nSeveral football matches were cancelled this weekend due to frozen pitches.\n\nGround staff at West Bromwich Albion were faced with heavy snowfall prior to their Premier League match with Arsenal at The Hawthorns on Saturday evening.\n\nGround staff clear snow from the pitch prior to the Premier League match at The Hawthorns, West Bromwich on Saturday\n\nFurther snow is predicted mainly inland and particularly over higher ground where above 200-300m a further few centimetres of snow is possible.\n\nThe chill in the air is due to high pressure to the north of the UK, which is dragging air from the east \"which at this time of year is cold\", the Met Office said.\n\nThe cold easterly winds are set to develop next week, bringing wintry showers - particularly around eastern parts - while hazardous freezing fog, frost and ice risks will all continue, forecasters said.\n\nSledging in the snow around Silverdale Country Park in Newcastle-under-Lyme\n\nTwo women looking out over the snow covered Huntcliff sea cliffs in Saltburn on the North Yorkshire coast\n\nMeteorologist Alex Burkill said: \"Obviously it's very cold and it's going to stay cold through this week.\n\n\"Whilst there will be some wintry hazards around, it's not really until the end of the week until we see any significant snow.\"\n\nColston Bassett in Nottinghamshire got a light dusting of snow on Saturday\n\nA buried garden Buddha after heavy overnight snow in Buxton in Derbyshire\n\nRAC Breakdown spokesman Simon Williams said: \"The message for those who have to drive is to adjust their speed according to the conditions and leave extra stopping distance so 2021 doesn't begin with an unwelcome bump and an insurance claim.\n\n\"Snow and ice are by far the toughest driving conditions, so if they can be avoided that's probably the best policy.\"\n\nA plough clears snow from the roads in Allendale, Northumberland\n\nA man takes his dogs for an early morning walk through the snow in Allenheads, Northumberland\n\nWaterfowl were still active at a snowy Chapel en le Frith in the Derbyshire Peak District\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Researchers have been tracking changes to the \"spike\" of the virus\n\nThe new variant of Covid-19 is \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version, a study has found.\n\nIt concludes the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.\n\nThe UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nProf Axel Gandy of London's Imperial College said the differences between the viruses types was \"quite extreme\".\n\n\"There is a huge difference in how easily the variant virus spreads,\" he told BBC News. \"This is the most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began,\" he added.\n\nThe Imperial College study suggests transmission of the new variant tripled during England's November lockdown while the previous version was reduced by a third.\n\nCases of Covid-19 have begun to increase rapidly during the second spike, and the number of cases recorded in a single day reached a new high on Thursday.\n\nEarly results indicated that the virus was spreading more quickly among under-20s, particularly among secondary school age children.\n\nBut the very latest data indicates that it was spreading quickly across all age groups, according to Prof Gandy who was a member of the research team.\n\n\"One possible explanation is that the early data was collected during the time of the November lockdown where schools were open and the activities of the adult population were more restricted. We are seeing now that the new virus has increased infectiousness across all age groups.\"\n\nProf Jim Naismith, of Oxford University, said he believed that the new findings indicated that even tougher restrictions would soon be needed.\n\n\"The data from Imperial represent the best analysis to date and imply that the measures we have employed to date, would - with the new virus - fail to reduce the R number to below 1.\n\n\"In simpler terms, unless we do something different the new virus strain is going to continue to spread, more infections, more hospitalisations and more deaths.\"\n\nThe R number is the average number of people an infected person infects. If it is above 1 the epidemic is growing.\n\nThe most chilling finding from this piece of research is that the November lockdown in England, hard though it was for many people, would not have stopped the variant form of the virus spreading. The same severe restrictions that saw cases of the previous version of the virus fall by a third, would see a tripling of the new variant. This is why there has been such a sudden tightening of restrictions across the country.\n\nIt is unclear whether the current restrictions will be enough to control the spread of the virus. Given the fact that it has taken two lockdowns to stop the earlier version of the virus overwhelming the NHS, many scientists fear that further tightening will be necessary.\n\nInfection levels will begin to drop as enough people are vaccinated. But until then it is now more important than ever for people to follow social distancing guidelines, wear masks where required and to regularly wash their hands.\n\nThe new year brings with it hope of a more normal life in the next few months but also a new form of the virus that all of us will have to combat in the coming days and weeks.\n\nProfessor Lawrence Young, of Warwick University, said early indications suggested that vaccines would be effective against the new form of the virus.\n\n\"Variants virus have been around since the beginning of the pandemic and are a product of the natural process by which viruses develop and adapt to their hosts as they replicate.\n\n\"Most of these mutations have no effect on the behaviour of the virus but very occasionally they can improve the ability of the virus to infect and/or become more resistant to the body's immune response.\"\n\nFurther research is needed to understand why the variant is spreading so quickly. But early indications are that vaccines should be effective against it.\n\nThe new virus has been designated \"Variant of Concern 202012/01\" or VOC by Public Health England.\n\nIt was detected in November and thought to have originated in the south-east England in September.\n\nThere is no evidence to suggest that it is more deadly, but it will increase the number of cases which in turn will add further pressure on the NHS.\n\nThe variant can now be found across the UK, except Northern Ireland, but it is heavily concentrated in London, as well as south-east and eastern England.", "The aftermath of an attack in August in Niger, which has suffered a number claimed by jihadist groups\n\nSuspected Islamist militants have attacked two villages in Niger, with reports of dozens of civilians killed.\n\nAround 49 died and 17 were injured in the village of Tchombangou, while another 30 died in Zaroumdareye - both near Niger's western border with Mali, Reuters reports.\n\nThere have been several recent violent incidents in Africa's Sahel region, carried out by militant groups.\n\nFrance said on Saturday that two of its soldiers were killed in Mali.\n\nHours earlier, a group with links to al-Qaeda said it was behind the killing of three French troops in a separate attack in Mali on Monday.\n\nFrance has been leading a coalition of West African and European allies against Islamist militants in the Sahel.\n\nBut the region continues to be affected by ethnic violence, banditry, and human and drug trafficking.\n\nIn light of Saturday's attacks, Interior Minister Alkache Alhada said soldiers had been sent to the area, according to French outlet RFI. But Mr Alhada did not say how many casualties there had been across the two villages.\n\nA local official, quoted by AFP news agency, said many people were killed, and a local journalist spoke of up to 50 deaths.\n\nNiger's Tillabéri region, where the villages are situated, lies within the so-called tri-border area between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, which has been plagued by jihadi attacks in recent years.\n\nTravel by motorbike has been banned in the region for a year, as part of efforts to stop incursions by Islamic militants, who often launch attacks from the vehicles.\n\nAreas of Niger are also facing repeated attacks by jihadists from Nigeria, where the government is fighting an insurgency by Boko Haram.\n\nLast month, members of the group killed at least 27 people in Niger's south-eastern Diffa region.\n\nThe latest attacks in Tillabéri come amid national elections in Niger, as President Mahamadou Issoufou steps down after two five-year terms.\n\nElection officials announced provisional results on Saturday, showing a lead for Mohamed Bazoum - a former minister and a member of Niger's ruling party.\n\nA second round of votes is expected to be held on 21 February, once ballots have been validated by the country's constitutional court.", "The prime minister has said that tougher measures could be needed to help cope with a surge in coronavirus cases.\n\nHe has not yet said whether we will need school closures, or even overnight curfews like those imposed in France.\n\nBut clues about such measures to tackle the new more infectious variant come from the government's Sage advisory committee.\n\nThe headline is that whether we see a return to only being allowed one form of daily outdoor exercise, or stricter controls on travel around the country, we'll be hearing a lot more about something already very familiar: hand hygiene, social distancing, wearing masks and ensuring there is fresh air.\n\nThese may sound familiar but the advisers believe that because the new variant spreads so easily, the measures need to be applied with \"a step change in rigour\" - in other words, a lot more forcefully.\n\nThey suggest considering a return to the two-metre rule because it's more effective than the one-metre plus guidance adopted last year.\n\nMasks need to be made of three layers, not just one, and worn in more locations than now - including workplaces, schools and crowded outdoor spaces.\n\nThe key message is that it is vital to reduce social contact - being close to people, especially indoors for long periods of time, carries the highest risk of infection.\n\nSo expect tier four-type bans on visiting other households to become normal.\n\nThe advisers also say many people still do not recognise the key symptoms of Covid-19 - so ministers need to spell them out and help people understand why they should self-isolate.\n\nBut they also say it is essential to praise the efforts made so far, to recognise sacrifices and emphasise how they've kept infection numbers lower than they would otherwise have been.\n\nWhatever new measures are picked, the advice to ministers is to offer \"clear and convincing explanations\" to motivate people.\n\nThat could be a hint that the government's current \"hands, face, space\" slogan may need to make way for something stronger.", "Last updated on .From the section Man City\n\nManchester City manager Pep Guardiola says he may stay in management much longer than he anticipated.\n\nGuardiola, 49, has previously talked of limiting his time in football to pursue other interests.\n\n\"Before, I thought I was going to retire soon. Now I'm thinking I'm going to retire older. So, I don't know,\" Guardiola said.\n\nThe Spaniard signed a new two-year deal at City in November and has won six major trophies at the club.\n\nPrior to his arrival in Manchester, Guardiola, who turns 50 this month, spent four years as manager of Barcelona and three in charge of Bayern Munich.\n\n\"Experience helps you, especially the way I live my profession,\" he added.\n\nGuardiola's five-year stay at City represents the longest commitment he has made to a club in his management career.\n\nHe has won two Premier League titles, the FA Cup and three League Cups since joining them in 2016.\n\nDespite going into Sunday's match at Chelsea on the back of a six-game unbeaten run and with two games in hand on most clubs around them in the table, he is cautious about talk of winning a third league title.\n\n\"If you think about what [can] happen in January, February - the two games [in hand], we can lose these two games and anything can happen,\" he said.\n\n\"So, in the Premier League, every game is so tough and it is better to be calm. The real Premier League, the people I spoke to before I landed here, said everyone can lose to everyone. I didn't see this until now.\n\n\"Now is the first time when I see in the Premier League, one team is able to lose or win seven, and after draw, and after lose. The results are unpredictable.\"\n\nAmong the challengers this season are arch rivals Manchester United, who City face in the Carabao Cup semi-finals.\n\nOle Gunnar Solskjaer's side have been rejuvenated in recent weeks, shrugging off the disappointment of a Champions League exit with some excellent domestic form.\n\n\"Ole is happier than me,\" said Guardiola, whose preparations have been affected by five players testing positive for Covid-19.\n\n\"But I am not much concerned about United. I am so busy with what we have to do and what we can do with the players.\n\n\"They are there because they deserve it. Since I arrived I expected them to be there all the time. Sometimes in the last seasons it has not been possible, especially in the Premier League.\"\n• None A special and exclusive one-off chat with the music icon\n• None How has their rise come to define our culture?", "Police made 17 arrests at the demonstration in Hyde Park\n\nPolice have made arrests at an anti-lockdown demonstration in central London.\n\nCrowds of between 200 to 300 people began to gather in Hyde Park, which is in a tier four coronavirus area, at about 13:30 GMT on Saturday, the Metropolitan Police said.\n\nSeventeen people were arrested on suspicion of breaching public health regulations.\n\nMost demonstrators had left the park by 16:45, police said.\n\nThe Met tweeted: \"Officers continue to engage with groups of people who have gathered in the Hyde Park area.\n\n\"A number of people have been arrested under health protection regulations and taken into custody.\n\n\"We urge those in the area to leave immediately.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Metropolitan Police Events This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMore than two people are generally not allowed to meet in public under tier four rules.\n\nThe police force added: \"Officers will take enforcement action where we see clear breaches of the tier four rules.\n\n\"It's up to all of us to make the right choices and slow the spread of the virus.\"\n\nA group called The People's Lockdown, Stand For Your Human Rights, had said it was going to hold a event at Hyde Park on Saturday afternoon.\n\nIn an online post, it called on people to \"stand with your loved ones\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Man City\n\nManchester City say they are disappointed after defender Benjamin Mendy breached Covid-19 rules by hosting a New Year's Eve party.\n\nA spokesperson for the France international said the 26-year-old held a dinner party with guests from outside his household.\n\nThe mixing of households indoors is banned under the UK government's tier four restrictions.\n\nCity said they would conduct an internal investigation.\n\nMendy was named on the bench for City's Premier League game away to Chelsea on Sunday (16:30 GMT).\n\n\"While it is understood that elements of this incident have been misinterpreted in the reports [carried by newspapers earlier], and that the player has publicly apologised for his error, the club is disappointed to learn of the transgression and will be conducting an internal investigation,\" the club said in a statement.\n\nA spokesperson for Mendy said: \"Benjamin and his partner allowed a chef and two friends of his partner to attend his property for a dinner party on New Year's Eve.\n\n\"Ben accepts that this is a breach of Covid-19 protocols and is sorry for his actions in this matter. Ben has had a Covid test and is liaising with Manchester City about this.\"\n\nExplaining why Mendy was in his matchday squad on Sunday, manager Pep Guardiola told Sky Sports: \"First of all the club made a statement; second Benjamin already had Covid in the past - he's been tested every day like all of us and he's negative. He knows what he has done and he will learn in the future.\"\n\nMeanwhile, goalkeeper Ederson, forward Ferran Torres, and midfielder Tommy Doyle are among six City players out of the Chelsea game because of coronavirus.\n\nThe trio have tested positive for the virus, adding to the cases of Kyle Walker, Gabriel Jesus and Eric Garcia.\n\nEarlier on Sunday, defender Garcia became the sixth City player to test positive for coronavirus.\n\nGarcia, along with a member of staff who also returned a positive test, will now self-isolate.\n\nCity previously postponed their match against Everton on 28 December because of positive tests.\n\nThere have been a number of apparent coronavirus breaches by players at Premier League clubs in recent days.\n\nTottenham criticised three of their players after they attended a party over Christmas, while Fulham are looking into reports that striker Aleksandar Mitrovic allegedly broke coronavirus rules.\n\nCrystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson also apologised after midfielder Luka Milivojevic was pictured with Mitrovic at a gathering in London.\n\nFulham's match against Burnley on Sunday was postponed after an increase in positive cases at the club.\n\nCity also had to cancel their match against Everton on 28 December because of positive tests.", "Last updated on .From the section Boxing\n\nLuke Campbell's hopes of another world title shot suffered a severe blow as Ryan Garcia rose from the canvas to land a superb stoppage in Dallas.\n\nIn a gripping lightweight fight, Briton Campbell landed a left hook in round two to floor Mexican-American Garcia.\n\nSome asked how the much-hyped Garcia might respond to adversity and while he fought on emotion, he found answers.\n\nCampbell survived a tough attack in the fifth, but a well-placed body shot ended the contest two rounds later.\n\n\"You taught me a lot,\" Garcia, 22, told 33-year-old Campbell as the opponents embraced in the beaten man's corner at the American Airlines Center.\n\nThe jubilant reaction from Garcia's team - including gym-mate Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez - hinted at relief, but unquestionably emphasised the statement they knew their man had made.\n\nIn beating a fighter of Campbell's pedigree - and by rising from the canvas to do so - this win served up plenty of answers about Garcia, whose social media following led him to be identified as the world's 12th most marketable athlete in October.\n\n\"I think I showed a lot of people who I really am. I showed today I am special,\" he told DAZN.\n\n\"They wanted to show me as a social media fighter. Anybody who puts you down, remember you're not who people tell you who you are - you are who you choose to be. I chose to be a champion tonight.\n\n\"He caught me, I was like, 'I got dropped, this is crazy'. I've never been dropped in my life. I had to adjust. I knew I could beat him, I just had to get back up.\"\n\nGarcia is the first man to beat Campbell by stoppage. Shortly after the fight Campbell told Garcia in his dressing room that he punched harder than anyone he had ever faced. The London 2012 Olympic gold medallist then told his Twitter followers that Garcia has a \"massive future ahead\".\n\nThis stoppage win will add to the kind of hype that has led some American broadcasters to suggest Garcia's star status could bring new fans to the sport in the years to come.\n\nThe 1-3 bookmakers' favourite was carried to the ring on a throne while Campbell waited in the ring in Texas.\n\nBut within two rounds a heavy left hook put Garcia on his back and it is to his credit he got up, took the fight to his rival and won rounds in the aftermath.\n\nGarcia had only twice gone past round four, and his last two bouts had lasted less than 180 seconds in total. He carried a fizz in his punches throughout and a left hook-right hand combination in the fifth rocked Campbell and sent him into the ropes as the bell sounded.\n\nIn a contest that ebbed and flowed, Campbell found some poise after a relentless attack from Garcia when the action resumed at the start of the sixth.\n\nBut a round later, Campbell braced for an attack to his head only for Garcia to beautifully drive a left hand to the body that left him on all fours.\n\nGarcia's team raced into the ring, lifted their man and placed a crown on his head.\n\nHis 21st win in as many fights could earn him a world title shot next, or his preferred bout with American Gervonta Davis.\n\nFor now, it has justified the hype and underlined his threat. After the fourth loss of his career, Campbell will need to regroup if he is to attempt to win a world title for the third time.\n• None A special and exclusive one-off chat with the music icon\n• None How has their rise come to define our culture?", "A large poultry flock is to be culled in County Antrim, after an outbreak of bird flu.\n\nThirty thousand birds are to be destroyed as a precautionary measure at the farm near Clough.\n\nIt is the first time the disease has been detected in a commercial flock in Northern Ireland since 1998\n\nThe outbreak affected a business rearing young hens for egg production and it is understood there are other poultry farms in the area.\n\nIt will mean certain movement restrictions in 3km and 10km protection zones around the affected farm, with potential trade implications for other poultry businesses there.\n\nBird flu is a notifiable disease carried by migratory wild birds. It can spread quickly and rapidly causes death in affected flocks.\n\nRestrictions were put in place earlier in the winter in an attempt to prevent transmission to commercial flocks which make up a key part of Northern Ireland's important agri-food industry.\n\nSince 23 December there has been a requirement for all poultry flocks, no matter how small, to be housed.\n\nPublic health advice is that bird flu- or avian influenza - poses a low risk to human health and the Food Standards Agency advises that it does not present a food risk.\n\nPoultry is a £750m a year industry in Northern Ireland which employs 5,000 people. There are around 24 million birds on 650 farms, most of them in counties Tyrone and Antrim.\n\nThe disease has been detected in a number of wild birds in Northern Ireland this winter and in commercial flocks in both Great Britain and in the Republic of Ireland.\n\nIn the short term it will mean no movements on or off poultry farms in the area, with a licensing system being introduced in the coming days.\n\nPoultry products from outside the restricted zone can continue to be traded with EU member states and products from within the zones can be sold on home markets.\n\nOther countries will apply their own rules depending on their assessment of the situation.\n\nNorthern Ireland's chief vet Robert Huey repeated his message for poultry owners to apply rigorous biosecurity measures.\n\n\"Given the level of suspicion and the density of the poultry population around the holding, it is vital that as a matter of precaution, we act now and act fast,\" he said.\n\n\"I have therefore taken the decision to cull the birds as well as introduce temporary control zones around the holding in an effort to protect our poultry industry and stop the spread of the virus.\n\n\"An epidemiological investigation is under way to determine the likely source of infection and determine the risk of disease spread.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prof Linda Bauld says Scots should be prepared a longer period living with level four restrictions\n\nScotland should be prepared for Covid restrictions to be extended as infection rates continue to rise, a public health expert has said.\n\nThe latest government figures show a further 2,137 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Scotland on Friday.\n\nProf Linda Bauld described it as a \"fragile situation\", despite the rate dropping below Thursday's 2,539 cases.\n\nThe latest figures for hospital admissions and deaths will not be published until Tuesday.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon warned on Friday that the next few weeks could be the most dangerous period for Scotland since March in the fight against Covid as the new variant of the virus was \"accelerating spread\" across Scotland.\n\nDaily confirmed cases reached record highs on the last three days of 2020, rising to to 2,622 on Thursday.\n\nThe percentage of positive cases also reached 14.4% on Wednesday - the highest it has been since the second wave of the pandemic began in the summer.\n\nIt had dropped to 10.8% on Friday. A percentage of lower than 5% is needed to show the virus is under control, according to the WHO.\n\nProf Bauld, a public health expert at the University of Edinburgh, said there were no signs yet that the infection rate was levelling off, having risen suddenly from a daily rate of fewer than 1,000 to more than 2,000 per day in recent days.\n\nShe told BBC Scotland: \"It definitely is a fragile situation and you can see that we have more cases than we would expect at the current time.\n\n\"We may be starting to see some of the impacts of the Christmas mixing, but also we know around four in 10 cases, from recent data, are of the new variant.\n\n\"I would imagine that the new variant is playing a role in these higher rates of infection and if these numbers continue to sit at where they are we are going to have more people in hospital in a week or two's time, and that is very worrying.\"\n\nAll of mainland Scotland is under level four restrictions in an attempt to slow down the rate of virus spread\n\nThis would bring \"real challenges\" for hospitals, especially in the central belt, Prof Bauld said, adding that it was \"absolutely imperative that we do not see these number rise more than they are now\".\n\nShe said it would take some time to see the impact of level four restrictions introduced in mainland Scotland on Boxing Day.\n\n\"Mentally we just need to be prepared for the fact that we may be living with the level four restrictions for longer than the Scottish government currently plans,\" Prof Bauld said.\n\nShe said the new, more transmissible coronavirus variant would make it harder to get the R number below one in Scotland and schools may not be able to fully reopen on 18 January.\n\nThe government's education recovery group was preparing with schools for blended learning to go on longer if necessary, she added.\n\nAll of mainland Scotland is under level four restrictions in an attempt to slow down the rate of virus spread.\n\nA new study by London's Imperial College has found that the new variant of Covid-19 is \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version.\n\nIt concludes that the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.\n\nThe Scottish government's most recent estimate of the R number in Scotland has put it between 0.9 and 1.1. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nThe government has described the vaccination programme as a \"light at the end of the tunnel\" and has urged people to stay at home as much as possible in the meantime.", "Hospitals across the UK are being told to prepare to face the same Covid pressures as the NHS in London and south-east England.\n\nSenior doctor Prof Andrew Goddard said the virus's highly infectious new variant was spreading nationwide.\n\nCase numbers were \"mild\" compared with where he expected them to be next week, he said, with doctors \"really worried\".\n\nIt comes as a further 57,725 people have tested positive for Covid - a new daily high.\n\nThis is the fifth day in a row new daily cases have been over 50,000 and brings the total number of cases to 2,599,789.\n\nAnother 445 deaths, of people who had tested positive within the previous 28 days, were reported on Saturday - bringing the total number of deaths to 74,570, according to government figures.\n\nThe UK-wide total for people in hospital with Covid has already passed the spring peak.\n\nHalf of the major hospital trusts in England are said to be dealing with more Covid-19 patients than at the worst point of the first wave in April, with the NHS facing its \"busiest winter ever\".\n\nProf Goddard, of the Royal College of Physicians, told BBC Breakfast: \"There's no doubt that Christmas is going to have a big impact, the new variant is also going to have a big impact, we know that is more infectious, more transmissible, so I think the large numbers that we're seeing in the South East, in London, in south Wales, is now going to be reflected over the next month, two months even, over the rest of the country.\"\n\nHe said: \"It seems very likely that we are going to see more and more cases, wherever people work in the UK, and we need to be prepared for that.\"\n\nPressure has been so great on hospitals in London and south-east England that some patients have been moved out of the area.\n\nLondon's weekly rate of coronavirus cases is 858 per 100,000 people, double the UK figure.\n\nDominic Harrison, director of public health for Blackburn and Darwen, said a decision on a new lockdown had to be decided \"in the next week\" - instead of waiting for the North to get to the same rates as the capital \"and 'call it late' which has been our pattern of response too often\".\n\nThe most recent UK-wide statistics, from 28 December, showed there were 23,823 people in hospital with Covid. That was already significantly higher than the spring peak, which saw 21,683 in hospital on 12 April.\n\nOnly English hospitals have released figures for the final three days of December - and these show that a further 2,302 Covid patients were occupying hospital beds on 31 December.\n\nLondon's Nightingale emergency hospital is ready to admit patients, the NHS has said, while other sites currently not in use are being readied.\n\nSorry, your browser cannot display this map\n\nProf Goddard said it was vital the public did not \"let their guard down\" and continued to follow government guidelines, including wearing a face mask, maintaining social distancing and washing hands.\n\n\"Until the vaccination hits and does its job - that's what our best defence is going to be,\" he said.\n\nDr Ami Jones, an intensive care consultant in Wales, told BBC Breakfast that \"hospitals are absolutely bursting\", adding that a quarter of her staff were currently off sick or self-isolating, making managing patients even more challenging.\n\n\"When we see the daily figures - we know that will sting us in about 10-12 days' time in the hospital,\" she said. \"We are not even at day 10 post-Christmas yet and it's already exceedingly busy.\n\n\"We are going to get to the point where we physically don't have the staff to look after people safely anymore.\"\n\nDr Jones also urged the public to \"please just obey the rules\", adding: \"Stop mixing with other households because it is spreading like wildfire - and we haven't got much more space in the hospitals left.\"\n\nDo you work in a hospital? Have you recently been treated in a hospital, or due to be treated? Email your experiences: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nRegional restrictions in England are \"probably about to get tougher\" to curb rising Covid infections, the prime minister has warned.\n\nBoris Johnson told the BBC stronger measures may be required in parts of the country in the coming weeks.\n\nHe said this included the possibility of keeping schools closed, although this is not \"something we want to do\".\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called for new England-wide restrictions within 24 hours.\n\nSir Keir said coronavirus was \"clearly out of control\" and it was \"inevitable more schools are going to have to close\".\n\nIt comes as the UK recorded more than 50,000 new confirmed Covid cases for the sixth day in a row, with 54,990 announced on Sunday.\n\nAn additional 454 deaths within 28 days of a positive test result have also been reported, meaning the total by this measure is now above 75,000.\n\nSpeaking on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show, Mr Johnson said he stuck by his previous prediction that the situation would be better by the spring, and he hoped \"tens of millions\" would be vaccinated in the next three months.\n\nBut he added: \"It may be that we need to do things in the next few weeks that will be tougher in many parts of the country. I'm fully, fully reconciled to that.\"\n\n\"And I bet the people of this country are reconciled to that because, until the vaccine really comes on stream in a massive way, we're fighting this virus with the same set of tools.\"\n\nThe PM added that ministers had taken \"every reasonable step that we reasonably could\" to prepare for winter, but \"could not have reasonably predicted\" the new, more transmissible variant of the virus that has emerged over the autumn.\n\nSpeaking after Mr Johnson's interview, Sir Keir said introducing new nationwide restrictions in England \"has to be the first step to controlling the virus\".\n\n\"There's no good the prime minister hinting that further restrictions are coming into place in a week or two or three,\" he told reporters on Sunday. \"That delay has been the source of so many problems.\"\n\n\"Let's not have the prime minister saying 'I'm going to do it, but not yet',\" he added.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Johnson defended plans for primary schools to reopen in most of England on Monday, amid opposition from teaching unions and some local councils.\n\nIt came after Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, England's schools watchdog, said closures should be kept to an \"absolute minimum\".\n\nThe rapidly rising infection rates mean it should come as no surprise that tougher measures are being considered.\n\nInfection levels are nearly four times higher now than they were at the start of December - and that in turn has put more pressure on hospitals.\n\nThere are signs the restrictions have started slowing the rises in London, the East of England and the South East.\n\nBut that on its own is not enough. Ministers want to get cases down.\n\nSo what extra can be done? After all most of England is effectively in lockdown already with tier four in place. Those places not in tier four could, of course, follow.\n\nBut some public health experts are warning more needs to be done.\n\nThere is a determination to get primary school children back - they have among the lowest rates of infection if you look at symptomatic cases.\n\nBut infection rates are higher among secondary school age children. The government has bought itself time by delaying their return.\n\nA further 20 million people in England were added to tier four - \"stay at home\" - the toughest set of rules, on 31 December in a bid to stem a surge in Covid cases.\n\nIt means 78% of the population of England is now in tier four, under which non-essential shops are closed and people can only leave their homes for a certain number of reasons.\n\nThe Scottish government will meet on Monday to consider \"further action\" to limit the spread of the disease, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.\n\nAll of mainland Scotland is currently under its own level four restrictions - with only some islands under less stringent tier three measures.\n\nWales entered a nationwide lockdown on 20 December, with First Minister Mark Drakeford saying on Sunday it was \"difficult to see\" how the rules could be strengthened further.\n\nHe said Welsh ministers would consider whether restrictions could be \"tweaked at the margins\" at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.\n\nNorthern Ireland is in the second week of a six-week lockdown that began on Boxing Day. Stricter measures, including a \"stay-at-home curfew\", ended on Saturday.\n\nIn another development, an academic has said there is a \"big question mark\" over whether a vaccine developed at Oxford University will be as effective against a new variant of the virus that has emerged in South Africa.\n\nProf Sir John Bell, Regius professor of medicine at the university, said the team there were currently investigating this question \"right now\".\n\nHe added it was \"unlikely\" the variant would \"turn off the effect of vaccines entirely,\" and in any case it would be possible to tweak the vaccine in around 4-6 weeks.\n\n\"Everybody should stay calm - it's going to be fine,\" he told Times Radio.\n\n\"But we're now in a game of cat and mouse - because these are not the only two variants we're going to see.\"", "Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer described Jo Stevens as a \"dear friend and colleague\"\n\nCardiff Central MP Jo Stevens is being treated in hospital for Covid-19.\n\nA statement was released on her Twitter account on Saturday night in which her team thanked people for their good wishes.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer described Ms Stevens as a \"dear friend and colleague\", and wished her well.\n\nOn New Year's Eve, her Twitter account said she had been \"laid low with Covid for a while\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Keir Starmer This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMs Stevens, who is Labour's shadow culture secretary, was elected as an MP in May 2015.\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford tweeted: \"All of our thoughts and best wishes are with Jo for a speedy recovery.\n\n\"Thank you to Jo's constituency team for continuing to support Cardiff Central constituents at this difficult time.\"", "The rapidly rising infection rates mean it should come as no surprise that tougher measures are being considered.\n\nInfection levels are nearly four times higher now than they were at the start of December – and that in turn has put more pressure on hospitals.\n\nThere are signs the restrictions have started slowing the rises in London, the East of England and the South East. But that on its own is not enough. Ministers want to get cases down.\n\nSo what extra can be done? After all, most of England is effectively in lockdown already with tier four in place. Those places not in tier four could, of course, follow.\n\nBut many public health experts are warning more needs to be done.That’s why we have seen so much debate about schools in recent days.There is a determination to get primary school children back – they have among the lowest rates of infection if you look at symptomatic cases.\n\nBut infection rates are higher among secondary school-age children. The government has bought itself time by delaying their return.\n\nIt looks like there is going to be a very difficult trade-off that needs to be made between the damage to education and wellbeing of children and the risk of further spread of the virus.", "The former president posts that he has been told to report to a grand jury, \"which almost always means an Arrest\".", "Police said a car which had been parked on a bend in the road in Snowdonia was an \"accident waiting to happen\"\n\nStaff looking after a car park in a Welsh national park have been \"getting abuse\" as crowds continue to gather at popular beauty spots.\n\nA spokeswoman for Snowdonia National Park said the decision to keep car parks open was under \"constant review\".\n\nShe explained closing them could lead to unauthorised parking and would exclude locals with mobility issues.\n\nWales is at alert level four, meaning non-essential travel is banned and exercise must start and finish at home.\n\nOn Saturday, North Wales Police said officers had \"turned away\" people who wanted to walk up Snowdon in breach of stay-at-home rules, including some some from Milton Keynes and London.\n\nA red Honda was towed away at Pen y Pass, near Llanberis, after police said it had been parked unsafely on a bend, in snowy conditions.\n\nAt the start of the first lockdown in March, campsites, caravan parks and tourist hotspots were closed by the Welsh Government after \"unprecedented\" crowds gathered at beauty spots.\n\nThe Welsh Government decided to close beauty spots during the first lockdown after scenes like this at Pen y Gwryd in Snowdonia\n\nSnowdonia National Park Authority said it had chosen not to close its car parks again because the areas remained open to people living nearby.\n\n\"Closing car parks can lead to unauthorised parking on roads, so we are keeping them open at the moment,\" a spokeswoman said.\n\n\"The mountains are open for people to be able to exercise from their front doors. Keeping car parks open allows people with mobility issues to exercise as well.\n\n\"We are working closely with police and Gwynedd council and we are reviewing it constantly.\"\n\nNorth Wales Police say beauty spots have been \"disappointingly busy\" since Christmas\n\nShe said its busiest car park, at Pen y Pass near Snowdon, had been overseen by wardens over the Christmas and New Year period, but in a more educational role than in previous years.\n\n\"Places like Pen y Pass are usually manned anyway but their role has changed slightly. They are getting some abuse, which is a shame,\" she continued.\n\n\"We are adopting a similar approach to police: engaging with people, asking what their plans are then educating them.\n\n\"The majority of the time people are going 'I misunderstood that', or people are saying 'I'm doing what I want anyway'.\"\n\nA breach of Covid rules can incur a £60 fine, which rises to £120 for a second breach.\n\nWales is in an alert level four lockdown\n\nPenny Brockman, of Central Beacons Mountain Rescue Team, called on people to help protect themselves and others, including rescue volunteers, by following government guidelines.\n\n\"It is important for people's well-being to walk, but there are probably lots of wonderful places in their own local areas,\" she added.\n\nSouth Wales Police tweeted a picture of Hamilton the police horse \"staying at home\" in his stable, urging people to be \"more like him\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by South Wales P❄️lice This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nLeicester City climbed to second in the Premier League as they won a keenly contested encounter with fellow top-four hopefuls Southampton at King Power Stadium.\n\nJames Maddison fired in from a tight angle after 37 minutes, the Foxes midfielder instructing his team-mates to stand back as he performed a socially distanced celebration, before Harvey Barnes added a second deep into second-half stoppage-time.\n\nVictory takes Leicester within one point of leaders Manchester United, who travel to third-placed Liverpool on Sunday, while Southampton are eighth, three points outside the top four.\n• None How Leicester followed guidance on celebrations - and others didn't\n• None Reaction to Leicester v Southampton, plus the rest of Saturday's Premier League action\n\nThe Saints dominated in the opening stages and created the first opening when Che Adams stretched the home defence on the counter-attack, while Leicester's Barnes' powerful drive forced Alex McCarthy into action with the game's first shot after 19 minutes.\n\nThe visitors, without talisman Danny Ings after the striker tested positive for Covid-19 last week, went close to a response through Ryan Bertrand and Will Smallbone either side of half-time but neither could find a way past Kasper Schmeichel.\n\nIn an entertaining conclusion, Stuart Armstrong rattled the Leicester crossbar with an excellent strike from the edge of the penalty area, while Jan Bednarek produced a superb goalline clearance to deny Barnes and the returning McCarthy saved from Jamie Vardy as both sides pushed for a late goal.\n\nIt took Leicester until the 95th minute to seal the three points, Barnes calmly slotting past McCarthy on the break.\n\nLeicester manager Brendan Rodgers challenged his side to \"disrupt the Premier League hierarchy\" after a 2-1 win over Newcastle in their last league outing maintained their top-four hopes.\n\nVictory in this stern test ensured they continue to do just that.\n\nEnjoying their longest unbeaten run of the season, their streak now at six matches in all competitions since defeat by Everton a month ago, Rodgers' side delivered an assured performance to remain firmly in contention at the top.\n\nDespite their lofty position as the halfway stage approaches, Leicester have struggled at home this campaign - their four defeats at King Power Stadium in 2020-21 is as many as they suffered in the entirety of last season.\n\nThough largely frustrated in the early exchanges as the visitors retained possession, Leicester's superior quality in attack eventually ensured that record was improved with Maddison turning sharply to meet Youri Tielemans' through-ball before drilling home.\n\nThe in-form Barnes once again impressed and eventually got the goal his performance deserved to equal his best season tally of 10 after just 24 games.\n\nUnlike last season's post-Christmas collapse, the Foxes are yet to show signs of falling away. Maddison - involved in six of Leicester's last 12 league goals - and Barnes are easing the pressure on Vardy to deliver every week and there appears the strength in depth to better maintain this challenge.\n\nThe only concern for Rodgers at the end of a pleasing night was the sight of Vardy appearing to limp off as he was replaced by Kelechi Iheanacho in the final minutes.\n\nWhen Southampton claimed victory in the corresponding fixture last January, the 2-1 win marked a remarkable short-term recovery from a club-record defeat by the Foxes less than three months earlier.\n\nOne year on, this match served as another reminder of how quickly the Saints are progressing under Ralph Hasenhuttl.\n\nThey were, however, unable to set a club top-flight record of seven consecutive away games without defeat in the absence of frontman Ings. That was despite their relative freshness, having not played for 12 days after their FA Cup tie against Shrewsbury Town was postponed last weekend because of a Covid-19 outbreak at the League One club.\n\nFollowing their impressive 1-0 victory over Liverpool on 4 January, a triumph which left Hasenhuttl with tears in his eyes, Southampton once again applied themselves with commendable determination but ultimately failed to produce in the final third.\n\nAdams ran out of space at the byeline after breaking clear from the halfway line in the game's first opening, and neither Bertrand nor Smallbone were able to place past Schmeichel as the equaliser their hard work perhaps deserved evaded them.\n\nAt the back, Bednarek produced the heroics to keep his side in the game and full-back Kyle Walker-Peters provided a regular outlet on the right, but Southampton, who named four teenagers on their bench because of an injury crisis, have now scored only once in five league games.\n\nThat is an obvious concern for Hasenhuttl as he looks to ensure his side do not fade after their promising start.\n\n'We took social distancing to the letter' - what the managers said\n\nLeicester boss Brendan Rodgers told BBC Sport: \"It's a very good win against a good team. We were too passive at the start, we took social distancing to the letter and didn't get close to them. After that we had some sustained attacks and ended up getting a brilliant goal.\n\n\"At half-time we had to reiterate the importance of fighting, you have to fight for every result and Southampton keep going. We were outstanding second half and should have scored more goals. We did the dirty work much better and Harvey Barnes showed again that he is a finisher now.\"\n\nOn Maddison's celebration: \"I said to them there is lots of negativity around it but see it as a positive and be creative. Supporters still want to see players celebrate, the happiness, so be creative with it.\"\n\nSouthampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl said: \"It's never nice to lose a game but we had chances. We hit the bar, we fought with everything we have. We are definitely a team that is never giving up. The quality of the opponent was better than ours today.\n\n\"The first goal, you don't shoot at goal like that every day, it was fantastic from Maddison. We had good chances but we couldn't finish and that was the difference.\n\n\"It doesn't look good at the moment, we have a lot of injuries and not many alternatives. The good news is we have 29 points and they don't take them away from us. We did our best with the options we have. We have nine injured but we are fighting for everything.\"\n• None Leicester earned their first home league victory against Southampton since April 2016, ending a run of four without a win against the Saints at King Power Stadium.\n• None Southampton's first 12 Premier League games in 2020-21 witnessed 41 goals (24 scored) at an average of 3.4 per game. Their past six games have seen just six goals (two scored).\n• None Jamie Vardy had seven shots for Leicester, his highest tally without scoring in a single Premier League match in his career.\n• None Vardy has faced Southampton seven times at home in the Premier League, more than any other side at King Power Stadium without scoring in the competition.\n• None James Maddison scored in consecutive Premier League games for Leicester for the first time since October 2019, matching his goal tally at home from each of the previous two campaigns (three).\n\nBoth sides return to action on Tuesday. Leicester host Chelsea in the Premier League at 20:15 GMT, while Southampton welcome Shrewsbury to St Mary's in their postponed FA Cup third-round tie (20:00).\n• None Goal! Leicester City 2, Southampton 0. Harvey Barnes (Leicester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Youri Tielemans following a fast break.\n• None Attempt missed. Stuart Armstrong (Southampton) right footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the right following a corner.\n• None Offside, Leicester City. Marc Albrighton tries a through ball, but Ayoze Pérez is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Wilfred Ndidi (Leicester City) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Marc Albrighton.\n• None Attempt saved. Jamie Vardy (Leicester City) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by James Justin.\n• None Attempt missed. Daniel N'Lundulu (Southampton) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Kyle Walker-Peters with a cross.\n• None Offside, Leicester City. Timothy Castagne tries a through ball, but Ayoze Pérez is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Jamie Vardy (Leicester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Ayoze Pérez with a cross.\n• None Marc Albrighton (Leicester City) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt missed. James Ward-Prowse (Southampton) right footed shot from the centre of the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by Stuart Armstrong. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Hear how David Bowie always managed to stay ahead of his time\n• None Joe Wicks and guests are here to bring positivity to your day", "Nurseries have stayed open during the latest lockdown, unlike schools\n\nNurseries are \"teetering on the edge\" and will \"find it hard to survive with next-to-no funding\" as children are kept home in lockdown, an owner said.\n\nLittle Stars near Pontypool has seen numbers drop by 35% - and Emma Matthews says nurseries are \"running on empty\".\n\nUnlike schools, they have remained open and an industry association wants support so they are around to \"provide places for children in the future\".\n\nA Welsh Government spokeswoman said funding was available through councils.\n\nDescribing childcare workers as \"front-line\", the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) Cymru also called for anxious staff to be made a priority for the Covid vaccine as they work with little protective equipment.\n\n\"We feel we have poured our heart into serving families and want acknowledgement for the early years and the vital part we play in the community,\" Ms Matthews said.\n\nLittle Stars furloughed some staff during the lockdown last March, with nurseries open for children of keyworkers only.\n\nLittle Stars nursery near Pontypool has seen numbers drop by more than a third\n\nThey reopened fully last summer and this has remained under Welsh Government guidance.\n\nHowever, many parents have decided not to send children - some because they are adhering to stay-at-home rules, are self-isolating, have lost their jobs and are struggling to pay bills, or are on furlough.\n\n\"The reasons are varied and valid why parents decide to pull children out,\" Ms Matthews added.\n\n\"The situation isn't great and some say 'we will wait and see next week'. It's very difficult to formulate a plan then or to furlough. We are teetering on the edge.\"\n\nLittle Stars is down the road from the new Grange hospital that opened in Cwmbran last November\n\nBefore coronavirus, the nursery looked after 65 children each day - but last week, 47 attended, made up of babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers.\n\nThere were also 11 babies due to start in January - but only one is attending because of reasons such as new mothers extending their maternity leave.\n\nMs Matthews believes facilities should be open for children of keyworkers only - allowing nurseries to access support for those not attending.\n\nA baby, a toddler and a staff member from Little Stars had coronavirus - and employees are worried for themselves and their families.\n\nIn Wales eligible children can access 30 hours of early-years education and childcare per week for 48 weeks of the year\n\nThey are unable to wear personal protective equipment because of their close contact with children, and describing workers as \"front-line\" who \"keep the economy going\", Ms Matthews said they should be in the priority group for the vaccine and weekly testing.\n\n\"Social distancing is the challenge,\" she added.\n\n\"Face, space and hands... we can only do hands. The others are impossible.\"\n\nThe facility received a grant of £10,000 at the start of the pandemic and a rate relief grant of £1,000, but Ms Matthews wants more support.\n\n\"It's about valuing the service,\" she said. \"It wasn't a very stable industry pre-Covid. But it's made it very fragile now.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government has been urged to give more help, allowing nurseries to survive and \"provide places for children in the future\" by NDNA Cymru.\n\nIt also said early years staff \"must be a priority for the vaccine to enable them to continue providing support for our youngest children and their families\".\n\nWhile nurseries were closed to all but keyworkers initially, they have been open since summer 2020\n\n\"We all know it's impossible to social distance from toddlers and babies who need close care from nappy changing to the contact and affection that supports their development and learning,\" added chief executive Purnima Tanuku.\n\nA Welsh Government spokeswoman said while the rates of coronavirus in Wales remain high, cases in children under five continue to be relatively low.\n\n\"Childcare providers have worked very hard to ensure settings are safe, with low numbers of children on site,\" she added.\n\nThe spokeswoman said funding is provided to councils, enabling them to help childcare settings experiencing financial difficulties and the Childcare Offer for Wales continues to be in place for all eligible children.\n\n\"We are following the advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation about the people who should be vaccinated first - all those in the priority groups will be immunised as safely and as quickly as possible,\" she added.\n\nMost school children in Wales will learn from home until at least February half-term, unless there is a big drop in Covid cases\n\nChildren's commissioner Sally Holland said she\"empathises with the concerns of staff\" and thanked them for their work \"during an extremely difficult period\".\n\n\"Nurseries play a really important part in young children's wellbeing and development,\" she said.\n\n\"Any services that can remain open for children is to be welcomed due to the importance for their health and wellbeing.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "CBBC star Archie Lyndhurst, the son of Only Fools and Horses actor Nicholas Lyndhurst, died in his sleep from a brain haemorrhage, his mother has said.\n\nLucy Lyndhurst said a second post-mortem exam had revealed his death was caused by a condition called Acute Lymphoblastic Lymphoma/Leukaemia.\n\nShe described Archie as \"the most magical human being we have ever met\".\n\nThe 19-year-old's death on 22 September had had a \"catastrophic effect\" on their family, she wrote on Instagram.\n\nArchie with his father Nicholas and mother Lucy Smith in 2017\n\nLucy said she and husband Nicholas were assured by the doctor who explained the post-mortem results to them that there \"wasn't anything anyone could have done as Archie showed no signs of illness\". She said it was \"not leukaemia as we know it\" and that acute in medical terms meant \"rapid\".\n\nThe couple were \"utterly floored\" to think something like this could happen, she wrote, adding: \"It's very rare and around only 800 people a year die from it.\"\n\nShe said that just days earlier he had been celebrating his birthday with \"the love of his life Nethra\".\n\n\"Life is fragile, precious and sometimes incredibly cruel,\" Lucy wrote.\n\nShe also criticised some media outlets for attempting to garner information about how her son had died from the coroner, before they knew the results of the post mortem themselves.\n\n\"To have a coroner call you a few days after your child has died to say the press have been calling for the results of Archie's post mortem, I think stoops to an all time low for us,\" she noted.\n\n\"What gives the press the right to badger a coroner's office solely to find the cause of death before the parents? The complete lack of empathy is astounding. We released no information at the time as we had no idea what he had died from.\"\n\nNicholas appeared alongside his son in an episode of So Awkward in 2019\n\nArchie began his acting career at the Sylvia Young Theatre School at the age of 10 and was best known for playing Ollie Coulton in the CBBC comedy show So Awkward.\n\nHe appeared in the sitcom, which followed the lives of a group of friends in secondary school, from its first series in 2015.\n\nNicholas appeared alongside his son in a 2019 episode of the programme.\n\nArchie's other roles included recurring appearances as a younger incarnation of comedian Jack Whitehall in various TV programmes.\n\nThese included BBC Three sitcom Bad Education, in which he was seen as a younger version of Whitehall's Alfie Wickers character.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The four main engines were fired in unison for the first time, but had to be shut down early\n\nA critical engine test for Nasa's new \"megarocket\" has ended early, but the agency denied it amounted to a failure.\n\nShortly before 22:30 GMT (17:30 EST) on Saturday, the four engines ignited, burning for more than a minute before the event was aborted.\n\nThe core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) was being evaluated at Stennis Space Center, in Mississippi.\n\nThe engines were supposed to fire for eight minutes to simulate the rocket's climb to orbit.\n\nThe SLS is part of Nasa's Artemis programme, which aims to put Americans back on the lunar surface in the 2020s.\n\nWhen it makes its maiden flight - possibly later this year - the SLS will become the most powerful rocket ever to have flown to space.\n\nTeams at Stennis are still poring over the data to find out what happened. John Honeycutt, SLS program manager at Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, said there were \"a lot of dynamics going on\" when the engine shut down.\n\nThe engines' power levels were being throttled down and up again; they were also being prepared to pivot - or gimbal. This movement allows the rocket to be steered during flight.\n\nThe RS-25 engines are the same type that powered the space shuttle orbiter\n\n\"We did see a little bit of a flash come from around the interface between the thermal protection blanket on engine four at the time when we had initiated the gimbal,\" Honeycutt told reporters at a post-test briefing at Stennis.\n\nThe as-yet unknown problem triggered what Nasa calls a failure identification (Fid), followed by a major component failure (MCF). As a result of the fault, an onboard computer known as the engine controller sent a message to another computer called the core stage controller, which took a decision to shut down the vehicle.\n\n\"Any parameter that went awry on the engine could have sent that failure ID,\" said John Honeycutt.\n\nIt was the first time all four RS-25 engines had been ignited together, in a test known as a \"hotfire\".\n\nThe core stage of the rocket was anchored to a massive steel structure called the B-2 test stand on the grounds of the Stennis facility.\n\nTo prepare the core stage, engineers filled its tanks with more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million litres) of super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellant.\n\nThis was the eighth and final test in the Green Run, a programme of evaluation carried out by engineers from Nasa and Boeing - the rocket's prime contractor.\n\nAlthough the test was intended to run for eight minutes, engineers would have received all the data required to certify the rocket for flight after 250 seconds.\n\nThey wanted to iron out any problems before the core stage is used for the first SLS launch, in which it will send Nasa's next-generation Orion spacecraft on a loop around the Moon.\n\nNasa's outgoing administrator Jim Bridenstine declined to call Saturday's event a failure: \"This is why we test,\" he said, adding: \"Before we put American astronauts on American rockets, that's when we need it to be perfect.\"\n\nOfficials have not yet decided whether to re-run the hotfire, or proceed with shipping the core stage to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida to prepare it for the rocket's uncrewed maiden flight, a mission called Artemis-1.\n\n\"It depends what the anomaly was and how challenging it's going to be to fix it,\" said Bridenstine.\n\nNasa administrator Jim Bridenstine said perfection wasn't a realistic expectation for the first engine test\n\nAsked whether a launch this year was still feasible, he added: \"I think it's too early to tell. As we figure out what went wrong, we're going to know what the future holds.\"\n\nHowever, if one or more of the engines needs to be replaced, there are spares waiting to be used at Stennis Space Center.\n\nThe Artemis-1 mission will evaluate how both the SLS and Orion capsule perform prior to Nasa staging a repeat of this lunar loop with astronauts in 2023.\n\nThis will be followed by the first landing on the Moon by humans since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.\n\nThe SLS consists of the 65m (212 ft) -long core stage with two smaller solid rocket boosters (SRBs) attached to the sides. Engineers at KSC have begun stacking the individual SRB segments for Artemis-1.\n\n\"This powerful rocket is going to put us in a position to be ready to support the agency and the country in deep space missions to the Moon and beyond,\" John Honeycutt said during a media briefing on Tuesday.\n\nArtwork: The initial version of the SLS - known as Block 1 - during the climb to orbit\n\nOfficials have been planning to ship the core stage to Florida in February.\n\nIts engines are of the same type that powered the spaceplane-like shuttle orbiter - America's crewed space vehicle for 30 years from 1981-2011.\n\nNasa is re-using flown hardware: the RS-25 engines used in this test helped launch 21 shuttle missions. Two were used on the last shuttle flight - STS-135 in 2011.\n\nThe four RS-25s can generate 1.6 million lbs (7 Meganewtons) of thrust - the force that propels a rocket through the air.\n\nWhen the solid rocket boosters are added to the core stage, the combined system will produce 8.8 million pounds (39.1 Meganewtons) of thrust. This will make it 15% more powerful than the giant Saturn V rocket that sent astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s.\n\nPrior to Saturday's test, John Shannon, vice president and SLS program manager at Boeing praised teams at Stennis for keeping the Green Run on track despite the pandemic and this year's particularly active hurricane season.", "Doctors and nurses need protection from prosecution over Covid-19 treatment decisions made under the pressures of the pandemic, medical bodies have said.\n\nGroups including the British Medical Association have written to ministers saying medical workers fear they could be at risk of unlawful killing charges.\n\nIt comes as the UK's chief medical officers said the NHS could be overwhelmed in weeks.\n\nThe government said staff should not have to fear legal action.\n\nThe letter from the health organisations points out that the prime minister warned in November that the NHS being overwhelmed would be a \"medical and moral disaster\", where \"doctors and nurses could be forced to choose which patients to treat, who would live and who would die\".\n\nIt said: \"With the chief medical officers now determining that there is a material risk of the NHS being overwhelmed within weeks, our members are worried that not only do they face being put in this position but also that they could subsequently be vulnerable to a criminal investigation by the police.\"\n\nCo-ordinated by the Medical Protection Society (MPS), the letter was signed by the British Medical Association, the Doctors' Association UK, the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and Medical Defence Shield.\n\nIt calls for emergency legislation to protect doctors and nurses from \"inappropriate\" legal action when dealing with circumstances outside their control.\n\nExisting guidance for doctors and nurses on when to administer or withdraw treatment does not give legal protection, the letter says.\n\nIt also says the guidance does not consider the circumstances of the pandemic where demand for healthcare may outstrip supply.\n\n\"The first concern of a doctor is their patients and providing the highest standard of care at all times,\" the medical bodies said.\n\n\"We do not believe it is right that healthcare professionals should suffer from the moral injury and long-term psychological damage that could result from having to make decisions on how limited resources are allocated, while at the same time being left vulnerable to the risk of prosecution for unlawful killing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What does it mean if the NHS is overwhelmed?\n\nThe medical organisations said no healthcare professional should be \"above the law\" and that the emergency legislation should only apply to decisions made \"in good faith\" and \"in circumstances beyond their control and in compliance with relevant guidance\".\n\nThey said the change in the law should be temporary and should apply retrospectively from the start of the pandemic.\n\nMedical staff in the NHS are protected financially from clinical negligence claims by indemnity schemes where the state pays the costs of claims.\n\nBut if someone dies as a result of a lack of treatment, doctors and nurses fear prosecutors could bring charges such as gross negligence manslaughter, which can carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.\n\nEarlier this month, a survey by the MPS of 2,420 of its members found that 61% were concerned about facing an investigation following a decision made in a high-pressure situation.\n\nAbout 36% were concerned about being investigated for a decision to withdraw or withhold life-prolonging treatment due to pressure on resources during the pandemic.\n\nA Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: \"Dedicated frontline NHS staff should be able to focus on treating patients and saving lives during the pandemic without fear of legal action.\"\n\nNHS staff have been told that existing indemnity arrangements will continue and will cover \"the vast majority of liabilities\", the spokesman said.", "Phil Spector pictured in court during his murder trial\n\nUS music producer Phil Spector has died at the age of 81, while serving a prison sentence for murder.\n\nSpector, who transformed pop with his \"wall of sound\" recordings, worked with the Beatles, the Righteous Brothers and Ike and Tina Turner.\n\nIn 2009, he was convicted of the 2003 murder of Hollywood actress Lana Clarkson.\n\nHis death was confirmed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.\n\n\"California Health Care Facility inmate Phillip Spector was pronounced deceased of natural causes at 6:35 p.m. on Saturday, January 16, 2021, at an outside hospital. His official cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner in the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office,\" it said.\n\nSpector produced 20 top 40 hits between 1961 and 1965. His production methods influenced major artists including the Beach Boys and Bruce Springsteen.\n\nHis life was ultimately blighted by drug and alcohol addiction, and he all but retired from the music scene during the 1980s and 1990s.\n\nIn February 2003, actress Lana Clarkson was found dead at his house in Alhambra, California with a bullet wound to her head. Clarkson, who was known for her work in the sword-and-sorcery genre and starred in films including Barbarian Queen, had met Spector hours earlier at a nightclub.\n\nSpector claimed the shooting happened when Clarkson \"kissed the gun\" - but his trial heard from four women who claimed Spector had threatened them with guns in the past when they had spurned his advances.\n\nFollowing an initial mistrial, Spector was convicted of second degree murder and given a sentence of 19 years to life.\n\nLana Clarkson was an actress and model who starred in the film 1985 Barbarian Queen\n\nHarvey Phillip Spector was born in New York in 1939, to Russian-Jewish parents. His father killed himself when Spector was a boy, and his mother moved her family to Los Angeles.\n\nHe began his career in his teens as a performer, forming a band - the Teddy Bears - with three high school friends. They had a hit single in 1958 with a song that took its title from the wording on his father's gravestone: \"To know him is to love him.\"\n\nThe record went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, but the group split the following year.\n\nSpector founded his own record label, Philles, in 1961. He produced high-profile 1960s girl groups such as Crystals and the Ronettes, including on 1963 hits Be My Baby and Baby I Love You.\n\nHe also worked on The Righteous Brothers' hits You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' and Unchained Melody.\n\nSpector produced hits for The Ronettes, later marrying their lead singer Ronnie Bennett\n\nHis signature production technique, the \"Wall of Sound,\" involved layering several instruments, including strings, woodwind and brass, to give a lush, orchestral sound.\n\nIn the early 1970s, Spector collaborated with The Beatles on their final album Let It Be, as well as producing John Lennon's solo album Imagine.\n\nAs the decade progressed, the much-feted producer became reclusive and disturbing accounts of his behaviour became widespread. Spector is said to have held a gun to singer Leonard Cohen's head during sessions for his album Death of a Ladies' Man.\n\nRonettes lead singer Veronica \"Ronnie\" Bennett, who became Spector's second wife and divorced him in 1974, wrote in her 1990 autobiography that he subjected her to years of horrific abuse. She said he had threatened to kill her and display her body in a glass-topped coffin he kept in her basement.\n\n\"I can only say that when I left in the early '70s, I knew that if I didn't leave at that time, I was going to die there,\" Ronnie wrote of the time.\n\nWriting on Instagram after her ex-husband's death, Ronnie Spector said he had been \"a brilliant producer but a lousy husband\".\n\n\"When I was working with Phil Spector, watching him create in the recording studio, I knew I was working with the very best,\" she wrote. \"He was in complete control, directing everyone. So much to love about those days.\n\n\"Meeting him and falling in love was like a fairytale,\" she continued. \"The magical music we were able to make together was inspired by our love. I loved him madly, and gave my heart and soul to him.\n\n\"Unfortunately Phil was not able to live and function outside of the recording studio. Darkness set in, many lives were damaged.\"\n\nSinger Darlene Love, who sang on several songs Spector produced, said he \"changed the sound of rock 'n' roll\" but likened their relationship to \"a bad marriage\".\n\n\"The problem I have with Phil is that he wanted to control Darlene Love's talent,\" she told Variety. \"If he couldn't do that, he was going to do everything in his power to keep my talent from shining.\"\n\nWeeks before Lana Clarkson was shot dead, Spector gave a rare interview to British broadsheet The Telegraph.\n\n\"I would say I'm probably relatively insane, to an extent,\" he told the paper, adding that he had \"devils inside that fight me\".\n\nResponding to news of the producer's death, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein tweeted: \"When we went to Phil Spector's house in the 70s he came to the door holding a bottle of diet Manischewitz wine in one hand and a presumably loaded 45 automatic in the other. Long story.", "The man from Luton was fined £200 for travelling to Devizes and also had his car seized for having no insurance\n\nA man told police he had driven from Luton to Devizes to visit a McDonald's, even though the town does not have a branch of the burger chain.\n\nWiltshire Police called his actions a \"flagrant breach\" of lockdown regulations and fined the man £200.\n\nThe 34-year-old was stopped on Estcourt Street in Devizes, a distance of more than 100 miles (160km) from Luton.\n\nHis car was also seized for having no insurance, police added.\n\n\"The distance travelled across numerous counties to Devizes, which doesn't have a McDonald's restaurant, is a flagrant breach of the regulations currently in place.\n\n\"The majority of people across Wiltshire continue to act responsibly and we thank you for that, however, it is important to protect the NHS that we all stick to the rules,\" said police.\n\nThe man was stopped on Thursday evening.\n\nFollow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Louis Godwin said receiving the vaccine was \"no trouble at all\" and encouraged others to have it as soon as they could\n\nSalisbury Cathedral has been transformed into a vaccination centre with an RAF veteran being one of the first to receive the Covid-19 jab.\n\nFormer Flight Sergeant Louis Godwin, 95, gave a thumbs-up after being vaccinated in the cathedral, which dates back more than 800 years.\n\n\"I was so pleased to get it, especially in a setting like this,\" he said.\n\nOrganisers were aiming to vaccinate 1,000 people aged over 80 with the Pfizer/BioNTech jab on Saturday.\n\nPeople queuing to receive their vaccines at Salisbury Cathedral on Saturday\n\nMr Godwin, a great-grandfather of 12, joined the RAF aged 18 in 1943 and served as an air gunner during World War Two.\n\n\"I've had many jabs in my time, especially in the RAF. After the war, I was sent to Egypt and I had a couple of jabs which knocked me over for a week,\" he said.\n\n\"This one, the doctor said to me 'well that's done' and I thought he hadn't started. So it's no trouble at all and no pain.\"\n\nA health worker prepares the vaccine to be administered at the cathedral\n\nStella Bennett, 88, said she felt \"safer\" after receiving the jab.\n\n\"It was easy. I live on my own so it has been hard but I've managed. At least I'm at home and not in hospital with it,\" she said.\n\nDerek Burnett was also among those inoculated against the virus on Saturday.\n\n\"I feel unbelievably relieved as lockdown has been a big strain. It takes a big weight off my mind,\" said the 81-year-old.\n\nOrganisers hoped to vaccinate 1,000 people aged over 80 during the day\n\nThe Very Rev Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury described the vaccines as \"a real sign of hope for us at the end of this very, very difficult year\".\n\n\"I doubt that anyone is having a jab in surroundings that are more beautiful than this so I hope it will ease people as they come into the building,\" he said.\n\nThe Very Rev Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury, described hosting the event as \"absolutely wonderful\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The French government has imposed a nationwide curfew from 6pm - 6am to fight the surge in cases of coronavirus.\n\nWhile some departments were already under these restrictions, the majority of France was under an 8pm - 6am curfew.\n\nFrench Prime Minister Jean Castex said the measures would be in place for at least 15 days.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester United \"missed an opportunity\" to beat Liverpool, said boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after his side stayed top of the Premier League with a goalless draw against the champions.\n\nIt was a game that failed to justify the pre-match anticipation and Solskjaer will know his side had the better chances to claim a statement victory at Anfield.\n\nLiverpool, without a recognised centre-back and with midfielders Jordan Henderson and Fabinho in defence, dominated possession in the first half but it was United who came closest when Bruno Fernandes' 20-yard free-kick curled inches wide.\n\nFernandes was then thwarted after the break by the outstretched leg of Liverpool keeper Alisson before Thiago Alcantara's long-range effort finally brought the previously unemployed David de Gea into action.\n\nAlisson was Liverpool's hero late on when he blocked Paul Pogba's drive from point-blank range.\n\n\"It was an opportunity missed with the chances we had but then again we were playing a very good side.\" Solskjaer told BBC Sport. \"I'm disappointed but, still, a point is OK if you win the next one.\n\n\"We have improved and progressed. It's not just the result we're disappointed with, it's some of the performance. I know these boys can play better.\"\n\nUnited are now two points ahead of Manchester City, who moved up to second by beating Crystal Palace 4-0, and Leicester City in third. Liverpool, who have scored just one goal in their past four league games, have dropped to fourth, a point behind the Foxes.\n\n\"The performance was good enough to win it but to win a game you have to score goals and we didn't do that, so that's why we had that result,\" said Reds boss Jurgen Klopp.\n\n\"We try not to not score. We obviously have to ignore the fact and hope it will be good again.\"\n• None 'From dejection to frustration in 12 months, Anfield draw underlines Man Utd progress'\n• None Lawro's predictions v You Me At Six drummer Dan Flint\n\nKlopp cut a frustrated figure pretty much from the first whistle, his voice booming around Anfield with a tone of displeasure, showing unhappiness with his own players and officials.\n\nThe German's team, so used to steamrollering all before them in recent times, are going through a very dry spell and barely created an opening worthy of the name here against a resolute Manchester United defence.\n\nToo often, Liverpool's approach play ended with a careless pass or an aimless cross and the longer this game went on the more United looked the most likely winners.\n\nIt was perhaps inevitable Liverpool would be unable to maintain their relentless style, but there will be concerns they have now gone four league games without a win since Crystal Palace were demolished 7-0 at Selhurst Park.\n\nBefore this draw, West Bromwich Albion left Anfield with a point, while Liverpool also had a goalless draw at Newcastle United and lost at Southampton.\n\nSadio Mane and Mohamed Salah are feeding off scraps, while Roberto Firmino's impact was so minimal that he was withdrawn near the end, even with the hosts chasing a goal.\n\nA team as good as Liverpool will not remain off the boil for too long, but there is no doubt they are struggling for form and spark. The fact this is their longest barren sequence in the league since February and March 2005 tells the tale.\n\nManchester United may have a taken a point before this game and there will be justified satisfaction that they subdued Liverpool so completely, created the game's best chances and remain top of the table.\n\nAnd yet there must also be disappointment that they could not cash in completely on an off-colour Liverpool, with reality dawning on them very late that they could take all three points.\n\nFernandes, despite being poor in general, almost unlocked Liverpool twice, while Solskjaer and his backroom team threw their hands up in frustration as other good positions were wasted late on.\n\nIn the final reckoning, however, there will be few complaints at this outcome, which leaves them three points ahead of Liverpool with the visit to Anfield negotiated without mishap.\n\nUnited were well organised and grew into the game after a poor opening half-hour and had real defensive heroes in captain Harry Maguire and left-back Luke Shaw, with the latter particularly outstanding.\n\nIt is a display that will give them increased confidence and belief as they lead the pack - although they might just look back and think a point could so easily have been three.\n\n'It was an opportunity missed' - reaction\n\nManchester United manager Solskjaer said: \"They are a good side and they have some injury problems but we didn't pounce on that.\n\n\"I felt we grew into the game and got stronger and stronger and were closer to winning.\n\n\"We were a bit disappointed in the performance, not just the result. We didn't do well enough to cause them problems in the first half but we defended well and they didn't create too many chances.\"But I think everyone was a bit disappointed with the way we started the game but that is a good feeling to have - that we were disappointed in the performance.\"\n\nLiverpool boss Klopp told BBC Sport: \"The performance was good and the first half was exceptionally good.\n\n\"With all the things that were said before the game - United are flying and we were struggling - and then to play this kind of game, I was happy with that.\n\n\"We tried in the second half again, but you cannot deny United over 90 minutes, not with the counter-attacking threat they have. So they had two really good chances, I have to say, but we had our chances in the second half as well.\n\n\"The way we understood the game, the way we felt the game, the way we read the moments were really good. But it is not exactly how it should be so we have space for improvement, absolutely. We will keep working on that.\"\n• None Liverpool and Manchester United have drawn 0-0 at Anfield in the league three times in the past five seasons, as many times as in the previous 48 top-flight campaigns.\n• None United are unbeaten in their past 16 away matches in the Premier League (W12 D4) - only once have they gone longer without a defeat on the road in the competition (17 games ending in September 1999).\n• None Liverpool are now unbeaten in their past 68 league games at Anfield, earning 178 out of a possible 204 points over this run.\n• None United are the first side to stop Liverpool scoring at Anfield in a Premier League match since Manchester City in October 2018 - this was Liverpool's 43rd home league game since then.\n• None Under Klopp, Liverpool are unbeaten in all seven of their Premier League games at Anfield when facing the side starting the day top of the table (W3 D4).\n• None Marcus Rashford was caught offside five times in this match, the most of any Premier League player this season and the most by a United player since Robin van Persie (six) against Spurs in January 2013.\n\nUnited are at Fulham in the league on Wednesday (20:15 GMT) and Liverpool host Burnley on Thursday (20:00). Next Sunday, Manchester United and Liverpool will meet again - at Old Trafford this time - in the FA Cup fourth round, a match you can watch live on BBC One and the BBC Sport website.\n• None Marcus Rashford (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Curtis Jones (Liverpool) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Offside, Manchester United. Paul Pogba tries a through ball, but Marcus Rashford is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Paul Pogba (Manchester United) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Luke Shaw with a cross.\n• None Attempt saved. Paul Pogba (Manchester United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner.\n• None Attempt missed. Thiago (Liverpool) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the right. Assisted by Georginio Wijnaldum. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Missed all the goals, highlights and talking points from Saturday's Premier League action? Match of the Day is streaming now", "Chris Cramer, a major figure in BBC News and later CNN International, has died at the age of 73 after a period of ill health. Former BBC director of news Richard Sambrook looks back at his life.\n\nChris Cramer's legacy will be the major change in attitudes and support for journalist safety he championed through the BBC and across the wider industry, as well as many achievements in newsgathering and international news.\n\nHe began his career as a teenager on the Portsmouth Evening News, moving to BBC Radio Solent when it launched in 1970.\n\nAfter a year's secondment in Brunei he found his way to the BBC TV Newsroom in the 1970s and developed his reputation as a highly competitive and effective news editor and field producer.\n\nIn 1980 he and a BBC team were in the Iranian Embassy in London collecting visas when it was seized by gunmen opposed to Ayatollah Khomeini. A standoff and siege followed, with Chris among 26 hostages.\n\nHe managed to feign serious illness and was released by the gunmen allowing him to give vital information to the authorities before the SAS stormed the embassy and rescued the hostages.\n\nAt a time when no-one understood or spoke of PTSD, it had a marked effect on his life.\n\nArmed police on the adjoining balcony to the Iranian Embassy during the siege in 1980\n\nMany journalists and crew subsequently spoke of his care and attention when they had difficult experiences and he went on to drive major changes in understanding and support for journalists' safety.\n\nWith BBC Safety manager Peter Hunter, Chris introduced the first hostile environment training courses, risk assessments and equipment for those covering conflicts.\n\nFormer correspondent Martin Bell recalls: \"From Vietnam to Croatia I had covered 10 wars without protection. Then in June 1992 we were shot up crossing the airport runway in Sarajevo in a soft-skinned vehicle. Within two weeks Chris had procured our first armoured Land Rover, the redoubtable 'Miss Piggy', and the body armour to go with it.\"\n\nHe later introduced the first confidential counselling service for news teams, recognising PTSD, and helped found the International News Safety Institute, which spearheaded safety across the news industry.\n\nDuring the 1980s he was at the forefront of organising and overseeing major news coverage, including Michael Buerk's reporting from the Ethiopian famine, coverage of the IRA Brighton bomb attack on the British government, the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, Kate Adie's reporting from Tiananmen Square, the fall of eastern Europe, the first Gulf War and many more major events.\n\nHis fierce competitiveness delivered a series of major exclusives and awards for BBC News.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jeremy Bowen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn the 1990s he oversaw major investment in BBC Newsgathering and the integration of radio and TV reporting - often against internal resistance. His managerial style could be uncompromising and tough, but he was also bitingly funny, shrewd and his hard exterior hid a warm-hearted and generous core.\n\nHe was crucial to establishing the integrated News division as it exists today.\n\nIn 1996 he left the BBC to move to Atlanta as managing director and executive vice-president of CNN International.\n\nThere he took his passion for news safety and his competitive news edge to develop the network into a greater global force.\n\nAs his former BBC and CNN colleague Tony Maddox has said: \"Among his many accomplishments Chris was a pioneer and innovator in field safety for journalists. He led the development of guidelines and practices now widely adopted across the industry.\"\n\nCramer moved to CNN after his time with the BBC\n\nHe was a larger-than-life figure who generated affection and respect in equal measure, often wielding a rapid and disarming wit.\n\nHe is also remembered for supporting women into senior and executive positions and helping them succeed.\n\nDirector of BBC News Fran Unsworth recalls: \"He was one of journalism's enormous characters and a legend in the television news industry. But the legend and the reported image always belied the man.\n\n\"He was immensely kind, thoughtful and caring underneath that image he sometimes projected.\"\n\nFormer deputy director general Mark Byford said: \"He was probably the greatest newsgathering executive ever in the broadcast news business and his organisational skills, competitiveness, eye for a story and steel were extraordinary.\n\n\"He was also, behind the facade, a gentle giant who cared for his people with amazing passion and love.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by John Simpson This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"Many editors, correspondents and presenters in BBC News owe their success to his mentorship - myself included.\"\n\nAfter 11 years he left CNN and took up roles first with Reuters TV and then the Wall Street Journal, where his experience and expertise were used to develop their digital video services.\n\nHe leaves his wife, Nina, son Richard and daughter Nicolette and his daughter Hannah by an earlier marriage to Helen, a former BBC producer.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BMA Scotland GP chief says doctors \"can't plan\" for vaccines\n\nDoctors leaders say the \"patchy supply\" of vaccine to GP surgeries across Scotland is hampering the speed of delivery to patients.\n\nMinisters have pledged a first dose of the vaccine to 1.4 million of the most vulnerable Scots by mid-February.\n\nBut the British Medical Association in Scotland said inconsistencies in supply made it difficult to plan patient appointments to receive the vaccine.\n\nThey also said some GP surgeries had yet to receive any vaccine at all.\n\nThe Scottish government said it was working with health boards to resolve the issues.\n\nCurrently, about 16,000 vaccinations a day are being carried out in Scotland. However, that is expected to rise significantly as efforts to deliver the vaccine are scaled up.\n\nOn Sunday, 1,341 new cases of Covid-19 were reported - the lowest daily figure since 28 December. However, the numbers being admitted to hospital have continued to rise, reaching 1,918.\n\nNo new deaths were registered.\n\nHealth Secretary Jeane Freeman has pledged that the workforce and infrastructure will be in place to vaccinate 400,000 people each week by the end of February.\n\nThe government has already announced plans for large vaccination centres in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh.\n\nIt comes after more than 5,000 front-line health and care staff were vaccinated at the NHS Louisa Jordan in Glasgow on Saturday.\n\nGP practices across Scotland are currently providing vaccination services to those aged over 80.\n\nAbout 16,000 vaccinations are currently being carried out a day in Scotland\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Politics Scotland programme, Dr Andrew Buist, who chairs the British Medical Association's (BMA) GP committee in Scotland, said there was inconsistencies across the GP network.\n\nHe said the vaccine deployment plan was \"ambitious\" and so far \"good progress\" had been made in giving it to priority groups such as care homes residents and front-line health staff.\n\nHowever, he told the programme: \"The current problem lies with the next priority group, which is the 80-plus group, which GPs in Scotland are set to vaccinate because the supply of the vaccine so far has been quite patchy.\n\n\"Some practices have a good supply, some have had none so far.\"\n\nHe said his practice had received 100 doses of the vaccine for 600 patients over the age of 80, who all needed to be vaccinated by 5 February.\n\nHe added: \"I then have to do another 1,200 patients in the 70-plus group and the extremely clinically vulnerable by the middle of February, so we need to do 1,700 vaccines in the next four weeks.\n\n\"Now we can do that. We are used to providing large number of flu vaccinations and it is possible, we have our workforce in place, but we need the vaccine, otherwise we can't do it.\"\n\nWhen asked if his practice was running out of vaccine at the end of each day, Dr Buist said: \"Yes - we can't plan, that's the key thing. We can't send out appointments to patients until we're sure we have the vaccine in our fridge.\n\n\"We were given 100 doses on Monday. We used that all up by Friday. We don't want to send out appointments to patients until we know that we can definitively vaccinate them otherwise patients get very upset.\"\n\nVaccinators have reported being able to extract one additional dose from vaccine vials\n\nDr Buist said vaccinators were regularly managing to extract higher numbers of doses from vaccine vials despite claims that some doses were being wasted.\n\nHe said there was widespread experience of six doses being extracted from Pfizer vaccine vials, which were marketed as having five doses, while 11 doses were regularly being taken from AstraZeneca vials.\n\nBut Dr Buist criticised issues around the red tape some retired health professional had faced when volunteering to become vaccinators.\n\n\"I have reports that arrangement to get doctors and nurses back into the system have been quite bureaucratic and I think it's something we need to look at.\"\n\nThe Scottish government acknowledged that there had been delays in vaccine supplies reaching some GP surgeries.\n\nA spokeswoman said: \"GPs have a significant role to play in delivering the vaccine - and we thank them for their hard work and patience as we roll out more vaccines to those in the communities.\n\n\"We know there have been some initial delays in supply reaching some practices and are working with health boards to resolve this. Vaccines are being manufactured as quickly as possible and we will continue to explore all options available to increase supply.\"\n\nThe government said health boards were providing order information for their GP practices to National Procurement who in turn advised the distribution partner.\n\nThe spokeswoman added: \"Once stock is released for ordering, the distribution partner inputs the GP orders on to their ordering system. Once the order has been placed, GP practices will receive an automated email providing an indication of the delivery day.\n\n\"We too want to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible and are continually working hard to see if distribution can be made faster in any respect.\"", "Hospitals are preparing for the expected peak of the latest Covid-19 surge this week, the Northern Trust's chief executive has said.\n\nJennifer Welsh said there was \"huge pressure across the (healthcare) system\" with more intensive care admissions expected.\n\nThirty patients were awaiting admission to Antrim Area Hospital on Sunday morning, she said.\n\nThere were 25 more deaths linked to Covid-19 reported in NI on Sunday.\n\nThe total number of deaths recorded by the Department of Health since the start of the pandemic is now 1,606.\n\nIt was also reported that there had been 822 more positive cases, with 67 people in intensive care and 50 people on ventilators.\n\nThere are 840 patients being treated for Covid- 19 across Northern Ireland, according to the latest available figures with hospitals working at 93% capacity.\n\nMeanwhile, Northern Ireland has been continuing its vaccination programme having distributed 140,559 first doses and 20,174 second doses.\n\nThe total number of jabs administered in the UK, including both first and second doses, is 4,307,002 according to government data.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland on Sunday, there were 13 further deaths related to Covid-19, bringing the total number to 2,608 since the start of the pandemic.\n\nThere was also a further 2,944 positive cases, bringing the total number of cases in the state to 172,726.\n\nThe Republic of Ireland's Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said the situation in the country's hospitals was \"stark\" and that people of all ages were being admitted and taken into intensive care.\n\nAt the beginning of January, Health Minister Robin Swann said that modelling indicated the \"peak of the third surge\" would hit in the third week of January.\n\nFrontline health staff have spoken to BBC News NI about their \"exhaustion\" and stress, as the pressure on the system continues to increase amid the surging number of cases.\n\nNorthern Ireland is currently in the third week of a six-week lockdown, with ministers scheduled to review measures next week.\n\nHowever, health officials have warned that an extension of the restrictions could be required to reduce pressure on the health service.\n\nNorthern Trust chief executive Jennifer Welsh said hospitals were \"coping but at great cost\"\n\nMs Welsh told BBC NI's Sunday Politics programme that the \"ICU surge is yet to come\" and that the Northern Trust - where two major hospitals, Antrim Area and Causeway, are located - has had to redeploy staff to prepare for the coming days.\n\nShe said both hospitals had been \"under significant pressure and have been for some time\".\n\nShe said 30 patients in Antrim Area's Emergency Department are waiting on a bed after a decision was made to admit them - 24 of those patients have been waiting longer than 12 hours.\n\nMs Welsh added that almost half of all patients in Antrim Area Hospital have tested positive for Covid-19.\n\n\"At the peak of the first wave in Antrim and Causeway the highest number of Covid positive patients was 73.\n\n\"In November, the highest number was 102 and we peaked on Thursday at 202. We have now dropped below that slightly.\"\n\nThe chief executive said the hospitals were \"coping but at great cost\", with many urgent surgeries cancelled.\n\n\"Emergency surgery is being done but we are not being able to do any other in the Antrim Area site.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by bbctheview This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"We have been able to deliver some red flag cancer surgery at Causeway but we would like to do more.\"\n\nDespite these emergency measures already in place, the worst of the current surge is only expected to arrive this week.\n\nShe added: \"We are not going to get out of this quickly. It's going to be a challenge for us as a system.\n\n\"It's been building from October.\"\n\n\"We're not yet at the peak of intensive care admissions and we expect that this week.\n\n\"Antrim has doubled its intensive care beds from seven to 14 in anticipation of the coming surge - 11 are already being used.\n\n\"All hospitals have doubled their ICU footprint. There are more than 160 inpatients in Antrim Area Hospital.\"", "Within seconds of being dropped, LauncherOne had ignited its engine\n\nSir Richard Branson's rocket company Virgin Orbit has succeeded in putting its first satellites in space.\n\nTen payloads in total were lofted on the same rocket, which was launched from under the wing of one of the entrepreneur's old 747 jumbos.\n\nSir Richard is hoping to tap into what is a growing market for small, lower-cost satellites.\n\nBy using a jet plane as the launch platform, he can theoretically send up spacecraft from anywhere in the world.\n\nIn reality, of course, his Virgin Orbit system has to be licensed in the locality where it is used, which at the moment is solely California. But there are well-advanced plans to bring the 747 and its rockets to Cornwall in south-west England, for example.\n\nSunday's success was a big fillip for Sir Richard's team who had tried and failed to launch a rocket in May last year. That effort was thwarted by a breached propellant line feeding liquid oxygen to the booster's first-stage Newton-3 engine.\n\nNo such problems occurred this time.\n\nThe modified 747, named Cosmic Girl, left its base in California's Mojave desert at 10:50 PST (18:50 UTC) to fly out over the Pacific Ocean.\n\nA little under 60 minutes later, and cruising at 35,000ft (10,500m), the jet banked hard to the right, dropping as it did so the 21m-long rocket that had been clamped to its underside.\n\nWithin seconds this booster, called LauncherOne, had ignited its engine and was climbing to space.\n\nCorrect deployment of the various spacecraft onboard at an altitude of roughly 500km was confirmed a couple of hours later.\n\n\"A new gateway to space has just sprung open,\" said Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart. \"That LauncherOne was able to successfully reach orbit today is a testament to this team's talent, precision, drive, and ingenuity.\"\n\nSir Richard has been trying to find the right solution to get into the satellite launch business since 2009. His concrete proposal was first put before the public at the Farnborough International Air Show three years later.\n\nThere is an emerging market for small, lower-cost spacecraft, whose developers are seeking more flexible and affordable ways of getting their assets above the Earth.\n\nSorry, we're having trouble displaying this content. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nVirgin Orbit is one of a number of companies now racing to meet this demand. Other contenders include the Rocket Lab outfit, which sends up its vehicles from a ground launch pad in New Zealand. But there are tens of other small rocket start-ups at various stages of maturation, and some of these plan to operate from the UK as well.\n\n\"Virgin Orbit has achieved something many thought impossible. It was so inspiring to see our specially adapted Virgin Atlantic 747, Cosmic Girl, send the LauncherOne rocket soaring into orbit,\" Sir Richard said.\n\n\"This magnificent flight is the culmination of many years of hard work and will also unleash a whole new generation of innovators on the path to orbit. I can't wait to see the incredible missions Dan and the team will launch to change the world for good.\"\n\nSir Richard presented the LauncherOne concept at Farnborough in 2012\n\nWill Whitehorn is the president of UKSpace, the trade body representing the space industry in Britain. He's also a former president of Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard's other space company which hopes soon to start flying fare-paying passengers above the atmosphere in a rocket plane.\n\nHe said Virgin Orbit's success on Sunday was hugely significant.\n\n\"This is a momentous day for the small satellite world, as we will be able to launch satellites responsively; and for the UK this event promises sovereign launch capability very soon,\" he told BBC News.\n\n\"I plan to push hard for a launch from Cornwall to coincide with the G7 meeting this year if at all possible!\"\n\nSunday's payloads were mostly shoebox-sized and developed by universities\n\nThe air-launched system has the flexibility to operate anywhere - in theory", "Northern Ireland's statistics agency has recorded its highest weekly Covid-19 related registered deaths since the pandemic began.\n\nNisra said 145 deaths were registered in the first week of 2021, although administrative delays over Christmas may have affected the number.\n\nThat brings the agency's death toll to 1,976 by 8 January.\n\nThe figures come as the chief medical officers from NI and the Republic issued a joint stay-at-home plea.\n\nDr Michael McBride and Dr Tony Holohan said they were \"gravely concerned\" about the \"unsustainably high level of Covid-19 infection\" across the island of Ireland.\n\nConcern was raised in the Republic of Ireland this week as figures showed it has the world's highest number of confirmed new Covid-19 cases per million people.\n\nOn Friday evening, the Irish Department of Health reported 50 further deaths with Covid-19 and 3,498 new cases of the virus. More than half (54%) of those newly diagnosed are under the age of 45.\n\nNorthern Ireland is in the third week of a six-week lockdown, with ministers scheduled to review measures next week.\n\nHowever, health officials have warned that an extension of the restrictions could be required to reduce pressure on the health service.\n\nOf the 2,019 deaths recorded by Nisra by 8 January, 1,247 (62%) occurred in hospital, 622 (31%) in care homes, 12 (0.6%) in hospices and 138 (7%) at residential addresses or other locations.\n\nPeople aged 75 and over account for just over three-quarters of all Covid-19 related registered deaths (77.6%) between 19 March 2020 and 8 January 2021.\n\nJust over a fifth (22.2%) of all Covid-19 related registered deaths have been of people with an address in the Belfast council area.\n\nMeanwhile, the Department of Health reported 26 further Covid-related deaths on Friday.\n\nFive of these deaths did not occur in the past 24 hours.\n\nThe Department of Health bases its figures on a positive test result being recorded, whereas Nisra figures are based on mentions of the virus on death certificates, so people may or may not have been confirmed to have contracted the virus prior to death.\n\nA further 1,052 individuals have tested positive for Covid-19 and 63 patients are being treated in intensive care units, 47 of whom are on ventilators.\n\nThe chief medical officers warned the high infection rate was having a \"significant impact\" on the health of the population and the \"safe functioning\" of the healthcare systems.\n\nThey said the public should avoid all unnecessary journeys, including cross-border travel.\n\nPointing out that many of the patients admitted to hospital in January have been younger than 65, they warned coronavirus could affect anyone, \"regardless of age or underlying condition\".\n\n\"It highlights the need for us all to protect one another by staying at home,\" said the medical officers.\n\nNorthern Ireland's spike in infections has been put down to an easing of restrictions over Christmas.\n\nAsked if he regretted being part of the decision to ease restrictions, Health Minister Robin Swann said the executive had tried to be balanced in its approach.\n\n\"I regret the pressures we see now in our hospitals, but let's remember it's caused by this virus, we have it in our power to bring it back under control and get us back to where we were in the summer,\" he told BBC News NI on Friday.\n\nMr Swann pleaded with people to follow the current restrictions.\n\n\"We're in the middle of a very tough six-week scenario, and how we come out of this will be a more graduated approach to make sure we get the benefits of what we've already done, and also the benefits of the vaccine.\"", "Sara Powell-Davies said she was lucky her nursery was able to open following lockdown\n\nA mother with two young children has said it was \"incredibly stressful\" trying to manage without free childcare during lockdown.\n\nThe Welsh Government's scheme was suspended in April, with funds redirected to pay for childcare for key workers' children.\n\nNow the offer, available to working parents of three and four-year-olds, has been reinstated.\n\nBut there are concerns many nurseries have been operating at a loss.\n\nWorking parents of three and four-year-old children are able to claim up 30 hours of early-years education and childcare a week for 48 weeks a year under the Childcare Offer for Wales.\n\nThose whose children become eligible in the autumn term, can apply from September.\n\nSara Powell-Davies, from Caerphilly, said it had been really hard to manage without the help during the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nThe mother to three-year-old Tirion and one-year-old Cadel said the free childcare saved the family about £200 a month.\n\n\"It does make a massive difference to our finances every month,\" she said.\n\nMrs Powell-Davies said, while she was lucky Cadel's nursery was open, after-school clubs would not run in September due to the coronavirus pandemic, which would make juggling childcare around work a challenge.\n\n\"It's incredibly stressful trying to manage this anyway,\" she said.\n\n\"We do rely on support like private nursery provision, after-school care [and] wraparound because we don't have any family that is able to support us.\n\n\"So, this is our lifeline.\"\n\nChildcare Offer for Wales gives those eligible 30 hours of early-years education and childcare per week for 48 weeks of the year\n\nChildcare providers are paid £4.50 per hour for every child who takes up a place through the childcare offer.\n\nBut the National Day Nurseries Association said many of its members were operating at a loss as fewer children had been attending and costs had gone up to comply with Covid-19 safety regulations.\n\nIts chief executive Purnima Tanuku called on the Welsh Government to set up a \"transformation fund to be able to support the sector until occupancy levels pick up and to really review the hourly rate to reflect the additional cost they've had to incur\".\n\nLyn Bourne, of Britannia Day Nursery, said nurseries were a \"forgotten industry\"\n\nBefore the coronavirus pandemic, around 70 children attended Britannia Day Nursery in Caerphilly - now there are about 40.\n\nOwner Lyn Bourne said the nursery was losing money every week, but was determined to keep going.\"It is hard financially and emotionally, but we decided we wanted to keep going so we've just done our best to do that,\" she said.Ms Bourne said she hoped the childcare offer would help some parents to bring children back, but said nurseries needed extra financial help from the government too.\"Nurseries are closing every week,\" she said.\"We seem to be a forgotten industry, but we're so important.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government confirmed that coronavirus guidance restricting children to groups of eight in childcare would be lifted.\n\nDeputy Minister for Social Care Julie Morgan said: \"Bringing the offer back will not only help parents, but it is crucial for providers too in supporting their businesses to recover after what has been a period of great uncertainty and anxiety for many.\"\n\nA Welsh Government spokesman said the hourly rate was under review and it was considering extending the offer to parents in education or training or \"on the cusp\" of returning to work.\n\nHe added: \"The childcare offer being restarted funded childcare for an average of 13,000 children per month before the pandemic, a significant investment in the Welsh childcare sector.\n\n\"We have also relaxed some of the regulatory requirements on childcare settings in the national minimum standards to make it easier for them to operate under the current restrictions.\"", "Women selling clothes online are being sent explicit messages, with requests for sex and \"worn\" garments.\n\nBoth businesses and private individuals have experienced the problem when advertising on mainstream platforms.\n\nWomen have been sent '\"creepy\" messages on Facebook, Instagram, eBay, and Depop, the BBC has learned.\n\nSome were asked for additional items including worn tights, explicit photos and used underwear.\n\nWhen inappropriate profiles were blocked or reported, some would reappear with a different account, sources told the BBC.\n\n\"During lockdown, the messages have gotten really creepy,\" said Sara Faye, who has sold her clothes on Depop for years.\n\n\"They always want to know how many times it has been worn and if it is dirty.\"\n\nMs Faye used to post images of herself in the clothes on the platforms but has now stopped because of the messages.\n\nWomen often model the clothing they're selling in the photos\n\n\"Don't message me on an innocent second-hand website, just because you can see a hot girl in the photos,\" she added. \"It feels like a violation, you should be able to sell your clothes online without getting harassed.\"\n\nSellers were sometimes offered additional money for used clothing or explicit images.\n\nJennifer Savin - a Cosmopolitan features writer, who recently investigated the topic - was offered ��5 for more than 50 intimate images after posting items on eBay.\n\n\"I think there are a lot of users out there, just trying their luck,\" she told the BBC. \"Who knows if they'd even pay up if they were to be sent the explicit content in the first place?\"\n\nOne online seller, who relies on the profits made on these platforms for a living, said \"it was a balance between feeling safe and needing the money.\"\n\nEstablished clothing brands have also reported receiving inappropriate messages and requests on Facebook and Instagram.\n\nLovely's Vintage Emporium sells vintage clothes and receives many such comments every week.\n\nLovely's Vintage Emporium says it receives many inappropriate messages every week\n\n\"I get a lot of messages about the model, especially if there are shirts with close-up images,\" said owner Lynnette Peck.\n\n\"I had a fetishist asking what [shoes] smelt like, who wore them and if I could take a photo of myself wearing them.\"\n\nShe has now stopped selling certain items on the website, after receiving explicit photographs through Facebook Messenger.\n\nNaomi Edmondson, who runs lingerie brand Edge o'Beyond, said the business was \"constantly bombarded with creepy comments from men\", often asking for sex.\n\n\"We get so many creepy messages and comments it's too time-consuming to report them all,\" she said. \"A few times I have felt concerned for safety.\n\n\"We create lingerie to empower women, we do not welcome the minority of men who think it's acceptable to send explicit pictures.\"\n\nSome of the women the BBC spoke to said they hadn't reported the messages because they were \"embarrassed\", \"ashamed\" or \"didn't want to risk losing their accounts\".\n\nFacebook, Instagram, Depop and eBay all said they take these kinds of messages seriously and would take action against those who violated policy.\n\nThey all urged users to report and block any accounts which break the rules.\n\nFacebook - which also owns Instagram - said it has built a \"global safety and security team as well as powerful technology\" to remove accounts as quickly as possible.\n\nDepop said it aims to respond to 95% reports of inappropriate behaviour within three hours, during business hours.\n\n\"The issue of women receiving creepy messages when selling clothes online is not a new phenomenon,\" said Jo O'Reilly, digital privacy expert at ProPrivacy.\n\n\"This is particularly concerning because to sell on most popular online selling platforms, including eBay and Depop, it is mandatory for users to provide a postal address - likely to be their home address.\"\n\nBut that is technically against the terms and conditions of most selling platforms.\n\n\"The very nature of selling second-hand clothes means that sellers will often post photos of themselves wearing the items,\" she says.\n\n\"That can, unfortunately, attract unwanted attention from buyers who might wish to buy worn clothes rather than just second-hand items.\"\n\nAlthough sites restrict the selling of certain used items, such as underwear, private messaging provides a \"loophole\", she added.", "Boris Johnson has said there is still a very substantial risk of intensive care units in hospitals being overwhelmed by the spread of the coronavirus.\n\nIt comes on a day when the UK has recorded the highest number of deaths in a single day in Europe.\n\nFergal Keane last visited the Imperial Healthcare Trust’s St Mary’s and Charing Cross hospital in London last April.\n\nHe's been back to see how they're coping.", "UN peacekeepers ended their mission in Darfur last month\n\nThe number of people killed in clashes between different ethnic groups in Sudan's West Darfur state has risen to 83, a medical body has said.\n\nThe fighting in the state capital, El Geneina, began on Saturday after a row in which a man was stabbed to death.\n\nA state-wide curfew has been imposed and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has sent a delegation to investigate.\n\nA conflict in Darfur that began in 2003 forced millions to flee and, despite a peace process, tensions remain.\n\nSaturday's violence comes less than three weeks after peacekeepers from the United Nations and African Union handed over security to the Khartoum authorities after 13 years there, reports the BBC's Youssef Taha.\n\nSimilar clashes in El Geneina last year, which saw Arab pastoralists fight with non-Arab groups, caused hundreds of casualties.\n\nThe most recent fighting was centred around a camp for people who had been displaced by the Darfur conflict. A deadly row between two men escalated into a fight involving armed militias, the AFP news agency reports.\n\nThe Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said the death toll had risen from 48 to 83, and the number of wounded from around 100 to 160.\n\nMembers of the armed forces were among the victims, it said.\n\nCasualties were likely to rise further as fighting was continuing, the medical body added.\n\nThe government said on Sunday that troop reinforcements would be sent to the area\n\nThe announcement was made after army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan met top security officials to discuss the violence.\n\nA peace deal involving most, but not all, groups in Darfur was signed last year.\n\nThe Darfur conflict began under the presidency of Omar al-Bashir, who was overthrown in 2019 and is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and genocide in the region.\n\nJustice for the people of Darfur was a key rallying cry for civilian groups who backed the ouster of the president after nearly three decades in power.\n\nThe Sudanese Professionals' Association, which was at the forefront of the anti-Bashir movement, called for the current transitional government to deal with the \"unruly armed groups which have been freely moving and terrorising civilians since the collapse of the former regime\", Sudan's news agency reports.\n\nYou may also be interested in:\n\nLast year Mohanad Hashim visited Kalma camp where some of the millions of people who fled flighting ended up:\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The ongoing struggle for peace in Darfur", "A man has scaled a Hong Kong skyscraper in his wheelchair to raise money for spinal cord patients.\n\nLai Chi-Wai, who became paralysed after a road accident ten years ago, climbed 250 metres (820ft) of the Nina Towers building.\n\nBefore his accident, Lai Chi-Wai was a rock-climbing champion in Asia and eighth best in the world.\n\nHe said that \"knowing there was a possibility...that I could be a climber again, I found some direction in life\".", "A financial support scheme for airports in England will open this month, the government says, as the aviation sector faces new Covid travel curbs.\n\nAviation minister Robert Courts said the move was a response to the closure of all UK air corridors from Monday.\n\nThe aim was to provide grants by the end of this financial year, he said.\n\nIndustry groups had warned there was only so long airports could \"run on fumes\", following the announcement of the new quarantine rules.\n\nUnder the new rules beginning at 04:00 GMT on Monday, all travel corridors - which have been in place to allow arrivals from some countries to forgo quarantine - will close.\n\nAll arrivals to the UK after that time will need to isolate for up to 10 days, although the quarantine period can be cut short with a negative test after five days.\n\nPeople will also have to show proof of a negative test taken in the previous 72 hours before travelling.\n\nOn Sunday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also told the BBC'S Andrew Marr Show that Public Health England would also be stepping up checks on travellers who must self-isolate, while enforcement checks at borders would also be \"ramped up\".\n\nHe added that asking all arrivals to self-isolate in hotels was a \"potential measure\" the government was keeping under review.\n\nIn a tweet, Mr Courts said the Airport and Ground Operations Support Scheme \"will help airports reduce\" additional costs faced due to the pandemic and that further details would follow soon.\n\nThe scheme had first been announced in November, but without a set start date. It will involve grants of up to £8m per applicant, to be used to cover fixed costs, such as business rates.\n\nIn a statement at the time, the Airport Operators Association said the scheme would be a relief. However, it said support equivalent to business rates would only go so far and with the pandemic crisis deepening, a broader package of support was needed for all four nations, to see the sector through the next few months.\n\nAOA chief executive Karen Dee said the measures would \"provide much-needed support to many embattled airports, helping them through the challenging months ahead\".\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson announced the changes to the UK's travel rules at a Downing Street briefing on Friday, saying they would \"protect against the risk of as yet unidentified new strains\" of Covid.\n\nThe new rules will be in place until at least 15 February, he said.\n\nA ban on travellers from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde also came into force on Friday, having been imposed over concerns about a new variant identified in Brazil.\n\nNew variants causing concern have previously been identified in the UK and South Africa, with many countries imposing restrictions on arrivals from both nations.\n\nScientists fear the variants seen in South Africa and Brazil may interfere with the effectiveness of vaccines and evade parts of the immune system.\n\nThe government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the press briefing on Friday that some of the new variants may be able to \"get round\" the Covid vaccines but it was \"really quite easy\" to adjust the vaccines to deal with mutations in the virus.\n\nThe travel industry said closing the travel corridors was understandable due to the health emergency, but warned it would deepen the crisis for the sector.\n\nTim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK, said the system had been \"a lifeline for the industry\" last summer but \"things change and there's no doubting this is a serious health emergency\". He said he assumed the government would remove the latest restrictions as soon as it was safe.\n\n\"We've had no revenue now effectively for 12 months, give or take a few months in the summer last year. If we're going to have an aviation sector coming out of this we need to open up in the summer,\" he told the BBC.\n\nTravel operators had already been forced to cancel holidays before the latest restrictions were announced.\n\nEarlier this week, Jet2 suspended all flights and holidays until 25 March over \"ongoing uncertainty\" and budget travel provider EasyJet on Thursday began cancelling holidays up to and including 24 March.\n\nThe Department for Transport has said it is supporting the travel industry with an extension to the furlough scheme until the end of April, business rates relief and tax deferrals.\n\nWith all parts of the UK under strict virus rules amid high levels of infection, only essential travel is permitted.\n\nOn Saturday, another 1,295 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test were reported in the UK, and a further 41,346 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus.\n\nAre you due to travel back to the UK from overseas? Do you work in the travel industry? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Pilot Douglas Jones, 27, was enjoying his dream job, working for Aegean Airlines and living in Greece, when the pandemic began last spring - and borders began to close.\n\nFearing being stranded in Greece, he booked a flight home to Scotland and within a couple of weeks learned his job was gone.\n\nBack home, in the small Scottish town of Moffat, in Dumfries and Galloway, he found himself “desperate to do something”.\n\n\"When you have been used to living in Berlin and Athens and you move back to Moffat, living with your dad, it is a bit of slowdown,\" he says.\n\nIt was a relative of a friend who spotted south of Scotland firm Alpha Solway was hiring new workers to meet demand for personal protective equipment (PPE).\n\nIt certainly marked a change of pace – the nine-to-five office-based routine was difficult to adjust to for someone accustomed to navigating the skies of Europe – but Douglas says he was \"surprised\" by what parts of his old job he could bring to his new post.\n\n\"A lot in commercial aviation is about awareness - situational awareness - and a lot of that can be built into manufacturing as well,\" he says.\n\nWhile looking forward to returning to the skies one day, he adds: “I have learned a huge amount here.\n\n“There are good people here doing a good job and I am helping at least with that.\"", "Children in England will be able to access books online free during school closures via a virtual library.\n\nInternet classroom Oak National Academy created the library after schools moved to remote learning for the majority of pupils until February half-term.\n\nFormed with The National Literacy Trust, the library will provide a book a week from its author of the week.\n\nThe aim is to increase young readers' access to e-books and audiobooks, particularly the most disadvantaged.\n\nOak National Academy is funded by the Department for Education and has provided more than 28 million lessons since the start of the school term on 4 January.\n\nIn the last two weeks, 4.1 million pupils accessed its resources.\n\nThe latest lockdown has seen schools in England close except for children of key workers and vulnerable pupils.\n\nMatt Hood, principal of Oak National Academy, said: \"It's incredible to be able to add to our offer something vital for children's literacy and their mental wellbeing.\"\n\nJonathan Douglas, chief executive of the National Literacy Trust, said it was \"essential\" to enable as many children as possible to \"access a world of great literature\".\n\nHe added: \"Many children's literacy skills were profoundly affected by the first lockdown and school closures.\n\n\"We will do everything in our power to support children, families and teachers during this new lockdown period.\"\n\nDescribing the virtual library as a \"fantastic resource\", Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said learning and children's development must continue while schools remain closed.\n\nHe said: \"Reading is hugely beneficial not only for children's literacy skills, but also their mental health and wellbeing.\"\n\nThe first book to feature will be Dame Jacqueline Wilson's The Story Of Tracy Beaker, and will be available to access free for a week from 17 January.\n\nDame Jacqueline said with schools closed, the free online library is needed more than ever, adding: \"I think it's vitally important that every child should have an opportunity to access books.\"", "The funeral of Gerry and the Pacemakers singer Gerry Marsden has been held at a church near his beloved River Mersey.\n\nMarsden died, aged 78, in hospital on 3 January following a blood infection.\n\nAs the frontman in the band Gerry and the Pacemakers, his hits included Ferry Cross The Mersey and a cover version of You'll Never Walk Alone.\n\nEx-Liverpool boss Sir Kenny Dalglish was among the mourners at the funeral which had to remain small because of Covid restrictions.\n\nSir Kenny managed the club at the time of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, which led to the deaths of 96 fans who were attending an FA Cup game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.\n\nGerry Marsden sings You'll Never Walk Alone before an Anfield match in 2010\n\nSir Kenny said: \"You'll Never Walk Alone has huge meaning to the lives of Liverpool supporters around the world and is synonymous with the club.\n\n\"He will be sadly missed by those who knew him and the millions he never got to meet.\"\n\nYou'll Never Walk Alone became a football terrace anthem for Marsden's hometown club soon after it topped the charts in 1963.\n\nThe song was played during the funeral by a guitarist while a version of Marsden singing Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying, a song he wrote for his wife Pauline, also featured.\n\nShe said: \"We, his family, are totally devastated and have been so moved and amazed at the extent of the respect, love and affection received from all over the world.\n\n\"When the time is right and we have come out of this terrible pandemic we hope a fitting memorial can be held for him in the city he loved so much.\"\n\nGerry and the Pacemakers was one of the biggest British bands in the 1960s\n\nReferring to the lyrics from Ferry Cross the Mersey, close friend Arthur Johnson said: \"He lived close to the banks of the Mersey for all his life and as the words of his song say: 'This land's the place I love and here I'll stay'.\"\n\nLiverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram said: \"I feel privileged he let me into his life, although that makes his passing even more painful.\"\n\nIn 1962, Beatles manager Brian Epstein signed up Gerry and the Pacemakers and, a year later, they became the first band to have their first three songs top the charts - How Do You Do It, I Like It and You'll Never Walk Alone.\n\nA flag on the Royal Iris Mersey ferry flew at half mast after the death of Gerry Marsden\n\nThey were one of the successes of the Merseybeat era, with former Beatles star Sir Paul McCartney saying at the time of Marsden's death that: \"Gerry was a mate from our early days in Liverpool\".\n\n\"He and his group were our biggest rivals on the local scene.\"", "More than half of the Church of England's 14,000 parishes will not open for Sunday services later, as places of worship are hit hard by Covid-19.\n\nMany of the Church's clergy are shielding, while some parishes have decided it is not safe enough to admit worshippers.\n\nMost mosques in London did not open for Friday prayers.\n\nThe Catholic Church in England and Wales says parishes that are able to follow guidelines will still open.\n\nDespite coronavirus restrictions, places of worship in England and Wales can open - but many are struggling to do so safely.\n\nPlaces of worship remain closed throughout Scotland, while Northern Ireland's main church denominations are to cease public worship until early February.\n\nThe Church of England has told the BBC more than half of its parishes - including some cathedrals - will not open for communal prayer on Sunday. Many have moved their worship online.\n\nThe Church said some of its clergy were shielding, and all parishes were making their own decision.\n\nLincoln Cathedral took the decision to suspend in-person worship and move services online earlier in the week.\n\nRev Canon Nick Brown, Precentor of Lincoln, said the decision was taken \"with a very heavy heart\" but explained: \"To bring people together in worship is at the very heart of our purpose, but having considered expert advice we believe that the best way to help limit the spread of Covid-19 is to suspend public services for the time being.\"\n\nThe Catholic Church in England and Wales says it will keep its churches under review to make sure \"the highest standards of safety are maintained\". It is also organising online masses in many parishes.\n\nBritain's most senior Catholic, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, had criticised previous orders for churches to close.\n\nWith more than half of the Church of England's parishes closed for communal worship, thousands of Christians are being deprived of spiritual sustenance, at a time when many feel sorely in need of it.\n\nOther religions are also grappling with the issue and have worked hard to make their places of worship Covid-compliant by, for example, introducing strict booking and ticketing systems.\n\nMany church parishes have adapted by moving services online, a trend mirrored in some Jewish and Muslim denominations. These have been largely successful, and in some cases attracted new audiences from thousands of miles away. However, it's difficult to replicate the sense of community when people can physically and regularly meet up.\n\nOne Rabbi I spoke to last summer admitted he was worried some of his synagogue regulars, kept away by Covid-19, might never return.\n\nThere's also a financial aspect. Places of worship rely heavily on the generosity of believers. Weekly donations have been hit by church closures, and many revenue-generating schemes, such as hiring out church halls, have been cancelled. Many of the country's ancient cathedrals make much of their income from tourist admission fees.\n\nDifferent parts of the UK have taken different approaches, with all places of worship currently closed in Scotland, for example. Some Christian leaders, largely accepting of initial closures during the first lockdown, have gradually spoken out in favour of being able to make the decision themselves.\n\nBut with most shops and sporting facilities closed in England, some campaigners, such as the National Secular Society, have railed against what they say is \"a worrying deference to religious entitlement\".\n\nMeanwhile, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board has told the BBC although most mosques in England and Wales did open for Friday prayers, the majority in London did not - and it says it has asked its members in areas where the infection rate is rising to work closely with Public Health England and local authorities.\n\nUnder the latest lockdowns in the UK, there are changes to usual practices for worshippers of all religions.\n\nIn the areas of the UK where communal worship is allowed, a number of measures are in place, such as carrying out services in the shortest possible time, and ensuring worshippers do not mingle with anyone not in their own household or support bubble.\n\nFaith leaders have accepted the need for restrictions.\n\nThe Muslim Council of Britain urges \"strong caution for mosques wishing to continue remaining open to the public for worship... and for tremendous care to be exercised\".\n\nMeanwhile, the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Sarah Mullally, who has been in charge of the Church of England's plans for resuming services, has said \"some may feel that it is currently better not to attend in person... Clergy who have concerns, and others who are shielding, should take particular care and stay at home\".\n\nHow have you been affected by the issues relating to coronavirus? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n• None What are the rules for places of worship?", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland need further 36 runs to win\n\nEngland need 36 runs on the final day to win the first Test against Sri Lanka despite losing three wickets in a chaotic end to the fourth day in Galle.\n\nChasing only 74, the tourists slipped to 14-3 as Dom Sibley and Zak Crawley fell to left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya before captain Joe Root was run out after a mix-up with Jonny Bairstow.\n\nBairstow, who survived a run-out chance of his own, and debutant Dan Lawrence saw England to 38 without further loss before bad light ended play early.\n\nBairstow and Lawrence will resume on 11 and seven respectively at 04:15 GMT on Monday.\n\nEarlier, Sri Lanka were bowled out for 359, with Lahiru Thirimanne scoring 111 - his first century for almost eight years - and Angelo Matthews 73.\n\nJack Leach, playing his first Test since 2019, took 5-122 and Dom Bess 3-100 to finish with match figures of 8-130 and set up what should still be a comfortable England victory despite a wearing pitch.\n\nEngland won their most recent series in Sri Lanka 3-0, but their record in Asia - and playing spin - is poor and it reared its head again in a remarkable start to their fourth-innings chase.\n\nSibley, whom many feel is vulnerable against spin, was bowled for two not offering a shot, while Crawley, who was dropped on one, added only eight before a drive was superbly caught at gully by Kusal Mendis.\n\nEngland contributed to their own problems as captain Root, who scored a magnificent 228 in the first innings, was run out by a direct hit by wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella, colliding with bowler Dilruwan Perera after Bairstow called for a risky single.\n\nBairstow and Lawrence restored calm in a 24-run stand to steer England to stumps, and they remain firm favourites to take a 1-0 lead in the two-match series.\n\n\"If Sri Lanka had run Bairstow out just after Root it would have been very interesting,\" former England captain Michael Vaughan said on BBC Test Match Special.\n\nSri Lanka, whose first-innings effort of 135 in just 46.1 overs was described as \"one of the worse we've ever seen\", showed significantly more character and application in the second.\n\nOpener Thirimanne, 76 not out as the hosts resumed on 156-2, moved to his second Test century - 54 innings after his first, the third longest gap in Test history - with a cut for four off Bess.\n\nThe left-hander averaged 22 in 36 Tests before this match and his place was in serious doubt, only for captain Dimuth Karunaratne to be ruled out before the game with a thumb injury.\n\nAfter Thirimanne got a faint inside edge to the excellent Jos Buttler off Sam Curran, former captain Mathews played a dogged 219-ball innings containing only two fours to ensure Sri Lanka at least wiped out a 286-run first-innings deficit.\n\nWhen he edged Leach to Root at slip to be last man out, Sri Lanka were left wondering what might have been had they shown the same discipline first time round.\n\nBess, who took 5-30 in the first innings despite struggling with his length, improved throughout the second innings and took a wicket in the first over of his three spells on Sunday.\n\nHe had nightwatchman Embuldeniya caught by Sibley at short cover off the 12th ball of the day, before returning to have stand-in captain Dinesh Chandimal held at slip by Root, and Dickwella caught behind as he attempted to guide the ball to third man.\n\nLeach, who has missed England's past 11 Tests - in part due to illness - yorked Dasun Shanaka and had the dangerous Wanindu Hasaranga superbly taken by Root at slip, before Perera became Buttler's first stumping in Test cricket.\n\nThe wicket of Mathews rounded off Leach's five-wicket haul, the first time two England spinners had achieved the feat in the same match since Derek Underwood and John Emburey in Sri Lanka in 1982.\n\n'It will only mean something if we win' - reaction\n\nEngland spinner Jack Leach on BBC Test Match Special: \"I wouldn't say I bowled well. It has been hard graft out there and I have certainly found I am probably a little rusty.\n\n\"At times I felt I could have done a better job, but the pleasing thing is I felt I bowled better as the game went on.\n\n\"We will come back tomorrow, knock these off and then I can be happy about my five wickets. It will only mean something if we win.\"\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan: \"It has been an exciting day's play. Sri Lanka hung in there.\n\n\"Credit to Sri Lanka - we pelted them but on days three and four have shown they are a team that can compete in home conditions.\"\n\nFormer Sri Lanka all-rounder Russel Arnold: \"The start of England's innings was hectic. We saw panic from England, but Bairstow and Lawrence now look like they have it under control.\"\n• None Find all the resources you need to help with education at home\n• None The hilarious hit history podcast is back for a new series", "There are warnings more children could be plunged into poverty\n\nA decision on whether the £20 weekly rise in Universal Credit will be kept in place is unlikely before March's Budget, a top minister has indicated.\n\nCampaigners say the uplift, worth more than £1,000 a year, has been a lifeline for the vulnerable during the pandemic.\n\nLabour will use a Commons debate on Monday to add pressure on ministers to agree now to extend it beyond 31 March.\n\nBut Dominic Raab told the BBC it was a \"temporary measure\" and the Budget would spell out support \"in the round\".\n\nIn an interview with Andrew Marr, the foreign secretary confirmed that Conservative MPs would be told to abstain in Monday's debate, meaning Labour's \"opposition day\" motion will be approved.\n\nWhile the motion will not be binding on ministers and won't change policy, the BBC's Ben Wright said not opposing it represented an attempt by the government to \"neutralise\" the issue for the time being.\n\nIt showed, he added, how concerned ministers were about the prospect of a rebellion by Tory MPs - many of whom want an end to the uncertainty over the issue - if they had been asked to vote against it.\n\nThe standard Universal Credit allowance, which is claimed by more than 5.5 million households, was increased by £20 a week in April 2020 as part of Chancellor Rishi Sunak's early Covid economic response.\n\nWhile it was designed as a temporary response to help those unable to work or struggling due to the lockdown, opposition parties and charities say failing to extend will cause real hardship for hundreds of thousands of people.\n\nThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation has suggested about 16 million people will be directly affected, with millions of households facing an income loss equivalent to £1,040 a year.\n\nThe organisation has warned 500,000 more people will be driven into poverty, including 200,000 children, while a further 500,000 of those already in poverty will find themselves in even worse hardship.\n\nIts director Helen Barnard said a decision could not be delayed any longer.\n\n\"The chancellor has said the economy is going to get worse before it gets better and our evidence shows it is those with the least who are often suffering the most,\" she said.\n\n\"No one can seriously argue that cutting support for those on the lowest incomes in April will do anything other than weaken our already fragile economy.\"\n\nAsked whether the government should act now, Mr Raab said Monday's debate was a \"political\" move by the opposition and not about the government's overall financial support during the pandemic.\n\nHe promised to \"look at everything in the round\" to make sure support for the most vulnerable was available.\n\n\"Obviously in March there will be a Budget where again that holistic approach can be taken by the chancellor, but we've put that support in place to make sure that the most vulnerable communities can be protected at this very difficult time,\" he told Andrew Marr.\n\nThe government says it has injected an extra £7bn into the welfare system during the pandemic, including boosting Working Tax Credits by more than £1,000 a year for a 12-month period.\n\nLabour has urged the government to \"see sense\" on Universal Credit, saying that it would be both morally and economically wrong to \"take £1,000 a year from Britain's families\" at the peak of the unemployment crisis.", "The leaders of most of the world's biggest economies will get a brief taste of the English seaside this June as they gather for the G7 summit.\n\nCornwall's Carbis Bay, known for its sandy beach and clear waters, will be the venue for discussions on debt, climate change and post-Covid recovery.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson called it the \"perfect location for such a crucial summit\".\n\nThe UK, US, Germany, France, Canada, Italy and Japan make up the G7.\n\nLeaders from Australia, India, South Korea and the EU will also attend the event, from 11 to 13 June, as guests.\n\nVisit Cornwall estimates the county will make £50m, with the summit providing a boost to tourism and the area's international profile.\n\nBut the likes of US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron are unlikely to enjoy an ice cream and a barefoot stroll through Carbis Bay's surf.\n\nG7 summits require security cordons, with anti-globalisation protests having affected several previous get-togethers.\n\nMeasures in place for the meeting in Biarritz, France, in 2019, saw the seaside resort likened to a temporary \"fortress\".\n\nThe Cornish meeting will be the first face-to-face G7 since the pandemic started. Last year's event - scheduled to take place at Camp David, Maryland - took place online instead.\n\nThe previous two UK-hosted meetings were at Lough Erne, Co Fermanagh, in 2013, and Gleneagles, Perth and Kinross, in 2005.\n\nBoris Johnson invoked the leading role of Cornwall's mining communities in the industrial revolution\n\nThis year, delegates will be put up - with Covid restrictions in place - at the Tregenna Castle Resort, overlooking nearby St Ives, and other locations.\n\nThe National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth will host international media.\n\nThe UK is hosting the summit as president of the G7 for the year.\n\n\"As the most prominent grouping of democratic countries, the G7 has long been the catalyst for decisive international action to tackle the greatest challenges we face,\" Mr Johnson said.\n\nHe added that leaders should approach the economic challenges of Covid \"by uniting with a spirit of openness to create a better future\".\n\n\"Two-hundred years ago Cornwall's tin and copper mines were at the heart of the UK's industrial revolution and this summer Cornwall will again be the nucleus of great global change and advancement,\" the prime minister said.\n\nVisit Cornwall chief executive Malcolm Bell said the summit would \"not only showcase the beauty of Cornwall but give us the opportunity to communicate our heritage, culture and the connections\".\n\nLocal leaders said it would provide a \"fantastic opportunity\" to showcase the county on the world stage.\n\nThe government said it would announce more of its plans \"in due course\".\n\nThe G7 meeting comes five months ahead of UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow in November.", "A statue of Edward Colston was thrown into Bristol Harbour last June, after being pulled down and rolled through the streets\n\nThe government is planning new laws to protect statues in England from being removed \"on a whim or at the behest of a baying mob\", Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick has said.\n\nWriting in the Sunday Telegraph, he said generations-old monuments should be \"considered thoughtfully\".\n\nThe legislation would require planning permission for any changes and a minister would be given the final veto.\n\nIt will be revealed in Parliament on Monday.\n\nThe plans follow the toppling of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston last year and a wider discussion on the removal of controversial monuments.\n\nFour people were later charged with criminal damage over the removal of the Colston statue, and six people accepted conditional cautions over their involvement.\n\nIn the paper, the communities secretary said Britain should not try to edit or censor its past.\n\nMr Jenrick said any decision to remove heritage assets in England would require planning permission and a consultation with local communities, adding that he wanted to see a \"considered approach\".\n\nHe wrote: \"Our view will be set out in law, that such monuments are almost always best explained and contextualised, not taken and hidden away.\"\n\nMr Jenrick added that he had noticed an attempt to set a narrative which seeks to erase part of the nation's history, saying this was \"at the hand of the flash mob, or by the decree of a 'cultural committee' of town hall militants and woke worthies\".\n\nHe said: \"We live in a country that believes in the rule of law, but when it comes to protecting our heritage, due process has been overridden. That can't be right.\n\n\"Local people should have the chance to be consulted whether a monument should stand or not.\n\n\"What has stood for generations should be considered thoughtfully, not removed on a whim or at the behest of a baying mob.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Metropolitan Police say they are seeking to identify those responsible for the damage\n\nThe death of George Floyd while in the custody of police in Minneapolis sparked anti-racism protests across the world.\n\nDuring largely peaceful demonstrations in the UK, the controversial Colston statue was dumped into Bristol Harbour and a memorial to Sir Winston Churchill was vandalised with the words \"was a racist\".\n\nSpeaking in June, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: \"The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square is a permanent reminder of his achievement in saving this country - and the whole of Europe - from a fascist and racist tyranny.\n\n\"It is absurd and shameful that this national monument should ... be at risk of attack by violent protesters.\n\n\"Yes, he sometimes expressed opinions that were and are unacceptable to us today, but he was a hero, and he fully deserves his memorial.\"\n\nColston made his fortune in the slave trade and bequeathed his money to charities in Bristol, which led to many venues, streets and landmarks bearing his name.\n\nThe Society of Merchant Venturers, the Bristol charity which runs institutions named after Edward Colston, said it was right that the statue was removed, along with other memorials to \"a man who benefited from trading in human lives\".\n\nThey said it was part of acknowledging Bristol's \"dark past\" and building \"a city where racism and inequality no longer exist\".\n\nFollowing the toppling of the statue, Colston's Girls School changed its name to Montpelier High School and the city's Colston Hall music venue is now known as the Bristol Beacon.\n\nA statue of a Black Lives Matter protester was placed on the empty plinth without permission in July and was removed shortly afterwards.", "Work to restore hundreds of thousands of fingerprint, DNA and arrest records accidentally wiped from police databases is ongoing, the Home Office has said.\n\nAround 400,000 records were lost, according to The Times, which first reported the story.\n\nThe Home Office did not comment on how many records were likely to be restored, or how long it would take.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said the issue was \"a result of human error\".\n\nData was wiped from the Police National Computer (PNC) - which stores and shares criminal records information across the UK - after being inadvertently flagged for deletion.\n\nThe PNC is used in police investigations and provides real-time checks on people, vehicles and crimes, as well as whether suspects are wanted for any unsolved offences.\n\nThe coding that caused the problem was introduced in November 2020, and the deletions started earlier this week.\n\nInitially, it was thought some 150,000 records were lost, but it since has emerged the number could be significantly higher.\n\nCommenting on the error, Ms Patel said: \"Engineers continue to work to restore data lost as a result of human error during a routine housekeeping process earlier this week.\n\n\"I continue to be in regular contact with the team, and working with our policing partners, we will provide an update as soon as we can.\"\n\nEarlier, Labour shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds called on Ms Patel to take responsibility for the error and be clear about the impact it had had.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Breakfast, he described the situation as \"extraordinarily serious\", adding: \"Priti Patel will be responsible for criminals walking free.\n\n\"We're not going to be able to link suspects to crime scenes without the DNA and fingerprint evidence.\"\n\nThe National Police Chiefs' Council said the lost data had resulted in a couple of \"near misses\" for serious crimes when trying to identify an offender.\n\nPolicing minister Kit Malthouse insisted the affected records \"apply to cases where individuals were arrested and then released with no further action\".\n\nHe added: \"We are working to recover the affected records as a priority. While we do so, the Police National Computer is functioning and the police are taking steps to mitigate any impact.\"", "A group of London business leaders has written to the government calling for financial support for the struggling rail firm Eurostar.\n\nIn a letter to the Treasury and Department for Transport, they urge \"swift action to safeguard its future\".\n\nBosses of firms such as Fortnum & Mason signed the letter asking for access to government loans and business rates relief \"at the very least\".\n\nThe government says it is \"working closely\" with Eurostar.\n\nThe cross-Channel rail company is threatened by a large drop in passenger numbers due to coronavirus-related travel restrictions.\n\nIt reported in November that passenger numbers had been down 95% since March 2020.\n\nWith two trains an hour normally scheduled in peak hours, it now runs just two services a day from London to Paris and Brussels.\n\nThe letter, coordinated by business campaigning group London First and seen by the BBC, describes the firm as one that has \"fallen through the cracks\". Unlike some airlines, it has not been eligible for government-backed loans.\n\n\"If this viable business is allowed to fall between the cracks of support - neither an airline, nor a domestic railway - our recovery could be damaged,\" it says.\n\nCo-signed by 28 leaders, including the vice-chancellor of Middlesex University, the chief executive of West End property company Shaftesbury, as well as the boss of the ExCeL conference centre, the letter points out that the company currently employs 1,200 people in the UK.\n\nThe firm is 55% owned by French state rail firm SNCF. The UK government sold its stake in the business to private companies for £757m in 2015.\n\nThe letter also credits Eurostar with reducing carbon emissions. Since it launched in 1994, it has transported more than 190 million passengers between Britain and mainland Europe.\n\nA spokesman for Eurostar said: \"Without additional funding from government there is a real risk to the survival of Eurostar, the green gateway to Europe.\n\nHe described the current situation as \"very serious\".\n\nA spokesman for the Department for Transport said: \"We recognise the significant financial challenges facing Eurostar as a result of Covid-19 and the unprecedented circumstances currently faced by the international travel industry.\"\n\nHe added the government had been in contact with Eurostar \"on a regular basis\" since the start of the coronavirus crisis and would continue to work closely with the firm.\n• None How are travel rules being relaxed?", "Few people get as unique a take on the movement, mood and feelings of the public than the business owners that sit in its lay-bys.\n\nSince the start of lockdown they have juggled highs and lows.\n\nFrom supporting lorry drivers unable to stop at closed service stations to seeing their customers told to stay at home - and in turn not spend money with them.\n\nSome are now questioning their future and role in a workforce predicted to change its patterns and work from home more in the future.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Duke of Cambridge shared his own experiences of seeing \"death and so much bereavement\"\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been told the pandemic will leave many emergency workers \"broken\".\n\nMany police and NHS workers are too concerned with battling the pandemic to look after their mental health, they were told.\n\nInsp Phil Spencer from Cleveland Police said staff did not engage enough with counselling \"because we don't want to take anybody else's valuable time\".\n\nPrince William said he \"really worries\" about the effect on front-line workers.\n\n\"When you're surrounded by that level of intense trauma and sadness and bereavement, it really does, it stays with you at home, it stays with you for weeks on end,\" he said.\n\nInsp Spencer said emergency workers \"run towards danger, run towards a terrorist attack, we run towards the pandemic\".\n\n\"Perhaps further down the line when all this is gone we're going to have some broken police officers and emergency services staff, because we're too busy focusing on protecting the most vulnerable,\" he said.\n\nThe couple also spoke to counsellors from Hospice UK's Harrogate-based Just B support line for NHS staff, social care workers, carers and emergency services, which their foundation helps financially.\n\nThe prince said he feared \"you're all so busy caring for everyone else that you won't take enough time to care for yourselves\".\n\nHe and Catherine said the stigma surrounding seeking help for mental health issues must end.\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n• None The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Two drivers from Scotland were stopped by police on Anglesey going to see friends.\n\nPeople who drove more than 200 miles to visit friends in Wales and a group having a party in a garden shed have been caught breaking Covid rules.\n\nPolice forces in Wales have broken up parties, football matches and fined people for visiting beauty spots this weekend while Wales is in lockdown.\n\nTwo motorists were reported by North Wales Police in Anglesey after driving from Scotland to visit friends.\n\nWhile in Swansea, eight people were fined after a party was held in a shed.\n\nThe drivers from Scotland were stopped by police at Valley, near Holyhead, and reported for driving without insurance and breaching Covid travel restrictions.\n\nOfficers from North Wales Police on Saturday also stopped a car from Portsmouth as the driver was travelling to \"collect a front bumper\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by South Wales Police Vale of Glamorgan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by South Wales Police Vale of Glamorgan\n\n\"Travelling nearly 300 miles for a piece of cosmetic plastic for your car is not essential at this time,\" said North Wales Police's Intercept team.\n\n\"The regulations have been broadcast far and wide. Please be mindful you will be reported if your journey is not essential.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Gwent Police | Caerphilly Borough Officers This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEven though national parks have shut car parks in a bid to stop people visiting, North Wales Police said it received about 100 calls on Saturday about potential Covid breaches - and officers told people they need to take \"personal responsibility\" and \"stay home\".\n\nSouth Wales Police officers issued fixed penalty notices after finding people from \"all different households\" in a shed - which had been converted into a bar - in the Sketty area of Swansea all \"mixing together\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Mark Drakeford This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA further nine fixed penalty notices were given out in the Townhill area of the city after different households attended a baby reveal party on Sunday.\n\nFive people were warned about breaking laws in Neath Port Talbot after a group travelled to a field to play football, while four people were fined after a house party in Aberavon.\n\nUnder coronavirus rules people are only allowed to leave their homes for \"essential\" reasons, including to shop for food, get medical treatment and to exercise.\n\nWhile exercise is allowed, people are not allowed to drive to a spot for a walk, run or cycle, and the law means exercising with people you do not live with (or who are your bubble if you live alone) is banned.\n\nThose found to be in breach of Covid laws can be fined £60 for the first offence, with the penalties increasing up to £1,920. If prosecuted, however, a court can impose an unlimited fine.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid lockdown: 'This is why we say to you do not come out'\n\nUntil recently police had been using an education first approach, but the Welsh Government has repeatedly said it wants to see stricter enforcement of the rules.\n\nIn Powys, road officers from Dyfed-Powys Police stopped cars and turned around people driving to exercise.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Traffic Wales North & Mid #KeepWalesSafe This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn Port Talbot, two people sat on a bench drinking alcohol were fined by South Wales Police for \"leaving home without a reasonable excuse\".\n\nGwent Police officers broke-up a house party in Glyn-Gaer, Caerphilly county, on Friday evening and issued fines.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Sunday. We'll have another update for you on Monday.\n\nTen new mass Covid vaccination centres are to open in England from Monday, as the government bids to meet its target of offering 15 million people in the UK a dose by 15 February. Blackburn Cathedral and St Helens Rugby Ground are among the venues chosen to join the seven hubs already in use. NHS England said the new centres would offer \"thousands\" of jabs a week. It comes as another 324,233 vaccine doses have been administered across the UK, taking the total above 3.5 million. Check when you will be eligible for a jab.\n\nA financial support scheme for airports in England will open this month, the government says, as the aviation sector faces new Covid travel curbs. Aviation minister Robert Courts said the move was a response to the closure of all UK air corridors from Monday. The aim is to provide grants before the end of this financial year, he said. Industry groups had warned there was only so long airports could \"run on fumes\", following the announcement of the new quarantine rules. Under the new rules beginning at 04:00 GMT on Monday, all travel corridors - which have been in place to allow arrivals from some countries to forgo quarantine - will close.\n\nMore than half of the Church of England's 14,000 parishes will not open for Sunday services today, as places of worship are hit hard by Covid-19. Many of the Church's clergy are shielding, while some parishes have decided it is not safe enough to admit worshippers. It has also been revealed that most mosques in London remained closed on Friday, meaning Muslims had to make alternative arrangements for Friday prayers. Despite current coronavirus restrictions, places of worship in England and Wales can open - but many are struggling to do so safely. Places of worship remain closed throughout Scotland, while Northern Ireland's main church denominations are to cease public worship until early February. Remind yourself of the rules where you live for places of worship.\n\nChildren in England will be able to access books online free during school closures via a virtual library. Internet classroom Oak National Academy created the library after schools moved to remote learning for the majority of pupils until February half-term. Formed with The National Literacy Trust, the library will provide a book a week from its author of the week. The aim is to increase young readers' access to e-books and audiobooks, particularly the most disadvantaged. The latest lockdown has seen schools in England close to all but children of key workers and vulnerable pupils.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Duke of Cambridge has expressed his pride at the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh for stepping up and having their Covid-19 vaccinations. In a video call with frontline workers, Prince William spoke about his grandparents after being told medics have witnessed \"vaccine hesitancy\" among some communities during the jab rollout. He praised NHS staff behind the rollout of the vaccine, and described the programme as \"tremendous\", saying it didn't \"just happen\". Staff joked they had been \"thinking and dreaming\" of vaccines all day and night with some describing working seven-day weeks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. In a video call, the Duke of Cambridge said the vaccination programme was \"tremendous\"\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nAnd it's been almost a month since people in some parts of the UK were allowed to meet in Christmas \"bubbles\", so what impact did this have?\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The boss of NHS England reveals Covid-19 jabs are being done much faster than people are newly catching the virus\n\nPeople in England are being vaccinated four times faster than new cases of the virus are being detected, NHS England's chief executive has said.\n\nSir Simon Stevens told the BBC that 140 people a minute were now being given the jab, usually the first dose of two.\n\nBut he said the NHS had never been in a more precarious position, with 75% more Covid patients than at the April peak.\n\nIt comes as a further 298,087 people received their first dose of the vaccine on Saturday.\n\nThere were also 671 more deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test, and another 38,598 positive tests.\n\nSir Simon told the Andrew Marr Show some hospitals would open for vaccinations 24 hours a day, seven days a week on a trial basis in the next 10 days.\n\nHe said England was on course to deliver 1.5 million doses this week. Scotland has delivered a total of more than 224,000 first doses, Wales has given over 126,000 and Northern Ireland nearly 118,000 - although Scotland and Wales do not report figures at the weekend.\n\nHalf of all over-80s have now been vaccinated, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said. \"Each jab brings us one step closer to normal,\" he said.\n\nForeign Secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC that the UK was making \"good progress\" in ensuring every adult was offered a vaccine by September and \"if it can be done more swiftly, that's a bonus\".\n\nMore people have now been vaccinated than have had positive tests since the pandemic began, with 10 more mass vaccination sites due to open in England on Monday.\n\nSir Simon said hospitals and staff were under \"extreme pressure\", however. Asked if the NHS has ever been in a more precarious situation, he said \"no\", adding that the pandemic was a \"unique event\" in its 72-year history.\n\nSomeone was being admitted to hospital with coronavirus every 30 seconds, Sir Simon said, and since Christmas patient numbers had risen by 15,000 - the equivalent of 30 full hospitals.\n\nIt means there are 75% more Covid-19 patients in hospital than there were in the April peak, the NHS chief executive said.\n\nAlthough there were promising signs infection rates were falling, he said they were still too high and rising in some areas and age groups, including the over-60s.\n\nHe said the number of critical care beds had been increased by 50% since the first wave of the pandemic but a \"very small number\" of patients were still having to be transferred between regions when hospitals were full.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The foreign secretary said there would be increased UK border checks next week\n\nAsked about the ratio of nurses to patients in London intensive care units, Sir Simon said there were sometimes three patients for every nurse rather than the one-to-one ratio normally expected. But patients were receiving the \"highest quality care possible\".\n\nAbout 53,000 NHS staff are currently off work due to the virus, he added.\n\nSir Simon said the health service would only be able to maintain the vaccination rate and \"hold the line if people continue to do the right thing and prevent the transmission of coronavirus\".\n\nVaccinating priority groups by the spring would not mean that \"with one bound we are free\" of coronavirus restrictions, he said. But he added: \"I don't think we will have to wait until the autumn.\"\n\nHe said he suspected that there would be enough supply of the vaccine - \"the crucial thing\" - to begin lifting restrictions before then.\n\nSir Simon also warned that although starting with the most vulnerable groups reduced the risk of deaths, a quarter of hospital patients with the virus were currently under 55 - and therefore not a priority unless they have a medical condition that puts them at additional risk.\n\nAsked about suggestions that some vaccination centres were having to throw away leftover doses, he said: \"The guidance from the chief medical officer is crystal clear: every last drop of vaccine should be used.\"\n\nMany centres were finding they were able to get six doses out of a five-dose vial, and Sir Simon said they should keep a reserve list of staff and high-risk patients who could be contacted to receive a vaccination at short notice.\n\nDr Rosie Shire from the Doctors' Association UK told the BBC that as well as sometimes getting six doses out of the five-dose Pfizer vials, they had also got 11 or 12 doses out of 10-dose AstraZeneca vials.\n\nBut she said the uncertain dose count made it harder to know how many last-minute appointments to book in order to use up the supply.\n\nMr Raab said that he was not aware of any delays to supplies from manufacturers Pfizer and AstraZeneca and said he was \"confident we have the flexibility\" to deliver enough doses.\n\n\"It is an enormous challenge. We are meeting it,\" he said. \"But we take nothing for granted.\"\n\nThe foreign secretary said the risk that new variants could prove resistant to vaccines or more deadly meant the UK had to take the \"precautionary approach\" of requiring all travellers to quarantine on arrival from Monday, closing the travel corridors which previously been exempt.\n\n\"We don't want to find in two or three weeks time that our vaccine roll out is imperilled because we haven't taken the precautionary measures on travel corridors,\" he said.\n\nChecks by Border Force on the passenger locator forms filled out on arrival would be increased, Mr Raab said, as would the follow-up calls by Public Health England intended to ensure people were isolating for up to 10 days.\n\nAsked whether the UK would introduce quarantine hotels to ensure people maintained their isolation, he said all potential measures were under review but there was a challenge in the \"workability\" of the proposal.\n\nHow have you been affected by the issues relating to coronavirus? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Smoke rises from Mount Semeru, the highest volcano on the Indonesian island of Java\n\nIndonesia's Mount Semeru has erupted, pouring ash an estimated 5.6km (3.4 miles) into the sky above Java, the country's most densely populated island.\n\nNo evacuation orders have so far been issued, and no casualties reported.\n\nThe National Disaster Mitigation Agency (NDMA) warned villagers living on the mountain's slopes to be alert for ongoing volcanic activity.\n\nFootage showed ash from the 3,676m (12,060ft) volcano looming over homes.\n\n\"The villages of Sumber Mujur and Curah Koboan [in Lumajang municipality] are located in the trajectory of the hot clouds,\" local official Thoriqul Haq said on Saturday.\n\nResidents of the Curah Kobokan river basin have been urged to watch for possible \"cold lava\" mudflow, which can be triggered by intense rainfall combining with volcanic material.\n\nMount Semeru erupted at about 17:24 local time (10:24 GMT), authorities said.\n\nA picture from the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management shows ash rolling over the landscape\n\nIndonesia sits on the Pacific \"Ring of Fire\" where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent volcanic activity as well as earthquakes.\n\nSemeru - also known as \"The Great Mountain\" - is the highest volcano in Java and one of the most active. It is also one of Indonesia's most popular tourist hiking destinations.\n\nThe volcano previously erupted in December, when about 550 people were evacuated.", "A non-binding Labour motion calling for the universal credit top-up to be kept in place beyond 31 March passed by 278 votes to none after a Commons debate.\n\nSix Tory MPs defied party orders to abstain and voted with Labour, adding to the pressure on the PM on the issue.\n\nThe prime minister said the government had provided £280bn worth of support during the pandemic but all measures would be kept under \"constant review\".\n\nThe motion, which will not automatically lead to a change in policy, was put forward by Labour as a way to put additional pressure on the government to continue the increase, worth £1,000 a year.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Carl, a roofer, describes going from \"not having enough to barely having enough\" on universal credit.\n\nFormer Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb was among six Conservative MPs to rebel, along with Peter Aldous, Robert Halfon, Jason McCartney, Anne Marie Morris and Matthew Offord.\n\nAhead of the vote, Mr Crabb told the BBC that although there were \"difficult pressures on the chancellor\" extending the increase for 12 months was \"the right thing to do\".\n\nBBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said there were dozens of Conservative MPs who were \"deeply uneasy\" about ending the £20 weekly increase to universal credit.\n\nShe added that it was also understood the cabinet minister with responsibility for benefits, Therese Coffey, was arguing that the uplift should not be dropped in April.\n\nCharities and anti-poverty campaigners are pleading with the government to keep the support in place, describing it as a lifeline for more than 5.5 million families who receive the standard universal credit allowance.\n\nFood poverty campaigner and chef Jack Monroe told the BBC that the £20 increase \"has been a lifeline\" for millions of people who have needed to top up their income or rely on universal credit payments in order to get by.\n\nSir Keir said the increase was a vital safety net for those who had lost their jobs, seen their working hours slashed or who were not eligible for the government's wage subsidy furlough scheme.\n\n\"If we don't give a helping hand to families through this pandemic, then we are going to slow our economic recovery as we come out it.\n\n\"We urge Boris Johnson to change course and give families certainty today that their incomes will be protected.\"\n\nSix billion pounds of the benefits bill - the difference between poverty or not for 1.2 million families, according to a think tank.\n\nThe £1,040 a year increase to universal credit is a very emotive issue.\n\nThere's even a battle over what to call it.\n\nTo the government, its introduction was a one-off boost to cope with a crisis. For Labour, taking it away is a cut.\n\nMinisters would prefer we looked at the overall level of support they've provided for workers and businesses during the pandemic. The opposition say the £20 a week boost is a powerful symbol of the state's willingness to help.\n\nEven the act of debating it today is disputed. Labour say they've got the right occasionally to set the agenda in Parliament. Boris Johnson said his MPs risk abuse from campaigners and protestors if they engage.\n\nThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation has suggested about 16 million people will be directly affected if the £20 is rolled back.\n\nIt says 500,000 more people will be driven into poverty, including 200,000 children, while a further 500,000 of those already in poverty will find themselves in even worse hardship.\n\nHowever, free market think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs has argued that \"across-the-board benefit increases are a wasteful use of taxpayers' money\" at a time when the government is borrowing \"a hair-raising amount of money\".\n\nUniversal credit is a single payment replacing old benefits such as housing benefit and child tax credits.\n\nYou can claim universal credit if you are on a low income or are out of work.\n\nThe standard allowance varies from around £340 to just under £600 a month, depending on your age or whether you are single.\n\nYou may be eligible to receive more money on top of the standard allowance if, for example, you have children or a health condition.\n\nSpeaking on behalf of the Northern Research Group, Conservative MP John Stevenson said the £1,000 increase had been \"a real life-saver for people throughout this pandemic\".\n\n\"To end it now would be devastating for the 6 million individuals and families who are already struggling to stay afloat,\" he added.\n\nWhile the vote is not binding, and will not lead to a change in policy, it will increase pressure on the government to keep the increase or come up with an alternative.\n\nLabour said the Conservatives' decision to abstain created \"unnecessary uncertainty\" but minister Nadhim Zahawi described the vote as \"a political stunt\".\n\nThe government says it has strengthened the welfare system with an extra £7bn of funding during the pandemic while families struggling with food and household bills can get help through the £170m Winter Grant Scheme.\n\nMinisters also point to extra support for housing costs, through an increase in local housing allowance for those on housing benefits and hardship payments worth £670m next year for those unable to pay their council tax bills.", "A further 1,295 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test have been reported in the UK, the third-highest daily total since the pandemic began.\n\nIt brings the total number of deaths by this measure to 88,590.\n\nThere have also been a further 41,346 lab-confirmed cases, and 4,262 more people have been admitted to hospital.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director for Public Health England, said the \"continuous rise in cases and deaths should be a bitter warning for us all\".\n\n\"We must not forget the basics,\" she added. \"The lives of our friends and family depend on it.\n\n\"Keep your distance from others, wash your hands and wear a mask.\"\n\nThe latest figures come ahead of Monday's change in travel rules for the UK, with all travel corridors closing, meaning arrivals from every country will have to quarantine.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson announced the changes at Downing Street on Friday, saying they would \"protect against the risk of as yet unidentified new strains\" of Covid.\n\nWhile daily figures can fluctuate due to delays in reporting, the seven-day average of Covid deaths in the UK has now risen slightly to 1,103.\n\nFor cases, however, there has been a drop in the seven-day average, with the figure now at 48,565.\n\nThere are currently 37,475 people in hospital with the virus, government figures show, while a further 324,233 people have received their first vaccine dose.\n\nThe government has promised all the over-70s, the extremely clinically vulnerable and front-line health and care workers - about 15 million people - will be offered a jab by mid February.\n\nCurrently, just over 3.5 million doses have been administered.\n\nThe government has also announced £120m in funds for the social care sector to be used by local authorities to increase staffing levels.\n\nStaff absence rates have risen in care homes and among home care staff, due to them testing positive or having to self-isolate.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said the money would bolster staffing numbers in a \"controlled and safe way, whilst ensuring people continue to receive the highest quality of care\".\n\nA further £149m funding was announced in December to support rapid testing of care home staff.\n\nSpeaking alongside the PM on Friday, England's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, said the number of patients being admitted to hospital with coronavirus was set to peak within the next 10 days, while the peak for deaths was also yet to come.\n\nHe added, however, that he hoped the peak in infections had already happened in the South East, East and London, where there was a surge in the new, more transmissible variant.\n\n\"The peak of deaths I fear is in the future, the peak of hospitalisations in some parts of the country may be around about now and beginning to come off the very, very top,\" he said.\n\n\"Because people are sticking so well to the guidelines we do think the peaks are coming over the next week to 10 days for most places in terms of new people into hospital.\"\n\nHowever, chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance stressed it was a \"suppressed peak\" that would \"boil over for sure\" if controls were eased.\n\nHe said: \"This is not the natural peak that's going to come down on its own, it's coming down because of the measures that are in place.\n\n\"Take the lid off now and it's going to boil over for sure and we're going to end up with a big problem.\"\n\nMeanwhile, on Saturday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer suggested he would back further coronavirus measures, as \"the tougher the restrictions now the quicker we get the virus back under control\".\n\nSir Keir said he was \"still worried\" by the number of infections, despite signs they are falling - and that the \"sense that we are through the worst\" of the third wave was wrong.\n\n\"Nobody likes restrictions but the tougher the restrictions now the quicker we get the virus back under control, the quicker we reduce the number of hospital admissions and the quicker we get that number of deaths, tragically, down,\" he added.", "The Archbishop of Glasgow, the Most Reverend Philip Tartaglia, has died suddenly at his home in the city.\n\nArchbishop Tartaglia had tested positive for Covid-19 shortly after Christmas and was self-isolating.\n\nThe Catholic Church said the cause of his death was not yet clear.\n\nHe was ordained a priest in 1975 and had served as leader of Scotland's largest Catholic community since 2012.\n\nA statement from the Archdiocese of Glasgow said: \"It is with the greatest sorrow that we announce the death of our Archbishop.\n\n\"The Pope's Ambassador to Great Britain, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, has been informed.\n\n\"It will be for Pope Francis to appoint a new Archbishop to succeed Archbishop Tartaglia, but until then the Archdiocese will be overseen by an administrator.\"\n\nScotland's Catholic bishops described Archbishop Tartaglia as a \"gentle, caring and warm-hearted pastor\".\n\nThey said in a statement: \"His loss to his family, his clergy and the people of the Archdiocese of Glasgow will be immeasurable but for the entire Church in Scotland this is a day of immense loss and sadness.\n\n\"He was a gentle, caring and warm-hearted pastor who combined compassion with a piercing intellect.\n\n\"His contribution to the work of the Bishops' Conference of Scotland over the past 16 years was significant and we will miss his wisdom, wit and robust Catholic spirit very much.\"\n\nArchbishop Tartaglia had been self-isolating at home after contracting coronavirus\n\nThe statement concluded: \"On behalf of the Bishops of Scotland, we commend his soul into the hands of God and pray that he may enjoy eternal rest.\"\n\nArchbishop Tartaglia was a lifelong Celtic fan and the club tweeted their tribute to him: \"We are saddened to hear of the death of Archbishop Philip Tartaglia who was a huge supporter of the club and regularly attended matches at Celtic Park.\n\n\"Everyone at Celtic offers their sincere condolences to Philip's family and Scotland's Catholic community at this sad time.\"\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the archbishop was \"a fine man who was much loved within the Catholic community and beyond\".\n\nMs Sturgeon tweeted: \"I always valued my interactions with him and he will be greatly missed. My thoughts are with his loved ones and wider community. May he rest in peace.\"\n\nThe leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Douglas Ross, tweeted: \"Tragic news about the sudden passing of Archbishop Philip Tartaglia. My condolences to his friends and family.\n\n\"His death will be keenly felt within the Catholic Church and across the wider community.\"\n\nThe leader of Glasgow City Council described the archbishop as \"a true Glaswegian\" who \"knew its people and the challenges faced by ordinary citizens, regardless of their faith or beliefs\".\n\nCouncillor Susan Aitken added: \"He was also unafraid to use his position to challenge deprivation, austerity and the ill-effects of welfare reform when he believed it was his duty to call them out.\"\n\nArchbishop Tartaglia was born in Glasgow on 11 January 1951 - the eldest son of Guido and Annita Tartaglia.\n\nAfter attending St Thomas' Primary in Riddrie, he began his secondary education at St Mungo's Academy before moving to the national junior seminary at St Vincent's College, Langbank.\n\nHe later attended St Mary's College, at Blairs, Aberdeen, before completing his ecclesiastical studies at the Pontifical Scots College, and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.\n\nOn returning to Scotland, he was an assistant and then parish priest at Our Lady of Lourdes, Cardonald, St Patrick's, Dumbarton, and St Mary's, Duntocher.\n\nArchbishop Tartaglia was ordained by then Archbishop Thomas Winning in the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Dennistoun, on 30 June 1975.\n\nHe was a leading opponent of proposals to legalise same-sex marriage in Scotland and also criticised ministers over anti-bigotry legislation.\n\nThe Archdiocese of Glasgow is the largest of Scotland's eight dioceses with an estimated Catholic population of about 200,000. It comprises 95 parishes and is served by about 200 priests.\n\nArchbishop Tartaglia was the eighth person to hold the office since the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in Scotland in 1878.\n\nHe followed Archbishop Mario Conti and Archbishop Thomas Winning, who later became Cardinal Winning.", "The player told police he had travelled from his home in Bedworth to hunt the characters\n\nA man has been fined for breaking lockdown rules after travelling 14 miles to play Pokemon Go.\n\nHe admitted to Warwickshire Police he had driven from his home in Bedworth to look for the characters in Kenilworth.\n\nHe was fined £200 for \"contravening the requirement to not leave or be outside the place they live without a reasonable excuse\".\n\n\"Everyone has a part to play in ensuring they slow the spread of the virus,\" a police spokeswoman said.\n\n\"We would like to remind people they must not leave or be outside their home unless they have a reasonable excuse.\"\n\nPokemon Go is a Japanese augmented reality game for smartphones. First launched in 2016, it allows players to hunt for characters that \"appear\" in real-life places.\n\nIt has been downloaded around the world more than one billion times.", "Hashem Abedi (left) and Ahmed Hassan are due to appear at Bromley Magistrates' Court\n\nThe Manchester Arena and Parsons Green bombers have been charged with assaulting a prison officer together, the BBC has learned.\n\nHashem Abedi, 23, and Ahmed Hassan, 21, are accused of assaulting an officer in HMP Belmarsh, south London, in May last year.\n\nAnother man who is awaiting sentencing for terror offences is also charged with assaulting the same person.\n\nThe three men are due to appear at Bromley Magistrates' Court on 7 April.\n\nAbedi, who was jailed in August for murdering the 22 victims of the May 2017 Manchester Arena attack, is also charged with assaulting a second prison officer during the same incident on 11 May.\n\nHassan, from London, whose Parsons Green tube bomb injured 51 people in September 2017, was jailed for attempted murder the following year.\n\nMuhammed Saeed, 22, from Manchester, is the third person charged. Last year, he admitted possessing terrorist documents.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Up to 400,000 people could be given the Covid-19 vaccine every week by the end of February, Scottish Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has told MSPs.\n\nHealth teams are ramping up the rollout of jabs, with 1,100 vaccination centres now open and using two vaccines.\n\nMinisters aim to vaccinate care home residents, NHS staff and over-80s by the first week of February.\n\nThey then hope to have completed the over-70 group by mid-February and over-65 and vulnerable groups by March.\n\nThis would see 1.4m people given the jab, and Ms Freeman said the government's \"priority is to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible\".\n\nHowever, the BMA Scottish GP Committee has warned the vaccine supply is \"stuttering\" and blamed \"bureaucratic hold-ups\" for delaying distribution.\n\nIn a statement at Holyrood, the health secretary said Scotland faces \"a more perilous situation than at any point in this pandemic\", with the new variant of coronavirus \"increasing in its dominance\" of infections north of the border.\n\nHowever Ms Freeman said there was hope in the form of the vaccination programme, which she said was \"scaling up rapidly\".\n\nA first dose of vaccine has now been given to just over 80% of care home residents and 55% of staff, along with 52% of frontline NHS staff.\n\nAnd in the eight days since 4 January, just over 2% of those aged 80 or over in the community have been given a first dose.\n\nMs Freeman said that age was \"the greatest risk factor for serious illness and death from Covid, and represents well over 90% of preventable mortality\".\n\nThe government is prioritising giving a first dose to as many people as possible, which Ms Freeman said provides \"very high protection\", with a second dose of the same vaccine then administered within 12 weeks.\n\nMs Freeman said that by the end of February, an average of 400,000 people should be getting a jab per week.\n\nJeane Freeman said the vaccine programme was \"scaling up rapidly\"\n\nThe government is also working to set up large vaccination centres in the community, which could handle up to 20,000 vaccinations a week in a single location.\n\nSites include the Event Complex conference centre in Aberdeen, Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility in Motherwell, Queen Margaret University in Musselburgh and the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, and Ms Freeman said work was ongoing to secure more centres in the Glasgow area in particular.\n\nA total of 4.5m adults in Scotland are in line to be vaccinated.\n\nMs Freeman said she was aware that people would \"want to know when it will be their turn\", saying a national advertising campaign would be established to \"inform the public\".\n\nScottish Conservative health spokesman Donald Cameron said it was \"clear not enough people are being vaccinated each day and timetables are slipping\".\n\nHe also asked Ms Freeman whether there were delays to the creation of a national booking system, after speculation that it could hold up the start of mass vaccinations.\n\nThe health secretary said she did not believe it was the case that timetables were slipping, and said there were no delays to the national booking system - adding that it would be \"ready from the beginning of February to do its job\".\n\nMeanwhile Scottish Labour's Monica Lennon asked how quickly the country could move to a 24 hours a day rollout of vaccines.\n\nMs Freeman said this was \"entirely possible\" once the mass vaccination centres are open, saying she \"would anticipate that would be by the end of February or early March\".\n\nShe said: \"The will is there to do that, if that is what it takes, because the objective is to get as many people vaccinated as possible.\"\n\nThe BMA Scottish GP Committee has said practices \"don't know when their next supply is coming in\".\n\nIts chairman, Dr Andrew Buist, told BBC Scotland's Drivetime programme the Scottish government \"must do everything possible to ensure vaccine supply is as good as it can be\".\n\nHe said: \"I've spoken with the chief medical officer about this and emphasised we should remove any bureaucratic hold-up to the distribution of this vaccine.\n\n\"People are obviously very anxious to get it as soon as possible.\n\n\"We know what the priority groups are, we have the practices ready and running to give it to their patients. We just need to get the vaccine to them.\"\n• None All over-80s to be vaccinated by February", "More than six million glasses of pink prosecco were enjoyed by Lidl customers over the festive period as strict Covid rules prompted people to indulge.\n\nThe discount supermarket reported record total sales for the four weeks to 27 December with revenue up 18%.\n\nTakeaway firm Just Eat and online fashion retailer Asos have also reported stellar sales for the period.\n\nAll three benefited as restaurants and non-essential shops faced strict curbs or were forced to close.\n\nDemand was so strong, Lidl said it had shifted 7,000 glasses of mulled wine and almost 17,000 deluxe mince pies every hour in the run up to Christmas.\n\nIt also sold more than 2.7 million servings of panettone, the festive Italian cake.\n\nLidl continued to press ahead with its store expansion programme in the period, opening four new stores in December at a time when many businesses are closing down.\n\nBoss Christian Härtnagel said: \"Despite this Christmas being a difficult time for many across the country, we are pleased to have been able to help our customers enjoy themselves.\n\n\"As we look ahead to this year, we remain committed to our expansion and investment plans,\" he added.\n\nJust Eat said delivery orders in the UK surged 58% in the last three months of 2020 compared with the same period last year.\n\nThe takeaway firm, which operates around the world, said this had been its third consecutive quarter of growth, reflecting the huge demand for takeaway food as restaurants have faced curbs and closures.\n\nBoss Jitse Groen said the firm's progress in the UK was \"particularly exciting\" with demand up nearly five-fold in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019.\n\nIts UK sales force has also doubled compared with last year.\n\nIt was a similar story for Asos, whose sales for the four months to 31 December rose 36% to £554.1m, something it credited in part to restrictions on non-essential shops.\n\nThe fashion retailer, which also operates across Europe and the US, said its active customer base was now 24.5 million, up 1.1 million on the same period last year.\n\nRichard Lim, head of analysts Retail Economics, said: \"Lockdowns, fewer opportunities to mix socially and cancelled Christmas parties have decimated the demand for new outfits this year.\n\n\"But what consumers did spend was focused towards casual-wear and channelled online where the retailer was well position to leverage this opportunity.\"", "Boris Johnson has said there is still a very substantial risk of intensive care units in hospitals being overwhelmed by the spread of the coronavirus.\n\nIt comes on a day when the UK has recorded the highest number of deaths in a single day in Europe.\n\nFergal Keane last visited the Imperial Healthcare Trust’s St Mary’s and Charing Cross hospital in London last April.\n\nHe's been back to see how they're coping.", "Plans have been announced to overhaul the mental health system - with the aim of making it less discriminatory towards black people.\n\nMinisters say changes to how people are sectioned in England and Wales will see them treated \"as individuals, with rights, preferences, and expertise\".\n\nBlack people are over four times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act, relative to population.\n\nThe mental health charity Mind said the changes \"cannot come soon enough.\"\n\nPeople are detained under the mental health act - or sectioned - for their own safety, or the safety of others.\n\nHow long they are detained for varies - but once detained, they are immediately considered to be \"sectioned\".\n\nUse of the Mental Health Act has increased markedly - from 2005/6 to 2015/16, the number of people detained in hospital increased by 40%.\n\nNHS data for England shows there were at least 50,893 new detentions under the Mental Health Act in 2019/20 - but the overall total will be higher as not all providers submitted data.\n\nOf those detentions, 5,336 people were black or black British.\n\nThe data also shows that in 2019/20 there were 321 detentions per 100,000 population for people who were black or black British - while there were 73 detentions per 100,000 for white people.\n\nWith the act disproportionately used against black people, the reforms will see a Patient and Carers Race Equality Framework introduced across all NHS mental health trusts - which the government describes as a practical tool to improve the outcome for BAME communities.\n\nWhat ministers call \"culturally appropriate advocates\" will also be developed, so patients from all ethnic backgrounds can be supported.\n\n\"We need to bring mental health laws into the 21st Century,\" said Health Secretary Matt Hancock.\n\n\"I want to ensure our health service works for all, yet the Mental Health Act is now 40 years old.\n\n\"This is a significant moment in how we support those with serious mental health issues, which will give people more autonomy over their care and will tackle disparities for all who access services - in particular for people from minority ethnic backgrounds.\"\n\nThe reforms will also ensure that autism or a learning disability cannot be a reason for detaining someone under the act.\n\nIn future, a clinician will have to identify another psychiatric condition to order their detention.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What is it like to be sectioned?\n\nThe current Mental Health Act dates from 1983 and the aim of these reforms, which are widely supported, is to give people greater say over their care and to rebalance the system between the state and the individual.\n\nAmong the recommendations are plans to introduce statutory advance choice documents which will allow people to express their preferred treatment before they reach a crisis and need hospitalisation.\n\n\"This is just the beginning of what is now a long overdue process,\" said Sophie Corlett, director of external relations at the mental health charity Mind.\n\n\"At the moment, thousands of people are still subjected to poor, sometimes appalling, treatment, and many will live with the consequences far into the future.\n\n\"Our understanding of mental health has moved on significantly in recent decades but our laws are rooted in the 19th Century.\"\n\nThe recommendations, set out in a government White Paper, build on the proposals from an independent review of the act, which was ordered by then prime minister Theresa May in October 2017 and which published its conclusions in December 2018.\n\nMinisters intend to publish a Mental Health Bill in 2022, following a consultation on their plans.", "Amnesty says about 7,500 women and girls gave birth in the Northern Ireland homes,\n\nThere have been calls for an inquiry into mother and baby homes in Northern Ireland.\n\nIt comes as the Irish government is to apologise after an investigation found an \"appalling level of infant mortality\" in the Republic of Ireland's homes.\n\nAbout 9,000 children died in the 18 institutions under investigation.\n\nMothers and babies who were in similar homes in Northern Ireland want a full inquiry to be held in NI too.\n\nStormont commissioned research into whether or not there should an inquiry held into the homes which operated in Northern Ireland, is due to be published by the end of January.\n\nPatrick Corrigan from Amnesty International said the issue of forced adoptions also needs close scrutiny.\n\n\"We have had cases of mothers telling us that ultimately, many decades later, when they tried to track down their long-lost children they found adoption certificates where they said their signature had actually been forged,\" he said.\n\n\"So I think that there is criminality to investigate here and that it behoves the Northern Ireland Executive to set up the inquiry that has long been sought here and long been denied.\"\n\nIn 2017 research into infant mortality rates at former mother and baby homes in Northern Ireland had prompted initial calls for a public inquiry.\n\nBBC News NI previously spoke to Eunan Duffy who was 47 years old when he found out he was adopted from Marianvale mother and baby home in Newry, County Down.\n\nIt was one of a network of institutions in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland which offered women the voluntary option, for those who were unmarried, to give birth in private and give their babies up for adoption\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Marian Vale was one of a network of mother and baby institutions in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland\n\nAmnesty says there were more than a dozen mother-and-baby institutions in Northern Ireland.\n\nIt said about 7,500 women and girls gave birth in the Northern Ireland homes, operated by both Catholic and Protestant churches and religious organisations.\n\nIn Northern Ireland, research into mother and baby homes and Magdalene laundries was commissioned three years ago and was initially expected to take 12 months.\n\nIt was completed in February last year, but was then sent to those facing criticism to give them an opportunity to reply.\n\nA Department of Health spokesperson said: \"A paper will be brought to the executive shortly for its consideration. Subject to executive approval, it is intended to publish the research report before the end of January 2021.\"\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, the commission that investigated the homes found that the number of children who died was about 15% of all those who were born in the institutions.\n\nTaoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Mícheál Martin said the report, which can be read in full here, described a \"dark, difficult and shameful chapter\" of Irish history.\n\nSolicitor Claire McKeegan, who represents the Birth Mothers for Justice group, welcomed the apology in the Republic of Ireland, but said mothers and children in NI had not received one.\n\n\"The crimes perpetrated on them have yet to be investigated,\" she said.\n\n\"Those perpetrators who forced them into arbitrary detention, hard labour and colluded in the forced adoption of their babies, remain unchallenged in this jurisdiction.\"\n\nMary O'Neill became pregnant when she was 18 and was sent to Marianvale in Newry in the late 1970s.\n\nThere she gave birth to a baby girl who was taken away from her almost immediately after the birth.\n\nShe wanted to keep the baby, but was not allowed and was told the baby would be put up for adoption.\n\nThe mother and baby scandal became an international news story when 'significant human remains' were found on the grounds of a former home in County Galway\n\nMs O'Neill told Good Morning Ulster she eventually tracked down her daughter after 40 years.\n\n\"It was a long search, everywhere you went you were up against a brick wall,\" she said.\n\n\"There was no help, the social workers didn't want to tell you anything.\"\n\nShe finally found out her daughter was living in America but was coming home for her 40th birthday.\n\nShe said when she met her it was like meeting a stranger.\n\n\"But thank God we have met and we have a good relationship. She's still keeping in touch,\" Ms O'Neill said.\n\n\"It means the world to me, because you always wondered where was she? Was she happy? Did she know about you?\n\n\"It was always in the back of your mind. It never went away, the tears and the heartache.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMs O'Neill said she was happy the victims in the Republic of Ireland were getting an apology, but wishes the homes in Northern Ireland could have been included.\n\nMechelle Dillon's mother was 21 and pregnant when she was sent to Marianvale in Newry in 1969.\n\nShe was placed in foster care a few months after her birth.\n\nHer mother returned to her home village and then moved to England. But she came back for Mechelle when she was around eight or nine-months-old.\n\nShe said she believed she was not adopted because she was born with a cyst on her mouth.\n\n\"I would have maybe been classed as a reject, if you want to put it that way,\" she said.\n\n\"It's the same as if you go to look for a little puppy and if the puppy doesn't feel right and you think 'Oh God, I'll have a lot of vet bills here, I don't want that puppy' - I would have probably been classed the same because I would have had that defect.\"\n\nSDLP leader Colum Eastwood said \"the executive should move quickly to publish the research report and then call a full public inquiry\".", "The numbers of care home residents and staff testing positive for Covid-19 have hit their highest levels.\n\nThere were 1,507 positive tests in care homes in Wales in the most recent week, a 78% rise on the week before.\n\nAcross Wales, 37,026 residents and staff were tested by either the NHS or the Lighthouse laboratories the week beginning 4 January, according to Public Health Wales.\n\nBroken down, 6,466 care home residents were tested in the most recent week and 582 (9%) were positive in results from NHS laboratories.\n\nAlso, 248 care home workers tested positive, with about 96% of tests negative.\n\nBut there were another 677 positive test results from Lighthouse labs, which do not distinguish between residents and care home staff.\n\nAll of these categories saw the highest numbers yet recorded.\n\nResidents and staff are supposed to be tested weekly at care homes in Wales.\n\nCare Home Inspectorate Wales also now publish separate figures around testing , which showed 137 care homes in Wales (13%) had notified one or more positive cases in staff or residents in the most recent week available and 31.8% within the last month.\n\nSwansea had 17 care homes which had notified at least one case in the week ending 1 January; Cardiff had 15 homes with at least one case and Bridgend was next with 13 care homes.", "Decima Minhinnick, pictured at her 90th birthday party, lives in a care home and has vascular dementia\n\nA couple who were fined £60 for driving 20 minutes to see a relative in a care home have had their fine cancelled by police.\n\nCarol and David Richards from Bridgend travelled seven miles to Porthcawl to visit her mother Decima Minhinnick, 94.\n\nOn Tuesday, police defended the fine, claiming the couple had broken lockdown rules.\n\nOn Wednesday, South Wales Police said it had \"since been reviewed and the notice has been rescinded\".\n\n\"The individual concerned has been notified\".\n\nIn a statement, it added: \"Wales remains at alert level four and South Wales Police will continue to patrol our communities to ensure the legislation, which has been enacted to slow the spread of coronavirus, is complied with\".\n\nMrs Richards has said she was \"mortified\" they were stopped by police while returning on Sunday from what she said was a compassionate visit.\n\nShe said on Tuesday she did not believe they breached lockdown rules.\n\nMrs Richards said the couple had arranged the visit to Picton Court Care Home in advance with the permission of staff, and spoke to her mother, who has vascular dementia, through the window of her ground-floor room from the car park.\n\nDavid and Carol Richards complained about the £60 fine\n\nShe told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that when she was issued with the fine it was like \"a sort of dystopian novel\", adding that the officer involved was \"pedantic and inflexible\".\n\n\"I was angry - she just would not listen to any protestations, and so she said 'you're going to be issued with a £60 fixed penalty fine'.\n\n\"It's not about the 60 quid, it's about the principle.\"\n\nThe home is just over seven miles from where the couple live", "Tony Parsons was last seen on 29 September 2017\n\nPolice have discovered human remains during a search for a man who went missing more than three years ago during a charity cycle ride.\n\nTony Parsons, from Tillicoultry, was last seen on 29 September 2017 outside the Bridge of Orchy Hotel.\n\nDetectives said the discovery was made during a detailed search of a remote site close to a farm near the A82 at Bridge of Orchy.\n\nPolice said that Mr Parsons' family have been made aware of the discovery.\n\nEfforts to recover the remains will continue over the coming days before a post mortem is held to establish their identity.\n\nTwo men, both aged 29, were arrested and then released pending further inquiries in December in connection with the disappearance of Mr Parsons.\n\nPolice have been carrying out searches in the area in recent days\n\nDet Ch Insp Alan Somerville said: \"This is clearly a significant development and extensive work is ongoing to recover the remains and confirm their identity.\n\n\"We have informed Mr Parsons' family, who are being supported by specialist officers.\n\n\"The thoughts of everyone involved in the investigation are with them at this difficult time.\"\n\nMr Parsons cycled through Glencoe village and was last seen at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel\n\nThe former navy officer, who was 63 when he went missing, was last seen outside the hotel at about 23:30. He then continued south along the A82 in the direction of Tyndrum but there were no more sightings of him after that.\n\nExtensive searches were carried out in the area, involving local mountain rescue teams, volunteers, Police Scotland dogs and the force's air support unit.\n\nMr Parsons had caught the train to Fort William on the day he was last seen with the intention of cycling the 104-mile (167km) journey home to Tillicoultry.", "Covid vaccinations will be offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week as soon as supply allows, Boris Johnson says.\n\nThe prime minister said the plan was to extend opening hours of vaccination centres - at the moment, most sites run from 08:00 to 22:00.\n\nThe 24-7 service will be piloted in a small number of places first - with NHS staff likely to be offered the option of overnight vaccinations first.\n\nBut Mr Johnson said supply was the limiting factor at the moment.\n\nThe NHS had just over a million doses available last week and used up most of them.\n\nThis week, there are thought to be more but not yet enough to vaccinate two million people - the weekly target the government is aiming to reach in the coming weeks.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said there would be 24-7 vaccination \"as soon as possible\".\n\nThe UK has access to two vaccines at the moment - the Pfizer-BioNTech jab and another produced in partnership by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.\n\nA third vaccine made by the US company Moderna has been approved but is not yet available to the UK.\n\nMr Johnson praised the work of the more than 200 hospitals and 1,000 GP-led NHS vaccination sites running at the moment.\n\n\"They are going exceptionally fast,\" he added.\n\nBy the end of Monday, 2.4 million people had received their first vaccine dose.\n\nThe government has promised all the over-70s, the extremely clinically vulnerable and front-line health and care workers - about 15 million people - will be offered a jab by mid February.\n\nThere is actually enough vaccine in the country to vaccinate all the highest at-risk groups.\n\nThe problem is that not all of it has been packaged into vials or passed through the final safety checks.\n\nThere should soon be two million doses available each week for the NHS to use.\n\nBut the key question once that is achieved is how quickly and by how much supply can increase from there.\n\nTo make full use of the network of vaccination centres - the ambition is to have 2,700 up and running - many millions of doses will be needed each week.\n\nThere is huge global demand for these vaccines.\n\nAnd while the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab is made in the UK, the Pfizer-BioNTech one is made abroad as is the Moderna vaccine.\n\nSupplies of the latter are not expected until the spring.\n\nThis is an issue the government is likely to be grappling with for some time.\n\nBut despite the concerns, it should also be recognised the UK has been quick out of the blocks.\n\nOnly two countries have vaccinated a larger proportion of the population than the UK.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was vital the government moved quickly.\n\nSpeaking about the planned 24-7 vaccination, he said: \"I obviously welcome that and urge the prime minister and the government to get on with this.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Nadhim Zahawi, the minister in charge of the vaccination programme, was also asked about supply, at an appearance before the Science and Technology Committee.\n\nHe said he had a \"clear line of sight\" for the expected numbers that would be available to the NHS for the next few months but refused to give any more detail.\n\n\"The more we show off about how many vaccine batches we're receiving, the more difficult life becomes for the manufacturers,\" he said.\n\nAstraZeneca vice president Sir Mene Pangalos said one of the issues the firm was facing was that infections among staff had begun to hinder production.\n\n\"I feel that it is critical that those who are working on vaccines are immunised because if you have an outbreak at one of the centres, which we've had actually or in one of the groups in Oxford that's working on new variants, or those working on the regulatory files everything stops.\"", "Changes to Scotland's lockdown restrictions have been announced. The tightening of the rules follows concerns the \"stay at home\" message is not having the same impact it did during last year's lockdown. The changes will come into effect on Saturday.\n\nThe availability and operation of click and collect services will be limited to retailers selling essential items such as clothes, footwear, baby equipment, homeware and books. Also, outlets that sell electrical goods; do key cutting; undertake shoe repairs, plus garden centres and plant nurseries can continue the collect service.\n\nFor qualifying businesses, staggered appointments will need to be offered to avoid any potential for queuing, and access inside premises for collection will not be permitted.\n\nCustomers in Scotland will no longer be allowed to go inside to collect takeaway food or coffee. Businesses will have to operate from a serving hatch or doorway.\n\nThe aim is to reduce the risk of customers coming into contact indoors with each other, or with staff.\n\nIt will be against the law in all level four areas of Scotland to drink alcohol outdoors in public.\n\nThis will mean that buying a takeaway pint and consuming on the street will not be permitted.\n\nIt is intended to underline the message that people should only be leaving home for essential purposes.\n\nThe Scottish government is strengthening the obligation on employers to allow their staff to work from home whenever possible.\n\nThe law already says that people should only be leaving home to go to work if it is work that cannot be done from home. This is a legal obligation that falls on individuals.\n\nHowever, statutory guidance is being introduced to make clear that employers should support employees to work from home wherever possible.\n\nThe Scottish government is strengthening provisions in relation to work inside people's houses.\n\nCurrent guidance says that in level four areas work is only permitted within a private dwelling if it is essential for the upkeep, maintenance and functioning of the household. This guidance is now being put into law.\n\nThe final change is an amendment to the regulations requiring people to stay at home.\n\nThis is intended to close an apparent loophole rather than change the spirit of the law. It will also bring the wording of the stay at home regulations in Scotland into line with the other UK nations.\n\nCurrently the law states that people can only leave home for an essential purpose.\n\nThe amendment will make it clear that people \"must not leave or remain outside\" the home unless it is for an essential purpose.\n\nThe Scottish government's full lockdown guidance is available here.", "The Lauberhorn course is the longest downhill run in the world (file image)\n\nA British tourist has been blamed for a spike in coronavirus cases that led officials to cancel Switzerland's famous Lauberhorn ski race.\n\nThe resort of Wengen, where the race is held, had recorded only 10 cases of the virus by mid-December.\n\nBut the number soon began to rise and many cases have since been linked to the new highly infectious variant of Covid-19 first identified in the UK.\n\nAt least 27 cases are connected to one British tourist, contact tracers say.\n\nThe tourist stayed in a hotel in Wengen over the holiday period.\n\nThe Lauberhorn course is the longest downhill run in the world, and racers can reach speeds of 160km/h (100 mph).\n\nOfficials desperately tried to save the race, shutting schools and offering to close off the resort to everyone but the competitors.\n\nSwiss health officials initially agreed with the plan, but a further jump in cases at the start of this week prompted them to pull the emergency brake and cancel the event.\n\nThe Lauberhorn track is 4,480m (14,700ft) long - and the race will now have to wait until 2022\n\nWengen is devastated. The Lauberhorn is one of the top competitions on the World Cup ski circuit. It is dearly loved by the Swiss, who have watched with delight as some of their own homegrown talent, such as Beat Feuz and Carlo Janka, have triumphed there.\n\nMoreover, the long love affair between Switzerland and British winter tourists has frosted over to some extent.\n\nIt was only last month that the vanishing Brits of Verbier, who reportedly fled Switzerland rather than accept the government mandated quarantine, triggered a flurry of negative headlines.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Italy's Foppolo ski resort was closed until 6 January and missed the all-important Christmas ski season\n\nNow the high point of Switzerland's skiing calendar has been abruptly cancelled, and some Swiss blame the British.\n\nOthers say Switzerland only has itself to blame.\n\nWhile neighbours France and Italy closed their resorts over the festive period, the Swiss government opted for a precarious balancing act. It kept its slopes open, but closed all bars and restaurants and limited ski lifts to two-thirds capacity.\n\nMost Swiss resorts are quiet, with just a few locals enjoying the runs. But still some tourists arrived and, as Wengen's experience shows, just one infected guest is enough to cause major damage.\n\nInstead of hosting a major ski race, Wengen officials are now racing to control the virus. Mass testing has already begun in the resort.\n\nSwitzerland's government has extended the closure of bars, restaurants, museums, and theatres until the end of February in a bid to control the new variant. It has also ordered non-essential shops to close and made working from home obligatory.\n\nAs for the Lauberhorn, Switzerland's oldest and fiercest skiing rival, Austria, will now host the postponed event. Nothing could have been calculated to upset the Swiss more.\n\nThe event was first moved to the Austrian ski resort of Kitzbühel, but an outbreak of coronavirus there has prompted another move, this time to Flachau, 100km to the east.\n\nThe cluster of cases in Jochberg near Kitzbühel broke out among a group of mainly British trainee ski instructors.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nI'm standing in what should be an operating theatre - but instead it's been converted into an intensive care unit for Covid-19 patients on ventilators.\n\nThis is the first time I have seen it full of patients like this. Normally this theatre would be busy with major cancer surgery, but that's been transferred to another building.\n\nA children's recovery area, still decorated with colourful stickers of cartoons, is once again filled with desperately sick adults. Every day, more wards are being transformed into ICU - ready for the next influx of patients.\n\nWe have been given access to University College Hospital, in central London. This is the same intensive care unit that I first visited in April, during the first peak.\n\nIt is one of the busiest hospitals in the capital and intensive care here is expanding across a hospital that is under pressure like never before, from a relentless rise in Covid admissions.\n\nI am struck by the toll the pandemic is taking on staff. It's immense - both physically and mentally. They are shell-shocked. \"My emotions are all over the place. Scared, sad, petrified, worried,\" one ICU nurse tells me.\n\nI asked one of the consultants who I've met several times in the last year, Dr Jim Down, how long they can keep going like this - and the answer was stark. \"At this rate, about a week. After that we really need to see it slow down or we're going to see the care we can deliver suffering.\"\n\nThey have got three times as many critically ill patients in the hospital as normal. The number of Covid admissions to London hospitals has doubled in just two weeks - they're more stretched now than at the peak last April. Senior staff are worried.\n\nDr Alice Carter compares it to an elastic band that is close to snapping. \"It gets to a point where you stretch so far it never returns back to its baseline. I think that's probably where we are now. It's not going to take much more for that elastic band to break, and that's the real fear for us at the moment.\"\n\nDr Alice Carter: 'It's not going to take much more for that elastic band to break'\n\nThat could have very serious consequences, she adds. \"If we get to that point, we can't offer anyone ICU, not just Covid patients, but anyone who has a traffic accident or a heart attack or a stroke - whatever it is, to take them in.\"\n\nFor 38-year-old Rachel Arfin, one of the three pregnant women in intensive care with Covid-19, treatment is more complicated. Her baby is due in five weeks and the staff have to monitor them both.\n\n\"They can't do anything that will harm the baby,\" she says. \"All the time [they are] checking, monitoring the baby.\" She is reassured by the \"beautiful sound\" of her baby's heartbeat.\n\n\"They are looking after two people in one. They're saving lives,\" says Rachel. But her children - she has seven - keep asking when she's coming home.\n\nRachel Arfin's baby is due in five weeks - both are doing well\n\nI've reported from here several times during the pandemic and am always struck by the professionalism and dedication of staff. It's always quiet and calm, but that belies what's actually happening. This is a system under strain like never before.\n\nThe warning signs are clear, the NHS is on the brink. Unless infection rates fall, soon it will have a serious impact. The pressure on staff is unrelenting. I saw two nurses in tears.\n\nCompared to when I visited in April, it's a lot busier. In some ways, it's more structured - they now know what they're dealing with. They've got new treatments, such as the drug dexamethasone, which they didn't have last time. And many of the staff have now had the first dose of the vaccine.\n\nBut other aspects don't get any easier, such as the emotional burden of breaking bad news over a telephone or video call. It is very different to being able to hold someone's hand.\n\nStaff say they don't know which patients to help first\n\nICU staff have incredibly high standards. They're used to doing everything meticulously and perfectly. And they're doing all they can. But sometimes they go home and feel guilty that they can't do more. The impact on nurses - the bedrock of care in intensive care - is visible.\n\nThe highly specialised staff are usually one-to-one with patients. Deputy sister Ashleigh Shillingford is looking after three or four ventilated patients at a time, with one other junior member of staff. It's emotional and often devastating work.\n\n\"We are so stretched we have to prioritise and prioritising care is not the NHS that I grew up in - we shouldn't have to choose which patient gets what care first.\" She says she's never had to make decisions like these before.\n\n\"You just don't know who to help first. The patients are losing their lives at a dramatic speed, we're not just getting old people,\" she says, \"these are young people that we're getting.\"\n\nGerald Williams, 58, is awaiting chemotherapy for lung cancer and had been shielding, but he still caught coronavirus. \"All of a sudden, out of the blue, Covid came knocking on my door and it's frightening - you don't know how you're getting your next breath,\" he says.\n\nGerald Williams had been shielding but he still caught coronavirus\n\nHe wants to get home to his daughters, the youngest of whom is 13. And he's annoyed at those who don't take it seriously. \"People are moaning and groaning. Even in A&E. They need to get a life. Don't be idiots, forget about meeting your mate, stay home. No-one is invulnerable.\"\n\nFor now the Trust is coping better than many others in London and is still taking Covid patients from other hospitals. But the next few weeks could be the biggest challenge the NHS has ever faced - and it will be its doctors and nurses who will bear the brunt for all of us.\n\nAs the BBC's medical editor, Fergus Walsh has been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic and its immense impact on the UK.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Matt Hancock: 'Together we can make this the peak'\n\n\"We can make this the peak\" of the coronavirus pandemic \"if enough people follow the rules\", Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast it was \"those individual decisions\" that determine the virus's spread and it \"comes down to the behaviour of everyone\".\n\nPeople \"shouldn't take the mickey out of the rules,\" he said.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons.\n\nThis includes for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nLatest figures show there are now more than 35,000 people in hospital with Covid - an increase on the spring peak.\n\nIt comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to be questioned by MPs on the vaccine rollout later.\n\nMeanwhile, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is also due to announce whether there will be any changes to lockdown restrictions later. Ministers have been discussing the possibility of tightening the current restrictions.\n\nWhen asked on BBC Breakfast if this was the peak of this wave of the pandemic, Mr Hancock replied: \"I want it to be, but that comes down to the behaviour of everyone.\n\n\"Together we can make this the peak if enough people follow the rules which are incredibly clear.\"\n\nMr Hancock said England's lockdown measures were \"always under review\", but he would be \"very reluctant\" to remove the rule of meeting one other person outside for exercise as \"it is a lifeline\" for some people, including those who live alone. Mr Hancock has already ruled out scrapping support bubbles.\n\n\"What I'd rather is that everybody follow that rule and doesn't stretch it or flex it,\" he said.\n\nOn the news that patients at a hospital in London are to be discharged early and sent to a hotel to help free up beds for critically ill coronavirus patients, Mr Hancock said moving patients to hotels \"isn't something we are actively putting in place\".\n\nKing's College Hospital said it would help to create space for the \"high numbers\" of new admissions and would \"temporarily accommodate mainly homeless patients who are ready to safely leave hospital and will benefit from further support from community partners\".\n\nThere are very early signs that infections may have peaked - although as always we should be careful about reading too much into a few days' worth of data.\n\nThe past two days have seen newly diagnosed cases hover around the 46,000-mark. Up to the weekend, the average was close to 60,000.\n\nThe drop has largely been driven by falls in new cases in London, the South East and East of England.\n\nThe national picture does mask some regional differences. Cases are rising in the North West, which is causing particular concern.\n\nIt is too early for the vaccination programme to be having any significant impact so a combination of the national lockdown on top of the tier four restrictions that were imposed in some areas before Christmas look like they may be beginning to have an impact.\n\nThere is also some evidence the new variant may not be quite as fast-spreading as first feared - a Public Health England study suggested rather than being 70% more transmissible it may actually be somewhere between 30% to 50%.\n\nAnd, if it does represent the start of a continuous fall, it is important to remember it will still take some time to translate into fewer hospital cases - people being admitted at the moment are those who would have caught the virus a week or two ago.\n\nBut after six weeks of pretty sustained rises, it is at least an encouraging sign.\n\nAsked about images of elite footballers celebrating goals with hugs, Mr Hancock said: \"I think elite sport is important because these are tough times, and being able to watch the football on the telly is really important because there's loads of things that you can't do.\"\n\nHe said the Premier League has \"special arrangements to ensure that players are safe\" as well as a testing regime.\n\nThe health secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine will accelerate over the coming weeks, saying they were \"on track\" to deliver it to 14 million people by mid-February.\n\nVaccines deployment minister Nadhim Zahawi later told the Commons' science and technology committee that he was \"confident\" of achieving this target.\n\nMore than 2.4 million people have now had a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while 412,167 people have had a second dose. Mr Hancock said 40% of the 3.4m people over 80 in England had been vaccinated so far.\n\n\"We have the capacity to get that vaccine out. The challenge is that we need to get the vaccine in,\" Mr Hancock said.\n\n\"What I know is that the supply will increase over the next few weeks and that means the very rapid rate that we are going at at the moment will continue to accelerate over the next couple of weeks.\"\n\nOn Tuesday, NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said it was \"pretty clear\" that because of the new strain the Covid-19 infection rate was not going to go down as quickly as it did during the first wave.\n\n\"It now looks like the peak for NHS demand may actually be in February,\" he said.", "Morrisons will become the first UK supermarket to pay at least £10 an hour from April.\n\nIt will increase its minimum pay for up to 96,000 workers from £9.20.\n\nRetail trade union Usdaw negotiated the £10 per hour basic rate which is 50p an hour above the voluntary Living Wage Foundation rate.\n\nHowever, other big supermarkets appear unlikely to follow any time soon, with Asda saying that just looking at hourly rates does not tell the full story.\n\nMorrisons said for the majority of its workers the pay increase will be approximately 9%.\n\nPart of the increase will result from changing the company's annual bonus scheme from a discretionary yearly payment into a guaranteed amount in workers' hourly rates.\n\nIt will boost the weekly pay of someone working 36.75 hours a week from £330.10 to £367.50.\n\nUnion members still need to approve the deal. The result will be announced on 12 February and, if accepted, the new rates will be paid from 5 April 2021.\n\n\"The new consolidated hourly rate is now the leading rate of the major supermarkets,\" said Joanne McGuinness, Usdaw national officer after the Morrisons announcement.\n\n\"It's been a tough time for food retail staff who have worked throughout the pandemic in difficult circumstances,\" said Ms McGuinness.\n\n\"They provide the essential service of keeping the nation fed and deserve our support, respect and appreciation. Most of all they deserve decent pay and this offer is a welcome boost.\"\n\nIn addition to the hourly pay increase, Morrisons will pay a higher London weighting.\n\nRates for inner London will be 85p and for outer London 60p per hour, up from 75p in inner London and 50p in outer London.\n\nDavid Potts, Morrisons chief executive said: \"It's a symbolic and important milestone that represents another step in rewarding the incredibly important work that our colleagues do up and down the country.\"\n\nMorrisons' move propels it to the top of the supermarket pay league, leapfrogging Aldi and Lidl. Will other big rivals follow suit?\n\nSupermarket staff have become frontline heroes in this pandemic and there's a new-found respect for the vital work they do in keeping us fed day-in day-out.\n\nMany consumers may welcome the idea of higher rewards for those staff.\n\nBut supermarkets have already taken on a lot of extra costs in ramping up their operations as well as recruiting thousands of extra staff.\n\nAnd there are no shortage of workers looking for jobs right now, which could keep a lid on pay.\n\nLidl has already announced plans to increase its hourly wage for staff from March, increasing the rate for 20,000 workers from £9.30 to £9.50.\n\nWithin London's M25 motorway boundary the rate has increased from £10.75 to £10.85 an hour.\n\n\"It is only right that we increase the income for our colleagues who are the backbone of our business.,\" said chief executive Christian Härtnagel.\n\n\"This is about recognising their hard work and dedication in keeping the nation fed during a year like no other.\n\nAsda, which pays £9.18 outside London and either £9.76 or £10.31 inside the capital, pointed out that it pays above National Living Wage rules and never employs on 'zero hours' contracts.\n\nAn Asda statement said: \"On top of a competitive wage structure, Asda colleagues also receive a host of benefits which contribute to their yearly earnings, these including colleague discount in our stores and online, special discounts for shops and a yearly performance-based bonus.\n\n\"So simply looking at the hourly rate doesn't tell the full story.\"\n\nSainsbury's basic hourly pay is £9.30, and a statement to the BBC made no mention of any immediate intention to raise the rate.\n\nA spokesperson said, \"Our colleagues do a brilliant job and we are so proud of how they continue to go above and beyond for our customers.\n\n\"We have made two thank you payments to frontline workers in recognition of this in the last year and regularly review colleague pay to make sure we offer leading rates.\"\n\nA Waitrose spokesperson said: \"Our hourly minimum starting pay across the UK for non-management Partners in Waitrose is currently £9.10 following a short induction period, with scope for higher pay according to performance.\n\n\"We review Partner pay annually each April and will do so again this year.\"\n\nM&S said their minimum pay for workers is £9.00 an hour, but pointed out that those that worked during the pandemic last April and May were handed a 15% pay reward on top of the rate.\n\nLatest available data suggests Aldi currently pays £9.40 an hour, Tesco £9.30 and Co-op £9.", "As Scotland's hospitals fill with Covid patients and the daily-registered death toll passes 5,000, there are concerns the \"stay at home\" message has not had the same impact it did during last year's lockdown.\n\nSome of the restrictions announced by Nicola Sturgeon in early January have now been tightened even further.\n\nHow do Scotland's current lockdown rules compare to those imposed last March?\n\nLast March outdoor exercise was allowed only if people were alone or with someone from the same household. It was initially limited to once a day, before this restriction was eased in May 2020.\n\nAll exercise had to be done close to home. No mixing with other households or other any outdoor relaxation was allowed.\n\nNow up to two people from separate households can meet for outdoor sport or exercise. Children under 12 years old do not count towards this number.\n\nThere is no limit on how many times you can go out to exercise each day, but you should still stay close to home and avoid crowded areas.\n\nProf Jason Leitch, Scotland's clinical director, says police enforcement is used as \"last resort\" against people who break the rules.\n\nThese rules are not expected to change in Scotland. However, the UK government has warned that exercise restrictions may be tightened after \"large groups\" have flouted their own two-person rule.\n\nLast March non-essential shops were ordered to shut along with cafes, bars, restaurants and cinemas. Supermarkets and pharmacies were among premises which could stay open.\n\nIn July a new law made it compulsory to wear a face covering in shops across Scotland.\n\nAll pubs, restaurants and cafes must remain closed in Scotland's level four areas - although they can still serve takeaway food. The definition of \"essential retail\" has also been narrowed, forcing homeware shops and garden centres to close once again.\n\nRules on click and collect will be tightened from 16 January. The service will be limited to retailers selling essential items and access inside premises for collection will not be allowed.\n\nTakeaway customers will also no longer be allowed inside premises for pick-up from 16 January. Businesses will have to operate from a serving hatch or doorway.\n\nSchools and nurseries were closed last March, with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saying there were too many absent staff to continue.\n\nMany teachers prepared homeworking packs and some online learning. Parents and pupils had to get used to home schooling.\n\nChildren of essential workers and vulnerable pupils were looked after by staff in childcare hubs.\n\nSchools began the January 2021 term largely via online and remote learning.\n\nAs before, only children of key workers and vulnerable children are allowed in classrooms - but this time there is more focus on learning than simply child care.\n\nThe number of pupils attending school is much higher than last year.\n\nProf Leitch suggests this may be because Scotland has \"too much open\" in the rest of society with working adults in greater need of childcare. He said a \"sweet spot\" needs to be found to keep children and adults safe.\n\nThe Scottish government hopes pupils can return to the classroom in February, but this plan is to be kept under review.\n\nSee where coronavirus case rates have been rising in Scotland with this interactive map.\n\nPeople were told to stay at home except for essential shopping for food or medicine, going out for their daily exercise, or to care for the vulnerable.\n\nEmployers were asked to make provisions for staff to work from home. Wearing of face coverings on public transport was not initially required, but became mandatory in Scotland in June.\n\nIt is a legal requirement not to leave home for anything other than essential purposes. A \"reasonable excuse\" can include essential shopping, exercise or caring responsibilities.\n\nPeople should only go out to work if it absolutely cannot be done from home. It is illegal to travel between Scotland and other parts of the UK unless the journey is essential.\n\nThere are no expectations of enhanced travel restrictions, as the rules are already \"pretty tight\" says Prof Leitch.\n\n\"We have a stay at home law, it is illegal to fly overseas, it is illegal to travel, it is illegal to leave your home without a reason to do so,\" he added.\n\nThe latest contact tracing figures from Public Health Scotland show that since November, shops have accounted for 19% of the places visited by people the week before their positive test.\n\nWhile these figures don't tell us whether people contracted the virus in a specific location, they do suggest the most likely sources.\n\nThe number of cases traced to shopping-related locations increased by 83% between 27 December and 3 January.\n\nOther large increases were seen when:\n\nIn March \"essential\" was the key word for all employers. Businesses were told they could only stay open if what they do was \"essential\" to the effort of tackling Covid or the wellbeing of society.\n\nNicola Sturgeon said building sites should close unless they involved work on an \"essential building\" such as a hospital. Visits from tradespeople were allowed only for \"essential repairs\".\n\nOutdoor workplaces, construction, manufacturing, veterinary services and film and TV production can remain open. Employers have been told to plan for the minimum number of people needed on site to operate safely and effectively.\n\nHome visits by tradespeople are still allowed for essential maintenance. This guidance is being put into law from 16 January.\n\nProf Leitch says the Scottish government continues to examine rules around what constitutes essential and non-essential construction.", "A deal has been agreed for the sale of the Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Ponden Home and Bonmarché chains, which were on the brink of closure.\n\nThe businesses went into administration last year after a collapse in sales due to the pandemic.\n\nAlmost 2,000 staff will be kept on but as many as 260 stores could close.\n\nThe buyers are a consortium of international investors who will inject fresh funds into the business, led by the existing management team.\n\nEdinburgh Woollen Mill, which sells mid-price knitwear and other clothing to older shoppers, is part of a stable of retail brands owned by billionaire businessman, Philip Day.\n\nIt is understood that Mr Day will effectively lend the group the money to buy the businesses which will be paid back over a number of years.\n\nThe deal also covers two other brands in the group, value retailer Bonmarché, and Ponden Home, an interiors chain based in the south east of England.\n\nThe new owners plan to operate 246 stores across both the Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Ponden Home brands, retaining 1,453 staff in those stores, the head office and distribution centres in Carlisle.\n\nHowever, 85 Edinburgh Woollen Mill stores and 34 Ponden Home stores have been closed permanently, with the loss of 485 jobs.\n\nWakefield-based Bonmarché will retain 72 of its stores and 531 staff including head office and distribution centre staff.\n\nThe majority of its stores, 148 outlets, remain under review with staff on furlough.\n\nAdministrators representing Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Ponden Home said the deal represented the best chance to save stores and jobs, given the difficult outlook for UK retail.\n\n\"We regret that not all of Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Ponden Home could be rescued,\" said Tony Wright, partner at FRP. \"This has resulted in a significant number of redundancies at a particularly challenging time of year and period of economic uncertainty.\"\n\nRetail has been particularly hard hit by measures to curb the spread of Covid-19. Even when shops have been open many shoppers stayed away, wary of the health risks.\n\nThe British Retail Consortium said consumers bought 5% less last year than the year before (not including food). Much of that custom switched from the High Street to online, making it harder for chains whose customers usually shop in person. Physical stores saw sales drop by a quarter, the BRC said.\n\nOther major brands including Topshop-owner Arcadia and Debenhams have also gone into administration, costing hundreds of jobs.\n\n\"Lockdowns have proved hugely damaging for mid-range fashion chains like Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Bonmarché whose traditional customer base has not adapted so quickly to online shopping as younger shoppers,\" said Susannah Streeter, analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.\n\n\"The backers of this rescue deal clearly believe there is pent-up demand amongst core customers which will be released once the doors are flung open once more,\" she added.\n\nOn Monday, Marks & Spencer announced it was buying Jaeger, another brand that had belonged to Philip Day's portfolio.\n\nPeacocks, another High Street fashion brand in the EWM group remains in administration.", "Sally told the BBC she is still waiting for her P45 despite handing in her notice in November\n\nHairdresser Sally had a surprise when she looked at her tax record with HM Revenue and Customs: \"It said I'd still been getting furlough pay from a job I left in November.\"\n\nShe told BBC Radio 5 Live's Wake up to Money: \"That was a revelation - none of it had landed in my bank account.\"\n\nHers is among more than 21,000 reports of suspected furlough fraud currently being handled by HMRC.\n\nThe money is either due to fraudulent claims, or is being paid out in error.\n\nThe Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, commonly called the furlough scheme was launched in March 2020, at the start of the coronavirus crisis, to minimise unemployment. Under the scheme, the government pays 80% of employees' wages up to £2,500 a month.\n\nThe number of tip offs to the taxman has spiralled since last April, from 3,000 to 21,378 reports of suspect payments by early January.\n\nSally's former employer told the BBC she did not know Sally had resigned\n\nAt the peak of its use in early May, the scheme was supporting 8.9 million jobs.\n\nIt was extended in January until the end of April 2021 and now also applies to those who are unable to work due to caring responsibilities, or because they are clinically extremely vulnerable.\n\nThe scheme has been widely supported for its role in supporting employers and jobs during the pandemic, but it has been found to be open to abuse.\n\nTax lawyer Anita Clifford said at the 'extreme end' of furlough fraud were 'dormant companies being resurrected' and 'fake employees'\n\nSally believes her former employer broke the rules after she resigned from the salon last year.\n\nShe told the BBC she sent her resignation letter and returned her uniform to her employer in the post in November, but \"heard nothing back\". A client later contacted her asking if she was OK, as they had heard she was off work, \"sick\".\n\nSally started to get her paperwork together to register as self-employed but when she opened her online HMRC account, she noticed she was registered as receiving payments equivalent to those she was getting while on furlough - although the money was not reaching her account.\n\nShe left it a couple of weeks in case her resignation was taking a few weeks to be processed.\n\nTo date, Sally has still has not received a P45, and says she is still registered as being paid through the furlough scheme.\n\nHMRC has called on anyone concerned about suspected abuse of the team to get in touch with the department\n\n\"In the middle of the pandemic, where people are losing homes because they can't get any help, I think it's quite sickening,\" she said.\n\n\"It's wrong, and it makes a mockery of all those people who are suffering.\"\n\nThe BBC contacted Sally's former employer, who has denied the claims, saying she did not know that Sally had resigned, and had struggled to get in touch with her.\n\nTax barrister, Anita Clifford, from the firm Bright Line Law, said Sally's experience was \"a classic example\".\n\n\"Whether it's a mistake, or whether some actors are doing it deliberately, continuing furlough payments for former employees is a classic way of defrauding the system.\"\n\nHMRC has previously stressed that some employers may accidentally be committing furlough fraud.\n\nMs Clifford told the BBC that she was seeing businesses coming forward, \"worried about the mistakes that they've made\".\n\nBut she added examples of furlough fraud could be more extreme, where some businesses \"are seeking to claim money for completely fake employees\".\n\n\"In time to come, we'll certainly see enforcement activity, and people very worried about being on the receiving end of a criminal prosecution for some of these things.\n\n\"Certainly where you have dormant companies being resurrected, in order to claim money from the furlough scheme, you have fake employees... businesses being quite unscrupulous, you're not using the funds to pay salaries, I think those are the businesses you'll eventually see being looked at very seriously for criminal prosecution,\" she said.\n\nHMRC told the BBC: \"The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is part of the collective national effort to protect jobs. This is taxpayers' money and fraudulent claims limit our ability to support people and deprive public services of essential funding.\"\n\nNames have been changed to protect identities\n• None What happens when furlough ends?\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The Archbishop of Glasgow, Philip Tartaglia, has died suddenly at his home in Glasgow.\n\nA spokeswoman for the Catholic Church said that Archbishop Tartaglia had tested positive for Covid-19 shortly after Christmas and was self-isolating at home.\n\nThe cause of death is not yet clear.\n\nArchbishop Tartaglia, who was 70, was ordained a priest in 1975 and served as Archbishop of Glasgow since 2012.\n\nThe spokeswoman said it would be for Pope Francis to appoint a new archbishop, but until then the Archdiocese will be overseen by an administrator.", "Senior Conservatives have called for a \"reset\" in UK policy towards China, including sanctions against officials responsible for human rights abuses.\n\nThe Conservative Human Rights Commission demanded a rethink in relations after hearing evidence of abuses from torture to slavery.\n\nIt urged the UK to work with allies to respond to China's behaviour.\n\nForeign Secretary Dominic Raab has said the UK plays a \"leading role\" in highlighting abuses.\n\nThe Commission made the recommendations in a new report endorsed by two former Conservative foreign secretaries, Lord Hague and Sir Malcolm Rifkind.\n\nIt adds to growing internal pressure on the government from Conservative circles to harden its line on China.\n\nThe Commission says it has heard first-hand evidence of human rights violations in China from dissidents, lawyers, and human rights campaigners.\n\nThis included violations of media freedom, clampdowns on Uighur Muslims, modern day slavery, and the establishment of an \"Orwellian surveillance state,\" it added.\n\nThe group said this showed the need for a \"comprehensive review\" of China policy across UK government departments.\n\nIt also called for the UK to diversify its supply chains to reduce \"strategic dependency\" on China and further efforts to highlight rights issues at the United Nations.\n\nMr Raab announced fines on Tuesday for UK firms doing business in China if they cannot show that their products aren't linked to forced labour in the country's Xinjiang region.\n\nIn December, the BBC revealed new evidence that China is forcing hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and other minorities into hard, manual labour in the cotton fields of Xinjiang.\n\nMPs and peers are separately pushing for new laws to block trade deals with countries found guilty of genocide, something which for now the government is resisting.\n\nMr Raab told MPs the idea was \"well-meaning\" but it would be wrong to \"sub-contract\" the issue of when to break off trade talks to the courts.\n\nThe Conservative Human Rights Commission, established in 2005, aims to highlight human rights concerns and keep the issue high on the party's agenda.", "David (right) and Frederick Barclay receiving their knighthoods in 2000\n\nSir David Barclay, the co-owner of the Daily Telegraph newspaper, has died at the age of 86.\n\nSir David, together with his twin brother Sir Frederick, built up a business empire spanning hotels, retail and media.\n\nHis death was announced in the Telegraph, which reported that he died on Sunday after a short illness.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson, a former columnist for the paper, paid tribute to Sir David.\n\n\"Farewell with respect and admiration to Sir David Barclay who rescued a great newspaper, created many thousands of jobs across the UK and who believed passionately in the independence of this country and what it could achieve,\" he tweeted.\n\nThe Barclay brothers, who had an estimated wealth of £7bn according to the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List, were known for being media shy and rarely gave interviews.\n\nBorn in Hammersmith, west London, in 1934, Sir David was profoundly shaped by his childhood memories of war, and the death of his father when he was 12.\n\nHe and his twin Frederick - who was 10 minutes younger - started out as painters and decorators, before moving into property and eventually hotels.\n\nTheir success in property and hotels helped them take over Ellerman Lines, a shipping business with interests in brewing, in 1983.\n\nThis provided a launch pad from which they would become billionaires.\n\nAt various times, their hotel portfolio has included a number of trophy assets, including the Ritz Hotel in London, which they sold in March last year.\n\nIn 2012, the BBC’s Panorama reported that the Ritz had not paid any corporation tax since it had been taken over by the Barclays in 1995.\n\nAt the time, Sir David said they had “acted in a responsible way with regard to taxation and have never been involved in any tax avoidance scheme.”\n\nIn 2015, the twins sold off the hospitality group Maybourne, which included luxury hotels like Claridges.\n\nThe brothers first ventured into media ownership with their 1992 purchase of The European, a pan-European newspaper that shut down in 1998.\n\nThey also bought The Scotsman in 1995 and Sunday Business in 1997.\n\n“After these ventures in the publishing arena, the brothers had nurtured since the 1980s an ambition to own the Telegraph group,” The Telegraph said.\n\nThey acquired the Telegraph Group in 2004 for £665m from Canadian media magnate Conrad Black's Hollinger group.\n\nThe brothers also had a number of forays into retail, including Shop Direct, fashion retailer Very and delivery firm Yodel.\n\nThe pair were knighted in 2000 for services to charity. By this point their foundation was thought to have donated about £40m to charity and medical research.\n\nThe notoriously private twins' relationship was the subject of an extraordinary legal case last year, in which Sir David's three sons were accused by his brother of bugging conversations at the Ritz Hotel, which they previously owned.\n\nIn its obituary the Telegraph said Sir David had been a voracious reader, obsessed with newspapers, business, economics and politics, and had always said he had been educated at the \"university of life\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid in Scotland: Lockdown likely to extend to February\n\nScotland's first minister has said the country's current lockdown is \"very unlikely\" to be lifted at the end of the month.\n\nNicola Sturgeon was speaking as she confirmed that more than 5,000 people have now died after testing positive for the virus.\n\nA review of the current restrictions is due to be carried out at the end of January.\n\nMs Sturgeon said it was possible that there would be no easing at that point.\n\nA further 54 deaths have been recorded in the past 24 hours - bringing the total by that measure to 5,023.\n\nBut the most recent figures from the National Records of Scotland - which record all deaths registered in Scotland where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate - put the total at 6,686.\n\nMs Sturgeon told her daily briefing that the figures were a reminder of the toll the virus had taken.\n\nAnd she said every death had caused heartbreak to friends, families and loved ones across the country.\n\nThe first minister also said Scotland's NHS would be under far greater pressure if the current restrictions had not been put in place on Boxing Day.\n\nAnd she urged people not to raise their expectations about what will be announced when the lockdown review is completed in a fortnight as wholesale lifting of the restrictions was \"very unlikely\".\n\nShe added: \"There may not even be any lifting of these restrictions as soon as the end of January - we will have to consider all of that carefully and set it out in due course.\"\n\nAll of mainland Scotland and some islands were placed into level four restrictions on 26 December, with schools remaining closed to most pupils until at least the end of the month.\n\nA further 1,875 positive cases of the virus were recorded on Monday, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 153,423.\n\nThe number of people in hospital with the virus stands at 1,717 - an increase of 53 since yesterday and higher than the peak of about 1,500 in the first wave in April.\n\nOf these, 133 patients are intensive care units, with Ms Sturgeon saying that the virus was putting \"very acute pressure\" on hospitals.\n\nThe first minister also said that 175,942 people in Scotland had received their first vaccine dose by Monday.\n\nOpposition parties have claimed that the rollout of the vaccine has been \"sluggish\" in Scotland compared to south of the border - a charge that the government denies.\n\nAnd they have called for greater transparency over how many people are being given the jab every day.\n\nHealth Secretary Jeane Freeman said on Monday that the government was aiming to vaccinate about 560,000 people in Scotland by 31 January.\n\nNon-essential shops have been closed in Scotland since 26 December\n\nThe Scottish government has previously said it is concerned that too many people have not been following the \"stay at home\" rules that are in place across the whole of the mainland and some islands.\n\nMinisters have been discussing the possibility of imposing tougher rules on click and collect shopping and takeaway food, with an announcement expected to be made on Wednesday.\n\nRetail industry representatives have described click and collect services as a \"lifeline\" for struggling businesses amid the forced closure of all non-essential shops.\n\nAnd they said they had not been shown any evidence that click and collect was driving transmission of the virus.\n\nMs Sturgeon told her daily coronavirus briefing that the government may not stop click and collect services altogether.\n\nBut she added: \"If we are saying to people right now that you should not be out of your home for shopping unless it is essential, then do we need to have click and collect for non-essential services instead of having that for delivery?\"\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross told BBC Scotland that he did not want to see further restrictions put in place unless there was evidence that they would have the desired effect.\n\nHe also suggested that restricting click and collect would simply result in more people going back into supermarkets to do their shopping.\n\nThe Scottish government is also under pressure to lift the the current ban on public Sunday worship, with a group of 500 church leaders from across the UK - including 200 in Scotland - insisting that there is \"no evidence of any tangible contribution to community transmission through churches in Scotland\".\n\nIn a letter to the first minister, they claim that the ban may be unlawful and accuse the government of failing to understand that \"Christian worship is an essential public service, and especially vital to our nation in a time of crisis\".\n\nA Scottish government spokeswoman said: \"Test and Protect tells us where people were in their 48-hour infectious period.\n\n\"So we know that on one day last week the seven-day number for places of worship was 120, and data from yesterday shows the seven-day number for places of worship is 38, underlining the essential decision to require places of worship to close for public health reasons.\"\n\nMeanwhile, it has been confirmed that everyone arriving in Scotland from overseas will need to show proof of a negative test from Friday.\n\nThe test will need to be \"highly reliable\", the first minister said, and will need to have been from the previous three days - although young children may be exempt from the restriction.\n\nThose travelling from countries not on the quarantine exemption list will still need to self-isolate on arrival.\n\nThe new rules, which will also come into force in England, were first outlined last week.", "A Huawei patent has been brought to light for a system that identifies people who appear to be of Uighur origin among images of pedestrians.\n\nThe filing is one of several of its kind involving leading Chinese technology companies, discovered by a US research company and shared with BBC News.\n\nHuawei had previously said none of its technologies was designed to identify ethnic groups.\n\nIt now plans to alter the patent.\n\nThe company indicated this would involve asking the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) - the country's patent authority - for permission to delete the reference to Uighurs in the Chinese-language document.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUighur people belong to a mostly Muslim ethnic group that lives mainly in Xinjiang province, in north-western China.\n\nGovernment authorities are accused of using high-tech surveillance against them and detaining many in forced-labour camps, where children are sometimes separated from their parents.\n\nBeijing says the camps offer voluntary education and training.\n\nChina's technology companies deny selling software that can be used to pick out Uighur people from the rest of the population by their appearance\n\n\"One technical requirement of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security's video-surveillance networks is the detection of ethnicity - particularly of Uighurs,\" said Maya Wang, from Human Rights Watch.\n\n\"While in the rest of the world, such targeting and persecution of a people on the basis of their ethnicity would be completely unacceptable, the persecution and severe discrimination of Uighurs in many aspects of life in China remain unchallenged because Uighurs have no power in China.\"\n\nHuawei's patent was originally filed in July 2018, in conjunction with the Chinese Academy of Sciences .\n\nIt describes ways to use deep-learning artificial-intelligence techniques to identify various features of pedestrians photographed or filmed in the street.\n\nIt focuses on addressing the fact different body postures - for example whether someone is sitting or standing - can affect accuracy.\n\nBut the document also lists attributes by which a person might be targeted, which it says can include \"race (Han [China's biggest ethnic group], Uighur)\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC News visited the camps where China’s Muslims have their \"thoughts transformed\", in 2019\n\nA spokesman said this reference should not have been included.\n\n\"Huawei opposes discrimination of all types, including the use of technology to carry out ethnic discrimination,\" he said.\n\n\"Identifying individuals' race was never part of the research-and-development project.\n\n\"It should never have become part of the application.\n\n\"And we are taking proactive steps to amend it.\n\n\"We are continuously working to ensure new and evolving technology is developed and applied with the utmost care and integrity.\"\n\nThe patent was brought to light by the video-surveillance research group IPVM.\n\nIt had previously flagged a separate \"confidential\" document on Huawei's website, referencing work on a \"Uighur alert\" system.\n\nIn that case, Huawei said the page referenced a test rather than a real-world application and denied selling systems that identified people by their ethnicity.\n\nOn Wednesday, Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the UK Parliament's Foreign Affairs Select Committee and leads the Conservative Party's China Research Group, told BBC News: \"Chinese tech giants supporting the brutal assault on the Uighur population show us why we as consumers and as a society must be careful with who we buy our products from or award business to.\n\n\"Developing ethnic-labelling technology for use by a repressive regime is clearly not behaviour that lives up to our standards.\"\n\nIPVM also discovered references to Uighur people in patents filed by the Chinese artificial-intelligence company Sensetime and image-recognition specialist Megvii.\n\nSensetime's filing, from July 2019, discusses ways facial-recognition software could be used for more efficient \"security protection\", such as searching for \"a middle-aged Uighur with sunglasses and a beard\" or a Uighur person wearing a mask.\n\nA Sensetime spokeswoman said the references were \"regrettable\".\n\n\"We understand the importance of our responsibilities, which is why we began to develop our AI Code of Ethics in mid-2019,\" she said, adding the patent had predated this code.\n\nMegvii's June 2019 patent, meanwhile, described a way of relabelling pictures of faces tagged incorrectly in a database.\n\nLike Huawei, Megvii now plans to withdraw the original version of its patent\n\nIt said the classifications could be based on ethnicity, for example, including \"Han, Uighur, non-Han, non-Uighur and unknown\".\n\nThe company told BBC News it would now withdraw the patent application.\n\n\"Megvii recognises that the language used in our 2019 patent application is open to misunderstanding,\" it said.\n\n\"Megvii has not developed and will not develop or sell racial- or ethnic-labelling solutions.\n\n\"Megvii acknowledges that, in the past, we have focused on our commercial development and lacked appropriate control of our marketing, sales, and operations materials.\n\n\"We are undertaking measures to correct the situation.\"\n\nIPVM also flagged image-recognition patents filed by two of China's biggest technology conglomerates, Alibaba and Baidu, that referenced classifying people by ethnicity but did not specifically mention the Uighur people by name.\n\nAlibaba responded: \"Racial or ethnic discrimination or profiling in any form violates our policies and values.\n\n\"We never intended our technology to be used for and will not permit it to be used for targeting specific ethnic groups.\"\n\nProtests have been held across the world to highlight China's treatment of Uighur people\n\nAnd Baidu said: \"When filing for a patent, the document notes are meant as an example of a technical explanation, in this case describing what the attribute-recognition model is rather than representing the expected implementation of the invention.\n\n\"We do not and will not permit our technology to be used to identify or target specific ethnic groups.\"\n\nBut Human Rights Watch said it still had concerns.\n\n\"Any company that sells video-surveillance software and systems to the Chinese police would have to ensure that they meet the police's requirements, which includes the capacity for ethnicity detection,\" Ms Wang said.\n\n\"The right thing for these companies to do is to immediately cease their sale and maintenance of surveillance equipment, software and systems, to the Chinese police.\"", "At Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris Johnson said that “the lockdown measures we had in place, combined with tier four measures, are starting to show some signs of effect.”\n\nLooking at cases of Covid-19 in England, the average for the week ending 1 January was almost 55,000 cases.\n\nThese people will have been infected before England’s lockdown came in on January 6, although much of the country was under very strict measures before then.\n\nSo, using publicly available data, it might be too early to make this assessment.\n\nAnd in the past month, we’ve seen that a couple of days of decline can quickly be followed by a sustained increase in cases.\n\nBut what is clear is that hospital admissions from coronavirus appear to be increasing (they usually peak up to a couple of weeks after high numbers of cases).\n\nThe latest seven day average (ending on January 7) saw 3,705 people admitted to hospital daily in England – that’s the highest throughout the entire pandemic.", "A Scottish earl has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman at his ancestral home in Angus.\n\nThe Earl of Strathmore, Simon Bowes-Lyon, forced his way into the sleeping woman's room during a weekend event he was hosting at Glamis Castle.\n\nHe repeatedly assaulted the 26-year-old victim and tried to pull off her nightdress during the 20-minute attack.\n\nBowes-Lyon, 34 - who is the Queen's first cousin twice removed - has been placed on the sex offenders register.\n\nHe was granted bail at Dundee Sheriff Court and sentence was deferred.\n\nSheriff Alistair Carmichael also ordered Glamis Castle be assessed for its suitability to house Bowes-Lyon while under a tagging order.\n\nThe court heard the woman fled the castle the morning after the attack on 13 February last year and flew home to report the matter to police.\n\nBoth Police Scotland and the Metropolitan Police were involved in the investigation.\n\nGlamis Castle was the childhood home of the Queen Mother\n\nOutside court, Bowes-Lyon said he was \"greatly ashamed\" of his actions.\n\nHe added: \"Clearly I had drunk to excess on the night of the incident. I should have known better. I recognise, in any event, that alcohol is no excuse for my behaviour.\n\n\"I did not think I was capable of behaving the way I did but have had to face up to it and take responsibility.\n\n\"My apologies go, above all, to the woman concerned, but I would also like to apologise to family, friends and colleagues for the distress I have caused them.\"\n\nGlamis Castle, near Forfar, has been the seat of the Bowes-Lyon family since 1372.\n\nIt was the childhood home of the Queen Mother, and the Queen's sister Princess Margaret was born there.\n\nBowes-Lyon was a great-great nephew of the Queen Mother.", "Some Covid restrictions are being reintroduced in response to the Omicron variant.\n\nCheck what the rules are in your area by entering your postcode or council name below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. What are the rules in your area? Enter a full UK postcode or council name to find out\n\nIf you cannot see the look-up, click here.\n\nThe rules highlighted in the search tool are a selection of the key government restrictions in place in your area.\n\nAlways check your relevant national and local authority website for more information on the situation where you live. Also check local guidance before travelling to others parts of the UK.\n\nAll the guidance in our search look-up comes from national government websites.\n\nFor more information on national measures see:\n\nFind out how the pandemic has affected your area and how it compares with the national average by following this link to an in depth guide to the numbers involved.", "The Chinese vaccine is one of two that the Brazilian government has lined up\n\nA coronavirus vaccine developed by China's Sinovac has been found to be 50.4% effective in Brazilian clinical trials, according to the latest results released by researchers.\n\nIt shows the vaccine is significantly less effective than previous data suggested - barely over the 50% needed for regulatory approval.\n\nThe Chinese vaccine is one of two that the Brazilian government has lined up.\n\nBrazil has been one of the countries worst affected by Covid-19.\n\nSinovac, a Beijing-based biopharmaceutical company, is behind CoronaVac, an inactivated vaccine. It works by using killed viral particles to expose the body's immune system to the virus without risking a serious disease response.\n\nSeveral countries, including Indonesia, Turkey and Singapore, have placed orders for the vaccine.\n\nLast week researchers at the Butantan Institute, which has been conducting the trials in Brazil, announced that the vaccine had a 78% efficacy against \"mild-to-severe\" Covid-19 cases.\n\nBut on Tuesday they revealed that calculations for this figure did not include data from a group of \"very mild infections\" among those who received the vaccine that did not require clinical assistance.\n\nWith the inclusion of this data, the efficacy rate is now 50.4%, said researchers.\n\nBut Butantan stressed that the vaccine is 78% effective in preventing mild cases that needed treatment and 100% effective in staving off moderate to serious cases.\n\nThe Sinovac trials have yielded different results across different countries.\n\nLast month Turkish researchers said the Sinovac vaccine was 91.25% effective, while Indonesia, which rolled out its mass vaccination programme on Wednesday, said it was 65.3% effective. Both were interim results from late-stage trials.\n\nThe latest figures for China's coronavirus vaccine show just how difficult it is to compare vaccines.\n\nOn the face of it, the 50% effectiveness figure isn't as good as Oxford's 70% or Pfizer and Moderna's 95%. But trials are run very differently in different countries - the numbers of volunteers enrolled varies wildly, as do the criteria used to test how much protection the vaccines offer.\n\nA figure for efficacy is reached by looking at how many people developed Covid after being given the vaccine, compared with how many were affected when given a dummy injection. Normally, that is based on people developing obvious symptoms but in this Brazilian trial, people with no symptoms also appear to have been included.\n\nSo it's only when the full data from all trials of this vaccine are published that scientists can analyse its real efficacy, and compare like with like. Only limited data for this Sinovac vaccine is currently available - and experts say that is confusing the picture.\n\nIn the long term, many vaccines against Covid are needed to vaccinate the world and, inevitably, some will perform better than others - but giving as many people as possible some protection is the priority.\n\nThere has been concern and criticism that Chinese vaccine trials are not subject to the same scrutiny and levels of transparency as its Western counterparts.\n\nBoth the Sinovac vaccine and the vaccine developed by Oxford University and pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca have requests for emergency use authorisation pending with regulators in Brazil.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe latest news comes as Brazil is dealing with a major spike in cases. The country currently has the third highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world at over 8.1 million, just behind the US and India.\n\nThe BBC World Service's Americas editor Candace Piette says the country is suffering one of the world's deadliest outbreaks but as yet, has not announced when its vaccination programme will begin.\n\nThe delay has been caused in large part by the government's haphazard and divided approach to vaccination, says our correspondent.", "More than 100,000 Covid-19 vaccinations had been issued in Northern Ireland by Tuesday evening, Robin Swann has said.\n\nThe health minister said, of that figure, 91,419 people had received their first vaccine dose.\n\nHe added that 95% of care home residents had received their first dose and about 20% of those aged over 80 have received their first dose.\n\nIt comes as leading GP said the goal to begin a mass vaccine rollout by summer is \"achievable\" but hinges on supply.\n\nThe Department of Health published its plan to deliver vaccines in Northern Ireland on Tuesday.\n\nDr Alan Stout said the timeline was \"very sensible\" but was \"almost 100%\" dependent on getting enough of the vaccine.\n\nAt Wednesday's health briefing, Mr Swann said the programme had made a \"strong start\" but there was more to do.\n\nHe also said he has decided to issue tighter visiting guidelines for hospitals.\n\n\"I have ensured visiting will be permitted to hospices and care homes, but visits to general medical wards will no longer be permitted from this Friday\", he said.\n\nThe minister added that the measure would be kept under constant review.\n\nMr Swann also confirmed a new rapid test for Covid-19, which can return results in 12 minutes, would be used in emergency departments.\n\nHe said a pilot programme has been carried out using the LumiraDX nasal swab, which will enable health staff to \"very quickly identify patients who do not have Covid-19\".\n\nHe also repeated that the current lockdown restrictions were working and had helped to reduce NI's rate of infection, but warned the executive would still have \"difficult decisions\" to take in relation to decisions about whether to extend some restrictions in the coming weeks.\n\nOn Wednesday, a further 19 Covid-related deaths were announced by the Department of Health in Northern Ireland.\n\nA further 1,145 new cases of the virus were also reported.\n\nMeanwhile, Northern Ireland's chief medical officer warned there was \"no doubt\" that levels of the new, more transmissible variant of coronavirus are rising in Northern Ireland.\n\nSpeaking at Stormont's executive briefing, Dr Michael McBride said that the new variant was making the job to contain it \"twice as difficult\".\n\nThe new variant is said to be up to 70% more transmissible, but there is no evidence it is more dangerous.\n\nThe first confirmed case of the new strain was detected in Northern Ireland on 23 December, but officials had said levels in Northern Ireland remained lower than in other areas of the UK.\n\nDr McBride said there would now be situations where the variant could spread, where previously it may not have.\n\n\"We need to be extremely cautious in the weeks ahead,\" he warned, adding that the virus would not \"magically disappear\" on 6 February, when the current lockdown is due to end.\n\nStormont ministers have to review the regulations on or before 22 January, with that scheduled for next Thursday.\n\nDr McBride said Northern Ireland had some distance to go before restrictions are lifted\n\nDr Stout, the chair of NI's GP committee, said practices needed another 22,000 doses to finish vaccinating people aged over 80.\n\nSpeaking to BBC's Good Morning Ulster, he said he was \"very confident\" the next doses would come through shortly.\n\n\"I have been overwhelmed by the desire of practices, the determination just to get going and the one thing we need to give them is vaccine - we need to get the supply in as quickly as possible.\n\n\"This is such a good news story that everybody wants the vaccine and everybody wants to give it.\"\n\nThe plan is for the vaccine to be given to the general population in summer 2021.\n\nGP clinics should have received their first delivery of the vaccine by Tuesday.\n\nResponding to reports in The Daily Telegraph that GPs administering the vaccine in England had been asked to \"slow down\" to let other regions \"catch-up\", Dr Stout said Northern Ireland had taken a different approach to how it rolled out vaccines to GPs.\n\nHe said vaccines were shared among all practices in Northern Ireland.\n\n\"We just don't have the full amount of vaccine in practice to give. We could have given all of the vaccine that a certain number of practices needed to start with but there were issues with inequality and discrimination ... so that's why an amount has gone to every single practice, so at least they have some.\"", "Customs operators have pleaded with the government to prioritise vaccinations for staff they insist are key front-line workers in the effort to keep vital supplies flowing into the UK.\n\nOne operator told the BBC his staff were working flat out - often up to 16 hours a day - to help traders comply with the new post-Brexit customs requirements.\n\n\"A Covid outbreak would be disastrous. Customs clearance staff should be identified as key workers and fast-tracked for vaccination.\"\n\nAnother said he had written to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and his local MP for Ashford, Damian Green saying any coronavirus-related staff shortages could force them to close.\n\n\"We have 14 staff. Two have already had to self-isolate, if we lose any more we would have to consider closing\".\n\nRod McKenzie of the Road Haulage Association supports the argument to accelerate vaccinations of port and customs staff.\n\n\"Customs agents are absolutely swamped, they are understaffed by tens of thousands and although volumes have been light thanks to pre-Christmas and pre-Brexit stockpiling, we are approaching a critical point:\"\n\nSteve Cock of logistics firm KGH said that volume would begin to build this week and described Friday as \"a moment of truth\" as volumes would be close to normal, imposing the first serious test of the system's capacity.\n\nThe government told the BBC that vaccination priorities were based on clinical vulnerability determined by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.\n\nAlthough the government said it would be looking at key workers beyond the current priorities - like teachers - that would not come till after phase 1 of the current programme ends. That is not expected till late March at the earliest.\n\nAlthough the ports themselves have been running reasonably smoothly, that is because many traders aren't getting as far as the ports as their documentation is not complete.\n\nThe Dover-Calais crossing last week saw only 40% of its usual traffic for this time of year. Many foreign hauliers have been avoiding the UK for fear of getting stuck on the wrong side of the channel or raising their prices by as much as six times to compensate for the additional risks of congestion.\n\nCracks in the system have already started to show with large European delivery firm DPD cancelling road deliveries from the UK to the EU while Ocado, M&S, and Fortnum and Mason have cited problems delivering to customers in the EU and Northern Ireland.\n\nFish and seafood exports have been particularly hard hit.\n\nMany small traders who usually club together to share the cost of space on large lorries headed to their primary markets in the EU have hit serious roadblocks.\n\nProducts of animal origin now need Export Health Certificates signed off by veterinary professionals.\n\nThe burden of getting multiple certificates for single lorries has brought exports to the EU to a virtual standstill for some traders.\n\nThe focus in the UK is understandably primarily on food supplies into the UK and although there are some limited shortages being reported in fruit and vegetable supplies, shelves in the UK are showing very few gaps.\n\nThe problems are more acute in Northern Ireland, which for the purposes of trade is still part of the EU customs area. For that reason, what is happening to food exports from GB to Northern Ireland is perhaps a useful proxy for what is happening to UK food exports to the EU.\n\nThe last thing the UK-EU trade machinery can afford right now is for critical staff - caught in the crossfire of pandemic and Brexit - to be laid low.", "The men were arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance at hospitals in Birmingham and Worcestershire\n\nFour men have been arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance at hospitals in the West Midlands.\n\nThe men, aged between 31 and 37, were held in relation to incidents in Birmingham and Worcestershire between 31 December and 9 January.\n\nEarlier this month, police said they were investigating after people posted videos of supposedly empty hospital corridors on social media.\n\nThe videos claiming Covid-19 was a hoax sparked an outcry from medical workers.\n\nWest Mercia Police launched a joint investigation with West Midlands Police, after incidents were reported at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Alexandra in Redditch.\n\nHospitals in Worcester and Kidderminster also featured, before the footage was deleted.\n\nThe West Mercia force confirmed it had arrested two men from Bromsgrove aged 31 and 34 as well as a 37 year-old man from Kidderminster and a fourth man, aged 34, from Droitwich.\n\nThey were also detained relating to incidents in a park in Bromsgrove as well as the town centre.\n\nAll four men have since been bailed with conditions not to enter any hospital in England unless they have a medical reason to do so.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Birmingham has one of the largest intensive care capacities in the whole country\n\nTwo hundred doctors will be redeployed to one of England's largest intensive care units amid fears it could be \"overwhelmed\".\n\nA leaked memo warned hospitals in Birmingham were \"in a position of extremis\" as Covid-19 cases rise.\n\nElective surgeries at the city's main Queen Elizabeth Hospital will stop as staff move to critical care duties.\n\nA spokesperson said the approach ensured \"the greatest good for the greatest numbers of people\".\n\nThe trust's decision to redeploy doctors was revealed in a leaked email to the Health Service Journal, which has been verified by the BBC.\n\nSent by consultant Peter Hewins, it said hospitals in Birmingham risked being \"overwhelmed\" amid a \"period of absolute emergency\".\n\nThe University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) said there were 873 patients with Covid-19 across its sites, with 125 in intensive care.\n\nThis was significantly more than in April 2020, it said, as it announced plans to double its intensive care capacity to more than 250 beds.\n\nTime-critical surgery, including cancer operations, will continue, the trust said, but elective procedures at the Queen Elizabeth will be paused, and reduced elsewhere.\n\nThere will also be a \"further reduction of outpatient activity\", a spokesperson said, adding: \"Every member of staff will be supported by the Trust in delivering the best care wherever they are working.\"\n\nThere are currently 873 Covid-19 patients being treated at the trust\n\nNeighbouring University Coventry and Warwickshire Hospitals Trust confirmed it had started taking Covid patients from Birmingham.\n\nUniversity Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) is one of the largest teaching hospital trusts in England.\n\nIt runs several hospitals, including Birmingham Heartlands, the Queen Elizabeth, Solihull Hospital and Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield. It also runs Birmingham Chest Clinic.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The minimum cost of carrier bags in Scotland is set to double to 10p from 1 April.\n\nThe Scottish government has said it is important to increase the charge periodically to encourage the use of reusable options instead.\n\nEnvironment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said the move was to deter the use of single-use plastic bags.\n\nThe 5p charge was introduced in 2014, with plastic bag usage dropping by 80% by the following year.\n\nMs Cunningham said: \"Thanks to the people of Scotland, the introduction of the charge has been successful in reducing the amount of single-use carrier bags in circulation.\n\n\"While the 5p bag charge was suitable when it was first introduced, it is important that pricing is updated to ensure that the charge continues to be a factor in making people think twice about using a single-use carrier bag.\"\n\nSome retailers have pledged to donate their carrier bag charges to good causes, with £2.5m raised in 2019.\n\nPrior to the charge being introduced in 2014, 800 million single use carrier bags were issued annually in Scotland.\n\nBy 2015 this fell by 80% with the Marine Conservation Society noting in 2016 that the number of plastic carrier bags being found on Scotland's beaches dropped by 40% two years in a row with a further drop of 42% recorded between 2018 and 2019.\n\nKeep Scotland Beautiful chief executive Barry Fisher said: \"Since 2014 the single use carrier bag charge has significantly helped reduce the number of bags being given out by retailers - saving thousands of tonnes of single use plastic realising a significant net carbon saving and reducing the chances of these items becoming littered.\n\n\"However, there is still an opportunity to challenge individual behaviours and improve consumer awareness which the doubling of the charge will help do.\n\nDue to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Scottish government is looking into creating an exemption on the bag charge for certain deliveries and collections, as was the case last year at the onset of the pubic health crisis.", "Naomi Campbell and Kenyan Tourism Minister Najib Balala sealed the deal over the weekend\n\nThe appointment of British supermodel Naomi Campbell as Kenya's tourism ambassador has caused a Twitter storm in the East African nation.\n\nMany queried why it had not been given to a prominent Kenyan like Hollywood actress Lupita Nyong'o.\n\nOthers leapt to her defence, saying the debate already justified her role.\n\nKenya's tourism sector has been badly hit by coronavirus, with visitor numbers down by 72% between January and October last year.\n\n\"The sector hence lost over 110bn Kenyan shillings [$1bn, £738m] of direct international tourists' revenue due to the Covid-19 pandemic,\" Kenya's Tourism Research Institute reported last month.\n\nThe country is famous for its wildlife safaris and beach resorts.\n\nKenyan Tourism Minister Najib Balala said the deal with Ms Campbell was done over the weekend after he met the model, who is currently on holiday in Kenya.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Ministry of Tourism & Wildlife-Kenya This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Ministry of Tourism & Wildlife-Kenya\n\nThe 50-year-old style icon and philanthropist has been posting images of her stay on Instagram, where she has 10 million followers.\n\n\"We welcome the exciting news that Naomi Campbell will advocate for tourism and travel internationally for the Magical Kenya brand,\" Mr Balala said, without giving further deals of the contract.\n\nBut the statement, posted on Twitter on Tuesday, prompted instant outrage from some, and the supermodel's name has since been trending in the country.\n\nOne tweeter cited other Kenyan celebrities better suited to the ambassadorial role, including models Ajuma Nasenyana and Debra Sanaipei, as well as Nyong'o.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Syombua A. Kibue 🇰🇪 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOne tweeter said the backlash revealed an unhealthy attitude in Kenya: \"At the end of the day, it's all about who will get the job done. This mentality is what causes nepotism and tribalism in Kenyan institutions, it should be about the most suitable candidate not 'one of our own' thing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMs Campbell's defenders praised her for visiting Kenya several times and said it was not only the model's social media following that made her the perfect appointment.\n\nHer circle of friends were equally important as she would attract wealthy tourists willing to spend money.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Mlolwa🐬 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe tourism industry usually contributes about 8.8% to Kenya's annual Gross domestic product (GDP), according to Kenya's East African newspaper.\n• None The supermodel and the warlord", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Large parts of Scotland woke up to a blanket of snow on Thursday, including in Rutherglen where conditions became challenging for drivers\n\nMotorists continue to face difficult conditions after heavy snow across parts of Scotland caused road closures.\n\nA Met Office yellow warning for ice will be in place overnight and for all of Friday for mainland Scotland.\n\nThe A9 at Dunblane was closed due to snow but has now reopened, while driving conditions on the M90 and M8 were reported as difficult.\n\nThere have also been problems in the Scottish Borders where up to a foot of snow fell overnight.\n\nTraffic Scotland has reported difficult driving conditions on the M77 at Fenwick, M80 around Cumbernauld and the A9 at Greenloaning.\n\nA woman walks through the snow in Braco near Dunblane\n\nThe impact of the overnight freeze on a hedgerow near Strathaven, South Lanarkshire\n\nIn the Borders several lorries got stuck on the A7 between Selkirk and Hawick, while difficult driving conditions were also reported on the A68 at the Carter Bar and Soutra.\n\nThere were also delays on the A83 Old Military Road diversion and the A82 at Tyndrum.\n\nMeanwhile, police have urged drivers to properly clear their car windscreens before setting off in the wintry conditions.\n\nOfficers in Dumfries and Galloway shared a picture of a driver they stopped and charged for failing to do this.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by DumfriesGPolice This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPeople should only be leaving home to make essential journeys in parts of Scotland under level four Covid measures, under current Scottish government lockdown regulations.\n\nCh Supt Louise Blakelock, of Police Scotland, said: \"Government guidance on only travelling if your journey is essential remains in place and so with an amber warning for snow, please consider if your journey really is essential and whether you can delay it until the weather improves.\n\n\"If your journey really is essential, plan ahead and make sure you and your vehicle are suitably prepared by having sufficient fuel and supplies such as warm clothing, food, water and charge in your mobile phone in the event you require assistance.\"\n\nA motorist brushes snow off a car in Braco near Dunblane\n\nThe village of Bowden near Melrose woke up to snow\n\nA snowy scene at Fountainhall in the Scottish Borders\n\nPolice in Shetland have also warned of ice badly affecting roads on the islands.\n\nScotRail said its services could be affected, particularly on the Highland mainline.\n\nScottish Borders Council said the effects of the adverse weather could cause disruption into Friday morning.\n\nEmergency planning officer Jim Fraser said: \"With widespread snow and some freezing rain possible over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, there is the strong potential for disruption across our road network and communities.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Michael Matheson MSP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSome of the deepest snowfalls in recent weeks have been in the Highlands, including the Cairngorms.\n\nEarlier this month, the UK had its coldest night of the winter so far after a temperature of -12.3C was recorded in the north west Highlands.\n\nThe temperature was recorded at Loch Glascarnoch, near Garve, south of Ullapool in Wester Ross.\n\nThe record lowest temperature in the UK is -27.2C, which was recorded in Braemar, Aberdeenshire, in 1895 and 1982 and at Altnaharra in the Highlands in 1995.", "Pre-departure Covid-19 testing will now be required for everyone travelling to England from 04:00 GMT on Monday.\n\nThe rules had been due to come into force on Friday, but the government said people needed time \"to prepare\".\n\nThose arriving by plane, train or boat, including UK nationals, will have to take a test up to 72 hours before leaving the country they are in.\n\nAnyone arriving from places not on the UK's travel corridor list must still self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nThe Scottish government is planning to impose the same rules and has had to defer them coming into effect as a result of changes in England.\n\n\"This meant Scotland was also obliged to delay implementation as we need sight of their final regulations in order to properly draft and approve the relevant Scottish regulations,\" a spokeswoman said.\n\nIt is expected the requirement will come into force in Scotland at 04:00 GMT on Monday as well. Wales and Northern Ireland are expected to announce plans for pre-arrival testing in the coming days.\n\nAnnouncing the deferral on Twitter, Transport Secretary Mr Shapps said: \"To give international arrivals time to prepare, passengers will be required to provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test before departure to England from Monday 18 January at 4am.\"\n\nHe also reminded travellers to fill out the Passenger Locator Form - used in track and trace - and added that those without proof of a negative test faced a fine of £500.\n\nProblems with testing availability and capacity mean some countries will initially be exempt.\n\nFor instance, the requirement will not apply to travellers from St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda until 04:00 GMT on 21 January.\n\nTravellers from Falkland Islands, Ascension Islands and St Helena are exempted permanently.\n\nHauliers are exempt to allow the free flow of freight, as are air, international rail and maritime crew.\n\nThe government has said all forms of PCR test will be accepted, as will other forms of test with \"97% specificity, 80% sensitivity\".\n\nThe move comes as a further 1,564 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the biggest figure reported in a single day since the pandemic began.\n\nWednesday's figure brings the total number of deaths by that measure to 84,767.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said there had now been more deaths in the second wave than the first.\n\nMeanwhile on Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was \"concerned\" about a new coronavirus variant that is believed to have emerged in Brazil.\n\nHe acknowledged it was not yet clear how effective existing vaccines would be against the latest new variant.\n\nMr Johnson said the UK was taking steps to make sure it was not brought into the country.\n\nA government Covid committee is meeting on Thursday to discuss the possibility of stopping flights from Brazil.\n\nArrivals from Brazil already have to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nAre you due to travel back to the UK from Brazil? Share your experience. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Sir David will appear in \"very high-resolution holographic video\"\n\nSir David Attenborough is to front an augmented reality app letting users see exotic plants and animals in their own surroundings, as part of a government drive to prove the uses of 5G.\n\nThe Green Planet AR app has been given £2.3m government funding as one of nine 5G test projects given a total of £28m.\n\nIt will be released alongside The Green Planet, Sir David's forthcoming BBC series that will show plants in detail.\n\nThe five-part documentary series is expected to be broadcast in 2022.\n\nAugmented reality superimposes virtual objects on to the world around us, meaning the app's users will be able to use their smartphones to see Sir David and \"meticulously detailed graphics of exotic plants and animals\" as if they were in front of them.\n\nThe app will help prove \"how new technology can reconnect us with the natural world whilst demonstrating the power of 5G to a huge new audience\", according to Minister for Digital Infrastructure Matt Warman.\n\nThe app will be available in \"set locations\" around the UK. Developer Factory 42 said it does not yet know how many locations, but they could include parks, visitor attractions like Kew Gardens and urban settings. Users will need a 5G-enabled device.\n\nThe other projects sharing the £28m funding include one to provide live, multi-angle HD video streams and replays on phones at sporting events; one to allow people to experience exhibits at The Eden Project in Cornwall from their own homes; and one to control the 113 cranes at the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk.\n\nThey follow nine other 5G trial projects that were awarded a total of £35m in February 2020.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Pupils are currently learning remotely from home\n\nA-level, AS and GCSE students in England could be asked to sit mini external exams to help teachers with their assessments after formal exams were cancelled last week.\n\nIn a letter to the exams regulator, Ofqual, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said this would help teachers to decide \"deserved grades\".\n\nHe promised not to use an algorithm which led to controversy last summer.\n\nHead teachers said the \"devil was in the detail\" for these plans.\n\nThe letter was published on Wednesday morning, as Mr Williamson appeared before the education select committee to answer questions on the impact of Covid-19 on education.\n\nIn the letter to Ofqual he said: \"A breadth of evidence should inform teachers' judgments, and the provision of training and guidance will support teachers to reach their assessment of a student's deserved grade.\n\n\"In addition, I would like to explore the possibility of providing externally set tasks or papers, in order that teachers can draw on this resource to support their assessments of students.\"\n\nMr Williamson's pledge not to use an algorithm to determine grades comes after thousands of A-level students had their results downgraded from school estimates last summer - before Ofqual announced a U-turn allowing them to use teachers' predictions.\n\n\"We have agreed that we will not use an algorithm to set or automatically standardise anyone's grade,\" the letter says.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Gavin Williamson: \"The top priority is for all those that work in schools\"\n\n\"Schools and colleges should undertake quality assurance of their teachers' assessments and provide reassurance to the exam boards. We should provide training and guidance to support that, and there should also be external checks in place to support fairness and consistency between different institutions and to avoid schools and colleges proposing anomalous grades.\"\n\nBut he added: \"Changes should only be made if those grades cannot be justified, rather than as a result of marginal differences of opinion.\n\n\"Any changes should be based on human decisions, not by an automatic process or algorithm.\"\n\nA consultation on plans for this year is being launched later this week.\n\nGeoff Barton, head of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the letter set out \"broad and sensible parameters\" for assessing GCSEs and A-levels after exams were cancelled.\n\n\"But, as ever, the devil will be in the detail of how this is turned into reality,\" Mr Barton said.\n\nHe welcomed confirmation that no algorithm would be applied this year \"following last summer's grading debacle.\"\n\nBut he questioned how any system of externally set assessment would work and how it could ensures fairness for students whose education had been heavily disrupted.\n\n\"It is vital that the final plans not only provide fairness and consistency but that they are also workable for schools, colleges and teaching staff who will have to put them into practice,\" he added.\n\nNational Education Union joint general secretary Dr Mary Bousted said: \"Had the government listened to the NEU and put in place a contingency plan sooner we would be in a better position now to make sure grades could be awarded reliably and without creating severe workload issues for education staff and students.\n\nShe said the union would continue to work with the Dfe and Ofqual, but they needed to see the full details of the plans as soon as possible to ensure grades are fair and the process is manageable for staff.\n\nTaking questions from MPs on the education select committee, Mr Williamson said he wanted to see schools re-opening at the earliest opportunity and that he would \"never apologise for being the biggest champion for keeping schools open\".\n\nHe said attendance rates of vulnerable and key worker pupils in schools since the start of term were higher than in the first lockdown.", "The prime minister has said lockdown measures are \"starting to show signs of some effect\", but he has refused to rule out extra restrictions in England.\n\nAt PMQs, Boris Johnson said measures were kept under \"constant review\" after Labour's Sir Keir Starmer said it was obvious more restrictions were needed.\n\nMr Johnson added that vaccine centres would move to 24-7 \"as soon as we can\".\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons.\n\nThis includes for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nLater, Mr Johnson told the Commons Liaison Committee there was a \"very substantial\" risk of intensive care capacity in hospitals being \"overtopped\", and appealed to people to follow lockdown rules.\n\nHe said the situation was \"very, very tough\" in the NHS and the strain on staff was \"colossal\".\n\nMeanwhile, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced new restrictions in Scotland from Saturday, including limiting click and collect services to essential items only and restricting takeaways.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions, Sir Keir said stronger restrictions were needed in England and accused Mr Johnson of being \"slow to act\".\n\nHe asked the prime minister why restrictions were weaker in this lockdown compared with March.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson says the government acted \"within 24 hours\" of advice on the new Covid-19 variant\n\n\"We keep things under constant review,\" Mr Johnson replied. \"If there is any need to toughen up restrictions - which I don't rule out - we will of course come to this House.\n\n\"The lockdown measures we have in place combined with tier four measures that we were using are starting to show signs of some effect and we must take account of that too.\"\n\nHe added it was early days and urged people to abide by the rules.\n\nQuestioned by the liaison committee on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Johnson said it was \"far, far too early\" to say there could be any relaxation of the lockdown in the middle of February, and \"we've got to work very hard to achieve that\".\n\nHe acknowledged that it was a \"tragedy\" that so many children were missing face-to-face teaching at school and said reopening schools was \"the priority\".\n\nTier four - the highest level in England's tier system which bans households mixing indoors - was introduced on 21 December in parts of south-east England, including London.\n\nIt was then widened to include more of southern England on Boxing Day. England has been in a national lockdown since 5 January.\n\nMr Johnson also said the vaccination programme was going \"exceptionally fast\" but \"at the moment the limit is on supply\" of the vaccine.\n\n\"We will be going to 24/7 as soon as we can,\" he told MPs, saying Health Secretary Matt Hancock will set out further details \"in due course\".\n\nMore than 2.4 million people have had a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while 412,167 people have had a second dose.\n\nScotland's Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said it was \"entirely possible\" to offer round-the-clock vaccinations in Scotland once mass sites were up and running by late February or early March.\n\nThere are very early signs that infections may have peaked - although as always we should be careful about reading too much into a few days' worth of data.\n\nThe past two days have seen newly diagnosed cases hover around the 46,000-mark. Up to the weekend, the average was close to 60,000.\n\nThe drop has largely been driven by falls in new cases in London, the South East and East of England.\n\nThe national picture does mask some regional differences. Cases are rising in the North West, which is causing particular concern.\n\nIt is too early for the vaccination programme to be having any significant impact so a combination of the national lockdown on top of the tier four restrictions that were imposed in some areas before Christmas look like they may be beginning to have an impact.\n\nThere is also some evidence the new variant may not be quite as fast-spreading as first feared - a Public Health England study suggested rather than being 70% more transmissible, it may actually be somewhere between 30% to 50%.\n\nAnd, if it does represent the start of a continuous fall, it is important to remember it will still take some time to translate into fewer hospital cases - people being admitted at the moment are those who would have caught the virus a week or two ago.\n\nBut after six weeks of pretty sustained rises, it is at least an encouraging sign.\n\nEarlier, Health Secretary Matt Hancock questioned whether there would be demand for a round-the-clock vaccination operation, saying: \"Most people want to get vaccinated in the daytime, and also most people who are doing the vaccinations want to give them in the daytime, but there may be circumstances in which that would help.\"\n\nHe said England's lockdown measures were \"always under review\", but he would be \"very reluctant\" to remove the rule of meeting one other person outside for exercise as \"it is a lifeline\" for some people, including those who live alone. Mr Hancock has already ruled out scrapping support bubbles.\n\n\"What I'd rather is that everybody follow that rule and doesn't stretch it or flex it,\" he said.", "Fans of the University of Alabama football team gathered in the streets of Tuscaloosa in Alabama, ignoring social distancing.\n\nThey were celebrating the university's third national championship in the past six years.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday morning. We'll have another update for you at 18:00 BST.\n\nThe first Covid patients have begun receiving a new treatment it's hoped will prevent sufferers becoming seriously ill. The patients are part of a large-scale trial testing the effect of inhaling a protein called interferon beta which the body produces when it gets a viral infection. Developed at Southampton University Hospital and produced by biotech company, Synairgen, early findings suggest the treatment cuts the odds of severe illness by almost 80%. Find out more here.\n\nKaye Flitney is one of those enrolled on the clinical trial\n\nMany hospital staff treating the sickest patients during the first wave of the pandemic have been left struggling to cope, a new study suggests. Researchers at King's College London questioned 709 workers at nine units in England and nearly half reported symptoms of severe anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or problem drinking. Lead researcher Prof Neil Greenberg said it should be a \"wake-up call\" for managers about the need to provide more mental health support. Some staff are they're also facing abuse online and at protests from Covid sceptics and anti-lockdown activists.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nChildren's minister Vicky Ford says caterers must urgently improve the quality of food parcels being provided for low-income families. Catering company Chartwells has apologised after photographs of some parcels were shared online and heavily criticised. The packages - more on them here - are being sent to children who would normally receive free school meals in England. The row could well come up when Education Secretary Gavin Williamson faces MPs' questioning later. Our education correspondent looks closely at Mr Williamson - a man whose political obituary has been written so many times he must sometimes feel like the walking dead.\n\nTwitter user Roadside Mum complained about the parcel she received\n\nNurse Kate Fraser said administering the vaccination to Ms Curry had been \"emotional\"\n\nFind more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nPlus, Britain's top police officer, Dame Cressida Dick, says it's \"preposterous\" to suggest some people are not aware of what the lockdown laws now tell them to do. So how much do you know? Try our quiz.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Democrats, including Jamie Raskin (centre), voted to impeach President Donald Trump, as did 10 Republicans\n\nThe US House of Representatives has voted to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time over his alleged role in the 6 January deadly assault on the Capitol.\n\nHis impeachment for \"incitement to insurrection\" was approved by 232 representatives including 10 Republicans.\n\nDemocrats led the effort to charge Mr Trump with encouraging the riots.\n\nBut some Republicans had backed calls for impeachment.\n\nSo, who are these key players, and what do we know about them?\n\nWhen the impeachment charges go to the Senate for trial, the case for the prosecution will be made by a team of lawmakers, led by Mr Raskin, a Democratic representative from Maryland since 2017 and a former professor of constitutional law.\n\nThe impeachment of Mr Trump represents the continuation of an extremely challenging start to 2021 for Mr Raskin, 58.\n\nJamie Raskin (left) helped to draft the article of impeachment against President Trump\n\nThe congressman's 25-year-old son, Tommy Bloom Raskin, took his own life on New Year's Eve and was laid to rest in early January.\n\nA day after the funeral, Mr Raskin found himself hunkering down with colleagues, shielding from a violent mob that rampaged through the Capitol where lawmakers were meeting to certify November's presidential election result.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Rep. Jamie Raskin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOn the day of the assault, Mr Raskin helped to draw up an article of impeachment against President Trump.\n\nSpeaking to the Washington Post, Mr Raskin said his son, who was studying law at Harvard University, would have considered last week's violence \"the absolute worst form of crime against democracy\".\n\n\"It really is Tommy Raskin, and his love and his values and his passion, that have kept me going,\" Mr Raskin said.\n\nIn total, nine Democrats, including Mr Raskin, have been named as impeachment managers. One is Representative Madeleine Dean, from Pennsylvania, who is one of three women on the team.\n\nMs Dean started her career in law, opening her own three-woman practice in Pennsylvania before teaching English at a university.\n\nHaving been active in state politics for decades, she was elected to the House in 2018, using her seat to champion women's reproductive rights, gun law reform, and healthcare for all, among other issues.\n\nMadeleine Dean has called for a quick trial of President Trump in the Senate\n\nIn an interview with MSNBC, Ms Dean, 68, said she favoured a \"speedy trial\" in the Senate if Mr Trump was impeached.\n\n\"This isn't about a party. This isn't about politics. This is about protection of our constitution, of our rule of law,\" Ms Dean said.\n\nAs the Speaker of the House, Ms Pelosi has been in the spotlight since the riots in the Capitol.\n\nMs Pelosi leads the Democrats in the lower chamber of Congress, so the 80-year-old had a huge influence over the decision to introduce an article of impeachment against Mr Trump.\n\nMs Pelosi had the House proceed with impeachment after former Vice-President Mike Pence did not invoked constitutional powers to force out Mr Trump, who was then president.\n\nMr Pence said at the time he believed such a move was against the country's interests.\n\n\"This president is guilty of inciting insurrection. He has to pay a price for that,\" Ms Pelosi said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The storming of the US Capitol\n\nMr McConnell, a 78-year-old Republican senator for Kentucky, is one to watch in the Senate.\n\nThe upper chamber's former majority leader remains the man at the helm of the upper chamber's Republican caucus.\n\nDubbed the \"Grim Reaper\" by Democrats, Mr McConnell was a thorn in the side of former President Barack Obama, often manoeuvring to frustrate his legislative agenda and judicial appointments.\n\nHe was also the driving force behind Mr Trump's acquittal in his first impeachment trial in 2019.\n\nIn his last few weeks as Senate leader, Mr McConnell also delayed Mr Trump's trial until after the former president left office, saying there was no time for a \"fair or serious trial\" ahead of Mr Biden's inauguration.\n\nMr McConnell has not publicly commented on whether he supports convicting or acquitting Mr Trump, but he has sent some mixed messages.\n\nMitch McConnell had been loyal to President Trump until the Capitol riots\n\nThough he spent the last four years in the president's corner, the minority leader said the rioters were \"provoked by\" Mr Trump and that he plans to hear out both sides in the trial.\n\nBut later on in January, he also joined the majority of Republican senators to vote for a motion to toss out the impeachment case as unconstitutional now that Mr Trump is no longer in the White House.\n\nMr McConnell may no longer have the final say on all things impeachment, but as Democrats need Republican support to convict Mr Trump with the required two-thirds majority, he still has a key role to play in the upcoming proceedings.\n\nWith just over a week to go before the trial, Mr Trump parted ways with his legal team, including attorneys Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier.\n\nThey were quickly replaced by David Schoen, a trial lawyer, and Bruce Castor, a former district attorney, who will lead the defence efforts for the former president.\n\nIn a statement, both attorneys said they didn't believe the push to impeach Mr Trump is constitutional.\n\nDavid Schoen, left, and Bruce Castor will lead the defence efforts for the former president\n\nMr Castor added: \"The strength of our Constitution is about to be tested like never before in our history.\n\n\"It is strong and resilient. A document written for the ages, and it will triumph over partisanship yet again, and always.\"\n\nMr Schoen has previously represented Roger Stone, former adviser to Mr Trump. Stone received a presidential pardon in December.\n\nThe lawyer also made headlines in the past for meeting with Jeffrey Epstein in his final days to discuss possible representation, and for later saying he did not believe the death of the US financier and sex offender was suicide.\n\nMr Castor, a former Pennsylvania district attorney, is known for declining to prosecute Bill Cosby for sexual assault in 2005. The comedian was eventually convicted on three counts of sexual assault in a 2018 retrial of his case.\n\nMs Cheney, 54, is third-highest-ranking Republican leader in the House. As the daughter of former Republican Vice-President Dick Cheney, she has a high profile in the party.\n\nSo, her support for impeachment is particularly significant.\n\nLiz Cheney has accused President Trump of inciting the attack on Congress\n\nMr Trump had \"summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack\", Ms Cheney said of the Capitol riots.\n\n\"There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,\" the Wyoming representative said.\n\nHowever, in a recent test of support for conviction on impeachment charges that Mr Trump incited his supporters to mount an insurrection at the US Capitol, 45 out of 50 Senate Republicans voted last week to consider stopping the trial before it even starts.\n\nMs Cheney survived a House Republican vote - 145-61 - to oust her from her leadership position after breaking ranks with other GOP lawmakers last month to impeach the former president.\n\nShe is also now facing a primary challenger for her Wyoming congressional seat after voting to impeach Mr Trump.\n\nBlocking Mr Trump from ever running for office again is one rationale that may motivate some Republicans to impeach the president.\n\nThat reasoning could be attractive to Republican senators like Mr Sasse, who is seen as a possible contender for the presidency in 2024.\n\nElected to the Senate in 2014, the 48-year-old has been an ardent critic of Mr Trump.\n\nBen Sasse refused to overturn the results of November's presidential election in Congress\n\nMr Sasse was firmly opposed to a Republican effort - cheered on by Mr Trump - to overturn the certification of President-elect Joe Biden's election victory in Congress.\n\nOn the question of impeachment, Mr Sasse said he would \"definitely consider whatever articles they might move\" in the House.\n\nA two-thirds majority would be needed to convict Mr Trump in the Senate, meaning at least 17 Republicans - including Mr Sasse - would have to vote for it.\n\nIn Mr Trump's first impeachment trial in 2020, it was Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts who presided over the proceedings.\n\nThis time, he declined to participate, handing the job over to the 80-year-old Vermont Democrat, who will take the gavel in this second impeachment trial.\n\nMr Leahy was first elected to the Senate in 1974, and is the longest serving lawmaker in the upper chamber.\n\nHe will be presiding in his role as the Senate's president pro tempore - a constitutional officer, responsible for presiding over the Senate in the absence of the vice-president.\n\nIn a statement, he said \"the president pro tempore takes an additional special oath to do impartial justice according to the Constitution and the laws\" when presiding over an impeachment trial.\n\n\"It is an oath that I take extraordinarily seriously.\"", "Many of the works in Gurlitt's collection were in poor condition when they were discovered in 2012 (file photo)\n\nWhen a trove of 1,500 artworks hoarded by the son of a Nazi-era art dealer was discovered in 2012, an investigation began to find out how many were looted from Jewish owners.\n\nEventually only 14 were conclusively identified as looted, and now Germany has declared the last of those works has been returned to the owner's heirs.\n\nDas Klavierspiel (Playing the Piano) by Carl Spitzweg was owned by music publisher Henri Hinrichsen.\n\nHe was murdered at Auschwitz in 1942.\n\nGerman Culture Minister Monika Grütters said the return of the work sent an \"important signal\", and that while it could not make up for the deep suffering, it could \"make a contribution to historical justice and fulfil our moral responsibility\".\n\nThe 19th-Century work by Spitzweg was confiscated by the Nazis in 1939, the same year that Hinrichsen had bought it.\n\nDas Klavierspiel by Carl Spitzweg was seized by the Nazis in 1939\n\nIt was bought in 1940 by Hildebrand Gurlitt, a Nazi-era dealer who had been given the task by Adolf Hitler of dealing in art seized from Jewish collectors and of buying up so-called \"degenerate art\" removed from museums for a planned Führermuseum in the Austrian city of Linz.\n\nThe money for the Spitzweg work was paid into a blocked account, so Hinrichsen would never have received it.\n\nIn 2015, the piece was identified as looted, and it was handed over to the auctioneers Christie's on Tuesday, according to the wishes of Hinrichsen's heirs.\n\nAlthough his collection of 1,500 works, plundered from museums as well as individuals, was initially confiscated after the war by the Allies, Hildebrand Gurlitt eventually managed to get it back.\n\nGurlitt died in the 1950s and when German authorities approached his widow in 1961 in search of part of his collection, she claimed the works had been destroyed at the end of World War Two by Allied bombing.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Stephen Evans was granted exclusive access to look at some of the long-lost masterpieces in 2014\n\nIt was only when tax investigators searched the Munich flat of his son Cornelius Gurlitt in 2012 that they found more than 1,400 of the works. Another 60 pieces were discovered at his Austrian home in Salzburg the following year.\n\nThe son died in 2014 with questions still hanging over the ownership of the collection - as he was protected by a statute of limitations.\n\nA court ruled that the works could be bequeathed to the Museum of Fine Arts in the Swiss capital Bern, as Cornelius Gurlitt had requested.\n\nWhile some of the works were deemed to belong to the family, the German Lost Art Foundation then tried to find out, with the Swiss museum, who were the rightful owners of the rest.\n\nFourteen pieces have now conclusively identified as belonging to Jewish owners and returned.\n\nAmong the many masterpieces in the collection was this work by Edouard Manet", "Isabella Curry urged others to get the jab and said it was just a little \"prick in the arm\"\n\nA woman has celebrated her 100th birthday by getting a covid vaccination at home.\n\nIsabella Curry, known as Ella, from Cramlington, was among some of the most vulnerable people in Northumberland to receive the vaccine.\n\nMs Curry, who lives alone, urged others not to be afraid to get the jab and said it was just a little \"prick in the arm\" and she now felt safe.\n\nHer birthday was also marked by the arrival of a card from the Queen.\n\nShe said: \"This vaccine means I'll be able to go out, meet my friends soon and feel safe.\"\n\nIsabella Curry's nephew Neil Curry thanked the \"army\" of helpers who cared for his aunt\n\nMs Curry's nephew, Neil Curry from Bristol, said he was delighted she had had the vaccination but sad the whole family could not get together for the milestone birthday.\n\n\"We had a family reunion for Ella's 90th - we all got together in Newcastle. We would have all got together again to mark this occasion, but we couldn't,\" he said.\n\nHe also said he wanted to thank the \"army\" of people who looked after his aunt including Noreen and Jim Hutchinson, who did her shopping and cut her grass.\n\nHe also thanked June and Peter Marshall and all the other people who collected her prescriptions and mobile library books.\n\nKate Fraser, the community nurse who administered the vaccination, said: \"It's been an emotional time being able to give Isabella her vaccination.\"\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.", "People's reaction to a sonic boom heard across the East of England has been caught on camera.\n\nIt happened after a Typhoon aircraft took off from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire to escort a plane to Stansted Airport because it had lost communications at about 13:05 GMT.\n\nPeople in Cambridgeshire, Essex and parts of London posted videos on social media, with one person heard asking if it was thunder.\n\nHeather Eastlake, who was filming herself exercising near Cambridge, described her reaction as being like \"a deer in the highlights\".", "Libby Squire was not seen alive after travelling to Oak Road playing fields with Pawel Relowicz, a court heard\n\nA man accused of raping and murdering a student committed a string of \"sexually motivated\" burglaries in the months before her death, a court has heard.\n\nJurors heard \"trophies\" - underwear and sex toys - stolen from other women were found after his arrest.\n\nProsecutors claim he was \"prowling the streets\" of Hull's student area in search of a victim when he intercepted the \"extremely vulnerable\" Ms Squire.\n\nSheffield Crown Court previously heard the defendant drove Ms Squire - who had earlier been refused entry to a nightclub - to the Oak Road playing fields.\n\nOnce there, jurors were told, he subjected her to an \"act of sexual violence\" before he disposed of her body in the River Hull.\n\nHer remains were found in the Humber Estuary almost seven weeks later.\n\nProsecutor Richard Wright QC said Mr Relowicz would claim Ms Squire had \"instigated consensual sexual intercourse\", and he had left her \"safe and well\" on the fields.\n\nRichard Wright QC continued to outline the case against Pawel Relowicz on Wednesday\n\nHowever, Sam Alford, who lives nearby, reported hearing a woman's \"desperate screams\" coming from the direction of the river, the court heard.\n\nProsecutors allege the screams were Ms Squire's and a man seen \"emerging from the darkness\" and fleeing the area was the defendant.\n\n\"Libby was never seen again\", Mr Wright told jurors.\n\nThe screams, and scratches to the defendant's face were evidence Ms Squire had \"fought him off\", the court heard.\n\nMr Wright said the evidence established \"that she was raped by a man whose entire motivation for coming into contact with her that night was to take her away from safety to a remote area well known to him and there to subject her to his uncontrollable sexual urges\".\n\nThe prosecutor said a pathologist concluded he could not establish how Ms Squire died despite \"an obvious bruise\" to the inside of her right thigh.\n\nMr Wright told jurors a CCTV recording made after the last sighting of Ms Squire showed Mr Relowicz performing a sex act in the middle of a street.\n\nA condom found at the scene days later yielded a DNA profile matching the defendant, the court heard.\n\nIn the year leading up to Ms Squire's disappearance, Mr Relowicz exposed himself to women in public and watched them through windows as they changed or had sex, the court heard.\n\nHe also \"burgled their homes with the purpose of stealing their underwear and sexual toys or other objects,\" Mr Wright said.\n\nUniversity of Hull student Libby Squire was last seen in the early hours of 1 February 2019\n\nFollowing his arrest on 6 February, Mr Wright said, police recovered the pink holdall \"full of sex toys... and some photographs of young women and several pairs of women's knickers and thongs\".\n\nA statement made by Ms Squire's mother, Lisa Squire, was read out in court describing her daughter having battled mental health issues including an eating disorder, self-harming - cutting the top of her arms, legs and chest - and depression.\n\nShe said her eldest child had been afraid of water since she was young, to the point she would not go near a swimming pool when on holiday. She was also scared of the dark, jurors were told.\n\nStatements by Ms Squire's boyfriend Connor James-Pye were also read out, in which he described Libby as being \"a happy drunk\" and that she \"didn't understand moderation\".\n\nHowever, on the night she disappeared, the court heard Ms Squire \"didn't want to go out because she had a lecture the next morning, but she didn't want to let the girls down\".\n\nMr James-Pye last heard from his girlfriend at about 22:30 on 31 January, jurors heard.\n\nThe 21-year-old's body was recovered from the Humber Estuary on 20 March 2019\n\nFollow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The button battery was stuck in Sofia-Grace's throat for four months\n\nAn 11-month-old girl who was rejecting solid food had a button battery lodged in her throat for four months.\n\nDoctors thought Sofia-Grace Hill had tonsillitis or a viral infection until an X-ray revealed the battery the size of a 10p in her oesophagus.\n\nShe underwent a two-hour operation to remove it and is now on a liquid only diet.\n\nA surgeon said her survival may be due to the battery being old and without charge.\n\nDad Calham, from Swindon, first noticed something was wrong in January 2020 and had countless paramedic call-outs and visits to the GP and local hospital.\n\nShe had a two-hour operation to remove the battery\n\nHe was convinced there was something else going on as Sofia-Grace would only eat pureed food.\n\nAfter another hospital trip in May, she was given an X-ray which showed the battery lodged in her oesophagus was causing serious damage as it had corroded.\n\nMr Hill said: \"I was gutted when I saw it and angry at myself. I blamed myself, but now I realise there was nothing we could have done to know.\"\n\nThe button battery is the size of a 10p\n\nSofia-Grace had a feeding tube fitted to help her with food and to stop her throat from closing.\n\nEvery two weeks she has a general anaesthetic to stretch her oesophagus but faces the prospect of further surgery.\n\nMr Hill said: \"The damage has left a pocket in her oesophagus which needs to close but Sofia is improving week by week with regular dilations which is improving her oesophagus.\n\n\"But I know the chance of survival in the first weeks after this happens is very low so we are moving in the right direction.\"\n\nSofia-Grace is improving week by week, her dad said\n\nMr Hill is unsure how Sofia-Grace, now almost two-years-old, got hold of the button battery and warned parents about the dangers.\n\nHe said: \"Just get rid of them or lock them away and don't give your child car keys to play with. Always trust your instincts as a parent.\"\n\nJanet McNally, consultant paediatric surgeon at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, who is treating Sofia-Grace, said her survival may be because the battery was old and had lost its charge.\n\nShe said that without someone seeing a child swallow a battery or obvious symptoms it was not unusual for it to be missed.\n\n\"Clinicians and the government have been warning of the dangers of button batteries for a long time. But not all parents are aware of how dangerous they can be.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Brazil's variant: Two 'spike' changes flagged up\n\nAs MPs have been mentioning today - a coronavirus variant has been found circulating in the Amazonas state of Brazil, and was picked up in Japan in travellers from the region. It’s different from the UK and South African variants, but it contains common mutations - two changes to the virus’ \"spike\" in particular which have been flagged as potentially making the virus more infectious. This is not going to be the last mutation we hear about. At the moment changes are mainly being picked up in areas that do lots of genetic tracking of the virus - it’s almost certain there are other mutations already circulating unseen in other parts of the world. And the virus will continue to mutate - it’s just a question of how, how much and how fast. For now there’s no evidence the virus is becoming more dangerous - but if more people catch it then, left unchecked, more will potentially become ill or die. But the vaccines, which target several different areas of the virus’ spike, should still work - though that’s something that scientists the world over will be monitoring very closely.", "The three main Covid-19 vaccines are from Pfizer-BioNTech, the University of Oxford and Astra-Zeneca and Moderna.\n\nThe Pfizer, Oxford and Moderna vaccines each require two doses and you are not fully vaccinated until you have had both shots.\n\nBut there are many differences between them.\n\nThe BBC's Laura Foster looks at how much immunity they give, how they prevent infection and how they compare.", "Parents say teachers at special schools often provide medical care and should be treated like other front-line workers\n\nParents of children with special educational needs and disabilities are calling for teachers in special schools to be vaccinated against Covid-19.\n\nMany parents have been told their children cannot attend school because of safety concerns about the virus.\n\nNow they want staff in special schools to be prioritised for the vaccine and considered front-line workers.\n\nThe government said special schools should encourage pupils to attend.\n\nLaura cares for son Oscar alone and says their respite support collapsed during the pandemic\n\nStaff in special schools are often required to provide personal and medical care for pupils, such as clearing tracheotomies, on top of regular teaching responsibilities.\n\nThe schools also offer precious respite to many families of disabled children who require a lot of additional care.\n\nLaura Godfrey, 33, from Norwich, is mum to nine-year-old Oscar, who usually attends a school for children with complex needs. His return was delayed at the start of term, despite government advice for these schools to remain open.\n\n\"His school provision is essential to us as a family. Oscar's mental health suffered a lot in the first lockdown, as did mine. It was a very dark time.\"\n\nHe is currently attending school, but Laura worries it could be forced to close in the event of an outbreak.\n\nShe is calling for staff at special schools to be given PPE and access to the vaccine, to keep schools open and protect vulnerable pupils.\n\n\"They should be recognised and treated as front-line staff and afforded the same protections.\"\n\nLaura's calls have been echoed by Mark Powell, CEO of the Dorset-based Diverse Abilities charity which runs a special school in Poole.\n\nStaff at Langside School in Poole were provided with PPE at the start of the pandemic\n\nThe school bought its own PPE in order to remain open during the pandemic but said it was \"very difficult and extremely costly\".\n\nMr Powell described PPE as a \"wonderful barrier to prevent the spread of the virus\" but said it had also been \"a devastating barrier to the development and well-being of our pupils\".\n\n\"The fact we have nurses, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists on site to form part of our children's school provision means that our school can be classified as a health setting, which are at the top of the list for priority vaccinations.\"\n\nThe Department for Education said the impact of being out of education \"can be greatest on vulnerable children and those with education, health and care plans\".\n\nIt said special schools should \"continue to welcome and encourage pupils to go into school full-time\" where possible and \"ensure pupils with Send can successfully access remote education\" if they are unable to attend.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nIvan Cavaleiro scored a late header to earn Premier League strugglers Fulham a hard-fought draw against Tottenham in their hastily rearranged London derby.\n\nThe Portuguese forward's finish cancelled out Harry Kane's first-half diving header and came just minutes after Son Heung-min hit the post in search of Spurs' second.\n\nCavaleiro sealed a remarkable turnaround for a side whose manager Scott Parker said it was \"scandalous\" to be given just two days' notice to face Jose Mourinho's men after Spurs' game at Aston Villa was postponed because of a Covid-19 outbreak in the Villa camp.\n\nTottenham boss Mourinho had little sympathy for the visitors as the derby itself was a rearranged fixture, having been called off three hours before kick-off when originally scheduled on 30 December.\n\nFor all the complications surrounding the fixture, the intensity from two sides at opposite ends of the table was high at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with Fulham's fifth successive league draw a valuable point in their efforts to escape the relegation zone.\n• None Relive Tottenham v Fulham as it happened and analysis\n\nFulham made a bright start and Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa's fierce shot to test Hugo Lloris was a warning of what was to come from a side who remain 18th despite the draw.\n\nThe excellent Alphonse Areola twice denied Son in the first 45 minutes, first blocking a toe-poked effort before palming a header away.\n\nAreola could do nothing, however, to deny Kane the opener in the 25th minute, with the striker beating the Frenchman with a thumping diving header from an excellently-placed Sergio Reguilon cross.\n\nKane was off target with another header and Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Kenny Tete threatened to respond for the visitors, who had the woodwork to thank for denying Son in the second half after the South Korean scuffed a shot past Areola.\n\nSubstitute Ademola Lookman was instrumental following his introduction, creating the equaliser for Cavaleiro seven minutes after coming off the bench.\n\nThe powerful finish extended Fulham's unbeaten run to five league matches, which is their longest such sequence in the top flight in three Premier League campaigns since 2012-13.\n\nThis latest draw highlights just how resolute Parker's men have become after a slow start to the campaign, in which they collected just one point from their first six matches.\n\nSpurs punished for reliance on Kane and Son\n\nWhile the Cottagers may be in the relegation places and had lost a record 13 successive top-flight matches to London rivals, they presented a significantly sterner test of Mourinho's men than non-league side Marine - a team made up of NHS workers, teachers and a refuse collector - which Spurs cruised past in the third round of the FA Cup on Sunday.\n\nThe prolific pair of Kane and Son, a duo that has now scored 23 of Tottenham's 30 league goals this term, were among 10 to return to Spurs' starting line-up.\n\nSon was an unused substitute on their trip to Crosby but Kane, along with Lloris, Eric Dier, Serge Aurier and Harry Winks came back from being rested.\n\nWhile Kane was clinical with the nodded finish, he reacted in frustration as he flicked another header off target.\n\nThat miss, as well as the wastefulness of Reguilon - who sent an early effort over - and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg's tame strike, ensured Fulham were still in it at half-time.\n\nMoussa Sissoko also dithered in the box when an early second-half chance presented itself, allowing Tosin Adarabioyo to superbly block.\n\nSon's effort off the post, and their reliance on him and Kane for goals, ultimately proved costly as Cavaleiro ended the hosts' run of three clean sheets in January.\n\nAnd while Reguilon did have the ball in the back of the net again for Tottenham in the final minute, it was immediately disallowed for offside as Spurs missed the chance to move up to third in the table.\n\n'Some players had one day's training' - what the managers said\n\nTottenham manager Jose Mourinho, speaking to BBC Sport: \"In the first half Alphonse Areola made some impossible saves, a couple of others in the second, too.\n\n\"We have to kill a game and we didn't - but you have to keep a clean sheet, not make mistakes, so it was a very avoidable goal. The markers are there, there wasn't even an advantage in terms of numbers.\n\n\"Fulham were intelligent enough to understand the way they play, they change, they become more defensive and they are getting results. I thought they were a bit lucky but they were good.\n\n\"We have bad results and we should - and we could have - avoided these results.\"\n\nFulham boss Scott Parker, speaking to BBC Sport: \"I'm very proud of this team for what we've been through. There's a lot of talk around - everyone assumes about what happened. I know what we've been through the last two weeks.\n\n\"We had players out there today who had one day's training. What pleased me most was a desire and a passion and a real quality at times tonight.\n\n\"There's a real determination and hard work from this group of players. They've never shied away from anything.\"\n\nOn Monday's announcement of the game with Tottenham: \"We were told, in the end, at 9:30. It was put to me on Saturday, if there was a possibility, but I just batted it off thinking 'no chance'.\n\n\"This game was supposed to be scheduled 16 days ago - for 10 days some of these boys were locked up in their houses. I was surprised but it wasn't in terms of preparing for this game, we've prepared in two days for a game before, it was more just getting told of the consequences that you face.\"\n\nBest of the stats\n• None Tottenham and Fulham played out their first draw in the Premier League since December 2009, with Spurs winning 10 of the last 11 encounters (L1).\n• None Tottenham are unbeaten in their last eight London derbies in the Premier League (W3 D5), they've never gone longer without defeat against sides from the capital in the competition.\n• None Fulham have drawn five consecutive Premier League games, their longest such run since January 2007 (six games).\n• None Fulham have gained five points in their last four Premier League away games (W1 D2 L1), more than they collected in their previous 13 on the road in the competition (W1 D1 L11).\n• None Only Brighton (12) and Sheffield United (11) have dropped more points from winning positions than Spurs (10) in the Premier League this season.\n• None Tottenham's Harry Kane has become just the third player to score 25 Premier League goals with his head (25), his right foot (94) and his left foot (34) - after Robbie Fowler and Andy Cole.\n• None Ademola Lookman has been directly involved in five goals (two goals, three assists) in the Premier League this season, more than any other Fulham player.\n\nTottenham travel to Bramall Lane on Sunday (14:05 GMT) to face the Premier League's bottom side Sheffield United, who on Tuesday earned their first top-flight win of the season.\n\nFulham face Chelsea in another derby, hosting their west London rivals on Saturday (17:30 GMT).\n• None Offside, Tottenham Hotspur. Erik Lamela tries a through ball, but Son Heung-Min is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Antonee Robinson (Fulham) left footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Aboubakar Kamara. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Can the TV personality make it as a pro footballer?\n• None New drama brings the chilling crimes of Charles Sobhraj to life", "Doctors' leaders have called for urgent improvements in personal protective equipment for health workers.\n\nThe British Medical Association is appealing for a higher grade of face mask to guard against coronavirus infection.\n\nIt says there is 'growing evidence' that the virus is being spread through the air by aerosols.\n\nThese are tiny virus particles that can build up in stuffy rooms and they have been linked to outbreaks of Covid-19.\n\nThis follows an open letter from more than 1,500 health professionals for staff on general wards to be given the type of high-quality masks usually only worn in intensive care units.\n\nPublic Health England (PHE) has issued guidance on what PPE staff in different settings require. It was last updated in October 2020.\n\nEarly in the pandemic, it was widely believed that to catch the disease you had to either be close to an infected person and hit by droplets from their coughs or sneezes or touch a surface they had contaminated.\n\nBut research during the course of last year highlighted how it is also possible for the virus to be carried in what are called aerosols, drifting and accumulating in the air.\n\nMost infections are thought to have occurred indoors in badly ventilated rooms, and many studies have shown that the 'airborne route' can be an important factor.\n\nAcross the UK, the guidance for hospital staff is to wear surgical masks in most areas.\n\nMore sophisticated masks - a type known as FFP3 that includes an air filter - are only required in intensive care or when certain procedures are carried out that are known to generate aerosols.\n\nIn their letter, the consultants, doctors and nurses say healthcare workers are three to four times more likely to become infected than the general population.\n\nBut they point out that staff in intensive care units, who have the best level of protection, have about half the risk of catching the virus than colleagues on general wards.\n\nThe letter states: \"It is now essential that healthcare workers have their PPE upgraded to protect against airborne transmission\".\n\nBarry McAree, a consultant surgeon in Northern Ireland, is one of many healthcare workers to be ill with Covid.\n\nHe is self-isolating at home right after his testing positive for the second time.\n\nA signatory to the letter, he says his hospital in Antrim followed the guidance about which type of masks should be worn in which areas, but he became infected nonetheless. It is not clear how and when he caught it.\n\n\"There's so much evidence that we are talking about an airborne infection that it has to be said that it is not appropriate just to wear FFP3 in environments when aerosol generating procedures take place.\"\n\nHe believes that with such high levels of the virus in the community and in hospitals, staff should be wearing the higher-grade masks whenever they're close to patients.\n\nSurgical masks can be bought online for about 10p each, while the FFP3 masks are far more expensive about £5.00.\n\nDr Barry Jones, a retired gastroenterologist and leading expert on aerosols, says that's nothing compared to the cost of a patient with Covid,\n\nHe points to data showing that roughly a fifth of people needing hospital treatment for Covid may have acquired the infection in hospital in the first place.\n\n\"We should do everything we can to reduce that possibility - it's the air we share that's killing us.\"\n\nA few hospitals have decided to break with official guidance.\n\nIt's understood that hospitals in Cambridge, Plymouth and Exeter have decided to equip staff with FFP3 masks if they face patients diagnosed with Covid or suspected of having it.\n\nOne consultant, who did not want to be named, said: \"When you realise patients are more infectious at an earlier stage of disease and are presenting at general wards with poorer ventilation than intensive care units and staff are wearing a poorer quality of PPE, you really want those in a position of leadership to listen and to act.\"\n\nRCN General Secretary Dame Donna Kinnair, said: \"Without delay, they must state whether existing PPE guidance is adequate for the new variant.\n\n\"While more research is carried out, we ask for the precautionary principle to be applied and staff to be given a higher level of PPE if working with suspected or confirmed cases.\"\n\nPublic Health England said this was a matter for NHS England to comment on.\n\nA Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: \"The safety of NHS and social care staff has always been our top priority and we continue to work tirelessly to deliver PPE that protects those on the frontline.\n\n\"UK guidance on the safest levels of PPE is written by experts and agreed by all four chief medical officers. Our guidance is kept under constant review based on the latest evidence and data.\n\n\"Emerging evidence and data, including on variant strains, will be continually monitored and reviewed, and the guidance updated accordingly if needed.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Home Secretary Priti Patel: \"Our selfless police officers... will enforce the regulations and I will back them to do so\"\n\nPeople have been urged to \"play your part\" and follow Covid rules by Home Secretary Priti Patel, who says she will back police to enforce laws.\n\nAt a No 10 briefing, Ms Patel said a minority were \"putting the health of the nation at risk\" by flouting rules.\n\nPolice are \"moving more quickly to issuing fines\", she added, with nearly 45,000 fixed penalty notices issued across the UK.\n\nAnother 1,243 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid.\n\nAnd there have been a further 45,533 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.\n\nMeanwhile, another 145,076 people have received a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 20,768 a second dose, bringing the totals respectively to 2,431,648 and 412,167.\n\nAt the briefing, Ms Patel said: \"My message today to anyone refusing to do the right thing is simple: if you do not play your part, our selfless police officers - who are out there risking their own lives every day to keep us safe - they will enforce the regulations.\n\n\"And I will back them to do so, to protect our NHS and to save lives.\"\n\nIt comes after the UK's most senior police officer said lockdown rule-breakers were more likely to be fined as Covid laws would be enforced \"more quickly\".\n\nMetropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said her officers had been forced to break up parties, despite hospitals in London struggling to cope with rising patient numbers.\n\nChairman of the National Police Chiefs' Council Martin Hewitt, who also spoke at the Downing Street briefing, said people should be asking themselves whether their reason for leaving home was \"truly essential\".\n\nHe stressed that police officers had been \"putting themselves at risk in order to keep people safe\", and said it had been \"disappointing\" to see some of the behaviour by rule-breakers.\n\nHe said examples of recent breaches included:\n\nMr Hewitt said he made \"no apology\" for police issuing fines, and warned people breaking rules - such as by organising parties or not wearing face coverings on public transport - to \"expect\" a fine.\n\nAsked if there needed to be more clarity on the guidance around exercise and staying local, Mr Hewitt said it would be wrong to put a \"particular distance\" on how far people could exercise from their home - as it would be too difficult for police to enforce.\n\nHe said it was right there was an exception to allow people to exercise, but insisted it was the public's responsibility to make sure they were doing so safely.\n\nThere is a big focus on adherence to lockdown rules. But what has almost gone unnoticed is the fact that cases may have actually started falling.\n\nThere has now been two consecutive days where newly diagnosed cases have hovered around the 46,000 mark. Up to the weekend, the average was close to 60,000.\n\nThe drop has largely been driven by falls in new cases in London, the south east and east of England.\n\nIn some regions, cases are still going up. The north west of England is causing particular concern.\n\nIt is too early for the vaccination programme to be having any significant impact, so a combination of the national lockdown on top of the tier four restrictions that were imposed in some areas before Christmas look like they may be beginning to have an impact.\n\nCare must be taken in reading too much into a couple of days' data.\n\nHospital cases are still rising - patients being admitted at the moment are the ones who were infected a week or so ago - but it does at least offer a glimmer of hope.\n\nLater in the news conference, NHS medical director for London Dr Vin Diwakar said the capital's Nightingale hospital has reopened and was admitting patients to help with the coronavirus spread.\n\nHe told reporters it was taking non-Covid patients to help free up beds in London's hospitals.\n\nDr Diwakar warned that if levels of hospitalisation in the capital continued to rise then more patients would need to be transferred out of London, adding that the NHS across the country was under pressure.\n\nIn Birmingham, 200 doctors are being redeployed to one of the country's largest intensive care units as it nears capacity.\n\nThe University Hospitals Birmingham Trust said there were 873 patients with Covid-19 in their hospitals, with 125 in intensive care.\n\nEarlier, crime and policing minister Kit Malthouse said people have a \"duty\" to make this lockdown \"the last one\".\n\n\"We are urging the small minority of people who aren't taking this seriously to do so now, and [we say] to them that, if they don't, they are much more likely to get fined by the police,\" he told BBC Breakfast.\n\nDame Cressida told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the move towards greater enforcement was \"common sense\" rather than a show of \"dictatorial policing\".\n\nFines start at £200 in England and Northern Ireland, and £60 in Wales and Scotland. Large parties can be shut down by the police, with fines of up to £10,000.\n\nEngland is currently under a national lockdown, meaning people must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar lockdown measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - all of which are in charge of deciding and enforcing their own coronavirus restrictions.\n• None Could I be fined for exercising?", "YouTube has become the latest social network to suspend President Trump.\n\nThe Google-owned service has prevented his account from uploading new videos or live-streaming material for a minimum of seven days, and has said it may extend the period.\n\nThe firm said the channel had broken its rules over the incitement of violence.\n\nThe president had posted several videos on Tuesday night, some of which remain online.\n\nGoogle has not provided details of what Mr Trump said in the video it banned, however the BBC has discovered it was a clip from a press conference he had given on Tuesday.\n\nThe move came hours after civil rights groups had threatened to organise an ads boycott against YouTube.\n\nPresident Trump's YouTube channel remains live but he cannot post new videos\n\nJim Steyer - who previously helped coordinate similar action against Facebook last year - had called on Google to go further and take the president's channel offline.\n\n\"We hope they will make it permanent. It is disappointing that it took a Trump-incited attack to get here, but appears that the major platforms are finally beginning to step up,\" he tweeted after the suspension.YouTube suspends Donald Trump's channel\n\nGoogle said that Mr Trump could still face his page being closed if he falls foul of its three-strikes policy.\n\n\"After review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to Donald J Trump's channel for violating our policies,\" it said in a statement.\n\n\"It now has its first strike and is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a minimum of seven days.\n\n\"Given the ongoing concerns about violence, we will also be indefinitely disabling comments on President Trump's channel, as we've done to other channels where there are safety concerns found in the comments section.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Apple chief Tim Cook told CBS News that those involved with the riots on the US Capitol last week should be held accountable.\n\n\"Everyone that had a part in it needs to be held accountable. I think no one is above the law. We're a rule of law country.\"\n\nHe did not mention President Trump by name, but added: \"I don't think we should let it go. This is something we've got to be serious about.\"\n\nMr Trump had already been suspended by Facebook and Instagram following last week's rioting on Capitol Hill, until at least the transition of power to Joe Biden on 20 January.\n\nTwitter has gone further by imposing a permanent ban.\n\nAmazon's Twitch has also disabled his account on its platform. And Snapchat has locked his account.\n\nShopify, Pinterest, TikTok and Reddit have also taken steps to restrict content associated with the president and his calls for the results of the US election to be challenged.\n\nYouTube has often been behind its social media rivals when it comes to moderating user-posted content.\n\nOver the years it has come under fire from campaign groups and big advertisers for not acting swiftly.\n\nNow it has followed Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat in restricting Donald Trump's access to its platform.\n\nAnd as so often, there's a lack of transparency about exactly what prompted the President's suspension.\n\nIt's only saying that a video violated its policies on incitement to violence, but is indicating that the issue was the President's remarks to reporters on Tuesday where he refused to take responsibility for the attack on Congress.\n\nOf course, those comments were broadcast on TV channels, including the BBC, and are still widely available.\n\nIt's not long ago that the social media landscape was being described as the Wild West when it came to moderating content - now the platforms suddenly seem eager to appear more cautious than the mainstream media.\n\nIt's amazing what the threat of regulation can do.", "A further 1,564 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the biggest figure reported in a single day since the pandemic began.\n\nIt brings the total number of deaths by that measure to 84,767.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said there have now been more deaths in the second wave than the first.\n\nAnd the prime minister warned there was a \"very substantial\" risk of intensive care capacity being \"overtopped\".\n\nSpeaking to the Commons Liaison Committee, Boris Johnson said the situation was \"very, very tough\" in the NHS and the strain on staff was \"colossal\".\n\nHe appealed to the public to follow lockdown rules, which require people in England to stay at home and only go out for limited reasons, such as for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nA further 47,525 new cases have also been recorded.\n\nPerhaps the most distressing element about the latest Covid deaths is that the numbers are almost certainly going to rise from here.\n\nPeople who are dying now are likely to have been infected three or so weeks ago, around Christmas time.\n\nThat was at a point when infection rates were rising quite steeply, so in the coming days and weeks we should, sadly, expect to see more deaths than this being reported.\n\nToday's figures are affected by the weekend, which sees delays in reporting deaths that tend to translate into higher figures from Tuesday onwards.\n\nCurrently around 1,000 people a day on average are dying once you take this into account.\n\nBut the figures also provide some hope. For the third day in a row the number of newly diagnosed infections are well below 50,000.\n\nThere have been several days where they have exceeded 60,000.\n\nIf that trend continues, and the number of new cases keeps coming down, that will eventually translate into the number of deaths falling.\n\nBut it is going to take some weeks for that to happen.\n\nThese are, as many have been saying, the darkest days of the pandemic so far.\n\nEarlier, during Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said lockdown measures were \"starting to show signs of some effect\".\n\nLabour's Sir Keir Starmer called for tougher restrictions in England, asking why they were weaker in this lockdown compared with March.\n\nDuring the first lockdown, nurseries were closed to most children and it was not permitted to exercise with someone from another household.\n\n\"We keep things under constant review,\" Mr Johnson replied. \"If there is any need to toughen up restrictions - which I don't rule out - we will of course come to this House.\"\n\nHe stressed that it was early days, but said: \"The lockdown measures we have in place combined with tier four measures that we were using are starting to show signs of some effect.\"\n\nLater, asked by the Commons Liaison Committee whether schools could reopen after February half-term, Mr Johnson said: \"It is far, far too early for us to say [early signs of progress mean] we can go into any kind of relaxation in the middle of February, we've got to work very hard to achieve that.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson took questions from MPs on the Commons Liaison Committee\n\nThe prime minister also said on Wednesday that Covid vaccinations will be offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week as soon as supply allows.\n\nThe number of people in the UK who have received the first dose of a vaccine has risen to 2,639,309 - up by 207,661 from the day before.\n\nCommenting on the latest daily figures, PHE's Dr Doyle said: \"With each passing day, more and more people are tragically losing their lives to this terrible virus.\"\n\nShe added: \"It is essential that we stay at home, minimise contact with other people and act as if you have the virus.\"\n\nThe vast majority of the deaths reported on Tuesday happened over the past week. However, at least 100 were in 2020, with one death dating back to May.\n\nThe previous highest daily death toll was on Friday, when 1,325 people were reported to have died.\n\nThese government figures count people who died within 28 days of testing positive, but there are other ways of measuring the total number of deaths.\n\nWhen all deaths where coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate are counted, plus deaths known to have occurred more recently, the number of deaths involving Covid in the UK is more than 100,000.\n\nAnother method is to count excess deaths - all deaths over and above the usual number at the time of year.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Johnson: \"We are taking steps to ensure that we do not see the import of this new variant\".\n\nMeanwhile, the prime minister has said he is \"concerned\" about a new coronavirus variant that is believed to have emerged in Brazil. He acknowledged it is not yet clear how effective existing vaccines will be against the latest new variant.\n\nThe UK is taking steps to make sure it is not brought into the country, Mr Johnson said.\n\nA government Covid committee is meeting on Thursday to discuss the possibility of stopping flights from Brazil.\n\nArrivals from Brazil already have to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nAnd from Monday, anyone arriving into the UK from any country will have to present a negative Covid test. The new rule had been due to come into force this week but the government said it was being put back to give travellers more time to prepare.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHundreds of people have joined a march organised following claims a man died hours after being released by police in Cardiff.\n\nThe family of Mohamud Mohammed Hassan, 24, claim he was assaulted in custody.\n\nMore than 300 people took part in a march from the city centre to Cardiff Bay police station.\n\nSouth Wales Police said it found no evidence of excessive force. The police watchdog said initial tests showed Mr Hassan was not killed by any injuries.\n\nThe Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said toxicology tests were now being carried out and it was awaiting the full post-mortem results.\n\nEarlier, First Minister Mark Drakeford said the reports of Mr Hassan's death were \"deeply concerning\".\n\nMr Hassan was arrested at his Roath home on Friday on suspicion of breach of the peace but released without charge on Saturday morning.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Hassan's aunt Zainab Hassan told BBC Wales she had seen Mr Hassan within an hour of his release.\n\n\"He was released on Saturday morning with lots of wounds on his body and lots of bruises,\" she said.\n\n\"He didn't have these wounds when he was arrested and when he came out of Cardiff Bay police station, he had them.\"\n\nIn a virtual session of the Welsh Parliament on Monday, Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price said: \"Every effort should be made to seek the truth of what happened.\"\n\nHe said he wanted to know why Mr Hassan was arrested and what happened during his arrest.\n\nMr Hassan's aunt Zainab Hassan said she saw him after his release\n\n\"Why did this young man die?,\" he added.\n\nMr Price said any inquiry should not be prejudged, but asked if the first minister would \"help the family find those answers\".\n\nIn response, Mr Drakeford said reports of the story were \"deeply concerning\".\n\n\"Our thoughts must be with the family of a young man who was... a fit and healthy individual,\" the Cardiff West MS said.\n\nMark Drakeford said he was deeply concerned by the reports\n\nMr Drakeford, who said the death must be \"properly investigated\", said the first step in any inquiry would be to allow the IOPC to carry out their work, which he said he expected \"to be done rigorously and with full and visible independence\".\n\nHe added that if there were things the Welsh Government could do \"I will make sure that we attend properly to those\".\n\nProtesters on Tuesday afternoon chanted \"no justice, no peace\" and called for the police force to release CCTV of Mr Hassan's time in custody.\n\nProtesters on Tuesday afternoon marched from the city centre to Cardiff Bay\n\nIn a statement on Monday, South Wales Police said Mr Hassan was arrested at his home in Newport Road on Friday night and taken to Cardiff Bay police station.\n\nHe was released at 08:30 GMT on Saturday and officers returned to the property at about 22:30 following his death.\n\nIt added: \"As part of the South Wales Police investigation CCTV and body-worn video has already been, and will continue to be, examined.\n\n\"This will assist in establishing and understanding the events that took place.\n\n\"Early findings by the force indicate no misconduct issues and no excessive force.\"\n\nProtesters were heard chanting \"no justice, no peace\"\n\nCatrin Evans, the IOPC's director for Wales, said its investigation would focus on Mr Hassan's arrest, the journey in a police van to custody and his time at Cardiff Bay police station, including whether relevant assessments were made before he was released.\n\nShe said they would be \"urgently examining the extensive relevant CCTV footage and body-worn video\" and would be speaking to the officers involved as well as witnesses who saw his arrest on Friday evening and his movements the next day after leaving custody.\n\nShe added: \"I send my condolences to Mr Hassan's family and friends, and to everyone affected by his sad death.\n\n\"We are aware of concerns being expressed and questions being asked about use of force by police officers. We will look carefully at the level of force used during the interaction and I would urge people show patience while our inquiries, which will take some time, are made.\"\n\nMs Evans added: \"An interim report from a post-mortem examination is awaited.\n\n\"Preliminary indications are that there is no physical trauma injury to explain a cause of death, and toxicology tests are required.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Bonnie Watson Coleman is one of three Democratic lawmakers to have tested positive since the invasion of the US Capitol\n\nThree US lawmakers have tested positive for the coronavirus after sheltering for hours with colleagues during last week's deadly assault on the Capitol.\n\nHouse Democrats Bonnie Watson Coleman, Pramila Jayapal and Brad Schneider have announced their diagnoses.\n\nLast Wednesday they hunkered down in secure rooms, seeking refuge from an invasion of Congress in which five people died.\n\nSome Republicans were not wearing masks during the ordeal, footage suggests.\n\nVideo shared by Punchbowl News shows several lawmakers apparently refusing facemasks offered to them.\n\nHowever, CBS pictures from inside the chamber show Ms Jayapal was herself not wearing a mask at one point.\n\nMedical experts fear more lawmakers may have contracted the disease, potentially amounting to a super-spreader event at a time when coronavirus infections and deaths continue to rise in the US.\n\nThe US has recorded the highest number of coronavirus infections (22.6 million) and deaths (367,000) in the world, with no sign of the epidemic abating, despite the limited roll-out of vaccines.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. When a mob stormed the US capitol\n\nOver the weekend, top congressional doctor Brian Monahan told lawmakers and congressional staff who sheltered together from the riots to get tested.\n\n\"The time in this room was several hours for some and briefer for others,\" Mr Monahan said. \"During this time, individuals may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection.\"\n\nMr Monahan did not say how many lawmakers were in the room, but called on them to observe social-distancing measures and wear masks.\n\nNew Jersey Democratic Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman was the first lawmaker to confirm she had tested positive on Monday. In a tweet, the 75-year-old cancer survivor said she was resting at home with \"mild, cold-like symptoms\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMs Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington state, and Illinois congressman Mr Schneider revealed they had tested positive on Tuesday.\n\nAll three Democrats accused Republican lawmakers of refusing to wear masks as they huddled together for safety last Wednesday.\n\n\"Any member who refuses to wear a mask should be fully held accountable for endangering our lives,\" Ms Jayapal wrote, calling for mask transgressors to be fined.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Rep. Pramila Jayapal This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe wearing of masks has been an explosive political issue throughout the pandemic in the US, with some lawmakers openly refusing to don a face covering.\n\nA Republican congressman, Jake LaTurner of Kansas, tested positive for Covid-19 after participating in a House vote to reject Arizona's presidential election results on Wednesday.\n\nBut on Tuesday, Mr LaTurner's spokesperson told the Topeka Capital-Journal newspaper that he was not in the secure area of the Capitol building where multiple members have since tested positive.\n\nOn Friday Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), had warned that Wednesday's rioting would probably have significant health consequences.\n\n\"You have to anticipate that this is another surge event,\" he told the McClatchy news agency. \"You had largely unmasked individuals in a non-distanced fashion, who were all through the Capitol.\"\n\nCoronavirus has swept through the heart of the American political establishment during the pandemic. One notable outbreak happened in September last year, when an event was held at the White House to announce the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court justice.\n\nSoon after, US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the virus, along with numerous other senior government officials.", "Tesco, Asda and Waitrose have become the latest supermarkets to say they will deny entry to shoppers who do not wear face masks unless they are medically exempt.\n\nIt follows a similar move by Morrisons, while Sainsbury's says it will challenge those who flout the rules.\n\nRetailers have been criticised for not doing enough to stop people breaking Covid rules as infections spread.\n\nBut enforcement of face coverings is officially a police responsibility.\n\nHowever, supermarkets can deny entry to their premises which is private property, and can call the police if someone refuses to follow the rules or becomes abusive.\n\nSenior police figures have reportedly said there is little officers can do to enforce the rules in shops because they are so busy.\n\nBut policing minister Kit Malthouse said that they would offer \"backup if things go seriously wrong\".\n\n\"What we hope is that in the vast majority of cases the enforcement, or the reminders if you like, put in place by the store owners will be enough,\" he told BBC News.\n\nA Tesco spokeswoman said the supermarket chain had decided to strengthen its policies.\n\n\"To protect our customers and colleagues, we won't let anyone into our stores who is not wearing a face covering, unless they are exempt in line with government guidance,\" she said.\n\n\"We are also asking our customers to shop alone, unless they're a carer or with children. To support our colleagues, we will have additional security in stores to help manage this.\"\n\nAn Asda spokesman said if customers had forgotten their face coverings, it would continue to offer them one free of charge.\n\nBut he added: \"Should a customer refuse to wear a covering without a valid medical reason and be in any way challenging to our colleagues about doing so, our security colleagues will refuse their entry.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How to wear your mask. Hint: it's not any of these three options\n\nAndrew Murphy, executive director of operations at Waitrose, said: \"We've listened carefully to the clear change in tone and emphasis of the views and information shared by the UK's governments in recent days.\n\n\"By insisting on the wearing of face coverings, over and above the social distancing measures we already have in place, we aim to make our shops even safer for customers.\"\n\nOn Tuesday, Sainsbury's told the BBC it did not have the power to deny entry to shoppers without masks. However, trials showed customers complied more when asked to wear masks by security guards at the door, it said.\n\nIn an interview with the BBC, Sainsbury's boss, Simon Roberts, said \"we are not going to ban customers\".\n\nBut he urged shoppers to wear a mask and shop alone.\n\n\"By doing that we will help keep everybody safe,\" he said.\n\nThe Co-op also said it would not ban shoppers without masks from entering, and instead urged customers to take responsibility for wearing a face covering when visiting its stores, as it was mandatory by law.\n\nBoss of Co-op Food Jo Whitfield said: \"We've increased our in-store messaging to remind customers and government guidance does state that the police can take measures if members of the public don't comply with this law.\"\n\nIceland said it would take a similar approach, adding the vast majority of its customers continued to shop in compliance with the law.\n\n\"In view of the rising tide of abuse and violence being directed at our store colleagues, we do not expect them to confront the small minority of customers who aggressively refuse to comply with the law,\" a spokesman added.\n\nIn England, the police can issue a £200 fine to someone breaking the face covering rules. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, a £60 fine can be imposed. Repeat offenders face bigger fines.", "President Trump has just become the first sitting president to be impeached twice by the US House of Representatives.\n\nWe asked members of our BBC voter panel to weigh in as well.\n\nHere's what they said:\n\nQuote Message: Everything he has done is unconstitutional and, as a president, the number one thing he should be doing is upholding the Constitution. If not for him continually fighting the election results and claiming the election was stolen, if not for him holding that rally near the Capitol, if not for him talking about 'uprising', last week would very likely not have happened. Unfortunately it was completely predictable. from Melissa Dangaran 51, from Minnesota Everything he has done is unconstitutional and, as a president, the number one thing he should be doing is upholding the Constitution. If not for him continually fighting the election results and claiming the election was stolen, if not for him holding that rally near the Capitol, if not for him talking about 'uprising', last week would very likely not have happened. Unfortunately it was completely predictable.\n\nQuote Message: Unprecedented. He should not have been impeached at all. There is no justification, no legal basis, no constitutional basis for it. It's a rush to judgment for ulterior motives and a dark stain on our country. I'm concerned about the double standard and I'm afraid our Constitution is on its deathbed. Why would anybody who's rational think that our president meant for people to go break into the Capitol? from Belinda Noah 45, from Florida Unprecedented. He should not have been impeached at all. There is no justification, no legal basis, no constitutional basis for it. It's a rush to judgment for ulterior motives and a dark stain on our country. I'm concerned about the double standard and I'm afraid our Constitution is on its deathbed. Why would anybody who's rational think that our president meant for people to go break into the Capitol?\n\nQuote Message: It's more of a symbolic impeachment at this point because he'll be out soon, but it's necessary nonetheless. Not only is he a threat to our national security, but he doesn't condone white supremacy and other threats. It's deeply saddening to me. from Williams Morales 19, from Georgia It's more of a symbolic impeachment at this point because he'll be out soon, but it's necessary nonetheless. Not only is he a threat to our national security, but he doesn't condone white supremacy and other threats. It's deeply saddening to me.\n\nQuote Message: I was in DC at the rally - not near the Capitol - but I saw the president speak with my own eyes and he did not call for anyone to storm the building or cause harm. It's just a way to ensure he will not run in the next four years. It is political and it will create a bigger divide between left and right. All violence should be condemned fairly and justly. It was a very sad outcome, but I do not believe it was the most horrible day in our country's history. from Gabriel Montalvo 21, from New York I was in DC at the rally - not near the Capitol - but I saw the president speak with my own eyes and he did not call for anyone to storm the building or cause harm. It's just a way to ensure he will not run in the next four years. It is political and it will create a bigger divide between left and right. All violence should be condemned fairly and justly. It was a very sad outcome, but I do not believe it was the most horrible day in our country's history.", "US rapper YFN Lucci is wanted by police in Atlanta, Georgia, for his alleged involvement in the murder of a local man last month.\n\nTwo suspects have been arrested over the killing of the 28-year-old victim.\n\nAuthorities have appealed for help in locating YFN Lucci, 29 - whose birth name is Rayshawn Bennett.\n\nHe is wanted on suspicion of murder, aggravated assault and participation in criminal street gang activity, police told US media.\n\nThey say another man was wounded in the incident.\n\nLast month YFN Lucci released new material under the title Wish Me Well 3.\n\nIn 2018 rapper Cardi B was forced to defend her then-fiancé Offset against allegations of homophobia after he used a lyric by YFN Lucci that included the word \"queer.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jasmina Alston This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Many hospital staff treating the sickest patients during the first wave of the pandemic were left traumatised by the experience, a study suggests.\n\nResearchers at King's College London asked 709 workers at nine intensive care units in England about how they were coping as the first wave eased.\n\nNearly half reported symptoms of severe anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or problem drinking.\n\nOne in seven had thoughts of self-harming or being \"better off dead\".\n\nNursing staff were more likely to report feelings of distress than doctors or other clinical staff in the anonymous web-based survey, which was carried out in June and July last year.\n\nVictoria Sullivan, an intensive care nurse at Queen's Hospital in Romford, said she often can't sleep because she's thinking about what is happening at the hospital.\n\nHer worst moment was breaking the news of a death on the phone, she said, adding that the screams from the patient's relatives \"will honestly stay with me forever\".\n\n\"Telling someone over the phone and all you can say is 'I'm really sorry', whilst they're crying their heart out, is quite traumatising,\" she said.\n\n\"Although you're saying how sorry you are, in the back of your mind, you're also thinking: 'I've got three other patients I've got to go and see, the infusions need drawing up, and meds need to be given and a nurse needs support'.\n\n\"The guilt is just too much.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn the study, which has been published online but has not yet been peer-reviewed:\n\nThe researchers say the findings are, in some ways, not surprising given the pressures ICU staff have faced.\n\nTheir workload has been relentless, caring for more patients than is ideal and under extremely challenging circumstances.\n\nLead researcher Prof Neil Greenberg said the findings should be a \"wake-up call\" for NHS managers.\n\nHe said: \"The severity of symptoms we identified are highly likely to impair some ICU staff's ability to provide high-quality care as well as negatively impacting on their quality of life.\"\n\nProf Greenberg said it was important to have \"occupationally focused\" mental health care to try to keep staff fighting fit or, where this was not possible, to ensure they got help to access the right sort of care.\n\nAnd he said that, while their work suggested things may have improved over the summer, there were signs the numbers experiencing mental health problems would rise in November and December.\n\nProf Partha Kar, diabetes consultant at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS trust, said it was \"really, really difficult seeing people battling through all sorts of odds\".\n\nHe added: \"We've got sickness rates high all around us and colleagues from all specialities, where they're not accustomed to seeing such ill patients, coming out and trying to help.\n\n\"Understandably the impact of that on everybody's mental health is not insignificant either... it's such a tough place to be in.\"\n\nPTSD is an anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events.\n\nSomeone with PTSD often relives the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks, and may experience feelings of isolation, irritability and guilt.\n\nThey may also have problems sleeping, such as insomnia, and find concentrating difficult.\n\nThese symptoms are often severe and persistent enough to have a significant impact on the person's day-to-day life.\n\nCauses of PTSD can include:\n\nAn NHS spokesperson said: \"This is an incredibly tough time for NHS staff working on the front line which is why we have invested £15m in support, including 38 local mental health and well-being hubs and a service for staff with complex mental health needs, such as trauma and addiction.\n\n\"The public can also help to support doctors and nurses by following the 'hands, space, face' guidance to reduce pressure on hospitals and save lives.\"\n\nIf you or someone you know has been affected by mental health issues, the organisations listed at this link might be able to help", "Sarah Ferguson has a long-held interest in history, especially that of the royals and the aristocracy\n\nSarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, has written her first novel for adults, to be released by the leading romantic fiction publisher Mills & Boon.\n\nHer Heart for a Compass is based on the life of the duchess's great-great-aunt, Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott.\n\nShe has previously written children's books, non-fiction about Queen Victoria, and her own memoirs.\n\nShe said: \"I am proud to bring my personal brand of historical fiction to the publishing world.\"\n\n\"It all started with researching my ancestry. Digging into the history of the Montagu-Douglas Scotts, I first came across Lady Margaret, who intrigued me because she shared one of my given names,\" she added.\n\n\"But although her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, were close friends with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, I was unable to discover much about my namesake's early life, and so was born the idea which became Her Heart for a Compass.\"\n\nThe story will include some real people and events and also draw on the duchess's own experiences but she said \"my imagination took over\".\n\n\"I have long held a passion for historical research and telling the stories of strong women in history through film and television,\" she added.\n\nFor the big screen, she conceived the idea for the 2009 movie Young Victoria, starring Emily Blunt and written by Julian Fellowes.\n\nShe was a producer on the film and her daughter, Princess Beatrice, had a minor part. The duchess also worked on a documentary about Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, Prince Albert's mother.\n\nShe recently revived her children's book series, Budgie the Helicopter.\n\nHeart for a Compass was written with the collaboration of established Mills & Boon novelist Marguerite Kaye, who has created more than 50 novels for the imprint, set in a variety of eras.\n\nThe duchess's novel is a saga that takes in events at Queen Victoria's court and the grand country houses of Scotland and Ireland, and crosses into the slums of London and on to the bustle of 1870s New York.\n\nMills & Boon described the story as a \"fascinating journey of a woman, born into the higher echelons of society, who desires to break the mould, follow her internal compass (her heart) and discover her raison d'être - and falling in love along the way\".\n\nMills & Boon is the UK's top publisher of romantic fiction and says it sells one of its novels every 10 seconds.\n\nThe stories are \"written by women, for women, it has a romance for every reader promising a happily-ever-after ending every time\", it adds.\n\nOther well-known names to venture into the Mills & Boon world include Made in Chelsea and I'm A Celebrity star Georgia Toffolo, whose debut romance novel, Meet Me in London, came out last year.\n\nBest-selling authors have also created stories for Mills & Boon under a pseudonym, including Destiny writer Sally Beauman (Vanessa James) and The Shell Seekers author Rosamunde Pilcher (Jane Fraser). PG Wodehouse also contributed a story in 1912.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Who were the protesters that broke into buildings on Capitol Hill after attending a rally in support of Donald Trump?\n\nSome were carrying symbols and flags strongly associated with particular ideas and factions, but in practice many of the members and their causes overlap.\n\nImages show individuals associated with a range of extreme and far-right groups and supporters of fringe online conspiracy theories, many of whom have long been active online and at pro-Trump rallies.\n\nOne of the most startling images, quickly shared across social media, shows a man dressed with a painted face, fur hat and horns, holding an American flag.\n\nHe's been identified as Jake Angeli, a well-known supporter of the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon. He calls himself the QAnon Shaman.\n\nHis social media presence shows him attending multiple QAnon events and posting YouTube videos about deep state conspiracies.\n\nHe was pictured in November making a speech in Phoenix, Arizona, about unproven claims the election was fraudulent.\n\nHis personal Facebook page is filled with images and memes relating to all sorts of extreme ideas and conspiracy theories.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAnother group spotted at the storming of the Capitol were members of the far-right group Proud Boys.\n\nThe organisation was founded in 2016 and is anti-immigrant and all male. In the first US presidential debate President Trump in response to a question about white supremacists and militias said: \"Proud Boys - stand back and stand by.\"\n\nThe individual on the right is Nick Ochs, who describes himself as a \"Proud Boy Elder\".\n\nOne of their members, Nick Ochs, tweeted a selfie inside the building saying \"Hello from the Capital lol\". He also filmed a live stream inside.\n\nWe haven't identified the individual standing on the left in the above image.\n\nMr Ochs' profile on the messaging app Telegram describes himself as a \"Proud Boy Elder from Hawaii.\"\n\nIndividuals with large followings online were also spotted at the protests.\n\nAmong them was the social media personality Tim Gionet, who goes under the pseudonym \"Baked Alaska\".\n\nTim Gionet, better known as \"Baked Alaska\", livestreamed himself from the Capitol on Wednesday\n\nHis livestream from inside the Capitol posted on a niche streaming service was watched by thousands of people and showed him talking to other protesters.\n\nA Trump supporter, Mr Gionet has made a name for himself as an internet troll.\n\nYouTube banned his channel in October after he posted videos of himself harassing shop workers and refusing to wear a face-mask during the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nOther platforms that have previously shut down his accounts include Twitter and PayPal.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'Treason, traitors and thugs' - the words lawmakers used to describe Capitol riot\n\nA photo that went viral of a man who'd entered the office of senior Democrat politician Nancy Pelosi has been named as Richard Barnett from Arkansas.\n\nRichard Barnett left a message for US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying \"we will not back down\"\n\nOutside Capitol Hill buildings, he told the New York Times that he took an envelope from the speaker's office and says left a note calling her an expletive.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Matthew Rosenberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nReacting to the New York Times interview, Republican congressman Steve Womack said on Twitter: \"I'm sickened to learn that the below actions were perpetrated by a constituent.\"\n\nLocal media reports say Mr Barnett is involved in a group that supports gun rights, and that he was interviewed at a 'Stop the Steal' rally following the presidential election - a movement that refused to accept Joe Biden's victory and supports the president's unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.\n\nIn the interview at the rally organised by 'Engaged Patriots' he said: \"If you don't like it, send somebody out to get me 'cause I ain't going down easy.\"\n\nThe group associated with Mr Barnett held a fundraiser in October with proceeds going towards body cameras for the local police department, according to the Westside Eagle Observer local paper.\n\nAs the events were unfolding, many social media users, especially those associated with QAnon and supporters of President Trump, were claiming that agitators from the loose-knit left-wing group antifa were involved.\n\nThe implication was that these activists were disguised as Trump supporters to create disruption.\n\nA number of prominent Republican politicians, such as US Representative Matt Gaetz, claimed it was antifa masquerading as Trump supporters.\n\nOne widely-shared post claimed one protester had a \"communist hammer\" tattoo, as evidence that he wasn't a Trump supporter.\n\nOn closer inspection, the symbol is from the video game series Dishonored.\n\nThere have also been suggestions that Mr Angeli, the man wearing fur and horns, was a Black Lives Matter supporter, with users sharing an image of him at a BLM event in Arizona.\n\nMr Angeli was indeed at that event, but he was there as a counter-protester. In images taken there, he's seen holding a QAnon sign.\n\nAt least one of the rioters was holding a Confederate flag, which represented US states that supported the continuation of slavery during the American civil war. For this reason, it is considered by many to be a symbol of racism and there have been calls to ban it across the US. Others see it as an important part of southern US history.\n\nA protester carries the Confederate flag after breaching US Capitol security\n\nIn July it was announced that the flag could no longer be flown on American military properties because of a new policy to reject \"divisive symbols\".\n\nPresident Trump has defended the use of the Confederate flag in the past, saying: \"I know people that like the Confederate flag and they're not thinking about slavery...I just think it's freedom of speech.\"\n\nThere were also protesters holding aloft flags featuring a coiled rattlesnake on a yellow background, often accompanied by the phrase \"don't tread on me\". This is known as the Gadsden flag, harking back to the American revolution and the war to expel British colonialists.\n\nIt was adopted by libertarians in the 1970s, according to an article in the New Yorker, and more recently became a favourite symbol of conservative Tea Party activists.\n\nThe flag has been adopted by the right over the past couple of decades, says Prof Margaret Weir, a political science expert at Brown University.\n\nIt is also used by anti-government, white supremacist groups who embrace violence, she says.", "The Christmas Day special saw Ashley Banjo (r) sit in for Simon Cowell\n\nThe filming of the next series of ITV show Britain's Got Talent has been postponed due to coronavirus concerns.\n\nProduction on the show was due to begin later this month but will now start at a later date yet to be confirmed.\n\nITV said it had decided to move \"the record and broadcast\" of the show's 15th series\" to safeguard \"the well-being of everyone involved\".\n\nThe filming of the programme's audition shows typically involves hundreds of people congregating en masse.\n\nIt is understood this has been considered to be unviable due to lockdown restrictions currently in place.\n\nWriting on Twitter, ITV thanked viewers for their \"continued love and support\" for the long-running programme.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by BGT This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe filming of last year's Christmas special was also postponed after at least three crew members tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nThe Christmas Day programme saw former contestants return to perform again alongside the show's panel of celebrity judges.\n\nThe show saw Ashley Banjo sit in for Simon Cowell, who spent much of last year recovering from an electric bicycle accident.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Prime Minister Boris Johnson has condemned the \"disgraceful scenes\" in the US, after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed Congress and clashed with police.\n\nRioters breached the Capitol building where lawmakers met to confirm Joe Biden's presidential election victory.\n\nThe PM said it was \"vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power\".\n\nAnd Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was a \"direct attack on democracy\".\n\n\"The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power,\" Mr Johnson tweeted.\n\nScottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, meanwhile, called the events \"utterly horrifying\".\n\nFriend of President Trump and leader of Reform UK - formerly the Brexit Party - Nigel Farage tweeted: \"Storming Capitol Hill is wrong. The protesters must leave.\"\n\nThe US Congress has now reconvened after the violence - spurred on by Mr Trump's unproven claims of electoral fraud - to certify Mr Biden's victory in the US election in November\n\nHundreds of the president's supporters stormed the Capitol, and staged an occupation of the building in Washington DC.\n\nBoth chambers of Congress were forced into recess, as protesters clashed with police and tear gas was released.\n\nFour people died on Capitol grounds during the violence, including a woman shot by police and three others, who died as a result of \"medical emergencies\", local police said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police place US Capitol Building on lockdown after Trump supporters breached security lines\n\nUK MPs from across the political spectrum have criticised the events in the US.\n\nForeign Secretary Dominic Raab said there was \"no justification for these violent attempts to frustrate the lawful and proper transition of power\", while Home Secretary Priti Patel called the scenes \"unacceptable and undemocratic\".\n\nShe added: \"There is no justification for this violence and Donald Trump must condemn it.\"\n\nHer Conservative colleague, and former Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt directly addressed President Trump for telling the crowd to march on Congress, tweeting: \"He shames American democracy tonight and causes its friends anguish - but he is not America.\"\n\nLabour's deputy leader, Angela Rayner said: \"The violence that Donald Trump has unleashed is terrifying, and the Republicans who stood by him have blood on their hands.\"\n\nAnd shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said the events were \"the legacy of a politics of hate that pits people against each other and threatens the foundations of democracy\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Boris Johnson This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMeanwhile, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey has defended the prime minister's response to the rioting.\n\nAsked on ITV's Peston programme why Mr Johnson hadn't criticised Mr Trump, she said: \"The prime minister has been clear tonight that we need a peaceful and orderly transition.\"\n\nMs Coffey added that events in the US were a \"reminder that democracy is something precious - and will only continue to thrive as long as we protect institutions that make this country important and not demean each other when the majority of what we want to achieve is similar outcomes\".\n\nDonald Trump and Boris Johnson at a Nato summit in 2019\n\nMeanwhile, the SNP's leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, said the end of Mr Trump's presidency \"cannot come quick enough\".\n\nHe tweeted: \"What a legacy the events of today are to his time in office. Shameful, shocking, an affront to democracy.\"\n\nLeader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, called the scenes \"absolutely horrendous\", while his party's foreign affairs spokeswoman, Layla Moran, said: \"The scenes coming out of Washington tonight are an attack on democracy.\"", "National Express has announced that it is suspending its entire national network of coach services from midnight on Sunday.\n\nThe firm said tighter Covid restrictions and falling passenger numbers had prompted the decision.\n\nIt added that it hoped to restart services in March.\n\nAll customers whose travel has been cancelled will be contacted and offered a free amendment or full refund, the company said.\n\nAll journeys before Monday 11 January will be completed to ensure any passengers making essential journeys are not stranded.\n\nChris Hardy, managing director of National Express UK Coach, said: \"We have been providing an important service for essential travel needs. However, with tighter restrictions and passenger numbers falling, it is no longer appropriate to do this.\n\nHe added that as the vaccination programme was rolled out and government guidance changed, the company would regularly review when services could restart.\n\n\"We plan to be back on the road as soon as the time is right and have put a provisional restart date of Monday 1 March in place,\" he said.\n\nNational Express first suspended coach services during the coronavirus crisis in April, then restarted in July.\n\nServices have been operating at half capacity, with strict cleaning and Covid protocols. As the tier structure came into operation, demand for services reduced.\n\nAs with the previous suspension, employees will be furloughed.\n\nFirms that transport passengers, including coach, rail and aviation businesses, have been under intense pressure during the coronavirus crisis.\n\nAvanti West Coast, the train operating company running services on the West Coast mainline, has confirmed it will cut its timetable from 18 January.\n\nAvanti says the new timetable will 'more closely reflect the current demand for our services whilst still allowing key workers, and those needing to make essential journeys, to travel with confidence'.\n\nDuring the first major lockdown in March, services on key intercity routes were reduced from three an hour to one. This included services from both Manchester and Birmingham to London.\n\nThe Department for Transport has been consulting with all train operators about service reductions during the latest lockdown.\n\nThe exact scale of reduction is still being worked on, but the DfT says service levels may fall to as low as 40% of the normal timetable by some operators.\n\nThe focus is to ensure essential workers can still make essential journeys.\n\n\"Following discussions with the Department for Transport we will be introducing a new timetable on Monday 18 January. This will more closely reflect the current demand for our services whilst still allowing key workers, and those needing to make essential journeys, to travel with confidence.\"\n\nOn Thursday, Ryanair also announced that it would make big cuts to its flight schedule from 21 January, with few, if any flights to or from the UK or Ireland until \"draconian travel restrictions are removed\".\n\nTrain services are expected to be reduced in lockdown, with some in the industry anticipating reductions of between 50% and 60% compared with normal service.\n\nIn the first national lockdown in England, services were reduced to almost half.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Work to get pupils connected in Wolverhampton is well under way\n\nThere are concerns some schools in lockdown could be inundated with pupils without laptops after a change to the vulnerable pupil list.\n\nPupils are learning remotely in England after schools were closed on Tuesday to all but children of key workers and those deemed vulnerable.\n\nBut those without laptops or space to study are now eligible to attend school, under government guidance.\n\nHeads' union, NAHT, said the move could reduce the effect of the shutdown.\n\nSchools were ordered to close to most pupils as a way of limiting the spread of the virus.\n\nNational Association of Head Teachers general secretary Paul Whiteman said demand for key worker and vulnerable places in schools had risen substantially since the last school shutdown.\n\nNearly a third of the 2,000 head teachers who joined an online union meeting on Wednesday afternoon reported having between 20 and 30% of pupils in school, the NAHT said.\n\nMr Whiteman said: \"It is critical that key worker child school places are only used when absolutely necessary to truly reduce numbers and spread of the virus.\n\n\"We have concern that the government has not supplied enough laptops for all the children without them and so has made lack of internet access a vulnerable criteria - only adding to numbers still in school.\n\n\"It is important that all vulnerable pupils have access to a school place, but the government must provide laptops and internet access for every pupil that needs one, so that they can access home learning to take some of the strain off the demand for school places.\n\n\"Nearly half of head teachers who we polled during a webcast on Wednesday evening said that had received fewer than 10% of the laptops they'd requested.\n\n\"It is essential that this is rectified immediately, so that we can keep school attendance figures at a level which will have the desired impact on getting transmission rates under control.\"\n\nJane Girt, head teacher of Carlton Bolling College in Bradford, said the rule change could leave her having to accommodate an extra 200 pupils on top of those already on the key worker and vulnerable children list.\n\nShe told BBC News that having so many pupils in school would \"defeat the object\" of closing amid the England-wide lockdown.\n\nMrs Girt said her secondary, which has more than 1,500 students, had received 261 laptops from the government since March but about 50% of pupils were sharing a device with another family member.\n\nThe prime minister told MPs on Wednesday that 560,000 devices had been given out to schools in 2020 and a further 50,000 so far this week.\n\nAnd Gavin Williamson reiterated that those without access to remote learning via digital devices could attend school.\n\nHe said: \"Schools are much better prepared to deliver online learning, with the delivery of hundreds of thousands of devices at breakneck speed, data support and high quality video lessons.\"\n\nBut Ofcom estimates there are up to 1.5m pupils without digital devices in their homes, on which they can learn.\n\nAmanda Bailey, director of the child poverty commission in north-east England, said pupils without internet access tended to be concentrated in disadvantaged areas and this meant some schools would be \"largely fully open\", she said.\n\n\"And we know that the most deprived communities are the ones most vulnerable to the health impact of the pandemic,\" she added.\n\n\"Our main concerns are that we're now nine months into this situation and we're still talking about families not having sufficient access to digital devices or data or the internet.\"\n\nLabour Councillor Beverley Momenabadi, Wolverhampton's champion for digital innovation, said the guidance massively expands the number of children who are entitled to go into school.\n\nShe said although plans to support those needing access while self-isolating in her city are at an advanced stage, with rental schemes being accessed and donations sought, the new lockdown changes the game completely.\n\nShe called for a national plan for the transition to remote learning.\n\nCouncillor Momenabadi said: \"Even after Gavin Williamson's statement in the Commons, children across the country are still waiting for that national plan.\n\n\"And even on the devices they've said will arrive; how will these be distributed, when will they arrive, will they arrive in time to ensure that no child misses out on their education?\"\n\nWill you have to send your child back to school because you are unable to supervise home learning? Or are you a teacher concerned about lack of equipment? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUS President Donald Trump has been allowed to Tweet again, after being locked out of his account for 12 hours.\n\nPosting a more conciliatory message, he refrained from reiterating false claims of voter fraud.\n\nTwitter said that it would ban Mr Trump \"permanently\" if he breached the platform's rules again.\n\nThe move from Twitter puts clear water between it and Facebook, which suspended him \"indefinitely\" on Thursday.\n\nTwitter has instead given the outgoing president a final warning.\n\nEarlier on Thursday, the popular gaming platform Twitch also placed an indefinite ban on Mr Trump's channel, which he has used for rally broadcasts.\n\nMr Trump tweeted several message on Wednesday, calling the people who stormed Capitol Hill \"patriots\". He also said \"We love you.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. When a mob stormed the US capitol\n\nA spokesperson for Twitter said: \"After the Tweets were removed and the subsequent 12-hour period expired, access to @realDonaldTrump was restored.\n\n\"Any future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.\"\n\nEarlier in the day, the president was suspended from Facebook and Instagram. That suspension will be reviewed after the transition of power to Joe Biden on 20 January.\n\nThe social network had originally imposed a 24-hour ban after the US Capitol attack.\n\nFacebook's chief, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote that the risks of allowing Mr Trump to post \"are simply too great\".\n\nMr Zuckerberg said Facebook had removed the president's posts \"because we judged that their effect - and likely their intent - would be to provoke further violence\".\n\nThis Facebook post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Facebook The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Facebook content may contain adverts. Skip facebook post by Mark This article contains content provided by Facebook. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Facebook cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Facebook content may contain adverts.\n\nHe said it was clear Mr Trump intended to undermine the transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden.\n\n\"Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete,\" he wrote.\n\nMr Trump's favoured platform, Twitter, suspended the president for 12 hours on Wednesday.\n\nThe company said it required the removal of three tweets for \"severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy\".\n\nIt said the president's account would remain locked for good if the tweets were not removed.\n\nTwitter has now confirmed the offending tweets have been removed, and he is free to tweet again.\n\nSnapchat also stopped Mr Trump from creating new posts, but did not say if or when it would end the ban. YouTube also removed Wednesday's video.\n\nThe president's supporters stormed the seat of US government and clashed with police, leading to the death of one woman.\n\nThe violence brought to a halt congressional debate over Democrat Joe Biden's election win.\n\nIn the House and Senate chambers, Republicans were challenging the certification of November's election results.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"We will never give up, we will never concede\", Trump tells supporters\n\nBefore the violence, President Trump had told supporters on the National Mall in Washington that the election had been stolen.\n\nHours later, as the violence mounted inside and outside the US Capitol, he appeared on video and repeated the false claim.", "The controversy over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been ongoing since 1977\n\nThe Trump administration has held the first sale for rights to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - but it drew no interest from major companies.\n\nAn Alaskan state agency emerged as the primary bidder at the auction, which has been heavily criticised by environmental groups.\n\nThe sale raised less than $15m (£11m) - far less than the government had hoped.\n\nThe tepid interest comes amid big changes in the energy industry.\n\nMajor companies, including oil giant Exxon, Shell and BP, have said they are focusing their spending on renewable energy, amid a huge slump in oil prices, in part triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nAdam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said the sale was an \"epic failure\" for the Trump administration and the Alaska Republicans, who had backed the move as a way to create jobs and reduce American dependence on foreign oil.\n\n\"After years of promising a revenue and jobs bonanza they ended up throwing a party for themselves, with the state being one of the only bidders,\" he said in a statement.\n\n\"We have long known that the American people don't want drilling in the Arctic Refuge, the [Alaska native] Gwich'in people don't want it, and now we know the oil industry doesn't want it either.\"\n\nThe refuge is home to more than 200 species of bird including the Northern shrike\n\nMr Kolton said his organisation would continue to fight in court to reverse the sale of the land, which is home to caribou, polar bears and millions of migratory birds.\n\nThe wildlife refuge is estimated to hold some 11 billion barrels of oil.\n\nOpening the wilderness for drilling and development has been a long-term priority for Alaska Republicans, but development was expected to be costly since the area has minimal roads and infrastructure.\n\nAfter decades of controversy, the sale was finally authorised by the US Congress in 2017 as part of a major package of tax cuts. The auction comes just weeks before Donald Trump is due to leave office on 20 January.\n\nPresident-elect Joe Biden had vowed to protect the refuge and environmental groups have also challenged the sale, which they say threatens land that provides a vital home to wildlife.\n\nA federal court rejected arguments by environmental groups seeking to block the auction on Tuesday.\n\nPolar bears are particularly at risk of dying in oil spills\n\nAt Wednesday's auction, the Bureau of Land Management said it had received bids for 12 of the 22 tracts of land offered, covering more than 600,000 acres.\n\nThe Alaska Industrial Development and Industrial Authority, a state agency, was the sole bidder on at least eight of the 12 tracts.\n\nSome bids submitted were \"incomplete\", the bureau said.\n\nThe state agency has said it plans to work with private companies on development of the refuge, which encompasses more than 19,000 million acres overall.\n\nOn social media platform Twitter, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy called the sale \"historic for Alaska and tremendous for America\".\n\n\"Opening [Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] for responsible resource development could put more oil in our pipeline, put Alaskans to work, bring billions of dollars of investment to our state, support American energy independence, and provide critical revenues to our state and local communities,\" he wrote.\n\n\"Alaskans have waited two generations for this moment; I stand with them in support of this day.\"", "Olly Stephens was stabbed to death in Emmer Green in Reading on Sunday\n\nThree teenagers have been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm after a boy, 13, was stabbed to death in Reading.\n\nOliver Stephens, known as Olly, was pronounced dead at Bugs Bottom fields, Emmer Green, on Sunday.\n\nTwo boys, aged 13 and 14, and a girl, aged 13, will appear in Reading Magistrates' Court on Thursday.\n\nTwo other boys, also aged 13, have been released on bail, with strict conditions, until 1 February.\n\nThe girl has also been charged with perverting the course of justice.\n\nIn a statement, Oliver's family said: \"An Olly-sized hole has been left in our hearts.\"\n\nHis parents said their son was \"an enigma\", and having both autism and suspected pathological demand avoidance meant \"he became a challenge we never shied away from\".\n\nThe family described the ordeal as \"every parents' worst nightmare\".\n\nThey also sought to highlight those who helped at the scene, including \"a Good Samaritan that tried valiantly to save Oliver\", an off-duty doctor who offered help, and the emergency services.\n\nOfficers were called just before 16:00 GMT on Sunday following reports of an attack in fields on the boundary of Emmer Green and Caversham Heights.\n\nParents laying flowers at nearby Highdown School called the killing \"utterly senseless\" and said their children who attended school with Olly were \"devastated\".\n\nDet Supt Kevin Brown urged anyone with information to contact police and not to share any images or footage on social media.\n\n\"This continues to be a very difficult time for the family of Olly. Our thoughts remain with them,\" he said.\n\n\"The Stephens family appreciate all of the kindness shown to them but they have asked that their privacy is respected at this very difficult time.\"\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.", "South Vietnam flags were seen during the unrest Image caption: South Vietnam flags were seen during the unrest\n\nOn Wednesday, as protesters gathered outside before swarming the Capitol building, the yellow flags of the old South Vietnam regime could be seen.\n\nIn fact, the yellow flags of the former South Vietnam are a common sight at pro-Trump rallies across the United States.\n\nVietnamese Americans, especially those of the older generation who fled Vietnam after Saigon fell in 1975, are known for their support for the Republican party and Donald Trump.\n\nA pre-election survey by the group Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote found that Vietnamese Americans are the only major East Asian ethnic community that favoured Trump over Biden . Trump’s anti-China and anti-communist rhetoric resonated greatly with the former refugees who risked their lives to escape communism.\n\nBut the support for President Trump has also become an increasingly divisive issue amongst the Vietnamese American community.\n\nHours after the Capitol riot, there are still calls on pro-Trump internet forums like the \"ABC Trump\" Facebook page for Vietnamese Americans to “take to the streets in support of President Trump” as “the battle continues”.\n\nBut there have also been condemnations.\n\n“This is embarrassing,” one young Vietnamese American wrote on Twitter, adding: “They’ve brought shame to the flag”.", "Nguyen Huy Hung was one of 39 people who died in a container en route from Belgium to Essex\n\nThe father of a 15-year-old boy who was one of 39 people to die in a lorry trailer said he learned of his son's death through social media.\n\nNguyen Huy Hung died in the sealed container en route from Belgium to Purfleet, Essex, in October 2019.\n\nHis father, Nguyen Huy Tung, said the family could not believe it until \"we saw his body by our own eyes\" at the hospital.\n\nEight men are being sentenced for their role in the people-smuggling operation.\n\nThe bodies of 39 Vietnamese nationals were discovered in a refrigerated trailer on 23 October last year\n\nThe 39 Vietnamese migrants, aged 15 to 44, were sealed inside the container for at least 12 hours.\n\nThe Old Bailey heard how it became a \"tomb\" as temperatures reached an \"unbearable\" 38.5C (101F).\n\nThe people trapped inside had used a metal pole to try to punch through the roof, but only managed to dent the interior.\n\nAt a sentencing hearing set to last three days in front of Mr Justice Sweeney, some of their final desperate phone messages were played in court.\n\nIn one message, a man spoke with ragged breaths as he apologised to his family.\n\n\"I can't breathe,\" he said. \"I want to come back to my family. Have a good life.\"\n\nIn the background, a voice could be heard pleading: \"Come on everyone. Open up, open up.\"\n\nProsecutor Jonathan Polnay read out statements from the victims' families, and the mother of another 15-year-old who died, Dinh Dinh Binh, said her family had \"not been able to get back to our normal life yet\".\n\n\"Our economic conditions and work are negatively affected,\" she said. \"We have had to sell some properties of the family to afford our life.\"\n\nThe 39 people who died in the back of a trailer as it crossed the North Sea between Zeebrugge and the UK\n\nTran Hai Loc and his wife Nguyen Thi Van, both 35, were found huddled together in the trailer, and left behind two children, aged six and four.\n\nThe children's grandfather, Tran Dinh Thanh, said: \"At the moment their children are very small - this incident will affect their future.\n\n\"Every day, when they come home from school they always look at the photos of their parents on the altar. The decease of both parents is a big loss to them.\"\n\nThe moment lorry driver Maurice Robinson opened the trailer door and discovered the bodies inside was captured on CCTV\n\nPhan Thi Thanh, 41, had sold the family home and left her son with his godmother before setting off on the journey.\n\nHer son, who is now being looked after by his father in the UK, said he felt \"very heartbroken with mum not around\".\n\nHaulier boss Ronan Hughes, 41, of Tyholland, County Monaghan, Ireland, was described as a ringleader of the operation. He closed his eyes as the phone messages were played to the court. Other defendants hung their heads.\n\nBoth Maurice Robinson (l) and Ronan Hughes (r) admitted 39 counts of manslaughter in connection with the case\n\nHughes had previously admitted manslaughter, as had 26-year-old lorry driver Maurice Robinson, from County Armagh, who discovered the bodies in the trailer.\n\nEamonn Harrison, 24, of Newry, County Down, who dropped off the trailer at Zeebrugge port, and people-smuggler Gheorghe Nica, 43, were convicted of the same charge by a jury.\n\nThey will be sentenced alongside Christopher Kennedy, 24, from County Armagh, Valentin Calota, 38, from Birmingham, Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 28, of Hobart Road, Tilbury, Essex, and Gazmir Nuzi, 43, of Tottenham, north London, who were convicted for their role in the smuggling.\n\nGheorghe Nica and Eamonn Harrison were both found guilty of manslaughter\n\nMr Polnay said: \"These defendants were party to a sophisticated, long-running and profitable conspiracy to smuggle [mainly] Vietnamese migrants to the UK, in the back of lorries, in a deliberate and intentional breach of border control.\"\n\nThe fee was between £10,000 and £13,000 for each migrant, for the \"VIP route\", the court heard.\n\nMr Polnay said seven smuggling trips were identified between May 2018 and 23 October 2019, but there was \"an irresistible inference that there were more events than those that were fortuitously detected\".\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "It is inevitable that part of the politics of a pandemic is the perceived relative performance of different countries.\n\nYou can pick your metric to make your comparison, and plenty have.\n\nThe death toll in the UK, and the economic slump, have come in for particular criticism.\n\nBut the government has, for some time, sought to emphasise how the UK is ahead of the game on vaccinations.\n\nThe UK was considerably quicker than the EU, for instance, in licencing the first vaccine, from Pfizer-BioNTech.\n\nAt today's news conference, the Prime Minister has pointed out that the UK has already given more people a first jab for Covid than all the other countries in Europe put together.\n\nSir Simon Stevens, the Chief Executive of the National Health Service in England, added that the UK has jabbed four times as many people as Germany and 300 times more than France.\n\nBut he acknowledged the scale of the ongoing challenge - trying to vaccinate as many people in the next five weeks as normally happens in five months with the flu jab.\n\nOne final thought: ministers tend to suggest international comparisons are pointless or premature when the comparisons are less than flattering.\n\nThey're rather keener on them when the numbers look better.", "Teachers' estimated grades will be used to replace cancelled GCSEs and A-levels in England this summer, says Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.\n\nHe told MPs he would \"trust in teachers rather than algorithms\", a reference to the U-turn over last year's exams.\n\nFor primaries, he confirmed there would be no Year 6 Sats tests this year.\n\nMr Williamson promised parents it would be \"mandatory\" for schools to provide \"high-quality remote education\" of three to five hours per day.\n\nHe said this would be \"enforced\" by Ofsted, with inspections where there were \"serious concerns\" about what was provided for children now studying at home.\n\nLabour's Shadow Education Secretary, Kate Green, accused Mr Williamson of \"chaos and confusion\" - and said he had failed to listen to the \"expertise of professionals on the front line\".\n\nShe said he had given a \"cast-iron commitment\" that exams would go ahead - and Ms Green said: \"At that moment, we should have known they were doomed to be cancelled.\"\n\nMr Williamson, in a statement to the House of Commons, said there would be \"training and support\" for teachers in estimating grades, \"to ensure these are awarded fairly and consistently\".\n\nHe also told MPs there would be no Sats tests for those at the end of primary school.\n\n\"I can absolutely confirm that we won't be proceeding with Sats this year. We do recognise that this will be an additional burden on schools\n\nGeoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, said rather than a \"vague statement\" of how A-levels and GCSEs would be graded, ministers should already have a system ready in place - and it was a \"dereliction of duty\" that it was not already prepared.\n\nAnd he warned against repeating the \"shambles\" of last summer's cancelled exams.\n\nThe education secretary confirmed to MPs that GCSEs and A-levels are not going ahead - after this week's decision that it was no longer feasible with so much time lost in the Covid pandemic and the latest lockdown.\n\nThe exams watchdog Ofqual will draw up proposals for an alternative way of deciding results, for qualifications that could be used for jobs, staying on in school or university places.\n\nSimon Lebus, the watchdog's interim head, said evidence for replacement grades could include tests, homework, mock exams and teachers' observations - and would take into account how much of the syllabus had been covered.\n\nA consultation is expected to begin next week, with plans to be decided by the end of February or possibly sooner.\n\nLast year's attempts to find an alternative approach to exam results, which initially used an algorithm, descended into chaos - and eventually switched to using teachers' grades.\n\nAnd without any exam papers or standardised mock exams, the use of teachers' assessments, with some process of moderation between schools, will be used for this summer's candidates.\n\nOn vocational qualifications, Labour's Ms Green said the education secretary was \"failing to show leadership on exams in January\".\n\nVocational exams, such as BTecs, are carrying on, if schools and colleges decide to continue with them - but college leaders had complained that there needed to be a national decision to avoid confusion.\n\nIf students cannot take BTec exams this month as planned, they will still be awarded a grade, if they have \"enough evidence to receive a certificate that they need for progression\", says the awarding body Pearson.\n\nAn Ofqual spokeswoman said they would consider options for replacement exam results, academic and vocational, \"to ensure the fairest possible outcome in the circumstances\".\n\nThe exams watchdog's decisions will face much scrutiny - with the previous head of Ofqual resigning after last summer's U-turns over grades.\n\nMr Williamson's statement in the Commons came as all GCSE, AS and A-level exams in Northern Ireland were cancelled due to the Covid-19 crisis.\n\nEducation Minister Peter Weir announced the decision in the Stormont assembly on Wednesday.\n\nScotland has already cancelled its Nationals, Highers and Advanced Highers.\n\nGCSEs and A-levels in Wales were scrapped in November.", "Adrian Chiles first joined 5 Live for its launch in 1994\n\nAdrian Chiles has been confirmed as the broadcaster who will replace Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 5 Live on Thursday mornings.\n\nNaga Munchetty now presents the same show from Monday to Wednesday.\n\nChiles has previously presented the same time slot on Fridays, along with the BBC's The One Show and Match of the Day 2, as well as ITV's Daybreak show.\n\n\"Adrian is a wonderful broadcaster who our audience trust and respect,\" said 5 Live controller Heidi Dawson.\n\n\"He has that unique ability to put listeners at ease and make them smile, whilst remaining relentless in his questioning of those in positions of power.\"\n\nChiles, who will present the show on Thursdays and Fridays, joined the station at its launch in 1994 and has featured regularly on shows like Wake Up To Money, and 5 Live Drive.\n\nFollowing his move to mid-morning, Chiles' Question Time Extra Time show will be replaced by a new programme, hosted by Colin Murray.\n\nBarnett, who has moved to BBC Radio 4 to host Woman's Hour, defended herself this week after a guest who was booked to appear on the BBC Radio 4 programme dropped out due to remarks the presenter made about her off-air.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Epsom Racecourse in Surrey will be one of seven mass vaccination hubs announced by the government\n\nSeven new mass Covid vaccination hubs across England have been announced by the government.\n\nCentres in London, Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Surrey and Stevenage are due to begin operations next week.\n\nVarious venues will be converted into regional centres in a bid to meet the government's target of vaccinating 14 million people in the UK by February.\n\nIt is expected the hubs will be staffed by NHS staff and volunteers.\n\nThe seven sites announced by Downing Street are:\n\nAshton Gate Stadium, home to Bristol City FC, will be used to help the government meet its vaccination target\n\nSupermarket chain Morrisons has confirmed car parks at its stores in Yeovil, Wakefield and Winsford would be used to drive-through vaccinations from Monday. It has also offered an additional 47 sites to the government.\n\nPremier League club Tottenham Hotspur has also offered the use of its stadium to the NHS as a venue to provide the coronavirus vaccine.\n\nThe sites across England will begin operations next week", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. US Capitol riots: How the world's media reacted\n\nShock and contempt for the violent storming of the US Capitol by Donald Trump's supporters is evident in many reports and commentary on the event from around the world.\n\nFrom Germany's Die Welt daily describing \"disturbing, sad, terrifying scenes\", to the Nigerian Tribune saying \"Trump supporters defile US democracy\", many criticise the outgoing president for what what they see as his role in degrading America's institutions and democracy.\n\nOne commentator in Argentina's leading daily Clarin called it \"the 'scorched earth' legacy of Donald Trump\".\n\n\"Narcissism prevailing over all dignity, he harasses institutions, tramples on democracy, divides his own camp,\" says an editorial in France's Le Figaro.\n\n\"In refusing to quit, Donald Trump exposes the fragility of the American system in a final destructive offensive,\" a columnist says in France's Le Monde. Another headline in the paper calls him \"the insurrectional president\".\n\nIn Turkey, the pro-government Turkiye paper notes: \"Trump's stubbornness stirred the US\".\n\n\"I expect Trump to be tried after this turmoil,\" said one pundit on Egypt's MBC Misr TV, adding that \"the US is no longer a superpower in the full sense of the word\".\n\nSeveral of America's adversaries seized the opportunity to portray the incident as an example of the country's structural weaknesses and what they see as its hypocrisy.\n\n\"@SpeakerPelosi once referred to the Hong Kong riots as 'a beautiful sight to behold' — it remains yet to be seen whether she will say the same about the recent developments in Capitol Hill,\" tweeted China's daily Global Times.\n\n\"Capital vandals show fragility of US democracy,\" claimed a headline in the paper.\n\nIn Iran, state TV and radio inaccurately reported that the mayor of Washington DC had imposed \"martial law\", instead of the 12-hour curfew on the capital, which is what actually happened.\n\nAnd in Russia, where the first day of the Orthodox Christmas is currently being celebrated, footage of Trump's supporters ransacking the Capitol dominates state TV.\n\nMorning bulletins have focused on the events in America\n\nRolling news channel Rossiya 24 has played scenes of the violence at length, with no comment other than the caption \"Attack on the Capitol\".\n\nSome channels have also shown sympathy for the pro-Trump supporters, suggesting that they had cause to feel \"cheated\" over November's presidential election, and talked up claims that the event represents a crisis for US and even Western democracy.\n\nRossiya 24 said they were \"dissatisfied with the most scandalous election in US history\", while Rossiya 1 said it was the US system of democracy that was \"to a large degree the cause of today's events\".\n\nEven for those not necessarily unfriendly to America, the incident shows serious rifts in society that Trump's departure won't address.\n\nIt is \"a spectacular demonstration of frustration that has been building in the USA for decades,\" says one commentator in Poland's conservative daily Rzeczpospolita.\n\n\"Behind the façade of plastered smiles… and phrases about 'the best country in the world' lies the drama of a gigantic income gap, society in which more and more people struggle to make ends meet, while the few do not even know how many billions they own.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nI'm standing in what should be an operating theatre - but instead it's been converted into an intensive care unit for Covid-19 patients on ventilators.\n\nThis is the first time I have seen it full of patients like this. Normally this theatre would be busy with major cancer surgery, but that's been transferred to another building.\n\nA children's recovery area, still decorated with colourful stickers of cartoons, is once again filled with desperately sick adults. Every day, more wards are being transformed into ICU - ready for the next influx of patients.\n\nWe have been given access to University College Hospital, in central London. This is the same intensive care unit that I first visited in April, during the first peak.\n\nIt is one of the busiest hospitals in the capital and intensive care here is expanding across a hospital that is under pressure like never before, from a relentless rise in Covid admissions.\n\nI am struck by the toll the pandemic is taking on staff. It's immense - both physically and mentally. They are shell-shocked. \"My emotions are all over the place. Scared, sad, petrified, worried,\" one ICU nurse tells me.\n\nI asked one of the consultants who I've met several times in the last year, Dr Jim Down, how long they can keep going like this - and the answer was stark. \"At this rate, about a week. After that we really need to see it slow down or we're going to see the care we can deliver suffering.\"\n\nThey have got three times as many critically ill patients in the hospital as normal. The number of Covid admissions to London hospitals has doubled in just two weeks - they're more stretched now than at the peak last April. Senior staff are worried.\n\nDr Alice Carter compares it to an elastic band that is close to snapping. \"It gets to a point where you stretch so far it never returns back to its baseline. I think that's probably where we are now. It's not going to take much more for that elastic band to break, and that's the real fear for us at the moment.\"\n\nDr Alice Carter: 'It's not going to take much more for that elastic band to break'\n\nThat could have very serious consequences, she adds. \"If we get to that point, we can't offer anyone ICU, not just Covid patients, but anyone who has a traffic accident or a heart attack or a stroke - whatever it is, to take them in.\"\n\nFor 38-year-old Rachel Arfin, one of the three pregnant women in intensive care with Covid-19, treatment is more complicated. Her baby is due in five weeks and the staff have to monitor them both.\n\n\"They can't do anything that will harm the baby,\" she says. \"All the time [they are] checking, monitoring the baby.\" She is reassured by the \"beautiful sound\" of her baby's heartbeat.\n\n\"They are looking after two people in one. They're saving lives,\" says Rachel. But her children - she has seven - keep asking when she's coming home.\n\nRachel Arfin's baby is due in five weeks - both are doing well\n\nI've reported from here several times during the pandemic and am always struck by the professionalism and dedication of staff. It's always quiet and calm, but that belies what's actually happening. This is a system under strain like never before.\n\nThe warning signs are clear, the NHS is on the brink. Unless infection rates fall, soon it will have a serious impact. The pressure on staff is unrelenting. I saw two nurses in tears.\n\nCompared to when I visited in April, it's a lot busier. In some ways, it's more structured - they now know what they're dealing with. They've got new treatments, such as the drug dexamethasone, which they didn't have last time. And many of the staff have now had the first dose of the vaccine.\n\nBut other aspects don't get any easier, such as the emotional burden of breaking bad news over a telephone or video call. It is very different to being able to hold someone's hand.\n\nStaff say they don't know which patients to help first\n\nICU staff have incredibly high standards. They're used to doing everything meticulously and perfectly. And they're doing all they can. But sometimes they go home and feel guilty that they can't do more. The impact on nurses - the bedrock of care in intensive care - is visible.\n\nThe highly specialised staff are usually one-to-one with patients. Deputy sister Ashleigh Shillingford is looking after three or four ventilated patients at a time, with one other junior member of staff. It's emotional and often devastating work.\n\n\"We are so stretched we have to prioritise and prioritising care is not the NHS that I grew up in - we shouldn't have to choose which patient gets what care first.\" She says she's never had to make decisions like these before.\n\n\"You just don't know who to help first. The patients are losing their lives at a dramatic speed, we're not just getting old people,\" she says, \"these are young people that we're getting.\"\n\nGerald Williams, 58, is awaiting chemotherapy for lung cancer and had been shielding, but he still caught coronavirus. \"All of a sudden, out of the blue, Covid came knocking on my door and it's frightening - you don't know how you're getting your next breath,\" he says.\n\nGerald Williams had been shielding but he still caught coronavirus\n\nHe wants to get home to his daughters, the youngest of whom is 13. And he's annoyed at those who don't take it seriously. \"People are moaning and groaning. Even in A&E. They need to get a life. Don't be idiots, forget about meeting your mate, stay home. No-one is invulnerable.\"\n\nFor now the Trust is coping better than many others in London and is still taking Covid patients from other hospitals. But the next few weeks could be the biggest challenge the NHS has ever faced - and it will be its doctors and nurses who will bear the brunt for all of us.\n\nAs the BBC's medical editor, Fergus Walsh has been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic and its immense impact on the UK.", "Two US police officers linked to a notorious raid in which young black medic Breonna Taylor was fatally shot have been fired, authorities have said.\n\nDetectives Myles Cosgrove and Joshua Jaynes are the latest officers to be dismissed over the shooting in March last year.\n\nThe incident in Kentucky caused outrage, spurring protests against racism and police brutality.\n\nMs Taylor, 26, died when police raided her home in connection to a drug case.\n\nThe FBI said Mr Cosgrove fired the shot that killed Ms Taylor at her home in Louisville.\n\nLouisville police dismissed Mr Cosgrove for violating procedures for use of force and failing to use a body camera during the search, the Louisville Courier Journal reported on Wednesday.\n\nMr Jaynes, the newspaper said, was fired for violating the police force's policy for truthfulness and search warrant preparation.\n\nDuring the raid, Ms Taylor's boyfriend fired at the officers who he said he believed were attackers breaking into their home.\n\nPolice say they knocked on the door to announce their presence before breaking down the door with a battering ram.\n\nMs Taylor's boyfriend said police did not make their presence known, and he fired out of self-defence. Three officers returned fire with 32 shots, six of which hit Ms Taylor.\n\nMs Taylor's name became a global rallying cry as people demanded a thorough investigation into her death.\n\nBlack Lives Matter activists in the US have demanded that Louisville police take stronger action against the officers in the case and say that police too often escape unpunished after killing members of the public.\n\nBut despite the outcry against Ms Taylor's shooting, no criminal charges were sought relating to her death.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"Questions still aren't answered\": Breonna Taylor's family are worried about a \"cover-up\"", "Tennant was remembered as \"a beautiful soul\" and \"a sensitive and talented woman\"\n\nBritish model Stella Tennant took her own life after being \"unwell for some time\", her family has confirmed.\n\nIn a statement, her family said it was \"a matter of our deepest sorrow and despair that she felt unable to go on.\"\n\nTennant, who made her name in the early 1990s modelling for designers like Karl Lagerfeld and Versace, died in December five days after her 50th birthday.\n\nHer family said they were \"humbled by the outpouring of messages of sympathy and support\" they have received.\n\nTennant was \"a beautiful soul, adored by a close family and good friends, a sensitive and talented woman whose creativity, intelligence and humour touched so many\", they said.\n\n\"In grieving Stella's loss, her family renews a heartfelt request that respect for their privacy should continue.\"\n\nBorn in London on 1970, Tennant was known for her androgynous sultry looks and aristocratic heritage.\n\nShe shot to fame after being photographed for British Vogue at the age of 22 in 1993, going on to work with such designers as Alexander McQueen and Jean Paul Gaultier.\n\nTennant retired from the catwalk in 1998 but later returned. She also worked on campaigns to promote saving energy and reducing the environmental impact of fast fashion.\n\nShe had four children with French-born photographer David Lasnet. The couple married in the Scottish borders in 1999 and announced their separation last year.\n\nTennant with David Lasnet on their wedding day in 1999\n\nStella McCartney, Victoria Beckham and fellow model Naomi Campbell were among those to pay tribute after her death was announced last month.\n\nCampbell said she had been \"a class act in every way\", while Beckham remembered her as \"an incredible talent\".\n\nIf you have been affected by any of the issues in this article, information and support is available from BBC Action Line.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Medical staff are \"well over half way through\" vaccinating Scotland's care home residents with their first dose against Covid-19.\n\nThe first minister said this was \"extremely important\", as care homes accounted for more than a third of Covid-related deaths in the past week.\n\nBy Sunday more than 113,000 people in Scotland had been given their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.\n\nSome 1,100 vaccination centres are set to be operational within a week.\n\nThe government has set a target of giving a first dose to everyone over the age of 80 in Scotland within the next four weeks.\n\nScotland has about 30,000 residents living in care homes for older people.\n\nA further 78 deaths of people who had tested positive for Covid-19 were announced on Thursday, the highest daily number during the second wave of the virus.\n\nMeanwhile, the National Records of Scotland said the virus had been mentioned on 183 death certificates in the week to Sunday - with 63 of these deaths occurring in care homes.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon said this underlined the importance of rolling out the vaccine in care homes, saying it would hopefully start to significantly reduce the risk of residents dying due to coronavirus.\n\nAnd she said the government would start issuing a daily update on how many people had been given the jab from next week.\n\nThe first minister said: \"Vaccination ultimately is what will provide us with the route out of this pandemic, so we are absolutely determined to make sure as many people as possible are vaccinated just as quickly as it is possible to do so.\"\n\nAs of Sunday, a total of 113,459 people had been given their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Scotland.\n\nThe Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine began to be rolled out on Monday, and will be reflected in statistics from next week.\n\nA total of 36 people have had a second dose of the vaccine, with efforts now focused on giving a first jab to as many people as possible\n\nThis means that people will now not receive their second dose for up to 12 weeks rather than within 21 days - a move that has been criticised by some medics.\n\nBut Chief Medical Officer Dr Gregor Smith said the first dose gave \"substantial\" protection against the virus.\n\nThe vaccine is being rolled out to health and social care workers in the first instance, then care home residents and other over-80s.\n\nEventually everyone in Scotland over the age of 18 - a total of 4.4m people - will be given a jab, although the government has refused to set targets beyond the initial phase due to uncertainty over supplies.\n\nNicola Sturgeon has said Scotland is in a race between the vaccine and the virus\n\nThe UK government had already committed to publishing vaccination figures on a daily basis, and the Scottish Conservatives had been pushing for the Scottish government to follow suit.\n\nTory leader Douglas Ross said that \"publishing these numbers will increase transparency and give the public confidence that progress is being made in our fight against Covid-19\".\n\nThe MP told BBC Scotland that he had been getting inquiries from constituents about when they could expect to get a jab, saying people \"need to know roughly where they are on that list and when they can expect to receive that vaccine\".\n\nScottish Labour called on the government to backdate the statistics and to publish \"a detailed breakdown of how many people in each priority group has been vaccinated\".\n\nThe party's health spokeswoman, Monica Lennon, said: \"Quicker progress must be made on securing vaccinations sites and vaccinators, including the contribution that community pharmacy teams can make.\"\n\nAt her daily briefing, Ms Sturgeon said over-80s should not worry if they had not yet been contacted about a vaccine appointment.\n\nShe said these were being \"aligned with availability of supply\" in different local areas.\n\nThe first minister said there was \"no need to phone your GP\", and that people would be \"contacted with an appointment as soon as possible\".\n\nShe also said the government was considering \"as a matter of ongoing review\" whether tighter restrictions may still be needed.\n\nScotland has been in a new lockdown since Tuesday, and Ms Sturgeon said it was \"probably too early\" for this to be reflected in the number of new infections.\n\nHowever she warned that the number of interactions people are having needed to be \"radically\" cut in order to slow the spread of the virus.\n\nShe said shutting down construction, manufacturing and click-and-collect businesses was \"the kind of thing we need to look at if we have a concern that we are not sufficiently reducing the number of people who are out and about and interacting\".", "Two more life-saving drugs have been found that can cut deaths by a quarter in patients who are sickest with Covid.\n\nThe anti-inflammatory medications, given via a drip, save an extra life for every 12 treated, say researchers who have carried out a trial in NHS intensive care units.\n\nSupplies are already available across the UK so they can be used immediately to save hundreds of lives, say experts.\n\nThere are over 30,000 Covid patients in UK hospitals - 39% more than in April.\n\nThe UK government is working closely with the manufacturer, to ensure the drugs - tocilizumab and sarilumab - continue to be available to UK patients.\n\nAs well as saving more lives, the treatments speed up patients' recovery and reduce the length of time that critically-ill patients need to spend in intensive care by about a week.\n\nBoth appear to work equally well and add to the benefit already found with a cheap steroid drug called dexamethasone.\n\nAlthough the drugs are not cheap, costing around £500 per patient, on top of the £5 course of dexamethasone, the advantage of using them is clear - and less than the cost per day of an intensive care bed of around £2,000, say experts.\n\nLead researcher Prof Anthony Gordon, from Imperial College London, said: \"For every 12 patients you treat with these drugs you would expect to save a life. It's a big effect.\"\n\nIn the REMAP-CAP trial carried out in six different countries, including the UK, with around 800 intensive care patients:\n\nProf Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: \"The fact there is now another drug that can help to reduce mortality for patients with Covid-19 is hugely welcome news and another positive development in the continued fight against the virus.\"\n\nHealth and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: \"The UK has proven time and time again it is at the very forefront of identifying and providing the most promising, innovative treatments for its patients.\n\n\"Today's results are yet another landmark development in finding a way out of this pandemic and, when added to the armoury of vaccines and treatments already being rolled out, will play a significant role in defeating this virus.\"\n\nThe drugs dampen down inflammation, which can go into overdrive in Covid patients and cause damage to the lungs and other organs.\n\nDoctors are being advised to give them to any Covid patient who, despite receiving dexamethasone, is deteriorating and needs intensive care.\n\nTocilizumab and sarilumab have already been added to the government's export restriction list, which bans companies from buying medicines meant for UK patients and selling them on for a higher price in another country.\n\nThe research findings have not yet been peer reviewed or published in a medical journal.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"We will never give up, we will never concede\", Trump tells supporters\n\nThis is how the Trump presidency ends. Not with a whimper, but with a bang.\n\nFor weeks, Donald Trump had been pointing to 6 January as a day of reckoning. It was when he told his supporters to come to Washington DC, and challenge Congress - and Vice-President Mike Pence - to discard the results of November's election and keep the presidency in his hands.\n\nOn Wednesday morning, the president and his warm-up speakers set the whirlwind in motion.\n\nRudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, said the election disputes should be resolved through \"trial by combat\".\n\nDonald Trump Jr, the president's oldest son, had a message to members of his party who would not \"fight\" for their president.\n\n\"This isn't their Republican Party anymore,\" he said. \"This is Donald Trump's Republican Party.\"\n\nThen the president himself encouraged the growing crowd, which had chanted \"stop the steal\" and \"bullshit\" at the president's prompting, to march the two miles from the White House to the Capitol.\n\n\"We will never give up. We will never concede,\" the president said. \"Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore.\"\n\nAs the president was concluding his remarks, a different kind of drama was playing out within the Capitol itself, as a joint session of Congress prepared to tabulate the state-by-state results of the election.\n\nFirst, Pence - disregarding the president's urging to throw out the results from contested states - released a statement that he did not have such powers and his role was \"largely ceremonial\".\n\nThen Republicans issued their first challenge, to Arizona votes, and the House and Senate began their separate deliberations on whether to accept Joe Biden's victory there.\n\nThe House proceedings were raucous, with both sides cheering as their speakers made their remarks.\n\n\"The oath that I took this past Sunday to defend and support the Constitution makes it necessary for me to object to this travesty,\" said newly elected Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who had recently made headlines for insisting that she would carry a handgun with her in Congress. \"I will not allow the people to be ignored.\"\n\nProtesters gathered outside the Capitol as the joint session started\n\nIn the Senate, the debate was taking on a different tone. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, dressed in the kind of dark suit and tie that befits a funeral, was coming to bury Donald Trump, not praise him.\n\n\"If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,\" McConnell said. \"We'd never see the whole nation accept an election again. Every four years would be a scramble for power at any cost.\"\n\nThe Kentucky senator, who will become the Senate minority leader as a result of his party's two recent defeats in Georgia, said that the chamber was designed to \"stop short-term passions from boiling over and melting the foundations of our republic\".\n\nHis words were practically still hanging in the air when the passions outside the Capitol boiled over, and the Trump supporters, perhaps inspired by the earlier speeches, stormed the building. They swamped the insufficient security in place and brought the proceedings to a grinding halt, as lawmakers, staff and media rushed to find shelter from the rioters.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How a Trump rally near the White House turned deadly at the Capitol\n\nThe drama unfolded in fits and starts. Television cameras broadcast images of protesters dancing and waving flags on the steps of the Capitol. Photos and snippets popped up on social media of rioters inside the building, attempting to break into the legislative chambers and posing in the offices of elected legislators; of security officers, guns drawn in the House of Representatives, behind barricaded doors.\n\nIn Wilmington, Delaware, President-elect Joe Biden scrapped a planned speech on the economy and condemned what he called an \"insurrection\" in Washington.\n\n\"At this hour our democracy is under unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times,\" he said. \"An assault on the citadel of liberty, the Capitol itself.\"\n\nHe concluded his short remarks with a challenge to Trump: to go on national television to condemn the violence and \"demand an end to this siege\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Joe Biden: The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are\n\nMinutes later, Trump would offer his message to the nation - but it was not the one Biden suggested.\n\nInstead, sandwiched between his now familiar complaints about the election being \"stolen\", he told his supporters \"to go home, we love you, you're very special\".\n\nIt was the kind of kid gloves way the president has routinely responded to transgressions from his supporters - whether it was their violent treatment of protesters at his rallies, the \"very fine people on both sides\" statement after the clashes at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville or his \"stand back and stand by\" message to the far-right Proud Boys group during the first debate with Biden.\n\nTrump's tweet, and two subsequent ones which also praised his supporters, were flagged and then removed by Twitter, which took the unprecedented step of locking the president's account for 12 hours. Facebook followed suit, banning Trump for a full day.\n\nFor the first time in his presidency, for the first time in his long, intimate relationship with social media, Donald Trump had been silenced.\n\nIf this is the \"at long last, have you left no sense of decency\" moment for Donald Trump, it arrives as they're cleaning up blood and broken glass in the US Capitol.\n\nAs the afternoon stretched into the evening, and police finally secured the US Capitol, a growing chorus of voices - from the left and right - condemned the violence. It was not surprising that Democrats, like soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, laid the riots at the feet of the president.\n\n\"January 6 will go down as one of the darkest days in American history,\" he said. \"A final warning to our nation of the consequences of the demagogic president, the people who enable him, the captive media that parrot his lies and the people who follow him as he attempts to push America to the brink of ruin.\"\n\nMore noteworthy, however, were the Republicans who followed suit.\n\n\"We just had a violent mob assault the Capitol in an attempt to prevent those from carrying out our Constitutional duty,\" tweeted Congresswoman Lynne Cheney, a frequent Republican critic of the president's. \"There is no question that the president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob.\"\n\nThe condemnations were not limited to Trump's reliable intraparty critics, however. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who frequently sides with the president, also spoke out.\n\n\"It's past time for the president to accept the results of the election, quit misleading the American people, and repudiate mob violence,\" he said.\n\nFirst Lady Melania Trump's Chief of Staff Stephanie Grisham and Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews both resigned in protest, and there are reports that more administration officials will head for the exits in the next 24 hours.\n\nCBS has reported that Trump administration Cabinet officials are discussing the 25th amendment to the US constitution, which outlines how the vice-president and a majority of the Cabinet can temporarily remove a president from office.\n\nWhether Pence and the Cabinet act or not, Trump's presidency will be over in just two weeks. At that point, Republican Party leaders will have to grapple with a future where it has lost control of the Congress and the White House and has a former president whose reputation is badly tarnished but who still has strong sway over a sizeable segment of the party's base.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mitt Romney warns fellow Republicans not to be complicit in attack on democracy\n\nWednesday's events could presage a pitched battle for the direction of the party, as conservatives within the party attempt to wrest control away from Trump and his loyalists. McConnell, given his remarks earlier in the day, appears willing to chart such a course. Others, like Utah Senator Mitt Romney, a former Republican presidential nominee, may also take a leading role.\n\nThey will be challenged by others within the party who may be more interested in laying claim to Trump's populist mantle. It was notable that Josh Hawley of Missouri, the first senator to announce he would object the results of the election in the Senate, did not step away from his challenge even after the Senate reconvened following the violence in the Capitol.\n\nCrisis can bring political opportunity, and there are many politicians who will not hesitate to use it to gain advantage.\n\nMeanwhile, Trump - for now - is still in power. And while he may be chastened, he may be sitting in the White House residence watching television temporarily without his social media outlet, he will not be silent for long.\n\nAnd once he decamps for his new Florida home, he could begin making plans to settle scores and, perhaps, someday return to power and rebuild a legacy that, for the moment, lies in tatters.", "The Belfast Health Trust has said it has no other option but to cancel urgent cancer surgery.\n\nThese are known as red flag cancer cases where an operation is expected to impact on a person's recovery and even surviving the disease.\n\nThe Department of Health has confirmed to the BBC that it's estimated that one in 60 people in NI have Covid-19.\n\nIt is understood the trust expects \"many 100s\" of new Covid patients in the next three weeks.\n\nThe demand for bed space is described as \"highly significant\", while a source added that all is being done to \"find beds and staff\".\n\nThey continued: \"People in here are moving heaven and earth to find beds in anticipation of what is coming and that's why some cancer patients even those who have been told their case is urgent are having their surgery cancelled.\"\n\nEffectively the move means that choices are already being made within the health service about who should receive critical treatment.\n\nThe daughter of a 66-year-old woman who was told her surgery has been cancelled has described the move as \"deeply worrying\".\n\n\"Mummy was diagnosed with cancer of the lining of the bladder in November, it's since spread to the muscle wall of her bladder. She was told in December her surgery was urgent - but now it's been cancelled.\n\n\"She is so frightened, it is just horrendous and I'm sure mum is not alone.\"\n\nWhile a cancer patient might have been told their case is critical and that treatment is necessary within weeks, some Covid patients are also being told that in order to survive they require treatment immediately.\n\nWith the number of cases soaring this is worse than the first lockdown and according to health professionals there is worse to come.\n\nThe BBC understands that the health minister is expected to respond to the problem in the coming days.\n\nIt is hoped that he will announce a regional approach to tackling cancelled surgeries among the various health trusts.\n\nNorthern Ireland's other health trusts have also begun to cancel operations due to pressures created by coronavirus.\n\nThe Northern, Western, Southern and South-Eastern trusts have said they will be cancelling planned surgeries.\n\nHospitals have said they were facing a surge in coronavirus cases following Christmas.\n\nOn Thursday, 599 people were in hospital with Covid-19.\n\nThe Belfast Trust apologised for the \"distress\" caused by the cancellations.\n\n\"Belfast Trust has made the difficult decision to cancel all planned inpatient surgery this week due to rising numbers of Covid cases,\" a spokesperson said.\n\nThe trust said it was contacting those affected and \"will rearrange this surgery as soon as possible and we will do everything we can to ensure continuity of care throughout this challenging time\".\n\nThe Northern Trust said it had \"regrettably\" cancelled the majority of its planned or elective surgeries to \"both free up staff to support the significant COVID-19 surge experience in the Trust and to reduce the clinical risk to patients who are or may be exposed to the virus\".\n\nIt apologised and said it would contacting people.\n\nThe Western Trust said it is \"facing unprecedented pressures due to the escalating rate\" of Covid infections.\n\nDirector of Acute Hospitals, Geraldine McKay, said routine elective inpatient, outpatient and day case surgeries have now been postponed until further notice.\n\nShe said the decision was \"very regrettable, but necessary\".\n\n\"Red flag and some time critical procedures and clinics will continue, but will be reviewed daily,\" she said.\n\nShould the number of Covid patients further increase, she added, the trust will \"have no option but to move to perform emergency and trauma surgery only\".\n\nA spokesperson for the South Eastern Trust said it was still carrying out some planned surgery, but the majority would be cancelled by next week.\n\nThe Southern Trust said it had taken its decision in response to the \"very significant recent increase\" in the number of Covid-19 cases.\n\nIt said this had been compounded by an increase in trauma workload and recent icy weather.\n\nThe trust said it would continue to provide day surgery and endoscopy across its hospital sites.\n\nOf the 3,359 planned procedures scheduled across NI between 29 December 2020 and 4 January, 3,267 went ahead as planned, according to the Health and Social Care website.\n\nThere were 92 cancellations which amounted to about 3% of all surgeries.", "During a speech earlier in the day, President Trump had asked his supporters to march towards the Capitol in protest. They breached the building while Congress was certifying Joe Biden's win.\n\nProtesters made it all the way to the Senate floor and the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.\n\nHere are the key moments in a dark day for US democracy.", "The US is reeling after supporters of President Trump stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC on the day Congress was meeting to confirm Joe Biden's election victory.\n\nLawmakers were forced to take shelter, the building was put into lockdown and four people died in the chaos that followed a pro-Trump rally near the White House.\n\nHere's a breakdown of how events unfolded on Wednesday.\n\nJust before midday local time (17:00 GMT) thousands of people gather at the Ellipse, near the White House, to hear the president speak at a \"Save America\" rally.\n\nHe tells them: \"We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue... and we're going to the Capitol and we're going to try and give… our Republicans, the weak ones... the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.\"\n\nAs the speech ends, crowds start to drift towards the Congress building, about a mile and a half away, where they are met by police barriers.\n\nThe Capitol is home to the two chambers of the US government that make up Congress - the House of Representatives and the Senate.\n\nChanting crowds start to gather on both sides of the building at around 13:10, grappling with police at the metal barricades.\n\nTear gas and pepper spray are used to try to keep the protesters at bay.\n\nPolice officers struggle to maintain control of the situation as protesters advance on the building on multiple fronts.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police place US Capitol Building on lockdown after Trump supporters breached security lines\n\nOn the east side, the crowd force their way through barricades on the Capitol Plaza and move on the main entrance, quickly gaining access to the Great Rotunda.\n\nOnce inside, they head for the House and Senate chambers.\n\nIgor Bobic, a journalist for the Huffington Post, captures a group of men forcing a police officer to retreat up a set of stairs as they continue their advance.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Igor Bobic This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSenators are forced to abandon the process of confirming President-elect Biden's victory and the building goes into lockdown.\n\nThe doors of the House chamber are locked and a makeshift barricade is erected in front of them. Security officials guard the entrance, guns drawn.\n\nWithin an hour, protesters have also broken police lines on the west side of the Capitol, scaling walls to reach the building itself before smashing windows and forcing doors open.\n\nOther videos and images show rioters storming through the building's ornately-decorated corridors and chambers chanting \"USA!\" and \"Stop the steal\".\n\nShortly before 15:00, gunshots are reportedly heard inside the building.\n\nPhotos and video footage later show a female protester being shot as she tries to break through the barricaded doors of the Speakers' Lobby.\n\nDespite efforts by police and others at the scene to save her, she is later reported to have died.\n\nOn the other side of the building, protesters break into the Senate chamber, one taking seat in the Speaker's chair.\n\nAnother protester is photographed nearby sitting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, with his foot on the table.\n\nAfter growing condemnation of the riots, President Trump eventually calls for calm, telling the protesters to leave peacefully: \"Go home. We love you, you're very special.\"\n\nBy 17:40, the building is cleared and made secure ahead of the 18:00 curfew ordered by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser.\n\nSeveral thousand National Guard troops, FBI agents and US Secret Service are deployed to help.\n\nMore than six hours after the storming of the building, senators return and resume the day's business of certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.\n\nAt 03:41 on Thursday, Congress confirms President-elect Joe Biden will succeed President Trump on 20 January.", "Young women clap for heroes outside Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London\n\nA revived initiative to applaud the heroes of the pandemic has returned - but much more quietly than last year.\n\nIt comes after the founder of Clap for Carers distanced herself from its return after facing online abuse.\n\nAnnemarie Plas wanted to bring back the weekly applause under a new name of Clap for Heroes to lift spirits in the new lockdown but it fell a little flat.\n\nSome health workers have said they would rather people stay at home and wear a mask than clap for them.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he participated at 20:00 GMT on Thursday, but clapping \"isn't enough\".\n\n\"They need to be paid properly and given the respect they deserve,\" he tweeted., of the health workers.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The weekly clap returned but Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said clapping alone \"wasn't enough\"\n\nThe idea of clapping and banging pots from doorsteps originally began as a one-off to support NHS staff on 26 March - three days after the UK went into lockdown for the first time.\n\nAfter proving popular it was expanded to cover all key workers and continued every Thursday for 10 weeks last year, with millions of people across the UK taking part.\n\nMembers of the Royal Family and politicians including Prime Minister Boris Johnson also joined in with the show of support.\n\nHowever, the event faced criticism for becoming politicised, with some suggesting the NHS would benefit more from extra funding than applause.\n\nPeople in some streets stood on doorsteps and leaned out windows to clap for the pandemic's heroes, and landmarks in London were illuminated blue for the occasion - but reports suggested the applause was noticeably quieter than last year.\n\nAnnemarie Plas and her family were threatened online for her efforts\n\nOn Wednesday, Ms Plas, a 36-year-old mother-of-one, announced the return of the initiative, saying she hoped to \"lift the spirit of all of us\" including \"all who are pushing through this difficult time\".\n\nBut some NHS workers were less than enthusiastic. Ami Jones, an intensive care consultant from Wales, tweeted: \"No thanks. I'd rather you obey the rules, stay at home, wear masks and wash your hands.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Rachel Clarke 💙 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke said: \"Please don't clap us. Just wear a mask, wash your hands and respect lockdown.\"\n\nIn a tweet posted hours before the weekly clap was due to return, Ms Plas, a Dutch national living in south London, said she had been targeted with personal abuse and threats against her and her family by \"a hateful few\" on social media.\n\n\"I have no political agenda, I am not employed by the government, I do not work in PR, I am just an average mum at home trying to cope with the lockdown situation,\" she said, in a statement.\n\nShe said the newly revived clap could and should still happen at 20:00 GMT.\n\n\"It's up to each person to decide how relevant or worthwhile they feel it is to participate,\" she said.\n\nThe fountains in Trafalgar Square were illuminated blue for the initiative on Thursday\n\nSome incorporated pots and pans during their weekly claps in warmer months", "As violent Trump supporters surged past barricades and into the US Capitol, news agency photographers - who were there to document the vote certifying Joe Biden's election win - captured extraordinary scenes.\n\nThe last time government buildings were breached in Washington was in 1814 and the invaders were British soldiers.\n\nBut in 2021 a Trump supporter, carrying the Confederate flag, is walking freely through the halls near the entrance to the Senate, encountering little resistance.\n\nThe Confederacy was the group of southern states that fought to keep slavery during the American Civil War. In this image, the oil paintings of political figures in the background emphasise this imagery of the past.\n\nThere have been renewed calls for the Confederate flag to be banned across the US following the anti-racism protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, a black man.\n\nHowever Mr Trump has defended use of the flag, calling it a matter of free speech.\n\nOne man in a Trump beanie here walks between the red guide ropes, as many visitors might do on a guided-tour to view the Crypt, the Statuary Hall and the Rotunda.\n\nBut this man is carrying a podium bearing the seal of the Speaker of the House, as he poses in front of a painting depicting the surrender of Gen Burgoyne in the war of independence.\n\nAnother man, identified as Jake Angeli, an ardent Trump supporter who has attended a number of the president's rallies, shouts as he makes his way to the Senate Chamber.\n\nHis incongruous garments set him apart from other protesters wearing black hoodies. These Trump activists stand by taking selfies, but he has clearly come here to be photographed by others.\n\nThe apparent lack of a security presence is in sharp contrast to other Washington protests where there is a highly visible presence of heavily armed security forces protecting US institutions.\n\nAnother Trump supporter, identified as Richard Barnett, sits with one boot disrespectfully on a desk that is at the very centre of power in Congress. It is in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.\n\nIn the scene, unimaginable days earlier, Barnett in his baseball cap and checked shirt resembles a raconteur regaling friends with tales of his exploits.\n\nThe image went viral as did pictures of the notes he and others left on Ms Pelosi's desk.\n\nThis dramatic image shows how the formal proceedings came to a violent halt as Capitol police officers drew their guns on doors being attacked by protesters intent on entering the House Chamber.\n\nMany commentators asked if they were watching a coup unfold as doors were barricaded and firearms brandished.\n\nThe composition is reminiscent of a scene in a Hollywood Western, the lawmen bracing for the doors to be breached.\n\nUS President-elect Joe Biden made an impassioned TV address describing the scenes as \"an assault on democracy\" - this chilling picture encapsulates what he meant.", "A Joint Session of Congress to certify the election of Joe Biden has gone into an unexpected recess, and the Capitol building into lockdown, after Trump supporters breached security lines.\n\nEarlier, President Trump addressed supporters at a rally outside the White House and encouraged them to protest the election result.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson: \"I condemn encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way they did in the Capitol\"\n\nDonald Trump was \"completely wrong\" to cast doubt on the US election and encourage supporters to storm the Capitol, Boris Johnson has said.\n\nThe UK prime minister said he \"unreservedly condemns\" the US president's actions.\n\nFour people died after a pro-Trump mob stormed the building in a bid to overturn the election result.\n\nMr Trump had urged protesters to march on the Capitol after making false electoral fraud claims.\n\nHe later called on his supporters to \"go home\", while continuing to make false claims - Twitter and Facebook later froze his accounts.\n\nThe president has now said there will be an \"orderly transition\" to President-elect Joe Biden, whose November election victory has now been certified by US lawmakers.\n\nBut he added that he continued to \"totally disagree\" with the outcome of the vote, repeating his unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.\n\nOn Wednesday night, Mr Johnson condemned the \"disgraceful scenes\" and called for a \"peaceful and orderly transfer of power\".\n\nBut asked by the BBC's political correspondent Alex Forsyth if President Trump was directly responsible, he said: \"All my life America has stood for some very important things. An idea of freedom, an idea of democracy.\n\n\"As you say, in so far as he encouraged people to storm the Capitol, and in so far as the president has consistently cast doubt on the outcome of a free and fair election, I believe that was completely wrong.\n\n\"I believe what President Trump has been saying about that has been completely wrong and I unreservedly condemn encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way that they did in the Capitol.\"\n\nThe PM, speaking at a Downing Street briefing, then welcomed the confirmation of President-elect Biden, saying \"democracy has prevailed\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHundreds of the president's supporters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday - where lawmakers were meeting to confirm Mr Biden's election victory - and staged an occupation of the building in Washington DC.\n\nBoth chambers of Congress were forced into recess, as protesters clashed with police and tear gas was released.\n\nA woman died after being shot by police, and three others died as a result of \"medical emergencies\", local police said.\n\nUK politicians from different parties have all condemned Mr Trump's actions in encouraging the storming of the Capitol.\n\nEarlier, Home Secretary Priti Patel said the president's comments had \"directly led\" to the events and he \"didn't do anything to de-escalate that\".\n\nShe added: \"He basically has made a number of comments yesterday that helped to fuel that violence and he didn't actually do anything to de-escalate that whatsoever... what we've seen is completely unacceptable.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Priti Patel says Donald Trump was wrong for not condemning the violence\n\nSpeaking on Thursday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Mr Trump should \"take responsibility\" for what happened, calling it the \"culmination of years of the politics of hate and division\".\n\nSir Keir added he welcomed the outgoing president's agreement to an orderly handover, but told reporters \"he should have said it a long time ago.\"\n\nScottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Mr Trump had been \"inciting insurrection in his own country,\" and called it a \"dark period\" in US history.\n\n\"What we witnessed last night is not that surprising. In some senses, Donald Trump's presidency has been moving towards this moment almost from the moment it started,\" she told ITV's Good Morning Britain.\n\nScotland's Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said the home secretary should \"give serious consideration\" to denying Mr Trump entry to the UK after he leaves office.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'Treason, traitors and thugs' - the words lawmakers used to describe Capitol riot\n\nForeign Secretary Dominic Raab said certification of Mr Biden's victory was \"good to see\" after the \"shocking events\" on Wednesday, adding the UK condemned the violence \"unequivocally\".\n\nFormer Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, who shared time in office with Mr Trump, said there should be \"no place for the rule of the mob\".\n\nBut senior Welsh Conservative Andrew RT Davies has been criticised after comparing the rioting to politicians who supported a second referendum on Brexit.\n\nMr Davies, a member of the Welsh Parliament, later tweeted that \"violence must never be tolerated\".\n\nHis party colleague, the Conservative MP Simon Hoare, suggested Mr Trump could be sent to the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay:\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Simon Hoare MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCommons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has written to express his \"solidarity\" with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose empty office was broken into by protesters.\n\n\"Seeing your office trashed in that way and its occupation by one of the rioters was particularly outrageous. I am just so relieved you were not hurt,\" he wrote.\n\nTrump supporters left this note on the desk of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.", "Ryanair is making big cuts to its flight schedule from 21 January in response to the latest Covid lockdowns.\n\nIt warned that few, if any, flights would operate to or from Ireland or the UK from the end of January until \"draconian\" restrictions were removed.\n\nCustomers hit by the cancellations will be advised by email of entitlements to free moves or refunds, it said.\n\nRyanair also cut its full year traffic forecast from currently \"below 35 million\" to 26-30 million passengers.\n\nThe airline said that new Covid restrictions could reduce traffic in February and March to as little as 500,000 passengers each month. It expects January traffic to fall below 1.25 million.\n\nIt said it did not expect these latest flight cuts and further traffic reductions to materially affect its net loss for the year to 31 March 2021, since many of the flights would have been loss-making.\n\nRyanair hit out at Irish and UK governments for the latest lockdowns.\n\n\"The WHO have previously confirmed that governments should do everything possible to avoid brutal lockdowns, because lockdowns 'do not get rid of the virus',\" Ryanair said in a statement.\n\n\"Ireland's Covid-19 travel restrictions are already the most stringent in Europe, and so these new flight restrictions are inexplicable and ineffective when Ireland continues to operate an open border between the Republic and the North of Ireland.\"\n\nIt called on the Irish Government to accelerate the rollout of vaccines.\n\n\"The fact that the Danish Government, with a similar five million population, has already vaccinated 10 times more citizens than Ireland shows that emergency action is needed to speed Covid vaccinations in Ireland.\"\n\nRival low-cost carrier Norwegian said its traffic figures had been hit heavily by the pandemic, with customer numbers down 94% compared to the same period the previous year.\n\nIn December, 129,664 customers flew with Norwegian, with the capacity and total passenger traffic both down by 98%.\n\n\"2020 has been a very challenging year and we now find ourselves fighting for survival,\" said Jacob Schram, chief executive of Norwegian.\n\n\"The vaccination is now being rolled out across the world and is good news for both the aviation industry and those who want to travel.\"", "Mauritius has been removed from the safe list\n\nTravellers from countries near South Africa are to be banned from entering England to stop the spread of the South African Covid variant.\n\nArrivals from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Botswana, as well as island nations Mauritius and Seychelles, will be affected.\n\nThe rule will take effect on 9 January but there will be an exemption for British and Irish nationals.\n\nThey will need to follow existing quarantine procedures.\n\nA ban by visitors to the UK from South Africa started on 24 December.\n\nThe latest restriction brought in by the Department for Transport also affects travellers arriving from Eswatini, Zambia, Malawi, Lesotho and Mozambique.\n\nIt will apply from 04:00 GMT on Saturday to people who have travelled from or through any of the specified countries in the last 10 days.\n\nIt is understood most flights from the affected countries arrive at airports in England, although it is expected the policy will be formally adopted by the other UK nations.\n\nThe measures will be in place for an initial period of two weeks.\n\nMeanwhile, Botswana, and the islands of Seychelles and Mauritius, are being removed from the UK list of safe travel corridors as there is a high frequency of travel between the islands and South Africa.\n\nThe new variant of coronavirus circulating in South Africa is already being seen in other countries, including the UK.\n\nThe variant, much like the new UK variant first seen in Kent, appears to be more contagious than previous ones.\n\nAnyone arriving into the UK from most destinations must quarantine for 10 days.\n\nBut there are a list of countries exempt from the rules, meaning returning travellers do not need to self-isolate, called the travel corridor list.\n\nUnder the latest announcement, the travel corridor with Israel will also end amid concerns about rising infection levels in that country.\n\nHowever, rules in place across the UK currently ban travel abroad unless for specific reasons.", "Protesters in support of US President Donald Trump swarmed the Capitol building, forcing officials to order lawmakers to shelter in place and halting debate in both the House and Senate. Congress was meeting to confirm President-elect Joe Biden's electoral college victory.", "Mr Christmas' light displays attracted thousands of visitors over the years\n\nThe family of a man known affectionately as Mr Christmas has turned off his festive lights for the last time.\n\nDave Edwards, 86, lit up his home in Croxley Green, Hertfordshire, with extravagant light displays for 42 years to raise money for charity.\n\nHe died from cancer on the eve of his annual switch-on in November.\n\nHis daughter Sharon Markham called on local residents to \"continue to light up Croxley every year\".\n\nMr Edwards started putting up the light display with his wife - who died three years ago - as a competition with a house across the street, and continued to build on the set over the years.\n\nDave Edwards was dubbed Mr Christmas due to the illuminations at his home in Croxley Green\n\nPeople would travel miles to see the festive lights\n\nMrs Markham said each year they raised about £5,000 for charity, but this year a \"record amount\" of more than £10,000 had been donated.\n\nWhen his family said the 2020 display would be the last due to Mr Edwards's failing health, people across the village rallied together by installing their own displays in his honour.\n\nSharon Markham said her parents were \"such amazing people but their light will always be shining\"\n\nResidents of Croxley Green placed a banner opposite Mr Christmas' home to thank him for his displays and fundraising\n\nTurning off the lights at 21:23 GMT on Wednesday, in an event filmed for the Mr Christmas Facebook page, Mrs Markham thanked the community for its support over the years.\n\n\"Without you we could not have achieved the things we have done,\" she said.\n\n\"I thought turning the lights on was hard enough but switching them off - this moment has been worrying me for months and now it's finally here.\n\n\"For now, though, we say goodbye and we thank Mr and Mrs Christmas for all the joy they have brought us all.\n\n\"We ask you all to continue to light up Croxley every year.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Dr Anil Mehta, a GP at Fullwell Cross Medical Centre in North London, told the BBC that staff were working from 7 in the morning until 10pm at night during the three days of their weekly Covid-19 vaccine rollout, describing the process as a 'full team effort.\n\nDr Mehta was also keen to encourage people who might be nervous about the vaccine to take up the offer, emphasising that the evidence behind the vaccine 'was very strong'.\n\nThis message was echoed by Zahin Ahmed, whose grandfather Shafiquz Zaman has now received both doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine at the clinic. Mr Ahmed, who is from the Bangladeshi community, also said it was important that minority communities took up the offer of the vaccine when called upon to do so.", "George had mottled skin, swelling on his lips, a high temperature and could not keep fluids down\n\nThe mother of a baby who was treated in hospital for Covid-19 has urged parents to be alert to symptoms such as mottled skin and sickness.\n\nMyer Rudelhoff's four-month-old son George spent three nights in Basildon hospital, in Essex.\n\nHe had patchy skin, swelling on his lips, a high temperature and could not keep fluids down.\n\nShe said: \"I thought it was a sickness bug. I had no idea it was caused by coronavirus.\"\n\nDiarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal cramps in children can be a sign of coronavirus according to some researchers, but the officially recognised symptoms are a fever, cough and loss of smell or taste.\n\nMrs Rudlehoff, who lives in Basildon, noticed her son had a temperature on New Year's Eve but put it down to teething.\n\nGeorge began vomiting the following evening and on 2 January she called NHS 111, who told her to take him to hospital.\n\nShe said: \"I really did not want to go. I was so scared about him getting the virus there, I had no idea he had it.\n\n\"He got so poorly so quickly when we arrived and was really lethargic. They took a swab and, when they said he was positive, I burst into tears. It was such a shock.\"\n\nMyer Rudelhoff was scared to take her son to hospital but realised he was too poorly and needed treatment\n\nThe mother-of-two said she presumed it was not Covid-19 because he did not have a cough, though he did develop a mild one a few days later while in hospital.\n\nShe said the staff were \"amazing\" and she wanted to reassure parents \"not to be afraid to go to hospital\" if their children were ill.\n\nNurses told her they had treated several other children with the same mottled skin and sickness and asked her to share her story to raise awareness of these symptoms.\n\nMrs Rudelhoff's post on Facebook was shared nearly 7,000 times within three days.\n\nIn the post, she said she felt \"upset, angry and frustrated\" because she had taken the illness very seriously but George had still managed to catch it. He was the only member of the family who tested positive.\n\nGeorge was discharged from hospital and was making a good recovery at home, she said.\n\nGeorge is now making a good recovery at home and is being looked after by his big brother Stanley\n\nDr Kilali Ominu-Evbota, paediatric consultant at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said: \"It's great to hear that George is now back home and on the road to recovery.\n\n\"George's family did the right thing and we encourage parents to seek medical advice with their GP or via the NHS 111 service in order to get the correct treatment for their child.\"\n\nBasildon has an infection rate of 1,265 cases per 100,000 people - compared to the average England rate of 606.9.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n• None 'Upset stomach' in children may be coronavirus\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The president says he hates Big Tech. Yet he has loved using Twitter.\n\nHe's used it as a way, for more than 10 years, to bypass the media and speak directly to voters.\n\nThe 280 characters fits neatly with his style of political engagement - broad brushstrokes rather than details.\n\nAnd Twitter has undoubtedly benefited from President Trump too, the place to go to hear the latest musings from the most powerful person on the planet.\n\nThat decade-long symbiosis has been ended with a shuddering halt.\n\nImmediately after the deadly riots, Twitter locked the President's Twitter feed and asked Mr Trump to delete three tweets for violations around its Civic Integrity policy., which he promptly did.\n\nAfter the suspension he tweeted as a new man, the nonsense claims of mass voter fraud replaced with a more conciliatory tone.\n\nPrivately though Twitter was pondering whether it had gone far enough. Facebook had already acted, banning Donald Trump \"indefinitely\".\n\nAfter more than 48 hours of consideration, Twitter acted. It made unquestionably the most important moderation decision in its history. It banned the president of the United States.\n\nSome have asked why he wasn't kicked off sooner.\n\nMr Trump or one of his associates appears to have deleted some of his most recent tweets\n\nWell, Twitter has very specific rules about world leaders.\n\n\"We recognise that sometimes it may be in the public interest to allow people to view tweets that would otherwise be taken down,\" Twitter's rules say.\n\n\"At present, we limit exceptions to one critical type of public-interest content - tweets from elected and government officials.\"\n\nChief executive Jack Dorsey had felt it was in the public interest to keep the account active, albeit with warning messages.\n\n\"No one is turning a blind eye,\" a senior source told the BBC before the ban.\n\nIn short, Mr Trump had been allowed to remain on Twitter - despite numerous breaches of its rules - because he is the president.\n\nWith less than two weeks to go of Trump's presidency, many social media companies have now decided enough is enough.\n\nCritics say the outgoing president's words on social media, for years, helped to incite Wednesday's storming of Capitol Hill.\n\nAll the big social media companies have made it clear that - as a private citizen - if you continually look to peddle conspiracy theories and promote extremism, you should expect to be kicked out. With just a few days of his presidency left, Mr Trump is already being held to a different standard - his privileges stripped.\n\nWhat's driving this? To be cynical, social media companies are acutely aware that President-elect Joe Biden believes Big Tech hasn't done enough to quell fake news and hate speech on their platforms.\n\nRioters broke into Congress after a speech by Mr Trump on Wednesday\n\nThey are now desperate to show that they can, in fact, police their own platforms without the need for stringent legal reforms.\n\nWhat better way to show you're serious than to act on Mr Trump's misinformation?\n\nWhat will Mr Trump do next? Well he's already said he's looking into the possibility of building his own platform in the future.\n\nBut for now he's consigned to the fringes of the internet. Can Trumpism survive without Big Tech? We're about to find out.\n\nJames Clayton is the BBC's North America technology reporter based in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @jamesclayton5.", "For the first since April the UK has recorded more than 1,000 daily Covid-related deaths – one of the highest figures of the pandemic.\n\nRight now, London is at the epicentre of this crisis. Hospitals now have more Covid patients being admitted every day than they did at the peak in April. Many doctors and nurses say they're reaching breaking point.\n\nThe BBC's medical editor Fergus Walsh has been allowed to film inside the intensive care unit at London's University College Hospital, which is one of the busiest in the capital.\n\nRead more: 'How long can we keep going like this? About a week'", "Elon Musk has become the world's richest person, as his net worth crossed $185bn (£136bn).\n\nThe Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur was pushed into the top slot after Tesla's share price increased on Thursday.\n\nHe takes the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had held it since 2017.\n\nMr Musk's electric car company Tesla has surged in value this year, and hit a market value of $700bn (£516bn) for the first time on Wednesday.\n\nThat makes the car company worth more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, GM and Ford combined.\n\nMr Musk reacted to the news in signature style, replying to a Twitter user sharing the news with the remark \"how strange\".\n\nAn older tweet pinned to the top of his feed offered further insight into his thoughts on personal wealth.\n\n\"About half my money is intended to help problems on Earth, and half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure continuation of life (of all species) in case Earth gets hit by a meteor like the dinosaurs or WW3 happens and we destroy ourselves,\" it reads.\n\nThe tycoon's fortunes have been buoyed by politics in the US, where the Democrats will have control of the US Senate in the forthcoming session.\n\nDaniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities wrote: \"A Blue Senate is very bullish and a potential 'game changer' for Tesla and the overall electric vehicle sector, with a more green-driven agenda now certainly in the cards for the next few years.\"\n\nExpected electric vehicle tax credits would benefit Tesla, \"which continues to have an iron grip on the market today\", he added.\n\nMr Bezos is also using his personal wealth to fund space exploration\n\nMr Bezos has also seen his fortunes rise over the past year. The coronavirus pandemic has meant Amazon benefited from stronger demand for both its online store and cloud computing services.\n\nHowever, he gave a 4% stake in the business to his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott after they split, which helped Mr Musk overtake him.\n\nIn addition, the threat of regulation has meant Amazon's stock has not risen as high as it might otherwise have done.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Who is Elon Musk? Meet the meme-loving magnate behind SpaceX and Tesla...published in 2021\n\nThe owner of a business which has only just made its first annual profit and is still a minnow compared to the likes of Toyota - or Amazon - is now the world's richest person.\n\nIt is the fact that Tesla's share price has increased more than seven-fold in the past year that has sent Elon Musk's fortune rocketing past that of Jeff Bezos.\n\nTo believe the electric car-maker's worth could rise so rapidly in just 12 months is the ultimate example of irrational exuberance.\n\nIt means that Musk will have to show within the next five years that Tesla can make more profits than just about the whole of the rest of the motor industry combined to justify the valuation.\n\nMind you, his many fans will point out that the somewhat eccentric tycoon has constantly confounded the sceptics who bet that he would go bust.\n\nAnd of course 20 years ago another tech visionary was staring disaster in the face when the dot com bubble burst and big profits seemed a distant dream - but Jeff Bezos went on to make those who bet on Amazon very rich indeed.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Priti Patel says Donald Trump was wrong for not condemning the violence\n\nDonald Trump's comments \"directly led\" to his supporters storming Congress and clashing with police, Home Secretary Priti Patel has said.\n\nFour people have died after a pro-Trump mob stormed the building in a bid to overturn the election result.\n\nPresident Trump had urged protesters to march on the Capitol after making false claims of electoral fraud.\n\nMs Patel said the president's words had fuelled the violence and he \"didn't do anything to de-escalate that\".\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has condemned the \"disgraceful scenes\" and called for a \"peaceful and orderly transfer of power\".\n\nOn Wednesday evening, President Trump later called on his supporters to \"go home\", while continuing to make false claims of electoral fraud.\n\nHe has been suspended from his Facebook and Instagram accounts for at least two weeks, and possibly indefinitely. Twitter has also frozen his account.\n\nThe president has now said there will be an \"orderly transition\" to Democrat Joe Biden, whose November election victory has now been certified by US lawmakers.\n\nBut he added that he continued to \"totally disagree\" with the outcome of the vote, repeating his unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.\n\nHundreds of the president's supporters stormed the Capitol - where lawmakers were meeting to confirm Mr Biden's election victory - and staged an occupation of the building in Washington DC.\n\nBoth chambers of Congress were forced into recess, as protesters clashed with police and tear gas was released.\n\nMs Patel told BBC Breakfast the scenes were \"awful beyond words\".\n\nThe home secretary said: \"His comments directly led to the violence, and so far he has failed to condemn that violence and that is completely wrong.\"\n\nShe added: \"He basically has made a number of comments yesterday that helped to fuel that violence and he didn't actually do anything to de-escalate that whatsoever... what we've seen is completely unacceptable.\"\n\nA woman died after being shot by police, and three others died as a result of \"medical emergencies\", local police said.\n\nPoliticians across the UK's political parties lined up to condemn the scenes in Washington.\n\nSpeaking on Thursday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Mr Trump should \"take responsibility\" for what happened, calling it the \"culmination of years of the politics of hate and division\".\n\nSir Keir added he welcomed the outgoing president's agreement to an orderly handover, but told reporters \"he should have said it a long time ago.\"\n\nScottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Mr Trump had been \"inciting insurrection in his own country,\" and called it a \"dark period\" in US history.\n\n\"What we witnessed last night is not that surprising. In some senses, Donald Trump's presidency has been moving towards this moment almost from the moment it started,\" she told ITV's Good Morning Britain.\n\nScotland's Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said the home secretary should \"give serious consideration\" to denying Mr Trump entry to the UK after he leaves office.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police place US Capitol Building on lockdown after Trump supporters breached security lines\n\nForeign Secretary Dominic Raab said certification of Mr Biden's victory was \"good to see\" after the \"shocking events\" on Wednesday, adding the UK condemned the violence \"unequivocally\".\n\nFormer Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, who shared time in office with Mr Trump, said there should be \"no place for the rule of the mob\".\n\nBut senior Welsh Conservative Andrew RT Davies has been criticised after comparing the rioting to politicians who supported a second referendum on Brexit.\n\nMr Davies, a member of the Welsh Parliament, later tweeted that \"violence must never be tolerated\".\n\nHis party colleague, the Conservative MP Simon Hoare, suggested Mr Trump could be sent to the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay:\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Simon Hoare MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFriend of President Trump and leader of Reform UK - formerly the Brexit Party - Nigel Farage tweeted: \"Storming Capitol Hill is wrong. The protesters must leave.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey has defended the prime minister's response to the rioting.\n\nAsked on ITV's Peston programme why Mr Johnson hadn't criticised Mr Trump, she said: \"The prime minister has been clear tonight that we need a peaceful and orderly transition.\"\n\nCommons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has written to express his \"solidarity\" with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose empty office was broken into by protesters.\n\n\"Seeing your office trashed in that way and its occupation by one of the rioters was particularly outrageous. I am just so relieved you were not hurt,\" he wrote.\n\nTrump supporters left this note on the desk of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.\n\nIt is a truism of British diplomacy that every occupant of 10 Downing Street has to get on with every occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, regardless of their politics or character.\n\nPersonal consideration is pushed aside. What matters is the national interest and staying close to one of Britain's closest allies.\n\nThus even now, even after Donald Trump's incitement of the Capitol mob, even though there are less than two weeks until the inauguration, even as close Republican allies jump ship, Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab were reluctant to criticise the president by name in their initial response overnight.\n\nYes, they condemned the violence. But of Mr Trump, not a word. This caution was matched by the Prime Ministers of fellow so-called Five Eyes intelligence allies, Australia and New Zealand, both of whom also both failed to mention Mr Trump in their condemnatory tweets.\n\nIn contrast, European leaders were quick to blame the president personally.\n\nIt was only this morning that a British minister, Home Secretary Priti Patel, felt able to follow suit in strong terms.\n\nSo was this natural and sensible diplomatic caution in the midst of a febrile crisis?\n\nOr was this, as some Labour figures are already claiming, a function of the closeness between the current UK government and the Trump administration?\n\nIt was only a few weeks ago that Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told The Sun that he would miss Donald Trump because he was a good friend to Britain.\n\nWhatever one's views, it is certainly the case that the British government is seen on the international stage by some has having ideological proximity to Mr Trump.\n\nChanging that reputation is seen by many diplomats as a priority in the months ahead, a task made more urgent by events overnight.", "Olly Stephens was stabbed to death in Emmer Green in Reading on Sunday\n\nThree teenagers accused of murdering a 13-year-old boy who was stabbed to death have appeared in Crown Court.\n\nOliver Stephens, known as Olly, was pronounced dead at Bugs Bottom fields, Emmer Green in Reading, on Sunday.\n\nTwo boys, aged 13 and 14, and a 13-year-old girl have been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm.\n\nThey have all been remanded in youth detention custody and a provisional trial date has been set for 21 June.\n\nThe three teenagers, who cannot be identified because of their ages, had appeared at Reading Youth Court earlier on Thursday before the Crown Court hearing.\n\nThe defendants only spoke at the youth court to confirm their names, ages and addresses.\n\nThe court heard the girl has also been charged with perverting the course of justice.\n\nThe Crown Court hearing was told a potential trial was estimated to last five or six weeks.\n\nPolice were called just before 16:00 GMT on Sunday following reports of an attack in fields on the boundary of Emmer Green and Caversham Heights.\n\nOlly was pronounced dead at the scene.\n\nIn a statement released on Wednesday, his family said: \"An Olly-sized hole has been left in our hearts.\"\n\nHis parents said their son was \"an enigma\", and having both autism and suspected pathological demand avoidance meant \"he became a challenge we never shied away from\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The former president posts that he has been told to report to a grand jury, \"which almost always means an Arrest\".", "McDonald's is pausing walk-in takeaway services in the UK as new lockdown restrictions come into force.\n\nDine-in meals and walk-in takeaways will not be available temporarily while it reviews safety procedures, it said.\n\nIts UK boss said it will be testing \"additional measures that may further enhance the safety of our takeaway service.\"\n\nRival food chains Burger King, Subway, KFC and Pret A Manger are still offering takeaways in-store.\n\nMcDonald's UK and Ireland chief executive Paul Pomroy said that safety measures across the firm's 1,300 restaurants will be reviewed by an independent health and safety body.\n\nHe added that customers would be kept updated via the restaurant's app and its website. Drive-through and delivery services across the fast food chain will remain open.\n\nUnder new lockdown restrictions which came into force in England and Scotland this week, hospitality firms are allowed to offer takeaways and deliveries.\n\nBut rules which previously allowed takeaways or click-and-collect services for alcoholic drinks have been scrapped.\n\nWales and Northern Ireland were already in lockdown, which meant that pubs, restaurants and cafes were restricted to takeaway-only too.\n\nAfter the first nationwide lockdown in March, many chains including McDonald's, Burger King and Pret closed their doors to hungry customers.\n\nThey gradually reopened with additional safety measures in place, such as plastic screens in front of the tills, hand sanitiser dispensers and restrictions on the number of customers allowed in at any one point. Some also pared back the number of dishes on offer.\n\nA Burger King spokesperson said that takeaway was still available in some branches and that it would continue to offer click-and-collect and delivery services \"in line with guidance issued\".\n\nSandwich chain Pret A Manger told the BBC that it is keeping some outlets open for both takeaways and delivery, but it would keep the number under review in the coming months.\n\n\"Last year we shifted our business to focus on delivery and expanded our delivery platform partnerships, to make Pret available to a wider customer base\", a spokesperson said.\n\n\"Since then, we have seen a significant increase in the use of delivery.\"\n\nSubway and KFC also confirmed that they remain open for in-store takeaways, deliveries and click-and-collect orders across the UK.\n\nFast food firm Leon, which has 65 outlets, said that 28 of their sites will remain open for takeaways and deliveries.\n\n\"We will continue to keep as many restaurants open as possible, as we did in the previous two lockdowns in line with government guidelines,\" a spokesperson said.\n\nDespite adapting their business models, many casual dining chains have been forced to make job cuts in the last year as lockdown restrictions hit sales. Pret, for example, announced 3,000 job cuts in August, while Greggs made 820 job cuts at the end of 2020.", "Supporters of US President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday\n\nWorld leaders have condemned violent scenes in Washington after supporters of US President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday.\n\nThe riot forced the suspension of a joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden's electoral victory.\n\nMany leaders called for peace and an orderly transition of power, describing what happened as \"horrifying\" and an \"attack on democracy\".\n\n\"The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power,\" he wrote on Twitter.\n\nOther UK politicians joined him in criticising the violence, with opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer calling it a \"direct attack on democracy\".\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC that Mr Trump's comments \"directly led\" to his supporters storming Congress and clashing with police.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Home Secretary Priti Patel says Donald Trump was wrong for not condemning the violence\n\nScotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that the scenes from the US Capitol were \"utterly horrifying\".\n\nIn Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said those who stormed the US legislature were \"attackers and rioters\" and that she felt \"angry and also sad\" after seeing pictures from the scene.\n\nShe told a meeting of German conservatives: \"I regret very much that President Trump has still not admitted defeat, but has kept raising doubts about the elections.\"\n\nChina meanwhile attempted to draw comparisons between the rioters who entered Congress to try and subvert the US election result and pro-democracy protesters who stormed Hong Kong's Legislative Council last year.\n\nForeign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying claimed events in Hong Kong were more \"severe\" than those in Washington but \"not one demonstrator died\".\n\nThe comparisons between the two incidents has caused outrage among Hong Kong's pro-democracy activists and their supporters.\n\nRussia blamed the \"archaic\" US electoral system and the politicisation of the media for Wednesday's unrest in Washington.\n\n\"The electoral system in the United States is archaic, it does not meet modern democratic standards, creating opportunities for numerous violations, and the American media have become an instrument of political struggle,\" foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.\n\nElsewhere in Europe, a chorus of leaders condemned the scenes in Washington as an attack on democracy.\n\nSpanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said: \"I have trust in the strength of US democracy. The new presidency of Joe Biden will overcome this tense stage, uniting the American people.\"\n\nIn a video on Twitter, French President Emmanuel Macron said: \"When, in one of the world's oldest democracies, supporters of an outgoing president take up arms to challenge the legitimate results of an election, a universal idea - that of 'one person, one vote' - is undermined.\n\n\"What happened today in Washington DC is not American, definitely. We believe in the strength of our democracies. We believe in the strength of American democracy\" he added.\n\nSwedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven described the incident as \"worrying\" and said it was \"an assault on democracy\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by SwedishPM This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTop EU leaders have also made their views known. European Council President Charles Michel said he trusted the US \"to ensure a peaceful transfer of power\" to Mr Biden, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she looked forward to working with the Democrat, who \"won the election\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Charles Michel This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLike many other global figures, the Secretary-General of the Nato military alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said that the outcome of the election \"must be respected\".\n\nFor his part, UN Secretary-General António Guterres was \"saddened\" by the events at the US Capitol, his spokesman said.\n\nThe events also shocked America's close ally and neighbour to its north. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians were \"deeply disturbed and saddened by the attack on democracy\".\n\n\"Violence will never succeed in overruling the will of the people. Democracy in the US must be upheld - and it will be,\" he wrote on Twitter.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. When a mob stormed the US capitol\n\nFrom New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, tweeted that \"democracy - the right of people to exercise a vote, have their voice heard and then have that decision upheld peacefully - should never be undone by a mob\".\n\nMeanwhile Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia - another close US ally - condemned the \"distressing scenes\" and said he looked forward to a peaceful transfer of power.\n\nIn India, the world's largest democracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi - who has enjoyed a good relationship with President Trump - said he was \"distressed to see news about rioting and violence\" in Washington.\n\n\"Orderly and peaceful transfer of power must continue,\" he tweeted.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Narendra Modi This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTurkey, an ally through Nato, said it invited \"all parties\" to show \"restraint and common sense\".\n\nThe Venezuelan government, which the US does not recognise as legitimate, said \"with this regrettable episode, the United States suffers the same thing that it has generated in other countries with its policies of aggression\".\n\nIn statements on Twitter, Argentina's President Alberto Fernández and Chile's President Sebastián Piñera also condemned the scenes in Washington. Mr Piñera said Chile \"trusts in the solidity of US democracy to guarantee the rule of law\".\n\nIn Japan, one of America's closest allies and partners, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said the government hoped for a \"peaceful transfer of power\" in the United States.\n\nFrom Fiji, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who led a coup in 2006, also expressed outrage at the events that took place.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Frank Bainimarama This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd in Singapore, Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean said he had watched as the \"shocking\" scenes took place, adding: \"Its a sad day.\"", "Nursery staff are not advised to wear face coverings\n\nChildcare organisations are demanding to see evidence that it is safe for them to remain open while schools and colleges have closed to most pupils.\n\nStaff have close contact with children and babies daily, when they change nappies and receive them by the hand from parents, for example.\n\nMinisters have insisted early years settings are safe as young children have very low rates of the virus.\n\nNurseries argue the evidence cited is based on data about old variant Covid.\n\nEngland's three main nursery organisations, the Early Years Alliance, the National Day Nurseries Association and childminders' group, Pacey, have joined together to mount a #ProtectEarlyYears campaign.\n\nThey want the government to provide clear scientific evidence on the risks to early years staff of staying open, particularly in light of the increased transmissibility of the new variant of Covid-19.\n\nSue Cardy, owner and manager of Ready Teddy Go Pre School, in Shoeburyness, Essex said: \"There isn't anyone who has asked: 'Is it 100% safe for us to remain fully open? No one can see the virus and staff may be asymptomatic, and so we all run an element of risk of catching or spreading it.\"\n\nShe added: \"Staff have families and are not all young... 50% of my staff are over 50 and some have underlying medical conditions.\"\n\nVicky, the manager of a church pre-school in Cheshire West and Chester said she could potentially have 30 children plus 10 staff in a church hall, with no PPE recommended, and limited social distancing.\n\n\"As an early years provider, I am increasingly worried about the safety of both staff and children, yet if we chose to partially close, we could be financially penalised.\"\n\nAnd Georgie Morrell from Brighton and Hove said: \"Since re-opening, I have had four households tell me. they are Covid positive.\n\n\"This is clearly very close to home and yet we have been given no choice or support but to remain open and carry on.\"\n\nNeil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: \"It is simply not acceptable that, at the height of a global pandemic, early years providers are being asked to work with no support, no protection and no clear evidence that is safe for them to do so.\n\n\"We know how vital access to early education and care is to many families, but it cannot be right to ask the early years workforce to put themselves at risk. That is why it is vital that the government takes the urgent steps needed to safeguard those working in the sector, particularly mass testing and priority access to vaccinations.\n\nNursery providers are calling for staff to be tested, priority for vaccination and for state funding lost due to lower numbers during the pandemic, to be replaced by government.\n\nPurnima Tanuku, chief Executive of National Day Nurseries Association, said nurseries were determined to support families during the current lockdown.\n\nBut, she added: \"Time and again, whether it's on PPE, cleaning costs, testing or staffing, early years providers have been overlooked by the Department for Education.\n\n\"Now, they are the only part of the education sector fully open to all children and must be given priority.\"\n\nOn Wednesday, vaccines minister Nadim Zahawi said there was very little risk to younger children.\n\n\"The nursery sector has taken tremendous care in making sure the premises are also Covid safe. It is the right thing to do.\"\n\nThe Department for Education is yet to comment on the #ProtectEarlyYears demands.", "Matthew Mason will be sentenced later this month\n\nA man who killed a schoolboy after paying him to stop their sexual relationship being revealed has been found guilty of murder.\n\nMatthew Mason admitted bludgeoning 15-year-old Alex Rodda with a wrench in Ashley, Cheshire, in 2019.\n\nThe 19-year-old paid Alex more than £2,000 after he contacted his then girlfriend about \"flirty\" messages, Chester Crown Court heard.\n\nMason, of Ash Lane in Ollerton, will be sentenced on 25 January.\n\nLawyers acting for Mason, who denied murder, had claimed the killing was the result of self-defence or a loss of control.\n\nBut the jury rejected this and found him guilty of murdering Alex by a majority of 10 to two.\n\nAs the verdict was returned, Mason appeared to be crying in the dock.\n\nMembers of Alex's family were also in tears. In a statement, they said they had \"never come across a more selfish, cold and calculating person\" as Mason.\n\n\"Mason has attempted to blame Alex and discredit his name throughout this trial and thankfully the jury were able to see through his web of deceit,\" they said.\n\nSpeaking outside the court, Alex's father Adam Rodda said the trial had been \"very difficult\" for the family and they were relieved Mason had been found guilty of murder.\n\n\"We wouldn't have accepted anything else, we would have been distraught if any other verdict had been given. We prayed and we are obviously delighted that justice has been done,\" he said.\n\nAlex Rodda was killed in woodland in Cheshire\n\nOn the evening of 12 December, Mason said he had picked Alex up from his home and drove him to a remote area of woodland where he told him he could not afford to give him any more money.\n\nThe agricultural engineering student, who was the son of a farmer, told the court he had taken the wrench with him to \"scare him\".\n\nHe claimed that, once in the woods, Alex had threatened to ruin his life \"financially or socially\" and pushed him to the floor, grabbing the wrench and hitting Mason with it.\n\nMason said he managed to get the wrench from Alex and recalled hitting him with it twice, although the court heard evidence of further blows.\n\nAlex, a pupil at Holmes Chapel High School, was struck at least 15 times to the head and his body was found by refuse collectors the next morning.\n\nEvidence showed Alex had been struck at least 15 times with the wrench\n\nThe jury heard Mason had paid Alex more than £2,000 to stop him reporting their \"intimate sexual relationship\".\n\nIn the month before the murder, Alex contacted Mason's girlfriend to tell her that her boyfriend had been messaging him \"in a flirty way\" and had sent an explicit photo and video.\n\nMason denied the claim but began making payments to the 15-year-old's bank account.\n\nBy the time of Alex's death, Mason had transferred more than £2,200 and was asking friends and family to borrow money, the court was told.\n\nGiving evidence, Mason, who lived with his family on a farm near Knutsford, admitted having sex with Alex but said he thought it was \"wrong\".\n\nHe told the court he did not believe his friends would accept him if he was gay or bisexual.\n\nIn the week before Alex's death, Mason made internet searches for phrases including \"what would happen if you kicked someone down the stairs\", \"everyday poison\" and \"the mysteries of Cheshire unsolved deaths of missing people\".\n\nBut he told the court he had been searching the terms because he was suicidal.\n\nAlex's body was found in woodland by refuse collectors\n\nAfter killing Alex, Mason had a drink with friends in the Red Lion pub in Pickmere and The Golden Pheasant pub in Plumley, Cheshire Police said.\n\nHe later returned to the woods and the prosecution believe he dragged Alex's body to the side of the road and attempted to put him inside his car.\n\nAfter failing to do this, he drove away. But a witness had taken a photo of his Renault Clio car parked on the track and reported this to police.\n\nMason was identified as the owner and arrested the next day.\n\nPolice said Mason had dried blood on his hands and there was a bin bag in his boot with a blood-stained fleece, the wrench and Alex's jacket in it.\n\nDet Insp Nigel Reid said: \"Mason had murder on his mind as he drove Alex to his death under the pretence of sexual activity.\n\n\"He chose a secluded place to kill him in cold blood, a place he believed he would go unseen and his crime undetected.\"\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The coronavirus vaccine rollout is a national challenge requiring an unprecedented effort - involving the armed forces - Boris Johnson says.\n\nThe PM confirmed almost 1.5 million people in the UK have now received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.\n\nMore than 1,000 GP-led sites in England will be able to offer a total of \"hundreds of thousands\" of jabs each day by 15 January, he said.\n\nThe Army will use \"battle preparation techniques\" to help achieve that goal.\n\nIt came as a further 1,162 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported on Thursday - the second consecutive day of more than 1,000 recorded fatalities - and 52,618 new cases.\n\nAnd as Simon Stevens, head of the NHS in England, warned 10,000 patients with Covid had been admitted to hospital since Christmas Day.\n\nSpeaking at a Downing Street news conference, Mr Johnson said there would likely be \"lumpiness and bumpiness\" in the rollout of vaccines.\n\nHe said: \"Let's be clear, this is a national challenge on a scale like nothing we've seen before and it will require an unprecedented national effort.\n\n\"Of course, there will be difficulties, appointments will be changed but... the Army is working hand in glove with the NHS and local councils to set up our vaccine network and using battle preparation techniques to help us keep up the pace.\"\n\nAlongside GPs, there will be 223 hospital sites and seven \"giant vaccination centres\" - as well as an initial 200 community pharmacies - offering jabs, Mr Johnson said.\n\nEveryone will have a vaccination centre within 10 miles of their home, he added, with a \"full vaccination deployment plan\" to be published on Monday.\n\nHe also said there would be a national booking system for vaccinations - but did not give any more details.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brigadier Phil Prosser said his task was to ensure everyone in England had equal access to the vaccine\n\nBrigadier Phil Prosser, commander of military support to the vaccine delivery programme, told the news conference his team was \"embedded\" with the NHS.\n\nHe said his \"day job\" is to deliver combat supplies to UK forces in time of war, \"at speed in the most arduous and challenging conditions\".\n\nThe government has set a target to offer vaccination slots to 15 million in the top four priority groups - including all over-80s - by 15 February.\n\nAnd Mr Johnson said that, with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine available, he could pledge one of those groups - care home residents - would all receive their jab by the end of January.\n\nThe widespread rollout of the vaccine has begun in earnest with the first doses delivered during the day to family doctors for distribution.\n\nBut there were concerns from some GPs over supplies, as Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the levels of vaccine supply was the \"rate-limiting\" factor as jabs would be delivered as quickly as stock is available.\n\nIt comes as some hospitals in England are at risk of becoming Covid-only sites, with rising admissions for the virus forcing trusts to cut back on other services.\n\nThe latest NHS statistics also show that there were 30,370 patients with Covid in UK hospitals on Tuesday, a much higher figure than the first peak in the spring of 2020.\n\nHospital leaders have warned medics are becoming increasingly stretched with \"untrained staff\" used to fill gaps.\n\nAt 20:00 GMT, people in some streets stepped out onto doorsteps to clap for the heroes of the pandemic, following a weekly initiative which gained popularity during the UK's first lockdown.\n\nHowever, Thursday's clap for heroes was more muted than those seen last year, perhaps reflecting criticism the initiative had become politicised.\n\nLots of detail has been given about how the NHS - working hand-in-hand with the military - will be able to deliver the vaccines.\n\nThere will be more local vaccination centres, hospital hubs and even mass vaccination at sports stadiums.\n\nThousands of extra vaccinators have already been trained - and thousands more are waiting in the wings.\n\nBut the biggest hurdle the UK faces is vaccine supply.\n\nIf it is not available, it cannot be put in arms no matter how good the vaccination network is.\n\nIn the long-term, supply is not likely to be a problem - but in the coming weeks it could be tight.\n\nThere is enough vaccine in the country to offer all those at highest risk a jab by mid-February.\n\nBut it is not yet all ready for the NHS to use, either because the final safety checks have not been done or the vaccine has not been put into vials.\n\nThe former depends on lab work by the medicines regulator, while the latter is the job of a plant in Wrexham.\n\nEach stage takes some time. The target is achievable, but a lot has to go right.\n\nSir Simon Stevens said there were 50% more coronavirus patients in England's hospitals now compared to the peak last April, affecting every region across the country.\n\nHe said: \"That number is accelerating very, very rapidly... the pressures are real and they are growing.\"\n\nIn Northern Ireland, the Belfast Health Trust has said it has no other option but to cancel all of its urgent cancer surgery amid \"highly significant\" demand for bed space.\n\nThe cancelled operations will affect those patients for whom surgery could impact recovery and even survival, the trust said.\n\nBoris Johnson said all parts of government would be throwing everything at the vaccination effort \"round the clock\"\n\nIn one positive development for hospitals, two more life-saving drugs that can cut deaths by a quarter in patients who are sickest with Covid have been cleared for widespread use, with immediate effect.\n\nThe anti-inflammatory medications, given via a drip, save an extra life for every 12 treated, researchers said, following NHS trials.\n\nElsewhere, the UK has implemented restrictions on travellers to England from countries near South Africa to stop the spread of the South African Covid variant.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Johnson and Sir Simon were asked about persistent social media claims that coronavirus does not exist - and that reports of packed hospital wards of people being treated are just a myth.\n\nSir Simon said that such misinformation was an \"insult\" to hard-working critical care staff.\n\n\"There is nothing more demoralising than having that kind of nonsense spouted when it is most obviously untrue,\" he said.", "Sarah Bingham said she is a match donor for her daughter Ariel and eldest son Noah (far right)\n\nA mother with two children who need kidney transplants said she wishes she could help both of them, but can only donate one organ.\n\nSarah Bingham's son Noah, 20, and daughter Ariel, 16, have the same rare genetic condition.\n\nMrs Bingham, 48, is a donor match for her children and said her maternal instinct is to donate to both of them.\n\nBut her organ was always due to go to her daughter and two family friends are matches for her son.\n\nHer husband Darryl, 49, is not a match, so cannot be a donor for their children.\n\nBoth Noah and Ariel have nephronophthisis, which causes inflammation and scarring to the kidneys.\n\nMrs Bingham, of Hexham, Northumberland, said although her son is \"very poorly\", he undergoes regular dialysis and is in a stable condition.\n\nHer daughter's kidney function \"has been deteriorating more in the last year\" and she will probably need a transplant first.\n\nMrs Bingham said: \"I was all set to give a kidney to my daughter and then my son went into renal failure and he also needs a kidney. Obviously, I've only got one that I can donate.\n\n\"The renal teams don't push you [to make a decision], because you're putting yourself on the line to donate a kidney.\n\n\"You have to make that call yourself, but obviously as a mum when you've got two children who both need kidney transplants and you've expected to give your kidney to one, and suddenly the other one needs one as well, you feel this dilemma.\"\n\nNoah Bingham is in a stable condition thanks to regular kidney dialysis\n\nProblems began in 2016 when Ariel started to feel constantly tired.\n\nHer fatigue was initially put down to exam stress, but tests at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary found she had the kidney condition.\n\nMrs Bingham was told she would be a suitable donor for Ariel when the time came.\n\nThen, in 2019, Noah became ill and was diagnosed with the same condition.\n\nHe is stable, but would need to put on weight to undergo a transplant.\n\nThe couple have another son Casper, 12, who is being tested to see if he also has the condition.\n\nDarryl Bingham is not a suitable match for his two eldest children\n\nProf John Sayer, a kidney specialist at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital who is treating Noah, said nephronophthisis affects about one in 100,000 people.\n\n\"There's clearly a dilemma because there's a shortage of donors for patients needing kidney transplants.\n\n\"But kidney failure itself is not rare. There are 4,500 people across the country waiting for a transplant.\"\n\nHe added patients often face a \"gruelling and terrifying\" wait of about three years for a donor organ.\n\nIn December, Mr Bingham completed the challenge of walking 12,000 steps every day for 12 days to raise money for Kidney Research UK, which has supported the family.\n\nMrs Bingham said that if Ariel's condition was to deteriorate first she would get her kidney\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Some supermarkets faced issues over the festive period due to ports disruption\n\nThe UK meat industry has called for the early vaccination of workers to keep food supplies running smoothly during the coronavirus crisis.\n\nIt warned that absences during the pandemic, coupled with disruption at ports, could hit food supply chains.\n\nAn early vaccination call for supermarket staff was also made by the boss of Sainsbury's on Thursday.\n\nThe government said the food industry remains \"well-prepared\" to make sure people have the food they need.\n\nThe British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) said coronavirus and disruption at ports due to new systems brought in after the Brexit transition period were \"a severe challenge to the industry and to the smooth running of the nation's food supply chain\".\n\nIt argued frontline workers in meat factories should get early vaccinations due to the risk of a rapid spread of the new strains of the virus among key workers.\n\nThe government has set out who will get vaccinated first, which starts with care home residents and the oldest and most vulnerable people.\n\nBut Nick Allen, chief executive of the BMPA, said it would be logical to also prioritise key workers in the food industry.\n\n\"As the new coronavirus variant takes hold across the whole of the UK, we are hearing widespread reports of rapidly rising absences in the food supply chain,\" he said.\n\nSome firms supplying supermarkets \"are seeing a tripling of staff having to take time off work through illness or enforced self-isolation\", he added.\n\nPressures on staff during the lockdown include illness, having to self-isolate, and childcare while some schools are closed under England's lockdown.\n\nDue to the specialised nature of meat production, if even a few key factory personnel such as the foreman or managers are absent, production can stop, Mr Allen said.\n\nEarly vaccinations should not be restricted to the meat industry, according to Mr Allen. All key workers in the food industry should get early vaccinations, he said.\n\nEven supermarkets themselves are having problems with absences, he suggested.\n\n\"The key food supply chains ought to be prioritised,\" he said. \"All food industry key workers should be prioritised [for vaccination]\".\n\nThe government is advised on vaccinations by a group of experts called the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).\n\nProfessor Wei Shen Lim, Covid-19 Chair for the JCVI, said the committee's advice on vaccine prioritisation \"was developed with the aim of preventing as many deaths as possible.\"\n\n\"As the single greatest risk of death from Covid-19 is older age, prioritisation is primarily based on age,\" he said.\n\n\"It is estimated that vaccinating everyone in the priority groups would prevent 99% of deaths, including those associated with occupational exposure to infection,\" the professor added.\n\nSainsbury's boss Simon Roberts also called for early vaccinations for key workers on Thursday.\n\n\"My view is that priority has to be given to those that need it first,\" he said. \"Those on the frontline should be part of that as and when capacity becomes available.\"\n\nAbsence rates for Sainsbury's staff are lower than at the peak of the crisis, but are rising, and have stepped up in the last few days, he said.\n\nThe Sainsbury's absence rate is currently 8%. The business has 172,000 employees.\n\nAsda said that it had seen an increase in employees self-isolating and shielding in line with the rising UK infection rate.\n\nHowever, it said that absence rates were still lower than at the peak of the pandemic.\n\n\"We are taking proactive steps to manage colleague absences by retaining temporary colleagues hired over the Christmas period and are bringing in additional temporary colleagues in those stores that need them the most,\" and Asda spokesman said.\n\nTesco has asked clinically vulnerable staff to stay at home.\n\nMorrisons, meanwhile, is also seeing more absences, but the rate is still more than half that of the peak of the pandemic. It is also a bigger business having taken on 26,000 extra staff during the crisis.\n\nAndrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium said: \"While absence rates are currently rising, retailers are closely monitoring the situation in stores and distribution centres and supply chains continue to run smoothly.\n\nA spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs said: \"As we have seen in recent months, the UK has a large, diverse and highly resilient food supply chain.\n\n\"We continue to closely monitor the situation and are working closely with the food industry on the workforce and absence related challenges presented by the pandemic.\"\n\nThey added that the food industry remains \"well-prepared\" to make sure people across the country have the food they need.\n\nUK ports have seen disruption due to the effects of coronavirus on trade and new systems brought in after the Brexit transition period.\n\nMr Roberts of Sainsbury's said that, so far, the flow of goods from Europe is in decent shape, but there had been some problems in sending food to Northern Ireland.There is still some backlog in general merchandising, he added.\n\nHowever, Scottish seafood exporters warned on Thursday that they had been hit by the \"perfect storm of Brexit disruption\".\n\n\"Weakened by Covid-19, and the closure of the French border before Christmas, the end of the Brexit transition period has unleashed layer upon layer of administrative problems, resulting in queues, border refusals and utter confusion,\" said Donna Fordyce, chief executive of Seafood Scotland.\n\nShe said IT problems in France meant consignments were diverted from Boulogne-sur-Mer to Dunkirk, \"which was unprepared as it wasn't supposed to be at the export frontline.\"\n\nThere have also been IT issues on the UK side with HMRC, she added.\n\n\"These businesses are not transporting toilet rolls or widgets,\" she said. \"They are exporting the highest quality, perishable seafood which has a finite window to get to markets in peak condition. If the window closes these consignments go to landfill.\"\n\nThe National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations also warned of delays to fish exports due to \"a brick wall of bureaucracy\".", "Lorry drivers crossing the Channel will continue to need a recent negative Covid test result \"until further notice\", the UK government has said.\n\nHauliers have been required to prove they have tested negative since the border with France reopened last month.\n\nThe decision to continue testing comes from the French government, the Department for Transport said.\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps urged \"all hauliers to get tested before getting to the border\".\n\nThe decision comes as the introduction of new trading rules between the UK and European Union prompts disruption for some businesses and hauliers.\n\nMr Shapps said the government was \"offering support to businesses to set-up testing facilities at their own premises, assisting the smooth passage of trucks and good across the border, as well as setting up testing at information and advice sites around the country\".\n\nDrivers and crew of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), drivers of large goods vehicles (LGVs) and van drivers are advised to obtain a negative test before arriving in Kent or at other Channel crossing points.\n\nThere are now 34 testing sites for hauliers situated in key \"stopping spots\" across the UK, with further sites being set up, the DfT said.\n\nTests must be authorised and taken 72 hours before entry into France.\n\nIn addition to a negative Covid test result, some hauliers require a new 24-hour permit to enter Kent since the introduction of the new UK-EU rules.\n\nFrance reported 21,703 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, while the UK reported 52,618.\n\nLast month, the border crisis saw France refuse arrivals from the UK for 48 hours between 20 and 22 December due to a new virus variant initially discovered in Kent.\n\nPassenger ferries and lorry freight bound for France were suspended from Dover, Portsmouth and Newhaven.\n\nAn emergency procedure devised as part of post-Brexit preparations allowed lorries to be \"stacked\" - leaving thousands of foreign drivers stranded throughout southern England.", "Last updated on .From the section Aston Villa\n\nAston Villa are preparing to field a team of youngsters in Friday's FA Cup third-round tie at home to Liverpool after a \"significant\" Covid-19 outbreak at the club.\n\nA final decision on whether the game will take place at all will be made on Friday.\n\nVilla manager Dean Smith, his coaching staff and the rest of the club's first-team squad will not be involved after the outbreak forced the closure of the club's Bodymoor Heath training headquarters on Thursday.\n\nThe club is in discussions with the Football Association and want to fulfil the fixture (kick-off 19:45 GMT) but final confirmation on whether the tie is played is still on hold pending the results of further testing on the young players who are now being considered for selection.\n\nMark Delaney, Villa's under-23 coach, is scheduled to take charge in the absence of Smith and his backroom staff. He will be accompanied by a doctor, physiotherapist and kit staff.\n\nThe game was thrown into doubt when Villa confirmed the shutdown of the training ground after \"a large number of first-team players and staff\" returned positive Covid-19 results after being tested on Monday.\n\nThose affected went into isolation and a second round of tests was carried out immediately, which produced more positive results on Thursday.\n\nVilla are keen to play the game against Jurgen Klopp's Premier League champions, who they thrashed 7-2 earlier this season. Manager Smith had planned to rest several stars for the game but the Covid-19 outbreak has thrown the club's plans into chaos.\n\nThey will now be hoping the additional Covid-19 testing returns a clean bill of health with Villa liaising closely with the FA in the hope of getting the game played on Friday night.\n\nThe meeting between in-form Villa and Liverpool is one of the most attractive ties of the third round, even if both managers were set to field unfamiliar line-ups.\n\nIt also remains to be seen whether Villa's scheduled Premier League home game against Tottenham Hotspur at Villa Park on Wednesday goes ahead.\n• None What sport has been hit by Covid-19 this weekend?\n\nElswhere, Southampton's FA Cup third-round game against Shrewsbury on Sunday was called off on Thursday after a significant number of Shrews players and staff tested positive for coronavirus.\n\nWayne Rooney and Derby's first-team squad will miss their FA Cup tie at Chorley on Saturday following a Covid-19 outbreak which closed their training ground on Monday.\n\nThe Rams' team for the game at Victory Park will be made up of under-23 and under-18 players.\n\nVilla will be doing all they can to ensure Friday's tie goes ahead but the Covid-19 outbreak could also have Premier League ramifications.\n\nVilla are scheduled to face fourth-placed Spurs at Villa Park on Wednesday and they currently stand only three points behind Jose Mourinho's team.\n\nThere must now be question marks over whether that game will take place.\n\nIf the game is off it will only add to the fixture congestion both clubs are likely to face in an already crowded calendar this season.\n\nVilla, even though they planned to leave out several established first-team players against Liverpool, still had high FA Cup ambitions and would have wanted to maintain the momentum that has given them such an impressive start to the season after only surviving in the top flight on the final day of last season.\n\nThey will hope the latest testing brings no further complications in the FA Cup context - then attention will turn to what has the potential to be a hugely significant game on Wednesday.\n• Stream eight live FA Cup third-round games this weekend on BBC iPlayer, the BBC Sport website and app. Find out more here.", "GPs in England are receiving doses of the Oxford Covid jab as medics warn about overstretched hospitals.\n\nThe rollout of the Oxford vaccine is part of the NHS's biggest-ever effort and aims to offer jabs to 13 million by mid-February - including all over-80s.\n\nBirmingham's NHS said there are enough supplies with more to come as politicians warned doses may run out.\n\nSome hospitals in England are at risk of becoming Covid-only sites, with rising admissions for the virus forcing trusts to cut back on other services.\n\nAnd hospital leaders have warned medics are becoming increasingly stretched with \"untrained staff\" used to fill gaps.\n\nIt came as a further 1,162 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported on Thursday - the second consecutive day of more than 1,000 recorded fatalities - and 52,618 new cases.\n\nThe latest NHS statistics also show that there were 30,370 patients with Covid in UK hospitals on Tuesday.\n\nThe rollout of the Oxford vaccine to GPs will help increase vaccinations among the top four priority groups who are first in line to receive doses.\n\nThe Department of Health said 1.3 million people in the UK, including almost a quarter of those aged over 80 in England, have received at least one dose so far.\n\nWriting to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, the Birmingham political leaders criticised communication around the vaccination programme in the city.\n\n\"We acknowledge that the vaccination rollout is in its early days, but we have also learned today that Birmingham has not yet been supplied with any AstraZeneca stock, while current Pfizer stocks are scheduled to run out on Friday this week with currently no clarity on when further supplies will arrive.\"\n\nThey added \"it remains unclear who is responsible for overseeing the vaccination programme in Birmingham, and whom we should hold accountable for progress and delivery\".\n\nThe letter is signed by Labour leader of Birmingham City Council, Ian Ward; Liam Byrne MP, Labour's candidate for the West Midlands mayor, and by Conservative MP and ex-minister Andrew Mitchell.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Liam Byrne This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut NHS Birmingham and Solihull told the BBC: \"Thousands of people in Birmingham and Solihull have already been vaccinated and this continues at pace.\n\n\"We have sufficient supplies and more will be coming.\"\n\nWest Midlands mayor Andy Street said he has been assured supplies of the Oxford vaccine will be delivered to Birmingham on Friday.\n\nElsewhere, Gillian McLauchlan, deputy director of public health at Salford Council, described \"teething\" issues with the vaccine rollout there.\n\nShe told councillors at a local scrutiny committee: \"We have no control over vaccine supplies. We are told literally two days in advance 'your next lot of vaccines are coming'.\"\n\nEngland's vaccination programme is described as the biggest in NHS history, with an aim to offer jabs to most care home residents by the end of January and the most vulnerable by mid-February.\n\nOfficials leading the vaccination programme are adamant rollout is going to plan - and are cautioning against judging performance too early.\n\nOf course, there will be teething problems, but the fact remains the UK has vaccinated more per head of population than any other country apart from Israel and Bahrain.\n\nWhile rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine started on Monday, it was actually only being used at the hospital hubs up to Thursday.\n\nDeliveries are now being made to hundreds of local vaccination centres. There are 17 in the Birmingham region so they should start to receive doses imminently.\n\nThat should mean there is a vaccine available if they do run out of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab.\n\nAlthough disruption to the rollout of the programme in the city may still happen as local centres are warning they cannot book patients in until they know they have stock available.\n\nBut the fact the city's leaders felt compelled to write to the health secretary to warn about this is an illustration of the pressure in the system at the moment.\n\nGiven the high level of infections and current lockdown, there is a desperation in all quarters to get the most at-risk vaccinated as quickly as possible.\n\nAnd until the nation sees that translate into significant numbers of people getting vaccinated - 2 million a week is the goal - people will remain on edge.\n\nThe Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved for emergency use on 2 December but requires specialist storage unsuitable for most GP practices, with doses largely delivered in hospitals.\n\nThe Oxford-AstraZeneca jab was approved on 30 December and does not require specialist storage. It was first rolled out on Monday to hospitals and to GPs in England from Thursday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. One medical centre in London is now vaccinating almost 1,000 people a week\n\nMr Hancock visited a GP surgery in London to promote the roll out earlier - but staff there said delivery of the Oxford vaccine had been delayed.\n\nThe health secretary said he was \"delighted\" care home residents would begin receiving their first Oxford jabs from GPs this week.\n\n\"This will ensure the most vulnerable are protected and will save tens of thousands of lives,\" he said.\n\nGP Ammara Hughes, a partner at Bloomsbury Surgery, told broadcasters its first delivery of the Oxford jab had been pushed back 24 hours to Thursday.\n\nShe said: \"It's just more frustrating than a concern because we've got the capacity to vaccinate. And if we had a regular supply - we do have the capacity to vaccinate three to four thousand patients a week.\"\n\nMr Hancock described supply of vaccine as a \"rate-limiting\" step.\n\nHe said: \"For the first three days with the Oxford vaccine we did it in hospitals to check that it was working well and it's working well so now we can make sure that it gets to all those GP surgeries that like this one can do all the vaccinations that are needed.\n\n\"The rate-limiting step is the supply of vaccine. We're working with the companies - both Pfizer and AstraZeneca - to increase the supply.\"\n\nMore than 700 local vaccination sites will administer jabs, with the government announcing a further seven mass vaccination sites across England.\n\nAnother 180 GP-led sites, 100 new hospital sites and a pilot scheme involving local pharmacies will open this week.\n\nMeanwhile, nearly 19,981 second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab - which was the first to be approved for emergency use in the UK last month - were administered between 29 December and 3 January, NHS England said.\n\nIt came as Rupert Pearse, professor of intensive care medicine and a consultant at the Royal London, said his own intensive care staff are having to care for far more sick patients.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there would usually be a ratio of one fully-trained intensive care nurse for each patient in a unit but staff are becoming increasingly stretched.\n\n\"Right now we are diluting down to one [intensive care] nurse to three [patients] and filling those gaps with untrained staff and in some instances doctors helping nurses deliver their care... and we're even facing diluting that further to one in four,\" he said.\n\nAll of the UK is now under strict virus curbs, with Wales, Northern Ireland and most of Scotland also in lockdown, and vaccinations are progressing across the devolved nations.", "Supermarket giant Sainsbury's has reported a bumper Christmas, with sales up 9.3% for the festive trading period.\n\nMore customers bought their food online than ever before, it said.\n\nIn the 10 days leading up to Christmas, it delivered 1.1 million online orders, twice last year's number.\n\n\"Many customers had to change their Christmas plans at the last minute and we sold smaller turkeys and more lamb and beef than normal,\" said chief executive Simon Roberts.\n\nSainsbury's Christmas trading period covered the nine weeks from 1 November 2020 to 2 January 2021.\n\nFor the 15 weeks to 2 January, like-for-like sales, which strip out the impact of new store openings, were up 8.6%.\n\n\"We now expect, after forgoing business rates relief of £410m, to report underlying profit before tax of at least £330m in the financial year to March 2021,\" the supermarket said.\n\nThat is down from the previous year's figure of £586m.\n\nSainsbury's has delivered bumper festive sales. It's invested heavily in boosting online capacity to keep up with the soaring demand.\n\nSupermarkets have struggled to make money from doing online deliveries, but Sainsbury's says its operation has become more efficient and profitability has improved. As volumes have increased, there are more orders in every van delivering to a smaller radius of customers.\n\nClick-and-collect is a lot cheaper to do than home deliveries. And this accounted for about a quarter of online sales in the final week.\n\nArgos generated more than half its sales from online well before the pandemic. More than 300 Argos counters are now inside Sainsbury's supermarkets, making it easy for people to pick up goods and gifts. Its fast-track delivery service can deliver to customers' homes and collection points within hours and this has seen growth of 62%.\n\nThis is a business that's been well placed to benefit from the huge shift to digital this Christmas.\n\nChristmas and New Year celebrations were constrained by coronavirus restrictions, which limited the number of people and households allowed to meet up.\n\nSainsbury's said that while people had smaller gatherings, they still treated themselves, with sales of the supermarket's premium Taste the Difference range up 11%.\n\nPremium champagne sales were up 52%, it added, echoing similar findings by rival Morrisons.\n\n\"People did more home baking than usual, with mincemeat sales up 24%. Customers still wanted New Year's Eve at home to feel special and we sold a record number of steaks,\" Sainsbury's said.\n\nSales of groceries, general merchandise and clothing were stronger than expected throughout the quarter, particularly since the start of England's second national lockdown, it added.\n\nClothing benefited from better-than-anticipated full-price sales, driven by customers shopping earlier for Christmas and changes to the supermarket's Black Friday trading strategy.\n\nSeparate figures issued by discount retailer B&M indicated that it too had a good Christmas, with like-for-like revenues at its UK stores up 21.1% year-on-year in the 13 weeks to 26 December.\n\n\"With our combination of exceptional value and convenient out-of-town locations, we are confident that our business model will prove highly relevant to the needs of customers in 2021,\" said chief executive Simon Arora.", "Lockdowns have worked before, but can we expect the new one to do the same?\n\nIt feels like we are back in March or April last year, when the strict controls on all our lives led to a fairly quick decline in levels of coronavirus.\n\nBut one of the crucial differences this time is the new variant, which is thought to spread between 50 and 70% faster than previous forms of the virus.\n\nExperts warn there are now no guarantees that lockdown will be enough to bring the variant under control.\n\n\"It still would not have been easy, but it would have been a much easier situation if it had not been for the new variant,\" Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, told Inside Health.\n\n\"That really pushes the bounds of our ability to control the spread of the virus, even with measures that were previously relatively quite effective.\"\n\nThe coronavirus spreads when we come into contact with each other so moving classrooms online, telling people to stay at home and closing shops breaks many of those opportunities for human contact.\n\nIf we consider the R number - the average number of people each infected person passes the virus on to - it was about 3.0 in the run up to the first lockdown and anything above 1.0 means cases are climbing.\n\nR fell to 0.6 during the first lockdown.\n\nThen every 1,000 infected people passed the virus on to 600 others, who passed it on to 360 others and so on.\n\nBut if the new variant is 50% more transmissible then the R number, in the same lockdown conditions, would be about 0.9.\n\nThen 1,000 infected people would pass the virus onto 900 others, then 810 and so on.\n\nAs you can see this leads to far slower decline.\n\nAnd that assumes lockdown can get R down to 0.9 in areas where the new variant has become the most common form of the virus.\n\nIf, as some studies suggest, the variant is about 70% more transmissible then R may stay above 1.0 and cases may not fall at all.\n\n\"We'd at best flatten the curve, keep numbers at a roughly constant level, and that's frankly why there is so much emphasis on getting vaccine into people's arms as quickly as possible,\" said Prof Ferguson.\n\nIt is hard to lock down even harder as there are some parts of society - hospitals, supermarkets - that need to be kept open.\n\nWhat happens to the number of cases over the coming weeks will be closely monitored. If this lockdown is less effective then we will have to live with it for longer.\n\nThere have been some encouraging signs over the Christmas break, which was a bit like a lockdown due to school holidays and other restrictions.\n\n\"We are in a very difficult situation here, but my initial assessment of the last few days is that the rate is slowing which is good news,\" Prof John Edmunds, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the BBC.\n\nHe added: \"It looks likes those restrictions should be sufficient to stop the increase, whether they will be sufficient to bring cases down sufficiently we are yet to see.\"\n\nEventually the vaccine will give people immunity so we do not need the same controls on our lives.\n\nNow more than ever this is a race between the virus and the vaccine.", "Shijiazhuang authorities have started mass-testing residents following an outbreak in the city\n\nChina has placed 11 million people in the northern city of Shijiazhuang under lockdown after more than 100 new Covid cases were confirmed there.\n\nResidents are banned from leaving the city and schools have also been closed.\n\nMore than 5,000 testing sites have been set up so every resident can be tested.\n\nThe new figures are the highest China has seen in more than five months. The country has been able to contain such outbreaks by immediately taking tough action.\n\nThis has involved consistently using mass testing when new clusters of cases appear, even if they seem relatively small.\n\nHebei province, where Shijiazhuang is located, reported 120 new cases on Thursday and all but one of those infections was in the city. Elsewhere in the country, 22 new cases were confirmed.\n\nThe virus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 before spiralling into a global pandemic.\n\nThursday's lockdown comes just weeks ahead of Chinese New Year, a time when people in China travel en masse to spend the holiday with their families.\n\nBut residents in the Gaocheng district of Shijiazhuang, considered to be the epicentre of the outbreak, are now not allowed to leave their local area. Other residents are banned from leaving the city.\n\nIn terms of transport, bus travel has been halted and many flights have been cancelled.\n\nResidents have been banned from leaving the city\n\nIn a sign of just how seriously the authorities see the situation, even the postal service in and out of Shijiazhuang has been suspended for three days. And the restrictions are being tightly enforced - police were photographed in protective hazmat suits guarding the entrance to an expressway.\n\nThree officials in Shijiazhuang's Gaocheng district have been punished for \"negligence\", according to the state-run China Daily newspaper.\n\n\"Villages should identify, report, isolate and treat cases as early as possible, so as to cut off the transmission,\" Wu Hao, a national health official, was quoted as saying.\n\nFive hospitals in Shijiazhuang have been cleared for Covid-19 patients, with three others standing by, the city's Vice-Mayor Meng Xianghong said.\n\nThursday's lockdown comes just weeks ahead of Chinese New Year - a time when families gather\n\nIt is not the first time China has locked down a city in response to a cluster of cases since the outbreak in Wuhan.\n\nIn October, all nine million residents of the Chinese city of Qingdao were tested in five days after a dozen cases were confirmed. The cases were linked to a hospital treating coronavirus patients arriving from abroad.\n\nThe same month, authorities in Kashgar, in Xinjiang, tested around 4.7m people after an outbreak there.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Many businesses in Beijing say that customers are still staying away", "The star thanked fans for their messages of support\n\nThe Wanted's Tom Parker has told fans he is \"responding well\" to treatment for his brain tumour.\n\nThe singer praised the NHS as he wrote on Instagram: \"Significant reduction: These are the words I received today and I can't stop saying them over and over again.\"\n\nSharing a picture with his wife Kelsey Hardwick and their two children, he added: \"Today is a good day.\"\n\nThe 32-year-old was found to have an inoperable brain tumour last year.\n\nThe diagnosis came after he suffered two seizures last summer. Because of Covid-19 restrictions, his wife was not allowed in the hospital during three days of tests and he received the news alone.\n\nAt the time he vowed to fight the cancer \"all the way\". Two weeks later he became a father for the second time after Hardwick gave birth to a baby boy.\n\nThe singer shared a photo of his young family alongside the latest update on his health\n\nSharing an update on his condition on Thursday, Parker said: \"I had an MRI scan on Tuesday and my results today were a significant reduction to the tumour and I am responding well to treatment.\n\n\"I can't thank our wonderful NHS enough,\" he continued. \"You're all having a tough time out there but we appreciate the work you are all doing on the front line.\"\n\nThe star also thanked his wife, calling her \"my rock\", and thanked fans for their support. \"Your love, light and positivity have inspired me,\" he wrote. \"Every message has not been unnoticed they have given me so much strength.\"\n\nParker achieved fame in the early 2010s as part of The Wanted, reaching number one with the singles All Time Low and Glad You Came.\n\nSince the band went on hiatus in 2014, he has played Danny Zuko in a touring production of Grease and reached the semi-finals of Celebrity Masterchef.\n\nHe married Hardwick, an actress, in 2018. As well as Bodhi, the couple have an 18-month-old daughter.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Just when the hospitality sector thought things couldn't get any worse, it has been hit by another lockdown.\n\nLast year's rolling closures forced Martin Wolstencroft to borrow £4m just to ensure the survival of Arc Inspirations, a bar chain with 17 venues across the north of England that he has spent the last two decades building into a successful business.\n\nAnd the latest lockdown has forced Mr Wolstencroft to ask his bank to lend him another £1m.\n\nHe is far from alone. UK Hospitality says the closure of pubs, restaurants and hotels is costing business owners such as Mr Wolstencroft a total of £500m a month, even allowing for any government support. And that has led to a huge rise in debt.\n\n\"The money that we are borrowing is really just to stand still,\" Mr Wolstencroft said.\n\n\"We'll be coming out of this in a far worse position with far greater debt and it totally reduces our ability to grow our business for the future.\n\n\"And all of this has been brought about through no fault of our own.\"\n\nHe reckons the debt he has taken on so far will take the business six years to pay back, which leaves him facing some difficult decisions.\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a package of grants worth up to £3,000 a month per property to keep retail, hospitality and leisure businesses afloat until the spring.\n\nBut Mr Wolstencroft, who pays rents of more than £16,000 a month on some of his bars, described the grants as a \"mere drop in the ocean\".\n\nThe effect of taking on huge debts with no prospect of reopening soon is a major threat to millions working in the hospitality sector.\n\nMore than 1,600 restaurants closed last year, costing 30,000 jobs, says property adviser Altus.\n\nWhen bars, hotels and other hospitality businesses are included, almost 300,000 jobs were lost last year as a result of the pandemic, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.\n\nAnd that figure is expected to more than double in the first three months of this year alone.\n\nKate Nicholls, the boss of UK Hospitality, predicts the total will hit 660,000 by the end of March.\n\nUK Hospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls is calling for further support for the industry\n\n\"The longer that these restrictions are in place, the more rapidly businesses will simply run out of cash and be unable to to remain open,\" she said.\n\nA survey of the trade body's members revealed that 80% of businesses did not have enough cash to make it through to April. \"It's going to be unbelievably brutal in the first quarter,\" Ms Nicholls said.\n\nThe latest lockdown follows a bruising Christmas period for the hospitality sector, which typically depends on a busy December to tide it over during January, traditionally a quiet month for pubs and restaurants.\n\n\"It's obviously very worrying for our industry,\" says Tim Hughes, who runs the Plough pub at Sleapshyde in Hertfordshire.\n\n\"They have banned takeaway sales of alcohol from pubs, but off-licences and supermarkets can carry on selling it,\" he said.\n\nBetween them, Mr Hughes, his brother and his father run three pubs in the St Albans area. They have already borrowed £350,000 and Mr Hughes says the latest lockdown will force them to take on even more debt just to survive.\n\nMonthly fixed costs at each of the pubs run to £9,500 and only one of their venues qualifies for the full £3,000 grant, so Mr Hughes says the Treasury's support \"doesn't touch the sides\".\n\nIt's the fourth time Mr Hughes has been forced to close the doors to the Plough - and each time it has cost him about £5,000.\n\nThis time, he also had to give away £4,000 worth of jumbo pork, vegetarian and vegan Bavarian bratwursts, bought to give 2,000 customers a substantial meal in the pub's \"winter garden\" during the festive period.\n\nThat was before an unexpected decision to put St Albans into tier three forced him to close the pub. He cancelled those bookings and refunded customers their £16,000.\n\nThe Plough's \"winter garden\", which was booked up for the Christmas period, stands empty\n\nRalph Findlay, the boss of Marston's, which has 1,700 pubs across the country and employs 14,000 people, said some pubs that had been forced to close their doors because of the lockdown would never reopen.\n\nHalf of Marston's employees are under 25, he said. \"I really worry about the impact of this on their employment prospects in places where it's very difficult to find employment.\"\n\nHe has called for pubs to be given more time before they are required to pay business rates again, which will leave pubs facing an £800m bill as soon as the current rates holiday expires in March, according to the British Beer & Pub Association.\n\nThat would force landlords, including Mr Hughes, to foot a bill that works out at £25,000 a pub.\n\n\"We are kidding ourselves if we think that more debt upon more debt is going to be sustainable,\" said Stephen Welton, executive chairman of the Business Growth Fund.\n\n\"Past recessions have shown very clearly that it's coming out of a recession - when companies are short of working capital - that they fall over.\"\n\nFor Mr Hughes at the Plough, he is looking for all the support he can get to avoid being put into a \"bigger black hole\".\n\nA Treasury spokesman said: \"\"We've taken swift action throughout the pandemic to protect lives and livelihoods.\"\n\nHe said the grant scheme would continue to support businesses and jobs through to the spring.", "Jamie Stiehm is a US political columnist who was in the Capitol building in Washington DC when it was stormed by pro-Trump rioters. Here's what she saw from the press gallery in the House of Representatives.\n\nI had told my sister earlier: \"Something bad is going to happen today. I don't know what, but something bad will happen.\"\n\nOutside the Capitol, I encountered a group of very boisterous supporters of President Donald Trump, all waving flags and pledging their allegiance to him. There was a sense that trouble was brewing.\n\nI went inside to the House of Representatives and up into the press gallery, where we were assigned seats, looking down at the rather sombre gathering. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was holding the gavel, and keeping people to their five-minute statements.\n\nAs we went into the second hour, all of a sudden we heard breaking glass. The air began getting fogged. An announcement from the Capitol Police said, \"An individual has breached the building\". So everyone looked around and then it was business as usual. But after that, the announcements kept coming. And they were getting more and more urgent.\n\nThey announced that the intruders had breached the rotunda, which is under the famed marble dome. The sacred house of democracy was under fire.\n\nMany of us are hardened journalists - I've seen my share of violence covering homicides in Baltimore - but this was very unpredictable. The police didn't seem to know what was happening. They weren't coordinated. They locked the chamber doors but at the same time, they told us we would have to evacuate. So there was a sense of panic.\n\nI was afraid. I'll tell you that. And I've spoken to other journalists who said they were a little ashamed of themselves for feeling afraid.\n\nThere was a sense of \"nobody's in charge here, the Capitol Police have lost control of the building, anything can happen\".\n\nIf you think back to the September 11 attacks in 2001, there was one plane that went down and didn't hit its target. That target was the Capitol. There were echoes of that. I made a call to my family, just to let them know that I was here and it was a dangerous situation.\n\nThere was a shot. We could see there was a standoff in our chamber. Five men were holding guns at the door. It was a frightening sight. Men were looking through a broken glass window and looked like they could shoot at any second.\n\nThankfully there was no gunfire inside the chamber. But for a while there, it felt like it would be a real possibility. Because things were going downhill very fast.\n\nWe had to crawl under railings to get out of the way. I was not dressed to do that. A lot of women were dressed up, wearing heels, because they had come for a formal ritual.\n\nI sheltered in the House cafeteria alongside others. I'm still shaking now.\n\nI have seen a lot as a journalist, but this was something more. This was the collective public sphere being undermined, assaulted, degraded. And I think this was why the Speaker wanted to return and hold the gavel again and go on.\n\nAfterwards I had to decide whether I was going to go back to the chamber too. I decided l probably would, because the message that is sending is: \"You can incite a mob, but we're going to go on\". I think that is a very important political message.", "Asos says it is in \"exclusive\" talks to buy Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands out of administration.\n\nBut the online retailer said it only wanted the brands, not their shops, suggesting any deal would cost jobs.\n\nThe current owner of the brands, Sir Philip Green's Arcadia Group, fell into administration last November putting 13,000 jobs at risk.\n\nAsos said it was \"a compelling opportunity\" to buy \"strong brands that resonate well with its customer base\".\n\n\"However, at this stage, there can be no certainty of a transaction and Asos will keep shareholders updated as appropriate,\" it added.\n\nLast week, a consortium including fashion chain Next dropped its bid to buy Topshop and Topman because it could not meet the price tag.\n\nOthers interested in some or all of Arcadia - which also owns Dorothy Perkins and Burton - include Mike Ashley's Frasers Group, a consortium including JD Sports, and the online retailer Boohoo.\n\nIn addition, the Issa brothers, who recently bought supermarket chain Asda, and Chinese fast fashion giant Shein are said to have made bids for Topshop.\n\nAsos has seen strong sales in the pandemic and is already one of the biggest wholesalers for Topshop, Topman, Burton and Miss Selfridge.\n\nAdministrators from Deloitte requested that final bids be submitted last Monday, with the auction expected to conclude at the end of January.\n\nSir Philip Green is under pressure to use his own money to plug an estimated £350m hole in Arcadia's pension fund, which has about 10,000 members.\n\nLast year the retail tycoon had an estimated fortune of £930m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.\n\nArcadia employed about 13,000 people and had 444 shops at the time of its collapse.", "Boohoo is set to buy the Debenhams brand and website, the BBC understands.\n\nHowever, the fast fashion retailer will not be taking on any of the company's remaining 118 High Street stores or its workforce.\n\nThe announcement could come as early as Monday morning.\n\nThe 242-year-old chain is already in the process of closing down, after administrators failed to secure a rescue deal for the business, with the likely loss of 12,000 jobs.\n\nA closing down sale at 124 Debenhams stores began in December, as administrators continued to seek offers for all, or parts of the business.\n\nIn the last week or so, the company announced that six shops would not reopen after lockdown, including its flagship department store on London's Oxford Street.\n\nBoohoo has already bought a number of High Street brands out of administration. It snapped up Oasis, Coast and Karen Millen, but not the associated stores.\n\nDebenhams has struggled for years with falling profits and rising debts, as more shopping has moved online. It called in administrators twice in two years, most recently in April.\n\nMike Ashley has bought other struggling businesses including House of Fraser and Evans Cycles\n\nHowever, its position became untenable during the coronavirus pandemic as non-essential retailers were forced to close for prolonged periods.\n\nThe firm had already trimmed its store portfolio and cut about 6,500 jobs since May, as it struggled to stay afloat.\n\nBusinessman Mike Ashley, who founded Sports Direct and also owns House of Fraser, had already made an offer for Debenhams after it was initially put up for sale in April.\n\nHowever the takeover offer, thought to be in the region of £125m, was rejected as being too low, leaving JD Sports as the last remaining bidder.\n\nMr Ashley had previously built up a 29% stake in the chain, but saw his £150m holding wiped out in 2019, when the company fell into administration and then ended up in the hands of its lenders - a consortium led by hedge fund Silverpoint.\n\nIn early December, the Frasers Group confirmed that it was working on a possible last minute rescue of Debenhams.\n\nThe announcement came five days after staff were informed and liquidators moved in to Debenhams' stores to start clearing stock, after a potential rescue deal with JD Sports fell through.\n\nBut Frasers said there was \"no certainty\" it could save the chain.\n\nOne of the biggest issues, it said, was the collapse into administration last week of another High Street giant, Arcadia, which is the biggest concession holder in Debenhams department stores.", "More than 26,000 are now in hospital with the virus, according to government data\n\nFrance's top medical adviser said on Sunday that a third national lockdown would probably soon be needed to combat coronavirus in the country.\n\nA strict curfew was implemented last weekend, but cases continue to climb.\n\nProf Jean-Francois Delfraissy, head of the scientific council that advises leaders on Covid-19, said \"there is an emergency\" and this week was critical.\n\nHe called for swift government action, amid rising concerns about the spread of new variants of the coronavirus.\n\nProf Delfraissy said data showed a new more transmissible variant first detected in the UK now makes up between 7-9% of cases in some French regions and will be hard to stop.\n\nHe said the country was in a better situation than others in Europe, but described the new variants as the \"equivalent of a second pandemic\".\n\n\"If we do not tighten regulations, we will find ourselves in an extremely difficult situation from mid-March,\" the advisor warned during an interview with BFM television.\n\nThe French government is expected to meet on Wednesday to decide if further measures are needed.\n\nOfficials have so far resisted implementing a third national lockdown, preferring an overnight curfew system which allows schools to stay open.\n\nBut daily infection numbers are rising - with the seven-day moving average now above 20,000 despite the 18:00 curfew.\n\nFrench Prime Minister Jean Castex previously said restrictions could be imposed \"without delay\" if the situation deteriorated further.\n\nThe country's virus death toll topped 73,000 on Sunday, as the country tightened restrictions on arrivals into the country.\n\nUnder new rules anyone entering from inside the EU by air or ferry must now present a negative Covid-19 test result within 72 hours of travel. Those entering France from the EU by road, including cross-border workers, will not be required to take a test.\n\nPresident of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said last week that all non-essential travel \"must be strongly advised against\" but EU nations have so far agreed to keep borders open.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police in Paris ensure shops close at 6pm as France begins a new curfew to tackle Covid-19", "Ella Lambert had never sewn before but borrowed a friend's machine to learn how to make sanitary pads made from cloth\n\nA student whose \"terrible period pains\" inspired her to start a reusable sanitary pad project has helped 600 refugees get out of \"period poverty\".\n\nElla Lambert, 20, from Chelmsford, Essex, started The Pachamama Project during the first coronavirus lockdown.\n\nShe said she wanted to help women who were unable to buy period products.\n\nNearly 2,500 pads sewn by 150 volunteers have been sent to camps in Greece and Lebanon.\n\nWomen are given four pads each, which are washable and can be reused for about five years, she said.\n\nThe pads are distributed to women in refugee camps\n\nMs Lambert said: \"In March I had terrible period pain, I was being sick, it was awful, and it made me think, I know I'm not the only person going through this.\n\n\"The people I want to help, in these camps, they're experiencing period pain and having to use random tissue paper, cardboard, socks, scraps of material and even leaves - whatever they can get hold of.\"\n\nThe University of Bristol languages student set up her not-for-profit group in March and launched her sanitary product - Pacha Pads - in August, with the help of charities and groups in the two countries to distribute them.\n\nThousands of pads have been made by hundreds of volunteers since August\n\nIt started when she put appeals for material on community groups, she said.\n\nVolunteers from all over the UK came forward to make the products after she developed a pattern, created a guide and explained how to source material for free.\n\nThe products are then sent back to her to be posted abroad, after quality checks.\n\nSome of the sewers came from groups formed to make scrubs for NHS workers during the first lockdown, and who still wanted to be useful, she said.\n\nAlice Corrigan, from The Free Shop of Lebanon, said the project helped with the \"fight against period poverty in Lebanon\"\n\nAlice Corrigan, founder of The Free Shop Lebanon, which hands out the products for free in its shop, said: \"Sustainable menstrual products are very new to many Lebanese and in particular Syrian women.\"\n\nShe added it is not common for them to talk about menstrual activity, so it was important they could be helped to understand its importance and accept it as part of their routine.\n\nKaty Chadwick, technical adviser at the charity ActionAid UK, said: \"For too many women and girls and people who menstruate a lack of access to products impacts on their ability to move freely and to access education and other opportunities.\n\n\"It's encouraging to see new initiatives to support the most marginalised women and girls access sustainable products.\"\n\nAll the sanitary pads are washable so they can be reused for up to about five years\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "It is hoped that vaccinating teenagers will allow them to sit exams\n\nIsrael has started vaccinating 16 to 18-year-olds against Covid-19, in an effort to enable them to sit exams.\n\nMore than a quarter of Israel's population of nine million have received at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine since 19 December, its health ministry says.\n\nIt started with the elderly and others at high risk, but people aged 40 and over can also now get the jab.\n\nIsrael hopes to start reopening its economy in February.\n\nThe inclusion of 16 to 18-year-olds - with parental permission - is meant \"to enable their return (to school) and the orderly holding of exams\", an education ministry spokeswoman said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe matriculation exams that Israeli students sit at the end of high school play an important role in deciding where they will go to university. Their results can also affect their placement in the military, where many young Israelis do compulsory service.\n\nThe education ministry has said it is too early to say whether schools will reopen next month.\n\nIsrael started its rapid vaccination drive - the fastest in the world - on 19 December, reaching 10% of its population by the end of 2020.\n\nIsrael has recorded more than 596,000 cases and 4,392 deaths with Covid-19, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.\n\nOn Sunday, the government said it would ban passenger flights in and out of the country from Monday night for the rest of January, in an effort to halt the spread of new virus variants.\n\n\"Other than rare exceptions, we are closing the sky hermetically to prevent the entry of the virus variants and also to ensure that we progress quickly with our vaccination campaign,\" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.\n\nForeigners have largely been blocked from entering Israel during the pandemic.", "All schools moved to online learning before Christmas, following concerns from unions over the new coronavirus variant\n\n\"Wholesale\" return of pupils to school after February half term is \"unlikely\", Wales' first minister has said.\n\nMark Drakeford said there were \"intermediate positions between where we are today, with very few children in school, and everybody being back\".\n\nPreviously, ministers said schools would stay closed to most until February half term unless Covid cases fell significantly.\n\nThose preparing for qualifications and very young children may return first.\n\nMr Drakeford told a coronavirus briefing on Friday he had recently chaired a meeting of the teaching unions and local education authorities.\n\n\"We all agreed that we would work purposefully together to find ways of bringing more young people back into the classroom,\" he said.\n\n\"Does that mean that we will see a wholesale return of every child in every classroom, every day of the week across Wales? I do think that that is probably unlikely.\n\n\"But there are intermediate positions between where we are today, with very few children in school, and everybody being back.\"\n\nHe said there had been \"practical, creative, imaginative\" proposals put forward which could mean some children being back in the classroom for some of the week.\n\nMinisters previously said schools would stay closed until half term unless Covid cases fell significantly\n\nThese could include \"children preparing for qualifications [and] very young children for whom online learning really isn't a genuine possibility\".\n\n\"I certainly don't rule out making some of those things happen after the February half term, but I do think it's unlikely in the way you said that we would see every child back full-time in every classroom in the way that we would ideally wish to do,\" he added.\n\nAll schools and colleges moved to online learning before Christmas, following concerns from unions over the new coronavirus variant.\n\nThey have remained open for children of critical workers and vulnerable learners, as well as for learners who needed to complete essential exams or assessments.\n\nEarlier this month, when Education Minister Kirsty Williams said schools and colleges would stay closed to most pupils until the February half term, unions welcomed the news, saying the health and safety of pupils and staff \"had to be a priority\".\n\nBut, they added, teachers must now be given the vaccine as a priority, and pupils and staff must be protected before talks about reopening schools could begin.\n\nTeachers are still not on the priority list for immunisation, and have to wait to get the jab dependent on their age and if they have a medical condition.\n\nAt the time, Laura Doel, director of The National Association of Headteachers Cymru, said: \"Any plan that sees school staff return to face-to-face learning should be afforded as much protection as possible against the virus.\n\n\"Once these issues have been addressed, then we can discuss the orderly return to school we all want.\"\n\nOpposition parties have called for clear plans on how schools would return and for support to make sure pupils from poorer backgrounds did not fall behind due to a \"digital divide\".\n\nPlaid Cymru's education spokeswoman Sian Gwenllian said: \"The Welsh Government must plan now for the gradual and safe reopening of schools, putting in place safety measures, and should lay out plans for a vaccination programme for schools staff.\"\n\nWelsh Conservative education spokeswoman Suzy Davies called for the Welsh Government to publish evidence on its reasons for closing schools, bring forward vaccines for teachers, and said money must be made available for all pupils to access laptops for online learning.", "Janice Johnston says doctors who misdiagnosed her \"took so much away from me\"\n\nA care home worker who was wrongly diagnosed with cancer said she thought it was a \"cruel joke\" when she was told doctors had made a mistake and she did not have cancer at all.\n\nMum-of-four Janice Johnston said her \"world crumbled\" when she learned she had a rare form of blood cancer at Kent and Canterbury Hospital in 2017.\n\nShe had 18 months of oral chemotherapy treatment, during which she experienced weight loss, nausea and bone pain, and had to give up her job as an auxiliary nurse.\n\nWhen the treatment did not appear to be working, she says, medics upped the dosage.\n\nIn 2018, she sought alternative treatment at Guy's Hospital in London. It was there a specialist told her she did not have cancer at all but a different condition.\n\nMrs Johnston was awarded £75,950 in damages after East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust admitted liability. Staff at the hospital had failed to do the necessary ultrasound scan and bone marrow biopsy before diagnosing her.\n\nMrs Johnston, 53, said: \"The cancer diagnosis was an absolute shock. They said my life span would be shortened.\n\n\"I was at high risk of a fatal stroke or heart attack and I could drop down at any minute. It was heartbreaking and devastating.\n\n\"It didn't sink in until I saw the haematologist. I was in a room with people having serious chemotherapy who looked incredibly ill. I thought: 'I'm like them'.\"\n\nMrs Johnston says doctors told her she would need chemotherapy for life.\n\nThe side-effects led to her feeling \"wiped out\", her hair thinning, her teeth becoming loose and her gums receding.\n\nShe says occupational health told her that her immune system was jeopardised and she could pick up infections easily. That meant she was forced to resign from her job.\n\n\"Giving up work was horrible,\" Mrs Johnston says.\n\nShe was also worried she would not get to see some of her daughters get married or her grandchildren grow up.\n\nThe trust admitted failing to carry out vital tests before diagnosing Mrs Johnston\n\nAfter searching on the internet to find out more about the blood cancer she was told she had - Polycythaemia vera (PV) - she learned that Guy's Hospital offered a different type of chemotherapy and asked her consultant for an appointment there.\n\nMrs Johnston recalls: \"The specialist at Guy's looked over my blood counts and said: 'I don't think you have blood cancer'.\"\n\nThe doctor told Mrs Johnston she had a different condition called secondary PV which is not cancer.\n\n\"She asked if I'd had a bone marrow test and scan of the spleen to confirm the diagnosis - I hadn't had either. My husband thought it was fantastic but I was angry.\n\n\"I thought it was a cruel joke on me. It didn't sink in. My husband couldn't understand why I wasn't jumping for joy - but it had taken my life.\"\n\nOne of the hardest things to cope with for Mrs Johnston was thinking she had been a \"fraud\".\n\n\"I'd been doing some fundraising to try and have something positive to focus on. Cancer Research UK asked if I'd be guest of honour at a charity run in Margate. I stood on stage in front of 3,000 women saying I had cancer.\n\n\"I'm mortified that people will think I made it up. It has made me feel awful and like I have lied to everyone,\" she said.\n\nMrs Johnston now has severe anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).\n\n\"I still get flashbacks to it,\" she says. \"It was two years of my life. They took so much away from me.\"\n\nShe says she wants to \"raise awareness\" about her experience, and for \"anyone that does get diagnosed with it, to ask questions and learn as much as they can about it and if they feel any doubt, to get a second opinion\".\n\nA spokesperson for East Kent Hospitals said: \"A misdiagnosis of this kind is exceptionally rare and we wholeheartedly apologise to Ms Johnston.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Teresa Dalling says a river of orange water rushed through the village on Thursday\n\nFlood victims will not be able to return to their homes until their safety can be assured, a council leader has said.\n\nThe Coal Authority has said initial checks suggested water built up in a mine shaft causing a \"blow out\" that flooded properties in Skewen, Neath Port Talbot.\n\nAbout 80 people were evacuated as water rushed through the village on Thursday.\n\nCouncil leader Rob Jones said it was unlikely residents could return Monday.\n\nHe said underground investigations would begin on Saturday and the work could take two to three days.\n\n\"Safety is the paramount concern for us,\" he said.\n\n\"Because we can't guarantee the site safety - that's the reason why people will remain away from their properties until such time as we can give the all clear.\n\n\"We don't know what the water has done underground.\"\n\nThe fire service said on Saturday morning the pumping operation was \"making good progress\".\n\nMr Jones told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast people may be able to return next week but \"did not want to raise hopes\" it will be Monday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHe said the flooding was \"more than likely\" related to old mine workings with six mines known about in area. He said the industry dated back 300 years.\n\nSkewen resident John Thomas returned home from a funeral with wife Lynne on Thursday to find their house had turned into \"a lake\".\n\nHe said: \"The water was around the level of the bottom of the doors so we couldn't go in, so we just had to stand there and watch this orange-coloured water just piling up and up and up.\n\n\"Other people who were evacuated had the chance to move things upstairs, I didn't have a chance to do that because I couldn't get in to it.\"\n\nAt least 80 people had to leave their homes in the village after flooding\n\nLocal MP Stephen Kinnock said affected residents were staying in \"lots of different places\" across the region.\n\nAnd he praised the \"extraordinary\" generosity of the community and the support of the Salvation Army with donations of food, clothing and toiletries.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Stephen Kinnock This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNatural Resources Wales (NRW) said officers were continuing to look at how to minimise the risk of pollution to nearby rivers, and investigating any impacts on the River Neath.\n\nThe Coal Authority, which manages the effects of past coal mining, is investigating the incident.\n\nChief executive Lisa Pinney said equipment, due on site on Saturday, would be used to drill into mine workings to \"fully investigate what has happened\".\n\n\"The blow out is likely to have been caused by a blockage underground which has caused water to back up and to break out using the easiest path,\" she said.\n\n\"The excessive rainfall of the past few days and the prolonged rainfall this winter, will have put additional pressure on the system.\n\n\"We know that people will want to get back to their homes and we will continue to progress these works as soon as possible, but public safety has to come first.\"\n\nThere are a number of historical mine workings in Skewen dating back beyond 1850.\n\nOn Saturday, Mr Jones said water was still pouring out of the affected site so workers were diverting it, while machines cleared gulleys and drains to give the water the chance to enter drainage systems.\n\nA residents' incident support centre has been set up at Abbey Primary School to offer help and information over the weekend, between 09:00-17:00 GMT.\n\nThe council has asked residents to be \"patient as the investigation continues\" and has set up a helpline. Tel. 01639 686868.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA new world record has been set for the number of satellites sent to space on a single rocket.\n\nThe 143 payloads, of all shapes and sizes, rode to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon rocket that launched out of Florida.\n\nThe number beats the previous record of 104 satellites carried aloft by an Indian vehicle in 2017.\n\nIt's further evidence of the major structural changes taking place in space activity that are allowing many more actors to get involved.\n\nThis shift is the result of a revolution in robust, miniaturised, low-cost components - many taken direct from consumer electronics such as smartphones - that mean pretty much anyone can now build a capable satellite in a very small package.\n\nAnd with SpaceX offering to transport those packages to orbit for just $1m, the commercial opportunities will continue to open up.\n\nGuatemala's Santa María volcano: Planet is imaging the entire Earth daily with its Dove satellites\n\nSpaceX itself had 10 satellites on the Falcon - the latest additions to its Starlink telecommunications mega-constellation, which is going to deliver broadband internet connections around the globe.\n\nSan Francisco's Planet company had the most satellites of all on the flight - 48.\n\nThese were another batch of its SuperDove models that image the Earth's surface daily at a resolution of 3-5m. The new spacecraft take the firm's operational fleet now in orbit to more than 200.\n\n\"Internet of things\": SpaceBees will connect to all manner of objects on the ground\n\nThe SuperDoves are the size of a shoebox. Many of the other payloads on the Falcon rocket were little bigger than a coffee mug, however; and some were smaller even than a paperback book.\n\nSwarm Technologies is rolling out what it calls the SpaceBees. They're just 10cm by 10cm by 2.5cm.\n\nThey'll act as telecommunications nodes to connect devices that are attached to all manner of objects on the ground, from migrating animals to shipping containers.\n\nThe satellites were mounted on a dispenser that ejected them in sequence\n\nSome of the larger items on the Falcon rocket were suitcase-sized. Among these were several radar satellites. Radar has been one of the major beneficiaries of the revolution in componentry.\n\nTraditionally, radar satellites were big, multi-tonne objects that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fly, which essentially meant only the military or major space agencies could afford to operate them.\n\nBut the adoption of new materials and compact \"off the shelf\" parts have dramatically shrunk the size (to under 100kg) and price (a couple of million dollars) of these spacecraft.\n\niQPS artwork: The radar satellites unfurl large antennas once they are in space\n\nIceye from Finland, Capella from the US, and iQPS of Japan all took the ride to orbit on Sunday. These start-ups are establishing constellations in the sky that will return rapid, repeat imagery of the Earth.\n\nRadar has the advantage over standard optical cameras of being able to pierce cloud, and to sense the Earth's surface whether it is day or night. We're entering an age when any change on the planet, wherever it happens, will be picked up almost immediately.\n\nThe Falcon carried the 143 satellites into a 500km-high path that runs from pole to pole. This is one of the drawbacks of a big rideshare mission: you go where the rocket goes, and for some that might not be ideal.\n\nA number of satellite missions will want an orbit that's higher or lower in the sky, or on a different inclination to the equator.\n\nThis can be achieved by mounting the satellites on \"space tugs\" which, after coming off the top of the rocket, modify the final parameters for their \"passengers\" over the course of several weeks. Sunday's Falcon carried two such tugs.\n\nBut for some missions a bespoke ride is going to be the only satisfactory solution. It's why we're now witnessing a rush to produce small rockets that can run dedicated flights.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket blasts its way to space\n\nThese smaller rockets will not be able to compete on cost with the big vehicles, such as SpaceX's Falcon-9, but they should attract the custom of those with very specific or urgent needs.\n\nDan Hart, the CEO of Virgin Orbit, which has developed a small rocket that can be launched from under the wing of a Boeing 747, says the start-ups are becoming more discerning.\n\n\"These small satellites used to be points of fascination and interest, and it was a case of finding the cheapest way possible to get into space,\" he explained.\n\n\"That's rapidly changing. These are now businesses with critical missions that risk losing revenue if they have to wait on others or go into an unsuitable orbit. And that's why you're going to see people who will pay that little bit more to get to where they want to go when they absolutely need to go there,\" he told BBC News.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Will Marshall: \"Our satellites 'phoned home' and they are healthy\"\n\nWith the roll call of satellites going into orbit now accelerating rapidly, the issue of traffic management is becoming a hot topic.\n\nFull-on collisions are currently rare, but a surprisingly large number (10%) of satellites will even now experience sudden, unexpected momentum changes, most probably the result of being hit by some small fragment from a previous mission.\n\nThe space sector needs to find smarter ways to track objects in orbit and to command timely avoidance manoeuvres, otherwise certain altitudes could ultimately become unusable because of the presence of dangerously dense debris fields.\n\nJonathan McDowell from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is a noted historian of astronautics.\n\nHe commented: \"There are now over 3,000 working satellites in orbit. The number of satellites launched last year at over 1,200 is over twice as many as in any previous year. And the ones launched today - that used to be the number you'd launch in a whole year. So it's getting really crowded up there.\"\n\nWill Marshall, the CEO of Planet, said his company, and indeed all of the companies on Sunday's flight, were accutley aware of the issue.\n\n\"We are seeing crowded areas in certain orbits,\" he told BBC News.\n\n\"Most of the crowded piece that is in danger of what they call Kessler Syndrome (runaway collisions) is quite high up. So one of the tricks that all of these satellites that were launched today use is to just stay really low where there's still a lot of atmospheric drag and eventually those satellites just come down.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nSecond Test, Galle (day four of five)\n\nEngland completed a thrilling victory on day four of the second Test against Sri Lanka to take the series 2-0.\n\nChasing a tricky 164, England were 89-4 on a turning pitch but opener Dom Sibley hit 56 not out to lead them to a six-wicket win.\n\nSibley, who had not reached double figures in the series, put on 75 with Jos Buttler, who made 46 not out.\n\nEarlier, England capitalised on reckless batting to dismiss Sri Lanka for 126 in their second innings.\n\nDom Bess and Jack Leach took four wickets each and the hosts would have been dismissed even more cheaply but for 40 from number 10 Lasith Embuldeniya, who finished with match figures of 10-210.\n\nResuming on 339-9 in their first innings, England conceded a first-innings deficit of 37 when Jack Leach was dismissed with only five runs added.\n\nSri Lanka were favourites at that point but England completed a turnaround on a dramatic day when 15 wickets fell.\n\nThe series win is England's fourth in a row and they are also unbeaten in 10 successive Tests under Joe Root's captaincy, going into a difficult series in India which starts on 5 February.\n\nEngland are fourth in the World Test Championship table, 0.5% behind third-placed Australia.\n• None Root urges England not to 'stand still'\n• None TMS podcast: What does England's series win mean for India tour?\n\nThis was also England's fifth consecutive away Test win, the first time they have achieved that feat since World War One. They are developing an impressive winning habit.\n\nSri Lanka's batting, perhaps spooked by the turning pitch, was inept and their effort in the field lacklustre, but England were clinical.\n\nBess and Leach bowled well - far better than their wicketless showing in the first innings - while James Anderson took a brilliant high catch and Zak Crawley two excellent grabs at short leg.\n\nSri Lanka were leading only by 115 when their eighth wicket fell, before Embuldeniya, who had a remarkable game in defeat, dragged them to a score.\n\nThe target looked competitive - the hosts were possibly even favourites - but the manner England in which overhauled it was mightily impressive.\n\nThere was a wobble when Jonny Bairstow was trapped lbw for a useful 28-ball 29, Root - the dominant player in the series - was bowled for 11 and Dan Lawrence edged behind with a further 85 needed.\n\nHowever, Sibley played the anchor role while Buttler provided impetus in his typically attacking style.\n\nSibley, so at sea in his previous three innings, calmly nudged singles into the leg side. Buttler played thumped drives to the extra-cover boundary, smacked a reverse sweep through point and launched a slog sweep through mid-wicket.\n\nIn the end, England won with ease, Sibley sealing a fine win by tapping for one.\n\nSri Lanka threatened better in this match, having been convincingly beaten by seven wickets in the first.\n\nThey batted well in the first innings and in Embuldeniya they have a fine spinner, playing only his ninth Test.\n\nBut their fourth-day performance was abysmal. Their batting was akin to their performance on day one of the series when they were bowled out for 135.\n\nThe dismissals of captain Dinesh Chandimal - skying a slog sweep to Anderson at mid-on having hit a four a ball earlier - and Niroshan Dickwella, who drove Bess to extra cover two minutes before lunch, were the worst of a series of needlessly aggressive shots.\n\nSri Lanka also disappointed in the field. They were a little unfortunate that Sibley survived three tight lbw reviews, all of which were umpire's call, but their tactics were baffling.\n\nChandimal set the field back and allowed an accumulator in Sibley to tick along as he wished.\n\nThis tour, while important for points in the World Test Championship, always felt like the warm-up act in a huge year for England's Test team.\n\nNext they face a far bigger challenge in India before a summer against New Zealand, top of the Test rankings, India again, and an Ashes series in Australia the winter.\n\nThe biggest plus of this series has been the emphatic run-scoring of Root. He did not score a century in 2019 but made 228 and 186, albeit against a poor Sri Lanka. The skipper amassed 426 runs at an average of 106.50 in the series.\n\nBess and Leach were by no means perfect - they bowl too many bad balls - but finished the series with 12 and 10 wickets respectively.\n\nThe match-winning fifty for Sibley is also a significant boost going into the four Tests in India. Having been dismissed by Embuldeniya in every innings on tour previously, he showed he can grind out a score.\n\nEngland's veteran bowlers, Anderson and Stuart Broad, proved once again they can perform in unhelpful conditions.\n\nThere are question marks, however, about opener Crawley, whose top score in four innings was 13.\n\nThe issues at the top of the order are complicated by the fact Bairstow, who has done well at number three, has been rested for the first two Tests in India.\n\nEngland opener Dom Sibley on Test Match Special: \"I didn't think I'd left any stone unturned with regards playing spin, but then you go back to your room in the evening and think 'maybe I'm not up to this' and have those doubts.\n\n\"It is about accepting those and just believing. It just feels like pure relief at the moment.\"\n\nSri Lanka captain Dinesh Chandimal: \"We were outplayed today. We have done all the hard work in the last three days but as a batting unit we made the same mistakes of the first Test. There are no excuses for the batsmen and we've got to learn how to bat like Joe Root.\"\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan: \"A really, really strong performance from England. If you look down from one to 11, most people have contributed.\n\n\"They will have to bowl better in India. But the confidence that this will do for the team, and for Joe Root at the start of a huge year, is huge.\"", "A former senior manager at Boeing's 737 plant in Seattle has raised new concerns over the safety of the company's 737 Max.\n\nThe aircraft, which was grounded after two accidents in which 346 people died, has already been cleared to resume flights in North America and Brazil, and is expected to gain approval in Europe this week.\n\nBut in a new report, Ed Pierson claims that further investigation of electrical issues and production quality problems at the 737 factory is badly needed.\n\nRegulators in the US and Europe insist their reviews have been thorough, and that the 737 Max aircraft is now safe.\n\nIn his report, Mr Pierson claims that regulators and investigators have largely ignored factors, which he believes, may have played a direct role in the accidents.\n\nHe explicitly links them to conditions at the company's factory in Renton, near Seattle at the time. Boeing says this is unfounded.\n\nInvestigators believe both accidents were triggered by the failure of a single sensor. It sent inaccurate data to a piece of flight control software, called MCAS.\n\nThis automated system then repeatedly forced the nose of the aircraft downwards, when the pilots were trying to gain height. Ultimately each aircraft was pushed into an unrecoverable dive.\n\nEfforts to make the 737 Max safe have focused on redesigning the MCAS software, and ensuring it can no longer be triggered by a single sensor failure.\n\nFor Ed Pierson, this does not go nearly far enough. A US Navy veteran, who had a senior role on the 737 production line from 2015-2018, he was a star witness during congressional hearings into the disasters involving the Max.\n\nHe told lawmakers he had become so concerned about conditions at the factory, he had told his bosses that he was hesitant about taking his own family on a Boeing plane.\n\nEd Pierson (centre), seated next to his attorney Eric Havian (right), at a House Transportation Committee hearing on oversight of the Boeing 737 Max certification, on 11 December 2019\n\nHe testified that during 2018, the factory was in a \"chaotic\" and \"dysfunctional\" state as, he claimed, staff there struggled under pressure from managers to build new planes as quickly as possible.\n\nNow, he is worried that these issues have been overlooked in the rush to get the 737 Max back in the air.\n\nHis report draws on material from the official investigations. It claims that both of the crashed aircraft suffered from - what he believes were - production defects, almost from the moment they entered service.\n\nThese included intermittent flight control system problems and electrical anomalies that occurred in the days and weeks before the accidents.\n\nHe claims these may have been symptoms of flaws in the aircrafts' highly complex wiring systems, which could have contributed to the erroneous deployment of MCAS.\n\nHe also points out that sensor failures contributed to both accidents and asks why such failures were happening on brand new machines.\n\nIn the case of the Lion Air plane, a faulty sensor was replaced with another part that was not properly calibrated.\n\nAll signs, Mr Pierson says, \"point back to where these airplanes were produced, the 737 factory\".\n\nHowever, he insists that the possibility of production defects playing a role in the accidents has not been addressed by regulators.\n\nHe claims this could lead to further tragedies, involving the Max or even a previous version of the 737.\n\nMr Pierson's concerns are supported by the celebrated aviation safety campaigner Captain Chesley Sullenberger.\n\nBest known as \"Sully\", one of the pilots who safely ditched a crippled and engineless Airbus plane in the Hudson river off Manhattan in 2009, he too believes that modifications to the Max do not go far enough.\n\nHe believes changes are needed to warning systems aboard the plane, which were carried over from a previous version of the 737 and are \"not up to modern standards\".\n\nCaptain Chesley \"Sully\" Sullenberger (centre) testifies during a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on the status of the grounded Boeing 737 Max in June 2019\n\n\"Ed Pierson's report is very disturbing, about manufacturing issues in the Boeing factories that go well beyond just the Max, and also affect… the previous version of the 737,\" says Capt Sullenberger.\n\n\"There are many critically important unanswered questions that must be answered.\n\n\"Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must finally become more transparent, and begin to provide information and data, so that independent experts can determine the worthiness of the work that's been done.\"\n\nThe BBC has also spoken to a former senior inspector with the UK's Air Accident Investigations Branch (AAIB), who now works as a safety specialist. He warns that Mr Pierson's findings should be viewed in a wider context.\n\nThe report, he says, does make some \"valid observations\" about the pressures on Boeing's production line and quality control, and concerns about specific components.\n\nHowever, he adds that \"taking the limited information in any accident report… and making fresh interpretations of it, is not the same as conducting a new investigation\".\n\nThe issues highlighted, he adds, \"may have been investigated and dismissed already, for good reason\".\n\nThe FAA, meanwhile, insists it only approved the return to service of the Max, following a \"comprehensive and methodical safety review process\".\n\nA worker stands by a Boeing 737 Max plane on the tarmac at the Boeing Renton factory in Washington\n\nIt adds: \"None of the many investigations of the two accidents produced evidence that a production flaw played a role\", and emphasises that \"every aircraft leaving the factory is inspected by a team of FAA inspectors before it is cleared for delivery\".\n\nBoeing itself will not comment on whether the electrical and flight control problems highlighted by Mr Pierson may have played a factor in the two accidents, on the grounds that this is a matter for the investigating authorities.\n\nIt has, however, described suggestions of any link between conditions at Renton and the two accidents as \"completely unfounded\", emphasising that none of the authorities investigating the crashes has found any such link.\n\nPatrick Ky, the head of Europe's aviation safety agency, EASA, has previously told the BBC he is \"certain\" the plane is safe to fly.\n\nBut relatives of those who died aboard ET302 are continuing to urge the agency not to allow the 737 Max to operate in Europe, \"until continuing concerns about the aircraft's safety have been fully and openly addressed\".", "People in Lebanon are living under one of the world's strictest lockdowns. Under the round-the-clock curfew, citizens who are not \"essential workers\" have been barred from leaving their homes since 14 January.\n\nLaila, 12, is in Beirut trying to study while her family works from home.\n\n\"We all have our own work to do and when we have meetings we hear each other. It can be a real distraction and stop you from finishing your work on time,\" she says.\n\n\"Sometimes I can't study well because I get stressed with all the work they're giving us. It is definitely not the same studying online as it is in the physical world.\"\n\nFor hairdresser Walid Kanaan this year has been \"extremely difficult psychologically and economically\".\n\n\"I own my shop but still I cannot afford it. I pay the workers' salary so I am really broke,\" says the 45-year-old.\n\n\"It is hitting hard. You can't go out at all or do anything. My wife works in a bank and she is also collapsing. She doesn't know if she will still have her job or not.\n\n\"We don't trust the government that if they bring a vaccine it will be safe to take it. We can only pray for God to protect us.\"\n\nRead more stories from people in lockdown in Lebanon here.", "Teachers were not at significantly higher risk of death from Covid-19 than the general population, Office for National Statistics figures suggest.\n\nRestaurant staff, people working in factories and care workers had among the highest death rates, followed by taxi drivers and security guards.\n\nNurses were more than twice as likely as their peers to die of coronavirus.\n\nSecondary school teachers may have been at slightly, but not measurably, higher risk than the average.\n\nThe ONS looked at death rates from coronavirus in England and Wales between 9 March and 28 December 2020.\n\nIt found 31 in every 100,000 working-age men and 17 in every 100,000 working-age women had died of Covid-19.\n\nThis equated to just under 8,000 deaths among 20-64-year-olds.\n\nBut care workers, security guards and people working in certain manufacturing roles died at more than three times the rate of their peers.\n\nTwo-thirds of deaths were among men.\n\nAs well as being more likely to be male, working-age people who died of Covid last year had other things in common: they were much more likely to work in jobs where they were either regularly exposed to known Covid cases or working in close proximity with other people more generally.\n\nMany of the highest-risk jobs were also relatively low paid and may be more likely to be casual or insecure, without sick pay, including hospitality, care work and taxi driving.\n\nAmong teachers, there were 18 deaths per 100,000 among men and 10 per 100,000 among women.\n\nBreaking that down by role, secondary school teachers appear to have a very slightly elevated risk at 39 deaths per 100,000 people in men and 21 per 100,000 in women.\n\nPer 100,000 men aged 20-64, 31 died in the population as a whole compared with:\n\nPer 100,000 women aged 20-64, 17 died in the population as a whole compared with:\n\nThese are illustrative examples, not an exhaustive league table.\n\nThe ONS calculated the rate by dividing the number of deaths by the number of workers in each job role.\n\nBecause the numbers for secondary teachers were comparatively small - 52 deaths in total - it's difficult to be certain about their exact risk, but any increase there might be compared with the general population was not considered statistically significant.\n\nHowever, while teachers were not at higher risk than the average, they did appear to be at higher risk than some other professional job roles, which have seen very few or no deaths.\n\nThe ONS excluded from its analysis any occupation that had seen fewer than 10 deaths, and the average death rate for the whole population masks this variation.\n\nThe study also covers periods where there were limited numbers of children attending school.\n\nBut the figures do tell us teachers didn't have an elevated risk of the magnitude faced by health and care staff and by lower-paid manual and service workers.\n\nOther groups of staff studied with higher death rates, including hospitality and some factory and construction workers, also had their usual work paused for similar chunks of that period.\n\nWhile these figures tell us the death rates in each occupation group, they do not tell us the jobs are themselves causing more infections.\n\nThe ONS looked at age and sex but did not adjust for ethnicity, health or socioeconomic status which might influence an individual's risk.\n\nONS analyst Ben Humberstone said: \"As the pandemic has progressed, we have learnt more about the disease and the communities it impacts most. There are a complex combination of factors that influence the risk of death; from your age and your ethnicity, where you live and who you live with, to pre-existing health conditions.\n\n\"Our findings do not prove that the rates of death involving COVID-19 are caused by differences in occupational exposure,\" he added.\n\nThis also just refers to deaths, not infections which may result in serious illness.\n\nSome earlier ONS data suggested certain types of teacher may have an increased risk of catching coronavirus, although again the body did not consider this to be statistically significant.\n\nDirector of policy for the Association of School and College Leaders teachers' union, Julie McCulloch, said: \"When trying to understand rates of coronavirus-related deaths, there are likely to be many complex factors and we need to be careful not to jump to conclusions about the relative risks of different workplaces.\n\n\"What we do know is that, when schools are fully open, education staff are asked to work in environments that are inherently busy and crowded. In order to give them reassurance, and to minimise the disruption to education, it is vital that they are prioritised for vaccination as soon as possible.\"\n\nWhether teachers should be prioritised for vaccines has been a matter of debate.\n\nAt the moment the programme is being rolled out based on what will save the most lives and prevent the most severe illness.\n\nAfter the oldest age groups, people with health conditions and frontline staff who are regularly exposed to the virus, the government will have to publish a new raft of priorities.\n\nVaccines minister Nadim Zahawi has indicated more people could be prioritised on the basis of their job role, including teachers, shop workers and police officers.", "Fraud has reached epidemic levels in the UK and should be seen as a national security issue, says think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).\n\nThe scale of credit card, identity and cyber-fraud makes it the most prevalent crime, costing up to £190bn a year.\n\nUK intelligence agencies should play a greater role in responding, the RUSI argues in a report.\n\nPolicing should be better resourced, working more closely with the private sector, it adds.\n\nThe report argues that the scale of fraud against the private sector has an impact on the reputation of the UK as a place to do business.\n\nMeanwhile, the amount lost by the government in fraudulent claims represents a \"heist\" on the public purse, undermining faith and trust, it says.\n\nIt is the crime UK citizens are most likely to fall victim to, but the failures in responding risk undermining public confidence in the rule of law.\n\nThe Crime Survey for England and Wales found 3.7 million reported incidents in 2019-20 of members of the public being targeted by credit card, identity and cyber-fraud.\n\nThe private sector takes the biggest financial losses. One estimate from 2017 put the cost of fraud to businesses at £140bn.\n\nFraud against the public sector, including benefit, tax credit and student loan fraud, is estimated to cost £31-48bn a year, the upper figure larger than the UK's annual defence budget.\n\nThe losses go beyond the financial, the authors say.\n\n\"Fraud has the potential to disrupt society in multiple ways, by psychologically impacting individuals, undermining the viability of businesses, putting pressure on public services, fuelling organised crime and funding terrorism,\" they add.\n\nThe report cites evidence that terrorist groups and lone actors turn to fraud in order to finance their activities.\n\nIn one case, eight supporters of the Islamic State group were convicted of defrauding UK pensioners out of more than £1m, which was alleged to be used in part to fund travel from the UK to Syria.\n\nThe men carried out a type of courier fraud in which they pretended to be police officers, telling victims that their bank accounts had been compromised and needed to be transferred.\n\nBut despite the growing scale of the problem, there is no national strategy for tackling the issue, while the police response is underfunded and lacking focus.\n\nThis makes fraud \"everyone's problem but no-one's priority\", according to the report, written by RUSI experts Helena Wood, Tom Keatinge, Keith Ditcham and Ardi Janjev.\n\nThe digitisation of everyday life - accelerated by Covid - has only increased the risks, with organised crime groups showing increased sophistication in their tactics.\n\n\"The UK has become a target destination for global fraudsters,\" the RUSI argues.\n\nBut the extent to which international criminals focus on the UK is hard to gauge, because intelligence agencies have not traditionally focused on the issue.\n\nOne senior fraud professional interviewed by the researchers said that despite 30 years of investigating fraud, they still had no idea what proportion of the threat emanated from overseas.\n\nClassifying fraud as a national security issue would help ensure the right level of resourcing and prioritisation, the authors argue.\n\nThey also recommend more focused intelligence direction from the National Security Council, including greater tasking for GCHQ as well as the National Crime Agency to understand the issue.\n\nThey call for better information-sharing and use of data analytics, as well as more money and attention from police forces to address what they call a \"responsibility vacuum\".", "People made the most of the snowy slopes of Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset\n\nSevere weather warnings are in place across much of the UK after large parts of the country saw heavy snowfall.\n\nThe blanket of snow drew people outside for sledging and winter walks, but motorists have been warned to take extra care on icy roads with sub-zero temperatures forecast overnight.\n\nSeveral coronavirus vaccination and testing centres were closed in England and Wales due to the conditions.\n\nPolice reminded the public to keep to lockdown rules while out in the snow.\n\nOfficers in Wandsworth, south-west London, encouraged people with gardens to play in the snow at home.\n\nAnd police in Rutland, Leicestershire, were among several forces questioning why people were leaving their homes to go sledging.\n\nContinuing coronavirus lockdowns across the four UK nations mean most of the population must stay at home, except for a limited number of reasons.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. For cats Bonny and Freddy, the snow is a chance to explore. Credit: Rachel Prew\n\nAs well as four vaccination centres in Wales, six Covid testing centres in the West Midlands had to close due to heavy snow on Sunday.\n\nHighways England warned that the snow had caused collisions on the M3, M27 and M25 in southern England, with the agency urging drivers to only travel if absolutely necessary.\n\nThose using the roads for essential journeys have been urged to allow plenty of extra time for their travel and pedestrians and cyclists are also advised to be cautious.\n\nThe Met Office put a yellow weather warning for snow in place on Sunday, stretching from coast to coast in southern England and ending just south of Manchester.\n\nIt is also in place for western and northern areas of Scotland, most of Northern Ireland and all of Wales apart from Anglesey.\n\nAn amber warning for snow in Nottingham and Stoke meant travel disruption and power cuts were likely on Sunday evening.\n\nYellow weather warnings for ice are in place until 11:00 GMT Monday for all of Wales and Northern Ireland, northern and eastern Scotland and much of southern England and the Midlands.\n\nMany people swapped their usual daily bout of exercise for sledging on Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath, north London, but police urged people to stay at home\n\nGritters leapt into action near Touchen-end in Berkshire\n\nIn Wales, appointments at the Bridgend, Rhondda, Abercynon and Merthyr Tydfil coronavirus vaccination centres were rescheduled for safety reasons, the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board said.\n\nUp to 1in (3cm) of snow was forecast to fall in most areas of Wales, with 4-6in (10-15cm) expected in the Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia.\n\nIn the West Midlands, coronavirus testing centres at Castle Vale Stadium, the Arcadian Centre and Maypole Youth Centre were closed, Birmingham City Council said.\n\nFacilities in Moat Street, Coventry and The Place in Oakengates in Shropshire also closed, along with one in Lichfield, Staffordshire, local MP Michael Fabricant said.\n\nAnd in Devon, a gritting lorry overturned on Dartmoor. Devon County Council urged people to avoid travel unless it was absolutely essential and not to travel to find snow.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Devon County Council This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMet Office forecaster Simon Partridge said a band of hail, sleet, snow and rain moved in through Wales and south-west England in the early hours before sweeping across the UK and stalling over the Midlands, which saw some of the heaviest snow.\n\nColeshill, near Birmingham, had seen had 3.5in (9cm) by Sunday lunchtime.\n\nThe snow clouds eased away on Sunday evening but overnight temperatures could be as low as -4C to -6C (25F to 21F) for a lot of the south of the UK, the forecaster added.\n\n\"Some localised spots, likely in the Midlands, could see it as low as -10C (14F),\" he said.\n\nSnowmen popped up in the grounds of Guildford Castle, Surrey\n\nAs shown on the M1 in Bedfordshire, the wintry showers have caused hazardous driving conditions\n\nChris Fawkes of BBC Weather said some stretches of the M4 and M5 had been completely covered in snow at some points on Sunday morning.\n\nHe said this was partly because traffic has been low due to lockdown restrictions - and vehicles are needed to help grit mix into snow to make it melt.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning. We'll have another update for you this evening.\n\nMost pupils across the UK have not been in school since before the Christmas holidays - and now Tory MPs are calling for a \"route map\" for the reopening of schools in England. Pupils have been told they will be learning from home until at least the February half-term holidays. And Education Secretary Gavin Williamson says schools will be given at least two weeks' notice to reopen - which he \"hopes\" will happen before Easter. So, with no firm timetable, the chairman of the education select committee, Robert Halfon, has called for a plan to be laid out to MPs. He has asked for an urgent question in the Commons - if granted, Mr Williamson must respond. No part of the UK has yet announced a firm date for schools' reopening - you can read about the different nations' plans here.\n\nThe UK must reform how it is governed or risk becoming a \"failed state\", former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown has warned. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he says Covid has exposed \"tensions\" between Whitehall and the nations and regions. Recent polls have suggested rising support for Scottish independence - and a potential border vote in Northern Ireland. \"The complaint is that Whitehall does not fully understand the country it is supposed to govern,\" says Mr Brown.\n\nFrance's top medical adviser says a third national lockdown will probably soon be needed to combat Covid-19. Prof Jean-Francois Delfraissy says \"there is an emergency\", adding that the \"UK variant\" now makes up between 7-9% of cases in some French regions. A strict curfew was implemented last weekend but cases continue to climb. You can see police enforcing the 6pm shutdown below.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police in Paris ensure shops close at 6pm as France begins a new curfew to tackle Covid-19\n\nRiot police in the Netherlands have clashed with protesters who are angry at new coronavirus restrictions. Officers used water cannon and tear gas to clear demonstrators in Eindhoven. They had gathered in defiance of a new 9pm curfew. Some protesters threw fireworks, looted supermarkets and smashed shop windows. There were smaller demonstrations in the capital, Amsterdam.\n\nAustralia has suspended a travel bubble with New Zealand - after NZ's first Covid case in months was confirmed to be the South African variant. The infected patient had served 14 days in quarantine and tested negative twice before developing symptoms later. Travellers coming from New Zealand to Australia in the next 72 hours will now have to go through hotel quarantine. Health Minister Greg Hunt said the suspension was done out of an \"abundance of caution\".\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page. This explainer looks at various questions - including whether the vaccine stops you spreading the disease.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Supporters of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny protest against his arrest across Russia\n\nRussian President Vladimir Putin has condemned as \"illegal and dangerous\" the mass rallies in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.\n\nTens of thousands defied a heavy police presence to join the rallies across Russia on Saturday. More than 3,500 were detained, monitors say.\n\nEU foreign ministers discussed the protests on Monday, but did not agree on further sanctions on Russia.\n\nIn Moscow riot police were seen beating and dragging away demonstrators.\n\nThe foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are demanding \"restrictive measures against Russian officials responsible for arrests\".\n\nPoland's President Andrzej Duda also urged the EU to step up sanctions on Russia following the arrest of Mr Navalny. A week ago he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for violating parole conditions - a case he condemns as fabricated.\n\nMr Navalny, President Putin's most high-profile critic, called for protests after he was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, on arrival from Berlin on 17 January.\n\nDemonstrations were held on Saturday in about 100 cities and towns from Russia's Far East and Siberia to Moscow and St Petersburg.\n\nFrench Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the arrests as a \"slide towards authoritarianism\" and called for further sanctions against Russia.\n\n\"Change is in the air in Russia,\" declared Lithuania's new Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, as he arrived for his first meeting with EU counterparts.\n\nBut he soon discovered that change is not always in the air in Brussels.\n\nA couple of years ago, one seasoned Spanish politician lamented the meetings of the 27 EU foreign ministers as being \"more a valley of tears\" than a place for decision-making: \"We express our condolence and concern… but no capacity for action comes out of it.\"\n\nUnfortunately for that same politician - Josep Borrell - he's now the man who chairs these gatherings.\n\nThe EU has already imposed sanctions on six senior Russian officials - including the head of the FSB security service - over the nerve agent attack on Mr Navalny last August.\n\nBut MEPs are urging the EU to go further and hit Mr Putin's administration \"where it really hurts - the money\".\n\nIn December, the EU unveiled a tougher sanctions regime, including asset freezes and travel bans for foreign individuals accused of human rights violations. It puts the bloc alongside the US and UK, which adopted so-called Magnitsky Acts.\n\nThey take the name of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after reporting massive fraud by Russian tax officials. The EU version does not bear his name, to avoid alienating Russia-leaning member states.\n\nAgreeing on EU sanctions is always tough, as it requires all 27 countries to agree and we're told no concrete proposal was discussed by foreign ministers today.\n\nObservers say the scale of the Russia-wide demonstrations was unprecedented for recent years, and the Moscow protest was the capital's largest in almost a decade.\n\nThey appeared to enjoy widespread passive support, with trolley bus passengers waving to the crowds and large numbers of car drivers beeping their horns.\n\nProtesters, like these in St Petersburg, braved freezing cold to rally for Mr Navalny\n\nThe protests were also notable for the high proportion of young Russians who turned out. Opposition rallies have attracted more young people since Mr Navalny began releasing online investigations into alleged government corruption.\n\nMany protesters said they were angered by the findings of that report, and chants of \"Putin is a thief!\" were heard during Saturday's demonstrations.\n\nSocial media also played a key role in driving young people - many of whom have only ever known a Putin-led Russia - to take to the streets. Posts promoting the demonstrations were viewed hundreds of millions of times on TikTok.\n\nThe flood of videos prompted Russia's official media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, to demand the app take down any information \"encouraging minors to act illegally\".\n\nMr Putin has said no underage children should take part in the protests: \"One must under no circumstances push forward underage people. After all, it is terrorists who act like that, when they drive in front of them women and children. The emphasis is slightly different, but essentially, this is the same thing.\"\n\nPolice should also act within the law, he said.\n\nNo-one should seek to advance \"their ambitious objectives and goals, particularly in politics\" through protests, he added, in an apparent reference to Mr Navalny.\n\nMr Navalny's video report into this Black Sea resort has been viewed 85 million times\n\nOn Sunday Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticised a message from the US embassy in Moscow warning people to avoid the demonstrations, branding the warning an \"interference in our domestic affairs\".\n\nThe embassy said such warnings were a \"common and routine practice\".\n\nMeanwhile, the Russian embassy in the UK also accused Western nations of using their embassies to encourage the protests.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Russian Embassy, UK This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Health Secretary Matt Hancock says lifting restrictions can only happen when \"facts on the ground\" show it is safe\n\nIt is \"difficult to put a timeline\" on when England's lockdown could be lifted, Matt Hancock has said.\n\nThe health secretary said there were \"early signs\" the measures were working but it was \"not a moment to ease up\".\n\nHe said there were 37,000 people in hospital with coronavirus in the UK and \"more people on ventilators than at any time in this whole pandemic\".\n\n\"The pressure on the NHS remains huge and we've got to get that case rate down,\" he said.\n\nThe number of coronavirus cases in the UK has been falling, but the number of people in hospital remains high, as does the UK's daily death numbers.\n\nA further 592 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test and another 22,195 cases have been recorded, according to Monday's government figures.\n\nThe are 4,076 people in hospital on ventilators.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons.\n\nThis includes for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nAt Monday's Downing Street press briefing, Mr Hancock said: \"I understand the yearning people have to get out of this.\n\n\"The thing is that we have to look at the facts on the ground and we have to monitor those facts.\n\n\"And of course, everybody wants to have a timeline for that, but I think most people understand why it is difficult to put a timeline on it because it's a matter of monitoring the data.\"\n\nHe set out the factors the government would take into account when reaching decisions over lifting the restrictions, including: the death rate, the number of people in hospital, whether there were new coronavirus variants and the success of the vaccine rollout.\n\nAlmost four in five of the UK's over-80s have had the vaccine, Mr Hancock said, with nearly 6.6m people in total having had their first dose.\n\nThe falling numbers of infections being reported and the rising rate of vaccination are incredibly promising - even if the drop in infections reported on Monday may have been partly an artefact of fewer people coming forward for a test because of the snow.\n\nBut that does not offer any guarantees of a rapid lifting of lockdown.\n\nWhat is concerning ministers are the high numbers in hospital.\n\nThe number of new admissions seems to have plateaued - but at a very high rate.\n\nClose to 4,000 patients a day are being admitted to hospital.\n\nTo put that in context, that is four times the total number of all types of respiratory admissions the NHS would normally see in winter.\n\nIt means the numbers in hospital are at nearly twice the level they were at the peak in the spring during the first wave.\n\nWith better treatments available, patients are spending longer in hospital.\n\nSo come mid-February the pressures in hospital are likely to be very high, leaving ministers little wriggle-room to relax restrictions.\n\nThe big unknown, however, is what impact and how quickly vaccination will have an effect on admissions.\n\nThere is encouraging early news from Israel that hospitalisation really starts to drop three weeks after the first dose.\n\nIf that is repeated here, the picture could quickly change.\n\nBut until that happens the government - in the words of Health Secretary Matt Hancock - is urging the country to hold its nerve.\n\nSpeaking at the Downing Street press conference, Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer for England, warned: \"We are not out of this by a very long way.\"\n\nShe said current coronavirus rates were still causing concern, patience was needed about the vaccination programme and the NHS still faced its usual winter pressures.\n\nSusan Hopkins, from Public Health England, said the UK need to see the death rate \"fall much lower\" before any decision to ease measures.\n\nShe said teams were currently studying the impact on the UK's vaccine programme of the variant first identified in South Africa.\n\nBut she added the \"consensus view\" from four UK laboratories suggested that \"the current vaccine works against the variant that was first discovered in the UK\".", "Former Brexit Party MEP Robert Rowland was described as a larger than life character\n\nA former Brexit Party MEP has died in a diving accident near his home in the Bahamas.\n\nRobert Rowland, 54, represented the south east of England at the European Parliament from July 2019 until January 2020.\n\nNigel Farage paid tribute to the \"larger than life character\" and \"enthusiastic\" Brexit supporter.\n\nHe announced the death of his former colleague in a statement on Sunday.\n\nThe Royal Bahamas Police Force said it had \"received reports of a drowning incident\" on Saturday and was \"conducting inquires\".\n\nMr Farage said: \"It is with great sadness that I have to announce the death of Robert Rowland, after a diving accident near his home in the Bahamas.\n\n\"Following a successful career in the City, Robert was an enthusiastic Brexit Party MEP and larger than life character.\"\n\nHe said he wished to extend his \"sincerest condolences\" to Mr Rowland's family, including his wife and four children.\n\nFormer Brexit Party MEP David Bull said he was \"beyond devastated,\" adding: \"Robert was a wonderful friend and colleague.\"\n• None Farage's Brexit Party officially changes its name\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Budweiser has said it will not advertise its beer during the Super Bowl this year, joining a growing number of big brands sitting out the annual American football championship.\n\nThe event remains one of the most-watched in the US each year, drawing more than 100 million viewers in 2020.\n\nThe advertisements are often as much a conversation-starter as the game itself, sometimes sparking controversy.\n\nFirms say the virus has made finding the right message especially difficult.\n\nOthers are grappling with financial hits caused by the pandemic, which has dampened spending on many items, while also casting more than 10 million Americans out of work, resurfacing racial and economic inequalities and sharpening political divisions.\n\nBudweiser's parent company, Anheuser-Busch, said it planned to reallocate the money it would have spent on a 30-second Budweiser spot during the game to support an Ad Council campaign promoting coronavirus vaccination.\n\nIt is the first time the flagship brand will not make a game-time appearance in 37 years.\n\n\"This commitment is an investment in a future where we can all get back together safely over a beer\", it said, adding that it would still promote some of its other brands, such as Bud Light, during the game.\n\nOn Monday, Budweiser released a full 90-second Super Bowl ad on YouTube entitled \"Bigger Picture\", which showed US citizens overcoming pandemic challenges together and aimed to raise awareness about Covid-19 vaccines.\n\nCoke, Pepsi and Hyundai are among the other major names also planning to forego airtime during the broadcast.\n\nCoca-Cola said it had made the \"difficult choice\" to \"ensure we are investing in the right resources during these unprecedented times\". The firm did not advertise during the 2019 game either.\n\nHyundai cited \"marketing priorities\" and the timing of upcoming vehicle launches.\n\nPepsi has also said it would not promote its flagship soda during the game. Instead, it is spending money on an advert airing to promote the Super Bowl halftime show it has sponsored for almost a decade.\n\nThe Super Bowl boasts some of the most expensive advertising slots all year\n\nGiven all the economic, political and health questions of 2020, companies may have felt it was prudent to pull back - especially several months ago, when they would have had to start planning for such a high-profile night, said Kimberly Whitler, professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business\n\n\"It's the biggest night of TV watching and so they have to plan it months in advance,\" she said. \"There was so much uncertainty that to go and invest in a Super Bowl ad might have actually felt or seemed frivolous at the time.\"\n\nThe decision goes \"beyond finances\", she added. \"It's also, 'How do we identify the right tone that will match the moment'.\"\n\nThis year's Super Bowl will see star quarterback Tom Brady's Tampa Bay Buccaneers face off against reigning champions the Kansas City Chiefs on 7 February.\n\nLast year, firms spent an average of $5.25m (£3.8m) for a 30-second spot during the championship, driving Super Bowl ad spending to a record $450m, according to Kantar consultancy.\n\nThe firm has said its research suggests Super Bowl ads are \"typically 20 times more effective\" in changing a brand's perception than a normal advert.\n\nAnheuser-Busch, an official sponsor of the National Football League, is typically one of the night's top spenders, so the absence of its flagship brand may create its own buzz, said Satya Menon, a Chicago-based managing partner of of ROI practice at Kantar.\n\nChipotle's very first Super Bowl commercial is entitled, \"Can a burrito change the world?\"\n\n\"Budweiser in particular is a very established brand ... so for them, it's all about generating love and goodwill and maybe this is another way,\" she says.\n\n\"They do have a lot of pre-game advertising out there. When people have the expectation that they wil be there and then they don't see the brand, they'll start thinking why are they not.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the sports showdown still seems to be finding plenty of firms ready to fill spots left by the stalwarts. Names of newcomers include Chipotle and Fiverr, a freelance platform that has seen business soar during the pandemic.\n\n\"It doesn't get any bigger than the Super Bowl from a branding and marketing perspective,\" said Fiverr's chief marketing officer Gali Arnon. \"We believe this is a major opportunity for us to introduce the world to Fiverr in a unique and creative way.\"\n\nMany of this year's advertisers are firms coming from the e-commerce sector, which have benefited from the pandemic, Ms Menon said.\n\nAnd though audience numbers for NFL games have slipped this year, for those firms making their game-night debuts, Ms Menon says she still expects ads to have a big impact - even if the pandemic puts a damper on the traditional Super Bowl parties and other festivities, which can make championship feel like an unofficial national holiday.\n\n\"There isn't very much going on in life, so it will always have that great reach,\" she says. \"Some of that excitement may not be there, but watching will definitely be there.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson says teachers and pupils will be told “as much as we can, as soon as we can” about reopening schools\n\nThe government will tell teachers and parents when schools in England can reopen \"as soon as we can\", the prime minister has said.\n\nMPs have called on the government to set out a \"route map\" for reopening amid concerns for children's education.\n\nBoris Johnson said he understood why people wanted a timetable but he did not want to lift restrictions while the infection rate was \"still very high\".\n\nHe would not guarantee schools would reopen before April's Easter break.\n\nMr Johnson said: \"We've now got the R [reproduction rate] down below 1 across the whole of the country, that's a great achievement, we don't want to see a huge surge of infection just when we've got the vaccination programme going so well and people working so hard.\n\n\"I understand why people want to get a timetable from me today, what I can tell you is we'll tell you, tell parents, tell teachers as much as we can as soon as we can.\"\n\nHe said the government would be \"looking at the potential of relaxing some measures\" before mid-February, with Downing Street clarifying that this meant looking at the data to decide \"what we may or may not be able to ease from 15 February onwards\".\n\nA further 592 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test and another 22,195 cases have been recorded, according to Monday's government figures.\n\nAt Monday's Downing Street press briefing, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said almost four in five of the UK's over-80s have had the vaccine, with nearly 6.6m people in total having had their first dose.\n\nBut he said the NHS continues to be under \"intense pressure\", with Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer for England, saying there are \"twice the number of people in hospital than we had in the first wave\" of the pandemic.\n\nRobert Halfon, chairman of the education select committee, told BBC Breakfast there was \"enormous uncertainty\" and called for the government to set out what the conditions needed to be for pupils to return to schools.\n\nThe Conservative MP for Harlow suggested the government could consider tighter restrictions in other parts of society and the economy, in order to enable schools to open.\n\nTory MPs were enraged by reports over the weekend that schools might not re-open fully until after the Easter holidays.\n\nMinisters say it's the progress of the pandemic that will determine their decision rather than a pre-agreed timetable.\n\nYet whenever the government speaks, parents hear dates. Whether it's that the situation will be reviewed at half-term. Or a pledge to give two weeks' notice when classes will come back.\n\nMPs are now pushing for more transparency from the government about how they'll assess the data, and for some ideas between school being mostly closed or totally open.\n\nThis issue is a perfect metaphor for the situation facing the entire country. Too much hope breeds disappointment, but living with uncertainty is just as hard. And you can come up with a plan but it might have to be junked if the virus has other ideas.\n\nChildren's Commissioner for England Anne Longfield joined the call for clarity and told the BBC: \"Children are more withdrawn, they are really suffering in terms of isolation, their confidence levels are falling, and for some there are serious issues.\"\n\nEducation Secretary Gavin Williamson said the government wanted to \"see all children back at the very earliest moment\".\n\nSchools in England have been closed to most pupils since the national lockdown began on 5 January due to high levels of Covid transmission in the community.\n\nThere have been calls for teachers to be vaccinated sooner, although it is not clear if that would allow schools to reopen earlier.\n\nThe majority of pupils in England are learning from home with schools only open to the children of key workers, vulnerable children and those who cannot learn at home\n\nCovid death rates among educational professionals are not \"statistically significantly different\" to those in the general population, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, but secondary school teachers appeared to have an elevated risk compared particularly with people working in office-type jobs.\n\nAmong secondary school teachers Covid death rates were 39.2 deaths per 100,000 males, compared with 31.4 for all males aged 20 to 64, and 21.2 per 100,000 females, compared with 16.8, but the ONS said these were \"not statistically significantly different than those of the same age and sex in the wider population\".\n\nSchools will remain closed in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales until at least the February half-term - with the Welsh first minister saying it is \"unlikely\" all pupils will return after the break.\n\nGemma Cocker with her children Charlie and Lyla\n\nGemma Cocker from Brighton is one of the many parents struggling to balance childcare, home learning and work.\n\nShe says she's having to share her work laptop with her son, who has already missed learning time after the family moved home and did not have internet access. \"We didn't have any internet. The school said they had reached their limit so couldn't take him,\" she says.\n\nAnd because her children are young, she says: \"They're never just going to watch a classroom by themselves, you have to be with them the whole time.\"\n\nKitty Jones, 11, is in her last year of primary school and she says home learning is \"tricky\" because she is not used to using different remote platforms like Google Classroom and she wants to return \"as soon as possible\".\n\n\"I still think that I'm learning a bit, but I don't think I'm learning as much as I would be in person,\" she tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.\n\nHolly Agbukor, 18, is studying for her A-levels, says it is \"quite stressful\" learning at home, as it is a \"different environment, so it is not as easy to be fully present in the lessons\".\n\nBut, she says, while is it \"difficult\" working at home, \"I don't think it is worth the cost of reintroducing the virus into society and making things worse overall\".\n\nHow has home-schooling been going for your family? You can share your experience by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The UK has identified 77 cases of the coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa, the health secretary has said.\n\nCases are linked to travellers arriving in the UK, rather than community transmission, Matt Hancock added.\n\nHe told the BBC's Andrew Marr cases were under \"very close\" observation and enhanced contact tracing was under way.\n\nMinisters are due to meet on Monday to consider imposing tougher restrictions on people arriving from abroad.\n\nScientists have said there is a chance the South African variant may harm the effectiveness of current vaccines.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Hancock said that \"three quarters of all the 80-year-olds in the country and a similar number of care homes\" have received their first doses of the vaccine.\n\nBoth the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines require two doses, and figures so far reflect those given the first dose.\n\nMr Hancock said that it was \"far too early to say\" what proportion of the population needed to be vaccinated before lockdown restrictions could be eased.\n\nAll viruses, including the one that causes Covid-19, mutate, and variants have been first located in the UK, South Africa and Brazil.\n\nThe South Africa variant has been found in at least 20 other countries, including the UK.\n\nMr Hancock said that all the South Africa variant cases in the UK were linked to travel.\n\n\"That's why we have got such stringent border measures in place against movement from South Africa,\" he added.\n\nThe UK closed all travel corridors last week until at least 15 February, with almost all travellers arriving in the country now required to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test to be allowed entry.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has not ruled out bringing in tougher measures at UK borders, telling a Downing Street news conference on Friday: \"We don't want to put that (efforts to control Covid) at risk by having a new variant come back in.\"\n\nMinisters are set to discuss whether to tighten border restrictions further, including the possibility of hotel quarantines for travellers.\n\nMr Hancock said: \"We have got to be cautious at the borders.\"\n\nAsked for a date on when lockdown restrictions might end, Mr Hancock said it was \"one of the many things that we don't yet know the answer to\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Matt Hancock on easing restrictions: \"We don't know the answer\"\n\nGovernment data on 14 January showed there were 35 confirmed cases of the South Africa variant identified in the UK, and a further 12 \"probable\" cases.\n\nMr Hancock said nine cases of the Brazil variant had been found in the UK, adding \"we are monitoring each and every one very closely\".\n\nShadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that Labour had been \"pushing the government to take tougher measures at the border since last spring\".\n\nShe said: \"We would fully expect the government to bring in tougher quarantine measures, we would expect them to roll out a proper testing strategy and we would expect them as well to start checking up on the people who are quarantining.\n\n\"Only three out of every hundred people who are asked to quarantine when they arrive into the UK actually face any checks at all - that's just simply not sufficient.\"\n\nOn Friday, Mr Johnson said there was \"some evidence\" the UK variant may be associated with \"a higher degree of mortality\".\n\nThe UK government's chief scientific officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, said there was \"a lot of uncertainty around these numbers\" but that early evidence suggested the variant could be about 30% more deadly.\n\nThe PM said on Friday that there was evidence that both the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine and Oxford-AstraZeneca jab were effective against the variant first detected in the UK.\n\nSir Patrick has warned that the variants in South Africa and Brazil might \"have certain features which means they might be less susceptible to vaccines\".\n\nBut he said \"there is no evidence\" that the two variants have transmission advantages over those already in the UK and so having cases here doesn't mean \"they will take off\".\n\nMeanwhile, England's deputy chief medical officer warned that people who have received a Covid-19 vaccine could still pass the virus on to others and should continue following lockdown rules.\n\nWriting in the Sunday Telegraph, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam stressed that scientists \"do not yet know the impact of the vaccine on transmission\".\n\nHe said vaccines offer \"hope\" but infection rates must come down quickly.\n\nIt's a key question but the fact is that no one can be sure.\n\nThat's because the trials of the vaccines explored the safety of the drugs and how well they prevent people from becoming ill - with good results for both.\n\nBut they did not investigate whether vaccination also stops infection and therefore whether people who've been immunised can still spread the virus to others.\n\nIf a vaccinated person did become infected, they probably wouldn't realise because they wouldn't have any symptoms. That's why health officials and ministers are so concerned.\n\nIt's possible that the antibodies boosted by the vaccine suppress the effects of the virus but don't eliminate it from the upper airway.\n\nMany scientists are cautiously hopeful that in this scenario, the amount of virus would be reduced but they're waiting for the results of studies under way now.\n\nAnd until there's an answer, it's difficult to calculate how and when it's safe to ease restrictions and allow people to mix again.\n\nA further 610 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were reported in the UK on Sunday - down from 671 deaths last Sunday - in addition to 30,004 new infections.\n\nThe number of positive cases has fallen for the fourth day in a row and is the lowest figure since before Christmas.\n\nThe death figures tend to be lower on a Sunday and Monday because of weekend lags in reporting of the data.\n\nMeanwhile, more than six million people have had their first dose of a Covid vaccine - with the figure now standing at 6,353,321.\n\nNadhim Zahawi, the minister responsible for the vaccine rollout, said on Twitter that 6,353,321 of the \"most vulnerable and frontline heroes\" had received a first dose of the vaccine, but there was still \"much more to do\".\n\nThere were 4,076 Covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds in UK hospitals as of Friday, according to government data.\n\nThat is higher than during the first wave, when the peak was 3,301 on 12 April.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video filmed in Tacoma, Washington, shows a police car apparently ploughing through a crowd of people\n\nA police officer is under investigation in the US after his vehicle ploughed into a group of people, running over at least one, in Tacoma, Washington.\n\nNobody was killed in the incident, although one person was rushed to hospital with injuries.\n\nA video shows a large group of people surrounding the police car as it revs its engine in an apparent effort to drive off.\n\nThe group refuses to move, and police say people started hitting the car.\n\nThe police officer then speeds through the group, hitting numerous people. One person is dragged under the car.\n\nTacoma Police Department said multiple vehicles and approximately 100 people were blocking an intersection when officers arrived on the scene. The group was apparently watching street racers doing \"burnouts\".\n\n\"During the operation, a responding Tacoma police vehicle was surrounded by the crowd. People hit the body of the police vehicle and its windows as the officer was stopped in the street,\" police said in a statement.\n\n\"The officer, fearing for his safety, tried to back up, but was unable to do so because of the crowd,\" it said.\n\n\"While trying to extricate himself from an unsafe position, the officer drove forward striking one individual and may have impacted others,\" it said.\n\nThe person who was run over was rushed to hospital. Their condition is as yet unclear.\n\nThe Pierce County Force Investigation Team is investigating the incident, the statement said. The police officer has not been identified.\n\n\"I am concerned that our department is experiencing another use of deadly force incident,\" Interim Police Chief Mike Ake said in the statement.\n\n\"I send my thoughts to anyone who was injured in tonight's event, and am committed to our department's full co-operation in the independent investigation and to assess the actions of the department's response during the incident.\"\n\nThe incident comes at a time of rising anger over the use of excessive force by police in the US.\n\nPeople across the world took to the streets last year to demonstrate their anger at the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis, and to demand an end to police brutality and what they see as systemic racism.", "Some Barclaycard customers will see their minimum repayments rise from Tuesday, at a time when finances are already stretched owing to Covid and Christmas.\n\nThe new requirements are tailored to each customer, although some may see a significant rise in demands.\n\nBut the changes will also see charges for exceeding a credit limit scrapped.\n\nJanuary is a pinch point for many in debt and borrowers are being urged to seek help if they are in trouble.\n\nBarclaycard signalled the changes to their pricing structures in November, although some borrowers may have missed the notice, which was titled \"changes to your terms and conditions\".\n\nThe new repayment rates will affect those with Platinum, Initial, Freedom, Forward, Cashback, Littlewoods, Rewards and Hilton Honors cards, but not Premier or Woolwich cards.\n\nFor cardholders who started using their cards in the last decade, the minimum repayment each month has been calculated as the highest of 2.25% of the full balance, 1% of the balance plus interest, or £5. This differed slightly for longer-standing customers.\n\nThe new charges mean minimum repayments will be the highest of between 2% and 5% of the full balance, between 1% and 3% of the balance plus interest, or £5.\n\nThis means some people could see the minimum repayment rise, although some other charges - such as the late payment fee - will be limited.\n\nThe exact percentage depends on the customer and would have been outlined in the November message.\n\nA Barclaycard spokesman said: \"We are increasing minimum payments for some customers to help them pay off debt quicker and reduce the overall interest they pay.\n\n\"This is part of our ambition to ensure that no Barclaycard customer gets into persistent debt - where they pay more in interest and charges than reducing their debt and take a long time to pay this debt off - and is being put in place to support our customers.\"\n\nSara Williams, who writes the Debt Camel blog, said that the higher minimum payment may well come as a \"nasty shock\".\n\n\"January is always the tightest month for money for most people. December pay is often early, so the money has to stretch further, and if you put any Christmas presents or expenses on your Barclaycard, this month's bill will be high anyway,\" she said.\n\n\"For people who were hardly managing before, the increase to the minimum payments may tip the bill over into being unaffordable.\"\n\nDebt charities had already warned that the coronavirus pandemic meant the UK was \"sleepwalking into a debt crisis\".\n\nThe government-backed Money and Pensions Service - which offers free guidance - said it was expecting a call about debt at least every four minutes throughout January.\n\nBarclaycard said the timing of the changes - which coincide with lockdown and many people on a reduced furlough income - was unintentional and had been signalled some time ago.\n\nAny borrowers who feel the new repayment levels are unaffordable are being asked to contact the company.\n\nMore broadly, anyone struggling to make debt repayments of any kind is being urged to face their difficulties and seek help.\n\n\"Financial worries negatively affect our 'cognition', which are the thinking processes that support and maintain our mental health. When in a poor state, financial worries cause stress and our cognition fails,\" said Keiron Sparrowhawk, a cognition expert from the Being Well Group, which runs the MyCognition app.\n\nThis could lead to depression and hasty, ill-thought-out decisions, he said.\n\n\"Together, depression and anxiety are distressing and disabling, causing us to spiral out of control and enter a pit of hell,\" he said.", "The water is warmer than the air and is creating a mist along Dynevor Road\n\nThe coalmining heritage of Wales has been implicated in flooding of homes - but what has happened in Skewen?\n\nAbout 80 people were evacuated from the Neath Port Talbot village, with at least eight streets left under water.\n\nCouncil leader Rob Jones says the flood appears to be related to mine works - but the volume of water involved has hampered a full assessment so far.\n\nThe Coal Authority is investigating how \"historic underground mining features\" in the area exacerbated the problem.\n\nA geologist says there are tens of thousands of old mine shafts across the former south Wales coalfield and it is \"incredibly difficult\" to monitor them all.\n\nSkewen lies within an old coal mining hotspot, with several former colliery sites near the village that operated in the 19th and early 20th Century.\n\nThere were colliery sites near what is now Drummau Road, in the north of the village and another close to Old Road, near Neath Abbey.\n\nSkewen was part of a collection of collieries that stretched between Neath and Llanelli on the western side of south Wales' coalfield.\n\nGraham Levins, secretary of the Welsh Mines Preservation Trust, said old mines often contain groundwater which can flood in heavy rain.\n\nHe said: \"A lot of them go very, very deep down, much below the local water level and that's why they had all the big wheels to pump the water out.\n\n\"It fills up with water and will find a way out. Normally rainfall you get it doesn't cause a lot of problems but when you get really heavy rain, the water drains down through the ground and builds up.\"\n\nStreets were turned into rivers in Skewen\n\nGeologist Tom Backhouse said water was coming out of an area near the junction of Goshen Park and Drummau Road, where there is a record of a mine shaft dating from the turn of the 20th Century.\n\nIt then started \"rushing down\" Drummau Road, causing the flooding that forced evacuations.\n\n\"What we can expect to have happened is that the water level in the mines rose to a point where it's burst out of that entry point from the mine workings below.\n\n\"Also, there are images of very ochre like orange-coloured water and again, that may well be issuing from the mine workings on the highlands to the east of the property on the hill behind.\n\n\"That may be where the shallow workings have flooded.\"\n\nHe said old mine working across the former coalfield area hold water at a certain depth, but when an event such as Storm Christoph drops \"a huge amount in a small area\", the levels rise quickly.\n\n\"As it gets closer and closer to the surface, it basically looks for an escape, the pressure builds up,\" he continued.\n\n\"What it looks like has happened on the junction of Goshen Park and Drummau Road, where the mine shaft is recorded, is that pressure has built up at that point and then burst out through the shaft which is very likely to have been capped with wood or something like that.\n\n\"Where you've got those mine shafts, which ultimately are vertical tunnels down into the mine workings below, the water has literally forced itself up through that shaft, and the pressure is obviously so great it's caused this devastating flash flood.\"\n\nAs well as properties, vehicles were submerged in water\n\nThere are about 13 shafts recorded within about 820ft (250m) of the one in Goshen Park, so Mr Backhouse said it is possible more than one may have burst.\n\nThere are tens of thousands in south Wales and he said it was \"incredibly difficult\" to check them all, but there were \"tell tale signs\" as to why they may collapse such as age or what type of developments are around them.\n\nThe clean up has continued on Friday morning\n\n\"Not to try and fear-monger or anything but of course this sort of thing can happen again,\" he said.\n\n\"If another event like Storm Christoph happens, the water levels in the mine rises as quickly as it did, there's absolutely nothing to say that it wouldn't happen again in the future.\n\n\"And obviously as climate changes and we have many more events like Storm Christoph, they are going to increase in frequency, they are going to be much more severe.\n\n\"The Coal Authority will have to consider the risk in places like Skewen, and they'll have to understand how it will affect residents and proactively manage that and look at how to reduce the risks for residents.\"", "Pictures of the Pampas grass on social media are thought to have made the area in South Shields popular\n\nA boom in the popularity of Pampas grass with interior decorators has led to \"droves\" of people picking the plant which grows wild near a beach.\n\nThe grass, near Littlehaven Beach in South Shields, forms part of a wind defence to stop sand blowing onto roads and helps protect the coastline.\n\nSouth Tyneside Council warned anyone found removing it could be prosecuted.\n\nCouncillor Ernest Gibson said while the grass may look \"beautiful in vases\" people were \"damaging the environment\".\n\nThe grass, which was popular in the 1970s, can sell for up to £40 a bunch and has proved a popular addition to people's homes.\n\nIt is thought that photographs on social media sites such as Instagram may have influenced people turning up and taking it, Mr Gibson added.\n\n\"Pampas grass is quite expensive to buy if you went to a florist. It's cheaper to come to South Tyneside and take it away,\" he said.\n\n\"But what we are doing is urging people not to come here and take it away, it's there for a reason.\"\n\nPampas grass and Marram grass form part of a defence along the coast at South Shields\n\nThe Pampas grass helps to bond poor soils found at the coast, while Marram grass helps to prevent erosion in the dunes.\n\nSigns are to be erected warning people not to pick the grass because it is already in need of replenishment, the council said.\n\n\"Through Covid, we have a massive amount of people coming to the coastal town, it's Benidorm without the sunshine,\" he added.\n\n\"It's great to see people at the seaside enjoying it [the grass] and that's what it's part of. It's there for everybody to view.\"\n\nGarden designer George Wright said Pampas grass was \"very popular\" and he had seen demand increase two or three times at his nursery in West Boldon. He also expressed concern for the area.\n\n\"Once they take the flower heads themselves they take the seeds. Eventually this will become very much a patchy area and they will all start to decline.\n\n\"Pampas grass is becoming more and and more popular at the moment and I think a lot of it is people are starting to extend their houses into the garden so they want something nice in there, and also it's being used for interior decoration in houses.\"\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Geoff and Jenny Holland married in August after two previous attempts to wed were delayed by the pandemic\n\nTwo newlywed pensioners are urging everyone to get vaccinated as they were among the first to receive a dose at a new centre.\n\nGeoff Holland, 90, and 86-year-old wife Jenny married in August after meeting at Town View independent living centre in Mansfield.\n\nThe pair tied the knot after being forced to postpone their nuptials twice due to the pandemic.\n\nThey both received the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.\n\nThe couple made their vaccination plea as a centre at an old DIY store on Chesterfield Road South, in Mansfield, opened on Monday.\n\nIt has joined 31 other new sites opening across England this week, with anyone aged 75 and over who lives within a 45-minute drive encouraged to book their injections.\n\nMrs Holland praised staff at the vaccination site for the care she and her new husband received.\n\n\"We've been well looked after while we've been here,\" she said.\n\n\"People have worked long and hard to get this vaccine so I think people ought to have it.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Time-lapse footage shows how a DIY store was transformed into a vaccine centre in three weeks\n\nMr and Mrs Holland said they both tested positive for coronavirus a couple of months ago after Mr Holland reported feeling unwell.\n\nBoth managed to recover without developing major symptoms.\n\nDespite the delay to their wedding and the ongoing after-effects of the pandemic, Mrs Holland said married life was turning out to be \"brilliant\".\n\n\"Hopefully, one day soon, we'll be able to have a get together and celebrate with our family and friends who couldn't be there on the day,\" she said.\n\nKathryn Turner, Mr Holland's daughter, said the family was thrilled the pair received their jabs.\n\n\"It's fantastic that they are getting the vaccine so their love story can continue,\" she said.\n\n\"Hopefully this will help us all get back to some sort of normality.\"\n\nThe Hollands met in the summer of 2019 and were engaged the following New Year's Eve\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n• None COVID-19 Vaccination in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire - NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Parents are struggling with the sense of uncertainty, says psychologist\n\nHome schooling can be tough. It's difficult to concentrate, there's emotional exhaustion, boredom, a lack of motivation and it's really hard not going out to see friends. And that's just the parents.\n\nThis winter lockdown is taking its toll on families, now struggling even more on the black ice of uncertainty as no-one can say when schools in England are going to reopen for most pupils again.\n\n\"There's a sense of fatigue,\" says Jacqueline Smallwood, who is at home with three secondary-school children. She says her own \"concentration levels have fallen dramatically\".\n\n\"It's so repetitive that it just makes you feel tired,\" she says of the latest lockdown and the \"silent struggle\" facing both parents and their children to try to get motivated.\n\nHome school shows no sign of coming to an early end\n\nThere might have been some guilty enjoyment at the start of the year when the school term was initially delayed, not having to get up and out on cold January mornings.\n\nUntil it dawned on them that this was becoming something much longer than a few weeks.\n\nIt's morphed from early January to half term in mid-February and now maybe Easter in early April or even later. And Jacqueline says, as a matter of \"respect\", parents need to know what's happening about schools.\n\nThe confusion over a return date seems to have further frayed the nerves of parents.\n\nThe mother, who lives outside Canterbury in Kent, says she worries about the pressures building up on young people.\n\nFor teenagers like her sons, she says this \"should be a pivotal time in their lives,\" when they're beginning to get some independence and when social lives are hugely important - but instead they're stuck inside with their parents.\n\n\"We can't live like the Waltons forever,\" she says, referencing the US TV series of a folksy family relying on each other.\n\nJacqueline says families are finding this latest lockdown tougher than the spring or summer\n\nThe first lockdown created an unexpected sense of togetherness, an \"enforced bonding\" that she says turned out to be a \"massive positive\".\n\nBut Jacqueline, who works as a writer, sees no such upside to the latest lockdown. There is a collective frustration - and she says it has been made even worse by the confusion about when schools will go back.\n\nThe online home-schooling seems to be working, she says, with teachers trying to boost the enthusiasm levels, but it's no real substitute for being in school. And she wants much more clarity about when they will go back.\n\n\"I've tried not to be political about decisions being made, but you can't help but feel disappointed. They don't seem to understand how real people are living,\" she says.\n\nShe says when politicians say maybe schools will or won't be back by Easter, they don't realise how much that uncertainty affects families trying to plan for what comes next.\n\nEducational psychologist Dan O'Hare says the \"key word is 'uncertainty'\".\n\nLiving on a laptop can take its toll on parents having to work and home school their children\n\nNot knowing what is coming next adds to the pressure, he says, and children out of school are already facing big unknowns such as what's going to happen about exams or when will they see their friends and teachers.\n\n\"It's really stressful for children and their families,\" says Dr O'Hare, who is co-chair of the British Psychological Society's division for educational and child psychology. \"They need a sense of a plan.\"\n\nThis lockdown is also in the depths of winter - and he says employers need to think about making sure staff working from home are able to take a break in daylight hours, so that families can get outside.\n\nIt's no use asking parents to answer work emails all day and expect them to go out when it's dark.\n\nSchools have been providing more online lessons in this lockdown\n\nFor some families it has got very difficult.\n\n\"It's affected her emotionally a lot,\" says Dave in Bolton, who is worrying about his six-year-old daughter, who has been crying because she misses her friends.\n\n\"It's awful, you can't put a positive spin on it. She's at that age where she's enjoying her friends, becoming more socialised,\" he told BBC 5 Live.\n\n\"She's quite a confident little girl and I can't help worry that being stuck at home is going to impact her in the longer term.\"\n\nThe father says many of her classmates are still going into school - and that makes it even harder when she sees her friends on school Zoom calls.\n\nEmployers should make sure that parents' working hours allow them to get out in daylight, says psychologist\n\nJen Locke in Newcastle makes the point that women can often be \"the most adversely affected by the decision to keep schools closed\".\n\nShe says home schooling has \"fallen squarely on my shoulders\", helping her children in the day and then shifting her work with an IT company into the evening, so it's an early start through to a very late finish.\n\n\"It's a huge mental strain… I'm knackered from it all,\" she says, right down to trying to get children to bed who aren't tired because they're not going out.\n\nA lockdown weariness seems to be out there, despite the best efforts of schools.\n\nSimon Armstrong in Bristol, whose son is in secondary school, says: \"Virtual lessons, no matter how well delivered, are a woeful substitute for real lessons.\"\n\n\"I am at the end of my tether,\" he says.\n\nThe Department for Education said: \"We are committed to reopening schools as soon as the public health picture allows, and will inform schools, parents and pupils of plans ahead of February half term.\"\n\nBut Labour has accused the government of causing \"chaos and confusion\" for parents and schools.\n\nThe National Association of Head Teachers said: \"Now is the moment for calm heads to decide on a sustainable return to school, not another chaotic and last-minute set of decisions that could easily result in a yo-yo return to lockdown.\"", "Of 2,000 Welsh members of the Royal College of Nursing who took part in a survey, 75.9% reported increased stress over the past year\n\nA long-term plan is needed to help nurses cope with post-traumatic stress resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, union officials have said.\n\nLast year the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) ran a survey looking at its impact on front-line staff and how it had changed nurses' lives.\n\nOf 2,000 Welsh members who took part, 75.9% reported increased stress and 52% were worried about their mental health.\n\nThe Welsh Government said it recognised the pressures on NHS workers.\n\nCarol Doggett, senior matron at Swansea's Morriston Hospital, said nurses were often becoming patients' \"next of kin\" during the pandemic, due to the \"absence of family, particularly at end of life\".\n\n\"Which we would do anyway, naturally, but in the absence of family it's far more profound than supporting them in a holistic way if they were present with us,\" she said.\n\nSenior matron Carol Doggett says the extreme pressure experienced in intensive care had been felt throughout the hospital\n\nMs Doggett said the extreme pressure experienced in intensive care had been felt throughout the hospital.\n\n\"Patients are coming in through [the emergency department]. They are sicker. The number of sicker patients has definitely increased,\" she said.\n\n\"That results in them having an extended period in hospital. They can stay beyond Covid. They continue to suffer with those conditions that present themselves as a result of Covid.\"\n\nOn Sunday, Ms Doggett's colleague, Morriston intensive care consultant John Gorst, said as many as five patients are dying with Covid during a single 12-hour shift.\n\nNicky Hughes, associate director of nursing at RCN Wales, said: \"The Welsh Government needs to set a long-term plan in place to deal with post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues amongst nurses as a result of the pandemic.\n\n\"Nurses are exhausted, stressed and nearing burnout. Every day they tell us that they feel that they have nothing left to give and feel devalued.\"\n\nAlmost a year on from the start of the pandemic nurses have had to find \"ever more physical and emotional strength\" to cope with Covid-19, said Ms Hughes.\n\nMental health charity Mind Cymru agreed with the RCN that a \"coherent long-term strategy\" was needed to help front-line workers deal with the pandemic's effect on their mental health.\n\n\"We urge Welsh Government to factor this in to their plans and take the necessary steps to give people the support they need,\" said Simon Jones, Mind Cymru's head of policy.\n\n\"Nursing staff and other healthcare professionals have played, and continue to play, a vital role in combatting the pandemic, often putting their own health and wellbeing at risk.\n\n\"Even before the outbreak, we heard from many healthcare professionals struggling with the mental health impact of things like long working hours without breaks, unsociable shift patterns, and dealing with traumatic events.\"\n\nA mental health support hotline for front-line NHS staff in Wales - Health for Health Professionals (HHP) Wales - has been set up by Cardiff University and has received Welsh Government funding.\n\nThe hotline's director Prof Jonathan Bisson said he was \"encouraged\" by the Welsh Government's investment in HHP Wales along with Traumatic Stress Wales, which helps people who have experienced traumatic events.\n\n\"These two initiatives are taking a long term strategic approach to support health workers exposed to traumatic events,\" Prof Bisson said.\n\n\"HHP Wales offers access to mental health support for any member of NHS staff in Wales and has linked with Traumatic Stress Wales to provide evidence-based treatment to health workers who are experiencing post traumatic stress disorder as a result of traumatic experiences related to the pandemic and other causes.\"\n\nPlaid Cymru said the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on health and care workers \"mustn't be underestimated\".\n\n\"The Welsh Government must demonstrate that they're taking this seriously with a robust workforce strategy that takes into account the mental health needs of workers, including sufficient down time after the pandemic, and addresses the need to retain and recruit more staff,\" said Plaid's health spokesman Rhun ap Iorwerth.\n\nThe Welsh Government called the \"commitment and tireless hard work\" of nurses across Wales \"truly remarkable\".\n\nA spokesman said: \"We recognise the pressures the NHS workforce is experiencing and have worked closely with NHS employers and trade unions to create a comprehensive wellbeing package to help support them, which includes a dedicated and confidential Samaritans listening support helpline.\n\n\"We have also expanded our Health for Health Professionals Wales service which offers psychological and mental health support, as well as a number of free-to-access health and wellbeing support apps.\"\n\nRCN Wales said it was glad the Welsh Government was backing projects supporting health workers.\n\nIt said it encouraged the continued development of a \"long-term strategy to deal with the lasting impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our nursing workforce.\"", "A heatwave sweeping south-east Australia has sent temperatures soaring in the nation's biggest cities and escalated the threat of bushfires.\n\nA large blaze has been contained in Adelaide, South Australia after it burned through 2,500 hectares.\n\nNeighbouring Victoria state is facing its worst fire risk in a year.\n\nTemperatures in those states have started to cool but New South Wales and Queensland will see their heatwave continue into Tuesday.\n\nSydney recorded temperatures of above 40C by Monday afternoon.\n\nHealth officials have urged people to stay inside and to avoid physical activity, and for those near bushfires to avoid inhaling smoke.\n\nThe blaze in the Adelaide Hills has been contained but is expected to continue to burn for the next few days, local media reports.\n\nIt is believed to have destroyed several houses but has not caused injuries.\n\nThe blaze has burned through more than 2,500 hectares\n\nPeople in the area have been warned to take care.\n\n\"Smoke will reduce visibility on the roads and there is a risk of trees and branches falling,\" a statement from SA police said.\n\nImages taken on Monday show smoke over Adelaide obscuring parts of the city skyline and prompting some residents to wear face masks.\n\nAdelaide was blanketed by smoke on Monday\n\nAfter the hot spell began on Friday, the Bureau of Meteorology (Bom) issued heatwave warnings for South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and Queensland.\n\nOn Monday, Victoria's state capital Melbourne recorded temperatures of 41.5C at 12.40pm (01.40 GMT).\n\nPeople in Victoria have been urged to be careful when in water after the state recorded seven drownings over the past 10 days, ABC News reports.\n\nPeople in Sydney flocked to beaches at the weekend seeking relief from the heat\n\nThe heat is expected to linger until mid-week as the hot air mass tracks east across the country.\n\nAfter extreme bushfires and heatwaves a year ago, Australia's summer this year has so far been cooler and wetter. Meteorologists say the conditions are influenced by a La Nina phenomenon.\n\nAustralia has warmed on average by 1.4C since national records began in 1910, according to its science and weather agencies.\n\nThat's led to an increase in the number of extreme heat events, as well as increased fire danger days.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Hell to high water: Australia’s summer of extremes in 2019-20\n\n\"In summer we now see a greater frequency of very hot days compared to earlier decades,\" said BoM and the national science agency, CSIRO, in their 2020 State of the Climate report.\n\nThe same report noted that 2019 - Australia's hottest year on record - had 33 days where the national maximum temperature exceeded 39C. That surpassed the total number of days over 39C in the previous six decades.\n\nHeatwaves are Australia's deadliest natural disaster and have killed thousands more people than bushfires or floods.", "Police found Dylan Freeman in his mother's bed surrounded by toys\n\nA woman has admitted suffocating her severely disabled son after suffering a breakdown.\n\nDylan Freeman's body was found in Acton, west London, on 16 August with a sponge in his mouth.\n\nHis mother Olga Freeman pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.\n\nThree psychiatric reports said Freeman was suffering from a severe depressive illness with psychotic symptoms at the time of the killing.\n\nFreeman attended Acton Police Station to report herself following the killing.\n\nOfficers later found Dylan in his mother's bed surrounded by toys.\n\nDylan had autism, Cohen syndrome - which is linked to abnormalities in many parts of the body - and significant difficulties with language and communication.\n\nIn the week leading up to the killing, Freeman had spoken about saving the world and being a Messiah, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.\n\nOlga Freeman had booked flights abroad the night before Dylan's body was found\n\nFreeman appeared by video-link to enter her plea and will be sentenced on 11 February.\n\nSpeaking after the hearing, the CPS's Kristen Katsouris described the death as \"tragic\".\n\nShe added: \"Olga Freeman had loved and cared for Dylan for many years, but the strain and pressures of her son's severe and complex special needs had built up and that, combined with her impaired mental health, led to heart-breaking consequences.\"\n\nA post-mortem examination at Great Ormond Street Hospital recorded Dylan's cause of death as upper airway obstruction.\n\nThe Met Police said Freeman had spoken to friends about struggling with the responsibility of caring for Dylan.\n\nOn the night before his body was found, Freeman booked two seats on a flight to Tel Aviv and told her friend not to go into Dylan's room.\n\nThe body of Dylan was found at a house in Cumberland Park, Acton\n\nAt the time of his death, his father, celebrity photographer Dean Freeman, was in Spain.\n\nHe described his son as \"a beautiful, bright, inquisitive and artistic child who loved to travel, visit art galleries and swim\".\n\nFor more London news follow on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Ambrose O'Neill was sentenced in his absence in 2008\n\nA violent robber who went on the run for nearly 13 years has finally been caught and jailed.\n\nAmbrose O'Neill - dubbed \"The Running Man\" due to his ability to evade capture - skipped his 2008 trial over an attack on an antiques dealer.\n\nHe was sentenced to eight years in prison in his absence but spent years at large, until police got a tip-off he was in hiding in Lincolnshire.\n\nThe 42-year-old was arrested on Friday and is now beginning his sentence.\n\nNottinghamshire Police said in 2007, O'Neill, of Ludgate Close in Arnold, knocked on his victim's front door in Seagrave, Leicestershire, posing as a pizza delivery man.\n\nWhen his victim opened the door, O'Neill pushed him over, punched him in the face and demanded he open a safe, threatening to kill him.\n\nBut he ultimately left empty-handed and was later arrested.\n\nO'Neill attended the first day of his trial at Leicester Crown Court but then went on the run.\n\nPolice said they launched Operation Gladiolus in December 2020 in a bid to track him down.\n\nPC James Gill, from Nottinghamshire Police's \"wanted squad\", said: \"We knew he had changed his appearance and lived in an area where people do not know him and he had an assumed identity,\" he said.\n\n\"He was laughing at the police, so we were determined to do everything to find him.\"\n\nA major breakthrough came from an anonymous tip-off suggesting O'Neill may be living with a woman in the Wyberton area, in Lincolnshire.\n\nPolice narrowed it down to a house in Causeway and arrested the \"surprised\" O'Neill in the early hours of Friday.\n\nPC James Gill worked in his free time to bring O'Neill to justice, Nottinghamshire Police said\n\nOfficers also arrested a 41-year-old woman on suspicion of assisting an offender. She remains in custody.\n\nO'Neill is due to appear at Leicester Crown Court on 29 January, where his sentence could be extended, the force added.\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Bethany and her two children have been on a waiting list for more than a year\n\nThere is a \"shocking\" lack of places for traveller families to live in England, according to a charity.\n\nOnly 18 out of 251 registered traveller sites have any spaces available, research from Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT) suggests.\n\nIt says the government must \"do more\" to identify land for the community to live on.\n\nThe government says councils are \"best placed\" to assess the local need for permanent traveller sites.\n\nIn October, FFT wrote to all local authorities and private registered site providers in England to ask how many pitches they had available.\n\nIt received responses relating to 251 out of 266 traveller sites - which represented 3,482 permanent pitches and 304 transit pitches.\n\nA transit pitch is a short-term place where people can stay for a set period of usually up to three months.\n\nBethany says she's near the bottom of the waiting list for a pitch in her local area\n\nBethany Rose, 26, and her two children have been on a waiting list for a pitch in West Sussex for more than a year.\n\nShe is currently staying with her parents in their caravan on a registered traveller site. But this is against the rules of their tenancy contract and she will have to move out once the coronavirus pandemic is over.\n\nBethany has a health condition which means she can often be paralysed from the waist down and she needs to be close to her mum who is her carer.\n\n\"It's frustrating, annoying, aggravating, I feel let down,\" she says. \"I'm disabled. I'm homeless and I have two kids.\n\n\"For anyone normally it would just be like, 'Boof, there you go, there's a property, go and live there'. But I can't do that. I can't even get a house, I can't buy a plot of land, I can't do anything.\"\n\nBethany and her children are currently living with her parents on a traveller site in West Sussex\n\nIt's estimated about 1.1 million households are on local authority housing waiting lists, but Bethany believes it would be easier for her to get a home if she wasn't a traveller.\n\nShe says being a traveller is a huge part of her identity and she wants to live on a site so she can continue to be connected to her heritage.\n\n\"A whole community is there if you need something or something happens,\" she said. \"If you fall or you go to hospital, you can guarantee your neighbour will watch the kids until you come back. If you need a cup of sugar, you can just go round.\"\n\nThe research from FFT comes as MPs were due to debate a petition on Monday against government proposals to criminalise trespassing. However, this has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nThe new measures could see travellers facing a fine or prison if they set up unauthorised encampments - currently it's a civil offence.\n\nIn a consultation paper published in 2019, the Home Office said there had been \"long-standing concerns\" about the distress they caused to local communities.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sarah Tanner posted a video saying she was \"disgusted\" by mess left by travellers in Dorset\n\nIn June 2020, residents in Dorset complained about mess left by travellers on a local park - which included a car being abandoned in the middle of a cricket pitch, rubbish dumped in green spaces and human waste deposited in the pond and lake.\n\nFFT says councils are failing to provide enough sites for travellers to live on.\n\nIn January 2019, plans to spend £5m on new traveller pitches in Milton Keynes were put on hold after a \"heated\" meeting with local residents.\n\nBethany believes councils are not doing more to provide extra sites because of discrimination towards travellers.\n\n\"They're building 50,000 new houses in West Sussex, not one of those places is having a site,\" she said. \"So you've got the Nimby (Not In My Back Yard) culture attached to that.\n\n\"For every 50 houses, they could put a site of five which is a whole little community that they can get used to and go, 'Yeah, OK, they're not as bad as people say.'\n\n\"That also means we're not pulling up the side of the roads. We're not being moved off. We're just trying to live like everyone else.\"\n\nMilton Keynes Council changed its plan to build a new traveller site after listening to residents\n\nWest Sussex County Council says when a vacancy comes up on a permanent site all those who have expressed an interest in that location are considered for the pitch.\n\nThe FFT wants the government to reintroduce pitch targets and a statutory duty on local authorities to meet the assessed need for Gypsy and traveller sites.\n\nIt also calls on the government to abandon its proposal to criminalise trespassing.\n\nSarah Sweeney, policy and communications manager at FFT, said: \"It is deeply unfair that while the government is dramatically failing to identify enough land for Gypsy and traveller families to live on, the home secretary is working to create laws to imprison, fine and remove the homes of families living on roadside camps for the 'crime' of having nowhere else to go.\"\n\nThe Local Government Association says it wants the government to publish \"better data\" on the scale of unauthorised encampments and the availability of authorised sites to help councils in England meet their planning obligations.\n\nA spokeswoman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: \"Unauthorised encampments cause distress and disruption for many people across the country so it's right we are giving the police the powers they need to address this issue.\n\n\"Councils are best placed to assess the local need for permanent traveller sites and decide where they should be, and can apply for funding through our Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme to help build them.\"", "At least 80 people had to leave their homes in the village after flooding\n\nPeople whose homes were flooded after a \"blow out\" at a mine shaft are said to be \"devastated\" as they face months before they can return home.\n\nSteve Morris said his son Gareth and his girlfriend's home in Skewen, Neath Port Talbot, was inundated by \"orange\" flood water containing sewage.\n\nBut some will be allowed back to their properties on Tuesday.\n\nResidents of Goshen Park and Sunnyland Crescent who have yet to contact Neath Port Talbot council are urged to do so in the next 24 hours.\n\nThe council said access to these properties would continue to be affected beyond 26 January and the Coal Authority wished to have early discussions with them.\n\nMr Morris told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast that his son called him on Thursday to say his house was about to be flooded.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Teresa Dalling says a river of orange water rushed through the village on Thursday\n\n\"I live about half a mile away... and by the time I got to his address I could see the water levels were rising rapidly up the road,\" he explained.\n\n\"Then it was so quick - the water came through his rear patio doors firstly, then the gardens and then the drains couldn't cope on the main road and came through the front door, then the side door.\n\n\"His ground floor was four feet under water, and it was this orange coloured water. There was sewage in the house, so his ground floor needs totally gutting.\"\n\nMr Morris said Gareth and his girlfriend are staying in a hotel as they wait to be allowed back to assess the damage.\n\nHe hopes their insurance firm will pay to rent a home for them, adding: \"I can honestly see them being out of their house for between six and 10 months.\n\n\"They are obviously devastated - they have only been in there for 12 months so everything was near enough brand new.\"\n\nCerys Thomas was at her mother's house with her son, in Goshen Park, when she saw water coming through the front door.\n\nThe stairs at the home of Cerys Thomas' parents were left caked in mud\n\nShe said: \"I said to my mother to get my son and herself out and up toward the street. I phoned the police then, because I could see it was going to be an emergency, and within minutes my parents' conservatory doors just blew through.\n\n\"The pressure of the water just blew through the house and the water, within minutes, was up to my waist.\n\n\"Trying to get out of the house was very scary because the pressure of the front door was getting pushed back.\"\n\nShe said the street was under water \"within seven minutes\".\n\n\"It was something you would see in a movie,\" she said.\n\nWithin minutes of water entering the house Ms Thomas was up to her waist in water\n\nMeanwhile, the Coal Authority said it has identified the cause of the \"blow out\".\n\nChief executive Lisa Pinney told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast: \"Firstly, I just want to say our thoughts are with everyone affected by this flooding and we are genuinely sorry people have been affected in this way.\n\n\"What we know so far is the blow out was caused by a blockage underground which caused water to break out, basically to find the easiest path, and there's no doubt the excessive rainfall in the days before was also a factor in that.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMs Pinney said crews had been able to find the site of the collapsed mineshaft which had caused the flooding, and the authority had started to \"develop options\".\n\n\"We really understand people want to get back into their homes, they want to collect things, they want to know what the next steps are,\" she continued.\n\n\"We are working as fast as possible to make that happen and we hope to be able to provide some more information in the next day or so, but you will understand that we have to be sure for public safety.\"\n\nMs Pinney said there are almost 300 mine shafts or entries across the Skewen mine works, which covers an area of about 12 sq km (7.6 sq miles).\n\nShe added: \"We have checked all recorded shafts in the immediate area and we are doing continued checks over the coming days. We have found no problems. They are all safe.\"", "Jenners department store in Edinburgh has been at the site since 1838\n\nThe owner of the Jenners building in Edinburgh has promised that it will remain a department store - despite the departure of its current tenant, the House of Fraser.\n\nFrasers Group said it would cease trading at the site on 3 May, with the loss of 200 jobs.\n\nThe building is owned by Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen.\n\nA company spokesman said it would continue as a store and that \"advanced\" talks were taking place with operators.\n\nThe Jenners building has occupied a prime location on Princes Street for 183 years.\n\nIt was bought by Mr Povlsen - who is one of Scotland's biggest landowners - in 2017, reportedly for £53m.\n\nThe store is currently operated by the Frasers Group, which owns the commercial rights to the Jenners trading name.\n\nIt said it would be quitting the site in May after the two sides were unable to come to an agreement.\n\nA Frasers spokesman claimed that the landlord had not been able to \"work mutually on a fair agreement\".\n\nHe said this had led to \"the loss of 200 jobs and a vacant site for the foreseeable future, with no immediate plans.\n\n\"Our commitment to our Frasers strategy remains but landlords and retailers need to work together in a fair manner, especially when all stores are closed.\"\n\nAnders Holch Povlsen is one of Scotland's biggest landowners\n\nHowever, Anders Krogh Vogdrup - the director of AAA United, which owns the Jenners building - said it had given Frasers a substantial rent reduction and rent-free periods to cover the lockdowns.\n\n\"Frasers has made the decision that it does not wish to continue in occupation,\" he said.\n\n\"This will see the end of the 16-year association between House of Fraser and this building, but not of the 180 years of Jenners department store.\"\n\nMr Vogdrup told BBC Scotland that it had bought the Jenners building \"out of passion for its architecture and history\".\n\n\"We have been sad to read on social media that we are to close the department store, as that is not the case,\" he said.\n\n\"We fought to keep the current tenant and we are now in advanced talks with other partners.\"\n\nHe said their \"first priority\" was to keep it as a department store, while there were also plans to turn some unused parts of the building into a hotel.\n\n\"The Jenners department store and building is the jewel in the crown of Edinburgh,\" he added.\n\n\"We are not turning it into a hotel. It will remain a department store.\"\n\nHe also expects the Jenners name will remain on the side of the building.\n\nMr Povlsen, whose parents set up Scandinavian fashion company Bestseller, is believed to be worth £4.5bn. As well as owning Bestseller he is a major shareholder in online retailer Asos.\n\nHe has previously revealed plans to use parts of the Princes Street building for a hotel, with the rest reserved for retail.\n\nThe plans included the restoration of the building's Victorian facade and central atrium, which is a three-storey, top-lit grand saloon. A rooftop restaurant and bar would overlook nearby St Andrew Square.\n\nMr Vogdrup said the plans to refurbish the store were now on hold due to the current economic climate.\n\nJenners has dominated Edinburgh's main shopping thoroughfare since the mid-19th Century.\n\nIt was opened in 1838 by local drapers Charles Jenner and Charles Kennington, who found themselves out of work after being sacked for taking a day off to go to the races in Musselburgh.\n\nInitially called Kennington & Jenner, the boutique store proved popular for keeping the people of Edinburgh in fine silks and linen, which could normally only be found in London.\n\nBy 1890 the shop had changed name to Charles Jenner & Co and had expanded to adjoining buildings, making it one of the biggest stores in Scotland.\n\nBut just two years later fire destroyed the shop and ambitious plans - backed by the local council - were launched for a new look Jenners.\n\nCelebrated architect William Hamilton Beattie, who also designed the Balmoral and Carlton Hotel, was brought in for the redesign.\n\nCharles Jenner died in 1893 before the work was completed in 1895.\n\nIn 1911 the popular store was given a Royal Warrant.\n\nAfter struggling in the the 21st Century, the Jenners brand was sold to rivals House of Fraser for £46m in 2005.\n\nIn 2018, House of Fraser was bought by Mike Ashley's Sports Direct group.", "The pupils of someone with PTSD have an exaggerated response when viewing exciting or dangerous images, the study found\n\nA person's pupils can reveal if they have suffered a traumatic experience in the past, according to new research.\n\nThe joint Swansea and Cardiff universities study found the eyes of people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) behave differently.\n\nIt found their pupils have an exaggerated response when viewing exciting or dangerous images.\n\nThose behind the study said it could be useful in diagnosis, treatment and in bench-marking progress.\n\nNormally pupil size fluctuates with changing light levels, but it can also alter when a person is scared, excited, or even concentrating hard.\n\nShocking or surprising images can cause pupils to enlarge, however the researchers discovered this reaction was highly exaggerated in people who have experienced a traumatic event.\n\nThree groups of people were tested - some with diagnosed PTSD, others who had experienced a traumatic event but had no PTSD, and a control group of people with no previous issues.\n\nProf Nicola Gray, of Swansea University, co-authored the study with Prof Robert Snowden of Cardiff University.\n\nShe said: \"The pupil normally shows a fast constriction when the person sees a new image, but then the pupil gets bigger - especially if the picture is arousing, such as a scary image of, for example, fierce animals or weapons.\n\n\"However, the patients with PTSD behaved differently in both phases. First, their pupil did not constrict much when shown a new picture, and then it expanded more to the scary images than for people without PTSD.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Could virtual reality help treat PTSD in veterans?\n\nOne man with PTSD who wished to remain anonymous described how, after his time in the Army, he was left unable to drive at night because his pupils could not contract sufficiently in response to street lights and on-coming headlights, leaving him dazzled and unable to see properly.\n\nThe research found the PTSD group showed enlarged pupils to images which were positive and exciting.\n\n\"When we displayed exciting scenes, such as a sporting triumph or an image of a person sky-diving, these images elicited the same enhanced pupil response in the PTSD group as the frightening pictures,\" Prof Snowden said.\n\n\"The subjects weren't frightened by these images, but the images were arousing. Once again, the people with PTSD showed a far greater response, indicating that they were even more aroused by these images than the other participants\".\n\nAccording to Prof Gray this finding could help to develop new therapies for PTSD.\n\n\"If exciting, but non-threatening, images elicit the same response, then it may be possible in the future to use them to gradually reduce the arousal levels of people experiencing PTSD.\"\n\nPTSD is an anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events.\n\nSomeone with PTSD often relives the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks, and may experience feelings of isolation, irritability and guilt.\n\nThey may also have problems sleeping, such as insomnia, and find concentrating difficult.\n\nThese symptoms are often severe and persistent enough to have a significant impact on the person's day-to-day life.\n\nCauses of PTSD can include:\n\nThe pupil is the opening in the middle of the iris\n\nProf Gray said the research may also be useful from a diagnostic perspective.\n\n\"PTSD comes in many forms, from people who have experienced a one-off sudden event like a car crash, to those who have gone through many traumatic events over a period of months or years via abuse.\n\n\"Sometimes people struggle to express these thoughts, or might even play them down in order to please the therapist.\n\n\"Having a more objective method to look for these signs of hypervigilance and hyperarousal may be useful in order to obtain a more accurate benchmark of how the person is progressing.\"", "Scientists say signs a new coronavirus variant is more deadly than the earlier version should not be a \"game changer\" in the UK's response to the pandemic.\n\nBoris Johnson has said there is \"some evidence\" the variant may be associated with \"a higher degree of mortality\".\n\nBut the co-author of the study the PM was referring to said the variant's deadliness remained an \"open question\".\n\nAnother adviser said he was surprised Mr Johnson had shared the findings when the data was \"not particularly strong\".\n\nA third top medic said it was \"too early\" to be \"absolutely clear\".\n\nAt a Downing Street coronavirus news conference on Friday, the prime minister said: \"In addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant - the variant that was first identified in London and the South East - may be associated with a higher degree of mortality.\"\n\nSpeaking alongside the PM, the government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said there was \"a lot of uncertainty around these numbers\" but that early evidence suggested the variant could be about 30% more deadly.\n\nFor example, Sir Patrick said if 1,000 men in their 60s were infected with the old variant, roughly 10 of them would be expected to die - but this rises to about 13 with the new variant.\n\nThe announcement followed a briefing by scientists on the government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) which concluded there was a \"realistic possibility\" that the variant was associated with an increased risk of death.\n\nBut one of the briefing's co-authors, Prof Graham Medley, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"The question about whether it is more dangerous in terms of mortality I think is still open.\"\n\n\"In terms of making the situation worse it is not a game changer. It is a very bad thing that is slightly worse,\" added Prof Medley, who is a professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.\n\nAnother 1,348 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were reported in the UK on Saturday, in addition to 33,552 new infections, according to the government's coronavirus dashboard.\n\nThere is huge uncertainty in the evidence on how lethal the variant is.\n\nThe scientific experts that reviewed the data used a precise phrase saying it was a \"realistic possibility\" the new variant is more deadly.\n\nThat means there's a roughly 50-50 chance it will turn out to be true.\n\nWith time, and sadly more deaths, the picture will become clearer.\n\nWhile people debate the uncertainties though, we already know this variant has the ability to kill more people than the old ones.\n\nA virus that spreads faster (this one is 30-70% faster) will infect more people, more quickly, putting a greater strain on hospitals and leading to a sharper spike in deaths.\n\nIt is why viruses becoming more transmissible can be a bigger problem than ones becoming more deadly.\n\nNervtag's chairman Prof Peter Horby defended the government's \"transparency\" in making the announcement.\n\n\"Scientists are looking at the possibility that there is increased severity... and after a week of looking at the data we came to the conclusion that it was a realistic possibility,\" he said.\n\n\"We need to be transparent about that. If we were not telling people about this we would be accused of covering it up.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Patrick Vallance: \"There is evidence that there's an increased risk for those who have the new variant\"\n\nBut Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of Sage subgroup the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), agreed it was too early to draw \"strong conclusions\" as the suggested increased mortality rates were based on \"a relatively small amount of data\".\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast he was \"actually quite surprised\" Mr Johnson had made the early findings public rather than monitoring the data \"for a week or two more\".\n\n\"I just worry that where we report things pre-emptively where the data are not really particularly strong,\" Dr Tildesley added.\n\nPublic Health England medical director Dr Yvonne Doyle also said it was not \"absolutely clear\" the new variant was more deadly than the original.\n\n\"There is some evidence, but it is very early evidence. It is small numbers of cases and it is far too early to say,\" she told the Today programme.\n\nMeanwhile, senior doctors are calling on England's chief medical officer to cut the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nThe British Medical Association told Prof Chris Whitty an extension to the maximum gap between jab from three weeks to 12 weeks, to get the first dose to more people, was \"difficult to justify\".", "Moderna's Covid vaccine appears to work against new, more infectious variants of the pandemic virus found in the UK and South Africa, say scientists from the US pharmaceutical company.\n\nEarly laboratory tests suggest antibodies triggered by the vaccine can recognise and fight the new variants.\n\nMore studies are needed to confirm this is true for people who have been vaccinated.\n\nThe new variants have been spreading fast in a number of nations.\n\nThey have undergone changes or mutations that mean they can infect human cells more easily than the original version of coronavirus that started the pandemic.\n\nExperts think the UK strain, which emerged in September, may be up to 70% more transmissible.\n\nCurrent vaccines were designed around earlier variants, but scientists believe they should still work against the new ones, although perhaps not quite as well. There are already some early results that suggest the Pfizer vaccine protects against the new UK variant.\n\nFor the Moderna study, researchers looked at blood samples taken from eight people who had received the recommended two doses of the Moderna vaccine.\n\nThe findings are yet to be peer reviewed, but suggest immunity from the vaccine recognises the new variants.\n\nNeutralising antibodies, made by the body's immune system, stop the virus from entering cells.\n\nBlood samples exposed to the new variants appeared to have sufficient antibodies to achieve this neutralising effect, although it was not as strong for the South Africa variant as for the UK one.\n\nModerna says this could mean that protection against the South Africa variant might disappear more quickly.\n\nProf Lawrence Young, a virus expert at Warwick Medical School in the UK, said this would be concerning.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC health and science journalist Laura Foster compares the three different Covid-19 vaccines\n\nModerna is currently testing whether giving a third booster shot might be beneficial.\n\nLike other scientists, the company is also investigating whether redesigning the booster to be a better match for the new variants will be beneficial.\n\nStephane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna, said the company believed it was \"imperative to be proactive as the virus evolves\".\n\nUK regulators have already approved Moderna's vaccine for rollout on the NHS, but the 17m pre-ordered doses are not expected to arrive until Spring.\n\nThe vaccine works in a similar way to the Pfizer one already being used in the UK.\n\nMore than 6.3 million people in the UK have already received a first dose of either the Pfizer or the AstraZeneca vaccine.", "Media regulator Ofcom has decided not to take any action over Channel 4's use of a \"deepfaked\" video of the Queen.\n\nThe \"alternative Christmas message\" attracted 354 complaints about decency after it aired on Christmas Day.\n\nIt showed an AI-generated version of the Queen, who made jokes about the Royal Family and the prime minister, and danced on top of a table.\n\nBut after assessing things, Ofcom decided not to pursue the complaints about disrespecting the monarch.\n\n\"In our view, Channel 4 made clear that the images were deliberately manipulated as a device to question societal trust in what we see online,\" a spokeswoman for the regulator said.\n\n\"We also consider that the satirical tone of the film was in keeping with audience expectations of this broadcaster,\" it added.\n\nThat decision is similar to Channel 4's own defence of the satire, in which it argued that the parody left viewers \"in no doubt that it was not real\".\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by Channel 4 This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nIt also argued the message of the video as a whole was a warning about the importance of trust, and how easily convincing fake images and video can be created - even uploading a behind-the-scenes video about its creation.\n\nAfter airing on national television in the UK, the video has spread widely online, racking up nearly two million views on YouTube alone.\n\nIt has not, however, been universally popular - on top of the formal complaints to Ofcom, it has a poor ratio of likes-to-dislikes on YouTube - with more than 19,000 likes, but nearly 5,000 dislikes.\n\nDeepfakes work by training a computer to draw a person's face by showing it thousands of photographs of that person, ideally from many different angles and in different lighting conditions.\n\nThe computer can then draw that person's face on top of another actor's performance.\n\nThe more varied and numerous the images used in training the model, the better the result - which is why it is almost universally used to fake the appearance of celebrities, who already have hours of available film or television footage available.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBut there are other limitations on the technology, too.\n\nThe similarity in facial structure, size, and appearance of the actor whose face is being replaced affects the realism of the finished deepfake. It is also far easier to produce a convincing result if the person remains still, as movement can often reveal the artificial nature of the animation.\n\nThe voice must also be replaced by an impersonator and the entire process is incredibly demanding, even for high-end computers, often taking many days of computation.\n\nHowever, the technique is advancing rapidly, and the results are becoming more convincing with each passing year, with major film firms such as Disney actively exploring the technique and developing their own variants.", "Fashion retailer Boohoo has bought the Debenhams brand and website for £55m.\n\nHowever, it will not take on any of the firm's remaining 118 High Street stores or its workforce.\n\nBoohoo said it was a \"transformational deal\" and a \"huge step\". But the deal means that up to 12,000 jobs at the department store chain are set to go.\n\nThe 242-year-old Debenhams chain is already in the process of closing down, after administrators failed to secure a rescue deal for the business.\n\nIn a separate development, Asos says it is in \"exclusive\" talks to buy the Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands out of administration.\n\nBut the online retailer said it only wanted the brands, not their shops, suggesting any deal would cost jobs.\n\nThe current owner of the brands, Sir Philip Green's Arcadia Group, fell into administration last November putting 13,000 jobs at risk.\n\nA closing-down sale at 124 Debenhams stores began in December, as the administrators continued to seek offers for all or parts of the business.\n\nThe company announced recently that six shops would not reopen after lockdown, including its flagship department store on London's Oxford Street.\n\nThe administrators of Debenhams UK, FRP Advisory, said they had undertaken a \"thorough and robust process\" to achieve \"the best outcome for Debenhams' stakeholders\".\n\n\"This transaction will allow a new Debenhams-branded business to emerge under strong new ownership, including an online operation and the opportunity to secure an international franchise network that will operate under licence using the Debenhams name,\" they added.\n\nBoohoo has already bought a number of High Street brands out of administration. It snapped up Oasis, Coast and Karen Millen, but not the associated stores.\n\nIts executive chairman, Mahmud Kamani, said: \"This is a transformational deal for the group, which allows us to capture the fantastic opportunity as ecommerce continues to grow. Our ambition is to create the UK's largest marketplace.\n\n\"Our acquisition of the Debenhams brand is strategically significant as it represents a huge step which accelerates our ambition to be a leader, not just in fashion ecommerce, but in new categories including beauty, sport and homeware.\"\n\nBoohoo said Debenhams was expected to relaunch on Boohoo's web platform later this year.\n\nIn the meantime, Debenhams will continue to operate its website for an agreed period.\n\nBoohoo's fast-fashion model has come under scrutiny\n\nBoohoo has recently come under fire over workers' pay and conditions and its ultra-low pricing.\n\nAs well as facing questions about the environmental impact of its fast-fashion business model, there have been accusations of widespread abuse of employment law at some of Boohoo's suppliers in Leicester.\n\nInvestigations last year suggested workers were being paid below the minimum wage.\n\nAfter an independent review of the claims found a series of failings, Mr Kamani said last month that the firm was working to fix the problems, adding: \"We will make a better Boohoo.\"\n\nWhile online retailers have been whittling away at their High Street rivals for years, few could have predicted how quickly bricks-and-mortar stalwarts have collapsed. The pandemic has fatally undermined their already parlous finances. Businesses that appeared to have a chance of survival just a year ago have been wiped out and their brands bought by online players.\n\nThe scale of the change is profound: when Debenhams listed on the stock exchange in 2011, investors valued it at £1.6bn. Boohoo, which was founded only in 2006, already has a stock market value of £4.4bn. Asos, a bit player two decades ago when Sir Philip Green's Arcadia group was riding high and toying with a bid for Marks & Spencer, is now valued by the stock market at £5bn.\n\nNeither Boohoo or Asos see any value in the Debenhams or Topshop High Street estates. Instead, they will concentrate on development of the brands and the associated customer data. This is bad news for the 19,000-odd people who work in the branches of Debenhams and Topshop, and will leave councils around the country wondering how they will fill town centres that were based on retail.\n\nBut just as canny entrepreneurs and private equity companies are gearing up to buy struggling pub chains, in the hope of a recovery once lockdown restrictions are eased, so will some investors be wondering what next for the High Street. The British love affair with shopping will not end overnight and a well-placed punt now could have big rewards.\n\nDebenhams has struggled for years with falling profits and rising debts, as more shopping has moved online. It called in administrators twice in two years, most recently in April.\n\nHowever, its position became untenable during the coronavirus pandemic as non-essential retailers were forced to close for prolonged periods.\n\nThe firm had already trimmed its store portfolio and cut about 6,500 jobs since May, as it struggled to stay afloat.\n\nBusinessman Mike Ashley, who founded Sports Direct and also owns House of Fraser, had already made an offer for Debenhams after it was initially put up for sale in April.\n\nHowever, the takeover offer, thought to be in the region of £125m, was rejected as being too low.\n\nMeanwhile, one of House of Fraser's flagship outlets, the Jenners department store in Edinburgh, is to leave its Princes Street home after 183 years. It will close on 3 May with the loss of 200 jobs.\n\nThe building's owner, Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, announced in November 2019 that he intended to convert the site, replacing Jenners with a hotel, cafes, a rooftop restaurant and luxury shops.\n\nHowever, a spokesperson for Frasers Group said it had been \"unable to reach an agreement\" with Mr Povlsen and that the closure of Jenners would leave \"a vacant site for the foreseeable future with no immediate plans\".\n\nDo you work for Debenhams? Has your job been affected? Please get in touch by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Dutch police have described it as the worst unrest in four decades\n\nMore than 180 people were arrested in 10 Dutch cities as protesters defying a curfew clashed with riot police for a third night running.\n\nShops in Rotterdam were looted and police used water cannon, as rioters resisted latest Covid restrictions.\n\nPrime Minister Mark Rutte condemned \"criminal violence\" and the justice minister said the curfew would remain.\n\nThe Dutch chief of police said the riots no longer had \"anything to do with the basic right to demonstrate\".\n\nThe Netherlands has had nearly one million confirmed Covid cases since the start of the outbreak, with more than 13,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University in the US, which is tracking the pandemic.\n\nThe government recently introduced a night-time curfew which runs from 21:00 (20:00 GMT) to 04:30. Anyone caught violating it faces a €95 (£84) fine.\n\nThere were further violent scenes in many towns and cities. Riot police clashed with protesters in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, as well as Amersfoort, Den Bosch, Alphen and Helmond.\n\nSome of the worst disturbances were in the south of Rotterdam where police said 10 officers were hurt. Across the country 184 people were arrested. Amsterdam's mayor appealed to parents to keep young people indoors.\n\nSeveral cities have vowed to introduce emergency measures in an effort to prevent more disturbances\n\nThe windows of some shops were smashed in Rotterdam\n\nFires were lit on the streets of The Hague, where police on bicycles attempted to move small clusters of men who threw stones and fireworks. There was violence in the southern city of Den Bosch, where rioters set off fireworks, broke windows, looted a supermarket and overturned cars.\n\nA woman living near Den Bosch train station told Dutch radio that masked youths had left a trail of destruction in the city centre. \"I saw windows smashed and fireworks going off. Really crazy, just like a war zone,\" the woman said. Roads into the city were closed to stop people joining the rioters and Mayor Jack Mikkers imposed an emergency order banning gatherings on Tuesday.\n\nThe ignition of discontent has rocked the core of Dutch society.\n\nIn the absence of any legitimate way to socialise, is this simply an outlet for young men to feel part of something, their masks concealing their identities and enabling them to violently channel their frustrations?\n\nThere are more sinister influences at play. Messages on social media, overt and covert, have whipped up anger. Misinformation has even been spread by some politicians.\n\nSome of the worst violence was in Rotterdam\n\nSome feared a curfew would be a tipping point, as Dutch restrictions tighten while some neighbouring countries relax their rules. The vast majority of people in the Netherlands are peacefully observing the curfew.\n\nThe unrest was initially seen as a response to the first \"stay-at-home\" order imposed since Nazi occupation during World War Two. That notion has been dismissed by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who said the rioters were simply criminals and would be treated as such.\n\nBut there are simmering anxieties in Dutch towns and cities, and with less than two months before a general election, voters are vulnerable and the streets volatile.\n\nThere has been widespread shock at the violence. In Rotterdam, where police used water cannon during clashes with rioters, Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb signed an emergency decree, giving police broader powers of arrest. He reacted furiously to shops being looted in the south of the city, condemning \"shameless thieves, I can't call it anything else\".\n\nThe prime minister said the police had the government's full support: \"The riots have nothing to do with protesting or fighting for freedom.\"\n\nRotterdam shop-owner Emrah Köker said he had no words for what he had seen. \"How can this happen in the Netherlands?\" he asked Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhuis challenged anyone to explain what looting a shop had to do with coronavirus.\n\nThe mayor of Den Bosch said police had struggled to respond to the violence because they were needed in other nearby towns.\n\nFootball fans of the Willem II club took to the streets of Tilburg to \"protect their city\" against rioters, news site Brabants Dagblad reports.\n\nMayors in several cities have vowed to introduce emergency measures in an effort to prevent more disturbances.\n\nThe Dutch prime minister has condemned the violence\n\nThere has been widespread shock in the Netherlands over the violence", "The public's trust in the way the UK is run is breaking down, former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown has warned.\n\nHe said Covid-19 had exposed \"tensions\" between Whitehall and the nations and regions, who were often treated by the centre as if they were \"invisible\".\n\nMr Brown is urging Boris Johnson to set up a commission to review how the country is governed and powers shared.\n\nBut the PM said his focus was on the pandemic, stressing the benefits of the union could be \"seen everywhere\".\n\nMr Brown's intervention comes amid a looming clash between Mr Johnson and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has demanded the UK agree to another Scottish independence referendum if the SNP wins a majority in May's Holyrood elections.\n\nThe Court of Session is hearing arguments about whether Holyrood can legislate to hold one even if the UK government continues to object.\n\nWriting in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Brown - who advocates a federal system with more power for nations and regions - says the pandemic has \"brought to the surface tensions and grievances that have been simmering for years\" between Downing Street and the various parts of the UK.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Conservatives election win was not 'a signal that the country is at ease' warns Brown\n\nHe points to \"bitter disputes\" over issues such as lockdown restrictions and furlough and said unless underlying tensions were resolved, the UK risked becoming a \"failed state\".\n\nIn an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today, he said at a time \"when all should be pulling together and intensifying co-operation across the UK\" there was division and claims by the leaders of Scotland and Wales and the English regions that they were not being properly consulted.\n\nLast year there were rows between the government and local authorities over coronavirus tiers, with the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, objecting to plans to put the region into the strictest level of restrictions.\n\nMr Brown told Today that while he was \"confident\" that Scotland would still be part of the UK in ten years time, the way the UK was governed had to change.\n\n\"I think the public are fed up. I think in many ways, they feel they are being treated as second class citizens, particularly in the outlying areas, that they are invisible and forgotten.\"\n\n\"Something has broken down in trust and has to be repaired.\"\n\nMr Brown is advising the Labour Party on its devolution strategy - but has also held talks with government ministers including Michael Gove in recent weeks.\n\nGovernment sources say they are focused on taking tangible steps to demonstrate the value of the UK.\n\nThe idea of a fundamental review of the UK's power structures has been suggested as one possible way to counter support for Scottish independence ahead of May's Holyrood election.\n\nBut a series of polls now suggest support for independence is higher than support for the union - and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will demand another referendum if, as seems likely, her party - the SNP - wins in May.\n\nHe is calling on Boris Johnson to immediately set up a commission on democracy to review how the UK is governed, something the Conservatives promised in their manifesto before the last general election.\n\nIn his Telegraph article, he suggests it would find that the UK needs a Forum of the Nations and Regions, citizens' assemblies, and a greater focus on the benefits of cooperation in areas such as the NHS and the armed forces.\n\nThe current Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer also supports devolving more powers from Westminster but opposes another Scottish independence referendum.\n\nThe SNP said last week that there would be a \"legal referendum\" after the pandemic if May's Holyrood election returned a pro-independence majority.\n\nAsked if he would stand in the way of this, Mr Johnson said what the British public wanted was for its political leaders to focus on beating coronavirus, adding that the advantages of the UK's four nations working together \"spoke for themselves\".\n\n\"I think people can see everywhere in the UK the visible benefits of our wonderful union,\" he said.\n\n\"A vaccine programme that is being rolled out by a National Health Service, a vaccine that was developed in labs in Oxford and is being administered by the British Army.\"\n\nBut the SNP said the Scottish people, not Westminster-based politicians, should decide the country's future.\n\n\"No amount of constitutional tinkering from Labour would protect Scotland from Brexit or the Tory power grab - only independence can do that,\" said Kirsten Oswald, the party's deputy Westminster leader.\n\n\"The Scottish people will see right through this attempt to deny their democratic right.\"\n\nA poll commissioned by the Sunday Times in Northern Ireland found 51% of people wanted a referendum on Irish unity in the next five years.\n\nDUP leader and Northern Irish First Minister Arlene Foster said such a vote would be \"absolutely reckless\".\n\nNumbers supporting Wales breaking away from the UK also appear to be rising. The pro-independence campaign group Yes Cymru has said membership swelled from 2,000 at the start of 2020 to more than 17,000.\n\nPlaid Cymru has also promised to hold an independence referendum if it wins the next Senedd election.\n\nResponding to Mr Brown's intervention, the party's Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts said: \"It's been clear for many years that the UK doesn't work for Wales - I'm glad that the Labour Party are starting to see that.\"", "Prince Charles Hospital now has an expanded special care baby unit and six en-suite delivery rooms\n\nIt followed concerns that emerged in late 2018 that women and babies may have come to harm because of staff shortages and failures to report serious incidents.\n\nThe review by experts from two royal colleges was in addition to the health board's own investigation. Maternity services in Cwm Taf are now in special measures and an independent panel was set up to drive improvements.\n\nHow many incidents are we talking about?\n• None 150cases from 2016-2018 reviewed so lessons can be learnt\n\nThe health board's own investigation looked at 43 cases, including 25 serious incidents. Of these initial cases, 20 were at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant and 23 at Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil. The serious incidents include eight stillbirths and five deaths shortly after birth, all between January 2016 and last September.\n\nThey came to light after concerns were raised that staff had not been reporting serious incidents.\n\nThe health board said it faced \"extreme\" staff shortages and was urgently trying to make improvements.\n\nBut the review team cast doubt on the ability of the health board to make changes, without more support. It said it was \"dismayed\" that an internal report, written by a consultant midwife, highlighting many safety concerns last September was not acted upon, \"thereby continuing to expose women to unacceptable risks\".\n\nA consultant midwife also identified 67 stillbirths, going back to 2010, which had not been reported by the health board.\n\nThe independent panel decided to widen its scope to look at 350 cases of women who were transferred out of the health board area.\n\nIn October 2019, the panel said it was looking at a total of 150 cases between 2016 and 2018 - including the 43 cases initially investigated. There is still scope to look back at further years.\n\nWho has been investigating?\n\nThe health minister Vaughan Gething ordered an \"independent external review\" by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology and the Royal College of Midwives last October.\n\nIts findings, published in April 2019, were damning and found services \"under extreme pressure\" and \"dysfunctional\", while mothers had distressing experiences in how they were treated.\n\nCwm Taf's maternity services were placed in special measures and the independent panel overseeing changes has indicated as well as looking back in detail at past cases it wanted to ensure improvements were robust and to look at lessons that could be learned across Wales.\n\nHave any changes been made?\n\nThe royal colleges review team ordered urgent action after visiting hospitals in January 2019 - finding \"a number of immediate quality and safety concerns\".\n\nMeasures included more cover by doctors, strengthened processes for flagging up problems and more support for junior doctors. Cwm Taf now says these have all been completed.\n\nThe latest progress report from the independent panel in January 2020 found the most urgent improvements had been made.\n\nStaffing levels and training had improved, there was a better system for flagging up complaints and surveys found \"high levels of satisfaction\" from women using Prince Charles Hospital.\n\nThe panel was \"cautiously optimistic\" that long term improvements would be made.\n\nChioma Udeogu, who has moved back home to Nigeria\n\nThe review's parallel report on how families were dealt with was perhaps the most powerful testimony on the problems at Cwm Taf.\n\nMothers were said to have been ignored or made to feel worthless.\n\nThey spoke of being ignored or patronised.\n\nOne mother said: \"I want having a baby to be a good experience. It's ruined it.\"\n\nThere was the case of Sarah Handy, who was sent home from hospital in pain with laxatives, before giving birth prematurely at home. Her daughter died.\n\nChioma Udeogu's daughter was delivered stillborn after failings in her care at the Royal Glamorgan hospital in January 2017. An internal investigation has already found midwives failed for 12 hours to carry out antenatal checks on Mrs Udeogu, an engineering student at the University of South Wales at the time.\n\n\"I believe that if I was properly monitored in the hospital I wouldn't have lost her,\" she said.\n\nJessica Western, from Rhoose, in the Vale of Glamorgan, said she was not listened to when she could not feel her baby move in the month before the birth.\n\nJessica Western says she was not listened to at different points before and after the birth of her baby\n\nHer daughter Macie died in March 2018, 19 days after she was born.\n\n\"I'm only young and I do want to have more kids eventually, but I'm not prepared to put myself through a pregnancy if this could happen again,\" she said.\n\nAnother, Monique Aziz, from Coedely, Rhondda Cynon Taff, whose baby son died days after leaving hospital, said: \"I just want to know if he would have still been here if things had been done differently.\"\n\nWhat else has been happening?\n\nIn the background, there have been long planned changes in how maternity services are organised.\n\nFrom March 2019, doctor-led care for mothers in labour or for babies needing specialist neonatal care is now only provided on one site - Prince Charles Hospital. The Royal Glamorgan still has a 24-hour midwife unit for less complicated births and will continue to provide all antenatal services, clinic appointments, scans and tests during pregnancy.\n\nThe changes follow long-standing concerns that specialist maternity staff had been spread too thinly. The health board says those changes will help address challenges, including over staffing.\n\nAfter the critical report, the health board's chief executive went on sickness leave and then resigned in August 2019.\n\nStress and sickness absence was reported to be an issue among midwives, in the aftermath of the review.\n\nHow far back to those concerns go?\n\nThe fragility of maternity services in the area can be traced back for at least a decade. In a review in 2011 the Wales Audit Office raised concerns about staffing, skill mix and absences and the health board's ability to deliver maternity services on two sites.\n\nConcerns about the quality of maternity care were also at the heart of a controversial plan in 2014 to centralise some specialist services in fewer hospitals along the M4 corridor. It recommended moving doctor-led care for mothers and children (along with A&E) from the Royal Glamorgan hospital.\n\nCwm Taf health board initially rejected the plan and several months of wrangling followed.\n\nFour years later, the proposals on maternity services are only now being finally implemented.\n\nWhat is the independent panel doing?\n\nThe chairman Mick Giannasi - who has a track record going into troubled organisations, like Anglesey Council and the Welsh Ambulance Service - brings clinical expertise. He is also setting up a system so families can be involved and kept fully informed.\n\nIn the first progress report in October 2019, the panel said there had been progress - around a third of the action points in the improvement plan had been delivered - but a \"significant amount of work\" still needed to be done.\n\nThere had been \"significant\" progress by January 2020 although with more than two thirds of recommendations it was still \"work in progress\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Vaccination appointments for people aged 70-79 are being delivered from Monday - but plans to use distinctive blue envelopes in some parts of the country have been delayed.\n\nThe aim is to have this group receive their first dose by mid-February.\n\nOn Sunday morning, the Scottish government said some letters would be sent out in blue envelopes and given Royal Mail priority.\n\nBut in a statement published later it said the envelopes were not yet ready.\n\nIt added that the change has no impact on the vaccination programme timetable.\n\nVaccinations for over-80s are continuing, with Nicola Sturgeon revealing on Sunday that about 40% of this age group had received a first dose of the vaccine.\n\nAll appointments will initially be sent out in white envelopes which will have a window and a black NHS logo on the right hand side.\n\nThe blue envelopes were due to be sent out in Fife, Forth Valley, Ayrshire and Arran, Lanarkshire, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and Lothian as part of a new booking system.\n\nUnder the system, patients are scheduled in order of priority and more boards are expected to make use of the technology as the vaccination programme expands.\n\nA Scottish government spokesman said the blue envelopes would be introduced \"as quickly as possible\".\n\nHe added: \"The blue envelopes we hoped to use were not ready in time for the first tranche of vaccine appointment invitations so distinctive NHS branded white envelopes are being used as a temporary measure.\n\n\"The absolute priority remains the roll-out of vaccinations and this temporary change to the envelope colour has absolutely no impact to our timetable.\n\n\"We continue to strongly urge everyone in the 70-79 age group to check all their post in the coming weeks and take up the offer of the vaccine when it is received,\" he added.\n\nAccording to the Scottish government's vaccine deployment plan, the 470,000 people aged in the 70 and 79 age bracket should receive their first dose by mid-February.\n\nSome patients may receive a phone call from their local health board as part of the appointment process.\n\nAnd all patients aged 75 to 79 in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde will be invited via phone.\n\nA Royal Mail spokesman said \"clearly marked envelopes\" would be used to make it easier for the postal service to identify and prioritise this mail during sorting and delivery process.\n\nHe added: \"We are poised to make these letters even more noticeable in the coming weeks as we have agreed.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the Scottish government has said it is on track for all those aged 80 and over to have received their first dose of the vaccine by the end of the first week in February.\n\nThis age group are being contacted by telephone or another form of letter.\n\nMinisters have faced criticism over the pace of the vaccine rollout, and accusations that Scotland is \"lagging behind\" England on the vaccine roll-out.\n\nOpposition parties say vaccines are not being supplied to GPs' surgeries fast enough.\n\nAnd they point to the latest official figures which show that 13% of over 80s in Scotland had their first dose by Sunday 17 January, while 56.3% of same age group had been vaccinated in England.\n\nMs Sturgeon told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that, a week on, the figure had reached about 40%.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon says the over 70s are to receive their vaccine date\n\nThe UK government Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Andrew Marr on Sunday that 75% of over-80s and three-quarters of UK care homes had received a first Covid vaccine in England.\n\nAbout 95% of Scottish care home residents have received their first dose, Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish government briefing on Friday.\n\nShe said the over-80s roll-out has been slower because the Scottish government has \"very deliberately\" concentrated on vaccinating care home residents first, which is \"more time consuming and labour intensive\".\n\nThis was designed to target the most vulnerable and was in line with the priority list compiled by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises on vaccine rollout across the UK, she said.\n\nScotland's national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch has defended the plan, which has been challenged by the British Medical Association (BMA) for not getting second doses out quickly enough.\n\nProf Leitch told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: \"The difficulty with the BMA's position is that we would have to de-prioritise another group, either care home residents or the over-80s, in order to give a second dose to younger people.\n\n\"And that's what the Joint Committee on Vaccination have told us not to do.\n\n\"They have told us in very clear terms - give the first dose to as many vulnerable people as you can and that gives us the best chance of saving the most lives.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Deputy First Minister John Swinney told Politics Scotland that the Scottish government was \"actively exploring\" the possibility of stricter rules around facemasks.\n\nHe said the issue was being \"looked at\" after new rules announced in Germany last week required people to wear medical-grade facemasks on public transport and in shops.\n\nMr Swinney said progress was being made in reducing cases but hospitals were still under \"enormous pressure\" and it would be \"foolish\" to rule out strengthening restrictions further in the future.", "Concerns emerged in late 2018 that women and babies may have come to harm because of staff shortages and failures to report serious incidents\n\nTwo-thirds of women at the heart of a review into maternity services at a Welsh health board could have had very different outcomes if they had received better care, a report has found.\n\nThe Independent Maternity Services Oversight Panel (Imsop) focused on the experiences of pregnant women at Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board.\n\nIts maternity services have been in special measures since \"serious failings\" were found two years ago.\n\nConcerns emerged in late 2018 that women and babies may have come to harm because of staff shortages and failures to report serious incidents.\n\nThis sparked a major independent review, which gave a damning verdict on maternity services in the health board area that covers about 450,000 people living in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Bridgend and Merthyr Tydfil.\n\nPublished on Monday, the Imsop report focuses on the care of 27 women, most of whom were admitted to an intensive care unit during 28 \"episodes of care\" between January 2016 and September 2018.\n\nIt found that 19 reviews of maternal care (68%) revealed at least one factor where \"different management would reasonably have been expected to alter the outcome\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kayden was born with severe brain damage following mistakes in his mother's maternity care\n\nThe panel's chairman, Mick Giannasi, said: \"These findings will be concerning and potentially distressing for the women and families involved, and it will be difficult for staff.\n\n\"Of the 28 episodes of care, we concluded that in 27 of them, our independent teams who reviewed the care would have done something differently. Put simply, what went wrong, might not have gone wrong if things had been done differently.\"\n\nTwo further reviews of stillbirths and neonatal mortality and morbidity will follow later this year. In total, all three independent reviews will looks at 160 cases.\n\nImsop's findings reinforce those of the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.\n\nThe royal colleges' 2019 investigation found mothers faced \"distressing experiences and poor care\" at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant and Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil, with maternity services deemed \"dysfunctional\".\n\nFour key areas have been identified by Imsop as factors which contributed to poor care. These are:\n\nWales' Health Minister Vaughan Gething said the latest report recognises things are moving in the right direction for the health board, but more needs to be done.\n\n\"The report highlights that women weren't always at the centre of their care and that women weren't always listened to, and that led to harm that could have been avoided,\" Mr Gething told reporters at the latest Welsh Government press briefing.\n\n\"Nothing will be able to change what these women and their families experienced at these two hospitals or the outcome for those families whose babies died or came to harm.\n\n\"I am deeply sorry for everything that happened.\"\n\nVaughan Gething says he is \"deeply sorry\" women and their families were not listened to\n\nHe said he hoped \"families can take some comfort\" from the reviews that have provided answers to questions they were asking.\n\n\"My thoughts are with everyone affected by this report today and those who are still awaiting the outcome of their reviews,\" Mr Gething added.\n\nCwm Taf Morgannwg health board said it has been \"working with the panel and families\" to put in place a \"comprehensive maternity and neonatal improvement programme\".\n\n\"It has been a period of reflection during which we have examined the regrettable failings in maternity services of the former Cwm Taf University Health Board and we acknowledge the fact that we still have some way to go,\" said Greg Dix, the health board's executive director of nursing and midwifery.\n\n\"We will never forget the tragedies suffered by women, their families and our staff, and the learning from these cases is a key corner stone on which we are building our improvement plans.\"", "Credit card giant Mastercard is to raise the fees it charges EU merchants when UK cardholders buy goods and services from them online by fivefold.\n\nIt has sparked fears that consumer prices could rise if merchants choose to pass on those costs, especially on items not available from UK retailers.\n\nTransactions with airlines, hotels, car rentals and holiday firms based in the EU could all be affected.\n\nMastercard attributed the move to the UK's decision to leave the EU.\n\nIt said that only online sales would be affected and that \"in practice\" UK consumers would not notice the change.\n\nThe change affects the \"interchange\" fees Mastercard sets on behalf of big banks, so that its customers can use their payment networks.\n\nFrom October, Mastercard said it would increase these fees to 1.5% on every transaction, up from 0.3%.\n\nThe EU introduced a cap on such fees in 2015 after concerns they pushed prices up for consumers and unfairly burdened companies.\n\nBritish customers makes tens of billions of pounds of purchases every year from European merchants on credit cards alone - and the hike in fees from Mastercard will affect the majority of those.\n\nThe increase may be relatively small but it's significant, coming at a time when retailers may face extra paperwork and checks - higher costs - for goods coming into the UK.\n\nWith Covid restrictions bringing their own challenges, businesses, especially smaller ones, may be compelled to pass on the costs to consumers.\n\nAnd it's not just items crossing borders. The payments for most items bought on Amazon in the UK are processed via its Luxembourg headquarters.\n\nWith the increase not coming in for several months, international companies may look at ways to reclassify UK sales, to avoid the charges.\n\nMastercard is implementing the rises simply as it's no longer bound by the restrictions imposed by the UK being in the EU. The banks which receive the fees have said in the past that they are invested in areas such as card security and innovation. This time, however, the trade body which represents them has declined to comment on the rises.\n\nBut Mastercard said that since the end of the Brexit transition period, the cap no longer applied to many payments between the UK and European Economic Area (which also includes Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway).\n\n\"As a result of the UK leaving the EEA, Mastercard will adapt interchange rates on UK cards to the commitments it gave the European Commission in 2019 for non-EEA card transactions,\" the company said.\n\n\"In practice, only EEA merchants making e-commerce sales to UK cardholders will see a change.\"\n\nKevin Hollinrake, chair of the parliamentary group on Fair Business Banking, told the Financial Times, which first reported the story, that the move \"smacks of opportunism\".\n\nAnd Callum Godwin, chief economist at CMSPI, the global payments consultancy, said airlines, hotels, car rentals and travel groups would be hit.\n\n\"[This will happen] anywhere the consumer is in the UK and the merchant is in the EU,\" he said.\n\nHe added that many firms in these industries were already struggling due to the pandemic.\n\nVisa, Mastercard's larger rival, has not announced plans to change its fees but told the FT it was keeping the issue under review.\n\nCompanies in the UK and EU are already facing added costs and delays due to post-Brexit trade rules brought in on 1 January.\n\nSome EU exporters have already stopped deliveries to the UK because of new VAT related charges.\n\nMeanwhile, UK consumers who have bought goods from firms based in the bloc have found themselves facing hefty charges to cover customs duties, taxes and administration.", "Chelsea have sacked manager Frank Lampard after 18 months in charge, with former Paris St-Germain boss Thomas Tuchel expected to replace him.\n\nLampard, 42, leaves with the club ninth in the Premier League after last week's defeat at Leicester City, having won once in their past five league matches.\n\nHis final game was Sunday's 3-1 FA Cup fourth-round win against Luton.\n\nLampard was appointed on a three-year contract when he replaced Maurizio Sarri at Stamford Bridge in July 2019.\n• None Watch Monday Night Club: Is Tuchel right man for Chelsea?\n• None 'Lampard had seen enough Chelsea managers go to know the score'\n• None Why Tuchel will be a popular appointment in the Chelsea dressing room\n• None Tuchel set to come in after Lampard sacking - reaction\n\nIn a statement released on Monday night, Lampard said he was \"disappointed not to have had the time to take the club forward\" and added that it had been a \"huge privilege and an honour\" to manage the club.\n\n\"When I took on this role I understood the challenges that lay ahead in a difficult time for the football club,\" he continued.\n\n\"I am proud of the achievements that we made, and I am proud of the academy players that have made their step into the first team and performed so well. They are the future of the club.\"\n\nChelsea are hopeful that new manager Tuchel will be on the bench for Wednesday's Premier League game against Wolves at Stamford Bridge.\n\nHe will not be exempt from coronavirus quarantine.\n\nBut if Tuchel tests negative on entry to the United Kingdom and then negative again in order to enter a Premier League club's bubble, he will be granted an exemption by the Football Association for attending matches and training.\n\nHe will still have to serve a quarantine period outside of those environments, which will last five days.\n\nFormer Chelsea midfielder Lampard guided them to fourth place and the FA Cup final in his first season in charge, and a 3-1 win against Leeds in early December put the club top of the Premier League.\n\nHowever, the Blues have suffered five defeats in their past eight league games, as many as they had in their previous 23.\n\nIn a statement, Chelsea said: \"This has been a very difficult decision, and not one that the owner and the board have taken lightly.\n\n\"We are grateful to Frank for what he has achieved in his time as head coach of the club. However, recent results and performances have not met the club's expectations, leaving the club mid-table without any clear path to sustained improvement.\n\n\"There can never be a good time to part ways with a club legend such as Frank, but after lengthy deliberation and consideration it was decided a change is needed now to give the club time to improve performances and results this season.\"\n\nOwner Roman Abramovich said Lampard's status as an \"important icon\" of the club \"remains undiminished\" despite his dismissal.\n\n\"This was a very difficult decision for the club, not least because I have an excellent personal relationship with Frank and I have the utmost respect for him,\" said Abramovich.\n\n\"He is a man of great integrity and has the highest of work ethics. However, under current circumstances we believe it is best to change managers.\"\n\nLampard did not sign a single player during his first season as the club were operating under a transfer embargo, but spent more than £200m on seven major signings last summer, including £45m on Leicester's Ben Chilwell and £71m on midfielder Kai Havertz from Bayer Leverkusen.\n\nIt is the most Chelsea have spent in one summer, eclipsing the £186m they invested at the start of the 2017-18 season.\n\nLampard is Chelsea's all-time record scorer, with 211 goals for the club between 2001 and 2014, and is also joint-seventh on the list of most capped England players, having made 106 appearances for his country over 15 years from 1999.\n\nDuring his 13 seasons as a player at Stamford Bridge, he made 648 appearances and won 11 major trophies - including four Premier League titles and the 2012 Champions League.\n\nHis first managerial job was at Derby. In his one season in charge, they reached the Championship play-off final, where they lost to Aston Villa.\n\nLampard became the 10th full-time manager appointed by Abramovich since the billionaire bought the club in 2003.\n\nAccording to football finance journalist Kieran Maguire, Abramovich had spent £110m on sacking managers before Lampard's dismissal.\n\nHaving finished with 66 points last season after 20 wins and 12 defeats, Chelsea have lost six times in their opening 19 league games this season.\n\nLampard's points-per-game average of 1.67 is the lowest of any permanent Chelsea manager in the Premier League. During the Abramovich era, only Andre Villas-Boas (47.5%) has a worse win rate than Lampard's 52.4%, in all competitions among permanent Chelsea bosses.\n\nIn contrast, Jose Mourinho's win rate in all competitions during his first spell in charge was 67.03%, while Sarri, Antonio Conte, Avram Grant, Carlo Ancelotti and Claudio Ranieri all had win rates over 60%.\n\nAnalysis - lack of confidence among squad key to sacking\n\nLampard was sacked because the club could not see him reversing a slide in form.\n\nAfter qualifying for the Champions League last season and spending more than £200m on players in the summer, the aim this campaign was to close the gap on the leaders, but that has not been achieved.\n\nAlthough links will be made between Tuchel's heritage and the poor form of fellow Germans Kai Havertz and Timo Werner, the change was made because of the lack of confidence among the whole squad.\n\nIt is hoped that Tuchel can rejuvenate a team that is five points outside of the top four, and an announcement could be made within 24 hours.\n\nThe decision to sack Lampard was very difficult for Abramovich, who has never made a statement when changing Chelsea managers previously.\n\nIn the end, Lampard paid for his relative inexperience as a manager, which cannot be said of Tuchel.\n\nBest of reaction to Lampard sacking\n\nManchester City boss Pep Guardiola: \"People talk about projects and ideas. They don't exist. You have to win or you will be replaced. I am not judging Chelsea's decision. I respect their decision. But our world is to win as much as possible.\n\n\"I hope to see Frank soon and go to a restaurant with him when lockdown is finished.\"\n\nTottenham boss Jose Mourinho: \"It is the brutality of football. Anything can happen in football now, every time somebody loses their job it is sad news but he is a big boy, [with] a strong personality and strong mentality.\n\n\"I am pretty sure he will be back when he wants to be back and his career will be good. I hope so.\"\n\nWest Ham boss David Moyes: \"I'm disappointed for Frank as I saw him as one of the most up and coming young English managers in the country.\n\n\"It's a big thing we try to encourage our own British managers into the big leagues, if we can. I'm sure he'll come back and learn from it.\n\n\"He did a great job last year - he did a really good job with so many youngsters coming through the academy. It seemed a little bit harder for him this year. I'm sure he'll take time off, come back and get better.\"\n\nLeicester boss Brendan Rodgers: \"Clearly I'm really sad for Frank and his staff. I know how much the club means to him.\n\n\"Looking at the squad and how young they are, they need time. He hasn't been given that time. I really feel for him. He did great at Derby.\n\n\"He had the courage to step out of an amazing career and could have taken an easier route. It was a job he couldn't turn down, even though he didn't have a lot of experience.\n\n\"Results haven't been what he would have wanted, but I feel it's a job that needed time.\"\n\nCrystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson: \"It saddens me. I thought he did an excellent job last season. I was rather hoping that the idol of the fans and Chelsea legend that he is, he'd get a longer shot than 18 months.\n\n\"Managers who have had short stays at Chelsea have gone on to have good careers elsewhere. When you're sacked for the first time, it is a devastating blow. There's no doubt he has a pedigree to be a very good manager.\"\n\nFormer Chelsea striker Chris Sutton speaking on BBC 5 Live's Monday Night Club: \"It is 52 days since Chelsea were top of the Premier League and 48 days ago that Chelsea had been on an unbeaten run of 17 games.\n\n\"So in the space of 48 days the owner has decided to write Frank Lampard off. How are we ever going to know if Frank Lampard is a good manager? You only every really learn about people and their characteristics and traits when they go through a little bit of adversity and Frank has gone through a little bit of adversity.\n\n\"Frank has basically been sacked for the owner's expectations. I feel sorry for Frank because he is a club legend.\n\n\"They are five points off fourth place, but the bottom line is that the owner wants to win the Premier League and that was always going to be the pressure.\n\n\"Chelsea should have been more loyal. We know the owner's track record - he is ruthless, he is brutal and guillotined Frank.\"\n\nScott G: Been a Chelsea fan since Nevin, Speedie and Dixon and admit I've enjoyed all the success money has brought us over the last 20 years. However, there's a sadness about that decision. Some things money can't buy. #SuperFrank\n\nFil Harris: Isn't the whole point of appointing a younger manager to give him time to build and develop? Craziness from Chelsea to sack Lampard after such a short time.\n\nSimon Kirk: Been a Chelsea fan since 1969 and have never been so annoyed at a sacking of a Chelsea manager. He needed at least another 18 months. Shame on you Abramovich and the Chelsea board for supporting such a decision.\n\nRyan Howard: I find it such a weird sacking - a month or so ago Chelsea were in a nice groove, Zouma and Silva were scoring and keeping clean sheets, now after one bad run he gets sacked. Chelsea could be a world-class club if they just gave a manager proper time to build a team.\n\nPeter Josi: Chelsea are totally right to sack Lampard, he lacked the experience or coaching prowess to lead the side. The next phase should start with an investigation into our transfer policy and how our last two record signings turned out to be flops.\n\nThomas Wilson: Why are people surprised Lampard was sacked? Chelsea have been ruthlessly successful for 15 years. They are not going to suddenly resort to being generously unsuccessful because of a club legend being at the helm.\n• None All the goals, highlights and drama from Sunday's fourth-round ties are", "The leader says he is \"optimistic\" and is recieving medical treatment\n\nMexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has announced he has tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nThe 67-year-old said on Twitter that his symptoms were mild and that he was \"optimistic\" following the diagnosis.\n\nThe development comes as Mexico grapples with an upsurge in infections, with deaths nearing 150,000.\n\nMr López Obrador says he will continue working from home, including speaking to President Vladimir Putin about acquiring a Russian-made vaccine.\n\nIt was announced earlier on Sunday that a call between the two leaders will take place on Monday to discuss their bilateral relationship and the possible supply of Sputnik V jabs.\n\nThe Mexican president said last year he would try and acquire 12 million doses of the Russian-made vaccine if it proved effective.\n\nMexico has not yet approved the jab for use, but officials want to expand the country's vaccination program for the population of 128 million people amid delivery delays from Pfizer-BioNTech.\n\nSputnik V has already received authorisation in a number of other countries, including Brazil and Argentina. Hungary became the first in the EU to give it the green light this week.\n\nJosé Luis Alomia Zegarra, a senior health official, described Mr López Obrador's condition as stable and told a news briefing that \"a team of medical specialists\" were attending to the president.\n\nMexico has recorded more than 1.75m virus cases since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University tracking.\n\nThe nation's confirmed death toll of 149,614 is one of the highest in the world - behind only the US, Brazil and India.", "Janet Yellen has been confirmed as the first ever female US treasury secretary in a Senate vote.\n\nMs Yellen, who headed the US central bank from 2014 to 2018, earlier won bipartisan support from members of the Senate Finance Committee.\n\nShe will be responsible for guiding the Biden administration's economic response to the pandemic.\n\nThe US is struggling to rebound economically from the hit caused by the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nAt her confirmation hearing on 19 January, Ms Yellen urged Congress to approve trillions more in pandemic relief and economic stimulus, saying that lawmakers should \"act big\" without worrying about national debt.\n\nIn response, Republican senators warned the former Federal Reserve head this was not the time for \"a laundry list\" of liberal reforms.\n\nMs Yellen disagreed, highlighting the fact that many families whose incomes have fallen were not reached by jobless programmes. She argued that plans to raise taxes must be seen in the context of financing bigger investments necessary to make the US economy competitive.\n\n\"The focus now is not on tax increases. It is on programmes to help us get through the pandemic,\" she stressed.\n\nJanet Yellen was previously chair of the US Federal Reserve. She was known for focusing more attention on the impact of the central bank's policies on workers and the costs of America's rising inequality.\n\nBefore then-President Barack Obama named her to lead the Fed in 2014, she had served as one of its board members for a decade, including four years as vice-chair.\n\nJanet Yellen speaking at a press conference in 2017 as US Federal Reserve Chair\n\nDonald Trump bucked Washington tradition when he opted not to appoint Ms Yellen to a second four-year term at the Fed.\n\nHowever, her climb to the top of the economics profession had made her a feminist icon in the economics world.\n\nWhen she left the Fed in 2018, many paid tribute to her leadership by imitating her signature look of a blazer with a popped collar.\n\nMs Yellen is seen as someone able to satisfy both progressive and centrist members of Mr Biden's Democratic party. Her nomination to lead the Fed in 2014 won support from some Republicans.\n\nHer focus on employment, rather than inflation, gave her a reputation of favouring low interest rates, which spur economic activity by making it less expensive to borrow money.\n\nBut under her leadership, the Fed raised interest rates for the first time since 2008 - albeit less aggressively than some more conservative commentators supported.\n\nHer stewardship of that process has won praise on Wall Street, even as it remains hotly debated.", "Sunderland-based Hays Travel took over Thomas Cook's stores and staff in 2019\n\nTravel firm Hays Travel is to close 89 of its 535 shops following a review into its take over of Thomas Cook.\n\nThe Sunderland-based firm bought the collapsed company in October 2019 and deferred a review into the performance of its shops until 2021.\n\nA Hays Travel spokeswoman said the third national lockdown and travel ban meant \"the company had to act\".\n\nShe said 388 staff affected by the closures would be offered \"alternative work options\" to minimise redundancies.\n\nChief operating officer Jonathon Woodall said the \"first priority\" was to \"look after our customers\" and ensure \"the highest standards of customer service\".\n\nHe added that the firm was \"continuing with our robust two-year business plan and continue to be ready for the bounce back when it comes\".\n\nDame Irene Hays said business had not bounced back as had been hoped\n\nDame Irene Hays, owner and chair of the Sunderland-based firm, said it was \"always our intention to review the performance of our shops at the end of the licence period\".\n\n\"We had hoped the business would bounce back in January and it has not,\" she said.\n\n\"We have done everything we could to safeguard jobs and the business thus far, and we have come up with a range of options for those at risk of redundancy to help as many colleagues as we can.\"\n\nOptions for staff include working from home or filling vacancies in other shops.\n\nThe spokeswoman said the firm employed about 7,700 people, many of whom were \"working from home taking bookings for holidays for 2021 and beyond\".\n\nThe company has yet to confirm which of its locations will be affected.\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Sir Keir Starmer is isolating after a contact tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer is self-isolating for the third time, after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus.\n\nHe said he would be working from home until next Monday after being notified of the contact earlier.\n\nSir Keir confirmed on Twitter that he had no symptoms.\n\nThe Labour leader last self-isolated in December after a member of his staff tested positive for Covid-19, but he never showed any symptoms of the virus.\n\nHe also self-isolated in September after a member of his family showed symptoms - but they later tested negative, allowing Sir Keir to get back to Westminster.\n\nIf you are contacted by NHS Test and Trace and told you have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus, you have a legal obligation to self-isolate.\n\nYou then have to stay at home, not going out for any reason, for 10 days from the time you last saw the contact.\n\nIf you don't stick to the rules, the police can issue you with a fine, starting at £1,000.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Keir Starmer This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFor Sir Keir, he needs to stay indoors until next Monday and cancel all his upcoming plans for the week.\n\nHe will still be able to take part in Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday via video link.\n\nThe current list of MPs set to question Boris Johnson, shows that only one will now physically be in the Commons with the PM.\n\nA number of politicians have had to self-isolate during the pandemic, including the prime minister.\n\nThe latest was Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who got a notification from the NHS app to stay at home.\n\nHe had the virus last March, but said self-isolation was \"perhaps the most important part of all the social distancing\" and urged others to do the same if contacted.\n\nMr Hancock's isolation period was due to end on Sunday, so he is expected back in Whitehall this week.", "Health and social care staff have been vaccinated at the NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital in Glasgow\n\nThe Scottish government is \"looking at all sorts of ways\" to accelerate its Covid-19 vaccine programme, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said.\n\nThe government is considering a pilot of 24/7 vaccine arrangements, chiefly aimed at younger age groups.\n\nA total of 46% of over-80s in Scotland have now had a first dose, along with 95% of older care home residents.\n\nMs Sturgeon said the programme was \"picking up pace\" and \"on track\" to reach all over-70s by mid-February.\n\nShe said the government was \"looking at all options\" to get the vaccine out to people as quickly as possible.\n\nThe government aims to have the top priority groups - including care home residents and staff, frontline health workers and all those aged over 80 - given a first dose by the end of the first week in February.\n\nFrom Monday, letters are being sent out to people aged 70 to 79 inviting them to receive their first doses. Ms Sturgeon says the programme is \"on track\" to having this group complete by the middle of February.\n\nThere has been some criticism of the speed of the rollout in Scotland, with a greater proportion of over-80s having already received a jab in England.\n\nHowever Ms Sturgeon said the programme was \"making good progress\" and said any differences with the rest of the UK were because of an early focus on vaccinating older care home residents - 95% of whom have now had their first dose.\n\nShe said she was \"absolutely confident\" that the government would hit its targets.\n\nAnd the first minister said consideration was being given to how to speed up the programme further, saying her government is \"looking at all sorts of ways to accelerate things\".\n\nShe said: \"We are looking at piloting 24/7 arrangements so that when we get into wider groups of the population, people will have choices about the time they turn up for vaccines.\n\n\"There's been debate about whether people will want to turn up in the middle of the night to get vaccinated - some will and some won't. If that sort of thing is going to add to what we are able to do, it is likely to have the greatest impact when you get down into the relatively younger age groups.\n\n\"If we think it is appropriate there may be some things we try just to see if they would work, and if they don't we won't continue with them.\n\n\"We are looking at all of these options to make sure that as the supply increases, we can get it to people as quickly as possible.\"\n\nMs Sturgeon said there was \"some early evidence\" that lockdown was reducing the number of new Covid-19 cases, although she said the government would take a \"cautious\" approach to restrictions - which are currently due to run into mid-February at the earliest.\n\nShe also voiced some \"cautious grounds for optimism\" that admissions to hospital are starting to \"tail off slightly\", although she warned that pressure on the NHS would remain \"acute\" for some time.\n\nOpposition leaders called for the vaccine programme to be accelerated and for support to be targeted at key workers.\n\nA mass vaccination centre is being set up at the P&J Live Arena in Aberdeen\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: \"People are talking about a 24/7 approach here in Scotland - I think based on the figures so far we need to focus just on a seven day approach, because we are not vaccinating people quickly enough.\n\n\"We are not making the progress we need to, to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible.\"\n\nScottish Labour MSP Sarah Boyack said the vaccine programme \"needs to be accelerated as fast as possible\"\n\nShe said: \"We are all behind this vaccine being rolled out - but it has to be as soon as possible, because people are getting nervous.\n\n\"Whether it's police staff, construction staff, care staff who have been worried for weeks - the vaccine has got to be the top priority, along with the test and trace so we can monitor the impact on the ground and get targeted support to people.\"\n\nScottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said Scotland was \"slipping further and further behind England\" and added: \"The first minister's excuses on the rollout of the vaccine are wearing very thin.\"", "The Francis family said they would be exchanging cards and having a special meal for their lockdown St Dwynwen's Day\n\nIt may not be as well-known as Valentine's Day but St Dwynwen's Day is a special time for some in Wales.\n\nSian and Trystan Francis from Rhiwbina in Cardiff do not celebrate Valentine's Day but on Monday will exchange St Dwynwen cards and have a special meal.\n\nMr Francis, 40, said: \"It's just a part of my culture - I didn't know about Valentine's Day until about Year 6.\n\n\"My parents didn't celebrate Valentine's Day at all but they did send cards on Santes Dwynwen.\"\n\nSian and Trystan Francis perform as Do Re Mi Canu\n\nThe Welsh patron saint of lovers St Dwynwen - or Santes Dwynwen in Welsh - was a 4th Century princess who lived in what is now the Brecon Beacons National Park.\n\nThe story goes she was unlucky in love, became a nun and went on to pray for true lovers to have better luck than she did.\n\nMrs Francis, who grew up in Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf, said her family did not speak Welsh but she went to a Welsh medium school and her mother learnt the language as an adult.\n\nMrs Francis, 38, said: \"I think if you're going to celebrate anything that says that you love your partner, then this one is loads more relevant to us because it's part of our heritage and our culture - Valentine's Day is not really that much to do with us.\"\n\nThe family have been busy organising cards and treats for their children, Jac, two, and Mimi, seven.\n\n\"I bought a card for Mimi from a mystery person and that's being delivered tomorrow,\" she said.\n\nShe added Covid had meant the celebration was a bit more low-key this year.\n\n\"I bought some cupcakes but we would normally go out for food and stuff,\" she said.\n\nMenna Llinos and her family celebrated with heart-shaped pizza in Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan\n\nThere was a time when they also marked Valentine's Day before they had a change of heart, she said.\n\n\"Over time we just went, 'actually, it's a bit irrelevant to us',\" she said.\n\n\"And you can never get a restaurant [on Valentine's Day],\" Mr Francis added.\n\nCarys Ingram from Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan, has been making heart-shaped cookies with her children\n\nMr Francis, who grew up speaking Welsh at home, said their choice was not unusual among their friends.\n\n\"My friends, people within the Welsh-speaking community definitely, celebrate Santes Dwynwen,\" he said.\n\n\"There is a subculture within Wales that does exist within Welsh-speaking communities so I would say Santes Dwynwen is part of that.\"\n\nMrs Francis said it meant they were able to avoid the commercialisation of the better-known celebration.\n\n\"Santes Dwynwen isn't particularly commercialised because it is so niche,\" she added.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jessica Western says she is still fighting to find out why her daughter Macie died\n\nThe full extent of the problems with maternity services at two hospitals in the south Wales valleys rings out when the voices of women and families are listened to.\n\nAs one said: \"I want having a baby to be a good experience. It's ruined it.\"\n\nWomen repeatedly stated they were not listened to and their concerns were not taken seriously or valued.\n\nThey spoke of being ignored or patronised while being cared for at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant and Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil.\n\nOften, their suspicions and concerns were found to have reflected a genuine problem that emerged later, but at the time they were dismissed when they tried to voice their concerns.\n\nA major independent review has found Cwm Taf health board's maternity services were \"under extreme pressure\" and the health minister has ordered them be put into special measures.\n\nIt was prompted by 25 serious incidents, including eight stillbirths and four neonatal deaths, between January 2016 and last September.\n\nThe independent review team has released a separate, damning 78-page report, which shares the views of 140 family members, including mothers about their experiences at the hospitals.\n\nNearly two thirds of women questioned felt they had not had good quality care during their pregnancy.\n\nThe review said: \"Many women had felt something was wrong with their baby or tried to convey the level of pain they were experiencing but they were ignored or patronised, and no action was taken, with tragic outcomes including stillbirth and neonatal death of their babies.\"\n\nOne woman said she felt worthless, adding: \"I'm broken from the whole experience, the lack of care and compassion.\"\n\nOn the care itself, repeatedly the review team heard from mothers who did not always believe the right level of skills and expertise were available at the right time.\n\nThere was a failure to seek a second, more senior opinion, and to escalate concerns, especially with women with complex pregnancies.\n\nOne mother said: \"He told me there was no point calling the consultant on a Sunday as no one would come.\"\n\nAnother said: \"I never saw the same consultant. They didn't know me, and they didn't want to know me. I was pushed in and out of rooms with all sorts of people.\"\n\nMothers faced too many variables in the service offered - from the time of day they used it, to staffing levels and the communication skills of the staff they met.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'We picked the wrong day to be ill'\n\nSarah Handy's experience is highlighted in the report as illustrating a number of serious issues.\n\nIn pain, she was begging to see a doctor when she arrived in hospital in April 2017 and was left for nearly three hours without examination before being told it was constipation.\n\nMs Handy, 33, was sent back home to Merthyr Tydfil with laxatives and pain relief and that evening her baby Jennifer was delivered prematurely by her husband and mother-in-law.\n\nDespite their efforts to give CPR to save her life, Jennifer died.\n\nThe review said it showed:\n\nMs Handy said after the report came out: \"Today it's been proven in black and white that we were right to highlight our concerns and push for further investigation into our Jennifer's death.\n\n\"We just wish that this report will now do what it promised and improve the quality of care so that no other family has to go the traumatic experience we went through.\"\n\nOn communication, although individual staff were spoken of as excellent, many women felt during their care this aspect was extremely poor.\n\nWhen concerns were raised, there was a \"significant dissatisfaction\" with how they were dealt with, with dismissive attitudes.\n\nMany women were not listened to or taken seriously, one saying she was \"laughed at\" when she expressed concern.\n\nOther responses included: \"I was never asked, never believed.\n\n\"If only they had asked the right questions.\n\n\"Most importantly, we were not listened to. By the time we were it was too late.\"\n\nThe review said women reported an \"almost callous and brutal use of language\" and disregard for feelings.\n\nWhen one mother was concerned that she may be losing her baby she was told to \"prepare for the worst - it could be a miscarriage\" and then told to go home as \"there wasn't a lot she could do.\"\n\nYounger mothers in particular often felt their concerns were dismissed, which became an \"emerging theme\" for the review team.\n\nThere were failures to apologise, lack of access to notes and comprehensive investigations over concerns.\n\nWith high risk pregnancies, one woman interviewed believed that there was a lack of expertise and that \"anything different from the norm, they didn't seem set up to deal with it\".\n\nAnother described the antenatal clinic as being \"like a cattle-market\".\n\nWhen babies were lost, \"many women and families received no bereavement counselling or support and continue to experience emotional distress\".\n\nOne mother talking about the demand on midwives and doctors in the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, said it was \"no way a reflection on them\".\n\n\"They would always spend as much time as possible with me but unfortunately when needs must I was left with some questions but again this was due to staff shortages,\" she said.\n\nAnother said: \"There were so many jobs for one midwife to do and then people wonder why mistakes get made. They are human and are exhausted\".\n\nThe review published two parallel reports into Cwm Taf maternity services and the experiences of mothers\n\nThe review team said it was disappointing that lessons had not been learnt from a review of Furness General Hospital services four years ago.\n\nProf Jean White, chief nursing officer, said: \"It should be a joyous occasion giving birth to a child. Many of the women who shared their stories had care well below the standards we expect and that's not right.\n\n\"I think over time there appears to be a culture that has developed rather than an open culture where people are encouraged to say what's gone wrong, there is a blame culture.\"\n\nIn the words of another parent: \"Listen to women and families and believe what they tell you when they are in pain.\"\n\nThe review team concludes: \"The strong message heard from women and families in Cwm Taf is that they don't want their experiences to happen to anyone else and the importance to them that the organisation learns from these experiences to ensure that improvement and change occurs.\"\n\nCwm Taf chief executive Allison Williams said she was deeply sorry, is taking the findings very seriously but recognised \"significant work\" was still needed.\n\n\"Some of the feedback we have received from patients is extremely distressing and their experience in our maternity service has been totally unacceptable,\" she added.\n\nIf you have been affected by stillbirth, the following organisations might be able to help:", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe mother of a 15-year-old boy attacked by a group of youths said she heard the gunshots that killed him.\n\nKeon Lincoln was \"set upon\" at about 15:30 GMT on Thursday on Linwood Road in Handsworth, Birmingham, and died later in hospital, police said.\n\nIn an emotional appeal, Sharmaine Lincoln pleaded with the local community to \"help us understand why this has happened\".\n\nFive teenage boys have so far been arrested over his death.\n\nA post-mortem examination revealed Keon was shot and stabbed to death.\n\nKeon Lincoln's mother said not a day would go by when she would not hear her son's \"unbelievable\" laugh\n\nRemembering that afternoon, Ms Lincoln said: \"I heard the gunshots and my first instinct was, 'Where's my son?'\n\n\"A few minutes went by, we heard somebody was in the road and it was my boy.\"\n\nWest Midlands Police arrested three teenagers over the weekend on suspicion of Keon's murder - a 14-year-old boy from Birmingham and two others, aged 15 and 16, at an address in Walsall.\n\nThis is in addition to two 14-year-old boys arrested on Friday, one of whom remains in custody and the other released under investigation.\n\n\"The community needs to step up and put themselves in the shoes of the family,\" police say\n\nDet Ch Insp Alastair Orencas, from West Midlands Police, said the attack on Keon was \"the most pointless use of extreme violence I've witnessed in my 24 years in the police force\".\n\n\"The level of violence has not just caused shock to the family, but to hardened police officers,\" he said. \"It was an absolutely pointless attack, one I can't clear my mind of.\"\n\nThe force is appealing for information and Det Ch Insp Orencas said the community response was \"not where it should be\".\n\n\"These are multiple offenders in broad daylight. I simply don't believe there's not information out there that can help me with the inquiry,\" he said.\n\nKeon Lincoln was attacked on Linwood Road, a residential street in the Handsworth area of Birmingham\n\nMs Lincoln remembered her son as a joker, cheeky - a \"loving child with a jolly spirit\" whose \"unbelievable laugh\" would echo daily around her home.\n\n\"It doesn't make sense, the type of person Keon was, it doesn't make sense as to why someone would want to harm him or take his life in such a brutal way,\" she said.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Pictures of the funeral have led to criticism from unionists\n\nPolice have begun an investigation into potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations at the funeral of an IRA man in Londonderry.\n\nEamon McCourt, 62, who reportedly died with Covid-19, was buried on Monday.\n\nUnder current Covid-19 restrictions funerals in Northern Ireland are limited to 25 people.\n\nThe police said a \"significant number of people\" had gathered, in a manner \"likely to be in breach\" of the coronavirus regulations.\n\nPSNI Ch Supt Darrin Jones said anyone found in breach of public health regulations would be reported to the Public Prosecution Service.\n\nHe said police had \"engaged with representatives of the family of the deceased, the local church and local political representatives\", prior to the funeral.\n\n\"As a result, police were given a number of assurances as to the conduct of the funeral, and that people would seek to pay their respects to the deceased from outside their homes rather than gather at the funeral.\"\n\nPictures of the leading republican's funeral show men in white shirts and black ties flanking the cortege and dozens of others behind them.\n\nCh Supt Jones added: \"Regrettably at the funeral on Monday morning, a significant number of people gathered as part of the cortège, in a manner likely to be in breach of the health protection regulations.\"\n\nUnionist politicians had called on the police to act after images circulated online of mourners.\n\nDUP MLA Gary Middleton said those who had abided by Covid-19 restrictions would view the scenes from the funeral \"with dismay\".\n\nHe said it was \"hard to put into words the sheer recklessness of those involved\".\n\n\"Within republicanism it seems that certain individuals are viewed as being more important than public health regulations,\" Mr Middleton said.\n\n\"In those minds the reality of Covid-19 has not been brought home, or at the very least it is viewed as less important than having a public display at a funeral.\n\n\"Such sights are most painful for relatives who have recognised the need for such painful restrictions to be put in place and have abided by them.\"\n\n\"Eamon 'Peggy' McCourt who passed away on Saturday morning was buried from his family home in Creggan, a right accredited to us all.\n\n\"However, it was evident that social-distancing measures and permitted mourner numbers were completely ignored by those in attendance.\n\n\"Again, the majority of people in Northern Ireland who have followed lockdown measures since March 2020 are asking themselves why can republicans do whatever they like?\"\n\nHe called on the police to explain why such \"a large funeral procession was permitted to take place and what actions will follow\".\n\nIn a statement, Sinn Féin said: \"Everyone has a responsibility to follow the public health guidelines.\n\n\"Sinn Féin held its own tribute to his memory online.\"\n\nIn June last year, about 1,800 people attended the funeral of leading IRA member Bobby Storey in west Belfast.\n\nAmong them was Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill, the Sinn Féin vice-president, who later admitted the public health message had been undermined.\n\nIn May, Assistant Chief Constable Alan Todd said there had been social-distancing breaches at funerals in Northern Ireland in both the unionist and nationalist communities.\n\nThis story was amended on 27 January 2021 to remove the phrase 'IRA veteran'. Whilst referring to Mr McCourt's long history in republicanism, we accept the phrase was open to misinterpretation.", "The first minister visited the site of the flooding, where 80 villagers were evacuated from their homes\n\nResidents have been urged to stay away from homes flooded after a \"blow out\" at a mine shaft following reports some had returned against advice.\n\nEighty people had to be evacuated from Skewen, Neath Port Talbot, on Thursday and the Coal Authority is investigating the cause of the flooding.\n\nOn Sunday First Minister Mark Drakeford visited the village.\n\nSpecialists said mine shafts in the area were stable, but villagers were told it was not safe to return home.\n\nNeath Port Talbot Council tweeted on Sunday afternoon that some evacuated residents had ignored the warnings.\n\nIt said: \"We are getting reports that some residents who have been evacuated are returning to their homes.\n\n\"Investigations are ongoing at the site, including safety checks by utility companies. They have asked us to reiterate the request for residents to stay away and that it is not safe to return today or tomorrow.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mark Drakeford This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIt is not known how many residents were thought to have returned to their flooded homes or how long they were there for.\n\nBigger equipment is being brought in to \"understand in detail what has caused the blow out\", according to Coal Authority chief executive Lisa Pinney.\n\nThe Coal Authority, which manages the effects of past mining on communities, said it believed the \"blow out\" was likely to have been caused by a blockage underground which caused water to back up before breaking out.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Teresa Dalling says a river of orange water rushed through the village on Thursday\n\nCouncil leader Rob Jones warned residents it was unlikely that they could return home by Monday.\n\nMs Pinney said a hand-drilling crew \"determined the precise location and extension of the collapsed mine shaft\" on Saturday.\n\nThe village was flooded after a mine shaft \"blow out\"\n\n\"This now allows us to bring in larger equipment to investigate the wider mine workings and drainage channels in the area around it, so we can understand in detail what has caused the blow out,\" she said.\n\n\"We have checked all recorded shafts in the immediate area and found them all to be safe.\n\n\"We will be checking over a wider area in the days ahead.\"\n\nDuring his visit to the village Mr Drakeford was shown the sinkhole which had opened up on Thursday, leading to the flooding.\n\nOn Friday the Welsh Government confirmed financial support would be made available to people affected by the floods, up to £1,000 per household.\n\nMr Drakeford said on Sunday: \"Particularly for families who have no insurance, this is a devastating event.\n\n\"They will know that the Welsh Government is there to help and we will do that through the local authority which has been here very visibly, helping people in the last couple of days.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Rishi Sunak: 'We’re throwing absolutely everything at it'\n\nFewer than 2,000 young people have so far started new roles under the government's £2bn Kickstart jobs scheme, data shows.\n\nThe programme, which launched in September, has created 120,000 temporary jobs to date.\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak told the BBC coronavirus restrictions were making it harder for more young people to get started.\n\nHowever, he expected the number to rise once restrictions are lifted.\n\n\"Obviously because of the lockdowns and restrictions, that hampers businesses' ability to bring people into work,\" said Mr Sunak,\n\n\"What we can look forward to, as the restrictions ease, is more of these young people starting those placements.\n\n\"But taking a step back, we announced this scheme first week of July, it went live the first week of September and here we are, just a few months later, with 120,000 jobs having being vetted, funded and created.\"\n\nThe Chancellor insisted that the government had moved at an \"enormous pace\" to set up the programme, which targets youths at risk of long-term unemployment.\n\n\"I've always said my priority through this crisis is to protect, support and create as many jobs as possible, and young people in particular have been at the forefront of my mind,\" said Mr Sunak.\n\n\"We know that they're most likely to work in affected sectors, they're twice as likely to be furloughed, and the ones leaving college are entering a really difficult labour market.\"\n\nYouth unemployment rose to 14.5% between August to October 2020, with 597,000 people aged 16 to 24 unemployed, up from 11% in the same period in 2019.\n\nLatest data from the Department of Work Pensions shows that as of 15 January, 1,868 young people had begun their placements.\n\nHayden Finlayson, recipient of a Kickstart work placement with Whistl in Bedford\n\nHayden Finlayson, 24, is one of them. He was made redundant from a retail job last summer.\n\nLooking for work during the pandemic proved difficult: \"You start thinking about things - whether you're going to find work again.\"\n\nHe has secured a Kickstart placement at a Whistl distribution centre in Bedford, an opportunity for which he is grateful.\n\n\"I gave it a go. It's a new experience and I want to do new things,\" he said. \"[I'm learning] different skills every day, things I've never done before.\"\n\nBusinesses apply to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to create Kickstart places, which are then vetted for suitability.\n\nYoung people aged between 16 and 24 who are on Universal Credit are matched to roles by their job centre work coaches.\n\nThey are then interviewed by the prospective employer, which decides whether to take them on.\n\nFor each successful placement, the government covers the National Minimum Wage for a six-month period, at 25 hours per week.\n\nA further £1,500 grant is available per placement to help cover setup costs and assist in the development of employability skills. The current £2bn budget allows for around 250,000 roles.\n\nFSB's Craig Beaumont says the decision to allow small firms offer placements through a faster, more direct process is four months late\n\nFollowing criticism from small businesses, firms who wish to create just a handful of roles will have the option of applying direct to the Department for Work and Pensions.\n\nPreviously, small firms who wanted to create fewer than 30 Kickstart jobs had to group together, or use a \"gateway\" provider as an intermediary.\n\nMore than 600 gateways have now been approved, but small businesses complained that they found the process slow and difficult.\n\n\"The decision should have been made in September,\" said Craig Beaumont, chief of external affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).\n\n\"There is now a backlog of cases of people who've been appointed through intermediaries, who've not been able to access that work yet. So we need a real focus from the government to clear that.\"\n\nAsked if the scheme would need extending because continuing restrictions could prevent its aims being achieved this year, Mr Sunak left the possibility open.\n\nAnna Szymanowska runs Fighter Shots, which makes ginger-based remedy drinks. She is keen to create three digital marketing Kickstart roles as soon as possible.\n\nHowever, she says her application - which was done in a pool with other businesses - took a long time.\n\nSmall business owner Anna Szymanowska would like to hire three young people for digital marketing roles\n\n\"It was a little bit lengthy, because the first time I heard of the scheme was July or August,\" she told the BBC.\n\n\"We applied within a month [of hearing about it], and just yesterday we received a contract to sign. So it was lengthy but otherwise well managed.\"\n\nThe Chancellor told the BBC that the changes hadn't been made earlier because Kickstart had been set up \"at speed\". He pointed out other interventions aimed at supporting young people's jobs, including investment in employment support schemes, training and apprenticeships.\n\nTracy Fishwick is the managing director of Transform Lives Company, a social enterprise which helps people into work.\n\nShe believes that the young people chosen to have Kickstart placements will be very important.\n\n\"The young people who really probably would already get a job with a little bit of help - we don't want all the Kickstart jobs going to those young people,\" said Ms Fishwick, who previously worked with the Future Jobs Fund - a scheme for young people created by Labour in 2009.\n\n\"We need to be able to put things in place to support those young people who were already unemployed before Covid.\"", "Volunteers responded to an appeal on social media on Saturday night\n\nVolunteers helped to clear up to 7cm of snow at a community hospital so Covid-19 vaccines could be given to about 300 vulnerable patients.\n\nMore than a dozen people cleared the car park at Maesteg community hospital in Bridgend county on Sunday where the Pfizer-BioNtech jab is being given.\n\nPeople with brushes and shovels came to the rescue after a Facebook appeal and Bridgend council provided a plough.\n\nOne local councillor said their community spirit \"knows no bounds\".\n\nThe Maesteg area had been at or near the top of Wales' Covid case rate chart for a few weeks before Christmas - with an infection rate of more than 1300 cases per 100,000 at its height.\n\nVaccinations were delayed for about an hour on Sunday and Maesteg West councillor Ross Thomas, who helped organise the clear-up, said it would have been a \"disaster\" to have cancelled the appointments.\n\nCovid jabs at four other locations in south Wales had to be cancelled after snow cause widespread disruption across the UK.\n\nAnd Mr Thomas praised the local community for preventing their centre from also falling victim to the weather.\n\n\"With a few Facebook call-outs we had a dozen or so volunteers within the hour together with surgery staff, a number of the GPs,\" Mr Thomas told BBC Radio Wales.\n\nCouncillor Ross Thomas said there would be some aching backs on Monday morning\n\n\"The grounds of the hospital are not small by any stretch of the imagination. It was a valiant effort over two-and-a-half hours to ensure we could allow access to Maesteg community hospital.\n\n\"It's thanks to them that 300 more people in the 80 and over priority group in the Llynfi valley received their jab yesterday.\"\n\nAnother 40 vulnerable patients will receive their Covid jabs on Monday.\n\nMr Thomas said the spirit in his community \"knows no bounds\" and added: \"People rally round, it's a sense of belonging, its genuinely instilled in our DNA in Maesteg and it was on show.\n\n\"Not only did people want to help, I think it's clear there's anxiety in the community about the virus.\n\n\"Ahead of Christmas some local wards here in the Llynfi valley had the highest case rates in Europe.\n\n\"There was the realisation yesterday that it wasn't just shovelling snow out of the way, it was about getting on top of this virus and ensuring the most vulnerable people in this community have a fighting chance moving forward.\"", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nBruno Fernandes' superb 78th-minute free-kick gave Manchester United victory in a thrilling FA Cup tie with old rivals Liverpool at Old Trafford.\n\nLiverpool led a fantastic contest through Mohamed Salah, who then equalised after Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford had struck for the hosts either side of the break.\n\nBut in a game which had everything last week's drab stalemate between this pair at Anfield lacked, Fernandes came off the bench to have the final word after Fabinho had fouled Edinson Cavani on the edge of the area.\n• None Don't worry about us, says Reds boss Klopp\n\nFernandes might have been slightly off the pace in recent games but when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer needed his £47m inspiration to come up with another special moment, the Portuguese delivered, bending his shot round the wall and beyond Allison's reach.\n\nThe victory earns United a home meeting with an in-form West Ham side managed by former boss David Moyes in the fifth round.\n\nBut the search for form goes on for Liverpool, whose only win in seven games since that seven-goal hammering of Crystal Palace came against Aston Villa's kids in the last round, and who have a meeting with Jose Mourinho's Tottenham looming on Thursday.\n• None Watch all the goals from the FA Cup fourth round\n\nIt was not quite the ending Solskjaer served up when he won a previous fourth-round meeting between these sides but, as in 1999, they had to come from behind.\n\nAnd while Fernandes applied the devastating finish, that goal should not be allowed to overshadow Rashford's contribution to United's victory.\n\nSo much has been said about the England forward as a social crusader it is sometimes easy to forget he also needs to be judged as a footballer.\n\nAt only 23, he is still a long way off his prime but he is developing into an outstanding forward, with vision to match his speed and finishing ability.\n\nThe pass that created Greenwood's equaliser was superb. Taking possession just inside his own half, Rashford delivered a 60-yard pass with such accuracy all Greenwood needed to do was take one touch to control with his chest before drilling low into the far corner.\n\nRashford's raw pace put Liverpool's defence under constant stress and the delicate touch that took him past Rhys Williams by the touchline in a move that ended with Paul Pogba curling wide was sensational.\n\nAnd then there was his goal, which needed a perfectly-timed run to go beyond the Liverpool defence and reach Greenwood's through ball, and then a cool head to apply the finish.\n\nAt that point, it seemed United had the game under control. It did not quite work out that way and once again, Fernandes, who has won four Premier League player of the month awards out of the seven he has been eligible for since leaving Sporting Lisbon less than 12 months ago, underlined his credentials as English football's most influential player at present.\n\nSalah's effort was the first time Liverpool had been ahead at Old Trafford since January 2017, since when Liverpool have won both the Champions League and Premier League, a clear indication that whatever issues Jurgen Klopp is wrestling with at the moment, they are not insurmountable.\n\nThe finish for the striker's 18th goal of the season did not hint at a lack of confidence as he raced on to Roberto Firmino's precise through ball, having escaped the attentions of Victor Lindelof, and lifted his shot beyond the reach of Dean Henderson.\n\nEvidently, what Klopp needs is to find a solution in defence. Williams was shaky and at fault for Rashford's goal, while Fabinho was exposed by United in this game and Cavani exploited the Brazilian's defensive inexperience to earn the free-kick that won the game.\n\nEven so, after Salah equalised from close range after United had lost possession to James Milner and never recovered their position after working their way up-field from a short goal-kick, the visitors did have chances to win it themselves.\n\nBut Dean Henderson saved from Trent Alexander-Arnold and Salah before Fernandes struck - so Liverpool's wait for a first FA Cup win since 1921 at Old Trafford, and Jurgen Klopp's for a first win at United full stop, goes on.\n\nManchester United are next in action against Sheffield United in the Premier League at Old Trafford on Wednesday, 27 January (20:15GMT). Liverpool play at Tottenham on Thursday, 28 January (20:00GMT).\n• None Manchester United have eliminated Liverpool from the FA Cup proper for the 10th time; in the competition's history, only Liverpool themselves (12 v Everton) have knocked a particular side out more times (including finals).\n• None Liverpool have won just one of their past 15 matches at Old Trafford in all competitions (D4 L10), and are winless in their last eight at the ground (D4 L4).\n• None Manchester United have won each of their past eight home games in the FA Cup; only from 1908 to 1912 have they had a better winning run on home soil in the competition (9 games).\n• None Liverpool are the first reigning Premier League champion to be eliminated from the FA Cup as early as the fourth round since Manchester City in 2014-15.\n• None Liverpool have lost back-to-back games in all competitions for the first time since March 2020.\n• None Roberto Firmino has assisted Mohamed Salah for 18 goals in all competitions for Liverpool, the most any player has set up another for the Reds under Jurgen Klopp. Since they first played together in 2017-18, this is the most one player has assisted another for all Premier League sides in all competitions.\n• None Mason Greenwood scored his first goal for Man Utd in 11 appearances in all competitions, ending his longest run of games without a goal for the club. Aged 19 years and 115 days, he was the youngest Man Utd player to score against Liverpool since Wayne Rooney in January 2005 in the Premier League (19y 83d).\n• None Marcus Rashford has scored more goals at Old Trafford against Liverpool than he has against any other opponent on home soil for Manchester United (4).\n• None Since his Man Utd debut in February 2020, Bruno Fernandes has scored more goals than any other player for Premier League clubs (28).\n• None No player has scored more goals for Premier League clubs in all competitions this season than Salah for Liverpool (19, level with Harry Kane).\n• None Attempt missed. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) left footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the right following a set piece situation.\n• None Paul Pogba (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Victor Lindelöf (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Edinson Cavani (Manchester United) hits the right post with a header from the centre of the box. Assisted by Bruno Fernandes with a cross.\n• None Attempt saved. Marcus Rashford (Manchester United) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Aaron Wan-Bissaka.\n• None Goal! Manchester United 3, Liverpool 2. Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United) from a free kick with a right footed shot to the bottom right corner. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None All the goals, highlights and drama from Saturday's fourth-round ties are", "Early years educational providers in England have been told to remain open\n\nMany staff at nurseries, pre-schools and childminders \"don't feel safe at work\", says the Early Years Alliance.\n\nThe group, representing early years providers, wants staff in this sector to be a higher priority for Covid testing and vaccinations.\n\nNurseries and settings for young children in England have been told to remain open during lockdown.\n\nThe government said the under-fives were \"unlikely to be playing a driving role in transmission\".\n\nThe Early Years Alliance received more than 3,500 responses in a survey of staff in nurseries or childcare settings and said these suggested widespread concerns - with half of those who replied saying they did not feel safe at work.\n\nNeil Leitch, chief executive of the group, said the safety worries were \"a cause for serious concern\".\n\nHe called on the government to implement rapid coronavirus testing among early years staff \"as a matter of urgency\", adding they should be \"given priority access to vaccinations in phase two of the rollout\".\n\nThere are currently no confirmed plans for lateral-flow testing in nurseries and pre-schools.\n\nBut the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is looking at whether some high-risk professions should be prioritised for vaccination.\n\nAnd Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told the BBC's Breakfast programme he would \"very much like to see it\" once the most vulnerable groups had received their jabs.\n\nA Department for Education (DfE) spokesman said: \"Keeping nurseries and childminders open will support parents and deliver the crucial care and education for our youngest children.\n\n\"Current evidence suggests that pre-school children are less susceptible to infection and are unlikely to be playing a driving role in transmission.\"\n\nThe Early Years Alliance survey also found concerns that staff shortages would make it difficult for some nurseries and pre-school settings to stay open.\n\nDr Amelia Massoura, who runs Stepping Stone pre-school, in Sittingbourne, Kent, said: \"Out of six members of staff, four have contracted Covid-19.\n\n\"Fortunately, all have recovered well.\"\n\nVanessa Linehan, manager of Sandbrook Community Playgroup in Hackney in London, said: \"We are happy to stay open to support our families.\n\n\"But we want our staff to have testing and vaccinations as a priority.\n\n\"We encourage local authorities to prioritise appropriate testing for early-years staff through their community testing programmes,\" said the Department for Education spokesman.\n\nThe Department for Education says the under-fives are \"unlikely\" to drive up coronavirus transmission\n\nHowever, Labour's shadow education minister Tulip Siddiq accused the government of \"incompetence and neglect\", saying early-years staff \"deserve... proper access to testing\".\n\nShe questioned why \"the government has refused to publish the scientific basis for keeping early-years settings open in lockdown\" and called on it to \"urgently pull back from the brink of funding changes that could lead to viable early-years providers going bust\".\n\nThe government changed the funding formula for the early years sector in December, basing it on current attendance rather than pre-pandemic levels.\n\nAccording to the DfE, early years attendance is at 54% of the usual daily level, as of 14 January, leading to a shortfall in revenues.\n\nIn primary and secondary schools, which are open to vulnerable children and children of key workers only, average attendance levels have fallen to just 14%.\n\nRoughly half of nurseries and pre-schools and a third of childminders expect to be operating at a loss by the end of the spring term, based on current levels of government support, according to the survey.\n\n\"Early years providers are the only part of the education sector that the government has asked to remain open to all families,\" said Mr Leitch\n\n\"It is surely not too much to ask for the protection - both practical and financial - needed to ensure that we can continue to do so.\"", "Richard Dyson and Simon Midgley were thought to be on a winter break in Scotland\n\nTwo men who died when a fire tore through a luxury five-star hotel on the shores of Loch Lomond have been named.\n\nSimon Midgley and Richard Dyson, believed to be from London, were staying at Cameron House Hotel when the blaze broke out on Monday morning.\n\nPolice have not confirmed the identity of those who died, but relatives have paid tribute on social media.\n\nThe hotel's director has praised the actions of the emergency services in preventing further tragedy.\n\nFirefighters who brought a couple and their baby to safety from an upper floor have been hailed as \"heroes\".\n\nA baby was rescued by firefighters from an upper floor of the hotel\n\nAndrew and Louise Logan, and their son Jimmy, from Worcestershire, were taken to hospital after being brought to safety, but were later discharged.\n\nMore than 200 guests were evacuated from the building when the blaze broke out. A joint investigation into the cause of the fire is under way.\n\nSocial media posts suggested that Mr Midgley and Mr Dyson were on a winter break in Scotland.\n\nA post on Mr Midgley's Instagram account on Saturday showed pictures of Cameron House Hotel and said: \"Home for the weekend.\"\n\nRelatives have been expressing their shock at news of the couple's deaths.\n\nMr Midgley's sister posted a picture of her brother and his partner on Facebook, while another relative wrote: \"I'm beyond heartbroken.\"\n\nKate Baxter wrote on Twitter: \"Such unbearably sad news.. RIP @SimonMidgleyPR, a shining star in our wonderfully close-knit industry.\"\n\nAccording to his Facebook page, Mr Midgley was a freelance journalist at the London Evening Standard and ran his own PR company, while Mr Dyson is believed to be a TV producer.\n\nPolice and firefighters remained at the scene on Tuesday morning, with the scale of the damage becoming more apparent.\n\nBBC Scotland's Andrew Black was allowed on site and said: \"The damage to the building is pretty extensive, especially the upper floors. There's a smell of burning wood and we could hear a fire alarm from part of the building still going off.\"\n\nThe BBC understands that a wedding due to take place at Cameron House hotel this weekend has been moved to another luxury hotel.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drone footage from above Loch Lomond shows the extent of the damage at Cameron House\n\nIn a new statement, Cameron House's director, Andy Roger, praised the \"very swift actions of the emergency services\".\n\nHe said: \"Everyone associated with Cameron House Hotel is still coming to terms with the events of yesterday and we are all hugely conscious that two people tragically lost their lives in the fire.\n\n\"Their families and friends are foremost in our thoughts as we co-operate fully with the investigation teams to try to establish the circumstances surrounding this terrible incident.\n\n\"The emergency services were on the scene long into the night and I cannot praise their efforts highly enough. They are true heroes. The firemen bringing out a couple and their young child by ladder from a second-floor room was a heart-stopping moment for all those who witnessed it.\n\n\"We're also enormously grateful for the many, many offers of practical support and good wishes from the UK hospitality industry and also from the local community, which has rallied around to help. It's been a humbling experience, but we are a small, tight-knit community on Loch Lomond and a response like that is typical of our many friends and neighbours.\"\n\nMr Roger said the hotel had made arrangements for the vast majority of the guests to travel home or continue with their breaks and he thanked them for their patience and \"good spirits\".\n\nHe also paid tribute to the staff at Cameron House who he said had shown \"an enormous degree of care and teamwork throughout the last two days\".\n\nLocal people have been speaking of their shock and sadness at what happened at the hotel.\n\nOne woman told BBC Scotland: \"We are just very sad for all the families involved and so sorry for the people who work there.\"\n\nAnother added: \"It's absolutely horrific. I think the local community really feels it.\"\n\nReverend Ian Miller, a retired minister who lives locally and was called in to offer guests support in the aftermath of the fire, said those affected \"fell into two groups\".\n\n\"There were those in the side bedrooms which weren't really touched and they just realised they had escaped something terrible,\" he said.\n\n\"But for those in the main building then there were degrees of trauma. Some had escaped with virtually nothing.\n\n\"One man came out in his underwear. Another woman told me she just grabbed her baby, change bag and moved out.\"\n\nThe Scottish Fire and Rescue service remained at the scene on Tuesday morning\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme, John Gow, from forensic investigations firm IFIC, said: \"There will be a number of strands to this investigation, running in tandem.\n\n\"Obviously, sadly, there is the death investigation due to the fatalities that occurred.\n\n\"There is the origin and cause investigation which is establishing how the fire started and spread throughout the property.\n\n\"It is also likely there will be an investigation to establish if the fire precaution measures were adequate and operated as they should.\"\n\nCameron House, an 18th Century mansion, was converted into a luxury hotel and resort in 1986.\n\nIt is a popular wedding venue and houses the Michelin-starred Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond restaurant.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Covid-19 has been reported in 60% of Scotland's care homes\n\nPolice Scotland has confirmed it will support the dedicated Crown Office unit which has been set up to investigate Covid-19 deaths in care homes.\n\nThe force said its involvement does not indicate that crimes have been committed but is designed simply to inform prosecutors.\n\nCases of the virus have been reported in 60% of Scotland's care homes, with a total of 5,635 residents affected.\n\nThe first minister described the impact on the sector as \"heartbreaking\".\n\nEarlier this month Lord Advocate James Wolffe QC announced the new unit and said it would help determine if Fatal Accident Inquiries were to be held into the deaths.\n\nThe outbreaks across Scotland include one on Skye which is under police investigation.\n\nOfficers are looking into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of three women - aged 84, 86 and 88 - at Home Farm in Portree.\n\nOn Friday police outlined the support officers will provide to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) review.\n\nAssistant Chief Constable Duncan Sloan said: \"We understand the significant public anxiety caused by reports of deaths among those being cared for and staff in the health and care sectors as a result of coronavirus.\n\n\"This is a matter of great concern for us all.\"\n\nMr Sloan said COPFS is working with a number of agencies and asked the force to gather \"additional information\".\n\nHe added: \"Our involvement does not necessarily indicate that crimes are being investigated and the information we gather on behalf of COPFS will help inform its decision on whether further action is required.\n\n\"These are challenging times for everyone but Police Scotland will continue to work with COPFS and other partner agencies to maximise public safety, to support and protect the vulnerable in our communities and to support the work of colleagues in the health and care professions.\"", "The comedian's wife shared a picture online of the 78-year-old after he received the vaccination\n\nSir Billy Connolly has received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.\n\nThe comedian's wife Pamela Stephenson shared an image on social media of the 78-year-old wearing a mask with a plaster on his left arm.\n\nAlongside the picture, Ms Stephenson wrote: \"Thank God... Billy had his first Covid vaccine today!\"\n\nSir Billy, who lives in Florida, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2013 and announced he was \"finished with stand-up\" last year.\n\nHe said at the time: \"The Parkinson's has made my brain work differently and you need to have a good brain for comedy.\"\n\nSir Billy now lives in Florida with his wife Pamela Stephenson\n\nSir Billy joins famous faces including actress Dame Judi Dench, broadcaster Sir David Attenborough and actor Sir Ian McKellen in receiving the vaccine.\n\nHollywood star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also shared a video of him receiving the jab earlier this week.", "The Fire Brigades Union has held back firefighters from efforts to tackle the pandemic in England with \"unreasonable\" safety demands, a report claims.\n\nIn it, the fire service watchdog says the union has insisted on \"unworkable\" rules for testing and self-isolation.\n\nThousands of firefighters assisted health and emergency services last year but in December, as vaccinations began, the FBU asked members not to volunteer.\n\nThe union says it cannot be sure its members will be safe if they do.\n\nThat is because councils and fire chiefs have pulled out of an agreement on health protection measures, it added.\n\nFor most of last year the agreement allowed firefighters to perform a range of additional duties, including delivering meals, driving ambulances and transporting bodies.\n\nFirefighters returning from roles in potential contact with Covid victims would spend several days self-isolating and being tested to show they were not infected.\n\nBy December, when there was the prospect of firefighters helping with vaccinations, a row over the deal resulted in the union giving new advice to members\n\nThe FBU said in message on 9 December: \"At this time, members are asked not to volunteer and to suspend any expression of interest that they have registered until such time as satisfactory arrangements can be secured that allow a national agreement to be reached.\"\n\nOn 13 January, local councils, which employ firefighters, decided the agreement with the union \"was no longer sustainable or appropriate\", partly because of the requirements for staff to have tests and self-isolate.\n\nThey said these made it impossible to run the fire service flexibly. Fire chiefs argued that police officers and paramedics did not have to isolate and await test results.\n\nThe union says it cannot be sure its members will be safe if they volunteer\n\nThe FBU general secretary, Matt Wrack, told the BBC he still was not able to advise firefighters about additional Covid-related duties because the union did not know what the safety risks would be locally.\n\n\"I'm not prepared to ask people to volunteer if there aren't safety measures in place,\" he said. \"I don't want to see a deadly virus brought into workplaces when we have measures in place which have avoided it in the past several months.\"\n\nThe fire minister, Lord Stephen Greenhalgh, said: \"Brave firefighters have been prevented from stepping up to support the pandemic response because of the actions of the Fire Brigades Union.\"\n\nZoe Billingham, an inspector at Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Fire and Rescue Services, said many firefighters had contributed to the effort during the Covid crisis, but much more could have been done.\n\nShe described the union's position as \"deeply regrettable\" and \"not what the public would expect of a fire service\".\n\nThe inspectorate has released several reports calling for the modernisation of fire service working practices and criticising the FBU.\n\nLancashire Fire and Rescue Service said it had begun testing its staff twice a week\n\nAccording to this one, the dispute between firefighters and their employers has held up vital work to protect lives.\n\nIn Greater Manchester requests to the fire service to help with NHS Track and Trace were delayed by 12 weeks.\n\nIn Cleveland, the fire and rescue service had to use non-operational support staff, rather than firefighters, to carry out temperature testing for the local authority.\n\nIn Suffolk and South Yorkshire, there were delays to plans for firefighters to help get into properties where residents were suffering from Covid.\n\nThe FBU says it was not given an opportunity to respond to these claims before the report was published. Mr Wrack dismissed it as poorly-sourced and politically-motivated.\n\nSome fire services have reached agreements with local branches of the union instead so that they can volunteer for the vaccination effort.\n\nLancashire Fire and Rescue Service said it had begun testing its staff twice a week and those giving vaccinations had also received them first.", "Helen White's lighting business is struggling to absorb a six-fold increase in freight costs.\n\n\"We were paying £1,600 per container in November, this month we've been quoted over £10,000,\" says Helen White.\n\nThe founder of start-up Houseof.com, which imports lighting from China, says the rise in shipping costs means she's making a loss on what she sells.\n\nShe's one of many UK importers facing soaring freight costs amid a global shipping crisis that may last months.\n\nA shortage of empty shipping containers in Asia and bottlenecks at the UK's deep sea ports are behind the problems.\n\nIt was hoped the backlogs could be cleared during the Chinese New Year holiday in February, but instead a coronavirus outbreak in China is adding to the uncertainty facing firms.\n\nIn the UK the difficulties in international shipping have coincided with problems faced by businesses trading with the EU after Brexit.\n\nOne Manchester-based freight forwarder said the logistics industry is facing the most challenging conditions he's seen in the 17 years he's been in the business.\n\nCraig Poole from Cardinal Maritime said during lockdowns, people have been turning to online shopping, and that's causing a surge in demand for goods from China.\n\nFreight forwarder Craig Poole says the logistics industry is facing hugely challenging conditions\n\nBut some companies can't absorb the skyrocketing freight costs that shipping lines are charging. That could lead to higher prices for consumers or businesses having to close.\n\n\"The really unfortunate thing is, the small businesses who can't afford to pay those rates are going to go under as a result,\" Mr Poole said.\n\nHelen White's lighting range is designed in the UK and manufactured in Guangzhou, China.\n\nShe said the six-fold increase in shipping costs is hard to take, especially when getting hold of a container \"is like gold dust\".\n\n\"It's really hard for a small business to absorb those costs. We'll be making a loss on the goods we're selling.\"\n\nLighting seller houseof.com is struggling to import stock from China\n\nAt the other end of the supply chain, Chinese manufacturers and logistics firms say they are equally frustrated.\n\nJohnny Tseng is the owner and director of Hong Kong-based J&B Clothing Company Ltd., which manufactures garments for some of the UK's most popular fashion sites including Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing.\n\nHe's been supplying clothes to British retailers for more than 40 years, but he says his family-run firm won't be able to absorb inflated shipping rates for much longer.\n\n\"To be honest I don't even know how we can survive if we carry on shipping things at this kind of cost.\"\n\nJohnny Tseng says sky-high shipping rates are putting his business at risk.\n\nHe says he's now being quoted $14,000 to ship a container to the UK, when the usual price is $2,500.\n\nThe shortage of empty containers in China and congestion at UK ports caused some of his stock to miss the busy Christmas trading period. Now some customers are holding orders for their Autumn-Winter collections until next year.\n\n\"It's chaos,\" he said. \"We are making a loss. We take it as a loss leader and keep our fingers crossed it will go back to normal after Chinese New Year, but it is a major issue if it persists this way.\"\n\nUsually during the Chinese New Year holiday, factories in China shut down for two weeks. There were hopes the pause in production would give UK ports a chance to clear the backlog of ships waiting to dock, and encourage shipping lines to move more empty containers back to Asia, which is a less profitable journey.\n\nChinese workers usually travel home for the Chinese New Year holiday.\n\nBut rising numbers of coronavirus cases have prompted the Chinese authorities to stagger factory closing dates so that not all workers are travelling to their home regions at the same time. A worsening outbreak could lead to travel restrictions, in which case some factories may not stop production at all.\n\nCraig Poole says some companies have been caught out by factories closing earlier than planned.\n\n\"A lot of businesses that can't get those goods away are delaying orders until after Chinese New Year, so this situation could continue 'til March,\" he said.\n\nPatrick Lee from the Hong Kong-based Unique Logistics International said it could be even longer than that.\n\n\"Middle of the year at the earliest is what we're hearing from end customers in the UK, and also from some of our people in the industry. Some of the carriers as well,\" he said.\n\nMr Lee has called on the shipping lines to add more ships to help ease the backlog of stock orders building up at warehouses across China.\n\n\"They are increasing sailing but can increase a lot more. There are idle ships out there that they can reactivate without too much difficulty,\" he said.\n\nThe disruption could last for several months, according to logistics specialist Patrick Lee\n\nBut a spokeswoman for the World Shipping Council said carriers are using all available capacity.\n\n\"The demand for transportation service far exceeds supply. As in any free market, this puts upward pressure on rates,\" she said.\n\nShipping lines have been trying to drive down demand from British importers by charging a premium for deliveries to the UK, or bypassing the country's ports altogether.\n\nOne shipping line recently offered freight rates of $12,050 for a 40ft container from China to Southampton, but charged just $8,450 for the same container to travel from China to Rotterdam, Hamburg, or Antwerp.\n\nThe UK's largest container port at Felixstowe has been experiencing long delays since October. Congestion has also been a problem at the Port of Southampton, albeit to a lesser extent.\n\nThe bottlenecks were initially caused by a surge in imports as business activity picked up after the first wave of the pandemic. Huge shipments of PPE and the usual Christmas rush added to container volumes and ports struggled to cope.\n\nThe UK's largest container port at Felixstowe has been experiencing bottlenecks for months\n\n\"Most of the carriers just don't want UK cargo because of the issues when the vessels dock, so mainly they're favouring European ports and we are having to truck containers over,\" said freight forwarder Craig Poole.\n\nHe said that adds a cost of up to £2,000 per container, and takes an extra seven to ten days to reach the delivery point in the UK.\n\nFor business-owners like Helen White, the difficulties affecting the shipping industry can't be solved quickly enough.\n\n\"Lots of little start-ups are really hurting,\" she said. \"It has been paired with logistical nightmares across Europe as well. It just feels like logistics is falling apart at the moment. It's hard to see where the resolution is.\"", "All schools moved to online learning before Christmas, following concerns from unions over the new coronavirus variant\n\n\"Wholesale\" return of pupils to school after February half term is \"unlikely\", Wales' first minister has said.\n\nMark Drakeford said there were \"intermediate positions between where we are today, with very few children in school, and everybody being back\".\n\nPreviously, ministers said schools would stay closed to most until February half term unless Covid cases fell significantly.\n\nThose preparing for qualifications and very young children may return first.\n\nMr Drakeford told a coronavirus briefing on Friday he had recently chaired a meeting of the teaching unions and local education authorities.\n\n\"We all agreed that we would work purposefully together to find ways of bringing more young people back into the classroom,\" he said.\n\n\"Does that mean that we will see a wholesale return of every child in every classroom, every day of the week across Wales? I do think that that is probably unlikely.\n\n\"But there are intermediate positions between where we are today, with very few children in school, and everybody being back.\"\n\nHe said there had been \"practical, creative, imaginative\" proposals put forward which could mean some children being back in the classroom for some of the week.\n\nMinisters previously said schools would stay closed until half term unless Covid cases fell significantly\n\nThese could include \"children preparing for qualifications [and] very young children for whom online learning really isn't a genuine possibility\".\n\n\"I certainly don't rule out making some of those things happen after the February half term, but I do think it's unlikely in the way you said that we would see every child back full-time in every classroom in the way that we would ideally wish to do,\" he added.\n\nAll schools and colleges moved to online learning before Christmas, following concerns from unions over the new coronavirus variant.\n\nThey have remained open for children of critical workers and vulnerable learners, as well as for learners who needed to complete essential exams or assessments.\n\nEarlier this month, when Education Minister Kirsty Williams said schools and colleges would stay closed to most pupils until the February half term, unions welcomed the news, saying the health and safety of pupils and staff \"had to be a priority\".\n\nBut, they added, teachers must now be given the vaccine as a priority, and pupils and staff must be protected before talks about reopening schools could begin.\n\nTeachers are still not on the priority list for immunisation, and have to wait to get the jab dependent on their age and if they have a medical condition.\n\nAt the time, Laura Doel, director of The National Association of Headteachers Cymru, said: \"Any plan that sees school staff return to face-to-face learning should be afforded as much protection as possible against the virus.\n\n\"Once these issues have been addressed, then we can discuss the orderly return to school we all want.\"\n\nOpposition parties have called for clear plans on how schools would return and for support to make sure pupils from poorer backgrounds did not fall behind due to a \"digital divide\".\n\nPlaid Cymru's education spokeswoman Sian Gwenllian said: \"The Welsh Government must plan now for the gradual and safe reopening of schools, putting in place safety measures, and should lay out plans for a vaccination programme for schools staff.\"\n\nWelsh Conservative education spokeswoman Suzy Davies called for the Welsh Government to publish evidence on its reasons for closing schools, bring forward vaccines for teachers, and said money must be made available for all pupils to access laptops for online learning.", "Three quarters of applications for a £500 discretionary grant, which aims to help those on low incomes self-isolate, have been rejected, figures suggest.\n\nEmployed or self-employed people in England who do not qualify for the Test and Trace Support Payment because they do not receive benefits can apply.\n\nData obtained by Labour and shared with BBC Newsnight suggests just 12,069 of 49,877 applications were successful.\n\nThe government said it was assessing how the scheme is supporting people.\n\nThe cumulative figures obtained by Labour suggest that between October and December last year, 35,252 applications to local authorities in England for the discretionary part of the test and trace support payment scheme were rejected, while 12,069 were granted.\n\nThe government introduced the Test and Trace Support payment in late September as a way of topping up any benefits or Statutory Sick Pay a person receives.\n\nThe Department of Health and Social Care says it is a targeted scheme designed to help people on low incomes.\n\nThere is a list of specific criteria applicants must meet for the grant, but those who do not qualify for this payment and who are on a low income or may face financial hardship as a result of self-isolating, can apply for a discretionary payment.\n\nLocal authorities in England oversee the entire support scheme, with the qualifying criteria set by the government. They blame overly strict criteria and inadequate government guidance for people being rejected who feel they should qualify for a grant.\n\nThe Local Government Association, which represents councils in England as well as the London boroughs, said some councils were having to turn down applications for the discretionary support because \"people are ineligible or have failed to provide the evidence needed\".\n\nLast month, the self-isolation period for contacts of people with confirmed coronavirus was shortened from 14 to 10 days after the time of exposure.\n\nPeople who are contacted by NHS Test and Trace and told to self-isolate, face fines of up to £10,000 if they fail to comply. Those who don't self-isolate risk spreading the virus to others.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nDr Nishant Joshi, a GP trainee working at a practice in Luton, says he meets, on a daily basis, people who are faced with what he calls a \"Sophie's choice\".\n\nHe says: \"People come to me with essentially a Sophie's choice situation - I know I have to isolate but also I don't have enough money to put food on my table.\n\n\"If I say to somebody who comes to me with a health problem, you need to take a couple of weeks off work, I've had patients who have come to me and they're in tears.\"\n\nRachel, a shop worker from East London with a disabled son, tested positive in early January and was left in a desperate situation after having to self-isolate.\n\nShe says: \"I didn't have a hot meal for 10 days. I had two bowls of cornflakes and a hot dog. I was hungry. I was petrified\".\n\nShe adds: \"It's been probably the worst two weeks of my life. On a personal level I knew I had no choice but to isolate to keep my son safe.\n\n\"Had I not been in that position I can't guarantee that I would have done the whole self isolation thing because you get desperate.\"\n\nHer local councillor eventually dropped off a hot meal. Rachel was fortunate and received a £500 grant at the end of her isolation.\n\nJosie Tothill said missing two weeks of work \"could be the difference between feeding your kids or not, or paying rent or not\"\n\nJosie Tothill from Manchester didn't qualify for the scheme, even though her job, as a personal assistant to a woman who needs mental health support, means she is on a low income.\n\nShe had to self-isolate in October after her sister tested positive. But she did not receive a call from Test and Trace despite being a contact. Only people with a Test and Trace number are eligible.\n\nJosie says: \"It was difficult, but I got by. But for a lot of people, especially if you work in care, you are already on poverty wages, so to miss two weeks of work - that could be the difference between feeding your kids or not, or paying rent or not.\n\n\"So you can see, for some people, it's impossible to do that isolation, so it's much harder to control the virus.\"\n\nThe Labour Party, which obtained the figures from local authorities under the Freedom of Information Act, says the government must make sure everyone can afford to self isolate.\n\nShadow communities secretary Steve Reed said it was vital that people who self-isolated were not \"punished for doing the right thing\".\n\nHe told the BBC: \"The problem is the government established a fixed pot of money and, in some cases, councils have eked it out so much that many people applying for the funding haven't received it.\n\n\"In other cases councils have used up all the money because they have more people applying than were expected.\n\n\"So, we end up with a postcode lottery, if you live in one area you might get the funding, if you live in another area you might not.\"\n\nAnalysis of the figures by the BBC shows that of the applications to the discretionary scheme:\n\nWhile most of councils that responded rejected the majority of applications to the discretionary scheme, a smaller number bucked the trend.\n\nLambeth granted 77% of applications, Haringey and Wakefield 75%, and Solihull 64%.\n\nWhile it's impossible to rule out that applications may be coming from people who are taking a chance, it's also clear that some councils are apparently more flexible about the criteria used on the discretionary scheme.\n\nThe government is putting £70 million into funding the scheme. It said: \"Local authorities are responsible for decisions when it comes to making additional discretionary payments to people who fall outside the scope of the main scheme and are facing financial hardship as a result of having to self-isolate.\n\n\"We continue to work closely with the 314 local authorities in England to assess how the scheme is supporting people experiencing financial difficulties.\"\n\nThe Local Government Association said the government \"needs to ensure its £500 self-isolation payment support scheme is available to those in need of financial support\".\n\nIt says it is \"good\" that councils will receive extra government funding \"to support people on low incomes who do not meet the strict criteria for this main scheme, but who may face financial hardship because of the requirement to self-isolate\".", "Because of its scale, work on Glastonbury's site must begin earlier than most festivals\n\nMusic festivals are \"still possible\" this summer, despite the cancellation of Glastonbury, says the head of the Association of Independent Festivals.\n\nPaul Reed said Glastonbury \"is a different beast to most festivals and most likely ran out of time due to the size and complexity of the event\".\n\nSmaller events could still happen if the government ensures organisers can access cancellation insurance, he said.\n\n\"For most festivals, the cut-off point is more likely the end of March.\"\n\nOn Thursday, Glastonbury organisers Michael and Emily Eavis called off their festival for the second year in a row because of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\n\"In spite of our efforts to move Heaven & Earth, it has become clear that we simply will not be able to make the festival happen,\" they said in a joint statement. \"We are so sorry to let you all down.\"\n\nTickets for the festival, which normally attracts 200,000 people and was due to take place in June, will roll over to 2022.\n\nGlastonbury is the UK's biggest music festival, but it was not the only event to cancel its plans on Thursday. The Country To Country festival, which was due to take place in March, also said its 2021 edition would not happen.\n\nThe three-day event, which attracts some of country music's biggest names to indoor venues in London, Dublin and Glasgow, said it had pulled the plug due to the \"current restrictions on mass gatherings and international travel\".\n\nThe announcements came as coronavirus deaths soared in England, with more than 8,500 deaths recorded in the past week. On Thursday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was \"too early\" to say whether England's Covid restrictions would be lifted by the spring.\n\nStormzy has already been announced as a headliner for August's Reading and Leeds festivals\n\nGlastonbury's cancellation has raised fears for other music festivals this summer. However, the organisers of Glasgow's TRNSMT said there was \"reason to be optimistic\" that it could go ahead in July, with headliners Lewis Capaldi, Liam Gallagher and the Courteeners.\n\n\"Glastonbury is the biggest festival in the world and it's sad to see that, due to its enormous scale and taking several months to get the city-sized festival site ready, it's unable to go ahead this year,\" boss Geoff Ellis told Scotland's Daily Record.\n\n\"By comparison, TRNSMT is a much smaller city centre event with no camping. As such it takes us days rather than months to build TRNSMT. Therefore, we will continue to listen to and follow the advice from the government and remain positive about events later in the summer.\"\n\nHis comments were echoed by Bestival co-founder Rob Da Bank, who tweeted that \"festival season will happen in the UK this summer\", adding: \"Sadly Glasto is such a mammoth beast to plan it ran outta time.\"\n\nSacha Lord, co-founder of Manchester's Parklife festival, added that Glastonbury's cancellation was \"yet another blow\" to freelancers who work in the live music sector.\n\nSpeaking to BBC Breakfast on Friday, Mr Reed said the UK was at a \"serious point in the pandemic and festivals only want to return when it is safe to do so\".\n\nHe added that festivals were currently struggling to get insurance for coronavirus-related cancellations. Last week, MPs from the House of Commons culture select committee wrote to the chancellor, urging him to launch a Covid-19 insurance scheme to protect live music.\n\nThe appeal was backed by more than 100 industry figures, including organisers of the TRNSMT and Parklife festivals. \"We do need government to intervene in this issue,\" said Mr Reed.\n\nIn a tweet on Thursday, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden expressed his regret at Glastonbury's cancellation and said the government was \"looking at problems around getting insurance\".\n\nA government spokeswoman said on Friday they are in \"regular dialogue\" with public health experts to \"agree a realistic return date for festivals and other large events\". They added they were still helping festivals with the £1.5bn Culture Recovery Fund, \"with many already receiving this support\".\n\nLatitude Festival has been held at Henham Park, near Southwold, since 2006\n\nOther European countries, including Austria and Germany, have launched schemes to cover events that cannot be rescheduled, including music festivals. At present, England has a scheme protecting film and TV shoots, but not music.\n\nHowever, some festivals have been given support by the government's £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund, including Womad, End of the Road and Nozstock.\n\nMelvin Benn, whose company Festival Republic organises the Latitude, Download and the Reading & Leeds festivals, said that without an insurance scheme, other events would be left \"staring into the same barrel that Glastonbury stared into\".\n\n\"People can't afford to take that financial risk,\" he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nThe government is holding \"early stage talks\" with insurers, confirmed Tim Thornhill of Tyser's Insurance, which counts Glastonbury amongst its clients.\n\n\"We have helped to put in place the film and TV restart scheme, which the chancellor explained saved 14,000 jobs,\" he said. \"So if we can do something for events, that would be welcome across the industry\".\n\nWhile there is \"no guarantee\" that insurance could be provided, he said there was \"significant urgency\" to finding a solution \"within the next few months\".\n\n\"It's really important that the government supports the industry,\" added Radiohead's Colin Greenwood. \"And they need to start thinking about that now, and not when we reach that point - say in October this year - when there are enough people vaccinated for [live music] to become safe.\n\n\"Nobody wants to go to anything, or take part in anything, that's going to turn into a super-spreader event,\" he said.\n\n\"But obviously there has to be a way out of this, through vaccination. And I think we need to make sure that systems are in place so we can get back into doing what we love.\"\n\nJulian Knight MP, chair of the culture select committee, said the government was working on insurance plans, because of the importance of festivals to British culture and the economy.\n\n\"I've been in to see the chancellor,\" he told BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat. \"Finally I think there is some movement. I understand that they are dropping some of the objections that they may have had, and that we may end up with an insurance scheme.\n\n\"However, there's a danger that it's too little too late.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "PM: We are enforcing lockdown with increasing toughness\n\nSky News's Sam Coates asks whether, if the new variant is more dangerous, it is right that more people are \"out and about\" during the current lockdown than the first one last year. The PM says that \"we are enforcing the law very strictly with increasing toughness\", meaning increased fines to dissuade risky behaviour. \"It depends on everybody doing the right thing and avoiding transmission,\" he says, adding that is what will be more effective than police action. On why the new variant may be transmitting more readily, Sir Patrick Vallance says it is not believed the new variant has a higher viral load, meaning people \"shed more virus\". He suggests it may be other factors that make it more transmissible. On the current infection rate, Chris Whitty says that while infections are slowly going down \"it is at a very, very high level\". He says that among some age groups - including those 20 to 30 - infections may still be increasing. And on hospitalisations, he says that they are \"broadly flat\" for the UK as a whole, but there are variations between regions. \"That peak is not yet definitely going down yet,\" he says. Deaths will be delayed further with the peak expected in the future, he adds. Video caption: Infection level 'very, very high' and 'extremely precarious' - Prof Whitty Infection level 'very, very high' and 'extremely precarious' - Prof Whitty", "The Holyrood inquiry into the handling of harassment claims against Alex Salmond is using legal powers to seek documents from the Crown Office.\n\nThe documents include messages between SNP officials, civil servants and advisers relating to Mr Salmond's legal challenge to the complaints process.\n\nIt is the first time MSPs have issued such a formal request in the history of the Scottish Parliament.\n\nConvener Linda Fabiani said the action was necessary to continue its work.\n\nThe committee was established in the wake of a judicial review court case where the Scottish government admitted its internal investigation of two harassment complaints against Mr Salmond had been unlawful.\n\nThe government had to pay out more than £500,000 in legal expenses to the former first minister, who was later acquitted of 13 charges of sexual assault in a separate criminal trial.\n\nThe notice, formally issued by Holyrood chief executive David McGill, states that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) \"may hold documents relevant and necessary for the committee to fulfil its remit\".\n\nThe committee is seeking the release of documents detailing text or WhatsApp communications between SNP chief operating officer Susan Ruddick and Scottish government ministers, civil servants or special advisers between August 2018 and January 2019, that may be relevant to the inquiry.\n\nIt also wants to see any documents linked to the leaking of complaints to the Daily Record newspaper in August 2018.\n\nMs Fabiani said: \"Throughout this inquiry, the committee has been determined to get as much information as possible to inform its task.\n\n\"This is a step that hasn't been taken lightly, and is a first for this Parliament, but which the committee felt was needed as it continues its vital work.\"\n\nThe Crown Office has been given until 17:00 on 29 January to respond to the notice.\n\nNever before in Holyrood's history has it attempted to use this legal power of compulsion.\n\nSection 23 of the Scotland Act makes it possible to force a witness to give evidence in person or - as in this case - to hand over documents.\n\nIt sounds straightforward but lots of legal terms and conditions apply.\n\nThat's especially true in this case where MSPs are trying to compel the Crown Office - in charge of prosecutions and headed up by the Lord Advocate.\n\nThe Lord Advocate has potential get-outs if he considers releasing documents would \"prejudice criminal proceedings\" or otherwise be \"contrary to the public interest\".\n\nThat public interest test could be key.\n\nClearly, MSPs think social media messages and other material held by the Crown Office could be relevant to their inquiry and should be released.\n\nThe Crown Office has argued that disclosing evidence gathered in a criminal case for other purposes risks undermining confidence in the police and prosecutors.\n\nThe Lord Advocate has a big call to make - has the prosecution service (which he runs) or the parliament (to which he is answerable as a minister) got the better sense of where - on balance - the public interest lies?\n\nIn other developments, Mr Salmond has been given a deadline by which to appear before the committee.\n\nThe former SNP leader has been given the option of giving evidence to the committee either in person in the Parliament or by appearing remotely on a number of dates in the first week of February.\n\nMs Fabiani said if this was not possible then the \"committee regrets that it will not be able to take oral evidence from you\" although he would be free to submit further written evidence.\n\nMr Salmond's lawyers had said he was only available in the second week of February.\n\nIn a letter to the committee, the former first minister said this was because he had still to complete two further submissions but the process had been \"hampered\" by the Scottish government's \"failure\" to release its legal advice and the ongoing bid to recover documents from the Crown Office.\n\nMr Salmond's appearance is much anticipated following his written submission earlier this month in which he alleged that Nicola Sturgeon misled parliament.\n\nMs Sturgeon, who \"entirely rejects\" his claims, is expected to give evidence in the coming weeks and has said she is looking forward to putting her side across.\n\nMeanwhile, the committee has once again written to the Scottish government urging it to waive legal privilege and release the advice it received from lawyers regarding the case.\n\nA Crown Office spokesman said: \"COPFS has received the correspondence from the committee and will respond in early course.\"\n\nA Scottish government spokeswoman said: \"We will consider the committee's letter - but the Scottish government has already taken unprecedented steps to provide the committee with access to relevant information to allow it to fulfil its remit.\n\n\"The government has, exceptionally, provided the committee with access to a summary of the legal advice on the judicial review on a confidential basis.\"", "Eric Vice, 64, was on his way to Swansea University when he crashed into a bridge\n\nA bus driver who crashed his double-decker bus into a bridge, killing a passenger, has been jailed.\n\nJessica Jing Ren, 36, died 11 days after the bus, which was going to Swansea University, hit a bridge on Neath Road on 12 December 2019.\n\nEric Vice, 64, pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving at Swansea Crown Court.\n\nHe was sentenced to two years and six months.\n\nMs Ren had been on the front row of the upper deck of the bus and was on her phone at the time of the crash, the court heard.\n\nShe was a visiting academic at the university's accounting and finance department from Huanghuai University in China, where she had a five-year-old son with her husband, who is also a lecturer.\n\nProsecutor Carina Hughes said the crash left trapped passengers covered in debris and forced to crouch down in the flattened upper deck while they waited to be rescued.\n\nOlympic gold medallist and 400m hurdles world record holder Kevin Young, who was studying at the university, saw Ms Ren hit the front windscreen.\n\nEric Vice is \"consumed with guilt\" his defence barrister said\n\n\"Mr Young says that she was slowly trying to mouth some words to him, but it was inaudible.\n\n\"He described that he held her hand to try and comfort her until the police and paramedics arrived.\"\n\nMs Hughes said Ms Ren had been unconscious when cut out of the bus by firefighters 90 minutes later and was airlifted to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, with spine injuries, leg fractures, lacerations and a severe brain injury.\n\nAerospace engineering student Richard Thompson, 20, was seriously injured in the crash and required facial reconstruction. Mr Young suffered a head wound and two broken ribs.\n\nThe court heard passenger statements saying the bus appeared to be running late and the driver had been waving passengers on to the bus without scanning their tickets.\n\nMs Hughes said when Vice encountered traffic between Swansea University's Singleton campus and its Swansea Bay campus, he decided to take a different route, one he had taken several times before when driving a single-decker bus.\n\nShe said 21 passengers has been on board, 13 of whom were on the top deck.\n\nMs Hughes said Vice had driven past two height restriction warnings on the route.\n\nThe bus went under the stone arch of the railway bridge, but hit the lower steel bridge.\n\nIan Ibrahim, defending, said it had been \"without doubt a catastrophic error of judgement.\"\n\nHe added: \"He is consumed with guilt - he's been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and severe depression.\"\n\nJessica Jing Ren was a visiting academic at Swansea University from Huanghuai University in China\n\nJudge Geraint Williams said: \"That fatal error of yours resulted in the death of a promising young academic.\n\n\"Following the crash you stayed at the scene where you witnessed first-hand the carnage you had created.\n\n\"I can't think of a word short of carnage to describe the scene on the upstairs of that bus - but it could have been many, many times worse.\n\n\"The stark reality in this case is that your impatience that day robbed you of the care which ordinarily you applied to your professional driving.\"\n\nThe scene inside the bus after it crashed into a railway bridge in Neath Road, Swansea\n\nAt the time of her death, Ms Ren's family said in a statement: \"Jessica was the loving wife of Wenquang Wang, a devoted mother to five-year-old Yushu Wang and the cherished Daughter of Mingqi Ren.\n\n\"A much loved and talented academic, Jessica will be deeply missed by her family and her friends both in China and in Swansea and will leave a great void in their lives.\"\n\nIn a statement released after Ms Ren died, Swansea University said: \"We are deeply shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Jessica Jing Ren.\n\n\"Our thoughts are with Jessica's family at this time and we extend our deepest condolences at their tragic loss.\"", "Daniel Craig with director Cary Joji Fukunaga on the No Time To Die set in 2019\n\nThe release of the next James Bond film has been delayed for a third time because of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nNo Time To Die had already been pushed back twice, and will now debut globally on 8 October, an announcement on the film's website said.\n\nIt had originally been due to hit screens in April 2020.\n\nThe film is the 25th instalment in the Bond franchise, and marks Daniel Craig's final appearance as British secret service agent 007.\n\nIt also features Lea Seydoux and Rami Malek.\n\nThe delay will come as a further blow to cinemas that have been forced to shut for months at a time because of lockdowns.\n\nEarlier this week, leading film-makers including Danny Boyle and Sir Steve McQueen wrote to the UK Government, calling for financial support for cinema chains because \"UK cinema stands on the edge of an abyss\".\n\nCineworld said in October, when No Time To Die was pushed back for the second time, that delays to big budget releases meant the industry was \"unviable\".\n\nBond's latest move sparked a flurry of other delays to major releases. Sony has pushed back Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Peter Rabbit 2, Jared Leto's Morbius, Tom Holland's Uncharted and Cinderella, which will star singer Camila Cabello; while Universal has moved Tom Hanks' Bios from April to November.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by James Bond 007 This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nThe UK Cinema Association said the decision to postpone No Time To Die again, \"while clearly disappointing, is at the same time not surprising given the current situation around Covid-19 in the UK as well as the US and other major film territories\".\n\nThe postponement of Daniel Craig's swansong and other films \"underlines the need for ongoing support for the UK cinema sector\", the trade body's chief executive Phil Clapp said.\n\nThe association is calling on the government to provide \"direct funding\" to chains, which represent 80% of ticket sales.\n\nOne of the major chains, Vue, said the delay was \"understandable\", and that the continuing attempts to release the film in cinemas \"is further testament to our shared belief in a bright future for the big screen\".\n\nHowever, the latest postponement could stoke speculation that the film may ultimately skip cinemas and be released on a streaming platform.\n\nMajor Disney titles like Pixar's Soul and its live-action remake of Mulan bypassed cinemas, premiering instead on the Disney+ streaming service.\n\nWonder Woman 1984, meanwhile, was made available in the US on the HBO Max streaming service on the same day it received a limited cinema release.\n\nLast year, Warner Bros announced its 2021 titles - including sci-fi epic Dune and The Matrix 4 - would all adopt a similar dual release pattern, escalating tensions between Hollywood and US movie theatres.\n\nRami Malek plays the villainous Safin in the thrice-delayed film\n\nThe Dig, a new historical drama starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan, was due to be released in selected UK cinemas this month. Now, the film will only be available on Netflix from 29 January.\n\nAsked whether No Time To Die might go down the same route, Fiennes - who will reprise his role as M in the film - recently told BBC News: \"That's a good question and I'm not really in a position to answer it.\n\n\"I would love the idea that people could go to the cinema and have the full effect of the big-screen energy behind the Bond, but I'm sure it's something the people who make these executive decisions are probably considering.\n\n\"I really hope we come through this so people can go to the cinema. Maybe they just have to hold their nerve. But of course we don't know, and there may be financial reasons or imperatives that [mean] they have to put it on a streaming system.\"\n\nIf No Time To Die is indeed released in cinemas in October, it will arrive a full six years on from the release of its 2015 predecessor Spectre.\n\nThat won't be far behind the six years and four months that separated the release of Licence to Kill in summer 1989 and GoldenEye in late 1995 - the biggest gap between two Bond films.\n\nThe last Bond film, 2015's Spectre, took almost $900m (£690m) at worldwide box offices.\n\nOther blockbusters to have been delayed by the pandemic include action sequel Top Gun: Maverick and Marvel's Black Widow.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "One of the mysteries of Covid-19 is why oxygen levels in the blood can drop to dangerously low levels without the patient noticing.\n\nIt is known as \"silent hypoxia\".\n\nAs a result, patients have been arriving in hospital in far worse health than they realised and, in some cases, too late to treat effectively.\n\nBut a potentially life-saving solution, in the form of a pulse oximeter, allows patients to monitor their oxygen levels at home, and costs about £20.\n\nThey are being rolled out for high-risk Covid patients in the UK, and the doctor leading the scheme thinks everyone should consider buying one.\n\nA normal oxygen level in the blood is between 95% and 100%.\n\n\"With Covid, we were admitting patients with oxygen levels in the 70s or low-or-middle 80s,\" said Dr Matt Inada-Kim, a consultant in acute medicine at Hampshire Hospitals.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's Inside Health: \"It was a really curious and scary presentation and really made us rethink what we were doing.\"\n\nDr Inada-Kim became the national clinical lead of the Covid Oximetry@home project.\n\nA pulse oximeter slips over your middle finger and shines a light into the body. It measures how much of the light is absorbed in order to calculate oxygen levels in the blood.\n\nIn England, they are being given to people with Covid who are over 65, younger but have a health problem, or anyone doctors are concerned about. Similar schemes are being rolled out across the UK.\n\nPeople measure and record their oxygen levels three times a day.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by Health Education England - HEE This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nIf oxygen levels drop to 93% or 94%, then people speak to their GP or call 111. If they go below 92%, people should go to A&E or call 999 for an ambulance.\n\nStudies, which have not been reviewed by other scientists, have shown even small drops below 95% are linked to an increased risk of dying.\n\nDr Inada-Kim said: \"The point of this whole strategy is to try to get in early to prevent people getting that sick, by admitting patients at a more salvageable point in their illness.\"\n\nChris Harris, who is 70, was one of the first patients to benefit from the scheme.\n\nHe was being treated for a urinary infection in November last year, but then when he developed unexpected flu-like symptoms his GP sent him for a Covid test. It was positive.\n\n\"I don't mind admitting I was in tears, it was a very stressful, frightening time,\" he told Inside Health.\n\nHis oxygen levels dropped a couple of percentage points below the normal zone, so after a call with his GP, he went to hospital.\n\nAt this point he was still feeling fine, but things changed the day after he was admitted.\n\n\"My breathing started to get a little bit laboured, I had a high temperature as the days went on, [my oxygen levels] were progressively getting lower, they were in their 80s,\" he told me.\n\nChris was treated, did not need intensive care and has made a full recovery.\n\nHe said: \"I may have gone [to hospital] as the very last resort and that's the frightening thing. It was the oxygen meter that forced me to go, I would have just sat it out thinking I would recover.\n\n\"I am extremely lucky and very, very grateful.\"\n\nHis GP, Dr Caroline O'Keefe, says she has seen a massive increase in the number of people being monitored.\n\nShe said: \"On Christmas Day we were monitoring 44 patients, today I have 160 patients who I am monitoring daily. So we are certainly busy.\"\n\n\"We've had to quadruple the size of our team in the last two weeks.\"\n\nOverall, NHS England has supplied around 300,000 pulse oximeters for the home-monitoring scheme.\n\nDr Inada-Kim says there isn't definitive proof that the gadget saves lives and it could take until April to know for sure. However, the early signs are all positive.\n\n\"What we think we can see are the early seeds of a reduction in the length of stay after a hospital admission, an improvement in survival and a reduction in the pressures on the emergency services,\" he said.\n\nHe is so convinced of their role in tackling silent hypoxia that he said everyone should consider buying one.\n\n\"Personally I would, and I know a number of colleagues who have bought pulse oximeters to distribute to their loved ones,\" he said.\n\nHe advised checking they had a CE Kitemark and to avoid apps on smartphones, which he said were not as reliable.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA mosque has become the first in the UK to open as a Covid vaccination centre.\n\nThe Al-Abbas Islamic Centre in Balsall Heath, Birmingham is expected to vaccinate up to 500 people a day.\n\nThe imam, Sheikh Nuru Mohammed, said he hoped it would help dispel false information that the vaccine was forbidden in Islamic law.\n\nNHS England said it fears disinformation could be causing some in the UK's South Asian communities to reject the Covid vaccine.\n\n\"It will send a strong message to our Muslim brothers and sisters. We are doing this to say a big 'no' to fake news and a big 'yes' to the vaccine,\" Sheikh Nuru said.\n\n\"Muslim scholars advise us to get the vaccine because the sanctity of life is important in Islam.\"\n\nImam Sheikh Nuru Mohammed said he hopes the opening of the vaccination centre will help dispel false information\n\nDr Rizwan Alidina, a trustee of the mosque and member of the Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group said: \"The significance of the venue is obviously quite evident with particularly the Muslim community being one of the communities with a bit of a lower uptake than we would otherwise have expected.\"\n\nHe said there had been a good response to the opening of the centre at the mosque and hoped it would soon be carrying out between 300 and 500 vaccinations a day.\n\nNHS England regional medical director for London Dr Vin Diwakar told a Downing Street press conference some communities had \"legitimate and understandable concerns about the vaccines\".\n\nHe said despite it being a \"safe and effective vaccine\", for some Asian and black communities there were \"longstanding concerns\" that \"go back generations\".\n\nDr Diwakar said some people were \"told by their grandparents that experiments were done in the early part of the last century, that unethical experiments were done way back in the 60s\".\n\nSpeaking at the Downing Street briefing, Home Secretary Priti Patel also sought to counter disinformation targeted at people from minority ethnic backgrounds.\n\n\"This vaccine is safe for us all,\" she said.\n\n\"It will protect you and your family... So I urge everyone from across our wonderfully diverse country to get the vaccine when their turn comes to keep us all safe.\"\n\nOne of the first to get the jab at he Birmingham mosque, retired GP Dr Masud Ahmad, said his message to others in the local community was \"that it's quite safe to have it and they should have it\".\n\nOther places of worship, including Salisbury Cathedral and Lichfield Cathedral, opened as vaccine centres last week.\n\nThe Al-Abbas Islamic Centre is administering the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Ministers will discuss at a meeting on Monday whether to tighten restrictions at UK borders - including the possibility of hotel quarantines for travellers, the BBC has been told.\n\nAt a Downing Street news conference on Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not rule out taking further action.\n\nIt comes amid increased concerns over the spread of new coronavirus variants.\n\nUnder current travel curbs, almost all people arriving in the UK must test negative for Covid to be allowed entry.\n\nThe test must be taken in the 72 hours before travelling and anyone arriving without one faces a fine of up to £500.\n\nAll passengers are also required to quarantine for up to 10 days, although the isolation period can be cut short with a second negative test after five days in England.\n\nThe only people not subject to the conditions are children under 11, hauliers, air, international rail and maritime crew, and passengers from the Common Travel Area - comprised of the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man\n\nScotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own quarantine rules, which differ slightly.\n\nAs of Monday, travel corridors, which exempted passengers arriving from some countries from quarantine, were suspended throughout the UK.\n\nAsked whether the government would bring in further measures at UK borders, Mr Johnson said: \"I really don't rule it out, we may need to take further measures still.\n\n\"We may need to go further to protect our borders.\n\n\"We don't want to put that [efforts to control Covid] at risk by having a new variant come back in.\"\n\nOne more infectious variant , which was first identified in Kent, has already spread widely across the UK.\n\nAnd, at the briefing, the prime minister announced that early evidence suggests this variant may be more deadly.\n\nOther new variants causing concern have been identified in South Africa and Brazil in the weeks since the Kent variant was discovered.\n\nThose discoveries led to direct flights to the UK from all South American countries and several southern African countries being suspended.\n\nScientists fear these variants discovered in other countries may interfere with the effectiveness of vaccines and evade parts of the immune system.\n\nWhile those travelling into the UK are asked to abide by the 10-day isolation and told they can be subject to checks, London mayor Sadiq Khan is among those who have called for the UK to adopt the use of enforced quarantine in hotel rooms.\n\nThe policy is among the measures in Australia that has limited the country to just 28,750 positive cases during the entire pandemic, fewer than the UK currently has every day.\n\nTravellers who choose to go to Australia have to pay for their rooms at one of a number of selected quarantine facilities - and have all their meals delivered to their room throughout a stay of at least 14 days. They get tested twice for Covid during that period and if they test positive their quarantine is extended for a further 14 days.\n\nMeanwhile, passengers arriving into London's Heathrow airport this week have complained of queues at passport control and what they described as poor social distancing, after the latest travel restrictions - requiring travellers to show proof of their negative Covid tests - came into force.\n\nOn Friday, former British ambassador Peter Westmacott posted a picture on Twitter of long queues at the airport.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Peter Westmacott This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA government spokesman said people \"should not be travelling unless absolutely necessary\".\n\nThe statement added: \"You must have proof of a negative test and a completed passenger locator form before arriving.\n\n\"Border Force have been ramping up enforcement and those not complying could be fined £500.\n\n\"It's ultimately up to individual airports to ensure social distancing on site.\"\n\nWith all parts of the UK under strict virus rules amid high levels of infection, only essential foreign travel is permitted in the current advice from the Foreign Office.\n\nA further 40,261 cases, and 1,401 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were reported on Friday in the UK.", "The bunker is in a rural location near St Agnes, Cornwall\n\nAn \"eerie\" underground bunker built during the Cold War has been put up for sale with a guide price of £25,000.\n\nThe former monitoring post near St Agnes, Cornwall was built in 1961 and is accessed down a 14ft (4.2m) ladder.\n\nSellers have suggested \"a variety of uses\" for the \"out of the ordinary\" property, subject to planning permission from Cornwall Council.\n\nIt was used in the Cold War to monitor aircraft and any potential nuclear threats, said auctioneer Adam Cook.\n\nThe auction will be held online in February\n\nThe bunker was manned by volunteers and consists of an access shaft, a toilet and a monitoring room.\n\nIt is being auctioned online as part of a triangular piece of land on 18 February.\n\nThe site was first opened in 1961 and closed in 1991 and is accessed down a \"rustic vehicular track\", according to the online advert.\n\nMr Cook said it is a former Royal Observer Corps Monitoring Post \"but people love calling it a nuclear bunker\".\n\nHe said the bunker would have been one of around 1,500 monitoring posts built in coastal regions in the UK between the 1960s and 1990s.\n\nOld bunk beds remain in the bunker\n\nAccessed by a hatch, Mr Cook described the reinforced concrete bunker as \"a little bit eerie when you're there on your own\".\n\n\"I'm glad I've been down there...[to have] half a chance of explaining it to customers.\"\n\nHe said there was still a sense of what it used to be with an \"old bunk bed\" and a toilet \"which I don't think you'd fancy using but it certainly gives you the atmosphere\".\n\nMr Cook explained it is \"difficult to pigeon hole it onto any one kind of purchaser\" and said the buyer could be anyone from a history enthusiast to a landowner.\n\n\"All kinds could be interested and we're already getting lots of calls about it.\"\n\nFollow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your comments and story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.\n• None Cold War bunker up for sale for £25,000", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Some of the volunteers are working to prepare bodies for burial\n\nA mosque in east London has closed for all communal prayer. Instead it is serving two purposes - providing funerals and feeding the local community. Michael Buchanan finds a team of volunteers there battling to deal with the pandemic.\n\nThe family shuffled quietly past a crate of milk cartons. They came through the small porch, towards the open coffin. Inside was a woman - a loved one - who died of Covid two days ago. The coffin sat feet away from tins and packets to be distributed by the local food bank. The milk was the latest delivery.\n\nIt is impossible to capture the enormous consequences of the pandemic. But last Saturday lunchtime, this tragic image - one of grief and hardship coming together - came close, for me at least.\n\nCovid-19 has made extraordinary demands of so many different people, but what is currently happening at the Masjid Ibrahim and Islamic Centre in east London is truly remarkable. Situated on a busy road, with the noise of ambulance sirens regularly shattering its peaceful interior, the mosque has closed to communal prayer and is open for two other purposes - to provide a funeral service and a food bank to the local community. Both are inundated.\n\n\"We've had so many bodies coming in. It's quite shocking. It's one after another after another. We've never had that situation before,\" says Sofia Bhatti. Alongside her friend, Tabassum Khokhar - known as Tabs - the pair are unheralded heroes. They volunteer to wash the bodies of Covid-positive women prior to burial.\n\nThe practice, called Ghusl, is a sacred Islamic ritual and is usually performed by the deceased's relatives, who cleanse and shroud the body. But Covid restrictions mean families are currently denied that religious honour, so volunteers like Sofia and Tabs are taking on what they consider to be a privileged task.\n\n\"We actually believe that when we are shrouding here, that God is shrouding the soul at the same time,\" says Tabs, standing by a coffin. By day, she works as a teaching support worker in a local school, so the PPE that the mosque provides - bodysuit, footwear, two sets of gloves, masks and visors - is crucial for her. \"I make sure my PPE is secure because it's not just about me, it's about my family. I have an 81-year-old mother.\"\n\nThe women are seeing first hand - and in graphic detail - the pressure the NHS is under. \"Very often we see bodies coming in with a lot of medical equipment still attached to them,\" says Sofia. \"Tubes and pipes and catheters still attached. So it makes our job a little bit harder.\" One of the women they washed during my visit had died in the ambulance, never actually reaching hospital.\n\nVery often we see bodies coming in with a lot of medical equipment still attached to them. Tubes and pipes and catheters\n\nThere are far more bodies than during the first peak and there is a larger age range. One day this week, the mosque was handling seven bodies. A few days earlier they said they'd processed 10 funerals, all arranged for free and paid for by donations. Before the pandemic, they'd handled two to three funerals a week. The two local hospital trusts in east London have each had more than 1,000 Covid deaths since the start of the pandemic. More have died at home.\n\nThe borough of Newham, where the mosque sits, has suffered a disproportionate number of deaths. Home to the Olympic Park, the 2012 London games were meant to regenerate this area. Yet it retains high levels of poverty and overcrowded housing. Add in a diverse population, rich in south Asian culture, and large numbers of people who can't work from home and the virus has sadly ripped through its residents.\n\nIsfand Aslam said he's shocked by what's going on. His father, Mohammad, died on 3 January, a week after falling ill. His positive Covid test result arrived two days after his death. The 85-year-old was a committee member at the Masjid Ibrahim and despite his age had been in good health. \"It took a week between him passing away and getting buried. Initially I was getting a lot of condolences from friends. But by the end of that week I am giving condolences to three friends because their fathers had passed away. It's now got to the stage where everybody we know knows somebody who has passed away.\"\n\nThe sheer number of deaths is impacting the area's main Muslim cemetery. Normally, the Gardens of Peace buries three to four people each day. They're currently carrying out an average of 15 funerals daily. Overall, they are about 50% busier than usual. They can no longer promise burials within 24 hours, as per Muslim custom.\n\nDespite this, there is still a concerning number of people in the local area who either don't think Covid is real or are resistant to taking a vaccine. There was anger among some community leaders before Christmas when it emerged the Bangladeshi High Commission in London held a cultural evening to celebrate its independence. Photos from the event, on 16 December, showed a group - including the High Commissioner herself - standing close together with no masks or social distancing. The High Commission said performers had been Covid tested and it had issued 10 videos in Bangla urging British-Bangladeshis to adhere to UK government guidance.\n\nIt's now got to the stage where everybody we know knows somebody who has passed away\n\nTo counter disinformation among its members, an imam at the Masjid Ibrahim, Mohammad Ammar, filmed a short video of himself being injected with the vaccine and urged his congregation to follow suit. Imam Ammar has actually been furloughed by the mosque as it focusses all its resources on battling the pandemic, including feeding its local community.\n\nThe virus forced the mosque to open a food bank in March. It is still running 10 months on. On Monday night, I watched a steady stream of people gather in the gloom at the rear of the mosque to fill their bags. Most were collecting on behalf of a larger household, and the mosque says they're currently feeding 350 families each week, including students, refugees, people with no access to public funds and those who've lost income.\n\nAmong those collecting food on Monday was Mohammad Rahman. A 42-year-old chef, he lost his job in an Indian restaurant three months ago. The married father of two boys - aged eight and six - told me he was already in rent arrears and struggling to pay his energy bills. \"My son says 'where is the pizza'? But I have no money. He says '[can I have] chicken and chips'? But I have no money. The shops are open, but no money\", he adds, taking his hands from his pockets.\n\nIn normal times, the Masjid Ibrahim would attract about 1,100 worshippers over three floors for Friday prayers, and there has been some pressure on the leadership to reopen for communal worship. But Asim Uddin, chairman of the mosque, says now is not the time. \"Prayers, yes, it's important. But right now what is the need? The need of the community is they want to be fed and they want a place where they can respectfully bury their loved ones. And the demand is overwhelming. Right now, it's better they stay home, and they can pray at home until the situation goes back to normal.\"\n\nMichael Buchanan is the BBC's social affairs correspondent and has been reporting on the impact of the pandemic on communities in the UK. Last year, he visited the town of Pontypool to find out what impact coronavirus restrictions were having in Wales.", "UK retailers could abandon goods EU customers want to return, with some even thinking of burning them because it is cheaper than bringing them home.\n\nThey say the new EU trade deal has put costly duties on returns at a time when firms are already struggling.\n\nThe BBC has been told UK High Street and luxury brands have a mounting volume of goods stuck with courier services on the continent.\n\nNone of the retailers would comment on the problem.\n\nAdam Mansell, boss of the UK Fashion & Textile Association (UKFT), said it's \"cheaper for retailers to write off the cost of the goods than dealing with it all, either abandoning or potentially burning them.\"\n\nSince 1 January, lots of European customers have been presented with an unexpected customs invoice when signing for goods they've ordered from the UK. These new customs charges are a result of the new EU trade deal with the UK.\n\n\"It's part of the ongoing small print of the deal,\" said Mr Mansell. \"If you're in Germany and buying goods from the UK, you as the German customer are the importer bringing goods into the EU.\n\n\"You then have a courier company knocking on the door giving you a customs clearance invoice that you need to pay to receive your goods.\"\n\nMany customers automatically reject the goods, refusing to pay the additional surcharges, leaving couriers to take them away.\n\nAbout 30% of items bought online are returned, according to figures from Statista. That has meant large volumes of goods are heading back to the UK.\n\nWhen goods arrive back at depots on the Continent, there is new customs paperwork to complete. \"Export clearance charge, import charge arrival, import VAT charge and depending on the goods a rules of origin document as well,\" said Mr Mansell.\n\n\"Lots of large businesses don't have a handle on it, never mind smaller ones.\"\n\nThe BBC has seen a document that states four major UK High Street fashion retailers are stockpiling returns in Belgium, Ireland and Germany. One brand will incur charges of almost £20,000 to get the returns back.\n\nCouriers and freight businesses that ship from the UK to Europe are also experiencing delays getting goods to the Continent because of the new customs clearances.\n\n\"It's a bigger change than we thought possible,\" explained Shona Brown from Speedy Freight, a courier service. \"Before, we'd get the order to Germany and off the driver would go.\n\n\"Now we've got to do export entry detailing where was it made, the driver needs to go to the customs office at Dover, then customs in Germany on arrival and then sort out the VAT. There are so many hoops to jump through, it's so laborious.\"\n\n\"You've got to have manpower to figure out what to do. And with people working from home it's difficult. For small businesses, it is a huge thing for people to do,\" she added.\n\nUlla Vitting Richards runs her sustainable fashion brand VILDNIS from the UK. She has stopped exporting to her fastest growing market, the EU, because of the new customs processes.\n\n\"I've been involved in logistics before. I expected it to be bad and I am used to shipping to the USA which is difficult. But this is just mind-blowing,\" she said.\n\n\"Every day there is another layer. In the first two weeks we couldn't get answers. For two years we were told to get ready for Brexit. But for these we couldn't prepare.\"\n\nShe added: \"I don't think we can increase prices but we might just have to say that we can't make the business with the EU work. It is a real shame. There is a huge interest in sustainable fashion in Europe and we might have to walk away from it.\"\n\nUlla did speak with the Department for International Trade for help and advice. She was told that setting up a subsidiary distribution hub in Europe might be a good idea: \"He told me we'd be best off moving stock to a warehouse in Germany and get them to handle it.\"\n\nRetailers in the UK and Europe that trade across the new customs border are all still adapting to the rules. Hauliers and customs agents are facing a steep learning curve too.\n\nThe government said: \"Now the UK has left the EU customs union and Single Market, there are new rules and processes businesses will need to follow.\n\n\"We have encouraged companies new to dealing with customs declarations to appoint a specialist to deal with import and export declarations on their behalf - and we made more than £80m available to expand the capacity of the customs agents market.\"\n\nIt added: \"Most businesses use a specialist such as a customs broker, freight forwarder or fast parcel operator to deal with this.\n\n\"The government will continue to work closely with businesses to ensure they are able to trade effectively under the new rules.\"", "The water is warmer than the air and is creating a mist along Dynevor Road\n\nThe coalmining heritage of Wales has been implicated in flooding of homes - but what has happened in Skewen?\n\nAbout 80 people were evacuated from the Neath Port Talbot village, with at least eight streets left under water.\n\nCouncil leader Rob Jones says the flood appears to be related to mine works - but the volume of water involved has hampered a full assessment so far.\n\nThe Coal Authority is investigating how \"historic underground mining features\" in the area exacerbated the problem.\n\nA geologist says there are tens of thousands of old mine shafts across the former south Wales coalfield and it is \"incredibly difficult\" to monitor them all.\n\nSkewen lies within an old coal mining hotspot, with several former colliery sites near the village that operated in the 19th and early 20th Century.\n\nThere were colliery sites near what is now Drummau Road, in the north of the village and another close to Old Road, near Neath Abbey.\n\nSkewen was part of a collection of collieries that stretched between Neath and Llanelli on the western side of south Wales' coalfield.\n\nGraham Levins, secretary of the Welsh Mines Preservation Trust, said old mines often contain groundwater which can flood in heavy rain.\n\nHe said: \"A lot of them go very, very deep down, much below the local water level and that's why they had all the big wheels to pump the water out.\n\n\"It fills up with water and will find a way out. Normally rainfall you get it doesn't cause a lot of problems but when you get really heavy rain, the water drains down through the ground and builds up.\"\n\nStreets were turned into rivers in Skewen\n\nGeologist Tom Backhouse said water was coming out of an area near the junction of Goshen Park and Drummau Road, where there is a record of a mine shaft dating from the turn of the 20th Century.\n\nIt then started \"rushing down\" Drummau Road, causing the flooding that forced evacuations.\n\n\"What we can expect to have happened is that the water level in the mines rose to a point where it's burst out of that entry point from the mine workings below.\n\n\"Also, there are images of very ochre like orange-coloured water and again, that may well be issuing from the mine workings on the highlands to the east of the property on the hill behind.\n\n\"That may be where the shallow workings have flooded.\"\n\nHe said old mine working across the former coalfield area hold water at a certain depth, but when an event such as Storm Christoph drops \"a huge amount in a small area\", the levels rise quickly.\n\n\"As it gets closer and closer to the surface, it basically looks for an escape, the pressure builds up,\" he continued.\n\n\"What it looks like has happened on the junction of Goshen Park and Drummau Road, where the mine shaft is recorded, is that pressure has built up at that point and then burst out through the shaft which is very likely to have been capped with wood or something like that.\n\n\"Where you've got those mine shafts, which ultimately are vertical tunnels down into the mine workings below, the water has literally forced itself up through that shaft, and the pressure is obviously so great it's caused this devastating flash flood.\"\n\nAs well as properties, vehicles were submerged in water\n\nThere are about 13 shafts recorded within about 820ft (250m) of the one in Goshen Park, so Mr Backhouse said it is possible more than one may have burst.\n\nThere are tens of thousands in south Wales and he said it was \"incredibly difficult\" to check them all, but there were \"tell tale signs\" as to why they may collapse such as age or what type of developments are around them.\n\nThe clean up has continued on Friday morning\n\n\"Not to try and fear-monger or anything but of course this sort of thing can happen again,\" he said.\n\n\"If another event like Storm Christoph happens, the water levels in the mine rises as quickly as it did, there's absolutely nothing to say that it wouldn't happen again in the future.\n\n\"And obviously as climate changes and we have many more events like Storm Christoph, they are going to increase in frequency, they are going to be much more severe.\n\n\"The Coal Authority will have to consider the risk in places like Skewen, and they'll have to understand how it will affect residents and proactively manage that and look at how to reduce the risks for residents.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Infection level \"very, very high\" and \"extremely precarious\" - Prof Whitty\n\nThe UK is at an \"extremely precarious\" point, according to the chief medical adviser, despite signs Covid infections are beginning to fall.\n\nThe virus's reproduction rate is estimated to be at or below one for the first time since early December.\n\nAnything below one means the epidemic is shrinking.\n\nBut cases are falling from a \"very, very high level\", Prof Chris Whitty said - and may still be increasing in some areas.\n\n\"A very small change and it could start taking off again from an extremely high base,\" he warned.\n\nSpeaking at a Number 10 press conference on Friday evening, the UK's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said the \"awful\" death rate would stay high \"for a little while before it starts coming down\".\n\n\"That was always what was predicted...and I think the information about the new variant doesn't change that\".\n\nEarly evidence suggests the variant of coronavirus that emerged in the UK may be more deadly, although findings are preliminary and there is a high level of uncertainty.\n\nDr Susan Hopkins at Public Health England said there was \"evidence from some but not all data sources which suggests that the variant of concern which was first detected in the UK may lead to a higher risk of death than the non-variant.\n\n\"Evidence on this variant is still emerging and more work is under way to fully understand how it behaves.\"\n\nThe Department of Health and Social Care said while the UK's R or reproduction number, might be below one - meaning a shrinking epidemic - overall, \"cases remain dangerously high and...it is essential that everyone continues to stay at home, whether they have had the vaccine or not.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures suggested cases were decreasing slightly or levelling off across Britain.\n\nBut infections are falling more slowly than they did during the first lockdown - by somewhere around a quarter every fortnight compared with a halving back in April.\n\nA further 40,261 cases, and 1,401 deaths were recorded on Friday in the UK.\n\nMore than five million people had been given a first dose of the vaccine by 21 January, and about half a million had received their second dose.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has previously said it is \"too early\" to say whether England's Covid restrictions will be able to end in the spring.\n\nWhile cases are falling or stable across the rest of the UK, in Northern Ireland cases have continued to rise and the new, more infectious strain has overtaken the older variant of the virus as of the start of January.\n\nDuring the week ending 16 January, about one in 55 people in England had the virus, the ONS estimated, with one in 35 in London testing positive.\n\nOne in 100 people had the virus in Scotland and one in 70 in Wales.\n\nBut in Northern Ireland infections have shot up from an an estimated one in 200 people testing positive in the week to 2 January, to one in 60 last week.\n\nONS statistician Sarah Crofts said while fewer people were testing positive in England, \"rates remain high and we estimate the level of infection is still over one million people\".\n\nAnd, she pointed out, \"the picture across the UK is mixed\".\n\nA survey by tech company ZOE and King's College London, based on swabs of people with and without symptoms, also suggested the R number could be at 0.8.\n\nAnd it estimated symptomatic cases had fallen by a quarter since last week.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What is the R number and what does it mean?\n\nMeanwhile, the proportion of people testing positive for the new Covid variant has risen considerably in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, ONS data suggest.\n\nBut the new strain, which remains by far the main source of infections in England, has yet to overtake the old strain in Scotland and Wales.\n\nWithin England, the proportion of infections that appear to be due to the new variant remained stable, but the gap between the regions is narrowing.\n\nIn the figures covering 2 January, 80% of infections looked like the new variant in London compared to 30% in the North East.\n\nTwo weeks later, that gap had narrowed to 70% in London versus 50% in the North East.\n\nIt is not clear what is behind the small fall in London, but it may be down to behaviour change, or other variants like the South Africa strain now in circulation and diluting the numbers.", "It would be unrealistic to expect all lockdown restrictions in Northern Ireland to be lifted on 5 March, Health Minister Robin Swann has said.\n\nOn Thursday, the executive announced that the current restrictions, which have been in place since 26 December, would be extended to 5 March.\n\nBut ministers were also told restrictions may have to remain in place until after the Easter holidays.\n\nMr Swann said the decision to extend restrictions had not been easy.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme, he said: \"Can I say that'll we'll have to extend them at that point [5 March]? At this time, no I can't.\n\n\"But it would, I think, be unrealistic to think that we'd be able to lift every restriction come that date because we do see where this virus is going, the trajectory it's taking, the large number of positive cases that we are managing but also the large number of hospital admissions that we currently have.\n\nRobin Swann says the decision to extend the restrictions had not been easy\n\n\"There has to be a consideration and planning put into place - we know Covid's going to be with us for a very long time, we also know it will take time for our vaccination process to kick in and have that major effect.\"\n\nA lockdown closing non-essential retailers and encouraging employees to work from home began after Christmas.\n\nFamily gatherings are prohibited and people have been ordered to stay at home for all but essential reasons.\n\nSchools are closed to most pupils until after February's half-term break but a paper looking at reopening will be put to ministers at next week's executive meeting.\n\nThe Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church and the Methodist Church have all confirmed that in-person worship will continue to be suspended until 5 March in accordance with the executive's decision on the restrictions.\n\nThe churches say there are exceptions for weddings and funerals and private prayer.\n\nTwelve more Covid-19 related deaths were recorded in Northern Ireland on Friday, taking the overall death toll recorded by the Department of Health to 1,704.\n\nIt is a story that changes not only by the day but by the hour and is dictated by numbers.\n\nNever before have we scrutinised hospital figures so closely, especially this week.\n\nAnd the numbers are important as we know how many intensive care unit (ICU) beds are available across Northern Ireland and potentially how many will be required in the next 24 hours.\n\nOn Wednesday, 33 ICU beds were available - on Friday that dropped to 18.\n\nBut as we enter a difficult 72 hours, there is a feeling that the health system will cope.\n\nA regional approach to the crisis means no hospital is left to shoulder responsibility on its own.\n\nEvery afternoon a call is made about whether an additional \"pod\" - a bay of beds - is required to be opened at the Nightingale facility at Belfast City Hospital.\n\nIf not, it is felt that hospitals can hold their own for another 24 hours.\n\nCoping is good but comes at a terrible cost - keeping a lid on Covid-19 is only possible because so much else within hospitals has been cancelled.\n\nA heavy price has been paid and will continue to be paid for months, possibly years to come.\n\nOn Wednesday it was announced more than 100 medically-trained military personnel would be deployed in Northern Ireland to help hospital staff deal with Covid-19 pressures after a request by Mr Swann.\n\nSpeaking at Stormont's Health Committee on Thursday, Sinn Féin MLA Pat Sheehan said: \"My only concern is that they [military personnel] don't get in the way of the real professionals who are doing the work to save lives.\n\n\"This is slamming the dead cat down on the table to deflect attention away from the inadequacies in the health department at the minute.\"\n\nOn Friday, Mr Swann responded by saying he was \"disappointed and disgusted\" by Mr Sheehan's comments.\n\nHe added: \"The majority of our health service workers are actually welcoming them because this is a tough period of time that we are entering into in the health service.\n\n\"To hear some of the comments where he's actually, I think, criticising the level of delivery that our health service has given over these past 10-12 months, I think is disappointing.\"\n\n\"It wouldn't be the language that would be reflective of his party leadership in regards to the assistance that we're receiving from the Army.\"\n\nDeputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill, the Sinn Féin vice-president, had previously said her party's priority had \"always been to save lives\" and she would \"never rule out anything that actually supports the health service\".\n\nFirst Minister Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, said on critics of the move to deploy military medics were putting \"political intolerance before patients\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Arlene Foster #WeWillMeetAgain This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Swann also said the executive would \"not be found wanting\" in enforcing Covid-19 regulations.\n\nIt came after a district judge said on Wednesday that \"the powers-that-be made a significant error\" in making breaches of some rules punishable only with fines.\n\nDistrict Judge Michael Ranaghan told Dungannon Magistrates' Court he would have remanded two defendants from Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in custody if he had \"the power to do so\".\n\nShania Devenney, 21, of Kilmacormick Drive, and Nathan Maguire, 20, of Carnmore Lodge, were charged with contravening the regulations when arrested by police who were alerted to anti-social behaviour.\n\nA police officer told the court there had been repeated parties at Ms Devenney's address this month.\n\nThe judge, granting bail, said: \"I cannot consider remanding in custody as these matters are fine-only.\n\n\"The powers-that-be made a significant error when drafting legislation in making these fine-only offences.\n\n\"Had I the power to do so I would definitely be remanding these two in custody.\"\n\nThe PSNI has issued more than 2,000 Covid-19 fines during the pandemic\n\nThe health minister said the executive had asked people \"to work with us\" and had increased the level of fines.\n\nAsked about the judge's comments about enforcement, Mr Swann said he was \"content enough to raise it with executive colleagues and ask the justice minister to have a look at that\".\n\nMr Swann added that the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland were abiding by the regulations as it is the \"right thing to do\".\n\nOn Tuesday, police revealed that 2,159 penalty notices had been issued during the pandemic, with fines starting at £200.\n\nThere have been 55 failure-to-isolate fines, which incur a £1,000 fine.", "Scottish postie Nathan Evans has quit his job and signed to a record label after storming TikTok with sea shanties.\n\nNathan said the singalong craze for his The Wellerman rendition exploded in just a matter of weeks.\n\nAnd Friday sees an official release of the shanty, after he was picked up by Polydor records.\n\nThe 26-year-old from Airdrie said it goes to show that if you keep going anything can happen.", "Mr Trump was duped by the prankster, Morgan said\n\nDonald Trump was called on Air Force One last year by a prankster posing as Piers Morgan, the TV presenter says.\n\nThe president, as he was at the time, only realised he had been tricked when he phoned the real Morgan while on his way to vote in Florida last year.\n\nThe alleged security breach is said to have happened in October, but only emerged in an interview Morgan gave to the BBC's Americast podcast.\n\nThe two recently had a falling out over Mr Trump's handling of the pandemic.\n\nAsked by the BBC's Jon Sopel why Mr Trump had called Morgan out of the blue this past October, the presenter described \"an absolutely hilarious story, where somebody had called [Trump] pretending to be me the day before and got through to him on Air Force One\".\n\nThe 45th US president didn't realise he had been duped, Morgan said. \"They had a conversation with Trump thinking he was talking to me.\"\n\nIt is not clear who the alleged hoaxers were, but if the story is true President Trump would not be the first political leader to have been pranked.\n\nCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, while he was foreign secretary, have both been tricked on the phone in recent years.\n\nBut it would revive long-running questions about the security of President Trump's phone conversations.\n\nMorgan became increasingly critical of Mr Trump in the final months of his presidency\n\nThe BBC has asked the Secret Service for comment.\n\nMorgan was a high-profile tabloid editor in the UK who took over from Larry King with a primetime CNN chat show in 2011. He now presents a breakfast show in the UK.\n\nHe was initially supportive of President Trump after his surprise election win but became increasingly critical in the last 12 months.\n\n\"We had a very nice conversation... I always got on well with Trump,\" Morgan said of their October call, but added that Mr Trump's \"character flaws - the chronic narcissism, the desire to make everything about himself\" made him a \"useless leader\".\n\nOn their friendship, Morgan described Mr Trump's behaviour since the November presidential election as \"egregious\" and \"so obviously on a pathway\" to the Capitol Hill riots on 6 January.\n\n\"I just felt - no, I'm done with you now,\" Morgan said.\n\nYou may also be interested in:\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The recording of the conversation between Elton John and the man he believed was Vladimir Putin", "Keon Lincoln died after being subjected to \"inconceivable violence\"\n\nA 15-year-old boy has died after being attacked in a residential street by a group of youths \"armed with knives\".\n\nPolice said Keon Lincoln was \"set upon\" at about 15:30 GMT on Thursday on Linwood Road, in Handsworth, Birmingham, and died later in hospital.\n\nThe attackers fled the scene in a car which crashed into a house a short distance away, added police, who said they had since seized the vehicle.\n\nA 14-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is in custody.\n\nThe investigation is progressing \"at pace\", according to the West Midlands force, which detained the suspect on Friday morning.\n\nDet Ch Insp Alastair Orencas, who is leading a murder inquiry, said Keon died \"in the most violent of circumstances\".\n\nKeon was attacked on Linwood Road, a residential street in the Handsworth area of Birmingham\n\nWitnesses who reported the carrying of knives to officers also said shots were heard.\n\nPolice confirmed Keon, who lived locally, was attacked with weapons but did not specify which sort.\n\nThe motive remained unknown said police, who urged those who could identify the attackers to contact the force.\n\n\"We are not sure of all the details at the moment, but we do know that Keon was set upon by this group and suffered a series of serious injuries,\" said Ch Supt Steve Graham, adding that five or six youths were believed to have been involved.\n\nPolice have not disclosed the nature of Keon's injuries. They say they are unable to say how he died before a post-mortem examination takes place.\n\nOfficers are searching Linwood Road after the attack on Thursday afternoon\n\nDet Ch Insp Orencas said: \"The death of Keon has shocked the whole community.\n\n\"This level of violence in broad daylight on a residential street is inconceivable, let alone the fact the target was a 15-year-old boy.\"\n\nHe said the family, who were being supported by specialist officers, \"had the worst shock imaginable\".\n\nIn a statement issued by police, the family said they were \"devastated\" by their loss, and remembered Keon as \"fun-loving\" and \"full of life and love\".\n\nThe tribute added: \"He had an infectious laugh that lit up the room whenever he was in it.\"\n\nPolice have seized a crashed car they believe to be a getaway vehicle\n\nDetectives are examining a white car they believe to be the getaway vehicle which crashed into a house on Wheeler Street.\n\nCCTV footage has been seized and the area is cordoned off while investigations continue.\n\nA resident of Linwood Road, who did not wish to be named, said she was shocked to hear someone had been killed.\n\nShe said: \"We've lived here 45 years and I've never heard of anything like this.\n\n\"It's just shocking and really, really sad.\"\n\nPolice have appealed for dash cam and CCTV footage as they piece together the events of Thursday afternoon\n\nLocal Labour MP, Khalid Mahmood, described the death as \"extremely tragic\" and \"a needless thing to have happened\".\n\nHe said: \"We must work with police as much as we can to stop this happening again.\"\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A coronavirus outbreak at Mavisbank care home has led to the deaths of 13 residents\n\nA total of 13 residents at an East Dunbartonshire care home have died in a Covid-19 outbreak.\n\nThe owners of Mavisbank care home in Bishopbriggs confirmed the deaths and said that a further seven residents had also tested positive for the virus.\n\nAnother 11 staff members were self-isolating following positive tests.\n\nThe Care Inspectorate rated the home in Lennox Crescent as \"weak\" in its Covid-19 response in an inspection last month.\n\nAt the unannounced check on 26 October, inspectors found the cleanliness of the home a \"significant concern\".\n\nIt went on to describe the cleanliness of the environment and the overall fabric of the building as \"poor\".\n\nInspectors said in their report that they were \"very concerned about the potential risk of infection for residents\".\n\nSenior managers responded immediately and maintenance staff were deployed to clean the home.\n\nHowever, the operators were ordered to carry out a deep clean of the facility by 11 November.\n\nMavisbank owners HC-One said they were monitoring the situation closely.\n\nMavisbank was given a rating of \"weak\" in October\n\nA spokeswoman said: \"Our thoughts and sympathies are with all families who have lost a loved one from coronavirus.\n\n\"As we navigate this outbreak, we continue to work closely with all the relevant authorities to contain the virus and safeguard our residents.\n\n\"We are pleased that a number of residents have now recovered, and we continue to closely monitor the health and wellbeing of all those affected.\n\n\"This includes following all government guidance in relation to infection prevention and control.\"\n\nResponding to the Care Inspectorate report, the company said the health, safety and wellbeing of its residents and staff was a priority.\n\nThe spokeswoman said: \"We were disappointed that inspectors found some elements of our robust infection control plan were not being fully implemented and we acted urgently to respond to this feedback. These issues were immediately rectified so that when inspectors returned, they were able to see and approve of the work that had been completed.\n\n\"Senior staff are also supporting the home and our learning and development team are ensuring that all colleagues complete refresher training which includes our specific coronavirus training modules on the virus, enhanced infection control procedures, and the correct use of PPE.\n\n\"These training modules have been regularly updated to reflect all changes in the guidance over recent months.\"\n\nCaroline Sinclair, of East Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership, said, \"We are aware of this very sad situation and have been working with Mavisbank care home to provide a high level of clinical support to residents at this difficult time. Our thoughts are with the families of those who have passed and others affected by their loss.\"", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Friday morning. We'll have another update for you this evening.\n\nMinisters wrestling with how to ensure people with coronavirus obey laws to self-isolate are to consider paying £500 to anyone who tests positive. It's among options drawn up for England by the Department of Health to encourage people to stay at home, amid fears the current support leaves some unable to afford the time away from work. However, Treasury sources say funding a universal payment to the tune of £453m a week is unlikely.\n\nBritish retail sales saw their largest annual fall in history last year as the impact of coronavirus took its toll. Sales fell by 1.9% in 2020, when compared with 2019, official figures show. Clothes shops were hit hard, with a record annual fall of more than 25%. Meanwhile, UK government borrowing hit £34.1bn last month, the highest December figure on record, as the cost of pandemic support weighed on the economy, the Office for National Statistics says.\n\nA Crown Office unit set up to probe Covid-related deaths is investigating cases at 474 care homes in Scotland, ahead of prosecutors' decisions on whether they should be the subject of a fatal accident inquiry or prosecution. Care homes say the investigation is \"disproportionate\". But Linda Duncan, whose 91-year-old mother Anne died last April, argues: \"A lot of the focus has been on the government response but we need this investigation to look at the private operators.\"\n\nHalf of all staff at nurseries, pre-schools and childminders \"don't... feel safe at work\", with about one in every 10 having tested positive since 1 December, according to an Early Years Alliance survey of more than 3,000 staff. Providers in England have been told to remain open to all children during lockdown and the government says under-fives are \"unlikely to be playing a driving role in transmission\".\n\nAs lockdown has forced families apart, grandparents have had to find new ways of keeping in touch with their grandchildren. Annette Landy tells us how reading over video calls to Alicia, eight, and Sadie, two, has made things a little easier.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Harry Potter and The Secret Garden have proven to be favourites\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nIf you're struggling to understand why vaccinating the most vulnerable won't immediately end lockdown, health correspondent Nick Triggle explains the reasoning.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "The Florence Nightingale Museum announced it would close for the foreseeable future\n\nMuseums and galleries are \"fighting for survival\" amid the current lockdown, a national charity has warned.\n\nThe Art Fund has predicted that small institutions are likely to suffer most and said more help is needed.\n\nSo far, the charity has only been able to help 15% of applicants to its emergency response fund.\n\nEarlier this month, it was announced London's Florence Nightingale Museum is to close for the foreseeable future due to the impact of the pandemic.\n\nThe Williamson Art Gallery & Museum in Birkenhead is also under threat of closure, according to the Art Fund.\n\nThe charity's director Jenny Waldman said: \"The latest lockdown is a body blow and is leaving our museums and galleries fighting for survival.\n\n\"Smaller museums in particular, which are so vital to their communities, simply do not have the reserves to see them through this winter.\n\nResearch previously conducted by the charity found six in 10 museums, galleries and historic houses were worried about their own survival.\n\n\"Tragically, we are now seeing well-known and much-loved museums facing mothballing or permanent closure,\" Waldman said.\n\nIn November, the charity offered limited edition artworks to members of the public who donated to help coronavirus-hit museums.\n\nSir Anish, Lubaina Himid, David Shrigley and Michael Landy were among the artists who provided their works to the appeal.\n\nArt Fund has renewed its appeal for people to donate to the crowdfunding campaign, which is called Together For Museums.\n\nNew works of art from Howard Hodgkin, Jeremy Deller and Cornelia Parker have been added to the items on offer.\n\nJeremy Deller worked on the 2016 Somme commemoration project featuring 'Ghost Tommies' appearing across UK locations\n\nSir Anish said: \"Museums are where we go to engage with art, witness our psychic history and understand ourselves. Today they face great difficulty.\n\n\"The Art Fund campaign gives us an opportunity to help museums to continue to provide access to all in spite of the difficulties of this time.\"\n\nArt Fund has also announced £750,000 of new grants to help 23 museums respond to the pandemic - taking its total spend so far to £2.25 million.\n\nBut that is only a small proportion of the applications the charity has received, which total over £16 million.\n\nRecipients include the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham, for a health and wellbeing project, and Portland Museum, Dorset, for a plan to recreate Rufus Castle digitally.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Spanish player Paula Badosa has revealed that she has the virus\n\nA Spanish tennis player who was among many Australian Open competitors to complain about quarantine rules has revealed she has coronavirus.\n\nPaula Badosa said she had felt unwell with symptoms before testing positive for the virus in Melbourne on Thursday.\n\nBadosa is believed to be the fourth competitor to test positive in hotel quarantine, but is the first to identify herself publicly.\n\nOn Friday, she said \"sorry guys\", adding quarantine rules were \"pivotal\".\n\n\"Please, don't get me wrong. Health will always comes first & I feel grateful for being in Australia,\" tweeted Badosa, who is ranked 67th globally in singles.\n\nThe 23-year-old said she had been taken to a separate hotel in Melbourne to \"self-isolate and be monitored\".\n\n\"I'll try to recover as soon as possible listening to the doctors,\" she said.\n\nVictoria state health authorities said on Wednesday a total of 10 infections had been linked to the event, but a few were \"viral shedding\" cases where the person was not infectious.\n\nMelbourne endured one of the world's longest lockdowns last year and many locals have concerns about the potential Covid risk posed by the tournament.\n\nTennis Australia chartered 15 flights to bring players and their entourages into the country, but three flights had passengers who later tested positive for the virus.\n\nBadosa is one of 72 players who have been confined full-time to their hotel rooms for 14 days - under a state health order - after the infections were discovered. She has already spent seven days in isolation.\n\nPlayers who arrived on flights with no infections are also in quarantine but are allowed five hours of court practice a day.\n\nSeveral players have complained about the impacts to their tennis preparation.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Confined players have been training in their hotel rooms\n\nEarlier this week, in a tweet reported by Australian media that has since been deleted, Badosa wrote: \"At the beginning the rule was the positive section of the plane who was with that person had to quarantine. Not the whole plane.\n\n\"Not fair to change the rules at the last moment. And to have to stay in a room with no windows and no air.\"\n\nBut Tennis Australia and state officials have rejected assertions that any rules were changed or not clear ahead of time.\n\n\"We're thinking of you Paula, and hoping you feel better soon,\" the Australian Open's Twitter account replied in a message to Badosa on Friday.\n\nOrganisers have said that despite the infections, the Grand Slam will go ahead on 8 February.", "At 12:01, in the midst of his inaugural address, Joe Biden officially became the 46th president of the United States.\n\nHe was already well into outlining exactly how daunting a task he - and the nation - have ahead in what he called its \"winter of peril\".\n\nAmerica is facing a devastating pandemic which has resulted in massive job losses and business closures, a threatened environment, urgent cries for racial justice and resurgence in \"political extremism, white supremacy and domestic terrorism\".\n\nHis speech was not a laundry list of proposals and solutions. Those were reserved for his first 17 executive actions as president - on immigration, climate change, transgender rights and public health, among others.\n\nThe Biden administration has also frozen all of Trump's last-minute regulations pending further review.\n\nInstead, Biden used his speech to offer hope - and to argue, at times forcefully, that the nation must be united in facing the challenges ahead; that it has to move past its current \"uncivil war\".\n\n\"Without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury,\" he said. \"No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos.\"\n\n\"This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge,\" he continued. \"And unity is the path forward\".\n\nAt times, Biden's speech seemed a direct rebuttal to his predecessor's administration, although he did not mention Donald Trump by name.\n\nWhere Trump frequently spoke of American greatness and glorified its founders, Biden noted that the nation's history has been a \"constant struggle\" between its ideals and sometimes harsh realities.\n\nWhere Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway spoke of \"alternative facts\" almost four years ago, Biden said: \"There is truth and there are lies - lies told for power and for profit.\"\n\nBiden wrapped up his inaugural address by warning that America must not \"turn inward\" - both as individuals retreating into \"competing factions\" and as a nation on the world stage.\n\n\"We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again,\" he said.\n\nRhetorically, Biden turned the page from Trump's days of \"America first\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe first 100 days of any administration are always important to a new president. What are his priorities? What will he try to accomplish when his political capital is at its highest?\n\nJoe Biden and his presidential team have had nearly three months to plan out his first actions upon taking the oath of office, but executive action is the (relatively) easy part.\n\nHis speech reflected the reality that he enters office with his top priorities already determined for him.\n\nHis government will be responsible for distributing the coronavirus vaccine in an efficient and equitable way. After that, he will have to focus on the societal and economic disruptions caused by the pandemic.\n\nThe virus has exacerbated income inequality and pushed many households to the brink of economic ruin. It's devastated the travel and hospitality industries and placed incredible strain on the finances of state and local governments.\n\nHis pledge to seek unity will be tested early, as he pushes a sharply divided Congress to pass another, massive round of pandemic stimulus aid. If he wants to enact it quickly, he will need Republican support in the Senate, and already there are signs that some on the right may be lining up in opposition to more spending.\n\nThen there's Trump's Senate impeachment trial, which will present yet another challenge to national unity. It will keep Trump's name in the news for weeks, as his defenders rally to his side and his detractors call for consequences for his actions.\n\nAfter that, Biden's potential political paths diverge. He has said he wants to improve healthcare in the US, address growing college debt, make new investments in infrastructure and tackle climate change.\n\nHe's pledged to push immigration reform legislation that includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants - a political lightning rod that helped fuel Trump's first presidential run.\n\nWhat he prioritises, and how successful his first efforts are, could determine the overall success of his administration. To make lasting change - policies that can't be undone by future presidents - he will have to work with Congress.\n\nThe inauguration ceremony is over. But, as Biden noted in his speech, the American people face one of the most challenging times in their nation's history.\n\n\"We will be judged by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era,\" he said.\n\nBiden campaigned against Trump for the opportunity to face those crises. Now he has his chance.", "A selection of your pictures of Scotland sent in between 15 and 22 January. Send your photos to scotlandpictures@bbc.co.uk. Please ensure you adhere to the BBC's rules regarding photographs that can be found here.\n\nPlease also ensure you follow current coronavirus guidelines and take your pictures safely and responsibly.\n\nConditions of use: If you submit an image, you do so in accordance with the BBC's terms and conditions.\n\nHot dog: Ann Baldwin thinks it looks warm enough for a swim in this shot looking towards Inchcolm Island and Arthur’s Seat from the sailing club in Dalgety Bay, Fife, 10 minutes before sunrise.\n\nLittle sucker: Tessa McAndrew helped this beautiful octopus back into the water after finding him clinging to driftwood on the beach at Lower Largo.\n\nWindswept: Bad hair day for these trees in the Pentland Hills Regional Park in Edinburgh. Claire Dunbar took this picture during one of the many recent snow dumps in the area.\n\nIntricate web: The sun was making an attempt to defrost this frozen spider web in Colin Sergeant's back garden in Motherwell.\n\nHindsight: David Fox thinks this roe deer fawn that he captured on his camera at Strathbraan in Perthshire will be \"a future Monarch of the Glen\".\n\nTrue snowman: Only Gordon Brandie knows what this Highland fling snowman is wearing under his kilt and peg sporran in Faskally, Perthshire.\n\nStill life: Artistic beauty found when looking through a drainage hole in the Arbroath sea wall.\n\nBlurred lines: Sunrise on top of Falkland Hill in the early hours of the morning, taken by Jordan Moreham.\n\nStick together: Judith McIntyre spotted these wooden friends huddling to keep warm this winter in Kingston, Moray.\n\nHowling wind: Three-year-old Poppy enjoying a very windy afternoon walk on Craiglockhart Hill in Edinburgh with her mum, Sophia Lyons.\n\nCollectivism vs Individualism: Victor Tregubov took this shot of birds in countryside near Glasgow.\n\nStrike a pose: Colin Little on the bank of the River Lossie in Elgin, said: \"This otter posed for a couple of shots before diving under again.\"\n\nBlack and white: Derek Brown took this snowy scene in Stow just outside Galashiels in the Scottish Borders.\n\nEbb and flow: Michelle Moggach said it was \"Baltic but beautiful\" at Aberdeen Beach while she gazed at the sea.\n\nAlan Kemp said about 100 fieldfares descended on his pink berry Rowan trees in Murthly, Perthshire and devoured the lot in one sitting.\n\nMindfulness: Shirley Faichney captured a zen moment during a recent sunrise at West Wemyss beach in Fife.\n\nBridge to nowhere: Rachel Abbie was left puzzled as to where her walk was leading at Belhaven Beach in Dunbar.\n\nWinter wonderland: The path for Ross McKellar looks bright in High Blantyre in Glasgow.\n\nAutumn meets winter: Agnes Neal observed a sole woman walking through this peaceful scene in Queen's Park in Glasgow.\n\nSquirrel Nutkin: David Doogan loves it when this bushy-tailed friend joins him for a picnic in his garden in Glencoe, Argyll.\n\nTop of the world: ...well it was for Katie Gillingham and her friends on Goatfell on the Isle of Arran this week.\n\nEthereal moonlight: Arletta Babicz thought there was a \"magical vibe\" when he took this shot of the most photographed tree in Scotland at Loch Lomond.\n\nFollow the herd: Christopher Barrow thought it was funny when this flock of sheep kept following him while he was out skiing in Almondbank, Perthshire.\n\nPillars of the community: Poll nan Crann pier, known locally as Stinky Bay due to the large amount of seaweed blown onto the beach by storms which then rots in the sun. Seonaidh MacInnes took this picture at night on the Isle of Benbecula.\n\nRising above the herd: Jim Clark thought this beast could have been thinking outside the box when he captured this shot at Glanderston Dam, Barrhead.\n\nVirgin powder: Dan Price-Davies enjoyed Alpine conditions at Clashindarroch Forest while Nordic skiing with his son, Lestin, this week.\n\nCloud inversion: Steve Mitchell took in this stunning view overlooking a snowy drystone dyke at the top of the Cairn o' Mount (B974) road between Banchory and Fettercairn.\n\nWinter Washingland: Louise Harper took this picture of colourful plastic pegs with no job to do during heavy snow in Motherwell.\n\nThe Night Walker: Tamar Lewis thought there was an eerie glow in the sky as she took an evening stroll through Pollok Country Park.\n\nStripped bare: This dead-looking tree brings life to Dave Cullen's picture of the Cramond landscape in Edinburgh.\n\nDuck down: All but one mallard enjoying the food thrown to them at St Fillans in the snow, taken by Kenn Begley.\n\nWinter coat: Glen Tanar cleansed in white, near the summit of Baudy Meg in Aberdeenshire, taken by Neil Marchant.\n\nFyrish sunrise: It's as if Sir Hector Munro ordered his monument to be put in the best light possible for Laura Steel who took this picture in Evanton near Alness.\n\nSun and shadows: Michal Markowski took this eye-catching picture in West Linton using a drone.\n\nHair ice: Jane Tweedie noticed this rare phenomenon while out walking at Craigellachie, Moray. It is also known as ice wool or frost beard and is a type of ice that forms on dead wood and takes the shape of fine, silky hair.\n\nUdderly mootiful: Izabela Bodzioch took this picture of cows admiring the view of Ben Cruachan covered in snow.\n\nIce bath: Jan Overmeer said he changed his mind about going for a swim in Loch Carron when he was greeted by this frozen scene.\n\nJack Frost: Graeme Mackay was mesmerised by the patterns Mother Nature had made on the sunroof of his car in Aberdeen.\n\nSwan Lake: Bob Smart captured the sheer power and might of this magnificent bird at Townhill Loch in Fife.\n\nFine sunset: James MacArthur captured the fresh breath of brightness burning the last corner of Loch Fyne as the sun dropped below the skyline.\n\nPlease ensure that the photograph you send is your own and if you are submitting photographs of children, we must have written permission from a parent or guardian of every child featured (a grandparent, auntie or friend will not suffice).\n\nIn contributing to BBC News you agree to grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material in any way, including in any media worldwide.\n\nHowever, you will still own the copyright to everything you contribute to BBC News.\n\nAt no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe the law.\n\nYou can find more information here.\n\nAll photos are subject to copyright.", "Guests fled when officers arrived at the Stamford Hill school, where the windows had been covered\n\nPolice broke up a wedding party in north London, where they now say about 150 people had gathered.\n\nOfficers found the windows at the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School, in Stamford Hill, had been covered when they arrived at 21:15 GMT on Thursday.\n\nGuests fled from the strictly Orthodox Charedi Jewish school when the police arrived. The organisers face a £10,000 fine for breaking lockdown rules.\n\nThe Met originally claimed that about 400 guests were at the gathering.\n\nIn a statement, the school said its hall had been leased out.\n\nA spokesman for the school, whose principal Rabbi Avrahom Pinter died in April after contracting coronavirus, said \"we had no knowledge that the wedding was taking place\".\n\nHe added: \"We are absolutely horrified about last night's event and condemn it in the strongest possible terms.\"\n\nBoris Johnson supports the police for \"taking action against people who flagrantly and selfishly ignore the rules\", according to the prime minister's official spokesman.\n\nThe spokesman said: \"Large gatherings such as that pose a health risk, not just to those who attend but those who they live with or others who they may come into contact with.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Chief Rabbi Mirvis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nChief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, meanwhile, said the \"overwhelming majority\" of the Jewish community would be appalled at the event.\n\nRabbi Mirvis, who serves as the head of the UK's orthodox Jewish community but is not the leader of the Charedi group, called the wedding party \"a most shameful desecration of all that we hold dear\".\n\nFive guests were issued with £200 fixed penalty notices, according to police, who said their inquiries had established those present at the school had gathered for a wedding.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A video shared with the Jewish Chronicle shows officers in Stamford Hill\n\nVideo shared with the Jewish Chronicle shows officers in Stamford Hill speaking with a man to explain why they are there, although he is not accused of any wrongdoing.\n\nThey are then seen arriving at the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School.\n\nDet Ch Sup Marcus Barnett of the Met Police said: \"This was a completely unacceptable breach of the law.\n\n\"People across the country are making sacrifices by cancelling or postponing weddings and other celebrations and there is no excuse for this type of behaviour.\n\n\"My officers are working tirelessly with the community and we will not hesitate to take enforcement action if that is required to keep people safe.\"\n\nOn Friday morning, a security guard at the school told the BBC there were more like 100 guests at the party than the much higher number given out by police.\n\nThe Met later said in a statement: \"Although initial calls suggested some 400 people had attended the wedding, it is now believed that approximately 150 people were in attendance.\"\n\nStamford Hill is part of the borough of Hackney, which has a Covid-19 infection rate of 625.43 cases per 100,000 people. The England average rate is 471.31 per 100,000 people.\n\nThe mayor of Hackney, Philip Glanville, said he was \"deeply disappointed\" that the wedding party had taken place, despite \"the number of lives that have already been lost in the Charedi community and across the borough\".\n\nHe added: \"Unfortunately, similar events have taken place even at this venue before and we need to be really clear how unacceptable it is.\n\n\"We will be meeting with the Rabbinate and our community partners over the coming days to see how we can prevent further incidents of this nature.\"\n\nLondon is under an England-wide lockdown, which prevents social mixing between households.\n\nLondoners are asked to only leave home for limited reasons such as shopping, going to work, seeking medical assistance, or avoiding domestic abuse.\n\nFor more London news follow on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel.\n\nDo you have any information to share about this incident? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "There are no plans to pay everyone in England who tests positive for Covid £500 to self-isolate, No 10 has said.\n\nThe PM's official spokesman said there was already a £500 payment available for those on low incomes who could not work from home and had to isolate.\n\nA universal £500 payment was among suggestions in a leaked Department of Health document.\n\nThere are fears the current financial support is not working because low paid workers cannot afford to self-isolate.\n\nBut a senior government source said the idea of extending the £500 payments to everyone who tests positive had been drawn up by officials and had not been considered by the prime minister.\n\nBBC Newsnight's Katie Razzall said ministers were aware self-isolation was crucial for stopping the spread of coronavirus and the \"options paper\" had been drawn up by civil servants at the Department of Health.\n\nShe said it would be discussed soon by the Covid operations committee chaired by Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, adding the move suggested there was an admission in government that too many people were not staying at home and a decision needed to be made quickly.\n\nThe story was first reported by the Guardian which said the options paper suggested the proposal could cost up to £453m per week - 12 times the cost of the current payouts.\n\nEnvironment Secretary George Eustice told the BBC he had not seen the leaked document but said the issue of financial support for people self-isolating was \"always kept under review\".\n\n\"We've got to consider all sorts of policies in order to make sure that people abide by the rules, are able to abide by the rules and we get the infection rate down,\" he said.\n\nBut the prime minister's official spokesman denied the government was planning to introduce the new payment, telling reporters: \"We've given local authorities £70m for the scheme and they are able to provide extra payments on top of those £500 if they think it necessary.\n\n\"That £500 is on top of any other benefits and statutory sick pay that people are eligible for.\"\n\nAsked about document, the spokesman said he would not comment on a leaked paper.\n\nIt's impossible to say exactly what proportion of people stay at home for the full 10 days after being in contact with someone who has tested positive, however some evidence suggests the minority of people do.\n\nA government-backed study from September 2020 suggests that just 10.9% of people remained indoors for the full time.\n\nLabour has often cited this report when arguing that people cannot afford to miss work, but a closer look at it suggests that, of those who break the rules, just 8.9% do \"to go to work\".\n\nMost people reported going out for things like shopping or exercise, but also because they didn't think they needed to quarantine as they didn't develop symptoms.\n\nThis research is quite old (done before self-isolation grants came in) and has a relatively small sample size of just 400 people.\n\nHowever, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has also highlighted research that shows that most people don't completely follow the rules.\n\nThis research also suggests that those on lower incomes felt they were three times less able to self-isolate than those better off.\n\nBBC political correspondent Ben Wright said there was concern in government about the huge cost of the proposal for the Treasury.\n\nHowever, he said the issue of financial incentives and trying to get people to self-isolate was clearly a live discussion within government.\n\nIt became a legal requirement last September for anyone in England testing positive for coronavirus to self-isolate.\n\nThe £500 grant already available in England is funded by the government but administered by local authorities.\n\nThe same level of payment is available in Scotland and Wales with similar conditions attached. Northern Ireland offers a discretionary self-isolation grant that covers expenses, such as the cost of groceries.\n\nThere is a list of specific criteria applicants must meet for the grant, but those who do not qualify for this payment and who are on a low income or may face financial hardship as a result of self-isolating can apply for a discretionary payment.\n\nHowever, there have been high rejection rates for this discretionary grant in England, figures obtained by Labour and reported by the BBC this week suggest.\n\nBetween October and December last year, three-quarters of the 49,877 applications were rejected, the data showed.\n\nScotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said the Scottish government would welcome the introduction of a £500 payment, as the additional funds it would generate for Scotland could allow for a similar scheme to be set up.\n\nSpeaking at her regular coronavirus briefing, she said: \"We will see whether that transpires or not, but any extra resources for self-isolation we would use to support self-isolation.\"\n\nProf Susan Michie, an adviser on the government's Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme just 18% of people with symptoms were self-isolating for the full 10 days they were meant to.\n\nShe said financial support currently offered to people having to self-isolate was a \"key weakness\" of the government's pandemic strategy.\n\nSharon, a cleaner from Kent, told the BBC if no money were to come in for two weeks she would not be able to afford to self-isolate.\n\n\"I have a mortgage to pay,\" she said.\n\n\"I can't even afford to heat my property at the moment because my wages were cut and that £500 payment would make all the difference. I would be able to self-isolate.\n\n\"It wouldn't be enough money, but it would help.\"\n\nThe DoH said it would not comment on a leaked paper but stressed it was incumbent on everyone to help protect the NHS by staying at home and following the rules at \"one of the toughest moments of this pandemic\".\n\nA spokesman said £50m was invested at the time the Test and Trace Support Payment scheme launched and it was providing a further £20m to help support people on low incomes who need to self-isolate.\n\nPeople who have tested positive for coronavirus and those considered at risk of having been exposed to it must self-isolate.\n\nOther legal obligations to self-isolate in the UK include:\n\nWould £500 be enough to help you to self-isolate? Please share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The 39 people who died in the back of a trailer as it crossed the North Sea between Zeebrugge and the UK\n\nFour men have been jailed for the manslaughter of 39 Vietnamese migrants found dead in a lorry trailer in Essex.\n\nThe migrants died \"excruciatingly painful\" deaths, having suffocated in the container en route from Belgium to Purfleet in October 2019, a judge said.\n\nRonan Hughes, 41, and Gheorghe Nica, 43, played \"leading roles\" in the smuggling conspiracy and were jailed for 20 and 27 years respectively.\n\nAt the Old Bailey, two lorry drivers were also jailed for manslaughter.\n\n[Left to right] Eamonn Harrison, Ronan Hughes, Gheorghe Nica and Maurice Robinson were all jailed for manslaughter\n\nEamonn Harrison, 24, who towed the trailer to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge before their journey to the UK, was sentenced to 18 years.\n\nMaurice Robinson, 26, was given 13 years and four months, having collected the trailer and opened it in an industrial estate to find the migrants dead.\n\nThree others members of the people-smuggling gang were also sentenced for conspiracy to facilitate unlawful immigration.\n\nChristopher Kennedy, 24, from County Armagh, was jailed for seven years; Valentin Calota, 38, of Birmingham, for four-and-a-half years; and Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 28, of Hobart Road, Tilbury, Essex, was given a three-year sentence.\n\n[Left to right] Valentin Calota, Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga and Christopher Kennedy were also sentenced on Friday\n\nSentencing, Mr Justice Sweeney said: \"I have no doubt that the conspiracy was a sophisticated, long-running and profitable one to smuggle mainly Vietnamese people across the channel.\"\n\nHe said on the fatal trip the temperature had been rising along with the carbon dioxide levels throughout, hitting 40C (104F) while the container was at sea on 22 October 2019.\n\n\"There were desperate attempts to contact the outside world by phone and to break through the roof of the container,\" the judge said.\n\n\"All were to no avail and, before the ship reached Purfleet, [the victims] all died in what must have been an excruciatingly painful death.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video evidence showed how the trainer containing 39 Vietnamese migrants made its way to the UK\n\nThe victims had used a metal pole to try to punch through the roof but only managed to dent the interior.\n\nThe court heard some of their final desperate phone messages, including one where a man spoke with ragged breaths as he apologised to his family.\n\n\"I can't breathe,\" he said. \"I want to come back to my family. Have a good life.\"\n\nJustice Sweeney added: \"The willingness of the victims to try and enter the country illegally provides no excuse for what happened to them.\"\n\nThe bodies of 39 Vietnamese nationals were discovered in a refrigerated trailer on 23 October 2019\n\nDuring the trial, jurors were given a snapshot of the victims - who included a bricklayer, a university graduate and a nail bar technician - and their dreams of a better life.\n\nMany of their families borrowed heavily to fund their passage, relying on their potential future earnings once they got into the UK.\n\nThe father of Nguyen Huy Tung, one of two 15-year-olds in the container, later learned of his son's death via social media.\n\nHarrison, of Newry, County Down, claimed he did not know there were people in the trailer when he towed it to the Belgian port, and that he watched \"a wee bit of Netflix\" in bed as they were loaded on.\n\nAfter receiving this message from his boss, Robinson got out of his cab, opened the trailer door and discovered the bodies\n\nRobinson, from County Armagh, collected the trailer when it arrived on UK shores just after midnight on 23 October.\n\nHis boss, Hughes, had messaged him: \"Give them air quickly don't let them out.\"\n\nRobinson gave a thumbs-up in reply. When Robinson stopped on a nearby industrial estate, he found that the migrants were all dead.\n\nHis barrister said Robinson, who admitted manslaughter, being part of the trafficking plot and money laundering, was \"horrified by what he saw\".\n\nThe moment lorry driver Maurice Robinson opened the trailer door and discovered the bodies inside was captured on CCTV\n\nThe trial examined three smuggling attempts by the gang - two that were successful on 11 and 18 October, and the final trip on 23 October.\n\nOn all three runs, Nica, of Basildon, Essex, had arranged cars and a van to transport the migrants at the UK end.\n\nWhen Robinson discovered the bodies, there was a series of telephone conversations between him and Nica and Hughes, of Tyholland, County Monaghan, Ireland, before the driver eventually dialled 999.\n\nIn his evidence, Nica said Robinson told him: \"I have a problem here - dead bodies in the trailer.\"\n\nWhile Hughes admitted manslaughter, both Nica and Harrison were convicted by a jury.\n\nMr Justice Sweeney said that in the conspiracy \"two played leading roles, namely - in order of importance - Hughes and Nica\".\n\nHe accepted Hughes was \"not at the very top of the conspiracy\" but said his role was \"pivotal... in that he ran a haulage business and supplied the trailers and drivers used to transport the migrants\".\n\nThe judge said Nica \"recruited and paid the drivers whose job it was to collect the migrants when they reached the drop-off site in this country and to drive them to the safe house(s) where they were to be held until payment\".\n\nHe added at the top of the conspiracy was a Vietnamese man called \"Fong\", who was based in London.\n\nMr Justice Sweeney told the defendants jailed for manslaughter they would serve two-thirds of the term in custody, instead of the usual half.\n\nEarlier this month, Gazmir Nuzi, 43, of Barclay Road, Tottenham, north London, was sentenced, having admitted his limited role in the people-smuggling operation. It was accepted he was not a member of the organised crime group behind the smuggling operation.\n\nDet Ch Insp Daniel Stoten said: \"May this serve as a warning to those who think it's OK to prey on the vulnerabilities of migrants and their families, transporting them in a way worse than we would transport animals.\n\n\"My message to you is that we will find you and we will stop you.\"\n\nHe said the victims died in an \"unimaginable way, because of the utter greed of these criminals\".\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Last summer's A level results prompted an outcry from students - leading to an independent review\n\nThere was a \"significant failure\" in the way exam bodies in Wales handled awarding student grades in 2020, a report says.\n\nThe independent review found there was \"too much confidence\" in statistical models, and the appeals process in place was inadequate.\n\nQualifications Wales (QW) said it had learnt many lessons and WJEC exam board will look \"in detail\" at the findings.\n\nTeaching union UCAC described the report's findings as \"scathing\".\n\nIts release comes after it was announced this week that teachers will make 2021 grade assessments\n\nThe review was ordered by the Welsh Government following the outcry over initial examination results awarded in August for A-level students.\n\nThe assessment approach resulted in a \"significant breakdown\" in trust, says the review\n\nIn the weeks after the coronavirus pandemic took hold, formal external exams in Wales were scrapped, with schools asked to provide grade assessments for sixth-form and GCSE pupils.\n\nHowever, it later emerged 42% of the A-level grades were lower than those submitted by teachers.\n\nIn her foreword the report panel's chairwoman Louise Casella, said substantial numbers of young people across Wales \"were left feeling bewildered and distressed as they received A level results that bore no relation to their expectation and their abilities\".\n\nThe result decision was reversed, and school's predicted grades reinstated, but not before \"some learners lost their university place and some were not able to progress as planned in 2020\", noted Ms Casella, who is also director of The Open University in Wales.\n\nThe review found that QW and the WJEC board would have known the \"scale of the outliers\" and had \"an insight\" into the likely number of appeals.\n\nBut the bodies failed to fully test \"alternative routes or approaches\" to the statistical models they used to standardise results.\n\nThe review added it was \"surprising\" QW did not explore additional safeguards, after having being previously warned about, and acknowledging that there were potential problems with the statistical process.\n\nThe report said it could not find evidence either WJEC or QW \"acknowledged, accepted or anticipated the scale of the issues\" nor the risk of unfairness to learners, and that it considered this a \"significant failure\".\n\nThe approach last summer had resulted in a \"significant breakdown\" in trust between the teaching profession and the regulator and examining body, added the report authors.\n\nIt said fairness must now be central to planning for 2021, avoiding automated algorithms to predict individual grades, and developing an appeals process.\n\nDelivering the report, the review panel chair added: \"There is now a real opportunity for the education sector of Wales to come together to develop and deliver a qualifications system that puts learners at its heart, not only for the cohort facing qualifications in 2021, but for the longer term.\"\n\nQW said the review had \"some useful findings and recommendations that we are already addressing\".\n\nChair David Jones and Chief Executive Philip Baker said: \"We would have welcomed greater engagement with the review panel so there was full consideration of all the issues.\"\n\nChief Executive of WJEC Ian Morgan, said he was \"disappointed with some aspects of the report\" but the exam board would \"look in detail at the findings to identify areas where we need to take action to continuously improve as an organisation.\"\n\nEducation Minister Kirsty Williams has already said teachers will assess grades in 2021\n\nEducation Minister Kirsty Williams has welcomed the report and how it would help drive how students are graded by teachers and schools this summer.\n\n\"It is my sincere hope and expectation that our education system can continue to work together to support the progression of our learners in exam years, both through the delivery of these assessment arrangements and through a wider package of support,\" she said.\n\nUCAC Deputy General Secretary Rebecca Williams, said the report supported its call for external moderation of grades, to improve fairness to students.\n\n\"There are longer-term recommendations, including the need to be more ambitious in terms of reform of qualifications and assessment in relation to the new curriculum, and we look forward to discussing these over the coming months,\" she said.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Home Secretary Priti Patel says police have her \"absolute backing\" to enforce coronavirus restrictions\n\nFines of £800 for anyone attending a house party of more than 15 people will be introduced in England from next week, under new Covid measures.\n\nThese will double for each repeat offence to a maximum of £6,400.\n\nAt a No 10 news conference, Home Secretary Priti Patel said there remained a \"small minority that refuse to do the right thing\".\n\n\"To them my message is clear. If you don't follow rules then the police will enforce them,\" she said.\n\nCurrently in England the fine for those attending illegal indoor gatherings stands at £200 - or £100 if paid early.\n\nFines of up to £10,000 for holding large illegal gatherings of more than 30 people will still only apply to the organisers.\n\nPolice will continue to follow the strategy of engaging with the public, explaining the rules and encouraging compliance, but the Home Office has warned that in severe breaches of lockdown rules, offenders should expect to receive a fine.\n\nMs Patel said the government would \"not stand by while a small number of individuals put others at risk\".\n\nShe was joined at the briefing by NHS England regional medical director for London Dr Vin Diwakar, who compared breaking the rules to turning on a light in the middle of a blackout during the Blitz.\n\n\"It doesn't just put you at risk in your house, it puts your whole street and the whole of your community at risk,\" he said.\n\nWelcoming the fines announcement, Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs' Council, said large gatherings were \"dangerous, irresponsible, and totally unacceptable\".\n\nHe added: \"I hope that the likelihood of an increased fine acts as a disincentive for those people who are thinking of attending or organising such events.\"\n\nOfficial figures will be released next week showing how many fines have been given out since the start of this latest national lockdown, Mr Hewitt said.\n\nHowever, he stressed that \"forces are telling us there has been a significant increase\" in recent weeks.\n\n\"That's reflecting the fact that we've had more officers out on dedicated patrols taking targeted action against those small few who are letting everybody down,\" he said.\n\nAccording to Mr Hewitt, three police officers were injured in Brick Lane, east London, last week, after more than 40 people were found cramped indoors at a house party.\n\nMeanwhile, more than 150 people were found at a party in Hertfordshire, complete with music equipment including mixing decks and amplifiers, and another officer was injured.\n\nHe said forces in England had issued 250 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) to people organising large gatherings between late August, when regulations were introduced, and 17 January.\n\nIn some other recent examples of lockdown breaches:\n\nThe latest fines announcement comes after figures showed that assaults on emergency workers made up more than a quarter of Covid-related crimes prosecuted in the first six months of the pandemic.\n\nThe Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said there were 1,688 such offences between 1 April and 30 September in England and Wales.\n\nThey were among almost 6,500 crimes related to coronavirus in that period.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSome 1,137 charges were brought for breaking coronavirus laws, according to the figures published by the CPS - which cover completed prosecutions.\n\nOn Thursday, it was reported that another 1,290 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK, bringing the total to 94,580.\n\nAnd a further 37,892 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus were announced, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 3,543,646.\n• None What powers do police have?", "Cyber criminals who stole thousands of digital files belonging to environmental regulator Sepa have published them on the internet.\n\nThe public body had about 1.2GB of data stolen from its digital systems on Christmas Eve.\n\nSepa rejected a ransom demand for the attack, which has been claimed by the international Conti ransomware group.\n\nContracts, strategy documents and databases are among the 4,000 files released.\n\nThe data has been put on the dark web - a part of the internet associated with criminality and only accessible through specialised software.\n\nSepa chief executive Terry A'Hearn said: \"We've been clear that we won't use public finance to pay serious and organised criminals intent on disrupting public services and extorting public funds.\n\n\"We have made our legal obligations and duty of care on the sensitive handling of data a high priority and, following Police Scotland advice, are confirming that data stolen has been illegally published online.\n\n\"We're working quickly with multi-agency partners to recover and analyse data then, as identifications are confirmed, contact and support affected organisations and individuals.\"\n\nThe attack locked Sepa's emails and contacts centre but Sepa said \"priority regulatory, monitoring, flood forecasting and warning services were continuing to adapt and operate\".\n\nSepa said the theft was the equivalent to a fraction of the contents of an average laptop hard drive.\n\nSepa chief executive Terry A'Hearn said the organisation had faced a \"significant and sophisticated cyber-attack\"\n\nSome of the information stolen was already publicly available but other files included data about staff and suppliers was not.\n\nWhere information has been identified to date, staff have been contacted and are being supported.\n\nBrett Callow, of cyber security company Emsisoft, has been tracking the Sepa ransomware attack.\n\nHe said: \"Conti may well be the work of the same people behind another type of ransomware called Ryuk.\n\n\"There are similarities in the code, ransom note and attack mechanisms.\n\n\"When the complete haul of data is posted like this, it usually means the group has given up hope of being able to extract payment from the victim of monetise the data in other ways.\n\n\"It's a loss for them. At this point, they've lost all leverage and the action is intended to serve as a warning to future victims.\"\n\nDet Insp Michael McCullagh, of Police Scotland's cybercrime investigations unit, said: \"This remains an ongoing investigation.\n\n\"Inquiries remain at an early stage and continue to progress including deployment of specialist cybercrime resources to support this response.\"\n\nThe authorities will be pleased.\n\nIt looks like Sepa decided not to play ball with the cyber criminals.\n\nRansomware is a scourge that is costing organisations billions of pounds and every time a victim pays, it fuels further attacks.\n\nSadly for Sepa this is far from over.\n\nBy the looks of the stash of files that the hackers stole and encrypted, Sepa will have months of work ahead to try to recover important documents and spreadsheets from backups and rebuild their records.\n\nIt's also telling that, according to the hackers website, almost 1,000 people have so far looked at the documents.\n\nWho knows what other criminals or hackers are poring over the files right now.\n\nMaking the documents open to all means that information can be extracted to potentially be used against Sepa in further attacks or extortion attempts.\n\nIt will be months, perhaps even years until the organisation can say it is safe once more and can put this cyber attack behind it.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. PM: It's too early to give a lockdown end date\n\nIt is \"too early\" to say whether England's Covid restrictions will be able to end in the spring, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.\n\nOnce the four priority groups have been vaccinated, by mid-February, \"we'll look then at how we're doing,\" he said.\n\nNearly two million people in the UK have had their first dose of vaccine in the past week, government figures show.\n\nScientist Marc Baguelin, who advises the government, has said restaurants and bars should not reopen before May.\n\nEducation Secretary Gavin Williamson has said he \"certainly hopes\" schools in England can fully reopen before Easter, while Downing Street refused to be drawn on whether this would happen by then.\n\nA further 1,290 people have died within 28 days of a positive Covid test and there have been another 37,892 cases, according to the latest government figures.\n\nAnd almost five million people in the UK have had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.\n\nSpeaking after a study suggested infections might have increased at the start of the latest lockdown in England, Mr Johnson said it was \"absolutely crucial\" that people observed the restrictions.\n\nReferring to figures from the Imperial College London survey, he said they showed the new variant of the virus was \"not more deadly but it is much more contagious and the numbers are very great\".\n\nFigures published by Public Health England show cases - meaning people who come forward to get tested while they are infected - have fallen across England since early January.\n\nWith the two sets of figures pointing in different directions, it will be some time before it is known for sure how long it will take for lockdown to relieve the pressure on hospitals.\n\nDr Baguelin, from Imperial College, who sits on a sub-group of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said the premature opening of the hospitality sector would lead to a \"bump\" in Covid-19 cases.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme even a partial reopening would generate \"an increase in the R number\". An R number above one means the epidemic is growing.\n\n\"Something of this scale, if it was to happen earlier than May, would generate a bump in transmission, which is already really bad,\" he said.\n\n\"So you have a lot of pressure on hospitals, you will have another wave of some extent. At best you will keep on having very, very unsustainable level of pressure on the NHS.\"\n\nNHS England figures show one in 10 major hospital trusts had no spare adult critical care beds last week.\n\nThis is a debate that is going to start to dominate public discourse.\n\nWith the vaccination programme under way, there is huge clamour to know what will happen once the most vulnerable are vaccinated, by mid-February.\n\nThe problem is there are still so many unknowns.\n\nFirstly, it is hard to predict by how much lockdown will have reduced infection levels, considering there is a new faster-spreading variant to deal with.\n\nThe level of uptake will also be crucial. Surveys suggest as many as one in five may not have the vaccine - although the older, more vulnerable groups tend to be the most willing to be vaccinated.\n\nAnd the fact that no vaccine is 100% effective means come February there could still be significant numbers of very vulnerable people who are not protected.\n\nAnother factor is whether the vaccine stops transmissions - so-called sterilising vaccination.\n\nTrials have shown the vaccines are good at stopping symptoms developing. But that does not mean someone who has received a jab will not pass on the virus.\n\nIf it does not, that, of course, has implications on how many control measures have to be kept in place. It will take us at least until spring to know the answer to this.\n\nAt this stage, it seems hard to see much beyond the possible reopening of schools come March.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was an \"impossible question\" to ask how long the lockdown would need to last.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons.\n\nThis includes for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nIn Northern Ireland, coronavirus lockdown restrictions will be extended until 5 March, BBC News understands.\n\nIn Scotland, lockdown has been extended until at least the middle of February, with most school pupils to continue learning from home.\n\nAnd in Wales health minister Vaughan Gething has said no \"significant easing\" of Wales' Covid restrictions should be expected when the current guidelines are reviewed this month.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSir Keir added that the coronavirus vaccines were \"really good news\" but \"should not mask the fact that we have still got a very serious problem\".\n\nThe government is aiming to offer a vaccine to all over-70s, the extremely clinical vulnerable and health and care workers by mid-February.\n\nSixty-five new vaccination centres are opening in England, including a mosque in Birmingham and a cinema in Aylesbury.", "Paddy McElhone was shot in the back by a soldier in 1974\n\nThe shooting dead of a man by the Army in County Tyrone in August 1974 was unjustified, a coroner has ruled.\n\nPaddy McElhone, 24, a farmer, was shot in the back near his home in Limehill, Pomeroy.\n\nAn inquest heard the shot was fired by a soldier from the First Battalion, Royal Regiment of Wales.\n\nJudge Siobhan Keegan said Mr McElhone was an \"innocent man shot in cold blood without warning when he was no threat to anyone\".\n\nThe soldier, now deceased, had been cleared of murder but the circumstances were re-examined in a new inquest ordered by the Attorney General.\n\nPaddy McElhone's family said he was killed without justification, explanation or apology\n\nAfterwards, a statement issued by the McElhone family said it had been a \"very long road\" to reach Thursday's ruling and that the truth \"has been heard\".\n\nIt reads: \"Our family always knew that Paddy was an innocent young man, taken from his home and shot by a British soldier for no reason.\"\n\nEvidence presented to the inquest found Mr McElhone was not on any list associated with the IRA and was an innocent man from a humble background.\n\nThe family said Mr McElhone's parents \"went to their graves broken-hearted knowing that their innocent son had been killed, without justification, explanation or apology\".\n\n\"We feel that, today, Judge Keenan at this inquest has, at long last, exonerated Paddy in full,\" the statement continued.\n\n\"As a family we can grieve Paddy, and respect his memory as an innocent young man.\"\n\nThe inquest into Mr McElhone's death was the first in a series of coroners' investigations into deaths associated with Northern Ireland's Troubles.\n\nIt was held in Omagh courthouse in County Tyrone.", "Some 320 of the UK's most dangerous child sex offenders have been arrested since the first coronavirus lockdown, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.\n\nInvestigators have been focusing on tracking down offenders who operate online.\n\nThe operation led to a total of 4,760 arrests and 6,500 children safeguarded between April and September last year.\n\nMeanwhile, the Home Office has launched a strategy to collect detailed data about child grooming gangs.\n\nThe Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy aims to identify and convict offenders who operate in groups by gathering more information about their characteristics, including ethnicity.\n\nIt also involves investing in the national child abuse image database to identify offenders more quickly, protecting police from frequently being exposed to indecent images, and enabling parents to ask officers if someone with access to their child is known to them for cases of abuse.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said some who had suffered child sexual abuse had told her they felt \"let down by the state\", and insisted she was \"determined to put this right\".\n\nRob Jones, an NCA director, welcomed the initiative \"at a time when the threat to children is more severe than it has ever been\", highlighting that last year there were at least 300,000 people posing a sexual threat to children in the UK.\n\nHe said the NCA was focusing on the most dangerous offenders \"as part of the whole system approach\".\n\n\"Many feel they can operate with impunity online - using anonymisation techniques, secure accounts and the dark web - but as we have shown with this operation they are wrong and we have the capabilities to track them down,\" he said.\n\nMr Jones added: \"These are not just images or videos being viewed online.\n\n\"What we are uncovering here is evidence of the horrific, real-world sexual abuse of children.\"\n\nOut of the 320 arrested as part of the NCA's operation targeting the UK's most dangerous child sex offenders, 122 were targeted by NCA officers.\n\nSeventeen were in positions of trust, including a volunteer with the Scouts, church youth group leaders, a social worker, primary school and college teachers, a hospital care assistant, a police officer, and a civil servant.\n\nIn the year ending March 2020 the NCA and UK policing made 7,212 arrests and safeguarded and protected 8,329 children. This was a 50% increase in arrests and a 10% increase in safeguards compared with the year ending March 2019.\n\nMs Patel said that the national strategy would tackle and respond to \"all forms of child sexual abuse, relentlessly going after abusers, whilst better protecting victims and survivors\".\n\nShe added: \"Crucially, it contains a commitment to collect higher quality data on the characteristics of offenders, so that the government can build a fuller picture of perpetrators, and tackle the abuse that has blighted many towns and cities across our country.\"\n\nThe government has pledged to support local authorities' responses to exploitation through funding for The Children's Society's Prevention Programme initiative, which has so far trained 13,363 professionals to spot signs of child abuse.\n\nThrough the Online Safety Bill, the Home Office has also said it will ensure technology companies are held to account for harmful content on their sites.\n\nThe Children's Society's chief executive, Mark Russell, has described the strategy as a \"golden opportunity to improve support for child victims of horrific crimes and send a clear signal that child sexual abuse and exploitation are crimes that will not be tolerated\".\n\nThe scheme was also welcomed by GCHQ and charity NSPCC, which said it has received more than 40 calls a day about child sexual abuse since the pandemic began.\n\nGCHQ's director of serious and organised crime said: \"Our work to tackle systemic internet problems, the insight we provide into offender behaviour and our efforts alongside law enforcement to identify and pursue the worst offenders will help to ensure there is no safe space online for these people to operate.\"\n\nNSPCC chief executive Sir Peter Wanless said it \"rightly puts the emphasis on early intervention and action across government but added it \"must be backed up with serious investment in support for victims\" - and that children were still being exposed to abuse from teachers and social workers.\n\nSir Peter said: \"It's crucial that no young person is left unprotected which is why it's disappointing the government has not committed to closing the legal loophole that enables some adults to abuse their position of power to have sexual contact with 16 and 17-year-olds in their care.\"", "CCTV footage has been released of the moment a fire took hold in a hotel after a porter put a bag of ash and embers in a cupboard.\n\nSimon Midgley and his partner Richard Dyson died in the fire at Cameron House next to Loch Lomond in December 2017.\n\nCameron House admitted charges under the Fire Scotland Act of failing to take fire safety measures.\n\nChristopher O'Malley, who put the bag in the cupboard, admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nNon-league Chorley were unable to emulate the heroes from 1986 by causing an FA Cup sensation against Wolves - but the National League North side came away with all the credit from their fourth-round tie at Victory Park.\n\nVitinha's superb 30-yard shot after 12 minutes proved enough to secure an all-Premier League tie against Arsenal or Southampton at Molineux in the fifth round.\n\nBut Nuno Espirito Santo's side were less than impressive against their part-time opponents.\n\nChorley had the first shot of the match through Elliot Newby, and after Vitinha had struck his first Wolves goal with the visitors' only shot on target, it was the hosts who had the best chances.\n\nCrucially, they also pocketed around £120,000 in prize money, plus TV fees, to sustain them through what could be a difficult period after their league was suspended for two weeks amid funding concerns earlier in the day.\n\n\"If you are going to lose, I would prefer to lose to a goal like that than a scruffy goal,\" said Chorley boss Jamie Vermiglio.\n\n\"I am proud of what we have done for our community, my kids at school will remember that their head teacher got this far in the FA Cup. Hopefully it can inspire some of them.\n\n\"We are approaching up to half a million [in earnings from the cup run], we have people who are isolating, and those players have given them a little bit of happiness.\n\n\"If it is 2-0 or 3-0 at half-time the game is done and people are turning their TVs off. That did not happen. I felt we were in the game. Every player was outstanding.\"\n• None How to follow FA Cup fourth round on the BBC\n\nIf this does end up being Chorley's last game of the season, it is one they will remember for some time, not only for the action on the pitch but also for the huge volley of fireworks that went off behind the main stand minutes into the contest.\n\nFor visiting Wolves, it was a step into the unknown. Their starting line-up got changed in the away dressing room, while their substitutes - European Championship winner Rui Patricio and Spain international Adama Traore among them - readied themselves in a sponsors' lounge.\n\nSeemingly those starting the game on the bench got the better deal.\n\nWolves boss Nuno paid Chorley the compliment of picking a strong starting line-up, including £35.6m record signing Fabio Silva and England international Conor Coady.\n\nAnd had this match been played in more imposing surroundings, it could have been mistaken for one of those Premier League games where one side sits back, challenges the opposition to break them down and then hits them on the counter.\n\nWolves' return of 76% possession and one shot on target, set against Chorley's five shots on target, suggests home manager Vermiglio got his tactics spot on.\n\nIndeed, had Andy Halls, a personal trainer by day, not had his goal-bound header tipped over by John Ruddy after an hour, Chorley might have forced a different outcome.\n\n\"The scene was set for us to lose this game,\" said Nuno. \"John Ruddy did his job, everybody knows his quality. He helped us to win the game.\"\n\nIt was nevertheless a typically English FA Cup tie, enlivened by Vermiglio yelling \"nothing wrong with that\" when two Wolves players went down under agricultural challenges, and then laughing in Traore's face amid a brief skirmish.\n\nIt was fantastic knockabout stuff. Sadly, the enduring disappointment was that other than staff, media and stewards, no-one was there in person to witness it.\n• None Wolves have reached the FA Cup fifth round in three of the last five seasons, as many as in the 21 seasons prior to this.\n• None Premier League teams have progressed from 45 of their 47 FA Cup ties against non-league teams (96%), with only Norwich vs Luton in 2013 and Burnley vs Lincoln in 2017 failing to progress.\n• None Separated by 120 years and 362 days, Chorley have lost both of their FA Cup games against top-flight opponents, losing against Notts County in January 1900 and Wolves.\n• None Vitinha became the 32nd different Wolves player to score a goal for Nuno Espirito Santo in all competitions and the 11th different Portuguese player to do so, with what was his third shot in his 12th appearance.\n• None Since the start of 2017-18, Wolves have had 11 different Portuguese scorers - more than twice as many as any other English league team in that time (Nottingham Forest, five).\n\nWolves are next in action against Chelsea in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, 27 January (18:00 GMT).\n• None Attempt blocked. Rayan Aït-Nouri (Wolverhampton Wanderers) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Rúben Neves.\n• None Harry Cardwell (Chorley) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt missed. Pedro Neto (Wolverhampton Wanderers) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Rúben Neves.\n• None Arlen Birch (Chorley) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt blocked. Fábio Silva (Wolverhampton Wanderers) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Pedro Neto. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None You can stream five fourth-round games live on the BBC this weekend, including Liverpool's trip to Manchester United. Find out more here.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA hotel fire which claimed the lives of two men started after a porter put a bag of ash and embers in a cupboard containing kindling and newspaper.\n\nSimon Midgley and his partner Richard Dyson died in the fire at Cameron House next to Loch Lomond in December 2017.\n\nCameron House pled guilty to charges under the Fire Scotland Act of failing to take fire safety measures.\n\nChristopher O'Malley, who put the bag in the cupboard, admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act.\n\nO'Malley's lawyer said the night porter - from Renton in West Dunbartonshire - deeply regretted his actions, and did not deliberately start the fire.\n\nDumbarton Sheriff Court also heard that Cameron House did not have proper procedures in place for the disposal of ash, or for training staff.\n\nThe owners also failed to keep cupboards that contained potential ignition sources free of combustibles.\n\nAt about 04:00 on 18 December 2017, O'Malley, 35, cleared ash and embers from a fireplace in the Cameron House reception into a metal bucket.\n\nHe then emptied the contents of the bucket into a plastic bag, which he put into the concierge cupboard.\n\nThe cupboard also contained flammable materials including kindling, newspapers and cardboard.\n\nRichard Dyson, left, and Simon Midgley, right, who both died, had been on a winter break in Scotland\n\nAt about 06:40 an initial fire alarm sounded and staff noticed smoke coming from the concierge cupboard.\n\nO'Malley opened the door and flames took hold, spreading to the hall.\n\nHe and two others tried to fight the blaze with fire extinguishers, but were overcome by the flames.\n\nAdvocate depute Michael Meehan QC told the court the cupboard was well alight and the \"blaze immediately took hold and spread from there\".\n\nHe added: \"As a result of [Cameron House's] failure to keep the cupboard free of combustibles, ash and embers ignited and fire spread in the main building.\"\n\nThe night manager sounded the alarm and called 999. Firefighters arrived within 10 minutes to find a \"well developed\" fire in the mansion, which is near Balloch in West Dunbartonshire.\n\nMore than 200 guests were staying in the hotel.\n\nThe court heard one family-of-three on the second floor had to be rescued by firefighters while a couple on the first floor had to crawl to safety because corridors and fire escape pathways were filling with smoke and gases.\n\nIt was after 08:00 when it was discovered that Mr Dyson, 38, and Mr Midgley, 32, were missing.\n\nFirefighters wearing breathing apparatus found Mr Dyson on a landing at the top of a staircase.\n\nMr Midgley was lying in a fire escape passageway. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.\n\nMr Dyson was taken to hospital, where he was also pronounced dead.\n\nPost-mortem examinations said the men's causes of death had been inhalation of smoke and fire gases.\n\nThe couple had travelled from London, and were staying at the five-star resort as the final stop on their winter break to Scotland.\n\nSheriff William Gallacher also heard of an incident three nights before the fatal fire, where O'Malley and another night porter were told not to put ash into plastic bags because it was a fire hazard.\n\nCameron House QC Peter Gray said it was therefore \"extremely difficult to understand\" why O'Malley did not follow this guidance on the night of the fire.\n\nThe court also heard that Cameron House staff were not properly trained in the safe disposal of ash and that no written procedures were in place.\n\nThere was also no procedure in place for emptying the metal ash bins outside the hotel on a regular basis.\n\nThat was contrary to recommendations made in two fire risk assessments carried out by an independent company in 2016 and 2017.\n\nAfter the first report was received by Cameron House management in January 2016, the resort manager agreed there was a lack of a formal procedure for disposing of ash and delegated the responsibility for this to his deputy.\n\nMr Meehan said this report \"should have been a game-changer\" for Cameron House.\n\nWhen the issue was raised again in a follow-up report a year later, managers believed it had already been dealt with.\n\nMr Gray said: \"The resort manager understood incorrectly that all the actions had been completed, including in relation to the written procedure for disposing of ash from open fires.\"\n\nThe Scottish Fire and Rescue Service had also warned Cameron House managers about the risks of storing combustibles in the concierge cupboard in August 2017.\n\nThe audit highlighted the potential danger of fire spreading rapidly through the building because of its age and voids.\n\nA follow-up letter was sent to management in November 2017 - one month before the fire - but combustibles continued to be stored in the cupboard.\n\nCameron House's lawyer added that the failings were not deliberate breaches but occurred \"as a result of genuine errors\".\n\nHe also told the court the fire had gone undetected for a long period before being discovered, and that the hotel had a \"suite of measures in place\" to deal with fire safety.\n\nAn absence of formal procedures for dealing with ashes and embers gave staff the opportunity to improvise, he added.\n\nMr Gray continued: \"I am instructed to extend my deepest sympathies from the accused to the families of Mr Midgley and Mr Dyson.\n\nHe said the hotel takes its duties to ensure the safety of its guests extremely seriously.\n\nDetails of what happened at Cameron House were first revealed in court on 14 December last year, but reporting restrictions meant they could not be published until now.\n\nSentencing is due to take place on 29 January.", "Fashion chain Next has said it will no longer bid to buy Sir Philip Green's Arcadia retail brands Topshop and Topman out of administration.\n\nIt comes after a consortium including the fashion chain was named as frontrunner to buy the brands.\n\nIn a short statement, Next said the consortium had been \"unable to meet the price expectations of the vendor\".\n\nSome 13,000 jobs were put at risk when Arcadia, which also owns Burton and Dorothy Perkins, went bust in November.\n\nIt leaves a clutch of others in the race to buy the 440-store group, including Mike Ashley's Frasers Group, which owns House of Fraser and Sports Direct.\n\nAccording to reports, Authentic Brands, the US owner of the Barneys department store, and JD Sports have tabled a joint offer, while online retailers Asos and Boohoo are also said to be interested.\n\nAdministrators Deloitte have been looking for buyers for some or all of Arcadia, after a slump in sales caused by the pandemic triggered its collapse.\n\nNext, which has 550 UK shops and has weathered the pandemic well, was seen as a good fit to take over the group's assets.\n\nIt had been bidding in partnership with the US hedge fund Davidson Kempner, which was going to put up most of the money.\n\nNext said it wished \"the administrator and future owners [of Arcadia] well in their endeavours to preserve an important part of the UK retail sector\".\n\nExperts expect Arcadia to be broken up, with bidders taking on different parts of the business and brands potentially hived off from their stores.\n\nIn December, Australian collective City Chic said it would buy Arcadia's Evans brand, commerce and wholesale business for £23m but not its store network.\n\nLast year was the worst for the High Street in more than 25 years as the coronavirus accelerated the move towards online shopping, according to the Centre for Retail Research (CRR).\n\nNearly 180,000 retail jobs were lost, up by almost a quarter on the previous year, as shops faced strict curbs and prolonged closures.", "Early evidence suggests the variant of coronavirus that emerged in the UK may be more deadly, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.\n\nHowever, there remains huge uncertainty around the numbers - and vaccines are still expected to work.\n\nThe data comes from mathematicians comparing death rates in people infected with either the new or the old versions of the virus.\n\nThe new more infectious variant has already spread widely across the UK.\n\nMr Johnson told a Downing Street briefing: \"In addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant - the variant that was first identified in London and the south east - may be associated with a higher degree of mortality.\n\n\"It's largely the impact of this new variant that means the NHS is under such intense pressure.\"\n\nPublic Health England, Imperial College London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Exeter have each been trying to assess how deadly the new variant is.\n\nTheir evidence has been assessed by scientists on the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag).\n\nThe group concluded there was a \"realistic possibility\" that the virus had become more deadly, but this is far from certain.\n\nSir Patrick Vallance, the government's chief scientific adviser, described the data so far as \"not yet strong\".\n\nHe said: \"I want to stress that there's a lot of uncertainty around these numbers and we need more work to get a precise handle on it, but it obviously is a concern that this has an increase in mortality as well as an increase in transmissibility.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Patrick Vallance: \"There is evidence that there's an increased risk for those who have the new variant\"\n\nPrevious work suggests the new variant spreads between 30% and 70% faster than others, and there are hints it is about 30% more deadly.\n\nFor example, with 1,000 60-year-olds infected with the old variant, 10 of them might be expected to die. But this rises to about 13 with the new variant.\n\nThis difference is found when looking at everyone testing positive for Covid, but analysing only hospital data has found no increase in the death rate. Hospital care has improved over the course of the pandemic as doctors get better at treating the disease.\n\nThe new variant was first detected in Kent in September. It is now the most common form of the virus in England and Northern Ireland, and has spread to more than 50 other countries.\n\nThe Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are both expected to work against the variant that emerged in the UK.\n\nHowever, Sir Patrick said there was more concern about two other variants that had emerged in South Africa and Brazil.\n\nHe said: \"They have certain features which means they might be less susceptible to vaccines.\n\n\"They are definitely of more concern than the one in the UK at the moment and we need to keep looking at it and studying this very carefully.\"\n\nThe prime minister said the government was prepared to take further action to protect the country's borders to prevent new variants from entering.\n\n\"I really don't rule it out, we may need to take further measures still,\" he said.\n\nLast week the government extended a travel ban to South America, Portugal and many African countries amid concerns about new variants, while all international travellers must now test negative ahead of departure to the UK and go into quarantine on arrival.", "Shoppers bought far fewer clothes last year as lockdowns meant people had less opportunity to socialise and go out.\n\nClothes sales slumped 25%, the biggest drop in 23 years when records began, official figures suggest.\n\nWhile shops have reported demand for certain clothing such as pyjamas and loungewear has risen, demand for going-out items has fallen sharply.\n\nAnd despite a pick-up in December, clothing sales remain lower than before the pandemic struck.\n\n\"With few opportunities to socialise during lockdown and many people working from home, the clothing sector has been one of the \"worst-affected by restrictions\", the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.\n\nEarlier this month, Marks & Spencer said sales of sleepwear had soared\n\nGrowing numbers of High Street shops have faced financial difficulties due to the temporary store closures imposed during lockdowns.\n\nTopshop-owner Arcadia and competitors Debenhams, Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group, Oasis and Warehouse have all slid into insolvency since lockdown measures were first imposed last March.\n\nThe inability to try clothes on in bricks-and-mortar shops, as well as restrictions on eating out meaning consumers are going out less, have all affected sales, the ONS suggested.\n\nAnd the slump in demand for fashion meant that British retail sales saw their largest annual fall on record in 2020.\n\nSales fell by 1.9% last year, when compared with 2019, the largest year-on-year fall since records began in 1997.\n\nRetail sales, including fuel, did see a small increase last month, growing by 0.3% when compared with November.\n\nIt came following the end of England's national lockdown on 2 December. Sales had slumped by 4.1% in November during a month-long shutdown.\n\nBut \"this was very clearly not a Merry Christmas for most of the High Street\", said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.\n\n\"For most retailers it's the most crucial month of the year to get profit back on track but the large upswing in sales after the pain of the November lockdowns didn't materialise,\" she said.\n\nONS deputy national statistician for economic statistics Jonathan Athow said that some sectors, however, had been \"able to buck the trend\" last year.\n\n\"The increased popularity of click-and-collect and people buying more items from home led to a strong year for overall internet sales, with record highs for food and household goods sales online.\"\n\nIn a sign of the way the pandemic has changed shopping habits, the value of online retail sales jumped by 46.1% in 2020 when compared with 2019 - the highest annual growth reported since 2008.\n\nOnline trade now accounts for more than one-third of all retail sales.\n\nRichard Lim, chief executive of Retail Economics, explained that the rise of online had \"polarised industry performance\".\n\n\"The gap widened between those retailers with the most sophisticated online propositions from those with legacy store-dependent business models,\" he said.\n\nOnline-only retailers such as Boohoo and Asos, for example, have reported strong sales figures in 2020.\n\nSupermarkets in particular have embraced the shift to digital, with online food store sales up 79.3% last year.\n\nThere was also better news from the John Lewis Partnership, which owns Waitrose, on Friday. It said that it would return a £300m emergency coronavirus loan to the government as trading went \"better than anticipated\" over Christmas.\n\nToday's figures show just how badly the clothing sector has been affected these last 12 months.\n\nFashion is the big retail loser from this pandemic. Who needs to splash out on the latest trends when we're working from home and not going out? And even when clothing shops are open, chances are you can't try things on.\n\nWith all of the Covid-19 measures in place, the fun has been sucked out of shopping. We haven't stopped spending, but most of it is going online. Boohoo and Asos have seen very strong sales growth, for instance.\n\nThe going's far harder for retailers with large numbers of physical stores. The pressures have already taken their toll on the likes of Sir Philip Green's Arcadia Group and Debenhams.\n\nAnd things may well get worse on the high street before they better. Many retailers are worried about the end of the business rates holiday and of the temporary ban on eviction for non payment of rent in April. These will result in a big increase in costs when sales have yet to fully recover.\n\nBut Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, called for more help for non-essential shops and High Street retailers who continue to be affected by lockdown restrictions.\n\n\"With no end in sight for retailers closed in lockdown, many will struggle to survive under a mounting rent burden, and a return to full business rates in April,\" she said.\n\nShe called on government to offer \"targeted\" business rates relief to businesses worst-affected by the pandemic.\n\n\"Decisive action is needed to save jobs, shops and local communities, with town and city centres looking to be particularly hard hit unless the government acts now.\"\n\nEarlier in January, a report from the Centre for Retail Research said that 2020 was the worst for High Street job losses in more than 25 years, because of the acceleration towards online shopping.\n\nNearly 180,000 retail jobs were lost last year, up by almost a quarter from 2019, it said.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nLiverpool's 68-game unbeaten home run in the Premier League came to an end as Ashley Barnes fired in a late winner from the penalty spot to secure a famous victory for Burnley.\n\nBarnes was tripped in the box by goalkeeper Alisson with seven minutes remaining and converted the spot-kick as Burnley won at Anfield for the first time since 1974.\n\nLiverpool's last league loss on their own ground came nearly four years ago, against Crystal Palace in April 2017, and they are now six points behind leaders Manchester United at the midway point in the campaign.\n\nDivock Origi was given his first start of the season and should have scored when he ran free on goal after pouncing on Ben Mee's error but struck the crossbar.\n\nThe hosts pushed to find the net in the second half but ran out of ideas, Nick Pope making a stunning save to deny Mohamed Salah and fellow substitute Roberto Firmino flicking an effort wide.\n\nBurnley's shock win lifts them up to 16th in the table, seven points clear of the relegation zone.\n• None Klopp takes blame but what has happened to Liverpool?\n\nJurgen Klopp said before the game he was \"not worried\" by his side's poor run, but the latest setback means this has now turned into a real problem for the Liverpool manager.\n\nAfter 19 games, Liverpool are out of form and out of confidence, failing to find the net in their last 440 minutes of top-flight action and awaiting their first league victory of 2021.\n\nThey looked to be hitting their stride on 19 December when they took apart Crystal Palace 7-0, but have not won in the league since and scored just a solitary league goal in that time, against relegation strugglers West Brom.\n\nTheir drop-off from the same stage last season is extraordinary - after 19 games last term the Reds were 13 points clear at the top with 55 points, but they have 21 fewer points now.\n\nAside from Pope's save to thwart Salah and stops from Origi and Trent Alexander-Arnold, Liverpool did not look a side who were threatening to find the net.\n\nThey had 72% possession but much of it was slow and ponderous, and although they had spaces out wide and put 30 crosses into the box, the resolute Burnley defenders headed and hacked clear every ball that came in.\n\nLiverpool won 18 of 19 league games at Anfield as they cantered to the title last term.\n\nBurnley were the spoilers on that occasion - earning a 1-1 draw in July 2020 - and they bettered that showing here with another solid and well-organised display.\n\nCaptain Mee had 14 clearances and made two tackles, while centre-back partner James Tarkowski contributed five interceptions and won the ball back four times.\n\nBurnley are a well-drilled outfit and know their limitations, happy to sit back and soak up the pressure before looking to take their chances on the counter-attack.\n\nThey had sniffs on the break but were unable to get the final ball right and while Barnes forced an excellent save out of Alisson, the assistant referee's flag would have ruled it out.\n\nThey remain the lowest scorers in the league with just 10 goals - level with bottom side Sheffield United - but their defensive solidity means they will always pose a threat, even to the biggest teams.\n\n'We dealt with the basics' - manager reaction\n\nBurnley boss Sean Dyche to Match of the Day: \"Performance, we had to work very hard, as you do in these places, be diligent and do your jobs - shape was good, energy was good.\n\n\"We had a golden chance, kept searching, but you have to deal with the basics and we did that very well.\n\n\"We were close last year, you get a feel of a performance and I said 'you are used to playing against these players, working without the ball, there's always a chance and you have to take it'. Barnsey sticks it in there, gets a toe, it's a penalty and he sticks it away very well.\"\n• None This was Burnley's second Premier League win away against the reigning champions (also v Chelsea in August 2017). Indeed, since the 2017-18 season, Burnley are the only side with two away league wins over the reigning English champions.\n• None Liverpool have gone four league games without scoring for the first time since May 2000. The Reds have had a total of 87 shots since Sadio Mane's 12th-minute strike against West Brom, 25 days ago.\n• None This is the first time a Jurgen Klopp side has gone four league games without scoring since his Mainz side did so in the Bundesliga from November to December 2006.\n• None Liverpool have gone five Premier League games without a win (D3 L2) for only the second time under Klopp (also from Jan-Feb 2017).\n• None Liverpool have conceded two penalty goals at Anfield in this season's Premier League (also Sander Berge for Sheff Utd); they had only conceded two penalty goals at the ground under Klopp before 2020-21.\n• None Liverpool had 27 shots without scoring against Burnley, the most they have had in a single league match without finding the net since April 2013 v Reading (28), and most at Anfield since April 2012 v West Brom (30).\n• None Ashley Barnes' penalty for Burnley was his first away goal in the Premier League in 11 appearances on the road, since netting against Watford back in November 2019.\n• None Since the start of last season, no goalkeeper has made more saves against a single opponent in the Premier League than Burnley's Nick Pope against Liverpool (19). Pope has made 14 saves in his last two games at Anfield, including six tonight.\n\nLiverpool have another big game on Sunday against rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup. That game is live on the BBC (17:00 GMT). Burnley travel to Fulham in the same competition on the same day (14:30).\n• None Offside, Burnley. Dwight McNeil tries a through ball, but Chris Wood is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Takumi Minamino (Liverpool) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt missed. Dwight McNeil (Burnley) left footed shot from the left side of the box is close, but misses the top left corner. Assisted by Ashley Barnes.\n• None Attempt blocked. Roberto Firmino (Liverpool) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Trent Alexander-Arnold.\n• None Attempt missed. Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool) right footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Sadio Mané with a cross.\n• None Joel Matip (Liverpool) is shown the yellow card for hand ball.\n• None Attempt blocked. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) left footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Sadio Mané.\n• None Goal! Liverpool 0, Burnley 1. Ashley Barnes (Burnley) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom right corner.\n• None Penalty conceded by Alisson (Liverpool) after a foul in the penalty area.\n• None Attempt blocked. Sadio Mané (Liverpool) right footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Andrew Robertson. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None You can stream five fourth-round games live on the BBC this weekend, including Liverpool's trip to Manchester United. Find out more here.", "Nissan's car plant in Sunderland is the UK's biggest and employs 6,000 people directly\n\nJapanese car maker Nissan has told the BBC its Sunderland plant is secure for the long term as a result of the trade deal reached between the UK and the EU.\n\nIt said it will move additional battery production close to the plant where it has 6,000 direct employees and supports nearly 70,000 jobs in the supply chain.\n\nCurrently, the batteries in its Leaf electric cars are imported from Japan.\n\nNissan would not confirm if this would mean additional jobs at Sunderland, which is the UK's largest car plant.\n\nManufacturing the more powerful batteries in the UK will ensure its cars comply with trade rules agreed with the EU requiring at least 55% of the car's value to be derived from either the UK or the EU to qualify for zero tariffs when exported to the EU.\n\nSome 70% of the cars made in Sunderland are exported and the vast majority of them are sold in the EU.\n\nNissan had issued stark warnings last year that if the UK left the EU without a trade deal, the resulting tariffs on cars and components would make the Sunderland plant \"unsustainable\".\n\nNissan's chief operating officer Ashwani Gupta told the BBC: \"The Brexit deal is positive for Nissan. Being the largest automaker in the UK we are taking this opportunity to redefine auto-making in the UK.\n\nNissan's Ashwani Gupta said the Brexit deal had created a 'competitive environment'\n\n\"It has created a competitive environment for Sunderland, not just inside the UK but outside as well.\n\n\"We've decided to localise the manufacture of the 62kWh battery in Sunderland so that all our products qualify [for tariff-free export to the EU]. We are committed to Sunderland for the long term under the business conditions that have been agreed.\"\n\nIt came as Nissan paused one of its two production lines in Sunderland on Friday as disruption at ports caused by the pandemic affected its supply chain.\n\nThe company said the move would affect the line which produces the Qashqai and Leaf, but work would resume next week.\n\nBusiness Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng welcomed the firm's endorsement of Sunderland as a manufacturing base.\n\n\"Nissan's decision represents a genuine belief in Britain and a huge vote of confidence in our economy thanks to the certainty our trade deal with the EU delivers,\" he said.\n\n\"For the dedicated and highly-skilled workforce in Sunderland, it means the city will be home to Nissan's latest models for years to come and positions the company to capitalise on the wealth of benefits that will flow from electric vehicle production.\"\n\nIt's particularly welcome after the more guarded comments from the boss of Vauxhall's parent company last week.\n\nSpeaking as the tie-up between Fiat Chrsyler and Peugeot Citroen was christened with new umbrella name Stellantis, boss Carlos Tavares said that the future of its Ellesmere Port plant depended on the support the UK government was prepared to offer after its decision to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars after 2030.\n\n\"If you change, brutally, the rules and if you restrict the rules for business then there is at one point in time a problem,\" he said.\n\nLooking forward, he said it would make more sense to locate an electric vehicle factory closer to the larger EU market.\n\nIndustry voices welcomed the news from Nissan but reinforced the message from Vauxhall's owners that the government needs to do more to secure the future of the car industry as it electrifies.\n\n\"This is obviously good news and will help the Nissan Leaf avoid any future tariffs, but we are going to need to see a lot more investment in battery production in the UK if we are to preserve the UK as a car manufacturer and exporter,\" said Professor David Bailey of Warwick University.\n\nThe head of trade body the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders agreed.\n\n\"The battery plant in Sunderland may be enough for Nissan's near-term plans to build tens of thousands of electric cars but the UK made 1.5 million cars last year and all will be partly electric by 2030,\" Mike Hawes said.\n\nAndy Palmer, former boss of Aston Martin and current chairman of electric bus maker Switch Mobility, has gone further. He says that 800,000 jobs are at risk if the UK government doesn't act now to foster battery investment.\n\n\"Without electric vehicle batteries made in the UK, the country's auto industry risks becoming an antiquated relic and overtaken by China, Japan, America and Europe.\"\n\nHe urged the UK government to use every lever at its disposal to make the UK attractive.\n\nUK car investment has fallen sharply since the UK voted to leave the EU.\n\nIn the five years to 2016 it averaged £3.5bn per year. In the four years since it has averaged around £1bn - a fall of 71% at a time when the technology and map of car production are going through their biggest revolution since the car was invented.\n\nThe Nissan decision is therefore a very welcome boost to the UK which is in an international scramble for the investment of the future which is happening right now.", "Police warned that unsanctioned protests would be \"immediately suppressed\"\n\nRussian police have detained close aides of the jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny, as a string of nationwide protests gets under way.\n\nPolice have broken up demonstrations in the eastern Khabarovsk region, amid stern warnings for people to stay home.\n\nMr Navalny's supporters flooded social media with calls to rally at protests expected in dozens of cities later.\n\nHe is Russian leader Vladimir Putin's most high-profile critic.\n\nHe was arrested last Sunday after he flew back to Moscow from Berlin, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal nerve agent attack in Russia last August.\n\nOn his return, he was immediately taken into custody and found guilty of violating parole conditions. He says it is a trumped-up case designed to silence him.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Alexei Navalny was filmed by the BBC saying goodbye to his wife and then being led away by authorities\n\nMore than 60m people have watched his new video about President Vladimir Putin's alleged luxury Black Sea palace.\n\nThe Kremlin denies the property belongs to the president.\n\nAmong those detained in Moscow on Thursday were his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, and one of his lawyers, Lyubov Sobol. They face fines or short jail terms.\n\nMs Sobol, who has a young child, was later released. But Ms Yarmysh has now been jailed for nine days.\n\nProminent Navalny activists are also being held in the cities of Vladivostok, Novosibirsk and Krasnodar.\n\nUnauthorised rallies are being planned in more than 60 cities across Russia for Saturday. Moscow police say any unauthorised demonstrations and provocations will be \"immediately suppressed\".\n\nA thousand people were reported to have come onto the streets in the Khabarovsk region, with some of them already detained.\n\nMr Navalny's wife Yulia, who travelled back to Russia with him from Germany, said she would demonstrate in Moscow \"for myself, for him, for our children, for the values and the ideals that we share\".\n\nAlexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) has drawn millions of followers on social media, through slickly produced videos alleging large-scale official corruption. He has long denounced Mr Putin's administration as \"feudal\" and full of \"crooks and thieves\".\n\nFor a long time the Russian authorities made out that Alexei Navalny was irrelevant. Just a blogger. With a tiny following. No threat whatsoever.\n\nRecent events suggest the opposite. First Mr Navalny was targeted with a nerve agent, allegedly by a secret group of FSB state security hitmen. Instead of investigating the poisoning, Russia is investigating him: on his return from Germany the Kremlin critic was arrested.\n\nHaving put Mr Navalny behind bars, the authorities are putting pressure on his supporters. The Kremlin's greatest fear is of a Ukraine-style revolution in Russia that would sweep away those in power.\n\nThere's no indication that such a scenario is imminent. But with economic problems growing, the Kremlin will worry that Mr Navalny could act as a lightning rod for protest sentiment. That explains the police crackdown on Navalny allies ahead of Saturday's potential protests.\n\nPlus, this is getting personal. Mr Navalny's video about \"Putin's Palace\" on the Black Sea was designed to cause maximum embarrassment to the Russian president.\n\nIn the \"Putin's palace\" video Mr Navalny alleges that rich businessmen close to Mr Putin paid for a sumptuous 17,691sq m (190,424sq ft) palace for him at Gelendzhik, by the Black Sea.\n\nIt is alleged to have a casino, a theatre and many other comforts, including a vineyard and tea house in the sprawling grounds. The Kremlin dismissed the YouTube video as a \"pseudo-investigation\" aimed at earning money for Mr Navalny.\n\nProsecutors have warned people against protesting in support of Mr Navalny on Saturday. Russia's education ministry has told parents not to allow their children to attend.\n\nSome Russian celebrities in the arts and sports have pledged support for Mr Navalny. They include ice hockey star Artemi Panarin.\n\nFormer world chess champion Garry Kasparov - now a leading anti-Putin activist based in the US - tweeted that pro-Navalny posts were being widely blocked in Russia.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Garry Kasparov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a phone call to President Putin on Friday, EU Council President Charles Michel voiced \"grave concern\" about the jailing of Mr Navalny.\n\nMr Michel said the EU was \"united in its call on Russia to swiftly release Mr Navalny and proceed with the investigation into the assassination attempt on him, in full transparency and without further delay\".\n\nIn October, the EU imposed sanctions on six top Russian officials and a Russian chemical weapons research centre over the Novichok poisoning of Mr Navalny.\n\nThe Kremlin retaliated with tit-for-tat sanctions, denying any role in the attack and rejecting the expert finding that the Russian nerve agent had been used.\n\nThe Black Sea palace allegedly features a casino, an ice rink and a vineyard\n\nThe social media app TikTok has a flood of videos from Russians promoting the protests planned for Saturday. The messages about Mr Navalny have been going viral for several days.\n\nA well-known Russian TikTok user, Slava Varfolomeyev, told BBC Russian: \"I go on TikTok and find that every third video is about 'Putin's palace', the detention of Navalny and the 23 January rally!\"\n\nHe said that on Thursday \"this swelled to a maximum: practically seven out of every 10 videos were on that topic [Navalny]\". TikTok's popularity is based on short-form videos.\n\nOn Wednesday Russia's official media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, demanded that TikTok take down any information \"encouraging minors to act illegally\", threatening large fines.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Teresa Dalling says a river of orange water rushed through the village on Thursday\n\nSerious flooding which forced villagers from their homes was potentially caused by a mine shaft \"blow out\" during Storm Christoph, authorities have said.\n\nAbout 80 people were evacuated as water rushed through Skewen, Neath Port Talbot, on Thursday.\n\nResidents have been told they will not be able to return home this weekend or \"possibly longer\".\n\nThe Coal Authority said initial checks suggested water had built up in the shaft and flooded the village.\n\nCarl Banton, from the Coal Authority, said there had been a \"tremendous amount\" of rain recently and potentially a blockage in the drainage system could have caused the mine shaft to \"blow out\".\n\nMr Banton reassured people that officers had visually checked other mine shafts in the area and were \"not concerned\" any would collapse.\n\n\"The mine shaft in question is the one that was on actually on the water level, it has found its point of weakness,\" he said.\n\nCarl Banton said that while investigations were ongoing heavy rain may have overwhelmed the mine shaft\n\nA major incident was declared as water rushed into the village on Thursday, leaving eight streets underwater as Storm Christoph caused widespread flooding across Wales.\n\nOn Friday, as firefighters continued to pump water out of the village, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) confirmed the Tennant Canal had been polluted \"from mine water\".\n\nLate on Friday evening, Neath Port Talbot council said, for safety reasons, people forced to leave their homes would \"not be able to return home this weekend, and the wait could possibly longer\".\n\nA support centre will open at Abbey Primary School from Saturday, with council officers on site to help people access emergency support.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Coal Authority, which manages the effects of historical coal mining, are investigating the cause of the flooding.\n\nMr Banton said initial findings showed there may have been a build-up of water on the hillside which had \"found its way out\" through the mine shaft, flooding the village.\n\n\"The flow appears to be subsiding... but what we are unsure of is if there is a feed of additional water into the mine workings, from the extensive mine workings on the hillside,\" he added.\n\nAt least 80 people have had to leave their homes in the village after flooding\n\nMr Banton said officers would drill down into the shaft and investigate on Saturday, in the hope that people could soon be allowed back into their homes.\n\n\"A lot of the mining in this area is very old... some of it dates back to the early 1800s... we have no details of how the shaft in question here was originally filled or capped,\" he said.\n\n\"We will ensure the mine shaft is properly capped and sorted out.\"\n\nMartyn Evans, of NRW, said officers were looking at how to minimise the risk of pollution to nearby rivers, and investigating any impacts on the River Neath.\n\n\"We have also carried out tests on other watercourses in the vicinity of the incident. Results indicate there has been no significant impact on those at present,\" he said.\n\nOn Thursday night a further 20 homes were evacuated by emergency services as the water continued to rush through the village.\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford confirmed on Friday financial support would be made available to people affected by the recent floods, up to £1,000 per household.\n\n\"This is the same level of support available a year ago when storms Ciara and Dennis hit Wales, just before the pandemic,\" he said.\n\nThe water is warmer than the air and is creating a mist along Dynevor Road\n\nSkewen resident John Thomas said he returned home from a funeral with wife Lynne on Thursday to find their house had turned into \"a lake\", he told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.\n\nHe said: \"The water was around the level of the bottom of the doors so we couldn't go in, so we just had to stand there and watch this orange-coloured water just piling up and up and up.\"\n\nMr Thomas said that with water up to his waist, he was unable to get in to rescue possessions.\n\nHe added: \"We're in a bit of a dip on the road, so you could see it gradually coming up, they were worried it might have been a sinkhole because of the coal mines.\n\n\"It's definitely mine workings, just by looking at the colour of the water, it's an orange colour.\n\n\"Other people who were evacuated had the chance to move things upstairs, I didn't have a chance to do that because I couldn't get in to it.\"\n\nThe couple are now staying with their daughter, with everyone else who was evacuated from their homes finding accommodation and told to avoid the area.\n\nMore than 30 residents of Cwrt-Clwydi-Gwyn care home were among those moved as a precaution.\n\nIt was a sleepless night for Skewen resident Teresa Dalling\n\nTeresa Dalling, who lives in Dynevor Road, said she had spent the night fearing for her safety.\n\n\"I haven't slept. I was up the back door every two hours checking the water level,\" she said.\n\n\"I didn't know we lived near old mines and if there's been a collapse, my fear is more could follow and that's terrifying.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Stephen Kinnock This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAs well as properties, vehicles were submerged in water\n\nUp to 45 firefighters were involved at the scene at the height of the flooding.\n\nIn a joint statement, the police, fire service and Neath Port Talbot Council urged people not to return to their homes until it was safe.\n\nCh Supt Trudi Meyrick said: \"We appreciate people are eager to get back to their homes and we are working with partners to allow this to happen as soon as it is safe to do so.\n\n\"In the meantime we ask people to please be patient as their safety is our top priority.\"\n\nIn one home, floodwater can be seen filling the living room\n\nFirefighters are continuing to pump water out of the village where people were forced to leave their homes\n\nDeputy Chief Fire Officer Roger Thomas, of Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service, said firefighters remained in the village, pumping out water.\n\nHe said: \"We will continue to monitor the situation and support our partner agencies and those affected over the next few days.\"\n\nHomes were evacuated at Goshen Park, in Skewen\n\nNeath Port Talbot council said a local rest centre was available, and measures had been put in place to protect against Covid-19.\n\nChief executive Karen Jones said they would continue to support residents who had to leave their homes and they would ensure others had a safe place to go if further evacuations were necessary.\n\nNetwork Rail said engineers had checked for any potential damage to the railway line, but had found no \"cause for concern\".\n\nThe water has rushed through the streets of the town\n\nA severe flood warning remains in force for the Lower Dee Valley, from Llangollen to Trevalyn Meadows.\n\nThree flood warnings are in place for the River Wye at Monmouth, River Ritec at Tenby, and Bangor-on-Dee, where people were forced to leave their homes on Thursday as flooding saw a major incident declared. Eleven flood alerts are also in place.\n\nSnow and ice could also exacerbate issues for emergency services and those forced to leave their homes, with temperatures forecast to plummet in coming days.", "Last updated on .From the section Tennis\n\nFive-time finalist Andy Murray will miss the Australian Open after a solution to find a \"workable quarantine\" following his positive test for coronavirus could not be found.\n\nThe 33-year-old Briton was set to fly out to Melbourne last week, but was not allowed to travel on a charter flight after being found to have Covid-19.\n\nThe former world number one had hoped to travel safely and compete as planned on the back of a negative test.\n\nMurray said he was \"gutted\" not to go.\n\nHe was asymptomatic and is now out of self-isolation, but finding a way for him to travel to Australia and then going into quarantine before the tournament starts on 8 February proved too difficult.\n\n\"We've been in constant dialogue with Tennis Australia to try and find a solution which would allow some form of workable quarantine, but we couldn't make it work,\" said Murray.\n\n\"I want to thank everyone there for their efforts. I'm devastated not to be playing out in Australia. It's a country and tournament that I love.\"\n\nMurray was able to play only seven official matches in 2020 because of a lingering pelvic injury, and the five-month suspension of the tours because of the pandemic.\n\nAt 123rd in the world, he was ranked too low to gain direct entry into Australian Open so the three-time Grand Slam champion was given a wildcard.\n\nThe Australian Open at Melbourne Park is starting three weeks later than usual because of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nPlayers had to test negative before taking one of the 15 chartered flights - which were put on last week by tournament organisers and operated at 25% capacity - to Australia.\n\nOn arrival, the players and their support staff went straight into a 14-day quarantine under the conditions imposed by the Australian government.\n\nThat agreement allowed them out of their rooms for up to five hours a day for food and practice.\n\nHowever, 72 players have been confined to their rooms in a tougher quarantine - which led to some complaints and creative ways of staying fit - after they travelled on three flights where positive cases were found on arrival.\n\nHaving missed his flight to Melbourne, and therefore last weekend's window for the players to begin 14 days of quarantine, Murray was always up against it.\n\nThere are no health issues, and no injury concerns, and Murray had been hoping he could make it to Australia to complete quarantine in time to play a first-round match on either 8 or 9 February.\n\nBut the only \"workable quarantine\" would have included five hours out of his room every day. This was no longer available, and no player - irrespective of age or injury history - would want to play a Grand Slam first-round match just hours after two weeks in a hotel room.\n\nMurray is understandably devastated: he knows that at 33, and with two hip operations behind him, he cannot guarantee there will be another opportunity.\n\nBut it would have been a long way to travel potentially to lose in the first round, and receiving a special exemption may not have sat well with Murray over time.\n\nInstead, he will work with his team on his next move. Montpellier and Rotterdam are the next two ATP tournaments in Europe, although nothing is easy with Covid travel restrictions.\n• None You can stream five fourth-round games live on the BBC this weekend, including Liverpool's trip to Manchester United. Find out more here.", "Jane Midgley says she needs answers about the death of her son, Simon\n\nThe mother of a man killed in a fire at a hotel on the shores of Loch Lomond more than two years ago has said it is \"torture\" not knowing why he died.\n\nSimon Midgley, 32, and Richard Dyson, 38, died in the fire which fire broke out at the Cameron House Hotel in 2017.\n\nJane Midgley said she needs answers about what led to Simon's death.\n\nThe Crown Office said it was committed to ensuring the circumstances around the deaths were aired in an \"appropriate legal forum\".\n\nMs Midgley said every day without answers was like the day she found out about his death.\n\n\"I just live it every single day and I can't cope with it much longer,\" she said. \"I need to know why they are not here and it's so difficult.\n\n\"I need answers. Why are these boys not here anymore? Why did this happen? Nearly three years on, no one is telling me.\"\n\nRichard Dyson and Simon Midgley were thought to be on a winter break in Scotland\n\nShe told BBC Scotland she wakes up during the night thinking about her son, asking herself \"has this really happened?\".\n\n\"Nearly three years on, should I still be feeling this hurt and pain?\"\n\nAfter the fire, the emergency services conducted investigations.\n\nWhile this can be a lengthy process, reports from the fire service and the police were passed to the Crown months ago.\n\nMs Midgley criticised prosecutors for not providing her with more information. She added she thinks they should be in contact with her more regularly than every four weeks.\n\nShe said: \"When the Crown say that they regularly update the family and are in regular contact that is always to say... 'it's still ongoing', 'we'll update you with anything significant', 'it's complicated'.\"\n\nShe added that there were many questions she still wanted answers to.\n\n\"The most important thing is finding out why Simon couldn't get out of that hotel that night - what went wrong. I have no idea, I've got to understand, I just need the answers.\n\n\"I need to know how it happened. I need to know why the boys didn't get out of that hotel when it was on fire, how it started, where it started, why they could not get out, could it have been prevented... it is pure torture.\"\n\nFire broke out at the Cameron House hotel in 2017\n\nMr Midgley was a freelance writer with the Evening Standard. Following his death the newspaper's editor, George Osbourne, paid tribute to Mr Midgley's \"adventurous spirit\".\n\nA spokesman for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said: \"Our staff have been in regular contact with the nearest relatives and provided them with information at every stage.\n\n\"The information that can be shared while a case is being investigated is limited so as not to prejudice any potential proceedings.\n\n\"The Crown‎ is committed to ensuring that the facts and circumstances surrounding the deaths of Simon Midgley and Richard Dyson are thoroughly investigated by the relevant agencies, fully considered by COPFS and, in due course, aired in an appropriate legal forum.\n\n\"The nearest relatives will continue to be kept updated in relation to any significant developments.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Amy says her flat isn't worth anything until it is made safe\n\nThe government's fund to pay for the removal of dangerous cladding is woefully inadequate, oversubscribed and taking too long to make buildings safe, campaigners say.\n\nMore than three and a half years since the Grenfell Tower fire which killed 72 people, an estimated 700,000 people are still living in high-rise blocks with flammable cladding.\n\nThe £1.6bn Building Safety Programme was set up in 2019. Concerns have emerged about the contract that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government requires applicants to the fund, usually managing agents or building owners, to sign.\n\nA clause in the contract, seen by the BBC, indicates applicants will be financially liable for any repair work not covered by the fund.\n\nThe BBC has learnt that some managing agents are refusing to sign the document, further delaying the repair work, and have written to the government asking ministers to clarify the position.\n\nChristian Hansen, a solicitor at Bindmans LLP specialising in housing law and fire safety claims, said the contract showed that \"there's going to be a significant shortfall between the costs of the [repair] works that are required and the funding provided under the scheme\".\n\n\"Someone is going to need to pick up the bill and pay the difference. This contract makes clear it's going to be the leaseholders and for many, this could be tens of thousands of pounds, potentially ruinous costs,\" he warned.\n\nMr Hansen said that leaseholders wanted the focus of government action \"to be on the manufacturers of the defective materials and construction companies who built these buildings\".\n\n\"At the moment, they are the ones profiting from putting people's lives at risk.\"\n\n\"It is absolutely terrifying knowing that you are stuck here,\" says Amy\n\nFirst-time buyer Amy Cottenden, who is 28, bought a one-bed flat in Metis Tower in the centre of Sheffield for £85,000 in 2017.\n\nInspections of the 14-storey building in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy revealed it had the same type of flammable ACM cladding and other safety faults.\n\nWork to remove the cladding started last month, but Ms Cottenden, who is a frontline NHS health worker, is frustrated at what she describes as a lack of progress.\n\n\"The pace of work is extremely slow. So far, they've put scaffolding up and removed three panels. They have told us it's going to take between 12 and 24 months just to take the cladding off,\" she said.\n\n\"It is absolutely terrifying knowing that you are stuck here. With lockdown, they are saying not to go out, but you are in a building where all you want to do is not be in it. You can't leave. You can't sell. My flat isn't worth anything until it is made safe.\"\n\nWhile the government's Building Safety Fund is paying for the Grenfell-style cladding to be removed, the building has other fire safety faults, including missing fire breaks, that aren't covered by the scheme.\n\nIt could cost up to £6m to fix. Flat owners fear they may face huge bills of up to £50,000 each.\n\n\"We can't pay it and we shouldn't have to pay it. It is not our fault. We could all go bankrupt because of this,\" Ms Cottenden said.\n\nA spokesperson for Rendall & Rittner, the company which manages Metis Tower, said government funding to remove ACM cladding had been approved totalling £6.3m.\n\nHowever, an application to the same fund to pay for the removal of other types of unsafe cladding was rejected and the company has appealed against that decision.\n\nThe company added: \"We understand and sympathise with residents and owners about the uncertainty that this situation is causing and will do all we can to assist.\"\n\nWhat started as a cladding scandal has now become a much wider building safety crisis, exposing decades of regulatory failure.\n\nSafety inspections have revealed that many buildings have other serious faults, including missing fire breaks, flammable balconies and defective insulation. None of that is covered by the government's Building Safety Fund.\n\nDr Nigel Glen, the chief executive of ARMA, the trade association for residential leasehold management, said the additional costs that leaseholders were currently facing for non-cladding-related issues remained a huge concern.\n\n\"In the longer term, the draining of reserve funds will also mean that in the years to come, any major works that were being saved up for, such as a new roof or lift repairs, will have to be funded anew by the leaseholders,\" he added.\n\nA spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said that despite the pandemic, significant progress had been made to remove dangerous cladding, but \"building safety remains the responsibility of the building owner and we expect them to ensure any necessary work is carried out safely and effectively\".\n\n\"All applicants to the Building Safety Fund are told the amount of funding they have been awarded before being asked to sign contracts - this is clearly explained in the guidance,\" the spokesperson added.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. This is the moment a police officer broke up a house party on Saturday\n\nA minority still breaking Covid lockdown rules could make the pandemic \"stretch longer\" in Wales, a senior police officer has warned.\n\nThe \"gold commander\" for policing lockdown across the Gwent force area said he wanted to thank the vast majority for sticking to the law.\n\nBut Chief Superintendent Mark Hobrough said those \"blatantly flouting\" rules would face enforcement action.\n\nNearly 3,800 fines have been issued in Wales for Covid rule breaches.\n\nThe latest figures released by UK police forces revealed nearly three-quarters of those fines went to men, and the largest group falling foul of Covid rules were aged between 18 and 24.\n\nCh Supt Hobrough, who oversees Gwent Police's response to Covid-19, said he and his officers had seen a change in the way the public responded to the restrictions since the first lockdown was announced in March 2020.\n\n\"When it first started there was certainly a lack of understanding among the public,\" he said.\n\n\"We were called for advice and questions on what was allowed or not allowed, which we've certainly seen diminish.\"\n\nHe said initially his force was dealing with breaches of regulations by pubs and bars, or people holding house parties.\n\n\"That has changed over time. We still have experiences of house parties and people congregating in houses, which just isn't allowed obviously.\n\n\"But I think we are also seeing breaches in relation to people congregating in beauty spots and maybe not exercising in line with the requirements.\"\n\nAccording to the National Police Chiefs' Council, there were 3,770 fixed penalty notices issues by the four Welsh forces between the last Friday in March and 20 December last year.\n\nOf those fines, 2,188 were for breaching rules on movement restrictions, while 823 faced penalties for gathering in private properties outside their own households.\n\nA further 113 notices were issued to individuals for staying in Wales when it was not their main residence, and 89 were hit with fines for entering or leaving local health protection areas, when many counties in Wales had separate travel restrictions in place in the autumn.\n\nThe figures also reveal that just two fines were issued in the period for failing to wear a face covering in designated indoor areas.\n\nSgt Dan Wise says enforcement is sometimes the only option for his team\n\nOut on the streets of Newport, and around the rest of the Gwent force area, the officers on the ground said they wanted to educate the public whenever rules changed, but they will enforce clear breaches.\n\n\"Some of the things people have been stopped for are travelling into Wales to look at the snow,\" said Sgt Dan Wise, as he carried out checks on motorists in Newport.\n\n\"Others are travelling to local beauty spots to exercise. Obviously, these are things that are not acceptable.\"\n\nHe said as the pandemic continues, with high numbers of cases and given how easily the virus can spread, \"we will look to enforce where people are blatantly flouting the rules\".\n\nAt the Gwent Police headquarters, Ch Supt Hobrough said he had this message for the minority of \"those people who aren't abiding\" by the rules: \"It would very much be within everybody's interest for them to reflect on the way they are conducting themselves.\n\n\"Because that minority of people who aren't abiding are possibly making this pandemic stretch longer.\"\n• None Coronavirus legislation and guidance on the law - GOV.WALES The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "David and Victoria Beckham have paid themselves £21m from their sports and media business since 2019, according to the their latest accounts.\n\nThis is despite continued heavy losses at Ms Beckham's fashion business, where trade has worsened during the pandemic.\n\nProfit at David Beckham Ventures Limited (DBVL), the brand management firm owned by the former footballer and his wife, fell £3.5m to £11.3m in 2019.\n\nThis was in part due to money spent on expansion and charitable donations.\n\nHowever, the celebrity couple still paid themselves a £14.5m dividend at the end of 2019, accounts show, and took a further £7.1m in 2020.\n\nA spokesman attributed the payments to \"profitable performance\" at DBVL, which among other things manages Mr Beckham's strategic partnerships with Adidas and Haig Club whisky.\n\nHe also noted that the company's revenue climbed by £600,000 in 2019 to £16.2m.\n\nHowever, Victoria Beckham Holdings (VBHL), which manages the former Spice Girl's fashion label, fared much worse during that time.\n\nLosses at the business - which is also backed by the Beckhams' former business partner Simon Fuller and private equity firm NEO investment Partners - widened to £16.6m during the year, following a loss of £12.5m in 2018.\n\nIt marked the seventh year the brand has been in the red since it was founded in 2008.\n\nVBHL blamed costs associated with the launch of the Victoria Beckham Beauty business, a new cosmetics range in which the group has an 85% shareholding.\n\nIt also noted that total sales across the whole business were up by 7% in 2019.\n\nNevertheless, auditors BDO, who signed off on the accounts, warned that the business was now reliant on shareholder support to keep going which could \"cast significant doubt on the company's ability to continue as a going concern\".\n\nAs the pandemic hammered the business last April, VBHL had to borrow £9.2m from its shareholders to repay an outstanding bank loan to HSBC after breaking its debt covenants.\n\nVBHL said it was doing all it could to \"navigate\" the coronavirus crisis, including taking \"all actions possible to conserve cash\".\n\n\"All non-essential expenditure is being deferred and hiring freezes have been implemented for open positions.to enable the company to navigate through this pandemic,\" it said.", "The company said its milk processing was highly automated with no risk to the products caused by the virus outbreak\n\nOne worker at a dairy has died after contracting coronavirus and 95 others are self-isolating.\n\nMuller Milk & Ingredients said 47 staff members who work at the company's dairy near Bridgwater, Somerset, have tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nIt said it was now testing all 300 workers at its site in North Petherton.\n\nA spokesman for the firm said the safety of its products had not been affected by the outbreak at its factory.\n\nIt was working with Public Health England and the council to help with mass testing, he added.\n\nThe employee was taken to hospital but died. The firm said its thoughts were with the worker's family and friends.\n\nProduction has since been reduced at the site.\n\nThe spokesman added: \"It is important to stress that fresh milk processing is highly automated ensuring no risk to products, with our Bridgwater facility one of the most modern dairies in the UK.\n\n\"As we have done throughout the pandemic, we are placing the safety of our employees first and following best practice as set down by the Health and Safety Executive.\n\n\"Standard measures in place include the use of facemasks, distancing, enhanced deep cleaning and hygiene, underpinned by a programme of e-learning, information and audits to ensure compliance and awareness of the measures.\"\n\nSomerset County Council said it was working closely with Public Health England and the factory and that further testing was being done throughout Thursday.\n\n\"The [council's] rapid outbreak testing team is carrying out further workforce testing today, for workers who were not present on Monday shifts.\n\n\"The testing on Monday identified a number of staff who were positive but asymptomatic, who are now isolating,\" a spokesman said.", "Elizabeth Kerr and Simon O'Brien were married moments before he was put on a mechanical ventilator\n\nAn engaged couple taken to hospital in the same ambulance with Covid-19 were able to marry moments before the man was sedated and put on a ventilator.\n\nElizabeth Kerr, 31, and Simon O'Brien, 36, were taken to Milton Keynes University Hospital with breathing difficulties on 9 January.\n\nStaff rallied to arrange a wedding as the groom's condition worsened.\n\nThey held off intubating Mr O'Brien so the ceremony could go ahead. The couple are now recovering in hospital.\n\nMrs Kerr, a nurse, and Mr O'Brien had planned to marry in June.\n\nBoth contracted the disease and were taken to hospital together when their oxygen levels fell dangerously low.\n\nThey were placed on separate wards but when Mrs Kerr told nurse Hannah Cannon about their wedding plans, she asked her if they would like to marry in the hospital.\n\nMrs Kerr said she was told it could be their only chance.\n\n\"Those are words I never, ever want to hear again,\" she said.\n\nA photo on Mrs Kerr's phone shows the wedding took place in the beds of the intensive care unit\n\nHowever, while staff were securing the wedding licence, Mr O'Brien's condition further deteriorated and on 12 January he was placed on the intensive care unit, to be put on a ventilator.\n\nThey waited to intubate him just long enough for the ceremony to go ahead.\n\nMs Cannon said: \"With lots of teamwork... we were able to give them a wedding, not necessarily the wedding that they would have initially intended, but certainly something positive, remarkable and memorable for them to really hold on to.\"\n\nShe filmed the marriage for the couple's families and friends, and catering staff at the hospital provided a cake.\n\nShortly after saying \"I do\", Mr O'Brien was placed on the ventilator.\n\nThe couple have now been reunited on a recovery ward and were able to kiss for the first time since being married.\n\nMrs Kerr said having the wedding meant \"everything\" to them.\n\n\"If we hadn't had each other and we hadn't been given that opportunity to get married, I don't think both of us would be here now,\" she added.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The White House has just put out a statement marking the 48th anniversary of Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that essentially legalised the right to abortion.\n\n\"In the past four years, reproductive health, including the right to choose, has been under relentless and extreme attack,\" the statement from Biden and Harris begins .\n\nThey go on to say they are committed to \"codifying\" the judgement, which means pass legislation through Congress that enshrines abortion access into law.\n\nThey will also appoint judges who will support abortion access, they say. Trump, during his time in office, was able to give the Supreme Court a conservative majority, making anti-abortion activists hopeful that Roe v Wade could eventually be overturned.\n\nBiden was the only candidate during the primary to say he endorsed the so-called Hyde Amendment, which says that no federal funds can go towards abortions. After nearly all 22 other candidates came out against the Hyde Amendment, he reversed his stance.\n\nAlthough abortion is technically legal across the US, multiple states have instituted laws that make it nearly impossible in practice. Abortion activists hope that a law would make it more difficult for local governments to restrict access.", "Michelle O'Neill and Arlene Foster were advised restrictions may have to remain in place until after Easter\n\nCoronavirus lockdown restrictions in Northern Ireland will be extended until 5 March, the first and deputy first ministers have said.\n\nThe executive backed the health minister's proposal on Thursday and will review the move on 18 February.\n\nBut ministers were also told that restrictions may have to remain in place until after the Easter holidays.\n\nA lockdown closing non-essential retailers and encouraging employees to work from home began after Christmas.\n\nFamily gatherings are prohibited and people have been ordered to stay at home for all but essential reasons.\n\nSchools are closed to most pupils until after February's half-term but a paper looking at reopening will be put to ministers at next week's executive meeting.\n\nThe lockdown came in response to a spike in the number of cases of coronavirus, which followed a relaxation of some rules in the run-up to Christmas.\n\nFirst Minister Arlene Foster said extending the restrictions was an \"appropriate and necessary response\" to tackle the \"imminent threat\" posed by Covid-19.\n\nShe said she understood it would be difficult for many people to accept, given the uncertainty facing families and businesses, but added: \"To not press forward would risk all of the hard-won gains.\"\n\nThe first and deputy first ministers were right to state just how tough this decision will be for many people.\n\nBut there's an acceptance among the public that restrictions would have to be extended, given how bad things are in our hospitals.\n\nTheir decision also suggests politicians have perhaps learned from the last wave of the pandemic, when restrictions were turned on and off sporadically, and the impact that had both on cases and the messaging.\n\nThey're not alone in sustaining tough lockdown measures, with other UK nations and the Republic of Ireland also keeping their restrictions in place for several more weeks.\n\nBeyond that, it is thought health officials also want to ensure the vaccination programme is also \"well advanced\" before any restrictions are relaxed.\n\nThe hope is that, by spring, the picture will have improved significantly.\n\nUntil then the price we are paying for relaxations before Christmas looks likely to keep rising.\n\nDeputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said she recognised the executive was asking a lot of everybody but insisted the measures were important.\n\n\"We don't know what will come after [5 March],\" she said.\n\nMs O'Neill said there was a commitment not to keep restrictions in place longer than necessary but decisions would have to be taken in line with the health advice and concerns about a new variant of the virus which is more transmissible.\n\nThe executive's decision comes as another 21 deaths were recorded by the Department of Health on Thursday.\n\nThe reproductive rate of the virus - known as the R-number - had risen to about 1.8 due to Christmas relaxations.\n\nBut the latest estimate from the Department of Health says it is sitting between 0.65 and 0.85 for cases within the community but is still above one for hospital admissions and intensive care.\n\nWhile some may wonder why are restrictions are being extended when the executive's policy has always been based on this rate of infection, the difference is that this time around there are three times as many people in Northern Ireland's hospitals than there were in last April's peak.\n\nDaily case numbers are still significantly higher too.\n\nWhile ministers have agreed to keep the current restrictions in place until March, Health Minister Robin Swann said it was possible they could be needed until Easter, which this year falls in the first week of April.\n\nMinisters say they understand the extension of the lockdown will be difficult for people\n\nIt is understood this plan is being discussed across the four UK nations but ministers will have to consider that in the review next month.\n\nMinisters were also warned that restrictions would be eased on a step-by-step basis in line with reducing pressures on the health service and ensuring the vaccination programme is \"well advanced\" before any relaxations are agreed.\n\nMrs Foster pleaded with people struggling with their mental health during the lockdown to \"please seek help\".\n\nMore than 100 medically-trained military personnel are to be deployed to help health staff deal with the pressure the latest phase of the pandemic is placing on hospitals.\n\nThe chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said the \"sustained pressure on our health service\" would probably last for three to four weeks.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, 51 Covid-19 related deaths and 2,608 new cases of the virus were recorded on Thursday.\n\nSimon Hamilton, the chief executive of the Belfast Chamber of Trade and Commerce, said the extension of the lockdown would be of \"little surprise to most businesses\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Simon Hamilton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Stormont executive has agreed how to allocate almost £300m to help businesses, education, tourism and transport during the next phase of the lockdown.\n\nA total of £100m is going towards the Local Restrictions Support Scheme, the grant for business premises forced to closed due to the restrictions.\n\nThere will also be £16m for tourism and hospitality, two sectors which have largely been unable to operate.\n\nIn addition, two more support schemes for the sector have been opened.\n\nOne aimed at large tourism and hospitality businesses is offering a pot of £26m, with the Department for Economy having identified 250 businesses that will be eligible.\n\nThe other is a £4m scheme to support those who provide bed-and-breakfast accommodation.\n\nMore money is being made available to help businesses affected by the lockdown\n\nJanice Gault from the trade body the Northern Ireland Hotels Federation said the schemes were a \"real lifeline for the sector\".\n\n\"Trading over the last year has been limited with reserves now severely depleted and businesses operating in survival mode,\" she added.\n\nAlso among those to receive the extra cash will be limited company directors, who had not received support since March.\n\nLast week, a scheme was announced to give directors £1,000 grants which one director described as a \"kick in the teeth\" given that he had little to no income for the past 10 months.\n\nBut that scheme is to be boosted with another £20m so the payments on offer will more than treble to £3,500.\n\nLocal newspapers will also benefit from 12 months of rates relief.", "Mick Norcross, 57, was found dead at his home in Essex on Thursday\n\nFormer The Only Way Is Essex star Mick Norcross has died at the age of 57.\n\nThe businessman and father of Kirk Norcross, who also appeared in the ITV show, was found dead at his home in Bulphan at 15:15 GMT on Thursday.\n\nEssex Police said the death was not being treated as suspicious.\n\nIn tributes on social media, fellow Towie stars past and present, including Gemma Collins and James \"Arg\" Argent, called him \"one of the good guys\" and a \"true gentleman\".\n\nNorcross first appeared in the reality show in 2011 in his position as owner of Sugar Hut, a Brentwood nightclub which was often attended by the cast.\n\nHe left the show two years later, stating that the venue's prominent place in Towie had damaged its brand.\n\nThe star posted a tweet to his 505,000 followers on Thursday morning saying: \"At the end remind yourself that you did the best you could. And that's good enough.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sugar Hut This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe club tweeted that \"Mr Sugarhut\" had been a \"very talented, friendly and fun guy\" and a \"true Essex legend, who will be sorely missed\".\n\nCollins, who briefly dated Norcross during their time on the show, shared a photo of them together on Instagram and said he had been \"one of the good guys\", while Argent tweeted that he had been \"a true gentleman and a very kind man\".\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by gemmacollins This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTributes were also shared by Towie stars Lauren Goodger and Mario Falcone, with the latter tweeting that he was \"thankful I got the privilege of having you in my life\".\n\nIn another tweet, Mark Wright, the Towie star turned TV presenter and professional footballer, said he was \"a great man, an inspiration to many, always so polite and welcoming\".\n\nPresenter Denise Van Outen tweeted that he was \"such a lovely man\" while TV chef James Martin, posted that he was \"a true gentleman, who I had the pleasure to meet and spend evenings with over the years\".\n\nThe Only Way Is Essex posted a tribute on Instagram, saying the team behind the show were \"shocked and deeply saddened\".\n\nThey said: \"He was hugely popular with cast, crew and the audience alike. Charming, generous and host to many of Essex's most glamorous events, Mick will be missed by us all.\"\n\nAn Essex Police spokesman said officers \"were called to an address in Brentwood Road, Bulphan shortly before 15:15 on Thursday\" and \"sadly, a man inside was pronounced dead\".\n\nThe police spokesman said the death was \"not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner\".\n\nIf you have been affected by any of the issues in this article, information and support is available from BBC Action Line.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Police said they had been in contact with the family before the funeral took place \"in an attempt to ensure safety\"\n\nA funeral director has been fined £10,000 after police were called to a funeral with close to 150 people in attendance.\n\nHertfordshire Police said the large gathering in Welwyn Garden City on Thursday was reported to them by members of the public.\n\nCoronavirus rules mean a maximum of 30 people can attend a funeral.\n\nA second person was fined, by Bedfordshire Police, for when the gathering was in Arlesey, Bedfordshire.\n\nSupt Nick Caveney, of Hertfordshire Police, said: \"This was a clear and blatant breach of the current restrictions.\"\n\nHe said the fine was given to the funeral director \"for not managing this event correctly and advising their clients of the rules\".\n\n\"We implore all business owners to ensure they are following the restrictions safely and responsibly,\" he said.\n\n\"Flagrant breaches such as this will not be tolerated.\"\n\nThe force said it had worked with other agencies and the family in advance of the funeral \"in an attempt to ensure the safety of those attending and that of the wider public\".\n\nBut when officers attended they found the large number of people at the church, and a 41-year-old man from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, was handed the £10,000 fine after police served a fixed penalty notice.\n\nSeveral members of the public had contacted the force about the funeral at the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady, Queen of Apostles on Woodhall Lane.\n\nBedfordshire Police said a man in his 30s was issued with the fine over the gathering.\n\nCh Supt John Murphy from the force said: \"Fines and enforcement are a last resort for us, and we will always engage and work with families in the first instance.\n\n\"But we need to take firm action against those who brazenly decide to go against the guidelines outlined by the government and put a large number of people at risk.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Mr Olowo said his wife was \"as near perfection as it's possible to be\"\n\nA woman who died after having liposuction in Turkey had been fed up with people asking if she was pregnant, an inquest heard.\n\nAbimbola Ajoke Bamgbose, 38, of Dartford, Kent, died in August after having the treatment in Izmir.\n\nHusband Moyosore Olowo said he believed she was on holiday with friends until she called to say she was in pain.\n\nHe went to Turkey after she stopped calling and found she had been rushed to hospital for more surgery.\n\nMrs Bamgbose, who also had a Brazilian butt lift, died there two weeks later, the inquest in Maidstone heard.\n\nMr Olowo, a rail safety officer, said his wife paid £5,000 for the package with Mono Cosmetic Surgery as UK treatment was too expensive.\n\nDescribing why she wanted it, he said: \"When a woman is unhappy and getting feelings about her looks, the clothes she buys do not fit and people ask if she is pregnant because of her tummy, sometimes there is nothing we can do. We are powerless.\n\n\"I wasn't concerned. I told her 'you have three children'. I told her my tummy is bigger than hers.\"\n\nHe said his wife, a social worker who graduated with a first class degree, was \"as near perfection as it's possible to be\".\n\nMr Olowo said the medical director in Turkey \"confessed it had been a mistake\".\n\nAssistant coroner Alan Blundson recorded a narrative conclusion, and said: \"This is a tragic case, the more so because the surgery was elective cosmetic surgery.\n\n\"Whilst Mrs Bamgbose was determined to have it performed, her husband had not seen it in any way as necessary.\"\n\nA post-mortem examination found Mrs Bamgbose had a perforated bowel and her death was caused by peritonitis with multiple organ failure as a complication of liposuction surgery.\n\nMr Olowo has said he is suing Mono and the surgeon, Dr Hakan Aydogan, for £1m in the Turkish courts, claiming medical negligence.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Reports suggest AstraZeneca may have warned of a 60% cut to doses available\n\nA second coronavirus vaccine manufacturer has warned of supply issues to the European Union, compounding frustration in the bloc.\n\nAstraZeneca said a production problem meant the number of initial doses available would be lower than expected.\n\nThe fresh blow comes after some nations' inoculation programmes were slowed due to a cut in deliveries of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.\n\nThe EU Health Commissioner expressed \"deep dissatisfaction\" at the news.\n\nOfficials have not confirmed publicly how big the shortfall will be, but an unnamed EU official told Reuters news agency that deliveries would be reduced to 31m - a cut of 60% - in the first quarter of this year.\n\nThe drug firm had been set to deliver about 80 million doses to the 27 nations by March, according to the official who spoke to Reuters.\n\nThe AstraZeneca vaccine, developed with Oxford University, has not yet been approved by the EU's drug regulator but is expected to get the green light at the end of this month, paving the way for jabs to be given.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Stella Kyriakides This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA spokesman for AstraZeneca said on Friday that \"initial volumes will be lower than originally anticipated\" without giving further details.\n\nHis written statement blamed the discrepancy on \"reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain\" and said the firm was continuing to ramp up production volumes.\n\nNews of the delay comes amid criticism and frustration across the region about the speed of vaccination roll-outs.\n\nIsrael, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the US are all well ahead of EU nations in terms of doses given per capita so far.\n\nThe European Commission has co-ordinated orders for all member states, with vaccines then distributed based on their population size.\n\nVaccines are increasingly seen by experts as the only way out of the Covid-19 crisis, with many European nations struggling to cope with a deadly surge of the virus over the winter period.\n\nAustrian media have reported that only 600,000 of two million AstraZeneca doses promised by the end of March will arrive in the country on time, with the remaining 1.4m now being delivered in April.\n\nA delay would be \"completely unacceptable\", Austrian Health Minister Rudolf Anschober said on Friday.\n\nAs for Pfizer, the US firm said it had to cut shipments for the next few weeks while it worked to increase capacity at its Belgian processing plant. The EU has ordered 600 million doses from Pfizer.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Ursula von der Leyen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSome regions, including Germany's most populous state North-Rhine Westphalia and parts of Italy, said earlier this week that they were suspending giving first jabs of the two-dose vaccine because of the shortages.\n\nItaly and Poland have threatened to take legal action in response to the reduction in vaccine supply.\n\nMeanwhile Hungary's government, which has complained over the time it is taking EU regulators to approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, has reached a deal with Russia to buy up large quantities of its Sputnik V vaccine, even though it has not received EU approval.\n\nEuropean Council President Charles Michel, who led a call of EU leaders this week, said Thursday that officials were considering all ideas to try and stop future vaccine delays.\n\n\"All possible means will be examined to ensure rapid supply, including early distribution to avoid delays,\" he said.\n\nEuropean Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Mr Michel both say they are still aiming for the target of 70% of the EU population being vaccinated by summer.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid vaccine safety: How does a vaccine get approved?\n\nThe total number of German Covid deaths climbed above 50,000 on Friday - a day after the country warned that it could close its borders if other EU countries were less strict in controlling the virus. Berlin sounded the alarm amid rising concern about new variants.\n\nEU leaders agreed late on Thursday to keep their internal borders open but warned non-essential travel might need to be restricted to curb the spread of the virus.\n\nMs von der Leyen said Thursday that more testing and \"targeted measures\" were needed throughout the EU in order to keep internal and external borders open.\n\nFor its part, France said it would impose tighter travel restrictions for European arrivals from Sunday, requiring a negative PCR Covid test within three days of travel.\n\nIn the Netherlands, a ban on all flights from the UK, South Africa and South American countries came into effect on Saturday to try and prevent new coronavirus variants gaining a foothold.\n\nLooking forward to the future, officials from EU nations reliant on tourism - including Spain and Greece - have floated the possibility of using vaccination certificates to allow for cross-border travel but there has been scepticism within the bloc.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nTwo houses have partially collapsed after a sinkhole measuring 10ft (3m) opened up on a Manchester street.\n\nFour homes were evacuated on Wednesday evening after the hole appeared on Walmer Street in Abbey Hey, Gorton.\n\nFire crews returned hours later after the front of two of the empty properties crashed to the ground.\n\nUnited Utilities said it was dealing with a collapsed sewer but was investigating all possible causes including the recent heavy rain.\n\nThe fire service was first called to Walmer Street just after 21:00 GMT on Wednesday to reports an unoccupied car had fallen down a hole in the road.\n\nA cordon was put in place and residents evacuated as a precaution, the fire service said.\n\nAfter leaving the scene four hours later, the fire service was alerted to the partial collapse of two houses at 11:00 on Thursday.\n\nNo-one was injured in either incident.\n\nEmergency services remain at the scene on Walmer Street\n\nNearby residents Maureen and Louise Kennedy spoke of their shock after the houses collapsed.\n\n\"You're just waiting for your world to crumble. It's not just the bricks and water, said Ms Kennedy.\n\n\"I've lived in there since I was three. It's the memories.\"\n\nResident Nathaniel OKeleafor said he was \"terrified\" when the sinkhole appeared in the street on Wednesday evening.\n\n\"This morning we are out. We are just trying to find somewhere to live,\" he added.\n\nUnited Utilities said it was dealing with a collapsed sewer on Walmer Street\n\nThe collapse comes as rising levels on the River Mersey in Manchester came \"within centimetres\" of breaching flood defences following heavy rain caused by Storm Christoph.\n\nStation Manager Andrew O'Brien, from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, praised firefighters who worked \"at the height of the stormy weather\".\n\n\"The safety of the public was our primary concern overnight and again today, and I'm pleased to say no-one has suffered any injuries,\" he said.\n\nUnited Utilities said: \"When it is safe for engineers to go back into the immediate area we will set up emergency drainage and water supply connections to restore services to the area and begin to assess how best to carry out repairs.\n\n\"It is not known what caused the sinkhole but this will be investigated.\"\n\nBBC Radio Manchester and BBC Radio Lancashire will be on air throughout Storm Christoph, bringing you all of the latest information and news updates\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA nurse felt \"overwhelming fear\" as 13 ambulances queued at her hospital's A&E department - in the Welsh region currently hardest hit by Covid deaths.\n\nTo date Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board, which runs Royal Glamorgan Hospital, has reported 1,091 deaths of patients with coronavirus.\n\nBBC Wales was granted access to A&E at the hospital in Rhondda Cynon Taf.\n\nSenior doctor Amanda Farrow said the whole hospital had faced \"unrelenting\" pressure last Saturday.\n\nSarah Fogarasy was the senior nurse on duty as 13 ambulances queued up outside her A&E department\n\nSenior A&E nurse Sarah Fogarasy, who was on shift as the ambulances arrived, said there was no capacity at the unit - a situation that left her wanting \"to leave\".\n\n\"We had to escalate it to our site manager and deputy head of nursing who were liaising with the executive team on call,\" she said.\n\n\"And then it got to 13 patients outside - I had no capacity in this unit, no resuscitation capacity, no capacity to put a patient on CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] should they require that and no physical areas to put a patient in.\n\nOn Saturday, 13 ambulances queued outside the hospital's A&E department\n\nShe said she found it hard to keep going.\n\n\"This bit makes me quite emotional… for the first time I was sat trying to coordinate this department and I had that overwhelming fear that I just wanted to leave,\" Ms Fogarasy continued.\n\n\"I was just - 'I'm done. I'm done with this'... and it's scary, it fills you full of fear when you have got 13 ambulances outside, queuing around the carpark. Where do you go from that?\"\n\nShe said it was the team that kept her going: \"I started looking around to all the staff working tirelessly and just trying to remember what we're here for and why I became a nurse.\n\n\"I know it sounds soppy but it's literally the humanitarian effort that has gone into [fighting] this pandemic that has kept people going.\n\n\"It's the sheer determination and guts of the staff working in these times that is so powerful, that keeps the shift going.\"\n\nEmergency Medicine Consultant Amanda Farrow said it was a \"very emotional time for everyone\"\n\nDr Farrow, emergency medicine consultant, said staffing and bed numbers were of particular concern.\n\n\"In the emergency department the challenge we have is with regards to flow, so that is our daily challenge,\" she explained.\n\n\"And we say it's like playing a game of Tetris trying to work out which patient you can put where.\"\n\nStaff reported feeling overwhelmed as they work through the second Covid wave\n\nShe said the second wave of the virus had also seen more staff off sick with Covid and isolating - with some becoming very ill.\n\n\"We've had staff in as patients and one of my colleagues - I saw them when they were critically ill and ended up going to intensive care,\" continued Dr Farrow.\n\n\"So it's very emotional time for everyone as well you know, looking after the sick patients and looking after your colleagues.\n\n\"There's a level of anxiety still around - will you be the next person to get this disease?\"\n\nShe said although fewer people were attending A&E, they were seeing more people arriving by ambulance and presenting with more complex needs.\n\n\"The group of patients we are seeing this time I think is different, we're definitely having more younger people with Covid that are becoming sick, the volume is very high in the community.\n\n\"I think people are afraid of come into the hospital as well, so there are still quite a lot of patients who leave it maybe a bit too late before they're seeking hospital attention.\"\n\nSpeaking from her intensive care bed, Helen Whatmore said she was extremely grateful to staff\n\nHelen Whatmore, 45, from Beddau, has been hospital since early December after developing Covid symptoms.\n\nSpeaking from her intensive care bed, she said she had been unwell in February so assumed she had already caught the virus.\n\n\"I honestly didn't believe it was as bad until I caught [Covid] this time,\" she said.\n\n\"This time it's absolutely knocked the socks off me. It's nearly killed me.\n\n\"A friend of mine passed away as I came into hospital and I came down very rapidly with Covid, kidney problems and pneumonia.\"\n\nShe said she was grateful for the care she had received: \"The nurses are coming in [working] all shifts, they're fighting for your loved ones, from the time they enter right until the time they leave, then they're changing over and doing the same again.\n\n\"People are passing away… how much more have they got to do? We're asking them to protect our children and our families. Why are we not protecting them ourselves? Saving our families and our own children.\"", "Top Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou has been sent bullets in the mail while under house arrest in Vancouver, according to court testimony.\n\nIt was one of several alleged death threats revealed on Wednesday by the company providing her security.\n\nMs Meng was detained in 2018 on charges relating to allegedly misleading HSBC about Huawei's dealings in Iran.\n\nHer case has created a rift between China and Canada, with Beijing repeatedly calling for her release.\n\nThe chief financial officer of Huawei was arrested at Vancouver International Airport on a warrant from the US, where she is facing charges of bank fraud and potentially causing HSBC to break US sanctions.\n\nDays after she was released on bail, she was placed under house arrest in Vancouver. She has been fighting against her extradition to the US, which wants her to stand trial.\n\nThe threats were revealed at the British Columbia Supreme Court by Doug Maynard, chief operating officer of security firm Lions Gate Risk Management.\n\nHe said Ms Meng received \"five or six\" threatening letters at her residence in June and July 2020 and that the letters were \"easily identifiable by markings on the outside\". He added that \"sometimes there were bullets inside the envelopes\".\n\nThe role of the Vancouver police and any investigations is unclear.\n\nMs Meng has been in court pushing for conditions of her bail to be loosened, including dropping the daytime security detail that constantly follows her.\n\nShe is permitted to leave home between 6am and 11pm and pays for a round-the-clock security detail. She also wears a GPS tracking anklet as stipulated by her bail conditions.\n\nThe government has also granted family members of Ms Meng permission to travel to Canada, sparking controversy.\n\nConservative MP Raquel Dancho said the exception was an \"insult to the millions of Canadians who were told by this government not to visit loved ones\" over the holidays.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Raquel Dancho This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nShe called the move disappointing, noting that Beijing detained two Canadians soon after Ms Meng's arrest in December 2018 and has held them in prison ever since, subjecting them to interrogations.\n\nMs Meng's defence lawyer has argued that Canada is effectively being asked \"to enforce US sanctions\".\n\nHuawei has been one of the main targets of the Trump administration's attack on Chinese companies that it deems are security threats and pass data to the government.\n\nThe US has placed harsh restrictions on Huawei and has banned its 5G equipment from its networks. It also added 38 names linked to Huawei to a trade blacklist.\n\nThis week Huawei came under fire for technology that identifies people who appear to be of Uighur origin among images of pedestrians.\n\nHuawei had previously said none of its technology was designed to identify ethnic groups.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Boris Johnson has said there is still a very substantial risk of intensive care units in hospitals being overwhelmed by the spread of the coronavirus.\n\nIt comes on a day when the UK has recorded the highest number of deaths in a single day in Europe.\n\nFergal Keane last visited the Imperial Healthcare Trust’s St Mary’s and Charing Cross hospital in London last April.\n\nHe's been back to see how they're coping.", "The licence fee is the \"least worst\" way of funding the BBC, its incoming chairman Richard Sharp has said.\n\nBut Mr Sharp told MPs he had an \"open mind\" about how the corporation should be funded in the future, and it \"may be worth reassessing\" the current system.\n\nHe also said he didn't think the BBC's Brexit coverage was biased overall, but \"there were some occasions when the Brexit representation was unbalanced\".\n\nQuestion Time \"seemed to have more Remainers than Brexiteers\", he said.\n\nBBC Three's Normal People was one of the corporation's biggest hits last year\n\nThe £157.50 licence fee is due to stay in place until at least 2027, when the BBC's Royal Charter ends, with a debate about how the broadcaster should be funded after that.\n\nMr Sharp, who spent 23 years working as a banker for Goldman Sachs, told the House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport select committee: \"At 43p a day, the BBC represents terrific value.\"\n\nThe government is currently reviewing whether its cost should continue rising with inflation from 2022, and whether non-payment should remain a criminal offence. Mr Sharp said he was \"not in favour of decriminalisation\".\n\nHe said other possible options for funding the BBC in the future could include a household tax like the one used in Germany, \"which amounts to the same amount of money\".\n\nHe added: \"So when we next get the chance to review the structure of this then it may be worth reassessing.\"\n\nAsked whether he believed the BBC's coverage of Brexit had been unbalanced, he replied: \"No, actually I don't.\n\n\"I believe there were some occasions when the Brexit representation was unbalanced.\n\n\"So if you ask me if I think Question Time seemed to have more Remainers than Brexiteers, the answer is yes, but the breadth of the coverage I thought was incredibly balanced, in a highly toxic environment that was extremely polarised.\"\n\nQuestion Time has said it has robust processes in place to ensure balance on its panels.\n\nMr Sharp said he was \"considered to be a Brexiteer\" and had donated around £400,000 to the Conservative Party over the past 20 years.\n\nHe said the biggest issue now facing the BBC is impartiality, and that \"trust in leadership and trust in processes\" must be rebuilt after high-profile equal pay cases with journalists such as Carrie Gracie and Samira Ahmed.\n\n\"Clearly some of the problems it's had recently are really rather terrible and reflect a culture that needs to be rebuilt, so everybody who cherishes the BBC and works at the BBC feels proud and happy to work there,\" he said. \"Then in my view that would produce a better output inevitably.\"\n\nMr Sharp also told the committee he would give his £160,000 salary as BBC chairman to charity.\n\nWhen asked \"what's in it for you?\" Mr Sharp, whose heritage is Jewish, said: \"We're all a product of our upbringing and I was very fortunate with the parents I have, my great grandparents came to this country escaping tyranny.\n\n\"I think I won the lottery in life to be British and if I can make a contribution, I couldn't be happier to.\n\n\"The BBC is part of the fabric of all our national identities, it offers education and enrichment and is also important for our position in the world... It is a massive privilege to be chair of the BBC.\"\n\nSir David Clementi, the current BBC chairman, steps down in February. The post-holder is officially appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the government.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The Galaxy S21 Ultra has hardware built into it to make use of the firm's S Pen stylus\n\nSamsung's new flagship Galaxy S smartphone works with its stylus for the first time.\n\nThe S Pen is an optional add-on for the Galaxy S21 Ultra. But the move will fuel speculation the firm will phase out its separate Note handset range.\n\nSamsung told the BBC it had yet to make a decision about this.\n\nThe company's handset sales have declined more quickly than the wider market. One expert said a streamlined line-up might help address this.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: First look at Samsung's S21 Ultra phone\n\n\"There's increasing logic for Samsung to converge the Galaxy S and Note platforms, because there's so little differentiation between the two kinds of devices now,\" said Ben Wood, from the CCS Insight consultancy.\n\n\"That would align them with Apple, which also has one big phone launch event a year.\n\n\"My concern is that every time Samsung has announced its Note products in the past, it has planted a seed in consumers' minds that the Galaxy S products have become kind of the old ones.\"\n\nThe benefit of having a stylus is that it is easier to write, draw or annotate notes than using a finger. But to work it requires special hardware under the glass of the phone's display to pass power to the stylus and to track its tip.\n\nThe Android-based Galaxy S21 Ultra has a 6.8in (17.3cm) display, which is only slightly smaller than the top-end 6.9in Note.\n\nIn years past, the Note phones were known as \"phablets\", and their size was the other key distinguishing factor with the S range.\n\nUnlike the Note series, the S21 Ultra requires a special case to stow away the pen\n\nProduct manager Mark Notton said \"we haven't decided\", when asked whether Samsung planned to continue the Note family.\n\n\"It does not mean that Samsung is not committed to the Note category, but is expanding the Note experience across device categories,\" the firm said in a follow-up statement.\n\n\"We will actively listen to consumers' feedback and reflect it in our continued product innovation.\"\n\nThe S21 Ultra will start at £1,149 when it goes on sale on 29 January. The S Pen costs an extra £35 on its own, or £85 when bundled with a case that stores it.\n\nThat puts it in the ballpark of the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra's £1,179 starting price, which comes with a stylus that slots into its body.\n\nThere are also two other lower-cost models in the new range, neither of which works with the S-Pen stylus: the 6.2in S21 and 6.7in S21+.\n\nAll three models feature a redesigned camera module on their back.\n\nAll the Galaxy S21 phones feature a redesigned camera module on their back\n\nBut while the two lower-end models have three lenses - ultra-wide, wide and 3x-zoom telephoto - the S21 Ultra adds a further 10x-zoom telephoto lens, letting owners shoot action from even further away.\n\nThe handsets also benefit from a new Director's View facility. It lets users film video while getting thumbnail previews superimposed on-screen of what it would look like if they switched to another lens.\n\nAll three phones can film in 8K - double the maximum resolution of the competing iPhone 12 range's native video app.\n\nThe Director's View mode lets users preview how the recorded shot will change in a video if they switch to a different lens while filming\n\nHowever, the handsets may be more notable for following Apple in two regards.\n\nThey have abandoned a slot for a microSD memory card.\n\nAnd they will be sold without either a charger - a decision over which Samsung had mocked its rival. - or earphones.\n\nSamsung posted this ad in October on social media before deleting it\n\n\"We discovered that more and more Galaxy users are reusing accessories they already have,\" the firm said.\n\nSamsung typically unveils its Galaxy range in late February, but has brought forward this year's launch to coincide with the CES tech show.\n\n\"Samsung needs S21 to be a success given that S20 was launched in the middle of Covid first wave in Europe and didn't gain many fans,\" commented Marta Pinto, from research firm IDC.\n\nShe added the earlier launch date could help it compete in the \"premium market\" with Apple, whose iPhones were released later than normal last year.\n\nThe South Korean firm should also benefit from collapsing sales of Huawei's devices in the West, caused by US sanctions that prevent them offering the Google Play store and some of the search giant's other services.\n\nSamsung dedicated a segment of its Unpacked launch presentation to its partnership with Google\n\nBut Mr Wood said Samsung was facing growing competition from other Chinese brands including Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo.\n\n\"Samsung's differentiator is going to be its ability to market its strong brand, and the fact it has a very wide product portfolio,\" he commented.\n\nSamsung also aims to widen its appeal with two further accessories.\n\nIt has a new pair of £219 wireless earbuds that monitor what the user is doing.\n\nSamsung's earbuds should automatically adapt their audio output according to what the user is doing\n\nIf they detect the wearer is talking, they automatically turn down the volume of music and amplify the sounds of the nearby environment picked up by their microphones, allowing the owner to have a brief conversation without needing to take them out or manually adjust their settings.\n\nSamsung also is launching the £30 Galaxy SmartTag - a Bluetooth-enabled tracker that can be attached to belongings or pets.\n\nIt will allow an app to show their location, so long as the tag is in range of the owner or anyone else's compatible Samsung device.\n\nThe tracker will compete with similar products from the current market leader Tile.\n\nThe SmartTag will challenge Tile, which already sells a range of Bluetooth trackers\n\nApple is widely rumoured to be working on similar devices of its own.", "The coronavirus growth rate is slowing in the UK and the number of infections is starting to level off in some areas, a top scientist has said.\n\nProf Neil Ferguson told the BBC that in some NHS regions there is a \"sign of plateauing\" in cases and hospital admissions.\n\nBut he warned the overall death toll would exceed 100,000.\n\nOn Wednesday, the UK saw its biggest daily death figure since the start of the pandemic, with 1,564 deaths.\n\nIt has taken the total number of deaths by that measure to 84,767. There were also 47,525 new cases.\n\nIt comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the national lockdown measures were \"starting to show signs of some effect\", but it was early days and urged people to abide by the rules.\n\nPeople in England are required to stay at home and only go out for limited reasons, such as for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nProf Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London whose modelling led to the first lockdown in March, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was \"much too early\" to say when the number of cases would come down.\n\nBut he said: \"It looks like in London in particular and a couple of other regions in the South East and East of England, hospital admissions may even have plateaued.\n\n\"It has to be said this is not seen everywhere - both case numbers and hospital admissions are going up in many other areas, but overall at a national level we are seeing the rate of growth slow.\"\n\nProf Ferguson added: \"I would hope the hospital admissions might plateau… sometime in the next week, but hospital bed occupancy may continue to rise slowly for up to two weeks.\"\n\nHe warned the overall death toll would be \"well over 100,000\", adding \"there's nothing we can do about that now\".\n\nProf Ferguson added Covid restrictions could be in place for many months to come, adding the new variant's increased transmissibility would mean relaxation of the rules will be a \"gradual process to the autumn\".\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said on Thursday that the government will not be introducing tougher social distancing rules \"today or tomorrow\" and insisted that ministers are focusing on increasing enforcement of the current restrictions.\n\nAsked about speculation further measures could include a three-metre social distancing rule or a requirement to wear masks outside, she told ITV's This Morning: \"This isn't about new rules coming in - we're going to stick with enforcing the current measures.\"\n\nMeanwhile, a major study led by Public Health England has shown most people who have had Covid-19 are protected from catching it again for at least five months.\n\nPast infection was linked to an 83% lower risk of getting the virus, compared with those who had never had Covid-19, scientists found.\n\nProf Susan Hopkins, who led the study, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the finding \"doesn't eliminate\" the risk of people catching Covid-19 again, and infecting others.\n\nShe said: \"We found people with very high amounts of virus in their nose and throat swabs, that would easily be in the range which would cause levels of transmission to other individuals.\"\n\nProf Hopkins said she hoped that after Easter, \"we will start to see reduced infection rates, as we did at that time last year\" and the number of people who have been vaccinated at a \"very high level\".\n\nThe UK is continuing efforts to ramp up the rollout of the Covid vaccine, with the prime minister saying that Covid vaccinations will be offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week as soon as supply allows.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted on Thursday to say that \"three million vaccines have now been administered\" in the UK.\n\nOn Thursday, NHS England published a breakdown of vaccinations by age and region for the first time.\n\nMr Johnson told the Commons Liaison Committee on Wednesday that he was \"concerned\" about a new Covid variant that is believed to have emerged in Brazil and said that the UK was taking steps to ensure it is not brought into the UK.\n\nA Downing Street spokesman said ministers met this morning to discuss \"urgent measures to reduce the potential spread to the UK of the Brazilian variant\".\n\nThey could include a ban on flights from Brazil. Arrivals from Brazil already have to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nMeanwhile, the Deputy Scottish First Minister John Swinney told BBC Breakfast \"the virus is not accelerating as fast as it was\" in Scotland.\n\nHe said \"there are some early signs of optimism\" but emphasised people should follow all guidance as the \"virus is still at a very strong level\".", "Amnesty says about 7,500 women and girls gave birth in the Northern Ireland homes,\n\nThere have been calls for an inquiry into mother and baby homes in Northern Ireland.\n\nIt comes as the Irish government is to apologise after an investigation found an \"appalling level of infant mortality\" in the Republic of Ireland's homes.\n\nAbout 9,000 children died in the 18 institutions under investigation.\n\nMothers and babies who were in similar homes in Northern Ireland want a full inquiry to be held in NI too.\n\nStormont commissioned research into whether or not there should an inquiry held into the homes which operated in Northern Ireland, is due to be published by the end of January.\n\nPatrick Corrigan from Amnesty International said the issue of forced adoptions also needs close scrutiny.\n\n\"We have had cases of mothers telling us that ultimately, many decades later, when they tried to track down their long-lost children they found adoption certificates where they said their signature had actually been forged,\" he said.\n\n\"So I think that there is criminality to investigate here and that it behoves the Northern Ireland Executive to set up the inquiry that has long been sought here and long been denied.\"\n\nIn 2017 research into infant mortality rates at former mother and baby homes in Northern Ireland had prompted initial calls for a public inquiry.\n\nBBC News NI previously spoke to Eunan Duffy who was 47 years old when he found out he was adopted from Marianvale mother and baby home in Newry, County Down.\n\nIt was one of a network of institutions in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland which offered women the voluntary option, for those who were unmarried, to give birth in private and give their babies up for adoption\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Marian Vale was one of a network of mother and baby institutions in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland\n\nAmnesty says there were more than a dozen mother-and-baby institutions in Northern Ireland.\n\nIt said about 7,500 women and girls gave birth in the Northern Ireland homes, operated by both Catholic and Protestant churches and religious organisations.\n\nIn Northern Ireland, research into mother and baby homes and Magdalene laundries was commissioned three years ago and was initially expected to take 12 months.\n\nIt was completed in February last year, but was then sent to those facing criticism to give them an opportunity to reply.\n\nA Department of Health spokesperson said: \"A paper will be brought to the executive shortly for its consideration. Subject to executive approval, it is intended to publish the research report before the end of January 2021.\"\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, the commission that investigated the homes found that the number of children who died was about 15% of all those who were born in the institutions.\n\nTaoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Mícheál Martin said the report, which can be read in full here, described a \"dark, difficult and shameful chapter\" of Irish history.\n\nSolicitor Claire McKeegan, who represents the Birth Mothers for Justice group, welcomed the apology in the Republic of Ireland, but said mothers and children in NI had not received one.\n\n\"The crimes perpetrated on them have yet to be investigated,\" she said.\n\n\"Those perpetrators who forced them into arbitrary detention, hard labour and colluded in the forced adoption of their babies, remain unchallenged in this jurisdiction.\"\n\nMary O'Neill became pregnant when she was 18 and was sent to Marianvale in Newry in the late 1970s.\n\nThere she gave birth to a baby girl who was taken away from her almost immediately after the birth.\n\nShe wanted to keep the baby, but was not allowed and was told the baby would be put up for adoption.\n\nThe mother and baby scandal became an international news story when 'significant human remains' were found on the grounds of a former home in County Galway\n\nMs O'Neill told Good Morning Ulster she eventually tracked down her daughter after 40 years.\n\n\"It was a long search, everywhere you went you were up against a brick wall,\" she said.\n\n\"There was no help, the social workers didn't want to tell you anything.\"\n\nShe finally found out her daughter was living in America but was coming home for her 40th birthday.\n\nShe said when she met her it was like meeting a stranger.\n\n\"But thank God we have met and we have a good relationship. She's still keeping in touch,\" Ms O'Neill said.\n\n\"It means the world to me, because you always wondered where was she? Was she happy? Did she know about you?\n\n\"It was always in the back of your mind. It never went away, the tears and the heartache.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMs O'Neill said she was happy the victims in the Republic of Ireland were getting an apology, but wishes the homes in Northern Ireland could have been included.\n\nMechelle Dillon's mother was 21 and pregnant when she was sent to Marianvale in Newry in 1969.\n\nShe was placed in foster care a few months after her birth.\n\nHer mother returned to her home village and then moved to England. But she came back for Mechelle when she was around eight or nine-months-old.\n\nShe said she believed she was not adopted because she was born with a cyst on her mouth.\n\n\"I would have maybe been classed as a reject, if you want to put it that way,\" she said.\n\n\"It's the same as if you go to look for a little puppy and if the puppy doesn't feel right and you think 'Oh God, I'll have a lot of vet bills here, I don't want that puppy' - I would have probably been classed the same because I would have had that defect.\"\n\nSDLP leader Colum Eastwood said \"the executive should move quickly to publish the research report and then call a full public inquiry\".", "Decima Minhinnick, pictured at her 90th birthday party, lives in a care home and has vascular dementia\n\nA couple who were fined £60 for driving 20 minutes to see a relative in a care home have had their fine cancelled by police.\n\nCarol and David Richards from Bridgend travelled seven miles to Porthcawl to visit her mother Decima Minhinnick, 94.\n\nOn Tuesday, police defended the fine, claiming the couple had broken lockdown rules.\n\nOn Wednesday, South Wales Police said it had \"since been reviewed and the notice has been rescinded\".\n\n\"The individual concerned has been notified\".\n\nIn a statement, it added: \"Wales remains at alert level four and South Wales Police will continue to patrol our communities to ensure the legislation, which has been enacted to slow the spread of coronavirus, is complied with\".\n\nMrs Richards has said she was \"mortified\" they were stopped by police while returning on Sunday from what she said was a compassionate visit.\n\nShe said on Tuesday she did not believe they breached lockdown rules.\n\nMrs Richards said the couple had arranged the visit to Picton Court Care Home in advance with the permission of staff, and spoke to her mother, who has vascular dementia, through the window of her ground-floor room from the car park.\n\nDavid and Carol Richards complained about the £60 fine\n\nShe told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that when she was issued with the fine it was like \"a sort of dystopian novel\", adding that the officer involved was \"pedantic and inflexible\".\n\n\"I was angry - she just would not listen to any protestations, and so she said 'you're going to be issued with a £60 fixed penalty fine'.\n\n\"It's not about the 60 quid, it's about the principle.\"\n\nThe home is just over seven miles from where the couple live", "The governor of Amazonas state warned of a \"critical\" moment and has implemented a curfew\n\nHospitals in the Brazilian city of Manaus have reached breaking point while treating Covid-19 patients, amid reports of severe oxygen shortages and desperate staff.\n\nThe city, in Amazonas state, has seen a surge of deaths and infections.\n\nHealth professionals, quoted by local media, warned \"many people\" could die due to lack of supplies and assistance.\n\nBrazil has recorded more than 205,000 virus deaths - the second-highest tally in the world, behind the US.\n\nA new coronavirus variant has recently emerged in Brazil, with several cases in travellers arriving in Japan traced back to the Amazonas region.\n\nAmazonas suffered heavy losses in the first wave of the pandemic but is also being badly hit by a new rise in infections.\n\nRefrigerated containers were brought to hospitals to help store bodies last week, as authorities declared a state of emergency.\n\nJessem Orellana, from the Fiocruz-Amazonia scientific investigation institute, told the AFP news agency that some hospitals in Manaus had \"run out of oxygen\" with some centres becoming \"a type of suffocation chamber\" for patients.\n\nThe researcher told Brazilian media she had received reports from the front-line of \"dramatic\" scenes playing out in some hospitals.\n\nReports in the daily Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper described desperate staff having to try to keep patients alive through manual ventilation.\n\nIn a widely shared video from the region, a female medical worker asks the internet for help: \"We're in an awful state. Oxygen has simply run out across the whole unit today.\"\n\n\"There is no oxygen and lots of people are dying,\" she says in the clip. \"If anyone has any oxygen, please bring it to the clinic. There are so many people dying.\"\n\nThe UK has banned travellers from much of Latin America over a new variant detected in Brazil\n\nAmazonas Governor Wilson Lima said the state was \"in the most critical moment of the pandemic\" and has announced a nightly curfew will begin at 19:00 local time (23:00 GMT) on Friday to try to stem the spread.\n\nMarcellus Campelo, a local health secretary, said the state needed three times the amount of oxygen it can produce locally and appealed for help.\n\nBrazil's vice-president shared images on Twitter of the air force transporting hospital supplies, including oxygen cylinders and stretchers, to the city as reports of the situation spread throughout the country.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by General Hamilton Mourão This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHealth officials also say some patients will be airlifted to other states for treatment due to the demand for intensive care units, Reuters reports.\n\nFelipe Naveca, deputy director of research at the state-run Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, told the BBC's South America correspondent Katy Watson that the new variant had evolved separately from those in the UK and South Africa, but that it showed some of the same characteristics: \"Some of these mutations have been linked to increased transmission and that is of concern.\"\n\nMr Naveca said that they did not yet have any data to suggest that existing vaccines would be any less effective against the new variant. \"We have to do a lot more sequencing of samples to answer that question,\" he said.\n\nHowever, on Thursday UK officials announced a ban on travellers from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde due to the new strain.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Thursday evening. We'll have another update for you on Friday morning.\n\nTravel from South America and Portugal to the UK is being banned, other than for British or Irish citizens and foreign nationals with residence rights. The new ruling is being brought in because of concerns about the new Brazilian coronavirus variant and comes into force from 04:00 GMT on Friday. The ban applies to people who have travelled from, or through, these countries in the 10 days before their departure for the UK: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela. Find out more about the new variants here.\n\nDoctors have warned that the recent surge in Covid hospital cases has left key hospital services in England in crisis. Accident and Emergency departments are facing rising delays in admitting extremely sick patients on to wards, NHS data shows. The total number of people facing year-long waits for routine treatments is more than 100 times higher than it was before the pandemic - and cancer specialists are warning of a \"terrifying\" disruption to their services that would cost lives.\n\nThe government has told schools not to provide free meals to eligible pupils' families over half term, with food to be provided by councils under the Covid Winter Grant Scheme instead. The Department for Education said vulnerable families would continue to receive meals outside of term time through the welfare support they have made available. But councils say the government should be responsible for providing food vouchers during the February half-term, like it did over summer.\n\nA top scientist has said the coronavirus growth rate in the UK is slowing, with the number of infections starting to level off in some areas. Prof Neil Ferguson told the BBC that in some NHS regions there is a \"sign of plateauing\" in cases and hospital admissions. But he warned the overall death toll - currently standing at over 80,000 - would exceed 100,000. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the national lockdown measures in place across the UK are \"starting to show signs of some effect\" but warned that it was still early days.\n\nMany people feel they've put on weight during the pandemic, due to staying indoors more and turning to comfort food. Samantha Hicks, from Portishead, North Somerset, thought she was one of them - but what she believed was a few extra pounds of weight was actually a baby. She gave birth to her daughter Julia just 10 days after discovering she was pregnant. Her pregnancy was even missed when she was taken to hospital in November with Covid-19. She said: \"My tummy was a bit swollen but again, because I felt sick and I wasn't great, it never occurred to me I was pregnant.\"\n\nThe UK travel rules have been updated again. Find out all the details you need here.\n\nFind more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Most people who have had Covid-19 are protected from catching it again for at least five months, a study led by Public Health England shows.\n\nPast infection was linked to around a 83% lower risk of getting the virus, compared with those who had never had Covid-19, scientists found.\n\nBut experts warn some people do catch Covid-19 again - and can infect others.\n\nAnd officials stress people should follow the stay-at-home rules - whether or not they have had the virus.\n\nProf Susan Hopkins, who led the study, said the results were encouraging, suggesting immunity lasted longer than some people feared, but protection was by no means absolute.\n\nIt was particularly concerning some of those reinfected had high levels of the virus - even without symptoms - and were at risk of passing it on to others, she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prof Susan Hopkins from Public Health England said immunity from having Covid-19 is \"not 100% protective\"\n\n\"This means even if you believe you already had the disease and are protected, you can be reassured it is highly unlikely you will develop severe infections but there is still a risk that you could acquire an infection and transmit to others,\" she added.\n\n\"Now more than ever, it is vital we all stay at home to protect our health service and save lives.\"\n\nFrom June to November 2020, almost 21,000 healthcare workers across the UK were regularly tested to see whether they:\n\nOf those who had no antibodies to the virus, suggesting they may have never had it, 318 developed potential new infections within this timeframe.\n\nBut among the 6,614 with antibodies, this figure was just 44 potential new infections.\n\nResearchers received various different pieces of evidence suggesting these people had become re-infected - including new symptoms more than 90 days after their first infection, new positive swab tests and blood tests.\n\nSome tests are still being run and researchers say their results will be updated as they come in.\n\nScientists will continue to monitor the healthcare workers for 12 months to see how long immunity lasts.\n\nThey will also look closely at cases with the new variant - which was not widespread at the time of this first analysis - and observe the immunity of participants who receive the vaccine.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Can you become immune to coronavirus?\n\nDr Julian Tang, a virus expert at the University of Leicester, said the results were reassuring for healthcare workers.\n\n\"Having the vaccine after recovering from Covid-19 is not an issue... and will likely boost the natural immunity,\" he added.\n\n\"We also see this with the seasonal flu vaccine.\n\n\"So hopefully the results from this paper will reduce the anxiety of many healthcare-worker colleagues who have concerns about getting Covid-19 twice.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Changes to Scotland's lockdown restrictions have been announced. The tightening of the rules follows concerns the \"stay at home\" message is not having the same impact it did during last year's lockdown. The changes will come into effect on Saturday.\n\nThe availability and operation of click and collect services will be limited to retailers selling essential items such as clothes, footwear, baby equipment, homeware and books. Also, outlets that sell electrical goods; do key cutting; undertake shoe repairs, plus garden centres and plant nurseries can continue the collect service.\n\nFor qualifying businesses, staggered appointments will need to be offered to avoid any potential for queuing, and access inside premises for collection will not be permitted.\n\nCustomers in Scotland will no longer be allowed to go inside to collect takeaway food or coffee. Businesses will have to operate from a serving hatch or doorway.\n\nThe aim is to reduce the risk of customers coming into contact indoors with each other, or with staff.\n\nIt will be against the law in all level four areas of Scotland to drink alcohol outdoors in public.\n\nThis will mean that buying a takeaway pint and consuming on the street will not be permitted.\n\nIt is intended to underline the message that people should only be leaving home for essential purposes.\n\nThe Scottish government is strengthening the obligation on employers to allow their staff to work from home whenever possible.\n\nThe law already says that people should only be leaving home to go to work if it is work that cannot be done from home. This is a legal obligation that falls on individuals.\n\nHowever, statutory guidance is being introduced to make clear that employers should support employees to work from home wherever possible.\n\nThe Scottish government is strengthening provisions in relation to work inside people's houses.\n\nCurrent guidance says that in level four areas work is only permitted within a private dwelling if it is essential for the upkeep, maintenance and functioning of the household. This guidance is now being put into law.\n\nThe final change is an amendment to the regulations requiring people to stay at home.\n\nThis is intended to close an apparent loophole rather than change the spirit of the law. It will also bring the wording of the stay at home regulations in Scotland into line with the other UK nations.\n\nCurrently the law states that people can only leave home for an essential purpose.\n\nThe amendment will make it clear that people \"must not leave or remain outside\" the home unless it is for an essential purpose.\n\nThe Scottish government's full lockdown guidance is available here.", "Covid-19 patients in England's busiest intensive care units in 2020 were 20% more likely to die, University College London research has found.\n\nThe increased risk was equivalent to gaining a decade in age.\n\nBy the end of 2020, one in three hospital trusts in England was running at higher than 85% capacity.\n\nEleven trusts were completely full on 30 December, and the total number of people in intensive care with Covid has continued to rise since then.\n\nThe link between full ICUs and higher death rates was already known, but this study is the first to measure its effect during the pandemic.\n\nTighter lockdown restrictions are needed to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, says study author Dr Bilal Mateen.\n\nResearchers looked at more than 4,000 patients who were admitted to intensive care units in 114 hospital trusts in England between April and June last year.\n\nThey found the risk of dying was almost a fifth higher in ICUs where more than 85% of beds were occupied, than in those running at between 45% and 85% capacity.\n\nThat meant a 60-year-old being treated in one of these units had the same risk of dying as a 70-year-old on a quieter ward.\n\nThe Royal College of Emergency Medicine sets 85% as the maximum safe level of bed occupancy.\n\nHowever, the team found there was no tipping point after which deaths rose - instead, survival rates fell consistently as bed-occupancy increased.\n\nThis suggests \"a lot of harm is occurring before you get to 85%\".\n\nPatients admitted to ICUs that were less than 45% full were 25% less likely to die than average.\n\nUsually if a very sick patient's heart stops, everyone on the ward will rush to help them, Dr Mateen explained.\n\nBut when there are too many patients, staff's time is inevitably split, so \"it makes sense that the quality of patient care would be sacrificed\", he said.\n\nWhile extra beds and equipment can, and have, been provided through the Nightingale hospitals and the private sector, finding enough qualified staff has been an issue.\n\n\"You can't just create an ICU nurse who knows how to operate a mechanical ventilator overnight,\" Dr Mateen told the BBC.\n\nThese are highly-skilled roles that take years of training and sometimes decades of experience, he added.\n\nInstead, a \"robust vaccination programme\" and tighter lockdown restrictions are needed to bring down cases and hospitalisations, he believes.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What does it mean if the NHS is overwhelmed?\n\nCo-author Prof Christina Pagel at UCL added: \"This paper highlights for the first time that putting such strain on ICUs during pandemic peaks does, sadly, mean that that chances of someone dying in intensive care are higher.\n\n\"Our work underlines the urgency of both vaccinating vulnerable groups as soon as possible and reducing Covid transmission in the community to relieve pressure on intensive care.\"\n\nIt's difficult to say for sure that fuller ICUs are actually causing more deaths - it's possible that as they get fuller, only the sickest patients are admitted.\n\nBut Dr Mateen says there was no evidence of rationing - of sick patients being turned away.\n\nEven pre-Covid, data suggests larger ICUs had lower death rates - with a 25% increase in bed numbers linked to a corresponding 25% fall in mortality.\n\nAnd the findings are supported by a wealth of evidence from before the pandemic and from around the world.", "Coach and tour operators have seen an unexpected growth in bookings in the last fortnight.\n\nWhilst there is no doubt that the pandemic continues to put huge pressure on lives and the NHS, this is a small amount of sunshine for the travel industry, which has had a tough year.\n\nTUI, the UK's largest tour operator, says 50% of bookings on their website are currently by over-50s.\n\nThis was previously a smaller market for them.\n\nNational Express's coach holiday businesses say bookings made by those 65 and over have increased by 185% in the last fortnight compared to last year.\n\n\"Since the announcement of the vaccine, it's given our customer base, predominantly those over 65, increased confidence to book and have that summer getaway in 2021\" says Jit Desai, head of holidays and travel at National Express.\n\n\"We launched the brochure for spring-summer 2021 just this weekend gone, and on Monday we took a week's worth of bookings in a day and that's continued so far,\" says Mr Desai. \"What the vaccine does is give certainty and confidence.\n\n\"That then allows the customer and ourselves the ability to plan ahead\".\n\nThe pandemic has been devastating for the travel sector. Tens of thousands of jobs have gone in the UK. Millions of Britons cancelled breaks because the health situation was in flux across the world.\n\nBut National Express now points to returning confidence to travel.\n\n\"Many we've spoken to have had the first jab. They know in 12 weeks they'll get a second jab. It gives them certainty that they can enjoy and look forward to their 2021 holiday. It is something to look forward to, to being with people, with friends, like minded and from the same generation.\"\n\nDawn and Ray - 75 and 78 years old - are from Hampshire and are due to have their first jab soon. They have just booked five UK holidays.\n\n\"We are raring to go once we've got that vaccine, we are really looking forward to it - both of us. We are going to Wales, Leicestershire, to York where there is a mystery tour - and to the Cotswolds'\", Dawn said.\n\nFor Dawn and Ray, it's the ease of coach travel that's appealing, as well as the safety. She adds \"they've looked after us so well in the past, the coaches are clean, we'll all wear masks, we all look after each other.\"\n\nAt the moment, 90% of the bookings with National Expresses coach businesses are UK based, so it looks like another good year for the staycation.\n\n\"European bookings are lower because of the uncertainty on the continent,\" says Mr Desai.\n\n\"The UK wins because of the lack of need to quarantine. And uncertainty about the moves other governments might make whilst away also creates fear.\"\n\nIt's not just UK breaks that are selling. The UK's largest tour operator TUI, famous for its sun-drenched European beach holidays, says there has also been a change in the last fortnight.\n\n\"We're seeing a customer base or age group that wasn't booking before, that is starting to book,\" says Andrew Flintham the MD of TUI UK. \"The over 50s, we assume, is on the back to the vaccine news.\"\n\nWhilst TUI UK boss acknowledges that \"the market is still depressed and it's not where we want it - we are seeing glimmers of hope.\"\n\nTrips to towns in England are among those being booked\n\nThere are also interesting changes emerging in the types of breaks holidaymakers plan to take and the months they're planning to travel.\n\n\"People are booking later into the summer, hedging their bets\" said Mr Flintham. \"More July and August and a lot of demand for September and October.\n\n\"People are booking longer holidays, we're seeing more people booking ten or eleven or 14 nights rather than seven. People are maybe catching up on what they've missed.\"\n\nAs TUI analysed its recent booking data, one trend they spotted is the emergence of large, multigenerational group bookings.\n\n\"It is family time we've all missed. We can't get away from our own families, but our broader families we can't see, and that's feeding into our choices\" Mr Flintham explains.\n\nAfter such a bad 10 months, and TUI cancelling all holidays until the middle of February at the earliest because of the new lockdown, how does the rest of the summer look?\n\n\"I think the summer holiday is on\" says Mr Flintham, \"I think we just need time for people to get that confidence, but yes, we think there will be a good summer this summer\".\n\nFor those who've watched the paralysis brought upon the travel industry since last winter, a morsel of good news about customers booking again is being celebrated.\n\n\"This is fantastic news and to be hugely welcomed by an industry that has been utterly devastated by the pandemic\", says Sophie Griffiths, editor of Travel Trade Gazette.\n\n\"Ten months into this crisis and the industry has still received zero dedicated support from the government despite being unique as a sector in terms of giving out thousands in refunds while getting next to nothing back in for 2020.\"", "The Lauberhorn course is the longest downhill run in the world (file image)\n\nA British tourist has been blamed for a spike in coronavirus cases that led officials to cancel Switzerland's famous Lauberhorn ski race.\n\nThe resort of Wengen, where the race is held, had recorded only 10 cases of the virus by mid-December.\n\nBut the number soon began to rise and many cases have since been linked to the new highly infectious variant of Covid-19 first identified in the UK.\n\nAt least 27 cases are connected to one British tourist, contact tracers say.\n\nThe tourist stayed in a hotel in Wengen over the holiday period.\n\nThe Lauberhorn course is the longest downhill run in the world, and racers can reach speeds of 160km/h (100 mph).\n\nOfficials desperately tried to save the race, shutting schools and offering to close off the resort to everyone but the competitors.\n\nSwiss health officials initially agreed with the plan, but a further jump in cases at the start of this week prompted them to pull the emergency brake and cancel the event.\n\nThe Lauberhorn track is 4,480m (14,700ft) long - and the race will now have to wait until 2022\n\nWengen is devastated. The Lauberhorn is one of the top competitions on the World Cup ski circuit. It is dearly loved by the Swiss, who have watched with delight as some of their own homegrown talent, such as Beat Feuz and Carlo Janka, have triumphed there.\n\nMoreover, the long love affair between Switzerland and British winter tourists has frosted over to some extent.\n\nIt was only last month that the vanishing Brits of Verbier, who reportedly fled Switzerland rather than accept the government mandated quarantine, triggered a flurry of negative headlines.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Italy's Foppolo ski resort was closed until 6 January and missed the all-important Christmas ski season\n\nNow the high point of Switzerland's skiing calendar has been abruptly cancelled, and some Swiss blame the British.\n\nOthers say Switzerland only has itself to blame.\n\nWhile neighbours France and Italy closed their resorts over the festive period, the Swiss government opted for a precarious balancing act. It kept its slopes open, but closed all bars and restaurants and limited ski lifts to two-thirds capacity.\n\nMost Swiss resorts are quiet, with just a few locals enjoying the runs. But still some tourists arrived and, as Wengen's experience shows, just one infected guest is enough to cause major damage.\n\nInstead of hosting a major ski race, Wengen officials are now racing to control the virus. Mass testing has already begun in the resort.\n\nSwitzerland's government has extended the closure of bars, restaurants, museums, and theatres until the end of February in a bid to control the new variant. It has also ordered non-essential shops to close and made working from home obligatory.\n\nAs for the Lauberhorn, Switzerland's oldest and fiercest skiing rival, Austria, will now host the postponed event. Nothing could have been calculated to upset the Swiss more.\n\nThe event was first moved to the Austrian ski resort of Kitzbühel, but an outbreak of coronavirus there has prompted another move, this time to Flachau, 100km to the east.\n\nThe cluster of cases in Jochberg near Kitzbühel broke out among a group of mainly British trainee ski instructors.", "Some 13 ambulances queued outside the Royal Glamorgan Hospital hospital's A&E department on Saturday\n\nHospitals in the area with Wales and England's worst Covid death rates are only coping by postponing urgent surgery such as cancer operations.\n\nCwm Taf Morgannwg had already suspended some non-emergency services but the boss of the health board said they have now paused some urgent procedures.\n\nCwm Taf covers Rhondda Cynon Taf and Merthyr Tydfil, which have the highest and second highest Covid death rates.\n\nHealth Minister Vaughan Gething said he \"would not be surprised\" if other health boards were forced to do the same soon, if case rates did not come down.\n\n\"There is real harm being done... because of the level of hospital admissions,\" he said.\n\n\"Our critical care units are at 150% of their capacity and that has very real consequences.\n\n\"It reinforces why all of us need to do the right thing in reducing our contacts with other people and follow the rules, otherwise greater harm will be caused.\"\n\nThe news comes as NHS bosses said the number of Covid patients in Welsh hospitals is double April's peak.\n\nOn Thursday, Public Health Wales (PHW) said a further 54 people had died with coronavirus in Wales, taking the total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic to 4,117.\n\nMr Lyons said on Wednesday night their field hospital Ysbyty Seren in Bridgend had 74 patients, people they \"wouldn't have been able to accommodate within our usual hospitals\".\n\n\"We are coping, but that's coping because we've been cancelling urgent surgery.\n\n\"We even had to cancel some cancer surgery over the last few weeks,\" Mr Lyons told BBC Radio Wales.\n\n\"My heart goes out to families and to patients with all the stress and the worry that gives.\n\n\"It's tough times and we're all in it together, and we do see that optimism, that glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel but it's hard.\"\n\nNearly half of hospital beds in the health board - which covers Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhondda Cynon Taf- are taken up with Covid-19 patients, including 31 in critical care or on ventilation.\n\nThey outnumber those in critical care with other conditions by three to one.\n\nLatest NHS Wales figures show 2,806 hospital patients in Wales with Covid-19 - 35% of all patients. This is twice the proportion in May.\n\nIn Rhondda Cynon Taf, the Covid death rate is 283.9 per 100,000 population - followed by Merthyr Tydfil where the death rate is 253.6.\n\n\"It's an absolute tragedy for the families and the loved ones and very sobering,\" said Mr Lyons.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. See how case rates have changed in each part of Wales\n\n\"We're coping but only because of the dedication of our staff, and it's immensely humbling to see people giving up their spare time coming in doing extra shifts, but the toll on them is immense.\n\n\"In practice our hospitals are full and although we are coping that we're only coping because we've cancelled all but the most urgent surgery.\n\n\"We've redeployed staff who've been incredibly flexible from places they normally work such as outpatients.\"\n\nThe health board oversees three hospitals - Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil, Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend and the Royal Glamorgan in Rhondda Cynon Taf.\n\nA nurse at Royal Glamorgan Hospital, near Llantrisant, said earlier this week how she felt \"overwhelming fear\" as 13 ambulances queued outside her hospital's A&E department.", "Six pharmacies will be vaccinating people invited by letter to make an appointment online\n\nSome High Street pharmacies in England will start vaccinating people from priority groups on Thursday, with 200 providing jabs in the next two weeks.\n\nSix chemists in Halifax, Macclesfield, Widnes, Guildford, Edgware and Telford are the first to offer appointments to those invited by letter.\n\nBut pharmacists say many more sites should be allowed to give the jab, not just the largest ones.\n\nMore than 2.6 million people in the UK have now received their first dose.\n\nAcross the UK, the target is to vaccinate 15 million people in the top four priority groups - care home residents and workers, NHS frontline staff, the over-70s and the extremely clinically vulnerable - by mid-February.\n\nThe vaccines - made by either Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech - are being administered at hospitals, care homes, GP surgeries and vaccination centres.\n\nIt comes as the UK saw its highest number of daily reported coronavirus deaths since the pandemic began, with the government announcing a further 1,564 deaths of people within 28 days of a positive Covid test.\n\nOn Wednesday evening, the Scottish government published its detailed 16-page plan for rolling out the vaccine, including details of how many vaccines it expects to receive every week until the end of May.\n\nThe first pharmacy sites in England to deliver a vaccine have been chosen because they are capable of delivering large numbers of vaccines quickly while allowing space for social distancing.\n\nPeople will be invited by letter to make an appointment at one of the pharmacies, or a vaccination centre, through the NHS Covid-19 vaccination booking service.\n\nAnyone who doesn't want to travel to these sites can still be vaccinated by their local GP or hospital service, but they may have to wait longer.\n\nUp to 70 more pharmacies will be taking bookings for appointments for next week, with 200 in total offering slots over the next fortnight, according to NHS England.\n\nVaccines are currently being offered at more than 1,000 sites, including :\n\nAn Asda supermarket in Birmingham will also host a vaccination centre, with pharmacy staff giving jabs in the store's former clothing section from 25 January.\n\nBut the National Pharmacy Association says the rules on which pharmacies qualify to deliver Covid vaccines should be relaxed to allow more to take part.\n\nHow people awaiting vaccines will queue and socially distance in the Halifax store of Boots\n\nAt present, pharmacies have to be able to deliver 1,000 vaccines a week, have enough fridge space to store all the doses, and be able to open seven days a week.\n\nAndrew Lane, of the National Pharmacy Association, said now that the Oxford vaccine had been approved, community pharmacies could store and administer it in the same way as they deliver the flu jab.\n\nThe Oxford vaccine only needs to be stored at fridge temperature, as opposed to the freezer temperatures of -70C required by Pfizer.\n\n\"We're here, we're trained, we will deliver,\" said Mr Lane, who represents Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Northamptonshire.\n\nNHS England has said that as more supplies of vaccine become available, more community pharmacists will be able to play a role in the programme.\n\nThe government's vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said staff across the NHS had \"pulled out all the stops to help ramp up vaccinations\" and were working day and night to keep people safe.\n\nProf Claire Anderson, chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's English Pharmacy Board, said pharmacy teams in hospital, primary care and the community were \"working flat out to support the nation's health\".\n\nShe said she looked forward to the vaccination programme being expanded through pharmacies to benefit patients.\n\nBoris Johnson said on Wednesday that vaccinations would also start being offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week \"as soon as possible\" - but supply of doses was currently the limiting factor.\n\nIt comes as hospitals struggle to cope with the rising numbers of patients being admitted with Covid.\n\nA study published today has shown the impact of packed intensive care units on death rates, finding that patients in England's busiest ICUs in 2020 were 20% more likely to die.\n\nMeanwhile, a government committee is meeting later to discuss whether to stop flights from Brazil coming to the UK because of concern about a new variant of the virus believed to have emerged there.\n\nArrivals from Brazil already have to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nThe strain is one of a small number of new variants which have been spreading, including ones first spotted in the UK and South Africa.\n\nScientists are racing to understand what it means for the vaccines - but most experts think vaccines will still be effective.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Bangor student Michelle Francis said students had hardly used rooms and had not been able to use facilities on campus\n\nHundreds of students are preparing to take part in rent strikes after paying for \"hardly used\" rooms during the pandemic.\n\nSome Welsh universities have already offered refunds to students who have been living away due to Covid-19.\n\nBut students in Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor claim they are being treated unfairly and are threatening to withhold rent.\n\nUniversities said they were trying to work out the implications of Covid-19.\n\nAnd a solicitor warned students they could face legal action for not paying rent, with long-term implications possible if they lose.\n\nFace-to-face teaching was suspended and many students moved back home before Christmas as coronavirus cases continued to rise.\n\nStaggered returns are being introduced in order to \"help stop the spread of the virus in student accommodation\", according to the Welsh Government.\n\nThey said they had not been living in the rooms or using facilities, despite paying for them, because they were abiding by Welsh Government guidelines.\n\nCardiff Metropolitan University, Aberystwyth University, Swansea University, Bangor University and Cardiff University have now offered eligible students rebates or discounts for time not spent living on campus.\n\nUniversity of South Wales said it will be offering a \"rent holiday\" on university-owned accommodation in Treforest, Rhondda Cynon Taf, for the period 4 January to 12 February.\n\nUniversity of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) said on Thursday it is now offering refunds to students who have not returned to university-owned accommodation while teaching is solely online.\n\nBut students say the offers are inadequate for students already paying £9,000-a-year tuition fees at a time when most of the teaching was online, and they had been unable to use facilities in halls.\n\nWhile the students cannot hold their protests in person due to coronavirus laws, hundreds are now planning to cancel their direct debits, withholding thousands of pounds of rent from universities.\n\nMichelle Francis, who formed the Bangor Rent Strike campaign, said the university's offer of a 10% discount to eligible students living in university-owned accommodation did not go far enough.\n\nShe said students who had chosen to go home for Christmas were not eligible, despite being unable to use facilities paid for during the first term.\n\n\"[We were] advised to have left university from the beginning of December and to come back at 8 February,\" she said.\n\n\"That's 25% of our halls that we've been paying and we're not there... we should be allowed to have that back.\"\n\nSo far over 300 students have joined the campaign to cancel their direct debits paid to Welsh universities and campaigners said the numbers were growing daily.\n\nOn Wednesday, Cardiff University joined other Welsh universities in offering a rent rebate to students living in university-owned accommodation during the pandemic.\n\nBut the full rebate, for the time students are unable to return to live in their accommodation, will not be applied until April.\n\nSwansea University has also confirmed a rent reduction to students in university halls who have been asked to remain at home.\n\nOisin Mulholland of Swansea Rent Strike said the group wanted the university to commit to fairly \"assessing the situation\", including for the coming term, and students who had already moved in should be given rebates as well.\n\n\"There was a window in January, where the Welsh Government said return, but the English government said don't return, and the university said nothing,\" he said.\n\n\"Many students came back and are now trapped in Swansea and can't go back because of lockdown\"\n\nIbrahim Khan said students were struggling and needed the rebate immediately\n\nIbrahim Khan, of the Cardiff Rent Strike campaign, said the rebate was \"too late\" for students struggling financially now.\n\n\"The university should be giving us the rebate this January as opposed to the third instalment in April,\" he said.\n\nLawyers have warned that students would in breach of contract if they cancel the direct debit for their rent.\n\nSiôn Fôn, a solicitor at Darwin Gray, encouraged students to discuss the issue with their families and student unions before taking action.\n\n\"I think a case could be brought forward pretty easily against somebody not paying rent,\" he said.\n\nBut he said students may have a case against the university due to not being able to access advertised facilities, but if the university took legal action it could have long-term consequences for individuals.\n\n\"If the students lose, and even after losing don't pay the rent, that would come up on credit scores, or with the bank, if they're trying to get a mortgage or a credit card it would come up on their record,\" he warned.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"How am I going to afford to do my food shop... if I can't go to work?\"\n\nA spokesperson for Cardiff University said technical reasons meant they had to wait until the April instalment of accommodation fees to provide the rebate.\n\nSwansea University said some students had already returned when the stay at home guidance was issued, and it was working through the \"implications of this\".\n\n\"To help with this the university will not generate invoices for any students with university accommodation until May when we have been able to look at these cases,\" a spokesman said.\n\nBangor University said it did not wish to add anything further following its rebate announcement.\n\nThe Welsh Government said it had provided an extra £40m to help universities, including £10m for towards student hardship and support.\n\n\"It would seem fair that students should be eligible for a rebate for the period when a course is online only and we welcome moves by universities to address this,\" a spokesman said.\n\n\"We are actively considering how we can support our students and universities even further.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Residents of an asylum seeker camp in Pembrokeshire says life is 'very bad'\n\nAsylum seekers housed in a military training camp have claimed the \"very bad\" conditions are making them feel increasingly desperate.\n\nThe Home Office decided to house up to 250 asylum seekers at the site in Penally, Pembrokeshire, from September.\n\nBut some housed at the camp claim the conditions are unsafe and putting them at risk of coronavirus.\n\nPlaid Cymru has called for an urgent inspection, but the Home Office said it was safe and \"Covid-compliant\".\n\nOn Thursday afternoon, the independent chief inspector for borders and immigration David Bolt said he hoped an inspection can begin \"within a few weeks\" and was awaiting further details he requested from the Home Office.\n\nProtests and counter-protests have taken place at the camp, with concerns conditions breach human rights.\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford has said the facility was \"unsuitable\" for vulnerable people who have \"fled terror and suffering\".\n\nNow, asylum seekers have spoken to the BBC about their experiences of living in the camp during the pandemic, with some claiming the site does not abide by Covid-19 rules.\n\nPhotos taken inside the camp show the living conditions in one of the rooms\n\nOne man, who wishes to remain anonymous, arrived at the camp on 1 October.\n\nHe said he had pain from \"old injuries\" obtained in Syria, but had to wait \"four days\" to see a doctor. He also has concerns about hygiene facilities at the camp.\n\n\"There is no observance of the Covid safety laws,\" he said, claiming \"six men\" share a small bedroom, dozens eat in the same room, and some staff preparing food do not wear face masks.\n\nVideo footage and photographs of the camp, seen by BBC Wales, show bathroom floors covered with water, every toilet in one bathroom blocked, beds in communal rooms less than 2m (6ft) apart and a bathroom where all the soap dispensers are empty.\n\nThe Home Office said medical need determined GP appointments, social distancing was required, and soap was replenished at the site.\n\nThe man said the camp's conditions had left him in a \"bad psychological state\" and others had attempted self-harm: \"Should I try to hurt myself to get out of here?\"\n\nHe said he and other residents were able to leave the camp as long as they are back by 22:00 GMT, but said he was reluctant to go out due to the \"humiliation, abuse and racism\" he has experienced.\n\nThe site has attracted protests in recent months\n\nWhile some have welcomed the refugees, posting welcome notes outside the gates, the camp has been described as a target for \"hard-right extremist\" protesters.\n\nThe Home Office said that, where someone claims their mental health is suffering, it would consider if their needs can be met at the site.\n\nAnother resident, from Eritrea, north-east Africa, said life in the camp was stressful, and people were being \"treated like prisoners\".\n\n\"For the Eritrean community in this camp, the most difficult thing is we escaped from our country from indefinite military service and illegal imprisonment,\" he said.\n\n\"So we feel like we are imprisoned in a military camp. It is all coming back to us.\"\n\nOne resident said it was impossible to maintain social distancing in a room with six people\n\nThe man said he had been told to be careful and to abide to Covid rules, but there was \"no protection\" as he was sleeping in a room with five others.\n\n\"Most of the bathrooms - they are broken,\" he said.\n\n\"They are filled with tissues, masks, everything you can find, they are blocked, they don't work.\"\n\nHe said he had not been offered a coronavirus test since arriving about three months ago.\n\nThe Home Office said residents had often entered the UK some time ago, and had been mainly placed in the camp after being in the south-east of England and around London.\n\nIt added that coronavirus tests were only necessary in line with Welsh Government guidance.\n\nIt added that Clearsprings Ready Homes, which manage the camp, took immediate steps to repair damage.\n\nSome have welcomed the asylum seekers in the community\n\nBut Plaid Cymru's leader in Westminster, Liz Saville Roberts, has called for an \"urgent\" and \"transparent\" inspection of the site.\n\nIn a letter to the UK's Independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Bolt, the MP said: \"We are now not only in the middle of winter, but cases of Covid-19 in Wales are rising at an alarming rate.\n\n\"I am extremely worried that the conditions at the old military barracks are wholly unsuitable to deal with the cold weather and to facilitate effective social distancing.\n\n\"This shows a clear disregard for the health and wellbeing of those being kept in the camp.\"\n\nAbout 40 men took part in the protest outside the camp in November over claims their human rights were being breached\n\nShe told BBC Radio Wales: \"If we aspire to be a nation of sanctuary, surely we should be looking at how people, while they are with us, are integrated into our communities and given all the services that they need, rather than putting them in a convenient enclosed space in a tiny community which is ill equipped itself to deal with this... Let alone far right protests outside and all the pressure that's put on the local population.\n\n\"We need to make sure that this doesn't set a precedent into the future.\"\n\nMr Bolt told Ms Saville Roberts he had \"received assurances\" from the Home Office that the Penally camp had an independent Covid-19 audit on 4 November.\n\nIn a letter, he said he hoped an inspection could be held \"within a few weeks\".\n\nHe said he was keen to understand how the Home Office \"was assuring itself\" individuals who were particularly vulnerable, including torture victims, potential victims of modern slavery, and those with complex health and other needs, were being identified and action taken to safeguard them.\n\nHe said: \"While on site I would expect the only restrictions to be those relating to Covid-19 and that inspectors would be free to examine the premises and facilities, observe daily life and interview staff and service users, and I would look to the Home Office to ensure that whoever is responsible for managing the site understands that they must cooperate with the inspection team.\"\n\nIn December, the Welsh Labour Government deputy minister Jane Hutt called on the Home Secretary Priti Patel to close the camp, describing the conditions as \"unsafe\" and \"inhumane\".\n\nTom Nunn, a solicitor representing some of the residents at camp, said the Home Office had said the camp should only be used as short-term accommodation for single, asylum-seeking males with no known vulnerabilities.\n\nBut he said 20 clients had been transferred away from the camp due to being vulnerable, and feared a serious incident would happen if things did not change.\n\n\"The majority of them have been detained and/or tortured in their country of origin, many have been exploited on their journey to the UK and a large number have fairly severe mental health problems,\" he said.\n\n\"It should not be the case that the only effective way of being transferred out is through making submissions through lawyers, and we are concerned about a large number of individuals who for a myriad of reasons may be unable to obtain this representation.\"\n\nThe UK's Minister for Immigration Compliance, Chris Philp, said: \"We provide asylum seekers in Penally with safe, Covid-compliant and weather-proof accommodation along with free, nutritious meals, all paid for by the taxpayer.\n\n\"We take the welfare of those in our care extremely seriously and asylum seekers can contact the 24/7 helpline run by Migrant Help if they have any issues.\n\n\"We are fixing our asylum system to make it firm and fair. We will be bringing forward legislation which will stop abuse of the system while ensuring it is compassionate towards those who need our help, welcoming people through safe and legal routes.\"", "The TikTok clip was reported to police by Network Rail\n\nA TikTok stunt featuring a car parked on a level crossing has been branded \"staggeringly stupid\".\n\nThe \"reckless\" social media post, recorded on the line at Bromley Cross, Bolton, showed a camera and tripod set up on the railway to record the scene.\n\nAn accompanying caption asked viewers: \"Would you take the risk to get the shot no-one else would?\"\n\nInsp Becky Warren, from British Transport Police, said: \"No picture or video is worth risking your life for.\"\n\nNetwork Rail, which reported the footage after it appeared on the video-sharing app, blasted the \"staggeringly stupid and dangerous\" clip.\n\nIt issued a reminder that trespassing on railway lines is against the law.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by ManchesterPiccadilly This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNorth West route director Phil James said using the tracks \"as a backdrop for a photo shoot beggars belief\".\n\n\"Lives could so easily have been lost by this reckless behaviour,\" he said.\n\nInsp Warren added: \"There is simply no excuse for not following safety procedures at level crossings. The behaviour shown by the individuals in this video is incredibly dangerous and reckless.\"\n\nMany instances of trespass involve people using railway lines as backdrops for selfies and even wedding photos.\n\nLast year, Network Rail and British Transport Police launched a You vs. Train campaign to highlight the issue of young people trespassing.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Armie Hammer has starred in The Social Network and Call Me By Your Name\n\nUS actor Armie Hammer has pulled out of a new film with Jennifer Lopez after what he described as \"vicious and spurious online attacks against me\".\n\nHammer had been set to appear in the action comedy Shotgun Wedding.\n\nHowever, the star's role will now be re-cast after private messages he supposedly sent were circulated online.\n\nIn a statement, Hammer dismissed the messages and said the subsequent abuse meant he could no longer spend months away from his children while filming.\n\n\"I'm not responding to these [false] claims but in light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for four months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic,\" the 34-year-old said, according to Deadline and Variety.\n\nThe Social Network and Call Me By Your Name actor added that film studio Lionsgate \"is supporting me in this and I'm grateful to them for that\".\n\nHammer has two children aged six and three with TV host Elizabeth Chambers. The couple announced their divorce last summer.\n\nHis name began trending over the weekend after explicit messages detailing disturbing sexual fantasies, which were purportedly sent by him, appeared online.\n\nA spokesman for Shotgun Wedding told the PA news agency that the film's producers accepted his decision.\n\n\"Given the imminent start date of Shotgun Wedding, Armie has requested to step away from the film and we support him in his decision,\" they said.\n\nHammer played the Winklevoss twins in 2010's The Social Network and starred opposite Timothée Chalamet in 2017's acclaimed drama Call Me By Your Name. He also appeared alongside Lily James in the Netflix adaptation of Rebecca, which came out last year.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Some Covid restrictions are being reintroduced in response to the Omicron variant.\n\nCheck what the rules are in your area by entering your postcode or council name below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. What are the rules in your area? Enter a full UK postcode or council name to find out\n\nIf you cannot see the look-up, click here.\n\nThe rules highlighted in the search tool are a selection of the key government restrictions in place in your area.\n\nAlways check your relevant national and local authority website for more information on the situation where you live. Also check local guidance before travelling to others parts of the UK.\n\nAll the guidance in our search look-up comes from national government websites.\n\nFor more information on national measures see:\n\nFind out how the pandemic has affected your area and how it compares with the national average by following this link to an in depth guide to the numbers involved.", "Twitter boss Jack Dorsey has said banning US President Donald Trump was the right thing to do.\n\nHowever, he expressed sadness at what he described as the \"extraordinary and untenable circumstances\" surrounding Mr Trump's permanent suspension.\n\nHe also said the ban was in part a failure of Twitter's, which hadn't done enough to foster \"healthy conversation\" across its platforms.\n\nTwitter has been praised and criticised for freezing Mr Trump's account.\n\nGerman leader Angela Merkel and Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador - neither an ally of the outgoing US president - spoke out against the tech titan's move.\n\nIn a long Twitter thread, Twitter's chief said he did not celebrate or feel pride in the ban - which came after the Capitol riot last week.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by jack This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHe reiterated that removing the president from Twitter was made after \"a clear warning\" to Mr Trump.\n\n\"We made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter,\" Mr Dorsey said.\n\nHe also accepted that the move would have consequences for an open and free internet.\n\n\"Having to take these actions fragment the public conversation. They divide us….And sets a precedent I feel is dangerous.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police place US Capitol Building on lockdown after Trump supporters breached security lines\n\nHe also addressed criticism that just a handful of tech bosses can make decisions on who does and doesn't have a voice on the internet - and on accusations of censorship.\n\n\"A company making a business decision to moderate itself is different from a government removing access, yet can feel much the same,\" said Mr Dorsey.\n\nThe decision to remove users, posts and tweets has been criticised by some for violating First Amendment - free speech - rights.\n\nHowever, big tech firms generally argue that as they are private companies, and not state actors, this law does not apply when they moderate their platforms.\n\nFacebook and YouTube have taken steps to silence the president, while Amazon shut down Parler, an app widely used by his supporters.\n\nNow Snapchat has also announced that Mr Trump will be permanently banned from its platform too.\n\nIt had already announced an indefinite suspension, but has now decided that \"in the interest of public safety and based on his attempts to spread misinformation, hate speech, and incite violence\" to permanently terminate his account.\n\nOn Monday, the German chancellor's spokesperson said she found the social media ban \"problematic\". And the Mexican president said: \"I don't like anybody being censored.\"\n\nIncoming US President-elect Joe Biden has said he wants companies like Facebook and Twitter to do more to take down hate speech and fake news.\n\nHe has previously said he wants to repeal Section 230, a law protecting social media companies from being sued for the things people post.\n\nIt's not clear how Mr Biden intends to regulate Big Tech, though it's likely to be a legislative focus of his.", "Despite the huge need to free up space in hospitals, some care homes say insurance issues make it impossible for them to accept Covid-19 patients.\n\nIn October, the government launched a scheme for designated care homes to take patients recovering from the virus but insurance is a stumbling block.\n\nSir David Behan, head of the UK's largest care home company, HC-One, says insurance has become a major concern.\n\nThe government says it is working to resolve the issue.\n\n\"We are aware the adult social care insurance market is changing in response to the pandemic, and recognise some care providers may encounter difficulties as their policies come up for renewal,\" said a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson.\n\nOne Hampshire care home says it will have to stop taking patients within days because its insurance will expire.\n\nWaterside House in Netley, Hampshire usually provides holidays and respite care for people with disabilities.\n\nBut since the autumn it has been taking Covid-positive patients discharged from hospitals on the south coast.\n\nThey are looked after on a separate floor from other residents, and the home has had to meet high infection control standards.\n\nHome manager Sarah Knight said demand for the 31 beds is unparalleled and added: \"I've been in nursing a long, long time, and I have never known anything like this.\n\n\"People end up in an ambulance sat outside hospitals for hours and hours, or they end up on a trolley in A&E in a corridor for hours and hours.\n\n\"By offering the best that we've got here, we can reduce some of that burden.\"\n\nJan Tregelles is chief executive of the charity Revitalise which runs Waterside House\n\nThe government originally hoped there would be 500 designated care homes taking in Covid-positive patients.\n\nBut Waterside House is one of only 129 which have been set up to take those who have not completed 14 days in isolation.\n\nHowever, its public indemnity insurance protection, which it needs in case someone contracts Covid there, runs out at the end of January.\n\nWaterside House is run by the charity Revitalise, whose chief executive, Jan Tregelles, said they have tried everything, but will soon have to start turning away people.\n\n\"It's shocking,\" she says. \"We are truly helpless. We have a fantastic team of nurses and colleagues already.\n\n\"The facilities are here, everything's arranged and we can't step up to support our communities at this time.\"\n\nOne resident, Alan Washbourne, who has been living at Waterside House since he was discharged from hospital during the first wave of the pandemic, said: \"I feel quite safe here.\"\n\nHe is not on the Covid floor of the home, and added: \"If I were to go to somewhere else, which is possible, I might not feel quite so safe.\"\n\nAlan Washbourne has been at Waterside House since April last year\n\nAfter so many deaths last spring, many care homes will not consider taking patients who are Covid-positive, even with extra infection control measures.\n\nMeanwhile, growing numbers of staff are off sick or self-isolating, leaving care homes facing shortages.\n\nAnd many are also finding it difficult to get the public indemnity insurance.\n\nSir David Behan is chairman of HC-One, the UK's largest care home provider\n\nSince November, HC-One, which is the UK's largest care home provider, has had to cover its own Covid risks because it cannot get the insurance.\n\nSir David said it is one of the reasons why they have not taken part in the designated places scheme.\n\n\"You've got solicitors' firms advertising, taking cases up against care companies,\" he says.\n\n\"So, this isn't a theoretical risk that there may be proceedings, it's an actual risk, and therefore we need cover.\n\n\"The NHS wouldn't operate without similar liability cover and that's what we need to see, and I think governments have a role to play working with the insurance industry to work to find a solution.\"\n\nThe Department for Health and Social Care said it was making efforts to determine what actions it could take.\n\n\"Our priority is to ensure everyone receives the right care, in the right place, at the right time,\" said a spokesperson.", "More than 100,000 Covid-19 vaccinations had been issued in Northern Ireland by Tuesday evening, Robin Swann has said.\n\nThe health minister said, of that figure, 91,419 people had received their first vaccine dose.\n\nHe added that 95% of care home residents had received their first dose and about 20% of those aged over 80 have received their first dose.\n\nIt comes as leading GP said the goal to begin a mass vaccine rollout by summer is \"achievable\" but hinges on supply.\n\nThe Department of Health published its plan to deliver vaccines in Northern Ireland on Tuesday.\n\nDr Alan Stout said the timeline was \"very sensible\" but was \"almost 100%\" dependent on getting enough of the vaccine.\n\nAt Wednesday's health briefing, Mr Swann said the programme had made a \"strong start\" but there was more to do.\n\nHe also said he has decided to issue tighter visiting guidelines for hospitals.\n\n\"I have ensured visiting will be permitted to hospices and care homes, but visits to general medical wards will no longer be permitted from this Friday\", he said.\n\nThe minister added that the measure would be kept under constant review.\n\nMr Swann also confirmed a new rapid test for Covid-19, which can return results in 12 minutes, would be used in emergency departments.\n\nHe said a pilot programme has been carried out using the LumiraDX nasal swab, which will enable health staff to \"very quickly identify patients who do not have Covid-19\".\n\nHe also repeated that the current lockdown restrictions were working and had helped to reduce NI's rate of infection, but warned the executive would still have \"difficult decisions\" to take in relation to decisions about whether to extend some restrictions in the coming weeks.\n\nOn Wednesday, a further 19 Covid-related deaths were announced by the Department of Health in Northern Ireland.\n\nA further 1,145 new cases of the virus were also reported.\n\nMeanwhile, Northern Ireland's chief medical officer warned there was \"no doubt\" that levels of the new, more transmissible variant of coronavirus are rising in Northern Ireland.\n\nSpeaking at Stormont's executive briefing, Dr Michael McBride said that the new variant was making the job to contain it \"twice as difficult\".\n\nThe new variant is said to be up to 70% more transmissible, but there is no evidence it is more dangerous.\n\nThe first confirmed case of the new strain was detected in Northern Ireland on 23 December, but officials had said levels in Northern Ireland remained lower than in other areas of the UK.\n\nDr McBride said there would now be situations where the variant could spread, where previously it may not have.\n\n\"We need to be extremely cautious in the weeks ahead,\" he warned, adding that the virus would not \"magically disappear\" on 6 February, when the current lockdown is due to end.\n\nStormont ministers have to review the regulations on or before 22 January, with that scheduled for next Thursday.\n\nDr McBride said Northern Ireland had some distance to go before restrictions are lifted\n\nDr Stout, the chair of NI's GP committee, said practices needed another 22,000 doses to finish vaccinating people aged over 80.\n\nSpeaking to BBC's Good Morning Ulster, he said he was \"very confident\" the next doses would come through shortly.\n\n\"I have been overwhelmed by the desire of practices, the determination just to get going and the one thing we need to give them is vaccine - we need to get the supply in as quickly as possible.\n\n\"This is such a good news story that everybody wants the vaccine and everybody wants to give it.\"\n\nThe plan is for the vaccine to be given to the general population in summer 2021.\n\nGP clinics should have received their first delivery of the vaccine by Tuesday.\n\nResponding to reports in The Daily Telegraph that GPs administering the vaccine in England had been asked to \"slow down\" to let other regions \"catch-up\", Dr Stout said Northern Ireland had taken a different approach to how it rolled out vaccines to GPs.\n\nHe said vaccines were shared among all practices in Northern Ireland.\n\n\"We just don't have the full amount of vaccine in practice to give. We could have given all of the vaccine that a certain number of practices needed to start with but there were issues with inequality and discrimination ... so that's why an amount has gone to every single practice, so at least they have some.\"", "A ban on travellers to the UK from South America has left one family fearing it could leave them stranded abroad for months.\n\nThe restriction comes into force at 04:00 GMT on Friday amid fears of a new Covid variant identified in Brazil.\n\nBritish and Irish citizens and foreign nationals with residence rights will still be able to travel but must isolate for 10 days.\n\nHowever many flights have now been cancelled.\n\nJon Den travelled to Brazil with his wife Carla, 32, in October so that her family - who live in Goiania - could meet their one-year-old daughter Luiza for the first time.\n\nThe couple, who live in Wolverhampton, are due to fly back to the UK on 6 February but Jon now fears they may be stuck out there for months due to the travel ban.\n\n\"We had planned to visit in February 2020 but we had to postpone because of the lockdown and that was rough on my wife, she suffered a lot,\" the 31-year-old says.\n\n\"Now I think my mum is suffering as she's expecting Luiza to be back, but who knows now?\n\n\"My initial reaction was worry because it's so unknown. The thought of not being able to return home and being stranded is not a nice feeling.\n\n\"I'm hoping British residents will be able to get home but I don't know if the government will organise flights. I think it's a long shot. I hope we can get home and not be stranded out here for months.\n\n\"We've got to be patient but at the same time flexible.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Several Leeds bus drivers were faced with challenging conditions in the snow.\n\nHigh demand and heavy snow have had a \"severe impact\" on Yorkshire's ambulances, with bad weather also affecting coronavirus vaccinations.\n\nThe county ambulance trust declared a major incident, urging calls only in a \"serious or life-threatening emergency\" due to poor road conditions.\n\nA vaccination centre in Barnsley was closed, with patients told to await new appointments.\n\nCovid testing centres in Kirklees and Bradford also suspended operations.\n\nA yellow Met Office warning for snow and ice is in force until 21:00 GMT.\n\nMark Millins, strategic commander at Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said \"very snowy conditions across West, South and North Yorkshire\" had caused gridlock and made driving difficult.\n\nStaff were \"working extremely hard to reach patients\", he said, but \"hazardous driving conditions and blocked roads mean that it is taking us longer than normal in the worst-hit areas.\"\n\nVaccinations taking at the Priory Campus in Lundwood, Barnsley, were suspended from 15:00 GMT\n\nIn Barnsley, the town's Clinical Commissioning Group issued a tweet advising that it had postponed all Covid vaccinations at one centre from 15:00 on Thursday.\n\nIt asked those due to receive jabs at the Priory Campus in Lundwood after this time not to travel, and said patients would be contacted with a rescheduled appointment.\n\nThe group said its two remaining centres at Goldthorpe and Apollo Court, in Dodworth, remained open, but those unable to attend would also get a new time and date.\n\nWest Yorkshire Police said it had also seen a surge in calls and urged people not to call 101 for \"non-urgent matters\".\n\nSupt Chris Bowen said the force had received 300 calls to the 999 and 101 numbers in the space of an hour on Thursday morning.\n\nA large snowball fight on Woodhouse Moor in Leeds was criticised for an apparent lack of social distancing after footage was posted on social media.\n\nLiam Ford, who recorded the video, said he saw the \"awful scenes\" after he \"heard the commotion while on a walk round the block\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A large group of people have been filmed in a snowball fight in Leeds\n\nPolice urged drivers to stay at home until the roads cleared\n\nMotorists reported hazardous driving conditions on many routes and police warned people to stay at home or allow extra time for essential journeys.\n\nPhil Airey said his usual 30-minute commute from Boston Spa to Harrogate took 90 minutes due to the poor conditions.\n\n\"The gritters have been doing their job but any sort of hill then it's not very good and if you go off onto the little roads well they are not good at all,\" he said.\n\nWest Yorkshire's road policing unit said it was dealing with a number of crashes while the North Yorkshire force said the A59 was blocked near Skipton due to a number of vehicles getting stuck in the snow.\n\nThe Met Office has not issued a weather notice for Friday, but a yellow warning for snow and ice on Saturday is in place across most of northern England and Scotland.\n\nPolice say they have dealt with a number of collisions and accidents\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk or send video here.", "Charlie Mullins said workers getting vaccinated is \"a no-brainer\".\n\nA large London plumbing firm plans to rewrite all of its workers' contracts to require them to be vaccinated against coronavirus.\n\nPimlico Plumbers chairman Charlie Mullins said it was \"a no-brainer\" that workers should get the jab.\n\nIf they do not want to comply with the policy, it will be decided on a case-by-case basis whether they are kept on, he said.\n\nEmployment lawyers said the plan carried risks for the business.\n\nThe NHS is seeking to vaccinate 15 million people from priority groups by mid-February as part of efforts to try to control the spread of Covid-19.\n\nBut Mr Mullins said he was prepared to pay for private immunisations for people at the firm, should they become available, which would be done on the company's time.\n\nDoctors have warned that key hospital services in England are in crisis, with reports of hospitals cancelling urgent operations after a surge in Covid patients in recent weeks.\n\nPimlico Plumbers plans to change its contracts for new joiners to require immunisation. It will rewrite its contracts with existing workers and employees as soon as is practical, depending on vaccine availability.\n\nThe firm has about 350 plumbers working as contractors and about 120 employees.\n\nMr Mullins said the firm was \"not putting anyone under any pressure\" to have the jab.\n\nHowever, new starters who were not immunised would not be taken on, he said.\n\nMr Mullins said employees approved of the policy.\n\n\"It's a no-brainer,\" he said. \"I've talked to people who have said: 'I will queue up all night to get the vaccine.'\n\n\"I think it will be the norm in five or six months. To go into a bar or cinema, or go on a plane, you have to have a vaccine,\" he added.\n\nMr Mullins said he had set aside £800,000 to pay for private vaccinations, but estimated costs more in the region of £100,000.\n\n\"Whatever it costs, I will pay,\" he said. \"I would pay £1m tomorrow to safeguard our staff.\n\n\"If people don't want the vaccine, let them sit at home and not have a normal life,\" he added.\n\nHowever, employment lawyers said this vaccination policy could be risky.\n\nLegally, companies cannot force employees to take a vaccine, said Thrive Law managing director Jodie Hill.\n\n\"They can't jab a vaccine in your arm,\" she said.\n\nPeople who refuse vaccination and are dismissed may have grounds to make a legal claim, she said.\n\n\"Even if they put that [requirement] in a new contract, I don't think they'd get away with it,\" she said.\n\nEmployees with more than two years' service could claim unfair dismissal. But this option is not open to workers and self-employed contractors.\n\nBroadly, people can refuse a vaccination for legitimate reasons such as being pregnant or breastfeeding, for religious reasons, because of disability or allergy, or for ethical vegan reasons if the jab contains animal products.\n\nThe two vaccines approved for use in the UK, from Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech, do not contain any components of animal origin, a Department for Health and Social Care spokesman confirmed.\n\nDismissal for employees with one or more of these protected characteristics could give rise to a discrimination claim.\n\nPeople who are hesitant about taking the vaccine for personal reasons would not be able to claim discrimination, but could potentially claim unfair dismissal if they have been with the firm for two years or more.\n\nPeople with strong anti-vaccination beliefs may be protected under equality law, Ms Hill added.\n\nThe company and Mr Mullins have previously faced a lengthy legal battle with one of its former contractors, Gary Smith.\n\nIn 2018, Mr Smith won a Supreme Court ruling over holiday and sick pay. However, an employment tribunal later ruled that he was not entitled to make a claim for the back pay, as he had not completed the necessary paperwork.\n\nMr Mullins insisted that the vaccination change to contracts \"will be done legally\", but said that he was willing to take this matter to the Supreme Court as well, if necessary.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The rapid spread of coronavirus variants has put the world on alert and triggered a new lockdown in the UK. What are these variants and why are they causing concern?\n\nAll viruses naturally mutate over time, and Sars-CoV-2 is no exception.\n\nSince the virus was first identified a year ago, thousands of mutations have arisen.\n\nThe vast majority of mutations are \"passengers\" and will have little impact, says Dr Lucy van Dorp, an expert in the evolution of pathogens at University College London.\n\n\"They don't change the behaviour of the virus, they are just carried along.\"\n\nBut every once in a while, a virus strikes lucky by mutating in a way that helps it survive and reproduce.\n\n\"Viruses carrying these mutations can then increase in frequency due to natural selection, given the right epidemiological settings,\" Dr van Dorp says.\n\nThis is what seems to be happening with the variant that has spread across the UK, known as 202012/01, and a similar, but different variant, recently identified in South Africa (501.V2).\n\nHundreds of thousands of viral genomes have been analysed across the world\n\nThere is no evidence so far that either causes more severe disease, but the worry is that health systems will be overwhelmed by a rapid rise in cases.\n\nIn a rapid risk assessment of these \"variants of concern\", the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said they place increased pressure on health systems.\n\n\"Although there is no information that infections with these strains are more severe, due to increased transmissibility, the impact of Covid-19 disease in terms of hospitalisations and deaths is assessed as high, particularly for those in older age groups or with co-morbidities,\" the EU agency said.\n\nThe variants have different origins but share a mutation in a gene that encodes the spike protein, which the virus uses to latch on to and enter human cells.\n\nScientists think this could be why they appear more infectious.\n\n\"The UK and South African virus variants have changes in the spike gene consistent with the possibility that they are more infectious,\" says Prof Lawrence Young at the University of Warwick.\n\nBut as Dr Jeff Barrett, director of the Covid-19 genomics initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, points out, it's the combination of what the virus is doing and what we're doing that determines how fast it spreads.\n\n\"With the new variant, the situation changes more quickly as restrictions are relaxed and tightened, and there is less room for error in controlling the spread,\" he says.\n\n\"We don't have any evidence, however, that the new variant can fundamentally evade masks, social distancing, or the other interventions - we just need to apply them more strictly.\"\n\nThe spike protein (foreground) enables the virus to enter and infect human cells\n\nWith vaccine roll-out underway, scientists are racing to understand the repercussions for vaccines, which are based on the spike protein sequence.\n\nThere is particular concern about the South Africa variant, which has several changes in the spike (S) protein.\n\nMost experts think vaccines will still be effective, at least in the short term.\n\nDr Julian W Tang, a virologist at the University of Leicester, says vaccines can be modified to be \"more close-fitting and effective against this variant in a few months\".\n\n\"Meanwhile, most of us believe that the existing vaccines are likely to work to some extent to reduce infection/ transmission rates and severe disease against both the UK and South African variants - as the various mutations have not altered the S protein shape that the current vaccine-induced antibodies will not bind at all.\"\n\nMink outbreaks are a \"spillover\" from the human pandemic\n\nScientists are carrying out laboratory studies to find out more about the variants. And they are tracking every move of the virus as it hopscotches around the world.\n\nBy taking a swab from an infected patient, the genetic code of the virus can be extracted and amplified before being \"read\" using a sequencer.\n\nThe string of letters, or nucleotides, allows genomes and mutations to be compared.\n\n\"It is thanks to these efforts, and UK testing laboratories, that the UK variant has been flagged so quickly as a potential cause of concern,\" Dr van Dorp says.\n\nProf Julian Hiscox, chair in infection and global health at the University of Liverpool, says that, through the efforts of scientists to sequence the virus, \"we've got a really good handle on variants that emerge\".\n\nIn the short-term, only the harshest of lockdowns will reduce case numbers, he says.\n\n\"What lockdown does is reduce the number of people with the virus and reduce the amount of virus out there and that's a good thing.\"\n\nBut in the long term, Prof Hiscox suspects, we may face a scenario like flu, where new vaccines are developed and administered every year.\n\n\"The problem is, the more variants we get, the greater the chance the virus will be able to escape part of the vaccine - and this may reduce [its] efficacy,\" he says.\n• None New coronavirus variant: What do we know?", "The co-founder for Cyberpunk 2077's developer has released a new video explaining what went wrong with the game.\n\nCD Projekt's Marcin Iwiński admitted they \"underestimated the task\" of adapting the game for consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One.\n\nMarcin says he's \"deeply sorry for this and this video is me publicly owning up\".\n\nThe game was arguably the most anticipated release of 2020 but the launch just before Christmas was a disaster.\n\nThe problems led to Sony and Microsoft removing the game from online stores and gamers were offered refunds.\n\nCyberpunk 2077 is a set in the fictional Night City - a dystopian future where pollution and crime are rampant and social inequality is the norm.\n\nIn the video, Marcin explains issues originated from Cyperpunk's \"huge\" scope, particularly the high number \"of custom objects, interacting systems, and mechanics\", making it a complex game.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by Cyberpunk 2077 This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nAs this was \"condensed in one big city\" rather than spread over a bigger space - it needed greater hardware capability.\n\nSo despite working well for high-end PCs, it couldn't be adjusted to older generation consoles such as the PS4 and Xbox One, making in-game streaming difficult.\n\n\"We hit the ground running on PC. While not perfect, it's a version of Cyberpunk we're very proud of.\"\n\nMarcin adds that testing did not \"show a big part of the issues\" that gamers experienced.\n\n\"As we got closer to the final release, we saw significant improvements each and every day.\"\n\nHe also blames the coronavirus pandemic for creating issues for CD Projekt as they tried to improve performance after launch.\n\n\"A lot of the dynamics we normally take for granted got lost over video calls or email. And we took that hit too.\"\n\nLooks good right? But this wasn't what the game looked like for a lot of console gamers\n\nMarcin added the \"incredibly hard working and talented\" development team should not be blamed for problems, saying the final decision came down to him and the board.\n\n\"Believe me, we never ever intended for anything like this to happen. I assure you that we will do our best to regain your trust\".\n\nAs part of that, he says they intend to fix the problems and improve the game across platforms.\n\n\"Our ultimate goal is to fix the bugs and crashes,\" he says, with updates to the game expected to arrive in the coming days and weeks.\n\n\"We treat this entire situation very seriously and are working hard to make it right.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nListen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.", "Julia is doing well after her surprise arrival into the world\n\nA mother who gave birth just 10 days after discovering she was pregnant thought she had put on weight in lockdown.\n\nSamantha Hicks, from Portishead, North Somerset, attributed her baby Julia's kicking to sickness having been ill.\n\nHer pregnancy was missed even when she was in Southmead Hospital in Bristol with Covid-19 in November .\n\n\"It never occurred to me I was pregnant as I had taken two previous tests which both came back negative,\" she said.\n\nWhen Mrs Hicks was taken to the Covid ward in hospital, doctors asked if she was pregnant and she said no.\n\nShe said she had noticed a small amount of weight gain but put it down to lockdown and that she thought she might have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) as it runs in the family.\n\nMrs Hicks said: \"I felt a bit of movement but I thought it was because I had not been well.\n\n\"My tummy was a bit swollen but again, because I felt sick and I wasn't great, it never occurred to me I was pregnant.\"\n\nHer husband Joe said: \"On Christmas Day, I asked her if she was sure she wasn't pregnant, but she said no and she knows her own body.\n\n\"Then on January 1, I had my hands on Sammy and we felt a baby kick.\n\n\"We took another pregnancy test which came back positive.\"\n\nAt that stage, Mrs Hicks thought she was only five or six months into her term and returned to her job in a care home, walking 40 minutes to get there.\n\nTen days later, her contractions began and Mr Hicks rushed her to hospital\n\n\"It was unreal, the doctors only realised Julia was full term when she was born,\" he said.\n\nThe couple, who have two sons aged three and eight, said they had not planned on having more children.\n\nThey have since been \"inundated\" with gifts from friends, family and strangers in Portishead, who have offered blankets and essentials to help out.\n\n\"We want to say thank you to everyone really,\" Mr Hicks said.\n\nHelen Blanchard, Director of Nursing and Quality at North Bristol NHS Trust said: \"We would like to pass our congratulations to Mrs Hicks and her family on their new arrival.\n\n\"As Mrs Hicks experienced when she was cared for at Southmead, it is routine practice to ask people if they are, or could be, pregnant upon admission.\n\n\"However, we would ask a patient to do a pregnancy test if they were undergoing specific operations or procedures.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Marcus Rashford and a group of celebrity chefs and campaigners have called on Boris Johnson to review the government's free school meals policy.\n\nThe group, including Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Tom Kerridge, have written to the PM asking him to \"fix\" the system long-term.\n\nThey called for a strategy to help \"end child food poverty\" before the summer holidays.\n\nNo 10 said \"no child will ever go hungry\" because of the Covid pandemic.\n\nThe call for a wide review comes after another row over free school meals during February half-term.\n\nThe government has said food will be provided to children by councils under the Covid Winter Grant Scheme while schools are closed for the holiday.\n\nCouncils and unions say the government should provide food vouchers instead, with the Local Government Association's Councillor Richard Watts telling BBC Radio 4's PM programme the grant had already been allocated for other support.\n\nBut Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"We are down to semantics whether it is the school delivering the meal or whether it is the local authority - fortunately there is quite a lot of different support available.\"\n\nAs well as getting the backing of Rashford - who has led campaigns around child poverty over the course of the pandemic - the letter has been signed by chefs Oliver, Kerridge and Fearnley-Whittingstall, along with actor Dame Emma Thompson and over 40 charities and education leaders.\n\nOrganised by the Food Foundation charity, the letter said it was time to \"step back and review the policy in more depth\".\n\nThey called for an \"urgent comprehensive review into free school meal policy across the UK\" to feed into the government's next Spending Review, saying it should look at:\n\nThe signatories praised the Department for Education's \"swift response\" to reports earlier this week of inadequate food parcels sent to families, saying the \"robustness of the message from you and the secretary of state on this issue was very welcome\".\n\nBut, they added that \"following the series of problems which have arisen over school food vouchers, holiday provision and food parcels since the start of the pandemic\", now was the time for a review.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Tom Kerridge: There has to be a solution to free school meals\n\nAnna Taylor, executive director of the Food Foundation charity, said the last few months had seen \"crisis after crisis with the provision of free school meals\".\n\n\"The result of that is disadvantaged children have often paid the price,\" she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\n\"Our view is that really unless we do a root and branch review these problems are going to still keep appearing.\"\n\nChef Fearnley-Whittingstall also called for a more consistent, long-term response to the issue of food poverty.\n\n\"We need to get out of this fire-fighting, highly reactive series of actions by the government,\" he told the same programme.\n\nThe signatories want a review to be published and debated in Parliament before the 2021 summer holidays.\n\n\"We are ready and willing to support your government in whatever way we can to make this review a reality and to help develop a set of recommendations that everyone can support,\" the letter said.\n\n\"School food is essential in supporting the health and learning of our most disadvantaged children.\n\n\"Now, at a time when children have missed months of in-school learning and the pandemic has reminded us of the importance of our health, this is a vital next step.\"\n\nAnti-poverty campaigner and food writer Jack Monroe welcomed the letter to the PM, but told the BBC: \"We need to be feeding children right now.\"\n\nShe added: \"While it is great to be looking longer term... having an underpinning strategy that means that children aren't put into poverty in the first place, we need to also immediately be putting resources in to ensure people aren't going hungry, today, tonight, next week and in the February half-term.\n\n\"This isn't a rhetorical thing. It isn't a dinner party discussion. We need to be doing this now.\"\n\nA Downing Street spokesperson said: \"It is great that celebrities and groups across society see the importance of school food. The PM thanks Marcus Rashford for his letter and will reply soon.\n\n\"School food is essential in supporting the health and learning of the most disadvantaged pupils. The prime minister has been clear that no child will ever go hungry as a result of the pandemic\".", "The prime minister has suggested there could be restrictions on travel from Brazil to the UK - but a final decision has not been taken.\n\nBoris Johnson was asked by Labour MP Yvette Cooper why checks on people arriving from Brazil have not been strengthened, given that a new variant of coronavirus has been identified there.\n\nMr Johnson said: \"We are taking steps to ensure that we do not see the import of this new variant from Brazil.\"\n\nThe UK government’s 'Covid-O' committee is expected to discuss the new Brazil variant of coronavirus at a meeting on Thursday.", "People needing to travel by rail during lockdown are being urged to double-check train times, as services are being reduced.\n\nServices in England are being cut from 87% of normal levels to 72%, industry body the Rail Delivery Group said.\n\nIt said the number of trains would reflect the drop in passengers, and provide better value for money for taxpayers who are subsidising services.\n\nPeak services will be prioritised to help key workers, it added.\n\nWhile some timetables have already changed, others will be altered in the next few weeks.\n\nSince the early days of the pandemic, the government has spent billions of pounds covering the fall in ticket revenues for rail companies, owing to low passenger numbers.\n\nCutting some services will save public money, the government said.\n\nRail minister Chris Heaton-Harris said: \"It is critical that our railways continue to deliver reliable services for key workers and people who cannot reasonably work from home, and that they respond quickly to changes in demand.\"\n\nRail usage has slumped, with passenger journeys falling more than 90% to 35 million journeys for the three-month period to June, according to the Office of Rail and Road.\n\nThe figures recovered a little to 134 million for the three months to September - the latest published.\n\nWith fewer passengers, the government argues, it makes sense to run fewer services.\n\nNot least because right now, the government are footing much of the bill; since the start of the pandemic, the government has spent more than £4bn covering the fall in ticket revenues because of low passenger numbers.\n\nThe cuts aren't as deep as they were in March - then services were running around 55% of pre-pandemic levels - which is partly because the train companies want to make sure it doesn't take as long getting the services back up again when they are needed.\n\nLonger term, rail companies are nervous about how quickly passengers, particularly commuters, will return, but for now the message is still firmly \"stay at home\".\n\n\"Train timetables must still meet the needs of those who have to travel, said Transport Focus chief executive Anthony Smith.\n\n\"Many key workers rely on the first and last services of the day so it's important that these are maintained. Providing enough capacity for those who are travelling to properly social distance remains vital.\"\n\nAlthough timetables were restored when restrictions were eased over the summer, rail franchising has since been scrapped and replaced with a model which means the taxpayer is currently liable for the losses on the railways.\n\nIn September, the bill had run to more than £3.5bn - and the Department for Transport has said \"significant\" support is still needed.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Large parts of Scotland woke up to a blanket of snow on Thursday, including in Rutherglen where conditions became challenging for drivers\n\nMotorists continue to face difficult conditions after heavy snow across parts of Scotland caused road closures.\n\nA Met Office yellow warning for ice will be in place overnight and for all of Friday for mainland Scotland.\n\nThe A9 at Dunblane was closed due to snow but has now reopened, while driving conditions on the M90 and M8 were reported as difficult.\n\nThere have also been problems in the Scottish Borders where up to a foot of snow fell overnight.\n\nTraffic Scotland has reported difficult driving conditions on the M77 at Fenwick, M80 around Cumbernauld and the A9 at Greenloaning.\n\nA woman walks through the snow in Braco near Dunblane\n\nThe impact of the overnight freeze on a hedgerow near Strathaven, South Lanarkshire\n\nIn the Borders several lorries got stuck on the A7 between Selkirk and Hawick, while difficult driving conditions were also reported on the A68 at the Carter Bar and Soutra.\n\nThere were also delays on the A83 Old Military Road diversion and the A82 at Tyndrum.\n\nMeanwhile, police have urged drivers to properly clear their car windscreens before setting off in the wintry conditions.\n\nOfficers in Dumfries and Galloway shared a picture of a driver they stopped and charged for failing to do this.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by DumfriesGPolice This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPeople should only be leaving home to make essential journeys in parts of Scotland under level four Covid measures, under current Scottish government lockdown regulations.\n\nCh Supt Louise Blakelock, of Police Scotland, said: \"Government guidance on only travelling if your journey is essential remains in place and so with an amber warning for snow, please consider if your journey really is essential and whether you can delay it until the weather improves.\n\n\"If your journey really is essential, plan ahead and make sure you and your vehicle are suitably prepared by having sufficient fuel and supplies such as warm clothing, food, water and charge in your mobile phone in the event you require assistance.\"\n\nA motorist brushes snow off a car in Braco near Dunblane\n\nThe village of Bowden near Melrose woke up to snow\n\nA snowy scene at Fountainhall in the Scottish Borders\n\nPolice in Shetland have also warned of ice badly affecting roads on the islands.\n\nScotRail said its services could be affected, particularly on the Highland mainline.\n\nScottish Borders Council said the effects of the adverse weather could cause disruption into Friday morning.\n\nEmergency planning officer Jim Fraser said: \"With widespread snow and some freezing rain possible over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, there is the strong potential for disruption across our road network and communities.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Michael Matheson MSP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSome of the deepest snowfalls in recent weeks have been in the Highlands, including the Cairngorms.\n\nEarlier this month, the UK had its coldest night of the winter so far after a temperature of -12.3C was recorded in the north west Highlands.\n\nThe temperature was recorded at Loch Glascarnoch, near Garve, south of Ullapool in Wester Ross.\n\nThe record lowest temperature in the UK is -27.2C, which was recorded in Braemar, Aberdeenshire, in 1895 and 1982 and at Altnaharra in the Highlands in 1995.", "Pre-departure Covid-19 testing will now be required for everyone travelling to England from 04:00 GMT on Monday.\n\nThe rules had been due to come into force on Friday, but the government said people needed time \"to prepare\".\n\nThose arriving by plane, train or boat, including UK nationals, will have to take a test up to 72 hours before leaving the country they are in.\n\nAnyone arriving from places not on the UK's travel corridor list must still self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nThe Scottish government is planning to impose the same rules and has had to defer them coming into effect as a result of changes in England.\n\n\"This meant Scotland was also obliged to delay implementation as we need sight of their final regulations in order to properly draft and approve the relevant Scottish regulations,\" a spokeswoman said.\n\nIt is expected the requirement will come into force in Scotland at 04:00 GMT on Monday as well. Wales and Northern Ireland are expected to announce plans for pre-arrival testing in the coming days.\n\nAnnouncing the deferral on Twitter, Transport Secretary Mr Shapps said: \"To give international arrivals time to prepare, passengers will be required to provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test before departure to England from Monday 18 January at 4am.\"\n\nHe also reminded travellers to fill out the Passenger Locator Form - used in track and trace - and added that those without proof of a negative test faced a fine of £500.\n\nProblems with testing availability and capacity mean some countries will initially be exempt.\n\nFor instance, the requirement will not apply to travellers from St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda until 04:00 GMT on 21 January.\n\nTravellers from Falkland Islands, Ascension Islands and St Helena are exempted permanently.\n\nHauliers are exempt to allow the free flow of freight, as are air, international rail and maritime crew.\n\nThe government has said all forms of PCR test will be accepted, as will other forms of test with \"97% specificity, 80% sensitivity\".\n\nThe move comes as a further 1,564 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the biggest figure reported in a single day since the pandemic began.\n\nWednesday's figure brings the total number of deaths by that measure to 84,767.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said there had now been more deaths in the second wave than the first.\n\nMeanwhile on Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was \"concerned\" about a new coronavirus variant that is believed to have emerged in Brazil.\n\nHe acknowledged it was not yet clear how effective existing vaccines would be against the latest new variant.\n\nMr Johnson said the UK was taking steps to make sure it was not brought into the country.\n\nA government Covid committee is meeting on Thursday to discuss the possibility of stopping flights from Brazil.\n\nArrivals from Brazil already have to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nAre you due to travel back to the UK from Brazil? Share your experience. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Post-primary schools have been given extra time to decide how they will admit pupils in 2021 following the cancellation of transfer tests.\n\nOn Wednesday the AQE said it would not hold any transfer tests in the 2020-21 school year.\n\nThey had originally planned to go ahead with a test in late February after cancelling tests in January.\n\nThe other test provider, PPTC, had also previously announced it would not hold tests this year.\n\nAttention will now focus especially on what criteria grammar schools will use to select pupils.\n\nSome have already published what criteria they would use in the event transfer tests were cancelled but it is not clear if those will now change.\n\nAll post-primaries were to submit their admissions criteria to the Education Authority (EA) by this Friday.\n\nBut following the AQE's move the Department of Education (DE) has written to schools to tell them they do not have to provide criteria to the EA until Friday 22 January.\n\n\"This will allow them to meet the statutory deadline for publication on their website of 2 February 2021,\" the DE letter said.\n\n\"I would also remind you that boards of governors should ensure that any admissions criteria are robust and are able to clearly and objectively rank order applicants.\"\n\nIt is unclear how most grammar schools who have used transfer tests to select pupils in previous years will admit children in 2021.\n\nPatrick Allen, principal of Foyle College in Londonderry, said his school's board of governors was now working to determine this year's admissions criteria.\n\n\"This is and continues to be an exceptional year. It is a very difficult circumstance,\" he said.\n\n\"We are trying to do the best and what is right for as many pupils as possible in looking at various permutations and combinations of criteria\".\n\nEducation Minister Peter Weir said it was \"a very disappointing day\" for many families.\n\n\"The transfer test, while it has never been about being compulsory for either a school or indeed an individual parent, does enable a level of parental choice and that has been dramatically reduced as a result of that,\" he told Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme.\n\n\"But sadly what we have seen is for this year, the pandemic has prevented those transfer tests taking place, and I am very disappointed and entirely understand the disappointment and frustration of many families today.\"\n\nMr Weir said there had been \"a lack of consistency\" from AQE.\n\n\"I don't think the way things have worked out from AQE's point of view, particularly over the last couple of weeks, have been particularly helpful,\" he said.\n\nThe minister also apologised for \"clumsy language\" in a statement he issued on Wednesday night.\n\nWriting on Twitter about the cancellation of the transfer test, Mr Weir said: \"This severely limits parental choice and children's opportunities.\"\n\n\"There was no adverse intention towards non-selective schools,\" he said in relation to his tweet.\n\n\"I think both selective and non-selective schools have got excellent records in Northern Ireland.\"\n\n\"But once the opportunities for entry to any school is reduced then that is a reduction in opportunities for all.\"\n\nUUP MLA Robbie Butler has proposed that pupils' results in tests in primary schools could be given to parents and then used by grammar schools to decide which children get a place.\n\nMr Butler said that he had some favourable responses from some grammars and some primary schools to that proposal.\n\n\"Whilst I don't think my solution is absolutely perfect I do believe it to be absolutely fair and absolutely compassionate,\" he told MLAs on the committee.\n\n\"We have the genesis of a solution for these P7 pupils.\"\n\nBut, speaking on Wednesday, Mr Weir replied that there were issues with that approach.\n\n\"There are very major problems, I'm being honest with you, in terms of the models that have been put forward for academic selection without the test,\" he said.\n\nThe minister said it would be difficult to get comparable information for pupils across all primaries.\n\n\"While it's not entirely ruling out those and there is the option for schools to do it, it does leave them in a very difficult position making comparability between pupils on a fair basis,\" he said", "Jamie McMillan said delays in exporting his shellfish would result in them arriving dead\n\nA Scottish shellfish firm has warned it is on the brink of bankruptcy as delays continue at ports following the introduction of post-Brexit red tape.\n\nLochfyne Langoustines managing director Jamie McMillan said his firm had already lost some consignments after they were found to be rotten by the time they arrived in France.\n\nHe also warned EU customers were now going to Denmark to buy langoustines.\n\nMr McMillan described it as a \"very, very serious situation\".\n\nHis comments came after transport company DFDS announced a further delay in exports of group consignments of seafood to the EU.\n\nIt halted groupage exports last week after delays in getting new paperwork for EU border posts in France.\n\nDFDS said it would not resume those exports until Monday.\n\nMr McMillan told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: \"We've been screaming for the last six months - eight months - that we have to get our produce to market within 12 to 24 hours.\n\n\"Any delays in that process, our shellfish will arrive in France dead.\n\n\"We lost two pallets last week. It took five days to arrive in Boulogne from Scotland, so our goods were rotten on arrival.\"\n\nTransport company DFDS has said it will not resume groupage exports until Monday\n\nHe added: \"Customers are not buying from us any more - we have become unreliable suppliers.\n\n\"Everybody has stopped buying. This has happened for the past two weeks. We can't continue this to happen for another week because we will be out of business.\n\n\"We have had no sales to the EU, our biggest market for live shellfish, in the last two weeks.\n\n\"If we go another week without that, we are finished.\"\n\nMr McMillan said there were \"sticking points\" in both the UK and France, with transportation hubs in Scotland struggling with increased paperwork and checks by vets.\n\n\"There are sticking points down in France as well,\" he said.\n\n\"There are delays at the borders in France for up to 30 hours, I'm hearing, to clear customs by the time they do all their checks.\"\n\nThe UK government's Scotland Office minister David Duguid said he did not underestimate the struggles the industry was facing with paperwork, IT and ports.\n\nHe said the UK and Scottish governments, fish exporters and the EU needed to come together to work through the issues, which he estimated would last \"weeks\" and not months.\n\nHe told Good Morning Scotland: \"What I can commit to is that the UK government, whether that's through Defra or the Scotland Office, we are working day and night in resolving the issues that we know about and that we can fix directly.\n\n\"The other issues that are maybe the responsibility of the Scottish government, or indeed the EU on the other side of the channel, Defra are engaging heavily with those parties as well.\"\n\nHowever, when asked directly on the programme how long the problems would last, Mr Duguid responded: \"How long is a piece of string?\"\n\nFish ate up a lot of the time in negotiating the deal for departing the European customs union and single market.\n\nNow grown to become a much bigger political predator, it has started the post-Brexit era by threatening to devour UK ministers with the task of making the deal work.\n\nThe fisheries minister admitted she was preparing for Christmas rather than seeing how the deal had turned out on 24 December. Asked how long it will take to sort out delays, a Scotland Office minister asked: \"How long's a piece of string?\"\n\nThe prime minister says there will be compensation, but it seems that is due to come from the fund intended to expand the fishing fleet.\n\nAnd Michael Gove, who appears to have more of a grasp of the detail, was in the Commons on Wednesday, acknowledging there's a vast amount for the government yet to sort out - and that was only for Northern Ireland.\n\nAt least the province got a grace period before consignments of food require the paperwork now needed to send fish to France. That was sought by fish and meat exporters.\n\nIt's not clear if the request was made of EU negotiators, but it hasn't materialised. Yet coming the other way, the UK has given a six-month preparation period for EU exporters to Britain.\n\nBecause seafood is freshly delivered, it is the product that hit the obstacles first. Meat and dairy are sure to follow.\n\nBeef exporters to Europe are beginning to face delays, while Brexit chickens are coming home to roast.", "A teenage motorcyclist who led police on a 30-minute pursuit at speeds of up to 180mph (290km/h) through London and three counties has been sentenced.\n\nOfficers in Haringey, London, spotted a speeding rider at about 21:20 BST on 20 May and were joined by a police helicopter as they followed it along the M1, through Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire.\n\nThe biker mounted pavements, drove through multiple red lights and the wrong way down the motorway hard shoulder before he was arrested at a service station.\n\nMarian Vasilica Dragoi, 19, of Teynton Terrace, Haringey, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, failing to stop for police, driving without a licence and being uninsured and was sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court to 46 weeks' detention.", "The opening of Nintendo's first theme park has been delayed because of rising coronavirus cases in Japan.\n\nSuper Nintendo World, modelled on levels of the company's Mario games, had been due to open on 4 February.\n\nBut Japan has expanded its state of emergency, due to last until at least 7 February, beyond Tokyo to include Osaka prefecture, where the park is located.\n\nThe opening, at Universal Studios Japan, had already been postponed from mid-2020 because of the pandemic.\n\nBut in December, Nintendo posted a video tour of the park in December, starring Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong, among others.\n\nIt is not the first theme park to suffer problems during the pandemic - the shuttered Disneyland theme park in California is set to become a large-scale vaccination centre.\n\nThe state of emergency in Japan, which has so far avoided the types of lockdowns seen in the UK and other European nations, prohibits non-essential trips outside the home.\n\nOn Tuesday, the country's total number of cases reached 300,000, with more than 4,000 deaths.\n\nAnd many of those have been in the past three months.\n\nThe rising number of cases has also led to some doubts over the fate of the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled for this summer, having already been postponed last year.\n\nOrganisers, however, insist the Games will go ahead.", "Nearly 46% of over-80s in England's North East and Yorkshire region have been given their first dose of a Covid vaccine - more than any other area, official figures show.\n\nThis compares with about 30% of over-80s in both London and the East of England who have received a first jab.\n\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan claims the capital is not getting its fair share of vaccine doses.\n\nIn total, more than 2.2 million people in England have had one vaccine dose.\n\nAbout 400,000 second doses have also been administered, despite guidance from the UK's chief medical officers and vaccine advisers, the JCVI, that giving a first dose to as many people as possible was a public health priority.\n\nThe NHS England figures cover Covid-19 vaccinations given to people at hospital hubs and GP practices between 8 December 2020 and 10 January 2021.\n\nAmong the over-80s alone, most first doses - 204,140 - were administered in north-east England and Yorkshire, while the lowest number (92,398) were given to this age group in London.\n\nOverall, more than one-third of people aged 80 and over in England have received at least one dose.\n\nThe figures show that in the Midlands more vaccine doses had been administered to all people in the top priority groups - 387,647 - than in any other area of England. In London, a total of 199,986 first doses were given and in the East the figure was 186,291.\n\nThese include care home residents, frontline heath and care staff, the over-80s and people who are clinically extremely vulnerable, who are most at risk of becoming seriously ill and dying from the Covid-19.\n\nThe percentage of the whole population to have received a first dose so far ranged from 4.3% in the north-east and Yorkshire to 2.2% in London.\n\nMr Khan said he was \"hugely concerned\" that Londoners had received only one-tenth of the vaccines that had been given across the country.\n\n\"The situation in London is critical with rates of the virus extremely high, which is why it's so important that vulnerable Londoners are given access to the vaccine as soon as possible,\" he said.\n\nHe said he would hold talks with vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi to ensure more vaccines were delivered to reflect the level of need in the city.\n\nLondon has a younger average population than other parts of England and the smallest number of people aged over 80 compared with other regions.\n\nDr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at Public Health England, said vaccinating over a third of all over-80s was \"a great achievement\".\n\nBut she said people must continue to follow the guidance that is in place to protect themselves and their loved ones.\n\n\"These data will help us to evaluate the protection from the vaccine and to effectively target the roll-out of the programme to help control the virus and save lives,\" she added.", "Mauritius has been removed from the safe list\n\nTravellers from countries near South Africa are to be banned from entering England to stop the spread of the South African Covid variant.\n\nArrivals from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Botswana, as well as island nations Mauritius and Seychelles, will be affected.\n\nThe rule will take effect on 9 January but there will be an exemption for British and Irish nationals.\n\nThey will need to follow existing quarantine procedures.\n\nA ban by visitors to the UK from South Africa started on 24 December.\n\nThe latest restriction brought in by the Department for Transport also affects travellers arriving from Eswatini, Zambia, Malawi, Lesotho and Mozambique.\n\nIt will apply from 04:00 GMT on Saturday to people who have travelled from or through any of the specified countries in the last 10 days.\n\nIt is understood most flights from the affected countries arrive at airports in England, although it is expected the policy will be formally adopted by the other UK nations.\n\nThe measures will be in place for an initial period of two weeks.\n\nMeanwhile, Botswana, and the islands of Seychelles and Mauritius, are being removed from the UK list of safe travel corridors as there is a high frequency of travel between the islands and South Africa.\n\nThe new variant of coronavirus circulating in South Africa is already being seen in other countries, including the UK.\n\nThe variant, much like the new UK variant first seen in Kent, appears to be more contagious than previous ones.\n\nAnyone arriving into the UK from most destinations must quarantine for 10 days.\n\nBut there are a list of countries exempt from the rules, meaning returning travellers do not need to self-isolate, called the travel corridor list.\n\nUnder the latest announcement, the travel corridor with Israel will also end amid concerns about rising infection levels in that country.\n\nHowever, rules in place across the UK currently ban travel abroad unless for specific reasons.", "Tesco says it has seen some disruption to food supplies in Northern Ireland since trading arrangements with the EU changed on 1 January.\n\n\"We see this as a challenge at the moment, but not a crisis,\" boss Ken Murphy said.\n\nBut he said the retailer was working closely with government on both sides of the Irish Sea to \"smooth the flow\".\n\nSince 31 December, Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that has stayed in the EU's single market for goods.\n\nMr Murphy said certain foodstuffs had faced supply chain disruption going into both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.\n\n\"Ready meals have been the most affected as they have an eight-day shelf life so any wait is more likely to have an impact,\" he said.\n\n\"Some processed meat and some citrus fruit has also been impacted, but it is important to stress that our availability in the Republic and Northern Ireland is strong and is very strong in the mainland UK.\n\nLast week, all the major grocers wrote to Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove asking him to take urgent action.\n\nBut Tesco said its \"comprehensive preparations and... strong relationships with suppliers\" had allowed it to maintain strong levels of availability during the Brexit transition period.\n\nMr Murphy said he was confident Tesco would have the right measures in place to supply Northern Ireland after end of a three month grace period on certain rules and regulations with the EU on 31 March.\n\nHe also said there had also been \"teething problems\" with supply flows from continental Europe to Great Britain.\n\n\"Inevitably there are bedding-in issues, teething issues, that you would expect with any new process that's been set up at relatively short notice,\" he said.\n\n\"We're working our way through those and we would hope over the coming weeks and months that we will end up with a much smoother flow of product.\"\n\nUnder new trading arrangements, food products entering Northern Ireland from Britain need to be professionally certified and are subject to new checks and controls at ports.\n\nMarks & Spencer has temporarily reduced its range of food products in Northern Ireland\n\nA three month \"grace period\" means that supermarkets currently don't need to comply with all the EU's usual certification requirements until 1 April - but there has still been disruption.\n\nM&S has temporarily reduced its range of food products and Sainsbury's has been sourcing Spar-branded products from an NI wholesaler.\n\nThis week the bosses of Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Iceland, Co-Op and Marks & Spencer warned that trade into Northern Ireland would become \"unworkable\" if further new certification requirements were introduced in April .\n\nThe government said a new dedicated team has already been set up and will be working with supermarkets, the food industry and the Northern Ireland Executive to develop ways to streamline the movement of goods.\n\nTesco's comments came as the supermarket giant reported record sales for the Christmas period after customers looked to \"treat themselves\" amid tough Covid restrictions across most of the UK.\n\nUK like-for-like sales were up 8.1% in the six weeks to 9 January, as the supermarket saw a surge in demand for goods in its Tesco Finest range.\n\nBig grocers have benefited at a time when most non-essential shops and restaurants are closed, prompting consumers to spend more on their weekly shop. But they have faced criticism too.\n\nLast month, Tesco said it would repay £585m of business rates relief after it was criticised for paying dividends to shareholders during the crisis. Most big grocers followed suit.\n\nTesco was later criticised for keeping its shops open on Boxing Day despite union calls to give staff the day off.\n\nIn its results the grocer said it had given all frontline staff a 10% bonus over Christmas. It also said it had shielded vulnerable staff and taken on nearly 35,000 additional temporary staff for the season.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. James Howells says he wishes he had never thrown away the hard drive\n\nA man who threw away a laptop hard drive containing bitcoin he believes is now worth about £210m wants his council to let him search for it in landfill.\n\nJames Howells had 7,500 bitcoins, a virtual currency, on the hard drive, which he mistakenly threw away in 2013.\n\nHe said he was willing to donate 25% of the value of the bitcoins to his home city of Newport in south Wales - about £52.5m - if he found the hard drive.\n\nNewport council said excavation was not possible under its licensing permit.\n\nMr Howells said if he was to recover the hard drive, he would want the money to be put into a \"Covid relief fund\" for people in Newport to use \"no questions asked\".\n\n\"Imagine how great it would be to say 'I've given everyone in the city a few hundred pounds',\" he told the BBC.\n\nMr Howells bought the bitcoins for almost nothing in 2009, but the hard drive ended up in a drawer after he spilled a drink on his laptop.\n\nHe kept the hard drive in his office drawer and \"totally forgot about bitcoin all together\" - so when he had a clear out, he believed everything had been taken off it.\n\nWhen he threw the hard drive away in 2013, the value of the bitcoins was about $7.5m (£4.6m).\n\nBut now they are worth almost 50 times more, with the cost of a single bitcoin currently just over £28,000 after a surge in value.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. James Howells: \"When I went up to the landfill site yesterday my first thought was 'I've got not chance'\"\n\nHe said he has asked Newport council if he could search the landfill several times, but had not been granted permission.\n\n\"I offered the local authority 10% of the recovered funds in order to give me permission to search on their property and unfortunately they said no at the time,\" Mr Howells told BBC Radio 5 Live.\n\n\"What actually happened after that was the value of bitcoin skyrocketed even further. In 2017 the value of my hard drive was approximately £125m, at which point I made them another offer of 10% and unfortunately that offer was refused as well.\n\nJames Howells said he wants to donate a quarter of the money to the people of Newport\n\n\"I haven't actually made an offer to them today, but I'm willing to increase my offer to them to 25%. On today's valuation that would be £52.5m and I'd like to put that into a Covid relief fund for the citizens of Newport.\"\n\nMr Howells said searching for the discarded hard drive would \"not be as hard as you might think\" as he would employ a professional team - and knows when he threw it away so could use that to find a grid reference of where the hard drive is buried.\n\nHe added investors had offered to cover the cost of excavating the landfill, in exchange for a large proportion of the recovered bitcoin.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Howells said he wants to meet with the council to discuss what he said would be a \"win-win-win\" situation for him, the council and the city.\n\nBut a spokeswoman for the council said: \"Newport City Council has been contacted a number of times since 2013 about the possibility of retrieving a piece of IT hardware said to contain bitcoins.\n\n\"The first time was several months after Mr Howells first realised the hardware was missing.\n\n\"The council has told Mr Howells on a number of occasions that excavation is not possible under our licencing permit and excavation itself would have a huge environmental impact on the surrounding area.\n\n\"The cost of digging up the landfill, storing and treating the waste could run into millions of pounds - without any guarantee of either finding it or it still being in working order.\"", "Many of the works in Gurlitt's collection were in poor condition when they were discovered in 2012 (file photo)\n\nWhen a trove of 1,500 artworks hoarded by the son of a Nazi-era art dealer was discovered in 2012, an investigation began to find out how many were looted from Jewish owners.\n\nEventually only 14 were conclusively identified as looted, and now Germany has declared the last of those works has been returned to the owner's heirs.\n\nDas Klavierspiel (Playing the Piano) by Carl Spitzweg was owned by music publisher Henri Hinrichsen.\n\nHe was murdered at Auschwitz in 1942.\n\nGerman Culture Minister Monika Grütters said the return of the work sent an \"important signal\", and that while it could not make up for the deep suffering, it could \"make a contribution to historical justice and fulfil our moral responsibility\".\n\nThe 19th-Century work by Spitzweg was confiscated by the Nazis in 1939, the same year that Hinrichsen had bought it.\n\nDas Klavierspiel by Carl Spitzweg was seized by the Nazis in 1939\n\nIt was bought in 1940 by Hildebrand Gurlitt, a Nazi-era dealer who had been given the task by Adolf Hitler of dealing in art seized from Jewish collectors and of buying up so-called \"degenerate art\" removed from museums for a planned Führermuseum in the Austrian city of Linz.\n\nThe money for the Spitzweg work was paid into a blocked account, so Hinrichsen would never have received it.\n\nIn 2015, the piece was identified as looted, and it was handed over to the auctioneers Christie's on Tuesday, according to the wishes of Hinrichsen's heirs.\n\nAlthough his collection of 1,500 works, plundered from museums as well as individuals, was initially confiscated after the war by the Allies, Hildebrand Gurlitt eventually managed to get it back.\n\nGurlitt died in the 1950s and when German authorities approached his widow in 1961 in search of part of his collection, she claimed the works had been destroyed at the end of World War Two by Allied bombing.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Stephen Evans was granted exclusive access to look at some of the long-lost masterpieces in 2014\n\nIt was only when tax investigators searched the Munich flat of his son Cornelius Gurlitt in 2012 that they found more than 1,400 of the works. Another 60 pieces were discovered at his Austrian home in Salzburg the following year.\n\nThe son died in 2014 with questions still hanging over the ownership of the collection - as he was protected by a statute of limitations.\n\nA court ruled that the works could be bequeathed to the Museum of Fine Arts in the Swiss capital Bern, as Cornelius Gurlitt had requested.\n\nWhile some of the works were deemed to belong to the family, the German Lost Art Foundation then tried to find out, with the Swiss museum, who were the rightful owners of the rest.\n\nFourteen pieces have now conclusively identified as belonging to Jewish owners and returned.\n\nAmong the many masterpieces in the collection was this work by Edouard Manet", "A provisional 270 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been secured by the African Union (AU) for distribution across the continent.\n\nAll of the doses will be used this year, promises current AU head South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.\n\nThis is on top of 600 million doses already promised but is still not enough to vaccinate the whole region.\n\nThere are fears that poorer countries globally will wait far longer than richer nations to be inoculated.\n\nAlthough infection numbers and death rates are comparatively lower across most of Africa, cases are spiking again in some areas.\n\nA new variant of Covid-19 in South Africa is causing particular alarm and makes up most of the new cases.\n\n\"As a result of our own efforts we have so far secured a commitment of a provisional amount of 270 million vaccines from three major suppliers: Pfizer, AstraZeneca (through Serum Institute of India) and Johnson & Johnson,\" President Ramaphosa said on Wednesday.\n\nAt least 50 million of the doses will be available \"for the crucial period of April to June 2021,\" he said.\n\nIn addition, the region is expecting around 600 million doses from the global Covax effort which aims to provide vaccines to lower-income countries.\n\nBut officials are still waiting for details and are now \"happy we have alternative solutions,\" Nicaise Ndembi, senior science adviser for the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the AP news agency.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid vaccines in Africa: What you need to know\n\nMr Ramaphosa said officials are worried that the doses from the Covax effort released in the first half of 2021 will only be enough to inoculate health care workers. With a population of 1.3 billion people and each person requiring two vaccine jabs, Africa would need around 2.6 billion doses to eventually vaccinate everyone.\n\n\"These endeavours aim to supplement the Covax efforts, and to ensure that as many dosages of vaccine as possible become available throughout Africa as soon as possible,\" he explained.\n\nAfrica has recorded more than three million cases of Covid-19 and nearly 75,000 deaths. By contrast, the US has reported close to 23 million infections and more than 383,000 fatalities.\n\nThere has been a global rush to buy vaccines, with richer countries accused of buying up most of the supply.\n\nAs many had feared, Africa appears to be at the back of the queue to get Covid-19 vaccines.\n\nThe announcement of 270 million doses by South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa - who is also the current chair of the African Union - is good news. This is in addition to those secured by the Covax facility, which is led by the World Health Organisation and the Vaccine Alliance, Gavi. The facility has secured 600 million doses - enough to vaccinate only a fifth of the continent.\n\nBut it may be a while before any of them get to the continent. The announcements are agreements to supply vaccines. There is still the actual procurement process that needs to happen. Negotiations are ongoing.\n\nWealthier nations had a head start. They already acquired the bulk of the early doses being produced through advance purchase deals with manufacturers. The race is on to meet that demand.\n\nAfrica, on the other hand, still faces funding deficits. There are questions also about the continent's readiness to receive the vaccines. Ultra-cold refrigeration is needed for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Countries are working on building their cold chains. But even this is marred by a shortage of funds.\n\nSo, the continent can only wait.", "The surge in Covid hospital cases has left key hospital services in England in crisis, doctors are warning.\n\nNHS data showed A&Es were facing rising delays admitting extremely sick patients on to wards.\n\nMeanwhile, the total number of people facing year-long waits for routine treatments is now more than 100 times higher than it was before the pandemic.\n\nCancer experts are also warning the disruption to their services was \"terrifying\" and would cost lives.\n\nReports have emerged of hospitals cancelling urgent operations - London's King's College Hospital has stopped priority two treatments, which are those that need to be done within 28 days.\n\nAnd Birmingham's major hospital trust has temporarily suspended most liver transplants.\n\nIt comes after a surge in Covid patients in recent weeks.\n\nOne in three patients in hospital have the virus - and at some sites it is more than half.\n\nNHS England medical director Prof Stephen Powis said the NHS was facing an \"exceptionally tough challenge\", adding services would continue to be under pressure until the virus was under control.\n\nBut he stressed non-Covid treatment was still happening - with three times as many diagnostic tests and twice as many operations being carried out than in the spring when the pandemic first hit.\n\nThe data published by NHS England showed the scale of the impact from dealing with Covid on key hospital services.\n\nThe figures for cancer date back to November, before the surge in cases.\n\nAt that point, the number of urgent cancer check-ups and treatments being started was at normal levels.\n\nBut since then, concerns have been raised that services have been reduced.\n\nProf Pat Price, of the Catch Up With Cancer campaign, said services were facing the \"biggest crisis\" of her 30-year career.\n\n\"This is a truly terrifying scenario,\" she added.\n\nAnd the Royal College of Surgeons warned the pandemic was having a \"calamitous impact\" on waiting times for planned surgery.\n\nSarah Scobie, from the Nuffield Trust think tank, said services were under \"intolerable strain\", adding \"the worst is yet to come\".\n\nSaffron Cordery, of NHS Providers, which represents hospital bosses, agreed: \"The next few weeks are no doubt going to be the most testing in NHS history.\"", "The government must review its strategy to end rough sleeping in England by 2024 after coronavirus showed it to be \"out of step\", a watchdog warned.\n\nA National Audit Office report praised the 'Everyone In' scheme, which housed about 33,000 people in the crisis.\n\nBut the plan highlighted issues with the current strategy - with thousands more needing help than expected.\n\nThe government said it was \"regularly taking into account the lessons learned\" from the pandemic.\n\nBoris Johnson made the pledge to end rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament shortly before he won the general election in 2019.\n\nAt the time, a snapshot figure taken by the government one evening showed 4,266 people were sleeping on the streets in England.\n\nBut it did not include people in night shelters or assessment centres, and could have missed people sleeping hidden from view.\n\nResearch by the BBC carried out in February 2020 showed more than 28,000 people across the UK had been recorded as sleeping rough in the previous 12 months - and in England, councils were seeing figures five times higher than the snapshot.\n\nThe 'Everyone In' scheme, launched in March 2020, aimed to provide emergency shelter for all rough sleepers during the first wave of the pandemic.\n\nFunding was ended two months later to the anger of many charities, but the government said it had made a number of more targeted funding pledges to tackle the issue since.\n\nThe National Audit Office (NAO) carried out an investigation into the housing of rough sleepers in the pandemic and praised the \"considerable achievement\" of 'Everyone In'.\n\nThe head of the watchdog, Gareth Davies, said the government \"acted swiftly to house rough sleepers and keep transmission rates low during the first wave\".\n\nBut the NAO investigation found between the end of March and November 2020, 33,139 people were given accommodation through the scheme - a number almost eight times greater than the annual snapshot of rough sleepers.\n\nExamples included Bristol City Council which reported it accommodated 400 people in March, despite its most recent snapshot count being 98 rough sleepers.\n\nAnd the London Borough of Southwark had 25 known rough sleepers in March 2020, but within hours of 'Everyone In' launching, it had taken 200 people into hotels, with nearly 1,000 accommodated by November.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How the UK's homeless are coping during the coronavirus pandemic\n\nThe government pledged to carry out a review of its strategy to end rough sleeping early in 2020, but the plans took a back seat as the crisis unfolded.\n\nThe NAO said there was \"an ongoing need for a review of the strategy as it is out of step with the government's target\", adding there were now \"important lessons from Everyone In to consider\".\n\nMr Davies said the scale of the rough sleeping population in England has now been made clear, and it \"far exceeds\" previous government estimates.\n\n\"Understanding the size of this population, and who needs specialist support, is essential to achieve its ambition to end rough sleeping\", he added.\n\nThe report also highlighted the large number of people remaining in emergency accommodation unable to move on as they have no recourse to public funds - a condition put into the residence permit of some immigrants meaning they cannot access benefits.\n\nThe NAO also called on the government to \"keep under close review\" its more targeted response to the current coronavirus resurgence, whether it will \"protect vulnerable individuals as decisively\" as 'Everyone in'.\n\nA spokesman from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said they were pleased the NAO recognised its achievements with 'Everyone In'.\n\nHe added: \"By November, we had supported around 33,000 people, with nearly 10,000 in emergency accommodation and more than 23,000 in longer-term accommodation.\n\n\"We recently announced an additional £10m to help accommodate rough sleepers and ensure they are registered with a GP to receive the vaccine, and we will invest £750m next year as part of our commitment to end rough sleeping.\"\n\nAsked whether the review into the ending rough sleeping strategy would take place, the spokesman said: \"Our ambition to end rough sleeping within this parliament still stands, and we are regularly taking into account the lessons learned from our ongoing pandemic response, including 'Everyone In'.\"", "The government has defended its scheme to offer free food to struggling families in England over half term - after criticism from teachers' unions and council leaders.\n\nFood will be provided for children by councils under the Covid Winter Grant Scheme, rather than through schools.\n\nBut councils say the government should provide food vouchers over half term.\n\n\"Vulnerable families will continue to receive meals,\" said a Department for Education (DFE) spokeswoman.\n\n\"Our guidance is clear: schools provide free school meals for eligible pupils during term time.\n\n\"Beyond that, there is wider government support in place to support families and children via the billions of pounds in welfare support we've made available,\" said the DFE spokeswoman.\n\nBut the Local Government Association (LGA), representing councils, said \"the government should provide food vouchers to eligible families during February half-term as it did last summer\" - and that the £170m Covid Winter Grant Scheme should be used for other support.\n\n\"During the last full national lockdown, government recognised the significant extra pressures on low income families and extended free school meal provision into the school holidays,\" said Richard Watts, chairman of the LGA's resources board.\n\n\"Government was explicit that the Covid Winter Grant Scheme was not intended to replicate or replace free school meals, but was to enable councils to support low income households, particularly those at risk of food poverty as we moved towards economic recovery.\"\n\nThe row follows the DFE's publication of guidelines on free meals, after an outcry over pictures of food packages to replace free school meals during the lockdown.\n\nThe prime minister and other ministers criticised the quality of what was being sent out by some school food firms.\n\nMarcus Rashford has spear-headed a campaign for holiday food\n\nThe DfE guidance says: \"Schools do not need to provide lunch parcels or vouchers during the February half term.\n\n\"There is wider government support in place to support families and children outside of term-time through the Covid Winter Grant Scheme.\"\n\nThe DFE insists that even though schools will not provide food parcels or vouchers during half term, children will still be supplied with food through the Covid Winter Grant Scheme.\n\nThis aims to support those most in need with the cost of food, energy, water bills and other essentials.\n\nCouncils are required to work out their own local approach to eligibility, using benefits data and their local knowledge to decide how to support vulnerable families.\n\nMoving to this scheme for a replacement for school meals during half term, with the added pressure of a lockdown, has drawn criticism from head teachers and teachers.\n\nKevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, warned that switching schemes meant \"yet more disruption to free schools meals could lie ahead in half term\".\n\nHe said using this scheme could cause an \"unnecessary logistical nightmare\", suggesting continuing with providing meals through schools would be more simple.\n\nMr Courtney said: \"This week, Matt Hancock, Gavin Williamson and Boris Johnson made public statements about how appalled they were by the quality of food parcels shared on Twitter,\" said Mr Courtney.\n\nBut he said ministers should now \"hang their heads in shame\" for threatening more \"chaos and confusion\" over providing food.\n\n\"These are battles which should not have to be repeatedly fought,\" said Mr Courtney.\n\nNational Association of Head Teachers general secretary Paul Whiteman accused the the government of \"badly thought out and last-minute schemes to help with holiday hunger\" which he said were \"leaving families and children anxious\".\n\n\"The government must urgently clarify for families how they will be helped during the upcoming half term holiday so they can be assured that they will not go hungry,\" said Mr Whiteman.\n\nLabour's Tulip Siddiq, shadow minister for children and early years, said: \"Time and time again this government has had to be shamed into providing food for hungry children over school holidays.\"\n\nFood charities and anti-poverty campaigners, including footballer Marcus Rashford, have repeatedly clashed with the government over the issue of food for poor pupils during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly over school holidays.\n\nThe footballer forced the government to back down in the summer over its plans not to offer free meals in the holidays to poor pupils, whose families were likely to be suffering with reduced incomes.\n\nBut over the October half-term when the provision was withdrawn many local authorities continued to offer them from their own budgets.", "President Donald Trump has just become the only US president to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives. He was impeached on Wednesday for \"incitement of insurrection\" following last week's riot at the US Capitol. However, a recent poll suggests that a majority of Republicans still support President Trump and don't hold him responsible for the violence.\n\nWe've been hearing from lawmakers - but what do Americans think? We asked members of our BBC voter panel to weigh in.\n\nBelinda is an attorney and devoted Trump supporter of Native American and African American ancestry. She says this second impeachment vote is wrong and misconstrues the facts of what happened last week in favour of political expediency.\n\nThis is unprecedented. There is no justification, no legal or constitutional basis for this impeachment. He did not even receive due process. It's a rush to judgment for ulterior motives and a dark stain on our country. I'm afraid our Constitution is on its deathbed. I hope the American people will stand up against this outrage. It's indicative of what would happen in a communist country where we have no free speech rights.\n\nThose who broke in should be charged appropriately for whatever laws they violated. But why would anybody who's rational think that our president meant for people to go break into the Capitol? His rallies have always been peaceful and most of the people on Wednesday were middle-aged and elderly, with children and grandchildren.\n\nIndividuals who violated the law should definitely be prosecuted but I don't see how you can blame someone for a speech and someone else's criminal activity. It can't be selective enforcement of the law.\n\nMelissa is a Filipino American small business owner with two children who had told us the country could not afford four more years of Donald Trump. She says the behaviour he displayed last Wednesday was undoubtedly an impeachable offense.\n\nEverything he has done is unconstitutional and, as a president, the number one thing he should be doing is upholding the Constitution.\n\n[Republican Congresswoman] Liz Cheney said that, if not for the president, last week would not have happened and she's right. If not for him continually fighting the election results, if not for him repeatedly sending the false message the election was stolen, if not for him holding that rally near the Capitol, if not for him talking about an 'uprising', last week would very likely not have happened.\n\nEven three months ago, before all the lawsuits and everything else he was saying, I was not shocked by his behaviour. It's all completely predictable because it's just within his character. So the argument by politicians that impeachment could divide us more, I don't see that as the goal of impeachment.\n\nIt can't help but I don't think it will have any impact on deterring violence. There needs to be some kind of statement that the president is not allowed to attack another branch of government. It's a chance for the Republican Party to rid itself of Trump's stranglehold on them.\n\nGabriel is a regional coordinator for the New York Young Republicans and is an outspoken 'Latino for Trump'. He condemns the violence of last Wednesday but says the reaction has been unfair and worries about where the party will go from here.\n\nI do not think that Donald Trump should be impeached. I was in DC at the rally on 6 January - I did not go near the Capitol and went back to my hotel room - but I saw the president speak with my own eyes and he did not call for anyone to storm the building or cause harm.\n\nThis is just a way to ensure he will not run in the next four years. It is political and it will create a bigger divide between left and right. I fear that people will become reactionary and elected officials will use impeachment in the future not as a last resort to uphold our republic but as a tool to remove whoever they don't agree with.\n\nAll violence should be condemned fairly and justly. It was a very sad outcome, but I do not believe it was the most horrible day in our country's history and it was not a coup. It's important to dictate that violence is not the answer. The day was supposed to be different. January 6 did something to the Republican Party. The actions of the few will discourage many of the new voters that Trump brought in and made his base.\n\nWilliams is a first-generation Mexican American college student in Atlanta who has been extremely concerned about what he has seen in his country over the past four years. He says the events of the past week justify today's vote in the House.\n\nI believe he should have been impeached. Not only is he a threat to our national security, but he doesn't condemn white supremacy and other threats. That affects us internally within the United States as well as abroad.\n\nIt's more of a symbolic impeachment at this point because he'll be out soon, but it's necessary nonetheless. Impeachment failed once, but now he has set the precedent that a president can be impeached more than once.\n\nIn processing the past week, all I could do at first was to ignore it and joke about the situation. It's deeply saddening to me.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA respiratory doctor at Belfast's Mater Hospital has warned that hospital oxygen supplies are under \"extreme pressure\".\n\nDr Nick Magee also said more younger patients were now being treated in hospital than during the first and second waves of the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nHe said in the past they did not have to consult other NI hospitals about how much oxygen they had.\n\n\"That was never a thing in previous January flu problems,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"But that is something we are now having to think of,\" he added.\n\nEarlier this week Northern Ireland's Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride said there is enough oxygen to cope with the current demand.\n\nBut according to Dr Magee the current level of oxygen being used in \"bays\" at the Mater means patients cannot charge their mobile phones by their bedside because of the \"fire risk\".\n\n\"It is all well controlled and we are making sure that we can share out that oxygen burden. That is something we are having to think about,\" he said.\n\n\"I can't say specifically about other regional hospitals but I know that they are under extreme pressure and it's just something we have to think of as a region.\n\n\"Can we supply oxygen adequately for the amounts of oxygen we are using in hospitals?\"\n\nThe number of Covid positive hospital in-patients has increased significantly since last week - up from 599 a week ago to 850 on Thursday.\n\nThe number of people in ICU has also risen from 44 to 58 in the past week.\n\nDr Magee said staff were concerned about having to cope with \"large volumes\" of patients requiring respiratory support.\n\nHe said the number of younger patients becoming increasingly sick with the virus was growing.\n\nOn Wednesday, the Mater Hospital moved six patients who had been on wards into ICU and also took patients from the Southern Health Trust.\n\n\"Recently I saw a 29-year-old patient, also three who were in their mid 30s that all required respiratory support on a ward,\" he told BBC News NI.\n\n\"They are frightened they are wearing specialist masks CPAP masks that help them breathe. They are scared.\"\n\nThe relentless pressure of the past 10 months and the prospect of a further surge in admissions over the next fortnight is weighing heavily on the minds of medics.\n\n\"We are really worried about next week,\" said Dr Magee.\n\n\"It's very busy this week, we are coping well but we are particularly concerned about next week.\n\n\"Normally, if we had somebody who needed a lot of respiratory support we would involve a high dependency unit but all the respiratory wards are becoming like high dependency units.\n\n\"Volume of sicker, younger patients is much greater and it's not something that I would [have] ever seen before,\" he added.\n\nThe Southern Health and Social Care Trust said its hospitals had limited infrastructure to manage high numbers of patients requiring oxygen so a regional agreement was in place to share resources across Trusts to support Covid-positive patients.\n\n\"As a result some patients have been diverted to Belfast or SE Trust to help reduce pressure on the Southern Trust hospital system,\" a statement said.\n\n\"Craigavon and Daisy Hill hospitals remain very busy with high numbers of Covid-19 positive patients who are dependent on oxygen therapy.\n\n\"These protocols are in place as part of regional surge planning to ensure that we can safely manage the current high volume of Covid-19 patients needing hospital care.\n\n\"Patients who are currently being treated in Craigavon and Daisy Hill have secure supplies of oxygen.\"", "The former president posts that he has been told to report to a grand jury, \"which almost always means an Arrest\".", "Travel from Brazil to the UK could be banned in response to the discovery of a new coronavirus variant.\n\nMinisters have met to discuss possible measures and a block on flights could also be extended to other South American countries in a bid to stop its spread.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has said he is \"concerned\" about the new variant and \"extra measures\" were being taken.\n\nArrivals from Brazil are currently required to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nCabinet Office minister Michael Gove chaired a meeting earlier to discuss whether measures should be put in place.\n\nNew variants of Covid-19 have also been identified in the UK and South Africa.\n\nDuring a two-hour appearance in front of the Commons Home Affairs Committee on Wednesday Mr Johnson stopped short of promising a ban on travel from Brazil.\n\n\"We already have tough measures ... to protect this country from new infections coming in from abroad,\" he said.\n\n\"We are taking steps to do that in respect of the Brazilian variant.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Johnson: \"We are taking steps to ensure that we do not see the import of this new variant\".\n\nProf Susan Hopkins, who is Strategic Response Director for Covid-19 with Public Health England, told BBC Breakfast experts were looking at the Brazilian variant and needed to grow the virus in the UK in order to perform laboratory experiments.\n\n\"So we need to understand the biology of these [new strains], as well as understanding mutations,\" she said.\n\n\"We will be watching them all to make sure that they can't escape your immune response, which is the key thing that we're looking at the moment.\"\n\nA travel ban was put in place on arrivals from South Africa on 24 December, which was later extended to several other nearby countries, following the discovery of a new variant.\n\nLuiz Amorim, a graphic designer in London, said he had travelled to Brazil to spend Christmas with his family and was now worried he may not be able to get home.\n\n\"My wife was also supposed to come but didn't in the end,\" he said. \"Now I am worried I won't be able to get back to her in London.\"\n\nMr Amorim said his workplace had been supportive but he may have to take leave if he was unable to return, with his original flight back having been cancelled.\n\nHe has now booked another flight on 27 January and is \"watching the news closely to see what will happen\".\n\nThe discussion comes after it was announced a requirement for arrivals into England to test negative for coronavirus 72 hours before their journey will now come into force at 04:00 GMT on Monday.\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps said the new rules had been delayed from Friday \"to give international arrivals time to prepare\".\n\nLabour's Yvette Cooper, chairwoman of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, described the delay in introducing the new rules as \"truly shocking\".\n\nScotland is taking the same approach to international travellers but will implement the policy on Friday, while Wales and Northern Ireland are expected to announce their own plans in the coming days.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer criticised the government for delaying pre-departure testing for arrivals to England, describing the situation as a \"complete mess\".\n\n\"Priti Patel has talked tough about the borders but other countries have been doing testing for months and months,\" he said.\n\nSir Keir said people were \"really worried\" about strains in other parts of the world, including Brazil, and people would be \"bewildered and they will feel that we're exposed\".", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nIvan Cavaleiro scored a late header to earn Premier League strugglers Fulham a hard-fought draw against Tottenham in their hastily rearranged London derby.\n\nThe Portuguese forward's finish cancelled out Harry Kane's first-half diving header and came just minutes after Son Heung-min hit the post in search of Spurs' second.\n\nCavaleiro sealed a remarkable turnaround for a side whose manager Scott Parker said it was \"scandalous\" to be given just two days' notice to face Jose Mourinho's men after Spurs' game at Aston Villa was postponed because of a Covid-19 outbreak in the Villa camp.\n\nTottenham boss Mourinho had little sympathy for the visitors as the derby itself was a rearranged fixture, having been called off three hours before kick-off when originally scheduled on 30 December.\n\nFor all the complications surrounding the fixture, the intensity from two sides at opposite ends of the table was high at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with Fulham's fifth successive league draw a valuable point in their efforts to escape the relegation zone.\n• None Relive Tottenham v Fulham as it happened and analysis\n\nFulham made a bright start and Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa's fierce shot to test Hugo Lloris was a warning of what was to come from a side who remain 18th despite the draw.\n\nThe excellent Alphonse Areola twice denied Son in the first 45 minutes, first blocking a toe-poked effort before palming a header away.\n\nAreola could do nothing, however, to deny Kane the opener in the 25th minute, with the striker beating the Frenchman with a thumping diving header from an excellently-placed Sergio Reguilon cross.\n\nKane was off target with another header and Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Kenny Tete threatened to respond for the visitors, who had the woodwork to thank for denying Son in the second half after the South Korean scuffed a shot past Areola.\n\nSubstitute Ademola Lookman was instrumental following his introduction, creating the equaliser for Cavaleiro seven minutes after coming off the bench.\n\nThe powerful finish extended Fulham's unbeaten run to five league matches, which is their longest such sequence in the top flight in three Premier League campaigns since 2012-13.\n\nThis latest draw highlights just how resolute Parker's men have become after a slow start to the campaign, in which they collected just one point from their first six matches.\n\nSpurs punished for reliance on Kane and Son\n\nWhile the Cottagers may be in the relegation places and had lost a record 13 successive top-flight matches to London rivals, they presented a significantly sterner test of Mourinho's men than non-league side Marine - a team made up of NHS workers, teachers and a refuse collector - which Spurs cruised past in the third round of the FA Cup on Sunday.\n\nThe prolific pair of Kane and Son, a duo that has now scored 23 of Tottenham's 30 league goals this term, were among 10 to return to Spurs' starting line-up.\n\nSon was an unused substitute on their trip to Crosby but Kane, along with Lloris, Eric Dier, Serge Aurier and Harry Winks came back from being rested.\n\nWhile Kane was clinical with the nodded finish, he reacted in frustration as he flicked another header off target.\n\nThat miss, as well as the wastefulness of Reguilon - who sent an early effort over - and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg's tame strike, ensured Fulham were still in it at half-time.\n\nMoussa Sissoko also dithered in the box when an early second-half chance presented itself, allowing Tosin Adarabioyo to superbly block.\n\nSon's effort off the post, and their reliance on him and Kane for goals, ultimately proved costly as Cavaleiro ended the hosts' run of three clean sheets in January.\n\nAnd while Reguilon did have the ball in the back of the net again for Tottenham in the final minute, it was immediately disallowed for offside as Spurs missed the chance to move up to third in the table.\n\n'Some players had one day's training' - what the managers said\n\nTottenham manager Jose Mourinho, speaking to BBC Sport: \"In the first half Alphonse Areola made some impossible saves, a couple of others in the second, too.\n\n\"We have to kill a game and we didn't - but you have to keep a clean sheet, not make mistakes, so it was a very avoidable goal. The markers are there, there wasn't even an advantage in terms of numbers.\n\n\"Fulham were intelligent enough to understand the way they play, they change, they become more defensive and they are getting results. I thought they were a bit lucky but they were good.\n\n\"We have bad results and we should - and we could have - avoided these results.\"\n\nFulham boss Scott Parker, speaking to BBC Sport: \"I'm very proud of this team for what we've been through. There's a lot of talk around - everyone assumes about what happened. I know what we've been through the last two weeks.\n\n\"We had players out there today who had one day's training. What pleased me most was a desire and a passion and a real quality at times tonight.\n\n\"There's a real determination and hard work from this group of players. They've never shied away from anything.\"\n\nOn Monday's announcement of the game with Tottenham: \"We were told, in the end, at 9:30. It was put to me on Saturday, if there was a possibility, but I just batted it off thinking 'no chance'.\n\n\"This game was supposed to be scheduled 16 days ago - for 10 days some of these boys were locked up in their houses. I was surprised but it wasn't in terms of preparing for this game, we've prepared in two days for a game before, it was more just getting told of the consequences that you face.\"\n\nBest of the stats\n• None Tottenham and Fulham played out their first draw in the Premier League since December 2009, with Spurs winning 10 of the last 11 encounters (L1).\n• None Tottenham are unbeaten in their last eight London derbies in the Premier League (W3 D5), they've never gone longer without defeat against sides from the capital in the competition.\n• None Fulham have drawn five consecutive Premier League games, their longest such run since January 2007 (six games).\n• None Fulham have gained five points in their last four Premier League away games (W1 D2 L1), more than they collected in their previous 13 on the road in the competition (W1 D1 L11).\n• None Only Brighton (12) and Sheffield United (11) have dropped more points from winning positions than Spurs (10) in the Premier League this season.\n• None Tottenham's Harry Kane has become just the third player to score 25 Premier League goals with his head (25), his right foot (94) and his left foot (34) - after Robbie Fowler and Andy Cole.\n• None Ademola Lookman has been directly involved in five goals (two goals, three assists) in the Premier League this season, more than any other Fulham player.\n\nTottenham travel to Bramall Lane on Sunday (14:05 GMT) to face the Premier League's bottom side Sheffield United, who on Tuesday earned their first top-flight win of the season.\n\nFulham face Chelsea in another derby, hosting their west London rivals on Saturday (17:30 GMT).\n• None Offside, Tottenham Hotspur. Erik Lamela tries a through ball, but Son Heung-Min is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Antonee Robinson (Fulham) left footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Aboubakar Kamara. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Can the TV personality make it as a pro footballer?\n• None New drama brings the chilling crimes of Charles Sobhraj to life", "Gerry and Barbara Jarrett were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 two weeks ago\n\nAn elderly couple with coronavirus have been helped by a hospital to say their last goodbyes to each other after the wife's condition deteriorated.\n\nGerry and Barbara Jarrett, from Bracknell, Berkshire, are in separate wards at Frimley Park Hospital, Surrey.\n\nTheir daughter Chloe, who posted a picture of one reunion on Twitter, said her mother \"looked to be at the end\".\n\nShe said her parents had \"precious\" extra time together thanks to the hospital's \"incredible\" efforts.\n\nMrs Keljarrett said her 79-year-old father and mother, 76, who have been together for 50 years, were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 two weeks ago.\n\nOn Tuesday she posted: \"In the midst of a pandemic peak, staff (namely a consultant, a surgeon and a HCA) at FPH just made sure my dad saw my mum for what is likely the last time.\"\n\nShe said another meeting happened on Wednesday when \"mum looked to be at the end\".\n\nFrimley Park Hospital said the reunions were the sort of \"care that matters the most\"\n\nShe said: \"Dad was wheeled in, crying, touched her hand and her eyes flew open. She was awake and bright and could talk.\n\n\"We got a precious extra hour or two before her breathing got worse again and got to say what we wanted.\n\n\"All thanks to the staff who made these meetings possible. In current times I just find that incredible.\"\n\nMrs Keljarrett, a teacher at The Brakenhale School, said her father was \"showing signs of improvement but has a very long journey to complete\".\n\n\"He has a number of other health issues that will make recovery that bit trickier, but I have to remain positive that he will overcome this horrendous virus,\" she added.\n\nShe said she had met hospital workers who were \"pulling unexpected double shifts\" due to short-staffing.\n\n\"How they are managing such compassion when they are stretched to their emotional and physical limits I do not know,\" she added.\n\nResponding to Mrs Keljarrett's Twitter post, the hospital wrote: \"Our hearts go out to you and your family.\n\n\"We are so glad that our staff managed to make this time just a little bit easier for you all.\n\n\"This truly is some of the care we give that matters the most.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Doctors' leaders have called for urgent improvements in personal protective equipment for health workers.\n\nThe British Medical Association is appealing for a higher grade of face mask to guard against coronavirus infection.\n\nIt says there is 'growing evidence' that the virus is being spread through the air by aerosols.\n\nThese are tiny virus particles that can build up in stuffy rooms and they have been linked to outbreaks of Covid-19.\n\nThis follows an open letter from more than 1,500 health professionals for staff on general wards to be given the type of high-quality masks usually only worn in intensive care units.\n\nPublic Health England (PHE) has issued guidance on what PPE staff in different settings require. It was last updated in October 2020.\n\nEarly in the pandemic, it was widely believed that to catch the disease you had to either be close to an infected person and hit by droplets from their coughs or sneezes or touch a surface they had contaminated.\n\nBut research during the course of last year highlighted how it is also possible for the virus to be carried in what are called aerosols, drifting and accumulating in the air.\n\nMost infections are thought to have occurred indoors in badly ventilated rooms, and many studies have shown that the 'airborne route' can be an important factor.\n\nAcross the UK, the guidance for hospital staff is to wear surgical masks in most areas.\n\nMore sophisticated masks - a type known as FFP3 that includes an air filter - are only required in intensive care or when certain procedures are carried out that are known to generate aerosols.\n\nIn their letter, the consultants, doctors and nurses say healthcare workers are three to four times more likely to become infected than the general population.\n\nBut they point out that staff in intensive care units, who have the best level of protection, have about half the risk of catching the virus than colleagues on general wards.\n\nThe letter states: \"It is now essential that healthcare workers have their PPE upgraded to protect against airborne transmission\".\n\nBarry McAree, a consultant surgeon in Northern Ireland, is one of many healthcare workers to be ill with Covid.\n\nHe is self-isolating at home right after his testing positive for the second time.\n\nA signatory to the letter, he says his hospital in Antrim followed the guidance about which type of masks should be worn in which areas, but he became infected nonetheless. It is not clear how and when he caught it.\n\n\"There's so much evidence that we are talking about an airborne infection that it has to be said that it is not appropriate just to wear FFP3 in environments when aerosol generating procedures take place.\"\n\nHe believes that with such high levels of the virus in the community and in hospitals, staff should be wearing the higher-grade masks whenever they're close to patients.\n\nSurgical masks can be bought online for about 10p each, while the FFP3 masks are far more expensive about £5.00.\n\nDr Barry Jones, a retired gastroenterologist and leading expert on aerosols, says that's nothing compared to the cost of a patient with Covid,\n\nHe points to data showing that roughly a fifth of people needing hospital treatment for Covid may have acquired the infection in hospital in the first place.\n\n\"We should do everything we can to reduce that possibility - it's the air we share that's killing us.\"\n\nA few hospitals have decided to break with official guidance.\n\nIt's understood that hospitals in Cambridge, Plymouth and Exeter have decided to equip staff with FFP3 masks if they face patients diagnosed with Covid or suspected of having it.\n\nOne consultant, who did not want to be named, said: \"When you realise patients are more infectious at an earlier stage of disease and are presenting at general wards with poorer ventilation than intensive care units and staff are wearing a poorer quality of PPE, you really want those in a position of leadership to listen and to act.\"\n\nRCN General Secretary Dame Donna Kinnair, said: \"Without delay, they must state whether existing PPE guidance is adequate for the new variant.\n\n\"While more research is carried out, we ask for the precautionary principle to be applied and staff to be given a higher level of PPE if working with suspected or confirmed cases.\"\n\nPublic Health England said this was a matter for NHS England to comment on.\n\nA Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: \"The safety of NHS and social care staff has always been our top priority and we continue to work tirelessly to deliver PPE that protects those on the frontline.\n\n\"UK guidance on the safest levels of PPE is written by experts and agreed by all four chief medical officers. Our guidance is kept under constant review based on the latest evidence and data.\n\n\"Emerging evidence and data, including on variant strains, will be continually monitored and reviewed, and the guidance updated accordingly if needed.\"", "It was initially believed that Covid-19 originated at a market in Wuhan\n\nA World Health Organization (WHO) team has arrived in the Chinese city of Wuhan to start its investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nThe long-awaited probe comes after months of negotiations between the WHO and Beijing.\n\nA group of 10 scientists is set to interview people from research institutes, hospitals and the seafood market linked to the initial outbreak.\n\nCovid-19 was first detected in Wuhan in central China in late 2019.\n\nThe team's arrival on Thursday morning coincides with a resurgence of new coronavirus cases in the north of the country, while life in Wuhan is relatively back to normal.\n\nThey will undergo two weeks of quarantine before beginning their research, which will rely upon samples and evidence provided by Chinese officials.\n\nTeam leader Peter Ben Embarek told AFP news agency just before the trip that it \"could be a very long journey before we get a full understanding of what happened\".\n\n\"I don't think we will have clear answers after this initial mission, but we will be on the way,\" he said.\n\nThe probe, which aims to investigate the animal origin of the pandemic, looks set to begin after some initial hiccups.\n\nChina resisted this investigation because it doesn't want to look back. It sees the potential for more blame, from a group of foreigners. It has its official version of what happened already.\n\nThe government paper published months ago declared \"victory\" in the war against the virus. But it didn't have a verdict - not one it made public anyway - on where the new coronavirus came from nor how it passed to humans. There's been global pressure to answer that, to prevent repeat pandemics.\n\nThe WHO team will be heavily reliant on their Chinese hosts for access: to key places in Wuhan and beyond, and crucially to research material, human and animal samples and data gathered by China's authorities over the past year. The man leading the WHO team said he is open minded. No theories - and there is a range of theories - are off the table. All sides have talked about the importance of the science. But the investigators arrived here as a propaganda effort, lead by China's state media, is in full swing, to question whether the pandemic originated here in the first place.\n\nDespite a lack of any credible evidence it's reported for months now that it was in Spain, Italy or maybe the US before it was seen in China. A campaign intended to undermine the very reason the WHO is, finally, here in Wuhan.\n\nEarlier this month the WHO said its investigators were denied entry into China after one member of the team was turned back and another got stuck in transit. But Beijing said it was a misunderstanding and that arrangements for the investigation were still in discussion.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid-19: How everyday life has changed in Wuhan\n\nChina has been saying for months that the although Wuhan is where the first cluster of cases was detected, it is not necessarily where the virus originated.\n\nProfessor Dale Fisher, chair of the global outbreak and response unit at the WHO, told the BBC that he hoped the world would consider this a scientific visit. \"It's not about politics or blame but getting to the bottom of a scientific question,\" he said.\n\nProf Fisher added that most scientists believed that the virus was a \"natural event\".\n\nThe visit comes as China reports its first fatality from Covid-19 in eight months.\n\nNews of the woman's death in northern Hebei province prompted anxious chatter online and the hashtag \"new virus death in Hebei\" trended briefly on social media platform Weibo.\n\nThe country has largely brought the virus under control through quick mass testing, stringent lockdowns and tight travel restrictions.\n\nBut new cases have been resurfacing in recent weeks, mainly in Hebei province surrounding Beijing and Heilongjiang province in the northeast.", "A further 1,564 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the biggest figure reported in a single day since the pandemic began.\n\nIt brings the total number of deaths by that measure to 84,767.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said there have now been more deaths in the second wave than the first.\n\nAnd the prime minister warned there was a \"very substantial\" risk of intensive care capacity being \"overtopped\".\n\nSpeaking to the Commons Liaison Committee, Boris Johnson said the situation was \"very, very tough\" in the NHS and the strain on staff was \"colossal\".\n\nHe appealed to the public to follow lockdown rules, which require people in England to stay at home and only go out for limited reasons, such as for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nA further 47,525 new cases have also been recorded.\n\nPerhaps the most distressing element about the latest Covid deaths is that the numbers are almost certainly going to rise from here.\n\nPeople who are dying now are likely to have been infected three or so weeks ago, around Christmas time.\n\nThat was at a point when infection rates were rising quite steeply, so in the coming days and weeks we should, sadly, expect to see more deaths than this being reported.\n\nToday's figures are affected by the weekend, which sees delays in reporting deaths that tend to translate into higher figures from Tuesday onwards.\n\nCurrently around 1,000 people a day on average are dying once you take this into account.\n\nBut the figures also provide some hope. For the third day in a row the number of newly diagnosed infections are well below 50,000.\n\nThere have been several days where they have exceeded 60,000.\n\nIf that trend continues, and the number of new cases keeps coming down, that will eventually translate into the number of deaths falling.\n\nBut it is going to take some weeks for that to happen.\n\nThese are, as many have been saying, the darkest days of the pandemic so far.\n\nEarlier, during Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said lockdown measures were \"starting to show signs of some effect\".\n\nLabour's Sir Keir Starmer called for tougher restrictions in England, asking why they were weaker in this lockdown compared with March.\n\nDuring the first lockdown, nurseries were closed to most children and it was not permitted to exercise with someone from another household.\n\n\"We keep things under constant review,\" Mr Johnson replied. \"If there is any need to toughen up restrictions - which I don't rule out - we will of course come to this House.\"\n\nHe stressed that it was early days, but said: \"The lockdown measures we have in place combined with tier four measures that we were using are starting to show signs of some effect.\"\n\nLater, asked by the Commons Liaison Committee whether schools could reopen after February half-term, Mr Johnson said: \"It is far, far too early for us to say [early signs of progress mean] we can go into any kind of relaxation in the middle of February, we've got to work very hard to achieve that.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson took questions from MPs on the Commons Liaison Committee\n\nThe prime minister also said on Wednesday that Covid vaccinations will be offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week as soon as supply allows.\n\nThe number of people in the UK who have received the first dose of a vaccine has risen to 2,639,309 - up by 207,661 from the day before.\n\nCommenting on the latest daily figures, PHE's Dr Doyle said: \"With each passing day, more and more people are tragically losing their lives to this terrible virus.\"\n\nShe added: \"It is essential that we stay at home, minimise contact with other people and act as if you have the virus.\"\n\nThe vast majority of the deaths reported on Tuesday happened over the past week. However, at least 100 were in 2020, with one death dating back to May.\n\nThe previous highest daily death toll was on Friday, when 1,325 people were reported to have died.\n\nThese government figures count people who died within 28 days of testing positive, but there are other ways of measuring the total number of deaths.\n\nWhen all deaths where coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate are counted, plus deaths known to have occurred more recently, the number of deaths involving Covid in the UK is more than 100,000.\n\nAnother method is to count excess deaths - all deaths over and above the usual number at the time of year.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Johnson: \"We are taking steps to ensure that we do not see the import of this new variant\".\n\nMeanwhile, the prime minister has said he is \"concerned\" about a new coronavirus variant that is believed to have emerged in Brazil. He acknowledged it is not yet clear how effective existing vaccines will be against the latest new variant.\n\nThe UK is taking steps to make sure it is not brought into the country, Mr Johnson said.\n\nA government Covid committee is meeting on Thursday to discuss the possibility of stopping flights from Brazil.\n\nArrivals from Brazil already have to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nAnd from Monday, anyone arriving into the UK from any country will have to present a negative Covid test. The new rule had been due to come into force this week but the government said it was being put back to give travellers more time to prepare.", "The home secretary has said the government will not announce new Covid restrictions on Thursday or Friday, but did not rule out further measures being announced next week.\n\nPriti Patel told ITV her focus was on enforcing the current lockdown rules.\n\nIt is thought ministers are considering measures like requiring masks outside or allowing people to exercise only with people from the same household.\n\nOn Wednesday, the UK recorded 1,564 new deaths, the highest daily total so far.\n\nMrs Patel emphasised the current stay-at-home rules, under which people are only allowed to go out for a limited number of reasons, including work, essential shopping and providing care to a vulnerable person.\n\nAsked whether further restrictions could include a three-metre social distancing rule, or the requirement to wear masks outside, the home secretary told ITV's This Morning: \"The plans are very much to enforce the rules.\n\n\"This isn't about new rules coming in - we're going to stick with enforcing the current measures.\"\n\nBut Ms Patel did not rule out new measures being announced next week, saying: \"We are not thinking about bringing in new measures today or tomorrow.\"\n\nAt a press conference on Monday, she said police would move more quickly to fine people who break the rules.\n\nOver the course of the pandemic, more than 30,000 such fines have been issued.\n\nA senior backbench Conservative MP has written to his colleagues to criticise the government's approach to coronavirus restrictions.\n\nSteve Baker, deputy chairman of the Covid Recovery Group of MPs, which is sceptical of lockdown measures, said that if the government did not change its strategy, \"inevitably the prime minister's leadership will be on the table: we strongly do not want that after all we have been through as a country\".\n\nHe asked his colleagues to impress upon the party's chief whip the need for \"a clear plan for when our full freedoms will be restored, with a guarantee that this strategy will not be used again next winter\".\n\nHowever, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has questioned why the current lockdown restrictions are \"weaker\" than those imposed in March last year, when deaths and hospitalisations were lower than they are now.\n\nHe questioned why nurseries were open when primary schools were closed, and whether estate agents should be allowed to continue with house viewings.\n\nRules have been further tightened in Scotland this week, with new restrictions on click and collect and takeaway services.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nSpinner Dom Bess took 5-30 as a woeful Sri Lanka batting display left England in control after the opening day of the first Test in Galle.\n\nThe hosts were bowled out for 135 in only 46.1 overs despite winning the toss on a pitch that offered only a little spin.\n\nEngland closed on 127-2, with Joe Root unbeaten on 66, Jonny Bairstow 47 not out and their third-wicket stand worth 110.\n\nDom Sibley and Zak Crawley fell to left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya for four and nine respectively.\n\nSri Lanka's total was the lowest in a first innings in a Galle Test, and was a pitiful exhibition of indiscipline and poor strokes which demonstrated a clear lack of understanding of how to build a Test innings.\n\nEngland, who made five changes from their previous Test in August, were disciplined with the ball and tidy in the field, aside from a drop from debutant Dan Lawrence, with Stuart Broad superb in taking 3-20.\n\nTheir reward was a strong position on their first day of overseas Test cricket since the coronavirus pandemic took hold, and their opening action of a year that includes home and away series against India, a likely two-Test series against world number one side New Zealand and a bid to regain the Ashes in Australia.\n\nThe second day starts at 04:30 GMT on Friday.\n• None 'Right up there with the worst we've seen' - Sri Lanka collapse shocks pundits\n\nWith England's most recent Test being played five months ago, and Sri Lanka playing in South Africa over Christmas and the new year, there was concern that the tourists would not be as prepared as the hosts.\n\nBroad, who had Lahiru Thirimanne caught at leg slip and Kusal Mendis, who has now made a duck in four successive Test innings, caught behind in the seventh over, showcased his experience and guile by turning to off-cutters almost immediately.\n\nBess, playing his 11th Test, may have taken his second five-wicket haul in Tests but struggled to find a consistent line and length.\n\nKusal Perera reverse swept Bess' second ball to Root at slip, while Niroshan Dickwella slapped a long hop to Sibley at point to fall for 12.\n\nAfter getting Dasun Shanaka in fortunate circumstances as a sweep rebounded off Bairstow at short leg into wicketkeeper Jos Buttler's hands, Bess produced a beautifully flighted delivery to bowl Dilruwan Perera between bat and pad for a duck.\n\nHe rounded off the innings by bowling the reverse-sweeping Wanindu Hasaranga for 19 as the hosts lost their last five wickets for 30 runs.\n\nStand-in captain Dinesh Chandimal and Angelo Mathews offered some fight with a stand of 56 for the fourth wicket, the former becoming the 12th Sri Lankan to reach 4,000 Tests runs and Mathews the fifth to 6,000.\n\nHowever, both fell tamely in the space of three balls as Broad - who had taken three wickets in 80 overs in Sri Lanka before this match - had Mathews slashing to slip, before Chandimal looped a simple catch to Sam Curran at cover to give Jack Leach his first Test wicket since November 2019.\n• None Why the Sri Lanka tour matters for the Ashes\n\nFor England this two-Test tour, which was cut short in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, is a build-up to the four-Test series in India that follows.\n\nTo stand any chance of beating Virat Kohli's side England must play spin well, and they will be concerned by the early inroads that Sri Lanka made.\n\nOpener Sibley, whom many feel is vulnerable against spin, edged to slip via his back pad as he attempted to work Embuldeniya to leg.\n\nCrawley, promoted to open given Rory Burns' absence to be at the birth of his first child, looked to take Embuldeniya over the top - a shot he played superbly last summer - but mistimed it to mid-off.\n\nHowever, Root, whose fifty was his 50th in Test cricket, will be buoyed by the way he and the recalled Bairstow nullified the spin threat as they shared England's highest partnership in Galle.\n\nIt was a chanceless stand, although Root overturned an lbw decision on 20 with replays showing the ball would have gone over the stumps.\n\nBoth he and Bairstow scored around the wicket, with Root playing the sweep to good effect, and Bairstow cutting and flicking through mid-wicket well.\n\nThey will hope to build a substantial first-innings lead and turn the match into a three-innings game.\n\n'England didn't have to work hard at all' - reaction\n\nEngland spinner Dom Bess on BBC Test Match Special: \"We have put ourselves in a really good position. Rooty and Jonny batted really well because the wicket started to spin.\n\n\"I felt I was quite nervous. I hadn't bowled in a game since the Test matches last summer.\n\n\"I didn't feel I bowled as well as I know I can. That's cricket, isn't it? There might be days bowl exceptionally well and go 1-100.\"\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan: \"It was a fantastic day for England.\n\n\"The partnership with Root and Bairstow was exactly what was required by Sri Lanka.\n\n\"Mathews and Chandimal are experienced pros. They were playing nicely and then played two rash shots. It was so poor from Sri Lanka.\"\n\nSri Lanka batting coach Grant Flower: \"I'm at a loss for words, I've never seen us bat that badly. They know these conditions well and it should have been a big advantage.\n\n\"England's batsmen showed us there's nothing wrong with the pitch. We batted terribly.\"\n\nFormer Sri Lanka all-rounder Russell Arnold: \"It is not a minefield. It was very poor from Sri Lanka. England didn't have to work hard at all.\n\n\"It is very, very disappointing. It surprised me and I expected a lot more.\"\n• None Can the TV personality make it as a pro footballer?\n• None New drama brings the chilling crimes of Charles Sobhraj to life", "Lucy Edwards, pictured with dog Olga, became BBC Radio 1's first blind presenter when she guested in 2019\n\nA blind social media star said she could be waiting for years for a new guide dog because of delays connected with the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nLucy Edwards creates videos on living with sight loss, which have been watched millions of times.\n\nThe 25-year-old has used a guide dog since she was 17 and said she had lost her independence since her latest dog was retired four months ago.\n\nShe said it was like losing her \"eyesight all over again\".\n\n\"It has really knocked my confidence that in a pandemic I don't have my dog any more,\" Ms Edwards, from Sutton Coldfield, in the West Midlands, said.\n\n\"I don't feel comfortable going outside on my own.\"\n\nLucy Edwards says she struggles to socially distance using her cane alone, as she does not know where people are around her\n\nShe now relies on her cane and her sighted partner, but added she found it difficult to socially distance with just a cane and felt \"scared\" without the support of her dog Olga.\n\nThe Guide Dogs for the Blind Association said the pandemic meant it had been forced to stop dog training for five months last year.\n\nIt said 52 dogs had been trained and become qualified in the Midlands in 2020, compared with 125 in 2019, and added the monthly figures showed a big impact in April.\n\nWhile general dog training is continuing during the third England lockdown, with social distancing measures in place, some orientation and other work has stopped, along with puppy training classes.\n\nWest Bromwich marathon runner Dave Heeley, who was appointed an OBE in the New Year Honours, has been waiting for a dog for more than two years.\n\n\"The dog is your best friend, your dog is your mobility and I don't feel that from a stick,\" he said.\n\nDave Heeley has been waiting two years for a dog\n\nThe Guide Dogs for the Blind Association said over the past two years it had matched 80% of people with a guide dog within 16 months.\n\nThe charity currently has about 5,000 guide dogs working in the UK and within the next few years said it was targeting 1,000 new guide dog partnerships a year.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Employers \"have a duty\" to support staff who suffer domestic abuse but few have adequate policies in place, the government says.\n\nIt said bosses were in a unique position to help but a \"lack of awareness and stigma\" held them back.\n\nCalls to domestic abuse services have surged in the pandemic as couples spend more time at home.\n\nBusiness Minister Paul Scully said employers could be a \"bridge between a worker and the support they need\".\n\n\"It was once taboo to talk about mental health, but now most workplaces have well-established policies in place. We want to see the same happen for domestic abuse, but more quickly and more effectively,\" he said in an open letter to employers.\n\nManagers and colleagues are often the only other people outside the home that victims talk to each day and so \"uniquely placed\" to spot signs of abuse, he said.\n\nThese include becoming more withdrawn than usual, sudden drops in performance, mentions of controlling or coercive behaviour in partners, or physical signs such as bruising.\n\nEmployers did not have to become \"specialists\" in handling domestic abuse, Mr Scully said, but could do more to help, including:\n\nFirms already taking action include Vodafone, which offers specialist training to HR and line managers and support for victims including counselling and additional paid leave.\n\nIn August, law firm Linklaters strengthened its policies and now offers people who need to flee their home but can't stay with others three nights' accommodation in a hotel.\n\nIt also offers the option of paid leave, plus one-off payments of £5,000 to help victims trying to become financially independent.\n\nDomestic violence charity Refuge said it saw an 80% increase in calls to its helpline during the first national lockdown, a trend the government believes has continued.\n\nAnd in November, 43% of respondents to a survey by charity Surviving Economic Abuse showed an abuser had interfered with someone's ability to work or study from home during the crisis.\n\nExamples included hiding phones or computers, removing wi-fi connections, and phoning an employer claiming a breach of lockdown rules, in an apparent effort to get them sacked.\n\nDomestic abuse isn't a new problem, nor does today's call to businesses apply only during a pandemic.\n\nBut coronavirus has highlighted new and existing risks.\n\nFor many victims and survivors, work is a place of respite.\n\nBeing based at home, or on furlough, can reduce communication with team members, and prevent face-to-face chats with colleagues.\n\nI've heard of employers finding simple yet effective ways of supporting staff during the pandemic.\n\nFor example, finding a plausible reason for an employee whose remote communications were being overlooked, to go into the office as a one-off, so they could talk freely and hand over an ID document for safe keeping.\n\nOf course, not every business can afford to offer emergency accommodation or financial support to those in urgent need. But the focus of today's letter is on awareness, using free support and removing stigma.\n\nThe charity Surviving Economic Abuse wants the government to go further, and put paid leave for domestic abuse victims into law.\n\nElizabeth Filkin, who chairs the Employer's Initiative on Domestic Abuse, argues there are real benefits in supporting staff - including around productivity, loyalty and reputation.\n\nEmployment lawyer Sarah Chilton, a partner at CM Murray, told the BBC that all employers have a duty to protect their staff's health and safety while working from home. That includes if they are being subjected to domestic abuse.\n\n\"Where an employee is required to work at home during, for example, the pandemic, the employer should take account of any risk to that person's physical and mental health and safety in the environment in which they work.\"\n\nAngela Ogilvie, global director of HR at Linklaters, said training was vital to spot signs of abuse, especially now.\n\n\"Victims may avoid calls or videos for example. They may become quiet, anxious or tearful, secretive about their home life.\n\n\"And it's being conscious of how you start those conversations because they may be overheard, so you may have to switch your conversation to email or text.\"\n\nMr Scully said the government would consult on ways to help domestic abuse victims at work, for instance by making it easier to request flexible working.\n\nThe government's Domestic Abuse Bill also continues to make its way through parliament.\n\nIt will bring into law a statutory definition of domestic abuse that includes coercive or controlling behaviour as well as emotional and economic abuse.", "Last updated on .From the section Tennis\n\nFormer world number one Andy Murray's participation at the Australian Open is in doubt after the Briton tested positive for coronavirus.\n\nThe 33-year-old Scot was set to fly out to Melbourne on a chartered flight arriving there over the next 36 hours.\n\nInstead he remains in quarantine and isolating at home in London.\n\nMurray, who is said to be in good health, remains hopeful he will be allowed to travel safely at a later date and compete as planned.\n\nThe five-time Australian Open runner-up pulled out of last week's ATP event in Delray Beach as he wanted to \"minimise the risks\" of catching a transatlantic flight to Florida.\n\n'He will be refused'\n\nThe Australian Open will start on 8 February at Melbourne Park, three weeks later than usual, because of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nPlayers must test negative before taking one of the 15 chartered flights - which have been put on by tournament organisers and will operate at 25% capacity - to Australia.\n\nOnce they have arrived, they will have to pass a series of Covid tests during a 14-day quarantine in Melbourne before the Grand Slam.\n\n\"Mr Murray, and the other 1,240 people as part of the program, need to demonstrate that if they're coming to Melbourne they have returned a negative test,\" said Victorian state health minister Martin Foley.\n\n\"So should Mr Murray arrive, and I have no indication that he will, he will be subject to those same rigorous arrangements as everyone else. Should he test positive prior to his attempts to come to Australia, he will be refused.\"\n\nMurray's planned appearance at Melbourne Park would come two years after he played there in what he feared would be his final match as a professional.\n\nAt 123rd in the world, Murray is ranked too low to gain direct entry into the tournament so the three-time Grand Slam champion has been given a wildcard.\n\nMurray was able to play only seven official matches in 2020 because of a lingering pelvic injury, and the five-month suspension of the tours because of the pandemic.\n\nThe Scot is among a number of players to have their plans disrupted.\n\nAmerican Madison Keys, who reached the Australian Open women's singles semi-finals in 2015, said she would not be playing in Melbourne after testing positive for coronavirus.\n\nWorld number two Rafael Nadal is travelling to Melbourne in search of a record 21st Grand Slam men's singles title without coach Carlos Moya, who has decided to stay at home in Spain with his family because of the health situation.\n\nWorld number three Dominic Thiem's coach Nicolas Massu has also not travelled after a positive Covid test, Thiem's father Wolfgang told Austrian newspaper Kurier.\n\n'Change of year, but not a change of luck' - analysis\n\nA change of year does not appear to have brought about a change of luck for Andy Murray.\n\nHe is now hoping he will be given permission to arrive in Melbourne late - and outside the window Tennis Australia painstakingly negotiated with the Victorian state government.\n\nIf he does get the green light to travel, having completed self-isolation in the UK and returned a negative test, he will still have to spend 14 days in quarantine on arrival.\n\nThat means he won't be able to play in the warm-up events the week before the Australian Open.\n\nBut it would keep alive his hopes of playing in the first Grand Slam of the year, as players will be allowed out of their rooms to practise for five hours a day during quarantine.\n\nAmerican player Tennys Sandgren, meanwhile, boarded a charter plane to Melbourne despite testing positive for coronavirus.\n\nThe world number 50, a two-time Australian Open quarter-finalist, tweeted that after testing positive in November he had returned another positive on Monday and might not be able to fly on Wednesday.\n\nBut Australian Open organisers said his medical file had been reviewed by Victoria state authorities and he had then been cleared to fly.\n\nThey explained that players are only allowed to enter Australia with proof of a negative test done just before departure or \"with approval to travel as a recovered case at the complete discretion of an Australian government authority\".\n\nSandgren posted on social media that he had been ill in November but was \"totally healthy now\".\n\n\"My two tests were less than eight weeks apart,\" he wrote. \"There's not a single documented case where I would be contagious at this point.\"\n\nLisa Neville, minister for police and emergency services, tweeted: \"Tennys Sandgren's positive result was reviewed by health experts and determined to be viral shedding from a previous infection, so was given the all clear to fly.\n\n\"No-one who is Covid positive for the first time - or could still be infectious - will be allowed in for the Aus Open.\"\n• None Alerts: Get tennis news sent to your phone\n• None Can the TV personality make it as a pro footballer?\n• None New drama brings the chilling crimes of Charles Sobhraj to life", "Passengers will need to provide a negative Covid-19 test taken within 72 hours before departure\n\nPassengers arriving into NI from outside the UK and Republic of Ireland will soon have to produce a negative Covid-19 test before departure.\n\nFirst Minister Arlene Foster confirmed the executive had agreed the plan on Thursday.\n\nPeople arriving from countries not on the government's travel corridors list will also still have to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nThe move has already been agreed in the Republic of Ireland.\n\nPassengers arriving there will be subject to the new rules from Saturday, with the measure taking effect in England and Scotland from Monday.\n\nNegative tests 72 hours prior to arrival are already a requirement in the Republic of Ireland for passengers travelling from Great Britain and South Africa.\n\nSpeaking at Stormont's press conference on Thursday, the first minister said Northern Ireland's R-number had also fallen to between 0.7 and 0.9 for new cases of the virus.\n\nThe reproductive rate of the virus - known as the R rate, measures the infection rate of Covid-19 and had risen to about 1.8 due to Christmas relaxations.\n\nDeputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said the drop showed the \"very real\" effect of lockdown restrictions imposed on 26 December, but she warned there was still \"no room for complacency\".\n\nShe said she still believed there needed to be an \"two-island approach\" to travel restrictions, including discussions with the British and Irish governments as a \"matter of urgency\".\n\nMrs Foster said Stormont ministers had also expressed frustration at the executive meeting over a lack of data-sharing from authorities in the Republic of Ireland, and called for it to be escalated.\n\nPSNI Chief Constable (centre) Simon Byrne attended Stormont's press briefing on Thursday with the first and deputy first ministers\n\nPSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne said 40 penalty notices a day are being handed out to those who breach the Covid-19 regulations.\n\nHe told the press briefing that if people continued flouting rules, they could expect \"firm and swift enforcement\".\n\n\"We won't turn a blind eye when people break the rules.\"\n\nOn Thursday, 16 more deaths related to Covid-19 were reported by the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, bringing its total to 1,533.\n\nThere have been 973 new cases diagnosed in the past 24 hours, while 58 Covid-19 patients are being treated in ICUs across Northern Ireland, of which 44 are on ventilators.\n\nMrs Foster said she found it \"incredible and frankly unbelievable\" that some people were still holding house parties and gatherings, despite the pandemic rates and the lockdown.\n\nOn Wednesday, health officials warned that levels of the new, more transmissible variant of the virus are rising.\n\nMr Swann said that meant more \"difficult decisions\" on lockdown restrictions could be required.\n\nNorthern Ireland is in the third week of a six-week lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19.\n\nThe executive is due to review the current restrictions on 21 January.\n\nThe first and deputy first ministers said they would take evidence from health officials before deciding whether an extension of the lockdown would be required.\n\nMinisters have expressed concerns about keeping non-essential parts of businesses open\n\nMinisters have also expressed concerns about some larger retailers \"gaming\" the regulations and keeping open non-essential parts of their businesses.\n\nA meeting between the first and deputy first ministers and representatives of the retail sector is due to happen on Friday afternoon.\n\nElsewhere, the Chief Medical Officer has confirmed that unpaid carers looking after Clinically Extremely Vulnerable individuals should receive the first dose of their vaccine when phase two of the vaccination programme begins next month.\n\nDr Michael McBride told Stormont's Health Committee they are provided for on a list of prioritisation provided by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which decides the order of vaccination delivery.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Department of Health This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Department of Health\n\nMr Swann was asked if his department was \"putting all its eggs in the vaccine basket\".\n\nHe said it was \"not the entirety of the answer\", adding: \"It will take time for the benefits of it to bed in.\n\n\"And while it is doing it, we still have to follow those restrictions that are in place.\n\n\"We may actually have to introduce more.\"\n\nOn Thursday afternoon the department tweeted that 121,711 vaccines have been administered in Northern Ireland.\n\nMrs Foster said that by end of this month, it is hoped all care home residents, health staff and those aged over 80 in Northern Ireland will have received their first vaccination.\n\nShe said that would be an \"incredible achievement\" and make Northern Ireland one of the top-performing countries in rolling out its vaccination programme.\n\nMeanwhile, the chairman of the Police Federation for NI (PFNI) has said officers need more powers to enforce Covid-19 regulations.\n\nAt present officers can only issue guidance and advice on the public health regulations.\n\nPFNI chairman Mark Lindsay said that puts officers in a \"difficult position\".\n\nThe federation represents thousands of rank and file PSNI officers.\n\n\"I think we are well past the stage where police officers are the people that should be giving advice around the guidance,\" Mr Lindsay told BBC Radio Foyle.", "President Trump has just become the first sitting president to be impeached twice by the US House of Representatives.\n\nWe asked members of our BBC voter panel to weigh in as well.\n\nHere's what they said:\n\nQuote Message: Everything he has done is unconstitutional and, as a president, the number one thing he should be doing is upholding the Constitution. If not for him continually fighting the election results and claiming the election was stolen, if not for him holding that rally near the Capitol, if not for him talking about 'uprising', last week would very likely not have happened. Unfortunately it was completely predictable. from Melissa Dangaran 51, from Minnesota Everything he has done is unconstitutional and, as a president, the number one thing he should be doing is upholding the Constitution. If not for him continually fighting the election results and claiming the election was stolen, if not for him holding that rally near the Capitol, if not for him talking about 'uprising', last week would very likely not have happened. Unfortunately it was completely predictable.\n\nQuote Message: Unprecedented. He should not have been impeached at all. There is no justification, no legal basis, no constitutional basis for it. It's a rush to judgment for ulterior motives and a dark stain on our country. I'm concerned about the double standard and I'm afraid our Constitution is on its deathbed. Why would anybody who's rational think that our president meant for people to go break into the Capitol? from Belinda Noah 45, from Florida Unprecedented. He should not have been impeached at all. There is no justification, no legal basis, no constitutional basis for it. It's a rush to judgment for ulterior motives and a dark stain on our country. I'm concerned about the double standard and I'm afraid our Constitution is on its deathbed. Why would anybody who's rational think that our president meant for people to go break into the Capitol?\n\nQuote Message: It's more of a symbolic impeachment at this point because he'll be out soon, but it's necessary nonetheless. Not only is he a threat to our national security, but he doesn't condone white supremacy and other threats. It's deeply saddening to me. from Williams Morales 19, from Georgia It's more of a symbolic impeachment at this point because he'll be out soon, but it's necessary nonetheless. Not only is he a threat to our national security, but he doesn't condone white supremacy and other threats. It's deeply saddening to me.\n\nQuote Message: I was in DC at the rally - not near the Capitol - but I saw the president speak with my own eyes and he did not call for anyone to storm the building or cause harm. It's just a way to ensure he will not run in the next four years. It is political and it will create a bigger divide between left and right. All violence should be condemned fairly and justly. It was a very sad outcome, but I do not believe it was the most horrible day in our country's history. from Gabriel Montalvo 21, from New York I was in DC at the rally - not near the Capitol - but I saw the president speak with my own eyes and he did not call for anyone to storm the building or cause harm. It's just a way to ensure he will not run in the next four years. It is political and it will create a bigger divide between left and right. All violence should be condemned fairly and justly. It was a very sad outcome, but I do not believe it was the most horrible day in our country's history.", "Siegfried and Roy were one of the hottest tickets in Las Vegas\n\nSiegfried Fischbacher, one half of celebrated magic double act Siegfried and Roy, has died from pancreatic cancer in Las Vegas at the age of 81.\n\nThe pair were among the biggest names in the world of magic and were known for working with lions and tigers.\n\nPaying tribute, David Copperfield called him a \"legend in magic\", and Penn Jillette said Siegfried and Roy were \"pure showbiz and pure class\".\n\nRoy Horn died from Covid-19 complications last May.\n\nThe pair \"invented the full length magic show headlining Vegas\", according to Jillette, who is known as part of the duo Penn and Teller.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Penn Jillette This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSiegfried and Roy teamed up in their native Germany in the 1950s, and the highlight of their extravagant shows was their performances with white lions and white tigers.\n\nHorn was attacked by a 400lb white Bengal tiger named Montecore during a performance in Las Vegas in 2003, leaving him partially paralysed and using a wheelchair.\n\nHe underwent lengthy rehabilitation and was later able to walk again, but the attack ended the duo's long-running Las Vegas residency.\n\nRoy Horn (left) had to use a wheelchair after the tiger attack\n\nFischbacher and Horn, whose real name was Uwe Ludwig Horn, had met on a cruise ship and were later signed up by a liner company.\n\nAfter being spotted and signed to perform at a nightclub in Bremen, they went on to tour Europe and brought tigers into their act.\n\nBut they shot to worldwide fame after launching their Las Vegas shows in the 1960s.\n\nTheir unique brand of magic and artistry consistently attracted sell-out crowds. They performed an estimated 5,000 shows for 10 million fans in the city after 1990, when they began performing at the Mirage hotel-casino.\n\nThey were also estimated to have grossed more than $1bn by 2001, which included their thousands of shows at other venues in earlier years.\n\nIn 2004, their act became the basis for the animated comedy Father of the Pride, about the mischievous adventures of a family of white lions who perform with Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas.\n\nHorn's condition improved and by 2006 he was able to talk and walk with assistance from Fischbacher.\n\nIn 2009, the duo staged a final appearance with a tiger (said to be Montecore, but this was disputed by some) at a benefit for the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute in Las Vegas.\n\nSiegfried Fischbacher was devoted to his partner Roy\n\nThey retired from showbusiness in 2010. After Horn's death last year, Fischbacher said: \"Today, the world has lost one of the greats of magic, but I have lost my best friend.\n\n\"From the moment we met, I knew Roy and I, together, would change the world. There could be no Siegfried without Roy, and no Roy without Siegfried.\"\n\nFischbacher recently had a 12-hour operation to remove a malignant tumour. He had been receiving care at home from two hospice workers in recent days.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nRichard Leonard has resigned as Scottish Labour leader, saying it is in the best interests of the party for him to stand down.\n\nMr Leonard said he believed speculation about his leadership had become a \"distraction\".\n\nAnd he said he would be stepping down with immediate effect.\n\nHis resignation comes just months ahead of the Scottish Parliament election, which is scheduled to be held in May.\n\nMr Leonard had been leader of the party for three years after succeeding Kezia Dugdale.\n\nThe former union official had faced open calls to quit from some of his own MSPs last year amid concerns that his leadership style could damage the party in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament election.\n\nPolls have suggested that many Scottish Labour supporters struggle to recognise him, and he is closely associated with former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.\n\nScottish Labour had dominated politics in Scotland for decades, but is currently the third largest party at Holyrood behind the SNP and Conservatives.\n\nAnd Mr Leonard's critics had questioned whether he was capable of turning the party's fortunes around.\n\nMr Leonard was seen as a close ally of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn\n\nIn a statement, Mr Leonard said the decision to resign had not been easy - but he felt it was the right one for him and his party.\n\nHe said: \"I have thought long and hard over the Christmas period about what this crisis means, and the approach Scottish Labour takes to help tackle it.\n\n\"I have also considered what the speculation about my leadership does to our ability to get Labour's message across. This has become a distraction.\n\n\"I have come to the conclusion it is in the best interests of the party that I step aside as leader of Scottish Labour with immediate effect.\"\n\nHe also insisted that Scotland now needs a Labour government more than ever, and accused both the Scottish and UK governments of mishandling the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nMr Leonard added: \"While I step down from the leadership today, the work goes on - and I will play my constructive part as an MSP in winning support for Labour's vision of a better future in a democratic economy and a socialist society.\"\n\nHis decision leaves Scottish Labour looking for its fifth leader since the independence referendum in 2014 - with Johann Lamont, Jim Murphy and Kezia Dugdale all having held the job since then.\n\nA Procedures Committee, to oversee the election of Mr Leonard's successor, has been formed and will have its first meeting on Friday.\n\nMeanwhile, Labour's Scottish Executive Committee will also meet in the coming days to agree a timetable for the process.\n\nMSP Jackie Baillie, who was Scottish Labour's deputy leader, has taken charge of the party on an interim basis.\n\nThis sudden resignation four months from the Holyrood elections seems to have taken Scottish Labour by surprise.\n\nMSPs I've spoken to said they did not see it coming.\n\nThere have been times when Richard Leonard has been under severe pressure from some in his party to stand down.\n\nWhen several MSPs publicly called for him to quit because the party had gone backwards at successive elections on his watch, he stood firm.\n\nHis critics seemed to have accepted that he would lead them and a divided party into the Holyrood election.\n\nThat has now changed and interim leader Jackie Baillie has to quickly organise a contest to replace him.\n\nIt's a contest in which Anas Sarwar, if he stands, would be an obvious frontrunner - even although he lost last time to Mr Leonard, who was seen as much closer to the then UK party leader, Jeremy Corbyn.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Mr Leonard should be \"very proud\" of his achievements as leader of the party in Scotland.\n\nSir Keir added: \"I would like to thank Richard for his service to our party and his unwavering commitment to the values he believes in.\n\n\"Richard has led Scottish Labour through one of the most challenging and difficult periods in our country's history, including a general election and the pandemic.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Neil Findlay MSP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Leonard had been due to face a confidence vote at the party's ruling Executive Committee last September - but the motion was withdrawn at the last minute.\n\nIt came after four Scottish Labour MSPs called for him to go, warning that the party faced \"catastrophe\" at the ballot box under his leadership.\n\nThey pointed to the party's dismal performance in previous elections under Mr Leonard.\n\nScottish Labour finished fifth in the European election in May 2019, and then lost all but one of its MPs in the general election in December of the same year.\n\nMr Leonard insisted at the time that he intended to lead the party into this year's Holyrood election, and accused his opponents of waging \"internal war\" against him.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who faced Mr Leonard in her weekly question session in the Scottish Parliament, tweeted that she had \"always liked Richard Leonard\" despite their political difference.\n\nShe added: \"He is a decent guy and I wish him well for the future.\"\n\nRuth Davidson, who quit as leader of the Scottish Tories in 2019 before returning to lead the party at Holyrood, said she had always found Mr Leonard to be a \"thoroughly decent man and a committed campaigner.\"\n\nAnas Sarwar, who was defeated by Mr Leonard in the leadership contest in 2017 and is seen as one of the favourites to replace him, said he was sure Mr Leonard would \"continue to fight for a fairer, more just and more equal society today, tomorrow and long into the future.\"\n\nBut Labour MSP Neil Findlay, an outspoken supporter of Mr Leonard, took aim at those who had sought to oust him last year - describing them as \"flinching cowards\" and \"sneering traitors\".", "Primark stores have been hit hard by lockdown\n\nPrimark says it has no plans to sell its clothes online despite warning that lockdown store closures could cost it more than £1bn in lost sales.\n\nSome 305 of Primark's 389 global stores are shut - including all 190 UK outlets - but unlike rivals it has no online arm to fall back on.\n\nCustomers have said they would welcome the retailer setting up an online shop.\n\nBut Primark, which saw a 30% sales fall to £2bn in the 16 weeks to 2 January, says the cost would mean price rises.\n\nIt contrasts with online only fashion retailers such as Asos and Boohoo, whose sales rose by around 40% in the last four months of 2020.\n\nOn Thursday, consumers called on Primark to embrace e-commerce with one tweeting: \"Online sales are thru the roof during the pandemic. You're missing out on a LOT of money.\"\n\nBut the retailer tweeted back: \"We prefer to sell our products in our physical stores but thanks for the suggestion.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Primark This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSince March last year, non-essential shops in the UK and overseas have faced strict curbs and prolonged closures and all are currently shut in England.\n\nIn a statement, Primark said that if all of its stores stayed closed until 27 February 2021, it expected to miss out on £1.05bn of sales - up from a previous estimate of £650m.\n\nThe retailer said it would partially mitigate this by cutting its costs, but did not say if that would mean job losses. It added that it only expected to break even in the first half of the financial year, after seeing healthy operating profits of £441m last time around.\n\nIn the past Primark has said it won't sell online because the cost of manning the operation and processing high volumes of returns would mean it could no longer offer low prices.\n\n\"As a fast fashion retailer they are on a low margins anyway - they have to be very competitive on price,\" Patrick O'Brien, UK retail research director at GlobalData told the BBC.\n\nHe said pure online players like Asos and Boohoo could make it work because they were \"geared up for it in terms of logistics\".\n\nPrimark shops saw strong sales when they reopened after the first lockdown\n\n\"But Primark would be starting from scratch, and would have to integrate any new online operation with its existing store structure which would be costly.\"\n\nDespite this Mr O'Brien said the retailer was still likely succeed, pointing to the surge in sales it saw when its shops reopened after the first lockdown.\n\nBut Retail Economics' Richard Lim said Primark was at risk of \"potentially alienating its customers\" who increasingly expect to be able to shop online.\n\n\"They have very loyal customers who love the brand, but they are crying out to be able to access it online.\n\n\"The longer they are not online, the more disruptive it is. The more their customers are discovering new brands and ways to shop.\"\n\nAssociated British Foods also owns food and agriculture businesses. Sales across the group were down 13% in the 16 weeks to 2 January at £4.8bn.\n\nThere are always winners and losers in retail but this Christmas the picture is more polarised than ever thanks to the effects of the pandemic. Just contrast the fortunes of Primark, which doesn't sell online, with Boohoo and Asos which have both reported soaring growth in sales.\n\nAll our big supermarkets have now reported bumper Christmas trading, too, which is no real surprise given we can't go out to eat and so many of us are working from home. This growth has also been driven by an extraordinary rise in internet orders.\n\nWhile Primark is bracing itself to lose £1bn in business as a result of store closures, Tesco says it added £1bn of extra sales online this festive quarter. It's been very tough for many traditional non-food retailers, big and small, who've been unable to make up for all the lost sales from their High Street shops. Looking ahead, the big question is where the online dial will settle when our lives eventually return to normal.", "The number of people being treated in Scotland's hospitals for coronavirus has reached another record daily high.\n\nLatest Scottish government figures show a total of 1,596 people are in hospital with recently confirmed Covid.\n\nThis is up from Friday's figure of 1,530 patients.\n\nThe deaths of a further 93 people who had tested positive for the virus have been recorded in the past 24 hours, the same tally as Friday which was the highest daily figure of the pandemic.\n\nIt is the second day in a row there has been a record figure for Covid hospital patients.\n\nOf the 1,596 people in hospital, a total of 109 are in intensive care, up seven on Friday's figure.\n\nNational clinical director Prof Jason Leitch said Scotland's hospitals were \"very busy and fragile\" but coping so far.\n\nHe said: \"People should not be worried we have reached capacity but the best way of getting those numbers down is to reduce the prevalence of the virus.\"\n\nProf Leitch said the NHS could create more intensive care capacity if needed but \"all of that has a cost in what we won't be able to do\" elsewhere in the health service.\n\nThe NHS Louisa Jordan temporary hospital in Glasgow can be used to care for the sickest of Covid patients if the spike in admissions continues, but officials are trying to avoid this \"if we can manage without it\", Prof Leitch added.\n\nThis is because it is better for patients and staff for Covid patients to be in traditional intensive care units, he explained.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon has described the latest Covid figures as \"a big concern\".\n\nOn Twitter, she said: \"Covid case numbers still a big concern and putting huge pressure on the NHS, as hospital and ICU cases increase.\n\n\"Also, 93 further deaths remind us just how dangerous the virus can be - my thoughts are with all those grieving.\"]\n\nThe Scottish government data shows a further 1,865 new cases of Covid have been reported in the last 24 hours, down from the 2,309 cases reported on Friday.\n\nHowever, the daily test positivity rate is 8.7%, up from 8.1% on the previous day.\n\nThis breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.\n\nYou can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts.", "A 28-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after two men died at a property in east London.\n\nPolice were called to an address in Tavistock Gardens, Ilford, at 04:24 GMT to reports of a disturbance.\n\nTwo men were found seriously injured inside the property and both died at the scene.\n\nThe woman, who was Tasered during the arrest, also suffered non life-threatening injuries. She has been taken to hospital, the Met Police said.\n\nA man who lives a short way down the street said he was awoken by the sounds of a woman screaming.\n\nKuddus Miah, 44, said: \"She was screaming 'help, help, call the police'.\n\n\"The police and ambulances were there very quick.\"\n\nThe men who were found seriously injured on Sunday morning died at the scene\n\n\"I got changed out my PJs and went outside and asked one of the neighbours opposite what happened.\n\n\"She said a woman was coming in and out of the house crying out for help.\n\n\"Apparently they were new tenants. We've lived here around 15 years and it's a very quiet neighbourhood, it's shocking.\"\n\nSeveral forensics officers were seen outside the house and a large police cordon has been put in place.\n\nForensic officers have been seen working in the house\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Sarah and her husband Gary lived in the caravan on the drive for nine months\n\nA nurse who lived in a caravan for nine months to protect her mother from coronavirus says moving back into her house was like \"winning the lottery\".\n\nSarah Link and her husband Gary, who usually share a home with her mother, bought the caravan in March to allow them to isolate.\n\n\"I have cried a river in the caravan, if it wasn't for Gary, I wouldn't have got through it,\" Mrs Link said.\n\nThey moved back home for Christmas after her mother received the vaccine.\n\nThe caravan, bought for £600 and parked on their own drive in Cradley, in the Black Country, allowed Mrs Link to continue working at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital and her husband at his fishmonger's business.\n\n\"I'd do it again tomorrow. I would do it every time, I would have done anything to protect mum,\" she said.\n\n\"We were thinking it would be four weeks, 12 weeks max, then the summer came and went and nine months later we were still there. It was incredible, I just can't believe we did it,\" Mrs Link, who has been a nurse for 17 years, said.\n\nThe couple both contracted coronavirus in December, but carried on living in the caravan so they could self-isolate and continue to protect Mrs Link's 84-year-old mother.\n\nMrs Link said her Christmas this year was \"magical\" after moving out of the caravan\n\n\"I went back to work properly last week. I still get tired easily and suffer with fatigue, but I'm OK,\" Mrs Link said.\n\n\"It's getting ridiculous the cases... some people still walk around and don't believe it's real. If people came on my ward and see what I've seen.\"\n\nMrs Link said she had not hugged her mother since before March as they were still taking precautions to keep her safe.\n\nShe said Christmas and new year had been \"magical\" adding it was the \"best\" she had ever experienced after being able to move back home.\n\n\"We all cried when it turned midnight, that year we'd all had.\n\n\"It was like winning the lottery, waking up in a proper bed.\n\n\"We're in the warm... I wouldn't be happier if I'd won a million pounds.\"\n\nThe couple decorated the caravan throughout the year\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Vincent Kane - pictured with his grandson Sonny - is facing uncertainty about his operation\n\nThe son of a man with pancreatic cancer has said the last-minute cancellation of his surgery has been \"devastating\".\n\nJodie Kane said his father Vincent was due to have his operation on Friday.\n\nHowever, that procedure was cancelled by the Belfast Health Trust on Tuesday as the worsening coronavirus crisis increases the pressure on hospitals.\n\nThe trust apologised, saying it had faced an 80% rise in the number of patients with Covid-19 admitted to hospitals since Christmas Day.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan Show, Jodie said that there was now \"no guarantee\" his 68-year-old father would get the treatment.\n\n\"To be told we had the chance of a very successful surgery on offer and then to have it taken away at the last minute is pretty devastating,\" he said.\n\n\"Even the surgeon himself said they would be concerned if it was to go on more than four weeks.\n\n\"There is an uncertainty hanging over us now that we don't know when he'll actually get that surgery or what the impact on his health is going to be.\"\n\nVincent Kane - pictured with his with wife Karen - has been suffering other health issues arising from his cancer\n\nVincent, from Newtownards, County Down, did not receive treatment for some of his other symptoms as it was planned that the surgery would help with those.\n\n\"Because they were hoping to get him straight into surgery he hasn't had the blockage in his gall bladder addressed so he's jaundiced, he's covered in a rash, can't sleep, he's lost a lot of weight,\" Jodie said.\n\n\"Undoubtedly there are people worse off than us out there but it is still a critical illness that he has got and it is one that we don't have an end in sight for, in terms of treatment.\n\n\"There must be a way of helping all those in need, or I suppose if you were being really honest about it those who stand the best chance of surviving - making the decisions for the benefit of them.\n\n\"There's no guarantee that in six weeks' time surgery is going to be an option because who knows what's going to happen with Covid?\"\n\nThe Belfast Health Trust said it had to reduce the number of ill patients on wards to protect them from coronavirus\n\nJodie called on those who were breaking Covid-19 regulations to think about the the \"direct and indirect impacts\" of their actions.\n\n\"We've every sympathy for anyone who has a loved one who needs [intensive] care because of Covid but cancer and Covid are both life-and-death situations.\n\n\"We can minimise the risks of one of them as a collective society just by taking the necessary precautions.\n\n\"It could be someone they love or their neighbour or someone in their community that's in the same situation as us in the very near future.\"\n\nFlo McClements, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in December, found out on Tuesday that her surgery - scheduled for Thursday - had been cancelled by the Belfast Health Trust.\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio Foyle, her son Gregg said the pressure was \"mounting day by day\" on the the 72-year-old from Ballymoney, County Antrim.\n\n\"She had waited all through Christmas for the date and due to the Covid-19 restrictions we as a family had stayed away from her,\" he added.\n\nFlo McClements' family wants to \"give her a hug\" after her operation was cancelled\n\n\"We left her on her own with my dad just to make sure she didn't catch Covid and risk the operation.\n\n\"When you get the date you like to think it's the next step to recovery but unfortunately that didn't happen.\"\n\nGregg said his mother was \"putting on a brave face\" but it was difficult for the family to not be with her in person during what was a difficult time.\n\n\"That's actually the hardest part that we can't go up and have a cup of tea with her or give her a hug to make her feel a bit better even for a few minutes.\"\n\nThe Belfast Health Trust said it \"would like to sincerely apologise\" to those affected by the postponement of surgeries.\n\nIt said the decision was taken to reduce the number of ill patients on wards that would be more at risk from the virus than others.\n\n\"This was an incredibly difficult decision to make and we did not take it without considering all the information available to us,\" said the trust.\n\n\"We do not underestimate the anxiety and distress this causes the patients and families affected and we deeply regret this.\n\nIt said it would do \"everything in our power\" to reschedule their operations \"as soon as possible\".", "The company offered to pay surgeries a £5,000 charitable donation \"or to the staff member directly\" in emails\n\nThe Hacking Trust's medical division approached surgeries in Bristol and Worthing offering to pay the money to charity \"or the staff member directly\".\n\nRobyn Clark, from the Institute of General Practice Management, said it was \"just appalling\".\n\nThe company, based in London, has apologised, saying its \"good intentions\" were \"misinterpreted\".\n\nNHS England said people \"will rightly take a dim view of anyone who tries to jump the queue\".\n\n\"The NHS is free at the point of access for everyone who needs it,\" said Mrs Clark.\n\n\"What we felt this company was trying to do was jump the queue.\"\n\nThe Bristol-based manager said she worried it could \"create more health inequality\".\n\nShe said: \"The JCVI [Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation] is trying to prioritise the vaccine based on the vulnerability to Covid.\"\n\nThe e-mail sent to the GP surgery in Worthing said The Hacking Trust was aware that \"many appointments\" for vaccinations are not kept, and that it would be interested in being informed of \"any no-shows\".\n\nA donation of £5,000 would be paid to a staff member or given to charity for each dose it could secure, the e-mail said.\n\nIn a statement, the Battersea-based company said it \"offered charitable donations to staff or surgeries in this difficult time for any vaccines which were unused\".\n\nIt added: \"We had heard that some vaccines were being unused due to missed appointments. We would apologise that our good intentions have been misinterpreted.\"\n\nNHS England said it knew \"these particular emails were received across the country\".\n\nDr Nikki Kanani, GP and NHS medical director for primary care, said hundreds of NHS teams across the country were \"working hard to deliver vaccines quickly to those who would benefit most\".\n\n\"NHS staff will never ask for, or accept, cash for vaccines,\" she said.\n\nThe Department of Health and Social Care said vaccinations were available from the NHS \"for free\" and \"cannot be sold privately in the UK\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Online supermarket Ocado has become the first big retailer to warn of shortages of some products.\n\nIt told customers in an email that there may be \"an increase of missing items and substitutions over the next few weeks\".\n\nStaff sickness and self-isolation means some food producers are cutting the number of product lines they offer.\n\nWhile customers might not get their exact product choice, plenty of food should be available, Ocado said.\n\n\"Staff absences across the supply chain may lead to an increase in product substitutions for a small number of customers as some suppliers consolidate their offering to maintain output,\" a spokesperson said.\n\nThe news comes after a rush of online food orders for supermarkets, as shoppers try to stay at home after the new lockdown started.\n\nWithin a couple of hours of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's speech to the nation on Monday, shoppers reported problems with Sainsbury's and Tesco, while Ocado customers were placed in a virtual queue.\n\nOcado told its customers that from Friday \"changes to the UK supply chain have affected some of our suppliers and may result in an increase of missing items and substitutions over the next few weeks.\"\n\nIt added: \"We apologise for any inconvenience caused and we are working hard to mitigate any impact.\"\n\nFood suppliers are grappling with staffing problems, hospitality clients who have closed their doors and delays at the border with the EU.\n\nWholesalers the BBC spoke to this week said they faced throwing away thousands of pounds worth of food because of cancelled orders following new restrictions.\n\nThe UK meat industry has called for the early vaccination of its workers to keep food supplies running smoothly during the coronavirus crisis.\n\nIt warned earlier this week that absences during the pandemic, coupled with disruption at ports, could hit food supply chains.\n\nAn early vaccination call for supermarket staff was also made by the boss of Sainsbury's on Thursday.\n\nThe government said the food industry remains \"well-prepared\" to make sure people have the food they need.\n\nThe British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) said coronavirus and disruption at ports due to new systems brought in after the Brexit transition period were \"a severe challenge to the industry and to the smooth running of the nation's food supply chain\".", "Home Secretary Priti Patel has said officers \"will not hesitate\" to enforce lockdown rules as she defended the way police have handled breaches.\n\nShe said rising numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths illustrated the need for \"strong enforcement\".\n\nIt comes after the National Police Chiefs' Council published guidance saying officers should issue fines more quickly when rules are broken.\n\nMore than 30,000 fines have been handed out by forces in England and Wales.\n\nNPCC figures show 32,329 fixed penalty notices were issued between 27 March and 21 December last year.\n\nThe number of people who have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test surpassed 80,000 on Saturday, and a further 59,937 people tested positive.\n\nMinisters have launched a new campaign urging people to act like they have the virus and scientists have warned that lockdown measures in England need to be stricter.\n\n\"The vast majority of the public have supported this huge national effort and followed the rules,\" Ms Patel said.\n\n\"But the tragic number of new cases and deaths this week shows there is still a need for strong enforcement where people are clearly breaking these rules to ensure we safeguard our country's recovery from this deadly virus.\n\n\"Enforcing these rules saves lives. It is as simple as that. Officers will continue to engage with the public across the country and will not hesitate to take action when necessary.\"\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock has warned the public to follow the lockdown restrictions, telling the BBC's Andrew Marr programme that \"every time you try to flex the rules, that could be fatal\".\n\nBut Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer criticised the government for not providing \"absolute clarity of messaging\", telling the BBC's Andrew Marr that there had been \"mixed messaging over the last nine months\".\n\nNPCC guidance, published on 6 January, says officers should still offer people \"encouragement\" to comply with the regulations and explain any changes.\n\n\"However, if the individual or group does not respond appropriately, then enforcement can follow without repeated attempts to encourage people to comply with the law,\" the NPCC said.\n\nOn Saturday 12 people were arrested during an anti-lockdown protest in south London.\n\nElsewhere, North Wales Police turned away more than 100 cars at Moel Famau in Flintshire by Saturday lunchtime, and Norfolk Police fined one couple who had travelled about 130 miles (209km) to see a seal colony.\n\nHowever, Derbyshire Police has launched an urgent review into how fines were issued after two women were charged £200 each.\n\nThe pair were stopped by officers for walking five miles from their home with hot drinks, which they were told were not allowed as they were \"classed as a picnic\".\n\nJohn Apter, chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said officers were under \"immense pressure to do the right thing\" and said with \"such a changing landscape politically and legally\" there were going to be things which did not go right.\n\nHe said the police had to balance the relationship with the public.\n\n\"It's not easy because all we are trying to do in policing is keep as many people safe as possible,\" he said.", "The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have received Covid-19 vaccinations, Buckingham Palace has said.\n\nA royal source said the vaccinations were administered on Saturday by a household doctor at Windsor Castle.\n\nThe source added the Queen decided to let it be known she had the vaccination to prevent further speculation.\n\nThe Queen, 94, and Prince Philip, 99, are among around 1.5 million people in the UK to have had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine so far.\n\nPeople aged over 80 in the UK are among the high-priority groups who are being given the vaccine first.\n\nThe couple have been spending the lockdown in England at their Windsor Castle home after deciding to have a quiet Christmas at their Berkshire residence, instead of the traditional royal family gathering at Sandringham.\n\nLast month, the Queen appeared alongside several other senior members of the royal family for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began.\n\nIn 2020 she went seven months - between March and October - without carrying out public engagements outside of a royal residence.\n\nDuring that time, her eldest child, Prince Charles, 72, contracted coronavirus and displayed mild symptoms.\n\nPalace sources also told the BBC that her grandson Prince William tested positive in April - although Kensington Palace refused to comment officially.\n\nThe Queen made a private pilgrimage to the grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey in November\n\nThe Queen used her Christmas Day message to reassure anyone struggling without friends and family this year that they \"are not alone\".\n\nShe said the pandemic had \"brought us closer\" despite causing hardship, adding that the Royal Family has been \"inspired\" by people volunteering in their communities.\n\nOn Friday a third coronavirus vaccine - made by US company Moderna - was approved for use in the UK, joining the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines already approved by UK regulators.\n\nIt is not known which vaccine the Queen and Prince Philip have received.\n\nAll the approved vaccines require two doses to provide the best possible protection, with the second dose being given up to 12 weeks after the first.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has said the aim is to vaccinate 15 million people in the UK by mid-February, including care home residents and staff, frontline NHS staff, everyone over 70 and those who have been categorised as clinically extremely vulnerable.", "Bans imposed by Twitter, Facebook and Instagram on Donald Trump's accounts raise a \"very big question\" about how social media is regulated, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.\n\nThe companies acted after supporters of the US president stormed Washington DC's Capitol building on Wednesday.\n\nMr Hancock said the bans showed they were now \"taking editorial decisions\".\n\nCampaigners want social media to be treated as \"publishers\", rather than \"platforms\", meaning more regulation.\n\nBut opponents of the idea argue that it could allow governments to limit debate.\n\nMr Trump faces an impeachment charge, with Democrats accusing the Republican president of encouraging the Washington riots, in which five people died.\n\nTwitter permanently suspended his @realDonaldTrump account on Saturday, citing the \"risk of further incitement of violence\".\n\nBut Mr Trump called this an attack on free speech and suggested he would look at \"building out our own platform in the future\".\n\nThere has been a long-running debate over whether social media companies should be treated in law as \"publishers\", with greater responsibility for dealing with libellous, discriminatory, misleading or incendiary content posted by users.\n\nMr Hancock, a former culture secretary, told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: \"The scenes, clearly encouraged by President Trump - the scenes at the Capitol - were terrible - and I was very sad to see that because American democracy is such a proud thing.\n\n\"But there's something else that has changed, which is that social media platforms are making editorial decisions now. That's clear because they're choosing who should and shouldn't have a voice on their platform.\"\n\nMr Hancock said that development was likely to have \"consequences\".\n\nAsked earlier about Twitter's decision to ban Mr Trump's account, he told Sky News: \"I think it raises a very important question, which is it means that the social media platforms are taking editorial decisions.\n\n\"And that is a very big question because then it raises questions about their editorial judgements and the way that they're regulated.\"\n\nTwitter's ban on Mr Trump's account followed the increasing use of warning labels on his posts referring to the coronavirus pandemic and the result of the US presidential election.\n\nIn a blog on Friday, the company said its public interest framework existed \"to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly\".\n\nIt added: \"However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules and cannot use Twitter to incite violence. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.\"\n\nFacebook and Instagram banned Mr Trump \"indefinitely\" on Thursday, with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg saying this sanction would not be lifted until at least 20 January, when Joe Biden is sworn in as the new US president.", "\"Absurd\" council tax rises should be scrapped to ease the pressure on family budgets, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said.\n\nLocal authorities in England will be able to raise council tax by 5% from April, with 3% used to top up adult social care budgets.\n\nSir Keir said this meant those living in a band D property could see bills rise by an average of £90.\n\nHe added that the prime minister should provide extra funding to councils.\n\nBut the government says the rise in council tax bills, plus extra money from central government, will ensure a real-terms increase in support for local services.\n\nSir Keir wrote in the Sunday Telegraph: \"It is absurd that during the deepest recession in 300 years, at the very time millions are worried about the future of their jobs and how they will make ends meet, Boris Johnson and [Chancellor] Rishi Sunak are forcing local government to hike up council tax.\n\n\"The prime minister said he would do 'whatever is necessary' to support local authorities in providing vital services - he needs to make good on that promise.\"\n\nSir Keir urged Mr Johnson to \"give families the security they need\" by dropping the tax increase.\n\nHe said families had been treated as an \"afterthought\" by the government during the pandemic, adding that Labour would become the \"party of the family\" under his leadership.\n\nA Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: \"Council tax plays an important role in helping fund the frontline services needed to respond to the pandemic.\n\n\"Our approach strikes a balance between allowing local authorities to address service pressures and ensuring local residents have the final say on excessive increases.\"\n\nA £500m fund to support people struggling with finances meant councils could \"cut bills further for some of the most vulnerable households\", they added, while a £7.2bn support package would help meet \"the major Covid-19 service pressures in their local area\".\n\nThe chancellor's Spending Review in November set out the cost to the UK economy so far of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nMr Sunak warned the \"economic emergency\" caused by the pandemic had only begun, with lasting damage to growth and jobs.\n\nInterviewed on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show, Sir Keir said there was no scope for a \"major renegotiation\" of the UK's post-Brexit trade deal with the EU, but added that there were \"bits already that need to be improved on\".\n\nAnd, asked about the possibility of another Scottish referendum on independence from the UK, he said that a \"further, divisive\" vote was not \"the way forward\".\n\n\"But I do accept that the status quo isn't working\", Sir Keir added. \"I don't accept the argument that the status quo isn't working, the next thing you do is go to a referendum.\"\n\nThe prime minister has said such a vote - last held in 2014 - should be a \"once-in-a-generation\" event.\n\nBut Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said a referendum should take place.", "Dorset Police said officers dispersed dozens of demonstrators from the town centre as they attempted to march\n\nA video shared online apparently showing a woman being arrested in breach of lockdown for sitting on a bench was \"stage-managed\", police said.\n\nDorset Police believe the video was planned and recorded by anti-lockdown protesters during a demonstration in Bournemouth on Saturday.\n\nThree people were arrested for not giving their details so officers could issue fines for breaking Covid rules.\n\nThe BBC has asked one of the protesters who posted the video to comment.\n\nThe force said two of those held were later de-arrested when they confirmed their details in police custody and a third was released when his details were verified - all three were then issued fixed penalty notices.\n\nOfficers also issued at least seven other fines and 10 dispersal notices.\n\nAssistant Chief Constable Mark Callaghan, from Dorset Police, said: \"We believe this video was planned, stage-managed and recorded by members of the protest group who turned up in multiple areas, several of whom refused to engage or provide their details.\n\n\"If people refuse to give their details in such circumstances then it leaves officers with little option, but to arrest until the details are established. Our officers would only arrest as a last resort.\n\n\"It was clear that the group was deliberately organising their activities, walking around in twos and then trying to come together in a 'flash mob'-style approach, as they have done previously. This activity went on for a couple of hours.\"\n\nThe force's chief constable James Vaughan earlier said: \"I condemn the actions of these selfish individuals who knowingly flouted the lockdown restrictions.\"\n\nThe force said there were \"repeated attempts\" to engage with the organisers to stop the planned protest and found a number of the protesters had \"travelled considerably\" from out of the Dorset area.\n\nMr Vaughan added: \"Our county is gripped with infections and yet these irresponsible individuals have ignored what is being asked of them and have left their homes to protest. Shame on them.\"\n\nSam Crowe, director of public health for Dorset, said its hospital services were \"close to being overwhelmed\".\n\nMr Crowe said: \"Infection rates locally have been doubling in less than a week. If this carries on, our hospitals will not be able to cope with caring for those needing life-saving treatment. Stay at home means exactly that.\"\n\nLatest figures show Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole has reached 745.2 cases per 100,000 people.\n\nAlso on Saturday, 16 people were also arrested during an anti-lockdown protest in south London.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Eleanor Wadsworth was a civilian pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary\n\nOne of the last surviving \"Spitfire Women\", who ferried aircraft to the front line in World War Two, has died.\n\nEleanor Wadsworth, who was 103, was part of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), a civilian service that transported fighter aircraft and crew.\n\nThe ATA Association said she was among 165 women who flew without radios or instrument flying instructions.\n\nMrs Wadsworth, who lived in Bury St Edmunds, died in December after a month of illness.\n\nDuring the war, about 1,250 men and women from 25 countries transferred some 309,000 aircraft of 147 different types.\n\nMrs Wadsworth said the \"thought of learning to fly for free was a great incentive\" to join the ATA\n\nMrs Wadsworth, who was born in Nottingham, joined the ATA in 1943 after seeing an advertisement for female pilots and was one of the first six successful candidates to be accepted with no or little previous flying experience, historian Sally McGlone said.\n\nIn 2020, the former pilot told her housing association's in-house magazine that she had been \"looking for a new challenge\" when she joined the service.\n\n\"The thought of learning to fly for free was a great incentive [so] I put my name down and didn't think much about it,\" she said.\n\nShe added that she had enjoyed flying Spitfires the most, which she did 132 times.\n\n\"It was a beautiful aircraft, great to handle,\" she said.\n\nTributes have been paid to her bravery on social including one from former RAF Tornado navigator and Gulf prisoner of war John Nichol.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by John Nichol This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMs McGlone said Mrs Wadsworth and her fellow ATA pilots \"will remain an inspiration to women worldwide\", while fellow historian Howard Cook said she and her fellow \"Spitfire Women\" had been \"incredibly brave\".\n\nAuthor Karen Borden, who interviewed Mrs Wadsworth for an upcoming book, added that \"like many of the women pilots, she was incredibly humble about her contribution to the war effort\".\n\n\"She joked about how flying 'straight and level' was her mark... and how marvellous it was to take to the air on her own.\"\n\nEleanor Wadsworth (bottom row, far left) joined the ATA in 1943\n\nHer son Robert said she had been \"a wonderful mother, an adoring grandmother and great-grandmother\", who had been \"matter of fact\" about her wartime service.\n\nHe said she would say that \"we had a job to do [and] we just got on and did it\".\n\nHer funeral will take place on Tuesday.\n\nMrs Wadsworth had been one of three surviving female ATA pilots, alongside American Nancy Stratford and Briton Jaye Edwards, who lives in Canada.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Asymptomatic testing for Covid can help \"break the chains of transmission\", Matt Hancock says\n\nRegular rapid testing for people without coronavirus symptoms will be made available across England this week, the government has said.\n\nThe community testing regime - expanded to cover all 317 local authorities - uses rapid lateral flow tests, which can return results in 30 minutes.\n\nLocal councils are being encouraged to prioritise tests for those who cannot work from home during the lockdown.\n\nThe health secretary said asymptomatic testing can help break transmission.\n\nMeanwhile, NHS England has invited tens of thousands of people over 80 to book vaccinations.\n\nA further 563 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test and another 54,940 cases reported, according to government figures on Sunday.\n\nThe total number of deaths in the UK after a positive test passed 80,000 on Saturday.\n\nThe government has launched a campaign telling people to act like they have got the virus in a bid to tackle the rise in infections.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nThe Department of Health and Social Care said expanding the Community Testing Programme to more people without symptoms was \"crucial given that around one in three people\" who contract Covid-19 show no symptoms.\n\nIt said regular community testing using the rapid tests had already identified more than 14,800 positive Covid-19 cases.\n\nSo far, 131 local authorities in England have enrolled in the government's community testing programme, with Milton Keynes, Slough, Doncaster and Essex the latest to join.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said targeted asymptomatic testing and subsequent isolation was \"highly effective in breaking chains of transmission\".\n\nBut Angela Raffle, a consultant in public health at the University of Bristol Medical School, said increasing lateral flow testing was \"very worrying\" and warned the benefits of finding symptomless cases \"will be outweighed by the many more infectious cases that are missed by these tests\".\n\nDefending lateral flow tests on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme Mr Hancock said mass asymptomatic testing in Liverpool had seen the case rate drop \"more sharply than it did in other similar areas where only restrictions were brought in\".\n\nNHS Test and Trace will also work closely with other government departments to scale up workforce testing, the Department of Health and Social Care said.\n\nMany are already piloting regular workforce testing, with 15 large employers having taken up this offer already across 64 sites, \"including organisations operating in the food, manufacturing, energy and retail sectors, and within the public sector including job centres, transport networks and the military\".\n\nThe Department of Health and Social Care said plans were already in place for rapid testing of staff and students in schools and colleges and staff in primary schools.\n\nAsked when schools could reopen by the BBC's Andrew Marr, Mr Hancock said there were four conditions: that there is not a major new variant, the vaccine rollout is proceeding effectively, the number of deaths is falling and there is an easing of pressure on the NHS.\n\nMatthew Fell, of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which represents 190,000 UK businesses, said: \"This expansion of testing will help more critical workers and those unable to work from home to operate safely, while also catching new cases more swiftly.\"\n\nBusiness Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the safety of the workforce had been an \"absolute priority\" and said the expansion of testing means \"we can keep our economy on the move while giving individuals in key sectors complete confidence that their workplace is safe\".\n\nBut Prof Susan Michie, professor of health psychology at University College London, told BBC Breakfast the country would continue a \"yo-yoing of lockdown\" without a \"test, trace and isolate system that actually works\" and warned there needed to be tighter restrictions and tougher messaging than in March to prevent \"tens of thousands of avoidable deaths in the next few weeks\".", "Bernard Thomas was interviewed by BBC Wales at the time of the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster\n\nA survivor of the Aberfan disaster has died after contracting Covid-19.\n\nAs a nine-year-old Bernard Thomas was rescued from the rubble of Pantglas primary school after one of the biggest tragedies in Welsh history.\n\nA total of 144 people were killed in the disaster on 21 October, 1966, after thousands of tonnes of coal slurry slid from a tip. Of those 116 were primary school pupils.\n\nLater Bernard was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress.\n\nHe told S4C he \"still heard the sounds of children screaming.\"\n\nPaying tribute to Mr Thomas, 63, who died on Wednesday, his brother Andrew told BBC's Newyddion: \"Bernard was a real character and his death has come as a shock to us as a family and the community of Aberfan.\"\n\n\"We can't be sure where he caught Covid, but he had an eye appointment at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital on 21 December.\n\n\"A few days later, he became ill and at Prince Charles Hospital, he tested positive for Covid-19.\"\n\n\"Although he had been receiving oxygen through a mask, we spoke regularly on the phone and he told us he was getting better.\n\n\"But on Wednesday morning he removed his mask to eat his breakfast, and 10 minutes after eating he faded away.\"\n\n\"It's a huge shock but I don't blame anybody.\"\n\nOn the 50th anniversary of the disaster Bernard told the BBC: \"I still wonder what the others would have been doing if it hadn't happened. Who would have got married to who, you know.\"\n\nBernard is survived by his 90-year-old mother Gwen, with whom he shared a home, and brothers Andrew and Robert.", "Coronavirus does not show much sign of \"abating\" in Scotland, says the deputy first minister as he refused to rule out tougher restrictions.\n\nScotland is facing \"a very alarming situation\" with the virus, according to John Swinney, whose comments come as the country records its highest death toll so far in the pandemic in the last two days, where 93 Scots died from the virus.\n\nSwinney tells Politics Scotland: \"I don't think I'm revealing a state secret when I say that the debate within cabinet [on Monday] was not whether we were going too far but whether we were going far enough.\"\n\nMr Swinney says Scotland recorded around 130 cases per 100,000 people on Boxing Day, but the figure shot up to 300 just 10 days later.\n\nDespite the new measures put in place, Mr Swinney said: \"It doesn't show much sign of abating to any extent.\n\n\"We're seeing case numbers which are hovering around 2,000 per day... so we've got an accelerating situation on our hands and we have to constantly review whether more restrictions are required.\"\n\nHe added: \"We remain open to considering further restrictions if they are necessary.\"", "Flexing the coronavirus lockdown rules could be fatal, the health secretary has warned as hospital admissions soar.\n\nMatt Hancock did not rule out strengthening current restrictions and told the BBC's Andrew Marr the NHS was under \"very serious pressure\".\n\nIt comes after almost 55,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the UK and the number of deaths after a positive test passed 80,000.\n\nScientist Prof Peter Horby warned the UK was in \"the eye of the storm\".\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the rules were tough but \"may not be tough enough\" and called for the government to hold daily press conferences to avoid \"mixed messages\".\n\nThe UK recorded another 563 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test on Sunday, down from 1,065 deaths on Saturday.\n\nHowever, there tends to be fewer deaths reported on Sundays, due to a reporting lag over the weekend. There were also a further 54,940 daily cases.\n\nMr Hancock told Andrew Marr \"every time you try to flex the rules that could be fatal\" and said staying at home was the \"most important thing we can do collectively as a society\".\n\nThe health secretary said he did not want to speculate on whether the government would further strengthen restrictions, after warnings from scientists on Saturday that they may need to be stricter.\n\n\"People need to not just follow the letter of the rules but follow the spirit as well and play their part,\" he said.\n\nHis comments came after Home Secretary Priti Patel defended police over enforcing lockdown rules following the case of two women who were fined for going for a walk five miles from their homes - a decision which is now under review.\n\nThe government has launched a campaign telling people to act like they have got the virus in a bid to tackle the rise in infections.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nEngland's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said that if the virus continued on its current trajectory \"many hospitals will be in real difficulties, and very soon\".\n\nIn a statement released on Sunday, he said that unless people started to follow the rules more strictly, emergency patients will have to be turned away from hospitals, causing \"avoidable deaths\".\n\nProf Horby, chairman of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said there may be \"early signs that something is beginning to bite\" due to the restrictions - but if they did not then stricter measures would be needed.\n\nHe told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: \"I really hope people take this very seriously. It was bad in March, it's much worse now.\n\n\"We've seen record numbers across the board, record numbers of cases, record numbers of hospitalisations, record numbers of deaths.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Professor Peter Horby explains why the new Covid-19 variant is up to 70% more transmissible\n\nProf Horby said tougher measures might include those during the March lockdown, such as people only being able to exercise once a day and stricter rules about meeting people.\n\n\"We are in a situation where everything that was risky in the past is now more risky,\" he said.\n\nProf Horby said early signs were encouraging that the vaccines would be effective against the new Covid variants - first identified in the UK and in South Africa - and he did not want people to \"hide under the duvet\".\n\n\"We can see the end game now,\" he said.\n\nHigher cases inevitably mean more hospitalisations and more deaths.\n\nThe most recent figures show that, on average, 894 people per day are now dying within 28 days of a positive Covid test, up from 438 at the start of December.\n\nThe spike in cases since Christmas means that figure is almost certain to get worse before the most recent lockdown measures can start to have any effect.\n\nScientists think the new variant of the disease is more \"transmissible\", possibly because each infected individual produces more of the actual virus - sometimes referred to as the viral load.\n\nVaccination should help to protect the most vulnerable from serious symptoms but we don't yet know if receiving the jab stops an individual contracting the virus and passing it on to others.\n\nScientists say that may mean even tougher restrictions will be needed to bring the R-number below one and start to reduce the overall size of the pandemic.\n\nMass community testing is to be rolled out this week, the government has said, and the health secretary said around two million people had been vaccinated in the UK, with some 200,000 jabs being given in England daily.\n\nMr Hancock said by autumn every adult in the UK would be offered a vaccine.\n\nHe said the government was on course to reach its target of 15 million people vaccinated by mid-February, with the opening of seven mass vaccination centres this week likely to increase the rate of jabs.\n\nMr Hancock told Sky News' Sophy Ridge he hoped coronavirus could be treated like seasonal flu with an annual vaccination programme in the future.\n\nProf Horby said the vaccines may have to be updated \"every few years\" as the virus mutates and said it was unlikely the virus would go away completely.\n\n\"We're going to have to live with it,\" he said. \"But that may change significantly.\n\n\"It may well become more of an endemic virus that's with us all the time and may cause some seasonal pressures and some excess deaths but is not causing the huge disruption that we're seeing now.\"", "Electricity is gradually being restored in Pakistan following a huge power cut across the country, which led to every city reporting outages.\n\nHomes nationwide were suddenly plunged into darkness from about midnight.\n\nPower is now back in most cities but officials warn that it could still be a few hours before electricity is fully restored.\n\nThe outage is believed to have been caused by a fault at a power plant in the south of the country.\n\nPower cuts are not uncommon in Pakistan. Essential facilities such as hospitals often use diesel-fuelled generators as a back-up power supply.\n\n\"A countrywide blackout has been caused by a sudden plunge in the frequency in the power transmission system,\" Pakistan's power minister, Omar Ayub Khan, wrote on Twitter in the early hours of Sunday.\n\nHomes across the country were plunged into darkness at about midnight\n\nMr Khan later said that power had been restored in most major cities but that it would take a few more hours for the grid to go completely back to normal.\n\nHe added that the outage occurred after a fault developed at the Guddu power plant in Sindh province shortly before midnight on Saturday (19:00 GMT).\n\nInvestigators were at the site to ascertain the cause of the fault, Mr Khan said.\n\nBlackouts sometimes occur in Pakistan because of chronic power shortages, with many areas having no electricity for several hours a day. The issue has previously led to street protests.\n\nIn 2013, Pakistan's electricity network broke down completely after a power plant in south-western Balochistan province developed a technical fault.\n\nPakistanis seem to have largely taken this power cut in their stride. Outages lasting a number of hours are not uncommon, though they are rarely on this scale, and normally occur during the hotter summer months. The last time there was a near national blackout like this was in 2015.\n\nSo far, there have been no reports of problems at hospitals, which have their own back-up supplies. A senior member of staff at a major hospital in the city of Karachi told me they could maintain services for 48-72 hours without mainline power.\n\nMany businesses and richer families invariably own diesel or petrol fuelled generators too, allowing them to continue using electricity whenever power cuts occur. There were reports of queues at some petrol stations earlier in the day as people tried to keep refilling their generators.\n\nOthers will have been without internet and phone access, or hot water, but - already used to periods without electricity - appear to have accepted the outage with an air of resignation.", "Many were taken by surprise by the events in Washington, but to those who closely follow conspiracy and extreme right groups online, the warning signs were all there.\n\nAt 02:21 Eastern Standard Time on election night, President Trump walked onto a stage set up in the East Room of the White House and declared victory.\n\n\"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.\"\n\nHis speech came an hour after he'd tweeted: \"They are trying to steal the election\".\n\nHe hadn't won. There was no victory to steal. But to many of his most fervent supporters, these facts didn't matter, and still don't.\n\nSixty five days later, a motley coalition of rioters stormed the US Capitol building. They included believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory, members of \"Stop the Steal\" groups, far-right activists, online trolls and others.\n\nOn Friday 8 January - some 48 hours after the Washington riots - Twitter began a purge of some of the most influential pro-Trump accounts that had been pushing conspiracies and urging direct action to overturn the election result.\n\nThen came the big one - Mr Trump himself.\n\nThe president was permanently banned from tweeting to his more than 88 million followers \"due to the risk of further incitement of violence\".\n\nThe violence in Washington shocked the world and seemed to catch the authorities off guard.\n\nBut for anyone who had been carefully watching the unfolding story - online and on the streets of American cities - it came as no surprise.\n\nThe idea of a rigged election was seeded by the president in speeches and on Twitter, months before the vote.\n\nOn election day, the rumors started just as Americans were going to the polls.\n\nA video of a Republican poll watcher being denied entry to a Philadelphia polling station went viral. It was a genuine error, caused by confusion about the rules. The man was later allowed into the station to observe the count.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Will Chamberlain This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Will Chamberlain\n\nBut it became the first of many videos, images, graphics and claims that went viral in the days that followed, giving rise to a hashtag: #StopTheSteal.\n\nThe message behind it was clear - Mr Trump had won a landslide victory, but dark forces in the establishment \"deep state\" had stolen it from him.\n\nIn the early hours of Wednesday 4 November, while votes were still being counted and three days before the US networks called the election for Joe Biden, President Trump claimed victory, alleging \"a fraud on the American public\".\n\nMr Trump did not provide any evidence to back up his claims. Studies carried out for previous US elections have shown that voter fraud is extremely rare.\n\nBy mid-afternoon a Facebook group called \"Stop the Steal\" was created and quickly became one of the fastest-growing in the platform's history. By Thursday morning, it had added more than 300,000 members.\n\nMany of the posts focused on unsubstantiated allegations of mass voter fraud, including manufactured claims that thousands of dead people had voted and that voting machines had somehow been programmed to flip votes from Mr Trump to Mr Biden.\n\nBut some of the posts were more alarming, speaking of the need for a \"civil war\" or \"revolution\".\n\nBy Thursday afternoon, Facebook had taken down Stop the Steal, but not before it had generated nearly half a million comments, shares, likes, and reactions.\n\nDozens of other groups quickly sprang up in its place.\n\nThe idea of a stolen election continued to spread online and take hold. Soon, a dedicated Stop the Steal website was launched in a bid to register \"boots on the ground to protect the integrity of the vote\".\n\nOn Saturday 7 November, major news organisations declared that Joe Biden had won the election. In Democratic strongholds, throngs of people took to the streets to celebrate. But the reaction online from Mr Trump's most ardent supporters was one of anger and defiance.\n\nThey planned a rally in Washington DC for the following Saturday, dubbed the Million MAGA (Make America Great Again) March.\n\nTrump tweeted that he might try to stop by the demonstration and \"say hello\".\n\nPrevious pro-Trump rallies in Washington had failed to attract large crowds. But thousands gathered at Freedom Plaza that sunny morning.\n\nOne extremism researcher called it the \"debut of the pro-Trump insurgency\".\n\nAs Trump's motorcade drove through the city, supporters screaming with delight rushed to catch a glimpse of the president, who beamed at them wearing a red MAGA hat.\n\nWhile mainstream conservative figures were present, the event was dominated by far-right groups.\n\nDozens of members of the far-right, anti-immigrant, all-male group Proud Boys, who have repeatedly been involved in violent street protests and were among those who would later break into the US Capitol, joined the march. Militia groups, far-right media figures and promoters of conspiracy theories were also there.\n\nAs night fell, clashes between Trump supporters and counter-protesters broke out, including a brawl about five blocks from the White House.\n\nThe violence - although largely contained by police on this occasion - was a clear sign of things to come.\n\nBy now, President Trump and his legal team had invested their hopes in dozens of legal cases.\n\nAlthough a number of courts had already dismissed fraud allegations, many in the pro-Trump online world became fascinated with two lawyers with close ties to the president - Sidney Powell and L Lin Wood.\n\nMs Powell and Mr Wood promised they were preparing cases of voter fraud so comprehensive that when released, they would destroy the case for Mr Biden having won the presidency.\n\nMs Powell, 65, a conservative activist and former federal prosecutor, told Fox News that the effort would \"release the Kraken\" - a reference to a gigantic sea monster from Scandinavian folklore that rises up from the ocean to devour its enemies.\n\nThe \"Kraken\" quickly became an internet meme, representing sprawling, unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud.\n\nMs Powell and Mr Wood became heroes to followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory - who believe President Trump and a secret military intelligence team are battling a deep state made up of Satan-worshipping paedophiles in the Democratic Party, media, business and Hollywood.\n\nThe lawyers became a conduit between the president and his most conspiracy-minded supporters - a number of whom ended up inside the Capitol on 6 January.\n\nMs Powell and Mr Wood were successful in whipping up sound and fury online, but their legal efforts came to nothing.\n\nWhen they released almost 200 pages of documents in late November, it became clear that their lawsuit consisted predominantly of conspiracy theories and debunked allegations that had already been rejected by dozens of courts.\n\nThe filings contained simple legal errors - and basic misspellings and typos.\n\nStill, the meme lived on. The terms \"Kraken\" and \"Release the Kraken\" were used more than a million times on Twitter before the Capitol riot.\n\nDeath threats were made against a Georgia election worker, and Republican officials in the state - including Governor Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and the official in charge of the state's voting systems, Gabriel Sterling - were branded \"traitors\" online.\n\nMr Sterling issued an emotional and prescient warning to the president in a press conference on 1 December.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"This has to stop... someone's gonna get killed\": Mr Sterling calls on President Trump to condemn the threats\n\n\"Someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get shot, someone's going to get killed, and it's not right,\" he said.\n\nIn Michigan in early December, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, had just finished trimming her Christmas tree with her four-year-old son when she heard a commotion outside her Detroit home.\n\nAbout 30 protesters with banners stood outside, shouting \"Stop the steal!\" through megaphones.\n\n\"Benson, you are a villain,\" one person yelled.\n\nOne of the demonstrators live-streamed the protest on Facebook, stating that her group was \"not going away\".\n\nIt was just one of a rash of protests targeting people involved in the vote.\n\nIn Georgia, a constant stream of Trump supporters drove past Mr Raffensperger's home, honking their horns. His wife received threats of sexual violence.\n\nIn Arizona, demonstrators gathered outside of the home of Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, at one point warning: \"We are watching you.\"\n\nOn 11 December, the Supreme Court rejected an attempt by the state of Texas to throw out election results.\n\nAs the president's legal and political windows continued to close, the language in pro-Trump online circles became increasingly violent.\n\nOn 12 December, a second Stop the Steal rally was held in the capital. Once again, thousands attended, and once again prominent far-right activists, QAnon supporters, fringe MAGA groups and militia movements were among the demonstrators.\n\nMichael Flynn, Mr Trump's former national security advisor, likened the protesters to the biblical soldiers and priests breaching the walls of Jericho. This echoed the rally organisers' call for \"Jericho Marches\" to overturn the election result.\n\nNick Fuentes, the leader of Groypers, a far-right movement that targets Republican politicians and figures they deem too moderate, told the crowd: \"We are going to destroy the GOP!\"\n\nThe march once again turned violent.\n\nThen two days later, the Electoral College certified Mr Biden's victory, one of the final steps required for him to take office.\n\nOn online platforms, supporters were becoming resigned to the view that all legal avenues were dead ends, and only direct action could save the Trump presidency.\n\nSince election day, alongside Mr Flynn, Ms Powell and Mr Wood, a new figure had rapidly gained prominence among pro-Trump circles online.\n\nRon Watkins is the son of Jim Watkins, the man behind 8chan and 8kun - message boards filled with extreme language and views, violence and extreme sexual content. They gave rise to the QAnon movement.\n\nIn a series of viral tweets on 17 December, Ron Watkins suggested President Trump should follow the example of Roman leader Julius Caesar, and capitalise on \"fierce loyalty of the military\" in order to \"restore the Republic\".\n\nRon Watkins encouraged his more than 500,000 followers to make #CrossTheRubicon a Twitter trend, referring to the moment when Caesar launched a civil war by crossing the Rubicon river in 49BC. The hashtag was also used by more mainstream figures - including the chairwoman of Arizona Republican Party, Kelli Ward.\n\nIn a separate tweet, Ron Watkins said Mr Trump must invoke the Insurrection Act, which empowers the president to deploy the military and federal forces.\n\nMr Trump met Ms Powell, Mr Flynn and others at a strategy meeting at the White House the following day, 18 December.\n\nDuring the meeting, according to the New York Times, Mr Flynn called on Mr Trump to impose martial law and deploy the military to \"rerun\" the election.\n\nThe meeting further stoked online chatter about \"war\" and \"revolution\" in far-right circles. Many came to see the joint session of Congress on 6 January, normally a formality, as a last roll of the dice.\n\nA wishful story began to take hold among QAnon and some MAGA supporters. They hoped that Vice-President Mike Pence, who was set to preside over the 6 January ceremony, would ignore the electoral college votes.\n\nThe president, they said, would then deploy the military to quell any unrest, order the mass arrest of the \"deep state cabal\" who had rigged the election and send them to Guantanamo Bay military prison.\n\nBack in the land of reality, none of this was remotely feasible. But it launched a movement for \"patriot caravans\" to organise ride shares to help transport thousands from around the country to Washington DC on 6 January.\n\nLong processions of vehicles flying Trump flags and sometimes towing elaborately decorated trailers gathered in car parks in cities including Louisville, Kentucky, Atlanta, Georgia, and Scranton, Pennsylvania.\n\n\"We are on our way,\" one caravaner posted on Twitter with a picture of about two dozen supporters.\n\nAt an Ikea parking lot in North Carolina, another man showed off his truck. \"The flags are a little tattered - we'll call them battle flags now,\" he said.\n\nAs it became clear that Mr Pence and other key Republicans would follow the law and allow Congress to certify Mr Biden's win, the language towards them became vicious.\n\n\"Pence will be in jail awaiting trial for treason,\" Mr Wood tweeted. \"He will face execution by firing squad.\"\n\nOnline discussion reached boiling point. References to firearms, war and violence were rife on self-styled \"free speech\" social platforms such as Gab and Parler, which are popular with Trump supporters, as well as on other sites.\n\nIn Proud Boys groups, where members had once supported police, some turned against authorities, whom they deemed to no longer be on their side.\n\nHundreds of posts on a popular pro-Trump site, TheDonald, openly discussed plans to cross barricades, carry firearms and other weapons to the march in defiance of Washington's strict gun laws. There was open chatter about storming the Capitol and arresting \"treasonous\" members of Congress.\n\nOn Wednesday 6 January, Mr Trump addressed a crowd of thousands at the Ellipse, a park just south of the White House, for more than an hour.\n\nEarly on he encouraged supporters to \"peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard\", but he ended with a warning. \"We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.\n\n\"So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue… and we're going to the Capitol.\"\n\nTo some observers, the potential for violence that day was clear from the outset.\n\nMichael Chertoff, former secretary of homeland security under President George W Bush, blamed the Capitol Police, who reportedly turned down offers of assistance from the much larger National Guard ahead of time. He characterised it as \"the worst failure of a police force I can think of\".\n\n\"I think it was a very foreseeable potential negative turn of events,\" Mr Chertoff said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\n\"To be blunt, it was obvious. If you read the newspaper and were awake, you understood that you've got a lot of people who have been convinced there was a fraudulent election. Some of them are extremists, and violent. Some of the groups openly said, 'Bring your guns'.\"\n\nStill, many Americans were astonished by Wednesday's scenes, like James Clark, a 68-year-old Republican from Virginia.\n\n\"I find it absolutely shocking. I didn't think it would come to this,\" he told the BBC.\n\nBut the signs were there for weeks. A hodgepodge of extreme and conspiratorial groups were convinced that the election was stolen. Online, they repeatedly talked about arming themselves, and violence.\n\nPerhaps the authorities didn't think their posts were serious, or specific enough to investigate. They now face pointed questions.\n\nFor Joe Biden's inauguration on 20 January, Mr Chertoff is expecting a \"much stronger showing\" by security services than last Wednesday night.\n\nBut that hasn't stopped many on extreme platforms calling for further violence and disruption on the day.\n\nThere are questions, too, for the major social media platforms, which enabled conspiracy theories to reach millions of people.\n\nLate on Friday, Twitter deleted the accounts of Mr Flynn, the former Trump advisor, the \"Kraken\" lawyers Ms Powell and Mr Wood, and Mr Watkins. Then Mr Trump himself.\n\nArrests of those who stormed the Capitol continue. But most of the rioters still live in a parallel online universe - a subterranean world filled with alternative facts.\n\nThey have already come up with fanciful explanations to dismiss Mr Trump's video statement, posted on Twitter the day after the riots, in which he acknowledged for the first time that \"a new administration will be inaugurated on 20 January\".\n\nHe can't possibly be giving up, they contend. Among their new theories - it's not really him in the video but a computer-generated \"deep fake\". Or perhaps the president is being held hostage.\n\nMany still believe Mr Trump will prevail.\n\nThere's no evidence behind any of this, but it does prove one thing.\n\nNo matter what happens to Donald Trump, the rioters who stormed the US Capitol are not backing down anytime soon.", "Spain is in a race against time to clear roads covered by heavy snow, and get Covid vaccines and food supplies to areas affected by Storm Filomena.\n\nUp to 50cm (20 inches) of snow fell on the capital Madrid, one of the worst hit areas, between Friday and Saturday.\n\nAt least four people died and thousands of travellers were left stranded.\n\nOvernight, temperatures plunged to -8C (18F) in parts of Spain, amid warnings by meteorologists that the snow was turning to perilous ice.\n\nThe unusual cold wave on the Iberian peninsula is expected to last until Thursday.\n\nThe Spanish government said it had taken extra steps - including police-escorted convoys - to ensure its expected shipment of some 300,000 coronavirus vaccines can be distributed as planned to regional health authorities later on Monday.\n\n\"The commitment is to guarantee the supply of health, vaccines and food. Corridors have been opened to deliver the goods,\" Transport Minister Jose Luis Abalos said on Sunday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Madrid has been hit by heavy snowfall after Storm Filomena\n\nSoldiers have been deployed to clear some of the 700 major roads.\n\nSome 3,500 tonnes of salt were later brought on lorries to the capital, Spain's El Mundo website reported on Monday.\n\nThe record-breaking snowfall has triggered some unprecedented scenes here in Madrid. People have skied along the city's main commercial street, Gran Vía, and one man was pictured being pulled through the district of Hortaleza on a sled by five huskies.\n\nBut other responses to the snow have been more controversial due to concerns about Covid-19. Dozens of young people had a snowball fight in Callao square, for example, and many of them were without facemasks.\n\nNearby, in Puerta del Sol, others celebrated the snow by dancing a conga. The daily Marca newspaper branded it \"the conga of shame\".\n\nAlthough the snowfall has now stopped, low temperatures have left snow and ice piled up across the capital and the surrounding region. And with residents advised to avoid using their cars, public transport has seen a surge in demand.\n\nThis has compounded coronavirus concerns as many metro train carriages were packed at rush hour on Monday morning, making social distancing impossible.\n\nMadrid's international airport began gradually resuming operations on Sunday afternoon, having cancelled all flights on Friday.\n\nSome 500 people across the Madrid region were forced to spend the night in temporary shelter, including sports centres, after they were trapped by the whiteout.\n\nAbout 100 shoppers and staff spent two nights at a shopping centre in Majadahonda, a town north of the capital. \"There are people sleeping on the ground on cardboard,\" one restaurant employee told TVE television.\n\nSpain's Meteorological Agency said Saturday's snowfall was the heaviest in Madrid since 1971\n\nBut there were stories of heroism too, including doctors and medical workers who abandoned their cars and walked for hours to get to work. One doctor, Alvaro Sanchez, said on social media he had walked 17km (10 miles) over nearly two hours to get to work, while two nurses, Paco and Monica, said they had walked 22km to their hospital.\n\nThey were praised by Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa, who tweeted: \"The commitment that the entire group of health workers is showing is an example of solidarity and dedication.\"\n\nSome 4x4 vehicle owners offered to transport medical workers, while other volunteers helped to clear hospital entrance ways.\n\n\"Health staff have been working (hard) for more than a year and this is just a short moment for us, so as citizens, we are trying to help; it is everyone's responsibility,\" said Fernando de la Fuente, 60, who helped clear the entrance to Madrid's Gregorio Maranon Hospital.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSpaniards in large parts of the country have been warned to take care in the coming days as temperatures could fall to -12C (10F) in some areas until Thursday.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nCrawley Town delivered one of the FA Cup third round's most emphatic upsets as the League Two underdogs tore apart Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds.\n\nThree second-half goals rewarded a fantastic performance from John Yems' side as they made light of the 62 places between themselves and their Premier League visitors.\n\nNick Tsaroulla, playing only his seventh game in senior football, set the ball rolling, beating three Leeds defenders to fire home a superb solo opener.\n\nUnited keeper Kiko Casilla's error allowed Ashley Nadesan to double the lead before Jordan Tunnicliffe added a third for Crawley, who could have won by more.\n• None Watch all of the goals from the FA Cup third round\n• None Can Mark Wright make it as a pro at Crawley?\n\nBielsa made seven changes to his side but Leeds fielded England midfielder Kalvin Phillips among several regular top-flight starters including Pablo Hernandez, Ezgjan Alioski and club record signing Rodrigo.\n\nHowever, after an even first half, they were completely outplayed in the second period by a Crawley side who have reached the fourth round for only the third time, having spent most of their 125-year existence in non-league football.\n\nCrawley even had the luxury of bringing on reality TV celebrity Mark Wright in stoppage time for the former The Only Way Is Essex star's debut, having signed for the club on non-contract terms in December.\n\nLeeds' loss is the first time in 34 years a top-flight side has lost to a fourth-tier team by three or more goals and only the second ever instance since a fourth division was added to the Football League in 1958.\n\nThey may be the lesser-known of the two Red Devils but Crawley's efforts were no less impressive than Manchester United's 6-2 dissection of Leeds last month.\n\nWhile Bielsa rested first-choice stars such as Patrick Bamford, Luke Ayling, Stuart Dallas and Mateusz Klich, there was still plenty of experience mixed in with the youth in Leeds' line-up.\n\nBut the hosts, sixth in League Two after an eight-game unbeaten run, never gave them the chance to settle and while neither side could break the deadlock before the interval, it was Crawley who went closest as Casilla kept out Tom Nichols' close-range header.\n\nHe was helpless, however, to prevent Tsaroulla - a former Tottenham trainee who spent a year out of the game because of injuries sustained in a car crash - firing Crawley ahead after a twisting run into the area that beguiled the Leeds back-line.\n\nRather than protect their lead, Crawley went for the jugular and Nadesan soon doubled their advantage, although his strike owed much to a bobble that beat Casilla at his near post.\n\nTunnicliffe then fired into the roof of the net after Casilla parried from Nadesan and Crawley could have had a fourth after top scorer Max Watters came off the bench to round the keeper, only to be denied by a covering defender.\n\nThe win marked the first time in four attempts that Crawley have beaten a Premier League side in the FA Cup and so comfortable was the victory that TV personality Wright was given his late cameo.\n\nAnother name added to Leeds' list of cup woes\n\nBielsa was left to mull over back-to-back 3-0 defeats, albeit this one coming in a much different context to Leeds' Premier League loss at Tottenham on 2 January.\n\nThis was the former Argentina manager's first taste of an FA Cup shock, after far more mundane exits against Arsenal and QPR in Bielsa's two previous campaigns since taking the Elland Road reins in 2018.\n\nBut it was not unfamiliar ground for Leeds as Crawley - who have finished in the bottom half of League Two for five successive seasons - emulated non-league pair Histon and Sutton United, as well as lower-league clubs Rochdale and Newport, in upsetting the Whites this century.\n\nThe visitors only forced one real save from Crawley keeper Glenn Morris, who reacted well to push away Ian Poveda's strike from an acute angle in the first half.\n\nLeeds might point to a penalty they perhaps should have had before the interval when Crawley defender Tony Craig got away with pulling back Rodrigo as he attempted to meet Helder Costa's volleyed cross.\n\nBut there was no video assistant referee system at the game, and they offered very little going forward after Rodrigo was substituted at half-time.\n\nIt was a fourth successive third-round exit in a competition they could have looked to with some hope, given their relatively comfortable position in the Premier League.\n\n\"We've got 11 star men\" - what they said\n\nCrawley manager Yems to BBC Sport: \"You have to enjoy these games - you work hard enough for it. It was a really good team performance and it's clear that we've got 11 star men.\n\n\"These players have got a lot to prove to the clubs who have released them and we've showed what we can do against a really good side.\n\n\"Let's see who we get in the next round and enjoy the moment.\"\n\nLeeds midfielder Alioski to BBC Radio 5 Live: \"We are really disappointed and it wasn't the result that we wanted. We took the game really seriously and we wanted to win and go on a run, so it is disappointing.\n\n\"Crawley played the game of their lives, and congratulations. To beat us 3-0 - I still can't believe it.\n\n\"The manager said what he wanted to say. It's important for every player to know what this means. He is sad and the players are sad.\"\n• None Attempt blocked. Sam Greenwood (Leeds United) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt missed. Raphinha (Leeds United) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Pablo Hernández.\n• None Jake Hessenthaler (Crawley Town) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt saved. Hélder Costa (Leeds United) header from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Pablo Hernández.\n• None Jamie Shackleton (Leeds United) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt blocked. Max Watters (Crawley Town) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Tom Nichols. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None All the goals and highlights from a huge Saturday of third-round matches are", "Mike Pompeo said the US-Taiwan relationship should not be \"shackled\" (file photo)\n\nThe US is lifting long-standing restrictions on contacts between American and Taiwanese officials, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says.\n\nThe \"self-imposed restrictions\" were introduced decades ago to \"appease\" the mainland Chinese government, which lays claim to the island, the US state department said in a statement.\n\nThese rules are now \"null and void\".\n\nThe move is likely to anger China and increase tensions between Washington and Beijing.\n\nIt comes as the Trump administration enters its final days ahead of the inauguration of Joe Biden as president on 20 January.\n\nThe Biden transition team have said the president-elect is committed to maintaining the long-standing US policy towards Taiwan.\n\nAnalysts say they will be unhappy with such a policy decision being made in the final days of the Trump administration, but that the move could be reversed easily by Mr Pompeo's successor Antony Blinken.\n\nChina regards Taiwan as a breakaway province, but Taiwan's leaders argue that it is a sovereign state.\n\nRelations between the two are frayed and there is a constant threat of a violent flare up that could drag in the US, an ally of Taiwan.\n\nIn a statement on Saturday, Mr Pompeo said the US state department had introduced complicated restrictions limiting the communication between American diplomats and their Taiwanese counterparts.\n\n\"Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions,\" he said. \"Today's statement recognises that the US-Taiwan relationship need not, and should not, be shackled by self-imposed restrictions of our permanent bureaucracy.\"\n\nHe added that Taiwan was a vibrant democracy and a reliable US partner, and that the restrictions were no longer valid.\n\nFollowing the announcement, Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu thanked Mr Pompeo, saying he was \"grateful\".\n\n\"The closer partnership between Taiwan and the US is firmly based on our shared values, common interests and unshakeable belief in freedom and democracy,\" he wrote in a tweet.\n\nLast August, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar became the highest-ranking US politician to hold meetings on the island for decades.\n\nIn response, China urged the US to respect what it calls its \"one China\" principle.\n\nThe US also sells arms to Taiwan, though it does not have a formal defence treaty with the country, as it does with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nChina and Taiwan have had separate governments since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.\n\nBeijing has long tried to limit Taiwan's international activities and both have vied for influence in the Pacific region.\n\nTensions have increased in recent years and Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to take the island back.\n\nAlthough Taiwan is officially recognised by only a handful of nations, its democratically-elected government has strong commercial and informal links with many countries.", "Lockdowns have worked before, but can we expect the new one to do the same?\n\nIt feels like we are back in March or April last year, when the strict controls on all our lives led to a fairly quick decline in levels of coronavirus.\n\nBut one of the crucial differences this time is the new variant, which is thought to spread between 50 and 70% faster than previous forms of the virus.\n\nExperts warn there are now no guarantees that lockdown will be enough to bring the variant under control.\n\n\"It still would not have been easy, but it would have been a much easier situation if it had not been for the new variant,\" Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, told Inside Health.\n\n\"That really pushes the bounds of our ability to control the spread of the virus, even with measures that were previously relatively quite effective.\"\n\nThe coronavirus spreads when we come into contact with each other so moving classrooms online, telling people to stay at home and closing shops breaks many of those opportunities for human contact.\n\nIf we consider the R number - the average number of people each infected person passes the virus on to - it was about 3.0 in the run up to the first lockdown and anything above 1.0 means cases are climbing.\n\nR fell to 0.6 during the first lockdown.\n\nThen every 1,000 infected people passed the virus on to 600 others, who passed it on to 360 others and so on.\n\nBut if the new variant is 50% more transmissible then the R number, in the same lockdown conditions, would be about 0.9.\n\nThen 1,000 infected people would pass the virus onto 900 others, then 810 and so on.\n\nAs you can see this leads to far slower decline.\n\nAnd that assumes lockdown can get R down to 0.9 in areas where the new variant has become the most common form of the virus.\n\nIf, as some studies suggest, the variant is about 70% more transmissible then R may stay above 1.0 and cases may not fall at all.\n\n\"We'd at best flatten the curve, keep numbers at a roughly constant level, and that's frankly why there is so much emphasis on getting vaccine into people's arms as quickly as possible,\" said Prof Ferguson.\n\nIt is hard to lock down even harder as there are some parts of society - hospitals, supermarkets - that need to be kept open.\n\nWhat happens to the number of cases over the coming weeks will be closely monitored. If this lockdown is less effective then we will have to live with it for longer.\n\nThere have been some encouraging signs over the Christmas break, which was a bit like a lockdown due to school holidays and other restrictions.\n\n\"We are in a very difficult situation here, but my initial assessment of the last few days is that the rate is slowing which is good news,\" Prof John Edmunds, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the BBC.\n\nHe added: \"It looks likes those restrictions should be sufficient to stop the increase, whether they will be sufficient to bring cases down sufficiently we are yet to see.\"\n\nEventually the vaccine will give people immunity so we do not need the same controls on our lives.\n\nNow more than ever this is a race between the virus and the vaccine.", "Dozens of demonstrators were walking and chanting along Clapham High Street as police attempted to keep them contained to the area\n\nSixteen people have been arrested during an anti-lockdown protest in south London.\n\nPolice officers clashed with some of the maskless protesters who arrived in Clapham Common, some shouting \"take your freedom back\".\n\nSix police vans were deployed to the scene while officers moved the crowd of about 30 people away from the area.\n\nGathering for the purpose of a protest is not an exemption to the rules, the Met Police said.\n\nOne woman shouted from her car at the protesters \"there's a pandemic going\", while another bystander shouted \"idiots\".\n\nOne anti-lockdown protester, who was detained at Clapham Common park, said \"I stand under common law, not maritime law and this is assault\" as he was put into handcuffs by police officers.\n\nA large police presence remains around Clapham Common station, but almost all protesters had left the area as of 14:00 GMT.\n\nIt comes as a \"major incident\" was declared as the spread of Covid-19 threatens to \"overwhelm\" London hospitals.\n\nCity Hall said Covid-19 cases in the capital had exceeded 1,000 per 100,000, while there were 35% more people in hospital with the virus than in the peak of the pandemic in April.\n\nPolice could be seen questioning several people at the demonstration\n\nPolice battled to disperse the protestors gathering in Clapham Common\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Ben Jackson said the closure of the farm's bulk-buyers like hotels and schools has left thousands of eggs unsold\n\nA fall in bulk egg orders due to the lockdown could lead to chickens being culled, a poultry-farmer has warned.\n\nFluffetts Farm near Fordingbridge had been supplying free range eggs to 350 Hampshire schools, but orders stopped when schools suddenly closed.\n\nFarm owner, Ben Jackson said: \"If you can't sell the eggs you can't still keep feeding the chickens and therefore something has to give.\"\n\nHe said he hoped to work out a local delivery system to avoid culling birds.\n\nMr Jackson, who has been selling some of the surplus eggs off on social media, has more than 13,000 chickens laying 12,000 eggs each day.\n\nThe cancellation of his school orders has left him with about 4,000 spare eggs a day. The farm has also been hit by restaurants and pubs closing again.\n\nThe farm has a surplus of about 4,000 eggs each day from its 13,000 chickens\n\nHe said: \"If we can't find a home for the eggs the worst-case scenario is that we may have to look to get rid of some of our chickens, but that's what we're trying to avoid.\n\n\"Other chicken farmers are in the same situation - they are talking about potentially having to cull birds in the next week or so - it's not a decision that anyone wants to make.\n\n\"We just want to get through this dark time - we're just taking it a day at time.\"\n\nChickens at the farm are currently in a bird lockdown.\n\nSince 14 December strict biosecurity regulations have been in place following a number of outbreak of avian influenza throughout England.\n• None 'I'll have to throw away £6,000-worth of milk'", "Flat owners applying to a fund to help pay to remove flammable building cladding will be told not to talk to the press without government approval.\n\nA draft agreement, uncovered by the Sunday Times, says that even where there is \"overwhelming public interest\" in speaking to journalists, the government must be told first.\n\nThe government said the wording was \"standard\".\n\nIt set up a £1.6bn fund last year to repair the most dangerous buildings.\n\nBut it warned that the fund might not cover all the costs of removing the cladding.\n\nThe clause might affect building owners and professional managing agents but also residents who manage their building.\n\nSome types of the covering, often added to newer blocks of flats, have been proven to be a fire hazard.\n\nAfter the 2017 Grenfell fire, the government pledged that safe alternatives to dangerous cladding would be provided on all buildings in England taller than 18m.\n\nIt set up the £1.6bn fund to help foot the costs.\n\nThe agreement, between the building owner or leaseholder and the government, says: \"The Applicant shall not make any communication to the press or any journalist or broadcaster regarding the Project or the Agreement (or the performance of it by any Party) without the prior written approval of Homes England and [the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government ]\" and its press offices.\n\nIt says an exception can be made \"where such disclosure is in the overwhelming public interest (in which case disclosure will not be made without first allowing Homes England and MHCLG to make representations on such proposed disclosure).\"\n\nThe UK Cladding Action Group tweeted that it was \"clearly a matter of public interest\" that these issues were aired in public.\n\n\"No department should be hiding behind non-disclosure agreements to stop scrutiny of their actions,\" the group said.\n\nAnother campaign group, Manchester Cladiators, said the existence of the \"gagging clause\" was \"shocking but not necessarily that surprising\".\n\nSpokesperson Rebecca Fairclough said residents would feel \"intimidated\" by it, adding: \"We ask the government to remove this unfair clause immediately and focus on the priority of solving this institutional failure, which still exists and is only growing over three and a half years after the Grenfell tragedy.\"\n\nThe government insists that the wording in the agreement, under the heading \"Marketing material\", is there to ensure applicants come to the government first.\n\n\"The terms set out are standard in commercial agreements and are not specific to this fund - to suggest otherwise is misleading and inaccurate,\" the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said in a statement.\n\n\"We want a constructive working relationship with building owners who apply to the fund and applicants are asked to work with the department on public communications relating to the project.\"", "Edwin Poots said he has asked senior UK government figures to consider unilaterally revoking the NI Protocol\n\nThe Stormont minister whose officials are responsible for the new Irish Sea border has said some food will be unavailable if changes are not made.\n\nDUP Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots has also said jobs could be at risk.\n\nHe said problems at the ports were being caused by new rules applied on imports of food and other products from Britain to Northern Ireland.\n\nEarlier Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said trade from GB to NI \"will get worse before it gets better\".\n\nMr Gove said that \"work is ongoing\" and it is \"all part of the process of leaving the European Union\".\n\nHe added that he had spoken to ministers from all parties in the Northern Ireland Executive.\n\nAfter speaking with hauliers, supermarkets and processors this week, Mr Poots predicted the loss of jobs and rising costs.\n\n\"A wide range of frozen and chilled foods will be unavailable after the temporary exemption period ends,\" he tweeted.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Edwin Poots MLA This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThat exemption period applies to supermarkets and other food importers and runs out in April.\n\nAfter that they will have to comply with all the paperwork required to ship food in, or find suppliers on the island of Ireland or elsewhere in the EU.\n\nNew rules - called the Northern Ireland Protocol - were introduced because while the UK has left the EU, Northern Ireland has remained in the Single Market for goods and is continuing to apply EU customs rules.\n\nThe arrangement was agreed between the UK and the EU to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland.\n\nMr Poots said he had spoken to senior UK government figures to ask them to consider unilaterally revoking the protocol as it was \"damaging Northern Ireland at the economic and societal level\".\n\nAnd he hit out at members of Sinn Fein, the SDLP, and Alliance Party who he claimed had supported it.\n\nMembers of those parties have countered similar claims from other DUP politicians in recent days.\n\nThey said DUP MPs had voted against alternative arrangements that would have been simpler to manage before the government pushed ahead with the protocol plan.\n\nResponding to Mr Poot's tweet on Friday evening, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood wrote: \"You broke it, you own it.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Colum Eastwood This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSinn Féin MLA Martina Anderson accused Mr Poots of being \"asleep at the wheel\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Martina Anderson MLA This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) has called for the assembly to be recalled to discuss difficulties over trading between Great Britain and Northern Ireland due to Brexit.\n\nUUP MLA Roy Beggs said: \"The impact of the Irish Sea border is causing horrendous difficulties for hauliers and this is being seen in shops and businesses across Northern Ireland.\n\n\"It is damaging the Northern Ireland economy and the situation is escalating.\"\n\nEarlier on Friday, Michael Gove said it had been expected that there would be \"some initial disruption\" to trade between GB and NI, but that the government is \"ironing\" issues out.\n\nHe said discussions with the executive in Northern Ireland were \"in order to make sure that the [Northern Ireland] protocol works\".\n\n\"[To make sure] that businesses in Northern Ireland can continue to have access to the rest of the UK market, and that Northern Ireland businesses can have the goods that they need on the shelves, that they have access to at the moment,\" he said.\n\nNorthern Ireland has remained a part of the EU's single market for goods while the rest of the UK has left.\n\nThis means food products from Great Britain are subject to checks when they enter Northern Ireland.\n\nSimilar processes and checks also apply when moving food products from Great Britain into the Republic of Ireland.\n\nMeanwhile, an organisation representing haulage firms has called on the UK and Irish government to relax some of the new Irish Sea trade border rules.\n\nThe Road Haulage Association (RHA) said there is serious disruption to freight movements into the island of Ireland.\n\nThe RHA said relaxing the controls on food products and customs declarations \"would help traders to ship goods that have struggled to move over recent days.\"\n\n\"The problems have led to gaps in supermarket shelves and lorries delayed at ports because of problems with red-tape and the situation is worsening,\" the organisation added.\n\n\"We are facing an inflexible, cumbersome and time consuming process just to move goods.\"\n\nThe UK government said the flow of goods \"between GB and NI has been smooth overall and arrivals of freight have continued to increase substantially over this week\".\n\n\"There are no significant queues at NI ports and supermarkets are reporting healthy supplies into their Northern Ireland stores,\" a spokesperson added.\n\n\"We recognise the need to provide as much support to the haulage sector as possible as industry adapts to new processes. That's why hauliers can benefit from the Trader Support Service, which provides free advice and support to businesses of all sizes moving goods under the Northern Ireland Protocol.\n\n\"We have been engaging intensively with the Irish authorities and hauliers on the issues that have been encountered for goods transiting through Dublin port.\"\n\nOn Thursday customs authorities in the Republic of Ireland announced a temporary relaxation of one customs process.\n\nHauliers will be able to use an override code to complete a piece of administration known as ENS.\n\nThe letters ENS refer to an entry summary declaration, an online form which goods carriers are now legally obliged to submit to Irish customs when transporting goods from Great Britain into Ireland.\n\nLorries arriving in Ireland from Great Britain have faced new checks since 1 January\n\nOn Thursday night the Irish Revenue Commissioners said it recognised that \"some businesses are experiencing difficulties on lodging their safety and security ENS declarations\".\n\nIt said that in response it was providing a \"temporary easement\" which would allow an ENS to be produced without all the normally required information.\n\nAn Irish government spokesperson said it is \"absolutely essential that Ireland fulfils its obligations as a member of the EU and that we protect the integrity of the single market and the customs union\".\n\n\"We appreciate that the new requirements and customs formalities present significant challenges and impose additional burdens on businesses.\"\n\nMeanwhile Stena, the ferry company, said it was cancelling a dozen sailings between Wales and Ireland next week due to \"a decline in freight volumes during the first week of Brexit.\"", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nScott McTominay's fourth-minute header was enough to give Manchester United an unconvincing victory in their FA Cup third-round tie against Watford on Saturday.\n\nWearing the captain's armband for the first time in a much-changed side from Wednesday's Carabao Cup semi-final defeat by Manchester City, McTominay found the net after rising to meet Alex Telles' corner.\n\nThe hosts did have chances to increase their lead, but Juan Mata failed to find a finish to an excellent three-man move just before half-time, then Daniel James and substitute Marcus Rashford had shots saved after the break.\n\nBut none of those opportunities were better than that for Hornets defender Adam Masina, who saw his effort blocked by United keeper Dean Henderson not long after McTominay had struck.\n• None Watch all the goals from the FA Cup third round\n• None How all of Saturday's FA Cup action unfolded\n• None How to follow FA Cup third round on the BBC\n\nNow under their fifth manager in two years, Xisco Munoz, Watford had other chances too - Joao Pedro's header went straight to Henderson and Ken Sema was off target with his.\n\nMason Greenwood and Donny van de Beek did little to press their claims for a regular starting slot in manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side, while Jesse Lingard - making only his third appearance of the season and the subject of interest from a number of clubs in the January transfer window - showed glimpses of form but eventually faded.\n\nUnited will go into the hat for Monday's fourth and fifth-round draws, while Watford are left to focus on winning promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt.\n\nGiven the increasing awareness of the effects of concussion, the decision of United's medical staff to take no risks with defender Eric Bailly when he was caught in the head by Henderson's knee as the keeper punched clear was a welcome one.\n\nThe Football Association had hoped to introduce concussion substitutes by now but it has not yet been able to as detailed protocols are yet to be received from Ifab, the world game's rulemakers.\n\nAs Bailly was guided towards the tunnel in the last minute of the first half, Harry Maguire replaced him and helped United keep the clean sheet which ensured they reached the fourth round for the 34th time in their past 36 attempts.\n\nAfterwards, United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said: \"I think it was his neck. I don't think it was concussion so that is a positive. But we have got to do scans.\"\n\n'I wanted to test McTominay and he delivered' - post-match quotes\n\nManchester United manager Solskjaer said: \"Scott has got everything a leader has to have. I wanted to test him by making him captain and see how he would react.\n\n\"He delivered and he always does. He was brilliant today.\n\n\"We have always trusted our young men coming through and Scott is one who we believe has the Manchester United DNA in him and knows what it is to be a Manchester United player.\"\n\nMcTominay on captaining the side: \"When the manager told me it was a surreal moment. I've been here since I had just turned five, so that's 18 or 19 years associated with the club and it is a huge honour.\n\n\"I love this club and it has been my whole life.\"\n\nUnited turn their attentions to a big week in the Premier League. Solskjaer's side travel to Burnley on Tuesday (20:15 GMT) knowing victory will send them top of the table above Liverpool - who they then play at Anfield on Sunday (16:30 GMT).\n\nWatford's miserable run at Old Trafford continues - stats of the day\n• None The last time Manchester United failed to progress in the FA Cup third round was January 2014, when they lost 2-1 to Swansea.\n• None Watford have lost on 10 consecutive visits to Old Trafford, scoring just three goals.\n• None United have progressed from each of their past 17 FA Cup matches against opposition from a lower division, since a 1-0 home defeat by League One side Leeds United in January 2010.\n• None McTominay has scored four goals in 22 matches this season, one short of his best tally in a campaign (five goals in 37 appearances in 2019-20). Three of those goals have been scored in the first five minutes of games.\n• None Watford attempted 18 shots in the match - only in their 2-0 loss at Huddersfield (21) have they had more shots on the road this season.\n• None Attempt blocked. Marc Navarro (Watford) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Will Hughes (Watford) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\n• None Attempt missed. Juan Mata (Manchester United) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the right from a direct free kick.\n• None Joseph Hungbo (Watford) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Joseph Hungbo (Watford) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt blocked. Joseph Hungbo (Watford) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by João Pedro. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Calculate the impact and how to change it\n• None Sir David Attenborough shows us the forces of nature that support the Earth", "A 107-year-old woman from Clonard, County Meath is attempting a virtual Mass tour across Ireland while in lockdown.\n\nNancy Stewart and granddaughter, Louise Coghlan, have been shielding together since March last year, and have set themselves the spiritual challenge.\n\nThey are attending Mass services across the 32 counties on the island from the comfort of their own kitchen.\n\nLouise said that because they have been shielding for so long together, she is constantly trying to find \"different ways of keeping granny entertained\".\n\nShe said that when she asks Nancy if she wants to watch Mass her \"eyes light up like I'd just given her a million euros\".\n\nNancy, whose favourite saint is St Anthony, said she can hardly believe she is able to watch Mass on a computer or a phone from her comfy armchair.\n\n\"I feel so happy and so refreshed sitting happily in my own kitchen, in my armchair looking at Mass,\" she told BBC News NI.\n\n\"I can't believe it, I'm trying to believe it's true.\"", "The number of patients in intensive care with Covid has risen sharply, amid warnings that tougher lockdown measures may be needed.\n\nLatest Scottish government figures show 1,877 new cases of Covid were reported in the last 24 hours\n\nThe number of people in intensive care has risen from 109 to 123, the highest daily jump since October.\n\nDeputy First Minister John Swinney said a tightening of restrictions could not be ruled out.\n\nA total of 1,598 people are currently in hospital with recently-confirmed Covid, up from Saturday's figure of 1,596 patients which was the highest number since the outbreak began.\n\nThe daily test positivity rate was10%, up from 8.7% on Saturday, when 1,865 positive cases were recorded.\n\nThe deputy first minister said the country was facing \"a very alarming situation\" with the virus.\n\nSpeaking on Politics Scotland, Mr Swinney said coronavirus does not show much sign of \"abating\" and he would not rule out tougher lockdown measures.\n\nHe said: \"We're seeing case numbers which are hovering around 2,000 per day... so we've got an accelerating situation on our hands and we have to constantly review whether more restrictions are required.\"\n\nThere have been some encouraging signs in recent days with average positivity rates falling, a possible indicator that the lockdown is having an impact, but Prof Linda Bauld, of Edinburgh University, urged caution.\n\nShe said: \"The numbers are not reducing at the rate which we want them to, so [it is] still a very fragile situation.\n\n\"The measures we have now I hope are working but it's not clear whether they are tough enough.\n\n\"I think the key change the government could make is in the sectors which are still open, particularly workplaces but also things like takeaways and click and collect.\"\n\nMr Swinney said the Scottish government is \"open to considering further restrictions if they are necessary\"\n\nProfessional sport, along with manufacturing and construction work have been allowed to continue in this lockdown, whereas they were not in the first wave in March.\n\nThe deputy first minister said the meeting of the cabinet which agreed the latest lockdown saw ministers wondering if they had gone far enough to stop the spread.\n\nMr Swinney added: \"I don't think I'm revealing a state secret when I say that the debate within cabinet was not whether we were going too far but whether we were going far enough.\"\n\nA total of three deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours but these figures are lower at weekends because register offices are generally closed.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Madrid has been hit by heavy snowfall after Storm Filomena\n\nStorm Filomena has blanketed parts of Spain in heavy snow, with half of the country on red alert for more on Saturday.\n\nRoad, rail and air travel has been disrupted and interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the country was facing \"the most intense storm in the last 50 years\".\n\nMadrid, one of the worst affected areas, is set to see up to 20cm (eight inches) of snow in the next 24 hours.\n\nFurther south the storm caused rivers to burst their banks.\n\nFour deaths have been reported so far as a result of Filomena. Officials said two people had been found frozen to death - one in the town of Zarzalejo, north-west of Madrid, and the other in the eastern city of Calatayud. Two people travelling in a car were swept away by floods near the southern city of Malaga.\n\nAs snow fell on Madrid on Friday evening, a number of vehicles became stranded on a motorway near the capital.\n\nThe city's Barajas airport has closed, along with a number of roads, and all trains to and from Madrid have been cancelled.\n\nFirefighters were called in to assist drivers who had become stuck. In some areas the military were called in to help clear roads.\n\nSpanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez urged people to stay at home and to follow the instructions of emergency services. King Felipe and Queen Letizia took to Twitter to urge \"extreme caution against the risks of accumulation of ice and snow\".\n\nThe country's AEMET weather agency said the snowfall was \"exceptional and most likely historic\".\n\nA number of people were seen making the most of the snowy scenery, walking through Madrid's Puerta del Sol square.\n\nLarge parks in Madrid have since been closed as a precaution, AFP news agency reports.\n\nOne man was pictured skiing along the Gran Via, the capital's famous shopping street.\n\nIn Cañada Real, the largest shanty town in western Europe, residents were seen creating a bonfire to keep warm.\n\nThe cold weather is set to continue beyond the weekend with temperatures in Madrid predicted to hit -12C on Thursday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Wales has received 275,000 doses of the two Covid-19 vaccines to deal with the pandemic.\n\nAbout 70,000 people received a first dose after the first month of the vaccine rollout.\n\nThe Welsh Government confirmed it has had more than 250,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 25,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab.\n\nThe health minister promised a \"really significant step-up\" in the roll-out after opponents criticised its speed.\n\nThe Pfizer jabs were first administered in early December at seven sites across Wales as part of the UK-wide immunisation programme.\n\nThis 82-year-old woman was one of 100 to receives her vaccine at a special clinic in Swansea on Saturday\n\nApproximately 1.6% of people were vaccinated up to 3 January - fewer than all other UK nations.\n\nIn England, about 1.9% of the population had received the first dose, while 2.1% of people in both Scotland and Northern Ireland had received their first jab.\n\nThe Welsh Government has dismissed criticism it is lagging behind, with health officials saying the new Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine would help speed up the programme \"considerably\".\n\nTwo full doses of the Oxford vaccine gave 62% protection, a half dose followed by a full dose was 90% and overall the trial showed 70% protection.\n\nThe rollout of the Oxford vaccine started on Monday, with 25,000 doses received this week, according to the Welsh Government.\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford said on Friday that Wales would receive another 25,000 Oxford doses next week and 80,000 the week after that.\n\nWhen asked how many doses of the Pfizer vaccine Wales had received, he said he could not recall the exact figure but further deliveries had been received \"on the 23rd and the 27th of December\".\n\nPressed on a figure, he said: \"It's the low hundreds of thousands\", adding: \"The Pfizer vaccine has particular challenges in terms of the conditions that it's got to be stored in and in parts of Wales that is a very particular challenge because it is a hard vaccine to transport over long distances to relatively scattered and remote communities.\n\n\"But the fact that we've got it and the fact that we're able to use more of it than we originally anticipated means we'll be able to accelerate the use of it over the next couple of weeks.\"\n\nThese were the latest comparative weekly totals - daily updates are promised from this week onwards in Wales\n\nOn Sunday, the Welsh Government confirmed it had received 25,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in the first week but the quantity would increase, allocated to Wales based on a population share on a weekly basis.\n\n\"We are confident in the assurances we have been given that this will increase over the next few weeks to around 100,000 per week,\" they said.\n\n\"We are delivering all the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine allocated to Wales directly to GPs, other primary care providers and hospitals as soon as it is available.\"\n\nConservative MP for the Vale of Clwyd, Dr James Davies, said: \"We all know that the Pfizer vaccine is difficult to transport and store and needs to be stored at -70 degrees, that's understood.\n\n\"But the issue is that actually, if you look at the rest of the UK, including very rural areas, they've managed to deal with it... and it is difficult to see why they haven't been in a position to be organised earlier and to ramp-up the delivery.\"\n\nRhun ap Iorwerth, Plaid Cymru's health spokesman, called for transparency: \"It is very worrying to find out that we have had in Wales more than 250,000 doses but only a relatively small proportion of that have yet ended up in people's arms, protecting people, because that's what we want to happen.\"\n\nHe has written an open letter to Health Minister Vaughan Gething calling for greater clarity on the vaccine deployment programme, asking for a dashboard of information which would allow the public to track the rollout's progress for themselves, including volume of doses delivered and administered by health board and by the nine priority groups.\n\nDr Olwen Williams, vice-president for Wales at the Royal College of Physicians, also called on health boards and Welsh Government to publish regular data showing which groups of people have been vaccinated, with patient-facing health workers prioritised over other colleagues.\n\n\"I think that would give assurance to people working in the NHS and the population in general, that the programme is progressing as planned,\" she said.\n\nAll data will be published daily from Monday but Mr Gething conceded that Wales, from last week's figures, was \"slightly behind on the population share and I'm not getting away from that.\"\n\nHe said the race was not \"necessarily against other UK nations\" but against the virus.\n\nHe also told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement that, in the next two to three weeks, he expected to see a \"really significant step-up in the delivery of the vaccine\" as more GP practices and community pharmacies help.\n\n\"We're going to get through many more people, giving them significant protection with a first vaccine,\" he said.\n\n\"And that will mean that we're going to be able to prevent most of the avoidable deaths.\"\n\nIt is hoped the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will speed up the process.\n\nBy the end of last week, it was being offered to patients aged over 80 at 73 GP practices.\n\nMore than 100 are expected to be offering the jabs next week, Mr Gething said, \"and then we get into several hundred thereafter and we'll bring community pharmacies on board.\"\n\nThe UK and Scottish governments did not provide the numbers of Pfizer vaccines supplied to England and Scotland. BBC Wales is still waiting for a response from the Northern Irish Executive.\n\nMeanwhile, regular rapid testing for people without coronavirus symptoms will be made available in England.\n\nThe Welsh Government said it would evaluate its mass testing pilots in Merthyr Tydfil and lower Cynon Valley, as well as elsewhere in the UK, to inform its approach to community testing.\n\nA spokesman added: \"We have announced regular asymptomatic testing of health and social care workers, in education and daily contact testing in South Wales Police.\n\n\"A pilot has also started at the Tata Port Talbot site. We are also exploring other opportunities for regular testing to support critical services.\"", "Amazon is removing \"free speech\" social network Parler from its web hosting service for violating rules.\n\nIf Parler fails to find a new web hosting service by Sunday evening, the entire network will go offline.\n\nParler styles itself as an \"unbiased\" social media and has proved popular with people banned from Twitter.\n\nAmazon told Parler it had found 98 posts on the site that encouraged violence. Apple and Google have removed the app from their stores.\n\nLaunched in 2018, Parler has proved particularly popular among supporters of US President Donald Trump and right-wing conservatives. Such groups have frequently accused Twitter and Facebook of unfairly censoring their views.\n\nWhile Mr Trump himself is not a user, the platform already features several high-profile contributors following earlier bursts of growth in 2020.\n\nTexas Senator Ted Cruz boasts 4.9 million followers on the platform, while Fox News host Sean Hannity has about seven million.\n\nThe move comes after Apple suspended Parler from its app store. The suspension will remain in place for as long as the network continued to spread posts that incite violence, it said.\n\nGoogle removed the app from its store on Friday.\n\nResponding to Google's move earlier, Parler's chief executive John Matze said: \"We won't cave to politically motivated companies and those authoritarians who hate free speech!\"\n\nHe also warned that Parler could be offline for up to a week while \"we rebuild from scratch\".\n\nIt briefly became the most-downloaded app in the United States after the US election, following a clampdown on the spread of election misinformation by Twitter and Facebook.\n\nIn a letter obtained by CNN, Amazon's AWS Trust and Safety team told Parler's Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff that the social network \"does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service\".\n\n\"AWS provides technology and services to customers across the political spectrum, and we continue to respect Parler's right to determine for itself what content it will allow on its site\", the letter said.\n\n\"However we cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others.\".\n\nParler will be removed from Amazon's web hosting service shortly before midnight on Sunday Pacific Standard Time (07:59 GMT on Monday).\n\nOn Saturday, Apple removed Parler from its app store after warning the network to remove content that violated its rules or face a ban.\n\n\"Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people's safety\", it said in a statement announcing the app's suspension on Saturday evening.\n\nFor months, Parler has been one of the most popular social media platforms for right-wing users.\n\nAs major platforms began taking action against viral conspiracy theories, disinformation and the harassment of election workers and officials in the aftermath of the US presidential vote, the app became more popular with elements of the fringe far-right.\n\nThis turned the network into a right-wing echo chamber, almost entirely populated by users fixated on revealing examples of election fraud and posting messages in support of attempts to overturn the election outcome.\n\nIn the days preceding the Capitol riots, the tone of discussion on the app became significantly more violent, with some users openly discussing ways to stop the certification of Joe Biden's victory by Congress.\n\nUnsubstantiated allegations and defamatory claims against a number of senior US figures such as Chief Justice John Roberts and Vice-President Mike Pence were rife on the app.\n\nGoogle and Apple say they are taking necessary action to ensure violent rhetoric is not promoted on their platforms.\n\nHowever, to those increasingly concerned about freedom of speech and expression on online platforms, it represents another example of draconian action by major tech companies which threatens internet freedom.\n\nThis is a debate which is certain to continue beyond the Trump presidency.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Keir Starmer calls for families to be put \"at the heart of our recovery\" from the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer has urged the government to \"protect family incomes\" as it deals with the economic effects of coronavirus.\n\nIn his first speech of the year, he demanded teachers, the armed forces and care workers are left out of the public sector pay freeze.\n\nSir Keir also called for tougher restrictions to be considered for tackling coronavirus.\n\nNo 10 said the government had \"shown it is prepared to act\".\n\nWith coronavirus restrictions and lockdowns shutting thousands of businesses, the economy was 7.9% smaller in October last year than it had been six months earlier.\n\nAnd the government's independent forecaster, the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, predicts that unemployment will rise to 2.6 million by the middle of this year.\n\nIn his speech, Sir Keir attacked the government for \"having been found wanting at every turn\", accusing Boris Johnson of being \"indecisive\" and acting \"too slow\" over further lockdowns and support for business and families.\n\nHe said: \"The British people will forgive many things. They know the pandemic is difficult.\n\n\"But they also know serial incompetence when they see it - and they know when a prime minister simply isn't up to the job.\"\n\nBut the PM's official spokeswoman rejected the criticism, saying: \"This government has shown it is prepared to act. When given evidence in the morning it has taken action that evening.\"\n\nAsked by the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg whether the government should tighten restrictions, such as closing nurseries, Sir Keir said there \"probably is more that we could do [and we] may have to get tougher\".\n\nBut he did not outline what measures he would recommend, instead saying it was \"time to hear from the scientists what else can be done - and that probably should be done in the next few hours\".\n\nThe Labour leader said ministers must \"protect family incomes and support businesses\" from the economic effects of previous restrictions and the current lockdown.\n\nHe added policies must \"make a real difference to millions of people across the country\" and \"put families at the heart of our recovery\".\n\nSir Keir argued the £20-a-week rise given to Universal Credit claimants last April must continue beyond this April's cut-off point.\n\nCouncil tax increases in England of up to 5% this April must not happen, he said, while calling for the ban on evictions and repossessions to be extended.\n\nThe government's pay freeze for at least 1.3 million public sector workers - which does not apply to NHS frontline staff and those earning below £24,000 a year - must not go ahead, said Sir Keir.\n\n\"I know this isn't everything that's needed,\" he added, \"and after so much suffering we can't go back the status quo.\n\n\"We cannot return to an economy where over half our care workers earn less than the living wage, where childcare is among the most expensive in Europe, where our social care system is a national disgrace and where over four million children grow up in poverty.\"\n\nAn opposition leader has no policy leavers to pull. They have to rely on words to persuade the public they are worthy of power.\n\nWith the next general election an eternity away, Sir Keir Starmer knows the question of competence matters far more to voters than ideology right now.\n\nThe Labour leader was unsparing in his criticism of the government's handling of the pandemic - accusing the prime minster of serial incompetence, dithering and delay.\n\nSir Keir said the government could reverse planned changes to council tax and universal credit to ease the financial pressure on families.\n\nBut pressed on how lockdown might be different today if he was in No 10, the Labour leader mirrored the government's messaging.\n\nHe said there was \"probably\" more that could be done around nurseries and estate agent viewings, but Sir Keir's mantra was listen to the scientists.\n\nIt's what ministers say endlessly too.\n\nSir Keir argued that, just as a Labour government \"built the welfare state from the rubble\" of World War Two, a future one can \"secure our economy, protect our NHS and rebuild our country so that Britain is the best country to grow up in and the best country to grow old in\".\n\nBut Conservative Party co-chairman Amanda Milling accused Sir Keir of \"calling for actions the Conservatives are already taking in government\".\n\n\"We have delivered an unprecedented £280bn package of support to protect jobs, livelihoods and public services through this pandemic,\" she added, including the furlough scheme, the temporary increase to Universal Credit and extra funding for councils.\n\n\"The Conservatives will continue to put families and communities at the heart of every decision we take as we deliver on our promises to the British people,\" Ms Milling said.\n\nIn his Spending Review in November, Chancellor Rishi Sunak warned that the \"economic emergency\" caused by the pandemic had only begun.\n\nHe promised to take \"extraordinary measures to protect people's jobs and incomes\".", "The Oxford vaccine rollout started in Wales earlier this week - those figures are not yet included\n\nMore than 14,000 people had their first dose of the Covid-19 jab in Wales in the past week, the latest figures show.\n\nIt takes the numbers on the priority list to have got the Pfizer-BioNTech jab to 49,403 since the rollout started on 8 December.\n\nBut Wales is lagging behind the rest of the UK so far, with a lower proportion of people getting a first dose.\n\nThe Welsh Government said that by next week, 60 GP practices and 20 centres would be vaccinating.\n\nHealth officials said the new Oxford vaccine would help speed up the programme \"considerably\".\n\nThe numbers do not include the first people to receive the new vaccine, which began to be given this week.\n\nPublic Health Wales (PHW) said the real numbers were likely to be higher, with the figures a snapshot based on those vaccines recorded electronically so far.\n\nThey give a breakdown by health board and also show how many people have been given their first dose.\n\nThe figures also include people, such as NHS staff, who work in Wales but live over the border, but do not yet give details of people in different priority categories.\n\nRhun ap Iorwerth, Plaid Cymru's health spokesman, said: \"We need real transparency on progress of the vaccination process.\n\n\"This must include clear targets and data on how many vaccines come to Wales, and how many are distributed and given out by each health board to each priority group - both the first and second doses - so we can measure this against the targets. This is how confidence can be built that Wales is on track.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government said: \"These are early days in our mass vaccination programme. Momentum will continue to build and the speed of our vaccination programme will increase each week.\n\n\"From Monday, the number of people vaccinated will be published daily and we will publish our vaccination rollout plan early next week.\"\n\nThe figure in Wales means approximately 1.6% of people have been vaccinated up to 3 January - fewer than other UK nations - and the gap appears to be growing compared to last week.\n\nIn England, nearly 1.1 million people were given the first dose by 3 January. This is about 1.9% of the population. NHS England said 60% of doses have gone to people aged over 80.\n\nIf vaccinations were being given at the same rate in Wales as in England, a further 13,000 people would have been given a dose.\n\nIn both Scotland and Northern Ireland, 2.1% of people have been given a first dose.\n\nHow many people have had a Covid-19 vaccine? Residents in Wales vaccinated by health board, to 3 January Source: Public Health Wales, 7 January. Excludes 224 unknown and 1,024 doses for priority groups living in England\n\nSamantha is keen to have the vaccine as soon as possible and return to work\n\nDental nurse Samantha Davies, 47, who has shielded since March, was overjoyed at the prospect of having the coronavirus vaccine and returning to work.\n\nBut she is now in limbo after confusion over whether she could have the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab because of her ongoing treatment for Crohn's Disease.\n\nAfter filling out a questionnaire sent by PHW, a consultant recommended she should have the Pfizer-BioNTech jab instead.\n\nThis is because of the inflectra infusion treatment she receives every eight weeks to treat her Crohn's Disease - a type of inflammatory bowel condition.\n\nHowever, the Pfizer vaccine is in shorter supply than the Oxford vaccine and the Swansea practice where Samantha works was only offered 10 vaccinations.\n\nAs Samantha, from Foelgastell, Carmarthenshire, is shielding and not in work, she was not considered a priority for one of these.\n\nSwansea Bay health board has since said the advice about vaccines was given in error and pledged to arrange an appointment for her as soon as possible.\n\n\"It's just being home all the time. Some people I know had it two or three weeks ago. The government put me shielding since March on sick pay and I just want to return to work,\" she said.\n\nWhile she was furloughed from April to August, Samantha has been on statutory sick pay since.\n\nDr Gillian Richardson, the senior officer responsible for the Covid-19 vaccine programme in Wales, said the efforts from NHS Wales and PHW had been \"exceptional\".\n\n\"The number of doses unable to be used have been incredibly low - around 1% - and significantly below anticipated levels, thanks to the robust appointment planning and reserve lists,\" she said.\n\n\"The NHS is providing vaccines as quickly and as safely as possible to people in the priority groups.\"\n\nDerek Hinchliffe, 80, says he is \"frustrated\" at not knowing when he will get his first dose of vaccine\n\nHowever, 80-year-old Derek Hinchliffe, who is eligible for a first dose of a Covid vaccine during this period of the rollout, said he was \"frustrated\" because he has had no information about getting the first dose.\n\nMr Hinchliffe, who lives with his wife in Penpedairheol in Caerphilly county, said: \"We've had nothing - no communication.\n\n\"We've got friends the same as us who live in England who have had their first dose, and some of them are having their second vaccination.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Stephen Crabb This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nConservative health spokesman Andrew RT Davies renewed his call for a vaccinations minister to be appointed to take control.\n\n\"Of course we welcome the increase in the number of vaccinations, but the rough calculation is that one in 65 people in Wales has had their jab compared to one in 50 in England,\" he said,\n\n\"Factor in the postcode lottery emerging in Wales, and the picture's not looking great.\n\n\"You're twice as likely in south Wales to have had the vaccination and three times more likely to have had it in mid Wales than in north Wales.\"\n\nDr Richardson called the second Covid vaccine - Oxford-AstraZeneca - which began its roll-out on Monday a \"real game-changer\".\n\nShe said it would help speed up vaccinations considerably.\n\nThere are challenges with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine because it has to be stored at extremely cold temperatures, while the Oxford vaccine can be be kept in a fridge.\n\nBoth vaccines will be available in Wales and the Welsh Government said 40,000 doses of the Oxford jab would be available within the first two weeks - with 22,000 jabs this week.\n\nTwo full doses of the Oxford vaccine gave 62% protection, a half dose followed by a full dose was 90% and overall the trial showed 70% protection.", "Bez in training for his new exercise classes in a park in Manchester\n\nHappy Mondays star Bez is to launch his own lockdown fitness classes to inspire the nation like Joe Wicks.\n\nThe former maraca-shaking dancer, 56, wants to rival Joe Wicks with his online YouTube classes \"Get Buzzin' With Bez\" to be launched on 17 January.\n\nBez, whose on-stage \"freaky dancing\" made him an icon of the 'Madchester' music scene, has admitted he also wants to budge his own lockdown bulge.\n\nHe won Celebrity Big Brother in 2005 and even made a bid to become an MP.\n\nBez, whose real name is Mark Berry, will be shown being trained in the fitness classes rather than acting as the instructor himself.\n\nHe said: \"I'd like to think I'm somewhere between Joe Wicks and Mr Motivator.\n\n\"I've started this new year seriously unfit, with a fat belly and creaky hips, and I can't stop eating chocolate.\n\n\"Last lockdown I got unfit, fat, lazy and into some seriously bad eating habits.\n\nBez being put through his paces with a personal trainer\n\n\"This year, this lockdown, I need to sort it out sharpish.\"\n\nHe said that people can join him on \"on this mad journey or just sit on the sofa and have a good laugh at me\".\n\nBez said he has \"started this new year seriously unfit, with a fat belly and creaky hips\"\n\nThe former dancer added: \"At the very least, I know I'll be making people smile, at best I'll be helping people get fit and mentally happier alongside me.\"\n\nThe Happy Mondays, along with bands like The Stone Roses and Inspiral Carpets, spearheaded the indie music 'Madchester' scene of the late 80s and early 90s.\n\nBez dancing with his maraca on BBC One's Top of the Pops as the band perform Step On in 1989\n\nBez's bug-eyed dance routines were said to have inspired the group's song Freaky Dancin' and made him one of the best-known members of the group, alongside frontman Shaun Ryder.\n\nTheir hits included Step On, Kinky Afro, Hallelujah and 24 Hour Party People.\n\nHowever, serious drug habits and infighting led to the Salford band's breakup in 1993.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "An ambulance had to be lifted out of the mud\n\nRescuers searching for victims of a landslide in Indonesia were buried by a second mudslide just hours later, officials say.\n\nThe first landslide, in Cihanjuang village, West Java, was triggered by torrential rain.\n\nAnother struck as survivors were still being evacuated. At least 12 people died and dozens more are missing.\n\nLandslides are common in Indonesia during rainy season, and often blamed on deforestation.\n\nThe latest disasters hit the villagers in Sumedang regency, about 150km (95 miles) southeast of the capital Jakarta, three and a half hours apart on Saturday.\n\nThe first happened at 16:00 (09:00 GMT) and the second at 19:30 (12:30 GMT), disaster agency spokesman Raditya Jati said in a statement.\n\n\"The first landslide was triggered by high rainfall and unstable soil conditions. The subsequent landslide occurred while officers were still evacuating victims around the first landslide area,\" he added.\n\nRescuers are believed to be among those killed, he added. A six-year-old boy was also among the dead, according to AFP news agency.\n\nSome 27 people were believed to be missing late on Sunday, local media quoted Deden Ridwansah, the head of the local search and rescue agency as saying. About 46 were known to have survived.\n\nBad weather had forced the search to be suspended, he said, but it was expected to resume on Monday.\n\nIndonesia frequently suffers floods and landslides. Thousands of people had to be evacuated in the capital Jakarta this time last year as the city was inundated.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n• None The fastest-sinking city in the world", "More than 80,000 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test since the start of the pandemic, official figures have shown.\n\nA further 1,035 deaths in the UK were reported on Saturday, taking the total by that measure to 80,868.\n\nThe number of daily cases of people who tested positive for coronavirus increased by 59,937.\n\nOnly the US, Brazil, India and Mexico have recorded more Covid deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.\n\nIt is the fourth day in a row that the UK has reported more than 1,000 daily deaths.\n\nIt comes as scientists advising the government have warned that lockdown measures in England need to be stricter to achieve the same impact as the March shutdown.\n\nMinisters have launched a new campaign urging people to act like they have the virus.\n\nMeanwhile, Buckingham Palace has said the Queen, 94, and the Duke of Edinburgh, 99, received Covid-19 vaccinations on Saturday.\n\nThe Office for National Statistics recently estimated as many as one in 50 people in England had coronavirus between 27 December and 2 January, while in London it was one in 30.\n\nOn Friday, mayor Sadiq Khan said the spread of Covid in the capital was \"out of control\".\n\nOfficial figures from Public Health England showed London had the highest regional case rate in the UK, exceeding 1,000 per 100,000 people.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and can only go out for essential reasons. Similar measures are in place across most of Scotland, in Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nProf Robert West, a participant in the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), which advises the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the current rules were \"still allowing a lot of activity which is spreading the virus\".\n\nHe said the new variant of Covid was around 50% more infectious compared to the virus that infected people last March.\n\n\"That means that if we were to achieve the same result as we got in March we would have to have a stricter lockdown, and it (the current regime) is not stricter,\" he added.\n\nThe professor of health psychology at University College London also told the BBC more children were going to school, compared to during the first lockdown.\n\nHe said schools were \"a very important seed of community infection\".\n\nMore children are at school, after the Department for Education widened the categories of vulnerable and key worker pupils allowed to attend. Attendance rates have risen to 50% in some places.\n\nProf Susan Michie, who is also a member of Sage, said the spread of the new, more infectious variant meant current restrictions were \"too lax\".\n\n\"When you look at the data, it shows that almost 90% of people are overwhelmingly adhering to the rules - despite the fact that we're also seeing more people out and about,\" she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nShe said, in comparison to the first lockdown in spring 2020, more people were allowed to go out to work and children's nurseries were open, making public transport busier.\n\nThe number of people travelling by public transport in London has decreased since the latest national lockdown began, with tube journeys now at 18% of the pre-pandemic demand and bus journeys at 30%, according to figures from Transport for London.\n\nHowever, during the first lockdown passenger numbers fell below 10% at some points.\n\nScientists believe the new variant spreads between 50 and 70% faster compared to previous forms of the virus.\n\nProf Kevin Fenton, London regional director for Public Health England, said there were \"things we could do better\" to reduce the number of infections, including greater compliance with mask wearing and social distancing when shopping and using public transport.\n\nTorsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that the UK's statutory sick pay system was \"not fit for purpose for a pandemic\" and more effective measures to encourage people to isolate were needed.\n\nAs cases and deaths soar, the government has launched an advertising campaign, which will be shared across television, radio, newspapers and on social media, urging people to stay at home and not to get complacent.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said: \"I know the last year has taken its toll - but your compliance is now more vital than ever.\"\n\nGovernment sources say there is also likely to be more focus from police on enforcing rather than explaining rules.\n\nOn Saturday afternoon, 12 people were arrested during an anti-lockdown protest in south London.\n\nIf you would like to send us a tribute to a friend or family member who died after contracting coronavirus, please use the form below.\n\nPlease remember to include a photo of your loved one and their name. Upload your pictures here. Don't forget to include your contact details, so we can get in touch with you.\n\nWe would like to respond to everyone individually and include every tribute in our coverage, but unfortunately that may not be possible. Please be assured your message will be read and treated with the utmost respect.\n\nPlease note the contact details you provide will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your tribute.\n• None Lockdown needs to be stricter, scientists warn", "Kay and Kenneth Hayward said they felt the journey was too unsafe\n\nPeople waiting to receive the Covid-19 vaccine say they are confused by NHS letters inviting them to travel to centres miles away from their homes.\n\nThe first 130,000 letters have been sent to people aged 80 or older who live about 30 to 45 minutes' drive away from one of seven new regional centres.\n\nBut patients, many of whom are shielding, questioned why they had to travel so far in a pandemic.\n\nLocal jabs are available to people if they wait, the NHS said.\n\nThe seven centres include Ashton Gate in Bristol, Epsom racecourse in Surrey, London's Nightingale hospital, Newcastle's Centre for Life, the Manchester Tennis and Football Centre, Robertson House in Stevenage and Birmingham's Millennium Point.\n\nPeople will not miss out on their vaccination if they do not use the letters to make an appointment at one of the centres, the NHS said.\n\nTwo Labour MPs tweeted about their concerns about the letters being delayed in getting out to people due to coronavirus affecting Royal Mail staff.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sarah Jones MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMary McGarry from Leamington Spa in Warwickshire told BBC News that her letter points to an NHS online booking page which suggests she would have to take her husband, who has cancer and a lung disease, 20 miles to Birmingham.\n\n\"We're very reluctant to go into Birmingham city centre,\" she said.\n\n\"If we can't get somebody to take us, we'd have to go on the train but we're shielding because my husband's got poor health.... we want to know why we've got to travel that far?\"\n\nKay Hayward, from Whitwick in Leicestershire, said she went online to book an appointment for her 85-year-old husband Kenneth and was offered five different places including Widnes in Cheshire and Stevenage in Hertfordshire.\n\n\"I thought they must be joking... we talked about it and we thought it was actually safer to stay here and for him not not have it.\n\n130,000 letters have been sent out by NHS England so far\n\n\"But we were worried if we turned this down, we'd be off the list.. the letter doesn't say anything about having the vaccines anywhere else locally.\"\n\nAndrea Eaton, from Coventry, said she was so angry that her 81-year-old mother, who has heart problems and leukaemia, was offered Birmingham for her appointment that she attempted to ring Downing Street on Saturday night to complain.\n\nShe said she reached the press office and said: \"I want you to give Boris a message please that he has lied to the British public.\n\n\"He has told them they never need to go more than 10 miles... they were really rude and just put the phone down on me.\"\n\nAndrea Eaton said she wanted to get a message to Boris Johnson so rang Downing Street on Saturday evening\n\nA spokesperson from Number 10 told BBC News that they did not wish to comment, but wanted to remind the public to use the government website to write to the prime minister or contact their constituency MP.\n\nCouncillor Shaun Davies, the Labour leader at Telford and Wrekin Council in Shropshire, said he had been contacted by dozens of people who have found the letters misleading, thinking this is their only chance to get the vaccine.\n\nHe said he had spoken to Trafford Council and was aware of people in Shropshire being sent to Manchester and residents there being directed to Birmingham to get their jabs.\n\n\"For many people they have been told consistently to wait for the NHS to contact you in order to get a vaccine and that's what they've had for the first time as a piece of communication.\n\n\"This is really, really concerning for people in their 80s or 90s because of the importance of getting the vaccine.\"\n\nThe letters are not \"going to the heart\" of the public health message which is staying home and staying local, he said.\n\nMore than 500,000 letters will be sent out to homes offering people appointments at the centres over the next seven days\n\nDr Sarah Raistrick, from Coventry and Rugby Clinical Commission group (CCG), said people did not have to travel to the centres but admitted the letter did not make that clear.\n\n\"You can wait and be contacted by your local GP service and have it locally if you'd prefer.\n\n\"If you sit tight, you will be contacted and I'm hopeful that if you're 80 or over, by the end of this month you will have had your vaccination whether that is locally or whether you have chosen to travel,\" she said.\n\nWork will be done with the NHS locally and nationally to make that message clearer, she added.\n\nThe seven centres were chosen to give a geographical spread covering as many people as possible and are capable of delivering thousands of jabs per week, NHS England has said.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Sir Keir Starmer has said the \"status quo isn't working\" for Scotland but has again rejected calls for a second independence referendum.\n\nThe Labour leader, who backs devolving more powers from Westminster, claimed another vote would be \"divisive\".\n\nHowever, he said he did not agree with Boris Johnson's assessment that there should not be another referendum for at least 40 years.\n\nThe SNP said a vote would allow Scots to choose how to rebuild after Covid.\n\nLast year Sir Keir said he would set up a constitutional commission to offer a \"positive alternative to the Scottish people\".\n\nHe told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: \"I don't think there should be another referendum, I don't think a further divisive referendum is the way forward.\n\n\"But I do accept that the status quo isn't working. I don't accept the argument that the status quo isn't working, the next thing you do is go to a referendum.\n\n\"I think there are other things you can do, other arguments that can be made in support of the United Kingdom.\"\n\nAsked about Boris Johnson's 40-year position, Sir Keir replied: \"I heard the prime minister say that and I don't agree with him on that.\"\n\nSpeaking on BBC Politics Scotland, Deputy First minister John Swinney rejected suggestions that the recovery from the Covid crisis should be a greater priority than another independence vote.\n\nHe said: \"An independence referendum is an essential priority of the people of Scotland because it gives us the opportunity to choose how we rebuild as a country from Covid.\n\n\"It would give us the opportunity to decide on our constitutional future and to determine the nature of our economy and how we deal with and support our citizens.\"\n\nEarlier this month Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the BBC he thought the 41-year interval between the UK's referendums on joining the EU and leaving it was a \"good sort of gap\".\n\nMr Johnson said in his experience, such votes \"don't have a notably unifying force in the national mood, they should be only once in a generation\".", "This car was one of many turned away by police at Moel Famau on Saturday\n\nPeople are \"blatantly\" ignoring rules on lockdown restrictions despite repeated warnings, police have said.\n\nMore than 100 cars had been turned away from Moel Famau on the Flintshire border by Saturday lunchtime, with some driving past \"road closed\" signs.\n\nIn Snowdonia, Gwynedd, a warden said a group from Leicester would have \"probably ignored our advice\" if police had not arrived and told them to leave.\n\nLevel four restrictions mean travelling for exercise is not allowed in Wales.\n\nKeith Ellis, a warden at Pen y Pass in Snowdonia, said while it had been much quieter this weekend, people were still travelling, despite the restrictions.\n\n\"We've had three from Leicester first thing this morning and if the police hadn't turned up they would have probably ignored our advice and carried on up the mountain,\" he said.\n\n\"What they were wearing was totally inappropriate and they would have probably got into danger.\n\n\"We've had people also from Liverpool and some locals turning up knowing full well what the rules are, but just trying it on.\n\n\"Luckily there are a lot more police officers around and all these people have been spoken to and advised by the police as well.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by NWP Rural Crime Team /Tîm Troseddau Cefn Gwlad HGC This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA Welsh Government spokesman said: \"Cases of coronavirus are very high in Wales at the moment and there is a new strain of the virus circulating, which is highly infectious and moving quickly.\n\n\"At alert level four, exercise should always be undertaken from home, unless you have special circumstances which requires some flexibility - such as disability or autism.\n\n\"The more people gather, the greater the risk of spreading or catching the virus.\"", "Boris Johnson is expected to announce a set of new national restrictions for England, similar to the March lockdown, in a televised address at 20:00 GMT.\n\nThe PM is likely to urge the public to follow the new rules from midnight.\n\nIt is expected people will be told to work from home if possible and schools will close for most pupils.\n\nIt is not yet clear when the measures will be reviewed, but MPs are likely to be given a vote to approve them retrospectively on Wednesday.\n\nMeanwhile, the UK's chief medical officers warned of a \"material risk of healthcare services being overwhelmed\" in several areas over the next 21 days.\n\nScotland announced a legal requirement to stay at home from midnight, with schools to be closed.\n\nMr Johnson will set out plans for England as the UK's devolved nations have the power to set their own coronavirus regulations.\n\nBoth Wales and Northern Ireland are already under national restrictions.\n\nOn Monday, the UK recorded more than 50,000 new confirmed Covid cases for the seventh day in a row.\n\nAs of 08:00 GMT, there were 26,626 Covid-19 patients in hospital in England, according to the latest figures.\n\nThis is a week-on-week increase of 30%, and a new record high.\n\nMr Johnson is expected to tell people to work from home unless they are a key worker, or it is not possible for them to do so, for example if they work on a construction site, according to BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg.\n\nIt is also understood that England's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, has told the prime minister the new variant of coronavirus is now spreading throughout the country.\n\nThe new variant - first identified in Kent and since seen across the UK and other parts of the world - has been found to spread much more easily than earlier variants.\n\nA No 10 spokesman said the spread of the new variant had led to \"rapidly escalating case numbers across the country\".\n\n\"The prime minister is clear that further steps must now be taken to arrest this rise and to protect the NHS and save lives,\" he added.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer - who called for a national lockdown in England within 24 hours on Sunday - said: \"I hope the prime minister has been listening to the clear calls for tough national restrictions.\"\n\nHospitals have said they are under \"extreme pressure\" and one of Britain's most senior doctors warned on the weekend that trusts across the UK should prepare themselves for a surge in cases.\n\nThe number of Covid-19 patients in UK hospitals is currently above the level seen in spring 2020.\n\nA further 58,784 cases and an additional 407 deaths within 28 days of a positive test result were reported on Monday, though deaths in Scotland were not recorded.\n\nWhat worked before may not work again - even a repeat of the March lockdown may not be enough to contain the new variant.\n\nConsider the R number - the number of people each infected person passes the virus onto on average.\n\nThe March lockdown brought R down to 0.6 and led to a sharp decline in cases.\n\nEvery 100 infected people passed the virus onto 60 others, who passed it onto 36, then 21, then 12 and so on.\n\nBut the new variant is thought to be around 50% more transmissible so its R number, in the same lockdown conditions, would be around 0.9.\n\nThen 100 infected people would pass the virus onto 90 others, then 81, then 73, then 66 and so on.\n\nThis is a far slower decline.\n\nHowever, uncertainty around the new variant means there are scenarios where its levels plateau rather than fall during lockdown conditions.\n\nIt is going to be a tough start to the year. Even with immediate and tough restrictions there are a projected 20,000 additional deaths in the first months of 2021.\n\nNow more than ever this is a race between the virus and the vaccine.\n\nMr Johnson's address comes as UK chief medical officers recommended the Covid threat level be increased to five - its highest level.\n\nIt means the NHS may soon be unable to handle a further sustained rise in cases, the medical officers said in a joint statement.\n\nNHS Providers, which represents health service trusts, said hospitals were at a \"critical point\" and that \"immediate and decisive action\" is needed.\n\nPreviously, the government described level five as requiring stricter social distancing measures. The first lockdown, which began in March 2020, was when the UK was under level four.\n\nThese Covid threat levels are separate to the regional tier system of restrictions in England.\n\nAnnouncing tougher measures in Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: \"It is no exaggeration to say that I am more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year.\"\n\nThe new restrictions in Scotland mean it will be a legal requirement to stay at home except for certain essential purposes, similar to the first lockdown last March. Schools will be closed to pupils until February.\n\nIn Wales, all schools and colleges will move to online learning until at least 18 January.\n\nNorthern Ireland's Stormont Executive are also meeting to discuss possible new measures in light of Mr Johnson's televised address - which will air on BBC One and the BBC iPlayer from 19:35 GMT.\n\nThe prime minister will speak amid continued uncertainty over whether schools will remain open to all pupils in England, after several councils requested classrooms stay shut.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 82-year-old Brian Pinker is given the Oxford vaccine at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford\n\nEarlier on Monday, an 82-year-old retired maintenance manager became the first person in the UK to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nBrian Pinker said he was \"really proud\" to receive a jab developed in the UK, which will form a large part of the country's mass vaccination plan.\n\n\"The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant and I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year,\" Mr Pinker said.", "Most pupils will be studying from home for the rest of this half term\n\nSchools and colleges in England are to be closed to most pupils until at least half term, Boris Johnson has announced.\n\nThe prime minister said the new lockdown had to be \"tough enough\" to stop the variant virus from spreading - and teaching will go online.\n\nA-Levels and GCSEs will be cancelled, a government source confirmed to BBC News - although vocational exams will go ahead.\n\nThe National Education Union accused the government of causing \"chaos\".\n\nIn a television address, Mr Johnson announced the biggest changes to schools since the early days of the first lockdown in March.\n\n\"Because we now have to do everything we possibly can to stop the spread of the disease, primary schools, secondary schools and colleges across England must move to remote provision from tomorrow,\" said the prime minister.\n\nThis means a return to online learning for pupils of all ages - apart from vulnerable children and the children of key workers who can continue to go into school.\n\nPrimary schools went back today - and will then close again tomorrow\n\n\"We recognise that this will mean it's not possible or fair for all exams to go ahead this summer, as normal,\" said Mr Johnson.\n\nIt is understood that vocational exams will continue, but GCSEs and A-levels will be cancelled - and that the exam watchdog Ofqual will make \"alternative arrangements\" for delivering results.\n\nAn attempt to produce replacement exam grades last summer turned into one of the biggest U-turns of the pandemic.\n\nTeachers' unions accused the government of failing to react more swiftly to \"mounting evidence\" about Covid transmission in schools and to make preparations for remote teaching and alternatives to written exams.\n\nBut Mary Bousted, co-leader of the National Education Union, said Education Secretary Gavin Williamson had \"become an expert in putting his head in the sand\".\n\nGeoff Barton of the ASCL head teachers' union criticised ministers for having issued legal threats to keep schools open at the end of last term - and then \"made a series of chaotic announcements about the start of this term\".\n\nThe new term, which began on Monday for primary pupils, has only lasted a day before it has been suspended.\n\nThe prime minister said he hoped that schools would be \"reopening schools after the February half term\".\n\nThere have been assurances that there will be a more thorough approach to home learning than in the first lockdown last year.\n\nThe Department for Education has provided hundreds of thousands of computer devices - with the aim of supporting those without the equipment needed to work online from home.\n\nThere have also been suggestions Ofsted inspectors will play a more active role in checking on what support schools are providing to pupils in their online learning.\n\nUniversities in England had already planned a staggered return for this term - but there will now be even fewer students on campus this month.\n\nThe latest lockdown guidance says university students who are taking hands-on courses such as medicine or veterinary science should return for face-to-face lessons as planned.\n\nThese students will be expected to take two Covid tests or self-isolate for 10 days when they return.\n\nBut students on all other courses are being told not to come back to university if possible and to start their term online \"until at least mid-February\".", "The Queen's 95th birthday will be commemorated on one of five new coins released this year, the Royal Mint has announced.\n\nThe 2021 British coin collection will also mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of novelist Sir Walter Scott, and the 75th anniversary of the death of author HG Wells.\n\nThe release of a £5 coin is typically reserved for significant royal events.\n\nIn April the Queen will become the first UK monarch to reach 95.\n\nThe new £5 coin depicts the royal cypher \"EIIR\", above the words \"my heart and my devotion\", a nod to part of her 1957 Christmas broadcast, which was the first to be televised.\n\nDuring that speech, the Queen told the nation: \"In the old days the monarch led his soldiers on the battlefield and his leadership at all times was close and personal.\n\n\"Today things are very different. I cannot lead you into battle, I do not give you laws or administer justice, but I can do something else, I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.\"\n\nThe anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott, who wrote the novels Waverley, Rob Roy and Ivanhoe and is considered one of Scotland's most famous figures, will be celebrated with a £2 coin.\n\nThe 75th anniversary of the death of science fiction author HG Wells, who penned works such as The Time Machine and The War Of The Worlds, will also be marked on a £2 coin, with a depiction of images from his novels.\n\nThe 50th anniversary of decimalisation, when Britain's modern coins came into force, will be featured on a 50p coin.\n\nThe 75th anniversary of the death of the inventor John Logie Baird, famous for his early prototypes of the television, will be commemorated on another new 50p coin.\n\nAs the Queen's head already appears on one side of all coins in circulation, these five coins will each offer a different depiction from the various stages of her reign.\n\nClare Maclennan, of the consumer division at the Royal Mint, said this year's commemorative coins marked \"some of the biggest anniversaries in 2021\", with each coin \"a miniature work of art\" designed as \"a treasured keepsake or gift\".\n\nThe commemorative set will be available to purchase from the Royal Mint website.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Olly Stephens was pronounced dead in Bugs Bottom fields in Emmer Green, Reading\n\nA school says its community has been left \"reeling\" after a 13-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Reading.\n\nOliver Stephens, known as Olly, was pronounced dead at Bugs Bottom fields, Emmer Green, on Sunday.\n\nFour boys and a girl, all aged 13 or 14, have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. They remain in custody.\n\nHighdown School and Sixth Form Centre head teacher Rachel Cave described the boy's death as a \"total tragedy\".\n\nIn a statement, she said: \"This student was part of our community and many students and staff knew him well.\n\n\"Many have been deeply affected by this tragedy.\n\n\"In normal circumstances we would open the school and welcome in students for support before the start of the term.\n\n\"We are currently unable to do this, of course, but are arranging counselling support and will be establishing an electronic book of condolence.\"\n\nFlowers have been left outside Highdown School\n\nMs Cave said the school was \"a supportive and close-knit community\" which would \"work together over the coming days and weeks\".\n\nDet Supt Kevin Brown, of Thames Valley Police, said: \"Our thoughts remain with Olly's family at this incredibly difficult time.\"\n\nHe added: \"This is a tragic and shocking incident which has resulted in the death of a young boy.\"\n\nThe victim's family are being supported by specially trained officers.\n\nThames Valley Police said a \"considerable police presence\" would be in place in the area for several days\n\nOfficers were called just before 16:00 GMT on Sunday following reports of an attack.\n\nOfficers are appealing for anyone who was in the area between 15:00 and 16:30 who might have taken photos or camera footage to contact them if they notice anything suspicious.\n\nDet Supt Brown said he believed there would have been witnesses to the \"dreadful incident\" as the area is popular with dog walkers.\n\nA man said his wife was walking their dog through the park on Sunday afternoon when she saw a boy on the ground with several people around him trying to give him first aid.\n\nAnother dog walker said she saw a group of young people standing in the woods in Bugs Bottom fields at about 15:30 and described it as \"slightly unusual\".\n\nReading East MP Matt Rodda has offered his \"deepest condolences\" to the boy's family.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Matt Rodda This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSt Barnabas Church in Emmer Green has invited residents to pray and light a candle in memory of the boy.\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Nick Hulme said intensive care units at Colchester and Ipswich hospitals were \"at capacity\"\n\nSecurity officers removed Covid-19 \"deniers\" who were taking pictures of empty corridors at a NHS hospital where the intensive care unit is at maximum capacity, its chief executive said.\n\nThe incident took place at Colchester Hospital at the weekend.\n\nChief executive Nick Hulme said it \"beggars belief\" some people were calling the pandemic a hoax.\n\nHe said it was \"the right thing to do\" to keep corridors in outpatients units as empty as possible.\n\nMr Hulme said hospital security had to \"remove people who were taking photographs of empty corridors and then posting them on social media, saying the hospital is not in crisis\".\n\n\"When you've got that sort of social media pressure and those people denying the reality of Covid it really concerns us. Words fail me,\" he said.\n\n\"Why would people do that when we all know somebody who has died from Covid?\n\n\"Of course there are empty corridors at the weekend in outpatients, because that's the right thing to do.\n\n\"We are facing the biggest health challenge we've ever seen and we are still seeing people flouting the [social distancing] rules.\"\n\nPeople had to be removed from Colchester Hospital's outpatients ward for taking pictures of empty corridors and claiming Covid-19 was a hoax\n\nUnder coronavirus pandemic restrictions on social distancing, many outpatient consultations had been moved online or were taking place over the telephone, he added.\n\nPhysical appointments, tests and procedures had been organised differently to avoid crowded waiting areas.\n\nMr Hulme is chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust which also runs Ipswich Hospital and he said there were currently 320 patients being treated for Covid-19 across both sites.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "The homes of Frank and Christine Lampard, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and Tamara Ecclestone and her husband were broken into in December 2019\n\nFour people have been cleared of being involved in a plot to raid the luxury homes of celebrities in west London.\n\nItems belonging to Frank Lampard, Tamara Ecclestone and the family of tycoon Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha were among the items taken during three burglaries in December 2019.\n\nProsecutors said Maria Mester, 48, Emil Bogdan Savastru, 30, Sorin Marcovici, 53, and Alexandru Stan, 49, were a \"supporting cast\" for the burglars.\n\nBut a jury found all four not guilty.\n\nIsleworth Crown Court heard the three burglaries had netted \"big money\" for the raiders, with \"fabulous jewellery\" stolen and the majority of it having never been recovered.\n\nJay Rutland, Tamara Ecclestone and their daughter had left for Lapland on the morning of the burglary\n\nJewellery and cash worth £25m was taken from Ms Ecclestone's Kensington home while she was on holiday in Lapland with her husband Jay Rutland and their daughter.\n\nMr Lampard and his TV presenter wife Christine had about £60,000 in watches and jewellery stolen when they were out, while raiders also ransacked the family home of Mr Srivaddhanaprabha, who died in 2018 in a helicopter crash, the jury was told.\n\nThe four defendants were accused of eight charges including conspiracy to burgle.\n\nHowever, each denied their involvement with the plot, saying they had no knowledge that the alleged burglars were criminals.\n\nJurors were shown an image from Maria Mester's Facebook account, in which she was said to be wearing Tamara Ecclestone's necklace\n\nThe court heard escort Ms Mester had flown into the UK from Italy on 7 December.\n\nPolice described her as the plot's \"matriarch\", but the 48-year-old told jurors she was only in London after being paid £5,000 to accompany one of the alleged burglars for the week.\n\nSavastru was arrested at Heathrow Airport on 30 January as he prepared to leave for Japan, wearing Mr Srivaddhanaprabha's Tag watch and carrying a Louis Vuitton bag stolen from Mr Rutland.\n\nHe told the court he thought the items had been left behind by the alleged burglars at the Airbnb property he had helped them rent.\n\nThe four Romanian nationals were cleared of all charges apart from Savastru, who was convicted of one count of attempting to conceal criminal property.\n\nThe 30-year-old will be sentenced at a later date.\n\nA group of alleged burglars, who cannot be named for legal reasons, are accused of carrying out the raids.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Boris Johnson has reiterated his position that a Scottish independence referendum should be a \"once-in-a-generation\" vote.\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, the prime minister said the gap between referendums on Europe - the first in 1975 and the second in 2016 - was \"a good sort of gap\".\n\nHowever, Mr Marr suggested that now \"things had changed\" for Scotland.\n\nNicola Sturgeon wants to see an independent Scotland join the EU.\n\nAndrew Marr asked the prime minister what a voter in Scotland should do if they decided that a second independence referendum was now something they wanted, and what were the \"democratic tools\" to now do that?\n\nMr Johnson replied by saying: \"Referendums in my experience, direct experience, in this country are not particularly jolly events.\n\n\"They don't have a notably unifying force in the national mood, they should be only once-in-a-generation.\"\n\nAsked what the difference was between a referendum on EU membership being granted and one on Scottish independence being requested, he said: \"The difference is we had a referendum in 1975 and we then had another one in 2016.\n\n\"That seems to be about the right sort of gap.\"\n\nThe 2014 independence referendum resulted in a 55.3% vote against Scotland going alone.\n\nOn Hogmanay, Nicola Sturgeon said Europe should \"keep a light on\" as Scotland will be \"back soon\".\n\nThe first minister tweeted just after the Brexit transition period formally ended at 11:00 on 31 December 2020.\n\nScotland's trading and travel relationships with EU countries will now be governed by the agreement announced by the UK government on Christmas Eve.\n\nMs Sturgeon reiterated the SNP's call for an independent Scotland to join the EU.\n\nTweeting a picture of the words Europe and Scotland joined by a love heart, she wrote: \"Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the light on.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nicola Sturgeon This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSNP depute leader Keith Brown said: \"It may be a new year but it's the same old incoherent bluster from Boris Johnson. The prime minister pretends otherwise but he knows he can't keep on denying democracy.\n\n\"Even his American pal Donald Trump has learned that if you try to stand in the way of the democratic choice of a nation you get swept away.\n\n\"The people who will decide our future are the people of Scotland, not Boris Johnson and the Westminster Tories.\"\n\nFormer Labour prime minister Tony Blair said it was \"extremely difficult\" to challenge the SNP on independence when the party was \"virtually uncontested\" in Scotland.\n\nHe said: \"We had a referendum that rejected Scottish independence, but Brexit put it back on the agenda again. And it's going to require very careful management. The truth of the matter is it's still not in Scotland's interest to separate from England.\n\n\"There are huge economic and political reasons for the United Kingdom to stay the United Kingdom but we're going to have to examine whether there's different constitutional settlements.\n\n\"I also think it's incredibly important, the single most important thing politically to my mind, is that we get a really capable opposition in Scotland - which should be the Labour Party - that's capable of contesting the Scottish nationalist position in Scotland in a way that prevents them from doing what they do at the moment, which is govern Scotland but pretend they're in opposition.\"\n\nScottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater said: \"Only the people of Scotland have the right to determine Scotland's future.\n\n\"Seventeen consecutive opinion polls have demonstrated majorities in favour of independence, with the most recent indicating a record 58% support.\n\n\"Whether it's the botched handling of the coronavirus crisis, the Brexit catastrophe or just the heartlessness of Tory governments we haven't voted for, it's clear that the UK isn't working for Scotland.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 82-year-old Brian Pinker is given the Oxford vaccine at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford\n\nDialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, has become the first person to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nThe retired maintenance manager got the jab at 7:30 GMT from nurse Sam Foster at Oxford's Churchill Hospital.\n\nMore than half a million doses of the vaccine are ready for use on Monday.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said it was a \"pivotal moment\" in the UK's fight against the virus, as vaccines will help curb infections and then allow restrictions to be lifted.\n\nBut Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned on Monday there was \"no question we will have to take tougher measures\", which will be announced in \"due course\", as the UK struggles to control a new, fast-spreading variant of the virus.\n\nOn Sunday more than 50,000 new confirmed Covid cases were recorded in the UK for the sixth day running, prompting Labour to call for a third national lockdown in England.\n\nNorthern Ireland and Wales currently have their own lockdowns in place and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced a fresh lockdown will begin in Scotland from 00:01 on Tuesday.\n\nThe rollout comes as rows continue over whether pupils should return to school with the current high levels of Covid infections.\n\nSix hospital trusts - in Oxford, London, Sussex, Lancashire and Warwickshire - have begun administering the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, with 530,000 doses ready for use.\n\nMost other available doses will be sent to hundreds of GP-led services and care homes across the UK later in the week, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.\n\nMr Pinker, who has been having dialysis for kidney disease at the Churchill Hospital for a number of years, said he was \"really proud\" the vaccine was developed in Oxford.\n\n\"The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant and I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year,\" he said.\n\nMusic teacher and father-of-three Trevor Cowlett, 88, and Prof Andrew Pollard, a paediatrician working at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and lead investigator of the Oxford vaccine trial, were also among the first to be vaccinated.\n\nChief nurse Ms Foster, who administered the first dose, told the BBC it was a \"huge privilege\", saying: \"Every single patient that we have vaccinated over the last couple of weeks have got their own personal stories to the difference it's going to make, so it is no different this morning.\"\n\nSpeaking during a visit to London's Chase Farm Hospital, to meet some of the first people to receive the Oxford vaccine, the prime minister said there were \"tough, tough\" weeks to come.\n\nThere will now be a \"massive ramp-up\" in vaccination numbers \"in the weeks ahead\", Mr Johnson said, and the number of vaccine doses will amount to \"tens of millions by the end of March\".\n\nAsked when the government will be able to vaccinate two million people a week, Mr Johnson said the government will give more details \"in the next few days... as soon as we have better numbers to give\".\n\nMr Hancock told BBC Breakfast the Oxford vaccine rollout was a \"pivotal moment\" in the fight against coronavirus, saying: \"It's going to be a tough few weeks ahead, but this is the way out.\"\n\nAsked about reports potential volunteers were being deterred by the additional training and forms, Mr Hancock said they were going to \"reduce the amount of bureaucracy\".\n\n\"For instance there's one of the training programmes about how to tackle terrorism, I don't think that's necessary, we're going to stop that,\" he said.\n\nHowever, he said this was not delaying the delivery of the vaccine, adding that the next delivery of the vaccine will be \"early this week\" to be \"deployed next week\".\n\nEngland's chief medical officer Chris Whitty said the vaccines \"give us a route out in the medium term\" but warned the NHS was \"under considerable and rising pressure in the short term\".\n\nFormer health secretary and Conservative chairman of the Commons' health committee Jeremy Hunt tweeted that it was \"time to act\" and the government needed to close schools and borders, ban all household mixing and impose a 12-week national lockdown in England.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jeremy Hunt This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLabour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth agreed that a national lockdown was needed, as well as \"rapidly scaled-up vaccine distribution\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Matt Hancock: 'This way can save more lives'\n\nAs the recent rise in Covid cases puts increased pressure on the NHS, the UK has accelerated its vaccination rollout by planning to give both doses of the vaccine 12 weeks apart, having initially planned to leave 21 days between jabs.\n\nThe UK's chief medical officers have defended the delay to second doses, saying getting more people vaccinated with the first jab \"is much more preferable\".\n\nMake no mistake, the UK is in a race against time.\n\nThat much is clear from the decision to delay the second dose of the vaccine to focus on giving as many people as possible their first doses.\n\nSo how fast can the NHS go? Ultimately it wants to get to two million doses a week.\n\nThat will not be achieved this week.\n\nBut Monday marks the start of the NHS putting the accelerator to the floor.\n\nA rapid increase in the vaccination rate should follow.\n\nBut how quickly the UK can go is dependent on several complex processes.\n\nFirst, the vaccine has to be manufactured, then it has to be put into vials and packaged up (known as fill and finish). After that each batch has to be checked and certified before being sent to NHS vaccination sites where there needs to be enough vaccinators and support staff to ensure those doses are given as quickly as possible.\n\nProblems at any one stage can disrupt how quickly the vaccination programme can be rolled out.\n\nWhile there are millions of doses of each vaccine in the country and a total of 140 million of both vaccines pre-ordered, there are currently just over one million - around 500,000 of each - ready to be given this week.\n\nNHS medical director Professor Stephen Powis said: \"The NHS' biggest vaccination programme in history is off to a strong start, thanks to the tremendous efforts of NHS staff who have already delivered more than one million jabs.\"\n\nHe said the Oxford vaccine rollout was \"chalking up another world first that will protect thousands more over the coming weeks\".\n\nThe Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first jab approved in the UK, and more than a million people have had their first one.\n\nThe first person to get the jab on 8 December, Margaret Keenan, has already had her second dose.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Dr Nikita Kanani, NHS England's medical director for primary care, says it's crucial to get more patients the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine\n\nThe Oxford jab - which was approved for use in late December - can be stored at normal fridge temperatures, making it easier to distribute and store than the Pfizer jab. It is also cheaper per dose.\n\nThe UK has secured 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, enough for most of the population.\n\nCare home residents and staff, people aged over 80, and frontline NHS staff will be first to receive it.\n\nGPs and local vaccination services have been asked to ensure every care home resident in their local area is vaccinated by the end of January, the Department of Health and Social Care said.\n\nSome 730 vaccination sites have already been established across the UK, with the total set to surpass 1,000 later this week, the department added.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon announces stay at home rules in new lockdown\n\nScots are to be ordered to stay at home amid a fresh Covid-19 lockdown which will see schools remain closed to pupils until February.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon said new curbs would be introduced at midnight in a bid to contain the new, faster-spreading strain of the virus.\n\nNew laws will require people to stay at home and work from home where possible.\n\nOutdoor gatherings are also to be cut back, with people only allowed to meet one person from one other household.\n\nPlaces of worship are to be closed, group exercise banned, and schools will largely operate via online and remote learning.\n\nThese rules will apply across the Scottish mainland until at least the end of January, and will be kept under review.\n\nIsland areas will remain in level three - but Ms Sturgeon said they would be monitored carefully.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson later announced similar lockdown measures for the whole of England with all schools and colleges closing to most pupils until mid February.\n\nA further 1,905 new cases were reported in Scotland on Monday - with 15% of tests returning a positive result, something Ms Sturgeon said \"illustrates the severity and urgency of the situation\".\n\nThe first minister said she was \"more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year\", with the new coronavirus strain now accounting for half of new cases.\n\nAnd she said a \"steeply rising trend of infections\" was threatening to put \"significant pressure\" on NHS services, saying hospitals could breach capacity within three to four weeks.\n\nThe new rules - which will be put down in law - mean Scots will only be allowed to leave home for essential purposes, such as shopping for food and medicine, exercise and caring responsibilities.\n\nNo limit is to be put on how many times people can go out to exercise, but outdoor meetings are to be limited to a maximum of two people from two households.\n\nEveryone who can work from home will be required to, and people in the \"shielding\" category are advised not to go in to work at all.\n\nThe construction and manufacturing industries will remain open, but Ms Sturgeon said this would be kept under review.\n\nPlaces of worship are to close, the number of people who can attend weddings is to be cut to five, and funeral wakes will no longer be allowed.\n\nSchools are to remain closed to the majority of pupils until February, with Ms Sturgeon saying community transmission of the virus must be brought to a lower level amid concerns that the new variant of the virus spreads more easily among young people.\n\nShe said she knew remote learning presented \"significant challenges\" for parents, teachers and pupils, adding: \"I want to be clear that it remains our priority to get school buildings open again for all pupils are quickly as possible and then keep them open.\"\n\nThe first minister said she was considering whether teachers could be given the Covid-19 vaccine as a priority.\n\nMore than 100,000 people have been given a first dose of the vaccine in Scotland, and the government expects to have access to just over 900,000 doses by the end of January.\n\nHowever Ms Sturgeon said the best way to get schools open again was to drive down transmission of the virus - urging Scots to abide by the rules.\n\nThese are the toughest restrictions Scotland has faced since the lockdown of March 2020.\n\nIt is - once again - becoming compulsory to stay at home except for essential purposes like food shopping, exercise and medical care.\n\nThe extended closure of schools to most pupils is something the Scottish government was particularly keen to avoid.\n\nThese decisions are a measure of how worried ministers are about the rapid spread of the new variant of coronavirus, which is fast becoming the dominant strain.\n\nWith 225 cases per 100,000 people, Scotland is thought to be about four weeks behind London, which already has four times as many cases and NHS services under considerable pressure.\n\nThe Scottish government believes that without further action the NHS here would run out of beds for Covid patients within a month.\n\nThis new alert comes at the start of a new year which also brings new hope for a route out of the pandemic with two vaccines now beginning to offer protection.\n\nAround 100,000 doses have already been administered in Scotland but it is likely to take several months to reach all in the most vulnerable groups.\n\nThe first minister said Scotland was now in \"a race between the vaccine and the virus\".\n\nShe said: \"The Scottish government will do everything we can to speed up distribution of the vaccine. But all of us must do everything we can to slow down the spread of the virus.\n\n\"We can already see - by looking at infection rates in the south of England - some of what could happen here in Scotland. To prevent that, we need to act immediately and firmly.\n\n\"For government, that means introducing tough measures - as we have done today. And for all of us, it means sticking to the rules.\"\n\nScottish Conservative group leader Ruth Davidson raised concerns about online learning, saying it was vital that pupils had \"equal access to high-quality education\".\n\nAnd Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said teachers and working parents would need support to make the remote learning system work.\n\nMs Sturgeon said her government had \"agonised\" over the decision on schools, and said the \"fundamental priority\" was to re-open them in full as soon as possible.\n\nShe said: \"Just as the last places we ever want to close are schools and nurseries - so it is the case that schools and nurseries will be the first places we want to reopen as we re-emerge from this latest lockdown.\"\n\nThe NHS has coped so far in Scotland - more so than many other parts of the UK.\n\nBut in places like Glasgow and Lanarkshire it has been very, very tight. And here like everywhere else staff are bracing themselves for the post-Christmas effects of rising cases.\n\nThe first minister gave some stark figures on hospital and ICU occupancy - suggesting we are just weeks away from reaching limits.\n\nThere is so little give in the system they will be glad to see everything possible done to prevent stretched services being overwhelmed at a time when we are on our way to getting out the other side.\n\nThere is real anxiety about what the next few weeks might bring.\n• None Covid in Scotland: New lockdown from midnight", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. James Shaw, from Dundee, was among the first to receive the jab\n\nThe first Scottish recipients of the new Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine have received their jabs.\n\nJames Shaw, 82, and his 82-year-old wife Malita were among the first to be vaccinated in Dundee.\n\nThe couple received their first doses at Lochee Health and Community Care Centre.\n\nNicola Sturgeon has said she hoped all over-50s and those with underlying health conditions will have been vaccinated by early May.\n\nJames said: \"My wife and I are delighted to be receiving this vaccination. I have asthma and bronchitis and I have been desperate to have it so I am really pleased to be one of the first to be getting it.\n\n\"I know it takes a little while for the vaccine to work but after today I know that I will feel a bit less worried about going out. I will still be very careful and avoid busy places but knowing I have been vaccinated will really help me.\n\n\"All of my friends have said they are going to have the vaccine when it is their turn and I would encourage everyone who is offered this vaccination to take it.\"\n\nJames Shaw, 82, was one of the first people in Scotland to receive the AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, administered by advanced nurse practitioner Justine Williams\n\nThe Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine programme is being rolled out less than a week after it was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). It is the second vaccine approved for use in the UK.\n\nNHS Tayside is rolling out the vaccine through GP practices in the community and will also vaccinate elderly residents and staff in care homes.\n\nIts associate director of public health Dr Daniel Chandleris said: \"The efforts of our vaccination teams have been amazing and it is testament to a real whole team approach that sees the first over-80s in the general population have their jabs today in Tayside.\n\n\"The availability and mobility of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine gives us the opportunity to start to roll out the biggest vaccine programme that the UK has ever seen across our communities.\n\n\"Over-80s are the first priority group and patients will be contacted directly to attend a vaccination session.\"\n\nScottish Secretary Alister Jack added: \"This is another important moment in our fight against the virus - every vaccination takes us a step closer to getting back to our normal lives as soon as possible.\n\n\"As with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the UK is the first country in the world to approve and roll out the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, with the UK Government ordering and paying for millions of doses for people in all parts of the UK.\"\n\nThe milestone came as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced a new stricter lockdown.\n\nWith the exception of essential travel, people in mainland Scotland will have to remain at home from midnight.\n\nStatistics released on Monday showed a further 1,905 people had contracted Covid-19.\n\nFigures for hospital admissions and deaths over the holiday weekend will not be published until Tuesday.\n\nMs Sturgeon likened the situation to a race between the vaccine and the virus.\n\nShe said: \"In one lane we have vaccines - our job is to make sure they run as fast as possible.\n\n\"But in the other lane is the virus which - as a result of this new variant - has just learned to run much faster and has most definitely picked up pace in the last couple of weeks.\n\n\"To ensure that the vaccine wins the race, it is essential to speed up vaccination as far as possible. But to give it the time it needs to get ahead, we must also slow the virus down.\"\n\nThe new vaccine will initially be available in the hospitals that have been delivering the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, and new community settings will be able to deliver the jabs from 11 January.\n\nPeople in Scotland will be contacted by their health board when it is their turn to be vaccinated.\n\nThe Oxford vaccination marks a major turning point in the pandemic and will lead to a massive expansion in the UK's immunisation campaign, with enough to vaccinate 50 million people throughout the UK already on order.\n\nIt is easier to transport and store than the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which needs cold storage of about -70C.\n\nThe Oxford vaccine is logistically much easier to distribute\n\nThe UK government has said 530,000 doses of the Oxford vaccine will be available to the UK from Monday, with \"millions due by the beginning of February\".\n\nScotland will ultimately get an 8.2% share of these vaccines, based on its population.\n\nChief Medical Officer Dr Gregor Smith has said he expects the NHS in Scotland to receive 440,360 doses of the vaccine during January.\n\nThe first minister said on Monday about 100,000 people in Scotland have already received a first dose of vaccine.\n\nBoth vaccines require two doses to be administered with an interval of between four and 12 weeks.\n\nPreviously the advice was for the vaccines to have a four-week gap between doses.\n\nThe Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) then recommended as many people as possible in the top priority groups should be offered a first dose as the initial priority.", "Dr Radha Modgil from BBC Radio 1’s Life Hacks shares her top five tips on how to stay mentally and emotionally well during the coronavirus lockdown, all beginning with the letter C.\n\nSticking to a routine, making sure we take care of ourselves, and using our creativity in new ways are all ways she suggests we can ease the psychological toll that staying inside is having on all of us.\n\nListen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.", "A top Swedish official involved in the coronavirus response has defended a Christmas holiday in the Canary Islands in the face of heavy criticism.\n\nDan Eliasson is head of the civil contingencies agency, which earlier in December had texted all Swedes urging them to avoid travel.\n\nHe was photographed in Las Palmas airport on the island of Gran Canaria.\n\nMr Eliasson insisted the trip was necessary \"for family reasons\".\n\nHe told Swedish media that he had \"given up a lot of trips during this pandemic\" but thought this one was necessary because he had a daughter living in the Canaries.\n\n\"I celebrated Christmas with her and my family,\" he told Expressen newspaper. He also said he had been worked remotely while in the Canaries.\n\nSweden has had 437,000 confirmed cases and 8,700 deaths - many more than its Scandinavian neighbours. The country has never imposed a full lockdown.\n\nHowever, alarmed by rising numbers of cases last month, the Swedish government reversed some of its guidance and sent a text message to all Swedes asking them to read updated guidelines.\n\nThe guidelines included asking Swedes to avoid unnecessary trips and not to make new contacts during a journey or at the destination.\n\nMr Eliasson was then photographed several times in Gran Canaria, including at the airport.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Expressen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThere have been calls for Mr Eliasson, an experienced official who has worked at several important departments, to be fired.\n\nPrime Minister Stefan Löfven and other ministers have not yet commented, according to Swedish media.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. From the pandemic to measles, Smitha Mundasad looks at global health challenges in 2021", "Last updated on .From the section Horse Racing\n\nTributes have been paid to trainer Zoe Davison, who died from cancer on the same day two of her horses claimed wins at Plumpton.\n\nDavison, who had breast cancer for four-and-a-half years, died at her Shovelstrode Racing Stables in Sussex.\n\nBrown Bullet and Mr Jack, both trained at the family's stable, had raced to victory at the Sussex track on Sunday.\n\nSimon Clare, part-owner of Brown Bullet, said: \"Zoe was just the most wonderful human being imaginable.\"\n\nHer husband Andrew Irvine - who she married in 2018 - was by her side, along with family.\n\nHe said: \"She was the most wonderful, incredible person. I am blessed to have spent the last 24 years of my life with her.\"\n\nDaughter Gemelle Johnson, who was assistant to her mother, said: \"I just feel a bit numb inside because of everything.\n\n\"I'm a bit overwhelmed we've had a double for mum. Hopefully we have made her proud. It's surreal. Our team is a family business and we put everything into it. She will be thoroughly missed as she is the glue that holds us together.\n\n\"We've had a few winners around here and it is one of our local tracks. It means everything to us as we want to do her proud.\"\n\nDavison sent out the first of over 100 winners when Sails Legend, with AP McCoy in the saddle, won at Towcester in November 1997.\n\nShe enjoyed her best season with 15 winners in the 2017-18 campaign.\n\nJockey Page Fuller has a long association with the stable and should have ridden Mr Jack but had been stood down from an earlier fall.\n\nShe said: \"You couldn't have written it any better today. She was just a kind and genuine person who was a real horsewoman. She loved her horses and did her best by them.\n\n\"She has been struggling for a long time, but fortunately her strength has rubbed off on everybody else and they showed that by sending out the winners today.\n\n\"It has been a great team effort and it is great she has gone out like that. I don't know anybody who would have a bad word to say about her - she was just one of those really nice people.\"\n\nEd Arkell, ex-Fontwell clerk of the course and now at nearby West Sussex track Goodwood, said: \"Zoe was a huge part of the southern racing circuit. I'm so sorry for her family and she will be very much missed. She was a friendly, happy person who everybody loved.\n\n\"As a trainer, she ran a wonderful family operation. There are less of those these days. She supported her local tracks and became a big part of them.\"\n\nClare added: \"Zoe was the most talented horsewoman imaginable. What she didn't know about horses wasn't worth knowing.\n\n\"She is so incredibly well loved and will be desperately missed by everyone who knew her.\"", "Cases have reached record highs in the past week\n\nThe next few weeks could be the most dangerous period for Scotland since March in the fight against Covid, the first minister has warned.\n\nNicola Sturgeon said the new variant of the virus was \"accelerating spread\" across Scotland.\n\n\"If you first foot someone today, or hug/kiss/handshake them HNY, you are putting yourself, others and the NHS at risk,\" she tweeted.\n\nA further 2,539 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed on Friday.\n\nThe number is slightly down on Thursday's figure, but Ms Sturgeon said cases numbers were still \"worryingly high\".\n\nDaily confirmed cases have reached record highs on each of the previous three days, rising to to 2,622 on Thursday.\n\nThe percentage of positive cases also reached 14.4% on Wednesday - the highest it has been since the second wave of the pandemic began in the summer.\n\nMs Sturgeon tweeted: \"Today's case numbers are worryingly high again. The new variant is accelerating spread.\n\n\"PLEASE do not visit other people's homes just now, even today - if you first foot someone today, or hug/kiss/handshake them HNY, you are putting yourself, others & the NHS at risk.\"\n\nShe said the \"vaccine cavalry\" was on the way, offering \"real hope for 2021\", but she added: \"With this new variant, the next few weeks may be the most dangerous we've faced since Mar/April.\n\n\"We must act together to suppress it, to save lives and protect the NHS. Folded hands stick with it.\"\n\nThe number of daily confirmed cases has reached record highs this week\n\nA new study by London's Imperial College has found that the new variant of Covid-19 is \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version.\n\nIt concludes the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.\n\nThe UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nThe Scottish government's most recent estimate of the R number in Scotland has put it between 0.9 and 1.1.\n\nEmma Thomson, a professor of infectious disease at the University of Glasgow, said it was important to get people vaccinated quickly.\n\nThe professor, who has been working on the sequencing of the new Covid mutation, told the BBC that lockdown was not controlling the infection \"on its own\".\n\n\"At least we come in armed into the new year with two vaccines which are highly effective at preventing severe disease. We have that,\" she said.\n\n\"We need to roll it out now to add to the public health measures.\"\n\nParties, traditional \"first-footing\" and social events were banned this Hogmanay, with all of mainland Scotland and Skye being under the highest level of Covid restrictions.\n\nAll official events were cancelled, but police had to disperse a crowds of people who gathered at Edinburgh Castle and Calton Hill to see in the new year.\n\nIt has also emerged that 32 people were charged with reckless conduct after police found them gathered at a rented property in Aberfoyle on 27 December.\n\nA Scottish government spokesperson said: \"As the first minister has pointed out, the sharp rise in cases is evidence that the new strain seems to be speeding up transmission.\n\n\"This is why we are asking people to please stay at home as much as possible and avoid non-essential interaction with others.\n\n\"There is light at the end of the tunnel, but we ask everyone to be patient as we work our way through the vaccination programme, and continue to follow FACTS to keep us all safe.\"", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning. We'll have another update for you at 18:00 BST.\n\nThe first patients have been given the Oxford vaccine - five days after it was approved for use in the UK. Dialysis patient Brian Pinker, aged 82, was the first to receive it. It's a \"pivotal moment\" in the fight against the virus, according to Health Secretary Matt Hancock. More than 500,000 doses are ready to go, with care home residents and staff, people aged over 80, and NHS workers at the front of the queue. Some 730 vaccination sites have already been established, we're told, with the total set to surpass 1,000 later this week. The Oxford jab is easier to distribute and store than the Pfizer version, which was the first to be approved. It's also cheaper per dose. Find out more about how it was developed, and when you might receive one.\n\nThe vaccine news may be positive, but few deny the coronavirus situation in the UK right now is bleak. On Sunday, more than 50,000 new cases were recorded for the sixth day running and Labour is calling for a third national lockdown in England. Boris Johnson has admitted tougher restrictions are likely. Nicola Sturgeon is expected to announce new restrictions for Scotland later, while Northern Ireland and Wales already have their own lockdowns in place. The obvious next step for England would probably be to move more areas into tier four - a reminder of what that means - but our science editor David Shukman says there are other steps under discussion too.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nJanuary is normally a boom time for gyms, but coronavirus restrictions mean many are closed and others can't offer any group classes. At the same time, there's been an explosion in fitness tech, allowing more of us than ever to work out at home. So what does this mean for the future of the gym sector? Our reporter Eleanor Lawrie looks closely. Meanwhile, wherever you are in the UK, see 21 simple ways to get fitter in 2021.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sports expert Ruth Lowry says exercising outdoors could help us cope with Covid this winter\n\nThe pandemic has prompted many of us to change direction, career-wise, whether out of choice or necessity. Our CEO Secrets series has been documenting some of those forging a new path here in the UK, but the same trends are going on elsewhere too. In India, Shalini Sharma and Mrinali Hariyal have gone from stay-at-home mums cooking for their families to chefs providing meals for paying customers. They're plugging the gap left by restaurant closures and finding new identities for themselves. Watch their stories.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nFind more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nPlus, are pandemics the new normal?\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Some Covid restrictions are being reintroduced in response to the Omicron variant.\n\nCheck what the rules are in your area by entering your postcode or council name below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. What are the rules in your area? Enter a full UK postcode or council name to find out\n\nIf you cannot see the look-up, click here.\n\nThe rules highlighted in the search tool are a selection of the key government restrictions in place in your area.\n\nAlways check your relevant national and local authority website for more information on the situation where you live. Also check local guidance before travelling to others parts of the UK.\n\nAll the guidance in our search look-up comes from national government websites.\n\nFor more information on national measures see:\n\nFind out how the pandemic has affected your area and how it compares with the national average by following this link to an in depth guide to the numbers involved.", "More than 200 workers at Google-parent Alphabet have taken steps to form a labour union in a rare development for an American tech giant.\n\nThey said the organisation will give staff greater power to voice concerns about discriminatory work practices at the firm and how it handles issues like online hate speech.\n\nThe move follows walkouts and other actions by staff in recent years.\n\nGoogle said it would \"continue engaging directly with all our employees\".\n\n\"We've always worked hard to create a supportive and rewarding workplace for our workforce,\" Kara Silverstein, director of people operations, said in a statement.\n\n\"Of course our employees have protected labour rights that we support. But as we've always done, we'll continue engaging directly with all our employees\".\n\nThe announcement of the Alphabet Workers Union comes weeks after Google's firing of a high-profile black artificial intelligence and ethics researcher generated uproar.\n\nThe US National Labor Relations Board also recently ruled the firm had unlawfully fired employees for attempting to organise a union.\n\nGoogle staff stage a walkout in 2018 over the company's handling of sexual misconduct allegations\n\nStaff have also mobilised against the firm's \"Project Maven\" work with the Department of Defense and the company's handling of sexual harassment complaints.\n\n\"This union builds upon years of courageous organizing by Google workers,\" Nicki Anselmo, program manager, said in the announcement.\n\n\"From fighting the 'real names' policy, to opposing Project Maven, to protesting the egregious, multi-million dollar payouts that have been given to executives who've committed sexual harassment, we've seen first-hand that Alphabet responds when we act collectively.\n\n\"Our new union provides a sustainable structure to ensure that our shared values as Alphabet employees are respected even after the headlines fade.\"\n\nThe group was organised by software engineers but is open to all ranks at the company's US and Canadian workforce, including temporary workers and contractors.\n\nIt is affiliated with the larger labour group, Communication Workers of America, but is not seeking formal recognition from the federal government, limiting its bargaining power.\n\nIt represents a small fraction of Alphabet's workforce, which includes more than 130,000 people as of September and roughly as many contractors, vendors and temporary staff.\n\nMembers who join will contribute about 1% of their compensation to the effort.\n\n\"We want Alphabet to be a company where workers have a meaningful say in decisions that affect us and the societies we live in,\" organisers wrote on Twitter.", "Nóra Quoirin was born with holoprosencephaly, a disorder that affects brain development\n\nA girl whose body was found in a jungle during a holiday in Malaysia died by misadventure, a coroner has recorded.\n\nNóra Quoirin, 15, from Balham, south-west London, was discovered dead nine days after she went missing from an eco-resort in August 2019.\n\nThe family said they were \"utterly disappointed\" with the verdict, which ruled out any criminal involvement.\n\nThey believe \"layers of evidence\" that were heard at the inquest point towards Nora having been abducted.\n\nThe family were staying in Sora House in Dusun eco-resort near Seremban, about 40 miles (65km) south of Kuala Lumpur, when they reported Nóra missing, the day after they had arrived.\n\nNóra, who was born with holoprosencephaly - a disorder which affects brain development - was eventually found by a group of civilian volunteers in a palm-oil plantation less than two miles from the holiday home.\n\nThe Quoirins, whose lawyers had asked the coroner to record an open verdict, said in a statement after the ruling that they have a number of reasons for the abduction theory. These include:\n\nSearch and rescue teams were deployed in an effort to locate Nora\n\nIn the statement, issued through the Lucie Blackman Trust, the family said they witnessed 80 slides presented in court as the verdict was given, adding that none of them \"engaged with who Nóra really was - neither her personality nor her intellectual abilities\".\n\nThey said: \"The coroner made mention several times of her inability to rule on certain points due to not knowing Nóra enough.\n\n\"It is indeed our view that to know Nóra would be to know that she was simply incapable of hiding in undergrowth, climbing out a window and making her way out of a fenced resort in the darkness unclothed.\"\n\nThe statement added: \"We believe we have fought not just for Nóra but in honour of all the special needs children in this world who deserve our most committed support and the most careful application of justice.\n\n\"This is Nóra's unique legacy and we will never let it go.\"\n\nFom the outset Meabh Quoirin believed her daughter had been abducted but Malaysian police insisted Nóra's disappearance had always been a missing persons case and ruled out any criminal involvement.\n\nThe authorities closed the case in January 2020, and Nóra's parents pushed for the inquest.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police played the sound of Nóra's mother's voice through a loudspeaker in the jungle\n\nDuring the inquest, a British pathologist who carried out a second post-mortem examination said Nóra's body had no injuries to suggest she was attacked or restrained.\n\nOn the final day of evidence, an investigating officer who was on duty the morning Nóra was reported missing said he was confident there were no criminal elements involved in her disappearance.\n\nFollowing the coroner's verdict, the Quoirins' legal team have discussed the family's rights moving forward, which include the possibility of applying for a revision of the misadventure verdict at the High Court of Seremban.\n\nLouise Azmi, one lawyer for the family, said they had pressed for an open verdict to reflect the lack of positive evidence in the case regarding what happened to Nora.\n\nAn open verdict would leave open the possibility that a criminal element was involved in Nora's death, Mrs Azmi said.\n\nShe told the BBC based on everything the family know of Nora, \"they continue to believe it is impossible she would have willingly walked away into the jungle\".\n\nThe family's legal team say parents Meabh and Sebastien Quoirin are \"disappointed\" with today's verdict.\n\nBut, Coroner Maimoonah Aid said her verdict was made not on \"theories\" and \"speculation\" surrounding the case, but on the balance of probabilities of the evidence presented before her.\n\nWith no evidence to the contrary she ruled out foul play.\n\nMoving forward, the Quoirin family now have the possibility to apply for a revision of the verdict with the High Court of Seremban.\n\nThere is precedent of a verdict being overturned in Malaysia before.\n\nIn 2019, following an appeal, a Malaysian coroner's verdict of misadventure concerning the death of 18-year-old model Ivana Smit was overturned in Kuala Lumpur and reopened as a murder investigation.\n\nAccording to Quoirin family lawyer Sakthy Vell, the family say they now need time to consider their next course of action.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. PM: 'No question we're going to have to take tougher measures'\n\nBoris Johnson has said there is \"no question\" the government will announce stricter measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus \"in due course\".\n\nHe predicted \"tough, tough\" weeks to come, with more than three-quarters of England's population already under the highest - tier four - restrictions.\n\nOn Sunday, the UK recorded more than 50,000 new confirmed Covid cases for the sixth day in a row.\n\nLabour is calling for new England-wide restrictions to come in immediately.\n\nLeader Sir Keir Starmer said it was \"inevitable\" more schools would have to close to lessen the spread of coronavirus.\n\nIn Scotland, further new restrictions are to come into force at midnight, including a \"legal requirement\" for people to stay at home. except for essential purposes.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland was effectively returning to conditions similar to Spring's nation-wide lockdown, with the curbs in place until at least the end of January.\n\nAn additional 454 deaths within 28 days of a positive test result were reported across the UK on Sunday, meaning the total by this measure is now above 75,000.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the \"old tier system\" in England was \"no longer strong enough\" to contain increasing infections.\n\nHospitals are coming under increasing pressure, as cases mount up.\n\nThe old tier system is no longer enough…the figures are only heading in one direction.\n\nThese are the words of the health secretary and a health minister.\n\nBoris Johnson says stricter measures are coming, which immediately sparks the questions \"when?,\" and \"what are you waiting for?\"\n\nDowning Street wants to push a tougher message on adherence to the current rules in England while it assesses the latest Christmas data, but is coming under growing pressure to act sooner.\n\nWith Nicola Sturgeon about to go further in Scotland and the Labour leader calling for an immediate national lockdown, it's difficult to see how the prime minister can wait much longer.\n\nAsked what further restrictions would be put in place, Mr Johnson said: \"What we have been waiting for is to see the impact of the tier four measures on the virus and it is a bit unclear, still, at the moment.\n\n\"But if you look at the numbers, there is no question that we are going to have to take tougher measures and we will be announcing those in due course.\"\n\nHe said the faster-spreading coronavirus variant that has developed in south-eastern England required \"extra-special vigilance\".\n\nBBC science editor David Shukman said new measures could include limits on outdoor exercise and a return to the two-metre (rather than one-metre-plus) social distancing rule, as applied during the first lockdown last year.\n\nSpeaking on a visit to Chase Farm Hospital in north London, the prime minister argued that closing primary schools must remain a \"last resort\", adding that the \"risk to kids\" was \"very, very small\".\n\nSecondary schools in England are currently closed until 18 January, except for pupils in their final GCSE and A-level years, who are due to return on 11 January.\n\nAsked whether they could remain closed, Mr Johnson said: \"We are keeping things under review.\"\n\nBut former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt urged the government to close all schools and UK borders \"right away\", while banning \"all household mixing\".\n\nThe Conservative MP, who now chairs the Commons Health Committee, said these restrictions should be \"time-limited\" to \"12 weeks or so\", after which the roll-out of vaccines would provide \"light at the end of the tunnel\".\n\nMore than 500,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine are now available for use, with the Pfizer BioNTech jab having been issued since early last month.\n\nThe virus is winning at the moment, despite science fighting back with a vaccine. New daily cases of Covid have been rising to record levels, which means hospital numbers and deaths will increase too.\n\nMinisters say more measures are coming, but it is not clear yet what that will mean in practice.\n\nScotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are already in lockdown, and most of England is under tier four rules.\n\nIn recent days the focus has shifted to schools and whether they can be kept open without making the epidemic worse.\n\nExperts agree that the risk the virus poses to children is still low, but they can spread the disease.\n\nWith a new, more transmissible variant of Covid circulating, the government may have to enact this unpalatable \"last resort\" of closing classrooms.\n\nSome 78% of the population of England is now in tier four, under which non-essential shops are closed and people can only leave their homes for a certain number of reasons.\n\nThe Scottish government meets later to consider \"further action\", with all of mainland Scotland currently under its own level four restrictions - only some islands are under less stringent tier three measures.\n\nWales entered a nationwide lockdown on 20 December, while Northern Ireland is in the second week of a six-week lockdown that began on Boxing Day.\n\nIn another development, an academic has said there is a \"big question mark\" over whether a vaccine developed at Oxford University will be as effective against a new variant of the virus that has emerged in South Africa.\n\nProf Sir John Bell, Regius professor of medicine at the university, said the team there were currently investigating this question \"right now\".\n\nHe added it was \"unlikely\" the variant would \"turn off the effect of vaccines entirely\", and in any case it would be possible to tweak the vaccine in around four to six weeks.\n\nBut Matt Hancock told Today he was \"incredibly worried\" about the South African variant, saying: \"This is a very, very significant problem.\"\n\n\"We have shown that we are prepared to move incredibly quickly, within 24 hours if we think that is necessary, and we keep these things under review all the time,\" added the health secretary.", "Quote Message: The return of lockdown for at least the rest of January is a severe blow for much of the Scottish economy. It could be worse: this is not the peak Christmas season for retail and hospitality, though the season they’ve just had was very hard going for many, and non-existent for others. This is also the quietest part of the tourism year, so January is a relatively good month to lose one’s bookings. For many firms, it is better than last spring, because they have infection controls in place. And there is a less harsh closure scheme, meaning construction sites and others can stay open, subject to tight rules. Many employers have settled into patterns of working from home, so this does not carry the shock of last March. There was little expectation of getting staff back into offices for months yet. But that doesn’t make this time any easier for workers who are also parents. They know, from last year, how tough it is to handle childcare and lessons while schools are shut - and this time, they have to manage without good weather. The other, more negative comparison with last spring is that firms now are, typically, deeper in debt and with less spare cash to pay the bills that don’t stop - rent, and utility bills, for instance. Some delayed payments are getting tougher to keep on hold. Their frustration with the slow movement of government grant schemes is showing. They aren’t disputing the case for further lockdown but they are making their own case for support through it, and for a recovery strategy once restrictions are lifted, including a boost to consumer confidence and spending.\" from Douglas Fraser Scotland business & economy editor\n\nThe return of lockdown for at least the rest of January is a severe blow for much of the Scottish economy. It could be worse: this is not the peak Christmas season for retail and hospitality, though the season they’ve just had was very hard going for many, and non-existent for others. This is also the quietest part of the tourism year, so January is a relatively good month to lose one’s bookings. For many firms, it is better than last spring, because they have infection controls in place. And there is a less harsh closure scheme, meaning construction sites and others can stay open, subject to tight rules. Many employers have settled into patterns of working from home, so this does not carry the shock of last March. There was little expectation of getting staff back into offices for months yet. But that doesn’t make this time any easier for workers who are also parents. They know, from last year, how tough it is to handle childcare and lessons while schools are shut - and this time, they have to manage without good weather. The other, more negative comparison with last spring is that firms now are, typically, deeper in debt and with less spare cash to pay the bills that don’t stop - rent, and utility bills, for instance. Some delayed payments are getting tougher to keep on hold. Their frustration with the slow movement of government grant schemes is showing. They aren’t disputing the case for further lockdown but they are making their own case for support through it, and for a recovery strategy once restrictions are lifted, including a boost to consumer confidence and spending.\"", "Northern Ireland's First Minister Arlene Foster has said there \"is a gateway of opportunity\" for the UK and Northern Ireland after Brexit.\n\nShe told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that the trade deal also tackled \"some of the great difficulties that there are with the (Northern Ireland) Protocol\".\n\nThe purpose of the Protocol is to prevent a hardening of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It does that by keeping Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods and by having Northern Ireland apply EU customs rules at its ports.\n\nAs a result, an 'Irish Sea border' now exists, with most commercial goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain requiring a customs declaration.\n\nThe Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which Mrs Foster leads, opposed the protocol and had criticised the establishment of such a border. She told The Andrew Marr show that her party \"didn't want the protocol but it is here\".\n\n\"I have to mitigate against that and my job from now on is to mitigate against those excesses and to hold the government to account,\" Mrs Foster added.", "Last updated on .From the section Sport\n\nProfessional sport in England can continue behind closed doors, despite a new national lockdown announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.\n\nIt means Premier League football and elite leagues in other sports are allowed to carry on.\n\nThe sport and leisure rules in England are similar to those announced in Scotland earlier on Monday.\n\nPeople living in England have been told to stay at home and schools will shut for most pupils from Tuesday.\n\nOn Monday, the UK recorded more than 50,000 new confirmed Covid cases for the seventh day in a row.\n\nFor those in England, exercising outside is allowed once a day. Venues such as gyms, tennis courts and golf courses will be closed.\n\nOrganised outdoor sport for disabled people is exempt from the new measures.\n\nGames and training in non-elite football - which includes all adult and youth grassroots, except for disabled people - have been suspended.\n\nThe Women's FA Cup is among the non-elite competitions placed on hold. All but one of the second-round matches scheduled to take place on Sunday were postponed because of Covid-19 regulations.\n\nTeams from the Women's Super League and Women's Championship enter the draw from the fourth round onwards.\n\nWhich non-elite football has been suspended? Steps three to six of the National League System (all divisions below the National League North and South) Tiers three to seven of the Women's Football Pyramid (all divisions below the Women's Championship) Women's FA Cup (classified as 'non-elite' up to and including the third round) All indoor and outdoor youth and adult grassroots football, including under-18s (except organised outdoor football for disabled people, which is allowed to continue)\n\nFollowing Monday's announcement by the prime minister, this week's sporting fixtures in England are set to go ahead as planned.\n\nIn football, the Carabao Cup semi-finals are being played on Tuesday and Wednesday, while the FA Cup third round - which has 32 fixtures spanning four days - starts on Friday.\n\nThere are also several Women's Super League, English Football League and National League games set to take place, as well as English Premiership and Premier 15s rugby union matches, plus the Masters snooker event in Milton Keynes.\n\nEarlier on Monday, Rochdale chief executive David Bottomley said he believes it is \"inevitable\" that the EFL will have to temporarily suspend fixtures because of rising coronavirus cases.\n\nSeven of last Saturday's EFL games - and 52 across the season - have been called off as teams are affected by the virus.\n\nFour Premier League matches have also been postponed this season because of coronavirus cases.\n\nWhat does the new lockdown mean for sport in England?\n\nThe UK government published its guidance for England's new national lockdown shortly after the prime minister's televised address at 20:00 GMT.\n\nHere are the points relating to sport and physical activity:\n• None Elite sportspeople (and their coaches if necessary, or parents/guardians if they are under 18) - or those on an official elite sports pathway - to compete and train\n• None Outdoor sports courts, outdoor gyms, golf courses, outdoor swimming pools, archery/driving/shooting ranges and riding arenas must also close\n• None Organised outdoor sport for disabled people is allowed to continue\n\nWhile golfing has been allowed to continue in Scotland under strict rules, courses will be closed in England.\n\nEngland Golf said it was \"extremely disappointed\" with the decision, adding it had made a \"strong case\" to keep the sport open in recent months.\n\nWhere can I exercise and who can I exercise with?\n\nYou can exercise in a public outdoor place:\n• None with the people you live with\n• None with your support bubble ( if you are legally permitted to form one)\n• None or, when on your own, with one person from another household\n• None public gardens (whether or not you pay to enter them)\n\nUK Active, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes health and fitness, says the government must act immediately to \"minimise the damaging impact of lockdown\".\n\n\"We know from the millions of people that depend on gyms, pools, and leisure centres to support their physical and mental health, how essential they are,\" said UK Active chief executive Huw Edwards.\n\n\"We cannot afford to wait until the vaccine rollout is advanced before we act, so the government must explore all options at this time and provide a credible plan for maintaining this support to millions of people who rely on these Covid-secure facilities to stay strong and healthy.\n\n\"Furthermore, the UK governments must protect this sector before it becomes too late.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBoris Johnson must bring back \"the spirit of March\" to get control of coronavirus in England, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said.\n\nSir Keir said the virus was \"out of control\" and a second \"national lockdown\" - including the closure of all schools - was needed.\n\nThe PM had to give a firm \"stay at home message\", Sir Keir told the BBC.\n\nMr Johnson will make a televised address at 20:00 GMT to set out further restrictions amid surging cases.\n\nIt comes as Scotland announced a legal requirement to stay at home from midnight.\n\nSir Keir said Labour would support any move towards tighter restrictions in England, but urged the prime minister to \"stop dithering\" and take action.\n\nThe Labour leader said it was \"inevitable\" that schools would need to close.\n\n\"There is complete chaos, with parents not knowing what is going on. We need to create space for the vaccine now, to be rolled out safely.\n\n\"The virus is out of control. We have got to get it back under control. The more we delay, the worse it will be. The more we delay, the longer schools will be closed.\"\n\nIn March last year, Boris Johnson told people in England they could only leave home to exercise once a day, travel to and from work when it is \"absolutely necessary\", shop for essential items and fulfil any medical or care needs.\n\nCurrently, shops selling non-essential goods have been told to shut and gatherings in public of more than two people who do not live together are prohibited in tier four areas.\n\nSir Keir said the government's message needed to be firmer and backed by law, if necessary, to encourage people to comply.\n\nIn an interview with the BBC's deputy political editor Vicki Young, he urged the country to get back to \"the spirit of March, where there was a very strong stay at home message\".\n\n\"You only need to go out on the streets now and you see lots of people out and about, you see trains that are half full,\" said the Labour leader.\n\n\"We need to go back to where we were in March with very very strong messaging about staying at home.\n\n\"And I'm afraid that the closure of schools is now inevitable, and therefore that needs to be part of that plan, as part of the national plan for further restriction.\n\n\"And that means that we need to have measures in place to protect working parents, most in place to enable children to learn at home, and a plan to get schools safely reopened again and that goes back to vaccination. It must be mission critical now.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Eileen Lynch, 94, was the first person in Northern Ireland to receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine\n\nUp to 11,000 people aged over 80 across Northern Ireland are set to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine this week.\n\nThe aim is to ensure everyone in that age group will be offered the vaccine by the end of January.\n\nThirty GP practices will be administering 50,000 doses of the vaccine, which was approved for use in the UK on 30 December.\n\nIt is the second vaccine to be approved in the battle against coronavirus in Northern Ireland.\n\nIt comes ahead of a UK-wide announcement by the prime minister, set to be made at 20:00 GMT on Monday, in which further restrictions will be announced.\n\nIn a statement, a No 10 spokesman said the new variant of Covid-19 had \"led to rapidly escalating case numbers across the country\" and \"further steps must now be taken to arrest this rise\".\n\nOn Monday, Northern Ireland recorded a further 1,801 Covid-19 cases and 12 more virus-related deaths.\n\nThese latest figures from the Department of Health bring the total number of deaths to 1,366, while 79,873 people have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic started.\n\nMore than 12,000 cases have been reported in the past seven days, more than double the week before.\n\nThe seven-day rate per 100,000 people is now 660 positive cases, compared to 200 per 100,000 two weeks ago.\n\nMedical experts believe that is down to the two-week easing of restrictions over the Christmas period.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland on Monday, an additional 6,110 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were announced, with six further deaths linked to the virus.\n\nNorthern Ireland is in the second week of a six-week lockdown in which non-essential retail is closed.\n\nThe first doses of the vaccine were given delivered at a GP surgery on the Falls Road in West Belfast on Monday afternoon.\n\nThe first person in Northern Ireland to receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine was 94-year-old Eileen Lynch.\n\nSpeaking after receiving the vaccine, Ms Lynch said she was \"delighted and privileged\" to receive it.\n\n\"I feel like I can really look forward to the year ahead now that I have been vaccinated,\" she said.\n\nThe Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine has already been used to vaccinate care home residents and staff.\n\nBy mid December, 50,000 doses of that vaccine had been made available and by 30 December, Northern Ireland's Department of Health reported that 33,000 people had been vaccinated.\n\nThis included 8,940 care home residents, 10,484 care home staff and 14,259 health and social care staff.\n\nAccording to the latest NI statistics, for the first time the percentage positive cases in the over 80s is down - an indication the vaccination process is working.\n\nThere are approximately 82,000 people over 80 in NI and BBC News NI understands that if deliveries of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine happen as planned, it is thought that all of those over 80, as well as GPs and their staff, could be vaccinated within three weeks.\n\nWhile 50,000 doses have been delivered to Northern Ireland, a further 23,000 vaccines are expected on 19 January while another 68,000 are due on 24 January.\n\nDr Alan Stout, who is a GP in Belfast, told BBC News NI that members are \"very optimistic\" that 11,000 people can be vaccinated this week.\n\nThe Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is the second coronavirus vaccine to be approved in the UK\n\nNI's chief medical officer said the Oxford-AstraZeneca rollout would run alongside the ongoing vaccination programme.\n\nDr Michael McBride said: \"First and foremost we must act to protect those most at risk of severe disease and death.\n\n\"The evidence shows that the initial dose of vaccine offers as much as 70% protection against the effects of the virus.\n\n\"Providing that level of protection on a large scale will have the greatest impact on reducing mortality and hospitalisations, protecting the health and social care system.\"\n\nThe Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine has to be kept at an extremely low temperature which complicates handling constraints.\n\nThe Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is considered easier to store and distribute.\n\nIts rollout consists of two full doses of the vaccine, with the second dose to be given four to 12 weeks after the first.\n\nGPs are appealing to the public to remain calm and wait to be called for their vaccine either by telephone or by letter.\n\nDr Stout said as demand grows worldwide for the vaccine, that schedule could easily change.\n\n\"The public have to be patient, we have a system and must be allowed to get on with it - it really is 'don't call us - we will call you'.\"\n\nWhile some vaccinations will take place in surgeries others will happen in a drive-through system.\n\nCovid-19 is deadlier than flu, which means January 2021 is going to be even tougher than usual.\n\nAlso, Covid patients tend to stay much longer in hospital with more severe symptoms requiring additional beds and care.\n\nBut those rising patient numbers aren't matched by an increased workforce.\n\nInstead it is expected that the nurse-patient ratio will increase (even though many aren't trained to work in critical care) as there simply aren't enough nurses available.\n\nSome health unions fear this will only add to Northern Ireland's excess mortality rate, which is greater than that in Great Britain.\n\nOnce again, this highlights Northern Ireland's failing health care system, which was already below par well before the start of the pandemic.\n\nCoronavirus infection figures here are expected to peak between 15 and 21 January. That will be felt not only in hospitals but also in GP practices as they continue to roll out the vaccine.\n\nWhile at this stage the six weeks look bleak it's hoped that the additional Astra-Zeneca vaccine and the low incidence of flu will go a long way in not only saving lives, but also protecting the health service.\n\nDr Stout said much planning had gone into ensuring the programme happened as smoothly as possible.\n\n\"People will literally stay in their cars and be asked to roll up their sleeves - it has to be safe and efficient in order for us to get through it and safely.\"\n\nThe UK has ordered 100 million doses of the new vaccine - enough to vaccinate 50 million people.\n\nMeanwhile, Dr Tom Black, chair of the British Medical Association in Northern Ireland, said it was \"appalling\" that the Pfizer vaccine was not to be administered in two doses within 21 days as instructed by the company and threatened legal action.\n\nDr Black was responding to news that the UK will give both parts of the Oxford and Pfizer vaccines 12 weeks apart.\n\n\"They have left care workers in Northern Ireland with a gap in their expected immunity,\" he told BBC NI's Radio Foyle on Monday.\n\n\"In that period doctors, nurses, porters or health care professionals could infect patients because they will not be protected against the transmission of the infection to patients.\"\n\nThe UK's chief medical officers have defended their Covid vaccination plan.\n\nThey said getting more people vaccinated with the first jab was \"much more preferable\" and that the great majority of the initial protection from clinical disease is after the first dose of vaccine.\n\nDr Black is to meet NI Health Minister Robin Swann later to express health care workers' concern over the change in vaccine policy.", "Tian Tian arrived in Scotland, along with Yang Guang, from China in 2011\n\nEdinburgh Zoo's giant pandas may have to return to China next year because of financial pressures.\n\nYang Guang and Tian Tian cost about £1m a year to lease from China.\n\nThe zoo, which had hoped to breed the pair, is nearing the end of its 10-year contract with the Chinese government and may be unable to renew the deal.\n\nCovid lockdown closures led to a £2m loss for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which runs Edinburgh Zoo and the Highland Wildlife Park.\n\nDavid Field, chief executive of the society, said the charity would have to \"seriously consider every potential saving\", including its giant panda contract.\n\nMr Field said closures had had a \"huge financial impact\" on the charity because most of its income was from visitors.\n\n\"Although our parks are open again, we lost around £2m last year and it seems certain that restrictions, social distancing and limits on our visitor numbers will continue for some time, which will also reduce our income,\" Mr Field said.\n\n\"Yang Guang and Tian Tian have made a tremendous impression on our visitors over the last nine years, helping millions of people connect to nature and inspiring them to take an interest in wildlife conservation.\n\n\"I would love for them to be able to stay for a few more years with us and that is certainly my current aim.\"\n\nYang Guang was given a new enclosure in 2019\n\nThe zoo has already taken a government loan, furloughed staff, made redundancies and launched a fundraising appeal, but was not eligible for the UK government's zoo fund, which was aimed at smaller zoos.\n\n\"The support we have received from our members and animal lovers has helped to keep our doors open and we are incredibly grateful,\" Mr Field added.\n\n\"At this stage, it is too soon to say what the outcome will be. We will be discussing next steps with our colleagues in China over the coming months.\"\n\nThe zoo is part of a number of conservation projects, including one to reintroduce Scottish wildcats.\n\nWork to reintroduce Scottish wildcats in to the Highlands may also suffer from the Zoo's funding problems\n\nHowever, Mr Field said projects like that may also have to be scrapped because of Brexit and being unable to apply for grants from the European Union.\n\n\"We received a £3.2m grant from the EU Life programme to support our Saving Wildcats partnership project, which aims to restore wildcats in Scotland by breeding and releasing them into the wild.\n\n\"Wildcats are on the brink of extinction in Britain and this is the last hope for the species' survival.\"\n\nHe added: \"As we are no longer part of the European Union, our charity is no longer eligible to apply for funding from programmes like EU Life, which have proven critical for our wildlife conservation work and wider efforts to protect animals from extinction.\"\n\nEdinburgh Zoo's conservation genetics laboratory, which supports conservation projects around the world, has lost access to both funding and other researchers as a result.\n\nIt also faces challenges around moving animals, many of which are part of European endangered species breeding programmes.\n\nThe programme is currently about £900,000 short, meaning it may have to be cancelled.\n\nMr Field said: \"We still need to reduce costs to secure our future. It may be that some of our incredibly important conservation projects, including the vital lifeline for Scotland's wildcats, may have to be deferred, postponed or even stopped.\"", "Police rescued 22 people from the snow in Cheshire including a two-year-old child\n\nDozens of people, including a two-year-old child, had to be rescued when they became stranded on rural roads.\n\nPolice and volunteers came to the aid of people whose vehicles were stuck in the Derbyshire Peak District on Saturday.\n\nThere were similar scenes in Cheshire where 22 people, had to be rescued from stranded cars.\n\nThe wintry weather is set to continue with a Met Office warning for ice in the East Midlands and North East.\n\nAt around 20:00 GMT on Saturday, Derbyshire Police reported \"sudden snow\" had left dozens of vehicles and their occupants stranded in the Goyt Valley.\n\nSome visitors to the area were caught off-guard by how quickly the weather changed.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Adam White This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nDerbyshire Police posted on Twitter: \"We are shuttling people back to Buxton as quickly as we can.\n\n\"Sit tight and we will get to you.\"\n\nThe A57 Snake Pass - a road notorious for becoming dangerous in the snow - had been closed earlier in the day because of the weather.\n\nIn Cheshire, police spent three hours helping families stuck in their vehicles in the White Peak area.\n\nIn total 22 people, including eight children - the youngest of whom was two - were recovered from nine vehicles.\n\nCheshire Police Rural Crime Team said: \"The snow had well and truly caught them all out on the back roads.\n\n\"We were three miles (4.8km) from the nearest village, and the light was fading on us quickly.\n\n\"It was decided to get everyone out of their cars and so began a mile walk in the snow.\"\n\nThey were led to a nearby farm where they could be taken to safety in police vehicles.\n\nMost of those rescued from snow in Cheshire had travelled to the area despite coronavirus restrictions\n\nThe force was critical of the families for travelling into the area, that is under tier four coronavirus restrictions.\n\nIt said: \"All except one car was from out of Cheshire. We had people from Sale, Stockport and Salford with the closest being Congleton.\n\n\"Sadly these people have put all of us at risk today.\"\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The Scottish cabinet will meet later to consider further measures to help tackle coronavirus, as 2,464 new cases are reported.\n\nThe Scottish Parliament will then be recalled for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to make an \"urgent statement\".\n\nMs Sturgeon said the \"rapid increase in Covid cases driven by the new variant\" was of \"very serious concern\".\n\n\"We are in a race between this faster spreading strain of Covid and the vaccination programme,\" she tweeted.\n\nShe warned on Friday that the next few weeks could be the most dangerous period for Scotland since March in the fight against Covid.\n\nThe latest government figures for coronavirus cases showed that 15.2% of Saturday's 17,328 tests were positive.\n\nIt is higher than the 2,137 cases reported on Friday, but still lower than Thursday's 2,539 positive results.\n\nFigures for hospital admissions and deaths over the holiday weekend will not be published until Tuesday.\n\nThe cabinet is likely to consider a further delay to the return of Scottish schools and restrictions that are closer to the stay-at-home lockdown in March.\n\n\"All decisions just now are tough, with tough impacts,\" Ms Sturgeon wrote on twitter. \"Vaccines give us way out, but this new strain makes the period between now and then the most dangerous since start of pandemic.\"\n\nThe Scottish government's emergency resilience committee heard on Saturday that \"quick and decisive action is needed\" as the new variant of the virus is becoming the dominant one in Scotland.\n\nA Scottish government spokesperson said: \"The even steeper rises and severe pressure on the NHS that is being experienced in some other parts of the UK is a sign of what may lie ahead in Scotland if we do not take all possible steps now to slow the spread of the virus, while the vaccination programme progresses.\n\n\"The strong message remains - people should stay at home as much as possible and avoid non-essential interaction with others.\"\n\nThis is just the fifth time the Scottish Parliament has been recalled and the second time within the last week.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prof Linda Bauld says Scots should be prepared a longer period living with level four restrictions\n\nPublic health expert Prof Linda Bauld, from the University of Edinburgh, has said Scotland should be prepared for Covid restrictions to be extended as infection rates continue to rise.\n\nShe said there were no signs yet that the infection rate was levelling off, having risen suddenly from a daily rate of fewer than 1,000 to more than 2,000 per day in recent days.\n\nShe told BBC Scotland: \"It definitely is a fragile situation and you can see that we have more cases than we would expect at the current time.\n\n\"We may be starting to see some of the impacts of the Christmas mixing, but also we know around four in 10 cases, from recent data, are of the new variant.\n\n\"I would imagine that the new variant is playing a role in these higher rates of infection and if these numbers continue to sit at where they are we are going to have more people in hospital in a week or two's time, and that is very worrying.\"\n\nThe new year offers new hope in the struggle against coronavirus with two vaccines now authorised for UK use - but it looks as if the situation will get worse before it gets better.\n\nMinisters are worried by the rapid spread of the new strain of coronavirus during a holiday period when the highest level of restrictions are already in place.\n\nThey think more needs to be done to suppress the virus, to give the vaccination programme a chance to accelerate and give increasing numbers of people protection.\n\nWhen the Scottish cabinet meets they are likely to consider tightening the current restrictions to something closer to the stay at home lockdown of March 2020.\n\nThat will almost certainly mean a further delay to the return of schools into February.\n\nMinisters will take decisions on Monday morning with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon expected to make a statement at Holyrood in the afternoon.\n\nDaily confirmed cases in Scotland reached record highs on the last three days of 2020, rising to to 2,622 on Thursday.\n\nMs Sturgeon warned last week there might be changes to the plans for reopening schools. Children start online learning from 11 January and are set to return to class by 18 January.\n\nThe education recovery group will meet on Monday.\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the situation was \"deteriorating and fast-moving\" but any decision to extend school closures should be clearly explained to parents and teachers.\n\nHe said: \"We have been here before so if schools remain closed, the Scottish government must show that it has learned from past mistakes in order to minimise disruption to education.\"\n\nScottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said the Scottish government should prioritise teachers and school staff as vaccines were rolled out.\n\nHe added: \"We must be honest and accept that most pupils, teachers and support staff cannot go back to schools until the situation is brought under control.\"\n\nScottish Labour leader Richard Leonard called for ministers to publish the evidence behind all of its decisions to ensure public consent and compliance.\n\n\"What is clear is that we need to see an acceleration of the vaccine rollout and a step-change in testing,\" he said.\n\n\"It is also clear that financial support from government has simply not been nearly sufficient to make up for the damage that lockdown measures have done to jobs, livelihoods and businesses. The SNP government must distribute additional funds to the frontline now.\"\n\nScottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: \"With tighter restrictions on movement and in schools comes a greater responsibility on the government to show its workings.\n\n\"If we are to restrict people's movement then we need to see what the benefit will be. We need an exit plan to give people hope, as well as to show them what is required to ease the restrictions on our freedoms.\"", "Some schools are due to reopen this week in Wales\n\nSchools are being given a flexible approach to ensure a \"safe return\", according to Wales' first minister.\n\nMark Drakeford said experts would be \"looking at all the evidence again early next week\".\n\nUnions have called for a national decision on reopening schools rather than leaving it to local councils.\n\nAccording to local authorities many secondary schools aim to return from 11 January, with some fully open on 6 January.\n\nA joint statement from nine unions called on the Welsh Government to give a \"centralised, coherent response\" regarding all educational settings \"rather than leaving decisions at local levels\".\n\nThe statement from ASCL Cymru, GMB, NAHT Cymru, NASUWT Cymru, NEU Cymru, Ucac, Unison, Unite and Voice continued: \"We are extremely worried that schools will be opening for face-to-face learning from next Monday, whilst Welsh Government continues to gather information about the nature and impact of the new variant of Covid-19...\n\n\"We strongly believe that we need to err on the side of caution and ensure, in advance, that we have the medical 'evidence and information' to ensure that any decisions are the correct ones.\"\n\nThe National Education Union Cymru has called for in-person learning to be delayed until at least 18 January.\n\nThe NASUWT has also threatened \"appropriate action in order to protect members whose safety is put at risk\", while head teachers' union NAHT Cymru said it had taken legal action.\n\nBut Mr Drakeford said: \"We reached an agreement with our local education colleagues that in Wales we will have a phased and flexible return to school.\"\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday parents should send their children to primary school as long as they are open in their area.\n\nMark Drakeford: \"No evidence that young people get the illness more severely as a result of the variant\"\n\nJackie Parker, head of Crickhowell High School in Powys, which reopens for some form years from Wednesday, said \"it would have been more sensible to have had a national decision for the time being until the 18th\".\n\nShe said it would have allowed time to see if cases of Covid had increased over the holiday period.\n\n\"People may have been together during the Christmas holiday,\" she said.\n\nFigures published by Public Health Wales on Sunday showed 56 new deaths from Covid and 4,011 new cases of the virus.\n\nWales has been in lockdown since 20 December with restrictions on people meeting others on all but Christmas Day when it was limited to another household and a person living alone.\n\nMr Drakeford said: \"There is no evidence that young people get the illness more severely as a result of the variant.\n\n\"Our technical advisory group will be looking at all the evidence again early next week.\n\n\"And, of course, we will continue to make decisions in the light of the best knowledge, research and information that's available to us at the time,\" he told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement.\n\nHe also said mass testing in schools would begin as planned this month, in a decision which has been criticised by NAHT Cymru.\n\n\"It will allow more children and more teachers to stay safely in the classroom without having to be sent home because another child or another staff member has tested positive,\" he said.\n\nThe joint unions' statement also said the Welsh Government's testing proposals were unworkable for most schools.\n\n\"Due to the chaotic and rushed nature of this announcement, the lack of proper guidance, and an absence of appropriate support, the Welsh Government's proposals will be inoperable for most schools and colleges,\" it said.\n\nThe statement continued: \"Any suggestion that schools can safely recruit, train and organise a team of suitable volunteers to staff and run testing stations on their premises by an as yet unspecified date in the new term is simply not realistic.\"\n\nSian Gwenllian, Plaid Cymru's education spokeswoman, said \"parents and teachers need to know what the plan is for the next few weeks\".\n\n\"We don't really know very much about this new variant in the way that it transmits within the school community,\" she said.\n\n\"And if it is becoming inevitable that schools will have to close, well, an early decision is better for everybody.\"\n\nWelsh Conservative education spokeswoman Suzy Davies said: \"We've had conflicting reports in the press and on social media about the effect of the new variant on younger children and their role in transmitting the disease - complete confusion reigns...\n\n\"The Welsh Government hasn't succeeded in reassuring teachers and in some cases parents as well.\"", "Economy Minister Diane Dodds has written to Cabinet Office Secretary Michael Gove to call for urgent action to be taken on deliveries to NI.\n\nSince Christmas some orders have been cancelled or delayed and some retailers have suspended deliveries.\n\nThe problem is related to uncertainty about post-Brexit transition rules.\n\nHM Customs announced a grace period on New Year's Eve confirming most parcels from GB-NI will not need customs declarations until at least April.\n\nThe problems have not affected all companies with many continuing to take orders and deliver as normal.\n\nHowever, some companies had already suspended deliveries, including John Lewis.\n\nThe government said the three-month grace period \"recognises the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland, the impacts of any disruption to parcel movements in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and specific challenges for operators moving express consignments\".\n\nA government spokesman said further details will be published in the new year, adding: \"Our priority is to have a pragmatic approach that allows us to comply with the [Northern Ireland] Protocol without causing undue disruption to businesses and citizens.\n\n\"HMRC is engaging with operators to finalise arrangements.\"\n\nSome changes have already come into effect.\n\nA Northern Ireland-based business receiving goods valued at £135 or more through an express carrier or Royal Mail will need to submit a customs declaration.\n\nThey will need to do this within three months of receiving the goods and can use the government's Trader Support Service to do so.\n\nExcise goods, which mostly refers to alcoholic drinks, will also need a declaration when being sent from GB to NI.\n\nThe government has advised retailers of those goods to contact their delivery company.\n\nIt said: \"They will then tell you if they carry the type of goods you want to send and, if they do, they will ask you to provide any additional information that they need so that a declaration can be made.\"", "About 10 UK nationals resident in Spain say they were wrongly turned back when their flight landed in Barcelona.\n\nThey left Heathrow on the Saturday morning British Airways flight, but were refused entry on arrival.\n\nThey were stopped by border police and ultimately flown back to the UK.\n\nSpain has banned all but Spanish nationals and residents flying from the UK to Spain since 22 December in the hope of containing the spread of the new UK strain of Covid-19.\n\nOne passenger on the flight, who did not wish to be named, said that those on board had been told repeatedly that only Spanish nationals or residents would be allowed to enter the country and that their residency certificates, also known as green certificates, were shown to airline staff several times.\n\nHowever, on arrival, British passengers with green residency certificates were prevented from entering Spain.\n\nBA has confirmed that about 10 people were denied entry into Barcelona, as they did not meet the Spanish authorities' required criteria.\n\nOne of those affected, Ruth O'Leary, said: \"I was very confused, obviously. I asked them what other documents I could provide.\n\n\"They seemed to be just flat-out refusing anything I had and just wouldn't let me on the flight. Very upsetting really.\n\n\"Quite an awful feeling not to be able to go back to your own house and to not really be given an explanation why you can't go home.\"\n\nOther British expat passengers have also said that they have been stopped from boarding planes to Spain.\n\nOne passenger on board said that seven British citizens were prevented from boarding a British Airways/Iberia flight from Heathrow to Madrid on Saturday evening, despite having their green residency certificates, as well as negative Covid tests.\n\nThe exact number of flights and passengers affected has not been released by the Foreign Office.\n\nIn a statement on Monday, Iberia said that on 1 January, it received an email from the border police saying that registration as a European citizen was no longer considered to be a valid document to prove legal residency in Spain as a British citizen.\n\nHowever, by 19:30 on 2 January, the airline received a second email, confirming that the document could be used if it had not expired.\n\nA British Airways spokesperson said: \"In these difficult and unprecedented times with dynamic travel restrictions, we are doing everything we can to help and support our customers.\"\n\nThe Spanish Embassy in London tweeted a letter stating it was aware that during the current travel restrictions, there had been some problems for British nationals resident in Spain who had not been allowed to return.\n\nThe embassy clarified that green certificates were valid proof of residency.\n\nThe Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: \"We have worked closely with the Spanish government to resolve these issues.\n\n\"The Spanish Embassy in London has re-confirmed today that both the green residence certificate and the new residence TIE card [Photo-ID card] are equally valid in terms of proving residence in Spain, as set out in the [Brexit] Withdrawal Agreement.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Olly Stephens was pronounced dead in Bugs Bottom fields in Emmer Green, Reading\n\nFour boys and a girl have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder after a 13-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Reading.\n\nOliver Stephens, known as Olly, was pronounced dead at Bugs Bottom fields, Emmer Green, on Sunday.\n\nThe five teenagers, all aged 13 or 14, remain in custody, according to Thames Valley Police.\n\nDet Supt Kevin Brown said: \"Our thoughts remain with Olly's family at this incredibly difficult time.\"\n\nHe added: \"This is a tragic and shocking incident which has resulted in the death of a young boy.\"\n\nThe victim's family are being supported by specially trained officers.\n\nFloral tributes to Olly have been left outside Highdown School\n\nHighdown School and Sixth Form Centre said it was \"reeling from the tragic news\".\n\nIn a statement, head teacher Rachel Cave said: \"This student was part of our community and many students and staff knew him well.\n\n\"For a life to be ended at such a young age is a total tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.\"\n\nThe school, in Emmer Green, said it was arranging counselling support for students and setting up an electronic book of condolence.\n\nThames Valley Police said a \"considerable police presence\" would be in place in the area for several days\n\nOfficers were called just before 16:00 GMT on Sunday following reports of an attack.\n\nOfficers are appealing for anyone who was in the area between 15:00 and 16:30 who might have taken photos or camera footage to contact them if they notice anything suspicious.\n\nDet Supt Brown said he believed there would have been witnesses to the \"dreadful incident\" as the area is popular with dog walkers.\n\nA man said his wife was walking their dog through the park on Sunday afternoon when she saw a boy on the ground with several people around him trying to give him first aid.\n\nAnother dog walker said she saw a group of young people standing in the woods in Bugs Bottom fields at about 15:30 and described it as \"slightly unusual\".\n\nReading East MP Matt Rodda has offered his \"deepest condolences\" to the boy's family.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Matt Rodda This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSt Barnabas Church in Emmer Green has invited residents to pray and light a candle in memory of the boy.\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Margaret Ferrier admitted travelling back from London to Glasgow after testing positive for coronavirus\n\nScottish MP Margaret Ferrier has been arrested by police after she admitted using public transport while infected with Covid-19.\n\nMs Ferrier apologised for what she called a \"blip\" in September.\n\nShe was suspended from the SNP group at Westminster and leaders, including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, urged her to quit as an MP over the row.\n\nPolice Scotland said she had been charged in connection with \"alleged culpable and reckless conduct\".\n\nMs Ferrier apologised in September after travelling from London to Glasgow having tested positive for coronavirus.\n\nThe Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP said she had experienced \"mild symptoms\" and taken a test, but had then decided to travel to Westminster because she was \"feeling much better\".\n\nShe then travelled home again on a train after receiving the positive test result, and said she \"deeply regretted\" her actions.\n\nA Police Scotland spokesman said: \"We can confirm that officers today arrested and charged a 60-year-old woman in connection with alleged culpable and reckless conduct.\n\n\"This follows a thorough investigation by Police Scotland into an alleged breach of coronavirus regulations between 26 and 29 September 2020.\n\n\"A report will be sent to the procurator fiscal and we are unable to comment further.\"\n\nMs Ferrier has been contacted for comment.", "The prime minister has said that tougher measures could be needed to help cope with a surge in coronavirus cases.\n\nHe has not yet said whether we will need school closures, or even overnight curfews like those imposed in France.\n\nBut clues about such measures to tackle the new more infectious variant come from the government's Sage advisory committee.\n\nThe headline is that whether we see a return to only being allowed one form of daily outdoor exercise, or stricter controls on travel around the country, we'll be hearing a lot more about something already very familiar: hand hygiene, social distancing, wearing masks and ensuring there is fresh air.\n\nThese may sound familiar but the advisers believe that because the new variant spreads so easily, the measures need to be applied with \"a step change in rigour\" - in other words, a lot more forcefully.\n\nThey suggest considering a return to the two-metre rule because it's more effective than the one-metre plus guidance adopted last year.\n\nMasks need to be made of three layers, not just one, and worn in more locations than now - including workplaces, schools and crowded outdoor spaces.\n\nThe key message is that it is vital to reduce social contact - being close to people, especially indoors for long periods of time, carries the highest risk of infection.\n\nSo expect tier four-type bans on visiting other households to become normal.\n\nThe advisers also say many people still do not recognise the key symptoms of Covid-19 - so ministers need to spell them out and help people understand why they should self-isolate.\n\nBut they also say it is essential to praise the efforts made so far, to recognise sacrifices and emphasise how they've kept infection numbers lower than they would otherwise have been.\n\nWhatever new measures are picked, the advice to ministers is to offer \"clear and convincing explanations\" to motivate people.\n\nThat could be a hint that the government's current \"hands, face, space\" slogan may need to make way for something stronger.", "The Queen said she wished Woman's Hour \"continued success\" in the programme's \"important work\"\n\nThe Queen has sent her \"best wishes\" to Woman's Hour to mark the BBC Radio 4 show's 75th year.\n\nThe 94-year-old noted that the show had \"played a significant part in the evolving role of women\".\n\n\"As you celebrate your 75th year, it is with great pleasure that I send my best wishes to the listeners and all those associated with Woman's Hour,\" she said in a letter sent to the programme.\n\nEmma Barnett read out the message on her first day as the show's presenter.\n\n\"During this time, you have witnessed and played a significant part in the evolving role of women across society, both here and around the world,\" the Queen added in her message.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Presenter Emma Barnett reads a message from Her Majesty to Woman's Hour listeners.\n\n\"In this notable anniversary year, I wish you continued success in your important work as a friend, guide and advocate to women everywhere.\"\n\nSpice Girl Melanie C also performed a rendition of The Beatles track Here Comes the Sun, after presenter Barnett had declared that 2021 \"has to be better\" than the previous year.\n\nLater, guest Imelda Staunton, who will play Her Majesty in the upcoming series five of Netflix's royal drama, The Crown, described her as being like \"the original Spice Girl\".\n\n\"The Queen, you think, might be an original Spice Girl because girl power is what she is,\" said the actress, who is due to take over the role from Olivia Colman. \"She became the head of state and all that sort of thing.\n\n\"It's the continuity of The Queen that has been so important... Whether you're a royalist or not, this person has got up and gone to work every day for 60 years, and I sort of admire that.\"\n\nLast month, the Queen used her Christmas Day message to reassure anyone struggling without friends and family this year that they \"are not alone\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe message helped to mark a memorable opening day in the hot seat for Barnett, which also saw her discuss Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian under house arrest in Tehran, with her husband Richard and the MP and former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt.\n\nBarnett - known for hosting Newsnight and shows on 5 Live - has replaced Jane Garvey, who presented her final edition of Woman's Hour after 13 years last week, saying the programme \"needs to move on, and now it can\".\n\nGarvey's exit came three months after her co-host Dame Jenni Murray also left the long-running show after 33 years.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Emma Barnett This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBarnett's 5 Live show has been taken over by BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty, who also broadcast her first show on Monday.\n\nMunchetty told listeners she was \"absolutely delighted to be here with you on the first Monday of 2021\".\n\n\"I am so excited to be on board with you on this, the morning show we are making together,\" she added. \"We are going to get to know each other, I promise. There is so much to talk about.\"\n\nEmma Barnett interviewed former prime minister Theresa May on her 5 Live show\n\nWoman's Hour is a topical, conversation-led programme; Barnett has a strong news pedigree. Her previous 5 Live show involved thorough interrogation of politicians, and she has made no secret of her love of politics, not least in her outings on Newsnight.\n\nIt doesn't get any bigger than the Queen, obviously. Interestingly, the other big 'get' for her first show is Sonia Khan, former special adviser to the Chancellor.\n\nSo Barnett's first show indicates very clearly that she will make Woman's Hour newsier and more political.\n\nIt's also a safe bet that short, visual clips of the kind that allowed Barnett's 5 Live show to dramatically increase its impact will also be a big feature of her time in the job.\n\nOne early challenge: getting an even bigger name for next Monday. Any thoughts?\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The lockdown announcement contained the clearest indication yet of how quickly the government hopes to vaccinate the at risk groups.\n\nA target of mid February for vaccinating all the over 70s and those deemed extremely clinically vulnerable and frontline health and care staff opens up a pathway to a significant easing of restrictions by the start of March.\n\nBut it will require a rapid acceleration in vaccination rates.\n\nSo far nearly one million people have been vaccinated.\n\nBy the end of the week that number is expected to double.\n\nThe hope is that later in January two million doses a week will be given.\n\nThat will be the minimum needed – there are around 12 million in those priority groups.\n\nBy vaccinating them, there is the potential to prevent close to nine in 10 deaths.\n\nBut achieving that requires a lot to go right.\n\nThere is enough vaccine in the country to vaccinate that many people, but not all of it has been through the final “fill and finish” process which involves packaging it in glass vials (and there is a shortage of those) and then the batches have to be checked and signed off by the regulator – a process that is taking weeks at the moment.\n\nAnd all of that is before it is sent out to the NHS vaccination centres to inject it into people’s arms.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prof Linda Bauld says Scots should be prepared a longer period living with level four restrictions\n\nScotland should be prepared for Covid restrictions to be extended as infection rates continue to rise, a public health expert has said.\n\nThe latest government figures show a further 2,137 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Scotland on Friday.\n\nProf Linda Bauld described it as a \"fragile situation\", despite the rate dropping below Thursday's 2,539 cases.\n\nThe latest figures for hospital admissions and deaths will not be published until Tuesday.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon warned on Friday that the next few weeks could be the most dangerous period for Scotland since March in the fight against Covid as the new variant of the virus was \"accelerating spread\" across Scotland.\n\nDaily confirmed cases reached record highs on the last three days of 2020, rising to to 2,622 on Thursday.\n\nThe percentage of positive cases also reached 14.4% on Wednesday - the highest it has been since the second wave of the pandemic began in the summer.\n\nIt had dropped to 10.8% on Friday. A percentage of lower than 5% is needed to show the virus is under control, according to the WHO.\n\nProf Bauld, a public health expert at the University of Edinburgh, said there were no signs yet that the infection rate was levelling off, having risen suddenly from a daily rate of fewer than 1,000 to more than 2,000 per day in recent days.\n\nShe told BBC Scotland: \"It definitely is a fragile situation and you can see that we have more cases than we would expect at the current time.\n\n\"We may be starting to see some of the impacts of the Christmas mixing, but also we know around four in 10 cases, from recent data, are of the new variant.\n\n\"I would imagine that the new variant is playing a role in these higher rates of infection and if these numbers continue to sit at where they are we are going to have more people in hospital in a week or two's time, and that is very worrying.\"\n\nAll of mainland Scotland is under level four restrictions in an attempt to slow down the rate of virus spread\n\nThis would bring \"real challenges\" for hospitals, especially in the central belt, Prof Bauld said, adding that it was \"absolutely imperative that we do not see these number rise more than they are now\".\n\nShe said it would take some time to see the impact of level four restrictions introduced in mainland Scotland on Boxing Day.\n\n\"Mentally we just need to be prepared for the fact that we may be living with the level four restrictions for longer than the Scottish government currently plans,\" Prof Bauld said.\n\nShe said the new, more transmissible coronavirus variant would make it harder to get the R number below one in Scotland and schools may not be able to fully reopen on 18 January.\n\nThe government's education recovery group was preparing with schools for blended learning to go on longer if necessary, she added.\n\nAll of mainland Scotland is under level four restrictions in an attempt to slow down the rate of virus spread.\n\nA new study by London's Imperial College has found that the new variant of Covid-19 is \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version.\n\nIt concludes that the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.\n\nThe Scottish government's most recent estimate of the R number in Scotland has put it between 0.9 and 1.1. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nThe government has described the vaccination programme as a \"light at the end of the tunnel\" and has urged people to stay at home as much as possible in the meantime.", "Security has been stepped up in Niger's Tillabéri region, where the two villages are situated\n\nNiger's prime minister says 100 people are now known to have been killed in Saturday's attacks by suspected jihadists on two villages.\n\nBrigi Rafini said 70 people were killed in the village of Tchombangou and 30 others in Zaroumdareye - both near Niger's border with Mali.\n\nIt was one of the deadliest days in living memory, as Niger grapples with ethnic violence and Islamist militancy.\n\nNo group has said it carried out the attacks.\n\nAccording to local mayor Almou Hassane, those responsible travelled on \"about 100 motorcycles,\" AFP news agency reports.\n\nThey split into two groups and carried out the attacks simultaneously.\n\nFormer minister Issoufou Issaka told AFP that jihadists launched the assaults after villagers killed two of their group members, though this hasn't been officially confirmed.\n\nMayor Hassane said 75 other villagers were left wounded in the aftermath, and some have been evacuated for treatment in Ouallam and the capital, Niamey.\n\nPrime Minister Rafini visited both of the villages on Sunday.\n\n\"This situation is simply horrible... but investigations will be conducted so that this crime does not go unpunished,\" he told reporters.\n\nNiger's Tillabéri region lies within the so-called tri-border area between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, which has been plagued by jihadist attacks for many years.\n\nNiger's Prime Minister Brigi Rafini visited the two villages on Sunday\n\nLast month, seven Nigerien soldiers were killed in an ambush in the region.\n\nAreas of Niger are also facing repeated attacks by jihadists from neighbouring Nigeria, where the government is fighting an insurgency by Boko Haram.\n\nAs part of efforts to quell the violence, France has been leading a coalition of West African and European allies against Islamist militants in the Sahel.\n\nCoalition forces have become targets, and last week five French soldiers were killed in two separate incidents in Mali.\n\nThe latest attacks in Tillabéri also come amid national elections in Niger, as President Mahamadou Issoufou steps down after two five-year terms.\n\nElection officials announced provisional results on Saturday, showing a lead for Mohamed Bazoum - a former minister and a member of Niger's ruling party.\n\nA second round of votes is expected to be held on 21 February, once ballots have been validated by the country's constitutional court.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nRegional restrictions in England are \"probably about to get tougher\" to curb rising Covid infections, the prime minister has warned.\n\nBoris Johnson told the BBC stronger measures may be required in parts of the country in the coming weeks.\n\nHe said this included the possibility of keeping schools closed, although this is not \"something we want to do\".\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called for new England-wide restrictions within 24 hours.\n\nSir Keir said coronavirus was \"clearly out of control\" and it was \"inevitable more schools are going to have to close\".\n\nIt comes as the UK recorded more than 50,000 new confirmed Covid cases for the sixth day in a row, with 54,990 announced on Sunday.\n\nAn additional 454 deaths within 28 days of a positive test result have also been reported, meaning the total by this measure is now above 75,000.\n\nSpeaking on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show, Mr Johnson said he stuck by his previous prediction that the situation would be better by the spring, and he hoped \"tens of millions\" would be vaccinated in the next three months.\n\nBut he added: \"It may be that we need to do things in the next few weeks that will be tougher in many parts of the country. I'm fully, fully reconciled to that.\"\n\n\"And I bet the people of this country are reconciled to that because, until the vaccine really comes on stream in a massive way, we're fighting this virus with the same set of tools.\"\n\nThe PM added that ministers had taken \"every reasonable step that we reasonably could\" to prepare for winter, but \"could not have reasonably predicted\" the new, more transmissible variant of the virus that has emerged over the autumn.\n\nSpeaking after Mr Johnson's interview, Sir Keir said introducing new nationwide restrictions in England \"has to be the first step to controlling the virus\".\n\n\"There's no good the prime minister hinting that further restrictions are coming into place in a week or two or three,\" he told reporters on Sunday. \"That delay has been the source of so many problems.\"\n\n\"Let's not have the prime minister saying 'I'm going to do it, but not yet',\" he added.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Johnson defended plans for primary schools to reopen in most of England on Monday, amid opposition from teaching unions and some local councils.\n\nIt came after Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, England's schools watchdog, said closures should be kept to an \"absolute minimum\".\n\nThe rapidly rising infection rates mean it should come as no surprise that tougher measures are being considered.\n\nInfection levels are nearly four times higher now than they were at the start of December - and that in turn has put more pressure on hospitals.\n\nThere are signs the restrictions have started slowing the rises in London, the East of England and the South East.\n\nBut that on its own is not enough. Ministers want to get cases down.\n\nSo what extra can be done? After all most of England is effectively in lockdown already with tier four in place. Those places not in tier four could, of course, follow.\n\nBut some public health experts are warning more needs to be done.\n\nThere is a determination to get primary school children back - they have among the lowest rates of infection if you look at symptomatic cases.\n\nBut infection rates are higher among secondary school age children. The government has bought itself time by delaying their return.\n\nA further 20 million people in England were added to tier four - \"stay at home\" - the toughest set of rules, on 31 December in a bid to stem a surge in Covid cases.\n\nIt means 78% of the population of England is now in tier four, under which non-essential shops are closed and people can only leave their homes for a certain number of reasons.\n\nThe Scottish government will meet on Monday to consider \"further action\" to limit the spread of the disease, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.\n\nAll of mainland Scotland is currently under its own level four restrictions - with only some islands under less stringent tier three measures.\n\nWales entered a nationwide lockdown on 20 December, with First Minister Mark Drakeford saying on Sunday it was \"difficult to see\" how the rules could be strengthened further.\n\nHe said Welsh ministers would consider whether restrictions could be \"tweaked at the margins\" at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.\n\nNorthern Ireland is in the second week of a six-week lockdown that began on Boxing Day. Stricter measures, including a \"stay-at-home curfew\", ended on Saturday.\n\nIn another development, an academic has said there is a \"big question mark\" over whether a vaccine developed at Oxford University will be as effective against a new variant of the virus that has emerged in South Africa.\n\nProf Sir John Bell, Regius professor of medicine at the university, said the team there were currently investigating this question \"right now\".\n\nHe added it was \"unlikely\" the variant would \"turn off the effect of vaccines entirely,\" and in any case it would be possible to tweak the vaccine in around 4-6 weeks.\n\n\"Everybody should stay calm - it's going to be fine,\" he told Times Radio.\n\n\"But we're now in a game of cat and mouse - because these are not the only two variants we're going to see.\"", "Former Bond actress and Charlie's Angel Tanya Roberts has died in hospital in Los Angeles at the age of 65.\n\nRoberts appeared with Sir Roger Moore in his final Bond film, 1985's A View To A Kill, and had a recurring role in That '70s Show.\n\nShe also starred in the final series of Charlie's Angels on TV in 1980.\n\nHer death was prematurely announced on Monday, only for doctors to say she was still alive. However, her death was then confirmed on Tuesday.\n\nRoberts had collapsed while walking her dogs on 24 December and was admitted to Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre.\n\nHer partner Lance O'Brien mistakenly thought she had died on Sunday after visiting her in hospital. After getting a call from doctors to say she was deteriorating quickly, he went to her bedside, her eyes closed and she \"faded\", TMZ reported.\n\nDevastated, he walked out of the room and then the hospital without speaking to medical staff before informing Roberts' agent that he had \"just said goodbye to Tanya\".\n\nBut while being interviewed for US TV show Inside Edition on Monday, Mr O'Brien got a call from the hospital to say she was alive.\n\nThe moment was captured on film, as he picked up his phone and said: \"Now you're telling me she's alive? Thank the Lord.\" However, she died on Monday night.\n\nShe appeared in A View To A Kill alongside Sir Roger Moore and singer Grace Jones\n\nBorn Victoria Leigh Blum in 1955, Roberts grew up in New York before moving to Hollywood in 1977.\n\nHer big break came when she replaced Shelly Hack in Charlie's Angels, joining Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd as third 'Angel' Julie.\n\nAfter the show's cancellation, she appeared in such fantasy adventure films as The Beastmaster and Hearts and Armour.\n\nShe also played comic book heroine Sheena in a 1984 film that saw her nominated for a Golden Raspberry award for worst actress.\n\nRoberts received another Razzie nomination for her role as geologist Stacey Sutton in 1985 Bond film A View to a Kill.\n\nRoberts in the title role in Sheena: Queen of the Jungle\n\nShe admitted being \"a little cautious\" about taking the role, but said it would have been \"ridiculous\" to have turned it down.\n\nRoberts' subsequent films included Night Eyes and Inner Sanctum, erotic thrillers that did little to advance her career.\n\nShe went on to play Midge Pinciotti in more than 80 episodes of That '70s Show between 1998 and 2004.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The former president posts that he has been told to report to a grand jury, \"which almost always means an Arrest\".", "Derby County said several staff members and first-team players tested positive for the virus\n\nChampionship side Derby County has said \"several first-team staff and players\" have tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nIn a statement, the club said it had closed its Moor Farm training ground and was speaking to the EFL and the Football Association about forthcoming fixtures.\n\nThe club said it would not reveal the names of those who had tested positive, due to medical confidentiality.\n\nIt added they would be isolating in line with government guidelines.\n\nThe outbreak at Derby comes after Sheffield Wednesday closed their Middlewood Road training ground following a Covid-19 outbreak at the club.\n\nThe Rams were beaten 1-0 by Wednesday in their most recent match on New Year's Day at Hillsborough.\n\nDerby, who are third from bottom in the Championship, are due to travel to Chorley on Saturday for a third round FA Cup tie.\n\nFormer England striker Wayne Rooney took over as interim manager at Derby after the club sacked former head coach Phillip Cocu in November\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland all-rounder Moeen Ali has tested positive for Covid-19 upon the squad's arrival in Sri Lanka.\n\nThe 33-year-old, who tested negative before departure, will now isolate for 10 days in accordance with the Sri Lanka government's quarantine protocol.\n\nFellow all-rounder Chris Woakes has been deemed as a possible close contact, and will observe a period of self-isolation and further testing.\n\nEngland's two-Test tour of Sri Lanka starts in Galle on 14 January.\n\nEngland had lateral flow tests and a PCR test at Hambantota airport upon arrival, with Moeen's PCR test returning the positive.\n\nThe rest of the touring parting will be retested on Tuesday morning, before being allowed to train for the first time on Wednesday.\n\nMoeen is the first England player to test positive for the virus, with a full summer of games against West Indies, Pakistan, Australia and Ireland being completed without any cases.\n\nEngland's last overseas tour, in South Africa, was cut short in December after positive cases in the Cape Town hotel where England were staying. England returned two positive tests - that were later verified as false positives.\n\nLast week England captain Joe Root said he did not expect the tour to be postponed if there were one or two isolated cases of the virus.\n\nSince England's tour of South Africa was called off, Pakistan's tour of New Zealand and Sri Lanka's of South Africa have both continued despite positive cases.\n\nEngland flew on a chartered flight from London to Hambantota on Saturday evening.\n\nAll of the players, and touring party, tested negative before their departure and were sprayed with disinfectant upon their arrival in Sri Lanka.\n\nThe series was scheduled to take place last year but England flew home after the tour was called off on 13 March as the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic took hold.\n\nSri Lanka has seen 44,774 coronavirus infections and 213 deaths during the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University.\n\nGiven the circumstances of their abandoned trip to South Africa, this is clearly alarming for England, however it's important to make the distinction between the two tours. In South Africa, they felt their bubble was breached, whereas this is an issue internal to the tourists.\n\nMoeen will be moved to Galle, the location of the two Tests, for his period of isolation, but given that is not due to end until the day before the first match, he must be considered a huge doubt.\n\nEngland have planned for this sort of issue, travelling with seven reserves in addition to the squad of 16. Three of those reserves - Mason Crane, Amar Virdi and Matt Parkinson - are spinners, but have only Crane's one Test cap between them.\n\nAt the moment, England have not discussed promoting a player to the main squad but should they feel the need to supplement frontline spinners Dom Bess and Jack Leach in their Test XI, then an inexperienced name is set for a big opportunity.", "Zara Holland appeared on the second series of Love Island\n\nLove Island star Zara Holland is to be prosecuted for allegedly breaking Covid rules on holiday in Barbados.\n\nIsland police say the former Miss Great Britain is expected to appear in court on Wednesday, accused of \"breaching quarantine\".\n\nStation Sergeant Michael Blackman told Newsbeat she was \"intercepted\" at the airport and later presented herself at a police station.\n\nIt's not clear whether she will appear in court in person or by video link.\n\nAn apology from the 25-year-old for what she described as \"a massive mix-up and misunderstanding\" was published by the Barbados Today website.\n\nShe told the publication: \"I have been a guest of this lovely island in excess of 20 years and would never do anything to jeopardise an entire nation that I have nothing but love and respect for and which has treated me as a family.\"\n\nListen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nEveryone in England must stay at home except for permitted reasons during a new coronavirus lockdown expected to last until mid-February, the PM says.\n\nAll schools and colleges will close to most pupils and switch to remote learning from Tuesday.\n\nBoris Johnson warned the coming weeks would be the \"hardest yet\" amid surging cases and patient numbers.\n\nHe said those in the top four priority groups would be offered a first vaccine dose by the middle of next month.\n\nAll care home residents and their carers, everyone aged 70 and over, all frontline health and social care workers, and the clinically extremely vulnerable will be offered one dose of a vaccine by mid-February.\n\nSchools in Northern Ireland will have an \"extended period of remote learning\", the Stormont Executive said.\n\nSpeaking from Downing Street, Mr Johnson told the public to follow the new lockdown rules immediately, before they become law in the early hours of Wednesday.\n\nAll the new measures in England will then last until at least the middle of February, he said, as a new more infectious variant of the virus spreads across the UK.\n\nThe PM added that he believed the country was entering \"the last phase of the struggle\".\n\nHospitals were under \"more pressure from Covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic\", he said.\n\nAnd he reiterated the slogan used earlier in the pandemic, urging people to immediately \"stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives\".\n\nOn Monday, the UK recorded more than 50,000 new confirmed Covid cases for the seventh day in a row.\n\nA further 58,784 cases and an additional 407 deaths within 28 days of a positive test result were reported, though deaths in Scotland were not recorded.\n\nAs of 08:00 GMT, there were 26,626 Covid-19 patients in hospital in England, according to the latest figures.\n\nThis is a week-on-week increase of 30%, and a new record high.\n\nThose who are clinically extremely vulnerable will be contacted by letter and should now shield once more, Mr Johnson said.\n\nSupport and childcare bubbles will continue under the new measures - and people can meet one person from another household for outdoor exercise.\n\nCommunal worship and life events like funerals and weddings can continue, subject to limits on attendance.\n\nWhile Mr Johnson said end-of-year exams would not take place as normal in the summer, he said alternative arrangements would be announced separately.\n\nThe government has published a 22-page document outlining the new rules in detail.\n\nThe House of Commons has been recalled to allow MPs to vote on the new restrictions on Wednesday.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his MPs would \"support the package of measures\", saying \"we've all got to pull together now to make this work\".\n\nOnce again it is the threat to the NHS that has forced the hand of ministers.\n\nIn England there has been a 50% rise in the number of patients in hospital with Covid since Christmas day.\n\nTo put that into context, it equates to 18 hospitals being filled.\n\nCurrently around three out of 10 beds are occupied by patients with the disease.\n\nIn some hospitals it is more than six in 10.\n\nBut what is worrying ministers and NHS leaders is that the number is just going to increase.\n\nIn the spring it took nearly three weeks after lockdown for hospital cases to peak.\n\nThe last six days have seen in excess of 50,000 new infections confirmed each day across the UK - a number of these infections are next week's hospital admissions.\n\nIt is why the UK's chief medical officers were warning there was a \"material risk\" of some hospitals being overwhelmed if something did not change.\n\nMr Johnson spoke after UK chief medical officers recommended the Covid threat level be increased to five - its highest level.\n\nLevel five means the NHS may soon be unable to handle a further sustained rise in cases, the medical officers said in a joint statement.\n\nNHS Providers, which represents health service trusts, said hospitals were at a \"critical point\" and that \"immediate and decisive action\" was needed.\n\nAnnouncing tougher measures in Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: \"It is no exaggeration to say that I am more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year.\"\n\nFor pupils who returned for their first day of the new term at primary school on Monday, it's turned out to be an extremely short-lived visit.\n\nBoris Johnson's announcement will see primary, secondary and further education colleges closed for at least the next six weeks, except for vulnerable and key workers' children.\n\nIt's a much bigger shift in policy than had been anticipated, even a few days ago.\n\nEven the return date will depend on the progress in tackling the virus.\n\n\"I hope we can steadily move out of lockdown, reopening schools after the February half term,\" said the prime minister.\n\nKeeping schools open was the government's most definite of red lines, a few weeks ago they were threatening councils that wanted to close them - but it's now been overtaken by the spiking lines on the Covid infection charts.\n\nEven after the chaos of last year's replacement grades, GCSEs and A-levels are being cancelled again - with a replacement system still to be decided. Vocational exams are to continue.\n\nFor parents dreading home schooling, there are plans for it to be better supported this time - with more computer devices available and suggestions that Ofsted inspectors will check what schools are offering.\n\nBut there's no escaping that this will feel like another sudden and chaotic change of direction for schools and parents.\n\nMr Johnson's pledge on vaccinations comes after an 82-year-old retired maintenance manager became the first person in the UK to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 jab\n\nSome 13.9 million people are among the four priority groups who will receive a vaccine dose by about 15 February, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC's Laura Foster explains the order in which the Covid vaccine will be given\n\nHow will you be affected by the latest developments? What questions do you have? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill met throughout Monday\n\nThere will be an extended period of remote learning for schools in Northern Ireland, the executive has said.\n\nMinisters met on Monday night as other parts of the UK tightened their coronavirus restrictions.\n\nThe Stormont executive also plans to give its stay at home guidance legal force, with new restrictions on travel.\n\nDeputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said details would be formalised on Tuesday.\n\nThe health and education ministers will bring separate papers on the issues to the executive at the meeting, she added.\n\nNorthern Ireland's Education Minister Peter Weir had previously announced a staggered return to school for pupils during the month of January.\n\nThe first transfer test, used by many grammar schools to select pupils, is due to take place on Saturday but there have been calls from some teaching unions and political parties for the test to be cancelled this year, in light of the uncertainty with the pandemic.\n\nIn England, all schools and colleges will close to most pupils and switch to remote learning until the middle of February, and end-of-year exams will not take place this summer as normal.\n\nRecommendations on exams in Northern Ireland are also expected to be brought forward by the executive on Tuesday.\n\nIt is understood ministers will update the assembly on Wednesday about their decisions.\n\nFirst Minister Arlene Foster said the new restrictions were unfortunate, but necessary.\n\nShe said she believed the stay-at-home message will be in place \"for the rest of January, probably into February\".\n\n\"We will of course review it, as we're legally bound to do every couple of weeks.\"\n\nShe added that ministers would \"much prefer\" for face-to-face education to continue, but said they had to \"take into account the very serious situation that we find ourselves in tonight.\"\n\nBoth organisations which organise transfer tests will be making announcements on Tuesday, she said.\n\n\"We'll wait to hear what they have to say. They do of course have to abide by public health advice, but they are private organisations and they will make their own announcements.\"\n\nThe Irish government is considering a proposal to close schools for the rest of January.\n\nOn Monday, the Department of Health reported that a further 1,801 people had tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours.\n\nThere have also been 12 more Covid-19 related deaths.\n\nThese latest figures from the Department of Health bring the total number of deaths to 1,366, while 79,873 people have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic started.\n\nMore than 12,000 cases have been reported in the past seven days, more than double the week before.\n\nThe seven-day rate per 100,000 people is now 660 positive cases, compared to 200 per 100,000 two weeks ago.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland on Monday, an additional 6,110 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were announced, with six further deaths linked to the virus.\n\nScotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has already announced a fresh lockdown there from midnight, with schools closed until February.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme, Dr Michael McBride said Scotland's measures were \"prudent and sensible\".\n\nMeanwhile, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine rollout has begun in Northern Ireland.\n\nUp to 11,000 people aged over 80 across Northern Ireland are set to receive the this week, with some of the first doses delivered at a GP surgery on the Falls Road in West Belfast on Monday afternoon.\n\nUp to 11,000 people aged over 80 across Northern Ireland are set to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca\n\nThe SDLP has called for the assembly to be recalled on Tuesday to discuss the rolling out of the vaccine.\n\nIt can be recalled if at least 30 MLAs sign a petition.\n\nOn Monday, Justice Minister Naomi Long welcomed the opening of Northern Ireland's first Nightingale venue, which will be used for courts and tribunals business.\n\nThe facility was approved by a meeting of the executive on 17 December, and will sit in the International Convention Centre in Belfast (ICC).\n\nActivity at the centre will be phased in, in line with Covid-19 regulations.\n\nIn other coronavirus-related developments on Monday:", "Gerry Marsden was awarded an MBE in 2003 for services to Liverpudlian Charities.\n\nGerry and the Pacemakers singer Gerry Marsden, whose version of You'll Never Walk Alone became a football terrace anthem for his hometown club of Liverpool, has died at the age of 78.\n\nHis family said he died on Sunday after a short illness not linked to Covid-19.\n\nMarsden's band was one of the biggest success stories of the Merseybeat era, and in 1963 became the first to have their first three songs top the chart.\n\nThe band's other best known hit, Ferry Cross The Mersey, came in 1964.\n\nIt was written by Marsden himself as a tribute to his city, and reached number eight.\n\nMarsden was made an MBE in 2003 for services to charity after supporting victims of the Hillsborough disaster.\n\nAt the time, he said he was \"over the moon\" to have received the honour, following his support for numerous charities across Merseyside and beyond.\n\nGerry Marsden in 2009 on the Mersey ferry, which he made famous with his song Ferry Cross The Mersey, as he received the Freedom of the City in Liverpool\n\nMarsden's daughter, Yvette Marbeck, said he went into hospital on Boxing Day after tests showed he had a serious blood infection that had travelled to his heart.\n\nMs Marbeck told the PA news agency: \"It was a very short illness and too quick to comprehend really.\"\n\nHe died in hospital, Ms Marbeck said, adding: \"He was our dad, our hero, warm, funny and what you see is what you got.\"\n\nLiverpool FC posted on social media that Marsden's words would \"live on forever with us\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Liverpool FC This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nGerry and the Pacemakers worked the same Liverpool club circuit as The Beatles in the 1960s and were signed by the Fab Four's manager Brian Epstein.\n\nEpstein gave Marsden's group the song How Do You Do It, which had been turned down by The Beatles and Adam Faith, for their debut single.\n\nSir Paul McCartney described Gerry and the Pacemakers as The Beatles's \"biggest rivals\" on the Merseyside scene.\n\n\"I'll always remember you with a smile,\" Sir Paul said in his tribute to Marsden.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Paul McCartney This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd the other surviving Beatle, Sir Ringo Starr, sent \"peace and love\" to Marsden's family in a tribute on Twitter.\n\nWhile Marsden was a songwriter as well as a singer, his most enduring hit was actually a cover of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical number from 1945, which he had to convince his bandmates to record as their third single.\n\nIn many interviews over the years, he explained how fate played a part in his band ever recording the song. He was watching a Laurel and Hardy movie at Liverpool's Odeon cinema in the early 1960s and, only because it was raining, he decided to stay for the second part of a double feature.\n\nThat turned out to be the film Carousel - which featured that song on its soundtrack - and Marsden was so moved by the lyrics that he became determined that it should become part of his band's repertoire.\n\nIn a 2013 interview, Marsden told the Liverpool FC website how You'll Never Walk Alone was adopted by the club's fans as soon as it topped the chart in 1963: \"I remember being at Anfield and before every kick off they used to play the top 10 from number 10 to number one, and so You'll Never Walk Alone was played before the match. I was at the game and the fans started singing it.\n\n\"When it went out of the top 10 they took the song off the playlist and then for the next match the Kop were shouting 'Where's our song?' So they had to put it back on.\n\n\"Now, every time I go to the game I still get goose pimples when the song comes on and I sing my head off.\"\n\nSir Kenny Dalglish, who managed Liverpool at the time of the Hillsborough tragedy, tweeted that he was \"saddened\" by the news of Marsden's death, and that You'll Never Walk Alone was an \"integral part of Liverpool Football Club, and never more so than now\".\n\nLiverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram posted a tribute on Twitter, saying he was \"devastated\" by the news.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Steve Rotheram This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nGerry was an entertainer. He loved being an entertainer; he loved people seeing him in the street and asking him for his autograph and the like.\n\nHe had a very distinctive voice, and that is terribly important. You knew instantly it was him on those records. He was best on those ballads.\n\nI think he really did them very well indeed. You'll Never Walk Alone was a big show song that had been around for years and years, and lots of people had done it.\n\nJust before Gerry brought his version out, Johnny Mathis brought his out. If that version had been played on the Kop, I don't think the Kop would have taken to it because you couldn't sing along with Johnny Mathis - he had too big a range and too perfect a voice.\n\nBut Gerry sounded like everyman and it was absolutely perfect for the Kop. I think it's the greatest football anthem of the lot.\n\nAs well as being a Liverpool anthem, You'll Never Walk Alone has also been adopted by fans at both Celtic in Scotland and Borussia Dortmund in Germany.\n\nMarsden's career began at legendary live music venue, The Cavern Club, where The Pacemakers played nearly 200 times.\n\nThe club said on Twitter that Marsden was \"not only a legend, but also a very good friend of The Cavern\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by The Cavern Club This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 4 by The Cavern Club\n\nGerry and The Pacemakers achieved nine hit singles and two hit albums between 1963 and 1965, before splitting up.\n\nMarsden pursued a solo career before the band reformed in 1974 for a world tour.\n\nIn 1985, Marsden was back in the pop spotlight when he was invited to be one of the vocalists of a charity version of You'll Never Walk Alone, which was released to raise funds for victims of a fire at a Bradford City match.\n\nIn doing so, Marsden set another chart record by becoming the first person to sing on two different chart-topping versions of the same song.\n\nSo when, after the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989, the other Pacemakers classic of Ferry Cross The Mersey was chosen to raise funds for its victims and a group of famous Liverpudlian singers was gathered, Marsden was again included and was back at number one once more for a cause he held dear for the rest of his life.\n\nMarsden was awarded the Freedom of Liverpool in April 2009, an occasion he marked by boarding a ferry across the Mersey and getting out his guitar to sing his famous hit which described the scene.", "US casino giant MGM Resorts has made an $11bn (£8.1bn) offer for British gaming company Entain, which owns Ladbrokes.\n\nThe move is the latest attempt by a casino operator to move into the online gambling business.\n\nIn addition to its chain of High Street betting shops, UK-based Entain also owns a number of online sports betting and gambling sites.\n\nEntain confirmed the offer, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, but said the price was too low.\n\nIt had recently rebuffed an earlier $10bn (£7.3bn) all-cash approach from MGM, the newspaper said.\n\nIn a statement, Entain said the latest bid approach \"significantly undervalues the company and its prospects\".\n\nMGM Resorts, which runs the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, now has until the beginning of next month to decide whether to make a formal bid or to walk away.\n\nFTSE 100-listed Entain. which renamed itself from GVC Holdings last month, describes itself as \"one of the world's largest sports betting and gaming groups operating in the online and retail sector\".\n\nAlong with Ladbrokes, it also owns brands such as Bwin, Partypoker, Coral, Eurobet, Gala and Foxy Bingo.\n\nAfter news of the latest offer for the firm, investors started betting on Entain, pushing its share price up by more than 25% to £14.30 a share - above MGM's offer of roughly £13.83 a share - a sign that market watchers are expecting a higher bid.\n\nIf the two firms do reach an agreement, it would follow another deal in September when MGM rival Caesars Entertainment agreed to buy UK-based William Hill for $3.7bn (£2.9bn).\n\n\"Following Caesar's offer for William Hill last year, a bid by MGM for Ladbroke's owner Entain isn't exactly a surprise,\" said Nicholas Hyett an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.\n\n\"The two are working together to take advantage of the recent legalisation of sports betting in the US, a market worth many billions of dollars a year.\"\n\nPredictions about the stockmarket have a habit of making the person trying to guess the future look foolish. No such problem for Laura Foll, a fund manager at the investment firm Janus Henderson. On the Today programme on Monday, she forecast more takeover offers for household names in Britain, noting that the UK markets remained unloved by investors and so - perhaps - undervalued.\n\nAn hour after the prediction a big offer duly landed, with Entain, the London-listed company that owns Ladbrokes and other gambling brands, saying it had received a takeover proposal from MGM Resorts, an American rival.\n\nThe US company is offering to pay shareholders in Entain not in cash, but in new MGM shares - an obvious move given the sky-high rating of US shares compared to those listed in London.\n\nIt looks a carbon copy of last year's deal where Caesars, best known for its Las Vegas properties, bought another venerable name in British bookmaking, William Hill. Get ready for more acquisitive foreign companies looking for deals in bargain basement London.\n\nThe new bid for Entain comes with financial backing from MGM's largest shareholder, InterActiveCorp (IAC), which took a 12% stake in MGM Resorts last August.\n\nAt the time, IAC's chief executive Barry Diller said it planned to work with MGM to expand its online gambling portfolio.\n\nThe attempted acquisition comes as the casino industry faces headwinds from the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nThe economy of Asian casino hub Macau shrank 49% in the first quarter of this year, while unemployment in Las Vegas reached 30% earlier in the year and remains well above the US average.\n\nMGM Resorts, which is the operator of the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, laid off 18,000 furloughed employees in the US in August.\n\nMany online gambling companies, by contrast, saw a boost during Covid-19 restrictions, prompting many casino owners to pivot their businesses towards online.", "Experts have raised concerns over India's emergency approval of a locally-produced coronavirus vaccine before the completion of trials.\n\nOn Sunday, Delhi approved the vaccine - known as Covaxin - as well as the global AstraZeneca Oxford jab, which is also being manufactured in India.\n\nThe head of Bharat Biotech, which makes Covaxin, defended the approval process, but health experts warn it was rushed.\n\nHealth watchdog All India Drug Action Network said it was \"shocked\".\n\nIt said that there were \"intense concerns arising from the absence of the efficacy data\" as well a lack of transparency that would \"raise more questions than answers and likely will not reinforce faith in our scientific decision making bodies\".\n\nThe statement came after India's Drugs Controller General, VG Somani, insisted Covaxin was \"safe and provides a robust immune response\".\n\nHe added the vaccines had been approved for restricted use in \"public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, to have more options for vaccinations, especially in case of infection by mutant strains\".\n\n\"The vaccines are 100% safe,\" he said, adding that side effects such as \"mild fever, pain and allergy are common for every vaccine\".\n\nThe All India Drug Action Network, however, said it was \"baffled to understand the scientific logic\" to approve \"an incompletely studied vaccine\".\n\nOne of India's most eminent medical experts, Dr Gagandeep Kang, told the Times of India newspaper that she had \"not seen anything like this before\". She added that \"there is absolutely no efficacy data that has been presented or published\".\n\nEven social media users were quick to point out that approving the vaccine before trials were complete was a matter of concern irrespective of how safe or effective the vaccine eventually turned out to be.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Joy This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut Krishna Ella, chairman of Bharat Biotech, met reporters on Monday and said the approval of Covaxin had not been rushed. He cited previous examples where emergency authorisation approvals had been given based only on immunogenicity data.\n\n\"Under Indian laws we can get emergency approval for the vaccine based on fulfilling five parameters after Phase 2 trails. That is what has happened with our vaccine. So it is not a premature approval,\" he said.\n\n\"We will complete the Phase 3 trials soon and provide the efficacy data for the vaccine by February.\"\n\nThe company currently has 20 million doses available and plans to produce about 700 million doses this year, Dr Ella said.\n\n\"We have four facilities coming up and we are planning [to make] around 200 million doses in Hyderabad, 500 million doses in other cities.\"\n\nMany scientists and opposition politicians have raised questions over what they say is the hasty authorisation of Covaxin.\n\nBharat Biotech has developed the vaccine with the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research - and the effort has been touted as an example of India's might in vaccine development and production.\n\nRegulators say the vaccine is safe and effective. The firm says phase 1 and phase 2 trials have shown good results.\n\nBut scientists say that the government's decision not to release data on the vaccine's efficacy for peer review has raised concerns.\n\nMr Modi has welcomed the approval, saying Covaxin is a shining example of his ambitious Atmnirbhar (self-reliance) India campaign.\n\nBut experts worry that questions over the approval process don't bode well for the campaign. And there could be deeper issues. Many believe that the government needs to be more transparent about the authorisation process because the success of the Covid-19 vaccine programme depends on public trust.\n\nThe emergency authorisation also sparked a fierce debate on Indian Twitter on Sunday night between ministers and opposition leaders.\n\nIndia's health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan called out opposition leaders for failing to \"applaud\" the country's \"prowess\" in locally producing a vaccine. India makes about 60% of vaccines globally.\n\nMembers of the main opposition Congress party, Shashi Tharoor and Jairam Ramesh, and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state, Akhilesh Yadav, were among those who raised concerns about the manner in which Covaxin was approved.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Shashi Tharoor This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Dr Harsh Vardhan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe approval comes as India gears up to vaccinate its population of more than 1.3 billon people. Amid fears that richer countries are buying up much of the vaccine supply, India too appears to be stockpiling vaccines.\n\nIn an interview with the Associated Press, Adar Poonawalla, whose Serum Institute of India (SII) is manufacturing the AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine, said the jab was given emergency authorisation on the condition that it would not be exported outside India.\n\nMr Poonawalla said his company, the world's largest vaccine maker, was also not allowed to sell the shot in the private market.\n\nThis has raised concerns in India's neighbouring countries, including Nepal and Bangladesh, which were primarily depending on the SII to start vaccinating their populations.\n\nBangladesh had already ordered 30 million doses of the vaccine in the first phase, Reuters reported, but now the fate of the order is unclear. The country's health secretary told local media in December that it expected the first batch of the jab by February.\n\nIndia plans to vaccinate some 300 million people on a priority list by August.\n\nIt has recorded the second-highest number of infections in the world, with more than 10.3 million confirmed cases to date. Nearly 150,000 people have died.\n\nBoth vaccines approved on Sunday can be transported and stored at normal refrigeration temperatures.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Co-op, Morrisons and their payments processing provider ACI say they are investigating an IT glitch that created problems for card payments in stores.\n\nLong queues were seen outside some of the Co-op's convenience stores from Sunday amid the snow, with some shoppers asked to use cash.\n\nCo-op and Morrisons said customers were no longer experiencing problems but they, and ACI, were studying the cause.\n\nOne MP said the problem exposed the risks of letting cash use \"wither\".\n\nACI, which provides real-time payments processing for the retailers, said: \"We are working closely with the IT teams at our partners to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. We apologise to shoppers for any inconvenience caused.\"\n\nThe issue comes as contactless payments have taken off in the UK during the pandemic, with fewer consumers using cash to pay for groceries.\n\nCustomers complained about the issue on social media.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jen Bartram This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA Co-op spokesman told the BBC: \"All card transactions are being processed as usual and our payment process partner is investigating after we experienced an intermittent issue.\n\n\"We would like to apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused during that time.\"\n\nThe BBC witnessed the card processing issue affecting some of The Co-op's stores meant that self-service checkouts had to be closed, requiring customers to queue to be served at tills manned by staff.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by David of Nottingham This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 2 by David of Nottingham\n\nAt some stores, customers queuing outside were warned on Monday evening that transactions had to be \"cash-only\" due to the ongoing issue.\n\nSome customers said they had to use the convenience store's cash machine to withdraw money to pay for purchases.\n\nHowever in other stores, the problem was intermittent, impacting some payment card brands, but not others.\n\nShadow economic secretary to the Treasury Pat McFadden said: \"This shows the dangers of letting the cash network just wither away as use declines.\n\n\"The government promised legislation to secure nationwide access to cash a year ago. It hasn't been brought forward.\"", "The case rate in Bridgend peaked just before Christmas, but now we are seeing deaths in hospitals\n\nThe total number of deaths involving Covid-19 in Wales has reached its highest weekly total of the pandemic.\n\nThere were 467 deaths in the week ending 15 January, which is 13 more than the week before.\n\nThis was nearly 40% of all registered deaths, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).\n\nBoth Betsi Cadwaladr and Cwm Taf Morgannwg health boards saw their highest weekly numbers, more than experienced during the first wave.\n\nBetsi Cadwaladr had 74 deaths while Cwm Taf Morgannwg had 116.\n\nUnlike during the peak in the first wave in 2020, Wales is also now seeing higher numbers of deaths in north Wales and west Wales.\n\nIn north-east Wales, where there have been the highest case rates of Covid-19 in recent weeks, there were 30 deaths of Flintshire residents, including 25 in hospital. In Wrexham, there were 27 deaths - with 21 in hospital.\n\nCwm Taf Morgannwg health board saw 49 hospital deaths in Bridgend - the highest weekly number in Wales. There were also 33 patients who died in Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) and six in Merthyr Tydfil.\n\nAll counties recorded at least three deaths involving Covid-19 and the total number of deaths in Wales, up to and registered by 15 January, was 5,884.\n\nWhen deaths registered over the following few days are counted, there is now a total of 6,074.\n\nRCT, with 752 deaths, has the largest number in Wales, followed by Cardiff with 637, up to the latest week.\n\nWhen looking at crude mortality rates, the highest number of deaths - when taking into account the size of populations in England and Wales - are Welsh areas: RCT, followed by Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent.\n\nSo-called excess deaths, which compare all registered deaths with previous years, continue to be above the five-year average.\n\nLooking at the number of deaths we would normally expect to see at this point in the year is seen as a useful measure of how the pandemic is progressing.\n\nIn Wales, the number of deaths from all causes fell from 1,198 in the previous week - the highest recorded during the pandemic - to 1,170. But this was still 314 (36.7%) higher than the five-year average for that week.\n\nThis means deaths have been more than the peak in the first wave of the pandemic - 1,169 deaths in the week ending 17 April 2020 - for two weeks in a row.\n\nThe highest proportion of excess deaths was 84.1% in London.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Schools and colleges in Wales moved to online learning before Christmas\n\nKeeping schools shut during the Covid pandemic is \"almost like systematic neglect\" to disadvantaged pupils, a head teacher has said.\n\nCardiff head Armando Di-Finizio said there was a \"fair degree of trauma\" among pupils because of the lockdowns.\n\nOne expert said children from disadvantaged backgrounds were falling furthest behind academically.\n\nThe Welsh Government said it ensured vulnerable children could continue to attend school.\n\nBefore the pandemic the proportion of pupils receiving free school meals who achieved five or more GCSEs was 32% lower than the figure for other pupils in Wales.\n\nAt Eastern High School, where 47% of children receive free school meals, Mr Di-Finizio said the challenges of lockdown were greater for pupils who may not have support or structure at home for learning.\n\nArmando Di-Finizio, head teacher of Eastern High School, says the the attainment gap among pupils is \"widening\"\n\nMr Di-Finizio told Wales Live he did not think the balance was right \"between those who are genuinely vulnerable\" with the virus and young people who are vulnerable in terms of their welfare and wellbeing and their academic progress.\n\n\"I think there would have been other ways to handle this because we are seeing students struggling because of it and the attainment gap is widening for this generation,\" he said.\n\n\"It's almost like systematic neglect of young people that is going on day after day, week after week, month after month.\n\n\"We have to somehow pull this back because I do wonder one day, how the children will look back and judge us in terms of our responses.\"\n\nAnother concern since the pandemic began, he said, was the fact the number of child protection cases at his school has doubled.\n\n\"I don't want to sound alarmist, but I do believe it will take a number of years for us to unpick the traumas that young people go through because we don't know yet just what this lasting impact will be,\" he added.\n\nProfessor Chris Taylor says home learning reduces the ability to provide a \"level playing field\" for education\n\nWelsh Chief Inspector of Schools Meilyr Rowlands, has previously said there was evidence of widening inequality in performance as a result of the pandemic.\n\nSocial Sciences Prof Chris Taylor, from Cardiff University, said this gap was continuing to widen.\n\n\"Closing schools exposes and accentuates the deep disadvantage that many families have across Wales in the different circumstances that they're in,\" Prof Taylor said.\n\nHome learning reduces the ability of schools \"to provide that level playing field\" for educational opportunities.\n\n\"Instead, we're relying on what families and households can produce and provide to support that learning,\" he said.\n\nProf Taylor added some children would \"feel like they've left school at the age of 14 or 15, instead of 18\" in terms of their learning, and the focus for them should be preparing for the next step in their education rather than exams that are not going to happen this summer.\n\nHe said some pupils who may have been planning to leave school at 16 should remain in education until they are 18 to \"remedy some of the missed opportunities\", and that summer school and activities should be put on to help address isolation.\n\nAlmost half of all pupils receive free school meals at Eastern High School in Cardiff\n\nSiân Gwenllian MS, Plaid Cymru's education spokeswoman, has called on the Welsh Government to publish a plan on how pupils will be helped to catch up with \"lost education\".\n\n\"Those children in more deprived areas have been doubly disadvantaged - coronavirus has been more prevalent in these areas, meaning they will have lost more school prior to the lockdown, and these children are less likely to have the means to access online learning,\" she said.\n\nA Welsh Government spokesman said it had provided \"more than 130,000 [electronic] devices\" since the start of the pandemic for pupils' home learning.\n\n\"We've also recruited more than 1,000 teaching and support staff to provide additional support for learners who may have missed out on teaching time due to the pandemic,\" he said.\n\nThe government has ensured vulnerable children, as well as children of critical workers, could continue to attend school throughout the pandemic, he added.", "A US bankruptcy judge has agreed a $17m (£12.4m) payout to women who accused disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct.\n\nWeinstein, 68, was convicted last year and jailed for 23 years for rape and sexual assault.\n\nThe payout for his victims will come from the liquidation of the Weinstein Co, which filed for bankruptcy in 2018.\n\nThe judge overruled an objection from some accusers looking to pursue appeals outside of bankruptcy court.\n\nJudge Mary Walrath said without the settlement, the plaintiffs would get \"minimal, if any, recovery.\"\n\nThe Weinstein Co was set up as an independent film studio with the disgraced Hollywood mogul one of its co-founders.\n\nThe company collapsed in late 2017, following widespread claims of sexual misconduct against Weinstein, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a former production assistant and raping an actress.\n\nThe US judge said that 83% of sexual misconduct claimants in the bankruptcy \"have expressed very loudly that they want closure through acceptance of this plan, that they do not seek to have to go through any further litigation in order to receive some recovery, some possible recompense... although it's clear that money will never give them that\".\n\nThe $17m fund will be divided among more than 50 claimants, with the most serious allegations resulting in payouts of $500,000 or more.\n\nThe settlement was put to a vote of Weinstein's accusers, with 39 voting in favour and eight opposed.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThey will have the option to forgo most of their payout under the plan if they want to continue pursuing their claims.\n\nInsurers contributed $35m under the liquidation plan, which also provides $9.7m to the former officers and directors of the Weinstein Co, allowing them to pay a portion of their legal bills over the last several years.\n\nThe directors and officers, who include Weinstein's brother, Bob, also received releases that absolve them of any potential liability for enabling Weinstein's conduct.\n\nThe Weinstein Co sold its assets to Lantern Entertainment, which later became Spyglass Media Group, for $289m.", "A year ago, the Chinese government locked down the city of Wuhan. For weeks beforehand officials had maintained that the outbreak was under control - just a few dozen cases linked to a live animal market. But in fact the virus had been spreading throughout the city and around China.\n\nThis is the story of five critical days early in the outbreak.\n\nBy 30 December, several people had been admitted to hospitals in the central city of Wuhan, having fallen ill with high fever and pneumonia. The first known case was a man in his 70s who had fallen ill on 1 December. Many of those were connected to a sprawling live animal market, Huanan Seafood Market, and doctors had begun to suspect this wasn't regular pneumonia.\n\nSamples from infected lungs had been sent to genetic sequencing companies to identify the cause of the disease, and preliminary results had indicated a novel coronavirus similar to Sars. The local health authorities and the country's Center for Disease Control (CDC) had already been notified, but nothing had been said to the public.\n\nAlthough no-one knew it at the time, between 2,300 and 4,000 people were by now likely infected, according to a recent model by MOBS Lab at Northeastern University in Boston. The outbreak was also thought to be doubling in size every few days. Epidemiologists say that at this early part of an outbreak, each day and even each hour is critical.\n\nWuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was sealed off on 1 January 2020\n\nAt around 16:00 on 30 December, the head of the Emergency Department at Wuhan Central Hospital was handed the results of a test carried out by sequencing lab Capital Bio Medicals in Beijing.\n\nShe went into a cold sweat as she read the report, according to an interview given later to Chinese state media.\n\nAt the top were the alarming words: \"SARS CORONAVIRUS\". She circled them in bright red, and passed it on to colleagues over the Chinese messaging site WeChat.\n\nWithin an hour and a half, the grainy image with its large red circle reached a doctor in the hospital's ophthalmology department, Li Wenliang. He shared it with his hundreds-strong university class group, adding the warning, \"Don't circulate the message outside this group. Get your family and loved ones to take precautions.\"\n\nWhen Sars spread through southern China in late 2002 and 2003, Beijing covered up the outbreak, insisting that everything was under control. This allowed the virus to spread around the world. Beijing's response invoked international criticism and - worryingly for a regime deeply concerned about stability - anger and protests within China. Between 2002 and 2004, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) went on to infect more than 8,000 people and kill almost 800 worldwide.\n\nRobert Maguire of the WHO and a Chinese doctor visit a Sars patient in Guangzhou, China – April 2003\n\nOver the coming hours, screen shots of Li's message spread widely online. Across China, millions of people began talking about Sars online.\n\nIt would turn out that the sequencers made a mistake - this was not Sars, but a new coronavirus very similar to it. But this was a critical moment. News of a possible outbreak had escaped.\n\nThe Wuhan Health Commission was already aware that there was something going on in the city's hospitals. That day, officials from the National Health Commission in Beijing arrived, and lung samples were sent to at least five state labs in Wuhan and Beijing to sequence the virus in parallel.\n\nNow, as messages suggesting the possible return of Sars began flying over Chinese social media, the Wuhan Health Commission sent two orders out to hospitals. It instructed them to report all cases direct to the Health Commission, and told them not to make anything public without authorisation.\n\nWithin 12 minutes, these orders were leaked online.\n\nIt might have taken a couple more days for the online chatter to make the leap from Chinese-speaking social media to the wider world if it wasn't for the efforts of veteran epidemiologist Marjorie Pollack.\n\nThe deputy editor of ProMed-mail, an organisation which sends out alerts on disease outbreaks worldwide, received an email from a contact in Taiwan, asking if she knew anything about the chatter online.\n\nDr Marjorie Pollack is an epidemiologist based in New York\n\nBack in February 2003, ProMed had been the first to break the news of Sars. Now, Pollack had deja vu. \"My reaction was: 'We're in trouble,'\" she told the BBC.\n\nThree hours later, she had finished writing an emergency post, requesting more information on the new outbreak. It was sent out to ProMed's approximately 80,000 subscribers at one minute to midnight.\n\nAs word began to spread, Professor George F Gao, director general of China's Center for Disease Control [CDC], was receiving offers of help from contacts around the world.\n\nChina revamped its infectious disease infrastructure after Sars - and in 2019, Gao had promised that China's vast online surveillance system would be able to prevent another outbreak like it.\n\nBut two scientists who contacted Gao say the CDC head did not seem alarmed.\n\n\"I sent a really long text to George Gao, offering to send a team out and do anything to support them,\" Dr Peter Daszak, the president of New York-based infectious diseases research group EcoHealth Alliance, told the BBC. But he says that all he received in reply was a short message wishing him Happy New Year.\n\nDirector of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, George F Gao – 22 January 2020\n\nEpidemiologist Ian Lipkin of Columbia University in New York was also trying to reach Gao. Just as he was having dinner to ring in the New Year, Gao returned his call. The details Lipkin reveals about their conversation offer new insights into what leading Chinese officials were prepared to say at this critical point.\n\n\"He had identified the virus. It was a new coronavirus. And it was not highly transmissible. This didn't really resonate with me because I'd heard that many, many people had been infected,\" Lipkin told the BBC. \"I don't think he was duplicitous, I think he was just wrong.\"\n\nLipkin says he thinks Gao should have released the sequences they had already obtained. My view is that you get it out. This is too important to hesitate.\"\n\nGao, who refused the BBC's requests for an interview, has told state media that the sequences were released as soon as possible, and that he never said publicly that there was no human-to-human transmission.\n\nThat day, the Wuhan Health Commission issued a press release stating that 27 cases of viral pneumonia had been identified, but that there was no clear evidence of human to human transmission.\n\nIt would be a further 12 days before China shared the genetic sequences with the international community.\n\nThe Chinese government refused multiple interview requests by the BBC. Instead, it gave us detailed statements on China's response, which state that in the fight against Covid-19 China \"has always acted with openness, transparency and responsibility, and … in a timely manner.\"\n\nBBC This World's 54 Days: China and the pandemic can be seen on BBC Two at 21:00 GMT on Tuesday 26 January, or 23:30 on Monday 1 February (except BBC Two Northern Ireland). Or watch on BBC iPlayer.\n\nPart two - 54 Days: America and the Pandemic - will be on BBC Two on Tuesday 2 February at 21:00.\n\nInternational law stipulates that new infectious disease outbreaks of global concern be reported to the World Health Organization within 24 hours. But on 1 January the WHO still had not had official notification of the outbreak. The previous day, officials there had spotted the ProMed post and reports online, so they contacted China's National Health Commission.\n\n\"It was reportable,\" says Professor Lawrence Gostin, Director of the WHO Collaborating Center on national and global health law at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and a member of the International Health Regulations roster of experts. \"The failure to report clearly was a violation of the International Health Regulations.\"\n\nDr Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO epidemiologist who would become the agency's Covid-19 technical lead, joined the first of many emergency conference calls in the middle of the night on 1 January.\n\n\"We had the assumptions initially that it may be a new coronavirus. For us it wasn't a matter of if human to human transmission was happening, it was what is the extent of it and where is that happening.\"\n\nIt was two days before China responded to the WHO. But what they revealed was vague - that there were now 44 cases of viral pneumonia of unknown cause.\n\nChina says that it communicated regularly and fully with the WHO from 3 January. But recordings of internal WHO meetings obtained by the Associated Press (AP) news agency some of which were shared with PBS Frontline and the BBC, paint a different picture, revealing the frustration that senior WHO officials felt by the following week.\n\n\"'There's been no evidence of human to human transmission' is not good enough. We need to see the data,\" Mike Ryan WHO's health emergencies programme director is heard saying.\n\nThe WHO was legally required to state the information it had been provided by China. Although they suspected human to human transmission, the WHO were not able to confirm this for a further three weeks.\n\n\"Those concerns are not something they ever aired publicly. Instead, they basically deferred to China,\" says AP's Dake Kang. \"Ultimately, the impression that the rest of the world got was just what the Chinese authorities wanted. Which is that everything was under control. Which of course it wasn't.\"\n\nThe number of people infected by the virus was doubling in size every few days, and more and more people were turning up at Wuhan's hospitals.\n\nBut now - instead of allowing doctors to share their concerns publicly - state media began a campaign that effectively silenced them.\n\nOn 2 January, China Central Television ran a story about the doctors who spread the news about an outbreak four days earlier. The doctors, referred to only as \"rumour mongers\" and \"internet users\", were brought in for questioning by the Wuhan Public Security Bureau and 'dealt with' 'in accordance with the law'.\n\nOne of the doctors was Li Wenliang, the eye doctor whose warning had gone viral. He signed a confession. In February, the doctor died of Covid-19.\n\nThe Chinese government says that this is not evidence that it was trying to suppress news of the outbreak, and that doctors like Li were being urged not to spread unconfirmed information.\n\nBut the impact of this public dressing down was critical. For though it was becoming apparent to doctors that there was, in fact, human-to-human transmission, they were prevented from going public.\n\nA health worker from Li's hospital, Wuhan Central, told us that over the next few days \"there were so many people who had a fever. It was out of control. We started to panic. [But] The hospital told us that we were not allowed to speak to anyone.\"\n\nThe Chinese government told us that \"it takes a rigorous scientific process to determine if a new virus can be transmitted from person to person\".\n\nThe authorities would continue to maintain for a further 18 days that there was no human-to-human transmission.\n\nLabs across the country were racing to map the complete genetic sequence of the virus. Among them was a renowned virologist in Shanghai, Professor Zhang Yongzhen who began sequencing on 3 January.\n\nAfter having worked for two days straight, he obtained a complete sequence. His results revealed a virus that was similar to Sars, and therefore likely transmissible.\n\nOn 5 January, Zhang's office wrote to the National Health Commission advising taking precautionary measures in public places.\n\n\"On that very day, he was working to try and get information released as soon as possible, so the rest of the world could see what it was and so we could get diagnostics going\", says Zhang's research partner, Professor Edward Holmes an evolutionary virologist at the University of Sydney.\n\nBut Zhang could not make his findings public. On January 3, the National Health Commission had sent a secret memorandum to labs banning unauthorised scientists from working on the virus and disclosing the information to the public.\n\n\"What the notice effectively did,\" says AP's Dake Kang, \"is it silenced individual scientists and laboratories from revealing information about this virus and potentially allowing word of it to leak out to the outside world and alarm people.\"\n\nNone of the labs went public with the genetic sequence of the virus. China continued to maintain it was viral pneumonia with no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.\n\nIt would be six days before it announced that the new virus was a coronavirus, and even then, it did not share any genetic sequences to allow other countries to develop tests and begin tracing the spread of the virus.\n\nThree days later, on 11 January, Zhang decided it was time to put his neck on the line. As he boarded a plane between Beijing and Shanghai, he authorised Holmes to release the sequence.\n\nThe decision came at a personal cost - his lab was closed the next day for \"rectification\" - but his action broke the deadlock. The next day state scientists released the sequences they had obtained. The international scientific community swung into action, and a toolkit for a diagnostic test was publicly available by 13 January.\n\nDespite the evidence from scientists and doctors, China would not confirm there was human-to-human transmission until 20 January.\n\nIllustration of spike proteins (red) of Covid-19 binding with receptors (blue) on a target human cell\n\nAt the beginning of any emerging disease outbreak, says health law expert Lawrence Gostin, it's always chaotic. \"It was always going to be very difficult to control this virus, from day one. But by the time we knew [the international community] it was transmissible human to human, I think the cat was already out the bag, it already spread.\n\n\"That was the shot we had, and we lost it.\"\n\nAs Wang Linfa, a bat virologist at Duke-Nus Medical School in Singapore, says: \"January 20th is the dividing line, before that the Chinese could have done much better. After that, the rest of the world should be really on high alert and do much better.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMore than 100,000 people have died with Covid-19 in the UK, after 1,631 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were recorded in the daily figures.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said he took \"full responsibility\" for the government's actions, saying: \"We truly did everything we could.\"\n\n\"I'm deeply sorry for every life lost,\" he said.\n\nA total of 100,162 deaths have been recorded in the UK, the first European nation to pass the landmark.\n\nEarlier, figures from the ONS, which are based on death certificates, showed there had been nearly 104,000 deaths since the pandemic began.\n\nThe government's daily figures rely on positive tests and are slightly lower.\n\nMr Johnson told Tuesday's Downing Street news conference that it was \"hard to compute the sorrow contained in this grim statistic\".\n\nHe gave his \"deepest condolences\" to those who had lost loved ones, including \"fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, and the many grandparents who've been taken\".\n\nThe UK is the fifth country to pass 100,000 deaths, coming after the US, Brazil, India and Mexico.\n\nA surge in cases in recent weeks - driven in part by a new, fast-spreading variant of the virus - has left the UK with one of the highest coronavirus death rates globally.\n\nA further 20,089 coronavirus cases were recorded on Tuesday, continuing a downward trend in the number of UK cases seen in recent days. The number of people in hospital remains high, as do the UK's daily death figures.\n\nMr Johnson said the coronavirus infection rate remained \"pretty forbiddingly high\" despite lockdown restrictions which have been in place in England since 5 January.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons - including for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nMr Johnson said he would set out more detail in \"the next few days and weeks\" about \"when and how we want to get things open again\".\n\nIt's a terrible milestone - and one that represents unimaginable loss.\n\nMost of the deaths have come in two waves - the sharp, sudden surge in the spring followed by a slow and sustained rise throughout autumn and winter.\n\nMistakes have been made - the delay locking down back in March is one that is often cited even by the government's own advisers.\n\nThe UK, like much of Europe, was also woefully underprepared with limited testing and contact tracing systems.\n\nBut the ageing population, high rates of obesity, the fact the UK is a global hub and its inter-connectedness with Europe are also factors that meant we were tragically never going to escape lightly once the virus got a foothold.\n\nSpeaking alongside the prime minister, Prof Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, described it as a \"very sad day\".\n\nHe said the number of people dying \"will come down relatively slowly over the next two weeks - and will probably remain flat for a while now\".\n\nProf Whitty added the new coronavirus variant had changed the UK's situation \"very substantially\" with infection rates \"just about holding\" due to lockdown restrictions.\n\nBut he said the number of people testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK \"has been coming down\" and the number of people in hospital with Covid has \"flattened off\" - including in London, the South East and East of England.\n\nHowever, there were \"some areas\" where the hospital figures were \"still not convincingly reducing\", he said.\n\nNHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said there had been \"continuing improvements in hospital treatment for severely sick coronavirus patients\".\n\nHe said he expected more treatments within the next six to 18 months, adding: \"We can see a world in which coronavirus may be more treatable, but for now, it's a combination of reducing infections and getting vaccinations done.\"\n\nOne day there will be a public inquiry - maybe several - seeking to understand why so many died.\n\nLast summer, back when the government was subsidising people to eat out at restaurants, Boris Johnson said there would be an independent inquiry into the government's handling of Covid, but gave no details or dates.\n\nHe still hasn't, despite a recent call from bereaved families, trade unions and charities for lessons to be learnt now.\n\nThe gravest public health crisis for a century would have tested any government.\n\nBut as the pandemic has worsened, the criticisms and questions have mounted - about the timing of lockdowns, the rollout of test and trace and the failure to protect care homes last spring.\n\nThere is now pressure on Boris Johnson from some Tory MPs to ease restrictions as soon as the most vulnerable are vaccinated.\n\nBut this evening a sombre prime minister said the government would first do everything it could to minimise further loss of life.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said it was a \"sobering moment in the pandemic\", saying: \"Each death is a person who was someone's family member and friend.\"\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was a \"national tragedy\" to have reached 100,000 deaths.\n\nThe government had been \"behind the curve at every stage\" of the pandemic and had not learnt lessons over the summer, he added.\n\nThe epidemiologist whose modelling in part prompted the UK's first national lockdown said more action in the autumn of last year could have saved lives.\n\nProf Neil Ferguson told BBC Radio 4's PM programme: \"Had we acted both earlier and with greater stringency back in September when we first saw case numbers going up, and had a policy of keeping case numbers at a reasonably low levels, then I think a lot of the deaths we've seen, not all by any means, but a lot of the deaths we've seen in the last four or five months, could have been avoided.\"\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said the death toll was \"heartbreaking\" and warned there was a \"tough period ahead\".\n\n\"The vaccine offers the way out, but we cannot let up now,\" he added.\n\nMore than 6.8 million people in the UK have had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the latest figures.\n\nPlease enable JavaScript or upgrade your browser to see this interactive\n\nIf you would like to send us a tribute to a friend or family member who died after contracting coronavirus, please use the form below.\n\nPlease remember to include a photo of your loved one and their name. Upload your pictures here. Don't forget to include your contact details, so we can get in touch with you.\n\nWe would like to respond to everyone individually and include every tribute in our coverage, but unfortunately that may not be possible. Please be assured your message will be read and treated with the utmost respect.\n\nPlease note the contact details you provide will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your tribute.", "The Mermaid of Black Conch, a dark love story about a fisherman and a mermaid torn from the sea, has won the Costa Book of the Year award.\n\nTrinidadian-born British writer Monique Roffey beat four other contenders with her sixth novel to scoop the £30,000 prize.\n\nJudges said the book was \"utterly original... and feels like a classic in the making\".\n\nA \"delighted\" Roffey said her win was a vote for Caribbean literature.\n\n\"A huge thank you to the judges for exposing my book to a wide readership. I'll be pinching myself for weeks to come,\" she added.\n\nBased on a Taino legend of a beautiful woman transformed into a mermaid, the story is set in the Caribbean village of St Constance.\n\nDavid, a fisherman, unexpectedly attracts the attention of Aycayia, a mermaid who is drawn to his singing. When she is captured from the sea during an annual fishing competition, he does all he can to save her, with dramatic consequences.\n\nProfessor Suzannah Lipscomb, chair of judges, said: \"The Mermaid of Black Conch is an extraordinary, beautifully written, captivating, visceral book - full of mythic energy and unforgettable characters, including some tremendously transgressive women.\"\n\nThe Costa Book Awards have a reputation for picking popular reads: books you would recommend to a friend. And I would definitely recommend The Mermaid of Black Conch.\n\nAt first, the novel might sound a bit odd. Set on a Caribbean island in the 1970s, it is a bittersweet love story between a beautiful young woman cursed to live as a mermaid and a fisherman.\n\nBased on a legend passed down by the indigenous people of the Caribbean, the Taino, there are touches of magic and snippets of poetry. The book was also shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize last year, which rewards fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel.\n\nBut while it is unusual it is also a joy to read, brimming with memorable characters and vivid descriptions.\n\nWe see the mermaid's \"hair flying like a nest of cables\" while we are told \"sea moss trailed from her shoulders like slithers of beard\" and \"barnacles speckled the swell of her hips.\"\n\nFor me, this was a hugely entertaining and thought-provoking novel and a worthy winner.\n\nRoffey, a senior lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, secured her publishing deal through Peepal Tree Press, an independent publisher supporting Caribbean writers.\n\nShe then crowd-funded her publicity campaign with the support of fellow authors.\n\nThe Mermaid of Black Conch is set in the Caribbean\n\nRoffey's entry was also named Costa's Novel of the Year earlier this month, alongside winners from four other categories:\n\nThe Mermaid of Black Conch is the thirteenth novel to take the overall prize. Days Without End by Sebastian Barry was the last novel to be named Costa Book of the Year in 2016.\n\nTuesday's virtual ceremony also saw London-based writer Tessa Sheridan receive the 2020 Costa Short Story Award.\n\nSheridan won the public vote and £3,500 for her story, The Person Who Serves, Serves Again.\n\nThe Costa Book Awards, formerly the Whitbread Book Awards, were established in 1971 to encourage, promote and celebrate the best contemporary British writing.\n\nIt is open to UK and Irish authors.\n\nSeamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Sebastian Barry are among the authors to have won the book of the year award more than once.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The number of people to have died with coronavirus in the UK has exceeded 100,000.\n\nThere have been nearly 104,000 deaths since the pandemic began, data from the UK's national statisticians shows.\n\nThe figures, which go up to 15 January, are based on death certificates. The government's daily figures, which rely on positive tests, are slightly lower.\n\nIt follows a surge of cases last month, leaving the UK with one of the highest coronavirus death rates globally.\n\nThe Office for National Statistics and its counterparts in Scotland and Northern Ireland registered 7,776 deaths with coronavirus on the death certificate in the most recent week.\n\nThat total is the third highest of the epidemic.\n\nLast April, there were two weeks with more than 9,000 coronavirus deaths registered across the UK - but there have been no other weeks with more than 7,000 deaths registered.\n\nAbout nine in 10 death certificates citing coronavirus registered Covid as the cause of death.\n\nMost of the deaths have been in older age groups - nearly three-quarters of those who have died with the virus were over 75. One in three deaths were care home residents.\n\nChris Hopson, of NHS Providers, which represents health service managers, described the milestone as a \"tragedy\".\n\n\"Behind each death will be a story of sorrow and grief,\" he said.\n\n\"We pay tribute, once again, to NHS and care staff who have done everything they can throughout the long months of this pandemic to avoid each one of these deaths and reduce patient harm.\n\n\"We won't know the true impact of Covid-19 for a long time to come because of its long-term effects.\n\n\"But, as well as the high death rate, it's particularly concerning that this virus has widened health inequalities and affected black, Asian and minority-ethnic communities disproportionately.\"\n\nSarah Scobie, of the Nuffield Trust think tank, said it was a \"harrowing figure\".\n\nShe added: \"While the vaccine rollout for the most vulnerable is continuing at impressive speed, it will be a while until the benefits feed through to the figures.\"\n\nWe were one of the worst hit countries, if not the worst, in the spring - certainly in Europe and the G7.\n\nTwo big drivers of that were the timing of the first lockdown and the terrible numbers of deaths in care homes.\n\nAs a result, the UK could always rank among the hardest hit nations overall.\n\nBut comparing experiences in second waves is harder.\n\nSome countries have very clearly done better than the UK.\n\nAustralia, for example, has seen very few coronavirus deaths overall, and deaths quite close to usual levels throughout 2020.\n\nBut the US, which had a milder first wave than the UK, has seen steady numbers of coronavirus deaths throughout summer and autumn.\n\nIts death toll has been catching up with that of the UK in the most recent data, covering up until Christmas.\n\nAnd some countries that missed the first wave entirely - such as Poland (shown above) or Germany - have seen significant spikes in deaths in recent months.\n\nWith deaths rising since then in many countries and vaccination programmes only getting up and running, there is still a long way to go before we will know who has had the toughest second wave.\n• None Lockdown needs to be stricter, scientists warn", "Baroness Floella Benjamin has spoken of her pride after receiving a first coronavirus vaccine dose.\n\nThe 71-year-old actress said she would wear a badge saying \"I've had the jab\" after being vaccinated.\n\nThe Lib Dem peer, who came to Britain in 1960 and was born in Trinidad, is known for appearing in the children's programme Play School and received a damehood last year.\n\nOver 6.8m people in the UK have now received a first vaccine dose.\n\nAs a member of the House of Lords, Baroness Benjamin has spoken regularly about the disproportionate effect of Covid-19 on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities as well as the knock-on impact of the pandemic.\n\nIn September, she told peers she knew two people who had taken their own lives \"because they could not cope with the uncertainty of the future\".\n\nShe is also a member of the Lords Covid-19 Committee.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Floella Benjamin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe government has set a target for all those in the top four priority groups - around 15 million - to be offered a vaccine by mid-February.\n\nTwo vaccines - developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca - are being used. A third, from Moderna, has been approved.\n\nAll have been shown to be safe and effective in trials with two doses needed to offer the best protection - now timed 12 weeks apart.\n\nIt comes as British Asian celebrities united to dispel myths about the coronavirus vaccine.\n\nComedians Romesh Ranganathan and Meera Syal and cricketer Moeen Ali appear in a video urging people to get a jab.\n\nA study from the Royal Society for Public Health found 57% of black, Asian and minority ethnic people said they would take the vaccine.\n\nThis figure compared with 79% of white people who would do so.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. One protester said: \"This is the only way I can effect change\"\n\nPeople campaigning against the HS2 rail project have dug a tunnel near Euston station, in a bid to prevent their eviction from a protest camp.\n\nIn September, members of HS2 Rebellion set up a Tree Protection Camp in Euston Square Gardens in central London to protest against the £106bn scheme.\n\nThey claim the tunnel is 100ft (30m) long and has taken two months to dig.\n\nActivists say the tunnel - codenamed \"Kelvin\" - is their \"best defence\" against being evicted.\n\nOne protester, identified only as Blue, told the BBC: \"It is all very dangerous and life-threatening but it is all worth it. This is the only way I can effect change, I would sacrifice everything for the climate ecological emergency to not be happening.\"\n\nThe 18-year-old added: \"We want to be as safe as possible. It is not about us martyring ourselves, it is about delaying and stopping HS2.\"\n\nDemonstrators have previously built tree houses and scaled cranes near the HS2 Euston site\n\nA spokeswoman for HS2 said tunnel protests were \"costly to the taxpayer\".\n\nShe added: \"These are a danger to the safety of the protesters, HS2 staff, High Court enforcement officers and the general public, as well as putting unnecessary strain on the emergency services during the pandemic.\n\n\"Safety is our first priority when taking possession of land and removing illegal encampments.\"\n\nBritish Transport Police said it was aware of the tunnel but it was a matter for the Met Police, which said no complaint yet had been made.\n\nHS2 is set to link London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. It is hoped the 20-year project will reduce rail passenger overcrowding and help to rebalance the UK's economy.\n\nThe campaign group alleges HS2 is the \"most expensive, wasteful and destructive project in UK history\" and that it is \"set to destroy or irreparably damage 108 ancient woodlands and 693 wildlife sites\".\n\nHowever, HS2 bosses have said seven million trees will be planted during phase one of the project and that much ancient woodland will \"remain intact\".\n\nSeasoned activist Daniel Cooper - better known as Swampy - has been at Euston supporting the campaigners\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps told MPs in September that the first phase of the high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham would not open until 2028 at the earliest.\n\nThe second phase, to Manchester and Leeds, was due to open in 2032-33 but that has been pushed back to 2035-40.\n\nNetwork Rail, which owns the land, has been approached for a comment about the tunnel.\n\nHS2 protester Dr Larch Maxey said the tunnel was \"warm and quiet\"\n\nTunnelling as a form of environmental protest has a long history in the UK.\n\nIn the 1990s it was one of the ways that pushed environmental concerns into the headlines and changed perceptions.\n\nIn one of the environmental protesters' tunnelling guides, written by \"Disco Dave\", it says:\n\n\"In the world of NVDA (non-violent direct action) there are few defence tactics that can compare with the protest tunnel. Dangerous, laborious and time consuming, tunnelling is the ultimate and desperate tactic of desperate people in desperate times.\"\n\nThe first protest tunnel goes back to the M11 and 1993 but they only really developed during the Newbury Bypass protests in 1996.\n\nProtest tunnels against the A30 in Devon and Manchester Airport's second runway then followed.\n\nNot only did they make household names of environmental campaigners like \"Swampy\" but they arguably changed transport policy - road-building reduced massively.\n\nWe have seen tunnels more recently in 2017 in Coldharbour in Surrey in a protest against fracking so it's not a massive surprise we are seeing tunnels again.\n\nTunnelling in particular as a direct action slows down developers and it is expensive to dig out protesters safely.\n\nDisco Dave wrote: \"That ultimately is the purpose of tunnels and tree houses. To act as a deterrent warning the authorities that should they decide to evict, then it will hurt them where for them it hurts most - in the pocket.\"\n\nWhat will be interesting is if these tunnels have the same impact on HS2 as they did on the road-building programme of the late 1990s.\n\nWill it reframe HS2 so it will be seen in the same way as fracking or road building? Or can the argument still be made that it is a low-carbon form of travel even though it does cause some destruction of habitat?\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Facebook News, the social network's dedicated section for news content, is launching in the UK.\n\nThe UK is the second market to get Facebook News, which launched in the United States last year.\n\nSeveral major news publishers, including Channel 4, Sky News, and The Guardian have signed deals with Facebook to provide content.\n\nIt comes as the tech industry's relationship with the media comes under increased scrutiny.\n\nAnd French publishers recently agreed a deal with Google on how a new EU copyright law about news excerpts should be applied.\n\nFacebook News is the social network's own attempt to address the long-running friction between it and news publishers, as advertising spend has increasingly moved to the large tech firms instead of individual news outlets.\n\nThe new feature is set to go live on Tuesday afternoon, Facebook said.\n\nThe new feature is a dedicated tab within the Facebook mobile app, accessible by tapping the three-line icon for more options.\n\nThe tab features a mix of major daily news stories and \"personalised\" news selected for each reader based on their interests, as decided by Facebook's algorithm.\n\nFacebook says it pays publishers \"for content that is not already on the platform\", and says the feature will also provide publishers with new advertising and subscription \"opportunities\".\n\nThe dedicated news feed will have personalisation controls, Facebook says\n\nThat may be partly based on data from the United States, which Facebook says shows more than 95% of traffic on Facebook News is from people who have not read those publications before.\n\nThe social network says the new product is a \"a multi-year investment that puts original journalism in front of new audiences\".\n\nAnd news organisations, for which new readers are often in short supply, are signing up.\n\nIn November, when it first announced the product was heading to the UK, major names such as The Economist, The Independent, and Cosmopolitan were already on board.\n\nAhead of Tuesday's launch, The Daily Mail, Financial Times and Telegraph were also announced, among others.\n\nBBC News has not signed a commercial deal with Facebook News, but may still appear on the tab through public posts it makes on the Facebook platform.\n\nFacebook also says that this new product is a direct result of discussions with the news industry, with which it has often been at loggerheads.\n\nThe tech giant is responsible for driving a lot of traffic around the internet, and a story which performs well on Facebook will often attract more readers than one which does not.\n\nBut Facebook has also repeatedly made changes to its algorithms over the years which have affected news organisations, sometimes with little notice. It has also encouraged organisations to use its features such as instant articles, or to make video content for Facebook.\n\nHowever, it envisions Facebook News as a better solution than earlier attempts, and one it plans to roll out to other countries - including France and Germany - in the near future.\n\n\"Our goal has always been to work out the best ways we can support the industry in building sustainable business models,\" Facebook said in its blog post about the UK launch.\n\n\"As we invest more in news, and pay publishers for more content in more countries, we will work with them to support the long-term viability of newsrooms.\"", "The fake email looks like it has come from NHS Test and Trace\n\nThe NHS has warned people to be vigilant about fake invitations to have the coronavirus vaccination, sent by scammers.\n\nThe scam email includes a link to \"register\" for the vaccine, but no registration for the real vaccination is required.\n\nThe fake site also asks for bank details either to verify identification or to make a payment.\n\nThe NHS says it would never ask for bank details, and the vaccine is free.\n\nCyber-security consultant Daniel Card told BBC News that traffic data indicates thousands of people had clicked the link to the fake site - although it is unclear how many then filled in the form.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by NHS This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHe urged people to remain vigilant: \"These things spring up, we take them down and then they spring up again.\"\n\nBoth the National Cyber Security Centre and Action Fraud have asked anyone who receives a scam email or text to report it.\n\n\"Vaccines are our way out of this pandemic,\" said health secretary Matt Hancock.\n\n\"It is vital that we do not let a small number of unscrupulous fraudsters undermine the huge team effort under way across the country to protect millions of people from this terrible disease.\"\n\nAt the start of January, Derbyshire police issued a warning about a text message scam which offered Covid vaccinations.\n\n\"If you receive a text or email that asks you to click on a link or for you to provide information, such as your name, credit card or bank details, it's a scam,\" the force said.\n\nLast year, tech firms warned that coronavirus was a popular hook for scammers. In April 2020 Google said it was blocking 18 million scam emails a day on the subject.", "Labour is calling for juries to be cut from 12 members to seven, to stem the \"gravest crisis\" in the justice system since World War Two.\n\nShadow justice secretary David Lammy said action was needed to clear the backlog of thousands of cases.\n\nHe argued that smaller juries and the use of more temporary courts would allow socially distanced trials.\n\nThe government has not ruled out such a move but insists measures it is taking to clear the backlog are working.\n\nLast week four criminal justice watchdogs warned that courts in England and Wales were straining under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nJury trials ground to a halt at the start of the first lockdown, when people were advised to stay at home except in limited circumstances.\n\nWhen they resumed, there were severe delays and numerous cancellations due to social-distancing requirements.\n\nRecent figures revealed that the number of unheard cases in crown courts had reached a record 54,000.\n\nThe backlog means some from last year may not go before a jury until 2022, and it could be years before the courts get back on track.\n\nLabour wants the temporary return of so-called \"wartime juries\" of seven rather than 12 members to speed up the process.\n\n\"Victims of rape, murder, domestic abuse, robbery and assault are facing delays of up to four years because of the government's failure to act,\" Mr Lammy said.\n\nHe also urged the government to speed up the rollout of temporary \"Nightingale courts\" to hear civil, family and tribunals work, as well as non-custodial crime cases.\n\nTen of these were announced in July 2020 to help deal with the backlog in court proceedings, and 20 are now in operation across England and Wales.\n\nLeading lawyers are sceptical about Labour's proposal to reach back into wartime history.\n\nThe Criminal Bar Association - representing barristers who prosecute and defend trials - says a panel of seven may allow more courtrooms to be used, but it wouldn't solve what it says is chronic underfunding - and potentially undermines one of the most important safeguards in our society.\n\nThe Law Society, for solicitors, wants to see evidence that smaller panels would ease backlogs without risking injustices.\n\nThe Ministry of Justice's internal modelling calculated last year that reduced juries would lead to a 10% increase in cases - but that was before courtrooms received new Covid-proof screens that have allowed more trials to run.\n\nScotland's courts are using cinemas to host juries - and while that is not being actively discussed in England, it's not been ruled out either.\n\nEven if juries were slimmed, courts would still need to tightly control the number of defendants who can use their cells and courtroom docks to meet Public Health England's guidelines.\n\nIn April last year, the head of judiciary in England and Wales, Lord Burnett, backed the idea of reducing the number of jurors if social distancing continued.\n\nIn June, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland told the BBC he was \"very attracted\" by the idea of smaller juries, as had happened in wartime, and judge-only trials in less serious cases.\n\nThe Ministry of Justice says it has now installed plastic screens in more than 450 courtrooms and jury deliberation rooms to reduce Covid risks.\n\nIt says the safety measures are designed for 12-person juries and that the impact of lowering the number of jurors would be negligible.\n\nHowever, a spokesman said nothing was being ruled out and ministers were continuing to consider every option available to ensure courts recover quickly.\n\n\"This approach is already delivering results, with magistrates' backlogs falling significantly and the number of cases being dealt with in the crown courts reaching pre-Covid levels last month,\" he added.\n\nThe spokesman also said: \"We know more must be done and are investing £110m into a range of measures to drive this recovery further, including opening more Nightingale courts.\"", "Trees must be able to cope with projected climate change\n\nScientists have proposed 10 golden rules for tree-planting, which they say must be a top priority for all nations this decade.\n\nTree planting is a brilliant solution to tackle climate change and protect biodiversity, but the wrong tree in the wrong place can do more harm than good, say experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.\n\nThe rules include protecting existing forests first and involving locals.\n\nForests are essential to life on Earth.\n\nThey provide a home to three-quarters of the world's plants and animals, soak up carbon dioxide, and provide food, fuels and medicines.\n\nBut they're fast disappearing; an area about the size of Denmark of pristine tropical forest is lost every year.\n\n\"Planting the right trees in the right place must be a top priority for all nations as we face a crucial decade for ensuring the future of our planet,\" said Dr Paul Smith, a researcher on the study and secretary general of conservation charity, Botanic Gardens Conservation International, in Kew.\n\nIt takes at least a century to restore damaged forests\n\nA raft of ambitious tree-planting projects are underway around the world to replace the forests being lost.\n\nBoris Johnson has said he is aiming to plant 30,000 hectares (300 sq km) of new forest a year across the UK by the end of this parliament.\n\nAn African-led movement to plant a 5,000-mile (8,048km) forest wall to fight the climate crisis is set to become the largest living structure on Earth, three times the size of the Great Barrier Reef.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A solution that's slowing desertification on the front lines of climate change\n\nHowever, planting trees is highly complex, with no universal easy solution.\n\n\"If you plant the wrong trees in the wrong place you could be doing more harm than good,\" said lead researcher Dr Kate Hardwick of RBG Kew.\n\nAll too often natural forests teeming with plants, animals and fungi are replaced by commercial plantations with row upon row of timber trees, which will be harvested after a few decades, she told BBC News.\n\n\"What we're trying to do is to encourage people, wherever possible, to try and recreate forests which are similar to the natural forests and which provide multiple benefits to people, the environment and to nature as well as capturing carbon.\"\n\nThe review of research, published in the journal Global Change Biology, found that in some cases, planned tree planting does not increase carbon capture and can have negative effects.\n\nKeeping forests in their original state is always preferable; undamaged old forests soak up carbon better and are more resilient to fire, storm and droughts. \"Whenever there's a choice, we stress that halting deforestation and protecting remaining forests must be a priority,\" said Prof Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at RGB Kew.\n\nPut local people at the heart of tree-planting projects\n\nStudies show that getting local communities on board is key to the success of tree-planting projects. It is often local people who have most to gain from looking after the forest in the future.\n\nReforestation should be about several goals, including guarding against climate change, improving conservation and providing economic and cultural benefits.\n\nSelect the right area for reforestation\n\nPlant trees in areas that were historically forested but have become degraded, rather than using other natural habitats such as grasslands or wetlands.\n\nUse natural forest regrowth wherever possible\n\nLetting trees grow back naturally can be cheaper and more efficient than planting trees.\n\nSelect the right tree species that can maximise biodiversity\n\nWhere tree planting is needed, picking the right trees is crucial. Scientists advise a mixture of tree species naturally found in the local area, including some rare species and trees of economic importance, but avoiding trees that might become invasive.\n\nMake sure the trees are resilient to adapt to a changing climate\n\nUse tree seeds that are suitable for the local climate and how that might change in the future.\n\nPlan how to source seeds or trees, working with local people.\n\nCombine scientific knowledge with local knowledge. Ideally, small-scale trials should take place before planting large numbers of trees.\n\nThe sustainability of tree re-planting rests on a source of income for all stakeholders, including the poorest.\n• None Will millions more trees really stop climate change?", "Clare Ferguson-Walker says she has struggled with home-schooling her two children\n\nAs kitchen tables are turned back into classrooms across Wales, parents admit they are struggling with the return to home-schooling.\n\nFor Clare Ferguson-Walker from Tavernspite, Pembrokeshire, the experience has been a \"nightmare\".\n\nShe said trying to educate her two children alongside work has resulted in her relying on universal credit.\n\nGetting to grips with home-schooling in the first lockdown was \"a shock to the system\".\n\n\"My heart goes out to teachers, I can't imagine what it was like for them putting together all these packages,\" she said.\n\n\"My son is 12 and loves gaming so he's quite tech-savvy. When I have managed to pin him down he's been 'go away, dinosaur mother, I know how to do it!'\n\n\"I'm not au fait with these subjects I haven't done for years. It's different to how I learned at school.\"\n\nAs a single parent, Clare said she had found it difficult to juggle home-schooling with her work.\n\n\"At first, in the summer, we were doing Joe Wicks exercises every day then some work. Then it fell into chaos. I tried really hard at the beginning to be organised.\n\n\"I'm an artist and sculptor - that work ended and my income has dried up so I'm on universal credit.\n\n\"It's incredibly tough financially. Life has revolved around looking after the kids,\" she said.\n\nBy the end of the year, she said the pressure had all become too much.\n\n\"The thought of going through that again in the winter months - without sunny days in the garden - the stress really got to me.\n\n\"I was finding myself going repeatedly from the kettle to the fridge and back again in this weird loop, thinking what do I do now?\n\n\"It was like being a caged animal, like one of those bears that starts to pace in a cage. The kids had gone feral by then.\n\n\"I think it's been horrendous for young people and families - we can't even rely on grandparents. Mental health struggles are at an all-time high,\" she said.\n\n\"The one positive is I've got to know my kids a hell of a lot more and there have been times that have been lovely.\n\n\"I think they've learned more sat around the kitchen table when we've been talking about what's going on, they've learned about rational thinking, the importance of science and not jumping to conclusions.\n\nJayne Palmer advises not sitting down at a desk\n\nJayne Palmer from Cardiff, who home-educated both her sons, said there was too much pressure on parents to replicate traditional classroom learning.\n\n\"This is not an ideal circumstance for home-education families either because they are not used to being locked indoors.\n\n\"I think there's far too much emphasis in continuing the set curriculum. Right now it's a complete waste of time. There's pressure to compete in a system parents weren't even involved in.\n\nIt is far more important to \"create and interest in learning,\" she said.\n\n\"There's been a tendency of families to rush to buy desks and chairs and pens. What we find is the best way forward is not to sit down and teach your children - watch documentaries with them, play online games with historical content, practise reading to them, do some cooking, Lego or gardening.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSome travellers coming to England will have to quarantine in hotels amid concerns about new Covid variants, the government is expected to announce.\n\nBoris Johnson will discuss proposals with ministers later, but a decision may not be announced until Wednesday.\n\nMost foreign nationals from high-risk countries are already denied UK entry, so the new rules will mainly affect returning UK citizens and residents.\n\nQuarantine rules are set by each of the UK nations but tend to be similar.\n\nThe requirement to isolate in a hotel for 10 days will apply to arrivals from most of southern Africa and South America, as well as Portugal, because many flights from Brazil come via Lisbon, according to BBC Newsnight's political editor Nicholas Watt.\n\nHe said there had been \"no definitive decision yet\" on arrivals from other parts of the world and this was \"still a live issue\".\n\nWhitehall sources said those quarantining in hotels would have to pay for the costs of their own accommodation.\n\nThe prime minister will later chair a meeting of the Covid operations committee, attended by senior ministers, to discuss the options.\n\nMeanwhile, more than 100,000 people have died with Covid-19 in the UK, after 1,631 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were recorded in the daily figures.\n\nAt the moment, almost all arrivals to the UK need to have tested negative for Covid-19 within the 72 hours before they set off to be allowed entry. Then they still have to quarantine for up to 10 days, although this can be done at home.\n\nIn England, this self-isolation period can be cut short with a second negative test after five days.\n\nQuarantine rules are set separately in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but have only tended to differ slightly, and there has been a \"four nations\" approach to discussions around hotel quarantine, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.\n\nBut deputy first minister John Swinney said his government would \"go at least as far\" as any Westminster policy, adding: \"If these UK restrictions are at a minimal level, we will look at other controls we can announce - including additional supervised quarantine measures - that can further protect us from importation of the virus.\"\n\nHotel quarantine is already in use in countries including New Zealand and Australia.\n\nJessica Gold (centre), her son William Copsey (left), and her mother, Rossana Gold, are trying to get home to the UK from South Africa\n\nJessica Gold, from London, has been trying to get home from South Africa with her mother, 77, and son, 13, since 1 January - but their flights have been cancelled three times.\n\nShe says the idea of having to quarantine in a hotel when she eventually manages to get home is \"absolutely absurd\".\n\n\"Now we are booked to return on 16 Feb, and there is no way we can or will stay in a hotel to quarantine when I have my own place and we can quarantine there, as we have done in the past,\" says Jessica, who flew out to her safari lodge in Greater Kruger National Park, on business, at the end of November.\n\nJessica, 42, wants the government to get tougher on enforcing travellers' home quarantines, rather than bringing in the hotel rule which she says is \"ridiculous and an extra unnecessary expense during these very tough times\".\n\nJessica adds that she's looking into other ways of getting home earlier, before any potential new rules kick in.\n\nShadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds told MPs on Tuesday that bringing in hotel quarantine plans for arrivals from a small number of countries would leave \"gaping holes\" in the UK's defences against any new, unknown variants of coronavirus coming from across the globe.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said all current travel measures were being kept under review and the government \"will not hesitate to take further action\" to combat variants, especially as they could effect the efficacy of Covid vaccines.\n\nTravel writer Simon Calder told BBC Breakfast it was \"going to be tricky\" to identify people arriving from the high-risk countries, as travellers could go to a third country before coming to the UK.\n\nHe said British citizens in Portugal, for example, could travel to Madrid in order to fly back to the UK.\n\nPassengers in Australian quarantine hotels have all meals delivered to their room\n\nIn Australia, travellers are allocated a hotel room on arrival and taken there by bus. Often, entire flights are accommodated in the same hotel.\n\nThe New South Wales government promises to make \"every attempt\" to find suitable accommodation for travellers and families. But availability of rooms means there are severe limits on the number of people who can arrive in the country on any given day.\n\nThe hotel quarantine lasts a minimum of 14 days up to 24 days, providing a person tests negative twice.\n\nThe passenger must cover the cost of quarantine - at about £2,800 for a family of two adults and two children.\n\nFees are waived for those who can prove they are unable to pay, and there are certain exemptions.\n\nBut not following the rules is a criminal offence, and in New South Wales carries fines of around £6,000 for individuals, six months in prison, or both - with an extra fine for each day the offence continues.\n\nHotel quarantine is among the measures credited with limiting cases of coronavirus in Australia - which has a population of around 25 million - to just 28,777 positive cases during the entire pandemic, a smaller number of cases than is currently being recorded in the UK every day.\n\nBut international arrivals to Australia have fallen dramatically since its hotel quarantine policy was introduced in March 2020.\n\nBetween July and October 2020, just 72,111 people arrived in Australia to live, work or visit - compared with 7.5 million people in the same period in 2019, according to Australian government figures.\n\nRob Paterson, chief executive of Best Western Hotels, said his hotels would be well-prepared for the expected new policy.\n\nSome already have Covid infection controls in place, he said, as they have been used to host \"step-down\" patients who complete their recovery in hotels to free up hospital beds.\n\nMr Paterson told BBC Breakfast quarantining customers would like to see reduced prices, a contact arrival process, CCTV and security to stop people leaving and meals delivered three times a day outside the door - along with clean linen and towels.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson: “That idea of looking at hotels is certainly one thing we are actively now working on.”\n\nJoss Croft, chief executive of UKinbound, which represents the tourism sector, said he hoped hotel quarantine rules would cover as few countries as possible and told the BBC's Newsnight the industry had been \"decimated\".\n\nIn a joint statement, the Airport Operators Association and Airlines UK said the country already had \"some of the highest levels of restrictions in the world\" and tougher rules would be \"catastrophic\".", "President Joe Biden has said that the US might be able to boost its daily vaccination roll-out targets after criticising the Trump administration’s record.\n\nBiden, who has described the previous vaccine programme as a \"dismal failure\", has committed to getting 100 million vaccine doses done in his first 100 days and has since said: \"I think we may be able to get that to 1.5 million a day, rather than one million a day.\"\n\nIs he right about the vaccine roll-out under the Trump administration?\n\nAs of 20 January, when Biden became US president, about 16.5 million vaccines had been administered.\n\nThat is some way off the Trump administration's target of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of 2020. In fact, fewer than three million people had received a jab by 31 December.\n\nVaccinations have sped up since the start of the year.\n\nThe daily average for the week before Trump left office was less than 900,000, according to Our World in Data .\n\nThat figure has since risen above one million doses a day, and Biden has come under some scrutiny for not setting a more ambitious target.\n\nWhen you look at the countries doing the most vaccinations by population, the US is fourth after Israel, the UAE and the UK in terms of doses per 100 people.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drone footage captures the extent of the damage the bridge over the River Clwyd\n\nFinancial help has been promised to those affected by serious flooding, the Welsh Government has announced.\n\nPeople have been forced to leave their homes and a major incident declared after Storm Christoph struck.\n\nAbout 80 people were evacuated during flooding thought to be related to mine works in Skewen, Neath, while 30 were evacuated in Bangor-on-Dee, Wrexham.\n\nThe Welsh Government said it would work with councils to deliver £500-£1,000 payments to affected households.\n\nEnvironment minister, Lesley Griffiths, said people across Wales were facing the \"twin problems\" of floods and the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nShe said: \"We will support people in these circumstances just as we did in the aftermath of storms Ciara and Dennis last year, by working with local authorities to make support payments of between £500 and £1,000 available for each household flooded.\"\n\nSevere flood warnings remain in place across Wales as river levels remain high.\n\nIn the Lower Dee Valley a severe flood warning remains in force, from Llangollen to Trevalyn Meadow, and a major incident was declared in Bangor-on-Dee.\n\nWrexham council leader Mark Pritchard said teams worked to ensure the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, made on Wrexham Industrial Estate, was not lost in the floods.\n\nFirefighters in Skewen waded through water up to their thighs amidst reports of evacuated homes\n\nAbout 80 people were evacuated in Skewen, including residents of a care home, after at least eight streets were left under water.\n\nEmergency services said there were no injuries and all those evacuated had been found accommodation, but people are asked to avoid the area.\n\nIn Denbighshire, a bridge linking Trefnant to Tremeirchion over the River Clwyd collapsed in the storm. The council said it would be investigating the cause of the flooding, which forced road closures and evacuations.\n\nNatural Resources Wales (NRW) said the River Dee, which runs through Bangor-on-Dee, was at its highest recorded level since the water gauge became operational in 1996 - 16.45m (54ft).\n\nIt urged people across Wales to remain vigilant, with river levels not set to have peaked until late Thursday evening, adding they would remain high until Friday morning.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Met Office said over the past two days Wales had the highest rainfall of the four UK nations.\n\nBetween 19 and 21 January, Aberllefenni in Gwynedd saw 188mm (7.5in) of rain, more than average rainfall for Wales for the whole of January, which is 156.89mm (63in).\n\nThat was followed by 180mm (7in) in Crai reservoir, Powys, 169.8mm (6.6in) in Treherbert, Rhondda Cynon Taf, and 166mm (6.5in) in both Maerdy, RCT, and Capel Curig, Conwy.\n\nLlechryd bridge in Ceredigion has been completely submerged by the River Teifi\n\nUp to 30 people were forced out of their homes in Bangor-on-Dee, Wrexham\n\nNatural Resources Wales said the River Dee was at its highest level since the water gauge became operational\n\nThe flooding threatened the supply of the coronavirus Oxford vaccine, which is produced at Wrexham Industrial Estate.\n\nWrexham council leader Mr Pritchard said it had to work to \"make sure we didn't lose the vaccinations in the floods\".\n\n\"I've been up all night... it's a very difficult time for us,\" he added.\n\nNorth East Wales Search and Rescue helped people whose homes were flooded in New Broughton, Wrexham\n\nWockhardt UK, which manufactures the vaccine, said at about 16:00 GMT on Wednesday, excess water surrounded part of its buildings.\n\n\"The site is now secure and free from any further flood damage and operating as normal,\" it said.\n\nThe clean-up has begun in Ruthin\n\nA multi-agency statement described the situation in Bangor-on-Dee as a \"major incident\".\n\nIt said: \"As a severe weather warning indicates that there is a risk to life...\n\n\"The evacuation effort continues, with all routes in and out of the village currently closed to the public due to the flooding.\"\n\nEarlier, some residents in Ruthin were told to leave their homes - people have been told Covid rules allow them leave their homes in an emergency.\n\nMeanwhile, a man's body was recovered from the River Taff near Blackweir in Cardiff.\n\nDozens of ducks and chickens, and 12 huskies were rescued by the RSPCA from a flooded farm in Bangor, while they also took hay to two donkeys stranded by flood water in Mold.\n\nSome 12 huskies had to be rescued after their kennels flooded\n\nDave Brown said the flooding in his home in Broughton, Flintshire, was horrific and his mother-in-law was rescued by firefighters.\n\n\"You don't realise the damage water does and everything that floats - the sheer volume of water. I am 6ft tall and it almost took me out,\" he said.\n\nDave Brown's mother-in-law was rescued from their home in Broughton, Flintshire\n\nWrexham council said some of the people forced to leave their homes were with relatives, while it found others accommodation after having to initially seek refuge in a church hall.\n\nNine properties in Berse Road in New Broughton were also evacuated.\n\nThe situation in Ruthin, Denbighshire, overnight was \"horrendous\", town councillor Stephen Beach said.\n\n\"The whole of Ruthin was on edge,\" he said.\n\n\"Some people were accommodated at the leisure centre, and others were offered places to stay by local residents. The community was superb.\n\n\"It was the sheer volume of water that came down - there was no stopping it.\"\n\nA yellow weather warning for ice for Wales has been issued by the Met Office until 10:00 GMT on Friday, with concerns it could lead to travel disruption, slips and falls.\n\nNumerous flood warnings and alerts remain in place across Wales, including two severe flood warnings.\n\nThe agency said flood defences were being used and river levels at Holt, Wrexham, would remain high for some time.\"There is therefore a significant risk of localised flooding problems and due to that the severe flood warning will remain in place until the levels drop,\" Keith Iven of NRW said\n\nIn Monmouthshire roads were closed following flooding, and the council said while water levels at the River Usk were dropping, a \"second peak\" on the River Wye had been expected on Thursday night.\n\nThe council had warned people living in Riverside Park, Monmouth, may be impacted and council workers were prepared to offer support.\n\nRiver Tywi has burst its banks in Carmarthen, affecting nearby businesses\n\nMid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service said it had attended 98 flooding-related incidents\n\nIt said it deployed swift water rescue teams to rescue 13 people from vehicles in floodwater. It also winched vehicles from water and pumped water from properties.\n\nIn Cardiff, emergency services attended a crash involving a number of vehicles at about 07:40 on the A4232 between Culverhouse Cross and the M4.\n\nNo-one was seriously injured, but both carriageways were closed for just over an hour. The road has since reopened.\n\nIn Carmarthen, people were treated for the effects of fumes after using a generator to pump water from their homes.\n\nIn Knighton and Crickhowell in Powys, crews spent Wednesday night pumping out a number of properties.\n\nIn Borth, Ceredigion, floodwater hit the water treatment plant, an electrical substation and eight properties.\n\nOgwen Valley Mountain Rescue Team had to rescue a man from the roof of his car.\n\nIt said he had tried to drive through the river ford along the road from Llandygai to Bangor, in Gwynedd, but had become stuck in deep water and had climbed onto the roof. He was not injured.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Derek Brockway - weatherman This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRhondda Cynon Taf council said it was aware of a minor landslip on the mountainside above Pentre.\n\nIt said an initial inspection determined there was no immediate threat to the area and a further detailed inspection would be carried out on Friday. It asked people to avoid the area.\n\nBangor-on-Dee has been badly hit by Storm Cristoph\n\nDozens of roads have been closed across Wales, and while Covid rules are in place stopping people from travelling apart from for essential reasons, people are being warned not to travel in affected areas due to widespread flooding.\n\nChris Lloyd from North Wales Mountain Rescue Association warned people to not visit flood-hit areas to view the damage.\n\nHe told BBC Radio Wales: \"People who are going out to look at the floods are not only putting themselves at risk, but putting additional people on the roads which professional emergency services don't want - we don't want any more incidents.\"\n\nDenbighshire council said Ysgol Bodfari in Denbigh and Ysgol Caer Drewyn, Corwen, which had been open for vulnerable children and the children of critical workers, have been closed.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Health Secretary Matt Hancock says lifting restrictions can only happen when \"facts on the ground\" show it is safe\n\nIt is \"difficult to put a timeline\" on when England's lockdown could be lifted, Matt Hancock has said.\n\nThe health secretary said there were \"early signs\" the measures were working but it was \"not a moment to ease up\".\n\nHe said there were 37,000 people in hospital with coronavirus in the UK and \"more people on ventilators than at any time in this whole pandemic\".\n\n\"The pressure on the NHS remains huge and we've got to get that case rate down,\" he said.\n\nThe number of coronavirus cases in the UK has been falling, but the number of people in hospital remains high, as does the UK's daily death numbers.\n\nA further 592 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test and another 22,195 cases have been recorded, according to Monday's government figures.\n\nThe are 4,076 people in hospital on ventilators.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons.\n\nThis includes for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nAt Monday's Downing Street press briefing, Mr Hancock said: \"I understand the yearning people have to get out of this.\n\n\"The thing is that we have to look at the facts on the ground and we have to monitor those facts.\n\n\"And of course, everybody wants to have a timeline for that, but I think most people understand why it is difficult to put a timeline on it because it's a matter of monitoring the data.\"\n\nHe set out the factors the government would take into account when reaching decisions over lifting the restrictions, including: the death rate, the number of people in hospital, whether there were new coronavirus variants and the success of the vaccine rollout.\n\nAlmost four in five of the UK's over-80s have had the vaccine, Mr Hancock said, with nearly 6.6m people in total having had their first dose.\n\nThe falling numbers of infections being reported and the rising rate of vaccination are incredibly promising - even if the drop in infections reported on Monday may have been partly an artefact of fewer people coming forward for a test because of the snow.\n\nBut that does not offer any guarantees of a rapid lifting of lockdown.\n\nWhat is concerning ministers are the high numbers in hospital.\n\nThe number of new admissions seems to have plateaued - but at a very high rate.\n\nClose to 4,000 patients a day are being admitted to hospital.\n\nTo put that in context, that is four times the total number of all types of respiratory admissions the NHS would normally see in winter.\n\nIt means the numbers in hospital are at nearly twice the level they were at the peak in the spring during the first wave.\n\nWith better treatments available, patients are spending longer in hospital.\n\nSo come mid-February the pressures in hospital are likely to be very high, leaving ministers little wriggle-room to relax restrictions.\n\nThe big unknown, however, is what impact and how quickly vaccination will have an effect on admissions.\n\nThere is encouraging early news from Israel that hospitalisation really starts to drop three weeks after the first dose.\n\nIf that is repeated here, the picture could quickly change.\n\nBut until that happens the government - in the words of Health Secretary Matt Hancock - is urging the country to hold its nerve.\n\nSpeaking at the Downing Street press conference, Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer for England, warned: \"We are not out of this by a very long way.\"\n\nShe said current coronavirus rates were still causing concern, patience was needed about the vaccination programme and the NHS still faced its usual winter pressures.\n\nSusan Hopkins, from Public Health England, said the UK need to see the death rate \"fall much lower\" before any decision to ease measures.\n\nShe said teams were currently studying the impact on the UK's vaccine programme of the variant first identified in South Africa.\n\nBut she added the \"consensus view\" from four UK laboratories suggested that \"the current vaccine works against the variant that was first discovered in the UK\".", "A group of MPs is calling for hedgehog nesting sites to get the same protections as those for bats and badgers, in an effort to boost numbers.\n\nFormer Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has tabled an amendment to the Environment Bill, which he said would help \"Britain's favourite animal\".\n\nThe spiky mammals should be on developers' \"radar\" when they are planning a project, he added.\n\nA report in 2018 suggested UK hedgehog numbers had halved since 2000.\n\nRough estimates put the population at one million, compared with 30 million during the 1950s.\n\nMr Grayling's amendment would add hedgehogs the list of protected animals under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.\n\nThis would place a legal obligation on developers to search for the animals and take action to reduce the risk to them from building.\n\nChris Grayling said hedgehogs should feature on property developers' surveys\n\nIt is illegal to kill or capture hedgehogs using certain methods but Mr Grayling said: \"It seems wrong to me, for example, that whenever a developer has to carry out a wildlife survey before starting work on a project that the hedgehog is not on anyone's radar.\n\n\"It is Britain's favourite animal, its numbers are declining and it should be as well protected as any other popular but threatened British animal.\"\n\nFormer cabinet ministers Liam Fox, Andrew Mitchell and Dame Cheryl Gillan are among 13 fellow Conservative MPs supporting Mr Grayling's amendment.\n\nLabour's Hilary Benn and Debbie Abrahams have also signed it.\n\nThe Environment Bill - which seeks to write environmental principles into UK law for the first time - will be debated in the House of Commons on Tuesday.\n\nIt includes setting legally binding targets to improve air quality, water, biodiversity and waste reduction by 2037.\n\nBut some Conservative backbenchers say this is much too slow. They want the targets brought forward to 2030 at the latest.\n\nAn amendment from the Conservative MP, Chris Loder, calls for unmissable targets to reduce plastics waste.\n\nIt comes as a report from Greenpeace and the Environmental Investigation Agency claims that the UK's 10 largest supermarket chains put plastic equivalent to the weight of 90 Eiffel Towers on to the market in 2019.\n\nThe study found that while the number of single-use carrier bags fell by more than a third, more than one and a half billion plastic \"bags for life\" were issued by the top brands, and that 2.5 billion plastic water bottles were sold or given away.\n\nThe Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the bill would help \"improve the environment for future generations\".\n\nIt added that ministers were \"ambitious\" to \"drive a world-leading programme of environmental reform\".\n\nFor Labour, shadow environment secretary Luke Pollard said the bill should be prioritised to complete its passage in this session of Parliament.\n\nHe added that the UK needed legislation that \"recognises the urgency of the crisis and doesn't go backwards\".", "Budweiser has said it will not advertise its beer during the Super Bowl this year, joining a growing number of big brands sitting out the annual American football championship.\n\nThe event remains one of the most-watched in the US each year, drawing more than 100 million viewers in 2020.\n\nThe advertisements are often as much a conversation-starter as the game itself, sometimes sparking controversy.\n\nFirms say the virus has made finding the right message especially difficult.\n\nOthers are grappling with financial hits caused by the pandemic, which has dampened spending on many items, while also casting more than 10 million Americans out of work, resurfacing racial and economic inequalities and sharpening political divisions.\n\nBudweiser's parent company, Anheuser-Busch, said it planned to reallocate the money it would have spent on a 30-second Budweiser spot during the game to support an Ad Council campaign promoting coronavirus vaccination.\n\nIt is the first time the flagship brand will not make a game-time appearance in 37 years.\n\n\"This commitment is an investment in a future where we can all get back together safely over a beer\", it said, adding that it would still promote some of its other brands, such as Bud Light, during the game.\n\nOn Monday, Budweiser released a full 90-second Super Bowl ad on YouTube entitled \"Bigger Picture\", which showed US citizens overcoming pandemic challenges together and aimed to raise awareness about Covid-19 vaccines.\n\nCoke, Pepsi and Hyundai are among the other major names also planning to forego airtime during the broadcast.\n\nCoca-Cola said it had made the \"difficult choice\" to \"ensure we are investing in the right resources during these unprecedented times\". The firm did not advertise during the 2019 game either.\n\nHyundai cited \"marketing priorities\" and the timing of upcoming vehicle launches.\n\nPepsi has also said it would not promote its flagship soda during the game. Instead, it is spending money on an advert airing to promote the Super Bowl halftime show it has sponsored for almost a decade.\n\nThe Super Bowl boasts some of the most expensive advertising slots all year\n\nGiven all the economic, political and health questions of 2020, companies may have felt it was prudent to pull back - especially several months ago, when they would have had to start planning for such a high-profile night, said Kimberly Whitler, professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business\n\n\"It's the biggest night of TV watching and so they have to plan it months in advance,\" she said. \"There was so much uncertainty that to go and invest in a Super Bowl ad might have actually felt or seemed frivolous at the time.\"\n\nThe decision goes \"beyond finances\", she added. \"It's also, 'How do we identify the right tone that will match the moment'.\"\n\nThis year's Super Bowl will see star quarterback Tom Brady's Tampa Bay Buccaneers face off against reigning champions the Kansas City Chiefs on 7 February.\n\nLast year, firms spent an average of $5.25m (£3.8m) for a 30-second spot during the championship, driving Super Bowl ad spending to a record $450m, according to Kantar consultancy.\n\nThe firm has said its research suggests Super Bowl ads are \"typically 20 times more effective\" in changing a brand's perception than a normal advert.\n\nAnheuser-Busch, an official sponsor of the National Football League, is typically one of the night's top spenders, so the absence of its flagship brand may create its own buzz, said Satya Menon, a Chicago-based managing partner of of ROI practice at Kantar.\n\nChipotle's very first Super Bowl commercial is entitled, \"Can a burrito change the world?\"\n\n\"Budweiser in particular is a very established brand ... so for them, it's all about generating love and goodwill and maybe this is another way,\" she says.\n\n\"They do have a lot of pre-game advertising out there. When people have the expectation that they wil be there and then they don't see the brand, they'll start thinking why are they not.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the sports showdown still seems to be finding plenty of firms ready to fill spots left by the stalwarts. Names of newcomers include Chipotle and Fiverr, a freelance platform that has seen business soar during the pandemic.\n\n\"It doesn't get any bigger than the Super Bowl from a branding and marketing perspective,\" said Fiverr's chief marketing officer Gali Arnon. \"We believe this is a major opportunity for us to introduce the world to Fiverr in a unique and creative way.\"\n\nMany of this year's advertisers are firms coming from the e-commerce sector, which have benefited from the pandemic, Ms Menon said.\n\nAnd though audience numbers for NFL games have slipped this year, for those firms making their game-night debuts, Ms Menon says she still expects ads to have a big impact - even if the pandemic puts a damper on the traditional Super Bowl parties and other festivities, which can make championship feel like an unofficial national holiday.\n\n\"There isn't very much going on in life, so it will always have that great reach,\" she says. \"Some of that excitement may not be there, but watching will definitely be there.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson says teachers and pupils will be told “as much as we can, as soon as we can” about reopening schools\n\nThe government will tell teachers and parents when schools in England can reopen \"as soon as we can\", the prime minister has said.\n\nMPs have called on the government to set out a \"route map\" for reopening amid concerns for children's education.\n\nBoris Johnson said he understood why people wanted a timetable but he did not want to lift restrictions while the infection rate was \"still very high\".\n\nHe would not guarantee schools would reopen before April's Easter break.\n\nMr Johnson said: \"We've now got the R [reproduction rate] down below 1 across the whole of the country, that's a great achievement, we don't want to see a huge surge of infection just when we've got the vaccination programme going so well and people working so hard.\n\n\"I understand why people want to get a timetable from me today, what I can tell you is we'll tell you, tell parents, tell teachers as much as we can as soon as we can.\"\n\nHe said the government would be \"looking at the potential of relaxing some measures\" before mid-February, with Downing Street clarifying that this meant looking at the data to decide \"what we may or may not be able to ease from 15 February onwards\".\n\nA further 592 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test and another 22,195 cases have been recorded, according to Monday's government figures.\n\nAt Monday's Downing Street press briefing, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said almost four in five of the UK's over-80s have had the vaccine, with nearly 6.6m people in total having had their first dose.\n\nBut he said the NHS continues to be under \"intense pressure\", with Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer for England, saying there are \"twice the number of people in hospital than we had in the first wave\" of the pandemic.\n\nRobert Halfon, chairman of the education select committee, told BBC Breakfast there was \"enormous uncertainty\" and called for the government to set out what the conditions needed to be for pupils to return to schools.\n\nThe Conservative MP for Harlow suggested the government could consider tighter restrictions in other parts of society and the economy, in order to enable schools to open.\n\nTory MPs were enraged by reports over the weekend that schools might not re-open fully until after the Easter holidays.\n\nMinisters say it's the progress of the pandemic that will determine their decision rather than a pre-agreed timetable.\n\nYet whenever the government speaks, parents hear dates. Whether it's that the situation will be reviewed at half-term. Or a pledge to give two weeks' notice when classes will come back.\n\nMPs are now pushing for more transparency from the government about how they'll assess the data, and for some ideas between school being mostly closed or totally open.\n\nThis issue is a perfect metaphor for the situation facing the entire country. Too much hope breeds disappointment, but living with uncertainty is just as hard. And you can come up with a plan but it might have to be junked if the virus has other ideas.\n\nChildren's Commissioner for England Anne Longfield joined the call for clarity and told the BBC: \"Children are more withdrawn, they are really suffering in terms of isolation, their confidence levels are falling, and for some there are serious issues.\"\n\nEducation Secretary Gavin Williamson said the government wanted to \"see all children back at the very earliest moment\".\n\nSchools in England have been closed to most pupils since the national lockdown began on 5 January due to high levels of Covid transmission in the community.\n\nThere have been calls for teachers to be vaccinated sooner, although it is not clear if that would allow schools to reopen earlier.\n\nThe majority of pupils in England are learning from home with schools only open to the children of key workers, vulnerable children and those who cannot learn at home\n\nCovid death rates among educational professionals are not \"statistically significantly different\" to those in the general population, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, but secondary school teachers appeared to have an elevated risk compared particularly with people working in office-type jobs.\n\nAmong secondary school teachers Covid death rates were 39.2 deaths per 100,000 males, compared with 31.4 for all males aged 20 to 64, and 21.2 per 100,000 females, compared with 16.8, but the ONS said these were \"not statistically significantly different than those of the same age and sex in the wider population\".\n\nSchools will remain closed in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales until at least the February half-term - with the Welsh first minister saying it is \"unlikely\" all pupils will return after the break.\n\nGemma Cocker with her children Charlie and Lyla\n\nGemma Cocker from Brighton is one of the many parents struggling to balance childcare, home learning and work.\n\nShe says she's having to share her work laptop with her son, who has already missed learning time after the family moved home and did not have internet access. \"We didn't have any internet. The school said they had reached their limit so couldn't take him,\" she says.\n\nAnd because her children are young, she says: \"They're never just going to watch a classroom by themselves, you have to be with them the whole time.\"\n\nKitty Jones, 11, is in her last year of primary school and she says home learning is \"tricky\" because she is not used to using different remote platforms like Google Classroom and she wants to return \"as soon as possible\".\n\n\"I still think that I'm learning a bit, but I don't think I'm learning as much as I would be in person,\" she tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.\n\nHolly Agbukor, 18, is studying for her A-levels, says it is \"quite stressful\" learning at home, as it is a \"different environment, so it is not as easy to be fully present in the lessons\".\n\nBut, she says, while is it \"difficult\" working at home, \"I don't think it is worth the cost of reintroducing the virus into society and making things worse overall\".\n\nHow has home-schooling been going for your family? You can share your experience by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Tuesday morning. We'll have another update for you this evening.\n\nRules for people entering the UK could get tighter later - with the government expected to enforce hotel quarantine in England for some arrivals. Currently, people arriving in the UK must test negative before setting off, and then self-isolate for 10 days on arrival. This can be reduced to five days in England after a second negative test. But it's feared that not everyone follows the rules - so people could now be told to stay in hotels, where the isolation will be enforced. It's thought the rules will definitely apply to UK citizens and residents arriving from southern African, South America, and Portugal (foreign nationals are already banned from arriving from those \"high risk\" areas). The rules could also apply to other countries. And it's expected that people will have to pay their own way. Although each part of the UK sets its own travel rules, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said a \"four nations\" approach is being discussed. Here's a glimpse from last year of hotel quarantine in Australia.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe UK's unemployment rate rose to 5% in the three months to November, up from 4.9%, as the pandemic continued to hit the jobs market. In November, Chancellor Rishi Sunak said unemployment could peak at 2.6 million by the middle of this year - that's 7.5% of the working population.\n\nThe EU has been criticised for a slow vaccine rollout - which is partly down to delays from manufacturers Pfizer and AstraZeneca (although the latter's jab hasn't actually been approved in the EU yet). Now the EU says vaccine makers must provide \"early notification\" when they want to export vaccines outside the bloc. This could mean more doses stay inside the EU. The UK minister responsible for vaccine deployment, Nadhim Zahawi, has said he is confident Pfizer - which manufactures its vaccine in Belgium - will deliver for both the UK and the EU. This tweet is from the EU's health commissioner.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Stella Kyriakides This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRiot police in the Netherlands have again clashed with people defying a curfew, following a weekend of unrest. More than 150 were arrested. In Rotterdam, police fired warning shots and tear gas, after an emergency order failed to move demonstrators.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Dutch police described the rioting as the worst unrest in four decades\n\nDespite Covid and the strains on the system, there is still kindness - and new life - in NHS hospitals. The BBC's Hugh Pym went to Kings Mill Hospital, part of Sherwood Forest Hospitals Trust, to meet the patients and staff.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: ‘Among all the doom and gloom there’s positives’\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page. This page analyses UK data - including the recent fall in daily cases.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "The school's head teacher said it was unacceptable staff were being put at risk\n\nA school has threatened to withdraw places for pupils who have told teachers they are visiting people outside their households.\n\nYew Tree Community School in Oldham said several children had admitted visiting friends, neighbours and family contrary to Covid-19 lockdown rules.\n\nHead teacher Martine Buckley said she would take the action when \"parents were putting staff in danger\".\n\nThe Department for Education said \"all vulnerable\" pupils should go to school.\n\nDuring the current lockdown schools are open only to pupils listed as vulnerable and the children of key workers.\n\nFamilies can form \"childcare bubbles\" with one other household, and children who live with two parents who live separately can move between households - but any further mixing is forbidden.\n\nIn a letter posted on the Chadderton school's Facebook page, Mrs Buckley said she was \"upset\" to be writing it \"but I feel I must\".\n\n\"Our lovely children are open and honest and they tell us about their lives and activities,\" she said.\n\n\"A number of them are telling us that they are visiting friends, neighbours and family which is against the law.\n\n\"Our teachers and support staff are putting their own safety at risk to look after your children and they should be confident you are doing your bit to follow the lockdown rules.\n\n\"I am afraid I will have to withdraw the offer of a place in school to children whose parents are putting us in danger.\"\n\nWhile a number of parents applauded the message, others have been angered.\n\nOne man told the BBC his two grandchildren were at the school and children as young as four have been asked about their activities at home, which was \"out of order\".\n\n\"My granddaughters are pretty intimidated by the tone,\" he said.\n\n\"Asking them questions like that and then the answers off the back of that. They come to a decision of whether they are going to displace them or not.\"\n\nThe school has about 660 pupils aged between four and 11.\n\nA spokeswoman for the Department for Education said during the current lockdown, schools were \"open for vulnerable children and the children of critical workers\".\n\n\"We expect schools to work with families to ensure all critical worker children are given access to a place if this is required,\" she added.\n\n\"We encourage all vulnerable children to attend.\"\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk", "Microsoft has reported booming demand for its Xbox gaming consoles as the pandemic continues to lift the fortunes of the American tech giant.\n\nIts Azure cloud computing services also got a boost due to a surge in working and learning from home.\n\nThe gains helped push the firm's overall revenue up 17% to a record $43.1bn (£31.4bn).\n\nBut its growth came as the virus continues to weigh on other industries.\n\nMicrosoft boss Satya Nadella said the firm is benefiting from a long-term shift in behaviour.\n\n\"What we have witnessed over the past year is the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry,\" he said.\n\nXbox sales jumped 40% in the three months to 31 December while Azure services soared 50%.\n\nThe virus continues to weigh on industries outside of tech\n\nThe pandemic has prompted many firms to switch to remote working, while keeping many entertainment options outside of the home off-limits.\n\nMicrosoft has seized on the changes, focusing energy on updating its remote work software options.\n\nThe firm also released two new Xbox consoles in November, helping to boost the performance of its personal computing unit.\n\nMicrosoft's gaming business topped $5bn in quarterly sales for the first time ever due to gaming subscriptions and sales as well as new consoles.\n\nThe firm said profits in the quarter rose 33% compared with last year to $15.5bn.\n\nIts shares - which climbed roughly 40% last year - were up another 4% in after-hours trade,\n\n\"These were blow out numbers that will be another feather in the cap for the tech sector as the cloud growth party is just getting started,\" said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.\n\nBut the gains enjoyed by tech firms like Microsoft stand in contrast to the ongoing struggles seen in other industries such as hospitality, retail and travel.\n\nCoffee chain Starbucks on Tuesday said its sales in the last three months of 2020 fell roughly 5% compared to 2019, driven by a drop in business in the US where concerns about Covid-19 have prompted authorities to urge people to stay at home.\n\nIn China, where the virus is under more control, sales rose 5%, the company said.\n\nThe firm said it expected business to return to growth in the next few months, including in the critical US market.\n\nBut profits in the quarter dropped 30% to $622.2m compared with last year, sending the firm's shares lower in after-hours trade.", "The water is warmer than the air and is creating a mist along Dynevor Road\n\nThe coalmining heritage of Wales has been implicated in flooding of homes - but what has happened in Skewen?\n\nAbout 80 people were evacuated from the Neath Port Talbot village, with at least eight streets left under water.\n\nCouncil leader Rob Jones says the flood appears to be related to mine works - but the volume of water involved has hampered a full assessment so far.\n\nThe Coal Authority is investigating how \"historic underground mining features\" in the area exacerbated the problem.\n\nA geologist says there are tens of thousands of old mine shafts across the former south Wales coalfield and it is \"incredibly difficult\" to monitor them all.\n\nSkewen lies within an old coal mining hotspot, with several former colliery sites near the village that operated in the 19th and early 20th Century.\n\nThere were colliery sites near what is now Drummau Road, in the north of the village and another close to Old Road, near Neath Abbey.\n\nSkewen was part of a collection of collieries that stretched between Neath and Llanelli on the western side of south Wales' coalfield.\n\nGraham Levins, secretary of the Welsh Mines Preservation Trust, said old mines often contain groundwater which can flood in heavy rain.\n\nHe said: \"A lot of them go very, very deep down, much below the local water level and that's why they had all the big wheels to pump the water out.\n\n\"It fills up with water and will find a way out. Normally rainfall you get it doesn't cause a lot of problems but when you get really heavy rain, the water drains down through the ground and builds up.\"\n\nStreets were turned into rivers in Skewen\n\nGeologist Tom Backhouse said water was coming out of an area near the junction of Goshen Park and Drummau Road, where there is a record of a mine shaft dating from the turn of the 20th Century.\n\nIt then started \"rushing down\" Drummau Road, causing the flooding that forced evacuations.\n\n\"What we can expect to have happened is that the water level in the mines rose to a point where it's burst out of that entry point from the mine workings below.\n\n\"Also, there are images of very ochre like orange-coloured water and again, that may well be issuing from the mine workings on the highlands to the east of the property on the hill behind.\n\n\"That may be where the shallow workings have flooded.\"\n\nHe said old mine working across the former coalfield area hold water at a certain depth, but when an event such as Storm Christoph drops \"a huge amount in a small area\", the levels rise quickly.\n\n\"As it gets closer and closer to the surface, it basically looks for an escape, the pressure builds up,\" he continued.\n\n\"What it looks like has happened on the junction of Goshen Park and Drummau Road, where the mine shaft is recorded, is that pressure has built up at that point and then burst out through the shaft which is very likely to have been capped with wood or something like that.\n\n\"Where you've got those mine shafts, which ultimately are vertical tunnels down into the mine workings below, the water has literally forced itself up through that shaft, and the pressure is obviously so great it's caused this devastating flash flood.\"\n\nAs well as properties, vehicles were submerged in water\n\nThere are about 13 shafts recorded within about 820ft (250m) of the one in Goshen Park, so Mr Backhouse said it is possible more than one may have burst.\n\nThere are tens of thousands in south Wales and he said it was \"incredibly difficult\" to check them all, but there were \"tell tale signs\" as to why they may collapse such as age or what type of developments are around them.\n\nThe clean up has continued on Friday morning\n\n\"Not to try and fear-monger or anything but of course this sort of thing can happen again,\" he said.\n\n\"If another event like Storm Christoph happens, the water levels in the mine rises as quickly as it did, there's absolutely nothing to say that it wouldn't happen again in the future.\n\n\"And obviously as climate changes and we have many more events like Storm Christoph, they are going to increase in frequency, they are going to be much more severe.\n\n\"The Coal Authority will have to consider the risk in places like Skewen, and they'll have to understand how it will affect residents and proactively manage that and look at how to reduce the risks for residents.\"", "Twenty-two people were killed and hundreds more injured in the 2017 bombing\n\nThe operator of the Manchester Arena has denied it \"deliberately sacrificed safety\" in the aftermath of the 2017 bombing.\n\nAn inquiry has heard how security failures contributed to the arena being unsafe on the night of the attack.\n\nVenue operator SMG has disputed claims it \"was akin to the worst kind of Dickensian factory owner, deliberately and cynically sacrificing safety\".\n\nTwenty-two people were killed and hundreds more injured when Salman Abedi detonated a home-made device as fans left the arena following an Ariana Grande concert.\n\nAndrew O'Connor QC, representing SMG, told the inquiry the firm had always accepted responsibility for security in the City Room, where the bomb exploded.\n\nBut he denied the firm had sought to \"blame others,\" adding it had \"simply sought to explain how SMG discharged its responsibilities\".\n\n\"It is for that purpose and not for prevarication, finger-pointing or buck passing that we have sought to explain to you SMG's relationship with all the other organisations involved,\" he added.\n\nMr O'Connor said the company accepted there were \"shortcomings\" with its written risk assessments but maintained it \"did have a system for assessing terrorism-related risk\".\n\nThe public inquiry into the bombing will look at whether the attack could have been prevented\n\nPatrick Gibbs QC, representing BTP, told the inquiry the force made five key mistakes on the night of the bombing.\n\nThis included having no officers on patrol at Victoria station when Abedi made his final journey to the arena and not having an officer in the City Room at the end of the concert.\n\nOther mistakes included failing to complete a written risk-assessment for the concert, officers not following instructions from their duty sergeant and that PC Stephen Corke, the most experienced officer on duty, was not at the arena complex for the end of the event.\n\nBTP has since made significant changes to its procedures since the attack, the inquiry was told.\n\nThese include monthly meetings with the arena operators to discuss events.\n\nThe inquiry, which began in September, continues.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Pictures of the Pampas grass on social media are thought to have made the area in South Shields popular\n\nA boom in the popularity of Pampas grass with interior decorators has led to \"droves\" of people picking the plant which grows wild near a beach.\n\nThe grass, near Littlehaven Beach in South Shields, forms part of a wind defence to stop sand blowing onto roads and helps protect the coastline.\n\nSouth Tyneside Council warned anyone found removing it could be prosecuted.\n\nCouncillor Ernest Gibson said while the grass may look \"beautiful in vases\" people were \"damaging the environment\".\n\nThe grass, which was popular in the 1970s, can sell for up to £40 a bunch and has proved a popular addition to people's homes.\n\nIt is thought that photographs on social media sites such as Instagram may have influenced people turning up and taking it, Mr Gibson added.\n\n\"Pampas grass is quite expensive to buy if you went to a florist. It's cheaper to come to South Tyneside and take it away,\" he said.\n\n\"But what we are doing is urging people not to come here and take it away, it's there for a reason.\"\n\nPampas grass and Marram grass form part of a defence along the coast at South Shields\n\nThe Pampas grass helps to bond poor soils found at the coast, while Marram grass helps to prevent erosion in the dunes.\n\nSigns are to be erected warning people not to pick the grass because it is already in need of replenishment, the council said.\n\n\"Through Covid, we have a massive amount of people coming to the coastal town, it's Benidorm without the sunshine,\" he added.\n\n\"It's great to see people at the seaside enjoying it [the grass] and that's what it's part of. It's there for everybody to view.\"\n\nGarden designer George Wright said Pampas grass was \"very popular\" and he had seen demand increase two or three times at his nursery in West Boldon. He also expressed concern for the area.\n\n\"Once they take the flower heads themselves they take the seeds. Eventually this will become very much a patchy area and they will all start to decline.\n\n\"Pampas grass is becoming more and and more popular at the moment and I think a lot of it is people are starting to extend their houses into the garden so they want something nice in there, and also it's being used for interior decoration in houses.\"\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prof Chris Whitty said it was a very sad day, as the UK surpassed 100,000 Covid deaths\n\nThe number of daily coronavirus deaths in the UK is likely to come down \"relatively slowly\", England's chief medical officer has warned.\n\nProf Chris Whitty said the UK was going to see \"a lot more deaths\" over the next few weeks before the effects of the vaccination programme were felt.\n\nCurrent restrictions were \"just about holding\" in lowering infection rates, he told a Downing Street briefing.\n\nIt comes as the UK surpassed 100,000 coronavirus deaths on Tuesday.\n\nA further 1,631 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were recorded in the daily figures.\n\nAnd 20,089 coronavirus cases were reported on Tuesday, continuing a downward trend in the number of UK cases seen in recent days.\n\nProf Whitty told a Downing Street news conference the rolling seven-day average for deaths was 1,242 - \"an incredibly high number\" - and unlikely to come down quickly.\n\n\"I think we have to be realistic that the rate of mortality, the number of people dying a day, will come down relatively slowly over the next two weeks - and will probably be flat for a while now.\"\n\nProf Whitty said the number of people testing positive for coronavirus was \"still at a very high number, but it has been coming down\".\n\nBut he cautioned against relaxing restrictions \"too early\", as Office for National Statistics data showed a \"rather slower\" decrease.\n\nThe number of people in hospital with Covid-19 in the UK had \"flattened off\", he said, but was still an \"incredibly high number\" and \"substantially above the peak in April\".\n\nProf Whitty said the new, more transmissible variant discovered in the south east of England at the end of last year had altered the UK's situation \"very substantially\" and had made it \"much harder\" to bring infection levels down.\n\n\"We were worried two weeks ago that the measures we have at the moment were not enough to hold this new variant,\" he told the news conference.\n\n\"I think what the data I showed you at the beginning of the slide sessions shows is that the rates are just about holding with the new variant, with what everybody's doing.\n\n\"It's going to be much harder because of this new variant and I think we have to be realistic about that.\"\n\nSir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, said that more than a quarter of a million severely ill coronavirus patients have been looked after in hospital since the pandemic started last year.\n\n\"This is not a year that anybody is going to want to remember nor is it a year that across the health service any of us will ever forget,\" he said.\n\nThe daily Covid figures have seen the number of deaths top 100,000. But they also contain some signs of hope.\n\nJust over 20,000 new infections have been reported - down from 22,000 yesterday.\n\nThis compares to an average of 60,000 at the start of the year.\n\nIt is a sharp fall, although Prof Whitty cautions it may actually be a little slower than that.\n\nNot everyone who is infected comes forward for testing and the government surveillance programme which involves random testing of the population suggests the fall has not been quite so great.\n\nNonetheless, it is clear the infection rate is coming down - and that offers hope.\n\nHospital cases have plateaued and should soon start falling. That will eventually lead to a reduction in the number of deaths.\n\nThen, in February, the vaccination programme should start having an impact, leading, hopefully, to a rapid drop in deaths.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson told the briefing the coronavirus infection rate remained \"pretty forbiddingly high\" to ease lockdown restrictions, which have been in place in England since 5 January.\n\nBut he said \"at a certain stage we will want to be getting things open\".\n\nHe added: \"What I will be doing in the course of the next few days and weeks is setting out in more detail, as soon as we can, when and how we want to get things open again.\"\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons - including for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nMeanwhile, the epidemiologist whose modelling prompted the UK government to impose the first lockdown has told BBC Radio 4's PM he believes more action in autumn last year could have \"drastically reduced\" the number of lives lost in the second wave - some 60,000.\n\nProf Neil Ferguson said: \"They couldn't have been eliminated, but they could have been drastically reduced by earlier action, unfortunately.\n\n\"How much is difficult to judge, the new variant was unpredictable and did change our understanding of how much was needed to control spread, but we did just let the autumn wave get to far, far too high infection levels.\"\n\nReacting to the UK's death toll, Mr Johnson said he took \"full responsibility\" for the government's actions, but added: \"We truly did everything we could.\"", "The fate of more than 200,000 seafarers who play a crucial role in keeping global trade flowing is being labelled a \"humanitarian crisis at sea\".\n\nMore than 300 firms and organisations are urging for them to be treated as \"key workers\", so they can return home without risking public health.\n\nMore than 90% of global trade - from household goods to medical supplies - is moved by sea.\n\nBut governments have banned crew from coming ashore amid Covid-19 fears.\n\nLarge firms including shipping titan AP Moller-Maersk, oil firms BP and Shell, consumer giant Unilever and mining groups Rio Tinto and Vale, as well as maritime transporters, unions, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and other supply chain partners have signed the Neptune Declaration on Seafarer Wellbeing and Crew Change.\n\nThey are calling for all countries to designate seafarers as key workers and implement crew change protocols.\n\nThe signees of the Neptune Declaration are warning global leaders that ignoring the risk to crews' mental and physical wellbeing threatens global supply chains, which are crucial to vaccinating the world from coronavirus.\n\nThe firms and organisations hope that world leaders, gathering at this year's virtual Davos Forum, will heed their call.\n\n\"Unified, prompt action from governments and other key stakeholders is needed to protect the lives and livelihoods of the 1.6 million seafaring men and women who serve us all across the seas, and who continue to face extreme risk to their safety and earnings,\" said WEF's head of supply chain and transport Margi Van Gogh.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. India coronavirus: The stranded sailor yet to meet his daughter\n\n\"By granting stranded seafarers key worker status, and by prioritising vaccine allocation for transport crew, we can prevent a deepening humanitarian and economic crisis.\"\n\nAccording to latest data from the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and international ship owners body Bimco, there are 1.6 million seafarers serving on internationally trading merchant ships worldwide.\n\nTypically, ICS estimates around 100,000 seafarers are rotated every month, with 50,000 staff disembarking and 50,000 crew embarking ships to comply with international maritime regulations, governing safe working hours and crew welfare.\n\nSeafarers usually work 10-12 hours shifts, seven days a week to man ships, on four or six-month-long contracts, followed by a period of leave.\n\nBut due to the coronavirus crisis and travel bans brought in by many governments to combat new variants of Covid-19, hundreds of thousands of crew are spending extended periods at sea, far beyond the expiry of their contracts.\n\nFor those who have been at sea for months longer than their contract stipulates, there is a growing risk to their mental and physical wellbeing.\n\n\"Seafarers are the unacceptable collateral damage on the war on Covid-19 and this must stop,\" said ICS secretary general Guy Platten.\n\n\"If we want to maintain global trade seafarers must not be put to the back of the vaccine queue. You can't inject a global population without the shipping industry and most importantly our seafarers. We are calling on the supply chain to take action to support seafarers now.\"", "Changes were made to rape prosecution policy that led to a \"shocking\" fall in offences before courts in England and Wales, the Court of Appeal has heard.\n\nThe End Violence Against Women (EVAW) coalition is challenging what it said was an \"unlawful\" move by the Crown Prosecution Service in 2016-18.\n\nThe CPS said there was no \"substantial change\" in how cases were treated.\n\nAnd it denied the coalition's claim it had been taking on only \"strong cases\" to keep conviction rates up.\n\nAccording to the EVAW, the CPS adopted what is known as the \"bookmaker's approach\" to cases, which saw prosecutors considering what may happen based on past experience of similar cases, rather than its earlier \"merits-based approach\" based on objective assessment of the evidence.\n\nIn documents before the court, Phillippa Kaufmann QC said that from September 2016 prosecutors were \"trained away\" from the former CPS policy, including through a series of roadshows.\n\nIn 2017 legally binding guidance on the old approach was removed, and the CPS introduced a 60% conviction rate target in relation to rape cases.\n\nMs Kauffmann said both the volume of cases and the charging rate fell.\n\nShe cited figures showing an average of 3,446 rape cases were charged per year between 2009 and 2016, compared with 2,822 in 2017, a fall of 23%.\n\nAt the same time the charging rate \"declined precipitously\" from 56% in 2016, to 47% in 2017 and 34% in 2018.\n\nThe court documents note the conviction target was removed at some point between 2017 and 2019, and guidance relating to the \"merits-based approach\" to prosecutions was reintroduced.\n\nThe campaigners are aiming to show there was a policy change and the way the CPS went about it was unlawful.\n\nIf a ruling goes in its favour, the EVAW hopes some cases could be looked at again by the CPS.\n\nLawyers for the CPS argue the case was not suitable for a legal challenge.\n\nIn written submissions, Tom Little QC, says the move away from a \"merits-based approach\" was out of a concern that \"some people were being prosecuted when the case ought not to have been charged\".\n\nHe added the decision to initiate the roadshows and remove the guidance \"did not result in any substantial change in the application of the evidential test in the code for Crown prosecutors\".\n\nIn a statement, the CPS said: \"Independent inspectors have found no evidence of a risk-averse approach and have reported a clear improvement in the quality of our legal decision-making in rape cases.\"\n\nThe judges are expected to give their ruling in the case at a later date.", "Celebrities including comedians Romesh Ranganathan and Meera Syal and cricketer Moeen Ali have made a video urging people to get the Covid vaccine.\n\nThe video was co-ordinated by Citizen Khan creator Adil Ray, who said he wanted to dispel vaccination myths for those from ethnic minority communities.\n\nMayor of London Sadiq Khan and former Conservative Party Chairman Baroness Warsi are among the others taking part.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Adil Ray OBE 💙 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"We all just feel we needed to do something,\" Ray told the BBC.\n\nFake news about the vaccine, particularly in the South Asian community, has led to concerns about uptake.\n\nRay appears in the five-minute video alongside stars like former Coronation Street actress Shobna Gulati, who tells viewers: \"We will find our way through this. And we will be united once again with our friends and our families. All we have to do is take the vaccination.\"\n\nSomali-born British journalist Rageh Omaar and his ITV colleague Ranvir Singh join comedians like Sanjeev Bhaskar, Asim Chaudhry and Ranganathan to debunk common vaccine misinformation and misconceptions.\n\nRanganathan says: \"There's no chip or tracker in the vaccine to keep watching where you go. Your mobile phone actually does a much better job of that.\"\n\nAfter posting the video, Ray told BBC Radio Leicester: \"For the British Asian and black communities, at the very beginning of the pandemic we were told they were perhaps the most vulnerable, that there was a disproportionate number of cases and even deaths.\n\n\"Even now there are a disproportionate number of deaths. But nothing was really done about it and that was really quite confusing for a lot of the community. So we felt that we've got to try and take the lead a little bit here and dispel some of these myths.\"\n\nHe added: \"This was recorded entirely independently from the government - the only thing we did do was we went to the NHS website for the correct medical guidance.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nWith the UK aiming to offer Covid vaccinations to every adult by autumn, vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi said confidence in the vaccines was high in the UK, with 85% saying they would accept the jab.\n\nBut he said that those who were hesitant \"skew heavily\" towards black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.\n\nThe UK is recording the ethnicity and occupations of people who receive the vaccine and figures would be published soon, Mr Zahawi added.\n\nLast month, a poll commissioned by the Royal Society of Public Health suggested 57% of black, Asian and minority ethnic people would be happy to have the coronavirus vaccine, compared with 79% of white people.\n\nDr Harpreet Sood, who is leading an NHS anti-disinformation drive, recently said fake news was likely to be causing some people from the UK's South Asian communities to reject the vaccine.\n\nSuch warnings have led the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board to urge places of worship and community hubs to be used as vaccination centres in an attempt to inspire confidence.\n\nThe board's chairman, Imam Qari Asim, said: \"As an imam, my message is simple - do not trust 'fake news', verify before you amplify.\"\n\nThe Al Abbas Mosque in Birmingham is being used as a Covid vaccination centre\n\nMany mosques are using their Friday sermons to urge people to have the jab, while some imams are sharing photos of themselves getting the jab on social media.\n\nMeanwhile, the government has announced £23m funding for a network of \"community champions\" to spread accurate information and provide support for people in at-risk groups including older people, disabled people and ethnic minorities.\n\nOn Monday, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick visited the UK's first vaccination centre to be opened in a mosque, at Al-Abbas Islamic Centre in Birmingham.\n\n\"It is absolutely brilliant to see faith communities like this stepping up and playing their part in the vaccine programme,\" Mr Jenrick said.\n\n\"We have to build trust, ensure that we counter misinformation and ensure that everyone, regardless of their faith, regardless of what community they're from, gets access to the programme.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The police officers were on duty when they had their hair cut, the Met says\n\nThirty-one Met Police officers who broke coronavirus rules to get haircuts are facing £200 fines.\n\nTwo officers who hired a barber to give the cuts to staff at Bethnal Green Police Station, on 17 January, are also facing misconduct investigations, the Met said.\n\nUnder current lockdown restrictions in England, barbers and hairdressers are not allowed to work.\n\nDet Ch Supt Marcus Barnett said he was \"deeply disappointed\" in the officers.\n\n\"Although officers donated money to charity as part of the haircut, this does not excuse them from what was a very poor decision,\" he said. \"I expect a lot more of them.\n\n\"Quite rightly, the public expect police to be role models in following the regulations, which are designed to prevent the spread of this deadly virus.\"\n\nThe investigation comes after fines were handed out to nine officers who were caught eating breakfast together in a Greenwich café.\n\nAll those officers were issued with a £200 fixed penalty notice.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "At least 80 people had to leave their homes in the village after flooding\n\nPeople whose homes were flooded after a \"blow out\" at a mine shaft are said to be \"devastated\" as they face months before they can return home.\n\nSteve Morris said his son Gareth and his girlfriend's home in Skewen, Neath Port Talbot, was inundated by \"orange\" flood water containing sewage.\n\nBut some will be allowed back to their properties on Tuesday.\n\nResidents of Goshen Park and Sunnyland Crescent who have yet to contact Neath Port Talbot council are urged to do so in the next 24 hours.\n\nThe council said access to these properties would continue to be affected beyond 26 January and the Coal Authority wished to have early discussions with them.\n\nMr Morris told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast that his son called him on Thursday to say his house was about to be flooded.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Teresa Dalling says a river of orange water rushed through the village on Thursday\n\n\"I live about half a mile away... and by the time I got to his address I could see the water levels were rising rapidly up the road,\" he explained.\n\n\"Then it was so quick - the water came through his rear patio doors firstly, then the gardens and then the drains couldn't cope on the main road and came through the front door, then the side door.\n\n\"His ground floor was four feet under water, and it was this orange coloured water. There was sewage in the house, so his ground floor needs totally gutting.\"\n\nMr Morris said Gareth and his girlfriend are staying in a hotel as they wait to be allowed back to assess the damage.\n\nHe hopes their insurance firm will pay to rent a home for them, adding: \"I can honestly see them being out of their house for between six and 10 months.\n\n\"They are obviously devastated - they have only been in there for 12 months so everything was near enough brand new.\"\n\nCerys Thomas was at her mother's house with her son, in Goshen Park, when she saw water coming through the front door.\n\nThe stairs at the home of Cerys Thomas' parents were left caked in mud\n\nShe said: \"I said to my mother to get my son and herself out and up toward the street. I phoned the police then, because I could see it was going to be an emergency, and within minutes my parents' conservatory doors just blew through.\n\n\"The pressure of the water just blew through the house and the water, within minutes, was up to my waist.\n\n\"Trying to get out of the house was very scary because the pressure of the front door was getting pushed back.\"\n\nShe said the street was under water \"within seven minutes\".\n\n\"It was something you would see in a movie,\" she said.\n\nWithin minutes of water entering the house Ms Thomas was up to her waist in water\n\nMeanwhile, the Coal Authority said it has identified the cause of the \"blow out\".\n\nChief executive Lisa Pinney told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast: \"Firstly, I just want to say our thoughts are with everyone affected by this flooding and we are genuinely sorry people have been affected in this way.\n\n\"What we know so far is the blow out was caused by a blockage underground which caused water to break out, basically to find the easiest path, and there's no doubt the excessive rainfall in the days before was also a factor in that.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMs Pinney said crews had been able to find the site of the collapsed mineshaft which had caused the flooding, and the authority had started to \"develop options\".\n\n\"We really understand people want to get back into their homes, they want to collect things, they want to know what the next steps are,\" she continued.\n\n\"We are working as fast as possible to make that happen and we hope to be able to provide some more information in the next day or so, but you will understand that we have to be sure for public safety.\"\n\nMs Pinney said there are almost 300 mine shafts or entries across the Skewen mine works, which covers an area of about 12 sq km (7.6 sq miles).\n\nShe added: \"We have checked all recorded shafts in the immediate area and we are doing continued checks over the coming days. We have found no problems. They are all safe.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nadhim Zahawi: \"We have 367m vaccines from seven different manufacturers that we have contracted with\"\n\nSupplies of vaccines are \"tight\" but the UK believes it will receive enough doses to meet its targets, the vaccine minister has said.\n\nNadhim Zahawi told BBC Breakfast manufacturers were \"confident\" they would deliver for the UK amid warnings of production delays.\n\nIt comes as the EU said it might tighten vaccine export controls.\n\nCountries should avoid \"vaccine nationalism\" and ensure a fair global supply, Mr Zahawi said.\n\nMeanwhile, more than 100,000 people have died with Covid-19 in the UK, after 1,631 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were recorded in the daily figures.\n\nMr Zahawi said the vaccination programme was still on track to deliver a first dose to 15 million of the most vulnerable by mid-February and to offer all adults their first dose by autumn.\n\nHe said the UK had supplies of the Oxford vaccine manufactured domestically by AstraZeneca as well as the Pfizer one, which is made in Belgium.\n\nThe government is also planning to publish figures on the take-up of the vaccine by ethnicity from Thursday, following concerns that some black, Asian and ethnic minority communities were more hesitant to get the jab.\n\n\"I'm confident we will meet our mid-February target and continue beyond that,\" Mr Zahawi told the BBC.\n\n\"Supplies are tight, they continue to be, these are new manufacturing processes,\" he added. \"It's lumpy and bumpy, it gets better and stabilises and improves going forward.\"\n\nBut he declined to say that he had received guarantees about the number of doses the UK would receive from Pfizer or other manufacturers and refused to confirm how many doses had already arrived.\n\nThe prime minister's spokesman said AstraZeneca had committed to delivering two million doses a week to the UK, and the government was not expecting any changes to that supply.\n\nDowning Street also rejected German media reports claiming a very low efficacy rate for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine among older people, saying they had been denied by Oxford University, AstraZeneca and the German health ministry.\n\nChief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the cabinet the trials showed similar immune responses in younger and older adults.\n\nAnd England's chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, has defended the UK's strategy of extending the time between first and second doses of coronavirus vaccines from three to 12 weeks in order to immunise more people.\n\nHe told the Downing Street coronavirus briefing on Tuesday that the \"great majority\" of protection came from the first dose.\n\nHe also said there was \"no evidence\" that immunity waned between three and 12 weeks after the first dose was administered.\n\nProf Whitty said: \"We thought very carefully about what the balance of this is, but the balance of risk in terms of reducing the number of deaths in the community - and I really want to stress that, that is the aim of this - is to maximise the number of people who get that first dose, where the great majority of protection comes from.\"\n\nThe latest tension over supply of the Covid vaccine is another illustration of just how fragile this issue is.\n\nThere are huge global demands for Covid vaccine, limited raw materials and constraints on manufacturing.\n\nThe UK already has enough vaccine to jab all the highest-risk groups by mid-February, although not all of it has been packaged up or been through the final safety checks.\n\nThis explains why ministers are confident about the immediate target for the over-70s, health and care workers and the extremely clinically vulnerable.\n\nBut what is in doubt is how quickly the UK can vaccinate in the medium term.\n\nWith the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in the UK those supply routes are more guaranteed.\n\nBut the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is made in Belgium. The UK, like the rest of Europe, is affected by the problems with manufacturing that are being experienced with that vaccine.\n\nWith Europe experiencing major problems rolling out its vaccination programme - per head of population five times fewer vaccines have been delivered - this is a story that is going to rumble on for months.\n\nThe UK has placed orders for 367 million doses of vaccines from seven manufacturers, Mr Zahawi said. \"As vaccines come along we will get more volume, millions more in the weeks and months to come,\" he added.\n\nThe tension over vaccine supplies increased after UK-based AstraZeneca warned the EU it would have to reduce planned deliveries because of production problems. Pfizer-BioNTech has also said supplies will be temporarily lower as it works to increase capacity at its Belgian factory.\n\nIt has prompted the EU to accuse AstraZeneca of failing to meet its commitments and to warn that it might require all companies producing Covid vaccines to provide \"early notification\" whenever they planned to export supplies out of the EU.\n\n\"The thing to do now is not to go down the dead end of vaccine nationalism. It's to work together to protect our people,\" Mr Zahawi said.\n\n\"No-one is safe until the whole world is safe.\"\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock subsequently said the UK government \"oppose protectionism in all its forms\" and urged all international partners to \"be collaborative\" and \"work closely together\" on vaccine distribution.\n\nHe added that the EU's warning that it could restrict exports of vaccines made in the bloc was \"unfortunate and especially so in the midst of a pandemic\".\n\nMeanwhile, the head of NHS England earlier told MPs coronavirus could become a \"much more treatable disease\" over the next six to 18 months, with the hope of a return to a \"much more normal future\".\n\nSir Simon Stevens told the Health and Social Care Committee: \"The first half of the year, vaccination is going to be crucial.\n\n\"I think a lot of us in the health service are increasingly hopeful that in the second half of the year and beyond we will also see more therapeutics and more treatments for coronavirus.\"\n\nHe also said it \"would be great\" if the Covid vaccine and flu vaccine were combined into a single jab, if not for next winter then future ones.\n\nAnd he said vaccines were being used as fast as they arrived in the NHS, with more than half of those aged 75-79 having now had their first dose.\n\nThe UK aims to offer Covid vaccination to every adult by autumn.\n\nMr Zahawi said confidence in the vaccines was high, with 85% of people saying they would accept the jab.\n\nBut he said those who were hesitant \"skew heavily\" towards black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.\n\nThe government is providing £23m of funding to 60 local councils and voluntary groups to boost vaccine take-up among groups such as older people, disabled people, and people from ethnic minority backgrounds.\n\nIt comes as celebrities such as comedians Romesh Ranganathan and Meera Syal and cricketer Moeen Ali appeared in a video urging people in their communities to get vaccinated.\n\nMr Zahawi told ITV's Good Morning Britain his uncle had died from Covid-19 last week. He had been eligible for vaccination but caught the virus before he could receive it, the minister said.\n\nThis \"grim and horrible\" experience made him determined to ensure that the most vulnerable were protected as quickly as possible, Mr Zahawi said.\n\nSir Simon said there was concern about vaccine hesitancy in some groups, where there were access problems as well as \"systematic attempts to misinform and lie about the vaccine programme targeted particularly at minority populations, and - in some cases - long-standing mistrust of public services\".\n\nHe said disruption to vaccine deliveries from EU export restrictions was not thought to be likely.\n\nIn other developments, the UK has offered to carry out genomic sequencing for other countries around the world to help identify further new variants.\n\nPublic Health England said it would give \"crucial early warning\" of any mutations that might cause the virus to spread faster, make people more ill or possibly reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.", "Transfer tests normally used by grammar schools have been cancelled this year\n\nOne of NI's most prominent grammar schools has said it will use primary school test scores to decide which pupils to admit in 2021.\n\nRoyal Belfast Academical Institution said it would \"adopt other academic criteria for admission to the school\".\n\nThat is despite the vast majority of grammar schools not planning to use academic criteria this year.\n\nThe tests run by the AQE and the Post-Primary Transfer Consortium (PPTC) were cancelled in early 2021.\n\nAs a result, grammar schools - which are attended by about 45% of post-primary pupils in Northern Ireland - are drawing up new criteria for how they will select pupils in 2021.\n\nBanbridge Academy, Bangor Grammar, Belfast Royal Academy and Regent House are among those to have published their admissions criteria for 2021.\n\nNone of those schools are using academic criteria, but pupils applying will have to have entered the AQE transfer test.\n\nSome other grammars like Thornhill College and St Columb's College in Londonderry, which decided in 2020 not to use the PPTC transfer test in 2021, have also published admissions criteria.\n\nIn a statement to BBC News NI, Royal Belfast Academical Institution (RBAI) said it was \"committed to the principle that a child should be placed in a school which offers a curriculum best suited to the aptitudes of that child\".\n\n\"For this reason RBAI believes that the use of academic criteria for admission to grammar schools is the outworking of that principle,\" the school said.\n\n\"Accordingly, in the absence of AQE and PPTC tests for admissions, RBAI will adopt other academic criteria for admission to the school.\"\n\nRBAI said scores in practice AQE or PPTC transfer tests will be taken into account\n\nThe school is planning to use standardised scores in the Progress Test in English (PTE) and Progress Test in Maths (PTM) which pupils sat in Primary Five to decide which pupils to admit.\n\nRBAI said that school year was \"the most recent one which has not been interrupted\".\n\nPupils scores in practice AQE or PPTC transfer tests taken under supervision by a teacher will also be taken into account.\n\n\"RBAI is satisfied that this is a reasonable and robust way of selecting pupils based on academic aptitude in the absence of a bespoke test,\" the school said.\n\nRBAI normally admits 150 pupils each year, but received 227 applications for places in 2020.\n\nThe admissions criteria for all post-primary schools will be published on the Education Authority (EA) website on 2 February.\n\nThe UUP assembly member Robbie Butler had proposed that pupils' results in tests in primary schools could be given to parents and then used by grammar schools to decide which children get a place.\n\nBut Education Minister Peter Weir had said there would be \"major problems\" with that approach.", "In March 2020, we were told it would be a ‘’good outcome’’ if coronavirus killed 20,000 people across the UK.\n\nNow the bleakest milestone has been reached: 100,000 deaths.\n\nIn a statement, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said \"behind these heart-breaking figures are friends, families and neighbours. The vaccine offers us the way out, but we cannot let up now and we sadly still face a tough period ahead. The virus is still spreading and we're seeing over 3,500 people per day being admitted into hospital.\"\n\nHealth correspondent Catherine Burns looks at the past year of the UK’s epidemic and hears from families who have lost loved ones.\n\nFilmed and edited by Julius Peacock. Additional filming by Emily Brooks", "The UK government should cancel the debt owed by developing countries struggling with the impact of Covid-19, MPs have said.\n\nThe International Development Committee warned that the pandemic was fuelling extreme poverty and food insecurity.\n\nIt was also disrupting routine healthcare, such as tuberculosis immunisations, it added.\n\nThe Foreign Office said it was spending £1.3bn to protect livelihoods, improve health systems and distribute vaccines.\n\nMore than two million people around the world have died after contracting coronavirus, with almost 100 million cases reported.\n\nAppearing before the Commons International Development Committee, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said he wanted the UK to be a \"force for good in the world\" as it fought the pandemic.\n\nHe defended the government's decision to cut overseas aid spending next year, saying there were \"no easy choices\" given the hit to the public finances from the pandemic.\n\nThe cuts mean the UK will fail to meet the UN target of spending 0.7% of national income on overseas aid in 2021-2, a target that was enshrined into UK law in 2015.\n\nMr Raab said he hoped the UK would be able to reach 0.7% again as \"soon as possible\" but this would only happen once the long-term damage to the UK's balance sheet had been \"corrected\".\n\nLabour said the government was \"betraying the world's poorest.\"\n\nShadow international development secretary Preet Kaur Gill said: \"This move signals a retreat from the world stage, damages the UK's reputation and will only show our allies and detractors that Britain under Boris Johnson is no longer interested in fulfilling our moral or legal responsibilities.\n\n\"Labour are committed to spending 0.7% of Gross National Income on aid to tackle global poverty and injustice and will oppose any attempt from this government to damage this country's reputation.\"\n\nMr Raab said he took seriously warnings from Conservative MPs and ex-ministers that to press ahead with the cuts without passing new legislation would be unlawful.\n\nFormer Solicitor General Lord Garnier said earlier on Tuesday that Mr Raab's \"reputation\" and the government's domestic and international standing would be damaged if it was seen to \"flout a clear legal obligation\".\n\nIn tough financial times, Mr Raab said the UK needed to \"make the most\" of its £10bn spending, avoiding \"salami-slicing\" budgets and focusing on a handful of priorities such as climate, biodiversity, conflict prevention and helping the \"bottom billions\" out of extreme poverty.\n\n\"I think we should unabashedly be proud and confident about the moral responsibility we have to make the world a better place,\" he said.\n\n\"At the same time, I see a range of grittier strategic interests in dealing with climate change and humanitarian suffering and indeed trade.\"\n\nThe Foreign Office took over responsibility for overseas aid in September after absorbing the Department for International Development.\n\nOn debt cancellation, the committee said that, due to disruption caused by the pandemic, millions of people in developing countries were more at risk from diseases such as tuberculosis because of missed immunisations.\n\nMillions were more likely to lose their livelihoods because of the global recession and millions of women were more exposed to sexual violence.\n\nThe MPs want the government to provide more aid to address the problems and cancel long-term national debt that was diverting cash away from those in need.\n\nA Foreign Office spokesperson said: \"We'll only be safe from coronavirus when we're all safe - which is why the UK is leading global efforts to fight this pandemic, committing up to £1.3bn of new UK aid to find and equitably distribute a vaccine, strengthen health systems, protect livelihoods and support the global economy.\"\n\nThey added that the UK would use its 2021 presidency of the G7 group of leading economies \"to help the world build back stronger and fairer after the pandemic\".\n\nThis would include \"promoting open societies, championing gender equality and girls' education, and setting out new international approaches to global health security and climate action\", the spokesperson said.\n\nThe UK has announced it will step up its efforts to help other countries, including some of the poorest in the world, to find new variants of Covid-19.\n\nIn a speech in London, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the UK would share its world-leading genomics expertise worldwide to help countries identify new mutations of the virus and protect global health security.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Dutch police have described it as the worst unrest in four decades\n\nMore than 180 people were arrested in 10 Dutch cities as protesters defying a curfew clashed with riot police for a third night running.\n\nShops in Rotterdam were looted and police used water cannon, as rioters resisted latest Covid restrictions.\n\nPrime Minister Mark Rutte condemned \"criminal violence\" and the justice minister said the curfew would remain.\n\nThe Dutch chief of police said the riots no longer had \"anything to do with the basic right to demonstrate\".\n\nThe Netherlands has had nearly one million confirmed Covid cases since the start of the outbreak, with more than 13,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University in the US, which is tracking the pandemic.\n\nThe government recently introduced a night-time curfew which runs from 21:00 (20:00 GMT) to 04:30. Anyone caught violating it faces a €95 (£84) fine.\n\nThere were further violent scenes in many towns and cities. Riot police clashed with protesters in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, as well as Amersfoort, Den Bosch, Alphen and Helmond.\n\nSome of the worst disturbances were in the south of Rotterdam where police said 10 officers were hurt. Across the country 184 people were arrested. Amsterdam's mayor appealed to parents to keep young people indoors.\n\nSeveral cities have vowed to introduce emergency measures in an effort to prevent more disturbances\n\nThe windows of some shops were smashed in Rotterdam\n\nFires were lit on the streets of The Hague, where police on bicycles attempted to move small clusters of men who threw stones and fireworks. There was violence in the southern city of Den Bosch, where rioters set off fireworks, broke windows, looted a supermarket and overturned cars.\n\nA woman living near Den Bosch train station told Dutch radio that masked youths had left a trail of destruction in the city centre. \"I saw windows smashed and fireworks going off. Really crazy, just like a war zone,\" the woman said. Roads into the city were closed to stop people joining the rioters and Mayor Jack Mikkers imposed an emergency order banning gatherings on Tuesday.\n\nThe ignition of discontent has rocked the core of Dutch society.\n\nIn the absence of any legitimate way to socialise, is this simply an outlet for young men to feel part of something, their masks concealing their identities and enabling them to violently channel their frustrations?\n\nThere are more sinister influences at play. Messages on social media, overt and covert, have whipped up anger. Misinformation has even been spread by some politicians.\n\nSome of the worst violence was in Rotterdam\n\nSome feared a curfew would be a tipping point, as Dutch restrictions tighten while some neighbouring countries relax their rules. The vast majority of people in the Netherlands are peacefully observing the curfew.\n\nThe unrest was initially seen as a response to the first \"stay-at-home\" order imposed since Nazi occupation during World War Two. That notion has been dismissed by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who said the rioters were simply criminals and would be treated as such.\n\nBut there are simmering anxieties in Dutch towns and cities, and with less than two months before a general election, voters are vulnerable and the streets volatile.\n\nThere has been widespread shock at the violence. In Rotterdam, where police used water cannon during clashes with rioters, Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb signed an emergency decree, giving police broader powers of arrest. He reacted furiously to shops being looted in the south of the city, condemning \"shameless thieves, I can't call it anything else\".\n\nThe prime minister said the police had the government's full support: \"The riots have nothing to do with protesting or fighting for freedom.\"\n\nRotterdam shop-owner Emrah Köker said he had no words for what he had seen. \"How can this happen in the Netherlands?\" he asked Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhuis challenged anyone to explain what looting a shop had to do with coronavirus.\n\nThe mayor of Den Bosch said police had struggled to respond to the violence because they were needed in other nearby towns.\n\nFootball fans of the Willem II club took to the streets of Tilburg to \"protect their city\" against rioters, news site Brabants Dagblad reports.\n\nMayors in several cities have vowed to introduce emergency measures in an effort to prevent more disturbances.\n\nThe Dutch prime minister has condemned the violence\n\nThere has been widespread shock in the Netherlands over the violence", "The greys were introduced to Britain from North America in the 19th Century\n\nThe UK government has given its support to a project to use oral contraceptives to control grey squirrel populations.\n\nEnvironment minister Lord Goldsmith says the damage they and other invasive species do to the UK's woodlands costs the UK economy £1.8 billion a year.\n\nThe bizarre-sounding plan is to lure grey squirrels into feeding boxes only they can access with little pots containing hazelnut spread.\n\nThese would be spiked with an oral contraceptive.\n\nLord Goldsmith says the damage from squirrels also threatens the effectiveness of government efforts to tackle climate change by planting tens of thousands of acres of new woodlands.\n\nOn Tuesday, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told BBC News: \"We hope advances in science can safely help our nature to thrive, including through the humane control of invasive species.\"\n\nA partnership of conservation and forestry organisations called the UK Squirrel Accord (UKSA) is behind the proposal.\n\nIt says grey squirrels, which were first introduced from North America in the late 19th century, cause huge damage to woodlands by stripping bark from trees aged between 10-50 years, the younger trees in a forest.\n\nThey particularly target broad-leafed varieties including oak, which are particularly ecologically important because they support so many other species.\n\nIt is estimated the UK is home to some three million of these invasive rodents.\n\nRed squirrels are now confined mainly to Scotland and Ireland\n\nThey have displaced the native red squirrel across most of the UK.\n\nLord Goldsmith says the government supports the plan as well as a longer-term effort to breed infertility into female grey squirrels to reduce their numbers.\n\nInvasive non-native species such as grey squirrels threaten our native biodiversity, he argues.\n\nWhen regulating grey squirrels with oral contraceptive was first proposed in 2017, the government's Animal and Plant Health Agency said it thought it could reduce their numbers by as much as 90%.\n\nThe project also has royal approval.\n\nPrince Charles was instrumental in founding the UK Squirrel Accord with the objective of \"managing the negative impacts of invasive grey squirrels in the UK\".\n\nHe has written of the importance of protecting Britain's remaining red squirrels.\n\n\"These charming and intelligent creatures never fail to delight\", he wrote last week in his capacity as patron of the Red Squirrel Survival Trust, describing red squirrels as the \"symbol and benchmark\" of healthy woods.\n\nJason Gilchrist, an ecologist from Edinburgh Napier University, has written in defence of the grey squirrel but he says he supports the oral contraceptive plan.\n\nHe acknowledges there is a need to manage grey squirrel populations.\n\n\"It is better than the alternative: a shotgun\", he told BBC News.\n\nIt is the same argument the UKSA makes: dosing the animals with contraceptives provides a humane alternative to culling them.\n\nLast week, the Royal Forestry Society, a member of the Squirrel Accord, called for just such a cull.\n\nSimon Lloyd, its chief executive, says efforts to tackle global warming and improve biodiversity will be undermined unless grey squirrel numbers can be reduced.\n\nNew trees will not survive to \"deliver the carbon capture or biodiversity objectives if grey squirrels cannot be controlled\", he told the Daily Telegraph.\n\nThe UKSA has been experimenting with ways to deliver oral contraceptives to squirrels for more than three years now.\n\nLast year, it tested special feeding stations designed so only grey squirrels can gain access in woodland in East Yorkshire.\n\nInstead of contraceptives, the hazelnut paste bait was dosed with a dye that, when ingested, causes squirrel hair to fluoresce under UV light.\n\nThe researchers found that more than 90% of the grey squirrel population being studied visited the traps.\n\nThey concluded that it was possible to deliver repeat doses of a contraceptive to the majority of grey squirrels in a wood.", "More than 100,000 people in the UK have died from a virus, that, this time last year, felt like a far-off foreign threat. How did we come to be one of the countries with the worst death tolls?\n\nThere is no quick answer to that question, and there is sure to be a long and detailed public inquiry once the pandemic is over. But there are plenty of clues that, when pieced together, help build a picture of why the UK has reached this devastating number.\n\nSome will point a finger at the government - its decision to lock-down later than much of western Europe, the stuttering start to its test-and-trace network and the lack of protection afforded to care home residents.\n\nOthers will spotlight deeper rooted problems with British society - its poor state of public health, with high levels of obesity, for example.\n\nOthers, still, will note that some of the UK's great strengths - its position as a vibrant hub for international air travel, its ethnically diverse and densely-packed urban populations - exposed its vulnerability to a virus that spreads effortlessly between people.\n\nIn some people's eyes, the UK's island status might have helped it. New Zealand, Australia and Taiwan managed to stop the virus getting a foothold and deaths have been kept to a minimum - Australia has seen fewer deaths throughout the pandemic than the UK is recording every day on average.\n\nAll introduced strict border restrictions immediately and lockdowns to contain the virus before it had spread. The UK did not. It was not until June that quarantine rules were introduced for all arrivals and even then travel corridors were soon set up, relaxing the rules for travellers from certain countries. Only this month were these scrapped.\n\nProf Devi Sridhar, an expert in public health from Edinburgh University, is one of those who has been critical of the approach the UK has taken from the start.\n\nShe says the UK, like much of Europe, was \"complacent\" about the threat of infectious disease - choosing to treat the new coronavirus \"like flu\" and allowing it to spread, while talking about the desire to achieve herd immunity.\n\nThis all changed in late March, when a full lockdown eventually came. But there was a crucial delay of a week which is estimated to have cost more than 20,000 lives, according to government modeller Prof Neil Ferguson, because of how quickly infection rates were doubling at that point.\n\nThis, of course, is said with the benefit of hindsight. Government modellers themselves acknowledge the data was \"really quite poor\" making it difficult to make a decision that would have significant repercussions. It is a point acknowledged by Prof Chris Whitty, the UK's chief medical adviser. Speaking in the summer he said there had been \"very limited information\" in early March.\n\nBy then, the virus was ripping through care homes. Around 30% of deaths in the first wave happened in care homes; 40% if you include care home residents who died in hospital.\n\nThose at the heart of government acknowledge mistakes were made. UK chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said recently: \"The lesson is go earlier than you think you want to, go harder than you think you want to, and go a bit broader than you think you want to in terms of applying the restrictions.\"\n\nBy May, restrictions were beginning to be eased. But was this too soon?\n\nThe government seized on the relative lull to focus on building what the prime minister promised would be a \"world-beating\" test-and-trace system. The idea was that new outbreaks could be nipped in the bud, with comprehensive tracking by a centralised team of tracers.\n\nThe mere fact this had to be done some months after the virus had struck, illustrates another factor behind the high number of deaths - the UK was simply not prepared for a pandemic of this nature in the way some Asian nations had been. Countries such as South Korea and Taiwan had established test-and-trace systems in place that were ready to be activated.\n\nThe UK had a chance to bed in its system in the summer but it was riven with teething problems, with tracers struggling to reach many contacts and the testing capacity slowing down as demand rose.\n\nLow levels of infection over the summer had created a false sense of security.\n\nDesperate to boost the economy, the government launched the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, offering people discounted meals out during August. To what extent it contributed to the rise in the autumn is much argued about but certainly some doctors blame it in part for an increase in patients seen.\n\nThe truth is the virus never went away. Testing in the summer showed even at the lowest levels there were still around 500 cases a day being diagnosed - and random testing in the population subsequently showed the true level may have been twice that.\n\nIn late August around 1,000 people a day were testing positive. By mid-September that had trebled and from there it rose five-fold to 15,000 by mid October. The numbers testing positive have never returned below 10,000 a day on average since.\n\nAnother decision that has been heavily criticised was the refusal of ministers to introduce a short two-week lockdown, or \"circuit breaker\", in September - despite their advisers on Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) recommending such a step. The argument was it would have set the spread of the virus back by at least a month, giving test and trace time to regroup.\n\nWales, however, did introduce its own \"fire-breaker\" - a 17-day lockdown in October. It got infection rates down, but as soon as it was lifted they rebounded. This is, of course, why lockdowns have been criticised.\n\nEdinburgh University infectious diseases expert Prof Mark Woolhouse, one of the modellers who feeds data into Sage, is on the record in the autumn questioning the logic of them for this very reason. It remains up for debate how effective a circuit-breaker would actually have been.\n\nThis after all is the time of year when respiratory illnesses start to increase. Schools had returned as had university students, creating new environments for the novel coronavirus to spread.\n\nWhen a lockdown was eventually introduced in England in November it was to last four weeks, with Sage members lamenting the delay. \"The absence of a decision is a decision in itself,\" says Wellcome Trust director Sir Jeremy Farrar.\n\nBut even before that lockdown was lifted cases had started going up in the south-east of England. Within weeks it became clear what was happening. The virus had mutated and a new faster-spreading variant was on the rise.\n\nBy mid-December the clamour for lockdown was growing again, but the plan for a Christmas relaxation of restrictions had already been announced. In every nation of the UK, ministers waited.\n\nAt the start of 2021, with hospital admissions rising rapidly, the UK's four chief medical officers intervened, issuing a joint statement warning the NHS was at \"material risk\" of being overwhelmed. Within hours the UK was back in lockdown.\n\nWhat has struck some is just how similar the mistakes have been in terms of locking down late.\n\n\"It will take years to unpick why Covid has gone so badly in the UK,\" says University College London infectious diseases expert Dr Neil Stone. \"But the failure to learn from wave one stands out.\"\n\nBut it must also be recognised that there are factors outside the control of the government - certainly in terms of its pandemic response - that have contributed to the high number of deaths.\n\nOne of the reasons the virus was able to take a hold and spread so quickly was because of geography and the fact the UK - and London in particular - is a global hub. Genetic analysis has shown the virus was brought into the UK on at least 1,300 separate occasions, mainly from France, Spain and Italy, by the end of March.\n\nIt was here before we knew it. That's not something Australia or New Zealand had to deal with on such a scale.\n\nDensity of population is also a factor. The UK is among the 10 most densely populated big nations - those with populations of more than 20 million. What is more, our cities are more inter-connected than they are in many places.\n\nIt meant the virus was able to seed everywhere quite quickly. Contrast this with Italy which saw the vast majority of cases in the north of the country in the first wave.\n\nThe ageing population also needs to be taken into account. Once you do this, and adjust for the size of the population - known as age-standardised mortality - deaths have risen, but not by as much as some of the headline figures suggest.\n\nThe health of the nation has also been a factor. The UK has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world. And obesity increases the risk of hospitalisation and death, according to Public Health England. One study found the risk of death was almost double for those who are severely obese.\n\nConditions such as diabetes, kidney disease and respiratory problems also increase the risk - a fifth of Covid deaths have listed diabetes on the death certificate.\n\nAgain the UK has relatively high rates of these illnesses.\n\nBut many have argued that these high levels of ill-health have been compounded by the levels of inequality in the UK.\n\nLevels of ill health and life expectancy have always been worst in the poorest areas, but the pandemic certainly seems to have exacerbated this.\n\nOffice for National Statistics data shows mortality rates have been twice as high in deprived areas as they have been in wealthy areas. The Health Foundation is carrying out its own inquiry into the issue, arguing the Covid death toll needs to be seen through the \"lens\" of inequality to fully understand it.\n\nIt is something that has also been raised by Prof Michael Marmot, one of the country's leading experts on health inequalities. \"The UK's dismal record is telling us something important about our society.\"\n\nIf you, or someone you know, have been affected by bereavement, here is a list of organisations that may be able to help.", "A senior judge prevented the BBC from properly reporting a £2.6m legal claim against Scotland's child abuse inquiry, a court has been told.\n\nThe Court of Session heard how Lady Smith, chairwoman of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI), faced an employment tribunal claim in 2019.\n\nLady Smith passed orders which stopped detail of the action being reported.\n\nThe top judge denied any wrongdoing in regard to the claim that was later abandoned.\n\nThe employment tribunal case alleging discrimination, harassment and victimisation was from a former senior member of the inquiry legal team.\n\nBBC Scotland has raised a judicial review of the SCAI restriction orders, arguing they were beyond the powers of Lady Smith and her involvement in the case meant any restriction decision should have been made by the employment tribunal.\n\nBut Roddy Dunlop QC, advocate for the SCAI, told the Court of Session the corporation's case was academic as the original restriction order had been overtaken by another order.\n\nMr Dunlop also argued the BBC had not spelled out to the SCAI what detail it wanted to publish in relation to the tribunal.\n\nKenneth McBrearty QC, acting for the broadcaster, told the court the purpose of the original restriction order was, \"not merely to prohibit disclosure or publication of the documents. It was to prohibit disclosure or publication of the very existence of the proceedings\".\n\nHe said: \"It is in effect what is equivalent to what in England has been described as a super injunction. That is what in effect it amounts to because it prohibits even the disclosure of the proceedings.\n\n\"The importance of this case lies with the way the Restriction Order impinged on the open justice principle. If there was a need for an order restricting the disclosure of any material, that is an order to be sought from the employment judge.\"\n\nThe case before Lord Boyd is being heard at the Court of Session\n\nThe Court of Session heard the employment tribunal claim for £2.6m damages was brought in July, 2019, by the inquiry's former lead junior counsel, John Halley.\n\nA news release, issued by SCAI in October 2019, confirmed existence of the claim and a denial that Lady Smith had discriminated against Mr Halley. An initial hearing took place that month and Mr Halley abandoned the tribunal two months later.\n\nBut Mr McBrearty QC said the SCAI press release did not include the full outline of the claim\n\nHe said: \"All that the media was to be entitled to publish was that which the respondent had considered able to include in a press release in circumstances to which the respondent was herself party in the proceedings.\"\n\nThe BBC is seeking declarators from the Court of Session stating that Lady Smith's restriction orders were unlawful.\n\nRoddy Dunlop QC said the BBC had the option to present to Lady Smith what it wanted to report on in the case, as per the detail of the media restriction order, and then get her permission to publish but failed to do so.\n\nHe said: \"That simple request is all that needed to be done and it wasn't resorted to. That's why the alternative remedy aspect of this is a problem to the BBC.\n\n\"There needs to be a practical effect, the entitlement to publish could have been obtained at any point by asking.\"\n\nMr Dunlop pointed out that the original restriction orders objected to by the BBC have now been replaced by a new order issued in March last year.\n\nHe said: \"What is the point of challenging orders which cease to have any potency.\n\n\"Why is it we continue to expend grey matter, and more importantly public funds on both sides, in fighting on something which is in any view within the terms of the reference [of the SCAI inquiry] and within article ten [of Human Rights legislation].\"\n\nOn Wednesday Mr Dunlop will continue his submissions before Lord Boyd.", "An extra £50m is being directed towards grassroots sport after a \"significant hit\" to activity levels amid the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nFunding agency Sport England - which has already invested £220m since the start of the crisis - announced the additional money as part of a new 10-year strategy.\n\nThousands of clubs, swimming pools, leisure centres and gyms have been forced to shut in recent months.\n\nWith many children having done no sport outside of PE lessons since the start of November, and schools now shut across the county, emphasis will be placed on supporting young people to get active.\n\nEarlier this month, figures showed the majority of young people failed to meet the recommended 60 minutes of daily exercise in the last academic year. Almost a third of children were classed as 'inactive' as a result of the first lockdown, not even doing 30 minutes.\n\nAnother focus in the new 'Uniting the Movement' strategy will be tackling the long-standing inequalities that have existed within the sport sector and reinforced by the recent disruption.\n\nNew data shows the pandemic has disproportionately affected people from lower socio-economic groups and BAME backgrounds, for whom there was already a clear pattern of low activity.\n\n\"This strategy comes at a critical time\" said Tim Hollingsworth, the chief executive of Sport England.\n\n\"We have made significant funding available, but many organisations are struggling, and activity levels have taken a significant hit.\n\n\"At the heart of all this is a ruthless focus on providing opportunities to people and communities that have traditionally been left behind.\"\n\nAndy Reed, Chair of the Sport for Development Coalition, said: \"The impact of the pandemic, growing social challenges and subsequent widening inequalities mean we urgently need a new social contract with sport and physical activity, focused on the wider social outcomes that sport can deliver.\"\n\n\"We must expand understanding, recognition and investment in the contribution that sport can make beyond health and wellbeing, to addressing loneliness and social isolation, improving educational attainment and employability, to community cohesion, and reducing anti-social behaviour and entry into the justice system.\"\n\nA group of more than 50 sports bodies have called for a new government action plan and emergency funding to help them survive the pandemic. The Save Our Sports campaign has warned that the activity sector - which employs nearly 600,000 people in the UK and contributes £16bn to the economy each year - faces an unprecedented crisis.\n\nHuw Edwards, the chief executive of Ukactive, which represents the physical activity industry, said: \"Crucially, before the sector begins its recovery from the impact of Covid-19, it must first survive it.\n\n\"The publication of this strategy needs to be accompanied by a new level of urgency and commitment from the government that it will not leave parts of this sector behind, and provide the necessary financial and regulatory support so desperately needed.\"\n\nBut Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston said it was \"placing sport and physical activity at the heart of its coronavirus recovery plan, and Sport England's new strategy provides a strong base to invest in sports organisations, facilities and people\".\n• None All the goals, highlights and drama from Sunday's fourth-round ties are", "The head of AstraZeneca has defended its rollout of the coronavirus vaccine in the EU, amid tension with member states over delays in supply.\n\nPascal Soriot told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that his team was working \"24/7 to fix the very many issues of production of the vaccine\".\n\nHe said production was \"basically two months behind where we wanted to be\".\n\nHe also said the EU's late decision to sign contracts had given limited time to sort out hiccups with supply.\n\nMr Soriot, chief executive of the UK-Swedish multinational, said a contract with the UK had been signed three months before the one with the EU, giving more time for glitches to be ironed out.\n\nHe told La Repubblica that problems in \"scaling up\" vaccine production were being experienced at two plants, one in the Netherlands and one in Belgium.\n\n\"It's complicated, especially in the early phase where you have to really sort out all sorts of issues,\" he said.\n\n\"We believe we've sorted out those issues, but we are basically two months behind where we wanted to be.\"\n\nHe added: \"We've also had teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced.\n\nAstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said a vaccine targeting the South African variant was being worked on\n\n\"Would I like to do better? Of course. But, you know, if we deliver in February what we are planning to deliver, it's not a small volume. We are planning to deliver millions of doses to Europe, it is not small.\"\n\nMr Soriot also said AstraZeneca was working on a vaccine with Oxford University that would target the South African variant of the coronavirus.\n\nScientists have warned there is a chance the South African variant may harm the effectiveness of current vaccines.\n\nThe AstraZeneca vaccine is already being used in the UK but has not yet been approved by the EU, although the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to give it the green light at the end of this month.\n\nThe bloc signed a deal in August for 300 million doses, with an option for 100 million more. The EU had hoped that, as soon as approval was given, delivery would start straight away, with some 80 million doses arriving in the 27 nations by March.\n\nThe EU has ordered 600 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is already being used on patients around the bloc.\n\nBut Pfizer-BioNTech said last week it was delaying shipments for the next few weeks because of work to increase capacity at its Belgian plant.\n\nIn response to the delays, the EU has said it might restrict exports of vaccines made in the bloc.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sofia Bettiza explains why some countries are far ahead of others in the vaccination race\n\nHealth Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said companies making Covid vaccines in the bloc would have to \"provide early notification whenever they want to export vaccines to third countries\".\n\nShe said the 27-member EU bloc would \"take any action required to protect its citizens\".\n\nEuropean Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, addressing the virtual version of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), usually held in Davos, said: \"Europe invested billions to help develop the world's first Covid-19 vaccines. And now, the companies must deliver. They must honour their obligations.\"\n\nHave you been affected by vaccine supply issues? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drone footage captures the extent of the damage the bridge over the River Clwyd\n\nIt could take 18 months to draw up plans to rebuild a bridge which was swept away during last week's Storm Christoph, a council has warned.\n\nLlanerch bridge, between Trefnant and Tremeirchion in Denbighshire, is a backroad link to the A55.\n\nThe grade II-listed bridge crosses the River Clwyd and villagers now face a seven-mile detour.\n\nMeanwhile, some people in Skewen, Neath Port Talbot, can return home later after flooding caused by the storm.\n\nDenbighshire council said diversions would go through St Asaph while Llanerch bridge was repaired.\n\n\"It means it takes much longer now to go from Tremeirchion to Trefnant or St Asaph,\" he said.\n\n\"I know of one couple that have a horse in stables on the other side of the river - so it's a seven-mile journey each way, twice a day, for them now.\n\n\"It's quite a challenge and we're starting to think about how long we'll need to live with it. Are we talking a year, two, three, or maybe much longer than that?\"\n\nVale of Clwyd Conservative MP James Davies said the bridge should be rebuilt: \"There are many who would wish to see the bridge replaced like-for-like, although I appreciate that the new structure will need to take into account the challenges posed by modern-day and projected river flows.\"\n\nDenbighshire council's Meirick Lloyd Davies suggested the structure could be widened, similar to the one in Llangollen.\n\nBut the Trefnant ward councillor added: \"We will need money from the Welsh Government and I hope the UK government are also ready to throw something into the bucket because it is very expensive.\"\n\nA council spokesman said: \"We will seek to resolve this as soon as we are able.\n\n\"Final plans for the bridge will involve a number of third parties and it could take up to 18 months or more to resolve.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government said the condition of the structure was the responsibility of the owner, with local authorities having powers to ensure listed structures were preserved.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Cerys Thomas said her mother's conservatory windows were blown open by the force of the water\n\nSouth Wales was also hit by Storm Christoph on Thursday and in Skewen about 80 people were evacuated as water rushed through the village on Thursday.\n\nThe Coal Authority said initial checks suggested water built up in a mine shaft, causing a \"blow out\" which flooded properties.\n\nThose living in Jubilee Crescent and Dunevor Road have been told they can return home, but others will have to wait until the Coal Authority has made further investigations.\n\nCouncil leader Rob Jones told Breakfast with Claire Summers: \"We haven't got the exact figures of the number of people who will be able to return home today, there's going to be further assessments this morning.\n\n\"As early as we can, we will release the names of the streets of those people who will be able to go back, but it will be conditional. They need to go back in a controlled manner. We've still got Covid around.\"\n\nHe added houses would need to have their electrics checked and information would be provided on how to do this.\n\nOther people have been warned it could take months before they can go home.", "Chelsea have sacked manager Frank Lampard after 18 months in charge, with former Paris St-Germain boss Thomas Tuchel expected to replace him.\n\nLampard, 42, leaves with the club ninth in the Premier League after last week's defeat at Leicester City, having won once in their past five league matches.\n\nHis final game was Sunday's 3-1 FA Cup fourth-round win against Luton.\n\nLampard was appointed on a three-year contract when he replaced Maurizio Sarri at Stamford Bridge in July 2019.\n• None Watch Monday Night Club: Is Tuchel right man for Chelsea?\n• None 'Lampard had seen enough Chelsea managers go to know the score'\n• None Why Tuchel will be a popular appointment in the Chelsea dressing room\n• None Tuchel set to come in after Lampard sacking - reaction\n\nIn a statement released on Monday night, Lampard said he was \"disappointed not to have had the time to take the club forward\" and added that it had been a \"huge privilege and an honour\" to manage the club.\n\n\"When I took on this role I understood the challenges that lay ahead in a difficult time for the football club,\" he continued.\n\n\"I am proud of the achievements that we made, and I am proud of the academy players that have made their step into the first team and performed so well. They are the future of the club.\"\n\nChelsea are hopeful that new manager Tuchel will be on the bench for Wednesday's Premier League game against Wolves at Stamford Bridge.\n\nHe will not be exempt from coronavirus quarantine.\n\nBut if Tuchel tests negative on entry to the United Kingdom and then negative again in order to enter a Premier League club's bubble, he will be granted an exemption by the Football Association for attending matches and training.\n\nHe will still have to serve a quarantine period outside of those environments, which will last five days.\n\nFormer Chelsea midfielder Lampard guided them to fourth place and the FA Cup final in his first season in charge, and a 3-1 win against Leeds in early December put the club top of the Premier League.\n\nHowever, the Blues have suffered five defeats in their past eight league games, as many as they had in their previous 23.\n\nIn a statement, Chelsea said: \"This has been a very difficult decision, and not one that the owner and the board have taken lightly.\n\n\"We are grateful to Frank for what he has achieved in his time as head coach of the club. However, recent results and performances have not met the club's expectations, leaving the club mid-table without any clear path to sustained improvement.\n\n\"There can never be a good time to part ways with a club legend such as Frank, but after lengthy deliberation and consideration it was decided a change is needed now to give the club time to improve performances and results this season.\"\n\nOwner Roman Abramovich said Lampard's status as an \"important icon\" of the club \"remains undiminished\" despite his dismissal.\n\n\"This was a very difficult decision for the club, not least because I have an excellent personal relationship with Frank and I have the utmost respect for him,\" said Abramovich.\n\n\"He is a man of great integrity and has the highest of work ethics. However, under current circumstances we believe it is best to change managers.\"\n\nLampard did not sign a single player during his first season as the club were operating under a transfer embargo, but spent more than £200m on seven major signings last summer, including £45m on Leicester's Ben Chilwell and £71m on midfielder Kai Havertz from Bayer Leverkusen.\n\nIt is the most Chelsea have spent in one summer, eclipsing the £186m they invested at the start of the 2017-18 season.\n\nLampard is Chelsea's all-time record scorer, with 211 goals for the club between 2001 and 2014, and is also joint-seventh on the list of most capped England players, having made 106 appearances for his country over 15 years from 1999.\n\nDuring his 13 seasons as a player at Stamford Bridge, he made 648 appearances and won 11 major trophies - including four Premier League titles and the 2012 Champions League.\n\nHis first managerial job was at Derby. In his one season in charge, they reached the Championship play-off final, where they lost to Aston Villa.\n\nLampard became the 10th full-time manager appointed by Abramovich since the billionaire bought the club in 2003.\n\nAccording to football finance journalist Kieran Maguire, Abramovich had spent £110m on sacking managers before Lampard's dismissal.\n\nHaving finished with 66 points last season after 20 wins and 12 defeats, Chelsea have lost six times in their opening 19 league games this season.\n\nLampard's points-per-game average of 1.67 is the lowest of any permanent Chelsea manager in the Premier League. During the Abramovich era, only Andre Villas-Boas (47.5%) has a worse win rate than Lampard's 52.4%, in all competitions among permanent Chelsea bosses.\n\nIn contrast, Jose Mourinho's win rate in all competitions during his first spell in charge was 67.03%, while Sarri, Antonio Conte, Avram Grant, Carlo Ancelotti and Claudio Ranieri all had win rates over 60%.\n\nAnalysis - lack of confidence among squad key to sacking\n\nLampard was sacked because the club could not see him reversing a slide in form.\n\nAfter qualifying for the Champions League last season and spending more than £200m on players in the summer, the aim this campaign was to close the gap on the leaders, but that has not been achieved.\n\nAlthough links will be made between Tuchel's heritage and the poor form of fellow Germans Kai Havertz and Timo Werner, the change was made because of the lack of confidence among the whole squad.\n\nIt is hoped that Tuchel can rejuvenate a team that is five points outside of the top four, and an announcement could be made within 24 hours.\n\nThe decision to sack Lampard was very difficult for Abramovich, who has never made a statement when changing Chelsea managers previously.\n\nIn the end, Lampard paid for his relative inexperience as a manager, which cannot be said of Tuchel.\n\nBest of reaction to Lampard sacking\n\nManchester City boss Pep Guardiola: \"People talk about projects and ideas. They don't exist. You have to win or you will be replaced. I am not judging Chelsea's decision. I respect their decision. But our world is to win as much as possible.\n\n\"I hope to see Frank soon and go to a restaurant with him when lockdown is finished.\"\n\nTottenham boss Jose Mourinho: \"It is the brutality of football. Anything can happen in football now, every time somebody loses their job it is sad news but he is a big boy, [with] a strong personality and strong mentality.\n\n\"I am pretty sure he will be back when he wants to be back and his career will be good. I hope so.\"\n\nWest Ham boss David Moyes: \"I'm disappointed for Frank as I saw him as one of the most up and coming young English managers in the country.\n\n\"It's a big thing we try to encourage our own British managers into the big leagues, if we can. I'm sure he'll come back and learn from it.\n\n\"He did a great job last year - he did a really good job with so many youngsters coming through the academy. It seemed a little bit harder for him this year. I'm sure he'll take time off, come back and get better.\"\n\nLeicester boss Brendan Rodgers: \"Clearly I'm really sad for Frank and his staff. I know how much the club means to him.\n\n\"Looking at the squad and how young they are, they need time. He hasn't been given that time. I really feel for him. He did great at Derby.\n\n\"He had the courage to step out of an amazing career and could have taken an easier route. It was a job he couldn't turn down, even though he didn't have a lot of experience.\n\n\"Results haven't been what he would have wanted, but I feel it's a job that needed time.\"\n\nCrystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson: \"It saddens me. I thought he did an excellent job last season. I was rather hoping that the idol of the fans and Chelsea legend that he is, he'd get a longer shot than 18 months.\n\n\"Managers who have had short stays at Chelsea have gone on to have good careers elsewhere. When you're sacked for the first time, it is a devastating blow. There's no doubt he has a pedigree to be a very good manager.\"\n\nFormer Chelsea striker Chris Sutton speaking on BBC 5 Live's Monday Night Club: \"It is 52 days since Chelsea were top of the Premier League and 48 days ago that Chelsea had been on an unbeaten run of 17 games.\n\n\"So in the space of 48 days the owner has decided to write Frank Lampard off. How are we ever going to know if Frank Lampard is a good manager? You only every really learn about people and their characteristics and traits when they go through a little bit of adversity and Frank has gone through a little bit of adversity.\n\n\"Frank has basically been sacked for the owner's expectations. I feel sorry for Frank because he is a club legend.\n\n\"They are five points off fourth place, but the bottom line is that the owner wants to win the Premier League and that was always going to be the pressure.\n\n\"Chelsea should have been more loyal. We know the owner's track record - he is ruthless, he is brutal and guillotined Frank.\"\n\nScott G: Been a Chelsea fan since Nevin, Speedie and Dixon and admit I've enjoyed all the success money has brought us over the last 20 years. However, there's a sadness about that decision. Some things money can't buy. #SuperFrank\n\nFil Harris: Isn't the whole point of appointing a younger manager to give him time to build and develop? Craziness from Chelsea to sack Lampard after such a short time.\n\nSimon Kirk: Been a Chelsea fan since 1969 and have never been so annoyed at a sacking of a Chelsea manager. He needed at least another 18 months. Shame on you Abramovich and the Chelsea board for supporting such a decision.\n\nRyan Howard: I find it such a weird sacking - a month or so ago Chelsea were in a nice groove, Zouma and Silva were scoring and keeping clean sheets, now after one bad run he gets sacked. Chelsea could be a world-class club if they just gave a manager proper time to build a team.\n\nPeter Josi: Chelsea are totally right to sack Lampard, he lacked the experience or coaching prowess to lead the side. The next phase should start with an investigation into our transfer policy and how our last two record signings turned out to be flops.\n\nThomas Wilson: Why are people surprised Lampard was sacked? Chelsea have been ruthlessly successful for 15 years. They are not going to suddenly resort to being generously unsuccessful because of a club legend being at the helm.\n• None All the goals, highlights and drama from Sunday's fourth-round ties are", "Janet Yellen has been confirmed as the first ever female US treasury secretary in a Senate vote.\n\nMs Yellen, who headed the US central bank from 2014 to 2018, earlier won bipartisan support from members of the Senate Finance Committee.\n\nShe will be responsible for guiding the Biden administration's economic response to the pandemic.\n\nThe US is struggling to rebound economically from the hit caused by the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nAt her confirmation hearing on 19 January, Ms Yellen urged Congress to approve trillions more in pandemic relief and economic stimulus, saying that lawmakers should \"act big\" without worrying about national debt.\n\nIn response, Republican senators warned the former Federal Reserve head this was not the time for \"a laundry list\" of liberal reforms.\n\nMs Yellen disagreed, highlighting the fact that many families whose incomes have fallen were not reached by jobless programmes. She argued that plans to raise taxes must be seen in the context of financing bigger investments necessary to make the US economy competitive.\n\n\"The focus now is not on tax increases. It is on programmes to help us get through the pandemic,\" she stressed.\n\nJanet Yellen was previously chair of the US Federal Reserve. She was known for focusing more attention on the impact of the central bank's policies on workers and the costs of America's rising inequality.\n\nBefore then-President Barack Obama named her to lead the Fed in 2014, she had served as one of its board members for a decade, including four years as vice-chair.\n\nJanet Yellen speaking at a press conference in 2017 as US Federal Reserve Chair\n\nDonald Trump bucked Washington tradition when he opted not to appoint Ms Yellen to a second four-year term at the Fed.\n\nHowever, her climb to the top of the economics profession had made her a feminist icon in the economics world.\n\nWhen she left the Fed in 2018, many paid tribute to her leadership by imitating her signature look of a blazer with a popped collar.\n\nMs Yellen is seen as someone able to satisfy both progressive and centrist members of Mr Biden's Democratic party. Her nomination to lead the Fed in 2014 won support from some Republicans.\n\nHer focus on employment, rather than inflation, gave her a reputation of favouring low interest rates, which spur economic activity by making it less expensive to borrow money.\n\nBut under her leadership, the Fed raised interest rates for the first time since 2008 - albeit less aggressively than some more conservative commentators supported.\n\nHer stewardship of that process has won praise on Wall Street, even as it remains hotly debated.", "Twitter is asking its users for help in combating fake news.\n\nIt has announced a pilot that allows people to submit notes on tweets that may be false or misleading.\n\nThe initiative, named 'Birdwatch', is being trialled among a small group in the US initially. The firm acknowledged the new system would have to be \"resistant to manipulation attempts\".\n\nCompanies like Twitter are looking at how they can better moderate their platforms.\n\nTwitter said on Monday: \"We know this might be messy and have problems at times, but we believe this is a model worth trying.\"\n\nTwitter, along with other large social media companies, has struggled to deal with disinformation on its platform.\n\nThe pilot will allow users to flag tweets they believe to be \"misleading or false\", provide evidence to the contrary and discuss them with other - on a separate 'Birdwatch' site.\n\nAdditional notes and flags would then be placed on to content.\n\nTwitter says this new approach could help it respond more quickly when misleading information spreads.\n\n\"Eventually we aim to make notes visible directly on Tweets for the global Twitter audience, when there is consensus from a broad and diverse set of contributors,\" Twitter said.\n\nTwitter already adds labels to some misleading news. For example, many of Donald Trump's false claims of voter fraud were labelled by the company.\n\nTwitter also reserves the right to remove tweets - and in extreme circumstances ban users - which it did with the US president after the riots in Washington earlier this month.\n\nTwitter, though, wants to go further: \"We don't want to limit efforts to circumstances where something breaks our rules or receives widespread public attention,\" said Twitter's Vice-President Keith Coleman.\n\nParticipants will have to provide a verified phone number and email to take part, in a bid to keep bots and bad actors away, as well as having no recent rule violations against their Twitter account.\n\nPresident Biden said in his inauguration speech that: \"We must reject a culture where facts are manipulated, or even manufactured.\"\n\nJames Clayton is the BBC's North America technology reporter based in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @jamesclayton5.", "Parents and teachers say they are \"frustrated\" schools will be shut until the February half term and fear the impact it will have on children.\n\nSpeaking to Radio Wales' phone-in, one caller said they felt young people were being \"thrown under the bus\".\n\nOthers said they were fed up with \"bitty information\" from the Welsh Government.\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford said it was the \"best certainty\" he could offer \"in a world which is highly uncertain\".\n\nSo how have parents, pupils and professionals reacted to the announcement that schools may not reopen until 22 February?\n\nDr Dai Samuel welcomed the news as a consultant treating Covid patients - but as a dad he feels some \"trepidation\"\n\nDr Dai Samuel, a consultant at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant, Rhondda Cynon Taf, is also a father and lives in one of the worst-hit areas in Wales.\n\nHe said he had mixed feelings about the decision as he had \"two hats on\" - one as an NHS doctor treating Covid patients and the other as a dad.\n\n\"The hospitals are full and the ITU units only have beds now because they've expanded that capacity,\" he said.\n\n\"It's a very precarious position and I just hope that this measure now for the next three to six weeks will hopefully allow us to get through this winter, allow the vaccines to take effect and get us out of this mess come the spring and summer.\n\n\"I'm a doctor so, from a medical point of view, yes [the decision is] a massive sigh of relief, but as a father and someone who lives in Merthyr - a town that's been hit already significantly by the virus and the economical impacts of that - I've got some sort of trepidation because I fear that those businesses now that still remain closed will suffer and will go under.\n\n\"What will happen to that generation of children now who might not get the education they deserve and would have had otherwise… who won't achieve what they could have?\"\n\nTrying to home-school four young children and work is a \"challenge\", said Kaarina Rutta Reuter from Sully, Vale of Glamorgan.\n\n\"It's a challenge trying to help all four at the same time and also having in the back of your mind, 'I should also be working and doing other things',\" she said.\n\n\"I was quite sure that this was going to happen. It didn't come as a surprise I have to say, because the situation is just so bad I think there is no other way out of it at the moment. I just wish we had known earlier on and it would have been easier to plan.\"\n\nThe pressures of juggling home-schooling with her career mean she is working at night when the children have gone to bed.\n\n\"I don't even try to work during the day with the children around because I've just realised it's just not possible.\n\n\"My husband is working full-time but I'm only working part-time, I'm teaching at university so I still have quite flexible hours - apart from obviously teaching hours - it just means that I have to work in the evening or over the weekend, just organise yourself differently.\"\n\nShe said it was \"best not to have too high expectations\" when it came to guessing when lockdown would end and schools would reopen.\n\n\"Like we saw in the first lockdown in spring, in the end it was quite a bit longer than we had all thought,\" she said.\n\n\"I would hope they could go back in March, that's my hope for now but I think we'll just have to wait and see what will happen with the numbers over the next few weeks, months and just take it from there really.\"\n\nA father called Ron, from Bridgend, told the phone-in with Dot Davies he was predominantly worried about the effects on children, particularly in the south Wales valleys.\n\n\"I just see children deteriorating on a regular basis. I can only speak about my own - I have a teenage daughter and her mental health, her lack of access to her school, her teachers, to her peers, will cause more harm than the virus will cause children.\n\n\"It feels like we are asking our children to donate their kidneys to the vulnerable. We are throwing them under the bus as far as I'm concerned.\"\n\nAnna, 16, who is studying for her GCSEs at Ysgol Gyfun Gwyr, Swansea, said the decision to keep schools and colleges closed was \"a big disappointment\".\n\n\"The idea of staying in the house until February fills me with dread because we've been in the house for months,\" she told Newyddion.\n\nAfter a case of Covid-19 in her school, she said she had to self-isolate, adding: \"It's been an age since I last saw my friends, went to school, and really learned.\n\n\"It's really hard. We've been back in school since Wednesday and doing everything online but it's nigh-on impossible. It's not the same.\n\n\"It's really hard to learn. There's this feeling of 'why am I even bothering?' - I really want to go back but I appreciate that might not be possible because people are dying. It's not an easy situation.\"\n\nHer mock assessments before her final assessments - which were brought in to replace exams - have been cancelled until the return to school, which she said has taken away some of the pressure.\n\n\"Without practising, there's a lot of uncertainty. What's going to be in the assessment? So, it is nice to hear they've cancelled them. It's a difficult situation so cancelling them takes a bit of the pressure off children and young people my age.\"\n\nMother-of-three Amanda Williams from Bridgend told the Local Democracy Reporting Service she was glad schools would remain closed and hoped it would minimise the spread of the virus.\n\n\"I don't believe schools are safe to open at the moment,\" she said.\n\n\"Until they can classify exactly what the main symptoms are in children I think it's a risk to send children back to school and it's a risk with these new variants.\"\n\nMrs Williams lives in Bridgend county borough, where infection rates are the highest among all Welsh local authority areas. One of her relatives is currently on a ventilator at Bridgend's Princess of Wales Hospital with Covid-19.\n\n\"In the last week I've heard of a lot of people passing away such as friends of friends. It's starting to get closer to home.\"\n\nSarah Curley, a maths teacher and mother of twins, also from Bridgend, said she would \"rather be in school\" but agreed schools remaining shut was the \"safest option\".\n\nShe said: \"In school each day I come into contact with 100-odd pupils and we don't wear PPE.\"\n\nMs Curley said she was glad her school, Coleg Cymunedol Y Dderwen in Bridgend, would not be welcoming students back on Monday, as originally planned, because of the area's high infection rates.\n\n\"My anxiety was through the roof around Christmas. I could see the numbers going up and I was thinking, 'I've got to go back into school next week'.\"", "A year ago, the Chinese government locked down the city of Wuhan. For weeks beforehand officials had maintained that the outbreak was under control - just a few dozen cases linked to a live animal market. But in fact the virus had been spreading throughout the city and around China.\n\nThis is the story of five critical days early in the outbreak.\n\nBy 30 December, several people had been admitted to hospitals in the central city of Wuhan, having fallen ill with high fever and pneumonia. The first known case was a man in his 70s who had fallen ill on 1 December. Many of those were connected to a sprawling live animal market, Huanan Seafood Market, and doctors had begun to suspect this wasn't regular pneumonia.\n\nSamples from infected lungs had been sent to genetic sequencing companies to identify the cause of the disease, and preliminary results had indicated a novel coronavirus similar to Sars. The local health authorities and the country's Center for Disease Control (CDC) had already been notified, but nothing had been said to the public.\n\nAlthough no-one knew it at the time, between 2,300 and 4,000 people were by now likely infected, according to a recent model by MOBS Lab at Northeastern University in Boston. The outbreak was also thought to be doubling in size every few days. Epidemiologists say that at this early part of an outbreak, each day and even each hour is critical.\n\nWuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was sealed off on 1 January 2020\n\nAt around 16:00 on 30 December, the head of the Emergency Department at Wuhan Central Hospital was handed the results of a test carried out by sequencing lab Capital Bio Medicals in Beijing.\n\nShe went into a cold sweat as she read the report, according to an interview given later to Chinese state media.\n\nAt the top were the alarming words: \"SARS CORONAVIRUS\". She circled them in bright red, and passed it on to colleagues over the Chinese messaging site WeChat.\n\nWithin an hour and a half, the grainy image with its large red circle reached a doctor in the hospital's ophthalmology department, Li Wenliang. He shared it with his hundreds-strong university class group, adding the warning, \"Don't circulate the message outside this group. Get your family and loved ones to take precautions.\"\n\nWhen Sars spread through southern China in late 2002 and 2003, Beijing covered up the outbreak, insisting that everything was under control. This allowed the virus to spread around the world. Beijing's response invoked international criticism and - worryingly for a regime deeply concerned about stability - anger and protests within China. Between 2002 and 2004, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) went on to infect more than 8,000 people and kill almost 800 worldwide.\n\nRobert Maguire of the WHO and a Chinese doctor visit a Sars patient in Guangzhou, China – April 2003\n\nOver the coming hours, screen shots of Li's message spread widely online. Across China, millions of people began talking about Sars online.\n\nIt would turn out that the sequencers made a mistake - this was not Sars, but a new coronavirus very similar to it. But this was a critical moment. News of a possible outbreak had escaped.\n\nThe Wuhan Health Commission was already aware that there was something going on in the city's hospitals. That day, officials from the National Health Commission in Beijing arrived, and lung samples were sent to at least five state labs in Wuhan and Beijing to sequence the virus in parallel.\n\nNow, as messages suggesting the possible return of Sars began flying over Chinese social media, the Wuhan Health Commission sent two orders out to hospitals. It instructed them to report all cases direct to the Health Commission, and told them not to make anything public without authorisation.\n\nWithin 12 minutes, these orders were leaked online.\n\nIt might have taken a couple more days for the online chatter to make the leap from Chinese-speaking social media to the wider world if it wasn't for the efforts of veteran epidemiologist Marjorie Pollack.\n\nThe deputy editor of ProMed-mail, an organisation which sends out alerts on disease outbreaks worldwide, received an email from a contact in Taiwan, asking if she knew anything about the chatter online.\n\nDr Marjorie Pollack is an epidemiologist based in New York\n\nBack in February 2003, ProMed had been the first to break the news of Sars. Now, Pollack had deja vu. \"My reaction was: 'We're in trouble,'\" she told the BBC.\n\nThree hours later, she had finished writing an emergency post, requesting more information on the new outbreak. It was sent out to ProMed's approximately 80,000 subscribers at one minute to midnight.\n\nAs word began to spread, Professor George F Gao, director general of China's Center for Disease Control [CDC], was receiving offers of help from contacts around the world.\n\nChina revamped its infectious disease infrastructure after Sars - and in 2019, Gao had promised that China's vast online surveillance system would be able to prevent another outbreak like it.\n\nBut two scientists who contacted Gao say the CDC head did not seem alarmed.\n\n\"I sent a really long text to George Gao, offering to send a team out and do anything to support them,\" Dr Peter Daszak, the president of New York-based infectious diseases research group EcoHealth Alliance, told the BBC. But he says that all he received in reply was a short message wishing him Happy New Year.\n\nDirector of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, George F Gao – 22 January 2020\n\nEpidemiologist Ian Lipkin of Columbia University in New York was also trying to reach Gao. Just as he was having dinner to ring in the New Year, Gao returned his call. The details Lipkin reveals about their conversation offer new insights into what leading Chinese officials were prepared to say at this critical point.\n\n\"He had identified the virus. It was a new coronavirus. And it was not highly transmissible. This didn't really resonate with me because I'd heard that many, many people had been infected,\" Lipkin told the BBC. \"I don't think he was duplicitous, I think he was just wrong.\"\n\nLipkin says he thinks Gao should have released the sequences they had already obtained. My view is that you get it out. This is too important to hesitate.\"\n\nGao, who refused the BBC's requests for an interview, has told state media that the sequences were released as soon as possible, and that he never said publicly that there was no human-to-human transmission.\n\nThat day, the Wuhan Health Commission issued a press release stating that 27 cases of viral pneumonia had been identified, but that there was no clear evidence of human to human transmission.\n\nIt would be a further 12 days before China shared the genetic sequences with the international community.\n\nThe Chinese government refused multiple interview requests by the BBC. Instead, it gave us detailed statements on China's response, which state that in the fight against Covid-19 China \"has always acted with openness, transparency and responsibility, and … in a timely manner.\"\n\nBBC This World's 54 Days: China and the pandemic can be seen on BBC Two at 21:00 GMT on Tuesday 26 January, or 23:30 on Monday 1 February (except BBC Two Northern Ireland). Or watch on BBC iPlayer.\n\nPart two - 54 Days: America and the Pandemic - will be on BBC Two on Tuesday 2 February at 21:00.\n\nInternational law stipulates that new infectious disease outbreaks of global concern be reported to the World Health Organization within 24 hours. But on 1 January the WHO still had not had official notification of the outbreak. The previous day, officials there had spotted the ProMed post and reports online, so they contacted China's National Health Commission.\n\n\"It was reportable,\" says Professor Lawrence Gostin, Director of the WHO Collaborating Center on national and global health law at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and a member of the International Health Regulations roster of experts. \"The failure to report clearly was a violation of the International Health Regulations.\"\n\nDr Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO epidemiologist who would become the agency's Covid-19 technical lead, joined the first of many emergency conference calls in the middle of the night on 1 January.\n\n\"We had the assumptions initially that it may be a new coronavirus. For us it wasn't a matter of if human to human transmission was happening, it was what is the extent of it and where is that happening.\"\n\nIt was two days before China responded to the WHO. But what they revealed was vague - that there were now 44 cases of viral pneumonia of unknown cause.\n\nChina says that it communicated regularly and fully with the WHO from 3 January. But recordings of internal WHO meetings obtained by the Associated Press (AP) news agency some of which were shared with PBS Frontline and the BBC, paint a different picture, revealing the frustration that senior WHO officials felt by the following week.\n\n\"'There's been no evidence of human to human transmission' is not good enough. We need to see the data,\" Mike Ryan WHO's health emergencies programme director is heard saying.\n\nThe WHO was legally required to state the information it had been provided by China. Although they suspected human to human transmission, the WHO were not able to confirm this for a further three weeks.\n\n\"Those concerns are not something they ever aired publicly. Instead, they basically deferred to China,\" says AP's Dake Kang. \"Ultimately, the impression that the rest of the world got was just what the Chinese authorities wanted. Which is that everything was under control. Which of course it wasn't.\"\n\nThe number of people infected by the virus was doubling in size every few days, and more and more people were turning up at Wuhan's hospitals.\n\nBut now - instead of allowing doctors to share their concerns publicly - state media began a campaign that effectively silenced them.\n\nOn 2 January, China Central Television ran a story about the doctors who spread the news about an outbreak four days earlier. The doctors, referred to only as \"rumour mongers\" and \"internet users\", were brought in for questioning by the Wuhan Public Security Bureau and 'dealt with' 'in accordance with the law'.\n\nOne of the doctors was Li Wenliang, the eye doctor whose warning had gone viral. He signed a confession. In February, the doctor died of Covid-19.\n\nThe Chinese government says that this is not evidence that it was trying to suppress news of the outbreak, and that doctors like Li were being urged not to spread unconfirmed information.\n\nBut the impact of this public dressing down was critical. For though it was becoming apparent to doctors that there was, in fact, human-to-human transmission, they were prevented from going public.\n\nA health worker from Li's hospital, Wuhan Central, told us that over the next few days \"there were so many people who had a fever. It was out of control. We started to panic. [But] The hospital told us that we were not allowed to speak to anyone.\"\n\nThe Chinese government told us that \"it takes a rigorous scientific process to determine if a new virus can be transmitted from person to person\".\n\nThe authorities would continue to maintain for a further 18 days that there was no human-to-human transmission.\n\nLabs across the country were racing to map the complete genetic sequence of the virus. Among them was a renowned virologist in Shanghai, Professor Zhang Yongzhen who began sequencing on 3 January.\n\nAfter having worked for two days straight, he obtained a complete sequence. His results revealed a virus that was similar to Sars, and therefore likely transmissible.\n\nOn 5 January, Zhang's office wrote to the National Health Commission advising taking precautionary measures in public places.\n\n\"On that very day, he was working to try and get information released as soon as possible, so the rest of the world could see what it was and so we could get diagnostics going\", says Zhang's research partner, Professor Edward Holmes an evolutionary virologist at the University of Sydney.\n\nBut Zhang could not make his findings public. On January 3, the National Health Commission had sent a secret memorandum to labs banning unauthorised scientists from working on the virus and disclosing the information to the public.\n\n\"What the notice effectively did,\" says AP's Dake Kang, \"is it silenced individual scientists and laboratories from revealing information about this virus and potentially allowing word of it to leak out to the outside world and alarm people.\"\n\nNone of the labs went public with the genetic sequence of the virus. China continued to maintain it was viral pneumonia with no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.\n\nIt would be six days before it announced that the new virus was a coronavirus, and even then, it did not share any genetic sequences to allow other countries to develop tests and begin tracing the spread of the virus.\n\nThree days later, on 11 January, Zhang decided it was time to put his neck on the line. As he boarded a plane between Beijing and Shanghai, he authorised Holmes to release the sequence.\n\nThe decision came at a personal cost - his lab was closed the next day for \"rectification\" - but his action broke the deadlock. The next day state scientists released the sequences they had obtained. The international scientific community swung into action, and a toolkit for a diagnostic test was publicly available by 13 January.\n\nDespite the evidence from scientists and doctors, China would not confirm there was human-to-human transmission until 20 January.\n\nIllustration of spike proteins (red) of Covid-19 binding with receptors (blue) on a target human cell\n\nAt the beginning of any emerging disease outbreak, says health law expert Lawrence Gostin, it's always chaotic. \"It was always going to be very difficult to control this virus, from day one. But by the time we knew [the international community] it was transmissible human to human, I think the cat was already out the bag, it already spread.\n\n\"That was the shot we had, and we lost it.\"\n\nAs Wang Linfa, a bat virologist at Duke-Nus Medical School in Singapore, says: \"January 20th is the dividing line, before that the Chinese could have done much better. After that, the rest of the world should be really on high alert and do much better.\"", "Harriet Tubman was a spy and a nurse for the Union during the US Civil War\n\nThe Biden administration has said it will seek to push forward a plan to make anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman the face of a new $20 bill.\n\nA note featuring Ms Tubman, who was born a slave in about 1822, was originally due to be unveiled in 2020.\n\nThe US Treasury said she would replace former President Andrew Jackson, a slave owner.\n\nBut the effort was delayed under former President Donald Trump, who branded it \"pure political correctness\".\n\nNow President Joe Biden has revived the project, with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki telling reporters the Treasury was \"exploring ways to speed up\" the process.\n\nThe move would make Ms Tubman the first African American to appear on a US banknote, and the first woman for more than 100 years.\n\n\"It's important that our notes, our money - if people don't know what a note is - reflect the history and diversity of our country, and Harriet Tubman's image gracing the new $20 note would certainly reflect that,\" Ms Psaki said on Monday.\n\nA mock-up of the new $20 note\n\nThe women last depicted on US notes were former First Lady Martha Washington, on the $1 silver certificate from 1891 to 1896, and Native American Pocahontas, in a group image on the $20 bill from 1865 to 1869.\n\nHowever, given the complexities of redesigning and producing US banknotes, the bill is not expected to be released any time soon.\n\nIn 2019, Mr Trump's Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said the redesign would be delayed until at least 2026. At the time, he said he was focused on redesigning bills to address counterfeiting issues, not making changes to their imagery.\n\nMr Trump, an admirer of his populist predecessor Andrew Jackson - whose portrait hung in his office - expressed opposition to the redesign.\n\nWhile campaigning in 2016, Mr Trump suggested that Ms Tubman be put on the $2 bill instead.\n\nBorn into slavery in about 1822, Ms Tubman grew up working in the cotton fields in Dorchester County, Maryland. She was the fourth of nine children born to two enslaved parents, Benjamin Ross and Harriet Rit.\n\nAs a teenager, she was hit in the head by an iron weight thrown by an overseer, leaving her severely injured.\n\nShe escaped from a slave plantation in 1849, fleeing north to the neighbouring state of Pennsylvania.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How Harriet Tubman escaped slavery and then helped others to do so.\n\nIn the years that followed, Ms Tubman returned multiple times to Maryland to rescue others, conducting them along the so-called \"underground railroad\", a network of safe houses used to spirit slaves from the south to the free states in the north.\n\nShe is estimated to have made some 13 missions to rescue more than 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, using the network.\n\nLater, she became a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War, a prominent supporter of the women's suffrage movement, and a famous veteran of the struggle for the abolition of slavery.\n\nAfter the war, Ms Tubman toured eastern cities giving speeches in support of women's suffrage, drawing on her experiences in the fight against slavery.\n\nShe died in 1913, aged 91, surrounded by her family.", "Sunderland-based Hays Travel took over Thomas Cook's stores and staff in 2019\n\nTravel firm Hays Travel is to close 89 of its 535 shops following a review into its take over of Thomas Cook.\n\nThe Sunderland-based firm bought the collapsed company in October 2019 and deferred a review into the performance of its shops until 2021.\n\nA Hays Travel spokeswoman said the third national lockdown and travel ban meant \"the company had to act\".\n\nShe said 388 staff affected by the closures would be offered \"alternative work options\" to minimise redundancies.\n\nChief operating officer Jonathon Woodall said the \"first priority\" was to \"look after our customers\" and ensure \"the highest standards of customer service\".\n\nHe added that the firm was \"continuing with our robust two-year business plan and continue to be ready for the bounce back when it comes\".\n\nDame Irene Hays said business had not bounced back as had been hoped\n\nDame Irene Hays, owner and chair of the Sunderland-based firm, said it was \"always our intention to review the performance of our shops at the end of the licence period\".\n\n\"We had hoped the business would bounce back in January and it has not,\" she said.\n\n\"We have done everything we could to safeguard jobs and the business thus far, and we have come up with a range of options for those at risk of redundancy to help as many colleagues as we can.\"\n\nOptions for staff include working from home or filling vacancies in other shops.\n\nThe spokeswoman said the firm employed about 7,700 people, many of whom were \"working from home taking bookings for holidays for 2021 and beyond\".\n\nThe company has yet to confirm which of its locations will be affected.\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "There has been a recent investigation into mother-and-baby homes in the Republic of Ireland\n\nA report into mother-and-baby homes and Magdalene Laundries in Northern Ireland is expected to be published later.\n\nThe Stormont-commissioned research was carried out by Queen's University and Ulster University.\n\nIt examined whether a public inquiry should be held into the homes.\n\nAmnesty has estimated about 7,500 women and girls gave birth in the institutions operated by both Catholic and Protestant churches and other religious organisations.\n\nSome survivors, both unmarried pregnant mothers who were brought to the facilities and children who were later adopted, have long called for a public inquiry.\n\nThe NI Executive is currently meeting to discuss the report and its recommendations.\n\nFirst Minster Arlene Foster tweeted to say she had spoken to survivors of the homes about the report and the next steps.\n\nShe described it as \"a shameful chapter\", adding: \"Now the silence is broken and their stories have rightfully begun to be told\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Arlene Foster #WeWillMeetAgain This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nDeputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said earlier that Tuesday's research \"breaks the silence\" around what happened.\n\nShe added that \"what happened was so, so wrong\", and that her thoughts were with the survivors \"who deserve answers to their many questions\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Michelle O’Neill This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe report was commissioned by the Department of Health in 2018 and assessed the period from 1922 to 1999.\n\nIt was completed in February 2020 but was then sent to those facing criticism to give them an opportunity to reply.\n\nSolicitor Claire McKeegan, representing the group Birth Mothers and their Children for Justice NI, said many women were branded as \"fallen\" after becoming pregnant outside marriage and were forced to carry out unpaid labour.\n\nThis \"abuse\", she said, happened on both sides of the Irish border.\n\n\"The state in Northern Ireland not only permitted what happened, but also policed it,\" she added.\n\nAmnesty said there were more than a dozen mother-and-baby home and Magdalene Laundry-type institutions in NI, with the last one closing its doors as recently as 1990.\n\nPatrick Corrigan, NI programme director of Amnesty International, said the report would \"shed new light on the appalling extent and vast scale of the suffering experienced by generations of women and girls in these institutions\".\n\nThe human rights organisation has written to the first and deputy first ministers urging them to meet survivors of mother-and-baby homes.\n\n\"It's time for ministers to listen to the survivors - both the women and girls forced into the homes and the children born there,\" said Mr Corrigan.\n\nThe publication of the report in Northern Ireland comes after a similar investigation into mother-and-baby homes and laundries in the Republic of Ireland, which prompted an apology from Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Mícheál Martin.\n\nThis report found an \"appalling level of infant mortality\".\n\nAbout 9,000 children died in the 18 institutions which were investigated.\n\nMr Martin said there had been \"profound and generational wrong\", adding it was a \"dark, difficult and shameful chapter\" of Irish history.\n\nFollowing the report's publication, NI's first and deputy first ministers Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill met the Irish Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman.\n\nBoth Mrs Foster and Ms O'Neill said there was a need for the executive and the Irish government to work together in sharing information and to support survivors.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Time out of school has affected some children who have not established their language skills\n\nParents in English-speaking homes whose children go to Welsh-language schools need more support during lockdown, the Welsh language commissioner has said.\n\nSome parents said time away from face-to-face schooling was affecting younger children who have not fully established their language skills.\n\nOne mother said \"not only do you not know how to help them, you don't know what the question is to start with\".\n\nThe Welsh Government said it had given guidance to Welsh-medium schools.\n\nThere are 65,000 children in Welsh-medium or bilingual primary schools across Wales.\n\nCardiff council estimated more than 70% of children in Welsh-medium education in the city did not speak Welsh at home.\n\nWelsh language commissioner Aled Roberts said any parents concerned about remote learning in should let the school and teachers know in the first instance.\n\nHowever, he said it should be ensured there were \"as many resources as possible to support them\" at a national level and these policies should \"recognise the huge investment that these people are making [into] Welsh-medium education\".\n\nAngela Crabtree said her nine-year-old daughter Ffion had to help her younger sisters\n\nAngela Crabtree, from Caerphilly, said her daughters were partly reliant on her eldest child Ffion to translate Welsh schoolwork.\n\nMs Crabtree, who is on furlough, said keeping up Welsh-language skills had been a challenge for her three daughters, Ffion, Natalie and Chloe, who go to Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Caerffili.\n\n\"It's hard if they ask you a question, not only do you not know how to help them, you don't know what the question is to start with,\" she said.\n\nNatalie and Chloe are partly reliant on their older sister Ffion to translate Welsh work during lockdown\n\n\"The school has been really good in sending things back bilingually, but I've still got the challenge of trying to make sure that the girls look at the Welsh first.\n\n\"Off the back of the first lockdown I think what suffered most was their Welsh language, especially the middle child, going from the infants to the juniors - her Welsh comprehension fell behind a bit.\"\n\nLisa Jane Thomas, from Cardiff, said she was concerned her youngest child, who attends a Welsh-medium school, was going to be disadvantaged.\n\n\"These are really critical stages and to have so much timeout, it does worry me that may be putting her back [and] is going to make it more difficult for her longer term,\" she said.\n\nMs Thomas said she felt there \"ought to be more recognition\" and more could be offered to help parents and children.\n\nYsgol Gynradd Gymraeg Caerffili headteacher Lynn Griffiths said parents make a \"conscious decision\" to send children to Welsh-medium schools\n\nHead teacher of Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Caerffili, Lynn Griffiths, said of almost 440 pupils at the school, three families spoke to him about issues with Welsh-language learning.\n\nMr Griffiths said it was \"a rarity\" after one family that chose not to send their child back to the school this year, while the two other \"listened to what support we can provide them to enable them to do the best for their children\".\n\n\"But also let's not forget our parents have made a conscious decision to send their children to a Welsh medium school because they want their children to be fully bilingual and the advantages that will give them,\" he said.\n\nCampaign group Parents for Welsh medium education said it was launching new website end of this month to help parents by collating Welsh language resources in one place, due to the extra pressure of lockdown home-schooling.\n\nElin Maher, who is a part of the group, said: \"Obviously, we do acknowledge that acquiring language is done best in the classroom, with the teacher at the front and to be surrounded by the language - we want to reassure parents that the language will be there.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government, which has a target of one million people speaking Welsh by 2050, said it appreciated the challenges all parents faced with learning at home.\n\nA spokesman said: \"We have provided guidance to schools to help them during the pandemic, which includes dedicated support for Welsh-medium learners whose families don't speak Welsh.\n\n\"This includes advice for parents and carers on how they can support their children to use the Welsh language while at home.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Maaike Neuféglise said she found blood on the floor of her shop alongside upturned stands and damaged equipment\n\nThe Dutch government says it will not lift a curfew, after a third night of violent protests against increased Covid curbs across the Netherlands.\n\nShops in Rotterdam and other cities were looted and Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said: \"It's scum doing this\". More than 180 arrests have been made.\n\nThe Dutch chief of police said the riots no longer had \"anything to do with the basic right to demonstrate\".\n\nThe criminal violence had to stop, said Prime Minister Mark Rutte.\n\nShop-owners in Rotterdam, Den Bosch and other cities spent Tuesday morning cleaning up the debris from Monday night's violence.\n\nRotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb sent a passionate message to \"shameless thieves\" who had caused the damage: \"Does it make you feel good that you've helped ruin your city? To wake up with a bag full of stolen stuff beside you?\"\n\nA night-time curfew from 21:00 (20:00 GMT) to 04:30 was imposed last Saturday to halt the spread of the virus. Anyone caught violating it faces a €95 (£84) fine. Mr Hoekstra said they would not \"capitulate to a few idiots\" and anyone who caused damage should be tracked down and be made to pay for it.\n\nSome of the worst damage was caused in the southern city of Den Bosch\n\nThe Netherlands has had nearly a million confirmed Covid cases since the start of the outbreak, with more than 13,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University in the US, which is tracking the pandemic.\n\nRiot police clashed with protesters in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, as well as Amersfoort, Den Bosch, Alphen and Helmond.\n\nSome of the worst disturbances were in the south of Rotterdam where police said 10 officers were hurt. Most of the rioters were youths or young men, and Amsterdam's mayor appealed to parents to keep young people indoors.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Dutch police have described it as the worst unrest in four decades\n\nFires were lit on the streets of The Hague, where police on bicycles attempted to move small clusters of men who threw stones and fireworks.\n\nIn Den Bosch in the south, rioters set off fireworks, broke windows, looted a supermarket and overturned cars. A local woman told Dutch radio that masked youths had left a trail of destruction in the city centre. \"I saw windows smashed and fireworks going off. Really crazy, just like a war zone,\" she said.\n\nSeveral cities have vowed to introduce emergency measures in an effort to prevent more disturbances\n\nRoads into Den Bosch were closed to stop people joining the rioters and Mayor Jack Mikkers imposed an emergency order banning gatherings on Tuesday.\n\nThe region's chief prosecutor, Heleen Rutgers, urged parents to ensure teenagers stayed at home. \"Start talking about how to respond to calls on social media to go and turn up somewhere,\" she told public broadcaster NOS.\n\nIn some southern cities, such as Maastricht and Breda, football fans marched through the centres promising to protect them from rioters. Ex-football international Robin van Persie appealed to people in Rotterdam to keep \"our beautiful city\" intact.\n\nThe ignition of discontent has rocked the core of Dutch society.\n\nIn the absence of any legitimate way to socialise, is this simply an outlet for young men to feel part of something, their masks concealing their identities and enabling them to violently channel their frustrations?\n\nThere are more sinister influences at play. Messages on social media, overt and covert, have whipped up anger. Misinformation has even been spread by some politicians.\n\nSome of the worst violence was in Rotterdam\n\nSome feared a curfew would be a tipping point, as Dutch restrictions tighten while some neighbouring countries relax their rules. The vast majority of people in the Netherlands are peacefully observing the curfew.\n\nThe unrest was initially seen as a response to the first \"stay-at-home\" order imposed since Nazi occupation during World War Two. That notion has been dismissed by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who said the rioters were simply criminals and would be treated as such.\n\nBut there are simmering anxieties in Dutch towns and cities, and with less than two months before a general election, voters are vulnerable and the streets volatile.\n\nThere has been widespread shock at the violence. In Rotterdam, where police used water cannon against the rioters, the mayor signed an emergency decree, giving police broader powers of arrest.\n\nThe prime minister said the police had the government's full support: \"The riots have nothing to do with protesting or fighting for freedom.\"\n\nRotterdam shop-owner Emrah Köker said he had no words for what he had seen. \"How can this happen in the Netherlands?\" he asked Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. The justice minister said he challenged anyone to explain what looting a shop had to do with coronavirus.\n\nIn Den Bosch, Maaike Neuféglise said the damage to her shop was heartbreaking and ran into thousands of euros. \"Everything's ruined. I saw the videos, it was a complete invasion. There must have been 40 people in our store,\" she told broadcaster Omroep Brabant.\n\nThe city's mayor said police had struggled to respond to the violence because they were needed in other nearby towns.", "Claudia Marsh was a volunteer for an eating disorder charity which had helped her in the past\n\nAn \"incredible\" recently-qualified teacher has died with coronavirus on her 25th birthday.\n\nClaudia Marsh's death was described as \"sudden and unexpected\" by a charity which had helped her recover from an eating disorder several years ago.\n\nShe had gone on to volunteer for the organisation and became a \"beacon of hope\" for others.\n\nHer mother Tina Marsh, from Heswall in Wirral, said she was \"very proud\" and \"blown away\" by the many tributes.\n\nWriting on Facebook, Ms Marsh said she was a \"beautiful daughter and incredible sister\" who was selfless in her work for Merseyside-based charities Talking Eating Disorders (TEDS) and The Whitechapel Centre.\n\nShe said: \"She loved giving back to people less fortunate than herself.\"\n\nFamily friend Leigh Best, who founded TEDS, described the death as \"heartbreaking\".\n\nShe added: \"Claudia was very special, kind, caring and a dedicated teacher.\n\n\"She supported countless families across the UK. Claudia made her own little packs to give out to others with eating disorders with positive affirmations.\n\n\"She was full of positivity, kindness and hope, and had a smile that would brighten up the whole room.\"\n\nIn a statement, the Whitechapel Centre, where Claudia also volunteered, said staff were \"devastated\", adding she would leave behind a \"legacy of care, dedication and enthusiasm\".\n\nThe charity said she put all of her time and energy into providing food and clothing to those who needed it during the pandemic.\n\n\"Claudia always put others before herself and her memory will live on through the impact and contribution she made to our organisation,\" the centre said.\n\n\"She was instrumental in bringing together our volunteer community.\"\n\nMs Marsh has set up an online fundraising page for the two charities, which has already garnered more than £10,000.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "It wasn't normal when the prime minister stood at the lectern in Downing Street's wood-panelled State Dining Room and announced that four people had died from coronavirus on 9 March last year.\n\nIt wasn't normal, that day, when he announced the obscure-sounding virus was a global pandemic that, in the 21st Century, the UK government would struggle to contain.\n\nIt was unprecedented, in peacetime, when, on 23 March, Boris Johnson instructed the country to stay at home.\n\nIt was shocking when, on 28 March, official figures reported more than 1,000 cases in a single day.\n\nA few weeks later, there were sharp intakes of breath when the UK government's chief scientific adviser told MPs, and all of us, that keeping the numbers of deaths down to around 20,000 would be a \"good outcome\".\n\nIt wasn't normal when the Treasury started paying the wages of millions of people to prevent hardship on a vast scale.\n\nIt wasn't normal when planes stayed on the ground, roads and trains emptied.\n\nIt certainly wasn't normal when classrooms fell largely silent, or when the nooks and crannies of Westminster, usually full of intrigue, emptied.\n\nBut in that new strangeness it became normal, week after week, for millions of us to stand in the street, on balconies or on doorsteps to express thanks to those who care for us.\n\nAnd there is now an emerging routine of the most vulnerable rolling up their sleeves, sometimes in front of the cameras, for vaccines that offer at least part of the route to the future.\n\nYet the daily publication of the numbers of people who have died because of Covid has become an all-too-familiar rhythm.\n\nIn the middle of the afternoon, every day, the latest total emerges. A previously unimaginable communication has become a regular part of the country's conversation.\n\nBut today that number has reached a terrible height. Every one of those 100,000 lives lost leaves its own story, and sorrow, behind.\n\nThis miserable landmark is a moment to remember, maybe, that what has happened in the last year, to our politics, to us all is not normal at all.", "Pictures of the funeral have led to criticism from unionists\n\nPolice have begun an investigation into potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations at the funeral of an IRA man in Londonderry.\n\nEamon McCourt, 62, who reportedly died with Covid-19, was buried on Monday.\n\nUnder current Covid-19 restrictions funerals in Northern Ireland are limited to 25 people.\n\nThe police said a \"significant number of people\" had gathered, in a manner \"likely to be in breach\" of the coronavirus regulations.\n\nPSNI Ch Supt Darrin Jones said anyone found in breach of public health regulations would be reported to the Public Prosecution Service.\n\nHe said police had \"engaged with representatives of the family of the deceased, the local church and local political representatives\", prior to the funeral.\n\n\"As a result, police were given a number of assurances as to the conduct of the funeral, and that people would seek to pay their respects to the deceased from outside their homes rather than gather at the funeral.\"\n\nPictures of the leading republican's funeral show men in white shirts and black ties flanking the cortege and dozens of others behind them.\n\nCh Supt Jones added: \"Regrettably at the funeral on Monday morning, a significant number of people gathered as part of the cortège, in a manner likely to be in breach of the health protection regulations.\"\n\nUnionist politicians had called on the police to act after images circulated online of mourners.\n\nDUP MLA Gary Middleton said those who had abided by Covid-19 restrictions would view the scenes from the funeral \"with dismay\".\n\nHe said it was \"hard to put into words the sheer recklessness of those involved\".\n\n\"Within republicanism it seems that certain individuals are viewed as being more important than public health regulations,\" Mr Middleton said.\n\n\"In those minds the reality of Covid-19 has not been brought home, or at the very least it is viewed as less important than having a public display at a funeral.\n\n\"Such sights are most painful for relatives who have recognised the need for such painful restrictions to be put in place and have abided by them.\"\n\n\"Eamon 'Peggy' McCourt who passed away on Saturday morning was buried from his family home in Creggan, a right accredited to us all.\n\n\"However, it was evident that social-distancing measures and permitted mourner numbers were completely ignored by those in attendance.\n\n\"Again, the majority of people in Northern Ireland who have followed lockdown measures since March 2020 are asking themselves why can republicans do whatever they like?\"\n\nHe called on the police to explain why such \"a large funeral procession was permitted to take place and what actions will follow\".\n\nIn a statement, Sinn Féin said: \"Everyone has a responsibility to follow the public health guidelines.\n\n\"Sinn Féin held its own tribute to his memory online.\"\n\nIn June last year, about 1,800 people attended the funeral of leading IRA member Bobby Storey in west Belfast.\n\nAmong them was Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill, the Sinn Féin vice-president, who later admitted the public health message had been undermined.\n\nIn May, Assistant Chief Constable Alan Todd said there had been social-distancing breaches at funerals in Northern Ireland in both the unionist and nationalist communities.\n\nThis story was amended on 27 January 2021 to remove the phrase 'IRA veteran'. Whilst referring to Mr McCourt's long history in republicanism, we accept the phrase was open to misinterpretation.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe mother of a 15-year-old boy attacked by a group of youths said she heard the gunshots that killed him.\n\nKeon Lincoln was \"set upon\" at about 15:30 GMT on Thursday on Linwood Road in Handsworth, Birmingham, and died later in hospital, police said.\n\nIn an emotional appeal, Sharmaine Lincoln pleaded with the local community to \"help us understand why this has happened\".\n\nFive teenage boys have so far been arrested over his death.\n\nA post-mortem examination revealed Keon was shot and stabbed to death.\n\nKeon Lincoln's mother said not a day would go by when she would not hear her son's \"unbelievable\" laugh\n\nRemembering that afternoon, Ms Lincoln said: \"I heard the gunshots and my first instinct was, 'Where's my son?'\n\n\"A few minutes went by, we heard somebody was in the road and it was my boy.\"\n\nWest Midlands Police arrested three teenagers over the weekend on suspicion of Keon's murder - a 14-year-old boy from Birmingham and two others, aged 15 and 16, at an address in Walsall.\n\nThis is in addition to two 14-year-old boys arrested on Friday, one of whom remains in custody and the other released under investigation.\n\n\"The community needs to step up and put themselves in the shoes of the family,\" police say\n\nDet Ch Insp Alastair Orencas, from West Midlands Police, said the attack on Keon was \"the most pointless use of extreme violence I've witnessed in my 24 years in the police force\".\n\n\"The level of violence has not just caused shock to the family, but to hardened police officers,\" he said. \"It was an absolutely pointless attack, one I can't clear my mind of.\"\n\nThe force is appealing for information and Det Ch Insp Orencas said the community response was \"not where it should be\".\n\n\"These are multiple offenders in broad daylight. I simply don't believe there's not information out there that can help me with the inquiry,\" he said.\n\nKeon Lincoln was attacked on Linwood Road, a residential street in the Handsworth area of Birmingham\n\nMs Lincoln remembered her son as a joker, cheeky - a \"loving child with a jolly spirit\" whose \"unbelievable laugh\" would echo daily around her home.\n\n\"It doesn't make sense, the type of person Keon was, it doesn't make sense as to why someone would want to harm him or take his life in such a brutal way,\" she said.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "People were vaccinated at Cwmbran Stadium on Tuesday\n\nA pledge that 70% of the over-80s would get the Covid-19 vaccine by last weekend was missed, the Welsh Government has admitted.\n\nWeather has been blamed for the problem with figures showing 96,830, or 52.8%, had their first dose.\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford said many over-80s felt unsafe attending appointments amid the snow and ice.\n\nThe pledge had been made by Health Minister Vaughan Gething in the Senedd, last week.\n\nBut earlier, Mr Gething said that as well as missed appointments, five mass vaccination centres were affected by the conditions and \"a range of additional GP clinics didn't go ahead\".\n\nLatest data shows almost 97,000 of the most vulnerable have had a dose - but there is a lag and it can take up to five days for doses injected to be included in the figures. At least 289,566 people have had a first dose - 9.2% of the population.\n\nThat compares to 10.6% in England, 8.6% in Northern Ireland and 8% in Scotland.\n\nMr Drakeford told First Minister's Questions earlier: \"We will not reach the 70% for over-80s because of the interruption to the programme of vaccination that happened on Sunday and on Monday morning.\n\nA pledge 70% of over-80s would be inoculated by last weekend was missed\n\n\"I won't have people over-80 feeling pressurised to come out to be vaccinated when they themselves decide that it is not safe for them to do so.\"\n\nHe said all of those people would have been offered a further opportunity to be vaccinated by the end of Wednesday.\n\nHowever, Mr Drakeford said Wales was on track to meet plans to offer everybody in the top four priority groups (those aged 70 or over) a vaccination by mid-February.\n\nAround 23,700 first doses a day would need to be given for the first four priority groups to be have a vaccine offered by 14 February.\n\nOn the latest seven day rolling average, it would take 25 days.\n\nBut Mr Davies said: \"Welsh Conservatives would have been the first to congratulate the Welsh Government and its health minister had the target been reached on Friday, but that target has been missed.\n\n\"It's the same old Labour story of taking credit when things go well but look to blame anyone and everything else when it goes wrong.\"\n\nIn the Senedd, he accused the government of running a \"postcode lottery\" for vaccinations, which Mr Drakeford denied.\n\nThe first minister said figures had gone from 162,000 people being vaccinated last week to 230,000 this Tuesday.\n\nHe said that was \"the fastest rate of increase in any part of the United Kingdom\", and accused Mr Davies of wanting to \"run it down\".\n\n\"He leads a Conservative party in Wales, which has reverted to its 19th Century type - for Wales, see England.\"\n\nPlaid Cymru's Rhun ap Iorwerth said he did not think \"blaming snow over the weekend holds water\".\n\n\"Snow did cause problems in certain areas but the problem was that you were still on 24% of over-80s in the middle of last week. There was too high a mountain to climb,\" he added.\n\nBut Mr Gething said the weather was an \"obvious factor\" on both Sunday and Monday.\n\nIn a statement, he said more than 11,000 care home residents - 67% of the priority group - had received their first vaccine dose.\n\nOver 65% of Welsh Ambulance Service staff had also taken up the offer of a vaccine.\n\n\"We have seen a significant escalation in the pace of vaccine deployment here in Wales over the last couple of weeks,\" he told Members of the Senedd (MSs).", "Leaders in the US House of Representatives have officially delivered their article of impeachment against former President Donald Trump to the Senate, the first step in beginning his trial.\n\nRead more: Trump impeachment trial delayed until next month", "Anyone entering Australia has to undergo a mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine\n\nAustralia is unlikely to fully open its borders in 2021 even if most of its population gets vaccinated this year as planned, says a senior health official.\n\nThe comments dampen hopes raised by airlines that travel to and from the country could resume as early as July.\n\nDepartment of Health Secretary Brendan Murphy made the prediction after being asked about the coronavirus' escalation in other nations.\n\nDr Murphy spearheaded Australia's early action to close its borders last March.\n\n\"I think that we'll go most of this year with still substantial border restrictions,\" he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday.\n\n\"Even if we have a lot of the population vaccinated, we don't know whether that will prevent transmission of the virus,\" he said, adding that he believed quarantine requirements for travellers would continue \"for some time\".\n\nCitizens, permanent residents and those with exemptions are allowed to enter Australia if they complete a 14-day hotel quarantine at their own expense.\n\nDr Brendan Murphy (left) was Australia's chief medical officer and now leads the Department of Health\n\nQantas - Australia's national carrier - reopened bookings earlier this month, after saying it expected international travel to \"begin to restart from July 2021.\"\n\nHowever, it added this depended on the Australian government's deciding to reopen borders.\n\nThe country opened a travel bubble with neighbouring New Zealand late last year, but currently it only operates one-way with inbound flights to Australia.\n\nAustralia has also discussed the option of travel bubbles with other low-risk places such as Taiwan, Japan and Singapore.\n\nA passenger from New Zealand arriving at Sydney Airport last October\n\nA vaccination scheme is due to begin in Australia in late February. Local authorities have resisted calls to speed up the process, giving more time for regulatory approvals.\n\nAustralia has so far reported 909 deaths and about 22,000 cases, far fewer than many nations. It reported zero locally transmitted infections on Monday.\n\nExperts have attributed much of Australia's success to its swift border lockdown - which affected travellers from China as early as February - and a hotel quarantine system for people entering the country.\n\nLocal outbreaks have been caused by hotel quarantine breaches, including a second wave in Melbourne. The city's residents endured a stringent four-month lockdown last year to successfully suppress the virus.\n\nOther outbreaks - including one in Sydney which has infected about 200 people - prompted internal border closures between states, and other restrictions around Christmas time.\n\nThe state of Victoria said on Monday it would again allow entry to Sydney residents outside of designated \"hotspots\", following a decline in cases.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Travel abroad UK: How to fly during a global pandemic\n\nWhile the measures have been praised, many have also criticised them for separating families across state borders and damaging businesses.\n\nDr Murphy said overall Australia's virus response had been \"pretty good\" but he believed the nation could have introduced face masks earlier and improved its protections in aged care homes.\n\nIn recent days, Australia has granted entry to about 1,200 tennis players, staff and officials for the Australian Open. The contingent - which has recorded at least nine infections - is under quarantine.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ms Davies-Jones wanted to highlight how \"vitally important\" smear tests are\"\n\nAn MP has described how she had to have most of her cervix removed after putting off a smear test for several months.\n\nPontypridd MP Alex Davies-Jones, 31, said she was invited for her first routine screening in December 2015 and \"like so many others, I put it off\".\n\nFollowing a reminder in April 2016 she went for the cervical screening.\n\nShe wrote in the i newspaper it led to her being diagnosed with CIN3, abnormal cells and had to have surgery.\n\nIf left untreated, CIN3 can have a high chance of becoming cancerous.\n\nMs Davies-Jones wrote in the paper she was left \"without the majority of my cervix\" after the surgery.\n\nShe said she used her article to urge others \"don't delay in booking\" and said she felt compelled to write about her experiences for Cervical Cancer Prevention Week.\n\nA cervical screening checks the health of your cervix.\n\nA small sample of cells is taken from the cervix and checked for certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV) that can cause changes to the cells.\n\nIf present the sample is then checked for any changes in the cells which can be treated before they get a chance to turn into cervical cancer.\n\nThe NHS advises women between the ages of 25 to 49 to have a smear test every three years.\n\nAlex Davies-Jones became the Labour MP for Pontypridd in the 2019 General Election\n\nShe wrote: \"I used all of the usual excuses that you may have heard before.\n\n\"I was simply too busy, I couldn't get an appointment and I had no symptoms or abnormalities that were worrying me.\"\n\nMs Davies-Jones wrote she thought the routine screening would \"just be five minutes of awkward conversation with the nurse at my local GP whilst taking my knickers off\".\n\n\"I didn't ever think that there could be a chance that my cells would be 'abnormal' and that the next few months of my life would leave me terrified and constantly contemplating my own mortality.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Chloe Delevingne had a smear test live on the Victoria Derbyshire programme to show what the procedure involved\n\nIf she had put off the screening any longer \"the situation could have been different\", the MP wrote.\n\nShe said she first received a type of laser treatment to \"burn off the abnormal cells from my cervix\" but more treatment was needed after the doctor told her the abnormal cells on her cervix were \"embedded deeper and looked more challenging than expected\".\n\nThen she had to have surgery, a \"cold knife biopsy\".\n\n\"I was without the majority of my cervix, but my life was saved. It was over,\" she wrote.\n\n\"Sadly, for many this isn't the case. For the next few years, I attended screenings every six months to ensure the abnormal cells didn't return.\n\n\"My last screening was in April 2018. Thankfully again all was fine but the anxiety and fear that surrounded me as I awaited those results has stayed with me even now.\"\n\nShe went on to give birth to her son Sullivan in March 2019.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "In 2009, Spector was convicted of the 2003 murder of Hollywood actress Lana Clarkson\n\nThe BBC has apologised for the original headline in its reporting of the death of the convicted murderer Phil Spector.\n\nThe former music producer died on Saturday at the age of 81, while serving a prison sentence for the murder of Lana Clarkson in 2003.\n\nThe first version on the breaking news story on the BBC News website carried the headline: \"Talented but flawed producer Phil Spector dies aged 81\".\n\nThe BBC said the headline \"did not meet our editorial standards\".\n\nThe text was quickly changed to: \"Pop producer jailed for murder dies at 81.\"\n\n\"This was changed within minutes and we also deleted a tweet that had gone out automatically with the original headline,\" a statement issued by the BBC read.\n\n\"We apologise for this error.\"\n\n\"Our coverage of the story across BBC News has been clear that Phil Spector was convicted of the murder of Lana Clarkson and had a long history of violence and abuse,\" it continued.\n\nSpector was convicted of murdering Clarkson, an actress, in 2009.\n\nHis death was confirmed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.\n\nReacting to the original version of the BBC's story, pop star Lily Allen tweeted: \"Rolling eyes at all the journos deliberately downplaying Phil Spector being a murderer in their headlines, so everyone points this out while linking to their articles resulting in lots of clicks.\"\n\n\"How about 'Murderer, Phil Spector dies aged 81'?\" offered author and historian Hallie Rubenhold.\n\nThe headline was also discussed on TV and radio programmes on Monday, including Loose Women and Radio 4's Woman's Hour, and prompted an article in the Guardian.\n\nThe phrasing of the BBC's article - and others like it - were \"a reflection of how a man's 'genius' is often viewed as more important than a woman's humanity,\" said columnist Arwa Mahdawi.\n\nSpector, who transformed pop with his \"wall of sound\" recordings, worked with The Beatles, The Righteous Brothers and Tina Turner.\n\nBut after the commercial failure of Tina Turner's River Deep, Mountain High, he largely withdrew from public life, and entered a long decline, marked by erratic behaviour, heavy drinking, and a fondness for guns.\n\nHis turbulent marriage to Ronettes singer Veronica Bennett, known as Ronnie Spector, ended in divorce.\n\n\"Unfortunately Phil was not able to live and function outside of the recording studio,\" she wrote after his death was announced. \"Darkness set in, many lives were damaged.\"\n\nSinger Darlene Love, who sang on several songs Spector produced, said he \"changed the sound of rock 'n' roll\" but likened their relationship to \"a bad marriage\".\n\n\"The problem I have with Phil is that he wanted to control Darlene Love's talent,\" she told Variety. \"If he couldn't do that, he was going to do everything in his power to keep my talent from shining.\"\n\nWeeks before Lana Clarkson was shot dead, Spector gave a rare interview to British broadsheet The Telegraph.\n\n\"I would say I'm probably relatively insane, to an extent,\" he told the paper, adding that he had \"devils inside that fight me\".\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'I was spat at working as an ambulance paramedic'\n\nAfter experiencing its most difficult period of the entire Covid-19 pandemic in December, the boss of Welsh Ambulance Service said it was still under \"extreme pressure\".\n\nAt one stage, 400 staff - 12% of all workers - were sick or self-isolating.\n\nJason Killens said this was exacerbated by high call numbers and \"significant delays\" handing patients to hospitals.\n\nOne paramedic described questioning whether he was in the right job after being spat at during the pandemic.\n\nThe chief executive said it meant \"patients with less serious conditions waited much longer than we would like\".\n\nParamedic Stan Baxter was assaulted by someone who spat at him\n\nParamedic Stan Baxter, describing the pressure he and colleagues were under, said at one point an incident caused him to question whether he wanted to continue working.\n\n\"During the peak of the pandemic last year, I was assaulted by a member of the public where I was spat at in the face,\" he said.\n\n\"And that's really the only time that I've stopped and gone: 'Is this for me?'\"\n\nHowever the \"vast majority of the public\" had been \"absolutely fantastic\", he stressed, adding: \"We've had people waving at us, buying us coffee.\"\n\nLuke Robinson and Stan Baxter must wear more protective equipment when they help patients\n\nFor his work partner, Luke Robinson, their job made it clear how coronavirus had made a resurgence across the country.\n\n\"I worked New Year's Eve and I responded to a number of incidents which involved just regular health complaints,\" he said.\n\n\"But next door or in the adjacent building there's people having parties and you can tell that there's large gatherings going on. And it's really frustrating because it really hammers home that some people aren't listening to the rules.\n\n\"And it's not surprising that we're seeing a second wave now.\"\n\nMr Killens said the pressure was now \"palpably less\" compared to last month, but admitted difficult weeks lie ahead.\n\n\"December was probably the most pressurised period during the whole pandemic for a number of reasons,\" he said.\n\n\"Staff that were symptomatic or isolating, that's been at its peak in December.\n\n\"We've seen more work both in the 111 and 999 service, that is patients contacting us with Covid-related symptoms, and of course because of the pressure on the rest of the NHS, we've seen extended handover at some of our emergency departments and what that's meant regrettably is some less serious patients have waited a lot longer in the community than I would have expected.\"\n\nSoldiers have been helping to relieve pressure on ambulance staff\n\nThe ambulance service has been at its highest level of alert - described as \"extreme pressure\" - since early December.\n\nIt was so bad at the beginning of the month, the service had to declare a \"critical incident\", because of severe problems in south east Wales in particular - and one man had to wait 19 hours in an ambulance outside a hospital.\n\nThis strain has been partly blamed for deteriorating ambulance response times, with the situation exacerbated by the fact hospitals are struggling.\n\nAmbulances spent more than 11,661 hours outside emergency departments waiting to transfer patients in December - an equivalent to a total of more than 485 days. The average delay was one hour and eight minutes.\n\nThe Ambulance Service has been hit by high numbers of staff sick or self-isolating\n\n\"We would usually see handover delays through winter - but what's unique this time is the overlay of the pandemic,\" Mr Killens added.\n\n\"There has to be additional distancing, this means less capacity in emergency departments.\n\n\"Testing also needs to be done before patients are admitted - the additional complexities mean the process is slower and there's less space for patients to go into.\"\n\nHe said the impact of implementing Covid precautions is also affecting how quickly crews can respond.\n\n\"As a result of the virus, we're having to clean vehicles and equipment more frequently and thoroughly than before,\" Mr Killens said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\n\"Also there are levels for personal protective equipment that staff have to wear to protect themselves and others. Level three - the highest in some cases.\n\n\"And it takes a number of minutes for crews to put that on before staff treat the patients.\"\n\nTo bolster staffing levels and speed up response times, about 80 soldiers are assisting the Welsh Ambulance Service for the second time since the start of the pandemic - along with smaller number of staff from other services like the fire service.\n\n\"They are driving emergency ambulances for us... which means an emergency ambulance clinician can look after the patient,\" Mr Killens added.\n\n\"They'll drive the ambulance from the scene to hospital... it enables us to put more ambulances on the streets to respond to patients more quickly given the levels of absence that we've seen.\"\n\nParamedics now have to carry out a more rigorous and time-consuming cleaning regime\n\nAfter facing relentless pressure for close to a year, Mr Killens is worried about the impact on mental health and well-being of ambulance and control centre staff.\n\nThe service is focused on \"what we can do to keep them fit and well\", he said.\n\nBut he praised staff for \"stepping up to the plate\" - and insists some of the lessons learnt during the last year will benefit the service during the longer term.\n\n\"I've been in the ambulance sector for 25 years and this is like dealing with a very long incident,\" said Mr Killens.\n\n\"So, a major incident an emergency service routinely responds to generally will be over in a couple of hours. But the level of pressure has been sustained now for 12 months.\n\n\"All of our people have stepped up and done what was necessary and got on with providing the best care in really difficult circumstances.... we will come through it and at the end of the pandemic and will be a stronger organisation for it.\"\n\nHe believes the service is now \"on the home straight\" in dealing with the pandemic.\n\n\"We've had two waves of this virus and learnt much along the way, and with a vaccine rollout we have a real opportunity now to see an end to the disruption, the personal impact and the level of death and harm,\" Mr Killens said.\n\n\"By the time we get to the other side of the spring, probably we will be able to return to some kind of normality whatever that will be 18 months into a pandemic.\n\n\"There's a couple of difficult weeks to come, but if we can emerge through February and March, provided we all stick to the rules, because it's easy for the virus to grab hold again if we get complacent .... we'll be in a far better position as we come to the spring.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sheku Bayoh death: Eyewitness says stamping attack on officer 'never happened'\n\nTwo police officers involved in the death of a black man they were restraining may have provided false statements, the BBC can reveal.\n\nThey said Sheku Bayoh carried out a stamping attack on a female PC before he was brought to the ground and restrained by up to six officers.\n\nBut now an eyewitness has spoken publicly for the first time about the 2015 incident.\n\nHe told a Panorama investigation that the stamping attack \"never happened\".\n\nThe Scottish Police Federation said its officers had cooperated truthfully with investigators.\n\nMr Bayoh, a 31-year-old father of two, died in the incident in the Fife town of Kirkcaldy in 2015.\n\nA public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death has recently got under way. One of its tasks is to examine whether his race was a factor.\n\nSheku Bayoh was restrained on the ground for five minutes before falling unconscious\n\nOn the night of 2 May 2015, Sheku Bayoh had taken drugs, which friends said dramatically altered his behaviour.\n\nPolice were called early the following morning after he was spotted behaving erratically with a knife in the streets of his home town.\n\nAccording to police statements, by the time the officers arrived at the scene Mr Bayoh no longer had the knife but he failed to obey instructions to get down on the ground.\n\nEach of the officers used force on Mr Bayoh within seconds of encountering him, including CS Spray and batons.\n\nHe then punched PC Nicole Short, who went to the ground.\n\nTwo officers, PCs Craig Walker and Ashley Tomlinson, would later tell investigators that Mr Bayoh then carried out a violent stamping attack on PC Short while she lay on the ground, a claim reported widely in the media.\n\nThe stamping attack was widely reported in the newspapers\n\nPC Walker told investigators: \"I had a clear view of him… he had his arms raised up at right angles to his body and brought his right foot down in a full-force stamp on to her lower back.\"\n\nPC Tomlinson said: \"I thought he had killed her. He stomped on her back again.\"\n\nNow, evidence obtained by Panorama suggests these accounts may be false.\n\nMr Bayoh was restrained on the ground for five minutes before falling unconscious. He was pronounced dead at hospital a short time later.\n\nA post-mortem examination report revealed 23 separate injuries to Mr Bayoh's body, including a broken rib and gashes to his head. The cause of death was recorded as \"sudden death in a man intoxicated [with drugs] whilst under restraint\".\n\nIn 2018, the Crown Office in Scotland decided there would be no prosecutions against any officers involved.\n\nKevin Nelson gave evidence to investigators two days after the incident\n\nKevin Nelson was in a nearby house and saw events unfold over a garden hedge.\n\nHe gave his account to investigators from Pirc (Police Investigations and Review Commissioner), which investigates deaths in custody, two days after the incident.\n\nSpeaking publicly for the first time, Mr Nelson told Panorama he saw Mr Bayoh attempt to walk away from the officers, ignoring their commands, before being sprayed with CS spray. He said Mr Bayoh retaliated and punched PC Short.\n\nAsked if there had been any further contact with PC Short, he said, \"No. He was running off… after the punch, there was no more attack on her at all.\"\n\nMr Nelson said Mr Bayoh ran off from where PC Short went down and was quickly intercepted by the other officers.\n\nAsked about PC Walker's claim that Mr Bayoh had \"his arms raised up… and brought his right foot down in a full force stamp\", Mr Nelson said: \"That never happened. I didn't see him stamping at all or, other than the punch, any raised arms.\n\n\"After the punch, that was it. There was no more attack on her at all. That's not right.\"\n\nThe officers provided their accounts to investigators 32 days after Mr Bayoh's death.\n\nMr Nelson said no-one from Pirc returned to ask about the discrepancy between their account and his.\n\nThe eyewitness said he decided to speak out because it was unfair on Mr Bayoh's family that the officers had \"made the incident worse than it actually was to justify what had happened and… that's not right\".\n\nMr Nelson's account is supported by CCTV footage of the incident, obtained by the BBC.\n\nIt is poor quality but appears to show that once PC Short is knocked down by Mr Bayoh, the action moves away from her, and he is brought down within five seconds.\n\nPC Short did not mention in her statement she had been stamped on. Now retired, she later said she was unsure if she was conscious, and only learned about the alleged stamping attack when her colleagues told her about it afterwards.\n\nIn the CCTV, PC Short appears to get to her feet a few seconds after Mr Bayoh is brought down.\n\nMike Franklin says conflicts of evidence should have been resolved\n\nMike Franklin, former commissioner for the body which investigated police complaints in England and Wales, looked at Panorama's evidence.\n\nHe said: \"I think there's nothing more serious than a police officer who gives false information in an investigation where somebody has died. So without accusing them of lying, I simply say that there's a big conflict.\n\n\"Two officers who were there say that it did happen. The person to whom it happened didn't mention it. And an eyewitness says it didn't happen.\n\n\"I would've been reluctant to sign off the investigation as complete, without resolving those… conflicts of evidence.\"\n\nMr Bayoh's sister, Kadi Johnson, told Panorama the new allegations had made her \"really angry\".\n\nShe said the way her brother was \"painted\" by the accounts given after his death was not who he was.\n\nMr Bayoh's sister, Kadi Johnson, said the new allegations had made her really angry\n\nA spokesman for the Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said serving officers were unable to comment on matters \"to which they may be called upon to give sworn evidence\" but that they had \"co-operated fully and truthfully with the investigations that have taken place\".\n\nIt added it had seen \"compelling material that Mr Bayoh did violently stamp on the back of a policewoman as she lay unconscious\".\n\nThe BBC asked for this material to be produced but was told the inquiry was the \"proper forum\" for such matters.\n\nThe Crown Office, which directed the Pirc Inquiry, told Panorama it had examined \"eye-witness accounts of police and civilian witnesses\" and instructed \"appropriate investigation\".\n\nIt said after careful consideration it was decided there should be no prosecutions but reserved the right to prosecute should evidence become available.\n\nPirc told Panorama its investigation was \"detailed and extensive\" but could not comment further because of the public inquiry.\n\nPolice Scotland Chief Constable Iain Livingstone expressed his condolences to the Bayoh family and said the force would \"participate fully\" in the inquiry.\n\nKevin Clarke died after being restrained in London by up to nine officers\n\nPanorama's \"I Can't Breathe: Black and Dead in Custody\" also investigates the case of Kevin Clarke, 35, who died in 2018 after being restrained in London by up to nine officers.\n\nAn inquest into his death resulted in a damning verdict on the police and ambulance services.\n\nMr Clarke's sister Tellecia told the programme that if the officers \"hadn't used excessive force he would still be here today… treat him like a human being, and not just see him as a big scary black man\".\n\nMetropolitan Police Commander Bas Javid apologised to Mr Clarke's family and accepted the restraint had not been appropriate.", "Lisbet Stone is stranded at Madrid Airport due to having an out-of-date coronavirus test result\n\nPassenger Lisbet Stone says she is stuck in Madrid Airport after airline officials said her coronavirus test result was out of date.\n\nFrom Monday, travellers arriving in the UK, whether by boat, train or plane, have to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test to be allowed entry.\n\nThe test must be taken in the three days before travelling.\n\nFor those with connecting flights, the test must be 72 hours before your final departure point to England.\n\nAnyone arriving without one faces a fine of up to £500.\n\nMrs Stone originally travelled to Cuba in February 2020 to see family. The British Cuban dual national was unable to fly home to the UK when Cuba closed its borders in March.\n\nThe family say she had several previous flights cancelled before finally being able to leave this weekend. She hasn't been able to see her four children or her husband Trevor in 11 months.\n\nThe government are understood to be speaking to Air Europa to try to get Mrs Stone home. Carriers have been told that they should permit stranded passengers to board and will not be fined for doing so.\n\nWhile Mrs Stone has been caught out by the new restrictions for incoming travellers, the first day of the new regulations appeared to go smoothly.\n\nMrs Stone left Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba, on Sunday night to fly back to the UK via Madrid.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Coronavirus: How to fly during a global pandemic (this video reflects the rules before the hotel quarantine was introduced in the UK)\n\nShe took a Covid test on Thursday to be guaranteed a result by Saturday. It was negative and Mrs Stone was able to board the plane from Cuba.\n\nHowever, on arrival at Madrid-Barajas Airport, Mrs Stone says she was stopped from boarding the next leg of her journey to London Gatwick by Air Europa staff, because her test had been taken more than 72 hours before the final flight.\n\n\"She's crying her eyes out,\" says Trevor Stone, her husband. \"I feel absolutely helpless. She doesn't have any Euros as she wasn't meant to stay in Spain. The authorities have given her no help whatsoever, we are just trying to understand what to do.\n\n\"She took her test 72 hours before the start of her journey, but had to take a connecting flight onwards. There would be no other way to do it, it is not physically possible.\"\n\nIn the meantime, Mr Stone says he has been home-schooling their four children on his own through the pandemic.\n\nTrevor Stone (left) has been caring for the couple's four children on his own for 11 months since Lisbet Stone was unable to leave Cuba\n\n\"We are just desperate to get her home - I'm so worried about her and after 11 months, she really wants to see her children,\" he added. \"We haven't done anything wrong, I don't know what to do or who to turn to.\"\n\nA Department for Transport spokesman said: \"Passengers travelling to the UK must provide proof of a negative coronavirus test which meets the performance standards set out by the government in the guidance published on gov.uk.\n\n\"The type of test could include a PCR test or antigen test, including a lateral flow test. Anyone who cannot provide the necessary documentation may not be allowed to board their flight.\"\n\nAir Europa and Madrid Airport have been approached by the BBC for comment.", "Medical staff are expected to \"face pressures unlike any other they have faced before\" as NI approaches its toughest week so far in the pandemic.\n\nThe British Medical Association has said while its doctors are \"coping\", many feel they are unable to give care to the \"standard they would want\".\n\nThe peak in intensive care is predicted to happen next weekend.\n\nThe head of the BMA in NI, Dr Tom Black has been critical of the way this wave of the pandemic has been managed.\n\nHe said: \"Staff will do their best in a very difficult situation, where many decisions in this pandemic were made too late.\"\n\nWhile it is expected the number of hospital admissions will peak sometime over the next eight to 10 days, the number requiring intensive care treatment is likely to continue increasing for at least another fortnight.\n\nDr Black said he was concerned for both patients and staff.\n\nHe said: \"It is likely that over the next few weeks doctors will be asked to work in a new location or provide support to areas that are already overstretched.\n\n\"Many have already had planned annual leave cancelled.\"\n\nThere were a further 19 virus-related deaths and 640 more Covid-19 cases reported in Northern Ireland on Monday.\n\nThe latest figures from the Department of Health bring the total number of deaths to 1,625, while 96,001 people have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began.\n\nSome 65 patients are in ICU, down two from the last report, and 51 patients are being ventilated.\n\nSince the vaccine rollout began in NI, 146,733 people have been vaccinated, according to the Department of Health.\n\nOf that number, 125,717 were first doses and 21,016 were second jabs.\n\nA total of 31,393 people from the over-80 age group have been vaccinated.\n\nEarlier the BMA told BBC News NI that more than 90,000 doses the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had arrived in Northern Ireland but the Department of Health has said it is anticipated separate deliveries will arrive by this weekend.\n\nDr Black said many staff members had reported feeling \"exhausted and demoralised\" and he warned that when it came to reviewing how the pandemic was handled \"this phase will stand out as one where we could have planned better\".\n\nHealth Minister Robin Swann said the next seven days is \"when we will see that real intense pressure coming on our inpatients and intensive care units\".\n\n\"Our worst case scenario has modelling up to 1,200 inpatients - and that's a serious pressure that comes on our system,\" he told Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme.\n\n\"We can go up into nearly 200 ICU capacity but that comes at a stretch, that comes with putting our staff under severe pressure in ICU units.\n\n\"It also comes by having to shift the ICU specialist nurse from a ratio of one-to-one to a ratio of one-to-two or even one-to-three in extreme pressures.\n\n\"That's not something we want to do,\" he added.\n\nThe past week saw hospitals across Northern Ireland coming together in order to cope with the strain.\n\nOn 10 January, the Southern Health Trust was on the cusp of declaring a major incident amid the mounting pressures across the health service.\n\nThat was avoided as many off-duty staff answered a call to come into work and the health trusts pulled together to provide a regional response to the crisis.\n\nPatients were diverted to those hospitals which could take them and where infrastructure could cope with supplying additional oxygen to the very ill.\n\nOver the weekend of 9/10 January the Southern Health Trust - the smallest of the health trusts - was dealing with the highest number of patients who required oxygen.\n\nIn the past week the Northern and Southern Health Trusts have seen the highest number of patients.\n\nThat reflects the high rate of community transmission in some areas those trusts cover.\n\nMeanwhile, no resolution has been reached between Stormont leaders and the Irish Government over the sharing of passenger data.\n\nLast week, First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill criticised Dublin for failing to share information on travellers arriving there during the pandemic.\n\nMichelle O'Neill said it was \"regrettable\" the issue has not been resolved\n\nFirst Minister Arlene Foster said repeated efforts to access data on passenger locator forms filled out by people arriving in the Republic of Ireland had failed.\n\nMrs Foster and Ms O'Neill indicated on Thursday that they planned to raise the matter directly with Taoiseach (Irish prime minsiter) Micheál Martin.\n\nMs O'Neill told the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday that no resolution has been found yet.\n\nShe told MLAs the issue had been raised \"on every occasion we have had the opportunity\" and that it was \"regrettable\" that the issue had not been resolved.\n\nThe travel issue will be discussed at a meeting on Wednesday involving the first minister, the deputy first minister, Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and NI Secretary of State Brandon Lewis.\n\n\"I hope that perhaps Wednesday's meeting will allow some opportunity for there to be a way forward,\" the deputy first minister added.\n\nIt was announced on Sunday that all travellers who have returned from Portugal or transited through 16 South American countries in the past 14 days will have to - along with their household - self-isolate for 10 days upon return to Northern Ireland.\n\nThis includes travellers who entered these countries en route to another destination. All travellers returning home from South America are advised to be tested, whether or not they have symptoms.\n\nFrom Thursday, all international travellers will be required to present a negative Covid-19 test result before arriving in Northern Ireland.\n\nThis rule comes into effect in England, Scotland and Wales on Monday.\n\nOn Monday, the Department of Health in the Republic of Ireland reported eight more coronavirus-related deaths.\n\nIt brings its death toll to 2,616.\n\nThe department said 2,121 new cases of the virus had been reported, with a cumulative total of 174,843 infections.\n\nIt said that as of 14:00 local time on Monday, 1,975 Covid-19 patients are in hospital, of which 200 are in ICU (intensive care units).\n\nIrish Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, said: \"This third wave of the pandemic has seen higher level of hospitalisations across all age groups.\n\n\"There are now more sick people in hospital than any time in the course of this pandemic\".", "All travellers arriving in the UK will need to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test\n\nAll UK travel corridors, which allow arrivals from some countries to avoid having to quarantine, have now closed.\n\nTravellers arriving in the UK, whether by boat, train or plane, also have to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test to be allowed entry.\n\nThe test must be taken in the 72 hours before travelling and anyone arriving without one faces a fine of up to £500.\n\nAll passengers will still be required to quarantine for up to 10 days.\n\nThe isolation period can be cut short with a negative test after five days in England, but it does not apply in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.\n\nThe government has said the travel corridor closure will be in force until at least 15 February.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Coronavirus: How to fly during a global pandemic (this video reflects the rules before the hotel quarantine was introduced in the UK)\n\nUnder the new rules, travellers arriving from the Falklands, St Helena and Ascension Islands are exempt.\n\nThose arriving from some Caribbean islands are exempt until 04:00 GMT on Thursday 21 January.\n\nForeign Secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC'S Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that Public Health England would be stepping up checks on travellers who must self-isolate.\n\nHe said enforcement checks at borders would also be \"ramped up\" and added that asking all arrivals to self-isolate in hotels was a \"potential measure\" the government was keeping under review.\n\nPassengers arriving into London's Heathrow airport on Monday said they had been met with \"substantial\" queues at passport control and one couple complained they had \"felt unsafe\" due to what they described as poor social distancing.\n\nPassengers speak to staff at the entrance to the Covid-19 Testing Centre at Heathrow\n\nAndy Hart, from London, who had arrived into the UK from Nairobi, said: \"We felt that even though everyone was masked they were far too close together.\n\n\"It took an hour and 10 minutes. I've been flying 30 times a year for 20 years. I mean, once or twice have I ever seen it [airport queues] like this. How can this happen during Covid times?\"\n\nMeanwhile on Sunday, the government announced that a financial support scheme for airports in England would open this month in response to the new travel curbs.\n\nAviation minister Robert Courts said the aim was to provide grants of up to £8m per applicant by the end of this financial year. The scheme was first announced in November but without a start date.\n\nIndustry groups have warned there was only so long airports could \"run on fumes\", following the announcement of the new quarantine rules.\n\nEasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren said the closure of the travel corridors will not have a \"significant impact\" on his airline in the short term as flight numbers were already limited due to the pandemic.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the minimum number of days arrivals must wait to take a negative test releasing them from quarantine could be reduced from five days to three days.\n\nKaren Dee, chief executive of trade body the Airport Operators Association, said she supported the decision to close the travel corridors but stressed the need for \"a clear pathway out\".\n\nA ban on travellers from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde also came into force on Friday, having been imposed over concerns about a new variant identified in Brazil.\n\nNew variants causing concern have previously been identified in the UK and South Africa, with many countries imposing restrictions on arrivals from both nations.\n\nScientists fear the variants seen in South Africa and Brazil may interfere with the effectiveness of vaccines and evade parts of the immune system.\n\nThe travel industry has said closing the travel corridors was understandable due to the health emergency, but warned it would deepen the crisis for the sector.\n\nTim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK, said the system had been \"a lifeline for the industry\" last summer but \"things change and there's no doubting this is a serious health emergency\". He said he assumed the government would remove the latest restrictions as soon as it was safe.\n\n\"We've had no revenue now effectively for 12 months, give or take a few months in the summer last year. If we're going to have an aviation sector coming out of this we need to open up in the summer,\" he told the BBC.\n\nThe Department for Transport has said it is supporting the travel industry with an extension to the furlough scheme until the end of April, business rates relief and tax deferrals.\n\nWith all parts of the UK under strict virus rules amid high levels of infection, only essential travel is permitted.\n\nOn Sunday, another 671 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test were reported in the UK, and a further 38,598 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus.\n\nAre you due to travel back to the UK from overseas? Do you work in the travel industry? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Phil Spector pictured in court during his murder trial\n\nUS music producer Phil Spector has died at the age of 81, while serving a prison sentence for murder.\n\nSpector, who transformed pop with his \"wall of sound\" recordings, worked with the Beatles, the Righteous Brothers and Ike and Tina Turner.\n\nIn 2009, he was convicted of the 2003 murder of Hollywood actress Lana Clarkson.\n\nHis death was confirmed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.\n\n\"California Health Care Facility inmate Phillip Spector was pronounced deceased of natural causes at 6:35 p.m. on Saturday, January 16, 2021, at an outside hospital. His official cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner in the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office,\" it said.\n\nSpector produced 20 top 40 hits between 1961 and 1965. His production methods influenced major artists including the Beach Boys and Bruce Springsteen.\n\nHis life was ultimately blighted by drug and alcohol addiction, and he all but retired from the music scene during the 1980s and 1990s.\n\nIn February 2003, actress Lana Clarkson was found dead at his house in Alhambra, California with a bullet wound to her head. Clarkson, who was known for her work in the sword-and-sorcery genre and starred in films including Barbarian Queen, had met Spector hours earlier at a nightclub.\n\nSpector claimed the shooting happened when Clarkson \"kissed the gun\" - but his trial heard from four women who claimed Spector had threatened them with guns in the past when they had spurned his advances.\n\nFollowing an initial mistrial, Spector was convicted of second degree murder and given a sentence of 19 years to life.\n\nLana Clarkson was an actress and model who starred in the film 1985 Barbarian Queen\n\nHarvey Phillip Spector was born in New York in 1939, to Russian-Jewish parents. His father killed himself when Spector was a boy, and his mother moved her family to Los Angeles.\n\nHe began his career in his teens as a performer, forming a band - the Teddy Bears - with three high school friends. They had a hit single in 1958 with a song that took its title from the wording on his father's gravestone: \"To know him is to love him.\"\n\nThe record went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, but the group split the following year.\n\nSpector founded his own record label, Philles, in 1961. He produced high-profile 1960s girl groups such as Crystals and the Ronettes, including on 1963 hits Be My Baby and Baby I Love You.\n\nHe also worked on The Righteous Brothers' hits You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' and Unchained Melody.\n\nSpector produced hits for The Ronettes, later marrying their lead singer Ronnie Bennett\n\nHis signature production technique, the \"Wall of Sound,\" involved layering several instruments, including strings, woodwind and brass, to give a lush, orchestral sound.\n\nIn the early 1970s, Spector collaborated with The Beatles on their final album Let It Be, as well as producing John Lennon's solo album Imagine.\n\nAs the decade progressed, the much-feted producer became reclusive and disturbing accounts of his behaviour became widespread. Spector is said to have held a gun to singer Leonard Cohen's head during sessions for his album Death of a Ladies' Man.\n\nRonettes lead singer Veronica \"Ronnie\" Bennett, who became Spector's second wife and divorced him in 1974, wrote in her 1990 autobiography that he subjected her to years of horrific abuse. She said he had threatened to kill her and display her body in a glass-topped coffin he kept in her basement.\n\n\"I can only say that when I left in the early '70s, I knew that if I didn't leave at that time, I was going to die there,\" Ronnie wrote of the time.\n\nWriting on Instagram after her ex-husband's death, Ronnie Spector said he had been \"a brilliant producer but a lousy husband\".\n\n\"When I was working with Phil Spector, watching him create in the recording studio, I knew I was working with the very best,\" she wrote. \"He was in complete control, directing everyone. So much to love about those days.\n\n\"Meeting him and falling in love was like a fairytale,\" she continued. \"The magical music we were able to make together was inspired by our love. I loved him madly, and gave my heart and soul to him.\n\n\"Unfortunately Phil was not able to live and function outside of the recording studio. Darkness set in, many lives were damaged.\"\n\nSinger Darlene Love, who sang on several songs Spector produced, said he \"changed the sound of rock 'n' roll\" but likened their relationship to \"a bad marriage\".\n\n\"The problem I have with Phil is that he wanted to control Darlene Love's talent,\" she told Variety. \"If he couldn't do that, he was going to do everything in his power to keep my talent from shining.\"\n\nWeeks before Lana Clarkson was shot dead, Spector gave a rare interview to British broadsheet The Telegraph.\n\n\"I would say I'm probably relatively insane, to an extent,\" he told the paper, adding that he had \"devils inside that fight me\".\n\nResponding to news of the producer's death, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein tweeted: \"When we went to Phil Spector's house in the 70s he came to the door holding a bottle of diet Manischewitz wine in one hand and a presumably loaded 45 automatic in the other. Long story.", "Now 20, he was jailed for life at Manchester Crown Court after admitting inciting terrorism overseas\n\nThe youngest person convicted of a terrorism offence in the UK - who plotted to murder police in Australia on Anzac Day aged 14 - can be freed from jail, the Parole Board has ruled.\n\nThe 20-year-old, from Blackburn, who can only be identified as RXG, sent encrypted messages inciting an Australian to launch attacks in 2015.\n\nHe was jailed for life that year after admitting inciting terrorism overseas.\n\nBut the Parole Board now says it is \"satisfied\" he is suitable for release.\n\n\"After considering the circumstances of his offending, the progress made while in detention, and the evidence presented at the hearings, the panel was satisfied that RXG was suitable for release,\" the board said in a document detailing the decision.\n\nDuring his trial, the court heard how at the age of 14, the boy adopted an older persona in messages to alleged Australian jihadist Sevdet Besim, 18, instructing him to kill police officers at the remembrance parade.\n\nHe sent thousands of messages suggesting Mr Besim get his \"first taste of beheading\" by attacking \"a proper lonely person\".\n\nAustralian police were alerted to the plot after British officers discovered material on the teenager's phone.\n\nA written summary of the Parole Board decision reveals that two hearings took place to consider the decision - hearings that included evidence from RXG himself.\n\nThe summary records that \"no-one at the hearing considered there to be a need for further time\" in custody and that \"all necessary work had been completed\".\n\nRXG, who became eligible for parole in October, is said to have \"undertaken extensive specialist work in detention to address his offending behaviour, his understanding of Islam and to develop his level of maturity\".\n\nThe Parole Board panel noted that \"considerable progress that had been made\", the summary records.\n\nLicense conditions for the 20-year-old a requirement to live at designated address, wearing an electronic tag, and limits on his contacts, movements and activities.\n\nAnzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand\n\nA ban on identifying RXG, made when he was sentenced, would normally have expired on his 18th birthday, but a number of media organisations made representations to the High Court, arguing that he should be named.\n\nBut in 2019, the court ruled identifying him was likely to cause him \"serious harm\", and so granted him lifelong anonymity.\n\nThe decision taken by the judge, Dame Victoria Sharp, has only been made in a small number of cases.\n\nIn 2016, two brothers who had tortured other children in South Yorkshire were granted lifelong anonymity.\n\nLifelong anonymity under new identities was also been granted after release to Mary Bell, the Newcastle child killer; Maxine Carr, who obstructed police investigating the 2002 Soham murders by her partner Ian Huntley; and Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, who murdered Liverpool toddler James Bulger.", "Soaring shipping costs are likely to cause a bounce in the cost of trampolines in the UK this summer, according to one games retailer.\n\nJames Owen, owner of Outdoor Toys, says high transport costs and port congestion may mean larger toys such as swings, trampolines and climbing frames will be more expensive.\n\nTrampoline prices could soar by 40-50%, he told BBC 5 Live's Wake Up to Money.\n\n\"The port congestion just keeps snowballing,\" he said.\n\n\"More and more issues keep arising,\" Mr Owen added. \"We can't get space out of China, there's a container shortage.\n\n\"Hauliers are really stretched, rates keep climbing.\"\n\nHis firm makes some products in the UK already and rising shipping costs will mean it will become economical to make more.\n\n\"For the first time ever, the ocean freight outweighs the cost of the item,\" in some cases, he said.\n\nDemand for Chinese goods has soared around the world in recent months, placing a strain on existing shipping capacity.\n\nThe price of shipping a 40-foot container on major world trade routes has almost tripled since a year ago, according to research firm Drewry.\n\nHauliers in the UK are also charging more. It used to cost about £650 to haul a container from the port of Felixstowe to the company's site in mid-Wales, Mr Owen says.\n\nThe cost is now up to £1,800 per container \"if you can get the haulier to take it,\" he says.\n\nWhether people will pay the premium for a new outdoor toy is \"a good question,\" he said.\n\nIt emerged over the weekend that Irish hauliers are bypassing Welsh ports to avoid Brexit bureaucracy.\n\nSo-called \"teething problems\" with new export rules are causing \"enormous strain on staff\", according to one haulage company.\n\nBut others warn of a longer-term shift by truck firms from using Holyhead, Fishguard and Pembroke Dock.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland won by seven wickets; take 1-0 series lead\n\nEngland wrapped up a seven-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the first Test of a two-match series in Galle.\n\nResuming on 38-3, needing another 36 for victory, Jonny Bairstow and debutant Dan Lawrence carried England to their target inside 35 minutes on the final morning of an enthralling encounter.\n\nBairstow ended unbeaten on 35 and Lawrence 21, although the latter survived an lbw review against Dilruwan Perera and Sri Lanka did not refer another shout that replays suggested would have been overturned.\n\nAfter England slipped to 14-3 during a frantic end to day four, Bairstow and Lawrence's unbroken 62-run stand guided them to an ultimately comfortable win.\n\nThe second Test starts at 04:30 GMT on Friday at the same ground.\n• None 'It wasn't perfect but England's win ticked a lot of boxes'\n• None 'We are on an upward curve' - Root savours fourth straight away win\n\nEngland are now unbeaten in nine Tests under Joe Root's captaincy, they have won four consecutive overseas Tests for the first time since 1957, and boast five successive wins in Sri Lanka.\n\nVictory improved England's chances of reaching the inaugural World Test Championship final at Lord's in June. They remain fourth in the standings, with the two top sides playing in the final.\n\nEngland out of the blocks quickly\n\nRoot's side have been slow starters in series in recent years - they lost the opening Test against Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in 2019, and against West Indies last summer.\n\nHowever, Sunday's top-order wobble aside, they were rarely troubled in the first of six successive Tests on the subcontinent - an achievement made all the more impressive given they had one day of match practice before this game.\n\nRoot scored a magnificent 226 in the first innings, and off-spinner Dom Bess and slow left-armer Jack Leach, who returned match figures of 8-130 and 6-177 respectively, found more rhythm as the game progressed, which bodes well for the sterner four-Test series in India that follows this tour.\n\nLawrence can take considerable credit for his first-innings 73 and the manner in which he helped negate England's second-innings nerves alongside the efficient Bairstow, while wicketkeeper Jos Buttler was tidy behind the stumps throughout on a dry, turning pitch.\n\nSri Lanka, meanwhile, were left wondering what if. Their collapse to 135 all out on the first day was described as \"one of the worse we've ever seen\", and even an extra 50 runs could have changed the course of this game.\n\n'Very impressive' - what they said\n\nEngland captain and player of the match Joe Root: \"To come here with the little preparation we have had and play in the manner we have is very impressive.\n\n\"We worked extremely hard and for the spinners to come out of the game with two five-fors is a great effort. Without the preparation, it is testament to their characters.\n\n\"It is a good start to the tour. We know we have to keep getting better but I am really pleased with the start we have had.\"\n\nEngland bowler Stuart Broad on BBC Test Match Special: \"It looked like we could lose a wicket every ball last night. We were pretty happy when play finished last night.\n\n\"It felt calm here this morning. We had a job to do and felt we had enough in tank to chase 30-odd. To do it without losing a wicket is awesome.\"\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan: \"When I think about the preparation England have had, in Loughborough in a tent, one day in the middle in Sri Lanka and then rain, to put in this kind of performance is a great effort.\n\n\"I can't think Sri Lanka will gift England two poor days in the next Test - that match will be really tough.\n\n\"I am happy England have played in difficult conditions and won the game.\"\n\nSri Lanka captain Dinesh Chandimal: \"We were outplayed in first innings with bat and ball. As a batting unit, especially playing at home, you have to get a big total in the first innings. It cost us the game.\n\n\"Everyone did their bit in the second innings. We played outstanding knocks in the second innings. We have to take the positives out of this.\"\n\nSri Lanka coach Mickey Arthur: \"The first innings was very poor - it was an unacceptable batting performance.\n\n\"Even if we get 220 in the first innings we keep ourselves massively in the game, so that's where it was lost. We did put it right in the second innings. But it was too late.\"\n• None All the goals, highlights and analysis from the weekend's Premier League matches including Manchester United's visit to Anfield: MOTD2 is streaming now on BBC iPlayer", "Staff gathered outside a supermarket to pay their respects to a colleague who died with coronavirus.\n\nJohn Deacy, 81, worked the Christmas Eve shift at the Tesco Extra store in Gabalfa, Cardiff, died just two weeks later.\n\nFriends and colleagues clapped as the funeral procession went by the store.\n\nFormer members of a jazz band, formed by Mr Deacy in the 1970s, marched in front of the hearse.\n\nHis son, Wayne, 56, said: “My dad put everyone above himself. He’d do anything for anyone.\n\n\"He’d help anyone and would never speak badly of people.”\n\nMr Deacy was in the Royal Marines for seven years and was a semi-professional boxer before starting a career at the industrial gas company BOC.\n\nHe went on to work for the supermarket for 16 years.\n\n“We’ve had loads and loads of messages from hundreds of staff who said he will leave a massive gaping hole,\" his son said.", "BT is facing a class action lawsuit over claims it failed to compensate elderly customers who were overcharged for landlines for years.\n\nIn 2017, Ofcom said people who only had a landline telephone were \"getting poor value for money in a market that is not serving them well enough\".\n\nAs a result, BT reduced the price of its landlines by £7 a month.\n\nBut campaigners are unhappy that \"loyal customers\" have still not been compensated for previous overcharging.\n\n\"Ofcom made it very clear that BT had spent years overcharging landline customers, but did not order it to repay the money it made from this,\" said Justin Le Patourel, founder of consumer group Collective Action on Landlines (CALL) and a telecoms consultant who worked for Ofcom for 13 years.\n\n\"We think millions of BT's most loyal landline customers could be entitled to compensation of up to £500 each, and the filing of this claim starts that process.\"\n\nBT said it \"strongly disagrees\" with the claim that it had engaged in anti-competitive behaviour and intends to defend itself \"vigorously\" in court.\n\nA spokesman for BT said: \"We take our responsibilities to older and more vulnerable customers very seriously and will defend ourselves against any claim that suggests otherwise.\n\n\"For many years we've offered discounted landline and broadband packages in what is a competitive market with competing options available, and we take pride in our work with elderly and vulnerable groups, as well as our work on the Customer Fairness agenda.\"\n\nLaw firm Mishcon de Reya has filed a claim with the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) worth £600m. The claim could result in payments of up to £500 each for 2.3 million BT customers, should it be successful.\n\nThe case represents customers who purchased a BT landline contract, but did not also take BT broadband or pay TV packages.\n\nSince 2009, the wholesale costs of providing landlines to consumers have been falling by at least 25%.\n\nBut in October 2017, Ofcom found that all major landline providers in the UK had increased the line rental charges by 28-41%.\n\nOfcom strongly criticised market leader BT for raising prices, saying that customers were being given \"poor value\" for money.\n\nIt added that many of the affected customers had \"been with BT for decades\" and were more likely to be old, on low incomes and vulnerable.\n\nBT announced that it would slash its landline prices by £84 a year.\n\nBT's argument is that Ofcom's final statement did not explicitly accuse it of engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.\n\nBut independent telecoms analyst Ian Grant says that the telecoms giant \"has a history of abusing its position\".\n\n\"Earlier in 2017, Ofcom fined BT £42m because it was late providing high-speed Ethernet lines, and forced BT to make good the losses of firms like Vodafone and TalkTalk,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"Ofcom, which has a statutory duty to stop consumer abuses, could have done the same for these customers. Instead, it allowed BT to get away with a 37% price cut, at a time when the difference between its costs and what it charged customers had risen between 50-74%.\"\n\nMr Grant added: \"It is especially poor that BT was overcharging customers who were mostly over 65, more than three-quarters of whom had never used a different provider, and for whom the telephone was their only communications link.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester United \"missed an opportunity\" to beat Liverpool, said boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after his side stayed top of the Premier League with a goalless draw against the champions.\n\nIt was a game that failed to justify the pre-match anticipation and Solskjaer will know his side had the better chances to claim a statement victory at Anfield.\n\nLiverpool, without a recognised centre-back and with midfielders Jordan Henderson and Fabinho in defence, dominated possession in the first half but it was United who came closest when Bruno Fernandes' 20-yard free-kick curled inches wide.\n\nFernandes was then thwarted after the break by the outstretched leg of Liverpool keeper Alisson before Thiago Alcantara's long-range effort finally brought the previously unemployed David de Gea into action.\n\nAlisson was Liverpool's hero late on when he blocked Paul Pogba's drive from point-blank range.\n\n\"It was an opportunity missed with the chances we had but then again we were playing a very good side.\" Solskjaer told BBC Sport. \"I'm disappointed but, still, a point is OK if you win the next one.\n\n\"We have improved and progressed. It's not just the result we're disappointed with, it's some of the performance. I know these boys can play better.\"\n\nUnited are now two points ahead of Manchester City, who moved up to second by beating Crystal Palace 4-0, and Leicester City in third. Liverpool, who have scored just one goal in their past four league games, have dropped to fourth, a point behind the Foxes.\n\n\"The performance was good enough to win it but to win a game you have to score goals and we didn't do that, so that's why we had that result,\" said Reds boss Jurgen Klopp.\n\n\"We try not to not score. We obviously have to ignore the fact and hope it will be good again.\"\n• None 'From dejection to frustration in 12 months, Anfield draw underlines Man Utd progress'\n• None Lawro's predictions v You Me At Six drummer Dan Flint\n\nKlopp cut a frustrated figure pretty much from the first whistle, his voice booming around Anfield with a tone of displeasure, showing unhappiness with his own players and officials.\n\nThe German's team, so used to steamrollering all before them in recent times, are going through a very dry spell and barely created an opening worthy of the name here against a resolute Manchester United defence.\n\nToo often, Liverpool's approach play ended with a careless pass or an aimless cross and the longer this game went on the more United looked the most likely winners.\n\nIt was perhaps inevitable Liverpool would be unable to maintain their relentless style, but there will be concerns they have now gone four league games without a win since Crystal Palace were demolished 7-0 at Selhurst Park.\n\nBefore this draw, West Bromwich Albion left Anfield with a point, while Liverpool also had a goalless draw at Newcastle United and lost at Southampton.\n\nSadio Mane and Mohamed Salah are feeding off scraps, while Roberto Firmino's impact was so minimal that he was withdrawn near the end, even with the hosts chasing a goal.\n\nA team as good as Liverpool will not remain off the boil for too long, but there is no doubt they are struggling for form and spark. The fact this is their longest barren sequence in the league since February and March 2005 tells the tale.\n\nManchester United may have a taken a point before this game and there will be justified satisfaction that they subdued Liverpool so completely, created the game's best chances and remain top of the table.\n\nAnd yet there must also be disappointment that they could not cash in completely on an off-colour Liverpool, with reality dawning on them very late that they could take all three points.\n\nFernandes, despite being poor in general, almost unlocked Liverpool twice, while Solskjaer and his backroom team threw their hands up in frustration as other good positions were wasted late on.\n\nIn the final reckoning, however, there will be few complaints at this outcome, which leaves them three points ahead of Liverpool with the visit to Anfield negotiated without mishap.\n\nUnited were well organised and grew into the game after a poor opening half-hour and had real defensive heroes in captain Harry Maguire and left-back Luke Shaw, with the latter particularly outstanding.\n\nIt is a display that will give them increased confidence and belief as they lead the pack - although they might just look back and think a point could so easily have been three.\n\n'It was an opportunity missed' - reaction\n\nManchester United manager Solskjaer said: \"They are a good side and they have some injury problems but we didn't pounce on that.\n\n\"I felt we grew into the game and got stronger and stronger and were closer to winning.\n\n\"We were a bit disappointed in the performance, not just the result. We didn't do well enough to cause them problems in the first half but we defended well and they didn't create too many chances.\"But I think everyone was a bit disappointed with the way we started the game but that is a good feeling to have - that we were disappointed in the performance.\"\n\nLiverpool boss Klopp told BBC Sport: \"The performance was good and the first half was exceptionally good.\n\n\"With all the things that were said before the game - United are flying and we were struggling - and then to play this kind of game, I was happy with that.\n\n\"We tried in the second half again, but you cannot deny United over 90 minutes, not with the counter-attacking threat they have. So they had two really good chances, I have to say, but we had our chances in the second half as well.\n\n\"The way we understood the game, the way we felt the game, the way we read the moments were really good. But it is not exactly how it should be so we have space for improvement, absolutely. We will keep working on that.\"\n• None Liverpool and Manchester United have drawn 0-0 at Anfield in the league three times in the past five seasons, as many times as in the previous 48 top-flight campaigns.\n• None United are unbeaten in their past 16 away matches in the Premier League (W12 D4) - only once have they gone longer without a defeat on the road in the competition (17 games ending in September 1999).\n• None Liverpool are now unbeaten in their past 68 league games at Anfield, earning 178 out of a possible 204 points over this run.\n• None United are the first side to stop Liverpool scoring at Anfield in a Premier League match since Manchester City in October 2018 - this was Liverpool's 43rd home league game since then.\n• None Under Klopp, Liverpool are unbeaten in all seven of their Premier League games at Anfield when facing the side starting the day top of the table (W3 D4).\n• None Marcus Rashford was caught offside five times in this match, the most of any Premier League player this season and the most by a United player since Robin van Persie (six) against Spurs in January 2013.\n\nUnited are at Fulham in the league on Wednesday (20:15 GMT) and Liverpool host Burnley on Thursday (20:00). Next Sunday, Manchester United and Liverpool will meet again - at Old Trafford this time - in the FA Cup fourth round, a match you can watch live on BBC One and the BBC Sport website.\n• None Marcus Rashford (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Curtis Jones (Liverpool) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Offside, Manchester United. Paul Pogba tries a through ball, but Marcus Rashford is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Paul Pogba (Manchester United) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Luke Shaw with a cross.\n• None Attempt saved. Paul Pogba (Manchester United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner.\n• None Attempt missed. Thiago (Liverpool) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the right. Assisted by Georginio Wijnaldum. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Missed all the goals, highlights and talking points from Saturday's Premier League action? Match of the Day is streaming now", "Hospitals are preparing for the expected peak of the latest Covid-19 surge this week, the Northern Trust's chief executive has said.\n\nJennifer Welsh said there was \"huge pressure across the (healthcare) system\" with more intensive care admissions expected.\n\nThirty patients were awaiting admission to Antrim Area Hospital on Sunday morning, she said.\n\nThere were 25 more deaths linked to Covid-19 reported in NI on Sunday.\n\nThe total number of deaths recorded by the Department of Health since the start of the pandemic is now 1,606.\n\nIt was also reported that there had been 822 more positive cases, with 67 people in intensive care and 50 people on ventilators.\n\nThere are 840 patients being treated for Covid- 19 across Northern Ireland, according to the latest available figures with hospitals working at 93% capacity.\n\nMeanwhile, Northern Ireland has been continuing its vaccination programme having distributed 140,559 first doses and 20,174 second doses.\n\nThe total number of jabs administered in the UK, including both first and second doses, is 4,307,002 according to government data.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland on Sunday, there were 13 further deaths related to Covid-19, bringing the total number to 2,608 since the start of the pandemic.\n\nThere was also a further 2,944 positive cases, bringing the total number of cases in the state to 172,726.\n\nThe Republic of Ireland's Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said the situation in the country's hospitals was \"stark\" and that people of all ages were being admitted and taken into intensive care.\n\nAt the beginning of January, Health Minister Robin Swann said that modelling indicated the \"peak of the third surge\" would hit in the third week of January.\n\nFrontline health staff have spoken to BBC News NI about their \"exhaustion\" and stress, as the pressure on the system continues to increase amid the surging number of cases.\n\nNorthern Ireland is currently in the third week of a six-week lockdown, with ministers scheduled to review measures next week.\n\nHowever, health officials have warned that an extension of the restrictions could be required to reduce pressure on the health service.\n\nNorthern Trust chief executive Jennifer Welsh said hospitals were \"coping but at great cost\"\n\nMs Welsh told BBC NI's Sunday Politics programme that the \"ICU surge is yet to come\" and that the Northern Trust - where two major hospitals, Antrim Area and Causeway, are located - has had to redeploy staff to prepare for the coming days.\n\nShe said both hospitals had been \"under significant pressure and have been for some time\".\n\nShe said 30 patients in Antrim Area's Emergency Department are waiting on a bed after a decision was made to admit them - 24 of those patients have been waiting longer than 12 hours.\n\nMs Welsh added that almost half of all patients in Antrim Area Hospital have tested positive for Covid-19.\n\n\"At the peak of the first wave in Antrim and Causeway the highest number of Covid positive patients was 73.\n\n\"In November, the highest number was 102 and we peaked on Thursday at 202. We have now dropped below that slightly.\"\n\nThe chief executive said the hospitals were \"coping but at great cost\", with many urgent surgeries cancelled.\n\n\"Emergency surgery is being done but we are not being able to do any other in the Antrim Area site.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by bbctheview This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"We have been able to deliver some red flag cancer surgery at Causeway but we would like to do more.\"\n\nDespite these emergency measures already in place, the worst of the current surge is only expected to arrive this week.\n\nShe added: \"We are not going to get out of this quickly. It's going to be a challenge for us as a system.\n\n\"It's been building from October.\"\n\n\"We're not yet at the peak of intensive care admissions and we expect that this week.\n\n\"Antrim has doubled its intensive care beds from seven to 14 in anticipation of the coming surge - 11 are already being used.\n\n\"All hospitals have doubled their ICU footprint. There are more than 160 inpatients in Antrim Area Hospital.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BMA Scotland GP chief says doctors \"can't plan\" for vaccines\n\nDoctors leaders say the \"patchy supply\" of vaccine to GP surgeries across Scotland is hampering the speed of delivery to patients.\n\nMinisters have pledged a first dose of the vaccine to 1.4 million of the most vulnerable Scots by mid-February.\n\nBut the British Medical Association in Scotland said inconsistencies in supply made it difficult to plan patient appointments to receive the vaccine.\n\nThey also said some GP surgeries had yet to receive any vaccine at all.\n\nThe Scottish government said it was working with health boards to resolve the issues.\n\nCurrently, about 16,000 vaccinations a day are being carried out in Scotland. However, that is expected to rise significantly as efforts to deliver the vaccine are scaled up.\n\nOn Sunday, 1,341 new cases of Covid-19 were reported - the lowest daily figure since 28 December. However, the numbers being admitted to hospital have continued to rise, reaching 1,918.\n\nNo new deaths were registered.\n\nHealth Secretary Jeane Freeman has pledged that the workforce and infrastructure will be in place to vaccinate 400,000 people each week by the end of February.\n\nThe government has already announced plans for large vaccination centres in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh.\n\nIt comes after more than 5,000 front-line health and care staff were vaccinated at the NHS Louisa Jordan in Glasgow on Saturday.\n\nGP practices across Scotland are currently providing vaccination services to those aged over 80.\n\nAbout 16,000 vaccinations are currently being carried out a day in Scotland\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Politics Scotland programme, Dr Andrew Buist, who chairs the British Medical Association's (BMA) GP committee in Scotland, said there was inconsistencies across the GP network.\n\nHe said the vaccine deployment plan was \"ambitious\" and so far \"good progress\" had been made in giving it to priority groups such as care homes residents and front-line health staff.\n\nHowever, he told the programme: \"The current problem lies with the next priority group, which is the 80-plus group, which GPs in Scotland are set to vaccinate because the supply of the vaccine so far has been quite patchy.\n\n\"Some practices have a good supply, some have had none so far.\"\n\nHe said his practice had received 100 doses of the vaccine for 600 patients over the age of 80, who all needed to be vaccinated by 5 February.\n\nHe added: \"I then have to do another 1,200 patients in the 70-plus group and the extremely clinically vulnerable by the middle of February, so we need to do 1,700 vaccines in the next four weeks.\n\n\"Now we can do that. We are used to providing large number of flu vaccinations and it is possible, we have our workforce in place, but we need the vaccine, otherwise we can't do it.\"\n\nWhen asked if his practice was running out of vaccine at the end of each day, Dr Buist said: \"Yes - we can't plan, that's the key thing. We can't send out appointments to patients until we're sure we have the vaccine in our fridge.\n\n\"We were given 100 doses on Monday. We used that all up by Friday. We don't want to send out appointments to patients until we know that we can definitively vaccinate them otherwise patients get very upset.\"\n\nVaccinators have reported being able to extract one additional dose from vaccine vials\n\nDr Buist said vaccinators were regularly managing to extract higher numbers of doses from vaccine vials despite claims that some doses were being wasted.\n\nHe said there was widespread experience of six doses being extracted from Pfizer vaccine vials, which were marketed as having five doses, while 11 doses were regularly being taken from AstraZeneca vials.\n\nBut Dr Buist criticised issues around the red tape some retired health professional had faced when volunteering to become vaccinators.\n\n\"I have reports that arrangement to get doctors and nurses back into the system have been quite bureaucratic and I think it's something we need to look at.\"\n\nThe Scottish government acknowledged that there had been delays in vaccine supplies reaching some GP surgeries.\n\nA spokeswoman said: \"GPs have a significant role to play in delivering the vaccine - and we thank them for their hard work and patience as we roll out more vaccines to those in the communities.\n\n\"We know there have been some initial delays in supply reaching some practices and are working with health boards to resolve this. Vaccines are being manufactured as quickly as possible and we will continue to explore all options available to increase supply.\"\n\nThe government said health boards were providing order information for their GP practices to National Procurement who in turn advised the distribution partner.\n\nThe spokeswoman added: \"Once stock is released for ordering, the distribution partner inputs the GP orders on to their ordering system. Once the order has been placed, GP practices will receive an automated email providing an indication of the delivery day.\n\n\"We too want to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible and are continually working hard to see if distribution can be made faster in any respect.\"", "Chris Cramer, a major figure in BBC News and later CNN International, has died at the age of 73 after a period of ill health. Former BBC director of news Richard Sambrook looks back at his life.\n\nChris Cramer's legacy will be the major change in attitudes and support for journalist safety he championed through the BBC and across the wider industry, as well as many achievements in newsgathering and international news.\n\nHe began his career as a teenager on the Portsmouth Evening News, moving to BBC Radio Solent when it launched in 1970.\n\nAfter a year's secondment in Brunei he found his way to the BBC TV Newsroom in the 1970s and developed his reputation as a highly competitive and effective news editor and field producer.\n\nIn 1980 he and a BBC team were in the Iranian Embassy in London collecting visas when it was seized by gunmen opposed to Ayatollah Khomeini. A standoff and siege followed, with Chris among 26 hostages.\n\nHe managed to feign serious illness and was released by the gunmen allowing him to give vital information to the authorities before the SAS stormed the embassy and rescued the hostages.\n\nAt a time when no-one understood or spoke of PTSD, it had a marked effect on his life.\n\nArmed police on the adjoining balcony to the Iranian Embassy during the siege in 1980\n\nMany journalists and crew subsequently spoke of his care and attention when they had difficult experiences and he went on to drive major changes in understanding and support for journalists' safety.\n\nWith BBC Safety manager Peter Hunter, Chris introduced the first hostile environment training courses, risk assessments and equipment for those covering conflicts.\n\nFormer correspondent Martin Bell recalls: \"From Vietnam to Croatia I had covered 10 wars without protection. Then in June 1992 we were shot up crossing the airport runway in Sarajevo in a soft-skinned vehicle. Within two weeks Chris had procured our first armoured Land Rover, the redoubtable 'Miss Piggy', and the body armour to go with it.\"\n\nHe later introduced the first confidential counselling service for news teams, recognising PTSD, and helped found the International News Safety Institute, which spearheaded safety across the news industry.\n\nDuring the 1980s he was at the forefront of organising and overseeing major news coverage, including Michael Buerk's reporting from the Ethiopian famine, coverage of the IRA Brighton bomb attack on the British government, the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, Kate Adie's reporting from Tiananmen Square, the fall of eastern Europe, the first Gulf War and many more major events.\n\nHis fierce competitiveness delivered a series of major exclusives and awards for BBC News.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jeremy Bowen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn the 1990s he oversaw major investment in BBC Newsgathering and the integration of radio and TV reporting - often against internal resistance. His managerial style could be uncompromising and tough, but he was also bitingly funny, shrewd and his hard exterior hid a warm-hearted and generous core.\n\nHe was crucial to establishing the integrated News division as it exists today.\n\nIn 1996 he left the BBC to move to Atlanta as managing director and executive vice-president of CNN International.\n\nThere he took his passion for news safety and his competitive news edge to develop the network into a greater global force.\n\nAs his former BBC and CNN colleague Tony Maddox has said: \"Among his many accomplishments Chris was a pioneer and innovator in field safety for journalists. He led the development of guidelines and practices now widely adopted across the industry.\"\n\nCramer moved to CNN after his time with the BBC\n\nHe was a larger-than-life figure who generated affection and respect in equal measure, often wielding a rapid and disarming wit.\n\nHe is also remembered for supporting women into senior and executive positions and helping them succeed.\n\nDirector of BBC News Fran Unsworth recalls: \"He was one of journalism's enormous characters and a legend in the television news industry. But the legend and the reported image always belied the man.\n\n\"He was immensely kind, thoughtful and caring underneath that image he sometimes projected.\"\n\nFormer deputy director general Mark Byford said: \"He was probably the greatest newsgathering executive ever in the broadcast news business and his organisational skills, competitiveness, eye for a story and steel were extraordinary.\n\n\"He was also, behind the facade, a gentle giant who cared for his people with amazing passion and love.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by John Simpson This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"Many editors, correspondents and presenters in BBC News owe their success to his mentorship - myself included.\"\n\nAfter 11 years he left CNN and took up roles first with Reuters TV and then the Wall Street Journal, where his experience and expertise were used to develop their digital video services.\n\nHe leaves his wife, Nina, son Richard and daughter Nicolette and his daughter Hannah by an earlier marriage to Helen, a former BBC producer.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nóra Quoirin's parents: \"The inquest is a battle we must continue in Nóra's name\"\n\nThe mother of a 15-year-old girl found dead in a Malaysian jungle says she believes her daughter's body was placed by somebody in the spot she was found.\n\nNóra Quoirin, from Balham in south London, vanished from her room at the Dusun rainforest resort in August 2019.\n\nHer body was found near the resort nine days after she went missing. A coroner recorded her death was by misadventure.\n\nMeabh Quoirin, who thinks Nora was abducted, said the family would \"never give up their fight for justice\".\n\nNóra was born with holoprosencephaly, a disorder that affects brain development, and her parents have always believed that wandering off from the resort - which is about 40 miles from Kuala Lumpur - was not something their daughter would have done.\n\nA post-mortem examination found Nóra had died three days before her body was found, due to gastrointestinal bleeding from hunger and stress endured over a prolonged period.\n\nBut Mrs Quoirin points out that the jungle had been searched on four occasions in the seven days leading up to her death, with police suggesting the teenager been \"alive and moving\" during the first stages of the search.\n\n\"The fact that search teams were there, along with many hundreds of volunteers in that particular area so close to her death, makes us feel that she was placed there at a later point,\" Mrs Quoirin told the BBC.\n\nNóra's parents Maebh and Sebastien Quoirin want there to be a revision of the inquest verdict\n\nThe teenager's mother pointed out that the inquest had not explained how her daughter ended up in the jungle, where her unclothed body was eventually found by a group of volunteers.\n\n\"I suppose the easiest one to dwell on was the fact there was an open window [in the family's chalet],\" said Mrs Quoirin, who is originally from Belfast.\n\n\"Someone opened that window, it wasn't any of us. That is totally unexplained.\"\n\nMalaysian police have always treated Nóra's disappearance as a missing person case. They maintain there was no suggestion of abduction, kidnap or foul play.\n\nDuring the search for her daughter, Mrs Quoirin told emergency services that their work meant \"the world to us\"\n\n\"Nóra always looked to someone else for reassurance on what she should do next so the idea that she would have climbed out a window - even found a window or seen a window in the pitch black - is in our view crazy,\" Mrs Quorin said.\n\n\"If she had somehow mistaken which door was for the bathroom and had gone out the front door for instance... she was barefoot, she would have instantly felt pain and she would have been absolutely petrified.\"\n\nNóra's parents have asked for a revision of the inquest verdict as \"so many questions have been left unanswered\".\n\nNóra was born with holoprosencephaly, a disorder which affects brain development\n\n\"I think it will be impossible to ever have all the answers to questions that inevitably we will agonise over for the rest of our lives,\" Mrs Quoirin said.\n\n\"We can do more justice by at least recognising who this child was and that she wouldn't have - couldn't have - done the things that have been ruled through this verdict of misadventure.\n\n\"It's our duty to Nora to stand up for that, to really recognise who she was and stand up in the name of all children with special needs, to recognise who these children are, what they represent in our society.\"", "Within seconds of being dropped, LauncherOne had ignited its engine\n\nSir Richard Branson's rocket company Virgin Orbit has succeeded in putting its first satellites in space.\n\nTen payloads in total were lofted on the same rocket, which was launched from under the wing of one of the entrepreneur's old 747 jumbos.\n\nSir Richard is hoping to tap into what is a growing market for small, lower-cost satellites.\n\nBy using a jet plane as the launch platform, he can theoretically send up spacecraft from anywhere in the world.\n\nIn reality, of course, his Virgin Orbit system has to be licensed in the locality where it is used, which at the moment is solely California. But there are well-advanced plans to bring the 747 and its rockets to Cornwall in south-west England, for example.\n\nSunday's success was a big fillip for Sir Richard's team who had tried and failed to launch a rocket in May last year. That effort was thwarted by a breached propellant line feeding liquid oxygen to the booster's first-stage Newton-3 engine.\n\nNo such problems occurred this time.\n\nThe modified 747, named Cosmic Girl, left its base in California's Mojave desert at 10:50 PST (18:50 UTC) to fly out over the Pacific Ocean.\n\nA little under 60 minutes later, and cruising at 35,000ft (10,500m), the jet banked hard to the right, dropping as it did so the 21m-long rocket that had been clamped to its underside.\n\nWithin seconds this booster, called LauncherOne, had ignited its engine and was climbing to space.\n\nCorrect deployment of the various spacecraft onboard at an altitude of roughly 500km was confirmed a couple of hours later.\n\n\"A new gateway to space has just sprung open,\" said Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart. \"That LauncherOne was able to successfully reach orbit today is a testament to this team's talent, precision, drive, and ingenuity.\"\n\nSir Richard has been trying to find the right solution to get into the satellite launch business since 2009. His concrete proposal was first put before the public at the Farnborough International Air Show three years later.\n\nThere is an emerging market for small, lower-cost spacecraft, whose developers are seeking more flexible and affordable ways of getting their assets above the Earth.\n\nSorry, we're having trouble displaying this content. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nVirgin Orbit is one of a number of companies now racing to meet this demand. Other contenders include the Rocket Lab outfit, which sends up its vehicles from a ground launch pad in New Zealand. But there are tens of other small rocket start-ups at various stages of maturation, and some of these plan to operate from the UK as well.\n\n\"Virgin Orbit has achieved something many thought impossible. It was so inspiring to see our specially adapted Virgin Atlantic 747, Cosmic Girl, send the LauncherOne rocket soaring into orbit,\" Sir Richard said.\n\n\"This magnificent flight is the culmination of many years of hard work and will also unleash a whole new generation of innovators on the path to orbit. I can't wait to see the incredible missions Dan and the team will launch to change the world for good.\"\n\nSir Richard presented the LauncherOne concept at Farnborough in 2012\n\nWill Whitehorn is the president of UKSpace, the trade body representing the space industry in Britain. He's also a former president of Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard's other space company which hopes soon to start flying fare-paying passengers above the atmosphere in a rocket plane.\n\nHe said Virgin Orbit's success on Sunday was hugely significant.\n\n\"This is a momentous day for the small satellite world, as we will be able to launch satellites responsively; and for the UK this event promises sovereign launch capability very soon,\" he told BBC News.\n\n\"I plan to push hard for a launch from Cornwall to coincide with the G7 meeting this year if at all possible!\"\n\nSunday's payloads were mostly shoebox-sized and developed by universities\n\nThe air-launched system has the flexibility to operate anywhere - in theory", "A doctor has appeared in court charged with the attempted murder of a \"highly-respected\" fellow plastic surgeon who was stabbed in his own home.\n\nGraeme Perks, 65, was stabbed in his abdomen and chest in Halam, Nottinghamshire, on Thursday.\n\nJonathan Peter Brooks, also charged with three counts of attempted arson with intent to endanger life, appeared at Nottingham Magistrates' Court.\n\nMr Perks is currently in a serious but stable condition, police said.\n\nMr Brooks, 56, of Landseer Road, Southwell, has also been charged with possession of a knife in a public place.\n\nHe was remanded in custody to appear at Nottingham Crown Court on 15 February.\n\nPolice said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the attack.\n\nGraeme Perks has been described as \"one of the most highly regarded and respected surgeons in the profession\"\n\nThe two men were colleagues at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.\n\nA spokeswoman for the trust said: \"This incident has affected many of our staff who worked closely with, and are friends with Graeme.\n\n\"Our thoughts are with Graeme and his family at this time.\"\n\nMr Perks had served as president of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS), which described him as \"one of the most highly-regarded and respected surgeons in the profession\".\n\nPolice previously said Mr Perks had gone to investigate the sound of breaking glass at about 04:15 GMT on Thursday, after an intruder was believed to have smashed their way into the house.\n\nPolice said Mr Perks was stabbed at his home in Halam, Nottinghamshire, while his family were upstairs\n\nThey said Mr Perks was stabbed and the suspect ran off.\n\nMr Perks worked in London, Sheffield, Newcastle and Melbourne, Australia, but returned to the UK in the mid-1990s and started working in Nottingham.\n\nHe and his wife have raised thousands of pounds for charity by opening their garden to visitors, and were featured on BBC Radio Nottingham after raising more than £34,000.\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Keelan Wilson was 15 when he was stabbed more than 40 times\n\nFour men have been found guilty of murdering a boy stabbed more than 40 times in a \"well-planned execution\".\n\nKeelan Wilson, 15, was fatally injured on Langley Road in Merry Hill, Wolverhampton, on 29 May, 2018.\n\nThe four murderers acted \"like a pack of animals\" amid rising gang violence in the city, police said.\n\nKeelan's mother Kelly Ellitts said the convictions meant justice for her son, but added \"nothing would bring Keelan back\".\n\nIt emerged a few days after the murder that when an ambulance was called for the wounded boy, his final words included \"tell my mum I love her\".\n\nThe trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court heard how the night time attack - carried out by Brian Sasa and Nehemie Tampwo, each aged 20, along with Tyrique King and Zenay Pennant-Phillips, both 19 - was \"not in any way spontaneous\".\n\nDet Sgt Nick Barnes from the West Midlands force said Keelan had the \"single worst set of injuries\" he had seen on a victim in more than six years investigating homicide.\n\nThere had been increasing acts of violence between opposing gangs leading up to the murder, including disorder earlier that day, police said.\n\nThat included weapons being brandished in Wolverhampton city centre, and in another incident, Keelan and two others being shot at by a group of youngsters on bikes. No one was hurt.\n\nBut later on, the court heard, the group of four killers ran towards Keelan as he sat in a taxi close to his home, then pulled open the rear door and \"set about him with weapons\", inflicting more than 40 knife wounds.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Keelan Wilson's mother Kelly Ellitts 'hit the floor' when she saw he had been stabbed\n\nMichael Duck QC, prosecuting, said the killing \"was not in any way a spontaneous act of violence\".\n\nHe said: \"This was a well-planned, targeted group attack by a number of youths armed with knives, and that was with the plan to execute another young man.\"\n\nDuring the 13-week trial, jurors heard there was evidence to suggest the victim had \"become embroiled in gang culture\", with his killers believing he had switched factions.\n\nDet Sgt Barnes said it was \"difficult\" to pinpoint a motive \"because Keelan wasn't on the police radar particularly for any such activity\".\n\nKeelan was wounded just metres from his home, receiving 43 stab wounds in total, according to police.\n\nHe had been driving with a friend - with whom he met up after the shooting incident - when their car broke down, which led to a taxi being called.\n\nA spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service said while Keelan was attacked on boarding the vehicle, his friend was \"left unscathed\" and fled, making it \"evident\" to authorities that \"Keelan was the only target\".\n\nMs Ellitts said she lived with the shock of her son's death daily.\n\n\"This isn't something that you think of every now and again, this is a daily thing that you have to live with.\n\n\"It's terrible my daughters won't know who he is.\"\n\nOn the day of Keelan's death, CCTV captured a scene from the Wolverhampton city centre disorder that police said was linked to gang activity\n\nSasa, of Long Ley, Heath Town, Wolverhampton; King, of Chelwood Gardens, Wolverhampton; Tampwo of Fern Grove in Bletchley, Milton Keynes; and Pennant-Phillips, whose address cannot be published for legal reasons, had all denied murder.\n\n\"Keelan was a child who had his whole life ahead of him,\" Det Sgt Barnes said.\n\nThe convictions, he added, came after a \"very difficult and long investigation,\" with more than 2,000 lines of inquiry having to be examined.\n\nSome lines of investigation had been met with a \"wall of silence,\" he said.\n\nJudge Michael Chambers said: \"It is an utter tragedy that a 15-year-old child lost his life at the hands of others who are barely older than he.\"\n\nSentencing is set to take place at Wolverhampton Crown Court on 19 March.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n• None 'Tell mum I love her' said stabbed boy\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Monica Calazans, a 54-year-old nurse in São Paulo, was given a Chinese-developed vaccine\n\nA nurse has received Brazil's first Covid-19 vaccine dose after regulators gave emergency approval to two jabs.\n\nRegulator Anvisa gave the green light to vaccines from Oxford-AstraZeneca and China's Sinovac, doses of which will be distributed among all 27 states.\n\nBrazil has the world's second-highest death toll from Covid-19 and cases are rising again across the country.\n\nPresident Jair Bolsonaro has been heavily criticised for his handling of the pandemic.\n\nThe president, who caught Covid-19 last year and recovered, has said he will not take a vaccine.\n\nAuthorities reported 551 new fatalities on Sunday, the first time in six days that it had fallen short of 1,000 although this could reflect a delay in the reporting of numbers over the weekend.\n\nIn all, more than 209,000 Covid-related deaths have been recorded in Brazil, a raw total figure only exceeded by the US.\n\nOver 8.4 million infections have been confirmed since the start of the pandemic - the third-highest tally in the world.\n\nHealth Minister Eduardo Pazuello told reporters that the national vaccination programme in the country of 211 million people would begin in earnest in the coming days. Two Brazilian biomedical centres which have been given approval to produce the jabs will be heavily involved.\n\nAbout six million doses of the Sinovac-developed CoronaVac have already been produced in Brazil, while the government is waiting for shipments of the AstraZeneca vaccine from a laboratory in India.\n\nShortly after Anvisa's board gave emergency approval, Monica Calazans, a 54-year-old nurse in São Paulo, became the first person to be inoculated with CoronaVac.\n\nHer vaccination was organised by the São Paulo state government, which is led by Mr Bolsonaro's main political rival, João Doria.\n\nThis has been a rare piece of good news today for Brazilians who are grappling with a devastating second wave.\n\nFrom where I am, the city of Manaus, the vaccine does not feel real. People here are trying to recover a collapsed health system and doing what they can to keep their sick relatives alive.\n\nThe pandemic has become deeply political in Brazil. President Bolsonaro continues to present himself as a vaccine sceptic and he was notably absent as the vaccines were approved. Instead, Monday's newspapers will no doubt have São Paulo Governor Doria slapped on their front pages.\n\nHe is expected to run in next year's presidential elections and has backed the Sinovac vaccine from the very start. He was once a Bolsonaro ally and is now his nemesis - but there is no doubt who is leading the way in trying to get the population vaccinated.\n\nEarlier this week researchers said the Chinese vaccine had been found to be 50.4% effective in Brazilian clinical trials. This, results showed, was significantly less effective than previous data suggested - barely over the 50% needed for regulatory approval.\n\nCoronaVac is also being used in China, Indonesia and Turkey.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe news comes after revelations that a new coronavirus variant has emerged in Brazil. Several cases were traced back to the Amazonas state, where a state of emergency is in place.\n\nManaus, the state capital, has been hit especially hard, with beds and life-saving oxygen running low. Refrigerated containers have also been brought to hospitals to help store bodies.\n\nNeighbouring Venezuela said it had sent a convoy of trucks with oxygen supplies to help Amazonas.\n\nPresident Bolsonaro has faced mounting criticism for his handling of Brazil's outbreak, and several anti-government protests were held last week.\n\nAn opponent of lockdowns, he has previously blamed state governors and mayors for the Covid crisis, saying the federal government has provided all the resources needed to tackle the virus.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The deer had to be put down by a gamekeeper after the attack\n\nA warning has been issued by royal parks police after a dog carried out a \"relentless\" attack on a deer that had to be put down.\n\nFootage shows the dog savaging the red deer in London's Richmond Park.\n\nCases of pets worrying deer in London's eight royal parks have shot up during lockdown, police say. They are urging owners to keep dogs on leads.\n\nSeparately, on Sunday, a 10-year-old child was injured by a herd of deer being chased by a dog in Bushy Park.\n\nPolice said the incident in the park in Richmond-upon-Thames, which left the child needing hospital treatment, underlined the need for people to keep their dogs on a lead if they are unsure how they will react to deer.\n\nOn Friday, Franck Hiribarne, 44, from Kingston in south-west London, admitted causing or permitting an animal he was in charge of to injure another animal, in relation to the Richmond Park attack.\n\nWimbledon magistrates heard the doe suffered deep wounds, then received a broken leg when it was hit by a car as it tried to flee from the dog. Witnesses described the attack as \"relentless\".\n\nThe deer had to be put down by a gamekeeper after the attack in October.\n\nMr Hiribarne, who reported the matter himself to the Royal Parks Office, said he usually walked his red setter Alfie on a lead until he was well away from any grazing deer, and that the dog had been responding well to \"off-lead\" commands.\n\nThe dog owner, who was fined £600, said in a statement: \"I was genuinely shocked and sorry for what had happened and since then I have refrained completely from letting Alfie off the leash in any park.\n\n\"I have also taken a special dog trainer specialised in gundogs to control more accurately any of his hunting instincts. He has made great progress.\"\n\nFour deer have died from dog attacks in the royal parks since March 2020, while there have been 58 incidents of dogs chasing the herds - a big increase on previous years - according to the manager of Richmond Park.\n\nPart of the increase is thought to be down to new dog owners who are unfamiliar with the best conduct around wildlife.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Alexandru Murgeanu (l) and Jason Mercer were killed in the crash on the M1 in South Yorkshire\n\nA coroner has called for a review of smart motorways after an inquest heard the deaths of two men on a stretch of the M1 could have been avoided.\n\nJason Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, died when Prezemyslaw Szuba crashed his lorry into their vehicles near Sheffield on 7 June 2019.\n\nCoroner David Urpeth said smart motorways without a hard shoulder carry \"an ongoing risk of future deaths\".\n\nHighways England said it was \"addressing many of the points raised\".\n\nMr Urpeth recorded a verdict of unlawful killing at Sheffield Town Hall. He added he would be writing to Highways England and the transport secretary asking for a review.\n\nThe inquest heard the deaths of the two men may have been avoided had there had been a hard shoulder.\n\nOn the stretch of the M1 where the crash took place, the hard shoulder has been replaced by an active lane.\n\nSzuba, 40, from Hull, was jailed last year after admitting causing their deaths by careless driving.\n\nHe was speaking from prison to the inquest.\n\nPrezemyslaw Szuba was jailed over the deaths\n\nAnswering questions over the phone, Szuba told the hearing he accepted he was driving without paying proper attention.\n\n\"I have already accepted that at my trial,\" he said, but added: \"If there had been a hard shoulder on this bit of motorway, the collision would have been avoidable.\n\n\"I would have driven past these two cars as it would be safer and they would have been able to come home safely and I would be able to come back home.\"\n\nSzuba said he had only three to five seconds to react, and asked if he would have avoided the crash had he been paying attention, he said: \"It's difficult to say after everything now.\"\n\nSgt Mark Brady, who oversees major collision investigations for South Yorkshire Police, told the hearing: \"Had there been a hard shoulder, had Jason and Alexandru pulled on to the hard shoulder, my opinion is that Mr Szuba would have driven clean past them.\"\n\nBut he accepted the primary cause of the crash was Szuba's inattention to the road.\n\nThe crash happened after a collision between a Ford Focus driven by Mr Mercer, from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, and a Ford Transit driven by Mr Murgeanu, who was living in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, but was originally from Romania.\n\nWhen Mr Mercer and Mr Murgeanu got out to exchange details they were hit by the lorry, and both died at the scene.\n\nMr Mercer's wife Claire has campaigned against smart motorways since her husband's death, and was at the hearing on Monday.\n\nClaire Mercer has campaigned against the use of smart motorways since her husband's death\n\nIn a statement, Highways England said it was \"determined\" to do everything it could to make roads as safe as possible and was already addressing many of the points raised by the coroner \"as published in the Government's Smart Motorway Evidence Stocktake and Action Plan of March 2020\".\n\n\"We will carefully consider any further comments raised by the coroner once we receive the report,\" it added.\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A man has scaled a Hong Kong skyscraper in his wheelchair to raise money for spinal cord patients.\n\nLai Chi-Wai, who became paralysed after a road accident ten years ago, climbed 250 metres (820ft) of the Nina Towers building.\n\nBefore his accident, Lai Chi-Wai was a rock-climbing champion in Asia and eighth best in the world.\n\nHe said that \"knowing there was a possibility...that I could be a climber again, I found some direction in life\".", "Last updated on .From the section England\n\nPhil Neville has left his role as manager of England's women and been appointed in charge of David Beckham's Major League Soccer side Inter Miami.\n\nThe 43-year-old was appointed as England boss in January 2018 and his contract was set to end in July.\n\nThe Football Association says it will \"shortly confirm\" an interim head coach until Sarina Wiegman's arrival.\n\nNetherlands manager Wiegman will take on the role after the delayed Tokyo Olympics in August.\n\nFormer Manchester United and Everton defender Neville was the leading contender to manage Great Britain at the Games, but his move to the United States has left the FA needing another option.\n\n\"This is a very young club with a lot of promise and upside, and I am committed to challenging myself, my players and everyone around me to grow and build a competitive soccer culture we can all be proud of,\" Neville said of his American move.\n\nBeckham said of his former Manchester United team-mate: \"I have known Phil since we were both teenagers at the academy.\n\n\"We share a footballing DNA having been trained by some of the best leaders in the game, and it's those values that I have always wanted running through our club.\"\n\nThe MLS side had been managed by former Uruguay striker Diego Alonso before the 45-year-old left by mutual consent earlier this month.\n\nBeckham added: \"Anyone who has played or worked with Phil knows he is a natural leader, and I believe now is the right time for him to join.\"\n\nNeville led the Lionesses to their first SheBelieves Cup title in 2019 and fourth place at the Women's World Cup later the same year, but results since that tournament have been poor.\n\nEngland's struggles under Neville continued at the 2020 SheBelieves Cup, where a late defeat by Spain in the final match was their seventh loss in 11 games.\n\nThe Lionesses have not played since that game last March because of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\n\"It has been an honour to manage England and I have enjoyed three of the best years of my career,\" said Neville, who won 19 of his 35 games in charge.\n\n\"The players who wear the England shirt are some of the most talented and dedicated athletes I have ever had the privilege to work with.\n\n\"They have challenged me and improved me as a coach, and I am very grateful to them for the fantastic memories we have shared.\"\n\nNeville, who had no previous experience in the women's game before taking over, has made a \"significant contribution\" during his three-year spell, said Baroness Campbell, the FA's director of women's football.\n\n\"The commitment, dedication and respect he has shown the position has been clear to see,\" she added.\n\n\"I will personally miss our many conversations about ways we can improve and progress.\"\n\nEngland are ranked sixth in the world, having been third when Neville succeeded Mark Sampson.\n\nNeville's record against the best sides came under particular scrutiny, with England winning one of their nine games against teams ranked in the top five in the world during his reign.\n\nNeville's record against teams ranked in the world's top five\n\n\"After steadying the ship at a challenging period, he helped us to win the SheBelieves Cup for the first time, reach the World Cup semi-finals and qualify for the Olympics,\" added Campbell.\n\n\"Given his status as a former Manchester United and England player, he did much to raise the profile of our team.\n\n\"He has used his platform to champion the women's game, worked tirelessly to support our effort to promote more female coaches and used his expertise to develop many of our younger players.\"\n\nWhat happens next with England?\n\nThe FA is expected to name England's interim head coach in the next few days.\n\nAmong the favourites is former Norway midfielder Hege Riise, one of the greatest players of her generation - a European Championship winner in 1993, a World Cup winner in 1995 and an Olympic gold medallist in 2000.\n\nAfter retiring as a player, Riise moved into club management in Norway and also coached the country's Under-23 side before spending three years as assistant to then-USA head coach Pia Sundhage from 2009.\n\nShe then joined the set-up at Norwegian club LSK Kvinner in 2012 - becoming head coach in 2017 - as they won six successive titles between 2014 and 2019, while also reaching the 2018-19 Champions League quarter-finals.\n\nRiise was one of seven nominees for the Fifa best women's coach award in 2020, won by Wiegman in December.\n\nThe new interim manager has no England fixtures booked in the diary, though there has reportedly been discussions over a mini-tournament during the next international window in February.\n\nEngland will not be taking part in the SheBelieves Cup but could host a tournament which would see three other nations take part in a round-robin event.\n• None All the goals, highlights and analysis from the weekend's Premier League matches, including Manchester United's visit to Liverpool: MOTD2 is streaming now on BBC iPlayer", "Morgan Le-Riche and other students have questioned if they should be paying full tuition fees\n\n\"I am paying £9,000 for a university degree that is causing me nothing but anxiety and stress.\"\n\nFor Morgan Le-Riche, the university experience since the coronavirus pandemic hit has not been worth the fee.\n\nSome students are calling for reduced tuition fees and more support.\n\nThe Welsh Government said it provided the most generous student support package in the UK and has appointed a dedicated minister for mental health.\n\nIn announcing a lockdown earlier this week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said students in England would not return to the classroom until mid February, with calls for clarity over what will happen in Wales.\n\nMorgan, who is studying criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Wales, said \"something needs to be done to help us students\".\n\nHer Facebook post calling for more help was shared 3,000 times in three days - something that surprised her but also highlighted the depth of feeling.\n\nStudents face an uncertain time with with restrictions currently in place\n\nThe second year student said: \"I don't think the government is understanding students, instead they are only recognising primary and secondary schools - there's no recognition for university students.\"\n\nMorgan was given assignments to complete over Christmas, but said her lecturers had turned off their emails so she could not seek guidance when she was finding work difficult.\n\n\"I feel like the amount of stress I've had has meant I'm not doing a high enough standard of work, that I would normally do, due to the lack of assistance,\" she said.\n\nShe said more time with tutors and spaces for students to come together to discuss mental health would be beneficial.\n\nThe University of South Wales said their course teams are committed to providing \"comprehensive support\" and are \"readily available to offer help and guidance for students\".\n\nStudents in England have been told to work online and remain where they are\n\nA petition calling for the UK government to reduce university student tuition fees from £9,250 to £3,000 has gained more than 400,000 signatures online.\n\nMorgan thinks she has been \"massively let down\" and there needs to be a \"heavy reduction\" on the amount students are paying for their courses.\n\nA Welsh Government spokesman said: \"We are the only country in the whole of Europe that provides equivalent up front living costs grants and loans for full and part-time undergraduates, and for post-graduates.\n\n\"This already covers campus-based and distance learners and will continue throughout the academic year.\"\n\nDanielle Herbert believes university students need more focus from government\n\nJournalism student Danielle Herbert, who also studies at the University of South Wales, said online learning has helped her mental health because otherwise a lot of her face-to-face interactions would be limited.\n\nDespite \"lecturers trying their best\", students' experiences since March last year have not been \"adequate for a £9,000 fee\".\n\nThe third-year student from Swindon said the prime minister's announcement of an England-wide lockdown was stressful \"because there was no mention of universities\".\n\nShe said: \"I was left very unclear and confused as to where I stood on travelling back to Wales. As someone who suffers from anxiety, I rely on concrete facts and that wasn't provided. We have been ignored by the prime minister.\n\n\"I had just paid my rent for this term - which was £2,300 - and I looked at my mum and dad and said: 'Am I even going to be able to go back to my student flat'?\"\n\nDanielle has called for more help for students in dealing with mental health issues during the pandemic\n\nShe does not believe students have had the same level of support as secondary school pupils, adding: \"We're still expected to produce the same standard of work without protection whilst there's a pandemic going on - it's really unrealistic.\"\n\nDanielle said having a \"no detriment\" policy in place would help to relieve students' stress.\n\n\"I think there's a real issue amongst students and students' mental health and it's only grown because of coronavirus. I think we will see the consequences of that if nothing is done.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government said: \"To support mental health services, we have made an additional £9.9m available, as part of efforts to ensure people can access the right support when they need it.\n\n\"In October we announced an additional £10m to support mental health services for higher education students in Wales to increase capacity in students' unions and universities to provide support services.\n\n\"This is in addition to the £27m Higher Education Investment and Recovery Fund announced in the summer.\"\n\nThe University of South Wales said the safety and wellbeing of students is its priority and students have access to a \"wide range of comprehensive support for their health, mental health and wellbeing\".\n\n\"Recognising that a number of staff would be on leave over the Christmas and New Year holidays, the course team let students know they were available for help and support right up until the end of term and students were encouraged to ask for support if they needed it,\" said a spokesperson.\n\n\"We are providing a full and interactive blended learning offer this term, in line with Welsh Government guidance, so that students can receive good experiences and a high-quality education, enabling them to progress and complete their studies on time.\"", "Software giant Github has apologised for firing a Jewish employee who warned co-workers to be careful about Nazis.\n\nThe employee was fired two days after using the word to describe participants in the US Capitol riots.\n\nBut Github now says that decision was a mistake, and its head of HR has resigned over the scandal.\n\nThe company says it has offered the fired employee his job back, and clarified that \"employees are free to express concerns about Nazis\".\n\nMicrosoft-owned Github is one of the most popular software development tools in the world, with more than 50 million users. News of the internal row was first reported by Business Insider.\n\nPeople associated with a range of extreme and far-right groups and supporters of fringe online conspiracy theories stormed Congress.\n\nAs it happened, the Jewish employee posted to an internal Github Slack channel: \"Stay safe homies, Nazis are about.\"\n\nBut the comment sparked criticism from a co-worker about the use of the word \"Nazi\" to describe the rioters, calling it \"untasteful conduct\" for the workplace.\n\nThe Jewish employee, who wished to remain anonymous, told Techcrunch he had been \"genuinely concerned about his co-workers in the area, in addition to his Jewish family members\".\n\nTwo days later, he was fired for his \"patterns of behaviour\".\n\nBut the firing led to an outcry from many more co-workers, with hundreds signing an internal letter calling on Github to explain the decision - and to publicly denounce Nazis.\n\nAmid the outcry, the company opened an investigation with an external investigator.\n\n\"The investigation revealed significant errors of judgment and procedure,\" chief executive Erica Brescia wrote in a blogpost. \"Our head of HR has taken personal accountability and resigned from GitHub.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Joe Biden: \"Yesterday, in my view, was one of the darkest days in the history of our nation.\"\n\nShe said the firm had \"reversed the decision to separate with the employee\", and had contacted him - but it is not clear if the employee wishes to return after the treatment he received.\n\nThe company has also issued statements condemning white supremacists, Nazism, anti-Semitism, and those who took part in the Capitol riots.", "A group of London business leaders has written to the government calling for financial support for the struggling rail firm Eurostar.\n\nIn a letter to the Treasury and Department for Transport, they urge \"swift action to safeguard its future\".\n\nBosses of firms such as Fortnum & Mason signed the letter asking for access to government loans and business rates relief \"at the very least\".\n\nThe government says it is \"working closely\" with Eurostar.\n\nThe cross-Channel rail company is threatened by a large drop in passenger numbers due to coronavirus-related travel restrictions.\n\nIt reported in November that passenger numbers had been down 95% since March 2020.\n\nWith two trains an hour normally scheduled in peak hours, it now runs just two services a day from London to Paris and Brussels.\n\nThe letter, coordinated by business campaigning group London First and seen by the BBC, describes the firm as one that has \"fallen through the cracks\". Unlike some airlines, it has not been eligible for government-backed loans.\n\n\"If this viable business is allowed to fall between the cracks of support - neither an airline, nor a domestic railway - our recovery could be damaged,\" it says.\n\nCo-signed by 28 leaders, including the vice-chancellor of Middlesex University, the chief executive of West End property company Shaftesbury, as well as the boss of the ExCeL conference centre, the letter points out that the company currently employs 1,200 people in the UK.\n\nThe firm is 55% owned by French state rail firm SNCF. The UK government sold its stake in the business to private companies for £757m in 2015.\n\nThe letter also credits Eurostar with reducing carbon emissions. Since it launched in 1994, it has transported more than 190 million passengers between Britain and mainland Europe.\n\nA spokesman for Eurostar said: \"Without additional funding from government there is a real risk to the survival of Eurostar, the green gateway to Europe.\n\nHe described the current situation as \"very serious\".\n\nA spokesman for the Department for Transport said: \"We recognise the significant financial challenges facing Eurostar as a result of Covid-19 and the unprecedented circumstances currently faced by the international travel industry.\"\n\nHe added the government had been in contact with Eurostar \"on a regular basis\" since the start of the coronavirus crisis and would continue to work closely with the firm.\n• None How are travel rules being relaxed?", "A small group of armed protesters held a rally in front of the capitol building in Texas\n\nSmall groups of protesters - some of them armed - gathered on Sunday at statehouses in the US, where tensions are high after the deadly riots at the Capitol in Washington.\n\nProtests were held outside capitol buildings in Texas, Oregon, Michigan, Ohio and elsewhere.\n\nBut many other statehouses were quiet, amid a ramping up of security across US legislatures. No clashes were reported.\n\nThe FBI has warned of armed protests ahead of Wednesday's inauguration.\n\nPresident-elect Joe Biden will take office two weeks after pro-Trump protesters stormed the US Capitol in Washington DC on 6 January, leaving five dead, including a police officer.\n\nMore than 25,000 National Guard troops are being deployed to secure Washington. In a sign of just how worried officials are about potential unrest, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told the Associated Press on Sunday that all Guard members were being vetted because of fears of an insider threat.\n\nAlso on Sunday, a county official from New Mexico was arrested in Washington in connection with the riots at the US Capitol on 6 January.\n\nCouy Griffin, the founder of a group called Cowboys for Trump, had vowed to return on inauguration day with firearms to \"embrace my Second Amendment\".\n\nMany cities had prepared for potentially violent protests over the weekend, erecting barriers and deploying thousands of National Guard troops.\n\nPosts on pro-Trump and far-right online networks had called for armed demonstrations on Sunday in particular, but some militias told their followers not to attend, citing heavy security or claiming the planned events were police traps.\n\nSmall crowds of protesters numbering in the dozens gathered in only some cities, leaving the streets surrounding many statehouses largely empty.\n\nMembers of the the Boogaloo Bois were seen outside the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing\n\nThe New York Times reported about 25 members of the Boogaloo Bois movement were among heavily-armed protesters who gathered at the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. But the men - who are part of a loosely organised extremist group that wants to overthrow the US government - said they were there for a long-planned gun rights rally.\n\nMeanwhile in Michigan, about two dozen people - some carrying rifles - protested outside the statehouse in Lansing, as police watched on.\n\n\"I am not here to be violent and I hope no one shows up to be violent,\" one protester told Reuters news agency.\n\nA similarly small group of about a dozen protesters, a few armed with rifles, stood outside the Texas Capitol in Austin.\n\nOutside Pennsylvania's capitol in Harrisburg, one Trump supporter noted the poor turn-out, telling Reuters: \"There's nothing going on.\"\n\nMore protests are expected on Wednesday, when Mr Biden will officially be sworn into office, replacing Mr Trump as president.\n\nMr Biden will issue executive orders to reverse President Trump's travel bans and re-join the Paris climate accord on his first day in the White House.\n\nThe president-elect is also expected to focus on reuniting families separated at the US-Mexico border, and to issue mandates on Covid-19 and mask-wearing.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The US Capitol is on high alert ahead of Biden's inauguration\n\nMuch of Washington DC has been locked down ahead of the inauguration. The National Mall, which is usually thronged with thousands of people for inaugurations, has been shut at the request of the Secret Service.\n\nThe Biden team had already asked Americans to avoid travelling to the nation's capital for the inauguration because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Local officials said people should watch the event remotely.", "China's economy grew at the slowest pace in more than four decades last year, official figures show, but remains on course to be the only major economy to have expanded in 2020.\n\nThe economy grew 2.3% last year, despite Covid-19 shutdowns causing output to slump in early 2020.\n\nStrict virus containment measures and emergency relief for businesses helped the economy recover.\n\nGrowth in the final three months of the year picked up to 6.5%.\n\n\"The GDP data shows the economy has almost normalised. This momentum will continue, although the current Covid-19 outbreak in a couple of provinces in northern China might temporarily cause fluctuation,\" said Yue Su, principal economist for the Economist Intelligence Unit.\n\nChina's mainland share markets as well as Hong Kong's Hang Seng posted modest gains on the latest figures, which exceeded economists' expectations, according to a Reuters poll.\n\nHowever, Covid-19 was still a major drain on growth in 2020, with nationwide shutdowns of factories and manufacturing plants forcing economic growth down to its slowest rate for four decades.\n\nChina's manufacturing sector appears to have recovered, with Monday's data showing a 7.3% increase in industrial output.\n\nExports have also led the way. Data last week showed Chinese exports grew by more than expected in December, as coronavirus disruptions around the world fuelled demand for Chinese goods.\n\nThat is despite a stronger yuan, which makes Chinese exports more expensive for overseas buyers.\n\nChina's economy has seen a strong rebound, while the rest of the world struggles with anaemic demand, millions of job losses, and businesses shutting down.\n\nChina's economic engine roared back to life after a brutal lockdown that saw the Chinese economy contract by a historic 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020.\n\nWe should always be circumspect about Chinese data - with the usual caveat that the trajectory of the data rather than the figures themselves are a useful guide to how China's economy is growing.\n\nWhat these numbers show is that China's strategy of locking down cities hard and quickly has worked.\n\nA combination of government-led investment and global demand for Chinese goods also helped to power a rapid recovery, and boost exports.\n\nStill - this is the lowest rate of annual growth in more than 40 years for the economic giant. Worries over a resurgence of the virus are also clouding China's growth outlook, with consumer demand still weak.\n\nAnd Beijing is trying to navigate a prickly trade relationship with the US, with the incoming administration unlikely to be softer on China than President Donald Trump.\n\nAll of these challenges will no doubt weigh on Chinese growth in 2021 - but they seem to be in a better place than the rest of the world's major economies.\n\nIt was not all good news from the latest figures.\n\nLi Wei, a senior economist at Standard Chartered Bank, said pandemic-related exports and credit-fuelled car and housing sales accounted for much of the growth, while domestic demand lagged behind.\n\n\"Domestic household consumption of food, clothing, furniture and utilities remains below pre-pandemic levels, while the hospitality and transportation sectors continue to face capacity and travel restrictions,\" he told Reuters.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why does China’s economy matter to you?\n\nAlthough retail sales grew by 4.6% in the fourth quarter of 2020, they fell by 3.9% for the year.\n\nMany analysts are tipping growth to accelerate in 2021, but the China Bureau of Statistics has warned of a \"grave and complex environment both at home and abroad\", with the pandemic having a \"huge impact\".\n\nChina still faces many challenges, including continuing trade tensions with the US and how they might play out under the administration of President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office later this week.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Lorry drivers have been holding up the traffic in Westminster.\n\nBoris Johnson has pledged £23m to help businesses affected by Brexit delays amid protests by fishing firms.\n\nDemonstrations took place outside government departments in central London by exporters who are warning their livelihoods are under threat.\n\nExports of fresh fish and seafood have been severely disrupted by new border controls since the UK's transition period ended earlier this month.\n\nThe PM said firms would be compensated for delays that were not their fault.\n\nIndustry associations have complained that extra paperwork has made it difficult to deliver fresh produce to mainland Europe before it goes off.\n\nThey have warned that if the situation continues, jobs could soon be at risk.\n\nPressed on what he would do in response, Mr Johnson said the government would step in to support firms which \"through no fault of their own have experienced bureaucratic delays, difficulties getting their goods through, where there is a genuine willing buyer on the other side of the channel\".\n\n\"There's a £23m compensation fund we've set up and we'll make sure they get help,\" he said.\n\nDetails of the scheme are expected later this week.\n\nAfter a day of protests in central London, which saw 20 lorries drive up Whitehall, the Metropolitan Police said 14 people had been reported for Covid-related offences, but no arrests were made.\n\nMark Moore, manager of the Dartmouth Crab Company, said his business and others were protesting to \"raise awareness\" of the impact of new border checks.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 5 Live his company had faced delays of up to eight and a half hours when delivering produce into the European Union.\n\nHe added that the situation was \"especially difficult\" for the shellfish sector, where goods were at risk of going off before reaching customers.\n\n\"It's not about the increased documentation per se,\" he said.\n\n\"We have taken that on board, and we ourselves - and I know many others - have had no issues with producing the actual paperwork.\n\n\"It's the volume required and the timeframe in which to produce it, which doesn't lend itself to live shellfish and fish generally.\"\n\nThere are 24 lorries in total, overwhelmingly from seafood exporters in Scotland. Businesses taking part say the Brexit trade deal has left their industry high and dry.\n\nAnd although one haulier from Aberdeenshire I spoke to was keen to stress that their coordinated protest was peaceful, it is clear that they all feel that direct action is now necessary to make the government sit up and take notice.\n\nGood natured though their action was, it did for a time cause serious traffic congestion along Whitehall and Parliament Square.\n\nHowever, low levels of traffic perhaps caused by the Covid lockdown meant the roads around Whitehall didn't grind to a complete halt.\n\nAt stake, they believe, is an industry, but also thousands of livelihoods. Exporters say they are backed by fishermen who are struggling to land their catches.\n\nAnd although the rural Scottish communities which are sustained by fishing might seem like a long way from the streets of SW1, the hauliers certainly made their presence felt this morning.\n\nHaving left the EU's customs union and the single market, UK exports are subject to new customs and veterinary checks which have caused problems at the border.\n\nSome Scottish fishermen have been landing their catch in Denmark to avoid the \"bureaucratic system\" involved in exporting to Europe, according to Scotland's rural economy secretary.\n\nLast week, Boris Johnson told a committee of MPs that fishing firms impacted by disruption would be compensated for \"temporary frustrations\".\n\nBut the BBC was told that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) did not know about the promise of compensation before it was made by Mr Johnson.\n\nSpeaking to reporters, the prime minister said he understood the \"frustrations\" of the fishing industry, noting its plight had been \"exacerbated by the Covid pandemic\".\n\n\"Unfortunately, the demand in restaurants on the continent for UK fish has not been what it was before the pandemic, just because the restaurants have been closed for so long,\" he added.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused ministers of trying to \"blame fishing communities\" for problems \"rather than accepting it's their failure to prepare\".\n\n\"The government has known there would be a problem with fishing and particularly the sale of fish into the EU for years,\" he told reporters.\n\nMuch media attention has been focussed on Scotland as this export crisis has unfolded.\n\nBut exactly the same problem is rearing its head in the UK's other great fishing stronghold - at the other end of the UK in Devon and Cornwall.\n\nA virtual Who's Who of South West fishing leaders wrote to the environment secretary back in November warning that the new post-Brexit export requirements would have a \"seriously detrimental effect\" on the industry, claiming this \"could be the final straw for many businesses\".\n\nHere, too, many fish exports have now ground to a halt and others have encountered obstacles and long delays.\n\nAnd exporters have reacted angrily to the government's repeated insistence that the issues they've been experiencing over the last two weeks are just \"teething problems\".", "Although it has been common to hear and see the impact on care homes internationally throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, one country where such insight has been rare is China.\n\nPrivate care homes have been growing in popularity in China in recent years, but there are some stigmas associated with the industry.\n\nIn China, many view nursing homes as going against the cultural concept of “filial piety”. This is the belief that the young should respect for and care for their elders, and so many believe the elderly should live with their children, and not live in care homes.\n\nHowever, as cases of the virus grow in the northeast of the country, the official broadcaster CCTV has offered viewers a rare insight into how China’s elderly in these facilities are being protected.\n\nA journalist today has visited the Shijiazhuang Nursing Home. Shijiazhuang is the Chinese city that has been hardest hit by the virus in recent weeks.\n\nIn a 30-minute livestream in which he is clad in hazmat suit and visor, journalist Gu Junling introduces viewers to how the facilities are kept safe, and shows viewers inside the care home’s stockrooms, packed with ample provisions for its residents.\n\nMany of the residents seem happy to speak to the journalist and talk about how they are healthy, and happy. Masks are mandatory for both residents and staff, even in the areas outside on-site. However, far from being kept under house arrest, residents are shown to have sufficient space to go outside, use computers and games rooms.", "Tributes have been paid to the actor Andy Gray who has died at the age of 61.\n\nThe Perth-born star was a well known face on TV and the stage for more than 40 years.\n\nAmong his best known on-screen roles were \"Chancer\" in the 1980s comedy City Lights and more recently \"Pete Galloway\" in BBC soap River City.\n\nHis River City co-star Gayle Telfer Stevens said Gray was a \"national treasure\".\n\nShe added: \"Not only was he an exceptional actor and entertainer who brought so much joy to so many people, he was an extraordinary man.\n\n\"When you were in his presence you could feel it was of greatness. The most kind, clever, funny beyond measure, beautiful man.\"\n\nAndy Gray, second from the left in the back row, starred as \"Chancer\" in the hit 1980s comedy show \"City Lights\"\n\nAndy Gray performing at the Edinburgh Festival in 2013\n\nSteve Carson, director of BBC Scotland, said: \"We are deeply saddened by the news that one of Scotland's much loved comedy actors and close friend to many at BBC Scotland, Andy Gray has passed away.\n\n\"On screen and in person he could always make you laugh and was one of the kindest people to have around on any production. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.\"\n\nAndy Gray, pictured with Grant Stott, had been one of the stars at Edinburgh's King's Theatre pantomime for years\n\nMartin McCardie, executive producer at BBC Scotland Studios, added: \"When Andy joined River City in 2016 he had an extremely successful stage, TV and film career behind him, but the character of Pete Galloway turned out to be one of the most popular ever to pass through Shieldinch.\n\n\"Andy took ill in 2018 and he had to leave the show and he had a difficult time. His ongoing recovery was borne with humour and gratitude for what he had. He had unfinished business on River City and we were looking forward to welcoming him back to film with us before the end of the current series.\"\n\nAndy Gray was genuinely one of the nicest people in the world of showbusiness.\n\nWhether you were an actor, or a journalist, or just someone who'd seen him in panto, he was always ready to have a chat.\n\nWhen he dropped out of his Fringe show in 2018, after being diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia, he was inundated with good wishes, but said he wanted privacy to deal with his illness.\n\nHe retreated to his home in Perthshire and took the time to recover.\n\nWhen he returned to the stage of the Kings Theatre in Edinburgh for their 2019 panto, it was an emotional milestone.\n\nWrapped in his Batman dressing gown backstage (he was a huge fan with a shed full of film paraphernalia) he admitted it could be overwhelming. Sometimes the whoops and cheers of the audience at his arrival in the midst of a glitzy song and dance routine would go on for several minutes.\n\nHis co-stars Grant Stott and Allan Stewart watched from the wings and said it had restored the balance of their long established trio. The Kings is one of the only theatres to have a tradition of a pantette - where the cast sit in the auditorium and watch the front of house staff performing the show. Andy wasn't spared the merciless send up, nor would he have wanted to.\n\nDaughter Claire was also in the show - as one of the three bears - and her baby daughter was in Andy's arms for the curtain call. But whether his actual family, or his panto family, or the generations of people who've seen him onstage or screen, it was a moment of hope, as well as joy, that someone who'd brought so much laughter and entertainment to Scotland was back.\n\nThat's why his sudden death at 61 is such a cruel blow.\n\nHe had been campaigning to keep the Kings afloat, and was involved in online performances. He and Allan Stewart had hoped to appear in one of the few surviving pantomimes in Milton Keynes but that too was cancelled.\n\nFriends and colleagues knew he'd been admitted to hospital in the last few days, and feared the worst. Those who simply knew him as someone who made them laugh, on stage or screen, are no less bereft.\n\nTonight the world of Scottish entertainment is in mourning for a gifted comic actor, writer and genuinely nice man.", "Aberystwyth University's vice chancellor told students not to attend lectures unless \"absolutely necessary\"\n\nAberystwyth University has told its students not to return to campus following new advice from the Welsh Government.\n\nA phased return had been planned from 11 January, but this has now been postponed.\n\nVice-chancellor Prof Elizabeth Treasure said students should not attend the university, in Ceredigion, unless \"absolutely necessary.\"\n\nOn Friday the Welsh Government told learners \"study from home if you can\".\n\nMs Treasure said: \"We are reviewing our plans for in-person teaching and will inform you as soon as we can. Whilst we are reviewing those plans, we don't want students travelling to the university unnecessarily.\"\n\nShe said there were certain exceptions, including students without internet access and those for whom laboratory access was essential.\n\nWales' Education Minister, Kirsty Williams, said universities were reviewing their plans based on their individual circumstances.\n\n\"On return, students are also expected to take two asymptomatic tests and comply with rules as they re-join their term time household,\" she said.\n\nDespite the announcement, Bangor University said on Facebook on Friday that it \"falls under the rules of the Welsh Government which allow for a staggered return to blended learning\".\n\nCardiff University said earlier this week that most students would not return to face-to-face teaching until 22 February.\n\nA Welsh Government spokesman said: \"Our message to students, staff and universities in general is the same as the rest of the population: Stay home, work or study from home if you can.\n\n\"Only attend your place of work or study if you can't work from home.\"\n\nThe new announcement came after calls for clarity were made because of differences with the rules in England.\n\nAt that point, the Welsh Government and Universities Wales said the plans agreed before Christmas would remain in place.\n\nOn Friday, it was announced that schools and colleges would stay closed to most pupils until the February half term unless there is a \"significant\" fall in Covid cases.", "LAS received almost 200,000 calls in December - up 50,000 on November, when London was in the second national lockdown\n\nLast week London exceeded the grim milestone of 10,000 deaths linked to Covid-19. Thousands of people are critically ill in hospital, and as many as 5% of Londoners are thought to have the virus in some parts of the city. As coronavirus continues to circulate silently around the capital, staff at the London Ambulance Service (LAS) are under immense pressure.\n\nThe service is currently taking up to 8,500 calls a day, compared with a pre-Covid figure of 5,000 to 6,000, according to its chief executive Garrett Emmerson.\n\nLizzie Cooke is one of the workers at LAS's south London headquarters who are dealing with strangers at what is a distressing time.\n\nI covered the London Bridge terror attacks and Grenfell but this is a different scale\n\nCalmly, the 30-year-old answers the phone and usually asks first if the patient is breathing.\n\n\"In the first wave we were getting a lot of calls of [people seeking] reassurance,\" Lizzie says. \"But now there are more and more who have symptoms, and family members are really frightened.\"\n\nIt is a fear that Lizzie knows all too well, having been hospitalised with Covid-19 in March. She spent a week receiving treatment for the virus.\n\n\"I was at work taking calls and struggling to concentrate,\" the call-handling supervisor says. \"At times I would just have my head on the desk in between calls.\n\n\"I started to develop chest pains five days later so my parents took me to Royal County Hospital, in Hampshire, and an X-ray showed a lot of fluid in my lungs. It was quite horrible.\n\n\"Luckily, I wasn't on a ventilator but I had the oxygen hood, and the nurses were so rushed off their feet. I didn't have my phone with me or know my parents' numbers off by heart so for that week I was quite alone and isolated.\n\n\"It was just a mixture of the unknown and not knowing when it was going to stop that was so daunting.\"\n\nThe unprecedented volume of calls means waiting times for patients are increasing\n\nLizzie's personal battle with coronavirus has helped her to empathise with people who call up with breathing problems.\n\nIt's something she says she's having to do more and more.\n\n\"Just before Christmas we were getting a lot of respiratory and cardiac arrest calls,\" she says. \"You could just hear colleagues counting to four [for chest compressions] and it was echoing around the room. It has been tough.\n\n\"We are getting calls from family members who are really frightened. I covered the London Bridge terror attacks and Grenfell but this is a different scale.\n\n\"I did get one call for toothache, but that's part of the job.\"\n\nLizzie, who lives in Hampshire, says that because the coverage of coronavirus is everywhere, it is \"difficult to escape\".\n\nWhen she's not at work she binge-watches Line of Duty on Netflix, but she says winding down isn't easy.\n\nLizzie sometimes thinks about the people who aren't following the rules aimed at helping stop the spread of the virus, and those who deny Covid-19 even exists.\n\n\"It's a kick in the teeth,\" she says. \"It is frustrating on the way to work when you see people not wearing masks or even posting stuff on social media not believing the virus is real.\n\n\"I just don't know where the disconnect is coming from; there are many people in hospital, many people dying, and I don't know what more needs to be said to make them realise how dangerous the illness is.\"\n\nSorry, your browser cannot display this map\n\nSitting a few metres away from Lizzie is 24-year-old Louise Essam, who has been in the job for two years.\n\n\"Every call we take at the moment is coronavirus,\" she says. \"My record was 108 calls in a day back in March during the first wave.\n\n\"But easily in the last few weeks I've been taking around 100 a day at times,\" Louise adds.\n\n\"We are just doing the best we can,\" says emergency call co-ordinator Louise Essam\n\n\"Sometimes I'll come in for a shift and can just hear colleagues counting one, two, three, four, for the compressions, and you just know what kind of shift it is going to be.\n\n\"It has been tough and quite frustrating, really. We are trying to help people. We are under so much pressure as there are high waiting times, but we are just doing the best we can.\"\n\nHelp is at hand though from the LAS workers' fellow emergency services personnel.\n\nMet Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick visited Wembley Stadium on Wednesday, where her officers are being trained to drive ambulances\n\nSeventy-five Met Police officers are currently being trained at Wembley Stadium to drive ambulances.\n\nThey will start work as drivers from 20 January, joining the 200 firefighters who are already helping LAS.\n\n\"It came as a huge relief when they announced it,\" says 37-year-old paramedic Ben West.\n\nBen West has been with the London Ambulance Service for 13 years\n\nAs is the case with many frontline workers, Ben says he is concerned about the dangers of exposure to coronavirus.\n\nHe has lost four colleagues to Covid-19, including Ian Reynolds, a paramedic based in Croydon, and Melonie Mitchell, a member of the NHS 111 team. They both died during the first wave in April.\n\n\"I wouldn't be a normal person if I said I wasn't scared,\" he says.\n\n\"I am scared and I do worry but we take every day as it comes, take our precautions and we just see where we go with that.\n\n\"We know the virus is out there in the community and we are not immune.\"", "Audi factories, like others, will make thousands fewer cars at the start of this year\n\nAudi is having to slow production because of a computer-chip shortage it is calling a \"crisis upon a crisis\".\n\nBoss Markus Duesmann said it was now aiming to make 10,000 fewer cars in the first quarter of the year and putting more than 10,000 workers on furlough.\n\nIts parent company, Volkswagen, announced its own go-slow due to a lack of chips last week, alongside rivals such as Honda.\n\nMr Duesmann told the Financial Times carmakers had been caught by surprise.\n\nAfter a poor start to 2020 for new car sales, manufacturers cut their orders from the Chinese factories making computer chips.\n\nBut then, at the end of the year, \"everybody was quite surprised by the strength of the market\", Mr Duesmann said.\n\nHowever, ordering new chips is not simple.\n\nCCS Insight analyst Geoff Blaber said: \"Semiconductors have a broad range of applications but a very limited pool of companies capable of manufacturing the silicon.\n\n\"Demand is high, and supply is tight\" and any sudden needs \"can prove very difficult to accommodate\".\n\n\"Modern cars are becoming computers on wheels, with an abundance of silicon required to control everything from the infotainment system to camera, radar and lidar,\" he said.\n\nThe demand from carmakers \"competes for manufacturing capacity with smartphones, servers and a host of other segments\".\n\nAnd a boom in the market for devices such as PCs and new game consoles was making it doubly difficult to book manufacturing time.\n\nThe shortages have seen Mercedes-maker Daimler, Fiat, Ford, Honda, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota all reportedly suspend production for days or weeks at a time.\n\nAnd German car-parts company Continental described \"largescale supply shortages\", with lead times of six to nine months, adding bottlenecks were expected to continue \"well into 2021, causing major disruptions\".", "Two drivers from Scotland were stopped by police on Anglesey going to see friends.\n\nPeople who drove more than 200 miles to visit friends in Wales and a group having a party in a garden shed have been caught breaking Covid rules.\n\nPolice forces in Wales have broken up parties, football matches and fined people for visiting beauty spots this weekend while Wales is in lockdown.\n\nTwo motorists were reported by North Wales Police in Anglesey after driving from Scotland to visit friends.\n\nWhile in Swansea, eight people were fined after a party was held in a shed.\n\nThe drivers from Scotland were stopped by police at Valley, near Holyhead, and reported for driving without insurance and breaching Covid travel restrictions.\n\nOfficers from North Wales Police on Saturday also stopped a car from Portsmouth as the driver was travelling to \"collect a front bumper\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by South Wales Police Vale of Glamorgan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by South Wales Police Vale of Glamorgan\n\n\"Travelling nearly 300 miles for a piece of cosmetic plastic for your car is not essential at this time,\" said North Wales Police's Intercept team.\n\n\"The regulations have been broadcast far and wide. Please be mindful you will be reported if your journey is not essential.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Gwent Police | Caerphilly Borough Officers This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEven though national parks have shut car parks in a bid to stop people visiting, North Wales Police said it received about 100 calls on Saturday about potential Covid breaches - and officers told people they need to take \"personal responsibility\" and \"stay home\".\n\nSouth Wales Police officers issued fixed penalty notices after finding people from \"all different households\" in a shed - which had been converted into a bar - in the Sketty area of Swansea all \"mixing together\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Mark Drakeford This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA further nine fixed penalty notices were given out in the Townhill area of the city after different households attended a baby reveal party on Sunday.\n\nFive people were warned about breaking laws in Neath Port Talbot after a group travelled to a field to play football, while four people were fined after a house party in Aberavon.\n\nUnder coronavirus rules people are only allowed to leave their homes for \"essential\" reasons, including to shop for food, get medical treatment and to exercise.\n\nWhile exercise is allowed, people are not allowed to drive to a spot for a walk, run or cycle, and the law means exercising with people you do not live with (or who are your bubble if you live alone) is banned.\n\nThose found to be in breach of Covid laws can be fined £60 for the first offence, with the penalties increasing up to £1,920. If prosecuted, however, a court can impose an unlimited fine.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid lockdown: 'This is why we say to you do not come out'\n\nUntil recently police had been using an education first approach, but the Welsh Government has repeatedly said it wants to see stricter enforcement of the rules.\n\nIn Powys, road officers from Dyfed-Powys Police stopped cars and turned around people driving to exercise.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Traffic Wales North & Mid #KeepWalesSafe This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn Port Talbot, two people sat on a bench drinking alcohol were fined by South Wales Police for \"leaving home without a reasonable excuse\".\n\nGwent Police officers broke-up a house party in Glyn-Gaer, Caerphilly county, on Friday evening and issued fines.", "A non-binding Labour motion calling for the universal credit top-up to be kept in place beyond 31 March passed by 278 votes to none after a Commons debate.\n\nSix Tory MPs defied party orders to abstain and voted with Labour, adding to the pressure on the PM on the issue.\n\nThe prime minister said the government had provided £280bn worth of support during the pandemic but all measures would be kept under \"constant review\".\n\nThe motion, which will not automatically lead to a change in policy, was put forward by Labour as a way to put additional pressure on the government to continue the increase, worth £1,000 a year.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Carl, a roofer, describes going from \"not having enough to barely having enough\" on universal credit.\n\nFormer Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb was among six Conservative MPs to rebel, along with Peter Aldous, Robert Halfon, Jason McCartney, Anne Marie Morris and Matthew Offord.\n\nAhead of the vote, Mr Crabb told the BBC that although there were \"difficult pressures on the chancellor\" extending the increase for 12 months was \"the right thing to do\".\n\nBBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said there were dozens of Conservative MPs who were \"deeply uneasy\" about ending the £20 weekly increase to universal credit.\n\nShe added that it was also understood the cabinet minister with responsibility for benefits, Therese Coffey, was arguing that the uplift should not be dropped in April.\n\nCharities and anti-poverty campaigners are pleading with the government to keep the support in place, describing it as a lifeline for more than 5.5 million families who receive the standard universal credit allowance.\n\nFood poverty campaigner and chef Jack Monroe told the BBC that the £20 increase \"has been a lifeline\" for millions of people who have needed to top up their income or rely on universal credit payments in order to get by.\n\nSir Keir said the increase was a vital safety net for those who had lost their jobs, seen their working hours slashed or who were not eligible for the government's wage subsidy furlough scheme.\n\n\"If we don't give a helping hand to families through this pandemic, then we are going to slow our economic recovery as we come out it.\n\n\"We urge Boris Johnson to change course and give families certainty today that their incomes will be protected.\"\n\nSix billion pounds of the benefits bill - the difference between poverty or not for 1.2 million families, according to a think tank.\n\nThe £1,040 a year increase to universal credit is a very emotive issue.\n\nThere's even a battle over what to call it.\n\nTo the government, its introduction was a one-off boost to cope with a crisis. For Labour, taking it away is a cut.\n\nMinisters would prefer we looked at the overall level of support they've provided for workers and businesses during the pandemic. The opposition say the £20 a week boost is a powerful symbol of the state's willingness to help.\n\nEven the act of debating it today is disputed. Labour say they've got the right occasionally to set the agenda in Parliament. Boris Johnson said his MPs risk abuse from campaigners and protestors if they engage.\n\nThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation has suggested about 16 million people will be directly affected if the £20 is rolled back.\n\nIt says 500,000 more people will be driven into poverty, including 200,000 children, while a further 500,000 of those already in poverty will find themselves in even worse hardship.\n\nHowever, free market think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs has argued that \"across-the-board benefit increases are a wasteful use of taxpayers' money\" at a time when the government is borrowing \"a hair-raising amount of money\".\n\nUniversal credit is a single payment replacing old benefits such as housing benefit and child tax credits.\n\nYou can claim universal credit if you are on a low income or are out of work.\n\nThe standard allowance varies from around £340 to just under £600 a month, depending on your age or whether you are single.\n\nYou may be eligible to receive more money on top of the standard allowance if, for example, you have children or a health condition.\n\nSpeaking on behalf of the Northern Research Group, Conservative MP John Stevenson said the £1,000 increase had been \"a real life-saver for people throughout this pandemic\".\n\n\"To end it now would be devastating for the 6 million individuals and families who are already struggling to stay afloat,\" he added.\n\nWhile the vote is not binding, and will not lead to a change in policy, it will increase pressure on the government to keep the increase or come up with an alternative.\n\nLabour said the Conservatives' decision to abstain created \"unnecessary uncertainty\" but minister Nadhim Zahawi described the vote as \"a political stunt\".\n\nThe government says it has strengthened the welfare system with an extra £7bn of funding during the pandemic while families struggling with food and household bills can get help through the £170m Winter Grant Scheme.\n\nMinisters also point to extra support for housing costs, through an increase in local housing allowance for those on housing benefits and hardship payments worth £670m next year for those unable to pay their council tax bills.", "The former president posts that he has been told to report to a grand jury, \"which almost always means an Arrest\".", "Staff are in \"the eye of the storm\" amid the coronavirus pandemic, the NHS says\n\nTen hospital trusts across England consistently reported having no spare adult critical care beds in the most recent figures.\n\nIt comes as hospital waiting times, coronavirus admissions and patients requiring intensive care are rising.\n\nEngland's 140 acute trusts had 5,503 adult critical care beds on 10 January, with 4,632 in use.\n\nNHS bosses have warned hospitals could \"hit the limit\" of their capacity this week.\n\n\"I think, this next week, we will be at the limit of what we probably have the physical space and the people to safely do,\" Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said.\n\n\"And, of course, this is the week when we expect also the highest rate of admissions, the highest demand for the care that we're providing.\"\n\nThe latest figures from NHS England show the number of trusts that were, on average, at full capacity in adult critical care across an entire week rose from four to 10 in the week to 10 January.\n\nThis was the highest number in the last 10 weeks for which data was available.\n\nThe increase comes despite trusts adding an additional 50% \"surge\" capacity across the summer and autumn to cope with winter pressures, according to NHS England.\n\nOverall, 30 acute hospital trusts in England had no spare adult critical care beds on 10 January alone. But daily admissions figures can vary from day-to-day as patients move in and out of intensive care.\n\nSpeaking on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said nine critical care patients had recently been transferred to other parts of the country because of no beds being available in their local area.\n\nSpeaking about all admissions, Sir Simon said hospitals in England had seen an increase of 15,000 inpatients since Christmas Day.\n\n\"That's the equivalent of filling 30 hospitals full of coronavirus patients and staggeringly every 30 seconds across England another patient is being admitted to hospital with coronavirus,\" he added.\n\nHelen Buckingham, from Health think-tank The Nuffield Trust, said the NHS was facing a winter \"like no other\" and, on top of rising coronavirus hospital admissions, critical care beds were also required for non-Covid patients.\n\n\"The NHS has pulled out all the stops to create more beds this year, and hospitals are working together so that patients who need critical care can be moved to other hospitals as necessary - but without more fully trained critical care staff there isn't much further the service can go,\" she said.\n\nThe figures only tell part of the story. The creation of extra beds to cope with rising numbers of Covid patients has come at a price.\n\nCritical care beds have been set up in overspill areas including departments usually reserved for operations. What is more, there is no extra staff to look after these extra patients - so specialist intensive care nurses have been stretched across more patients than normal. Instead of providing one-to-one care for the most sick, some areas are seeing nurses looking after three or four patients.\n\nStaff from other areas have had to be redeployed into critical care departments too.\n\nThat of course comes at a cost to non-Covid services and is part of the reason we have seen planned surgery and even cancer care being cut back on.\n\nA leaked email recently revealed about 200 doctors would be redeployed to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham amid fears its intensive care unit could be \"overwhelmed\".\n\nUniversity Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust said it had \"significantly\" more patients in hospital with Covid-19 than in April last year.\n\nThe trust had 147 critical care beds available across its hospitals as of 10 January, all of which were full as of the latest figures.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What does it mean if the NHS is overwhelmed?\n\nA spokesman said the trust would continue to extend its intensive care teams \"so they are able to treat the rising number of Covid-19 patients and those who require time-critical surgery, including cancer operations\".\n\nAiredale NHS Foundation Trust, despite having nine critical care beds overall, said it did not normally experience full occupancy at this time in the year and the ward had both Covid and non-Covid patients.\n\n\"We are experiencing normal winter pressures across the trust, combined with an increasing number of Covid-19 patients, particularly over the last week,\" a spokeswoman said.\n\n\"Every bed in ICU that is occupied by a Covid-19 patient is one less available for people who need that level of care for other reasons.\"\n\nSir Simon said the current number of patients in critical care was a \"clear indication of the huge pressure on the NHS\", including ambulance and mental health services as well as hospitals.\n\n\"The likelihood is, even with a stabilising of infections in some parts of the country, we're still seeing increases in infections among the over-60s in many parts of the country,\" he added.\n\n\"The forecasts are the pressure on hospitals will only get more intense over the next several weeks.\"\n\nNHS England said critical care services were under \"unprecedented pressure\".\n\nA spokeswoman added that hospitals had \"tried and tested plans in place\" to manage pressure from increased Covid-19 and non-Covid patients, including mutual aid practices where hospitals work together to manage admissions.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Evelyn Jones was one of the care home residents whose family raised concerns\n\nSix care home residents died after suffering dehydration and malnourishment because of alleged neglect, an inquest has been told.\n\nStanley James, 89, June Hamer, 71, Stanley Bradford, 76, Edith Evans, 85, Evelyn Jones, 87, and William Hickman, 71 all died between 2003 and 2005.\n\nThey were residents at Brithdir Nursing Home in New Tredegar, Caerphilly.\n\nThe inquest in Newport follows Operation Jasmine, an £11.6m inquiry into alleged neglect at six homes.\n\nOne of Wales' biggest inquiries, it was launched after the death of an 84-year-old patient at a nursing home in Newbridge, Caerphilly.\n\nOpening the inquest, Assistant Coroner for Gwent Geraint Williams said police started investigating in 2005 following the death of an 84-year-old \"mentally infirm\" woman at another care home in Newbridge.\n\nMr Williams said it led to officers uncovering a \"pattern of concerns linked to other deaths in other care homes\".\n\nJune Hamer went into Brithdir in 2003\n\nIn relation to the Brithdir inquiry, Mr Williams said: \"Operation Jasmine uncovered evidence suggesting poor care of residents, including allegations of poor pressure sore and peg [percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy] feed management, malnourishment, and general neglect of the residents' long-term needs, together with deficient standards of care and nursing practice.\"\n\nThe inquest heard resident Mr James, who had dementia and was not mobile, developed several pressure sores in the 18 months before he died in August 2003.\n\nMr Bradford, who had schizophrenia, was admitted to the Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil on several occasions for complaints of \"dehydration, chest and urine infections\".\n\nBefore he died in August 2005 he was \"observed to be seriously malnourished\", by doctors.\n\nDementia patient Mrs Evans was admitted to the same hospital in September 2005, where nurses found the site around her feeding tube \"infected\", while broken skin was found on her buttocks and she appeared \"unkempt and dirty, and her mouth and lips were dry and her tongue was thick\".\n\nThe trial of the late Dr Prana Das for care home neglect collapsed after he suffered brain damage in an attack\n\nDr Prana Das, who owned and ran the nursing home along with several other facilities in Wales, faced a string of charges relating to failings in care.\n\nHe suffered a brain injury during a burglary at his home in 2012 and was declared medically unfit to stand trial.\n\nDr Das died in January 2020 aged 73, but his widow and co-owner of the home, Dr Nishebita Das, who is said not to have taken part in running it, is expected to give evidence at the inquest.\n\nMr Williams told the hearing that, even before the couple purchased the home in April 2002 under their company Puretruce Health Care Limited, \"serious concerns\" were raised by state agencies regarding the number of residents who had suffered pressure ulcers.\n\n\"Those issues continued, even after Dr Das assumed ownership of the home,\" he said.\n\nMr Williams said the inquest will consider the actions of nurses and carers at the home, \"many of whom came to this country from abroad to work and have since returned there, and are now not available to participate in the inquest\".\n\nThe inquest is set to last until March.\n\nA hearing into the death of a seventh resident, Matthew Higgins, 86, will be held following the conclusion of this inquest.", "A Republican lawmaker who had been in office for less than a week when she invoked German dictator Adolf Hitler in a Washington speech has apologised for saying that she agreed with the mass murderer.\n\nIllinois Congresswoman Mary Miller had said in a speech on Tuesday outside the Capitol, one day before her fellow Trump supporters ransacked the building, that Hitler had been \"right\".\n\nMiller told the crowd: \"You know, if we win a few elections we’re still going to be losing unless we win the hearts of our children.\n\n\"It’s the battle. Hitler was right on one thing - that whoever has the youth has the future.\"\n\nHitler, among his supporters in Germany in 1933 Image caption: Hitler, among his supporters in Germany in 1933\n\nThe comments drew large-scale condemnation, with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum saying in a statement that it \"unequivocally condemns any leader trying to advance a position by claiming Adolf Hitler was ‘right.’\"\n\nUnder Hitler, millions of Jews and other minority groups were murdered across Europe by Germany and its allies during World War Two.\n\nOn Friday, Miller insisted that she is not anti-semitic and accused other of \"trying to intentionally twist my words\".\n\n\"I sincerely apologise for any harm my words caused and regret using a reference to one of the most evil dictators in history to illustrate the dangers that outside influences can have on our youth,\" she said.\n\nCorrection 23rd June 2022: This post originally described Mary Miller as having praised Hitler and has been amended to make clear that she invoked Hitler in her speech.", "Who were the protesters that broke into buildings on Capitol Hill after attending a rally in support of Donald Trump?\n\nSome were carrying symbols and flags strongly associated with particular ideas and factions, but in practice many of the members and their causes overlap.\n\nImages show individuals associated with a range of extreme and far-right groups and supporters of fringe online conspiracy theories, many of whom have long been active online and at pro-Trump rallies.\n\nOne of the most startling images, quickly shared across social media, shows a man dressed with a painted face, fur hat and horns, holding an American flag.\n\nHe's been identified as Jake Angeli, a well-known supporter of the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon. He calls himself the QAnon Shaman.\n\nHis social media presence shows him attending multiple QAnon events and posting YouTube videos about deep state conspiracies.\n\nHe was pictured in November making a speech in Phoenix, Arizona, about unproven claims the election was fraudulent.\n\nHis personal Facebook page is filled with images and memes relating to all sorts of extreme ideas and conspiracy theories.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAnother group spotted at the storming of the Capitol were members of the far-right group Proud Boys.\n\nThe organisation was founded in 2016 and is anti-immigrant and all male. In the first US presidential debate President Trump in response to a question about white supremacists and militias said: \"Proud Boys - stand back and stand by.\"\n\nThe individual on the right is Nick Ochs, who describes himself as a \"Proud Boy Elder\".\n\nOne of their members, Nick Ochs, tweeted a selfie inside the building saying \"Hello from the Capital lol\". He also filmed a live stream inside.\n\nWe haven't identified the individual standing on the left in the above image.\n\nMr Ochs' profile on the messaging app Telegram describes himself as a \"Proud Boy Elder from Hawaii.\"\n\nIndividuals with large followings online were also spotted at the protests.\n\nAmong them was the social media personality Tim Gionet, who goes under the pseudonym \"Baked Alaska\".\n\nTim Gionet, better known as \"Baked Alaska\", livestreamed himself from the Capitol on Wednesday\n\nHis livestream from inside the Capitol posted on a niche streaming service was watched by thousands of people and showed him talking to other protesters.\n\nA Trump supporter, Mr Gionet has made a name for himself as an internet troll.\n\nYouTube banned his channel in October after he posted videos of himself harassing shop workers and refusing to wear a face-mask during the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nOther platforms that have previously shut down his accounts include Twitter and PayPal.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'Treason, traitors and thugs' - the words lawmakers used to describe Capitol riot\n\nA photo that went viral of a man who'd entered the office of senior Democrat politician Nancy Pelosi has been named as Richard Barnett from Arkansas.\n\nRichard Barnett left a message for US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying \"we will not back down\"\n\nOutside Capitol Hill buildings, he told the New York Times that he took an envelope from the speaker's office and says left a note calling her an expletive.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Matthew Rosenberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nReacting to the New York Times interview, Republican congressman Steve Womack said on Twitter: \"I'm sickened to learn that the below actions were perpetrated by a constituent.\"\n\nLocal media reports say Mr Barnett is involved in a group that supports gun rights, and that he was interviewed at a 'Stop the Steal' rally following the presidential election - a movement that refused to accept Joe Biden's victory and supports the president's unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.\n\nIn the interview at the rally organised by 'Engaged Patriots' he said: \"If you don't like it, send somebody out to get me 'cause I ain't going down easy.\"\n\nThe group associated with Mr Barnett held a fundraiser in October with proceeds going towards body cameras for the local police department, according to the Westside Eagle Observer local paper.\n\nAs the events were unfolding, many social media users, especially those associated with QAnon and supporters of President Trump, were claiming that agitators from the loose-knit left-wing group antifa were involved.\n\nThe implication was that these activists were disguised as Trump supporters to create disruption.\n\nA number of prominent Republican politicians, such as US Representative Matt Gaetz, claimed it was antifa masquerading as Trump supporters.\n\nOne widely-shared post claimed one protester had a \"communist hammer\" tattoo, as evidence that he wasn't a Trump supporter.\n\nOn closer inspection, the symbol is from the video game series Dishonored.\n\nThere have also been suggestions that Mr Angeli, the man wearing fur and horns, was a Black Lives Matter supporter, with users sharing an image of him at a BLM event in Arizona.\n\nMr Angeli was indeed at that event, but he was there as a counter-protester. In images taken there, he's seen holding a QAnon sign.\n\nAt least one of the rioters was holding a Confederate flag, which represented US states that supported the continuation of slavery during the American civil war. For this reason, it is considered by many to be a symbol of racism and there have been calls to ban it across the US. Others see it as an important part of southern US history.\n\nA protester carries the Confederate flag after breaching US Capitol security\n\nIn July it was announced that the flag could no longer be flown on American military properties because of a new policy to reject \"divisive symbols\".\n\nPresident Trump has defended the use of the Confederate flag in the past, saying: \"I know people that like the Confederate flag and they're not thinking about slavery...I just think it's freedom of speech.\"\n\nThere were also protesters holding aloft flags featuring a coiled rattlesnake on a yellow background, often accompanied by the phrase \"don't tread on me\". This is known as the Gadsden flag, harking back to the American revolution and the war to expel British colonialists.\n\nIt was adopted by libertarians in the 1970s, according to an article in the New Yorker, and more recently became a favourite symbol of conservative Tea Party activists.\n\nThe flag has been adopted by the right over the past couple of decades, says Prof Margaret Weir, a political science expert at Brown University.\n\nIt is also used by anti-government, white supremacist groups who embrace violence, she says.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA nurse felt \"overwhelming fear\" as 13 ambulances queued at her hospital's A&E department - in the Welsh region currently hardest hit by Covid deaths.\n\nTo date Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board, which runs Royal Glamorgan Hospital, has reported 1,091 deaths of patients with coronavirus.\n\nBBC Wales was granted access to A&E at the hospital in Rhondda Cynon Taf.\n\nSenior doctor Amanda Farrow said the whole hospital had faced \"unrelenting\" pressure last Saturday.\n\nSarah Fogarasy was the senior nurse on duty as 13 ambulances queued up outside her A&E department\n\nSenior A&E nurse Sarah Fogarasy, who was on shift as the ambulances arrived, said there was no capacity at the unit - a situation that left her wanting \"to leave\".\n\n\"We had to escalate it to our site manager and deputy head of nursing who were liaising with the executive team on call,\" she said.\n\n\"And then it got to 13 patients outside - I had no capacity in this unit, no resuscitation capacity, no capacity to put a patient on CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] should they require that and no physical areas to put a patient in.\n\nOn Saturday, 13 ambulances queued outside the hospital's A&E department\n\nShe said she found it hard to keep going.\n\n\"This bit makes me quite emotional… for the first time I was sat trying to coordinate this department and I had that overwhelming fear that I just wanted to leave,\" Ms Fogarasy continued.\n\n\"I was just - 'I'm done. I'm done with this'... and it's scary, it fills you full of fear when you have got 13 ambulances outside, queuing around the carpark. Where do you go from that?\"\n\nShe said it was the team that kept her going: \"I started looking around to all the staff working tirelessly and just trying to remember what we're here for and why I became a nurse.\n\n\"I know it sounds soppy but it's literally the humanitarian effort that has gone into [fighting] this pandemic that has kept people going.\n\n\"It's the sheer determination and guts of the staff working in these times that is so powerful, that keeps the shift going.\"\n\nEmergency Medicine Consultant Amanda Farrow said it was a \"very emotional time for everyone\"\n\nDr Farrow, emergency medicine consultant, said staffing and bed numbers were of particular concern.\n\n\"In the emergency department the challenge we have is with regards to flow, so that is our daily challenge,\" she explained.\n\n\"And we say it's like playing a game of Tetris trying to work out which patient you can put where.\"\n\nStaff reported feeling overwhelmed as they work through the second Covid wave\n\nShe said the second wave of the virus had also seen more staff off sick with Covid and isolating - with some becoming very ill.\n\n\"We've had staff in as patients and one of my colleagues - I saw them when they were critically ill and ended up going to intensive care,\" continued Dr Farrow.\n\n\"So it's very emotional time for everyone as well you know, looking after the sick patients and looking after your colleagues.\n\n\"There's a level of anxiety still around - will you be the next person to get this disease?\"\n\nShe said although fewer people were attending A&E, they were seeing more people arriving by ambulance and presenting with more complex needs.\n\n\"The group of patients we are seeing this time I think is different, we're definitely having more younger people with Covid that are becoming sick, the volume is very high in the community.\n\n\"I think people are afraid of come into the hospital as well, so there are still quite a lot of patients who leave it maybe a bit too late before they're seeking hospital attention.\"\n\nSpeaking from her intensive care bed, Helen Whatmore said she was extremely grateful to staff\n\nHelen Whatmore, 45, from Beddau, has been hospital since early December after developing Covid symptoms.\n\nSpeaking from her intensive care bed, she said she had been unwell in February so assumed she had already caught the virus.\n\n\"I honestly didn't believe it was as bad until I caught [Covid] this time,\" she said.\n\n\"This time it's absolutely knocked the socks off me. It's nearly killed me.\n\n\"A friend of mine passed away as I came into hospital and I came down very rapidly with Covid, kidney problems and pneumonia.\"\n\nShe said she was grateful for the care she had received: \"The nurses are coming in [working] all shifts, they're fighting for your loved ones, from the time they enter right until the time they leave, then they're changing over and doing the same again.\n\n\"People are passing away… how much more have they got to do? We're asking them to protect our children and our families. Why are we not protecting them ourselves? Saving our families and our own children.\"", "The Welsh Government is in discussions about bringing in \"more visible\" coronavirus regulations.\n\nStricter enforcement of coronavirus rules could return to supermarkets in Wales, Mark Drakeford has said.\n\nThe first minister said he had heard concerns from people \"expressing anxiety\" about a lack of \"visible protections\" in supermarkets.\n\nThe Welsh Government is now in talks with stores about social-distancing measures.\n\nMr Drakeford said he wanted to see stores policed as they were during the first lockdown.\n\nAmong the measures previously used was a strict limit of the numbers of people allowed in a store however Mr Drakeford said people were worried the rules \"don't appear to be there this time\".\n\n\"Given the fact the new variant is so much easier to catch... we are looking at supermarkets and other places where people leave their homes, to make sure they are organised in a way that keeps their staff and customers safe,\" he said.\n\nHe said previously sanitising arrangements had been \"very visible\", one-way markings were prominently displayed, regular reminders were announced to customers and staff were also posted at the front entrance of supermarkets\n\n\"That person was carefully controlling the numbers of people going in, to make sure that they were no more than a certain number of people in the store at any one time,\" he said.\n\n\"There was somebody directing people to the checkout, to make sure people weren't queuing next to each other over prolonged periods, and markings on the floor so people kept at a two-metre distance\".\n\nHowever the first minister said some of those measures are no longer as apparent to people.\n\n\"I want to make sure that those visible signs of the protections that are being offered to the public and the shop workers are in place again.\"\n\nFederation of Small Businesses Wales said has called for clarity on what support would be available and the possible new measures required of shops.\n\nPolicy Chair, Ben Francis, said: \"We've already asked to see more information on the technical data that informs the decisions that Welsh Government are making.\n\n\"It seems clear that businesses will require funding support for longer than was originally anticipated if they are to survive this troubling period.\n\n\"Welsh Government should urgently give clarity on what additional funding will be made available to support businesses beyond this next three week period to allow them to plan.\"", "While GCSEs and A-levels are being cancelled, the IGCSE exams will go ahead this summer\n\nThe IGCSE exams, usually only taken in private schools, are still going ahead this summer - even though GCSEs and A-levels have been cancelled.\n\nExam boards that run IGCSEs plan to offer them, while many other exams have been stopped by the pandemic.\n\nIGCSE qualifications, alternative exams to GCSEs, are not usually available in state schools.\n\nPupils in England whose A-levels and GCSEs are cancelled will depend on replacement grades from teachers.\n\nBut Education Secretary Gavin Williamson's scrapping of exams this summer does not apply to students taking IGCSEs.\n\nA Department for Education report in 2019 found 94% of IGCSEs were taken in private schools, accounting for 164,000 exam entries.\n\nThe decision not to cancel them was welcomed by the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC), representing some of the most prestigious independent schools.\n\nThe HMC's general secretary, Simon Hyde, said their schools \"would be the first to cheer if pupils educated by the state had the same opportunity\".\n\n\"The decision to cancel GCSEs was premature. Exams are the fairest way of assessing what learners know and understand and we would like to see as many pupils as possible take a form of exam in the summer,\" said Dr Hyde.\n\nIndependent schools often offer a mix of IGCSEs and GCSEs for different subjects, although IGCSEs do not count towards school league tables.\n\nThe qualifications - International GCSEs - are offered by Cambridge Assessment and Pearson and are taken in other countries as well as the UK. Both boards say they are planning to go ahead with exam papers for UK schools this summer.\n\nIGCSEs were not included in the cancellation of exams announced by England's Department for Education and it will be up to individual schools to decide whether to continue with them.\n\nJulie McCullloch of the ASCL head teachers' union said: \"It creates another inconsistency, but none of this is easy.\"\n\nShe said it created an \"odd situation\" when GCSEs were cancelled but IGCSEs were going ahead, but she recognised that an international qualification could need a common approach across different countries.\n\nWith the latest lockdown and most pupils studying at home, GCSEs and A-levels have been cancelled in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nIn England, the exams watchdog Ofqual will launch a consultation next week on a replacement way of deciding grades - but Ofqual does not regulate IGCSEs and they will not be part of the watchdog's proposals.", "Harley Watson's mother Jo described him as a \"kind, caring, selfless, intelligent and comical young man\"\n\nA man who killed a 12-year-old boy by driving into schoolchildren in a \"deliberate\" hit and run has been detained in a secure hospital.\n\nHarley Watson died after he was hit by a car outside Debden Park High School in Loughton, Essex, on 2 December 2019.\n\nTerence Glover, 52, pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility at an earlier hearing.\n\nHe also admitted 10 counts of attempted murder and has been detained under the Mental Health Act indefinitely.\n\nAt the sentencing hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court, Harley's mother Jo described her son as a \"kind, caring, selfless, intelligent and comical young man\".\n\nHe was hit by Glover's Ford Ka as he left school with friends and died later in Whipps Cross University Hospital.\n\nTerence Glover has been sentenced indefinitely under the Mental Health Act\n\nChristine Agnew, prosecuting, said eye-witnesses saw Glover's car \"ploughing through and hitting children from behind\".\n\nShe said he \"deliberately mounted the pavement... and drove directly at a group of people, mostly children, intending to kill them\".\n\nGlover, previously of Newmans Lane, Loughton, also pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of 23-year-old Raquel Jimeno and six boys and three girls aged between 12 and 16 who were outside the school.\n\nThe court heard he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and medical experts agreed his \"significant\" mental illness \"provided an explanation for his conduct\".\n\nHe was given a hospital order under the Mental Health Act 1983, meaning if his illness was treated successfully, he would be transferred to prison.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Harley Watson's classmates paid tribute to him in 2019\n\nJudge Andrew Edis said if transferred, Glover must serve a life sentence with a minimum of 15 years.\n\nIn his sentencing statement, Judge Edis noted his history of mental illness and cocaine use, but said Glover's actions were \"appalling\".\n\n\"He caused the death of a much-loved and admired 12-year-old boy who had done no harm to anyone,\" he said.\n\nHe added that Glover's behaviour \"requires punishment as well as treatment\" and there was \"no doubt that this defendant is dangerous\".\n\nHe also ordered that Glover be banned from driving for life and that the car should be destroyed.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "National Express has announced that it is suspending its entire national network of coach services from midnight on Sunday.\n\nThe firm said tighter Covid restrictions and falling passenger numbers had prompted the decision.\n\nIt added that it hoped to restart services in March.\n\nAll customers whose travel has been cancelled will be contacted and offered a free amendment or full refund, the company said.\n\nAll journeys before Monday 11 January will be completed to ensure any passengers making essential journeys are not stranded.\n\nChris Hardy, managing director of National Express UK Coach, said: \"We have been providing an important service for essential travel needs. However, with tighter restrictions and passenger numbers falling, it is no longer appropriate to do this.\n\nHe added that as the vaccination programme was rolled out and government guidance changed, the company would regularly review when services could restart.\n\n\"We plan to be back on the road as soon as the time is right and have put a provisional restart date of Monday 1 March in place,\" he said.\n\nNational Express first suspended coach services during the coronavirus crisis in April, then restarted in July.\n\nServices have been operating at half capacity, with strict cleaning and Covid protocols. As the tier structure came into operation, demand for services reduced.\n\nAs with the previous suspension, employees will be furloughed.\n\nFirms that transport passengers, including coach, rail and aviation businesses, have been under intense pressure during the coronavirus crisis.\n\nAvanti West Coast, the train operating company running services on the West Coast mainline, has confirmed it will cut its timetable from 18 January.\n\nAvanti says the new timetable will 'more closely reflect the current demand for our services whilst still allowing key workers, and those needing to make essential journeys, to travel with confidence'.\n\nDuring the first major lockdown in March, services on key intercity routes were reduced from three an hour to one. This included services from both Manchester and Birmingham to London.\n\nThe Department for Transport has been consulting with all train operators about service reductions during the latest lockdown.\n\nThe exact scale of reduction is still being worked on, but the DfT says service levels may fall to as low as 40% of the normal timetable by some operators.\n\nThe focus is to ensure essential workers can still make essential journeys.\n\n\"Following discussions with the Department for Transport we will be introducing a new timetable on Monday 18 January. This will more closely reflect the current demand for our services whilst still allowing key workers, and those needing to make essential journeys, to travel with confidence.\"\n\nOn Thursday, Ryanair also announced that it would make big cuts to its flight schedule from 21 January, with few, if any flights to or from the UK or Ireland until \"draconian travel restrictions are removed\".\n\nTrain services are expected to be reduced in lockdown, with some in the industry anticipating reductions of between 50% and 60% compared with normal service.\n\nIn the first national lockdown in England, services were reduced to almost half.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Police have issued CCTV footage of a man they want to speak to in connection with the incident\n\nA fraudster claiming to work for the NHS injected a 92-year-old woman with a fake Covid-19 vaccine, City of London Police has said.\n\nDetectives are hunting the man who charged the victim in Surbiton, south-west London, £160.\n\nPolice said it was \"crucial\" he was caught as soon as possible as he \"may endanger people's lives\".\n\nDet Insp Kevin Ives described it as a \"disgusting and totally unacceptable assault\".\n\nIt comes after the NHS warned people that no-one should be turning up at doorsteps offering a vaccine for payment, following a spate of fake text messages.\n\nUnder the current coronavirus vaccine rollout plans, people will be invited to receive the vaccine by their GP or healthcare provider.\n\nPolice said the victim allowed the man into her home on the afternoon of 30 December after he said he was from the NHS and there to administer the Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nShe said she was jabbed in the arm with a \"dart-like implement\" before being charged £160, which the man said would be refunded by the NHS.\n\nPolice said it was not known what substance, if any, was administered, but the woman had been checked at her local hospital and showed no ill effects.\n\nDet Insp Ives appealed for information to help identify the suspect.\n\nHe added: \"It is crucial we catch him as soon as possible as not only is he defrauding individuals of money, he may endanger people's lives.\"\n\nThe man made a second visit to the woman's home on 4 January, when he asked for another £100, police said.\n\nThe man was spotted in the Tolworth area of Kingston-upon-Thames on 4 January\n\nOfficers released CCTV footage on Friday of a man dressed in a navy blue tracksuit with white stripes down the side, who they want to speak to in connection with the incident.\n\nHe is described as a white man in his early 30s, who is about 5ft 9ins (1.75m) tall, of medium build, with light brown hair that is combed back. He speaks with a London accent.\n\nA spokesman for the Department of Health said: \"NHS England will never ask for bank details, Pin numbers or passwords, when contacting you about a vaccination.\n\n\"Any communication which claims to be from the NHS but asks for payment, or bank details, is fraudulent and can be ignored. It can be reported to police via Action Fraud.\n\n\"You will never be charged for the vaccine.\"\n\nFor more London news follow on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said it is \"excellent news\" that a third coronavirus vaccine has been approved for use in the UK.\n\nIt is made by US company Moderna and works in a similar way to the Pfizer one already being offered on the NHS.\n\nThe UK has pre-ordered 17 million doses of the Moderna vaccine - 10 million more than planned - but supplies are not expected to arrive until spring.\n\nIt is the last Covid vaccine with final trial data published.\n\nThere are hundreds still in development, with some expected to report findings in the near future.\n\nAround 1.5 million people in the UK have had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine so far, with either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines already approved by UK regulators.\n\nThat figure includes almost a quarter of those aged over 80 in England - people at highest risk of severe illness or death from the virus.\n\nVaccines are being given to the most vulnerable first, as set out in a list of nine high-priority groups, covering around 30 million people in the UK.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Vaccine Deployment Minister Nadhim Zahawi welcomed the approval of the Moderna jab\n\nThe prime minister has said the aim is to vaccinate 15 million people in the UK by mid-February, including care homes residents and staff, frontline NHS staff, everyone over 70 and those who are clinically extremely vulnerable.\n\nHealth and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: \"This is further great news and another weapon in our arsenal to tame this awful disease.\"\n\nThe UK had originally ordered 7 million doses of the Moderna jab, but has increased this to get even more people immunised as quickly as possible.\n\nIn total, the UK has now ordered 367 million doses of vaccines to protect against Covid-19.\n\nNadhim Zahawi, vaccine deployment minister, said: \"The NHS is pulling out all the stops to vaccinate those most at risk as quickly as possible, with over 1,000 vaccination sites live across the UK by the end of the week to provide easy access to everyone, regardless of where they live.\n\n\"The Moderna vaccine will be a vital boost to these efforts and will help us return to normal faster.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid vaccine safety: How does a vaccine get approved?\n\nThe Moderna vaccine, an RNA vaccine like Pfizer's, injects part of the virus's genetic code in order to provoke an immune response.\n\nIt requires temperatures of around -20C for shipping - similar to a normal freezer.\n\nIn comparison, the Pfizer/BioNTech one requires temperatures closer to -75C, making transport logistics much more difficult.\n\nThe AstraZeneca jab is easier to store and distribute, as it can be kept at normal fridge temperature.\n\nAll of these vaccines require a second booster shot, but a first dose is likely to be given to as many people as possible.\n\nIn trials with more than 30,000, the Moderna vaccine offered nearly 95% protection from severe Covid.\n\nNo vaccine is 100% effective and it takes time for protection to build. For all of the Covid vaccines, we still do not know how long immunity will last.\n\nPeople who have received a coronavirus vaccine should continue to follow social distancing rules to protect themselves and others.\n\nEU and US regulators have already approved the Moderna vaccine.", "The band recently became a trio (left-right): Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall and Perrie Edwards\n\nLittle Mix have risen to top the top of UK singles chart after Christmas songs released their grip on the top 40.\n\nSweet Melody has become the band's fifth number one, three months after it was released - and will be their last with Jesy Nelson, who quit last year.\n\nThe 29-year-old said in December that nine years in the girl group had taken \"a toll on her mental health\".\n\nLittle Mix's victory is part of a huge chart upheaval, after 56 Christmas songs dropped out of the top 100.\n\nAmong them was last week's number one, Wham's Last Christmas, which set a new record for the biggest-ever fall from the top. The festive ballad has now left the chart altogether.\n\nThe previous record-holder - Three Lions, by The Lightning Seeds with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel - fell from number one to 96 after England crashed out of the World Cup in 2018.\n\nSweet Melody has risen from number nine to number one this week, giving Little Mix their first chart-topper since Shout Out To My Ex in 2016.\n\nJade Thirlwall told BBC Radio 1 the milestone was particularly important because it was \"the last single we did as a four with Jesy\".\n\n\"And it's even more special that now, going into 2021 as a three, we've got the first number one,\" she added.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by Official Charts This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. End of youtube video by Official Charts\n\nAcknowledging a fan campaign to boost the song's chart position, bandmate Perrie Edwards said: \"I just want to squish every single fan who managed to get it to number one.\n\n\"The power they have, I'm sorry. The song's been out for months!\"\n\nWith fans abandoning their festive playlists, the stage was also set for singles that had previously been forced out of the top 40 to stage a dramatic return.\n\nDua Lipa's Levitating jumped 63 places to number five, reclaiming a position it last held on 3 December; and Tate McRae's You Broke Me First rocketed from number 74 to nine. In total, there were 39 new entries or re-entries in the top 75.\n\nIn the album chart, Taylor Swift's Evermore returned to number one, four weeks after its surprise pre-Christmas release, while companion album Folklore climbed to number 12.\n\nMeanwhile, Harry Styles' Fine Line reached a new chart peak at number two following the release of a video for his latest single Treat People With Kindness, which sees him dance with Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge.\n\nLewis Capaldi's Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent - the UK's biggest-selling album of both 2019 and 2020 - also climbed to number six, notching up its 86th week in the top 10.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Graham Norton has been the BBC's Mr Eurovision since 2009\n\nGraham Norton, who commentates for the UK's BBC Eurovision coverage, has said the song contest will go ahead this year despite the coronavirus pandemic.\n\n\"There's definitely going to be a Eurovision... The competition element is going to happen,\" he said.\n\nContest organisers told the BBC: \"We can confirm the Eurovision Song Contest will definitely take place this year.\"\n\nBut pre-recorded performances may be used if acts cannot travel to Rotterdam or have to isolate when they get there.\n\nLast year's contest was cancelled due to the pandemic. It was replaced in the UK with a programme looking back at the event's history, including a vote to find the greatest Eurovision song of all time.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nNorton told US radio station Sirius XM that if some artists are unable to travel to the Netherlands in 2021, \"they can Zoom in a performance\". He added: \"I doubt we'll be in a stadium full of 20,000 people.\"\n\nOrganisers stressed that while \"the general gist of Graham's comments is correct\", pre-recorded performances will be used if an act can't travel, rather than asking them to perform live from their home country.\n\nThe filmed routines will be shown \"if a participant cannot travel to Rotterdam due to the current pandemic, or in the unfortunate instance of an artist having to quarantine on site\", a spokesman said.\n\nBroadcasters will have to follow a \"strict set of guidelines\" to help them record their \"live on tape\" performances \"to keep the competition fair should it not go ahead in the traditional way\", he added.\n\nThe new rules state: \"The recording will take place in real time (as it would be at the contest) without making any edits to the vocals or any part of the performance itself after the recording.\"\n\nThis year's contest will take place on 22 May.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk", "The number of people in Scotland who have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus now stands at 4,872\n\nScotland's hospitals have more Covid patients than ever before - with the number of deaths also \"distressingly high\", the first minister has said.\n\nThe latest figures showed that the deaths of 93 people who had tested positive for the virus have been recorded in the past 24 hours.\n\nBut the figure includes some people who died over Christmas and New Year.\n\nThere were also 1,530 people in hospital with the virus, higher than the peak of 1,520 last April.\n\nOf these, 102 patients were in intensive care - with Ms Sturgeon saying the statistics showed the \"severity of the pressure\" that hospitals are facing.\n\nThe 93 deaths recorded on Friday is the highest daily figure since the outbreak began - with the previous high being 84 on 15 April.\n\nBut Ms Sturgeon said the figure will \"undoubtedly include some people who died over the Christmas and New Year period and the delay in registration because of the bank holidays means that their deaths are only being reported today.\"\n\nShe added: \"To be clear, that is not more than 90 people who died yesterday. It will be people who have died over a period of time.\n\n\"That does not change the fact they are all individuals who have died and have died of Covid.\"\n\nA further 2,309 people have tested positive for Covid-19, which was 8.1% of the tests carried out on Thursday and takes the total number of cases in Scotland to 146,024.\n\nThe figures mean that the total number of people in Scotland who have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus now stands at 4,872.\n\nThe Scottish government has said it is concerned that too many people have not been following the \"stay at home\" rules that are in place across the whole of the mainland and some islands.\n\nIt believes that more people are using the country's road and public transport networks than during the lockdown last spring.\n\nAnd it has warned that tougher restrictions could be needed to increase compliance with the travel restrictions.\n\nMs Sturgeon told her daily briefing that the areas being looked at included non-essential click and collect shopping, further restrictions on takeaway food, non-essential construction and whether more people should be working from home.\n\nThe first minister also confirmed that universities and colleges will not resume in-person teaching until at least the end of February.\n\nThis means that students should stay at home rather than travelling back to their campus or accommodation.\n\nThere will be exceptions for cases where remote study is not possible - for example for a student nurse or a doctor on a practical placement.\n\nAnd Ms Sturgeon said any students who have remained on campus will be \"fully supported\" by their institution.\n\nAll of mainland Scotland was placed into level four restrictions from 26 December before additional measures, including closing schools to most pupils until at least the end of the month, was introduced on Tuesday.\n\nScotland's interim chief medical officer, Dr Dave Caesar, insisted on Friday morning that coronavirus case numbers in January \"could have been worse\".\n\nHe said the restrictions that were introduced on Boxing Day had helped to \"blunt the spike\" but warned that the country was \"not out of the woods yet\".\n\nDr Caesar told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: \"Our case numbers are high, but they're not as high as they could have been if we hadn't taken the measures that we undertook from Boxing Day.\n\n\"Our health system is under serious pressure but is coping.\n\n\"I hate to say it, but it could have been worse by this time in January. We're not out of the woods yet by any stretch of the imagination, but I suppose we're holding our own in very significantly challenging circumstances.\"\n\nNew Covid testing measures for international travellers are to be introduced\n\nNew plans to make international passengers test negative for Covid-19 before travelling to Scotland and England have also been unveiled, with Ms Sturgeon saying she hoped the scheme could start by the end of next week.\n\nIt will mean people arriving by plane, train or boat - including UK nationals - will have to take a test up to 72 hours before leaving the country they are travelling from.\n\nProf Linda Bauld of Edinburgh University said the move was long overdue as the UK had \"really struggled from the beginning\" with limiting the impact of international travel on the pandemic.\n\nBut she said the country should also consider introducing supervised quarantine for people arriving from overseas.", "When Trump supporters stormed the Capitol they took out their cameras to record the chaos inside. The BBC looked through hours of phone footage to paint a picture of what happened.", "Film director Michael Apted, best known for the Up series of TV documentaries following the lives of 14 people every seven years, has died aged 79.\n\nHe also directed Coal Miner's Daughter, Gorillas In The Mist and the 1999 Bond movie The World Is Not Enough.\n\nThe original 7 Up in 1964 set out to document the life prospects of a range of children from all walks of life.\n\nThe show was inspired by the Aristotle quote \"give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man\".\n\nThe first 7 Up show was followed by 14 Up at the start of the next decade, which interviewed the same children as teenagers - and the pattern was set right up until 63 Up in 2019.\n\nThroughout all those intervening years ITV viewers became engrossed with the stories of private school trio Andrew, Charles and John, of Jackie who went through two divorces, of Neil who went from jobless and homeless to Liberal Democrat councillor, and of working class chatterbox Tony, whose life ambition was to become a jockey.\n\nApted's shows - which won three Bafta awards - have often been described as the forerunner of modern-day reality TV series, giving its participants the time to tell their own stories on screen.\n\nBut unlike their modern counterparts, the original Up children tended to fade away from the limelight in the seven years between each chapter.\n\nIn 2008, Apted was made a companion of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to the British film and television industries.\n\nThomas Schlamme, president of the Directors Guild of America, said Apted was a \"fearless visionary\" whose legacy would live on.\n\nHe said Apted, who was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, \"saw the trajectory of things when others didn't and we were all beneficiaries of his wisdom and lifelong dedication\".\n\nITV's managing director Kevin Lygo said the director's six-decade career was \"in itself truly remarkable\".\n\nHe said the Up series \"demonstrated the possibilities of television at its finest in its ambition and its capacity to hold up a mirror to society and engage with and entertain people while enriching our perspective on the human condition\".\n\nApted directed the 19th James Bond film The World Is Not Enough\n\n\"The influence of Michael's contribution to film and programme-making continues to be felt and he will be sadly missed,\" Lygo added.\n\nMichael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, producers of the James Bond film franchise, said Apted \"was a director of enormous talent\" and \"beloved by all those who worked with him\".\n\n\"We loved working with him on The World Is Not Enough and send our love and support to his family, friends and colleagues,\" they said.\n\nA post on the Twitter account of the band Garbage, who performed the theme for The World Is Not Enough, labelled Apted a \"delightful, charming soul\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Garbage This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nComposer David G Arnold, who composed the Bond theme and worked with Apted on three other non-Bond movies, said he felt \"lucky\" to work with him.\n\n\"A more trusting, funny, friendly and, most importantly, kind, person you'd never meet. So pleased to have known him and so sad that he's gone,\" Arnold wrote on Twitter.", "Former Det Insp Tim Ireson led the unit for two years and would have been sacked if he was still serving\n\nThree members of a \"toxic\" police unit have been sacked for gross misconduct after their \"offensive\" conversations were secretly bugged.\n\nThe devices picked up \"homophobic, racist and sexist\" conversations in the offices of Hampshire's Serious and Organised Crime Unit in Basingstoke in 2018, a misconduct panel heard.\n\nA number of force staff referred to it as a \"lads' pad\".\n\nTwo other officers would have been sacked but had already left the force.\n\nThe misconduct hearing was told in the 24 days the office was bugged - following concerns raised by a whistleblower - there was \"enough profanity, casual sexism and racism to last a lifetime\".\n\nDet Sgt Oliver Lage, Det Sgt Gregory Willcox and PC James Oldfield have been dismissed while retired Det Insp Tim Ireson and former PC Craig Bannerman were the two who had previously left the force.\n\nTrainee Det Con Andrew Ferguson, who sent colleagues a fake pornographic image of members of the royal family, has been given a final written warning.\n\nThe six men were based at the Serious and Organised Crime Unit in Basingstoke\n\nImposing the sanctions, panel chairman John Bassett said the conduct had been \"shameful\".\n\nHe said police officers could not \"pick and choose the standards they will abide by\" in order to create more \"cohesive\" teams.\n\nMr Bassett said PC Ferguson was \"essentially a good officer\" who joined the team three months before the recordings, by which time the \"culture was well-established\".\n\nHe said the officer was \"conflicted by what he witnessed\" and \"felt unable to raise the matter with a supervisor\".\n\nChief Constable Olivia Pinkney said the force's internal investigation had revealed a \"catalogue of sexist, racist, homophobic and ableist language and commentary that has rightly shocked us all\".\n\nShe added: \"These officers have failed to deliver on the promise they made to uphold fundamental human rights and accord equal respect to all people.\n\n\"[They] have undermined the trust and confidence of our communities and damaged the reputations of their colleagues.\"\n\nThe six officers have apologised but some told the disciplinary panel swearing was in the \"fabric\" of the police force.\n\nOne also said they felt they were being \"made an example of\" by the force which should have learned from other previous incidents.\n\nIn all, 20 police officers and staff from the unit have faced some sort of disciplinary action.\n\nDuring the misconduct hearing at Hampshire Constabulary's headquarters in Eastleigh, it was heard a \"toxic, abhorrent culture\" developed with officers using offensive terms for women, black people, immigrants, disabled, gay and transgender people and foreign nationals.\n\nJason Beer QC, prosecuting, said the only black member of the team was referred to using racist tropes and references to slavery.\n\nWomen were described using derogatory terms and stared at in the canteen, he added.\n\nThe men admitted some of the charges of breaching standards of professional behaviour against them but claimed it only amounted to misconduct not gross misconduct.\n\nZoe Wakefield, chair of Hampshire Police Federation, said: \"The outdated and offensive views we heard during the hearing have no place in society and they certainly have no place in policing.\n\n\"We should not let the awful language and terminology used by a very small number of police officers tarnish the hard work and dedication of thousands of police officers and staff in Hampshire...\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Marks & Spencer has temporarily stopped selling hundreds of items in its Northern Ireland stores due to Brexit red tape.\n\nThe retailer said it feared its food would be blocked due to new rules governing shipments between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.\n\nA growing number of firms have spoken out about paperwork delays at ports.\n\nThe government said traders and hauliers need to take steps to comply with new border rules.\n\nM&S took the decision to temporarily drop hundreds of products, including chocolate fudge pudding and sweet and sour chicken, from its Northern Ireland stores after it saw competitors' lorries barred from travelling between the mainland and Northern Ireland.\n\nAn entire consignment in a lorry can be held up if only one item in the truck doesn't have the correct customs forms filled out.\n\nThe retailer said it aimed to get the products back up for sale soon.\n\nAn M&S spokesperson said: \"We have served customers in Northern Ireland for over 50 years and our priority is to make sure we continue to deliver the same choice and great quality range that our loyal customers have always enjoyed.\n\n\"Stores have been receiving regular deliveries this week, however following the UK's recent departure from the EU, we are transitioning to new processes and we're working closely with our partners and suppliers to ensure customers can continue to enjoy a great range of products.\"\n\nIn addition to problems shipping goods internally in the UK, the new Brexit trade rules are creating problems for exporters and traders transporting goods to and from the EU, say firms.\n\nThe UK sealed a trade deal with the European Union (EU) on 24 December that was billed as preserving its zero-tariff and zero-quota access to the bloc's single market.\n\nBut in addition to red tape causing delays, major retailers that use the UK as a distribution hub for European business could face possible tariffs if they re-export goods to the EU.\n\nOn Friday, M&S chief executive Steve Rowe warned of more red tape and a rise in export costs to some countries.\n\n\"The best example I can give you of that is Percy Pig,\" he said,\n\n\"Percy Pig is actually manufactured in Germany. If it comes to the UK and we then send it to Ireland, in theory it would have some tax on it,\" he added.\n\nM&S said it was \"actively working to mitigate\" the effects of the \"rules of origin\" regulations, under which products are taxed differently depending on which country they come from.\n\nOther firms have also been hit by the confusion caused by new Brexit trading rules.\n\nParcels giant DPD has suspended some services, while seafood exporter John Ross said the chaos was like being \"thrown in the cold Atlantic without a lifejacket\".\n\nShane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, which represents chilled transport and storage companies, said the emerging problems had come despite the amount of cross-border traffic still being quite low.\n\n\"Trade flows are still only about 50% of what we would expect, but even at those levels we are seeing levels of confusion and delays,\" he told the BBC's Today programme. \"The feeling is we are building to quite a significant potential disruption.\"\n\nA government spokesman acknowledged that there had been \"some issues\", but said ministers had always been clear there would be some disruption at the end of the transition period.\n\nThe Cabinet Office said in a statement that the volume of border crossings had been low so far this year, but that it expected crossings to steadily increase to normal levels.\n\nThis brings the potential for \"significant disruption if traders and hauliers have not taken the necessary steps to comply with the new rules,\" the Cabinet Office said.\n\nOut of about 1,500 lorries per day trying to get from Great Britain to the EU in the new year, 700 have been turned away - mainly due to a lack of a negative Covid test for drivers, it said.\n\n\"We have always been clear there would be changes now that we are out of the customs union and single market, so full compliance with the new rules is vital to avoid disruption,\" said Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.\n\nHowever, anger is growing among companies whose livelihoods depend on export trade.\n\nIn a letter on Friday to Business Secretary Alok Sharma, Scottish salmon producer John Ross Jr launched a stinging attack on the government's handling of the situation.\n\nThe firm's sales director, Victoria Leigh-Pearson, wrote that the company had in recent months \"had to endure the government issuing a barrage of useless information\" and an \"absence of factually correct information from all government agencies.\" It amounted, she said, to \"gross incompetence\".\n\nJohn Ross exports to 36 countries and has won the Queen's Award twice\n\nPart of the letter to Alok Sharma:\n\nAs I write, perishable goods that were dispatched from our facility five days ago, headed for France following a process that your department advised, have still not crossed the border. This usually takes only 24 hours because they are consolidated with the produce of other companies, which have not been able to follow the correct procedures due to a knowledge gap directly attributable to your department.\n\nEntire trucks are currently being rejected without explanation by the French customs authority. Our hauliers have now pulled their services as such a backlog has been created. Other hauliers are not taking on new customers. Today, we've even had confirmation that the IT systems of the UK and France are incompatible. After four years you only establish this now?\n\nYour so-called 'deal' is worthless if this situation is not fixed immediately, and unless you put in place measures to address the issues that continue to unfold on a daily basis. Moreover, as a seafood exporter, it feels as though our own government has thrown us into the cold Atlantic waters without a lifejacket.\n\nJohn Ross is not the only Scottish seafood exporter suffering. The industry says it has been hit by a \"perfect storm\" of Brexit disruption, which could sink a centuries-old industry.\n\n\"These businesses are not transporting toilet rolls or widgets. They are exporting the highest quality, perishable seafood which has a finite window to get to markets in peak condition,\" said Donna Fordyce, chief executive of Seafood Scotland.\n\n\"If the window closes, these consignments go to landfill.\"\n\nShe said the sector has already been weakened by Covid-19, the closure of the French border before Christmas as well as \"layer upon layer\" of problems associated with Brexit.\n\nThe group fears that without exports, the fishing fleet will have little reason to go out.\n\n\"In a very short time, we could see the destruction of a centuries-old market which contributes significantly to the Scottish economy,\" added Ms Fordyce.\n\nUK government Minister for Scotland David Duguid blamed Scottish leaders for the issues.\n\n\"The Scottish Government has persistently refused to accept the democratic vote to leave the EU, but that does not allow them to abdicate their responsibilities to Scottish businesses,\" he said.\n\n\"Over the past 18 months they have assured the fishing industry that the systems they were putting in place would be adequate. They clearly are not.\"\n\nParcel delivery service DPD UK said it had paused its European Road Service because of the '\"increased burden\" of customs paperwork for packages heading to the EU, including the Republic of Ireland.\n\nDPD said 20% of parcels had \"incorrect or incomplete data attached\", which meant they would have to be returned.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What Brexit means for Britons travelling, shopping, studying or owning properties in the EU.\n\nIn an email to its business customers, the company said that it had been a \"challenging few days\" for its international operation, and that it would \"pause and review\" its service. It plans to restart on 13 January.\n\n\"It has now become evident that we have an increased burden with the new, more complex processes, and additional customs data we require from you for your parcels destined to Europe\" the firm wrote.\n\nThe boss of one of Wales' largest hauliers said logistical problems have emerged at the Irish border too.\n\nAndrew Kinsella, managing director of Gwynedd Shipping, said his company has a backlog of 60 lorries waiting to be shipped to Dublin.\n\nHe said many hauliers are finding that their customers are not able to generate the special declarations that are needed to ultimately enable a lorry to get onto a ferry.\n\n\"Whilst you don't see queues at ports and terminals the reality is that these queues are developing elsewhere in our depot in Holyhead, in our depot in Deeside and in our depot in Newport in South Wales, and lots of hauliers have depots in the proximity of ports,\" he said.\n\n\"There are a lot of issues about demarcation about who is going to arrange the export declaration with the UK revenue authorities, who's going to arrange the import declaration, the hauliers then trying to arrange the import safety and security declaration to create an ENS number which helps you generate a PBN number so there has been a lot of everyone finding their feet\".\n\nCorrection 9th April 2021: An earlier version of this article included a photo showing queues of lorries at Dover Port. This photo was replaced in the hours after publication after it was established that it had been taken months earlier.", "Some Covid restrictions are being reintroduced in response to the Omicron variant.\n\nCheck what the rules are in your area by entering your postcode or council name below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. What are the rules in your area? Enter a full UK postcode or council name to find out\n\nIf you cannot see the look-up, click here.\n\nThe rules highlighted in the search tool are a selection of the key government restrictions in place in your area.\n\nAlways check your relevant national and local authority website for more information on the situation where you live. Also check local guidance before travelling to others parts of the UK.\n\nAll the guidance in our search look-up comes from national government websites.\n\nFor more information on national measures see:\n\nFind out how the pandemic has affected your area and how it compares with the national average by following this link to an in depth guide to the numbers involved.", "Growing numbers of students in England have pledged to withhold rent on university accommodation they cannot use during the Covid lockdown.\n\nOrganisers say this is building up to be a major protest, estimating that about 15,000 students at dozens of universities have signed up so far.\n\nThey want a rebate on rent when many students are being kept off campus at the start of term.\n\nBut universities say they only provide 20% of student accommodation.\n\nUniversities UK says this means \"many decisions on refunds will be made by private landlords and other providers\".\n\nIn November, University of Manchester offered a 30% rent rebate for the first half of the academic year, worth about £1,000 to each student in halls.\n\nThe move followed protests over lack of support during the coronavirus pandemic which saw students tear down temporary fencing in one demonstration.\n\nUniversity of Manchester students have been calling for a rent strike\n\nThe reduction will be applied to direct debit payments this month, with students who have already paid for the whole year getting a refund.\n\nBut organiser of the Rent Strike Now campaign, Ben McGowan, said the new lockdown means students are still paying for halls they are unable to return to which has prompted a wave of student anger.\n\nOn Twitter, campaigners listed more than 40 universities where they said students were pledging to withhold rent.\n\nThe campaign group Rent Strike Now tweeted a list of universities where there are campaigns\n\n\"Most of us are being told not to go back so we're paying for accommodation we can't use and there's been no extra support from universities and government,\" added Saranya Thambiranjah, a first year at Bristol University who also helps run the campaign.\n\n\"Rent striking is a great way to make our voices heard and get universities to listen our concerns.\"\n\nStudents at universities not yet part of this campaign have said they will organise similar challenges on their own campuses, including Coventry and Keele.\n\nRebecca Hyde is having to do her journalism course in her bedroom\n\nAt Nottingham Trent University, student campaigner Rebecca Hyde, who is doing a masters in broadcast journalism, said 244 students had so far pledged to withhold rent on university halls since their campaign was launched a few days ago.\n\nShe believes universities should do more to help students who are having to pay for rooms they are unable to use through no fault of their own.\n\nShe says her course leaders have been brilliant but missing out on using studios and running \"news days\" with her fellow students \"is just so disappointing\".\n\nNottingham Trent University says it understands student concerns over rents and urged the government \"to show leadership to find a solution that is fair to all students\".\n\n\"At NTU, only a minority of our students are in accommodation operated by or on behalf of the university.\n\n\"We do not want a repeat of the situation in the summer term of 2020 where most of our students were reliant on the goodwill of private accommodation providers who did not always do the right thing,\" said the university in a statement.\n\nAt King's College London, campaign secretary \"Juno\" likewise reported hundreds of new pledges to withhold rent in the past few days, saying students felt they had been \"lured\" into their accommodation at the start of the academic year.\n\nA King's spokesperson promised that students would not be charged for accommodation they are unable to use during lockdown.\n\nAbout a quarter of students are in privately-run purpose built accommodation, and one of the biggest of these providers, Unite Students, is also facing demands.\n\nLiverpool John Moores student Suhail Accad, in Unite accommodation, says his rent strike post on Instagram has gained 3,000 followers and has had 8,000 shares in just a few days.\n\n\"It's expensive to stay here,\" says Suhail.\n\nUnite was unable to comment directly on the threat of rent strikes but maintains that it is doing all it can to help keep students and staff safe \"during this challenging period\".\n\nUniversities UK said universities were looking at the issue \"actively\" and considering what support they can offer students.\n\n\"Universities recognise the financial pressures the pandemic has placed on students and are providing increased financial and other support as a result.\n\n\"With government restrictions reducing the numbers of students returning in person to universities, now is the time for the government to seriously consider the financial implications for students and institutions and what support they will provide.\"", "Prof Chris Whitty will front one of the adverts Image caption: Prof Chris Whitty will front one of the adverts\n\nThe government is urging people in England to stay at home and \"act like you've got it\" as part of a new advertising campaign.\n\nThe \"stay at home, save lives\" campaign will run across TV, radio, out-of-home advertising and social media.\n\nThe campaign will include a new advert fronted by England's Chief Medical Officer, Prof Chris Whitty, which will air for the first time on ITV at 19:15 GMT tonight.\n\nThe UK reported a record number of deaths and cases today, as hospitals come under growing pressure, with some in the South East at extreme capacity.\n\nAround one in three people with Covid-19 don’t have any symptoms and can pass it on without realising, the government said, \"which is why it’s essential everyone stays at home and remembers Hands, Face, Space\".\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said: \"Our hospitals are under more pressure than at any other time since the start of the pandemic, and infection rates across the entire country continue to soar at an alarming rate.\n\n“The vaccine has given us renewed hope in our fight against the virus but we must not be complacent.\n\n\"The NHS is under severe strain and we must take action to protect it, both so our doctors and nurses can continue to save lives and so they can vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as we can.\n\n“I know the last year has taken its toll – but your compliance is now more vital than ever. So once again, I must urge everyone to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.”", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. One floral tribute had Dame Barbara's photograph in the centre\n\nThe funeral of EastEnders and Carry On actress Dame Barbara Windsor has taken place in London.\n\nRoss Kemp, who played her on-screen son in the soap, was among the 30 mourners and gave a reading, as did actor and friend Christopher Biggins.\n\nDame Barbara died in December at the age of 83, having had dementia.\n\nThere were floral arrangements spelling Babs, The Dame and Saucy, and a mock pub sign showing her as The Queen Peggy in the style of the soap's Queen Vic.\n\nDame Barbara played pub landlady Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders for more than two decades.\n\nA version of the EastEnders Queen Vic pub sign was painted in tribute\n\nScott Mitchell, who was married to Dame Barbara for 20 years, was joined at Golders Green Crematorium by family and friends including comedians Matt Lucas and David Walliams.\n\n\"As Covid has denied so many of Barbara's family, friends and fans a chance to say farewell properly, I wanted to share the order of service to let people be a small part of it,\" Mr Mitchell told the PA news agency.\n\n\"My heart goes out to every family who have experienced the same restrictions at their loved ones' funerals.\"\n\nLeft-right: Christopher Biggins, Ross Kemp and David Walliams were among the mourners\n\nHe added: \"I would again like to thank my family, friends, the media and the public for their incredible support and well wishes since Barbara's passing.\"\n\nDame Barbara's coffin was brought into the crematorium to sound of Frank Sinatra's On The Sunny Side Of The Street, and the service featured a recording of Sparrows Can't Sing from the actress's 1963 film of the same.\n\nIt finished with the famous topless photo of Dame Barbara from the film Carry On Camping, alongside her quote: \"That picture will follow me to the end.\"\n\nLong-time friend Anna Karen, who played Dame Barbara's on-screen sister Aunt Sal in EastEnders, also paid tribute during the service.\n\nThe funeral was also attended by Loose Women's Jane Moore and EastEnders actor Jamie Borthwick. However, the numbers were limited due to coronavirus social distancing.\n\nAlzheimer's Research UK recently said it had seen a spike in donations since Dame Barbara's death, and a JustGiving page set up as a tribute to her and in aid of the charity has raised more than £150,000 (including Gift Aid).\n\nMr Mitchell said that was \"beyond anything we may have dreamed of\".\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Google's plan to replace web browser cookies with a system that shares less data with advertisers is being investigated in the UK.\n\nThe Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said Google's plan could have a \"significant impact\" on news websites and the digital advertising market.\n\nIt had already raised concerns that publishers' profits could sink if they were unable to run personalised ads.\n\nBut Google said digital advertising practices had to \"evolve\".\n\nCookies are small files a web browser stores on a user's device when they visit a webpage.\n\nThey can be used to remember what items a person has added to their online basket and deliver personalised content.\n\nThey can also be used to track somebody's activity online and deliver targeted advertising.\n\nSome cookies known as cross-site or third-party cookies can let publishers track a person's web activity as they move from one website to another.\n\nBy default, Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox browsers already block cross-site cookies.\n\nBut Google intends to go further by ending support for all cookies except first-party ones - those used by sites to track activity within their own pages.\n\nIt wants to replace them with new tools that give advertisers more limited, anonymised information such as how many users visited a promoted product's page after seeing a relevant ad - but not tie this information to individual users.\n\nAccording to one industry group opposing the move, Google's Chrome browser is installed on more than 70% of computers in the UK.\n\nSo even if other web browsers do not adopt the same approach the move would still be significant.\n\n\"Google's Privacy Sandbox proposals will potentially have a very significant impact on publishers like newspapers, and the digital advertising market. But there are also privacy concerns to consider,\" said Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA.\n\nA coalition of about a dozen small tech companies and publishers - Marketers for an Open Web (Mow) - claims some of its members' revenues could drop by as much as two-thirds.\n\nMoreover, it suggests the move would put too much power into Google's hands.\n\n\"Google will effectively control how websites can monetise and operate their business,\" it warned last month.\n\n\"This means that any business that buys or sells advertising will be reliant on Google for a part of the process, whether they like it or not.\n\n\"This will reduce the ability of independent players to compete with Google, strengthening its monopoly control of online commerce.\"\n\nThe group has also raised concerns about other related matters, including the tech firm's plan to end support for user-agent strings.\n\nThese are bits of text that browsers send to websites at the start of a user's visit to reveal details about the device and browser being used.\n\nPublishers use this information to optimise the way their sites appear.\n\nBut Google is phasing out support on the grounds that they are also used as an alternative to cookies to track users, and sometimes cause compatibility issues.\n\nThe CMA previously issued a report into the matter in July.\n\nAt that point it acknowledged that while there were benefits to consumers from the kinds of privacy measures Google was proposing, they might be outweighed by other concerns.\n\nIt added that \"many news publishers\" had expressed concern that their news sites would become \"unsustainable\".\n\nUntil recently, the European Commission was responsible for most large and complex competition cases involving the UK.\n\nOn 1 January, the CMA took over these responsibilities on a local level due to Brexit.\n\nLast November, the government announced it would create a new Digital Markets Unit within the CMA.\n\nThe organisation subsequently detailed how it would to govern the behaviour of Google, Facebook and other tech platforms \"that currently dominate\" online markets, and give consumers \"more control over how their data is used\".\n\nThe new unit becomes operational in April, but is dependent on legislation going through Parliament before it gets new powers, and that may not happen until 2022.\n\nSince that would be too late to block Google's Privacy Sandbox plans, the probe is being carried out under the existing regime.\n\nEven so, all those involved will be watching closely for signs of how willing the authority is to confront the US's largest tech companies.", "Edwin Poots said he has asked senior UK government figures to consider unilaterally revoking the NI Protocol\n\nThe Stormont minister whose officials are responsible for the new Irish Sea border has said some food will be unavailable if changes are not made.\n\nDUP Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots has also said jobs could be at risk.\n\nHe said problems at the ports were being caused by new rules applied on imports of food and other products from Britain to Northern Ireland.\n\nEarlier Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said trade from GB to NI \"will get worse before it gets better\".\n\nMr Gove said that \"work is ongoing\" and it is \"all part of the process of leaving the European Union\".\n\nHe added that he had spoken to ministers from all parties in the Northern Ireland Executive.\n\nAfter speaking with hauliers, supermarkets and processors this week, Mr Poots predicted the loss of jobs and rising costs.\n\n\"A wide range of frozen and chilled foods will be unavailable after the temporary exemption period ends,\" he tweeted.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Edwin Poots MLA This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThat exemption period applies to supermarkets and other food importers and runs out in April.\n\nAfter that they will have to comply with all the paperwork required to ship food in, or find suppliers on the island of Ireland or elsewhere in the EU.\n\nNew rules - called the Northern Ireland Protocol - were introduced because while the UK has left the EU, Northern Ireland has remained in the Single Market for goods and is continuing to apply EU customs rules.\n\nThe arrangement was agreed between the UK and the EU to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland.\n\nMr Poots said he had spoken to senior UK government figures to ask them to consider unilaterally revoking the protocol as it was \"damaging Northern Ireland at the economic and societal level\".\n\nAnd he hit out at members of Sinn Fein, the SDLP, and Alliance Party who he claimed had supported it.\n\nMembers of those parties have countered similar claims from other DUP politicians in recent days.\n\nThey said DUP MPs had voted against alternative arrangements that would have been simpler to manage before the government pushed ahead with the protocol plan.\n\nResponding to Mr Poot's tweet on Friday evening, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood wrote: \"You broke it, you own it.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Colum Eastwood This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSinn Féin MLA Martina Anderson accused Mr Poots of being \"asleep at the wheel\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Martina Anderson MLA This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) has called for the assembly to be recalled to discuss difficulties over trading between Great Britain and Northern Ireland due to Brexit.\n\nUUP MLA Roy Beggs said: \"The impact of the Irish Sea border is causing horrendous difficulties for hauliers and this is being seen in shops and businesses across Northern Ireland.\n\n\"It is damaging the Northern Ireland economy and the situation is escalating.\"\n\nEarlier on Friday, Michael Gove said it had been expected that there would be \"some initial disruption\" to trade between GB and NI, but that the government is \"ironing\" issues out.\n\nHe said discussions with the executive in Northern Ireland were \"in order to make sure that the [Northern Ireland] protocol works\".\n\n\"[To make sure] that businesses in Northern Ireland can continue to have access to the rest of the UK market, and that Northern Ireland businesses can have the goods that they need on the shelves, that they have access to at the moment,\" he said.\n\nNorthern Ireland has remained a part of the EU's single market for goods while the rest of the UK has left.\n\nThis means food products from Great Britain are subject to checks when they enter Northern Ireland.\n\nSimilar processes and checks also apply when moving food products from Great Britain into the Republic of Ireland.\n\nMeanwhile, an organisation representing haulage firms has called on the UK and Irish government to relax some of the new Irish Sea trade border rules.\n\nThe Road Haulage Association (RHA) said there is serious disruption to freight movements into the island of Ireland.\n\nThe RHA said relaxing the controls on food products and customs declarations \"would help traders to ship goods that have struggled to move over recent days.\"\n\n\"The problems have led to gaps in supermarket shelves and lorries delayed at ports because of problems with red-tape and the situation is worsening,\" the organisation added.\n\n\"We are facing an inflexible, cumbersome and time consuming process just to move goods.\"\n\nThe UK government said the flow of goods \"between GB and NI has been smooth overall and arrivals of freight have continued to increase substantially over this week\".\n\n\"There are no significant queues at NI ports and supermarkets are reporting healthy supplies into their Northern Ireland stores,\" a spokesperson added.\n\n\"We recognise the need to provide as much support to the haulage sector as possible as industry adapts to new processes. That's why hauliers can benefit from the Trader Support Service, which provides free advice and support to businesses of all sizes moving goods under the Northern Ireland Protocol.\n\n\"We have been engaging intensively with the Irish authorities and hauliers on the issues that have been encountered for goods transiting through Dublin port.\"\n\nOn Thursday customs authorities in the Republic of Ireland announced a temporary relaxation of one customs process.\n\nHauliers will be able to use an override code to complete a piece of administration known as ENS.\n\nThe letters ENS refer to an entry summary declaration, an online form which goods carriers are now legally obliged to submit to Irish customs when transporting goods from Great Britain into Ireland.\n\nLorries arriving in Ireland from Great Britain have faced new checks since 1 January\n\nOn Thursday night the Irish Revenue Commissioners said it recognised that \"some businesses are experiencing difficulties on lodging their safety and security ENS declarations\".\n\nIt said that in response it was providing a \"temporary easement\" which would allow an ENS to be produced without all the normally required information.\n\nAn Irish government spokesperson said it is \"absolutely essential that Ireland fulfils its obligations as a member of the EU and that we protect the integrity of the single market and the customs union\".\n\n\"We appreciate that the new requirements and customs formalities present significant challenges and impose additional burdens on businesses.\"\n\nMeanwhile Stena, the ferry company, said it was cancelling a dozen sailings between Wales and Ireland next week due to \"a decline in freight volumes during the first week of Brexit.\"", "Tennant was remembered as \"a beautiful soul\" and \"a sensitive and talented woman\"\n\nBritish model Stella Tennant took her own life after being \"unwell for some time\", her family has confirmed.\n\nIn a statement, her family said it was \"a matter of our deepest sorrow and despair that she felt unable to go on.\"\n\nTennant, who made her name in the early 1990s modelling for designers like Karl Lagerfeld and Versace, died in December five days after her 50th birthday.\n\nHer family said they were \"humbled by the outpouring of messages of sympathy and support\" they have received.\n\nTennant was \"a beautiful soul, adored by a close family and good friends, a sensitive and talented woman whose creativity, intelligence and humour touched so many\", they said.\n\n\"In grieving Stella's loss, her family renews a heartfelt request that respect for their privacy should continue.\"\n\nBorn in London on 1970, Tennant was known for her androgynous sultry looks and aristocratic heritage.\n\nShe shot to fame after being photographed for British Vogue at the age of 22 in 1993, going on to work with such designers as Alexander McQueen and Jean Paul Gaultier.\n\nTennant retired from the catwalk in 1998 but later returned. She also worked on campaigns to promote saving energy and reducing the environmental impact of fast fashion.\n\nShe had four children with French-born photographer David Lasnet. The couple married in the Scottish borders in 1999 and announced their separation last year.\n\nTennant with David Lasnet on their wedding day in 1999\n\nStella McCartney, Victoria Beckham and fellow model Naomi Campbell were among those to pay tribute after her death was announced last month.\n\nCampbell said she had been \"a class act in every way\", while Beckham remembered her as \"an incredible talent\".\n\nIf you have been affected by any of the issues in this article, information and support is available from BBC Action Line.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The storming of the US Capitol building in Washington DC stunned viewers around the world.\n\nBut how did Americans feel seeing the seat of their government being ransacked?\n\nWe asked members of our BBC voter panel for their views.\n\nSimon grew up in Uganda during its civil war and became a US citizen last year. A master's student and stay-at-home father, he warns that, while things may settle down, \"democracy is not guaranteed\".\n\nI'm disgusted but not surprised. I anticipated this would happen and it was a matter of when, not if.\n\nI didn't anticipate that it would happen in the capital. This is the president whose people - since the racial justice movement in the summer - said they were for \"law and order\". So the \"law and order\" people broke into the Capitol and changed the American flag with the Trump flag. History shows that has not happened in over 200 years, so it tells you how dangerous this man is.\n\nIn Uganda, in November, when the opposition was arrested, people took to the streets and got shot. Here, in the summer, the Capitol building was protected and they were breaking up peaceful protests.\n\nIt's clear that [Trump supporters] have been organising, we've seen this was going to happen, yet we subconsciously did not think that white people are a threat. That is the construct of this country and how law enforcement viewed it.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'Treason, traitors and thugs' - the words lawmakers used to describe Capitol riot\n\nTaylor is a staunch Trump supporter and recently travelled to Washington DC for a post-election pro-Trump rally. A photographer by trade, she was upset by the rioting but believes unsubstantiated claims that left-wing radicals were behind the violence.\n\nIt was just heart-breaking to watch what was going on and the behaviour of protesters is just not like the Trump people I've been around. If it did come from any conservatives, then I condemn it. There's no excuse for violence.\n\nIt doesn't change my support for Trump. The people that love Trump, that's not going to change no matter if he gets a second term or not. It just means we're going to hold out for 2024 and hope either he runs again or his kids do.\n\nOur country is going to go downhill over the next four years if Biden does take office. I'm actually moving today out of the city into the suburbs of a Republican county because I am afraid of how Democratic counties will end up under a Biden presidency.\n\nWe're going to catapult towards socialism and communism. I'm worried for the country's future, but regardless of who takes office, we have a lot of healing to do. I hope we can all find our common humanity and embrace each other when this is all over, which is hopefully soon.\n\nJames is a lifelong Republican who worked on Capitol Hill for the party for nearly two decades, but cast his first ever vote for a Democrat in the 2020 election. He was stunned by 6 January's events and expects it to become a bad footnote in the country's history.\n\nI find it absolutely shocking. I didn't think it would come to this.\n\nI had actually thought about going down to the protests with a sign that said \"Republicans Against Trump\". My brother said, if I had done that, there would have been five deaths, not four, and he may have been right. I'm astounded by the stupidity of these people who show up without masks and who are being filmed. Quite a few of them are going to prison. It's a serious situation when you break past a police barricade and go into a building that's supposed to be secure.\n\nI have a lot of friends who say things couldn't get worse, but I have to remind them, as a student of history, that it has been worse. The Civil War was much worse. There was a lot of violence in the South during the Reconstruction period. This is something the country will get over. I was heartened by President-elect Biden's speech yesterday. Finally we've got someone who's sounding presidential. We haven't had it for the last four years.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA'Kayla is a college student who supports the Black Lives Matter movement. She says law enforcement \"coddled\" the rioters at the Capitol and thus made an argument for police reform because they were far more aggressive at protests she attended.\n\nIt's so irritating I can't put into words how frustrating it is. They stormed the Capitol and the police were gentle and lackadaisical with them. I expected the police to use force, but they were so kind and gentle. During the summer, when the Black Lives Matter protests were going on, so many people were injured, locked up and lost their lives.\n\nFrom my own experience, marching peacefully on the front lines in Charleston, we had tear gas thrown at us and had to pour milk in our eyes. It was excruciating. And for what? We're marching for a cause, because we had the murder of somebody by the police. What are they upset about? They're upset because we are living in a democracy and they didn't get their way.\n\nDuring one of the debates, when Trump said \"stand back and stand by\", is this what he was talking about? This is the calm before the storm. I think it's going to get way more ugly, but Kamala [Harris] and Joe [Biden] are a symbol of change and hope.\n\nWhether [Trump supporters] like it or not, America is moving towards a more progressive country and there's going to be a lot of changes.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Joe Biden: Black Lives Matter protesters would have been treated \"differently\"", "Two more life-saving drugs have been found that can cut deaths by a quarter in patients who are sickest with Covid.\n\nThe anti-inflammatory medications, given via a drip, save an extra life for every 12 treated, say researchers who have carried out a trial in NHS intensive care units.\n\nSupplies are already available across the UK so they can be used immediately to save hundreds of lives, say experts.\n\nThere are over 30,000 Covid patients in UK hospitals - 39% more than in April.\n\nThe UK government is working closely with the manufacturer, to ensure the drugs - tocilizumab and sarilumab - continue to be available to UK patients.\n\nAs well as saving more lives, the treatments speed up patients' recovery and reduce the length of time that critically-ill patients need to spend in intensive care by about a week.\n\nBoth appear to work equally well and add to the benefit already found with a cheap steroid drug called dexamethasone.\n\nAlthough the drugs are not cheap, costing around £500 per patient, on top of the £5 course of dexamethasone, the advantage of using them is clear - and less than the cost per day of an intensive care bed of around £2,000, say experts.\n\nLead researcher Prof Anthony Gordon, from Imperial College London, said: \"For every 12 patients you treat with these drugs you would expect to save a life. It's a big effect.\"\n\nIn the REMAP-CAP trial carried out in six different countries, including the UK, with around 800 intensive care patients:\n\nProf Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: \"The fact there is now another drug that can help to reduce mortality for patients with Covid-19 is hugely welcome news and another positive development in the continued fight against the virus.\"\n\nHealth and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: \"The UK has proven time and time again it is at the very forefront of identifying and providing the most promising, innovative treatments for its patients.\n\n\"Today's results are yet another landmark development in finding a way out of this pandemic and, when added to the armoury of vaccines and treatments already being rolled out, will play a significant role in defeating this virus.\"\n\nThe drugs dampen down inflammation, which can go into overdrive in Covid patients and cause damage to the lungs and other organs.\n\nDoctors are being advised to give them to any Covid patient who, despite receiving dexamethasone, is deteriorating and needs intensive care.\n\nTocilizumab and sarilumab have already been added to the government's export restriction list, which bans companies from buying medicines meant for UK patients and selling them on for a higher price in another country.\n\nThe research findings have not yet been peer reviewed or published in a medical journal.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A young woman has died after a rare suspected shark attack in New Zealand.\n\nPolice named the victim as 19-year-old Kaelah Marlow, from Hamilton.\n\nMarlow was taken out of the water still alive but died at the scene despite efforts to save her life. Police said it appeared she had been injured by a shark.\n\nThe attack happened at Waihi Beach on North Island not far from the country's biggest city Auckland.\n\n\"Police extend our deepest sympathies to Kaelah's family and loved ones at this very difficult time,\" police said in a statement.\n\n\"We appreciate her death was extremely traumatic for those who were at Waihi Beach yesterday and we are offering victim support services to anyone who requires it,\" the statement said.\n\nShark attacks are unusual in the country and this is thought to be the first fatality since 2013. Local media cited witnesses as saying the woman had been swimming right in front of the lifeguard flags on Thursday.\n\nWhen they heard screams, lifeguards went out by boat immediately and pulled her to shore.\n\nIt is not clear what kind of shark attacked Kaelah Marlow, but an eyewitness reportedly claimed it was a great white, a species which is protected in the waters around New Zealand.\n\n\"Sharks are reasonably common near all northern beaches of New Zealand, most are harmless and even species considered dangerous very rarely interact with swimmers,\" shark researcher Kina Scollay told the BBC.\n\n\"My thoughts and sympathies are with the victim's family and we need to remember that this is a real tragedy to real people. I worry that this gets lost sight of in the media scramble after such events.\"\n\nOne witness quoted by local media said he believed a great white shark attacked the woman\n\nMr Scolley said that while attacks were rare, there were ways to be careful about interactions that could go wrong. Among the risk factors are, for instance, fish feeding events or dead animals in the water.\n\n\"If a large shark approaches or is seen nearby people should stay calm, warn those nearby and calmly exit the water,\" he said.\n\nA seven-day rahui, a traditional Maori prohibition restricting access to an area, has been placed on the beach.\n\nThe last recorded shark attack was in 2018 when a man was injured - but survived - at Baylys Beach. Over the past 170 years, there have only been 13 fatal shark attacks documented in New Zealand, according to the country's department of conservation.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "The US is reeling after supporters of President Trump stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC on the day Congress was meeting to confirm Joe Biden's election victory.\n\nLawmakers were forced to take shelter, the building was put into lockdown and four people died in the chaos that followed a pro-Trump rally near the White House.\n\nHere's a breakdown of how events unfolded on Wednesday.\n\nJust before midday local time (17:00 GMT) thousands of people gather at the Ellipse, near the White House, to hear the president speak at a \"Save America\" rally.\n\nHe tells them: \"We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue... and we're going to the Capitol and we're going to try and give… our Republicans, the weak ones... the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.\"\n\nAs the speech ends, crowds start to drift towards the Congress building, about a mile and a half away, where they are met by police barriers.\n\nThe Capitol is home to the two chambers of the US government that make up Congress - the House of Representatives and the Senate.\n\nChanting crowds start to gather on both sides of the building at around 13:10, grappling with police at the metal barricades.\n\nTear gas and pepper spray are used to try to keep the protesters at bay.\n\nPolice officers struggle to maintain control of the situation as protesters advance on the building on multiple fronts.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police place US Capitol Building on lockdown after Trump supporters breached security lines\n\nOn the east side, the crowd force their way through barricades on the Capitol Plaza and move on the main entrance, quickly gaining access to the Great Rotunda.\n\nOnce inside, they head for the House and Senate chambers.\n\nIgor Bobic, a journalist for the Huffington Post, captures a group of men forcing a police officer to retreat up a set of stairs as they continue their advance.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Igor Bobic This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSenators are forced to abandon the process of confirming President-elect Biden's victory and the building goes into lockdown.\n\nThe doors of the House chamber are locked and a makeshift barricade is erected in front of them. Security officials guard the entrance, guns drawn.\n\nWithin an hour, protesters have also broken police lines on the west side of the Capitol, scaling walls to reach the building itself before smashing windows and forcing doors open.\n\nOther videos and images show rioters storming through the building's ornately-decorated corridors and chambers chanting \"USA!\" and \"Stop the steal\".\n\nShortly before 15:00, gunshots are reportedly heard inside the building.\n\nPhotos and video footage later show a female protester being shot as she tries to break through the barricaded doors of the Speakers' Lobby.\n\nDespite efforts by police and others at the scene to save her, she is later reported to have died.\n\nOn the other side of the building, protesters break into the Senate chamber, one taking seat in the Speaker's chair.\n\nAnother protester is photographed nearby sitting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, with his foot on the table.\n\nAfter growing condemnation of the riots, President Trump eventually calls for calm, telling the protesters to leave peacefully: \"Go home. We love you, you're very special.\"\n\nBy 17:40, the building is cleared and made secure ahead of the 18:00 curfew ordered by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser.\n\nSeveral thousand National Guard troops, FBI agents and US Secret Service are deployed to help.\n\nMore than six hours after the storming of the building, senators return and resume the day's business of certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.\n\nAt 03:41 on Thursday, Congress confirms President-elect Joe Biden will succeed President Trump on 20 January.", "Young women clap for heroes outside Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London\n\nA revived initiative to applaud the heroes of the pandemic has returned - but much more quietly than last year.\n\nIt comes after the founder of Clap for Carers distanced herself from its return after facing online abuse.\n\nAnnemarie Plas wanted to bring back the weekly applause under a new name of Clap for Heroes to lift spirits in the new lockdown but it fell a little flat.\n\nSome health workers have said they would rather people stay at home and wear a mask than clap for them.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he participated at 20:00 GMT on Thursday, but clapping \"isn't enough\".\n\n\"They need to be paid properly and given the respect they deserve,\" he tweeted., of the health workers.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The weekly clap returned but Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said clapping alone \"wasn't enough\"\n\nThe idea of clapping and banging pots from doorsteps originally began as a one-off to support NHS staff on 26 March - three days after the UK went into lockdown for the first time.\n\nAfter proving popular it was expanded to cover all key workers and continued every Thursday for 10 weeks last year, with millions of people across the UK taking part.\n\nMembers of the Royal Family and politicians including Prime Minister Boris Johnson also joined in with the show of support.\n\nHowever, the event faced criticism for becoming politicised, with some suggesting the NHS would benefit more from extra funding than applause.\n\nPeople in some streets stood on doorsteps and leaned out windows to clap for the pandemic's heroes, and landmarks in London were illuminated blue for the occasion - but reports suggested the applause was noticeably quieter than last year.\n\nAnnemarie Plas and her family were threatened online for her efforts\n\nOn Wednesday, Ms Plas, a 36-year-old mother-of-one, announced the return of the initiative, saying she hoped to \"lift the spirit of all of us\" including \"all who are pushing through this difficult time\".\n\nBut some NHS workers were less than enthusiastic. Ami Jones, an intensive care consultant from Wales, tweeted: \"No thanks. I'd rather you obey the rules, stay at home, wear masks and wash your hands.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Rachel Clarke 💙 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke said: \"Please don't clap us. Just wear a mask, wash your hands and respect lockdown.\"\n\nIn a tweet posted hours before the weekly clap was due to return, Ms Plas, a Dutch national living in south London, said she had been targeted with personal abuse and threats against her and her family by \"a hateful few\" on social media.\n\n\"I have no political agenda, I am not employed by the government, I do not work in PR, I am just an average mum at home trying to cope with the lockdown situation,\" she said, in a statement.\n\nShe said the newly revived clap could and should still happen at 20:00 GMT.\n\n\"It's up to each person to decide how relevant or worthwhile they feel it is to participate,\" she said.\n\nThe fountains in Trafalgar Square were illuminated blue for the initiative on Thursday\n\nSome incorporated pots and pans during their weekly claps in warmer months", "UK house prices rose by 6% last year, according to the Halifax, but the lender is predicting \"downward pressure\" on values in 2021.\n\nThe mortgage lender, part of Lloyds Banking Group, said that prices \"soared\" in the second half of 2020.\n\nPent-up demand, a clamour for more space, and stamp duty holidays led to higher prices.\n\nBut the Halifax said the economic realities of 2021 meant activity would slow as the year progressed.\n\n\"With the pace of the UK's economic recovery expected to be constrained by the renewed national lockdown, and unemployment widely predicted to rise in the coming months, downward pressure on house prices remains likely as we move through 2021,\" said Russell Galley, managing director at the Halifax.\n\nHe said that last year was a market of two halves - starting with slow growth, and stalling when the market was closed during the first national lockdown, but then booming when it reopened.\n\nThis meant that overall, demand and price growth were relatively high.\n\nThe conclusion mirrors the findings of rival lender, the Nationwide, which said that UK house prices climbed 7.5% in 2020, the highest growth rate for six years.\n\nBoth mortgage lenders base their findings on their customer data.\n\nLucy Pendleton, from estate agents James Pendleton, said: \"The simple truth is that extra space has become non-negotiable for legions of homeowners with families, and the usual winter slowdown has met the immovable force that is hundreds of thousands of people all trying to jump to larger properties at the same time.\"\n\nThe Halifax said there were already signs of the market slowing, with prices rising by 0.2% in December compared with the previous month.\n\nThat was the slowest monthly rise of the last six months.\n\nThe lender said the average home was valued at £253,374.\n• None Where can I afford to live?", "The switch has been welcomed by climate campaigners\n\nAlok Sharma is to leave his position as business secretary to focus full-time on his role as president of the UN COP26 climate conference in November.\n\nThe Glasgow event is expected to be the biggest summit the UK has ever hosted.\n\nMr Sharma, who will remain in the cabinet, said he was \"delighted to have been asked by the PM to dedicate all my energies\" to the position.\n\nKwasi Kwarteng replaces him as business secretary while Anne-Marie Trevelyan becomes the new energy minister.\n\nThe government says a successful summit will be critical if the UK wants to meet the objectives set out by the Paris Agreement and reduce global emissions.\n\nThe event had originally been scheduled for November 2020 but was delayed by a year due to Covid-19.\n\nThe BBC's political correspondent Jessica Parker said the decision to move Alok Sharma wasn't a surprise and would be seen as a recognition of the need to free him up to do more of the crucial diplomatic leg-work required.\n\nSome MPs had previously warned that Mr Sharma lacked the \"bandwidth\" to head the conference alongside his cabinet job, especially given the strains on business due to the pandemic.\n\nIn his new role, which is based in the Cabinet Office, Mr Sharma's will remain a member of Boris Johnson's top team but be focused solely on coordinating global action to tackle climate change\n\nBoris Johnson chose Mr Sharma to head the event after ex-minister Claire O'Neill was ousted from the position in the summer of 2019.\n\nShe later condemned what she called broken promises and backsliding on climate commitments.\n\nFormer Conservative PM David Cameron turned down the chance to head the conference and ex-Foreign Secretary Lord Hague was also involved in discussions.\n\nMr Sharma's move will be welcomed by climate campaigners, who worried he was over-stretched running a frantically busy department while also orchestrating the most important climate meeting on Earth.\n\nMany of these summits - known as COPs - yielded little because the leadership was poor.\n\nThe French produced a triumphant agreement in the 2015 Paris COP after mustering the mighty force of French diplomacy.\n\nMr Sharma is reported to accept that he now needs to concentrate full time on the challenge.\n\nHe will need subtle diplomatic skills, a mastery of detail and the stamina of an ox as he attempts to corral world leaders into agreement on curbing emissions faster. He'll also need 100% support from the PM.\n\nThe greatest obstacle to action - Donald Trump - will soon disappear from the scene, and with China making bold promises, the COP has potential.\n\nBut politicians have been so slow to act that some key tipping points in the climate might already have been breached.\n\nReflecting on his new role, Mr Sharma said: \"The biggest challenge of our time is climate change and we need to work together to deliver a cleaner, greener world and build back better for present and future generations.\n\n\"Through the UK's Presidency of COP26 we have a unique opportunity, working with friends and partners around the world, to deliver on this goal.\"\n\nRichard Black, senior associate at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said: \"Allowing Alok Sharma to focus full-time on his COP26 role is a sensible decision, not least as it signals the government's commitment to ensuring that the summit is a success.\n\n\"With the election of Joe Biden as the next US President and China's recent carbon neutrality pledge, the diplomatic opportunities have opened up for more ambitious action on climate change. Mr Sharma's job will be to seize them.\"\n\nAnd ex-cabinet minister Amber Rudd, who led the UK delegation at the Paris climate change conference, said the move showed the government \"recognises the importance and opportunity for a global agreement this year\".\n\nResponding to his new appointment, Mr Kwarteng said he was \"thrilled\" and pledged to help businesses through this period of \"extremely challenging circumstances\".\n\nThe Spelthorne MP, who entered Parliament in 2010, has been energy minister since July 2019.\n\nLabour's shadow business secretary Ed Miliband said Mr Kwarteng had \"a massive task\" in providing business with \"a plan to help them through this year, not the inadequate sticking plaster measures we have seen\".\n\nHe welcomed the decision to make Mr Sharma's COP role full time.\n\n\"It's absolutely crucial that the full political, diplomatic and strategic resources of government are now directed to the most ambitious outcome at Glasgow, which is a 1.5 degree deal.\"", "The number of hours ambulances spent waiting to offload patients in parts of England is \"off the scale\", the Royal College of Emergency Medicine says.\n\nData leaked to BBC News shows ambulance waiting times at hospitals in the South East rose by 36% in December compared to the same month in 2019.\n\nPeople are also having to wait longer for ambulances to arrive when called.\n\nAmbulance services say it is taking longer to hand over patients but they are doing all they can to meet demand.\n\nIt comes as the NHS faces unprecedented pressure because of the Covid pandemic.\n\nA paramedic working in London told BBC News he had encountered patients left waiting up to 12 hours for an ambulance in the last week.\n\nOne patient in London with a broken leg had to wait outside at night for six hours before an ambulance arrived to collect him, he said.\n\nOn another occasion, paramedics were called to attend to a young man with Covid-19 whose oxygen levels were \"so low\". He was given oxygen when they arrived - but that was eight hours after the ambulance was called.\n\nIncidents such as these are \"dangerous\" and the service is \"on its knees\", the paramedic added.\n\nThe figures also show that at one point on Monday this week more than 700 patients were left waiting for an ambulance to arrive in London when none was available.\n\nDifferent statistics obtained by BBC News highlight the number of hours spent waiting to offload patients at hospitals half an hour after ambulances arrived at hospitals in the South East.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What does it mean if the NHS is overwhelmed?\n\nSouth East Coast Ambulance service lost 7,803 hours queuing outside hospitals, an increase on 5,732 hours in 2019.\n\nKent saw the greatest rise in this period. One of its hospitals, Medway Maritime Hospital, saw a doubling in ambulance waiting times.\n\nThese figures are \"off the scale\", according to Royal College of Emergency Medicine Vice President Adrian Boyle.\n\n\"It is not because more ambulances are being called, it's because the amount of time they're spending outside a hospital has increased,\" he said.\n\nDr Boyle says ambulances left queuing outside hospitals meant crews were not available to respond to other emergencies.\n\nHe says services are facing a \"crisis\" unlike any other he has seen.\n\n\"People may feel they have a winter crisis every year but this is a different order of magnitude\", he added.\n\n\"This is the worst winter crisis I've been through in my 25 years of practising as a doctor.\"\n\nAmbulance services say they are are doing everything they can to meet the demand.\n\nA London Ambulance Service Trust spokesperson said: \"We are continuing to prioritise the most seriously ill and injured patients, and our team of trained clinicians in our control rooms are working hard to monitor and maintain contact with many other patients as needed while they are waiting for ambulance crews to arrive.\"\n\nA South East Coast Ambulance Service Trust spokesperson said: \"We are doing everything we can to increase the number of staff available to meet this demand, including increasing overtime, to ensure crews are as available as possible to respond to patients in the community.\"\n\nHave you been affected by the issues raised in this story? You can share your experience by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Marks & Spencer says sales of sleepwear have soared as people spend more time at home because of Covid restrictions.\n\nThe retailer sold 20% more women's pyjamas during the 13 weeks to 26 December, with many of them being bought as Christmas presents.\n\n\"The great British public are back in their pyjamas,\" said chief executive Steve Rowe.\n\nDespite this, clothing sales as a whole fell nearly a quarter, although food sales showed modest growth.\n\nM&S said its trading was \"robust\" over the Christmas period, but UK revenues for the quarter were £2.52bn, 8.2% lower than last year.\n\nM&S blamed \"on-off restrictions and distortions in demand patterns\" due to the coronavirus crisis.\n\nM&S also said that potential post-Brexit tariffs on part of its range exported to the EU, together with \"very complex\" administrative processes, would \"significantly impact\" its businesses in Ireland and the Czech Republic, as well as its franchise business in France.\n\nMr Rowe said the chain's popular Percy Pig sweets, made in Germany, were one product that could face tax rises.\n\nIt said it was \"actively working to mitigate\" those effects.\n\nMr Rowe thanked staff for \"a first-class execution of Christmas for our customers in near impossible conditions\".\n\nThe High Street stalwart said customers had responded to its \"innovative seasonal product\" during the four-week run-up to Christmas.\n\nLike-for-like food sales had risen 2.6% during the period, it said.\n\nHowever, clothing and home sales fell by 24.1%, and UK sales overall were down 7.6% on a like-for-like basis.\n\nTrading was hit particularly badly in November by the national lockdown in England, with clothing and home sales slumping 40.5% in the month and food sales down 4.5%.\n\n\"Near-term trading remains very challenging, but we are continuing to accelerate change under our Never the Same Again programme to ensure the business emerges from the pandemic in very different shape,\" Mr Rowe said.\n\nOn the positive side, M&S said its tie-up with online firm Ocado had produced \"very strong\" results, while customers had responded to its \"innovative seasonal product\" during the four-week run-up to Christmas.\n\nRoss Hindle, retail sector analyst at Third Bridge, said: \"Despite the pressure faced by their clothing division, the M&S food division is expected to deliver solid results, propelled by both stockpiling and its Ocado partnership.\n\nHe pointed to reports that M&S was poised to acquire the Jaeger clothing brand as a possible way forward, saying it \"hints at the potential for a more aggressive shift into the multi-brand space\".\n\n\"M&S have numerous large stores which could be filled with non-M&S merchandise in order to drive their top-line. The risk here is whether such brands might cannibalise M&S branded products,\" he added.\n\nEmily Salter, retail analyst at GlobalData, said M&S was \"paying the cost for its inability to adapt fast enough to changing shopping habits\".\n\n\"M&S's recovery is slow versus other apparel players, as it continues to be hurt by an online platform unable to make up for lost store sales,\" she added.\n\nShe saw little point in a potential purchase of Jaeger, as it would be \"costly to turn around and do little to boost the retailer's fortunes\".\n\nHowever, she said M&S's focus on value in food had \"started to pay off, with decent sales growth, especially considering dampened footfall on High Streets\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson: \"I condemn encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way they did in the Capitol\"\n\nDonald Trump was \"completely wrong\" to cast doubt on the US election and encourage supporters to storm the Capitol, Boris Johnson has said.\n\nThe UK prime minister said he \"unreservedly condemns\" the US president's actions.\n\nFour people died after a pro-Trump mob stormed the building in a bid to overturn the election result.\n\nMr Trump had urged protesters to march on the Capitol after making false electoral fraud claims.\n\nHe later called on his supporters to \"go home\", while continuing to make false claims - Twitter and Facebook later froze his accounts.\n\nThe president has now said there will be an \"orderly transition\" to President-elect Joe Biden, whose November election victory has now been certified by US lawmakers.\n\nBut he added that he continued to \"totally disagree\" with the outcome of the vote, repeating his unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.\n\nOn Wednesday night, Mr Johnson condemned the \"disgraceful scenes\" and called for a \"peaceful and orderly transfer of power\".\n\nBut asked by the BBC's political correspondent Alex Forsyth if President Trump was directly responsible, he said: \"All my life America has stood for some very important things. An idea of freedom, an idea of democracy.\n\n\"As you say, in so far as he encouraged people to storm the Capitol, and in so far as the president has consistently cast doubt on the outcome of a free and fair election, I believe that was completely wrong.\n\n\"I believe what President Trump has been saying about that has been completely wrong and I unreservedly condemn encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way that they did in the Capitol.\"\n\nThe PM, speaking at a Downing Street briefing, then welcomed the confirmation of President-elect Biden, saying \"democracy has prevailed\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHundreds of the president's supporters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday - where lawmakers were meeting to confirm Mr Biden's election victory - and staged an occupation of the building in Washington DC.\n\nBoth chambers of Congress were forced into recess, as protesters clashed with police and tear gas was released.\n\nA woman died after being shot by police, and three others died as a result of \"medical emergencies\", local police said.\n\nUK politicians from different parties have all condemned Mr Trump's actions in encouraging the storming of the Capitol.\n\nEarlier, Home Secretary Priti Patel said the president's comments had \"directly led\" to the events and he \"didn't do anything to de-escalate that\".\n\nShe added: \"He basically has made a number of comments yesterday that helped to fuel that violence and he didn't actually do anything to de-escalate that whatsoever... what we've seen is completely unacceptable.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Priti Patel says Donald Trump was wrong for not condemning the violence\n\nSpeaking on Thursday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Mr Trump should \"take responsibility\" for what happened, calling it the \"culmination of years of the politics of hate and division\".\n\nSir Keir added he welcomed the outgoing president's agreement to an orderly handover, but told reporters \"he should have said it a long time ago.\"\n\nScottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Mr Trump had been \"inciting insurrection in his own country,\" and called it a \"dark period\" in US history.\n\n\"What we witnessed last night is not that surprising. In some senses, Donald Trump's presidency has been moving towards this moment almost from the moment it started,\" she told ITV's Good Morning Britain.\n\nScotland's Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said the home secretary should \"give serious consideration\" to denying Mr Trump entry to the UK after he leaves office.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'Treason, traitors and thugs' - the words lawmakers used to describe Capitol riot\n\nForeign Secretary Dominic Raab said certification of Mr Biden's victory was \"good to see\" after the \"shocking events\" on Wednesday, adding the UK condemned the violence \"unequivocally\".\n\nFormer Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, who shared time in office with Mr Trump, said there should be \"no place for the rule of the mob\".\n\nBut senior Welsh Conservative Andrew RT Davies has been criticised after comparing the rioting to politicians who supported a second referendum on Brexit.\n\nMr Davies, a member of the Welsh Parliament, later tweeted that \"violence must never be tolerated\".\n\nHis party colleague, the Conservative MP Simon Hoare, suggested Mr Trump could be sent to the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay:\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Simon Hoare MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCommons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has written to express his \"solidarity\" with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose empty office was broken into by protesters.\n\n\"Seeing your office trashed in that way and its occupation by one of the rioters was particularly outrageous. I am just so relieved you were not hurt,\" he wrote.\n\nTrump supporters left this note on the desk of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.", "The Liberia-flagged oil tanker Nave Andromeda docked at Southampton after the incident\n\nSeven men, including two who had already been charged, will face no action over a suspected hijacking of an oil tanker off the Isle of Wight.\n\nSpecial forces stormed the Nave Andromeda on 25 October after the crew raised concerns about stowaways.\n\nMatthew Okorie, 25, and Sunday Sylvester, 22, had been charged with conduct endangering ships.\n\nBut prosecutors dropped their case after evidence analysis \"cast doubt\" on whether the tanker was put in danger.\n\nThe Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said initial reports had indicated there was a \"real and imminent threat\" to the vessel, but added mobile phone footage and witness accounts \"could not show that the ship or crew were threatened\" and there was no evidence the men had any intention to seize control of the vessel.\n\nThe CPS said the new evidence meant the \"legal test\" for the offence was \"no longer met\".\n\n\"Our case was that the actions of the men were responsible for the endangerment of the vessel, but further material was then supplied by a maritime expert which significantly undermined whether there was a threat of danger,\" prosecutors said in a statement.\n\nThe Home Office said it was \"disappointed\" by the CPS's decision and added it was working with prosecutors to \"urgently resolve the issues raised by this case\".\n\nA spokesman said: \"It is frustrating that there will be no prosecution in relation to this very serious incident and the British people will struggle to understand how this can be the case.\"\n\nHampshire Constabulary said the five other men, who were arrested on suspicion of seizing or exercising control of a ship by use of threats or force, also face no police action.\n\nThey will remain detained under immigration regulations.\n\nThe 748ft-long (228m) ship left Lagos in Nigeria on 5 October bound for Southampton.\n\nAs it approached the Isle of Wight 20 days later, an emergency call came from the ship concerned about stowaways on board while the 22 crew members had locked themselves in the ship's citadel - secure area.\n\nThe men had been found on the ship earlier in the voyage and the vessel had made unsuccessful attempts to dock in other ports.\n\nIt was reported the men became hostile as the tanker approached the UK - but the CPS said it was thought this may have occurred while the ship was outside of UK waters.\n\nAt the time the Ministry of Defence called the incident a \"suspected hijacking\" and said Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Home Secretary Priti Patel authorised a special forces operation in response to a police request following a 10-hour stand-off.\n\nIn a nine-minute operation carried out under the cover of darkness, Special Boat Service commandos boarded the vessel and arrested the seven men, believed to be Nigerian nationals seeking asylum in the UK.\n\nThe Liberian-registered tanker later docked in Southampton.\n\nSpecial forces boarded the Nave Andromeda on the evening of 25 October\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Mauritius has been removed from the safe list\n\nTravellers from countries near South Africa are to be banned from entering England to stop the spread of the South African Covid variant.\n\nArrivals from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Botswana, as well as island nations Mauritius and Seychelles, will be affected.\n\nThe rule will take effect on 9 January but there will be an exemption for British and Irish nationals.\n\nThey will need to follow existing quarantine procedures.\n\nA ban by visitors to the UK from South Africa started on 24 December.\n\nThe latest restriction brought in by the Department for Transport also affects travellers arriving from Eswatini, Zambia, Malawi, Lesotho and Mozambique.\n\nIt will apply from 04:00 GMT on Saturday to people who have travelled from or through any of the specified countries in the last 10 days.\n\nIt is understood most flights from the affected countries arrive at airports in England, although it is expected the policy will be formally adopted by the other UK nations.\n\nThe measures will be in place for an initial period of two weeks.\n\nMeanwhile, Botswana, and the islands of Seychelles and Mauritius, are being removed from the UK list of safe travel corridors as there is a high frequency of travel between the islands and South Africa.\n\nThe new variant of coronavirus circulating in South Africa is already being seen in other countries, including the UK.\n\nThe variant, much like the new UK variant first seen in Kent, appears to be more contagious than previous ones.\n\nAnyone arriving into the UK from most destinations must quarantine for 10 days.\n\nBut there are a list of countries exempt from the rules, meaning returning travellers do not need to self-isolate, called the travel corridor list.\n\nUnder the latest announcement, the travel corridor with Israel will also end amid concerns about rising infection levels in that country.\n\nHowever, rules in place across the UK currently ban travel abroad unless for specific reasons.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Trump calls for an 'orderly transition of power' to the Biden administration on January 20th\n\nA US Capitol police officer has died from injuries sustained in the attack on Congress by a pro-Trump mob as top Democrats have called for the president to be removed for \"inciting\" the riot.\n\nHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Vice-President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th amendment to the Constitution to declare the president unfit for office.\n\nAlternatively, she vowed to initiate the process to impeach the president.\n\nWednesday's violence came hours after Mr Trump encouraged his supporters to fight against the election results as Congress was certifying President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the November vote.\n\nFive people have died in relation to the riot, including Brian Sicknick, an officer at the US Capitol Police (USCP) who was \"injured while physically engaging with protesters\", the police said.\n\nMeanwhile, the top congressional Democrats - Speaker Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer - have urged Vice-President Pence and Mr Trump's cabinet to remove the president for \"his incitement of insurrection\".\n\n\"The President's dangerous and seditious acts necessitate his immediate removal from office,\" they said in a joint statement.\n\nThe duo called for Mr Trump to be ousted using the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice-president to step up if the president is unable to perform his duties owing to a mental or physical illness.\n\nBut it would require Mr Pence and at least eight cabinet members to break with Mr Trump and invoke the amendment, something they have so far seemed unlikely to do. Mr Trump is due to leave office on 20 January, when Mr Biden will be sworn in.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMrs Pelosi indicated that if the vice-president failed to act, she would convene the House to launch their second impeachment proceedings against Mr Trump.\n\nHowever, to succeed in convicting and removing the president, Democrats would need a two-thirds majority in the Senate, and there is no indication they would get those numbers. And it was not clear whether enough time remained to carry out the process.\n\nMrs Pelosi's deputy, Katherine Clark, told CNN the House could move on impeachment next week.\n\nMedia reports, quoting unnamed sources, said Mr Trump had suggested to aides he was considering granting a pardon to himself in the final days of his presidency. The legality of such a move is untested.\n\nIt wasn't until Thursday night, more than 24 hours after the US Capitol had been ransacked by his supporters, that Donald Trump released a recorded statement calling for \"healing and reconciliation\" in a wounded nation.\n\nThat was the very least that could be expected from a US president in a time of crises, and it probably will not be enough to silence calls for his removal, impeachment or resignation. Those demands have been coming from the political left, of course, but also from parts of the right - longtime critics, from former allies and, remarkably, even the conservative editorial page of Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.\n\nEver since November's election, when Trump chose to attack the results rather than admit defeat, a reckoning was coming. The pressure, like a malfunctioning steam engine, was building toward a catastrophic ending.\n\nOn Thursday night, the president began trying to pick up the pieces.\n\nTeleprompter Trump had spoken. In past crises, unscripted Trump has quickly returned, with words and actions that reveal his earlier comments were insincere.\n\nWith 12 days left in his presidency, the question is whether, or more likely when, that Trump will return - and what happens when he does.\n\nPresident Trump returned to Twitter on Thursday following a 12-hour freeze of his account. His message was the closest he has come to a formal acceptance of his defeat after weeks of falsely insisting he actually won the election in a \"landslide\".\n\n\"Now Congress has certified the results a new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th,\" the Republican said in a video, without mentioning Mr Biden by name.\n\n\"My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'Treason, traitors and thugs' - the words lawmakers used to describe Capitol riot\n\nMr Trump said he had \"immediately deployed\" the National Guard to expel the intruders, though some US media reported he had hesitated to send in the troops, leaving his vice-president to give the order.\n\nHe also praised his \"wonderful supporters\" and promised \"our incredible journey is only just beginning\".\n\nLaw enforcement have been heavily criticised after they were overrun by the protesters. Mr Biden said: \"Nobody could tell me that if it was a group of Black Lives Matter protesters yesterday they wouldn't have been treated very differently than the thugs that stormed the Capitol.\"\n\nImages captured inside the Capitol building showed protesters roaming through some of the corridors unimpeded.\n\nThe FBI is seeking to identify those involved in the rampage, and the Washington DC police have released pictures of \"persons of interest\" for their involvement in the riot. The Department of Justice says people could face charges of seditious conspiracy, as well as rioting and insurrection.\n\nWashington police say 68 people have so far been arrested. One of those detained at the Capitol had a \"military-style automatic weapon and 11 Molotov cocktails (petrol bombs)\", according to the federal attorney for Washington DC.\n\nThe official responsible for security in the House of Representatives, the sergeant at arms, has resigned. Mr Schumer has called for his counterpart in the Senate to be sacked. USCP chief Steven Sund is also resigning, effective 16 January, following calls from Mrs Pelosi.\n\nOn Thursday, crews began installing a non-scalable 7ft (2m) fence around the Capitol which will remain in place for at least 30 days.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Joe Biden: Black Lives Matter protesters would have been treated \"differently\"\n\nAshli Babbitt, a 35-year-old US Air Force veteran from San Diego, California, was named as the woman fatally shot by a police officer who has now been placed on leave. Law enforcement told US media the victim was unarmed.\n\nThree others died after suffering unspecified medical emergencies on Capitol grounds: Benjamin Philips, 50, from Pennsylvania; Kevin Greeson, 55, from Alabama; and Rosanne Boyland, 34, from Georgia. Mr Greeson's family said he died of a heart attack.\n\nPolice said that 14 officers had been injured in the riot.\n\nOn Thursday evening, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos - one of the longest serving members of the president's administration - became the second cabinet member to quit following the Capitol riot.\n\nIn her resignation letter, Ms DeVos accused the president of fomenting Wednesday's disorder. \"There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me.\"\n\nEarlier in the day, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao stepped down, saying she had been \"deeply troubled\" by the rampage.\n\nOther aides to quit include special envoy Mick Mulvaney, a senior national security official, and the chief of staff to First Lady Melania Trump. A state department adviser was also sacked after calling Mr Trump \"unfit for office\" in a tweet.", "Fashion student Mhari Thurston-Tyler posted an advert for the \"crop top\" (right) on Depop after she says she found some discarded Chiltern Railways seat covers (like those on the left)\n\nA fashion student has been warned not to sell prohibited items on the clothes app, Depop, after she posted an advert for a top made from a train seat cover.\n\nMhari Thurston-Tyler made the bandeau out of a Chiltern Railways seat cover designed to promote social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nThe 20-year-old sold the top for £15 but later refunded her customer and took the advert down.\n\nDepop said the item \"clearly violates our terms of service\".\n\nThe app for buying and selling second-hand clothes said the sale of stolen goods was banned - but Ms Thurston-Tyler denied stealing.\n\nShe told BBC News she found two of the blue seat covers \"balled up on the floor\" outside Marylebone station in London in September.\n\nMs Thurston-Tyler, who is a fashion student at Central Saint Martins, re-sewed one of the covers to make it fit her, before deciding to advertise the second cover on Depop.\n\n\"I have no money at the moment so decided to put the second one on Depop to see if anyone would buy it,\" she said, adding that the app had become her main source of income as she has struggled to find other work during the pandemic.\n\n\"I have to resort to little things like this to make ends meet, to pay the bills.\"\n\nMs Thurston-Tyler's advert went viral on social media after being shared by Depop Drama's Instagram and Twitter accounts.\n\nMhari Thurston-Tyler said she has been unable to find a job during the coronavirus pandemic and sells clothes on Depop \"to make ends meet\"\n\nIn the advert, Ms Thurston-Tyler models the seat cover and describes it as a \"social distancing crop\", adding: \"Got a few of these can do different sizes.\"\n\nMs Thurston-Tyler, from Kenilworth in Warwickshire, said a Depop customer paid her £15 and ordered a crop top \"in extra small\".\n\nBut realising she should not be making money out of Chiltern Railways' property, Ms Thurston-Tyler refunded the customer 15 minutes later and took the advert down shortly afterwards.\n\n\"I didn't steal it but I understand it's not right to re-sell it,\" she said.\n\nA Depop spokesperson said Ms Thurston-Tyler would be banned from the platform if she listed any other prohibited goods.\n\n\"We explicitly prohibit the sale of illegal and unlawful content on the app, including any stolen goods,\" they said.\n\n\"This item clearly violates our terms of service, but as it has been removed by the seller and is no longer for sale on the platform, we will not be taking immediate steps to ban this user.\"\n\nMs Thurston-Tyler said she hopes to make her own line of crop tops with the words \"children railways\" on the design, while \"the hype\" of the viral moment continues.\n\nChiltern Railways said it has been using the social distancing \"seat sashes\" since the beginning of the UK's Covid epidemic.\n\nA spokeswoman added: \"Whilst we appreciate this new take on railway memorabilia, these items are there to help customers travel with confidence and we would respectfully ask that they are left in place.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. London mayor Sadiq Khan: \"Unless the virus reduces... we could run out of beds\"\n\nThe spread of Covid in London is \"out of control\" according to Sadiq Khan, who has declared a \"major incident\".\n\nThe coronavirus infection rate in London has exceeded 1,000 per 100,000 people, based on the latest figures from Public Health England.\n\nHowever, the Office for National Statistics recently estimated as many as one in 30 Londoners has coronavirus.\n\nMr Khan told BBC political reporter Karl Mercer that the figure is as high as one in 20 in some parts of London.\n\nMajor incidents have previously been called for the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 and the terror attacks at Westminster Bridge and London Bridge.\n\nA major incident is any emergency that requires the implementation of special arrangements by one or all of the emergency services, the NHS or the local authority.\n\nIt means the emergency services and hospitals cannot guarantee their normal level of response.\n\nCurrently, there are more than 7,000 people in hospital with Covid-19, the mayor said.\n\nThis is a 35% increase compared to last April's peak of the pandemic, he added.\n\nDr Samantha Batt-Rawden, an ICU registrar and President of the Doctors' Association UK, tweeted: \"We tried. We really tried. NHS staff pleaded with people that Christmas is not worth it. Now one in 30 people in London have Covid and ICUs are overwhelmed. My heart is broken.\"\n\nAn analysis of Public Health England figures show in the week to 3 January, the number of cases rose across all of the London's boroughs compared with the previous week, with 17 individually recording more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 people.\n\nTesting increased in parts of the city after a drop over the Christmas period but positivity was high among people taking lab-based tests - suggesting more testing is needed to find undiagnosed cases in the community.\n\nIn the past week, many parts of the capital saw a rise in deaths where a person had tested positive for coronavirus in the previous 28 days - with some areas recording more than double the number of deaths compared with the previous week.\n\nHowever, reporting over the Christmas period may have affected this.\n\nOut of the 18 acute hospital trusts in London providing figures to the government, all of them recorded having more beds being filled by coronavirus patients than in the previous week.\n\nBarts NHS Health, one of London's largest trusts, saw a 30% increase in coronavirus patients between 29 December and 5 January, to 830.\n\nThe London Ambulance Service is now taking up to 8,000 emergency calls a day, the mayor says\n\nThe mayor of London's announcement comes after the counties of Sussex and Surrey declared similar major incidents on Thursday.\n\nHe said the London Ambulance Service was currently taking up to 8,000 emergency calls a day, compared to 5,500 on a typical busy day.\n\nThe London Fire Brigade said more than 100 firefighters had been drafted in to drive ambulances to help cope with the demand.\n\nEvery frontline agency involved in protecting the public has a legal duty to prepare for emergencies by devising and testing major incident plans.\n\nThese public bodies declare a major incident when the situation they're confronting is so big or terrible that it's not only likely to cause serious harm, but it will also compromise their ability to respond effectively.\n\nIn general terms, that means public bodies can legally stop delivering some everyday services, so that their personnel, attention and resources can be diverted to the emergency confronting them.\n\nAt other times, the plans will lead to the military sending soldiers to aid the civilian effort, as we have seen already during the pandemic.\n\nPrevious major incidents include the Grenfell Tower disaster in London, the Salisbury Novichok poisonings and the 2017 terrorism attacks.\n\nLondon's regional director for Public Health England Kevin Fenton said the current wave of coronavirus was \"the biggest threat\" the capital has faced in this pandemic to date.\n\nHe added: \"The emergence of the new variant means we are setting record case rates at almost double the national average, with at least one in 30 people now thought to be carrying the virus.\n\n\"We know this will sadly lead to large numbers of deaths, so strong and immediate action is needed.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What does it mean if the NHS is overwhelmed?\n\nMr Khan is warning that London is \"at crisis point\".\n\n\"If we do not take immediate action now, our NHS could be overwhelmed and more people will die,\" he said.\n\n\"Londoners continue to make huge sacrifices and I am today imploring them to please stay at home unless it is absolutely necessary for you to leave. Stay at home to protect yourself, your family, friends and other Londoners and to protect our NHS.\"\n\nHe said he had written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson asking for more financial support for Londoners who need to self-isolate and are unable to work, and for daily vaccination data.\n\nMr Khan also called for the closure of places of worship and for face masks to be worn routinely outside the home, including in crowded places and supermarket queues, in a bid to curb case numbers.\n\nTwo hospital trusts in London have recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths\n\nThe mayor of London was in a sombre mood when I spoke to him earlier this afternoon. One in 20 Londoners in some areas now has Covid, and there is a real fear that hospitals will simply be overwhelmed in the next two weeks.\n\nDeclaring a major incident is a real indication of the levels of concern felt not just at City Hall but across London's emergency services and the NHS.\n\nMore Londoners are now in hospital with coronavirus than at the peak of the first wave last April - and those numbers are growing by more than 800 every day.\n\nIt's believed the last mayor to declare a London-wide major incident was Boris Johnson in response to the 2011 riots.\n\nThe coming days will be some of the most challenging in the city's recent history.\n\nKatie Sanderson, a junior doctor working in London, said she is worried how long medical staff can cope with the surge of patients.\n\n\"[Staff] are working on wards and spending long amounts of time with patients who need high-intensive oxygen therapy,\" she said.\n\n\"It is technically challenging and the emotional burden is enormous. I see it in a flatness in their demeanour, like we've all got used to doing things which before were totally inconceivable.\"\n\nGeorgia Gould, chair of London Councils, described London's rising coronavirus rate as \"dangerous\".\n\nShe added: \"One in 30 Londoners now has Covid. This is why public services across London are urging all Londoners to please stay at home except for absolutely essential shopping and exercise.\n\n\"This is a dark and difficult time for our city but there is light at end of the tunnel with the vaccine rollout. We are asking Londoners to come together one last time to stop the spread - lives really do depend on it.\"\n\nEarlier this week as the prime minister introduced an England-wide lockdown, the Met Police said officers were going to be \"more inquisitive\" towards Londoners seen outside.\n\nThe Met handed out 1,761 fines for breaches of coronavirus laws between 27 March and 20 December.\n\nDeputy Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said the major incident was a \"stark reminder\" of the point London is at in the pandemic.\n\nHe said: \"These rule-breakers cannot continue to feign ignorance of the risk that this virus poses or listen to the false information and lies that some promote downplaying the dangers.\n\n\"Every time the virus spreads it increases the risk of someone needlessly losing their life.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'One of the worst shifts of my life - it's overwhelming'\n\nIn response to Mr Khan's announcement the government said the NHS is continuing to \"face a huge challenge\"\n\nA spokeswoman added: \"It is absolutely paramount people in London, and the rest of the country, follow the rules and stay at home to protect the NHS and save lives.\n\n\"We are working closely with NHS England to support hospitals in the capital, including additional bed capacity at the London Nightingale.\n\n\"Financial support is in place for workers who need to self-isolate - including a £500 payment for those on the lowest incomes who have been contacted by NHS Test and Trace.\"\n\nFor more London news follow on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel.\n\nHave any of the issues raised in this article had an impact on you? You can share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid lockdown: 'This is why we say to you do not come out'\n\nPeople are being warned about breaking lockdown restrictions after the police got stuck in snow due to rule-breakers.\n\nA car driving on Moel Famau hill, Flintshire, despite roadblocks, skidded off the road on Thursday night, with officers deployed to help the passengers.\n\nHowever, they then became stuck and had to call mountain rescuers.\n\nA yellow warning for snow and ice has been issued by the Met Office for all of Wales, until midnight on Friday.\n\nPolice said: \"This is why we say to you do not come out.\"\n\nOn a video posted on Twitter, an officer for the North Wales Police Rural Crime Team warned people about the consequences of breaking the rules.\n\n\"It is now involving two agencies, two police vehicles, two mountain rescue vehicles and three police officers and the casualty.\"\n\nRob Taylor from North Wales Police Rural Crime Team said the person who was driving the car, which travelled 200m when it lost control was \"very, very lucky to be alive and escape uninjured\".\n\n\"We've been having problems with people lately flouting the law and going where they shouldn't be going,\" he said.\n\n\"People have been going through them for various reasons whether that's a walk or sledge and gathering in large groups. So we have been paying attention.\n\n\"This issue that was highlighted perfectly yesterday where someone's gone there thinking it's okay to flout the law. They get themselves in trouble and cause an emergency response from police and actually put those police officers' lives at risk.\n\n\"Their actions can really affect many people.\"\n\nSnow and ice warnings are in place for all of Wales\n\nThe snow warning for Friday said 5cm of snow could also fall on hills and mountains, with a widespread frost forecast for the morning.\n\nRoad agencies said driving conditions on the A55 in Flintshire were difficult, with snow on Rhuallt Hill.\n\nOne lane on the expressway has been closed eastbound between Pentre Halkyn and Northop following a crash.\n\nRoads have also been closed in Denbighshire following the heavy snow.\n\nThe Met Office warned there was a risk of slips and falls with sleet and snow predicted to fall on to already-frozen ground, creating icy patches.\n\nForecasters said that while snow was likely to fall on hills and mountains, flurries could be seen elsewhere, but this was likely to \"be slight and temporary\".\n\nFurther ice warnings have also been issued until 11:00 GMT on Saturday.\n\nResidents in parts of Wales have been waking to snow, including in Mold, Flintshire\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Hyundai has sparked confusion over a possible electric car tie-up with Apple.\n\nThe South Korean car company initially said it was in the \"early stage\" of talks with the iPhone maker about a possible electric car partnership.\n\nBut hours later it backtracked and said it was talking with a number of potential partners without naming Apple.\n\nHyundai's share price rose more than 20% when the tie-up was announced.\n\n\"Apple and Hyundai are in discussions but they are at an early stage and nothing has been decided,\" it said in a statement which was later revised. Hyundai's value shot up $9bn (£6.5bn) after the Apple announcement.\n\nWhile an updated statement said it was talking to a number of companies about a possible electric car tie-up including Apple, a later version omitted the US tech firm.\n\nApple is known for its secretiveness when it comes to new products and partnerships.\n\n\"I'm not surprised to see a big jump in the valuation of Hyundai. The stock market loves car companies who are tech firms as seen with Tesla rise,\" said Sarwant Singh, managing partner at consultants Frost & Sullivan. \"This partnership helps Hyundai be seen as a tech innovator.\"\n\nLast month, news emerged that Apple was moving forward with self-driving car technology with a 2024 launch date.\n\nThe electric vehicle (EV) market is becoming increasingly competitive, with companies such as Tesla grabbing the headlines with its rapidly-increasing valuation. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk is now the richest man in the world, displacing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.\n\nExperts say an electric vehicle from Apple is still at least five years away.\n\nThey say pandemic-related delays could push the start of production into 2025 or beyond.\n\nHyundai has already been pushing into new technologies such as electric, driverless and flying cars.\n\nLast month, it took a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics in a deal that valued the mobile robot firm at $1.1bn.\n\nThe company is also setting up a $4bn autonomous-driving joint venture with auto parts supplier Aptiv.\n\nBoth partners will invest $2bn, while Ireland-based Aptiv will contribute about 700 engineers and transfer patents and intellectual property to the venture.\n\n\"Apple could certainly jumpstart that project and Hyundai brings the vehicle development and manufacturing expertise,\" said Jeff Schuster at automobile data firm LMC Automotive\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nApple's efforts to produce an electric car, known as Project Titan, have been on and off ever since plans were revealed in 2014.\n\nThere have been rumours over who would assemble an Apple-branded car as it may be difficult for the tech giant to manufacture them on its own.\n\nIts rival Alphabet's Waymo chose a factory in Detroit to mass produce its own self-driving cars.", "Jessica Allen (left) and Eliza Moore are now sticking to walks nearer their homes\n\nA police force that was criticised for its \"intimidating\" approach to two walkers is to review its lockdown fines policy.\n\nJessica Allen and Eliza Moore said they were surrounded by police after driving five miles from their home for a walk on Wednesday, and fined £200 each.\n\nDerbyshire Police initially said driving to exercise was \"not in the spirit\" of lockdown.\n\nBut it now says new national guidelines mean it will review its position.\n\nIn a statement, the force said all of its fixed penalties issued during the new national lockdown will be reviewed.\n\nMs Allen, from Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, said she assumed \"someone had been murdered\" when she arrived at Foremark Reservoir on Wednesday afternoon.\n\nWhen she and her friend were questioned by police, they were also told by officers the hot drinks they had brought along were not allowed as they were \"classed as a picnic\".\n\nShe said: \"The next thing, my car is surrounded. I got out of my car thinking 'There's no way they're coming to speak to us'. Straight away they start questioning us.\n\n\"I said we had come in separate cars, even parked two spaces away and even brought our own drinks with us. He said 'You can't do that as it's classed as a picnic'.\"\n\nMs Allen said the experience was \"very intimidating\" and had left her feeling scared of police in general.\n\nForemark Reservoir is five miles away from where Jessica Allen and Eliza Moore live\n\nHer friend, Ms Moore, said she was \"stunned at the time\" so did not challenge police and gave her details so they could send a fixed penalty notice.\n\nAt the time Derbyshire Police said that driving to a location to exercise \"is clearly not in the spirit of the national effort to reduce our travel, reduce the possible spread of the disease and reduce the number of deaths\".\n\nThe force added: \"Where there are cases of blatant breaches of the regulations then fines will be issued by officers.\"\n\nDerbyshire Police has also been giving fixed penalty notices to people who visit Calke Abbey and Elvaston Castle.\n\nFixed penalty notices have been given to people who visit Calke Abbey, a National Trust property\n\nBut in a statement, the force said further guidance issued by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) had \"clarified the policing response concerning travel and exercise\".\n\nThe guidance said: \"The Covid regulations which officers enforce and which enables them to issue FPNs [fixed penalty notices] for breaches, do not restrict the distance travelled for exercise.\"\n\nThe NPCC added that rather than issue fines for people who travel out of their local area \"but are not breaching regulations, officers will encourage people to follow the guidance\".\n\nThe force has now said it will be \"aligning to adhere to this stance\".\n\nAssistant Chief Constable Kem Mehmet said: \"We are grateful for the guidance from the NPCC.\n\n\"The actions of our officers continues to be to protect the public, the NHS and to help save lives.\"\n\nIt is not the first time the force has been accused of being overzealous in enforcing alleged lockdown breaches.\n\nIn the country's first lockdown in March the use of a drone to film people walking in the Peak District was labelled \"nanny policing\".\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Nursery staff are not advised to wear face coverings\n\nChildcare organisations are demanding to see evidence that it is safe for them to remain open while schools and colleges have closed to most pupils.\n\nStaff have close contact with children and babies daily, when they change nappies and receive them by the hand from parents, for example.\n\nMinisters have insisted early years settings are safe as young children have very low rates of the virus.\n\nNurseries argue the evidence cited is based on data about old variant Covid.\n\nEngland's three main nursery organisations, the Early Years Alliance, the National Day Nurseries Association and childminders' group, Pacey, have joined together to mount a #ProtectEarlyYears campaign.\n\nThey want the government to provide clear scientific evidence on the risks to early years staff of staying open, particularly in light of the increased transmissibility of the new variant of Covid-19.\n\nSue Cardy, owner and manager of Ready Teddy Go Pre School, in Shoeburyness, Essex said: \"There isn't anyone who has asked: 'Is it 100% safe for us to remain fully open? No one can see the virus and staff may be asymptomatic, and so we all run an element of risk of catching or spreading it.\"\n\nShe added: \"Staff have families and are not all young... 50% of my staff are over 50 and some have underlying medical conditions.\"\n\nVicky, the manager of a church pre-school in Cheshire West and Chester said she could potentially have 30 children plus 10 staff in a church hall, with no PPE recommended, and limited social distancing.\n\n\"As an early years provider, I am increasingly worried about the safety of both staff and children, yet if we chose to partially close, we could be financially penalised.\"\n\nAnd Georgie Morrell from Brighton and Hove said: \"Since re-opening, I have had four households tell me. they are Covid positive.\n\n\"This is clearly very close to home and yet we have been given no choice or support but to remain open and carry on.\"\n\nNeil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: \"It is simply not acceptable that, at the height of a global pandemic, early years providers are being asked to work with no support, no protection and no clear evidence that is safe for them to do so.\n\n\"We know how vital access to early education and care is to many families, but it cannot be right to ask the early years workforce to put themselves at risk. That is why it is vital that the government takes the urgent steps needed to safeguard those working in the sector, particularly mass testing and priority access to vaccinations.\n\nNursery providers are calling for staff to be tested, priority for vaccination and for state funding lost due to lower numbers during the pandemic, to be replaced by government.\n\nPurnima Tanuku, chief Executive of National Day Nurseries Association, said nurseries were determined to support families during the current lockdown.\n\nBut, she added: \"Time and again, whether it's on PPE, cleaning costs, testing or staffing, early years providers have been overlooked by the Department for Education.\n\n\"Now, they are the only part of the education sector fully open to all children and must be given priority.\"\n\nOn Wednesday, vaccines minister Nadim Zahawi said there was very little risk to younger children.\n\n\"The nursery sector has taken tremendous care in making sure the premises are also Covid safe. It is the right thing to do.\"\n\nThe Department for Education is yet to comment on the #ProtectEarlyYears demands.", "The coronavirus vaccine rollout is a national challenge requiring an unprecedented effort - involving the armed forces - Boris Johnson says.\n\nThe PM confirmed almost 1.5 million people in the UK have now received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.\n\nMore than 1,000 GP-led sites in England will be able to offer a total of \"hundreds of thousands\" of jabs each day by 15 January, he said.\n\nThe Army will use \"battle preparation techniques\" to help achieve that goal.\n\nIt came as a further 1,162 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported on Thursday - the second consecutive day of more than 1,000 recorded fatalities - and 52,618 new cases.\n\nAnd as Simon Stevens, head of the NHS in England, warned 10,000 patients with Covid had been admitted to hospital since Christmas Day.\n\nSpeaking at a Downing Street news conference, Mr Johnson said there would likely be \"lumpiness and bumpiness\" in the rollout of vaccines.\n\nHe said: \"Let's be clear, this is a national challenge on a scale like nothing we've seen before and it will require an unprecedented national effort.\n\n\"Of course, there will be difficulties, appointments will be changed but... the Army is working hand in glove with the NHS and local councils to set up our vaccine network and using battle preparation techniques to help us keep up the pace.\"\n\nAlongside GPs, there will be 223 hospital sites and seven \"giant vaccination centres\" - as well as an initial 200 community pharmacies - offering jabs, Mr Johnson said.\n\nEveryone will have a vaccination centre within 10 miles of their home, he added, with a \"full vaccination deployment plan\" to be published on Monday.\n\nHe also said there would be a national booking system for vaccinations - but did not give any more details.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brigadier Phil Prosser said his task was to ensure everyone in England had equal access to the vaccine\n\nBrigadier Phil Prosser, commander of military support to the vaccine delivery programme, told the news conference his team was \"embedded\" with the NHS.\n\nHe said his \"day job\" is to deliver combat supplies to UK forces in time of war, \"at speed in the most arduous and challenging conditions\".\n\nThe government has set a target to offer vaccination slots to 15 million in the top four priority groups - including all over-80s - by 15 February.\n\nAnd Mr Johnson said that, with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine available, he could pledge one of those groups - care home residents - would all receive their jab by the end of January.\n\nThe widespread rollout of the vaccine has begun in earnest with the first doses delivered during the day to family doctors for distribution.\n\nBut there were concerns from some GPs over supplies, as Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the levels of vaccine supply was the \"rate-limiting\" factor as jabs would be delivered as quickly as stock is available.\n\nIt comes as some hospitals in England are at risk of becoming Covid-only sites, with rising admissions for the virus forcing trusts to cut back on other services.\n\nThe latest NHS statistics also show that there were 30,370 patients with Covid in UK hospitals on Tuesday, a much higher figure than the first peak in the spring of 2020.\n\nHospital leaders have warned medics are becoming increasingly stretched with \"untrained staff\" used to fill gaps.\n\nAt 20:00 GMT, people in some streets stepped out onto doorsteps to clap for the heroes of the pandemic, following a weekly initiative which gained popularity during the UK's first lockdown.\n\nHowever, Thursday's clap for heroes was more muted than those seen last year, perhaps reflecting criticism the initiative had become politicised.\n\nLots of detail has been given about how the NHS - working hand-in-hand with the military - will be able to deliver the vaccines.\n\nThere will be more local vaccination centres, hospital hubs and even mass vaccination at sports stadiums.\n\nThousands of extra vaccinators have already been trained - and thousands more are waiting in the wings.\n\nBut the biggest hurdle the UK faces is vaccine supply.\n\nIf it is not available, it cannot be put in arms no matter how good the vaccination network is.\n\nIn the long-term, supply is not likely to be a problem - but in the coming weeks it could be tight.\n\nThere is enough vaccine in the country to offer all those at highest risk a jab by mid-February.\n\nBut it is not yet all ready for the NHS to use, either because the final safety checks have not been done or the vaccine has not been put into vials.\n\nThe former depends on lab work by the medicines regulator, while the latter is the job of a plant in Wrexham.\n\nEach stage takes some time. The target is achievable, but a lot has to go right.\n\nSir Simon Stevens said there were 50% more coronavirus patients in England's hospitals now compared to the peak last April, affecting every region across the country.\n\nHe said: \"That number is accelerating very, very rapidly... the pressures are real and they are growing.\"\n\nIn Northern Ireland, the Belfast Health Trust has said it has no other option but to cancel all of its urgent cancer surgery amid \"highly significant\" demand for bed space.\n\nThe cancelled operations will affect those patients for whom surgery could impact recovery and even survival, the trust said.\n\nBoris Johnson said all parts of government would be throwing everything at the vaccination effort \"round the clock\"\n\nIn one positive development for hospitals, two more life-saving drugs that can cut deaths by a quarter in patients who are sickest with Covid have been cleared for widespread use, with immediate effect.\n\nThe anti-inflammatory medications, given via a drip, save an extra life for every 12 treated, researchers said, following NHS trials.\n\nElsewhere, the UK has implemented restrictions on travellers to England from countries near South Africa to stop the spread of the South African Covid variant.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Johnson and Sir Simon were asked about persistent social media claims that coronavirus does not exist - and that reports of packed hospital wards of people being treated are just a myth.\n\nSir Simon said that such misinformation was an \"insult\" to hard-working critical care staff.\n\n\"There is nothing more demoralising than having that kind of nonsense spouted when it is most obviously untrue,\" he said.", "Vincent Kane - pictured with his grandson Sonny - is facing uncertainty about his operation\n\nThe son of a man with pancreatic cancer has said the last-minute cancellation of his surgery has been \"devastating\".\n\nJodie Kane said his father Vincent was due to have his operation on Friday.\n\nHowever, that procedure was cancelled by the Belfast Health Trust on Tuesday as the worsening coronavirus crisis increases the pressure on hospitals.\n\nThe trust apologised, saying it had faced an 80% rise in the number of patients with Covid-19 admitted to hospitals since Christmas Day.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan Show, Jodie said that there was now \"no guarantee\" his 68-year-old father would get the treatment.\n\n\"To be told we had the chance of a very successful surgery on offer and then to have it taken away at the last minute is pretty devastating,\" he said.\n\n\"Even the surgeon himself said they would be concerned if it was to go on more than four weeks.\n\n\"There is an uncertainty hanging over us now that we don't know when he'll actually get that surgery or what the impact on his health is going to be.\"\n\nVincent Kane - pictured with his with wife Karen - has been suffering other health issues arising from his cancer\n\nVincent, from Newtownards, County Down, did not receive treatment for some of his other symptoms as it was planned that the surgery would help with those.\n\n\"Because they were hoping to get him straight into surgery he hasn't had the blockage in his gall bladder addressed so he's jaundiced, he's covered in a rash, can't sleep, he's lost a lot of weight,\" Jodie said.\n\n\"Undoubtedly there are people worse off than us out there but it is still a critical illness that he has got and it is one that we don't have an end in sight for, in terms of treatment.\n\n\"There must be a way of helping all those in need, or I suppose if you were being really honest about it those who stand the best chance of surviving - making the decisions for the benefit of them.\n\n\"There's no guarantee that in six weeks' time surgery is going to be an option because who knows what's going to happen with Covid?\"\n\nThe Belfast Health Trust said it had to reduce the number of ill patients on wards to protect them from coronavirus\n\nJodie called on those who were breaking Covid-19 regulations to think about the the \"direct and indirect impacts\" of their actions.\n\n\"We've every sympathy for anyone who has a loved one who needs [intensive] care because of Covid but cancer and Covid are both life-and-death situations.\n\n\"We can minimise the risks of one of them as a collective society just by taking the necessary precautions.\n\n\"It could be someone they love or their neighbour or someone in their community that's in the same situation as us in the very near future.\"\n\nFlo McClements, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in December, found out on Tuesday that her surgery - scheduled for Thursday - had been cancelled by the Belfast Health Trust.\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio Foyle, her son Gregg said the pressure was \"mounting day by day\" on the the 72-year-old from Ballymoney, County Antrim.\n\n\"She had waited all through Christmas for the date and due to the Covid-19 restrictions we as a family had stayed away from her,\" he added.\n\nFlo McClements' family wants to \"give her a hug\" after her operation was cancelled\n\n\"We left her on her own with my dad just to make sure she didn't catch Covid and risk the operation.\n\n\"When you get the date you like to think it's the next step to recovery but unfortunately that didn't happen.\"\n\nGregg said his mother was \"putting on a brave face\" but it was difficult for the family to not be with her in person during what was a difficult time.\n\n\"That's actually the hardest part that we can't go up and have a cup of tea with her or give her a hug to make her feel a bit better even for a few minutes.\"\n\nThe Belfast Health Trust said it \"would like to sincerely apologise\" to those affected by the postponement of surgeries.\n\nIt said the decision was taken to reduce the number of ill patients on wards that would be more at risk from the virus than others.\n\n\"This was an incredibly difficult decision to make and we did not take it without considering all the information available to us,\" said the trust.\n\n\"We do not underestimate the anxiety and distress this causes the patients and families affected and we deeply regret this.\n\nIt said it would do \"everything in our power\" to reschedule their operations \"as soon as possible\".", "Gordy Philip took an icy bike ride on the Great Glen Way between Blackfold and Abriachan in the hills above Loch Ness. He said of his image: \"Could be the light at the end of the road on the first day of another lockdown.\"", "New data from EU satellites shows that 2020 is in a statistical dead heat with 2016 as the world's warmest year.\n\nThe Copernicus Climate Change Service says that last year was around 1.25C above the long-term average.\n\nThe scientists say that unprecedented levels of heat in the Arctic and Siberia were key factors in driving up the overall temperature.\n\nThe past 12 months also saw a new record for Europe, around 0.4C warmer than 2019.\n\nLast December, the World Meteorological Organization predicted that 2020 would be one of the three warmest years on record.\n\nThis new, more complete report from Copernicus says that last year is right at the top of the list.\n\nHigh temperatures saw fires rage in spring and summer in many locations inside the Arctic circle\n\nThe Copernicus data comes from a constellation of Sentinel satellites that monitor the Earth from orbit, as well as measurements taken at ground level.\n\nTemperature data from the system shows that 2020 was 1.25C warmer than the average from 1850-1900, a time often described as the \"pre-industrial\" period.\n\nOne key factor driving up the temperatures was the heating experienced in the Arctic and Siberia.\n\nIn some locations there, temperatures for the year as a whole were 6C above the long-term average.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThis exceptional warming led to a very active wildfire season. Fires in the Arctic Circle released a record amount of CO2, according to the study, up over a third from 2019.\n\nThe Copernicus service concludes that while 2020 was very marginally cooler than 2016, the two years are statistically on a par as the differences between the figures for the two years are smaller than the typical differences found in other temperature databases for the same period.\n\nMore data on 2020's temperature will be released in the next week or so from other agencies, including Nasa and the UK Met Office.\n\nThe scientists say that the closeness between the years is all the more remarkable considering the impacts of the El Niño/La Niña weather cycle.\n\nPeople saw their homes burnt down in some parts of Siberia\n\nEurope also saw a new record level of warming for the year, 0.4C warmer than 2019. A major heat wave in July and August was an important factor driving up the mercury across the continent.\n\nGlobally, the 10-year period from 2011-2020 is the warmest decade, with the last six years being the six hottest on record.\n\n\"Twenty-twenty stands out for its exceptional warmth in the Arctic and a record number of tropical storms in the North Atlantic,\" said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.\n\n\"It is no surprise that the last decade was the warmest on record, and is yet another reminder of the urgency of ambitious emissions reductions to prevent adverse climate impacts in the future.\"\n\nWhile a strong La Niña may cool temperatures a little in 2021, levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are likely to remain high, contributing to ongoing warming.\n\nNew data from the UK's Met Office suggests that average concentrations of CO2 will reach levels that are 50% higher than they were before the industrial revolution.\n\nResearchers predict that annual average CO2 concentration at the Mauna Loa recording station in Hawaii will be around 2.29 parts per million (ppm) higher in 2021 than in 2020.\n\nDespite the global slowdowns caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the scientists say this rise is being driven by emissions from the use of fossil fuels and from deforestation.\n\nEurope saw a prolonged heat wave in July and August that pushed the year to a new record\n\nWhile weather patterns linked to the La Niña event may boost growth in tropical forests and increase the amount of the gas that's absorbed, it won't be enough to slow the overall rise.\n\nThe Met Office says that CO2 will exceed 417ppm in the atmosphere for several weeks from April to June.\n\nThis is 50% higher than the level of 278ppm that pertained in the late 18th Century as widespread industrial activity was just beginning.\n\n\"The human-caused build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere is accelerating,\" said Prof Richard Betts from the Met Office.\n\n\"It took over 200 years for levels to increase by 25%, but now just over 30 years later we are approaching a 50% increase.\"\n\n\"Reversing this trend and slowing the atmospheric CO2 rise will need global emissions to reduce, and bringing them to a halt will need global emissions to be brought down to net zero. This needs to happen within about the next 30 years if global warming is to be limited to 1.5C.\"", "Lorry drivers crossing the Channel will continue to need a recent negative Covid test result \"until further notice\", the UK government has said.\n\nHauliers have been required to prove they have tested negative since the border with France reopened last month.\n\nThe decision to continue testing comes from the French government, the Department for Transport said.\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps urged \"all hauliers to get tested before getting to the border\".\n\nThe decision comes as the introduction of new trading rules between the UK and European Union prompts disruption for some businesses and hauliers.\n\nMr Shapps said the government was \"offering support to businesses to set-up testing facilities at their own premises, assisting the smooth passage of trucks and good across the border, as well as setting up testing at information and advice sites around the country\".\n\nDrivers and crew of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), drivers of large goods vehicles (LGVs) and van drivers are advised to obtain a negative test before arriving in Kent or at other Channel crossing points.\n\nThere are now 34 testing sites for hauliers situated in key \"stopping spots\" across the UK, with further sites being set up, the DfT said.\n\nTests must be authorised and taken 72 hours before entry into France.\n\nIn addition to a negative Covid test result, some hauliers require a new 24-hour permit to enter Kent since the introduction of the new UK-EU rules.\n\nFrance reported 21,703 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, while the UK reported 52,618.\n\nLast month, the border crisis saw France refuse arrivals from the UK for 48 hours between 20 and 22 December due to a new virus variant initially discovered in Kent.\n\nPassenger ferries and lorry freight bound for France were suspended from Dover, Portsmouth and Newhaven.\n\nAn emergency procedure devised as part of post-Brexit preparations allowed lorries to be \"stacked\" - leaving thousands of foreign drivers stranded throughout southern England.", "A further 1,325 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the biggest figure reported in a single day since the pandemic began.\n\nIt means there have been just short of 80,000 deaths by that measure - as another 68,053 new cases were recorded.\n\nPublic Health England (PHE) said the number of deaths would \"continue to rise until we stop the spread\".\n\nIt comes as the government launches a new campaign in England urging people to \"act like you've got\" the virus.\n\nThe campaign, including an advert fronted by England's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, is intended to remind the public Covid is spreading fast, with large numbers showing no symptoms.\n\nIn the advert, Prof Whitty says: \"Covid-19, especially the new variant, is spreading quickly across the country.\n\n\"This puts many people at risk of serious disease and is placing a lot of pressure on our NHS.\n\n\"Once more, we must all stay home. If it is essential to go out remember, wash your hands, cover your face indoors and keep your distance from others.\"\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said: \"Our hospitals are under more pressure than at any other time since the start of the pandemic, and infection rates across the entire country continue to soar at an alarming rate.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care\n\nHospital leaders have warned of stretched staffing with 31,624 coronavirus patients in UK hospitals on Wednesday - 46% above the peak during the first wave last year.\n\nDr Ian Higginson, vice president of Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the situation in London and south-east England was \"pretty dire\" and would get worse in the rest of the country before long.\n\n\"We're heading for some really dark times, I fear, in this phase of the pandemic,\" he said.\n\nRichard Mitchell, chief executive of Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust, said the increase in patients seen in London was now affecting his area in Nottinghamshire.\n\nHe said: \"Critical care is exceptionally busy and the colleagues who work here are tired, they're fatigued and they're worn out.\"\n\nMeanwhile, a third Covid vaccine received emergency approval for use in the UK with 17 million doses of the jab, made by US firm Moderna, pre-ordered by the UK.\n\nThe vaccine joins the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs in being approved, with close to 1.5 million people now vaccinated in the UK.\n\nDr William Welfare, Covid-19 response director at PHE, said: \"Each life lost to this virus is a tragedy, but sadly we can expect the death toll to continue to rise until we stop the spread.\n\n\"Approximately one in three people who have coronavirus have no symptoms and could be spreading it without realising it.\n\n\"To protect our loved ones it is essential we all stay at home where possible. This will reduce new infections, ease the pressure on the NHS and save lives.\"\n\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan said the spread of Covid in the capital was now \"out of control\", as he declared a \"major incident\".\n\nThis means the emergency services and hospitals cannot guarantee their normal level of response, and allows special arrangements to be implemented.\n\nThe previous highest daily death toll - 1,224 - was recorded on 21 April 2020 during the UK's first lockdown. Daily deaths were in the single figures as recently as September.\n\nThe UK has recorded the fifth-highest number of deaths behind the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, according to Johns Hopkins University.\n\nWe are now seeing the record numbers of cases over the Christmas period translate into record numbers of deaths.\n\nAnd with new infections rising rapidly - more than 1.1 million people in England estimated to be infected with Covid-19 last week - these tragic numbers are set to continue for some time.\n\nAnd that is mainly because of the new variant form of the virus which is thought to be between 30-70% more transmissible.\n\nThe administration of the vaccines to at-risk groups should see a reduction in the numbers dying by the end of the month and the numbers having to go into hospital going down sometime after that.\n\nThat is the other way around from what you normally hear - but that it because a successful vaccine programme will initially remove those most likely to die from the path of the virus.\n\nFitter or younger people - who are less likely to die but could still end up occupying hospital beds - won't be getting their jabs for some time yet.\n\nThe advent of spring's better weather should also help cases to fall, but ministers will have to decide what level of risk - and deaths - society is prepared to tolerate.\n\nFriday saw 619,941 tests conducted in the 24 hours to 09:00 GMT - also a new record.\n\nEngland, much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continue to be under strict national measures, with stay-at-home orders in place for most people.\n\nThe R number - the rate at which an infected person passes on the virus to someone else - is now estimated to be between 1.0 to 1.4, meaning the epidemic is growing between 0% and 6% per day.\n\nCovid infections rose by almost a third between Boxing Day and 3 January, reaching 70,000 new cases a day according to a major study.\n\nIn a different piece of research, an estimated 1.2 million people in total had Covid over a similar time period, the Office for National Statistics said.\n\nBoris Johnson pledged on Thursday to use England's lockdown to implement an \"unprecedented national effort\" to offer vaccination to those at the highest risk from Covid by 15 February.\n\nHe said the Army would be drafted in to use \"battle preparation techniques\" to achieve the goal, which could see up to 15 million people offered a vaccine by the middle of next month.\n\nIn another development, from next week all travellers to the UK will need to show a recent negative test result before they arrive.\n\nHave you been affected by the issues raised in this story? You can share your experience by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Parents and teachers are \"frustrated\" about plans to keep schools closed until the February half term and concerned about the impact on children.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC Radio Wales phone-in, callers said they felt young people were being \"thrown under the bus\".\n\nOthers said they were fed up with \"bitty information\" from the Welsh Government.\n\nKaarina Rutta from Sully, Vale of Glamorgan, told the programme she was having to work at night when her four children had gone to bed after home schooling.\n\n\"It's a challenge trying to help all four at the same time and also having in the back of your mind I should also be working and doing other things,\" she said.\n\n\"I was quite sure that this was going to happen,\" she added.\n\n\"It didn't come as a surprise I have to say, because the situation is just so bad I think there is no other way out of it at the moment.\n\n\"I just wish we had known earlier on and it would have been easier to plan.\"\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford said it was the \"best certainty\" he could offer \"in a world which is highly uncertain\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Duke of Cambridge asked how staff were coping during the pandemic and thanked them for their sacrifice\n\nThe Duke of Cambridge has said he talks to his three children about NHS staff \"every day\" to help them to understand the \"sacrifices\" made during Covid.\n\nPrince William's comments were part of a video call to London hospital staff.\n\n\"Catherine and I and all the children talk about all of you guys every day, so we're making sure the children understand all of the sacrifices that all of you are making,\" he said.\n\nIt comes after the London mayor said the virus was \"out of control\".\n\nSadiq Khan declared a major incident on Friday - meaning the emergency services and hospitals cannot guarantee their normal level of response - after the number of Covid patients in the capital's hospitals surpassed 7,000.\n\nStaff at Homerton University Hospital in east London told the Duke of Cambridge that queues of people waiting to be vaccinated at the hospital offered hope, but that the way out of the crisis was for the public to \"stay at home\" during lockdown.\n\nIn recent days the hospital has seen its highest number of admissions since the pandemic began.\n\nDuring the UK's first national lockdown, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their three children Prince George (left), Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis joined in with the weekly Clap for Carers event\n\nThe duke, who is joint patron of NHS Charities Together, said: \"A huge thank you for all the hard work, the sleepless nights, the lack of sleep, the anxiety, the exhaustion and everything that you are doing, we are so grateful.\n\n\"Good luck, we are all thinking of you.\"\n\nHis video call, which took place on Thursday, is one of many he and the duchess have made to NHS staff during the pandemic.\n\nPrince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis have also shown their support for the health service by getting involved with the weekly Clap for Carers applause during the UK's first national lockdown.\n\nAnd on Saturday, the Duchess's birthday, Kensington Palace said the family's thoughts \"continue to be with all those working on the front line at this hugely challenging time\".\n\nChief nurse Catherine Pelley told the prince her hospital had used funds from NHS Charities Together to set up various support initiatives such as a \"wobble room\" for colleagues to relax in.\n\n\"For us this week, starting vaccinating has been one of the single most significant impacts on people feeling that there is a future out of this, and the queues out the door here where they have been vaccinating have been really hopeful for people,\" she said.\n\n\"But the support we need is stay at home, help us. Because that will get us all out of this, whatever our role is, and we will get society out of this.\"\n\nAfter speaking to Ms Pelley and her colleagues about how they supported one another, the prince said: \"It's good that you and your team are keeping your spirits high and I always find that having some sort of sense of humour through everything is very important, otherwise we all go mad.\"\n\nThe Duke of Cambridge said he wants his children to appreciate the sacrifices made by NHS staff during the pandemic", "Ms Sturgeon has rejected claims made by former first minister Alex Salmond\n\nAlex Salmond has accused Nicola Sturgeon of misleading parliament, calling evidence she gave to an inquiry into the handling of sexual harassment claims against him \"simply untrue\".\n\nMr Salmond's comments emerged in a written submission to a separate investigation into whether the first minister breached the ministerial code.\n\nThe submission has been shared with the Holyrood committee.\n\nMs Sturgeon says she \"entirely rejects Mr Salmond's claims\".\n\nIn the submission, the former first minister said that Ms Sturgeon had misled parliament and broken the ministerial code with breaches including failing to inform the civil service in good time of her meetings with him.\n\nHe claimed she allowed the Scottish government to contest a civil court case against him despite having had legal advice that it was likely to collapse.\n\nMs Sturgeon told the Holyrood inquiry she had become aware of allegations at a meeting with Mr Salmond at her home.\n\nIt since emerged she met his former chief of staff in the days before, but she said she had forgotten about that meeting.\n\nMr Salmond said that claim was untenable.\n\nHis submission said that she misled parliament, and that amounted to a breach of the code. He also said she breached the code by failing to to inform civil servants of the nature of the meetings that took place between the two of them at her home where the allegations were discussed.\n\nAlex Salmond walked free from court in March having been cleared of charges of sexual assault\n\nMr Salmond's statement read: \"The pre-arranged meeting in the Scottish Parliament of 29 March 2018 was \"forgotten\" about because acknowledging it would have rendered ridiculous the claim made by the first minister in parliament that it had been believed that the meeting on 2 April was on SNP Party business and thus held at her private residence.\"\n\nBoth Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon are expected to give evidence to the committee in the coming weeks.\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross responded to the claims, saying: \"Nobody ever bought Nicola Sturgeon's tall tales to have suddenly turned forgetful, especially about the devastating moment she found out of sexual harassment allegations against her friend and mentor of 30 years.\n\n\"What has been revealed are allegations of shocking, deliberate and corrupt actions at the heart of government. There is now clear evidence of Nicola Sturgeon abusing her power to deceive the Scottish public.\n\n\"If this proves to be correct, it is a resignation matter. No first minister, at any time, can be allowed to get away with repeatedly and blatantly lying to the Scottish Parliament and breaking the ministerial code.\"\n\nScottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said Alex Salmond's explosive allegations demanded answers from the first minister to the committee.\n\nShe said: \"The bombshell accusation that Nicola Sturgeon has broken the ministerial code has the potential to end her political career and demands a robust and honest answer from the first minister.\n\n\"This committee demands truthfulness and honesty from every witness it calls - it is vital that the first minister tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when she appears.\"\n\nMs Sturgeon has repeatedly dismissed any notion of a conspiracy against Mr Salmond.\n\nHer spokeswoman said: \"The first minister entirely rejects Mr Salmond's claims about the ministerial code.\n\n\"We should always remember that the roots of this issue lie in complaints made by women about Alex Salmond's behaviour whilst he was first minister, aspects of which he has conceded. It is not surprising therefore that he continues to try to divert focus from that by seeking to malign the reputation of the first minister and by spinning false conspiracy theories.\n\n\"The first minister is concentrating on fighting the pandemic, stands by what she has said, and will address these matters in full when she appears at committee.\"\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions on Friday evening, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford MP said he did not believe the accusations about the first minister were correct.\n\nHe said: \"I believe that the first minister has acted in an honourable way, she's someone that I've every faith and trust in.\n\n\"I can tell you that the approval ratings for the first minister, the respect that she has right up and down the country of Scotland is enormous and this is something that will pass, when she appears in front of the committee these matters will be dealt with.\"\n\nAlex Salmond has just turned up the heat on his successor with a submission that presents a direct and serious challenge to the reputation of Nicola Sturgeon - who was once his closest political ally.\n\nWhat he no doubt considers as an attempt to secure justice, some others will see as a case of deflection and revenge.\n\nAllegations of breaking the ministerial code of conduct and misleading parliament are serious and, if upheld, potentially career threatening.\n\nYet even some of Ms Sturgeon's fiercest critics at Holyrood do not expect the inquiries into the Scottish government's mishandling of harassment complaints against Mr Salmond to force her from office.\n\nMr Salmond seems to expect the review of the first minister's actions under the ministerial code of conduct to remain narrow enough that it could not possibly find against her.\n\nThe first minister herself appears confident of persuading all comers, including a cross-party committee of MSPs (before which both she and Mr Salmond are due to appear in the coming weeks) that she has acted properly throughout.", "The star thanked fans for their messages of support\n\nThe Wanted's Tom Parker has told fans he is \"responding well\" to treatment for his brain tumour.\n\nThe singer praised the NHS as he wrote on Instagram: \"Significant reduction: These are the words I received today and I can't stop saying them over and over again.\"\n\nSharing a picture with his wife Kelsey Hardwick and their two children, he added: \"Today is a good day.\"\n\nThe 32-year-old was found to have an inoperable brain tumour last year.\n\nThe diagnosis came after he suffered two seizures last summer. Because of Covid-19 restrictions, his wife was not allowed in the hospital during three days of tests and he received the news alone.\n\nAt the time he vowed to fight the cancer \"all the way\". Two weeks later he became a father for the second time after Hardwick gave birth to a baby boy.\n\nThe singer shared a photo of his young family alongside the latest update on his health\n\nSharing an update on his condition on Thursday, Parker said: \"I had an MRI scan on Tuesday and my results today were a significant reduction to the tumour and I am responding well to treatment.\n\n\"I can't thank our wonderful NHS enough,\" he continued. \"You're all having a tough time out there but we appreciate the work you are all doing on the front line.\"\n\nThe star also thanked his wife, calling her \"my rock\", and thanked fans for their support. \"Your love, light and positivity have inspired me,\" he wrote. \"Every message has not been unnoticed they have given me so much strength.\"\n\nParker achieved fame in the early 2010s as part of The Wanted, reaching number one with the singles All Time Low and Glad You Came.\n\nSince the band went on hiatus in 2014, he has played Danny Zuko in a touring production of Grease and reached the semi-finals of Celebrity Masterchef.\n\nHe married Hardwick, an actress, in 2018. As well as Bodhi, the couple have an 18-month-old daughter.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Covid infections rose by almost a third between 26 December and 3 January, reaching 70,000 new cases a day according to a major study.\n\nIn a different piece of research, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated 1.2 million people in total had Covid over a similar time period.\n\nDaily infections are understood to have risen to about 150,000 since then.\n\nThat would bring daily coronavirus cases above the first peak.\n\nThe R or reproduction number for the virus is now between 1 and 1.4 for the UK, reflecting the sharp rise in cases in recent weeks.\n\nSeparate ONS data suggests just under half (44%) of British adults formed a Christmas bubble.\n\nThese temporary rules let up to three households mix indoors on 25 December - unless they were living in a Tier 4 area.\n\nThe ONS estimated how much of the population had Covid in the week of 27 December- 2 January:\n\nThe ONS data suggests cases rose by three-quarters between its two most recent study periods: 12-18 December and 27 December - 2 January.\n\nThe ZOE Covid Symptom Study was able to track more recent changes since there was no pause in its research for Christmas.\n\nIt found the epidemic is growing throughout the UK.\n\nResearchers estimate the virus's reproduction or R number is currently 1.2 across the UK.\n\nBoth sources indicate London has the most severe epidemic with the highest number of cases.\n\nConfirmed cases, published on the government's dashboard, are always lower than those in surveys because they mainly reflect the test results of people coming in with symptoms.\n\nBoth the ONS and ZOE also look at asymptomatic cases - people who may not otherwise get tests.\n\nSome asymptomatic testing is now available in the community but it is not being widely taken up.\n\nAbout a fifth of people responding to a separate ONS survey looking at the social impacts of the pandemic, said they had found it difficult to follow the Christmas rules.\n\nAnd half of those gave the fact that they had already made plans as the reason.\n\nRules, which were set to allow everyone in the UK to mix in a five-day window, were changed at the last minute, on 19 December.\n\nIn England, people living in Tiers 1-3 were allowed to form a one-day Christmas bubble with a maximum of two other households.\n\nThose in Tier 4, including about 10 million people in Greater London, were not permitted to mix at all.\n\nMixing was permitted in Scotland and Wales for Christmas Day only.\n\nHow has coronavirus affected you? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nOr use this form to get in touch:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your comment or send it via email to HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any comment you send in.", "A former Labour MP has quit the party before disciplinary proceedings against him concerning sexual harassment could be concluded, Labour has said.\n\nKelvin Hopkins was suspended by the party in 2017 after a Labour activist, Ava Etemadzadeh, accused him of inappropriate physical contact.\n\nMs Etemadzadeh said the ex-MP's exit from the party was \"disappointing\".\n\nThe BBC has attempted to contact Mr Hopkins, 79, for a response, but he has previously denied the accusations.\n\nA Labour spokesperson said it \"takes all complaints of sexual harassment extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures, and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken.\n\n\"We are disappointed that the party's disciplinary processes did not reach a conclusion due to Kelvin Hopkins' decision to resign his membership,\" they added.\n\n\"We are establishing an independent process to investigate complaints, including sexual harassment, to ensure complainants can feel confident that in coming forward they will be heard and get the justice they deserve.\"\n\nMr Hopkins, who first won the seat of Luton North from the Conservatives in 1997, stood down ahead of the 2019 election - a decision, he said, which was to do with his wife's health, not the accusations.\n\nHe had originally been referred to the party's National Constitutional Committee following the allegations in 2017 and had expressed frustration at the length of time the hearing was taking.\n\nResponding to his decision to leave the party, Ms Etemadzadeh tweeted: \"This is very disappointing news. I hope Keir Starmer listens to my concerns and fixes this broken system.\"", "David Bowie left his mark with songs like Space Oddity, Let's Dance and Under Pressure\n\nA series of streamed music events, shows and new releases are marking David Bowie's birthday and the fifth anniversary of his death.\n\nThe musician would have turned 74 on Friday, while Sunday is five years since he died of cancer.\n\nA star-studded tribute concert and his 2015 stage musical Lazarus will both be streamed over the weekend.\n\nTwo previously unreleased Bowie tracks have also been released, while his music has now arrived on TikTok.\n\nThe tribute gig, titled A Bowie Celebration: Just For One Day, will feature Bowie's former bandmates alongside stars including Boy George, Duran Duran, Trent Reznor, Adam Lambert, Gary Barlow and actor Gary Oldman.\n\nStarting at 18:00 PT on Friday (02:00 GMT Saturday), the show will be led by Bowie's longtime pianist Mike Garson and will be available for 24 hours.\n\nDuran Duran released a timely cover of Bowie's track Five Years ahead of the show. \"My life as a teenager was all about David Bowie,\" singer Simon Le Bon said.\n\n\"He is the reason why I started writing songs. Part of me still can't believe in his death five years ago, but maybe that's because there's a part of me where he's still alive and always will be.\"\n\nOn Friday, Bowie's previously unreleased covers of Bob Dylan's Tryin' to Get to Heaven and John Lennon's Mother were also put out into the world.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by David Bowie - Topic This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nBBC Four is hosting a Bowie Night on Friday, while there will be special programmes on BBC Radio 4 and 6 Music. They include Bowie: Dancing Out in Space, which will air simultaneously on the two stations on Sunday.\n\nIn it, producer Tony Visconti describes how Bowie and Lennon first met awkwardly in a New York hotel room ahead of their collaborations on the former's cover of The Beatles' Across the Universe and his own 1975 song Fame.\n\n\"He was terrified of meeting John Lennon,\" says Visconti. \"About one in the morning I knocked on the door and for about the next two hours, John Lennon and David weren't speaking to each other.\n\n\"Instead, David was sitting on the floor with an art pad and a charcoal and he was sketching things and he was completely ignoring Lennon.\n\n\"So, after about two hours of that, he [John] finally said to David, 'Rip that pad in half and give me a few sheets. I want to draw you.' So David said, 'Oh, that's a good idea', and he finally opened up. So John started making caricatures of David, and David started doing the same of John and they kept swapping them and then they started laughing and that broke the ice.\"\n\nMeanwhile, next weekend will see the release of Stardust, a film biopic about Bowie's journey to becoming Ziggy Stardust, starring singer and actor Johnny Flynn.\n\nHowever, Bowie's family have not given it their blessing, meaning the film-makers were not allowed to use any of his music. Instead Flynn, as Bowie, is seen performing songs by Jacques Brel, The Yardbirds and one of Flynn's own compositions.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Heads are calling for limits to the number of pupils in school during lockdown in England, with attendance rates surging to 50% in some places.\n\nThe two head teachers' unions, NAHT and ASCL, say the high numbers attending could hamper the fight against the virus.\n\nThe Department for Education has widened the categories of vulnerable and key worker pupils who can attend.\n\nIt is insisting that schools ensure all children who qualify can attend.\n\nThe widened categories not only include vulnerable pupils and children of workers in critical occupations but also those who cannot access remote learning either because they do not have devices or space to study.\n\nChildren of parents working on the Brexit arrangements are also included.\n\nTeachers have described streets around schools being packed with parents dropping off their children and almost all staff having to come in and work despite the lockdown.\n\nHeads say they fear schools could be overwhelmed by children who do not have access to lap tops to learn remotely.\n\nJessica Jane, a learning assistant at a school in Hampshire, told the BBC: \"I work in a primary school where we are having to bring in every single member of staff as the list of key-workers is vast in our area and over 50% of our children are attending.\n\n\"Our community school is not closed and streets are packed with parents morning and afternoon collecting their children from open schools.\"\n\nShe added: \"My colleagues and I are still being put at risk every single day as are our families.\"\n\nA teacher from the Midlands who did not wish to be named said the number had risen from 10 pupils a day in the first lockdown to about 90 a day this week.\n\n\"We're talking just under to just over a third of the usual amount of pupils for our school here.\n\n\"The vast majority are key worker children, not vulnerable.\n\n\"I also know that other primary schools in our area have similar amounts of children in school - one neighbouring school in particular, which is only slightly larger than us, is estimating/averaging 100 to 160 children in school every day.\"\n\nGeoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, called the lack of limits \"bizarre... in a week when the prime minister has told the nation that it is necessary to move schools to remote education in order to suppress coronavirus transmission\".\n\n\"We are hearing reports that attendance in some primary schools is in excess of 50% because of demand from critical workers and families with children classed as vulnerable under criteria which has been significantly widened,\" he said.\n\n\"We are urgently seeking clarification about the maximum number who should be in school while protecting public health.\n\n\"This seems completely illogical given the fact that the government has taken the drastic action of a full national lockdown precisely in order to limit contacts.\"\n\nPaul Whiteman, general secretary of National Association of Head Teachers, said schools could not \"meet the demand created by government and reduce social mixing in the way the prime minister announced\".\n\n\"The government acknowledges that schools do play a role in the transmission of the virus. Therefore, there comes a point when occupancy levels might be so high that they work against the efforts to bring down infection rates in communities, as is the national aim.\n\n\"This could result in prolonging the amount of time pupils are away from the classroom, which we are all anxious to avoid.\"\n\nA Department for Education spokesman said: \"Schools are open for vulnerable children and the children of critical workers. We expect schools to work with families to ensure all critical worker children are given access to a place if this is required.\n\n\"If critical workers can work from home and look after their children at the same time then they should do so, but otherwise this provision is in place to enable them to provide vital services.\n\n\"The protective measures that schools have been following throughout the autumn term remain in place to help protect staff and students, while the national lockdown helps reduce transmission in the wider community.\"\n\nBut Emma Knights, chief executive of the National Governance Association, reflected head teachers' concerns, saying between 40 and 60% of pupils were attending schools across England.\n\n\"The real problem is we have got two different national narratives going on,\" she said - with the prime minister saying \"stay at home\" but the DfE telling schools to take all eligible children who turn up.\n\nDr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said the government seemed unable to decide whether schools were safe or unsafe.\n\nCommenting on the latest Coronavirus Infection Survey from the Office for National Statistics, Dr Bousted, said: \"Let this data end their confusion. Schools are clearly driving infection amongst children, and then onto the wider community.\n\n\"This peaked on Christmas Day with one in every 27 secondary-age children and one in 40 primary-age children infected.\n\n\"In London this rises to one in 18 secondary pupils and one in 23 primary pupils. These figures are truly shocking and entirely the result of government negligence.\"\n• None How are Covid rules changing across UK schools?", "Marion Ramsey will be remembered by fans for her notable role in the US comedy series Police Academy\n\nMarion Ramsey, best known for her acting in the American film series Police Academy, has died at the age of 73, her agent has announced.\n\nHer management at Roger Paul Inc told the BBC she died at her Los Angeles home on Thursday morning.\n\nThe agency said Ramsey had recently fallen ill, but did not give a cause of death.\n\nRamsey was adored by fans for her portrayal of the squeaky-voiced Officer Laverne Hooks in Police Academy.\n\nShe also had an illustrious career on Broadway, starring in the 1978 production Eubie!, a biographical musical about celebrated jazz pianist Eubie Blake.\n\n\"Her passion for performing and sharing her heart with the world was immense,\" Roger Paul Inc said in a statement.\n\n\"Marion carried with her a kindness and permeating light that instantly filled a room upon her arrival.\n\n\"The dimming of her light is already felt by those who knew her well. We will miss her, and always love her.\"\n\nRamsey featured in six Police Academy films as Officer Laverne Hooks\n\nBorn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1947, Ramsey started her career in the theatre, appearing in both the original Broadway and subsequent touring productions of Hello, Dolly!.\n\nShe was prolific on Broadway, co-starring in many shows, including Harold Prince's Grind with Ben Vereen, and Eubie! with Gregory and Maurice Hines.\n\nHer agent said Ramsey was \"particularly proud\" about Broadway's Dreamgirls finally becoming a major motion picture in 2006, because she was one of the singers that the original Broadway show's producer, Tom Eyen, based the three main characters on.\n\nRamsey's career in TV and film career took off after she appeared as a guest on the hit sitcom The Jeffersons in 1976.\n\nFollowing that, she was a regular on Cos, Bill Cosby's sketch show.\n\nShe starred in six Police Academy films in total, making her a familiar face to fans of the franchise.\n\nRamsey's agent said she had an immense passion for performing\n\nAmerican actor Michael Winslow wrote in a tweet that he had \"no words to say or explain the pain\" of losing Ramsey.\n\n\"In the 80s the Police Academy films cast a long shadow over the comedy genre - they were everywhere & everyone watched them,\" British producer Jonathan Sothcott wrote. \"#MarionRamsey was hilarious as Hooks - a fine comedic actress.\"\n\nA message on the Twitter account for the movie When I Sing read: \"It is with great sadness that I share our loss of my friend, and one of the shining stars of When I Sing (her final role), the beautiful, kind, hilarious, #MarionRamsey. I will miss you, my silly sister.\"", "Most pupils will be studying from home for the rest of this half term\n\nSchools and colleges in England are to be closed to most pupils until at least half term, Boris Johnson has announced.\n\nThe prime minister said the new lockdown had to be \"tough enough\" to stop the variant virus from spreading - and teaching will go online.\n\nA-Levels and GCSEs will be cancelled, a government source confirmed to BBC News - although vocational exams will go ahead.\n\nThe National Education Union accused the government of causing \"chaos\".\n\nIn a television address, Mr Johnson announced the biggest changes to schools since the early days of the first lockdown in March.\n\n\"Because we now have to do everything we possibly can to stop the spread of the disease, primary schools, secondary schools and colleges across England must move to remote provision from tomorrow,\" said the prime minister.\n\nThis means a return to online learning for pupils of all ages - apart from vulnerable children and the children of key workers who can continue to go into school.\n\nPrimary schools went back today - and will then close again tomorrow\n\n\"We recognise that this will mean it's not possible or fair for all exams to go ahead this summer, as normal,\" said Mr Johnson.\n\nIt is understood that vocational exams will continue, but GCSEs and A-levels will be cancelled - and that the exam watchdog Ofqual will make \"alternative arrangements\" for delivering results.\n\nAn attempt to produce replacement exam grades last summer turned into one of the biggest U-turns of the pandemic.\n\nTeachers' unions accused the government of failing to react more swiftly to \"mounting evidence\" about Covid transmission in schools and to make preparations for remote teaching and alternatives to written exams.\n\nBut Mary Bousted, co-leader of the National Education Union, said Education Secretary Gavin Williamson had \"become an expert in putting his head in the sand\".\n\nGeoff Barton of the ASCL head teachers' union criticised ministers for having issued legal threats to keep schools open at the end of last term - and then \"made a series of chaotic announcements about the start of this term\".\n\nThe new term, which began on Monday for primary pupils, has only lasted a day before it has been suspended.\n\nThe prime minister said he hoped that schools would be \"reopening schools after the February half term\".\n\nThere have been assurances that there will be a more thorough approach to home learning than in the first lockdown last year.\n\nThe Department for Education has provided hundreds of thousands of computer devices - with the aim of supporting those without the equipment needed to work online from home.\n\nThere have also been suggestions Ofsted inspectors will play a more active role in checking on what support schools are providing to pupils in their online learning.\n\nUniversities in England had already planned a staggered return for this term - but there will now be even fewer students on campus this month.\n\nThe latest lockdown guidance says university students who are taking hands-on courses such as medicine or veterinary science should return for face-to-face lessons as planned.\n\nThese students will be expected to take two Covid tests or self-isolate for 10 days when they return.\n\nBut students on all other courses are being told not to come back to university if possible and to start their term online \"until at least mid-February\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Olly Stephens was pronounced dead in Bugs Bottom fields in Emmer Green, Reading\n\nA school says its community has been left \"reeling\" after a 13-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Reading.\n\nOliver Stephens, known as Olly, was pronounced dead at Bugs Bottom fields, Emmer Green, on Sunday.\n\nFour boys and a girl, all aged 13 or 14, have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. They remain in custody.\n\nHighdown School and Sixth Form Centre head teacher Rachel Cave described the boy's death as a \"total tragedy\".\n\nIn a statement, she said: \"This student was part of our community and many students and staff knew him well.\n\n\"Many have been deeply affected by this tragedy.\n\n\"In normal circumstances we would open the school and welcome in students for support before the start of the term.\n\n\"We are currently unable to do this, of course, but are arranging counselling support and will be establishing an electronic book of condolence.\"\n\nFlowers have been left outside Highdown School\n\nMs Cave said the school was \"a supportive and close-knit community\" which would \"work together over the coming days and weeks\".\n\nDet Supt Kevin Brown, of Thames Valley Police, said: \"Our thoughts remain with Olly's family at this incredibly difficult time.\"\n\nHe added: \"This is a tragic and shocking incident which has resulted in the death of a young boy.\"\n\nThe victim's family are being supported by specially trained officers.\n\nThames Valley Police said a \"considerable police presence\" would be in place in the area for several days\n\nOfficers were called just before 16:00 GMT on Sunday following reports of an attack.\n\nOfficers are appealing for anyone who was in the area between 15:00 and 16:30 who might have taken photos or camera footage to contact them if they notice anything suspicious.\n\nDet Supt Brown said he believed there would have been witnesses to the \"dreadful incident\" as the area is popular with dog walkers.\n\nA man said his wife was walking their dog through the park on Sunday afternoon when she saw a boy on the ground with several people around him trying to give him first aid.\n\nAnother dog walker said she saw a group of young people standing in the woods in Bugs Bottom fields at about 15:30 and described it as \"slightly unusual\".\n\nReading East MP Matt Rodda has offered his \"deepest condolences\" to the boy's family.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Matt Rodda This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSt Barnabas Church in Emmer Green has invited residents to pray and light a candle in memory of the boy.\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson: \"We've now vaccinated over 1.3m people across the UK\"\n\nSome 1.3 million people in the UK have now received their first dose of a Covid vaccine, says the government.\n\nIn England, that includes nearly a quarter of the most elderly, vulnerable patients.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said it meant that within a two to three weeks they should have a \"significant degree of immunity\" to the virus.\n\nHe said there would be a ramping up to get more people immunised - up to 2 million a week.\n\nThe ambition is to vaccinate all the over-70s, the most clinically vulnerable and front-line health and care workers by mid-February. That will require around 13 million vaccinations.\n\nHe defended the UK's policy of immunising more people with one dose immediately - rather than holding some stock back to give people a second booster shot - in order to save \"the most lives the fastest\".\n\nUS regulators have questioned the policy, saying it is premature without more trial evidence, but the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency says it is a pragmatic decision to protect more people.\n\nBoth the Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines require two doses to provide the best possible protection.\n\nInitially, the strategy for the Pfizer vaccine was to offer people the second dose 21 days after their initial jab - full immunity starts seven days after the second dose.\n\nBut when approval was announced for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on 30 December, it was also announced that the policy would now change - the new priority would be to give as many people a first shot of either vaccine, rather than providing the required two doses in as short a time as possible.\n\nEveryone will still receive their second dose, but this will now be within 12 weeks of their first.\n\nEngland's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty told the Downing Street press conference that extending the gap between the first and second jabs would mean the number of people vaccinated can be doubled over three months.\n\n\"If over that period there is more than 50% protection then you have actually won. More people will have been protected than would have been otherwise.\n\n\"Our quite strong view is that protection is likely to be lot more than 50%.\"\n\nAsked whether the longer gap could lead to an increase risk of the virus mutating into a version that could escape the vaccine, he said it was a worry, but a small one.\n\nChief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said vaccines would probably need to be changed further down the line to continue to be a good match for the virus - but that this was relatively quick to do.\n\nOne of the exciting things about the science of the RNA vaccines is that they are incredibly fast to make in response to new mutations, he said.", "The homes of Frank and Christine Lampard, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and Tamara Ecclestone and her husband were broken into in December 2019\n\nFour people have been cleared of being involved in a plot to raid the luxury homes of celebrities in west London.\n\nItems belonging to Frank Lampard, Tamara Ecclestone and the family of tycoon Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha were among the items taken during three burglaries in December 2019.\n\nProsecutors said Maria Mester, 48, Emil Bogdan Savastru, 30, Sorin Marcovici, 53, and Alexandru Stan, 49, were a \"supporting cast\" for the burglars.\n\nBut a jury found all four not guilty.\n\nIsleworth Crown Court heard the three burglaries had netted \"big money\" for the raiders, with \"fabulous jewellery\" stolen and the majority of it having never been recovered.\n\nJay Rutland, Tamara Ecclestone and their daughter had left for Lapland on the morning of the burglary\n\nJewellery and cash worth £25m was taken from Ms Ecclestone's Kensington home while she was on holiday in Lapland with her husband Jay Rutland and their daughter.\n\nMr Lampard and his TV presenter wife Christine had about £60,000 in watches and jewellery stolen when they were out, while raiders also ransacked the family home of Mr Srivaddhanaprabha, who died in 2018 in a helicopter crash, the jury was told.\n\nThe four defendants were accused of eight charges including conspiracy to burgle.\n\nHowever, each denied their involvement with the plot, saying they had no knowledge that the alleged burglars were criminals.\n\nJurors were shown an image from Maria Mester's Facebook account, in which she was said to be wearing Tamara Ecclestone's necklace\n\nThe court heard escort Ms Mester had flown into the UK from Italy on 7 December.\n\nPolice described her as the plot's \"matriarch\", but the 48-year-old told jurors she was only in London after being paid £5,000 to accompany one of the alleged burglars for the week.\n\nSavastru was arrested at Heathrow Airport on 30 January as he prepared to leave for Japan, wearing Mr Srivaddhanaprabha's Tag watch and carrying a Louis Vuitton bag stolen from Mr Rutland.\n\nHe told the court he thought the items had been left behind by the alleged burglars at the Airbnb property he had helped them rent.\n\nThe four Romanian nationals were cleared of all charges apart from Savastru, who was convicted of one count of attempting to conceal criminal property.\n\nThe 30-year-old will be sentenced at a later date.\n\nA group of alleged burglars, who cannot be named for legal reasons, are accused of carrying out the raids.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon announces stay at home rules in new lockdown\n\nScots are to be ordered to stay at home amid a fresh Covid-19 lockdown which will see schools remain closed to pupils until February.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon said new curbs would be introduced at midnight in a bid to contain the new, faster-spreading strain of the virus.\n\nNew laws will require people to stay at home and work from home where possible.\n\nOutdoor gatherings are also to be cut back, with people only allowed to meet one person from one other household.\n\nPlaces of worship are to be closed, group exercise banned, and schools will largely operate via online and remote learning.\n\nThese rules will apply across the Scottish mainland until at least the end of January, and will be kept under review.\n\nIsland areas will remain in level three - but Ms Sturgeon said they would be monitored carefully.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson later announced similar lockdown measures for the whole of England with all schools and colleges closing to most pupils until mid February.\n\nA further 1,905 new cases were reported in Scotland on Monday - with 15% of tests returning a positive result, something Ms Sturgeon said \"illustrates the severity and urgency of the situation\".\n\nThe first minister said she was \"more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year\", with the new coronavirus strain now accounting for half of new cases.\n\nAnd she said a \"steeply rising trend of infections\" was threatening to put \"significant pressure\" on NHS services, saying hospitals could breach capacity within three to four weeks.\n\nThe new rules - which will be put down in law - mean Scots will only be allowed to leave home for essential purposes, such as shopping for food and medicine, exercise and caring responsibilities.\n\nNo limit is to be put on how many times people can go out to exercise, but outdoor meetings are to be limited to a maximum of two people from two households.\n\nEveryone who can work from home will be required to, and people in the \"shielding\" category are advised not to go in to work at all.\n\nThe construction and manufacturing industries will remain open, but Ms Sturgeon said this would be kept under review.\n\nPlaces of worship are to close, the number of people who can attend weddings is to be cut to five, and funeral wakes will no longer be allowed.\n\nSchools are to remain closed to the majority of pupils until February, with Ms Sturgeon saying community transmission of the virus must be brought to a lower level amid concerns that the new variant of the virus spreads more easily among young people.\n\nShe said she knew remote learning presented \"significant challenges\" for parents, teachers and pupils, adding: \"I want to be clear that it remains our priority to get school buildings open again for all pupils are quickly as possible and then keep them open.\"\n\nThe first minister said she was considering whether teachers could be given the Covid-19 vaccine as a priority.\n\nMore than 100,000 people have been given a first dose of the vaccine in Scotland, and the government expects to have access to just over 900,000 doses by the end of January.\n\nHowever Ms Sturgeon said the best way to get schools open again was to drive down transmission of the virus - urging Scots to abide by the rules.\n\nThese are the toughest restrictions Scotland has faced since the lockdown of March 2020.\n\nIt is - once again - becoming compulsory to stay at home except for essential purposes like food shopping, exercise and medical care.\n\nThe extended closure of schools to most pupils is something the Scottish government was particularly keen to avoid.\n\nThese decisions are a measure of how worried ministers are about the rapid spread of the new variant of coronavirus, which is fast becoming the dominant strain.\n\nWith 225 cases per 100,000 people, Scotland is thought to be about four weeks behind London, which already has four times as many cases and NHS services under considerable pressure.\n\nThe Scottish government believes that without further action the NHS here would run out of beds for Covid patients within a month.\n\nThis new alert comes at the start of a new year which also brings new hope for a route out of the pandemic with two vaccines now beginning to offer protection.\n\nAround 100,000 doses have already been administered in Scotland but it is likely to take several months to reach all in the most vulnerable groups.\n\nThe first minister said Scotland was now in \"a race between the vaccine and the virus\".\n\nShe said: \"The Scottish government will do everything we can to speed up distribution of the vaccine. But all of us must do everything we can to slow down the spread of the virus.\n\n\"We can already see - by looking at infection rates in the south of England - some of what could happen here in Scotland. To prevent that, we need to act immediately and firmly.\n\n\"For government, that means introducing tough measures - as we have done today. And for all of us, it means sticking to the rules.\"\n\nScottish Conservative group leader Ruth Davidson raised concerns about online learning, saying it was vital that pupils had \"equal access to high-quality education\".\n\nAnd Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said teachers and working parents would need support to make the remote learning system work.\n\nMs Sturgeon said her government had \"agonised\" over the decision on schools, and said the \"fundamental priority\" was to re-open them in full as soon as possible.\n\nShe said: \"Just as the last places we ever want to close are schools and nurseries - so it is the case that schools and nurseries will be the first places we want to reopen as we re-emerge from this latest lockdown.\"\n\nThe NHS has coped so far in Scotland - more so than many other parts of the UK.\n\nBut in places like Glasgow and Lanarkshire it has been very, very tight. And here like everywhere else staff are bracing themselves for the post-Christmas effects of rising cases.\n\nThe first minister gave some stark figures on hospital and ICU occupancy - suggesting we are just weeks away from reaching limits.\n\nThere is so little give in the system they will be glad to see everything possible done to prevent stretched services being overwhelmed at a time when we are on our way to getting out the other side.\n\nThere is real anxiety about what the next few weeks might bring.\n• None Covid in Scotland: New lockdown from midnight", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. James Shaw, from Dundee, was among the first to receive the jab\n\nThe first Scottish recipients of the new Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine have received their jabs.\n\nJames Shaw, 82, and his 82-year-old wife Malita were among the first to be vaccinated in Dundee.\n\nThe couple received their first doses at Lochee Health and Community Care Centre.\n\nNicola Sturgeon has said she hoped all over-50s and those with underlying health conditions will have been vaccinated by early May.\n\nJames said: \"My wife and I are delighted to be receiving this vaccination. I have asthma and bronchitis and I have been desperate to have it so I am really pleased to be one of the first to be getting it.\n\n\"I know it takes a little while for the vaccine to work but after today I know that I will feel a bit less worried about going out. I will still be very careful and avoid busy places but knowing I have been vaccinated will really help me.\n\n\"All of my friends have said they are going to have the vaccine when it is their turn and I would encourage everyone who is offered this vaccination to take it.\"\n\nJames Shaw, 82, was one of the first people in Scotland to receive the AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, administered by advanced nurse practitioner Justine Williams\n\nThe Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine programme is being rolled out less than a week after it was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). It is the second vaccine approved for use in the UK.\n\nNHS Tayside is rolling out the vaccine through GP practices in the community and will also vaccinate elderly residents and staff in care homes.\n\nIts associate director of public health Dr Daniel Chandleris said: \"The efforts of our vaccination teams have been amazing and it is testament to a real whole team approach that sees the first over-80s in the general population have their jabs today in Tayside.\n\n\"The availability and mobility of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine gives us the opportunity to start to roll out the biggest vaccine programme that the UK has ever seen across our communities.\n\n\"Over-80s are the first priority group and patients will be contacted directly to attend a vaccination session.\"\n\nScottish Secretary Alister Jack added: \"This is another important moment in our fight against the virus - every vaccination takes us a step closer to getting back to our normal lives as soon as possible.\n\n\"As with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the UK is the first country in the world to approve and roll out the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, with the UK Government ordering and paying for millions of doses for people in all parts of the UK.\"\n\nThe milestone came as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced a new stricter lockdown.\n\nWith the exception of essential travel, people in mainland Scotland will have to remain at home from midnight.\n\nStatistics released on Monday showed a further 1,905 people had contracted Covid-19.\n\nFigures for hospital admissions and deaths over the holiday weekend will not be published until Tuesday.\n\nMs Sturgeon likened the situation to a race between the vaccine and the virus.\n\nShe said: \"In one lane we have vaccines - our job is to make sure they run as fast as possible.\n\n\"But in the other lane is the virus which - as a result of this new variant - has just learned to run much faster and has most definitely picked up pace in the last couple of weeks.\n\n\"To ensure that the vaccine wins the race, it is essential to speed up vaccination as far as possible. But to give it the time it needs to get ahead, we must also slow the virus down.\"\n\nThe new vaccine will initially be available in the hospitals that have been delivering the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, and new community settings will be able to deliver the jabs from 11 January.\n\nPeople in Scotland will be contacted by their health board when it is their turn to be vaccinated.\n\nThe Oxford vaccination marks a major turning point in the pandemic and will lead to a massive expansion in the UK's immunisation campaign, with enough to vaccinate 50 million people throughout the UK already on order.\n\nIt is easier to transport and store than the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which needs cold storage of about -70C.\n\nThe Oxford vaccine is logistically much easier to distribute\n\nThe UK government has said 530,000 doses of the Oxford vaccine will be available to the UK from Monday, with \"millions due by the beginning of February\".\n\nScotland will ultimately get an 8.2% share of these vaccines, based on its population.\n\nChief Medical Officer Dr Gregor Smith has said he expects the NHS in Scotland to receive 440,360 doses of the vaccine during January.\n\nThe first minister said on Monday about 100,000 people in Scotland have already received a first dose of vaccine.\n\nBoth vaccines require two doses to be administered with an interval of between four and 12 weeks.\n\nPreviously the advice was for the vaccines to have a four-week gap between doses.\n\nThe Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) then recommended as many people as possible in the top priority groups should be offered a first dose as the initial priority.", "US intelligence agencies have said they believe Russia was behind the \"serious\" cyber compromise revealed in December.\n\nPresident Trump had previously suggested China might have been behind the hack, although other members of his administration had pointed the finger at Moscow.\n\nIn a joint statement, the intelligence bodies say they currently believe fewer than 10 US government agencies saw their data compromised, although other organisations outside of government were also affected.\n\nThey say work is still going on to understand the scope of the incident, which appears to have been aimed at gathering intelligence and which they say is \"ongoing\" a month after details first emerged.\n\nThe update on the investigation came in a statement from a task force called the Cyber Unified Coordination Group which was set up to deal with the incident. It comprises intelligence and law enforcement agencies including the FBI and NSA.\n\nThe group said it was still working to understand the scope of what had taken place.\n\nEighteen thousand customers who used Orion product from the company Solar Winds were exposed but US intelligence says it believes a much smaller number saw follow-on activity from the hackers in which they stole data. The US Treasury was among those which previously acknowledged being targeted.\n\n\"This is a serious compromise that will require a sustained and dedicated effort to remediate,\" the statement said. Many organisations are having to scour their systems for signs that they may have been compromised.\n\nThe incident sent shockwaves across the US partly because the breach was undiscovered for many months and was potentially far-reaching in terms of who it might have affected. It also suggested a degree of sophistication and stealth which was widely seen as a trademark of hackers from the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence agency.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Experts have been warning for years that it's not a matter of if, but when, hackers will kill somebody\n\nSoon after the incident was revealed, President Trump raised the possibility that China might be responsible, but members of his own administration including the secretary of state and attorney general pointed the finger at Moscow. The latest statement shows the assessment of US intelligence agencies is that Russia was behind it, although it does not go so far as accusing the Russian state itself, saying only that the actor was \"likely Russian in origin\". Moscow has denied playing any part.\n\nPresident-elect Joe Biden has previously said it was important to take \"meaningful steps\" to hold those responsible to account. It is not yet clear, though, what that might involve. While some US politicians suggested the breach might even be compared to an \"act of war\", most cyber-experts disputed this and the US intelligence community has now played down suggestions that it could have had destructive impact.\n\n\"At this time, we believe this was, and continues to be, an intelligence-gathering effort,\" the latest statement says. This is significant since it suggests no evidence has been found that this was preparatory activity for a more destructive cyber-attack which might switch off systems. This may limit the US response since espionage operations do not breach the cyber norms the US itself promotes (largely because it too carries out such intelligence-gathering operations against other nations).\n\nIn December UK officials say they believed a small number of UK organisations were affected but said they did not believe they were in the public sector.", "Queensland in Australia has seen heavy rainfall as an ex-tropical cyclone crosses the state, bringing warnings of “life-threatening\" flash flooding.\n\nMeteorologists say cyclones are more likely in Australia this year because of La Nina weather conditions.", "Singapore's Covid app is widely used across the country\n\nSingapore has admitted data from its Covid contact tracing programme can also be accessed by police, reversing earlier privacy assurances.\n\nOfficials had previously explicitly ruled out the data would be used for anything other than the virus tracking.\n\nBut parliament was told on Monday it could also be used \"for the purpose of criminal investigation\".\n\nClose to 80% of residents are signed up to the TraceTogether programme, which is used to check in to locations.\n\nThe voluntary take up increased after it was announced it would soon be needed to access anything from the supermarket to your place of work.\n\nThe TraceTogether programme, which uses either a smartphone app or a bluetooth token, also monitors who you have been in contact with.\n\nIf someone tests positive with the virus, the data allows tracers to swiftly contact anyone that might have been infected. This prompted concerns over privacy - fears which have been echoed across the world as other countries rolled out their own tracing apps.\n\nTo encourage people to enrol, Singaporean authorities promised the data would never be used for any other purpose, saying \"the data will never be accessed, unless the user tests positive for Covid-19 and is contacted by the contact tracing team\".\n\nBut Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Tan told parliament on Monday that it can in fact also be used \"for the purpose of criminal investigation\", adding that \"otherwise, TraceTogether data is to be used only for contact tracing and for the purpose of fighting the Covid situation\".\n\nHowever, the privacy statement on the TraceTogether site was then updated on the same day to state that \"the Criminal Procedure Code applies to all data under Singapore's jurisdiction\".\n\n\"Also, we want to be transparent with you,\" the statement reads. \"TraceTogether data may be used in circumstances where citizen safety and security is or has been affected.\n\n\"The Singapore Police Force is empowered under the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) to obtain any data, including TraceTogether data, for criminal investigations.\"\n\nOn Tuesday, the country's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Vivian Balakrishnan, clarified that it was not just TraceTogether data that was used in cases of serious criminal investigations.\n\nHe said under the CPC, \"other forms of sensitive data like phone or banking records\" would also have their privacy regulations overruled in such cases.\n\nMr Balakrishnan added that to his knowledge, police had so far only once accessed contact tracing data, in the case of a murder investigation.\n\nThe minister stressed though that \"once the pandemic is over and there will no longer be a need for contact tracing, we will happily stand down the TraceTogether programme.\"\n\nMonday's announcement though sparked some controversy on social media, with people calling out the government and some users posting that they had now deleted the app.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by prEEtipls This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"I'm disappointed, but not at all surprised,\" local journalist and activist Kirsten Han told the BBC. \"This is actually something that I've been flagging as a concern since the earlier days of TraceTogether - and was sometimes told that I was just a paranoid fearmonger undermining efforts to fight Covid-19.\n\n\"It doesn't feel good at all to discover I was right.\"\n\n\"I think why most people are so angry about this is not that they feel like they're constantly being watched,\" one Singaporean, who did not want to be named, told the BBC. \"We already have that through other means like CCTV.\n\n\"It's more that they feel like they've been cheated. The government had assured us many times that TraceTogether would only be used for contact tracing, but now they've suddenly added this new caveat.\"\n\nAnother person told the BBC they wished they could delete the app, but daily life would be impossible without it.\n\n\"So I'm just going to disable my Bluetooth for TraceTogether from now on, unless I have to use it to enter somewhere. If the app is not only going to be used for contact tracing, then it's too much of an invasion of privacy.\"\n\nAustralian privacy watchdog Digital Rights Watch, told the BBC they were \"extremely concerned\" about the news from Singapore.\n\n\"This is the worst case scenario that privacy advocates have warned about since the start of the pandemic,\" Programme Director Lucie Krahulcova told the BBC. \"Such an approach will erode public trust in future health responses and therefore impede their efficacy.\"\n\nLike most countries, Australia has rolled out its own contact tracing app but uptake has been sluggish precisely because of privacy concerns.\n\nSingapore was among the first countries to introduce a contact tracing app nationally in March last year.\n\nThe introduction of the token in June had sparked a rare backlash against the government over concerns the device would be mandatory. An online petition calling for it to be ditched has gathered some 55,000 signatures so far.\n\nSingapore has been been one of the most successful countries in tackling the pandemic. Despite a big outbreak among its foreign workers early on, local infection rates have for months been close to zero.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Singapore rolled out its Covid tracing tokens last June", "Whitty: Priority to vaccinate those who would die from virus\n\nAndy Woodcock from the Independent asks about testing for people arriving into the UK from abroad and why it wasn't done sooner. The prime minister says the government will be bringing in measures to \"ensure that we test people coming into this country and preventing the virus from being readmitted\". Responding to a second question on schools and whether teachers and pupils should be vaccinated, Prof Chris Whitty says there is no evidence of hospitals filling up with children and it appears, that even with the new variant, \"children are relatively much less affected than other groups\". He says from a clinical point of view the real priority is to vaccinate the people that we know \"are by far the most likely to die and by far most likely to end up in hospital\". He adds there will have to be decisions made once the most vulnerable groups are vaccinated but we are not yet at that stage. The chief medical officer adds that neither vaccine currently in use in the UK has been licensed for children yet.", "Dr Radha Modgil from BBC Radio 1’s Life Hacks shares her top five tips on how to stay mentally and emotionally well during the coronavirus lockdown, all beginning with the letter C.\n\nSticking to a routine, making sure we take care of ourselves, and using our creativity in new ways are all ways she suggests we can ease the psychological toll that staying inside is having on all of us.\n\nListen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.", "Enrique Tarrio says his far-right group will turn out in numbers on Wednesday\n\nThe leader of the far-right Proud Boys group has been released after his arrest on suspicion of burning a Black Lives Matter flag last month.\n\nEnrique Tarrio faces destruction of property charges. On Tuesday, a judge ordered him to stay out of Washington.\n\nHe has reportedly admitted torching a banner taken from a black church during a rally in December in the city.\n\nPresident Donald Trump has been urging supporters to gather in the capital this week for another demonstration.\n\nOn Tuesday, a judge released him on his own recognisance pending his trial.\n\nOn Wednesday, members of Congress are due to certify Democratic President-elect Joe Biden's election victory before he takes office on 20 January.\n\nMr Tarrio has said on the social media app Parler that the Proud Boys will \"turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th\", referring to his members as \"the most notorious group of extraordinary gentlemen\".\n\nThe National Guard has been deployed by Washington DC's mayor to assist local authorities. Officials say the troops will not be armed and will be there to assist with crowd management and traffic control.\n\nA spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department, Dustin Sternbeck, told the Washington Post on Monday that Mr Tarrio had been stopped in a vehicle shortly after it entered the district.\n\nThe 36-year-old was also found during his arrest to be in unlawful possession of two devices that allow guns to hold additional bullets, a source told CBS News.\n\nThe destruction of property charge relates to a protest in Washington DC on 12 December in support of the outgoing Republican president's unsubstantiated claims of systemic election fraud.\n\nThe mostly peaceful demonstration ended in isolated scuffles as confrontations with counter-protesters broke out. Police said more than three dozen people were arrested and four churches were vandalised.\n\nMr Tarrio - who lives in Miami, where he also reportedly runs a grassroots organisation called Latinos for Trump - told the Washington Post at the time that he had burned the Black Lives Matter flag.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\n\"Let's make this simple,\" he said. \"I did it.\"\n\nBut he maintained he did not know the Asbury United Methodist Church, where the flag had reportedly flown, was predominantly attended by African American worshippers.\n\nMr Tarrio also said Proud Boy members have had their flags and hats stolen in past demonstrations without anyone being arrested for those alleged incidents.\n\nEarlier on Monday, another black church that was vandalised during December's protest sued Mr Tarrio and the Proud Boys.\n\nCounter-demonstrators were mostly kept at a distance from Trump supporter last month by Washington DC police\n\nThe Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church accused the group of climbing over a fence and tearing down a Black Lives Matter sign.\n\nKristen Clarke, head of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement: \"Black churches and other religious institutions have a long and ugly history of being targeted by white supremacists in racist and violent attacks meant to intimidate and create fear.\n\n\"Our lawsuit aims to hold those who engage in such action accountable.\"\n\nThe city's police department said last month it had been considering a potential hate crime charge over the incident.", "Some Covid restrictions are being reintroduced in response to the Omicron variant.\n\nCheck what the rules are in your area by entering your postcode or council name below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. What are the rules in your area? Enter a full UK postcode or council name to find out\n\nIf you cannot see the look-up, click here.\n\nThe rules highlighted in the search tool are a selection of the key government restrictions in place in your area.\n\nAlways check your relevant national and local authority website for more information on the situation where you live. Also check local guidance before travelling to others parts of the UK.\n\nAll the guidance in our search look-up comes from national government websites.\n\nFor more information on national measures see:\n\nFind out how the pandemic has affected your area and how it compares with the national average by following this link to an in depth guide to the numbers involved.", "Kate Thistleton will front new content from Bitesize Daily\n\nBBC TV is to help children keep up with their studies during the latest lockdown by broadcasting lessons on BBC Two and CBBC, as well as online.\n\nSchools have been closed to most children across the UK as part of tougher measures to control Covid-19.\n\nThe BBC will show curriculum-based programmes on TV from Monday.\n\nThey will include three hours of primary school programming every weekday on CBBC, and at least two hours for secondary pupils on BBC Two.\n\nDuring the first lockdown in the spring, lessons were available on iPlayer, red button and online, but not on regular TV channels.\n\nThe move comes amid concerns that low-income families may struggle to afford data packages for their children to take part in online learning.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson praised the BBC's \"fantastic\" plans on Tuesday. BBC Director-General Tim Davie said \"education is absolutely vital\".\n\nHe continued: \"The BBC is here to play its part and I'm delighted that we have been able to bring this to audiences so swiftly.\"\n\nThe primary programmes, which will be broadcast on CBBC from 09:00 every day, will include BBC Live Lessons and BBC Bitesize Daily as well as Our School, Celebrity Supply Teacher, Horrible Histories and Operation Ouch.\n\nBBC Two will cater for secondary students with programming to support the GCSE curriculum, including adaptations of Shakespeare plays alongside science, history and factual titles.\n\nBitesize Daily primary and secondary will also air every day on the red button as well as episodes being available on demand on iPlayer.\n\nCulture Secretary Oliver Dowden said the BBC \"has helped the nation through some of the toughest moments of the last century\".\n\n\"And for the next few weeks it will help our children learn whilst we stay home, protect the NHS and save lives,\" he added. \"This will be a lifeline to parents and I welcome the BBC playing its part.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Sea Shepherd is working to protect the endangered vaquita porpoise\n\nA Mexican fisherman has died after his boat collided with a larger vessel used by US conservationist group Sea Shepherd, reports say.\n\nSea Shepherd said the clash happened after fishing boats attacked one of its vessels in the Gulf of California, where it is working to protect the endangered vaquita porpoise.\n\nIt said its vessel was trying to leave when one of the boats smashed into it.\n\nThe man's family allege that his boat was intentionally rammed.\n\nHealth official Alonso Perez told AFP news agency on Monday that one fisherman died after sustaining serious injuries, while a second remained in a stable condition.\n\nSea Shepherd said its Farley Mowat vessel was removing an illegal net from a protected area on 31 December when a group of people on small fishing boats launched a \"violent attack\", including throwing Molotov cocktails.\n\n\"Following routine anti-piracy procedures, the Farley Mowat undertook defensive manoeuvring to avoid the attacks. As the vessel attempted to leave the scene, one of the [boats] aggressively swerved in front of the Farley Mowat, crashing directly into the hull\" and splitting in two, it said.\n\nThe group said it provided emergency first aid to the two men who had been on board the fishing boat.\n\nConservationists working for Sea Shepherd have been attacked several times while patrolling the vaquita refuge.\n\nThe group works with Mexican authorities to remove illegal gillnets used to catch totoaba fish, which are highly valued in Chinese traditional medicine. The nets are designed to trap the heads of fish but not their bodies, but are blamed for trapping and killing the endangered porpoises as well.", "Businesses in retail, hospitality and leisure will receive new grants to help them keep afloat until spring, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has said.\n\nThe grants will be worth up to £9,000 per property, the Treasury says.\n\nMr Sunak told the BBC he was \"committed to protecting jobs and supporting businesses\".\n\nBusiness groups welcomed the new help as a good start but warned the money still wouldn't be enough to save many firms from collapse.\n\nThe help is in addition to business rates relief and the furlough scheme, which has been extended until the end of April.\n\nFirms do not have to pay the grant money back.\n\nMr Sunak said he would consider whether or how to extend support packages in its Budget on 3 March.\n\n\"The Budget early in March is an excellent opportunity to take stock of the range of support we have put in place and set out the next stage of our economic response,\" he said.\n\nThe director general of the CBI business group, Tony Danker, earlier warned leaving additional support until the Budget could be too late for many firms, saying. \"the comprehensive restrictions required a new comprehensive response\".\n\nIt was a fear echoed by other business groups, the BCC and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).\n\nBCC director general, Adam Marshall, warned many smaller firms would not qualify for help and \"will be left struggling to see how this new top-up grant will help them out of their cashflow problems.\"\n\nHe also called for the support to be extended to firms in other sectors \"who are also feeling the devastating impacts of these restrictions.\"\n\nFSB chair Mike Cherry also said the funds would be a lifeline to many, but \"do not go far enough to match the scale of the crisis that small firms are facing.\"\n\nThe British Beer & Pub Association described the grants as a \"lifeline\", but added that companies on which pubs rely, such as breweries, would also need help.\n\nSeb Heeley, owner of distillery Manchester Gin, says he needs dates to plan around\n\nSeb Heeley, owner of distillery Manchester Gin, told the BBC that fixed dates to aim for are crucial for his business.\n\n\"We need a date to work towards and we don't have that so, again, we're in limbo,\" he said. \"It takes three or four weeks\" to prepare, including retraining staff, he added.\n\nHis business has been closed since October because of restrictions in the Manchester area. It borrowed money under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS).\n\n\"We start repayment in June and there's good chance we won't be open, so they are going to have to extend that,\" he said.\n\nHe said much of the £9,000 grant will be taken up by the £6,000 a month his business owes in pension contributions and national insurance alone.\n\nMr Sunak said the new support would \"help businesses to get through the months ahead - and crucially it will help sustain jobs, so workers can be ready to return when they are able to reopen\".\n\nBusinesses such as cafes, restaurants, leisure centres and shops that do not sell essentials have been particularly hard hit by coronavirus lockdown measures as people are told to stay at home.\n\nAll non-essential shops, leisure and entertainment venues are now closed, with pubs and restaurants allowed to offer takeaway food and non-alcoholic drinks only.\n\nThe new measures contained no additional support for self-employed people.\n\nMel Stride, chair of parliament's Treasury Committee, which scrutinises the finance department's work, warned the chancellor \"must not forget those who have fallen through the gaps around previous support packages.\"\n\nWhile this is welcome and essential support, it is now clear that the most optimistic timetable for economic lift-off from the pandemic is going to be put back.\n\nThis raises questions about the length of the furlough scheme, and government-guaranteed loans.\n\nBefore this, the best-case scenario was that mass vaccination, enabling a confident reopening of the economy, would allow furloughed workers to go straight back to their jobs in late spring.\n\nThis was never the government's central forecast, but looked possible amid optimism about the vaccine last month.\n\nEven if all vulnerable people can be vaccinated by March, the first three months of the year will see school lockdowns which will harm growth, and therefore a possible double dip recession.\n\nBusiness groups which welcomed this support say they now need a clear long-term plan. They want to know that current levels of support will stay in place until most of the population is vaccinated.\n\nHundreds of thousands of self-employed workers who fell through the gaps of support remain under huge pressure, particularly ahead of the self assessment tax deadline.\n\nA decision on extending the £20 a week increase to universal credit will also be required.\n\nEngland's lockdown rules are due to be reviewed on 15 February while Scotland's will be reviewed at the end of January.\n\nIn the UK, the unemployment rate rose to 4.9% in the three months to October, with the jobless total up to 1.7 million people.\n\nThe Office for Budgetary Responsibility, the government's independent forecaster, predicts the UK economy will have shrunk by 11.3% in 2020 - the biggest decline in 300 years. It expects unemployment to peak at 9.7%.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe PM acted \"decisively\" in announcing a new lockdown in England \"in the face of new information\", Rishi Sunak says.\n\nPeople must now stay at home except for a handful of permitted reasons and schools have closed to most pupils.\n\nThe chancellor said the action was \"regrettable\" but it was \"right we take these measures\", which will be reviewed on 15 February, to suppress the virus.\n\nIt came after UK chief medical officers recommended the Covid threat level be increased to five - its highest level.\n\nBoris Johnson said vaccinating the top four priority groups by mid-February could allow restrictions to be eased, with Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove telling Sky News the measures may remain until March.\n\nMeanwhile, the prime minister is due to hold a press conference in Downing Street at 17:00 GMT with chief medical officer for England Prof Chris Whitty and the government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance.\n\nTough new lockdown restrictions forbidding people from leaving home for non-essential reasons have also come into force across the Scottish mainland. Wales has been in a national lockdown since 20 December and Northern Ireland entered a six-week lockdown on 26 December.\n\nThe UK reported a record 58,784 cases on Monday, as well as a further 407 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.\n\nMr Gove told BBC Breakfast: \"The four chief medical officers of the United Kingdom met and discussed the situation yesterday and their recommendation was that the country had to move to level five, the highest level available of alert that meant there was an imminent danger to the NHS of being overwhelmed unless action was taken.\n\n\"And so in the circumstances we felt that the only thing we could do was to close those primary schools that were open.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Gove:\" With a heavy heart but with clear evidence we had to act.\"\n\nHe said the action was taken \"with the heaviest of hearts\" and \"we had to act\" following that advice.\n\n\"It is a very, very difficult time for the whole country, that's why it's so important we do everything we can in government to vaccinate people,\" he said.\n\nHe said a million people had been vaccinated so far \"up until the weekend\" and it was hoped that number would reach more than 13 million in February.\n\nWhen asked about the target of two million vaccines a week and concerns over logistics and the safety systems, Mr Gove said the vaccination process was a \"complicated exercise\" but the NHS \"has more than risen to the challenge\".\n\nThe government was \"looking at further options\" to restrict international travel, he said.\n\nMr Gove told Sky News he could not say exactly when the lockdown in England would end, adding: \"I think it is right to say that as we enter March we should be able to lift some of these restrictions but not necessarily all.\"\n\nCabinet Office minister Michael Gove saying the lockdown may have to last to March may not come as much of a surprise to many.\n\nWhile the government has set a target of offering the most at-risk a jab by mid February, it will take several weeks longer for the full effect to be felt given it takes time for an immune response to kick in.\n\nThe bigger question is whether or not the government could have acted earlier.\n\nIt was clear before Christmas the new variant was pushing up infection rates - and that in turn would mean more hospital admissions.\n\nThe delay looks costly. Since Christmas Day, the number of Covid-19 patients in hospital has risen by 50% alone - enough to fill 18 hospitals.\n\nWhile the government did introduce tier four the weekend before Christmas in parts of the south east of England, which banned mixing over the festive period and led to the closure of non-essential shops and gyms, most of the country were allowed to meet up on Christmas Day.\n\nInfections from Christmas Day are now being felt - the numbers have been rising sharply ever since. Some of these are next week's hospital admissions - and is why the chief medical officers warned of the risk of hospitals becoming overwhelmed, which Mr Gove said persuaded them to act on Monday.\n\nIf lockdown had come earlier, it may well have been shorter.\n\nProf Andrew Hayward - a member of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) - told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the lockdown measures \"will save tens of thousands of lives\".\n\nBut he said \"the virus is different\" and \"it may be that the lockdown measures that we have are not enough\"\n\n\"This lockdown period we need to do more than just stay at home, wait for the vaccine, we need to be actively bearing down on it,\" he said.\n\nAt Scotland's daily briefing, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for people to hold on to the fact there was now \"a clear route out of this pandemic\".\n\nShe said there had been urgent discussions between the four home nations about whether border controls should be tightened - and she hoped there would be an announcement soon.\n\nAnnouncing England's lockdown on Monday, Mr Johnson said hospitals were under \"more pressure from Covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic\".\n\nHe ordered people to stay indoors other than for limited exceptions - such as essential medical needs, food shopping, exercise and work that cannot be done at home - and said schools and colleges should move to remote teaching for the majority of students until at least half term.\n\nPeople who are clinically extremely vulnerable will be contacted by letter and should now shield once more, Mr Johnson said.\n\nWhile the rules become law in the early hours of Wednesday, people should follow them now, Mr Johnson added.\n\nMr Johnson said the new variant of coronavirus, which is up to 70% more transmissible, was spreading in a \"frustrating and alarming\" manner and warned that the number of Covid-19 patients in English hospitals is 40% higher than the first peak.\n\nThe House of Commons has been recalled to allow MPs to vote on England's new restrictions on Wednesday.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his MPs would \"support the package of measures\", saying \"we've all got to pull together now to make this work\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC's Laura Foster explains the order in which the Covid vaccine will be given\n\nHow will you be affected by the latest developments? What questions do you have? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Quote Message: The return of lockdown for at least the rest of January is a severe blow for much of the Scottish economy. It could be worse: this is not the peak Christmas season for retail and hospitality, though the season they’ve just had was very hard going for many, and non-existent for others. This is also the quietest part of the tourism year, so January is a relatively good month to lose one’s bookings. For many firms, it is better than last spring, because they have infection controls in place. And there is a less harsh closure scheme, meaning construction sites and others can stay open, subject to tight rules. Many employers have settled into patterns of working from home, so this does not carry the shock of last March. There was little expectation of getting staff back into offices for months yet. But that doesn’t make this time any easier for workers who are also parents. They know, from last year, how tough it is to handle childcare and lessons while schools are shut - and this time, they have to manage without good weather. The other, more negative comparison with last spring is that firms now are, typically, deeper in debt and with less spare cash to pay the bills that don’t stop - rent, and utility bills, for instance. Some delayed payments are getting tougher to keep on hold. Their frustration with the slow movement of government grant schemes is showing. They aren’t disputing the case for further lockdown but they are making their own case for support through it, and for a recovery strategy once restrictions are lifted, including a boost to consumer confidence and spending.\" from Douglas Fraser Scotland business & economy editor\n\nThe return of lockdown for at least the rest of January is a severe blow for much of the Scottish economy. It could be worse: this is not the peak Christmas season for retail and hospitality, though the season they’ve just had was very hard going for many, and non-existent for others. This is also the quietest part of the tourism year, so January is a relatively good month to lose one’s bookings. For many firms, it is better than last spring, because they have infection controls in place. And there is a less harsh closure scheme, meaning construction sites and others can stay open, subject to tight rules. Many employers have settled into patterns of working from home, so this does not carry the shock of last March. There was little expectation of getting staff back into offices for months yet. But that doesn’t make this time any easier for workers who are also parents. They know, from last year, how tough it is to handle childcare and lessons while schools are shut - and this time, they have to manage without good weather. The other, more negative comparison with last spring is that firms now are, typically, deeper in debt and with less spare cash to pay the bills that don’t stop - rent, and utility bills, for instance. Some delayed payments are getting tougher to keep on hold. Their frustration with the slow movement of government grant schemes is showing. They aren’t disputing the case for further lockdown but they are making their own case for support through it, and for a recovery strategy once restrictions are lifted, including a boost to consumer confidence and spending.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Sport\n\nProfessional sport in England can continue behind closed doors, despite a new national lockdown announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.\n\nIt means Premier League football and elite leagues in other sports are allowed to carry on.\n\nThe sport and leisure rules in England are similar to those announced in Scotland earlier on Monday.\n\nPeople living in England have been told to stay at home and schools will shut for most pupils from Tuesday.\n\nOn Monday, the UK recorded more than 50,000 new confirmed Covid cases for the seventh day in a row.\n\nFor those in England, exercising outside is allowed once a day. Venues such as gyms, tennis courts and golf courses will be closed.\n\nOrganised outdoor sport for disabled people is exempt from the new measures.\n\nGames and training in non-elite football - which includes all adult and youth grassroots, except for disabled people - have been suspended.\n\nThe Women's FA Cup is among the non-elite competitions placed on hold. All but one of the second-round matches scheduled to take place on Sunday were postponed because of Covid-19 regulations.\n\nTeams from the Women's Super League and Women's Championship enter the draw from the fourth round onwards.\n\nWhich non-elite football has been suspended? Steps three to six of the National League System (all divisions below the National League North and South) Tiers three to seven of the Women's Football Pyramid (all divisions below the Women's Championship) Women's FA Cup (classified as 'non-elite' up to and including the third round) All indoor and outdoor youth and adult grassroots football, including under-18s (except organised outdoor football for disabled people, which is allowed to continue)\n\nFollowing Monday's announcement by the prime minister, this week's sporting fixtures in England are set to go ahead as planned.\n\nIn football, the Carabao Cup semi-finals are being played on Tuesday and Wednesday, while the FA Cup third round - which has 32 fixtures spanning four days - starts on Friday.\n\nThere are also several Women's Super League, English Football League and National League games set to take place, as well as English Premiership and Premier 15s rugby union matches, plus the Masters snooker event in Milton Keynes.\n\nEarlier on Monday, Rochdale chief executive David Bottomley said he believes it is \"inevitable\" that the EFL will have to temporarily suspend fixtures because of rising coronavirus cases.\n\nSeven of last Saturday's EFL games - and 52 across the season - have been called off as teams are affected by the virus.\n\nFour Premier League matches have also been postponed this season because of coronavirus cases.\n\nWhat does the new lockdown mean for sport in England?\n\nThe UK government published its guidance for England's new national lockdown shortly after the prime minister's televised address at 20:00 GMT.\n\nHere are the points relating to sport and physical activity:\n• None Elite sportspeople (and their coaches if necessary, or parents/guardians if they are under 18) - or those on an official elite sports pathway - to compete and train\n• None Outdoor sports courts, outdoor gyms, golf courses, outdoor swimming pools, archery/driving/shooting ranges and riding arenas must also close\n• None Organised outdoor sport for disabled people is allowed to continue\n\nWhile golfing has been allowed to continue in Scotland under strict rules, courses will be closed in England.\n\nEngland Golf said it was \"extremely disappointed\" with the decision, adding it had made a \"strong case\" to keep the sport open in recent months.\n\nWhere can I exercise and who can I exercise with?\n\nYou can exercise in a public outdoor place:\n• None with the people you live with\n• None with your support bubble ( if you are legally permitted to form one)\n• None or, when on your own, with one person from another household\n• None public gardens (whether or not you pay to enter them)\n\nUK Active, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes health and fitness, says the government must act immediately to \"minimise the damaging impact of lockdown\".\n\n\"We know from the millions of people that depend on gyms, pools, and leisure centres to support their physical and mental health, how essential they are,\" said UK Active chief executive Huw Edwards.\n\n\"We cannot afford to wait until the vaccine rollout is advanced before we act, so the government must explore all options at this time and provide a credible plan for maintaining this support to millions of people who rely on these Covid-secure facilities to stay strong and healthy.\n\n\"Furthermore, the UK governments must protect this sector before it becomes too late.\"", "Internet providers are under pressure to do more to help low-income families afford data packages for their children to take part in remote learning.\n\nIt follows a decision to close UK schools to most pupils to enforce new coronavirus lockdowns.\n\nThe children's commissioner for England told the BBC that \"broadband companies really need to step up\".\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer added he thought the cost of data was \"a big problem\".\n\n\"We're asking people to endure very tough restrictions. And there has to be the other side of that contract,\" he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\n\"Everybody needs to try and make this work. And that includes the companies that can take away the charging for data. It's a serious situation.\"\n\nWhen questioned about the topic at a Downing Street press conference, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: \"We are looking at... the potential costs to parents of online teaching, and we're going to do our best to support them in any way that we can and to work with the internet companies.\"\n\nThere is concern that some disadvantaged pupils are currently dependent on pay-as-you-go or monthly mobile phone subscriptions that only include a small data allowance because their families cannot afford or otherwise obtain a separate fixed broadband connection.\n\n\"There are 25 million pay-as-you go customers in the UK, and about seven million of those struggle with the cost of topping up their data,\" commented Chris Thorpe from the Centre For The Acceleration Of Social Technology charity.\n\nMany schools are using video-chat software including Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet to live-stream classes, assemblies and other activities, which all benefit from a fast, stable connection and can consume a lot of data.\n\nIn addition, other tools including Google Classroom, Tapestry and Class Dojo are used by pupils to submit schoolwork and receive marks and other feedback.\n\nThe situation became more pressing after the prime minister announced last night that England's lockdown would mean schools and colleges would remain closed to most pupils until at least the February half-term.\n\nTech for UK - a coalition of technologists and other concerned business leaders - has suggested one way forward would be for internet providers to \"zero rate\" edtech apps and websites, so that their data use would be deducted from a mobile subscriber's monthly allowance.\n\nHowever, it acknowledges the challenge in doing so is to pick which platforms to support without giving some providers an unfair advantage over others.\n\nThe Department for Education already runs a scheme for disadvantaged children who do not have access to a home broadband connection to temporarily increase their mobile data allowance.\n\nIn some cases, this involves an extra 20 gigabytes a month. In others - such as Three - it provides an \"unlimited\" data upgrade.\n\nSchools, trusts and local authorities need to request the support on a pupil's behalf.\n\nThe networks involved in the initiative include:\n\nIn cases when this is not available, the government offers 4G wireless routers - which use mobile networks to offer a wi-fi connection - as an alternative.\n\nIn addition, Vodafone provided 350,000 \"free data\" Sim cards to thousands of primary and secondary schools and colleges in November.\n\n\"We are actively considering what to do now about this new situation,\" it said.\n\nO2 pledged in October to donate 10,000 devices and 12 months of free data to \"vulnerable individuals\".\n\nAnd Virgin Media noted it had launched a discounted home broadband service for families facing financial difficulties and receiving universal credit.\n\nBT says it has already removed all caps on its home broadband plans to help ensure children can stay connected to their schools.\n\nAnne Longfield, the children's commissioner for England, said she was also concerned about the provision of devices.\n\n\"A lot of children still don't have laptops. They're surviving on broken phones,\" she told the Today programme.\n\nThe Department for Education said it had delivered more than 560,000 devices to schools and councils in England between the start of the pandemic and the end of last year.\n\nIn addition, it aims to have delivered a further 100,000 laptops and tablets to schools by the end of this week to help get closer to its overall target of one million devices.\n\nHowever, teaching groups have raised concerns about the rollout.\n\nSome children are being provided with tablets to keep them connected to their schools\n\n\"We must hear no more of rationing of equipment, as we did late last year,\" Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) told the BBC.\n\n\"If the stockpiles exist, as the Department for Education claim they do, then they must be distributed urgently. We have heard too many stories of requests from schools not being met, or not being fully met.\"\n\nSteven George of head teachers' union, NAHT added that a website used to order laptops had been inaccessible over the Christmas break, so some members had been unable to make requests.\n\nIn addition, the Association of School and College Leaders suggested the government had \"never really got to grips\" with the issue.\n\n\"It is certainly sending out lots of laptops for disadvantaged children to schools. But there's clearly still a gap, not just in terms of the number of devices that are required but also in terms of whether families have sufficient connectivity,\" said general secretary Geoff Barton.\n\n\"This has happened because it is a crisis situation, and there hasn't been a great deal of time in which to properly assess the level of need that exists, but it does expose the fact that pre-crisis, there hadn't been a properly joined-up national strategy on digital learning.\"\n\nOthers have noted that the device allocation scheme does not extend to printers - which are needed for worksheets and other materials sent by teachers - putting low-income families at a further disadvantage.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Eileen Lynch, 94, was the first person in Northern Ireland to receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine\n\nUp to 11,000 people aged over 80 across Northern Ireland are set to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine this week.\n\nThe aim is to ensure everyone in that age group will be offered the vaccine by the end of January.\n\nThirty GP practices will be administering 50,000 doses of the vaccine, which was approved for use in the UK on 30 December.\n\nIt is the second vaccine to be approved in the battle against coronavirus in Northern Ireland.\n\nIt comes ahead of a UK-wide announcement by the prime minister, set to be made at 20:00 GMT on Monday, in which further restrictions will be announced.\n\nIn a statement, a No 10 spokesman said the new variant of Covid-19 had \"led to rapidly escalating case numbers across the country\" and \"further steps must now be taken to arrest this rise\".\n\nOn Monday, Northern Ireland recorded a further 1,801 Covid-19 cases and 12 more virus-related deaths.\n\nThese latest figures from the Department of Health bring the total number of deaths to 1,366, while 79,873 people have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic started.\n\nMore than 12,000 cases have been reported in the past seven days, more than double the week before.\n\nThe seven-day rate per 100,000 people is now 660 positive cases, compared to 200 per 100,000 two weeks ago.\n\nMedical experts believe that is down to the two-week easing of restrictions over the Christmas period.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland on Monday, an additional 6,110 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were announced, with six further deaths linked to the virus.\n\nNorthern Ireland is in the second week of a six-week lockdown in which non-essential retail is closed.\n\nThe first doses of the vaccine were given delivered at a GP surgery on the Falls Road in West Belfast on Monday afternoon.\n\nThe first person in Northern Ireland to receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine was 94-year-old Eileen Lynch.\n\nSpeaking after receiving the vaccine, Ms Lynch said she was \"delighted and privileged\" to receive it.\n\n\"I feel like I can really look forward to the year ahead now that I have been vaccinated,\" she said.\n\nThe Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine has already been used to vaccinate care home residents and staff.\n\nBy mid December, 50,000 doses of that vaccine had been made available and by 30 December, Northern Ireland's Department of Health reported that 33,000 people had been vaccinated.\n\nThis included 8,940 care home residents, 10,484 care home staff and 14,259 health and social care staff.\n\nAccording to the latest NI statistics, for the first time the percentage positive cases in the over 80s is down - an indication the vaccination process is working.\n\nThere are approximately 82,000 people over 80 in NI and BBC News NI understands that if deliveries of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine happen as planned, it is thought that all of those over 80, as well as GPs and their staff, could be vaccinated within three weeks.\n\nWhile 50,000 doses have been delivered to Northern Ireland, a further 23,000 vaccines are expected on 19 January while another 68,000 are due on 24 January.\n\nDr Alan Stout, who is a GP in Belfast, told BBC News NI that members are \"very optimistic\" that 11,000 people can be vaccinated this week.\n\nThe Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is the second coronavirus vaccine to be approved in the UK\n\nNI's chief medical officer said the Oxford-AstraZeneca rollout would run alongside the ongoing vaccination programme.\n\nDr Michael McBride said: \"First and foremost we must act to protect those most at risk of severe disease and death.\n\n\"The evidence shows that the initial dose of vaccine offers as much as 70% protection against the effects of the virus.\n\n\"Providing that level of protection on a large scale will have the greatest impact on reducing mortality and hospitalisations, protecting the health and social care system.\"\n\nThe Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine has to be kept at an extremely low temperature which complicates handling constraints.\n\nThe Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is considered easier to store and distribute.\n\nIts rollout consists of two full doses of the vaccine, with the second dose to be given four to 12 weeks after the first.\n\nGPs are appealing to the public to remain calm and wait to be called for their vaccine either by telephone or by letter.\n\nDr Stout said as demand grows worldwide for the vaccine, that schedule could easily change.\n\n\"The public have to be patient, we have a system and must be allowed to get on with it - it really is 'don't call us - we will call you'.\"\n\nWhile some vaccinations will take place in surgeries others will happen in a drive-through system.\n\nCovid-19 is deadlier than flu, which means January 2021 is going to be even tougher than usual.\n\nAlso, Covid patients tend to stay much longer in hospital with more severe symptoms requiring additional beds and care.\n\nBut those rising patient numbers aren't matched by an increased workforce.\n\nInstead it is expected that the nurse-patient ratio will increase (even though many aren't trained to work in critical care) as there simply aren't enough nurses available.\n\nSome health unions fear this will only add to Northern Ireland's excess mortality rate, which is greater than that in Great Britain.\n\nOnce again, this highlights Northern Ireland's failing health care system, which was already below par well before the start of the pandemic.\n\nCoronavirus infection figures here are expected to peak between 15 and 21 January. That will be felt not only in hospitals but also in GP practices as they continue to roll out the vaccine.\n\nWhile at this stage the six weeks look bleak it's hoped that the additional Astra-Zeneca vaccine and the low incidence of flu will go a long way in not only saving lives, but also protecting the health service.\n\nDr Stout said much planning had gone into ensuring the programme happened as smoothly as possible.\n\n\"People will literally stay in their cars and be asked to roll up their sleeves - it has to be safe and efficient in order for us to get through it and safely.\"\n\nThe UK has ordered 100 million doses of the new vaccine - enough to vaccinate 50 million people.\n\nMeanwhile, Dr Tom Black, chair of the British Medical Association in Northern Ireland, said it was \"appalling\" that the Pfizer vaccine was not to be administered in two doses within 21 days as instructed by the company and threatened legal action.\n\nDr Black was responding to news that the UK will give both parts of the Oxford and Pfizer vaccines 12 weeks apart.\n\n\"They have left care workers in Northern Ireland with a gap in their expected immunity,\" he told BBC NI's Radio Foyle on Monday.\n\n\"In that period doctors, nurses, porters or health care professionals could infect patients because they will not be protected against the transmission of the infection to patients.\"\n\nThe UK's chief medical officers have defended their Covid vaccination plan.\n\nThey said getting more people vaccinated with the first jab was \"much more preferable\" and that the great majority of the initial protection from clinical disease is after the first dose of vaccine.\n\nDr Black is to meet NI Health Minister Robin Swann later to express health care workers' concern over the change in vaccine policy.", "Food banks have seen increased demand during the pandemic\n\nThe UK \"cannot duck\" tackling inequalities of health, ethnicity, education and jobs post-Covid, a major review has warned.\n\nThe report's chairman, Nobel laureate Sir Angus Deaton, says a lot of work to repair and rebuild the damage will be needed after the pandemic.\n\nThe Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) Deaton Review of Inequalities warned the fabric of society was under threat.\n\nThe review says there is a \"once-in-a-generation opportunity to tackle the disadvantages faced by many that this pandemic has so devastatingly exposed\".\n\n\"We now face a set of challenges which we cannot duck.\"\n\nSir Angus said: \"As the vaccines should, at some point this year, take us into a world largely free of the pandemic, it is imperative to think about policies that will be needed to repair the damage and that focus on those who have suffered the most.\n\n\"We need to build a country in which everyone feels that they belong.\"\n\nWhile the pandemic had highlighted the disproportionate impact on ethnic minority groups and deprived communities, it also showed that the UK's best-paid and most highly educated have been \"much better able to ride out the crisis\", the report said.\n\nYoung people have been among the worst hit economically\n\nChildren from poorer households found it harder to do schoolwork during lockdown and have been more likely to miss school since September, it noted.\n\nAnd while the biggest risk factor for coronavirus is age, younger people have been hit harder by the economic consequences of the crisis.\n\nThe cost of the pandemic is \"just colossal\" IFS director Paul Johnson told the BBC's Today programme.\n\n\"We've seen the biggest reduction in national income, essentially in history, over the last year, we've seen the biggest public deficit in history outside of the two world wars, so there's no getting around the fact that the pandemic and the response to it has had a bigger effect on the economy than anything essentially in the whole of history.\"\n\nThe report highlighted the effects of the pandemic on different groups, including on education, which is \"probably more worrying\" than the overall economic effect, Mr Johnson said.\n\n\"The first lockdown lockdown saw a dreadful impact on the education particularly of poorer children... they were getting less in the way of online lessons from their schools.\n\n\"There's a huge private school/state school divide in this, but also a big divide within state schools between those children who had support at home, had the facilities at home - laptops and internet and so on - but who also had the support from school - so there's a big impact on education but also a very unequal one,\" he added.\n\nThe review is calling for extra support for children who have fallen behind and help for school and university leavers to find jobs.\n\nIt says the welfare safety net must be adapted so it supports non-traditional forms of employment, including insecure and self-employed workers, and minority ethnic groups must be given greater economic opportunities.\n\nProgress in reducing poor mental and physical health could be \"one of the clearest indications of success of economic and social policy\", it adds.\n\nMark Franks, director of welfare at the Nuffield Foundation, which funded the review, said: \"Individuals are subject to a wide range of potential vulnerabilities around dimensions including age, ethnicity, place of birth, education, income and the nature of their employment.\n\n\"Where these vulnerabilities intersect, they can amplify and reinforce one another and play a huge role in driving unequal outcomes.\"\n\nHowever, the government said it was already spending vast sums to support people and the economy through the pandemic.\n\nA spokesman said: \"We're doing everything we can to ensure our coronavirus support reaches those who need it the most, which is why we've invested more than £280bn to protect the incomes, livelihoods and health of millions of people across the UK.\"\n\nThis included an additional £9bn for the welfare system and £2bn for the Kickstart Scheme, tripling traineeships, incentives for firms hiring apprentices and doubling the number of work coaches \"so that nobody is left without hope or opportunity\", the spokesman said.", "Economy Minister Diane Dodds has written to Cabinet Office Secretary Michael Gove to call for urgent action to be taken on deliveries to NI.\n\nSince Christmas some orders have been cancelled or delayed and some retailers have suspended deliveries.\n\nThe problem is related to uncertainty about post-Brexit transition rules.\n\nHM Customs announced a grace period on New Year's Eve confirming most parcels from GB-NI will not need customs declarations until at least April.\n\nThe problems have not affected all companies with many continuing to take orders and deliver as normal.\n\nHowever, some companies had already suspended deliveries, including John Lewis.\n\nThe government said the three-month grace period \"recognises the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland, the impacts of any disruption to parcel movements in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and specific challenges for operators moving express consignments\".\n\nA government spokesman said further details will be published in the new year, adding: \"Our priority is to have a pragmatic approach that allows us to comply with the [Northern Ireland] Protocol without causing undue disruption to businesses and citizens.\n\n\"HMRC is engaging with operators to finalise arrangements.\"\n\nSome changes have already come into effect.\n\nA Northern Ireland-based business receiving goods valued at £135 or more through an express carrier or Royal Mail will need to submit a customs declaration.\n\nThey will need to do this within three months of receiving the goods and can use the government's Trader Support Service to do so.\n\nExcise goods, which mostly refers to alcoholic drinks, will also need a declaration when being sent from GB to NI.\n\nThe government has advised retailers of those goods to contact their delivery company.\n\nIt said: \"They will then tell you if they carry the type of goods you want to send and, if they do, they will ask you to provide any additional information that they need so that a declaration can be made.\"", "About 10 UK nationals resident in Spain say they were wrongly turned back when their flight landed in Barcelona.\n\nThey left Heathrow on the Saturday morning British Airways flight, but were refused entry on arrival.\n\nThey were stopped by border police and ultimately flown back to the UK.\n\nSpain has banned all but Spanish nationals and residents flying from the UK to Spain since 22 December in the hope of containing the spread of the new UK strain of Covid-19.\n\nOne passenger on the flight, who did not wish to be named, said that those on board had been told repeatedly that only Spanish nationals or residents would be allowed to enter the country and that their residency certificates, also known as green certificates, were shown to airline staff several times.\n\nHowever, on arrival, British passengers with green residency certificates were prevented from entering Spain.\n\nBA has confirmed that about 10 people were denied entry into Barcelona, as they did not meet the Spanish authorities' required criteria.\n\nOne of those affected, Ruth O'Leary, said: \"I was very confused, obviously. I asked them what other documents I could provide.\n\n\"They seemed to be just flat-out refusing anything I had and just wouldn't let me on the flight. Very upsetting really.\n\n\"Quite an awful feeling not to be able to go back to your own house and to not really be given an explanation why you can't go home.\"\n\nOther British expat passengers have also said that they have been stopped from boarding planes to Spain.\n\nOne passenger on board said that seven British citizens were prevented from boarding a British Airways/Iberia flight from Heathrow to Madrid on Saturday evening, despite having their green residency certificates, as well as negative Covid tests.\n\nThe exact number of flights and passengers affected has not been released by the Foreign Office.\n\nIn a statement on Monday, Iberia said that on 1 January, it received an email from the border police saying that registration as a European citizen was no longer considered to be a valid document to prove legal residency in Spain as a British citizen.\n\nHowever, by 19:30 on 2 January, the airline received a second email, confirming that the document could be used if it had not expired.\n\nA British Airways spokesperson said: \"In these difficult and unprecedented times with dynamic travel restrictions, we are doing everything we can to help and support our customers.\"\n\nThe Spanish Embassy in London tweeted a letter stating it was aware that during the current travel restrictions, there had been some problems for British nationals resident in Spain who had not been allowed to return.\n\nThe embassy clarified that green certificates were valid proof of residency.\n\nThe Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: \"We have worked closely with the Spanish government to resolve these issues.\n\n\"The Spanish Embassy in London has re-confirmed today that both the green residence certificate and the new residence TIE card [Photo-ID card] are equally valid in terms of proving residence in Spain, as set out in the [Brexit] Withdrawal Agreement.\"", "South Wales Police piloted the use of facial recognition in Cardiff - it was later ruled unlawful\n\nPolice should be allowed more access to facial recognition technology, a firm developing it for use in the private sector has said.\n\nLast year, appeal court judges ruled a trial project to scan thousands of faces by South Wales Police was unlawful. The force did not appeal.\n\nWelsh company Credas said laws were not keeping up with the latest technology.\n\nThe Home Office said it wants police to use new crime-reducing technology while \"maintaining public trust\".\n\nCredas believes such facial recognition technology could be a vital tool in fighting crime.\n\n\"Ten years ago it would have felt space age, but now it's everywhere - just logging into my phone or laptop, we're all used to it now,\" said chief executive Rhys David.\n\n\"But the legislation will never keep up with the technological advancements.\"\n\nThe firm, based in Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan, works with firms to prevent crime in commercial settings, helping them confirm a client's identity.\n\nIt can include estate agents, the legal sector, accountancy or gambling operations - any businesses regulated to reduce fraud and money laundering.\n\n\"There's common stories of people buying houses with someone else's identity and manipulating the paperwork so that the funds get transferred into the wrong account and it's too late then - we can't recover that,\" said Mr David.\n\n\"It's a very difficult position to be in, but technologies like ours are closing the gap.\"\n\nApps can compare people's picture to that on their passport\n\nCredas's app uses facial recognition - people take a selfie and the app compares it to a photograph of their passport to verify they are who they claim to be.\n\nClaire Williams works for FBM estate agent in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, which has been using the software for the past two years.\n\n\"Before we would take people's passports or driver's licence, they would either come into the office and we would photocopy it, or we would even accept a scanned, emailed copy.\n\n\"There would be no way of knowing whether these were legitimate passports and driver's licences.\n\n\"They might have been using fake IDs, trying to launder money through the property industry - putting money into the properties, then reselling them to launder the money.\"\n\nBut scanning faces to confirm details for a mortgage is a very different beast to automated facial recognition, which is what was being trialled by South Wales Police - scanning faces in a crowd, often without people's knowledge.\n\nThat was ruled unlawful after a challenge by civil rights group Liberty and Ed Bridges from Cardiff.\n\n\"Real-time surveillance is considerably more complex than in the commercial space where it's a fairly static, controlled environment. But we should be adopting it and encouraging it to reduce a criminal footprint,\" added Mr David.\n\n\"I find it really sad that the police aren't encouraged to use technology like this to keep our country safe.\n\n\"Let's be honest, the police don't want to sell us trainers. They're not looking to capture our images or biometric footprints to sell us goods. It's to keep us safe, so the police can run very sophisticated facial matching programmes in real time to identify criminals.\"\n\nThe frustration was echoed by the surveillance camera commissioner, Tony Porter, who is the independent regulator appointed to oversee the use of camera systems in England and Wales.\n\nFollowing the appeal court ruling on South Wales Police in August, he said he had been \"fruitlessly and repeatedly\" calling for an updated code the police could follow.\n\nWhile campaigners Liberty felt the court's ruling left little room for the technology to be safely used, Mr Porter disagreed, adding: \"I believe adoption of new and advancing technologies is an important element of keeping citizens safe.\"\n\nHe has issued new guidance on the use of facial recognition in light of the case, but it remains just that - guidance, not law.\n\nIt has left police forces still trying to iron out the problems raised by the Court of Appeal - the potential for gender and ethnic biases and a robust code to cover when, how and where the technology can be used, and in search of whom.\n\nProf Martin Innes, from the Universities' Police Sciences Institute, evaluated the rollout of automatic facial recognition for South Wales Police in 2018, flagging ethical and regulatory challenges facing forces.\n\n\"If you look back at the history of new and innovative technologies in policing this is what always happens. You have to let the law catch up a little bit and find out what matters and where the key points of regulation are,\" he said.\n\nAt present, different standards between the private and public sectors \"could be very, very confusing,\" he added.\n\n\"There is a risk that these technologies get introduced almost by stealth and they start popping up everywhere.\"\n\nPembrokeshire estate agent Claire Williams now uses a facial recognition app to match faces to identity\n\nIn a way, some of that has already happened, from mobile phones that can detect your face to hi-tech doorbells\n\nStopping criminal harm \"seems to be an equally justifiable reason\" to use the technology, argued Prof Innes.\n\n\"But we need to think quite carefully about how far do we want this to go, and where is it appropriate for us to introduce these technologies in our lives.\n\n\"There are issues - but there are potentially opportunities and benefits to be gained if it can be done in the right way, as well.\"\n\nThe Home Office and the police say they will consider any ideas that could improve the way live facial recognition technology is used.\n\n\"We want police to use new technologies, like live facial recognition, in a way that reduces crime while maintaining public trust,\" said a Home Office spokesperson.\n\n\"We are working closely with the police to ensure national College of Policing guidance complies with the Court of Appeal's request to clarify how live facial recognition will be used.\n\n\"The government committed in the Home Office Biometrics Strategy to review the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice and it will be updated in due course.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Virgin Holidays has become the latest travel firm to cancel holidays after new coronavirus lockdown restrictions were imposed.\n\nIt said schedules will be cancelled until mid-February, joining similar moves by Tui, Jet2 and Thomas Cook.\n\nThe companies said customers would be contacted about their future travel options during what Virgin described as \"these extraordinary circumstances\".\n\nThomas Cook said it will call customers to offer refunds or rebooking.\n\nTui said it was \"cancelling all holidays in line with international travel restrictions\". It added that said customers due to depart from England, Scotland and Wales would be contacted to discuss options.\n\nThe company said that customers due to travel from an English airport before mid-February, or from a Scottish or Welsh airport up to 31 January, would not be able to do so.\n\nThose customers will be contacted \"in departure date order to discuss their options\", Tui said, which include rebooking \"with an incentive\", getting a credit note, or a full refund.\n\n\"Customers currently overseas can continue to enjoy their holidays as planned and we will update them directly if there are any changes to their holidays,\" Tui added.\n\nIn a statement, Virgin said: \"In line with the new national lockdown restrictions we have reviewed the upcoming holiday schedule and will be cancelling all holidays up to and including 14 February 2021.\n\n\"To simplify the options and to provide immediate peace of mind for customers whose holidays will no longer be going ahead, we're automatically providing a digital voucher for the value of their trip, redeemable up until 30 September 2021, which they can use to rebook a holiday, departing any time before 31 December 2022.\"\n\nVirgin added that customers \"may also request a refund\".\n\nMeanwhile, Jet2 said it was extending \"the suspension of flights and holidays up to and including 11 February 2021\".\n\nA spokesman said: \"For customers due to travel from 12th February onwards, we will provide another update closer to the time.\"\n\nThomas Cook, which became an online-only travel brand in September after its earlier collapse, said: \"Following the announcement of the latest lockdown, we are calling our customers to offer refunds or move their holidays to a later date.\".\n\nChief executive Alan French said: \"We've seen over the festive period that customers are looking ahead to the summer and beginning to book in earnest for those important summer weeks in the sun.\n\n\"I am sure that after many more weeks spent at home - and with the progress of the vaccine rollout - we will see an even bigger demand for people to escape to the beach this summer.\"\n\nLast month, a number of countries suspended routes to the UK due to the rapid spread of a new variant of coronavirus.\n\nThe blanket travel ban to the EU was then lifted, but with rules varying from country to country. The suspension of flights between the UK and China remains in place.\n\nLast year Tui was investigated by competition authorities after complaints that it had not given prompt refunds.\n\nBritish Airways Holidays, part of Britain's biggest airline, said it would be offering refunds if customers are no longer allowed travel.\n\nThe firm said in a statement: \"We are contacting all affected British Airways Holidays customers following the announcement of new national lockdown restrictions.\n\n\"Customers due to depart by 12 February 2021 will be offered a refund for their holiday. Our teams continue to monitor the situation and update our policy accordingly.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Keir Starmer: \"If we pull together as a nation, we can win\"\n\nSir Keir Starmer has called for a \"round the clock\" vaccination programme to tackle the rise in Covid cases.\n\nAs part of a televised speech, the Labour leader said the government needed to deliver \"millions of doses a week by the end of the month\".\n\nHe said there were \"serious questions for the government to answer\" over the timing of the lockdown in England, but Labour would support the restrictions.\n\nBoris Johnson said daily vaccination figures would be published from Monday.\n\nThe prime minister has also said the four most vulnerable groups of people across the UK should receive their first dose by mid-February.\n\nBoth the PM and Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, have announced lockdowns this week.\n\nWales has been in a national lockdown since 20 December and Northern Ireland entered a six-week lockdown on 26 December.\n\nEngland's lockdown will become law from 00:01 GMT Wednesday and MPs will return to the Commons later that day to vote on the measures retrospectively.\n\nThe restrictions come into force as the number of new daily confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK topped 60,000 for the first time since the pandemic started.\n\nOn Tuesday, 60,914 had tested positive in the previous 24 hours and a further 830 people had died within 28 days of a positive test.\n\nIn an address to the nation on BBC One, in response to Boris Johnson's televised address on Monday, Sir Keir said the UK had reached a \"critical moment in our fight against coronavirus\".\n\nThe Labour leader said people were \"angry at the mistakes the government has made\" and ministers needed to answer questions on why they did not act sooner over locking down England.\n\nHe stressed that Labour would continue to hold the government to account, but added: \"Whatever our quarrels with the government and with the prime minister, the country now needs us to come together.\n\n\"At this darkest of moments, we need a new national effort to re-kindle the spirit of last March - to come together and to do everything possible to stay at home [and] to protect the NHS and save lives.\"\n\nSir Keir reiterated that Labour would support the new lockdown when it comes to the retrospective Commons vote on Wednesday and \"join in this national effort\".\n\nBut he called for the government to use the lockdown to establish \"a massive, immediate, and round the clock vaccination programme\" to \"deliver millions of doses a week by the end of the month in every village and town, every high street and every GP surgery\".\n\nThe Labour leader added: \"This is now a race between the virus and the vaccine and if we pull together as a nation, we can win.\n\n\"We need a new contract between the government and the British people: The country stays at home, the government delivers the vaccine.\"\n\nEarlier at a Downing Street press conference, Mr Johnson said more than 1.3 million people across the UK had now been vaccinated with either the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines.\n\nThe figure included 23% of over-80s in England - part of a programme Mr Johnson said aimed to save \"the most lives the fastest\".\n\nThe PM said there will \"still be long weeks ahead\", but that he wanted to give \"maximum possible transparency\" about the vaccination roll-out.\n\nMore details will be announced on Thursday, with daily updates starting on Monday, \"so that you can see day by day and jab by jab how much progress we are making\", he added.\n\nAsked whether the target could be met, Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty, said the timetable was \"realistic but not easy\".", "Margaret Ferrier admitted travelling back from London to Glasgow after testing positive for coronavirus\n\nScottish MP Margaret Ferrier has been arrested by police after she admitted using public transport while infected with Covid-19.\n\nMs Ferrier apologised for what she called a \"blip\" in September.\n\nShe was suspended from the SNP group at Westminster and leaders, including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, urged her to quit as an MP over the row.\n\nPolice Scotland said she had been charged in connection with \"alleged culpable and reckless conduct\".\n\nMs Ferrier apologised in September after travelling from London to Glasgow having tested positive for coronavirus.\n\nThe Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP said she had experienced \"mild symptoms\" and taken a test, but had then decided to travel to Westminster because she was \"feeling much better\".\n\nShe then travelled home again on a train after receiving the positive test result, and said she \"deeply regretted\" her actions.\n\nA Police Scotland spokesman said: \"We can confirm that officers today arrested and charged a 60-year-old woman in connection with alleged culpable and reckless conduct.\n\n\"This follows a thorough investigation by Police Scotland into an alleged breach of coronavirus regulations between 26 and 29 September 2020.\n\n\"A report will be sent to the procurator fiscal and we are unable to comment further.\"\n\nMs Ferrier has been contacted for comment.", "Potentially life-saving cancer operations have been put on hold at a major London NHS trust because of the number of beds taken by Covid patients.\n\nKing's College Hospital Trust has cancelled all \"Priority 2\" operations - those doctors judge need to be carried out within 28 days.\n\nCancer Research UK said such cancellations did not appear to be widespread across the country.\n\nAnd surgery has not been stopped on the same scale as during the first wave.\n\nRebecca Thomas, who has had her bowel cancer surgery at King's College Hospital \"cancelled indefinitely\", told the BBC she felt like she had been left \"in limbo\".\n\nUntil she has surgery her tumour cannot be studied to see how aggressive it is, and so she won't know until then how significant this wait will turn out to be.\n\nA spokesperson for the Trust, which mainly serves patients in south London, said: \"Due to the large increase in patients being admitted with Covid-19, including those requiring intensive care, we have taken the difficult decision to postpone all elective procedures, with the exception of cases where a delay would cause immediate harm.\n\n\"A small number of cancer patients due to be operated on this week have had their surgery postponed, with patients being kept under close review by senior doctors.\"\n\nProf Neil Mortensen, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said he had heard from members that \"hospitals across London are having to cancel cancer surgeries as a result of the huge number of Covid-19 patients being hospitalised.\"\n\nBut it hasn't yet emerged as an issue affecting hospitals outside London.\n\nWhen Covid-19 hit last March, NHS England developed guidance on prioritising patients who needed operations, with emergency procedures that needed to be carried out within 24 hours coming first.\n\nThese life-saving operations have continued throughout the pandemic and there is no prospect of that stopping.\n\nHowever, patients in the \"priority 2\" category - who should have surgery within 28 days, to save their life or stop their disease progressing \"beyond operability\" - have found their operations being cancelled at King's.\n\nThe 28-day guideline is based on the patient's individual symptoms and the expected growth rate of their particular cancer.\n\n\"Delays further than that could have a negative impact on that person's chance of survival,\" according to Kruti Shrotri at Cancer Research UK.\n\nAnd delays in diagnosis and treatment in general can lead to worsening chances of recovery, she said.\n\nThis will vary dramatically by person and cancer type, but in some cases, a matter of a few weeks can make the difference between a cancer that can be survived or not.\n\nGenevieve Edwards, chief executive at Bowel Cancer UK, said research showed \"even a month's delay to cancer treatment can increase a person's risk of dying by up to 13% - a risk that keeps rising the longer their treatment is delayed\".\n\nWhile this was \"really concerning to hear,\" she said, \"it's not by and large something we've heard is happening widespread across the country\".\n\nThis is an improvement from the first wave of Covid-19 when the NHS had to put a near-blanket ban on non-urgent surgery.\n\nBut for those patients who are affected, this news will be \"incredibly hard,\" and Ms Shrotri stressed that patients with any symptoms that could be cancer should not put off going to see their GP.\n\n\"The NHS is open,\" she said.\n\nSurgery is most at risk because of the shortage of intensive care beds - but other forms of cancer treatment, including radiotherapy, should continue.\n\nNHS Providers, which represents hospital bosses in England, said trusts were doing all they could to \"prioritise on the basis of clinical need\".", "The number of new daily confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK has topped 60,000 for the first time since the pandemic started.\n\nAccording to government figures on Tuesday, the number of people who tested positive was 60,916.\n\nOne in 50 people in private households in England had Covid last week - and one in 30 in London, according to estimates based on the latest data.\n\nA further 830 people have also died within 28 days of a positive test.\n\nIt comes as England and Scotland announced new strict lockdowns, with people told to stay at home.\n\nAt a press conference at Downing Street on Tuesday, Boris Johnson said 1.3 million people had now been vaccinated in the UK - including 23% of over 80s in England, some 650,000 people.\n\nBut he said more than one million people were currently infected - with the number of patients in hospitals 40% higher than in the first peak.\n\nThe government's chief medical adviser Prof Chris Whitty cited the Office for National Statistics' random sampling data for England as showing how widespread the virus is.\n\n\"We're now into a situation where across the country as a whole, roughly one in 50 people have got the virus, higher in some parts of the country, lower in others,\" he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Professor Chris Whitty: \"No evidence\" the new variant is \"more dangerous\"\n\nThe number of new daily cases has consistently been above 50,000 since 29 December.\n\nBack in the first peak of the pandemic in the spring, the number of daily confirmed cases never went above 7,000.\n\nHowever, it is thought the true number of cases then was much higher but not picked up because testing capacity was limited. It was estimated there were about 100,000 new infections a day at the end of March - but there was not the testing to detect it.\n\nHospital admissions of people with Covid-19 in England also reached another record high on Tuesday, NHS England figures show.\n\nAt a hospital in Lincolnshire, a \"critical\" incident has been declared after a sharp rise in patients requiring admission.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How NHS nurses and doctors are struggling to cope with Covid as cases continue to rise in England\n\nAnd potentially life-saving cancer operations have been put on hold at a major London NHS trust because of the number of beds taken by Covid patients.\n\nHowever, Cancer Research UK said such cancellations did not appear to be widespread across the country.\n\nIn a statement after the case numbers were released, Public Health England medical director Yvonne Doyle said the rapid rise in cases was \"highly concerning and will sadly mean yet more pressure on our health services in the depths of winter\".\n\nAfter seven consecutive days of more than 50,000 cases being confirmed, the fact that more than 60,000 have been recorded should not come as a surprise.\n\nIt will take a week, if not more, for the impact of lockdown to be felt.\n\nAnd all the evidence suggests the new variant of coronavirus, which is more transmissible than previous ones, means the impact is likely to be more limited than it was in previous ones.\n\nThe figures are also a warning about what the NHS is facing.\n\nSome of this week's infections are next week's hospital admissions.\n\nAbout three in 10 beds are now occupied by Covid patients. In some hospitals more than six in 10 are.\n\nHospitals are now busy making more spaces on their wards - that means cancelling planned work, including in some places cancer treatment.\n\nBoris Johnson and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon both announced new lockdowns on Monday.\n\nWales has been in a national lockdown since 20 December and Northern Ireland entered a six-week lockdown on 26 December.\n\nRestrictions are also being tightened further in Northern Ireland, and an order for people to stay at home will become legally enforceable from Friday.\n\nIn a televised address to the nation, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer urged the government to use the lockdown to create a \"round the clock\" vaccination programme.\n\nHe also called on people to \"recapture the spirit\" of the beginning of the pandemic.\n\nAt the press conference on Tuesday, Mr Johnson repeated his suggestion that there is a \"prospect\" of the lockdown being eased in mid-February.\n\n\"But you will also appreciate there are a lot of caveats, a lot of ifs built into that, the most important of which is that we all now follow the guidance,\" he said.\n\nEarlier, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove told Sky News he could not say exactly when the lockdown in England would end, but \"as we enter March we should be able to lift some of these restrictions but not necessarily all\".\n\nMr Whitty said the virus \"is not going to go away, just as flu doesn't go away, just as many other viruses don't go away\".\n\n\"We shouldn't kid ourselves that this just disappears with spring,\" he said.\n\nMr Whitty said although hopefully there would be nearly no measures needed from the spring onwards, the government might have to bring in a few restrictions next winter.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson: \"We've now vaccinated over 1.3m people across the UK\"\n\nOn Monday the UK's chief medical officers recommended the Covid threat level be increased to five - its highest level.\n\nAlthough the new variant is now spreading more rapidly than the original version, it is not believed to be more deadly.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC's Laura Foster explains the order in which the Covid vaccine will be given", "Supermarkets' online shopping operations have come under strain with customers rushing to book deliveries as the new coronavirus lockdown began.\n\nWithin a couple of hours of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's speech to the nation on Monday, shoppers reported problems with Sainsbury's and Tesco.\n\nSainsbury's said on Tuesday that earlier it had restricted access to its online services to manage high demand.\n\nThe surge in demand echoes consumers' reaction at the start of the pandemic.\n\nSainsbury's said: \"We temporarily limited access to our groceries online service last night so that we could manage high demand for slots and updates customers were making to existing orders.\n\n\"We're continuing to monitor the situation and are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.\"\n\nA spokeswoman said customers should now be able to use the Sainsbury's app and website \"as usual\".\n\nAfter the first lockdown in March, supermarkets reported panic buying and a rush to book online delivery slots despite grocers insisting there would be no shortages if consumers shopped sensibly.\n\nShoppers used social media to vent their frustration on Monday, with Twitter user Auld Bryan saying: \"Ocado have already introduced their virtual queue process on their app. It's March 2020 all over again.\"\n\nAnother tweet, by Karl Dyson, said of Ocado: \"You'd think ~10 months in to this, they'd have worked on scalable infrastructure for the website?\"\n\nThere were also reports of people having problems with the Tesco app and website, including when trying to check out and complete payment.\n\nHowever, a spokesman for Britain's biggest supermarket said on Monday evening that there had been no reports from Tesco's technical department of any website problems.\n\nThe supermarket had increased the number of slots available for online delivery before the latest lockdown measures.\n\nAn email from Tesco UK boss Jason Tarry already sent to customers said: \"Since March, we have more than doubled home delivery and Click+Collect slots to 1.5 million a week, with over 760,000 vulnerable customers registered with us who are eligible for priority slots.\"\n\nUsers complained that the Sainsbury's app was down following the prime minister's announcement on Monday.\n\nTwitter user Francesca Balgobind wrote: \"What's happening with the Sainsbury's shopping app tonight? Website is down too?\"\n\nAnother social media user, Matt, said some 40 minutes after Mr Johnson had finished speaking: \"Sainsbury's app and website down\".\n\nAsda saw more demand for online shopping after the lockdown announcement, but said it had increased the number of slots available since the first two national lockdowns.\n\nMorrisons also reported a jump in the number of shoppers using its website after the announcement.\n\nHowever, despite the longer waiting queues, the grocer said it continued to have \"good slot availability\" for home deliveries.\n\nThroughout the pandemic, supermarkets have urged people to shop normally.\n\nBefore Christmas, in the run-up to the end of the Brexit transition period, some grocers reported temporary shortages of fresh goods due to congestion at UK shipping ports.", "By 8pm on Monday it felt inevitable.\n\nBut it doesn't mean that a national instruction to close the doors was automatic. Or indeed that new lockdowns in England and Scotland aren't still dramatic and painful.\n\nWith tightening up in Wales and Northern Ireland too, the spread of coronavirus this winter has been faster than governments' attempts to keep up with it - leaving leaders with little choice but to take more of our choices away.\n\nThere is much that's an echo of March. Work, school, life outside the home will be constrained in so many ways, with terrible and expensive side-effects for the economy.\n\nThis time, it's already spluttering - restrictions being turned on and off for months have starved so much trade of vital business.\n\nBut there's a lot that's different too. After so long, the public is less forgiving of the actions taken, and there is frustration particularly over last-minute changes for schools; fatigue too with having to live under such limits.\n\nBy now, Boris Johnson's opponents, inside and outside the Tory party, have plenty of evidence to suggest that he would rather put off difficult decisions.\n\nBut there is another profound change, that the prime minister was unsurprisingly keen to point out on live TV, where the UK, at the moment, has a leading reputation.\n\nVaccines exist, partly due to UK science, and are being injected into willing arms already.\n\nThe scientific triumph still needs to be turned into a logistical victory. But if around 13 million vaccines can be offered over the next six weeks, we may be on the way.\n\nOne member of the cabinet told me: \"We should do absolutely nothing but this, the vaccine - it should be the entire focus of the government; every government shoulder should be put to every government wheel.\"\n\nIt's not just the country's health and economic fortunes riding on hitting that stretching target, but the government's reputation too.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The twins' father says what they have achieved is a 'herculean achievement'\n\nConjoined twins who were expected to die within days when they were born are nearly four years later said to be settling in at their Cardiff school.\n\nMarieme and Ndeye Ndiaye were brought to the UK from Senegal in 2017 by their father Ibrahima for treatment at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital.\n\nThe girls, now four, are learning to stand and their father said their progress was \"a Herculean achievement\".\n\nTheir head teacher said the girls had made friends and were \"laughing a lot\".\n\nThe girls, who have separate hearts and spines but share a liver, bladder and digestive system, have conditions which put them at higher risk of complications from Covid.\n\nHowever, Mr Ndiaye said he had wanted them to start school for their development.\n\n\"When you look in the rear view mirror, it was an unachievable dream,\" he said.\n\n\"From now, everything ahead will be a bonus to me. My heart and soul is shouting out loud, 'Come on! Go on girls! Surprise me more!'.\"\n\nMr Ndiaye brought the girls to the UK through funding from a charitable foundation run by Senegal's first lady Marieme Faye Sall, before he sought asylum.\n\nIn March 2018, the family were moved by the Home Office to Cardiff as asylum seekers can be moved anywhere in the UK and they now have discretionary leave to remain.\n\nIn 2019, Great Ormond Street surgeons considered attempting separation but it was something Mr Ndiaye did not want because of the risks involved.\n\nThe girls have such complex circulatory systems medics now believe they would not survive being separated\n\nSince then, doctors have found the girls' circulatory systems to be more closely linked than previously thought and neither would survive without the other, making separation now impossible.\n\nThe girls' head teacher Helen Borley said they were learning well since starting reception in September and had made new friends.\n\nShe said: \"Children either say, 'I'm Marieme's friend' or 'I'm Ndeye's friend' - they don't say, 'I'm the twins' friend'. Children very much identify as being one person's friend or another - because the girls are very different characters.\n\n\"They are laughing a lot - which is always a good sign, isn't it? Any child that is laughing a lot is a happy child.\"\n\nMarieme receives oxygen from Ndeye's stronger heart and food via their linked stomachs\n\nFor the twins, school needs to fit around hospital visits.\n\nIn October, the girls needed surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital.\n\nDr Gillian Body, a paediatric consultant at the Children's Hospital for Wales in Cardiff, said the procedure was important, despite the risks.\n\nShe said: \"The girls have complex anatomies and that makes them prone to infections and potentially sepsis.\n\n\"One of the challenges we had was getting antibiotics into them quickly, and this tube or cannula they've had fitted, means we can get them into them more quickly with less distress to the girls.\"\n\nThe girls have been experiencing the feeling of standing, at children's hospice Ty Hafan\n\nShe said Marieme's heart was complex with lots of abnormalities that cause her problems with doing exercise and can lead to breathlessness.\n\nAt children's' hospice Ty Hafan in Sully, Vale of Glamorgan, the girls have been learning what it feels like to stand.\n\nA special frame gives them the experience of being upright, helping build strength in their legs.\n\nPhysiotherapist Sara Wade-West said it had been hard for them.\n\n\"It's a really different sensation when you're used to being sat down, to be upright can be scary,\" she said.\n\n\"To start with, particularly Ndeye wasn't very keen. We try and sneak the therapy in around the play, encouraging them to reach for toys to make them work a bit harder, but if they know it's therapy it's not so fun.\n\n\"Because of their cardiac function we can't push them too much so it's finding that balance - challenging them to get stronger but not exhausting them.\"\n\nThe twins' father Ibrahima Ndiaye said they were his \"warriors\"\n\nWatching his daughters stand is more than just a breakthrough for their father.\n\n\"They are showing that they don't only want to live, but be active and play their part in society,\" he said.\n\n\"All these achievements bring light and hopes for the future. But I know how fragile, complex and unpredictable their lives can be.\"\n\nMr Ndiaye said his hopes were \"parallel to my fears\" as the girls had \"so many times come close to the worst\".\n\n\"But the very least I can do for the girls is figure out my hopes for them,\" he said.\n\n\"The most I can do is to be beside them and live inside that hope and never allow anything to take that hope away.\n\n\"They are my warriors. They have proved they will never surrender without fighting. It is not yet over.\"", "Former Bond actress and Charlie's Angel Tanya Roberts has died in hospital in Los Angeles at the age of 65.\n\nRoberts appeared with Sir Roger Moore in his final Bond film, 1985's A View To A Kill, and had a recurring role in That '70s Show.\n\nShe also starred in the final series of Charlie's Angels on TV in 1980.\n\nHer death was prematurely announced on Monday, only for doctors to say she was still alive. However, her death was then confirmed on Tuesday.\n\nRoberts had collapsed while walking her dogs on 24 December and was admitted to Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre.\n\nHer partner Lance O'Brien mistakenly thought she had died on Sunday after visiting her in hospital. After getting a call from doctors to say she was deteriorating quickly, he went to her bedside, her eyes closed and she \"faded\", TMZ reported.\n\nDevastated, he walked out of the room and then the hospital without speaking to medical staff before informing Roberts' agent that he had \"just said goodbye to Tanya\".\n\nBut while being interviewed for US TV show Inside Edition on Monday, Mr O'Brien got a call from the hospital to say she was alive.\n\nThe moment was captured on film, as he picked up his phone and said: \"Now you're telling me she's alive? Thank the Lord.\" However, she died on Monday night.\n\nShe appeared in A View To A Kill alongside Sir Roger Moore and singer Grace Jones\n\nBorn Victoria Leigh Blum in 1955, Roberts grew up in New York before moving to Hollywood in 1977.\n\nHer big break came when she replaced Shelly Hack in Charlie's Angels, joining Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd as third 'Angel' Julie.\n\nAfter the show's cancellation, she appeared in such fantasy adventure films as The Beastmaster and Hearts and Armour.\n\nShe also played comic book heroine Sheena in a 1984 film that saw her nominated for a Golden Raspberry award for worst actress.\n\nRoberts received another Razzie nomination for her role as geologist Stacey Sutton in 1985 Bond film A View to a Kill.\n\nRoberts in the title role in Sheena: Queen of the Jungle\n\nShe admitted being \"a little cautious\" about taking the role, but said it would have been \"ridiculous\" to have turned it down.\n\nRoberts' subsequent films included Night Eyes and Inner Sanctum, erotic thrillers that did little to advance her career.\n\nShe went on to play Midge Pinciotti in more than 80 episodes of That '70s Show between 1998 and 2004.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Last updated on .From the section Man City\n\nManchester City legend Colin Bell has died, aged 74, after a short illness, the Premier League club have announced.\n\nThe former England midfielder made 501 appearances for City between 1966 and 1979, scoring 153 goals. He won 48 caps for his country.\n\n\"Few players have left such an indelible mark on City,\" said a club statement on Tuesday.\n\nIn 2004, Manchester City fans voted to name one of the stands at Etihad Stadium in Bell's honour.\n\n\"Colin Bell will always be remembered as one of Manchester City's greatest players and the very sad news today of his passing will affect everybody connected to our club,\" said City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.\n\n\"I am fortunate to be able to speak regularly to his former manager and team-mates, and it's clear to me that Colin was a player held in the highest regard by all those who had the privilege of playing alongside him or seeing him play.\n\n\"The passage of time does little to erase the memories of his genius.\"\n• None 'Bell will always be king of Man City' - tributes paid after death of club great\n\nAfter starting his career at Bury, Bell moved to Manchester City - then in the second tier - midway through the 1965-66 season in a £47,500 deal.\n\nHe helped Joe Mercer's team win promotion that season and was instrumental in the Blues winning the First Division title two years later.\n\nDuring his 13 years as a player at Maine Road, he also won the FA Cup, League Cup and Cup Winners' Cup.\n\nHowever, his career was hampered by a serious knee injury he suffered in a League Cup tie against Manchester United in November 1975, when he was 29.\n\nAfter making a comeback later that season, he was injured again against Arsenal and out for another 18 months.\n\nBell regained fitness and received an emotional ovation on his return at Maine Road on 26 December 1977.\n\nHowever, he did not have the same freedom and mobility as he had done and played only a handful more games.\n\nBell finished his career with a brief spell in the United States playing for San Jose Earthquakes.\n\nIn 2004, he was awarded an MBE for his services to football and remained a regular presence at City games in recent seasons.\n\n'De Bruyne reminds me a lot of Colin' - tributes pour in for the 'King of the Kippax'\n\nFormer City team-mate Mike Summerbee, who was part of their 'Holy Trinity' alongside Bell and Francis Lee in the 1960s and 1970s, described Bell as \"just the greatest footballer\" the club has had.\n\n\"Colin was a lovely, humble man. He was a huge star for Manchester City but you would never have known it,\" said ex-forward Summerbee, 78.\n\n\"He was quiet, unassuming and I always believe he never knew how good he actually was.\n\n\"[Current City midfielder] Kevin de Bruyne reminds me a lot of Colin in the way he plays and the way he is as a person.\"\n\nFormer England forward Lee says he thinks the knee injury curtailed Bell's career \"by a good four or five years\".\n\n\"Colin had tremendous stamina. He was a very good player technically and had the ability to score goals,\" said Lee, 76.\n\n\"He goes into the top five City players of all time - only in the last 10, 15 years has anyone else come along who can take that mantle.\"\n\nSummerbee and Lee were among a number of former and current City players to pay tribute to Bell, along with celebrity fans including former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher.\n\nBell would \"always have a smile\" and \"meet and greet everyone\" he knew, said former City midfielder Michael Brown.\n\n\"He's done lots of charity work and always tried to help people,\" added Brown, who first met Bell as a youngster having come up through City's academy.\n\n\"It's a huge loss. To have done so much and be so low key was admirable.\"\n\nEx-City defender Micah Richards said Bell was \"one of the nicest men ever\", while their former full-back Pablo Zabaleta added he was \"absolutely devastated\" by the news.\n\nFormer England striker Gary Lineker said Bell was one of his favourite players when he was growing up.\n\n\"Terrific box to box midfielder. A real gem for Manchester City and England,\" added the Match of the Day host.\n\nThe Times' chief football writer Henry Winter said Bell \"oozed class, skill and glamour\" as he was \"flowing across rutted pitches, taking people on, creating and scoring\".", "The former president posts that he has been told to report to a grand jury, \"which almost always means an Arrest\".", "YouTube has reinstated TalkRadio's channel on its platform hours after saying it had been \"terminated\" for breaking the tech firm's rules.\n\nIt said the broadcaster had posted material that contradicted expert advice about the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nBut it explained its U-turn saying it sometimes made exceptions to guidelines that state repeat offenders face a permanent ban.\n\nTalkRadio said it had yet to be given a full explanation for the affair.\n\nThe decision to ban TalkRadio had appalled digital rights campaigners, with one group - Big Brother Watch - claiming it was evidence that \"big tech censorship is spiralling out of control\".\n\nThe Google-owned service has issued a brief statement explaining its actions.\n\n\"TalkRadio's YouTube channel was briefly suspended, but upon further review, has now been reinstated,\" it said.\n\n\"We quickly remove flagged content that violate our community guidelines, including Covid-19 content that explicitly contradict expert consensus from local health authorities or the World Health Organization. We make exceptions for material posted with an educational, documentary, scientific or artistic purpose, as was deemed in this case.\"\n\nYouTube has not published details of the offending posts.\n\nBut independent fact-checkers have repeatedly challenged some of the claims made by interviewees featured by the London-based radio station.\n\nYouTube operates a \"three strikes\" policy, whereby channels that break its community guidelines three times within a 90-day period can be permanently banned, but other infractions lead to temporary restrictions.\n\nProhibited content includes \"medically unsubstantiated claims\" relating to Covid-19, and videos that contradict expert consensus from local health authorities such as the NHS.\n\n\"YouTube is making decisions about which opinions the public are allowed to hear, even when they are sourced to responsible and regulated new providers,\" TalkRadio said in a statement this evening.\n\n\"This sets a dangerous precedent and is censorship of free speech and legitimate national debate.\"\n\nThe broadcaster tweeted the statement minutes after YouTube's change of heart. It did not appear to be aware that its channel had been reinstated at the time, but has since acknowledged the move.\n\nTalkRadio has about 424,000 listeners, according to the latest figures from market research provider Rajar.\n\nIt uses YouTube as a means to livestream shows from its studios and to provide an archive of past broadcasts.\n\nIts channel on the platform has 242,000 subscribers.\n\nYouTube's action had meant that TalkRadio's website had featured articles featuring broken embedded clips for most of the day, and that users who had shared its clips would have been unable to view them.\n\nThe US firm has previously imposed a permanent ban against conspiracy theorist David Icke, and a one-week video suspension of right-wing outlet One America News Network's ability to publish new clips - in both cases for breaches of its Covid rules.\n\nIt's pretty clear something has gone wrong at YouTube in the last 24 hours.\n\nIt appeared as though TalkRadio had been banned for good on YouTube - or \"terminated\" as the company put it.\n\nYouTube is now saying it was a short suspension, which certainly seems like a backtrack.\n\nEven now, it's not obvious what the offending material was that caused this action. The whole process reinforces the idea that YouTube's moderation policies - where it draws the line between freedom of expression and clamping down on misinformation - can be messy and inconsistent.\n\nAnd when YouTube takes such an action without giving full details, it rains controversy down on its own head.\n\nThis plays to a broader movement by YouTube and other social media companies to take a harder line on disinformation.\n\nJoe Biden is about to become US President - and he wants social media companies to do more to remove fake news.\n\nBut as they are increasingly finding out, refereeing their own platforms can be hugely difficult, and this highlights the need for greater transparency about moderation decisions.", "Last updated on .From the section Celtic\n\nScotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says Celtic have questions to answer about their trip to Dubai.\n\nMs Sturgeon says possible breaches of social distancing rules while in the Middle East \"should be looked into\".\n\nHowever, Celtic insist the training camp was approved by the Scottish government, while the Scottish FA have no plans to investigate the trip.\n\n\"For me, the question for Celtic is what is the purpose of them being there,\" Ms Sturgeon said.\n\n\"I've seen comments from the club that it's more for R&R than training.\n\n\"I have also seen some photographs - and I don't know the full circumstances - that would raise a question in my mind about whether all the rules elite players have to follow in their bubble around social distancing are being complied with.\"\n\nPictures have emerged of members of the Celtic party in the UAE not wearing face masks and potentially breaching the social distancing rules that those in Scottish football must adhere to.\n\nIt remains unclear if the Scottish FA will investigate that matter.\n\nCeltic travelled to the United Arab Emirates on Saturday just hours after their 1-0 defeat by Rangers.\n\nTravellers returning from the UAE are exempt from self-isolation protocols in Scotland, with elite athletes in Scotland permitted to travel abroad to compete.\n\n\"Elite sport has been in a privileged position and as long as that is the case it's really important they don't abuse it,\" said Ms Sturgeon at her daily coronavirus briefing on Tuesday.\n\n\"I saw their [Celtic's] statement and have not spent a lot of time looking into it, but as I understand it the government gave advice to the Scottish FA about the rules around training camps in November.\n\n\"The world has changed quite a bit since then but it's not our role to sign off what a club does around these training camps.\n\n\"The rules may have to change, but they were that elite sportspeople and teams can go overseas if it is important in the context of training and competitions.\"\n\nMainland Scotland has been in Tier 4 - the highest level of restrictions - since 26 December, and Ms Sturgeon addressed the nation on Monday ordering people to stay at home where possible.\n\nDeputy first minister John Swinney has accused Celtic of not setting \"a particularly great example\".\n\n\"I don't think it's a good idea,\" he told BBC Radio Scotland on Monday.\n\n\"When we are asking members of the public to take on very, very significant restrictions on the way in which they live their lives, I think we have all got to demonstrate leadership on this particular question.\"\n\nWhen approached for comment on Monday, a Celtic spokesman told BBC Scotland: \"The training camp was arranged a number of months ago and approved by all relevant footballing authorities and the Scottish government through the Joint Response Group on 12 November.\n\n\"The team travelled prior to any new lockdown being in place, to a location exempt from travel restrictions. The camp, the same one as we have undertaken for a number of years, has been fully risk assessed.\n\n\"If the club had not received Scottish government approval, then we would not have travelled.\"\n\nIn November, Celtic requested their fixture with Hibernian, originally scheduled for this weekend, be moved to Monday, 11 January to accommodate the trip.\n\nThe SPFL granted the change, despite objections from the Easter Road side.", "Stationery chain Paperchase is on the brink of administration after most of its stores were forced to close over the Christmas period.\n\nThe firm has filed a notice to appoint administrators, a move that will give it breathing space from its creditors while it works out a rescue plan.\n\nThe company has 127 stores and about 1,500 employees.\n\nThe second lockdown in November came at a crucial period for the firm, which makes a high proportion of sales then.\n\nJust under half its sales, 40%, come from trade in November and December.\n\nPaperchase said: \"The cumulative effects of lockdown one, lockdown two - at the start of the Christmas shopping period - and now the current restrictions have put unbearable strain on retail businesses across the country.\"\n\nThe company went through an insolvency process, known as a Company Voluntary Arrangement or CVA, almost two years ago to cut costs.\n\nThe chain now has 10 working days to find a solution.\n\nPaperchase said its strong online trading had not made it \"immune\" from the impact of shop closures across the country.\n\n\"Out of lockdown we've traded well, but as the country faces further restrictions for some months to come, we have to find a sustainable future for Paperchase,\" it added.\n\n\"We are working hard to find that solution and this [notice of administration] is a necessary part of this work. This is not the situation we wanted to be in.\n\nThe chain is the latest of a string of high-profile retailers to hit trouble in the past year.\n\nThe sector was already battling with the shift to online sales, coupled with rising costs, including rents and higher minimum wages.\n\nCoronavirus restrictions which shut non-essential shops piled on the pressure.\n\nOthers that have run into trouble recently include Debenhams, which last month said it would cease trading putting 12,000 jobs at risk. Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop and Dorothy Perkins, has also gone into administration, putting a further 13,000 jobs at risk.\n\nMeanwhile, Edinburgh Woollen Mills' brands Peacocks and Jaeger also fell into administration in November, putting 21,000 jobs at risk.\n\nAnd earlier last year, Oasis and Warehouse fell into administration in mid-April after failing to find buyers, and online fashion group Boohoo said in June it was buying the brands but closing all stores.", "Doctors' leaders have called for urgent improvements in personal protective equipment for health workers.\n\nThe British Medical Association is appealing for a higher grade of face mask to guard against coronavirus infection.\n\nIt says there is 'growing evidence' that the virus is being spread through the air by aerosols.\n\nThese are tiny virus particles that can build up in stuffy rooms and they have been linked to outbreaks of Covid-19.\n\nThis follows an open letter from more than 1,500 health professionals for staff on general wards to be given the type of high-quality masks usually only worn in intensive care units.\n\nPublic Health England (PHE) has issued guidance on what PPE staff in different settings require. It was last updated in October 2020.\n\nEarly in the pandemic, it was widely believed that to catch the disease you had to either be close to an infected person and hit by droplets from their coughs or sneezes or touch a surface they had contaminated.\n\nBut research during the course of last year highlighted how it is also possible for the virus to be carried in what are called aerosols, drifting and accumulating in the air.\n\nMost infections are thought to have occurred indoors in badly ventilated rooms, and many studies have shown that the 'airborne route' can be an important factor.\n\nAcross the UK, the guidance for hospital staff is to wear surgical masks in most areas.\n\nMore sophisticated masks - a type known as FFP3 that includes an air filter - are only required in intensive care or when certain procedures are carried out that are known to generate aerosols.\n\nIn their letter, the consultants, doctors and nurses say healthcare workers are three to four times more likely to become infected than the general population.\n\nBut they point out that staff in intensive care units, who have the best level of protection, have about half the risk of catching the virus than colleagues on general wards.\n\nThe letter states: \"It is now essential that healthcare workers have their PPE upgraded to protect against airborne transmission\".\n\nBarry McAree, a consultant surgeon in Northern Ireland, is one of many healthcare workers to be ill with Covid.\n\nHe is self-isolating at home right after his testing positive for the second time.\n\nA signatory to the letter, he says his hospital in Antrim followed the guidance about which type of masks should be worn in which areas, but he became infected nonetheless. It is not clear how and when he caught it.\n\n\"There's so much evidence that we are talking about an airborne infection that it has to be said that it is not appropriate just to wear FFP3 in environments when aerosol generating procedures take place.\"\n\nHe believes that with such high levels of the virus in the community and in hospitals, staff should be wearing the higher-grade masks whenever they're close to patients.\n\nSurgical masks can be bought online for about 10p each, while the FFP3 masks are far more expensive about £5.00.\n\nDr Barry Jones, a retired gastroenterologist and leading expert on aerosols, says that's nothing compared to the cost of a patient with Covid,\n\nHe points to data showing that roughly a fifth of people needing hospital treatment for Covid may have acquired the infection in hospital in the first place.\n\n\"We should do everything we can to reduce that possibility - it's the air we share that's killing us.\"\n\nA few hospitals have decided to break with official guidance.\n\nIt's understood that hospitals in Cambridge, Plymouth and Exeter have decided to equip staff with FFP3 masks if they face patients diagnosed with Covid or suspected of having it.\n\nOne consultant, who did not want to be named, said: \"When you realise patients are more infectious at an earlier stage of disease and are presenting at general wards with poorer ventilation than intensive care units and staff are wearing a poorer quality of PPE, you really want those in a position of leadership to listen and to act.\"\n\nRCN General Secretary Dame Donna Kinnair, said: \"Without delay, they must state whether existing PPE guidance is adequate for the new variant.\n\n\"While more research is carried out, we ask for the precautionary principle to be applied and staff to be given a higher level of PPE if working with suspected or confirmed cases.\"\n\nPublic Health England said this was a matter for NHS England to comment on.\n\nA Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: \"The safety of NHS and social care staff has always been our top priority and we continue to work tirelessly to deliver PPE that protects those on the frontline.\n\n\"UK guidance on the safest levels of PPE is written by experts and agreed by all four chief medical officers. Our guidance is kept under constant review based on the latest evidence and data.\n\n\"Emerging evidence and data, including on variant strains, will be continually monitored and reviewed, and the guidance updated accordingly if needed.\"", "Adamo Canto had worked as a catering assistant at the palace's Royal Mews since 2015\n\nA Buckingham Palace catering assistant who stole medals and photographs from the Queen's residence has been jailed.\n\nAdamo Canto, 37, stole items including signed photos of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and a photo album of US President Donald Trump's UK visit.\n\nPolice said some of the goods, worth between £10,000 and £100,000, had been listed for sale on eBay.\n\nCanto, from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, was jailed for eight months after he admitted stealing the items.\n\nSouthwark Crown Court heard police recovered a \"significant quantity\" of stolen items when they searched his quarters at the palace's Royal Mews, where he had worked as a catering assistant since 2015.\n\nCanto stole an album of photos from US President Donald Trump's visit to the UK\n\nA total of 37 items were offered for sale \"well under\" their true value, with Canto making £7,741.\n\nOne item was a photo album of US President Donald Trump's visit to the UK, worth £1,500.\n\nCanto also took official signed photographs of the Duke of Sussex and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.\n\nSome 77 items were taken from the palace shop, while others were stolen from staff lockers, the Queen's Gallery shop and the Duke of York's storeroom.\n\nCanto also admitted stealing a Companion of Bath medal belonging to the Master of the Household, which was sold online for £350, and a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order medal from the locker of former British Army officer Maj Gen Richard Sykes.\n\nCanto pleaded guilty to three counts of theft by an employee at a hearing in November and was jailed on Monday.\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Vocational exams, including BTEcs, are to go ahead this month in England - despite calls for them to be cancelled alongside GCSEs and A-levels.\n\n\"Schools and colleges can continue with the vocational and technical exams that are due to take place in January, where they judge it right to do so,\" said a Department for Education spokeswoman.\n\nFurther education college leaders had complained this was unfair to students.\n\nThey said students would face \"stress\" from taking exams in the lockdown.\n\nThe Association of Colleges warned the decision, giving schools and colleges the option on whether to carry on with BTecs, would create more confusion.\n\nChief executive David Hughes said some colleges would cancel exams and others would continue - but without any clarity about what would happen to \"students in colleges which do cancel for safety reasons\".\n\n\"A national decision would have allowed for more fairness,\" said Mr Hughes.\n\nThe announcement from the Department for Education has left it open for schools and colleges to decide whether to go ahead with vocational and technical exams.\n\n\"Schools and colleges have already implemented extensive protective measures to make them as safe as possible,\" said the DFE's spokeswoman.\n\nThe Department for Education said it recognised \"this is a difficult time\" but wanted to allow students who had prepared for exams and assessments to continue, including those who needed to take hands-on practical tests for qualifications for jobs.\n\nA joint statement from the mayors of Manchester and Liverpool said it was wrong to go ahead with these vocational exams when other academic exams had been cancelled.\n\n\"It is unfair to ask these students to go into colleges when everyone else is being told to stay at home.\n\n\"This will cause unnecessary anxiety and concern just when they need to be able to focus,\" said the statement from Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram.\n\nThe mayors highlighted that students taking BTecs were more likely to be from \"working-class backgrounds and ethnic minority communities\" and they should not be treated any less well than those following an \"academic route\" in exams.\n\nHow will you be affected by the latest developments? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Khairi Saadallah admitted three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder\n\nA man who stabbed three people to death in a Reading park believed he was carrying out \"an act of religious jihad\", a court has heard.\n\nKhairi Saadallah, 26, stabbed to death James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49, and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, 39, during the attack in Forbury Gardens in June.\n\nAs part of his sentencing, a hearing will decide if he was motivated by a religious or ideological cause.\n\nThe prosecution claim the stabbing spree was a terror attack.\n\nSaadallah has admitted three counts of murder and attempted murder, but denies he was motivated by an ideology.\n\nProsecutor Alison Morgan QC told the court he \"executed\" his victims and intended to \"kill as many people as he could\" in the name of violent jihad.\n\nShe said: \"In less than a minute, shouting Allahu Akhbar the defendant carried out a lethal attack with a knife, killing all three men before they had a chance to respond and try to defend themselves.\n\n\"Within the same minute, the defendant went on to attack others nearby, stabbing three more people, Stephen Young, Patrick Edwards and Nishit Nisudan, causing them significant injuries.\"\n\nThe court was shown CCTV footage of Saadallah in Morrisons buying the knife he used in the attack\n\nSaadallah was captured on CCTV leaving his flat on the day of the attack\n\nStating the prosecution's case she said the attack was \"carefully planned and executed\" by the defendant with \"determination and precision\".\n\nShe added: \"The defendant believed that in carrying out this attack he was acting in pursuit of his extreme ideology, an ideology he appears to have held for some time.\n\n\"He believed that in killing as many people as possible that day he was performing an act of religious jihad.\"\n\nAfter the attack Sadallah fled but was chased down by police, and later admitted the attacks in his cell, the court heard.\n\nIn interviews with police he \"howled like a dog\" and claimed to have magic powers, which the prosecution said was a \"disingenuous\" attempt to suggest he had a mental disorder.\n\n\"After a careful period of assessment and treatment at Belmarsh prison, it is clear that he does not have a major mental illness\", a report by a psychiatrist read out in court said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A friend of the victims, Michael Main, said: \"They were always happy\"\n\nSaadallah arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker in 2012, having fled the civil war in his home country of Libya in North Africa.\n\nThe court heard the defendant, who had been refused asylum, had been involved with militias as part of the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.\n\nBetween 2013 and 2020 he was repeatedly arrested and convicted of various offences in the UK.\n\nWhile in HMP Bullingdon, Saadallah was observed to be keen to interact with radical preacher Omar Brooks - associated with banned terror group Al-Muhajiroun - who was also at the jail at the time, the court heard. He was released from the prison in June, days before the attack.\n\nSaadallah had been due to be deported, but was told by the government circumstances in Libya at the time were a \"legal barrier\".\n\nThe court was told he had also searched on the internet \"how to disappear with magic\" and accessed a website with the flag associated with Islamic State.\n\nA probation officer who had contact with Saadallah flagged his concerns about his mental health, but a psychiatrist has since concluded the attack on June 20 was \"unrelated to the effects of either mental disorder or substance misuse\".\n\nSaadallah, of Basingstoke Road in Reading, launched his attack as people enjoyed a summer Saturday evening in Forbury Gardens on 20 June.\n\nEyewitnesses said he walked along a footpath when he suddenly ran towards a group of men sitting on the grass.\n\nHistory teacher Mr Furlong and Mr Ritchie-Bennett, a US citizen, were both stabbed once in the neck, while scientist Mr Wails was stabbed in the back.\n\nAll three were pronounced dead at the scene.\n\nThree others - their friend Stephen Young, as well as Patrick Edwards and Nishit Nisudan, who were sitting in a nearby group - were also injured by Saadallah.\n\nThe sentencing before Mr Justice Sweeney is expected to conclude on January 11.\n\nFloral tributes were left near the entrance to the park where the men were killed\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Zara Holland appeared on the second series of Love Island\n\nLove Island star Zara Holland is to be prosecuted for allegedly breaking Covid rules on holiday in Barbados.\n\nIsland police say the former Miss Great Britain is expected to appear in court on Wednesday, accused of \"breaching quarantine\".\n\nStation Sergeant Michael Blackman told Newsbeat she was \"intercepted\" at the airport and later presented herself at a police station.\n\nIt's not clear whether she will appear in court in person or by video link.\n\nAn apology from the 25-year-old for what she described as \"a massive mix-up and misunderstanding\" was published by the Barbados Today website.\n\nShe told the publication: \"I have been a guest of this lovely island in excess of 20 years and would never do anything to jeopardise an entire nation that I have nothing but love and respect for and which has treated me as a family.\"\n\nListen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nEveryone in England must stay at home except for permitted reasons during a new coronavirus lockdown expected to last until mid-February, the PM says.\n\nAll schools and colleges will close to most pupils and switch to remote learning from Tuesday.\n\nBoris Johnson warned the coming weeks would be the \"hardest yet\" amid surging cases and patient numbers.\n\nHe said those in the top four priority groups would be offered a first vaccine dose by the middle of next month.\n\nAll care home residents and their carers, everyone aged 70 and over, all frontline health and social care workers, and the clinically extremely vulnerable will be offered one dose of a vaccine by mid-February.\n\nSchools in Northern Ireland will have an \"extended period of remote learning\", the Stormont Executive said.\n\nSpeaking from Downing Street, Mr Johnson told the public to follow the new lockdown rules immediately, before they become law in the early hours of Wednesday.\n\nAll the new measures in England will then last until at least the middle of February, he said, as a new more infectious variant of the virus spreads across the UK.\n\nThe PM added that he believed the country was entering \"the last phase of the struggle\".\n\nHospitals were under \"more pressure from Covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic\", he said.\n\nAnd he reiterated the slogan used earlier in the pandemic, urging people to immediately \"stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives\".\n\nOn Monday, the UK recorded more than 50,000 new confirmed Covid cases for the seventh day in a row.\n\nA further 58,784 cases and an additional 407 deaths within 28 days of a positive test result were reported, though deaths in Scotland were not recorded.\n\nAs of 08:00 GMT, there were 26,626 Covid-19 patients in hospital in England, according to the latest figures.\n\nThis is a week-on-week increase of 30%, and a new record high.\n\nThose who are clinically extremely vulnerable will be contacted by letter and should now shield once more, Mr Johnson said.\n\nSupport and childcare bubbles will continue under the new measures - and people can meet one person from another household for outdoor exercise.\n\nCommunal worship and life events like funerals and weddings can continue, subject to limits on attendance.\n\nWhile Mr Johnson said end-of-year exams would not take place as normal in the summer, he said alternative arrangements would be announced separately.\n\nThe government has published a 22-page document outlining the new rules in detail.\n\nThe House of Commons has been recalled to allow MPs to vote on the new restrictions on Wednesday.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his MPs would \"support the package of measures\", saying \"we've all got to pull together now to make this work\".\n\nOnce again it is the threat to the NHS that has forced the hand of ministers.\n\nIn England there has been a 50% rise in the number of patients in hospital with Covid since Christmas day.\n\nTo put that into context, it equates to 18 hospitals being filled.\n\nCurrently around three out of 10 beds are occupied by patients with the disease.\n\nIn some hospitals it is more than six in 10.\n\nBut what is worrying ministers and NHS leaders is that the number is just going to increase.\n\nIn the spring it took nearly three weeks after lockdown for hospital cases to peak.\n\nThe last six days have seen in excess of 50,000 new infections confirmed each day across the UK - a number of these infections are next week's hospital admissions.\n\nIt is why the UK's chief medical officers were warning there was a \"material risk\" of some hospitals being overwhelmed if something did not change.\n\nMr Johnson spoke after UK chief medical officers recommended the Covid threat level be increased to five - its highest level.\n\nLevel five means the NHS may soon be unable to handle a further sustained rise in cases, the medical officers said in a joint statement.\n\nNHS Providers, which represents health service trusts, said hospitals were at a \"critical point\" and that \"immediate and decisive action\" was needed.\n\nAnnouncing tougher measures in Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: \"It is no exaggeration to say that I am more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year.\"\n\nFor pupils who returned for their first day of the new term at primary school on Monday, it's turned out to be an extremely short-lived visit.\n\nBoris Johnson's announcement will see primary, secondary and further education colleges closed for at least the next six weeks, except for vulnerable and key workers' children.\n\nIt's a much bigger shift in policy than had been anticipated, even a few days ago.\n\nEven the return date will depend on the progress in tackling the virus.\n\n\"I hope we can steadily move out of lockdown, reopening schools after the February half term,\" said the prime minister.\n\nKeeping schools open was the government's most definite of red lines, a few weeks ago they were threatening councils that wanted to close them - but it's now been overtaken by the spiking lines on the Covid infection charts.\n\nEven after the chaos of last year's replacement grades, GCSEs and A-levels are being cancelled again - with a replacement system still to be decided. Vocational exams are to continue.\n\nFor parents dreading home schooling, there are plans for it to be better supported this time - with more computer devices available and suggestions that Ofsted inspectors will check what schools are offering.\n\nBut there's no escaping that this will feel like another sudden and chaotic change of direction for schools and parents.\n\nMr Johnson's pledge on vaccinations comes after an 82-year-old retired maintenance manager became the first person in the UK to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 jab\n\nSome 13.9 million people are among the four priority groups who will receive a vaccine dose by about 15 February, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC's Laura Foster explains the order in which the Covid vaccine will be given\n\nHow will you be affected by the latest developments? What questions do you have? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill met throughout Monday\n\nThere will be an extended period of remote learning for schools in Northern Ireland, the executive has said.\n\nMinisters met on Monday night as other parts of the UK tightened their coronavirus restrictions.\n\nThe Stormont executive also plans to give its stay at home guidance legal force, with new restrictions on travel.\n\nDeputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said details would be formalised on Tuesday.\n\nThe health and education ministers will bring separate papers on the issues to the executive at the meeting, she added.\n\nNorthern Ireland's Education Minister Peter Weir had previously announced a staggered return to school for pupils during the month of January.\n\nThe first transfer test, used by many grammar schools to select pupils, is due to take place on Saturday but there have been calls from some teaching unions and political parties for the test to be cancelled this year, in light of the uncertainty with the pandemic.\n\nIn England, all schools and colleges will close to most pupils and switch to remote learning until the middle of February, and end-of-year exams will not take place this summer as normal.\n\nRecommendations on exams in Northern Ireland are also expected to be brought forward by the executive on Tuesday.\n\nIt is understood ministers will update the assembly on Wednesday about their decisions.\n\nFirst Minister Arlene Foster said the new restrictions were unfortunate, but necessary.\n\nShe said she believed the stay-at-home message will be in place \"for the rest of January, probably into February\".\n\n\"We will of course review it, as we're legally bound to do every couple of weeks.\"\n\nShe added that ministers would \"much prefer\" for face-to-face education to continue, but said they had to \"take into account the very serious situation that we find ourselves in tonight.\"\n\nBoth organisations which organise transfer tests will be making announcements on Tuesday, she said.\n\n\"We'll wait to hear what they have to say. They do of course have to abide by public health advice, but they are private organisations and they will make their own announcements.\"\n\nThe Irish government is considering a proposal to close schools for the rest of January.\n\nOn Monday, the Department of Health reported that a further 1,801 people had tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours.\n\nThere have also been 12 more Covid-19 related deaths.\n\nThese latest figures from the Department of Health bring the total number of deaths to 1,366, while 79,873 people have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic started.\n\nMore than 12,000 cases have been reported in the past seven days, more than double the week before.\n\nThe seven-day rate per 100,000 people is now 660 positive cases, compared to 200 per 100,000 two weeks ago.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland on Monday, an additional 6,110 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were announced, with six further deaths linked to the virus.\n\nScotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has already announced a fresh lockdown there from midnight, with schools closed until February.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme, Dr Michael McBride said Scotland's measures were \"prudent and sensible\".\n\nMeanwhile, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine rollout has begun in Northern Ireland.\n\nUp to 11,000 people aged over 80 across Northern Ireland are set to receive the this week, with some of the first doses delivered at a GP surgery on the Falls Road in West Belfast on Monday afternoon.\n\nUp to 11,000 people aged over 80 across Northern Ireland are set to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca\n\nThe SDLP has called for the assembly to be recalled on Tuesday to discuss the rolling out of the vaccine.\n\nIt can be recalled if at least 30 MLAs sign a petition.\n\nOn Monday, Justice Minister Naomi Long welcomed the opening of Northern Ireland's first Nightingale venue, which will be used for courts and tribunals business.\n\nThe facility was approved by a meeting of the executive on 17 December, and will sit in the International Convention Centre in Belfast (ICC).\n\nActivity at the centre will be phased in, in line with Covid-19 regulations.\n\nIn other coronavirus-related developments on Monday:", "The 90,000 sq ft store is a familiar sight for commuters coming out of Oxford Circus Tube station\n\nThe building that houses Topshop's Oxford Street store is up for sale.\n\nThe High Street chain's owner Arcadia went into administration in November, putting 13,000 jobs at risk.\n\nNews of the sale of the three-storey building has prompted an outpouring of emotion on social media, with shoppers recounting how important the flagship store is to them.\n\nThe store, which boasted a DJ booth, nail bar and food stalls, was a retail sensation when it opened in 1994.\n\nHuge crowds gathered at the store for the launch of Kate Moss's Topshop collection in 2014\n\nArcadia - which owns Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins - entered administration on 30 November\n\nThe sale of 214 Oxford Street, managed by agents Savills and Eastdil, follows the failure of Sir Philip Green's retail empire to secure funding to pay its debts after sales slumped during the pandemic.\n\nThe Oxford Street building also houses Nike and Vans stores.\n\nArcadia said that although it was in administration, and so all its assets are to be sold, that did not mean the shops in the building would have to close.\n\nPeople have been sharing their feelings about the London landmark, which was often used as a meeting point for friends and was a must-visit for fashion-loving tourists.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Carolin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by shon faye. This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Kelly Taylor This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nArcadia, which also owns Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins and Burton, had already closed other Topshop stores across the UK, citing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nIts brands were struggling before the pandemic, partly due to competition from online-only fashion retailers such as Asos, Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing.\n\nBeyonce launched her Ivy Park collection at Topshop in 2016\n\nThe flagship store is currently closed, in line with the rules about non-essential retailers\n\nThe Oxford Street store pictured during Pride in 2018", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sturgeon: Vaccination programme needs to win the race\n\nTough new lockdown restrictions forbidding people from leaving home for non-essential reasons have come into force across the Scottish mainland.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the clampdown was necessary to contain the spread of the new strain of Covid-19.\n\nPeople are now required by law to stay in their homes and to work from home.\n\nOutdoor gatherings have been restricted to one-on-one meet-ups, and schools will close to most pupils until February at the earliest.\n\nMs Sturgeon told MSPs on Monday that Scotland faced an \"extremely serious\" situation, with the new, faster-spreading variant of coronavirus \"a massive blow\".\n\nSchools will remain closed to most pupils until at least the beginning of February.\n\nThe first minister has said she cannot guarantee when children will be allowed back in classrooms or when the latest lockdown restrictions will be lifted.\n\nShe also told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme on Tuesday that she hoped 2.7 million people in Scotland would have received one dose of the Covid vaccine by the middle of May.\n\nShe said: \"I can't be definitive right now about when we will lift these restrictions.\n\n\"I have described this as a race - we've got the vaccine in one lane and we are trying to accelerate that.\n\n\"We've got the virus which has learned to run faster in the other lane and we've got to slow it down.\n\n\"Lockdown is about pushing rates of the virus back, and if we manage to do that then hopefully we will be able to start lifting restrictions while the vaccination programme is ongoing.\"\n\nA government document revealed there were now more than 90 patients in intensive care units, with new modelling suggesting that figure could more than double by early February.\n\nThe modelling sets out different scenarios with the most pessimistic predicting hospitals admissions could soar to more than 8,000 with over 700 patients requiring intensive care.\n\nThe document also revealed that Inverclyde - which a few weeks ago had relatively low levels of Covid - now has the highest case rate, almost 550 per 100,000 - while Dumfries and Galloway has seen its rate increase to 475 per 100,000.\n\nDundee City, East Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and the Scottish Borders all now have case rates exceeding 300 per 100,000.\n\nOnly limited data was released by the government in recent days but a full update on deaths, hospital admissions and local infection rates has now been issued.\n\nCases of Covid have risen sharply in recent days\n\nThe new restrictions came into force at midnight and are, in effect, an enhancement to the level four curbs already in place across the mainland and Skye.\n\nThey will run until at least the end of January and could yet be extended both in scope and duration.\n\nScotland's island communities, with the exception of Skye, are to remain in level three for now, although Ms Sturgeon warned this would also remain under review.\n\nNew regulations mean Scots are prohibited from leaving their homes for anything other than \"essential\" purposes - although the law provides a lengthy list of examples of \"reasonable excuses\".\n\nThese include shopping for food or medical supplies, providing or accessing childcare, exercise, and participation in extended households.\n\nAnyone who can do their job from home must do so, and people in the \"shielding\" category have been advised not to go out to work at all.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon announces stay at home rules in new lockdown\n\nNew restrictions have been placed on outdoor gatherings in level four areas, with only two people from separate households now permitted to meet up.\n\nThese restrictions do not include children under the age of 12, who are still allowed to gather to play, but everyone else must abide by them or face a fixed penalty notice.\n\nTravel restrictions remain in place between local authority areas and in and out of Scotland, and people have been urged to stay as close to home as possible when going out for exercise.\n\nSchools will now operate on a remote-learning basis for the majority of pupils when the new term starts on 11 January, with only the children of key workers and vulnerable children to receive face-to-face teaching.\n\nThis is to run until at least 1 February, with a review on 18 January - with Ms Sturgeon saying her \"fundamental priority\" was still to get children back in school full time as quickly as possible.\n\nThe new measures are a bid to control the spread of the new variant of Covid, which is now thought to be responsible for nearly half of all new cases of the virus in Scotland.\n\nOfficials believe Scotland is roughly four weeks behind London - where health services are coming under increasing pressure - and warn that hospitals could hit capacity within the month without major new curbs.\n\nBetween 23 and 30 December, the average number of cases per 100,000 people in Scotland increased by 65%, from 136 to 225.", "\"It could be something as simple as: 'I don't like what you have got on' - that would end in strangulation\"\n\nA fresh move is under way to make non-fatal strangulation a specific criminal offence in England and Wales, after the House of Lords debated the Domestic Abuse Bill.\n\nThe government has said it has no plans to change the law, arguing that non-fatal strangulation is already covered by existing legislation.\n\nHowever, campaigners say abusers who use non-fatal strangulation are telling their victims: \"I am controlling you and I can kill you\" - but too often are charged only with common assault.\n\nThis is what happened in Jenny's case. Her abusive partner used non-fatal strangulation as a means of control throughout the five years they were together.\n\n\"It was like his favourite thing to do,\" says Jenny, who asked the BBC not to use her real name.\n\n\"That sounds really awful and trivial but that is how it becomes as an abuse victim. You learn to accept that is part of your life. It was like something I had to manage.\"\n\n\"We would wake up in the morning and he would be in one of those moods, and I would see it in his eyes and I would think today's the day I'm going to get it.\n\n\"It could be something as simple as: 'I don't like what you have got on' - that would end in strangulation.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Domestic abuse victim - 'He threw me against the wall and strangled me'\n\nEventually one night she did call the police during an attack.\n\n\"He chased me round the house and every time he caught me he would pin me to the floor and strangle me until I had marks.\n\n\"I had burst blood vessels. I was streaming with tears. I just kept thinking: 'This is how I am going to die.'\n\n\"The doors were locked. He'd smashed my phone. I managed to get to the window and shout and one of the neighbours called the police.\"\n\nHowever, she was dismayed by the police response. \"I thought it was quite lax. They didn't take the strangulation as seriously as they should have.\"\n\nHer partner was charged with common assault. He pleaded guilty and was given a three-month sentence, suspended for 18 months.\n\n\"Strangulation needs to be a specific offence. I think the weak police response contributed to keeping me in the relationship,\" she says.\n\nJenny believed her partner would eventually kill her.\n\n\"I just kept looking in the mirror and thinking: you need to leave and you're the only person who can do it.\n\n\"So one day while he was asleep, I picked up whatever I could carry and I ran and got on a train.\"\n\nBaroness Newlove is bringing forward an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill in the House of Lords\n\nPoliticians and campaigners tried and failed to have a new offence of non-fatal strangulation introduced in the Domestic Abuse Bill when it was going through the House of Commons.\n\nDuring Tuesday's debate on the bill in the Lords, the Conservative peer and former victims' commissioner, Baroness Newlove, said she intended to table an amendment to the bill when it reached the committee stage.\n\nShe said non-fatal strangulation was currently not being picked up adequately by the police, as it often left no physical marks on the victim.\n\nShe described it as a terrifying crime, with many victims testifying they felt as though their heads were going to explode and they were about to die.\n\nPeers from other parties also spoke in support of a new offence.\n\nNogah Offer, a lawyer with the Centre for Women's Justice, which has been at the forefront of the campaign for a new offence, says: \"We believe this is a real opportunity to make a difference.\"\n\nCommon assault is a summary offence that can be charged by the police.\n\nBut when it involves domestic abuse, it should be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service, its guidance says.\n\nIn a statement, the Ministry of Justice said: \"Non-fatal strangulation is a serious crime which is already covered by existing laws such as common assault and attempted murder.\"\n\nA spokesperson said the government would keep this area of the law under review, but said a specific offence of attempting to choke, strangle or suffocate a person is included in the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and, according to the 2015 Serious Crime Act, attempted strangulation can fall under the offence of coercive or controlling behaviour.\n\nDr Catherine White: \"Ultimately it can lead to death\"\n\nDr Catherine White, clinical director of St. Mary's Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Manchester, says: \"Strangulation often ends up being treated the same as a slap or a punch.\n\n\"It's a very different crime. Often there is no external injury to the neck, which is why it's a very powerful tool for the perpetrator.\n\n\"It can cause confusion but ultimately it can lead to death.\"\n\nA research project led by Dr White describes non-fatal strangulation as a \"gendered crime, with nearly all the patients female and the alleged perpetrators male\".\n\nAnd figures from the Femicide Census, which looked at the cases of women killed by men in the UK, found that in 2018, 29% died through strangulation.\n\nCampaigners point to New Zealand and some parts of the United States and Australia, where non-fatal strangulation has become a specific offence.\n\nMeanwhile, after help from a women's centre and counselling, Jenny now feels stronger and happier.\n\nDespite the pandemic, she says, having finally escaped her abuser: \"2020 was one of the best years of my life.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Body Coach says he will be running PE lessons online for children\n\nJoe Wicks is restarting his online PE lessons from next week, to help families keep fit during lockdown.\n\nThe personal trainer told the BBC he wanted to \"give children structure\" and help them feel \"more optimistic\".\n\nHe said live sessions would run on his YouTube channel at 09:00 GMT on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.\n\nSchools across the UK are reopening later than normal, amid tighter measures to curb the spread of coronavirus.\n\nConfirming the return of his \"PE with Joe\" sessions in an Instagram post, Wicks, known as the Body Coach, said: \"We all need this for our mental health more than ever and exercising can help.\"\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast he had \"a really emotional moment last night\", after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a new national lockdown for England on Monday evening.\n\n\"I was thinking about all the children in the UK and all around the world that are at home in tiny little flats… and they feel like they miss their friends and they miss school,\" he said.\n\n\"And so PE with Joe three days a week is going to really help them get through those days and give them some structure and hopefully help them feel a little bit happier and a bit more optimistic.\"\n\nWicks first began his free online workouts during the national lockdown in March, with the sessions attracting millions of viewers.", "Boeing's 737 Max plane is safe to return to service in the UK and the European Union, regulators have said.\n\nIt ends a 22-month flight ban for the jet, which followed two crashes which caused 346 deaths.\n\nThe plane had already been cleared to resume flying in North America and Brazil.\n\nBut this week a senior manager at Boeing's 737 plant in Seattle warned that recertification had happened too quickly.\n\nRegulators in the US and Europe insist their reviews have been thorough, and that the 737 Max aircraft is now safe.\n\nThe European Union Aviation Safety Agency (Easa), which regulates aviation in 31 mainly EU countries, said it now had \"every confidence\" in the plane following an independent review.\n\n\"But we will continue to monitor 737 Max operations closely as the aircraft resumes service,\" said executive director Patrick Ky.\n\n\"In parallel, and at our insistence, Boeing has also committed to work to enhance the aircraft still further in the medium term, in order to reach an even higher level of safety.\"\n\nThe UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which oversees UK aviation now Britain has left the EU, said the work to return the 737 Max to the skies had been \"the most extensive project of this kind\".\n\nIt said it was in close contact with Tui, currently the only UK operator of the aircraft, as it returned the plane to service.\n\n\"As part of this we will have full oversight of the airline's plans including its pilot training programmes and implementation of the required aircraft modifications.\"\n\nThe 737 Max's first accident occurred in October 2018, when a Lion Air jet came down in the sea off Indonesia.\n\nThe second involved an Ethiopian Airlines version that crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa, just four months later.\n\nBoth have been attributed to flawed flight control software, which became active at the wrong time and prompted the aircraft to go into a catastrophic dive.\n\nEasa said it had done a full investigation independent of Boeing or the US Federal Aviation Administration and \"without any economic or political pressure\".\n\nAs a result, it demanded software upgrades, electrical working rework, maintenance checks, operations manual updates and crew training.\n\n\"We asked difficult questions until we got answers and pushed for solutions which satisfied our exacting safety requirements,\" Mr Ky said.\n\nThe CAA said it had based its decision on information from Easa, the US Federal Aviation Agency and Boeing, as well as \"extensive engagement\" with airline operators and pilots.\n\nIt comes days after a report by Ed Pierson, a former Boeing manager, claimed that regulators and investigators had largely ignored factors that may have played a direct role in the accidents.\n\nMr Pierson said that further investigation of electrical issues and production quality problems at the 737 factory in Seattle was badly needed.\n\nOn Wednesday Naoise Connolly Ryan, whose husband Mick died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash, said that the families of victims \"still do not have a full accounting of what happened and why\".\n\n\"Ultimately we are more determined than ever to find out exactly what Boeing knew about this dangerous aircraft, and hold them accountable for the deaths of our loved ones.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Paul Njoroge says his family died because of Boeing's \"negligence\"\n\nBoeing has already agreed to pay $2.5bn (£1.8bn) to settle US criminal charges that it hid information from safety officials about the design of the planes.\n\nThe US Justice Department said the firm chose \"profit over candour\", impeding oversight of the planes.\n\nAbout $500m of that will go to families of the people killed in the tragedies.\n\nHowever, attorneys for the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash have said the deal would not end their pending civil lawsuit against Boeing.\n\nOn Wednesday, Boeing posted a record $12bn annual loss after it delayed its all-new 777X jet for the third time, incurring huge charges.\n\nThe coronavirus crisis has caused demand for the industry's largest jetliners to fall, with airline customers shunning deliveries of planes due international travel restrictions.\n\nThe 737 Max has already been cleared to fly in North America and Brazil - now it has the go-ahead from European regulators as well.\n\nIt's a major step for Boeing - although with the current travel restrictions in place, it's likely to be a while before the decision has much practical effect.\n\nBut the controversy won't end there. Relatives of those who died in the Ethiopian Airlines accident have made it clear they haven't heard enough to be sure the aircraft - modified in accordance with regulators' wishes - is truly safe.\n\nAnd this week, a former senior manager at the 737 factory told the BBC why he thought existing planes might still be carrying potentially dangerous manufacturing defects.\n\nThat may explain why Easa has also chosen to publish a report setting out the detailed reasoning behind its decision.\n\nUltimately, the 737 Max may we'll have decades of successful service ahead of it. But for the moment, winning back passenger confidence will be a formidable challenge.", "The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has defended the inclusion of ransomware payments in first-party cyber-insurance policies.\n\nIt said insurance was \"not an alternative\" to doing everything possible to first minimise the risk.\n\nHowever, it added that firms could face financial ruin without the cover.\n\nProf Ciaran Martin, former head of the National Cyber Security Centre, said the UK needed to rethink its policies on ransomware.\n\nRansomware is a form of malware in which infected computers are remotely locked by cyber-criminals, who then demand a ransom, often in the form of Bitcoin, to unlock them and return the data they hold.\n\nThere are many examples of businesses and public bodies which have chosen to pay because they do not have the data backed up, or cannot afford - or do not have time - to rebuild their systems from scratch.\n\nThe Guardian reported that Prof Martin, now at Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government, said he believed insurers were \"funding organised crime\" by accepting ransomware claims, but he told the BBC the issue of how to tackle ransomware was far broader than just the insurance sector.\n\nWhile official advice is not to pay the demand, it is not illegal to do so in the UK, he said.\n\n\"I have some sympathy with insurers, because as long as it's legal, there are incentives to pay.\"\n\nWhile the ransom demand may be high, the alternative impact can also be devastating.\n\nWhen the global aluminium producer Norsk Hydro was attacked in 2019, it cost the firm around £45m, and its profits in the immediate aftermath plummeted by 82%, reported Reuters.\n\nNorsk Hydro refused to pay the demand, which would arguably have been cheaper - but it did have insurance.\n\nA spokesman for the ABI said insurers do require that \"reasonable precautions\" are taken to prevent cyber-attacks from succeeding in the first place, just as cars and houses require security measures in place to deter thieves.\n\n\"Some might argue that any insurance that covers against a criminal act could lull the policyholder into a false sense of security,\" he said.\n\nProf Martin said he did not think that banning ransomware insurance claims would necessarily solve the problem.\n\n\"But it's worth a serious piece of consultation because if we continue as we are, things will get worse,\" he said.", "Cough, fatigue, sore throat and muscle pain may be more common in people who test positive for the new UK variant of coronavirus, a study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests.\n\nThe ONS findings are based on positive tests from a random sample of 6,000 people in England.\n\nLoss of taste and smell may be slightly less likely to affect those with the new form of the virus.\n\nHowever, it is still one of the three main symptoms of the virus.\n\nThe NHS website lists the symptoms as a high temperature, a new continuous cough and a loss or change to sense of smell or taste.\n\nMost people infected with the virus develop at least one of these symptoms.\n\nThe new variant, which was first spotted in Kent in September, spreads more easily than the previous form of the virus and has now spread across the UK, causing a surge in cases which prompted the current lockdown.\n\nThere is some evidence it could be more deadly than other variants, although the data isn't strong enough yet to say for certain.\n\nTwo other variants - one from South Africa and another from Brazil - are also circulating, although at lower levels.\n\nThe ONS analysis looked at the symptoms reported by people up to a week before testing positive for the new variant of coronavirus, compared with those testing positive for the old variant.\n\nThey were tested over two months between mid-November and mid-January.\n\nTest results compatible with the new variant show up as being positive for two genes, rather than three for the other variant.\n\nIn a group of about 3,500 people with the new variant:\n\nIn a group of 2,500 people with the old variant:\n\nThe study found 16% of those with the new variant experienced losing their sense of taste while 15% lost their sense of smell.\n\nThis was slightly lower than reported by people with the old variant (18% for both).\n\nThere was no difference found in levels of headaches, shortness of breath or diarrhoea and vomiting in both groups.\n\nProf Lawrence Young, virologist and professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick, said the new variant of the virus had 23 changes compared to the original Wuhan virus.\n\n\"Some of these changes in different parts of the virus could affect the body's immune response and also influence the range of symptoms associated with infection,\" he said.\n\nInfected people appear to produce more virus and this could result in more widespread infection within the body \"perhaps accounting for more coughs, muscle pain and tiredness\", Prof Young added.\n\nThe analysis is part of a long-term study to track coronavirus in the UK population, carried out jointly with Public Health England, the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "UK nationals and residents returning from \"red list\" countries will be made to quarantine in accommodation such as hotels for 10 days, Boris Johnson has said. While exact details of the policy remain unclear, similar schemes are already in place elsewhere, including in Australia and New Zealand. So how does it work?\n\nAfter finally securing her family's place in Australia's quarantine system, Keri McMenamin prepared for the worst - and ordered a vacuum cleaner.\n\nThe 38-year-old was returning to the country with her husband and two children after securing a job offer - leaving the UK in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic last year.\n\n\"It is literally luck of the draw,\" she says of where her family would spend 14 days together once they arrived. \"You didn't know what to expect.\" Having done some research, Keri discovered Facebook groups busy with people relaying their experiences of quarantine.\n\n\"A lot of people were saying, 'Look, just expect the worst and then whatever you get is a bonus.'\"\n\nKeri's children Quinn and Nyala kept busy with board games\n\n\"There were people who had, like, filthy hotel rooms, appalling food, you know, really sort of tiny spaces, no opening windows, no balconies,\" she adds.\n\nThat's when she ordered the vacuum for a friend to deliver when the time came.\n\nIn the end, the family was taken to a hotel in Surfers' Paradise on the Gold Coast and given an interconnecting room. But still, the windows were sealed and their only time outside was 20-minute stints every two to three days.\n\n\"I think what kept us sane was having a routine,\" she adds. \"Joe Wicks in the morning and our yoga in the evening and sort of keeping up your 12,000 steps a day walking around in loops.\" The vacuum came in useful.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThere are strict caps on the numbers travelling to countries using hotels to quarantine arrivals.\n\nBetween July and October 2019, 7.5m people arrived into Australia to live, work and visit. But over the same period last year, when enforced quarantine was in place, just 72,111 people arrived, according to government figures.\n\nPeople like Keri who have been through quarantine in Australia told BBC News that airlines will only confirm seats once a spot in a hotel is secured - leading to last-minute scrambles.\n\nOnline forums suggest expats desperate to get home are facing months of delays, cancellations and uncertainty - around 39,000 have said they want to return.\n\nQuarantine hotel stays themselves are costly - with fees paid for by travellers.\n\nThe quality of food provided to those placed into quarantine in Australia has improved since the start of the pandemic\n\nIn New South Wales, it costs the equivalent of around £1,700 per adult and £2,800 for a family of two adults and two children - billed after the quarantine is completed.\n\nArrivals into New Zealand are charged £1,630 for the first adult, with an extra £500 for each additional adult and £250 for each child.\n\nThe costs include the accommodation and a basic food service and even more basic cleaning - perhaps once per week, or not at all, with one change of linen and towels, depending on the facility.\n\nBut it comes on top of airfares, which have increased due to the pandemic. Fees can be waived for those who cannot pay and there are some exemptions.\n\nEach region has its own rules. In Australia, packages can be brought in from outside, and in New Zealand some of those in quarantine are taken to fields to exercise.\n\nMark Dickinson, from Liverpool, has lived in New Zealand with his wife Lisa for four years but returned to the UK to see their newborn granddaughter in December - he spoke to the BBC 10 days into a 14-day isolation near Auckland.\n\n\"We had to have a test on day zero, then day three, then we're having a test tomorrow on day 11,\" Mark says.\n\n\"The area at the front of the hotel is surrounded by a double-guarded fence. It may have cost us £2,000 but if that means New Zealand stays safe, then we're happy doing it.\"\n\nMark and his wife Lisa added photographs of their newborn granddaughter to a display in a small walking area at their hotel\n\nMany of those isolating found life does not stop in quarantine. Australian Brad Thiele started a new job and celebrated his 51st birthday alone in a 300 sq ft room at the Novotel in central Sydney.\n\nAfter being asked by a person wearing a full hazmat suit at Sydney airport whether he had any concerns about being held in a room for 14 days, Brad was taken to the hotel with a blue-light police escort. On arrival, the military were on hand to ensure he checked in.\n\n\"I quite like practising meditation. So I was able to just sort of just sit and be at peace with the fact this was the first two weeks of the rest of my life having lived abroad in Britain for the past 23 years,\" he says.\n\n\"I had some regimen, it was important to get up in the morning, make the bed, shower, iron a shirt and be smart casual for work. Just finding a rhythm and a pattern in the day.\"\n\nHe's yet to decide whether to take the Novotel up on an offer of a 30% discount on a future stay.\n\nOther countries' experience of setting up a hotel quarantine system provides an insight into the sort of challenges politicians and civil servants in the UK may soon be grappling with.\n\nInitially those in quarantine across the world complained about the quality of food being provided.\n\nThen outbreaks at just two hotels in the Australian state of Victoria were traced to 99% of cases in a second wave across Melbourne that led to around 750 deaths.\n\nA public inquiry found a lack of training, cleaning and contact tracing seeded infections into the local community.\n\nAn urgent review of the hotel quarantine system in New Zealand is under way\n\nReports at the time suggested encounters between private security staff and those staying in quarantine caused the virus to spread. The inquiry did not find evidence to back up the claims.\n\nBut former judge Jennifer Coate criticised a lack of \"health focus\" in the quarantine system in Melbourne, saying risks \"were foreseeable and may have actually been foreseen\".\n\nMeanwhile, New Zealand is investigating after a woman who had served 14 days in quarantine and tested negative twice went on to develop symptoms which were confirmed to be the South Africa variant of Covid-19.\n\nThe 56-year-old woman had recently returned from Europe and is said to have visited almost 30 places in New Zealand before her case was detected. Local officials say she is likely to have been infected by a fellow returnee.\n\nBack in Australia, knowing why the quarantine system is in place and the benefits it brings - the country has largely eradicated the virus - helps motivate people to keep to the rules, Keri McMenamin says.\n\nKeri's family have since been able to enjoy a Christmas with minimal restrictions following their stay in hotel quarantine\n\nShe has just spent a public holiday going about the sort of activities many of us in the UK can but dream of - and her children will be in school this week.\n\n\"We went to a local gym and had a group workout with 30 people,\" she says.\n\n\"And then we went to the countryside, and the kids built little boats out of wood and mingled around and there were families picnicking.\n\n\"I almost feel guilty for having gone through this process and now living a normal life,\" she adds. \"I feel like I don't want to talk to my friends in the UK about how easy our life here is and how normal it is.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMore than 100,000 people have died with Covid-19 in the UK, after 1,631 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were recorded in the daily figures.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said he took \"full responsibility\" for the government's actions, saying: \"We truly did everything we could.\"\n\n\"I'm deeply sorry for every life lost,\" he said.\n\nA total of 100,162 deaths have been recorded in the UK, the first European nation to pass the landmark.\n\nEarlier, figures from the ONS, which are based on death certificates, showed there had been nearly 104,000 deaths since the pandemic began.\n\nThe government's daily figures rely on positive tests and are slightly lower.\n\nMr Johnson told Tuesday's Downing Street news conference that it was \"hard to compute the sorrow contained in this grim statistic\".\n\nHe gave his \"deepest condolences\" to those who had lost loved ones, including \"fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, and the many grandparents who've been taken\".\n\nThe UK is the fifth country to pass 100,000 deaths, coming after the US, Brazil, India and Mexico.\n\nA surge in cases in recent weeks - driven in part by a new, fast-spreading variant of the virus - has left the UK with one of the highest coronavirus death rates globally.\n\nA further 20,089 coronavirus cases were recorded on Tuesday, continuing a downward trend in the number of UK cases seen in recent days. The number of people in hospital remains high, as do the UK's daily death figures.\n\nMr Johnson said the coronavirus infection rate remained \"pretty forbiddingly high\" despite lockdown restrictions which have been in place in England since 5 January.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons - including for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nMr Johnson said he would set out more detail in \"the next few days and weeks\" about \"when and how we want to get things open again\".\n\nIt's a terrible milestone - and one that represents unimaginable loss.\n\nMost of the deaths have come in two waves - the sharp, sudden surge in the spring followed by a slow and sustained rise throughout autumn and winter.\n\nMistakes have been made - the delay locking down back in March is one that is often cited even by the government's own advisers.\n\nThe UK, like much of Europe, was also woefully underprepared with limited testing and contact tracing systems.\n\nBut the ageing population, high rates of obesity, the fact the UK is a global hub and its inter-connectedness with Europe are also factors that meant we were tragically never going to escape lightly once the virus got a foothold.\n\nSpeaking alongside the prime minister, Prof Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, described it as a \"very sad day\".\n\nHe said the number of people dying \"will come down relatively slowly over the next two weeks - and will probably remain flat for a while now\".\n\nProf Whitty added the new coronavirus variant had changed the UK's situation \"very substantially\" with infection rates \"just about holding\" due to lockdown restrictions.\n\nBut he said the number of people testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK \"has been coming down\" and the number of people in hospital with Covid has \"flattened off\" - including in London, the South East and East of England.\n\nHowever, there were \"some areas\" where the hospital figures were \"still not convincingly reducing\", he said.\n\nNHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said there had been \"continuing improvements in hospital treatment for severely sick coronavirus patients\".\n\nHe said he expected more treatments within the next six to 18 months, adding: \"We can see a world in which coronavirus may be more treatable, but for now, it's a combination of reducing infections and getting vaccinations done.\"\n\nOne day there will be a public inquiry - maybe several - seeking to understand why so many died.\n\nLast summer, back when the government was subsidising people to eat out at restaurants, Boris Johnson said there would be an independent inquiry into the government's handling of Covid, but gave no details or dates.\n\nHe still hasn't, despite a recent call from bereaved families, trade unions and charities for lessons to be learnt now.\n\nThe gravest public health crisis for a century would have tested any government.\n\nBut as the pandemic has worsened, the criticisms and questions have mounted - about the timing of lockdowns, the rollout of test and trace and the failure to protect care homes last spring.\n\nThere is now pressure on Boris Johnson from some Tory MPs to ease restrictions as soon as the most vulnerable are vaccinated.\n\nBut this evening a sombre prime minister said the government would first do everything it could to minimise further loss of life.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said it was a \"sobering moment in the pandemic\", saying: \"Each death is a person who was someone's family member and friend.\"\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was a \"national tragedy\" to have reached 100,000 deaths.\n\nThe government had been \"behind the curve at every stage\" of the pandemic and had not learnt lessons over the summer, he added.\n\nThe epidemiologist whose modelling in part prompted the UK's first national lockdown said more action in the autumn of last year could have saved lives.\n\nProf Neil Ferguson told BBC Radio 4's PM programme: \"Had we acted both earlier and with greater stringency back in September when we first saw case numbers going up, and had a policy of keeping case numbers at a reasonably low levels, then I think a lot of the deaths we've seen, not all by any means, but a lot of the deaths we've seen in the last four or five months, could have been avoided.\"\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said the death toll was \"heartbreaking\" and warned there was a \"tough period ahead\".\n\n\"The vaccine offers the way out, but we cannot let up now,\" he added.\n\nMore than 6.8 million people in the UK have had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the latest figures.\n\nPlease enable JavaScript or upgrade your browser to see this interactive\n\nIf you would like to send us a tribute to a friend or family member who died after contracting coronavirus, please use the form below.\n\nPlease remember to include a photo of your loved one and their name. Upload your pictures here. Don't forget to include your contact details, so we can get in touch with you.\n\nWe would like to respond to everyone individually and include every tribute in our coverage, but unfortunately that may not be possible. Please be assured your message will be read and treated with the utmost respect.\n\nPlease note the contact details you provide will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your tribute.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nNicola Sturgeon has suggested that Boris Johnson should not visit Scotland as it is not an \"essential\" journey.\n\nThe prime minister is widely expected to travel to Scotland on Thursday.\n\nBut Ms Sturgeon said she was \"not ecstatic\" about the plan, saying leaders should abide by the same rules as they ask of the general public.\n\nAsked about the trip, Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said Mr Johnson would go \"wherever he needs to go in his vital work against this pandemic\".\n\nAnd Downing Street has insisted that it is important for the prime minister to be \"visible and accessible\" during the pandemic.\n\nThe prime minister's official spokesman did not confirm details of the visit, but said: \"It remains the fact that it is a fundamental role of the PM to be the physical representative of the UK government\".\n\nThe spokesman added: \"It is right that he is visible and accessible to businesses, communities and the public across all parts of the UK, especially during the pandemic.\"\n\nReports have suggested Mr Johnson is due to visit Scotland on Thursday to thank staff involved in the fight against Covid-19, despite the \"stay at home\" lockdown in place across the country.\n\nSpeaking at her daily coronavirus briefing, Ms Sturgeon stressed that she was not saying Mr Johnson was unwelcome in Scotland, but added that she was \"not ecstatic\" about the idea of him travelling up from London.\n\nDowning Street says it is important for the prime minister to be \"visible and accessible\" across the UK during the pandemic\n\nShe said: \"We are living in a global pandemic and every day I stand and look down the camera and say 'don't travel unless it is essential, work from home if you possibly can' - that has to apply to all of us.\n\n\"People like me and Boris Johnson have to be in work for reasons people understand, but we don't have to travel across the UK. We have a duty to lead by example.\"\n\nMs Sturgeon said her team had suggested she visit a mass vaccination centre in Aberdeen in the coming weeks, but that she had questioned whether the journey was \"genuinely essential\".\n\nShe said: \"If I'm standing here every day saying to all of you watching, don't leave your house unless it is essential, I have a duty to subject myself to that same discipline and decision making.\n\n\"I would say me travelling from Edinburgh to Aberdeen to visit a vaccine centre is not essential - Boris Johnson travelling from London to wherever in Scotland to do the same is not essential.\n\n\"If we're asking other people to abide by that then I'm sorry, I think it's incumbent on us to do likewise.\"\n\nThere are currently cross-border travel restrictions in place for anything other than essential travel, as well as a stay at home order\n\nThe Scottish secretary was asked about the move at Westminster by SNP MP Neale Hanvey, who described the trip as a \"futile\" attempt to bolster the union following a trend of polls suggesting majority support for independence.\n\nMr Jack replied: \"That's ridiculous - the prime minister is the prime minister of the United Kingdom, and wherever he needs to go in his vital work against this pandemic, he will go.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. One protester said: \"This is the only way I can effect change\"\n\nPeople campaigning against the HS2 rail project have dug a tunnel near Euston station, in a bid to prevent their eviction from a protest camp.\n\nIn September, members of HS2 Rebellion set up a Tree Protection Camp in Euston Square Gardens in central London to protest against the £106bn scheme.\n\nThey claim the tunnel is 100ft (30m) long and has taken two months to dig.\n\nActivists say the tunnel - codenamed \"Kelvin\" - is their \"best defence\" against being evicted.\n\nOne protester, identified only as Blue, told the BBC: \"It is all very dangerous and life-threatening but it is all worth it. This is the only way I can effect change, I would sacrifice everything for the climate ecological emergency to not be happening.\"\n\nThe 18-year-old added: \"We want to be as safe as possible. It is not about us martyring ourselves, it is about delaying and stopping HS2.\"\n\nDemonstrators have previously built tree houses and scaled cranes near the HS2 Euston site\n\nA spokeswoman for HS2 said tunnel protests were \"costly to the taxpayer\".\n\nShe added: \"These are a danger to the safety of the protesters, HS2 staff, High Court enforcement officers and the general public, as well as putting unnecessary strain on the emergency services during the pandemic.\n\n\"Safety is our first priority when taking possession of land and removing illegal encampments.\"\n\nBritish Transport Police said it was aware of the tunnel but it was a matter for the Met Police, which said no complaint yet had been made.\n\nHS2 is set to link London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. It is hoped the 20-year project will reduce rail passenger overcrowding and help to rebalance the UK's economy.\n\nThe campaign group alleges HS2 is the \"most expensive, wasteful and destructive project in UK history\" and that it is \"set to destroy or irreparably damage 108 ancient woodlands and 693 wildlife sites\".\n\nHowever, HS2 bosses have said seven million trees will be planted during phase one of the project and that much ancient woodland will \"remain intact\".\n\nSeasoned activist Daniel Cooper - better known as Swampy - has been at Euston supporting the campaigners\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps told MPs in September that the first phase of the high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham would not open until 2028 at the earliest.\n\nThe second phase, to Manchester and Leeds, was due to open in 2032-33 but that has been pushed back to 2035-40.\n\nNetwork Rail, which owns the land, has been approached for a comment about the tunnel.\n\nHS2 protester Dr Larch Maxey said the tunnel was \"warm and quiet\"\n\nTunnelling as a form of environmental protest has a long history in the UK.\n\nIn the 1990s it was one of the ways that pushed environmental concerns into the headlines and changed perceptions.\n\nIn one of the environmental protesters' tunnelling guides, written by \"Disco Dave\", it says:\n\n\"In the world of NVDA (non-violent direct action) there are few defence tactics that can compare with the protest tunnel. Dangerous, laborious and time consuming, tunnelling is the ultimate and desperate tactic of desperate people in desperate times.\"\n\nThe first protest tunnel goes back to the M11 and 1993 but they only really developed during the Newbury Bypass protests in 1996.\n\nProtest tunnels against the A30 in Devon and Manchester Airport's second runway then followed.\n\nNot only did they make household names of environmental campaigners like \"Swampy\" but they arguably changed transport policy - road-building reduced massively.\n\nWe have seen tunnels more recently in 2017 in Coldharbour in Surrey in a protest against fracking so it's not a massive surprise we are seeing tunnels again.\n\nTunnelling in particular as a direct action slows down developers and it is expensive to dig out protesters safely.\n\nDisco Dave wrote: \"That ultimately is the purpose of tunnels and tree houses. To act as a deterrent warning the authorities that should they decide to evict, then it will hurt them where for them it hurts most - in the pocket.\"\n\nWhat will be interesting is if these tunnels have the same impact on HS2 as they did on the road-building programme of the late 1990s.\n\nWill it reframe HS2 so it will be seen in the same way as fracking or road building? Or can the argument still be made that it is a low-carbon form of travel even though it does cause some destruction of habitat?\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Baroness Floella Benjamin has spoken of her pride after receiving a first coronavirus vaccine dose.\n\nThe 71-year-old actress said she would wear a badge saying \"I've had the jab\" after being vaccinated.\n\nThe Lib Dem peer, who came to Britain in 1960 and was born in Trinidad, is known for appearing in the children's programme Play School and received a damehood last year.\n\nOver 6.8m people in the UK have now received a first vaccine dose.\n\nAs a member of the House of Lords, Baroness Benjamin has spoken regularly about the disproportionate effect of Covid-19 on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities as well as the knock-on impact of the pandemic.\n\nIn September, she told peers she knew two people who had taken their own lives \"because they could not cope with the uncertainty of the future\".\n\nShe is also a member of the Lords Covid-19 Committee.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Floella Benjamin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe government has set a target for all those in the top four priority groups - around 15 million - to be offered a vaccine by mid-February.\n\nTwo vaccines - developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca - are being used. A third, from Moderna, has been approved.\n\nAll have been shown to be safe and effective in trials with two doses needed to offer the best protection - now timed 12 weeks apart.\n\nIt comes as British Asian celebrities united to dispel myths about the coronavirus vaccine.\n\nComedians Romesh Ranganathan and Meera Syal and cricketer Moeen Ali appear in a video urging people to get a jab.\n\nA study from the Royal Society for Public Health found 57% of black, Asian and minority ethnic people said they would take the vaccine.\n\nThis figure compared with 79% of white people who would do so.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAuthorities who dealt with a benefits claim from a single mother, who took a fatal overdose after her payments were cut, made 28 errors in managing her case, a coroner has found.\n\nPhilippa Day, 27, was found collapsed at her Nottingham home beside a letter rejecting her request for an at-home benefits assessment in August 2019.\n\nShe died after two months in a coma.\n\nNottingham Coroner's Court heard the way her claim was dealt with was the \"predominant factor\" in her overdose.\n\nRecording a narrative conclusion, coroner Gordon Clow said he could not determine whether she intended to die rather than put her life at risk.\n\nMiss Day, who had been diagnosed with unstable personality disorder, had been receiving disabled living allowance (DLA) payments as she had type 1 diabetes.\n\nThose payments stopped in January 2019 after she made an application for a personal independence payment (PIP), reducing her income from £228 a week to £60.\n\nThis, the inquest heard, was because a form she had sent went missing and her payments were not reinstated for months, despite her eligibility.\n\nThis led to her taking out short-term loans and ending up in debt.\n\nThe court heard in June, she called the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to say she was \"starving\" and \"couldn't survive like this for much longer\".\n\nPhilippa Day (left) took a fatal overdose and died in October 2019\n\nShe was then asked to attend a face-to-face assessment despite it being \"distressing\" for her, Mr Clow said.\n\nThe coroner added Miss Day's mental health problems were \"exacerbated\" by the benefits process.\n\nHe accepted it had been \"the last straw\" for Miss Day who was already experiencing a range of stressors.\n\nHe said: \"Were it not for this problem, it is not likely that she would have [overdosed] on the 7th or 8th of August.\"\n\nCall handlers repeatedly failed to flag that the case required \"additional support\" due to her mental health problems, the coroner said.\n\nThe DWP did not tell her community psychiatric nurse that she had not returned the form before refusing her application, which could have resolved the issue.\n\nThe coroner said call handlers received little to no training on personality disorders like Miss Day's - all that was available was a factsheet.\n\nCapita was made aware of the risks to Miss Day's health from a face-to-face interview by her community psychiatric nurse, but did not act on it, he added.\n\nMr Clow said: \"Given the sheer number of problems in the handling of her claim, I am unable to conclude that each of these was attributable to individual human error.\"\n\nHe concluded the failure to administer her benefit claim in a way that avoided exacerbating her mental health problems was the \"predominant factor\" that caused Miss Day to overdose.\n\nMr Clow recommended changes at both the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Capita, the authorities involved.\n\nIn a prevention of future deaths report, Mr Clow said the DWP should consider timely mental health training for call handlers and address \"poor record keeping\".\n\nThe DWP and Capita were also directed to review the change of assessment process so that it does not \"create unnecessary distress\".\n\nA spokesman for the DWP said: \"This is a deeply tragic case. Our sincere condolences are with Miss Day's family and we will carefully consider the coroner's findings.\"\n\nA Capita spokesman said the company also apologised for the mistakes made.\n\n\"We have strengthened our processes over the last 18 months and are committed to continuously working to deliver a high-quality, empathetic service for every claimant,\" he said.\n\n\"In partnership with the DWP, we will act upon the coroner's findings and make further improvements to our processes.\"\n\nThis conclusion amounts to a near dismantling of the process for applying for the main disability benefit for people with psychiatric problems.\n\nWhile around 40% of claimants for personal independence payments have mental health conditions, the inquest found that call handlers for the DWP didn't receive adequate mental health training.\n\nThe coroner found there was an \"institutional assumption\" in the DWP that problems with a claim were the claimants' fault.\n\nLast year a report from the National Audit Office (NAO) found the department had investigated 69 suicides of benefit claimants since 2014-15.\n\nThere were more cases they could have looked into, said the NAO, but in any case the department couldn't demonstrate any improvements from their investigations had actually been implemented.\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Jane Fonda has had a glittering acting career spanning six decades\n\nUS actress Jane Fonda is to be honoured with a lifetime achievement award at next month's Golden Globes, which celebrate excellence in film and TV.\n\n\"Her undeniable talent has gained her the highest level of recognition,\" said the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) - the ceremony's organiser.\n\n\"While her professional life has taken many turns, her unwavering commitment to evoking change has remained.\"\n\nFonda, 83, has had a glittering acting career spanning six decades.\n\nThe HFPA said she would be given the Cecil B deMille Award at the annual ceremony in Beverly Hills, California, on 28 February.\n\nThe Oscar-winning actress made her debut in 1960, later becoming one of the brightest Hollywood stars with films like Barbarella, Nine to Five and On Golden Pond.\n\nHer most recent performance was in the Netflix comedy series Grace and Frankie.\n\nFonda is also well known as a political activist, most recently as a campaigner against climate change. In 2016, she spent Thanksgiving among the protesters at Standing Rock, demonstrating against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.\n\nIn the 1960s she vocally opposed the Vietnam War.\n\nThe actress - who has written a book about how people can get involved in such activism - has been arrested several times during protests, and hopes her actions have raised awareness.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Labour is calling for juries to be cut from 12 members to seven, to stem the \"gravest crisis\" in the justice system since World War Two.\n\nShadow justice secretary David Lammy said action was needed to clear the backlog of thousands of cases.\n\nHe argued that smaller juries and the use of more temporary courts would allow socially distanced trials.\n\nThe government has not ruled out such a move but insists measures it is taking to clear the backlog are working.\n\nLast week four criminal justice watchdogs warned that courts in England and Wales were straining under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nJury trials ground to a halt at the start of the first lockdown, when people were advised to stay at home except in limited circumstances.\n\nWhen they resumed, there were severe delays and numerous cancellations due to social-distancing requirements.\n\nRecent figures revealed that the number of unheard cases in crown courts had reached a record 54,000.\n\nThe backlog means some from last year may not go before a jury until 2022, and it could be years before the courts get back on track.\n\nLabour wants the temporary return of so-called \"wartime juries\" of seven rather than 12 members to speed up the process.\n\n\"Victims of rape, murder, domestic abuse, robbery and assault are facing delays of up to four years because of the government's failure to act,\" Mr Lammy said.\n\nHe also urged the government to speed up the rollout of temporary \"Nightingale courts\" to hear civil, family and tribunals work, as well as non-custodial crime cases.\n\nTen of these were announced in July 2020 to help deal with the backlog in court proceedings, and 20 are now in operation across England and Wales.\n\nLeading lawyers are sceptical about Labour's proposal to reach back into wartime history.\n\nThe Criminal Bar Association - representing barristers who prosecute and defend trials - says a panel of seven may allow more courtrooms to be used, but it wouldn't solve what it says is chronic underfunding - and potentially undermines one of the most important safeguards in our society.\n\nThe Law Society, for solicitors, wants to see evidence that smaller panels would ease backlogs without risking injustices.\n\nThe Ministry of Justice's internal modelling calculated last year that reduced juries would lead to a 10% increase in cases - but that was before courtrooms received new Covid-proof screens that have allowed more trials to run.\n\nScotland's courts are using cinemas to host juries - and while that is not being actively discussed in England, it's not been ruled out either.\n\nEven if juries were slimmed, courts would still need to tightly control the number of defendants who can use their cells and courtroom docks to meet Public Health England's guidelines.\n\nIn April last year, the head of judiciary in England and Wales, Lord Burnett, backed the idea of reducing the number of jurors if social distancing continued.\n\nIn June, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland told the BBC he was \"very attracted\" by the idea of smaller juries, as had happened in wartime, and judge-only trials in less serious cases.\n\nThe Ministry of Justice says it has now installed plastic screens in more than 450 courtrooms and jury deliberation rooms to reduce Covid risks.\n\nIt says the safety measures are designed for 12-person juries and that the impact of lowering the number of jurors would be negligible.\n\nHowever, a spokesman said nothing was being ruled out and ministers were continuing to consider every option available to ensure courts recover quickly.\n\n\"This approach is already delivering results, with magistrates' backlogs falling significantly and the number of cases being dealt with in the crown courts reaching pre-Covid levels last month,\" he added.\n\nThe spokesman also said: \"We know more must be done and are investing £110m into a range of measures to drive this recovery further, including opening more Nightingale courts.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Karen Hobbs, from Cardiff, had a heart attack and died, weeks after testing positive for Covid\n\nThe family of a 40-year-old mother-of-five who died with coronavirus have urged people to respect lockdown rules.\n\nKaren Hobbs had a heart attack and died, weeks after testing positive for Covid-19.\n\nThe former EasyJet cabin crew member developed symptoms a week before Christmas, was not able to get out of bed and started struggling to breathe.\n\nShe was taken to hospital and died on 19 January.\n\nKaren's sister Rachel Hobbs said her normally healthy sister became very ill over Christmas.\n\n\"She just looked dreadful, Christmas Day she was laid up in bed, she couldn't do anything,\" she said.\n\n\"I knew she was really bad but I'd never seen anybody like that before, it was shocking, for someone that healthy to be barely able to walk to a car is quite shocking.\"\n\nOn 2 January, Karen was put into an induced coma.\n\n\"She was really terrified, she said 'I need to come out of this and see my children again'. She never came out of it,\" her sister added.\n\nKaren Hobbs' children are now 14, 11, nine, eight and four.\n\nThe family were told Karen's organs were beginning to fail and she was \"going downhill\" about a week before she died, and they were allowed to visit.\n\n\"She did look a little bit better, she had more colour, she was quite puffy - swelling and a bit of a rash on her. Her lungs were struggling, so we came home a little bit shocked.\n\n\"They started feeding her in a tube and were able to move her, I thought perhaps she's recovering a little bit and then I had the phone call to say that she'd gone.\n\n\"Her body just couldn't take it any more. I don't think it's sunk in. I think the children are still in a bit of shock as well, I thought she would come out of it but she just had it so severe. \"\n\nKaren's children made her a get well soon card while she was in hospital\n\nRachel said her sister, from Cardiff, was healthy with no underlying conditions.\n\n\"She didn't go anywhere - she did online shopping, she was in the house - so we don't even know where it could have come from, she was one of the ones who stayed safest.\n\n\"It's just shocking to think a young mum of five is no longer here. They've lost their mum and they lost their grandfather and nan a couple of years ago so they must feel 'who will be next'?\n\nRachel Hobbs says it still has not sunk in that she has lost her sister\n\nRachel said her sister was a fantastic mother to her five children, aged 14, 11, nine, eight and four.\n\n\"I don't think the youngest understands, I think she thinks mummy's still just in the hospital.\n\n\"She was a very hands-on mum, she spent a lot of time with the children. She'd sit and play with them for hours, sit and colour, she was always there for them.\"\n\nRachel says her youngest niece does not yet understand what has happened to her mother\n\nRachel added that Karen had no patience with people who broke lockdown rules: \"She used to get quite annoyed about people who broke the rules and she wasn't slow on coming forward, she'd say it as well.\n\n\"It just goes to show how bad this virus is. She would say 'make sure you follow the rules because nobody is safe, it is real this virus, stay at home and only go out when you need to'.\"\n\nIn the days since Karen's death a fundraising page has been set up by friends to support her children and their dad, and has raised more than £20,000.\n\nKaren spoke of how frightened she was in her final post on Facebook\n\n\"I'm absolutely amazed at how generous people have been and how kind people have been, the community has come together and I think she'd be proud too that it's raising awareness about the pandemic.\n\n\"That'll help the children going forward now. Out of a bad thing, it's been nice people getting in touch, kind words, messages, little things about what she was like.\"\n\nKaren loved colouring and playing with her children, her sister said", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson joined the production line at the Lighthouse Laboratory in Glasgow for the unpacking of Covid tests\n\nBoris Johnson has insisted that Scotland's independence debate is \"irrelevant\" to most people as he urged the country to unite against Covid.\n\nThe PM was speaking during a trip to Scotland to emphasise the strength of the UK working together during the pandemic.\n\nThe SNP said he was panicking as opinion polls show declining support for the union.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon also questioned if his trip is essential.\n\nThe PM started his day-long visit by going to the Lighthouse Laboratory - which processes Covid tests - at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus in Glasgow.\n\nHe later visited troops who are setting up a vaccination centre in the Castlemilk area of the city, and toured the Valneva vaccine factory in Livingston.\n\nThe factory is expected to deliver 60 million doses to the UK by the end of the year if its vaccine is approved.\n\nMr Johnson used the visit to argue that the priority should be \"fighting this pandemic and coming back more strongly together\" rather than arguing about the constitution.\n\nAnd he praised the \"amazing performance\" of Scottish people in the \"national effort\" to fight the pandemic.\n\nThe prime minister said: \"I think endless talk about a referendum without any clear description of what the constitutional situation would be after that referendum is completely irrelevant now to the concerns of most people\".\n\nMr Johnson also criticised the SNP's record in government, and added: \"We don't actually know what the referendum would set out to achieve.\n\n\"We don't know what the point of it would be - what happens to the army, what happens to the Crown, what happens to the pound, what happens to the Foreign Office. Nobody will tell us what it's all meant to be about.\"\n\nHe told reporters that \"the very same people\" who wanted independence \"also said only a few years ago, in 2014, that this was a once-in-a-generation event\".\n\n\"I'm inclined to stick with what they said last time,\" Mr Johnson said.\n\nMr Johnson met troops who are setting up a vaccination centre\n\nUnder the current Covid regulations, people are only able to travel between Scotland and England for essential reasons, with similar regulations also in place to stop travel across council boundaries within Scotland.\n\nAsked at her daily coronavirus briefing on Wednesday how she felt about the prime minister's visit while the strict travel restrictions were in place, Ms Sturgeon replied she was \"not ecstatic\" about it.\n\nShe argued that leaders should abide by the same rules they impose on the general public, adding that she had herself rejected a suggested visit to a vaccine centre in Aberdeen for this reason.\n\nDowning Street has insisted it is important for the prime minister to be \"visible and accessible\" across the whole of the UK during the pandemic.\n\nIn response to Ms Sturgeon's criticism, the prime minister's official spokesman said: \"These are Covid-related visits. You've seen the prime minister do a number of them over the past few weeks.\n\n\"It is obviously important that he is continuing to meet and see those who are on the front line in terms of those who are providing tests, in terms of those who are working so hard to deliver the vaccination plan.\"\n\nMr Johnson's visit to Scotland is widely seen as being part of a \"charm offensive\" in response to polls indicating a rise in support for independence.\n\nHowever, polls have also suggested that the independence question is currently a lower priority for many people than other issues such as the pandemic, health and education.\n\nA series of opinion polls have suggested that support for independence is now ahead of support for remaining in the UK\n\nCabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said it was \"only right\" the prime minister visited people on the front line of the vaccine roll-out to make sure it is operating effectively.\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast Mr Johnson has visited other crucial locations in the UK's pandemic response, such as the Wrexham plant making the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, adding: \"No one thinks that's illegitimate.\"\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer also said he backed the visit. \"I'm with the prime minister on this one,\" he told LBC Radio.\n\n\"He is the prime minister of the UK. It's important that he travels to see what is going on, on the ground.\"\n\nIt comes as the Scottish government sets out its budget, described as the \"most important in the history of devolution\" in the wake of huge spending increases to support people and businesses during the pandemic.\n\nBoris Johnson had a clear purpose on his visit to Scotland - to talk up what he calls the power of cooperation across the UK.\n\nDressed in white lab coat and protective gear, he was happy to tell me how the UK government is supporting the fight against coronavirus in Scotland.\n\nThat includes spending lots of money supporting jobs and businesses, building test centres, and procuring vaccine supplies from companies like the one he was visiting in Livingston.\n\nNo matter what the prime minister does, or that the UK and Scottish governments are following broadly similar Covid strategies - the public in Scotland perceives that Nicola Sturgeon and her team are handling the pandemic response better.\n\nThis visit was controversial because it happened during lockdown but it went ahead because the UK government recognises how much work it has to do to make the case for the union in Scotland, with Scottish elections due in May when the question of indyref2 will be to the fore.\n\nOn Sunday, the SNP revealed an 11-point \"roadmap to a referendum\" on Scottish independence, which sets out how the party intends to take forward its plan for another vote on the issue.\n\nIt says a \"legal referendum\" will be held after the pandemic if there is a pro-independence majority at Holyrood following May's election.\n\nAnd it says it will \"vigorously oppose\" any legal challenge from the UK government.\n\nNicola Sturgeon's SNP has published a \"roadmap\" aimed at holding a legal referendum once the pandemic ends\n\nMr Johnson has repeatedly stated his opposition to a referendum, and has suggested that another one should not be held for 40 years.\n\nOpposition parties in Scotland have also accused Ms Sturgeon and the SNP of putting the push for independence ahead of the Covid pandemic.\n\nBut SNP deputy leader Keith Brown said the prime minister's trip was evidence that he is in a \"panic\" about the prospect of another referendum.", "Jonathan Mok posted a selfie and another photo of his injuries on Facebook\n\nA 16-year-old boy has been sentenced for racially attacking a Singapore student who was told \"we don't want your coronavirus in our country\".\n\nJonathan Mok was beaten up on Oxford Street last February by a group of boys in an \"unprovoked attack\".\n\nThe teenager was convicted of racially aggravated grievous bodily harm following a trial at Highbury Corner Youth Court.\n\nThe chair of the bench gave the boy an 18-month youth rehabilitation order.\n\nHe was also ordered to wear an electronic tag, follow a curfew order between 20:00 and 07:00 for 10 weeks and must pay £600 compensation to Mr Mok.\n\nChair of the bench Mervyn Mandell warned that had he been an adult he \"would have gone to jail for a very long time\".\n\n\"This was an unprovoked attack for no reason other than his [Mr Mok's] appearance,\" he said.\n\nJonathan Mok had been walking home after having dinner in central London\n\nMr Mok, 23, suffered a complicated fracture to his nose and cheekbone which required surgery, screws and stitches.\n\nImages of his swollen eye were shared widely on social media following the attack.\n\nThe court heard previously how the UCL law student turned around after a friend of the attacker made a remark about coronavirus towards him.\n\nWitnesses described a \"commotion on the street\" where Mr Mok and his friend were \"confronted by a group of white males\".\n\nThey heard someone shout \"you are diseased don't come near me\".\n\nMr Mok was then punched in the face. The teenager joined the attack and continued to punch and kick Mr Mok.\n\nProsecutor Simon Maughan said the teenager was \"quick to get involved\" in the group attack.\n\nA victim impact statement read out on behalf of Mr Mok said the crime had \"taken a heavy toll\" on him and his family.\n\nHe added: \"My legal education had to be halted for a month due to surgery and follow up medical appointments.\n\n\"I have anxiety and have problems sleeping. I believe the defendant is a threat to Singaporeans and South East Asians. He has shown no remorse.\"\n\nThe teenager's defence barrister Gerard Pitt said the boy handed himself in following a police CCTV appeal last March.\n\nNo-one else has been charged in connection with the attack.\n\nMr Pitt said: \"He has always maintained he did not say anything about coronavirus and that was vindicated at the trial.\"\n\nThe court heard Mr Mok could not be 100% sure the defendant was the boy who said anything about coronavirus.\n\nThe boy had no previous convictions, but had two youth cautions for common assaults, the court was told.\n\nBefore being sentenced the teenager said: \"When I saw the picture I felt disgusted.\n\nFor more London news follow on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Robin Swann says all health workers are valued and have worked tirelessly during the pandemic\n\nHealth workers in Northern Ireland are to get a \"special recognition\" payment for their work during the pandemic.\n\nIt is intended that all staff will receive a payment of £500, said Health Minister Robin Swann.\n\nHowever, it will be subject to approval from the Department of Finance.\n\nThere had been calls from some political parties and health unions for staff to be recognised for their efforts.\n\nScotland has already announced a similar one-off payment and Mr Swann said it would reflect the \"principle of parity\".\n\n\"There are no words to properly convey what health workers have done for us, we will never be able to repay that debt,\" added the minister.\n\nThe development comes as Northern Ireland's Department of Health has recorded 16 more coronavirus-related deaths, taking its toll so far to 1,779.\n\nA further 527 people have tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours.\n\nThere are 775 people in Northern Ireland's hospitals who are being treated for the virus - 68 of them are in intensive care and the number of people requiring ventilators has risen to 56.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, 54 more Covid-19 related deaths were recorded on Wednesday. It brings the Republic of Ireland's death toll to 3,120.\n\nThe Irish Department of Health also confirmed 1,335 more Covid-19 cases.\n\nSpeaking at the weekly health news conference on Wednesday, Mr Swann said the pandemic had caused \"destruction\" and left \"heartbreak in its wake\".\n\n\"Staying at home is making a difference. The R-number has been moving in the right direction,\" he said.\n\n\"We have to sustain and build on that progress.\"\n\nThe reproductive rate of the virus - known as the R rate, measures the infection rate of Covid-19 and had risen to about 1.8 after Christmas relaxations.\n\nIt has been falling since lockdown restrictions were introduced on 26 December, and Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride said NI's R-number for hospital admissions has now fallen back below one.\n\nBut he warned that the pressure on the system was still significant and would continue for several more weeks.\n\nHe added that there would need to be a \"sustained\" drop in the figures before relaxations of the lockdown could be considered by the executive.\n\nIt has also been confirmed that the number of people in Northern Ireland who have received their first Covid-19 now stands at 168,140.\n\nMore than 50,000 people aged over 80 have been vaccinated.\n\nOn the payment to health workers, Mr Swann said it would \"not be without its challenges\" but that he valued all staff in the health service.\n\n\"For some people, especially some of our lower paid workers, it may in fact have an adverse impact on their social security payments or supports that recipients may be claiming,\" he added.\n\n\"I have written to the ministers of finance and communities asking them to urgently consider the issue and to engage with the tax and benefit authorities in Great Britain to request that these payments are excluded from consideration in this regard.\"\n\nThere will also be a one-off payment of £2,000 for all non-salaried students on clinical placements in the health service.\n\nMr Swann added that he intends to provide a one-off payment for carers as well, describing them as \"among the greatest unsung heroes\" of the pandemic.\n\nBut he said: \"There is still more work to be done in this regard and it will be significantly more complex to administer than the staff payment.\"\n\nKevin McAdam, who is from Unite the union, said the \"recognition payments\" will be allocated with assurances that this will not affect pay negotiations with healthcare workers.\n\nMr McAdam welcomed that health care workers and non-salaried students on placements will be \"receiving something more tangible than applause\".\n\n\"The student payment is a recognition payment, it does not solve the problems around whether student placements should be paid, I think that is an argument for another day.\"\n\nMeanwhile, a senior Department of Finance official has warned there is \"a higher than usual risk\" of some £430m unspent by the NI Executive being returned to the Treasury.\n\nMinisters must submit further funding bids, or risk it being handed back at the end of the financial year.\n\nA department official, Jeff McGuinness, said the Treasury was being pressed to show flexibility in carrying unspent money over but added that it was \"imperative\" Stormont pressed ahead, rather then rely on agreement from Treasury.\n\nHe said the other devolved administrations were also asking the Treasury for similar levels of carry-forward of unspent fiscal allocations.", "More than 127,000 people in the UK who contracted coronavirus have lost their lives - with the pandemic claiming more than 3.4 million deaths worldwide. As the UK marks a year since the first coronavirus lockdown was called, it's a time for reflection.\n\nWe have gathered tributes to more than 770 of those who have died. Below are words of remembrance from friends, family and colleagues.\n\nPlease enable JavaScript or upgrade your browser to see this interactive\n\nThe tributes are displayed at random, which means that you will see different faces each time you visit this page.\n\nIf we have used your tribute to your friend or family member, it will appear in the carousel above, or you can find it by entering their name in the search box below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. Enter a name to search the tributes\n\nFor more on NHS and healthcare workers, please see this page dedicated to 100 people who died while helping to look after others.\n\nFor more on how it has affected people's lives, from family tragedy to its impact on everyday life, we have a collection of personal stories about life in lockdown.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The limit on a single payment using contactless card technology could rise to £100 - more than double the current limit.\n\nThe coronavirus pandemic led to larger amounts spent via contactless payments on debit cards, credit cards, and cards connected to smartphones.\n\nIt has been less than a year since the limit was raised from £30 to £45.\n\nThe Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it will consult \"shortly\" on a change in the rules.\n\n\"It is important that payments regulation keeps pace with consumer and merchant expectations,\" the regulator said.\n\n\"Recognising changing behaviour in how people pay, as part of a wider consultation, we will shortly be seeking views on amending our rules to allow for a possible increase in the contactless limit to £100.\"\n\nThe FCA can set the boundaries for payments, under its rules, but the card issuers would have the power to set the actual limits.\n\nThe pandemic has changed the way we pay for things\n\nThe use of contactless technology by consumers has risen sharply in recent years, with more services adopting the technology and most shops offering it as an option.\n\nTo protect workers and consumers during the Covid outbreak, an increase to the current limit of £45 was rushed through by the regulator in April last year.\n\nThe latest figures show that the proportion of contactless payments had fallen slightly compared with pre-pandemic levels, because lockdown measures hit the use of pubs, restaurant, and public transport. They accounted for 41% of card transactions.\n\nHowever, there was a 16% increase in the total value of contactless payments in the UK in October, compared with the same month a year earlier, the latest data from UK Finance - which represents banks - shows.\n\nThe amount spent on contactless hit a monthly record in August, boosted by the Eat Out to Help Out scheme and fewer coronavirus-related restrictions. A total of £8.4bn was spent on credit and debit cards using contactless during that month.\n\n\"The industry believes that a more flexible approach could be merited in future, which takes into account consumer demand, fraud prevention, security and convenience,\" said a spokesman for UK Finance.\n\n\"Contactless is one of a range of payment methods and the industry will also continue to work closely with the regulator to ensure that customers can pay in a way that suits them.\"\n\nHowever, there may be less enthusiasm from some shopkeepers concerned about higher-value theft as a result of the proposed changes.\n\nAndrew Cregan, payments policy advisor at the British Retail Consortium, said: \"We have concerns about raising the contactless limit, with losses from incomplete contactless payments at self-checkouts currently costing retailers millions in lost revenue.\n\n\"Card companies should take measures to reduce incomplete payments and we urge customers to make sure their own transactions always go through. However, the overwhelming priority at the moment must be for the government to address the rocketing card fees.\"", "The UK has identified 77 cases of the coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa, the health secretary has said.\n\nCases are linked to travellers arriving in the UK, rather than community transmission, Matt Hancock added.\n\nHe told the BBC's Andrew Marr cases were under \"very close\" observation and enhanced contact tracing was under way.\n\nMinisters are due to meet on Monday to consider imposing tougher restrictions on people arriving from abroad.\n\nScientists have said there is a chance the South African variant may harm the effectiveness of current vaccines.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Hancock said that \"three quarters of all the 80-year-olds in the country and a similar number of care homes\" have received their first doses of the vaccine.\n\nBoth the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines require two doses, and figures so far reflect those given the first dose.\n\nMr Hancock said that it was \"far too early to say\" what proportion of the population needed to be vaccinated before lockdown restrictions could be eased.\n\nAll viruses, including the one that causes Covid-19, mutate, and variants have been first located in the UK, South Africa and Brazil.\n\nThe South Africa variant has been found in at least 20 other countries, including the UK.\n\nMr Hancock said that all the South Africa variant cases in the UK were linked to travel.\n\n\"That's why we have got such stringent border measures in place against movement from South Africa,\" he added.\n\nThe UK closed all travel corridors last week until at least 15 February, with almost all travellers arriving in the country now required to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test to be allowed entry.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has not ruled out bringing in tougher measures at UK borders, telling a Downing Street news conference on Friday: \"We don't want to put that (efforts to control Covid) at risk by having a new variant come back in.\"\n\nMinisters are set to discuss whether to tighten border restrictions further, including the possibility of hotel quarantines for travellers.\n\nMr Hancock said: \"We have got to be cautious at the borders.\"\n\nAsked for a date on when lockdown restrictions might end, Mr Hancock said it was \"one of the many things that we don't yet know the answer to\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Matt Hancock on easing restrictions: \"We don't know the answer\"\n\nGovernment data on 14 January showed there were 35 confirmed cases of the South Africa variant identified in the UK, and a further 12 \"probable\" cases.\n\nMr Hancock said nine cases of the Brazil variant had been found in the UK, adding \"we are monitoring each and every one very closely\".\n\nShadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that Labour had been \"pushing the government to take tougher measures at the border since last spring\".\n\nShe said: \"We would fully expect the government to bring in tougher quarantine measures, we would expect them to roll out a proper testing strategy and we would expect them as well to start checking up on the people who are quarantining.\n\n\"Only three out of every hundred people who are asked to quarantine when they arrive into the UK actually face any checks at all - that's just simply not sufficient.\"\n\nOn Friday, Mr Johnson said there was \"some evidence\" the UK variant may be associated with \"a higher degree of mortality\".\n\nThe UK government's chief scientific officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, said there was \"a lot of uncertainty around these numbers\" but that early evidence suggested the variant could be about 30% more deadly.\n\nThe PM said on Friday that there was evidence that both the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine and Oxford-AstraZeneca jab were effective against the variant first detected in the UK.\n\nSir Patrick has warned that the variants in South Africa and Brazil might \"have certain features which means they might be less susceptible to vaccines\".\n\nBut he said \"there is no evidence\" that the two variants have transmission advantages over those already in the UK and so having cases here doesn't mean \"they will take off\".\n\nMeanwhile, England's deputy chief medical officer warned that people who have received a Covid-19 vaccine could still pass the virus on to others and should continue following lockdown rules.\n\nWriting in the Sunday Telegraph, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam stressed that scientists \"do not yet know the impact of the vaccine on transmission\".\n\nHe said vaccines offer \"hope\" but infection rates must come down quickly.\n\nIt's a key question but the fact is that no one can be sure.\n\nThat's because the trials of the vaccines explored the safety of the drugs and how well they prevent people from becoming ill - with good results for both.\n\nBut they did not investigate whether vaccination also stops infection and therefore whether people who've been immunised can still spread the virus to others.\n\nIf a vaccinated person did become infected, they probably wouldn't realise because they wouldn't have any symptoms. That's why health officials and ministers are so concerned.\n\nIt's possible that the antibodies boosted by the vaccine suppress the effects of the virus but don't eliminate it from the upper airway.\n\nMany scientists are cautiously hopeful that in this scenario, the amount of virus would be reduced but they're waiting for the results of studies under way now.\n\nAnd until there's an answer, it's difficult to calculate how and when it's safe to ease restrictions and allow people to mix again.\n\nA further 610 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were reported in the UK on Sunday - down from 671 deaths last Sunday - in addition to 30,004 new infections.\n\nThe number of positive cases has fallen for the fourth day in a row and is the lowest figure since before Christmas.\n\nThe death figures tend to be lower on a Sunday and Monday because of weekend lags in reporting of the data.\n\nMeanwhile, more than six million people have had their first dose of a Covid vaccine - with the figure now standing at 6,353,321.\n\nNadhim Zahawi, the minister responsible for the vaccine rollout, said on Twitter that 6,353,321 of the \"most vulnerable and frontline heroes\" had received a first dose of the vaccine, but there was still \"much more to do\".\n\nThere were 4,076 Covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds in UK hospitals as of Friday, according to government data.\n\nThat is higher than during the first wave, when the peak was 3,301 on 12 April.", "A banned driver in a stolen car who drove into a police officer on his motorbike has been detained for three years at a young offender's institute.\n\nPC Steve Lovering was deliberately hit by Callum Fellows in Oldbury, West Midlands, after recognising him as a car crime suspect, police said.\n\nFellows, 18, admitted dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and assault at Wolverhampton Crown Court.\n\nFootage from 27 August shows Fellows reversing and knocking Mr Lovering off his bike \"sending him sprawling into the road\" before he sped off on the wrong side of the road and through red traffic lights.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The prime minister said he knew pupils and teachers wanted \"nothing more than to get back to the classroom\"\n\nSchools in England will not be able to reopen to all pupils after the February half-term, but could do so from 8 March, the prime minister has said.\n\nBoris Johnson said this was the earliest schools could reopen and \"depends on lots of things going right\".\n\nThe BBC has been told the aim is for all schools and year groups in England to return at the same time.\n\nTheir return would mark the first stage in lifting the lockdown, the PM said.\n\nHe told a Downing Street news conference: \"The date of 8 March is the earliest that we think it is sensible to set for schools to go back and obviously we hope that all schools will go back.\"\n\n\"I'm hopeful, but that's the earliest that we can do it and it depends on lots of things going right, and... it also depends on us all now continuing to work together to drive down the incidence of the disease through the basic methods we've used throughout this pandemic,\" he added.\n\nThere was not enough data yet to decide when to end the lockdown, he said, but intended to set out a plan for how it could be eased - and the criteria involved - in the final week of February\n\nBBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg described the 8 March date as \"very much a hope and certainly not a guarantee\".\n\nMeanwhile, a further 1,725 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test, according to the latest government figures. The UK's official coronavirus death toll surpassed 100,000 on Tuesday.\n\nMr Johnson told MPs the country remained in a \"perilous situation\" as he said UK nationals and residents arriving from 30 high-risk countries would soon be ordered to quarantine in hotels.\n\nHe revealed a plan for the \"gradual and phased\" lifting of the lockdown in England could come in the week beginning 22 February.\n\nOther restrictions on daily life could be eased after schools reopen, but he explained this would depend on hitting vaccination targets, the capacity of the NHS, and deaths falling.\n\nAn earlier plan for mass testing for pupils and staff remains in place, the BBC has been told.\n\nEngland's schools have been closed to all but vulnerable children and those of key workers since the Christmas break.\n\nIn Scotland, it is hoped schools may begin a phased return in the middle of February.\n\nIn Wales, measures including school and college closures will be reviewed on Friday. In Northern Ireland, a review will take place on Thursday.\n\nThe prime minister said he understood frustration among pupils and teachers \"and for parents and for carers who spent so many months juggling their day jobs, not only with home schooling but meeting the myriad other demands of their children from breakfast until bedtime\".\n\nThe government initially planned to review England's lockdown measures - including school closures - on 15 February, which had raised hopes that pupils could return to classes after half term.\n\nAcknowledging the impact of continued school closures, Mr Johnson pledged to \"work with parents, teachers and schools to develop a long-term plan to make sure that pupils have the chance to make up their learning\" before 2024.\n\nHe said £300m \"of new money to schools\" would fund a catch-up programme over the coming year, with financial incentives for providers to educate pupils who have missed lessons due to the pandemic.\n\nAfter complaints about confusion and drift about when schools in England are going back, Boris Johnson has sought to bring some certainty.\n\nThey won't be going back straight after half term - but the target date will be 8 March.\n\nSources say the aim is for all schools and year groups in England, in primary and secondary, to return back on that date - rather than it being the starting date of a phased or regional return.\n\nAlthough that could be subject to any changes in local Covid-19 levels.\n\nWhen schools do go back it is expected there will be mass testing for pupils and staff, in the scheme initially planned for the start of term.\n\nIt still leaves parents home schooling for another five weeks - and means most of this term will have been without face-to-face lessons.\n\nThis will be a particular worry for pupils heading for whatever replaces GCSEs and A-levels this summer, after almost a full year of stop-start lessons.\n\nHead teachers say the delay is \"no surprise\" - and reopening must be done safely.\n\nAnd Labour says half term should be used to vaccinate teachers to help schools stay open.\n\nBut the prime minister will hope that parents would rather have some clarity about what's happening with schools, even if that means a longer delay.\n\nTeachers' and head teachers' unions said they supported reopening schools but added that it must be safe and not rushed.\n\nMary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said that although the most vulnerable would be protected by March, most parents would not be.\n\n\"It fails completely to recognise the role schools have played in community transmission. The prime minister has already forgotten what he told the nation at the beginning of this lockdown, that schools are a 'vector for transmission',\" she said.\n\nPaul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, said the government needs to work with head teachers to review safety measures and create a \"workable plan\" for schools to reopen fully.\n\n\"The government will also have to put effort into reassuring families that it is safe to send their children back to school - there is a confidence test the government must pass to make the return a success,\" he said.\n• None How are Covid rules changing across UK schools?", "Times Radio's Tom Newton-Dunn asked about transmission rates in people given the vaccine Image caption: Times Radio's Tom Newton-Dunn asked about transmission rates in people given the vaccine\n\nTom Newton Dunn from Times Radio asks what we know so far about the rate at which people who have had the vaccine can transmit coronavirus.\n\nJonathan Van Tam says there is no clear data on how the vaccine impacts transmission of coronavirus but there are studies working on finding out and we will have that information in time.\n\nHe said the question is less \"will they\" and more \"to what extent\" do they stop transmission.\n\nSir Patrick Vallance says \"you don't have vaccines of this efficacy without there being some effect on transmission\".\n\nHe says it's an important question as \"it will also determine to what extent these vaccines can be used across wider society to reduce transmission overall\".\n\nNewton Dunn asks how the prime minister came to the date of 8 March to reopen schools and whether it would have been \"wiser to wait until you were sure\".\n\nThe prime minister says the date depends on the vaccines working in reducing mortality and serious disease.... and we need to make sure the infection rate is in the right place.\n\n\"We will keep it all under constant review,\" he says.", "Already 100,000 people in the UK have died with Covid, according to the official count. The idea of 100,000 deaths is hard for many of us to comprehend. But each was a human being who lived and loved in their own unique way. This is the story of one of them.\n\nBy 3:01am, alone in a hospital room, Ann Fitzgerald reached for her phone. This would be her last chance to contact her husband of four decades, the man she'd raised two children with, her Tony - to Ann, he was always her Tony.\n\nThe couple had made a pact. So long as Ann was in hospital with Covid, Tony would spend his nights dozing upright in a chair at their bungalow in Pewfall, Merseyside. That way, he would wake up if there was a message alert.\n\nIt wasn't much of a sacrifice, Tony thought, not when the woman he'd loved for 47 years was all by herself and frightened. And besides, each time his phone bleeped Tony would know she was still alive, and silently he'd thank the stars.\n\nAnd so in the early hours of Tuesday 7 April, Ann's last message arrived. She'd summoned the energy to take a farewell selfie as she lay in bed wearing an oxygen mask. \"She must have thought: 'Here's something so you won't forget me,'\" says Tony.\n\nTwo-and-a-half hours later, Ann was dead. She was 65, a mother, a wife, a neighbour, a colleague and a friend, and one of 999 people in the UK who died that day with the novel coronavirus.\n\nSoon after the hospital rang and told Tony of her death, he was at her bedside, dressed from head to toe in PPE. No visitors had been allowed to see her while she was alive, but now she was gone it was apparently fine - for reasons he didn't understand.\n\nTony wept as he apologised to his wife's lifeless body for letting her go like this, with no loved ones by her side. Then he turned and cursed the sterile white hospital ceiling and walls, because they'd been with her at the end and he hadn't.\n\nBack then, few could have imagined the UK's death toll would reach 100,000, or anything close to it.\n\nAt that point, the tally stood at 10,000; three weeks previously the UK government's Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance had said limiting the final figure to twice that sum would be a \"good outcome\".\n\nNow, 10 months on, the total number of people in the UK who have died within 28 days of a coronavirus diagnosis has increased tenfold, while UK excess deaths in 2020 were at their highest level since World War Two. The UK has had one of the highest rates of recorded coronavirus deaths in the world so far.\n\nBy any measure, 100,000 is a devastating amount, roughly equivalent to two Premier League football grounds, or the number of people who attend the Reading festival every year. For many people, the sheer scale of loss conveyed by the figure will be impossible to grasp.\n\n\"Numbers with lots of zeros are very difficult to interpret, and can be made to look large or small,\" says Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at the University of Cambridge.\n\n\"If I say that 100,000 deaths is two months' worth of normal mortality, then it may not look so bad. If I say that it is more than all the [UK] civilian deaths in WW2, or as if everyone in a city the size of Durham got killed, then it sounds worse. It is challenging to adequately convey such a large number of individual tragedies.\"\n\nBut while many may have become numb to the daily death figures, behind every statistic is a real life lost - a real life like Ann's. \"That is why this arbitrary numerical milestone is important,\" says Hetan Shah, chief executive of the British Academy and a former executive director of the Royal Statistical Society. \"It is a chance to reflect again on the terrible toll this pandemic has taken on so many British families.\"\n\nIn a Manchester nightclub one evening in 1973, 18-year-old Tony felt a tap on his arm. It was Ann, a year his senior, whom he knew by sight as a barmaid in one of the city-centre pubs he sometimes drank in. She'd always stood out to him, with her olive skin and striking good looks, but he'd never dared imagine she might be interested in him romantically.\n\n\"I'm here with that fella over there,\" she told him, gesturing towards across the room. \"But I don't like him and I don't know what to do.\"\n\nTony walked over to Ann's date and told him to clear off. Then Tony returned to Ann, and the two of them had a drink together, and then another. Before long they were a couple and Tony decided he was the luckiest man in the world.\n\nSoon he learned all about Ann's background. Her Lithuanian-born Jewish father had died when she was two years old, and with her mother unable to cope she'd been passed between relatives throughout her childhood. By 16 she was living in a bedsit, supporting herself with waitressing and bar work - she'd also been employed at the legendary art-deco Kardoma café on Market Street and at George Best's nightclub, Oscar's.\n\n\"As a consequence of her upbringing she was really, really independent,\" says Tony. \"She was really good at talking to people, and she was sharp - the sharpest, wittiest person I've ever met.\"\n\nThey rented a flat in Fallowfield together and made it their home. After Ann was offered relief work running bars around Manchester, Tony quit his job as a sales rep to join her. Eventually, in 1981, they took on their own pub. It was in what was then a tough part of Salford, but Ann had grown up nearby and knew how to handle the local characters: \"She could have you in stitches, but she could throw you a look, and you knew you had to behave yourself,\" Tony says.\n\nThe couple were offered the chance to take on another pub in Sale Moor. They thought they were going upmarket, but it turned out to be quite the reverse; Tony would joke that he should take away all the tables and chairs and install a boxing ring instead.\n\nBut Ann wasn't intimidated by anyone. According to Tony, when a notorious local villain turned up and demanded a free drink, Ann stood her ground: \"My husband's name is above the front door, and he pays for his drinks, so you're going to pay for yours,\" she told him. Impressed, the villain ended up buying one for Ann instead.\n\nShe and Tony knew it was time to quit when burglars broke in one night while their baby daughter slept in her cot upstairs. Tony went back on the road as a salesman; Ann worked variously as a debt counsellor, an incident manager for the RAC, and a sales trainer at a cotton firm. Their children, Gary, and Rachel, never once heard them argue, Tony says.\n\nFor six years the couple had a stall at Altrincham Market selling women's clothes. \"People would come, not necessarily to buy something - they just wanted to see Ann,\" says Tony. \"And as a consequence, they'd buy something they didn't really want.\" Each time this happened, Ann would give Tony a wink.\n\nBy the start of 2020, Ann and Tony were looking forward to a long retirement together. Both their children had left home, and they'd recently moved to the bungalow. The news broadcasts had begun describing a deadly pandemic that had spread from China. But Ann wasn't leaving the house much while she recovered from an operation to replace both hips.\n\nThen one Thursday in March she went for a haircut; she asked for the colour to be darkened slightly too, and when he first saw her afterwards Tony told her how much he loved it. Ann mentioned that the hairdresser had been coughing.\n\nThree days later, Ann began coughing too, and soon afterwards so did Tony. But with a fever, she felt worse, and within a few more days she was barely able to stand. She asked Tony to call 999.\n\nThe paramedics helped her to the ambulance. It haunts Tony now that he didn't hug or kiss her as they said goodbye. \"Neither of us thought for one moment that it would be the last day I would ever see her alive,\" he says. She told him they'd probably give her antibiotics and he could come and pick her up in a few hours.\n\nBut later that day she phoned him to say the doctors suspected Covid and they would be keeping her in. As in many hospitals during the first wave, no visiting was allowed.\n\nTony could only stay in touch with her by phone. When a doctor told him the next 24 hours were critical, he didn't tell Ann, because he knew how scared she was already by then.\n\nBut he did pass on something else the medic had said - that they were deeply impressed by her upbeat attitude and fighting spirit. Tony told her, too, that he believed she would be home soon: \"I had to say that to keep her fighting, and fight she did for 10 days.\"\n\nThe last time they spoke was Saturday 4 April. Ann told Tony she thought she'd turned a corner; she'd eaten a sandwich and some yoghurt. After that, talking became too difficult for her; she wasn't in intensive care but the mask she wore to help her breathe was getting in the way.\n\nThree days after their last conversation, Tony was sitting in a white hospital room beside Ann's body. He sat with her there for an hour. He didn't just apologise, he also promised he'd make sure she was remembered properly. When it was time to leave, a nurse gave him a booklet about bereavement and a black bag in which to put Ann's belongings. Tony carried them along a hospital corridor, wondering how he would tell Gary and Rachel their mum was dead.\n\nThere are eight photographs of Ann in Tony's living room. In each of them she looks full of joy. \"Every time I look around, there's a picture of Ann somewhere,\" Tony says. \"She's smiling and I'm thinking, 'If only I could turn back the clock.' But I can't, you know, and nor can all those other families and relations, either.\"\n\nNearly 10 months after Ann's death, Tony finds himself resenting the home he's been left alone inside. If they hadn't moved there, he reasons, Ann wouldn't have gone to that hairdresser's that day and caught the virus - she'd still be alive, perhaps.\n\nHe feels robbed of the 20 additional years he hoped they'd spend together, as surely will thousands of other bereaved relatives. While the impact on the very oldest has been widely recognised, those who might have looked forward to a long retirement have been badly hit, too - during the pandemic, around 15% of all UK fatalities with Covid mentioned on the death certificate have been among those aged 65-74.\n\nTony desperately wishes his life would go back to how it was, but knows it won't.\n\nAnn's funeral didn't give him any closure. Tony would rather she had been buried, but the undertaker warned him to hurry - extra restrictions could be introduced any time - so he took the date that was offered by the crematorium.\n\nAs it was, under the rules that were already in force, only 10 mourners were permitted, spaced out around the chapel. No flowers or photographs on display, no hugging.\n\nTony understood why all this was necessary - but it wasn't the celebration of Ann's bright, gregarious, love-filled life that he thought she deserved. He'd have to plan another one when all this was over.\n\nAs the months went on, Tony joined online Covid support groups. It helped talking to others who understood how it felt to have lost someone. There was the family of a 19-year-old boy. A woman who was mourning both her mum and her dad. Another woman whose husband had died in the car as she drove him to hospital.\n\nHe thought of these stories each time he switched on the news and watched the Covid mortality figures climb higher and higher. Behind these cold statistics were human lives. And each was as unique as Ann, with a personality and backstory entirely of their own.\n\nIt would have been Ann and Tony's 41st wedding anniversary on 6 October, the day before the six-month anniversary of her death. The following month, a few days after the UK's Covid death toll reached 50,000, Tony once again felt Ann's absence bitterly on what would have been her 66th birthday.\n\n\"Christmas was a nightmare for me,\" he says. Under the rules for the festive season, Gary and Rachel and their partners were able to be there with him, and cooking lunch kept him busy most of the day. But afterwards, when he was on his own again, the reality hit that another celebration had gone by without Ann beside him, and Tony sat down and sobbed.\n\nFor millions the arrival of the Covid vaccines has brought hope, but it is a cold comfort for those who have lost someone. If every one of the 100,000 were loved by a dozen people, \"that's a million people in Britain who have been bereaved\", says the bioethicist and sociologist Prof Sir Tom Shakespeare. \"We need a national monument, some form of remembering.\"\n\nTony is not one of those who will find it hard to grasp the significance of this bleak milestone.\n\n\"To me it's 100,000 poor souls fighting for breath, and they've not had a hug from anyone in their family,\" he says. \"There's a name - there's a person behind that number. And then they've passed away, and the family goes through the grief that I've been through - the numbness, the shock, the anguish and the pain to come.\"", "Microsoft has reported booming demand for its Xbox gaming consoles as the pandemic continues to lift the fortunes of the American tech giant.\n\nIts Azure cloud computing services also got a boost due to a surge in working and learning from home.\n\nThe gains helped push the firm's overall revenue up 17% to a record $43.1bn (£31.4bn).\n\nBut its growth came as the virus continues to weigh on other industries.\n\nMicrosoft boss Satya Nadella said the firm is benefiting from a long-term shift in behaviour.\n\n\"What we have witnessed over the past year is the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry,\" he said.\n\nXbox sales jumped 40% in the three months to 31 December while Azure services soared 50%.\n\nThe virus continues to weigh on industries outside of tech\n\nThe pandemic has prompted many firms to switch to remote working, while keeping many entertainment options outside of the home off-limits.\n\nMicrosoft has seized on the changes, focusing energy on updating its remote work software options.\n\nThe firm also released two new Xbox consoles in November, helping to boost the performance of its personal computing unit.\n\nMicrosoft's gaming business topped $5bn in quarterly sales for the first time ever due to gaming subscriptions and sales as well as new consoles.\n\nThe firm said profits in the quarter rose 33% compared with last year to $15.5bn.\n\nIts shares - which climbed roughly 40% last year - were up another 4% in after-hours trade,\n\n\"These were blow out numbers that will be another feather in the cap for the tech sector as the cloud growth party is just getting started,\" said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.\n\nBut the gains enjoyed by tech firms like Microsoft stand in contrast to the ongoing struggles seen in other industries such as hospitality, retail and travel.\n\nCoffee chain Starbucks on Tuesday said its sales in the last three months of 2020 fell roughly 5% compared to 2019, driven by a drop in business in the US where concerns about Covid-19 have prompted authorities to urge people to stay at home.\n\nIn China, where the virus is under more control, sales rose 5%, the company said.\n\nThe firm said it expected business to return to growth in the next few months, including in the critical US market.\n\nBut profits in the quarter dropped 30% to $622.2m compared with last year, sending the firm's shares lower in after-hours trade.", "Apple sales have hit another record, as families loaded up on the firm's latest phones, laptops and gadgets during the Christmas period.\n\nSales in the last three months of 2020 hit more than $111bn (£81bn) - up 21% from the prior year.\n\nThe gains come as the pandemic pushes more activity online, fuelling demand for new technology.\n\nApple now counts more than 1.65 billion active devices globally, including more than 1 billion iPhones.\n\nApple's gains follow the release of its new iPhone 12 suite of phones, which executives said had convinced a record number of people to switch to the company or upgrade from older models.\n\nThe firm said growth in China - where the pandemic has already loosened its grip on the economy - was particularly strong, helped in part by demand for phones compatible with new 5G networks.\n\nSales in the firm's greater China region, which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, jumped 57%. In Europe, sales roles 17%, and they rose 11% in the Americas.\n\n\"The products are doing very well all around the world,\" said Luca Maestri, Apple's chief financial officer. \"As we look ahead into the March quarter, we're very optimistic.\"\n\nAnalyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities said he thought the firm was just at the beginning of a \"super-cycle\" as Apple devotees finally trade in old phones, coinciding with upgrades to telecommunications networks.\n\n\"With 5G now in the cards and roughly 40% of its 'golden jewel' iPhone installed base not upgrading their phones in the last 3.5 years, [Apple chief Tim] Cook & Co have the stage set for a renaissance of growth,\" he wrote.\n\nBig Tech is having an exceptionally lucrative pandemic.\n\nIt's hard not to be wowed by some of these figures.\n\nThat Apple recorded more than $100bn in sales in just three months is simply astonishing.\n\nFacebook figures are also well up on where they were last year.\n\nAs other companies have struggled to survive, Big Tech has flourished.\n\nThere are other reasons for some of these incredible figures. Certainly it seems iPhone enthusiasts were holding out for the new 5G enabled iPhone12.\n\nBut it's not just Apple and Facebook, all of the massive tech companies are having a bumper year.\n\nCovid-19 means people are spending more time indoors - buying things online, watching things online and chatting online.\n\nPerhaps then it's no surprise that these companies are posting record breaking figures.\n\nBut others point to these figures as yet more evidence that Big Tech has become too big to fail.\n\nThese figures are impressive. But they also attract the attention of politicians who are increasingly asking difficult questions - like are these tech mega companies operating in a market that is fair and with enough competition?\n\nApple said profits in the quarter reached nearly $28.8bn, up 29% compared with the same quarter last year.\n\nThe gains seen by technology firms like Apple contrast with losses hitting many other economic sectors, as the virus restricts activity and keeps shoppers at home.\n\nOther tech firms, such as Microsoft and Facebook, have also enjoyed strong growth.\n\nFacebook on Wednesday said increased online shopping during the pandemic helped lift ad revenue in the quarter by 30%.\n\nThe number of people active on its apps - which also include WhatsApp and Instagram - also rose to 2.6 billion daily, up 15% compared to 2019.\n\nIt said ad spending could slow as the Covid crisis relaxes and shopper appetite returns for services like travel rather than products.\n\nIt also warned that plans by Apple to change how it shares user data could weigh on growth.", "The ink and watercolour maps are believed to have been created the year after the battle\n\nHand-drawn, Elizabethan-era maps depicting the Spanish Armada have been saved for the nation after £600,000 was raised to buy them.\n\nThe 10 maps, believed to have been drawn the year after the famous battle of 1588, were sold to an overseas buyer in July but an export ban was imposed.\n\nThe National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) in Portsmouth raised the money in eight weeks.\n\nIt is now seeking further funds to put the maps on display for the first time.\n\nIt is believed the drawings, completed by an unknown draughtsman, possibly from the Netherlands, were based on a set of engravings from the same year by Elizabethan cartographer Robert Adams.\n\nIn the summer of 1588 the Spanish Armada set sail for England after decades of hostility between Spain's Catholic King Philip II and the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I.\n\nIt is regarded as one of the most significant naval battles in history, when the English fleet of 66 ships defeated the Armada, twice its size, by sailing fire ships into its formation off Calais.\n\nThe English fleet defeated the Spanish Armada in the English Channel in 1588\n\nThe ink and watercolour maps were sold for £600,000, but culture minister Caroline Dinenage imposed an export ban until January and called for a museum or institution to raise funds to purchase them.\n\nNMRN director general Prof Dominic Tweddle said members of the public had \"dug deep in extremely difficult times\".\n\nThe target was reached with the help of £212,800 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and £200,000 from the Art Fund.\n\nMs Dinenage said: \"The export bar system exists so we can keep nationally important works in the country and I am delighted that, thanks to the tireless work of the National Museum of the Royal Navy, the Armada maps will now go on display to educate and inspire future generations.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prof Chris Whitty said it was a very sad day, as the UK surpassed 100,000 Covid deaths\n\nThe number of daily coronavirus deaths in the UK is likely to come down \"relatively slowly\", England's chief medical officer has warned.\n\nProf Chris Whitty said the UK was going to see \"a lot more deaths\" over the next few weeks before the effects of the vaccination programme were felt.\n\nCurrent restrictions were \"just about holding\" in lowering infection rates, he told a Downing Street briefing.\n\nIt comes as the UK surpassed 100,000 coronavirus deaths on Tuesday.\n\nA further 1,631 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were recorded in the daily figures.\n\nAnd 20,089 coronavirus cases were reported on Tuesday, continuing a downward trend in the number of UK cases seen in recent days.\n\nProf Whitty told a Downing Street news conference the rolling seven-day average for deaths was 1,242 - \"an incredibly high number\" - and unlikely to come down quickly.\n\n\"I think we have to be realistic that the rate of mortality, the number of people dying a day, will come down relatively slowly over the next two weeks - and will probably be flat for a while now.\"\n\nProf Whitty said the number of people testing positive for coronavirus was \"still at a very high number, but it has been coming down\".\n\nBut he cautioned against relaxing restrictions \"too early\", as Office for National Statistics data showed a \"rather slower\" decrease.\n\nThe number of people in hospital with Covid-19 in the UK had \"flattened off\", he said, but was still an \"incredibly high number\" and \"substantially above the peak in April\".\n\nProf Whitty said the new, more transmissible variant discovered in the south east of England at the end of last year had altered the UK's situation \"very substantially\" and had made it \"much harder\" to bring infection levels down.\n\n\"We were worried two weeks ago that the measures we have at the moment were not enough to hold this new variant,\" he told the news conference.\n\n\"I think what the data I showed you at the beginning of the slide sessions shows is that the rates are just about holding with the new variant, with what everybody's doing.\n\n\"It's going to be much harder because of this new variant and I think we have to be realistic about that.\"\n\nSir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, said that more than a quarter of a million severely ill coronavirus patients have been looked after in hospital since the pandemic started last year.\n\n\"This is not a year that anybody is going to want to remember nor is it a year that across the health service any of us will ever forget,\" he said.\n\nThe daily Covid figures have seen the number of deaths top 100,000. But they also contain some signs of hope.\n\nJust over 20,000 new infections have been reported - down from 22,000 yesterday.\n\nThis compares to an average of 60,000 at the start of the year.\n\nIt is a sharp fall, although Prof Whitty cautions it may actually be a little slower than that.\n\nNot everyone who is infected comes forward for testing and the government surveillance programme which involves random testing of the population suggests the fall has not been quite so great.\n\nNonetheless, it is clear the infection rate is coming down - and that offers hope.\n\nHospital cases have plateaued and should soon start falling. That will eventually lead to a reduction in the number of deaths.\n\nThen, in February, the vaccination programme should start having an impact, leading, hopefully, to a rapid drop in deaths.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson told the briefing the coronavirus infection rate remained \"pretty forbiddingly high\" to ease lockdown restrictions, which have been in place in England since 5 January.\n\nBut he said \"at a certain stage we will want to be getting things open\".\n\nHe added: \"What I will be doing in the course of the next few days and weeks is setting out in more detail, as soon as we can, when and how we want to get things open again.\"\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons - including for food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nMeanwhile, the epidemiologist whose modelling prompted the UK government to impose the first lockdown has told BBC Radio 4's PM he believes more action in autumn last year could have \"drastically reduced\" the number of lives lost in the second wave - some 60,000.\n\nProf Neil Ferguson said: \"They couldn't have been eliminated, but they could have been drastically reduced by earlier action, unfortunately.\n\n\"How much is difficult to judge, the new variant was unpredictable and did change our understanding of how much was needed to control spread, but we did just let the autumn wave get to far, far too high infection levels.\"\n\nReacting to the UK's death toll, Mr Johnson said he took \"full responsibility\" for the government's actions, but added: \"We truly did everything we could.\"", "Parents are struggling with the sense of uncertainty, says psychologist\n\nHome schooling can be tough. It's difficult to concentrate, there's emotional exhaustion, boredom, a lack of motivation and it's really hard not going out to see friends. And that's just the parents.\n\nThis winter lockdown is taking its toll on families, now struggling even more on the black ice of uncertainty as no-one can say when schools in England are going to reopen for most pupils again.\n\n\"There's a sense of fatigue,\" says Jacqueline Smallwood, who is at home with three secondary-school children. She says her own \"concentration levels have fallen dramatically\".\n\n\"It's so repetitive that it just makes you feel tired,\" she says of the latest lockdown and the \"silent struggle\" facing both parents and their children to try to get motivated.\n\nHome school shows no sign of coming to an early end\n\nThere might have been some guilty enjoyment at the start of the year when the school term was initially delayed, not having to get up and out on cold January mornings.\n\nUntil it dawned on them that this was becoming something much longer than a few weeks.\n\nIt's morphed from early January to half term in mid-February and now maybe Easter in early April or even later. And Jacqueline says, as a matter of \"respect\", parents need to know what's happening about schools.\n\nThe confusion over a return date seems to have further frayed the nerves of parents.\n\nThe mother, who lives outside Canterbury in Kent, says she worries about the pressures building up on young people.\n\nFor teenagers like her sons, she says this \"should be a pivotal time in their lives,\" when they're beginning to get some independence and when social lives are hugely important - but instead they're stuck inside with their parents.\n\n\"We can't live like the Waltons forever,\" she says, referencing the US TV series of a folksy family relying on each other.\n\nJacqueline says families are finding this latest lockdown tougher than the spring or summer\n\nThe first lockdown created an unexpected sense of togetherness, an \"enforced bonding\" that she says turned out to be a \"massive positive\".\n\nBut Jacqueline, who works as a writer, sees no such upside to the latest lockdown. There is a collective frustration - and she says it has been made even worse by the confusion about when schools will go back.\n\nThe online home-schooling seems to be working, she says, with teachers trying to boost the enthusiasm levels, but it's no real substitute for being in school. And she wants much more clarity about when they will go back.\n\n\"I've tried not to be political about decisions being made, but you can't help but feel disappointed. They don't seem to understand how real people are living,\" she says.\n\nShe says when politicians say maybe schools will or won't be back by Easter, they don't realise how much that uncertainty affects families trying to plan for what comes next.\n\nEducational psychologist Dan O'Hare says the \"key word is 'uncertainty'\".\n\nLiving on a laptop can take its toll on parents having to work and home school their children\n\nNot knowing what is coming next adds to the pressure, he says, and children out of school are already facing big unknowns such as what's going to happen about exams or when will they see their friends and teachers.\n\n\"It's really stressful for children and their families,\" says Dr O'Hare, who is co-chair of the British Psychological Society's division for educational and child psychology. \"They need a sense of a plan.\"\n\nThis lockdown is also in the depths of winter - and he says employers need to think about making sure staff working from home are able to take a break in daylight hours, so that families can get outside.\n\nIt's no use asking parents to answer work emails all day and expect them to go out when it's dark.\n\nSchools have been providing more online lessons in this lockdown\n\nFor some families it has got very difficult.\n\n\"It's affected her emotionally a lot,\" says Dave in Bolton, who is worrying about his six-year-old daughter, who has been crying because she misses her friends.\n\n\"It's awful, you can't put a positive spin on it. She's at that age where she's enjoying her friends, becoming more socialised,\" he told BBC 5 Live.\n\n\"She's quite a confident little girl and I can't help worry that being stuck at home is going to impact her in the longer term.\"\n\nThe father says many of her classmates are still going into school - and that makes it even harder when she sees her friends on school Zoom calls.\n\nEmployers should make sure that parents' working hours allow them to get out in daylight, says psychologist\n\nJen Locke in Newcastle makes the point that women can often be \"the most adversely affected by the decision to keep schools closed\".\n\nShe says home schooling has \"fallen squarely on my shoulders\", helping her children in the day and then shifting her work with an IT company into the evening, so it's an early start through to a very late finish.\n\n\"It's a huge mental strain… I'm knackered from it all,\" she says, right down to trying to get children to bed who aren't tired because they're not going out.\n\nA lockdown weariness seems to be out there, despite the best efforts of schools.\n\nSimon Armstrong in Bristol, whose son is in secondary school, says: \"Virtual lessons, no matter how well delivered, are a woeful substitute for real lessons.\"\n\n\"I am at the end of my tether,\" he says.\n\nThe Department for Education said: \"We are committed to reopening schools as soon as the public health picture allows, and will inform schools, parents and pupils of plans ahead of February half term.\"\n\nBut Labour has accused the government of causing \"chaos and confusion\" for parents and schools.\n\nThe National Association of Head Teachers said: \"Now is the moment for calm heads to decide on a sustainable return to school, not another chaotic and last-minute set of decisions that could easily result in a yo-yo return to lockdown.\"", "The Army sent a bomb disposal unit to Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine producer Wockhardt's unit\n\nProduction of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine has resumed at a plant after it was suspended when a suspicious package was received.\n\nThe Wockhardt UK plant on Wrexham Industrial Estate was evacuated and the Army sent a bomb disposal unit.\n\nPolice said the package had been made safe and its contents would be \"taken away for analysis\".\n\nWockhardt said staff had been allowed to return and its production schedule had not been affected.\n\nBoth Downing Street and Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford had been receiving updates on the incident since police were called at about 10:40 GMT.\n\nA police cordon was put in place near the plant and the public were asked to keep away. There are no reports of any injuries.\n\n\"There are no wider concerns for public safety, however, some roads on the industrial estate will remain closed whilst we continue our investigations,\" North Wales Police said in a statement.\n\nPolice have asked the public to keep away from the site in Wrexham\n\nForensic police officers were seen examining items on the road outside the plant, which remained closed after the cordon had been lifted.\n\nWockhardt UK said: \"We can confirm that the investigation on the suspicious package received today has been concluded.\n\n\"Given that staff safety is our main priority, manufacturing was temporarily paused whilst this took place safely.\n\n\"We can now confirm that the package was made safe and staff are now being allowed back into the facility.\n\n\"This temporary suspension of manufacturing has in no way affected our production schedule and we are grateful to the authorities and experts for their swift response and resolution of the incident.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. 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The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn an earlier statement, the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology company confirmed it had \"partially evacuated\" its site to protect staff.\n\nThe Wrexham plant has the capability to produce about 300 million doses of the vaccine a year.\n\nEarlier on Wednesday, John Roberts, who runs CMS Wrexham Ltd, next door to the plant, said he heard a \"big bang\" at about 11:35 GMT - although he could not say where the noise came from.\n\n\"We're next door to Wockhardt. Three of us were talking then we heard a hell of an explosion or a bang,\" he said.\n\n\"I went outside, couldn't see anything. I looked the other side and two blokes were on the roof.\n\n\"The next thing the police had blocked off the road and were looking in the bushes.\"\n\nPolice were at the scene on Wrexham Industrial Estate for most of the day\n\nA police cordon had been put in place near the Wockhardt plant\n\nHis son Mark Roberts said: \"The police just closed the road off and we've heard there's a bomb disposal unit.\n\n\"They've been here about an hour or so - we're on tenterhooks.\n\n\"Boris Johnson toured the factory around December time, so I wonder if that's raised the profile, as it's where they make the Oxford vaccine.\"\n\nThe Wrexham plant has the capability to produce about 300 million doses of the vaccine a year\n\nDave Picken, 53, who lives near Wrexham Industrial Estate, said: \"We've seen lots of police cars and a fire engine.\n\n\"Bomb disposal are here with a robot. We were closer to the factory but police told us to move and cordoned off a bigger area.\n\n\"I did ask an officer how big the bomb is but he said he couldn't say it's a bomb.\"\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson saw the production line for vaccines when he visited the factory\n\nVisiting the plant in November, Prime Minister Boris Johnson it could provide \"salvation for humanity\".\n\nWockhardt UK entered an agreement in August to help prepare the vaccine for distribution.\n\nWhen the company's contract was announced, Ravi Limaye, managing director, said: \"We are immensely proud to have been selected to partner with the UK government on this project.\n\n\"We have a sophisticated sterile manufacturing facility and a highly skilled workforce.\"\n\nOn Thursday, Wrexham council leader Mark Pritchard said teams had worked to ensure the vaccine was not lost in the floods.\n\nThe Welsh Government said there had been \"no adverse effects\" on the coronavirus vaccine roll-out.", "Already 100,000 people in the UK have died with Covid, according to the official count. The idea of 100,000 deaths is hard for many of us to comprehend. But each was a human being who lived and loved in their own unique way. This is the story of one of them.\n\nBy 3:01am, alone in a hospital room, Ann Fitzgerald reached for her phone. This would be her last chance to contact her husband of four decades, the man she'd raised two children with, her Tony - to Ann, he was always her Tony.\n\nThe couple had made a pact. So long as Ann was in hospital with Covid, Tony would spend his nights dozing upright in a chair at their bungalow in Pewfall, Merseyside. That way, he would wake up if there was a message alert.\n\nIt wasn't much of a sacrifice, Tony thought, not when the woman he'd loved for 47 years was all by herself and frightened. And besides, each time his phone bleeped Tony would know she was still alive, and silently he'd thank the stars.\n\nAnd so in the early hours of Tuesday 7 April, Ann's last message arrived. She'd summoned the energy to take a farewell selfie as she lay in bed wearing an oxygen mask. \"She must have thought: 'Here's something so you won't forget me,'\" says Tony.\n\nTwo-and-a-half hours later, Ann was dead. She was 65, a mother, a wife, a neighbour, a colleague and a friend, and one of 999 people in the UK who died that day with the novel coronavirus.\n\nSoon after the hospital rang and told Tony of her death, he was at her bedside, dressed from head to toe in PPE. No visitors had been allowed to see her while she was alive, but now she was gone it was apparently fine - for reasons he didn't understand.\n\nTony wept as he apologised to his wife's lifeless body for letting her go like this, with no loved ones by her side. Then he turned and cursed the sterile white hospital ceiling and walls, because they'd been with her at the end and he hadn't.\n\nBack then, few could have imagined the UK's death toll would reach 100,000, or anything close to it.\n\nAt that point, the tally stood at 10,000; three weeks previously the UK government's Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance had said limiting the final figure to twice that sum would be a \"good outcome\".\n\nNow, 10 months on, the total number of people in the UK who have died within 28 days of a coronavirus diagnosis has increased tenfold, while UK excess deaths in 2020 were at their highest level since World War Two. The UK has had one of the highest rates of recorded coronavirus deaths in the world so far.\n\nBy any measure, 100,000 is a devastating amount, roughly equivalent to two Premier League football grounds, or the number of people who attend the Reading festival every year. For many people, the sheer scale of loss conveyed by the figure will be impossible to grasp.\n\n\"Numbers with lots of zeros are very difficult to interpret, and can be made to look large or small,\" says Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at the University of Cambridge.\n\n\"If I say that 100,000 deaths is two months' worth of normal mortality, then it may not look so bad. If I say that it is more than all the [UK] civilian deaths in WW2, or as if everyone in a city the size of Durham got killed, then it sounds worse. It is challenging to adequately convey such a large number of individual tragedies.\"\n\nBut while many may have become numb to the daily death figures, behind every statistic is a real life lost - a real life like Ann's. \"That is why this arbitrary numerical milestone is important,\" says Hetan Shah, chief executive of the British Academy and a former executive director of the Royal Statistical Society. \"It is a chance to reflect again on the terrible toll this pandemic has taken on so many British families.\"\n\nIn a Manchester nightclub one evening in 1973, 18-year-old Tony felt a tap on his arm. It was Ann, a year his senior, whom he knew by sight as a barmaid in one of the city-centre pubs he sometimes drank in. She'd always stood out to him, with her olive skin and striking good looks, but he'd never dared imagine she might be interested in him romantically.\n\n\"I'm here with that fella over there,\" she told him, gesturing towards across the room. \"But I don't like him and I don't know what to do.\"\n\nTony walked over to Ann's date and told him to clear off. Then Tony returned to Ann, and the two of them had a drink together, and then another. Before long they were a couple and Tony decided he was the luckiest man in the world.\n\nSoon he learned all about Ann's background. Her Lithuanian-born Jewish father had died when she was two years old, and with her mother unable to cope she'd been passed between relatives throughout her childhood. By 16 she was living in a bedsit, supporting herself with waitressing and bar work - she'd also been employed at the legendary art-deco Kardoma café on Market Street and at George Best's nightclub, Oscar's.\n\n\"As a consequence of her upbringing she was really, really independent,\" says Tony. \"She was really good at talking to people, and she was sharp - the sharpest, wittiest person I've ever met.\"\n\nThey rented a flat in Fallowfield together and made it their home. After Ann was offered relief work running bars around Manchester, Tony quit his job as a sales rep to join her. Eventually, in 1981, they took on their own pub. It was in what was then a tough part of Salford, but Ann had grown up nearby and knew how to handle the local characters: \"She could have you in stitches, but she could throw you a look, and you knew you had to behave yourself,\" Tony says.\n\nThe couple were offered the chance to take on another pub in Sale Moor. They thought they were going upmarket, but it turned out to be quite the reverse; Tony would joke that he should take away all the tables and chairs and install a boxing ring instead.\n\nBut Ann wasn't intimidated by anyone. According to Tony, when a notorious local villain turned up and demanded a free drink, Ann stood her ground: \"My husband's name is above the front door, and he pays for his drinks, so you're going to pay for yours,\" she told him. Impressed, the villain ended up buying one for Ann instead.\n\nShe and Tony knew it was time to quit when burglars broke in one night while their baby daughter slept in her cot upstairs. Tony went back on the road as a salesman; Ann worked variously as a debt counsellor, an incident manager for the RAC, and a sales trainer at a cotton firm. Their children, Gary, and Rachel, never once heard them argue, Tony says.\n\nFor six years the couple had a stall at Altrincham Market selling women's clothes. \"People would come, not necessarily to buy something - they just wanted to see Ann,\" says Tony. \"And as a consequence, they'd buy something they didn't really want.\" Each time this happened, Ann would give Tony a wink.\n\nBy the start of 2020, Ann and Tony were looking forward to a long retirement together. Both their children had left home, and they'd recently moved to the bungalow. The news broadcasts had begun describing a deadly pandemic that had spread from China. But Ann wasn't leaving the house much while she recovered from an operation to replace both hips.\n\nThen one Thursday in March she went for a haircut; she asked for the colour to be darkened slightly too, and when he first saw her afterwards Tony told her how much he loved it. Ann mentioned that the hairdresser had been coughing.\n\nThree days later, Ann began coughing too, and soon afterwards so did Tony. But with a fever, she felt worse, and within a few more days she was barely able to stand. She asked Tony to call 999.\n\nThe paramedics helped her to the ambulance. It haunts Tony now that he didn't hug or kiss her as they said goodbye. \"Neither of us thought for one moment that it would be the last day I would ever see her alive,\" he says. She told him they'd probably give her antibiotics and he could come and pick her up in a few hours.\n\nBut later that day she phoned him to say the doctors suspected Covid and they would be keeping her in. As in many hospitals during the first wave, no visiting was allowed.\n\nTony could only stay in touch with her by phone. When a doctor told him the next 24 hours were critical, he didn't tell Ann, because he knew how scared she was already by then.\n\nBut he did pass on something else the medic had said - that they were deeply impressed by her upbeat attitude and fighting spirit. Tony told her, too, that he believed she would be home soon: \"I had to say that to keep her fighting, and fight she did for 10 days.\"\n\nThe last time they spoke was Saturday 4 April. Ann told Tony she thought she'd turned a corner; she'd eaten a sandwich and some yoghurt. After that, talking became too difficult for her; she wasn't in intensive care but the mask she wore to help her breathe was getting in the way.\n\nThree days after their last conversation, Tony was sitting in a white hospital room beside Ann's body. He sat with her there for an hour. He didn't just apologise, he also promised he'd make sure she was remembered properly. When it was time to leave, a nurse gave him a booklet about bereavement and a black bag in which to put Ann's belongings. Tony carried them along a hospital corridor, wondering how he would tell Gary and Rachel their mum was dead.\n\nThere are eight photographs of Ann in Tony's living room. In each of them she looks full of joy. \"Every time I look around, there's a picture of Ann somewhere,\" Tony says. \"She's smiling and I'm thinking, 'If only I could turn back the clock.' But I can't, you know, and nor can all those other families and relations, either.\"\n\nNearly 10 months after Ann's death, Tony finds himself resenting the home he's been left alone inside. If they hadn't moved there, he reasons, Ann wouldn't have gone to that hairdresser's that day and caught the virus - she'd still be alive, perhaps.\n\nHe feels robbed of the 20 additional years he hoped they'd spend together, as surely will thousands of other bereaved relatives. While the impact on the very oldest has been widely recognised, those who might have looked forward to a long retirement have been badly hit, too - during the pandemic, around 15% of all UK fatalities with Covid mentioned on the death certificate have been among those aged 65-74.\n\nTony desperately wishes his life would go back to how it was, but knows it won't.\n\nAnn's funeral didn't give him any closure. Tony would rather she had been buried, but the undertaker warned him to hurry - extra restrictions could be introduced any time - so he took the date that was offered by the crematorium.\n\nAs it was, under the rules that were already in force, only 10 mourners were permitted, spaced out around the chapel. No flowers or photographs on display, no hugging.\n\nTony understood why all this was necessary - but it wasn't the celebration of Ann's bright, gregarious, love-filled life that he thought she deserved. He'd have to plan another one when all this was over.\n\nAs the months went on, Tony joined online Covid support groups. It helped talking to others who understood how it felt to have lost someone. There was the family of a 19-year-old boy. A woman who was mourning both her mum and her dad. Another woman whose husband had died in the car as she drove him to hospital.\n\nHe thought of these stories each time he switched on the news and watched the Covid mortality figures climb higher and higher. Behind these cold statistics were human lives. And each was as unique as Ann, with a personality and backstory entirely of their own.\n\nIt would have been Ann and Tony's 41st wedding anniversary on 6 October, the day before the six-month anniversary of her death. The following month, a few days after the UK's Covid death toll reached 50,000, Tony once again felt Ann's absence bitterly on what would have been her 66th birthday.\n\n\"Christmas was a nightmare for me,\" he says. Under the rules for the festive season, Gary and Rachel and their partners were able to be there with him, and cooking lunch kept him busy most of the day. But afterwards, when he was on his own again, the reality hit that another celebration had gone by without Ann beside him, and Tony sat down and sobbed.\n\nFor millions the arrival of the Covid vaccines has brought hope, but it is a cold comfort for those who have lost someone. If every one of the 100,000 were loved by a dozen people, \"that's a million people in Britain who have been bereaved\", says the bioethicist and sociologist Prof Sir Tom Shakespeare. \"We need a national monument, some form of remembering.\"\n\nTony is not one of those who will find it hard to grasp the significance of this bleak milestone.\n\n\"To me it's 100,000 poor souls fighting for breath, and they've not had a hug from anyone in their family,\" he says. \"There's a name - there's a person behind that number. And then they've passed away, and the family goes through the grief that I've been through - the numbness, the shock, the anguish and the pain to come.\"", "The police officers were on duty when they had their hair cut, the Met says\n\nThirty-one Met Police officers who broke coronavirus rules to get haircuts are facing £200 fines.\n\nTwo officers who hired a barber to give the cuts to staff at Bethnal Green Police Station, on 17 January, are also facing misconduct investigations, the Met said.\n\nUnder current lockdown restrictions in England, barbers and hairdressers are not allowed to work.\n\nDet Ch Supt Marcus Barnett said he was \"deeply disappointed\" in the officers.\n\n\"Although officers donated money to charity as part of the haircut, this does not excuse them from what was a very poor decision,\" he said. \"I expect a lot more of them.\n\n\"Quite rightly, the public expect police to be role models in following the regulations, which are designed to prevent the spread of this deadly virus.\"\n\nThe investigation comes after fines were handed out to nine officers who were caught eating breakfast together in a Greenwich café.\n\nAll those officers were issued with a £200 fixed penalty notice.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Actor Elliot Page and choreographer Emma Portner have decided to divorce after three years of marriage.\n\n\"After much thought and careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to divorce following our separation last summer,\" the Canadian couple said in a statement.\n\n\"We have the utmost respect for each other and remain close friends.\" They provided no further details.\n\nPage, the 33-year-old Oscar-nominated actor, came out as transgender in 2020.\n\nThat decision was widely praised by his many fans and fellow actors.\n\nPage said at the time that he could not \"begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self\".\n\nHe also used the occasion to address discrimination towards trans people.\n\nPage received international acclaim for starring as a pregnant teenager in the 2007 film Juno. Other major films include Inception and the X-Men series, while the actor has more recently starred in Netflix series The Umbrella Academy.\n\nPortner, 26, has said she has always supported Page's decision to come out.", "The famous event has been held at London's Royal Hospital Chelsea since 1913\n\nThe Chelsea Flower Show will take place in September for the first time in its history as a result of the pandemic.\n\nOrganisers had planned to hold a six-day show in May but announced it would be postponed as there was no guarantee what tier London would be in then.\n\nA virtual show will take place in May like in 2020, with the physical event taking place later at London's Royal Hospital Chelsea.\n\nThe Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) said it would be a \"moment in history\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Chelsea Flower Show exhibitors had to display their gardens online last year\n\nThe world-famous show has been taking place for 108 years but has never happened in September.\n\nThis year's event will go ahead between 21-26 September, with the virtual event showing online from 18-23 May.\n\nIt is usually filled with spring and summer colours but the RHS said it hoped the delay will allow a celebration of autumn horticulture.\n\nThousands of people normally attend the week-long event\n\nThe society, which runs the event, said it had a responsibility to exhibitors, visitors, volunteers and staff to delay the flower show, as more people would be vaccinated and levels of infection may have reduced substantially.\n\nDirector general Sue Biggs said: \"Whilst we are sad to have had to delay RHS Chelsea and are sorry for the disruption this will cause, we are excited that we are still planning to bring the world's best-loved gardening event to the nation at a time when more people are gardening more than ever.\n\n\"We know that the autumn dates may not be suitable for everyone, but with our fantastic industry partners we will do everything we can to support them and create a show that will be a moment in history,\" she added.\n\nThose who bought tickets for the event when it was due to happen in May will be contacted by the RHS.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nadhim Zahawi: \"We have 367m vaccines from seven different manufacturers that we have contracted with\"\n\nSupplies of vaccines are \"tight\" but the UK believes it will receive enough doses to meet its targets, the vaccine minister has said.\n\nNadhim Zahawi told BBC Breakfast manufacturers were \"confident\" they would deliver for the UK amid warnings of production delays.\n\nIt comes as the EU said it might tighten vaccine export controls.\n\nCountries should avoid \"vaccine nationalism\" and ensure a fair global supply, Mr Zahawi said.\n\nMeanwhile, more than 100,000 people have died with Covid-19 in the UK, after 1,631 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were recorded in the daily figures.\n\nMr Zahawi said the vaccination programme was still on track to deliver a first dose to 15 million of the most vulnerable by mid-February and to offer all adults their first dose by autumn.\n\nHe said the UK had supplies of the Oxford vaccine manufactured domestically by AstraZeneca as well as the Pfizer one, which is made in Belgium.\n\nThe government is also planning to publish figures on the take-up of the vaccine by ethnicity from Thursday, following concerns that some black, Asian and ethnic minority communities were more hesitant to get the jab.\n\n\"I'm confident we will meet our mid-February target and continue beyond that,\" Mr Zahawi told the BBC.\n\n\"Supplies are tight, they continue to be, these are new manufacturing processes,\" he added. \"It's lumpy and bumpy, it gets better and stabilises and improves going forward.\"\n\nBut he declined to say that he had received guarantees about the number of doses the UK would receive from Pfizer or other manufacturers and refused to confirm how many doses had already arrived.\n\nThe prime minister's spokesman said AstraZeneca had committed to delivering two million doses a week to the UK, and the government was not expecting any changes to that supply.\n\nDowning Street also rejected German media reports claiming a very low efficacy rate for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine among older people, saying they had been denied by Oxford University, AstraZeneca and the German health ministry.\n\nChief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the cabinet the trials showed similar immune responses in younger and older adults.\n\nAnd England's chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, has defended the UK's strategy of extending the time between first and second doses of coronavirus vaccines from three to 12 weeks in order to immunise more people.\n\nHe told the Downing Street coronavirus briefing on Tuesday that the \"great majority\" of protection came from the first dose.\n\nHe also said there was \"no evidence\" that immunity waned between three and 12 weeks after the first dose was administered.\n\nProf Whitty said: \"We thought very carefully about what the balance of this is, but the balance of risk in terms of reducing the number of deaths in the community - and I really want to stress that, that is the aim of this - is to maximise the number of people who get that first dose, where the great majority of protection comes from.\"\n\nThe latest tension over supply of the Covid vaccine is another illustration of just how fragile this issue is.\n\nThere are huge global demands for Covid vaccine, limited raw materials and constraints on manufacturing.\n\nThe UK already has enough vaccine to jab all the highest-risk groups by mid-February, although not all of it has been packaged up or been through the final safety checks.\n\nThis explains why ministers are confident about the immediate target for the over-70s, health and care workers and the extremely clinically vulnerable.\n\nBut what is in doubt is how quickly the UK can vaccinate in the medium term.\n\nWith the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in the UK those supply routes are more guaranteed.\n\nBut the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is made in Belgium. The UK, like the rest of Europe, is affected by the problems with manufacturing that are being experienced with that vaccine.\n\nWith Europe experiencing major problems rolling out its vaccination programme - per head of population five times fewer vaccines have been delivered - this is a story that is going to rumble on for months.\n\nThe UK has placed orders for 367 million doses of vaccines from seven manufacturers, Mr Zahawi said. \"As vaccines come along we will get more volume, millions more in the weeks and months to come,\" he added.\n\nThe tension over vaccine supplies increased after UK-based AstraZeneca warned the EU it would have to reduce planned deliveries because of production problems. Pfizer-BioNTech has also said supplies will be temporarily lower as it works to increase capacity at its Belgian factory.\n\nIt has prompted the EU to accuse AstraZeneca of failing to meet its commitments and to warn that it might require all companies producing Covid vaccines to provide \"early notification\" whenever they planned to export supplies out of the EU.\n\n\"The thing to do now is not to go down the dead end of vaccine nationalism. It's to work together to protect our people,\" Mr Zahawi said.\n\n\"No-one is safe until the whole world is safe.\"\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock subsequently said the UK government \"oppose protectionism in all its forms\" and urged all international partners to \"be collaborative\" and \"work closely together\" on vaccine distribution.\n\nHe added that the EU's warning that it could restrict exports of vaccines made in the bloc was \"unfortunate and especially so in the midst of a pandemic\".\n\nMeanwhile, the head of NHS England earlier told MPs coronavirus could become a \"much more treatable disease\" over the next six to 18 months, with the hope of a return to a \"much more normal future\".\n\nSir Simon Stevens told the Health and Social Care Committee: \"The first half of the year, vaccination is going to be crucial.\n\n\"I think a lot of us in the health service are increasingly hopeful that in the second half of the year and beyond we will also see more therapeutics and more treatments for coronavirus.\"\n\nHe also said it \"would be great\" if the Covid vaccine and flu vaccine were combined into a single jab, if not for next winter then future ones.\n\nAnd he said vaccines were being used as fast as they arrived in the NHS, with more than half of those aged 75-79 having now had their first dose.\n\nThe UK aims to offer Covid vaccination to every adult by autumn.\n\nMr Zahawi said confidence in the vaccines was high, with 85% of people saying they would accept the jab.\n\nBut he said those who were hesitant \"skew heavily\" towards black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.\n\nThe government is providing £23m of funding to 60 local councils and voluntary groups to boost vaccine take-up among groups such as older people, disabled people, and people from ethnic minority backgrounds.\n\nIt comes as celebrities such as comedians Romesh Ranganathan and Meera Syal and cricketer Moeen Ali appeared in a video urging people in their communities to get vaccinated.\n\nMr Zahawi told ITV's Good Morning Britain his uncle had died from Covid-19 last week. He had been eligible for vaccination but caught the virus before he could receive it, the minister said.\n\nThis \"grim and horrible\" experience made him determined to ensure that the most vulnerable were protected as quickly as possible, Mr Zahawi said.\n\nSir Simon said there was concern about vaccine hesitancy in some groups, where there were access problems as well as \"systematic attempts to misinform and lie about the vaccine programme targeted particularly at minority populations, and - in some cases - long-standing mistrust of public services\".\n\nHe said disruption to vaccine deliveries from EU export restrictions was not thought to be likely.\n\nIn other developments, the UK has offered to carry out genomic sequencing for other countries around the world to help identify further new variants.\n\nPublic Health England said it would give \"crucial early warning\" of any mutations that might cause the virus to spread faster, make people more ill or possibly reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.", "\"A legacy of poor decisions\" by the UK before and during the pandemic led to one of the worst death rates in the world, scientists have said.\n\nLabour also criticised \"monumental mistakes\" by the prime minister in delaying acting on scientific advice over lockdowns three times.\n\nAfter UK deaths passed 100,000, Boris Johnson said he took \"full responsibility\" for the actions taken.\n\nBut he said it was too soon to learn the lessons from the pandemic response.\n\nProf Linda Bauld, public health expert from the University of Edinburgh, said the UK's current position was \"a legacy of poor decisions that were taken when we eased restrictions\".\n\nShe told the BBC the lack of focus on test and trace and the \"absolute inability to recognise\" the need to address international travel had also led to a more deadly winter surge.\n\nProf Sir Michael Marmot, who carried out a review of inequalities in Covid-19 deaths, said the UK had entered the pandemic \"in a bad state\" with rising health inequality, a slowdown in life expectancy improvements and a lack of investment in the public sector.\n\nShadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth rejected Mr Johnson's claim that he had done \"everything we could\" to minimise the death toll, adding: \"I do not accept that.\"\n\nHe said the prime minister had been given scientific advice to impose lockdowns and \"pushed that back\" - not only in March but again in September and December.\n\nThe government also failed to create a working contact-tracing system, did not introduce effective health controls at the borders and still did not offer \"proper sick pay\", he said.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said: \"I mourn every death in this pandemic and we share the grief of all those who have been bereaved. I and the government take full responsibility for all the actions we have taken to fight this pandemic.\"\n\nHe said there would be time to reflect on the decisions taken, but he did not think the right time was in the middle of the pandemic when \"37,000 people are struggling with Covid in our hospitals\".\n\nThe government needed to focus on keeping the virus under control and continuing the fastest vaccine roll-out in Europe, he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHe said his message to grieving families was that he \"deeply, personally\" regretted the loss of life and that the best way to honour the memory of those who had died and honour those who were currently grieving was \"to work together to bring this virus down, to keep it under control in the way that we are\".\n\nAsked about the government's \"legacy of poor decisions\", Mr Johnson said ministers followed scientific advice and did everything they could to minimise suffering. He said there were \"no easy solutions\" but the UK could be proud of its efforts to distribute the vaccine.\n\nAfter leading a minute's silence in the Scottish Parliament, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was \"truly sorry\" for any mistakes, as Scotland recorded a total of 5,888 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test.\n\nShe said the government did everything it could, but added: \"I don't think any of us, reflecting on numbers like these, can conclude that we have always succeeded.\"\n\nNext month, the prime minister hopes to publish a document giving details of the criteria he will use to start lifting the lockdown, a senior government source told the BBC.\n\nIt will include factors such as the number of hospitalisations and deaths, the progress of the vaccination programme, any changes to the virus and the impact easing restrictions might have on the epidemic - but will be dependent on emerging data about how effectively the vaccine stops the virus spreading.\n\nThe UK is the fifth country to pass 100,000 deaths, coming after the US, Brazil, India and Mexico.\n\nA scientist advising the government has warned the UK could face as many as 50,000 more coronavirus deaths.\n\nProf Calum Semple, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, told the BBC's Newsnight: \"It would really not surprise me if we're looking at another 40-50,000 deaths before this burns out.\n\n\"The deaths on the way up are likely to be mirrored by the number of deaths on the way down in this wave. Each one again is a tragedy and each one represents probably four or five people who survive but are damaged by Covid.\"\n\nHe said the UK had experienced some \"bad luck\" with the emergence of a new, more transmissible variant but had also suffered from \"decades of underinvestment\" in the NHS and \"a public health authority that's been eroded\" .\n\nMeanwhile, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell asked people, regardless of whether they had faith, to reflect on the \"enormity\" of the pandemic and join in a \"prayer for the nation\" at 18:00 GMT every day from 1 February.\n\nThey said the death statistics were were not \"just an abstract figure\", saying: \"Each number is a person: someone we loved and someone who loved us.\"\n\nMuslim leaders backed the call for a daily prayer. Qari Asim, chair of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, said Muslims and wider black, Asian and minority ethnic communities had been disproportionately affected by the \"tsunami of pain, grief and devastation\" - with many unable to properly mourn due to Covid restrictions.\n\nOn Tuesday, a further 1,631 coronavirus deaths were recorded, taking the total number of people who had died within 28 days of a positive test to 100,162.\n\nSeparate figures from the Office for National Statistics, which are based on death certificates, show there have been nearly 104,000 deaths since the pandemic began.\n\nA further 20,089 coronavirus cases were recorded on Tuesday, continuing a downward trend in the number of UK cases seen in recent days. The number of people in hospital remains high, as do the UK's daily death figures.\n\nSpeaking alongside the prime minister, England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said the number of people dying would come down \"relatively slowly\" over the next two weeks - and would probably \"remain flat for a while now\".\n\nElsewhere, bereavement support charities have written to the health secretary calling for more funding in the light of what they call \"the terrible toll of 100,000 deaths\".\n\nThe National Bereavement Alliance, representing a range of charities, said many families had been unable to be with loved ones as they died or to support one another.\n\nThey called for £500m allocated to mental health in England to be used to support the bereaved.\n\nMinister for bereavement Nadine Dorries said the government had given more than £10.2m to charities since March to ensure services were available to those who needed them.\n\nPlease enable JavaScript or upgrade your browser to see this interactive\n\nIf you would like to send us a tribute to a friend or family member who died after contracting coronavirus, please use the form below.\n\nPlease remember to include a photo of your loved one and their name. Upload your pictures here. Don't forget to include your contact details, so we can get in touch with you.\n\nWe would like to respond to everyone individually and include every tribute in our coverage, but unfortunately that may not be possible. Please be assured your message will be read and treated with the utmost respect.\n\nPlease note the contact details you provide will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your tribute.", "Scientists say sharks and rays are disappearing from the world's oceans at an \"alarming\" rate.\n\nThe number of sharks found in the open oceans has plunged by 71% over half a century, mainly due to over-fishing, according to a new study.\n\nThree-quarters of the species studied are now threated with extinction.\n\nAnd the researchers say immediate action is needed to secure a brighter future for these \"extraordinary, irreplaceable animals\".\n\nThey are calling on governments to implement science-based fishing limits.\n\nStudy researcher, Dr Richard Sherley of the University of Exeter, said the declines appear to be driven very much by fishing pressures.\n\nHe told BBC News: \"That's the driver for the 70% reduction in the last 50 years. For every 10 sharks you had in the open ocean in the 1970s, you would have three today, across these species, on average.\"\n\nSharks and rays are caught for their meat, fins and liver oil. They are also captured for recreational fishing and turn up by accident in the catch of fishing boats that are targeting other stocks.\n\nSharks are long-lived species that tend to produce few young\n\nOf the 31 species studied, 24 are now threatened with extinction, and three shark species (the oceanic whitetip shark, and the scalloped and great hammerhead sharks) have declined so sharply they are now classified as critically endangered - the highest threat category, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).\n\nProf Nicholas Dulvy of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, said oceanic sharks and rays are at exceptionally high risk of extinction, much more so than the average bird, mammal or frog, despite ranging far from land.\n\n\"Overfishing of oceanic sharks and rays jeopardises the health of entire ocean ecosystems as well as food security for some of the world's poorest countries,\" he said.\n\nThe researchers compiled global data on sharks and rays found in the open oceans (as opposed to reef sharks or those found close to shore).\n\nOf the 1,200 or so species of sharks and rays in the world, 31 are oceanic, travelling large distances across water.\n\n\"These are some of the big, important, open ocean predators that people will be familiar with,\" said Dr Sherley. \"The kind of sharks that people might describe as awe-inspiring or charismatic.\"\n\nHe said political will is needed to reverse the trends.\n\n\"The science is there, there needs to be the desire to do those stock assessments, to implement the measures that are needed to reduce the take of sharks and that political will has to come from pressure from citizens,\" Dr Sherley explained.\n\nDespite this \"gloomy\" picture, the scientists said a few shark conservation stories give cause for hope.\n\nSonja Fordham, president of Shark Advocates International, a non-profit project of The Ocean Foundation, said a couple of species, including the great white, have started to recover through science-based fishing limits.\n\n\"Relatively simple safeguards can help to save sharks and rays, but time is running out,\" she said.\n\n\"We urgently need conservation action across the globe to prevent myriad negative consequences and secure a brighter future for these extraordinary, irreplaceable animals.\"\n\nPopulations can recover with appropriate conservation\n\nSharks are at the top of the food chain, and crucial to the health of the oceans. Their loss impacts other marine animals as well as human livelihoods.\n\n\"Oceanic sharks and rays are vital to the health of vast marine ecosystems, but because they are hidden beneath the ocean surface, it has been difficult to assess and monitor their status,\" said Nathan Pacoureau of Simon Fraser University.\n\n\"Our study represents the first global synthesis of the state of these essential species at a time when countries should be addressing insufficient progress towards global sustainability goals.\n\n\"While we initially intended it as a useful report card, we now must hope it also serves as an urgent wake-up call.\"\n\nThe research is published in the journal, Nature.", "In March 2020, we were told it would be a ‘’good outcome’’ if coronavirus killed 20,000 people across the UK.\n\nNow the bleakest milestone has been reached: 100,000 deaths.\n\nIn a statement, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said \"behind these heart-breaking figures are friends, families and neighbours. The vaccine offers us the way out, but we cannot let up now and we sadly still face a tough period ahead. The virus is still spreading and we're seeing over 3,500 people per day being admitted into hospital.\"\n\nHealth correspondent Catherine Burns looks at the past year of the UK’s epidemic and hears from families who have lost loved ones.\n\nFilmed and edited by Julius Peacock. Additional filming by Emily Brooks", "Enforcement agents have removed protesters from the makeshift camp near Euston station\n\nBailiffs from HS2 have started to evict activists who dug a tunnel near Euston station in protest against the £106bn rail project.\n\nIt comes after the BBC revealed campaigners spent months digging the tunnel they claim is 100ft (30m) long.\n\nSince August, HS2 Rebellion members have been living in tree houses and tents at a camp nearby.\n\nA HS2 spokeswoman said the protesters were \"trespassing\" on land owned by the company.\n\nThe land being occupied is needed for continued building work around Euston, she added.\n\nEnforcement agents from the National Eviction Team have removed some protesters from the makeshift camp in the park.\n\nPolice have arrested five men and a woman at the site, although one male was later de-arrested.\n\nActivists say the tunnel - codenamed \"Kelvin\" - was dug as their \"best defence\" against being evicted.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Protesters have filmed themselves inside the tunnels\n\nProtesters said they were continuing to dig tunnels and have vowed to stay for as long as possible.\n\nAn 18-year-old, who gave his name as Al, said the tunnels can only be accessed through a section of the makeshift camp and were about 15ft (4.5m) deep.\n\n\"I will stay as long as I can,\" he said, but he added the activists \"have not got much food and water\".\n\nHS2 Rebellion told the BBC four people had \"locked themselves\" to fixing points inside the tunnels.\n\nOne activist, Blue Sandford, admitted the stunt was \"dangerous\" but felt it was \"worth it\".\n\nHS2 protester Dr Larch Maxey said the tunnel was \"warm and quiet\"\n\nEnforcement agents dismantle the make shift camp where HS2 Rebellion members have been living\n\nThe 18-year-old, who is currently on school strike for climate, said HS2 \"is a waste of money\".\n\n\"I'm in this tunnel because they [the government] are irresponsibly putting my life at risk from the climate and ecological emergency,\" she said.\n\n\"They are behaving in a way that is so reckless and unsafe that I don't feel they are giving us any option but to protest in this way to help save our own lives and the lives of all the people round the world.\n\n\"I shouldn't have to do this - I should be in school - the trouble is they are stealing that future and I have to stop them.\"\n\nEnforcement officers have used aerial platforms to try and coax protesters down from the trees\n\nA protester was brought down from the trees by officers\n\nMartin Andryjankczyk, who was carried out of the camp by enforcement agents earlier, predicted it would take \"at least a week or two\" to evict all the protesters.\n\nThe 20-year-old was taken to Holloway Police Station when he was led away but said he had been \"de-arrested\" and returned to the park.\n\n\"I have been living here for the last four months. They (the remaining demonstrators) aren't going to give up that easily,\" he said.\n\nOne activist used to a rope to tie himself between trees at the camp\n\nThe Met Police confirmed a number of officers were sent to the eviction site at Euston Square Gardens to assist High Court enforcement officers should there be any breach of the peace and to uphold Covid legislation.\n\nThe force said five people who were arrested at the site remain in custody.\n\nA spokeswoman for HS2 said tunnel protests were \"costly to the taxpayer\".\n\nShe added: \"HS2 has taken legal temporary possession of Euston Square Gardens in order to progress with works necessary for the construction of the new Euston station.\n\n\"These protests are a danger to the safety of the protesters, our staff and the general public, and put unnecessary strain on the emergency services during a pandemic.\"\n\nHS2 is set to link London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. It is hoped the 20-year project will reduce rail passenger overcrowding and help to rebalance the UK's economy.\n\nThe campaign group alleges HS2 is the \"most expensive, wasteful and destructive project in UK history\" and that it is \"set to destroy or irreparably damage 108 ancient woodlands and 693 wildlife sites\".\n\nHowever, HS2 bosses have said seven million trees will be planted during phase one of the project and that much ancient woodland will \"remain intact\".\n\nThere is a ring of security surrounding the square outside Euston Station and a crowd of journalists reporting on today's event.\n\nEvery now and then there is a burst of singing through a loud hailer and motivational speeches echo from the trees.\n\nMost of the protesters we can see are among the branches, some have cut their safety lines, others are swinging in harnesses.\n\nEarlier, enforcement officers were lifted up in a cherry picker into one of the tree camps . They have spoken with the demonstrators and are now fixing ropes to the high level platforms.\n\nWe've been told at least four people are inside the tunnels HS2 Rebellion have dug under the site.\n\nPeople inside the fence have said they predict the eviction to \"take weeks\".\n\nThe atmosphere is calm but the police have begun to push back people watching, reminding them of Covid-19 regulations and asking to see press passes.\n\nA fence is being erected by officers around the site\n\nFor more London news follow on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Scotland is to initially follow UK travel rules, but could introduce stricter measures next week\n\nScotland could introduce tougher quarantine rules for international travellers than other parts of the UK, the first minister has said.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that UK arrivals from regions with new virus variants will be provided accommodation for 10 days to isolate.\n\nNicola Sturgeon said she was \"concerned the proposal does not go far enough\".\n\nScotland will \"initially emulate\" the UK government measures, she said.\n\nBut further Scottish rules will be set out next week if the four nations do not reach an agreement on a UK-wide approach - which Ms Sturgeon said would be preferable.\n\nThe prime minister has said there are 22 countries with the risk of known new variants, including the South American nations, Portugal and South Africa.\n\nMr Johnson said anyone travelling from these countries who cannot be refused entry to the UK - such as British citizens - will be provided accommodation for 10 days to isolate \"without exception\".\n\nThey will be met at the airport and transferred to specific places, such as hotels.\n\nFurther details of the plan are expected to be outlined by Home Secretary Priti Patel later.\n\nHowever Ms Sturgeon - who was briefed on the UK government proposals in advance - told her daily coronavirus briefing that a \"comprehensive system of supervised quarantine\" was required in the next stage of the pandemic.\n\nAnd she said she was \"seeking urgently\" to persuade the UK government \"to go much further\" while providing additional support to the aviation industry.\n\nThe first minister said: \"Our best route back to greater domestic normality right now, as we continue with the vaccine programme, is firstly to suppress the virus here to as low as level as possible - as we did over the summer - then give ourselves a better chance of controlling it through test and protect, and next by doing much more than we did last year to protect our borders.\"\n\nThe Welsh government has also said the PM's proposals do not go far enough.\n\nWhen questioned by journalists, Ms Sturgeon said she would \"not give arbitrary dates\" on when the travel restrictions might come to an end.\n\nBut she said people \"might not be able to go on holiday overseas\" in order to \"get domestic normality\" back - including the reopening of schools and allowing people more interactions with loved ones.\n\n\"I'm not saying that's easy but maybe that might be a price we all need to be prepared to pay,\" she added.\n\nScottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross told the BBC that he believed that countries with higher infection rates and strains with quicker transmission should be prioritised.\n\n\"We've got to look at dealing with this in stages,\" he said. \"This doesn't need to be dragged into a Scotland versus England issue or the rest of the UK issue.\n\n\"This is as big an issue within Scotland. We shouldn't be moving around local authority areas so whether it's north or south of the border or within our own communities we've got to reduce travel as much as possible.\"\n\nIt comes as the deaths of a further 92 people who had tested positive for coronavirus were recorded in Scotland - bringing the total to 5,888.\n\nThe total number of deaths across the UK by that measure passed the grim milestone of 100,00 on Tuesday.\n\nMs Sturgeon said she was \"truly sorry\" for any mistakes that had been made in the handling of the pandemic.\n\nShe added: \"She said the death toll should make all political leaders \"think very hard about what more we could have done and what lessons we must continue to learn\".\n\nShe added: \"I know that I, and everyone in my government, have tried every day to do everything we possibly can.\n\n\"But I don't think any of us, reflecting on numbers like these, can conclude that we have always succeeded.\"\n\nA total of 1,330 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, representing 6.2% of people tested.\n\nMeanwhile 462,092 people have received the first dose of the vaccine in Scotland - including 56% of the over 80s and 95% of people in care homes.", "The greys were introduced to Britain from North America in the 19th Century\n\nThe UK government has given its support to a project to use oral contraceptives to control grey squirrel populations.\n\nEnvironment minister Lord Goldsmith says the damage they and other invasive species do to the UK's woodlands costs the UK economy £1.8 billion a year.\n\nThe bizarre-sounding plan is to lure grey squirrels into feeding boxes only they can access with little pots containing hazelnut spread.\n\nThese would be spiked with an oral contraceptive.\n\nLord Goldsmith says the damage from squirrels also threatens the effectiveness of government efforts to tackle climate change by planting tens of thousands of acres of new woodlands.\n\nOn Tuesday, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told BBC News: \"We hope advances in science can safely help our nature to thrive, including through the humane control of invasive species.\"\n\nA partnership of conservation and forestry organisations called the UK Squirrel Accord (UKSA) is behind the proposal.\n\nIt says grey squirrels, which were first introduced from North America in the late 19th century, cause huge damage to woodlands by stripping bark from trees aged between 10-50 years, the younger trees in a forest.\n\nThey particularly target broad-leafed varieties including oak, which are particularly ecologically important because they support so many other species.\n\nIt is estimated the UK is home to some three million of these invasive rodents.\n\nRed squirrels are now confined mainly to Scotland and Ireland\n\nThey have displaced the native red squirrel across most of the UK.\n\nLord Goldsmith says the government supports the plan as well as a longer-term effort to breed infertility into female grey squirrels to reduce their numbers.\n\nInvasive non-native species such as grey squirrels threaten our native biodiversity, he argues.\n\nWhen regulating grey squirrels with oral contraceptive was first proposed in 2017, the government's Animal and Plant Health Agency said it thought it could reduce their numbers by as much as 90%.\n\nThe project also has royal approval.\n\nPrince Charles was instrumental in founding the UK Squirrel Accord with the objective of \"managing the negative impacts of invasive grey squirrels in the UK\".\n\nHe has written of the importance of protecting Britain's remaining red squirrels.\n\n\"These charming and intelligent creatures never fail to delight\", he wrote last week in his capacity as patron of the Red Squirrel Survival Trust, describing red squirrels as the \"symbol and benchmark\" of healthy woods.\n\nJason Gilchrist, an ecologist from Edinburgh Napier University, has written in defence of the grey squirrel but he says he supports the oral contraceptive plan.\n\nHe acknowledges there is a need to manage grey squirrel populations.\n\n\"It is better than the alternative: a shotgun\", he told BBC News.\n\nIt is the same argument the UKSA makes: dosing the animals with contraceptives provides a humane alternative to culling them.\n\nLast week, the Royal Forestry Society, a member of the Squirrel Accord, called for just such a cull.\n\nSimon Lloyd, its chief executive, says efforts to tackle global warming and improve biodiversity will be undermined unless grey squirrel numbers can be reduced.\n\nNew trees will not survive to \"deliver the carbon capture or biodiversity objectives if grey squirrels cannot be controlled\", he told the Daily Telegraph.\n\nThe UKSA has been experimenting with ways to deliver oral contraceptives to squirrels for more than three years now.\n\nLast year, it tested special feeding stations designed so only grey squirrels can gain access in woodland in East Yorkshire.\n\nInstead of contraceptives, the hazelnut paste bait was dosed with a dye that, when ingested, causes squirrel hair to fluoresce under UV light.\n\nThe researchers found that more than 90% of the grey squirrel population being studied visited the traps.\n\nThey concluded that it was possible to deliver repeat doses of a contraceptive to the majority of grey squirrels in a wood.", "Leon Briggs died in hospital after being restrained and detained at Luton police station in November 2013\n\nA man shouted \"help me\" and \"get off me\" as he was restrained face-down by police officers hours before he died, an inquest heard.\n\nLeon Briggs, 39, died in 2013 after being detained under the Mental Health Act at Luton police station.\n\nA jury was told one witness described the father-of-two as \"like a child crying out for a toy\" as he was held down by officers.\n\nAnother said he looked her in the eyes and said \"please help me\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe jury has been shown CCTV of Mr Briggs skipping between shops and across roads, before two Bedfordshire Police officers handcuffed him and placed him in leg restraints on Marsh Road in Luton on 4 November 2013.\n\nMr Briggs was detained in a cell at about 14:25 GMT, but he became unconscious and was pronounced dead in hospital at about 16:15.\n\nThe inquest heard his primary cause of death was \"amphetamine intoxication with prone restraint and prolonged struggling\" with a secondary cause of coronary heart disease.\n\nMr Briggs was described as \"a really good dad\" who loved spending time with his children\n\nThe inquest heard Wendy Hamilton was shopping when she saw one officer restraining Mr Briggs on his lower legs, with another on his shoulders, and a third appeared to be looking through his wallet.\n\nMs Hamilton said she \"thought the amount of pressure being used was not needed\", adding she heard Mr Briggs shout \"get off me\" and \"why are you doing this to me?\".\n\n\"He lifted his head from the pavement, he looked me in the eyes and said 'please help me',\" she said.\n\nShe added when two paramedics arrived \"around 45 minutes\" after she first saw Mr Briggs, she was \"surprised\" they \"did not check Leon at all\".\n\nShe said he was later lifted into a police van \"front first\" and \"face down\", \"like he was a bag of potatoes\" or \"like they were picking up a dog\".\n\n\"They lifted him not in a rough way... but it was not very dignified,\" she said.\n\nFootage showed Mr Briggs walking out of a shop with officers before he was restrained\n\nAnother witness, Raja Khan, said: \"Mr Briggs was crying out... but not in an aggressive manner... in a similar way to a child crying out for a toy.\n\n\"I'm not going to forget what I saw in regard to the restraint... I do not agree with how Mr Briggs was treated... it would have been fair enough if he was being violent but from what I saw, he was not.\"\n\nFormer chairman of the College of Paramedics, Andrew Newton, said paramedics on Marsh Road were likely to have had \"inadequate knowledge\" of dealing with acute behavioural disorder patients like Mr Briggs in 2013, due to a lack of national guidance.\n\nBut Mr Newton added Mr Briggs \"received no meaningful medical care\" because they failed to properly check his vital signs, and this \"fell below the standards of care\".\n\nHe said Mr Briggs should have been taken to hospital in an ambulance.\n\nThe inquest heard part of a statement from Sgt Loren Short, who said he told paramedics Mr Briggs had been detained under the Mental Health Act when they arrived.\n\nPolice Community Support Officer (PCSO) James Collings described Mr Briggs as \"aggressive\" and \"nonsensical\", and \"shouting 'no, no' and snarling\" while in the police van.\n\nPCSO Collings said when he questioned whether Mr Briggs was on drugs, one officer said: \"[He is] mental\", and Mr Briggs replied: \"Don't take the [expletive]\", to which the officer said: \"I'm not taking the [expletive], I just want to get you back and get you some help.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "More than 100,000 people in the UK have died from a virus, that, this time last year, felt like a far-off foreign threat. How did we come to be one of the countries with the worst death tolls?\n\nThere is no quick answer to that question, and there is sure to be a long and detailed public inquiry once the pandemic is over. But there are plenty of clues that, when pieced together, help build a picture of why the UK has reached this devastating number.\n\nSome will point a finger at the government - its decision to lock-down later than much of western Europe, the stuttering start to its test-and-trace network and the lack of protection afforded to care home residents.\n\nOthers will spotlight deeper rooted problems with British society - its poor state of public health, with high levels of obesity, for example.\n\nOthers, still, will note that some of the UK's great strengths - its position as a vibrant hub for international air travel, its ethnically diverse and densely-packed urban populations - exposed its vulnerability to a virus that spreads effortlessly between people.\n\nIn some people's eyes, the UK's island status might have helped it. New Zealand, Australia and Taiwan managed to stop the virus getting a foothold and deaths have been kept to a minimum - Australia has seen fewer deaths throughout the pandemic than the UK is recording every day on average.\n\nAll introduced strict border restrictions immediately and lockdowns to contain the virus before it had spread. The UK did not. It was not until June that quarantine rules were introduced for all arrivals and even then travel corridors were soon set up, relaxing the rules for travellers from certain countries. Only this month were these scrapped.\n\nProf Devi Sridhar, an expert in public health from Edinburgh University, is one of those who has been critical of the approach the UK has taken from the start.\n\nShe says the UK, like much of Europe, was \"complacent\" about the threat of infectious disease - choosing to treat the new coronavirus \"like flu\" and allowing it to spread, while talking about the desire to achieve herd immunity.\n\nThis all changed in late March, when a full lockdown eventually came. But there was a crucial delay of a week which is estimated to have cost more than 20,000 lives, according to government modeller Prof Neil Ferguson, because of how quickly infection rates were doubling at that point.\n\nThis, of course, is said with the benefit of hindsight. Government modellers themselves acknowledge the data was \"really quite poor\" making it difficult to make a decision that would have significant repercussions. It is a point acknowledged by Prof Chris Whitty, the UK's chief medical adviser. Speaking in the summer he said there had been \"very limited information\" in early March.\n\nBy then, the virus was ripping through care homes. Around 30% of deaths in the first wave happened in care homes; 40% if you include care home residents who died in hospital.\n\nThose at the heart of government acknowledge mistakes were made. UK chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said recently: \"The lesson is go earlier than you think you want to, go harder than you think you want to, and go a bit broader than you think you want to in terms of applying the restrictions.\"\n\nBy May, restrictions were beginning to be eased. But was this too soon?\n\nThe government seized on the relative lull to focus on building what the prime minister promised would be a \"world-beating\" test-and-trace system. The idea was that new outbreaks could be nipped in the bud, with comprehensive tracking by a centralised team of tracers.\n\nThe mere fact this had to be done some months after the virus had struck, illustrates another factor behind the high number of deaths - the UK was simply not prepared for a pandemic of this nature in the way some Asian nations had been. Countries such as South Korea and Taiwan had established test-and-trace systems in place that were ready to be activated.\n\nThe UK had a chance to bed in its system in the summer but it was riven with teething problems, with tracers struggling to reach many contacts and the testing capacity slowing down as demand rose.\n\nLow levels of infection over the summer had created a false sense of security.\n\nDesperate to boost the economy, the government launched the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, offering people discounted meals out during August. To what extent it contributed to the rise in the autumn is much argued about but certainly some doctors blame it in part for an increase in patients seen.\n\nThe truth is the virus never went away. Testing in the summer showed even at the lowest levels there were still around 500 cases a day being diagnosed - and random testing in the population subsequently showed the true level may have been twice that.\n\nIn late August around 1,000 people a day were testing positive. By mid-September that had trebled and from there it rose five-fold to 15,000 by mid October. The numbers testing positive have never returned below 10,000 a day on average since.\n\nAnother decision that has been heavily criticised was the refusal of ministers to introduce a short two-week lockdown, or \"circuit breaker\", in September - despite their advisers on Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) recommending such a step. The argument was it would have set the spread of the virus back by at least a month, giving test and trace time to regroup.\n\nWales, however, did introduce its own \"fire-breaker\" - a 17-day lockdown in October. It got infection rates down, but as soon as it was lifted they rebounded. This is, of course, why lockdowns have been criticised.\n\nEdinburgh University infectious diseases expert Prof Mark Woolhouse, one of the modellers who feeds data into Sage, is on the record in the autumn questioning the logic of them for this very reason. It remains up for debate how effective a circuit-breaker would actually have been.\n\nThis after all is the time of year when respiratory illnesses start to increase. Schools had returned as had university students, creating new environments for the novel coronavirus to spread.\n\nWhen a lockdown was eventually introduced in England in November it was to last four weeks, with Sage members lamenting the delay. \"The absence of a decision is a decision in itself,\" says Wellcome Trust director Sir Jeremy Farrar.\n\nBut even before that lockdown was lifted cases had started going up in the south-east of England. Within weeks it became clear what was happening. The virus had mutated and a new faster-spreading variant was on the rise.\n\nBy mid-December the clamour for lockdown was growing again, but the plan for a Christmas relaxation of restrictions had already been announced. In every nation of the UK, ministers waited.\n\nAt the start of 2021, with hospital admissions rising rapidly, the UK's four chief medical officers intervened, issuing a joint statement warning the NHS was at \"material risk\" of being overwhelmed. Within hours the UK was back in lockdown.\n\nWhat has struck some is just how similar the mistakes have been in terms of locking down late.\n\n\"It will take years to unpick why Covid has gone so badly in the UK,\" says University College London infectious diseases expert Dr Neil Stone. \"But the failure to learn from wave one stands out.\"\n\nBut it must also be recognised that there are factors outside the control of the government - certainly in terms of its pandemic response - that have contributed to the high number of deaths.\n\nOne of the reasons the virus was able to take a hold and spread so quickly was because of geography and the fact the UK - and London in particular - is a global hub. Genetic analysis has shown the virus was brought into the UK on at least 1,300 separate occasions, mainly from France, Spain and Italy, by the end of March.\n\nIt was here before we knew it. That's not something Australia or New Zealand had to deal with on such a scale.\n\nDensity of population is also a factor. The UK is among the 10 most densely populated big nations - those with populations of more than 20 million. What is more, our cities are more inter-connected than they are in many places.\n\nIt meant the virus was able to seed everywhere quite quickly. Contrast this with Italy which saw the vast majority of cases in the north of the country in the first wave.\n\nThe ageing population also needs to be taken into account. Once you do this, and adjust for the size of the population - known as age-standardised mortality - deaths have risen, but not by as much as some of the headline figures suggest.\n\nThe health of the nation has also been a factor. The UK has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world. And obesity increases the risk of hospitalisation and death, according to Public Health England. One study found the risk of death was almost double for those who are severely obese.\n\nConditions such as diabetes, kidney disease and respiratory problems also increase the risk - a fifth of Covid deaths have listed diabetes on the death certificate.\n\nAgain the UK has relatively high rates of these illnesses.\n\nBut many have argued that these high levels of ill-health have been compounded by the levels of inequality in the UK.\n\nLevels of ill health and life expectancy have always been worst in the poorest areas, but the pandemic certainly seems to have exacerbated this.\n\nOffice for National Statistics data shows mortality rates have been twice as high in deprived areas as they have been in wealthy areas. The Health Foundation is carrying out its own inquiry into the issue, arguing the Covid death toll needs to be seen through the \"lens\" of inequality to fully understand it.\n\nIt is something that has also been raised by Prof Michael Marmot, one of the country's leading experts on health inequalities. \"The UK's dismal record is telling us something important about our society.\"\n\nIf you, or someone you know, have been affected by bereavement, here is a list of organisations that may be able to help.", "Eva Gicain has been celebrating a belated Christmas with her daughter Elleana and husband Limuel Lina after being discharged from Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge\n\nA nurse who gave birth nearly three months ago while seriously ill with Covid-19 has held her daughter for the first time.\n\nEva Gicain, 30, had the long-awaited reunion with her baby after being discharged from Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge earlier this month.\n\nBaby Elleana had to be delivered about a month early by C-section, but Mrs Gicain has no memory of her birth.\n\n\"When I held Elleana for the first time I didn't want to let go,\" she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid-19: New mum thanks hospitals after recovery\n\nMrs Gicain was taken to her local hospital with a severe case of Covid-19 at the end of October when she was 34 weeks pregnant, and gave birth a week later.\n\nBut the NHS nurse, who was on maternity leave from her job in London, has no recollection of it or the traumatic weeks that followed.\n\nDays later she was transferred 50 miles (80km) away to Royal Papworth Hospital's critical care unit and became one of the youngest patients ever to be put on to its \"artificial lung\" for acute respiratory failure.\n\nThe extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine acted as Mrs Gicain's lungs so they could recover while she was treated for Covid-19.\n\n\"The first thing I remember is just a few days before Christmas and being told where I was, what I had been through and that Elleana was doing well,\" Mrs Gicain said.\n\nMrs Gicain was given a round of applause by hospital staff after spending the first few weeks of her baby's life in a hospital 50 miles away\n\nHer husband Limuel Lina, 30, who also had Covid-19, was unable to visit her and had to wait three weeks to see Elleana, who was in a special care baby unit.\n\n\"It was so horrible the three of us being in separate places at a time when we should all have been together,\" Mr Lina said.\n\nAlthough the couple knew they were having a girl and had discussed her name, Mr Lina, a healthcare assistant, said he did not know his wife's preferred spelling.\n\n\"[It] meant I couldn't yet get her registered,\" he said.\n\n\"Luckily, I found some personalised pyjamas that Eva had bought as a Christmas present and so I managed to get the spelling from there!\"\n\nThe couple and their daughter celebrated a belated Christmas last week at their home in Basildon, Essex.\n\n\"Life is unpredictable and we are now just looking forward to being a little family and spending time together,\" added Mrs Gicain.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The head of AstraZeneca has defended its rollout of the coronavirus vaccine in the EU, amid tension with member states over delays in supply.\n\nPascal Soriot told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that his team was working \"24/7 to fix the very many issues of production of the vaccine\".\n\nHe said production was \"basically two months behind where we wanted to be\".\n\nHe also said the EU's late decision to sign contracts had given limited time to sort out hiccups with supply.\n\nMr Soriot, chief executive of the UK-Swedish multinational, said a contract with the UK had been signed three months before the one with the EU, giving more time for glitches to be ironed out.\n\nHe told La Repubblica that problems in \"scaling up\" vaccine production were being experienced at two plants, one in the Netherlands and one in Belgium.\n\n\"It's complicated, especially in the early phase where you have to really sort out all sorts of issues,\" he said.\n\n\"We believe we've sorted out those issues, but we are basically two months behind where we wanted to be.\"\n\nHe added: \"We've also had teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced.\n\nAstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said a vaccine targeting the South African variant was being worked on\n\n\"Would I like to do better? Of course. But, you know, if we deliver in February what we are planning to deliver, it's not a small volume. We are planning to deliver millions of doses to Europe, it is not small.\"\n\nMr Soriot also said AstraZeneca was working on a vaccine with Oxford University that would target the South African variant of the coronavirus.\n\nScientists have warned there is a chance the South African variant may harm the effectiveness of current vaccines.\n\nThe AstraZeneca vaccine is already being used in the UK but has not yet been approved by the EU, although the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to give it the green light at the end of this month.\n\nThe bloc signed a deal in August for 300 million doses, with an option for 100 million more. The EU had hoped that, as soon as approval was given, delivery would start straight away, with some 80 million doses arriving in the 27 nations by March.\n\nThe EU has ordered 600 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is already being used on patients around the bloc.\n\nBut Pfizer-BioNTech said last week it was delaying shipments for the next few weeks because of work to increase capacity at its Belgian plant.\n\nIn response to the delays, the EU has said it might restrict exports of vaccines made in the bloc.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sofia Bettiza explains why some countries are far ahead of others in the vaccination race\n\nHealth Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said companies making Covid vaccines in the bloc would have to \"provide early notification whenever they want to export vaccines to third countries\".\n\nShe said the 27-member EU bloc would \"take any action required to protect its citizens\".\n\nEuropean Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, addressing the virtual version of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), usually held in Davos, said: \"Europe invested billions to help develop the world's first Covid-19 vaccines. And now, the companies must deliver. They must honour their obligations.\"\n\nHave you been affected by vaccine supply issues? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The prime minister has responded to calls that were getting louder for clarity about what might happen next and when.\n\nHe pencilled in a date for the country's diary. But 8 March is the hoped-for beginning of the end of lockdown - far from a guarantee.\n\nPolitical demands for more information from his backbench MPs and the opposition were part of the reason for his announcement. But there was also the relentless march of the clock.\n\nThe government had promised it would give schools in England two weeks' notice of whether they would be able to open after half-term.\n\nWith Boris Johnson not expected in Westminster on Thursday, Wednesday was the last viable moment to keep that vow.\n\nWith cases still so high, and hospitals still so full, in theory the announcement wasn't that much of a surprise.\n\nNorthern Ireland is already in lockdown until 5 March, but will confirm its position on schools on Thursday.\n\nWales and Scotland are reviewing whether to extend closures beyond the middle of February in the next couple of days. Without dramatic falls in case numbers, they seem likely to be in step soon too.\n\nIn practice, though, Mr Johnson's announcement still felt like a big admission: that we're heading for 12 months of limits - starting last March - on our lives in one way or another.\n\nFirms and families around the UK will have had to cope with moving in and out of lockdown for a whole year.\n\nLike Tuesday's terrible 100,000-deaths mark, it's a milestone that at the beginning of all of this simply wouldn't have been imagined.\n\nBut as time as worn on, the pattern has become familiar: push the dates back, confront the worst rather than hope for the best.\n\nThe prime minister altered, maybe, too. You could hear it in his tone when asked what the chances of sticking to his date were. \"That's the earliest,\" he warned, suggesting that a long list of things have to go right.\n\nOne cabinet minister described the government's position: \"The decision making has been more and more cautious as they've been caught out so many times.\"\n\nNo one perhaps would be more delighted than Mr Johnson if the pace of the disease slows dramatically and the promise of the vaccine comes good very soon.\n\nBut at this time, with a buffer of several weeks to keep looking at the information, that's not a commitment that ministers are willing to make.", "Victims lost an average of £45,242 last year after investing with fraudsters imitating genuine investment firms.\n\nMore than £78m was lost in total, according to fraud reporting centre Action Fraud.\n\nReports of clone firm investment scams rose by 29% in April - at the time of the first national lockdown - compared with the previous month.\n\nA UK financial watchdog warned people to be alert, particularly when their finances were stretched.\n\nScammers set up clone firms using the name, address and firm reference number (FRN) of real companies authorised by the regulator - the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).\n\nThey then send out sales materials linking to the websites of legitimate firms, to trick potential investors into thinking they are dealing with the real firm.\n\nThey use their own, similar contact details, so victims still think they are dealing with the genuine firm as they invest money.\n\nLosses can be high as fraudsters tend to encourage large or regular investments before disappearing with the money.\n\nThe ongoing financial impact of Covid-19 may make people more susceptible to clone scams, the FCA said.\n\nMark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: \"Fraudsters use literature and websites that mirror those of legitimate firms, as well as encouraging investors to check the firm reference number (FRN) on the FCA Register to sound as convincing as possible.\"\n\nHe said alerts were raised about 1,100 firms, including clones, last year - twice as many as the previous year.\n\nHe said the authorities were taking down clone sites when discovered.\n\n\"When it comes to clones, I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to double check every detail,\" Mr Steward said.\n\nOne victim, called Janet, said: \"After searching the internet for high-return bonds, I received a call the next day about investing in student accommodation.\n\n\"I found legitimate details of the company online - everything seemed genuine, so I invested.\n\n\"A few months later, after a couple more investments, I started to get a bit worried - I still hadn't received confirmation of the latest investment.\n\n\"I tried to call the contacts I had been speaking to, but the numbers were invalid. It was clear I had been scammed.\n\nThe ScamSmart campaign, run by the FCA, has tips to protect yourself from clone investment firms:", "Jagtar Singh Johal, from Dumbarton, is being held under India's anti-terror law\n\nA Scottish man who has been held in an Indian jail without conviction for three years has told the BBC he was tortured to sign a blank confession.\n\nJagtar Singh Johal, from Dumbarton, is being held under India's anti-terror laws, accused of conspiring to murder a number of right-wing Hindu leaders.\n\nCourt documents allege he helped fund the crimes and claim he was a member of a \"terrorist gang\".\n\nMr Johal told the BBC via his lawyer he had been \"falsely implicated\".\n\nIn answers to BBC questions obtained by his lawyer during a virtual prison meeting, the 33-year-old says he was physically tortured into signing a blank confession and forced to record a video which was broadcast on Indian TV.\n\n\"They made me sign blank pieces of paper and asked me to say certain lines in front of a camera under fear of extreme torture,\" he said via his lawyer.\n\nMr Johal's legal team also shared a copy of what they say is a handwritten letter from shortly after his arrest in November 2017 in which he details allegations of how the torture took place.\n\n\"Multiple shocks were administered by placing (the) crocodile clips on my earlobes, nipples and private parts,\" the letter says. \"Multiple shocks were given each day.\n\n\"Two people would stretch my legs, another person would slap and strike me from behind, and the shocks were given by the seated officers.\"\n\n\"At some stages I was left unable to walk and had to be carried out of the interrogation room.\"\n\nThe BBC has been unable to independently verify these allegations of torture.\n\nThe Indian authorities strongly deny them, and have said \"there is no evidence of mistreatment or torture as alleged\".\n\nJagtar got married in India in 2017\n\nMr Johal travelled to India in October 2017 for his wedding.\n\nVideos of the occasion show the new groom jumping enthusiastically to Bhangra music as he celebrated.\n\nIn another he is seen holding his wife's hand, as they perform their first dance in front of friends and family.\n\n\"It was a cheerful day for us, it went exactly as planned,\" recalls his brother Gurpreet Singh Johal.\n\nBut a fortnight later, while on a shopping trip with his new bride in the North Indian state of Punjab, Mr Johal was taken away by police and has been in detention ever since.\n\nHis brother Gurpreet, who lives in Scotland, says Mr Johal was a peaceful activist and is convinced he was arrested because he had written about historical human rights violations against Sikhs in India.\n\n\"I believe my brother is being targeted because he was outspoken,\" Gurpreet says. \"I believe he is innocent and will be proved innocent once the trial starts.\n\n\"Otherwise Indian officials should release him and return him back to his country.\"\n\nJagtar Singh Johal (right) arrives at court in India in November 2017\n\nCharge-sheets from the Indian authorities outline the case against Mr Johal and a group of men whom they believe were involved in a \"series of killings\" of right wing Hindu leaders.\n\nIt is claimed Mr Johal was a member of Khalistan Liberation Front (KLF), described in the documents as an international \"terrorist gang\".\n\nHe is accused of paying £3,000 to the former head of the KLF to help fund the crimes. The documents claim he \"actively participated and had complete knowledge of the conspiracy\".\n\n\"There are very serious charges against him including murder and abetment of terrorism,\" an Indian government official told the BBC.\n\n\"The seriousness of charges against him have been shared with the British authorities,\" they added.\n\nFootage which claims to show Mr Johal in custody was broadcast on Indian TV\n\nMr Johal's lawyer, Jaspal Singh Manjphur, who has represented him since he was first arrested, told the BBC he was concerned by the length of time it was taking for the case to go through the Indian legal system.\n\n\"He has been in custody for over three years,\" Mr Manjphur said. \"Normally, if the prosecution wants, they can complete the case in that much time.\"\n\nMr Manjphur said the authorities had yet to provide any him with any evidence linking his client to the crimes and feared he was being framed, a charge denied by officials.\n\nA few weeks ago, Mr Johal was accused of being involved in another crime. While in prison he has been arrested for helping to plot the murder of a man in October 2020.\n\n\"He is in a high security jail, he is under CCTV surveillance for 24 hours. How can he be in contact with anyone?\", Mr Manjphur said.\n\nMr Johal was last seen in public at court in Delhi earlier this month\n\nMr Johal is being held at Delhi's maximum security Tihar jail.\n\nHe claims he is often forced to stay in solitary confinement and is denied the same facilities as other prisoners, such as hot water.\n\n\"By making me stay in these conditions, they are ensuring that my mental condition remains disturbed,\" he said.\n\n\"It is very tough to live here,\" he said.\n\nThe vast majority of inmates at the prison are, like Mr Johal, held before a conviction in what is known as an \"under-trial\" in India.\n\nAt the end of 2019, 82% of prisoners held in Tihar jail had yet to complete the trial process.\n\nIn India it can take many years before under-trial prisoners ever get to court, especially in terror cases where bail is hard to secure, a concern for Mr Johal's lawyer.\n\n\"He will languish in jail until the trial is completed, in such cases it could take anywhere between five to 10 years,\" Mr Manjphur said.\n\nUK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has raised the case with his Indian counterpart\n\nThe human rights charity Reprieve has written to the UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, asking that he calls for Mr Johal's immediate release.\n\nReprieve is also worried that some of the charges Mr Johal is awaiting trial for carry the death penalty as the maximum punishment. But experts stress that executions in India are extremely rare.\n\nThe UK's Foreign Commonwealth and Development office told the BBC that Mr Raab did raise the case with his Indian counterpart during his trip to India in December.\n\n\"We have consistently raised concerns about his case with the Government of India, including allegations of torture and mistreatment and his right to a fair trial,\" it said in a statement.\n\n\"Our staff continue to support Jagtar Singh Johal following his detention in India, and are in regular contact with his family and prison officials about his health and wellbeing.\"\n\nHundreds of people protested outside the Foreign Office\n\nBut Mr Johal's brother Gurpreet said the family was still waiting for a meeting with the foreign secretary.\n\nHe said: \"We are calling for either Jagtar to be charged and a fair trial to take place or to be returned back to his country so he can spend his life with his wife in the UK.\"\n\nIn August last year Gurpreet Singh Johal was joined by dozens who protested outside Downing Street.\n\nJagtar Singh Johal's case has sparked protests around the world, from Westminster to Washington, Geneva to Toronto.\n\nIn his statement to the BBC, Mr Johal had this message for officials back home: \"I plead to the UK government to support me, I'm a British citizen and the government should understand that.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Keir Starmer calls for teachers and support staff to be vaccinated during the February half term\n\nSir Keir Starmer has called on the government to \"use the window\" of the February half-term to vaccinate all teachers and support staff.\n\nSpeaking at Prime Ministers Questions, the Labour leader said reopening schools must be a national priority.\n\nLabour wants to bring forward the vaccination of key workers alongside others in high risk groups.\n\nBut Boris Johnson said the proposal would \"delay our ability to move forward out of lockdown\".\n\nThe PM said teachers in the top nine priority groups would be vaccinated as a \"matter of priority\", adding: \"I know how deeply frustrating it is, the extra burden that we have placed on families by closing the schools.\"\n\nMr Johnson said he remained confident that the top four priority groups - taking in all over-70s, health and care staff and elderly care home residents - would receive a first jab by mid-February \"if we can get the supply\" of vaccines.\n\nBy the end of April those in the next five priority groups, including all over-50s and younger adults with underlying health conditions, should have been offered a jab, under the government's plans.\n\nLabour wants to see workers in critical professions - such as police officers, firefighters and transport workers, as well as teachers - vaccinated alongside these groups.\n\nShadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: \"The NHS rightly deserve congratulations for their impressive and speedy roll out of vaccinations.\n\n\"But now we need to go further and faster.\n\n\"Not only will vaccination acceleration save lives it will help us to carefully and responsibly reopen our economy and crucially ensure children are back in school as transmission reduces.\"\n\nBut asked about the proposal in the Commons, Mr Johnson said it would \"take vaccines away from the more vulnerable groups and... delay our ability to move forward out of lockdown\".\n\nThe government has said it will prioritise the reopening of schools as it begins the process of lifting lockdown restrictions, but in a Commons statement after PMQs, Mr Johnson indicated that schools would remain closed until early March.\n\n\"We hope it will... be safe to begin the reopening of schools from Monday, 8 March, with other economic and social restrictions being removed thereafter as and when the data permits,\" he told MPs.", "The coronavirus pandemic has forced the cancellation of many much-loved events and traditions but the good people of New Orleans were not going to let it ruin their annual Mardi Gras.\n\nWhen the mayor of the Louisiana city announced that the raucous, crowd-filled street carnival parades would not be going ahead, residents decided to turn their houses into floats instead.\n\nThousands have been transformed for the two-week long carnival that runs until Ash Wednesday on 17 February. In the picture below, you can see The Queen's Jubilee House.\n\nA special project was set up encouraging home-owners to hire the many artists who would normally have months of work preparing for the event.\n\nRené Pierre's company usually looks after 75 floats during Mardi Gras and he has managed to get contracts to build 53 house floats.\n\n\"My wife and I were trying to sleep one night, and we kept hearing notifications coming from the website. It was like instant success. It was incredible,\" he told CNN.\n\nThere were a variety of themes such as this reference to the Bernie Sanders meme from last month's presidential inauguration.\n\nAnd this homage to influential women including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died last year.\n\nThe idea for the house floats came from a carnival regular, Megan Joy Boudreaux, who had suggested it in a post on Twitter after the mayor's announcement in November.\n\n\"It doesn't matter if your budget is zero and you're recycling cardboard boxes, or whether your budget is tens of thousands of dollars and you've got a mansion on St Charles. We want everyone who wants to do this to participate,\" she told the New York Times.\n\nShe said she had expected a few friends and neighbours to join in, but by the beginning of January more than 9,000 people had signed up - some as far afield as the UK and Australia, the AP reports.\n\nSome homes were decorated in honour of musicians, like this house below that paid tribute to former New Orleans resident and jazz clarinet payer Pete Fountain.\n\nAnd this house which referenced country music star Dolly Parton.\n\nThere were also tributes to musician Dr John.\n\nAnd others evoked Zydeco music pioneers Boozoo Chavis and Clifton Chenier and the 'Cajun Hank Williams', DL Menard.\n\nAn online map of the decorated houses is being made available for people to visit in their own time and, it is hoped, in a socially-distanced way.", "Starmer: Get a grip on getting laptops to children\n\nSir Keir says he is \"no wiser\" over where the PM stands on vaccinating teachers. But he moves on to the supplies of technology for children at home. \"The government has got a duty to make sure every single child can learn at home,\" says the Labour leader. But he says a third of families say they don't have enough laptops or home computers, and over 400,000 children are still not able to get online at home. He asks if the PM understands the anger of families that the government \"still haven't got to grips with this\". Johnson says he \"fully understands the frustration and impatience across the country.\" He says the government has provided 1.3 million laptops to children and a £1bn catch up fund, but he promises more details in his statement this afternoon on \"what more we propose to do on reopening of schools\".", "Claudia Marsh was a volunteer for an eating disorder charity which had helped her in the past\n\nAn \"incredible\" recently-qualified teacher has died with coronavirus on her 25th birthday.\n\nClaudia Marsh's death was described as \"sudden and unexpected\" by a charity which had helped her recover from an eating disorder several years ago.\n\nShe had gone on to volunteer for the organisation and became a \"beacon of hope\" for others.\n\nHer mother Tina Marsh, from Heswall in Wirral, said she was \"very proud\" and \"blown away\" by the many tributes.\n\nWriting on Facebook, Ms Marsh said she was a \"beautiful daughter and incredible sister\" who was selfless in her work for Merseyside-based charities Talking Eating Disorders (TEDS) and The Whitechapel Centre.\n\nShe said: \"She loved giving back to people less fortunate than herself.\"\n\nFamily friend Leigh Best, who founded TEDS, described the death as \"heartbreaking\".\n\nShe added: \"Claudia was very special, kind, caring and a dedicated teacher.\n\n\"She supported countless families across the UK. Claudia made her own little packs to give out to others with eating disorders with positive affirmations.\n\n\"She was full of positivity, kindness and hope, and had a smile that would brighten up the whole room.\"\n\nIn a statement, the Whitechapel Centre, where Claudia also volunteered, said staff were \"devastated\", adding she would leave behind a \"legacy of care, dedication and enthusiasm\".\n\nThe charity said she put all of her time and energy into providing food and clothing to those who needed it during the pandemic.\n\n\"Claudia always put others before herself and her memory will live on through the impact and contribution she made to our organisation,\" the centre said.\n\n\"She was instrumental in bringing together our volunteer community.\"\n\nMs Marsh has set up an online fundraising page for the two charities, which has already garnered more than £10,000.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Facebook is taking steps to rectify the error that saw posts referring to Plymouth Hoe taken down\n\nFacebook has apologised for removing posts that named part of a city it deemed to contain an offensive word.\n\nPlymouth Hoe is a historic part of the Devon city's seafront but the social media platform wrongly identified it as an offensive term.\n\nFacebook users have recently had posts taken down for breaching bullying rules after innocently using the place name.\n\nThe company said it \"will take steps to rectify the error\".\n\nDawn Lapthorn, who created the 'Don't Dump it, Plymouth and Surrounding areas' page said she was surprised to receive notifications from Facebook telling her \"community standards on harassment and bullying\" had been breached.\n\nPlymouth Hoe is famous as the place where Sir Francis Drake finished off a game of bowls before setting off to fight the Spanish Armada in 1588\n\nShe said: \"One woman on the group had been making hats, and she forgot to say where the collection point was so people asked her and she wrote Plymouth Hoe.\n\n\"Suddenly I started getting notifications asking me to remove the comments.\n\n\"And then her daughter contacted me asking why her mum had been banned from commenting on the group.\"\n\nOther people commenting on the group's posts have also received notifications and had posts taken down.\n\nMs Lapthorn said: \"I've heard that some Facebook groups have been closed down because of this, and with the work we do in the community and 26,000 members, I've worked too hard to have that put at risk.\"\n\nA Facebook company spokesperson said: \"These posts were removed in error and we apologise to those who were affected. We're looking into what happened and will take steps to rectify the error.\"\n\nFollow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "It wasn't normal when the prime minister stood at the lectern in Downing Street's wood-panelled State Dining Room and announced that four people had died from coronavirus on 9 March last year.\n\nIt wasn't normal, that day, when he announced the obscure-sounding virus was a global pandemic that, in the 21st Century, the UK government would struggle to contain.\n\nIt was unprecedented, in peacetime, when, on 23 March, Boris Johnson instructed the country to stay at home.\n\nIt was shocking when, on 28 March, official figures reported more than 1,000 cases in a single day.\n\nA few weeks later, there were sharp intakes of breath when the UK government's chief scientific adviser told MPs, and all of us, that keeping the numbers of deaths down to around 20,000 would be a \"good outcome\".\n\nIt wasn't normal when the Treasury started paying the wages of millions of people to prevent hardship on a vast scale.\n\nIt wasn't normal when planes stayed on the ground, roads and trains emptied.\n\nIt certainly wasn't normal when classrooms fell largely silent, or when the nooks and crannies of Westminster, usually full of intrigue, emptied.\n\nBut in that new strangeness it became normal, week after week, for millions of us to stand in the street, on balconies or on doorsteps to express thanks to those who care for us.\n\nAnd there is now an emerging routine of the most vulnerable rolling up their sleeves, sometimes in front of the cameras, for vaccines that offer at least part of the route to the future.\n\nYet the daily publication of the numbers of people who have died because of Covid has become an all-too-familiar rhythm.\n\nIn the middle of the afternoon, every day, the latest total emerges. A previously unimaginable communication has become a regular part of the country's conversation.\n\nBut today that number has reached a terrible height. Every one of those 100,000 lives lost leaves its own story, and sorrow, behind.\n\nThis miserable landmark is a moment to remember, maybe, that what has happened in the last year, to our politics, to us all is not normal at all.", "The Royal Welsh Show - the biggest agricultural show in Europe - has been cancelled for the second year running because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nThe board met on Wednesday to discuss holding the show as scheduled in July, but after discussions with Welsh Government decided it wouldn't be feasible.\n\nSteve Hughson, chief executive of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, said: “We continue to work alongside the Welsh Government and Public Health Wales to create a road map for the safe re-opening of events.\n\n\"Our events are central to the rural economy and way of life and mean so much to members, exhibitors, traders and visitors.\n\n\"We fully understand the responsibility on all of us to ensure we deliver our events as soon as it is safe to do so.\"\n\nMr Hughson said the society had provided free facilities for a Covid testing centre and a mass vaccination centre at its showground in Llanelwedd, Powys.", "Goldman Sachs' chief executive David Solomon will get a $10m (£7.3m) pay cut for the bank's involvement in the 1MDB corruption scandal.\n\n1MDB was an investment fund set up by the Malaysian government that lost billions due to fraudulent activity.\n\nThe global web of fraud and corruption led to a 12-year jail term for Malaysia's ex-prime minister Najib Razak which he is appealing.\n\nGoldman Sachs called its involvement in the scandal an \"institutional failure\".\n\nGoldman Sachs helped raise $6.5bn for 1MDB by selling bonds to investors, the proceeds of which were largely stolen.\n\nProsecutors alleged that senior Goldman executives ignored warning signs of fraud in their dealings with 1MDB and Jho Low, an adviser to the fund. Two Goldman bankers have been criminally charged in the scandal.\n\nMr Solomon's pay would have been $10m higher but for the actions its board of directors took in response to the 1MDB saga, Goldman Sachs said on Tuesday.\n\nWhile disclosing his salary had dropped to $17.5m for 2020, the bank stressed that Mr Solomon was unaware of the corruption.\n\nHe was not \"involved in or aware of the firm's participation in any illicit activity at the time... the board views the 1MDB matter as an institutional failure, inconsistent with the high expectations it has for the firm\".\n\nMr Solomon's package consists of $2m in cash base pay, a $4.65m cash bonus, and $10.85m in stock-based compensation.\n\nIn October, Goldman agreed to pay nearly $3bn to government officials in four countries to end an investigation into work it performed for 1MDB. The bank collected $600m for arranging the bond sales in 2012 and 2013.\n\nIt has spent years being investigated by regulators across the globe including those in the US, UK, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.In total, Goldman's dealings with 1MDB cost the bank more than $5bn.\n\nDespite the costs and fines from the fallout from the 1MDB scandal, 2020 was a bumper year for Goldman's businesses with annual revenue of $44.6bn, its highest since 2009.\n\nThe US-based bank got a huge boost from the recovery in global stock markets from the depths of the coronavirus recession.\n\nIn 2018 Malaysian police raided the home of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, as part of their investigation in his involvement with 1MDB.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Handbags and money seized in raids on former Malaysian PM's home (video published in 2018)", "Josh Quigley crashed while cycling at 40mph downhill in Dubai\n\nA record-breaking Scottish cyclist is recovering from his second serious crash in little over a year.\n\nJosh Quigley fractured his spine, pelvis, shoulder, collarbone and elbow after falling off his bike at 40mph while training in Dubai on Tuesday.\n\nThe 28-year-old from Livingston is in hospital awaiting surgery.\n\nLast September he broke the North Coast 500 cycling world record just months after suffering life-threatening injuries while riding across the USA.\n\nMr Quigley told BBC Scotland he was in a lot of pain and unable to walk after his latest crash.\n\nHe said: \"I think a gust of wind took my front wheel out.\"\n\n\"Not sure what the recovery process is looking like yet,\" he added on social media.\n\n\"Very grateful to Ben and Tobias who I was riding with for getting me an ambulance and making sure I got to hospital OK.\n\n\"There's a great cycling community here who have been great to me since I've been here and they're all doing a lot to make sure I am looked after and have what I need in here.\n\n\"Huge thanks also to a few people who stopped at the scene and all of the first responders and medical staff who have helped at the hospital so far.\"\n\nMr Quigley shaved six minutes off the existing North Coast 500 world record when he completed the 516-mile Highland route in 31hrs and 17 minutes last September.\n\nThe route is ranked as one of the world's toughest endurance challenges as it has 34,423ft (10,492m) of ascent - more than Mount Everest, which stands at 29,031ft (8,848m).\n\nHis feat came after he was hit by a vehicle in Texas during a round-the-world-trip in December 2019.\n\nHe had life-threatening injuries and operations on a broken heel and ankle as well as a stent fitted in an artery in his neck, which feeds blood to his brain.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The PM has said he hopes a \"gradual and phased\" relaxation of Covid restrictions can begin in early March.\n\nBoris Johnson told MPs he intended to set out a plan for how the lockdown in England could be eased and the criteria involved in the final week of February.\n\nFactors will include death and hospitalisation numbers, progress of vaccinations and changes in the virus.\n\nHe has ruled out schools in England re-opening after the February half term, instead setting an 8 March target.\n\nIn a statement to Parliament, Mr Johnson said the scientific data was not sufficiently clear to make any decisions now but he hoped to publish a detailed roadmap in just under a month's time as the \"picture became clearer\".\n\nHe also announced plans for tighter border restrictions to combat new variants of Covid, confirming all those arriving from high-risk countries will have to quarantine in hotels and other accommodation for 10 days.\n\nThe PM, who is under pressure from Tory MPs to spell out how the current lockdown will end, said relaxing restrictions would depend on emerging data about how effectively the vaccine stops virus transmission.\n\nHe signalled any easing of restrictions would start with schools, setting a potential re-opening date of 8 March - when he said he hoped the 15 million or so people in the top four vulnerable groups earmarked for vaccinations by mid-February will have had their jabs and have full protection.\n\n\"Our aim will be to set out a gradual and phased approach to easing the restrictions in a sustainable way,\" he said, adding that the \"first sign of normality\" should be pupils returning to school.\n\nHe added: \"We hope it will be safe to begin the re-opening of schools from 8 March with other economic and social restrictions being removed thereafter as the data permits.\"\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said reopening schools should be a national priority and urged the government to vaccinate teachers and support staff during the February half term.\n\nLabour is also calling for the government to prioritise key workers in critical professions, seeing them added to the first phase of the vaccination programme, alongside those might likely to become seriously ill.\n\nCases are falling and the vaccination programme is going well. So why is the government waiting?\n\nFirstly, there are doubts about how fast infections are falling.\n\nWhile the daily figures show they have almost halved in just over a fortnight, the government's surveillance programmes which involve random testing suggest the drop may be slower.\n\nIt is unclear why there is this discrepancy, but understanding the true trajectory is crucial to knowing what will happen to pressures on hospitals.\n\nWhat impact the vaccination programme has will also be vital.\n\nEarly results from Israel, which is leading the world on vaccination, suggest cases in older age groups start falling three weeks after significant numbers are vaccinated. But ministers want to see that pattern repeated here.\n\nThey also want to know what effect vaccination has on transmission - it is possible vaccinated people can still transmit the infection even if they are protected from illness.\n\nThis will not be completely clear by March, but scientists should at least have a better idea.\n\nWhen a plan for exiting lockdown is set out, the government wants to be certain it can be kept to. But given the cost of lockdown the pressure to lift restrictions will grow if progress keeps being made.\n\nLast week, chair of the Covid Recovery Group Conservative MP Mark Harper said if the government meets its 15 February vaccination deadline, then ministers should begin easing lockdown by 8 March.\n\nHe welcomed the announcement from the prime minster.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mark Harper This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nUnder the current lockdown, people in England must stay at home and only go out for limited reasons such as food shopping and exercise.\n\nSimilar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nEngland's lockdown laws are due to end on 31 March. Mr Johnson has previously said this date is to allow for a \"controlled\" easing of restrictions back into local tiers.\n\nUnder the tier system, different rules are applied to different parts of the country, depending on factors such as pressure on the NHS, number of cases and rates at which case numbers fall.\n\nPupils in England are not expected to return to school before the February half term. Mr Johnson has said schools will be reopened \"as soon as we can\" but did not guarantee that would happen before Easter.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said restrictions in Scotland will continue until mid-February at the earliest.\n\nIn Wales, the lockdown will be reviewed at the end of January, but the government has previously said it does not see \"much headroom for change\".\n\nNorthern Ireland's lockdown has been extended until 5 March.", "As a family of chemicals, neonicotinoids cause harm to pollinating insects such as bees\n\nThe Wildlife Trusts is to take legal action against the UK government over its decision to allow a pesticide that is almost entirely banned in the EU.\n\nIn 2018, the EU banned the outdoor use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which harm pollinating insects such as bees.\n\nBut following Brexit, the government approved the emergency use of one neonicotinoid to combat a crop disease.\n\nThe charity has told Environment Secretary George Eustice of their intention to challenge the decision.\n\nIn a letter to Mr Eustice, the Trusts says it will push for a judicial review unless the government can \"prove it has acted lawfully\".\n\nMultiple studies, including large-scale field trials, have found that neonicotinoids harm pollinators and aquatic life. Research has also shown that they can be linked to the wider collapse in biodiversity.\n\nThe government says it allowed the use of the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam because of the \"potential danger\" to the sugar beet crop from beet yellows virus, which is spread by aphids.\n\nThe virus can have a severe impact on sugar beet.\n\nIt stressed that use of the chemical would be strictly limited, and the risk to bees was \"acceptable\" because sugar beet doesn't flower. Alternative chemicals should be used to kill any wild flowering plants in and around the crops, the government said.\n\nNeonicotinoids are the most widely-used class of insecticides in the world and they work by disrupting the insect central nervous system.\n\nTwo years ago, the EU's ban was supported by then-Environment Secretary Michael Gove, who said the weight of evidence was \"greater than previously understood\". Unless the evidence changed, he said, the restrictions would be maintained post-Brexit.\n\nThe government says the change in policy is based on \"new evidence\". But, so far, they haven't made this science public.\n\nHowever, Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts, said there was no new evidence to justify the change in policy.\n\nHe said: \"The government refused a request for emergency authorisation in 2018 and we want to know what's changed. Where's the new evidence that it's okay to use this extremely harmful pesticide?\n\n\"Using neonicotinoids not only threatens bees but is also extremely harmful to aquatic wildlife because the majority of the pesticide leaches into soil and then into waterways. Worse still, farmers are being recommended to use weedkiller to kill wildflowers in and around sugar beet crops in a misguided attempt to prevent harm to bees in the surrounding area. This is a double blow for nature.\"\n\nIt was the National Farmers' Union (NFU) and British Sugar that applied for the authorisation. Victoria Prentis, a minister with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told BBC News that it \"wasn't ideal\". But she was \"convinced it was appropriate\" and that the government was \"committed to reducing pesticide use and integrated pest management\".\n\nSugar beet affected by the yellowing disease spread by aphids\n\nThe pesticide will be authorised for use if there is a large enough outbreak of the disease. And it can only be used for a period of up to 120 days. Around a dozen other EU countries, including France and Germany, have also agreed emergency permits.\n\nMs Prentis said the authorisation was very specific, and \"targeted at a non-flowering crop, which bees are not attracted to\".\n\nHowever research, shows that the highly toxic chemicals can persist in the wider ecosystem for some time, potentially to be absorbed by wildflowers that pollinators then visit.\n\nProf Glen Jeffery, from University College London (UCL), said he felt \"horror\" when he learned of the government's decision.\n\n\"We've slowly moved away from it and yet it's creeping back in,\" he told BBC News.\n\n\"It's very prevalent in other parts of the world, but then you find in other parts of the world vast numbers of pollinating insects have just vanished and they've just gone through heavy pesticide use. We reach the ridiculous situation where in parts of California thousands of beehives are trucked from Texas and from Florida into California to pollinate crops.\"\n\nThere has been one full sugar beet harvest since outdoor neonicotinoid use was banned. According to the NFU, the 2019-20 harvest was largely unaffected by beet yellows disease. This year's sugar beet harvest is currently underway, and yields are expected to be down by around 25% compared with the five-year average, with some farmers losing as much as 80% of their crop.\n\nAccording to the NFU, there are 3,000 farmers who grow sugar beet, and the wider industry supports around 9,500 jobs in England, largely in the East.\n\nThe NFU has called the situation \"unprecedented\" and its sugar board chairman Michael Sly said: \"I am relieved that our application for emergency use of a neonicotinoid seed treatment for the 2021 sugar beet crop has been granted.\"\n\nNeurobiologist and environmental pharmacologist Dr Chris Connolly said that, since 2018, when neonicotinoids were banned in the EU, around 400 papers had been published looking into thiamethoxam, and none said they were less harmful.\n\nThe peach potato aphid is responsible for spreading the beet yellows virus\n\nHe said he could be in favour of using it: \"But rarely, and when it's really needed - when it's an emergency. It's not an emergency if you apply for it before an emergency.\n\nHe added: \"Is adding pesticides to pesticides the way to go towards better sustainability?\"\n\nWhen they were introduced in 2005, neonicotinoids were seen as a good alternative to traditional pesticides. They are systemic, which means they are absorbed by the plant, so are applied to seeds as a coating - instead of being sprayed. However, it has become clear they are highly toxic to invertebrates such as insects.\n\nThe government recently committed to spending £3bn of international climate finance to \"supporting nature and biodiversity\".\n\nSeveral hundred thousand people have now signed various online petitions against the move. Earlier this month, more than 30 wildlife and environmental organisations, including Pesticide Action Network and the RSPB, wrote a joint letter to Mr Eustice calling on the government to publish the new evidence that led to the derogation being approved.", "The EHIC card is making way for the GHIC card under a new agreement with the EU\n\nUK residents can apply for a Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) to access emergency medical care in the EU when their current EHIC card runs out.\n\nUnder a new agreement with the EU, both cards will offer equivalent healthcare protection when people are on holiday, studying or travelling for business.\n\nThis includes emergency treatment as well as treatment needed for a pre-existing condition.\n\nThe new GHIC card is free and can be obtained via the official GHIC website.\n\nCurrent European Health Insurance Cards (EHIC) are valid as long as they are in date, and can continue to be used when travelling to the EU.\n\nYou don't need to apply for a GHIC until your current EHIC expires.\n\nPeople should apply at least two weeks before they plan to travel to ensure their card arrives on time.\n\nHealth Minister Edward Argar said: \"Our deal with the EU ensures the right for our citizens to access necessary healthcare on their holidays and travels to countries in the EU will continue.\n\n\"The GHIC is a key element of the UK's future relationship with the EU and will provide certainty and security for all UK residents.\"\n\nIf a UK resident is travelling without a card, they are still entitled to necessary healthcare, and should contact the NHS Business Services Authority (which covers the whole of the UK), which can arrange for payment should they require treatment when abroad.\n\nEHICs from EU member states will continue to be accepted by the NHS.\n\nIt is advised that anyone travelling overseas, whether to the EU or elsewhere in the world, should take out comprehensive travel insurance.", "Khairi Saadallah admitted three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder\n\nA killer who stabbed three men to death in a Reading park has been handed a whole-life jail term.\n\nKhairi Saadallah murdered James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49, and 39-year-old Joe Ritchie-Bennett, in June last year in Forbury Gardens.\n\nLondon's Old Bailey previously heard the 26-year-old \"executed\" the men as an \"act of religious jihad\".\n\nPassing sentence Judge Mr Justice Sweeney said it was a \"ruthless and brutal\" terror attack.\n\nSaadallah, who admitted the murders, had also pleaded guilty to the attempted murders of three other men who were also in the park.\n\nThe judge said the victims \"had no chance to react, let alone defend themselves\".\n\n(L-R) David Wails, Joe Ritchie-Bennett and James Furlong were pronounced dead at the scene\n\nHe said he was sure the attack \"involved a substantial degree of premeditation or planning\" and was carried out \"for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, or ideological cause\".\n\nBBC News correspondent Helena Wilkinson, who was in court, said the families of James Furlong and David Wails were present, while Joseph Ritchie-Bennett's loved ones watched via a link from America.\n\nSaadallah showed no emotion as Mr Justice Sweeney went through his sentencing remarks.\n\nOn the afternoon of 20 June, the park was busy due to the first lockdown restrictions being relaxed in England.\n\nAndrew Cafe, who witnessed the stabbings, said he saw Saadallah wielding the \"biggest kitchen knife\" and charging towards him shouting \"Allahu Akbar\".\n\nPharmaceutical manager Mr Ritchie-Bennett and teacher Mr Furlong died from single stab wounds to their necks, while scientist Mr Wails was stabbed once in the back.\n\nDespite treatment from paramedics and doctors, all three friends, who were members of the LGBT community, died at the scene.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Witness Andrew Cafe visited Forbury Gardens for the first time since the attack\n\nThree other people - Nishit Nisudan, Patrick Edwards and Stephen Young - were also injured, before Saadallah threw away the knife and fled the scene, pursued by police.\n\nFollowing his arrest, Saadallah initially said he wanted to plead guilty to the \"jihad that I done\", but the prosecution claimed he later feigned mental illness in police interviews.\n\nAt a previous hearing, the court heard he had developed an emotionally unstable and anti-social personality disorder, with his behaviour worsened by alcohol and cannabis misuse.\n\nBut the judge said it was \"clear that the defendant did not, and does not, have any major mental illness\".\n\nAn examination of Saadallah's phone revealed an interest in extremist material, including images of the flag of Islamic State and Jihadi John, the court previously heard.\n\nWhile at HMP Bullingdon in 2017, he was seen to associate with radical preacher Omar Brookes, who has connections with banned terrorist organisation Al-Muhajiroun.\n\nThe court heard Saadallah, who arrived in Britain from Libya in 2012, had previously been involved with militias who had been part of the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, and was pictured handling weapons, including firearms.\n\nSince seeking asylum in Britain, he had been repeatedly arrested and convicted of various offences, including theft and assault, between 2013 and 2020.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV cameras captured Khairi Saadallah before and after the stabbing\n\nHe briefly came to the attention of MI5 in 2019, but the information provided did not meet the threshold of investigation.\n\nSaadallah had been released from prison on 5 June, days before the attack, the court heard.\n\nOn 17 June, he researched the location for his attack online and carried out reconnaissance in the park.\n\nThe following day his probation officer alerted his mental health team over comments he made about magic.\n\nA day later, Saadallah contacted the crisis team himself, but when they visited he did not answer.\n\nFollowing concerns from his brother, police visited the killer the same day, but he told officers he was \"alright\" while he stood near a knife he bought from a supermarket.\n\nAndrew Wails said losing his brother had been devastating\n\nAfter the sentencing, James Furlong's father, Gary, said: \"The secretary of state needs to tell us why this guy wasn't put into some form of detention centre before they could deport him.\n\n\"He was not safe to be released back on the streets.\"\n\nReferring to the fact that Saadallah had been visited by police the night before the attack, Mr Furlong said: \"Given the volume of crimes he's committed and the information that they had on him, for an assessment to be done the night before to say that he's not a danger to the public - it is beyond me.\"\n\nHe described Mr Furlong, originally from Liverpool, as \"a lovely man, loved by his family, idolised by his mother\".\n\nDavid Wails' brother Andrew said: \"For us as a family it's been devastating to lose our much loved son, brother and uncle.\"\n\nIn a statement, the Bennett family described Mr Ritchie-Bennett as a \"devoted and loving husband\" and \"a man who cared strongly about family\".\n\nThe park had been busy due to the first lockdown restrictions being relaxed in England\n\nDet Ch Supt Kath Barnes, head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East, described Saadallah as \"a committed jihadist\".\n\nShe said: \"He has caused unspeakable hurt and distress to the families of the three men who were brutally murdered as they were relaxing and enjoying socialising with friends on a Saturday evening.\n\n\"I'm sure there will also be lasting effects on those who were injured in the attack, who were fortunate not to have been even more seriously harmed.\"\n\nReading Borough Council leader Jason Brock described the attacks as \"horrific\" and \"senseless\" and said a permanent memorial to the victims was planned.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Cardiff\n\nCardiff City defender Sol Bamba is being treated for cancer, the Championship club has announced.\n\nThe 35-year-old Ivory Coast international has been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and is undergoing chemotherapy.\n\n\"Sol has begun his battle in typically positive spirits and will continue to be an integral part of the Bluebirds family,\" said the Bluebirds.\n\nBamba joined Cardiff in October 2016 under former manager Neil Warnock.\n\nThe National Health Service Wales describes the illness as \"a type of cancer that develops in the lymphatic system, a network of vessels and glands spread throughout your body.\n\n\"The lymphatic system is part of your immune system\".\n\nThe Bluebirds said Bamba is \"universally admired by team-mates, staff and supporters in the Welsh capital\".\n\nThe club's statement added: \"During treatment Sol will support his team mates at matches and younger players within the Academy, with whom he will continue his coaching development.\n\n\"While we request privacy for him and his family at this time, messages of support to be passed on to Sol may be sent to club@cardiffcityfc.co.uk.\"\n\n\"We are all with you Sol.\"\n\nBamba helped Cardiff win promotion to the Premier League in 2018 and has made more than 100 appearances for the club.\n\nThe former Paris St Germain player has been a hugely popular member of the squad, though this season he has been restricted to five Championship substitute appearances and one League Cup start.\n\nHe is a much travelled player who has had spells at Dunfermline, Hibernian, Leicester City, Trazbonspor and Italian club Palermo as well as Leeds United.\n\nFrance-born Bamba has played 46 times for the Ivory Coast, including World Cup appearances and was part of their African Cup of Nations squad when they were runners-up in 2012.", "A video featuring footage of a County Mayo man being consumed by fits of laughter while trying to record a birthday message for his son, has gone viral.\n\nVincent McDonnell was sending the message to his son David, who was celebrating his 40th birthday in Australia.\n\nHis younger son Paul got the video rolling, but the pair could not contain their laughter as they racked up the attempts.\n\nThe video has been viewed more than 1.5m times on Paul's Twitter account.", "Jessica Allen and Eliza Moore said their cars were surrounded by police when they arrived at the reservoir\n\nTwo women who were fined £200 each when they drove five miles for a walk have had the penalties withdrawn.\n\nJessica Allen and Eliza Moore were walking at Foremark Reservoir, Derbyshire, when they were \"surrounded\" by officers.\n\nAt the time Derbyshire Police insisted driving to exercise was \"not in the spirit\" of the most recent lockdown.\n\nBut new national guidance for police has led the force to quash the fines, and apologise to the women.\n\nChief Constable Rachel Swann said the fines \"have been withdrawn and we have notified the women directly, apologising for any concern caused\".\n\nThe two friends travelled the short distance to the reservoir from their homes in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, on Wednesday afternoon.\n\nThey said their cars were \"surrounded\" by police. They were then questioned on why they were there and told the hot drinks they had brought along were not allowed as they were \"classed as a picnic\".\n\nIn a statement, the women said: \"This afternoon we both received a phone call from Derbyshire Police.\n\n\"After reviewing our case, our fines have been rescinded and we have received an apology on behalf of the constabulary for the treatment we received.\n\n\"We welcomed this apology and we are pleased to draw a line under this event.\"\n\nAfter the incident gained media attention, the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) \"clarified the policing response concerning travel and exercise\".\n\nThe guidance said: \"The Covid regulations which officers enforce and which enables them to issue FPNs [fixed penalty notices] for breaches, do not restrict the distance travelled for exercise.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid: Fined women 'could have been dealt with differently'\n\nDerbyshire Police said: \"Having received clarification of the guidance issued by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) on Friday, these FPNs as well as a small number of others issued, were reviewed in line with that latest advice, and so it is right that we have taken this action.\"\n\nThe county's police and crime commissioner Hardyal Dhinsda said: \"While the police are doing their absolute best to protect public safety during what is a critical time of the pandemic, the public should rightly expect a proportionate and balanced approach, taking full consideration of individual circumstances.\n\n\"We recognise that errors will occur in the face of complex guidance and legislation and it is important such situations are resolved quickly and fairly, as has been the case here.\"\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The UK economy will \"get worse before it gets better\" as the country battles the pandemic, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has warned.\n\nThe chancellor told MPs the new national restrictions were necessary to control the spread of coronavirus.\n\nHowever, he said they would have a further significant economic impact,\n\n\"Even with the significant economic support we've provided, over 800,000 people have lost their job since February,\" he said.\n\n\"Sadly, we have not and will not be able to save every job and every business.\n\n\"But I am confident that our economic plan is supporting the finances of millions of people and businesses.\"\n\nThe chancellor said \"the road ahead will be tough\", but maintained that the government was \"taking the difficult but right long-term decisions for our country\".\n\nHe said that fiscal stimulus provided so far amounted to more than £280bn, while 1.2 million employers had furloughed almost 10 million employees.\n\nAt the same time, three million people had benefited from self-employment grants.\n\nMr Sunak said he would \"bear in mind\" calls to extend business rate relief and provide further support for the hospitality sector at the Budget in March.\n\nShadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds accused Mr Sunak of being \"out of ideas\" and providing \"nothing new\".\n\nShe said: \"The purpose of an update is to provide us with new information, not to repeat what we already know.\"\n\nThe chancellor's words reflect the fact that with a widespread lockdown, the first months of 2021 are likely to see a further contraction in the UK economy and probably an official double-dip recession. This reflects the physical shutdown nationwide of hospitality and retail, as well as the effect in the data of school shutdowns too.\n\nIn addition, consumers and workers are likely to be more cautious as the vaccine starts to be rolled out. So this is a very odd sort of economic tripwire. The challenge in the next weeks and months gets bigger, although not as big as it was last April. But beyond that, there is the hope of something normal.\n\nThe implication for the chancellor as he prepares a vital early March Budget, however, is further delay to the measures, such as tax rises, to deal with historic levels of pandemic government borrowing.", "In his letter to staff, circulated on social media, Chad Wolf said he had hoped to remain as acting secretary to homeland security until the end of the Trump administration.\n\n\"Unfortunately, this action is warranted by the recent events, including the ongoing and meritless court rulings regarding the validity of my authority as acting secretary,\" he said, \"which serve to divert attention and resources away from the important work of the Department in this critical time of a transition of power\".\n\nWolf's resignation comes after he last week called on Trump and all elected officials to \"strongly condemn\" the Capitol riot.\n\nHis exit throws the department into turmoil just as it is gearing up for inauguration of Joe Biden as president on 20 January, which has been designated a national security special event.", "Rules governing the import of personal goods from the UK to the EU changed after Brexit formally came into effect\n\nA Dutch TV network has filmed border officials confiscating ham sandwiches and other foods from drivers arriving in the Netherlands from the UK, under post-Brexit rules.\n\nThe officials were shown explaining import regulations imposed since the UK formalised its separation from the EU.\n\nUnder EU rules, travellers from outside the bloc are banned from bringing in meat and dairy products.\n\nThe rules appeared to bemuse one driver.\n\n\"Since Brexit, you are no longer allowed to bring certain foods to Europe, like meat, fruit, vegetables, fish, that kind of stuff,\" a Dutch border official told the driver in footage broadcast by TV network NPO 1.\n\nIn one scene, a border official asked the driver whether several of his tin-foil wrapped sandwiches had meat in them.\n\nWhen the driver said they did, the border official said: \"Okay, so we take them all.\"\n\nSurprised, the driver then asked the officials if he could keep the bread, to which one replied: \"No, everything will be confiscated - welcome to the Brexit, sir. I'm sorry.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe UK officially finished its formal separation from the EU on 31 December, 2020.\n\nFrom 23:00 GMT on that date, the UK stopped following EU rules, with new arrangements for travel, trade, immigration and security co-operation coming into force.\n\nA trade deal with the EU was agreed on 24 December, and a week later, UK lawmakers voted in favour of the agreement.\n\nThe UK's departure means big changes for business - with the UK and EU forming two separate markets - the end of free movement, and new regulations, including those governing the import of personal goods.\n\nThe UK government has issued guidance to commercial drivers travelling to the EU, warning them to \"be aware of additional restrictions to personal imports\".\n\n\"You cannot bring POAO (products of an animal origin) such as those containing meat or dairy (e.g. a ham and cheese sandwich) into the EU,\" the guidance says. \"There are exceptions to this rule for certain quantities of powdered infant milk, infant food, special foods, or special processed pet feed.\"\n\nOn its website, the European Commission says the ban is necessary because such goods \"continue to present a real threat to animal health throughout the Union\".\n\n\"It is known, for example, that dangerous pathogens that cause animal diseases such as Foot and Mouth Disease and classical swine fever can reside in meat, milk or their products,\" the Commission says.\n\nSeparately, the Dutch customs agency shared a picture of foodstuffs it had confiscated from motorists in the ferry terminal the Hook of Holland.\n\n\"Since 1 January, you can't just bring more food from the UK,\" the agency said. \"So prepare yourself if you travel to the Netherlands from the UK and spread the word. This is how we prevent food waste and together ensure that the controls are speeded up.\"\n\nThe BBC's economics editor Faisal Islam described the confiscation of ham sandwiches and other foodstuffs at the EU's borders with the UK as \"a standard implication of [the] Brexit deal\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Faisal Islam This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Unison, the UK's biggest trade union, has elected a woman as leader for the first time.\n\nChristina McAnea won 47.7% of the vote and takes over as general secretary from Dave Prentis, who has been in the job since 2001.\n\nThe former assistant general secretary beat fellow officials Paul Holmes, Roger McKenzie and Hugo Pierre in the contest, which began in October.\n\nMs McAnea said: \"I become general secretary at the most challenging time in recent history - both for our country and our public services.\n\n\"Health, care, council, police, energy, school, college and university staff have worked throughout the pandemic, and it's their skill and dedication that will see us out the other side.\n\n\"Their union will continue to speak up for them and do all it can to protect them in the difficult months ahead.\"\n\nUnison is promising action against the government's pay freeze for 1.3 million public sector workers, which it has described as an \"attack\" on members' livelihoods.\n\nMs McAnea said: \"Despite the risks, the immense pressures and their sheer exhaustion, the dedication and commitment of our key workers knows no end. I will not let this government, nor any future one, forget that.\"\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer has also demanded a U-turn on public sector pay, as he urges ministers to \"protect family incomes\" from the effects of lockdowns and other restrictions in his first speech of the year.\n\nBut Chancellor Rishi Sunak has said he cannot \"justify a significant, across-the-board\" salary increase while the economy and public finances are suffering in the wake of the pandemic.\n\nMs McAnea, an experienced negotiator and former NHS worker, is expected to be broadly supportive of Sir Keir, as Mr Prentis has been.\n\nThe Labour leader welcomed her victory, saying: \"I know you will be a brilliant representative for Unison members.\n\n\"And it's a significant moment for the union to elect its first woman general secretary. I look forward to working with you.\"\n\nHer election comes at a strained time between Sir Keir and several other unions whose general secretaries have spoken out in support of his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, who is currently suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party.\n\nMr Holmes came second in the Unison contest, with 33.8%, followed by Mr McKenzie, on 10.8%, and Mr Pierre, on 7.8%.\n\nMs McAnea grew up in Glasgow and worked as a housing officer before becoming a union employee.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe UK is at the \"worst point\" of the pandemic, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has warned, but said the actions of the public \"could make a difference\".\n\nAt a No 10 briefing, Mr Hancock pleaded with people to follow the government's Covid rules until the vaccine could provide a \"way out\" of the pandemic.\n\nThe government earlier published its plan to immunise tens of millions of people by spring.\n\nSo far 2.3 million people in the UK have had a first Covid vaccine shot.\n\nAnd a total of 2.6 million doses have been given out across the country, with some people having received both doses.\n\nMr Hancock said the new variant of coronavirus was putting the NHS under \"significant pressure\", adding it was \"imperative\" that people limit their social contacts.\n\n\"The NHS, more than ever before, needs everybody to be doing something right now - and that something is to follow the rules,\" he said.\n\n\"I know there has been speculation about more restrictions, and we don't rule out taking further action if it is needed, but it is your actions now that can make a difference.\"\n\nThe health secretary said he could \"rule out\" tightening restrictions by removing support and childcare bubbles, however.\n\nHis comments follow similar warnings from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty, who said that the next few weeks will be \"the worst\" of the pandemic for the NHS.\n\nAccording to the latest figures, there have been another 529 deaths within 28 days of a positive test in the UK, and another 46,169 cases reported. There are also more than 32,000 people in hospital with coronavirus, data shows.\n\nMatt Hancock has previously said he's learned to rule nothing out when it comes to dealing with the pandemic.\n\nBut today he took the unusual step of doing just that.\n\nSupport bubbles and childcare bubbles, hugely valued by so many, will stay.\n\nSenior Whitehall sources have previously told me bubbles were \"untouchable\" but for a minister to say as much, so explicitly and on the record, means there's now very little wriggle room for the government to change its mind.\n\nMinisters will know that scrapping bubbles, for those that rely on them, could have proved deeply unpopular. But this certainty is a rarity.\n\nWhilst the current emphasis is on compliance, the idea of toughening up controls in other areas is not being ruled out.\n\nThe vaccine delivery plan says it is expected to take until spring to give a first dose to all 32 million people in the UK's priority groups, including everyone over 55 and those who are clinically vulnerable.\n\nUnder the plan, the government has pledged to carry out at least two million vaccinations in England per week by the end of January, which it says will be made possible by rolling out jabs at 206 hospital sites, 50 vaccination centres and around 1,200 local vaccination sites.\n\nIt also reiterates the government's aim of offering vaccinations to around 15 million people in the UK - the over-70s, older care home residents and staff, frontline healthcare workers and the clinically extremely vulnerable - by mid-February.\n\nAccording to Mr Hancock, two fifths of over-80s have now received their first dose, and almost a quarter of care home residents have received theirs.\n\nAlso at the briefing, NHS England's national medical director, Prof Stephen Powis, said the NHS was aiming to vaccinate the rest of the top nine priority groups by April, with a final push to offer all adults over 18 a jab by the autumn.\n\nHe stressed it would take until February before there were \"early signs\" that vaccination was leading to a drop in hospitalisations.\n\nThe country has still not seen the full impact of the Christmas loosening of lockdown restrictions, Prof Powis added, although he noted there are now 13,000 more Covid patients in hospital than there were on Christmas Day.\n\nSpeaking in Bristol earlier, Mr Johnson warned the vaccination programme was in a \"race against time\" because of pressure on the NHS.\n\nHe said it was \"a very perilous moment because everyone can sense the vaccine is coming in - my worry is that will breed false complacency\".\n\nThe newly-published vaccination plan also says ministers are aiming to offer jabs at more than 2,700 sites across the UK.\n\nAnd it says that daily vaccination figures for England will be published from now on - showing the total number vaccinated to date, including first and second doses.\n\nEarlier, NHS England's chief executive, Sir Simon Stevens, told MPs that there was a \"strong case\" for asking the the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to consider prioritising \"teachers and other key workers\" for vaccination after the \"first nine [priority] groups have been vaccinated\".\n\nA quarter of coronavirus admissions to hospital are for people under the age of 55, he added.\n\nIn the first four weeks of the vaccination campaign, the NHS did 1.3 million vaccinations.\n\nNews that in the past week almost the same again has been done shows progress is being made - even though there has been some concern rollout to care home residents has been slower than hoped.\n\nHitting two million doses a week is the next target - and is something the NHS is aiming to get close to this week.\n\nWith more vaccination sites opening by the day, it should be achievable as long as there is good supply.\n\nThere is already enough vaccine in the country to vaccinate all 15 million people in the highest at-risk groups that have been promised an offer of a vaccine by mid-February.\n\nHowever, not all of it has been through the final safety checks or been packaged up ready for distribution.\n\nChallenges remain, but even at this early stage it is clear there is growing optimism that the programme is on track.\n\nAs seven mass vaccination centres opened across England on Monday, NHS England said hundreds more GP-led and hospital services would also open later this week.\n\nBut with all centres, people will need to wait until they receive an invitation.\n\nTwo vaccines - Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca - are currently being administered in the UK.\n\nOn Friday, a third coronavirus vaccine - made by US company Moderna - was approved for use, although supplies are not expected to arrive until spring.\n\nVaccine programmes are also progressing in the UK's devolved nations.\n\nAll over-50s and everyone who is at greater risk from Covid in Wales will be offered a vaccine by spring, under new plans.\n\nAnd Scotland's health secretary has said every aged over 80 or over in the nation will be offered a jab by February, while care workers in Northern Ireland who provide services to ill or elderly patients living at home can now book an appointment to get a Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nEngland is currently under a national lockdown, meaning people must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar lockdown measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer has questioned why there are \"less restrictions in place\" now than there were last March.\n\nIn his first speech of the year, he said: \"I do think it's time to hear from the scientists [about] what else could be done and that probably should be done in the next few hours\".\n\nMeanwhile, the United Arab Emirates is being removed from the UK list of travel corridors amid a spike in Covid cases.\n\nAnd England's Test and Trace scheme has revised one of its definitions of a \"close contact\" - the people who need to be reached if they have been near to someone who has tested positive for Covid.\n\nThis now refers to anyone who has been within two metres of someone for more than 15 minutes, whether in a single period or cumulatively over the course of one day.\n\nPreviously the definition was just a single period of at least 15 minutes.", "Home Office Minister James Brokenshire, who was diagnosed with lung cancer three years ago, is taking leave to have surgery on a lung tumour.\n\nThe Old Bexley and Sidcup MP resigned as Northern Ireland secretary in 2018 for surgery to remove a lesion on his right lung.\n\nOn Monday he confirmed that \"frustratingly\" there had been a recurrence of a tumour there.\n\nHe said he was in \"good hands\" with the \"fantastic NHS team\" looking after him.\n\n\"[I'm] keeping positive and blessed to have the love of Cathy and the kids to support me through this,\" the 53-year-old wrote on Twitter.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said his thoughts were with Mr Brokenshire and his family.\n\n\"Wishing you all the best for your treatment and looking forward to welcoming you back on the team soon,\" he added.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said she was \"saddened\" by the news, adding: \"All my thoughts and prayers are with James and his family during this time\".\n\n\"All colleagues across government send James our love and best wishes, and we look forward to having him back soon,\" she added.\n\nHealth secretary Matt Hancock was among government colleagues wishing him well, adding he was \"sending my best wishes for a speedy recovery\".\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer tweeted: \"Wishing you all the best for your treatment, James. Get well soon.\"\n\nMr Brokenshire, who was first elected to Parliament in 2005 as MP for the former constituency of Hornchurch, has also previously served as housing secretary under former PM Theresa May.\n\nHe has called for efforts to \"break some of the stigma around lung cancer\" and raise awareness of the disease.\n• None Brokenshire: There were some pretty dark moments", "Medical director Steve Stanaway says numbers of Covid patients are rising at the hospital\n\nHospital staff in Wrexham are under immense pressure after a \"rapid increase\" in seriously ill coronavirus patients, a medical director has warned.\n\nWrexham now has the highest rate of Covid-19 in Wales, with 851.7 cases per 100,000 of the population.\n\nThis is more than double the Welsh average.\n\nSteve Stanaway, medical director at Wrexham Maelor Hospital, pleaded with people to abide by rules.\n\n\"The worry from a staff's point of view is how much more stretching can we take, how many more staff can we deploy?\" he said.\n\nThe hospital - which is part of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board - was the latest to suspend routine surgery as it tries to deal with rising numbers of Covid patients.\n\n\"That's created more feelings of stress and anxiety, not least to the people who were hoping to get their surgery this week,\" Mr Stanaway said.\n\nThe health board has postponed the majority of surgeries planned for the next two weeks at Wrexham, although some patients will be offered appointments in Bangor instead.\n\nEmergency surgery, upper gastro-intestinal surgery, endoscopy procedures and caesarean sections will continue at the Wrexham hospital.\n\nProf Arpan Guha, acting executive medical director, said: \"There are many patients expecting to undergo an operation in Wrexham over the coming weeks and we recognise how anxious and worried they will already be about having surgery during the current surge of the pandemic.\n\n\"We are sorry for any further distress or inconvenience this decision may cause and would like to reassure those affected that we are doing all we can to prioritise patients in the most urgent need of care.\"\n\nThe spike in cases in communities in north-east Wales has been blamed on the newer \"faster-spreading\" variant.\n\nWhile case rates in many communities have fallen slightly in recent weeks, in Wrexham numbers are continuing to rise.\n\nThe area now has the highest rate in Wales, followed by Flintshire with 754.6 per 100,000 of the population.\n\nBus services in the area have been affected after 28 drivers of Arriva Buses Wales tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nMeanwhile, Gwynedd, has the lowest case rate in the whole of Wales, with 110.\n\nThe average case rate for Wales stands at 435.9, according to the most recent Public Health Wales figures.\n\nThere have been calls for mass testing - as seen in parts of the south Wales Valleys - in the area as case rates continue to rise, but Wrexham council has said it has no plans to offer this to the wider community.\n\nMr Stanaway said the critical care unit and respiratory unit at the Wrexham hospital was now under huge pressure with the number of new patients needing this level of care \"rapidly increasing\" in recent weeks.\n\n\"The numbers are really quite alarming\", he told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast on Monday. \"It's a huge amount of disease burden within a community.\"\n\nMr Stanaway said there were 125 inpatients being treated with Covid on Sunday night, which he estimated was an increase of 117% since Christmas.\n\nHe said 14 of them where in critical care, with some on ventilators, while 16 where being treated in the hospital's high care respiratory unit - a 45% increase in just four days.\n\n\"There are now so many in that unit they've had to expand it to a completely different part of the hospital,\" he said.\n\n\"If you look at the graphs of the cases they are going up exponentially, they are terrifying to look at, and I think people are very aware that this is what is happening out in the community around them,\" he said.\n\nMr Stanaway said staff were working tirelessly and under huge amounts of pressure to keep caring for the sickest patients, but it was unclear how much more demand the hospital could take.\n\n\"Our current predictions for admissions coming through the door in January are currently sitting at about 350, if you compare that to April, the height of the pandemic, we had 286 people,\" he said.\n\n\"It's a lot more, we've already had 112 people in the first nine days of January. And the numbers are going up and up.\"\n\nHe pleaded with people to abide by the rules.\n\n\"This virus is hurting, and has hurt, a lot of people within Wrexham and Flintshire,\" he said.\n\n\"I can't say it strongly enough... we will get through this, but you just have to play by the rules.\"\n\nLatest figures show 149 staff were isolating and, with high nursing vacancy rates, staff were under huge pressure and were working tirelessly.\n\n\"Of all the years I've worked in the NHS... the resilience, dedication and professionalism our staff are showing is absolutely unbelievable,\" he said.\n\n\"But you have to bear in mind that people are tired, people are stressed, and it does put a strain,\" he said.\n\n\"We absolutely want to see you if you are unwell, but if you can wait or seek care somewhere else... please do that to give us that little bit of headspace.\"", "Online supermarket Ocado has become the first big retailer to warn of shortages of some products.\n\nIt told customers in an email that there may be \"an increase of missing items and substitutions over the next few weeks\".\n\nStaff sickness and self-isolation means some food producers are cutting the number of product lines they offer.\n\nWhile customers might not get their exact product choice, plenty of food should be available, Ocado said.\n\n\"Staff absences across the supply chain may lead to an increase in product substitutions for a small number of customers as some suppliers consolidate their offering to maintain output,\" a spokesperson said.\n\nThe news comes after a rush of online food orders for supermarkets, as shoppers try to stay at home after the new lockdown started.\n\nWithin a couple of hours of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's speech to the nation on Monday, shoppers reported problems with Sainsbury's and Tesco, while Ocado customers were placed in a virtual queue.\n\nOcado told its customers that from Friday \"changes to the UK supply chain have affected some of our suppliers and may result in an increase of missing items and substitutions over the next few weeks.\"\n\nIt added: \"We apologise for any inconvenience caused and we are working hard to mitigate any impact.\"\n\nFood suppliers are grappling with staffing problems, hospitality clients who have closed their doors and delays at the border with the EU.\n\nWholesalers the BBC spoke to this week said they faced throwing away thousands of pounds worth of food because of cancelled orders following new restrictions.\n\nThe UK meat industry has called for the early vaccination of its workers to keep food supplies running smoothly during the coronavirus crisis.\n\nIt warned earlier this week that absences during the pandemic, coupled with disruption at ports, could hit food supply chains.\n\nAn early vaccination call for supermarket staff was also made by the boss of Sainsbury's on Thursday.\n\nThe government said the food industry remains \"well-prepared\" to make sure people have the food they need.\n\nThe British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) said coronavirus and disruption at ports due to new systems brought in after the Brexit transition period were \"a severe challenge to the industry and to the smooth running of the nation's food supply chain\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Health Minister Vaughan Gething aims to offer all adults a jab by the autumn.\n\nAll over-50s and everyone who is at greater risk from Covid will be offered a vaccine by spring, under new Welsh Government plans.\n\nA vaccine strategy unveiled by Health Minister Vaughan Gething aims to offer all adults a jab by the autumn.\n\nIt comes after criticism that the rollout of the vaccine has been slower than in other parts of the UK.\n\nThe latest figures show 86,039 doses had been administered by 22:00 GMT on Sunday.\n\nA total of 327,000 doses - 280,000 of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 47,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab - have now been delivered to the Welsh NHS.\n\nThe figures mean 2.7% of Wales population has so far been vaccinated - compared to just over 4% in Northern Ireland, about 3.5% in England and 3% in Scotland.\n\nAcross the UK nearly 400,000 second doses have been administered, including 374,613 in England, 79 in Wales, 13,949 in Northern Ireland and, as of January 3, 36 in Scotland.\n\nMr Gething admitted the rest of the UK had \"gone slightly faster than we have\", but said the latest vaccinations figures showed a \"significant acceleration\" in the rollout.\n\nThe Welsh Conservatives accused the government of a \"stuttering start\", while Plaid Cymru said the plan was \"late in the day\".\n\nEveryone over 70, all care home residents and staff, and front-line NHS and social care workers will be offered a jab by mid-February, under similar timescales to other UK nations.\n\nThis 82-year-old woman was one of 100 to receive her vaccine at a special clinic in Swansea on Saturday\n\nThe Welsh Government's vaccination plans aim to cover 2.5 million people by September, with vaccines supplied by the UK government.\n\nMr Gething said: \"Delivering this vaccination programme to the people in Wales is a huge task but an enormous amount of work is going on to make it a success.\n\n\"We are making good progress with thousands more people being vaccinated every day.\"\n\nThe plan sets out a series of \"milestones\" for the vaccine rollout in Wales - all depending on the supply of vaccines approved for use.\n\nAt a press conference, Mr Gething said the government aimed to vaccinate:\n\nMr Gething said 700,000 people would be vaccinated by mid-February.\n\nAccording to the plan, the number of GPs' surgeries delivering vaccines will be increased from around 100 to more than 250 by the end of January.\n\nThe number of mass vaccination centres will increase in the next couple of weeks to 35, according to Welsh Government's plan.\n\nOne of those is Margam Orangery, in Neath Port Talbot, where about 500 people will be vaccinated each day.\n\nAt the press conference, Mr Gething defended the UK-wide decision to increase the gap between giving the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine and said it would \"avoid more deaths\".\n\n\"Each of the vaccines provide a high level of protection against harm from coronavirus. That's really good news for all of us,\" he added.\n\nWelsh Conservative health spokesman Andrew RT Davies said the Welsh Government should have a vaccinations minister who \"gets up in the morning thinking about vaccinations and goes to bed thinking about vaccinations\".\n\nHe said such a move would help the government recover from a \"stuttering start\" to the vaccines programme. Mr Davies said the government needed \"focus and direction to drive this forward\".\n\nPlaid Cymru leader Adam Price welcomed the strategy but said it was \"late in the day\".\n\nMr Price said many people, including his own parents, wanted clarity: \"My parents, who are in their 80s, have been told their surgery won't have the ability to vaccinate them for another three weeks, yet the GP surgery next door is starting this week.\"\n\nLarger supplies of the Oxford jab will be needed to speed up vaccinations\n\nThe Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is crucial to ensuring everyone aged over 70 can have at least one jab by Valentine's Day.\n\nHealth boards plan to use reserves of the Pfizer vaccine, but they alone will not reach the Welsh Government's first milestone. To speed things up, bigger supplies of the Oxford vaccine are needed.\n\nUnlike the Pfizer vaccine however, the stock is not held by the Welsh Government. Instead, it is delivered directly to the frontline - including GPs and community pharmacies - by Public Health England.\n\nAround 24,000 Oxford doses arrived in Wales last week; 26,000 are due this week; and another 80 to 100,000 are expected to arrive in four batches next week.\n\nIf the mid-February milestone is reached, attention then turns to the over-50s and younger people whose health puts them at greater risk.\n\nThey can expect a dose by the Spring, but discussions are continuing between the four UK nations to nail down a more specific date.\n\nDr Helen Alefounder is a GP in Colwyn Bay, Conwy county and part of a team that administered 400 vaccines at care comes last week after receiving the vaccine herself on Wednesday.\n\n\"Between us and the surgery next door that we're working with we've got just shy of 20,000 patients to vaccinate,\" she told BBC Radio Wales.\n\n\"It's an absolutely huge task, it's really scary, but we are really keen and committed to get it done because everybody is sick of lockdown and let's be honest, everybody wants life to return to as normal as possible and the only way we're going to do that is to mass vaccinate people.\"\n\nA mass-vaccination centre has been set up at Margam Orangery near Port Talbot\n\nOther GP surgeries have posted on social media that they have not received as many doses of the vaccine as promised.\n\nVaccination numbers will now be published daily and the number of mass vaccination centres will rise from 22 to 35. The vaccination plan also suggests pharmacies could be used to deploy the vaccine.\n\nDr Gill Richardson, the senior responsible officer for the Covid vaccination programme in Wales, said GPs were \"raring to go\" to get the vaccine distributed.\n\nShe said the model for Wales' vaccination programme was focused around the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine, which was approved in late December and \"much larger quantities\" were expected.\n\nShe also said: \"I know it's very difficult if you haven't had a letter and you're feeling anxious but you are going to be approached and when you're approached we'd like it to be as soon as possible and as convenient as possible to you.\"\n\nMichael Sullivan, 93, from Radyr, Cardiff, is one of those who is yet to receive his letter.\n\nHe said: \"I hear of all these other people having their second jabs and nobody's even thought of contacting me to say I'm going to have one in the first place. It's a bit depressing. It makes me think somebody's not doing what they should be doing.\n\n\"It gets stressful more easily, that's another thing one has to bare in mind - it's going to save my life.\"\n\nTwo full doses of the Oxford vaccine gave 62% protection, a half dose followed by a full dose was 90% and overall the trial showed 70% protection.\n\nElen Jones, the Wales director of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said community pharmacists were \"willing and skilled to help deliver the vaccination programme, as they do with flu every year\".\n\nShe added pharmacists could help deliver the vaccine \"at a more local level\".\n\nWelsh ministers have been under intense pressure since it became clear that Wales was lagging behind every other home nation in the initial weeks of vaccine rollout.\n\nIt's still not clear why that should be the case - the logistical challenges of rollout and the change in advice over the time period between first and second doses apply across the UK, not just to Wales.\n\nThe health minister says that there has already been \"a significant step-up in delivery\".\n\nThe test of that will be whether the system in Wales can meet the delivery goals set out in the vaccination strategy - which (as for the other home nations) also rely on a regular and sufficient supply of vaccine.", "Marks & Spencer has announced that it has bought the Jaeger fashion brand, which fell into administration last November.\n\nM&S is taking on the brand, but not Jaeger's scores of shops and concessions.\n\nIt is now in the process of finalising a deal to buy its products and \"supporting marketing assets\".\n\nM&S announced in May 2020 that it planned to stock other complementary brands to boost sales.\n\nSince then, it has started to sell products online from the Early Learning Centre, as well as from two designers, Nobody's Child and Ghost London.\n\nRichard Price, managing director of M&S Clothing & Home, said: \"We have set out our plans to sell complementary third party brands as part of our Never the Same Again programme to accelerate our transformation and turbocharge online growth.\n\n\"In line with this, we have bought the Jaeger brand and are in the final stages of agreeing the purchase of product and supporting marketing assets from the administrators of Jaeger Retail Limited. We expect to fully complete later this month.\"\n\nIn a call with journalists last week, chief executive Steve Rowe said M&S wanted to partner with other brands, largely for its online business, but stressed: \"We have no intention of turning into a department store.\"\n\nJaeger had 244 staff and some 63 stores and concessions. In addition, 13 stores closed after administrators were appointed, with the loss of more than 120 posts across stores, head office and distribution.\n\nIt is unclear if any jobs will be saved. There has been no update from the administrators, FRP.\n\nJaeger was founded in 1884, the same year as Marks & Spencer, which started out as a stall in an open market in Leeds known as Marks' Penny Bazaar.\n\nLast week, M&S unveiled quarterly figures showing that its clothing division had seen sales fall nearly a quarter, although sales of sales of sleepwear had soared.\n\nThe retailer sold 20% more women's pyjamas during the 13 weeks to 26 December. However, UK revenues for the quarter were £2.52bn, 8.2% lower than last year.\n\nM&S blamed \"on-off restrictions and distortions in demand patterns\" due to the coronavirus crisis.", "Stickers supposed to protect users against mobile-phone radiation have no effect, scientists have found.\n\nEnergydots says they \"counteract the harmful energy emitted by wireless and electronic equipment\" to aid sleep, cure headaches and give a clearer mind.\n\nBut University of Surrey tests for BBC News found no evidence of any effect.\n\nThe Devon-based company told BBC News the stickers were programmed with \"scalar energy\", which the scientists' equipment would be unable to detect.\n\nEnergydots markets a range of stickers, including the SmartDot, the SleepDot and even the PetDot.\n\nBBC News bought five SmartDots - a special offer for £55 - and sent them to the university's 6th Generation Innovation Centre.\n\nResearchers tested 4G mobile phones and wi-fi access points with and without the stickers applied to them.\n\nAnd a spokesman for the lab said: \"We could not find any evidence that these products had any effect on frequency or power when used as instructed.\"\n\nAn Energydots spokeswoman told BBC News: \"We state clearly that our products harmonise the fields.\n\n\"And the way to test this is to assess via biological testing.\"\n\nLast November, the company published a press release saying it was extremely proud to announce a partnership with the NHS that would see \"brand-new patient engagement units\" installed in Torbay and Royal College of London hospitals.\n\nAt the time, an Energydots spokeswoman told BBC News adverts for its products would appear in the two hospitals, though she clarified the London hospital was in fact University College Hospital.\n\nBut a Torbay Hospital spokesman then told BBC News it knew nothing of this partnership.\n\nAnd within hours, the press release had disappeared from the company's website.\n\nEnergydots later said there had been a misunderstanding with the agency that had promised to organise the adverts.\n\nIts stickers are among a wide range of products on Amazon from companies offering electric-and-magnetic-field (EMF) protection.\n\nEnergydots also suggests placing its SmartDot stickers on wi-fi routers\n\nThese include protective clothing, canopies to be placed over beds and even devices that block radiation from wi-fi routers - making them effectively useless.\n\nCampaigners claiming radiation from mobile phones and other devices poses a health risk have stepped up protests as 5G networks are rolled out.\n\nBut most scientists say even the higher part of the electromagnetic spectrum that may be used by 5G should not harm humans.\n\nAnd within those limits, there are no known consequences for health, the World Health Organization says.", "The United Arab Emirates is being removed from the UK list of travel corridors amid a spike in Covid cases.\n\nThat means anyone who arrives from the UAE after 04:00 GMT on Tuesday now needs to self-isolate for 10 days, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said.\n\nUK officials say Covid cases have risen 52% in the UAE in the last seven days and cite \"a significant acceleration in the number of imported cases\".\n\nIt comes after Scotland removed the UAE city Dubai from its safe travel list.\n\nThe Foreign Office has also updated its advice to advise against all but essential travel to the emirates.\n\nThe recent lockdown restrictions imposed across the UK mean leisure travel is currently banned.\n\nBut the UAE has been in particular focus in recent weeks after a number of UK reality TV and social media stars posted photographs of themselves holidaying there before the rules came into place.\n\nAnd a Celtic footballer tested positive for Covid-19 after the club took a trip to Dubai for a winter training camp.\n\nCeltic were allowed to go as a group under exemptions for elite athletes. As a result,15 playing and coaching staff are now required to self-isolate.\n\nDubai was added to Scotland's travel quarantine list from 04:00 GMT on Monday - with the rule also applying retrospectively for passengers who have arrived in Scotland from the city since January 3.\n\nThe Department for Transport said the removal of the whole of the UAE from the travel corridor is being adopted by all four UK nations.\n\nArrivals to the UK from most destinations now have to quarantine for 10 days.\n\nHowever, arrivals from some countries are exempt from the rules. Those countries make up the so-called travel corridor list.\n\nFrom this week, passengers arriving by boat, train or plane, including UK nationals, must also take a Covid test up to 72 hours before leaving the country of departure.\n\nAre you affected by the government decision to remove UAE from the UK travel corridor list? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "A hospital's oxygen supply has \"reached a critical situation\" due to rising numbers of Covid-19 infections.\n\nA document shared with the BBC showed Southend Hospital has had to reduce the amount it uses to treat patients.\n\nIt said the target range for oxygen levels that should be in patients' blood had been cut from 92% to a baseline of 88-92%.\n\nHospital managing director, Yvonne Blucher, said it was \"working to manage\" the situation.\n\n\"We are experiencing high demand for oxygen because of rising numbers of inpatients with Covid-19 and we are working to manage this,\" she said.\n\n\"The public can play their part by staying home and, where they cannot, following the 'hands, face, space' advice to cut the spread of the virus.\"\n\nIn the document, from the Mid and South Essex Hospitals Foundation Trust, which has been shared with frontline NHS staff, the oxygen supply was said to have \"reached a critical situation\".\n\nIt said it was \"imperative we use oxygen efficiently and safely\" and states patients who are being fed oxygen and have an oxygen saturation of above 92% \"should have their oxygen weaned within the target range\", which is now 88-92%. This means very gradually reducing the saturation level.\n\nIt added that \"maintaining saturations within this target range is safe and no patient will come to harm as a result\".\n\nGPs in Essex have told the BBC that the threshold for sending a patient to hospital for supplemental oxygen is if their oxygen saturation is at 92%. A level of 96-100% is deemed normal.\n\nChris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers which represents hospital trusts in England, said there was \"huge pressure\" on hospital oxygen stocks because giving patients extra oxygen was a \"key part\" of coronavirus treatment.\n\nHe said there were a number of hospitals where this happened in the first phase of coronavirus and over the past few weeks \"similar things have happened\" elsewhere.\n\nChris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers which represents hospital trusts in England, said there was \"huge pressure on oxygen systems\"\n\n\"This is the kind of problem that chief executives and trust leadership teams are having to solve day in, day out,\" he said.\n\n\"If you [a hospital] push your oxygen to an absolutely critical level, then the thing that you can't do is have the oxygen system break down... so effectively you will have to dial it down, in which case you will probably have to transfer patients to the nearest neighbouring hospital for a short period of time.\n\n\"I cannot tell you how much work has been done over the summer and autumn to ensure that people [hospital trusts] have been prepared for this... they knew they would come under pressure if there were to be further waves, as has now proved to be the case.\"\n\nEssex has one of the highest rates of Covid-19 per 100,000 people in the country, with seven of the 14 council areas in the county in the top 20 most infected areas of England.\n\nThe Mid and South Essex Hospitals Foundation Trust said it was \"imperative we use oxygen efficiently and safely\"\n\nNews of oxygen issues is understandably worrying, but not unexpected. Tanks may be full, but flow is a problem.\n\nMany people who are sick with Covid will need extra oxygen to help them breathe. As Covid admissions increase, it can put huge demand on a hospital's piped oxygen supply system to provide this high flow.\n\nHospital bosses have been planning for such scenarios for months, learning from experiences during the first wave of Covid when some trusts ran into difficulties.\n\nMany wards have made improvements to their pipework in preparation for a very busy winter, but there is still a limit to what hospitals can provide.\n\nWhen stretched to the maximum, other steps are needed, such transferring patients elsewhere or limiting how much oxygen is pumped to each patient.\n\nSouthend Hospital has taken this latter measure.\n\nAlthough not ideal, it is not unsafe. Patients will be closely monitored and the trust hopes the situation will improve if new Covid admissions start to go down as people follow the stay at home lockdown rules.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n• None 'One in 18 have Covid-19' in parts of Essex", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon says exemption from quarantine travel requirements for elite sport are to be reviewed\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon has urged football clubs not to \"abuse\" the privileges they are afforded while the rest of Scotland is in lockdown.\n\nPlayers and staff from Celtic FC are having to self-isolate after one tested positive for Covid-19 on return from a mid-season training camp in Dubai.\n\nMs Sturgeon said she had doubts about whether the trip was really necessary.\n\nAnd she said \"everyone, including football, should be erring on the side of caution\" amid a rise in infections.\n\nScottish football below Championship level is to be suspended for three weeks in light of the current lockdown, with Scottish Cup and lower league ties to be rescheduled.\n\nTop flight football in Scotland is continuing while most Scots are subject to a \"stay at home\" order due to the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nCeltic's home fixture against Hibernian went ahead on Monday evening, despite the club having lost 13 players and three staff to Covid-19 issues.\n\nDefender Christopher Jullien tested positive for the virus on return from the club's training camp in Dubai, with others including the club's manager Neil Lennon being forced to isolate as close contacts.\n\nMs Sturgeon said she was \"disappointed and frustrated\" that her daily coronavirus briefing was again being \"dominated by football\".\n\nCeltic trained in Scotland on Saturday after returning from Dubai\n\nShe said she had doubts about whether Celtic's trip \"was really essential\" and whether rules were strictly adhered to, saying it was for the footballing authorities to decide if further action was necessary.\n\nThe first minister issued a warning to clubs that they must stick to the rules set out for them while the rest of the populace is subject to tight restrictions.\n\nShe said: \"Football and elite sport more generally enjoys a number of privileges right now that the rest of us don't have. These privileges include the right to go to overseas training camps and be exempt from quarantine on return.\n\n\"It is really vital, obviously for public health reasons but also I think out of respect for the rest of the population living under really heavy restrictions, that these privileges are not abused.\"\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross is an assistant referee in the game.\n\nHe said that at a time when people are staying at home football games were something many looked forward to.\n\nMr Ross said: \"We don't want to see the whole of Scottish football affected by the actions of one club.\" He also called for financial support to be made available to clubs in the Scottish lower leagues and Scottish Cup who had had their games suspended for three weeks.\n\nCeltic manager Neil Lennon is among those who are self-isolating\n\nMs Sturgeon said Scotland was currently in \"the most perilous and serious position since the start of the pandemic\", with a record number of people in hospital with Covid-19.\n\nShe said everyone should be doing their utmost not to add to pressure on the health services by following the rules.\n\nShe said: \"This whole episode should underline how serious the situation we are in now is. Everyone including football should be erring on the side of caution.\n\n\"I know fans of other clubs feel very strongly that the whole of football should not pay the price for the actions of any one club, and I agree with that.\n\n\"But of course a situation like this does make it essential for us to review the rules - including those around travel exemptions - and that's what we will be doing. As we do, I do hope that Celtic themselves will reflect seriously on all of this.\"\n\nMs Sturgeon cited photographs which emerged of players socialising in Dubai, but Celtic's assistant manager John Kennedy said these created a \"false picture\" and that there had been \"minor slip-ups\" at worst.\n\nThe club had previously claimed the government had given permission for the trip to go ahead, but Ms Sturgeon said it had only provided guidance to the footballing authorities on the rules.\n\nShe said: \"It's not our role to give approval or not to what a football club is doing.\"\n\nA statement posted on the Celtic website said that \"the reality is that a case could well have occurred had the team remained in Scotland\".\n\nIt added: \"Celtic has done everything it can to ensure we have in place the very best procedures and protocols. From the outset of the pandemic, Celtic has worked closely with the Scottish government and Scottish football and we will continue to do so.\"", "As hospital mortuaries fill up in Surrey, England, some of the dead from the coronavirus pandemic are being brought to an emergency body storage facility.\n\nSurrey currently has one of the highest infection rates in the country, and some are concerned the facility may reach capacity.\n\nBBC home editor Mark Easton paid a visit to the site which has been set up in a Surrey woodland.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning. We'll have another update for you at 18:00 BST.\n\nSeven centres begin operating this morning across England, a key part of efforts to vaccinate 15 million in the top four priority groups by mid-February. To begin with, more than 600,000 aged 80 or over are being sent letters inviting them to book an appointment at one of the hubs - but if the journey is too long, they're being told closer options will be available soon. The centres will be open 12 hours a day and more large-scale sites will follow. The health secretary will give more details later, while the Welsh government will publish its own vaccination plan. In Scotland, more clinics should start to receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. Here's how vaccines are approved for use, and some of the challenges a rollout on this scale faces.\n\nScientists have warned stricter measures might be needed to curb infections in England but, right now, the government is focusing on an \"all-out public information\" campaign to improve compliance with the existing rules. Chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty is appearing on TV and radio this morning urging the public to \"stay at home\" given what he called the \"appalling situation\" we are in. He told BBC One's Breakfast that getting case numbers down was \"everybody's problem\", and \"every unnecessary contact\" with someone from another household gave the virus an opportunity to be transmitted. \"We need to really double down\", he added, because \"this is the most dangerous time we've had in terms of numbers into the NHS.\" If you've seen videos online claiming some hospital wards and corridors are empty, BBC Reality Check explains what's really going on.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Federation of Small Businesses says a record quarter of a million firms could close over the coming year. The organisation's chairman, Mike Cherry, said financial support provided to businesses during the pandemic had \"not kept pace with intensifying restrictions\". It also wants more help for many self-employed workers who are currently excluded from aid. There's another call for more government support this morning from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. He wants teachers, the armed forces and care workers to be left out of a public sector pay freeze, and is urging ministers not to end the temporary £20-a-week boost to Universal Credit.\n\nThe Federation of Small Businesses said the government had met the latest national lockdown \"with a whimper\"\n\nThe body representing prison staff says courts should cease hearing trials to help stop the spread of coronavirus in jails. Mark Fairhurst, from the Prison Officers' Union, said there had been a \"massive outbreak\" at Cardiff Prison, and the site was struggling to find space for newly-sentenced arrivals. However, others within the criminal justice sector argue courts must be kept open to prevent the case backlog growing further. The rate of spread in prisons is still well below the wider population, and a prison service spokesman said shielding, mass testing and limited regimes were in place at all facilities.\n\nPrimary and secondary schools are closed to most pupils, and the switch to virtual learning presents challenges for many families. The BBC is trying to help, and from today lessons and programmes will be broadcast on TV, on BBC Two and CBBC. They'll also be available on iPlayer, with additional content online. Find out all you need to know here. If you're looking for some inspiration for PE, Joe Wicks is also back today. For many families, he was one of the fixtures of the first lockdown, and live classes start at 09:00 GMT on his YouTube channel.\n\nFind more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Dorset Police said officers dispersed dozens of demonstrators from the town centre as they attempted to march\n\nA video shared online apparently showing a woman being arrested in breach of lockdown for sitting on a bench was \"stage-managed\", police said.\n\nDorset Police believe the video was planned and recorded by anti-lockdown protesters during a demonstration in Bournemouth on Saturday.\n\nThree people were arrested for not giving their details so officers could issue fines for breaking Covid rules.\n\nThe BBC has asked one of the protesters who posted the video to comment.\n\nThe force said two of those held were later de-arrested when they confirmed their details in police custody and a third was released when his details were verified - all three were then issued fixed penalty notices.\n\nOfficers also issued at least seven other fines and 10 dispersal notices.\n\nAssistant Chief Constable Mark Callaghan, from Dorset Police, said: \"We believe this video was planned, stage-managed and recorded by members of the protest group who turned up in multiple areas, several of whom refused to engage or provide their details.\n\n\"If people refuse to give their details in such circumstances then it leaves officers with little option, but to arrest until the details are established. Our officers would only arrest as a last resort.\n\n\"It was clear that the group was deliberately organising their activities, walking around in twos and then trying to come together in a 'flash mob'-style approach, as they have done previously. This activity went on for a couple of hours.\"\n\nThe force's chief constable James Vaughan earlier said: \"I condemn the actions of these selfish individuals who knowingly flouted the lockdown restrictions.\"\n\nThe force said there were \"repeated attempts\" to engage with the organisers to stop the planned protest and found a number of the protesters had \"travelled considerably\" from out of the Dorset area.\n\nMr Vaughan added: \"Our county is gripped with infections and yet these irresponsible individuals have ignored what is being asked of them and have left their homes to protest. Shame on them.\"\n\nSam Crowe, director of public health for Dorset, said its hospital services were \"close to being overwhelmed\".\n\nMr Crowe said: \"Infection rates locally have been doubling in less than a week. If this carries on, our hospitals will not be able to cope with caring for those needing life-saving treatment. Stay at home means exactly that.\"\n\nLatest figures show Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole has reached 745.2 cases per 100,000 people.\n\nAlso on Saturday, 16 people were also arrested during an anti-lockdown protest in south London.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Pupils across Scotland have been experiencing problems accessing Microsoft Teams as the majority move to home learning.\n\nA number of schools, pupils and parents have reported the technology running slowly or not at all.\n\nIt is one of the main platforms being used for remote learning with schools shut to most pupils until at least the beginning of February.\n\nMicrosoft Teams tweeted that the issue was being investigated.\n\nA Microsoft spokesperson said: \"Our engineers are working to resolve difficulties accessing Microsoft Teams that some customers are experiencing.\"\n\nWhen pressed on whether demand as a result of home schooling was causing the issue, Microsoft declined to comment.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon highlighted the problem during her daily coronavirus briefing.\n\n\"This is not an issue that is unique to Scotland or indeed unique to schools, but I understand Microsoft is currently working to address it,\" she said.\n\n\"More generally I don't underestimate how difficult this is both for young people learning away from friends… and for parents to juggle home schooling with working.\"\n\nMs Sturgeon was also asked about problems which were being experienced by users of digital learning platform Glow.\n\nShe replied: \"It is not an issue with Glow. It is affecting Glow, but the core issue is not with Glow… the issue is with Microsoft Teams.\"\n\nTwo schools in Wishaw, North Lanarkshire, said the problem was a \"national issue\" although Renfrew High School urged pupils experiencing difficulties not to panic.\n\nClyde Valley High School tweeted: \"Our online learning provision begins today for all of our pupils. Due to the very high demand for Microsoft Teams across Scotland, there may be issues initially getting logged on or accessing some files.\n\n\"This is a national issue on the site and may take a little time to rectify.\"\n\nColtness High School said: \"Unfortunately it appears Microsoft Teams is struggling to cope with the traffic this morning.\n\n\"This is across Scotland and not isolated to Coltness. Pupils and staff are having difficulty loading files. We have reported the issue and hopefully this will be resolved soon.\"\n\nEdinburgh City Council have texted all parents saying: \"There is a city-wide problem with Microsoft Teams this morning. Please be patient as the council is working to resolve it.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by RHS Digital Learning This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by D&G Council This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA Scottish government spokesman said: \"Microsoft has confirmed that this issue is affecting users in the UK and elsewhere in northern Europe. Education Scotland is working closely with the company to resolve the issues.\"\n\nAfter one teacher complained to Microsoft Teams on Twitter, a staff member said: \"We're currently investigating an issue where some users in the UK region are unable to access Microsoft Teams. We will provide further information as soon as this is available.\"\n\nAccording to an Ofcom report in December, about 34,000 (1.2%) premises in Scotland were without a decent broadband connection, while superfast broadband coverage had increased to 94% of homes.\n\nIt also said that fixed and mobile networks in Scotland had \"generally coped well\" with increased demands during the pandemic.\n\nIt comes as plans for remote learning during the latest lockdown reveal big disparities between Scotland's 32 councils.\n\nNot all pupils will be offered live lessons - instead the decision on the best approach has been left to individual schools and teachers.\n\nGuidance on remote learning published by the Scottish government on Friday recommended a \"a balance of live learning and independent activity\".\n\nThe Scottish government said it had invested £25m to address digital exclusion in schools with funding allocations for digital devices and connectivity solutions made to all 32 local authorities.\n\nMore than 50,000 devices such as laptops have been distributed to children and young people to help with remote learning and the programme in total is expected to deliver about 70,000 devices for disadvantaged children and young people across Scotland.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Asymptomatic testing for Covid can help \"break the chains of transmission\", Matt Hancock says\n\nRegular rapid testing for people without coronavirus symptoms will be made available across England this week, the government has said.\n\nThe community testing regime - expanded to cover all 317 local authorities - uses rapid lateral flow tests, which can return results in 30 minutes.\n\nLocal councils are being encouraged to prioritise tests for those who cannot work from home during the lockdown.\n\nThe health secretary said asymptomatic testing can help break transmission.\n\nMeanwhile, NHS England has invited tens of thousands of people over 80 to book vaccinations.\n\nA further 563 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test and another 54,940 cases reported, according to government figures on Sunday.\n\nThe total number of deaths in the UK after a positive test passed 80,000 on Saturday.\n\nThe government has launched a campaign telling people to act like they have got the virus in a bid to tackle the rise in infections.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nThe Department of Health and Social Care said expanding the Community Testing Programme to more people without symptoms was \"crucial given that around one in three people\" who contract Covid-19 show no symptoms.\n\nIt said regular community testing using the rapid tests had already identified more than 14,800 positive Covid-19 cases.\n\nSo far, 131 local authorities in England have enrolled in the government's community testing programme, with Milton Keynes, Slough, Doncaster and Essex the latest to join.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said targeted asymptomatic testing and subsequent isolation was \"highly effective in breaking chains of transmission\".\n\nBut Angela Raffle, a consultant in public health at the University of Bristol Medical School, said increasing lateral flow testing was \"very worrying\" and warned the benefits of finding symptomless cases \"will be outweighed by the many more infectious cases that are missed by these tests\".\n\nDefending lateral flow tests on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme Mr Hancock said mass asymptomatic testing in Liverpool had seen the case rate drop \"more sharply than it did in other similar areas where only restrictions were brought in\".\n\nNHS Test and Trace will also work closely with other government departments to scale up workforce testing, the Department of Health and Social Care said.\n\nMany are already piloting regular workforce testing, with 15 large employers having taken up this offer already across 64 sites, \"including organisations operating in the food, manufacturing, energy and retail sectors, and within the public sector including job centres, transport networks and the military\".\n\nThe Department of Health and Social Care said plans were already in place for rapid testing of staff and students in schools and colleges and staff in primary schools.\n\nAsked when schools could reopen by the BBC's Andrew Marr, Mr Hancock said there were four conditions: that there is not a major new variant, the vaccine rollout is proceeding effectively, the number of deaths is falling and there is an easing of pressure on the NHS.\n\nMatthew Fell, of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which represents 190,000 UK businesses, said: \"This expansion of testing will help more critical workers and those unable to work from home to operate safely, while also catching new cases more swiftly.\"\n\nBusiness Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the safety of the workforce had been an \"absolute priority\" and said the expansion of testing means \"we can keep our economy on the move while giving individuals in key sectors complete confidence that their workplace is safe\".\n\nBut Prof Susan Michie, professor of health psychology at University College London, told BBC Breakfast the country would continue a \"yo-yoing of lockdown\" without a \"test, trace and isolate system that actually works\" and warned there needed to be tighter restrictions and tougher messaging than in March to prevent \"tens of thousands of avoidable deaths in the next few weeks\".", "Luke Evans plays police officer Steve Wilkins who reopened and solved the two double murders\n\nHollywood actor Luke Evans says telling the true story of the murder of four people was a \"huge responsibility\".\n\nEvans, who was brought up in Aberbargoed, Caerphilly county, returned to Wales to star in ITV drama The Pembrokeshire Murders.\n\nHe plays Dyfed-Powys Police officer Steve Wilkins who in 2006 reopened two unsolved double murders from the 1980s.\n\n\"I just wanted to tell it right and show justice for the victims, which is the most important part,\" Evans said.\n\n\"This is a very serious, sad story where four people lost their lives and their families have struggled and suffered greatly because of it,\" he told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.\n\n\"So you do feel a huge sense of responsibility.\"\n\nThe Pembrokeshire Murders has been adapted from a book about the case written by Mr Wilkins and ITV journalist Jonathan Hill.\n\nIn 1985 brother and sister Richard and Helen Thomas were shot at their remote mansion near Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, before the property was set alight.\n\nThen in 1989, Peter and Gwenda Dixon were shot dead at close range on the Pembrokeshire coastal path near Little Haven.\n\nThe drama also stars Newport actress Alexandria Riley as Det Insp Ella Richards\n\nBut it was only years later that microscopic DNA and fibres linked the murders to John Cooper, who was already in prison for a string of burglaries.\n\nIn 2011 he was jailed for life.\n\nThe Dracula Untold star said he had not been aware of the notorious case: \"I knew almost nothing about these murders, to the point where when I read what was a treatment two or three years ago… I couldn't believe what I was reading.\n\n\"So I did my own research into it and realised that the story was completely true - it hadn't been embellished, none of this was fiction and it sort of blew my mind.\"\n\nHe said being able to speak to Mr Wilkins while filming was invaluable: \"Me and Steve had a dialogue almost every week for a few hours.\n\n\"We had a lot of conversations before we started shooting where I would speak to him and ask him, not just about the case - obviously that that was very important - but about things like how was it standing in front of John Cooper, having to interview John Cooper, having to deal with his family.\n\n\"You see both sides of the effect of these terrible crimes, you see what the aftermath of what it does to people and how they suffer and you meet Cooper's family as well.\n\n\"Steve has his own family and that also is played into the storyline very powerfully.\"\n\nEvans said the only other time he has worked in Wales was when filming Visit Wales commercials: \"Being Welsh and not getting to work in Wales very often - that certainly was an attraction for me,\" he said.\n\n\"I've done them [the commercials] for a few years - one of them was about the coastal walks of Wales and our beautiful coastline... and then right in this beautiful place I was there back there, portraying a character and trying to find the killer of somebody who murdered people on this coastal path.\"\n\nBut he said he enjoyed playing a Welsh character: \"To go right back to my roots with my accent and that was a really, really exciting to do.\n\nThe series, made by World Productions, the makers of Line of Duty and Bodyguard, finished filming just before Wales' first coronavirus lockdown.\n\n\"When we started The Pembrokeshire Murders it was January so we didn't hear anything really, and then just before we finished there was rumblings of this virus,\" he said.\n\n\"We were very lucky in a way, we wrapped basically on the Friday then on the Monday everything closed.\n\n\"So it was a big sigh of relief when we got to the final wrap of that day and it was very special.\"\n\nThe three-part series also stars Keith Allen, Owen Teale, Alexandria Riley, Caroline Berry, Oliver Ryan and David Fynn.\n\nThe Pembrokeshire Murders in on ITV at 21:00 GMT on 11, 12 and 13 January", "Flexing the coronavirus lockdown rules could be fatal, the health secretary has warned as hospital admissions soar.\n\nMatt Hancock did not rule out strengthening current restrictions and told the BBC's Andrew Marr the NHS was under \"very serious pressure\".\n\nIt comes after almost 55,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the UK and the number of deaths after a positive test passed 80,000.\n\nScientist Prof Peter Horby warned the UK was in \"the eye of the storm\".\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the rules were tough but \"may not be tough enough\" and called for the government to hold daily press conferences to avoid \"mixed messages\".\n\nThe UK recorded another 563 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test on Sunday, down from 1,065 deaths on Saturday.\n\nHowever, there tends to be fewer deaths reported on Sundays, due to a reporting lag over the weekend. There were also a further 54,940 daily cases.\n\nMr Hancock told Andrew Marr \"every time you try to flex the rules that could be fatal\" and said staying at home was the \"most important thing we can do collectively as a society\".\n\nThe health secretary said he did not want to speculate on whether the government would further strengthen restrictions, after warnings from scientists on Saturday that they may need to be stricter.\n\n\"People need to not just follow the letter of the rules but follow the spirit as well and play their part,\" he said.\n\nHis comments came after Home Secretary Priti Patel defended police over enforcing lockdown rules following the case of two women who were fined for going for a walk five miles from their homes - a decision which is now under review.\n\nThe government has launched a campaign telling people to act like they have got the virus in a bid to tackle the rise in infections.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nEngland's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said that if the virus continued on its current trajectory \"many hospitals will be in real difficulties, and very soon\".\n\nIn a statement released on Sunday, he said that unless people started to follow the rules more strictly, emergency patients will have to be turned away from hospitals, causing \"avoidable deaths\".\n\nProf Horby, chairman of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said there may be \"early signs that something is beginning to bite\" due to the restrictions - but if they did not then stricter measures would be needed.\n\nHe told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: \"I really hope people take this very seriously. It was bad in March, it's much worse now.\n\n\"We've seen record numbers across the board, record numbers of cases, record numbers of hospitalisations, record numbers of deaths.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Professor Peter Horby explains why the new Covid-19 variant is up to 70% more transmissible\n\nProf Horby said tougher measures might include those during the March lockdown, such as people only being able to exercise once a day and stricter rules about meeting people.\n\n\"We are in a situation where everything that was risky in the past is now more risky,\" he said.\n\nProf Horby said early signs were encouraging that the vaccines would be effective against the new Covid variants - first identified in the UK and in South Africa - and he did not want people to \"hide under the duvet\".\n\n\"We can see the end game now,\" he said.\n\nHigher cases inevitably mean more hospitalisations and more deaths.\n\nThe most recent figures show that, on average, 894 people per day are now dying within 28 days of a positive Covid test, up from 438 at the start of December.\n\nThe spike in cases since Christmas means that figure is almost certain to get worse before the most recent lockdown measures can start to have any effect.\n\nScientists think the new variant of the disease is more \"transmissible\", possibly because each infected individual produces more of the actual virus - sometimes referred to as the viral load.\n\nVaccination should help to protect the most vulnerable from serious symptoms but we don't yet know if receiving the jab stops an individual contracting the virus and passing it on to others.\n\nScientists say that may mean even tougher restrictions will be needed to bring the R-number below one and start to reduce the overall size of the pandemic.\n\nMass community testing is to be rolled out this week, the government has said, and the health secretary said around two million people had been vaccinated in the UK, with some 200,000 jabs being given in England daily.\n\nMr Hancock said by autumn every adult in the UK would be offered a vaccine.\n\nHe said the government was on course to reach its target of 15 million people vaccinated by mid-February, with the opening of seven mass vaccination centres this week likely to increase the rate of jabs.\n\nMr Hancock told Sky News' Sophy Ridge he hoped coronavirus could be treated like seasonal flu with an annual vaccination programme in the future.\n\nProf Horby said the vaccines may have to be updated \"every few years\" as the virus mutates and said it was unlikely the virus would go away completely.\n\n\"We're going to have to live with it,\" he said. \"But that may change significantly.\n\n\"It may well become more of an endemic virus that's with us all the time and may cause some seasonal pressures and some excess deaths but is not causing the huge disruption that we're seeing now.\"", "Spain is in a race against time to clear roads covered by heavy snow, and get Covid vaccines and food supplies to areas affected by Storm Filomena.\n\nUp to 50cm (20 inches) of snow fell on the capital Madrid, one of the worst hit areas, between Friday and Saturday.\n\nAt least four people died and thousands of travellers were left stranded.\n\nOvernight, temperatures plunged to -8C (18F) in parts of Spain, amid warnings by meteorologists that the snow was turning to perilous ice.\n\nThe unusual cold wave on the Iberian peninsula is expected to last until Thursday.\n\nThe Spanish government said it had taken extra steps - including police-escorted convoys - to ensure its expected shipment of some 300,000 coronavirus vaccines can be distributed as planned to regional health authorities later on Monday.\n\n\"The commitment is to guarantee the supply of health, vaccines and food. Corridors have been opened to deliver the goods,\" Transport Minister Jose Luis Abalos said on Sunday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Madrid has been hit by heavy snowfall after Storm Filomena\n\nSoldiers have been deployed to clear some of the 700 major roads.\n\nSome 3,500 tonnes of salt were later brought on lorries to the capital, Spain's El Mundo website reported on Monday.\n\nThe record-breaking snowfall has triggered some unprecedented scenes here in Madrid. People have skied along the city's main commercial street, Gran Vía, and one man was pictured being pulled through the district of Hortaleza on a sled by five huskies.\n\nBut other responses to the snow have been more controversial due to concerns about Covid-19. Dozens of young people had a snowball fight in Callao square, for example, and many of them were without facemasks.\n\nNearby, in Puerta del Sol, others celebrated the snow by dancing a conga. The daily Marca newspaper branded it \"the conga of shame\".\n\nAlthough the snowfall has now stopped, low temperatures have left snow and ice piled up across the capital and the surrounding region. And with residents advised to avoid using their cars, public transport has seen a surge in demand.\n\nThis has compounded coronavirus concerns as many metro train carriages were packed at rush hour on Monday morning, making social distancing impossible.\n\nMadrid's international airport began gradually resuming operations on Sunday afternoon, having cancelled all flights on Friday.\n\nSome 500 people across the Madrid region were forced to spend the night in temporary shelter, including sports centres, after they were trapped by the whiteout.\n\nAbout 100 shoppers and staff spent two nights at a shopping centre in Majadahonda, a town north of the capital. \"There are people sleeping on the ground on cardboard,\" one restaurant employee told TVE television.\n\nSpain's Meteorological Agency said Saturday's snowfall was the heaviest in Madrid since 1971\n\nBut there were stories of heroism too, including doctors and medical workers who abandoned their cars and walked for hours to get to work. One doctor, Alvaro Sanchez, said on social media he had walked 17km (10 miles) over nearly two hours to get to work, while two nurses, Paco and Monica, said they had walked 22km to their hospital.\n\nThey were praised by Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa, who tweeted: \"The commitment that the entire group of health workers is showing is an example of solidarity and dedication.\"\n\nSome 4x4 vehicle owners offered to transport medical workers, while other volunteers helped to clear hospital entrance ways.\n\n\"Health staff have been working (hard) for more than a year and this is just a short moment for us, so as citizens, we are trying to help; it is everyone's responsibility,\" said Fernando de la Fuente, 60, who helped clear the entrance to Madrid's Gregorio Maranon Hospital.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSpaniards in large parts of the country have been warned to take care in the coming days as temperatures could fall to -12C (10F) in some areas until Thursday.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nCrawley Town delivered one of the FA Cup third round's most emphatic upsets as the League Two underdogs tore apart Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds.\n\nThree second-half goals rewarded a fantastic performance from John Yems' side as they made light of the 62 places between themselves and their Premier League visitors.\n\nNick Tsaroulla, playing only his seventh game in senior football, set the ball rolling, beating three Leeds defenders to fire home a superb solo opener.\n\nUnited keeper Kiko Casilla's error allowed Ashley Nadesan to double the lead before Jordan Tunnicliffe added a third for Crawley, who could have won by more.\n• None Watch all of the goals from the FA Cup third round\n• None Can Mark Wright make it as a pro at Crawley?\n\nBielsa made seven changes to his side but Leeds fielded England midfielder Kalvin Phillips among several regular top-flight starters including Pablo Hernandez, Ezgjan Alioski and club record signing Rodrigo.\n\nHowever, after an even first half, they were completely outplayed in the second period by a Crawley side who have reached the fourth round for only the third time, having spent most of their 125-year existence in non-league football.\n\nCrawley even had the luxury of bringing on reality TV celebrity Mark Wright in stoppage time for the former The Only Way Is Essex star's debut, having signed for the club on non-contract terms in December.\n\nLeeds' loss is the first time in 34 years a top-flight side has lost to a fourth-tier team by three or more goals and only the second ever instance since a fourth division was added to the Football League in 1958.\n\nThey may be the lesser-known of the two Red Devils but Crawley's efforts were no less impressive than Manchester United's 6-2 dissection of Leeds last month.\n\nWhile Bielsa rested first-choice stars such as Patrick Bamford, Luke Ayling, Stuart Dallas and Mateusz Klich, there was still plenty of experience mixed in with the youth in Leeds' line-up.\n\nBut the hosts, sixth in League Two after an eight-game unbeaten run, never gave them the chance to settle and while neither side could break the deadlock before the interval, it was Crawley who went closest as Casilla kept out Tom Nichols' close-range header.\n\nHe was helpless, however, to prevent Tsaroulla - a former Tottenham trainee who spent a year out of the game because of injuries sustained in a car crash - firing Crawley ahead after a twisting run into the area that beguiled the Leeds back-line.\n\nRather than protect their lead, Crawley went for the jugular and Nadesan soon doubled their advantage, although his strike owed much to a bobble that beat Casilla at his near post.\n\nTunnicliffe then fired into the roof of the net after Casilla parried from Nadesan and Crawley could have had a fourth after top scorer Max Watters came off the bench to round the keeper, only to be denied by a covering defender.\n\nThe win marked the first time in four attempts that Crawley have beaten a Premier League side in the FA Cup and so comfortable was the victory that TV personality Wright was given his late cameo.\n\nAnother name added to Leeds' list of cup woes\n\nBielsa was left to mull over back-to-back 3-0 defeats, albeit this one coming in a much different context to Leeds' Premier League loss at Tottenham on 2 January.\n\nThis was the former Argentina manager's first taste of an FA Cup shock, after far more mundane exits against Arsenal and QPR in Bielsa's two previous campaigns since taking the Elland Road reins in 2018.\n\nBut it was not unfamiliar ground for Leeds as Crawley - who have finished in the bottom half of League Two for five successive seasons - emulated non-league pair Histon and Sutton United, as well as lower-league clubs Rochdale and Newport, in upsetting the Whites this century.\n\nThe visitors only forced one real save from Crawley keeper Glenn Morris, who reacted well to push away Ian Poveda's strike from an acute angle in the first half.\n\nLeeds might point to a penalty they perhaps should have had before the interval when Crawley defender Tony Craig got away with pulling back Rodrigo as he attempted to meet Helder Costa's volleyed cross.\n\nBut there was no video assistant referee system at the game, and they offered very little going forward after Rodrigo was substituted at half-time.\n\nIt was a fourth successive third-round exit in a competition they could have looked to with some hope, given their relatively comfortable position in the Premier League.\n\n\"We've got 11 star men\" - what they said\n\nCrawley manager Yems to BBC Sport: \"You have to enjoy these games - you work hard enough for it. It was a really good team performance and it's clear that we've got 11 star men.\n\n\"These players have got a lot to prove to the clubs who have released them and we've showed what we can do against a really good side.\n\n\"Let's see who we get in the next round and enjoy the moment.\"\n\nLeeds midfielder Alioski to BBC Radio 5 Live: \"We are really disappointed and it wasn't the result that we wanted. We took the game really seriously and we wanted to win and go on a run, so it is disappointing.\n\n\"Crawley played the game of their lives, and congratulations. To beat us 3-0 - I still can't believe it.\n\n\"The manager said what he wanted to say. It's important for every player to know what this means. He is sad and the players are sad.\"\n• None Attempt blocked. Sam Greenwood (Leeds United) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt missed. Raphinha (Leeds United) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Pablo Hernández.\n• None Jake Hessenthaler (Crawley Town) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt saved. Hélder Costa (Leeds United) header from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Pablo Hernández.\n• None Jamie Shackleton (Leeds United) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt blocked. Max Watters (Crawley Town) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Tom Nichols. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None All the goals and highlights from a huge Saturday of third-round matches are", "A 78-year-old French woman received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in France\n\nA global race is on to vaccinate people against Covid-19 - and with infections soaring in Europe many have complained that the roll-out is too slow in the EU.\n\nMember states decide individually who to vaccinate, when and where, but the EU is coordinating strategy and buying vaccines in bulk. On Friday, the EU Commission agreed to buy an extra 300 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine - that would give the EU nearly half of the firm's global output for 2021.\n\nBBC reporters in seven European capitals explain how the vaccinations are going on their patch.\n\nIn an election year, the vaccine has become a political battleground, writes Jenny Hill, in Berlin.\n\nThe fact it was German scientists who developed the first effective Covid vaccine has been the source of great national pride. And, by and large, Germans appear to be reasonably comfortable with the idea of immunisation.\n\nA recent survey found 65% were prepared to have the vaccine. Other research indicates that less than a quarter of those surveyed would not. But politically - and perhaps unsurprisingly, given this is an election year - Germany's vaccination programme has become a battleground.\n\nVaccinations began here just under two weeks ago and prioritise the over 80s and care home workers. By Thursday evening, more than 477,000 first doses had been administered.\n\nGermany's share of the EU order amounts to 56 million doses. So far, 1.3 million doses have been delivered.\n\nBut some of the hundreds of specially prepared vaccination centres are still not in use and even the government has admitted there simply isn't enough to go around. Angela Merkel and her health minister Jens Spahn have been accused of failing to secure enough doses.\n\nMuch of the criticism has come from Mrs Merkel's own coalition partners but some within the scientific community have echoed their concerns - that Germany put European interests above its own by insisting on a joint EU procurement process. The scientists who developed the vaccine have said publicly that the EU originally turned down an offer for a further order.\n\nGermany's share of the EU order amounts to 56 million doses. So far, 1.3 million doses have been delivered and it's thought that by the end of the month a further 2.68 million will have followed.\n\nMr Spahn, whose assured performance through the pandemic led some to wonder whether he might be a potential successor to Mrs Merkel, has blamed the shortage on the inability of the manufacturers of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to meet global demand.\n\nGermany has now ordered an extra 30 million doses and, following the recent European approval of the Moderna vaccine, expects to start rolling that out next week. The government is sticking to its pledge that the vaccination programme will be complete by the end of the summer.\n\nThe Czech prime minister has hit out at apparent delays in distributing the vaccine, writes Rob Cameron, in Prague.\n\nThe Czech vaccination effort began on 27 December, when the prime minister, Andrej Babis, became the first person in the country to receive the jab. Mr Babis, who is 66, had previously questioned whether he would be eligible, as he'd had his spleen removed as a teenager.\n\nBut the country's programme has got off to a sluggish start. Mr Babis - a billionaire businessman who has been dogged by both European and Czech investigations into alleged misuse of EU funds - has lost no time venting his (figurative) spleen at the European Commission over the delay. \"We believed when we contributed €12m to the European fund in November that we'd receive the vaccine,\" he told a newspaper this week.\n\nThe health minister conceded this week that immunising the higher-risk groups will take months.\n\nThe country has received 30,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. So far, it has managed to administer it to 19,918 people. The government says it is ready to roll out the jab en masse as soon as supplies arrive from the manufacturers.\n\nIt has also published a strategy, which envisages a three-stage process. The first will see targeted vaccination of high-risk groups. This will gradually give way to mass vaccination in 31 centres, using an online reservation system that will be open to all from 1 February. And the final stage will see the country's GPs deployed, hopefully to administer the Oxford-AstraZeneca and other jabs, which unlike the previous two can be stored and transported at fridge temperature.\n\nHowever, the timing in the original strategy document now appears optimistic. The health minister conceded this week that immunising the higher-risk groups - all health and social care staff, teachers, everyone over 65, all those with serious health conditions - will take months. GPs may not begin vaccinating young, healthy members of society until late spring, or summer.\n\nA sluggish start is being blamed on bureaucracy and vaccine scepticism, writes Hugh Schofield, in Paris.\n\nFrance's boast of a big, effective state apparatus has been badly exposed by the sluggish start to the Covid vaccination programme. After the first week, when neighbouring Germany had inoculated around 250,000 people, France was on a mere 530. By Friday, the figure had gone up to 45,500 - still so small as to be statistically meaningless.\n\nSo why has it taken so long for France to put the plan into action? It is not as if the authorities did not have time to prepare. And it is certainly not a question of a lack of vaccine. In fact, more than a million Pfizer doses are already in cold storage, waiting to be used.\n\nPolls suggest as many as 58% of the public do not want to be given the jab.\n\nThe primary reason for the delay seems to be the cumbersome, over-centralised nature of France's health bureaucracy. A 45-page dossier of instructions issued by the ministry in Paris had to be read and understood by staff at old people's homes.\n\nEach recipient then had to give informed consent in a consultation with a doctor, held no less than five days before injection. The lengthy procedure is in theory to save lives - those of patients who might have an adverse reaction. But as the critics have been arguing, delay in inoculating the population is also costing lives.\n\nAnother problem in France is the high level of scepticism towards vaccination - product of a more general suspicion of government. Polls suggest as many as 58% of the public do not want to be given the jab. The effect - critics say - has been to make the government unduly cautious. When urgency was required, the authorities were reluctant to move fast for fear of galvanising the anti-vaxxers.\n\nAfter President Emmanuel Macron communicated his anger at the delays at the weekend, the pace is picking up. The procedure for consent is being simplified. By the end of January, the plan is to have 500-600 vaccination centres open across the country - either in hospitals or other big public buildings.\n\nPolitically a lot is at stake. The government has already come under fire for failings in providing masks and tests. With opposition voices calling the vaccine delay a \"state scandal\", President Macron needs a roll-out that is fast and problem-free.\n\nNational pride accelerated Russia's rollout, but one man is conspicuously absent from the list of people vaccinated, writes Sarah Rainsford, in Moscow.\n\nRussia registered its main Covid vaccine for domestic use way back in August, before mass safety and efficacy trials had even begun. In December, with those trials still underway, it began rolling out Sputnik V to the public ahead of mass vaccination launches everywhere else in Europe. The rush was driven by national pride as well as medical necessity.\n\nSputnik was initially offered to front line health and education workers but early take-up of the two-dose vaccination was slow and the list of those eligible soon expanded.\n\nA poll by the Levada Centre in late December showed only 38% of respondents were willing to get the jab: wary of domestic healthcare and medicines, Russians were sceptical of bold early claims made for the vaccine and nervous about possible adverse reactions. Even so, and despite similar delays scaling-up production as in other countries, Sputnik's backers announced this week that more than a million people had been vaccinated.\n\nRussia began rolling out its Sputnik V vaccine in December\n\nBut one man still conspicuously absent from the list of the vaccinated is Vladimir Putin, despite the Kremlin saying he will - eventually - get the jab. In the meantime, those who meet him in person are obliged to test for Covid first and even quarantine. The president may need to lead by example, though. Mr Putin has said repeatedly that protecting the economy is his priority so he's banking on mass vaccination to avoid a return to national lockdown.\n\nRussia has built giant, temporary hospitals since the start of the pandemic and the health minister said this week that 25% of Covid beds remain free. There's also been a fall in the number of new daily cases reported - around 25,000 for the past 5 days. But that's not down to the vaccine yet. The country is nearing the end of a 10-day New Year holiday period and the number of Covid tests has also dropped.\n\nAs infection rates grow in a country praised by many for its no-lockdown approach, a successful vaccine programme is crucial writes Maddy Savage, in Stockholm.\n\nAlmost two weeks since 91-year-old care home resident Gun-Britt Johnsson became the first Swede to get the initial dose of a Pfizer jab, there is still no official tally of how many others have received the vaccination.\n\nThe Public Health Agency of Sweden says it's in the process of compiling data from the country's 21 regional health authorities tasked with vaccinating the entire adult population - around eight million people - by 26 June. The date isn't arbitrary, it's the biggest public holiday weekend of the year, when Swedes traditionally hold Midsummer celebrations. Karin Tegmark, a senior manager at the agency, says the date remains \"feasible\". But she says it depends on the delivery of vaccines to the country.\n\nAfter months of high trust levels in the country's no-lockdown approach, support for the health agency has dwindled.\n\nAlongside 4.5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Sweden has ordered 3.6 million jabs from Moderna, the first of which are expected to arrive next week. The country also plans to roll-out the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as soon as possible after it is approved by the EU - ideally by February.\n\nSwedes initially appeared lukewarm to the idea of taking a speedily-developed coronavirus vaccine, although a poll at the end of December found 71% would take one. A key driver of the initial scepticism is thought to be the failure of a voluntary mass vaccination programme for swine flu in 2009. Hundreds of Swedish children and young adults under 30 developed the sleeping disorder narcolepsy, which was found to be a side effect of the Pandemrix vaccine.\n\nA successful vaccination programme will be crucial, not least because it comes at a time when Swedish authorities are struggling to maintain public confidence. After months of high trust levels in the country's no-lockdown approach, support for the health agency has dwindled as Sweden has struggled with the second wave of coronavirus.\n\nMeanwhile, several high profile officials have faced heavy criticism for breaching their own recommendations - including the head of the civil contingencies agency (pictured), who resigned after spending Christmas with his daughter in the Canary Islands.\n\nA new government in Belgium seems unified on the vaccine rollout - for now at least, writes Nick Beake, in Brussels.\n\nIt seemed fitting that the first person in Belgium to receive a Covid jab lives in the place where the world's first approved Covid vaccine is being produced. Jos Hermans, a 96-year-old from the municipality of Puurs, was given the injection on 28 December, in his care home. A further 700 elderly residents were also administered a dose in what was a small, initial trial.\n\nThe mass vaccination programme in Belgium began on 5 January, but has been criticised for starting slowly. Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke had promised in November that the rollout would be \"seamless and fast\", tweeting: \"If that does not work, shoot me.\"\n\nThe first phase looks to vaccinate up to 200,000 nursing home residents by the end of this month, or early February. Healthcare professionals will be next in line and the aim was for the whole population to be inoculated by the end of September.\n\nJos Hermans, a 96-year-old from Puurs, was given the injection on 28 December\n\nYou may think the country would be at an advantage being the epicentre of the Pfizer-BioNTech production. While this clearly helps with distribution, Belgium cannot receive more doses - relative to its population - than other EU countries under strict Commission rules. That didn't stop the minister-president of the Flanders region, who admitted this week that he had contacted Pfizer directly in the hope of procuring more doses, only to be rebuffed.\n\nAfter getting a guarantee from Pfizer over supply of the jab, the federal Belgian authorities have adapted their strategy: they now propose giving as many available doses to as many people as they can - and no longer reserving vials for patients' second dose, given three weeks after the first. In general, the federal government, rather than the European Commission has faced any criticism for a delay and has defended its \"careful\" approach.\n\nAnd there appears to be an interesting regional or cultural discrepancy when it comes to whether people are willing to take the vaccine. Of the Flemish population interviewed in a poll, half have said they wanted the vaccine as soon as possible. Among French speakers - it was 20% fewer, which chimes with the deeper scepticism over the border in France.\n\nIn a country where politics are notoriously complicated and fractious - they've only recently agreed a government, after a 500-day vacuum - the Federal Coalition appears unified on its Covid vaccine strategy. For now, at least.\n\nRegional variances and political rows have marked the beginning of Spain's vaccination programme writes Guy Hedgecoe, in Madrid.\n\nSpain started administering the vaccine on 27 December. So far, 743,925 doses have been distributed to regional administrations, with 277,976 people vaccinated, according to the health ministry. The objective of the coalition government is to immunise 2.3 million people within 12 weeks. Priority is being given to elderly residents of care homes, those who look after them, and healthcare personnel.\n\nEach of the country's 17 regions has a high degree of control over healthcare and should receive the number of doses that corresponds to their populations. However, already there has been substantial geographical disparity.\n\nGovernment data showed, for example, that while the northern region of Asturias had used 55% of the doses it had received by 3 January, the Madrid region had only administered 5% by the same date. Some regions are holding back doses to administer a second follow-up jab to the same person in several weeks' time, and some have been vaccinating on national holidays while others have not.\n\nThe pandemic has been the cause of constant political conflict, with the right-wing opposition accusing the leftist government of incompetence.\n\nAlthough vaccination is voluntary, the government has said it is making a register of those who do not wish to be inoculated. That initiative has generated controversy, although the government has insisted the register will merely seek to clarify why people refuse the vaccination.\n\nHowever, the pandemic has been the cause of constant political conflict, with the right-wing opposition accusing the leftist government of Pedro Sánchez of incompetence, lack of transparency and using coronavirus to accumulate power.\n\nThe arrival of a vaccine has not stopped the rancour. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the conservative Popular Party (PP) president of Galicia, warned the number of doses being distributed to each region was being dictated by \"political affiliations or parliamentary needs\", a claim the central government has rejected.", "Lockdowns have worked before, but can we expect the new one to do the same?\n\nIt feels like we are back in March or April last year, when the strict controls on all our lives led to a fairly quick decline in levels of coronavirus.\n\nBut one of the crucial differences this time is the new variant, which is thought to spread between 50 and 70% faster than previous forms of the virus.\n\nExperts warn there are now no guarantees that lockdown will be enough to bring the variant under control.\n\n\"It still would not have been easy, but it would have been a much easier situation if it had not been for the new variant,\" Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, told Inside Health.\n\n\"That really pushes the bounds of our ability to control the spread of the virus, even with measures that were previously relatively quite effective.\"\n\nThe coronavirus spreads when we come into contact with each other so moving classrooms online, telling people to stay at home and closing shops breaks many of those opportunities for human contact.\n\nIf we consider the R number - the average number of people each infected person passes the virus on to - it was about 3.0 in the run up to the first lockdown and anything above 1.0 means cases are climbing.\n\nR fell to 0.6 during the first lockdown.\n\nThen every 1,000 infected people passed the virus on to 600 others, who passed it on to 360 others and so on.\n\nBut if the new variant is 50% more transmissible then the R number, in the same lockdown conditions, would be about 0.9.\n\nThen 1,000 infected people would pass the virus onto 900 others, then 810 and so on.\n\nAs you can see this leads to far slower decline.\n\nAnd that assumes lockdown can get R down to 0.9 in areas where the new variant has become the most common form of the virus.\n\nIf, as some studies suggest, the variant is about 70% more transmissible then R may stay above 1.0 and cases may not fall at all.\n\n\"We'd at best flatten the curve, keep numbers at a roughly constant level, and that's frankly why there is so much emphasis on getting vaccine into people's arms as quickly as possible,\" said Prof Ferguson.\n\nIt is hard to lock down even harder as there are some parts of society - hospitals, supermarkets - that need to be kept open.\n\nWhat happens to the number of cases over the coming weeks will be closely monitored. If this lockdown is less effective then we will have to live with it for longer.\n\nThere have been some encouraging signs over the Christmas break, which was a bit like a lockdown due to school holidays and other restrictions.\n\n\"We are in a very difficult situation here, but my initial assessment of the last few days is that the rate is slowing which is good news,\" Prof John Edmunds, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the BBC.\n\nHe added: \"It looks likes those restrictions should be sufficient to stop the increase, whether they will be sufficient to bring cases down sufficiently we are yet to see.\"\n\nEventually the vaccine will give people immunity so we do not need the same controls on our lives.\n\nNow more than ever this is a race between the virus and the vaccine.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nPremier League rivals Manchester United and Liverpool will meet at Old Trafford in the fourth round of the FA Cup later this month.\n\nNon-league Chorley will host Premier League Wolverhampton Wanderers after beating a depleted Derby County in the third round.\n\nLeague Two Cheltenham Town are set to welcome Pep Guardiola's Manchester City to Whaddon Road.\n\nThe fourth-round ties will be played the weekend of 23-24 January.\n\nCrawley Town, who celebrated a famous 3-0 win over Leeds United on Sunday, will travel to Championship side Bournemouth in the next round.\n\nJose Mourinho's Tottenham will face Wycombe Wanderers at Adams Park, while Fulham take on Burnley in an all-Premier League tie.\n\nChorley would face 14-time winners Arsenal in the fifth round - if the National League North side overcome Wolves and the Gunners beat Southampton.\n\nDavid Moyes could return to former club Manchester United in the last 16 if West Ham beat League One Doncaster Rovers and United seal victory over Liverpool in the fourth round.\n\nThe fifth-round ties will be played 9-11 February.\n• None Watch all the goals and highlights from the FA Cup third round\n• None Goals, highlights and knockouts. All the action from Sunday's third-round ties are", "Seven new mass vaccination centres have opened up across England to help deliver the Coronavirus vaccine, as the Prime Minister says we are facing a \"perilous moment\" in the fight against the virus.\n\nThe Centre of Life in Newcastle is home to one of them, with others in Bristol, Epsom, London, Manchester, Stevenage and Birmingham.\n\nInitially they will be used to vaccinate the over 80's, alongside NHS staff and health and social care workers. It's part of a drive that the government hopes will see 15 million people vaccinated against the virus by mid-February.", "Caroline Rice couldn't afford the ink to print off her child's maths homework\n\nThere are few benefits from lockdown, but one often touted is that people are managing to save a little money: lower transport costs, fewer shop-bought office lunches, cheaper childcare costs and no foreign holidays.\n\nSingle mum Caroline Rice gives a wry smile when asked if she's managed to squirrel away extra cash over the past few months during pandemic restrictions.\n\n\"My spending is up,\" she says. \"The heating costs are higher because it's very cold. I'm having to shop locally because of lockdown, where the prices are slightly higher. The nearest Asda is 12 miles away.\"\n\nThe small savings on little luxuries that many people are making - fewer coffees or restaurant meals - were never an option for her in the first place.\n\nHer meagre finances meant the registered child minder, who lives in rural County Fermanagh, was already living week-to-week. Now it seems like day-to-day, she says.\n\n\"There's a mental stress, fatigue, in having to check the bank balance every day to see how much I'm down,\" she says. \"My child and I haven't bought any clothes in almost a year.\"\n\nShe's having to home-school her child. Many people wouldn't think twice about printing off their child's maths homework project. Caroline had to write it out by hand because they could not afford the ink.\n\nAnd she is not alone. A new report on the finances of low-income families during the pandemic says they are twice as likely to have increased their spending.\n\nIt says extra costs for food, energy and remote learning equipment have piled financial pressure on the poor.\n\nThe study - Pandemic Pressures - was a collaboration between the Resolution Foundation and the Nuffield Foundation-funded Covid Realities research project at the University of York.\n\nDr Ruth Patrick, a social policy lecturer at the University of York, says talk of saving money during the pandemic is \"worlds away\" from the experiences of many low-income parents and carers.\n\n\"Parents have found their spending increases, as some of the usual strategies they use to get by on a low income - shopping around for the best deal, going to families and friends for a meal when the cupboards are empty - have become suddenly impossible,\" she said.\n\nFor Shirley Widdop, an increase in food costs has been one of the biggest issues. The disabled single parent, who lives in Keighley, now has to shield for health reasons. That means using online deliveries a lot.\n\nShe says: \"There's a minimum basket size [with online orders]. You often have to bulk buy in case there's a problem getting delivery slots.\"\n\nShirley Widdop has not saved on life's little luxuries - because she could not afford them in the first place\n\nWhen not shielding, Shirley would seek out food in her supermarket's reduced-price section. \"There used to be just a couple of people. Now there are crowds,\" she says. \"Not everyone has easy access to the internet. And not everyone has a functioning bus service.\"\n\nThe report notes that the pandemic has been marked by a huge reduction in overall spending, with entertainment and social activities restricted by lockdown.\n\nHigher-income households have been the main beneficiaries of this \"enforced saving\", as they spend 40% more of their income on recreation and leisure activities than the poorest fifth of households.\n\nThe report says that in contrast to this overall picture, the pandemic has in many cases made it more expensive to live on a low income with children.\n\nMore than one in three (36%) low-income households with children have increased their spending during the pandemic so far, compared with about one in six (18%) who have reduced their spending.\n\nAmong high-income households without children, 13% have increased their spending, compared with 40% who have reduced it.\n\nUse of food banks has increased significantly during the pandemic\n\nThe report highlights three main reasons for these extra pressures:\n\nIt should also be noted, the report says, that these extra spending pressures are squeezing living standards that had stagnated even before the pandemic.\n\nTo ease the burden, the report says the government should be seeking to maintain the £20-a-week rise in Universal Credit (UC) into next year. Otherwise, six million households face having their incomes cut by more than £1,000.\n\nMike Brewer, chief economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: \"The pandemic has forced society as a whole to spend less and save more. But these broad spending patterns don't hold true for everyone.\n\n\"The extra cost of feeding, schooling and entertaining children 24/7 means that, for many families, lockdowns have made life more expensive to live on a low income.\"\n\nHowever, a government spokesperson said measures had been put in place to \"ensure that nobody is left behind\", including extra welfare payments, job protection safeguards, the £170m Covid Winter Grant Scheme, and equipment for home-schooling.\n\n\"We are committed to supporting the lowest-paid families through the pandemic and beyond,\" the spokesperson said.\n\nSometimes the overall economic figures can not capture the actual on-the-ground financial reality.\n\nThe pandemic lockdowns have led to a \"K-shaped\" recovery. Across the entire economy, staying at home has meant less capacity to spend on going out and a surge in savings. But the economic picture is both up and down at the same time, depending on which household.\n\nThe average picture is composed of wealthier people saving a huge amount and poorer families more squeezed than ever. This report shows how children staying at home have increased food and energy bills. The cost of buying food has increased with fewer store promotions and a requirement to use more expensive local shops. The furlough scheme has kept people paid, but not necessarily on full pay.\n\nSo the chancellor hopes that the vaccine rollout could unleash pent up demand in the form of huge levels of savings from the already well-off. And yet at the same time, will continue to face pressure over extending support - for example, the £20-a-week increase to universal credit.", "A Sex and the City revival is heading to the small screen, more than 20 years after the hit series made its debut.\n\nThe original HBO show followed the lives of four New York women negotiating work and relationships in the late 90s and early 2000s.\n\nBut only three of the fab four are returning for the new TV series - Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis.\n\nKim Cattrall, who played the popular character Samantha, will not feature.\n\nThe US network did not say why Cattrall wasn't cast in the revival, titled And Just Like That - a nod to one of the show's original catchphrases.\n\nHowever, Cattrall has had a strained relationship with the show in recent years, and in particular with her former co-star Parker.\n\nThe new series will consist of 10 half-hour episodes. Production will begin in late spring.\n\nThe trailer for the HBO Max show gives nothing away; It features numerous shots of New York, but none of the characters is seen on screen.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kristin Davis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"I grew up with these characters, and I can't wait to see how their story has evolved in this new chapter, with the honesty, poignancy, humour and the beloved city that has always defined them,\" Sarah Aubrey, head of original content at HBO Max, said in a statement.\n\nThe original Sex and the City series, created by Darren Star, was based on Candace Bushnell's 1997 book of the same name. It premiered on HBO in 1998 and ran for six seasons until 2004.\n\nThe show inspired two films, Sex and the City in 2008 and Sex and the City 2 in 2010. A prequel series titled The Carrie Diaries, starring Anna Sophia Robb, aired on The CW in 2013/14.\n\nStar also created Netflix show Emily in Paris, and many have drawn inevitable comparisons between that show and SATC.\n\nWhen it first burst on to our TV screens, Sex and the City was seen as revolutionary - four women talking openly about their love and sex lives, not to mention the sex scenes themselves.\n\nThe first series of SATC began filming in 1998\n\nCosmopolitans and rabbit vibrators were trending before trending was a thing.\n\nWhile it was praised by many for its liberating female-led content, it also attracted criticism from some quarters who felt Carrie's ongoing pursuit of Mr Big (Christopher Noth) was not exactly an advert for female independence.\n\nIt was also accused of trivialising issues such as sexual harassment and for its lack of diversity, a criticism levelled at many older shows including Friends.\n\nFashion was a hugely influential part of the series - the tutu worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in the opening credits, teamed with a fur coat and heels, was described as \"an ensemble rich in cultural resonance\".\n\nAnd Manolo Blahnik could never have dreamed of attracting so much publicity for his designer footwear.\n\nIt was a ratings smash, with the hotly anticipated finale in 2004 drawing an audience of 10.6 million viewers in the US.\n\nIn the UK, the final episode was watched by 4.1m on Channel 4.\n\nThe series was predictably most popular in the 18-34 age group.\n\nMany SATC fans will be disappointed that larger-than-life favourite Samantha Jones - played by Kim Cattrall - will not be returning for the sequel series.\n\nSamantha was Sex and the City's most outlandish character and arguably, the star of the show.\n\nWhile Miranda was juggling a career and motherhood, Charlotte was focused on marriage and motherhood and Carrie poured her neuroses into her New York Star column, Samantha was the character perhaps harder to relate to but someone we all wanted to be (at least a little).\n\nShe was fiercely independent and while caring for her friends, she always put her own needs before men.\n\nBut news Cattrall won't reprise the role in And Just Like That comes as no surprise after years of feud rumours which were later confirmed by the British-born Canadian actress.\n\nIn 2017, Cattrall told Piers Morgan she had \"never been friends\" with her co-stars.\n\nShe said there was a \"toxic relationship\" and ruled out appearing in a third Sex and the City movie, denying that her decision was down to pay or \"diva\" demands.\n\nCattrall commented that former co-star Parker \"could have been nicer\" about the situation.\n\nA different actress could play Samantha in the future, she suggested.\n\n\"I played it past the finish line and then some and I loved it and another actress should play it,\" she said. \"Maybe they could make it an African-American Samantha Jones or a Hispanic Samantha Jones, or bring in another character.\"\n\nShe later criticised Parker for being \"cruel\" after she sent condolences following the death of Cattrall's brother.\n\nIn an interview with People magazine shortly afterwards, SJP acknowledged Cattrall \"said things that were really hurtful about me\".\n\nParker said: \"So there was no fight; it was completely fabricated, because I actually never responded.\"\n\nOn Monday, Parker replied on Instagram to someone posting that SJP \"didn't tag Samantha Jones\" into her post announcing the new series.\n\n\"I don't dislike her. I've never said that. Never would. Samantha isn't part of this story. But she will always be part of us. No matter where we are or what we do. x.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Flat owners applying to a fund to help pay to remove flammable building cladding will be told not to talk to the press without government approval.\n\nA draft agreement, uncovered by the Sunday Times, says that even where there is \"overwhelming public interest\" in speaking to journalists, the government must be told first.\n\nThe government said the wording was \"standard\".\n\nIt set up a £1.6bn fund last year to repair the most dangerous buildings.\n\nBut it warned that the fund might not cover all the costs of removing the cladding.\n\nThe clause might affect building owners and professional managing agents but also residents who manage their building.\n\nSome types of the covering, often added to newer blocks of flats, have been proven to be a fire hazard.\n\nAfter the 2017 Grenfell fire, the government pledged that safe alternatives to dangerous cladding would be provided on all buildings in England taller than 18m.\n\nIt set up the £1.6bn fund to help foot the costs.\n\nThe agreement, between the building owner or leaseholder and the government, says: \"The Applicant shall not make any communication to the press or any journalist or broadcaster regarding the Project or the Agreement (or the performance of it by any Party) without the prior written approval of Homes England and [the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government ]\" and its press offices.\n\nIt says an exception can be made \"where such disclosure is in the overwhelming public interest (in which case disclosure will not be made without first allowing Homes England and MHCLG to make representations on such proposed disclosure).\"\n\nThe UK Cladding Action Group tweeted that it was \"clearly a matter of public interest\" that these issues were aired in public.\n\n\"No department should be hiding behind non-disclosure agreements to stop scrutiny of their actions,\" the group said.\n\nAnother campaign group, Manchester Cladiators, said the existence of the \"gagging clause\" was \"shocking but not necessarily that surprising\".\n\nSpokesperson Rebecca Fairclough said residents would feel \"intimidated\" by it, adding: \"We ask the government to remove this unfair clause immediately and focus on the priority of solving this institutional failure, which still exists and is only growing over three and a half years after the Grenfell tragedy.\"\n\nThe government insists that the wording in the agreement, under the heading \"Marketing material\", is there to ensure applicants come to the government first.\n\n\"The terms set out are standard in commercial agreements and are not specific to this fund - to suggest otherwise is misleading and inaccurate,\" the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said in a statement.\n\n\"We want a constructive working relationship with building owners who apply to the fund and applicants are asked to work with the department on public communications relating to the project.\"", "Small business owner Jon Wilding is facing a dilemma: his livelihood is on hold because of Covid restrictions and he has a big tax bill to settle.\n\nIf his company supplying marquees to outdoor events goes bust, the taxman will get paid, but his reputation as a businessman will be ruined forever.\n\n\"If I shut the business down, I then become director of a business that's gone bankrupt, at which stage getting loans in the future becomes nigh-on impossible,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"I feel like I'm one of those people who's been left out. We don't need a lot to keep going,\" said Mr Wilding, of Cannock in the West Midlands.\n\n\"The government say their support system is the best in the world, we've done furlough, this that and whatever, but it's not getting to all the people that need it.\"\n\nApart from the Bounce Back Loan scheme, his two-person business has received no government assistance.\n\nHis colleague was furloughed in March last year, but because Mr Wilding is the director, he is not allowed to furlough himself.\n\nThe Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is particularly concerned about people like Mr Wilding.\n\nIt says directors of small companies, who pay themselves in dividends rather than drawing a salary, are not receiving any help from the government.\n\nThe FSB says somewhere between 700,000 and 1.1 million people fall into this category.\n\nIt has put forward ideas to help some of those firms, which it hopes ministers will adopt.\n\nThe FSB's proposed Directors Income Support Scheme would pay them grants of up to £7,500 to cover three months of lost trading profits. It would be limited to those who earn less than £50,000 a year.\n\n\"Company directors, the newly self-employed, those in supply chains and those without commercial premises are still being left out in the cold,\" said FSB national chairman Mike Cherry.\n\nWithout further government help to cope with the effects of the pandemic, a record 250,000 small businesses could be lost in the next 12 months, the FSB said.\n\n\"The development of business support measures has not kept pace with intensifying restrictions,\" Mr Cherry added.\n\n\"As a result, we risk losing hundreds of thousands of great, ultimately viable small businesses this year, at huge cost to local communities and individual livelihoods.\"\n\nThe Federation of Small Businesses said the government had met the latest national lockdown \"with a whimper\"\n\nThe FSB based its prediction on a survey of 1,400 small firms, 5% of which said they expected to close this year.\n\nIf those figures were replicated across the country, some 250,000 of the UK's 5.9 million small firms could disappear, it said.\n\nMr Cherry said the government had met the latest national lockdown \"with a whimper\" and called for help that went beyond the retail, leisure and hospitality businesses.\n\nThe FSB said it had submitted its support scheme proposals to the Treasury and was expecting a decision this month.\n\nThe Treasury said nothing was planned at present, but added: \"Our support schemes are designed to get help to those who need it most whilst protecting the taxpayer from fraud, but of course we keep everything under review and are always open to further ideas.\"", "But it delivered a fascinating look behind the scenes at two cutting-edge ways the firm is creating video content.\n\nThe first involved the use of a giant screen which is matched with movement-sensors on a camera to create a fake backdrop that shifts in turn with the lens.\n\nA similar technique was pioneered by Industrial Light & Magic and used in the Star Wars spin-off series The Mandalorian, but this opens the door to other filmmakers.\n\nThe screens involved use Sony's Crystal LED technology, which the firm first unveiled at CES in 2012, but has been unable to bring low down enough in price to take mainstream.\n\nIn effect, this is its version of micro-LED tech, using millions of tiny light emitting diodes (LEDs) to match the number of pixels. The result is much greater brightness and contrast than a normal LCD or OLED display would be capable of.\n\nThe background footage moves in time with the camera to aid the illusion Image caption: The background footage moves in time with the camera to aid the illusion\n\nUntil now, the firm has marketed the tech at building owners wanting the ultimate video walls. But this has the potential to help film and advert-makers place actors within environments they can see, rather than relying on greenscreen effects.\n\nThe second innovation was the creation of an \"immersive reality\" performance, which uses body sensors to create a highly-detailed animated version of an artist.\n\nIt was demoed by the singer-songwriter Madison Beer.\n\nMotion capture has been used for years to add special effects to characters in movies and to place real-world actors into video games.\n\nBut the aim here is to create a lifelike representation of a performer on stage at a concert.\n\nThe footage shown didn't quite escape the \"uncanny valley\" - there's still some way to go before we can't tell the difference between a real person and even a highly detailed avatar.\n\nBut it's easy to imagine that the tech being more impressive when viewed in virtual reality, where users can move about and choose their view.\n\nThe computer-generated image looks less real the closer you get to the performer Image caption: The computer-generated image looks less real the closer you get to the performer\n\nUntil now, VR apps of concerts have either offered a pick of different static camera locations or involved much lower-resolution characters.\n\nWith Covid meaning it's impossible for artists to tour, this second-best experience could be very timely when it's offered to PlayStation VR headsets and other devices soon.", "Many hospitals are still under intense pressure with the increasing number of Covid patients arriving.\n\nDoctors say they are seeing more younger patients in their thirties and forties compared to the first wave.\n\nThe overall pattern of those at risk of becoming seriously ill or dying has not changed significantly and the older someone is, the greater their risk from Covid-19 - particularly those over the age of 65.\n\nThe BBC's Health Editor Hugh Pym was given access to film at Croydon University Hospital in South London.", "Boris Johnson - pictured here in 2013 - has long been a fan of cycling\n\nBoris Johnson has been criticised for travelling seven miles from Downing Street to go cycling during lockdown.\n\nThe Evening Standard reported the prime minister had been spotted in the Olympic Park in East London on Sunday.\n\nGovernment advice allows people to exercise outside, but says you should not travel outside your local area.\n\nA No 10 spokesman would not confirm if Mr Johnson had been driven to the park or cycled there, but said the PM had complied with Covid-19 guidelines.\n\nLabour's Andy Slaughter said: \"Once again it is do as I say, not as I do, from the prime minister.\"\n\nThe Hammersmith MP added: \"London has some of the highest infection rates in the country. Boris Johnson should be leading by example.\"\n\nIn response to the criticism, a Downing Street source told the BBC: \"The PM has exercised within the Covid rules and any suggestion to the contrary is wrong.\"\n\nA woman told the PA news agency she had seen the prime minister in the park: \"He was leisurely cycling with another guy with a beanie hat and chatting, while around four security guys, possibly more, cycled behind them.\n\n\"Considering the current situation with Covid I was shocked to see him cycling around looking so care-free.\n\n\"Also, considering he's advising everyone to stay at home and not leave their area, shouldn't he stay in Westminster and not travel to other boroughs?\"\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock was asked at Monday's Downing Street press conference whether travelling seven miles for a cycle ride was within the rules.\n\nMr Hancock said: \"It is OK, if you went for a long walk and ended up seven miles from home, that is OK, but you should stay local.\n\n\"It is OK to go for a long walk or a cycle ride or to exercise, but stay local.\"\n\nThe issue of travelling for exercise was highlighted at the weekend after two women said they were surrounded by police and fine £200 after driving five miles from home to take a walk.\n\nDerbyshire Police have now dropped the fine and apologised to the women, but the incident led to a debate over the guidance.\n\nGovernment advice for England says you can leave your home to exercise, but adds: \"This should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area.\"\n\nThe guidance adds: \"Stay local means stay in the village, town, or part of the city where you live.\"\n\nIn Scotland, the advice is more precise, saying exercise can be taken if it \"starts and finishes at the same place, which can be up to five miles from the boundary of your local authority area\".\n\nFormer Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, who represents a constituency in the Lake District, has written to the PM calling for clearer guidance on exercise similar to that in Scotland.\n\nHe wrote: \"On the one hand, our local police force here in Cumbria are reporting that people... have travelled hundreds of miles to take their exercise in the Lake District.\n\n\"And on the other hand, I have constituents writing to me, worried whether they will be punished for driving five minutes up the road to go for a walk in their local park.\"\n\nMr Farron added: \"We need a solution that clearly deters people from making lengthy trips and potentially spreading the virus, but also that doesn't discourage people from keeping fit and healthy.\"", "Douglas Ross: 'All of Scottish football should not be affected by the actions of one club'\n\nScottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross tells viewers he thinks politics should be put aside and the UK and Scottish governments should work together to get the vaccinations out as quickly as possible. He is reluctant, as an assistant referee, to comment on the Celtic Dubai situation, but he does say that people have to look at the message it sends out. He points out that for many people at home alone at the moment, football is something they look forward to and \"we don't want to see the whole of Scottish football affected by the actions of one club\". He adds that financial support should be made available to clubs in the Scottish lower leagues & Scottish Cup who have had their games suspended for three weeks.", "Terry Irving, 83, from Dumfries, was given the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday\n\nEveryone aged 80 or over in Scotland will be given the Covid vaccine by February, the health secretary has said.\n\nJeane Freeman also said care home staff and residents, as well as front-line health and social care staff would be vaccinated in the next few weeks.\n\nAs of Sunday, 163,377 Scots had been given a first dose of vaccine.\n\nMs Freeman told BBC Scotland that just under 560,000 people will have been vaccinated by the end of the month.\n\nThe Oxford vaccine will be available at more than 1,100 locations from Monday.\n\nScotland has been given an initial allocation of more than 500,000 doses to use in January.\n\nMs Freeman told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: \"We intend that by the end of this month, the very beginning of February, we will have vaccinated all residents in care homes and staff, all front-line health and social care workers and all those aged 80 or over.\n\n\"So that's just under 560,000. We've already vaccinated about 70% of people in care homes and about half of the health and social care workforce.\"\n\nShe said the Scottish government was on course to match the UK government's commitment to offer a vaccine jab to everyone in the top four priority groups by the middle of February.\n\nThe health service will be able to vaccinate people as supplies of the jabs arrive, she said, with over-80s being contacted by their GPs.\n\nThe government has now started publishing vaccination figures on a daily basis, with 163,377 Scots having been given a first dose as of Sunday.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the health authorities in Scotland now had enough supplies to give jabs to all over-80s over the coming four weeks.\n\nShe said the aim was to get through the priority list as quickly as possible.\n\nThis had been expected to be complete by mid-May, but Ms Sturgeon said she was \"very, very hopeful we will be able to accelerate that to an earlier point\".\n\nA total of 1,664 people are in hospital being treated for Covid-19, the highest number since the pandemic began - with Ms Sturgeon saying the country was in a \"dangerous situation\".\n\nThe Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has already been administered in the Tayside, Lothian, Orkney and Highlands health board areas but this week will see it being used at vaccination centres across the whole country.\n\nRecent figures suggest a slight fall in the average positivity rates for Covid in many parts of Scotland, but pressures on the NHS have intensified.\n\nThe number of patients in hospital in with Covid rose to new highs at the weekend, and Sunday saw a sharp increase in the number of patients requiring treatment in intensive care.\n\nDeputy First Minister John Swinney said there were few signs that the threat was \"abating\" and that a tightening of restrictions could not be ruled out.\n\nThe majority of Scotland's schools are closed until at least February with pupils now learning from home as the new term begins this week..\n\nOnly vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers will receive face-to-face teaching.\n\nLocal authorities said schools were better prepared to roll out digital learning than they were during the first lockdown.\n\nBut one parents' group has raised concerns about \"equal and fair access to home learning\".", "The Prince of Wales is urging firms to back a more sustainable future and do more to protect the planet, as he marks 50 years of environmental campaigning.\n\nPrince Charles wants companies to join what he is calling \"Terra Carta\" - or Earth charter.\n\nThe charter is being launched alongside a fund run by the Natural Capital Investment Alliance.\n\nIt aims to mobilise $10 billion towards natural capital by 2022.\n\nTerra Carta will harness the \"irreplaceable power of nature\", the prince said in his virtual address to the One Planet Summit on Monday.\n\nHe hopes the new charter will help \"reunite people and planet\".\n\nHe said: \"I can only encourage, in particular, those in industry and finance to provide practical leadership to this common project, as only they are able to mobilise the innovation, scale and resources that are required to transform our global economy.\"\n\nIn his foreword to Terra Carta, the prince writes: \"If we consider the legacy of our generation, more than 800 years ago, Magna Carta inspired a belief in the fundamental rights and liberties of people.\n\n\"As we strive to imagine the next 800 years of human progress, the fundamental rights and value of nature must represent a step-change in our 'future of industry' and 'future of economy' approach.\"\n\nCharles has previously said that people thought he was \"completely dotty\" when he started talking about environmental issues in the 1970s.", "A number of positive cases have been identified among passengers who had flown into Glasgow from Dubai since the new year\n\nDubai has been added to Scotland's travel quarantine list with anyone coming from the country told to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nThe rule, which came into effect at 04:00, will also apply retrospectively for passengers who have made the journey since 3 January.\n\nCeltic confirmed one of their players tested positive for the virus less than 48 hours after the squad returned from a training trip to Dubai on Friday.\n\nIt is not known if he was on the trip.\n\nThe Scottish government said clinicians and the local NHS health protection team were in contact with Celtic providing advice. It also confirmed that quarantine rules did not apply to sports people who had attended \"elite training\" abroad.\n\nHowever, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon last week questioned the purpose of Celtic's trip and whether they were following social-distancing rules after seeing photos from their Dubai base.\n\nShe warned that professional sport's privileges could be lost if protocols were not followed by all participants.\n\nThe government said the change was due to a number of positive cases being identified in passengers who had flown into Glasgow from Dubai since the new year.\n\nIt said the \"preventative action\" would help stem the rise in coronavirus cases.\n\nTransport Secretary Michael Matheson said: \"It is evident, both in Scotland and in countries across the world, that the virus continues to pose real risks to health and to life and we need to interrupt the rise in cases.\"\n\nHe added: \"Imposing quarantine requirements on those arriving in the UK is our first defence in managing the risk of imported cases from communities with high risks of transmission. That is why we have made the decision to remove Dubai from the country exemptions list.\n\n\"Whether or not an overseas destination has been designated for quarantine restrictions, our message remains clear that people should not currently be undertaking non-essential foreign travel.\n\n\"People need to stay at home to help suppress the virus, protect our NHS and save lives.\"\n\nJoanne Dooey, president of the Scottish Passenger Agents' Association (SPAA), said: \"Removing Dubai from the safe list is understandable. We believe that there has been a cluster of infections around Scots who travelled to Dubai over the Christmas and New Year period.\n\n\"Whilst we're keen to see a return to increased international travel, protecting the health of the whole country remains our key concern and we are supportive of this move.\"", "Morrisons will bar customers who refuse to wear face coverings from its shops amid rising coronavirus infections.\n\nFrom Monday, shoppers who refuse to wear face masks offered by staff will not be allowed inside, unless they are medically exempt.\n\nSainsbury's also said it would challenge those not wearing a mask or who were shopping in groups.\n\nThe announcements come amid concerns that social distancing measures are not being adhered to in supermarkets.\n\nVaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said the government is \"concerned\" shops are not enforcing rules strictly enough.\n\n\"Ultimately, the most important thing to do now is to make sure that actually enforcement - and of course the compliance with the rules - when people are going into supermarkets are being adhered to,\" Mr Zahawi told Sky News.\n\n\"We need to make sure people actually wear masks and follow the one-way system,\" he said.\n\nMorrisons said it had \"introduced and consistently maintained thorough and robust safety measures in all our stores\" since the start of the pandemic.\n\nBut it said: \"From today we are further strengthening our policy on masks.\"\n\nSecurity guards at the UK's fourth-biggest supermarket chain will be enforcing the new rules.\n\nMorrisons' chief executive, David Potts, said: \"Those who are offered a face covering and decline to wear one won't be allowed to shop at Morrisons unless they are medically exempt.\n\n\"Our store colleagues are working hard to feed you and your family, please be kind.\"\n\nFollowing Morrisons' announcement, Sainsbury's said that it was also putting trained security guards at the front of its stores to challenge shoppers who did not comply.\n\nChief executive Simon Roberts said: \"I've spent a lot of time in our stores reviewing the latest situation over the last few days and on behalf of all my colleagues, I am asking our customers to help us keep everyone safe.\n\n\"The vast majority of customers are shopping safely, but I have also seen some customers trying to shop without a mask and shopping in larger family groups.\n\n\"Please help us to keep all our colleagues and customers safe by always wearing a mask and by shopping alone. Everyone's care and consideration matters now more than ever.\"\n\nEarlier on Monday, Mr Zahawi stopped short of saying that supermarket staff should be responsible for enforcing rules on face masks.\n\nEnforcement of face coverings is the responsibility of the police, not retailers. Wearing face masks in supermarkets and shops is compulsory across the UK.\n\nIn England, the police can issue a £200 fine to someone breaking the face covering rules. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, a £60 fine can be imposed. Repeat offenders face bigger fines.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How to wear your mask. Hint: it's not any of these three options\n\nHowever, retail industry body the British Retail Consortium said that, workers have faced an increase in incidents of violence and abuse when trying to encourage shoppers to put them on.\n\nAndrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, added: \"Supermarkets continue to follow all safety guidance and customers should be reassured that supermarkets are Covid-secure and safe to visit during lockdown and beyond.\n\n\"Customers should play their part too by following in-store signage and being considerate to staff and fellow shoppers.\"\n\nUnder current lockdown restrictions across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, people must only leave home for essential reasons, such as buying food or medicine.\n\nIn a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus, supermarkets introduced social distancing measures during the UK's first nationwide lockdown last March. They included limits on the numbers of customers in the shops at any one time, protective plastic screens at tills and \"marshals\" to ensure shoppers were maintaining a two-metre distance.\n\nBut amid rising numbers of infections, some have expressed concerns about a \"lack of visible protections\" implemented by supermarkets in recent weeks.\n\nThe First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, said on Saturday that he wanted to see stores policed as they were during the first lockdown as people were worried the strict enforcement of rules did not \"appear to be there this time\".\n\n\"Given the fact the new variant is so much easier to catch... we are looking at supermarkets and other places where people leave their homes, to make sure they are organised in a way that keeps their staff and customers safe,\" he said.\n\nSupermarket Waitrose said that it was taking a \"cautious approach\" to the virus, with marshals checking that customers are wearing face coverings on the door, hand sanitiser stations at its entrances and written communications to shoppers reminding them to maintain their distance.\n\nTesco said it was limiting the number of customers in store and was also reminding customers to wear masks.\n\n\"We have clear signage explaining this, and we have packs of face coverings available for purchase near the front of our stores for any customers who have forgotten them.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Asda announced last week that it would extend its marshals' hours to 08:00 to 20:00 and increase how often baskets and trollies are cleaned.\n\nShop workers' union Usdaw has also called for firms to apply more stringent measures again.\n\nThe union's general secretary, Paddy Lillis, said that it had received reports that \"too many customers are not following necessary safety measures like social distancing, wearing a face covering and only shopping for essential items\".\n\n\"It is going to take some time to roll out the vaccine and we cannot afford to be complacent in the meantime, particularly with a new strain sweeping the nation,\" Mr Lillis said.\n\nThe trade union also suggested that \"'one-in one-out\" policies and proper queuing systems should be reintroduced in supermarkets.\n\nIt added that these systems should be managed by trained security staff where necessary.", "The number of patients in intensive care with Covid has risen sharply, amid warnings that tougher lockdown measures may be needed.\n\nLatest Scottish government figures show 1,877 new cases of Covid were reported in the last 24 hours\n\nThe number of people in intensive care has risen from 109 to 123, the highest daily jump since October.\n\nDeputy First Minister John Swinney said a tightening of restrictions could not be ruled out.\n\nA total of 1,598 people are currently in hospital with recently-confirmed Covid, up from Saturday's figure of 1,596 patients which was the highest number since the outbreak began.\n\nThe daily test positivity rate was10%, up from 8.7% on Saturday, when 1,865 positive cases were recorded.\n\nThe deputy first minister said the country was facing \"a very alarming situation\" with the virus.\n\nSpeaking on Politics Scotland, Mr Swinney said coronavirus does not show much sign of \"abating\" and he would not rule out tougher lockdown measures.\n\nHe said: \"We're seeing case numbers which are hovering around 2,000 per day... so we've got an accelerating situation on our hands and we have to constantly review whether more restrictions are required.\"\n\nThere have been some encouraging signs in recent days with average positivity rates falling, a possible indicator that the lockdown is having an impact, but Prof Linda Bauld, of Edinburgh University, urged caution.\n\nShe said: \"The numbers are not reducing at the rate which we want them to, so [it is] still a very fragile situation.\n\n\"The measures we have now I hope are working but it's not clear whether they are tough enough.\n\n\"I think the key change the government could make is in the sectors which are still open, particularly workplaces but also things like takeaways and click and collect.\"\n\nMr Swinney said the Scottish government is \"open to considering further restrictions if they are necessary\"\n\nProfessional sport, along with manufacturing and construction work have been allowed to continue in this lockdown, whereas they were not in the first wave in March.\n\nThe deputy first minister said the meeting of the cabinet which agreed the latest lockdown saw ministers wondering if they had gone far enough to stop the spread.\n\nMr Swinney added: \"I don't think I'm revealing a state secret when I say that the debate within cabinet was not whether we were going too far but whether we were going far enough.\"\n\nA total of three deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours but these figures are lower at weekends because register offices are generally closed.", "Last updated on .From the section Scottish Premiership\n\nCeltic's only regret about their Dubai trip was Chris Jullien contracting Covid-19, said coach Gavin Strachan, after the draw with Hibernian.\n\nThirteen Celtic players missed the game as they self-isolate after being deemed close contacts of Jullien.\n\nThe hosts led through David Turnbull's free-kick, but are now 21 points behind Scottish Premiership leaders Rangers after Kevin Nisbet's late Hibs strike.\n\n\"There's regret that one person has caught the virus,\" said Strachan.\n\n\"But there's not a regret in terms of the permission we got to go and the protocols that we followed, which we have done the whole season.\"\n• None 'Celtic's lack of remorse over Dubai farce is risible'\n• None Trouble in paradise? Timeline of Dubai bid to Covid crisis\n\nStrachan, who managed the team against Hibs as Neil Lennon and assistant John Kennedy are also in enforced quarantine, defended the decision to take Jullien - who is out injured for up to four months - on last week's controversial training trip.\n\n\"It was to maintain his treatment with the backroom staff, he went over there so we can get him back as fast as we can,\" Strachan added.\n\n\"Yeah, I can understand the frustration from everybody, because we end up playing with a weaker team, but that could have happened if we were training at home as well.\"\n\nCeltic, who still have three games in hand, fielded an unfamiliar line-up showing six changes, though one of those was enforced by Nir Bitton's suspension, and teenage American forward Cameron Harper was handed a debut.\n\nHibs' request for Celtic players to be retested pre-match was turned down and Jack Ross gave a first appearance to on-loan Arsenal goalkeeper Matt Macey.\n\nAnd it was the visitors who tried to stamp their authority on the game early on with Nisbet heading over and later testing Conor Hazard with a shot after Joe Newell's strike had been pushed out by the Celtic keeper.\n\nHarper shot instead of passing from a promising position in Celtic's first incisive move and long-range efforts from Ismaila Soro and Diego Laxalt drew fine saves from Macey.\n\nTurnbull's superb chip found Callum McGregor in behind the Hibs defence but he could not make the right connection.\n\nLewis Stevenson made his 500th Hibernian appearance as a half-time replacement for Josh Doig and Harper limped off to be replaced by another Celtic debutant Armstrong Oko-Flex on the hour.\n\nChances were at a premium and Hazard was quick off his line to snuff out a chance for Melker Hallberg and Drey Wright's replacement Christian Doidge could not get a header on Jamie Murphy's teasing corner.\n\nMikey Johnston claimed unsuccessfully for a penalty after going down in the Hibs box following Ryan Porteous' challenge and soon made way for Karamoko Dembele.\n\nHibs also made a change with Stephen McGinn replacing Hallberg and the midfielder fouled Turnbull to give the Celtic midfielder the chance to put Celtic ahead, and he did. It was a fantastic strike by Turnbull and his fifth goal for Celtic.\n\nHibs went back on the attack and won a free-kick of their own after Laxalt's foul on Paul McGinn and the latter's header from Stevie Mallan's delivery was cleared on the line only for Nisbet to fire high into the net for parity. A point took Hibs to within two of Aberdeen in third.\n\nWhat did we learn?\n\nUnsurprisingly, Celtic took a while to settle into the match and lacked a focal point in the absence of Leigh Griffiths and Odsonne Edouard.\n\nFor long spells in the second half, the hosts did not look likely to win but took their chance when it came. Defensively, though, they were caught out badly at a set play.\n\nHibs may rue not throwing more caution to the wind at 0-0 but, after three league defeats, a point in Glasgow is a positive result.\n\nWhat did they say?\n\nCeltic coach Gavin Strachan: \"The players put a lot into the game and we thought we did enough to nick it. The sucker punch at the end was frustrating. We were hoping we would have enough bodies back to see that out.\n\n\"There's a lot of football still to be played and you never know what's going to happen. Obviously it's a frustrating time just now but we need to get the win on Saturday, keep racking up the points and see what happens.\"\n\nHibernian head coach Jack Ross: \"We wanted to come and win the game. I certainly think we merited taking something from it. It's good for us to stop the bleeding. It hopefully just propels our side in the right direction again.\n\n\"Kevin Nisbet's goalscoring return has been excellent. The accuracy of the finish and the trust in his finishing ability with the goal has to be like that otherwise I don't think he scores it.\"\n\nCeltic will still be without their isolating players when they host Livingston on Saturday (15:00 GMT). Hibs are at home to Kilmarnock at the same time.\n• None Attempt blocked. Stephen Mallan (Hibernian) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Kevin Nisbet.\n• None Goal! Celtic 1, Hibernian 1. Kevin Nisbet (Hibernian) left footed shot from the right side of the six yard box to the top right corner following a set piece situation.\n• None Attempt blocked. Paul McGinn (Hibernian) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Stephen Mallan with a cross.\n• None Paul McGinn (Hibernian) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt missed. Stephen Mallan (Hibernian) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Paul McGinn with a headed pass.\n• None Attempt blocked. Christian Doidge (Hibernian) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Paul McGinn with a cross.\n• None Attempt saved. Jamie Murphy (Hibernian) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Paul McGinn.\n• None Goal! Celtic 1, Hibernian 0. David Turnbull (Celtic) from a free kick with a right footed shot to the top left corner. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Wales' health minister has acknowledged it was \"entirely understandable people are concerned\" about when they will receive their vaccine.\n\nBut Vaughan Gething also stressed that supplies will increase over the coming weeks.\n\n\"I think a number of people are are anxious because this is a worrying time. And it's entirely understandable on a human level why people are concerned\", he said.\n\nMr Gething admitted that other UK nations had made a better start in rolling out the vaccine.\n\nBut he said that he believed Wales had still made a \"good start\" and \"that's evidenced by the figures\".\n\nWhen asked about the concerns made by some GP practices, Mr Gething said he understands why some of them \"will be frustrated\".\n\nHe added: \"But we're delivering the AstraZeneca vaccine in supplies that we have to keep it going.\n\n\"And as I said, the availability of that vaccine is the current rate limiting step and significantly increasing our delivery because we know there are a range of general practices and others who could deliver more if we had more supply.\n\n\"The supply they're being given is supplied for the week - it's not to stretch through for the whole population that they're covering.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Domestic abuse victim - 'He threw me against the wall and strangled me'\n\nJustice Secretary Robert Buckland has said he hopes to make non-fatal strangulation a specific offence after a call by domestic abuse campaigners.\n\nToo many violent offenders' sentences are not tough enough, he said.\n\nAnd he added that strangulation can be a precursor to even more serious crimes against women.\n\nCampaigners argue that perpetrators are often only charged with common assault, which carries a maximum of six months in prison.\n\nBecause non-fatal strangulation may not leave any marks on the victim, prosecutors do not bring more serious charges, they say.\n\nMr Buckland said: \"There are too many violent offenders not getting sentences proportionate to the seriousness of their crimes because in many cases, prosecutors don't have adequate charging options where the victim has been strangled.\n\n\"The vast majority of these crimes are committed against women and they are often a precursor to even more serious violence.\"\n\nThe justice secretary hopes the new offence can be included in the Police and Sentencing Bill, although discussions are at an early stage.\n\nCampaigners had called for a new offence to be part of the Domestic Abuse Bill. The Conservative peer Baroness Newlove was planning to table an amendment to this bill as it goes through the House of Lords. She won cross-party support during a debate in the Lords last week.\n\nBut the Ministry of Justice believes that as non-fatal strangulation can be used in situations other than domestic abuse, the legislation should have a broader context.\n\nJustice Secretary Robert Buckland said strangulation was often a precursor to even more serious attacks on women\n\nWelcoming the move, Nogah Ofer, a lawyer with the Centre for Women's Justice, which has been at the forefront of the campaign for a new offence said: \"It is time that as a society we stopped normalising and ignoring strangulation.\n\n\"We look forward to police, prosecutors and medical professionals working together to address this with the seriousness it deserves, and hope that survivors of domestic abuse will have greater confidence to seek justice.\"\n\nCampaigner Rachel Williams, who suffered strangulation during an abusive relationship, tweeted that it was \"a great victory\". She was shot and severely injured by her violent partner in 2011, who then killed himself.\n\nLast week, the government said that non-fatal strangulation was already covered by existing legislation from common assault to attempted murder.\n\nIt is now looking at how a new offence was introduced in New Zealand. Parts of Australia and the US have also brought in similar measures.\n\nDuring the Lords debate, crossbench peer Lord Anderson of Ipswich, a QC and former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, warned that \"hurried law can be bad law\".\n\nHe asked whether a more generic offence of aggravated assault or recklessly endangering life might cover these circumstances and questioned how strangulation and suffocation would be defined in the law.", "Lisa Montgomery - the only female inmate on federal death row in the US - has been executed for murder in the state of Indiana. Her lawyers had argued she was a mentally ill victim of abuse who deserved mercy. Her victim's community said otherwise.\n\nThis story was first published on 11 January - before Lisa Montgomery's execution on 13 January.\n\nFor Diane Mattingly, there is one moment from her childhood for which she feels both enormous gratitude and guilt.\n\nShe credits this moment for her \"fairly normal\" life - a house on eight peaceful acres, a loving relationship with her children, nearly two decades at a job working for the state of Kentucky.\n\nAt the same time, she blames it for the fate of her younger half-sister, Lisa Montgomery.\n\nMontgomery was sentenced for the murder of a 23-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant. In December 2004, Montgomery, who was 36 at the time, strangled Bobbie Jo Stinnett before cutting the baby out of her womb and kidnapping it. Stinnett bled to death.\n\nMattingly and Montgomery lived together until Mattingly was eight and her half-sister was four. It was a terrifying household, she says, where physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the hands of Judy Shaughnessy, Montgomery's mother, and her boyfriends was routine.\n\nThe girls' biological father left the home, and after a while, Mattingly was whisked away to foster care. Montgomery was left behind with her mother.\n\nLisa Montgomery and her half-sister Diane Mattingly as children\n\nIt would be 34 years before the half-sisters would see each other again. And that would be from across a courtroom, where lawyers for the US government were trying to persuade a jury to sentence Montgomery to death.\n\n\"One sister got taken out and got put into a loving home and was nurtured and had time to heal,\" says Mattingly. \"The other sister stayed in that situation, and it got worse and worse and worse. And then at the end, she was broken.\"\n\nIn late December, Montgomery's legal team submitted a petition to President Donald Trump that makes the case that after a lifetime of abuse - which they characterise as torture - she is too mentally ill to be executed and deserves mercy.\n\nHowever, in the tiny town of Skidmore, Missouri, where the crime was committed, there is little sympathy for that argument. Many there believe the final moments of Bobbie Jo Stinnett were so horrific, the death sentence is warranted.\n\nLisa Montgomery and Bobbie Jo Stinnett got to know each other online through a shared love of dogs. They had corresponded for weeks on an online forum for rat terrier breeders and enthusiasts called \"Ratter Chatter\". Montgomery told Stinnett that she was also expecting, and the pair shared pregnancy stories.\n\nIn December 2004, Montgomery drove 281.5 km (175 miles) from her home in Kansas to Skidmore, where she had an appointment to look at some puppies owned by Stinnett.\n\nBut it wasn't Montgomery that Stinnett was expecting, it was a woman who went by the name of Darlene Fischer. But Fischer was a name that Montgomery had been using when she separately began messaging Stinnett from a different email address inquiring about buying one of her puppies.\n\nWhen Stinnett answered the door, Montgomery overpowered the pregnant woman, strangled her with a piece of rope, and cut the baby out of her womb.\n\nInvestigators quickly realised that \"Darlene Fischer\" did not exist, and tracked Montgomery down the next day using her emails and computer IP address. They found her cradling a new-born girl she claimed to have given birth to the previous day. Her story quickly fell apart and she confessed to the killing.\n\nSince 2008, Montgomery has been held in a federal prison in Texas for female inmates with special medical and psychological needs, where she has been receiving psychiatric care. Since receiving her execution date, she's been placed on suicide watch in an isolated cell.\n\nMontgomery is scheduled to be put to death by a lethal injection of pentobarbital at Terre Haute prison in Indiana. It is the only federal prison with an active death chamber.\n\nMontgomery's lawyers argue that because of a combination of years of horrific abuse, and a raft of psychological issues, she should never have been given the death penalty. They believe that at the time of the crime, Montgomery was psychotic and out of touch with reality. They have been joined by a chorus of supportive voices from the legal field, including 41 former and current prosecutors, as well as human rights entities like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.\n\nHowever, calls for Trump to be merciful are hardly unanimous. According to Gallup, while support for the death penalty in the US is at its lowest level in more than 50 years, 55% of Americans still believe it is an appropriate punishment for murder. And nowhere is that support more palpably felt in this case than in Skidmore.\n\n\"Bobbie deserves to be here today. Bobbie's family deserves her,\" says Meagan Morrow, a high school classmate of Stinnett's. \"And Lisa deserves to pay.\"\n\nIf you or someone you know needs support for issues about emotional distress, these organisations may be able to help.\n\nLisa Montgomery's current legal team has conducted some 450 interviews with family members, friends, case workers, doctors and social workers. Stitched together, they form a tapestry of family dysfunction, abuse, neglect, professional negligence, substance abuse and untreated mental illness.\n\n\"The whole story is tragic,\" says Kelley Henry, one of Montgomery's federal defence lawyers. \"But one of the things that the president can do is say - to women who have been trafficked, and who have been sexually abused - 'Your abuse matters'.\"\n\nFor Montgomery, her lawyers argue, it began before she was born. According to an interview with her father, Montgomery's mother Judy Shaughnessy drank heavily throughout her pregnancy, and their daughter was born with foetal alcohol syndrome. Multiple medical experts have given statements agreeing with that diagnosis.\n\nWhen Mattingly and Montgomery were young, Shaughnessy beat them and doled out cruel forms of punishment, like taping Montgomery's mouth shut, or pushing Mattingly out into the snow, naked. After their biological father left the home, Mattingly says they were left alone with Shaughnessy's boyfriends, at least one of whom started raping Mattingly.\n\n\"Judy was manipulative and - I hate to use this word, but - evil. She enjoyed torturing the people around her,\" says Mattingly. \"She got joy out of it.\"\n\nAfter Mattingly was removed from the home by social services, Montgomery fell prey to her mother's new husband, who according to statements from his other children, was a violent alcoholic who began sexually abusing Montgomery when she was a pre-teen. The family moved from place to place dozens of times, but it was in a trailer in Sperry, Oklahoma, where her lawyers say the abuse turned into something more akin to torture.\n\nAccording to interviews with her half-siblings and others who spent time with the family, Montgomery's stepfather built a shed onto the trailer where he, and eventually his friends, raped and beat her. Her mother also began trafficking her, allowing handymen like electricians and plumbers to sexually abuse Montgomery in exchange for work on the house.\n\nAs a teenager, Montgomery confided in a cousin, telling him the men would tie her up, beat her and even urinate on her afterwards.\n\nBut the cousin, a sheriff's deputy, confessed to Montgomery's current legal team that he did nothing. In fact, he drove her back home and dropped her off in the hands of her abusers.\n\nLawyer Kelley Henry says one of the things that disturbs her most is that adults in positions of authority were told about what was going on but did nothing.\n\nWhen Shaughnessy eventually split from her second husband, she and Montgomery testified in divorce proceedings about the sexual assaults. The judge in the case scolded Shaughnessy for not reporting the abuse - but did not report the abuse himself.\n\n\"There were so many opportunities where people could have intervened and prevented this,\" says Henry.\n\nMontgomery's cousin told her legal team that he lived with \"regret for not speaking up about what happened to Lisa\".\n\nWhen she was 18, Montgomery married her stepbrother. The couple had four children in five years, but the relationship was not the escape from violence that Montgomery might have hoped it would be. At one point, one of Montgomery's brothers found a home movie that showed Montgomery's husband raping and beating her.\n\n\"It was violent and like a scene out of a horror movie,\" he said in a statement. \"I felt sick watching the video. I didn't know what to do or how to talk to my sister about it.\"\n\nFriends and family began noticing Montgomery's tendency to slip into \"a world of her own\". Her children were disturbed by it. Henry says this was an early sign of her mental illnesses, which include bipolar disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder and traumatic brain injury.\n\nMontgomery eventually divorced her first husband and married Kevin Montgomery. Around this time, she repeatedly claimed to be pregnant again, although she had undergone sterilisation after her fourth baby was born.\n\nOne theory her lawyers put forward regarding the chain of events that led to the murder, is that Montgomery feared her ex-husband would expose her lies about being pregnant and use it against her as he sought custody of their children.\n\n\"There was so much pressure on her at that point,\" says Henry. She describes Montgomery's ex-husband as cruel and harassing. \"She was completely detached from reality.\"\n\nHer lawyers say that as she lost touch with reality, she fantasised about being pregnant.\n\nHenry says Montgomery's original legal defence after she was arrested and charged with murder was woefully inadequate, and presented few of the details about her abuse, trauma and mental illness.\n\nHer lawyers at the time also presented an alternative theory of the crime, which was that Montgomery's brother had actually committed the murder, even though he had an alibi. That was ultimately dropped in favour of an insanity defence, but Henry believes the damage to Montgomery's credibility was already done.\n\nAfter five hours of deliberation, the jury found Montgomery guilty. They recommended a sentence of death.\n\nDiane Mattingly has been speaking publicly for the first time in the hope it can make a difference.\n\n\"I would say, 'President Trump, I want you to look at the life that Lisa had led, I want to look at all the people that have failed her, I want you to look at the rape, the torture, the mental abuse, the physical abuse that this woman had endured,'\" she says. \"I'm asking him to have compassion on her as a person that has been failed over and over and over again. And to not fail her.\"\n\nThe tiny farming town of Skidmore sits in the far northwest corner of Missouri. A generation ago, it was the kind of place where you could \"get your hair cut, see a show, buy rabbit feed and eat dinner\" - but those days are long gone. Today there is a single restaurant and few of the streets are paved.\n\nThe population hovers around just 250, and everyone knew Bobbie Jo Stinnett and her family. Friends recall her as a good student with a love of horses and dogs. She liked going down to the Nodaway River to swim, and playing Nintendo games at slumber parties. She was quiet and kind, they say.\n\nAt the time of her murder, she was newly married and pregnant with her first child.\n\nAlthough the alumni have scattered somewhat, in recent years, the Nodaway-Holt R-VII High School graduating class of 2000 - which had only 22 members - has a tradition to mark the anniversary of the death of their classmate Bobbie Jo Stinnett.\n\nThey hold a collection and try to do something nice for Stinnett's mother. \"Last year, we got flowers, and gave her a $100-plus gift card and then paid her water bill,\" says Jena Baumli.\n\nThe murder 16 years ago is never far from the minds of the town's residents.\n\nFor one thing, the wider world won't let them forget. It has been the subject of two books, multiple true crime television shows, documentaries and countless podcast episodes. And though there's been much recent debate over the fairness of Montgomery's sentence in courthouses and in the opinion pages of newspapers like the New York Times, a similar debate does not exist here.\n\n\"I think that in a lot of the opinion pieces that are being posted, in a lot of things that people are sharing, Bobbie Jo and her daughter, and her mother and her husband and other friends and family, are kind of being forgotten,\" says Tiffany Kirkland, another member of the class of 2000.\n\n\"She always wanted to be a mom,\" says Baumli. \"She was really the first one to have a decent marriage, you know, and I guess looking at Bobbie Jo was like, what your dreams were when you were younger.\"\n\nBecause of Stinnett's easy-going reputation, Morrow remembers instantly dismissing the initial reports of her murder.\n\n\"I was like, 'Oh, she was not.' You know, like, that doesn't happen to Bobbie,\" Morrow says.\n\nBut what happened at the modest clapboard house where Stinnett lived with her husband still haunts some of those involved in the investigation.\n\nNodaway County Sheriff Randy Strong says that the scene that he and his four colleagues found that day was so bloody, they are still traumatised by it. It makes him even angrier that it was Stinnett's mother who discovered her that way.\n\n\"The people that are defending [Montgomery], I wish I could take them back in time, and put them in that room,\" he says. \"And then go, 'Look at this body'. And then go, 'Stand there and listen to the 911 call of [Stinnett's mother]. This is the stuff of nightmares.\"\n\nMany of the residents of Skidmore cite the details of the crime, and the amount of planning that went into it, as evidence that Montgomery was a calculating killer.\n\nShe had catfished Stinnett online under a fake name. She had bought supplies, including a home birth kit, and searched online for how to perform a caesarean section. Sheriff Strong insists that the crime was meticulously planned and that the woman he arrested continued to lie until backed into a corner.\n\nDr Katherine Porterfield, a clinical psychologist who evaluated Montgomery and spent about 18 hours with her, says that psychosis does not always look the way people expect it to.\n\n\"Being psychotic, it does not mean you are not intelligent, nor that you cannot act in a planful way,\" she says. \"We've seen crime for years and years in our country in which people enact terrible violence coming out of a psychotic set of beliefs or thought process. Lisa Montgomery is no different. She enacted this in the grip of a very broken mind.\"\n\nThe baby was returned to her father, after being recovered from Montgomery.\n\nBobbie Jo's mother and husband have have not spoken publicly in many years. But Strong says this is the first year he's heard directly from Stinnett's husband. He thanked the sheriff for recovering his daughter and allowing him to be the parent that his wife couldn't be.\n\n\"I cried,\" says Strong. \"The whole community over there's traumatised by this.\"\n\nSchool friend Baumli says she's read the descriptions of Montgomery's abuse, but it mostly just makes her angry. She says it's not as if all the other people of Skidmore lead idyllic lives free from abuse, poverty and other destructive tragedies. She gives herself as an example - when Stinnett was murdered, Baumli was in rehab for a drug addiction. She missed the funeral because of it.\n\n\"Let's say I didn't stay clean very long,\" she says.\n\n\"I'm sick of hearing about Lisa Montgomery and what she went through. And it's never about what my friend went through,\" she adds. \"I get these images in my head of [Bobbie Jo's mother] finding her daughter that way.\"\n\nThree federal inmates - Orlando Hall, Alfred Bourgeois and Brandon Bernard - have been put to death since the 3 November presidential election. Several high-profile figures had appealed for clemency in Brandon's case but Mr Trump did not heed those calls.\n\nPresident-elect Joe Biden has already pledged to end death penalty proceedings, although he hasn't said when.\n\nUntil July 2020, there had been no federal executions for 17 years. At state level, the number of sentences and executions continues a historic decline. Only 18 death sentences were handed down in 2020 and the number of executions carried out hit a 30-year low. More recently, the states that have been carrying out executions, such as Texas and Tennessee, have halted and delayed executions because of the pandemic.\n\nHowever, the executions ordered by President Trump are continuing. If they all go ahead, the federal government will have executed more people than any administration in nearly 100 years.\n\nProtest against federal executions of death row inmates - outside the US Justice Department, Washington DC, December 2020\n\nTwo other inmates are scheduled to die at Terre Haute prison before Mr Trump's presidency ends. Recently, there has been a virus outbreak on death row at the institution, and previous executions have been linked to outbreaks among the execution team and prison staff.\n\n\"They made this a priority at the risk of the health and lives of corrections officials, of the prisoners on death row, and the communities that all of those Bureau of Prisons officials who flew in from across the country were returning to,\" says Ngozi Ndulue, senior director of research and special projects at the Death Penalty Information Center.\n\n\"This was a very coordinated and determined plan to ensure that as many people could be executed on federal death row as possible before the end of this administration term.\"\n\nMontgomery's lawyers want her sentence commuted to a life sentence, which would allow her to remain under psychiatric care in prison for the rest of her days.\n\nMattingly says looking back to the moment life changed for her as an eight-year-old, she feels guilty that when the social workers came for her, she didn't tell them what was going on in that house.\n\n\"If I had, would they have taken Lisa out of the home also?\" she says. \"There's so many people that failed her throughout her whole life. And I am just asking for somebody - once - not to fail her.\"", "Wales has received 275,000 doses of the two Covid-19 vaccines to deal with the pandemic.\n\nAbout 70,000 people received a first dose after the first month of the vaccine rollout.\n\nThe Welsh Government confirmed it has had more than 250,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 25,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab.\n\nThe health minister promised a \"really significant step-up\" in the roll-out after opponents criticised its speed.\n\nThe Pfizer jabs were first administered in early December at seven sites across Wales as part of the UK-wide immunisation programme.\n\nThis 82-year-old woman was one of 100 to receives her vaccine at a special clinic in Swansea on Saturday\n\nApproximately 1.6% of people were vaccinated up to 3 January - fewer than all other UK nations.\n\nIn England, about 1.9% of the population had received the first dose, while 2.1% of people in both Scotland and Northern Ireland had received their first jab.\n\nThe Welsh Government has dismissed criticism it is lagging behind, with health officials saying the new Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine would help speed up the programme \"considerably\".\n\nTwo full doses of the Oxford vaccine gave 62% protection, a half dose followed by a full dose was 90% and overall the trial showed 70% protection.\n\nThe rollout of the Oxford vaccine started on Monday, with 25,000 doses received this week, according to the Welsh Government.\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford said on Friday that Wales would receive another 25,000 Oxford doses next week and 80,000 the week after that.\n\nWhen asked how many doses of the Pfizer vaccine Wales had received, he said he could not recall the exact figure but further deliveries had been received \"on the 23rd and the 27th of December\".\n\nPressed on a figure, he said: \"It's the low hundreds of thousands\", adding: \"The Pfizer vaccine has particular challenges in terms of the conditions that it's got to be stored in and in parts of Wales that is a very particular challenge because it is a hard vaccine to transport over long distances to relatively scattered and remote communities.\n\n\"But the fact that we've got it and the fact that we're able to use more of it than we originally anticipated means we'll be able to accelerate the use of it over the next couple of weeks.\"\n\nThese were the latest comparative weekly totals - daily updates are promised from this week onwards in Wales\n\nOn Sunday, the Welsh Government confirmed it had received 25,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in the first week but the quantity would increase, allocated to Wales based on a population share on a weekly basis.\n\n\"We are confident in the assurances we have been given that this will increase over the next few weeks to around 100,000 per week,\" they said.\n\n\"We are delivering all the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine allocated to Wales directly to GPs, other primary care providers and hospitals as soon as it is available.\"\n\nConservative MP for the Vale of Clwyd, Dr James Davies, said: \"We all know that the Pfizer vaccine is difficult to transport and store and needs to be stored at -70 degrees, that's understood.\n\n\"But the issue is that actually, if you look at the rest of the UK, including very rural areas, they've managed to deal with it... and it is difficult to see why they haven't been in a position to be organised earlier and to ramp-up the delivery.\"\n\nRhun ap Iorwerth, Plaid Cymru's health spokesman, called for transparency: \"It is very worrying to find out that we have had in Wales more than 250,000 doses but only a relatively small proportion of that have yet ended up in people's arms, protecting people, because that's what we want to happen.\"\n\nHe has written an open letter to Health Minister Vaughan Gething calling for greater clarity on the vaccine deployment programme, asking for a dashboard of information which would allow the public to track the rollout's progress for themselves, including volume of doses delivered and administered by health board and by the nine priority groups.\n\nDr Olwen Williams, vice-president for Wales at the Royal College of Physicians, also called on health boards and Welsh Government to publish regular data showing which groups of people have been vaccinated, with patient-facing health workers prioritised over other colleagues.\n\n\"I think that would give assurance to people working in the NHS and the population in general, that the programme is progressing as planned,\" she said.\n\nAll data will be published daily from Monday but Mr Gething conceded that Wales, from last week's figures, was \"slightly behind on the population share and I'm not getting away from that.\"\n\nHe said the race was not \"necessarily against other UK nations\" but against the virus.\n\nHe also told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement that, in the next two to three weeks, he expected to see a \"really significant step-up in the delivery of the vaccine\" as more GP practices and community pharmacies help.\n\n\"We're going to get through many more people, giving them significant protection with a first vaccine,\" he said.\n\n\"And that will mean that we're going to be able to prevent most of the avoidable deaths.\"\n\nIt is hoped the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will speed up the process.\n\nBy the end of last week, it was being offered to patients aged over 80 at 73 GP practices.\n\nMore than 100 are expected to be offering the jabs next week, Mr Gething said, \"and then we get into several hundred thereafter and we'll bring community pharmacies on board.\"\n\nThe UK and Scottish governments did not provide the numbers of Pfizer vaccines supplied to England and Scotland. BBC Wales is still waiting for a response from the Northern Irish Executive.\n\nMeanwhile, regular rapid testing for people without coronavirus symptoms will be made available in England.\n\nThe Welsh Government said it would evaluate its mass testing pilots in Merthyr Tydfil and lower Cynon Valley, as well as elsewhere in the UK, to inform its approach to community testing.\n\nA spokesman added: \"We have announced regular asymptomatic testing of health and social care workers, in education and daily contact testing in South Wales Police.\n\n\"A pilot has also started at the Tata Port Talbot site. We are also exploring other opportunities for regular testing to support critical services.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Keir Starmer calls for families to be put \"at the heart of our recovery\" from the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer has urged the government to \"protect family incomes\" as it deals with the economic effects of coronavirus.\n\nIn his first speech of the year, he demanded teachers, the armed forces and care workers are left out of the public sector pay freeze.\n\nSir Keir also called for tougher restrictions to be considered for tackling coronavirus.\n\nNo 10 said the government had \"shown it is prepared to act\".\n\nWith coronavirus restrictions and lockdowns shutting thousands of businesses, the economy was 7.9% smaller in October last year than it had been six months earlier.\n\nAnd the government's independent forecaster, the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, predicts that unemployment will rise to 2.6 million by the middle of this year.\n\nIn his speech, Sir Keir attacked the government for \"having been found wanting at every turn\", accusing Boris Johnson of being \"indecisive\" and acting \"too slow\" over further lockdowns and support for business and families.\n\nHe said: \"The British people will forgive many things. They know the pandemic is difficult.\n\n\"But they also know serial incompetence when they see it - and they know when a prime minister simply isn't up to the job.\"\n\nBut the PM's official spokeswoman rejected the criticism, saying: \"This government has shown it is prepared to act. When given evidence in the morning it has taken action that evening.\"\n\nAsked by the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg whether the government should tighten restrictions, such as closing nurseries, Sir Keir said there \"probably is more that we could do [and we] may have to get tougher\".\n\nBut he did not outline what measures he would recommend, instead saying it was \"time to hear from the scientists what else can be done - and that probably should be done in the next few hours\".\n\nThe Labour leader said ministers must \"protect family incomes and support businesses\" from the economic effects of previous restrictions and the current lockdown.\n\nHe added policies must \"make a real difference to millions of people across the country\" and \"put families at the heart of our recovery\".\n\nSir Keir argued the £20-a-week rise given to Universal Credit claimants last April must continue beyond this April's cut-off point.\n\nCouncil tax increases in England of up to 5% this April must not happen, he said, while calling for the ban on evictions and repossessions to be extended.\n\nThe government's pay freeze for at least 1.3 million public sector workers - which does not apply to NHS frontline staff and those earning below £24,000 a year - must not go ahead, said Sir Keir.\n\n\"I know this isn't everything that's needed,\" he added, \"and after so much suffering we can't go back the status quo.\n\n\"We cannot return to an economy where over half our care workers earn less than the living wage, where childcare is among the most expensive in Europe, where our social care system is a national disgrace and where over four million children grow up in poverty.\"\n\nAn opposition leader has no policy leavers to pull. They have to rely on words to persuade the public they are worthy of power.\n\nWith the next general election an eternity away, Sir Keir Starmer knows the question of competence matters far more to voters than ideology right now.\n\nThe Labour leader was unsparing in his criticism of the government's handling of the pandemic - accusing the prime minster of serial incompetence, dithering and delay.\n\nSir Keir said the government could reverse planned changes to council tax and universal credit to ease the financial pressure on families.\n\nBut pressed on how lockdown might be different today if he was in No 10, the Labour leader mirrored the government's messaging.\n\nHe said there was \"probably\" more that could be done around nurseries and estate agent viewings, but Sir Keir's mantra was listen to the scientists.\n\nIt's what ministers say endlessly too.\n\nSir Keir argued that, just as a Labour government \"built the welfare state from the rubble\" of World War Two, a future one can \"secure our economy, protect our NHS and rebuild our country so that Britain is the best country to grow up in and the best country to grow old in\".\n\nBut Conservative Party co-chairman Amanda Milling accused Sir Keir of \"calling for actions the Conservatives are already taking in government\".\n\n\"We have delivered an unprecedented £280bn package of support to protect jobs, livelihoods and public services through this pandemic,\" she added, including the furlough scheme, the temporary increase to Universal Credit and extra funding for councils.\n\n\"The Conservatives will continue to put families and communities at the heart of every decision we take as we deliver on our promises to the British people,\" Ms Milling said.\n\nIn his Spending Review in November, Chancellor Rishi Sunak warned that the \"economic emergency\" caused by the pandemic had only begun.\n\nHe promised to take \"extraordinary measures to protect people's jobs and incomes\".", "Parler has hit back after Amazon pulled support for its so-called \"free speech\" social network.\n\nParler is suing the tech giant, accusing it of breaking anti-trust laws by removing it.\n\nParler had been reliant on the tech giant's Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing service to provide its alternative to Twitter.\n\nThe platform was popular among supporters of Donald Trump, although the president is not a user.\n\nAmazon took the action after finding dozens of posts on the service that it said encouraged violence.\n\nIn response, the platform has asked a federal judge to order Amazon to reinstate it.\n\n\"AWS's decision to effectively terminate Parler's account is apparently motivated by political animus,\" the complaint reads.\n\n\"It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter.\"\n\n\"There is no merit to these claims,\" it said.\n\n\"AWS provides technology and services to customers across the political spectrum, and we respect Parler's right to determine for itself what content it will allow. However, it is clear that there is significant content on Parler that encourages and incites violence against others, and that Parler is unable or unwilling to promptly identify and remove this content, which is a violation of our terms of service.\n\n\"We made our concerns known to Parler over a number of weeks and during that time we saw a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to our suspension of their services Sunday evening.\"\n\nExamples Amazon had provided included posts calling for the killing of Democrats, Muslims, Black Lives Matter leaders, and mainstream media journalists.\n\nGoogle and Apple had already removed Parler from their app stores towards the end of last week saying it had failed to comply with their content-moderation requirements.\n\nHowever, it had still been accessible via the web - although visitors had complained of being unable to create new accounts over the weekend, without which it was not possible to view its content.\n\nParler has been online since 2018, and may return if it can find an alternative host.\n\nHowever, chief executive John Matze told Fox News on Sunday that \"every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too\".\n\n\"We're going to try our best to get back online as quickly as possible, but we're having a lot of trouble because every vendor we talk to says they won't work with us because if Apple doesn't approve and Google doesn't approve, they won't,\" he added.\n\nAWS's move is the latest in a series of actions affecting social media following the rioting on Capitol Hill last week.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Capitol riots: ‘We would have been murdered’\n\nFacebook and Twitter have also banned President Trump's accounts on their platforms, citing concerns that he might incite further violence.\n\nParler's users included the Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who had led an effort in the Senate to delay certifying Joe Biden's electoral college victory.\n\nHe had about five million followers on the platform - more than his tally on Twitter.\n\nParler's app now shows an error message and its website is offline\n\n\"Why should a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires have a monopoly on political speech?\" he tweeted over the weekend.\n\nParler's downfall appears to have benefited Gab - another \"free speech\" social network that is popular with far-right commentators.\n\nIt has claimed to have \"gained more users in the past two days than we did in our first two years of existing\".\n\nParler has long been a home for what you might call untouchables, people who had been excluded from mainstream services for offences such as blatant racism or incitement to violence.\n\nDuring a brief excursion onto the site over the weekend, I observed plenty of examples of such behaviour, with users exhibiting vile anti-Semitism, displaying Nazi symbols such as the swastika and uttering incoherent threats against those they perceive to be enemies of America.\n\nBut as Amazon's deadline approached something like panic took hold, with users desperately urging their followers to join them on other platforms.\n\nMost seemed to accept that Parler was doomed, while vowing to continue their fight elsewhere.\n\n\"Well this is the end,\" wrote one user, who proclaimed his support for the American Nazi Party.", "An ambulance had to be lifted out of the mud\n\nRescuers searching for victims of a landslide in Indonesia were buried by a second mudslide just hours later, officials say.\n\nThe first landslide, in Cihanjuang village, West Java, was triggered by torrential rain.\n\nAnother struck as survivors were still being evacuated. At least 12 people died and dozens more are missing.\n\nLandslides are common in Indonesia during rainy season, and often blamed on deforestation.\n\nThe latest disasters hit the villagers in Sumedang regency, about 150km (95 miles) southeast of the capital Jakarta, three and a half hours apart on Saturday.\n\nThe first happened at 16:00 (09:00 GMT) and the second at 19:30 (12:30 GMT), disaster agency spokesman Raditya Jati said in a statement.\n\n\"The first landslide was triggered by high rainfall and unstable soil conditions. The subsequent landslide occurred while officers were still evacuating victims around the first landslide area,\" he added.\n\nRescuers are believed to be among those killed, he added. A six-year-old boy was also among the dead, according to AFP news agency.\n\nSome 27 people were believed to be missing late on Sunday, local media quoted Deden Ridwansah, the head of the local search and rescue agency as saying. About 46 were known to have survived.\n\nBad weather had forced the search to be suspended, he said, but it was expected to resume on Monday.\n\nIndonesia frequently suffers floods and landslides. Thousands of people had to be evacuated in the capital Jakarta this time last year as the city was inundated.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n• None The fastest-sinking city in the world", "There are concerns about the cost of education for families reliant on mobile connections\n\nCustomers using BT Mobile, EE, and Plusnet Mobile can use BBC Bitesize content from the end of January without eating into their data allowance.\n\nBitesize provides structured lessons in maths and English for all year groups, as well as offering other curriculum material.\n\nContent from other providers is likely to be made free in the coming days.\n\nMore mobile companies are expected to follow suit in making such content free to use.\n\nThe current UK lockdowns mean most children are now learning from home.\n\nEducation Secretary Gavin Williamson has mandated that schools must provide between three and five hours of online content per day.\n\nThis has led to concerns that children in families without access to broadband could fall behind.\n\nSchools remain open for children classed as vulnerable and those whose parents are key workers.\n\nAll contract and pay-as-you-go customers of BT Mobile, EE and Plusnet Mobile will be eligible and the free package will continue while schools remain closed. No registration is required - the free access will happen automatically.\n\nBT has also asked the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish administrations to each suggest one online resource for schoolchildren in its regions, which it will also zero-rate, as the curriculums differ from English schools.\n\nAccording to UK media watchdog Ofcom, some 880,000 families are reliant solely on mobile connections, and many of those will have data limitations.\n\nBBC director general Tim Davie said: \"With the pandemic forcing schools to close again, we should not allow a lack of digital access to further impact children's education.\n\n\"The BBC will continue to do all we can to ensure every child, whatever their circumstances, can continue to access vital educational materials during this time.\"\n\nThe corporation is also running three hours of curriculum-based TV programmes alongside the BBC Bitesize collection of educational resources. Primary school programming will be on CBBC, with two hours for secondary pupils on BBC Two.\n\nDuring the first lockdown, content was available on iPlayer, Red Button services and online, but not on regular TV channels, although viewers in Scotland did have some programming.\n\nBT said the move was part of its wider Lockdown Learning programme.\n\nBT consumer brands chief executive Marc Allera said: \"We want to ensure that no child is left behind in their education as a result of this pandemic and recognise that we all have a role we can play to help families and carers continue their children's education while schools are closed.\"", "Kay and Kenneth Hayward said they felt the journey was too unsafe\n\nPeople waiting to receive the Covid-19 vaccine say they are confused by NHS letters inviting them to travel to centres miles away from their homes.\n\nThe first 130,000 letters have been sent to people aged 80 or older who live about 30 to 45 minutes' drive away from one of seven new regional centres.\n\nBut patients, many of whom are shielding, questioned why they had to travel so far in a pandemic.\n\nLocal jabs are available to people if they wait, the NHS said.\n\nThe seven centres include Ashton Gate in Bristol, Epsom racecourse in Surrey, London's Nightingale hospital, Newcastle's Centre for Life, the Manchester Tennis and Football Centre, Robertson House in Stevenage and Birmingham's Millennium Point.\n\nPeople will not miss out on their vaccination if they do not use the letters to make an appointment at one of the centres, the NHS said.\n\nTwo Labour MPs tweeted about their concerns about the letters being delayed in getting out to people due to coronavirus affecting Royal Mail staff.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sarah Jones MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMary McGarry from Leamington Spa in Warwickshire told BBC News that her letter points to an NHS online booking page which suggests she would have to take her husband, who has cancer and a lung disease, 20 miles to Birmingham.\n\n\"We're very reluctant to go into Birmingham city centre,\" she said.\n\n\"If we can't get somebody to take us, we'd have to go on the train but we're shielding because my husband's got poor health.... we want to know why we've got to travel that far?\"\n\nKay Hayward, from Whitwick in Leicestershire, said she went online to book an appointment for her 85-year-old husband Kenneth and was offered five different places including Widnes in Cheshire and Stevenage in Hertfordshire.\n\n\"I thought they must be joking... we talked about it and we thought it was actually safer to stay here and for him not not have it.\n\n130,000 letters have been sent out by NHS England so far\n\n\"But we were worried if we turned this down, we'd be off the list.. the letter doesn't say anything about having the vaccines anywhere else locally.\"\n\nAndrea Eaton, from Coventry, said she was so angry that her 81-year-old mother, who has heart problems and leukaemia, was offered Birmingham for her appointment that she attempted to ring Downing Street on Saturday night to complain.\n\nShe said she reached the press office and said: \"I want you to give Boris a message please that he has lied to the British public.\n\n\"He has told them they never need to go more than 10 miles... they were really rude and just put the phone down on me.\"\n\nAndrea Eaton said she wanted to get a message to Boris Johnson so rang Downing Street on Saturday evening\n\nA spokesperson from Number 10 told BBC News that they did not wish to comment, but wanted to remind the public to use the government website to write to the prime minister or contact their constituency MP.\n\nCouncillor Shaun Davies, the Labour leader at Telford and Wrekin Council in Shropshire, said he had been contacted by dozens of people who have found the letters misleading, thinking this is their only chance to get the vaccine.\n\nHe said he had spoken to Trafford Council and was aware of people in Shropshire being sent to Manchester and residents there being directed to Birmingham to get their jabs.\n\n\"For many people they have been told consistently to wait for the NHS to contact you in order to get a vaccine and that's what they've had for the first time as a piece of communication.\n\n\"This is really, really concerning for people in their 80s or 90s because of the importance of getting the vaccine.\"\n\nThe letters are not \"going to the heart\" of the public health message which is staying home and staying local, he said.\n\nMore than 500,000 letters will be sent out to homes offering people appointments at the centres over the next seven days\n\nDr Sarah Raistrick, from Coventry and Rugby Clinical Commission group (CCG), said people did not have to travel to the centres but admitted the letter did not make that clear.\n\n\"You can wait and be contacted by your local GP service and have it locally if you'd prefer.\n\n\"If you sit tight, you will be contacted and I'm hopeful that if you're 80 or over, by the end of this month you will have had your vaccination whether that is locally or whether you have chosen to travel,\" she said.\n\nWork will be done with the NHS locally and nationally to make that message clearer, she added.\n\nThe seven centres were chosen to give a geographical spread covering as many people as possible and are capable of delivering thousands of jabs per week, NHS England has said.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Hancock: We are willing to tighten the rules\n\nThe health secretary stresses the importance of the public following the restrictions of the current lockdown. Asked by Emily Morgan of ITV whether it was time to make the rules stricter amid reports of people not sticking to them at the weekend, Matt Hancock says: \"We keep these things under review and we have demonstrated that we're willing to tighten the rules if they need to be tightened. \"But the thing that really matters right here, right now is that everybody follows the rules as they are today. \"And everybody can play their part in doing that.\" He adds he applauds the action supermarket Morrisons has taken in enforcing the wearing of masks by its customers unless they have a medical reason. \"I want to see all parts of society playing their part in this,\" he says.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Professor Whitty: \"We need to really double down – this is everybody’s problem\"\n\nThe UK will go through the \"most dangerous time\" of the pandemic in the weeks before vaccine rollout has an impact, England's chief medical officer has warned.\n\nProf Chris Whitty urged people to minimise all unnecessary contact with others.\n\nThe next few weeks will be \"the worst\" of the pandemic for the NHS, he said.\n\nThousands more people are due to receive a vaccine this week after seven mass centres opened across England.\n\nNHS England said hundreds more GP-led and hospital services would also open later this week.\n\nBut with all centres, people will need to wait until they receive an invitation.\n\nThe government is aiming to offer vaccinations to around 15 million people in the UK - the over-70s, older care home residents and staff, frontline healthcare workers and the clinically extremely vulnerable - by mid-February.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock will set out the government's vaccine delivery plan at a news conference later.\n\nHe said the proposals would be the \"keystone of our exit out of the pandemic\".\n\nOutlining the vaccine rollout in Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon confirmed that ministers aim to give all over-80s the first dose of the vaccine over the next four weeks.\n\nThe Welsh Government plans to offer a vaccine to all over-50s and everyone who is at greater risk by spring.\n\nMr Hancock said on Sunday about two million people in the UK had been vaccinated so far.\n\nOver the weekend, the UK passed the milestone of 80,000 deaths with coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.\n\nCurrently, around one in 50 people across the UK is infected and Prof Whitty told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"There's a very high chance that if you meet someone unnecessarily they will have Covid.\"\n\nIn a separate interview with BBC One's Breakfast, he said: \"This is everybody's problem. Any single unnecessary contact you have with someone is a potential link in a chain of transmission that will lead to a vulnerable person.\"\n\nHe said there were over 30,000 people [in English hospitals alone] with Covid-19 - compared to about 18,000 [in England] at the peak last April.\n\nHe added that \"anybody who is not shocked\" by the number of people in hospital \"has not understood this at all\".\n\n\"This is an appalling situation,\" he said.\n\nIn Essex, Southend Hospital has had to reduce the amount of oxygen used to treat patients after supply \"reached a critical situation\", according to a document shared with the BBC.\n\nIn Surrey, a temporary mortuary has been opened as hospital mortuaries have reached capacity.\n\nAlmost 200 bodies are being stored at the emergency site, which is a former military hospital, and other local authorities have told the BBC they expect to open similar facilities soon.\n\nProf Stephen Powis, NHS England national medical director, said \"this is much bigger than the first wave back in April\".\n\n\"I don't think anyone in the NHS has known anything like this, this is a once-in-a-century pandemic,\" he said.\n\nProf Rupert Pearse, an intensive care doctor, told BBC Breakfast that in a \"normal\" winter it would be \"unlikely\" that more than three of four flu patients would need intensive care at any one time, but his unit is now running 130 intensive care beds because of the effects of Covid.\n\n\"To compare this to a normal winter flu epidemic is out of all proportion, it's orders of magnitude larger,\" he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar lockdown measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nMinisters held two meetings on Sunday to discuss how to enforce the current lockdown measures more strictly and whether even tighter restrictions may be needed.\n\nBBC political correspondent Iain Watson said no decisions on further restrictions were taken as there was a desire within government to wait until reliable data on existing measures becomes available in 10 days.\n\nHowever, he added there had been a discussion on better enforcement of existing regulations, including at shops and workplaces.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer questioned why there are \"less restrictions in place\" now than there were last March.\n\nIn his first speech of the year, he said \"we need to see the evidence behind nurseries\" remaining open.\n\nAsked whether tighter restrictions were needed, he said: \"I do think it's time to hear from the scientists [about] what else could be done and that probably should be done in the next few hours\".\n\nThere is a lot of debate about whether the lockdown restrictions need to be tightened.\n\nThere are certainly some anomalies. For example, we are told to only leave the home for essential purposes, but coffee shops remain open for takeaways and retail shops for click-and-collect in England and Wales.\n\nHowever, even if those elements are tightened up, there is a limit to what the government can do. It is why, in his round of media interviews on Monday, Prof Whitty repeatedly talked about individual decision-making.\n\nThe mixing of different households continues. Some of it is allowed under the support bubble exemptions, but undoubtedly some of it is taking place outside of this. It is, after all, virtually impossible to police what goes on in people's homes.\n\nIt is why messaging is so important - and so ministers and officials are stressing the pressure the NHS is under. A further tightening of the restrictions could also help make the point.\n\nBut there is also a recognition this is hard. People are fatigued. A further crackdown could also erode goodwill.\n\nThe vaccination programme is described as the biggest in NHS history.\n\nThe seven mass testing sites, which NHS England said were chosen to give a geographical spread, are:\n\nThe new centres will each be capable of delivering thousands of vaccinations each week and will be followed by \"dozens more\" large-scale sites, NHS England said.\n\nThere will be about 1,200 vaccination sites when more GP-led and hospital services open later this week, along with the first pharmacy-led pilot sites, it added.\n\nSome vulnerable people have questioned why they have been asked to travel to centres miles away from their homes during a pandemic, but the NHS has said people would not miss out on their vaccination if they wait for an appointment at a centre closer to home in the coming weeks.\n\nVaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said nobody should be asked to travel more than 10 miles to get a vaccine once more centres open.\n\nAsked on Today why the centres were not open 24 hours a day, he said it was \"more convenient\" for older people to attend during the day.\n\n\"If we need to go to 24-hour work we will absolutely go to 24 hours a day to make sure we vaccinate as quickly as we can,\" he said.\n\nBut he cautioned: \"We are limited by the amount of vaccine that is coming through the system.\"\n\nPharmaceutical firm Boots said its first vaccination site was due to open later this week to offer the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab to the people most vulnerable.\n\nIt said sites in Huddersfield and Gloucester were planned to open in the coming weeks.\n\nTwo vaccines - Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca - are currently being administered in the UK.\n\nOn Friday a third coronavirus vaccine - made by US company Moderna - was approved for use, although supplies are not expected to arrive until spring.\n\nAre you due to have a vaccination today? What has been your experience of receiving a vaccination? Email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "US president-elect Joe Biden has been given his new official presidential Twitter account, but has been forced to start it with zero followers.\n\nThe Biden campaign is unhappy with the move, which marks a change from the previous transition from Barack Obama.\n\nThe new account, @PresElectBiden, will transform into the official @POTUS (President of the United States) one on inauguration day on 20 January.\n\nIn its first six hours online it gained nearly 400,000 followers.\n\nHis team has also registered new accounts - @FLOTUSBiden for the future first lady, Jill Biden, and for the first time, @SecondGentleman, for Ms Harris's husband Doug Emhoff.\n\nDonald Trump inherited the Potus account's 13 million or so followers when it moved to him from Mr Obama - but that will not happen this time.\n\nMr Biden's team was told about the move less than a month ago, and said it meant \"the administration will have to start from zero\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Rob Flaherty This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by President-elect Biden This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTwitter has not explained why the decision was made, and said it had nothing further to add beyond an official blog post laying out transition plans.\n\nIn that post it said: \"These institutional accounts will not automatically retain the followers from the prior administration,\" without a reason why.\n\nBut it said that people who previously followed the official @POTUS and @VP (Vice-President) accounts, or the personal accounts of Mr Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris - would receive notifications giving them the option to follow the new official ones.\n\nMr Obama was the first US leader to have an official Twitter account. The @POTUS account was set up during his tenure in 2015.\n\nAt the end of his second term, a transition plan for handing over the official accounts to Mr Trump was drawn up - with @POTUS going to the new administration.\n\nAll of Mr Obama's official tweets were archived for posterity on a separate account, @POTUS44 (where they can still be read today).\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by President Obama This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTwitter said that the official @POTUS account under Mr Trump will be archived in a similar way, under @POTUS45. But Mr Trump rarely used that account, favouring his own Twitter handle.\n\nTwitter notably omitted any mention of the now-suspended @realDonaldTrump account, and declined to answer questions about whether its contents would be archived.\n\nThat is despite a declaration by the White House in 2017 that tweets from that account are considered official statements by the President.\n\nHowever, the US National Archives has already announced - through a tweet - that it will archive all social media content from that account, despite Twitter's lack of a commitment to doing so.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by US National Archives This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 4 by US National Archives\n\nIt said that the White House has been using a special archiving tool to capture all content, including deleted tweets, because of the Presidential Records Act.\n\nThat is likely to result in a record system similar to The Obama White House Social Media Archive, built after the last transition.\n\nA key goal of the Obama transition was to preserve social media posts \"on the platforms where they were created\".\n\nBut Twitter has permanently suspended Mr Trump from its platform and it remains unclear if it will ever archive his account for posterity.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. UK weather: Will it snow where you are?\n\nSnow and ice weather warnings are in place for much of England and Scotland after widespread recent snowfall.\n\nThe Met Office has issued yellow weather warnings across England and Scotland for Saturday and warned of possible travel disruption.\n\nParts of England and Scotland could see as much as 5-10cm of snow in higher areas, the weather service said.\n\nIt comes as hundreds of schools remain closed after heavy snow hit the north of England on Thursday.\n\nA snow warning is in place for south-east England, including London, the east of England and the East Midlands. The Met Office said East Anglia and parts of Kent and Sussex are most at risk of snow.\n\nSome 1-3 cm of snow may fall fairly widely over these areas, with 5-10 cm possible in places, mostly over parts of East Anglia and any higher ground.\n\nA snow and ice warning is in place for most of Scotland, north-west and north-east England, Yorkshire and Humber, the East Midlands and parts of the West Midlands.\n\nSnow is likely to fall to low levels over east Scotland and northern England.\n\nThe Met Office said 1-3 cm is possible at low levels in these areas but is more likely at higher elevations, where 5-10 cm of snow is possible above 200m - and even 20cm at the highest places.\n\nFog is also forecast for parts of the Midlands and the North, along with mist around Glasgow which may pose hazards for motorists.\n\nPolice forces in Yorkshire have urged people to stay at home unless their travel is essential\n\nTwo girls took their sledge to a golf course near Penicuik, Midlothian\n\nThe coronavirus vaccine rollout has been affected by the weather.\n\nOver-80s who were due to receive their jab at Newcastle's Centre for Life were told they could re-book rather than risk making a trip in the icy conditions.\n\nNewcastle Hospitals tweeted: \"There's enough vaccine for everyone, so don't worry about making a trip to Newcastle.\"\n\nAnd Leeds University has delayed the opening of its asymptomatic Covid-19 test centre.\n\nHeavy snowfall has already caused travel disruption across sections of northern England and Scotland.\n\nTemperatures were as low as -6C on Friday morning in parts of Yorkshire and Cumbria, with yellow warnings set to last through most of Friday.\n\nThere was a loss of gas supply to approximately 700 homes in the Hebden Bridge area after water got into the local gas network and froze.\n\nThe Met Office has published advice from the Department for Transport advising people to clear snow and ice from footpaths outside their homes, preferably in the morning.\n\n\"You can then cover the path with salt before nightfall to stop it refreezing overnight,\" the advice says.\n\nTemperatures in the Greater London area are expected to drop to 1C on Friday and parts of the South East could fall to -2C.\n\nIt comes after \"hazardous\" conditions on Thursday caused problems for the ambulance service in Yorkshire, which struggled to keep up with the high demand, while Covid vaccinations were also affected.\n\nMark Millins, of Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said the bad weather was having a \"severe impact\" on its operations and urged people to \"take extra care\" when out walking or driving.\n\nIn Scotland, heavy snow in some areas resulted in road closures.\n\nThe deepest snow on Thursday was in Bingley, West Yorkshire, and Strathallan in Perth, Scotland, both of which recorded 11cm.", "The Daily Telegraph must publish a correction over a \"significantly misleading\" column written by Toby Young, press regulator Ipso has ruled.\n\nThe July 2020 article claimed the common cold could provide \"natural immunity\" to Covid-19 and London was \"probably approaching herd immunity\".\n\nBut on Thursday Ipso found the paper had \"failed to take care not to publish inaccurate and misleading information\".\n\nIpso said the paper \"did not accept it has breached the [Editors] Code\".\n\nIt said the newspaper said that Young's comments on immunity referred to \"cross-reactive T-cells\" that work to combat the virus.\n\nHowever, the media watchdog sided with the complainant, James Whitehead, in its decision, who said that while these cells \"may lessen the impact of Covid-19\" after infection, they \"would not confer 'natural immunity'\"\n\nThe ruling added Young's statement \"misrepresented the nature of immunity\".\n\nIpso also found Young's suggestion that \"London is probably approaching herd immunity, even though only 17% tested positive [for antibodies] in the most recent seroprevalence survey\" could be misleading.\n\nThere is an antibody response and a cellular response to the coronavirus\n\nThe Telegraph referred to surveys listed in an article on Young's own Lockdown Sceptics website in its defence, but the Ipso committee judged these did not accurately reflect \"how herd immunity is reached and whether it exists in London\".\n\nThe ruling concluded that the paper had breached accuracy standards on a topic of \"public importance\", but deemed a correction an appropriate sanction, given the level of \"significant scientific uncertainty\" at the time of publication.\n\nYoung told the BBC: \"I think Ipso has been put in a difficult position because our scientific understanding of the virus is constantly evolving and there is a great deal about it that scientists still disagree about.\n\n\"While some of the things I wrote in that article would be contested by some scientists, they would be confirmed by others... Have we achieved herd immunity in London? I think that's an open question and the 'case' data is unreliable because of the well-documented shortcomings of the PCR test.\n\n\"I may have been over-emphatic in putting the anti-lockdown case, but it's not as if the advocates of a pro-lockdown position are any less emphatic.\n\n\"Don't forget the WHO initially estimated the global IFR [infection fatality rate] of Covid-19 at 3.4%. The consensus now is that it's less than 1% and almost certainly a lot less. Lots of journalists faithfully reported that alarmist figure. Why hasn't Ipso reprimanded them?\"\n\nLast week Young told BBC Newsnight that some of his claims from an article he wrote in June had been \"wrong\", where he had said a second spike of Covid-19 had \"refused to materialise\" and that one-metre rule is \"unnecessary\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by BBC Newsnight This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAt the start of the year, Young, an associate editor at The Spectator and general secretary of the Free Speech Union, installed an app that auto-deletes tweets more than a week old.\n\nHe said he did so to protect against \"politically-motivated offence archaeologists\" - a move unrelated to the Ipso ruling.\n\nReacting to criticism of his past comments on coronavirus from Neil O'Brien, Conservative MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, after the deletion, Young then tweeted a defence of his stance against lockdowns.\n\n\"This is an important public debate to have,\" he wrote, \"both because it helps us assess the present government's management of the pandemic and because it will help us prepare better for the next one.\"\n\nThe UK entered a second national lockdown last week in a bid to control spiralling virus infection rates. On Wednesday, the UK saw its biggest daily death figure since the start of the pandemic, with 1,564 deaths.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The TikTok clip was reported to police by Network Rail\n\nA TikTok stunt featuring a car parked on a level crossing has been branded \"staggeringly stupid\".\n\nThe \"reckless\" social media post, recorded on the line at Bromley Cross, Bolton, showed a camera and tripod set up on the railway to record the scene.\n\nAn accompanying caption asked viewers: \"Would you take the risk to get the shot no-one else would?\"\n\nInsp Becky Warren, from British Transport Police, said: \"No picture or video is worth risking your life for.\"\n\nNetwork Rail, which reported the footage after it appeared on the video-sharing app, blasted the \"staggeringly stupid and dangerous\" clip.\n\nIt issued a reminder that trespassing on railway lines is against the law.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by ManchesterPiccadilly This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNorth West route director Phil James said using the tracks \"as a backdrop for a photo shoot beggars belief\".\n\n\"Lives could so easily have been lost by this reckless behaviour,\" he said.\n\nInsp Warren added: \"There is simply no excuse for not following safety procedures at level crossings. The behaviour shown by the individuals in this video is incredibly dangerous and reckless.\"\n\nMany instances of trespass involve people using railway lines as backdrops for selfies and even wedding photos.\n\nLast year, Network Rail and British Transport Police launched a You vs. Train campaign to highlight the issue of young people trespassing.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Pre-departure Covid-19 testing will now be required for everyone travelling to England from 04:00 GMT on Monday.\n\nThe rules had been due to come into force on Friday, but the government said people needed time \"to prepare\".\n\nThose arriving by plane, train or boat, including UK nationals, will have to take a test up to 72 hours before leaving the country they are in.\n\nAnyone arriving from places not on the UK's travel corridor list must still self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nThe Scottish government is planning to impose the same rules and has had to defer them coming into effect as a result of changes in England.\n\n\"This meant Scotland was also obliged to delay implementation as we need sight of their final regulations in order to properly draft and approve the relevant Scottish regulations,\" a spokeswoman said.\n\nIt is expected the requirement will come into force in Scotland at 04:00 GMT on Monday as well. Wales and Northern Ireland are expected to announce plans for pre-arrival testing in the coming days.\n\nAnnouncing the deferral on Twitter, Transport Secretary Mr Shapps said: \"To give international arrivals time to prepare, passengers will be required to provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test before departure to England from Monday 18 January at 4am.\"\n\nHe also reminded travellers to fill out the Passenger Locator Form - used in track and trace - and added that those without proof of a negative test faced a fine of £500.\n\nProblems with testing availability and capacity mean some countries will initially be exempt.\n\nFor instance, the requirement will not apply to travellers from St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda until 04:00 GMT on 21 January.\n\nTravellers from Falkland Islands, Ascension Islands and St Helena are exempted permanently.\n\nHauliers are exempt to allow the free flow of freight, as are air, international rail and maritime crew.\n\nThe government has said all forms of PCR test will be accepted, as will other forms of test with \"97% specificity, 80% sensitivity\".\n\nThe move comes as a further 1,564 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the biggest figure reported in a single day since the pandemic began.\n\nWednesday's figure brings the total number of deaths by that measure to 84,767.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said there had now been more deaths in the second wave than the first.\n\nMeanwhile on Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was \"concerned\" about a new coronavirus variant that is believed to have emerged in Brazil.\n\nHe acknowledged it was not yet clear how effective existing vaccines would be against the latest new variant.\n\nMr Johnson said the UK was taking steps to make sure it was not brought into the country.\n\nA government Covid committee is meeting on Thursday to discuss the possibility of stopping flights from Brazil.\n\nArrivals from Brazil already have to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nAre you due to travel back to the UK from Brazil? Share your experience. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Post-primary schools have been given extra time to decide how they will admit pupils in 2021 following the cancellation of transfer tests.\n\nOn Wednesday the AQE said it would not hold any transfer tests in the 2020-21 school year.\n\nThey had originally planned to go ahead with a test in late February after cancelling tests in January.\n\nThe other test provider, PPTC, had also previously announced it would not hold tests this year.\n\nAttention will now focus especially on what criteria grammar schools will use to select pupils.\n\nSome have already published what criteria they would use in the event transfer tests were cancelled but it is not clear if those will now change.\n\nAll post-primaries were to submit their admissions criteria to the Education Authority (EA) by this Friday.\n\nBut following the AQE's move the Department of Education (DE) has written to schools to tell them they do not have to provide criteria to the EA until Friday 22 January.\n\n\"This will allow them to meet the statutory deadline for publication on their website of 2 February 2021,\" the DE letter said.\n\n\"I would also remind you that boards of governors should ensure that any admissions criteria are robust and are able to clearly and objectively rank order applicants.\"\n\nIt is unclear how most grammar schools who have used transfer tests to select pupils in previous years will admit children in 2021.\n\nPatrick Allen, principal of Foyle College in Londonderry, said his school's board of governors was now working to determine this year's admissions criteria.\n\n\"This is and continues to be an exceptional year. It is a very difficult circumstance,\" he said.\n\n\"We are trying to do the best and what is right for as many pupils as possible in looking at various permutations and combinations of criteria\".\n\nEducation Minister Peter Weir said it was \"a very disappointing day\" for many families.\n\n\"The transfer test, while it has never been about being compulsory for either a school or indeed an individual parent, does enable a level of parental choice and that has been dramatically reduced as a result of that,\" he told Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme.\n\n\"But sadly what we have seen is for this year, the pandemic has prevented those transfer tests taking place, and I am very disappointed and entirely understand the disappointment and frustration of many families today.\"\n\nMr Weir said there had been \"a lack of consistency\" from AQE.\n\n\"I don't think the way things have worked out from AQE's point of view, particularly over the last couple of weeks, have been particularly helpful,\" he said.\n\nThe minister also apologised for \"clumsy language\" in a statement he issued on Wednesday night.\n\nWriting on Twitter about the cancellation of the transfer test, Mr Weir said: \"This severely limits parental choice and children's opportunities.\"\n\n\"There was no adverse intention towards non-selective schools,\" he said in relation to his tweet.\n\n\"I think both selective and non-selective schools have got excellent records in Northern Ireland.\"\n\n\"But once the opportunities for entry to any school is reduced then that is a reduction in opportunities for all.\"\n\nUUP MLA Robbie Butler has proposed that pupils' results in tests in primary schools could be given to parents and then used by grammar schools to decide which children get a place.\n\nMr Butler said that he had some favourable responses from some grammars and some primary schools to that proposal.\n\n\"Whilst I don't think my solution is absolutely perfect I do believe it to be absolutely fair and absolutely compassionate,\" he told MLAs on the committee.\n\n\"We have the genesis of a solution for these P7 pupils.\"\n\nBut, speaking on Wednesday, Mr Weir replied that there were issues with that approach.\n\n\"There are very major problems, I'm being honest with you, in terms of the models that have been put forward for academic selection without the test,\" he said.\n\nThe minister said it would be difficult to get comparable information for pupils across all primaries.\n\n\"While it's not entirely ruling out those and there is the option for schools to do it, it does leave them in a very difficult position making comparability between pupils on a fair basis,\" he said", "Police said Graeme Perks had gone to investigate the sound of breaking glass when he was stabbed\n\nPlastic surgeons have expressed shock at the stabbing of \"one of the most highly regarded and respected surgeons\" in their profession.\n\nGraeme Perks, 65, was stabbed in his abdomen and chest during a break-in at his house in Halam, a village near Southwell in Nottinghamshire.\n\nPolice said the attack on Thursday morning had left him \"fighting for his life\" and left his family, who were upstairs at the time, \"extremely upset\".\n\nGraeme Perks has been described as \"one of the most highly regarded and respected surgeons in the profession\"\n\nMr Perks previously served as president of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS).\n\nCurrent president Ruth Waters said BAPRAS had been contacted by colleagues all around the world as news of the attack spread.\n\n\"All have expressed their shock at what has happened and also their deep concern for his wellbeing and their hope for his speedy recovery,\" she said.\n\n\"It has been my good fortune and honour to know Graeme for many years. I have benefited from his kindness, generosity and extensive knowledge throughout my career in plastic surgery.\"\n\nBAPRAS described him as \"one of the most highly regarded and respected surgeons in the profession\".\n\nAs well as being a leading plastic surgeon, Mr Perks and his wife have raised thousands of pounds for charity by opening their garden to visitors. They were previously featured on BBC Radio Nottingham after raising more than £34,000.\n\nPolice were still outside the house in Halam more than 24 hours later\n\nPolice said Mr Perks had gone to investigate the sound of breaking glass at about 04:15 GMT, after an intruder is believed to have smashed his way into the house.\n\nThey said Mr Perks was stabbed and the suspect ran off.\n\nMr Perks was taken to the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham for surgery, where he remains in a serious condition.\n\nDet Insp Gayle Hart, who is leading the investigation, said: \"The swift arrest of this suspect we hope will provide some reassurance to local residents.\n\n\"This is a horrific incident which has left a man fighting for his life and his family who were upstairs at the time are extremely shocked and upset by the ordeal.\"\n\nMr Perks has served as president of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS)\n\nMr Perks has previously worked in London, Sheffield, Newcastle and Melbourne, Australia.\n\nHe returned to the UK in the mid-1990s and started working in Nottingham, with a special interest in microsurgical reconstruction after cancer surgery.\n\nHe later became head of the department of Plastic, Reconstructive and Burns Surgery at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.\n\nOutgoing BAPRAS president Mark Henley said: \"Graeme is an amazing colleague who it has been my pleasure and privilege to work with over the last 26 years.\n\n\"His dedication to patients, family and friends is an inspiration to us all and with his wisdom, kindness and humanity he has enabled us to achieve many things that I would never have thought possible. We are all willing him on.\"\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Scottish fishermen have resorted to sailing to Denmark to land their catch as Brexit red tape continues to delay exports, an industry body has said.\n\nThe Scottish Fishermen's Federation, which campaigned to leave the EU, also said the Brexit trade deal was the worst of both worlds for the industry.\n\nMany fishermen \"now fear for their future\", it said.\n\nThe UK government said the deal would \"bring immediate gains to our fishermen and women across the whole UK\".\n\nLate last year, the Scottish Fishermen's Federation (SFF) said it was \"deeply aggrieved\" by the Brexit deal.\n\nFishing firms have also warned of impending bankruptcy as delays continue at ports following the introduction of post-Brexit regulations.\n\nOn Friday, the SFF kept up the pressure on the UK government.\n\nIn a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, it said some fishermen \"are now making a 72-hour round trip to land fish in Denmark, as the only way to guarantee that their catch will make a fair price and actually find its way to market while still fresh enough to meet customer demands\".\n\nQuotas are used by many countries to manage shared fish stocks. They determine how many fish of each species each country's fleets are allowed to catch.\n\nThe SFF said that Brexit quota gains \"can hardly be claimed as a resounding success\" and that the Brexit deal \"actually leaves the Scottish industry in a worse position on more than half of the key stocks\".\n\n\"This industry now finds itself in the worst of both worlds,\" said SFF chief executive Elspeth Macdonald, accusing Prime Minister Boris Johnson of broken promises on quotas.\n\nThe \"desperately poor deal\" reached on quotas, under which the EU \"have full access to our waters\" means that the UK has \"no ability to leverage more fish from the EU\", she said.\n\n\"This, coupled with the chaos experienced since 1 January in getting fish to market, means that many in our industry now fear for their future, rather than look forward to it with optimism and ambition,\" Ms Macdonald added.\n\nThe Scottish National Party said the letter was \"an utterly devastating verdict on Brexit from Scotland's fishing industry\".\n\nAn SNP spokesperson said the Scottish fishing industry was \"right to be angry\" about the Brexit deal, which it said was costing Scotland's fishing communities millions of pounds.\n\nThe spokesman called on the prime minister to deliver \"a multi-billion pound package of Brexit compensation for Scotland\", adding: \"Communities across Scotland will never forgive the Tories for the damage they are doing to our country with their extreme Brexit obsession.\"\n\nA UK government spokesperson said the Prime Minister would respond to the SFF letter in due course.\n\nThe spokesperson said: \"We have now taken back control of our waters and the agreement we have reached with the EU secures a 25% transfer of quota from EU to UK vessels over five years, starting with 15% this year.\"\n\nThe spokesperson said the government was looking at providing additional financial support for the Scottish fishing industry, which it recognised was facing \"some temporary issues\".\n\n\"The Prime Minister has already committed to investing £100m in the UK's fishing industry and provided the Scottish government with nearly £200m to minimise disruption for businesses,\" the spokesperson added.", "A selection of your pictures of Scotland sent in between 8 and 15 January. Send your photos to scotlandpictures@bbc.co.uk. Please ensure you adhere to the BBC's rules regarding photographs that can be found here.\n\nPlease also ensure you follow current coronavirus guidelines and take your pictures safely and responsibly.\n\nConditions of use: If you submit an image, you do so in accordance with the BBC's terms and conditions.\n\nThe hills are alive: This impressive shot of 11-year-old Hamish at sunrise up the Pentland Hills, with the snow starting to be blown off the peak, was captured by dad Andy Dryden.\n\nMinus coo degrees: \"Hardy Highlander at Abriachan\" is how Gordon Bain described his photo.\n\nRed sky thinking: \"I always walk the dog to catch the sunrise and to gather my thoughts before attempting to juggle home schooling of my two primary school kids with working from home and looking after a toddler\", says Mairi Brittan at Cammo Estate, Edinburgh.\n\nRobin red brrr-east: Graham Laird spotted a little feathered friend not looking entirely delighted while taking a breather in the cold in his garden in Wishaw.\n\nUp at the crack of dawn: \"The Beveridge Park pond in Kirkcaldy looking rather icy\", says John Pow.\n\nAn uphill struggle: It's all downhill from here - but in a fun way - for three-year-old Zachary in King's Park, Glasgow.\n\nFire and ice: \"Taken at Dunbar harbour, East Lothian, in the snowfall on the way to work\", says Rowan Davies.\n\nAbbey thoughts: \"Jedburgh Abbey on a crisp January morning\", says Alan Morrison. \"The sun was captured just as it shone through\".\n\nSon rise: Jeanette Taylor says her two boys loved the adventure of getting up early to see the sun come up at Aberdeen beach. \"A chilly visit but oh so worth it\", she says.\n\nLight on her feet: \"As keen figure skaters my daughter Ada (pictured) and I have had an amazing week skating outdoors on our local frozen pond near Glasgow\", says Helen Campbell. \"I was very careful to check it is safe to skate on first; the ice was absolutely solid\".\n\nFlagging up a beautiful sunrise: An Aberdeen morning, from Finlay Gray.\n\nWell-trained eye: \"My husband Kris took this picture of our 12-year-old son Finlay at our local running track in a Falkirk park with the Ochils in the background\", says Emma Horne. \"Finlay can’t play his beloved rugby at the moment due to Covid but is keeping as fit as he can in other ways\".\n\nA strange light in the sky: Joe Gillies captured this Glasgow scene, complete with reflected light shade, on his phone.\n\nSmiles more fun: First sledging experience for the happy pair of 16-month-old Annabel and 21-month-old Hugh in granny's garden, Isle of Skye, courtesy of Hermione Lamond.\n\nThe gloves are off: \"A walk up Culter Fell (near Biggar), in near-Arctic conditions\", says Chris Green.\n\nPark life: Mark McGuire captured Queen's Park in Glasgow looking like a winter wonderland.\n\nSpecial branch: \"I have seen the Kingfisher darting by on the River Carron over the last two years\", says Paul Ross. \"This is the first time I have managed to get a sharpish image\".\n\nTrees frame: Carole Brunton captured this calming, if cold, scene at home in East Neuk, Fife.\n\nCold feet: \"A coot on one of Dundee's frozen Stobsmuir ponds\", from Sandy Forbes.\n\nHaving the foggiest idea: \"An image of atmospheric fog as it envelops Paisley\", says Gary Chittick. \"Hardly a single recognisable part of Glasgow could be seen\".\n\nSniffer dog: \"Ollie, our 12-week-old cockapoo pup, experiences snow for the first time\" says Iain Clow. \"Lockdown garden fun in East Kilbride\".\n\n... and it seems they never learn! \"Zizou enjoying his sunny snowy morning walk at the river Spey in Knockando\", says Colin Coutts.\n\nI love Arran: \"My wife and I stopped at the top of Fairlie Moor Road, looked back, and this is what we saw\", explains Phil Cowling.\n\nOutstanding in its field: \"Look who we spotted on our walk\", says Ruth Moss. \"He was very bold - wish we’d had something to feed him\".\n\nWatercolour art: \"This is a photo of the Ythan in the centre of Ellon\", says Andy Leonard. \"The colour of the sky is reflected in the water - I used a slow shutter speed to emphasise the water movement.\"\n\nHatman and robin: \"After an overnight fall of snow, Frosty and his friendly robin return to a Glasgow garden\", says John McQueeney.\n\nSmall wonder: \"These mini snowmen on the Prince of Wales Bridge in Kelvingrove Park brightened up a dull and foggy day\", says Geoff Der.\n\nOne man and his dog: \"Snowy walk with my husband and rescue dog Nico\", says Laura Johnstone in Airdrie.\n\nSpot the ball: \"Haggs Castle golf course is closed - maybe!\", says Alan Crozier.\n\nSolar energy: Robert Young's sunset shot from Chapelton looking towards Whitelee wind farm features all sorts of power.\n\nTwo for the price of one: \"Duck!\" could have been the cry from this heron in flight over a fellow bird at the River Avon, Hamilton, as seen by Wilma Phillips.\n\nRoom with a view: A nicely-framed sunset from Audrey Philpott of Skene, Aberdeenshire.\n\nBonnie picture: Sharon Donald was walking Bonnie the collie when she took this shot near Spean Bridge.\n\nKeep it in the family: Derek Warrander making sure lockdown learning is music to the ears of Jessica, 11, and three-year-old Matthew in Aberdeenshire, courtesy of Caseydee Warrander.\n\nFeeling on top of the world: The Cobbler sunset, from Tomasz Zajac.\n\nIce to see you: \"A photo of my husband, Stephen, and Sophie, through a sheet of ice which they then had great fun smashing\", says Leigh Titterington in Menstrie, Clackmannanshire.\n\nSpace station: All quiet outside Glasgow Central, courtesy of Eva Brodie.\n\nSnow angel: \"Exploring a winter wonderland with my daughter Cora at Tyrebagger woods just outside Aberdeen\", says Katherine Blum.\n\nTaps aff: \"Hope this brings a smile to your face\", says Stewart Paul in Cruden Bay. It certainly did!\n\nPlease ensure that the photograph you send is your own and if you are submitting photographs of children, we must have written permission from a parent or guardian of every child featured (a grandparent, auntie or friend will not suffice).\n\nIn contributing to BBC News you agree to grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material in any way, including in any media worldwide.\n\nHowever, you will still own the copyright to everything you contribute to BBC News.\n\nAt no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe the law.\n\nYou can find more information here.\n\nAll photos are subject to copyright.", "Doctors fear the impact of the lockdown and school closures could worsen child obesity\n\nThe health board with the worst child obesity rates in Wales is setting up a unit to tackle the issue.\n\nData from the Child Measurement Programme showed 30.3% of four and five-year-olds in north Wales measured as overweight or obese.\n\nThe Welsh average is 26.4%, but doctors fear this could worsen in the pandemic.\n\nBetsi Cadwaladr University Health Board is recruiting a dietetic lead for a new children's healthy weight management service.\n\nThe service is not being launched directly because of the pandemic, but there are fears lockdowns and school closures could compound the problem.\n\nDr Naomi Simmons, consultant paediatrician at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire, said: \"I do fear that the pandemic will contribute to an exacerbation of what's already a really, really significant problem.\n\n\"Whilst we're pleased that children are not suffering the acute effects of Covid in the same way as older patients are, on the whole, it's the long-term effects of the country being in this pandemic that we're worried about in terms of the long-term health of these children.\n\n\"It's that lack of routine, it's being out of school, and not being able to access their usual forms of physical activity.\"\n\nDaniel, from Denbighshire - not his real name - is the father of a six-year-old girl who was referred to Dr Simmons's clinic when a GP became concerned about her weight two years ago. She is still under the care of the clinic.\n\nHe said: \"We presumed we were feeding her correctly. She was getting fruit, veg, home-cooked meals. But I think our issue was, we kind of let her have treats, like chocolates and sweets.\n\n\"To be told the news [that she was obese], it was horrible. We were very upset. We were kind of angry about it - we didn't see a problem in her, we didn't believe she was overweight or obese. We were both asking what we had done wrong as parents - we gave her fruit, vegetables, home-cooked meals... we were asking ourselves, 'how have we failed as parents?'\"\n\nWith support from Dr Simmons, his daughter made \"great progress\" and lost weight, he said. Previous signs of health issues such as liver problems had improved. Then the pandemic struck and the country went into its first lockdown, followed by the firebreak, then the current lockdown.\n\nExperts said they feared the impact of children not being able to take part in their usual physical activity\n\nDespite making efforts to keep active and eat healthily, Daniel has seen the gradual effects on his daughter, both physically and mentally.\n\n\"It had a bad effect on her, and not just the weight - mental health-wise it's also affected her. She's six years old and is worried about being around other people in the street,\" he said.\n\n\"In years to come, Covid will be gone, we'll have control of it. But obesity, that's the issue that's going to be prolonged.\n\n\"The long-term mental health impact really scares me - not just for my daughter, but for so many other children.\"\n\nDr Simmons said increasing rates of childhood obesity in recent years meant experts were treating more children with conditions normally associated with adults.\n\n\"Even children as young as primary school age, I'm seeing those children with fatty liver changes for example, as a result of their obesity. We're seeing them with high blood pressure and we're seeing children and young people developing type 2 diabetes and many more with pre-diabetic states because of their obesity.\"\n\nDoctors said they were seeing primary school children with high blood pressure\n\nShe revealed her youngest patient was only a year old and encouraged families to get their children \"used to being fit and healthy and consuming a healthy diet\".\n\n\"It's lack of exercise, it's the sedentary lifestyle that we as a nation are sadly embracing these days,\" she added.\n\nIf children remain overweight and remain obese into adolescence, they have an 80% chance of being obese into adulthood, said Dr Simmons.\n\nShe said she hoped the new service would give \"the very best chance of turning things around\".\n\nSteven Grayston, Betsi Cadwaladr health board's assistant area director of therapy services, said the health board had been working for the past five years to develop its obesity services.\n\n\"This is a specialist weight management service for children who are already obese,\" he said.\n\n\"We want to stop them becoming obese, therefore we want to develop preventative services as well as treatment services.\n\n\"We're very concerned about the impact of Covid and the pandemic on children's activity levels, certainly in terms of team-based sports and access to leisure facilities - particularly things like swimming, which we know children enjoy.\n\n\"We're concerned that children just aren't getting out of the house and doing things, and the impact that'll have and the knock-on effect on obesity levels in the future, as children are just less active and less interested in doing those activities.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government said: \"We will shortly be publishing a revised delivery plan for Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales for 2021-22, which will focus on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on children and families.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Gerry and Barbara Jarrett were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 two weeks ago\n\nAn elderly couple with coronavirus have been helped by a hospital to say their last goodbyes to each other after the wife's condition deteriorated.\n\nGerry and Barbara Jarrett, from Bracknell, Berkshire, are in separate wards at Frimley Park Hospital, Surrey.\n\nTheir daughter Chloe, who posted a picture of one reunion on Twitter, said her mother \"looked to be at the end\".\n\nShe said her parents had \"precious\" extra time together thanks to the hospital's \"incredible\" efforts.\n\nMrs Keljarrett said her 79-year-old father and mother, 76, who have been together for 50 years, were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 two weeks ago.\n\nOn Tuesday she posted: \"In the midst of a pandemic peak, staff (namely a consultant, a surgeon and a HCA) at FPH just made sure my dad saw my mum for what is likely the last time.\"\n\nShe said another meeting happened on Wednesday when \"mum looked to be at the end\".\n\nFrimley Park Hospital said the reunions were the sort of \"care that matters the most\"\n\nShe said: \"Dad was wheeled in, crying, touched her hand and her eyes flew open. She was awake and bright and could talk.\n\n\"We got a precious extra hour or two before her breathing got worse again and got to say what we wanted.\n\n\"All thanks to the staff who made these meetings possible. In current times I just find that incredible.\"\n\nMrs Keljarrett, a teacher at The Brakenhale School, said her father was \"showing signs of improvement but has a very long journey to complete\".\n\n\"He has a number of other health issues that will make recovery that bit trickier, but I have to remain positive that he will overcome this horrendous virus,\" she added.\n\nShe said she had met hospital workers who were \"pulling unexpected double shifts\" due to short-staffing.\n\n\"How they are managing such compassion when they are stretched to their emotional and physical limits I do not know,\" she added.\n\nResponding to Mrs Keljarrett's Twitter post, the hospital wrote: \"Our hearts go out to you and your family.\n\n\"We are so glad that our staff managed to make this time just a little bit easier for you all.\n\n\"This truly is some of the care we give that matters the most.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "UK meat exporters have claimed post-Brexit customs systems are \"not fit for purpose\", with goods delayed for hours, sometimes days, at the border.\n\nThe British Meat Processor Association said even experienced exporters were struggling with the system.\n\nIt said meat exports to the EU were 25% of normal levels for this time of year.\n\nOne large French meat importer told the BBC that he and his competitors were starting to look at alternative suppliers in Spain and Ireland.\n\nThe BBC has contacted the government for comment.\n\nNick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processor Association, said: \"Fundamentally, this is not a system that was designed for a 24/7, just-in-time supply chain.\n\n\"The export health certification process was designed for moving containers of frozen meat around the world where you have a bit of leeway on time.\n\n\"No matter how much better we get at filling in the forms, it's really not fit for purpose. This is going back to the dark ages in terms of a process really, in this digital age.\"\n\nHe added \"It's going to be a problem for quite a time until we move forward and hopefully get a better digital system in place and can make it work a bit better, but until then, we've got to put up with all this paperwork and lorries arriving in Ireland with box files full of paper.\"\n\nRizvan Khalid, a lamb exporter based in Shropshire, cannot afford to get the paperwork wrong.\n\nHis company, Euro Quality Lambs, exports 70% of its meat to the EU, including France, Germany, Belgium and Portugal. He says what was once a once well-oiled machine now has a spanner in it.\n\n\"What used to take us 15 minutes is now taking us three or four hours on average before we can get the paperwork completed for one particular load,\" he says.\n\n\"It's taking them [on the French side] up to six hours to go through the health certificates, to open up the lorry and check the goods.\n\n\"All of that is adding time and costs. It's now an extra day before our product gets into the markets of Paris.\"\n\nMeanwhile, some buyers in the EU are losing patience and are beginning to consider other options.\n\nFrancis Ochoa's meat company, Fory Viandes, is based in one of the world's biggest fresh produce markets - the Rungis market, south of Paris.\n\n\"The delays and extra costs mean me and my competitors in the market are obliged to start looking for other solutions,\" he says.\n\n\"One of the solutions unfortunately is to try produce from other countries, Spain for instance. Some of our competitors are ordering lambs from Ireland instead of the UK, so the consequences for UK meat and UK lambs could be disastrous.\"\n\nDown at the international freight checkpoint in Ashford, near the entrance to the Eurotunnel, customs consultant Steve Cocks gave a downbeat assessment.\n\n\"The temporary border post lorry park is full, roads are being closed off and lorries are being sent back to the Covid testing site to hold them there,\" he said.\n\n\"Last week wasn't much to write home about as it was very quiet, but volumes are building and it's just going to get worse. Exports are grinding to a halt and that will affect imports, but if you are a haulier. you don't want to get a lorry stuck on this side of the Channel.\"\n\nAfter decades of friction-free trade, there are bound to be teething problems. Indeed, the government predicted that there would be \"significant additional disruption\" as traders, officials and customers became accustomed to new procedures.\n\nHowever, some things cannot \"bed in\" and will become permanent features. HMRC estimates the additional cost to UK business of bog-standard customs declarations alone at £7bn.\n\nWhen buyers and sellers want to trade, they will find a way, but significant additional cost and complexity is here to stay.", "Patients have been arriving in a steady flow at a community pharmacy in Llanbedrog, Gwynedd, the first in Wales to offer coronavirus vaccines by appointment.\n\nRosie Bennett, who lives in the village Pwllheli, said: “I’m 82 and don’t have a car, so it was a huge relief to know that I wouldn’t have to travel a long distance to have the vaccine.\n\n“Here in the village, we know the staff at the chemists. They’ve been doing a great job during the pandemic and it’s reassuring to have the vaccine from someone you know.\n\n“And it’s a huge relief to be vaccinated. The last few months haven’t been easy for any of us and hopefully today is another small step towards a better future.”\n\nSteffan John, pharmacist on duty, gave Rosie the vaccine and said: “as pharmacists, we give out flu vaccines regularly, so we’re used to organising clinics like this.\n\n“We’re really pleased to do our bit for our community.\n\n“We have had extra training for today, and we also have to make sure there are enough appointments on the list.\n\n\"The vaccine comes in vials of ten doses, so it’s important to vaccinate that many people at a time and not to waste any.”", "Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has denied reports that his department is planning to dilute UK workers' rights.\n\nIt comes after the Financial Times said some protections brought in under EU law - such as the 48-hour limit on the working week - could be scrapped.\n\nNew rules on rest breaks and changes to how holiday pay is calculated from overtime could be proposed, it added.\n\nBut Mr Kwarteng insisted he wanted to \"protect and enhance workers' rights going forward, not row back on them\".\n\nIn a social media post, he said that the UK \"has one of the best workers' rights records in the world - going further than the EU in many areas.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kwasi Kwarteng This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLabour said the newspaper report suggested the government was out of step with public feeling on workplace rules.\n\nShadow business secretary Ed Miliband said: \"These proposals are not about cutting red tape for businesses but ripping up vital rights for workers. They should not even be up for discussion.\"\n\nThe FT said the proposals were being drawn up with the approval of Downing Street, but that they hadn't yet been approved by ministers or cabinet.\n\nA government spokesperson said: \"We have absolutely no intention of lowering the standards of workers' rights.\n\n\"The UK has one of the best workers' rights records in the world, and it is well known that the UK goes further than the EU in many areas.\n\n\"Leaving the EU allows us to continue to be a standard setter and protect and enhance UK workers' rights.\"\n\nWhen the UK left the EU it retained many of its laws, but it is now able to change them.\n\nOne aspect of EU employment regulation is the EU's Working Time Directive.\n\nIt governs the hours employees in the EU can be asked to work. This must not exceed 48 hours on average, including any overtime.\n\nBut employees can choose to opt out of the 48-hour week, if they often work overtime in roles in the emergency services, for example.\n\nIn the 2019 Queen's Speech outlining the government's agenda for the coming parliamentary session, changes in employment law were promised.\n\nA new Employment Bill is expected to be published in 2021. One issue it is thought it will address is over the distribution of tips.\n\nTUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady urged the prime minister to \"make good on his promises to his voters\" on Friday.\n\n\"The best way to do that is to bring forward the long-awaited Employment Bill, to make sure everyone is treated fairly at work,\" she said.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Friday morning. We'll have another update for you at 18:00 GMT.\n\nA ban on travellers from South America entering the UK has come into force, amid fears over a potentially more contagious coronavirus variant identified in Brazil. The ban also applies to Portugal and Cape Verde - off West Africa - because of their links to Brazil, along with Panama in southern Central America. British and Irish citizens, and foreign nationals with residence rights, are exempt but must isolate for 10 days on entering the UK. Find out which other countries are subject to a UK travel ban.\n\nThe UK economy shrank by 2.6% in November as lockdown restrictions reduced economic activity, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. The closure of businesses such as pubs, hairdressers and many shops meant the services sector shrank by 3.4%. The setback came after sixth consecutive months of growth, with the ONS saying UK gross domestic product at the end of November was 8.5% below its pre-pandemic peak.\n\nConcerns over child poverty have been raised throughout the pandemic, with a focus on school food vouchers, holiday meal provision and food parcels. Now campaigning Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford has been joined by celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver, Tom Kerridge and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and actress Dame Emma Thompson, in backing charities' calls for a review to \"fix\" the free school meals policy. Downing Street insists \"no child will ever go hungry\" because of the pandemic.\n\nFalse claims are likely to be causing people from ethnic minorities to reject Covid vaccines, warns a doctor leading an NHS campaign. Dr Harpreet Sood says much of the disinformation surrounds the contents of the vaccines. \"We need to be clear and make people realise there is no meat in the vaccine, there is no pork in the vaccine, it has been accepted and endorsed by all the religious leaders and councils and faith communities,\" he says.\n\nA surprise delivery of pizza from sixth-formers who clubbed together left staff at a hospital critical care unit \"lost for words\". Nurse Tina Waltho says the gift came as a welcome boost to deflated staff at the Royal Stoke University Hospital. \"The nurse who had been in charge on the day shift was in tears,\" Mrs Waltho says. \"She had barely eaten all day and was a little emotional.\" While the act drew praise on social media, the identity and school of the pupils remains a mystery.\n\nIf you're wondering how concerned we should be about the new virus variants, our health editor Michelle Roberts examines what we know so far.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prime Minister Boris Johnson: \"We will temporarily close all travel corridors from 0400 on Monday\"\n\nThe UK is to close all travel corridors from Monday morning to \"protect against the risk of as yet unidentified new strains\" of Covid, the PM has said.\n\nAnyone flying into the country from overseas will have to show proof of a negative Covid test before setting off.\n\nIt comes as a ban on travellers from South America and Portugal came into force on Friday over concerns about a new variant identified in Brazil.\n\nBoris Johnson said the new rules would be in place until at least 15 February.\n\nA further 1,280 people with coronavirus have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive test, taking the total to 87,291.\n\nThe latest government figures on Friday also showed another 55,761 new cases had been reported - up from 48,682 the previous day.\n\nMeanwhile, more than two million people around the world have now died with the virus since the pandemic began, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.\n\nSpeaking at a Downing Street press conference, the prime minister said it was \"vital\" to take extra measures now \"when day by day we are making such strides in protecting the population\".\n\n\"It's precisely because we have the hope of that vaccine and the risk of new strains coming from overseas that we must take additional steps now to stop those strains from entering the country.\"\n\nAll travel corridors will close from 04:00 GMT on Monday. After that, arrivals to the UK will need to quarantine for up to 10 days, unless they test negative after five days.\n\nMr Johnson, who said the rules would apply across the UK after talks with the devolved administrations, added that the government would be stepping up enforcement at the border and in the country.\n\nTravel corridors were introduced in the summer to allow people travelling from some countries with low numbers of Covid cases to come to the UK without having to quarantine on arrival.\n\nTrade body Airlines UK said it supported the latest restrictions \"on the assumption\" that the government would remove them \"when it is safe to do so\".\n\nChief executive Tim Alderslade said travel corridors were \"a lifeline for the industry\" last summer but \"things change and there's no doubting this is a serious health emergency\".\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was the \"right step\" but called the timing of the decision \"slow again\", adding that the public would be thinking \"why on earth didn't this happen before\".\n\nThe prime minister warned that the NHS was facing \"extraordinary pressures\", having had the highest number of hospital admissions on a single day of the pandemic earlier this week.\n\nHe said that came on Tuesday when there were 4,134 new admissions, while the UK currently has more than 37,000 Covid patients in hospitals.\n\nMr Johnson said that once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated by mid-February \"we will think about what steps we could take to lift the restrictions\".\n\nEngland is currently under a national lockdown, meaning people must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nAlso speaking at the No 10 briefing, England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said the restrictions would need to be lifted gradually by \"testing what works, and then if that works going the next step\".\n\nHe said the peak of people entering hospital would be in the next week to 10 days for most places, but \"we hope\" the peak of infections \"already has happened\" in the south-east, east and London.\n\n\"The peak of deaths I fear is in the future, the peak of hospitalisations in some parts of the country may be around about now and beginning to come off the very, very top,\" he said.\n\nA ban on travellers from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde entering the UK came into force on Friday morning as a result of a new, potentially more infectious variant of coronavirus linked to Brazil.\n\nThe government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the press briefing that some of the new variants may be able to \"get round\" the Covid vaccines but it was \"really quite easy\" to adjust the vaccines to deal with mutations in the virus.\n\nNew variants causing concern have previously been identified in the UK and South Africa, with many countries imposing restrictions on arrivals from both nations.\n\nPublic Health England said a total of 35 genomically confirmed and 12 genomically probable cases of the Covid-19 variant which originated in South Africa have been identified in the UK as of 14 January.\n\nEarlier, a leading scientist said one of the two variants first detected in Brazil had been found in the UK - but not the variant that was causing concern.\n\n\"I think it is likely that the vaccine we have now is going to protect against the UK variant and is going to provide protection I suspect against the other variants as well,\" said Sir Patrick. \"The question is to what degree.\"\n\nLatest figures show that more than three million people in the UK have now received the first dose of a vaccine - 3,234,946 - an increase of 316,694 from the previous day.\n\nSir Patrick said he expected the vaccines would reduce transmission of the virus but that \"we shouldn't go mad\" as jabs are rolled out because a risk would remain.\n\n\"Just because you've been vaccinated doesn't mean you can't catch this and pass it on, it means you're protected against severe disease,\" he added.\n\nMeanwhile, the latest estimate of the UK's R number - which is the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to on average - is 1.2 to 1.3, compared with 1-1.4 last week.\n\nBut in London, where tight restrictions came in earlier, the R number is lower - between 0.9 and 1.2.\n\nIn Wales, new laws for shoppers and staff are to be introduced after \"significant evidence\" coronavirus is being spread in supermarkets.\n\nAre you due to travel back to the UK from overseas? Share your experiences. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The guitarist also contributed songwriting and piano to the band's explosive debut album\n\nSylvain Sylvain, guitarist with trailblazing 1970s rock band New York Dolls, has died at the age of 69.\n\nOne of the group's founding members, his visceral riffs bridged the divide between punk and glam, and helped kick-start the punk and new wave movements.\n\n\"As most of you know, Sylvain battled cancer for the past two and 1/2 years,\" his wife, Wanda O'Kelley Mizrahi, wrote in a statement on his Facebook page.\n\n\"Though he fought it valiantly, yesterday he passed away.\"\n\nShe added: \"While we grieve his loss, we know that he is finally at peace and out of pain. Please crank up his music, light a candle, say a prayer and let's send this beautiful doll on his way.\"\n\nSylvain's death leaves only one surviving member of the New York Dolls' original line-up from their 1973 debut album, frontman David Johansen. The singer posted his own tribute on Instagram.\n\n\"My best friend for so many years, I can still remember the first time I saw him bop into the rehearsal space/bicycle shop with his carpetbag and guitar straight from the plane after having been deported from Amsterdam, I instantly loved him,\" he wrote.\n\n\"I'm gonna miss you old pal. I'll keep the home fires burning.\"\n\nThe New York Dolls bridged the gap between glam rock and punk\n\nBorn Sylvain Mizrahi in Cairo, Egypt, on Valentine's Day 1951, the musician lived in France as a child before moving to New York with his family.\n\nAfter playing in several bands as a teenager, he co-founded the New York Dolls in 1971, taking the name from a doll repair shop called the New York Doll Hospital (Sylvain had worked across the street before becoming a musician).\n\nLike the punk movement they helped inspire, the band wanted to shake up the self-indulgent state of 70s rock.\n\n\"The reason why the Dolls got together was because of the boredom with the norm of the day, which was like the stadium-rock era,\" Sylvain told Brooklyn Vegan in 2006. \"The 20-minute drum solos, songs that were a big operetta. They were sort of boring, they'd lost their sex appeal.\"\n\nThe Dolls cut through with urgent, punchy songs about sex, drugs, alienation and dysfunction.\n\nThe band's provocative and vulgar live shows gained them a huge following in New York, but many record labels were reluctant to sign them. That situation not helped by their androgynous look - shocking at the time - with their wardrobe sourced from cheap women's clothing stores on New York's Lower East Side.\n\nLate in 1972, tragedy struck when, during a tour of England, Dolls drummer Billy Murcia died in a drug-related accident. He was replaced by Jerry Nolan, after which the Dolls finally secured a contract with Mercury Records.\n\nTheir debut album, simply called New York Dolls, stalled at number 113 in the US chart but is now regarded as a classic, full of sleazy, raucous anthems like Personality Crisis and Trash.\n\nRolling Stone magazine recently named it one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, writing: \"Glammed-out punkers the New York Dolls snatched riffs from Chuck Berry and Fats Domino and fattened them with loads of attitude and reverb.\n\n\"It's hard to imagine the Ramones or the Replacements or a thousand other trash-junky bands without them.\"\n\nSylvain worked in fashion before becoming a musician\n\nHowever, the band's lack of commercial success saw them dropped after two albums and, despite hiring Sex Pistols guru Malcolm McLaren as a manager, eventually fell apart.\n\nOutside the Dolls, Sylvain toured and recorded with several bands and led various solo projects as his former band's reputation grew.\n\nArtists from the Sex Pistols to Guns N' Roses cited them as an influence, and Morrissey was famously president of their UK fan club before forming The Smiths. In 2004, the singer reunited his idols for a show at London's Meltdown Festival, adding an unexpected second act to their career.\n\nOver the subsequent decade, Sylvain and Johansen, the only remaining members, released three well-received albums.\n\nIn 2019, Sylvain announced his cancer diagnosis, and a GoFundMe was set up to pay his medical bills, raising $79,500 (£58,000).\n\nThe band are cited as an influence by hundreds of musicians\n\nGuitarist Lenny Kaye, best known for playing with Patti Smith, paid tribute to Sylvain's \"heart, belief, and the way you whacked that E chord\".\n\n\"His onstage joy, his radiant smile as he chopped at his guitar, revealed the sense of wonder he must have felt at the age of 10, emigrating from his native Cairo with his family in 1961, the ship pulling into New York Harbor and seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time.\n\n\"His role in the band was as lynchpin, keeping the revolving satellites of his bandmates in precision.\n\n\"Though he tried valiantly to keep the band going, in the end the Dolls' moral fable overwhelmed them, not before seeding an influence that would engender many rock generations yet to come.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Travellers from South America are no longer allowed to come into the UK, amid fears over a new coronavirus variant first identified in Brazil.\n\nThe UK's new travel ban - which also applies to Portugal and Cape Verde - came into force at 04:00 GMT on Friday.\n\nLike variants discovered in the UK and South Africa, it is thought the Brazil variant could be more contagious.\n\nVirologist Prof Wendy Barclay said one Brazilian variant had already been detected in the UK.\n\nHowever, she said this was not \"the variant of concern\", which is thought to be more infectious.\n\nProf Barclay, head of G2P-UK National Virology Consortium, which is studying the effects of emerging coronavirus mutations, said: \"There are two different types of Brazilian variants and one of them has been detected and one of them has not.\"\n\nShe added: \"The new Brazilian variant of concern, that was picked up in travellers going to Japan, has not been detected in the UK.\n\n\"Other variants that may have originated from Brazil have been previously found.\"\n\nEarlier, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps had told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the Brazilian variant of concern was not \"as far as we are aware\" already in the UK, adding that he did not believe there had been any flights from Brazil in the last week.\n\nIt comes as a further 1,248 people with coronavirus have died in the UK.\n\nLatest government figures on Thursday also showed another 48,682 new cases had been reported.\n\nMeanwhile, the number of people in the UK to have received the first dose of a vaccine is now approaching three million.\n\nThe UK's new travel ban applies to people who have travelled from, or through, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela in the last 10 days.\n\nIt also applies to Portugal - because of its strong links to Brazil - and the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde off the coast of west Africa, as well as Panama in central America.\n\nBritish and Irish citizens and foreign nationals with residence rights are still allowed to return - but must isolate for 10 days.\n\nAlso exempt are hauliers who are travelling from Portugal to transport essential goods.\n\nBrazil has seen more than 200,000 deaths and there is concern about the impact the new mutation could have on its health system.\n\nHowever, the UK's travel ban was prompted by fears of how quickly the new variant could spread through the region - since Brazil borders 10 countries.\n\nMr Shapps has said the ban is \"precautionary\", adding he \"can't provide an end date\" to the new rules.\n\n\"We're so close now, we've got three million of these vaccines in people's arms in the UK,\" he told BBC Breakfast.\n\n\"We want to make sure we don't fall at this last hurdle.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBecause holidays are not currently allowed, Mr Shapps said he did not \"expect a large number of Brits to have jaunted off to South America\", and the government was \"not expecting to see a big repatriation issue as a result\".\n\nOne family, who live in Wolverhampton, told the BBC they feared being stuck out in Brazil.\n\n\"I don't know if the government will organise flights,\" said Jon Dent, 31. He and his wife Carla travelled to the Brazilian city of Goiania in October to introduce their baby daughter to Carla's family.\n\n\"I think it's a long shot,\" he said. \"I hope we can get home and not be stranded out here for months. We've got to be patient but at the same time flexible.\"\n\nJon, pictured here with wife Carla and daughter Luiza, said his initial reaction to the news was worry\n\nMany countries imposed travel restrictions after new variants of Covid-19 were identified in the UK and South Africa.\n\nSeveral Central and South American nations - including Brazil - had already restricted travel from the UK before the latest ban on arrivals.\n\nThere is currently no evidence to suggest that any of the variants cause more serious illness, and scientists are confident that vaccines should work against them.\n\nAccording to Felipe Naveca, deputy director of research at the Brazilian state-run Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, the new variant's origin was \"undoubtedly\" from the Amazon region.\n\nHe told the BBC's South America correspondent Katy Watson the new variant showed some of the same mutations as the UK and South Africa variants - and \"some of these mutations have been linked to increased transmission and that is of concern\".\n\nMr Shapps also announced Qatar and the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba were being removed from the UK's travel corridor list, meaning arrivals from those places will need to self-isolate for 10 days from 04:00 GMT on Saturday.\n\nMeanwhile, France has cracked down on the type of tests that travellers can take to show they are negative.\n\nFrom Monday, travellers will need to show a negative PCR test. Antigen tests - which are the rapid lateral flow tests - will no longer be accepted.\n\nHowever, Mr Shapps said arrangements allowing hauliers to use rapid lateral flow tests before crossing the border from the UK into France remained in place at the moment.\n\nFrom Monday, everyone travelling to England and Scotland will also have to show proof of a negative test. Wales and Northern Ireland are expected to announce their own plans in the coming days.\n\nHow have you been affected by the travel ban? Email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Northern Ireland's statistics agency has recorded its highest weekly Covid-19 related registered deaths since the pandemic began.\n\nNisra said 145 deaths were registered in the first week of 2021, although administrative delays over Christmas may have affected the number.\n\nThat brings the agency's death toll to 1,976 by 8 January.\n\nThe figures come as the chief medical officers from NI and the Republic issued a joint stay-at-home plea.\n\nDr Michael McBride and Dr Tony Holohan said they were \"gravely concerned\" about the \"unsustainably high level of Covid-19 infection\" across the island of Ireland.\n\nConcern was raised in the Republic of Ireland this week as figures showed it has the world's highest number of confirmed new Covid-19 cases per million people.\n\nOn Friday evening, the Irish Department of Health reported 50 further deaths with Covid-19 and 3,498 new cases of the virus. More than half (54%) of those newly diagnosed are under the age of 45.\n\nNorthern Ireland is in the third week of a six-week lockdown, with ministers scheduled to review measures next week.\n\nHowever, health officials have warned that an extension of the restrictions could be required to reduce pressure on the health service.\n\nOf the 2,019 deaths recorded by Nisra by 8 January, 1,247 (62%) occurred in hospital, 622 (31%) in care homes, 12 (0.6%) in hospices and 138 (7%) at residential addresses or other locations.\n\nPeople aged 75 and over account for just over three-quarters of all Covid-19 related registered deaths (77.6%) between 19 March 2020 and 8 January 2021.\n\nJust over a fifth (22.2%) of all Covid-19 related registered deaths have been of people with an address in the Belfast council area.\n\nMeanwhile, the Department of Health reported 26 further Covid-related deaths on Friday.\n\nFive of these deaths did not occur in the past 24 hours.\n\nThe Department of Health bases its figures on a positive test result being recorded, whereas Nisra figures are based on mentions of the virus on death certificates, so people may or may not have been confirmed to have contracted the virus prior to death.\n\nA further 1,052 individuals have tested positive for Covid-19 and 63 patients are being treated in intensive care units, 47 of whom are on ventilators.\n\nThe chief medical officers warned the high infection rate was having a \"significant impact\" on the health of the population and the \"safe functioning\" of the healthcare systems.\n\nThey said the public should avoid all unnecessary journeys, including cross-border travel.\n\nPointing out that many of the patients admitted to hospital in January have been younger than 65, they warned coronavirus could affect anyone, \"regardless of age or underlying condition\".\n\n\"It highlights the need for us all to protect one another by staying at home,\" said the medical officers.\n\nNorthern Ireland's spike in infections has been put down to an easing of restrictions over Christmas.\n\nAsked if he regretted being part of the decision to ease restrictions, Health Minister Robin Swann said the executive had tried to be balanced in its approach.\n\n\"I regret the pressures we see now in our hospitals, but let's remember it's caused by this virus, we have it in our power to bring it back under control and get us back to where we were in the summer,\" he told BBC News NI on Friday.\n\nMr Swann pleaded with people to follow the current restrictions.\n\n\"We're in the middle of a very tough six-week scenario, and how we come out of this will be a more graduated approach to make sure we get the benefits of what we've already done, and also the benefits of the vaccine.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kim Jong-un has been overseeing a huge military showcase broadcast by state media in North Korea\n\nNorth Korea has unveiled a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile, described by state media as \"the world's most powerful weapon\".\n\nSeveral of the missiles were displayed at a parade overseen by leader Kim Jong-un, reported state media.\n\nThe weapon's actual capabilities remain unclear, as it is not known to have been tested.\n\nThe show of military strength comes days before the inauguration of Joe Biden as US president.\n\nIt also follows a rare political meeting where Mr Kim decried the US as his country's \"biggest enemy\".\n\nImages released by North Korean state media showed at least four large black-and-white missiles being driven past flag-waving crowds.\n\nAnalysts noted it was a previously unseen weapon. \"New year, new Pukguksong,\" tweeted North Korea expert Ankit Panda, using the North Korean name for their submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).\n\nClad in a leather coat and fur hat, Mr Kim is pictured smiling and waving as he watched the display in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square, which also included infantry troops, artillery and tanks.\n\nThe missile was debuted at a military parade which came at the end of an important and rare political meeting\n\n\"The world's most powerful weapon, submarine-launch ballistic missile, entered the square one after another, powerfully demonstrating the might of the revolutionary armed forces,\" the official Korean Central News Agency said.\n\nThe event on Thursday did not showcase North Korea's largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which was unveiled at a much larger military parade in October. That colossal weapon is believed to be able to deliver a nuclear warhead to anywhere in the US, and its size had surprised even seasoned analysts when it was put on show last year.\n\nThe country's latest display of its arsenal comes at the end of a five-yearly congress of the ruling Workers' Party.\n\nIn his address to members last week, Mr Kim had pledged to expand North Korea's nuclear weapons and military potential, outlining a list of desired weapons including long-range ballistic missiles capable of being launched from land or sea and \"super-large warheads\".\n\nHe also said that the US was Pyongyang's \"biggest obstacle for our revolution and our biggest enemy... no matter who is in power, the true nature of its policy against North Korea will never change\".\n\nUnder Mr Kim's leadership North Korea has made rapid progress in its weapons programme, which it says is necessary to defend itself against a possible US invasion.\n\nThe unveiling of the new missiles appears designed to send the incoming Biden administration a message of the North's growing military prowess, say experts.\n\n\"They'd like us to notice that they're getting more proficient with larger solid rocket boosters,\" Mr Panda tweeted, noting what appeared to be new solid-fuel short-range ballistic missiles on display too. These missiles can be launched more quickly than liquid-fuelled varieties.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un: From enemies to frenemies\n\nOver the last four years, Pyongyang has had an erratic relationship with the US under President Donald Trump's administration. Mr Kim and Mr Trump engaged in mutual insults and threats of war before an unprecedented summit in Singapore in 2018 and declarations of love by the outgoing US leader.\n\nDespite the apparent warming of relations, little concrete progress was made on negotiations over North Korea's nuclear programme and a second summit in Hanoi in 2019 broke down after the US refused Pyongyang's demands for sanctions relief.\n\nKim Jong-un has had a busy week. In this rare party congress at the start of a new year he's earned a new title, pledged to build new nuclear weapons and now he's shown the world some new missiles.\n\nThe general secretary, the title posthumously awarded to his father by which he is now known, had been pretty quiet in 2020 and appeared very few times in state media.\n\nBut 2021 is looking rather different. The party congress has offered him a grand daily domestic platform - even if it is not getting the international attention it may have done due to events in the United States and a global pandemic.\n\nThe parading vehicles include a new submarine-launched ballistic missile and new short-range ballistic missiles. This is a show of strength - flexing the military muscle once more to show the people of North Korea that despite the current bleak economic outlook, this impoverished country is capable of designing and building new strategic weapons.\n\nIt also offers a direct challenge to the incoming US administration.\n\nNorth Korea appears willing to continue with its self-imposed isolation and being subject to strict economic sanctions, and the state has vowed to continue to build nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community.\n\nDuring the transfer of power, President Obama told Donald Trump that North Korea should be his top national security concern.\n\nIn the last four years a combination of US and UN sanctions, so-called \"maximum pressure\" policies and three summits between Mr Trump and Mr Kim have done nothing to alleviate those concerns.\n\nKim Jong-un has shown the new US president this week that he faces the daunting prospect of coming up with new solutions for this decades-old problem.", "Craig Ross had been quoted making comments about food bank users on a podcast\n\nThe Scottish Conservatives have dropped a Holyrood candidate over what they called \"unacceptable comments\".\n\nCraig Ross recorded a podcast last year in which he described food bank users as being more at risk of diabetes than starvation.\n\nHe also questioned the influence footballer Marcus Rashford has on UK government welfare policy.\n\nThe Conservatives suspended Mr Ross, then later announced he was \"no longer a candidate or a member of the party\".\n\nThe party had launched an investigation after the comments came to light, saying: \"These unacceptable comments do not reflect the views of the party.\"\n\nJustice Secretary Humza Yousaf had called for Mr Ross to be thrown out the party and dropped as the Conservative candidate in Glasgow Pollok.\n\nThe Holyrood elections are due to be held on 6 May.\n\nMr Ross, a former lecturer at Langside College, runs a podcast in which he delivers reaction to pieces in The Guardian newspaper \"from the centre-right\".\n\nIn one episode recorded in June 2020, Mr Ross talked about the percentage of body fat of \"ordinary people\".\n\nOriginally reported in the Daily Record, his comments were in response to a Channel 4 News piece featuring foodbanks.\n\nHe said: \"We have no real grasp of just how ridiculously overweight the population is.\n\n\"I'm not saying that every single person who claims to be really hungry and is reliant on charity is also very overweight.\n\n\"But what I am saying is if Channel 4 News is having a reasonable go at showing the reality of food bank usage, then we know the people that they filmed are far from starving. If anything their biggest risk is not starvation, it's diabetes.\"\n\nOn Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford, who has called on Boris Johnson to review the UK government's free school meals policy, Mr Ross said: \"Has Marcus Rashford stood for election to anything? Not that I'm aware of.\"", "The government is assessing the impact of a \"technical issue\" that led to 150,000 records being deleted from police databases.\n\nThe error, first reported in the Times, saw data including fingerprint, DNA and arrest histories wiped after being accidentally flagged for deletion.\n\nThe Home Office said the lost entries related to people who were arrested and then released without further action.\n\nBut Labour said it presented \"huge dangers\" for public safety.\n\nThe data was lost from the Police National Computer - a system that stores and shares criminal records information across the UK.\n\nIt is used to help police investigations and provides real-time checks on people, vehicles and crimes, as well as whether suspects are wanted for any unsolved offences.\n\nA coding error resulted in records that had been flagged for deletion being lost from the database before checks had been carried out to determine whether they could be lawfully held or not.\n\nThe data loss could hinder future police investigations because the fingerprint or DNA evidence would not be able to be cross-checked against evidence from other crime scenes.\n\nPolicing minister Kit Malthouse said the problem had been identified and the process corrected so \"it cannot happen again\" - with the Home Office, National Police Chiefs' Council and other law enforcement partners working \"at pace\" to recover the data.\n\n\"While the loss relates to individuals who were arrested and then released with no further action, I have asked officials and the police to confirm their initial assessment that there is no threat to public safety,\" he said.\n\nThe Home Office said no records of criminal or dangerous persons had been deleted.\n\nThe records are linked to police investigations that were terminated before charge (No Further Action or NFA cases) or to those where an individual had been acquitted at court.\n\nIt is not yet known how many records of each type were lost and full extent of deletions is still being investigated.\n\nThe loss of the data means that officers on the ground may get an incomplete search result when interrogating the system.\n\nShadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds called on Home Secretary Priti Patel to take responsibility for the error and be clear about the impact it had had.\n\n\"She must urgently make a statement about what has gone wrong, the extent of the issue, and what action is being taken to reassure the public. Answers must be given.\"\n\n\"This is an extraordinarily serious security breach that presents huge dangers for public safety.\"\n\nFormer Cumbria Police chief constable Stuart Hyde told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the \"very large\" loss of arrest records presented a \"risk to public safety\".\n\nHe said: \"In order to understand the scale, if you think that about between 6-700,000 people are arrested every year in the UK, that's a very large proportion of those people.\"\n\nIt comes after around 40,000 alerts relating to European criminals were removed from the same database, the PNC, following Britain's post-Brexit deal with the EU.", "Despite the huge need to free up space in hospitals, some care homes say insurance issues make it impossible for them to accept Covid-19 patients.\n\nIn October, the government launched a scheme for designated care homes to take patients recovering from the virus but insurance is a stumbling block.\n\nSir David Behan, head of the UK's largest care home company, HC-One, says insurance has become a major concern.\n\nThe government says it is working to resolve the issue.\n\n\"We are aware the adult social care insurance market is changing in response to the pandemic, and recognise some care providers may encounter difficulties as their policies come up for renewal,\" said a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson.\n\nOne Hampshire care home says it will have to stop taking patients within days because its insurance will expire.\n\nWaterside House in Netley, Hampshire usually provides holidays and respite care for people with disabilities.\n\nBut since the autumn it has been taking Covid-positive patients discharged from hospitals on the south coast.\n\nThey are looked after on a separate floor from other residents, and the home has had to meet high infection control standards.\n\nHome manager Sarah Knight said demand for the 31 beds is unparalleled and added: \"I've been in nursing a long, long time, and I have never known anything like this.\n\n\"People end up in an ambulance sat outside hospitals for hours and hours, or they end up on a trolley in A&E in a corridor for hours and hours.\n\n\"By offering the best that we've got here, we can reduce some of that burden.\"\n\nJan Tregelles is chief executive of the charity Revitalise which runs Waterside House\n\nThe government originally hoped there would be 500 designated care homes taking in Covid-positive patients.\n\nBut Waterside House is one of only 129 which have been set up to take those who have not completed 14 days in isolation.\n\nHowever, its public indemnity insurance protection, which it needs in case someone contracts Covid there, runs out at the end of January.\n\nWaterside House is run by the charity Revitalise, whose chief executive, Jan Tregelles, said they have tried everything, but will soon have to start turning away people.\n\n\"It's shocking,\" she says. \"We are truly helpless. We have a fantastic team of nurses and colleagues already.\n\n\"The facilities are here, everything's arranged and we can't step up to support our communities at this time.\"\n\nOne resident, Alan Washbourne, who has been living at Waterside House since he was discharged from hospital during the first wave of the pandemic, said: \"I feel quite safe here.\"\n\nHe is not on the Covid floor of the home, and added: \"If I were to go to somewhere else, which is possible, I might not feel quite so safe.\"\n\nAlan Washbourne has been at Waterside House since April last year\n\nAfter so many deaths last spring, many care homes will not consider taking patients who are Covid-positive, even with extra infection control measures.\n\nMeanwhile, growing numbers of staff are off sick or self-isolating, leaving care homes facing shortages.\n\nAnd many are also finding it difficult to get the public indemnity insurance.\n\nSir David Behan is chairman of HC-One, the UK's largest care home provider\n\nSince November, HC-One, which is the UK's largest care home provider, has had to cover its own Covid risks because it cannot get the insurance.\n\nSir David said it is one of the reasons why they have not taken part in the designated places scheme.\n\n\"You've got solicitors' firms advertising, taking cases up against care companies,\" he says.\n\n\"So, this isn't a theoretical risk that there may be proceedings, it's an actual risk, and therefore we need cover.\n\n\"The NHS wouldn't operate without similar liability cover and that's what we need to see, and I think governments have a role to play working with the insurance industry to work to find a solution.\"\n\nThe Department for Health and Social Care said it was making efforts to determine what actions it could take.\n\n\"Our priority is to ensure everyone receives the right care, in the right place, at the right time,\" said a spokesperson.", "The licence fee is the \"least worst\" way of funding the BBC, its incoming chairman Richard Sharp has said.\n\nBut Mr Sharp told MPs he had an \"open mind\" about how the corporation should be funded in the future, and it \"may be worth reassessing\" the current system.\n\nHe also said he didn't think the BBC's Brexit coverage was biased overall, but \"there were some occasions when the Brexit representation was unbalanced\".\n\nQuestion Time \"seemed to have more Remainers than Brexiteers\", he said.\n\nBBC Three's Normal People was one of the corporation's biggest hits last year\n\nThe £157.50 licence fee is due to stay in place until at least 2027, when the BBC's Royal Charter ends, with a debate about how the broadcaster should be funded after that.\n\nMr Sharp, who spent 23 years working as a banker for Goldman Sachs, told the House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport select committee: \"At 43p a day, the BBC represents terrific value.\"\n\nThe government is currently reviewing whether its cost should continue rising with inflation from 2022, and whether non-payment should remain a criminal offence. Mr Sharp said he was \"not in favour of decriminalisation\".\n\nHe said other possible options for funding the BBC in the future could include a household tax like the one used in Germany, \"which amounts to the same amount of money\".\n\nHe added: \"So when we next get the chance to review the structure of this then it may be worth reassessing.\"\n\nAsked whether he believed the BBC's coverage of Brexit had been unbalanced, he replied: \"No, actually I don't.\n\n\"I believe there were some occasions when the Brexit representation was unbalanced.\n\n\"So if you ask me if I think Question Time seemed to have more Remainers than Brexiteers, the answer is yes, but the breadth of the coverage I thought was incredibly balanced, in a highly toxic environment that was extremely polarised.\"\n\nQuestion Time has said it has robust processes in place to ensure balance on its panels.\n\nMr Sharp said he was \"considered to be a Brexiteer\" and had donated around £400,000 to the Conservative Party over the past 20 years.\n\nHe said the biggest issue now facing the BBC is impartiality, and that \"trust in leadership and trust in processes\" must be rebuilt after high-profile equal pay cases with journalists such as Carrie Gracie and Samira Ahmed.\n\n\"Clearly some of the problems it's had recently are really rather terrible and reflect a culture that needs to be rebuilt, so everybody who cherishes the BBC and works at the BBC feels proud and happy to work there,\" he said. \"Then in my view that would produce a better output inevitably.\"\n\nMr Sharp also told the committee he would give his £160,000 salary as BBC chairman to charity.\n\nWhen asked \"what's in it for you?\" Mr Sharp, whose heritage is Jewish, said: \"We're all a product of our upbringing and I was very fortunate with the parents I have, my great grandparents came to this country escaping tyranny.\n\n\"I think I won the lottery in life to be British and if I can make a contribution, I couldn't be happier to.\n\n\"The BBC is part of the fabric of all our national identities, it offers education and enrichment and is also important for our position in the world... It is a massive privilege to be chair of the BBC.\"\n\nSir David Clementi, the current BBC chairman, steps down in February. The post-holder is officially appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the government.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "It's likely there are variants all over the world - Vallance\n\nITV's Libby Wiener asks if the move to put restrictions in at the borders is too late. The PM says the government is taking steps to protect against the new variants. \"We have a situation now where we have a very high rate of domestic infection in the UK combined with a vaccination programme,\" he says. \"There will come a point in the next weeks and months where the vaccination programme will take effect... and you will see a decline in the death rate. \"What you can't have is a situation where you have new variants with unknown qualities coming in from abroad and that's why we have set up the system to stop arrivals where new variants are a concern.\" Sir Patrick Vallance says the virus is changing all the time and he suspects there are variants \"all over the world of different types\". \"The countries which have detected them first have got good sequencing,\" he says.", "The UK economy shrank by 2.6% in November as England was placed in lockdown for a second time, official figures show.\n\nThe Office for National Statistics said it meant gross domestic product was 8.5% below its pre-pandemic peak.\n\nNovember's decline came after six consecutive months of growth.\n\nPubs and hairdressers were badly hit as the service sector suffered, the ONS said, but some manufacturing and construction activity improved.\n\nThe hit to the service sector - which accounts for about three-quarters of the UK economy - meant it contracted by 3.4% in November, and is now 9.9% below the level of February 2020.\n\nSome economists said the November figure was better than expected, and it appeared many companies were better prepared for the second lockdown, with some sectors staying open for business and many firms having already put in place plans to expand online operations.\n\n\"Steps taken by businesses earlier in the year to Covid-proof their operations - combined with the time-limited nature of the restrictions, and schools remaining open - meant more companies were able to continue trading safely,\" said Alpesh Paleja, lead economist at the CBI employers' group.\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak said the figures showed \"it's clear things will get harder before they get better and today's figures highlight the scale of the challenge we face\".\n\nBut he said the vaccine roll-out and economic support measures meant there were reasons to be hopeful. \"With this support, and the resilience and enterprise of the British people, we will get through this,\" he said.\n\nShadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said the figures showed the UK has an economic \"mountain to climb\".\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, she said it would be a \"serious mistake\" if Mr Sunak waited until the Budget in March before providing more support and confidence for business.\n\nONS director for economic statistics Darren Morgan said: \"The economy took a hit from restrictions put in place to contain the pandemic during November, with pubs and hairdressers seeing the biggest impact.\"\n\nHowever, he said many firms adjusted to the new pandemic working conditions, such as by expanding click and collect and other online operations.\n\nHe added: \"Manufacturing and construction generally continued to operate, while schools also stayed open, meaning the impact on the economy was significantly smaller in November than during the first lockdown.\n\n\"Car manufacturing, bolstered by demand from abroad, housebuilding and infrastructure grew and are now all above their pre-pandemic levels.\" Construction activity grew by 1.9% during the month.\n\nGross domestic product (GDP) is the sum (measured in pounds) of the value of goods and services produced in the economy.\n\nBut the measurement most people focus on is the percentage change - the growth of the country's economy over a period of time, typically a quarter (three months) or a year.\n\nIf the GDP measure is up on the previous three months, the economy is growing. That generally means more wealth and more new jobs.\n\nIf it is negative, the economy is shrinking.\n\nDespite the GDP figure being better than some analysts had forecast, there are still concerns that the UK could be heading back into recession.\n\nEconomists have warned the UK could see a double-dip recession if restrictions remain in place in the first three months of 2021.\n\nRory Macqueen, from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said the November figures confirm a significant slowdown in the last quarter of 2020, \"despite November's lockdown in England clearly having a far smaller effect than the first\".\n\nJames Smith, research director of the Resolution Foundation, said there would be a lot of comment about whether these figures point to the UK heading for only its second-ever double-dip recession on record.\n\nBut, he said, the real \"story of the year will be a vaccine-driven bounce back in economic activity for sectors like hospitality and leisure\".\n\n\"The chancellor must do everything he can to support that recovery once public health restrictions ease,\" he added.\n\nAnalysts at Capital Economics also said there was cause for optimism, saying that the current third lockdown could have less impact than feared.\n\n\"The economy has built up a fair bit of immunity to lockdowns, as November's lockdown was much less painful for the economy than the first lockdown.\n\n\"As a result, the Covid-19 economic hole is smaller than we thought, the economy may get back to its pre-crisis crisis level a bit sooner and it makes us more confident that the Bank of England probably won't resort to negative interest rates.\"\n\nThe fall in the economy in November was still considerable, but the figures show businesses adapting to difficult conditions. The hit was a fraction of what occurred in the first lockdown last April, and was mainly confined to the service sector, with pubs and hairdressing for example in sharp decline.\n\nManufacturing and construction largely remained open, as did previously shut public services such as schools. By November car manufacturing and house building were back above the level of output before the pandemic.\n\nThe trade figures also showed a £7bn increase in EU imports in the three months to November as traders stockpiled car parts, medicines and other goods ahead of the end of the Brexit transition period.\n\nThe renewed regional tiered restrictions in December, and more severe national lockdowns this month, still indicate a possible return to overall recession in this tough winter.\n\nBusiness groups continue to argue that extra support is required to support jobs and cash flow well before the Budget in March. But a more sustained lifting of restrictions as vaccines are rolled out should see growth return after the spring.", "Black people are four more times more likely than white people to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act, according to NHS figures.\n\nWhen Antonio Ferreira was sectioned he says he felt he was discriminated against because of his skin colour.\n\nNow a student at Essex University, he hopes to improve police understanding of mental health problems.\n\nIf you are experiencing emotional stress, help and support is available via BBC Action Line.", "The governor of Amazonas state warned of a \"critical\" moment and has implemented a curfew\n\nHospitals in the Brazilian city of Manaus have reached breaking point while treating Covid-19 patients, amid reports of severe oxygen shortages and desperate staff.\n\nThe city, in Amazonas state, has seen a surge of deaths and infections.\n\nHealth professionals, quoted by local media, warned \"many people\" could die due to lack of supplies and assistance.\n\nBrazil has recorded more than 205,000 virus deaths - the second-highest tally in the world, behind the US.\n\nA new coronavirus variant has recently emerged in Brazil, with several cases in travellers arriving in Japan traced back to the Amazonas region.\n\nAmazonas suffered heavy losses in the first wave of the pandemic but is also being badly hit by a new rise in infections.\n\nRefrigerated containers were brought to hospitals to help store bodies last week, as authorities declared a state of emergency.\n\nJessem Orellana, from the Fiocruz-Amazonia scientific investigation institute, told the AFP news agency that some hospitals in Manaus had \"run out of oxygen\" with some centres becoming \"a type of suffocation chamber\" for patients.\n\nThe researcher told Brazilian media she had received reports from the front-line of \"dramatic\" scenes playing out in some hospitals.\n\nReports in the daily Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper described desperate staff having to try to keep patients alive through manual ventilation.\n\nIn a widely shared video from the region, a female medical worker asks the internet for help: \"We're in an awful state. Oxygen has simply run out across the whole unit today.\"\n\n\"There is no oxygen and lots of people are dying,\" she says in the clip. \"If anyone has any oxygen, please bring it to the clinic. There are so many people dying.\"\n\nThe UK has banned travellers from much of Latin America over a new variant detected in Brazil\n\nAmazonas Governor Wilson Lima said the state was \"in the most critical moment of the pandemic\" and has announced a nightly curfew will begin at 19:00 local time (23:00 GMT) on Friday to try to stem the spread.\n\nMarcellus Campelo, a local health secretary, said the state needed three times the amount of oxygen it can produce locally and appealed for help.\n\nBrazil's vice-president shared images on Twitter of the air force transporting hospital supplies, including oxygen cylinders and stretchers, to the city as reports of the situation spread throughout the country.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by General Hamilton Mourão This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHealth officials also say some patients will be airlifted to other states for treatment due to the demand for intensive care units, Reuters reports.\n\nFelipe Naveca, deputy director of research at the state-run Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, told the BBC's South America correspondent Katy Watson that the new variant had evolved separately from those in the UK and South Africa, but that it showed some of the same characteristics: \"Some of these mutations have been linked to increased transmission and that is of concern.\"\n\nMr Naveca said that they did not yet have any data to suggest that existing vaccines would be any less effective against the new variant. \"We have to do a lot more sequencing of samples to answer that question,\" he said.\n\nHowever, on Thursday UK officials announced a ban on travellers from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde due to the new strain.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. At Fullwell Cross Medical Centre, north London, they are now vaccinating almost 1,000 people a week\n\nFake news is likely to be causing some people from the UK's South Asian communities to reject the Covid vaccine, a doctor has warned.\n\nDr Harpreet Sood, who is leading an NHS anti-disinformation drive, said it was \"a big concern\" and officials were working \"to correct so much fake news\".\n\nHe said language and cultural barriers played a part in the false information.\n\nA GP in the West Midlands told the BBC some of her South Asian patients had refused the vaccine when offered it.\n\nDr Sood, from NHS England, said officials were working with South Asian role models, influencers, community leaders and religious leaders to help debunk myths about the vaccine.\n\nMuch of the disinformation surrounds the contents of the vaccine.\n\nHe said: \"We need to be clear and make people realise there is no meat in the vaccine, there is no pork in the vaccine, it has been accepted and endorsed by all the religious leaders and councils and faith communities.\"\n\n\"We're trying to find role models and influencers and also thinking about ordinary citizens who need to be quick with this information so that they can all support one another because ultimately everyone is a role model to everyone\", he added.\n\n\"There's a big piece of work happening where we're translating information, we're making sure the look and feel of it reaches the populations that matter.\"\n\nSome of the disinformation seen by the BBC on social media and on WhatsApp is religiously targeted. Messages falsely claim the vaccines contain animal produce - eating pork goes against the religious beliefs of Muslims, as does eating beef for Hindus.\n\nDr Samara Afzal has been vaccinating people in Dudley, West Midlands. She said: \"We've been calling all patients and booking them in for vaccines but the admin staff say when they call a lot of the South Asian patients they decline and refuse to have the vaccination.\n\n\"Also talking to friends and family have found the same. I've had friends calling me telling me to convince their parents or their grandparents to have the vaccination because other family members have convinced them not to have it\".\n\nWe need to be clear and make people realise there is no meat in the vaccine, there is no pork in the vaccine, it has been accepted and endorsed by all the religious leaders\n\nReena Pujara is a beauty therapist in Hampshire and a practising Hindu. She said she's been bombarded with false information.\n\n\"Some of the videos are quite disturbing especially when you actually see the person reporting is a medic and telling you that the vaccine is going to alter your DNA,\" she said.\n\n\"For a layman it is very confusing. And also when you read that the ingredients in the vaccine derive from a cow - and as Hindus the cow is sacred to us - it is disturbing.\"\n\nAbout 100 mosques have a joined a campaign to counter vaccine disinformation and persuade their communities to take the vaccine. They've said they'll use their Friday sermons to urge people to have the jab.\n\n\"There should be no hesitation in taking [the vaccine] from a moral perspective,\" said Qari Asim, chair of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB), which has organised the campaign. \"It is our ethical duty to protect ourselves and others from harm.\"\n\nVaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told the BBC's Asian Network that faith and community leaders had a big role to play in ensuring a high take-up of the vaccine. He said he had met with more than 150 leaders from Sikh, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim communities who were taking the message out \"that it's the right thing to do\".\n\nHe added that the government was taking steps to tackle online disinformation around the vaccine, as well as making sure vaccine guidance was available in many different languages.\n\nA recent poll, commissioned by the Royal Society of Public Health, suggested just over half of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people would be happy to have the coronavirus vaccine.\n\nIt found 57% said they would take the vaccine - compared with 79% of white people.", "Exam results are likely to appear before the end of the summer term\n\nExam results for A-levels and GCSEs in England could be published in early July this year, according to proposals for replacing cancelled exams.\n\nA consultation launched by the exams watchdog and the Department for Education confirmed that grades will be decided by teacher assessment.\n\nBut results this summer are likely to be released much earlier than usual.\n\nEducation Secretary Gavin Williamson said pupils would receive \"a grade that reflects their ability\".\n\nThere are also likely to be written test papers set by exam boards, but marked by teachers, with some later checks if there are concerns about fairness.\n\nFor vocational qualifications, exams which use mostly written papers are also likely to use teachers' grades - but qualifications which need a test of practical, hands-on skills will have separate arrangements.\n\nOfqual and the Department for Education have formally launched a two-week consultation on a system for how results will be decided, after disruption from the pandemic forced the cancellation of exams.\n\nThis is the second year of exam results being disrupted by the pandemic\n\nFor A-levels and GCSEs this could see the scrapping of the traditional results days in August, with a proposal to publish the results in \"early July\", increasing the time for appeals and adding more time before the start of the university term.\n\nLast year the process of replacement results ended with U-turns and confusion, as an algorithm initially used for deciding grades was abandoned and teachers' assessments used instead.\n\nThis time there will be no algorithm, but from the outset the process will rely on the judgement of teachers, who will be asked to use evidence such as coursework, essays, homework and mock exams.\n\nThere are also proposals for test papers, or mini-exams, which would be set by examiners but which would be likely to be marked within schools by teachers.\n\nThese would inform teachers' decisions rather than be a fixed proportion of the final grade - and could be used as evidence for any scrutiny of the reliability of a school's results or if there were appeals over grades.\n\nThere is also a recognition they might have to be taken by some pupils at home.\n\nBut it has still to be decided whether it would be mandatory to take these exams, and whether there would be a single paper per subject or the option to take more.\n\nThe Department for Education has said pupils will not face tests in subject areas they have not covered.\n\nGeoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, said the proposals seemed \"sensible\".\n\nBut he said the written tests would have to be \"exceptionally well designed\" to make them fair between students \"whose learning has been disrupted by the pandemic to greatly varying extents\".\n\n\"There are still many questions left unanswered,\" said the National Education Union's co-leader Kevin Courtney, about how tests could be flexible enough and how appeals will be decided.\n\nThere will be a process of training teachers in how the grading system will operate and be consistent between different schools.\n\nFor vocational qualifications, the proposals say those closer to written A-level and GCSE exams will be graded in a similar way to the academic exams, using teacher assessment to replace written papers.\n\nThere will be different approaches for qualifications requiring proof of practical skills, but there will be arrangements to make this possible.\n\nSome BTec exams have already gone ahead this month and IGCSE exams are still planned to continue this summer.\n\nA-levels and GCSEs have been cancelled in Wales and Northern Ireland, and in Scotland the Nationals, Highers and Advanced Highers have also been scrapped.\n\nEngland's Education Secretary, Mr Williamson, said: \"Fairness to young people has been and will continue to be fundamental to every decision we take on these issues.\"", "Men who had already had the virus were asked to donate blood plasma for the trial\n\nA potential treatment for Covid using blood plasma does not reduce deaths among hospital patients, trials show.\n\nThe results are a blow to researchers and the NHS, which led the drive to collect plasma donations.\n\nThis arm of the Recovery trial, which is investigating a number of promising Covid treatments, has now been closed.\n\nThe Oxford researchers involved say they are \"incredibly grateful\" for the contribution of patients across the country.\n\nDonations of plasma were temporarily suspended, according to NHS Blood and Transplant.**\n\nThere had been huge international interest in the role of convalescent plasma as a possible treatment for hospital patients with Covid-19.\n\nThe treatment involves blood plasma being taken from people who have recovered from the disease - which contains antibodies to coronavirus - and transfused into seriously ill patients.\n\nIt was hoped the plasma donation would give the recipient's struggling immune system a boost to fight off Covid.\n\nThe NHS had been urging people to donate, particularly men who are thought to have higher levels of antibodies in their blood.\n\nBut early analysis of 1,873 deaths in a study of 10,400 UK patients shows the treatment made \"no significant difference\".\n\nIn the group treated with convalescent plasma, 18% of patients died within 28 days - the same figure for the group given standard treatment.\n\nPatients in the study are still being followed up and the final results will be published shortly.\n\nEarlier this week, a separate study showed no evidence that the same treatment improved outcomes for patients in intensive care.\n\nMartin Landray, chief investigator and professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, said the Recovery trial showed \"the value of large randomised trials to properly assess the role of potential treatments\".\n\nThe trial is still investigating other treatments, including tocilizumab, aspirin and an antibody cocktail.\n\nProf Peter Horby, who also worked on the trial, said the largest ever trial of convalescent plasma \"was only possible thanks to the generous donation of plasma by recovered patients and the willingness of current patients to contribute to advancing medical care\".\n\n\"While the overall result is negative, we need to await the full results before we can understand whether convalescent plasma has any role in particular patient sub-groups,\" he said.\n\n**NHS Blood and Transplant restarted donations of blood plasma on 20 January. They could be used to see whether particular groups of patients, such as those with low antibody levels, could benefit.\n\nInternational trials are also testing if plasma helps people when it's used much earlier in the disease, before people get to hospital.", "One of two coronavirus variants first detected in Brazil has been found in the UK, says a leading scientist advising the government.\n\nBut the version discovered is not the \"variant of concern\", Prof Wendy Barclay clarified.\n\nThe \"variant of concern\" from Brazil, detected in travellers to Japan, is thought to be more infectious.\n\nIt led to travellers from South America and Portugal being banned from entering the UK on Friday.\n\nProf Wendy Barclay, who is heading a newly-launched project to study the effects of emerging coronavirus mutations called the G2P-UK National Virology Consortium, said: \"There are two different types of Brazilian variants and one of them has been detected and one of them has not.\"\n\nProf Barclay, who also sits on Nervtag, a committee which advises government on new and emerging respiratory virus threats, said the variant was \"probably introduced some time ago\" and it \"will be being traced very carefully\".\n\nShe added: \"The new Brazilian variant of concern, that was picked up in travellers going to Japan, has not been detected in the UK.\n\n\"Other variants that may have originated from Brazil have been previously found.\"\n\nThe body which collects and analyses the genomes of virus samples - Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium (Cog-UK) - said this variant seen in the UK contained one of the mutations found in the Brazilian \"variant of concern\".\n\nThe mutation, also found in the South African variant, has been linked to a reduced antibody response meaning our bodies might be less able to fight it off.\n\nCog-UK said this alone was not enough to qualify it as a \"variant of concern\", thought it acknowledged \"no internationally agreed definition of a variant of concern has yet been agreed\".\n\nIn other variants of concern, the mutation sits alongside a \"constellation\" of others which together amount to a high chance of making the virus more transmissible.\n\nIt comes as a further 1,248 people with coronavirus have died in the UK.\n\nThe latest government figures on Thursday also showed another 48,682 new cases had been reported.\n\nMeanwhile, the latest estimate for the reproduction (R) number in the UK - which represents the average number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to - is between 1.2 and 1.3.\n\nLast week it was estimated at between 1 and 1.4 by the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.\n\nWhen the figure is above 1, the number of cases increases exponentially.\n\nDespite other variants entering the country since, the Kent variant remains dominant in the UK and is believed to be 30-50% more infectious than the previous form of the virus.\n\nViruses acquire random changes to their genes constantly as they replicate.\n\nMany are neutral or even hurt the virus's ability to spread, but those that give it an advantage will become more common.\n\nMutations are being detected now because enough time has passed for those random changes to take hold.\n\nEven though there is no evidence any of these mutations make the virus more deadly, a virus that infects more people is likely to have a higher death toll.\n\nWhen the virus gets better at sticking onto and breaking into human cells, in theory someone exposed to the same dose is more likely to become ill.\n\nThe use of masks and personal protective equipment, social distancing and hand washing remain the best defences against the virus's spread.\n\nDowning Street said current evidence did not suggest the concerning Brazilian variant affected vaccines or treatment.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Shapps described the travel ban, which came into force at 04:00 GMT on Friday, as a \"precautionary\" measure.\n\nIt covers people who have travelled from or through, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela in the last 10 days.\n\nThe ban also applies to Portugal - because of its strong links to Brazil - and the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde off the coast of west Africa, as well as Panama in central America.\n\nBritish and Irish citizens and foreign nationals with residence rights are still allowed to return - but must isolate for 10 days.\n\nAlso exempt are hauliers who are travelling from Portugal to transport essential goods.\n\nDr Mike Tildesley, an epidemiologist who is part of the government's Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, said the travel ban should minimise the risk from a \"more transmissible\" variant.\n\n\"We always have this issue with travel bans, of course, that we're always a little bit behind the curve,\" he told BBC Breakfast.\n\n\"My understanding is that there haven't really been any flights coming from Brazil for about the past week, so hopefully the immediate travel ban should really minimise the risk.\"\n\nDowning Street said it acted \"as quickly as possible\" to impose the travel ban because the concerning Brazilian variant \"could pose a significant risk to the UK\".\n\nHowever, Portugal's government has described the ban as \"absurd\" and illogical\".\n\nThe country's minister of foreign affairs Augusto Santos Silva said he had requested a conversation with his British counterpart after the \"sudden and unexpected\" suspension of flights.\n\nHe added Portugal was already restricting flights from Brazil and there was \"no evidence\" the new variant existed in his country.", "Police investigations have been compromised by an error that led to hundreds of thousands of records being deleted from UK-wide databases, according to a letter seen by the BBC.\n\nThe National Police Chiefs' Council said 213,000 records were deleted - more than the 150,000 first reported.\n\nThis resulted in a couple of \"near misses\" for serious crimes when trying to identify an offender, it said.\n\nThe Home Office has said it is assessing the impact of the mistake.\n\nData including fingerprint, DNA, and arrest histories was wiped from the Police National Computer (PNC) - which stores and shares criminal records information across the UK - after being inadvertently flagged for deletion.\n\nThe PNC is used in police investigations and provides real-time checks on people, vehicles and crimes, as well as whether suspects are wanted for any unsolved offences.\n\nThe Home Office said the lost entries related to people who were arrested and then released without further action.\n\nBut the letter from the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) says officers are aware of at least one instance where the DNA profile from a suspect in custody did not generate a match to a crime scene as expected, potentially impeding the investigation.\n\nIt says that some of the records had been marked for indefinite retention following earlier convictions for serious offences.\n\nAnd it reveals that a \"weeding system\", developed and deployed by a Home Office PNC team, started to delete records wrongly last November.\n\nThe process was only brought to a halt at the start of this week.\n\nThe letter was sent on Friday afternoon by Deputy Chief Constable Naveed Malik of the NPCC to chief constables and police and crime commissioners.\n\nThe deletion of the records has been blamed on a coding error.\n\nThis resulted in records that had been flagged for deletion being lost from the database before checks had been carried out to determine whether they could be lawfully held or not.\n\nPolicing minister Kit Malthouse said the problem had been identified and the process corrected so \"it cannot happen again\".\n\nHe said the Home Office, National Police Chiefs' Council and other law enforcement partners were working \"at pace\" to recover the data.\n\nThe Home Office said no records of criminal or dangerous persons had been deleted.\n\nBut Labour shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds called on Home Secretary Priti Patel to take responsibility for the error and be clear about the impact it had had.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Breakfast, he described the situation as \"extraordinarily serious\", adding: \"Priti Patel will be responsible for criminals walking free. We're not going to be able to link suspects to crime scenes without the DNA and fingerprint evidence.\"\n\nA home office source said the accusation was \"scaremongering and irresponsible\".\n\nFormer Cumbria Police Chief Constable Stuart Hyde told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday the \"very large\" loss of arrest records presented a \"risk to public safety\".\n\nThe records are linked to police investigations that were terminated before charge (No Further Action or NFA cases) or to those where an individual had been acquitted at court.\n\nIt is not yet known how many records of each type were lost and full extent of deletions is still being investigated. A minister is expected to update the House of Commons on Monday.\n\nIt comes after about 40,000 alerts relating to European criminals were removed from the PNC following the UK's post-Brexit security deal with the EU.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The pharmacy in Gwynedd is offering the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab\n\nA pharmacy has become the first in Wales to offer Covid jabs, as community vaccine trials begin.\n\nFifty people with appointments are to visit the pharmacy near Pwllheli, Gwynedd, on Friday to receive their first shot of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.\n\nThe pilot has begun in pharmacies in Betsi Cadwaladr health board.\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford said community pharmacists can help with vaccinations \"in more than one way\".\n\nIt follows a letter from Community Pharmacy Wales to Wales' health minister which said there was an \"urgent need\" to use pharmacies in Wales to help roll out coronavirus vaccines.\n\nUK Government figures show 126,375 people in Wales, 4% of the population, have received their first coronavirus jab so far.\n\nThat compares with 4.1% (224,840) in Scotland, 4.9% in England (2,769,164) and 6% (114,567) in Northern Ireland.\n\nHundreds more pharmacies in Wales will offer the jab in the next two weeks.\n\nRosie Bennett, one of the patients to receive a vaccination at Fferyllwyr H L Taylor Pharmacy in Llanbedrog, said getting her vaccine was a \"small step to a better future\".\n\nThe 82-year-old said: \"I don't have a car, so it was a huge relief to know that I wouldn't have to travel a long distance to have the vaccine.\n\n\"Here in the village, we know the staff at the chemists. They've been doing a great job during the pandemic and it's reassuring to have the vaccine from someone you know.\"\n\nSteffan John, the pharmacist who administered the vaccine to Rosie, said the staff are \"really pleased to do their bit for the community\".\n\nPharmacist Llyr Hughes, who runs four pharmacies, including Fferyllwyr H L Taylor Pharmacy, said \"vaccinating at scale\" was the \"only way out of the pandemic\".\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio Wales Breakfast, Mr Hughes said he expected the rollout to happen \"very quickly across all community pharmacies in Wales\".\n\n\"I don't forsee any big problems,\" he said.\n\n\"Community pharmacists have a wealth of experience in delivering flu vaccinations.\n\n\"We will tailor our work model to accommodate for this, as we did for the flu vaccine.\"\n\nMr Hughes said his pharmacy will have vaccinated in the region of more than 100 people by Saturday afternoon.\n\nHe added: \"If we can deliver locally we can provide easier access to older patients.\"\n\nHe explained local patients would be contacted about an appointment for the vaccine at the pharmacy.\n\nMr John said that the vaccine comes in vials of ten doses which means it's \"important to vaccinate that many people at a time and not to waste any\".\n\nLlyr Hughes who runs Fferyllwyr H L Taylor Pharmacy said 50 patients will be vaccinated today\n\nHowever, Mr Drakeford told Friday's Welsh Government press briefing that not all pharmacy premises would be suitable to deliver the Covid vaccines.\n\nHe said some community pharmacists could be asked to administer vaccinations at mass vaccination centres instead, in cases where spaces for vaccinations are small at pharmacies with high volumes of people.\n\nWales' Health Minister Vaughan Gething said the rollout was still in the \"early stages\" of the \"largest vaccination programme Wales has ever seen\".\n\n\"People can be expected to be asked to attend either a mass or community centre, hospital, GP practice, pharmacy or mobile unit,\" he added.\n\nMr Gething said a mix of vaccination sites and centres were chosen so \"everyone across the country has equal access to a vaccination\".\n\nHe added that people will be notified for an appointment, and before that they should not call GPs or health services to request a vaccine and \"add undue pressure\" to their workloads.\n\nPlaid Cymru's health spokesman Rhun ap Iorwerth said Wales' vaccination programme was \"improving far, far too slowly\".\n\n\"As important as it is that we have one pharmacy doing it, what's happening in all the others?\"\n\nPaul Davies, leader of the Conservatives in the Senedd, said it was clear Wales was \"lagging behind\" the rest of the UK on delivering the vaccinations.\n\n\"It's certainly not happening quickly enough, we need to see the Welsh Government stepping up to the plate,\" he said.\n\nThe Welsh Government has said more pharmacists and other primary care services, such as dentists and opticians - are being invited to help with the rollout, subject to vaccine supply.", "The UK's epidemic is still officially estimated to be growing, according to the latest R number, but data suggests new cases are beginning to fall.\n\nThe R number - which takes into account cases, hospitalisations and deaths - is estimated to be between 1.2 and 1.3, compared with 1 and 1.4 last week.\n\nThis suggests the total number of people with the virus is still rising across the UK.\n\nBut in London, where tight restrictions came in earlier, the R number is lower.\n\nIn the capital, the estimate - based on data up until 11 January - is between 0.9 and 1.2, compared with 1.1 and 1.4 the previous week.\n\nIt comes as a further 1,280 people with coronavirus have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive test, taking the total to 87,291.\n\nThe latest government figures on Friday also showed another 55,761 new cases had been reported.\n\nMeanwhile, more than three million people in the UK have now received the first dose of a vaccine - latest figures show the number at 3,234,946.\n\nAlthough the number of people sick with coronavirus is growing in the UK, data from various sources suggests new infections are declining.\n\nThis provides early signs that lockdown restrictions may be taking effect.\n\nThe government's scientific advisory group Sage, which calculates the R number, said areas that have been under tougher restrictions for a longer period of time - including east of England, London, and the south east - are showing \"a slight decline in the number of people infected\".\n\nHowever, they warned that regions such as north-west and south-west England continue to see infections rise, where the spread of the new UK variant may be playing a role.\n\nThe R number is a way of rating coronavirus or any disease's ability to spread. In theory, it describes the number of people that one infected person will pass the virus onto, on average.\n\nIn reality, though, the government's estimate of R gives a wider view of the epidemic's general trend since it also looks at what is happening in hospitals.\n\nCases, hospitalisations and deaths from Covid-19 have been alarmingly high since the beginning of the year and the latest estimate of the R number indicates that the pandemic is continuing to grow.\n\nBut because of the way the data to estimate R is collected - it reflects the situation a week ago. More up to date indicators suggest that there's a slight decline in infections in the east of England, London, and the South East.\n\nThese areas have had the highest prevalence and therefore the toughest restrictions the longest but infections are continuing to rise in the North West and South West probably because of the spread of the new variant of the virus.\n\nDespite this there's some relief at these figures among the government's scientific advisors. They were not sure whether the current restrictions would be enough to prevent the more contagious variant getting out of control. Now they expect Covid-related deaths to level off in a week or so and then decline as the benefits of the vaccine programme begin to take effect.\n\nCases should also begin to decrease in the coming weeks. But all this depends on people continuing to observe the government's social distancing guidelines - and come into contact with others only if it is essential.\n\nProf Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at the University of Cambridge, said coronavirus deaths were likely to peak in the next week to 10 days.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's The World At One that the lockdown measures were having an impact, with the peak in infections having passed \"a good few days ago\" which would lead to a reduction in the numbers dying from the disease.\n\n\"They are likely to level off in a week - 10 days maybe - at a peak which is probably going to be bigger than the first wave peak of 1,000-a-day, but then should decline due the reductions in cases that we are seeing and, of course, the vaccine programme.\"\n\nData from the ZOE Covid Symptom Study app gives its own estimate of 0.9 for the virus's R or reproduction number. This is based on cases alone, rather than a wider number of data sources included in the official estimate.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What is the R number and what does it mean?\n\nWhile this leaves out the fact that hospitals are still filling up, looking at cases on their own allows assessment of whether lockdown restrictions are working.\n\nBut the large number of infections recorded at the end of December and the beginning of January means, despite receding cases, hospitalisations and deaths will inevitably continue to rise for some time.\n\nMeanwhile, a ban on travellers from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde entering the UK came into force on Friday as a result of a new, potentially more infectious strain linked to Brazil.\n\nProf Wendy Barclay, a scientist at Imperial College London advising the government, said this \"variant of concern\" had not been detected in the UK but another variant from Brazil was already in circulation.\n\nIt is not clear whether this second strain is more contagious or not.", "Ambulances were lined up outside the Royal London Hospital on Thursday\n\nCovid patients have been transferred to hospitals in Newcastle from over-stretched London intensive care units.\n\nA small number, fewer than five, have been moved hundreds of miles from the south east, the BBC has been told.\n\nHospitals with the largest critical care capacity have been asked to take patients from other areas to ease pressures.\n\nHowever, NHS England has denied that patients have been transferred to Newcastle from London.\n\nThe patient transfers were first reported by The Guardian.\n\nIt is not uncommon for patients to be transferred from one busy hospital to another within the region, but moving the sick from out of their areas is unusual.\n\nThe North of England Critical Care Network, which co-ordinates provision in the North East, north Cumbria and North Yorkshire, confirmed patients had been moved from other parts of England.\n\nIn statement, director Lesley Durham said: \"During this pandemic and at these times of unprecedented pressures, we have ensured equity of patient access to critical care though mutual aid between units in the form of critical care patient transfers.\n\n\"We are also working with our colleagues and networks further afield.\n\n\"Whilst not ideal, it is correct to ensure that every person, regardless of location, has access to a critical care bed if they require one.\"\n\nOne medical expert described transferring people across the country as \"a challenge\"\n\nElsewhere, Northampton General Hospital - which is about 70 miles from London - has been receiving critical care patients from outside its area.\n\nA spokesman said: \"Some patients have been transferred to our critical care unit in recent weeks from other parts of the country, including London.\n\n\"We currently have one 'out-of-area' patient, but they are not from London.\"\n\nNHS England said in a statement: \"The NHS has tried and tested plans in place to manage significant pressure either from high Covid-19 infection rates and non-Covid winter demands and this has always included mutual aid practices whereby hospitals work together to manage admissions.\"\n\nIt added that no patients had been transferred from London to Newcastle, Birmingham, Northampton or Sheffield.\n\nAcross England in the week to 12 January, there were 32,202 patients in hospital with Covid-19, a rise of 5,735 on the previous week.\n\nIn the week up to 10 January there were 330,616 new cases.\n\nHospitals across the North East are already seeing many more patients than the first wave of the pandemic, and the next few weeks are likely to be the toughest yet.\n\nBut right now some - like Newcastle - have room in intensive care and are being asked to take patients from critical care units in the south which have become overwhelmed and run out of room.\n\nNewcastle and Northumbria NHS trusts have already been taking in patients from across their own patch - most notably from Cumbria where there are not nearly enough intensive care beds for the soaring numbers of Covid patients.\n\nBut patient numbers are growing in the North East's hospitals too, and many are already struggling.\n\nThey expect next week will be the worst week they have experienced yet.\n\nTo prepare, elective work is being postponed, wards are being cleared to take in new patients, and intensive care units are being expanded.\n\nConcerns have been raised about seriously-ill patients travelling such long distances.\n\nDr Uwe Franke, intensive care lead at Middlesbrough's James Cook Hospital, said: \"The critical care networks work regionally and nationally and are trying to spread the workload about the country without pushing other units to their limits or out of the durability of their capacity.\n\n\"But there is a difficulty in this; we know that Covid patients are incredibly ill, they are dependent on breathing machines, they are dependent on other machines that need organ support.\n\n\"To transfer these people across the country is quite a challenge.\"\n\nDr Franke added that while hospitals in the North were keen to support colleagues across the country, some - like his own - were already reaching their limit.\n\nHis hospital currently has in excess of 200 Covid patients, with 32 of those in intensive care.\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.", "Dustin Diamond made his name as the studious \"Screech\" in the US sitcom Saved by the Bell\n\nSaved by The Bell actor Dustin Diamond has been diagnosed with cancer, his representative has said.\n\nThe 44-year-old, who played Samuel \"Screech\" Powers in the popular 1990s US school-based sitcom, fell ill last week and was taken to hospital.\n\nHis representative, Roger Paul, said the actor is now waiting for further details.\n\n\"We will know the severity of it when the tests are done,\" Paul said, adding they expect an update next week.\n\nSaved by the Bell ran for four seasons from 1989 to 1993 and followed a group of high school friends and their principal.\n\nDiamond reprised his role in follow-up series Saved by the Bell: The New Class, and Saved by the Bell: The College Years. But he did not appear in the recent revival series.\n\nThe American was also a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother in 2013.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "A 24m section of the bridge parapet collapsed one mile from where a fatal crash took place\n\nPart of a rail bridge has collapsed near the site of the fatal Stonehaven train derailment.\n\nA 24m (79ft) section of the side wall has fallen from the bridge, about a mile north of where three people died when a train left the track and crashed last August.\n\nNetwork Rail said it was a \"structural fault\" and not caused by a landslip.\n\nThe line between Aberdeen and Dundee remains closed while structural engineers assess the fault.\n\nThe structure is located three miles north of Carmont signal box. The collapse was discovered just before 10:00 on Friday.\n\nThe rail company said the damage to the parapet was \"extensive\" and that the line was expected to be closed for a \"significant\" period of time while repairs to the bridge take place.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Network Rail Scotland This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Network Rail Twitter account told followers engineers would be working around the clock to complete repairs.\n\nSpecialist staff are also checking similar bridges as a precaution.\n\nThe line between Aberdeen and Dundee had just reopened in November, nearly three months after the Stonehaven derailment.\n\nThe driver, a conductor and a passenger died when the Aberdeen to Glasgow service derailed near Stonehaven on 12 August after heavy rain.\n\nNetwork Rail Scotland carried out \"complex\" repairs at the scene of the derailment\n\nAn interim report said the train hit washed-out rocks and gravel.\n\nA Network Rail spokesman said: \"The line is currently closed while our engineers repair a damaged side wall on a bridge between Carmont and Stonehaven.\n\n\"Specialist structural engineers are currently assessing the fault and putting plans in place for its repair.\n\n\"Our engineers will be working around-the-clock to complete this work as quickly as possible.\"", "Passengers will need to provide a negative Covid-19 test taken within 72 hours before departure\n\nPassengers arriving into NI from outside the UK and Republic of Ireland will soon have to produce a negative Covid-19 test before departure.\n\nFirst Minister Arlene Foster confirmed the executive had agreed the plan on Thursday.\n\nPeople arriving from countries not on the government's travel corridors list will also still have to self-isolate for 10 days.\n\nThe move has already been agreed in the Republic of Ireland.\n\nPassengers arriving there will be subject to the new rules from Saturday, with the measure taking effect in England and Scotland from Monday.\n\nNegative tests 72 hours prior to arrival are already a requirement in the Republic of Ireland for passengers travelling from Great Britain and South Africa.\n\nSpeaking at Stormont's press conference on Thursday, the first minister said Northern Ireland's R-number had also fallen to between 0.7 and 0.9 for new cases of the virus.\n\nThe reproductive rate of the virus - known as the R rate, measures the infection rate of Covid-19 and had risen to about 1.8 due to Christmas relaxations.\n\nDeputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said the drop showed the \"very real\" effect of lockdown restrictions imposed on 26 December, but she warned there was still \"no room for complacency\".\n\nShe said she still believed there needed to be an \"two-island approach\" to travel restrictions, including discussions with the British and Irish governments as a \"matter of urgency\".\n\nMrs Foster said Stormont ministers had also expressed frustration at the executive meeting over a lack of data-sharing from authorities in the Republic of Ireland, and called for it to be escalated.\n\nPSNI Chief Constable (centre) Simon Byrne attended Stormont's press briefing on Thursday with the first and deputy first ministers\n\nPSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne said 40 penalty notices a day are being handed out to those who breach the Covid-19 regulations.\n\nHe told the press briefing that if people continued flouting rules, they could expect \"firm and swift enforcement\".\n\n\"We won't turn a blind eye when people break the rules.\"\n\nOn Thursday, 16 more deaths related to Covid-19 were reported by the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, bringing its total to 1,533.\n\nThere have been 973 new cases diagnosed in the past 24 hours, while 58 Covid-19 patients are being treated in ICUs across Northern Ireland, of which 44 are on ventilators.\n\nMrs Foster said she found it \"incredible and frankly unbelievable\" that some people were still holding house parties and gatherings, despite the pandemic rates and the lockdown.\n\nOn Wednesday, health officials warned that levels of the new, more transmissible variant of the virus are rising.\n\nMr Swann said that meant more \"difficult decisions\" on lockdown restrictions could be required.\n\nNorthern Ireland is in the third week of a six-week lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19.\n\nThe executive is due to review the current restrictions on 21 January.\n\nThe first and deputy first ministers said they would take evidence from health officials before deciding whether an extension of the lockdown would be required.\n\nMinisters have expressed concerns about keeping non-essential parts of businesses open\n\nMinisters have also expressed concerns about some larger retailers \"gaming\" the regulations and keeping open non-essential parts of their businesses.\n\nA meeting between the first and deputy first ministers and representatives of the retail sector is due to happen on Friday afternoon.\n\nElsewhere, the Chief Medical Officer has confirmed that unpaid carers looking after Clinically Extremely Vulnerable individuals should receive the first dose of their vaccine when phase two of the vaccination programme begins next month.\n\nDr Michael McBride told Stormont's Health Committee they are provided for on a list of prioritisation provided by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which decides the order of vaccination delivery.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Department of Health This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Department of Health\n\nMr Swann was asked if his department was \"putting all its eggs in the vaccine basket\".\n\nHe said it was \"not the entirety of the answer\", adding: \"It will take time for the benefits of it to bed in.\n\n\"And while it is doing it, we still have to follow those restrictions that are in place.\n\n\"We may actually have to introduce more.\"\n\nOn Thursday afternoon the department tweeted that 121,711 vaccines have been administered in Northern Ireland.\n\nMrs Foster said that by end of this month, it is hoped all care home residents, health staff and those aged over 80 in Northern Ireland will have received their first vaccination.\n\nShe said that would be an \"incredible achievement\" and make Northern Ireland one of the top-performing countries in rolling out its vaccination programme.\n\nMeanwhile, the chairman of the Police Federation for NI (PFNI) has said officers need more powers to enforce Covid-19 regulations.\n\nAt present officers can only issue guidance and advice on the public health regulations.\n\nPFNI chairman Mark Lindsay said that puts officers in a \"difficult position\".\n\nThe federation represents thousands of rank and file PSNI officers.\n\n\"I think we are well past the stage where police officers are the people that should be giving advice around the guidance,\" Mr Lindsay told BBC Radio Foyle.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Rescuers pull a woman from the rubble after the 6.2 magnitude earthquake\n\nA powerful earthquake has rocked Indonesia's Sulawesi island, killing at least 42 people, with more feared dead as rescuers search for survivors.\n\nThe 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck on Friday morning, just hours after an earlier, smaller tremor.\n\nHundreds of people were injured and thousands displaced by the quake.\n\nIndonesia has a history of devastating earthquakes and tsunamis, with more than 2,000 killed in a 2018 Sulawesi quake.\n\nEight people died when the five-storey Mitra Manakarra Hospital in Mamuju partially collapsed on Friday, officials said. About 60 people were safely evacuated from the hospital.\n\n\"It happened so quickly, around 10 seconds,\" Syamsu Ridwan, a local police spokesman, told the BBC. He said the power in the hospital cut out during the earthquake.\n\nOfficials fear the death toll will increase as rescue efforts continue. Rescuers were still searching for survivors late on Friday, but they have been hampered by power cuts and poor mobile phone service.\n\nIndonesian President Joko Widodo offered condolences to the victims, urging people to stay calm and for the authorities to step up search efforts.\n\nThe epicentre of Friday's quake was six kilometres (3.73 miles) northeast of Majene city at a depth of 10km.\n\nVideo footage on social media showed collapsed houses and a girl pinned under rubble calling for help.\n\nThe situation was \"pretty bad\", Dr Gayatri Marliyani, of the geology department at Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta, told the BBC. She said the governor's office was among the collapsed buildings and confirmed that several hospitals and one hotel had also been damaged.\n\nShe also warned that getting response teams to the area could be hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nTremors were felt at around 01:00 local time on Friday (17:00 Thursday GMT) for about seven seconds.\n\nNo tsunami warning was issued but thousands are reported to have left their homes, fleeing to safety.\n\nAuthorities have warned that strong aftershocks could follow the two main quakes and that they could still trigger a tsunami.\n\nIndonesia is prone to earthquakes because it lies on the so-called Ring of Fire - a line of frequent quakes and volcanic eruptions on the Pacific rim.\n\nIn 2004, a tsunami triggered by an earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra killed 226,000 people across the Indian Ocean, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.\n\nThe Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 killed 170,000 people on the Indonesian island of Sumatra after a quake of magnitude 9.1.\n\nAre you in the area? If it is safe to do so, share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Police officers who were targeted by a pro-Trump mob have been speaking out about the \"medieval battle\" that unfolded on the steps of the Capitol and inside the halls of American democracy last week.\n\nPolice faced off against rioters equipped with clubs, shields, pitchforks, firearms, and metal poles stripped from seating set up for next week's inauguration.\n\nHere's what we've learned from their interviews with US media.\n\nMichael Fanone, a 40-year-old DC plainclothes narcotics detective who was told to wear his uniform that day, rushed to the West Terrace of the Capitol where he took turns holding back the crowd, and resting to rinse his face of the the chemical irritants that that crowd was spraying on police.\n\n\"We weren't battling 50 or 60 rioters in this tunnel,\" the MPD (Metropolitan Police Department of District of Columbia) veteran told the Washington Post. \"We were battling 15,000 people. It looked like a medieval battle scene.\"\n\nAfter he was grabbed by his helmet and dragged face-first down several steps, he said the crowd started stripping gear from his vest, including spare ammo, his radio and his badge - all while chanting \"USA!\".\n\nMichael Fanone, a DC detective, was dragged into the crowd and beaten\n\n\"We got one! We got one!\" Mr Fanone said he heard people shout, with others chanting: \"Kill him with his own gun!\"\n\nSome members of the crowd protected him after he started yelling that he has children, the father of four told CNN. He sustained only minor injuries but later found out in hospital that he had suffered a mild heart attack during the brawl.\n\nMPD Officer Daniel Hodges, 32, had already been on shift for several hours before the rioting began.\n\n\"We were battling, you know, tooth and nail for our lives,\" he told ABC News.\n\nIn one viral video, Mr Hodges is seen pinned in a glass doorway between officers and the crowd, as rioters strip his gas mask from his face and beat him with his own police-issued baton. One rioter tried to gouge his eyes.\n\n\"That was one of the three times that day where I thought: Well, this might be it,\" said Mr Hodges. \"This might be the end for me.\"\n\nAs he choked on tear gas, he is seen on video gasping for air to call out for help. Enough police were eventually able to push through the melee to extract him.\n\n\"I had conspiracy theorists and everyone you could think of yelling at me, saying, 'Why are you doing this, you're the traitor,'\" Mr Hodges told radio station WAMU.\n\n\"We're not the traitors. We're the ones who saved Congress that day, and we'll do it as many times as necessary.\"\n\nDespite fearing for his life, Mr Hodges says he decided not to use his gun on the crowd.\n\n\"I didn't want to be the guy who starts shooting, because I knew they had guns - we had been seizing guns all day,\" he told the Post.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nRobert Glover, the commander on scene for MPD, declared a riot at 13:50 local time, nearly two hours after Trump's speech at the White House where he instructed his followers to go to the Capitol.\n\nHe quickly told officers to retake the inauguration bleachers, to stop the crowd from raining down heavy objects on officers from above.\n\nMr Glover told the Post that some rioters may have been caught up in the moment, but others seemed to be moving in \"military formation\" as if they had prepared for the assault. He said that some appeared to be using hand signals to co-ordinate tactics.\n\nSeveral US military veterans, as well as off-duty police officers from Virginia, Maryland and Texas, have since been suspended or arrested for participating in the riot.\n\nMPD Officer Christina Laury, 32, was among the first city police officers to arrive on the scene. When she got to the Capitol, officers were already being brutally attacked by rioters attempting to storm the building.\n\n\"They had bear mace, which is literally used for bears. I got hit with it plenty of times that day and it just seals your eyes shut. You just would see officers going down trying to douse themselves with water, trying to open their eyes up so they can see again.\"\n\n\"The bravery and the heroism that I saw in these officers - the second they were able to open their eyes, they were back up front and they were just trying to stop these individuals from coming in.\"\n\nOne officer being lauded as a hero has yet to speak about his experience - Officer Eugene Goodman, a member of Congress' 2,100 member Capitol Police force.\n\nMr Goodman, an African American Iraq War veteran, was seen singlehandedly distracting a rampaging mob, giving lawmakers enough time to clear the chamber and get to safety.\n\nOn Thursday, a cross-party group of lawmakers introduced a bill calling for him to receive the Congressional Gold Medal for his effort to defend democracy.\n\nThe Capitol Police have been criticised over their response and preparation.\n\nSeveral top Capitol security officials, including the Capitol Police chief and the sergeants-at-arms for the House and Senate, resigned in the wake of the siege amid claims from lawmakers that they had not done enough to prepare for the mob.\n\nProtesters climbed the bleachers that were erected for Biden's inauguration\n\nOn Friday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced General Russel Honoré would be leading an immediate investigation of the Capitol's security infrastructure.\n\nVideo footage has also emerged showing an officer taking a selfie with a rioter inside the Capitol. Some officers reportedly gave directions to rioters telling them how to get to the offices of Democratic lawmakers.\n\nSeveral Capitol Police officers have been suspended for allegedly violating policies as the agency conducts an internal probe.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA respiratory doctor at Belfast's Mater Hospital has warned that hospital oxygen supplies are under \"extreme pressure\".\n\nDr Nick Magee also said more younger patients were now being treated in hospital than during the first and second waves of the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nHe said in the past they did not have to consult other NI hospitals about how much oxygen they had.\n\n\"That was never a thing in previous January flu problems,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"But that is something we are now having to think of,\" he added.\n\nEarlier this week Northern Ireland's Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride said there is enough oxygen to cope with the current demand.\n\nBut according to Dr Magee the current level of oxygen being used in \"bays\" at the Mater means patients cannot charge their mobile phones by their bedside because of the \"fire risk\".\n\n\"It is all well controlled and we are making sure that we can share out that oxygen burden. That is something we are having to think about,\" he said.\n\n\"I can't say specifically about other regional hospitals but I know that they are under extreme pressure and it's just something we have to think of as a region.\n\n\"Can we supply oxygen adequately for the amounts of oxygen we are using in hospitals?\"\n\nThe number of Covid positive hospital in-patients has increased significantly since last week - up from 599 a week ago to 850 on Thursday.\n\nThe number of people in ICU has also risen from 44 to 58 in the past week.\n\nDr Magee said staff were concerned about having to cope with \"large volumes\" of patients requiring respiratory support.\n\nHe said the number of younger patients becoming increasingly sick with the virus was growing.\n\nOn Wednesday, the Mater Hospital moved six patients who had been on wards into ICU and also took patients from the Southern Health Trust.\n\n\"Recently I saw a 29-year-old patient, also three who were in their mid 30s that all required respiratory support on a ward,\" he told BBC News NI.\n\n\"They are frightened they are wearing specialist masks CPAP masks that help them breathe. They are scared.\"\n\nThe relentless pressure of the past 10 months and the prospect of a further surge in admissions over the next fortnight is weighing heavily on the minds of medics.\n\n\"We are really worried about next week,\" said Dr Magee.\n\n\"It's very busy this week, we are coping well but we are particularly concerned about next week.\n\n\"Normally, if we had somebody who needed a lot of respiratory support we would involve a high dependency unit but all the respiratory wards are becoming like high dependency units.\n\n\"Volume of sicker, younger patients is much greater and it's not something that I would [have] ever seen before,\" he added.\n\nThe Southern Health and Social Care Trust said its hospitals had limited infrastructure to manage high numbers of patients requiring oxygen so a regional agreement was in place to share resources across Trusts to support Covid-positive patients.\n\n\"As a result some patients have been diverted to Belfast or SE Trust to help reduce pressure on the Southern Trust hospital system,\" a statement said.\n\n\"Craigavon and Daisy Hill hospitals remain very busy with high numbers of Covid-19 positive patients who are dependent on oxygen therapy.\n\n\"These protocols are in place as part of regional surge planning to ensure that we can safely manage the current high volume of Covid-19 patients needing hospital care.\n\n\"Patients who are currently being treated in Craigavon and Daisy Hill have secure supplies of oxygen.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Derby\n\nChampionship side Derby County have appointed England's record goalscorer Wayne Rooney as their new manager on a two-and-a-half-year contract.\n\nThe 35-year-old, who had been in interim charge since Phillip Cocu was sacked on 14 November, has now also officially retired as a player.\n\nRooney has overseen nine games so far, winning three and drawing four.\n\n\"The opportunity to follow Brian Clough, Jim Smith, Frank Lampard and Phillip Cocu is an honour,\" he said.\n\n\"I knew instinctively Derby County was the place for me.\"\n\nLiam Rosenior takes up the role of assistant manager, with former England boss Steve McClaren continuing as technical director and advisor to the board of directors.\n\nShay Given will become first-team coach and Justin Walker will remain as first-team development coach.\n\nThe Rams are third from bottom in the Championship, level on points with fourth-from-bottom Sheffield Wednesday.\n\nA takeover for the club is expected to go through this week, with a deal between current owner Mel Morris and the Derventio Holdings Group having been agreed in November.\n\nRams chief executive Stephen Pearce said in an interview with BBC Radio Derby on Thursday that there were no problems with the takeover, despite the delays meaning players have not been paid their December wages.\n\n\"Our recent upturn in results under Wayne was married together with some positive performances, notably the 2-0 home win over Swansea City and the 4-0 victory at Birmingham City,\" said Pearce.\n\n\"During that nine-game run we also dramatically improved their defensive record and registered five clean sheets in the process, while in the attacking third we became more effective and ruthless too.\n\n\"Those foundations have provided a platform for the club to build on in the second half of the season.\"\n\nRooney made his professional debut for boyhood club Everton in August 2002 aged just 16 and became the Premier League's youngest scorer with a superb long-range goal against Arsenal before his 17th birthday.\n\nAfter a strong Euro 2004 he moved to Manchester United for £27m, then a world record fee for a teenager.\n\nDuring 13 years with United he won the Premier League five times, the Champions League, the FA Cup and three League Cups.\n\nHis time with England was less successful in terms of team honours, although he did break Sir Bobby Charlton's long-standing record of 49 goals before retiring from international football in August 2017.\n\nHe made a farewell appearance for the Three Lions against the United States in a friendly in November 2018 to finish with 53 goals in 120 appearances.\n\nAfter a second stint at Everton and a spell with American side DC United, Rooney joined Derby in January 2020 as a player-coach on an initial 18-month contract.\n\nHe retires as the second-highest goalscorer in Premier League history, with 208 goals.\n\nWayne Rooney's presence at Derby County was felt on that hot August evening in 2019 when Phillip Cocu won his first match as manager at Huddersfield, a result overshadowed by the announcement of his signing.\n\nRooney's ambition to become a manager was there for all to see when chairman Mel Morris afforded him the opportunity to be a player-coach on arrival in January. He in fact arrived a few months before that but was unable to play, and stayed low key, observing from the sidelines.\n\nA year ago this month he made an instant impact to Derby's fortunes on the field. Players who were underachieving and perhaps found the grind of the Championship a little hard to handle, were taken up a notch by his presence.\n\nSome would say Rooney saved the Rams' season, but this term he struggled on the field and so did Derby.\n\nI am told it was written into his contract that he would have a chance to take control one day and he has already shown in his nine games in interim charge that he can get the squad playing in his image. Gone is the side-to-side, slow build-up possession game, it is a better product to watch.\n\nThe people around him have good pedigree in the game. Shay Given, Liam Rosenior, Justin Walker and Jason Pearcey have experience at all levels - but his relationship with Steve McClaren will be the most important of all.\n\nDerby fans have been calling out for a positive piece of news. Rooney's appointment is the first duck in a row with the takeover expected to be completed any time now and then Championship survival is the hope.\n• None Hear how David Bowie always managed to stay ahead of his time\n• None Joe Wicks and guests are here to bring positivity to your day", "A man accused of allegedly tricking a 92-year-old woman out of £160 for a fake coronavirus vaccination has been charged with fraud and common assault.\n\nDavid Chambers is accused of administering the fake vaccine at her Surbiton home in London last month.\n\nThe 33-year-old, also from Surbiton, is charged with five offences including fraud and going outside in a tier four area without a good reason.\n\nHe denied the charges when he appeared before magistrates on Friday.\n\nMr Chambers was remanded in custody until a hearing on 12 February.\n\nIn the UK, coronavirus vaccines are free of charge and available via the NHS.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Marcus Rashford and a group of celebrity chefs and campaigners have called on Boris Johnson to review the government's free school meals policy.\n\nThe group, including Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Tom Kerridge, have written to the PM asking him to \"fix\" the system long-term.\n\nThey called for a strategy to help \"end child food poverty\" before the summer holidays.\n\nNo 10 said \"no child will ever go hungry\" because of the Covid pandemic.\n\nThe call for a wide review comes after another row over free school meals during February half-term.\n\nThe government has said food will be provided to children by councils under the Covid Winter Grant Scheme while schools are closed for the holiday.\n\nCouncils and unions say the government should provide food vouchers instead, with the Local Government Association's Councillor Richard Watts telling BBC Radio 4's PM programme the grant had already been allocated for other support.\n\nBut Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"We are down to semantics whether it is the school delivering the meal or whether it is the local authority - fortunately there is quite a lot of different support available.\"\n\nAs well as getting the backing of Rashford - who has led campaigns around child poverty over the course of the pandemic - the letter has been signed by chefs Oliver, Kerridge and Fearnley-Whittingstall, along with actor Dame Emma Thompson and over 40 charities and education leaders.\n\nOrganised by the Food Foundation charity, the letter said it was time to \"step back and review the policy in more depth\".\n\nThey called for an \"urgent comprehensive review into free school meal policy across the UK\" to feed into the government's next Spending Review, saying it should look at:\n\nThe signatories praised the Department for Education's \"swift response\" to reports earlier this week of inadequate food parcels sent to families, saying the \"robustness of the message from you and the secretary of state on this issue was very welcome\".\n\nBut, they added that \"following the series of problems which have arisen over school food vouchers, holiday provision and food parcels since the start of the pandemic\", now was the time for a review.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Tom Kerridge: There has to be a solution to free school meals\n\nAnna Taylor, executive director of the Food Foundation charity, said the last few months had seen \"crisis after crisis with the provision of free school meals\".\n\n\"The result of that is disadvantaged children have often paid the price,\" she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\n\"Our view is that really unless we do a root and branch review these problems are going to still keep appearing.\"\n\nChef Fearnley-Whittingstall also called for a more consistent, long-term response to the issue of food poverty.\n\n\"We need to get out of this fire-fighting, highly reactive series of actions by the government,\" he told the same programme.\n\nThe signatories want a review to be published and debated in Parliament before the 2021 summer holidays.\n\n\"We are ready and willing to support your government in whatever way we can to make this review a reality and to help develop a set of recommendations that everyone can support,\" the letter said.\n\n\"School food is essential in supporting the health and learning of our most disadvantaged children.\n\n\"Now, at a time when children have missed months of in-school learning and the pandemic has reminded us of the importance of our health, this is a vital next step.\"\n\nAnti-poverty campaigner and food writer Jack Monroe welcomed the letter to the PM, but told the BBC: \"We need to be feeding children right now.\"\n\nShe added: \"While it is great to be looking longer term... having an underpinning strategy that means that children aren't put into poverty in the first place, we need to also immediately be putting resources in to ensure people aren't going hungry, today, tonight, next week and in the February half-term.\n\n\"This isn't a rhetorical thing. It isn't a dinner party discussion. We need to be doing this now.\"\n\nA Downing Street spokesperson said: \"It is great that celebrities and groups across society see the importance of school food. The PM thanks Marcus Rashford for his letter and will reply soon.\n\n\"School food is essential in supporting the health and learning of the most disadvantaged pupils. The prime minister has been clear that no child will ever go hungry as a result of the pandemic\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nRichard Leonard has resigned as Scottish Labour leader, saying it is in the best interests of the party for him to stand down.\n\nMr Leonard said he believed speculation about his leadership had become a \"distraction\".\n\nAnd he said he would be stepping down with immediate effect.\n\nHis resignation comes just months ahead of the Scottish Parliament election, which is scheduled to be held in May.\n\nMr Leonard had been leader of the party for three years after succeeding Kezia Dugdale.\n\nThe former union official had faced open calls to quit from some of his own MSPs last year amid concerns that his leadership style could damage the party in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament election.\n\nPolls have suggested that many Scottish Labour supporters struggle to recognise him, and he is closely associated with former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.\n\nScottish Labour had dominated politics in Scotland for decades, but is currently the third largest party at Holyrood behind the SNP and Conservatives.\n\nAnd Mr Leonard's critics had questioned whether he was capable of turning the party's fortunes around.\n\nMr Leonard was seen as a close ally of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn\n\nIn a statement, Mr Leonard said the decision to resign had not been easy - but he felt it was the right one for him and his party.\n\nHe said: \"I have thought long and hard over the Christmas period about what this crisis means, and the approach Scottish Labour takes to help tackle it.\n\n\"I have also considered what the speculation about my leadership does to our ability to get Labour's message across. This has become a distraction.\n\n\"I have come to the conclusion it is in the best interests of the party that I step aside as leader of Scottish Labour with immediate effect.\"\n\nHe also insisted that Scotland now needs a Labour government more than ever, and accused both the Scottish and UK governments of mishandling the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nMr Leonard added: \"While I step down from the leadership today, the work goes on - and I will play my constructive part as an MSP in winning support for Labour's vision of a better future in a democratic economy and a socialist society.\"\n\nHis decision leaves Scottish Labour looking for its fifth leader since the independence referendum in 2014 - with Johann Lamont, Jim Murphy and Kezia Dugdale all having held the job since then.\n\nA Procedures Committee, to oversee the election of Mr Leonard's successor, has been formed and will have its first meeting on Friday.\n\nMeanwhile, Labour's Scottish Executive Committee will also meet in the coming days to agree a timetable for the process.\n\nMSP Jackie Baillie, who was Scottish Labour's deputy leader, has taken charge of the party on an interim basis.\n\nThis sudden resignation four months from the Holyrood elections seems to have taken Scottish Labour by surprise.\n\nMSPs I've spoken to said they did not see it coming.\n\nThere have been times when Richard Leonard has been under severe pressure from some in his party to stand down.\n\nWhen several MSPs publicly called for him to quit because the party had gone backwards at successive elections on his watch, he stood firm.\n\nHis critics seemed to have accepted that he would lead them and a divided party into the Holyrood election.\n\nThat has now changed and interim leader Jackie Baillie has to quickly organise a contest to replace him.\n\nIt's a contest in which Anas Sarwar, if he stands, would be an obvious frontrunner - even although he lost last time to Mr Leonard, who was seen as much closer to the then UK party leader, Jeremy Corbyn.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Mr Leonard should be \"very proud\" of his achievements as leader of the party in Scotland.\n\nSir Keir added: \"I would like to thank Richard for his service to our party and his unwavering commitment to the values he believes in.\n\n\"Richard has led Scottish Labour through one of the most challenging and difficult periods in our country's history, including a general election and the pandemic.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Neil Findlay MSP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Leonard had been due to face a confidence vote at the party's ruling Executive Committee last September - but the motion was withdrawn at the last minute.\n\nIt came after four Scottish Labour MSPs called for him to go, warning that the party faced \"catastrophe\" at the ballot box under his leadership.\n\nThey pointed to the party's dismal performance in previous elections under Mr Leonard.\n\nScottish Labour finished fifth in the European election in May 2019, and then lost all but one of its MPs in the general election in December of the same year.\n\nMr Leonard insisted at the time that he intended to lead the party into this year's Holyrood election, and accused his opponents of waging \"internal war\" against him.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who faced Mr Leonard in her weekly question session in the Scottish Parliament, tweeted that she had \"always liked Richard Leonard\" despite their political difference.\n\nShe added: \"He is a decent guy and I wish him well for the future.\"\n\nRuth Davidson, who quit as leader of the Scottish Tories in 2019 before returning to lead the party at Holyrood, said she had always found Mr Leonard to be a \"thoroughly decent man and a committed campaigner.\"\n\nAnas Sarwar, who was defeated by Mr Leonard in the leadership contest in 2017 and is seen as one of the favourites to replace him, said he was sure Mr Leonard would \"continue to fight for a fairer, more just and more equal society today, tomorrow and long into the future.\"\n\nBut Labour MSP Neil Findlay, an outspoken supporter of Mr Leonard, took aim at those who had sought to oust him last year - describing them as \"flinching cowards\" and \"sneering traitors\".", "A rejuvenated Northumberland Line will help connect local communities to Newcastle city centre, say supporters\n\nTwo railway lines, closed to passengers since the 1960s, are to get almost £800m funding from the government.\n\nEast West Rail, which will eventually connect Oxford and Cambridge, will get £760m to open new parts of the line.\n\nThe Northumberland Line, which still carries freight, will get £34m for initial work aimed at reintroducing passenger services.\n\nReopening closed lines like these would help connect \"left-behind\" communities, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said.\n\n\"Restoring railways helps put communities back on the map and this investment forms part of our nationwide effort to build back vital connections and unlock access to jobs, education and housing,\" he said.\n\nThese investments would return these routes \"to their former glory\" and was part of the government's \"levelling up\" agenda, Mr Shapps added.\n\nDiesel engines will initially run on the lines, but Mr Shapps said he hoped more environmentally friendly trains, for example powered by hydrogen or new battery technology, would replace them in the future.\n\nWhen asked by the BBC why the lines wouldn't be electrified, he said these lines might potentially bypass the overhead wire technology altogether.\n\n\"We're building it in such a way that we can use, probably, the very latest technology, potentially, in the future,\" he said.\n\n\"The most important thing is the infrastructure,\" he said. \"It's about building the stations, things you need to do no matter what kind of train you're going to run on there, if it's going to take passengers.\"\n\nBut Labour MP Daniel Zeichner, who represents Cambridge, said: \"Every rail expert will tell you it will cost more later to electrify a line.\"\n\n\"In a time of climate emergency, we really shouldn't be building railway lines for diesel, it's got to be electric.\"\n\nThe line connecting Oxford and Cambridge would serve new housing developments, he said, and rail was \"the right way to get people in and out of a city like Cambridge\".\n\n\"It's very important for the UK economy, but it's got to be done in an environmentally sustainable way,\" he said. \"It seems crazy to be building new railways which aren't electrified in the first place, and I really hope the government will reconsider.\"\n\nThe East West Rail investment will rebuild a train line between Bicester and Bletchley which was closed in 1968.\n\nThe project is being delivered by a publicly-owned body called the East West Company.\n\nThe first phase of East West Rail, which was completed in 2016, connected Oxford and Bicester.\n\nBut at the moment, rail passengers wishing to go from Oxford to Bletchley have to take a detour via Coventry.\n\nThe aim is to get trains running between Oxford and Bletchley by 2025, with new stations at Winslow and Bletchley.\n\nThe Department for Transport said the works will create 1,500 jobs, and have a wider economic benefit for the area.\n\nThe eventual aim of the project, which the government expects to be completed by the end of the decade, is to connect Oxford and Cambridge by rail via Bedford, taking in Milton Keynes and Aylesbury on branches.\n\nThe Northumberland Line was closed to passengers in 1964 as part of a rationalisation of the railway network known as the Beeching cuts.\n\nHenri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said the Northumberland Line was \"a really critical piece of local infrastructure\" that would help bring people in south east Northumberland and north Tyneside closer to Newcastle city centre, and closer to well-paid jobs.\n\nPassengers would be able to take the train between Ashington and Newcastle\n\n\"Having better connectivity will help attract businesses to that area, and it will help to deliver genuine levelling-up,\" he said.\n\nThe new £34m investment, which aims to reopen the line between Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Ashington, will include funds for preparatory works and land acquisition.\n\nThere are plans for new stations at at Ashington, Bedlington, Blyth, Bebside, Newsham, Seaton Delaval, and Northumberland Park, in North Tyneside, as well as upgrades to the track and changes to level crossings where new bridges or underpasses were needed, the Department for Transport said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Supporters of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny protest against his arrest across Russia\n\nRussian police have detained more than 3,000 people in a crackdown on protests in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, monitors say.\n\nTens of thousands of people defied a heavy police presence to join some of the largest rallies against President Vladimir Putin in years.\n\nIn Moscow, riot police were seen beating and dragging away protesters.\n\nMr Navalny, President Putin's most high-profile critic, called for protests after his arrest last Sunday.\n\nHe was detained after he flew back to Moscow from Berlin, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal nerve agent attack in Russia last August.\n\nOn his return, he was immediately taken into custody and found guilty of violating parole conditions. He says it is a trumped-up case designed to silence him.\n\nOVD Info, an independent NGO that monitors rallies, said about 3,100 people had been detained, more than 1,200 of them in Moscow alone. The Kremlin has not commented.\n\nThe unauthorised demonstrations were held in about 100 cities and towns from Russia's Far East and Siberia to Moscow and St Petersburg. Protesters ranged from teenage students to elderly people who demanded Mr Navalny's release.\n\nAt least 40,000 people joined a rally in central Moscow, Reuters news agency estimated. But Russia's interior ministry put the number of protesters at 4,000.\n\nObservers say the scale of the demonstrations across the country was unprecedented while the protest in the capital was the largest in almost a decade.\n\nRiot police used batons against protesters in Moscow\n\nIn the city's Pushkin square, some protesters chanted \"Freedom to Navalny\" and \"Putin go away!\" One woman told the BBC she had decided to join the demonstration because \"Russia has been turned into a prison camp\".\n\nSergei Radchenko, a 53-year-old protester in Moscow, told Reuters: \"I'm tired of being afraid. I haven't just turned up for myself and Navalny, but for my son because there is no future in this country.\"\n\nLyubov Sobol, a prominent aide of Mr Navalny who had already been fined for urging Russians to join the protests, tweeted a video of police roughly pulling her away from an interview with reporters.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Соболь Любовь This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Navalny's wife, Yulia, was briefly held at the rally. She posted an image on her Instagram account with the caption: \"Apologies for the poor quality. Very bad light in the police van.\"\n\nSome protesters marched on the high-security prison where Mr Navalny is being held, and many were arrested.\n\nMeanwhile, one independent news source, Sota, said at least 3,000 people had joined a demonstration in the city of Vladivostok, but local authorities there put the figure at 500.\n\nAFP footage showed riot police running into a crowd, and beating some of the protesters with batons.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police used batons to break up protests in Vladivostok\n\nIn the Siberian city of Yakutsk, attendees at a small protest saw temperatures dip as low as -50C (-58F).\n\nPrior to the rallies, Russian authorities had promised a tough crackdown. Several of Mr Navalny's close aides, including his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh, were arrested earlier in the week.\n\nHis supporters called for more protests next weekend.\n\nThere were reports of disruption to mobile phone and internet coverage on Saturday, though it is not known if this was related to the protests.\n\nThe social media app TikTok had been flooded with videos promoting the demonstrations and sharing viral messages about Mr Navalny.\n\nIn response, Russia's official media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, demanded that TikTok take down any information \"encouraging minors to act illegally\", threatening large fines. The education ministry had told parents not to allow their children to attend any demonstrations.\n\nProtesters ignored extreme cold and threats of arrest in Moscow and other cities and towns\n\nIn a push to gain support ahead of the protests, Mr Navalny's team released a video about a luxury Black Sea resort that they allege belongs to President Putin - an accusation denied by the Kremlin. The video has been watched by more than 65 million people.\n\nThe UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, condemned the \"use of violence against peaceful protesters and journalists\" on Saturday, calling on the authorities to release those detained during peaceful demonstrations.\n\nThe US state department condemned what it called \"harsh tactics\" used against protesters and journalists, saying: \"We call on Russian authorities to release all those detained for exercising their universal rights and for the immediate and unconditional release of Aleksey Navalny\".\n\nThe EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc's foreign ministers would discuss the Russian crackdown on Monday. \"I deplore widespread detentions, disproportionate use of force, cutting down internet and phone connections.\"", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic. We'll have another update for you on Sunday morning.\n\nSenior doctors have asked England's chief medical officer to halve the current 12-week gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-Biontech Covid-19 vaccine. The wait was originally three weeks but was then extended, a decision which Prof Chris Whitty said would double the number of people receiving jabs. But, in a letter seen by the BBC, the British Medical Association said the delay was \"difficult to justify\". It comes after the prime minister revealed the UK variant of Covid-19 may be more deadly.\n\nEfforts to distribute the jab in the European Union have faced another setback after UK drug-maker AstraZeneca warned of supply issues. Vaccinations have already been halted in some parts of Europe due to a cut in deliveries of the Pfizer vaccine. Cases in many European countries are surging. Germany has reached 50,000 Covid deaths and Spain has seen record infections in recent weeks.\n\nElizabeth Kerr and Simon O'Brien were engaged to be married when they were taken to hospital in the same ambulance with Covid-19. As his condition worsened, staff at Milton Keynes University Hospital rallied to arrange a wedding for them - and they were able to marry moments before he was sedated and put on a ventilator. Mrs Kerr said she was told it could be their only chance.\"Those are words I never, ever want to hear again,\" she said.\n\nElizabeth Kerr and Simon O'Brien were married moments before he was put on a mechanical ventilator\n\nOn 23 January last year, the Chinese authorities severed transport links out of Wuhan and confined the city's population to their homes. Wuhan has long since recovered from the world's first outbreak of Covid-19. Its streets are bustling again. A year on, John Sudworth explores how it is now being remembered not as a disaster but as a victory, and with an insistence that the virus came from somewhere - anywhere - else.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Robin Brant visits the Wuhan market where Covid-19 was first traced\n\nMillions of us are less physically active than we were before Covid-19. For those working from home, days on end can be spent hunched over a laptop without ever leaving the house. A survey of people working remotely, by Opinium for the charity Versus Arthritis, found 81% of respondents were experiencing some back, neck or shoulder pain. Here are some tips that could help.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWondering when you might be able to get a vaccine? Health reporter Philippa Roxby takes you through what you need to know.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Questions should be asked if politicians who drank on Welsh Parliament premises during a pub alcohol ban can stand for re-election, an ex-standards official has said.\n\nSenedd Tory leader Paul Davies, Darren Millar and Labour's Alun Davies have apologised - they are not thought to have broken the rules, but the two Tories admitted it would not be seen as in their spirit.\n\nA fourth Senedd Member Nick Ramsay has denied being part of the gathering.", "Amy says her flat isn't worth anything until it is made safe\n\nThe government's fund to pay for the removal of dangerous cladding is woefully inadequate, oversubscribed and taking too long to make buildings safe, campaigners say.\n\nMore than three and a half years since the Grenfell Tower fire which killed 72 people, an estimated 700,000 people are still living in high-rise blocks with flammable cladding.\n\nThe £1.6bn Building Safety Programme was set up in 2019. Concerns have emerged about the contract that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government requires applicants to the fund, usually managing agents or building owners, to sign.\n\nA clause in the contract, seen by the BBC, indicates applicants will be financially liable for any repair work not covered by the fund.\n\nThe BBC has learnt that some managing agents are refusing to sign the document, further delaying the repair work, and have written to the government asking ministers to clarify the position.\n\nChristian Hansen, a solicitor at Bindmans LLP specialising in housing law and fire safety claims, said the contract showed that \"there's going to be a significant shortfall between the costs of the [repair] works that are required and the funding provided under the scheme\".\n\n\"Someone is going to need to pick up the bill and pay the difference. This contract makes clear it's going to be the leaseholders and for many, this could be tens of thousands of pounds, potentially ruinous costs,\" he warned.\n\nMr Hansen said that leaseholders wanted the focus of government action \"to be on the manufacturers of the defective materials and construction companies who built these buildings\".\n\n\"At the moment, they are the ones profiting from putting people's lives at risk.\"\n\n\"It is absolutely terrifying knowing that you are stuck here,\" says Amy\n\nFirst-time buyer Amy Cottenden, who is 28, bought a one-bed flat in Metis Tower in the centre of Sheffield for £85,000 in 2017.\n\nInspections of the 14-storey building in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy revealed it had the same type of flammable ACM cladding and other safety faults.\n\nWork to remove the cladding started last month, but Ms Cottenden, who is a frontline NHS health worker, is frustrated at what she describes as a lack of progress.\n\n\"The pace of work is extremely slow. So far, they've put scaffolding up and removed three panels. They have told us it's going to take between 12 and 24 months just to take the cladding off,\" she said.\n\n\"It is absolutely terrifying knowing that you are stuck here. With lockdown, they are saying not to go out, but you are in a building where all you want to do is not be in it. You can't leave. You can't sell. My flat isn't worth anything until it is made safe.\"\n\nWhile the government's Building Safety Fund is paying for the Grenfell-style cladding to be removed, the building has other fire safety faults, including missing fire breaks, that aren't covered by the scheme.\n\nIt could cost up to £6m to fix. Flat owners fear they may face huge bills of up to £50,000 each.\n\n\"We can't pay it and we shouldn't have to pay it. It is not our fault. We could all go bankrupt because of this,\" Ms Cottenden said.\n\nA spokesperson for Rendall & Rittner, the company which manages Metis Tower, said government funding to remove ACM cladding had been approved totalling £6.3m.\n\nHowever, an application to the same fund to pay for the removal of other types of unsafe cladding was rejected and the company has appealed against that decision.\n\nThe company added: \"We understand and sympathise with residents and owners about the uncertainty that this situation is causing and will do all we can to assist.\"\n\nWhat started as a cladding scandal has now become a much wider building safety crisis, exposing decades of regulatory failure.\n\nSafety inspections have revealed that many buildings have other serious faults, including missing fire breaks, flammable balconies and defective insulation. None of that is covered by the government's Building Safety Fund.\n\nDr Nigel Glen, the chief executive of ARMA, the trade association for residential leasehold management, said the additional costs that leaseholders were currently facing for non-cladding-related issues remained a huge concern.\n\n\"In the longer term, the draining of reserve funds will also mean that in the years to come, any major works that were being saved up for, such as a new roof or lift repairs, will have to be funded anew by the leaseholders,\" he added.\n\nA spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said that despite the pandemic, significant progress had been made to remove dangerous cladding, but \"building safety remains the responsibility of the building owner and we expect them to ensure any necessary work is carried out safely and effectively\".\n\n\"All applicants to the Building Safety Fund are told the amount of funding they have been awarded before being asked to sign contracts - this is clearly explained in the guidance,\" the spokesperson added.", "Scientists say signs a new coronavirus variant is more deadly than the earlier version should not be a \"game changer\" in the UK's response to the pandemic.\n\nBoris Johnson has said there is \"some evidence\" the variant may be associated with \"a higher degree of mortality\".\n\nBut the co-author of the study the PM was referring to said the variant's deadliness remained an \"open question\".\n\nAnother adviser said he was surprised Mr Johnson had shared the findings when the data was \"not particularly strong\".\n\nA third top medic said it was \"too early\" to be \"absolutely clear\".\n\nAt a Downing Street coronavirus news conference on Friday, the prime minister said: \"In addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant - the variant that was first identified in London and the South East - may be associated with a higher degree of mortality.\"\n\nSpeaking alongside the PM, the government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said there was \"a lot of uncertainty around these numbers\" but that early evidence suggested the variant could be about 30% more deadly.\n\nFor example, Sir Patrick said if 1,000 men in their 60s were infected with the old variant, roughly 10 of them would be expected to die - but this rises to about 13 with the new variant.\n\nThe announcement followed a briefing by scientists on the government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) which concluded there was a \"realistic possibility\" that the variant was associated with an increased risk of death.\n\nBut one of the briefing's co-authors, Prof Graham Medley, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"The question about whether it is more dangerous in terms of mortality I think is still open.\"\n\n\"In terms of making the situation worse it is not a game changer. It is a very bad thing that is slightly worse,\" added Prof Medley, who is a professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.\n\nAnother 1,348 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were reported in the UK on Saturday, in addition to 33,552 new infections, according to the government's coronavirus dashboard.\n\nThere is huge uncertainty in the evidence on how lethal the variant is.\n\nThe scientific experts that reviewed the data used a precise phrase saying it was a \"realistic possibility\" the new variant is more deadly.\n\nThat means there's a roughly 50-50 chance it will turn out to be true.\n\nWith time, and sadly more deaths, the picture will become clearer.\n\nWhile people debate the uncertainties though, we already know this variant has the ability to kill more people than the old ones.\n\nA virus that spreads faster (this one is 30-70% faster) will infect more people, more quickly, putting a greater strain on hospitals and leading to a sharper spike in deaths.\n\nIt is why viruses becoming more transmissible can be a bigger problem than ones becoming more deadly.\n\nNervtag's chairman Prof Peter Horby defended the government's \"transparency\" in making the announcement.\n\n\"Scientists are looking at the possibility that there is increased severity... and after a week of looking at the data we came to the conclusion that it was a realistic possibility,\" he said.\n\n\"We need to be transparent about that. If we were not telling people about this we would be accused of covering it up.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Patrick Vallance: \"There is evidence that there's an increased risk for those who have the new variant\"\n\nBut Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of Sage subgroup the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), agreed it was too early to draw \"strong conclusions\" as the suggested increased mortality rates were based on \"a relatively small amount of data\".\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast he was \"actually quite surprised\" Mr Johnson had made the early findings public rather than monitoring the data \"for a week or two more\".\n\n\"I just worry that where we report things pre-emptively where the data are not really particularly strong,\" Dr Tildesley added.\n\nPublic Health England medical director Dr Yvonne Doyle also said it was not \"absolutely clear\" the new variant was more deadly than the original.\n\n\"There is some evidence, but it is very early evidence. It is small numbers of cases and it is far too early to say,\" she told the Today programme.\n\nMeanwhile, senior doctors are calling on England's chief medical officer to cut the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nThe British Medical Association told Prof Chris Whitty an extension to the maximum gap between jab from three weeks to 12 weeks, to get the first dose to more people, was \"difficult to justify\".", "In 2002 Julienne created a motor stunt show that ran for many years at Disney theme parks in Paris and Florida. Image caption: In 2002 Julienne created a motor stunt show that ran for many years at Disney theme parks in Paris and Florida.\n\nRémy Julienne, one of the world's best-known stuntmen, has died in France with coronavirus, aged 90.\n\nOver a 50-year career, Julienne devised the crashes, crunches and collisions witnessed in more than 1,400 films.\n\nHe also starred in many of them, albeit anonymously.\n\nThe legendary cascadeur (stunt performer) appeared as a body double for a host of stars, including Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Charles Bronson and Jean-Paul Belmondo.\n\nIn wig and appropriate clothing, he also took on the form of Sophia Loren, Carole Bouquet and Gina Lollobrigida.\n\nAmong his most famous works are the chase scenes in 1969's The Italian Job, in which a fleet of Mini-Coopers in Turin cross a river, dive into the metro and jump from the roof of the Fiat factory.\n\nHe also worked on six Bond films, notably going behind the wheel of a battered yellow Citroën 2CV in For Your Eyes Only.\n\nA life-long lover of motorbikes and anything driven at speed, Julienne specialised in spectacular destruction. But he was committed to the maximum elimination of risk and calculated his stunts with extreme precision.\n\n\"What is beautiful about the job is that you can never be 100% certain,\" he said. \"If you could, then frankly it wouldn't be interesting.", "Keon Lincoln died after being subjected to \"inconceivable violence\"\n\nA second boy has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a 15-year-old who was attacked by a group of youths.\n\nKeon Lincoln was \"set upon\" at about 15:30 GMT on Thursday on Linwood Road in Handsworth, Birmingham, and died later in hospital, police said.\n\nA 14-year-old boy was arrested at a Birmingham address on Friday and is in custody, said West Midlands Police.\n\nAnother 14-year-old, arrested earlier on Friday, also remains in custody.\n\nDet Ch Insp Alastair Orencas, who is leading a murder inquiry, said Keon died \"in the most violent of circumstances\".\n\nThe latest arrest was \"another step forward and Keon's family have been fully updated with this latest development,\" he said.\n\n\"This is a challenging investigation given the number of offenders we believe were involved, but I have a dedicated team of officers working 24/7 to identify those involved and we are making swift progress.\"\n\nKeon was attacked on Linwood Road, a residential street in the Handsworth area of Birmingham\n\nThe attackers fled the scene in a car which crashed into a house a short distance away. Police have seized the vehicle.\n\nCordons placed at the scene in Linwood Road and Wheeler Street, where the car was abandoned, have now been lifted, said the West Midlands force.\n\nPolice confirmed Keon, who lived locally, was attacked with weapons but did not specify which sort.\n\nDetectives say they are unable to say how he died before a post-mortem examination takes place.\n\nAnyone who could identify the attackers has been urged to contact the force.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police released body-worn camera footage of people streaming from the premises\n\nTwo officers were injured as they broke up an \"incredibly selfish\" party, involving about 200 people, in one of London's most expensive neighbourhoods.\n\nOfficers investigated an address on Beauchamp Place, Kensington, at about 03.30 GMT on 17 January, following reports of a mass gathering.\n\nAttendees became hostile and pushed through to avoid being fined, injuring two officers, police said.\n\nThe owner has previously been issued with a £1,000 fine, police said.\n\nPolice discovered about 200 guests at a party on Beauchamp Place, Kensington\n\nSupt Michael Walsh said: \"Attending or organising such parties during this critical period is an incredibly selfish decision to make.\n\n\"While the majority of breaches have been resolved without incident, it deeply saddens me that some individuals have chosen to assault police who are simply doing their part in the collective battle against this deadly virus.\"\n\nPolice said the event was one of a string of late-night parties uncovered in Kensington over the last month.\n\nOn 20 December, police shut down an illegal gathering at a commercial property on Montpelier Street. The property has since been closed.\n\nAn owner of a venue on Harrow Road is facing a £10,000 fine after police found more than 30 socialising during a raid on 16 January.\n\nOn Thursday, police also broke up a wedding party in north London.\n\nThe Met Police originally claimed about 400 guests were at the gathering, but then on Friday said 150 people were present at the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The number of coronavirus patients on mechanical ventilation in the UK has passed 4,000 for the first time in the pandemic.\n\nA total of 4,076 Covid patients were in ventilator beds as of Friday, according to government data.\n\nThat is higher than during the first wave, when the peak was 3,301 on 12 April.\n\nIt comes as another 1,348 deaths and 33,552 new infections were reported on Saturday.\n\nThe UK's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, told a Downing Street news briefing on Friday: \"The death rate's awful and it's going to stay, I'm afraid, high for a little while before it starts coming down.\"\n\nMeanwhile, new figures show that a record number of seriously-ill Covid patients are being transferred from over-stretched hospitals because of a lack of bed space.\n\nAbout 1 in 10 patients admitted to intensive care are being sent to a different site, according to the body which audits critical care services.\n\nIn a series of reports in the past week, the BBC's Clive Myrie has been to a mortuary and the Royal London Hospital, where 12 out of 15 floors are occupied by Covid patients and staff are struggling to cope.\n\nMartin Freeborn's wife Helen, 64, died with Covid-19 at the hospital shortly before he spoke to the BBC.\n\nMr Freeborn urged people to \"be over-careful\" in taking precautions to stay safe from the virus because \"you don't want this to happen\".\n\n\"Nobody wants to go through this... Don't end up like us, please,\" he added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Martin Freeborn's wife, Helen, died from Covid at the Royal London Hospital: 'Don't end up like us, please'\n\nThe number of people in mechanical ventilation beds has climbed every day since 18 December when it was 1,364 and now stands at 4,076.\n\nIt is one of the key figures the government considers when deciding its policy on when to ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions.\n\nWhen the pandemic first struck the UK, the government saw what had happened in hospitals in China and Italy and prioritised the provision of ventilators in British hospitals.\n\nIt set about buying as many ventilators as possible, and encouraged British manufacturers to design the machines to build stocks to cope with the worst-case Covid scenario. In September last year, a report found the NHS now had 30,000 ventilators available - about one for every 2,200 people in the UK.\n\nPeople in hospital are also being treated differently from the early days of the pandemic - which may explain why figures suggest slightly more people go on to recover after being on ventilation than back in March, April and May.\n\nA number of drugs are being tested as possible treatments for people with the disease, the BBC's health and science correspondent James Gallagher has said.\n\nThey include the steroid dexamethasone, which has been shown to reduce the risk of death by a third for ventilated patients and by a fifth for those on oxygen. Encouraging results have also been reported from two anti-inflammatory medications, tocilizumab and sarilumab.\n\nDr Ami Jones, intensive care consultant at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, in Wales, said there had been \"carnage\" for the \"last few weeks\".\n\nSpeaking whilst on shift, she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"We're maybe at 150% capacity and I know London are much worse than that.\n\n\"We've a steady stream of fit, young patients requiring critical care and sadly we're losing some of those patients.\n\n\"We lost a patient overnight and I've replaced them with a patient of similar age.\n\n\"It's heartbreaking - and it's been going on for weeks and weeks and we haven't seen any kind of stop yet.\"\n\nDr Jones said the average Covid patient stays in hospital between two to four weeks \"and it really puts them through it\".\n\nShe added: \"You really want people who are going to be able to survive that three or four weeks and actually come out the other end and make a good recovery.\n\n\"We're not stopping people having care but we're giving it to the people we feel have the best chance of getting through what is a horrific situation we're going to put them through.\"\n\nDr Jones said nurses are \"broken\", both physically, from months of long shifts in personal protective equipment (PPE), and emotionally - partly due to the impact of the virus on them, their families and the community.\n\nDr Rupert Pearse, consultant in intensive care medicine at a London hospital, speaking on behalf of the Intensive Care Society, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that a \"huge number\" of patients were still attending hospital.\n\nHe said: \"Whilst we know the infection rate has probably now peaked, and we can be hopeful to soon be sure we've hit a hospital admissions peak, admissions to ICU [the intensive care unit] usually lag 48 hours behind that.\n\n\"So we're still very very worried that we're being pushed right up to the wire in terms of the resources we're able to deliver for patient care.\"\n\nDr Pearse added that there were three or four times more critical care beds in some hospitals than they would usually have.\n\nHe said: \"I can remember a time when it would take years for an intensive care unit to negotiate one extra bed on a complement of 14 or 15 beds.\n\n\"We, within a few weeks, have massively increased the number of beds and finding the staff - most importantly of all - to deliver that has been a huge logistical exercise.\"\n\nReacting to the ventilation figures, Dr Charlotte Hopkins, deputy chief medical officer for Barts Health NHS trust in east London, said on Twitter there had been a \"fast-paced increase\" since 18 December, and that more than a third of the 4,076 ventilated patients were in London.\n\nIt comes as some scientists said that signs a new Covid variant is more deadly than the earlier version should not be a \"game changer\" in the UK's response to the pandemic.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday that there was \"some evidence\" the variant that emerged in the UK may be associated with \"a higher degree of mortality\".\n\nBut Prof Graham Medley, the co-author of the study the PM was referring to, said the variant's deadliness remained an \"open\" question.\n\nDr Mike Tildesley, a member of Sage subgroup the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), said he was \"surprised\" Mr Johnson had shared the findings when the data was \"not particularly strong\".\n\nPublic Health England medical director Dr Yvonne Doyle said it was \"too early\" to be \"absolutely clear\".\n\n\"There is some evidence, but it is very early evidence. It is small numbers of cases and it is far too early to say,\" she told the Today programme.\n\nUp to and including 22 January, 5,861,351 people have now had their first Covid jab and 468,617 have had their second dose.\n\nSenior doctors are calling on England's chief medical officer to cut the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nThe British Medical Association told Prof Chris Whitty an extension to the maximum gap between jab from three weeks to 12 weeks, to get the first dose to more people, was \"difficult to justify\".\n\nThe UK's four chief medical officers have previously defended the delay to the second jab in a letter to medical staff, saying: \"unvaccinated people are far more likely to end up severely ill, hospitalised [or] in some cases dying\".", "Even while posted at the US Capitol, many troops have been seen sleeping on the floor\n\nUS President Joe Biden has apologised after some members of the National Guard stationed at the Capitol were pictured sleeping in a car park.\n\nMore than 25,000 troops were deployed to Washington DC for his inauguration after violence earlier this month.\n\nImages spread on Thursday showing them forced to rest in a nearby parking garage after lawmakers returned.\n\nThe conditions sparked anger among politicians, and some state governors recalled troops over the controversy.\n\nMr Biden called the chief of the National Guard Bureau on Friday to apologise and ask what could be done, according to US media reports.\n\nFirst Lady Jill Biden also visited some of the troops to thank them personally, bringing biscuits from the White House as a gift.\n\n\"I just wanted to come today to say thank you to all of you for keeping me and my family safe,\" she said.\n\nThe photographs showing hundreds of troops in a parking garage went viral on Thursday and sparked outrage, including from members of Congress.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Tim Scott This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMany voiced concerns about the conditions, with guardsmen exposed to car fumes and without proper access to facilities like toilets after having been on alert for days.\n\nImages of the cramped conditions also sparked fears about the spread of coronavirus.\n\nA US official, speaking anonymously to Reuters news agency, said on Friday that between 100 and 200 of those deployed had tested positive for Covid-19. The figure - which would represent a small proportion of the more than 25,000 deployed, has not been publicly confirmed.\n\nChuck Schumer, a Democrat and the new Senate majority leader, said that the move was \"an outrage\" and pledged it \"will never happen again\".\n\nRon DeSantis, Florida's governor, was among those who said he had ordered guards from his state to return home following the controversy.\n\n\"This is a half-cocked mission at this point and the appropriate thing is to bring them home,\" he told Fox News on Friday.\n\nThe Senate Rules Committee is also investigating the issue, Senator Roy Blunt told Politico.\n\nThere are conflicting reports about why the troops were moved from the Capitol.\n\nA National Guard spokesman told US media they were moved on Thursday afternoon at the request of the Capitol Police because of \"increased foot traffic\" as Congress came back into session.\n\nThe acting chief of the Capitol Police, Yogananda Pittman, later said her agency \"did not instruct the National Guard to vacate the Capitol Building facilities\", while two officers contradicted her statement in comments to the Associated Press news agency.\n\nThe decision was reversed later on Thursday, when the troops were allowed to return to the Capitol.\n\nA joint statement from the US National Guard and US Capitol Police on Friday said they had worked together to make sure those in the Capitol Complex had \"appropriate spaces\" to take on-duty breaks.\n\nThey also said off-duty troops were being housed in hotel rooms or other accommodation and thanked members of Congress for their concern.\n\nSome 19,000 guardsmen will return to their home states in the coming days with about 7,000 expected to stay on in Washington, according to the New York Times.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Relatives of older people in Wales called the vaccinations \"poorly organised\"\n\nRural GPs are to run new community vaccination centres after concerns over the speed of the roll-out in Wales.\n\nFrom Saturday, three new vaccination hubs will open to give over-80s and those with mobility issues the jab.\n\nIt comes after some living in rural areas said they had been told to travel miles to get the jab or wait weeks to have their first dose.\n\nHealth Minister Vaughan Gething said it would help immunise hundreds of over-80s this weekend.\n\nThere has been criticism of the speed of the roll-out in Wales, with some telling the BBC elderly and housebound relatives had been told there would be a wait if they could not get to their GP surgery.\n\nA total of 212,317 people have been given their first dose of vaccine in Wales, up to 21 January - just over 6.7% of the population.\n\nThe Welsh Government hopes to have 70% of over-80s immunised by the end of this weekend.\n\nBy 21 January, 30% of the over-80s and 60% of care home residents had been given the first dose.\n\nOn Saturday, the Welsh Government announced doctors surgeries in rural areas would join forces to help administer the jab to the elderly and vulnerable.\n\nThe first of the new community centres, run by clusters of GP practices, are to open on the Llyn Peninsula, in Buckley in Flintshire, and Bridgend.\n\nThey will be able to administer both the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines.\n\nUntil now, the Pfizer vaccine could only be administered at special mass-vaccination centres, due to the low temperatures it needs to be stored at.\n\nThe Welsh Government said it hoped 3,000 people would get the vaccine administered at the centres this weekend.\n\nHealth Minister Vaughan Gething said: \"Vaccination is our top priority so I want to thank all the GP practices right across Wales that are working in unison to set up these new community vaccination centres.\n\n\"This enables GPs to use both of the vaccines available to us and will help more people to be vaccinated somewhere that is much closer to home than the large vaccination centres.\n\n\"Every week, our vaccination programme speeds up as more centres are opened and more vaccines are available for the small army of healthcare professionals administering vaccines.\"\n\nIn north Wales, a group of GPs have formed a group to deliver about 1,000 vaccines to elderly and vulnerable people.\n\nDr Eilir Hughes, a GP at Ty Doctor Surgery, Gwynedd, said rural GPs had faced a \"real challenge\" to get the most vulnerable patients vaccinated as soon as possible.\n\nThe surgery is about 50 miles away from the nearest vaccination centre in north-west Wales.\n\nHe said bringing three GP practices together to vaccinate hundreds of patients in two days was a \"Herculean effort\".", "Helen White's lighting business is struggling to absorb a six-fold increase in freight costs.\n\n\"We were paying £1,600 per container in November, this month we've been quoted over £10,000,\" says Helen White.\n\nThe founder of start-up Houseof.com, which imports lighting from China, says the rise in shipping costs means she's making a loss on what she sells.\n\nShe's one of many UK importers facing soaring freight costs amid a global shipping crisis that may last months.\n\nA shortage of empty shipping containers in Asia and bottlenecks at the UK's deep sea ports are behind the problems.\n\nIt was hoped the backlogs could be cleared during the Chinese New Year holiday in February, but instead a coronavirus outbreak in China is adding to the uncertainty facing firms.\n\nIn the UK the difficulties in international shipping have coincided with problems faced by businesses trading with the EU after Brexit.\n\nOne Manchester-based freight forwarder said the logistics industry is facing the most challenging conditions he's seen in the 17 years he's been in the business.\n\nCraig Poole from Cardinal Maritime said during lockdowns, people have been turning to online shopping, and that's causing a surge in demand for goods from China.\n\nFreight forwarder Craig Poole says the logistics industry is facing hugely challenging conditions\n\nBut some companies can't absorb the skyrocketing freight costs that shipping lines are charging. That could lead to higher prices for consumers or businesses having to close.\n\n\"The really unfortunate thing is, the small businesses who can't afford to pay those rates are going to go under as a result,\" Mr Poole said.\n\nHelen White's lighting range is designed in the UK and manufactured in Guangzhou, China.\n\nShe said the six-fold increase in shipping costs is hard to take, especially when getting hold of a container \"is like gold dust\".\n\n\"It's really hard for a small business to absorb those costs. We'll be making a loss on the goods we're selling.\"\n\nLighting seller houseof.com is struggling to import stock from China\n\nAt the other end of the supply chain, Chinese manufacturers and logistics firms say they are equally frustrated.\n\nJohnny Tseng is the owner and director of Hong Kong-based J&B Clothing Company Ltd., which manufactures garments for some of the UK's most popular fashion sites including Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing.\n\nHe's been supplying clothes to British retailers for more than 40 years, but he says his family-run firm won't be able to absorb inflated shipping rates for much longer.\n\n\"To be honest I don't even know how we can survive if we carry on shipping things at this kind of cost.\"\n\nJohnny Tseng says sky-high shipping rates are putting his business at risk.\n\nHe says he's now being quoted $14,000 to ship a container to the UK, when the usual price is $2,500.\n\nThe shortage of empty containers in China and congestion at UK ports caused some of his stock to miss the busy Christmas trading period. Now some customers are holding orders for their Autumn-Winter collections until next year.\n\n\"It's chaos,\" he said. \"We are making a loss. We take it as a loss leader and keep our fingers crossed it will go back to normal after Chinese New Year, but it is a major issue if it persists this way.\"\n\nUsually during the Chinese New Year holiday, factories in China shut down for two weeks. There were hopes the pause in production would give UK ports a chance to clear the backlog of ships waiting to dock, and encourage shipping lines to move more empty containers back to Asia, which is a less profitable journey.\n\nChinese workers usually travel home for the Chinese New Year holiday.\n\nBut rising numbers of coronavirus cases have prompted the Chinese authorities to stagger factory closing dates so that not all workers are travelling to their home regions at the same time. A worsening outbreak could lead to travel restrictions, in which case some factories may not stop production at all.\n\nCraig Poole says some companies have been caught out by factories closing earlier than planned.\n\n\"A lot of businesses that can't get those goods away are delaying orders until after Chinese New Year, so this situation could continue 'til March,\" he said.\n\nPatrick Lee from the Hong Kong-based Unique Logistics International said it could be even longer than that.\n\n\"Middle of the year at the earliest is what we're hearing from end customers in the UK, and also from some of our people in the industry. Some of the carriers as well,\" he said.\n\nMr Lee has called on the shipping lines to add more ships to help ease the backlog of stock orders building up at warehouses across China.\n\n\"They are increasing sailing but can increase a lot more. There are idle ships out there that they can reactivate without too much difficulty,\" he said.\n\nThe disruption could last for several months, according to logistics specialist Patrick Lee\n\nBut a spokeswoman for the World Shipping Council said carriers are using all available capacity.\n\n\"The demand for transportation service far exceeds supply. As in any free market, this puts upward pressure on rates,\" she said.\n\nShipping lines have been trying to drive down demand from British importers by charging a premium for deliveries to the UK, or bypassing the country's ports altogether.\n\nOne shipping line recently offered freight rates of $12,050 for a 40ft container from China to Southampton, but charged just $8,450 for the same container to travel from China to Rotterdam, Hamburg, or Antwerp.\n\nThe UK's largest container port at Felixstowe has been experiencing long delays since October. Congestion has also been a problem at the Port of Southampton, albeit to a lesser extent.\n\nThe bottlenecks were initially caused by a surge in imports as business activity picked up after the first wave of the pandemic. Huge shipments of PPE and the usual Christmas rush added to container volumes and ports struggled to cope.\n\nThe UK's largest container port at Felixstowe has been experiencing bottlenecks for months\n\n\"Most of the carriers just don't want UK cargo because of the issues when the vessels dock, so mainly they're favouring European ports and we are having to truck containers over,\" said freight forwarder Craig Poole.\n\nHe said that adds a cost of up to £2,000 per container, and takes an extra seven to ten days to reach the delivery point in the UK.\n\nFor business-owners like Helen White, the difficulties affecting the shipping industry can't be solved quickly enough.\n\n\"Lots of little start-ups are really hurting,\" she said. \"It has been paired with logistical nightmares across Europe as well. It just feels like logistics is falling apart at the moment. It's hard to see where the resolution is.\"", "Paul Davies had been preparing to lead his party's Senedd election campaign in the coming months\n\nPaul Davies has been something of an understated figure leading the Welsh Conservative group in Cardiff Bay since he won the race to succeed Andrew RT Davies in September 2018.\n\nThe Senedd member for Preseli Pembrokeshire tried to move the party group in the direction of being more sceptical of devolution.\n\nBut a row over drinking on Senedd premises ended his ambitions to be the first Conservative first minister of Wales.\n\nBorn in 1969, Paul Davies grew up in the village of Pontsian in Ceredigion.\n\nHe attended Llandysul Grammar School and Newcastle Emlyn Comprehensive School before working for a bank for 20 years.\n\nMr Davies entered Cardiff Bay politics in 2007 when he was elected to the then National Assembly for Wales. He was appointed deputy leader of the Welsh Conservative group in 2011 before becoming interim leader and then leader in 2018.\n\nPaul Davies backed Boris Johnson in the UK Conservative leadership campaign in 2019\n\nPresented as a safe pair of hands during his leadership campaign he has, at times, almost appeared to have been overshadowed by his predecessor Andrew RT Davies, who sometimes seems to enjoy media appearances more than his leader.\n\nFaced with the potential rise of the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, Paul Davies attempted to steer the Welsh Tories towards a more devo-sceptic, if not anti-devolution, approach.\n\nHe pledged a future Conservative Welsh Government would not \"tread on Westminster's turf\", and \"respect what is not devolved\" by \"unpicking\" the Welsh Government's international relations department.\n\nThere were also promises to halve the current number of Welsh ministers to seven, freeze civil servant recruitment and not increase the budget of the body which runs the Senedd if he became first minister.\n\nWelsh political structures need a \"dose\" of Dominic Cummings, Paul Davies has said\n\nBut the coronavirus pandemic has, arguably, made it even harder for opposition party leaders in the Senedd to cut through to the wider electorate.\n\nThe crisis has given Labour First Minister Mark Drakeford a much bigger profile, on a Wales and UK stage, making it more difficult for other Welsh party leaders to get onto the news agenda.\n\nLast July, there were raised eyebrows when Paul Davies suggested \"a dose of Dom\" was needed in Wales to \"shake up\" its governance.\n\nThe reference to the prime minister's now departed chief advisor and brutal political operator Dominic Cummings was interesting, given the criticism heaped on Mr Cummings a couple of months earlier for driving his family 260 miles from his London home to Durham during lockdown, and a subsequent 25-mile trip to check his eyesight before a return trip.\n\nBacking Remain at the 2016 referendum on EU membership, Paul Davies aimed to steer a steady course during a fractious period for a Conservative Party dealing with the polarising issue of Brexit.\n\nHe has been loyal to the UK party leader of the day, and often stuck to the Westminster line rather than try to carve an independent stance.\n\nDespite this, Mr Davies had wanted the Tory Senedd group leader to be given the title Welsh Conservative leader.\n\nIt is something the party has never formally agreed to do despite a review of its Welsh structures.", "Up to 500 new prison cells are to be built in women's jails, the Ministry of Justice has announced.\n\nThese will be built in existing women's prisons to increase the number of single cells available and improve conditions.\n\nThey will include in-cell showers, and some will enable women to have overnight visits with their children to prepare for life at home after release.\n\nIn future, older cells could also be shut if the prison population reduces.\n\nThe Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has also pledged almost £2m in funding to 38 charities so their \"vital work in steering women away from crime can continue\".\n\nThis may include addressing mental health problems and drug use, both of which affect around half of women in prison.\n\nPrisons minister Lucy Frazer said: \"This funding boost will allow frontline services to continue the incredible work they do with some of the most vulnerable women in our society to prevent them being drawn into crime.\"\n\nAnnouncing the funding, the government reiterated its promise to cut the number of women in custody and provide effective support to deal with problems which could lead to crime in the first place or reoffending.\n\nBut it admitted there could be a temporary rise of inmates in the near future as the number of investigations and prosecutions is expected to increase amid the hiring of 20,000 more police officers.\n\nIt added that the number of women in custody has fallen by 10% since 2010 and stressed that government investment in community services should see this trend continue in the long-term.\n\nIf the number of women in prison falls longer term, the MoJ says the new modern facilities will allow the Prison Service to close old accommodation.\n\nCampaigners largely welcomed the announcement, but warned the efforts do not go far enough to tackle longstanding problems.\n\nKate Paradine, chief executive of charity Women in Prison, said: \"This pledge and funding are just the start, and a far cry from what is needed in order to provide stability for women who face the sharp end of our society.\"\n\nShe called on the government in its upcoming Budget to safeguard the future of women's centres, which she described as an \"anchor that stop women being swept up into crime\" but warned were \"facing a funding cliff edge in April\".\n\nEmily Evison, policy officer at the Prison Reform Trust, said the plans would need to be backed up by \"action on the ground to prove effective\", adding: \"Instead of planning for a rise (in women prisoners), the government should redouble its efforts to ensure women are not being sent to prison to serve pointless short sentences.\"\n\nAndrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: \"If the goal is to reduce the number of women entering the criminal justice system, then today's announcement shows that ministers are looking at the issue down the wrong end of a telescope\", claiming the funding promised was \"dwarfed\" by the cost of the extra prison places.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Teresa Dalling says a river of orange water rushed through the village on Thursday\n\nFlood victims will not be able to return to their homes until their safety can be assured, a council leader has said.\n\nThe Coal Authority has said initial checks suggested water built up in a mine shaft causing a \"blow out\" that flooded properties in Skewen, Neath Port Talbot.\n\nAbout 80 people were evacuated as water rushed through the village on Thursday.\n\nCouncil leader Rob Jones said it was unlikely residents could return Monday.\n\nHe said underground investigations would begin on Saturday and the work could take two to three days.\n\n\"Safety is the paramount concern for us,\" he said.\n\n\"Because we can't guarantee the site safety - that's the reason why people will remain away from their properties until such time as we can give the all clear.\n\n\"We don't know what the water has done underground.\"\n\nThe fire service said on Saturday morning the pumping operation was \"making good progress\".\n\nMr Jones told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast people may be able to return next week but \"did not want to raise hopes\" it will be Monday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHe said the flooding was \"more than likely\" related to old mine workings with six mines known about in area. He said the industry dated back 300 years.\n\nSkewen resident John Thomas returned home from a funeral with wife Lynne on Thursday to find their house had turned into \"a lake\".\n\nHe said: \"The water was around the level of the bottom of the doors so we couldn't go in, so we just had to stand there and watch this orange-coloured water just piling up and up and up.\n\n\"Other people who were evacuated had the chance to move things upstairs, I didn't have a chance to do that because I couldn't get in to it.\"\n\nAt least 80 people had to leave their homes in the village after flooding\n\nLocal MP Stephen Kinnock said affected residents were staying in \"lots of different places\" across the region.\n\nAnd he praised the \"extraordinary\" generosity of the community and the support of the Salvation Army with donations of food, clothing and toiletries.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Stephen Kinnock This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNatural Resources Wales (NRW) said officers were continuing to look at how to minimise the risk of pollution to nearby rivers, and investigating any impacts on the River Neath.\n\nThe Coal Authority, which manages the effects of past coal mining, is investigating the incident.\n\nChief executive Lisa Pinney said equipment, due on site on Saturday, would be used to drill into mine workings to \"fully investigate what has happened\".\n\n\"The blow out is likely to have been caused by a blockage underground which has caused water to back up and to break out using the easiest path,\" she said.\n\n\"The excessive rainfall of the past few days and the prolonged rainfall this winter, will have put additional pressure on the system.\n\n\"We know that people will want to get back to their homes and we will continue to progress these works as soon as possible, but public safety has to come first.\"\n\nThere are a number of historical mine workings in Skewen dating back beyond 1850.\n\nOn Saturday, Mr Jones said water was still pouring out of the affected site so workers were diverting it, while machines cleared gulleys and drains to give the water the chance to enter drainage systems.\n\nA residents' incident support centre has been set up at Abbey Primary School to offer help and information over the weekend, between 09:00-17:00 GMT.\n\nThe council has asked residents to be \"patient as the investigation continues\" and has set up a helpline. Tel. 01639 686868.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "It is not clear if anyone not entitled succeeded in getting a Covid jab\n\nA health board boss has criticised council staff for potentially sharing Covid vaccine invites with colleagues.\n\nThe board meeting in North Wales heard some council staff, not within groups currently being vaccinated, booked appointments by following a link in an email only intended for the recipient.\n\nBetsi Cadwaladr health board's chairman Mark Polin said such actions could deprive someone else of a jab.\n\nDenbighshire council said it had warned staff the emails were not to be abused.\n\nIt is not clear if anyone not entitled succeeded in getting a Covid jab, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.\n\nOnly front-line social care and health workers, those over 80 and 70 years old, care home residents and their carers are currently being vaccinated.\n\nIndependent member Jackie Hughes spoke about the matter at Thursday's monthly health board meeting.\n\nAnswering her query, Dr Chris Stockport, the health board's executive director of primary care and community services, said: \"We are very clear with our local authority partners and teams of what frontline means in the same way we are elsewhere.\n\n\"When you arrive [for a vaccine] there's a process of validation.\n\n\"The likelihood is they will experience some difficulties working through the booking system [if they try to get into a higher vaccination cohort].\n\n\"It adds complications for a busy team and I would ask them not to do that when it's a clear effort to circumvent the cohort.\"\n\nAt Thursday's daily press briefing the UK Government Home Secretary Priti Patel said people who jumped the queue for the vaccine were \"morally reprehensible\" as they were putting the lives of vulnerable people at risk.\n\nShe said all the UK Government's measures were under review but \"our focus is getting that vaccine to the most vulnerable to make sure we can protect them and obviously protect others in the community\".\n\nMr Polin added: \"Whilst we understand the concerns people should not be doing what they are doing.\n\n\"The priority groups have been identified with clear medical guidance and sound reasoning behind it.\n\n\"So people jumping the queue are depriving someone else, potentially, of receiving the vaccine at the point at which they should.\"\n\nHe said it was a temporary problem, adding: \"We are changing the booking system, so this opportunity is not going to last much longer.\"\n\nHe said staff were looking out for any inappropriate bookings.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nNon-league Chorley were unable to emulate the heroes from 1986 by causing an FA Cup sensation against Wolves - but the National League North side came away with all the credit from their fourth-round tie at Victory Park.\n\nVitinha's superb 30-yard shot after 12 minutes proved enough to secure an all-Premier League tie against Arsenal or Southampton at Molineux in the fifth round.\n\nBut Nuno Espirito Santo's side were less than impressive against their part-time opponents.\n\nChorley had the first shot of the match through Elliot Newby, and after Vitinha had struck his first Wolves goal with the visitors' only shot on target, it was the hosts who had the best chances.\n\nCrucially, they also pocketed around £120,000 in prize money, plus TV fees, to sustain them through what could be a difficult period after their league was suspended for two weeks amid funding concerns earlier in the day.\n\n\"If you are going to lose, I would prefer to lose to a goal like that than a scruffy goal,\" said Chorley boss Jamie Vermiglio.\n\n\"I am proud of what we have done for our community, my kids at school will remember that their head teacher got this far in the FA Cup. Hopefully it can inspire some of them.\n\n\"We are approaching up to half a million [in earnings from the cup run], we have people who are isolating, and those players have given them a little bit of happiness.\n\n\"If it is 2-0 or 3-0 at half-time the game is done and people are turning their TVs off. That did not happen. I felt we were in the game. Every player was outstanding.\"\n• None How to follow FA Cup fourth round on the BBC\n\nIf this does end up being Chorley's last game of the season, it is one they will remember for some time, not only for the action on the pitch but also for the huge volley of fireworks that went off behind the main stand minutes into the contest.\n\nFor visiting Wolves, it was a step into the unknown. Their starting line-up got changed in the away dressing room, while their substitutes - European Championship winner Rui Patricio and Spain international Adama Traore among them - readied themselves in a sponsors' lounge.\n\nSeemingly those starting the game on the bench got the better deal.\n\nWolves boss Nuno paid Chorley the compliment of picking a strong starting line-up, including £35.6m record signing Fabio Silva and England international Conor Coady.\n\nAnd had this match been played in more imposing surroundings, it could have been mistaken for one of those Premier League games where one side sits back, challenges the opposition to break them down and then hits them on the counter.\n\nWolves' return of 76% possession and one shot on target, set against Chorley's five shots on target, suggests home manager Vermiglio got his tactics spot on.\n\nIndeed, had Andy Halls, a personal trainer by day, not had his goal-bound header tipped over by John Ruddy after an hour, Chorley might have forced a different outcome.\n\n\"The scene was set for us to lose this game,\" said Nuno. \"John Ruddy did his job, everybody knows his quality. He helped us to win the game.\"\n\nIt was nevertheless a typically English FA Cup tie, enlivened by Vermiglio yelling \"nothing wrong with that\" when two Wolves players went down under agricultural challenges, and then laughing in Traore's face amid a brief skirmish.\n\nIt was fantastic knockabout stuff. Sadly, the enduring disappointment was that other than staff, media and stewards, no-one was there in person to witness it.\n• None Wolves have reached the FA Cup fifth round in three of the last five seasons, as many as in the 21 seasons prior to this.\n• None Premier League teams have progressed from 45 of their 47 FA Cup ties against non-league teams (96%), with only Norwich vs Luton in 2013 and Burnley vs Lincoln in 2017 failing to progress.\n• None Separated by 120 years and 362 days, Chorley have lost both of their FA Cup games against top-flight opponents, losing against Notts County in January 1900 and Wolves.\n• None Vitinha became the 32nd different Wolves player to score a goal for Nuno Espirito Santo in all competitions and the 11th different Portuguese player to do so, with what was his third shot in his 12th appearance.\n• None Since the start of 2017-18, Wolves have had 11 different Portuguese scorers - more than twice as many as any other English league team in that time (Nottingham Forest, five).\n\nWolves are next in action against Chelsea in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, 27 January (18:00 GMT).\n• None Attempt blocked. Rayan Aït-Nouri (Wolverhampton Wanderers) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Rúben Neves.\n• None Harry Cardwell (Chorley) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt missed. Pedro Neto (Wolverhampton Wanderers) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Rúben Neves.\n• None Arlen Birch (Chorley) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt blocked. Fábio Silva (Wolverhampton Wanderers) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Pedro Neto. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None You can stream five fourth-round games live on the BBC this weekend, including Liverpool's trip to Manchester United. Find out more here.", "A restaurant worker in Lisbon, where benefits to those with symptoms, and those without, are generous\n\nThe idea of a flat £500 payment to anyone who tests positive for Covid-19 has been dismissed by the UK government. Health officials had come up with the suggestion in the hope of encouraging people with the illness to self-isolate.\n\nThere are concerns the virus is continuing to spread because some people are ignoring the instruction to stay home when they show symptoms or test positive. Downing Street has said there is already a £500 sum for those on low incomes who could not work from home and had to isolate. But this must be applied for and there have been high rejection rates in England at least, A behaviour expert who advises the government, told the BBC just 18% of people with symptoms were self-isolating for the full 10 days they were meant to.\n\nSo how do other countries handle the question of paying people to stay at home, or just trusting they will do the right thing? Here, BBC correspondents from Prague to New York, offer an insight.\n\nIn Portugal, even those who are just at-risk of contracting Covid - having been in direct contact with a confirmed case - are entitled to 100% of their basic salary, for 14 days, writes Alison Roberts, in Lisbon.\n\nFor those who show symptoms, or have tested positive, the same is available for up to 28 days. And the normal waiting times people are used to when claiming while ill have also been done away with - these Covid payments kick in on day one of isolation.\n\nThose not on permanent work contracts tend to be treated as self-employed and are eligible for benefits based on income declared. But there are a lot of people, including many immigrants, who lack the necessary paperwork, and are therefore not eligible to claim.\n\nNevertheless, it's perhaps not surprising that, because people are able to claim full basic pay, there hasn't been much, if any, debate about people obeying self-isolation. If there are reports of people not seeking tests, or not isolating, it seems to be more out of ignorance, which is certainly rather worrying.\n\nSlovenia has been offering compensation to people forced to self-isolate after exposure to coronavirus since it first introduced emergency measures in March, writes Guy De Launey in Ljubljana.\n\nDepending on the circumstances, this covers anything from 80% to the full amount of usual earnings. The payments may be made directly to people in quarantine, or as compensation to employers. A government official told the BBC that with its socialist past, it was normal for Slovenia to take care of people in quarantine by providing payments - and that without compensation, it would be impossible to deal with coronavirus.\n\nWhen the measures were first introduced, they enjoyed broad public support. But the second wave of the epidemic has seen case numbers skyrocket - Slovenia's per capita death-rate is now the third highest in the world - and public confidence overall has dipped.\n\nBy the end of 2020, market research company Valicon said that only 12% of Slovenians viewed the government's measures as \"appropriate\", adding that people were \"worried and dissatisfied with the social situation\", suggesting compensation is not a panacea.\n\nIn March last year, the US agreed to pay for some workers to stay at home - a big change for a country that had never paid sick leave requirement before, writes Natalie Sherman in New York.\n\nThe measure guaranteed up to 14 days of pay for workers forced to isolate because they had symptoms, had received medical advice to self-quarantine, or were under government lockdown orders. It also said it would guarantee two-thirds of pay for people caring for someone with the virus for up to two weeks. One study suggested it helped prevent hundreds of news cases a day.\n\nBut the assistance - paid by employers which were then reimbursed by the government via tax credits - expired on 31 December. And even before that, analysts estimated that loopholes meant roughly half of the country's workforce, including many grocery workers and medical staff were potentially excluded.\n\nAs part of his $1.9tn stimulus plan, President Joe Biden is pushing to renew the law, and end the exemptions. But the proposal - which his team estimates would expand the benefit to as many as 106 million more Americans - faces stiff resistance from Republicans and key business lobbies.\n\nIn Germany financial support is generous for people ordered to self-isolate by the authorities because of infection risk, writes Damien McGuinness in Berlin.\n\nAs a result there hasn't been a debate in Germany about breaking self-isolation rules because of financial need. Fines can be huge - tens of thousands of euros - and are strictly enforced. Overall there's no great issue with compliance and Germany's financial package has widespread cross-party backing, and is supported by voters.\n\nEmployees who are unable to work at home receive full pay for up to six weeks. This is paid by the employer, who is then reimbursed by the state. After that, workers may be eligible for sick-pay.\n\nFreelancers and self-employed people are generally also entitled to full pay for six weeks. But they would apply directly to their regional government. The exact rules and level of efficiency for payments vary from region to region. For those in the gig economy - Germany has it, though less so than Britain - this should be covered by state aid, based on tax returns.\n\nThe level of state support was agreed by Germany's national parliament in Berlin. But payments are administered and funded by regional governments.\n\nThere's been some discussion here about paying people to stay home if they test positive for Covid, writes Rob Cameron, in Prague.\n\nThe idea is advocated by at least one independent expert group. But it would be expensive, and the Czech state coffers are already stretched from keeping employees on furlough and paying compensation.\n\nInstead, salaried employees who receive a positive diagnosis are left with two choices: work from home - if they're up to it, if their job allows it and if their employer agrees, or go on sick leave for 10 days and receive 60% salary.\n\nFor the self-employed it's worse. Only those who have chosen to pay state sickness insurance will receive anything. Most opt out - the benefits are marginal. So most continue working from home - if their health and profession allows it.\n\nFor many workers, in other words, a positive Covid test can be a real blow to the wallet. It's an open secret that many people - especially freelancers in creative professions - beg friends and colleagues who test positive not to declare them as contacts, to avoid having to go into quarantine. For some the fear of losing work and money outweighs social responsibility.\n\nMoves to compensate people for taking time off work have largely been well received, writes Maddy Savage in Stockholm.\n\nTo encourage people to stay at home from the moment they develop coronavirus symptoms, the government changed the rules to allow Swedish employees and the self-employed to claim sick pay from the first day they are off, rather than the second. Employees receive about 80% of their salary while they isolate (capped at SEK 700 or £61.88 per day), and the self-employed are entitled to payments capped at 804 SEK or £71.05. The government has also introduced an allowance for people isolating because they live with someone who has coronavirus.\n\nWhile Sweden has largely kept primary schools open throughout the pandemic, parents have been able to make use of a pre-existing benefit which allows them to take state-funded time off work if their children are ill (with the virus or any other illness), and an additional benefit has been introduced for parents who are forced to take time off work to look after children affected by school closures as a result of a local outbreak.\n\nBut these measures have also stirred debates about welfare inequality. There are concerns that workers who are paid by the hour or on temporary contracts aren't entitled to the same level of sickness benefits as permanent staff - there are reports that this has encouraged some to keep working despite developing Covid-19 symptoms.", "Researchers have been tracking changes to the \"spike\" of the virus\n\nThe new variant of Covid-19 is \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version, a study has found.\n\nIt concludes the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.\n\nThe UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nProf Axel Gandy of London's Imperial College said the differences between the viruses types was \"quite extreme\".\n\n\"There is a huge difference in how easily the variant virus spreads,\" he told BBC News. \"This is the most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began,\" he added.\n\nThe Imperial College study suggests transmission of the new variant tripled during England's November lockdown while the previous version was reduced by a third.\n\nCases of Covid-19 have begun to increase rapidly during the second spike, and the number of cases recorded in a single day reached a new high on Thursday.\n\nEarly results indicated that the virus was spreading more quickly among under-20s, particularly among secondary school age children.\n\nBut the very latest data indicates that it was spreading quickly across all age groups, according to Prof Gandy who was a member of the research team.\n\n\"One possible explanation is that the early data was collected during the time of the November lockdown where schools were open and the activities of the adult population were more restricted. We are seeing now that the new virus has increased infectiousness across all age groups.\"\n\nProf Jim Naismith, of Oxford University, said he believed that the new findings indicated that even tougher restrictions would soon be needed.\n\n\"The data from Imperial represent the best analysis to date and imply that the measures we have employed to date, would - with the new virus - fail to reduce the R number to below 1.\n\n\"In simpler terms, unless we do something different the new virus strain is going to continue to spread, more infections, more hospitalisations and more deaths.\"\n\nThe R number is the average number of people an infected person infects. If it is above 1 the epidemic is growing.\n\nThe most chilling finding from this piece of research is that the November lockdown in England, hard though it was for many people, would not have stopped the variant form of the virus spreading. The same severe restrictions that saw cases of the previous version of the virus fall by a third, would see a tripling of the new variant. This is why there has been such a sudden tightening of restrictions across the country.\n\nIt is unclear whether the current restrictions will be enough to control the spread of the virus. Given the fact that it has taken two lockdowns to stop the earlier version of the virus overwhelming the NHS, many scientists fear that further tightening will be necessary.\n\nInfection levels will begin to drop as enough people are vaccinated. But until then it is now more important than ever for people to follow social distancing guidelines, wear masks where required and to regularly wash their hands.\n\nThe new year brings with it hope of a more normal life in the next few months but also a new form of the virus that all of us will have to combat in the coming days and weeks.\n\nProfessor Lawrence Young, of Warwick University, said early indications suggested that vaccines would be effective against the new form of the virus.\n\n\"Variants virus have been around since the beginning of the pandemic and are a product of the natural process by which viruses develop and adapt to their hosts as they replicate.\n\n\"Most of these mutations have no effect on the behaviour of the virus but very occasionally they can improve the ability of the virus to infect and/or become more resistant to the body's immune response.\"\n\nFurther research is needed to understand why the variant is spreading so quickly. But early indications are that vaccines should be effective against it.\n\nThe new virus has been designated \"Variant of Concern 202012/01\" or VOC by Public Health England.\n\nIt was detected in November and thought to have originated in the south-east England in September.\n\nThere is no evidence to suggest that it is more deadly, but it will increase the number of cases which in turn will add further pressure on the NHS.\n\nThe variant can now be found across the UK, except Northern Ireland, but it is heavily concentrated in London, as well as south-east and eastern England.", "The Black Country Living Museum normally gives visitors a taste of ordinary life in the Victorian era\n\nA venue that has doubled as a set for TV series Peaky Blinders is to operate as a Covid-19 vaccination centre.\n\nUsing Black Country Living Museum, a largely open-air site, to deliver jabs is said to be a \"game-changer\" for the local community.\n\nThe Dudley attraction, which is closed to tourists during lockdown, is expected to help administer thousands of injections a week.\n\nPeople are reminded they need an NHS letter of invitation before turning up.\n\nThe formal appointments will initially prioritise doses for people most at risk of complications from the virus.\n\nThe latest figures from NHS England showed 97,310 Covid jabs had been administered in Dudley and the surrounding area by Thursday - the second highest amount in the Midlands.\n\nBut rollout at the museum - which begins on Monday - will see it become Dudley's first vaccination centre.\n\nIt will complement existing GP-led vaccination services which are already up and running locally.\n\nCillian Murphy stars in Peaky Blinders, a Birmingham-set drama filmed in part at the museum\n\nThe museum normally gives visitors a taste of life in the Black Country during bygone days and has been used as a location for Peaky Blinders, the BBC TV series set in nearby Birmingham in the early 20th Century.\n\nSaying the step was a game-changer, Nicholas Barlow, Dudley Council member for health, said: \"Having the Black Country Living Museum on board as a vaccination centre will greatly increase the amount of jabs we can deliver, and the speed at which we can administer them.\n\n\"It will make people safer from this deadly virus more quickly.\"\n\nSally Roberts, Black Country and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group chief nurse, said: \"Our progress [in the area] to date has been incredible and I am delighted that our first vaccination centre, which will be capable of delivering thousands more vaccines each week, is going live.\"\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Appointments were brought forward or rescheduled for safety reasons\n\nFour vaccination centres were shut as snow caused some travel disruption in Wales.\n\nSunday appointments in Bridgend, Rhondda, Abercynon and Merthyr Tydfil were rescheduled for safety reasons, but centres will reopen on Monday, the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board said.\n\nThe Met Office has extended a yellow weather warning to midnight on Sunday for all of Wales except Anglesey.\n\nA yellow warning for ice runs from midnight until 11:00 GMT on Monday.\n\nPolice have warned of difficult conditions due to snow and ice.\n\nUp to 3cm of snow is forecast to fall in most areas, with 10 to 15cm expected in the Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia.\n\nCwm Taf Morgannwg health board urged anyone with queries about Sunday's vaccination appointments to call the number on their appointment letters.\n\nSnow volunteers cleared pathways so a Covid vaccine pilot in Maesteg could keep running\n\n\"We can confirm that no vaccines have been wasted as a consequence of this temporary Sunday closure and we are grateful to all those who were able to turn up at such short notice yesterday as we brought forward a significant number of Sunday appointments during the course of Saturday,\" it said.\n\n\"Additionally, our 4x4 arrangements are enabling us to continue to reach care homes to vaccinate the staff and residents there.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Traffic Wales South #KeepWalesSafe This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNorth Wales Police tweeted there was \"widespread snow this morning, particularly in some higher areas, making driving conditions difficult\".\n\nAnd Dyfed-Powys Police said some roads were \"impassable\" and advised people to \"stay home\".\n\nIn Bridgend, officers from South Wales Police were pelted with snowballs as they helped an injured sledger on Heol y Nant.\n\nNorth Wales Police warned of difficult conditions due to \"widespread snow\", particularly on high ground.\n\nIt said the A499 near Pwllheli had received heavy snowfall overnight.\n\nWelsh Ambulance Service boss Jason Killens tweeted, thanking the public for helping crews continue to work despite the conditions.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Jason Killens 💙 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nVillages were dusted with snow, such as in Llanfynydd, Carmarthenshire\n\nNick Rolfe shared this garden view in Nercwys, near Mold, Flintshire\n\nThe Met Office warned travellers that \"longer journey times by road, bus and train services\" could be expected, although Wales is in a level four lockdown with all but essential travel banned.\n\nIt also said the snow could lead to power cuts and other services, such as mobile phone coverage, may be affected.\n\nThose going out for daily exercise have been warned there could be icy patches on some untreated roads, pavements and cycle paths.\n\nIn Powys, this was the view over Newtown on Sunday\n\nThe hills around Llangollen, Denbighshire, were covered in snow on Saturday\n\nPower cuts and travel delays are possible, the Met Office says\n\nThe drop in temperatures is likely to exacerbate problems after widespread flooding caused by Storm Christoph.\n\nTwo flood warnings issued by Natural Resources Wales remain in place, meaning flooding is expected.\n\nThese cover the River Ritec at Tenby in Pembrokeshire, which could affect the Kiln Park caravan site, and the lower Dee Valley from Llangollen to Trevalyn Meadows.\n\nPretty as a picture... Suzy shared this garden view in Snowdonia\n\nSun up: Heath in Cardiff awakes to a covering of snow\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Larry King, giant of US broadcasting who achieved worldwide fame for interviewing political leaders and celebrities, has died at the age of 87.\n\nKing conducted an estimated 50,000 interviews in his six-decade career, which included 25 years as host of the popular CNN talk show Larry King Live.\n\nHe died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Ora Media, a production company he co-founded.\n\nEarlier this month, he was treated in hospital for Covid-19, US media say.\n\nThe talk show host, famous for his braces and rolled-up sleeves, had faced several health problems in recent years, including heart attacks.\n\nKing was married eight times to seven women and had five children. Two of them died last year within weeks of each other - daughter Chaia died from lung cancer and son Andy of a heart attack.\n\nKing carried out interviews with every sitting US president from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama and a number of world leaders. His other high-profile guests included Dr Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Lady Gaga.\n\n\"For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry's many thousands of interviews, awards, and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster,\" Ora Media said in a statement, without giving the cause of death.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Larry King: \"I like spontaneity. That's the kind of broadcaster I am\".\n\nBorn Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933, King rose to fame in the 1970s with his radio programme The Larry King Show, on the commercial network Mutual Broadcasting System.\n\nIn 1985 he launched Larry King Live on the fledgling CNN, and became one of the network's biggest stars. The programme, broadcast around the world, was a success with audiences, with King answering thousands of phone calls from viewers.\n\nHe earned a number of honours, including two Peabody awards, but was also criticised for his non-confrontational approach and open-ended questions. King boasted of not doing much research for the interviews so, he said, he could learn along with viewers.\n\nBy 2010 his ratings had dropped significantly, with critics saying King's approach felt outdated in an era of more aggressive interviewing styles. King then announced his retirement, saying: \"It's time to hang up my nightly suspenders.\"\n\nIn his final programme on CNN, he told his viewers: \"I don't know what to say, except to you, my audience, thank you. Instead of goodbye, how about so long?\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by CNN Communications This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCNN replaced him with British journalist and broadcaster Piers Morgan, whose programme King criticised for being \"too much about him\".\n\nMorgan, whose programme was cancelled three years later, said on Twitter on Saturday: \"Larry King was a hero of mine until we fell out after I replaced him at CNN & he said my show was 'like watching your mother-in-law go over a cliff in your new Bentley.' (He married 8 times so a mother-in-law expert).\"\n\nIn a statement, CNN president Jeff Zucker said: \"The scrappy young man from Brooklyn had a history-making career spanning radio and television. His curiosity about the world propelled his award-winning career in broadcasting, but it was his generosity of spirit that drew the world to him.\"\n\nMost recently, King hosted another programme, Larry King Now, broadcast on Hulu and RT, Russia's state-controlled international broadcaster.\n\nA Kremlin spokesman was quoted as saying by state RIA Novosti news agency: \"King repeatedly interviewed Putin. The president has always appreciated his great professionalism and unquestioned journalistic authority.\"\n\nOutside broadcasting, King founded the Larry King Cardiac Foundation in 1988, a charity which helps to fund heart treatment for those with limited financial means or no medical insurance.", "Pavithra Wanniarachchi (L) has become the fourth Sri Lankan minister to test positive\n\nSri Lanka's health minister, who endorsed herbal syrup to prevent Covid, has tested positive for the virus.\n\nPavithra Wanniarachchi tested positive on Friday, a media secretary at the Ministry of Health told the BBC.\n\nShe had promoted the syrup, manufactured by a shaman who claimed it worked as a life-long inoculation against the virus.\n\nSri Lanka recorded 56,076 cases and 276 deaths since the pandemic began, with cases surging in recent months.\n\nMs Wanniarachchi is the fourth minister to test positive. A junior minister, who also took the potion, tested positive earlier this week.\n\nThe health minister had publicly consumed and endorsed the syrup as a way of stopping the spread of the virus. The shaman who invented the syrup, which contains honey and nutmeg, said the recipe was given to him in a visionary dream.\n\nDoctors in the country have quashed claims the herbal syrup works, but AFP news agency reports thousands have travelled to a village to obtain it.\n\nMs Wanniarachchi took two Covid-19 tests and both returned positive results, Viraj Abeysinghe, media secretary at the Ministry of Health told the BBC.\n\nThe minister has been asked to self-isolate and all of her immediate contacts have gone into isolation.\n\nNews of Ms Wanniarachchi's positive test came hours after Sri Lanka approved the emergency use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. The first doses are expected to arrive in the country next week.\n\nSri Lanka isn't the only place where people in positions of power have promoted unproven treatments for Covid.\n\nLast year, Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina was criticised for promoting a herbal concoction that he claimed could prevent the virus. He was pictured distributing the tonic to poor communities in the capital.\n\nSince the pandemic began, a number of world leaders and cabinet members have contracted Covid. French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former President Donald Trump all caught the virus at various points last year.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The people who think Coronavirus is caused by 5G", "Skewen in Neath Port Talbot has been badly hit by flooding over the past two days\n\nThere have been \"no adverse effects\" on the coronavirus vaccine roll-out caused by recent flooding, the Welsh Government has said.\n\nHomes were evacuated in Skewen, Neath Port Talbot, on Thursday as heavy rain caused issues across the country.\n\nSwansea Bay health board said none of its mass vaccination centres or GP surgeries had been affected by floods.\n\nIt added anyone struggling to get to a vaccination appointment because of the flooding would be able to rearrange.\n\nBetsi Cadwaladr University Health Board also said it was not aware of flooding in north Wales causing any issues for the vaccine roll-out.\n\nWrexham council leader Mark Pritchard said on Thursday that teams worked to ensure the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, made on Wrexham Industrial Estate, was not lost in the floods.\n\nThe latest figures released on Friday showed 212,317 people in Wales had received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, with a further 415 receiving a second dose.\n\nAs well as properties, vehicles were submerged in water\n\nAbout 80 people in Skewen had to be evacuated from their homes after streets were left under water.\n\nFire crews returned to the scene on Friday to continue to pump floodwater away from houses.\n\nMeanwhile, a family in Rossett, Wrexham county, had to be rescued by helicopter after their home became surrounded by floodwater on Thursday night.\n\nNorth Wales has also been hit by floods\n\nOn Friday, Health Minister Vaughan Gething told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast that efforts to rehouse those affected by the floods were being done in \"as Covid-secure a way as possible\".\n\nDorothy Edwards, Covid-19 vaccination programme director for Swansea Bay health board, said: \"None of our mass vaccination centres have been impacted by flooding and we're not aware of any particular issues in primary care.\n\n\"Of course we will be sympathetic if there are people struggling to get to their appointment and if they are booked in at an mass vaccination centres they need to ring the booking line and the appointment will be rearranged.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government said: \"There have been no adverse effects on the vaccine roll-out due to flooding.\"", "Mr Johnson raised the benefits of a UK-US trade deal during his phone call with Mr Biden\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has spoken to Joe Biden for the first time since the new US president was inaugurated.\n\nMr Johnson said on Twitter that he looked forward to \"deepening the longstanding alliance\" between the UK and the US as they drove a \"green and sustainable recovery from Covid-19\".\n\nMr Biden was sworn in as president and Kamala Harris as vice-president in a ceremony in Washington on Wednesday.\n\nThe PM said their inauguration was a \"step forward\" for the US.\n\nA Downing Street spokesman said Mr Johnson \"warmly welcomed\" the president's decision to rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change and the World Health Organization - both abandoned by Mr Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump.\n\n\"The prime minister praised President Biden's early action on tackling climate change and commitment to reach net zero by 2050,\" the spokesman said.\n\nThe spokesman added that, in building on the two nations' \"long history of cooperation in security and defence, the leaders \"re-committed to the Nato alliance and our shared values in promoting human rights and protecting democracy\".\n\nThe two leaders also talked about \"the benefits of a potential free trade deal\" between the UK and the US, with Mr Johnson reiterating his intention \"to resolve existing trade issues as soon as possible\".\n\nAfter the inauguration of any American president, a political spectator sport immediately begins: the order in which the new occupant of the White House speaks to other world leaders.\n\nIt is a crude metric of relative importance, but a metric nonetheless.\n\nI understand the call lasted for around 35 minutes and was the first conversation Joe Biden has had with a European leader as president.\n\nThe focus on climate change makes political and diplomatic sense. It's a topic where a Conservative prime minister and Democrat president can agree, and it matters particularly to the UK as the host of the COP26 UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow in November.\n\nBut when you compare what Downing Street said about the call and what the White House said, one thing leaps out.\n\nNo 10's readout refers to a conversation about a trade deal. President Biden's does not.\n\nIt's widely expected there'll be no such agreement any time soon.\n\nMr Johnson and Mr Biden \"looked forward to to meeting in person as soon as the circumstances allow\" and to working together during the forthcoming G7, G20 and COP26 summits, the spokesman added.\n\nA White House statement said Mr Biden \"conveyed his intention to strengthen the special relationship\" between the US and UK and \"revitalize transatlantic ties\".\n\nCongratulating Mr Biden and Ms Harris - who is the first woman and first black and Asian-American person to serve as vice-president - the PM said earlier that their inauguration was a \"step forward\" for the US, which had \"been through a bumpy period\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Johnson: \"It's a big moment for us - we have things we want to do together.\"\n\nMr Johnson said it was a \"big moment\" for the UK and the US and their \"joint common agenda\".\n\nThe BBC's political editor, Laura Kuenssberg has said the Biden Presidency \"brings some hope to government\" because No 10 believes \"there is a lot of overlap\" between what Mr Biden and Mr Johnson want to do.\n\nThe US president has previously said that he does not want a \"guarded border\" between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland following Brexit, and that any UK-US post-Brexit trade deal had to be \"contingent\" on respect for the Good Friday Agreement.\n\nThe PM and Mr Biden have never met in real life, but the new US president once referred to Mr Johnson as a \"physical and emotional clone\" of Mr Trump.\n\nAfter winning the presidential election, Mr Biden phoned Mr Johnson ahead of other European leaders and expressed his desire to strengthen the historic \"special relationship\" between the two countries.", "Elizabeth Kerr and Simon O'Brien were married moments before he was put on a mechanical ventilator\n\nAn engaged couple taken to hospital in the same ambulance with Covid-19 were able to marry moments before the man was sedated and put on a ventilator.\n\nElizabeth Kerr, 31, and Simon O'Brien, 36, were taken to Milton Keynes University Hospital with breathing difficulties on 9 January.\n\nStaff rallied to arrange a wedding as the groom's condition worsened.\n\nThey held off intubating Mr O'Brien so the ceremony could go ahead. The couple are now recovering in hospital.\n\nMrs Kerr, a nurse, and Mr O'Brien had planned to marry in June.\n\nBoth contracted the disease and were taken to hospital together when their oxygen levels fell dangerously low.\n\nThey were placed on separate wards but when Mrs Kerr told nurse Hannah Cannon about their wedding plans, she asked her if they would like to marry in the hospital.\n\nMrs Kerr said she was told it could be their only chance.\n\n\"Those are words I never, ever want to hear again,\" she said.\n\nA photo on Mrs Kerr's phone shows the wedding took place in the beds of the intensive care unit\n\nHowever, while staff were securing the wedding licence, Mr O'Brien's condition further deteriorated and on 12 January he was placed on the intensive care unit, to be put on a ventilator.\n\nThey waited to intubate him just long enough for the ceremony to go ahead.\n\nMs Cannon said: \"With lots of teamwork... we were able to give them a wedding, not necessarily the wedding that they would have initially intended, but certainly something positive, remarkable and memorable for them to really hold on to.\"\n\nShe filmed the marriage for the couple's families and friends, and catering staff at the hospital provided a cake.\n\nShortly after saying \"I do\", Mr O'Brien was placed on the ventilator.\n\nThe couple have now been reunited on a recovery ward and were able to kiss for the first time since being married.\n\nMrs Kerr said having the wedding meant \"everything\" to them.\n\n\"If we hadn't had each other and we hadn't been given that opportunity to get married, I don't think both of us would be here now,\" she added.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Early evidence suggests the variant of coronavirus that emerged in the UK may be more deadly, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.\n\nHowever, there remains huge uncertainty around the numbers - and vaccines are still expected to work.\n\nThe data comes from mathematicians comparing death rates in people infected with either the new or the old versions of the virus.\n\nThe new more infectious variant has already spread widely across the UK.\n\nMr Johnson told a Downing Street briefing: \"In addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant - the variant that was first identified in London and the south east - may be associated with a higher degree of mortality.\n\n\"It's largely the impact of this new variant that means the NHS is under such intense pressure.\"\n\nPublic Health England, Imperial College London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Exeter have each been trying to assess how deadly the new variant is.\n\nTheir evidence has been assessed by scientists on the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag).\n\nThe group concluded there was a \"realistic possibility\" that the virus had become more deadly, but this is far from certain.\n\nSir Patrick Vallance, the government's chief scientific adviser, described the data so far as \"not yet strong\".\n\nHe said: \"I want to stress that there's a lot of uncertainty around these numbers and we need more work to get a precise handle on it, but it obviously is a concern that this has an increase in mortality as well as an increase in transmissibility.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Patrick Vallance: \"There is evidence that there's an increased risk for those who have the new variant\"\n\nPrevious work suggests the new variant spreads between 30% and 70% faster than others, and there are hints it is about 30% more deadly.\n\nFor example, with 1,000 60-year-olds infected with the old variant, 10 of them might be expected to die. But this rises to about 13 with the new variant.\n\nThis difference is found when looking at everyone testing positive for Covid, but analysing only hospital data has found no increase in the death rate. Hospital care has improved over the course of the pandemic as doctors get better at treating the disease.\n\nThe new variant was first detected in Kent in September. It is now the most common form of the virus in England and Northern Ireland, and has spread to more than 50 other countries.\n\nThe Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are both expected to work against the variant that emerged in the UK.\n\nHowever, Sir Patrick said there was more concern about two other variants that had emerged in South Africa and Brazil.\n\nHe said: \"They have certain features which means they might be less susceptible to vaccines.\n\n\"They are definitely of more concern than the one in the UK at the moment and we need to keep looking at it and studying this very carefully.\"\n\nThe prime minister said the government was prepared to take further action to protect the country's borders to prevent new variants from entering.\n\n\"I really don't rule it out, we may need to take further measures still,\" he said.\n\nLast week the government extended a travel ban to South America, Portugal and many African countries amid concerns about new variants, while all international travellers must now test negative ahead of departure to the UK and go into quarantine on arrival.", "An exhibition now celebrates Wuhan's success in controlling the outbreak\n\nWuhan has long since recovered from the world's first outbreak of Covid-19. It is now being remembered not as a disaster but as a victory, and with an insistence that the virus came from somewhere - anywhere - but here.\n\nFrom the moment a new, pandemic coronavirus emerged in the same city as a laboratory dedicated to the study of new coronaviruses with pandemic potential, Prof Shi Zhengli has found herself the focus of one of the biggest scientific controversies of our time.\n\nFor much of the past year she has met the suggestion that Sars-Cov-2 might have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology with angry denial.\n\nNow though, she has offered her own thoughts on how the initial outbreak may have begun in the city.\n\nIn an article in this month's edition of Science Magazine she referred to a number of studies that, she said, suggest the virus existed outside of China before Wuhan's first known case in December 2019.\n\n\"Given the finding of Sars-Cov-2 on the surface of imported food packages, contact with contaminated uncooked food could be an important source of Sars-Cov-2 transmission,\" she wrote.\n\nFrom one of the world's leading experts on coronaviruses, even the discussion of such a possibility seems unusual.\n\nCould a spiralling outbreak of infection that almost destroyed Wuhan's health system, sparked the world's first Covid lockdown and spawned a global catastrophe really have arrived on imported food without any signs of similarly devastating outbreaks elsewhere?\n\n\"The virus came from America,\" this fishmonger told the BBC\n\nBut with the virus vanquished, the idea that it is a foreign import is repeated with almost unanimity across this city of 11 million people.\n\n\"It came here from other countries,\" one woman running a hotpot stall in a busy street tells me. \"China is a victim.\"\n\n\"Where did it come from?\" the next-door fishmonger repeats my question aloud, and then answers: \"It came from America.\"\n\nOn 23 January last year, the Chinese authorities severed transport links out of Wuhan and confined the city's population to their homes.\n\nThe tough lockdown coincided with the annual spring festival celebrations and came too late to prevent the global spread of the disease - five million people had already left the city ahead of the holiday.\n\nDoctors' warnings had gone unheeded and, in an outpouring of anger on the Chinese internet, the authorities stood accused of covering up the initial outbreak in the interests of political stability.\n\nOne year on, there's little sign of that anger in Wuhan today. In fact it's the humdrum normality that is striking - the traffic jams, the bustling markets and busy restaurants.\n\nIts success in eventually bringing the virus under control is now being celebrated in a giant exhibition hall, complete with models of medical workers in hazmat suits, installations of hospital beds and - everywhere you look - giant portraits of President Xi Jinping.\n\nThe accompanying texts mention his \"all-out war\" against the pandemic, his \"resolute decision making\" and how he has been willing to share \"China's solutions\" with the world.\n\nThere can be no doubting the success of China's mass testing programmes, its tracing apps and the widespread mask wearing.\n\nBut its strict enforcement of lockdowns, with little hand-wringing over the impact on individual rights, may be far less easy for democratic countries to emulate.\n\n\"The strategic success achieved in this battle fully manifested the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China and the significant advantages of the socialist system of our country,\" the exhibition proclaims.\n\nDespite China's promise of international co-operation, the world is still no closer to an answer to the biggest question of them all - where did the virus come from?\n\nMany prominent scientists believe that - based on past outbreaks - the most likely source of the coronavirus is a natural one, a \"zoonotic\" leap from bats - known to harbour such viruses - to humans, possibly via an intermediate species.\n\nBut China has produced very little evidence to show the work that's been done in its search for the source, in particular the testing of historic human samples stored by hospitals to determine where and when the virus really started spreading.\n\nThose scientists who argue that the possibility of an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology should also be included as part of any investigation are curious about this apparent silence.\n\n\"I find it very unlikely that such investigations would not have already occurred,\" Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, told me.\n\n\"It's a serious risk to resume life as usual without knowing where a dangerous human pathogen came from.\"\n\nWuhan's exhibition also has a display of hospital beds\n\nInstead of publishing its own evidence though, China appears to be taking an anywhere-but-Wuhan approach, with state media cheerleading the idea that the virus may have arrived in Wuhan on frozen food imports or talking cryptically of \"multiple origins\".\n\nAt a recent daily press briefing, I asked China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, why such narratives were being promoted in the absence of real scientific evidence.\n\n\"Your question reveals your prejudice against China,\" she replied. \"Reports have emerged from Australia, Italy and many other countries that the coronavirus was found in multiple places in the autumn of 2019.\"\n\n\"Aren't these all facts?\" she asked.\n\nNot according to Alina Chan, who told me that such studies \"lack validation\" and some have been conducted without \"the most basic controls\".\n\n\"They do not present persuasive scientific evidence that the virus was circulating outside of China before the late 2019 outbreak in Wuhan,\" she said.\n\n\"The earliest detected cases and outbreak were in Wuhan. Early cases outside of China were found to have travelled from Wuhan. The most similar viruses have been found inside China.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Robin Brant visits the Wuhan market where Covid-19 was first traced\n\nInterestingly, scientists who have found themselves disagreeing strongly about the likelihood of the lab-leak theory, suddenly find themselves very much aligned on whether the virus came from abroad.\n\n\"I do not find the data linking Sars-Cov-2 to frozen foods to be credible,\" Kristian Andersen, a professor of immunology and microbiology at the Scripps Research Institute in the US, told me.\n\nAs someone who is a firm supporter of China's insistence that the virus could not have escaped from a lab, he gives its latest position much shorter shrift.\n\n\"All the available evidence points to an emergence of the virus somewhere in China in late 2019,\" he said.\n\nChinese virologist Shi Zhengli, seen here inside the laboratory in Wuhan\n\nProf Shi Zhengli recently told the BBC in an exchange of emails that she'd welcome \"any form of visit\" by an inquiry team to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to rule out the possibility of a lab leak.\n\nBut to a follow-up email asking about the alignment of her discussion of possible foreign origins with the Chinese government's own narrative, she sent another reply.\n\n\"Your question is not friendly,\" she wrote.\n\nAfter months of delay and wrangling with China about access, a World Health Organization team has arrived in Wuhan to begin its inquiry into the origins of the virus.\n\nTheir terms of reference hint at the politics behind the scenes, with the document mentioning many of China's talking points, including foreign origins and food-chain transmission.\n\nLast year Wuhan endured one of the strictest lockdowns the world has seen\n\nDr Daniel Lucey, a physician and infectious disease professor at the Georgetown Medical Centre in Washington, suggests the stage is being set for a foregone conclusion.\n\n\"In my view, if you line up side-by-side the WHO's terms of reference with the Shi Zhengli Science article,\" he told me, \"then it is clear that the overarching strategic narrative is that the origin of the virus is outside of China.\"\n\nThe crisis that began in Wuhan is now the world's crisis and, with so many lives and livelihoods lost, answers are desperately needed.\n\nIf the virus came naturally from bats, an understanding of that pathway is important to protect humanity from the risk of repeated \"spillover\" events from the same source.\n\nIf it leaked from a lab, an urgent review of safety protocols is needed - not just in China but globally.\n\nBoards in Wuhan say the virus broke out \"in multiple places around the world\"\n\nScientists are beginning to wonder if those answers will ever be forthcoming.\n\n\"It's undeniable now that politics have gotten in the way of science,\" Alina Chan said.\n\n\"I just hope that the WHO team will relay the details of their experience so that the public can understand what the limitations of their investigation are.\"\n\nIn Wuhan's giant exhibition hall, the city's place in history is again called into question by one of the concluding sign boards which says Covid-19 broke out \"in multiple places around the world\".\n\nFor China, this city's past is now propaganda and the truth, like the virus, is being brought under tight control.", "Guests fled when officers arrived at the Stamford Hill school, where the windows had been covered\n\nPolice broke up a wedding party in north London, where they now say about 150 people had gathered.\n\nOfficers found the windows at the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School, in Stamford Hill, had been covered when they arrived at 21:15 GMT on Thursday.\n\nGuests fled from the strictly Orthodox Charedi Jewish school when the police arrived. The organisers face a £10,000 fine for breaking lockdown rules.\n\nThe Met originally claimed that about 400 guests were at the gathering.\n\nIn a statement, the school said its hall had been leased out.\n\nA spokesman for the school, whose principal Rabbi Avrahom Pinter died in April after contracting coronavirus, said \"we had no knowledge that the wedding was taking place\".\n\nHe added: \"We are absolutely horrified about last night's event and condemn it in the strongest possible terms.\"\n\nBoris Johnson supports the police for \"taking action against people who flagrantly and selfishly ignore the rules\", according to the prime minister's official spokesman.\n\nThe spokesman said: \"Large gatherings such as that pose a health risk, not just to those who attend but those who they live with or others who they may come into contact with.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Chief Rabbi Mirvis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nChief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, meanwhile, said the \"overwhelming majority\" of the Jewish community would be appalled at the event.\n\nRabbi Mirvis, who serves as the head of the UK's orthodox Jewish community but is not the leader of the Charedi group, called the wedding party \"a most shameful desecration of all that we hold dear\".\n\nFive guests were issued with £200 fixed penalty notices, according to police, who said their inquiries had established those present at the school had gathered for a wedding.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A video shared with the Jewish Chronicle shows officers in Stamford Hill\n\nVideo shared with the Jewish Chronicle shows officers in Stamford Hill speaking with a man to explain why they are there, although he is not accused of any wrongdoing.\n\nThey are then seen arriving at the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School.\n\nDet Ch Sup Marcus Barnett of the Met Police said: \"This was a completely unacceptable breach of the law.\n\n\"People across the country are making sacrifices by cancelling or postponing weddings and other celebrations and there is no excuse for this type of behaviour.\n\n\"My officers are working tirelessly with the community and we will not hesitate to take enforcement action if that is required to keep people safe.\"\n\nOn Friday morning, a security guard at the school told the BBC there were more like 100 guests at the party than the much higher number given out by police.\n\nThe Met later said in a statement: \"Although initial calls suggested some 400 people had attended the wedding, it is now believed that approximately 150 people were in attendance.\"\n\nStamford Hill is part of the borough of Hackney, which has a Covid-19 infection rate of 625.43 cases per 100,000 people. The England average rate is 471.31 per 100,000 people.\n\nThe mayor of Hackney, Philip Glanville, said he was \"deeply disappointed\" that the wedding party had taken place, despite \"the number of lives that have already been lost in the Charedi community and across the borough\".\n\nHe added: \"Unfortunately, similar events have taken place even at this venue before and we need to be really clear how unacceptable it is.\n\n\"We will be meeting with the Rabbinate and our community partners over the coming days to see how we can prevent further incidents of this nature.\"\n\nLondon is under an England-wide lockdown, which prevents social mixing between households.\n\nLondoners are asked to only leave home for limited reasons such as shopping, going to work, seeking medical assistance, or avoiding domestic abuse.\n\nFor more London news follow on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel.\n\nDo you have any information to share about this incident? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Senior doctors are calling on England's chief medical officer to cut the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nProf Chris Whitty said extending the maximum wait from three to 12 weeks was a \"public health decision\" to get the first jab to more people across the UK.\n\nBut the British Medical Association said that was \"difficult to justify\" and should be changed to six weeks.\n\nIt comes as early evidence suggests the UK virus variant may be more deadly.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson told a Downing Street briefing on Friday: \"In addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant - the variant that was first identified in London and the south east - may be associated with a higher degree of mortality.\"\n\nPrevious work suggests the new variant spreads between 30% and 70% faster than others, and there are hints it is about 30% more deadly.\n\nFor example, the government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said if 1,000 men in their 60s were infected with the old variant, roughly 10 of them would be expected to die - but this rises to about 13 with the new variant.\n\nAnother 1,348 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were reported in the UK on Saturday, in addition to 33,552 new infections, according to the government's coronavirus dashboard.\n\nThe government's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) says unpublished data suggests the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is still effective with doses 12 weeks apart - but Pfizer has said it has tested its vaccine's efficacy only when the two doses were given up to 21 days apart.\n\nThe World Health Organization has recommended a gap of four weeks between doses - to be extended only in exceptional circumstances to six weeks.\n\nGovernment minister Robert Jenrick said the current strategy ensured \"millions more people can get the first jab\" and the \"high level of protection\" which it offered.\n\nHe said the BMA's concerns would be taken into account but that the government was following the \"very clear advice\" of the medicines regulator and the UK's four chief medical officers who, he said, \"could not have been clearer that this is the right thing to do for this country\".\n\nA spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care added: \"Our number one priority is to give protection against coronavirus to as many vulnerable people as possible, as quickly as possible.\"\n\nIn the letter to Prof Whitty, seen by the BBC, the British Medical Association (BMA) said it agreed that the vaccine should be rolled out \"as quickly as possible\" - but called for an urgent review and for the gap to be reduced.\n\nThe doctors' union said the UK's strategy \"has become increasingly isolated internationally\" and \"is proving evermore difficult to justify\".\n\n\"The absence of any international support for the UK's approach is a cause of deep concern and risks undermining public and the profession's trust in the vaccination programme,\" the letter said.\n\nDr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the BMA, said there were \"growing concerns\" that the vaccine could become less effective with doses 12 weeks apart.\n\n\"Obviously the protection will not vanish after six weeks, but what we do not know is what level of protection will be offered [after that point],\" he told BBC Breakfast.\n\n\"We should not be extrapolating data when we don't have it.\"\n\nHe said while he understands the rationale behind the decision, \"no other nation has adopted the UK's approach\".\n\n\"We think the flexibility that the WHO offers of extending to 42 days is being stretched far too much to go from six weeks right through to 12 weeks,\" he added.\n\nThere has been understandable enthusiasm over a promising start to the hugely ambitious UK vaccination rollout.\n\nBut there has been some tension over the decision to lengthen the time between doses for the Pfizer vaccine to 12 weeks.\n\nProf Whitty and other health leaders and experts say this will allow many more people to get vaccinated quickly and the first dose gives most of the protection.\n\nBut critics argue this goes against Pfizer's recommendation of a three-week gap and there is no data to back up the long delay.\n\nThe intervention of the BMA is significant as it shows senior doctors now have widespread concerns, including worries about reliability of supplies if people have to wait longer for a second jab.\n\nThis is a private letter to Chris Whitty seen by the BBC and not a grandstanding press release. The BMA wants to have talks with the chief medical adviser about moving to six weeks.\n\nProf Whitty will no doubt restate his case, but it will be interesting to see whether the BMA argument gains traction in the wider medical world.\n\nThe BMA also suggested second doses might not be guaranteed after a 12-week delay \"given the unpredictability of supplies\".\n\nHowever, Public Health England's medical director said people would get their second dose.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that she backed the current strategy, saying it was \"about bearing down on transmission\" to reduce deaths and reduce the chance of more dangerous variants of the virus emerging.\n\n\"The more people that are protected against this virus, the less opportunity it has to get the upper hand,\" she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nOther issues highlighted in the letter include:\n\nThe UK's chief medical officers have said the \"great majority\" of initial protection comes from the first jab, while the second dose is likely to help that protection last longer.\n\nIn total, the UK has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and 40 million of the Pfizer vaccine.\n\nBoth vaccines are expected to work against the variant of Covid-19 that emerged in the UK.\n\nWhat has been your experience of receiving the vaccine? Are you waiting for your second dose? Email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Nurses are calling for all UK staff to be given a higher grade of face mask to protect them against new variants of coronavirus.\n\nThe Royal College of Nursing warns that inadequate PPE may be putting the lives of nursing staff at risk.\n\nIt has written to the workplace safety watchdog detailing its concerns, soon after a similar appeal from doctors.\n\nEngland's Department of Health says there is no reason to change current guidance.\n\nIt follows a comprehensive review of all the evidence around the new variants and the impact on PPE.\n\nAt present, most nurses working outside of intensive care wear standard surgical masks.\n\nBut the RCN says they may not protect them against the new variant of the virus, and very small airborne viral particles spread in hospitals.\n\nInstead, it wants all NHS staff to be given the kinds of high-grade face masks used in intensive care units, called FFP2 or FFP3 masks.\n\nThe UK guidance on infection prevention and control has recently been updated, but nurses say it allows individual trusts to decide what PPE to use.\n\nAs a result, some hospitals are offering staff high-grade PPE while many are not - and that is leading to unequal levels of protection depending on where nurses work.\n\nMany nurses wear standard surgical masks outside of intensive care\n\nDame Donna Kinnair, chief executive and general secretary of the RCN, said: \"The government's silence on this issue is creating a postcode lottery for nursing staff.\n\n\"It must stop dragging its feet on this issue. Nursing staff need to have full confidence that they are protected.\"\n\nShe added: \"Staff picking up this virus at work are angered at any suggestion they have stopped following the rules - this is down to the new variant and the dangerous shortage of adequate protection.\"\n\nNHS England data shows a 22% rise in the average number of healthcare staff off sick because of Covid-19 in the first week of January, compared with the last week in December.\n\nA spokesman from the Department of Health and Social Care in England said the safety of NHS and social care staff was \"top priority\" but the current guidance did not need changing.\n\n\"In response to the new Covid-19 variants, the UK Infection Prevention Control Cell conducted a comprehensive review of all available evidence and concluded that current guidance and PPE recommendations remain the right ones.\n\n\"New and emerging evidence is continually scrutinised and evaluated by the government, in conjunction with our world-leading scientists,\" the spokesman said.\n\nThe Royal College of Nursing is asking the governments of the UK to:\n\nIt is also calling for the Health and Safety Executive to review the guidance on appropriate use of PPE in all health and care settings.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nCheltenham Town came within nine minutes of one of the biggest shocks in recent FA Cup history before Manchester City staged a dramatic late rally to crush the dreams of the gallant League Two side.\n\nThe Robins, 72 places below City who sit second in the Premier League, threatened huge embarrassment for Pep Guardiola's side after Alfie May put Cheltenham ahead on the hour after a trademark long throw from captain Ben Tozer caused chaos in the area.\n\nCity, who made ten changes to the team that beat Aston Villa in the Premier League on Wednesday, spared their embarrassment when Phil Foden, the game's outstanding player, arrived at the far post to turn in substitute Joao Cancelo's long cross in the 81st minute.\n\nAnd the turnaround was complete three minutes later when a rare moment of slackness in the outstanding Cheltenham defence, with goalkeeper Josh Griffiths superb, switched off and Gabriel Jesus scored from Fernandinho's delivery.\n\nFerran Torres scored Manchester City's third with the last kick of the game to give the scoreline a cruel reflection on Cheltenham's heroic efforts.\n\nIt was so cruel on manager Michael Duff and his players, who now go back the battle for promotion from League Two, while City will be away at Swansea in the fifth round.\n\n\"I'm incredibly proud,\" the Robins boss said of his side's display. \"The players they brought on from the bench and they way they celebrated the goals tells you something. They know they've been in a game. They've done that to better teams than us.\"\n\nThe sight of Manchester City manager Guardiola disputing where Cheltenham could take a throw-in said everything about the way the League Two underdogs gave their mighty opponents a serious fright.\n\nTozer's throw-ins were causing all manner of problems and led to Cheltenham's goal but there was so much more to their performance than that set-piece weapon, a threat any manager in the game would utilise.\n\nCheltenham tried to play football when they got the chance, with goalscorer May, who has done the hard yards in non-league before playing for Doncaster and now Cheltenham, a leading light.\n\nRobins keeper Griffiths, who suffered the ignominy of being beaten from 71 yards by his Newport County opposite number Tom King in midweek, was in defiant form as he saved well from Riyad Mahrez and Torres, showing command throughout. Tozer's headed goalline clearance from Benjamin Mendy in the first half was also symbolic of their 'they shall not pass' approach.\n\nThere may have been no fans inside this compact stadium but there was still a real sense of occasion, the game being halted in the first half because of a firework display nearby.\n\nIn the end this will be a bitter disappointment to Cheltenham but they can be rightly proud and take huge confidence into their League Two promotion battle.\n\nDuff highlighted how financially important the cup run was for his club.\n\n\"It's essential,\" he added. \"Every pound coming in is probably worth a tenner in normal times.\n\n\"These games don't come around very often. It's a shame because [with fans] the place would've been bouncing. Would that have seen us through in the last 10 minutes? I'm not so sure - but the key is to enjoy it.\"\n\nGuardiola made 10 changes to his line-up to give Manchester City's shadow squad a chance to impress.\n\nSome, like the erratic Mendy, did not take that opportunity and it was someone establishing himself in City's side that spared the blushes of this expensively assembled squad.\n\nFoden was magnificent, so light on his feet with glorious ball control, endless creativity and the man pulling the strings for City even when they were struggling to break down resilient Cheltenham.\n\nThe 20-year-old was head and shoulders above his City team-mates. He was the one who was going to pull them out of their grim predicament if anyone was, and so it proved when he popped up with the crucial late equaliser that lifted Guardiola's team and deflated Cheltenham.\n\nFoden had already carved out chances for Mahrez and Gabriel Jesus that were not taken so it was a case of 'do it yourself' when he was the player on target.\n\nThe fact Guardiola was forced to use three subs in Ruben Dias, Ilkay Gundogan and Joao Cancelo once Cheltenham went ahead proved how worried the Premier League giants were.\n\nThis was an unimpressive, scratchy display from City's much-changed team, with Guardiola resting so many of the players who are giving them such an ominous look in the Premier League - luckily they had the brilliance of Foden to pull them out of a deep hole.\n\nGuardiola praised the England attacking midfielder for his impressive performance.\n\n\"Foden is in a great moment and with great confidence,\" he said.\n\n\"He is clinical in front of goal and he had a similar chance to the goal we scored at [Chelsea's] Stamford Bridge - he is playing really well.\"\n\nThe City manager suggested he was confident in the players he put out on the pitch.\n\n\"I didn't have regrets even when we were 1-0 down, we had clear chances from the first minute,\" he added.\n\n\"When they take advantage it gets complicated, but we got it to 1-1 and it was tight. We came here with humility and had the quality to make the difference.\"\n• None Cheltenham have lost all nine of their competitive meetings with Premier League sides, by an aggregate score of 6-23.\n• None City have won 10 consecutive games in all competitions for the first time since a run of 11 from August to October 2017.\n• None May's opener for Cheltenham was the first goal City had conceded in 509 minutes of action in all competitions, since Callum Hudson-Odoi's strike for Chelsea at the start of the month.\n• None Foden is City's top scorer in all competitions this season with nine goals in 25 appearances, one more than he netted in 38 games last season.\n• None Jesus has been involved in 12 goals in 13 FA Cup appearances for City, scoring eight and assisting four.\n• None May has scored four goals in his four FA Cup games for Cheltenham, with each of his eight goals in total in the competition coming in home games.\n• None Goal! Cheltenham Town 1, Manchester City 3. Ferran Torres (Manchester City) right footed shot from very close range to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Ilkay Gündogan.\n• None Attempt missed. Matty Blair (Cheltenham Town) right footed shot from the right side of the box is too high following a corner.\n• None Goal! Cheltenham Town 1, Manchester City 2. Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Fernandinho with a through ball.\n• None Goal! Cheltenham Town 1, Manchester City 1. Phil Foden (Manchester City) left footed shot from very close range to the bottom left corner. Assisted by João Cancelo with a cross.\n• None Attempt missed. João Cancelo (Manchester City) left footed shot from outside the box misses to the left. Assisted by Riyad Mahrez.\n• None Attempt missed. Phil Foden (Manchester City) header from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by João Cancelo with a cross. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Hear from the former US president as he reflects on his time in office\n• None How can you eat well for £1 a portion?", "The 39 people who died in the back of a trailer as it crossed the North Sea between Zeebrugge and the UK\n\nFour men have been jailed for the manslaughter of 39 Vietnamese migrants found dead in a lorry trailer in Essex.\n\nThe migrants died \"excruciatingly painful\" deaths, having suffocated in the container en route from Belgium to Purfleet in October 2019, a judge said.\n\nRonan Hughes, 41, and Gheorghe Nica, 43, played \"leading roles\" in the smuggling conspiracy and were jailed for 20 and 27 years respectively.\n\nAt the Old Bailey, two lorry drivers were also jailed for manslaughter.\n\n[Left to right] Eamonn Harrison, Ronan Hughes, Gheorghe Nica and Maurice Robinson were all jailed for manslaughter\n\nEamonn Harrison, 24, who towed the trailer to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge before their journey to the UK, was sentenced to 18 years.\n\nMaurice Robinson, 26, was given 13 years and four months, having collected the trailer and opened it in an industrial estate to find the migrants dead.\n\nThree others members of the people-smuggling gang were also sentenced for conspiracy to facilitate unlawful immigration.\n\nChristopher Kennedy, 24, from County Armagh, was jailed for seven years; Valentin Calota, 38, of Birmingham, for four-and-a-half years; and Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 28, of Hobart Road, Tilbury, Essex, was given a three-year sentence.\n\n[Left to right] Valentin Calota, Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga and Christopher Kennedy were also sentenced on Friday\n\nSentencing, Mr Justice Sweeney said: \"I have no doubt that the conspiracy was a sophisticated, long-running and profitable one to smuggle mainly Vietnamese people across the channel.\"\n\nHe said on the fatal trip the temperature had been rising along with the carbon dioxide levels throughout, hitting 40C (104F) while the container was at sea on 22 October 2019.\n\n\"There were desperate attempts to contact the outside world by phone and to break through the roof of the container,\" the judge said.\n\n\"All were to no avail and, before the ship reached Purfleet, [the victims] all died in what must have been an excruciatingly painful death.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video evidence showed how the trainer containing 39 Vietnamese migrants made its way to the UK\n\nThe victims had used a metal pole to try to punch through the roof but only managed to dent the interior.\n\nThe court heard some of their final desperate phone messages, including one where a man spoke with ragged breaths as he apologised to his family.\n\n\"I can't breathe,\" he said. \"I want to come back to my family. Have a good life.\"\n\nJustice Sweeney added: \"The willingness of the victims to try and enter the country illegally provides no excuse for what happened to them.\"\n\nThe bodies of 39 Vietnamese nationals were discovered in a refrigerated trailer on 23 October 2019\n\nDuring the trial, jurors were given a snapshot of the victims - who included a bricklayer, a university graduate and a nail bar technician - and their dreams of a better life.\n\nMany of their families borrowed heavily to fund their passage, relying on their potential future earnings once they got into the UK.\n\nThe father of Nguyen Huy Tung, one of two 15-year-olds in the container, later learned of his son's death via social media.\n\nHarrison, of Newry, County Down, claimed he did not know there were people in the trailer when he towed it to the Belgian port, and that he watched \"a wee bit of Netflix\" in bed as they were loaded on.\n\nAfter receiving this message from his boss, Robinson got out of his cab, opened the trailer door and discovered the bodies\n\nRobinson, from County Armagh, collected the trailer when it arrived on UK shores just after midnight on 23 October.\n\nHis boss, Hughes, had messaged him: \"Give them air quickly don't let them out.\"\n\nRobinson gave a thumbs-up in reply. When Robinson stopped on a nearby industrial estate, he found that the migrants were all dead.\n\nHis barrister said Robinson, who admitted manslaughter, being part of the trafficking plot and money laundering, was \"horrified by what he saw\".\n\nThe moment lorry driver Maurice Robinson opened the trailer door and discovered the bodies inside was captured on CCTV\n\nThe trial examined three smuggling attempts by the gang - two that were successful on 11 and 18 October, and the final trip on 23 October.\n\nOn all three runs, Nica, of Basildon, Essex, had arranged cars and a van to transport the migrants at the UK end.\n\nWhen Robinson discovered the bodies, there was a series of telephone conversations between him and Nica and Hughes, of Tyholland, County Monaghan, Ireland, before the driver eventually dialled 999.\n\nIn his evidence, Nica said Robinson told him: \"I have a problem here - dead bodies in the trailer.\"\n\nWhile Hughes admitted manslaughter, both Nica and Harrison were convicted by a jury.\n\nMr Justice Sweeney said that in the conspiracy \"two played leading roles, namely - in order of importance - Hughes and Nica\".\n\nHe accepted Hughes was \"not at the very top of the conspiracy\" but said his role was \"pivotal... in that he ran a haulage business and supplied the trailers and drivers used to transport the migrants\".\n\nThe judge said Nica \"recruited and paid the drivers whose job it was to collect the migrants when they reached the drop-off site in this country and to drive them to the safe house(s) where they were to be held until payment\".\n\nHe added at the top of the conspiracy was a Vietnamese man called \"Fong\", who was based in London.\n\nMr Justice Sweeney told the defendants jailed for manslaughter they would serve two-thirds of the term in custody, instead of the usual half.\n\nEarlier this month, Gazmir Nuzi, 43, of Barclay Road, Tottenham, north London, was sentenced, having admitted his limited role in the people-smuggling operation. It was accepted he was not a member of the organised crime group behind the smuggling operation.\n\nDet Ch Insp Daniel Stoten said: \"May this serve as a warning to those who think it's OK to prey on the vulnerabilities of migrants and their families, transporting them in a way worse than we would transport animals.\n\n\"My message to you is that we will find you and we will stop you.\"\n\nHe said the victims died in an \"unimaginable way, because of the utter greed of these criminals\".\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Police warned that unsanctioned protests would be \"immediately suppressed\"\n\nRussian police have detained close aides of the jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny, as a string of nationwide protests gets under way.\n\nPolice have broken up demonstrations in the eastern Khabarovsk region, amid stern warnings for people to stay home.\n\nMr Navalny's supporters flooded social media with calls to rally at protests expected in dozens of cities later.\n\nHe is Russian leader Vladimir Putin's most high-profile critic.\n\nHe was arrested last Sunday after he flew back to Moscow from Berlin, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal nerve agent attack in Russia last August.\n\nOn his return, he was immediately taken into custody and found guilty of violating parole conditions. He says it is a trumped-up case designed to silence him.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Alexei Navalny was filmed by the BBC saying goodbye to his wife and then being led away by authorities\n\nMore than 60m people have watched his new video about President Vladimir Putin's alleged luxury Black Sea palace.\n\nThe Kremlin denies the property belongs to the president.\n\nAmong those detained in Moscow on Thursday were his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, and one of his lawyers, Lyubov Sobol. They face fines or short jail terms.\n\nMs Sobol, who has a young child, was later released. But Ms Yarmysh has now been jailed for nine days.\n\nProminent Navalny activists are also being held in the cities of Vladivostok, Novosibirsk and Krasnodar.\n\nUnauthorised rallies are being planned in more than 60 cities across Russia for Saturday. Moscow police say any unauthorised demonstrations and provocations will be \"immediately suppressed\".\n\nA thousand people were reported to have come onto the streets in the Khabarovsk region, with some of them already detained.\n\nMr Navalny's wife Yulia, who travelled back to Russia with him from Germany, said she would demonstrate in Moscow \"for myself, for him, for our children, for the values and the ideals that we share\".\n\nAlexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) has drawn millions of followers on social media, through slickly produced videos alleging large-scale official corruption. He has long denounced Mr Putin's administration as \"feudal\" and full of \"crooks and thieves\".\n\nFor a long time the Russian authorities made out that Alexei Navalny was irrelevant. Just a blogger. With a tiny following. No threat whatsoever.\n\nRecent events suggest the opposite. First Mr Navalny was targeted with a nerve agent, allegedly by a secret group of FSB state security hitmen. Instead of investigating the poisoning, Russia is investigating him: on his return from Germany the Kremlin critic was arrested.\n\nHaving put Mr Navalny behind bars, the authorities are putting pressure on his supporters. The Kremlin's greatest fear is of a Ukraine-style revolution in Russia that would sweep away those in power.\n\nThere's no indication that such a scenario is imminent. But with economic problems growing, the Kremlin will worry that Mr Navalny could act as a lightning rod for protest sentiment. That explains the police crackdown on Navalny allies ahead of Saturday's potential protests.\n\nPlus, this is getting personal. Mr Navalny's video about \"Putin's Palace\" on the Black Sea was designed to cause maximum embarrassment to the Russian president.\n\nIn the \"Putin's palace\" video Mr Navalny alleges that rich businessmen close to Mr Putin paid for a sumptuous 17,691sq m (190,424sq ft) palace for him at Gelendzhik, by the Black Sea.\n\nIt is alleged to have a casino, a theatre and many other comforts, including a vineyard and tea house in the sprawling grounds. The Kremlin dismissed the YouTube video as a \"pseudo-investigation\" aimed at earning money for Mr Navalny.\n\nProsecutors have warned people against protesting in support of Mr Navalny on Saturday. Russia's education ministry has told parents not to allow their children to attend.\n\nSome Russian celebrities in the arts and sports have pledged support for Mr Navalny. They include ice hockey star Artemi Panarin.\n\nFormer world chess champion Garry Kasparov - now a leading anti-Putin activist based in the US - tweeted that pro-Navalny posts were being widely blocked in Russia.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Garry Kasparov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a phone call to President Putin on Friday, EU Council President Charles Michel voiced \"grave concern\" about the jailing of Mr Navalny.\n\nMr Michel said the EU was \"united in its call on Russia to swiftly release Mr Navalny and proceed with the investigation into the assassination attempt on him, in full transparency and without further delay\".\n\nIn October, the EU imposed sanctions on six top Russian officials and a Russian chemical weapons research centre over the Novichok poisoning of Mr Navalny.\n\nThe Kremlin retaliated with tit-for-tat sanctions, denying any role in the attack and rejecting the expert finding that the Russian nerve agent had been used.\n\nThe Black Sea palace allegedly features a casino, an ice rink and a vineyard\n\nThe social media app TikTok has a flood of videos from Russians promoting the protests planned for Saturday. The messages about Mr Navalny have been going viral for several days.\n\nA well-known Russian TikTok user, Slava Varfolomeyev, told BBC Russian: \"I go on TikTok and find that every third video is about 'Putin's palace', the detention of Navalny and the 23 January rally!\"\n\nHe said that on Thursday \"this swelled to a maximum: practically seven out of every 10 videos were on that topic [Navalny]\". TikTok's popularity is based on short-form videos.\n\nOn Wednesday Russia's official media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, demanded that TikTok take down any information \"encouraging minors to act illegally\", threatening large fines.", "Police said they had been in contact with the family before the funeral took place \"in an attempt to ensure safety\"\n\nA funeral director has been fined £10,000 after police were called to a funeral with close to 150 people in attendance.\n\nHertfordshire Police said the large gathering in Welwyn Garden City on Thursday was reported to them by members of the public.\n\nCoronavirus rules mean a maximum of 30 people can attend a funeral.\n\nA second person was fined, by Bedfordshire Police, for when the gathering was in Arlesey, Bedfordshire.\n\nSupt Nick Caveney, of Hertfordshire Police, said: \"This was a clear and blatant breach of the current restrictions.\"\n\nHe said the fine was given to the funeral director \"for not managing this event correctly and advising their clients of the rules\".\n\n\"We implore all business owners to ensure they are following the restrictions safely and responsibly,\" he said.\n\n\"Flagrant breaches such as this will not be tolerated.\"\n\nThe force said it had worked with other agencies and the family in advance of the funeral \"in an attempt to ensure the safety of those attending and that of the wider public\".\n\nBut when officers attended they found the large number of people at the church, and a 41-year-old man from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, was handed the £10,000 fine after police served a fixed penalty notice.\n\nSeveral members of the public had contacted the force about the funeral at the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady, Queen of Apostles on Woodhall Lane.\n\nBedfordshire Police said a man in his 30s was issued with the fine over the gathering.\n\nCh Supt John Murphy from the force said: \"Fines and enforcement are a last resort for us, and we will always engage and work with families in the first instance.\n\n\"But we need to take firm action against those who brazenly decide to go against the guidelines outlined by the government and put a large number of people at risk.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Ministers will discuss at a meeting on Monday whether to tighten restrictions at UK borders - including the possibility of hotel quarantines for travellers, the BBC has been told.\n\nAt a Downing Street news conference on Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not rule out taking further action.\n\nIt comes amid increased concerns over the spread of new coronavirus variants.\n\nUnder current travel curbs, almost all people arriving in the UK must test negative for Covid to be allowed entry.\n\nThe test must be taken in the 72 hours before travelling and anyone arriving without one faces a fine of up to £500.\n\nAll passengers are also required to quarantine for up to 10 days, although the isolation period can be cut short with a second negative test after five days in England.\n\nThe only people not subject to the conditions are children under 11, hauliers, air, international rail and maritime crew, and passengers from the Common Travel Area - comprised of the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man\n\nScotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own quarantine rules, which differ slightly.\n\nAs of Monday, travel corridors, which exempted passengers arriving from some countries from quarantine, were suspended throughout the UK.\n\nAsked whether the government would bring in further measures at UK borders, Mr Johnson said: \"I really don't rule it out, we may need to take further measures still.\n\n\"We may need to go further to protect our borders.\n\n\"We don't want to put that [efforts to control Covid] at risk by having a new variant come back in.\"\n\nOne more infectious variant , which was first identified in Kent, has already spread widely across the UK.\n\nAnd, at the briefing, the prime minister announced that early evidence suggests this variant may be more deadly.\n\nOther new variants causing concern have been identified in South Africa and Brazil in the weeks since the Kent variant was discovered.\n\nThose discoveries led to direct flights to the UK from all South American countries and several southern African countries being suspended.\n\nScientists fear these variants discovered in other countries may interfere with the effectiveness of vaccines and evade parts of the immune system.\n\nWhile those travelling into the UK are asked to abide by the 10-day isolation and told they can be subject to checks, London mayor Sadiq Khan is among those who have called for the UK to adopt the use of enforced quarantine in hotel rooms.\n\nThe policy is among the measures in Australia that has limited the country to just 28,750 positive cases during the entire pandemic, fewer than the UK currently has every day.\n\nTravellers who choose to go to Australia have to pay for their rooms at one of a number of selected quarantine facilities - and have all their meals delivered to their room throughout a stay of at least 14 days. They get tested twice for Covid during that period and if they test positive their quarantine is extended for a further 14 days.\n\nMeanwhile, passengers arriving into London's Heathrow airport this week have complained of queues at passport control and what they described as poor social distancing, after the latest travel restrictions - requiring travellers to show proof of their negative Covid tests - came into force.\n\nOn Friday, former British ambassador Peter Westmacott posted a picture on Twitter of long queues at the airport.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Peter Westmacott This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA government spokesman said people \"should not be travelling unless absolutely necessary\".\n\nThe statement added: \"You must have proof of a negative test and a completed passenger locator form before arriving.\n\n\"Border Force have been ramping up enforcement and those not complying could be fined £500.\n\n\"It's ultimately up to individual airports to ensure social distancing on site.\"\n\nWith all parts of the UK under strict virus rules amid high levels of infection, only essential foreign travel is permitted in the current advice from the Foreign Office.\n\nA further 40,261 cases, and 1,401 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were reported on Friday in the UK.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Some of the volunteers are working to prepare bodies for burial\n\nA mosque in east London has closed for all communal prayer. Instead it is serving two purposes - providing funerals and feeding the local community. Michael Buchanan finds a team of volunteers there battling to deal with the pandemic.\n\nThe family shuffled quietly past a crate of milk cartons. They came through the small porch, towards the open coffin. Inside was a woman - a loved one - who died of Covid two days ago. The coffin sat feet away from tins and packets to be distributed by the local food bank. The milk was the latest delivery.\n\nIt is impossible to capture the enormous consequences of the pandemic. But last Saturday lunchtime, this tragic image - one of grief and hardship coming together - came close, for me at least.\n\nCovid-19 has made extraordinary demands of so many different people, but what is currently happening at the Masjid Ibrahim and Islamic Centre in east London is truly remarkable. Situated on a busy road, with the noise of ambulance sirens regularly shattering its peaceful interior, the mosque has closed to communal prayer and is open for two other purposes - to provide a funeral service and a food bank to the local community. Both are inundated.\n\n\"We've had so many bodies coming in. It's quite shocking. It's one after another after another. We've never had that situation before,\" says Sofia Bhatti. Alongside her friend, Tabassum Khokhar - known as Tabs - the pair are unheralded heroes. They volunteer to wash the bodies of Covid-positive women prior to burial.\n\nThe practice, called Ghusl, is a sacred Islamic ritual and is usually performed by the deceased's relatives, who cleanse and shroud the body. But Covid restrictions mean families are currently denied that religious honour, so volunteers like Sofia and Tabs are taking on what they consider to be a privileged task.\n\n\"We actually believe that when we are shrouding here, that God is shrouding the soul at the same time,\" says Tabs, standing by a coffin. By day, she works as a teaching support worker in a local school, so the PPE that the mosque provides - bodysuit, footwear, two sets of gloves, masks and visors - is crucial for her. \"I make sure my PPE is secure because it's not just about me, it's about my family. I have an 81-year-old mother.\"\n\nThe women are seeing first hand - and in graphic detail - the pressure the NHS is under. \"Very often we see bodies coming in with a lot of medical equipment still attached to them,\" says Sofia. \"Tubes and pipes and catheters still attached. So it makes our job a little bit harder.\" One of the women they washed during my visit had died in the ambulance, never actually reaching hospital.\n\nVery often we see bodies coming in with a lot of medical equipment still attached to them. Tubes and pipes and catheters\n\nThere are far more bodies than during the first peak and there is a larger age range. One day this week, the mosque was handling seven bodies. A few days earlier they said they'd processed 10 funerals, all arranged for free and paid for by donations. Before the pandemic, they'd handled two to three funerals a week. The two local hospital trusts in east London have each had more than 1,000 Covid deaths since the start of the pandemic. More have died at home.\n\nThe borough of Newham, where the mosque sits, has suffered a disproportionate number of deaths. Home to the Olympic Park, the 2012 London games were meant to regenerate this area. Yet it retains high levels of poverty and overcrowded housing. Add in a diverse population, rich in south Asian culture, and large numbers of people who can't work from home and the virus has sadly ripped through its residents.\n\nIsfand Aslam said he's shocked by what's going on. His father, Mohammad, died on 3 January, a week after falling ill. His positive Covid test result arrived two days after his death. The 85-year-old was a committee member at the Masjid Ibrahim and despite his age had been in good health. \"It took a week between him passing away and getting buried. Initially I was getting a lot of condolences from friends. But by the end of that week I am giving condolences to three friends because their fathers had passed away. It's now got to the stage where everybody we know knows somebody who has passed away.\"\n\nThe sheer number of deaths is impacting the area's main Muslim cemetery. Normally, the Gardens of Peace buries three to four people each day. They're currently carrying out an average of 15 funerals daily. Overall, they are about 50% busier than usual. They can no longer promise burials within 24 hours, as per Muslim custom.\n\nDespite this, there is still a concerning number of people in the local area who either don't think Covid is real or are resistant to taking a vaccine. There was anger among some community leaders before Christmas when it emerged the Bangladeshi High Commission in London held a cultural evening to celebrate its independence. Photos from the event, on 16 December, showed a group - including the High Commissioner herself - standing close together with no masks or social distancing. The High Commission said performers had been Covid tested and it had issued 10 videos in Bangla urging British-Bangladeshis to adhere to UK government guidance.\n\nIt's now got to the stage where everybody we know knows somebody who has passed away\n\nTo counter disinformation among its members, an imam at the Masjid Ibrahim, Mohammad Ammar, filmed a short video of himself being injected with the vaccine and urged his congregation to follow suit. Imam Ammar has actually been furloughed by the mosque as it focusses all its resources on battling the pandemic, including feeding its local community.\n\nThe virus forced the mosque to open a food bank in March. It is still running 10 months on. On Monday night, I watched a steady stream of people gather in the gloom at the rear of the mosque to fill their bags. Most were collecting on behalf of a larger household, and the mosque says they're currently feeding 350 families each week, including students, refugees, people with no access to public funds and those who've lost income.\n\nAmong those collecting food on Monday was Mohammad Rahman. A 42-year-old chef, he lost his job in an Indian restaurant three months ago. The married father of two boys - aged eight and six - told me he was already in rent arrears and struggling to pay his energy bills. \"My son says 'where is the pizza'? But I have no money. He says '[can I have] chicken and chips'? But I have no money. The shops are open, but no money\", he adds, taking his hands from his pockets.\n\nIn normal times, the Masjid Ibrahim would attract about 1,100 worshippers over three floors for Friday prayers, and there has been some pressure on the leadership to reopen for communal worship. But Asim Uddin, chairman of the mosque, says now is not the time. \"Prayers, yes, it's important. But right now what is the need? The need of the community is they want to be fed and they want a place where they can respectfully bury their loved ones. And the demand is overwhelming. Right now, it's better they stay home, and they can pray at home until the situation goes back to normal.\"\n\nMichael Buchanan is the BBC's social affairs correspondent and has been reporting on the impact of the pandemic on communities in the UK. Last year, he visited the town of Pontypool to find out what impact coronavirus restrictions were having in Wales.", "Reports suggest AstraZeneca may have warned of a 60% cut to doses available\n\nA second coronavirus vaccine manufacturer has warned of supply issues to the European Union, compounding frustration in the bloc.\n\nAstraZeneca said a production problem meant the number of initial doses available would be lower than expected.\n\nThe fresh blow comes after some nations' inoculation programmes were slowed due to a cut in deliveries of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.\n\nThe EU Health Commissioner expressed \"deep dissatisfaction\" at the news.\n\nOfficials have not confirmed publicly how big the shortfall will be, but an unnamed EU official told Reuters news agency that deliveries would be reduced to 31m - a cut of 60% - in the first quarter of this year.\n\nThe drug firm had been set to deliver about 80 million doses to the 27 nations by March, according to the official who spoke to Reuters.\n\nThe AstraZeneca vaccine, developed with Oxford University, has not yet been approved by the EU's drug regulator but is expected to get the green light at the end of this month, paving the way for jabs to be given.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Stella Kyriakides This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA spokesman for AstraZeneca said on Friday that \"initial volumes will be lower than originally anticipated\" without giving further details.\n\nHis written statement blamed the discrepancy on \"reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain\" and said the firm was continuing to ramp up production volumes.\n\nNews of the delay comes amid criticism and frustration across the region about the speed of vaccination roll-outs.\n\nIsrael, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the US are all well ahead of EU nations in terms of doses given per capita so far.\n\nThe European Commission has co-ordinated orders for all member states, with vaccines then distributed based on their population size.\n\nVaccines are increasingly seen by experts as the only way out of the Covid-19 crisis, with many European nations struggling to cope with a deadly surge of the virus over the winter period.\n\nAustrian media have reported that only 600,000 of two million AstraZeneca doses promised by the end of March will arrive in the country on time, with the remaining 1.4m now being delivered in April.\n\nA delay would be \"completely unacceptable\", Austrian Health Minister Rudolf Anschober said on Friday.\n\nAs for Pfizer, the US firm said it had to cut shipments for the next few weeks while it worked to increase capacity at its Belgian processing plant. The EU has ordered 600 million doses from Pfizer.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Ursula von der Leyen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSome regions, including Germany's most populous state North-Rhine Westphalia and parts of Italy, said earlier this week that they were suspending giving first jabs of the two-dose vaccine because of the shortages.\n\nItaly and Poland have threatened to take legal action in response to the reduction in vaccine supply.\n\nMeanwhile Hungary's government, which has complained over the time it is taking EU regulators to approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, has reached a deal with Russia to buy up large quantities of its Sputnik V vaccine, even though it has not received EU approval.\n\nEuropean Council President Charles Michel, who led a call of EU leaders this week, said Thursday that officials were considering all ideas to try and stop future vaccine delays.\n\n\"All possible means will be examined to ensure rapid supply, including early distribution to avoid delays,\" he said.\n\nEuropean Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Mr Michel both say they are still aiming for the target of 70% of the EU population being vaccinated by summer.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid vaccine safety: How does a vaccine get approved?\n\nThe total number of German Covid deaths climbed above 50,000 on Friday - a day after the country warned that it could close its borders if other EU countries were less strict in controlling the virus. Berlin sounded the alarm amid rising concern about new variants.\n\nEU leaders agreed late on Thursday to keep their internal borders open but warned non-essential travel might need to be restricted to curb the spread of the virus.\n\nMs von der Leyen said Thursday that more testing and \"targeted measures\" were needed throughout the EU in order to keep internal and external borders open.\n\nFor its part, France said it would impose tighter travel restrictions for European arrivals from Sunday, requiring a negative PCR Covid test within three days of travel.\n\nIn the Netherlands, a ban on all flights from the UK, South Africa and South American countries came into effect on Saturday to try and prevent new coronavirus variants gaining a foothold.\n\nLooking forward to the future, officials from EU nations reliant on tourism - including Spain and Greece - have floated the possibility of using vaccination certificates to allow for cross-border travel but there has been scepticism within the bloc.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Infection level \"very, very high\" and \"extremely precarious\" - Prof Whitty\n\nThe UK is at an \"extremely precarious\" point, according to the chief medical adviser, despite signs Covid infections are beginning to fall.\n\nThe virus's reproduction rate is estimated to be at or below one for the first time since early December.\n\nAnything below one means the epidemic is shrinking.\n\nBut cases are falling from a \"very, very high level\", Prof Chris Whitty said - and may still be increasing in some areas.\n\n\"A very small change and it could start taking off again from an extremely high base,\" he warned.\n\nSpeaking at a Number 10 press conference on Friday evening, the UK's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said the \"awful\" death rate would stay high \"for a little while before it starts coming down\".\n\n\"That was always what was predicted...and I think the information about the new variant doesn't change that\".\n\nEarly evidence suggests the variant of coronavirus that emerged in the UK may be more deadly, although findings are preliminary and there is a high level of uncertainty.\n\nDr Susan Hopkins at Public Health England said there was \"evidence from some but not all data sources which suggests that the variant of concern which was first detected in the UK may lead to a higher risk of death than the non-variant.\n\n\"Evidence on this variant is still emerging and more work is under way to fully understand how it behaves.\"\n\nThe Department of Health and Social Care said while the UK's R or reproduction number, might be below one - meaning a shrinking epidemic - overall, \"cases remain dangerously high and...it is essential that everyone continues to stay at home, whether they have had the vaccine or not.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures suggested cases were decreasing slightly or levelling off across Britain.\n\nBut infections are falling more slowly than they did during the first lockdown - by somewhere around a quarter every fortnight compared with a halving back in April.\n\nA further 40,261 cases, and 1,401 deaths were recorded on Friday in the UK.\n\nMore than five million people had been given a first dose of the vaccine by 21 January, and about half a million had received their second dose.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has previously said it is \"too early\" to say whether England's Covid restrictions will be able to end in the spring.\n\nWhile cases are falling or stable across the rest of the UK, in Northern Ireland cases have continued to rise and the new, more infectious strain has overtaken the older variant of the virus as of the start of January.\n\nDuring the week ending 16 January, about one in 55 people in England had the virus, the ONS estimated, with one in 35 in London testing positive.\n\nOne in 100 people had the virus in Scotland and one in 70 in Wales.\n\nBut in Northern Ireland infections have shot up from an an estimated one in 200 people testing positive in the week to 2 January, to one in 60 last week.\n\nONS statistician Sarah Crofts said while fewer people were testing positive in England, \"rates remain high and we estimate the level of infection is still over one million people\".\n\nAnd, she pointed out, \"the picture across the UK is mixed\".\n\nA survey by tech company ZOE and King's College London, based on swabs of people with and without symptoms, also suggested the R number could be at 0.8.\n\nAnd it estimated symptomatic cases had fallen by a quarter since last week.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What is the R number and what does it mean?\n\nMeanwhile, the proportion of people testing positive for the new Covid variant has risen considerably in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, ONS data suggest.\n\nBut the new strain, which remains by far the main source of infections in England, has yet to overtake the old strain in Scotland and Wales.\n\nWithin England, the proportion of infections that appear to be due to the new variant remained stable, but the gap between the regions is narrowing.\n\nIn the figures covering 2 January, 80% of infections looked like the new variant in London compared to 30% in the North East.\n\nTwo weeks later, that gap had narrowed to 70% in London versus 50% in the North East.\n\nIt is not clear what is behind the small fall in London, but it may be down to behaviour change, or other variants like the South Africa strain now in circulation and diluting the numbers.", "Morriston is seeing \"unprecedented\" numbers of people die in intensive care\n\nAn intensive care consultant said as many as five patients are dying with Covid during a single 12-hour shift.\n\nDr John Gorst said the number was \"unprecedented\" at his unit in Swansea's Morriston Hospital that would normally only see one person die.\n\nHe said the second wave of the pandemic was more challenging with patients more severely unwell.\n\nIn Wales, there has been an average of about 34 deaths a day during the pandemic up to 19 January.\n\nNew Year's Day saw the most Covid-related deaths in a single day in Wales - 55 - since the pandemic began.\n\n\"In some 12-hour periods we have lost up to five coronavirus patients,\" said Dr Gorst.\n\n\"Usually we expect to see, on average, one patient a day dying in the intensive care unit. To have five die on one day is unprecedented.\n\n\"That's been a real struggle for their families and for the staff dealing with it.\"\n\nFour additional medical wards have opened to cope with the impact of coronavirus at Morriston, with about 300 patients being treated.\n\nDr John Gorst and senior matron Carol Doggett say Covid patients are sicker and younger in the second wave\n\nDr Gorst said: \"If it wasn't for the treatment given on the wards, intensive care would have been completely overwhelmed.\n\n\"However, when patients have failed on these treatments, sadly the safety net of the intensive care unit [and] getting them on an invasive ventilator, largely doesn't work.\n\n\"Most patients who come to intensive care to go on an intensive ventilator, sadly, will not survive.\n\n\"These patients are mostly of working age. They don't have any significant medical conditions.\"\n\n\"This is alien to us as an intensive care unit. We expect far more patients to survive. Now they are not.\"\n\nMorriston's senior matron Carol Doggett agreed that the \"number of sicker patients has definitely increased\", and she said they were younger than had been experienced in the first wave of the pandemic.\n\n\"That should be a stark warning to anyone not to take chances with this,\" she said.\n\nOn Friday, First Minister Mark Drakeford said there was cause for concern over new variants of Covid-19.\n\n\"We know the new highly contagious strain - sometimes called the Kent variant - is now widespread across Wales,\" he said.\n\nHe also said the government was closely monitoring three new variant variants: one from South Africa and two from Brazil.\n\nSix cases of the South African variant have been identified in Wales.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Police tweeted this photo, which appears to show the vehicle severely damaged in the crash\n\nFour ponies have been killed in a collision with a vehicle in the New Forest National Park.\n\nThe animals were hit on Thursday night while licking freshly laid salt on Roger Penny Way, Hampshire Constabulary said.\n\nThree ponies died at the scene while a fourth was found dead later a short distance away.\n\nIn December, three donkeys were killed on the road, which is a black spot for animal accidents.\n\nMark Ferrett, whose daughter owned the ponies, said the deaths were \"unacceptable\"\n\nThe crash happened at about 21:00 GMT on a 40mph (64km/h) section of the road north of Brook.\n\nThe car, a Land Rover Discovery, appears to have been severely damaged in the collision, according to a police tweet, which gave no further details.\n\nMark Ferrett, whose daughter owned the ponies, said the deaths were \"unacceptable\".\n\nHe said: \"I would favour a reduction in the speed [limit]. Please, everyone needs to slow down and stop this carnage.\"\n\nThe New Forest is one of the largest remaining areas of unenclosed land where commoners' cattle, ponies and donkeys roam throughout the open heath.\n\nIn 2019, 58 animals were killed and 32 were injured, according to the New Forest National Park Authority.\n\nThe crash happened on Roger Penny Way, where donkeys, cattle and horses roam freely\n\nAndrew Napthine, a New Forest Agister who helps manage the area's free-roaming animals, attended the scene of the crash, and said the male driver was not injured.\n\nHe said three of the ponies were killed on the road while a fourth fled the scene and died behind a bush.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The UK has reported another 55,892 daily cases of coronavirus, the highest figure on record.\n\nAnd another 964 people died within 28 days of a positive test, only slightly down on the 981 on Wednesday.\n\nIt comes as Health Secretary Matt Hancock appealed to everyone to \"take personal responsibility this New Year's Eve and stay at home\".\n\nHe said he knew how much had been sacrificed this year but, with the NHS under pressure, \"we cannot let up\".\n\nOn Thursday, just after midnight, 20 million more people in England were placed under the toughest restrictions and told to stay at home.\n\nThe new restrictions mean 44 million people, or 78% of the population of England, are now in tier four, where non-essential shops, gyms, cinemas and hairdressers have to stay shut.\n\nPublic Health England medical director Dr Yvonne Doyle said Christmas week had seen a worrying rise in cases - particularly among adults in their 20s and 30s.\n\n\"We have all had to make huge sacrifices this year, but please ensure that you keep your distance from others, wash your hands and wear a mask,\" she said.\n\n\"A night in at new year will mean you are significantly reducing your social contacts and can help stop the spread of the virus.\"\n\nThe 981 deaths recorded on Wednesday was the highest daily figure since April.\n\nMuch of the rise in cases has been blamed on the spread of a new variant, which scientists believe is able to transmit more easily.\n\nIt was initially concentrated in the London, the South East and eastern England, but Mr Hancock has said it is now responsible for the \"majority\" of new cases across the UK.\n\nWith the number of Covid patients in hospitals increasing, some are being moved long distances for intensive care.\n\nDr Michael Marsh, NHS England medical director for the south-west region, said patients had come from Kent to Plymouth and Bristol, where services were \"less stretched\".\n\nThe latest NHS Test and Trace figures show 232,169 people tested positive for Covid in England at least once in the week to 23 December, up 33% on the previous week and the highest weekly rise on record.\n\nCovid case rates are continuing to rise in all regions of England - with London's rate at 735.5 per 100,000 people in the seven days to 27 December, up from 711.9 the previous week, the latest Public Health England report showed.\n\nEastern England saw the second highest rate, 551.3 up from 510.8, followed by south-east England at 450.6, up from 427.4.\n\nMeanwhile, Scotland recorded 2,622 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours - a record high for the third day in a row.\n\nPublic Health Wales reported a further 1,831 cases in Wales, with the highest case rates in Bridgend (825.6 for every 100,000 people) and Merthyr Tydfil (754.2).\n\nAnd Northern Ireland has seen another 1,929 cases in the last 24 hours, as hospitals come close to capacity with latest figures showing only six empty beds.\n\nSome hospital trusts in the south of England have also been reporting that they are under extreme pressure because of increasing numbers of Covid patients.\n\nOn Wednesday, Essex and Buckinghamshire declared major incidents, while an intensive care doctor at London's Whittington Hospital said they were facing a \"tsunami\" of Covid cases.\n\nProf Hugh Montgomery said people who did not follow social distancing rules or wear masks \"have blood on their hands\".\n\nThe NHS said London's Nightingale Hospital had been \"reactivated\" and was ready to admit patients, in anticipation of rising pressures from the spread of the new variant.", "Officers dispersed the party at the Grade II* listed church before midnight\n\nA 500-year-old church was damaged during an illegal New Year's Eve party at the venue.\n\nAll Saints' Church in East Horndon, near Brentwood, was broken into before crowds entered, Essex Police said.\n\nOfficers were threatened and had objects thrown at them as they dispersed hundreds of people and seized equipment, the force said.\n\nTwo men from Harlow, aged 27 and 22, and a 35-year-old from Southwark were arrested.\n\nThey were held on suspicion of public order and drugs offences.\n\nAstrid Gillespie, a volunteer with the Friends of All Saints', said event organisers had smashed a window to put in an extractor fan unit and wired sound equipment into the church's fuse box.\n\nShe said: \"It was a professional set-up, they'd hired portable loos, they had a bar area where you had to exchange tokens... obviously it's a mess.\n\n\"It's such a beautiful church, to find out it's been damaged is devastating.\"\n\nThe conservation group believes it will cost at least £1,000 to repair the Tudor building.\n\nEquipment was seized and fines issued over three illegal parties broken up by officers\n\nPolice later dispersed about 100 people at an illegal party at an abandoned warehouse in Brentwood and made two arrests.\n\nA woman was also fined £10,000 for organising a house party with 100 guests at Bury Road, Sewardstonebury, in Epping Forest.\n\nAssistant Chief Constable Andy Prophet said: \"Unfortunately, there were [those] who decided to blatantly flout the coronavirus rules and regulations and, ultimately, they decided that partying was more important than protecting other people.\n\n\"We've seized their equipment, arrested five people, and issued a large number of fines to those who think this behaviour is acceptable.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Father (left) and son have had divergent views on Brexit in the past\n\nThe father of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he is applying for French citizenship now that Britain has severed ties with the European Union.\n\nStanley Johnson told France's RTL radio he had always seen himself as French as his mother was born in France.\n\nThe 80-year-old former Conservative Member of the European Parliament voted Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum.\n\nHis son Boris spearheaded the Leave campaign and later took the UK out of the EU as prime minister.\n\nStanley Johnson explained his reasons for seeking French citizenship in an interview broadcast on Thursday, hours before the UK was due to leave EU trading rules.\n\n\"It's not about becoming French,\" he told RTL. \"It's about reclaiming what I already have.\"\n\nHe pointed out that his mother was born in France to a French mother. \"I will always be European,\" he added.\n\nStanley Johnson won a seat in the European Parliament when direct elections were first held in 1979, and later worked for the European Commission. As a result, Boris spent part of his childhood in Brussels.\n\nBrexit issues have divided the Johnson family. The prime minister's sister, the journalist Rachel Johnson, left the Conservative Party to join the Liberal Democrats ahead of the 2017 election in protest against Brexit.\n\nTheir brother, the Conservative MP Jo Johnson, resigned from the cabinet in 2018 to highlight his support for closer links with the EU.", "Tampon tax activist Laura Coryton says scrapping the tampon tax is an important move ‘ending a symptom of sexism’\n\nThe 5% rate of VAT on sanitary products - referred to as the \"tampon tax\" - will be abolished in the UK from 1 January.\n\nEU law required members to tax tampons and sanitary towels at 5%, treating period products as non-essential.\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak committed to scrapping the tax in his March Budget.\n\nCampaigners welcomed the end to what they called a \"sexist tax\" with activist Laura Coryton saying it was \"about ending a symptom of sexism\".\n\nThe UK was able to get rid of the tax now because it is no longer subject to European Union rules on sanitary products.\n\nThe EU is itself in the process of abolishing the tampon tax. In 2018 the European Commission published proposals to change the VAT rules, which would give countries the right to stop taxing tampons and other period products, but the move has not yet been agreed by all members. The Republic of Ireland has zero VAT on sanitary products as the rate was in place prior to EU legislation imposing the 5% minimum VAT rate on EU members.\n\nMs Coryton, 27, who began campaigning to end the tampon tax when she was 21, told the BBC the move \"challenged the negative message that this tax sent to society about women\".\n\nThe move follows Scotland becoming the first in the world to make period products free in November.\n\nFelicia Willow, chief executive of women's rights charity the Fawcett Society, agreed, saying: \"It's been a long road to reach this point, but at last the sexist tax that saw sanitary products classed as non-essential, luxury items can be consigned to the history books.\"\n\nThe Treasury has estimated the move will save the average woman nearly £40 over her lifetime, with a cut of 7p on a pack of 20 tampons and 5p on 12 pads.\n\nIt's been a long road to getting the tampon tax abolished in the UK. Campaigning and debates in parliament by then-MP for Dewsbury Ann Taylor led to the Labour government moving sanitary products to a reduced rate of 5% from January 2001- the lowest rate possible under the EU's VAT rules.\n\nAnd following more campaigning in 2014 by Ms Coryton and lobbying in parliament by former Dewsbury MP Paula Sherriff in 2016, the Conservative government announced that all VAT collected on sanitary products would henceforth be given to charities working with vulnerable women and girls.\n\nAt the same time, the government enshrined in legislation that it would abolish the tampon tax.\n\n\"I'm just so happy and relieved and excited at the same time for this tax to finally be axed,\" said Ms Coryton.\n\n\"It will mean a reduction in prices for period products, and that reduction in cost will be important for the increasing number of people who are battling with poverty, especially due to the pandemic.\"\n\nGemma Abbott is a lawyer and campaigner with the Free Periods group, which successfully campaigned for the government to provide free sanitary products to schools and colleges across England in 2019. The scheme launched in January.\n\nGemma Abbott wants clarity from the government on why the free sanitary products for schools scheme is not mandatory\n\n\"I think it's great news and a real testament to the determined campaigning of many people, like Paula Sheriff and Laura Coryton,\" she said.\n\n\"I think we can agree that any tax that characterises period products as non-essential is absurd and it has no place in a society that is seeking genuine gender equality.\"\n\nFree Periods is now campaigning to ensure that schools and colleges know that the free sanitary products scheme exists and that they sign up for them.\n\nMs Abbott said: \"The latest statistics we have are from last term - at that point only 40% of schools had signed up for the scheme.\"\n\nMs Coryton has set up a social enterprise called Sex Ed Matters with her sister Julia, providing talks in schools and toolkits for teachers to help them deliver the mandatory new sex education curriculum for primary and secondary schools issued in early 2020.\n\nThey did an online survey of 150 teachers and students across the UK, and 100% of respondents said that there is still a stigma attached to periods.\n\n\"If there is a stigma attached to periods, then you're unlikely to speak up when you need period products, or to talk about the free sanitary products scheme that exists,\" stressed Ms Coryton.\n\nBut Free Periods' Ms Abbott is also concerned about the charities supporting women and girls, who will no longer benefit from the proceeds of the previous 5% tax on sanitary products.\n\n\"The tampon tax fund has provided much needed support and funding to a chronically underfunded area,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm worried that the removal of the tampon tax will spell the end of the ring-fenced funding for charities to address really vital issues like domestic violence and rape.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Olympics\n\nThe delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will go ahead this summer despite concern over rising coronavirus cases, says Japan's prime minister.\n\nThe Olympics are due to begin on 23 July with the Paralympics following a month later from 24 August.\n\nCases have surged in Japan in recent days with Tokyo reporting over 1,000 daily infections for the first time.\n\nBut prime minister Yoshihide Suga said the \"Games will be held this summer\" and be \"safe and secure\".\n\nJapan is responding to cases of the new variant of coronavirus first found in the UK, with Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike warning the number of infections could \"explode\".\n\nThere were a record 1,337 cases in Tokyo on 31 December with 783 new infections announced on Friday.\n\nJapan has recorded 239,041 coronavirus cases and 3,337 deaths during the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University.\n\nCosts for the Games have increased by $2.8bn (£2.1bn) because of measures needed to prevent the spread of coronavirus but organisers have ruled out a delay.\n\nThe Games could be the most expensive summer Olympics in history.\n\nA poll by national broadcaster NHK showed that the majority of the Japanese general public oppose holding the Games in 2021, favouring a further delay or outright cancellation of the event.\n\nSuga said the Games going ahead could serve as a \"symbol of global solidarity\".", "The next few weeks will be \"nail-bitingly difficult\" for the NHS, hospital bosses have warned.\n\nStaff absences and the new Covid variant are creating a \"challenging situation\", Saffron Cordery, of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts in England, said.\n\nDoctors are urging the public to \"take it seriously and follow the rules\" to protect the health service.\n\nThe year started with 53,285 more Covid cases and 613 deaths being reported.\n\nThe day's figures do not include data from Northern Ireland or Wales, or the numbers of deaths from Scotland - as these are not being published on certain days during the Christmas and New Year period.\n\nIt comes after the UK reported its highest daily cases on Thursday, with a record 55,892 infections.\n\nOn Friday evening, the government confirmed that all primary schools in London would remain closed for the start of the new term, following a review of Covid transmission rates.\n\nFrom Monday, all schools in the capital will now be required to provide remote learning.\n\nPrimaries in nine London boroughs and the City of London district had been set to reopen - while those in the remaining 23 boroughs would have stayed closed from 4 January.\n\nMeanwhile, new analysis by Imperial College London has confirmed the new variant of coronavirus has a much quicker rate of transmission than the original strain.\n\nAnd an analysis of NHS England data from 23 hospital trusts by the Health Service Journal shows that Covid-19 is putting intense pressure on adult acute care and general beds, as well as those in intensive care.\n\nIt found that more than a third of these beds were occupied by patients with Covid-19 on Tuesday, and in three trusts - North Middlesex in London, and Medway and Dartford and Gravesham in Kent - the figure was more than half.\n\nBased on the recent rise in numbers, the analysis suggests that all acute and general beds might soon be filled with Covid-19 patients.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Breakfast, Ms Cordery said the surging transmission and death rates were \"incredibly hard to deal with\".\n\n\"When we are seeing major London trusts saying they are under pressure, that's when we know we're in a very challenging space,\" she said.\n\nA leading intensive care doctor has urged people to follow restrictions until the vaccination programme is fully rolled out.\n\nProf Anthony Gordon, of Imperial College, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"There is light at the end of the tunnel so I would urge people to hold on for these few more months while the vaccination programme makes that difference and then we can truly get back to normal.\n\n\"But we can't overrun the health service because this will just lead to thousands more deaths.\"\n\nAdrian Boyle, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, urged people to follow guidance on hand washing, social distancing and face coverings to stop the \"entirely preventable\" spread of the virus.\n\nDr Boyle said staff are \"tired\" and at risk of \"burnout\", having \"worked really hard over the summer\" and \"put up with a lot of disruption\".\n\n\"This time people are frustrated, this is now an entirely preventable disease, we know what we did in spring made a lot of this go away. There's also now a vaccine,\" he added.\n\nMore than three-quarters of England is currently under the strictest tier four - \"stay at home\" - coronavirus measures, and other parts of the country have joined higher tiers.\n\nMainland Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are under lockdown.\n\nThere are also concerns the added pressures of rising numbers of Covid patients seen at London hospitals have begun to spread across the country.\n\nSpeaking on Today, Dr Alison Pittard, of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, said it was \"only a matter of time before it starts to spread to other parts of country\", adding that \"we're already starting to see that\".\n\nShe stressed it was \"really important that we try and stop the transmission in the community because that translates into hospital admissions\".\n\nIt comes as almost half the major hospital trusts in England are said to be dealing with more Covid-19 patients than at the peak of the first wave in April.\n\nAnd pressure has been so great on some hospitals in London and south-east England that some patients have been moved out of the area.\n\nLondon's Nightingale emergency hospital is ready to admit patients, the NHS has said, while other sites currently not in use are being readied.\n\nHowever, Mike Adams, director of the Royal College of Nursing, questioned whether there were the staff available to run the hospital.\n\n\"Nursing is already stretched beyond capacity so there is no magic pile of nurses we can call upon,\" he told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.\n\n\"I think the real battle is reducing the spread of the virus and getting the vaccine rolled out.\"\n\nThe new coronavirus variant has driven a big rise in cases, with the worst effects felt so far in London.\n\nResearchers at Imperial College London have confirmed it increases the R number - the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to - by about 0.4 to 0.7.\n\nThe UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nProf Axel Gandy, from the statistic section of Imperial College London, told the Today programme this higher rate of infection means that transmission of the disease would have tripled even during England's November lockdown conditions.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC's Laura Foster explains how to wear your mask correctly and help stop coronavirus spreading\n\nThe hunt is now on to find new ways to slow the spread of coronavirus, with the rules on mask wearing potentially coming up for review.\n\nBehavioural science group SPI-B (Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours), which reports to the Sage group of government advisers, has said that mandatory face coverings may be necessary in a wider number of settings, such as in workplaces and possibly outdoors.\n\nHowever, Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, told BBC Radio 4's World at One he was not convinced a move towards making the wearing of face coverings mandatory outdoors would make \"much difference\" to transmission rates.\n\nHe said the \"bigger problem\" was people touching their face covering or wearing it incorrectly, adding ministers should focus on ensuring people knew how to wear them and to change and wash them regularly.\n\nThe rollout of the newly approved Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will begin on Monday, almost a month after the Pfizer-BioNTech jab.\n\nSecond doses of either will now take place within 12 weeks rather than 21 days as had been initially planned with the Pfizer vaccine.", "After years of silence, The KLF have uploaded a selection of their most famous songs to streaming services like Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music.\n\nThe band's music has been officially unavailable since 1992, when they deleted their entire back catalogue.\n\nBut eight songs, including dance anthems like 3AM Eternal and What Time Is Love, are now available on an eight-track compilation, Solid State Logik.\n\nFly posters in London suggested The KLF would release more music this year.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by KLF This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nSolid State Logik collects all of the band's biggest hits - including the Tammy Wynette collaboration Justified & Ancient, and the Gary Glitter-sampling Doctorin' The Tardis.\n\nIt comes 29 years after founders Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond turned their backs on music, with a provocative performance at the 1992 Brit Awards - where they tied for best group with Simply Red.\n\nThe duo made their disdain for the industry clear by performing 3AM Eternal while firing blanks from a machine gun into the stunned audience, before an announcer said: \"The KLF have left the music business.\"\n\nDriving the point home, they later dumped a dead sheep on the steps of an after-show party with a note reading, \"I died for ewe\".\n\nCauty and Drummond later burned £1m of their royalties in bundles of £50 notes, on the remote Scottish island of Jura.\n\nIn recent decades the duo have concentrated on book and art projects, including plans to build a \"people's pyramid\", inspired by the death of Cauty's brother and constructed from bricks, each containing 23 grams of human ashes.\n\nBut fans have clamoured for their music - with bootleg clips of their videos and performances achieving tens of millions of views on YouTube, and several \"sound-alike\" versions of their biggest hits appearing on Spotify.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video 2 by KLF This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nWhen other streaming holdouts like AC/DC and Neil Young relented and made their back catalogues available, The KLF still held out. In 2018, Billboard named their absence as one of the eight most significant gaps on streaming services, alongside records by De La Soul and Aaliyah.\n\nThe band announced their surprise resurrection in two posters pasted under a railway bridge in Shoreditch, East London, alongside graffiti referencing The KLF.\n\nThe Instagram account of Cauty's girlfriend showed a figure creating the graffiti creating the graffiti on New Year's Eve.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by sistersofperpetualresistance This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAccording to a statement on the band's YouTube page, Solid State Logik (named after the mixing desk the band used to create their biggest hits) is the first of five planned releases, covering all of the band's releases, under a variety of names.\n\nIt read: \"KLF have appropriated the work done between 1 January 1987 and 31 December 1991 by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords [and] The KLF.\n\n\"This appropriation was in order to tell a story in five chapters using the medium of streaming. The name of the story is Samplecity Thru Transcentral.\"\n\nThe text goes on to name several projects that are being prepared for release, some of which have never been heard before, including Kick Out The Jams, the Pure Trance Series, and a second volume of Solid State Logik.\n\n\"If you need to know more about the work done by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords or The KLF, you can find truths, rumours and half-truths scattered across the internet,\" the statement continued.\n\n\"From these truths, rumours and half-truths, you can form your own opinions.\n\n\"The actual facts were washed down a storm drain in Brixton some time in the late 20th Century.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The UK celebrated the start of 2021 with a fireworks and light display over London that included tributes to NHS staff and the Black Lives Matter movement.\n\nRevellers were not able to gather to celebrate the London mayor's display in the usual way because of the coronavirus pandemic, with people instead told to stay at home.\n\nThe new year celebrations also featured a message of hope from David Attenborough.\n\nWatch the full display on the BBC iPlayer", "The star started filming his role in secret last year\n\nComedian John Bishop is to join Jodie Whittaker for the 13th series of Doctor Who, the BBC has revealed.\n\nThe 54-year-old, who recently tested positive for coronavirus, said boarding the Tardis was a \"dream come true\".\n\nHe will play a character called Dan, who \"becomes embroiled in the Doctor's adventures\" and faces \"evil alien races beyond his wildest nightmares\".\n\nBishop fills the gap left by Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole, who bowed out in a special New Year's Day episode.\n\nHe began filming his role last November, but the BBC kept the signing under wraps until the broadcast of Revolution Of The Daleks on Friday night.\n\nBishop, who grew up on a Merseyside council estate, had a brief career as a professional footballer before turning his hand to comedy.\n\nHe has previously acted in the Channel 4 drama Skins and the Ken Loach film Route Irish.\n\nEarlier this week, the comedian revealed that he and his wife had tested positive for Coronavirus over Christmas, saying he had been \"flattened\" by \"the worst illness I have ever had\".\n\nWriting on Instagram, he described his symptoms as including \"incredible headaches, muscle and joint point, no appetite, nausea, dizziness [and] chronic fatigue like I didn't know existed\".\n\nHe updated fans on New Year's Eve, saying he and his wife were \"getting a little stronger\" every day, and promising he would return to work in January.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by johnbish100 This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIt is not thought his illness will disrupt production on Doctor Who. The show is on a scheduled break for Christmas and not due to resume filming until later this month.\n\nThe 13th series of the rebooted sci-fi stalwart will see Whittaker return as the extra terrestrial Time Lord, alongside Mandip Gill, who returns as Yaz.\n\nIn a statement, Bishop said: \"If I could tell my younger self that one day I would be asked to step on board the Tardis, I would never have believed it.\n\n\"It's an absolute dream come true to be joining Doctor Who and I couldn't wish for better company than Jodie and Mandip.\"\n\nJodie Whittaker became the first female actress to play The Doctor in 2017\n\nProgramme boss Chris Chibnall added: \"It's time for the next chapter of Doctor Who, and it starts with a man called Dan. Oh, we've had to keep this one secret for a long, long time.\n\n\"Our conversations started with John even before the pandemic hit.\n\n\"The character of Dan was built for him, and it's a joy to have him aboard the Tardis.\"\n\nDoctor Who will return to BBC One later this year.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson is one of five men who have been rebailed by police\n\nLiverpool Mayor Joe Anderson says he will not fight for re-election in May due to an ongoing bribery and witness intimidation investigation.\n\nMr Anderson, 62, made the announcement after Merseyside Police said he had been rebailed until February following his arrest earlier this month.\n\nHe tweeted he was \"disappointed\" with the police decision as he had \"provided all of the information they asked for\".\n\nHe said it was in the Labour Party's best interests to pick a new candidate.\n\nMr Anderson was arrested on 4 December, along with four other men, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit bribery and witness intimidation.\n\nThe year-long investigation, Operation Aloft, has focused on a number of building and development contracts in Liverpool.\n\nFollowing his arrest, Mr Anderson said he was \"stepping away from decision-making\" and would take unpaid leave while the police investigation continued.\n\nThe Labour Party also suspended Mr Anderson pending its outcome.\n\nMr Anderson said he would \"continue to fight to demonstrate that I am innocent of any wrongdoing [and] also to protect my legacy as mayor of this city of which I am proud\".\n\nHe said the timing of the police investigation meant \"it would be in the best interests of the Labour Party to select a new candidate for the mayoral election\".\n\nMr Anderson also wrote: \"I have dedicated my life to this city with loyalty and passion and I am not prepared to throw that away.\"\n\nRichard Kemp, leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition on Liverpool City Council, called on Mr Anderson to immediately resign from the local authority.\n\nMr Kemp said his Labour opponent was a \"lame duck mayor\" who was \"preventing the city from moving on\".\n\nMr Anderson said he hoped the police investigation would be completed \"long before\" the expiry of his term of office.\n\nHe said it would confirm he had \"done nothing wrong\" and his name and reputation \"will be exonerated\".\n\n\"I have never done anything that would harm this city,\" he said.\n\nEarlier, Merseyside Police said five men had been rebailed until 19 February.\n\nThe Labour Party has been contacted by the BBC for a comment.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nFormer Manchester United and Scotland manager Tommy Docherty has died at the age of 92 following a long illness.\n\nAs a player, Glasgow-born Docherty made more than 300 appearances for Preston and won 25 caps for Scotland.\n\nHe went on to manage 12 clubs, leading Chelsea to League Cup success in 1965 and United to a 2-1 win over Liverpool in the 1977 FA Cup final.\n\n\"Tommy passed away peacefully surrounded by his family at home,\" his family said in a statement.\n\n\"He was a much-loved husband, father and papa and will be terribly missed.\n\n\"We ask that our privacy be respected at this time.\"\n• None Docherty - manager of many clubs, quicks and one-liners\n\nDocherty - affectionately known by his nickname 'The Doc' - died at home in the north west of England on 31 December.\n\nAfter spells managing Chelsea, Rotherham, QPR, Aston Villa and Porto, he took over as Scotland boss in September 1971 on a temporary basis before getting the job full-time two months later.\n\nBut he was best known for his five-year spell at Manchester United, who approached him to succeed Frank O'Farrell in December 1972 while Scotland were on course to qualify for the 1974 World Cup finals.\n\nUnited were relegated in 1974 under Docherty but they kept the Scot and returned to the top flight at the first time of asking. Two years later, they won the FA Cup with victory over Bob Paisley's Liverpool, who had won the league and would go on to also win the European Cup that year.\n\nDocherty's time at Old Trafford also saw George Best fail to revive his United career, the retirement of Bobby Charlton, and the departure of Denis Law.\n\nIn 2014, he told the BBC he still regretted his decision to leave the Scotland job for United.\n\n\"I was stupid,\" he said. \"I should have stayed with Scotland. [It was] partly the money, I have to be honest about that.\"\n\nDocherty was sacked shortly after the Wembley triumph for having an affair with Mary Brown, the wife of United physiotherapist Laurie Brown.\n\nThe pair later married and they remained together until his death.\n\nDocherty returned to management with First Division side Derby in September 1977, then rejoined QPR two years later. A turbulent time at Loftus Road saw him sacked in May 1980, reinstated after just nine days, then sacked again the following October.\n\nSpells at Sydney Olympic, Preston, South Melbourne and Wolves followed, with Docherty's final managerial job coming at non-league Altrincham in 1987-88.\n\nPost-retirement, he worked as an after-dinner speaker and media pundit.\n\nDocherty was inducted into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in November 2013.\n\n\"He was tenacious on the park and a great leader off it,\" Petrie added.\n\n\"Tommy was a regular in the Scotland side in the 1950s that qualified for two World Cups, and his record as Scotland manager was impressive, albeit cut short.\n\n\"Looking at the results and performances he inspired, it is hard not to wonder what might have been had he remained.\n\n\"His charisma and love for the game shone even after he stopped managing and it was entirely fitting Tommy should be inducted into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame for his lifelong service.\"", "Cases have reached record highs in the past week\n\nThe next few weeks could be the most dangerous period for Scotland since March in the fight against Covid, the first minister has warned.\n\nNicola Sturgeon said the new variant of the virus was \"accelerating spread\" across Scotland.\n\n\"If you first foot someone today, or hug/kiss/handshake them HNY, you are putting yourself, others and the NHS at risk,\" she tweeted.\n\nA further 2,539 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed on Friday.\n\nThe number is slightly down on Thursday's figure, but Ms Sturgeon said cases numbers were still \"worryingly high\".\n\nDaily confirmed cases have reached record highs on each of the previous three days, rising to to 2,622 on Thursday.\n\nThe percentage of positive cases also reached 14.4% on Wednesday - the highest it has been since the second wave of the pandemic began in the summer.\n\nMs Sturgeon tweeted: \"Today's case numbers are worryingly high again. The new variant is accelerating spread.\n\n\"PLEASE do not visit other people's homes just now, even today - if you first foot someone today, or hug/kiss/handshake them HNY, you are putting yourself, others & the NHS at risk.\"\n\nShe said the \"vaccine cavalry\" was on the way, offering \"real hope for 2021\", but she added: \"With this new variant, the next few weeks may be the most dangerous we've faced since Mar/April.\n\n\"We must act together to suppress it, to save lives and protect the NHS. Folded hands stick with it.\"\n\nThe number of daily confirmed cases has reached record highs this week\n\nA new study by London's Imperial College has found that the new variant of Covid-19 is \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version.\n\nIt concludes the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.\n\nThe UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nThe Scottish government's most recent estimate of the R number in Scotland has put it between 0.9 and 1.1.\n\nEmma Thomson, a professor of infectious disease at the University of Glasgow, said it was important to get people vaccinated quickly.\n\nThe professor, who has been working on the sequencing of the new Covid mutation, told the BBC that lockdown was not controlling the infection \"on its own\".\n\n\"At least we come in armed into the new year with two vaccines which are highly effective at preventing severe disease. We have that,\" she said.\n\n\"We need to roll it out now to add to the public health measures.\"\n\nParties, traditional \"first-footing\" and social events were banned this Hogmanay, with all of mainland Scotland and Skye being under the highest level of Covid restrictions.\n\nAll official events were cancelled, but police had to disperse a crowds of people who gathered at Edinburgh Castle and Calton Hill to see in the new year.\n\nIt has also emerged that 32 people were charged with reckless conduct after police found them gathered at a rented property in Aberfoyle on 27 December.\n\nA Scottish government spokesperson said: \"As the first minister has pointed out, the sharp rise in cases is evidence that the new strain seems to be speeding up transmission.\n\n\"This is why we are asking people to please stay at home as much as possible and avoid non-essential interaction with others.\n\n\"There is light at the end of the tunnel, but we ask everyone to be patient as we work our way through the vaccination programme, and continue to follow FACTS to keep us all safe.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester United moved level on points with Premier League leaders Liverpool as a Bruno Fernandes penalty saw off stubborn Aston Villa.\n\nFernandes drilled his 11th league goal this season - and his fifth from the spot - into the bottom corner to punish Douglas Luiz's clip on Paul Pogba and hand United an eighth win in 10 games.\n\nBertrand Traore's calm finish underneath David de Gea had deservedly drawn Villa level, cancelling out Anthony Martial's stooping first-half header for the hosts.\n\nBut Fernandes' penalty extended United's hold over Villa - they have now won 32 and lost just one of the past 44 league meetings between the sides - and leaves Liverpool top only by virtue of goal difference.\n\nThe spot-kick award angered Aston Villa boss Dean Smith who claimed Pogba \"tripped himself\" and that the video assistant referee should have asked on-pitch official Michael Oliver to review his decision.\n\n\"I don't see why Michael couldn't have looked at it. That's what VAR is for isn't it?\" Smith told BBC Sport.\n\n\"I thought it was a penalty at the time, but I looked at it after the game and saw he tripped himself. I don't think it's a penalty.\n\n\"I think there's enough doubt there to send the referee over to the screen.\"\n\nSmith's side were perhaps unfortunate not to have left Old Trafford with at least a point from a thoroughly entertaining game but they also needed several fine saves from Emiliano Martinez to keep them in it.\n\nAfter Fernandes' spot-kick put United back in front, Martinez superbly tipped a stinging 25-yarder from the Portuguese on to the crossbar as well as denying Martial a second.\n\nMartinez's counterpart David de Gea was just as busy, with a late save from Matty Cash's long-range strike preserving the points, not long after Tyrone Mings had headed wide a glorious chance to level.\n\nOle Gunnar Solskjaer's side have displayed their ability to grind out points at Old Trafford in recent weeks, as evidenced in 1-0 home wins over both West Bromwich Albion and Wolves.\n\nBut they have also shown a willingness to go toe-to-toe with teams who are happy to open up the game and, while this was not quite the shootout of the 6-2 win over Leeds, it was just as easy on the eye.\n\nA number of fluid first-half moves produced chances before Martial's opener as the France forward saw a curler tipped over by Martinez, while Fernandes and Wan-Bissaka were narrowly off target with similar efforts.\n\nMartial stole between Mings and Ezri Konsa to nod the Red Devils ahead from Wan-Bissaka's inviting cross for only his second league goal of the season on his return to Solskjaer's starting line-up.\n\nWhile Luiz was unfortunate to be penalised for what might have been an accidental clip on Pogba, there was enough contact for the penalty to be given and Fernandes continued his excellent record from the spot.\n\nUnited were nine points behind Liverpool after a 1-0 defeat by Arsenal at Old Trafford on 1 November but have made up that gap in just two months to set an intriguing title race into motion.\n\nA minute's silence before the game paid tribute to former boss Tommy Docherty, who famously prevented Liverpool claiming the treble by leading United to an FA Cup win over the Reds in 1977.\n\nAnd while talk of foiling a second successive Liverpool title might be premature, moving alongside them at the Premier League's summit will give Solskjaer's side even more confidence as they eye up a trip to Anfield on 17 January.\n\nWhile Villa were ultimately outgunned by their hosts, their brave display was further evidence of the progress Smith's side have made this season.\n\nThey held their own in the first half, causing United a number of problems down the flanks, with playmaker Jack Grealish prompting and probing to show why the hosts have long considered a move for the Villa captain.\n\nBut they were even more impressive in the early stages of the second period, Grealish crossing for an Ollie Watkins header that was saved by De Gea before collecting a quick free-kick and finding Traore to tuck home the equaliser.\n\nLuiz's foul on Pogba came with Villa very much in the ascendancy and while they then had to ride a storm the visitors still came close to pinching a point as Mings beat fellow England centre-half Harry Maguire to a free-kick only to nod wide.\n\nWith Ross Barkley's return from a hamstring injury imminent, this performance should keep Villa optimistic even if defeat halted a five-game unbeaten run and saw them slip a place to sixth, behind Chelsea on goal difference.\n\nAnd while their rotten record at Old Trafford continues - just one win in 34 visits since 1983, which came courtesy of a Gabriel Agbonlahor header in 2009 - they have still only conceded five times in eight away games this campaign.\n\n'We have improved a lot in a year' - what they said\n\nManchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer told BBC Sport: \"You are always delighted with three points. The performance was good and we created chances.\n\n\"It was maybe a little too open and we wasted chances. We tried to play the Hollywood pass instead of securing the first one and using the space that was there.\n\n\"We are happy with what we are doing. We have shown we have improved a lot in a year. We lost to Arsenal away last New Year's Day. We have improved immensely.\"\n\nAston Villa boss Dean Smith told BBC Sport: \"I wasn't happy with the first half. We were miles off the levels where we have been. It felt like a testimonial pace then they deservedly had the lead at half-time. I told the players we needed to be upping our levels.\n\n\"We competed a lot better [in the second half], showed more quality and created chances. I'd take the second-half performance all day long. A dubious penalty has lost us the game.\n\n\"When you look at our performances and results, it shows we are very competitive in this league now, which is what we wanted it to be.\"\n\nUnited's hold over Villa goes on - the stats\n• None Manchester United are unbeaten in their past 16 Premier League matches against Aston Villa (W12 D4).\n• None Aston Villa have lost 13 of their past 15 away Premier League games against Manchester United at Old Trafford (W1 D1).\n• None In Premier League history, the only player to be directly involved in more goals in their first 30 appearances in the competition than Bruno Fernandes (33 - 19 goals, 14 assists) is Andrew Cole (37 - 28 goals, nine assists).\n• None Anthony Martial has now scored on all seven days of the week in the Premier League for Manchester United, becoming the fifth player to do so, after Ryan Giggs, Andrew Cole, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney.\n• None Only Tottenham's Harry Kane (10) has assisted more Premier League goals this season than Jack Grealish (7), while the last Aston Villa player to assist more than seven Premier League goals in a season was Ashley Young in 2010-11 (10).\n• None Since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's first Premier League match in charge of Manchester United in December 2018, the Red Devils have taken (27) and scored (21) the most Premier League penalties.\n\nManchester United host local rivals Manchester City in the Carabao Cup semi-finals on Wednesday (19:45 GMT) and welcome Watford in the FA Cup on Saturday 9 January (20:00 GMT). Their next Premier League game is away at Burnley on Tuesday 12 January (20:15 GMT).\n\nAston Villa host Liverpool in the FA Cup next Friday (19:45 GMT) before returning to Premier League action at home to Tottenham on Wednesday 13 January (20:15 GMT).\n• None Attempt blocked. Keinan Davis (Aston Villa) left footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt blocked. Keinan Davis (Aston Villa) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Ollie Watkins with a cross.\n• None Offside, Manchester United. Paul Pogba tries a through ball, but Marcus Rashford is caught offside.\n• None Attempt saved. Matthew Cash (Aston Villa) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Jack Grealish.\n• None Nemanja Matic (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Luke Shaw (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None A special and exclusive one-off chat with the music icon\n• None How has their rise come to define our culture?", "London's Nightingale Hospital is ready to admit patients as hospitals in the capital struggle, the NHS has said.\n\nThe Excel Centre site in east London has been \"reactivated\" amid a rise in the number of Covid-19 patients.\n\nOther Nightingale hospital sites across England are also being readied, with the UK recording a record daily rise in coronavirus cases.\n\nAn NHS spokesman said hospitals in London remain under \"significant pressure\".\n\nHe said: \"In anticipation of pressures rising from the spread of the new variant infection, NHS London were asked to ensure the London Nightingale was reactivated and ready to admit patients as needed, and that process is under way.\"\n\nSeveral NHS hospitals in London and the south-east are now reporting they are under extreme pressure as a result of a surge in the number of people falling seriously ill with Covid-19.\n\nAn email to staff at the Royal London Hospital says they are operating in disaster medicine mode - warning they can no longer provide high-standard critical care.\n\nNightingale hospitals in Manchester, Bristol and Harrogate are in use currently for non-Covid patients, the spokesman added.\n\nThe Exeter site received its first Covid patients in November when it began accepting those transferred from the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, which was described as \"very busy\".\n\nHe said: \"Covid inpatient numbers are rising sharply so the remaining Nightingales are being readied to admit patients once again should they be needed, in line with best clinical practice developed over the first and second waves of coronavirus.\"\n\nSenior intensive care doctor Prof Hugh Montgomery warned those who fail to follow the rules on social distancing, hand washing and wearing a face covering \"have blood on their hands\".\n\nNHS England medical director Stephen Powis has described the Nightingale hospitals as \"our insurance policy, there as our last resort\".\n\nLondon's Nightingale hospital was built in nine days, with the help of hundreds of soldiers\n\nHe told a Downing Street press conference on Wednesday: \"We asked all the Nightingale hospitals a few weeks ago to be ready to take patients if that was required.\n\n\"Indeed, some of them are already doing that, in Manchester taking step-down patients, in Exeter managing Covid patients, and in other places managing diagnostics, for instance.\n\n\"Our first steps though, in managing the extra demands on the NHS, are to expand capacity within existing hospitals - that's the best way to use our staff.\"\n\nLondon's Nightingale Hospital was opened on 3 April and placed on standby weeks later after fewer than 20 patients were treated there.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA £2,500 reward has been offered after a nativity scene was petrol-bombed on Christmas Eve.\n\nThe scene in Raglan, Monmouthshire, had been installed in a bus shelter for families to enjoy over Christmas.\n\nThe fire destroyed statues of a shepherd, Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus - with only the three wise men surviving as they stood outside the shelter.\n\nMiguel Santiago, of the Beaufort Hotel which funded the £10,000 scene, said the attack was \"really disappointing\".\n\n\"I was in the hotel when I saw the fire and I went into panic mode,\" he said.\n\n\"It was about 21:45 on Christmas Eve when it all happened and I ended up using nine extinguishers to put it out.\"\n\nThe wooden nativity was funded by the hotel and put together by retired theatre design lecturer Liz Friendship.\n\nMs Friendship said the festive scene had also been targeted by thieves in the past.\n\n\"In 2018 Mary was taken, in 2019 two shepherds were stolen and never came back, and in 2020 it's burnt down.\n\n\"It's now just three kings staring at the bus stop. It's very sad.\"\n\nThe scene was in ruins following the petrol bomb attack\n\nVillagers are now appealing for help to catch the suspects responsible for the Christmas crime.\n\nMr Santiago added: \"It's a shame because so much effort went into putting it together this year.\n\n\"We added three kings which really made it a great sight, we made sure the figures couldn't be taken by fixing them down.\n\n\"It's really disappointing that this has happened but the locals have been great and we will be back next year with a bigger and better nativity.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for Gwent Police said: \"Officers are investigating a report of criminal damage to a nativity scene on the High Street, in Raglan on Christmas Eve.\n\n\"It has been reported that fire damage was caused to the set at approximately 9.45pm on the evening of Thursday 24th December 2020.\n\n\"The scene that belonged to the Beaufort Hotel was totally damaged as a result.\"\n\nAnyone with information should contact police on 101, she said.", "The crowd at Edinburgh Castle dispersed after police arrived\n\nCrowds of several hundred people gathered at Edinburgh Castle to see in the new year despite police and government warnings to stay away.\n\nPeople sang and danced before dispersing when several police vans and cars drove on to the castle esplanade.\n\nMost Scots heeded warnings to hold Hogmanay celebrations at home with household members.\n\nThere were no midnight fireworks at the castle, but a display was held at the Wallace Monument in Stirling.\n\nA Police Scotland spokesperson said: \"We were aware of gatherings at Edinburgh Castle and Calton Hill around midnight on Hogmanay.\n\n\"Officers safely engaged with those in attendance and explained the current government regulations resulting in the groups dispersing without incident.\"\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Thursday that there should be \"no gatherings, no house parties and no first footing\" at Hogmanay.\n\nAll of mainland Scotland and Skye are under level four restrictions, while the other islands are in level three.\n\nDetails have meanwhile emerged of another police enforcement action against a group who gathered at a rented property in Aberfoyle during the festive period.\n\nPolice Scotland confirmed that 32 people were charged with culpable and reckless conduct after officers were called out on 27 December.\n\nAccording to the Scottish Sun, the group had travelled from Glasgow but police were tipped off by locals who spotted vehicles parked outside the property.\n\nPeople in Scotland were urged to stay at home and celebrate the new year with their families\n\nAt Edinburgh Castle, one Hogmanay tradition endured as a lone piper played in the new year at midnight.\n\nWith the capital's traditional new year party cancelled, the organisers of its annual Hogmanay celebration instead released a series of \"drone swarm\" videos titled Fare Well.\n\nThe display featured a swarm of 150 illuminated drones forming symbols and animals in a \"beautiful ode to Scotland\".\n\nEach video was narrated by actor David Tennant and included verses written by Scotland's official poet, makar Jackie Kay.\n\nWhile they appear to be flying above landmarks like Edinburgh Castle, the drones were flown elsewhere before being edited into other footage.\n\nDrones write a message in the sky above the Forth Bridge\n\nThe streets of central Edinburgh were quiet, in contrast to last year's Hogmanay celebrations when about 100,000 visitors attended the street party with live performances from Idlewild and Mark Ronson in Princes Street Gardens.\n\nElsewhere in the UK this year a fireworks and light display, including tributes to NHS staff, was held over the River Thames in London, but people were also told to stay at home rather than go out and celebrate.\n• None UK sees in 2021 with fireworks and light show", "All primary schools in London will remain closed for the start of the new term, the government has confirmed.\n\nLondon mayor Sadiq Khan said the government had \"finally seen sense and U-turned\" on its plan to allow pupils in some areas to return on Monday.\n\nLeaders of nine London local authorities had written to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson urging him to rethink the decision.\n\nMr Williamson said the city-wide closures were \"a last resort\".\n\nThe government said it had decided all primary schools in the capital would be required to provide remote learning after a further review of coronavirus transmission rates.\n\nVulnerable pupils and the children of key workers will continue to attend school, the government said.\n\nEarly years care, alternative provision and special schools will remain open, it added.\n\nSchools in nine London boroughs and the City of London district had been set to reopen - while those in the remaining 23 boroughs would have stayed closed from 4 January.\n\nThe decision was criticised and branded \"illogical\" by councillors and residents in the affected areas, who called for primary schools across the capital to move to online learning until 18 January.\n\nThey pointed out that Covid-19 infection rates were higher in some boroughs told to reopen schools than in others where they were not.\n\nIn a tweet, Mr Khan said a city-wide closure was \"the right decision\" and thanked education minister Nick Gibb for \"our constructive conversations over the past two days\".\n\n\"The government's original decision was ridiculous and has been causing immense confusion for parents, teachers and staff across the capital,\" Mr Khan said.\n\n\"It is right that all schools in London are treated the same, and that no primary schools in London will be forced to open on Monday\".\n\nDan Thorpe, leader of Greenwich council, said he was \"absolutely delighted\" to hear Mr Williamson had \"finally climbed down and reversed his decision\".\n\nKingston Council leader Caroline Kerr said she was \"dismayed\" at the government's handling of situation while a council statement added: \"It never made sense that neighbouring boroughs were being instructed to have different arrangements despite having similar rates of infection.\"\n\nIslington council leader Richard Watts said waiting until New Year's day to announce the further closures was \"unacceptable\".\n\nHe said the decision \"should have been made weeks ago, as the public health situation became clear\".\n\nMary Bousted, of the National Education Union, said the government was right to reverse its \"obviously nonsensical position\".\n\n\"What is right for London is right for the rest of the country,\" she said, and she called on ministers to \"do their duty\" by closing all primary and secondary schools nationwide for at least two weeks.\n\nPaul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, accused the government of damaging public confidence with a \"confusing and last-minute approach\".\n\n\"Just at the moment when we need some decisive leadership, the government is at sixes and sevens,\" he said.\n\nShadow education secretary Kate Green said the move was \"yet another government U-turn creating chaos for parents just two days before the start of term\".\n\n\"Gavin Williamson must still clarify why some schools in tier 4 are closing and what the criteria for reopening will be,\" she said.\n\nGavin Williamson said closing schools across London was a \"last resort\"\n\nIn a statement, Mr Williamson said children's education and wellbeing remained \"a national priority\" and moving the whole of London to remote education \"really is a last resort and a temporary solution\".\n\n\"We will continue keep the list of local authorities under review, and reopen classrooms as soon as we possibly can,\" he said.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said the situation in London had continued to worsen in the past week and infections and hospital admissions had risen sharply.\n\n\"While our priority is to keep as many children as possible in school, we have to strike a balance between education and infection rates and pressures on the NHS,\" he said.\n\nThe Department for Education had previously said decisions on school closures and openings were based on new infections, positivity rates, and pressures on the NHS.\n\nA spokeswoman for the department said: \"In response to concerning data about the spread of coronavirus, we have implemented the contingency framework for education in a small number of areas of the country, requiring schools to provide remote learning to all but vulnerable and critical worker children and exam years.\n\n\"Decisions on which areas will be subject to the contingency framework are based on close work with PHE, the NHS, the Joint Biosecurity Centre and across government.\"\n\nAre you a parent or teacher who will be affected by the London primary school closures? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Bodycam footage shows the moments before a black man was killed by a police shooting in Minneapolis\n\nMinneapolis police have released bodycam footage of a fatal shooting by officers, the first death at the hands of police in the US city since that of George Floyd, a black man, in May.\n\nThe victim, Dolal Idd, 23, was a suspect in a felony and was stopped by police on Wednesday. He was also black.\n\nInitial witness statements and police say Mr Idd fired first and was shot dead when the officers returned fire.\n\nMinneapolis saw months of unrest after Mr Floyd's death in police custody.\n\nThe protests spread across the US amid allegations of police brutality.\n\nMr Floyd died after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.\n\nThe footage from Wednesday's fatal shooting, from the bodycam of one of the officers involved, was released late on Thursday.\n\nIt shows the officers' cars blocking a white vehicle at a petrol station on the city's south side, not far from where Mr Floyd died.\n\nThe police are heard shouting \"Stop your car, hands up, hands up!\" before shots are fired, including by the officers.\n\nA female passenger in the car with Mr Idd was not hurt, police said, nor were the officers.\n\nMinneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo said a gun was found at the scene.\n\n\"When I viewed the video that everyone else is viewing - and certainly the real-time slow-down version - it appears the individual inside the vehicle fired his weapon at the officers first,\" he said.\n\nPeople including Mr Idd's father Bayle Gelle gathered at the scene the following day, prompting fears of renewed protests.\n\n\"He was just sitting in the car, and bullets were shot at him, and no reason,\" he said, quoted by CBS News.\n\n\"Why are we here?... Because of colour. He is a black man. We want to know why my sweet son gets shot and killed.\"\n\nGeorge Floyd's death led to violent protests in the city, including this police station set on fire in May\n\nCity mayor Jacob Frey said he was committed to getting the facts and pursuing justice.\n\n\"We know a life has been cut short tonight and that trust between communities of colour and law enforcement is fragile,\" he said in a statement.\n\n\"Rebuilding that trust will depend on complete transparency.\"\n\nMr Floyd's death in May led to calls for reform or even abolition of the city's police department, but those efforts have stalled.", "Much of England has been placed in a new top tier of restrictions - tier four - as the new variant spreads Image caption: Much of England has been placed in a new top tier of restrictions - tier four - as the new variant spreads\n\nEarlier we reported that a study by Imperial College had concluded the new coronavirus variant is \"hugely\" more transmissible. Now some experts are saying that means even tougher restrictions will soon be needed.\n\nProf Jim Naismith, of Oxford University, said: \"The data from Imperial represent the best analysis to date and imply that the measures we have employed to date, would - with the new virus - fail to reduce the R number to below 1.\n\n\"In simpler terms, unless we do something different the new virus strain is going to continue to spread - more infections, more hospitalisations and more deaths.\"\n\nThe R number is the average number of people an infected person passes the virus onto. If it is above 1 the epidemic is growing.\n\nEarly data suggested that the virus was spreading more quickly among the under-20s, particularly among secondary school age children, but the latest results indicate that it is more infectious in all age groups.\n\nProf Axel Gandy, part of the research team, suggested that it may have appeared to spread more easily among school children simply because the early data was collected during the November lockdown, when adults' movements were restricted but schools remained open.", "Researchers have been tracking changes to the \"spike\" of the virus\n\nThe new variant of Covid-19 is \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version, a study has found.\n\nIt concludes the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.\n\nThe UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nProf Axel Gandy of London's Imperial College said the differences between the viruses types was \"quite extreme\".\n\n\"There is a huge difference in how easily the variant virus spreads,\" he told BBC News. \"This is the most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began,\" he added.\n\nThe Imperial College study suggests transmission of the new variant tripled during England's November lockdown while the previous version was reduced by a third.\n\nCases of Covid-19 have begun to increase rapidly during the second spike, and the number of cases recorded in a single day reached a new high on Thursday.\n\nEarly results indicated that the virus was spreading more quickly among under-20s, particularly among secondary school age children.\n\nBut the very latest data indicates that it was spreading quickly across all age groups, according to Prof Gandy who was a member of the research team.\n\n\"One possible explanation is that the early data was collected during the time of the November lockdown where schools were open and the activities of the adult population were more restricted. We are seeing now that the new virus has increased infectiousness across all age groups.\"\n\nProf Jim Naismith, of Oxford University, said he believed that the new findings indicated that even tougher restrictions would soon be needed.\n\n\"The data from Imperial represent the best analysis to date and imply that the measures we have employed to date, would - with the new virus - fail to reduce the R number to below 1.\n\n\"In simpler terms, unless we do something different the new virus strain is going to continue to spread, more infections, more hospitalisations and more deaths.\"\n\nThe R number is the average number of people an infected person infects. If it is above 1 the epidemic is growing.\n\nThe most chilling finding from this piece of research is that the November lockdown in England, hard though it was for many people, would not have stopped the variant form of the virus spreading. The same severe restrictions that saw cases of the previous version of the virus fall by a third, would see a tripling of the new variant. This is why there has been such a sudden tightening of restrictions across the country.\n\nIt is unclear whether the current restrictions will be enough to control the spread of the virus. Given the fact that it has taken two lockdowns to stop the earlier version of the virus overwhelming the NHS, many scientists fear that further tightening will be necessary.\n\nInfection levels will begin to drop as enough people are vaccinated. But until then it is now more important than ever for people to follow social distancing guidelines, wear masks where required and to regularly wash their hands.\n\nThe new year brings with it hope of a more normal life in the next few months but also a new form of the virus that all of us will have to combat in the coming days and weeks.\n\nProfessor Lawrence Young, of Warwick University, said early indications suggested that vaccines would be effective against the new form of the virus.\n\n\"Variants virus have been around since the beginning of the pandemic and are a product of the natural process by which viruses develop and adapt to their hosts as they replicate.\n\n\"Most of these mutations have no effect on the behaviour of the virus but very occasionally they can improve the ability of the virus to infect and/or become more resistant to the body's immune response.\"\n\nFurther research is needed to understand why the variant is spreading so quickly. But early indications are that vaccines should be effective against it.\n\nThe new virus has been designated \"Variant of Concern 202012/01\" or VOC by Public Health England.\n\nIt was detected in November and thought to have originated in the south-east England in September.\n\nThere is no evidence to suggest that it is more deadly, but it will increase the number of cases which in turn will add further pressure on the NHS.\n\nThe variant can now be found across the UK, except Northern Ireland, but it is heavily concentrated in London, as well as south-east and eastern England.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Parents and teachers have criticised the closure decisions\n\nNine London boroughs have written to the education secretary asking him to reverse plans to reopen primary schools in some areas.\n\nAbout a million primary school pupils will not return to lessons next week in a bid to cut Covid transmission rates.\n\nHowever, schools in 10 London boroughs are due to remain open.\n\nIn the letter, the leaders said they were \"struggling to understand the rationale\" behind the idea as pupils and teachers moved between boroughs.\n\nThe government has said the measure would be reviewed fortnightly.\n\nAll primary schools had been due to fully reopen on 4 January but under government plans those in 23 London boroughs will remain closed.\n\nHowever, schools in the City of London, Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Haringey, Harrow, Islington, Kingston, Lambeth and Lewisham will open.\n\nThe letter to Gavin Williamson has been signed by leaders of all of those boroughs apart from Kingston. It has also been signed by the City of London's policy chair.\n\nIt calls for primary school pupils across the capital to \"move to online learning until 18 January\", apart from vulnerable children and those of key workers.\n\n\"The omission of 10 boroughs ignores the deep interconnectedness of our city, and the many thousands of teachers and students that study or teach in one borough and live in another,\" the letter states.\n\nThe councils also said they had received legal advice that omitting some councils from the list of areas told to take teaching online \"is unlawful on a number of grounds and can be challenged in court\".\n\nRichard Watts, leader of Islington Council, told the BBC there \"seems to be no reason at all to look at this on a borough by borough basis\".\n\n\"The entirety of the rest of the government's handling of the pandemic has rightly treated London as a single entity and this is the first time anyone... has tried to implement different public health measures in different boroughs,\" he said.\n\nIn a statement Dan Thorpe, leader of the Royal borough of Greenwich, accused the government of providing \"a lack of clarity and answers\", adding that the situation was \"causing uncertainty and concern among our schools, families, carers, and undoubtedly children and young people\".\n\nAlthough Kingston Council did not sign the letter, leader Caroline Kerr said reopening primary schools in the borough \"doesn't make any sense\" and that they were \"urgently seeking clarity on the reasoning for the decision\".\n\nMayor of London Sadiq Khan has called the plans \"nonsensical\" and has also written to the government calling for a \"delay to all London schools opening until mid-January\".\n\nKevin Courtney, joint leader of the National Education Union, said the education secretary \"must listen to the leaders of the community, he must listen to school staff and he must listen to the general public who are all telling him that it is not safe to reopen schools on Monday\".\n\nThe Department for Education has previously said decisions on school closures and openings were based on new infections, positivity rates, and pressures on the NHS.\n\nA spokeswoman for the department said: \"In response to concerning data about the spread of coronavirus, we have implemented the contingency framework for education in a small number of areas of the country, requiring schools to provide remote learning to all but vulnerable and critical worker children and exam years.\n\n\"Decisions on which areas will be subject to the contingency framework are based on close work with PHE, the NHS, the Joint Biosecurity Centre and across government.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The musician was known for his performances in which he always wore a mask\n\nHip-hop star MF Doom has died at the age of 49, his family confirmed on social media.\n\nThe London-born musician, real name Daniel Dumile, was known for his sharp, intricate rhymes and his signature mask, which he never removed in public.\n\nIn a post on the rapper's Instagram account on Thursday, his wife Jasmine confirmed that he died on 31 October.\n\nA number of artists have paid tribute to MF Doom including Run The Jewels and Tyler, The Creator.\n\nIn a note addressed to the rapper, his wife paid tribute to \"the greatest husband, father, teacher, student, business partner, lover and friend I could ever ask for\".\n\nHis representatives confirmed his death to Rolling Stone magazine. No cause of death was disclosed.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by mfdoom This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMF Doom was born in London but moved to New York as a child.\n\nAs a teenager he performed in hip-hop group KMD. Following the loss of his younger brother and bandmate DJ Subroc, he disappeared from music becoming, in his own words, \"damn near homeless\".\n\nBut in 1997, he remerged at open mic events in Manhattan, wearing tights over his face. He protected his anonymity for the rest of his career, adopting a mask based on the Marvel villain Doctor Doom for all his public appearances.\n\nHis debut as MF Doom, Operation: Doomsday, was released in 1999, and he followed it up with an almost non-stop outpouring of music.\n\nAs well as six solo albums, he produced a wealth of bootlegs, compilations, collaborations, mixtapes and instrumental albums - including the influential, 10-part Special Herbs series.\n\nHe may be best known for 2004's Madvillainy, which was recorded with crate-digging producer Madlib under the moniker Madvillain, and gave the rapper his first entry on the US album chart.\n\nAnother of his high-profile collaborations was Danger Doom alongside DJ Danger Mouse, and he appeared with Damon Albarn's Gorillaz on their UK number one album Demon Days. Other collaborators included Ghostface Killah, Flying Lotus, The Avalanches and Radiohead.\n\nOne of hip-hop's most respected MCs, he made appearances on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 1 in which he discussed his own music and projects with other artists.\n\nMany of them lined up to pay tribute after news of his death broke on New Year's Eve.\n\n\"RIP to another Giant, your favourite MC's MC... MF DOOM,\" wrote A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip on Twitter. \"Crushing news.\"\n\n\"He was a writer's writer,\" added El-P of Run The Jewels. \"Grateful I got to know you a little, king. Proud to be your fan. Thank you for keeping it weird and raw always. You inspired us all and always will.\"\n\n\"All u ever needed in hip-hop was this record,\" Flying Lotus tweeted alongside the album cover to Madvillainy. \"My soul is crushed.\"\n\nApple Music presenter Zane Lowe said: \"Rest In Peace to the great MF Doom. A true artist who gifted us with eternal innovation and creativity.\"\n\nWhile the Sleaford Mods said: \"RIP MF DOOM. Sleep well mate.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. London's new year celebrations featured a message of hope from David Attenborough\n\nThe UK has seen off 2020 and celebrated the dawn of 2021 with a fireworks and light display over London that included tributes to NHS staff.\n\nRevellers were not able to ring in the New Year in the usual way because of the coronavirus pandemic, with people instead told to stay at home.\n\nPolice had to break up various parties and events across England overnight.\n\nForces have handed out hundreds of fines, with several issuing the maximum £10,000 to event organisers.\n\nMuch of the UK saw in the new year while under lockdown rules, with about 44 million people in England - or 78% of the population - in tier four, the top level of Covid restrictions.\n\nMainland Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are also under lockdown.\n\nAlthough people were warned not to attend any parties outside their own homes, there were many around the country who ignored the rules.\n\nThe Metropolitan Police said police attended 58 parties and unlicensed music events in breach of tier four rules across London overnight, the vast majority of which ended when police intervened, they added.\n\nFixed penalty fines were given to 217 people while five others could be fined £10,000 for organising large gatherings. The police force said four other people were arrested for breaching Covid regulations by gathering in central London.\n\nElsewhere, other forces also broke up parties and handed out hundreds of fines. They included Greater Manchester Police, which issued 105 fixed penalty notices at house parties and larger gatherings. And Leicestershire Police had to issue six on-the-spot £10,000 fines to party organisers.\n\nIn Essex, hundreds of people were dispersed from an illegal New Year's Eve party at a church, while Lancashire Police broke up a party in Hyndburn, near Blackburn, attended by 80.\n\nMeanwhile, in Scotland, Edinburgh's traditional Hogmanay street party was cancelled, with videos of a drone display released instead.\n\nThe series of videos showed a swarm of 150 lit-up drones over the Scottish Highlands and Edinburgh were released, which organisers said it was the largest drone show ever produced in the UK.\n\nDespite the cancellation of Edinburgh's traditional Hogmanay celebration - which normally attracts 100,000 people on the city's streets - there were some people who ignored the pleas to stay at home.\n\nCrowds of several hundred people gathered at Edinburgh Castle to see in the new year. They sang Auld Lang Syne and danced before eventually dispersing when several police vans and cars pulled on to the castle esplanade.\n\nAn anti-lockdown protest and New Year's Eve celebration was also held in London\n\nPeople cross Hungerford Bridge in London on New Year's Eve\n\nOn New Year's Eve, Health Secretary Matt Hancock called on people to take \"personal responsibility\" and stay at home to avoid spreading Covid-19.\n\nLondon's 10-minute display over the Thames aired on the BBC at midnight, and began with a poem which addressed the pandemic, that said: \"In the year of 2020 a new virus came our way; We knew what must be done and so to help we hid away.\"\n\nLight projections lit up the sky over the O2 Arena, including the NHS logo in a heart accompanied by a child's voice saying: \"Thank you NHS heroes\".\n\nThe show also recognised Captain Sir Tom Moore, who raised £33m for the NHS by walking laps of his garden and the Black Lives Matter movement. One 2020 phenomena - working from home - was represented with a mute logo backed by a voiceover saying \"You're on mute\".\n\nThe display ended with a call from Sir David Attenborough about the need for action on climate change.\n\nLondon mayor Sadiq Khan said the display had reflected the resolve of Londoners to endure\n\n300 drones were used in the display to create images in the sky\n\nIn a speech being broadcast on BBC One between Doctor Who and EastEnders this evening, Sir David will say that this \"could be a year for positive change - for ourselves, for our planet and for the wonderful creatures with which we share it\".\n\nDespite the \"challenging\" times we live in, \"the reactions to these extraordinary times has proved that when we work together there is no limit to what we can accomplish\", he will say, as he looks ahead to the United Nations Climate Change Conference later this year.\n\nThe sounds of a video conference call starting up were played\n\nMuch of London was far quieter than usual\n\nEdinburgh's streets were largely empty, with Police Scotland warning against Hogmanay gatherings\n\nOfficial figures showed 10.75 million viewers watched the 2021 New Year celebrations on BBC One. It's down from the 11.18m who saw in the start of 2020 on the channel.\n\nMayor of London Sadiq Khan said he was proud of the show, which he said \"paid tribute to our NHS heroes and the way that Londoners continue to stand together\".\n\n\"We showed how our capital and the UK have made huge sacrifices to support one another through these difficult times, and how they will continue to do so as the vaccine is rolled out.\"\n\nUsually, around 100,000 people pack into the streets around Victoria Embankment to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn his New Year's message, the Archbishop of Canterbury said he saw \"reasons to be hopeful for the year ahead\" despite the \"tremendous pain and sadness\" brought by 2020.\n\nThe Most Reverend Justin Welby spoke of his experience volunteering as an assistant chaplain at St Thomas' hospital during the pandemic, saying: \"Sometimes the most important thing we do is just sit with people, letting them know they are not alone.\"\n\nIn his message, filmed at the London hospital and broadcast on BBC One on Friday afternoon, he said: \"This crisis has shown us how fragile we are. It has also shown us how to face this fragility.\n\n\"Here at the hospital, hope is there in every hand that's held, and every comforting word that's spoken.\n\n\"Up and down the country, it's there in every phone call. Every food parcel or thoughtful card. Every time we wear our masks.\"\n\nDid you make a special effort to celebrate this New Year? How did you mark it? Share your experiences and pictures of what you got up to by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "For months, the government has been urging businesses to get ready for a new era in trading with the EU. But it was only on Boxing Day that details of all the new rules were actually published.\n\nBusiness groups are relieved that the threat of a no-deal Brexit, which would have meant tariffs (or taxes) on goods crossing the border with the EU, has been removed. But companies that trade with the EU are still facing a lot of new bureaucracy.\n\nAnd the disruption in mid-December, caused by border closures related to the new variant of Covid-19, was a reminder of how dependent the UK economy is on trade across the English Channel.\n\nFrom 1 January 2021, goods entering the EU from Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) face large amounts of new paperwork and checks, including:\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHauliers will also need to make sure they have the right transportation paperwork before they drive to the border.\n\nThere is particular focus on the \"short straits\" route between Dover and Calais, and the nearby Channel Tunnel, which taken together handle about four million lorries a year.\n\n\"This is the biggest imposition of red tape that businesses have had to deal with in 50 years,\" says William Bain from the British Retail Consortium.\n\nFull controls on British exports to the EU began on 1 January. The first day of the new regime appears to have gone relatively smoothly.\n\nBut it's feared that later in the year, the new controls could cause disruption, even though new border infrastructure has been built at ports such as Calais, to help process vehicles more efficiently.\n\nThere are some mitigating measures though.\n\nIn response to the Covid crisis, the government is delaying full controls on goods entering Great Britain from the EU for a further six months.\n\nThere will be checks from 1 January on controlled substances such as alcohol and tobacco, and traders deemed to be a risk will also be asked to fill in customs declarations.\n\nBut most checks on goods coming in from the EU will be delayed until 1 July, a deadline that could in theory be extended.\n\n\"I think we will want to monitor it,\" the chief executive of HM Revenue and Customs, Jim Harra, told MPs in November. \"Hopefully we will not still be in a situation where Covid-19 is consuming as much of people's attention.\"\n\nOther measures to tackle potential disruption include diverting trade to other ports around the country and opening lorry parks in Kent, to avoid gridlock on the roads.\n\nSome of these contingencies were put into action early, to deal with the Covid border closures in December.\n\nOperation Brock, for example, involved changing the layout of a section of the M20, using a concrete barrier to allow lorries heading for mainland Europe to queue safely on the motorway.\n\nThousands of lorries were also diverted to temporary parking at a disused airport at Manston.\n\nFrom 1 January drivers of lorries weighing more than 7.5 tonnes will need to acquire a Kent Access Permit before they enter the county. They will have to show that they have all the paperwork they need to ferry goods to Europe.\n\nBut that doesn't deal with the challenge of the thousands of vans that cross the Channel every week.\n\n\"What has been serially misunderstood by various parts of government is the scale of the complexity for people on the ground dealing with the paperwork,\" says Duncan Buchanan, the Policy Director of the Road Haulage Association.\n\nThat could mean that instead of queues on motorways, many traders won't be able to leave their depots.\n\n\"Either they won't be able to get vets to sign off on their meat exports, or they won't be able to get their permit because they don't have the right bits of paper,\" says Shane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Storage Federation.\n\n\"We might see a quite significant holding off of trading - people just not moving stuff in the first few weeks.\"\n\nEighty-five per cent of the volume of trade between the EU and Great Britain is carried by EU hauliers, who are often paid not by the hour, but by the kilometre. If they think there will be too many delays, many may simply not come.\n\nThe government says the readiness of traders to deal with the new system remains its biggest concern.\n\nLorries parked on the M20 in Kent\n\n\"The sheer scale of the overall operation means there are literally many millions of moving parts,\" permanent secretary of the cabinet office Alex Chisholm told MPs. \"Inevitably there are going to be some difficulties for some individual people as they adjust to the new regime.\"\n\nThe government has also announced a new Border Operations Centre as part of plans \"for the UK to have the world's most effective border by 2025\".\n\nQuestions have been asked about how changes at the border might affect food supply. The short answer is no-one can say for sure, but nearly 30% of all the food consumed in the UK is imported from the EU.\n\nThe good news is that there is a deal, which makes a big difference. But the challenge is particularly acute because the UK grows relatively small amounts of fruit and vegetables in January and February and is most dependent on supplies from southern Europe at this time of year.\n\nSo, if there are delays, they could cause some shortages on the shelves.\n\n\"Some gaps are possible but we're not going to run out of food - that's not going to happen\" says Ian Wright.\n\nWhen it comes to non-perishable items, there had been some stockpiling in preparation for either outcome, but extra supplies won't last forever.\n\n\"The crunch point is probably not going to be in the first few days or weeks of January,\" William Bain argues. \"Towards the end of the month, when new orders start being placed and delivered, we will start to see the processes in Kent and the other ports really tested.\"\n\nAnd it's not only about food.\n\nOther retailers, which are used to moving their stock freely around the EU customs union, have had to create separate supply chains for the UK. That is costing them more money, and their new systems have yet to be tested properly.\n\nIt's not just about trade across the English Channel.\n\nTrade across the Irish Sea between Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland will be subject to the same pressures, while Northern Ireland will be a special case under the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol in the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.\n\nNorthern Ireland will remain in the EU single market for goods, and unlike the rest of the UK it will continue to enjoy frictionless trade with the EU with no checks of any kind at the land border with the Republic.\n\nBut there is a price to pay for that - new bureaucracy within the UK between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.\n\nThe EU, for example, has strict rules on products of animal origin: meat, milk, fish and eggs.\n\nThese products must enter the single market (and, from 1 January, Northern Ireland) through a border control post where paperwork is checked, and a proportion of goods physically inspected.\n\nThere will be a grace period of three months for supermarkets and their suppliers, but some smaller traders may have to get used to the new rules straight away.\n\nAll shipments from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will also need a safety and security declaration, and a customs declaration from a new IT system which none of the traders have used before.\n\nThe government has set up a Trader Support Service to help.\n\nThe details of the new trading arrangements for Northern Ireland were announced separately in early December, and provided some clarity. They include an agreement which means the vast majority of goods being shipped from GB to NI will not be at risk of having tariffs imposed.\n\nBut there are plenty of unresolved issues.\n\nTraders are seeking answers about how to send parcels from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, and some online retailers have already suspended deliveries.\n\nThe trade from British to Northern Irish ports often involves multiple small shipments on a single lorry - all of which will need the right paperwork.\n\n\"We need clear rules for everyone in the supply chain,\" says Duncan Buchanan, \"and when you scratch the surface it is just not ready.\"\n\nIt is expected that many checks will be carried out on a 'light touch' basis to begin with.\n\nBut anyone trading between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is going to have to get used to a new way of working very quickly.", "Nearly half a century of the UK's membership of the European Union and its predecessor organisations ended in January of course.\n\nWhat has now ended is the UK's economic membership of the bloc. Forty-eight years in the European customs union, basically the Common Market, and 28 years in the single market.\n\nThe Single Market was a creation for which the UK has paternity rights. It was Margaret Thatcher's rallying call for European reform, her calling card to unleash a wave of Japanese investment in post-industrial Britain and shepherded into existence by her appointee as commissioner Arthur Cockfield.\n\nIts creation served the UK's economic interests, as it grew the home domestic market available for British exporters without tariff or non-tariff barriers, eventually to nearly half a billion Europeans. It was not without irony that the tortuous negotiations of the past four years were made tougher by the EU's insistence on defending what it calls the \"internal market\", itself created by the British.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIndeed the institutional underpinning of this huge marketplace became too much for Mrs Thatcher. Famously she became suspicious of Commission President Delors turning up to tell the TUC that through the European Union workers could reassert rights rolled back by the Conservative Government.\n\nAt her 1988 Bruges speech PM Thatcher replied: \"We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.\"\n\nThe car industry was the prototype for the single market\n\nPerhaps this was the beginning of the path to Brexit, carried along by the push to monetary union and resentment at the overreach of the European Court of Justice and the considerable impact of the \"direct effect\" of community and then union law.\n\nThe car industry was the prototype for the single market. Mrs Thatcher's campaigning for EEC membership was quickly followed by a charm offensive that began as opposition leader to get Japanese investors to build high tech factories to sell cars tariff-free across Europe.\n\nFor the UK it would provide employment, technology, capital and competition for the languishing nationalised UK-owned auto sector.\n\nOngoing membership of the EEC, restrictions on union activity and investment tax breaks were part of the deal communicated in writing to the then chairman of Nissan.\n\nThe Datsun Bluebird was being developed in Sunderland and around the same time the Italians and the French threatened to slap tariffs on what they saw as a Japanese ruse to avoid tariffs and undercut their industry.\n\nThe UK government quickly communicated that it was willing to take this matter to the European Court of Justice. The attempt to kill the Nissan factory at birth was fended off.\n\nFrom this, the UK car industry and other advanced manufacturing prospered from being plugged into rapid continent-wide supply chains, delivering each part just in time and just in sequence.\n\nAll of that was enabled by conformity of regulations, standards, zero tariffs and the eradication of non-tariff barriers, for sale, but also within the manufacturing process.\n\nThe UK became the financial centre for the euro\n\nSimilar stories could be told about the pharmaceutical industry, chemicals, the food industry, aerospace, and financial services.\n\nWithin the EU, the UK even became the financial centre for a new currency, the euro, which it did not participate in.\n\nThe single market itself, with regulations set and enforced in Brussels, became a player on the world stage. And yet there was a balancing act. The UK could influence the direction of one of the biggest tankers in the sea but was restricted in acting more nimbly in new industries. In some sectors, the UK's trade dealings with the US or Asia were more important than with Europe.\n\nAnd so this tension led to breaking point. And for the Conservative Party in particular the single market's institutions it created and championed, became something akin to Frankenstein's monster.\n\nThe EU has agreed an investment deal with China\n\nSome Brexiteers had hoped that the edifice would collapse once the UK left. But it has proven more robust than that. Indeed, Brexit has proven a catalyst of the EU to sign trade and investment deals far more quickly, including even with China.\n\nSo now the UK finds itself outside of the machine it created as its strategic competitor. The trade negotiation wasn't primarily about trade. Great Britain has declared regulatory independence, or to be more specific, has declared as much regulatory independence as is compatible with a zero-tariff trade deal.\n\nThe EU retains levers and switches to turn off some of these tariff advantages should the UK use the deal to turn into an offshore tariff free assembly hub for US and Asian manufacturing to be traded into the single market. Unlike with Nissan four decades ago, the European Court of Justice will no longer be there.\n\nThe global pharmaceutical industry offers an opportunity for the UK\n\nThe PM wants regulatory competition but his own deal contains disincentives, if not actual restrictions, on competing \"unfairly\" or too much.\n\nSo the strategy matters. Britain is free, but to do what exactly? To level up? Well the regions that need levelling up are the ones that are actually most dependent on exports to Europe. Exports to Europe will be spared tariffs, thanks to the deal, but there will be literally millions of non-tariff barriers, that the economists calculate matter more, from health checks, customs formalities, origin paperwork, assessments of standards etc.\n\nEven to qualify for tariff-free treatment means, according to new government guidance on \"rules of origin\", analysis of how complicated is the process of grating cheese, of the shelling of nuts, and formalities on where the eyes of a doll come from. Most apply legally from tonight, having been absent for decades.\n\nThe sweet spot for UK will now be to deploy regulatory freedom in sectors that are truly global, where we are not already overly dependent on EU markets.\n\nCertain sub-sectors within technology, finance and pharmaceuticals, for example. In each of these sectors the UK is likely to have to offer more friendly regulation to the multinational private sector, than the EU.\n\nIt doesn't necessarily mean lower standards: It could be that UK medicines regulators, for example, build on the record of rapid approval for Covid vaccines in other medical areas.\n\nThe deployment of massive scientific networks within the National Health service, used for rapid clinical testing, could become the envy of the world.\n\nBrexit Britain is likely to become a laboratory for the global economy. Car companies will need to be attracted with more permissive rules on data and, say autonomous driving testing. Some tech companies are already porting their UK customers to be served under US data privacy laws rather than more restrictive EU ones.\n\nBut the government will also have to be very active and judicious. We are already \"picking winners\" again, at least in the satellite business. What about electric power, where the EU will fight aggressively, versus hydrogen power?\n\nThere are a number of structural economic problems, from poor training, declining productivity and low investment that were not caused by EU membership which, in terms of non-tariff barriers, are made immediately worse by this type of Brexit, for which the UK has no option but to deal with.\n\nNorthern Ireland is mostly left in the EU single market\n\nThat process of looking outwards may not come quickly. Holyrood and Stormont rejected the Brexit trade deal. The UK has replaced a single market of 500 million Europeans free of non-tariff barriers with a single market smaller than the size of the UK.\n\nThere is a trade border in the Irish Sea. Northern Ireland is mostly left in the EU single market. There are non-tariff barriers between Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a result of this deal.\n\nLastly there are some big unknowns and unknowables.\n\nThe inadvertent diplomatic consequences of changes in trade patterns can be profound. If, for example, the eminent historian RW Johnson is to be believed, the UK's accession to the EEC in the first place created the conditions for the fall of South Africa's apartheid regime which was \"hurt in several ways\".\n\nBritish trade was remodelled away from the Commonwealth to Europe, the EEC offered favourable trade with all of Africa except Pretoria. And then when Portugal followed its ally the UK into the EEC, its African colonies and white rule quickly lost to revolutions by black liberation movements in Angola and Mozambique.\n\n\"Thus the seeds of the 1976 Soweto uprising were sown\" in part by the UK joining the EEC. Which is obviously not to suggest the reverse would be true. It is merely to say that events such as these can have very unpredictable knock on effects.\n\nThe Prime Minister has succeeded in taking the UK out of the Single Market created by his heroes. The UK now stands outside a system that it helped invent. For now its new single market is not the size of the country.\n\nThe test of all of this, is to make the UK's new single market the size of the globe.", "Some lorries have been turned away for not having the correct paperwork\n\nPlans are in place to minimise disruption at Welsh ports - especially Holyhead - as the UK enters a post-Brexit new year.\n\nThe EU Brexit transition period is over, and lorry drivers heading to and from the Republic of Ireland require additional paperwork to travel.\n\nOfficials at Holyhead said some lorries have already been turned away because they had the wrong documentation.\n\nThe Welsh Government said it was doing what it could to \"protect\" the port.\n\nTransport Minister Ken Skates said it was \"imperative\" contingency plans were in place for the island, as it wakes up to the new customs regime.\n\nFerry operators in Wales will now require freight customers to link customs information to their booking as they head for the Irish Republic.\n\nWithout that paperwork, port access will be refused.\n\n\"We've had the first few rejects, which is not unexpected,\" said Stena Line's Head of UK Ports, Ian Davies.\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio Wales from Holyhead on New Year's Day, he said it showed the new system was working.\n\n\"We've had people that have been passed and allowed to be shipped, and we've had a few failures as well, so it will be a learning curve for these customers.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government said a \"worst case scenario\" published by the UK suggested 40% to 70% of heavy goods vehicles arriving at ports after transition ended on New Year's Eve may not have the right documentation to travel.\n\nThe peak period for turning vehicles away is expected to be mid-January.\n\n\"We simply don't know whether things are going to work,\" said Rod McKenzie, who is managing director of policy for the body representing lorry drivers and operators, the Road Haulage Association.\n\n\"There is no question there will be problems, even if all the IT works, things could go wrong, and given traders' unfamiliarity with it there is the potential for a lot of mistakes to be made.\"\n\nA contraflow will allow lorries to be \"stacked\" on parts of the A55 if traffic builds\n\nThe association said it was more worried about \"invisible delays\" in the supply chain, rather than queues at ferry ports.\n\n\"Lorries might not leave their factory gate or depot because the paperwork isn't done,\" he said.\n\n\"It's really, really important that people try to get their paperwork right. The consequences of any mistakes will be a disruption of the supply chain.\"\n\nHe said the sector would know in about a week \"how it's going\".\n\nPembrokeshire council said it had been working to ensure any vehicles turned away from Pembroke Dock and Fishguard were dealt with away from the ports.\n\nIt has arranged overflow locations at Goodwick and Pembroke Dock for its own version of Dover's \"Operation Stack\", where lorries queue along the M20.\n\n\"The importance of Pembrokeshire's ports to the county, Wales and UK as a whole cannot be overestimated,\" said council leader David Simpson.\n\nHolyhead is the UK's second busiest roll-on roll-off ferry port\n\nOn Anglesey, a temporary contraflow is in force on the A55 expressway, eastbound between junctions two and four, allowing any traffic turned away from the port to be redirected back.\n\nIt will be moved to parking locations at Parc Cybi on the outskirts of the town, and if necessary, lorries will be parked on the cordoned-off A55 sections.\n\n\"We will monitor the situation carefully and as soon as it's safe to do so we will remove the temporary contraflow,\" said Mr Skates.\n\n\"While the next few days are expected to be quiet, we know it will become busier as we approach mid-January.\n\n\"Our aim is to do what we can to protect the port, town of Holyhead and wider community from any possible disruption.\"\n\nOn Friday, port authorities on Anglesey said freight traffic has been quiet, as expected over the bank holiday period.\n\nIt follows an steep rise in lorry crossings in the run up to Christmas and the end of the transition period.\n\nFerry operator Stena Line is also responsible for running Holyhead Port.\n\n\"We can't get complacent over the next few days,\" said a Stena spokesman.\n\n\"It's when freight levels come back up that we'll know whether the systems are really working and whether the hauliers are ready. That will be the real test.\"", "More than 35,000 people have received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Wales\n\nThe Covid vaccine programme is at the \"very beginning\" and vaccination rates are increasing, Wales' Health Minister Vaughan Gething has insisted.\n\nIt follows concerns raised by some politicians over the speed of Welsh vaccine rollout.\n\nInitial figures on how many people have received the first Pfizer-BioNTech jab show Wales is slightly behind those vaccinated elsewhere in the UK.\n\nMr Gething said there were likely to be \"small differences between nations\".\n\n\"Comparisons are naturally being made on the number of vaccinations administered by the four nations of the UK,\" he said in a ministerial statement to Senedd members.\n\n\"Whilst I recognise the data indicates there are other nations ahead of us, the national data presented at this very early stage of the vaccination roll out should be considered provisional and a snapshot of ongoing activity.\"\n\nHe said there would be \"lags\" in data being entered, and local factors affecting vaccinations.\n\n\"For example the vaccination centre in Cardiff and the Vale was unable to operate for two days because of a virus outbreak linked to the site,\" he added.\n\nMore than 35,000 people have now received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Wales, including healthcare workers who work in Wales but live over the border in England.\n\nAlmost 13,000 of these vaccines were given in the past week.\n\nThe number of vaccinations in Wales up until 27 December account for 1.12% of the Welsh population.\n\nIn England, 1.4% have received a jab, while in Scotland it is 1.7%, and 1.6% in Northern Ireland.\n\nThe Welsh Conservative health spokesman Andrew RT Davies flagged his concerns about the vaccine delivery programme on Thursday.\n\n\"Three weeks ago, the first Covid-19 vaccine was given in Wales, and since that time we have sadly seen confusion and hope drop away,\" he said.\n\n\"Many people over 80 in Wales were desperately waiting for their appointment to do their bit and have the vaccine but as we quickly learnt they would have to wait longer,\" he said.\n\nBut the health minister said daily vaccination rates were \"increasing across Wales\".\n\nThe focus is on delivering vaccines effectively and safely, says Vaughan Gething\n\n\"Looking ahead, all health boards are preparing for significant expansion in capacity from the beginning of January,\" added Mr Gething.\n\nHe said the new Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine approved earlier this week would be available from some GPs in Wales from Monday.\n\n\"This is only the very beginning of what will be a programme spanning many months,\" he said.\n\n\"Whilst the urgency and priority required is clear to all, we must also have some patience and allow the NHS to do what it does so well.\n\n\"My focus, and that of the NHS, is on delivering the vaccine programme quickly but also effectively, safely and equitably.\"\n\nThe Welsh Government has also confirmed it will be following the latest advice from medical advisers on introducing a 12-week gap between the two doses of vaccines needed, for both types of approved jabs.\n\nAll four chief medical officers in the UK have supported the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which said the focus should be on giving at-risk people the first dose of whichever vaccine they receive.\n\n\"It will ensure that more at-risk people are able to get protection from a vaccine in the coming weeks and months, reducing deaths and starting to ease pressure on our NHS,\" said Mr Gething.\n\nVaccinations started earlier in December after regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine\n\nPlaid Cymru has called on the Welsh Government to ask the UK government to publish evidence to justify increasing the period for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.\n\nIn a letter to Mr Gething, the party's health spokesman Rhun ap Iorwerth said the \"sudden switch\" represented \"a very significant departure\" from previous guidelines.\n\nHe added there were \"very real concerns\" that a longer delay between doses \"could significantly decrease the effectiveness of the vaccine\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"I wish I could switch place with my daughter\" - Odd Steinar Sørengen's daughter is missing\n\nA body has been found shortly after rescuers and dog handlers began a risky ground search for 10 people missing in a hillside collapse in Norway.\n\nInitially it was thought too dangerous to send rescuers on to the site, after flowing mud sent homes toppling into a giant chasm in the village of Ask.\n\nHelicopters and drones spent two days searching the scene.\n\nBut on Friday police commander Roy Alkvist said one or two houses appeared safe to enter.\n\nRescuers, who included a Swedish specialist team, began moving into the danger zone on Styrofoam boards. The bright orange boards were laid down on the mud in a domino-effect as rescuers tried to reach one of the wrecked homes, which are 25km (15 miles) north-east of the capital Oslo.\n\nA missing Dalmatian dog was rescued on Thursday and police believe there is still a chance survivors could be found.\n\nHowever, on Friday afternoon an air ambulance helicopter landed near the site and police said a body had been found at 14:30 (13:30 GMT) without giving further details.\n\nRescuers are using orange Styrofoam boards to move around the landslide area\n\nPrime Minister Erna Solberg said her thoughts went out to the victim's family, and to those waiting for news of the other nine people who were missing.\n\nIn Friday's operation the rescuers also prepared a giant army vehicle called a \"paver\", which has a giant steel bridge on which rescuers can move.\n\nHowever, conditions were not yet good enough for the 50-tonne machine to be deployed.\n\nThe plan is to deploy a Norwegian army bridge-laying vehicle as soon as conditions are good enough\n\nFriday's search was a race against time, as the rescuers only had a few hours of daylight in the Norwegian winter. Medics and geologists were reportedly part of the ground rescue team.\n\nThe ground search was called off for the night at 17:30 and police said drones and heat-seeking cameras would continue overnight until rescue crews could return on Saturday morning.\n\nAbout 1,000 people have been evacuated from Gjerdrum municipality, which contains Ask village. Dozens more were moved out of their homes on New Year's Eve.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Aerial footage shows the scale of the landslide\n\nAlthough police have not given details of the missing, they are believed to include men, women and children.\n\nAmong them is a woman who was talking to her husband on the phone while walking the dog when the line went dead, according to Bergens Tidende newspaper.\n\nFurther reports say a couple and their small child are also missing, as well as a woman in her 50s and her adult son.\n\nMore than 30 homes have been destroyed, but officials say more could be lost as the edges of the crater left by the landslide are still breaking away.\n\nThe conditions have proved challenging, with temperatures dropping to -1C (30F) and the clay ground proving too unstable for emergency workers to walk on.\n\nThe scale of the landslide is shown by this aerial view of the disaster site\n\nThe landslide began early on Wednesday, with residents calling emergency services and telling them that their houses were moving, police said.\n\n\"There were two massive tremors that lasted for a long while and I assumed it was snow being cleared or something like that,\" Oeystein Gjerdrum, 68, told broadcaster NRK.\n\n\"Then the power suddenly went out, and a neighbour came to the door and said we needed to evacuate, so I woke up my three grandchildren and told them to get dressed quickly.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) told AFP that the landslide was a so-called \"quick clay slide\" measuring about 300m by 700m (985ft by 2,300ft).\n\n\"This is the largest landslide in recent times in Norway, considering the number of houses involved and the number of evacuees,\" Laila Hoivik said.\n\nQuick clay is a kind of clay found in Norway and Sweden that can collapse and behave as a fluid when it comes under stress.\n\nBroadcaster NRK said heavy rainfall may have made the soil unstable, but questions have since emerged over why construction was permitted in the area.\n\nA 2005 geological survey labelled the area as at high risk of landslides, according to a report seen by the broadcaster TV2. Despite this, the homes were built three years later in 2008.", "Ontario Premier Doug Ford has announced the resignation of his finance minister who took a trip to the Caribbean while the province remained under lockdown.\n\nMr Ford on Thursday said Mr Phillips' departure showed his government \"takes seriously our obligation to hold ourselves to a higher standard\".\n\nCanada's most populous province has discouraged all non-essential travel amid record-high new case counts.\n\nMr Phillips, who is a member of the Progressive Conservative Party, had taken a personal trip to St Barts on 13 December and returned on Thursday morning.\n\nAhead of the holiday season, Ontario health officials had urged residents to stay at home when possible amid an ongoing rise in Covid-19 cases.\n\nPeople line up on Christmas Day at a Covid test site in Ontario\n\nMr Phillips told reporters when he arrived at Toronto Pearson Airport he hoped to keep his job, but would respect the premier's decision.\n\n\"Obviously, I made a significant error in judgment, and I will be accountable for that,\" Mr Phillips said. \"I do not make any excuses for the fact that I travelled when we shouldn't have travelled.\"\n\nLater on Thursday, Mr Ford said in a statement he had accepted Mr Phillips' resignation following a conversation with him. Mr Ford has asked Peter Bethlenfalvy, currently president of the treasury board, to step into the finance minister role.\n\nOn Wednesday, Mr Ford had said he learned of Mr Phillips travel two weeks ago, but said the minister \"never told anyone\" he was going to St Barts, according to CBC.\n\nOntario's New Democratic Party leader Andrea Horwath on Wednesday had pushed for Mr Phillip's firing, saying it was unacceptable for him to \"ignore public health advice\" while the government \"demands sacrifice from everyday Ontarians\".\n\n\"It's not believable that a senior member of cabinet didn't tell the premier's office he was leaving the country for weeks during the height of a global emergency,\" she said in a statement. \"If he didn't, that in itself would be enough reason to demote him.\"", "The UK's chief medical officers have defended the Covid vaccination plan, after criticism from a doctors' union.\n\nThe UK will give both parts of the Oxford and Pfizer vaccines 12 weeks apart, having initially planned to leave 21 days between the Pfizer jabs.\n\nThe British Medical Association said cancelling patients booked in for their second doses was \"grossly unfair\".\n\nBut the chief medical officers said getting more people vaccinated with the first jab \"is much more preferable\".\n\nThe Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first jab approved in the UK, and 944,539 people have had their first jab.\n\nThe first person to get the jab on 8 December, Margaret Keenan, has already had her second jab.\n\nPfizer has said it has tested the vaccine's efficacy only when the two vaccines were given up to 21 days apart.\n\nBut the chief medical officers said the \"great majority\" of initial protection came from the first jab.\n\n\"The second vaccine dose is likely to be very important for duration of protection, and at an appropriate dose interval may further increase vaccine efficacy,\" they said.\n\n\"In the short term, the additional increase of vaccine efficacy from the second dose is likely to be modest; the great majority of the initial protection from clinical disease is after the first dose of vaccine.\"\n\nThe decision to delay the second dose has, understandably, caused concern.\n\nThere is some evidence regulators say - at least for the Oxford vaccine - that it will actually boost immunity.\n\nBut for those who are due to get a second dose soon it will undoubtedly be upsetting that they now have to wait.\n\nBut the move is about practicalities. The UK is in the middle of a public health crisis and despite the fact that millions of doses are pre-ordered, there is concern the supply of the vaccine will not be as smooth as everyone would ideally want.\n\nThere is a global demand for these vaccines and there are bound to be times when supply does not meet demand.\n\nSo the logic of the move is that by spreading this thin resource the most widely, it will have the greatest benefit - not only to the vulnerable but to everyone.\n\nLives have been put on hold and livelihoods lost.\n\nThis is the quickest way back to some degree of normality.\n\nEven if it does leave some of the vaccinated susceptible to infection, it should in theory at least protect them from serious illness.\n\nGiven where we are now, the argument is that that is a price worth paying.\n\nAs well as approving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on Wednesday - the second approved for use in the UK - regulators also said that doctors could wait longer between the two courses.\n\nThis means more people will get the first jab sooner, even if they have to wait longer for their second jab.\n\nExperts advising the government, including the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said the focus should be on giving at-risk people the first dose of whichever vaccine they receive.\n\nDefending the move, the UK's four chief medical officers - including England's Prof Chris Whitty - said in a statement released on New Year's Eve: \"In terms of protecting priority groups, a model where we can vaccinate twice the number of people in the next two to three months is obviously much more preferable.\"\n\nThey said they recognised that rescheduling second appointments was \"operationally very difficult\" and would \"distress patients who were looking forward to being fully immunised\".\n\nHowever, they said that for every 1,000 patients booked in for a second dose, which will \"gain marginally on protection from severe disease\", that would mean 1,000 more people missing out on \"substantial initial protection\".\n\nThe chief medics said that, while one million people had already been vaccinated, approximately 30 million UK patients and health and social care workers eligible in the first phase \"remain totally unprotected and many are distressed or anxious about the wait for their turn\".\n\nThey added that the JCVI was \"confident\" 12 weeks was a reasonable interval between doses \"to achieve good longer-term protection\".\n\n\"We have to follow public health principles and act at speed if we are to beat this pandemic which is running rampant in our communities, and we believe the public will understand and thank us for this decisive action.\"\n\nEarlier, the BMA's Dr Richard Vautrey said GPs were unhappy they were being asked to cancel appointments that had already been made for second doses.\n\nHe said the BMA would support practices who honour the existing appointments for the follow-up vaccination, calling for the government to do the same.", "The first lorries to transport freight under the new arrangements arrived in Belfast on Friday afternoon\n\nThe first goods have crossed the new trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.\n\nThe 'Irish Sea border' is a consequence of Brexit and means that most commercial goods entering NI from GB require a customs declaration.\n\nAbout a dozen lorries arrived on a ferry from Cairnryan in Scotland to Belfast at 14:00 GMT on Friday.\n\nThey were met by officials, with some vehicles directed to new border control posts.\n\nMany food products from GB now have to enter NI through these border posts where they can be inspected by the Department of Agriculture.\n\nThese products also need health certificates, though some of the new certification processes will be phased in over the next three months.\n\nThe UK government also announced a three-month \"grace period\" for parcels, meaning those sent by online retailers will be exempt from customs declarations until at least April.\n\nIt said the grace period was necessary to avoid disruption to deliveries at a time when many shops are closed due to pandemic restrictions.\n\nMeanwhile the secretary of state for Northern Ireland has continued to insist the new range of checks, controls and paperwork is not actually a sea border.\n\nBrandon Lewis tweeted: \"There is no 'Irish Sea Border'. As we have seen today, the important preparations the government and businesses have taken to prepare for the end of the Transition Period are keeping goods flowing freely around the country, including between GB and NI.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Brandon Lewis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTransport companies are not expecting significant volumes of freight over the next few days.\n\nThere has been significant stockpiling ahead of the changes and it may take one or two weeks before freight volumes are at normal seasonal levels.\n\nSome businesses, particularly haulage companies, are anxious about the new IT systems which are necessary for the border to function.\n\nThey have had less than two weeks to familiarise themselves with the new systems.\n\nPolice officers carried out random vehicle checks near Larne Port on New Year's Eve\n\nSeamus Leheny from Logistics UK said: \"With any reconfiguration of supply chains and new systems there will be teething problems and we expect that.\"\n\nThere will be no new processes or checks for the vast majority of goods leaving NI for GB.\n\nThe new arrangements flow from the Northern Ireland Protocol, a deal reached by the UK and EU in 2019.\n\nIts purpose is to prevent a hard land border in Ireland.\n\nThat is achieved by keeping Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods and by having Northern Ireland apply EU customs rules at its ports.\n\nThis will allow goods to flow from NI to the Republic of Ireland and the rest of the EU as they do now, without customs checks or new paperwork.\n\nThe Protocol is opposed by Northern Ireland's unionist parties who fear it will weaken Northern Ireland's position in the UK.\n\nThe arrangement does not change Northern Ireland's constitutional position.\n\nHowever, it does mean a significant new economic barrier within the UK.\n\nUnionist parties fear the sea border will weaken NI's position in the UK\n\nThe UK government has allocated more than £300m for a Trader Support Service to help businesses deal with the new customs arrangements.\n\nThe government is also covering the costs of the new certification requirements for food products.\n\nA Movement Assistance Scheme will pay vets up to £150 to complete the Export Health Certificates which will need to accompany all live animals and products of animal origin entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain.\n\nTrucks pass through a customs post at Dublin Port on Friday morning\n\nThere are also new checks and controls on freight arriving at Dublin Port from GB.\n\nOn Friday morning, the first ferry to arrive in Dublin from Holyhead had about 12 lorries on board.\n\nWhile they all cleared customs checks for the first time without delays, Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said the change in trading arrangements with the UK would inevitably cause disruption.\n\n\"We have avoided the kind of dramatic disruption of a no trade deal Brexit, but that doesn't mean that things aren't changing very fundamentally, because they are,\" he said.\n\n\"We're now going to see the €80b (£71.2bn) worth of trade across the Irish Sea between Britain and Ireland disrupted by an awful lot more checks and declarations, and bureaucracy and paperwork, and cost and delay.\"\n\nOn Saturday new freight sailings will begin between Rosslare in the Republic of Ireland and Dunkirk in France, allowing cargo to bypass GB and go straight to mainland Europe.\n\nThe six-times weekly service will take 24 hours, which is longer than the \"landbridge\" route via GB.", "A new era has begun for the United Kingdom after it completed its formal separation from the European Union.\n\nThe UK stopped following EU rules at 23:00 GMT, as replacement arrangements for travel, trade, immigration and security co-operation came into force.\n\nBoris Johnson said the UK had \"freedom in our hands\" and the ability to do things \"differently and better\" now the long Brexit process was over.\n\nBut opponents of leaving the EU maintain the country will be worse off.\n\nScottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, whose ambition it is to take an independent Scotland back into the EU, tweeted: \"Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the light on.\"\n\nBBC Europe editor Katya Adler said there was a sense of relief in Brussels that the Brexit process was over, \"but there is regret still at Brexit itself\".\n\nThe first lorries arriving at the borders entered the UK and EU without delay.\n\nOn Friday evening, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps tweeted that border traffic had been \"low due to [the] bank holiday\" but there had been no disruption in Kent as \"hundreds\" of lorries crossed the Channel with a \"small\" number turned back.\n\nSix freight loads travelling from Holyhead in Wales to Ireland had to be turned away due to not having the correct paperwork, the Stena Line ferry and port group said on Friday morning.\n\nBut later on Friday, the group said freight traffic was flowing well through its ports and government customs systems were working well.\n\nIt added that the fall in freight traffic after the Christmas and Brexit stockpiling period meant \"it is too early to draw any conclusions\", but the company remained \"cautiously optimistic that, as freight volumes begin to rise again, we will be able to ensure the continued free movement of goods\".\n\nUK ministers have warned there will be some disruption in the coming days and weeks, as new rules bed in and British firms come to terms with the changes.\n\nBut officials have insisted new border systems are \"ready to go\".\n\nAs the first customs checks were completed after midnight, Eurotunnel spokesman John Keefe said: \"It all went fine, everything's running just as it was before 11pm.\"\n\nNorthern Ireland has different arrangements from other parts of the UK, meaning there will be some customs checks on goods moving between Great Britain and the province.\n\nOn Friday afternoon, the first ferry from Great Britain operating under the terms of Northern Ireland trading protocol docked in Belfast, on schedule at 13:45 GMT.\n\nSeamus Leheny, policy manager at Logistics UK, said six out of the 15 lorries that were on the first ship to arrive into Belfast were brought in for inspection, with one being kept at the port for more than three hours.\n\n\"Inevitably there are going to be teething problems because with such a new, complex system as this there are going to be issues in the first few days,\" he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme.\n\nThe first lorry loads on to the Eurotunnel shuttle after the UK left the single market and customs union\n\nMandy Ridyard, whose aerospace components company makes daily shipments to Northern Ireland, told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme she was \"filling in the same declaration to send goods to the Philippines that I am sending them within the UK\".\n\n\"And obviously that all adds a lot of cost to my business.\"\n\nThe UK officially left the 27-member political and economic bloc on 31 January, three and half years after the UK public voted to leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum.\n\nBut it stuck to the EU's trading rules for 11 months while the two sides negotiated their future economic partnership.\n\nA treaty was finally agreed on Christmas Eve, and became law in the UK on Wednesday.\n\nUnder the new arrangements, UK manufacturers will have tariff-free access to the EU's internal market, meaning there will be no import taxes on goods crossing between Britain and the continent.\n\nBut it does mean more paperwork for businesses and people travelling to EU countries, while there is still uncertainty about what will happen to banking and services.\n\nThe UK and Spain have also reached an agreement meaning the border between Gibraltar and Spain will remain open.\n\nFabian Picardo, Gibraltar's chief minister, said the deal still needed to be formalised, but by abolishing controls between Gibraltar and the EU's passport-free Schengen area, he said it would prevent queues at the border \"which make people's lives a misery and make business difficult\".\n\nIt is a moment that some will regard with huge optimism, others with deep regret.\n\nAnd while this historic move happens at a moment in time, the impact, in some areas, may be less instant or obvious than others - for example, it's expected there'll be relatively little traffic at Dover on the first day of 2021 as new border checks kick in.\n\nNevertheless, significant changes are here - whether on trade, travel, security or immigration - and those changes could well become more apparent in the months ahead.\n\nMr Johnson - who took the UK out of the EU in January six months after becoming prime minister - said it was an \"amazing moment\" for the UK in his New Year message.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nWriting in the Daily Telegraph, he added that the combination of the Brexit deal and rollout of the Oxford vaccine means \"we are creating the potential trampoline for the national bounceback\".\n\nLord Frost, the UK's chief negotiator, tweeted that Britain had become a \"fully independent country again\".\n\nAnd the deputy chairman of the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Tory backbench MPs, David Jones, told the BBC: \"We can now say clearly Britain is a sovereign and independent state.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by David Frost This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut opponents of Brexit say the country will be worse off than it was while it was a member of the EU.\n\nIreland's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said it was \"not something to celebrate\" and the UK's relationship with Ireland will be different from now on, but \"we wish them well\".\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron said the UK remained a \"friend and ally\", but he added that the choice to leave the EU was \"the child of European malaise and many lies and false promises\".\n\nIn Brussels, there is a sense of relief the Brexit process is over, but there is regret still at Brexit itself.\n\nBasically, the European Union thinks that Brexit makes it - the EU - and the UK weaker.\n\nBut the EU view is this is less bye-bye Britain and more au revoir, because there are so many loose ends between the two sides.\n\nFor example, there are the ongoing practicalities surrounding Gibraltar, the UK is still waiting to find out what access Brussels is going to give its financial services to the single market, there is cooperation on climate change, and there is a reviewal mechanism written into the treaty for every five years.\n\nFor all of those reasons and more, this is not the end of the EU-UK conversation for the foreseeable future.\n\nThe culmination of the Brexit process means major changes in different areas. These include:", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Countries around the world welcomed 2021 with fireworks, but crowds were only allowed at some displays\n\nMillions around the world have been seeing out 2020 and marking the start of 2021, although the coronavirus pandemic has forced many celebrations to take place in muted form behind closed doors.\n\nWith lockdowns or other restrictions in place in many countries, would-be New Year partygoers were told to have a quiet night in.\n\nOthers have attended ceremonies or festivals wearing masks or taking other precautions.\n\nIn Tokyo, below, people visited the Kanda Myojin Shrine to offer prayers. The popular Shinto shrine reduced the number of visitors allowed, as Japan faces another wave of Covid-19 infections.\n\nIn Wuhan, China, crowds gathered in the city with balloons and festive outfits to count down to midnight on New Year's Eve.\n\nFireworks lit up the night sky in Taiwan to mark the beginning of 2021, witnessed by thousands of spectators who gathered in the centre of Taipei.\n\nLike this family in Seoul, South Korea, many globally have marked the celebration in a small way and often at home.\n\nIt was a chilly celebration in Yekaterinburg, Russia, as people gathered at the city hall, waving sparklers in the 1905 Square.\n\nWhile in the United Arab Emirates, one of the largest New Year fireworks displays saw spectacular colours light up the sky over the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah.\n\nPyrotechnics also illuminated the sky around the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, as the clock struck midnight in Dubai.\n\nThe New Year's Eve party at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin is usually one of Europe's biggest street parties. But this year revellers were told to stay at home and watch the fireworks and music performances on TV or online instead.\n\nThese worshippers in Abuja, Nigeria, marked the end of 2020 with a gospel service.\n\nMeanwhile, people in the city of Abidjan in the Ivory Coast were able to watch the fireworks display outside with friends and family.\n\nBut in New York City, just a handful of people were allowed into Times Square to watch confetti rain down and the traditional crystal ball drop.\n\nBrazilian authorities closed Copacabana Beach, in Rio de Janeiro, but that did not stop some people enjoying celebrations.\n\nA fireworks and light show was held across various locations in London. A number of drones filled the sky close to the O2 Arena in East London forming messages referencing the pandemic, including the NHS logo.", "The Archers returned to BBC Radio 4 in May with \"a new style\" forced upon the show by the coronavirus lockdown\n\nBBC Radio 4 will mark 70 years of The Archers with a series of features across its output on Friday.\n\nAs well as broadcasting episode number 19,343 of the world's longest-running serial drama, stars from it will appear on the station's other programmes.\n\nThis will include inserts into Woman's Hour, Farming Today, and a quiz.\n\nThe Archers, set in the fictional village of Ambridge, began in 1951 with the original purpose of educating farmers on modern agricultural methods.\n\nThe show's editor, Jeremy Howe, said its achievements over the years, coming up to the modern day, are incomparable.\n\n\"Almost daily and in real time The Archers has tracked life in the village of Ambridge across years and more than 19,000 episodes,\" he said.\n\n\"No work of fiction or drama can truly compare to that. As I look back on this incredible legacy, I am looking forward to the next 70 years of The Archers.\"\n\nBack in May, The Archers returned to BBC Radio 4 on Monday, with a \"new style\" forced upon the show by the coronavirus lockdown.\n\nLarge cast recordings with interaction between multiple characters were scrapped in favour of monologues recorded at the actors' homes.\n\nThe storyline of Friday's anniversary episode remains a secret, but celebratory programming on Radio 4 on the day will also include a special edition of With Great Pleasure at Christmas, where cast members from the series share their favourite prose and poetry.\n\nHowe, meanwhile, will appear alongside actor Timothy Bentinck (David Archer) and agricultural story advisor Sarah Swadling in an Archers-flavoured edition of Farming Today.\n\nWoman's Hour will focus on the female characters and storylines that have shaped the show.\n\nFinally, on the day, listeners will be invited to head over to The Bull pub - not literally of course - for the The Archers Anniversary Quiz, hosted by landlords Jolene (Buffy Davis) and Kenton Archer (Richard Attlee).\n\nOn Saturday 2 January, historian David Kynaston will then delve into the history of the programme further documentary feature entitled A Social History of The Archers.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Spain has reached a deal with the UK to maintain free movement to and from Gibraltar once the UK formally leaves the EU on Friday.\n\nTo avoid a hard border, Gibraltar will join the EU's Schengen zone and follow other EU rules, while remaining a British Overseas Territory.\n\nThe deal was announced by Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya, just hours before the UK exits the EU.\n\nThe Rock voted Remain in 2016 and about 15,000 Spanish workers go there daily.\n\n\"With this [agreement], the fence is removed, Schengen is applied to Gibraltar... it allows for the lifting of controls between Gibraltar and Spain,\" said Ms González Laya.\n\nThe Gibraltar deal will mean the EU sending Frontex border guards to facilitate free movement to and from Gibraltar. Their role is planned to last four years.\n\nGibraltarians are British citizens. They elect their own representatives to the territory's parliament, while the British monarch appoints a governor.\n\nThe territory - home to a British military garrison and naval base - is self-governing in all areas except defence and foreign policy.\n\nMs González Laya did not say whether Spanish border guards would eventually be posted at Gibraltar's airport and/or seaport which, under the deal, will be de facto part of the EU's external border.\n\nThe Gibraltar deal would also mean the territory complying with EU fair competition rules in areas such as financial policy, the environment and the labour market, Ms González Laya said.\n\nTwenty-two EU states are in the passport-free Schengen zone, as are Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein, but the UK has never been in it.\n\nOnce Gibraltar joins it, EU citizens arriving from Spain or another Schengen country will avoid passport checks, while arrivals from the UK will have to go through passport control, as is already the case.\n\nUK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called Thursday's deal a \"political framework\" to form the basis of a separate treaty with the EU regarding Gibraltar.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why Gibraltar is British - in 60 secs\n\nThe deal does not address the thorny issue of sovereignty. Spain has long disputed British sovereignty over the Rock which was ceded to Britain in 1713 and which is now home to about 34,000 people. The Remain vote there was an overwhelming 96% in the 2016 EU referendum.\n\nThe plan is to have a six-month transition period and then formalise the new arrangements with a treaty.\n\nUnder the current tight Covid rules, there are restrictions on UK citizens arriving via Gibraltar's airport, the UK Foreign Office says.\n\nDominic Raab said \"all sides are committed to mitigating the effects of the end of the [Brexit] Transition Period on Gibraltar, and in particular ensure border fluidity, which is clearly in the best interests of the people living on both sides.\n\n\"We remain steadfast in our support for Gibraltar, and its sovereignty is safeguarded.\"", "Omar Elabdellaoui is receiving treatment in hospital after an accident with a firework\n\nNorway and Galatasaray footballer Omar Elabdellaoui has been injured by a firework during a New Year's Eve celebration.\n\nThe Norwegian vice-captain's club said he was taken to hospital after \"an unfortunate accident at his home\".\n\nHe suffered burns to his face and damage to his eyes, the club said, adding that further tests would assess the extent of his injuries.\n\nThe New Year's Eve incident was one of many involving fireworks in Europe.\n\nIn Elabdellaoui's case, Turkish reports say a firework exploded in the hand of the 29-year-old defender.\n\nTurkish newspaper Hurriyet said the former Manchester City player may have lost vision, without giving further details.\n\nBut in a statement cited by the newspaper, Galatasaray said Elabdellaoui was conscious, in a stable condition and had not undergone surgery.\n\nGalatasaray's manager Fatih Terim and the team captain Arda Turan went to the hospital to visit Elabdellaoui, who joined the club in 2020 from the Greek side Olympiacos FC.\n\nTurkish clubs - including Galatasaray's Turkish Super Lig rivals Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Trabzonspor - took to social media to wish Elabdellaoui a speedy recovery.\n\nTurkish reports say a firework exploded in the hand of 29-year-old Omar Elabdellaoui\n\nElsewhere in Europe, at least four people were killed by fireworks during events to mark the new year.\n\nPolice in Alsace in eastern France said a 25-year-old man died after being hit by a rocket in the village of Boofzheim.\n\nA statement said the device beheaded him and severely injured the face of another young man standing next to him.\n\nA similar incident cost the life of a 28-year-old man in Pulle, a village east of Antwerp in Belgium.\n\nFireworks exploded over Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate to usher in the new year\n\nMeanwhile in Italy's north-western province of Asti, a 13-year-old boy died shortly after midnight of injuries to his abdomen caused by a firecracker.\n\nThere were fireworks casualties in Germany as well. In the state of Brandenburg, police said a 24-year-old man died after setting alight \"self-made pyrotechnics\" while a 63-year-old man lost his hand when handling a firecracker.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Countries around the world welcomed 2021 with fireworks, but crowds were only allowed at some displays\n\nInjuries and deaths from fireworks are not unknown over the New Year period. But fewer public fireworks displays than usual were held on New Year's Eve 2020, as coronavirus restrictions placed limits on gatherings worldwide.\n\nSome European countries had moved to limit the use of fireworks ahead of 31 December, with Germany imposing a ban on the sale of pyrotechnics.", "Rachael Powell is \"angry and upset\" about her daughter Emmeline missing out during lockdown Image caption: Rachael Powell is \"angry and upset\" about her daughter Emmeline missing out during lockdown\n\nNew parents missing baby classes and playdates due to lockdown say their children's development has been hit by the impact of coronavirus.\n\nWhen Rachael Powell's one-year-old daughter Emmeline met her grandparents for the first time she \"absolutely screamed the place down\" as she \"didn't know who they were\".\n\n\"I was really looking forward to going to coffee shops, meeting other mums and going to baby classes and then everything stopped,\" says the 39-year-old from Greater Manchester.\n\n\"I felt guilty that she didn't get any of that and have that interaction.\"\n\nEducation consultant and child psychologist Paul Kelly says Covid is having a \"massive impact\" on babies.\n\n\"We are social creatures, social beings - it is pre-programmed in our brains,\" he says. \"When children's brains are stimulated, they grow.\"\n\nDr Kelly says there is also an impact on parents, who are missing out on \"mutual support\".\n\nHe says people should \"grab what they can, when they can\" during these uncertain times and focus on \"how you can enhance [your baby's] development... rather than spending time thinking about how your child might be behind\".", "The number of people being treated in Scotland's hospitals for coronavirus has reached another record daily high.\n\nLatest Scottish government figures show a total of 1,596 people are in hospital with recently confirmed Covid.\n\nThis is up from Friday's figure of 1,530 patients.\n\nThe deaths of a further 93 people who had tested positive for the virus have been recorded in the past 24 hours, the same tally as Friday which was the highest daily figure of the pandemic.\n\nIt is the second day in a row there has been a record figure for Covid hospital patients.\n\nOf the 1,596 people in hospital, a total of 109 are in intensive care, up seven on Friday's figure.\n\nNational clinical director Prof Jason Leitch said Scotland's hospitals were \"very busy and fragile\" but coping so far.\n\nHe said: \"People should not be worried we have reached capacity but the best way of getting those numbers down is to reduce the prevalence of the virus.\"\n\nProf Leitch said the NHS could create more intensive care capacity if needed but \"all of that has a cost in what we won't be able to do\" elsewhere in the health service.\n\nThe NHS Louisa Jordan temporary hospital in Glasgow can be used to care for the sickest of Covid patients if the spike in admissions continues, but officials are trying to avoid this \"if we can manage without it\", Prof Leitch added.\n\nThis is because it is better for patients and staff for Covid patients to be in traditional intensive care units, he explained.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon has described the latest Covid figures as \"a big concern\".\n\nOn Twitter, she said: \"Covid case numbers still a big concern and putting huge pressure on the NHS, as hospital and ICU cases increase.\n\n\"Also, 93 further deaths remind us just how dangerous the virus can be - my thoughts are with all those grieving.\"]\n\nThe Scottish government data shows a further 1,865 new cases of Covid have been reported in the last 24 hours, down from the 2,309 cases reported on Friday.\n\nHowever, the daily test positivity rate is 8.7%, up from 8.1% on the previous day.\n\nThis breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.\n\nYou can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts.", "North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said US policy towards his country would \"never change\"\n\nNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said the US is his country's \"biggest enemy\" and that he does not expect Washington to change its policy toward Pyongyang - whoever is president.\n\nAddressing a rare congress of his ruling Workers' Party, Mr Kim also pledged to expand North Korea's nuclear weapons arsenal and military potential.\n\nHe said that plans for a nuclear submarine were almost complete.\n\nHis comments come as US President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office.\n\nAnalysts suggest Mr Kim's remarks are an effort to apply pressure on the incoming government, with Mr Biden set to be sworn in on 20 January.\n\nMr Kim enjoyed a warm rapport with outgoing US President Donald Trump, even if little concrete progress was made on negotiations over North Korea's nuclear programme.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn his latest address to the Workers' Party - only the eighth congress in its history - Mr Kim said Pyongyang did not intend to use its nuclear weapons unless \"hostile forces\" were planning to use them against North Korea first.\n\nHe said the US was his country's \"biggest obstacle for our revolution and our biggest enemy... no matter who is in power, the true nature of its policy against North Korea will never change,\" state news agency KCNA reported.\n\nHis speech outlined a list of desired weapons including long-range ballistic missiles capable of being launched from land or sea and \"super-large warheads\".\n\nNorth Korea has managed to significantly advance its arsenal despite being subject to strict economic sanctions.\n\nEarlier this week, Mr Kim admitted that his five-year economic plan for the isolated country failed to meet its targets in \"almost every sector\".\n\nNorth Korea closed its borders last January to prevent Covid from entering the country.\n\nIts authorities say the country has not had a single Covid case since the pandemic began but experts say this is highly unlikely due to North Korea's cross-border trade with China.\n\nTrade with China has plummeted by about 80%. Typhoons and floods have devastated homes and crops in North Korea, which remains under strict international sanctions, including over its nuclear programme.\n\nThe speech is likely to be Mr Kim's way of setting the stage for talks with President-elect Joe Biden who will take office in less than two weeks' time.\n\nThe aim is perhaps to put pressure on Washington to show that Pyongyang has no intention of being cowed by sanctions and will continue to expand its nuclear arsenal.\n\nMr Kim had three summits with Donald Trump - but they failed to reach a deal. However, North Korea is in a difficult and bleak economic position caused by strict sanctions, border blockades to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and devastating floods.\n\nThis message may seem threatening, but some analysts believe that there is still room for diplomacy.", "Jessica Allen (left) and Eliza Moore are now sticking to walks nearer their homes\n\nA police force that was criticised for its \"intimidating\" approach to two walkers is to review its lockdown fines policy.\n\nJessica Allen and Eliza Moore said they were surrounded by police after driving five miles from their home for a walk on Wednesday, and fined £200 each.\n\nDerbyshire Police initially said driving to exercise was \"not in the spirit\" of lockdown.\n\nBut it now says new national guidelines mean it will review its position.\n\nIn a statement, the force said all of its fixed penalties issued during the new national lockdown will be reviewed.\n\nMs Allen, from Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, said she assumed \"someone had been murdered\" when she arrived at Foremark Reservoir on Wednesday afternoon.\n\nWhen she and her friend were questioned by police, they were also told by officers the hot drinks they had brought along were not allowed as they were \"classed as a picnic\".\n\nShe said: \"The next thing, my car is surrounded. I got out of my car thinking 'There's no way they're coming to speak to us'. Straight away they start questioning us.\n\n\"I said we had come in separate cars, even parked two spaces away and even brought our own drinks with us. He said 'You can't do that as it's classed as a picnic'.\"\n\nMs Allen said the experience was \"very intimidating\" and had left her feeling scared of police in general.\n\nForemark Reservoir is five miles away from where Jessica Allen and Eliza Moore live\n\nHer friend, Ms Moore, said she was \"stunned at the time\" so did not challenge police and gave her details so they could send a fixed penalty notice.\n\nAt the time Derbyshire Police said that driving to a location to exercise \"is clearly not in the spirit of the national effort to reduce our travel, reduce the possible spread of the disease and reduce the number of deaths\".\n\nThe force added: \"Where there are cases of blatant breaches of the regulations then fines will be issued by officers.\"\n\nDerbyshire Police has also been giving fixed penalty notices to people who visit Calke Abbey and Elvaston Castle.\n\nFixed penalty notices have been given to people who visit Calke Abbey, a National Trust property\n\nBut in a statement, the force said further guidance issued by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) had \"clarified the policing response concerning travel and exercise\".\n\nThe guidance said: \"The Covid regulations which officers enforce and which enables them to issue FPNs [fixed penalty notices] for breaches, do not restrict the distance travelled for exercise.\"\n\nThe NPCC added that rather than issue fines for people who travel out of their local area \"but are not breaching regulations, officers will encourage people to follow the guidance\".\n\nThe force has now said it will be \"aligning to adhere to this stance\".\n\nAssistant Chief Constable Kem Mehmet said: \"We are grateful for the guidance from the NPCC.\n\n\"The actions of our officers continues to be to protect the public, the NHS and to help save lives.\"\n\nIt is not the first time the force has been accused of being overzealous in enforcing alleged lockdown breaches.\n\nIn the country's first lockdown in March the use of a drone to film people walking in the Peak District was labelled \"nanny policing\".\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Andy Stonely is not eligible for the UK government Covid support scheme\n\nA father who has lived on Universal Credit since the Covid-19 pandemic started has called on the UK government to be \"more flexible\" with its support.\n\nDriving instructor and dad-of-three Andy Stonely is not eligible for the government's Covid support scheme.\n\nThe Federation of Small Businesses Wales has also asked for changes ahead of the next round of grants.\n\nThe Treasury said its Self-Employment Income Support Scheme was \"one of the most generous in the world\".\n\nThis scheme requires claimants to show accounts for the 2018-19 year as well as 2019-20.\n\nHowever, Mr Stonely from Newport hasn't been self-employed for long enough to qualify - so the 35-year-old has had to rely on financial support from his parents.\n\n\"I count myself somewhat lucky because I have been able to claim for Universal Credit,\" he said.\n\n\"But obviously it's minimal and luckily through the help of parents I've been able to keep afloat.\n\n\"It's been tough. It would have been ideal if the government was just slightly more flexible.\"\n\nMr Stonely, who hasn't been able to work for much of the past year due to lockdown restrictions, said Universal Credit was worth \"less than half\" of his normal earnings.\n\nDriving school firm owner Gareth Denny said almost a quarter of his drivers can't claim Covid help\n\nThe coronavirus crisis forced his wife to give up her job to look after their three children, aged three, six and 17, when Mr Stonely was able to work for a short period at the end of the initial lockdown period.\n\nAsked how much longer his family could sustain itself if the current restrictions continue, Mr Stonely told the BBC's Politics Wales show: \"Not too much longer… we're going to be in a very tough situation.\"\n\nMr Stonely is part of a local driving school franchise managed by Gareth Denny, who said 11 of his 43 instructors were in this position.\n\n\"If you imagine that somebody lives their life to their income and suddenly there's absolutely no income to pay their mortgage and their bills, Universal Credit simply doesn't pay most people's mortgage,\" Mr Denny said.\n\nRecent research commissioned by the Community and Prospect trade unions and the Federation of Small Businesses found 53% of self-employed people across the UK had lost more than 60% of their income since the pandemic began.\n\nIn addition, 64% of people said they were now either \"unsure\" or \"less likely\" to want to be self-employed or freelance in the future.\n\n\"These are normal people who have mortgages, families to support, who've just had to fund a Christmas for the families,\" said Ben Francis of Federation of Small Businesses Wales.\n\n\"All those bills are now mounting up the other side of Christmas, and after having an already extremely difficult 12 months, they've now got to see how they manage through the months ahead.\n\n\"We would ask UK government to be flexible in their approach to verifying the statuses of these newly self-employed businesses.\"\n\nThe Community union warns with small businesses \"struggling to get back on their feet\", more people will leave self-employment.\n\nAll non-essential businesses shut in Wales just before Christmas\n\n\"That will be a disaster for our economy, for local economies, for their livelihoods and their families,\" said Kate Dearden of Community.\n\n\"This section of the UK workforce plays a fundamental role and should be properly supported to continue to do so.\"\n\nThe Treasury has already committed to extending the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme until April 2021, although the eligibility criteria for the next round of grants is yet to be published.\n\nA spokesman said the scheme had \"helped more than 2.7 million people so far, claiming over £13.7bn\".\n\nHe added: \"Funding is designed to target those who need it most and protect the taxpayer against fraud and abuse.\n\n\"Those not eligible may still be able to access our loans schemes, tax deferrals, mortgage holidays and business support grants.\"\n• None What extra help will the self-employed get?", "The US is reeling after supporters of President Trump stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC on the day Congress was meeting to confirm Joe Biden's election victory.\n\nLawmakers were forced to take shelter, the building was put into lockdown and four people died in the chaos that followed a pro-Trump rally near the White House.\n\nHere's a breakdown of how events unfolded on Wednesday.\n\nJust before midday local time (17:00 GMT) thousands of people gather at the Ellipse, near the White House, to hear the president speak at a \"Save America\" rally.\n\nHe tells them: \"We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue... and we're going to the Capitol and we're going to try and give… our Republicans, the weak ones... the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.\"\n\nAs the speech ends, crowds start to drift towards the Congress building, about a mile and a half away, where they are met by police barriers.\n\nThe Capitol is home to the two chambers of the US government that make up Congress - the House of Representatives and the Senate.\n\nChanting crowds start to gather on both sides of the building at around 13:10, grappling with police at the metal barricades.\n\nTear gas and pepper spray are used to try to keep the protesters at bay.\n\nPolice officers struggle to maintain control of the situation as protesters advance on the building on multiple fronts.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police place US Capitol Building on lockdown after Trump supporters breached security lines\n\nOn the east side, the crowd force their way through barricades on the Capitol Plaza and move on the main entrance, quickly gaining access to the Great Rotunda.\n\nOnce inside, they head for the House and Senate chambers.\n\nIgor Bobic, a journalist for the Huffington Post, captures a group of men forcing a police officer to retreat up a set of stairs as they continue their advance.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Igor Bobic This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSenators are forced to abandon the process of confirming President-elect Biden's victory and the building goes into lockdown.\n\nThe doors of the House chamber are locked and a makeshift barricade is erected in front of them. Security officials guard the entrance, guns drawn.\n\nWithin an hour, protesters have also broken police lines on the west side of the Capitol, scaling walls to reach the building itself before smashing windows and forcing doors open.\n\nOther videos and images show rioters storming through the building's ornately-decorated corridors and chambers chanting \"USA!\" and \"Stop the steal\".\n\nShortly before 15:00, gunshots are reportedly heard inside the building.\n\nPhotos and video footage later show a female protester being shot as she tries to break through the barricaded doors of the Speakers' Lobby.\n\nDespite efforts by police and others at the scene to save her, she is later reported to have died.\n\nOn the other side of the building, protesters break into the Senate chamber, one taking seat in the Speaker's chair.\n\nAnother protester is photographed nearby sitting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, with his foot on the table.\n\nAfter growing condemnation of the riots, President Trump eventually calls for calm, telling the protesters to leave peacefully: \"Go home. We love you, you're very special.\"\n\nBy 17:40, the building is cleared and made secure ahead of the 18:00 curfew ordered by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser.\n\nSeveral thousand National Guard troops, FBI agents and US Secret Service are deployed to help.\n\nMore than six hours after the storming of the building, senators return and resume the day's business of certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.\n\nAt 03:41 on Thursday, Congress confirms President-elect Joe Biden will succeed President Trump on 20 January.", "Vincent Kane - pictured with his grandson Sonny - is facing uncertainty about his operation\n\nThe son of a man with pancreatic cancer has said the last-minute cancellation of his surgery has been \"devastating\".\n\nJodie Kane said his father Vincent was due to have his operation on Friday.\n\nHowever, that procedure was cancelled by the Belfast Health Trust on Tuesday as the worsening coronavirus crisis increases the pressure on hospitals.\n\nThe trust apologised, saying it had faced an 80% rise in the number of patients with Covid-19 admitted to hospitals since Christmas Day.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan Show, Jodie said that there was now \"no guarantee\" his 68-year-old father would get the treatment.\n\n\"To be told we had the chance of a very successful surgery on offer and then to have it taken away at the last minute is pretty devastating,\" he said.\n\n\"Even the surgeon himself said they would be concerned if it was to go on more than four weeks.\n\n\"There is an uncertainty hanging over us now that we don't know when he'll actually get that surgery or what the impact on his health is going to be.\"\n\nVincent Kane - pictured with his with wife Karen - has been suffering other health issues arising from his cancer\n\nVincent, from Newtownards, County Down, did not receive treatment for some of his other symptoms as it was planned that the surgery would help with those.\n\n\"Because they were hoping to get him straight into surgery he hasn't had the blockage in his gall bladder addressed so he's jaundiced, he's covered in a rash, can't sleep, he's lost a lot of weight,\" Jodie said.\n\n\"Undoubtedly there are people worse off than us out there but it is still a critical illness that he has got and it is one that we don't have an end in sight for, in terms of treatment.\n\n\"There must be a way of helping all those in need, or I suppose if you were being really honest about it those who stand the best chance of surviving - making the decisions for the benefit of them.\n\n\"There's no guarantee that in six weeks' time surgery is going to be an option because who knows what's going to happen with Covid?\"\n\nThe Belfast Health Trust said it had to reduce the number of ill patients on wards to protect them from coronavirus\n\nJodie called on those who were breaking Covid-19 regulations to think about the the \"direct and indirect impacts\" of their actions.\n\n\"We've every sympathy for anyone who has a loved one who needs [intensive] care because of Covid but cancer and Covid are both life-and-death situations.\n\n\"We can minimise the risks of one of them as a collective society just by taking the necessary precautions.\n\n\"It could be someone they love or their neighbour or someone in their community that's in the same situation as us in the very near future.\"\n\nFlo McClements, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in December, found out on Tuesday that her surgery - scheduled for Thursday - had been cancelled by the Belfast Health Trust.\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio Foyle, her son Gregg said the pressure was \"mounting day by day\" on the the 72-year-old from Ballymoney, County Antrim.\n\n\"She had waited all through Christmas for the date and due to the Covid-19 restrictions we as a family had stayed away from her,\" he added.\n\nFlo McClements' family wants to \"give her a hug\" after her operation was cancelled\n\n\"We left her on her own with my dad just to make sure she didn't catch Covid and risk the operation.\n\n\"When you get the date you like to think it's the next step to recovery but unfortunately that didn't happen.\"\n\nGregg said his mother was \"putting on a brave face\" but it was difficult for the family to not be with her in person during what was a difficult time.\n\n\"That's actually the hardest part that we can't go up and have a cup of tea with her or give her a hug to make her feel a bit better even for a few minutes.\"\n\nThe Belfast Health Trust said it \"would like to sincerely apologise\" to those affected by the postponement of surgeries.\n\nIt said the decision was taken to reduce the number of ill patients on wards that would be more at risk from the virus than others.\n\n\"This was an incredibly difficult decision to make and we did not take it without considering all the information available to us,\" said the trust.\n\n\"We do not underestimate the anxiety and distress this causes the patients and families affected and we deeply regret this.\n\nIt said it would do \"everything in our power\" to reschedule their operations \"as soon as possible\".", "The company offered to pay surgeries a £5,000 charitable donation \"or to the staff member directly\" in emails\n\nThe Hacking Trust's medical division approached surgeries in Bristol and Worthing offering to pay the money to charity \"or the staff member directly\".\n\nRobyn Clark, from the Institute of General Practice Management, said it was \"just appalling\".\n\nThe company, based in London, has apologised, saying its \"good intentions\" were \"misinterpreted\".\n\nNHS England said people \"will rightly take a dim view of anyone who tries to jump the queue\".\n\n\"The NHS is free at the point of access for everyone who needs it,\" said Mrs Clark.\n\n\"What we felt this company was trying to do was jump the queue.\"\n\nThe Bristol-based manager said she worried it could \"create more health inequality\".\n\nShe said: \"The JCVI [Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation] is trying to prioritise the vaccine based on the vulnerability to Covid.\"\n\nThe e-mail sent to the GP surgery in Worthing said The Hacking Trust was aware that \"many appointments\" for vaccinations are not kept, and that it would be interested in being informed of \"any no-shows\".\n\nA donation of £5,000 would be paid to a staff member or given to charity for each dose it could secure, the e-mail said.\n\nIn a statement, the Battersea-based company said it \"offered charitable donations to staff or surgeries in this difficult time for any vaccines which were unused\".\n\nIt added: \"We had heard that some vaccines were being unused due to missed appointments. We would apologise that our good intentions have been misinterpreted.\"\n\nNHS England said it knew \"these particular emails were received across the country\".\n\nDr Nikki Kanani, GP and NHS medical director for primary care, said hundreds of NHS teams across the country were \"working hard to deliver vaccines quickly to those who would benefit most\".\n\n\"NHS staff will never ask for, or accept, cash for vaccines,\" she said.\n\nThe Department of Health and Social Care said vaccinations were available from the NHS \"for free\" and \"cannot be sold privately in the UK\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA nurse felt \"overwhelming fear\" as 13 ambulances queued at her hospital's A&E department - in the Welsh region currently hardest hit by Covid deaths.\n\nTo date Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board, which runs Royal Glamorgan Hospital, has reported 1,091 deaths of patients with coronavirus.\n\nBBC Wales was granted access to A&E at the hospital in Rhondda Cynon Taf.\n\nSenior doctor Amanda Farrow said the whole hospital had faced \"unrelenting\" pressure last Saturday.\n\nSarah Fogarasy was the senior nurse on duty as 13 ambulances queued up outside her A&E department\n\nSenior A&E nurse Sarah Fogarasy, who was on shift as the ambulances arrived, said there was no capacity at the unit - a situation that left her wanting \"to leave\".\n\n\"We had to escalate it to our site manager and deputy head of nursing who were liaising with the executive team on call,\" she said.\n\n\"And then it got to 13 patients outside - I had no capacity in this unit, no resuscitation capacity, no capacity to put a patient on CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] should they require that and no physical areas to put a patient in.\n\nOn Saturday, 13 ambulances queued outside the hospital's A&E department\n\nShe said she found it hard to keep going.\n\n\"This bit makes me quite emotional… for the first time I was sat trying to coordinate this department and I had that overwhelming fear that I just wanted to leave,\" Ms Fogarasy continued.\n\n\"I was just - 'I'm done. I'm done with this'... and it's scary, it fills you full of fear when you have got 13 ambulances outside, queuing around the carpark. Where do you go from that?\"\n\nShe said it was the team that kept her going: \"I started looking around to all the staff working tirelessly and just trying to remember what we're here for and why I became a nurse.\n\n\"I know it sounds soppy but it's literally the humanitarian effort that has gone into [fighting] this pandemic that has kept people going.\n\n\"It's the sheer determination and guts of the staff working in these times that is so powerful, that keeps the shift going.\"\n\nEmergency Medicine Consultant Amanda Farrow said it was a \"very emotional time for everyone\"\n\nDr Farrow, emergency medicine consultant, said staffing and bed numbers were of particular concern.\n\n\"In the emergency department the challenge we have is with regards to flow, so that is our daily challenge,\" she explained.\n\n\"And we say it's like playing a game of Tetris trying to work out which patient you can put where.\"\n\nStaff reported feeling overwhelmed as they work through the second Covid wave\n\nShe said the second wave of the virus had also seen more staff off sick with Covid and isolating - with some becoming very ill.\n\n\"We've had staff in as patients and one of my colleagues - I saw them when they were critically ill and ended up going to intensive care,\" continued Dr Farrow.\n\n\"So it's very emotional time for everyone as well you know, looking after the sick patients and looking after your colleagues.\n\n\"There's a level of anxiety still around - will you be the next person to get this disease?\"\n\nShe said although fewer people were attending A&E, they were seeing more people arriving by ambulance and presenting with more complex needs.\n\n\"The group of patients we are seeing this time I think is different, we're definitely having more younger people with Covid that are becoming sick, the volume is very high in the community.\n\n\"I think people are afraid of come into the hospital as well, so there are still quite a lot of patients who leave it maybe a bit too late before they're seeking hospital attention.\"\n\nSpeaking from her intensive care bed, Helen Whatmore said she was extremely grateful to staff\n\nHelen Whatmore, 45, from Beddau, has been hospital since early December after developing Covid symptoms.\n\nSpeaking from her intensive care bed, she said she had been unwell in February so assumed she had already caught the virus.\n\n\"I honestly didn't believe it was as bad until I caught [Covid] this time,\" she said.\n\n\"This time it's absolutely knocked the socks off me. It's nearly killed me.\n\n\"A friend of mine passed away as I came into hospital and I came down very rapidly with Covid, kidney problems and pneumonia.\"\n\nShe said she was grateful for the care she had received: \"The nurses are coming in [working] all shifts, they're fighting for your loved ones, from the time they enter right until the time they leave, then they're changing over and doing the same again.\n\n\"People are passing away… how much more have they got to do? We're asking them to protect our children and our families. Why are we not protecting them ourselves? Saving our families and our own children.\"", "People in England are being told to act like they have got Covid as part of a government advertising campaign aimed at tackling the rise in infections.\n\nBoris Johnson said the public should \"stay at home\" and not get complacent.\n\nOn Friday 1,325 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test were recorded in the UK - the highest daily figure yet - along with 68,053 new cases.\n\nGovernment sources say there is likely to be more focus from police on enforcing rather than explaining rules.\n\n\"With over 1,000 people dying yesterday it's more important than ever everyone sticks to rules,\" a source told the BBC.\n\nAs cases and deaths soar, the government is releasing its advertising campaign, which will be shared across television, radio, newspapers and on social media.\n\nEngland's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, says in the advert: \"Vaccines give clear hope for the future, but for now we must all stay home, protect the NHS and save lives.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson says hospitals are \"under more pressure than at any other time since the start of the pandemic\", with infection rates increasing at an \"alarming rate\" across the country and the NHS under \"severe strain\".\n\nIt comes after London's mayor Sadiq Khan said the spread of coronavirus was \"out of control\" as he declared a \"major incident\" in the capital on Friday.\n\nSuch an incident is an emergency that requires the implementation of special arrangements by one or all of the emergency services, the NHS or the local authority.\n\nIt means the emergency services and hospitals cannot guarantee their normal level of response.\n\nWhile the government seeks to reinforce its \"stay at home\" message, some police forces have faced criticism for their approaches to tackling potential breaches of coronavirus restrictions.\n\nDerbyshire Police has said it will review fixed penalties issued during the new national lockdown after two women were ordered to pay £200 each after driving five miles from their home for a walk on Wednesday.\n\nSusan Michie, a professor of health psychology at University College London, said \"more support and enablement\" was needed for people to adhere to the regulations, for example support to help people self-isolate, rather than punishment.\n\nProf Michie, who sits on a subcommittee of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, also said the current restrictions were \"too lax\".\n\n\"When you look at the data, it shows that almost 90% of people are overwhelmingly adhering to the rules despite the fact that we're also seeing more people out and about,\" she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nHowever, she said in comparison to the first lockdown last spring the restrictions were less strict, with more people allowed to go out to work and children's nurseries open, meaning public transport is busier.\n\nThe number of people travelling by public transport in London has decreased since the latest national lockdown began, with tube journeys now at 18% pre-pandemic demand and bus journeys at 30%, according to figures from Transport for London.\n\nHowever, during the first lockdown passenger numbers fell below 10% at some points.\n\nProf Michie added that the winter season posed extra challenges because the virus survives longer in the cold and people spend more time indoors, where the virus can spread more easily.\n\nCombined with the more transmissible new variant, she said \"we should have a stricter rather than less strict lockdown than we had back in March\".\n\nDr Adam Kucharski, another scientist advising the government and an associate professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that because the new variant was more transmissible \"each interaction we have has become riskier than it was before\".\n\n\"So even if we went back to that kind of last spring level of reduction in contacts we couldn't be confident that we would see the same effect that we saw last year because of this increased transmission,\" he said.\n\nEngland, much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continue to be under strict national measures, with stay-at-home orders in place for most people.\n\nThere is considerable concern in government about the continued spread of the virus.\n\nNo 10 believes more needs to be done to emphasise how severe the current situation is - which is why we are getting some very stark warnings from the medical experts.\n\nMinisters continue to praise the public - but there is also more emphasis on people taking the rules seriously, as was the case last spring when the first lockdown was imposed.\n\nThe prime minister warns people against complacency, saying: \"Your compliance is now more vital than ever\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Staff at Portsmouth's Queen Alexandra Hospital are struggling to cope with an increase in the number of Covid-19 patients\n\nLatest figures from Public Health England reveal the coronavirus infection rate in London has exceeded 1,000 per 100,000 people.\n\nThe Office for National Statistics recently estimated as many as one in 30 Londoners has coronavirus.\n\nLondon councils have urged places of worship to close and the bishop of London Sarah Mullally said churches should \"consider the seriousness of the situation\" before holding in person services this weekend.\n\nDr Simon Walsh, an emergency care doctor in London, told BBC Breakfast all London hospitals had \"effectively been working in major incident mode for the last couple of weeks\".\n\n\"Most hospitals have expanded their intensive care capacity to somewhere in the region of three times their normal capacity. Obviously we don't have three times the number of staff so our staff are being spread more thinly,\" he said.\n\nHospitals in other parts of the UK are also under pressure.\n\nIn Wales, senior A&E nurse Sarah Fogarasy said she felt \"overwhelming fear\" as 13 ambulances queued at Royal Glamorgan Hospital last Saturday, with no capacity at the unit.\n\nAnd Dr Justin Varney, director of public health in Birmingham, said he was \"very worried\" about the situation in the city, where hospital bosses have warned they don't have enough intensive care nurses to deal with the growing case load.\n\nHe warned the NHS had still not seen the impact of the rise in cases following the relaxation of restrictions over Christmas \"so it is going to get a lot, lot worse unless we really get this under control\".", "Marks & Spencer has temporarily stopped selling hundreds of items in its Northern Ireland stores due to Brexit red tape.\n\nThe retailer said it feared its food would be blocked due to new rules governing shipments between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.\n\nA growing number of firms have spoken out about paperwork delays at ports.\n\nThe government said traders and hauliers need to take steps to comply with new border rules.\n\nM&S took the decision to temporarily drop hundreds of products, including chocolate fudge pudding and sweet and sour chicken, from its Northern Ireland stores after it saw competitors' lorries barred from travelling between the mainland and Northern Ireland.\n\nAn entire consignment in a lorry can be held up if only one item in the truck doesn't have the correct customs forms filled out.\n\nThe retailer said it aimed to get the products back up for sale soon.\n\nAn M&S spokesperson said: \"We have served customers in Northern Ireland for over 50 years and our priority is to make sure we continue to deliver the same choice and great quality range that our loyal customers have always enjoyed.\n\n\"Stores have been receiving regular deliveries this week, however following the UK's recent departure from the EU, we are transitioning to new processes and we're working closely with our partners and suppliers to ensure customers can continue to enjoy a great range of products.\"\n\nIn addition to problems shipping goods internally in the UK, the new Brexit trade rules are creating problems for exporters and traders transporting goods to and from the EU, say firms.\n\nThe UK sealed a trade deal with the European Union (EU) on 24 December that was billed as preserving its zero-tariff and zero-quota access to the bloc's single market.\n\nBut in addition to red tape causing delays, major retailers that use the UK as a distribution hub for European business could face possible tariffs if they re-export goods to the EU.\n\nOn Friday, M&S chief executive Steve Rowe warned of more red tape and a rise in export costs to some countries.\n\n\"The best example I can give you of that is Percy Pig,\" he said,\n\n\"Percy Pig is actually manufactured in Germany. If it comes to the UK and we then send it to Ireland, in theory it would have some tax on it,\" he added.\n\nM&S said it was \"actively working to mitigate\" the effects of the \"rules of origin\" regulations, under which products are taxed differently depending on which country they come from.\n\nOther firms have also been hit by the confusion caused by new Brexit trading rules.\n\nParcels giant DPD has suspended some services, while seafood exporter John Ross said the chaos was like being \"thrown in the cold Atlantic without a lifejacket\".\n\nShane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, which represents chilled transport and storage companies, said the emerging problems had come despite the amount of cross-border traffic still being quite low.\n\n\"Trade flows are still only about 50% of what we would expect, but even at those levels we are seeing levels of confusion and delays,\" he told the BBC's Today programme. \"The feeling is we are building to quite a significant potential disruption.\"\n\nA government spokesman acknowledged that there had been \"some issues\", but said ministers had always been clear there would be some disruption at the end of the transition period.\n\nThe Cabinet Office said in a statement that the volume of border crossings had been low so far this year, but that it expected crossings to steadily increase to normal levels.\n\nThis brings the potential for \"significant disruption if traders and hauliers have not taken the necessary steps to comply with the new rules,\" the Cabinet Office said.\n\nOut of about 1,500 lorries per day trying to get from Great Britain to the EU in the new year, 700 have been turned away - mainly due to a lack of a negative Covid test for drivers, it said.\n\n\"We have always been clear there would be changes now that we are out of the customs union and single market, so full compliance with the new rules is vital to avoid disruption,\" said Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.\n\nHowever, anger is growing among companies whose livelihoods depend on export trade.\n\nIn a letter on Friday to Business Secretary Alok Sharma, Scottish salmon producer John Ross Jr launched a stinging attack on the government's handling of the situation.\n\nThe firm's sales director, Victoria Leigh-Pearson, wrote that the company had in recent months \"had to endure the government issuing a barrage of useless information\" and an \"absence of factually correct information from all government agencies.\" It amounted, she said, to \"gross incompetence\".\n\nJohn Ross exports to 36 countries and has won the Queen's Award twice\n\nPart of the letter to Alok Sharma:\n\nAs I write, perishable goods that were dispatched from our facility five days ago, headed for France following a process that your department advised, have still not crossed the border. This usually takes only 24 hours because they are consolidated with the produce of other companies, which have not been able to follow the correct procedures due to a knowledge gap directly attributable to your department.\n\nEntire trucks are currently being rejected without explanation by the French customs authority. Our hauliers have now pulled their services as such a backlog has been created. Other hauliers are not taking on new customers. Today, we've even had confirmation that the IT systems of the UK and France are incompatible. After four years you only establish this now?\n\nYour so-called 'deal' is worthless if this situation is not fixed immediately, and unless you put in place measures to address the issues that continue to unfold on a daily basis. Moreover, as a seafood exporter, it feels as though our own government has thrown us into the cold Atlantic waters without a lifejacket.\n\nJohn Ross is not the only Scottish seafood exporter suffering. The industry says it has been hit by a \"perfect storm\" of Brexit disruption, which could sink a centuries-old industry.\n\n\"These businesses are not transporting toilet rolls or widgets. They are exporting the highest quality, perishable seafood which has a finite window to get to markets in peak condition,\" said Donna Fordyce, chief executive of Seafood Scotland.\n\n\"If the window closes, these consignments go to landfill.\"\n\nShe said the sector has already been weakened by Covid-19, the closure of the French border before Christmas as well as \"layer upon layer\" of problems associated with Brexit.\n\nThe group fears that without exports, the fishing fleet will have little reason to go out.\n\n\"In a very short time, we could see the destruction of a centuries-old market which contributes significantly to the Scottish economy,\" added Ms Fordyce.\n\nUK government Minister for Scotland David Duguid blamed Scottish leaders for the issues.\n\n\"The Scottish Government has persistently refused to accept the democratic vote to leave the EU, but that does not allow them to abdicate their responsibilities to Scottish businesses,\" he said.\n\n\"Over the past 18 months they have assured the fishing industry that the systems they were putting in place would be adequate. They clearly are not.\"\n\nParcel delivery service DPD UK said it had paused its European Road Service because of the '\"increased burden\" of customs paperwork for packages heading to the EU, including the Republic of Ireland.\n\nDPD said 20% of parcels had \"incorrect or incomplete data attached\", which meant they would have to be returned.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What Brexit means for Britons travelling, shopping, studying or owning properties in the EU.\n\nIn an email to its business customers, the company said that it had been a \"challenging few days\" for its international operation, and that it would \"pause and review\" its service. It plans to restart on 13 January.\n\n\"It has now become evident that we have an increased burden with the new, more complex processes, and additional customs data we require from you for your parcels destined to Europe\" the firm wrote.\n\nThe boss of one of Wales' largest hauliers said logistical problems have emerged at the Irish border too.\n\nAndrew Kinsella, managing director of Gwynedd Shipping, said his company has a backlog of 60 lorries waiting to be shipped to Dublin.\n\nHe said many hauliers are finding that their customers are not able to generate the special declarations that are needed to ultimately enable a lorry to get onto a ferry.\n\n\"Whilst you don't see queues at ports and terminals the reality is that these queues are developing elsewhere in our depot in Holyhead, in our depot in Deeside and in our depot in Newport in South Wales, and lots of hauliers have depots in the proximity of ports,\" he said.\n\n\"There are a lot of issues about demarcation about who is going to arrange the export declaration with the UK revenue authorities, who's going to arrange the import declaration, the hauliers then trying to arrange the import safety and security declaration to create an ENS number which helps you generate a PBN number so there has been a lot of everyone finding their feet\".\n\nCorrection 9th April 2021: An earlier version of this article included a photo showing queues of lorries at Dover Port. This photo was replaced in the hours after publication after it was established that it had been taken months earlier.", "The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have received Covid-19 vaccinations, Buckingham Palace has said.\n\nA royal source said the vaccinations were administered on Saturday by a household doctor at Windsor Castle.\n\nThe source added the Queen decided to let it be known she had the vaccination to prevent further speculation.\n\nThe Queen, 94, and Prince Philip, 99, are among around 1.5 million people in the UK to have had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine so far.\n\nPeople aged over 80 in the UK are among the high-priority groups who are being given the vaccine first.\n\nThe couple have been spending the lockdown in England at their Windsor Castle home after deciding to have a quiet Christmas at their Berkshire residence, instead of the traditional royal family gathering at Sandringham.\n\nLast month, the Queen appeared alongside several other senior members of the royal family for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began.\n\nIn 2020 she went seven months - between March and October - without carrying out public engagements outside of a royal residence.\n\nDuring that time, her eldest child, Prince Charles, 72, contracted coronavirus and displayed mild symptoms.\n\nPalace sources also told the BBC that her grandson Prince William tested positive in April - although Kensington Palace refused to comment officially.\n\nThe Queen made a private pilgrimage to the grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey in November\n\nThe Queen used her Christmas Day message to reassure anyone struggling without friends and family this year that they \"are not alone\".\n\nShe said the pandemic had \"brought us closer\" despite causing hardship, adding that the Royal Family has been \"inspired\" by people volunteering in their communities.\n\nOn Friday a third coronavirus vaccine - made by US company Moderna - was approved for use in the UK, joining the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines already approved by UK regulators.\n\nIt is not known which vaccine the Queen and Prince Philip have received.\n\nAll the approved vaccines require two doses to provide the best possible protection, with the second dose being given up to 12 weeks after the first.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has said the aim is to vaccinate 15 million people in the UK by mid-February, including care home residents and staff, frontline NHS staff, everyone over 70 and those who have been categorised as clinically extremely vulnerable.", "The Welsh Government is in discussions about bringing in \"more visible\" coronavirus regulations.\n\nStricter enforcement of coronavirus rules could return to supermarkets in Wales, Mark Drakeford has said.\n\nThe first minister said he had heard concerns from people \"expressing anxiety\" about a lack of \"visible protections\" in supermarkets.\n\nThe Welsh Government is now in talks with stores about social-distancing measures.\n\nMr Drakeford said he wanted to see stores policed as they were during the first lockdown.\n\nAmong the measures previously used was a strict limit of the numbers of people allowed in a store however Mr Drakeford said people were worried the rules \"don't appear to be there this time\".\n\n\"Given the fact the new variant is so much easier to catch... we are looking at supermarkets and other places where people leave their homes, to make sure they are organised in a way that keeps their staff and customers safe,\" he said.\n\nHe said previously sanitising arrangements had been \"very visible\", one-way markings were prominently displayed, regular reminders were announced to customers and staff were also posted at the front entrance of supermarkets\n\n\"That person was carefully controlling the numbers of people going in, to make sure that they were no more than a certain number of people in the store at any one time,\" he said.\n\n\"There was somebody directing people to the checkout, to make sure people weren't queuing next to each other over prolonged periods, and markings on the floor so people kept at a two-metre distance\".\n\nHowever the first minister said some of those measures are no longer as apparent to people.\n\n\"I want to make sure that those visible signs of the protections that are being offered to the public and the shop workers are in place again.\"\n\nFederation of Small Businesses Wales said has called for clarity on what support would be available and the possible new measures required of shops.\n\nPolicy Chair, Ben Francis, said: \"We've already asked to see more information on the technical data that informs the decisions that Welsh Government are making.\n\n\"It seems clear that businesses will require funding support for longer than was originally anticipated if they are to survive this troubling period.\n\n\"Welsh Government should urgently give clarity on what additional funding will be made available to support businesses beyond this next three week period to allow them to plan.\"", "Some Covid restrictions are being reintroduced in response to the Omicron variant.\n\nCheck what the rules are in your area by entering your postcode or council name below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. What are the rules in your area? Enter a full UK postcode or council name to find out\n\nIf you cannot see the look-up, click here.\n\nThe rules highlighted in the search tool are a selection of the key government restrictions in place in your area.\n\nAlways check your relevant national and local authority website for more information on the situation where you live. Also check local guidance before travelling to others parts of the UK.\n\nAll the guidance in our search look-up comes from national government websites.\n\nFor more information on national measures see:\n\nFind out how the pandemic has affected your area and how it compares with the national average by following this link to an in depth guide to the numbers involved.", "A further 1,325 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the biggest figure reported in a single day since the pandemic began.\n\nIt means there have been just short of 80,000 deaths by that measure - as another 68,053 new cases were recorded.\n\nPublic Health England (PHE) said the number of deaths would \"continue to rise until we stop the spread\".\n\nIt comes as the government launches a new campaign in England urging people to \"act like you've got\" the virus.\n\nThe campaign, including an advert fronted by England's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, is intended to remind the public Covid is spreading fast, with large numbers showing no symptoms.\n\nIn the advert, Prof Whitty says: \"Covid-19, especially the new variant, is spreading quickly across the country.\n\n\"This puts many people at risk of serious disease and is placing a lot of pressure on our NHS.\n\n\"Once more, we must all stay home. If it is essential to go out remember, wash your hands, cover your face indoors and keep your distance from others.\"\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said: \"Our hospitals are under more pressure than at any other time since the start of the pandemic, and infection rates across the entire country continue to soar at an alarming rate.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care\n\nHospital leaders have warned of stretched staffing with 31,624 coronavirus patients in UK hospitals on Wednesday - 46% above the peak during the first wave last year.\n\nDr Ian Higginson, vice president of Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the situation in London and south-east England was \"pretty dire\" and would get worse in the rest of the country before long.\n\n\"We're heading for some really dark times, I fear, in this phase of the pandemic,\" he said.\n\nRichard Mitchell, chief executive of Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust, said the increase in patients seen in London was now affecting his area in Nottinghamshire.\n\nHe said: \"Critical care is exceptionally busy and the colleagues who work here are tired, they're fatigued and they're worn out.\"\n\nMeanwhile, a third Covid vaccine received emergency approval for use in the UK with 17 million doses of the jab, made by US firm Moderna, pre-ordered by the UK.\n\nThe vaccine joins the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs in being approved, with close to 1.5 million people now vaccinated in the UK.\n\nDr William Welfare, Covid-19 response director at PHE, said: \"Each life lost to this virus is a tragedy, but sadly we can expect the death toll to continue to rise until we stop the spread.\n\n\"Approximately one in three people who have coronavirus have no symptoms and could be spreading it without realising it.\n\n\"To protect our loved ones it is essential we all stay at home where possible. This will reduce new infections, ease the pressure on the NHS and save lives.\"\n\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan said the spread of Covid in the capital was now \"out of control\", as he declared a \"major incident\".\n\nThis means the emergency services and hospitals cannot guarantee their normal level of response, and allows special arrangements to be implemented.\n\nThe previous highest daily death toll - 1,224 - was recorded on 21 April 2020 during the UK's first lockdown. Daily deaths were in the single figures as recently as September.\n\nThe UK has recorded the fifth-highest number of deaths behind the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, according to Johns Hopkins University.\n\nWe are now seeing the record numbers of cases over the Christmas period translate into record numbers of deaths.\n\nAnd with new infections rising rapidly - more than 1.1 million people in England estimated to be infected with Covid-19 last week - these tragic numbers are set to continue for some time.\n\nAnd that is mainly because of the new variant form of the virus which is thought to be between 30-70% more transmissible.\n\nThe administration of the vaccines to at-risk groups should see a reduction in the numbers dying by the end of the month and the numbers having to go into hospital going down sometime after that.\n\nThat is the other way around from what you normally hear - but that it because a successful vaccine programme will initially remove those most likely to die from the path of the virus.\n\nFitter or younger people - who are less likely to die but could still end up occupying hospital beds - won't be getting their jabs for some time yet.\n\nThe advent of spring's better weather should also help cases to fall, but ministers will have to decide what level of risk - and deaths - society is prepared to tolerate.\n\nFriday saw 619,941 tests conducted in the 24 hours to 09:00 GMT - also a new record.\n\nEngland, much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continue to be under strict national measures, with stay-at-home orders in place for most people.\n\nThe R number - the rate at which an infected person passes on the virus to someone else - is now estimated to be between 1.0 to 1.4, meaning the epidemic is growing between 0% and 6% per day.\n\nCovid infections rose by almost a third between Boxing Day and 3 January, reaching 70,000 new cases a day according to a major study.\n\nIn a different piece of research, an estimated 1.2 million people in total had Covid over a similar time period, the Office for National Statistics said.\n\nBoris Johnson pledged on Thursday to use England's lockdown to implement an \"unprecedented national effort\" to offer vaccination to those at the highest risk from Covid by 15 February.\n\nHe said the Army would be drafted in to use \"battle preparation techniques\" to achieve the goal, which could see up to 15 million people offered a vaccine by the middle of next month.\n\nIn another development, from next week all travellers to the UK will need to show a recent negative test result before they arrive.\n\nHave you been affected by the issues raised in this story? You can share your experience by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Bernard Thomas was interviewed by BBC Wales at the time of the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster\n\nA survivor of the Aberfan disaster has died after contracting Covid-19.\n\nAs a nine-year-old Bernard Thomas was rescued from the rubble of Pantglas primary school after one of the biggest tragedies in Welsh history.\n\nA total of 144 people were killed in the disaster on 21 October, 1966, after thousands of tonnes of coal slurry slid from a tip. Of those 116 were primary school pupils.\n\nLater Bernard was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress.\n\nHe told S4C he \"still heard the sounds of children screaming.\"\n\nPaying tribute to Mr Thomas, 63, who died on Wednesday, his brother Andrew told BBC's Newyddion: \"Bernard was a real character and his death has come as a shock to us as a family and the community of Aberfan.\"\n\n\"We can't be sure where he caught Covid, but he had an eye appointment at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital on 21 December.\n\n\"A few days later, he became ill and at Prince Charles Hospital, he tested positive for Covid-19.\"\n\n\"Although he had been receiving oxygen through a mask, we spoke regularly on the phone and he told us he was getting better.\n\n\"But on Wednesday morning he removed his mask to eat his breakfast, and 10 minutes after eating he faded away.\"\n\n\"It's a huge shock but I don't blame anybody.\"\n\nOn the 50th anniversary of the disaster Bernard told the BBC: \"I still wonder what the others would have been doing if it hadn't happened. Who would have got married to who, you know.\"\n\nBernard is survived by his 90-year-old mother Gwen, with whom he shared a home, and brothers Andrew and Robert.", "Three people were found inside the gym in Stean Street in Hackney on Friday\n\nThe owners of a London gym have been fined for breaching Covid-19 rules by remaining open during lockdown.\n\nPolice were called to the fitness centre in Stean Street, Hackney, on Friday to reports of a regulation breach.\n\nThree people were found inside the gym at 09:30 GMT. The owners were given a £1,000 fixed penalty notice.\n\nIt comes as a \"major incident\" was declared as the spread of Covid-19 threatens to \"overwhelm\" its hospitals.\n\nCity Hall said Covid-19 cases in London had exceeded 1,000 per 100,000, while there are 35% more people in hospital with the virus than in the peak of the pandemic in April.\n\nNHS England figures published on Friday showed the number of Covid patients in London hospitals stands at 7,277, up 32% on the previous week.\n\nCh Insp Pete Shaw said: \"Whilst there are certain rules around people being allowed to exercise in public under this lockdown, nowhere in the legislation does it allow people to go to gyms to work out.\n\n\"Those found to be flouting the rules, as with this instance, should expect necessary enforcement action to be taken against them.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Jessica Allen (left) and Eliza Moore said their cars were \"surrounded\" by police\n\nTwo women who criticised a police force for its \"intimidating\" approach to lockdown fines have welcomed a review.\n\nJessica Allen and Eliza Moore were walking at a reservoir five miles from their home when they were stopped by officers and fined £200 each.\n\nDerbyshire Police insisted driving to exercise was \"not in the spirit\" of lockdown but later said new guidance meant it would look again at the issue.\n\nBoth women said they were pleased the force had decided to think again.\n\nDerbyshire Police and Crime Commissioner Hardyal Dhindsa said an \"urgent review\" was under way about how fines had been issued.\n\nLongstanding guidance from the College of Policing says officers should follow the \"Four Es\" and only give fixed penalty notices as a last resort.\n\nJessica Allen and Eliza Moore said their cars were surrounded by police when they arrived\n\nMs Allen said: \"We are happy to hear that Derbyshire Police have been told to not be so heavy handed with fines and return to the Four Es they were originally doing.\n\n\"We are yet to hear anything regarding our fine but if we have managed to save somebody the worry of going for a walk and fearing they would be fined then we have done what we set out to do.\"\n\nMs Allen and Ms Moore drove separately from Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire the five miles to Foremark Reservoir on Wednesday afternoon.\n\nThey said their cars were \"surrounded\" by police, questioned on why they were there and told the hot drinks they had brought along were not allowed as they were \"classed as a picnic\".\n\nMs Allen said the experience was \"very intimidating\" and had left her feeling scared of police in general.\n\nInitially Derbyshire Police defended its actions, saying legislation said trips should be \"local\" and driving to a location to exercise \"is clearly not in the spirit of the national effort to reduce our travel, reduce the possible spread of the disease and reduce the number of deaths\".\n\nDerbyshire police also fined visitors to other beauty spots like Calke Abbey\n\nDerbyshire Police has also been giving fixed penalty notices to people who visit beauty spots at Calke Abbey and Elvaston Castle.\n\nBut later, the force said new guidance from the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) had \"clarified the policing response concerning travel and exercise\".\n\nThe guidance said: \"The Covid regulations which officers enforce and which enables them to issue FPNs [fixed penalty notices] for breaches, do not restrict the distance travelled for exercise.\"\n\nMr Dhindsa said: \"It would appear that the force has been a little over-zealous in its interpretation of the guidance.\n\n\"While the police can enforce the regulations, guidance is just that which can make this a very challenging and complex situation to police.\"\n\nThe chief constable of neighbouring Nottinghamshire, Craig Guildford, said: \"We are not out and about telling people they have gone too far from home. We trust the public to take these regulations seriously.\n\n\"Derbyshire to be fair to them have some unique places that people may want to go to from a load of counties.\n\n\"But our approach is around reasonableness. If someone has gone 50 miles, we will take action, if someone has gone a couple of miles we are very sensible.\"\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Harley Watson's mother Jo described him as a \"kind, caring, selfless, intelligent and comical young man\"\n\nA man who killed a 12-year-old boy by driving into schoolchildren in a \"deliberate\" hit and run has been detained in a secure hospital.\n\nHarley Watson died after he was hit by a car outside Debden Park High School in Loughton, Essex, on 2 December 2019.\n\nTerence Glover, 52, pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility at an earlier hearing.\n\nHe also admitted 10 counts of attempted murder and has been detained under the Mental Health Act indefinitely.\n\nAt the sentencing hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court, Harley's mother Jo described her son as a \"kind, caring, selfless, intelligent and comical young man\".\n\nHe was hit by Glover's Ford Ka as he left school with friends and died later in Whipps Cross University Hospital.\n\nTerence Glover has been sentenced indefinitely under the Mental Health Act\n\nChristine Agnew, prosecuting, said eye-witnesses saw Glover's car \"ploughing through and hitting children from behind\".\n\nShe said he \"deliberately mounted the pavement... and drove directly at a group of people, mostly children, intending to kill them\".\n\nGlover, previously of Newmans Lane, Loughton, also pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of 23-year-old Raquel Jimeno and six boys and three girls aged between 12 and 16 who were outside the school.\n\nThe court heard he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and medical experts agreed his \"significant\" mental illness \"provided an explanation for his conduct\".\n\nHe was given a hospital order under the Mental Health Act 1983, meaning if his illness was treated successfully, he would be transferred to prison.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Harley Watson's classmates paid tribute to him in 2019\n\nJudge Andrew Edis said if transferred, Glover must serve a life sentence with a minimum of 15 years.\n\nIn his sentencing statement, Judge Edis noted his history of mental illness and cocaine use, but said Glover's actions were \"appalling\".\n\n\"He caused the death of a much-loved and admired 12-year-old boy who had done no harm to anyone,\" he said.\n\nHe added that Glover's behaviour \"requires punishment as well as treatment\" and there was \"no doubt that this defendant is dangerous\".\n\nHe also ordered that Glover be banned from driving for life and that the car should be destroyed.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "9 January A Boeing 737, operated by Sriwijaya Air, crashes into the Java Sea minutes after taking off from Jakarta. All 62 people on board are killed, including seven children and three babies. Officials say a problem with the aircraft's autothrottle had been reported a few days before the crash.\n\n22 May An Airbus A320 carrying 91 passengers and eight members of crew crashes in a residential area of the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, killing more than 90 people. At least two passengers survive the crash.\n\nFlight PK8303 crashed just short of the perimeter at Karachi's Jinnah International Airport\n\n8 January Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 crashes shortly after taking off from the Iranian capital Tehran, killing all 176 passengers and crew members on board. The incident took place amid escalating tensions between the US and Iran, and the Iranian government eventually admitted it had downed the plane \"unintentionally\".\n\n10 March An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max crashes six minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa. All 157 people onboard are killed. The victims come from more than 30 countries.\n\n29 October A Boeing 737 Max, operated by Lion Air, crashes into the Java Sea shortly after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia. All 189 passengers and crew are killed, and a volunteer diver dies in the subsequent recovery operation. Investigators said the plane - which had had technical problems on previous flights - should have been grounded.\n\n18 May A Boeing 737 passenger plane crashes shortly after take-off from Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, killing 112 people. One passenger survives.\n\n11 April A military plane crashes shortly after take-off near the Algerian capital Algiers, killing all 257 people on board, including 10 crew members. Most of the dead are soldiers and their families.\n\n12 March A plane carrying 71 passengers and crew crashes on landing at Kathmandu airport. More than 50 people are killed when the Bombardier Dash 8 turboprop comes down.\n\n18 February A passenger plane crashes into the Zagros mountains in Iran killing all 66 people on board. The Aseman Airlines ATR turboprop crashes about an hour after taking off in the capital, Tehran, heading for the south-western city of Yasuj.\n\n11 February A Russian passenger plane crashes minutes after leaving Moscow's Domodedovo airport with 71 people on board. The Antonov An-148 belonging to Saratov Airlines was en route to the city of Orsk in the Ural mountains when it crashed near the village of Argunovo, about 80km (50 miles) south-east of Moscow.\n\nThere were no passenger jet crashes in 2017 - the safest year in the history of commercial airlines.\n\n25 December A Russian military Tu-154 jet airliner crashes in the Black Sea, with the loss of all 92 passengers and crew. The plane came down soon after take-off from an airport near the city of Sochi. It was carrying artistes due to give a concert for Russian troops in Syria, along with journalists and military.\n\nBereaved residents of the Black Sea resort of Sochi must now come to terms with the latest air disaster\n\n7 December All 48 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane were killed when it crashed in the north of the country. The national airline - accused of safety failures in the past - insisted this time that strict checks on Flight PK-661 from Chitral to Islamabad left \"no room for any technical error\".\n\nAll 48 people on board the Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it crashed in the north of the country on 7 December\n\n28 November The plane carrying the football team of the Brazilian club Chapecoense runs out of fuel and crashes near Medellin, Colombia, killing 71 people, including most of the players and management. Three players were among the six survivors, while nine did not travel.\n\n19 May French President Francois Hollande confirms that an EgyptAir flight reported missing between Paris and Cairo has crashed, with 66 people on board.\n\n19 March A FlyDubai Boeing 737-800 crashes in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, killing all 62 people on board.\n\n31 October An Airbus A321, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia, crashes over central Sinai some 22 minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board. The Islamic State group's local affiliate later says it brought down the plane in response to Russian intervention in Syria.\n\n30 June Indonesian Hercules C-130 military transport plane crashes into a residential area of Medan. The army says all 122 people on board died, along with at least 19 on the ground.\n\n24 March: Germanwings Airbus A320 airliner crashes in the French Alps near Digne, on a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf. All 148 people on board were feared dead.\n\n28 December: AirAsia QZ8501 flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore goes missing over the Java sea. The pilot radioed for permission to divert around bad weather but no mayday alert was issued. There were 162 passengers and crew on board.\n\n24 July: Air Algerie AH5017 disappears over Mali amid poor weather near the border with Burkina Faso. The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 was operated by Spain's Swiftair, and was heading from Ouagadougou to Algiers carrying 116 passengers - 51 of them French. All are thought to have died.\n\n23 July: Forty-eight people die when a Taiwanese ATR-72 plane crashes into stormy seas during a short flight. TransAsia Airways GE222 was carrying 54 passengers and four crew to the island of Penghu. It made an abortive attempt to land before crashing on a second attempt.\n\nMalaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was believed to have been shot down over conflict-hit Ukraine\n\n17 July: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashes near Grabove in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, 193 of them Dutch. Pro-Russian rebels are widely accused of shooting the plane down using a surface-to-air missile - they deny responsibility.\n\n8 March: The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing leads to the largest and most expensive search in aviation history. Despite vast effort, notably in the hostile South Indian Ocean, nothing was found until July 2015, when an aircraft wing part washed up on Reunion Island. French officials confirmed the debris was from MH370.\n\n11 February: A military transport plane - a Hercules C-130 - carrying 78 people crashes in a mountainous part of north-eastern Algeria. Reports suggest there is one survivor from among the military personnel, family members and crew.\n\n17 November: Tatarstan Airlines Boeing 737 crashes on landing in Kazan, Russia, killing all 50 people on board.\n\n16 October: Forty-nine people, including foreigners from some 10 countries as well as Laotian nationals, die when a Lao Airlines ATR 72-600 plunges into the Mekong River as it came in to land.\n\n3 June: A Dana Air passenger plane with about 150 people on board crashes in a densely populated area of Nigeria's largest city, Lagos.\n\n20 April: A Bhoja Air Boeing 737 crashes on its approach to the main airport in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, killing all 121 passengers and six crew.\n\n26 July: Some 78 people are killed when a Moroccan military C-130 Hercules crashes into a mountain near Guelmim in Morocco. Officials blamed bad weather.\n\nThe pilot of the IranAir Boeing 727 which crashed near the north-western city of Orumiyeh reported a technical failure before trying to land\n\n8 July: A Hewa Bora Airways plane crash-lands in bad weather in Democratic Republic of Congo, killing 74 of the 118 people on board.\n\n9 January: An IranAir Boeing 727 breaks into pieces near the city of Orumiyeh, killing 77 of the 100 people on board. The pilots had reported a technical failure before trying to land.\n\n5 November: An Aerocaribbean passenger turboprop crashes in mountains in central Cuba, killing all 68 people on board.\n\n28 July: A Pakistani plane on an Airblue domestic flight from Karachi crashes into a hillside while trying to land at Islamabad airport, killing all 152 people on board.\n\n22 May: An Air India Express Boeing 737 overshot a hilltop airport in Mangalore, southern India, and crashed into a valley, bursting into flames and killing 158.\n\n12 May: An Afriqiyah Airways Airbus 330 crashes while trying to land near Tripoli airport in Libya, killing more than 100 people.\n\n10 April: A Tupolev 154 plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski crashes near the Russian airport of Smolensk, killing more than 90 people on board.\n\n25 January: Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet crashes into the sea with 89 people on board shortly after take-off from Beirut.\n\n15 July: A Caspian Airlines Tupolev plane crashes in the north of Iran en route to Armenia. All 168 passengers and crew are reported dead.\n\n30 June: A Yemeni passenger plane, an Airbus 310, crashes in the Indian Ocean near the Comoros archipelago. Only one of the 153 people on board survives.\n\n1 June: An Air France Airbus 330 travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashes into the Atlantic with 228 people on board. Search teams later recover some 50 bodies in the ocean.\n\nAll 168 passengers and crew were reported dead when a Caspian Airlines Tupolev plane crashed in the north of Iran en route to Armenia\n\n20 May: An Indonesian army C-130 Hercules transport plane crashes into a village on eastern Java, killing at least 97 people.\n\n12 February: A passenger plane crashes into a house in Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 people on board and one person on the ground.\n\n14 September: A Boeing-737 crashes on landing near the central Russian city of Perm, killing all 88 passengers and crew members on board.\n\n20 August: A Spanair plane veers off the runway on take-off at Madrid's Barajas airport, killing 154 people and injuring 18.\n\n30 November: All 56 people on board an Atlasjet flight are killed when it crashes near the town of Keciborlu in the mountainous Isparta province, about 12km (7.5 miles) from Isparta airport.\n\n16 September: At least 87 people are killed after a One-Two-Go plane crashed on landing in bad weather at the Thai resort of Phuket.\n\n17 July: A TAM Airlines jet crashes on landing at Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, in Brazil's worst-ever air disaster. A total of 199 people are killed - all 186 on board and 13 on the ground.\n\n5 May: A Kenya Airways Boeing 737-800 crashes in swampland in southern Cameroon, killing all 114 on board. The official inquiry is yet to report on the cause of the disaster.\n\n1 January: An Adam Air Boeing 737-400 carrying 102 passengers and crew comes down in mountains on Sulawesi Island on a domestic Indonesian flight. All on board are presumed dead.\n\n29 September: A Boeing 737 carrying 154 passengers and crew crashed into the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, killing all on board, after colliding with a private jet in mid-air.\n\n22 August: A Russian Tupolev-154 passenger plane with 170 people on board crashes north of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.\n\n9 July: A Russian S7 Airbus A-310 skids off the runway during landing at Irkutsk airport in Siberia. A total of 124 people on board die, but more than 50 survive the crash.\n\n3 May: An Armavia Airbus A-320 crashes into the Black Sea near Sochi, killing all 113 people on board.\n\n10 December: A Sosoliso Airlines DC-9 crashes in the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt, killing 103 people on board.\n\n6 December: A C-130 military transport plane crashes on the outskirts of the Iranian capital Tehran, killing 110 people, including some on the ground.\n\nA mass funeral was held for those who died when a Mandala Airlines plane with 112 passengers and five crew on board crashed after take-off in the Indonesian city of Medan\n\n22 October: A Bellview airlines Boeing 737 carrying 117 people on board crashes soon after take-off from the Nigerian city of Lagos, killing everyone on board.\n\n5 September: A Mandala Airlines plane with 112 passengers and five crew on board crashes after take-off in the Indonesian city of Medan, killing almost all on board and dozens on the ground.\n\n16 August: A Colombian plane operated by West Caribbean Airways crashes in a remote region of Venezuela, killing all 160 people on board. The airliner, heading from Panama to Martinique, was packed with residents of the Caribbean island.\n\n14 August: A Helios Airways flight from Cyprus to Athens with 121 people on board crashes north of the Greek capital Athens, apparently after a drop in cabin pressure.\n\n16 July: An Equatair plane crashes soon after take-off from Equatorial Guinea's island capital, Malabo, west of the mainland, killing all 60 people on board.\n\n3 February: The wreckage of Kam Air Boeing 737 flight is located in high mountains near the Afghan capital Kabul, two days after the plane vanished from radar screens in heavy snowstorms. All 104 people on board are feared dead.\n\n21 November: A passenger plane crashes into a frozen lake near the city of Baotou in the Inner Mongolia region of northern China, killing all 53 on board and two on the ground, officials say.\n\n3 January: An Egyptian charter plane belonging to Flash Airlines crashes into the Red Sea, killing all 141 people on board. Most of the passengers are thought to be French tourists.\n\n25 December: A Boeing 727 crashes soon after take-off from the West African state of Benin, killing at least 135 people en route to Lebanon.\n\n8 July: A Boeing 737 crashes in Sudan shortly after take-off, killing 115 people on board. Only one passenger, a small child survived.\n\nThe Benin air crash happened when a Boeing 727 dropped out of the sky soon after take-off, killing at least 135 people travelling to Lebanon\n\n26 May: A Ukrainian Yak-42 crashes near the Black Sea resort of Trabzon in north-west Turkey, killing all 74 people on board - most of them Spanish peacekeepers returning home from Afghanistan.\n\n8 May: As many as 170 people are reported dead in DR Congo after the rear ramp of an old Soviet plane, an Ilyushin 76 cargo plane, apparently falls off, sucking them out.\n\n6 March: An Algerian Boeing 737 crashes after taking off from the remote Tamanrasset airport, leaving up to 102 people dead.\n\n19 February: An Iranian military transport aircraft carrying 276 people crashes in the south of the country, killing all on board.\n\n8 January: A Turkish Airlines plane with 76 passengers and crew on board crashes while coming in to land at Diyarbakir.\n\n23 December: An Antonov 140 commuter plane carrying aerospace experts crashes in central Iran, killing all 46 people aboard. The delegation had been due to review an Iranian version of the same plane built under licence.\n\n27 July: A fighter jet crashes into a crowd of spectators in the west Ukrainian town of Lviv, killing 77 people, in what is the world's worst air show disaster.\n\n1 July: Seventy-one people, many of them children die when a Russian Tupolev 154 aircraft on a school trip to Spain collides with a Boeing 757 transport plane over southern Germany.\n\n25 May: A Boeing 747 belonging to Taiwan's national carrier - China Airlines - crashes into the sea near the Taiwanese island of Penghu, with 225 passengers and crew on board.\n\n7 May: China Northern Airlines plane carrying 112 people crashes into the sea near Dalian in north-east China.\n\n7 May: On the same day, an EgyptAir Boeing 735 crash lands near Tunis with 55 passengers and up to 10 crew on board. Most people survive.\n\n4 May: A BAC1-11-500 plane operated by EAS Airlines crashes in the Nigerian city of Kano, killing 148 people - half of them on the ground.\n\n15 April: Air China flight 129 crashes on its approach to Pusan, South Korea, with over 160 passengers and crew on board.\n\n12 February: A Tupolev 154 operated by Iran Air crashes in mountains in the west of Iran, killing all 117 on board.\n\n29 January: A Boeing 727 from the Ecuadorean TAME airline crashes in mountains in Colombia, killing 92 people.\n\n12 November: An American Airlines A-300 bound for the Dominican Republic crashes after takeoff in a residential area of the borough of Queens, New York, killing all 260 people on board and at least five people on the ground.\n\n8 October: A Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) airliner collides with a small plane in heavy fog on the runway at Milan's Linate airport, killing 118 people.\n\nThe crashed American Airlines flight of November 2000 left much of the Rockaway neighbourhood of New York enveloped by smoke\n\n4 October: A Russian Sibir Airlines Tupolev 154,en route from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk in Siberia, explodes in mid-air and crashes into the Black Sea, killing 78 passengers and crew.\n\n3 July: A Russian Tupolev 154,en route from Yekaterinburg in the Ural mountains to the Russian port of Vladivostok, crashes near the Siberian city of Irkutsk, killing 133 passengers and 10 crew.\n\n30 October: A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 bound for Los Angeles crashes after take-off from Taipei airport in Taiwan, killing 78 of the 179 people on board.\n\n23 August: A Gulf Air Airbus crashes into the sea as it comes in to land in Bahrain, killing all 143 people on board.\n\n25 July: Air France Concorde en route for New York crashes into a hotel outside Paris shortly after takeoff, killing 113 people, including four on the ground.\n\nThe Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 heading for Los Angeles crashed soon after take-off from Taipei airport in Taiwan\n\n17 July: Alliance Air Boeing 737-200 crashes into houses attempting to land at Patna, India, killing 51 people on board and four on the ground.\n\n19 April: Air Philippines Boeing 737-200 from Manila to Davao crashes on approach to landing, killing all 131 people on board.\n\n31 January: Alaska Airlines MD-83 from Mexico to San Francisco plunges into ocean off southern California, killing all 88 people on board.\n\n30 January: Kenya Airways A-310 crashes into Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, en route for Lagos, Nigeria. All but 10 of the 179 people on board die.\n\n31 October: EgyptAir Boeing 767 crashes into Atlantic Ocean after taking off from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on flight to Cairo, Egypt, killing all 217 on board.\n\n24 February: China Southwest Airlines plane crashes in a field in China's coastal Zhejiang province after a mid-air explosion. All 61 people on board the Russian-built TU-154 flying from Chongqing to the south-eastern city of Wenzhou are killed.\n\n11 December: Thai Airways International A-310 crashes on a domestic flight during its third attempt to land at Surat Thani, Thailand, killing 101 people.\n\n2 September: Swissair MD-11 from New York to Geneva crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Canada killing all 229 people on board.\n\n16 February: Airbus A-300 owned by Taiwan's China Airlines crashes near Taipei's Chiang Kai-shek airport while trying to land in fog and rain after a flight from Bali, Indonesia. All 196 on board and seven people on ground are killed.\n\n2 February: Cebu Pacific Air DC-9 crashes into mountain in southern Philippines, killing all 104 people aboard.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section West Ham\n\nFootballers \"can get things wrong\" but must not be \"picked on\" despite several breaches of coronavirus guidelines, says West Ham manager David Moyes.\n\nHammers midfielder Manuel Lanzini was one of numerous Premier League players to attend a party over Christmas.\n\nMore than 60 games in England have been called off because of coronavirus outbreaks at clubs.\n\n\"We have to be careful that everybody isn't picking on football players,\" said Moyes.\n\n\"We will all know people who have broken the rules in their own way.\n\n\"The players have followed the protocols. Every day at the training ground they have to go through rituals just to get into the building. They know what their job is. Like most human beings at times, they can get things wrong.\"\n\nArgentina international Lanzini was reminded of his responsibilities by the club and later apologised for his actions on Twitter.\n\nOn Friday, he announced he would be donating to a local foodbank as he wanted \"something good\" to come of his actions.\n\nMoyes praised Lanzini for his \"really good gesture\" but does not want to see players treated unfairly.\n\n\"If you are going to take tough measures on players, then you might as well take on the government people as well who have broken the rules because it's certainly not just football players who have done it,\" he said.\n\n\"You have got to be careful. A lot of people are throwing stones in glass houses at the moment regarding this. We all know what the protocols are, we all know we have to be ever-vigilant and make sure we're doing the right things.\"\n\nThe Premier League has implemented stronger coronavirus protocols in light of a recent surge in cases, including reminding players and managers to avoid handshakes and high fives.\n\nCompliance officers will also apply more robust policies to reporting breaches of protocols and will be tasked with checking hotel stays, travel plans and behaviour in dressing rooms.\n\nThe number of staff attending training grounds will also be reduced, social distancing will be enforced more strictly and the use of canteens will be further limited.\n\nStricter matchday protocols include avoiding unnecessary contact at all times, and substitutes wearing face masks.\n\nIn a note sent to clubs, the Premier League has warned it may take disciplinary action if they fail to to ensure people who breach the rules are \"appropriately investigated and sanctioned\".", "Kevin Hughes was treated at Wrexham Maelor Hospital before he died with coronavirus\n\nA man has died with Covid-19 less than a month after the funeral of his mother, who also died with the virus.\n\nFlintshire councillor Kevin Hughes, 63, was being treated at Wrexham Maelor Hospital but died on Friday morning, the authority said.\n\nHe had previously spoken of his sadness at missing his mother's funeral last month after he tested positive for coronavirus.\n\nCouncil colleague Chris Dolphin said he was a \"big man with a big heart\".\n\nThe independent councillor, also a former policeman and journalist, sat with the Liberal Democrat group.\n\nHe said missing the funeral of his mother, June Margaret Hughes, was one of the \"darkest days\" of his life.\n\nGroup leader, Mr Dolphin, called him a \"friend, fellow councillor, above all, a good man. Not one to stand on the side-lines - a doer. A man of enthusiasm, who was in life to be really involved.\"\n\nCouncil chief executive, Colin Everett, said: \"Kevin was a wonderful person with a big heart. Kevin was one of the most thoughtful and generous people I have worked with in my long career.\n\n\"I will miss him so much as both a councillor and as a friend.\"\n\nThe politician (left) will be remembered by the council at a meeting on 26 January\n\nAuthority leader, Ian Roberts, called Mr Hughes a \"special person and friend who will be very sadly missed by all\".\n\nHe added: \"His contribution as a councillor has been considerable and he was highly respected by his community, members of the council and officers.\n\n\"He was an active local member and represented his community with integrity and in a positive and engaging way.\"\n\nMr Hughes will be remembered by the council at a meeting on 26 January.\n\nThe authority's chairwoman, Marion Bateman, said: \"Our sincere condolences go to his wife Sally, along with his family and friends, at this very sad time.\"", "Mike Pompeo said the US-Taiwan relationship should not be \"shackled\" (file photo)\n\nThe US is lifting long-standing restrictions on contacts between American and Taiwanese officials, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says.\n\nThe \"self-imposed restrictions\" were introduced decades ago to \"appease\" the mainland Chinese government, which lays claim to the island, the US state department said in a statement.\n\nThese rules are now \"null and void\".\n\nThe move is likely to anger China and increase tensions between Washington and Beijing.\n\nIt comes as the Trump administration enters its final days ahead of the inauguration of Joe Biden as president on 20 January.\n\nThe Biden transition team have said the president-elect is committed to maintaining the long-standing US policy towards Taiwan.\n\nAnalysts say they will be unhappy with such a policy decision being made in the final days of the Trump administration, but that the move could be reversed easily by Mr Pompeo's successor Antony Blinken.\n\nChina regards Taiwan as a breakaway province, but Taiwan's leaders argue that it is a sovereign state.\n\nRelations between the two are frayed and there is a constant threat of a violent flare up that could drag in the US, an ally of Taiwan.\n\nIn a statement on Saturday, Mr Pompeo said the US state department had introduced complicated restrictions limiting the communication between American diplomats and their Taiwanese counterparts.\n\n\"Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions,\" he said. \"Today's statement recognises that the US-Taiwan relationship need not, and should not, be shackled by self-imposed restrictions of our permanent bureaucracy.\"\n\nHe added that Taiwan was a vibrant democracy and a reliable US partner, and that the restrictions were no longer valid.\n\nFollowing the announcement, Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu thanked Mr Pompeo, saying he was \"grateful\".\n\n\"The closer partnership between Taiwan and the US is firmly based on our shared values, common interests and unshakeable belief in freedom and democracy,\" he wrote in a tweet.\n\nLast August, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar became the highest-ranking US politician to hold meetings on the island for decades.\n\nIn response, China urged the US to respect what it calls its \"one China\" principle.\n\nThe US also sells arms to Taiwan, though it does not have a formal defence treaty with the country, as it does with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nChina and Taiwan have had separate governments since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.\n\nBeijing has long tried to limit Taiwan's international activities and both have vied for influence in the Pacific region.\n\nTensions have increased in recent years and Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to take the island back.\n\nAlthough Taiwan is officially recognised by only a handful of nations, its democratically-elected government has strong commercial and informal links with many countries.", "Lockdowns have worked before, but can we expect the new one to do the same?\n\nIt feels like we are back in March or April last year, when the strict controls on all our lives led to a fairly quick decline in levels of coronavirus.\n\nBut one of the crucial differences this time is the new variant, which is thought to spread between 50 and 70% faster than previous forms of the virus.\n\nExperts warn there are now no guarantees that lockdown will be enough to bring the variant under control.\n\n\"It still would not have been easy, but it would have been a much easier situation if it had not been for the new variant,\" Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, told Inside Health.\n\n\"That really pushes the bounds of our ability to control the spread of the virus, even with measures that were previously relatively quite effective.\"\n\nThe coronavirus spreads when we come into contact with each other so moving classrooms online, telling people to stay at home and closing shops breaks many of those opportunities for human contact.\n\nIf we consider the R number - the average number of people each infected person passes the virus on to - it was about 3.0 in the run up to the first lockdown and anything above 1.0 means cases are climbing.\n\nR fell to 0.6 during the first lockdown.\n\nThen every 1,000 infected people passed the virus on to 600 others, who passed it on to 360 others and so on.\n\nBut if the new variant is 50% more transmissible then the R number, in the same lockdown conditions, would be about 0.9.\n\nThen 1,000 infected people would pass the virus onto 900 others, then 810 and so on.\n\nAs you can see this leads to far slower decline.\n\nAnd that assumes lockdown can get R down to 0.9 in areas where the new variant has become the most common form of the virus.\n\nIf, as some studies suggest, the variant is about 70% more transmissible then R may stay above 1.0 and cases may not fall at all.\n\n\"We'd at best flatten the curve, keep numbers at a roughly constant level, and that's frankly why there is so much emphasis on getting vaccine into people's arms as quickly as possible,\" said Prof Ferguson.\n\nIt is hard to lock down even harder as there are some parts of society - hospitals, supermarkets - that need to be kept open.\n\nWhat happens to the number of cases over the coming weeks will be closely monitored. If this lockdown is less effective then we will have to live with it for longer.\n\nThere have been some encouraging signs over the Christmas break, which was a bit like a lockdown due to school holidays and other restrictions.\n\n\"We are in a very difficult situation here, but my initial assessment of the last few days is that the rate is slowing which is good news,\" Prof John Edmunds, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the BBC.\n\nHe added: \"It looks likes those restrictions should be sufficient to stop the increase, whether they will be sufficient to bring cases down sufficiently we are yet to see.\"\n\nEventually the vaccine will give people immunity so we do not need the same controls on our lives.\n\nNow more than ever this is a race between the virus and the vaccine.", "Google has suspended \"free speech\" social network Parler from its Play Store over its failure to remove \"egregious content\".\n\nParler styles itself as \"unbiased\" social media and has proved popular with people banned from Twitter.\n\nBut Google said the app had failed to remove posts inciting violence.\n\nApple has also warned Parler it will remove the app from its App Store if it does not comply with its content-moderation requirements.\n\nOn Parler, the app's chief executive John Matze said: \"We won't cave to politically motivated companies and those authoritarians who hate free speech!\"\n\nLaunched in 2018, Parler has proved particularly popular among supporters of US President Donald Trump and right-wing conservatives. Such groups have frequently accused Twitter and Facebook of unfairly censoring their views.\n\nWhile Mr Trump himself is not a user, the platform already features several high-profile contributors following earlier bursts of growth in 2020.\n\nTexas Senator Ted Cruz boasts 4.9 million followers on the platform, while Fox News host Sean Hannity has about seven million.\n\nIt briefly became the most-downloaded app in the United States after the US election, following a clampdown on the spread of election misinformation by Twitter and Facebook.\n\nHowever, both Apple and Google have said the app fails to comply with content-moderation requirements.\n\nFor months, Parler has been one of the most popular social media platforms for right-wing users.\n\nAs major platforms began taking action against viral conspiracy theories, disinformation and the harassment of election workers and officials in the aftermath of the US presidential vote, the app became more popular with elements of the fringe far-right.\n\nThis turned the network into a right-wing echo chamber, almost entirely populated by users fixated on revealing examples of election fraud and posting messages in support of attempts to overturn the election outcome.\n\nIn the days preceding the Capitol riots, the tone of discussion on the app became significantly more violent, with some users openly discussing ways to stop the certification of Joe Biden's victory by Congress.\n\nUnsubstantiated allegations and defamatory claims against a number of senior US figures such as Chief Justice John Roberts and Vice-President Mike Pence were rife on the app.\n\nGoogle and Apple say they are taking necessary action to ensure violent rhetoric is not promoted on their platforms.\n\nHowever, to those increasingly concerned about freedom of speech and expression on online platforms, it represents another example of draconian action by major tech companies which threatens internet freedom.\n\nThis is a debate which is certain to continue beyond the Trump presidency.\n\nIn a statement, Google confirmed it had suspended Parler from its Play Store, saying: \"Our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence.\n\n\"In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat, we are suspending the app's listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues.\"\n\nApple has warned Parler it will be removed from the App Store on Saturday in a letter published by Buzzfeed News.\n\nIt said it had seen \"accusations that the Parler app was used to plan, coordinate, and facilitate\" the attacks on the US Capitol on 6 January.\n\nMr Matze said Parler had \"no way to organise anything\" and pointed out that Facebook groups and events had been used to organise action.\n\nBut Apple said: \"Our investigation has found that Parler is not effectively moderating and removing content that encourages illegal activity and poses a serious risk to the health and safety of users in direct violation of your own terms of service.\"\n\n\"We won't distribute apps that present dangerous and harmful content.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Swedenborg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a related development, Google has kicked Steve Bannon's War Room podcast off YouTube, saying it had repeatedly violated the platform's rules.\n\nThe ex-White House aide's channel had more than 300,000 subscribers.\n\nSteve Bannon served as President Trump's chief strategist for eight months in 2017\n\n\"In accordance with our strikes system, we have terminated Steve Bannon's channel 'War room' and one associated channel for repeatedly violating our Community Guidelines,\" Google said in a statement.\n\n\"Any channel posting new videos with misleading content that alleges widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 US Presidential election in violation of our policies will receive a strike, a penalty which temporarily restricts uploading or live-streaming. Channels that receive three strikes in the same 90-day period will be permanently removed from YouTube.\"\n\nThe action was taken shortly after the channel posted an interview with Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, in which he blamed the Democrats for the rioting on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.\n\nOne anti-misinformation group said the action was long overdue after \"months of Steve Bannon calling for revolution and violence\".\n\n\"The truth is YouTube should have taken down Steve Bannon's account a long time ago and they shouldn't rely on the labour of extremism researchers to moderate the content on their platform,\" said Madeline Peltz, Senior Researcher at Media Matters for America.", "A 78-year-old French woman received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in France\n\nA global race is on to vaccinate people against Covid-19 - and with infections soaring in Europe many have complained that the roll-out is too slow in the EU.\n\nMember states decide individually who to vaccinate, when and where, but the EU is coordinating strategy and buying vaccines in bulk. On Friday, the EU Commission agreed to buy an extra 300 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine - that would give the EU nearly half of the firm's global output for 2021.\n\nBBC reporters in seven European capitals explain how the vaccinations are going on their patch.\n\nIn an election year, the vaccine has become a political battleground, writes Jenny Hill, in Berlin.\n\nThe fact it was German scientists who developed the first effective Covid vaccine has been the source of great national pride. And, by and large, Germans appear to be reasonably comfortable with the idea of immunisation.\n\nA recent survey found 65% were prepared to have the vaccine. Other research indicates that less than a quarter of those surveyed would not. But politically - and perhaps unsurprisingly, given this is an election year - Germany's vaccination programme has become a battleground.\n\nVaccinations began here just under two weeks ago and prioritise the over 80s and care home workers. By Thursday evening, more than 477,000 first doses had been administered.\n\nGermany's share of the EU order amounts to 56 million doses. So far, 1.3 million doses have been delivered.\n\nBut some of the hundreds of specially prepared vaccination centres are still not in use and even the government has admitted there simply isn't enough to go around. Angela Merkel and her health minister Jens Spahn have been accused of failing to secure enough doses.\n\nMuch of the criticism has come from Mrs Merkel's own coalition partners but some within the scientific community have echoed their concerns - that Germany put European interests above its own by insisting on a joint EU procurement process. The scientists who developed the vaccine have said publicly that the EU originally turned down an offer for a further order.\n\nGermany's share of the EU order amounts to 56 million doses. So far, 1.3 million doses have been delivered and it's thought that by the end of the month a further 2.68 million will have followed.\n\nMr Spahn, whose assured performance through the pandemic led some to wonder whether he might be a potential successor to Mrs Merkel, has blamed the shortage on the inability of the manufacturers of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to meet global demand.\n\nGermany has now ordered an extra 30 million doses and, following the recent European approval of the Moderna vaccine, expects to start rolling that out next week. The government is sticking to its pledge that the vaccination programme will be complete by the end of the summer.\n\nThe Czech prime minister has hit out at apparent delays in distributing the vaccine, writes Rob Cameron, in Prague.\n\nThe Czech vaccination effort began on 27 December, when the prime minister, Andrej Babis, became the first person in the country to receive the jab. Mr Babis, who is 66, had previously questioned whether he would be eligible, as he'd had his spleen removed as a teenager.\n\nBut the country's programme has got off to a sluggish start. Mr Babis - a billionaire businessman who has been dogged by both European and Czech investigations into alleged misuse of EU funds - has lost no time venting his (figurative) spleen at the European Commission over the delay. \"We believed when we contributed €12m to the European fund in November that we'd receive the vaccine,\" he told a newspaper this week.\n\nThe health minister conceded this week that immunising the higher-risk groups will take months.\n\nThe country has received 30,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. So far, it has managed to administer it to 19,918 people. The government says it is ready to roll out the jab en masse as soon as supplies arrive from the manufacturers.\n\nIt has also published a strategy, which envisages a three-stage process. The first will see targeted vaccination of high-risk groups. This will gradually give way to mass vaccination in 31 centres, using an online reservation system that will be open to all from 1 February. And the final stage will see the country's GPs deployed, hopefully to administer the Oxford-AstraZeneca and other jabs, which unlike the previous two can be stored and transported at fridge temperature.\n\nHowever, the timing in the original strategy document now appears optimistic. The health minister conceded this week that immunising the higher-risk groups - all health and social care staff, teachers, everyone over 65, all those with serious health conditions - will take months. GPs may not begin vaccinating young, healthy members of society until late spring, or summer.\n\nA sluggish start is being blamed on bureaucracy and vaccine scepticism, writes Hugh Schofield, in Paris.\n\nFrance's boast of a big, effective state apparatus has been badly exposed by the sluggish start to the Covid vaccination programme. After the first week, when neighbouring Germany had inoculated around 250,000 people, France was on a mere 530. By Friday, the figure had gone up to 45,500 - still so small as to be statistically meaningless.\n\nSo why has it taken so long for France to put the plan into action? It is not as if the authorities did not have time to prepare. And it is certainly not a question of a lack of vaccine. In fact, more than a million Pfizer doses are already in cold storage, waiting to be used.\n\nPolls suggest as many as 58% of the public do not want to be given the jab.\n\nThe primary reason for the delay seems to be the cumbersome, over-centralised nature of France's health bureaucracy. A 45-page dossier of instructions issued by the ministry in Paris had to be read and understood by staff at old people's homes.\n\nEach recipient then had to give informed consent in a consultation with a doctor, held no less than five days before injection. The lengthy procedure is in theory to save lives - those of patients who might have an adverse reaction. But as the critics have been arguing, delay in inoculating the population is also costing lives.\n\nAnother problem in France is the high level of scepticism towards vaccination - product of a more general suspicion of government. Polls suggest as many as 58% of the public do not want to be given the jab. The effect - critics say - has been to make the government unduly cautious. When urgency was required, the authorities were reluctant to move fast for fear of galvanising the anti-vaxxers.\n\nAfter President Emmanuel Macron communicated his anger at the delays at the weekend, the pace is picking up. The procedure for consent is being simplified. By the end of January, the plan is to have 500-600 vaccination centres open across the country - either in hospitals or other big public buildings.\n\nPolitically a lot is at stake. The government has already come under fire for failings in providing masks and tests. With opposition voices calling the vaccine delay a \"state scandal\", President Macron needs a roll-out that is fast and problem-free.\n\nNational pride accelerated Russia's rollout, but one man is conspicuously absent from the list of people vaccinated, writes Sarah Rainsford, in Moscow.\n\nRussia registered its main Covid vaccine for domestic use way back in August, before mass safety and efficacy trials had even begun. In December, with those trials still underway, it began rolling out Sputnik V to the public ahead of mass vaccination launches everywhere else in Europe. The rush was driven by national pride as well as medical necessity.\n\nSputnik was initially offered to front line health and education workers but early take-up of the two-dose vaccination was slow and the list of those eligible soon expanded.\n\nA poll by the Levada Centre in late December showed only 38% of respondents were willing to get the jab: wary of domestic healthcare and medicines, Russians were sceptical of bold early claims made for the vaccine and nervous about possible adverse reactions. Even so, and despite similar delays scaling-up production as in other countries, Sputnik's backers announced this week that more than a million people had been vaccinated.\n\nRussia began rolling out its Sputnik V vaccine in December\n\nBut one man still conspicuously absent from the list of the vaccinated is Vladimir Putin, despite the Kremlin saying he will - eventually - get the jab. In the meantime, those who meet him in person are obliged to test for Covid first and even quarantine. The president may need to lead by example, though. Mr Putin has said repeatedly that protecting the economy is his priority so he's banking on mass vaccination to avoid a return to national lockdown.\n\nRussia has built giant, temporary hospitals since the start of the pandemic and the health minister said this week that 25% of Covid beds remain free. There's also been a fall in the number of new daily cases reported - around 25,000 for the past 5 days. But that's not down to the vaccine yet. The country is nearing the end of a 10-day New Year holiday period and the number of Covid tests has also dropped.\n\nAs infection rates grow in a country praised by many for its no-lockdown approach, a successful vaccine programme is crucial writes Maddy Savage, in Stockholm.\n\nAlmost two weeks since 91-year-old care home resident Gun-Britt Johnsson became the first Swede to get the initial dose of a Pfizer jab, there is still no official tally of how many others have received the vaccination.\n\nThe Public Health Agency of Sweden says it's in the process of compiling data from the country's 21 regional health authorities tasked with vaccinating the entire adult population - around eight million people - by 26 June. The date isn't arbitrary, it's the biggest public holiday weekend of the year, when Swedes traditionally hold Midsummer celebrations. Karin Tegmark, a senior manager at the agency, says the date remains \"feasible\". But she says it depends on the delivery of vaccines to the country.\n\nAfter months of high trust levels in the country's no-lockdown approach, support for the health agency has dwindled.\n\nAlongside 4.5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Sweden has ordered 3.6 million jabs from Moderna, the first of which are expected to arrive next week. The country also plans to roll-out the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as soon as possible after it is approved by the EU - ideally by February.\n\nSwedes initially appeared lukewarm to the idea of taking a speedily-developed coronavirus vaccine, although a poll at the end of December found 71% would take one. A key driver of the initial scepticism is thought to be the failure of a voluntary mass vaccination programme for swine flu in 2009. Hundreds of Swedish children and young adults under 30 developed the sleeping disorder narcolepsy, which was found to be a side effect of the Pandemrix vaccine.\n\nA successful vaccination programme will be crucial, not least because it comes at a time when Swedish authorities are struggling to maintain public confidence. After months of high trust levels in the country's no-lockdown approach, support for the health agency has dwindled as Sweden has struggled with the second wave of coronavirus.\n\nMeanwhile, several high profile officials have faced heavy criticism for breaching their own recommendations - including the head of the civil contingencies agency (pictured), who resigned after spending Christmas with his daughter in the Canary Islands.\n\nA new government in Belgium seems unified on the vaccine rollout - for now at least, writes Nick Beake, in Brussels.\n\nIt seemed fitting that the first person in Belgium to receive a Covid jab lives in the place where the world's first approved Covid vaccine is being produced. Jos Hermans, a 96-year-old from the municipality of Puurs, was given the injection on 28 December, in his care home. A further 700 elderly residents were also administered a dose in what was a small, initial trial.\n\nThe mass vaccination programme in Belgium began on 5 January, but has been criticised for starting slowly. Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke had promised in November that the rollout would be \"seamless and fast\", tweeting: \"If that does not work, shoot me.\"\n\nThe first phase looks to vaccinate up to 200,000 nursing home residents by the end of this month, or early February. Healthcare professionals will be next in line and the aim was for the whole population to be inoculated by the end of September.\n\nJos Hermans, a 96-year-old from Puurs, was given the injection on 28 December\n\nYou may think the country would be at an advantage being the epicentre of the Pfizer-BioNTech production. While this clearly helps with distribution, Belgium cannot receive more doses - relative to its population - than other EU countries under strict Commission rules. That didn't stop the minister-president of the Flanders region, who admitted this week that he had contacted Pfizer directly in the hope of procuring more doses, only to be rebuffed.\n\nAfter getting a guarantee from Pfizer over supply of the jab, the federal Belgian authorities have adapted their strategy: they now propose giving as many available doses to as many people as they can - and no longer reserving vials for patients' second dose, given three weeks after the first. In general, the federal government, rather than the European Commission has faced any criticism for a delay and has defended its \"careful\" approach.\n\nAnd there appears to be an interesting regional or cultural discrepancy when it comes to whether people are willing to take the vaccine. Of the Flemish population interviewed in a poll, half have said they wanted the vaccine as soon as possible. Among French speakers - it was 20% fewer, which chimes with the deeper scepticism over the border in France.\n\nIn a country where politics are notoriously complicated and fractious - they've only recently agreed a government, after a 500-day vacuum - the Federal Coalition appears unified on its Covid vaccine strategy. For now, at least.\n\nRegional variances and political rows have marked the beginning of Spain's vaccination programme writes Guy Hedgecoe, in Madrid.\n\nSpain started administering the vaccine on 27 December. So far, 743,925 doses have been distributed to regional administrations, with 277,976 people vaccinated, according to the health ministry. The objective of the coalition government is to immunise 2.3 million people within 12 weeks. Priority is being given to elderly residents of care homes, those who look after them, and healthcare personnel.\n\nEach of the country's 17 regions has a high degree of control over healthcare and should receive the number of doses that corresponds to their populations. However, already there has been substantial geographical disparity.\n\nGovernment data showed, for example, that while the northern region of Asturias had used 55% of the doses it had received by 3 January, the Madrid region had only administered 5% by the same date. Some regions are holding back doses to administer a second follow-up jab to the same person in several weeks' time, and some have been vaccinating on national holidays while others have not.\n\nThe pandemic has been the cause of constant political conflict, with the right-wing opposition accusing the leftist government of incompetence.\n\nAlthough vaccination is voluntary, the government has said it is making a register of those who do not wish to be inoculated. That initiative has generated controversy, although the government has insisted the register will merely seek to clarify why people refuse the vaccination.\n\nHowever, the pandemic has been the cause of constant political conflict, with the right-wing opposition accusing the leftist government of Pedro Sánchez of incompetence, lack of transparency and using coronavirus to accumulate power.\n\nThe arrival of a vaccine has not stopped the rancour. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the conservative Popular Party (PP) president of Galicia, warned the number of doses being distributed to each region was being dictated by \"political affiliations or parliamentary needs\", a claim the central government has rejected.", "Dozens of demonstrators were walking and chanting along Clapham High Street as police attempted to keep them contained to the area\n\nSixteen people have been arrested during an anti-lockdown protest in south London.\n\nPolice officers clashed with some of the maskless protesters who arrived in Clapham Common, some shouting \"take your freedom back\".\n\nSix police vans were deployed to the scene while officers moved the crowd of about 30 people away from the area.\n\nGathering for the purpose of a protest is not an exemption to the rules, the Met Police said.\n\nOne woman shouted from her car at the protesters \"there's a pandemic going\", while another bystander shouted \"idiots\".\n\nOne anti-lockdown protester, who was detained at Clapham Common park, said \"I stand under common law, not maritime law and this is assault\" as he was put into handcuffs by police officers.\n\nA large police presence remains around Clapham Common station, but almost all protesters had left the area as of 14:00 GMT.\n\nIt comes as a \"major incident\" was declared as the spread of Covid-19 threatens to \"overwhelm\" London hospitals.\n\nCity Hall said Covid-19 cases in the capital had exceeded 1,000 per 100,000, while there were 35% more people in hospital with the virus than in the peak of the pandemic in April.\n\nPolice could be seen questioning several people at the demonstration\n\nPolice battled to disperse the protestors gathering in Clapham Common\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. One floral tribute had Dame Barbara's photograph in the centre\n\nThe funeral of EastEnders and Carry On actress Dame Barbara Windsor has taken place in London.\n\nRoss Kemp, who played her on-screen son in the soap, was among the 30 mourners and gave a reading, as did actor and friend Christopher Biggins.\n\nDame Barbara died in December at the age of 83, having had dementia.\n\nThere were floral arrangements spelling Babs, The Dame and Saucy, and a mock pub sign showing her as The Queen Peggy in the style of the soap's Queen Vic.\n\nDame Barbara played pub landlady Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders for more than two decades.\n\nA version of the EastEnders Queen Vic pub sign was painted in tribute\n\nScott Mitchell, who was married to Dame Barbara for 20 years, was joined at Golders Green Crematorium by family and friends including comedians Matt Lucas and David Walliams.\n\n\"As Covid has denied so many of Barbara's family, friends and fans a chance to say farewell properly, I wanted to share the order of service to let people be a small part of it,\" Mr Mitchell told the PA news agency.\n\n\"My heart goes out to every family who have experienced the same restrictions at their loved ones' funerals.\"\n\nLeft-right: Christopher Biggins, Ross Kemp and David Walliams were among the mourners\n\nHe added: \"I would again like to thank my family, friends, the media and the public for their incredible support and well wishes since Barbara's passing.\"\n\nDame Barbara's coffin was brought into the crematorium to sound of Frank Sinatra's On The Sunny Side Of The Street, and the service featured a recording of Sparrows Can't Sing from the actress's 1963 film of the same.\n\nIt finished with the famous topless photo of Dame Barbara from the film Carry On Camping, alongside her quote: \"That picture will follow me to the end.\"\n\nLong-time friend Anna Karen, who played Dame Barbara's on-screen sister Aunt Sal in EastEnders, also paid tribute during the service.\n\nThe funeral was also attended by Loose Women's Jane Moore and EastEnders actor Jamie Borthwick. However, the numbers were limited due to coronavirus social distancing.\n\nAlzheimer's Research UK recently said it had seen a spike in donations since Dame Barbara's death, and a JustGiving page set up as a tribute to her and in aid of the charity has raised more than £150,000 (including Gift Aid).\n\nMr Mitchell said that was \"beyond anything we may have dreamed of\".\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Ben Jackson said the closure of the farm's bulk-buyers like hotels and schools has left thousands of eggs unsold\n\nA fall in bulk egg orders due to the lockdown could lead to chickens being culled, a poultry-farmer has warned.\n\nFluffetts Farm near Fordingbridge had been supplying free range eggs to 350 Hampshire schools, but orders stopped when schools suddenly closed.\n\nFarm owner, Ben Jackson said: \"If you can't sell the eggs you can't still keep feeding the chickens and therefore something has to give.\"\n\nHe said he hoped to work out a local delivery system to avoid culling birds.\n\nMr Jackson, who has been selling some of the surplus eggs off on social media, has more than 13,000 chickens laying 12,000 eggs each day.\n\nThe cancellation of his school orders has left him with about 4,000 spare eggs a day. The farm has also been hit by restaurants and pubs closing again.\n\nThe farm has a surplus of about 4,000 eggs each day from its 13,000 chickens\n\nHe said: \"If we can't find a home for the eggs the worst-case scenario is that we may have to look to get rid of some of our chickens, but that's what we're trying to avoid.\n\n\"Other chicken farmers are in the same situation - they are talking about potentially having to cull birds in the next week or so - it's not a decision that anyone wants to make.\n\n\"We just want to get through this dark time - we're just taking it a day at time.\"\n\nChickens at the farm are currently in a bird lockdown.\n\nSince 14 December strict biosecurity regulations have been in place following a number of outbreak of avian influenza throughout England.\n• None 'I'll have to throw away £6,000-worth of milk'", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Duke of Cambridge asked how staff were coping during the pandemic and thanked them for their sacrifice\n\nThe Duke of Cambridge has said he talks to his three children about NHS staff \"every day\" to help them to understand the \"sacrifices\" made during Covid.\n\nPrince William's comments were part of a video call to London hospital staff.\n\n\"Catherine and I and all the children talk about all of you guys every day, so we're making sure the children understand all of the sacrifices that all of you are making,\" he said.\n\nIt comes after the London mayor said the virus was \"out of control\".\n\nSadiq Khan declared a major incident on Friday - meaning the emergency services and hospitals cannot guarantee their normal level of response - after the number of Covid patients in the capital's hospitals surpassed 7,000.\n\nStaff at Homerton University Hospital in east London told the Duke of Cambridge that queues of people waiting to be vaccinated at the hospital offered hope, but that the way out of the crisis was for the public to \"stay at home\" during lockdown.\n\nIn recent days the hospital has seen its highest number of admissions since the pandemic began.\n\nDuring the UK's first national lockdown, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their three children Prince George (left), Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis joined in with the weekly Clap for Carers event\n\nThe duke, who is joint patron of NHS Charities Together, said: \"A huge thank you for all the hard work, the sleepless nights, the lack of sleep, the anxiety, the exhaustion and everything that you are doing, we are so grateful.\n\n\"Good luck, we are all thinking of you.\"\n\nHis video call, which took place on Thursday, is one of many he and the duchess have made to NHS staff during the pandemic.\n\nPrince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis have also shown their support for the health service by getting involved with the weekly Clap for Carers applause during the UK's first national lockdown.\n\nAnd on Saturday, the Duchess's birthday, Kensington Palace said the family's thoughts \"continue to be with all those working on the front line at this hugely challenging time\".\n\nChief nurse Catherine Pelley told the prince her hospital had used funds from NHS Charities Together to set up various support initiatives such as a \"wobble room\" for colleagues to relax in.\n\n\"For us this week, starting vaccinating has been one of the single most significant impacts on people feeling that there is a future out of this, and the queues out the door here where they have been vaccinating have been really hopeful for people,\" she said.\n\n\"But the support we need is stay at home, help us. Because that will get us all out of this, whatever our role is, and we will get society out of this.\"\n\nAfter speaking to Ms Pelley and her colleagues about how they supported one another, the prince said: \"It's good that you and your team are keeping your spirits high and I always find that having some sort of sense of humour through everything is very important, otherwise we all go mad.\"\n\nThe Duke of Cambridge said he wants his children to appreciate the sacrifices made by NHS staff during the pandemic", "Ms Sturgeon has rejected claims made by former first minister Alex Salmond\n\nAlex Salmond has accused Nicola Sturgeon of misleading parliament, calling evidence she gave to an inquiry into the handling of sexual harassment claims against him \"simply untrue\".\n\nMr Salmond's comments emerged in a written submission to a separate investigation into whether the first minister breached the ministerial code.\n\nThe submission has been shared with the Holyrood committee.\n\nMs Sturgeon says she \"entirely rejects Mr Salmond's claims\".\n\nIn the submission, the former first minister said that Ms Sturgeon had misled parliament and broken the ministerial code with breaches including failing to inform the civil service in good time of her meetings with him.\n\nHe claimed she allowed the Scottish government to contest a civil court case against him despite having had legal advice that it was likely to collapse.\n\nMs Sturgeon told the Holyrood inquiry she had become aware of allegations at a meeting with Mr Salmond at her home.\n\nIt since emerged she met his former chief of staff in the days before, but she said she had forgotten about that meeting.\n\nMr Salmond said that claim was untenable.\n\nHis submission said that she misled parliament, and that amounted to a breach of the code. He also said she breached the code by failing to to inform civil servants of the nature of the meetings that took place between the two of them at her home where the allegations were discussed.\n\nAlex Salmond walked free from court in March having been cleared of charges of sexual assault\n\nMr Salmond's statement read: \"The pre-arranged meeting in the Scottish Parliament of 29 March 2018 was \"forgotten\" about because acknowledging it would have rendered ridiculous the claim made by the first minister in parliament that it had been believed that the meeting on 2 April was on SNP Party business and thus held at her private residence.\"\n\nBoth Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon are expected to give evidence to the committee in the coming weeks.\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross responded to the claims, saying: \"Nobody ever bought Nicola Sturgeon's tall tales to have suddenly turned forgetful, especially about the devastating moment she found out of sexual harassment allegations against her friend and mentor of 30 years.\n\n\"What has been revealed are allegations of shocking, deliberate and corrupt actions at the heart of government. There is now clear evidence of Nicola Sturgeon abusing her power to deceive the Scottish public.\n\n\"If this proves to be correct, it is a resignation matter. No first minister, at any time, can be allowed to get away with repeatedly and blatantly lying to the Scottish Parliament and breaking the ministerial code.\"\n\nScottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said Alex Salmond's explosive allegations demanded answers from the first minister to the committee.\n\nShe said: \"The bombshell accusation that Nicola Sturgeon has broken the ministerial code has the potential to end her political career and demands a robust and honest answer from the first minister.\n\n\"This committee demands truthfulness and honesty from every witness it calls - it is vital that the first minister tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when she appears.\"\n\nMs Sturgeon has repeatedly dismissed any notion of a conspiracy against Mr Salmond.\n\nHer spokeswoman said: \"The first minister entirely rejects Mr Salmond's claims about the ministerial code.\n\n\"We should always remember that the roots of this issue lie in complaints made by women about Alex Salmond's behaviour whilst he was first minister, aspects of which he has conceded. It is not surprising therefore that he continues to try to divert focus from that by seeking to malign the reputation of the first minister and by spinning false conspiracy theories.\n\n\"The first minister is concentrating on fighting the pandemic, stands by what she has said, and will address these matters in full when she appears at committee.\"\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions on Friday evening, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford MP said he did not believe the accusations about the first minister were correct.\n\nHe said: \"I believe that the first minister has acted in an honourable way, she's someone that I've every faith and trust in.\n\n\"I can tell you that the approval ratings for the first minister, the respect that she has right up and down the country of Scotland is enormous and this is something that will pass, when she appears in front of the committee these matters will be dealt with.\"\n\nAlex Salmond has just turned up the heat on his successor with a submission that presents a direct and serious challenge to the reputation of Nicola Sturgeon - who was once his closest political ally.\n\nWhat he no doubt considers as an attempt to secure justice, some others will see as a case of deflection and revenge.\n\nAllegations of breaking the ministerial code of conduct and misleading parliament are serious and, if upheld, potentially career threatening.\n\nYet even some of Ms Sturgeon's fiercest critics at Holyrood do not expect the inquiries into the Scottish government's mishandling of harassment complaints against Mr Salmond to force her from office.\n\nMr Salmond seems to expect the review of the first minister's actions under the ministerial code of conduct to remain narrow enough that it could not possibly find against her.\n\nThe first minister herself appears confident of persuading all comers, including a cross-party committee of MSPs (before which both she and Mr Salmond are due to appear in the coming weeks) that she has acted properly throughout.", "Fishing \"clears the mind of other worries\" says John Ellis from the Canal and Rivers Trust\n\nAnglers have hailed the mental health benefits of the sport after it was given the all-clear to continue, despite lockdown.\n\nThe government said it would be treated as a form of exercise, but subject to restrictions such as social distancing.\n\nRegulations mean people in England must stay at home except for specific purposes, including exercise, shopping for essentials and childcare.\n\nFigures show thousands more people have taken up fishing during the pandemic.\n\nJohn Ellis, national fisheries and angling manager for the Canal and Rivers Trust, said rod licence sales increased by 17% over the last year, the equivalent of about 100,000 people - some new to the sport and others returning.\n\nHe said, despite the colder weather which usually causes a drop in fishing, there are more people out than in a typical January.\n\n\"It is certainly one of few things people can do legally, can do locally,\" he said.\n\nSpencer Moore said it was easy to maintain social distance while fishing\n\nUnder current restrictions in England, anglers must fish alone, or with members of their household, and must not travel outside their local area.\n\nThe government regulations permit people to meet for exercise, but not \"for recreational or leisure purposes\".\n\nThe Department for Culture Media and Sport told the BBC while angling could continue, overarching government guidance meant people should minimise time spent outside their homes.\n\nMr Ellis said he had received emails from parents pleased their children could go fishing at the weekend, adding that for some people it was linked to their mental wellbeing.\n\n\"When you are focussing on fishing, it is very hard to think about anything else, it clears the mind of other worries, at least temporarily,\" he said.\n\nHeadway said fishing was one of its most popular sporting activities for clients\n\nHeadway Birmingham & Solihull, a charity which helps people living with brain injuries, runs regular fishing sessions, which were very popular with its clients.\n\n\"It encourages them to be more active and get some fresh air out in the countryside,\" she said.\n\n\"It also helps their motivation and mental wellbeing, giving them something to look forward to each week, something to talk about and a chance to form friendships with others who enjoy fishing too.\"\n\nSpencer Moore, a bailiff for Blackfords Progressive Angling Society, based in South Staffordshire, said the sport was perfect for social distancing.\n\n\"There are people furloughed, sitting in their house or working from home, but at least they can fish and can get out and wind down,\" he said.\n\n\"Being a fisherman, you are on your own on your peg. Someone might be on another peg, but they can be 20 to 30ft away, so you are nowhere near anyone else.\"\n\nChris Wood advised people to speak to their local angling club before going fishing for the first time\n\nChris Wood, from Shrewsbury Anglers Club, said the group had seen a definite \"upsurge\" in interest during the pandemic.\n\nBut, he said, it had also seen an increase in illegal fishing by people who were not aware of the proper permits needed.", "Edwin Poots said he has asked senior UK government figures to consider unilaterally revoking the NI Protocol\n\nThe Stormont minister whose officials are responsible for the new Irish Sea border has said some food will be unavailable if changes are not made.\n\nDUP Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots has also said jobs could be at risk.\n\nHe said problems at the ports were being caused by new rules applied on imports of food and other products from Britain to Northern Ireland.\n\nEarlier Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said trade from GB to NI \"will get worse before it gets better\".\n\nMr Gove said that \"work is ongoing\" and it is \"all part of the process of leaving the European Union\".\n\nHe added that he had spoken to ministers from all parties in the Northern Ireland Executive.\n\nAfter speaking with hauliers, supermarkets and processors this week, Mr Poots predicted the loss of jobs and rising costs.\n\n\"A wide range of frozen and chilled foods will be unavailable after the temporary exemption period ends,\" he tweeted.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Edwin Poots MLA This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThat exemption period applies to supermarkets and other food importers and runs out in April.\n\nAfter that they will have to comply with all the paperwork required to ship food in, or find suppliers on the island of Ireland or elsewhere in the EU.\n\nNew rules - called the Northern Ireland Protocol - were introduced because while the UK has left the EU, Northern Ireland has remained in the Single Market for goods and is continuing to apply EU customs rules.\n\nThe arrangement was agreed between the UK and the EU to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland.\n\nMr Poots said he had spoken to senior UK government figures to ask them to consider unilaterally revoking the protocol as it was \"damaging Northern Ireland at the economic and societal level\".\n\nAnd he hit out at members of Sinn Fein, the SDLP, and Alliance Party who he claimed had supported it.\n\nMembers of those parties have countered similar claims from other DUP politicians in recent days.\n\nThey said DUP MPs had voted against alternative arrangements that would have been simpler to manage before the government pushed ahead with the protocol plan.\n\nResponding to Mr Poot's tweet on Friday evening, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood wrote: \"You broke it, you own it.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Colum Eastwood This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSinn Féin MLA Martina Anderson accused Mr Poots of being \"asleep at the wheel\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Martina Anderson MLA This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) has called for the assembly to be recalled to discuss difficulties over trading between Great Britain and Northern Ireland due to Brexit.\n\nUUP MLA Roy Beggs said: \"The impact of the Irish Sea border is causing horrendous difficulties for hauliers and this is being seen in shops and businesses across Northern Ireland.\n\n\"It is damaging the Northern Ireland economy and the situation is escalating.\"\n\nEarlier on Friday, Michael Gove said it had been expected that there would be \"some initial disruption\" to trade between GB and NI, but that the government is \"ironing\" issues out.\n\nHe said discussions with the executive in Northern Ireland were \"in order to make sure that the [Northern Ireland] protocol works\".\n\n\"[To make sure] that businesses in Northern Ireland can continue to have access to the rest of the UK market, and that Northern Ireland businesses can have the goods that they need on the shelves, that they have access to at the moment,\" he said.\n\nNorthern Ireland has remained a part of the EU's single market for goods while the rest of the UK has left.\n\nThis means food products from Great Britain are subject to checks when they enter Northern Ireland.\n\nSimilar processes and checks also apply when moving food products from Great Britain into the Republic of Ireland.\n\nMeanwhile, an organisation representing haulage firms has called on the UK and Irish government to relax some of the new Irish Sea trade border rules.\n\nThe Road Haulage Association (RHA) said there is serious disruption to freight movements into the island of Ireland.\n\nThe RHA said relaxing the controls on food products and customs declarations \"would help traders to ship goods that have struggled to move over recent days.\"\n\n\"The problems have led to gaps in supermarket shelves and lorries delayed at ports because of problems with red-tape and the situation is worsening,\" the organisation added.\n\n\"We are facing an inflexible, cumbersome and time consuming process just to move goods.\"\n\nThe UK government said the flow of goods \"between GB and NI has been smooth overall and arrivals of freight have continued to increase substantially over this week\".\n\n\"There are no significant queues at NI ports and supermarkets are reporting healthy supplies into their Northern Ireland stores,\" a spokesperson added.\n\n\"We recognise the need to provide as much support to the haulage sector as possible as industry adapts to new processes. That's why hauliers can benefit from the Trader Support Service, which provides free advice and support to businesses of all sizes moving goods under the Northern Ireland Protocol.\n\n\"We have been engaging intensively with the Irish authorities and hauliers on the issues that have been encountered for goods transiting through Dublin port.\"\n\nOn Thursday customs authorities in the Republic of Ireland announced a temporary relaxation of one customs process.\n\nHauliers will be able to use an override code to complete a piece of administration known as ENS.\n\nThe letters ENS refer to an entry summary declaration, an online form which goods carriers are now legally obliged to submit to Irish customs when transporting goods from Great Britain into Ireland.\n\nLorries arriving in Ireland from Great Britain have faced new checks since 1 January\n\nOn Thursday night the Irish Revenue Commissioners said it recognised that \"some businesses are experiencing difficulties on lodging their safety and security ENS declarations\".\n\nIt said that in response it was providing a \"temporary easement\" which would allow an ENS to be produced without all the normally required information.\n\nAn Irish government spokesperson said it is \"absolutely essential that Ireland fulfils its obligations as a member of the EU and that we protect the integrity of the single market and the customs union\".\n\n\"We appreciate that the new requirements and customs formalities present significant challenges and impose additional burdens on businesses.\"\n\nMeanwhile Stena, the ferry company, said it was cancelling a dozen sailings between Wales and Ireland next week due to \"a decline in freight volumes during the first week of Brexit.\"", "Covid infections rose by almost a third between 26 December and 3 January, reaching 70,000 new cases a day according to a major study.\n\nIn a different piece of research, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated 1.2 million people in total had Covid over a similar time period.\n\nDaily infections are understood to have risen to about 150,000 since then.\n\nThat would bring daily coronavirus cases above the first peak.\n\nThe R or reproduction number for the virus is now between 1 and 1.4 for the UK, reflecting the sharp rise in cases in recent weeks.\n\nSeparate ONS data suggests just under half (44%) of British adults formed a Christmas bubble.\n\nThese temporary rules let up to three households mix indoors on 25 December - unless they were living in a Tier 4 area.\n\nThe ONS estimated how much of the population had Covid in the week of 27 December- 2 January:\n\nThe ONS data suggests cases rose by three-quarters between its two most recent study periods: 12-18 December and 27 December - 2 January.\n\nThe ZOE Covid Symptom Study was able to track more recent changes since there was no pause in its research for Christmas.\n\nIt found the epidemic is growing throughout the UK.\n\nResearchers estimate the virus's reproduction or R number is currently 1.2 across the UK.\n\nBoth sources indicate London has the most severe epidemic with the highest number of cases.\n\nConfirmed cases, published on the government's dashboard, are always lower than those in surveys because they mainly reflect the test results of people coming in with symptoms.\n\nBoth the ONS and ZOE also look at asymptomatic cases - people who may not otherwise get tests.\n\nSome asymptomatic testing is now available in the community but it is not being widely taken up.\n\nAbout a fifth of people responding to a separate ONS survey looking at the social impacts of the pandemic, said they had found it difficult to follow the Christmas rules.\n\nAnd half of those gave the fact that they had already made plans as the reason.\n\nRules, which were set to allow everyone in the UK to mix in a five-day window, were changed at the last minute, on 19 December.\n\nIn England, people living in Tiers 1-3 were allowed to form a one-day Christmas bubble with a maximum of two other households.\n\nThose in Tier 4, including about 10 million people in Greater London, were not permitted to mix at all.\n\nMixing was permitted in Scotland and Wales for Christmas Day only.\n\nHow has coronavirus affected you? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nOr use this form to get in touch:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your comment or send it via email to HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any comment you send in.", "The president says he hates Big Tech. Yet he has loved using Twitter.\n\nHe's used it as a way, for more than 10 years, to bypass the media and speak directly to voters.\n\nThe 280 characters fits neatly with his style of political engagement - broad brushstrokes rather than details.\n\nAnd Twitter has undoubtedly benefited from President Trump too, the place to go to hear the latest musings from the most powerful person on the planet.\n\nThat decade-long symbiosis has been ended with a shuddering halt.\n\nImmediately after the deadly riots, Twitter locked the President's Twitter feed and asked Mr Trump to delete three tweets for violations around its Civic Integrity policy., which he promptly did.\n\nAfter the suspension he tweeted as a new man, the nonsense claims of mass voter fraud replaced with a more conciliatory tone.\n\nPrivately though Twitter was pondering whether it had gone far enough. Facebook had already acted, banning Donald Trump \"indefinitely\".\n\nAfter more than 48 hours of consideration, Twitter acted. It made unquestionably the most important moderation decision in its history. It banned the president of the United States.\n\nSome have asked why he wasn't kicked off sooner.\n\nMr Trump or one of his associates appears to have deleted some of his most recent tweets\n\nWell, Twitter has very specific rules about world leaders.\n\n\"We recognise that sometimes it may be in the public interest to allow people to view tweets that would otherwise be taken down,\" Twitter's rules say.\n\n\"At present, we limit exceptions to one critical type of public-interest content - tweets from elected and government officials.\"\n\nChief executive Jack Dorsey had felt it was in the public interest to keep the account active, albeit with warning messages.\n\n\"No one is turning a blind eye,\" a senior source told the BBC before the ban.\n\nIn short, Mr Trump had been allowed to remain on Twitter - despite numerous breaches of its rules - because he is the president.\n\nWith less than two weeks to go of Trump's presidency, many social media companies have now decided enough is enough.\n\nCritics say the outgoing president's words on social media, for years, helped to incite Wednesday's storming of Capitol Hill.\n\nAll the big social media companies have made it clear that - as a private citizen - if you continually look to peddle conspiracy theories and promote extremism, you should expect to be kicked out. With just a few days of his presidency left, Mr Trump is already being held to a different standard - his privileges stripped.\n\nWhat's driving this? To be cynical, social media companies are acutely aware that President-elect Joe Biden believes Big Tech hasn't done enough to quell fake news and hate speech on their platforms.\n\nRioters broke into Congress after a speech by Mr Trump on Wednesday\n\nThey are now desperate to show that they can, in fact, police their own platforms without the need for stringent legal reforms.\n\nWhat better way to show you're serious than to act on Mr Trump's misinformation?\n\nWhat will Mr Trump do next? Well he's already said he's looking into the possibility of building his own platform in the future.\n\nBut for now he's consigned to the fringes of the internet. Can Trumpism survive without Big Tech? We're about to find out.\n\nJames Clayton is the BBC's North America technology reporter based in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @jamesclayton5.", "Fashion student Mhari Thurston-Tyler posted an advert for the \"crop top\" (right) on Depop after she says she found some discarded Chiltern Railways seat covers (like those on the left)\n\nA fashion student has been warned not to sell prohibited items on the clothes app, Depop, after she posted an advert for a top made from a train seat cover.\n\nMhari Thurston-Tyler made the bandeau out of a Chiltern Railways seat cover designed to promote social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nThe 20-year-old sold the top for £15 but later refunded her customer and took the advert down.\n\nDepop said the item \"clearly violates our terms of service\".\n\nThe app for buying and selling second-hand clothes said the sale of stolen goods was banned - but Ms Thurston-Tyler denied stealing.\n\nShe told BBC News she found two of the blue seat covers \"balled up on the floor\" outside Marylebone station in London in September.\n\nMs Thurston-Tyler, who is a fashion student at Central Saint Martins, re-sewed one of the covers to make it fit her, before deciding to advertise the second cover on Depop.\n\n\"I have no money at the moment so decided to put the second one on Depop to see if anyone would buy it,\" she said, adding that the app had become her main source of income as she has struggled to find other work during the pandemic.\n\n\"I have to resort to little things like this to make ends meet, to pay the bills.\"\n\nMs Thurston-Tyler's advert went viral on social media after being shared by Depop Drama's Instagram and Twitter accounts.\n\nMhari Thurston-Tyler said she has been unable to find a job during the coronavirus pandemic and sells clothes on Depop \"to make ends meet\"\n\nIn the advert, Ms Thurston-Tyler models the seat cover and describes it as a \"social distancing crop\", adding: \"Got a few of these can do different sizes.\"\n\nMs Thurston-Tyler, from Kenilworth in Warwickshire, said a Depop customer paid her £15 and ordered a crop top \"in extra small\".\n\nBut realising she should not be making money out of Chiltern Railways' property, Ms Thurston-Tyler refunded the customer 15 minutes later and took the advert down shortly afterwards.\n\n\"I didn't steal it but I understand it's not right to re-sell it,\" she said.\n\nA Depop spokesperson said Ms Thurston-Tyler would be banned from the platform if she listed any other prohibited goods.\n\n\"We explicitly prohibit the sale of illegal and unlawful content on the app, including any stolen goods,\" they said.\n\n\"This item clearly violates our terms of service, but as it has been removed by the seller and is no longer for sale on the platform, we will not be taking immediate steps to ban this user.\"\n\nMs Thurston-Tyler said she hopes to make her own line of crop tops with the words \"children railways\" on the design, while \"the hype\" of the viral moment continues.\n\nChiltern Railways said it has been using the social distancing \"seat sashes\" since the beginning of the UK's Covid epidemic.\n\nA spokeswoman added: \"Whilst we appreciate this new take on railway memorabilia, these items are there to help customers travel with confidence and we would respectfully ask that they are left in place.\"", "A former Labour MP has quit the party before disciplinary proceedings against him concerning sexual harassment could be concluded, Labour has said.\n\nKelvin Hopkins was suspended by the party in 2017 after a Labour activist, Ava Etemadzadeh, accused him of inappropriate physical contact.\n\nMs Etemadzadeh said the ex-MP's exit from the party was \"disappointing\".\n\nThe BBC has attempted to contact Mr Hopkins, 79, for a response, but he has previously denied the accusations.\n\nA Labour spokesperson said it \"takes all complaints of sexual harassment extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures, and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken.\n\n\"We are disappointed that the party's disciplinary processes did not reach a conclusion due to Kelvin Hopkins' decision to resign his membership,\" they added.\n\n\"We are establishing an independent process to investigate complaints, including sexual harassment, to ensure complainants can feel confident that in coming forward they will be heard and get the justice they deserve.\"\n\nMr Hopkins, who first won the seat of Luton North from the Conservatives in 1997, stood down ahead of the 2019 election - a decision, he said, which was to do with his wife's health, not the accusations.\n\nHe had originally been referred to the party's National Constitutional Committee following the allegations in 2017 and had expressed frustration at the length of time the hearing was taking.\n\nResponding to his decision to leave the party, Ms Etemadzadeh tweeted: \"This is very disappointing news. I hope Keir Starmer listens to my concerns and fixes this broken system.\"", "Film director Michael Apted, best known for the Up series of TV documentaries following the lives of 14 people every seven years, has died aged 79.\n\nHe also directed Coal Miner's Daughter, Gorillas In The Mist and the 1999 Bond movie The World Is Not Enough.\n\nThe original 7 Up in 1964 set out to document the life prospects of a range of children from all walks of life.\n\nThe show was inspired by the Aristotle quote \"give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man\".\n\nThe first 7 Up show was followed by 14 Up at the start of the next decade, which interviewed the same children as teenagers - and the pattern was set right up until 63 Up in 2019.\n\nThroughout all those intervening years ITV viewers became engrossed with the stories of private school trio Andrew, Charles and John, of Jackie who went through two divorces, of Neil who went from jobless and homeless to Liberal Democrat councillor, and of working class chatterbox Tony, whose life ambition was to become a jockey.\n\nApted's shows - which won three Bafta awards - have often been described as the forerunner of modern-day reality TV series, giving its participants the time to tell their own stories on screen.\n\nBut unlike their modern counterparts, the original Up children tended to fade away from the limelight in the seven years between each chapter.\n\nIn 2008, Apted was made a companion of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to the British film and television industries.\n\nThomas Schlamme, president of the Directors Guild of America, said Apted was a \"fearless visionary\" whose legacy would live on.\n\nHe said Apted, who was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, \"saw the trajectory of things when others didn't and we were all beneficiaries of his wisdom and lifelong dedication\".\n\nITV's managing director Kevin Lygo said the director's six-decade career was \"in itself truly remarkable\".\n\nHe said the Up series \"demonstrated the possibilities of television at its finest in its ambition and its capacity to hold up a mirror to society and engage with and entertain people while enriching our perspective on the human condition\".\n\nApted directed the 19th James Bond film The World Is Not Enough\n\n\"The influence of Michael's contribution to film and programme-making continues to be felt and he will be sadly missed,\" Lygo added.\n\nMichael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, producers of the James Bond film franchise, said Apted \"was a director of enormous talent\" and \"beloved by all those who worked with him\".\n\n\"We loved working with him on The World Is Not Enough and send our love and support to his family, friends and colleagues,\" they said.\n\nA post on the Twitter account of the band Garbage, who performed the theme for The World Is Not Enough, labelled Apted a \"delightful, charming soul\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Garbage This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nComposer David G Arnold, who composed the Bond theme and worked with Apted on three other non-Bond movies, said he felt \"lucky\" to work with him.\n\n\"A more trusting, funny, friendly and, most importantly, kind, person you'd never meet. So pleased to have known him and so sad that he's gone,\" Arnold wrote on Twitter.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Eva's father, Paul Slapa, says the generosity of strangers has been \"amazing\"\n\nA 10-year-old girl who needed to travel to the United States for treatment on an inoperable brain tumour has died.\n\nFamily of Eva Williams raised £250,000 needed for a new life-extending trial.\n\nBut the schoolgirl, from Marford, Wrexham, was unable to travel due to coronavirus lockdown measures.\n\nAt the start of 2020, she was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) and died on Friday. Her father said in a tribute: \"We love you Eva - more than you'll have ever known.\"\n\nPaul Slapa, said on social media that his daughter was surrounded by all of her family when she died.\n\nHe posted: \"Over the past week, Eva had lost the ability to speak, eat and swallow fluids, and she has suffered more than any child should ever have to suffer.\n\n\"Watching her still fight each day has been heart-breaking.\n\n\"Eva is an inspiration to many, certainly to me, and I cannot begin to imagine how we will go forward from here.\n\n\"How do we wake up each day and go on? How do we face the world without our baby girl with us? Why did this happen to the most caring and loving of little girls?\n\n\"Every single part of us is in pain and I can't see how that can change. We love you Eva - more than you'll have ever known - and we will keep you with us every day for the rest of our lives.\"\n\nAfter Eva was diagnosed with a high-grade DIPG she had been undergoing radiotherapy treatment to shrink the tumour.\n\nHer father and mother Carran Williams started a fundraising campaign to access the trial treatment in the US, and managed to raise the money in the space of three weeks.\n\nThey had been originally due to take part in the trial in New York in April.\n\nBut then Covid-19 measures saw international flight bans and travel restrictions imposed.\n\nHer plight was raised by the Wrexham MP Sarah Atherton during Prime Minister's Questions in July and Boris Johnson said he would look at what help can be offered to get her to the United States.\n\nEva also had radiotherapy as part of her treatment", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Madrid has been hit by heavy snowfall after Storm Filomena\n\nStorm Filomena has blanketed parts of Spain in heavy snow, with half of the country on red alert for more on Saturday.\n\nRoad, rail and air travel has been disrupted and interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the country was facing \"the most intense storm in the last 50 years\".\n\nMadrid, one of the worst affected areas, is set to see up to 20cm (eight inches) of snow in the next 24 hours.\n\nFurther south the storm caused rivers to burst their banks.\n\nFour deaths have been reported so far as a result of Filomena. Officials said two people had been found frozen to death - one in the town of Zarzalejo, north-west of Madrid, and the other in the eastern city of Calatayud. Two people travelling in a car were swept away by floods near the southern city of Malaga.\n\nAs snow fell on Madrid on Friday evening, a number of vehicles became stranded on a motorway near the capital.\n\nThe city's Barajas airport has closed, along with a number of roads, and all trains to and from Madrid have been cancelled.\n\nFirefighters were called in to assist drivers who had become stuck. In some areas the military were called in to help clear roads.\n\nSpanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez urged people to stay at home and to follow the instructions of emergency services. King Felipe and Queen Letizia took to Twitter to urge \"extreme caution against the risks of accumulation of ice and snow\".\n\nThe country's AEMET weather agency said the snowfall was \"exceptional and most likely historic\".\n\nA number of people were seen making the most of the snowy scenery, walking through Madrid's Puerta del Sol square.\n\nLarge parks in Madrid have since been closed as a precaution, AFP news agency reports.\n\nOne man was pictured skiing along the Gran Via, the capital's famous shopping street.\n\nIn Cañada Real, the largest shanty town in western Europe, residents were seen creating a bonfire to keep warm.\n\nThe cold weather is set to continue beyond the weekend with temperatures in Madrid predicted to hit -12C on Thursday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Bez in training for his new exercise classes in a park in Manchester\n\nHappy Mondays star Bez is to launch his own lockdown fitness classes to inspire the nation like Joe Wicks.\n\nThe former maraca-shaking dancer, 56, wants to rival Joe Wicks with his online YouTube classes \"Get Buzzin' With Bez\" to be launched on 17 January.\n\nBez, whose on-stage \"freaky dancing\" made him an icon of the 'Madchester' music scene, has admitted he also wants to budge his own lockdown bulge.\n\nHe won Celebrity Big Brother in 2005 and even made a bid to become an MP.\n\nBez, whose real name is Mark Berry, will be shown being trained in the fitness classes rather than acting as the instructor himself.\n\nHe said: \"I'd like to think I'm somewhere between Joe Wicks and Mr Motivator.\n\n\"I've started this new year seriously unfit, with a fat belly and creaky hips, and I can't stop eating chocolate.\n\n\"Last lockdown I got unfit, fat, lazy and into some seriously bad eating habits.\n\nBez being put through his paces with a personal trainer\n\n\"This year, this lockdown, I need to sort it out sharpish.\"\n\nHe said that people can join him on \"on this mad journey or just sit on the sofa and have a good laugh at me\".\n\nBez said he has \"started this new year seriously unfit, with a fat belly and creaky hips\"\n\nThe former dancer added: \"At the very least, I know I'll be making people smile, at best I'll be helping people get fit and mentally happier alongside me.\"\n\nThe Happy Mondays, along with bands like The Stone Roses and Inspiral Carpets, spearheaded the indie music 'Madchester' scene of the late 80s and early 90s.\n\nBez dancing with his maraca on BBC One's Top of the Pops as the band perform Step On in 1989\n\nBez's bug-eyed dance routines were said to have inspired the group's song Freaky Dancin' and made him one of the best-known members of the group, alongside frontman Shaun Ryder.\n\nTheir hits included Step On, Kinky Afro, Hallelujah and 24 Hour Party People.\n\nHowever, serious drug habits and infighting led to the Salford band's breakup in 1993.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Lockdown measures in England need to be stricter to achieve the same impact as the March shutdown, scientists advising the government have said.\n\nProf Robert West said the current rules were \"still allowing a lot of activity which is spreading the virus\".\n\nProf Susan Michie also said the spread of the new more infectious variant meant the restrictions were \"too lax\".\n\nThe government said it had adapted its approach and taken \"swift action\" to try and stop the spread of the virus.\n\nThe warnings come after ministers launched a new campaign urging people to act like they have the virus.\n\nMeanwhile, Buckingham Palace has said the Queen, 94, and the Duke of Edinburgh, 99, received Covid-19 vaccinations on Saturday.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and can only go out for essential reasons. Similar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nProf West, a participant in the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), which advises the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the new variant of Covid is around 50% more infectious compared to the virus that infected people last March.\n\n\"That means that if we were to achieve the same result as we got in March we would have to have a stricter lockdown, and it's not stricter,\" he said\n\nThe professor of health psychology at University College London, also told the BBC more children were going to school, compared to the first lockdown and he said schools were \"a very important seed of community infection\".\n\nMore people are in schools, after the Department for Education has widened the categories of vulnerable and key worker pupils allowed to attend, with attendance rates surging to 50% in some places.\n\nProf Michie, who is also a member of Sage, agreed the current lockdown was \"too lax\".\n\n\"When you look at the data, it shows that almost 90% of people are overwhelmingly adhering to the rules - despite the fact that we're also seeing more people out and about,\" she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nShe said in comparison to the first lockdown last spring more people were allowed to go out to work and children's nurseries were open, making public transport busier.\n\nThe number of people travelling by public transport in London has decreased since the latest national lockdown began, with tube journeys now at 18% of the pre-pandemic demand and bus journeys at 30%, according to figures from Transport for London.\n\nHowever, during the first lockdown passenger numbers fell below 10% at some points.\n\nProf Michie, a professor of health psychology at University College London, added that the winter season posed extra challenges because the virus survives longer in the cold and people spend more time indoors, where the virus can spread more easily.\n\nCombined with the more transmissible new variant, she said \"we should have a stricter rather than less strict lockdown than we had back in March\".\n\nScientists believe the new variant spreads between 50 and 70% faster compared to previous forms of the virus.\n\nDr Adam Kucharski, another scientist advising the government and an associate professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that because the new variant was more transmissible \"each interaction we have has become riskier than it was before\".\n\nHe said that even if people reduced their contacts to levels seen last spring, it would not have the same effect on virus transmission.\n\nProf Kevin Fenton, London regional director for Public Health England, said there were \"things we could do better\" to reduce the number of infections, including greater compliance with mask wearing and social distancing when shopping and using public transport.\n\nOn Friday 1,325 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test were recorded in the UK - the highest daily figure yet - along with 68,053 new cases.\n\nAs cases and deaths soar, the government has launched an advertising campaign, which will be shared across television, radio, newspapers and on social media, urging people to stay at home and not to get complacent.\n\nGovernment sources say there is also likely to be more focus from police on enforcing rather than explaining rules.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson says hospitals are \"under more pressure than at any other time since the start of the pandemic\", with infection rates increasing at an \"alarming rate\" across the country and the NHS under \"severe strain\".\n\nIt comes after London's mayor Sadiq Khan said the spread of coronavirus was \"out of control\" as he declared a \"major incident\" in the capital on Friday.\n\nDr Simon Walsh, an emergency care doctor in London, told BBC Breakfast the \"unprecedented\" numbers of patients requiring intensive care treatment meant staff were spread \"more and more thinly\".\n\nHospitals in other parts of the UK are also under pressure.\n\nDr Justin Varney, director of public health in Birmingham, said he was \"very worried\" about the situation in the city, where hospital bosses have warned they do not have enough intensive care nurses to deal with the growing case load.\n\nHe warned that the NHS had still not seen the impact of the rise in cases following the relaxation of restrictions over Christmas and added: \"It is going to get a lot, lot worse unless we really get this under control\".\n\nA government spokesperson said: \"Our priority from the outset has been to protect the NHS to save lives and we have taken advice from scientific and medical experts throughout. As new evidence has emerged, we have adapted our approach and taken swift action to try and stop the spread of the virus.\"\n\nTell us how you have been affected by coronavirus by emailing: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "More than 80,000 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test since the start of the pandemic, official figures have shown.\n\nA further 1,035 deaths in the UK were reported on Saturday, taking the total by that measure to 80,868.\n\nThe number of daily cases of people who tested positive for coronavirus increased by 59,937.\n\nOnly the US, Brazil, India and Mexico have recorded more Covid deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.\n\nIt is the fourth day in a row that the UK has reported more than 1,000 daily deaths.\n\nIt comes as scientists advising the government have warned that lockdown measures in England need to be stricter to achieve the same impact as the March shutdown.\n\nMinisters have launched a new campaign urging people to act like they have the virus.\n\nMeanwhile, Buckingham Palace has said the Queen, 94, and the Duke of Edinburgh, 99, received Covid-19 vaccinations on Saturday.\n\nThe Office for National Statistics recently estimated as many as one in 50 people in England had coronavirus between 27 December and 2 January, while in London it was one in 30.\n\nOn Friday, mayor Sadiq Khan said the spread of Covid in the capital was \"out of control\".\n\nOfficial figures from Public Health England showed London had the highest regional case rate in the UK, exceeding 1,000 per 100,000 people.\n\nUnder the national lockdown, people in England must stay at home and can only go out for essential reasons. Similar measures are in place across most of Scotland, in Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nProf Robert West, a participant in the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), which advises the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the current rules were \"still allowing a lot of activity which is spreading the virus\".\n\nHe said the new variant of Covid was around 50% more infectious compared to the virus that infected people last March.\n\n\"That means that if we were to achieve the same result as we got in March we would have to have a stricter lockdown, and it (the current regime) is not stricter,\" he added.\n\nThe professor of health psychology at University College London also told the BBC more children were going to school, compared to during the first lockdown.\n\nHe said schools were \"a very important seed of community infection\".\n\nMore children are at school, after the Department for Education widened the categories of vulnerable and key worker pupils allowed to attend. Attendance rates have risen to 50% in some places.\n\nProf Susan Michie, who is also a member of Sage, said the spread of the new, more infectious variant meant current restrictions were \"too lax\".\n\n\"When you look at the data, it shows that almost 90% of people are overwhelmingly adhering to the rules - despite the fact that we're also seeing more people out and about,\" she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nShe said, in comparison to the first lockdown in spring 2020, more people were allowed to go out to work and children's nurseries were open, making public transport busier.\n\nThe number of people travelling by public transport in London has decreased since the latest national lockdown began, with tube journeys now at 18% of the pre-pandemic demand and bus journeys at 30%, according to figures from Transport for London.\n\nHowever, during the first lockdown passenger numbers fell below 10% at some points.\n\nScientists believe the new variant spreads between 50 and 70% faster compared to previous forms of the virus.\n\nProf Kevin Fenton, London regional director for Public Health England, said there were \"things we could do better\" to reduce the number of infections, including greater compliance with mask wearing and social distancing when shopping and using public transport.\n\nTorsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that the UK's statutory sick pay system was \"not fit for purpose for a pandemic\" and more effective measures to encourage people to isolate were needed.\n\nAs cases and deaths soar, the government has launched an advertising campaign, which will be shared across television, radio, newspapers and on social media, urging people to stay at home and not to get complacent.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Department of Health and Social Care\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said: \"I know the last year has taken its toll - but your compliance is now more vital than ever.\"\n\nGovernment sources say there is also likely to be more focus from police on enforcing rather than explaining rules.\n\nOn Saturday afternoon, 12 people were arrested during an anti-lockdown protest in south London.\n\nIf you would like to send us a tribute to a friend or family member who died after contracting coronavirus, please use the form below.\n\nPlease remember to include a photo of your loved one and their name. Upload your pictures here. Don't forget to include your contact details, so we can get in touch with you.\n\nWe would like to respond to everyone individually and include every tribute in our coverage, but unfortunately that may not be possible. Please be assured your message will be read and treated with the utmost respect.\n\nPlease note the contact details you provide will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your tribute.\n• None Lockdown needs to be stricter, scientists warn", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. London mayor Sadiq Khan: \"Unless the virus reduces... we could run out of beds\"\n\nThe spread of Covid in London is \"out of control\" according to Sadiq Khan, who has declared a \"major incident\".\n\nThe coronavirus infection rate in London has exceeded 1,000 per 100,000 people, based on the latest figures from Public Health England.\n\nHowever, the Office for National Statistics recently estimated as many as one in 30 Londoners has coronavirus.\n\nMr Khan told BBC political reporter Karl Mercer that the figure is as high as one in 20 in some parts of London.\n\nMajor incidents have previously been called for the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 and the terror attacks at Westminster Bridge and London Bridge.\n\nA major incident is any emergency that requires the implementation of special arrangements by one or all of the emergency services, the NHS or the local authority.\n\nIt means the emergency services and hospitals cannot guarantee their normal level of response.\n\nCurrently, there are more than 7,000 people in hospital with Covid-19, the mayor said.\n\nThis is a 35% increase compared to last April's peak of the pandemic, he added.\n\nDr Samantha Batt-Rawden, an ICU registrar and President of the Doctors' Association UK, tweeted: \"We tried. We really tried. NHS staff pleaded with people that Christmas is not worth it. Now one in 30 people in London have Covid and ICUs are overwhelmed. My heart is broken.\"\n\nAn analysis of Public Health England figures show in the week to 3 January, the number of cases rose across all of the London's boroughs compared with the previous week, with 17 individually recording more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 people.\n\nTesting increased in parts of the city after a drop over the Christmas period but positivity was high among people taking lab-based tests - suggesting more testing is needed to find undiagnosed cases in the community.\n\nIn the past week, many parts of the capital saw a rise in deaths where a person had tested positive for coronavirus in the previous 28 days - with some areas recording more than double the number of deaths compared with the previous week.\n\nHowever, reporting over the Christmas period may have affected this.\n\nOut of the 18 acute hospital trusts in London providing figures to the government, all of them recorded having more beds being filled by coronavirus patients than in the previous week.\n\nBarts NHS Health, one of London's largest trusts, saw a 30% increase in coronavirus patients between 29 December and 5 January, to 830.\n\nThe London Ambulance Service is now taking up to 8,000 emergency calls a day, the mayor says\n\nThe mayor of London's announcement comes after the counties of Sussex and Surrey declared similar major incidents on Thursday.\n\nHe said the London Ambulance Service was currently taking up to 8,000 emergency calls a day, compared to 5,500 on a typical busy day.\n\nThe London Fire Brigade said more than 100 firefighters had been drafted in to drive ambulances to help cope with the demand.\n\nEvery frontline agency involved in protecting the public has a legal duty to prepare for emergencies by devising and testing major incident plans.\n\nThese public bodies declare a major incident when the situation they're confronting is so big or terrible that it's not only likely to cause serious harm, but it will also compromise their ability to respond effectively.\n\nIn general terms, that means public bodies can legally stop delivering some everyday services, so that their personnel, attention and resources can be diverted to the emergency confronting them.\n\nAt other times, the plans will lead to the military sending soldiers to aid the civilian effort, as we have seen already during the pandemic.\n\nPrevious major incidents include the Grenfell Tower disaster in London, the Salisbury Novichok poisonings and the 2017 terrorism attacks.\n\nLondon's regional director for Public Health England Kevin Fenton said the current wave of coronavirus was \"the biggest threat\" the capital has faced in this pandemic to date.\n\nHe added: \"The emergence of the new variant means we are setting record case rates at almost double the national average, with at least one in 30 people now thought to be carrying the virus.\n\n\"We know this will sadly lead to large numbers of deaths, so strong and immediate action is needed.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What does it mean if the NHS is overwhelmed?\n\nMr Khan is warning that London is \"at crisis point\".\n\n\"If we do not take immediate action now, our NHS could be overwhelmed and more people will die,\" he said.\n\n\"Londoners continue to make huge sacrifices and I am today imploring them to please stay at home unless it is absolutely necessary for you to leave. Stay at home to protect yourself, your family, friends and other Londoners and to protect our NHS.\"\n\nHe said he had written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson asking for more financial support for Londoners who need to self-isolate and are unable to work, and for daily vaccination data.\n\nMr Khan also called for the closure of places of worship and for face masks to be worn routinely outside the home, including in crowded places and supermarket queues, in a bid to curb case numbers.\n\nTwo hospital trusts in London have recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths\n\nThe mayor of London was in a sombre mood when I spoke to him earlier this afternoon. One in 20 Londoners in some areas now has Covid, and there is a real fear that hospitals will simply be overwhelmed in the next two weeks.\n\nDeclaring a major incident is a real indication of the levels of concern felt not just at City Hall but across London's emergency services and the NHS.\n\nMore Londoners are now in hospital with coronavirus than at the peak of the first wave last April - and those numbers are growing by more than 800 every day.\n\nIt's believed the last mayor to declare a London-wide major incident was Boris Johnson in response to the 2011 riots.\n\nThe coming days will be some of the most challenging in the city's recent history.\n\nKatie Sanderson, a junior doctor working in London, said she is worried how long medical staff can cope with the surge of patients.\n\n\"[Staff] are working on wards and spending long amounts of time with patients who need high-intensive oxygen therapy,\" she said.\n\n\"It is technically challenging and the emotional burden is enormous. I see it in a flatness in their demeanour, like we've all got used to doing things which before were totally inconceivable.\"\n\nGeorgia Gould, chair of London Councils, described London's rising coronavirus rate as \"dangerous\".\n\nShe added: \"One in 30 Londoners now has Covid. This is why public services across London are urging all Londoners to please stay at home except for absolutely essential shopping and exercise.\n\n\"This is a dark and difficult time for our city but there is light at end of the tunnel with the vaccine rollout. We are asking Londoners to come together one last time to stop the spread - lives really do depend on it.\"\n\nEarlier this week as the prime minister introduced an England-wide lockdown, the Met Police said officers were going to be \"more inquisitive\" towards Londoners seen outside.\n\nThe Met handed out 1,761 fines for breaches of coronavirus laws between 27 March and 20 December.\n\nDeputy Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said the major incident was a \"stark reminder\" of the point London is at in the pandemic.\n\nHe said: \"These rule-breakers cannot continue to feign ignorance of the risk that this virus poses or listen to the false information and lies that some promote downplaying the dangers.\n\n\"Every time the virus spreads it increases the risk of someone needlessly losing their life.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'One of the worst shifts of my life - it's overwhelming'\n\nIn response to Mr Khan's announcement the government said the NHS is continuing to \"face a huge challenge\"\n\nA spokeswoman added: \"It is absolutely paramount people in London, and the rest of the country, follow the rules and stay at home to protect the NHS and save lives.\n\n\"We are working closely with NHS England to support hospitals in the capital, including additional bed capacity at the London Nightingale.\n\n\"Financial support is in place for workers who need to self-isolate - including a £500 payment for those on the lowest incomes who have been contacted by NHS Test and Trace.\"\n\nFor more London news follow on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel.\n\nHave any of the issues raised in this article had an impact on you? You can share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This car was one of many turned away by police at Moel Famau on Saturday\n\nPeople are \"blatantly\" ignoring rules on lockdown restrictions despite repeated warnings, police have said.\n\nMore than 100 cars had been turned away from Moel Famau on the Flintshire border by Saturday lunchtime, with some driving past \"road closed\" signs.\n\nIn Snowdonia, Gwynedd, a warden said a group from Leicester would have \"probably ignored our advice\" if police had not arrived and told them to leave.\n\nLevel four restrictions mean travelling for exercise is not allowed in Wales.\n\nKeith Ellis, a warden at Pen y Pass in Snowdonia, said while it had been much quieter this weekend, people were still travelling, despite the restrictions.\n\n\"We've had three from Leicester first thing this morning and if the police hadn't turned up they would have probably ignored our advice and carried on up the mountain,\" he said.\n\n\"What they were wearing was totally inappropriate and they would have probably got into danger.\n\n\"We've had people also from Liverpool and some locals turning up knowing full well what the rules are, but just trying it on.\n\n\"Luckily there are a lot more police officers around and all these people have been spoken to and advised by the police as well.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by NWP Rural Crime Team /Tîm Troseddau Cefn Gwlad HGC This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA Welsh Government spokesman said: \"Cases of coronavirus are very high in Wales at the moment and there is a new strain of the virus circulating, which is highly infectious and moving quickly.\n\n\"At alert level four, exercise should always be undertaken from home, unless you have special circumstances which requires some flexibility - such as disability or autism.\n\n\"The more people gather, the greater the risk of spreading or catching the virus.\"", "A further 1,610 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the biggest figure reported in a single day since the pandemic began.\n\nIt means the total number of deaths by that measure is now above 90,000.\n\nA total of 4,266,577 people have now received the first dose of a vaccine, according to the latest government figures.\n\nAnother 33,355 positive Covid cases have been recorded - less than half the peak figure of 68,053 on 8 January.\n\nIt is the lowest number of daily cases seen since 27 December - before the start of England's third nationwide lockdown.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said: \"Whilst there are some early signs that show our sacrifices are working, we must continue to strictly abide by the measures in place.\"\n\nShe said reducing contact with others and staying at home will lead to \"a fall in the number of infections over time\".\n\nThe figures come as new estimates from the Office for National Statistics show about one in 10 people across the UK tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies in December - roughly double the October figure.\n\nThe rising number of deaths was to be expected, sadly, after the surge in cases during December.\n\nAnd it is likely that the coming weeks will see figures even higher than this.\n\nToday's numbers are, though, inflated by the fact that delays in registering deaths over the weekend tends to lead to higher figures being reported on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.\n\nOn average, the UK is recording more than 1,100 deaths a day.\n\nTo put that in context, at Christmas it was less than half of that.\n\nBut there are two rays of hope in the daily update.\n\nFirstly, the number of cases is below 40,000 for a third day in a row. Just two weeks ago we saw a few days above 60,000.\n\nThat means in the coming weeks we should start to see fewer people in hospital and eventually fewer deaths.\n\nThe number of vaccinations also continues to rise.\n\nIt seems unlikely the NHS will manage its target of two million doses a week just yet.\n\nBut each increase at least takes us one step closer to getting on top of the virus.\n\nMeanwhile, NHS England said 400 military personnel were now assisting in hospitals in London and the Midlands, as wards face \"unprecedented pressure\".\n\nOn Monday, Prof Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, said it would be \"some time\" before the vaccination programme begins to reduce pressures on hospitals.\n\nAnd in other developments, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he is self-isolating after being alerted by the UK's NHS Covid-19 app .that he had been in close contact with somebody who tested positive.\n\nHe said self-isolation was \"perhaps the most important part of all the social distancing\" and urged others to do the same if contacted.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Martin Freeborn's wife, Helen, died from Covid at the Royal London Hospital: 'Don't end up like us, please'\n\nThe previous highest number of daily deaths was last Wednesday, when 1,564 deaths were recorded.\n\nTuesday's figure brings the total number of deaths recorded during the pandemic in the UK to 91,470.\n\nThese government figures count people who died within 28 days of testing positive, but there are other ways of measuring the total number of deaths.\n\nAnother method is to count all deaths where coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate. That figure has now officially reached 95,829, although that is only measured up to 8 January.\n\nThe UK has recorded the fifth-highest number of deaths globally, according to Johns Hopkins University - behind the US, Brazil, India and Mexico.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer tweeted: \"British people are paying the price for the government's serial incompetence.\"", "In 2009, Spector was convicted of the 2003 murder of Hollywood actress Lana Clarkson\n\nThe BBC has apologised for the original headline in its reporting of the death of the convicted murderer Phil Spector.\n\nThe former music producer died on Saturday at the age of 81, while serving a prison sentence for the murder of Lana Clarkson in 2003.\n\nThe first version on the breaking news story on the BBC News website carried the headline: \"Talented but flawed producer Phil Spector dies aged 81\".\n\nThe BBC said the headline \"did not meet our editorial standards\".\n\nThe text was quickly changed to: \"Pop producer jailed for murder dies at 81.\"\n\n\"This was changed within minutes and we also deleted a tweet that had gone out automatically with the original headline,\" a statement issued by the BBC read.\n\n\"We apologise for this error.\"\n\n\"Our coverage of the story across BBC News has been clear that Phil Spector was convicted of the murder of Lana Clarkson and had a long history of violence and abuse,\" it continued.\n\nSpector was convicted of murdering Clarkson, an actress, in 2009.\n\nHis death was confirmed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.\n\nReacting to the original version of the BBC's story, pop star Lily Allen tweeted: \"Rolling eyes at all the journos deliberately downplaying Phil Spector being a murderer in their headlines, so everyone points this out while linking to their articles resulting in lots of clicks.\"\n\n\"How about 'Murderer, Phil Spector dies aged 81'?\" offered author and historian Hallie Rubenhold.\n\nThe headline was also discussed on TV and radio programmes on Monday, including Loose Women and Radio 4's Woman's Hour, and prompted an article in the Guardian.\n\nThe phrasing of the BBC's article - and others like it - were \"a reflection of how a man's 'genius' is often viewed as more important than a woman's humanity,\" said columnist Arwa Mahdawi.\n\nSpector, who transformed pop with his \"wall of sound\" recordings, worked with The Beatles, The Righteous Brothers and Tina Turner.\n\nBut after the commercial failure of Tina Turner's River Deep, Mountain High, he largely withdrew from public life, and entered a long decline, marked by erratic behaviour, heavy drinking, and a fondness for guns.\n\nHis turbulent marriage to Ronettes singer Veronica Bennett, known as Ronnie Spector, ended in divorce.\n\n\"Unfortunately Phil was not able to live and function outside of the recording studio,\" she wrote after his death was announced. \"Darkness set in, many lives were damaged.\"\n\nSinger Darlene Love, who sang on several songs Spector produced, said he \"changed the sound of rock 'n' roll\" but likened their relationship to \"a bad marriage\".\n\n\"The problem I have with Phil is that he wanted to control Darlene Love's talent,\" she told Variety. \"If he couldn't do that, he was going to do everything in his power to keep my talent from shining.\"\n\nWeeks before Lana Clarkson was shot dead, Spector gave a rare interview to British broadsheet The Telegraph.\n\n\"I would say I'm probably relatively insane, to an extent,\" he told the paper, adding that he had \"devils inside that fight me\".\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "In Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, residents have prepared their homes and businesses ahead of the heavy rain\n\nEmergency services in the north of England are preparing for widespread flooding caused by Storm Christoph.\n\nThe Environment Agency has warned of a \"volatile situation\" as heavy rain combines with melting snow, while police in South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester declared major incidents.\n\nAn amber rain warning is in place for Yorkshire, the North West, East Midlands and the east of England.\n\nA yellow rain warning was issued for the rest of the country.\n\nGreater Manchester Police Assistant Chief Constable Nick Bailey said the force had declared a major incident to ensure it was \"as prepared as possible\".\n\n\"The safety of the public is our number one priority and we're continuing to work alongside partner agencies across the region,\" he said.\n\nA government spokesperson said it had provided additional advice to local agencies to help them manage any evacuations and shelter provision in a Covid-secure way.\n\n\"The government has robust plans in place to support any areas affected by extreme weather this winter,\" they added.\n\nSandbags were laid in at-risk areas, with up to 70mm (2.75in) of rain due.\n\nIn isolated spots, particularly in the northern Peak District and parts of the southern Pennines, 200mm (7.87in) could be possible.\n\nNorthern Rail said buses were being used instead of trains on services between Bolton and Blackburn due to flooding at Darwen.\n\nSome motorists attempted to drive through floodwater on Derby Road in Hathern, Leicestershire\n\nIn the amber warning area, the Met Office said there was a \"danger to life\" due to fast-flowing or deep floodwater, and told some communities they might be \"cut off\" by flooded roads.\n\nIt also predicted delays and cancellations to public transport, with the amber warning in place until 12:00 GMT on Thursday.\n\nRos Jones, mayor of Doncaster, said key risk areas had been inspected over the past 36 hours, with the delivery of sandbags continuing on Tuesday.\n\n\"I do not want people to panic, but flooding is possible so please be prepared,\" she said.\n\nResidents of Fishlake, South Yorkshire, which saw severe flooding hit 160 homes and businesses in November 2019, said they felt much better prepared this time round.\n\nFlood warden and parish councillor Peter Trimingham said the arrival of sandbags had been a welcome sight.\n\n\"It gives us confidence,\" he said.\n\nResidents in Fishlake, near Doncaster, say they are better prepared than when flooding hit in 2019\n\nMr Trimingham added: \"We're absolutely hoping it doesn't rise to the same level. But, if it does, we're reasonably comfortable we've still got a chance because the Environment Agency have done tremendous work here along with Doncaster Council.\"\n\nHe said new defences had been built and their team of flood wardens had been expanded to 22 people.\n\nOn Yarlborough Terrace in Bentley, Doncaster, many residents were out of their homes for months after the 2019 floods.\n\nAnna Booth, 37, who was forced to live in a caravan on her drive, said residents were worried about it happening again.\n\n\"Being in the pandemic doesn't help either. Morale's a bit down but I think we'll all pull together again like last time,\" she said.\n\n\"It breaks your heart, it's really sad, but we can't stop the weather.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Environment Agency issued more than 30 flood warnings, meaning flooding is expected and immediate action required, covering parts of Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Merseyside, Staffordshire and Northamptonshire as of 03:00 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nThere are also more than 150 flood alerts, meaning flooding is possible, issued across northern England, the Midlands and the east.\n\nRiver levels in the Ouse, which flows through York in North Yorkshire, are high before the arrival of Storm Christoph\n\nCatherine Wright, acting executive director for flood and coastal risk management at the Environment Agency, said: \"That rain is falling on very wet ground and so we are very concerned that it's a very volatile situation and we are expecting significant flooding to occur on the back of that weather.\"\n\nShe said the agency would be working with local authorities to help with evacuation efforts should a severe flood warning be issued, adding: \"If you do need to evacuate then that is allowed within the Covid rules.\"\n\nWork took place on Tuesday morning to increase defences near the River Ouse\n\nDiscussing the different levels of flood warnings, she said: \"If you receive a flood alert, please pack valuables like medicines and insurance documents in a bag ready to go.\n\n\"If you receive a flood warning, please move valuables and precious possessions upstairs and be ready to turn off gas, electricity and water.\n\n\"If you receive a severe flood warning, which means you will be evacuated, please listen out and take heed of the advice from the local emergency services.\"\n\nSandbags have been used to help defend homes in Fishlake, Doncaster, which suffered devastating floods in November 2019\n\nBarry Greenwood, from the Upper Calder Valley Flood Prevention Group in West Yorkshire, has been \"sick\" with worry.\n\n\"I went round after the last [flood], people were there with their heads in their hands, thinking 'what am I going to do now?',\" he said.\n\nFlood sirens were sounded in Walsden on Tuesday evening after a flood warning was issued for the area.\n\nIn a tweet, Calderdale Council asked residents to put their flood plan into action and move valuables to a safe place.\n\n\"River levels across the Upper River Calder have risen and are now approaching levels where we expect properties to flood,\" it warned.\n\nEarlier it had said staff were on standby to respond overnight.\n\nThe amber rain warning is in place until Thursday, with yellow warnings covering most of the UK coming in over the next three days\n\nA yellow rain alert is also in place for Wales, Northern Ireland, central and northern England and southern Scotland on Tuesday.\n\nThis yellow warning extends to the rest of England from Wednesday, with a yellow alert for snow and ice in north east Scotland.\n\nHighways England advised drivers to take extra care on motorways and major A roads, while the RAC breakdown service said motorists should only drive if absolutely necessary.\n\nDrivers faced wet road conditions and reduced visibility on the A1(M) near Boston Spa, West Yorkshire, on Tuesday morning\n\nHebden Bridge's volunteer flood warden Keith Crabtree has been monitoring the river levels of Hebden Beck closely\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sheku Bayoh death: Eyewitness says stamping attack on officer 'never happened'\n\nTwo police officers involved in the death of a black man they were restraining may have provided false statements, the BBC can reveal.\n\nThey said Sheku Bayoh carried out a stamping attack on a female PC before he was brought to the ground and restrained by up to six officers.\n\nBut now an eyewitness has spoken publicly for the first time about the 2015 incident.\n\nHe told a Panorama investigation that the stamping attack \"never happened\".\n\nThe Scottish Police Federation said its officers had cooperated truthfully with investigators.\n\nMr Bayoh, a 31-year-old father of two, died in the incident in the Fife town of Kirkcaldy in 2015.\n\nA public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death has recently got under way. One of its tasks is to examine whether his race was a factor.\n\nSheku Bayoh was restrained on the ground for five minutes before falling unconscious\n\nOn the night of 2 May 2015, Sheku Bayoh had taken drugs, which friends said dramatically altered his behaviour.\n\nPolice were called early the following morning after he was spotted behaving erratically with a knife in the streets of his home town.\n\nAccording to police statements, by the time the officers arrived at the scene Mr Bayoh no longer had the knife but he failed to obey instructions to get down on the ground.\n\nEach of the officers used force on Mr Bayoh within seconds of encountering him, including CS Spray and batons.\n\nHe then punched PC Nicole Short, who went to the ground.\n\nTwo officers, PCs Craig Walker and Ashley Tomlinson, would later tell investigators that Mr Bayoh then carried out a violent stamping attack on PC Short while she lay on the ground, a claim reported widely in the media.\n\nThe stamping attack was widely reported in the newspapers\n\nPC Walker told investigators: \"I had a clear view of him… he had his arms raised up at right angles to his body and brought his right foot down in a full-force stamp on to her lower back.\"\n\nPC Tomlinson said: \"I thought he had killed her. He stomped on her back again.\"\n\nNow, evidence obtained by Panorama suggests these accounts may be false.\n\nMr Bayoh was restrained on the ground for five minutes before falling unconscious. He was pronounced dead at hospital a short time later.\n\nA post-mortem examination report revealed 23 separate injuries to Mr Bayoh's body, including a broken rib and gashes to his head. The cause of death was recorded as \"sudden death in a man intoxicated [with drugs] whilst under restraint\".\n\nIn 2018, the Crown Office in Scotland decided there would be no prosecutions against any officers involved.\n\nKevin Nelson gave evidence to investigators two days after the incident\n\nKevin Nelson was in a nearby house and saw events unfold over a garden hedge.\n\nHe gave his account to investigators from Pirc (Police Investigations and Review Commissioner), which investigates deaths in custody, two days after the incident.\n\nSpeaking publicly for the first time, Mr Nelson told Panorama he saw Mr Bayoh attempt to walk away from the officers, ignoring their commands, before being sprayed with CS spray. He said Mr Bayoh retaliated and punched PC Short.\n\nAsked if there had been any further contact with PC Short, he said, \"No. He was running off… after the punch, there was no more attack on her at all.\"\n\nMr Nelson said Mr Bayoh ran off from where PC Short went down and was quickly intercepted by the other officers.\n\nAsked about PC Walker's claim that Mr Bayoh had \"his arms raised up… and brought his right foot down in a full force stamp\", Mr Nelson said: \"That never happened. I didn't see him stamping at all or, other than the punch, any raised arms.\n\n\"After the punch, that was it. There was no more attack on her at all. That's not right.\"\n\nThe officers provided their accounts to investigators 32 days after Mr Bayoh's death.\n\nMr Nelson said no-one from Pirc returned to ask about the discrepancy between their account and his.\n\nThe eyewitness said he decided to speak out because it was unfair on Mr Bayoh's family that the officers had \"made the incident worse than it actually was to justify what had happened and… that's not right\".\n\nMr Nelson's account is supported by CCTV footage of the incident, obtained by the BBC.\n\nIt is poor quality but appears to show that once PC Short is knocked down by Mr Bayoh, the action moves away from her, and he is brought down within five seconds.\n\nPC Short did not mention in her statement she had been stamped on. Now retired, she later said she was unsure if she was conscious, and only learned about the alleged stamping attack when her colleagues told her about it afterwards.\n\nIn the CCTV, PC Short appears to get to her feet a few seconds after Mr Bayoh is brought down.\n\nMike Franklin says conflicts of evidence should have been resolved\n\nMike Franklin, former commissioner for the body which investigated police complaints in England and Wales, looked at Panorama's evidence.\n\nHe said: \"I think there's nothing more serious than a police officer who gives false information in an investigation where somebody has died. So without accusing them of lying, I simply say that there's a big conflict.\n\n\"Two officers who were there say that it did happen. The person to whom it happened didn't mention it. And an eyewitness says it didn't happen.\n\n\"I would've been reluctant to sign off the investigation as complete, without resolving those… conflicts of evidence.\"\n\nMr Bayoh's sister, Kadi Johnson, told Panorama the new allegations had made her \"really angry\".\n\nShe said the way her brother was \"painted\" by the accounts given after his death was not who he was.\n\nMr Bayoh's sister, Kadi Johnson, said the new allegations had made her really angry\n\nA spokesman for the Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said serving officers were unable to comment on matters \"to which they may be called upon to give sworn evidence\" but that they had \"co-operated fully and truthfully with the investigations that have taken place\".\n\nIt added it had seen \"compelling material that Mr Bayoh did violently stamp on the back of a policewoman as she lay unconscious\".\n\nThe BBC asked for this material to be produced but was told the inquiry was the \"proper forum\" for such matters.\n\nThe Crown Office, which directed the Pirc Inquiry, told Panorama it had examined \"eye-witness accounts of police and civilian witnesses\" and instructed \"appropriate investigation\".\n\nIt said after careful consideration it was decided there should be no prosecutions but reserved the right to prosecute should evidence become available.\n\nPirc told Panorama its investigation was \"detailed and extensive\" but could not comment further because of the public inquiry.\n\nPolice Scotland Chief Constable Iain Livingstone expressed his condolences to the Bayoh family and said the force would \"participate fully\" in the inquiry.\n\nKevin Clarke died after being restrained in London by up to nine officers\n\nPanorama's \"I Can't Breathe: Black and Dead in Custody\" also investigates the case of Kevin Clarke, 35, who died in 2018 after being restrained in London by up to nine officers.\n\nAn inquest into his death resulted in a damning verdict on the police and ambulance services.\n\nMr Clarke's sister Tellecia told the programme that if the officers \"hadn't used excessive force he would still be here today… treat him like a human being, and not just see him as a big scary black man\".\n\nMetropolitan Police Commander Bas Javid apologised to Mr Clarke's family and accepted the restraint had not been appropriate.", "Protests against China's alleged abuse of the Muslim Uighur community\n\nThe government has narrowly seen off a rebellion by 33 Tory MPs, who want to outlaw trade deals with countries judged to be committing genocide.\n\nMPs voted by 319 to 308 to remove an amendment to the Trade Bill which would have forced ministers to withdraw from deals with nations the UK High Court ruled guilty of mass killings.\n\nIt comes amid condemnation of China's treatment of the Uighur people.\n\nThe rebels believe they have enough support to secure another vote soon.\n\nAmong those to defy the government were ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, former cabinet ministers David Davis and Damian Green and Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.\n\nThe rebellion is one of the largest on an issue not related to the Covid-19 pandemic during Boris Johnson's time as prime minister.\n\nThe government has a Commons majority of 80 but this was whittled down to just 11 as prominent ex-ministers such as Tobias Ellwood, Caroline Nokes and Nusrat Ghani, as well as a number of MPs first elected last year, sided with the opposition.\n\nMPs have been debating proposals, tabled by cross-bench peer Lord Alton, to give British courts the right to decide if a country is committing genocide, a decision currently left to the jurisdiction of international courts.\n\nThe proposals, also backed by Labour, would mean that ministers would have to revoke post-Brexit trade deals with countries that were ruled to be carrying out systematic mass killings.\n\nThe issue is expected to resurface when the Trade Bill returns to the House of Lords.\n\nEarlier on Tuesday, Conservative rebels, led by former leader Iain Duncan Smith, were unable to force a vote on a separate amendment they had proposed.\n\nEvery speaker in today's debate - from the front and back benches - said genocide was abhorrent. The worst of crimes. There was united criticism of China's brutal treatment of the Uighurs too.\n\nBut the question Parliament has been wrestling with is whether the High Court should have the right to decide if a country is committing genocide. And if they did judge a country has been carrying out mass killings, should the High Court be able to compel the government to revoke any trade treaty it has with that country?\n\nMinisters insist it should be the job of elected governments, not judges, to determine trade policy. But opposition parties and a large cohort of Tory backbenchers argue it's essential the High Court can rule on genocide and ensure the UK's new trade-making freedom has an obligation to uphold human rights too.\n\nThis also is an argument about where power lies after Brexit and what role Parliament should have in shaping trade policy after decades in the EU.\n\nBut BBC Newsnight political editor Nick Watt said that by securing large, but not overwhelming, support for Lord Alton's amendment in the Commons, the rebels hope the government will accept Mr Duncan Smith's own amendment - which would give the Commons the right to debate whether trade deals can be halted if genocide is proven.\n\nThe debate came as the US government formally declared that China was committing genocide in its repression of Uighur muslims in Xinjiang.\n\nThe UK government has been critical of China's treatment of the Uighurs and last week announced measures to cut UK business links with forced labour camps in the region.\n\nBut some MPs suspect the government is pulling its punches to avoid antagonising Beijing.\n\nMr Duncan Smith said the debate was \"all about simply shining a light of hope to all those out there who have failed to get their day in court and failed to be treated properly\".\n\n\"If this country doesn't stand up for that then I want to know what would it ever stand up for again?,\" he added.\n\nBut Trade Minister Greg Hands said it was unprecedented and unacceptable to give the courts powers to revoke trade deals agreed by elected governments.\n\nAnd he argued that no one would benefit from the proposal because the UK currently had no free trade deal with China.", "Lisbet Stone is stranded at Madrid Airport due to having an out-of-date coronavirus test result\n\nPassenger Lisbet Stone says she is stuck in Madrid Airport after airline officials said her coronavirus test result was out of date.\n\nFrom Monday, travellers arriving in the UK, whether by boat, train or plane, have to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test to be allowed entry.\n\nThe test must be taken in the three days before travelling.\n\nFor those with connecting flights, the test must be 72 hours before your final departure point to England.\n\nAnyone arriving without one faces a fine of up to £500.\n\nMrs Stone originally travelled to Cuba in February 2020 to see family. The British Cuban dual national was unable to fly home to the UK when Cuba closed its borders in March.\n\nThe family say she had several previous flights cancelled before finally being able to leave this weekend. She hasn't been able to see her four children or her husband Trevor in 11 months.\n\nThe government are understood to be speaking to Air Europa to try to get Mrs Stone home. Carriers have been told that they should permit stranded passengers to board and will not be fined for doing so.\n\nWhile Mrs Stone has been caught out by the new restrictions for incoming travellers, the first day of the new regulations appeared to go smoothly.\n\nMrs Stone left Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba, on Sunday night to fly back to the UK via Madrid.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Coronavirus: How to fly during a global pandemic (this video reflects the rules before the hotel quarantine was introduced in the UK)\n\nShe took a Covid test on Thursday to be guaranteed a result by Saturday. It was negative and Mrs Stone was able to board the plane from Cuba.\n\nHowever, on arrival at Madrid-Barajas Airport, Mrs Stone says she was stopped from boarding the next leg of her journey to London Gatwick by Air Europa staff, because her test had been taken more than 72 hours before the final flight.\n\n\"She's crying her eyes out,\" says Trevor Stone, her husband. \"I feel absolutely helpless. She doesn't have any Euros as she wasn't meant to stay in Spain. The authorities have given her no help whatsoever, we are just trying to understand what to do.\n\n\"She took her test 72 hours before the start of her journey, but had to take a connecting flight onwards. There would be no other way to do it, it is not physically possible.\"\n\nIn the meantime, Mr Stone says he has been home-schooling their four children on his own through the pandemic.\n\nTrevor Stone (left) has been caring for the couple's four children on his own for 11 months since Lisbet Stone was unable to leave Cuba\n\n\"We are just desperate to get her home - I'm so worried about her and after 11 months, she really wants to see her children,\" he added. \"We haven't done anything wrong, I don't know what to do or who to turn to.\"\n\nA Department for Transport spokesman said: \"Passengers travelling to the UK must provide proof of a negative coronavirus test which meets the performance standards set out by the government in the guidance published on gov.uk.\n\n\"The type of test could include a PCR test or antigen test, including a lateral flow test. Anyone who cannot provide the necessary documentation may not be allowed to board their flight.\"\n\nAir Europa and Madrid Airport have been approached by the BBC for comment.", "US tariffs have hit the Scotch whisky industry hard\n\nThe UK and US have failed to do a much hoped for \"mini-deal\" over trade in the last days of the Trump administration.\n\nThere were hopes the US would lift tariffs on imports of Scotch whisky and cashmere imposed last year as part of the Boeing-Airbus trade dispute.\n\nBut those duties will now stay in place while President-elect Biden awaits confirmation of his trade team.\n\nThe talks were revealed in a BBC interview with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in December.\n\nAt the time he said he was hopeful that he and his UK counterpart, International Trade Secretary Liz Truss, could \"get some kind of an agreement out\".\n\nBut the BBC understands that a broad offer from the US was rejected last week by the UK after concerns were expressed by the Business Department about the impact on Airbus' business in the UK.\n\nSince 2019, the EU and US have both imposed tariffs on each others' goods amid a long-running trade dispute between the planemakers Boeing and Airbus.\n\nThe tariffs centre on a long-running dispute between Boeing and Airbus\n\nEarlier last month the UK's Trade Department announced it would unilaterally break from the EU's position of levying tariffs on imports of Boeing aeroplanes, after the end of the Brexit transition period.\n\nIt was, said Ms Truss, an attempt to create goodwill to solve the 16-year old dispute.\n\nBut the UK aerospace industry was furious with what it saw as the government reneging on promises made in early 2020 to support Airbus in the dispute, even after Brexit.\n\nThese concerns were the main block to a deal, but the chaos in Washington DC over the past week also played a part.\n\nThe US was also looking for tariffs on its exports of bourbon to the UK - part of a separate trade dispute over steel - to be settled.\n\nA government source said: \"Ultimately we came close to resolving an intractable 16-year dispute, but didn't quite get there. Any deal must be balanced and work for the whole UK and all of UK industry.\"\n\nThey added: \"No one has fought harder on this than Liz, and she's going to continue pushing it with the Biden administration. She absolutely understands the pain of affected businesses and is determined to get these tariffs lifted and support jobs.\"\n\nThe source said the government had pursued a \"clear de-escalation strategy\" with the Trump administration over the dispute which meant it had avoided being hit with further US tariffs, unlike the EU.\n\nMs Truss still hopes to settle the dispute quickly and has committed to meet Katherine Tai, the new US Trade Representative, in Washington DC as soon as she assumes office, the source added.\n\nKaren Betts, head of the Scotch Whisky Association, said her industry was \"very frustrated\" a deal was not reached.\n\n\"There is deep disappointment across the Scotch whisky industry that distillers are still paying the price for an aerospace dispute that has nothing to do with us.\n\n\"The tariff on single malt Scotch whisky, now in place for 15 months, has caused us to lose over £450m in exports to the US, and our losses continue to mount.\"", "Marion Dawson is the third oldest person in Scotland to be given the vaccine.\n\nA 108-year-old woman has received the Covid vaccination on her birthday.\n\nMarion Dawson, from Houston in Renfrewshire, is the third oldest person in Scotland to be given the vaccine.\n\nShe received her jab at Houston and Killellan Kirk, which is being used by the local GP surgery to deliver vaccinations to the community.\n\nBorn in 1913, Mrs Dawson has lived through two world wars and the Spanish flu pandemic.\n\nDr Diane Fisher, who gave the injection said: \"We are so excited to be starting vaccinations of our over-80s, and that our first patient to be vaccinated is doing so on her birthday.\"\n\nMrs Dawson is the most senior person in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde to be given the vaccine.\n\nAfter receiving her injection, she said: \"I'm glad it's passed. I never felt a thing.\"\n\nKirk minister, Rev Gary Noonan said: \"Mrs Dawson is a local treasure in Houston, until the lockdown she never missed a week at church.\n\n\"It's fitting she can get her vaccine in the Kirk, a place she loves.\"\n\nDr Mark Storey, partner at Strathgryffe Medical Practice, added: \"It's been a very difficult year in general practice and society as a whole.\n\n\"In our practice we have a family of 10,000 patients, so we are delighted to start vaccinating, especially with Mrs Dawson.\"", "The pace of Europe's Covid-19 vaccination campaign has picked up and in many countries infection rates have been falling.\n\nLockdowns are gradually being eased as the summer tourist season gets under way, and there are plans for an EU-wide digital vaccination certificate to be in place by 1 July.\n\nNationwide curfew ended on 20 June, 10 days earlier than planned. Face masks are no longer required outdoors.\n\nRestaurants, cafes and bars can serve customers indoors, with 50% capacity and up to six people per table.\n\nStanding concerts will resume on 30 June and nightclubs on 9 July (with 75% capacity). People attending will need a health pass which shows either full vaccination, a negative test within the previous 72 hours, or else a previous coronavirus infection.\n\nMedical grade masks are compulsory in shops and on public transport.\n\nFrom 30 June, working from home will no longer be compulsory.\n\nOn 21 June, Italy's curfew was scrapped and the whole country, except for the northwest region of Valle d'Aosta, became \"white zone\" - the country's lowest-risk category.\n\nAmong the measures still in place are social distancing (1m) and the wearing of masks indoors (and in crowded outdoor places), and a ban on house parties and large gathering.\n\nNightclubs and discos are also closed.\n\nAll indoor businesses, with the exception of nightclubs, are open.\n\nThe government introduced a \"corona pass\" in April, the first to do so in Europe.\n\nThis shows - either on a phone or on paper - that you have been vaccinated, previously infected or that you have had a negative test within 72 hours.\n\nPeople need to show it for entry to cinemas, museums, hairdressers or indoor dining.\n\nThe Greek government is welcoming tourists from many countries, if they are fully vaccinated or can provide a negative coronavirus test.\n\nFace coverings must be worn in all public places and there is a curfew from 01:30-05:00, but bars, restaurants, museums and archaeological sites are all open.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Greek island of Milos is aiming to become \"Covid-free\" so it can welcome back tourists\n\nCinemas, theatres, museums and restaurants are open at 50% capacity. From 26 June, this increases to 75%.\n\nNightclubs and discos will also be allowed to reopen, with a limit of 150 people.\n\nFace coverings must be worn in enclosed spaces and 1.5m social distancing observed.\n\nShops, bars, restaurants and museums are open, although face coverings remain compulsory in most public places.\n\nNightclubs can now reopen in parts of Spain with low infection rates.\n\nIn Barcelona, they are restricted to 50% of capacity and can stay open until 03:30 - dancers have to wear masks.\n\nSpain began welcoming vaccinated tourists from 7 June. Most European travellers still have to present a negative Covid test on arrival.\n\nBrussels: Outdoor dining resumed in Belgium on 8 May\n\nShops, cinemas, gyms, cafes and restaurants are open, with restrictions. Households can invite up to four people inside.\n\nFrom 1 July, working from home will no longer be mandatory, if the situation continues to improve.\n\nCultural performances, shows and sports competitions can also go ahead, with limited numbers, and more people will be allowed at weddings and other ceremonies and parties.\n\nPortugal has lifted many of its restrictions but face coverings must still be worn in indoor public spaces and some outdoor settings.\n\nBars and nightclubs remain closed, and it's illegal to drink alcohol outdoors in public places, except for pavement cafés and restaurants.\n\nAlcohol cannot be sold after 21:00 unless it is with a meal.\n\nRestaurants, cafes and cultural venues have to close at 01:00 and have capacity limits.\n\nA weekend travel ban is in force in the Lisbon area, starting at 15:00 on Friday, with residents only allowed to leave for essential journeys.\n\nIn Lisbon and in Albufeira (Algarve), cafes, restaurants and non-essential shops have to close by 15:30 at the weekend and 22:30 on weekdays.\n\nPortugal's summer season looks uncertain, yet its Covid figures have improved\n\nRestaurants, cafes, museums and historic buildings have reopened with capacity limits.\n\nFrom 26 June, a number of restrictions are being lifted.\n\nAlcohol can be sold after 22:00, and nightclubs can open, with an entry pass system.\n\nEvents held in public venues such as cinemas, conference centres and concert halls will be allowed, subject to social distancing.\n\nMasks will no longer be compulsory except on public transport, airports and in secondary schools.\n\nOutdoor services in restaurants and bars returned in June. Theme parks, funfairs, cinemas and theatres, gyms and swimming pools, have reopened as well.\n\nFrom 5 July, restaurants and bars will be able to serve customers indoors. Weddings and other indoor events for up to 50 people will be permitted and the numbers at outdoor organised events will increase.\n\nSince June, pubs have been able to stay open until 22:30 and more people are now allowed at sports events, outdoor concerts, cinemas and markets.\n\nOn 1 July, limits on private gatherings will be raised, and the recommendation to interact with a small circle of people removed.\n\nFurther easing is planned on 15 July and in September.", "'Paul' was accused of committing a domestic burglary in June 2018.\n\nIn early 2019 he was told by police that no further action would be taken against him. However, he was subsequently charged.\n\nLast week - over two years since the alleged offence - he appeared at Inner London Crown Court.\n\nBut his barrister told the court that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had still not served the sole evidence - DNA - in the case on the defence.\n\nPaul (not his real name) is on bail and had his trial put on provisional \"warned\" list - for December 2021.\n\nIt means there is no guarantee it will take place at that time - just that it might.\n\nThe judge explained apologetically that priority is being given to cases where defendants are being held in custody.\n\nSo, three and a half-years from the date of the alleged offence, there has been no justice for the alleged burglary victim - or the accused.\n\nPaul's was one of a number of cases I saw on a visit to Inner London with the chair of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) James Mulholland QC. He told me it was typical.\n\n\"This is justice 2020, but it has been like this for the last 10 years, delay after delay, inbuilt into the system. These cases are being pushed back continuously.\n\n\"Lack of investment is at the heart of it and government needs to understand that you don't create a proper justice system without proper investment.\n\n\"What we are seeing here are the fruits of a lack of interest.\"\n\nThat apparent \"lack of interest\" is reflected in the state of some court buildings. Outside Inner London I saw a dead pigeon decaying on netting, vast weeds growing up the side of the building and old pipes leaking water.\n\nMeanwhile, a court official told me that some court centres are now listing trials for 2023.\n\nThe delays are caused by a range of factors.\n\nLawyers point to huge cuts to the police, CPS and other agencies such as probation.\n\nThere are a range of things malfunctioning within the system. They include long initial delays caused by police \"releasing suspects under investigation\" - sometimes for years - before a charging decision is made.\n\nSystemic problems continue with the CPS serving evidence late on the defence, meaning lawyers cannot advise their clients in a timely manner.\n\nAnd perhaps most significantly - the decisions by government to cut thousands of crown court sitting days. That has meant that courts have been mothballed while trials stack up in a growing backlog.\n\nNone of these problems are caused by the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown, but they are of course exacerbated by it. Pre-lockdown the crown court backlog in England and Wales stood at some 37,000.\n\n\"Adam\" - not his real name - was accused of rape in March 2018. He denies the charge. His trial has been put back twice, once because of the pandemic.\n\nHe is now on a \"warned\" list for November, while his chosen career in one of the public services is on hold.\n\n\"I have suffered really bad with my mental health through it,\" he says. \"I've had to up my dosage of anti-depressants. It's affected my potential career.\n\n\"The hard work I have done at university and everything to get me there it's all basically going out of the window now. I haven't got any trust or hope that it will be anywhere near the end of this year.\n\n\"I think it will be more like April next year.\"\n\nThe next case I saw involved two young men charged with possession of drugs with intent to supply. The alleged offence took place in December 2017.\n\nNo one in court could explain the delay.\n\nIt was followed by a case in which the judge needed a pre-sentence report from the probation service in order to sentence the defendant. Despite repeated requests, no one was available.\n\nIn order to achieve a conclusion of the case, the judge had to devise a sentence which did not require a report. It was not ideal, but it showed professionals trying to do their best in the face of a lack of resources.\n\n\"Defendants are suspended from their jobs with trial dates one to two years away. Some are losing university places with dates from the alleged offence to trial of four years.\n\n\"And some who are awaiting trial for 18-24 months on bail, can be on electronic tagged curfew from 7-7 every day, for up to two years.\"\n\nTo help deal with the situation, the government has announced that the period of time an accused person can be held before a trial - known as the Custody Time Limit (CTL) - will be increased from six to eight months.\n\nBut the government admitted - in response to a Freedom of Information request from the group Fair Trials - that it did not know how many people had been held in prison beyond the time limit since lockdown.\n\nLawyers fear some accused will spend more time in custody awaiting trial than the sentence they would eventually receive if they pleaded guilty - and that some might falsely plead guilty simply to bring an end to their case.\n\nLife is bleak for those in custody awaiting trial, says Ms Fenn,\n\n\"There are often no visits from family or in-person visits from lawyers. Defendants can be locked up for 23.5 hours a day, education classes and courses are suspended, jobs within the prison restricted, and there are reports of showers being limited to 1-2 a week.\"\n\nCovid has also removed a \"huge amount of mental health, drug and alcohol agency support\", she says.\n\nA Ministry of Justice spokesperson said justice had been kept moving \"despite the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic\" and overall, cases are falling.\n\nHowever, they acknowledged that \"more needs to be done\".\n\nThe government has launched an £80 million Criminal Courts Recovery plan which includes:\n\nHowever, only three of the new Nightingale Courts are dealing with crime.\n\nI visited one, Prospero House, a short walk from Inner London. It is a state of the art commercial building with three large courtrooms allowing ample room for social distancing. Every desk has hand sanitiser and protective gloves.\n\nBut Mr Mulholland says: \"We need 60 criminal Nightingale Court buildings. At the moment we have just three.\"\n\nThe CBA says there are around 460 crown courtrooms in England and Wales. Currently around 100 are able to hear trials, though not all are hosting them.\n\nThe government says its plan will bring on stream another 250 of the existing rooms to hear jury trials by the end of October. The CBA believes that simply will not cut into the backlog.\n\nLawyers believe that the Treasury has long seen justice as a poor relation to health and education in terms of public spending.\n\n\"Investing in the criminal justice system is investing in the wealth and prosperity of the country,\" says Mr Mulholland.\n\n\"It is an empty and insulting promise for any minister to declare a war on crime if a government can't fund a system that keeps us safe - and ensures crimes are swiftly investigated and cases come to court on time.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Aerial footage shows the 130-car pile-up on the Tohoku Expressway\n\nA huge snowstorm has struck a highway in Japan, causing a 130-vehicle pile-up, killing one person and injuring 10.\n\nThe storm blanketed a stretch of the Tohoku Expressway in Miyagi prefecture at around noon (03:00 GMT) on Tuesday.\n\nSome 200 people have been caught up in the pile-up and rescuers are currently at the scene, officials said.\n\nJapan has been hit by severe snow storms in recent weeks with some parts of the country seeing double the average expected snowfall.\n\nImages from the expressway in the north of the country show the sheer scale of the pile-up.\n\nOne person died and at least 10 were injured after the vehicles collided\n\nAuthorities had already enforced a 50km/h (31mph) speed limit on the road due to visibility.\n\nThere was a maximum wind speed of about 100km/h (62mph) at the time of the incident, local weather officials said.\n\nThose who were involved have been given drinking water and food, and have been provided with blankets to keep warm, NHK News reports (in Japanese).\n\nThose stuck behind the vehicles have been given food, water and blankets\n\nThe snow has affected some of Japan's high-speed railway network, with a number of train services in the Tohoku region cancelled.\n\nAccording to local media, the region is expected to record up to 40cm (15 inches) of snow in the next 24 hours.\n\nThe country has been experiencing a large amount of snowfall this winter.\n\nLast month, heavy snow left more than 1,000 vehicles stranded on the Kanetsu expressway for two days.\n\nThe weather was so bad that an emergency meeting was called and the country's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga called on members of the public to be cautious.", "Pupils are currently learning remotely from home\n\nSchools in England may reopen region by region after half term, the government's deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries has said.\n\nSpeaking to the Commons education committee, Dr Harries suggested there would be different rates of infection across the country when lockdown ends.\n\nThis would mean a \"differential application\" of restrictive measures would be required, she said.\n\nSchools were closed at the start of January to stem the spread of Covid-19.\n\nAlthough schools remain open to vulnerable children and those of keyworkers, all others are due to learn remotely from home until after the February half term holiday.\n\nBut the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has suggested they may not return fully then.\n\nA Department for Education spokesperson said the department was continuing to keep plans for the return to school under review and that it would inform schools, parents and pupils of the plans ahead of February half term.\n\nCommittee chairman Robert Halfon said he suspected schools would be closed for quite \"a few weeks yet\", but there has been no formal confirmation of this.\n\nMedical and science advisers were warning the government before Christmas that the NHS would not be able to manage the number of Covid-19 cases if schools remained open.\n\nThe new, more transmissible variant of the virus had been increasing exponentially in London and the south-east before Christmas.\n\nBut in some parts of the north and north-east saw rates of increase were reducing.\n\nDr Harries said: \"It is highly likely that when we come out of this national lockdown we will not have consistent patterns of infection in our communities across the country.\n\n\"And therefore, as we had prior to the national lockdown, it may well be possible that we need to have some differential application.\"\n\nBut Dr Harries said schools would be at the top of the priority to ensure that the balance of education and wellbeing were \"right at the forefront\" of consideration.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries says schools in England might reopen ''region by region''\n\nGeoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: \"Although the government intends that schools will fully reopen after the February half-term holiday, it is clearly in the balance when this happens and whether there will be any sort of regional approach.\n\n\"We expect that it will depend on coronavirus infection rates and the pressure on the NHS, and that the government will make a call on this issue nearer the time.\n\n\"What is important is that when schools fully reopen, everything possible is done to keep them open and to keep disruption to a minimum.\n\n\"This is why we are calling for education staff to be prioritised for vaccinations as soon as possible, and for schools to be given more support in the use of rapid turnaround mass testing.\"\n\nPaul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said if the government was planning to stagger opening of schools by region, it needed to \"provide clarity sooner rather than later\".\n\n\"This will give vital time to prepare for a smoother reopening of schools and business,\" he said.\n\nOn calls for vaccination of teachers, Dr Harries suggested the safe re-opening of schools did not depend on this.\n\nBut members of the committee suggested education would be less disrupted by teachers needing to go home and isolate when infected.\n\nThe vaccination programme had been worked out in order of vulnerability to the disease, she stressed.\n\nAnd Dr Harries added that although pupils could and did transmit the virus, she did not have evidence of them being \"a significant driver\" of \"large-scale community infections\".", "The publication of a letter from the Duchess of Sussex to her father was a \"triple-barrelled invasion\" of her privacy, the High Court has been told.\n\nMeghan is suing the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online over articles that reproduced parts of the private handwritten letter.\n\nShe claims her privacy and copyright were breached by the newspaper group.\n\nHer lawyers are asking for summary judgement - a dismissal of Associated Newspapers' defence instead of a trial.\n\nMeghan's lawyers argue Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) has \"no prospect\" of defending the privacy and copyright claims being brought against them.\n\nThey claim the publication of extracts from the private, handwritten letter to Thomas Markle was \"self-evidently... highly intrusive\".\n\nMeghan, 39, sent the letter to her father in August 2018, following her marriage to Prince Harry in May that year, which Mr Markle did not attend. The couple are now living in the US with their son Archie.\n\nThe five articles, published in February 2019, were a \"triple-barrelled invasion\" of the duchess's privacy, correspondence and family, the lawyers claim.\n\nMr Markle said in a witness statement provided to the remote hearing, which started on Tuesday, that he wanted the letter published to \"set the record straight\" about his relationship with his daughter - but one of Meghan's lawyers described this claim as \"ridiculous\".\n\nMeghan is seeking damages from the newspaper group for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act over the articles.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Sussex now live in the US with their son\n\nHer lawyers told the court the letter was written in sorrow rather than anger and was an attempt to get her father to stop talking to the press.\n\nBut the newspaper group said in its response to the court that Meghan had written the letter \"with a view to it being disclosed publicly at some future point\" in order to \"defend her against charges of being an uncaring or unloving daughter\".\n\nIn written submissions, the newspaper group's barrister Antony White said \"she must, at the very least, have appreciated that her father might choose to disclose it\" and pointed out that the Kensington Palace communications team had been shown the letter before it was sent.\n\n\"No truly private letter from daughter to father would require any input from the Kensington Palace communications team,\" said Mr White.\n\nBut Meghan's lawyers also pointed out the articles themselves had emphasised the private nature of the correspondence - and dismissed any argument that it was in the public interest for the newspaper to reproduce the letter, saying the public interest was at the \"very end of the bottom end of the scale\".\n\nJustin Rushbrooke, representing the duchess, described the handwritten letter as \"a heartfelt plea from an anguished daughter to her father\".\n\nHe said the \"contents and character of the letter were intrinsically private, personal and sensitive in nature\" and that Meghan \"had a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of the contents of the letter\".\n\nThe effect of publishing the letter was \"self-evidently likely to be devastating for the claimant\", said Mr Rushbrooke.\n\nThe barrister argued that, even if ANL was justified in publishing parts of the letter, \"on any view the defendant published far more by way of extracts from the letter than could have been justified in the public interest\".\n\nMr White said that the newspaper group would argue that Meghan's status as a member of the royal family was relevant to the case.\n\nIn response to that point, Mr Rushbrooke said: \"Yes, she is in some senses a public figure, but that does not reduce her expectation of privacy in relation to information of this kind.\"\n\nIn Thomas Markle's evidence, he said the letter \"signalled the end\" of his relationship with his daughter, and instead of a reconciliation attempt, the letter was a \"criticism\" of him.\n\nHe said that he had to \"defend himself\" against an article in People magazine. It carried an interview with a \"long-time friend\" of his daughter, who suggested Meghan sent the letter to repair her relationship with her father - something he claimed was false.\n\nThe People article, he claimed, made him appear \"dishonest, exploitative, publicity-seeking, uncaring and cold-hearted\".\n\nHe said he had \"never intended to talk publicly about Meg's letter\" until he read the People magazine piece which, he claimed, suggested he was \"to blame for the end of the relationship\".\n\nThe full trial of the duchess's claim had been due to be heard at the High Court this month, but last year the case was adjourned until autumn 2021.\n\nThis interim remote hearing - to consider the request for summary judgement - is due to last two days. Mr Justice Warby, who is hearing the case, is expected to reserve his judgement to a later date.", "Most people who have had Covid-19 are protected from catching it again for at least five months, a study led by Public Health England shows.\n\nPast infection was linked to around a 83% lower risk of getting the virus, compared with those who had never had Covid-19, scientists found.\n\nBut experts warn some people do catch Covid-19 again - and can infect others.\n\nAnd officials stress people should follow the stay-at-home rules - whether or not they have had the virus.\n\nProf Susan Hopkins, who led the study, said the results were encouraging, suggesting immunity lasted longer than some people feared, but protection was by no means absolute.\n\nIt was particularly concerning some of those reinfected had high levels of the virus - even without symptoms - and were at risk of passing it on to others, she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prof Susan Hopkins from Public Health England said immunity from having Covid-19 is \"not 100% protective\"\n\n\"This means even if you believe you already had the disease and are protected, you can be reassured it is highly unlikely you will develop severe infections but there is still a risk that you could acquire an infection and transmit to others,\" she added.\n\n\"Now more than ever, it is vital we all stay at home to protect our health service and save lives.\"\n\nFrom June to November 2020, almost 21,000 healthcare workers across the UK were regularly tested to see whether they:\n\nOf those who had no antibodies to the virus, suggesting they may have never had it, 318 developed potential new infections within this timeframe.\n\nBut among the 6,614 with antibodies, this figure was just 44 potential new infections.\n\nResearchers received various different pieces of evidence suggesting these people had become re-infected - including new symptoms more than 90 days after their first infection, new positive swab tests and blood tests.\n\nSome tests are still being run and researchers say their results will be updated as they come in.\n\nScientists will continue to monitor the healthcare workers for 12 months to see how long immunity lasts.\n\nThey will also look closely at cases with the new variant - which was not widespread at the time of this first analysis - and observe the immunity of participants who receive the vaccine.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Can you become immune to coronavirus?\n\nDr Julian Tang, a virus expert at the University of Leicester, said the results were reassuring for healthcare workers.\n\n\"Having the vaccine after recovering from Covid-19 is not an issue... and will likely boost the natural immunity,\" he added.\n\n\"We also see this with the seasonal flu vaccine.\n\n\"So hopefully the results from this paper will reduce the anxiety of many healthcare-worker colleagues who have concerns about getting Covid-19 twice.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Only 155 out of more than 23,000 university professors in the UK are black, according to official figures.\n\nIt remains below 1%, the same as for the past five years, and is an increase of only 50 posts despite the number of professorships rising by more than 3,000 in that time.\n\nAt this senior academic level, women hold 28% of professorships, up from 23% five years ago.\n\n\"The pace of change is glacial,\" said lecturers' union leader Jo Grady.\n\n\"Universities must do more to ensure a more representative mix of staff at a senior level and stop this terrible waste of talent,\" said Dr Grady, general secretary of the UCU university union.\n\nThe figures on black professors were \"disappointing\" and \"inexplicable\", said Halima Begum, chief executive of the Runnymede Trust race equality think tank, \"given the symbolic importance of education as the foundation of our values.\"\n\n\"Around a quarter of British postgraduates are from ethnic minorities, there is clearly no shortage of qualified black and minority academics seeking elevation to senior teaching and research roles in our universities,\" said Dr Begum.\n\nShe called on vice chancellors to take action over a problem they can \"literally discern with their own eyes every single day they are on campus\".\n\nThe annual figures, published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, provide a breakdown of the UK's academic workforce - and show while there has been a focus on widening access for students, there are still few black academic staff.\n\nAt the level of professor, the number of black professors rose from 105 to 155 between 2014-15 to 2019-20.\n\nBut new higher education providers included in the figures meant an additional 3,200 staff at professor grade, with the proportion of black professors only increasing marginally from 0.5% to 0.7% over five years.\n\nThis compared to 7% of professors who are Asian and 89% white in the figures for 2019-20.\n\nKehinde Andrews, professor of black studies at Birmingham City University, said that rather than universities being \"progressive dreamlands\", the \"make-up of professors is the perfect reflection of the narrow Eurocentric views still produced by universities\".\n\n\"I have seen very few genuine attempts to address the issues of racism at any level across the sector,\" said Prof Andrews.\n\nAmong all academic staff, 2% are black, 10% are Asian, 75% are white, with the remainder under categories of \"mixed\", \"other or not known\".\n\nThere is still a significant gender gap in professorships, among a group that is also heavily skewed to older age groups, with most in their fifties, sixties and above.\n\nFive years ago, more than 4,500 professors were women, which has risen to 6,300 - from 23% to 28% of these senior posts.\n\nThis is despite women representing 46% of all academic staff.\n\nBaroness Amos, who was the UK's first black female university head, has previously warned of \"deep-seated prejudices and stereotypes which need to be overcome\" in the recruitment of senior staff in higher education.\n\nUniversities UK said \"the evidence is clear that black and minority ethnic staff continue to be under-represented\" at these senior academic levels.\n\n\"More needs to be done to address this inequality which exists within higher education, which mirrors inequalities evident in wider UK society and which will require an unequivocal commitment to change,\" said the universities' organisation.", "Many think the courts system needs to invest more in technology\n\nWhen Louise Westra and her partner decided to adopt a child in November 2018, they were aware of the long process that was ahead of them, but they were not to know that the coronavirus pandemic would hold them back from completing the adoption of their son.\n\nOn 27 March, their petition was due in court. As lockdown had taken effect, telephone conferencing would be used instead of going to court.\n\nHowever, after the phone call, Ms Westra received an email from her solicitor explaining that the papers had not been served to the biological parents of the child. This continued every month after lockdown, as it wasn't possible for the papers to be physically served.\n\n\"It's farcical because one of them is the biological father who lives with the biological mother who has had her petition but the biological father hasn't and they live in the same premises,\" Ms Westra says.\n\nServing papers has to be completed by post via Royal Mail or in some cases lawyers would instruct a process server to physically take the papers and hand them to the person.\n\n\"It sounds very archaic but if [the person] won't take them by hand, the processor can drop the papers near them and tell them what the document contains and that's technically counted as full service,\" says Rebecca Ranson, a solicitor for Maguire Family Law.\n\nUnless a judge approves it, emailing or any other forms of digital communication are not considered valid - even though the majority of people in the UK have access to email and the internet. It is this kind of process, in need of a digital upgrade, that is frustrating for Ms Westra.\n\nMs Westra's case is one of many that have been delayed. The number of outstanding Crown court cases was 43,676 on 26 July, and the entire backlog across magistrates' and Crown courts is more than 560,000. The Commons Justice Committee has announced an inquiry into how these delays could be addressed.\n\nThe reality, however, is that there was already a huge backlog back in December, and Covid-19 has just exacerbated an existing problem. Cases like Ms Westra's have been affected by the pandemic, but many lawyers believe that the legal system could have been better prepared through technology investment over the years.\n\n\"We've got people being held for longer than they otherwise would be, and for every person in custody waiting for trial or waiting on bail for trial, there are witnesses, and complainants and their families awaiting a resolution. Whether it's the lack of technology links in prison, using Skype and improvising or not having enough Nightingale courts - it all boils down to a lack of investment,\" says Joanna Hardy, a London-based barrister.\n\nIn 2016 HM Courts & Tribunals Service began a £1bn court reform programme. This included a video-conferencing tool called the Cloud Video Platform (CVP), which allows for a dedicated private conference area, so criminal lawyers can speak to their clients without visiting prison.\n\nA programme for testing and adopting video technology was planned out until 2022, but in the pandemic, the government had to get CVP up and running in 10 weeks. This has since been extended to civil courts. But this implementation has been challenging, as there are only a restricted number of physical video links allowed.\n\n\"As we weren't ready for this huge technological revolution no-one had manned the tech rooms or built enough rooms on the other end in the prison. We can have as many laptops as we like, as much software as we like but if we can't put a prisoner into a room with a screen, the other end is pointless,\" Ms Hardy says.\n\nAccording to Ms Hardy, the waiting times to get these slots have been \"completely unacceptable\", and it has meant that sometimes hearings had to go ahead without the defendant present.\n\n\"It's like human beings failing where technology could have bridged the gap,\" she says.\n\nA Ministry of Justice spokesperson said that it had offered more than 400 CVP meeting rooms since the outbreak of coronavirus, but added that it is taking steps to increase the available capacity of video conferencing at some locations by extending operating hours. The spokesperson said that the MoJ is also undertaking urgent action to increase the physical number of video link outlets at critical sites.\n\nAt the moment, criminal trials are going ahead using social distancing - meaning sometimes a second courtroom is linked by technology, but this is creating further backlogs, as it means one case is occupying the same space as two.\n\nJustice, the all-party law reform and human rights organisation, has trialled a virtual jury trial with a mock case, and suggested it should be considered as a possible option, but this hasn't been taken on by the courts.\n\nThe issue with virtual jury trials is whether or not they could affect the outcome of a trial. Some lawyers feel like juries should see a witness, feel an exhibit and dispense justice to a fellow human being in the confines of a court room.\n\nJodie Hill says it is more difficult to cross-examine people in video hearings\n\n\"You can lose the impact of cross examination. When you're challenging their evidence in person it's easier to get them to trip up if they're not being honest, whereas if they're on video it might be easier for them to cover it up,\" says Jodie Hill, solicitor and managing director of Thrive Law, an employment law specialist.\n\nFor smaller hearings, online alternatives could be here for the long term, as it means lawyers don't have to travel all over the UK unnecessarily. This doesn't mean that every hearing that can be done remotely, should be done remotely.\n\n\"We don't want overkill. We think some cases still need to be in the room, particularly if you're dealing with vulnerable people or sensitive cases. It has to be a balancing act of harnessing the benefits of technology and thinking about the specific case,\" says Ms Hardy.", "The UK is forging its post-Brexit path as a \"confident, independent nation - and an energetic force for good\", according to the government.\n\nIt's free to set trade on its own terms, pursue opportunities and higher living standards. But can it square profit with principle?\n\nIs turning a blind eye to human rights violations worth it to have a trade deal that knocks a couple of quid off the price of an imported shirt?\n\nThat New Year's resolution is already being tested, as China falls increasingly out of favour.\n\nForeign Secretary Dominic Raab has referred to conditions, under which over a million Uighur Muslims are being held in camps and forced into work, as \"at the worst... torture and inhumane and degrading treatments\".\n\nHe warned that British companies will face fines, if they can't show that their supply chains are free from forced labour.\n\nIn December, a BBC investigation revealed thousands of Uighurs and other minorities have been compelled to toil in the cotton fields of Xinjiang. The region accounts for a fifth of the world's crop - it's not always easy to tell where your t-shirt hails from.\n\nThe UK and Canada have led the charge here, but one wonders how much further can it go.\n\nMr Raab told the BBC that the UK should not be engaging in free trade negotiations with countries whose record was \"well below the level of genocide\".\n\nThere are several issues with this: first, working out who gets to decree human rights abuses.\n\nAmendments to the Trade Bill currently going through Parliament would oblige the government to assess the human rights records of potential partners.\n\nIn July, Dominic Raab accused China of \"gross and egregious\" human rights abuses against its Uighur population\n\nOne amendment proposes allowing the High Court to declare a genocide in other countries, and forcing the immediate cancellation of trade deals with said nations.\n\nMr Raab, however, says the decision to declare a genocide can't, and shouldn't be, delegated to the courts. Rather, it's for MPs to hold the government to account over trade deals.\n\nBut Labour MPs, who have written to their Conservative counterparts urging them to support the amendments, say they've already been denied powers of scrutiny.\n\nThey highlight trade deals rolled over with Egypt, Cameroon and Turkey, with whom the UK previously enjoyed similar deals the EU had struck.\n\nThese three countries, they argue, have questionable records on human rights.\n\nAnd then there's China. The UK is not planning a deal with Beijing and has indicated it won't do a deal with countries that don't share its democratic values.\n\nBut both nations have their eye on joining the wider Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.\n\nWith imports and exports worth almost £80bn in 2019, China already scores as one of the UK's largest trading partners, and it's not just about frocks and financial services crossing borders.\n\nSince Xi Jinping and David Cameron famously sipped a pint in a Buckinghamshire pub in 2015, Chinese investment in the UK has exploded, backing everything from football clubs to restaurant chains.\n\nNow China's appeal has soured, but it may not be easy to back away from encouraging investment, or a trade deal which touts lower import prices and greater opportunities for exporters, when the UK economy is already reeling.\n\nThe Wolverhampton Wanderers are owned by Chinese investors Fosun International\n\nTake textiles - a free trade deal would do away with a 12% tariff on clothes hailing from China. Ultimately, trade deals build on an existing - in this case very lucrative - relationship.\n\nCritics argue it's not enough to refrain from boosting ties with nations with chequered records - they should be lessened.\n\nBut it's even harder to snub countries that are already providing jobs for thousands, or items from the frivolous, such as smartphones, to the vital, like billions of PPE items.\n\nSome say the UK has its own issues elsewhere. It resumed the sales of arms to Saudi Arabia last year, after the government said the method for licensing had been reformulated to ensure they wouldn't be used in Yemen. Human rights groups are less sure.\n\nBalancing its quest to be a responsible citizen, together with exploring fresh fortunes, is just one dilemma the UK faces, as it shapes its new identity on the global stage.", "Boris Johnson will be glad Donald Trump has not been re-elected for a second term as US president, ex-Civil Service head Lord Sedwill has suggested.\n\nWriting in the Daily Mail, Lord Sedwill said those who believed Boris Johnson would have preferred Mr Trump to win again were \"mistaken.\"\n\nHe said he \"would not have been to the benefit\" of British or European security, trade or environment issues.\n\nDowning Street said Mr Johnson looked forward to working with Joe Biden.\n\nThis month he said Mr Trump was \"completely wrong\" to cast doubt on the US election and encourage supporters to storm the Capitol.\n\nAnd in 2015, when he was Mayor of London, Mr Johnson accused him of \"stupefying ignorance\" over his comments about violence in the city.\n\nBut after Mr Trump's victory in the US election in 2016, then Foreign Secretary Mr Johnson said there was a \"lot to be positive about\", and while running for the Conservative leadership in 2019, he said the President had \"many good qualities\".\n\nMr Trump later praised Mr Johnson, saying: \"they call him Britain Trump\".\n\nMr Johnson congratulated Mr Biden in a phone call after his US election win, saying he looked forward to \"strengthening the partnership\" between the US and UK.\n\nBut BBC political correspondent Chris Mason said Lord Sedwill's remarks would not be unhelpful to Downing Street as any perception in Washington that Mr Johnson was like Mr Trump becomes a liability with the arrival of President Biden.\n\nIn his Daily Mail article, Lord Sedwill, who was the UK's most senior civil servant until he stood down in September, said there was \"relief in Western capitals\" that normal diplomatic relationships will be restored once Mr Biden is inaugurated on Wednesday.\n\nThe former Cabinet Secretary said: \"Those of us who regard ourselves as close American allies have badly missed US leadership over the past four years.\n\n\"Based on my time working for Boris Johnson in Downing Street, I believe those who have said he would have preferred a second Trump term are mistaken. That would not have been to the benefit of British or European security, to transatlantic trade, let alone the environmental agenda to which the prime minister is so committed.\"\n\nLord Sedwill added: \"With Brexit accomplished and the Biden administration ready to re-engage, this is the moment for Global Britain to step up.\"", "Evelyn Jones was one of the care home residents whose family raised concerns\n\nSix care home residents died after suffering dehydration and malnourishment because of alleged neglect, an inquest has been told.\n\nStanley James, 89, June Hamer, 71, Stanley Bradford, 76, Edith Evans, 85, Evelyn Jones, 87, and William Hickman, 71 all died between 2003 and 2005.\n\nThey were residents at Brithdir Nursing Home in New Tredegar, Caerphilly.\n\nThe inquest in Newport follows Operation Jasmine, an £11.6m inquiry into alleged neglect at six homes.\n\nOne of Wales' biggest inquiries, it was launched after the death of an 84-year-old patient at a nursing home in Newbridge, Caerphilly.\n\nOpening the inquest, Assistant Coroner for Gwent Geraint Williams said police started investigating in 2005 following the death of an 84-year-old \"mentally infirm\" woman at another care home in Newbridge.\n\nMr Williams said it led to officers uncovering a \"pattern of concerns linked to other deaths in other care homes\".\n\nJune Hamer went into Brithdir in 2003\n\nIn relation to the Brithdir inquiry, Mr Williams said: \"Operation Jasmine uncovered evidence suggesting poor care of residents, including allegations of poor pressure sore and peg [percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy] feed management, malnourishment, and general neglect of the residents' long-term needs, together with deficient standards of care and nursing practice.\"\n\nThe inquest heard resident Mr James, who had dementia and was not mobile, developed several pressure sores in the 18 months before he died in August 2003.\n\nMr Bradford, who had schizophrenia, was admitted to the Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil on several occasions for complaints of \"dehydration, chest and urine infections\".\n\nBefore he died in August 2005 he was \"observed to be seriously malnourished\", by doctors.\n\nDementia patient Mrs Evans was admitted to the same hospital in September 2005, where nurses found the site around her feeding tube \"infected\", while broken skin was found on her buttocks and she appeared \"unkempt and dirty, and her mouth and lips were dry and her tongue was thick\".\n\nThe trial of the late Dr Prana Das for care home neglect collapsed after he suffered brain damage in an attack\n\nDr Prana Das, who owned and ran the nursing home along with several other facilities in Wales, faced a string of charges relating to failings in care.\n\nHe suffered a brain injury during a burglary at his home in 2012 and was declared medically unfit to stand trial.\n\nDr Das died in January 2020 aged 73, but his widow and co-owner of the home, Dr Nishebita Das, who is said not to have taken part in running it, is expected to give evidence at the inquest.\n\nMr Williams told the hearing that, even before the couple purchased the home in April 2002 under their company Puretruce Health Care Limited, \"serious concerns\" were raised by state agencies regarding the number of residents who had suffered pressure ulcers.\n\n\"Those issues continued, even after Dr Das assumed ownership of the home,\" he said.\n\nMr Williams said the inquest will consider the actions of nurses and carers at the home, \"many of whom came to this country from abroad to work and have since returned there, and are now not available to participate in the inquest\".\n\nThe inquest is set to last until March.\n\nA hearing into the death of a seventh resident, Matthew Higgins, 86, will be held following the conclusion of this inquest.", "Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he is self-isolating after being alerted by the UK's NHS Covid-19 app.\n\nThe West Suffolk MP said self-isolation was \"perhaps the most important part of all the social distancing\" and urged others to do the same if contacted.\n\nIn a tweet, Mr Hancock said he would be working from home until Sunday, adding \"we all have a part to play in getting this virus under control\".\n\nHe contracted coronavirus in March 2020 and suffered \"mild symptoms\".\n\nMr Hancock said he learned from the app he had been \"in close contact with somebody who's tested positive\" and so self-isolating was \"how we break the chains of transmission\".\n\n\"So you must follow these rules like I'm going to,\" he said. \"I've got to work from home for the next six days, and together, by doing this, by following this, and all the other panoply of rules that we've had to put in place, we can get through this and beat this virus.\"\n\nMr Hancock said he was alerted by the app on Monday night, having earlier led a Downing Street press conference alongside NHS England medical director Prof Stephen Powis and Public Health England's Dr Susan Hopkins.\n\nThe NHS app tells a person if they have been in close contact with someone who has later tested positive for coronavirus and tells them to isolate for 10 full days from their last contact.\n\nWhile it is not clear from Mr Hancock's statement if his isolation ends on Sunday or Monday, his period of quarantine suggests he was last in contact with the person who was infected on Wednesday or Thursday.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Matt Hancock This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nDowning Street confirmed that Mr Hancock would not receive the vaccine early because he is leading the pandemic response.\n\nThe prime minister's official spokesman said: \"The PM and the rest of the cabinet will take the vaccine when it's their turn to do so based on the priority lists that have been published.\n\n\"We don't think it's right that the PM or other members of cabinet take the vaccine in place of somebody who is at higher clinical risk.\"\n\nIn March, the health secretary revealed he had tested positive for Covid-19 shortly after Prime Minister Boris Johnson had confirmed he too had the virus.\n\nWhile the health secretary recovered fairly swiftly, and was able to work from home during his illness, Mr Johnson required hospital treatment.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid symptoms: What are they and how long should I self-isolate for?\n\nSelf-isolation, which means staying at home and not leaving, is a legal requirement for anybody who has Covid symptoms, has tested positive for the virus, lives with someone who has symptoms, has arrived from abroad or has been contacted by NHS Test and Trace.\n\nIn December, the self-isolation period required was cut from 14 days to 10 days.\n\nUsing Bluetooth technology the NHS app makes contact between mobile phones when they are near each other, if an owner of a phone later tests positive for the virus and shares that with the app, alerts are sent to anyone who is deemed to have been a close contact.", "More than 127,000 people in the UK who contracted coronavirus have lost their lives - with the pandemic claiming more than 3.4 million deaths worldwide. As the UK marks a year since the first coronavirus lockdown was called, it's a time for reflection.\n\nWe have gathered tributes to more than 770 of those who have died. Below are words of remembrance from friends, family and colleagues.\n\nPlease enable JavaScript or upgrade your browser to see this interactive\n\nThe tributes are displayed at random, which means that you will see different faces each time you visit this page.\n\nIf we have used your tribute to your friend or family member, it will appear in the carousel above, or you can find it by entering their name in the search box below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. Enter a name to search the tributes\n\nFor more on NHS and healthcare workers, please see this page dedicated to 100 people who died while helping to look after others.\n\nFor more on how it has affected people's lives, from family tragedy to its impact on everyday life, we have a collection of personal stories about life in lockdown.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Britain's climate change leadership is being undercut by a government decision to allow a new coal mine in Cumbria, MPs have warned.\n\nThe UK is hosting a UN climate summit in November, where it will urge other nations to phase out fossil fuels.\n\nThe MPs say the government's decision to allow a new colliery at home will make it harder to secure a deal.\n\nThe Woodhouse mine was approved by Cumbria County Council because it will create jobs in an area of high unemployment.\n\nThe planning minister Robert Jenrick could have overruled it, but said the issue was best decided at a local level.\n\nThat verdict was derided by environmentalists, who pointed out that climate change from fossil fuel burning is a global problem.\n\nAlok Sharma, who is leading the COP26 climate summit and who co-ordinates UK policies on climate change, was asked by the Commons business select committee whether the mine approval was \"an embarrassment\". He replied: \"I take your point\".\n\nBusiness Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told the committee there was a \"slight tension\" between approving the mine, near Whitehaven, and broader attempts to clean up the economy.\n\nBut he said ministers decided to allow the pit because it will produce coking coal for steel-making, which otherwise would have to be imported.\n\nHe said: \"There's a slight tension between the decision to open this mine and our avowed intention to take coal off the grid… there was a debate in the government about what we could do about this, but this was a local planning decision.\n\n\"If we don't have sources of coking coal in the UK we would be importing those anyway\".\n\nThis appears to run counter to advice from the Climate Change Committee which has said all coal - including coking coal - should be phased out by 2035. Doubts have been raised about investors in the mine being left with a \"stranded asset\" if the pit is forced to close on climate grounds.\n\nThe mine approval is even more poignant because the UK founded the 'Powering Past Coal Alliance\" - a global club to persuade nations to leave coal in the ground.\n\nA source close to the Alliance secretariat told BBC News that staff were enraged by the decision. They believed the decision had been made to help secure so-called \"Red Wall\" votes in areas which previously voted Labour .\n\nMohamed Adow, from a pressure group, Powershift Africa, told BBC News: \"It is quite bizarre that the UK government, in the year it hosts the biggest global climate talks since the signing of the Paris Agreement, has approved a new coal mine.\"\n\nThe young campaigner Greta Thunberg said the decision showed pledges to achieve net zero emissions targets by 2050 \"basically mean nothing\".\n\nDarren Jones, chair of the business committee, told BBC News it would be hard for the UK to persuade countries like Poland to abandon coal whilst building a mine.\n\nHe argued that the government should have found another way to bring jobs to Cumbria. He said: \"Carbon-intensive industries are looking to the government for leadership on the transition to a green future.\n\n\"Backing coal at home doesn't look in line with the recent Energy White Paper and certainly makes our efforts to secure international agreement on ambitious decarbonisation harder to achieve.\"\n\nThe Environmental Audit Committee Chairman, Philip Dunne, told BBC News: \"If the UK is to achieve its ambition to be an environmental world leader, the government must offer clear guidance on how we can take every industry to net-zero, and offer a pipeline of investable projects.\n\n\"The steel sector needs to develop alternatives to importing coking coal. This could also support the next generation of green jobs - which are urgently needed.\"\n\nThe cross-bench peer Baroness Worthington told BBC News: \"This decision is real laziness of thinking from the government. Just think of signal it sends to all those countries who want to cling on to coal.\n\n\"The government doesn't yet have a cohesive strategy that makes sense. It's crazy. Absolute madness.\"", "Medical staff are expected to \"face pressures unlike any other they have faced before\" as NI approaches its toughest week so far in the pandemic.\n\nThe British Medical Association has said while its doctors are \"coping\", many feel they are unable to give care to the \"standard they would want\".\n\nThe peak in intensive care is predicted to happen next weekend.\n\nThe head of the BMA in NI, Dr Tom Black has been critical of the way this wave of the pandemic has been managed.\n\nHe said: \"Staff will do their best in a very difficult situation, where many decisions in this pandemic were made too late.\"\n\nWhile it is expected the number of hospital admissions will peak sometime over the next eight to 10 days, the number requiring intensive care treatment is likely to continue increasing for at least another fortnight.\n\nDr Black said he was concerned for both patients and staff.\n\nHe said: \"It is likely that over the next few weeks doctors will be asked to work in a new location or provide support to areas that are already overstretched.\n\n\"Many have already had planned annual leave cancelled.\"\n\nThere were a further 19 virus-related deaths and 640 more Covid-19 cases reported in Northern Ireland on Monday.\n\nThe latest figures from the Department of Health bring the total number of deaths to 1,625, while 96,001 people have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began.\n\nSome 65 patients are in ICU, down two from the last report, and 51 patients are being ventilated.\n\nSince the vaccine rollout began in NI, 146,733 people have been vaccinated, according to the Department of Health.\n\nOf that number, 125,717 were first doses and 21,016 were second jabs.\n\nA total of 31,393 people from the over-80 age group have been vaccinated.\n\nEarlier the BMA told BBC News NI that more than 90,000 doses the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had arrived in Northern Ireland but the Department of Health has said it is anticipated separate deliveries will arrive by this weekend.\n\nDr Black said many staff members had reported feeling \"exhausted and demoralised\" and he warned that when it came to reviewing how the pandemic was handled \"this phase will stand out as one where we could have planned better\".\n\nHealth Minister Robin Swann said the next seven days is \"when we will see that real intense pressure coming on our inpatients and intensive care units\".\n\n\"Our worst case scenario has modelling up to 1,200 inpatients - and that's a serious pressure that comes on our system,\" he told Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme.\n\n\"We can go up into nearly 200 ICU capacity but that comes at a stretch, that comes with putting our staff under severe pressure in ICU units.\n\n\"It also comes by having to shift the ICU specialist nurse from a ratio of one-to-one to a ratio of one-to-two or even one-to-three in extreme pressures.\n\n\"That's not something we want to do,\" he added.\n\nThe past week saw hospitals across Northern Ireland coming together in order to cope with the strain.\n\nOn 10 January, the Southern Health Trust was on the cusp of declaring a major incident amid the mounting pressures across the health service.\n\nThat was avoided as many off-duty staff answered a call to come into work and the health trusts pulled together to provide a regional response to the crisis.\n\nPatients were diverted to those hospitals which could take them and where infrastructure could cope with supplying additional oxygen to the very ill.\n\nOver the weekend of 9/10 January the Southern Health Trust - the smallest of the health trusts - was dealing with the highest number of patients who required oxygen.\n\nIn the past week the Northern and Southern Health Trusts have seen the highest number of patients.\n\nThat reflects the high rate of community transmission in some areas those trusts cover.\n\nMeanwhile, no resolution has been reached between Stormont leaders and the Irish Government over the sharing of passenger data.\n\nLast week, First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill criticised Dublin for failing to share information on travellers arriving there during the pandemic.\n\nMichelle O'Neill said it was \"regrettable\" the issue has not been resolved\n\nFirst Minister Arlene Foster said repeated efforts to access data on passenger locator forms filled out by people arriving in the Republic of Ireland had failed.\n\nMrs Foster and Ms O'Neill indicated on Thursday that they planned to raise the matter directly with Taoiseach (Irish prime minsiter) Micheál Martin.\n\nMs O'Neill told the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday that no resolution has been found yet.\n\nShe told MLAs the issue had been raised \"on every occasion we have had the opportunity\" and that it was \"regrettable\" that the issue had not been resolved.\n\nThe travel issue will be discussed at a meeting on Wednesday involving the first minister, the deputy first minister, Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and NI Secretary of State Brandon Lewis.\n\n\"I hope that perhaps Wednesday's meeting will allow some opportunity for there to be a way forward,\" the deputy first minister added.\n\nIt was announced on Sunday that all travellers who have returned from Portugal or transited through 16 South American countries in the past 14 days will have to - along with their household - self-isolate for 10 days upon return to Northern Ireland.\n\nThis includes travellers who entered these countries en route to another destination. All travellers returning home from South America are advised to be tested, whether or not they have symptoms.\n\nFrom Thursday, all international travellers will be required to present a negative Covid-19 test result before arriving in Northern Ireland.\n\nThis rule comes into effect in England, Scotland and Wales on Monday.\n\nOn Monday, the Department of Health in the Republic of Ireland reported eight more coronavirus-related deaths.\n\nIt brings its death toll to 2,616.\n\nThe department said 2,121 new cases of the virus had been reported, with a cumulative total of 174,843 infections.\n\nIt said that as of 14:00 local time on Monday, 1,975 Covid-19 patients are in hospital, of which 200 are in ICU (intensive care units).\n\nIrish Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, said: \"This third wave of the pandemic has seen higher level of hospitalisations across all age groups.\n\n\"There are now more sick people in hospital than any time in the course of this pandemic\".", "Staff gathered outside a supermarket to pay their respects to a colleague who died with coronavirus.\n\nJohn Deacy, 81, worked the Christmas Eve shift at the Tesco Extra store in Gabalfa, Cardiff, died just two weeks later.\n\nFriends and colleagues clapped as the funeral procession went by the store.\n\nFormer members of a jazz band, formed by Mr Deacy in the 1970s, marched in front of the hearse.\n\nHis son, Wayne, 56, said: “My dad put everyone above himself. He’d do anything for anyone.\n\n\"He’d help anyone and would never speak badly of people.”\n\nMr Deacy was in the Royal Marines for seven years and was a semi-professional boxer before starting a career at the industrial gas company BOC.\n\nHe went on to work for the supermarket for 16 years.\n\n“We’ve had loads and loads of messages from hundreds of staff who said he will leave a massive gaping hole,\" his son said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid in Scotland: Schools to stay closed until mid-February at least\n\nScotland's Covid-19 lockdown has been extended until at least the middle of February, with most school pupils to continue learning from home.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon told MSPs that transmission of the virus appeared to be declining but was still too high to ease restrictions.\n\nBut she hopes schools will be able to at least begin a phased return to the classroom in the middle of next month.\n\nThe level four restrictions have been in place since Boxing Day.\n\nMeanwhile the islands of Barra and Vatersay are being moved into the top level of restrictions due to a \"significant outbreak\" there.\n\nThe current restrictions, which have closed non-essential shops and seen a \"stay at home\" message put down in law, had been due to expire at the end of this month.\n\nBut Scottish government ministers agreed they should be extended after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.\n\nMs Sturgeon told MSPs that lockdown was \"beginning to have an impact\" on the number of new infections, but said Scotland remained in a \"very precarious position\".\n\nShe added: \"We need to be realistic that any improvement we are seeing is down, at this stage, to the fact that we are staying at home and reducing our interactions.\n\n\"Any relaxation of lockdown while case numbers, even though they might be declining, nevertheless remain very high, could quickly send the situation into reverse.\"\n\nThe vast majority of Scottish pupils have been home learning since the Christmas holiday\n\nThe announcement came as 1,165 new cases of Covid-19 were registered in Scotland, representing 11.1% of tests carried out.\n\nA total of 1,989 people are in hospital with the virus while a further 71 deaths of people who recently tested positive have been logged.\n\nMs Sturgeon said there was \"real and severe\" pressure on health services, with around 30% more patients in hospital than at the peak of the first wave in April 2020, and that this was \"almost certain to rise for a further period yet\".\n\nSchool buildings and nurseries have been closed to most pupils since the start of term, with all but the children of some key workers and vulnerable pupils learning from home.\n\nNot only will schools remain closed to most pupils until at least mid-February, they are unlikely to return to normal at that point.\n\nThe first minister has indicated that her aim is to begin a phased return, if coronavirus allows. So what might that mean?\n\nThe groups that will get back into class first are likely to include secondary school exam year pupils, the youngest primary school children and those in P7 getting ready to move to high school.\n\nFor others, online learning is likely to last a bit longer.\n\nBoth the return to school and the continuation of the wider lockdown will be reviewed again in a fortnight on 2 Feb.\n\nBy that week, first doses of vaccine should have been offered to all over 80s in Scotland as well as frontline NHS and social care staff and care home residents.\n\nWith only 15-20% of the over 80s reached so far, opposition parties think the programme is slipping behind schedule, which the first minister denies.\n\nMs Sturgeon said she knew how \"challenging and stressful\" home schooling was for families, but said community transmission was \"too high\" to allow a safe return to classrooms.\n\nShe said: \"If it is at all possible, as I very much hope it will be, to begin even a phased return to in-school learning in mid-February, we will.\n\n\"But I also have to be straight with families and say that it is simply too early to be sure about whether and to what extent this will be possible.\"\n\nStatistics released on Monday showed that Scotland had vaccinated 6% of its adult population so far - the same percentage as Wales, but lower than the 8% that have been vaccinated in England and 8.7% in Northern Ireland.\n\nEngland has also given a second dose of the vaccine to 427,386 people, compared to only 3,698 in Scotland.\n\nMs Sturgeon said approximately 100,000 people were being vaccinated per week in Scotland, and that health teams were \"on track\" to expand this to 400,000 per week by the end of February.\n\nStatistics have suggested the vaccination programme in Scotland is currently lagging behind England\n\nMore than 90% of care home residents have now been given a first dose, along with 70% of care home staff and 70% of all frontline health and care workers.\n\nThe first minister said the focus on care homes - where it is \"time consuming and labour intensive\" to give out jabs - was \"why overall figures are at this stage lower than in England\", where more over-80s have received the vaccine.\n\nShe said the \"pace of progress in the over-80s group is also now picking up\", and that the government remained on track to hit its target of completing everyone on the priority list by early May.\n\nScottish Conservative group leader Ruth Davidson said the Scottish government were \"lagging behind their own targets\" on vaccination, saying the focus on care homes \"doesn't explain how slowly the vaccine is reaching GP surgeries and the public\".\n\nShe read out a series of letters from elderly people who had not been contacted about getting a jab, saying they were \"anxious they don't get left behind\".\n\nMs Sturgeon said she would not apologise for \"prioritising the most vulnerable first\", saying all four UK nations were \"working to the same targets\".\n\nScottish Labour's interim leader Jackie Baillie asked if Ms Sturgeon was confident the government could hit its \"critical\" targets, saying GPs were still complaining about \"patchy\" distribution of vaccines.\n\nThe first minister replied that her government would hit its goals, saying it was \"always the intention\" to increase the pace of vaccination as infrastructure and supplies became available.\n\nThis would see care home residents, healthcare staff and all over-80s get a first dose by the start of February, with over-70s and those deemed \"extremely vulnerable\" by mid-February and all over-65s by the beginning of March.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Tuesday evening. We'll have another update for you on Wednesday morning.\n\nScotland's Covid-19 lockdown has been extended until at least the middle of February, with most school pupils to continue learning from home at least until then. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said transmission of the virus appeared to be declining but was still too high to ease restrictions, which have been in place since Boxing Day. It comes as England's deputy chief medical officer said schools may reopen region by region after February half term.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock has said he is self-isolating after being alerted by the UK's NHS Covid-19 app. He urged others to do the same if \"pinged\" by the app and said self-isolation was \"perhaps the most important part of all the social distancing\". Mr Hancock, who is MP for West Suffolk, suffered \"mild symptoms\" when he contracted coronavirus in March 2020.\n\nA group of politicians drank alcohol on Welsh Parliament premises, days after a coronavirus rule banning pubs from serving drinks took effect. BBC Wales has been told Conservative Senedd leader Paul Davies, Darren Millar and Nick Ramsay were drinking together in early December, with Labour Senedd member Alun Davies also involved. Senedd authorities said they are investigating an \"incident\". Elsewhere, an internal investigation has began after railway workers allegedly held a surprise baby shower in a closed Patisserie Valerie bakery at London's Marylebone station during lockdown.\n\nHeadlines about footballers and Covid have been hard to miss lately - with questions about dressing room distancing, off-pitch partying and all those post-goal hugs. But what's football in lockdown actually like for players and their families? BBC Newsbeat has found out by speaking to Wycombe Wanderers footballer Joe Jacobson and his wife Louise.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has confirmed the government is looking at scrapping some EU labour laws now it is no longer bound by the bloc's rules.\n\nBut he promised there would be no dilution of workers' rights.\n\nMeasures under consideration include relaxing the working time directive which enshrines a 48-hour week.\n\nShadow business secretary Ed Miliband warned the government wanted to take a \"wrecking ball\" to hard-won rights.\n\nEarlier this week Mr Kwarteng said he wanted to \"protect and enhance\" labour law after the Financial Times reported that some rules could be weakened.\n\nThe minister later told business leaders the UK had an opportunity to reform regulation derived from EU law, but would not deliberately antagonise the EU - its biggest trading partner - immediately after the Brexit deal.\n\nConfirming the review on Tuesday, Mr Kwarteng told MPs there would be no \"bonfire of rights\".\n\n\"I think the view was that we wanted to look at the whole range of issues relating to our EU membership and examine what we wanted to keep, if you like,\" he said.\n\nBut he said \"the idea that we are trying to whittle down standards, that's not at all plausible or true\".\n\nAppearing before MPs, the business secretary said: \"I'm very struck as I look at EU economies how many EU countries - I think it's about 17 or 18 - have essentially opted out of the working time directive.\n\n\"So even by just following that we are way above the average European standard and I want to maintain that. I think we can be a high-wage, high-employment economy, a very successful economy, and that's what we should be aiming for.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kwasi Kwarteng This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Miliband said that after denying the FT's report, Mr Kwarteng had now \"let the cat out of the bag\" in admitting the government was conducting a review.\n\nHe warned that opting out of the 48-hour week would harm workers in key sectors like the NHS, road haulage and airlines from working excessive hours.\n\n\"A government committed to maintaining existing protections would not be reviewing whether they should be unpicked. This exposes that the government's priorities for Britain are totally wrong.\"\n\nDrew Hendry, the SNP's business spokesman, echoed the criticism, accusing the government of planning an \"assault\" on workers' rights.\n\nMeanwhile the boss of the UK's biggest recruitment firm, Reed, told the BBC's Today programme that there was \"no wish\" among employers to see \"a so-called bonfire of workers' rights.\n\n\"They must be protected because fair treatment is the bedrock of good workplace relations,\" James Reed said.\n\nThe chairman of the firm said the government should instead focus on lower-paid workers and measures that could be taken to improve unemployment, which is set to rise further into mid-2021.\n\n\"I would suggest two things are looked at before any EU rules: The apprenticeship levy, which is clearly failing... and also National Insurance on jobs. It's a tax on jobs - how can that be improved? Especially to help the low-paid back into work.\"\n\nUnder the post-Brexit trade deal with the EU, the UK has agreed to conditions that maintain fair competition, or a level playing field, between the two sides.\n\nHowever, the EU's ambassador to the UK, Joao Vale de Almeida, said Brussels could retaliate if Boris Johnson's government went too far in with deregulation.\n\n\"It will be for us to judge the extent to which it violates this principle of 'level playing field' and if that is the case there are mechanisms in the treaty, in the agreement, that allow us to discuss and eventually to come to an understanding,\" he said on Tuesday.\n\n\"If no understanding there are retaliation measures that can be applied on both sides.\"", "The death happened in the alpine resort of Verbier, in Switzerland\n\nA British man has been killed in an avalanche in the Swiss Alps, police have said.\n\nThe man was among 10 people swept away at the alpine resort of Verbier, to the east of Geneva, on Monday morning.\n\nPolice said the skier, who has not been named, lived in Verbier and died at the scene.\n\nOne person was flown to hospital with serious injuries, while eight others were uninjured, local police said.\n\nA police spokesman said: \"The avalanche occurred outside the piste between the Verbier ski area and 'Les Attelas'.\n\n\"At around 10:20, a skier was driving down a corridor below the 'Attelas' area.\n\n\"A snow drift came loose and carried the skier as well as another person who had been further down at the time.\"\n\nAn investigation has been launched.\n\nThe Foreign Office said it was offering support to the British man's family and was in contact with the authorities in Switzerland.\n\nThe death comes after several days of heavy snowfall across Switzerland, which led to the death of another skier who was killed in an avalanche while skiing in Gstaad.\n\nIt takes the total deaths due to avalanches in the country to seven since last weekend.\n\nMore than 200 British skiers left the popular Verbier resort in December after Switzerland imposed a coronavirus quarantine following the discovery of a new variant of the virus.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Lorry drivers have been holding up the traffic in Westminster.\n\nBoris Johnson has pledged £23m to help businesses affected by Brexit delays amid protests by fishing firms.\n\nDemonstrations took place outside government departments in central London by exporters who are warning their livelihoods are under threat.\n\nExports of fresh fish and seafood have been severely disrupted by new border controls since the UK's transition period ended earlier this month.\n\nThe PM said firms would be compensated for delays that were not their fault.\n\nIndustry associations have complained that extra paperwork has made it difficult to deliver fresh produce to mainland Europe before it goes off.\n\nThey have warned that if the situation continues, jobs could soon be at risk.\n\nPressed on what he would do in response, Mr Johnson said the government would step in to support firms which \"through no fault of their own have experienced bureaucratic delays, difficulties getting their goods through, where there is a genuine willing buyer on the other side of the channel\".\n\n\"There's a £23m compensation fund we've set up and we'll make sure they get help,\" he said.\n\nDetails of the scheme are expected later this week.\n\nAfter a day of protests in central London, which saw 20 lorries drive up Whitehall, the Metropolitan Police said 14 people had been reported for Covid-related offences, but no arrests were made.\n\nMark Moore, manager of the Dartmouth Crab Company, said his business and others were protesting to \"raise awareness\" of the impact of new border checks.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 5 Live his company had faced delays of up to eight and a half hours when delivering produce into the European Union.\n\nHe added that the situation was \"especially difficult\" for the shellfish sector, where goods were at risk of going off before reaching customers.\n\n\"It's not about the increased documentation per se,\" he said.\n\n\"We have taken that on board, and we ourselves - and I know many others - have had no issues with producing the actual paperwork.\n\n\"It's the volume required and the timeframe in which to produce it, which doesn't lend itself to live shellfish and fish generally.\"\n\nThere are 24 lorries in total, overwhelmingly from seafood exporters in Scotland. Businesses taking part say the Brexit trade deal has left their industry high and dry.\n\nAnd although one haulier from Aberdeenshire I spoke to was keen to stress that their coordinated protest was peaceful, it is clear that they all feel that direct action is now necessary to make the government sit up and take notice.\n\nGood natured though their action was, it did for a time cause serious traffic congestion along Whitehall and Parliament Square.\n\nHowever, low levels of traffic perhaps caused by the Covid lockdown meant the roads around Whitehall didn't grind to a complete halt.\n\nAt stake, they believe, is an industry, but also thousands of livelihoods. Exporters say they are backed by fishermen who are struggling to land their catches.\n\nAnd although the rural Scottish communities which are sustained by fishing might seem like a long way from the streets of SW1, the hauliers certainly made their presence felt this morning.\n\nHaving left the EU's customs union and the single market, UK exports are subject to new customs and veterinary checks which have caused problems at the border.\n\nSome Scottish fishermen have been landing their catch in Denmark to avoid the \"bureaucratic system\" involved in exporting to Europe, according to Scotland's rural economy secretary.\n\nLast week, Boris Johnson told a committee of MPs that fishing firms impacted by disruption would be compensated for \"temporary frustrations\".\n\nBut the BBC was told that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) did not know about the promise of compensation before it was made by Mr Johnson.\n\nSpeaking to reporters, the prime minister said he understood the \"frustrations\" of the fishing industry, noting its plight had been \"exacerbated by the Covid pandemic\".\n\n\"Unfortunately, the demand in restaurants on the continent for UK fish has not been what it was before the pandemic, just because the restaurants have been closed for so long,\" he added.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused ministers of trying to \"blame fishing communities\" for problems \"rather than accepting it's their failure to prepare\".\n\n\"The government has known there would be a problem with fishing and particularly the sale of fish into the EU for years,\" he told reporters.\n\nMuch media attention has been focussed on Scotland as this export crisis has unfolded.\n\nBut exactly the same problem is rearing its head in the UK's other great fishing stronghold - at the other end of the UK in Devon and Cornwall.\n\nA virtual Who's Who of South West fishing leaders wrote to the environment secretary back in November warning that the new post-Brexit export requirements would have a \"seriously detrimental effect\" on the industry, claiming this \"could be the final straw for many businesses\".\n\nHere, too, many fish exports have now ground to a halt and others have encountered obstacles and long delays.\n\nAnd exporters have reacted angrily to the government's repeated insistence that the issues they've been experiencing over the last two weeks are just \"teething problems\".", "Not all parents have found it easy to home school their children during coronavirus lockdowns\n\nLevels of stress, depression and anxiety among parents and carers have increased with the pressures of the lockdowns, suggests research from the University of Oxford.\n\nMany parents, especially those of secondary-age pupils, say they are worried about their children's futures.\n\nThe government has said it is aware how challenging it is for parents to support children with home learning.\n\nThe research, based on responses from 6,246 parents and carers between mid-March and the end of December 2020, found problems including:\n\nOn an established scale of depression, anxiety and stress, parents' depression scores increased from April through to June from an average of 9.03 to 9.71, says the study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.\n\nWhile these average scores decreased over the summer, when Covid-19 restrictions were eased, to a low of 8.23 in September, they rose again over the course of the autumn term to a high of 10.1 points in December.\n\nParents' stress scores were at their lowest in August and September at 11.4 points, but increased to a high of 13.2 in December, following the pre-Christmas lockdown.\n\nThe researchers said higher levels of stress were detected particularly in low-income families, as well as single-parent households and those with children with special educational needs.\n\nWhile average anxiety scores were relatively stable throughout the whole period - ranging from a 4.71 points in April to 4.24 in July - they hit a high of 5 points in December.\n\nThe study also found just over a third (36%) of parents with young children (10 years or younger) said they were \"substantially worried\" about their children's behaviour, in contrast to just over a quarter (28%) of parents who had older children only (11 years or older).\n\nHowever, nearly half (45%) of those with secondary-age children were worried about their children's education and future, compared to 32% of those with young children.\n\nLeticea, a parent who took part in the study, said: \"I think that UK leaders should have access to this data to see what is going on with the mental health of families and how they are being affected by Covid-19 with increased levels of stress, depression and anxiety - we need something to look forward to.\n\n\"I am also worried that the next three months will show a sharper increase in anxiety and stress where parents are having to do more teaching at home.\n\n\"Children are more worried as their teachers are becoming ill - the 'new variant' sounds more scary, my daughter keeps commenting on an increasing worry of catching Covid-19 which she didn't do so much before.\"\n\nAnother parent, Madiha, said: ''Current times are hard enough as they are.\n\n\"As a working parent, the most important thing for me is to ensure my family's wellbeing, their safety, and their continued development.\n\n\"Prolonged screen time, disruption to daily routine, frequent arguments, lack of exercise, and stress of exams have all been contributing factors to our mental health and wellbeing.\n\nMadiha said she hoped the study would play a part in informing policy and developing interventions to help families.\n\nCathy Creswell, professor of clinical developmental psychology at Oxford University and co-leader of the study, said the findings showed parents were particularly vulnerable to distress during the first lockdown.\n\n\"Our data highlight the particular strains felt by parents during lockdown when many feel that they have been spread too thin by the demands of meeting their children's needs during the pandemic, along with home-schooling and work commitments.\"\n\nSchools were first closed to most pupils in March\n\nJohn Jolly, head of the charity Parentkind, said the research highlighted \"the additional stress and pressure that partial school closures place on parents\".\n\n\"Given the disruption to family life, it is vital that policymakers consult and listen to the concerns of parents on issues that directly impact them and their children's futures.\n\n\"This includes the safety and reopening of schools, the fair allocation of grades in the absence of exams, and remote learning provision.\"\n\nThe Oxford researchers are tracking children's and parents' mental health throughout the current crisis, to help them identify what protects young people from deteriorating mental health and how this may vary according to child and family characteristics.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ms Davies-Jones wanted to highlight how \"vitally important\" smear tests are\"\n\nAn MP has described how she had to have most of her cervix removed after putting off a smear test for several months.\n\nPontypridd MP Alex Davies-Jones, 31, said she was invited for her first routine screening in December 2015 and \"like so many others, I put it off\".\n\nFollowing a reminder in April 2016 she went for the cervical screening.\n\nShe wrote in the i newspaper it led to her being diagnosed with CIN3, abnormal cells and had to have surgery.\n\nIf left untreated, CIN3 can have a high chance of becoming cancerous.\n\nMs Davies-Jones wrote in the paper she was left \"without the majority of my cervix\" after the surgery.\n\nShe said she used her article to urge others \"don't delay in booking\" and said she felt compelled to write about her experiences for Cervical Cancer Prevention Week.\n\nA cervical screening checks the health of your cervix.\n\nA small sample of cells is taken from the cervix and checked for certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV) that can cause changes to the cells.\n\nIf present the sample is then checked for any changes in the cells which can be treated before they get a chance to turn into cervical cancer.\n\nThe NHS advises women between the ages of 25 to 49 to have a smear test every three years.\n\nAlex Davies-Jones became the Labour MP for Pontypridd in the 2019 General Election\n\nShe wrote: \"I used all of the usual excuses that you may have heard before.\n\n\"I was simply too busy, I couldn't get an appointment and I had no symptoms or abnormalities that were worrying me.\"\n\nMs Davies-Jones wrote she thought the routine screening would \"just be five minutes of awkward conversation with the nurse at my local GP whilst taking my knickers off\".\n\n\"I didn't ever think that there could be a chance that my cells would be 'abnormal' and that the next few months of my life would leave me terrified and constantly contemplating my own mortality.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Chloe Delevingne had a smear test live on the Victoria Derbyshire programme to show what the procedure involved\n\nIf she had put off the screening any longer \"the situation could have been different\", the MP wrote.\n\nShe said she first received a type of laser treatment to \"burn off the abnormal cells from my cervix\" but more treatment was needed after the doctor told her the abnormal cells on her cervix were \"embedded deeper and looked more challenging than expected\".\n\nThen she had to have surgery, a \"cold knife biopsy\".\n\n\"I was without the majority of my cervix, but my life was saved. It was over,\" she wrote.\n\n\"Sadly, for many this isn't the case. For the next few years, I attended screenings every six months to ensure the abnormal cells didn't return.\n\n\"My last screening was in April 2018. Thankfully again all was fine but the anxiety and fear that surrounded me as I awaited those results has stayed with me even now.\"\n\nShe went on to give birth to her son Sullivan in March 2019.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Expert’s report finds eight-year-old Saffie \"could have been saved\" if treated properly for her injuries\n\nA man has described how he tried to help the youngest victim of the Manchester Arena attack as she lay badly injured after the explosion.\n\nPaul Reid, 46, was the first person to reach eight-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos after the bomb was detonated.\n\nHe said she asked for her mum and said he tried to keep her awake by talking about the Ariana Grande gig.\n\nIt comes after a new report found Saffie could have survived if she had received better medical help.\n\nTwenty-two people were murdered and hundreds more injured when Salman Abedi detonated a bomb in the arena foyer as fans left the concert on 22 May 2017.\n\nMr Reid, who was selling posters at the concert, told the BBC he ran into the foyer seconds after the bomb went off.\n\n\"There was a big bang and I could see up on to the foyer, and there was smoke and you could hear things pinging off the wall,\" he said.\n\n\"I still had the posters in my hand. It was mad because it was like I wasn't there, like I was watching myself.\n\n\"People were just screaming and running in every direction you could think of.\"\n\nSaffie-Rose Roussos was the youngest victim of the Manchester Arena bombing\n\nMr Reid said he tried to help two other people before he noticed Saffie lying on the floor.\n\n\"She was still conscious. I asked her her name and I thought she said Sophie,\" he said.\n\n\"She just got a little bit upset. She asked me for her mum and I said not to worry, we're going to find her in a minute.\n\n\"And I sat there trying to keep her calm. I had to talk to her about the concert, and did she enjoy it.\n\n\"All the time I was sat there, I just thought hundreds of people are just going to come running in here and help us. And, well, hardly anybody came in.\"\n\nThe public inquiry into the attack, which started in September, began to examine the emergency response to the atrocity on Monday.\n\nMr Reid said he began watching the inquiry but said some details given in the opening days did not marry up with his recollection of what happened, and he switched it off.\n\nHe told the BBC after a while another person came to help, but after cutting away some of Saffie's clothing they left and went to the aid of someone else.\n\n\"I gave her [Saffie] a sip of water, because in all this madness there's somebody handing water out,\" he said.\n\n\"So you can imagine in the foyer now, all this is going on and there's a man walking about with water.\"\n\nPaul Reid said he was still haunted by what happened that night\n\nMr Reid said a police officer suggested moving Saffie out of the foyer, but with no stretchers to lift her they had to use a piece of plastic hoarding.\n\n\"The policeman came and said 'she's got to go, I'll take her in my car',\" he added.\n\n\"There was a plastic sheet under somebody's leg who was injured, I started pulling the sheet from under his leg. We put her on it and I started to carry her out, but the board was slippy.\"\n\nHe said they could not get the makeshift stretcher into the officer's car, so they flagged down an ambulance.\n\nMr Reid said he then returned to the foyer, where he went back to the man who he had taken the hoarding from.\n\n\"He had a gash in his stomach, and a paramedic was sitting there holding something against his stomach,\" he said.\n\n\"I held his hand. He had a Liverpool accent so I talked to him about football to take his mind off things, and my mind off things.\"\n\nMr Reid said he was still haunted by what happened that night.\n\n\"It's like yesterday. I can still smell the smoke in that foyer. Still hear the alarms when I go to sleep, when I close my eyes,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm first aid trained, but the most I'd done is put a plaster on.\n\n\"To step in that foyer, it was carnage. It was a war zone.\"\n\nSaffie's parents have said they would not have expected member of the public to have known how to treat her injuries.\n\nHer father Andrew Roussos told the BBC: \"There was a member of the public with her, I can't expect him to tourniquet her, splint her legs and so on.\n\n\"But the medically trained people that were with her, and were with her throughout and didn't apply basic first aid to give Saffie a chance.\"\n\nThe inquiry has previously heard it is important to acknowledge the enormous pressure which those who responded that night came under.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "News of the extended lockdown has not been welcomed by business leaders.\n\nLast month, the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) estimated that each week of lockdown meant non-essential stores missing out on £135m of lost sales.\n\nSince then, garden centres and homeware shops have been compelled to close too, and the government has placed curbs on retailers’ click and collect services.\n\nThe SRC says today's extension is a further blow to non-food stores who have already borne a lot during the pandemic.\n\nIt said Scottish stores were set to miss out on almost £950m of lost revenues during the current lockdown period.\n\nQuote Message: The extended lockdown will serve to make it harder for some retailers to emerge from this crisis. Even when we do eventually emerge from enforced hibernation the stark reality is that shops will be unable to trade at capacity due to physical distancing restrictions and caps on the number of customers in stores. This means that April’s abrupt ‘reverse cliff edge’ - which is set to see a 100% re-instatement of business rates – is simply not sustainable. from David Lonsdale Director of the Scottish Retail Consortium The extended lockdown will serve to make it harder for some retailers to emerge from this crisis. Even when we do eventually emerge from enforced hibernation the stark reality is that shops will be unable to trade at capacity due to physical distancing restrictions and caps on the number of customers in stores. This means that April’s abrupt ‘reverse cliff edge’ - which is set to see a 100% re-instatement of business rates – is simply not sustainable.", "On his final full day in office, outgoing president Donald Trump delivered a farewell speech from the White House.\n\nCurrently locked out of his personal social media accounts, Trump struck a concilatory yet defiant tone in the video released via the government's official social media accounts.\n\n\"We did what we came here to do - and so much more,\" he said. \"I took on the tough battles, the hardest fights, the most difficult choices – because that’s what you elected me to do.\"\n\nHe warned that \"the greatest danger\" now facing the country was \"a loss of confidence in our national greatness\".\n\nThe 45th president ran through actions taken by his administration - from \"stand[ing] up to China like never before\" to \"a series of historic peace deals in the Middle East\".\n\nHe added: \"I am especially proud to be the first president in decades who has started no new wars.\"\n\nReferring to the riot at the US Capitol on 6 January, he said: \"All Americans were horrified by the assault on the Capitol... It can never be tolerated.\"\n\nTrump acknowledged that a new administration would take office, but said: \"I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning.\"", "It is not known when the artwork was taken as no one reported it missing\n\nA 500-year-old painting has been discovered in a flat in Italy and returned to a museum - where staff were unaware it had even been stolen.\n\nThe copy of Salvator Mundi, which is believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci, was found in a bedroom cupboard in Naples on Saturday.\n\nThis copy is thought to have been painted by one of da Vinci's students.\n\nThe 36-year-old owner of the flat was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen goods, police said.\n\n\"The painting was found on Saturday thanks to a brilliant and diligent police operation,\" Naples prosecutor Giovanni Melillo told the AFP news agency.\n\nThe artwork is usually part of the Doma Museum collection at the San Domenico Maggiore church in the city.\n\nBut Mr Melillo said officials were not aware it had been stolen because \"the room where the painting is kept has not been open for three months\" due to the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nIt is not known when the artwork was taken as no one had reported it missing, but the museum said it was in its possession as recently as last January.\n\nSome experts believe Leonardo's student Giacomo Alibrandi may have painted the artwork\n\nPolice are now investigating the circumstances of the theft, but there was no sign of a break-in at the museum.\n\n\"It is plausible that it was a commissioned theft by an organisation working in the international art trade,\" Mr Melillo said.\n\nIt is not known who painted the artwork, but some experts believe Leonardo's student Giacomo Alibrandi may have done so in the early 1500s.\n\nIt shows Christ with one hand raised, with the other holding a glass sphere.\n\nAnd to add to the mystery - whether or not the original painting is an authentic Leonardo da Vinci is disputed. Leonardo died in 1519 and there are fewer than 20 of his paintings in existence.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The original painting was cleaned and restored from the image on the left to the one on the right\n\nThe original Salvator Mundi has had major cosmetic surgery - its walnut panel base has been described as \"worm-tunnelled\" and at some point it seems to have been split in half. Efforts to restore it have also resulted in abrasions.\n\nThis did not detract buyers, however, and the painting became the most expensive ever sold when it was auctioned for a record $450m (£341m) in 2017.\n\nThe unidentified buyer was involved in a bidding contest, via telephone, that lasted nearly 20 minutes.", "A refusal to accept cash is \"creeping into the wider UK economy\", an expert has said, after a survey suggested coronavirus had hastened a shift towards a cashless society.\n\nConsumer group Which? said that 34% of people asked said they had been unable to pay with cash at least once since March when trying to buy something.\n\nGrocery stores, pubs and restaurants were most likely to refuse.\n\nNatalie Ceeney, who wrote a report on the issue, called for ministers to act.\n\n\"The figures show that it's not simply the odd coffee shop going cashless, but this is creeping into the wider economy,\" said Ms Ceeney, who wrote the Access to Cash Review.\n\n\"We can't just blame individual businesses - many are going cashless because they can't easily bank cash takings because their local branch is closed or some distance away. The government needs to urgently legislate to protect the viability of cash - as it promised to do so last year. Time is running out.\"\n\nWhich? said the lack of cash access was a problem for those who relied on notes and coins - such as people with certain health conditions or without computer access.\n\nSome shops are still keen to accept cash\n\nJenny Ross, Which? Money editor, said: \"We have repeatedly warned about the consequences that coronavirus will have on what was an already fragile cash system, but nowhere near enough action has been taken by the government or the regulator to understand the scale of this issue.\"\n\nThe Treasury has proposed giving the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, control of overseeing future access to cash and has thrown its weight behind the idea of cashback in shops, without the requirement to buy anything.\n\nDavid Fagleman, director at financial consultancy Enryo, said: \"Our own research shows that despite a decline in use for day-to-day purchases, nearly three-quarters of people think the move to a cashless society is happening too fast and risks leaving some people, particularly the vulnerable, behind.\"", "Cillian Murphy stars in Peaky Blinders, a drama which follows Tommy Shelby and his family\n\nPeaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has confirmed the hit BBC crime drama will conclude with a film following the show's final TV series.\n\nOn Monday, Knight said the upcoming sixth series would be the last but teased that \"the story will continue in another form\".\n\nHe has now confirmed to Deadline: \"My plan from the beginning was to end Peaky with a movie.\n\n\"This is what is going to happen,\" he added.\n\nHe explained that \"Covid had changed our plans\" but did not elaborate.\n\nHelen McCrory, who plays Polly, is the Shelby family matriarch\n\nThe final BBC TV series has resumed filming after being hit by Covid-related production delays.\n\nOn Monday, Knight described the show as being \"back with a bang\" and warned fans that the mobsters would face \"extreme jeopardy\" in the sixth season.\n\nKnight had previously planned for a seven-season run of the drama, which is set in post-World War One Birmingham.\n\n\"My ambition is to make it a story of a family between two wars,\" he said in 2018 ahead of season five. \"I've wanted to end it with the first air raid siren in Birmingham in 1939. It'll take three more series to reach that point.\"\n\nIt now looks like the film might be replacing his plan for series seven.\n\nKnight, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, previously revealed he had been \"approached\" to take the Shelby crime family universe to the big-screen.\n\nSam Claflin as Tommy's political rival Oswald Mosley was a central figure in series five\n\nThe sixth series of the show, which follows Tommy Shelby and his family, will see Anthony Byrne return as director and Nick Goding produce.\n\nTommy Bulfin, executive producer for the BBC, said he was \"very excited\" filming had begun and promised a \"truly remarkable... fitting send-off that will delight fans\".\n\nHe added he was \"so grateful to everyone for all their hard work to make it happen\".\n\nThe production team have developed comprehensive safety protocols to ensure that the series will be produced responsibly and in accordance with government guidelines during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nExecutive producer Caryn Mandabach said the \"safety of our cast and crew is always our priority\" and that they had been \"working diligently\" to get safely back into production since filming was halted last March.\n\n\"Thank you to all the Peaky fans who have been so unwaveringly supportive and patient,\" she added.\n\nPeaky Blinders, which stars Cillian Murphy, first aired on BBC Two eight years ago to widespread critical acclaim.\n\nRatings quickly grew from over two million for the first series to over four million by series four and it found further popularity on Netflix.\n\nIt made the transition to BBC One for the fifth series in 2019, achieving audiences of over five million.\n\nThroughout its run, a host of awards have followed, including NTAs, which are voted for by the public, and a Bafta for best drama series in 2018.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Scientists are a step closer to being able to reverse the damage caused by motor neurone disease (MND).\n\nUniversity of Edinburgh experts have found a problem with MND patients' nerve cells which could be repaired by repurposing drugs approved for other diseases.\n\nThe study has been welcomed by charities including the foundation set up by Scots rugby legend Doddie Weir.\n\nMy Name'5 Doddie foundation described it as \"a very exciting breakthrough\".\n\nMore than 1,500 people are diagnosed with the degenerative condition in the UK every year.\n\nThere is no known cure and more than half die within two years of diagnosis.\n\nThe research found that the damage to nerve cells caused by MND could be repaired by improving the energy levels in mitochondria - the power supply to the motor neurons.\n\nThey discovered in human stem cell models of MND, the axon - the long part of the motor neuron cell that connects to the muscle - was shorter than in healthy cells.\n\nAnd the movement of the mitochondria, which travel up and down the axons, was impaired\n\nThe scientists showed that this was caused by a defective energy supply from the mitochondria and that by boosting the mitochondria, the axon reverted back to normal.\n\nDr Arpan Mehta, who led the study at Euan MacDonald Centre for MND research said: \"The importance of the axon in motor nerve cells cannot be overstated.\n\n\"Our data provides hope that by restoring the cell's energy source we can protect the axons and their connection to muscle from degeneration.\n\n\"Work is already under way to identify existing licensed drugs that can boost the mitochondria and repair the motor neurons. This will then pave the way to test them in clinical trials.\"\n\nThe research centre was established by Euan MacDonald, who was 29 years old when he was diagnosed with MND in 2003\n\nCraig Stockton, the chief executive of MND Scotland, said the \"exciting\" results of the research were another piece of the puzzle to finding an effective treatment for the degenerative condition.\n\n\"We look forward to seeing if these positive results can be replicated for patients,\" he said.\n\n\"Once researchers have identified a drug they believe could have the desired effect, this treatment could then be fast-tracked for human trials using the pioneering MND-SMART clinical trial platform - into which MND Scotland has invested £1.5m.\n\n\"Researchers, clinicians, charities and supporters are all working hard to take us closer to finding a cure and by joining together we'll get to that day even sooner.\"\n\nThe researchers used stem cells taken from people with the C9orf72 gene mutation that causes both MND and frontotemporal dementia.\n\nThey used the stem cells to generate motor neuron cells in the lab.\n\nThe study also used human post-mortem spinal cord tissue from people with MND.\n\nAlthough the research focused on the people with the commonest genetic cause of MND, the researchers said they were hopeful the results would also apply to other forms of the disease.\n\nThe results of the study are now being used to look for existing drugs that boost mitochondrial function.\n\nThe study was funded by the Medical Research Council, Motor Neurone Disease Association, Euan MacDonald Centre for MND Research, My Name'5 Doddie Foundation, UK Dementia Research Institute and Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Protests against China's alleged abuse of the Muslim Uighur community\n\nThe government is facing a rebellion over the Trade Bill, and opposition proposals to give British courts the right to decide if a country is committing genocide.\n\nRebel Tory MPs want to allow Parliament to debate ending trade deals with countries responsible for genocide.\n\nThe government says trade policy should not be set by the courts.\n\nBut some MPs think the proposal would be a good way of targeting China and its treatment of the Uighur people.\n\nOn Tuesday, America's top diplomat Mike Pompeo, in his last day in the role, said the US had determined that China's persecution of the Muslim group and other minorities in Xinjiang province represented genocide and crimes against humanity under international law.\n\nThe UK has repeatedly condemned the actions of the Chinese authorities but stopped short of describing them as genocide - saying only international courts should determine this.\n\nAnd ministers also argue that trade deals are matters for governments, not the courts, to decide upon.\n\nThe MPs' amendment to the Trade Bill is a watered-down version of an earlier proposal from the House of Lords, which would force the government to withdraw from any free trade agreement with any country found guilty of genocide by the High Court of England and Wales.\n\nThe new proposal is signed by 10 Conservative MPs, one of whom described their amendment as \"tidier\" than the Lords version and designed to attract more support.\n\nSpeaking in the Commons, Sir Edward Leigh asked \"is there any way we can acknowledge that genocide is taking place in a discussion on a trade deal\".\n\nIn response, International Trade minister Greg Hands said ministers were prepared to have further discussions but not within the scope of the current legislation.\n\nHe told MPs the government was \"answerable to Parliament, not the courts\" and the Lords version would have led to an \"unacceptable erosion\" of its authority.\n\nThe UK, he added, had \"no plans\" to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement with China due to concerns about its human rights record, particularly its persecution of the Muslim Uighur community.\n\nNusrat Ghani urged ministers to consider the \"compromise\" proposal, which she said recognised the \"separation of powers\" between the executive, Parliament and the courts.\n\nThe Conservative ex-minister said the UK should \"never let economic concerns trump ethical ones by dealing with genocidal states\".\n\n\"Why would we want to use our newfound freedom to trade with states that commit and profit from genocide? Britain is better than that.\"\n\nSpeaking to Politics Live, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said it is currently \"impossible\" for international courts to rule on whether there has been genocide, as other countries can block hearings in the UN.\n\nHe argued it is therefore important to allow British courts to make the judgement.\n\nThe MP insisted he is not \"anti-China\" but said the Chinese government need to be \"reasonable and behave in a way that is acceptable\" if it wanted to be part of global trading organisations.\n\nShadow international trade secretary Emily Thornberry said Labour would be supporting the new amendment arguing that the government \"does not consider human rights abuses enough before signing up to trade deals\".\n\nThis is an interesting story in its own right because of the issues involved but it's also a neat metaphor for Brexit.\n\nThe government has taken back control of trade policy from the EU but is already having to share it with the House of Lords, Tory MPs and potentially with the High Court.\n\nDuring the passage of the Trade Bill, the government also had to beef up the powers of the Trade and Agriculture Commission - an independent body of experts - in response to lobbying from farmers who were worried about the dilution of food standards.\n\nSoon trade disputes with other countries will partly be overseen by the new Trade Remedies Authority, another organisation that reports to ministers but is independent of them.\n\nAnd of course, everything has to be compatible with World Trade Organisation rules, anyway.\n\nThe government has control of trade. It's just not total.", "19 January is a special day for Orthodox Christians across Russia, including President Vladimir Putin. It's a day reserved for commemorating the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, and it's called Epiphany. Though temperatures are as low as -20 Celsius, some celebrated this by submerging themselves in ice-cold water.", "A team of Nepalese climbers has become the first ever to summit the world’s second highest mountain, K2, in winter.\n\nK2, along the Pakistan-China border, is notoriously challenging - with high winds and sub-zero temperatures.\n\nOne of the leading members of the team is a former Gurkha and British special forces soldier, Nirmal Purja. He spoke to BBC Pakistan correspondent Secunder Kermani.", "Theresa May has accused her successor Boris Johnson of \"abandoning\" the UK's moral leadership on the world stage.\n\nThe ex-prime minister said Mr Johnson's decision to cut the overseas aid budget below 0.7% of national income had reduced the UK's global \"credibility\".\n\nShe wrote in the Daily Mail the UK had to \"live up to its values\" and would be judged by its actions not its rhetoric.\n\nMr Johnson said the UK was \"embarking on a quite phenomenal year\" of global leadership.\n\nQuestioned about Mrs May's comments by the SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said: \"I think it's very important the prime minister of the UK has the best possible relationship with the president of the United States.\n\n\"That's part of the job description.\"\n\nHe cited the UK's hosting of a global vaccine summit, the upcoming COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, as well as the G7 summit of leading industrial nations, in Cornwall, and his pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 as examples of the UK's global leadership.\n\nMr Blackford called on the PM to reverse \"his cruel policy of cutting international aid for the world's poorest\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The SNP Westminster leader called in the PM to reverse his \"cruel\" international aid policy\n\nLater on Wednesday, Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States, succeeding Donald Trump.\n\nIn advance of the event, Mr Johnson said he looked forward to working \"hand-in-hand\" with the new administration and that post-Covid challenges could only be tackled by \"international co-operation\".\n\nBut, in an article in the Daily Mail, Mrs May suggested Mr Johnson had squandered international goodwill by choosing not to meet the longstanding UN target of spending 0.7% of income on international development.\n\nThe government says it cannot meet the figure - enshrined in UK law - this year because of the strain placed on the public finances by the pandemic.\n\nTheresa May has made these criticisms - on overseas aid and the threat by the government to override international law - before.\n\nQuite often she gets a dig in when she stands up in the House of Commons.\n\nBut packaging it all up in this way, on this day, is, in the words of one of her close former advisers, \"quite punchy\".\n\nThe government would rather focus on the relationship it is going to forge with the new US president.\n\nMinisters feel they have quite a lot in common with Joe Biden when it comes to working together on the world stage, fighting climate change and co-operating on global security.\n\nMrs May also criticised Mr Johnson's support for legislation which could have allowed the UK to go back on parts of its Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, had it been passed.\n\nControversial clauses were ultimately removed from the Internal Market Bill in December, after the UK and EU reached an agreement.\n\nBut Mr Johnson's threat to break international law was criticised in Europe and the US - where Mr Biden warned it could imperil peace in Northern Ireland.\n\nMrs May said the UK was \"well placed to play a decisive role in shaping this more co-operative world but to lead we must live up to our values\".\n\n\"Other countries listen to what we say not simply because of who we are, but because of what we do. The world does not owe us a prominent place on its stage,\" she added.\n\n\"Whatever the rhetoric we deploy, it is our actions which count. So, we should do nothing which signals a retreat from our global commitments.\"\n\nMrs May suggested the end of the Trump presidency could be a catalyst for a change in world politics\n\nMrs May, who had a sometimes strained relationship with Mr Trump, said Mr Biden's election presented the UK with a \"golden opportunity\" for Western democracies to reverse the trend towards \"absolutism\" - and a \"few strongmen facing off against each other\" - in global affairs.\n\nThe UK holds the presidency of the G7 this year and hosts the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.\n\nMr Johnson said he looked forward to welcoming Mr Biden to the UK at least twice in 2021.\n\n\"In our fight against Covid and across climate change, defence, security, and in promoting and defending democracy, our goals are the same and our nations will work hand-in-hand to achieve them,\" he added.", "LAS received almost 200,000 calls in December - up 50,000 on November, when London was in the second national lockdown\n\nLast week London exceeded the grim milestone of 10,000 deaths linked to Covid-19. Thousands of people are critically ill in hospital, and as many as 5% of Londoners are thought to have the virus in some parts of the city. As coronavirus continues to circulate silently around the capital, staff at the London Ambulance Service (LAS) are under immense pressure.\n\nThe service is currently taking up to 8,500 calls a day, compared with a pre-Covid figure of 5,000 to 6,000, according to its chief executive Garrett Emmerson.\n\nLizzie Cooke is one of the workers at LAS's south London headquarters who are dealing with strangers at what is a distressing time.\n\nI covered the London Bridge terror attacks and Grenfell but this is a different scale\n\nCalmly, the 30-year-old answers the phone and usually asks first if the patient is breathing.\n\n\"In the first wave we were getting a lot of calls of [people seeking] reassurance,\" Lizzie says. \"But now there are more and more who have symptoms, and family members are really frightened.\"\n\nIt is a fear that Lizzie knows all too well, having been hospitalised with Covid-19 in March. She spent a week receiving treatment for the virus.\n\n\"I was at work taking calls and struggling to concentrate,\" the call-handling supervisor says. \"At times I would just have my head on the desk in between calls.\n\n\"I started to develop chest pains five days later so my parents took me to Royal County Hospital, in Hampshire, and an X-ray showed a lot of fluid in my lungs. It was quite horrible.\n\n\"Luckily, I wasn't on a ventilator but I had the oxygen hood, and the nurses were so rushed off their feet. I didn't have my phone with me or know my parents' numbers off by heart so for that week I was quite alone and isolated.\n\n\"It was just a mixture of the unknown and not knowing when it was going to stop that was so daunting.\"\n\nThe unprecedented volume of calls means waiting times for patients are increasing\n\nLizzie's personal battle with coronavirus has helped her to empathise with people who call up with breathing problems.\n\nIt's something she says she's having to do more and more.\n\n\"Just before Christmas we were getting a lot of respiratory and cardiac arrest calls,\" she says. \"You could just hear colleagues counting to four [for chest compressions] and it was echoing around the room. It has been tough.\n\n\"We are getting calls from family members who are really frightened. I covered the London Bridge terror attacks and Grenfell but this is a different scale.\n\n\"I did get one call for toothache, but that's part of the job.\"\n\nLizzie, who lives in Hampshire, says that because the coverage of coronavirus is everywhere, it is \"difficult to escape\".\n\nWhen she's not at work she binge-watches Line of Duty on Netflix, but she says winding down isn't easy.\n\nLizzie sometimes thinks about the people who aren't following the rules aimed at helping stop the spread of the virus, and those who deny Covid-19 even exists.\n\n\"It's a kick in the teeth,\" she says. \"It is frustrating on the way to work when you see people not wearing masks or even posting stuff on social media not believing the virus is real.\n\n\"I just don't know where the disconnect is coming from; there are many people in hospital, many people dying, and I don't know what more needs to be said to make them realise how dangerous the illness is.\"\n\nSorry, your browser cannot display this map\n\nSitting a few metres away from Lizzie is 24-year-old Louise Essam, who has been in the job for two years.\n\n\"Every call we take at the moment is coronavirus,\" she says. \"My record was 108 calls in a day back in March during the first wave.\n\n\"But easily in the last few weeks I've been taking around 100 a day at times,\" Louise adds.\n\n\"We are just doing the best we can,\" says emergency call co-ordinator Louise Essam\n\n\"Sometimes I'll come in for a shift and can just hear colleagues counting one, two, three, four, for the compressions, and you just know what kind of shift it is going to be.\n\n\"It has been tough and quite frustrating, really. We are trying to help people. We are under so much pressure as there are high waiting times, but we are just doing the best we can.\"\n\nHelp is at hand though from the LAS workers' fellow emergency services personnel.\n\nMet Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick visited Wembley Stadium on Wednesday, where her officers are being trained to drive ambulances\n\nSeventy-five Met Police officers are currently being trained at Wembley Stadium to drive ambulances.\n\nThey will start work as drivers from 20 January, joining the 200 firefighters who are already helping LAS.\n\n\"It came as a huge relief when they announced it,\" says 37-year-old paramedic Ben West.\n\nBen West has been with the London Ambulance Service for 13 years\n\nAs is the case with many frontline workers, Ben says he is concerned about the dangers of exposure to coronavirus.\n\nHe has lost four colleagues to Covid-19, including Ian Reynolds, a paramedic based in Croydon, and Melonie Mitchell, a member of the NHS 111 team. They both died during the first wave in April.\n\n\"I wouldn't be a normal person if I said I wasn't scared,\" he says.\n\n\"I am scared and I do worry but we take every day as it comes, take our precautions and we just see where we go with that.\n\n\"We know the virus is out there in the community and we are not immune.\"", "A non-binding Labour motion calling for the universal credit top-up to be kept in place beyond 31 March passed by 278 votes to none after a Commons debate.\n\nSix Tory MPs defied party orders to abstain and voted with Labour, adding to the pressure on the PM on the issue.\n\nThe prime minister said the government had provided £280bn worth of support during the pandemic but all measures would be kept under \"constant review\".\n\nThe motion, which will not automatically lead to a change in policy, was put forward by Labour as a way to put additional pressure on the government to continue the increase, worth £1,000 a year.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Carl, a roofer, describes going from \"not having enough to barely having enough\" on universal credit.\n\nFormer Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb was among six Conservative MPs to rebel, along with Peter Aldous, Robert Halfon, Jason McCartney, Anne Marie Morris and Matthew Offord.\n\nAhead of the vote, Mr Crabb told the BBC that although there were \"difficult pressures on the chancellor\" extending the increase for 12 months was \"the right thing to do\".\n\nBBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said there were dozens of Conservative MPs who were \"deeply uneasy\" about ending the £20 weekly increase to universal credit.\n\nShe added that it was also understood the cabinet minister with responsibility for benefits, Therese Coffey, was arguing that the uplift should not be dropped in April.\n\nCharities and anti-poverty campaigners are pleading with the government to keep the support in place, describing it as a lifeline for more than 5.5 million families who receive the standard universal credit allowance.\n\nFood poverty campaigner and chef Jack Monroe told the BBC that the £20 increase \"has been a lifeline\" for millions of people who have needed to top up their income or rely on universal credit payments in order to get by.\n\nSir Keir said the increase was a vital safety net for those who had lost their jobs, seen their working hours slashed or who were not eligible for the government's wage subsidy furlough scheme.\n\n\"If we don't give a helping hand to families through this pandemic, then we are going to slow our economic recovery as we come out it.\n\n\"We urge Boris Johnson to change course and give families certainty today that their incomes will be protected.\"\n\nSix billion pounds of the benefits bill - the difference between poverty or not for 1.2 million families, according to a think tank.\n\nThe £1,040 a year increase to universal credit is a very emotive issue.\n\nThere's even a battle over what to call it.\n\nTo the government, its introduction was a one-off boost to cope with a crisis. For Labour, taking it away is a cut.\n\nMinisters would prefer we looked at the overall level of support they've provided for workers and businesses during the pandemic. The opposition say the £20 a week boost is a powerful symbol of the state's willingness to help.\n\nEven the act of debating it today is disputed. Labour say they've got the right occasionally to set the agenda in Parliament. Boris Johnson said his MPs risk abuse from campaigners and protestors if they engage.\n\nThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation has suggested about 16 million people will be directly affected if the £20 is rolled back.\n\nIt says 500,000 more people will be driven into poverty, including 200,000 children, while a further 500,000 of those already in poverty will find themselves in even worse hardship.\n\nHowever, free market think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs has argued that \"across-the-board benefit increases are a wasteful use of taxpayers' money\" at a time when the government is borrowing \"a hair-raising amount of money\".\n\nUniversal credit is a single payment replacing old benefits such as housing benefit and child tax credits.\n\nYou can claim universal credit if you are on a low income or are out of work.\n\nThe standard allowance varies from around £340 to just under £600 a month, depending on your age or whether you are single.\n\nYou may be eligible to receive more money on top of the standard allowance if, for example, you have children or a health condition.\n\nSpeaking on behalf of the Northern Research Group, Conservative MP John Stevenson said the £1,000 increase had been \"a real life-saver for people throughout this pandemic\".\n\n\"To end it now would be devastating for the 6 million individuals and families who are already struggling to stay afloat,\" he added.\n\nWhile the vote is not binding, and will not lead to a change in policy, it will increase pressure on the government to keep the increase or come up with an alternative.\n\nLabour said the Conservatives' decision to abstain created \"unnecessary uncertainty\" but minister Nadhim Zahawi described the vote as \"a political stunt\".\n\nThe government says it has strengthened the welfare system with an extra £7bn of funding during the pandemic while families struggling with food and household bills can get help through the £170m Winter Grant Scheme.\n\nMinisters also point to extra support for housing costs, through an increase in local housing allowance for those on housing benefits and hardship payments worth £670m next year for those unable to pay their council tax bills.", "How has the justice system responded to the pandemic? Stories from inside prisons and courts, where lawyers fear delays are creating miscarriages of justice. Helen Grady reports.\n\nAre court backlogs creating miscarriages of justice? When the UK locked down, so did its court system, adding to a backlog that’s left defendants, witnesses and victims facing long waits for trials. Helen Grady speaks to people inside the justice system to find out how it’s coped with the pandemic - from delays in making courts covid-secure to a lack of PPE and overcrowding in prisons. We hear stories from prisons under lockdown and talk to lawyers who fear delays are leading to abuses of the criminal justice system.\n\nProducer: Rob Cave", "New legislation has been passed to protect Scottish shop workers from abuse from customers.\n\nThe Protection of Workers Bill will make it a new specific offence to assault, abuse or threaten staff.\n\nIncidents involving an age-restricted product, such as alcohol or cigarettes, could be treated more seriously.\n\nThe MSP behind the bill, Labour's Daniel Johnson, said attacks on retail workers had increased during the Covid pandemic.\n\nHe told Holyrood: \"Shop staff have been spat at for asking customers to socially distance, and stock has been smashed in retaliation for item limits being imposed.\n\n\"Violence, threats and abuse should not be just part of anyone's job.\"\n\nMr Johnson said that staff requesting age ID could be a \"trigger factor\" in many incidents of abuse.\n\nThe new legislation will also cover people working in bars, restaurants and hotels, and those delivering items bought online who may have to ask for proof of age.\n\nThe bill was supported by all parties at Holyrood, despite the government initially arguing that its provisions were already covered by existing criminal laws.\n\nThe Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service told MSPs that further legislation was not needed, noting that \"violence, threats and abuse against retail workers, or indeed any other person, are prosecuted every day in the courts in Scotland using offences which are commonly understood\".\n\nPolice Scotland meanwhile said there would be \"no significant change in how we go about our business\" as a result of it.\n\nCommunity safety minister Ash Denham said that while there was a \"wide range of existing criminal laws\" currently in place to protect staff, the new legislation could \"make the general public think more about their behaviour when they interact with retail workers\".\n\nThe Scottish Conservatives also backed the bill, although they argued that the presumption against short sentences in Scotland meant anyone convicted under the new law would ultimately not be jailed.\n\nPaul Gerrard, public affairs director for the Co-Op, told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime that the retailer had seen a 450% rise in violent incidents in the last few years.\n\n\"It is a huge problem,\" he said. \"We've seen an explosion in violence and abuse toward my colleagues.\n\n\"Now across 350 stores in Scotland we have someone attacked every day. And 10 colleagues are threatened or abused every day.\n\n\"Increasingly we have seen knives, syringes and axes all used against shopworkers.\"\n\nMr Gerrard added that previous incidents were centred on shoplifting or age-restricted sales, but staff were now facing more abuse around enforcing Covid shopping rules.\n\nThe new legislation was passed by 118 votes to 0 in the Scottish Parliament.\n\nThe Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) is now urging the UK government to introduce similar legislation to protect retail staff in England - something Labour MP Alex Norris is pursuing at Westminster.\n\nUsdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis said: \"It is a great result for our members in Scotland, who will now have the protection of the law that they deserve.\n\n\"So we are looking for MPs to support key workers across the retail sector and help turn around the UK government's opposition.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nIndia pulled off an astonishing run-chase to inflict Australia's first defeat at the Gabba since 1988, win the fourth Test by three wickets and take one of the all-time great series. Needing 328, a Brisbane record run-chase, the injury-hit tourists got home with three overs to spare. Shubman Gill made 91 and Rishabh Pant was unbeaten on 89. They win the series 2-1, keeping the Border-Gavaskar they won in Australia two years ago. It is perhaps one of the finest Test series wins by any away side, especially given the list of players unavailable to India by the time the final match was played. That included captain and talisman Virat Kohli, who only played in the first Test before departing to be at the birth of his first child, a host of fast bowlers and first-choice spin pair Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. In addition to the absent players, India somehow recovered from being bowled out for 36 - their lowest total in Test cricket - in losing the series opener by eight wickets. What followed were three Tests of the highest quality and drama, with India producing a stunning comeback to win the second Test by eight wickets, then defiantly batting through the final day to earn a draw in the third. But they saved their best performance for last, a superb contest that ensured the series went down to the final hour of the last day, with the shadows lengthening and a near-empty Gabba filled with the sound of a smattering of raucous India supporters. The tourists were 4-0 overnight and, for them to even get to the point where victory might be possible, Cheteshwar Pujara had to come through a barrage of hostile bowling from the Australia quicks - he was hit 10 times in his 56. He added 114 for the second wicket with the free-scoring Gill, while stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane, who has presided over India's fightback, signalled their intent with 24 off only 22 balls. Tireless Australia fast bowler Pat Cummins was a threat throughout, removing Pujara, Rahane and Rohit Sharma. Fast bowler Pat Cummins took four wickets for Australia Still, even though India knew a draw would see them retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, they never lost sight of the chance of victory and promoted wicketkeeper Pant to number five. At the beginning of the final hour, India were 259-4, meaning they needed 69 runs and Australia six wickets from the final 15 overs. Though Cummins had Mayank Agarwal caught at cover for his fourth wicket, Pant attacked in the company of debutant Washington Sundar. Runs came with increasing freedom and, although Sundar was bowled trying to reverse-sweep Nathan Lyon and Shardul Thakur miscued Josh Hazlewood, Pant could not be stopped. The left-hander's drive down the ground off Hazlewood secured a famous win and sparked joyous India celebrations. 'One of the top three series of all time' - reaction India captain Rahane: \"I don't know how to describe this victory. I'm really proud of all the boys. We didn't talk about anything after Adelaide, we just wanted to show good character and express ourselves. It was all about a team effort.\" Australia captain Tim Paine: \"In the key moments we were found wanting and completely outplayed by India, who fully deserved their series win.\" Man of the match Pant: \"This is one of the biggest things in my life. It has been a dream series.\" Player of the series Cummins: \"The whole India side played fantastically and deserved to win. The game was there for to win, but we didn't take the wickets.\" Former Australia fast bowler Stuart Clark on ABC: \"What a victory that is by India. They have been absolutely outstanding. The man of the moment is Rishabh Pant. He played some of the most insane shots you will ever see. Australia bowled their hearts out, but it wasn't enough.\" Former Australia captain Ian Chappell: \"It had everything. It was an absolutely amazing day. This has been one of top three Test series of all time.\"\n• None Can this British team make an impact on the global scene?\n• None The show must go on in lockdown:", "Nicola Sturgeon is to announce later whether Scotland's Covid-19 lockdown is to continue past the end of January.\n\nThe first minister said Tuesday's statement at Holyrood would concern the \"duration\" of restrictions rather than whether any new ones would be imposed.\n\nMinsters will also decide at a cabinet meeting whether schools will be allowed to re-open in full from 1 February.\n\nEducation Secretary John Swinney has suggested it would be a \"tall order\" for pupils to return to classrooms.\n\nMs Sturgeon said on Monday that she did not want to \"raise parents' expectations\", saying transmission of the virus \"is still higher than we would want it to be\".\n\nThe whole Scottish mainland and several islands have been in a strict lockdown since early January, with a \"stay at home\" message in force.\n\nThis was initially due to run until February, but this will be reviewed by ministers on Tuesday morning with a view to having the restrictions last longer.\n\nWhile Ms Sturgeon has warned that the government would consider further measures if necessary, she said \"it is the duration rather than the content of restrictions that we will be looking at\" on Tuesday.\n\nThe outcome of this review will then be announced to MSPs in a statement at Holyrood in the afternoon.\n\nNicola Sturgeon will announce the result of the latest review in a Holyrood statement\n\nThe review will also cover the situation in schools, with the majority learning remotely from home and only some children of key workers and vulnerable pupils being allowed into school buildings.\n\nOn Monday, the first minister said she did not want to \"raise expectations\" about classes returning to normal, but added that she was \"not going to make any assumptions\" ahead of the cabinet meeting.\n\nShe said: \"I am not going to raise parents' expectations, you can see from the numbers we are seeing some positive signs in the numbers that lockdown is starting to stabilise things and tip them into decline, but transmission is still higher than we would want it to be.\n\n\"We want to get schools back as quickly as we possibly can, it is not in the interests of kids to be out of school for any longer than is absolutely necessary, but community transmission has always been a key factor in these decisions.\"\n\nThis echoed comments from Mr Swinney, who had previously said it would be \"a tall order\" for schools to fully re-open with \"the virus still at a very high level in general within society\".\n\nI am expecting continuity rather than change from today's announcement on coronavirus restrictions.\n\nThe continuation of the current lockdown and presumably the extension of remote learning for most school pupils into the February break at least.\n\nBoth decisions are likely to be reviewed again next month. But it's not clear if the first minister will feel able to suggest a target date for restrictions to ease.\n\nCabinet will also be giving special attention to the serious Covid outbreak on Barra and considering if the level three restrictions that apply in the Western Isles remain appropriate.\n\nWhile there are signs the pace at which the current wave of coronavirus is spreading is starting to slow, evidence of much greater suppression will be required before the stay at home lockdown in place across mainland Scotland is lifted.\n\nThe review comes less than a week after restrictions in Scotland were tightened, with some click and collect services ordered to close and outdoor alcohol consumption banned.\n\nThe entire Scottish mainland has been in the top level of restrictions - level four - since Boxing Day, with level three measures in place in Orkney, Shetland, the Western Isles and some islands in Argyll and Bute and the Highlands.\n\nScots are subject to a legal requirement not to leave home for anything other than essential purposes, such as shopping for essentials, exercise and caring responsibilities.\n\nThe number of new cases reported each day on average has begun to fall, but the number of people in hospital with the virus continues to rise and is now \"significantly\" above that seen in the first wave in 2020.\n\nMs Sturgeon said the \"position overall is very precarious, very concerning in terms of the level of transmission\", but said there were \"some early signs to be optimistic that measures are having an effect\".\n\nThe first minister will take questions from opposition leaders following her statement.\n\nThe Scottish Conservatives have voiced concerns that Covid-19 vaccines are not being rolled out quickly enough, saying the Scottish government are \"trailing their own targets\".\n\nStatistics released on Monday showed that Scotland has vaccinated 264,991 people so far - 6% of its adult population.\n\nThis is lower than the figure for England, where 8% of the adult population - 3,520,056 people - have been vaccinated, and Northern Ireland, which has the highest vaccination rate in the UK at 8.7%.\n\nWales has a similar figure to Scotland at 6%.\n\nEngland has also given a second dose of the vaccine to 427,386 people, compared to only 3,698 in Scotland.\n\nHowever, Ms Sturgeon has insisted that all parts of the UK are \"working to the same targets\" to vaccinate priority groups, and said her government is \"on track\" to hit them subject to supplies arriving.\n\nThis would see care home residents, healthcare staff and all over-80s get a first dose by the start of February, with over-70s and those deemed \"extremely vulnerable\" by mid-February and all over-65s by the beginning of March.\n\nBy that time the government aims to be vaccinating up to 400,000 people a week on average, with all priority groups getting a first jab by early May and the rest of the adult population in line thereafter.", "About one in 10 people across the UK tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies in December, roughly double the October figure, data has shown.\n\nEstimates from the Office for National Statistics suggest between 8% of people in Northern Ireland and 12% of people in England showed signs of past Covid infection.\n\nIn October, antibody positivity ranged from 2% to 7% around the UK.\n\nAnd 6,586 Covid deaths were registered in the UK in the week to 8 January.\n\nThat brings the total registered so far close to 96,000.\n\nNearly a quarter of deaths were people living in care homes - a disproportionate impact on a group of people which accounts for less than 1% of the population.\n\nBack in July, though, care home residents accounted for 40% of deaths.\n\nThe ONS regularly tests a representative sample of the population, both for current infection and for antibodies indicating a past infection.\n\nPeople taking part in the survey are tested whether or not they have had symptoms.\n\nThis is used to estimate how common both the virus and antibodies are in the population as a whole.\n\nAntibodies are proteins in the blood which fight off specific infections.\n\nThey are developed if somebody catches an infection and their body fights it off, or if they have been vaccinated.\n\nYorkshire and the Humber topped the chart with 17% of people having positive antibodies, followed by London.\n\nProf Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick Medical School, said: \"This study shows that infection with the Sars-Cov-2 virus is much more widespread in the UK than previously realised, with around 1 in 10 people estimated to have been infected by December 2020.\n\n\"The implications are that infection rates increased significantly between November and December.\"\n\nBut Scotland had a considerably smaller growth in antibodies than the rest of the UK, rising from 7% to 9% of the population.\n\nThe fact that more people show signs of having at least some protection against Covid-19 is consistent with the dramatic rise in infections during that period.\n\nBut we know that antibodies from natural infection can fade.\n\nIn England, the ONS said, positive antibody tests equated to 5.4 million people aged over 16 having signs of past infection.\n\nThat does not tell you the total number of people infected, however, but acts as a snapshot in time.\n\nIn London, about 16% of people had antibodies in December, up from 11% in October. But at the last peak in May, an estimated 15% of the population had antibodies. This proportion fell, as detectable antibodies recede with time.\n\nExactly what this means for someone's likelihood to become infected again, however, is not fully known.\n\nIt also remains to be seen how long vaccines will protect people for, before they need a booster jab.\n\nBut Public Health England data suggests natural immunity provides at least five months' protection on average, and vaccines often give better protection than natural immunity.\n\nMore than 4 million people in the UK have been given their first dose of the vaccine.\n\nProf Janet Lord, director of the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham, urged caution among those who have already been vaccinated.\n\nAsked whether people who have received the jab can hug their children, she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"I would certainly advise not to do that at the moment because, as you probably know, with the vaccines they take several weeks before they are maximally effective.\n\n\"It's really important that people stay on their guard even if they've had that first vaccination.\"", "Alexandru Murgeanu (l) and Jason Mercer were killed in the crash on the M1 in South Yorkshire\n\nA coroner has called for a review of smart motorways after an inquest heard the deaths of two men on a stretch of the M1 could have been avoided.\n\nJason Mercer, 44, and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, died when Prezemyslaw Szuba crashed his lorry into their vehicles near Sheffield on 7 June 2019.\n\nCoroner David Urpeth said smart motorways without a hard shoulder carry \"an ongoing risk of future deaths\".\n\nHighways England said it was \"addressing many of the points raised\".\n\nMr Urpeth recorded a verdict of unlawful killing at Sheffield Town Hall. He added he would be writing to Highways England and the transport secretary asking for a review.\n\nThe inquest heard the deaths of the two men may have been avoided had there had been a hard shoulder.\n\nOn the stretch of the M1 where the crash took place, the hard shoulder has been replaced by an active lane.\n\nSzuba, 40, from Hull, was jailed last year after admitting causing their deaths by careless driving.\n\nHe was speaking from prison to the inquest.\n\nPrezemyslaw Szuba was jailed over the deaths\n\nAnswering questions over the phone, Szuba told the hearing he accepted he was driving without paying proper attention.\n\n\"I have already accepted that at my trial,\" he said, but added: \"If there had been a hard shoulder on this bit of motorway, the collision would have been avoidable.\n\n\"I would have driven past these two cars as it would be safer and they would have been able to come home safely and I would be able to come back home.\"\n\nSzuba said he had only three to five seconds to react, and asked if he would have avoided the crash had he been paying attention, he said: \"It's difficult to say after everything now.\"\n\nSgt Mark Brady, who oversees major collision investigations for South Yorkshire Police, told the hearing: \"Had there been a hard shoulder, had Jason and Alexandru pulled on to the hard shoulder, my opinion is that Mr Szuba would have driven clean past them.\"\n\nBut he accepted the primary cause of the crash was Szuba's inattention to the road.\n\nThe crash happened after a collision between a Ford Focus driven by Mr Mercer, from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, and a Ford Transit driven by Mr Murgeanu, who was living in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, but was originally from Romania.\n\nWhen Mr Mercer and Mr Murgeanu got out to exchange details they were hit by the lorry, and both died at the scene.\n\nMr Mercer's wife Claire has campaigned against smart motorways since her husband's death, and was at the hearing on Monday.\n\nClaire Mercer has campaigned against the use of smart motorways since her husband's death\n\nIn a statement, Highways England said it was \"determined\" to do everything it could to make roads as safe as possible and was already addressing many of the points raised by the coroner \"as published in the Government's Smart Motorway Evidence Stocktake and Action Plan of March 2020\".\n\n\"We will carefully consider any further comments raised by the coroner once we receive the report,\" it added.\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Today's rising number of UK deaths was to be expected, sadly, after the surge in cases during December.\n\nAnd it is likely that the coming weeks will see figures even higher than this.\n\nToday’s numbers are, though, inflated by the fact that delays registering deaths over the weekend tend to lead to higher figures being reported on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.\n\nOn average, the UK is recording more than 1,100 deaths a day.\n\nTo put that in context, at Christmas it was less than half that.\n\nBut there are two chinks of light in the daily update.\n\nFirstly, the number of cases is below 40,000 - for a third day in a row. At the turn of the year it was touching 60,000 new diagnoses.\n\nThat means, in the coming weeks, we should start to see fewer hospitalisations and, eventually, deaths.\n\nThe number of vaccinations also continues to rise.\n\nIt seems unlikely the NHS will manage its target of two million doses a week just yet.\n\nBut each increase at least takes us one step closer to getting on top of the virus.", "Campaigners are bringing a judicial review for indirect sexual discrimination on Thursday.\n\nThey say the way the self-employed income support scheme or SEISS is calculated- by averaging out profits between 2016 to 19 - is unfair to to around 75,000 women who’ve taken time off in that period for maternity leave. The government insists using a three-year average is the best way of reflecting a self-employed worker’s income.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Health workers can book an appointment at seven vaccination centres in operation across NI\n\nDoctors have insisted there is no postcode lottery when it comes to rolling out the coronavirus vaccines.\n\nNorthern Ireland's vaccination plan means all those over 80 should receive their first dose by the end of January.\n\nMore than 154,000 doses of a vaccine have now been administered, health officials said.\n\nDr Frances O'Hagan, deputy chairwoman of NI's GP committee, said practices had their own rollout plans but she expected them to meet official targets.\n\n\"As soon as we get the vaccine, we will get it to you,\" she told BBC News NI. \"But please, please wait until we contact you.\"\n\n\"We tailor our programmes to our individual patients and to our geography and to our surroundings.\n\n\"It's not actually a postcode lottery. It's the best way of doing it because we know what suits our patients.\"\n\nDr O'Hagan said she had not heard reports of some practices holding back vaccines until they received bigger amounts to allow for a larger number of vaccinations to be done.\n\nShe said rolling out the programme was a logistical challenge which fell on top of an already heavy workload but the jab would be given out in a \"safe and timely\" fashion.\n\nSinn Féin MP Órfhlaith Begley said doctors in her West Tyrone constituency were working above and beyond to administer the vaccine to as many people as possible.\n\n\"But unfortunately I am hearing that some GPs cannot access supplies of the vaccine,\" she said.\n\n\"There does appear to be, and it is a consistent message from GPs in my own constituency, a feeling the distribution of the vaccine has been unequal to date.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Health Minister Robin Swann has welcomed a further delivery of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine into Northern Ireland on Tuesday morning.\n\nIn a tweet, Robin Swann said: \"We now have the supply to complete all our over 80s and when that group is finished, there will be enough to start into the over 75 programme.\"\n\nPatricia Donnelly, the head of NI's vaccination programme said there had been 154,436 doses of the vaccine administered here, with 132,857 of those being first doses.\n\nOn Tuesday, she said three quarters of care home residents had already received both doses.\n\n\"With the arrival of additional vaccine today, which have been issued this afternoon and tomorrow to GPs, there will be enough to complete the over 80 population and to commence in the over 70 population,\" she added.\n\nA further 24 virus-related deaths and 713 more Covid-19 cases were reported in Northern Ireland on Tuesday.\n\nIt brings the total number of deaths recorded by the Department of Health to 1,649.\n\nThere are currently 842 people in hospital with the virus, 70 people in intensive care units (ICU) and 57 being ventilated.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, a further 93 Covid-19 related deaths were reported on Tuesday, bringing the country's death toll to 2,708.\n\nA further 2,001 positive cases were also recorded in the latest figures from the Republic's Department of Health.\n\nNorthern Ireland's rate of Covid-19 infection is now below one and has been at that level for a couple of weeks, according to the chief medical officer.\n\nHowever, Dr Michael McBride warned the reproduction (R) number for hospital transmission remains above one.\n\nDr McBride said new variants of the virus had made the job of curtailing the spread even more difficult, and warned he did not foresee any relaxation of restrictions any time soon.\n\n\"We need to ensure that we have as many people who remain at risk of severe disease vaccinated and prioritised with the first dose as possible before we consider significant relaxations in the current restrictions,\" he said.\n\nMeanwhile concerns have been raised that \"social media myths\" are encouraging some care home staff to reject the Covid vaccine.\n\nPauline Shepherd, from the Independent Health and Care Providers, said young women were especially vulnerable to misinformation about the vaccine and fertility.\n\nLast week, the Department of Health said there had been an uptake level of about 80% among care home staff.\n\n\"We are very keen obviously that everyone takes the vaccine, that is really the only way that we are going to get through this,\" she told BBC Radio Foyle.\n\n\"Obviously there are myths going around on social media about the vaccine and some are opting not to take it.\n\n\"Particularly younger females seem to have the view through social media that it may impact fertility\".\n\nA consultant anaesthetist says there is a \"reluctance\" among members of the black, Asian and minority ethnic communities to take Covid-19 vaccines\n\nThere are currently 139 confirmed Covid-19 outbreaks in NI's 483 care homes.\n\nThe Public Health Agency (PHA) and Department of Health were now exploring how \"to dispel the myths\", Ms Shepherd added.\n\nDr Mukesh Chugh, a consultant anaesthetist at Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry, said there had been a \"reluctance\" among black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people to take Covid-19 vaccines.\n\nDr Chugh says this is because of \"anti-vaccine messages\" posted across various social media platforms and messenger apps \"targeted at certain ethnic and religious groups\".\n\n\"I encourage them not to believe the messages they are getting on WhatsApp - these are not scientific messages,\" he said.\n\nOn Tuesday, Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots said a number of groups of key workers should be given priority access to vaccinations.\n\nPrioritisation was decided by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises UK health departments on immunisation.\n\nEdwin Poots said meat plant workers should be among those given priority vaccine access\n\nAsked if he supported prioritisation for food workers in meat plants, Mr Poots told the assembly he did and had raised it with the executive.\n\n\"It's been identified as an essential service - those people working in them are there in cold, wet conditions where we have had a number of outbreaks,\" he said.\n\n\"We should seek to introduce those people somewhat earlier than is currently the case - I will continue to endeavour to press that case.\"\n\nHe said other groups of workers who should be prioritised included \"teachers and police officers\".", "An Instagram post said the alleged baby shower was a \"lovely surprise\"\n\nA rail company has begun an internal investigation after staff allegedly held a surprise baby shower in a closed Patisserie Valerie bakery at London's Marylebone station during lockdown.\n\nChiltern Railways workers told BBC News up to 20 colleagues, including some who were on shift, attended the gathering.\n\nThey claim some party-goers then had positive Covid tests, forcing most of the team to self-isolate.\n\nChiltern said \"appropriate action\" would be taken after its investigation.\n\nMembers of Chiltern Railways customer services staff based at the station told BBC News that about 30 people had been invited to the baby shower on the afternoon of 23 November - both via WhatsApp before the alleged gathering, and face to face on the day of the event.\n\nA national coronavirus lockdown was in place in England in November, so people were banned from meeting anyone indoors who was not part of their household.\n\nOne worker, David [not his real name], said he declined an invitation to the event but walked past the bakery later in his shift to see about 20 colleagues gathered inside.\n\nHe said he was \"shocked and alarmed\" to see people hugging each other, with most of them not wearing masks.\n\nPhotos of the alleged gathering, seen by the BBC, show a table inside a Patisserie Valerie outlet covered with dozens of cupcakes, mince pies, crisps and sandwiches, bunting saying \"it's a boy!\" and handmade flags reading \"happy baby shower\".\n\nOne photo appears to show a group of eight colleagues posing in front of the table of party food, without socially distancing from one another.\n\nSome images were shared on Instagram on 23 November with the caption: \"What a lovely surprise being thrown a baby shower at work today!\"\n\nA Patisserie Valerie spokesman said the company had not been informed of any such event and that none of its team members had access to the Marylebone station cafe, which has remained closed since March due to Covid restrictions.\n\nHe added it was normal for a member of station staff to have keys to the premises for \"security reasons\".\n\nDavid and another colleague claimed three people who allegedly attended the event tested positive over the following four days.\n\nThe positive tests meant 16 members of staff out of the team of about 26 people had to self-isolate for 14 days, David said.\n\nHe said colleagues who lived with, or cared for, vulnerable people were \"petrified\" to hear there had been a staff outbreak, with some \"scared to go home\" for fear of endangering loved ones.\n\nDavid added that he had been caring for his elderly grandmother so self-isolation was \"a real nightmare\" as he had to arrange alternative care for her.\n\nChiltern Railways confirmed a \"small number\" of workers tested positive for Covid or had to self-isolate in the 14-day period after 23 November, but a spokeswoman said \"none of the staff who were alleged to have attended [the baby shower] tested positive\".\n\nShe said Chiltern Railways was investigating and was \"making every effort\" to maintain a Covid-secure environment for staff and customers.\n\nChiltern Railways staff members congratulated their colleague using information boards at the station\n\nIn an email seen by the BBC, which was sent to Chiltern Railways employees on 24 November, a manager said one team member had tested positive and added: \"It is disappointing that social distancing measures do not appear to have been followed and I will be investigating this further.\"\n\nDavid's colleague Peter (not his real name) said he was one of about 10 team members who had to work while the rest of the team was self-isolating.\n\nPeter said the outbreak left those at work feeling \"stretched\" and \"raised the anxiety levels of everyone\" as they worried they might have caught Covid as a result of having worked alongside the alleged party's attendees.\n\n\"A lot of us don't want to be at work during this time, for obvious reasons. We're doing a job where we do come into contact with a lot of people - it's stressful enough with your own family, who are a bit worried about you going in to work at a train station and asking if you're getting the proper protection,\" Peter said.\n\nHe added he felt \"demoralised\" to hear about the alleged party when he spends his shifts encouraging customers to wear masks and socially distance.\n\nThe Department for Transport said it had been made aware of the incident and had contacted Chiltern Railways for a \"full explanation\".\n\nA spokesman for the Office of Rail and Road - which protects the interests of rail and road users - said it had investigated \"an issue relating to Covid-19 concerns\" and had taken action, jointly with Westminster City Council, to \"ensure Chiltern Railways tightens its risk assessment for workers and to revise working arrangements\".", "When Amelia Strike, 21, was logged out of her Depop social shopping app account in October, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.\n\n\"I thought I had just forgotten my password when I couldn't get back in, but a couple of days passed and I realised something wasn't right,\" says the Birmingham-based law student.\n\nShe then received a message from a stranger on Instagram, alerting her to the fact that her account had been taken over by a scammer advertising Apple AirPod headphones for £50.\n\nShe immediately used her brother's Depop account to comment on the offending post and contact the app. It was removed by the firm in a few hours and her password was reset.\n\nBut when Ms Strike logged back in, she was shocked by what she found.\n\n\"I felt sick - I scrolled and scrolled through hundreds of messages people had sent the scammer,\" she says.\n\nThe fraudster had been instructing shoppers to pay them directly through PayPal's \"Friends and Family\" option, which sidesteps Depop's fees and doesn't offer any protection for buyers.\n\nThe scammer sent messages like this one to other Depop users from Amelia's account\n\nMs Strike counted at least three Depop users who made unauthorised payments of £50 to the scammer.\n\nIn Ms Strike's situation, to get users to trust scam listing, the hacker had also uploaded a photo of her name on a post-it note next to the headphones that were supposedly for sale.\n\nThis is a common tactic used by people selling second-hand items online, to prove that the photos were not stolen from another listing.\n\n\"I just felt so violated,\" she says.\n\nShe is not alone - 14 other users have told BBC News that their Depop accounts have been hacked in recent months. In all cases, the fraudsters demanded to be paid directly, rather than through the app.\n\nBlending the look and social elements of Instagram with the buy-and-sell format of eBay, 90% of Depop's users are aged 26 or under.\n\nEmily Goold, 21, a journalism student in Tewkesbury, was scared when her account was hacked and a fraudster posted a listing for a £350 jacket.\n\nEmily Goold, 21, told the BBC a fraudster hacked her Depop account and advertised a £350 Moncler jacket\n\nDepop took the listing down within 12 hours and reset her password, but Ms Goold says such incidents are becoming commonplace.\n\n\"You always know somebody who's had a Depop horror story. It's such a widespread problem now.\"\n\nScammers have continued to plague many online services through the pandemic.\n\nOne \"have a go\" method called \"credential stuffing\" involves using automated tools to repeatedly log into accounts, entering usernames and password information previously exposed from data breaches of other popular online services.\n\nIf a user doesn't use the same password on multiple services or has changed their passwords after being exposed in a data breach, this won't work.\n\nAccording to Liv Rowley, a threat intelligence analyst at cyber-security firm Blueliv, cyber criminals are now targeting Depop accounts on an \"industrial scale\" using this method, capitalising on the fact that people often use similar passwords.\n\nBlending the look and social elements of Instagram with the buy-and-sell format of eBay, 90% of Depop's users are aged 26 or under\n\nDepop told the BBC that the safety and security of its community is its \"number one priority\", and that the service has never had a data breach or had its infrastructure compromised.\n\nThe firm confirmed that credential stuffing is a big part of the problem.\n\n\"Weak passwords and the use of the same password across multiple accounts is the greatest source of account takeover, which is why we have initiated a campaign in the second half of 2020 to force some users to strengthen their passwords and to remind others of the importance of strong and unique passwords,\" says Depop's chief operating officer Dominic Rose.\n\nDepop has started resetting passwords for some 12 million users that have not changed them in over a year and told the BBC it had sent reminders to a similar number to make sure their log-in details are unique.\n\n\"We will continue to remind our community about the importance of account security and updating their passwords.\"\n\nThe firm, founded in 2011, told the BBC that although the number of its users increased nearly two-fold to 26 million last year, it had seen a 50% decrease in account \"takeovers\" since its campaign began.\n\nBut Blueliv found that login details for several thousand hacked Depop accounts are being advertised for as little as $1.05 (77p) each on the dark web - a part of the internet that is only accessible using specialised tools.\n\nWhile a Vice investigation first highlighted the problem in May, there is now evidence that account logins are being sold across multiple dark web \"marketplaces\".\n\nThe information for sale includes usernames and passwords, with extra charged for details such as follower count, the number of sales completed by a user and their ratings by other shoppers.\n\nOn the dark net marketplace White House Market, \"premium\" Depop accounts are being sold for $5\n\n\"The accounts are being compromised and that definitely is concerning,\" Ms Rowley says. \"While it's not a Depop-specific problem, I think [credential stuffing] is one we're going to see expand in the next five years.\"\n\nOne Depop user told the BBC they would feel \"much more comfortable\" if the app introduced two-factor authentication, where users enter a one-time code sent to them via email or text, for example, after attempting to sign in.\n\nDepop confirmed that it intends to implement multi-factor authentication in 2021.\n\nBut Aman Johal, director at law firm Your Lawyers, which specialises in consumer action claims, says the platform needs to act urgently, \"particularly given its relatively young user base, where the duty of care is greater\".\n\n\"The fact that this has been going on for months...is unacceptable. Given the volume of compromised accounts for sale, the horse has already bolted,\" he added.\n\nFor some users, trust in the company has been dented.\n\n\"I feel like their security measures need to be amped up because it's just not good enough,\" says Ms Strike, who has been a Depop user since 2015.\n\n\"I've used [Depop] for a long time but I'm reluctant to continue because it just doesn't feel safe anymore.\"", "HSBC is to close 82 branches in the UK between April and September this year, claiming customers are turning to digital banking.\n\nThe company will have 511 branches across the country following the closure programme.\n\nManagers said they did not expect to make any redundancies, with staff moved to nearby branches instead.\n\nCoronavirus and changing customer habits have altered the way we bank, but there are concerns over closures.\n\nCampaigners say that local branches provide a lifeline for those who need access to cash and face-to-face services, and allow small businesses to bank without too much disruption to their own trade.\n\nHSBC said all but one of the branches earmarked for closure were within one mile of a Post Office, where these day-to-day transactions could be carried out.\n\nIt said - even stripping out the effects of the pandemic - the number of customers using branches had fallen by a third in the past five years, and 90% of all customer contact was over the phone, internet or smartphone, in addition to contacts on social media.\n\nJackie Uhi, HSBC UK's head of network, said: \"The Covid-19 pandemic has emphasised the need for the changes that we are making.\n\n\"It hasn't pushed us in a different direction but reinforces the things that we were focusing on before and has crystallised our thinking. This is a strategic direction that we need to take to have a branch network fit for the future.\"\n\nThis would include changing some branches to concentrate on cash access, as well as the use of \"pop-up\" branches in some areas by the end of the year. It means some remaining branches will offer fewer services.\n\nThe branches to close are:\n\nMay: Brighton, Ditchling Road; Hull, Merit House; Wednesbury; Sutton Coldfield, Four Oaks; Hull, Holderness Road; Pontyclun, Talbot Green; London, Fleet Street; London, Fenchurch Street; London, Old Broad Street; London, Charing Cross; Sheffield, Darnall; Oxford, Summertown; Leeds, Chapel Allerton; Cardiff, Rumney; Torquay, Strand; Staines", "The Met Office warned heavy rain combined with melting snow on higher ground was likely to cause flooding\n\nAn amber rain warning has been issued for parts of northern and central England as Storm Christoph approaches.\n\nThe Met Office told people in Yorkshire and the Humber, the North West, East Midlands and the east of England to expect heavy rain and potential floods.\n\nYellow warnings have been issued for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and southern Scotland.\n\nUp to 70mm (2.75in) of rain is forecast to fall within 48 hours in the worst-hit areas from Tuesday.\n\nThe Met Office said the downpours, set to last throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, were likely to cause flooding when combined with melting snow on higher ground.\n\nIt said there was a \"danger to life\" due to fast-flowing or deep floodwater, and warned some communities there was a good chance they would be \"cut off\" by flooded roads.\n\nIt also predicted delays and cancellations to public transport, with the amber warning in place until 12:00 GMT on Thursday.\n\nCouncils and emergency services have warned people to prepare for potential flooding.\n\nMayor of Doncaster Ros Jones declared a major incident in South Yorkshire ahead of possible flooding.\n\nIn a tweet, she said emergency protocols were instigated on Sunday, with sandbags handed out in flood-risk areas, and told people not to panic but to be prepared.\n\nCalderdale councillor Scott Patient urged residents and businesses to \"take all the steps they can to protect themselves and their property\".\n\nDue to Covid-19 restrictions, Mr Patient said, the authority was preparing \"virtual community support hubs\" to help people if there was flooding.\n\n\"The virtual hubs work similarly to the physical ones, but everything will be done remotely to reduce the need for face-to-face contact and to protect staff, volunteers, those affected by flooding and vulnerable people in our communities,\" he said.\n\nThe Environment Agency has 14 flood warnings - meaning \"immediate action\" is required - in place across England, stretching from the south east to the north east.\n\nThe Met Office amber rain area initially covered parts of the north, but has since been expanded to include some central areas\n\nMet Office forecaster Jon Griffiths said about 40-70mm (1.57-2.75 in) of rain was expected in the north-west over three days, potentially rising to 100-120mm (3.93-4.72 in) in hilly areas.\n\nMr Griffiths said river systems in some areas were already close to capacity.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Prime Minister Boris Johnson has condemned the \"disgraceful scenes\" in the US, after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed Congress and clashed with police.\n\nRioters breached the Capitol building where lawmakers met to confirm Joe Biden's presidential election victory.\n\nThe PM said it was \"vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power\".\n\nAnd Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was a \"direct attack on democracy\".\n\n\"The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power,\" Mr Johnson tweeted.\n\nScottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, meanwhile, called the events \"utterly horrifying\".\n\nFriend of President Trump and leader of Reform UK - formerly the Brexit Party - Nigel Farage tweeted: \"Storming Capitol Hill is wrong. The protesters must leave.\"\n\nThe US Congress has now reconvened after the violence - spurred on by Mr Trump's unproven claims of electoral fraud - to certify Mr Biden's victory in the US election in November\n\nHundreds of the president's supporters stormed the Capitol, and staged an occupation of the building in Washington DC.\n\nBoth chambers of Congress were forced into recess, as protesters clashed with police and tear gas was released.\n\nFour people died on Capitol grounds during the violence, including a woman shot by police and three others, who died as a result of \"medical emergencies\", local police said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police place US Capitol Building on lockdown after Trump supporters breached security lines\n\nUK MPs from across the political spectrum have criticised the events in the US.\n\nForeign Secretary Dominic Raab said there was \"no justification for these violent attempts to frustrate the lawful and proper transition of power\", while Home Secretary Priti Patel called the scenes \"unacceptable and undemocratic\".\n\nShe added: \"There is no justification for this violence and Donald Trump must condemn it.\"\n\nHer Conservative colleague, and former Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt directly addressed President Trump for telling the crowd to march on Congress, tweeting: \"He shames American democracy tonight and causes its friends anguish - but he is not America.\"\n\nLabour's deputy leader, Angela Rayner said: \"The violence that Donald Trump has unleashed is terrifying, and the Republicans who stood by him have blood on their hands.\"\n\nAnd shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said the events were \"the legacy of a politics of hate that pits people against each other and threatens the foundations of democracy\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Boris Johnson This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMeanwhile, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey has defended the prime minister's response to the rioting.\n\nAsked on ITV's Peston programme why Mr Johnson hadn't criticised Mr Trump, she said: \"The prime minister has been clear tonight that we need a peaceful and orderly transition.\"\n\nMs Coffey added that events in the US were a \"reminder that democracy is something precious - and will only continue to thrive as long as we protect institutions that make this country important and not demean each other when the majority of what we want to achieve is similar outcomes\".\n\nDonald Trump and Boris Johnson at a Nato summit in 2019\n\nMeanwhile, the SNP's leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, said the end of Mr Trump's presidency \"cannot come quick enough\".\n\nHe tweeted: \"What a legacy the events of today are to his time in office. Shameful, shocking, an affront to democracy.\"\n\nLeader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, called the scenes \"absolutely horrendous\", while his party's foreign affairs spokeswoman, Layla Moran, said: \"The scenes coming out of Washington tonight are an attack on democracy.\"", "An ambulance service has experienced its busiest day of calls on record.\n\nOn Monday, West Midlands Ambulance Service dealt with 5,383 calls in 24 hours. The previous record was 5,001 calls in March 2018.\n\nSeven hundred of those calls came from London as its calls system struggled, according to BBC health correspondent Michele Paduano.\n\nThe ambulance service said Covid-19 and winter weather had resulted in hospitals being \"extremely busy\".\n\nAt the hosptials, the longest a patient waited was five hours and 39 minutes, with two of the longest waits at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham.\n\nA combination of Covid-19 and winter weather has resulted in hospitals being \"extremely busy\"\n\nAt one point on Monday night, 15 ambulances were waiting to hand over patients outside New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton.\n\nA source told the BBC it was \"a very challenging day\" and in total, handovers had accounted for 759 hours of crews' time, equivalent to taking 63 ambulances off the road.\n\nWhile another said at 06:00 GMT on Tuesday, ambulances were still responding to emergency calls from the night before.\n\nTraditionally, the first Monday after New Year is always busy. GP surgeries have been closed and people wait until after the festivities to get medical treatment.\n\nThis year, the number of calls was exacerbated by the service taking about 700 calls for the London ambulance service after its system struggled.\n\nThere was also the perfect storm of snow and ice coupled with coronavirus - made worse because many of our trusts, particularly University Hospitals Birmingham have been struggling with capacity for many months. Usually hospitals would put patients on corridors, they can't because of Covid risks.\n\nThey also have fewer beds due to wider spacing to prevent infection and fewer staff on duty. Hence patients left for hours on ambulances outside.\n\nWest Midlands Ambulance Service is the best performing in the country, but even with near to 500 ambulances a day on the road, it cannot keep up with demand.\n\nProf David Loughton, the chief executive of the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, warned its capacity would \"soon be compromised\".\n\n\"The numbers are ramping up enormously and I don't think we've seen the full impact of what happened on Christmas Day yet, that will take time to come through,\" Prof Loughton said.\n\nHe added a two-week \"lag\" meant things could get worst before they get better.\n\n\"As I always say today's Covid rate is my order book for intensive care in two weeks' time.\"\n\nA West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: \"A combination of Covid-19 and winter weather has resulted in hospitals being extremely busy which unfortunately resulted in hospital handover delays.\n\n\"We work closely with the hospitals to try and ensure our crews are able to handover patients quickly and safely, but due to the extremely high demand some patients did wait longer to be handed over than we would normally see.\"\n\nIn a statement London Ambulance Service NHS Trust said : \"As is standard practice during periods of high demand and high levels of staff sickness, ambulance services provide support for each other, which includes answering 999 calls.\"\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nHave you been affected by the issues raised in this story? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Dickey emerged during a boom for African-American literature in the 1990s\n\nAuthor Eric Jerome Dickey, whose novels of romance, mystery and adventure were best-selling page-turners over more than 20 years, has died aged 59.\n\nThe US writer wrote 30 novels about breathless relationships and thrilling adventures involving young African American characters.\n\nThey included Friends & Lovers, Milk In My Coffee, Cheaters and Finding Gideon.\n\nHe also wrote a series of Marvel comics about a love story between Storm from the X-Men and the Black Panther.\n\n\"His work has become a cultural touchstone over the course of his multi-decade writing career, earning him millions of dedicated readers around the world,\" his publicist Becky Odell told USA Today in a statement.\n\nWriter Roxane Gay was among those paying tribute, describing him as \"a great storyteller\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by roxane gay This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOther authors to add their voices included Luvvie Ajayi, who described him as \"a literary legend\", and ReShonda Tate Billingsley, who said he was \"an amazing author and an even better friend\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Luvvie is the #ProfessionalTroublemaker This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 2 by Luvvie is the #ProfessionalTroublemaker\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by ReShonda Tate Billingsley This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Wesley This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBorn in Memphis, Tennessee, Dickey started out as a software developer in the aerospace industry. Being laid off from that job gave him a chance to take writing classes and see whether he could make it as an author.\n\nHe emerged during a boom for African-American literature in the 1990s, and his 1996 debut Sister, Sister - about the lives and loves of three siblings - was recently named one of the 50 Most Impactful Black Books of the Last 50 Years by Essence magazine.\n\nHe was particularly praised for his ability to write \"believable\" female characters, and many of his readers were women.\n\nWhen the New York Times profiled him in 2004, it billed him as the \"chick lit king\". Patrik Henry Bass, Essence's books editor, told the paper: \"He is singular in the way he is tapping into the African-American female psyche.\"\n\nAnd Calvin Reid, an editor at trade magazine Publishers Weekly, said: \"He captures black language and black middle-class characters with more depth than you often see in commercial fiction.\"\n\nBy that time, he was selling 500,000 books a year. He was nominated four times for the NAACP Image Award for best work of fiction, winning in 2015 for A Wanted Woman.\n\nBy then, he had branched out into stories of crime, suspense, thrills and spills as well as the steamy and tangled relationships with which he made his name.\n\nHe had four daughters, but said he never based his plots on his own life. \"I avoid my life,\" he once said. \"It bores me. Trust me. A book about me would be a snoozefest.\"\n\nHis final novel, The Son of Mr Suleman, will be published in April.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson: \"We've now vaccinated over 1.3m people across the UK\"\n\nSome 1.3 million people in the UK have now received their first dose of a Covid vaccine, says the government.\n\nIn England, that includes nearly a quarter of the most elderly, vulnerable patients.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said it meant that within a two to three weeks they should have a \"significant degree of immunity\" to the virus.\n\nHe said there would be a ramping up to get more people immunised - up to 2 million a week.\n\nThe ambition is to vaccinate all the over-70s, the most clinically vulnerable and front-line health and care workers by mid-February. That will require around 13 million vaccinations.\n\nHe defended the UK's policy of immunising more people with one dose immediately - rather than holding some stock back to give people a second booster shot - in order to save \"the most lives the fastest\".\n\nUS regulators have questioned the policy, saying it is premature without more trial evidence, but the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency says it is a pragmatic decision to protect more people.\n\nBoth the Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines require two doses to provide the best possible protection.\n\nInitially, the strategy for the Pfizer vaccine was to offer people the second dose 21 days after their initial jab - full immunity starts seven days after the second dose.\n\nBut when approval was announced for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on 30 December, it was also announced that the policy would now change - the new priority would be to give as many people a first shot of either vaccine, rather than providing the required two doses in as short a time as possible.\n\nEveryone will still receive their second dose, but this will now be within 12 weeks of their first.\n\nEngland's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty told the Downing Street press conference that extending the gap between the first and second jabs would mean the number of people vaccinated can be doubled over three months.\n\n\"If over that period there is more than 50% protection then you have actually won. More people will have been protected than would have been otherwise.\n\n\"Our quite strong view is that protection is likely to be lot more than 50%.\"\n\nAsked whether the longer gap could lead to an increase risk of the virus mutating into a version that could escape the vaccine, he said it was a worry, but a small one.\n\nChief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said vaccines would probably need to be changed further down the line to continue to be a good match for the virus - but that this was relatively quick to do.\n\nOne of the exciting things about the science of the RNA vaccines is that they are incredibly fast to make in response to new mutations, he said.", "Former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp is set to be named the BBC's next chairman, the corporation's media editor Amol Rajan says.\n\nMr Sharp spent 23 years working for the banking giant and was reportedly Chancellor Rishi Sunak's boss there.\n\nHe has recently been acting as an unpaid economic adviser to Mr Sunak during the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nHis new role will see him lead negotiations with the government over the future of the licence fee.\n\nThe licence fee is due to stay in place until at least 2027, when the BBC's Royal Charter ends, with a debate about how the broadcaster should be funded after that.\n\nThe government is currently reviewing whether its cost, currently £157.50, should continue rising with inflation from 2022, and whether non-payment should remain a criminal offence.\n\nMr Sharp's career at Goldman Sachs culminated as chairman of its principal investment business in Europe before his departure in 2007. He was then on the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee for six years until 2019.\n\nAs an advisor to the Treasury about its pandemic response, the 63-year-old reportedly played a key role in the £1.57bn arts rescue package, and the film and television production restart scheme.\n\nMr Sharp is a former donor to the Conservative party.\n\nHe was chairman of the Royal Academy of Arts from 2007 to 2012, and founded the charity London Music Masters.\n\nSir David Clementi, the current BBC chairman, steps down in February. The post-holder is officially appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the government.\n\nJulian Knight, the chair of the DCMS Committee, said in a statement: \"It is disappointing to see this news about the next BBC chairman has leaked out ahead of a formal announcement from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The Committee previously expressed some concerns over the appointments process, calling for it to be fair and transparent.\n\n\"The DCMS Committee looks forward to questioning the preferred candidate for the post in a pre-appointment hearing next week on their views at a critical time for the BBC about its role and the future of public service broadcasting more generally.\"\n\nHis views on the BBC itself are unknown. But like new director general Tim Davie, who he met a few weeks before Christmas, he has a commercial background. Just as the relationship between Lord Hall, Davie's predecessor, and Sir David was strong, so the bond between the new DG and chair will be critical.\n\nWhether Sharp supports the licence fee as the pillar of a future BBC settlement is unclear.\n\nThe last time the BBC's future was negotiated with a sceptical Conservative government, the relationship between the director general and the chancellor - then George Osborne - was critical, as Lord Hall explained to me in his exit interview.\n\nThis time, Davie will go into that negotiation with a very close ally of the current chancellor - though Sharp's first duty is to support Davie, and the BBC, and not his old mentee.", "New car registrations fell to their lowest level in nearly three decades last year, according to preliminary figures from the industry's trade body.\n\nIt was also the biggest one-year fall since World War Two, when factories were being turned over to military production, the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders said.\n\nAbout 1.63 million new cars were registered in 2020, compared with 2.3 million in 2019 - a decline of 29%.\n\nIt was the lowest total since 1992.\n\nThe bulk of the lost sales occurred during the first lockdown in the Spring, when showrooms were forced to close, and factories shut down.\n\n\"We lost half a million units from March, April, May - and we never recovered them,\" said the SMMT's chief executive, Mike Hawes.\n\nThe restrictions introduced later in the year were less damaging, largely because dealers were able to sell cars remotely, using 'click and collect' services.\n\nThat remains the case during the new lockdown, announced on Monday.\n\n\"We can still do click and collect, which is important, because that's the very minimum we need,\" said Mr Hawes. \"Not just to keep retail going, but also to keep manufacturing going.\"\n\nOverall, the SMMT said the Covid crisis has cost the car industry some £20bn - and cost the exchequer nearly £2bn in lost VAT.\n\nThere are also serious questions about the extent to which the car market can recover this year. Previous forecasts, which had suggested new registrations could rise to about 2 million in 2021, have been thrown into doubt by the latest restrictions.\n\nBut while the market as a whole has suffered over the past year, sales of electric cars have risen dramatically, increasing their share of the market from 1.5% to 6.5%. Sales of plug-in hybrids also rose sharply.\n\nCar showrooms re-opened from the first lockdown in June\n\n\"If we see this continued level of uptake in electric vehicles, then we anticipate that sales of new EVs and plug-in hybrids will overtake diesel cars in 2021,\" said Ian Plummer, commercial director of motoring website Auto Trader. \"Then, pure EVs will overtake those of their internal combustion engine counterparts in 2026.\"\n\nWith the pandemic continuing to inflict serious damage on the industry, Mr Hawes says the trade deal between the UK and the EU came as a \"massive relief\".\n\nIt confirmed that cars and car parts could continue to move between the two regions, without tariffs - or taxes - being imposed, provided certain conditions are met.\n\nThe SMMT had previously warned that failing to reach a deal could have cost the industry £55bn over five years - and add £2,000 to the cost of each vehicle\n\nBut manufacturers still face potentially significant additional costs due to so-called non-tariff barriers - including border formalities, and the need to obtain extra regulatory approvals for new designs.\n\n\"This is not a free deal\", said Mr Hawes.\n\nAnother consequence of the trade deal is that the UK will need to focus on battery production, if it is to maintain its car industry while phasing out petrol and diesel engines.\n\nThat's because in order to qualify for tariff-free access to the European market, the value of car components made outside the UK and the EU will have to be strictly limited.\n\nSpecific rules relating to batteries effectively mean that from 2027, they themselves will have to be made in the EU or the UK.\n\nThe SMMT believes that, based on current investment plans, UK battery factories will have a capacity of 15 gigawatt-hours (GWh) by 2024.\n\nThat is more than seven times the current level, and would be enough to produce 250,000 electric cars per year.\n\nBut the SMMT insists much more is needed: 60GWh in order to produce 1 million cars per year by 2030, and 120GWh to produce 2mby 2040.\n\nThat, says Mr Hawes, will require \"massive investment\".", "Greggs expects up to a £15m loss for the year, which would be its first annual loss since it listed its shares on the stock exchange in 1984.\n\nThe bakery chain said it does not expect profits to return to pre-Covid levels until 2022 at the earliest.\n\nIt has been battling a sales slump due to the coronavirus pandemic, but sales declines have been lessening.\n\nGreggs made 820 job cuts at the end of last year, after its sales were hit by coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions.\n\nChief executive Roger Whiteside said the impact of the Covid-19 crisis had been \"enormous\" and that a fresh lockdown meant \"significant uncertainties remain in the near term\".\n\nCoronavirus restrictions towards the end of last year led to \"variable trading conditions across the UK\", he said.\n\nSales in the final three months of the year fell by nearly a fifth, but this decline was less than its sales slump in the third quarter.\n\nIn September, Greggs, which is based in Newcastle, said it was in talks with staff to cut hours in an effort to minimise job losses.\n\nBut it still decided to cut 820 jobs because of \"lockdown levels of business\" as High Streets were hit by the crisis.\n\n\"Looking ahead, the significant uncertainty over the duration of social restrictions, along with the impact of higher unemployment levels, makes it difficult to predict performance,\" the firm said.\n\n\"However, we do not expect that profits will return to pre-Covid levels until 2022 at the earliest.\"\n\nGreggs said on Wednesday that total sales for the year were down nearly a third to £811m, but government support had helped to limit pre-tax losses.\n\nIt said it had developed its takeaway business and a delivery tie-up with Just Eat, and had also seen \"strong sales\" through its partnership with retailer Iceland.\n\n\"We have taken action to position Greggs to withstand further short-term shocks and are optimistic about our prospects for growth once social restrictions are lifted,\" Mr Whiteside added.\n\nGreggs wants to open about 100 new stores, on a net basis, over the year ahead.\n\nJulie Palmer, a partner at insolvency consultants Begbies Traynor, said: \"The latest national lockdown will be unwelcome news for Greggs, which has operated shrewdly during the past year in spite of a lack of footfall, with non-essential stores forced to close and millions working from home.\n\n\"The bakery chain has had to adapt its business model and invest digitally to accommodate for the rapid change in shopping habits, offering click-and-collect purchases, as well as a nationwide delivery service through its partnership with Just Eat.\n\n\"This should provide a solid base for the business to expand when government restrictions are eased and the world returns to some normality.\"", "US intelligence agencies have said they believe Russia was behind the \"serious\" cyber compromise revealed in December.\n\nPresident Trump had previously suggested China might have been behind the hack, although other members of his administration had pointed the finger at Moscow.\n\nIn a joint statement, the intelligence bodies say they currently believe fewer than 10 US government agencies saw their data compromised, although other organisations outside of government were also affected.\n\nThey say work is still going on to understand the scope of the incident, which appears to have been aimed at gathering intelligence and which they say is \"ongoing\" a month after details first emerged.\n\nThe update on the investigation came in a statement from a task force called the Cyber Unified Coordination Group which was set up to deal with the incident. It comprises intelligence and law enforcement agencies including the FBI and NSA.\n\nThe group said it was still working to understand the scope of what had taken place.\n\nEighteen thousand customers who used Orion product from the company Solar Winds were exposed but US intelligence says it believes a much smaller number saw follow-on activity from the hackers in which they stole data. The US Treasury was among those which previously acknowledged being targeted.\n\n\"This is a serious compromise that will require a sustained and dedicated effort to remediate,\" the statement said. Many organisations are having to scour their systems for signs that they may have been compromised.\n\nThe incident sent shockwaves across the US partly because the breach was undiscovered for many months and was potentially far-reaching in terms of who it might have affected. It also suggested a degree of sophistication and stealth which was widely seen as a trademark of hackers from the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence agency.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Experts have been warning for years that it's not a matter of if, but when, hackers will kill somebody\n\nSoon after the incident was revealed, President Trump raised the possibility that China might be responsible, but members of his own administration including the secretary of state and attorney general pointed the finger at Moscow. The latest statement shows the assessment of US intelligence agencies is that Russia was behind it, although it does not go so far as accusing the Russian state itself, saying only that the actor was \"likely Russian in origin\". Moscow has denied playing any part.\n\nPresident-elect Joe Biden has previously said it was important to take \"meaningful steps\" to hold those responsible to account. It is not yet clear, though, what that might involve. While some US politicians suggested the breach might even be compared to an \"act of war\", most cyber-experts disputed this and the US intelligence community has now played down suggestions that it could have had destructive impact.\n\n\"At this time, we believe this was, and continues to be, an intelligence-gathering effort,\" the latest statement says. This is significant since it suggests no evidence has been found that this was preparatory activity for a more destructive cyber-attack which might switch off systems. This may limit the US response since espionage operations do not breach the cyber norms the US itself promotes (largely because it too carries out such intelligence-gathering operations against other nations).\n\nIn December UK officials say they believed a small number of UK organisations were affected but said they did not believe they were in the public sector.", "South Vietnam flags were seen during the unrest Image caption: South Vietnam flags were seen during the unrest\n\nOn Wednesday, as protesters gathered outside before swarming the Capitol building, the yellow flags of the old South Vietnam regime could be seen.\n\nIn fact, the yellow flags of the former South Vietnam are a common sight at pro-Trump rallies across the United States.\n\nVietnamese Americans, especially those of the older generation who fled Vietnam after Saigon fell in 1975, are known for their support for the Republican party and Donald Trump.\n\nA pre-election survey by the group Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote found that Vietnamese Americans are the only major East Asian ethnic community that favoured Trump over Biden . Trump’s anti-China and anti-communist rhetoric resonated greatly with the former refugees who risked their lives to escape communism.\n\nBut the support for President Trump has also become an increasingly divisive issue amongst the Vietnamese American community.\n\nHours after the Capitol riot, there are still calls on pro-Trump internet forums like the \"ABC Trump\" Facebook page for Vietnamese Americans to “take to the streets in support of President Trump” as “the battle continues”.\n\nBut there have also been condemnations.\n\n“This is embarrassing,” one young Vietnamese American wrote on Twitter, adding: “They’ve brought shame to the flag”.", "The US is facing another huge election - one that could define how much new president Joe Biden can get done in his first term.\n\nMore than 100 people are gathered in the grey and damp cold in Stone Mountain.\n\nIt's a miserable start to the New Year but this city near Georgia's capital, Atlanta, feels anything but sleepy or hung over.\n\n\"The energy we get here in Georgia is something I've never seen before,\" says Mr Gardner, who was born and raised in local DeKalb County.\n\n\"We've had other Senate races and I'm just excited.\"\n\nHe is joined by fellow Democratic supporters who are singing and dancing outside a house-turned-campaign centre.\n\nIt's to rally support for the two men who are probably President-elect Joe Biden's most important friends right now: Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.\n\nThis traditionally Republican state was won by Mr Biden in November's election - but there were no clear winners for the state's two Senate seats. Now there is a run-off between the top candidates in each race.\n\nIf the two Democrats, Mr Ossoff and Rev Warnock, beat incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, Mr Biden's party effectively controls the Senate.\n\nShirley Shepphard is handing out stickers, with a smile and confidence.\n\n\"The Democrats can win! Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can!\" she says.\n\nThere's a huge cheer as Mr Ossoff's large blue bus makes its way down the road and pulls up opposite the house.\n\nHe is only 33 years old and, in case his youth wasn't clear enough, he makes a point of jogging on to the small stage.\n\nDuring a polished speech he exclaims: \"The place we demand better is at the ballot box.\"\n\nIf Mr Ossoff wins, he'd be the youngest member of the Senate - a title once held by Joe Biden himself.\n\nNo pressure, but I put to him that the fate of Mr Biden's presidency is in his hands.\n\nIf he loses, is Mr Biden a weakened president before he's even begun?\n\nWithout missing a beat, Mr Ossoff says: \"We will win.\"\n\nFellow Democrat and Senate candidate Mr Warnock could make history alongside him.\n\nHe could become Georgia's first black senator, in a state that has a higher proportion of black people than any other in the US.\n\nRallies have been held for all four candidates, including this one featuring the US vice-president\n\nGeorgia has also found itself becoming the final battleground for an aggrieved President Donald Trump.\n\nThe Republican Senate candidates here - Mr Perdue and Ms Loeffler - are his last foot soldiers.\n\nBoth appeared at his rally the previous night, where he focused on repeating his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.\n\n\"There's no way we lost Georgia, that was a rigged election,\" were the first words out of his mouth.\n\n\"We run all over the world telling people how to run their elections and we don't even know how to run ours.\"\n\nMr Trump has also gone after Georgia's Republican governor and begged another official here, in an astonishing phone call, to find votes to overturn Mr Biden's victory.\n\nThe president has also called the Georgia Senate races \"invalid and illegal\" without any evidence.\n\nThere are concerns from some Republicans he's putting people off voting on Tuesday.\n\nI asked supporters at Trump's rally why they would take part in an election process if they didn't believe it was fair. Some hesitated and suggested it was their civic duty.\n\nFor those who won't vote, it's an advantage that may work for the Democrats.\n\nWhen I ask two Ossoff and Warnock supporters about the claims of election fraud, both women throw their heads back, burst into a long laugh in perfect unison and shake their heads bemused: \"Yeah, that's a good one.\"\n\nThere's another factor in this runoff - teenagers.\n\nSince the 3 November presidential election, more than 23,000 people will have turned 18 in the state and can now vote in this Senate race.\n\nMany young voters have been holding live-streaming events in counties across Georgia.\n\nValerie Ponomarev just turned 18 and is very excited at getting to vote. She was upset she couldn't cast a ballot in the recent presidential election.\n\n\"I did the math in my head and was short by a month as I was born in December,\" she says.\n\n\"I was mad at my mum that I hadn't been born sooner!\"\n\nShe said at first, she didn't even realise the Senate runoff was so crucial in Georgia.\n\nShe's voting for the Democrats, Ms Ponomarev says, adding that a lot of younger people have shown support for Mr Ossoff.\n\n\"I think the youth finally want representation in government because we're so often underrepresented and now that we have Jon Ossoff who is closer to our age,\" she says.\n\nMichael Guisto found himself in the same situation as Ms Ponomarev - too young to cast a ballot in November - and says missing out on that vote was painful.\n\n\"It feels like a redemption,\" he says of this Senate race.\n\nThe polls are suggesting it's a very tight race. But this state knows that whatever it decides, it will have an impact on the country as a whole.\n\nMr Guisto says even though he missed out on the November election, this vote matters.\n\n\"I get to in some ways influence the country but this time it's a bit closer to home.\"", "The deaths of a further 68 people who tested positive for Covid have been recorded in Scotland in the past 24 hours.\n\nIt comes as official figures show 33,381 people received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine in the week to 27 December.\n\nThat takes the total number of people to get a vaccine in Scotland since 8 December to 92,188.\n\nPatients in hospital with coronavirus rose from 1,347 on Tuesday to 1,384.\n\nHospital admissions have been rising sharply but are still 136 short of the peak figure of 1,520 recorded on 20 April last year.\n\nThe latest statistics show 2,039 new cases of the virus, which is 10.5% of those recently tested, a slightly lower figure than in recent days.\n\nA total of 95 people are in intensive care - a slight increase but significantly lower than the April peak of 208.\n\nHealth officials have expressed concern about the situation in Inverclyde, Dumfries & Galloway and the Scottish Borders, in particular, which have seen sharp rises in positive tests.\n\nWeekly figures show Inverclyde recorded 538.5 cases per 100,000, Dumfries & Galloway 538.1 and the Scottish Borders 435.5.\n\nThere were a further 603 confirmed coronavirus cases in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area in the past 24 hours, with an additional 296 in NHS Lanarkshire, 206 in NHS Grampian and 164 in the NHS Lothian area.\n\nSince the start of the pandemic, there have been 141,066 cases in Scotland, with a total of 4,701 people dying within 28 days of first testing positive.\n\nThe latest vaccine figures were released after doctors in Scotland raised concerns about plans to delay the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.\n\nAll four UK nations will now leave up to 12 weeks between the first and second doses of the jab rather than giving both within 21 days.\n\nDr Lewis Morrison, head of the BMA in Scotland, said members had concerns about the potential impact of leaving such a big gap between the two doses.\n\nBut the UK's chief medical officers have defended the move, saying the first dose will give people substantial protection against the virus within two to three weeks.", "Doctors are calling for a significant ramping up of the vaccination programme following approval of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.\n\nThe first patients are expected to receive the jab - the second approved for use in the UK - on Monday.\n\nBut with just over 500,000 doses available to use next week, experts are worried there may be a bottleneck in the system.\n\nThere are more than 25m people in the nine priority groups identified so far.\n\nThis includes all those over 50 and younger adults with health conditions, as well as frontline health and care staff.\n\nMeanwhile, GPs have questioned the wisdom of cancelling patients already booked in for their second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the first jab that was approved and has been used since early December.\n\nAs well as approving the Oxford vaccine on Wednesday, regulators also said that doctors could wait longer between the two courses needed, to ensure faster rollout of vaccination.\n\nBut the British Medical Association's Dr Richard Vautrey said GPs were unhappy they were being asked to cancel appointments that had already been made for second doses. The original advice said they should be given three weeks apart.\n\nHe said it was \"grossly unfair\" and would waste staff time.\n\nOne of those who has been affected is Stella Joseph, who is 82 and has a chronic lung condition.\n\n\"The thing I feel most is utterly helpless, that there's nobody to appeal to, that you can't get any assistance with this at all.\n\n\"I think it is so hard that those of us who were in this first wave were obviously people who are at high risk and we're the ones who have been left high and dry.\"\n\nThe move has also prompted some debate about how strong the evidence is for delaying the second dose.\n\nProf Peter Openshaw, of Imperial College London, said there was \"pretty convincing\" data showing it would enhance the effect of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.\n\nBut he said because the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had not been tested in the same way, there was no comparable evidence.\n\nSo far nearly 950,000 people have received a first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.\n\nThe hope was that when the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was approved, it would lead to a significant increase in the rate of vaccination.\n\nThe jab is easier to store and distribute as it can be kept at normal fridge temperature, unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech one that has to be kept in ultra-cold storage.\n\nThere are thought to be more than five million doses of the Oxford vaccine in the UK, but only just over 500,000 are ready for use.\n\nThat is because vaccines have to be put into vials and batched and certified.\n\nSources at the NHS expressed frustration at the situation. \"The NHS is ready to go, but we can only go as quickly as supply allows,\" one said.\n\nQueen Mary University epidemiologist Deepti Gurdasani said there appeared to be a \"bottleneck\", and the government looked like it was still going to be under its target of two million doses a week.\n\n\"We really need to speed up rollout,\" she said.\n\nThere are currently more than 700 vaccination sites up and running, with several hundred more thought to be ready to go once vaccines are available.\n\nBut the limited supply of the Pfizer vaccine, which has to be shipped in from Belgium, has meant some centres have not been able to vaccinate people every week.\n\nDame Clare Gerada, a former chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: \"We really now need a massive operational system. We need a 24/7 system with GPs, mass vaccination centres and hospitals - this needs to be scaled up.\n\n\"It's got to be football stadia, all these large venues that we've got currently lying dormant.\n\n\"If we can really get a mass operational system up and running, then I can't see why we can't be getting the whole population immunised by the spring.\"\n\nNHS England's medical director for primary care, Dr Nikki Kanani, promised there would be a significant expansion of the vaccination programme in the coming weeks.\n\nShe predicted the majority of care home residents would be protected by the end of January, and frontline staff would start to get a vaccination in large numbers.\n\nShe also praised the progress made so far, thanking the \"tireless efforts of staff\".\n\nEngland Health Secretary Matt Hancock also praised staff, adding the numbers being vaccinated would \"rapidly increase in the months ahead\".", "The 19-year-old victim was attacked on Canonbury Road in Islington shortly before 19:00 GMT on 29 December\n\nA man was left partially blind after he was repeatedly hit in the face during a street robbery in north London.\n\nThe 19-year-old had been walking along Canonbury Road in Islington on 29 December when he was approached by two men, one of whom stole his bag and hit him with a \"baton-style weapon\".\n\nThe Met said he had suffered \"life-changing injuries\" in the \"vicious and unprovoked attack\".\n\nNo arrests have been made and the detectives have appealed for witnesses.\n\nThe attacker has been described by police as black, aged in his late teens with spikey hair and of a skinny build.\n\nDet Con Faisal Issaouni said the 19-year-old victim had been \"left with injuries that will affect him for the rest of his life\".\n\n\"We're reviewing CCTV from the area and have spoken to a number of witnesses as we try to track down the man responsible,\" he added.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Clap for Carers is to return under a new name of Clap for Heroes, the initiative's founder has said.\n\nThe weekly applause for front-line NHS staff and other key workers ran for 10 weeks during the UK's first coronavirus lockdown last spring.\n\nFounder Annemarie Plas tweeted that it would return at 20:00 GMT on Thursday.\n\nMs Plas said she hoped the initiative would \"lift the spirit of all of us\" including \"all who are pushing through this difficult time\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Annemarie This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe idea of clapping and banging pots from doorsteps originally began as a one-off to support NHS staff on 26 March - three days after the UK went into lockdown for the first time.\n\nAfter proving popular it was expanded to cover all key workers and continued every Thursday for 10 weeks, with millions of people across the UK taking part.\n\nMembers of the Royal Family and politicians including Prime Minister Boris Johnson also joined in with the show of support.\n\nHowever, the event later faced criticism for becoming politicised, with some suggesting the NHS would benefit more from extra funding than applause.\n\nLast May, Ms Plas, a Dutch national living in south London, said the weekly applause should end after its 10th week and instead become an annual event.\n\nAt the time, she said the public had \"shown our appreciation\" and it was now up to ministers to \"reward\" key workers.\n\n\"Without getting too political, I share some of the opinions that some people have about it becoming politicised,\" she told the PA news agency ahead of the final clap in May.\n\n\"I think the narrative is starting to change and I don't want the clap to be negative.\"", "YouTuber JoJo Siwa has said she had \"no idea\" that \"gross\" and \"inappropriate\" questions were featured in a board game bearing her image.\n\nIt follows a parental backlash about the Nickelodeon-branded game, marketed to children aged six and over.\n\nThe \"Truth or Dare\" category contained questions like: \"Have you ever gone outside without underwear?\" and \"Have you ever been arrested?\".\n\nParents have expressed disapproval on social media in recent days.\n\nIn response to the online outcry, the 17-year-old internet star said she was \"really upset\" to discover the content of the game, which is called JoJo's Juice.\n\nShe added she was working with Nikelodeon to have removed it from the shops.\n\n\"Over the weekend, it has been brought to my attention by my fans and followers on TikTok that my name and my image have been used to promote this board game that has some really inappropriate content,\" said Siwa, in an Instagram video message.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by itsjojosiwa This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"When companies make these games, they don't run every aspect by me and so I had no idea of the types of questions that were on these playing cards.\"\n\nShe added: \"Now when I first saw this, I was really really really upset at how gross these questions were. And so I brought it to Nickelodeon's attention immediately and since then, they have been working to get this game stopped being made, and also pulled from all shelves wherever it's being sold.\"\n\nShe went on to say that she would have \"never approved or agreed to be associated with this game,\" if she had seen the cards beforehand.\n\nOther questions featured in the board game included: \"Have you ever stolen from a store?\" and \"Have you ever walked in on someone naked?\"\n\nThe US teenager posts videos of her day-to-day life on her YouTube channel, Its JoJo Siwa.\n\nShe is also a singer and dancer, having appeared on the reality TV series Dance Moms, alongside her mother, Jessalynn Siwa.\n\nHer musical offerings so far include the singles Boomerang and Kid in a Candy Store.\n\nLast year, she was included on Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Teachers' estimated grades will be used to replace cancelled GCSEs and A-levels in England this summer, says Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.\n\nHe told MPs he would \"trust in teachers rather than algorithms\", a reference to the U-turn over last year's exams.\n\nFor primaries, he confirmed there would be no Year 6 Sats tests this year.\n\nMr Williamson promised parents it would be \"mandatory\" for schools to provide \"high-quality remote education\" of three to five hours per day.\n\nHe said this would be \"enforced\" by Ofsted, with inspections where there were \"serious concerns\" about what was provided for children now studying at home.\n\nLabour's Shadow Education Secretary, Kate Green, accused Mr Williamson of \"chaos and confusion\" - and said he had failed to listen to the \"expertise of professionals on the front line\".\n\nShe said he had given a \"cast-iron commitment\" that exams would go ahead - and Ms Green said: \"At that moment, we should have known they were doomed to be cancelled.\"\n\nMr Williamson, in a statement to the House of Commons, said there would be \"training and support\" for teachers in estimating grades, \"to ensure these are awarded fairly and consistently\".\n\nHe also told MPs there would be no Sats tests for those at the end of primary school.\n\n\"I can absolutely confirm that we won't be proceeding with Sats this year. We do recognise that this will be an additional burden on schools\n\nGeoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, said rather than a \"vague statement\" of how A-levels and GCSEs would be graded, ministers should already have a system ready in place - and it was a \"dereliction of duty\" that it was not already prepared.\n\nAnd he warned against repeating the \"shambles\" of last summer's cancelled exams.\n\nThe education secretary confirmed to MPs that GCSEs and A-levels are not going ahead - after this week's decision that it was no longer feasible with so much time lost in the Covid pandemic and the latest lockdown.\n\nThe exams watchdog Ofqual will draw up proposals for an alternative way of deciding results, for qualifications that could be used for jobs, staying on in school or university places.\n\nSimon Lebus, the watchdog's interim head, said evidence for replacement grades could include tests, homework, mock exams and teachers' observations - and would take into account how much of the syllabus had been covered.\n\nA consultation is expected to begin next week, with plans to be decided by the end of February or possibly sooner.\n\nLast year's attempts to find an alternative approach to exam results, which initially used an algorithm, descended into chaos - and eventually switched to using teachers' grades.\n\nAnd without any exam papers or standardised mock exams, the use of teachers' assessments, with some process of moderation between schools, will be used for this summer's candidates.\n\nOn vocational qualifications, Labour's Ms Green said the education secretary was \"failing to show leadership on exams in January\".\n\nVocational exams, such as BTecs, are carrying on, if schools and colleges decide to continue with them - but college leaders had complained that there needed to be a national decision to avoid confusion.\n\nIf students cannot take BTec exams this month as planned, they will still be awarded a grade, if they have \"enough evidence to receive a certificate that they need for progression\", says the awarding body Pearson.\n\nAn Ofqual spokeswoman said they would consider options for replacement exam results, academic and vocational, \"to ensure the fairest possible outcome in the circumstances\".\n\nThe exams watchdog's decisions will face much scrutiny - with the previous head of Ofqual resigning after last summer's U-turns over grades.\n\nMr Williamson's statement in the Commons came as all GCSE, AS and A-level exams in Northern Ireland were cancelled due to the Covid-19 crisis.\n\nEducation Minister Peter Weir announced the decision in the Stormont assembly on Wednesday.\n\nScotland has already cancelled its Nationals, Highers and Advanced Highers.\n\nGCSEs and A-levels in Wales were scrapped in November.", "Dr Dre, seen here in 2018, is one of hip-hop's most successful stars\n\nRapper and producer Dr Dre, one of hip-hop's most successful and influential stars, is being treated in hospital after suffering a brain aneurysm.\n\nThe 55-year-old was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on Monday, TMZ reported.\n\nIn a post on Instagram, he said: \"I'm doing great and getting excellent care from my medical team.\"\n\nHe is \"resting comfortably\" after the aneurysm, his lawyer told Billboard.\n\nIn his post, Dr Dre also wrote: \"I will be out of the hospital and back home soon. Shout out to all the great medical professionals at Cedars. One Love!!\"\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by drdre This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFriends and fellow stars have sent their well wishes after the reports of his ill health emerged.\n\nIce Cube, his former bandmate in trailblazing 1980s hip-hop group NWA, tweeted: \"Send your love and prayers to the homie Dr. Dre.\"\n\nSnoop Dogg, who was discovered by Dr Dre in the early 1990s, wrote on Instagram: \"GET WELL DR DRE WE NEED U CUZ.\"\n\nMissy Elliott wrote: \"Prayers up for Dr. Dre and his family for healing & Strength over his mind & body.\" And singer Ciara tweeted: \"Praying for you Dr. Dre. Praying for a full recovery.\"\n\nWith NWA and then as a solo artist, leading producer and record label mogul, Dr Dre shaped west coast rap and was instrumental in the careers of other stars like Eminem, 50 Cent and Kendrick Lamar.\n\nAn aneurysm is a bulge in a weakened blood vessel where the blood pressure causes a small area to bulge outwards.\n\nMost brain aneurysms only cause noticeable symptoms if they burst, leading to bleeding on the brain, which can cause a very serious condition and can be fatal.", "(L-R) David Wails, Joe Ritchie-Bennett and James Furlong were pronounced dead at the scene\n\nA man who stabbed three people to death in a Reading park was suffering from psychosis \"right up to the day\" of the killings, a court has heard.\n\nKhairi Saadallah, 26, attacked James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49, and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, 39, in the Forbury Gardens in June.\n\nA hearing to decide if he was motivated by a religious or ideological cause has been told he was \"no radical Islamist\".\n\nThe hearing at the Old Bailey is part of his sentencing.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV cameras captured Khairi Saadallah before and after the stabbing\n\nSaadallah, of Basingstoke Road, Reading, has pleaded guilty to three murders and three attempted murders.\n\nAn examination of his mobile phone revealed extremist material, including an image of the Islamic State flag and the 9/11 Twin Towers attack, the court was told.\n\nThe prosecution is seeking a whole-life prison order, meaning he would never be considered for release.\n\nRossano Scamardella QC, defending, said the sentence should be one of life imprisonment with a starting point of 30 years, due to a lack of serious premeditation, the \"fleeting\" strength of his commitment to Islamist jihad, and his mental health issues.\n\nKhairi Saadallah previously admitted three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder\n\nHe said while the attack in Reading was \"terrifying\" and \"senseless\", it did not justify the failed Libyan asylum seeker being jailed for more than 30 years.\n\nHe added that \"as brutal as these killings were\", the suggestion they were \"ruthlessly efficient\" had been \"exaggerated\".\n\nSaadallah took \"certain steps to facilitate the killings\", he said, but \"significant planning or premeditation simply does not exist\".\n\nHe told the hearing Saadallah had \"come to the attention of the authorities on hundreds of occasions\", and had a history of frequent interactions with the police, criminal justice system and mental health services.\n\nHe said Saadallah had developed an emotionally unstable and anti-social personality disorder and \"right up until the day of killing he was plainly suffering from episodes of psychosis\".\n\nMr Scamardella said there is no suggestion this caused his offending but insisted his \"culpability [for the attack] is reduced\".\n\nThe court heard earlier that a psychiatrist has since concluded the attack on June 20 was \"unrelated to the effects of either mental disorder or substance misuse\".\n\nKhairi Saadallah was visited and filmed by police during a welfare check the day before the attack\n\nThe court was shown CCTV footage of Saadallah in Morrisons buying the knife he used in the attack\n\nSaadallah had described himself in interview as \"part Muslim and part Catholic\", said Mr Scamardella, adding: \"No radical Islamist would countenance adoption of another faith, it's inconceivable.\"\n\nHe said portraying Saadallah as a committed jihadist was a \"superficially attractive proposition\" based on \"pieces of evidence that exist that demonstrate or at least might demonstrate a fleeting interest\".\n\nThree others - Stephen Young, Patrick Edwards and Nishit Nisudan - were also injured by Saadallah.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Epsom Racecourse in Surrey will be one of seven mass vaccination hubs announced by the government\n\nSeven new mass Covid vaccination hubs across England have been announced by the government.\n\nCentres in London, Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Surrey and Stevenage are due to begin operations next week.\n\nVarious venues will be converted into regional centres in a bid to meet the government's target of vaccinating 14 million people in the UK by February.\n\nIt is expected the hubs will be staffed by NHS staff and volunteers.\n\nThe seven sites announced by Downing Street are:\n\nAshton Gate Stadium, home to Bristol City FC, will be used to help the government meet its vaccination target\n\nSupermarket chain Morrisons has confirmed car parks at its stores in Yeovil, Wakefield and Winsford would be used to drive-through vaccinations from Monday. It has also offered an additional 47 sites to the government.\n\nPremier League club Tottenham Hotspur has also offered the use of its stadium to the NHS as a venue to provide the coronavirus vaccine.\n\nThe sites across England will begin operations next week", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nI'm standing in what should be an operating theatre - but instead it's been converted into an intensive care unit for Covid-19 patients on ventilators.\n\nThis is the first time I have seen it full of patients like this. Normally this theatre would be busy with major cancer surgery, but that's been transferred to another building.\n\nA children's recovery area, still decorated with colourful stickers of cartoons, is once again filled with desperately sick adults. Every day, more wards are being transformed into ICU - ready for the next influx of patients.\n\nWe have been given access to University College Hospital, in central London. This is the same intensive care unit that I first visited in April, during the first peak.\n\nIt is one of the busiest hospitals in the capital and intensive care here is expanding across a hospital that is under pressure like never before, from a relentless rise in Covid admissions.\n\nI am struck by the toll the pandemic is taking on staff. It's immense - both physically and mentally. They are shell-shocked. \"My emotions are all over the place. Scared, sad, petrified, worried,\" one ICU nurse tells me.\n\nI asked one of the consultants who I've met several times in the last year, Dr Jim Down, how long they can keep going like this - and the answer was stark. \"At this rate, about a week. After that we really need to see it slow down or we're going to see the care we can deliver suffering.\"\n\nThey have got three times as many critically ill patients in the hospital as normal. The number of Covid admissions to London hospitals has doubled in just two weeks - they're more stretched now than at the peak last April. Senior staff are worried.\n\nDr Alice Carter compares it to an elastic band that is close to snapping. \"It gets to a point where you stretch so far it never returns back to its baseline. I think that's probably where we are now. It's not going to take much more for that elastic band to break, and that's the real fear for us at the moment.\"\n\nDr Alice Carter: 'It's not going to take much more for that elastic band to break'\n\nThat could have very serious consequences, she adds. \"If we get to that point, we can't offer anyone ICU, not just Covid patients, but anyone who has a traffic accident or a heart attack or a stroke - whatever it is, to take them in.\"\n\nFor 38-year-old Rachel Arfin, one of the three pregnant women in intensive care with Covid-19, treatment is more complicated. Her baby is due in five weeks and the staff have to monitor them both.\n\n\"They can't do anything that will harm the baby,\" she says. \"All the time [they are] checking, monitoring the baby.\" She is reassured by the \"beautiful sound\" of her baby's heartbeat.\n\n\"They are looking after two people in one. They're saving lives,\" says Rachel. But her children - she has seven - keep asking when she's coming home.\n\nRachel Arfin's baby is due in five weeks - both are doing well\n\nI've reported from here several times during the pandemic and am always struck by the professionalism and dedication of staff. It's always quiet and calm, but that belies what's actually happening. This is a system under strain like never before.\n\nThe warning signs are clear, the NHS is on the brink. Unless infection rates fall, soon it will have a serious impact. The pressure on staff is unrelenting. I saw two nurses in tears.\n\nCompared to when I visited in April, it's a lot busier. In some ways, it's more structured - they now know what they're dealing with. They've got new treatments, such as the drug dexamethasone, which they didn't have last time. And many of the staff have now had the first dose of the vaccine.\n\nBut other aspects don't get any easier, such as the emotional burden of breaking bad news over a telephone or video call. It is very different to being able to hold someone's hand.\n\nStaff say they don't know which patients to help first\n\nICU staff have incredibly high standards. They're used to doing everything meticulously and perfectly. And they're doing all they can. But sometimes they go home and feel guilty that they can't do more. The impact on nurses - the bedrock of care in intensive care - is visible.\n\nThe highly specialised staff are usually one-to-one with patients. Deputy sister Ashleigh Shillingford is looking after three or four ventilated patients at a time, with one other junior member of staff. It's emotional and often devastating work.\n\n\"We are so stretched we have to prioritise and prioritising care is not the NHS that I grew up in - we shouldn't have to choose which patient gets what care first.\" She says she's never had to make decisions like these before.\n\n\"You just don't know who to help first. The patients are losing their lives at a dramatic speed, we're not just getting old people,\" she says, \"these are young people that we're getting.\"\n\nGerald Williams, 58, is awaiting chemotherapy for lung cancer and had been shielding, but he still caught coronavirus. \"All of a sudden, out of the blue, Covid came knocking on my door and it's frightening - you don't know how you're getting your next breath,\" he says.\n\nGerald Williams had been shielding but he still caught coronavirus\n\nHe wants to get home to his daughters, the youngest of whom is 13. And he's annoyed at those who don't take it seriously. \"People are moaning and groaning. Even in A&E. They need to get a life. Don't be idiots, forget about meeting your mate, stay home. No-one is invulnerable.\"\n\nFor now the Trust is coping better than many others in London and is still taking Covid patients from other hospitals. But the next few weeks could be the biggest challenge the NHS has ever faced - and it will be its doctors and nurses who will bear the brunt for all of us.\n\nAs the BBC's medical editor, Fergus Walsh has been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic and its immense impact on the UK.", "Kate Thistleton will front new content from Bitesize Daily\n\nBBC TV is to help children keep up with their studies during the latest lockdown by broadcasting lessons on BBC Two and CBBC, as well as online.\n\nSchools have been closed to most children across the UK as part of tougher measures to control Covid-19.\n\nThe BBC will show curriculum-based programmes on TV from Monday.\n\nThey will include three hours of primary school programming every weekday on CBBC, and at least two hours for secondary pupils on BBC Two.\n\nDuring the first lockdown in the spring, lessons were available on iPlayer, red button and online, but not on regular TV channels.\n\nThe move comes amid concerns that low-income families may struggle to afford data packages for their children to take part in online learning.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson praised the BBC's \"fantastic\" plans on Tuesday. BBC Director-General Tim Davie said \"education is absolutely vital\".\n\nHe continued: \"The BBC is here to play its part and I'm delighted that we have been able to bring this to audiences so swiftly.\"\n\nThe primary programmes, which will be broadcast on CBBC from 09:00 every day, will include BBC Live Lessons and BBC Bitesize Daily as well as Our School, Celebrity Supply Teacher, Horrible Histories and Operation Ouch.\n\nBBC Two will cater for secondary students with programming to support the GCSE curriculum, including adaptations of Shakespeare plays alongside science, history and factual titles.\n\nBitesize Daily primary and secondary will also air every day on the red button as well as episodes being available on demand on iPlayer.\n\nCulture Secretary Oliver Dowden said the BBC \"has helped the nation through some of the toughest moments of the last century\".\n\n\"And for the next few weeks it will help our children learn whilst we stay home, protect the NHS and save lives,\" he added. \"This will be a lifeline to parents and I welcome the BBC playing its part.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Two US police officers linked to a notorious raid in which young black medic Breonna Taylor was fatally shot have been fired, authorities have said.\n\nDetectives Myles Cosgrove and Joshua Jaynes are the latest officers to be dismissed over the shooting in March last year.\n\nThe incident in Kentucky caused outrage, spurring protests against racism and police brutality.\n\nMs Taylor, 26, died when police raided her home in connection to a drug case.\n\nThe FBI said Mr Cosgrove fired the shot that killed Ms Taylor at her home in Louisville.\n\nLouisville police dismissed Mr Cosgrove for violating procedures for use of force and failing to use a body camera during the search, the Louisville Courier Journal reported on Wednesday.\n\nMr Jaynes, the newspaper said, was fired for violating the police force's policy for truthfulness and search warrant preparation.\n\nDuring the raid, Ms Taylor's boyfriend fired at the officers who he said he believed were attackers breaking into their home.\n\nPolice say they knocked on the door to announce their presence before breaking down the door with a battering ram.\n\nMs Taylor's boyfriend said police did not make their presence known, and he fired out of self-defence. Three officers returned fire with 32 shots, six of which hit Ms Taylor.\n\nMs Taylor's name became a global rallying cry as people demanded a thorough investigation into her death.\n\nBlack Lives Matter activists in the US have demanded that Louisville police take stronger action against the officers in the case and say that police too often escape unpunished after killing members of the public.\n\nBut despite the outcry against Ms Taylor's shooting, no criminal charges were sought relating to her death.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"Questions still aren't answered\": Breonna Taylor's family are worried about a \"cover-up\"", "Paul Trauberman from Rainbow Smiles said it was hard to give reassurance without knowing the facts about the new variant\n\nNursery staff say they are being \"treated like the bottom of the rung\" after schools in England were told to shut to reduce the virus transmission.\n\nPaul Trauberman, of Rainbow Smiles in Weston-super-Mare, said despite his staff being \"scared\" about the new Covid-19 variant they had come to work.\n\nThe government announced a strict lockdown across the country on Monday.\n\nIt was after the UK moved to Covid-19 threat level five, meaning there is a risk the NHS could be overwhelmed.\n\nMr Trauberman, who took over Rainbow Smiles nursery in 2016, said he felt conflicted.\n\n\"I've come in this morning and I've got staff crying and saying they are scared of this new variant.\"\n\n\"We don't have PPE, we can't social distance, on the other hand we still have a business that is operational and we are not going bankrupt.\"\n\nHe said prolonged closure also carried the risk of going out of business but it was difficult to reassure staff when \"you don't have any of the facts\".\n\n\"One minute it is fine and the schools are going back, and two days later they are sending everyone home.\n\n\"It makes the staff feel insecure and... they just feel like they are being treated like the bottom of the rung.\n\nSchools are expected to remain closed until after the February half-term\n\n\"With this new variant ... they are having to deal with very close contact with children, with a virus around, which they are saying is very, very bad, but with no more information than that.\"\n\nA Department for Education spokesperson said: \"Early years settings remain low risk environments for children and staff and there is no evidence that the new variant of coronavirus disproportionately affects young children.\"\n\nIt said keeping nurseries open supported parents and delivered crucial education for children as Bristol mother-of-three Eleni Franklin has found.\n\nShe said she \"really valued\" Acorns Nursery in Henbury Hill, being open as she and her husband are both key workers - so their children, Allegra, five, Aria, two and Rafe nine-months-old, will attend school and nursery throughout the lockdown.\n\n\"I can see that nurseries are different to schools. There has been one case at Aria's nursery during this whole period, whereas in school there has been quite a few,\" she said.\n\nEleni Franklin said she could see why nurseries were being treated differently to schools\n\n\"The nursery have been pretty good and although I understand there is a risk to staff, they have put a lot of measures in place to keep people safe.\"\n\nOne of the biggest challenges for nurseries - with some staff now unable to work because of their own childcare responsibilities - is maintaining child-to-staff ratios.\n\nMr Trauberman said they worked on a basis of one-to-three for babies, one-to-four for under-three's and one-to-eight with under five-year-olds.\n\n\"We are trying to maintain these bubbles, but normally we would move staff around to accommodate highs and lows of staff and children, to balance it out, but we are unable to do that to enable these bubbles,\" he said.\n\nHis nursery is now identifying families that could potentially keep their children at home if they were unable to meet those ratios.\n\nMr Trauberman, who is a member of an online group for nursery owners, said some people were calling for nurseries to shut, but said if that happened they risked \"not having a business to come back to\".\n\n\"Small businesses are the backbone of the country and if a lot of those go under, the financial implications for the whole country are going to be catastrophic.\"\n\nMother-of-two Kara Willetts, from Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, said she felt it was important her daughter Isobel continued going to nursery as she noticed her behaviour had changed when she had to stop going during the first lockdown in March.\n\n\"Isobel is a really sociable, outgoing child and she really suffered with not going in and seeing her friends during the first lockdown. Her mental health suffered and she displayed behaviour I had never seen from her before,\" she said.\n\nKara Willetts said her daughter Isobel's mental health suffered when nurseries closed during the first lockdown\n\nMrs Willetts said she had full confidence in the measures introduced at the nursery three-and-a-half-year-old Isobel attends in Cheltenham.\n\nShe said that with her husband working from home and a seven-month-old son also at home, the option of Isobel going to nursery was \"beneficial to the whole family\".\n\n\"It is quite difficult for my husband to concentrate on work with two kids at home. Transmission rates in young children are very low and if I had any safety concerns I wouldn't send Isobel there,\" she added.\n\nTom Shea, a former advisor to the Early Year's minister, said: \"The biggest issue is that as a society we regard childcare as something like babysitting, rather than the start of the early year's development of learning.\n\n\"Sadly it seems the main reason for keeping us open is for protecting employment rather than protecting children.\"\n\nMr Shea owns Child First Nursery in Worksop and said he thought there was a \"hierarchy\" among key workers in terms of vaccination priorities. He said \"sensibly\" the first priority was NHS staff, followed by social carers for the elderly. He said teachers ranked a \"reasonable\" third, but that Early Years workers did not feature at all.\n\n\"They are expected just to work, and I am not sure if the government thinks that we are invisible,\" he said.\n\nHe called for early vaccination of Early Years workers to allow them to stay open and be protected.\n\n\"The irony now is that we are being told to keep open even though we are private businesses, we are dictated to about the funding we can receive and how we receive it… and if parents are frightened of their children going into the childcare setting then suddenly we don't get paid for that, so you find nurseries half empty being forced to open and it is not economical to do that.\"\n\nA Department for Education spokesperson said: \"We are funding nurseries as usual and all children are able to attend their early years setting in all parts of England.\n\n\"Working parents on coronavirus support schemes will still remain eligible for childcare support even if their income levels fall below the minimum requirement.\"", "An investment firm has bought 50% of the rights to all Neil Young's songs.\n\nHipgnosis Songs Fund spent an estimated $150m (£110m) on 1,180 songs written by the Canadian folk rocker.\n\nThe fund, which lets people invest in hit songs, has previously splashed out about £1bn snapping up rights to songs from the likes of Mark Ronson, Chic, Barry Manilow and Blondie.\n\nFounded by music industry veteran Merck Mercuriadis, Hipgnosis turns music royalties into an income stream.\n\n\"This is a deal that changes Hipgnosis forever,\" said Mr Mercuriadis.\n\n\"I bought my first Neil Young album aged seven. Harvest was my companion and I know every note, every word, every pause and silence intimately.\n\n\"Neil Young, or at least his music, has been my friend and constant ever since.\"\n\nHipgnosis has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since July 2018. When songs owned by the fund get played on the radio or placed in a film or TV show, it makes money.\n\nBefore setting up Hipgnosis, Mr Mercuriadis managed artists such as Beyoncé, Elton John, Iron Maiden and Guns 'N' Roses.\n\nIn his view, songs are \"as investible as gold or oil\".\n\nHe says hit songs are a stable investment because their revenue is unaffected by fluctuations in the economy.\n\nThe sale of song catalogues has become a booming business during the Covid-19 pandemic, with investors seeing music as a relatively stable asset in an otherwise turbulent market.\n\nEarlier this week, Hipgnosis bought 100% of the rights to Lindsey Buckingham's 161 songs for an undisclosed amount.\n\nThe songs include hits that Buckingham wrote or co-wrote for Fleetwood Mac, including Go Your Own Way and The Chain.\n\nThe group's Stevie Nicks sold 80% of her publishing rights last year to Hipgnosis rival Primary Wave for about $80m.\n\nLast month, Universal Music Group announced it had bought 100% of Bob Dylan's 600 songs for between an estimated $200m and $450m (£150m-£340m).\n\nThe singer-songwriter was the latest of a number of artists to join up with the Los Angeles-based Universal, following other big names such as Bruce Springsteen, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar and Post Malone.\n\nNeil Young rose to prominence in the 1960s and 70s and is one of the most influential songwriters of all time.\n\nHe is known not only for his work as a solo artist, but also with the bands Buffalo Springfield, Crazy Horse and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.\n\nYoung has released almost 50 studio albums and more than 20 live albums, of which 18 have been certified gold, seven are platinum and three are multi-platinum.\n\nSeven of his albums were included on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time chart: Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, After The Gold Rush, Déjà Vu (with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) Harvest, On The Beach, Tonight's the Night and Rust Never Sleeps.\n\n\"I built Hipgnosis to be a company Neil would want to be a part of,\" said Mr Mercuriadis.\n\n\"We have a common integrity, ethos and passion born out of a belief in music and these important songs.\n\n\"There will never be a 'Burger of Gold', but we will work together to make sure everyone gets to hear them on Neil's terms.\"", "US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese apps.\n\nThe apps include popular payments platform Alipay, as well as QQ Wallet and WeChat Pay.\n\nThe order, which takes effect in 45 days, says that the apps are being banned because they are a threat to US national security.\n\nIt flags the possibility that the apps could be used to track and build dossiers on US federal employees.\n\nTencent QQ, CamScanner, SHAREit, VMate and WPS Office are also included within the order, which only kicks in after Mr Trump has left office.\n\n\"The United States must take aggressive action against those who develop or control Chinese connected software applications to protect our national security,\" the order said.\n\nPresident Trump's order says \"by accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information.\"\n\nThe Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on Chinese companies in its final months in office, including those it considers a national security risk.\n\nPresident Trump has signed executive orders against a range of Chinese firms arguing they could share data with the Chinese government.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Panorama: How safe is TikTok for young users?\n\nChinese social media app TikTok and telecoms giant Huawei have been among the casualties of Washington's crackdown.\n\nLast month, the Commerce Department added dozens of Chinese companies, including the country's top chipmaker SMIC and drone manufacturer DJI Technology, to a trade blacklist.\n\nThe administration also restricted a number of Chinese and Russian companies with alleged military ties from buying sensitive US goods and technology.\n\nChina has consistently denied claims that these firms share their data with the Chinese government and has responded by imposing its own export laws restricting the export of military technology.\n\nIn August, the US ordered ByteDance, the owner of social media app TikTok, to either shut down or sell off its US assets.\n\nDespite missing a deadline to complete the sale, the US is yet to shut down the app and negotiations continue over its future.\n\nThe latest ban comes as the White House quietly pushed the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to consider a second U-turn on its decision to delist three Chinese telecoms giants.\n\nLast week the NYSE announced it would delist the China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom in line with another executive order.\n\nOn Monday, however, the NYSE reversed that decision, announcing it had decided not to delist the three companies after further consultation with US regulators.\n\nThe NYSE made the decision based on ambiguity about whether the securities were actually covered by the order.\n\nHowever, the exchange has come under pressure over its decision.\n\nThe US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called the NYSE President Stacey Cunningham to tell her he disagrees with the decision, according to Reuters.\n\nRepublican Senator and China hardliner Marco Rubio has also spoken out, saying that the NYSE's refusal to delist the companies was an \"outrageous effort\" to undermine the President's executive order.\n\nThe NYSE is owned by Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which is run by billionaire Jeffrey Sprecher.\n\nHis wife Kelly Loeffler is one of two Republican senators facing run-off elections on Tuesday in Georgia.", "The new \"highly infectious\" variant of coronavirus is spreading rapidly throughout Wales, the health minister has said.\n\nGiving the first coronavirus briefing of the year, Vaughan Gething said cases of the virus remained very high.\n\nHowever, the case rate across Wales has fallen from a high of 636 per 100,000 people on 17 December to 446 on Monday.\n\nBut cases are rising quickly in north Wales, which Mr Gething believed was due to the new variant.", "This video can not be played\n\nTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday morning. We'll have another update for you at 18:00 BST.\n\nThe measures announced on Monday have now become law, but MPs will actually vote retrospectively to approve them later today. They're expected to pass with ease - Labour has pledged its support, but said ministers must deliver a round-the-clock vaccination programme. The regulations allow restrictions to potentially be in place until mid-March. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all imposed lockdowns too, but will they be enough? An estimated one in 50 people in private households in England had coronavirus last week - one in 30 in London, while the number of daily confirmed cases topped 60,000 for the first time. Our health correspondent has more - as we've come to understand, the R number is everything. This graph shows how the R number could drop this time (in red), compared with how it fell during the first lockdown - the slower decline is down to the new, more transmissible variant.\n\nStudents have been anxiously waiting for news after the cancellation of A-Level and GCSE exams in England - not least because of the chaos that surrounded last year's results. Exams had already been cancelled elsewhere in the UK. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson will reveal more in a statement to MPs later. He'll also give more details of support for pupils following the switch by schools and colleges to remote learning. There are fears a digital divide will mean some children are excluded. We've got some advice for parents on virtual learning, and BBC Bitesize will be broadcasting lessons on BBC Two, CBBC and online from Monday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Parents spoke to the BBC after Monday's announcement about school closures in England\n\nPeople arriving in the UK from abroad could soon be required to prove they've had a negative coronavirus test before setting off. The Department for Transport says it's one of several measures being considered to prevent new cases arriving from abroad. Full details are still to be agreed, but it's thought hauliers coming through ports would be exempt. Currently, arrivals from countries not exempt under the travel corridor programme have to isolate for 10 days. See more on the existing rules. Travel firms have been cancelling trips since the latest lockdowns were imposed.\n\n2020 was a dreadful year for the UK car industry and preliminary figures from the industry's trade body show just how bad it was. New car registrations dropped to levels not seen since 1992, and saw the biggest one-year fall since World War Two when factories were turned over to military production. Showrooms and even factories were forced to close in the spring, and the switch to working from home means fewer of us need a vehicle on a daily basis. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said firms were desperately trying to minimise redundancies.\n\nUnable to leave Taiwan due to the pandemic, Peter Lowe decided to get a boat to pass the time. A leisurely hobby soon turned into a quest to clear the country's waterways, river banks and mangrove forests of plastic. His efforts have inspired local volunteers to join in the clean-up, and even prompted the government to take notice. Peter has some advice for all of us feeling trapped right now: \"Do something positive, do something meaningful, particularly towards saving and protecting the earth.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nFind more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nPlus, when lockdown was imposed last Spring, some of life's most basic household tasks suddenly got a lot harder. What are they like now?\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "A Joint Session of Congress to certify the election of Joe Biden has gone into an unexpected recess, and the Capitol building into lockdown, after Trump supporters breached security lines.\n\nEarlier, President Trump addressed supporters at a rally outside the White House and encouraged them to protest the election result.", "It was initially believed that Covid-19 originated at a market in Wuhan\n\nA World Health Organization (WHO) team due to investigate the origins of Covid-19 in the city of Wuhan has been denied entry to China.\n\nTwo members were already en route, with the WHO saying the problem was a lack of visa clearances.\n\nHowever, China has challenged this, saying details of the visit, including dates, were still being arranged.\n\nThe long-awaited probe was agreed upon by Beijing after many months of negotiations with the WHO.\n\nThe virus was first detected in Wuhan in late 2019, with the initial outbreak linked to a market.\n\nWHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was \"very disappointed\" that China had not yet finalised the permissions for the team's arrivals \"given that two members had already begun their journeys and others were not able to travel at the last minute\".\n\n\"I have been assured that China is speeding up the internal procedure for the earliest possible deployment,\" he told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday, explaining that he had been in contact with senior Chinese officials to stress \"that the mission is a priority for WHO and the international team\".\n\nChinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told the BBC \"there might be some misunderstanding\" and \"there's no need to read too much into it\".\n\n\"Chinese authorities are in close co-operation with WHO but there has been some minor outbreaks in multiple places around the world and many countries and regions are busy in their work preventing the virus and we are also working on this,\" she said.\n\n\"Still we are supporting international co-operation and advancing internal preparations. We are in communication with the WHO and as far as I know with dates and arrangements we are still in discussions.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid-19: How everyday life has changed in Wuhan\n\nThe WHO has been working to send a 10-person team of international experts to China for months with the aim of probing the animal origin of the pandemic and exactly how the virus first crossed over to humans.\n\nLast month it was announced that the investigation would begin in January 2021.\n\nThe two members of the international team that had already departed for China had set off early on Tuesday, said the WHO. According to Reuters news agency, WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan said one had turned back and one was in a third country.\n\nCovid-19 was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in central Hubei province in late 2019.\n\nIt was initially believed the virus originated in a market selling exotic animals for meat. It was suggested that this was where the virus made the leap from animals to humans.\n\nBut the origins of the virus remain deeply contested. Some experts now believe the market may not have been the origin, and that it was instead only amplified there.\n\nSome research has suggested that coronaviruses capable of infecting humans may have been circulating undetected in bats for decades. It is not known, however, what intermediate animal host transmitted the virus between bats and humans.", "US President Donald Trump and others have made new unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud following the rerun of two crucial Senate races in the state of Georgia.\n\nWith the Democrats looking likely to win both seats and with them control of the US Senate, we've debunked some of the theories that have been widely shared on social media.\n\nSince the November election, the president has repeatedly made baseless allegations that Dominion voting machines have been manipulated to engineer electoral fraud.\n\nReferring to the vote in Georgia, Mr Trump said these machines had stopped working in Republican strongholds for \"over an hour\".\n\nThe official in charge of Georgia's voting systems, Gabriel Sterling, said there has been an issue in one county due to \"a programming error on security keys\" but that it was resolved hours before the president made his comments.\n\nMr Sterling tweeted: \"The, votes of everyone will be protected and counted. Sorry you received old intel Mr President.\"\n\nGeorgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger also clarified in a statement that there had been some issues but they did not stop people from voting, Reuters news agency reports.\n\n\"At no point did voting stop as voters continued casting ballots on emergency ballots, in accordance with the procedures set out by Georgia law,\" said Mr Raffensperger.\n\nAn image that has been shared thousands of times on Twitter purported to show a pile of destroyed ballots in Georgia on election day.\n\n\"Our team is in Georgia. They took a little walk. They found shredded ballots in Dell boxes,\" the tweet said.\n\nAlthough the post provided no detail as to where exactly the picture had been taken, we were able to geolocate it to the absentee ballot processing centre at the Georgia World Congress Center in Fulton County, which includes Atlanta.\n\nFulton County elections director Richard Barron told the BBC that the papers in the picture were \"definitely not ballots\", but waste from a letter-opening machine used to cut ballot envelopes.\n\nWe've reported on similar claims about alleged ballot shredding in Georgia before.\n\nIn November, an investigation into the shredding of papers in Cobb County concluded that it was part of a \"routine clean-up operation\" and the documents disposed of were not actual votes \"relevant to the election or the re-tally\".\n\nIn a tweet generating some 300,000 likes and retweets, President Trump claimed there was a \"voter dump\" planned against Republican candidates.\n\nBut there's no evidence of wrongdoing.\n\nIt's not clear exactly what he means by a \"voter dump\", but he may be referring to the fact that large batches of votes are released at once.\n\nThis is standard practice and a valid part of the vote-counting process.\n\nIn Georgia, as in the presidential elections, larger districts, often including cities that may lean Democrat, take longer to report their results.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Trump has falsely claimed on multiple occasions that millions of genuine votes in November's presidential election that were counted after polls closed were \"fake\".\n\nIn Georgia, election official Gabriel Sterling noted after the polls closed that some 171,000 early, in-person ballots from DeKalb County, which is Democrat-leaning, were yet to be counted.\n\nAuthorities knew how many of these \"advanced\" votes were coming.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Gabriel Sterling This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA number of Republican officials and activists, including White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and the founder of conservative activist group Turning Point USA, claimed workers at the Chatham county count had suddenly stopped counting for the rest of the night and gone home, raising the prospect of foul play.\n\n\"They're doing this again. You can't make this up,\" Charlie Kirk tweeted.\n\nSimilar claims of fraud or suspicious activity were made during the presidential election count in the county, after it took a few days for all the absentee and mail-in ballots to be tabulated.\n\nBut Gabriel Sterling, Georgia's voting systems implementation manager, took to Twitter to say the count \"didn't just stop\".\n\nWorkers had finished counting all the ballots they had except absentee ballots received on election day, Mr Sterling, a Republican, added.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Gabriel Sterling This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe county's board of elections chairman, Tom Mahoney, confirmed later that about 3,000 to 4,000 election day absentee ballots were left to count.", "Protesters in support of US President Donald Trump swarmed the Capitol building, forcing officials to order lawmakers to shelter in place and halting debate in both the House and Senate. Congress was meeting to confirm President-elect Joe Biden's electoral college victory.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Keir Starmer: \"If we pull together as a nation, we can win\"\n\nSir Keir Starmer has called for a \"round the clock\" vaccination programme to tackle the rise in Covid cases.\n\nAs part of a televised speech, the Labour leader said the government needed to deliver \"millions of doses a week by the end of the month\".\n\nHe said there were \"serious questions for the government to answer\" over the timing of the lockdown in England, but Labour would support the restrictions.\n\nBoris Johnson said daily vaccination figures would be published from Monday.\n\nThe prime minister has also said the four most vulnerable groups of people across the UK should receive their first dose by mid-February.\n\nBoth the PM and Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, have announced lockdowns this week.\n\nWales has been in a national lockdown since 20 December and Northern Ireland entered a six-week lockdown on 26 December.\n\nEngland's lockdown will become law from 00:01 GMT Wednesday and MPs will return to the Commons later that day to vote on the measures retrospectively.\n\nThe restrictions come into force as the number of new daily confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK topped 60,000 for the first time since the pandemic started.\n\nOn Tuesday, 60,914 had tested positive in the previous 24 hours and a further 830 people had died within 28 days of a positive test.\n\nIn an address to the nation on BBC One, in response to Boris Johnson's televised address on Monday, Sir Keir said the UK had reached a \"critical moment in our fight against coronavirus\".\n\nThe Labour leader said people were \"angry at the mistakes the government has made\" and ministers needed to answer questions on why they did not act sooner over locking down England.\n\nHe stressed that Labour would continue to hold the government to account, but added: \"Whatever our quarrels with the government and with the prime minister, the country now needs us to come together.\n\n\"At this darkest of moments, we need a new national effort to re-kindle the spirit of last March - to come together and to do everything possible to stay at home [and] to protect the NHS and save lives.\"\n\nSir Keir reiterated that Labour would support the new lockdown when it comes to the retrospective Commons vote on Wednesday and \"join in this national effort\".\n\nBut he called for the government to use the lockdown to establish \"a massive, immediate, and round the clock vaccination programme\" to \"deliver millions of doses a week by the end of the month in every village and town, every high street and every GP surgery\".\n\nThe Labour leader added: \"This is now a race between the virus and the vaccine and if we pull together as a nation, we can win.\n\n\"We need a new contract between the government and the British people: The country stays at home, the government delivers the vaccine.\"\n\nEarlier at a Downing Street press conference, Mr Johnson said more than 1.3 million people across the UK had now been vaccinated with either the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines.\n\nThe figure included 23% of over-80s in England - part of a programme Mr Johnson said aimed to save \"the most lives the fastest\".\n\nThe PM said there will \"still be long weeks ahead\", but that he wanted to give \"maximum possible transparency\" about the vaccination roll-out.\n\nMore details will be announced on Thursday, with daily updates starting on Monday, \"so that you can see day by day and jab by jab how much progress we are making\", he added.\n\nAsked whether the target could be met, Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty, said the timetable was \"realistic but not easy\".", "Fraudsters are sending out bogus text messages about the coronavirus vaccine in an attempt to steal bank details.\n\nThe scam tells recipients they are \"eligible to apply for your vaccine\" with a link to a bogus NHS website, trading standards officers have warned.\n\nThat, in turn, asks for personal information and - crucially - bank details \"for verification\".\n\nThe warning comes the same day as MPs heard that Covid is leading some people into the net of pension fraudsters.\n\nThe fake NHS message is one of a range of scams which have sought to take advantage of the pandemic and the isolation and legitimate worries of potential victims, according to the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.\n\nOthers have included people travelling door-to-door selling counterfeit or useless protection equipment, or fraudsters claiming to be from the official test and trace service and demanding payments.\n\nThe latest scam is preying on those elderly or vulnerable people who are fully expecting to receive legitimate information about their vaccine.\n\nHealth authorities have stressed they would never ask for an individual's banking details.\n\nKatherine Hart, lead office at the CTSI, said: \"I have been tracking and warning the public about Covid-related scams since the beginning of the pandemic, and at every stage of response, unscrupulous individuals have modified their campaigns to defraud the public.\n\n\"The vaccine brings great hope for an end to the pandemic and lockdowns, but some only wish to create even further misery by defrauding others. The NHS will never ask you for banking details, passwords, or PIN numbers and these should serve as instant red flags.\"\n\nShe urged people to report the scams to Action Fraud or Police Scotland.\n\nPensions have been stolen or put into high-risk schemes\n\nThe warning came as MPs on the Work and Pensions Select Committee heard how fraudsters were seizing on victims' financial uncertainty during the pandemic to draw them into pension scams.\n\nRules allowing people to withdraw cash from their pension pot from the age of 55 have led some people to move money into investment schemes which look generous, but are simply vehicles to steal money.\n\n\"Household finances are stretched and so the temptations to use savings or to be tempted by offers of 'free pension reviews', for example, which we've warned about, are very real,\" Mark Steward, from the Financial Conduct Authority told the committee.\n\n\"Of course, a 'free pension review' is hardly free. It is the first step on a process that will lead someone to investing in something that is too good to be true.\"\n\nHe said that fraudsters had used social media advertising to \"industrialise\" this kind of fraud.\n\nWhereas previously, fraudsters had to produce sophisticated glossy brochures and office fronts, they could now operate in anonymity on social media, sending fake information to millions of people.\n\nMillions of pounds have been lost to pension scams in recent years, but it is a crime considered to be widely under-reported by victims and pension companies.\n\nGraeme Biggar, director general of the National Economic Crime Centre, told the committee that fraudsters were continuing to use new avenues to reach potential victims.\n\n\"What we're looking to do next is to move on to fake comparison websites, which is this new gateway into investment frauds, to spot those and take them down at source,\" he said.", "Dr Anil Mehta, a GP at Fullwell Cross Medical Centre in North London, told the BBC that staff were working from 7 in the morning until 10pm at night during the three days of their weekly Covid-19 vaccine rollout, describing the process as a 'full team effort.\n\nDr Mehta was also keen to encourage people who might be nervous about the vaccine to take up the offer, emphasising that the evidence behind the vaccine 'was very strong'.\n\nThis message was echoed by Zahin Ahmed, whose grandfather Shafiquz Zaman has now received both doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine at the clinic. Mr Ahmed, who is from the Bangladeshi community, also said it was important that minority communities took up the offer of the vaccine when called upon to do so.", "Albert Roux pictured in the kitchen of Le Gavroche in 1989\n\nChef and restaurateur Albert Roux, who brought great French cooking to the UK with his brother Michel, has died at the age of 85.\n\nThe pair made gastronomic history in 1982 when their London restaurant, Le Gavroche, became the first in Britain to earn three Michelin stars.\n\nAlbert's death comes almost a year after Michel died at the age of 78.\n\nGordon Ramsay, one of many leading chefs who earned their stripes in Le Gavroche's kitchen, led the tributes.\n\n\"So so sad the hear about the passing of this legend, the man who installed Gastronomy in Britain,\" Ramsay wrote on Instagram.\n\nMarco Pierre White, Marcus Wareing, Pierre Koffman and Monica Galetti are among the other chefs who rose through the ranks at Le Gavroche.\n\nIn his tribute, TV chef James Martin described Albert Roux as \"a true titan of the food scene in this country [who] inspired and trained some of the best and biggest names in the business\".\n\nA family statement said: \"The Roux family has announced the sad passing of Albert Roux, OBE, KFO, who had been unwell for a while, at the age 85 on 4th January 2021.\n\n\"Albert is credited, along with his late brother Michel Roux, with starting London's culinary revolution with the opening of Le Gavroche in 1967.\"\n\nHis son Michel Roux Jr, who now runs Le Gavroche and is a former judge on MasterChef: The Professionals, said: \"He was a mentor for so many people in the hospitality industry, and a real inspiration to budding chefs, including me.\"\n\nFood critic Jay Rayner described Albert Roux as \"an extraordinary man who left a massive mark on the food story of his adopted country\".\n\nHe added: \"The roll call of chefs who went through the kitchens of Le Gavroche alone, is a significant slab of a part of modern UK restaurant culture.\"\n\nChef Tom Kitchin wrote that \"one of the true culinary greats has left us\", and baker and food writer Dan Lepard said it was the \"end of an era\".\n\nAlbert and Michel Roux came from a family of butchers in eastern France, and trained to be patissiers before moving to the UK.\n\nAlbert arrived in the mid-1950s, and in 1967 put his £3,000 savings with money borrowed from friends to open the first Gavroche off Sloane Square in Chelsea.\n\nWith uncompromising standards, elaborate presentation and first-rate service, it raised the standards of haute cuisine in a then-limited English restaurant scene.\n\nIt moved to Mayfair in 1981, and soon became the first British-based establishment to carry the maximum three Michelin stars.\n\n\"An Olympic gold medal,\" Albert said at the time. \"I have had no other ambition.\"\n\nThe Roux dynasty (left-right): Alain Roux, Michel Roux Jnr, Michel Roux and Albert Roux in 2009\n\nIts kitchen would also become the training ground for a new, enlightened generation of British chefs.\n\n\"If cooking is an art form, Le Gavroche was the Royal College of Music, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, Rada and the Courtauld and Warburg institutes all rolled up into one, poached, wrapped in a puff pastry shell with foie gras and served with truffle sauce,\" The Guardian wrote in 2010.\n\nThe brothers also launched the Roux Scholarship, an annual chef competition, in 1983, with many scholars having gone on to win Michelin stars themselves.\n\nAlbert and Michel opened a string of other restaurants, fronted a 13-part TV series on BBC Two in 1990, and published a series of best-selling books about French cookery.", "Shows like Tiger King kept people entertained during the first UK lockdown\n\nNetflix is raising the cost of some of its UK subscriptions from next month, its customers have been told.\n\nThe streaming service said the price rises reflected money spent on content.\n\nIts standard monthly package will go up from £8.99 to £9.99 and its premium one will rise from £11.99 to £13.99, but its basic plan remains at £5.99.\n\nHowever, comparison site Uswitch said the timing of the price rises was unfortunate with UK citizens living under new national lockdowns.\n\nThe streaming service's subscriber numbers have jumped during the pandemic, with almost 16 million new customers added worldwide in the first three months of 2020 alone.\n\nIn the UK, during the first national lockdown which started in March 2020, the amount of streaming content watched by consumers rose by a third compared with the previous year.\n\nBut Netflix faces tough competition from rivals, such as Disney+, which has also announced price rises of £2 per month up to £7.99 or £79.90 for a full year.\n\nNetflix said: \"This year we're spending over $1bn [£736m] in the UK on new, locally-made films, series and documentaries, helping to create thousands of jobs and showcasing British storytelling at its best - with everything from The Crown, to Sex Education and Top Boy, plus many, many more.\n\n\"Our price change reflects the significant investments we've made in new TV shows and films, as well as improvements to our product.\"\n\nA standard Netflix subscription gives users HD streaming on two devices at the same time with the ability to download to two phones or tablets. The premium service allows streaming on up to four screens at once, as well as offering 4K streaming and downloading to four phones or tablets.\n\nSubscribers who do not want to pay the extra can cancel their plan at any time without penalty or simply shift to the basic package, which allows users to watch movies and TV shows in standard definition on one device only and download to one mobile or tablet.\n\nNick Baker, streaming and TV expert at Uswitch.com, said: \"Netflix has been a lifeline for many people during lockdown, so this price rise is an unwanted extra expense for households feeling the financial pressure.\n\n\"It's unfortunate timing that this price hike coincides with another national lockdown, when all of us will be streaming more television and films than ever.\"", "The number of new daily confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK has topped 60,000 for the first time since the pandemic started.\n\nAccording to government figures on Tuesday, the number of people who tested positive was 60,916.\n\nOne in 50 people in private households in England had Covid last week - and one in 30 in London, according to estimates based on the latest data.\n\nA further 830 people have also died within 28 days of a positive test.\n\nIt comes as England and Scotland announced new strict lockdowns, with people told to stay at home.\n\nAt a press conference at Downing Street on Tuesday, Boris Johnson said 1.3 million people had now been vaccinated in the UK - including 23% of over 80s in England, some 650,000 people.\n\nBut he said more than one million people were currently infected - with the number of patients in hospitals 40% higher than in the first peak.\n\nThe government's chief medical adviser Prof Chris Whitty cited the Office for National Statistics' random sampling data for England as showing how widespread the virus is.\n\n\"We're now into a situation where across the country as a whole, roughly one in 50 people have got the virus, higher in some parts of the country, lower in others,\" he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Professor Chris Whitty: \"No evidence\" the new variant is \"more dangerous\"\n\nThe number of new daily cases has consistently been above 50,000 since 29 December.\n\nBack in the first peak of the pandemic in the spring, the number of daily confirmed cases never went above 7,000.\n\nHowever, it is thought the true number of cases then was much higher but not picked up because testing capacity was limited. It was estimated there were about 100,000 new infections a day at the end of March - but there was not the testing to detect it.\n\nHospital admissions of people with Covid-19 in England also reached another record high on Tuesday, NHS England figures show.\n\nAt a hospital in Lincolnshire, a \"critical\" incident has been declared after a sharp rise in patients requiring admission.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How NHS nurses and doctors are struggling to cope with Covid as cases continue to rise in England\n\nAnd potentially life-saving cancer operations have been put on hold at a major London NHS trust because of the number of beds taken by Covid patients.\n\nHowever, Cancer Research UK said such cancellations did not appear to be widespread across the country.\n\nIn a statement after the case numbers were released, Public Health England medical director Yvonne Doyle said the rapid rise in cases was \"highly concerning and will sadly mean yet more pressure on our health services in the depths of winter\".\n\nAfter seven consecutive days of more than 50,000 cases being confirmed, the fact that more than 60,000 have been recorded should not come as a surprise.\n\nIt will take a week, if not more, for the impact of lockdown to be felt.\n\nAnd all the evidence suggests the new variant of coronavirus, which is more transmissible than previous ones, means the impact is likely to be more limited than it was in previous ones.\n\nThe figures are also a warning about what the NHS is facing.\n\nSome of this week's infections are next week's hospital admissions.\n\nAbout three in 10 beds are now occupied by Covid patients. In some hospitals more than six in 10 are.\n\nHospitals are now busy making more spaces on their wards - that means cancelling planned work, including in some places cancer treatment.\n\nBoris Johnson and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon both announced new lockdowns on Monday.\n\nWales has been in a national lockdown since 20 December and Northern Ireland entered a six-week lockdown on 26 December.\n\nRestrictions are also being tightened further in Northern Ireland, and an order for people to stay at home will become legally enforceable from Friday.\n\nIn a televised address to the nation, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer urged the government to use the lockdown to create a \"round the clock\" vaccination programme.\n\nHe also called on people to \"recapture the spirit\" of the beginning of the pandemic.\n\nAt the press conference on Tuesday, Mr Johnson repeated his suggestion that there is a \"prospect\" of the lockdown being eased in mid-February.\n\n\"But you will also appreciate there are a lot of caveats, a lot of ifs built into that, the most important of which is that we all now follow the guidance,\" he said.\n\nEarlier, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove told Sky News he could not say exactly when the lockdown in England would end, but \"as we enter March we should be able to lift some of these restrictions but not necessarily all\".\n\nMr Whitty said the virus \"is not going to go away, just as flu doesn't go away, just as many other viruses don't go away\".\n\n\"We shouldn't kid ourselves that this just disappears with spring,\" he said.\n\nMr Whitty said although hopefully there would be nearly no measures needed from the spring onwards, the government might have to bring in a few restrictions next winter.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson: \"We've now vaccinated over 1.3m people across the UK\"\n\nOn Monday the UK's chief medical officers recommended the Covid threat level be increased to five - its highest level.\n\nAlthough the new variant is now spreading more rapidly than the original version, it is not believed to be more deadly.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC's Laura Foster explains the order in which the Covid vaccine will be given", "Lockdowns have worked before, but can we expect the new one to do the same?\n\nIt feels like we are back in March or April last year, when the strict controls on all our lives led to a fairly quick decline in levels of coronavirus.\n\nBut one of the crucial differences this time is the new variant, which is thought to spread between 50 and 70% faster than previous forms of the virus.\n\nExperts warn there are now no guarantees that lockdown will be enough to bring the variant under control.\n\n\"It still would not have been easy, but it would have been a much easier situation if it had not been for the new variant,\" Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, told Inside Health.\n\n\"That really pushes the bounds of our ability to control the spread of the virus, even with measures that were previously relatively quite effective.\"", "Supermarkets are seeking to reassure shoppers that there is no need to bulk-buy products as new lockdown restrictions come into force.\n\nAsda asked its customers to \"continue to shop considerately and not buy more than they normally would.\"\n\nThere was a surge in online grocery shopping after new lockdown restrictions were announced on Monday, but demand has since dropped back.\n\nStores said they have good availability and have increased delivery slots.\n\nTesco and Sainsbury's have doubled the number of delivery slots since March.\n\nWhen fresh lockdown restrictions were announced on Monday there was a rush online by supermarket shoppers to book delivery slots.\n\nThat surge has since calmed down, but big supermarkets were keen on Wednesday to reassure customers that there is no need to bulk-buy, as stores would like to avoid a repeat of the panic-buying that was triggered by the first lockdown.\n\nAsda said it \"currently has strong product availability across its stores and depots and its colleagues are working around the clock to keep the shelves stocked.\"\n\nSainsbury's said it had \"good availability and encourage customers to shop as normal. We aren't currently restricting products.\"\n\nTesco has had buying limits on various products since the first lockdown, and most recently limited items including eggs, rice, soap and toilet roll after freight delays in December as ports got snarled up.\n\nTesco said on Wednesday that it had \"good availability in stores and online, with plenty of stock to go round, and we would encourage our customers to shop as normal.\"\n\nDuring the first lockdown supermarkets saw a huge spike in demand for online shopping as people tried to avoid mixing in shops.\n\nThe big chains have all increased their capacity to deliver food.\n\nTesco, the biggest UK supermarket chain, has more than doubled the number of online delivery slots available since the start of the crisis, and now has 1.5 million slots per week.\n\nNot all of these get used across the UK at present, so Tesco has no plans at the moment for further slots.\n\nSainsbury's, the second biggest, has also more than doubled the number of its online delivery slots since March, and can meet more than 800,000 orders per week.\n\nAsda, the third biggest chain, has upped the number of available weekly slots by 90% since March to 850,000, and by the start of April it's planning to offer 900,000 slots per week.\n\nMorrison's, the fourth largest UK supermarket chain, said it had increased its online operation fivefold since March.\n\nAsda said on Wednesday that it was also doubling the size of its partnership with Uber Eats. From February Asda will offer a 30-minute delivery service from 200 stores.\n\nAsda is also stepping-up Covid safety measures, including doubling safety marshal hours, more sanitation stations, increasing cleaning, and \"adding a protective antimicrobial coating to customer 'touch points' in stores such as fridge and freezer handles, checkout areas, plus all trolley and basket handles\".\n\nThe chain also has a virtual queueing app called \"Quidini\" whereby customers can sit in their car to wait for a slot in a store if it is busy.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The twins' father says what they have achieved is a 'herculean achievement'\n\nConjoined twins who were expected to die within days when they were born are nearly four years later said to be settling in at their Cardiff school.\n\nMarieme and Ndeye Ndiaye were brought to the UK from Senegal in 2017 by their father Ibrahima for treatment at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital.\n\nThe girls, now four, are learning to stand and their father said their progress was \"a Herculean achievement\".\n\nTheir head teacher said the girls had made friends and were \"laughing a lot\".\n\nThe girls, who have separate hearts and spines but share a liver, bladder and digestive system, have conditions which put them at higher risk of complications from Covid.\n\nHowever, Mr Ndiaye said he had wanted them to start school for their development.\n\n\"When you look in the rear view mirror, it was an unachievable dream,\" he said.\n\n\"From now, everything ahead will be a bonus to me. My heart and soul is shouting out loud, 'Come on! Go on girls! Surprise me more!'.\"\n\nMr Ndiaye brought the girls to the UK through funding from a charitable foundation run by Senegal's first lady Marieme Faye Sall, before he sought asylum.\n\nIn March 2018, the family were moved by the Home Office to Cardiff as asylum seekers can be moved anywhere in the UK and they now have discretionary leave to remain.\n\nIn 2019, Great Ormond Street surgeons considered attempting separation but it was something Mr Ndiaye did not want because of the risks involved.\n\nThe girls have such complex circulatory systems medics now believe they would not survive being separated\n\nSince then, doctors have found the girls' circulatory systems to be more closely linked than previously thought and neither would survive without the other, making separation now impossible.\n\nThe girls' head teacher Helen Borley said they were learning well since starting reception in September and had made new friends.\n\nShe said: \"Children either say, 'I'm Marieme's friend' or 'I'm Ndeye's friend' - they don't say, 'I'm the twins' friend'. Children very much identify as being one person's friend or another - because the girls are very different characters.\n\n\"They are laughing a lot - which is always a good sign, isn't it? Any child that is laughing a lot is a happy child.\"\n\nMarieme receives oxygen from Ndeye's stronger heart and food via their linked stomachs\n\nFor the twins, school needs to fit around hospital visits.\n\nIn October, the girls needed surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital.\n\nDr Gillian Body, a paediatric consultant at the Children's Hospital for Wales in Cardiff, said the procedure was important, despite the risks.\n\nShe said: \"The girls have complex anatomies and that makes them prone to infections and potentially sepsis.\n\n\"One of the challenges we had was getting antibiotics into them quickly, and this tube or cannula they've had fitted, means we can get them into them more quickly with less distress to the girls.\"\n\nThe girls have been experiencing the feeling of standing, at children's hospice Ty Hafan\n\nShe said Marieme's heart was complex with lots of abnormalities that cause her problems with doing exercise and can lead to breathlessness.\n\nAt children's' hospice Ty Hafan in Sully, Vale of Glamorgan, the girls have been learning what it feels like to stand.\n\nA special frame gives them the experience of being upright, helping build strength in their legs.\n\nPhysiotherapist Sara Wade-West said it had been hard for them.\n\n\"It's a really different sensation when you're used to being sat down, to be upright can be scary,\" she said.\n\n\"To start with, particularly Ndeye wasn't very keen. We try and sneak the therapy in around the play, encouraging them to reach for toys to make them work a bit harder, but if they know it's therapy it's not so fun.\n\n\"Because of their cardiac function we can't push them too much so it's finding that balance - challenging them to get stronger but not exhausting them.\"\n\nThe twins' father Ibrahima Ndiaye said they were his \"warriors\"\n\nWatching his daughters stand is more than just a breakthrough for their father.\n\n\"They are showing that they don't only want to live, but be active and play their part in society,\" he said.\n\n\"All these achievements bring light and hopes for the future. But I know how fragile, complex and unpredictable their lives can be.\"\n\nMr Ndiaye said his hopes were \"parallel to my fears\" as the girls had \"so many times come close to the worst\".\n\n\"But the very least I can do for the girls is figure out my hopes for them,\" he said.\n\n\"The most I can do is to be beside them and live inside that hope and never allow anything to take that hope away.\n\n\"They are my warriors. They have proved they will never surrender without fighting. It is not yet over.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A BBC team came across roadblocks as they tried to report on research into viruses that bats carry\n\nA Chinese scientist at the centre of unsubstantiated claims that the coronavirus leaked from her laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan has told the BBC she is open to \"any kind of visit\" to rule it out.\n\nThe surprise statement from Prof Shi Zhengli comes as a World Health Organization team prepares to travel to Wuhan next month to begin its investigation into the origins of Covid-19.\n\nThe remote district of Tongguan, in China's south-western province of Yunnan, is hard to reach at the best of times. But when a BBC team tried to visit recently, it was impossible.\n\nPlain-clothes police officers and other officials in unmarked cars followed us for miles along the narrow, bumpy roads, stopping when we did, backtracking with us when we were forced to turn around.\n\nWe found obstacles in our way, including a \"broken-down\" lorry, which locals confirmed had been placed across the road a few minutes before we arrived.\n\nAnd we ran into checkpoints at which unidentified men told us their job was to keep us out.\n\nAt first sight, all of this might seem like a disproportionate effort given our intended destination, a nondescript, abandoned copper mine in which, back in 2012, six workers succumbed to a mystery illness that eventually claimed the lives of three of them.\n\nBut their tragedy, which would otherwise almost certainly have been largely forgotten, has been given new meaning by the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nThose three deaths are now at the centre of a major scientific controversy about the origins of the virus and the question of whether it came from nature, or from a laboratory.\n\nAnd the attempts of Chinese authorities to stop us reaching the site are a sign of how hard they're working to control the narrative.\n\nFor more than a decade, the rolling, jungle-covered hills in Yunnan - and the cave systems within - have been the focus of a giant scientific field study.\n\nChinese virologist Shi Zhengli is seen here inside the laboratory in Wuhan\n\nIt has been led by Prof Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).\n\nProf Shi won international acclaim for her discovery that the illness known as Sars, which killed more than 700 people in 2003, was caused by a virus that probably came from a species of bat in a Yunnan cave.\n\nEver since, Prof Shi - often referred to as \"China's Batwoman\" - has been in the vanguard of a project to try to predict and prevent further such outbreaks.\n\nBy trapping bats, taking faecal samples from them, and then carrying those samples back to the lab in Wuhan, 1,600km (1,000 miles) away, the team behind the project has identified hundreds of new bat coronaviruses.\n\nBut the fact that Wuhan is now home to the world's leading coronavirus research facility, as well as the first city to be ravaged by a pandemic outbreak of a deadly new one, has fuelled suspicion that the two things are connected.\n\nI would personally welcome any form of visit, based on an open, transparent, trusting, reliable and reasonable dialogue. But the specific plan is not decided by me.\n\nThe Chinese government, the WIV, and Prof Shi have all angrily dismissed the allegation of a virus leak from the Wuhan lab.\n\nBut with scientists appointed by the World Health Organization (WHO) scheduled to visit Wuhan in January for an inquiry into the origin of the pandemic, Prof Shi - who has given few interviews since the pandemic began - answered a number of BBC questions by email.\n\n\"I have communicated with the WHO experts twice,\" she wrote, when asked if an investigation might help rule out a lab leak and end the speculation. \"I have personally and clearly expressed that I would welcome them to visit the WIV,\" she said.\n\nTo a follow-up question about whether that would include a formal investigation with access to the WIV's experimental data and laboratory records, Prof Shi said: \"I would personally welcome any form of visit based on an open, transparent, trusting, reliable and reasonable dialogue. But the specific plan is not decided by me.\"\n\nThe BBC subsequently received a call from the WIV's press office, saying that Prof Shi was speaking in a personal capacity and her answers had not been approved by the WIV.\n\nThe BBC denied a request to send the press office a copy of this article in advance.\n\nDr Peter Daszak: \"I've yet to see any evidence at all of a lab leak or a lab involvement in this outbreak\"\n\nMany scientists believe that by far the most likely scenario is that Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, jumped naturally from bats to humans, possibly via an intermediary species. And despite Prof Shi's offer, for now there appears to be little chance of the WHO inquiry looking into the lab-leak theory.\n\nThe terms of reference for the WHO inquiry make no mention of the theory, and some members of the 10-person team have all but ruled it out.\n\nPeter Daszak, a British zoologist, has been chosen as part of the team because of his leading role in a multimillion dollar, international project to sample wild viruses.\n\nIt has involved close collaboration with Prof Shi Zhengli in her mass sampling of bats in China, and Dr Daszak previously called the lab-leak theory a \"conspiracy theory\" and \"pure baloney\".\n\n\"I've yet to see any evidence at all of a lab leak or a lab involvement in this outbreak,\" he said. \"I have seen substantial evidence that these are naturally occurring phenomena driven by human encroachment into wildlife habitat, which is clearly on display across south-east Asia.\"\n\nAsked about seeking access to the Wuhan lab to rule the lab-leak theory out, he said: \"That's not my job to do that.\n\n\"The WHO negotiated the terms of reference, and they say we're going to follow the evidence, and that's what we've got to do,\" he added.\n\nThe Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was linked to early cases of the new coronavirus\n\nOne focus of the inquiry will be a market in Wuhan which was known to be trading in wildlife and was linked to a number of early cases, though the Chinese authorities appear to have already discounted it as a source of the virus.\n\nDr Daszak said the WHO team would \"look at those clusters of cases, look at the contacts, look at where the animals in the market have come from and see where that takes us\".\n\nThe deaths of the three Tongguan workers following exposure to a mineshaft full of bats raised suspicions that they'd succumbed to a bat coronavirus.\n\nIt was exactly the kind of animal-to-human \"spillover\" that was driving the WIV to sample and test bats in Yunnan.\n\nIt is no surprise then that, following those deaths, the WIV scientists began sampling bats in the Tongguan mineshaft in earnest, making multiple visits over the next three years and detecting 293 coronaviruses.\n\nBut apart from one brief paper, very little was published about the viruses they collected on those trips.\n\nIn January this year, Prof Shi Zhengli became one of the first people in the world to sequence Sars-Cov-2, which was already spreading rapidly through the streets and homes of her city.\n\nShe then compared the long string of letters representing the virus's unique genetic code with the extensive library of other viruses collected and stored over the years.\n\nAnd she discovered that her database contained the closest known relative of Sars-Cov-2.\n\nRaTG13 is a virus whose name has been derived from the bat it was extracted from (Rhinolophus affinis, Ra), the place it was found (Tongguan, TG), and the year it was identified, 2013.\n\nSeven years after it was found in that mineshaft, RaTG13 was about to become one of the most hotly contested scientific subjects of our time.\n\nChina imposed tough restrictions on Wuhan to stop the spread of the virus\n\nThere have been many well-documented cases of viruses leaking from labs. The first Sars virus, for example, leaked twice from the National Institute of Virology in Beijing in 2004, long after the outbreak had been brought under control.\n\nThe practice of genetically manipulating viruses is also not new, allowing scientists to make them more infectious or more deadly, so they can assess the threat and, perhaps, develop treatments or vaccines.\n\nAnd from the moment it was isolated and sequenced, scientists have been struck by the remarkable ability of Sars-Cov-2 to infect humans.\n\nThe possibility that it acquired that ability as a result of manipulation in a laboratory was taken seriously enough for an influential group of international scientists to address it head on.\n\nIn what has become the definitive paper ruling out the possibility of a lab leak, RaTG13 has a starring role.\n\nPublished in March in the magazine Nature Medicine, it suggests that if there had been a leak, Prof Shi Zhengli would have found a much closer match in her database than RaTG13.\n\nWhile RaTG13 is the closest known relative - at 96.2% similarity - it is still too distant to have been manipulated and changed into Sars-Cov-2.\n\nSars-Cov-2, the authors concluded, was likely to have gained its unique efficiency through a long, undetected period of circulation in humans or animals of a natural and milder precursor virus that eventually evolved into the potent, deadly form first detected in Wuhan in 2019.\n\nMedics and scientists in Wuhan battled to control the early stages of the pandemic\n\nWhere though, some scientists are beginning to wonder, are those reservoirs of earlier natural infection?\n\nDr Daniel Lucey is a physician and infectious disease professor at the Georgetown Medical Centre in Washington DC and a veteran of many pandemics - Sars in China, Ebola in Africa, Zika in Brazil.\n\nHe is certain that China has already conducted thorough searches for evidence of precursor viruses in stored human samples in hospitals and in animal populations.\n\n\"They have the capability, they have the resources and they have the motivation, so of course they've done the studies in animals and in humans,\" he said.\n\nFinding the origin of an outbreak was vital, he said, not just for wider scientific understanding, but also to stop it emerging again.\n\n\"We should search until we find it. I think it's findable and I think it's quite possible it's already been found,\" he said. \"But then the question arises, why hasn't it been disclosed?\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid-19: How everyday life has changed in Wuhan\n\nDr Lucey still believes that Sars-Cov-2 is most likely to have a natural origin, but he does not want the alternatives to be so readily ruled out.\n\n\"So here we are, 12, 13 months out since the first recognised case of Covid-19 and we haven't found the animal source,\" he said. \"So, to me, it's all the more reason to investigate alternative explanations.\"\n\nMight a Chinese laboratory have had a virus they were working on that was genetically closer to Sars-Cov-2, and would they tell us now if they did? \"Not everything that's done is published,\" Dr Lucey said.\n\nIt's a point I put to Peter Daszak, the member of the WHO origins study team.\n\n\"You know, I've worked with the WIV for a good decade or more,\" he said. \"I know some of the people there pretty well and I have visited the labs frequently, I've met and had dinner with them over 15 years.\n\n\"I'm working in China with eyes wide open, and I'm racking my brain back in time for the slightest hint of something untoward. And I've never seen that.\"\n\nAsked if those friendships and funding relationships with the WIV presented a conflict of interest with his role on the inquiry, he said: \"We file our papers; it's all there for everyone to see.\"\n\nAnd his collaboration with the WIV, he said, \"makes me one of the people on the planet who knows the most about the origins of these bat coronaviruses in China\".\n\nThe conclusion [of the Kunming Hospital University thesis] is neither based on evidence nor logic. But it’s used by conspiracy theorists to doubt me\n\nChina may have provided only limited data about its hunt for the origin of Sars-Cov-2, but it has begun to promote a theory of its own.\n\nBased on a few inconclusive studies conducted by scientists in Europe that suggest Covid-19 may have been circulating earlier than previously thought, state propaganda is full of stories suggesting the virus didn't start in China at all.\n\nIn the absence of proper data, speculation is only likely to grow, much of it focused on RaTG13 and its origins in a Tongguan mineshaft. Old academic papers have been dug up online that appear to differ from the WIV's statements about the sick mine workers - among them a thesis by a student at the Kunming Hospital University.\n\n\"I've just downloaded the Kunming Hospital University student's masters thesis and read it,\" Prof Shi told the BBC.\n\n\"The narrative doesn't make sense,\" she said. \"The conclusion is neither based on evidence nor logic. But it's used by conspiracy theorists to doubt me. If you were me, what you would do?\"\n\nProf Shi has also faced questions about why the WIV's online public database of viruses was suddenly taken offline.\n\nShe told the BBC that the WIV's website and the staff's work emails and personal emails had been attacked, and the database taken offline for security reasons.\n\n\"All our research results are published in English journals in the form of papers,\" she said. \"Virus sequences are saved in the [US-run] GenBank database too. It's completely transparent. We have nothing to hide.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Can you become immune to coronavirus?\n\nThere are important questions to be asked in the Yunnan countryside, not just by scientists, but by journalists too.\n\nAfter a decade of sampling and experimenting on viruses collected from bats, we now know that back in 2013 the closest known ancestor was discovered of a future threat that would claim well over a million lives and devastate the global economy.\n\nYet the WIV, according to the published information, did nothing with it, except sequence it and enter it into a database.\n\nOught that to call into question the very premise on which the expensive, and some would say risky, mass sampling of wild viruses is based?\n\n\"To say that we didn't do enough is absolutely correct,\" Peter Daszak told the BBC. \"To say that we failed is not fair at all. What we should have been doing is 10 times the amount of work on these viruses.\"\n\nBoth Dr Daszak and Prof Shi are adamant that pandemic prevention research is vital, urgent work.\n\n\"Our research is forward-looking, and it's difficult for non-professionals to understand,\" Prof Shi wrote by email. \"In the face of countless micro-organisms that exist in nature, we humans are very small.\"\n\nThe WHO is promising an \"open-minded\" inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus, but the Chinese government is not keen on questions, at least not from journalists.\n\nAfter leaving Tongguan, the BBC team tried to drive a few hours north to the cave where Prof Shi carried out her ground-breaking research on Sars almost a decade ago.\n\nStill being followed by several unmarked cars, we hit another roadblock, and were told there was no way through.\n\nA few hours later, we discovered that local traffic had been diverted onto a dirt track that skirted the obstruction, but as we attempted to use the same route, we met yet another \"broken down\" car in our path.\n\nWe were trapped in a field for over an hour, before finally being forced to head for the airport.", "The low temperature was recorded at Loch Glascarnoch\n\nThe UK has had its coldest night of the winter so far after a temperature of -12.3C was recorded in the north west Highlands.\n\nThe temperature was recorded at Loch Glascarnoch, near Garve, south of Ullapool in Wester Ross.\n\nThe record lowest temperature in the UK is -27.2C, which was recorded in Braemar, Aberdeenshire, in 1895 and 1982.\n\nThe same temperature was recorded at Altnaharra in the Highlands in 1995.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Carol Kirkwood This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe coldest night of the winter so far has come amid days of freezing temperatures in Scotland, and more widely across the UK.\n\nThe Met Office has issued yellow \"be aware warnings\" for snow and ice for Scotland for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.\n\nForecasters said a band of sleet and snow was expected arrive across north west Scotland on Wednesday afternoon and move south east across most parts of Scotland overnight.\n\nThe Met Office said up to 2cm, almost an inch, of snow was likely to settle at low levels \"quite widely\" with up to 6cm (2in) above 200m (656ft) and as much as 10cm (4in) above 300m (984ft).", "Last updated on .From the section Man City\n\nManchester City legend Colin Bell has died, aged 74, after a short illness, the Premier League club have announced.\n\nThe former England midfielder made 501 appearances for City between 1966 and 1979, scoring 153 goals. He won 48 caps for his country.\n\n\"Few players have left such an indelible mark on City,\" said a club statement on Tuesday.\n\nIn 2004, Manchester City fans voted to name one of the stands at Etihad Stadium in Bell's honour.\n\n\"Colin Bell will always be remembered as one of Manchester City's greatest players and the very sad news today of his passing will affect everybody connected to our club,\" said City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.\n\n\"I am fortunate to be able to speak regularly to his former manager and team-mates, and it's clear to me that Colin was a player held in the highest regard by all those who had the privilege of playing alongside him or seeing him play.\n\n\"The passage of time does little to erase the memories of his genius.\"\n• None 'Bell will always be king of Man City' - tributes paid after death of club great\n\nAfter starting his career at Bury, Bell moved to Manchester City - then in the second tier - midway through the 1965-66 season in a £47,500 deal.\n\nHe helped Joe Mercer's team win promotion that season and was instrumental in the Blues winning the First Division title two years later.\n\nDuring his 13 years as a player at Maine Road, he also won the FA Cup, League Cup and Cup Winners' Cup.\n\nHowever, his career was hampered by a serious knee injury he suffered in a League Cup tie against Manchester United in November 1975, when he was 29.\n\nAfter making a comeback later that season, he was injured again against Arsenal and out for another 18 months.\n\nBell regained fitness and received an emotional ovation on his return at Maine Road on 26 December 1977.\n\nHowever, he did not have the same freedom and mobility as he had done and played only a handful more games.\n\nBell finished his career with a brief spell in the United States playing for San Jose Earthquakes.\n\nIn 2004, he was awarded an MBE for his services to football and remained a regular presence at City games in recent seasons.\n\n'De Bruyne reminds me a lot of Colin' - tributes pour in for the 'King of the Kippax'\n\nFormer City team-mate Mike Summerbee, who was part of their 'Holy Trinity' alongside Bell and Francis Lee in the 1960s and 1970s, described Bell as \"just the greatest footballer\" the club has had.\n\n\"Colin was a lovely, humble man. He was a huge star for Manchester City but you would never have known it,\" said ex-forward Summerbee, 78.\n\n\"He was quiet, unassuming and I always believe he never knew how good he actually was.\n\n\"[Current City midfielder] Kevin de Bruyne reminds me a lot of Colin in the way he plays and the way he is as a person.\"\n\nFormer England forward Lee says he thinks the knee injury curtailed Bell's career \"by a good four or five years\".\n\n\"Colin had tremendous stamina. He was a very good player technically and had the ability to score goals,\" said Lee, 76.\n\n\"He goes into the top five City players of all time - only in the last 10, 15 years has anyone else come along who can take that mantle.\"\n\nSummerbee and Lee were among a number of former and current City players to pay tribute to Bell, along with celebrity fans including former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher.\n\nBell would \"always have a smile\" and \"meet and greet everyone\" he knew, said former City midfielder Michael Brown.\n\n\"He's done lots of charity work and always tried to help people,\" added Brown, who first met Bell as a youngster having come up through City's academy.\n\n\"It's a huge loss. To have done so much and be so low key was admirable.\"\n\nEx-City defender Micah Richards said Bell was \"one of the nicest men ever\", while their former full-back Pablo Zabaleta added he was \"absolutely devastated\" by the news.\n\nFormer England striker Gary Lineker said Bell was one of his favourite players when he was growing up.\n\n\"Terrific box to box midfielder. A real gem for Manchester City and England,\" added the Match of the Day host.\n\nThe Times' chief football writer Henry Winter said Bell \"oozed class, skill and glamour\" as he was \"flowing across rutted pitches, taking people on, creating and scoring\".", "A polar bear cub playing in a snow drift in the area of the proposed oil lease sales\n\nThe Trump administration is pushing ahead with the first sale of oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.\n\nThe giant Alaskan wilderness is home to many important species, including polar bears, caribou and wolves.\n\nNow, after decades of dispute, the rights to drill for oil on about 5% of the refuge will go ahead.\n\nOpponents have criticised the rushed nature of the sale, coming just days before President Trump's term ends.\n\nCovering some 19 million acres (78,000 sq km) the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is often described as America's last great wilderness.\n\nIt is a critically important location for many species, including polar bears.\n\nIn the winter months, pregnant bears build dens in which to give birth.\n\nAs temperatures have risen and sea ice has become thinner, these bears have started building their dens on land.\n\nMany indigenous groups with strong links to the ANWR have opposed oil exploration\n\nThe coastal plain of the ANWR now has the highest concentration of these dens in the state.\n\nThe refuge is also home to Porcupine caribou, one of the largest herds in the world, numbering around 200,000 animals.\n\nIn the spring, the herd moves to the coastal plain region of the ANWR as it is their preferred calving ground.\n\nThe same coastal plain is now the subject of the first ever oil lease sale in the refuge.\n\nThe push for exploration in the park has been a decades long battle between oil companies supported by the state government and environmental and indigenous opponents.\n\nMany of Alaska's political representatives believe that drilling in the refuge could lead to another major oil find, like the one in Prudhoe Bay, just west of the ANWR.\n\nPrudhoe Bay is the largest oil field in North America and supporters believe the ANWR shares the same geology, and potential reserves of crude oil.\n\nOil revenues are critical for Alaska, with every resident getting a cheque for around $1,600 every year from the state's permanent fund.\n\nIn 2017, the Trump administration's tax cutting bill contained a provision to open up the ANWR coastal plain for drilling. It was seen as a way of offsetting the costs of the tax cuts.\n\nThe US Bureau of Land Management is now selling the drilling rights to 22 tracts of land covering about one million acres. These oil and gas leases last for 10 years.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Bernadette Demientieff This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA last-minute attempt to stop the sale in the courts failed but opponents say it will not be the end of their efforts to protect the refuge from drilling.\n\n\"The Trump administration is barrelling forward without doing the careful, legally required analyses of the impacts such activity will have on the environment or the Gwich'in people who have relied on this land for millennia,\" said Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, which is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, who had sought an injunction against the sale.\n\n\"That's why we've taken them to court. We can't let Trump turn this amazing landscape into an oil field.\"\n\nReports indicate that interest in the lease sales has been low.\n\nThinning ice has seen more polar bears make their dens on land\n\nWhile estimates suggest around 11 billion barrels of oil lie under the refuge, it has no roads or other infrastructure, making it a very expensive place to drill for oil.\n\nSeveral large US banks have said they will not fund oil and gas exploration in the area.\n\nThere is also the matter of a change of leadership in the White House. The Biden team have nominated Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior. She is on record as being strongly opposed to drilling in the ANWR.\n\nWith climate change set to be a central focus for the Biden administration, it's likely that efforts to extract new fossil fuels in Alaska will be subject to review and delay.\n\nThis could ultimately limit the interest and opportunity for oil exploration in the refuge.\n\nYou might also be interested in:\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Climate change: The woman watching the ice melt from under her feet", "Stephen Stennett had a head on collision with a van on the B9157 near Kirkcaldy in Fife\n\nA driver who caused a crash in Fife that led to his passenger losing her baby has admitted causing death by dangerous driving.\n\nStephen Stennett, 23, had a head-on collision with a van on the B9157 near Kirkcaldy on 3 October 2018.\n\nThe High Court in Glasgow heard he had attempted a \"dangerous\" overtaking manoeuvre.\n\nJudge Lady Stacey deferred sentence until next month for background reports.\n\nPassenger, Shannon Myers, 18, who was 30 weeks pregnant, had to have an emergency caesarean section due to her injuries in the crash.\n\nHowever, her son Luke Myers died 32 minutes later.\n\nProsecutor Murdoch McTaggart said: \"The accused pulled out and drove into the path of an oncoming van.\n\n\"The accused's vehicle ended up in a ditch on the side of the road.\"\n\nMs Myers, who was in the front passenger seat, complained about pain in her abdomen and was taken to hospital.\n\nA scan showed the baby had a heartbeat of 60 beats per minute.\n\nMr McTaggart said this was regarded as low and gave cause for concern, prompting doctors to perform an emergency C-section.\n\nLuke's cause of death was recorded as \"complications of traumatic abruption due to road traffic collision\".\n\nPathologists said the baby had red marks on his face as well as fractures to his collarbone and four ribs.\n\nA 15-year-old girl, who was also a passenger in the car, sustained a fractured spine, collarbone and sternum.\n\nA fourth passenger, a boy also aged 15, suffered a fractured spine and eye bone as well as a minor head injury.\n\nVan driver Ian Baker, his wife Clara and their 10-year-old daughter had minor injuries.\n\nThe baby's mother paid tribute to Luke on Facebook shortly after his death.\n\nShe said: \"I love you so much my handsome little boy.\"\n\nThe judge Lady Stacey said: \"You will understand you pleaded guilty to a serious crime which had tragic results.\n\n\"When a life is lost, the court will almost always impose a period of imprisonment.\"\n\nStennett said: \"I'm sorry\" before being bailed.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Former Bond actress and Charlie's Angel Tanya Roberts has died in hospital in Los Angeles at the age of 65.\n\nRoberts appeared with Sir Roger Moore in his final Bond film, 1985's A View To A Kill, and had a recurring role in That '70s Show.\n\nShe also starred in the final series of Charlie's Angels on TV in 1980.\n\nHer death was prematurely announced on Monday, only for doctors to say she was still alive. However, her death was then confirmed on Tuesday.\n\nRoberts had collapsed while walking her dogs on 24 December and was admitted to Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre.\n\nHer partner Lance O'Brien mistakenly thought she had died on Sunday after visiting her in hospital. After getting a call from doctors to say she was deteriorating quickly, he went to her bedside, her eyes closed and she \"faded\", TMZ reported.\n\nDevastated, he walked out of the room and then the hospital without speaking to medical staff before informing Roberts' agent that he had \"just said goodbye to Tanya\".\n\nBut while being interviewed for US TV show Inside Edition on Monday, Mr O'Brien got a call from the hospital to say she was alive.\n\nThe moment was captured on film, as he picked up his phone and said: \"Now you're telling me she's alive? Thank the Lord.\" However, she died on Monday night.\n\nShe appeared in A View To A Kill alongside Sir Roger Moore and singer Grace Jones\n\nBorn Victoria Leigh Blum in 1955, Roberts grew up in New York before moving to Hollywood in 1977.\n\nHer big break came when she replaced Shelly Hack in Charlie's Angels, joining Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd as third 'Angel' Julie.\n\nAfter the show's cancellation, she appeared in such fantasy adventure films as The Beastmaster and Hearts and Armour.\n\nShe also played comic book heroine Sheena in a 1984 film that saw her nominated for a Golden Raspberry award for worst actress.\n\nRoberts received another Razzie nomination for her role as geologist Stacey Sutton in 1985 Bond film A View to a Kill.\n\nRoberts in the title role in Sheena: Queen of the Jungle\n\nShe admitted being \"a little cautious\" about taking the role, but said it would have been \"ridiculous\" to have turned it down.\n\nRoberts' subsequent films included Night Eyes and Inner Sanctum, erotic thrillers that did little to advance her career.\n\nShe went on to play Midge Pinciotti in more than 80 episodes of That '70s Show between 1998 and 2004.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The former president posts that he has been told to report to a grand jury, \"which almost always means an Arrest\".", "Julian Assange will remain in jail as he continues to fight against extradition to the United States.\n\nDistrict Judge Vanessa Baraitser said there were substantial grounds to believe he would abscond.\n\nOn Monday, she ruled the Wikileaks founder cannot be extradited to the US because he might kill himself.\n\nThe US is now appealing that decision - and had opposed releasing the 49-year-old from a maximum security prison before the case is heard.\n\nMr Assange, who was wearing a dark suit and face mask, was not seen to react to the decision at Westminster Magistrates Court.\n\nHe's been held in prison since 2019, after hiding for seven years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid extradition.\n\nUS prosecutors want to put him on trial for hacking and disclosing classified information - including the identities of informants who were helping intelligence agencies in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.\n\nIn her ruling, DJ Baraitser said Mr Assange still had the incentive to abscond.\n\n\"He is willing to flout the order of this court,\" she said. \"As a matter of fairness, the US must be allowed to challenge my decision and if Mr Assange absconds during this process they will lose the opportunity to do so.\"\n\nDuring the bail application, Mr Assange's barrister Ed Fitzgerald QC said his client had been offered a London home by a supporter, where he could be with his partner and their two young children - but also compelled to remain under the strictest bail conditions.\n\n\"Your decision [on Monday] changes everything and it certainly changes any motive to abscond,\" said Mr Fitzgerald.\n\n\"On any view... [Mr Assange] would be safer isolating with his family in the community, subject to severe restrictions, than if he were in Belmarsh which has, very recently, had a severe outbreak...(of coronavirus). He wishes to live a sheltered life with his family.\"\n\nBut Clair Dobbin, for the USA, told the court Mr Assange had the \"resources, abilities and the sheer wherewithal\" to secretly arrange a flight to another country.\n\n\"[Mr Assange] regards himself as above the law and no cost is too great, whether that cost be to himself or others,\" said the barrister.\n\nJulian Assange's partner, Stella Moris, was among a large group of his supporters who had gathered at court.\n\n\"This a huge disappointment,\" she said. \"Julian should not be in Belmarsh prison in the first place. I urge the [US] Department of Justice to drop the charges and the President of the United States to pardon Julian.\"\n\nDistrict Judge Baraitser blocked Julian Assange's extradition on Monday, ruling that that while he had a case to answer, he was so mentally unwell that the US authorities could not guarantee he would not kill himself once inside a maximum security prison in the country.\n\nThe USA's appeal against that ruling - which will go to more senior judges later this year - will challenge that finding.", "McDonald's is pausing walk-in takeaway services in the UK as new lockdown restrictions come into force.\n\nDine-in meals and walk-in takeaways will not be available temporarily while it reviews safety procedures, it said.\n\nIts UK boss said it will be testing \"additional measures that may further enhance the safety of our takeaway service.\"\n\nRival food chains Burger King, Subway, KFC and Pret A Manger are still offering takeaways in-store.\n\nMcDonald's UK and Ireland chief executive Paul Pomroy said that safety measures across the firm's 1,300 restaurants will be reviewed by an independent health and safety body.\n\nHe added that customers would be kept updated via the restaurant's app and its website. Drive-through and delivery services across the fast food chain will remain open.\n\nUnder new lockdown restrictions which came into force in England and Scotland this week, hospitality firms are allowed to offer takeaways and deliveries.\n\nBut rules which previously allowed takeaways or click-and-collect services for alcoholic drinks have been scrapped.\n\nWales and Northern Ireland were already in lockdown, which meant that pubs, restaurants and cafes were restricted to takeaway-only too.\n\nAfter the first nationwide lockdown in March, many chains including McDonald's, Burger King and Pret closed their doors to hungry customers.\n\nThey gradually reopened with additional safety measures in place, such as plastic screens in front of the tills, hand sanitiser dispensers and restrictions on the number of customers allowed in at any one point. Some also pared back the number of dishes on offer.\n\nA Burger King spokesperson said that takeaway was still available in some branches and that it would continue to offer click-and-collect and delivery services \"in line with guidance issued\".\n\nSandwich chain Pret A Manger told the BBC that it is keeping some outlets open for both takeaways and delivery, but it would keep the number under review in the coming months.\n\n\"Last year we shifted our business to focus on delivery and expanded our delivery platform partnerships, to make Pret available to a wider customer base\", a spokesperson said.\n\n\"Since then, we have seen a significant increase in the use of delivery.\"\n\nSubway and KFC also confirmed that they remain open for in-store takeaways, deliveries and click-and-collect orders across the UK.\n\nFast food firm Leon, which has 65 outlets, said that 28 of their sites will remain open for takeaways and deliveries.\n\n\"We will continue to keep as many restaurants open as possible, as we did in the previous two lockdowns in line with government guidelines,\" a spokesperson said.\n\nDespite adapting their business models, many casual dining chains have been forced to make job cuts in the last year as lockdown restrictions hit sales. Pret, for example, announced 3,000 job cuts in August, while Greggs made 820 job cuts at the end of 2020.", "There are warnings that replacement grades must avoid the problems that saw protests and U-turns last summer\n\nHead teachers have warned a replacement system for cancelled exams in England must avoid the \"shambles\" of last year's results.\n\nEducation Secretary Gavin Williamson is to make a statement on \"alternative arrangements\" for GCSE and A-level exams cancelled in the pandemic.\n\nThis could include using teachers' estimated grades.\n\nA replacement system must not \"inflict further disadvantage on students\", says the exams watchdog Ofqual.\n\nGeoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, said there were \"no easy answers\" in picking an approach - but it had to avoid repeating the \"disaster\" of last summer's cancelled exam season.\n\nHe said there was a \"real need for urgency\" to allow schools time to plan - and that any system for grading had to show \"fairness and consistency\".\n\nWritten papers for GCSEs and A-levels are not going ahead - after this week's decision that it was no longer feasible with so much time lost in the Covid pandemic and the latest lockdown.\n\nMr Williamson will instruct the exams watchdog to come up with proposals for an alternative way of deciding results, which could be used for jobs, staying on in school or university places.\n\nLast year's attempts to find an alternative approach to exam results, which initially used an algorithm, descended into chaos - and eventually switched to using teachers' grades.\n\nAnd without any exam papers or standardised mock exams, the use of teachers' grades, with some process of moderation, is likely to be a key option once again.\n\nVocational exams, such as BTecs, are carrying on, if schools and colleges decide to continue with them.\n\nBut if students cannot take BTec exams this month as planned, they will be able to take them at a later date or otherwise still be awarded a grade, if they have \"enough evidence to receive a certificate that they need for progression\", says the awarding body Pearson.\n\nAn Ofqual spokeswoman said they could consider options for replacement exam results, academic and vocational, \"to ensure the fairest possible outcome in the circumstances\".\n\nAlthough the process is only formally beginning, with a consultation likely on proposals, it is understood that contingency planning had already started to find a back-up if exams were cancelled.\n\nThe exams watchdog's decisions will face much scrutiny - with the previous head of Ofqual resigning after last summer's U-turns over grades.\n\n\"We are discussing alternative arrangements with the Department for Education. We know that many are seeking clarity as soon as possible,\" said Simon Lebus, Ofqual's interim chief regulator.", "Supporters of US President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday\n\nWorld leaders have condemned violent scenes in Washington after supporters of US President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday.\n\nThe riot forced the suspension of a joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden's electoral victory.\n\nMany leaders called for peace and an orderly transition of power, describing what happened as \"horrifying\" and an \"attack on democracy\".\n\n\"The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power,\" he wrote on Twitter.\n\nOther UK politicians joined him in criticising the violence, with opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer calling it a \"direct attack on democracy\".\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC that Mr Trump's comments \"directly led\" to his supporters storming Congress and clashing with police.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Home Secretary Priti Patel says Donald Trump was wrong for not condemning the violence\n\nScotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that the scenes from the US Capitol were \"utterly horrifying\".\n\nIn Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said those who stormed the US legislature were \"attackers and rioters\" and that she felt \"angry and also sad\" after seeing pictures from the scene.\n\nShe told a meeting of German conservatives: \"I regret very much that President Trump has still not admitted defeat, but has kept raising doubts about the elections.\"\n\nChina meanwhile attempted to draw comparisons between the rioters who entered Congress to try and subvert the US election result and pro-democracy protesters who stormed Hong Kong's Legislative Council last year.\n\nForeign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying claimed events in Hong Kong were more \"severe\" than those in Washington but \"not one demonstrator died\".\n\nThe comparisons between the two incidents has caused outrage among Hong Kong's pro-democracy activists and their supporters.\n\nRussia blamed the \"archaic\" US electoral system and the politicisation of the media for Wednesday's unrest in Washington.\n\n\"The electoral system in the United States is archaic, it does not meet modern democratic standards, creating opportunities for numerous violations, and the American media have become an instrument of political struggle,\" foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.\n\nElsewhere in Europe, a chorus of leaders condemned the scenes in Washington as an attack on democracy.\n\nSpanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said: \"I have trust in the strength of US democracy. The new presidency of Joe Biden will overcome this tense stage, uniting the American people.\"\n\nIn a video on Twitter, French President Emmanuel Macron said: \"When, in one of the world's oldest democracies, supporters of an outgoing president take up arms to challenge the legitimate results of an election, a universal idea - that of 'one person, one vote' - is undermined.\n\n\"What happened today in Washington DC is not American, definitely. We believe in the strength of our democracies. We believe in the strength of American democracy\" he added.\n\nSwedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven described the incident as \"worrying\" and said it was \"an assault on democracy\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by SwedishPM This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTop EU leaders have also made their views known. European Council President Charles Michel said he trusted the US \"to ensure a peaceful transfer of power\" to Mr Biden, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she looked forward to working with the Democrat, who \"won the election\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Charles Michel This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLike many other global figures, the Secretary-General of the Nato military alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said that the outcome of the election \"must be respected\".\n\nFor his part, UN Secretary-General António Guterres was \"saddened\" by the events at the US Capitol, his spokesman said.\n\nThe events also shocked America's close ally and neighbour to its north. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians were \"deeply disturbed and saddened by the attack on democracy\".\n\n\"Violence will never succeed in overruling the will of the people. Democracy in the US must be upheld - and it will be,\" he wrote on Twitter.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. When a mob stormed the US capitol\n\nFrom New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, tweeted that \"democracy - the right of people to exercise a vote, have their voice heard and then have that decision upheld peacefully - should never be undone by a mob\".\n\nMeanwhile Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia - another close US ally - condemned the \"distressing scenes\" and said he looked forward to a peaceful transfer of power.\n\nIn India, the world's largest democracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi - who has enjoyed a good relationship with President Trump - said he was \"distressed to see news about rioting and violence\" in Washington.\n\n\"Orderly and peaceful transfer of power must continue,\" he tweeted.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Narendra Modi This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTurkey, an ally through Nato, said it invited \"all parties\" to show \"restraint and common sense\".\n\nThe Venezuelan government, which the US does not recognise as legitimate, said \"with this regrettable episode, the United States suffers the same thing that it has generated in other countries with its policies of aggression\".\n\nIn statements on Twitter, Argentina's President Alberto Fernández and Chile's President Sebastián Piñera also condemned the scenes in Washington. Mr Piñera said Chile \"trusts in the solidity of US democracy to guarantee the rule of law\".\n\nIn Japan, one of America's closest allies and partners, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said the government hoped for a \"peaceful transfer of power\" in the United States.\n\nFrom Fiji, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who led a coup in 2006, also expressed outrage at the events that took place.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Frank Bainimarama This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd in Singapore, Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean said he had watched as the \"shocking\" scenes took place, adding: \"Its a sad day.\"", "YouTube has reinstated TalkRadio's channel on its platform hours after saying it had been \"terminated\" for breaking the tech firm's rules.\n\nIt said the broadcaster had posted material that contradicted expert advice about the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nBut it explained its U-turn saying it sometimes made exceptions to guidelines that state repeat offenders face a permanent ban.\n\nTalkRadio said it had yet to be given a full explanation for the affair.\n\nThe decision to ban TalkRadio had appalled digital rights campaigners, with one group - Big Brother Watch - claiming it was evidence that \"big tech censorship is spiralling out of control\".\n\nThe Google-owned service has issued a brief statement explaining its actions.\n\n\"TalkRadio's YouTube channel was briefly suspended, but upon further review, has now been reinstated,\" it said.\n\n\"We quickly remove flagged content that violate our community guidelines, including Covid-19 content that explicitly contradict expert consensus from local health authorities or the World Health Organization. We make exceptions for material posted with an educational, documentary, scientific or artistic purpose, as was deemed in this case.\"\n\nYouTube has not published details of the offending posts.\n\nBut independent fact-checkers have repeatedly challenged some of the claims made by interviewees featured by the London-based radio station.\n\nYouTube operates a \"three strikes\" policy, whereby channels that break its community guidelines three times within a 90-day period can be permanently banned, but other infractions lead to temporary restrictions.\n\nProhibited content includes \"medically unsubstantiated claims\" relating to Covid-19, and videos that contradict expert consensus from local health authorities such as the NHS.\n\n\"YouTube is making decisions about which opinions the public are allowed to hear, even when they are sourced to responsible and regulated new providers,\" TalkRadio said in a statement this evening.\n\n\"This sets a dangerous precedent and is censorship of free speech and legitimate national debate.\"\n\nThe broadcaster tweeted the statement minutes after YouTube's change of heart. It did not appear to be aware that its channel had been reinstated at the time, but has since acknowledged the move.\n\nTalkRadio has about 424,000 listeners, according to the latest figures from market research provider Rajar.\n\nIt uses YouTube as a means to livestream shows from its studios and to provide an archive of past broadcasts.\n\nIts channel on the platform has 242,000 subscribers.\n\nYouTube's action had meant that TalkRadio's website had featured articles featuring broken embedded clips for most of the day, and that users who had shared its clips would have been unable to view them.\n\nThe US firm has previously imposed a permanent ban against conspiracy theorist David Icke, and a one-week video suspension of right-wing outlet One America News Network's ability to publish new clips - in both cases for breaches of its Covid rules.\n\nIt's pretty clear something has gone wrong at YouTube in the last 24 hours.\n\nIt appeared as though TalkRadio had been banned for good on YouTube - or \"terminated\" as the company put it.\n\nYouTube is now saying it was a short suspension, which certainly seems like a backtrack.\n\nEven now, it's not obvious what the offending material was that caused this action. The whole process reinforces the idea that YouTube's moderation policies - where it draws the line between freedom of expression and clamping down on misinformation - can be messy and inconsistent.\n\nAnd when YouTube takes such an action without giving full details, it rains controversy down on its own head.\n\nThis plays to a broader movement by YouTube and other social media companies to take a harder line on disinformation.\n\nJoe Biden is about to become US President - and he wants social media companies to do more to remove fake news.\n\nBut as they are increasingly finding out, refereeing their own platforms can be hugely difficult, and this highlights the need for greater transparency about moderation decisions.", "Helen Mort was told no action could be taken over the deepfake porn images\n\nA woman who has been the victim of deepfake pornography is calling for a change in the law.\n\nLast year, Helen Mort discovered that non-sexual images of her had been uploaded to a porn website.\n\nUsers of the site were invited to edit the photos, merging Helen's face with explicit and violent sexual images.\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio 5 Live's Mobeen Azhar, Helen said she wanted to see the creation and distribution of these images made an offence.\n\n\"This is a crime which in many cases is going on invisibly,\" Helen said. \"Those images of me had been out there for years and I didn't know about them, and I'm still having nightmares about some of them now. It's an incredibly serious form of abuse.\"\n\nDeepfakes are realistic computer-generated images or video, based on a real person.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Actress Bella Thorne opens up about her experience of deepfake abuse\n\nHelen, a poet and writer from Sheffield, was alerted to the deepfake images by an acquaintance.\n\nThe original images were taken from her social media and included holiday pictures and photos from her pregnancy.\n\nShe said although some of the images were clearly manipulated, there were a few more \"chilling\" examples that were a \"lot more plausible'.\n\n\"You go through different phases with things like this,\" she said. \"There was one point where I was just trying to laugh about the almost ridiculous nature of some of it.\n\n\"But obviously, the underlying feeling was shock and actually I initially felt quite ashamed, as if I'd done something wrong. That was quite a difficult thing to overcome. And then for a while I got incredibly anxious about even leaving the house.\"\n\nShe alerted the police to the images but was told that no action could be taken.\n\nDr Aislinn O'Connell, a lecturer in law at Royal Holloway University of London, explained that Helen's case fell outside the current law.\n\n\"In England and Wales, under section 33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, it is an offence to non-consensually distribute a private sexual photograph or film with the intent to cause distress to the person depicted,\" she said.\n\n\"But this only applies where the original photo or video was private and sexual.\n\n\"In Helen's situation, where non-sexual photos were merged with sexual photos, this isn't covered by the criminal offence.\n\n\"Furthermore, as the photos were not shared with Helen directly, nor did the intention seem to be to cause distress to Helen, the second element is not fulfilled - even though it did, evidently, cause distress. The other potential criminal offence would be harassment, but given the perpetrator here did not direct it at Helen herself, this didn't apply either.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Deepfake videos: Can you really believe what you see?\n\nThe independent Law Commission is currently reviewing the law as it applies to taking, making and sharing intimate images without consent. The outcome of the consultation is due to be published later this year.\n\nHowever, Dr O'Connell said the process of changing the law would take years which she says is \"too long\".\n\nHelen hopes to use her experience to raise awareness around deepfake pornography and has launched a petition calling for a change in the law.\n\nIt has received more than 3,400 signatures.\n\nShe has also written a poem in response to the images.\n\n\"I'm a writer by trade,\" she said. \"And I thought the only thing that is going to allow me to reclaim any sense of agency here is to say something about it using my art form. That's the only power that I have.\n\n\"The intention of this person, as they said in their post, was to humiliate. They said they wanted to see this person humiliated, and I thought well actually I'm not humiliated, and I'm going to speak out about it because I shouldn't be the one who feels ashamed.\"\n\nThe Home Office said it was taking steps to tackle new and emerging forms of violence against women and girls, including intimate image abuse, \"whether this be cyber flashing, revenge porn or deep fake videos.\"\n\n\"We are currently consulting on the development of our new strategy to tackle violence against women and girls and we encourage people to give their views,\" a spokesperson said.\n\n\"This new strategy will ensure victims and survivors are supported, and that perpetrators are identified and brought to justice.\"", "Vocational exams, including BTEcs, are to go ahead this month in England - despite calls for them to be cancelled alongside GCSEs and A-levels.\n\n\"Schools and colleges can continue with the vocational and technical exams that are due to take place in January, where they judge it right to do so,\" said a Department for Education spokeswoman.\n\nFurther education college leaders had complained this was unfair to students.\n\nThey said students would face \"stress\" from taking exams in the lockdown.\n\nThe Association of Colleges warned the decision, giving schools and colleges the option on whether to carry on with BTecs, would create more confusion.\n\nChief executive David Hughes said some colleges would cancel exams and others would continue - but without any clarity about what would happen to \"students in colleges which do cancel for safety reasons\".\n\n\"A national decision would have allowed for more fairness,\" said Mr Hughes.\n\nThe announcement from the Department for Education has left it open for schools and colleges to decide whether to go ahead with vocational and technical exams.\n\n\"Schools and colleges have already implemented extensive protective measures to make them as safe as possible,\" said the DFE's spokeswoman.\n\nThe Department for Education said it recognised \"this is a difficult time\" but wanted to allow students who had prepared for exams and assessments to continue, including those who needed to take hands-on practical tests for qualifications for jobs.\n\nA joint statement from the mayors of Manchester and Liverpool said it was wrong to go ahead with these vocational exams when other academic exams had been cancelled.\n\n\"It is unfair to ask these students to go into colleges when everyone else is being told to stay at home.\n\n\"This will cause unnecessary anxiety and concern just when they need to be able to focus,\" said the statement from Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram.\n\nThe mayors highlighted that students taking BTecs were more likely to be from \"working-class backgrounds and ethnic minority communities\" and they should not be treated any less well than those following an \"academic route\" in exams.\n\nHow will you be affected by the latest developments? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Travellers to the UK from abroad could soon be required to prove they have had a negative coronavirus test.\n\nThe Department for Transport (DfT) said the measure is one of several being considered to \"prevent the spread of Covid-19 across the UK border\".\n\n\"Additional measures, including testing before departure, will help keep the importation of new cases to an absolute minimum,\" the department added.\n\nIt is thought that haulage drivers coming through ports would be exempt.\n\nHowever, the DfT said full details are still to be agreed and will be set out in \"due course\".\n\nAny such measure would be a devolved issue, so the the DfT would need to agree a path forward with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to make it UK-wide.\n\nA spokesperson said: \"With a new strain of the virus on the loose in South Africa and a more infectious variant already widespread in the UK we need to do more.\"\n\nThe measures were being discussed as Boris Johnson imposed the third national lockdown in England to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed.\n\nThe prime minister has faced some calls to strengthen border protections to prevent the arrival of new cases, particularly of new and concerning strains.\n\nHowever, there was no mention of tougher border controls during his address to the nation on Monday, or press conference on Tuesday.\n\nEarlier on Tuesday, Cabinet Office Secretary Michael Gove said announcements will come in the days ahead on \"how we will make sure that our ports and airports are safe\".\n\n\"It is already the case that there are significant restrictions on people coming into this country and of course we're stressing that nobody should be travelling abroad,\" he told ITV.\n\nCurrently, international arrivals from countries that are not exempt under the travel corridor programme have to isolate for 10 days.\n\nBut under the test and release scheme introduced in December, this can be shortened if they have a private test five days after their departure and it comes back negative.\n\nIt is possible lorry drivers could be exempt, but no final decision has been made\n\nDuring the first lockdown, the government argued against introducing border restrictions while the prevalence was so high in the UK, with experts arguing it would do little to bring down infection rates.\n\nA quarantine period, however, was introduced in June after the first peak, when cases were more under control.\n\nEarlier, Home Secretary Priti Patel was accused of leaving the \"nation's doors unlocked\" to new coronavirus variants coming to Britain from overseas.\n\nLabour shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds wrote to Ms Patel calling for an \"urgent review and improvement plan\" as he raised concerns over checks on the arrival of people who are meant to go into quarantine.\n\nHe wrote: \"It is especially worrying given the concerns regarding mutation of the virus that emerged in South Africa, which the health secretary rightly said is 'incredibly worrying'.\n\n\"However, the lack of a robust quarantine system as a result of shortcomings from the government mean that it is virtually impossible to keep a grip on this spread or other variants that may come from overseas, leaving the UK defenceless, and completely exposed, with the nation's doors unlocked to further Covid mutations.\"\n\nThe Home Office defended its \"stringent measures\", and pointed to its move to stop direct flights from South Africa to the UK amid concerns over a new coronavirus variant in high prevalence there.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nEveryone in England must stay at home except for permitted reasons during a new coronavirus lockdown expected to last until mid-February, the PM says.\n\nAll schools and colleges will close to most pupils and switch to remote learning from Tuesday.\n\nBoris Johnson warned the coming weeks would be the \"hardest yet\" amid surging cases and patient numbers.\n\nHe said those in the top four priority groups would be offered a first vaccine dose by the middle of next month.\n\nAll care home residents and their carers, everyone aged 70 and over, all frontline health and social care workers, and the clinically extremely vulnerable will be offered one dose of a vaccine by mid-February.\n\nSchools in Northern Ireland will have an \"extended period of remote learning\", the Stormont Executive said.\n\nSpeaking from Downing Street, Mr Johnson told the public to follow the new lockdown rules immediately, before they become law in the early hours of Wednesday.\n\nAll the new measures in England will then last until at least the middle of February, he said, as a new more infectious variant of the virus spreads across the UK.\n\nThe PM added that he believed the country was entering \"the last phase of the struggle\".\n\nHospitals were under \"more pressure from Covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic\", he said.\n\nAnd he reiterated the slogan used earlier in the pandemic, urging people to immediately \"stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives\".\n\nOn Monday, the UK recorded more than 50,000 new confirmed Covid cases for the seventh day in a row.\n\nA further 58,784 cases and an additional 407 deaths within 28 days of a positive test result were reported, though deaths in Scotland were not recorded.\n\nAs of 08:00 GMT, there were 26,626 Covid-19 patients in hospital in England, according to the latest figures.\n\nThis is a week-on-week increase of 30%, and a new record high.\n\nThose who are clinically extremely vulnerable will be contacted by letter and should now shield once more, Mr Johnson said.\n\nSupport and childcare bubbles will continue under the new measures - and people can meet one person from another household for outdoor exercise.\n\nCommunal worship and life events like funerals and weddings can continue, subject to limits on attendance.\n\nWhile Mr Johnson said end-of-year exams would not take place as normal in the summer, he said alternative arrangements would be announced separately.\n\nThe government has published a 22-page document outlining the new rules in detail.\n\nThe House of Commons has been recalled to allow MPs to vote on the new restrictions on Wednesday.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his MPs would \"support the package of measures\", saying \"we've all got to pull together now to make this work\".\n\nOnce again it is the threat to the NHS that has forced the hand of ministers.\n\nIn England there has been a 50% rise in the number of patients in hospital with Covid since Christmas day.\n\nTo put that into context, it equates to 18 hospitals being filled.\n\nCurrently around three out of 10 beds are occupied by patients with the disease.\n\nIn some hospitals it is more than six in 10.\n\nBut what is worrying ministers and NHS leaders is that the number is just going to increase.\n\nIn the spring it took nearly three weeks after lockdown for hospital cases to peak.\n\nThe last six days have seen in excess of 50,000 new infections confirmed each day across the UK - a number of these infections are next week's hospital admissions.\n\nIt is why the UK's chief medical officers were warning there was a \"material risk\" of some hospitals being overwhelmed if something did not change.\n\nMr Johnson spoke after UK chief medical officers recommended the Covid threat level be increased to five - its highest level.\n\nLevel five means the NHS may soon be unable to handle a further sustained rise in cases, the medical officers said in a joint statement.\n\nNHS Providers, which represents health service trusts, said hospitals were at a \"critical point\" and that \"immediate and decisive action\" was needed.\n\nAnnouncing tougher measures in Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: \"It is no exaggeration to say that I am more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year.\"\n\nFor pupils who returned for their first day of the new term at primary school on Monday, it's turned out to be an extremely short-lived visit.\n\nBoris Johnson's announcement will see primary, secondary and further education colleges closed for at least the next six weeks, except for vulnerable and key workers' children.\n\nIt's a much bigger shift in policy than had been anticipated, even a few days ago.\n\nEven the return date will depend on the progress in tackling the virus.\n\n\"I hope we can steadily move out of lockdown, reopening schools after the February half term,\" said the prime minister.\n\nKeeping schools open was the government's most definite of red lines, a few weeks ago they were threatening councils that wanted to close them - but it's now been overtaken by the spiking lines on the Covid infection charts.\n\nEven after the chaos of last year's replacement grades, GCSEs and A-levels are being cancelled again - with a replacement system still to be decided. Vocational exams are to continue.\n\nFor parents dreading home schooling, there are plans for it to be better supported this time - with more computer devices available and suggestions that Ofsted inspectors will check what schools are offering.\n\nBut there's no escaping that this will feel like another sudden and chaotic change of direction for schools and parents.\n\nMr Johnson's pledge on vaccinations comes after an 82-year-old retired maintenance manager became the first person in the UK to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 jab\n\nSome 13.9 million people are among the four priority groups who will receive a vaccine dose by about 15 February, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC's Laura Foster explains the order in which the Covid vaccine will be given\n\nHow will you be affected by the latest developments? What questions do you have? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Lockdowns have worked before, but can we expect the new one to do the same?\n\nIt feels like we are back in March or April last year, when the strict controls on all our lives led to a fairly quick decline in levels of coronavirus.\n\nBut one of the crucial differences this time is the new variant, which is thought to spread between 50 and 70% faster than previous forms of the virus.\n\nExperts warn there are now no guarantees that lockdown will be enough to bring the variant under control.\n\n\"It still would not have been easy, but it would have been a much easier situation if it had not been for the new variant,\" Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, told Inside Health.\n\n\"That really pushes the bounds of our ability to control the spread of the virus, even with measures that were previously relatively quite effective.\"\n\nThe coronavirus spreads when we come into contact with each other so moving classrooms online, telling people to stay at home and closing shops breaks many of those opportunities for human contact.\n\nIf we consider the R number - the average number of people each infected person passes the virus on to - it was about 3.0 in the run up to the first lockdown and anything above 1.0 means cases are climbing.\n\nR fell to 0.6 during the first lockdown.\n\nThen every 1,000 infected people passed the virus on to 600 others, who passed it on to 360 others and so on.\n\nBut if the new variant is 50% more transmissible then the R number, in the same lockdown conditions, would be about 0.9.\n\nThen 1,000 infected people would pass the virus onto 900 others, then 810 and so on.\n\nAs you can see this leads to far slower decline.\n\nAnd that assumes lockdown can get R down to 0.9 in areas where the new variant has become the most common form of the virus.\n\nIf, as some studies suggest, the variant is about 70% more transmissible then R may stay above 1.0 and cases may not fall at all.\n\n\"We'd at best flatten the curve, keep numbers at a roughly constant level, and that's frankly why there is so much emphasis on getting vaccine into people's arms as quickly as possible,\" said Prof Ferguson.\n\nIt is hard to lock down even harder as there are some parts of society - hospitals, supermarkets - that need to be kept open.\n\nWhat happens to the number of cases over the coming weeks will be closely monitored. If this lockdown is less effective then we will have to live with it for longer.\n\nThere have been some encouraging signs over the Christmas break, which was a bit like a lockdown due to school holidays and other restrictions.\n\n\"We are in a very difficult situation here, but my initial assessment of the last few days is that the rate is slowing which is good news,\" Prof John Edmunds, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the BBC.\n\nHe added: \"It looks likes those restrictions should be sufficient to stop the increase, whether they will be sufficient to bring cases down sufficiently we are yet to see.\"\n\nEventually the vaccine will give people immunity so we do not need the same controls on our lives.\n\nNow more than ever this is a race between the virus and the vaccine.", "I'm standing in what should be an operating theatre - but instead it's been converted into an intensive care unit for Covid-19 patients on ventilators. This is the first time I have seen it full of patients like this.\n\nNormally this theatre would be busy with major cancer surgery, but that's been transferred to another building.\n\nA children's recovery area, still decorated with colourful stickers of cartoons, is once again filled with desperately sick adults. Every day, more wards are being transformed into ICU - ready for the next influx of patients.\n\nWe have been given access to University College Hospital, in central London. This is the same intensive care unit that I visited in April, during the first peak.\n\nIt is one of the busiest hospitals in the capital and intensive care here is expanding across a hospital that is under pressure like never before, from a relentless rise in Covid admissions.\n\nI am struck by the toll the pandemic is taking on staff. It's immense - both physically and mentally. They are shell-shocked. \"My emotions are all over the place. Scared, sad, petrified, worried,\" one ICU nurse tells me.\n\nThey have got three times as many critically ill patients in the hospital as normal. The number of Covid admissions to London hospitals has doubled in just two weeks - they're more stretched now than at the peak last April. Senior staff are worried.", "Bosses of Britain's biggest companies will earn more in the first three days of this week than the average worker's annual wage, research claims.\n\nBy 17:30 GMT on Wednesday, the pay of FTSE 100 chiefs will have overtaken the £31,461 annual median wage for full time workers, the High Pay Centre says.\n\nBosses' pay was flat last year, while average wages generally rose slightly.\n\nThat meant that FTSE chief executives had to work 34 hours to beat median annual pay, not the 33 hours in 2020.\n\nThe High Pay Centre think-tank based its annual calculations on analysis of disclosures in companies' annual reports, combined with government statistics.\n\nHigh Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard said chief executive pay is about 120 times that of the typical UK worker, up significantly from two decades ago.\n\n\"Estimates suggest it was around 50 times at the turn of the millennium or 20 times in the early 1980s,\" he said.\n\n\"Factors such as the increasing role played by the finance industry in the economy, the outsourcing of low-paid work and the decline of trade union membership have widened the gaps between those at the top and everybody else over recent decades.\"\n\nHe said the figures should raise concern about the governance of Britain's biggest companies. \"They should also prompt debate about the effects that high levels of inequality can have on social cohesion, crime, and public health and wellbeing,\" he said.\n\nMedian FTSE 100 chief executive pay was £3.61m in 2019, the last year for which a full set of data is available, the High Pay Centre said.\n\nThe centre said its analysis was based on chief executives' average working day being 12 hours.\n\nHowever, critics said such analysis just fuels the politics of envy without looking at why chief executives matter and the contribution they make.\n\nDaniel Pryor, head of programmes at the Adam Smith Institute, said: \"Good management is more important than ever in a globalised world and small differences in top talent make a big impact on a business' bottom line.\n\n\"That bottom line makes a big difference to workers across the UK, anyone with a private pension, and shareholders.\"\n\nHe pointed out that there is strong, if morbid, evidence about chief executive deaths that shows why the corporate and investment world believe leadership makes a huge difference to the fortunes of their companies.\n\n\"In the past 60 years, unexpected CEO deaths have consistently affected stock price, profitability, investment and sales growth - for better or worse,\" he said, adding: \"Which is why it makes sense for firms to open their wallets to attract the best talent.\"", "Doctors in Scotland have raised concerns about plans to delay the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.\n\nAll four UK nations will now leave up to 12 weeks between the first and second doses of the jab rather than giving both within 21 days.\n\nDr Lewis Morrison, head of the BMA in Scotland, said members had concerns about the potential impact of leaving such a big gap between the two doses.\n\nBut the UK's chief medical officers have defended the move.\n\nThey said that the first dose of either the Pfizer or the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines - the only two so far approved for use in the UK - will give people substantial protection against the virus within two to three weeks of being administered.\n\nAnd they said that the second dose was \"likely to be very important for duration of protection, and at an appropriate dose interval may further increase vaccine efficacy\".\n\nThe Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation, which advises UK health departments and recommended the new strategy, said data showed that one dose of the Pfizer vaccine would be \"90% effective\".\n\nBut the World Health Organization (WHO) has said it would not recommend following the UK's decision to delay giving the second Pfizer dose, saying there was no evidence to support the decision.\n\nPfizer has said it has tested the vaccine's efficacy only when the two doses were given up to 21 days apart.\n\nThe Pfizer vaccine was the first to be approved for use in the UK, with more than a million people having already been given the first dose.\n\nThe change to the vaccination strategy has meant health boards have had to change plans and cancel people booked in for their second doses of the Pfizer jabs.\n\nThis includes medics who are among the priority groups for Covid vaccinations.\n\nDr Lewis Morrison, chairman of the British Medical Association's Scottish Council, raised concerns about the logistical impact of changing the vaccination strategy\n\nDr Morrison told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme that some doctors had told him they would have waited for the AstraZeneca jab, which has been proven to work in the longer timetable, if they had known the second Pfizer dose was going to be delayed.\n\nHe said: \"We are concerned because there's clearly disagreement about the effectiveness of the second dose of Pfizer after that period of time.\n\n\"Furthermore I think if you give more people the first dose when you don't know what vaccine supplies are going to be within that 12-week window, that's a worry that has been expressed to me by a lot of doctors.\n\n\"If we give more people the first dose, do we definitely know that the second one is coming?\n\n\"The announcement about this before a four-day NHS holiday weekend left many places with great difficulty in reorganising vaccinations, with a real risk that vaccination numbers might perversely drop because of the organisational issues.\"\n\nOpposition parties want the Scottish government to publish daily figures for how many people have been vaccinated\n\nIt comes as NHS staff were left queueing for hours outside Glasgow Royal Infirmary on Tuesday after an \"scheduling error\" meant vaccination staff did not turn up.\n\nNHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has apologised to those affected and said it was rearranging the appointments.\n\nThe Scottish government has said it aims to have given at least one vaccine dose to everyone over the age of 50 and younger people with underlying health conditions by the start of May.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Tuesday that the timetable could be accelerated if there were sufficient supplies of the jab.\n\nThe Scottish government is being pressured to provide daily figures on the number of people being vaccinated, as the UK government has already pledged to do.\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: \"There are now no excuses left for the SNP government to dodge publishing daily vaccination rates alongside the daily infection numbers as soon as possible.\n\n\"The SNP's evasion to try and avoid scrutiny is nothing new but on something so important, the Scottish public must have the same information as will be provided across the UK.\"\n\nHis call was echoed by Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Monica Lennon, who added: \"It is simply unacceptable that scores of NHS staff were left queueing outside in the cold for hours, and well into the evening.\n\n\"It's time for Health Secretary Jeane Freeman to get to grips with the vaccination programme, publish daily figures on the number of vaccinations available and administered, and ensure that our NHS staff do not pay the price of a bungled rollout.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The prime minister says schools will be the first places to reopen\n\nThe end of England's lockdown will not happen with a \"big bang\" but will instead be a \"gradual unwrapping\", Boris Johnson has told MPs.\n\nThe prime minister made the comments in the Commons ahead of a retrospective vote later on the lockdown measures.\n\nHe said the legislation runs until 31 March to allow a \"controlled\" easing of restrictions back into local tiers.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the government's decisions \"have led us to the position we're now in\".\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said there were now 30,074 patients with coronavirus in UK hospitals.\n\nAll of the UK is now under strict virus curbs, with Wales, Northern Ireland and most of Scotland also in lockdown.\n\nIt came as the UK reported a further 1,041 people have died with coronavirus, the highest daily death toll since April.\n\nIn a statement to the Commons, Mr Johnson said the new variant had \"led to more cases than we've seen ever before\" and that this had left the government with \"no choice but to return to national lockdown\".\n\nHe said the legislation ran until the end of March \"not because we expect the full national lockdown to continue until then, but to allow a steady, controlled and evidence-led move down through the tiers on a regional basis\".\n\nHe said this would happen \"brick-by-brick... without risking the hard-won gains that protections have given us\".\n\nBut in response to MPs' questions, he said there was a \"cautious presumption\" that restrictions could start being eased from mid-February.\n\n\"And as was the case last spring, our emergence from the lockdown cocoon will be not a big bang but a gradual unwrapping,\" he added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"We need a plan\", Keir Starmer told MPs while declaring Labour would support new lockdown\n\nUnder the measures, which came into force legally on Wednesday, people in England will only be able to go out for essential reasons, for exercise outdoors only once a day, and outdoor sports venues must close.\n\nPolice have the powers to enforce the new restrictions with a £200 fine for each breach, doubling on every offence up to a maximum of £6,400 - and a £10,000 penalty for mass gatherings.\n\nOfficers in London arrested at least a dozen people in Parliament Square after a protest against the new measures on Wednesday.\n\nThe need to debate and vote on the restrictions means the Commons has been recalled from its Christmas break for the second time - the first being for the post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.\n\nWith Sir Keir saying Labour will support the motion, the measures are expected to pass with ease.\n\nThe restrictions will be kept under \"continuous review\", Mr Johnson added, with a statutory requirement to reconsider them every two weeks.\n\nAddressing the closure of schools, the PM said \"we did everything in our power to keep them open as long as possible\" and that was why schools were the \"very last thing to close\".\n\nThey would be the \"very first thing to reopen\" after lockdown - that could be after the February half term - but \"we must be very cautious\" about the timetable, he said.\n\nMeanwhile, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told the Commons that GCSEs, A-level and AS-level exams would be cancelled this year in England, replaced by a form of teacher-assessed grades.\n\n\"This year, we're going to put our trust in teachers, rather than algorithms,\" he said, referencing controversy over the way exam grades were awarded to some students last year.\n\nAll national curriculum tests for primary school children, often known as Sats, are now cancelled, Mr Williamson confirmed.\n\nHe said every school will be expected to provide between three and five hours of virtual teaching each day and that 750,000 laptop and tablet devices will have been distributed by the end of next week.\n\nThe prime minister wasted no time in emphasising the \"fundamental difference\" between this and previous lockdowns.\n\nTo keep opposition from his own MPs at bay he needs to demonstrate that the government's aim to vaccinate the most at-risk groups by mid-February is viable.\n\nHe is also under pressure to give a sense of how quickly restrictions might be lifted after that.\n\nThe course of the pandemic has changed swiftly at times, though, and may do so again, so it's unlikely we'll get any firm new timelines from Boris Johnson today.\n\nMost Conservative backbenchers seem resigned to the need for this new national lockdown and agree the prime minister had \"no choice\" but to act.\n\nBut MPs on all sides are impatient to hear how soon things may start returning to something like life as normal at last.\n\nMr Johnson said unlike in March last year, during the first lockdown, vaccines offered \"the means of our escape\".\n\nBut he said there was now a race to vaccinate vulnerable people quickly, with the government setting a target of immunising the four most vulnerable groups - some 13 million people - by mid-February.\n\n\"After the marathon of last year, we are indeed now in a sprint, a race to vaccinate the vulnerable faster than the virus can reach them,\" Mr Johnson said.\n\n\"Every needle in every arm makes a difference.\"\n\nEarlier, Covid vaccine deployment minister Nadhim Zahawi said he was \"confident\" the government would meet its \"ambitious\" target, adding that community pharmacies would be brought in to assist the vaccination programme.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that new daily vaccination figures for the UK - which will be released for the first time on Monday - will show there has been a \"significant increase\" in the number of people who have received the jab.\n\nOn Tuesday, Mr Johnson said 1.3 million people in the UK had been vaccinated so far.\n\nMr Zahawi also said nursery schools presented \"very little risk\", are Covid-safe and he defended the decision to keep them open during England's lockdown.\n\nResponding to the prime minister's statement, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his party will support the new restrictions and urged people to comply with them.\n\n\"The virus is out of control, over a million people in England now have Covid, the number of hospital admissions is rising, tragically so are the numbers of people dying,\" he said.\n\n\"It's only the early days of January and the NHS is under huge strain. In those circumstances, tougher restrictions are necessary.\"\n\nBut he added \"this is not just bad luck, it's not inevitable, it follows a pattern\" of the government being slow to respond.\n\n\"These are the decisions that have led us to the position we're now in - and the vaccine is now the only way out and we must all support the national effort to get it rolled out as quickly as possible.\"\n\nHow have you been affected by Covid? What will lockdown mean for you? Please get in touch by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police raided an illegal rave in a railway arch attended by 300 people.\n\nPolice have issued more than £15,000 in fines after 300 people attended an illegal rave in a railway arch.\n\nOfficers raided an unlicensed music event in Nursery Road, Hackney, at 01.30 GMT on Sunday.\n\nMany people fled the scene, while organisers padlocked the doors from the inside to stop officers getting in, police said.\n\nNo arrests were reported, but 78 fines of up to £200 for breaching lockdown restrictions were issued.\n\nA dog unit and helicopter were deployed to the scene, with police saying they made numerous attempts to contact the organisers.\n\nOrganisers padlocked the door from the inside to prevent officers getting in, police said\n\nCh Supt Roy Smith said: \"This was a serious and blatant breach of the public health regulations and the law.\n\n\"Officers were forced, yet again, to put their own health at risk to deal with a large group of incredibly selfish people who were tightly packed together in a confined space - providing an ideal opportunity for this deadly virus to spread.\n\n\"Not just organisers, but all those present at such illegal parties can expect to be issued a fine.\"\n\nOfficers surrounded the property as dozens of guests scaled fences at the rear of the arch to escape\n\nThere is an England-wide lockdown in place which prevents any social mixing between households.\n\nUnder these restrictions people are asked to only leave home for limited reasons such as shopping, going to work, seeking medical assistance or avoiding domestic abuse.\n\nThe Met Police has broken up several large gatherings in London over the last month including a 150-person wedding at a north London school.\n\nTwo officers were injured as police broke up a party involving about 200 people in Kensington on 17 January.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Former Brexit Party MEP Robert Rowland was described as a larger than life character\n\nA former Brexit Party MEP has died in a diving accident near his home in the Bahamas.\n\nRobert Rowland, 54, represented the south east of England at the European Parliament from July 2019 until January 2020.\n\nNigel Farage paid tribute to the \"larger than life character\" and \"enthusiastic\" Brexit supporter.\n\nHe announced the death of his former colleague in a statement on Sunday.\n\nThe Royal Bahamas Police Force said it had \"received reports of a drowning incident\" on Saturday and was \"conducting inquires\".\n\nMr Farage said: \"It is with great sadness that I have to announce the death of Robert Rowland, after a diving accident near his home in the Bahamas.\n\n\"Following a successful career in the City, Robert was an enthusiastic Brexit Party MEP and larger than life character.\"\n\nHe said he wished to extend his \"sincerest condolences\" to Mr Rowland's family, including his wife and four children.\n\nFormer Brexit Party MEP David Bull said he was \"beyond devastated,\" adding: \"Robert was a wonderful friend and colleague.\"\n• None Farage's Brexit Party officially changes its name\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon: 'It's right that I am properly scrutinised'\n\nScotland's first minister has insisted she did not mislead parliament about when she learned harassment allegations had been made against her predecessor Alex Salmond.\n\nNicola Sturgeon said \"false conspiracy theories were being spun\" about her involvement by Mr Salmond's supporters.\n\nA Holyrood inquiry into how the government handled the allegations against Mr Salmond is under way.\n\nShe said she expects to give evidence to the inquiry in the coming weeks.\n\nThe BBC's Andrew Marr asked Ms Sturgeon how she responded to Mr Salmond saying that parliament had been repeatedly misled, and that evidence she gave to the inquiry was \"simply\" and \"manifestly untrue\".\n\nMs Sturgeon replied that she would \"refute that vigorously\".\n\nHer interview came after the inquiry announced it would use legal powers to seek documents from the Crown Office.\n\nIn response to Ms Sturgeon's interview, a spokeswoman for Mr Salmond said: \"The evidence, if published, will speak for itself\".\n\nA committee of MSPs is investigating the government's handling of two harassment claims against the former first minister, after he successfully challenged the complaints process in court.\n\nShe said it was right that she was scrutinised and that she had hoped to appear before the committee on Tuesday but that this had been delayed by \"a couple of weeks\".\n\nAsked if Alex Salmond was \"spinning false conspiracy theories\", Nicola Sturgeon said: \"There are false conspiracy theories being spun about this... by Alex Salmond, by people around him - you can draw your own conclusions around that.\"\n\nShe added: \"What I certainly reflect on is that at times I appear to be simultaneously accused of colluding with Mr Salmond to somehow cover up accusations of sexual harassment on the one hand.\n\n\"And then on the other hand, being part of some dastardly conspiracy to bring him down.\n\n\"Neither of those are true.\"\n\nMs Sturgeon added: \"I didn't collude with Alex Salmond and I didn't conspire against him.\"\n\nThe first minister reiterated that Mr Salmond had told her about the allegations during a meeting at her home on 2 April 2018.\n\nHowever, Mr Salmond has insisted that she already knew about the allegations as she had been told about them four days earlier by one of his aides.\n\nNicola Sturgeon has previously acknowledge that she initially \"forgot\" about this meeting.\n\nIn evidence to the Holyrood inquiry which was published in October, she said: \"From what I recall, the discussion [with Mr Salmond's aide] covered the fact that Alex Salmond wanted to see me urgently about a serious matter, and I think it did cover the suggestion that the matter might relate to allegations of a sexual nature.\"\n\nSpeaking to The Andrew Marr Show, she added: \"I, at the time I became aware of all of this, just tried hard not to interfere with what was going on and not to do anything that would see these swept aside rather than properly investigated.\"\n\nMs Sturgeon conceded that the Scottish government had made mistakes in how it handled the allegations.\n\n\"What I will never do is apologise for doing everything I could to make sure that complaints about sexual harassment were investigated, and not simply swept under the carpet because of the seniority and powerful position of the person who was subject to them,\" she added.\n\nLast March, Mr Salmond was cleared of 13 charges of sexual assault at the High Court in Edinburgh.\n\nA spokeswoman for Mr Salmond said: \"The two inquiries under way are into why Nicola Sturgeon's government acted unlawfully.\n\n\"Alex has submitted his evidence as requested and the parliamentary committee is now challenging the Crown Office to produce some of the text messages which they believe are being suppressed.\n\n\"The evidence, if published, will speak for itself\"", "Asos says it is in \"exclusive\" talks to buy Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands out of administration.\n\nBut the online retailer said it only wanted the brands, not their shops, suggesting any deal would cost jobs.\n\nThe current owner of the brands, Sir Philip Green's Arcadia Group, fell into administration last November putting 13,000 jobs at risk.\n\nAsos said it was \"a compelling opportunity\" to buy \"strong brands that resonate well with its customer base\".\n\n\"However, at this stage, there can be no certainty of a transaction and Asos will keep shareholders updated as appropriate,\" it added.\n\nLast week, a consortium including fashion chain Next dropped its bid to buy Topshop and Topman because it could not meet the price tag.\n\nOthers interested in some or all of Arcadia - which also owns Dorothy Perkins and Burton - include Mike Ashley's Frasers Group, a consortium including JD Sports, and the online retailer Boohoo.\n\nIn addition, the Issa brothers, who recently bought supermarket chain Asda, and Chinese fast fashion giant Shein are said to have made bids for Topshop.\n\nAsos has seen strong sales in the pandemic and is already one of the biggest wholesalers for Topshop, Topman, Burton and Miss Selfridge.\n\nAdministrators from Deloitte requested that final bids be submitted last Monday, with the auction expected to conclude at the end of January.\n\nSir Philip Green is under pressure to use his own money to plug an estimated £350m hole in Arcadia's pension fund, which has about 10,000 members.\n\nLast year the retail tycoon had an estimated fortune of £930m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.\n\nArcadia employed about 13,000 people and had 444 shops at the time of its collapse.", "27 of the 29 miners that died in tragedy\n\nThe Pike River mining disaster was a tragedy that shocked the world. Twenty-nine men who were in the New Zealand coal mine died when it collapsed in a series of explosions. The BBC's Phil Mercer covered the accident 10 years ago and has been talking to families of victims still coming to terms with their loss.\n\nThe day after his 17th birthday, Joseph Ray Dunbar began his first shift underground at the Pike River coal mine in New Zealand.\n\nHe was a \"strong-minded boy\" who wanted to carve his own path in life, but on that day in November 2010 he became the youngest victim of a mining disaster that killed 29 men.\n\nTheir bodies have never been recovered, and a decade later the teenager's father Dean is still looking for answers.\n\n\"In a modern society you don't wipe out 29 men and just walk away,\" he told the BBC. \"Joseph's legacy is righting the wrongs of the past whether it be by government agencies, police or politicians.\"\n\nJoseph Dunbar was the youngest among the victims\n\nIn 2012, a Royal Commission found the miners and contractors were exposed to \"unacceptable risk\" and that \"there were numerous warnings of a potential catastrophe at Pike River,\" but there have been no prosecutions.\n\nThe inquiry concluded the men \"died immediately, or shortly afterwards\" from a methane gas blast or the \"toxic atmosphere\". Two workers did manage to escape the blast and survived.\n\nNews of an accident at the mine in the Paparoa Ranges began to emerge in the middle of the afternoon on Friday, 19 November, 2010.\n\nFamily members soon gathered, and in the hours and days that followed, there was hope that the men might still be alive, although the authorities said a rescue mission was too dangerous. A nation prayed for another mining miracle.\n\nOn the right, the tags of the 29 miners who never made it out\n\nA few months earlier, 33 miners in Chile's Atacama Desert had been pulled out alive after being trapped underground for 69 days.\n\n\"That was totally on my mind the whole time,\" explained Anna Osborne, whose husband, Milton, died at Pike River.\n\n\"I saw how successfully those Chilean miners were rescued and I thought if they can all come out alive, it can happen to us. But little did I know that that mine (in Chile) wasn't a gassy one.\"\n\nFor five long days the families waited. As a reporter sent to cover the story at the time, it was excruciating for me to watch their anguish and frustration grow.\n\nThere would be no rescue, and on 24 November another explosion ripped through the mine, and all hope was gone.\n\nFire at the entrance to the mine\n\nMs Osborne told the BBC that she is \"still fighting to get the truth and still wondering why our guys were allowed underground when the mine was so volatile (and) was a ticking time bomb.\"\n\nNot all of the families want the men's remains to be recovered, but she said it would be a great comfort to bring her husband home.\n\n\"He was working in the south (part of the mine), which was flooded. My husband couldn't swim, so he hated the water and I close my eyes every night and visualise him floating in this water that he hated so much and I just thought I can't have him down there. If we can, I would like as many men to be retrieved,\" she added.\n\nI close my eyes every night and visualise him floating in this water\n\nThe Pike River Recovery Agency is a government department that has re-entered the so-called drift, a 2.3km (1.4 miles) tunnel that connects the entrance of the mine to the working areas and coal seams.\n\nIt is looking for clues that might help explain the explosions and to \"help prevent future mining tragedies.\" Re-entering the mine was delayed by safety concerns.\n\nThe end of the drift is blocked by a huge mass of fallen rock. This roof collapse was caused by the ignition of methane, and there are no plans for the agency to move further into the mine where most, if not all, of the bodies remain.\n\nRecovery teams only made it into an initial tunnel but not the mine proper\n\n\"The Agency's mandate from the government did not include recovering beyond the drift access tunnel,\" said a PRRA spokesperson. \"It remains less likely that we will recover human remains.\"\n\n\"That rockfall is impenetrable,\" said Tony Kokshoorn, the former mayor of the local Grey District. \"The 29 miners are in the coal mine proper. At least they are all together and that is their final resting place.\"\n\n\"Many of the families want them to be together in there because it would have been pretty tough on a lot of families if some had come out and the others couldn't come out.\"\n\nThe police inquiry into the disaster is continuing, with a spokesperson saying they \"remain committed to a full and thorough investigation into events\" and will everything they can to \"provide answers\".\n\nThe grief was felt far beyond New Zealand's rugged West Coast by bereaved families in Australia, Scotland and South Africa.\n\nThe mine will almost certainly never reopen, but Bernie Monk, whose 23-year old son Michael died in the disaster, wants one, final push to bring the men out.\n\n\"The times that I went up to the mine portal with anniversaries, I swore and declared and I looked down that tunnel, and I said to them, 'we're coming to get you guys out'. It was an emotional day for me when I first went down into the mine,\" he said.\n\n\"We're are only 50 to 100 metres away from them. I think we've got a right to go and get those men,\" Mr Monk told the BBC.\n\nOut of tragedy comes pain, anger and calls for accountability and change. It is 10 years since Anna Osborne's husband, affectionately known as Milt, never came home, and she continues to agitate for stronger health and safety laws, and for employers to be prosecuted when things go wrong.\n\n\"We have had 700 people lose their lives in workplace accidents since Pike River. That is like a Pike River every five months in New Zealand,\" she said.\n\nBut above all else there is a sadness that may never fade.\n\n\"I love him so much. It still hurts. It is still very, very raw.\"", "National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy Philip Gannaway (left) on the SS Demosthenes in 1916, when it was being used as a troop ship\n\nAn appeal has been made to trace the family of a sailor from New Zealand buried more than a century ago on an island off Anglesey.\n\nLt Philip Gannaway had recently married his wife Muriel when he enlisted during World War One.\n\nHe joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, serving on motor launches on the Menai Strait.\n\nBut he died aged 32 during the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918, and is buried on Church Island in the strait.\n\nLocal historian Bridget Geoghegan says she has already had responses following a story about Lt Gannaway on the New Zealand news website Stuff.\n\nHowever, she is still waiting to hear from his direct relatives.\n\n\"I have met family members of some people I have researched, and that is always a delight - a bonus,\" she said.\n\nThe grave notes Lt Gannaway's military service with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve\n\nLt Gannaway's funeral took place on 9 November 1918 with full naval honours, just two days before the armistice that brought fighting to an end.\n\nNewspaper reports found by Ms Geoghegan said more than 200 men and officers joined the procession, with shipyard work pausing as a mark of respect.\n\n\"I found he had married his sweetheart not long before volunteering and coming over to UK,\" she said.\n\n\"It seemed like a bitter end to a love story.\"\n\nHe is buried at St Tysilio's on Church Island, which is linked to the rest of Anglesey by a short causeway.\n\nThe Australian and New Zealander are both remembered on the war memorial\n\nBut Lt Gannaway is not the only man on the island buried so far from home.\n\nRemembered alongside him on the war memorial is William Connington, a 23-year-old corporal in the Australian Flying Corps who died with flu in Buckinghamshire.\n\n\"Connington had family in the area - his father must have emigrated to Australia,\" Ms Geoghegan said.\n\n\"His aunt and cousin lived in Menai Bridge. I think it likely that he had been up to stay with the family and when he died his aunt brought him back to Menai Bridge from Aylesbury so that he would be buried amongst friends.\"\n\nSt Tysilio's sits on Church Island in the Menai Strait\n\nFor several years Ms Geoghegan has joined others in researching and commemorating the people named on local war memorials and graves.\n\nBefore the latest lockdown restrictions, she created a walk for Church Island with the stories behind the names.\n\n\"I devised a walk round St Tysilio to include the graves of those lost and the family commemorations for their loved-ones buried elsewhere or lost at sea - the pain is almost palpable,\" she said.\n\nThe inscription from Lt Gannaway's parents to their \"beloved son\" reads simply: \"In peace he lived, in peace he died\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Supporters of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny protest against his arrest across Russia\n\nRussian police have detained more than 3,000 people in a crackdown on protests in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, monitors say.\n\nTens of thousands of people defied a heavy police presence to join some of the largest rallies against President Vladimir Putin in years.\n\nIn Moscow, riot police were seen beating and dragging away protesters.\n\nMr Navalny, President Putin's most high-profile critic, called for protests after his arrest last Sunday.\n\nHe was detained after he flew back to Moscow from Berlin, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal nerve agent attack in Russia last August.\n\nOn his return, he was immediately taken into custody and found guilty of violating parole conditions. He says it is a trumped-up case designed to silence him.\n\nOVD Info, an independent NGO that monitors rallies, said about 3,100 people had been detained, more than 1,200 of them in Moscow alone. The Kremlin has not commented.\n\nThe unauthorised demonstrations were held in about 100 cities and towns from Russia's Far East and Siberia to Moscow and St Petersburg. Protesters ranged from teenage students to elderly people who demanded Mr Navalny's release.\n\nAt least 40,000 people joined a rally in central Moscow, Reuters news agency estimated. But Russia's interior ministry put the number of protesters at 4,000.\n\nObservers say the scale of the demonstrations across the country was unprecedented while the protest in the capital was the largest in almost a decade.\n\nRiot police used batons against protesters in Moscow\n\nIn the city's Pushkin square, some protesters chanted \"Freedom to Navalny\" and \"Putin go away!\" One woman told the BBC she had decided to join the demonstration because \"Russia has been turned into a prison camp\".\n\nSergei Radchenko, a 53-year-old protester in Moscow, told Reuters: \"I'm tired of being afraid. I haven't just turned up for myself and Navalny, but for my son because there is no future in this country.\"\n\nLyubov Sobol, a prominent aide of Mr Navalny who had already been fined for urging Russians to join the protests, tweeted a video of police roughly pulling her away from an interview with reporters.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Соболь Любовь This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Navalny's wife, Yulia, was briefly held at the rally. She posted an image on her Instagram account with the caption: \"Apologies for the poor quality. Very bad light in the police van.\"\n\nSome protesters marched on the high-security prison where Mr Navalny is being held, and many were arrested.\n\nMeanwhile, one independent news source, Sota, said at least 3,000 people had joined a demonstration in the city of Vladivostok, but local authorities there put the figure at 500.\n\nAFP footage showed riot police running into a crowd, and beating some of the protesters with batons.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police used batons to break up protests in Vladivostok\n\nIn the Siberian city of Yakutsk, attendees at a small protest saw temperatures dip as low as -50C (-58F).\n\nPrior to the rallies, Russian authorities had promised a tough crackdown. Several of Mr Navalny's close aides, including his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh, were arrested earlier in the week.\n\nHis supporters called for more protests next weekend.\n\nThere were reports of disruption to mobile phone and internet coverage on Saturday, though it is not known if this was related to the protests.\n\nThe social media app TikTok had been flooded with videos promoting the demonstrations and sharing viral messages about Mr Navalny.\n\nIn response, Russia's official media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, demanded that TikTok take down any information \"encouraging minors to act illegally\", threatening large fines. The education ministry had told parents not to allow their children to attend any demonstrations.\n\nProtesters ignored extreme cold and threats of arrest in Moscow and other cities and towns\n\nIn a push to gain support ahead of the protests, Mr Navalny's team released a video about a luxury Black Sea resort that they allege belongs to President Putin - an accusation denied by the Kremlin. The video has been watched by more than 65 million people.\n\nThe UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, condemned the \"use of violence against peaceful protesters and journalists\" on Saturday, calling on the authorities to release those detained during peaceful demonstrations.\n\nThe US state department condemned what it called \"harsh tactics\" used against protesters and journalists, saying: \"We call on Russian authorities to release all those detained for exercising their universal rights and for the immediate and unconditional release of Aleksey Navalny\".\n\nThe EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc's foreign ministers would discuss the Russian crackdown on Monday. \"I deplore widespread detentions, disproportionate use of force, cutting down internet and phone connections.\"", "British employers made plans to cut 795,000 jobs last year, a record number, as Covid lockdowns took their toll on the economy.\n\nMore than 10,000 firms planned job cuts, however the pace of planned cuts slowed at the end of the year.\n\nWithout the government's furlough scheme, designed to protect jobs, the numbers might have been higher still.\n\nThe figures were obtained in response to a BBC Freedom of Information request to the Insolvency Service.\n\nEmployers must notify the Insolvency Service when they plan to cut 20 or more jobs, giving an earlier indication of changes in the labour market than waiting for official joblessness statistics.\n\nLarge parts of the British economy were brought to a standstill for weeks on end during 2020 by the measures imposed to contain Covid-19, and many employers were forced to cut staff as a result.\n\nThe number of job cuts proposed through the year was well above the 530,000 seen the last time the UK was in recession, in 2010, and higher than any year in the records which go back to 2006.\n\nHowever, in recent months the pace of layoffs has slowed, even though the new Covid variant has seen surging case numbers and new lockdowns imposed across the UK.\n\nLast month employers notified government of plans to cut 23,100 job cuts, which is the lowest monthly figure for 2020, though still a third higher than December 2019.\n\nThe decision to extend the furlough scheme, where government pays most of a worker's wages if their employer can't, will have enabled more firms to keep their staff, believes Tony Wilson, Director of the Institute for Employment Studies.\n\n\"The question now though is where redundancy figures go next,\" he says.\n\n\"If they start to stabilise around these levels, then [job cuts] would be at least one third higher than what we've seen over most of the last decade, and it's possible that a combination of this lockdown and then furlough unwinding from May could see numbers creeping up.\"\n\nDespite that, Mr Wilson sees the situation as \"pretty positive\".\n\nEmployers planning to cut 20 or more staff have to notify the Insolvency Service of their plans at the start of the process.\n\nThese notifications give an earlier indication of the state of the labour market than data published by the Office for National Statistics, which appear with a time lag of a few months.\n\nInsolvency Service figures showed record levels in redundancies in June and July, which was confirmed when the ONS published its own figures three months later.\n\nThe latest figures, for the period from August to October, saw a new record of 370,000 redundancies across the UK.\n\nAs redundancy processes covering fewer than 20 workers aren't included, the total number of job cuts planned will be higher than the Insolvency Service totals.\n\nBut individual firms often make fewer cuts than the number they first propose to government.\n\nEmployers in Northern Ireland file HR1 forms with the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency and they are not included in these figures.", "Boohoo is set to buy the Debenhams brand and website, the BBC understands.\n\nHowever, the fast fashion retailer will not be taking on any of the company's remaining 118 High Street stores or its workforce.\n\nThe announcement could come as early as Monday morning.\n\nThe 242-year-old chain is already in the process of closing down, after administrators failed to secure a rescue deal for the business, with the likely loss of 12,000 jobs.\n\nA closing down sale at 124 Debenhams stores began in December, as administrators continued to seek offers for all, or parts of the business.\n\nIn the last week or so, the company announced that six shops would not reopen after lockdown, including its flagship department store on London's Oxford Street.\n\nBoohoo has already bought a number of High Street brands out of administration. It snapped up Oasis, Coast and Karen Millen, but not the associated stores.\n\nDebenhams has struggled for years with falling profits and rising debts, as more shopping has moved online. It called in administrators twice in two years, most recently in April.\n\nMike Ashley has bought other struggling businesses including House of Fraser and Evans Cycles\n\nHowever, its position became untenable during the coronavirus pandemic as non-essential retailers were forced to close for prolonged periods.\n\nThe firm had already trimmed its store portfolio and cut about 6,500 jobs since May, as it struggled to stay afloat.\n\nBusinessman Mike Ashley, who founded Sports Direct and also owns House of Fraser, had already made an offer for Debenhams after it was initially put up for sale in April.\n\nHowever the takeover offer, thought to be in the region of £125m, was rejected as being too low, leaving JD Sports as the last remaining bidder.\n\nMr Ashley had previously built up a 29% stake in the chain, but saw his £150m holding wiped out in 2019, when the company fell into administration and then ended up in the hands of its lenders - a consortium led by hedge fund Silverpoint.\n\nIn early December, the Frasers Group confirmed that it was working on a possible last minute rescue of Debenhams.\n\nThe announcement came five days after staff were informed and liquidators moved in to Debenhams' stores to start clearing stock, after a potential rescue deal with JD Sports fell through.\n\nBut Frasers said there was \"no certainty\" it could save the chain.\n\nOne of the biggest issues, it said, was the collapse into administration last week of another High Street giant, Arcadia, which is the biggest concession holder in Debenhams department stores.", "The UK has identified 77 cases of the coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa, the health secretary has said.\n\nCases are linked to travellers arriving in the UK, rather than community transmission, Matt Hancock added.\n\nHe told the BBC's Andrew Marr cases were under \"very close\" observation and enhanced contact tracing was under way.\n\nMinisters are due to meet on Monday to consider imposing tougher restrictions on people arriving from abroad.\n\nScientists have said there is a chance the South African variant may harm the effectiveness of current vaccines.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Hancock said that \"three quarters of all the 80-year-olds in the country and a similar number of care homes\" have received their first doses of the vaccine.\n\nBoth the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines require two doses, and figures so far reflect those given the first dose.\n\nMr Hancock said that it was \"far too early to say\" what proportion of the population needed to be vaccinated before lockdown restrictions could be eased.\n\nAll viruses, including the one that causes Covid-19, mutate, and variants have been first located in the UK, South Africa and Brazil.\n\nThe South Africa variant has been found in at least 20 other countries, including the UK.\n\nMr Hancock said that all the South Africa variant cases in the UK were linked to travel.\n\n\"That's why we have got such stringent border measures in place against movement from South Africa,\" he added.\n\nThe UK closed all travel corridors last week until at least 15 February, with almost all travellers arriving in the country now required to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test to be allowed entry.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has not ruled out bringing in tougher measures at UK borders, telling a Downing Street news conference on Friday: \"We don't want to put that (efforts to control Covid) at risk by having a new variant come back in.\"\n\nMinisters are set to discuss whether to tighten border restrictions further, including the possibility of hotel quarantines for travellers.\n\nMr Hancock said: \"We have got to be cautious at the borders.\"\n\nAsked for a date on when lockdown restrictions might end, Mr Hancock said it was \"one of the many things that we don't yet know the answer to\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Matt Hancock on easing restrictions: \"We don't know the answer\"\n\nGovernment data on 14 January showed there were 35 confirmed cases of the South Africa variant identified in the UK, and a further 12 \"probable\" cases.\n\nMr Hancock said nine cases of the Brazil variant had been found in the UK, adding \"we are monitoring each and every one very closely\".\n\nShadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that Labour had been \"pushing the government to take tougher measures at the border since last spring\".\n\nShe said: \"We would fully expect the government to bring in tougher quarantine measures, we would expect them to roll out a proper testing strategy and we would expect them as well to start checking up on the people who are quarantining.\n\n\"Only three out of every hundred people who are asked to quarantine when they arrive into the UK actually face any checks at all - that's just simply not sufficient.\"\n\nOn Friday, Mr Johnson said there was \"some evidence\" the UK variant may be associated with \"a higher degree of mortality\".\n\nThe UK government's chief scientific officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, said there was \"a lot of uncertainty around these numbers\" but that early evidence suggested the variant could be about 30% more deadly.\n\nThe PM said on Friday that there was evidence that both the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine and Oxford-AstraZeneca jab were effective against the variant first detected in the UK.\n\nSir Patrick has warned that the variants in South Africa and Brazil might \"have certain features which means they might be less susceptible to vaccines\".\n\nBut he said \"there is no evidence\" that the two variants have transmission advantages over those already in the UK and so having cases here doesn't mean \"they will take off\".\n\nMeanwhile, England's deputy chief medical officer warned that people who have received a Covid-19 vaccine could still pass the virus on to others and should continue following lockdown rules.\n\nWriting in the Sunday Telegraph, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam stressed that scientists \"do not yet know the impact of the vaccine on transmission\".\n\nHe said vaccines offer \"hope\" but infection rates must come down quickly.\n\nIt's a key question but the fact is that no one can be sure.\n\nThat's because the trials of the vaccines explored the safety of the drugs and how well they prevent people from becoming ill - with good results for both.\n\nBut they did not investigate whether vaccination also stops infection and therefore whether people who've been immunised can still spread the virus to others.\n\nIf a vaccinated person did become infected, they probably wouldn't realise because they wouldn't have any symptoms. That's why health officials and ministers are so concerned.\n\nIt's possible that the antibodies boosted by the vaccine suppress the effects of the virus but don't eliminate it from the upper airway.\n\nMany scientists are cautiously hopeful that in this scenario, the amount of virus would be reduced but they're waiting for the results of studies under way now.\n\nAnd until there's an answer, it's difficult to calculate how and when it's safe to ease restrictions and allow people to mix again.\n\nA further 610 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were reported in the UK on Sunday - down from 671 deaths last Sunday - in addition to 30,004 new infections.\n\nThe number of positive cases has fallen for the fourth day in a row and is the lowest figure since before Christmas.\n\nThe death figures tend to be lower on a Sunday and Monday because of weekend lags in reporting of the data.\n\nMeanwhile, more than six million people have had their first dose of a Covid vaccine - with the figure now standing at 6,353,321.\n\nNadhim Zahawi, the minister responsible for the vaccine rollout, said on Twitter that 6,353,321 of the \"most vulnerable and frontline heroes\" had received a first dose of the vaccine, but there was still \"much more to do\".\n\nThere were 4,076 Covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds in UK hospitals as of Friday, according to government data.\n\nThat is higher than during the first wave, when the peak was 3,301 on 12 April.", "Simon Spurrell (C) from the Cheshire Cheese Company says he was advised to set up an EU hub\n\nUK firms that export to the EU say they are being encouraged by the government to set up subsidiaries in the bloc to avoid disruption under new trade rules.\n\nFirms have been hit by extra charges, taxes and paperwork, leading some to stop exporting to the EU altogether.\n\nBut several say they have been told that setting up hubs in Europe would minimise the disruption, even if it means moving investment out of the UK.\n\nThe Department for International Trade said it was \"not government policy\".\n\n\"The Cabinet Office have issued clear guidance, available at www.gov.uk/transition, and we encourage all businesses to follow that guidance.\"\n\nThe Cheshire Cheese Company said it had been advised by an official to set up in the EU after it was forced to stop its exports to the bloc due to trade rules that came in on 1 January.\n\nThe firm, which sold £180,000 of cheese to the EU last year, found that every £25-30 gift box of cheese it sends to consumers on the Continent now needs a veterinary-approved health certificate costing £180.\n\n\"I spoke to someone at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for advice. They told me setting up a fulfilment centre in the EU where we could pack the boxes was my only solution,\" co-founder Simon Spurrell told the BBC.\n\nThe firm, which had been optimistic about Brexit, is now looking at setting up a hub in France where it would \"test the water\".\n\nBut it has also scrapped plans to build a new £1m warehouse in Macclesfield employing 20-30 people.\n\n\"Instead we might end up employing French workers and paying tax to the EU,\" Mr Spurrell said.\n\n\"I left the EU as a UK citizen but now they are suggesting I rejoin my company to the EU, so what was Brexit for?\"\n\nThe issue, he said, was that the under the post-Brexit trade deal, a vet must approve every consignment of fresh food that his company ships to the EU.\n\nIt is a complex and costly process that has hit exporters of fresh meat and fish as well, and was partly why the government set up a £23m support fund for UK fishing companies.\n\nUK retailers who export to the EU have also complained about being hit with unsustainable costs when customers in the bloc return goods bought online. This is due to new customs clearance charges incurred by shipping firms.\n\nSome retailers have even warned they could burn clothes stuck at borders as it is cheaper than bringing them home.\n\nUlla Vitting Richards, who runs her sustainable fashion brand Vildnis from the UK, told the BBC last week she had stopped exporting to the EU, which was her fastest growing market, because of the new processes.\n\nShe also said that she had been advised - this time by a Department for International Trade (DIT) representative - that setting up a subsidiary distribution hub might help.\n\n\"He told me we'd be best off moving stock to a warehouse in Germany and get them to handle it,\" she said.\n\nAs early as last October, trade consultants Blick Rothenberg warned that thousands of UK businesses might need to set up an EU presence in order to keep exporting to European markets.\n\nHowever, experts say EU firms exporting to the UK - which currently enjoy a grace period over the imposition of some rules - will soon face the same issues.\n\nIndeed, some EU exporters have already stopped deliveries to the UK because of new VAT related charges.\n\nThe DIT said it was not government policy to advise UK firms to set up EU hubs and that it was \"ensuring all officials are properly conveying\" the right information.", "Scientists say signs a new coronavirus variant is more deadly than the earlier version should not be a \"game changer\" in the UK's response to the pandemic.\n\nBoris Johnson has said there is \"some evidence\" the variant may be associated with \"a higher degree of mortality\".\n\nBut the co-author of the study the PM was referring to said the variant's deadliness remained an \"open question\".\n\nAnother adviser said he was surprised Mr Johnson had shared the findings when the data was \"not particularly strong\".\n\nA third top medic said it was \"too early\" to be \"absolutely clear\".\n\nAt a Downing Street coronavirus news conference on Friday, the prime minister said: \"In addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant - the variant that was first identified in London and the South East - may be associated with a higher degree of mortality.\"\n\nSpeaking alongside the PM, the government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said there was \"a lot of uncertainty around these numbers\" but that early evidence suggested the variant could be about 30% more deadly.\n\nFor example, Sir Patrick said if 1,000 men in their 60s were infected with the old variant, roughly 10 of them would be expected to die - but this rises to about 13 with the new variant.\n\nThe announcement followed a briefing by scientists on the government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) which concluded there was a \"realistic possibility\" that the variant was associated with an increased risk of death.\n\nBut one of the briefing's co-authors, Prof Graham Medley, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"The question about whether it is more dangerous in terms of mortality I think is still open.\"\n\n\"In terms of making the situation worse it is not a game changer. It is a very bad thing that is slightly worse,\" added Prof Medley, who is a professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.\n\nAnother 1,348 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were reported in the UK on Saturday, in addition to 33,552 new infections, according to the government's coronavirus dashboard.\n\nThere is huge uncertainty in the evidence on how lethal the variant is.\n\nThe scientific experts that reviewed the data used a precise phrase saying it was a \"realistic possibility\" the new variant is more deadly.\n\nThat means there's a roughly 50-50 chance it will turn out to be true.\n\nWith time, and sadly more deaths, the picture will become clearer.\n\nWhile people debate the uncertainties though, we already know this variant has the ability to kill more people than the old ones.\n\nA virus that spreads faster (this one is 30-70% faster) will infect more people, more quickly, putting a greater strain on hospitals and leading to a sharper spike in deaths.\n\nIt is why viruses becoming more transmissible can be a bigger problem than ones becoming more deadly.\n\nNervtag's chairman Prof Peter Horby defended the government's \"transparency\" in making the announcement.\n\n\"Scientists are looking at the possibility that there is increased severity... and after a week of looking at the data we came to the conclusion that it was a realistic possibility,\" he said.\n\n\"We need to be transparent about that. If we were not telling people about this we would be accused of covering it up.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Patrick Vallance: \"There is evidence that there's an increased risk for those who have the new variant\"\n\nBut Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of Sage subgroup the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), agreed it was too early to draw \"strong conclusions\" as the suggested increased mortality rates were based on \"a relatively small amount of data\".\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast he was \"actually quite surprised\" Mr Johnson had made the early findings public rather than monitoring the data \"for a week or two more\".\n\n\"I just worry that where we report things pre-emptively where the data are not really particularly strong,\" Dr Tildesley added.\n\nPublic Health England medical director Dr Yvonne Doyle also said it was not \"absolutely clear\" the new variant was more deadly than the original.\n\n\"There is some evidence, but it is very early evidence. It is small numbers of cases and it is far too early to say,\" she told the Today programme.\n\nMeanwhile, senior doctors are calling on England's chief medical officer to cut the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nThe British Medical Association told Prof Chris Whitty an extension to the maximum gap between jab from three weeks to 12 weeks, to get the first dose to more people, was \"difficult to justify\".", "The number of coronavirus patients on mechanical ventilation in the UK has passed 4,000 for the first time in the pandemic.\n\nA total of 4,076 Covid patients were in ventilator beds as of Friday, according to government data.\n\nThat is higher than during the first wave, when the peak was 3,301 on 12 April.\n\nIt comes as another 1,348 deaths and 33,552 new infections were reported on Saturday.\n\nThe UK's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, told a Downing Street news briefing on Friday: \"The death rate's awful and it's going to stay, I'm afraid, high for a little while before it starts coming down.\"\n\nMeanwhile, new figures show that a record number of seriously-ill Covid patients are being transferred from over-stretched hospitals because of a lack of bed space.\n\nAbout 1 in 10 patients admitted to intensive care are being sent to a different site, according to the body which audits critical care services.\n\nIn a series of reports in the past week, the BBC's Clive Myrie has been to a mortuary and the Royal London Hospital, where 12 out of 15 floors are occupied by Covid patients and staff are struggling to cope.\n\nMartin Freeborn's wife Helen, 64, died with Covid-19 at the hospital shortly before he spoke to the BBC.\n\nMr Freeborn urged people to \"be over-careful\" in taking precautions to stay safe from the virus because \"you don't want this to happen\".\n\n\"Nobody wants to go through this... Don't end up like us, please,\" he added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Martin Freeborn's wife, Helen, died from Covid at the Royal London Hospital: 'Don't end up like us, please'\n\nThe number of people in mechanical ventilation beds has climbed every day since 18 December when it was 1,364 and now stands at 4,076.\n\nIt is one of the key figures the government considers when deciding its policy on when to ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions.\n\nWhen the pandemic first struck the UK, the government saw what had happened in hospitals in China and Italy and prioritised the provision of ventilators in British hospitals.\n\nIt set about buying as many ventilators as possible, and encouraged British manufacturers to design the machines to build stocks to cope with the worst-case Covid scenario. In September last year, a report found the NHS now had 30,000 ventilators available - about one for every 2,200 people in the UK.\n\nPeople in hospital are also being treated differently from the early days of the pandemic - which may explain why figures suggest slightly more people go on to recover after being on ventilation than back in March, April and May.\n\nA number of drugs are being tested as possible treatments for people with the disease, the BBC's health and science correspondent James Gallagher has said.\n\nThey include the steroid dexamethasone, which has been shown to reduce the risk of death by a third for ventilated patients and by a fifth for those on oxygen. Encouraging results have also been reported from two anti-inflammatory medications, tocilizumab and sarilumab.\n\nDr Ami Jones, intensive care consultant at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, in Wales, said there had been \"carnage\" for the \"last few weeks\".\n\nSpeaking whilst on shift, she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"We're maybe at 150% capacity and I know London are much worse than that.\n\n\"We've a steady stream of fit, young patients requiring critical care and sadly we're losing some of those patients.\n\n\"We lost a patient overnight and I've replaced them with a patient of similar age.\n\n\"It's heartbreaking - and it's been going on for weeks and weeks and we haven't seen any kind of stop yet.\"\n\nDr Jones said the average Covid patient stays in hospital between two to four weeks \"and it really puts them through it\".\n\nShe added: \"You really want people who are going to be able to survive that three or four weeks and actually come out the other end and make a good recovery.\n\n\"We're not stopping people having care but we're giving it to the people we feel have the best chance of getting through what is a horrific situation we're going to put them through.\"\n\nDr Jones said nurses are \"broken\", both physically, from months of long shifts in personal protective equipment (PPE), and emotionally - partly due to the impact of the virus on them, their families and the community.\n\nDr Rupert Pearse, consultant in intensive care medicine at a London hospital, speaking on behalf of the Intensive Care Society, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that a \"huge number\" of patients were still attending hospital.\n\nHe said: \"Whilst we know the infection rate has probably now peaked, and we can be hopeful to soon be sure we've hit a hospital admissions peak, admissions to ICU [the intensive care unit] usually lag 48 hours behind that.\n\n\"So we're still very very worried that we're being pushed right up to the wire in terms of the resources we're able to deliver for patient care.\"\n\nDr Pearse added that there were three or four times more critical care beds in some hospitals than they would usually have.\n\nHe said: \"I can remember a time when it would take years for an intensive care unit to negotiate one extra bed on a complement of 14 or 15 beds.\n\n\"We, within a few weeks, have massively increased the number of beds and finding the staff - most importantly of all - to deliver that has been a huge logistical exercise.\"\n\nReacting to the ventilation figures, Dr Charlotte Hopkins, deputy chief medical officer for Barts Health NHS trust in east London, said on Twitter there had been a \"fast-paced increase\" since 18 December, and that more than a third of the 4,076 ventilated patients were in London.\n\nIt comes as some scientists said that signs a new Covid variant is more deadly than the earlier version should not be a \"game changer\" in the UK's response to the pandemic.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday that there was \"some evidence\" the variant that emerged in the UK may be associated with \"a higher degree of mortality\".\n\nBut Prof Graham Medley, the co-author of the study the PM was referring to, said the variant's deadliness remained an \"open\" question.\n\nDr Mike Tildesley, a member of Sage subgroup the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), said he was \"surprised\" Mr Johnson had shared the findings when the data was \"not particularly strong\".\n\nPublic Health England medical director Dr Yvonne Doyle said it was \"too early\" to be \"absolutely clear\".\n\n\"There is some evidence, but it is very early evidence. It is small numbers of cases and it is far too early to say,\" she told the Today programme.\n\nUp to and including 22 January, 5,861,351 people have now had their first Covid jab and 468,617 have had their second dose.\n\nSenior doctors are calling on England's chief medical officer to cut the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nThe British Medical Association told Prof Chris Whitty an extension to the maximum gap between jab from three weeks to 12 weeks, to get the first dose to more people, was \"difficult to justify\".\n\nThe UK's four chief medical officers have previously defended the delay to the second jab in a letter to medical staff, saying: \"unvaccinated people are far more likely to end up severely ill, hospitalised [or] in some cases dying\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video filmed in Tacoma, Washington, shows a police car apparently ploughing through a crowd of people\n\nA police officer is under investigation in the US after his vehicle ploughed into a group of people, running over at least one, in Tacoma, Washington.\n\nNobody was killed in the incident, although one person was rushed to hospital with injuries.\n\nA video shows a large group of people surrounding the police car as it revs its engine in an apparent effort to drive off.\n\nThe group refuses to move, and police say people started hitting the car.\n\nThe police officer then speeds through the group, hitting numerous people. One person is dragged under the car.\n\nTacoma Police Department said multiple vehicles and approximately 100 people were blocking an intersection when officers arrived on the scene. The group was apparently watching street racers doing \"burnouts\".\n\n\"During the operation, a responding Tacoma police vehicle was surrounded by the crowd. People hit the body of the police vehicle and its windows as the officer was stopped in the street,\" police said in a statement.\n\n\"The officer, fearing for his safety, tried to back up, but was unable to do so because of the crowd,\" it said.\n\n\"While trying to extricate himself from an unsafe position, the officer drove forward striking one individual and may have impacted others,\" it said.\n\nThe person who was run over was rushed to hospital. Their condition is as yet unclear.\n\nThe Pierce County Force Investigation Team is investigating the incident, the statement said. The police officer has not been identified.\n\n\"I am concerned that our department is experiencing another use of deadly force incident,\" Interim Police Chief Mike Ake said in the statement.\n\n\"I send my thoughts to anyone who was injured in tonight's event, and am committed to our department's full co-operation in the independent investigation and to assess the actions of the department's response during the incident.\"\n\nThe incident comes at a time of rising anger over the use of excessive force by police in the US.\n\nPeople across the world took to the streets last year to demonstrate their anger at the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis, and to demand an end to police brutality and what they see as systemic racism.", "It is hoped that vaccinating teenagers will allow them to sit exams\n\nIsrael has started vaccinating 16 to 18-year-olds against Covid-19, in an effort to enable them to sit exams.\n\nMore than a quarter of Israel's population of nine million have received at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine since 19 December, its health ministry says.\n\nIt started with the elderly and others at high risk, but people aged 40 and over can also now get the jab.\n\nIsrael hopes to start reopening its economy in February.\n\nThe inclusion of 16 to 18-year-olds - with parental permission - is meant \"to enable their return (to school) and the orderly holding of exams\", an education ministry spokeswoman said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe matriculation exams that Israeli students sit at the end of high school play an important role in deciding where they will go to university. Their results can also affect their placement in the military, where many young Israelis do compulsory service.\n\nThe education ministry has said it is too early to say whether schools will reopen next month.\n\nIsrael started its rapid vaccination drive - the fastest in the world - on 19 December, reaching 10% of its population by the end of 2020.\n\nIsrael has recorded more than 596,000 cases and 4,392 deaths with Covid-19, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.\n\nOn Sunday, the government said it would ban passenger flights in and out of the country from Monday night for the rest of January, in an effort to halt the spread of new virus variants.\n\n\"Other than rare exceptions, we are closing the sky hermetically to prevent the entry of the virus variants and also to ensure that we progress quickly with our vaccination campaign,\" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.\n\nForeigners have largely been blocked from entering Israel during the pandemic.", "The Department for Transport said \"smart motorways are as safe as, or safer than, the conventional ones\"\n\nA police and crime commissioner (PCC) has written to the government to say smart motorways are \"inherently unsafe and dangerous and should be abandoned\".\n\nSouth Yorkshire PCC Dr Alan Billings wrote his open letter to Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport.\n\nHis comments come after a coroner found two men had been unlawfully killed on a \"smart\" section of the M1.\n\nThe Department for Transport said \"smart motorways are as safe as, or safer than, the conventional ones\".\n\nOn 19 January coroner David Urpeth called for a review of the road schemes.\n\nMr Urpeth said smart motorways without a hard shoulder carry \"an ongoing risk of future deaths\".\n\nHe was speaking following the inquests for Jason Mercer, 44, from Rotherham and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, of Mansfield, who died when a lorry crashed into their vehicles near Sheffield on 7 June 2019.\n\nNow Labour's Dr Billings has told Grant Shapps: \"I believe smart motorways of this kind - where what would be a hard shoulder is a live lane with occasional refuges - are inherently unsafe and dangerous and should be abandoned.\n\n\"The relevant test for us is whether someone who breaks down on this stretch of the motorway, where there is no hard shoulder, would have had a better chance of escaping death or injury had there still been a hard shoulder - and the coroner's verdict makes it clear that the answer to that question is - Yes.\"\n\nAlexandru Murgeanu (l) and Jason Mercer were killed in the crash on the M1 in South Yorkshire\n\nJason Mercer's widow, Claire, had previously told Nicky Campbell on BBC Radio 5Live she considered a government review of the smart motorway system \"was just a paperwork exercise and a PR exercise.\"\n\nTalking to BBC Look North Yorkshire after publishing the letter on Sunday, Dr Billings said: \"The Department for Transport and Highways England have argued all along that these sorts of motorways are actually safe, they even go as far as to say they are safer than ordinary motorways, now I think that whatever formula they are using to come to that conclusion is wrong.\n\n\"The coroner in his verdict has made it pretty clear that these two particular lives in South Yorkshire would not have come to such a sad end if there had been a hard shoulder there, so I think this is new evidence they have to take into account.\"\n\nHe added: \"If they thought this type of motorway was even smarter, or safer, than a conventional motorway, then why not convert the entire system to smart motorways, making it safer? As soon as you say it, I think you realise it's absurd.\n\n\"I think they (smart motorways) were done originally not because it was a safer way of doing a motorway, I think it was done in order to expand the capacity, get the traffic flowing by having an extra lane, but to do it cheaply, and I think we're trading cost - cheapness - for other people's lives.\"\n\nIn response to Dr Billings' open letter, the Department for Transport said: \"The stocktake [of smart motorways] showed that in most ways smart motorways are as safe as, or safer than, the conventional ones.\n\n\"The Transport Secretary has tasked Highways England with delivering an 18-point action plan to ensure they are safer still, and he has called an urgent meeting with the company to discuss their progress.\"\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.", "As high risk groups continue to be immunised there are growing concerns that people with learning disabilities have been missed out.\n\nDespite a recent Public Health England report warning they are six times more likely to die from coronavirus, as a group, they have not been prioritised for a vaccine.\n\nLegal action is being taken against the Department of Health and Social Care, which says it is working hard to vaccinate all those at risk.", "A Covid outbreak was declared at the DVLA's contact centre in December\n\nStaff are scared to work at the UK vehicle licensing agency's contact centre in Swansea where 500 workers have contracted coronavirus since the pandemic began, a union says.\n\nThe PCS union has urged ministers to intervene and described the numbers as a \"scandal\".\n\nA DVLA spokesperson insisted safety was a priority and it followed guidance to \"help keep our offices Covid secure\".\n\nThe Welsh Government said it had been \"worried about the DVLA for a while\".\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford said he has repeatedly raised concerns over case numbers at the offices.\n\nMinister Eluned Morgan said the decision to introduce tougher Covid regulations for workplaces in Wales was made, in part, due to the situation at the DVLA.\n\nIn December, a coronavirus outbreak was declared at the centre at Swansea Vale in Llansamlet after 352 cases of Covid-19 in the space of four months.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe DVLA has about 6,000 staff based in Swansea but said it was currently operating on a \"far reduced capacity\".\n\nA DVLA worker, who did not want to be identified, told BBC Wales News that close contacts of people testing positive are not always sent home to self-isolate, social-distancing is not being followed and homeworking is not always possible because of \"archaic\" systems.\n\n\"There are certain elements within management who are trying to bend the rules and regulations,\" they said.\n\n\"It has been mentioned that you don't need your track and trace [contact tracing app] on. If someone's off with Covid, the people who haven't had their app on haven't been sent home.\n\n\"They'll say 'your app hasn't pinged, you're not going home'.\"\n\nThe worker said it was difficult for staff to adhere to the two-metre distancing rule because of the way the office was laid out and some staff had resigned.\n\n\"The atmosphere sucks, people are scared. I have heard of some people walking out,\" they said.\n\nOne worker said two-metres distancing was not always being observed\n\n\"I think they have been raising concerns. They probably didn't get the answer they wanted. It's not necessarily the manager's fault, the managers are struggling too.\"\n\nPCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka said: \"It is a scandal that DVLA are not doing more to reduce numbers in the workplace when Covid infections are on the rise.\n\n\"Our members are telling us they are scared to enter the workplace for fear of catching Covid 19.\n\n\"Minsters must intervene and ensure DVLA are doing their utmost to enable staff to work from home and temporarily cease non-critical services.\"\n\nEluned Morgan told Radio Cymru the Welsh Government has been keeping an eye on the situation at the Swansea offices.\n\nEluned Morgan said the Welsh Government has been concerned at the situation at the DVLA for \"some time\".\n\nThe wellbeing minister said: \"We've been worried about the DVLA for a while, now. We've been putting pressure on them.\n\n\"It comes up time and again from the people who represent Swansea, and we're worried the pressure on people working there hasn't helped.\n\n\"The situation is one of the reasons why we've introduced new rules, new legislation, to tighten the restrictions on people at work.\"\n\nHealth Minister Vaughan Gething added: \"We're concerned about anecdotal reports we've heard from the trade union side, individuals, that all of the requirements weren't being followed.\"\n\nHe said there would be questions for management to answer if there had been a breach of the rules.\n\nThe DVLA said some staff have been able to work from home \"in line with government advice\", though others were required to be in the office due to their roles\n\n\"In view of the essential nature of the public services we provide, some operational staff are required to be in the office where their role means they cannot work from home,\" said a spokesman.\n\nThe DVLA said it has worked closely with Public Health Wales, Swansea council's environmental health staff and union officials to try to make its buildings Covid safe, including opening an additional site in Swansea.\n\nHowever, there were currently four Covid cases across its estate, with none at its contact centre.\n\n\"Before Christmas, when transmission infection rates were extremely high in the local community where most of our staff live, we saw a rise in staff testing positive for Covid,\" he said.\n\nSwansea MP Carolyn Harris said, during the first lockdown, she was in \"constant contact\" with the DVLA due to concerns raised by workers.\n\n\"Since Christmas, I've not been able to get hold of anyone from the DVLA,\" she told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement.\n\n\"Last night I spent a long time trying to hold of the chief executive.\n\n\"Some of the stuff that I am now reading, and some of the stuff I've had in over the last 24 hours, really worries me.\"\n\nThe Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said its inspector had been tackling \"a series of concerns\" since August and had spoken to the PCS, which it said was \"broadly supportive of DVLA's approach\".\n\nA spokesperson added: \"Most recently HSE joined Swansea Environmental Health Officers and Public Health Wales for some joint visits to premises, in our role to assist public health to assess the potential of work place transmission as part of their wider work to contain outbreaks.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "It is not clear if anyone not entitled succeeded in getting a Covid jab\n\nA health board boss has criticised council staff for potentially sharing Covid vaccine invites with colleagues.\n\nThe board meeting in North Wales heard some council staff, not within groups currently being vaccinated, booked appointments by following a link in an email only intended for the recipient.\n\nBetsi Cadwaladr health board's chairman Mark Polin said such actions could deprive someone else of a jab.\n\nDenbighshire council said it had warned staff the emails were not to be abused.\n\nIt is not clear if anyone not entitled succeeded in getting a Covid jab, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.\n\nOnly front-line social care and health workers, those over 80 and 70 years old, care home residents and their carers are currently being vaccinated.\n\nIndependent member Jackie Hughes spoke about the matter at Thursday's monthly health board meeting.\n\nAnswering her query, Dr Chris Stockport, the health board's executive director of primary care and community services, said: \"We are very clear with our local authority partners and teams of what frontline means in the same way we are elsewhere.\n\n\"When you arrive [for a vaccine] there's a process of validation.\n\n\"The likelihood is they will experience some difficulties working through the booking system [if they try to get into a higher vaccination cohort].\n\n\"It adds complications for a busy team and I would ask them not to do that when it's a clear effort to circumvent the cohort.\"\n\nAt Thursday's daily press briefing the UK Government Home Secretary Priti Patel said people who jumped the queue for the vaccine were \"morally reprehensible\" as they were putting the lives of vulnerable people at risk.\n\nShe said all the UK Government's measures were under review but \"our focus is getting that vaccine to the most vulnerable to make sure we can protect them and obviously protect others in the community\".\n\nMr Polin added: \"Whilst we understand the concerns people should not be doing what they are doing.\n\n\"The priority groups have been identified with clear medical guidance and sound reasoning behind it.\n\n\"So people jumping the queue are depriving someone else, potentially, of receiving the vaccine at the point at which they should.\"\n\nHe said it was a temporary problem, adding: \"We are changing the booking system, so this opportunity is not going to last much longer.\"\n\nHe said staff were looking out for any inappropriate bookings.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "More than five million people in the UK have now received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine - thanks to an army of more than 80,000 volunteers and NHS workers who have been trained to give the jabs.\n\nMany of the vaccine volunteers have had no previous medical training and come from all walks of life. So why did they sign up? And how does it feel to stick a needle into a stranger's arm?\n\nYou could see their relief. A lot of them have been waiting 10 months without leaving the house\n\nCallum Finnegan, 23, has been juggling his 40-hour week as a Tesco delivery driver with giving Covid jabs at Manchester's Etihad tennis centre. A St John Ambulance volunteer, he completed extensive online and face-to-face training, which included practising administering jabs on silicon arms before giving them to patients. He says he'd never given an injection before.\n\nThe biomedical science graduate wanted to get involved in the vaccination effort as soon as the call was put out and says he feels \"grateful and privileged\" to be helping the rollout - an effort he hopes will save as many lives as possible.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by BBC Radio 5 Live This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCallum, who volunteered for four weeks at London's Nightingale hospital at the beginning of the pandemic, says his first shift giving jabs was \"one of the best days\" he's had since Covid hit.\n\n\"They were incredibly emotional,\" he says of the people he has given the jab to. \"You could see their relief. A lot of them have been waiting 10 months without leaving the house, or seeing only one or two people. One of those could have been a Tesco delivery driver - there's a lot of people I deliver to who tell me that I'm the only person they're seeing face-to-face at the minute.\"\n\nIt just makes me feel better about the world, especially when it can get you down. It's nice to do something good for other people\n\nKate Donaghy, who runs an IT team for a travel company, was inspired to train as a vaccinator after seeing the impact of the disease first hand. A St John Ambulance volunteer for four years, Kate, 28, spent time at a London hospital last year helping to care for recovering Covid patients - before volunteering at an A&E department.\n\nAfter seeing just how desperate the situation was, she switched her focus to becoming a vaccinator. \"I just thought how can we stop this happening to people in the first place? If we can vaccinate people, that feels like a better way forward to solve the problem, and a great use of my time.\"\n\nShe says she overcame her initial nerves in giving the jabs thanks to some supportive colleagues and has already signed up for shifts at London's ExCel centre most weekends going forward.\n\nHer elderly patients were \"so happy it was the beginning of the end to their isolation\". \"It just makes me feel better about the world, especially when it can get you down. It's nice to do something good for other people.\"\n\nIt did feel good - it felt good to be fighting back\n\nDr Andy Bates, a 57-year-old dentist from North Yorkshire, recently gave his first vaccinations at Long Lee surgery, in Keighley. He is used to giving injections - albeit in the mouth - but he says helping to protect people against this virus \"did feel good - it felt good to be fighting back\".\n\nDr Bates is working as a paid vaccinator alongside a four-day week at his dental practice. He says both roles have served as a reminder that he could be the first person a patient has seen for months. And he says his day job - particularly calming people who are nervous about lying back in his dentist's chair - has helped him.\n\nHe says he managed to relax a \"very nervous\" lady in her 90s, who hadn't left the house since last March, by talking about their shared love of alpine cycling.\n\nAnd it's not just Dr Bates and his fellow vaccinators that have stepped up. He says after a \"huge dump\" of snow in the area, the community sprang into action to ensure elderly patients could safely come for their jabs - with a local farmer towing the van delivering the vaccines up the hill to the surgery, and volunteers clearing snow and ice from the car park.\n\nI just thought this is enough, this has got to stop. I wanted to help all the other elderly people who are so vulnerable to this virus\n\nWhen theatres closed last year, Amanda Baldwin's career as a full-time chorus member at London's Royal Opera House came to a \"heartbreaking\" standstill.\n\nStuck at home in south-east London with nothing to do, Amanda and her husband Julian Johnson, 55 - a freelance theatre stage manager - decided to volunteer for the NHS through the GoodSam app, which later connected them with the vaccinator training run by St John Ambulance.\n\nAmanda applied shortly after her 84-year-old mother tested positive for the virus - just before she was due to have the vaccine. \"Luckily she came through it, and she wasn't hospitalised. But I just thought this is enough, this has got to stop. I wanted to help all the other elderly people who are so vulnerable to this virus.\"\n\nAmanda recently passed her full SJA training in London and is now waiting for her first shift as a vaccinator. She thinks her performance background will help keep her nerves in check for when she administers her first jabs - joking that she hopes her patients \"don't wriggle about as much\" as her pet cat did when she had to give it injections for its diabetes.\n\nAfter feeling \"like a part of [her] soul was missing\" when theatres closed, she says training as vaccinator has given her a \"purpose\" again. \"I feel like I've now got [another] skill that can really help people.\"", "Researchers have been tracking changes to the \"spike\" of the virus\n\nThe new variant of Covid-19 is \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version, a study has found.\n\nIt concludes the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.\n\nThe UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nProf Axel Gandy of London's Imperial College said the differences between the viruses types was \"quite extreme\".\n\n\"There is a huge difference in how easily the variant virus spreads,\" he told BBC News. \"This is the most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began,\" he added.\n\nThe Imperial College study suggests transmission of the new variant tripled during England's November lockdown while the previous version was reduced by a third.\n\nCases of Covid-19 have begun to increase rapidly during the second spike, and the number of cases recorded in a single day reached a new high on Thursday.\n\nEarly results indicated that the virus was spreading more quickly among under-20s, particularly among secondary school age children.\n\nBut the very latest data indicates that it was spreading quickly across all age groups, according to Prof Gandy who was a member of the research team.\n\n\"One possible explanation is that the early data was collected during the time of the November lockdown where schools were open and the activities of the adult population were more restricted. We are seeing now that the new virus has increased infectiousness across all age groups.\"\n\nProf Jim Naismith, of Oxford University, said he believed that the new findings indicated that even tougher restrictions would soon be needed.\n\n\"The data from Imperial represent the best analysis to date and imply that the measures we have employed to date, would - with the new virus - fail to reduce the R number to below 1.\n\n\"In simpler terms, unless we do something different the new virus strain is going to continue to spread, more infections, more hospitalisations and more deaths.\"\n\nThe R number is the average number of people an infected person infects. If it is above 1 the epidemic is growing.\n\nThe most chilling finding from this piece of research is that the November lockdown in England, hard though it was for many people, would not have stopped the variant form of the virus spreading. The same severe restrictions that saw cases of the previous version of the virus fall by a third, would see a tripling of the new variant. This is why there has been such a sudden tightening of restrictions across the country.\n\nIt is unclear whether the current restrictions will be enough to control the spread of the virus. Given the fact that it has taken two lockdowns to stop the earlier version of the virus overwhelming the NHS, many scientists fear that further tightening will be necessary.\n\nInfection levels will begin to drop as enough people are vaccinated. But until then it is now more important than ever for people to follow social distancing guidelines, wear masks where required and to regularly wash their hands.\n\nThe new year brings with it hope of a more normal life in the next few months but also a new form of the virus that all of us will have to combat in the coming days and weeks.\n\nProfessor Lawrence Young, of Warwick University, said early indications suggested that vaccines would be effective against the new form of the virus.\n\n\"Variants virus have been around since the beginning of the pandemic and are a product of the natural process by which viruses develop and adapt to their hosts as they replicate.\n\n\"Most of these mutations have no effect on the behaviour of the virus but very occasionally they can improve the ability of the virus to infect and/or become more resistant to the body's immune response.\"\n\nFurther research is needed to understand why the variant is spreading so quickly. But early indications are that vaccines should be effective against it.\n\nThe new virus has been designated \"Variant of Concern 202012/01\" or VOC by Public Health England.\n\nIt was detected in November and thought to have originated in the south-east England in September.\n\nThere is no evidence to suggest that it is more deadly, but it will increase the number of cases which in turn will add further pressure on the NHS.\n\nThe variant can now be found across the UK, except Northern Ireland, but it is heavily concentrated in London, as well as south-east and eastern England.", "Appointments were brought forward or rescheduled for safety reasons\n\nFour vaccination centres were shut as snow caused some travel disruption in Wales.\n\nSunday appointments in Bridgend, Rhondda, Abercynon and Merthyr Tydfil were rescheduled for safety reasons, but centres will reopen on Monday, the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board said.\n\nThe Met Office has extended a yellow weather warning to midnight on Sunday for all of Wales except Anglesey.\n\nA yellow warning for ice runs from midnight until 11:00 GMT on Monday.\n\nPolice have warned of difficult conditions due to snow and ice.\n\nUp to 3cm of snow is forecast to fall in most areas, with 10 to 15cm expected in the Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia.\n\nCwm Taf Morgannwg health board urged anyone with queries about Sunday's vaccination appointments to call the number on their appointment letters.\n\nSnow volunteers cleared pathways so a Covid vaccine pilot in Maesteg could keep running\n\n\"We can confirm that no vaccines have been wasted as a consequence of this temporary Sunday closure and we are grateful to all those who were able to turn up at such short notice yesterday as we brought forward a significant number of Sunday appointments during the course of Saturday,\" it said.\n\n\"Additionally, our 4x4 arrangements are enabling us to continue to reach care homes to vaccinate the staff and residents there.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Traffic Wales South #KeepWalesSafe This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNorth Wales Police tweeted there was \"widespread snow this morning, particularly in some higher areas, making driving conditions difficult\".\n\nAnd Dyfed-Powys Police said some roads were \"impassable\" and advised people to \"stay home\".\n\nIn Bridgend, officers from South Wales Police were pelted with snowballs as they helped an injured sledger on Heol y Nant.\n\nNorth Wales Police warned of difficult conditions due to \"widespread snow\", particularly on high ground.\n\nIt said the A499 near Pwllheli had received heavy snowfall overnight.\n\nWelsh Ambulance Service boss Jason Killens tweeted, thanking the public for helping crews continue to work despite the conditions.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Jason Killens 💙 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nVillages were dusted with snow, such as in Llanfynydd, Carmarthenshire\n\nNick Rolfe shared this garden view in Nercwys, near Mold, Flintshire\n\nThe Met Office warned travellers that \"longer journey times by road, bus and train services\" could be expected, although Wales is in a level four lockdown with all but essential travel banned.\n\nIt also said the snow could lead to power cuts and other services, such as mobile phone coverage, may be affected.\n\nThose going out for daily exercise have been warned there could be icy patches on some untreated roads, pavements and cycle paths.\n\nIn Powys, this was the view over Newtown on Sunday\n\nThe hills around Llangollen, Denbighshire, were covered in snow on Saturday\n\nPower cuts and travel delays are possible, the Met Office says\n\nThe drop in temperatures is likely to exacerbate problems after widespread flooding caused by Storm Christoph.\n\nTwo flood warnings issued by Natural Resources Wales remain in place, meaning flooding is expected.\n\nThese cover the River Ritec at Tenby in Pembrokeshire, which could affect the Kiln Park caravan site, and the lower Dee Valley from Llangollen to Trevalyn Meadows.\n\nPretty as a picture... Suzy shared this garden view in Snowdonia\n\nSun up: Heath in Cardiff awakes to a covering of snow\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "DUP leader Arlene Foster said people in NI need to \"come together to fight against Covid\"\n\nDUP leader Arlene Foster has said a potential vote on a united Ireland would be \"absolutely reckless\".\n\nShe was speaking after a poll commissioned by the Sunday Times in NI found 51% of people want a referendum on Irish unity in the next five years.\n\nSpeaking to Sky News, the first minister said \"we all know how divisive a border poll would be\".\n\nSinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill said there was an \"unstoppable conversation under way\" on the issue.\n\nThe deputy first minister called on the Irish government \"to step up preparations\" for a border poll.\n\nProvisions for a possible border poll on Irish reunification are included in the the Good Friday Agreement - the deal which led to peace in Northern Ireland after decades of violence.\n\nIt states that the Northern Ireland Secretary must call a border poll if it at any time it appears \"likely\" to that a majority of people in Northern Ireland would vote for a united Ireland.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Michelle O’Neill This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMrs Foster said she thought it was \"very disappointing\" that some nationalist parties in the UK were focusing on \"constitutional politics\" during the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\n\"We all know how divisive a border poll would be, and for us in Northern Ireland what we have to do is come together to fight against Covid, and not be distracted by what would be absolutely reckless at this time,\" she said.\n\nShe added if there was a vote on Irish unity, the arguments for the union are \"rational, logical, and they will win through\".\n\nThe polling was carried out by Lucidtalk in Northern Ireland, with similar polling in England, Scotland and Wales to gauge attitudes towards the union.\n\nIt found that in Northern Ireland, 47% still want to remain in the UK, with 42% in favour of a united Ireland and 11% undecided.\n\nHowever for those aged under 45, supporters of Irish reunification outnumber those who want to stay in the UK by 47% to 46%.\n\nRespondents also said they believed there would be a united Ireland within 10 years, by a margin of 48% to 44%.\n\nPolls like this come with the usual health warning - they are a snapshot in a moment in time.\n\nNonetheless there is some interesting reading here - not least the fact that it paints a picture of a disunited kingdom.\n\nWe shouldn't really be surprised about that because we have had very different approaches to the global Covid-19 pandemic with different outcomes.\n\nWe know that Brexit is starting to bite and there is a lot of frustration out there and uncertainty and that, I'm sure, has fed into these figures.\n\nThe big question for NI, unsurprisingly, is around constitutional change.\n\nIt shows that 51% of those polled would want to see a border poll within the next five years, compared to 44% who would not.\n\nHowever, if they flip that question around it's interesting to see that 42% would want to see a united Ireland, but 47% would want to remain, with 11% of don't knows.\n\nSo according to these figures there may be an appetite for a border poll - but if that question was posed the majority are saying they would stay in the UK.\n\nSDLP leader Colum Eastwood said the poll placed a \"solemn obligation\" on those seeking a united Ireland \"to engage with every community, sector and generation\".\n\n\"The United Kingdom may be coming to an end but we are all called to build a new future together. That's the work the SDLP is engaged in,\" said the Foyle MP.\n\nThe polling found 47% of people in Northern Ireland wish to remain in the UK, with 42% in favour of a united Ireland, and 11% undecided\n\nUlster Unionist leader Steve Aiken said \"all political energy should be focused on making Northern Ireland a better place to live and work rather than a divisive border poll\".\n\n\"We need to concentrate on the here and now, fostering better relationships and plotting a way through and out of the Covid-19 pandemic,\" he added.\n\n\"As Northern Ireland enters its second century, we should be talking about recovery, renewal and reconciliation.\"\n\nThe polls also found across the UK, respondents believed Scotland would become independent within the next 10 years.\n\nIn Scotland, it found a large poll lead for the Scottish National Party, with them potentially being on course to win 70 of 129 seats in Holyrood.\n\nThe SNP is set to reveal its 'roadmap to a referendum' to its national assembly on Sunday.\n\nIt outlines plans to pursue a vote after the pandemic if there is a pro-independence majority at Holyrood following May's election.\n\nThe research was carried out by Lucidtalk in Northern Ireland, Panelbase in Scotland, and YouGov in England and Wales.\n\nThe polling was carried out between 15 and 22 of January, with 2,392 people polled in Northern Ireland, 1,206 in Scotland, 1,416 in England, and 1,059 in Wales.", "Larry King, giant of US broadcasting who achieved worldwide fame for interviewing political leaders and celebrities, has died at the age of 87.\n\nKing conducted an estimated 50,000 interviews in his six-decade career, which included 25 years as host of the popular CNN talk show Larry King Live.\n\nHe died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to Ora Media, a production company he co-founded.\n\nEarlier this month, he was treated in hospital for Covid-19, US media say.\n\nThe talk show host, famous for his braces and rolled-up sleeves, had faced several health problems in recent years, including heart attacks.\n\nKing was married eight times to seven women and had five children. Two of them died last year within weeks of each other - daughter Chaia died from lung cancer and son Andy of a heart attack.\n\nKing carried out interviews with every sitting US president from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama and a number of world leaders. His other high-profile guests included Dr Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Lady Gaga.\n\n\"For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry's many thousands of interviews, awards, and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster,\" Ora Media said in a statement, without giving the cause of death.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Larry King: \"I like spontaneity. That's the kind of broadcaster I am\".\n\nBorn Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933, King rose to fame in the 1970s with his radio programme The Larry King Show, on the commercial network Mutual Broadcasting System.\n\nIn 1985 he launched Larry King Live on the fledgling CNN, and became one of the network's biggest stars. The programme, broadcast around the world, was a success with audiences, with King answering thousands of phone calls from viewers.\n\nHe earned a number of honours, including two Peabody awards, but was also criticised for his non-confrontational approach and open-ended questions. King boasted of not doing much research for the interviews so, he said, he could learn along with viewers.\n\nBy 2010 his ratings had dropped significantly, with critics saying King's approach felt outdated in an era of more aggressive interviewing styles. King then announced his retirement, saying: \"It's time to hang up my nightly suspenders.\"\n\nIn his final programme on CNN, he told his viewers: \"I don't know what to say, except to you, my audience, thank you. Instead of goodbye, how about so long?\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by CNN Communications This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCNN replaced him with British journalist and broadcaster Piers Morgan, whose programme King criticised for being \"too much about him\".\n\nMorgan, whose programme was cancelled three years later, said on Twitter on Saturday: \"Larry King was a hero of mine until we fell out after I replaced him at CNN & he said my show was 'like watching your mother-in-law go over a cliff in your new Bentley.' (He married 8 times so a mother-in-law expert).\"\n\nIn a statement, CNN president Jeff Zucker said: \"The scrappy young man from Brooklyn had a history-making career spanning radio and television. His curiosity about the world propelled his award-winning career in broadcasting, but it was his generosity of spirit that drew the world to him.\"\n\nMost recently, King hosted another programme, Larry King Now, broadcast on Hulu and RT, Russia's state-controlled international broadcaster.\n\nA Kremlin spokesman was quoted as saying by state RIA Novosti news agency: \"King repeatedly interviewed Putin. The president has always appreciated his great professionalism and unquestioned journalistic authority.\"\n\nOutside broadcasting, King founded the Larry King Cardiac Foundation in 1988, a charity which helps to fund heart treatment for those with limited financial means or no medical insurance.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA new world record has been set for the number of satellites sent to space on a single rocket.\n\nThe 143 payloads, of all shapes and sizes, rode to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon rocket that launched out of Florida.\n\nThe number beats the previous record of 104 satellites carried aloft by an Indian vehicle in 2017.\n\nIt's further evidence of the major structural changes taking place in space activity that are allowing many more actors to get involved.\n\nThis shift is the result of a revolution in robust, miniaturised, low-cost components - many taken direct from consumer electronics such as smartphones - that mean pretty much anyone can now build a capable satellite in a very small package.\n\nAnd with SpaceX offering to transport those packages to orbit for just $1m, the commercial opportunities will continue to open up.\n\nGuatemala's Santa María volcano: Planet is imaging the entire Earth daily with its Dove satellites\n\nSpaceX itself had 10 satellites on the Falcon - the latest additions to its Starlink telecommunications mega-constellation, which is going to deliver broadband internet connections around the globe.\n\nSan Francisco's Planet company had the most satellites of all on the flight - 48.\n\nThese were another batch of its SuperDove models that image the Earth's surface daily at a resolution of 3-5m. The new spacecraft take the firm's operational fleet now in orbit to more than 200.\n\n\"Internet of things\": SpaceBees will connect to all manner of objects on the ground\n\nThe SuperDoves are the size of a shoebox. Many of the other payloads on the Falcon rocket were little bigger than a coffee mug, however; and some were smaller even than a paperback book.\n\nSwarm Technologies is rolling out what it calls the SpaceBees. They're just 10cm by 10cm by 2.5cm.\n\nThey'll act as telecommunications nodes to connect devices that are attached to all manner of objects on the ground, from migrating animals to shipping containers.\n\nThe satellites were mounted on a dispenser that ejected them in sequence\n\nSome of the larger items on the Falcon rocket were suitcase-sized. Among these were several radar satellites. Radar has been one of the major beneficiaries of the revolution in componentry.\n\nTraditionally, radar satellites were big, multi-tonne objects that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fly, which essentially meant only the military or major space agencies could afford to operate them.\n\nBut the adoption of new materials and compact \"off the shelf\" parts have dramatically shrunk the size (to under 100kg) and price (a couple of million dollars) of these spacecraft.\n\niQPS artwork: The radar satellites unfurl large antennas once they are in space\n\nIceye from Finland, Capella from the US, and iQPS of Japan all took the ride to orbit on Sunday. These start-ups are establishing constellations in the sky that will return rapid, repeat imagery of the Earth.\n\nRadar has the advantage over standard optical cameras of being able to pierce cloud, and to sense the Earth's surface whether it is day or night. We're entering an age when any change on the planet, wherever it happens, will be picked up almost immediately.\n\nThe Falcon carried the 143 satellites into a 500km-high path that runs from pole to pole. This is one of the drawbacks of a big rideshare mission: you go where the rocket goes, and for some that might not be ideal.\n\nA number of satellite missions will want an orbit that's higher or lower in the sky, or on a different inclination to the equator.\n\nThis can be achieved by mounting the satellites on \"space tugs\" which, after coming off the top of the rocket, modify the final parameters for their \"passengers\" over the course of several weeks. Sunday's Falcon carried two such tugs.\n\nBut for some missions a bespoke ride is going to be the only satisfactory solution. It's why we're now witnessing a rush to produce small rockets that can run dedicated flights.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket blasts its way to space\n\nThese smaller rockets will not be able to compete on cost with the big vehicles, such as SpaceX's Falcon-9, but they should attract the custom of those with very specific or urgent needs.\n\nDan Hart, the CEO of Virgin Orbit, which has developed a small rocket that can be launched from under the wing of a Boeing 747, says the start-ups are becoming more discerning.\n\n\"These small satellites used to be points of fascination and interest, and it was a case of finding the cheapest way possible to get into space,\" he explained.\n\n\"That's rapidly changing. These are now businesses with critical missions that risk losing revenue if they have to wait on others or go into an unsuitable orbit. And that's why you're going to see people who will pay that little bit more to get to where they want to go when they absolutely need to go there,\" he told BBC News.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Will Marshall: \"Our satellites 'phoned home' and they are healthy\"\n\nWith the roll call of satellites going into orbit now accelerating rapidly, the issue of traffic management is becoming a hot topic.\n\nFull-on collisions are currently rare, but a surprisingly large number (10%) of satellites will even now experience sudden, unexpected momentum changes, most probably the result of being hit by some small fragment from a previous mission.\n\nThe space sector needs to find smarter ways to track objects in orbit and to command timely avoidance manoeuvres, otherwise certain altitudes could ultimately become unusable because of the presence of dangerously dense debris fields.\n\nJonathan McDowell from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is a noted historian of astronautics.\n\nHe commented: \"There are now over 3,000 working satellites in orbit. The number of satellites launched last year at over 1,200 is over twice as many as in any previous year. And the ones launched today - that used to be the number you'd launch in a whole year. So it's getting really crowded up there.\"\n\nWill Marshall, the CEO of Planet, said his company, and indeed all of the companies on Sunday's flight, were accutley aware of the issue.\n\n\"We are seeing crowded areas in certain orbits,\" he told BBC News.\n\n\"Most of the crowded piece that is in danger of what they call Kessler Syndrome (runaway collisions) is quite high up. So one of the tricks that all of these satellites that were launched today use is to just stay really low where there's still a lot of atmospheric drag and eventually those satellites just come down.\"", "Pavithra Wanniarachchi (L) has become the fourth Sri Lankan minister to test positive\n\nSri Lanka's health minister, who endorsed herbal syrup to prevent Covid, has tested positive for the virus.\n\nPavithra Wanniarachchi tested positive on Friday, a media secretary at the Ministry of Health told the BBC.\n\nShe had promoted the syrup, manufactured by a shaman who claimed it worked as a life-long inoculation against the virus.\n\nSri Lanka recorded 56,076 cases and 276 deaths since the pandemic began, with cases surging in recent months.\n\nMs Wanniarachchi is the fourth minister to test positive. A junior minister, who also took the potion, tested positive earlier this week.\n\nThe health minister had publicly consumed and endorsed the syrup as a way of stopping the spread of the virus. The shaman who invented the syrup, which contains honey and nutmeg, said the recipe was given to him in a visionary dream.\n\nDoctors in the country have quashed claims the herbal syrup works, but AFP news agency reports thousands have travelled to a village to obtain it.\n\nMs Wanniarachchi took two Covid-19 tests and both returned positive results, Viraj Abeysinghe, media secretary at the Ministry of Health told the BBC.\n\nThe minister has been asked to self-isolate and all of her immediate contacts have gone into isolation.\n\nNews of Ms Wanniarachchi's positive test came hours after Sri Lanka approved the emergency use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. The first doses are expected to arrive in the country next week.\n\nSri Lanka isn't the only place where people in positions of power have promoted unproven treatments for Covid.\n\nLast year, Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina was criticised for promoting a herbal concoction that he claimed could prevent the virus. He was pictured distributing the tonic to poor communities in the capital.\n\nSince the pandemic began, a number of world leaders and cabinet members have contracted Covid. French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former President Donald Trump all caught the virus at various points last year.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The people who think Coronavirus is caused by 5G", "Mr Johnson raised the benefits of a UK-US trade deal during his phone call with Mr Biden\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has spoken to Joe Biden for the first time since the new US president was inaugurated.\n\nMr Johnson said on Twitter that he looked forward to \"deepening the longstanding alliance\" between the UK and the US as they drove a \"green and sustainable recovery from Covid-19\".\n\nMr Biden was sworn in as president and Kamala Harris as vice-president in a ceremony in Washington on Wednesday.\n\nThe PM said their inauguration was a \"step forward\" for the US.\n\nA Downing Street spokesman said Mr Johnson \"warmly welcomed\" the president's decision to rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change and the World Health Organization - both abandoned by Mr Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump.\n\n\"The prime minister praised President Biden's early action on tackling climate change and commitment to reach net zero by 2050,\" the spokesman said.\n\nThe spokesman added that, in building on the two nations' \"long history of cooperation in security and defence, the leaders \"re-committed to the Nato alliance and our shared values in promoting human rights and protecting democracy\".\n\nThe two leaders also talked about \"the benefits of a potential free trade deal\" between the UK and the US, with Mr Johnson reiterating his intention \"to resolve existing trade issues as soon as possible\".\n\nAfter the inauguration of any American president, a political spectator sport immediately begins: the order in which the new occupant of the White House speaks to other world leaders.\n\nIt is a crude metric of relative importance, but a metric nonetheless.\n\nI understand the call lasted for around 35 minutes and was the first conversation Joe Biden has had with a European leader as president.\n\nThe focus on climate change makes political and diplomatic sense. It's a topic where a Conservative prime minister and Democrat president can agree, and it matters particularly to the UK as the host of the COP26 UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow in November.\n\nBut when you compare what Downing Street said about the call and what the White House said, one thing leaps out.\n\nNo 10's readout refers to a conversation about a trade deal. President Biden's does not.\n\nIt's widely expected there'll be no such agreement any time soon.\n\nMr Johnson and Mr Biden \"looked forward to to meeting in person as soon as the circumstances allow\" and to working together during the forthcoming G7, G20 and COP26 summits, the spokesman added.\n\nA White House statement said Mr Biden \"conveyed his intention to strengthen the special relationship\" between the US and UK and \"revitalize transatlantic ties\".\n\nCongratulating Mr Biden and Ms Harris - who is the first woman and first black and Asian-American person to serve as vice-president - the PM said earlier that their inauguration was a \"step forward\" for the US, which had \"been through a bumpy period\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Johnson: \"It's a big moment for us - we have things we want to do together.\"\n\nMr Johnson said it was a \"big moment\" for the UK and the US and their \"joint common agenda\".\n\nThe BBC's political editor, Laura Kuenssberg has said the Biden Presidency \"brings some hope to government\" because No 10 believes \"there is a lot of overlap\" between what Mr Biden and Mr Johnson want to do.\n\nThe US president has previously said that he does not want a \"guarded border\" between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland following Brexit, and that any UK-US post-Brexit trade deal had to be \"contingent\" on respect for the Good Friday Agreement.\n\nThe PM and Mr Biden have never met in real life, but the new US president once referred to Mr Johnson as a \"physical and emotional clone\" of Mr Trump.\n\nAfter winning the presidential election, Mr Biden phoned Mr Johnson ahead of other European leaders and expressed his desire to strengthen the historic \"special relationship\" between the two countries.", "Keon Lincoln died from a gunshot and stab wounds police said\n\nThree more teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a 15-year-old who was attacked by a group of youths.\n\nKeon Lincoln was \"set upon\" at about 15:30 GMT on Thursday on Linwood Road in Handsworth, Birmingham, and died later in hospital, police said.\n\nA post mortem examination has revealed Keon died from a gunshot and stab wounds.\n\nDetectives have been granted extra time to question a 14-year-old boy arrested on Friday morning.\n\nAnother 14-year-old boy arrested later on Friday has been released under investigation.\n\nA boy, also aged 14, was arrested from his home in Birmingham on Saturday night, the force said.\n\nTwo other boys aged 15 and 16 were arrested from an address in Walsall in the early hours of Sunday.\n\nThe attackers fled the scene in a car which crashed into a house a short distance away\n\nDet Ch Insp Alastair Orencas, who is leading the murder inquiry, described the arrests as \"significant\".\n\n\"We are gathering a substantial amount of evidence which will take time to analyse, but we must be thorough to get justice for Keon's family.\n\n\"They have been fully updated with the latest developments.\"\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Andrew RT Davies has taken over as leader of the Welsh Conservatives for the second time\n\nAndrew RT Davies has been named as the new leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd for a second time.\n\nMr Davies succeeds Paul Davies who resigned from his post on Saturday after drinking with other politicians in the Senedd, four days into a Wales-wide alcohol ban in licensed premises.\n\nIn a statement, Andrew RT Davies said it was \"a great honour and privilege\".\n\nHe has already announced his shadow cabinet, which includes four women.\n\nThere are no responsibilities for Paul Davies or Darren Millar, who also previously apologised for being part of the group who were drinking at the Senedd.\n\nMr Davies said his party \"will put forward a positive plan to get Wales moving again\" and \"unleash our country's potential\" at the Senedd election, scheduled for May.\n\n\"I'm pleased to have moved quickly this afternoon and announce my Welsh Conservative shadow cabinet which is built on the strong foundations of experience, talent and vision,\" he said.\n\n\"We are in a moment like no other, and the Covid-19 pandemic has sadly only served to shine a spotlight on the challenges in people's everyday lives.\n\n\"We shouldn't doubt our country's potential. Wales is full of ambitious people and communities that crave the opportunity to succeed.\"\n\nThe Conservatives' shadow cabinet reshuffle sees Angela Burns MS replace the new leader as shadow health minister and Mark Isherwood MS replace Darren Millar MS as chief whip.\n\nDavid Melding MS has been appointed shadow minister for mental health, wellbeing, culture and sport.\n\nJanet Finch-Saunders MS remains as shadow minister for environment, energy and rural affairs, and Suzy Davies MS in education, skills and Welsh language.\n\nLaura Anne Jones MS stays as shadow minister for equalities, children and young people, but with extra responsibilities for housing and local government.\n\nRussell George MS remains in the shadow cabinet, responsible for the economy, transport and mid Wales.\n\nIn 2018, Mr Davies, the Member of the Senedd for South Wales Central, quit as leader of the Conservative group after seven years in charge.\n\nHe was given the unanimous backing of fellow Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd.\n\nWelsh secretary Simon Hart, MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, tweeted his congratulations to \"a formidable campaigner\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Simon Hart This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Welsh Labour Press This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAndrew RT Davies faced criticism earlier this month from former Tory politicians and Labour after comparing rioting in the US Congress to people who backed a second referendum on Brexit.\n\nThe deputy leader of the UK Labour Party said it was was a \"disgrace that the Welsh Conservatives\" had appointed \"this Donald Trump tribute act\" as leader.\n\nAngela Rayner MP said: \"Just weeks ago, Labour called on the Conservatives to suspend Andrew RT Davies and remove him as a candidate over his disgraceful and dangerous comments equating peaceful democratic debate in the UK with deadly violence at the US Capitol.\n\n\"The Conservative Party failed to act and he has refused to apologise.\n\n\"It is a disgrace that the Welsh Conservatives have just appointed him leader and their candidate for first minister of Wales.\n\n\"The people of Wales deserve so much better than this Donald Trump tribute act.\"\n\nPlaid Cymru leader Adam Price MS said: \"After a car crash the backseat driver returns to put Wales in reverse.\n\n\"Once rejected by his own Senedd team, he will now embark on his pet project of stripping our Senedd of powers and setting Welsh democracy back decades.\"\n\nHis appointment comes just a day after Paul Davies stood down along with Tory MS Darren Millar, who was chief whip, in connection with the same incident.\n\nBoth have apologised for drinking alcohol with their meals on 8 and 9 December but both deny having broken the Covid-19 rules in place at the time.\n\nWelsh Conservatives chairman Glyn Davies said: \"They've both been friends of mine a long time but I could see the way the story was developing and I must say I think it was inevitable in the end.\n\n\"Obviously, I've been pretty disappointed with the position that we find ourselves in but this is politics and it's a challenge.\"\n\nAn investigation by the Senedd's authorities found five people, including four members of the Welsh Parliament, drank alcohol on its premises during the Wales-wide alcohol ban.\n\nA third member of the Senedd, Labour's Alun Davies, apologised earlier in the week and has been suspended by his party.\n\nBBC Wales has asked for clarification as to the identity of the fourth Senedd member investigators have referred to.\n\nPaul Smith, the Tory group chief of staff, was the fifth person involved.\n\nThe Senedd has referred the \"possible breach\" of Covid rules to Cardiff council and its own standards watchdog.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Mixed Martial Arts\n\nDustin Poirier (left) has had nine mixed martial arts fights since November 2016, while Conor McGregor has had just three Former two-weight world champion Conor McGregor was left stunned on his return to the UFC as Dustin Poirier claimed victory in their rematch at UFC 257. McGregor came out of retirement for a third time to face fellow 32-year-old Poirier at Abu Dhabi's Fight Island. And although the Irishman edged the first round, Poirier unleashed a flurry of punches to seal a technical knockout two minutes 32 seconds into round two. \"I'm gutted, it's a tough one to swallow,\" said McGregor. \"I felt stronger than him, but his leg kicks were good. I didn't adjust. My leg was badly compromised, I've never experienced those low calf kicks, and I wasn't as comfortable as I needed to be. \"I have no excuses. It was a phenomenal performance by Dustin. I have to dust it off and come back. I need activity, you don't get away with being inactive in this business.\"\n• None Trilogies, Pacquiao or YouTuber - what next for beaten McGregor?\n• None UFC 257 - All the action as it happened When the pair first met in a featherweight bout in September 2014, McGregor stopped the American inside 106 seconds, setting \"the Notorious\" on course for global stardom. He became the UFC's first simultaneous two-weight champion before facing Floyd Mayweather in one of the richest bouts in boxing history in 2017. Poirier, meanwhile, had to gradually work his way back into title contention and is now the number-two ranked lightweight contender, losing just two of his 13 fights since 2014. McGregor now has a 22-5 mixed martial arts record having lost three of his past six UFC fights McGregor has been relatively inactive though. Since losing to Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018, he has had just 40 seconds in the octagon - beating Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone in style last January. But McGregor seemed to start well in front of about 2,000 fans at the new 18,000-capacity Etihad Arena. He survived an early takedown and pinned Poirier against the fence for most of the first round, landing a few shoulder strikes like those that did so much damage against Cerrone. McGregor said before the fight that what motivates him now is building a \"highlights reel like a movie\", and he tagged Poirier with a couple of right-hand shots. But, unlike their first fight, Poirier was unmoved. Poirier admitted McGregor won the mind games before they met in 2014. This time round, instead of swapping verbal barbs before the fight, McGregor pledged to donate $500,000 (£367,000) to Poirier's charity and at the weigh-in Poirier presented McGregor with a bottle of his own brand of Louisiana hot sauce. And it was the American southpaw that brought the heat midway through the second round. Having replied to that early pressure with a series of leg kicks, he pounced to inflict the first TKO/KO defeat of McGregor's MMA career and take his own record to 27-6. \"It was a lot of things, but it wasn't payback. That wasn't the driving force,\" said Poirier. \"The first time I was a deer in the headlights. This time I was just fighting another man who bleeds like me. \"The goal was to be technical, pick my shots and not brawl at all. Then I had him hurt so I went a little crazy.\" What now for Poirier? Poirier's first world title shot - against Nurmagomedov - came 31 fights into his MMA career Since beating McGregor in 2018, lightweight champion Nurmagomedov won unification bouts against Poirier and Justin Gaethje to stay undefeated, announcing his retirement immediately after beating Gaethje in October. Nurmagomedov's title is yet to be vacated and UFC president Dana White said this week that the Russian may consider returning for a rematch with McGregor or Poirier if he \"saw something spectacular\". But speaking after UFC 257, White said: \"He said to me, 'be honest with yourself, I'm so many levels above these guys. I've beaten these guys'. \"I don't know, it doesn't sound very positive, but he won't hold the division up.\" In the co-main event, former Bellator world champion Michael Chandler marked his UFC debut with an impressive first-round knockout of sixth-ranked lightweight Dan Hooker, who Poirier beat last time out. Poirier said: \"It was a great win, but to come in and beat a guy I just beat and get a title shot? I've had more than 20 UFC fights, fighting the toughest of the toughest guys to get my hands on gold [a belt]. \"Let Chandler and Charles Oliveira go at it. That [Chandler] doesn't interest me at this point - or I'll go and sell hot sauce. A rematch with Conor interests me, and I've always wanted to beat Nate Diaz.\" \"Conor McGregor's not an old dog, he's definitely ready to keep going. \"Going around doing other things is not what Conor needs. He's young, fit and still ready to go. He'll 100% be back.\"\n• None All the goals, highlights and drama from Saturday's fourth-round ties are", "Watch: Vaccine plea to prioritise those with learning disabilities\n\nAs high risk groups continue to be immunised, there are growing concerns that people with learning disabilities have been missed out. \"Just because we've got a learning disability, doesn't mean we should sit in the corner and rot,\" says Amanda. \"We need help now.\" \"There are so many people that are going to die, and it's not fair.\" \"Even before Covid, more than four in 10 people with a learning disability died of a lung condition like pneumonia,\" says Professor Tuffney-Wijne, of Kingston University. \"As a group of people, they really are at risk.\" Legal action is being taken against the Department of Health and Social Care, which says it is working hard to vaccinate all those at risk. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said it had made \"a clinical decision to prioritise those with profound and severe learning disabilities within our first six categories\".", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nBruno Fernandes' superb 78th-minute free-kick gave Manchester United victory in a thrilling FA Cup tie with old rivals Liverpool at Old Trafford.\n\nLiverpool led a fantastic contest through Mohamed Salah, who then equalised after Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford had struck for the hosts either side of the break.\n\nBut in a game which had everything last week's drab stalemate between this pair at Anfield lacked, Fernandes came off the bench to have the final word after Fabinho had fouled Edinson Cavani on the edge of the area.\n• None Don't worry about us, says Reds boss Klopp\n\nFernandes might have been slightly off the pace in recent games but when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer needed his £47m inspiration to come up with another special moment, the Portuguese delivered, bending his shot round the wall and beyond Allison's reach.\n\nThe victory earns United a home meeting with an in-form West Ham side managed by former boss David Moyes in the fifth round.\n\nBut the search for form goes on for Liverpool, whose only win in seven games since that seven-goal hammering of Crystal Palace came against Aston Villa's kids in the last round, and who have a meeting with Jose Mourinho's Tottenham looming on Thursday.\n• None Watch all the goals from the FA Cup fourth round\n\nIt was not quite the ending Solskjaer served up when he won a previous fourth-round meeting between these sides but, as in 1999, they had to come from behind.\n\nAnd while Fernandes applied the devastating finish, that goal should not be allowed to overshadow Rashford's contribution to United's victory.\n\nSo much has been said about the England forward as a social crusader it is sometimes easy to forget he also needs to be judged as a footballer.\n\nAt only 23, he is still a long way off his prime but he is developing into an outstanding forward, with vision to match his speed and finishing ability.\n\nThe pass that created Greenwood's equaliser was superb. Taking possession just inside his own half, Rashford delivered a 60-yard pass with such accuracy all Greenwood needed to do was take one touch to control with his chest before drilling low into the far corner.\n\nRashford's raw pace put Liverpool's defence under constant stress and the delicate touch that took him past Rhys Williams by the touchline in a move that ended with Paul Pogba curling wide was sensational.\n\nAnd then there was his goal, which needed a perfectly-timed run to go beyond the Liverpool defence and reach Greenwood's through ball, and then a cool head to apply the finish.\n\nAt that point, it seemed United had the game under control. It did not quite work out that way and once again, Fernandes, who has won four Premier League player of the month awards out of the seven he has been eligible for since leaving Sporting Lisbon less than 12 months ago, underlined his credentials as English football's most influential player at present.\n\nSalah's effort was the first time Liverpool had been ahead at Old Trafford since January 2017, since when Liverpool have won both the Champions League and Premier League, a clear indication that whatever issues Jurgen Klopp is wrestling with at the moment, they are not insurmountable.\n\nThe finish for the striker's 18th goal of the season did not hint at a lack of confidence as he raced on to Roberto Firmino's precise through ball, having escaped the attentions of Victor Lindelof, and lifted his shot beyond the reach of Dean Henderson.\n\nEvidently, what Klopp needs is to find a solution in defence. Williams was shaky and at fault for Rashford's goal, while Fabinho was exposed by United in this game and Cavani exploited the Brazilian's defensive inexperience to earn the free-kick that won the game.\n\nEven so, after Salah equalised from close range after United had lost possession to James Milner and never recovered their position after working their way up-field from a short goal-kick, the visitors did have chances to win it themselves.\n\nBut Dean Henderson saved from Trent Alexander-Arnold and Salah before Fernandes struck - so Liverpool's wait for a first FA Cup win since 1921 at Old Trafford, and Jurgen Klopp's for a first win at United full stop, goes on.\n\nManchester United are next in action against Sheffield United in the Premier League at Old Trafford on Wednesday, 27 January (20:15GMT). Liverpool play at Tottenham on Thursday, 28 January (20:00GMT).\n• None Manchester United have eliminated Liverpool from the FA Cup proper for the 10th time; in the competition's history, only Liverpool themselves (12 v Everton) have knocked a particular side out more times (including finals).\n• None Liverpool have won just one of their past 15 matches at Old Trafford in all competitions (D4 L10), and are winless in their last eight at the ground (D4 L4).\n• None Manchester United have won each of their past eight home games in the FA Cup; only from 1908 to 1912 have they had a better winning run on home soil in the competition (9 games).\n• None Liverpool are the first reigning Premier League champion to be eliminated from the FA Cup as early as the fourth round since Manchester City in 2014-15.\n• None Liverpool have lost back-to-back games in all competitions for the first time since March 2020.\n• None Roberto Firmino has assisted Mohamed Salah for 18 goals in all competitions for Liverpool, the most any player has set up another for the Reds under Jurgen Klopp. Since they first played together in 2017-18, this is the most one player has assisted another for all Premier League sides in all competitions.\n• None Mason Greenwood scored his first goal for Man Utd in 11 appearances in all competitions, ending his longest run of games without a goal for the club. Aged 19 years and 115 days, he was the youngest Man Utd player to score against Liverpool since Wayne Rooney in January 2005 in the Premier League (19y 83d).\n• None Marcus Rashford has scored more goals at Old Trafford against Liverpool than he has against any other opponent on home soil for Manchester United (4).\n• None Since his Man Utd debut in February 2020, Bruno Fernandes has scored more goals than any other player for Premier League clubs (28).\n• None No player has scored more goals for Premier League clubs in all competitions this season than Salah for Liverpool (19, level with Harry Kane).\n• None Attempt missed. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) left footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the right following a set piece situation.\n• None Paul Pogba (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Victor Lindelöf (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Edinson Cavani (Manchester United) hits the right post with a header from the centre of the box. Assisted by Bruno Fernandes with a cross.\n• None Attempt saved. Marcus Rashford (Manchester United) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Aaron Wan-Bissaka.\n• None Goal! Manchester United 3, Liverpool 2. Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United) from a free kick with a right footed shot to the bottom right corner. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None All the goals, highlights and drama from Saturday's fourth-round ties are", "A protester holds a poster that reads \"One for all and all for one\" in support of opposition leader Navalany\n\nTens of thousands of people rallied across Russia on Saturday in some of the largest demonstrations held against President Vladimir Putin in years.\n\nCrowds defied police to show support for opposition leader Alexei Navalny - who was arrested last weekend after returning to the country following a near-fatal nerve agent attack last year.\n\nMonitors say more than 3,000 were arrested for taking part in rallies in dozens of cities across the country.\n\nReuters estimated that some 40,000 gathered in Moscow alone, but authorities played down the figure and said only a tenth of that number showed up.\n\nRiot police were pictured dragging away and beating some protesters. The US and UK have condemned the heavy-handed response and called for the release of peaceful protesters.\n\nJosep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, also expressed concern and said foreign ministers would discuss \"next steps\" on Monday.\n\nOVD Info, an independent NGO that monitors rallies, said more than 1,200 had been detained in Moscow alone.\n\nDemonstrations, held from Russia's Far East to St Petersburg, were some of the biggest seen in years.\n\nIn Omsk protesters braced freezing temperatures of almost -30C (-22F) to protest against Mr Navalny's detention.\n\nAnd conditions were even colder, -52C (-62F), at another protest held in Yakutsk in Siberia.\n\nMr Navalny, a lawyer and blogger, has long been a thorn in the side of the Kremlin. He forged reputation as an anti-corruption campaigner and has become the most prominent face of the country's opposition.\n\nHe was arrested immediately on arrival into the country last Sunday after flying home from Germany, where he had been recovering from an attempted assassination attempt which he and investigative journalists have blamed on Russian authorities - a claim officials deny.\n\nPolice said Mr Navalny had violated parole conditions and have kept him in custody pending further hearings.\n\nMuch of the international community have condemned his arrest and called for his immediate release.\n\nMr Navalny called for street protests and his team further galvanised support this week after releasing an investigative documentary about an opulent Black Sea property allegedly owned by President Putin.\n\nThe investigation, now watched more than 70m times, alleges the property cost £1bn ($1.37bn) and was paid for \"with the largest bribe in history\" but the Kremlin denies it belongs to the president.\n\nRussian authorities had warned in advance of Saturday that any unauthorised demonstrations would be \"immediately suppressed\".\n\nSome demonstrators were pictured with injuries, including wounds to the head, following the promised crackdown.", "Vaccination appointments for people aged 70-79 are being delivered from Monday - but plans to use distinctive blue envelopes in some parts of the country have been delayed.\n\nThe aim is to have this group receive their first dose by mid-February.\n\nOn Sunday morning, the Scottish government said some letters would be sent out in blue envelopes and given Royal Mail priority.\n\nBut in a statement published later it said the envelopes were not yet ready.\n\nIt added that the change has no impact on the vaccination programme timetable.\n\nVaccinations for over-80s are continuing, with Nicola Sturgeon revealing on Sunday that about 40% of this age group had received a first dose of the vaccine.\n\nAll appointments will initially be sent out in white envelopes which will have a window and a black NHS logo on the right hand side.\n\nThe blue envelopes were due to be sent out in Fife, Forth Valley, Ayrshire and Arran, Lanarkshire, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and Lothian as part of a new booking system.\n\nUnder the system, patients are scheduled in order of priority and more boards are expected to make use of the technology as the vaccination programme expands.\n\nA Scottish government spokesman said the blue envelopes would be introduced \"as quickly as possible\".\n\nHe added: \"The blue envelopes we hoped to use were not ready in time for the first tranche of vaccine appointment invitations so distinctive NHS branded white envelopes are being used as a temporary measure.\n\n\"The absolute priority remains the roll-out of vaccinations and this temporary change to the envelope colour has absolutely no impact to our timetable.\n\n\"We continue to strongly urge everyone in the 70-79 age group to check all their post in the coming weeks and take up the offer of the vaccine when it is received,\" he added.\n\nAccording to the Scottish government's vaccine deployment plan, the 470,000 people aged in the 70 and 79 age bracket should receive their first dose by mid-February.\n\nSome patients may receive a phone call from their local health board as part of the appointment process.\n\nAnd all patients aged 75 to 79 in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde will be invited via phone.\n\nA Royal Mail spokesman said \"clearly marked envelopes\" would be used to make it easier for the postal service to identify and prioritise this mail during sorting and delivery process.\n\nHe added: \"We are poised to make these letters even more noticeable in the coming weeks as we have agreed.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the Scottish government has said it is on track for all those aged 80 and over to have received their first dose of the vaccine by the end of the first week in February.\n\nThis age group are being contacted by telephone or another form of letter.\n\nMinisters have faced criticism over the pace of the vaccine rollout, and accusations that Scotland is \"lagging behind\" England on the vaccine roll-out.\n\nOpposition parties say vaccines are not being supplied to GPs' surgeries fast enough.\n\nAnd they point to the latest official figures which show that 13% of over 80s in Scotland had their first dose by Sunday 17 January, while 56.3% of same age group had been vaccinated in England.\n\nMs Sturgeon told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that, a week on, the figure had reached about 40%.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon says the over 70s are to receive their vaccine date\n\nThe UK government Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Andrew Marr on Sunday that 75% of over-80s and three-quarters of UK care homes had received a first Covid vaccine in England.\n\nAbout 95% of Scottish care home residents have received their first dose, Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish government briefing on Friday.\n\nShe said the over-80s roll-out has been slower because the Scottish government has \"very deliberately\" concentrated on vaccinating care home residents first, which is \"more time consuming and labour intensive\".\n\nThis was designed to target the most vulnerable and was in line with the priority list compiled by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises on vaccine rollout across the UK, she said.\n\nScotland's national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch has defended the plan, which has been challenged by the British Medical Association (BMA) for not getting second doses out quickly enough.\n\nProf Leitch told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: \"The difficulty with the BMA's position is that we would have to de-prioritise another group, either care home residents or the over-80s, in order to give a second dose to younger people.\n\n\"And that's what the Joint Committee on Vaccination have told us not to do.\n\n\"They have told us in very clear terms - give the first dose to as many vulnerable people as you can and that gives us the best chance of saving the most lives.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Deputy First Minister John Swinney told Politics Scotland that the Scottish government was \"actively exploring\" the possibility of stricter rules around facemasks.\n\nHe said the issue was being \"looked at\" after new rules announced in Germany last week required people to wear medical-grade facemasks on public transport and in shops.\n\nMr Swinney said progress was being made in reducing cases but hospitals were still under \"enormous pressure\" and it would be \"foolish\" to rule out strengthening restrictions further in the future.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nCheltenham Town came within nine minutes of one of the biggest shocks in recent FA Cup history before Manchester City staged a dramatic late rally to crush the dreams of the gallant League Two side.\n\nThe Robins, 72 places below City who sit second in the Premier League, threatened huge embarrassment for Pep Guardiola's side after Alfie May put Cheltenham ahead on the hour after a trademark long throw from captain Ben Tozer caused chaos in the area.\n\nCity, who made ten changes to the team that beat Aston Villa in the Premier League on Wednesday, spared their embarrassment when Phil Foden, the game's outstanding player, arrived at the far post to turn in substitute Joao Cancelo's long cross in the 81st minute.\n\nAnd the turnaround was complete three minutes later when a rare moment of slackness in the outstanding Cheltenham defence, with goalkeeper Josh Griffiths superb, switched off and Gabriel Jesus scored from Fernandinho's delivery.\n\nFerran Torres scored Manchester City's third with the last kick of the game to give the scoreline a cruel reflection on Cheltenham's heroic efforts.\n\nIt was so cruel on manager Michael Duff and his players, who now go back the battle for promotion from League Two, while City will be away at Swansea in the fifth round.\n\n\"I'm incredibly proud,\" the Robins boss said of his side's display. \"The players they brought on from the bench and they way they celebrated the goals tells you something. They know they've been in a game. They've done that to better teams than us.\"\n\nThe sight of Manchester City manager Guardiola disputing where Cheltenham could take a throw-in said everything about the way the League Two underdogs gave their mighty opponents a serious fright.\n\nTozer's throw-ins were causing all manner of problems and led to Cheltenham's goal but there was so much more to their performance than that set-piece weapon, a threat any manager in the game would utilise.\n\nCheltenham tried to play football when they got the chance, with goalscorer May, who has done the hard yards in non-league before playing for Doncaster and now Cheltenham, a leading light.\n\nRobins keeper Griffiths, who suffered the ignominy of being beaten from 71 yards by his Newport County opposite number Tom King in midweek, was in defiant form as he saved well from Riyad Mahrez and Torres, showing command throughout. Tozer's headed goalline clearance from Benjamin Mendy in the first half was also symbolic of their 'they shall not pass' approach.\n\nThere may have been no fans inside this compact stadium but there was still a real sense of occasion, the game being halted in the first half because of a firework display nearby.\n\nIn the end this will be a bitter disappointment to Cheltenham but they can be rightly proud and take huge confidence into their League Two promotion battle.\n\nDuff highlighted how financially important the cup run was for his club.\n\n\"It's essential,\" he added. \"Every pound coming in is probably worth a tenner in normal times.\n\n\"These games don't come around very often. It's a shame because [with fans] the place would've been bouncing. Would that have seen us through in the last 10 minutes? I'm not so sure - but the key is to enjoy it.\"\n\nGuardiola made 10 changes to his line-up to give Manchester City's shadow squad a chance to impress.\n\nSome, like the erratic Mendy, did not take that opportunity and it was someone establishing himself in City's side that spared the blushes of this expensively assembled squad.\n\nFoden was magnificent, so light on his feet with glorious ball control, endless creativity and the man pulling the strings for City even when they were struggling to break down resilient Cheltenham.\n\nThe 20-year-old was head and shoulders above his City team-mates. He was the one who was going to pull them out of their grim predicament if anyone was, and so it proved when he popped up with the crucial late equaliser that lifted Guardiola's team and deflated Cheltenham.\n\nFoden had already carved out chances for Mahrez and Gabriel Jesus that were not taken so it was a case of 'do it yourself' when he was the player on target.\n\nThe fact Guardiola was forced to use three subs in Ruben Dias, Ilkay Gundogan and Joao Cancelo once Cheltenham went ahead proved how worried the Premier League giants were.\n\nThis was an unimpressive, scratchy display from City's much-changed team, with Guardiola resting so many of the players who are giving them such an ominous look in the Premier League - luckily they had the brilliance of Foden to pull them out of a deep hole.\n\nGuardiola praised the England attacking midfielder for his impressive performance.\n\n\"Foden is in a great moment and with great confidence,\" he said.\n\n\"He is clinical in front of goal and he had a similar chance to the goal we scored at [Chelsea's] Stamford Bridge - he is playing really well.\"\n\nThe City manager suggested he was confident in the players he put out on the pitch.\n\n\"I didn't have regrets even when we were 1-0 down, we had clear chances from the first minute,\" he added.\n\n\"When they take advantage it gets complicated, but we got it to 1-1 and it was tight. We came here with humility and had the quality to make the difference.\"\n• None Cheltenham have lost all nine of their competitive meetings with Premier League sides, by an aggregate score of 6-23.\n• None City have won 10 consecutive games in all competitions for the first time since a run of 11 from August to October 2017.\n• None May's opener for Cheltenham was the first goal City had conceded in 509 minutes of action in all competitions, since Callum Hudson-Odoi's strike for Chelsea at the start of the month.\n• None Foden is City's top scorer in all competitions this season with nine goals in 25 appearances, one more than he netted in 38 games last season.\n• None Jesus has been involved in 12 goals in 13 FA Cup appearances for City, scoring eight and assisting four.\n• None May has scored four goals in his four FA Cup games for Cheltenham, with each of his eight goals in total in the competition coming in home games.\n• None Goal! Cheltenham Town 1, Manchester City 3. Ferran Torres (Manchester City) right footed shot from very close range to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Ilkay Gündogan.\n• None Attempt missed. Matty Blair (Cheltenham Town) right footed shot from the right side of the box is too high following a corner.\n• None Goal! Cheltenham Town 1, Manchester City 2. Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Fernandinho with a through ball.\n• None Goal! Cheltenham Town 1, Manchester City 1. Phil Foden (Manchester City) left footed shot from very close range to the bottom left corner. Assisted by João Cancelo with a cross.\n• None Attempt missed. João Cancelo (Manchester City) left footed shot from outside the box misses to the left. Assisted by Riyad Mahrez.\n• None Attempt missed. Phil Foden (Manchester City) header from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by João Cancelo with a cross. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Hear from the former US president as he reflects on his time in office\n• None How can you eat well for £1 a portion?", "Some of the party-goers have travelled from Newcastle and London, police said\n\nA student party that attracted people from up to 200 miles away has been broken up by police.\n\nSome of the guests were found hiding in cupboards when officers raided the gathering in Lower Loveday Street, Birmingham, on Friday night.\n\nOne officer was assaulted as one guest made off but was not hurt, West Midlands Police said.\n\nParty-goers had travelled to the event from places such as Newcastle, Nottingham and London.\n\nThe flats are private accommodation but predominantly used by students from Aston University and University College Birmingham, West Midlands Police said.\n\nInsp Steve Barnes added: \"We understand that young people are frustrated at not being able to enjoy themselves and I do feel their pain, but we have to stick to the rules so that we can get back to some sort of normality sooner rather than later.\n\n\"People are dying and we have to prevent the spread of this virus.\"\n\nOfficers were also called to a party on Soho Road where shop owners had set up a sound system, and a 30th birthday party attended by about 20 people in Kingstanding.\n\nAcross 32 breaches of Covid-19 lockdown rules on Friday night, the force issued 58 fines of £200 and five of £1,000.\n\nThe West Midlands is under an England-wide lockdown with people not allowed to leave home to meet others socially.\n\nOn Thursday, the government said fines of £800 would be introduced in England this week for anyone attending a house party of more than 15 people.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "People made the most of the snowy slopes of Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset\n\nSevere weather warnings are in place across much of the UK after large parts of the country saw heavy snowfall.\n\nThe blanket of snow drew people outside for sledging and winter walks, but motorists have been warned to take extra care on icy roads with sub-zero temperatures forecast overnight.\n\nSeveral coronavirus vaccination and testing centres were closed in England and Wales due to the conditions.\n\nPolice reminded the public to keep to lockdown rules while out in the snow.\n\nOfficers in Wandsworth, south-west London, encouraged people with gardens to play in the snow at home.\n\nAnd police in Rutland, Leicestershire, were among several forces questioning why people were leaving their homes to go sledging.\n\nContinuing coronavirus lockdowns across the four UK nations mean most of the population must stay at home, except for a limited number of reasons.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. For cats Bonny and Freddy, the snow is a chance to explore. Credit: Rachel Prew\n\nAs well as four vaccination centres in Wales, six Covid testing centres in the West Midlands had to close due to heavy snow on Sunday.\n\nHighways England warned that the snow had caused collisions on the M3, M27 and M25 in southern England, with the agency urging drivers to only travel if absolutely necessary.\n\nThose using the roads for essential journeys have been urged to allow plenty of extra time for their travel and pedestrians and cyclists are also advised to be cautious.\n\nThe Met Office put a yellow weather warning for snow in place on Sunday, stretching from coast to coast in southern England and ending just south of Manchester.\n\nIt is also in place for western and northern areas of Scotland, most of Northern Ireland and all of Wales apart from Anglesey.\n\nAn amber warning for snow in Nottingham and Stoke meant travel disruption and power cuts were likely on Sunday evening.\n\nYellow weather warnings for ice are in place until 11:00 GMT Monday for all of Wales and Northern Ireland, northern and eastern Scotland and much of southern England and the Midlands.\n\nMany people swapped their usual daily bout of exercise for sledging on Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath, north London, but police urged people to stay at home\n\nGritters leapt into action near Touchen-end in Berkshire\n\nIn Wales, appointments at the Bridgend, Rhondda, Abercynon and Merthyr Tydfil coronavirus vaccination centres were rescheduled for safety reasons, the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board said.\n\nUp to 1in (3cm) of snow was forecast to fall in most areas of Wales, with 4-6in (10-15cm) expected in the Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia.\n\nIn the West Midlands, coronavirus testing centres at Castle Vale Stadium, the Arcadian Centre and Maypole Youth Centre were closed, Birmingham City Council said.\n\nFacilities in Moat Street, Coventry and The Place in Oakengates in Shropshire also closed, along with one in Lichfield, Staffordshire, local MP Michael Fabricant said.\n\nAnd in Devon, a gritting lorry overturned on Dartmoor. Devon County Council urged people to avoid travel unless it was absolutely essential and not to travel to find snow.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Devon County Council This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMet Office forecaster Simon Partridge said a band of hail, sleet, snow and rain moved in through Wales and south-west England in the early hours before sweeping across the UK and stalling over the Midlands, which saw some of the heaviest snow.\n\nColeshill, near Birmingham, had seen had 3.5in (9cm) by Sunday lunchtime.\n\nThe snow clouds eased away on Sunday evening but overnight temperatures could be as low as -4C to -6C (25F to 21F) for a lot of the south of the UK, the forecaster added.\n\n\"Some localised spots, likely in the Midlands, could see it as low as -10C (14F),\" he said.\n\nSnowmen popped up in the grounds of Guildford Castle, Surrey\n\nAs shown on the M1 in Bedfordshire, the wintry showers have caused hazardous driving conditions\n\nChris Fawkes of BBC Weather said some stretches of the M4 and M5 had been completely covered in snow at some points on Sunday morning.\n\nHe said this was partly because traffic has been low due to lockdown restrictions - and vehicles are needed to help grit mix into snow to make it melt.", "People who have received a Covid-19 vaccine could still pass the virus on to others and should continue following lockdown rules, England's deputy chief medical officer has warned.\n\nWriting in the Sunday Telegraph, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam stressed that scientists \"do not yet know the impact of the vaccine on transmission\".\n\nHe said vaccines offer \"hope\" but infection rates must come down quickly.\n\nMatt Hancock said 75% of over-80s in the UK have now had a first virus jab.\n\nBoth the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines require two doses, and figures so far reflect those given the first dose.\n\nThe health secretary told the BBC's Andrew Marr that around three quarters of care homes had also been vaccinated.\n\nProf Van-Tam said \"no vaccine has ever been\" 100% effective, so there is no guaranteed protection.\n\nIt is possible to contract the virus in the two- to three-week period after receiving a jab, he said - and it is \"better\" to allow \"at least three weeks\" for an immune response to fully develop in older people.\n\n\"Even after you have had both doses of the vaccine you may still give Covid-19 to someone else and the chains of transmission will then continue,\" Prof Van-Tam said.\n\n\"If you change your behaviour you could still be spreading the virus, keeping the number of cases high and putting others at risk who also need their vaccine but are further down the queue.\"\n\nLast week, the person coordinating Israel's Covid response reportedly suggested a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine might not be as effective as reported.\n\nIsrael has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world against coronavirus, with scientists keenly watching data shared by the country for signs of how effective the vaccine is when given to the whole population.\n\nThe country's health minister Yuli Edelstein told the Andrew Marr Show that some people \"still get sick\" with coronavirus after getting the first dose of the vaccine, but said there were \"some encouraging signs of less severe diseases, less people hospitalised after the first dose\".\n\nSenior doctors have called on health officials in England to cut the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.\n\nThe maximum wait was extended from three to 12 weeks in order to get the first jab to more people across the UK.\n\nBut the British Medical Association said the policy was \"difficult to justify\" and the gap should be reduced to six weeks.\n\nIts chair, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, told the BBC there were \"growing concerns\" that the vaccine could become less effective with doses 12 weeks apart.\n\nResponding to the criticism, Prof Van-Tam said: \"What none of these (who ask reasonable questions) will tell me is: who on the at-risk list should suffer slower access to their first dose so that someone else who's already had one dose (and therefore most of the protection) can get a second?\"\n\nA further 32 vaccine sites are set to open across England this week.\n\nMore than 5.8 million people in the UK have received their first dose of a vaccine, according to the government's coronavirus dashboard.\n\nNHS England said new vaccine sites were preparing to open across England from Monday.\n\nThey include Dudley's Black Country Living Museum, which doubled as a set for TV series Peaky Blinders, Plymouth Argyle FC's stadium Home Park and an old Ikea store in Stratford, London.\n\nThe 32 sites will prioritise health and social care staff on Monday, and other priority patients from Tuesday.\n\nThey will bring the number of mass vaccination sites across England to 49 - as well as 70 pharmacies, more than 1,000 GP surgeries and 250 hospitals offering the jab.\n\nScotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Friday that more than a third of over-80s had received their first dose of a vaccine.\n\nMore than half of over-80s in Northern Ireland have had the jab, though Health Minister Robin Swann said \"it will take time\" for the programme to have a \"major effect.\"\n\nIn Wales, four vaccination centres have been shut as officials brace for more snowy weather.\n\nProf Van-Tam stressed that the UK needs to \"bring the number of cases down as soon as we can whilst we vaccinate our most vulnerable\".\n\nAnother 1,348 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were reported in the UK on Saturday, in addition to 33,552 new infections.\n\nThere were 4,076 Covid patients were on hospital ventilators in the UK as of Friday, according to government data.\n\nThat is higher than during the first wave, when the peak was 3,301 on 12 April.\n\nHow has coronavirus affected you? What have been your experiences of vaccination, lockdown, work or travel? Email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Rescuers in China have freed the first of a group of miners who have been trapped 600m underground for two weeks, state media report.\n\nAn explosion closed the entrance tunnel to the Hushan gold mine in Shandong province on 10 January.\n\nTV footage from China has shown the first miner being brought to the surface, as emergency workers applaud.", "Jim Haynes was both an icon and a relic of the Swinging Sixties, an American in Paris who was famous for inviting hundreds of thousands of strangers to dinner at his home. He died this month.\n\nLast February, I took my last trip abroad before lockdown closed in on us. I bought a last-minute ticket and jumped on the Eurostar to Paris, motivated by a sudden urge to have dinner with a friend. Jim Haynes had entered his late 80s and his health was declining, yet I knew he would welcome a visit. Jim always welcomed visitors.\n\nThe essence of that trip now feels like the antithesis of Covid times. I was far from the only guest wandering into the warm glow of his atelier in the 14th arrondissement on a wet winter's night. Inside, people were squeezing, shoulder to shoulder, through the narrow kitchen. Strangers struck up conversations, bunched together in groups, balancing their dinners on paper plates and reaching over each other to press the plastic spout on a communal box of wine.\n\nJim had operated open-house policy at his home every Sunday evening for more than 40 years. Absolutely anyone was welcome to come for an informal dinner, all you had to do was phone or email and he would add your name to the list. No questions asked. Just put a donation in an envelope when you arrive.\n\nThere would be a buzz in the air, as people of various nationalities - locals, immigrants, travellers - milled around the small, open-plan space. A pot of hearty food bubbled on the hob and servings would be dished out on to a trestle table, so you could help yourself and continue to mingle. It was for good reason that Jim was nicknamed the \"godfather of social networking\". He led the way in connecting strangers, long before we outsourced it all to Silicon Valley.\n\nA ballet dancer staying with Jim in the late 1970s suggested cooking for him and friends to repay the hospitality; the dinners became weekly for 40-plus years\n\nI only knew Jim in his later years, but his entire life was extraordinary. Born in Louisiana in 1933, he had lived in Venezuela as a teenager; founded the alternative culture centre Arts Lab in London, where he mixed with David Bowie, John Lennon and Yoko Ono; ran a sexual liberation magazine in Amsterdam, and all before becoming a university lecturer in sexual politics in Paris, his home since 1969.\n\nAnd yet he was often seen as a son of Scotland, following an influential stint there in the late '50s and late '60s, when he established Edinburgh's first paperback bookshop, co-founded the Traverse Theatre and helped kickstart the Fringe festival.\n\nWhen Jim died, at 87, earlier this month, a Herald obituary called him \"the unofficial agent for the beat generation in Scotland\".\n\nWhile a lot of highly regarded people tend to retreat into their own circles after finding success, Jim never stopped reaching out to new people. The first time I heard from him was an email out of the blue in 2008.\n\nI had written a newspaper article from Barcelona - not the one in Spain but the one on the coast of Venezuela - and it had brought back memories for him. His father worked in the oil business and had moved the family there when Jim was in his early teens.\n\nMy article was about meeting people through the Couchsurfing website, where locals opened their homes to strangers for free around the world. This was before AirBnB worked out how to monetise the idea, and the concept of non-commercial cultural exchange was right up Jim's street. \"When you are back in Europe, come to dinner,\" he wrote, promising to tell me about an old travel project of his own that he thought I might like.\n\nIntrigued, I headed to Paris soon after my return. I had imagined some sort of intimate dinner party with cultural elites, but what I found was more like a student house party - albeit with more mature attendees and only moderate alcohol consumption. (Jim was teetotal and proceedings ended strictly by 23:00.)\n\nJim never cooked himself, instead he invited guest cooks\n\nJim instantly greeted me like an old friend and, as we chatted, he reached up on to his living room shelves to offer me a book. People to People read the cover line. It was the project he had wanted to tell me about.\n\nHe explained that, in the late 1980s, he had founded a guidebook series for countries behind the Iron Curtain. Instead of the standard descriptions of sights and hotel listings, the format was like an address book, including the contact details for hundreds of in-country hosts. The idea was that if people could not easily see the Western world themselves, he would bring it to them via travellers. It was \"couchsurfing\", but offline.\n\nThe hand-sized copy he pressed into my palm centred on Poland. I loved it and decided to travel there to see if the participants were still up for receiving random visitors, even though so much had changed.\n\nJim created the People to People guidebooks for multiple Eastern European countries\n\nEach person was filed under the town where they lived, followed by two or three lines, including their address, date of birth, phone number and hobbies. Through a combination of Google and snail-mail, I managed to get hold of several of them. Most had all known Jim either personally or through friends of friends. All had fond memories of the project and all were still willing to act as local guides to show me around.\n\nIn Gdansk, I asked civil servant Krystyna Wróblewska why she had signed up originally. She told me she had been working as a media fixer, helping reporters cover the anti-communist shipyard strikes. \"They [the media] went looking for women with handkerchiefs on their heads and horses with carts, perpetuating the same old picture. I suppose I wanted to meet people to subvert stereotypes and show that not all the pictures you have in your head are real.\"\n\nKrystyna Wroblewska signed up in the late 1980s to show travellers around Gdansk\n\n\"It surprised me how easy it was,\" Jim insisted to me. He produced guides for Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Baltics and Russia, featuring thousands upon thousands of locals. Some of his contacts came from his personal, multi-volume address books, and he got new sign-ups after placing interviews in local papers and jazz magazines.\n\n\"Some of the older people in Russia were scared about being put on a Western list, because they thought it would be easier to be rounded up and carted away,\" he said. \"But a lot of younger people wanted to be in the book… I was getting sackfuls of mail. I'm sure the local postman wondered what the hell was going on.\"\n\nOver the years, the authorities often wondered what was going on at Jim's place. Not least during the period when he started issuing fake passports. It was back in the 1970s, after he had caught wind of an American traveller, who, 20 years before, had renounced his American citizenship and created his own \"world passport\".\n\nFor Jim, non-national passports seemed to encapsulate his ideals of peace and global freedom. So he turned his home into an \"embassy\" and started producing world passports for anyone who wanted one. The documents were so convincing that some people used them to cross borders.\n\n\"Look, you can't do this any more. You have to stop making passports,\" exasperated French police would say when they came to his door. But Jim continued until he ended up in court. Though he was eventually acquitted of fraud and counterfeiting, he was found guilty of \"confusing the public\".\n\nJim always dismissed the idea that it was a naïve undertaking, but he was trusting to a fault, according to some of his friends, and this led to financial mistakes and legal troubles over the years. He wouldn't deal with problems, waiting until they blew up instead.\n\n\"I often had to stop him signing things. Sometimes he didn't even read them,\" says Jesper, his son, who was born during Jim's marriage to Viveka Reuterskiold in the 1960s.\n\nJesper grew up in Stockholm after they separated, but visited Paris every summer from the age of 10.\n\n\"There were mattresses on every spare bit of floor, people sleeping everywhere,\" he says, as he recalls his earlier visits. \"It was exciting and fun, but sometimes I felt jealous. Lots of people did. People were very possessive of him. People wanted to claim him, but he was unclaimable.\"\n\nJesper credits his father with opening the world to him. He used Jim's contacts books extensively as he travelled and he is currently living with his own family in Bangkok, where he briefly replicated the Sunday dinners. \"Just for six months... It was a lot of work.\"\n\nDuring the 1990s, the crowds started to dwindle at the Paris dinners, as the original hippy crowd aged. But then a new wave of younger visitors started to get in touch. The bloggers had discovered him.\n\n\"The internet both ruined and saved the dinners,\" says Seamas McSwiney, a close friend who helped on Sunday evenings for decades. \"It became less spontaneous as people tried to book six months ahead - which was anathema to how Jim travelled and also annoying as those people were more likely to do a no-show - but at the same time, these online articles re-energised the idea. There was a younger crowd and new momentum.\"\n\nAt the dinners' peak, Jim would welcome up to 120 guests, filling his atelier and spilling out into the cobbled back garden. An estimated 150,000 people have come over the years.\n\n\"The door was always open,\" says Amanda Morrow, an Australian journalist who stayed with Jim for a year-and-a-half. \"It was a revolving door of guests - some who wanted to stay over, and others who just wanted to say hello. Jim never said no to anyone.\"\n\nThe only thing that really got Jim down was people leaving,\" says Jesper. \"He struggled with that. He didn't like being on his own... Though fortunately there was usually a new person to distract him.\"\n\nIn the final years, Jim would sit quietly, as others gravitated into his orbit. On my last visit, he looked frail and pained by his various ailments, but he also had an air of contentment, clearly never tiring of being the conduit for human interactions.\n\n\"I was wondering when you'd come back,\" he said to me, in the rasping American accent he somehow had never lost.\n\nHere was a man who had spent time with Lennon and Bowie, who was once friends with Sonia Orwell and used to walk round Paris with Samuel Beckett. And yet he made everyone feel special. Every connection mattered.\n\n\"It felt like politician's trick, but it was natural,\" says Seamas.\n\nIn very recent times, Covid restrictions reduced the dinners' clockwork schedule, but his friends say he was not depressed by the pandemic. He had figured the get-togethers would resume and, until then, had enjoyed a smaller stream of visiting carers and, whenever possible, friends.\n\nAmid the outpouring of online tributes since his death in his sleep on 6 January, these words from Jesper stand out: \"His goal from early on was to introduce the whole world to each other. He almost succeeded.\"\n\nYou may also be interested in:", "The EHIC card is making way for the GHIC card under a new agreement with the EU\n\nUK residents can apply for a Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) to access emergency medical care in the EU when their current EHIC card runs out.\n\nUnder a new agreement with the EU, both cards will offer equivalent healthcare protection when people are on holiday, studying or travelling for business.\n\nThis includes emergency treatment as well as treatment needed for a pre-existing condition.\n\nThe new GHIC card is free and can be obtained via the official GHIC website.\n\nCurrent European Health Insurance Cards (EHIC) are valid as long as they are in date, and can continue to be used when travelling to the EU.\n\nYou don't need to apply for a GHIC until your current EHIC expires.\n\nPeople should apply at least two weeks before they plan to travel to ensure their card arrives on time.\n\nHealth Minister Edward Argar said: \"Our deal with the EU ensures the right for our citizens to access necessary healthcare on their holidays and travels to countries in the EU will continue.\n\n\"The GHIC is a key element of the UK's future relationship with the EU and will provide certainty and security for all UK residents.\"\n\nIf a UK resident is travelling without a card, they are still entitled to necessary healthcare, and should contact the NHS Business Services Authority (which covers the whole of the UK), which can arrange for payment should they require treatment when abroad.\n\nEHICs from EU member states will continue to be accepted by the NHS.\n\nIt is advised that anyone travelling overseas, whether to the EU or elsewhere in the world, should take out comprehensive travel insurance.", "A video featuring footage of a County Mayo man being consumed by fits of laughter while trying to record a birthday message for his son, has gone viral.\n\nVincent McDonnell was sending the message to his son David, who was celebrating his 40th birthday in Australia.\n\nHis younger son Paul got the video rolling, but the pair could not contain their laughter as they racked up the attempts.\n\nThe video has been viewed more than 1.5m times on Paul's Twitter account.", "The UK economy will \"get worse before it gets better\" as the country battles the pandemic, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has warned.\n\nThe chancellor told MPs the new national restrictions were necessary to control the spread of coronavirus.\n\nHowever, he said they would have a further significant economic impact,\n\n\"Even with the significant economic support we've provided, over 800,000 people have lost their job since February,\" he said.\n\n\"Sadly, we have not and will not be able to save every job and every business.\n\n\"But I am confident that our economic plan is supporting the finances of millions of people and businesses.\"\n\nThe chancellor said \"the road ahead will be tough\", but maintained that the government was \"taking the difficult but right long-term decisions for our country\".\n\nHe said that fiscal stimulus provided so far amounted to more than £280bn, while 1.2 million employers had furloughed almost 10 million employees.\n\nAt the same time, three million people had benefited from self-employment grants.\n\nMr Sunak said he would \"bear in mind\" calls to extend business rate relief and provide further support for the hospitality sector at the Budget in March.\n\nShadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds accused Mr Sunak of being \"out of ideas\" and providing \"nothing new\".\n\nShe said: \"The purpose of an update is to provide us with new information, not to repeat what we already know.\"\n\nThe chancellor's words reflect the fact that with a widespread lockdown, the first months of 2021 are likely to see a further contraction in the UK economy and probably an official double-dip recession. This reflects the physical shutdown nationwide of hospitality and retail, as well as the effect in the data of school shutdowns too.\n\nIn addition, consumers and workers are likely to be more cautious as the vaccine starts to be rolled out. So this is a very odd sort of economic tripwire. The challenge in the next weeks and months gets bigger, although not as big as it was last April. But beyond that, there is the hope of something normal.\n\nThe implication for the chancellor as he prepares a vital early March Budget, however, is further delay to the measures, such as tax rises, to deal with historic levels of pandemic government borrowing.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe UK is at the \"worst point\" of the pandemic, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has warned, but said the actions of the public \"could make a difference\".\n\nAt a No 10 briefing, Mr Hancock pleaded with people to follow the government's Covid rules until the vaccine could provide a \"way out\" of the pandemic.\n\nThe government earlier published its plan to immunise tens of millions of people by spring.\n\nSo far 2.3 million people in the UK have had a first Covid vaccine shot.\n\nAnd a total of 2.6 million doses have been given out across the country, with some people having received both doses.\n\nMr Hancock said the new variant of coronavirus was putting the NHS under \"significant pressure\", adding it was \"imperative\" that people limit their social contacts.\n\n\"The NHS, more than ever before, needs everybody to be doing something right now - and that something is to follow the rules,\" he said.\n\n\"I know there has been speculation about more restrictions, and we don't rule out taking further action if it is needed, but it is your actions now that can make a difference.\"\n\nThe health secretary said he could \"rule out\" tightening restrictions by removing support and childcare bubbles, however.\n\nHis comments follow similar warnings from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty, who said that the next few weeks will be \"the worst\" of the pandemic for the NHS.\n\nAccording to the latest figures, there have been another 529 deaths within 28 days of a positive test in the UK, and another 46,169 cases reported. There are also more than 32,000 people in hospital with coronavirus, data shows.\n\nMatt Hancock has previously said he's learned to rule nothing out when it comes to dealing with the pandemic.\n\nBut today he took the unusual step of doing just that.\n\nSupport bubbles and childcare bubbles, hugely valued by so many, will stay.\n\nSenior Whitehall sources have previously told me bubbles were \"untouchable\" but for a minister to say as much, so explicitly and on the record, means there's now very little wriggle room for the government to change its mind.\n\nMinisters will know that scrapping bubbles, for those that rely on them, could have proved deeply unpopular. But this certainty is a rarity.\n\nWhilst the current emphasis is on compliance, the idea of toughening up controls in other areas is not being ruled out.\n\nThe vaccine delivery plan says it is expected to take until spring to give a first dose to all 32 million people in the UK's priority groups, including everyone over 55 and those who are clinically vulnerable.\n\nUnder the plan, the government has pledged to carry out at least two million vaccinations in England per week by the end of January, which it says will be made possible by rolling out jabs at 206 hospital sites, 50 vaccination centres and around 1,200 local vaccination sites.\n\nIt also reiterates the government's aim of offering vaccinations to around 15 million people in the UK - the over-70s, older care home residents and staff, frontline healthcare workers and the clinically extremely vulnerable - by mid-February.\n\nAccording to Mr Hancock, two fifths of over-80s have now received their first dose, and almost a quarter of care home residents have received theirs.\n\nAlso at the briefing, NHS England's national medical director, Prof Stephen Powis, said the NHS was aiming to vaccinate the rest of the top nine priority groups by April, with a final push to offer all adults over 18 a jab by the autumn.\n\nHe stressed it would take until February before there were \"early signs\" that vaccination was leading to a drop in hospitalisations.\n\nThe country has still not seen the full impact of the Christmas loosening of lockdown restrictions, Prof Powis added, although he noted there are now 13,000 more Covid patients in hospital than there were on Christmas Day.\n\nSpeaking in Bristol earlier, Mr Johnson warned the vaccination programme was in a \"race against time\" because of pressure on the NHS.\n\nHe said it was \"a very perilous moment because everyone can sense the vaccine is coming in - my worry is that will breed false complacency\".\n\nThe newly-published vaccination plan also says ministers are aiming to offer jabs at more than 2,700 sites across the UK.\n\nAnd it says that daily vaccination figures for England will be published from now on - showing the total number vaccinated to date, including first and second doses.\n\nEarlier, NHS England's chief executive, Sir Simon Stevens, told MPs that there was a \"strong case\" for asking the the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to consider prioritising \"teachers and other key workers\" for vaccination after the \"first nine [priority] groups have been vaccinated\".\n\nA quarter of coronavirus admissions to hospital are for people under the age of 55, he added.\n\nIn the first four weeks of the vaccination campaign, the NHS did 1.3 million vaccinations.\n\nNews that in the past week almost the same again has been done shows progress is being made - even though there has been some concern rollout to care home residents has been slower than hoped.\n\nHitting two million doses a week is the next target - and is something the NHS is aiming to get close to this week.\n\nWith more vaccination sites opening by the day, it should be achievable as long as there is good supply.\n\nThere is already enough vaccine in the country to vaccinate all 15 million people in the highest at-risk groups that have been promised an offer of a vaccine by mid-February.\n\nHowever, not all of it has been through the final safety checks or been packaged up ready for distribution.\n\nChallenges remain, but even at this early stage it is clear there is growing optimism that the programme is on track.\n\nAs seven mass vaccination centres opened across England on Monday, NHS England said hundreds more GP-led and hospital services would also open later this week.\n\nBut with all centres, people will need to wait until they receive an invitation.\n\nTwo vaccines - Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca - are currently being administered in the UK.\n\nOn Friday, a third coronavirus vaccine - made by US company Moderna - was approved for use, although supplies are not expected to arrive until spring.\n\nVaccine programmes are also progressing in the UK's devolved nations.\n\nAll over-50s and everyone who is at greater risk from Covid in Wales will be offered a vaccine by spring, under new plans.\n\nAnd Scotland's health secretary has said every aged over 80 or over in the nation will be offered a jab by February, while care workers in Northern Ireland who provide services to ill or elderly patients living at home can now book an appointment to get a Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nEngland is currently under a national lockdown, meaning people must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar lockdown measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer has questioned why there are \"less restrictions in place\" now than there were last March.\n\nIn his first speech of the year, he said: \"I do think it's time to hear from the scientists [about] what else could be done and that probably should be done in the next few hours\".\n\nMeanwhile, the United Arab Emirates is being removed from the UK list of travel corridors amid a spike in Covid cases.\n\nAnd England's Test and Trace scheme has revised one of its definitions of a \"close contact\" - the people who need to be reached if they have been near to someone who has tested positive for Covid.\n\nThis now refers to anyone who has been within two metres of someone for more than 15 minutes, whether in a single period or cumulatively over the course of one day.\n\nPreviously the definition was just a single period of at least 15 minutes.", "Rani has co-hosted BBC One's Countryfile since 2015\n\nCountryfile host Anita Rani is to join Emma Barnett as a presenter of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.\n\nShe will present the Friday and Saturday editions of the long-running programme, beginning on 15 January.\n\nRani, 43, said she had \"long been a fan\" of the programme and that she was \"really looking forward to getting to know the listeners and discussing issues that matter to them the most\".\n\nLong-time hosts Jane Garvey and Dame Jenni Murray left the show last year.\n\nBarnett, 35, who made her name on Radio 5 Live and Newsnight, made her Woman's Hour debut on 4 January. She hosts the show from Monday to Thursday.\n\nWriting on Twitter, Rani said it was \"an honour\" to be joining Radio 4's \"mothership\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by anita rani This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRani joined the BBC's Asian Network in 2005 and is a regular presenter on BBC Radio 2. She is also known for her appearances on The One Show and Watchdog, and for competing on the 2015 series of Strictly Come Dancing.\n\n\"Woman's Hour has always given a voice to people who may not be heard elsewhere and I want to continue that important tradition,\" she said.\n\nRadio 4 controller Mohit Bakaya said he wanted the station to \"better reflect and be relevant to the audience across the UK\". Rani will bring \"a wealth of broadcasting experience\" as well as a \"valuable\" perspective and insight, he added.\n\nComedian Shappi Khorsandi was among those to welcome her new role, saying she would be \"listening even more\".\n\nRani's appointment means the new Woman's Hour presenters are considerably younger than their predecessors. Dame Jenni was 70 when she left on 1 October, while Garvey was 56 when she signed off last month.\n\nEmma Barnett took the reins of Woman's Hour earlier this month\n\nBefore leaving, Garvey expressed a hope that whoever joined Barnett would be closer to her own age.\n\n\"Emma is in her 30s and that's great,\" she told the Daily Telegraph. \"It will give the programme a real energy, which I think is brilliant.\n\n\"So I think the person working alongside her should be somebody nearer my age to make sure we give the audience as broad a range of life experience and interests as possible. I would prefer it if the other presenter were in her 50s.\"\n\nBarnett had an eventful first week on the Radio 4 institution, opening her stint by reading out a message from The Queen.\n\nTwo days later, one of her guests dropped out of a discussion after objecting to remarks the presenter made about her off air.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "A twenty-year-old from Cambridgeshire who spent a week in intensive care with Covid-19 says he can't believe so many young people are in denial about the virus.\n\nJay Clack fell ill on December 27th and within five days, 80% of his lungs has stopped functioning.\n\nWhile in intensive care he had a goodbye phone call with his family.\n\nBut now, he's showing signs of recovery and spoke to the BBC's Jon Ironmonger.", "The police are stepping up enforcement because they believe many people breaking the Covid regulations are doing so because they are stubborn, not because they don’t understand what is allowed.\n\nThe public, police, and legal experts do struggle to keep up with the ever-changing rules.\n\nBut the organisers of a party on a boat in Hertfordshire, the passengers on a minibus heading for Wales, and the couple who travelled 120 miles to \"watch seals\" would have struggled to explain to the officers issuing them with fines that they were confused.\n\nThose were clear breaches. More complicated is the fine line between the law - which police officers can enforce - and the government guidance, which they can’t.\n\nNo law says exercise can only be conducted once a day, or for a specific duration. These are pieces of firm guidance, along with the request to \"stay local\", which resulted in criticism of the prime minister after his bike ride in east London.\n\nIt would be difficult to set a distance limit which would work for both people living in rural areas and inner cities. Impossible to prove that a 65-minute run was in breach of the law.\n\nWhich is why the success of the measures will rely on personal responsibility in the end.\n\nAnd why some experts are saying that different messages such as \"act like you’ve got it\" or \"thanks for doing the right thing\" might cut through better than a list of regulations to be obeyed.", "Seven new mass vaccination centres have opened up across England to help deliver the Coronavirus vaccine, as the Prime Minister says we are facing a \"perilous moment\" in the fight against the virus.\n\nThe Centre of Life in Newcastle is home to one of them, with others in Bristol, Epsom, London, Manchester, Stevenage and Birmingham.\n\nInitially they will be used to vaccinate the over 80's, alongside NHS staff and health and social care workers. It's part of a drive that the government hopes will see 15 million people vaccinated against the virus by mid-February.", "But it delivered a fascinating look behind the scenes at two cutting-edge ways the firm is creating video content.\n\nThe first involved the use of a giant screen which is matched with movement-sensors on a camera to create a fake backdrop that shifts in turn with the lens.\n\nA similar technique was pioneered by Industrial Light & Magic and used in the Star Wars spin-off series The Mandalorian, but this opens the door to other filmmakers.\n\nThe screens involved use Sony's Crystal LED technology, which the firm first unveiled at CES in 2012, but has been unable to bring low down enough in price to take mainstream.\n\nIn effect, this is its version of micro-LED tech, using millions of tiny light emitting diodes (LEDs) to match the number of pixels. The result is much greater brightness and contrast than a normal LCD or OLED display would be capable of.\n\nThe background footage moves in time with the camera to aid the illusion Image caption: The background footage moves in time with the camera to aid the illusion\n\nUntil now, the firm has marketed the tech at building owners wanting the ultimate video walls. But this has the potential to help film and advert-makers place actors within environments they can see, rather than relying on greenscreen effects.\n\nThe second innovation was the creation of an \"immersive reality\" performance, which uses body sensors to create a highly-detailed animated version of an artist.\n\nIt was demoed by the singer-songwriter Madison Beer.\n\nMotion capture has been used for years to add special effects to characters in movies and to place real-world actors into video games.\n\nBut the aim here is to create a lifelike representation of a performer on stage at a concert.\n\nThe footage shown didn't quite escape the \"uncanny valley\" - there's still some way to go before we can't tell the difference between a real person and even a highly detailed avatar.\n\nBut it's easy to imagine that the tech being more impressive when viewed in virtual reality, where users can move about and choose their view.\n\nThe computer-generated image looks less real the closer you get to the performer Image caption: The computer-generated image looks less real the closer you get to the performer\n\nUntil now, VR apps of concerts have either offered a pick of different static camera locations or involved much lower-resolution characters.\n\nWith Covid meaning it's impossible for artists to tour, this second-best experience could be very timely when it's offered to PlayStation VR headsets and other devices soon.", "John Lewis is suspending its click and collect services and tightening safety measures after a \"change in tone\" from the government over the virus.\n\nThe department store will also pause in-home services, unless they are \"essential to customers' wellbeing\".\n\nThe retailer said it felt the changes were right with the country at a \"critical point in the pandemic\".\n\nHowever customers will be able to collect John Lewis orders from Waitrose stores.\n\nWaitrose, which belongs to the John Lewis Partnership, is also tightening rules over face coverings, following moves from the other supermarkets to make face masks mandatory for shoppers unless they have a medical exemption.\n\n\"We've listened carefully to the clear change in tone and emphasis of the views and information shared by the UK's governments in recent days,\" said Andrew Murphy, Executive Director, Operations.\n\n\"While we recognise that the detail of formal guidance has not changed, we feel it is right for us - and in the best interests of our Partners and customers - to take proactive steps to further enhance our Covid-security and related operational policies.\"\n\nJohn Lewis said click and collect from its department stores would be switched off for new orders from the end of Tuesday.\n\nExisting orders and bookings for services, such as installing washing machines, will still be carried out, if customers wish to proceed, but there will be no further bookings for non-essential services.\n\nMany other shops from coffee chains to craft suppliers are offering click and collect services. However, with the continued rise in coronavirus cases the government is examining ways to reduce social contact further.\n\nThe book chain Waterstones stopped offering click and collect services from its shops at the start of the current lockdown.\n\nMarks and Spencer said it was continuing to offer customers the opportunity to collect other items at its food halls, which are still open for grocery shopping.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Gary Furlong described his son as \"an amazing, kind boy\"\n\nThe father of one of three men murdered in a park terror attack has called on the home secretary to \"tell us why\" the killer was deemed safe to be free.\n\nGary Furlong, whose son James, 36, was killed in Reading's Forbury Gardens attack in June, said it was \"beyond\" him why Khairi Saadallah was considered \"not a danger to the public\".\n\nSaadallah was jailed for the rest of his life over the murders.\n\nThe Home Office has not yet responded to a BBC request for comment.\n\nAt the time of the attack Home Secretary Priti Patel said: \"We must learn the lessons from what has happened... to prevent anything like this from happening again.\"\n\nDuring his trial, London's Old Bailey heard Saadallah \"executed\" James Furlong, David Wails, 49, and Joe Ritchie-Bennett, 39, as an \"act of religious jihad\" on the afternoon of 20 June.\n\nHe was jailed on Monday having previously admitted the three murders and the attempted murders of three other men.\n\nKhairi Saadallah admitted three counts of murder and three of attempted murder\n\nThe Ministry of Justice said a Serious Further Offence (SFO) review had been completed into how Saadallah was managed by the National Probation Service.\n\nThe victims' families would be offered a meeting to discuss the findings of the review, it added.\n\nIt comes after the killer had been subject to licence conditions at the time of the attack.\n\nThe court previously heard on the 18 June, two days before the attack, Saadallah's probation officer had emailed his mental health team as he had been talking about \"magic\".\n\nSaadallah also contacted the mental health crisis team himself, but he did not not open the door when they visited on 19 June.\n\nThe court heard Saadallah, who arrived in Britain from Libya in 2012, had previously been involved with militias who had been part of the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, and was pictured handling weapons, including firearms.\n\nSince seeking asylum in Britain, he had been repeatedly arrested and convicted of various offences, including theft and assault, between 2013 and 2020.\n\nAnalysis of Saadallah's phone revealed an interest in extremist material and the court heard while at HMP Bullingdon in 2017, he was seen to associate with radical preacher Omar Brookes, who has connections with banned terrorist organisation Al-Muhajiroun.\n\nSpeaking after the sentencing, Gary Furlong, from Liverpool, said Ms Patel needed to \"tell us why this guy wasn't put into some form of detention centre before they could deport him\".\n\n\"He was not safe to be released back on the streets,\" he added.\n\nSaadallah, 26, had been told just before his release from prison that the Home Office wanted to deport him, but it was not legally possible due to the situation in Libya.\n\nIn law, what are known as the Hardial Singh principles place certain limits on the government's power to detain people ahead of deportation.\n\nThe Prime Minister's spokesman said the government \"always tries to remove foreign national offenders where possible\".\n\nHe was released from custody on 5 June, and proceeded to research the location for his attack online and carry out reconnaissance in the park.\n\n(L-R) David Wails, Joe Ritchie-Bennett and James Furlong were pronounced dead at the scene\n\nFollowing concerns from his brother, police visited the killer on 19 June, but he told officers he was \"alright\" while he stood near to a knife he bought from a supermarket.\n\nSaadallah's brother, Aiman, said he had asked for police to detain him under the Mental Health Act, and added \"lives would have been saved\" if more had been done.\n\nThames Valley Police has been contacted for comment.\n\nReading Refugee Support Group's (RRSG) also said it had raised concerns about his potential for radicalisation over three years and the possibility of a \"London Bridge\" scenario.\n\nIn a statement, it said Saadallah had a \"known, significant mental health problem\".\n\n\"This in no way excuses what he did. He murdered three innocent people. But there must be accountability on the part of services that should have supported him,\" it said.\n\nBut passing sentence Mr Justice Sweeney said it was \"clear that the defendant did not, and does not, have any major mental illness\".\n\nGary Furlong said: \"Given the volume of crimes he's committed and the information that they had on him, for an assessment to be done the night before to say that he's not a danger to the public - it is beyond me.\n\n\"How was he ever allowed to stay in this country? How was he allowed in, in the first place?\"\n\nHistory teacher James Furlong and pharmaceutical manager Mr Ritchie-Bennett each died from a single stab wound to the neck, while scientist Mr Wails was stabbed once in the back.\n\nDespite treatment from paramedics and doctors, all three friends, who were members of the LGBT community, died at the scene.\n\nGary Furlong described his son as \"an amazing, kind boy\" who was loved by family, friends and students.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Royal Mail has published a list of areas where there have been delivery delays due to its workforce being affected by the Covid pandemic.\n\nThe postal service said some areas will see a reduced service due to workers being off sick or self-isolating.\n\nRoyal Mail listed 28 areas where post might be late, with 27 in England and one in Northern Ireland.\n\nProblems with deliveries over Christmas had prompted shoppers to complain about parcels not arriving on time.\n\nRoyal Mail said: \"Despite our best efforts and significant investment in extra resource, some customers may experience slightly longer delivery timescales than our usual service standards.\n\n\"This is due to the exceptionally high volumes we are seeing, exacerbated by the coronavirus-related measures we have put in place in local mail centres and delivery offices to keep our people and customers safe.\"\n\nMany of the affected areas are in or near London, while others include Chelmsford in Essex, Leeds in West Yorkshire, Margate in Kent, and Widnes in Cheshire.\n\nLabour MP Wes Streeting, whose Ilford constituency is one of the areas affected, tweeted on Sunday that he was concerned about vaccination invitations getting caught up in Royal Mail delays.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Wes Streeting MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut Covid vaccine deployment minister Nadhim Zahawi replied that the government would work with Royal Mail to ensure that vaccine invitations were prioritised.\n\nCustomers have taken to Twitter to complain about delays to their postal service.\n\n\"Unfortunately I live in one of these areas.,\" wrote Matt S. \"N8 has been receiving an absolutely dreadful service since April 2020 - @RoyalMail what are you going to do to improve the situation?\"\n\nMark Harrison wrote: \"We could manage and expect a bit of disruption - but we've had only 2 deliveries in a month. Nothing for a fortnight. SE11 not even on the list of disrupted areas. Royal Mail need to get a grip.\"\n\nIn a service update on Tuesday, Royal Mail said: \"Due to resourcing issues, deliveries in the following areas are likely to be limited.\"", "Khairi Saadallah admitted three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder\n\nA killer who stabbed three men to death in a Reading park has been handed a whole-life jail term.\n\nKhairi Saadallah murdered James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49, and 39-year-old Joe Ritchie-Bennett, in June last year in Forbury Gardens.\n\nLondon's Old Bailey previously heard the 26-year-old \"executed\" the men as an \"act of religious jihad\".\n\nPassing sentence Judge Mr Justice Sweeney said it was a \"ruthless and brutal\" terror attack.\n\nSaadallah, who admitted the murders, had also pleaded guilty to the attempted murders of three other men who were also in the park.\n\nThe judge said the victims \"had no chance to react, let alone defend themselves\".\n\n(L-R) David Wails, Joe Ritchie-Bennett and James Furlong were pronounced dead at the scene\n\nHe said he was sure the attack \"involved a substantial degree of premeditation or planning\" and was carried out \"for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, or ideological cause\".\n\nBBC News correspondent Helena Wilkinson, who was in court, said the families of James Furlong and David Wails were present, while Joseph Ritchie-Bennett's loved ones watched via a link from America.\n\nSaadallah showed no emotion as Mr Justice Sweeney went through his sentencing remarks.\n\nOn the afternoon of 20 June, the park was busy due to the first lockdown restrictions being relaxed in England.\n\nAndrew Cafe, who witnessed the stabbings, said he saw Saadallah wielding the \"biggest kitchen knife\" and charging towards him shouting \"Allahu Akbar\".\n\nPharmaceutical manager Mr Ritchie-Bennett and teacher Mr Furlong died from single stab wounds to their necks, while scientist Mr Wails was stabbed once in the back.\n\nDespite treatment from paramedics and doctors, all three friends, who were members of the LGBT community, died at the scene.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Witness Andrew Cafe visited Forbury Gardens for the first time since the attack\n\nThree other people - Nishit Nisudan, Patrick Edwards and Stephen Young - were also injured, before Saadallah threw away the knife and fled the scene, pursued by police.\n\nFollowing his arrest, Saadallah initially said he wanted to plead guilty to the \"jihad that I done\", but the prosecution claimed he later feigned mental illness in police interviews.\n\nAt a previous hearing, the court heard he had developed an emotionally unstable and anti-social personality disorder, with his behaviour worsened by alcohol and cannabis misuse.\n\nBut the judge said it was \"clear that the defendant did not, and does not, have any major mental illness\".\n\nAn examination of Saadallah's phone revealed an interest in extremist material, including images of the flag of Islamic State and Jihadi John, the court previously heard.\n\nWhile at HMP Bullingdon in 2017, he was seen to associate with radical preacher Omar Brookes, who has connections with banned terrorist organisation Al-Muhajiroun.\n\nThe court heard Saadallah, who arrived in Britain from Libya in 2012, had previously been involved with militias who had been part of the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, and was pictured handling weapons, including firearms.\n\nSince seeking asylum in Britain, he had been repeatedly arrested and convicted of various offences, including theft and assault, between 2013 and 2020.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV cameras captured Khairi Saadallah before and after the stabbing\n\nHe briefly came to the attention of MI5 in 2019, but the information provided did not meet the threshold of investigation.\n\nSaadallah had been released from prison on 5 June, days before the attack, the court heard.\n\nOn 17 June, he researched the location for his attack online and carried out reconnaissance in the park.\n\nThe following day his probation officer alerted his mental health team over comments he made about magic.\n\nA day later, Saadallah contacted the crisis team himself, but when they visited he did not answer.\n\nFollowing concerns from his brother, police visited the killer the same day, but he told officers he was \"alright\" while he stood near a knife he bought from a supermarket.\n\nAndrew Wails said losing his brother had been devastating\n\nAfter the sentencing, James Furlong's father, Gary, said: \"The secretary of state needs to tell us why this guy wasn't put into some form of detention centre before they could deport him.\n\n\"He was not safe to be released back on the streets.\"\n\nReferring to the fact that Saadallah had been visited by police the night before the attack, Mr Furlong said: \"Given the volume of crimes he's committed and the information that they had on him, for an assessment to be done the night before to say that he's not a danger to the public - it is beyond me.\"\n\nHe described Mr Furlong, originally from Liverpool, as \"a lovely man, loved by his family, idolised by his mother\".\n\nDavid Wails' brother Andrew said: \"For us as a family it's been devastating to lose our much loved son, brother and uncle.\"\n\nIn a statement, the Bennett family described Mr Ritchie-Bennett as a \"devoted and loving husband\" and \"a man who cared strongly about family\".\n\nThe park had been busy due to the first lockdown restrictions being relaxed in England\n\nDet Ch Supt Kath Barnes, head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East, described Saadallah as \"a committed jihadist\".\n\nShe said: \"He has caused unspeakable hurt and distress to the families of the three men who were brutally murdered as they were relaxing and enjoying socialising with friends on a Saturday evening.\n\n\"I'm sure there will also be lasting effects on those who were injured in the attack, who were fortunate not to have been even more seriously harmed.\"\n\nReading Borough Council leader Jason Brock described the attacks as \"horrific\" and \"senseless\" and said a permanent memorial to the victims was planned.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Vogue editor Anna Wintour said images of Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris were meant to celebrate her achievements\n\nUS Vogue editor Anna Wintour has defended the magazine following criticism of its front-cover portrait of Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris.\n\nThe image shows Ms Harris wearing an informal outfit including jeans and a pair of Converse trainers.\n\nSocial media users have criticised Vogue for the photo's \"washed out\" lighting and styling, saying it does not reflect Ms Harris's achievements.\n\nBut Ms Wintour said the photos were intended to highlight her success.\n\n\"We want nothing but to celebrate Vice-President-elect Harris's amazing victory and the important moment this is for America's history and particularly women of colour all over the world,\" Ms Wintour said in a statement to the New York Times' Kara Swisher.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Vogue Magazine This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nShe also defended Vogue's decision to use the picture for the print cover of its February issue, rather than an alternative portrait of her in a more formal suit.\n\nA member of Ms Harris's team told AP news agency that Vogue staff, including Ms Wintour, agreed to feature the blue-suited image on cover. But Ms Wintour denied that any formal agreement had been made.\n\n\"All of us felt very, very strongly that the less formal portrait of the vice-president-elect really reflected the moment that we were living in,\" said Ms Wintour.\n\n\"We felt to reflect this tragic moment in global history, a much less formal picture... really reflected the hallmark of the Biden/Harris campaign and everything they were trying to - and I'm sure they will - achieve,\" the editor - herself an influential supporter of the Democratic Party - added.\n\nSources at Vogue told the New York Times that the second, more formal image may be used as a cover for a separate print edition.\n\nBoth pictures were taken by Tyler Mitchell who, in 2018, became the first black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover.\n\nThe magazine has been criticised in the past over issues relating to race.\n\nSeveral former employees previously shared experiences of alleged racism in the workplace with the New York Times.\n\nEarlier this year, British Vogue editor Edward Enninful spoke out after he was allegedly \"racially profiled\" by a security guard at the magazine's UK offices.\n\nYou might also be interested in:\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. HBO's Insecure is making sure lighting people of colour is not an afterthought", "A deal has been agreed for the sale of the Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Ponden Home and Bonmarché chains, which were on the brink of closure.\n\nThe businesses went into administration last year after a collapse in sales due to the pandemic.\n\nAlmost 2,000 staff will be kept on but as many as 260 stores could close.\n\nThe buyers are a consortium of international investors who will inject fresh funds into the business, led by the existing management team.\n\nEdinburgh Woollen Mill, which sells mid-price knitwear and other clothing to older shoppers, is part of a stable of retail brands owned by billionaire businessman, Philip Day.\n\nIt is understood that Mr Day will effectively lend the group the money to buy the businesses which will be paid back over a number of years.\n\nThe deal also covers two other brands in the group, value retailer Bonmarché, and Ponden Home, an interiors chain based in the south east of England.\n\nThe new owners plan to operate 246 stores across both the Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Ponden Home brands, retaining 1,453 staff in those stores, the head office and distribution centres in Carlisle.\n\nHowever, 85 Edinburgh Woollen Mill stores and 34 Ponden Home stores have been closed permanently, with the loss of 485 jobs.\n\nWakefield-based Bonmarché will retain 72 of its stores and 531 staff including head office and distribution centre staff.\n\nThe majority of its stores, 148 outlets, remain under review with staff on furlough.\n\nAdministrators representing Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Ponden Home said the deal represented the best chance to save stores and jobs, given the difficult outlook for UK retail.\n\n\"We regret that not all of Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Ponden Home could be rescued,\" said Tony Wright, partner at FRP. \"This has resulted in a significant number of redundancies at a particularly challenging time of year and period of economic uncertainty.\"\n\nRetail has been particularly hard hit by measures to curb the spread of Covid-19. Even when shops have been open many shoppers stayed away, wary of the health risks.\n\nThe British Retail Consortium said consumers bought 5% less last year than the year before (not including food). Much of that custom switched from the High Street to online, making it harder for chains whose customers usually shop in person. Physical stores saw sales drop by a quarter, the BRC said.\n\nOther major brands including Topshop-owner Arcadia and Debenhams have also gone into administration, costing hundreds of jobs.\n\n\"Lockdowns have proved hugely damaging for mid-range fashion chains like Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Bonmarché whose traditional customer base has not adapted so quickly to online shopping as younger shoppers,\" said Susannah Streeter, analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.\n\n\"The backers of this rescue deal clearly believe there is pent-up demand amongst core customers which will be released once the doors are flung open once more,\" she added.\n\nOn Monday, Marks & Spencer announced it was buying Jaeger, another brand that had belonged to Philip Day's portfolio.\n\nPeacocks, another High Street fashion brand in the EWM group remains in administration.", "As major social media platforms crack down on accounts promoting US election conspiracy theories, many conspiracy and far-right groups in the US are looking for a new home online.\n\nTwitter hasn’t just kicked the president off the platform. It’s also closed down some 70,000 accounts associated with the QAnon conspiracy, while Facebook said it is continuing efforts to shut down “Stop the Steal” groups which allege, with no evidence, that Donald Trump was cheated of the presidency.\n\nOne of the most popular alternatives had been the self-styled “free speech” social media outlet Parler, but then over the weekend that was banned too for posts inciting violence.\n\nThen there’s Gab, a Twitter-like platform popular with right-wing groups, which is awash with extreme content and welcomes QAnon followers with open arms. It claims to have added 600,000 new users since the riots.\n\nIt’s thought Gab’s user base is far smaller than that of the now-closed Parler, which had around 16m users.\n\nOthers seem to be moving to MeWe, which is similar to Facebook.\n\nThere are some parallels with online jihadists, who also found their voices silenced after the rise of Islamic State in the Middle East.\n\nThe Islamic State group and al-Qaeda frequently have to re-establish their online presence after social media companies identify and close their accounts, leading to a nomadic online existence.\n\nThey have already adapted to life outside the big social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook and have exploited less well known platforms and apps to get their messages out.\n• 65 days that led to chaos at the Capitol", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid in Scotland: Lockdown likely to extend to February\n\nScotland's first minister has said the country's current lockdown is \"very unlikely\" to be lifted at the end of the month.\n\nNicola Sturgeon was speaking as she confirmed that more than 5,000 people have now died after testing positive for the virus.\n\nA review of the current restrictions is due to be carried out at the end of January.\n\nMs Sturgeon said it was possible that there would be no easing at that point.\n\nA further 54 deaths have been recorded in the past 24 hours - bringing the total by that measure to 5,023.\n\nBut the most recent figures from the National Records of Scotland - which record all deaths registered in Scotland where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate - put the total at 6,686.\n\nMs Sturgeon told her daily briefing that the figures were a reminder of the toll the virus had taken.\n\nAnd she said every death had caused heartbreak to friends, families and loved ones across the country.\n\nThe first minister also said Scotland's NHS would be under far greater pressure if the current restrictions had not been put in place on Boxing Day.\n\nAnd she urged people not to raise their expectations about what will be announced when the lockdown review is completed in a fortnight as wholesale lifting of the restrictions was \"very unlikely\".\n\nShe added: \"There may not even be any lifting of these restrictions as soon as the end of January - we will have to consider all of that carefully and set it out in due course.\"\n\nAll of mainland Scotland and some islands were placed into level four restrictions on 26 December, with schools remaining closed to most pupils until at least the end of the month.\n\nA further 1,875 positive cases of the virus were recorded on Monday, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 153,423.\n\nThe number of people in hospital with the virus stands at 1,717 - an increase of 53 since yesterday and higher than the peak of about 1,500 in the first wave in April.\n\nOf these, 133 patients are intensive care units, with Ms Sturgeon saying that the virus was putting \"very acute pressure\" on hospitals.\n\nThe first minister also said that 175,942 people in Scotland had received their first vaccine dose by Monday.\n\nOpposition parties have claimed that the rollout of the vaccine has been \"sluggish\" in Scotland compared to south of the border - a charge that the government denies.\n\nAnd they have called for greater transparency over how many people are being given the jab every day.\n\nHealth Secretary Jeane Freeman said on Monday that the government was aiming to vaccinate about 560,000 people in Scotland by 31 January.\n\nNon-essential shops have been closed in Scotland since 26 December\n\nThe Scottish government has previously said it is concerned that too many people have not been following the \"stay at home\" rules that are in place across the whole of the mainland and some islands.\n\nMinisters have been discussing the possibility of imposing tougher rules on click and collect shopping and takeaway food, with an announcement expected to be made on Wednesday.\n\nRetail industry representatives have described click and collect services as a \"lifeline\" for struggling businesses amid the forced closure of all non-essential shops.\n\nAnd they said they had not been shown any evidence that click and collect was driving transmission of the virus.\n\nMs Sturgeon told her daily coronavirus briefing that the government may not stop click and collect services altogether.\n\nBut she added: \"If we are saying to people right now that you should not be out of your home for shopping unless it is essential, then do we need to have click and collect for non-essential services instead of having that for delivery?\"\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross told BBC Scotland that he did not want to see further restrictions put in place unless there was evidence that they would have the desired effect.\n\nHe also suggested that restricting click and collect would simply result in more people going back into supermarkets to do their shopping.\n\nThe Scottish government is also under pressure to lift the the current ban on public Sunday worship, with a group of 500 church leaders from across the UK - including 200 in Scotland - insisting that there is \"no evidence of any tangible contribution to community transmission through churches in Scotland\".\n\nIn a letter to the first minister, they claim that the ban may be unlawful and accuse the government of failing to understand that \"Christian worship is an essential public service, and especially vital to our nation in a time of crisis\".\n\nA Scottish government spokeswoman said: \"Test and Protect tells us where people were in their 48-hour infectious period.\n\n\"So we know that on one day last week the seven-day number for places of worship was 120, and data from yesterday shows the seven-day number for places of worship is 38, underlining the essential decision to require places of worship to close for public health reasons.\"\n\nMeanwhile, it has been confirmed that everyone arriving in Scotland from overseas will need to show proof of a negative test from Friday.\n\nThe test will need to be \"highly reliable\", the first minister said, and will need to have been from the previous three days - although young children may be exempt from the restriction.\n\nThose travelling from countries not on the quarantine exemption list will still need to self-isolate on arrival.\n\nThe new rules, which will also come into force in England, were first outlined last week.", "Sir David Attenborough has previously spoken of his support for the Covid-19 vaccines\n\nSir David Attenborough has become the latest well-known name to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, his representative has confirmed.\n\nThe news about the 94-year-old natural historian comes a few days after it was revealed the Queen had been vaccinated.\n\nIt's not known which vaccine Sir David has been given or exactly when he had it.\n\nThe Perfect Planet host is one of several stars to receive the first of two doses of the vaccine.\n\nThey include The Great British Bake Off's Prue Leith, actor Sir Ian McKellen, choreographer Lionel Blair, actor Brian Blessed and actress Dame Joan Collins.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThere are currently three vaccines approved for administration in the UK - Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, although supplies of the latter are not expected to arrive until spring.\n\nSir David, who has been isolating at his London home, has previously talked about his support for the work in developing a means of protection from Covid-19.\n\nIn an interview with The Telegraph last month he said he would definitely accept an invitation to be vaccinated when his time came.\n\n\"At 94, I think I'm entitled!\" he told the newspaper.\n\n\"I'm sufficient of a scientist still, I hope, to realise this is the thing to do.\"\n\nHe added that the work that had gone into developing the vaccines showed the positive effects of international cooperation in combating global problems, such as the climate crisis.\n\n\"It (the virus) has drawn attention to the fact we aren't as omnipotent and all-controlling as we think we are,\" he told the paper.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The United Arab Emirates is being removed from the UK list of travel corridors amid a spike in Covid cases.\n\nThat means anyone who arrives from the UAE after 04:00 GMT on Tuesday now needs to self-isolate for 10 days, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said.\n\nUK officials say Covid cases have risen 52% in the UAE in the last seven days and cite \"a significant acceleration in the number of imported cases\".\n\nIt comes after Scotland removed the UAE city Dubai from its safe travel list.\n\nThe Foreign Office has also updated its advice to advise against all but essential travel to the emirates.\n\nThe recent lockdown restrictions imposed across the UK mean leisure travel is currently banned.\n\nBut the UAE has been in particular focus in recent weeks after a number of UK reality TV and social media stars posted photographs of themselves holidaying there before the rules came into place.\n\nAnd a Celtic footballer tested positive for Covid-19 after the club took a trip to Dubai for a winter training camp.\n\nCeltic were allowed to go as a group under exemptions for elite athletes. As a result,15 playing and coaching staff are now required to self-isolate.\n\nDubai was added to Scotland's travel quarantine list from 04:00 GMT on Monday - with the rule also applying retrospectively for passengers who have arrived in Scotland from the city since January 3.\n\nThe Department for Transport said the removal of the whole of the UAE from the travel corridor is being adopted by all four UK nations.\n\nArrivals to the UK from most destinations now have to quarantine for 10 days.\n\nHowever, arrivals from some countries are exempt from the rules. Those countries make up the so-called travel corridor list.\n\nFrom this week, passengers arriving by boat, train or plane, including UK nationals, must also take a Covid test up to 72 hours before leaving the country of departure.\n\nAre you affected by the government decision to remove UAE from the UK travel corridor list? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "A Scottish earl has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman at his ancestral home in Angus.\n\nThe Earl of Strathmore, Simon Bowes-Lyon, forced his way into the sleeping woman's room during a weekend event he was hosting at Glamis Castle.\n\nHe repeatedly assaulted the 26-year-old victim and tried to pull off her nightdress during the 20-minute attack.\n\nBowes-Lyon, 34 - who is the Queen's first cousin twice removed - has been placed on the sex offenders register.\n\nHe was granted bail at Dundee Sheriff Court and sentence was deferred.\n\nSheriff Alistair Carmichael also ordered Glamis Castle be assessed for its suitability to house Bowes-Lyon while under a tagging order.\n\nThe court heard the woman fled the castle the morning after the attack on 13 February last year and flew home to report the matter to police.\n\nBoth Police Scotland and the Metropolitan Police were involved in the investigation.\n\nGlamis Castle was the childhood home of the Queen Mother\n\nOutside court, Bowes-Lyon said he was \"greatly ashamed\" of his actions.\n\nHe added: \"Clearly I had drunk to excess on the night of the incident. I should have known better. I recognise, in any event, that alcohol is no excuse for my behaviour.\n\n\"I did not think I was capable of behaving the way I did but have had to face up to it and take responsibility.\n\n\"My apologies go, above all, to the woman concerned, but I would also like to apologise to family, friends and colleagues for the distress I have caused them.\"\n\nGlamis Castle, near Forfar, has been the seat of the Bowes-Lyon family since 1372.\n\nIt was the childhood home of the Queen Mother, and the Queen's sister Princess Margaret was born there.\n\nBowes-Lyon was a great-great nephew of the Queen Mother.", "Some Covid restrictions are being reintroduced in response to the Omicron variant.\n\nCheck what the rules are in your area by entering your postcode or council name below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. What are the rules in your area? Enter a full UK postcode or council name to find out\n\nIf you cannot see the look-up, click here.\n\nThe rules highlighted in the search tool are a selection of the key government restrictions in place in your area.\n\nAlways check your relevant national and local authority website for more information on the situation where you live. Also check local guidance before travelling to others parts of the UK.\n\nAll the guidance in our search look-up comes from national government websites.\n\nFor more information on national measures see:\n\nFind out how the pandemic has affected your area and how it compares with the national average by following this link to an in depth guide to the numbers involved.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid lockdown: Are supermarkets following the rules?\n\nSupermarket workers are facing abuse for challenging shoppers not wearing masks during the pandemic, staff say.\n\nOne Mold supermarket worker said she was challenging people every day and seeing \"loads of people walking around\" the store without masks and in groups.\n\nThe Welsh Government has hinted rules will be tightened amid concerns Covid-19 rules are not being followed.\n\n\"This is not a social event, come in on your own, not as a family of five,\" the supermarket worker said.\n\nSupermarket workers spoke to BBC Radio Wales as Health Minister Vaughan Gething said the \"onus\" was on supermarkets to make sure shoppers abided by the rules.\n\nThere has been an \"escalation of abuse\" towards supermarket staff in the last nine months, and the role of policing such rules must not fall on those on the shop floor, Nick Ireland Divisional Officer of the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) said.\n\nHe said measures in stores had \"rolled back\", with many no longer enforcing systems, and people walking the wrong way down one-way systems, and \"whole families\" shopping with just one basket.\n\nMeanwhile Bally Auluk, an area organiser in Cardiff and Barry for Usdaw, said abuse towards shopworkers was happening on \"a daily and weekly basis\".\n\nHe said retailers and the Welsh Government should \"start protecting shop workers\" after dealing with members himself who were \"threatened with physical violence and spat on\".\n\n\"Customers now are treating it almost like it was last year, that it's not a problem, that is where the big issues arises,\" he said.\n\nThe Welsh Government is in discussions about bringing in \"more visible\" coronavirus regulations.\n\nMorrisons and Sainsbury's had pledged to challenge shoppers not wearing face coverings in store, unless they have a medical exemption.\n\nTesco, Asda and Waitrose are the latest supermarkets to follow the move and challenge those who flout the rules.\n\nUnder coronavirus rules, people must wear face coverings in order to enter shops across the UK, while supermarkets should have social distancing and strict hygiene measures in place.\n\nThe Welsh Government has been in talks with retailers on how to improve safety and return to the strict observance of social distancing from the first lockdown, although no new guidance has been issued.\n\nFirst Minister Mark Drakeford said he had heard concerns from people \"expressing anxiety\" about a lack of \"visible protections\" in supermarkets, such as limited numbers allowed in store, hand sanitiser and security on doors.\n\nThe Mold supermarket worker said staff had been told not to challenge people not wearing masks, and had seen people being yelled at.\n\nJane, who did not give her last name, told BBC Wales customers were offered a mask on the way in, but many did not want them.\n\n\"You do see a lot of customers walking around without a mask on,\" she said.\n\n\"Of course there are people with hidden disabilities who can't wear a mask but there can't be that many of them.\"\n\nJane said enforcement needed to be greater, but it should not be led by the shopfloor staff.\"We're told not to challenge people as we don't know someone's personal situation and we don't want to face any abuse if they don't want to wear it or don't agree with it,\" she said.\n\n\"At the moment people will ask politely, but I have witnessed quite a few occasions where customers have been verbally abusive to the person greeting them on their way in.\n\n\"There needs to be someone enforcing this, it can't be left to retail staff: whether its a police officer or a security guard.\"\n\nSupermarket aisles carrying non-essential items are closed off again, as they were during the firebreak lockdown\n\nOne security guard at a supermarket in Aberdare said he had had more \"hassle\" working in the past 10 months at the store, than from drinkers while working as a nightclub doorman for more than 20 years.\n\n\"The attitude towards yourself... they don't appreciate that you're standing there for 12 hours a day, they don't understand how hard it is to try and keep people distancing,\" he told Dot Davies on BBC Radio Wales.\n\n\"When they go inside the shop it all goes out the window... we keep the two metres outside, but we've got people coming outside to tell us we should be in there sorting it out.\"\n\nOne supermarket manager said the lengths people were going to in order to shop together were \"ridiculous\", with families coming in with a number of trolleys or baskets in order not to be challenged.\n\n\"We've seen families turning up to go shopping for a basket shop, it's just not on,\" said Mr Ireland, who called on supermarket staff to be prioritised for vaccines.\n\nHe suggested those who do not observe the rules should be banned and fined.\n\nBut one mother said that she had no choice but to shop with her children, and she had been unable to get a click and collect or delivery slot.\n\n\"It's easy to get caught up in the fear of it, but some people are at the shops as they have no choice,\" she said.\n\nOthers have spoken of shop staff themselves not wearing masks.\n\nJames Lowman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores, said it was \"everyone's responsibility\" to abide by the rules, rather than for shop workers to enforce.\n\n\"Doing that [enforcement of rules] in a small store, where you don't have lots of colleagues around, has been a trigger for more abuse and even violence,\" he said.\n\nMr Lowman said making businesses Covid secure was down to the local authority, while individuals' behaviour was a matter for police, but \"in practicality\" it is everyone's responsibility.\n\nBut Mr Gething said the \"onus\" for getting shoppers to follow Covid-19 rules, such as wearing masks, social-distancing and cordoning off non-essential items, was on the supermarket managers.\n\n\"[It needs to be made] clear that you do need to wear a mask unless you can demonstrate that you have a particular exemption,\" he said.\n\n\"I don't think there's any lack of understanding. We've been through this before and I do think a number of supermarkets are going to go and make clear there are a range of items that are off-limits for shoppers coming in.\n\n\"Supermarkets understand what they need to do.\"", "London's Nightingale hospital was built in nine days, with the help of hundreds of soldiers\n\nLondon's Nightingale hospital has been reopened and is admitting patients to help with the coronavirus spread in the capital.\n\nMedical director Dr Vin Diwakar said the facility at London's ExCeL Centre also had a vaccination centre on site.\n\nIt was placed on standby in May after fewer than 20 patients were treated following a grand opening on 3 April.\n\nDr Diwakar said the Nightingale was being used to treat non-coronavirus patients.\n\nIn the Downing Street press conference, he explained it was taking non-Covid patients to help free up beds in London's hospitals.\n\nHe said: \"This means that hospitals have more beds to care for Covid-19 patients and for our very sickest patients. We cannot do this indefinitely.\n\n\"There comes a point where if the infection gets further out of control, more and more patients from London will need to be transferred elsewhere.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What does it mean if the NHS is overwhelmed?\n\nAt the start of November, he said, London had 1,000 Covid-19 patients.\n\nThis increased four-fold to 4,000 on Christmas Day and has doubled to just under 8,000 today, with more than 1,000 of those on critical care, he told the press conference.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by BBC News (UK) This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut Dr Diwakar said there was \"hope\", with one hall of the ExCel Centre having opened as London's first mass vaccination centre.\n\n\"I can tell you Covid-19 is a horrible, horrible disease that leaves so many, including young people, breathless and gasping for life,\" he said.\n\nOn Friday, the Mayor of London declared a \"major incident\" as he described the coronavirus spread in the capital as \"out of control\".\n\nMore than 120 firefighters and 75 Met Police officers have been drafted in to help the London Ambulance Service cope with demand.", "The data showed men were more likely to be admitted to intensive care units\n\nAround half of patients admitted to Welsh intensive care units during the second wave of the pandemic have died, a study has found.\n\nThe Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) found men aged in their 60s were more likely to need intensive care.\n\nIt also found those from Asian backgrounds and deprived areas were disproportionately affected.\n\nBut a leading doctor said, overall, people were more likely to survive now.\n\nIntensive care consultant Matt Morgan said new treatments meant only the sickest patients were reaching intensive care, where outcomes were poorer.\n\nICNARC collected information on 431 Welsh patients who were critically ill with coronavirus from 1 September to 31 December 2020 as part of a UK-wide audit of intensive care patients.\n\nOf the patients who were admitted, 68% were men and 32% women. The average age of a patient was 59.5 years.\n\nIntensive care consultant Matt Morgan said, overall, patients were more likely to survive Covid now\n\nWhile the vast majority of patients were white (91.6%), the number of patients of Asian ethnicity was more than double the proportion of the Asian population, with 6.3% of patients recorded as being Asian, compared to an average of 2.4% in their local population.\n\nThe audit of patients found that, excluding those still being treated at the unit, half had died while half had been discharged.\n\nAlthough the numbers of patients surveyed is relatively low for statistical purposes, Dr Morgan said the survival rate reflected the situation in hospitals.\n\n\"We are putting fewer people, who are in the first stage of their illness, on to life support machines. And that is because we have treatments now that we know can help,\" he said.\n\n\"Overall, you are more likely now to survive Covid than ever before, and that is in every age group - sometimes by as much as 10% more.\n\n\"What we do know is that overall, out of every ten people who come to intensive care with Covid about six of them will survive and will leave the intensive care unit. Which means sadly four of them won't, four of them will die.\n\n\"That's similar overall to the first wave but that data is based on some patients who are still in the intensive care unit. So that may change and it's more likely to get worse rather than better.\"\n\n\"We also know patients who are on life support machines in the intensive care unit will do worse than those who come to the intensive care unit and are not on life support machines.\n\n\"For those people, it's probably five out of 10 people who will survive and five who will sadly die and that may be worse when we have the data on those who are still there.\n\n\"And there's a big effect of age. So for those over the age of 70 it may be as little as four people out of 10 who survive, maybe less. And for those over the age of 80 it may be as low as one or two people out of ten who survive.\n\nThe figures from ICNARC also highlight how people from poorer backgrounds were more likely to need treatment in intensive care.\n\nUsing a deprivation score from 1 to 5, more than half of patients scored 4 or 5, representing the most deprived postcodes in Wales.\n\nDr Morgan said: \"Sadly, disease is an illness of deprivation.\n\n\"And so that's why we feel it, particularly in Wales where the industrial scars of our past are still very much there - and our health is there.\"", "The men were arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance at hospitals in Birmingham and Worcestershire\n\nFour men have been arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance at hospitals in the West Midlands.\n\nThe men, aged between 31 and 37, were held in relation to incidents in Birmingham and Worcestershire between 31 December and 9 January.\n\nEarlier this month, police said they were investigating after people posted videos of supposedly empty hospital corridors on social media.\n\nThe videos claiming Covid-19 was a hoax sparked an outcry from medical workers.\n\nWest Mercia Police launched a joint investigation with West Midlands Police, after incidents were reported at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Alexandra in Redditch.\n\nHospitals in Worcester and Kidderminster also featured, before the footage was deleted.\n\nThe West Mercia force confirmed it had arrested two men from Bromsgrove aged 31 and 34 as well as a 37 year-old man from Kidderminster and a fourth man, aged 34, from Droitwich.\n\nThey were also detained relating to incidents in a park in Bromsgrove as well as the town centre.\n\nAll four men have since been bailed with conditions not to enter any hospital in England unless they have a medical reason to do so.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Birmingham has one of the largest intensive care capacities in the whole country\n\nTwo hundred doctors will be redeployed to one of England's largest intensive care units amid fears it could be \"overwhelmed\".\n\nA leaked memo warned hospitals in Birmingham were \"in a position of extremis\" as Covid-19 cases rise.\n\nElective surgeries at the city's main Queen Elizabeth Hospital will stop as staff move to critical care duties.\n\nA spokesperson said the approach ensured \"the greatest good for the greatest numbers of people\".\n\nThe trust's decision to redeploy doctors was revealed in a leaked email to the Health Service Journal, which has been verified by the BBC.\n\nSent by consultant Peter Hewins, it said hospitals in Birmingham risked being \"overwhelmed\" amid a \"period of absolute emergency\".\n\nThe University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) said there were 873 patients with Covid-19 across its sites, with 125 in intensive care.\n\nThis was significantly more than in April 2020, it said, as it announced plans to double its intensive care capacity to more than 250 beds.\n\nTime-critical surgery, including cancer operations, will continue, the trust said, but elective procedures at the Queen Elizabeth will be paused, and reduced elsewhere.\n\nThere will also be a \"further reduction of outpatient activity\", a spokesperson said, adding: \"Every member of staff will be supported by the Trust in delivering the best care wherever they are working.\"\n\nThere are currently 873 Covid-19 patients being treated at the trust\n\nNeighbouring University Coventry and Warwickshire Hospitals Trust confirmed it had started taking Covid patients from Birmingham.\n\nUniversity Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) is one of the largest teaching hospital trusts in England.\n\nIt runs several hospitals, including Birmingham Heartlands, the Queen Elizabeth, Solihull Hospital and Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield. It also runs Birmingham Chest Clinic.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Boris Johnson - pictured here in 2013 - has long been a fan of cycling\n\nBoris Johnson has been criticised for travelling seven miles from Downing Street to go cycling during lockdown.\n\nThe Evening Standard reported the prime minister had been spotted in the Olympic Park in East London on Sunday.\n\nGovernment advice allows people to exercise outside, but says you should not travel outside your local area.\n\nA No 10 spokesman would not confirm if Mr Johnson had been driven to the park or cycled there, but said the PM had complied with Covid-19 guidelines.\n\nLabour's Andy Slaughter said: \"Once again it is do as I say, not as I do, from the prime minister.\"\n\nThe Hammersmith MP added: \"London has some of the highest infection rates in the country. Boris Johnson should be leading by example.\"\n\nIn response to the criticism, a Downing Street source told the BBC: \"The PM has exercised within the Covid rules and any suggestion to the contrary is wrong.\"\n\nA woman told the PA news agency she had seen the prime minister in the park: \"He was leisurely cycling with another guy with a beanie hat and chatting, while around four security guys, possibly more, cycled behind them.\n\n\"Considering the current situation with Covid I was shocked to see him cycling around looking so care-free.\n\n\"Also, considering he's advising everyone to stay at home and not leave their area, shouldn't he stay in Westminster and not travel to other boroughs?\"\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock was asked at Monday's Downing Street press conference whether travelling seven miles for a cycle ride was within the rules.\n\nMr Hancock said: \"It is OK, if you went for a long walk and ended up seven miles from home, that is OK, but you should stay local.\n\n\"It is OK to go for a long walk or a cycle ride or to exercise, but stay local.\"\n\nThe issue of travelling for exercise was highlighted at the weekend after two women said they were surrounded by police and fine £200 after driving five miles from home to take a walk.\n\nDerbyshire Police have now dropped the fine and apologised to the women, but the incident led to a debate over the guidance.\n\nGovernment advice for England says you can leave your home to exercise, but adds: \"This should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area.\"\n\nThe guidance adds: \"Stay local means stay in the village, town, or part of the city where you live.\"\n\nIn Scotland, the advice is more precise, saying exercise can be taken if it \"starts and finishes at the same place, which can be up to five miles from the boundary of your local authority area\".\n\nFormer Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, who represents a constituency in the Lake District, has written to the PM calling for clearer guidance on exercise similar to that in Scotland.\n\nHe wrote: \"On the one hand, our local police force here in Cumbria are reporting that people... have travelled hundreds of miles to take their exercise in the Lake District.\n\n\"And on the other hand, I have constituents writing to me, worried whether they will be punished for driving five minutes up the road to go for a walk in their local park.\"\n\nMr Farron added: \"We need a solution that clearly deters people from making lengthy trips and potentially spreading the virus, but also that doesn't discourage people from keeping fit and healthy.\"", "Retailers suffered their worst annual sales performance on record in 2020, driven by slump in demand for fashion and homeware products, figures show.\n\nWhile food sales growth rose 5.4% on 2019, non-food fell about 5%, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said.\n\nIt meant an overall fall of 0.3% in a year dominated by the Covid-19 impact, the worst annual change since the BRC began collating the figures in 1995.\n\nChristmas offered little cheer, with much of the High Street still closed.\n\n\"Physical non-food stores, including all of non-essential retail, saw sales drop by a quarter compared with 2019,\" said Helen Dickinson, BRC chief executive.\n\n\"Christmas offered little respite for these retailers, as many shops were forced to shut during the peak trading period,\" she said.\n\nThe 5.4% rise in food sales was fuelled by shoppers flocking to supermarkets and online grocers to ensure they were stocked up during the pandemic.\n\nIn December, total retail sales increased by 1.8% as shoppers spent more in the run-up to Christmas. Like-for-like sales for the month were up 4.8% as overall shop takings were still affected by restrictions and temporary closures.\n\nOnline non-food sales jumped by 44.8% in December, according to the new figures, as a higher proportion of shopping took place online.\n\nThe BRC's sales monitor is collated with the consultancy KPMG, whose UK head of retail, Paul Martin, said: \"In the most important month for the retail industry, there was some positive growth due to the ongoing shift of expenditure from other categories such as travel and leisure.\n\n\"Once again we saw big swings in the types of products being purchased and the channels used for shopping, with much of the growth taking place online, where nearly half of all non-food purchases were made.\"\n\nBut he warned that the new lockdown would worsen conditions for many non-essential shops and the High Street generally.\n\nLast week, a report from the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) said that 2020 was the worst for High Street job losses in more than 25 years, as the coronavirus accelerated the move towards online shopping.\n\nNearly 180,000 retail jobs were lost last year, up by almost a quarter from 2019, the CRR said.", "The Covid pandemic has caused excess deaths to rise to their highest level in the UK since World War Two.\n\nThere were close to 697,000 deaths in 2020 - nearly 85,000 more than would be expected based on the average in the previous five years.\n\nThis represents an increase of 14% - making it the largest rise in excess deaths for more than 75 years.\n\nWhen the age and size of the population is taken into account, 2020 saw the worst death rates since the 2000s.\n\nThis measure - known as age-standardised mortality - takes into account population growth and age.\n\nThe data is only available until November - so the impact of deaths in December have not yet been taken into account - but it shows the death rate at that stage was at its highest in England since 2008.\n\nThe data on deaths can be confusing.\n\nOn one hand, excess deaths are at their highest since World War Two, while on the other, death rates, once age and size of population are taken into account, are at their worst level for a little over a decade 'only'.\n\nHow should that be interpreted?\n\nExcess deaths are basically a measure of how many more people are dying than would be expected based on the previous few years.\n\nClearly, 2020 saw a huge and unexpected rise in deaths because of the pandemic, just as World War Two led to a sudden jump.\n\nBut in determining how much those jumps affected the chances of dying, a measure known as age-standardised mortality, which takes into account the age and size of the population, is important.\n\nIt shows the pandemic has undone the progress made in the last decade or so. That is significant - especially given this has happened despite lockdowns and social-distancing measures to stop the spread of the virus.\n\nBut it also helps put the death toll over the past 12 months in a wider context.\n\nKing's Fund chief executive Richard Murray said the picture was likely to worsen, given Covid deaths were rising following the surge in infections over recent weeks.\n\n\"The UK has one of the highest rates of excess deaths in the world, with more excess deaths per million people than most other European countries or the US,\" he said.\n\n'It will take a public inquiry to determine exactly what went wrong, but mistakes have been made.\n\n\"In a pandemic, mistakes cost lives. Decisions to enter lockdown have consistently come late, with the government failing to learn from past mistakes or the experiences of other countries.\n\n\"The promised 'protective ring' around social care in the first wave was slow to materialise and often inadequate, a contributing factor to the excess deaths among care home residents last year.\n\n'Like many countries, the UK was poorly prepared for this type of pandemic.\"\n\nMatthew Reed, of the end-of-life care charity Marie Curie said the focus on Covid should not hide the fact there has been a \"silent crisis\" of deaths at home.\n\nHe said people have died prematurely in 2020 from other causes - with a big jump in deaths at home.\n\n\"We are concerned many have not had the care they needed,\" he added.\n• None Lockdown needs to be stricter, scientists warn", "Officer Eugene Goodman is being celebrated for his heroics\n\nCapitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman is being called a hero for a second time after footage shown at the impeachment trial shows him directing Mitt Romney away from an advancing mob.\n\nIn the video, the officer is seen notifying Mr Romney that the rioters were heading in his direction and guiding him away.\n\nThe Utah senator, an unpopular figure among Trump supporters, said he looked forward to thanking the police officer for his actions.\n\nOfficer Goodman was already being praised for his bravery that day, after singlehandedly steering a mob away from the Senate chambers.\n\nVideo footage showed him just steps ahead of rioters as they chase him up a flight of stairs.\n\nMr Goodman is then seen glancing towards the Senate entrance before luring the men in the opposite direction.\n\nFive people, including a police officer, died as a result of the riots.\n\nThe officer was seen confronting a pro-Trump rioter during the attack\n\nMembers of the 2,000-person Capitol police department are tasked with protecting the Capitol building and those inside, it.\n\nA group of senators has introduced a bill to award Officer Goodman with the Congressional Gold Medal.\n\nNews of his additional heroics involving Senator Romney will only amplify calls for him to be recognised.\n\nThe senator said he was unaware of the danger he was in until he saw the footage at the trial on Wednesday.\n\nSenator Mitt Romney said he was looking forward to thanking Officer Goodman\n\nIt formed part of the Democratic prosecution in trying to underline the peril the heart of US government was under as Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol.\n\nSenator Romney said it was \"overwhelmingly distressing and emotional\" to see the violence again, six weeks after the attack.\n\nAnd reflecting on his own narrow escape, he added he was looking forward to thanking Officer Goodman \"when I next see him\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. See how close the mob got to Mike Pence, Mitt Romney and other lawmakers\n\nNew York Law School criminal law professor and 20-year veteran of the New York City Police Department Kirk Burkhalter called Mr Goodman's response to the rioters \"tremendous\".\n\n\"I don't think there was any type of training that would prepare you for that situation,\" Mr Burkhalter told the BBC, speaking days after the attack.\n\nIn the video shot by Huffington Post reporter Igor Bobic, Mr Goodman, who is black, is antagonised by the group of Trump supporters - who are all white men.\n\nThe man at the front of the pack, wearing a QAnon T-shirt, has been identified as Doug Jensen of Iowa. He was later arrested by local police and the FBI for his role in the riots.\n\nFootage shows Mr Jensen leading the mob that chased Mr Goodman up a flight of stairs - just a few feet away from the entrance to the Senate floor. As he is pursued, Mr Goodman shouts \"second floor!\" into his radio, seemingly alerting other officers of the group approaching the chamber.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Igor Bobic This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAfter Mr Goodman glances toward the Senate chamber entrance, he shoves Mr Jensen - a move seemingly designed to draw attention on to himself, luring the mob away from the chambers and those hiding inside.\n\nThe image of Mr Goodman trailed by a mob - some armed with Confederate flags, others with allusions to the Nazi flag - was extremely disturbing, Mr Burkhalter said.\n\n\"Police officer, not a police officer, to see a black man being chased by someone carrying a Confederate flag - there is something wrong with that picture. That should never happen again,\" he said.\n\n\"It just reeks of everything we need to correct.\"\n\nMr Goodman's standoff with the mob came just minutes before authorities were able to seal the chamber, according to reporting from the Washington Post.\n\nHis heroics were noted at the highest level - he was invited to the inauguration as a guest of Vice-President Kamala Harris.", "Naomi Campbell and Kenyan Tourism Minister Najib Balala sealed the deal over the weekend\n\nThe appointment of British supermodel Naomi Campbell as Kenya's tourism ambassador has caused a Twitter storm in the East African nation.\n\nMany queried why it had not been given to a prominent Kenyan like Hollywood actress Lupita Nyong'o.\n\nOthers leapt to her defence, saying the debate already justified her role.\n\nKenya's tourism sector has been badly hit by coronavirus, with visitor numbers down by 72% between January and October last year.\n\n\"The sector hence lost over 110bn Kenyan shillings [$1bn, £738m] of direct international tourists' revenue due to the Covid-19 pandemic,\" Kenya's Tourism Research Institute reported last month.\n\nThe country is famous for its wildlife safaris and beach resorts.\n\nKenyan Tourism Minister Najib Balala said the deal with Ms Campbell was done over the weekend after he met the model, who is currently on holiday in Kenya.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Ministry of Tourism & Wildlife-Kenya This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Ministry of Tourism & Wildlife-Kenya\n\nThe 50-year-old style icon and philanthropist has been posting images of her stay on Instagram, where she has 10 million followers.\n\n\"We welcome the exciting news that Naomi Campbell will advocate for tourism and travel internationally for the Magical Kenya brand,\" Mr Balala said, without giving further deals of the contract.\n\nBut the statement, posted on Twitter on Tuesday, prompted instant outrage from some, and the supermodel's name has since been trending in the country.\n\nOne tweeter cited other Kenyan celebrities better suited to the ambassadorial role, including models Ajuma Nasenyana and Debra Sanaipei, as well as Nyong'o.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Syombua A. Kibue 🇰🇪 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOne tweeter said the backlash revealed an unhealthy attitude in Kenya: \"At the end of the day, it's all about who will get the job done. This mentality is what causes nepotism and tribalism in Kenyan institutions, it should be about the most suitable candidate not 'one of our own' thing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMs Campbell's defenders praised her for visiting Kenya several times and said it was not only the model's social media following that made her the perfect appointment.\n\nHer circle of friends were equally important as she would attract wealthy tourists willing to spend money.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Mlolwa🐬 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe tourism industry usually contributes about 8.8% to Kenya's annual Gross domestic product (GDP), according to Kenya's East African newspaper.\n• None The supermodel and the warlord", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Tuesday morning. We'll have another update for you at 18:00 BST.\n\nPolice patrols were stepped up around the Scotland-England border around Christmas\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How to wear your mask. Hint: it's not any of these three options\n\nSo many of us are spending more time staring at a screen right now and an eye health charity is recommending we learn the \"20-20-20\" rule to protect our sight. Fight for Sight advises looking at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes you're working at a screen, in order to reduce eye strain. The charity also commissioned a survey of 2,000 people which found more than a third believed their eyesight had worsened in the past year. It says the number of us getting regular eye tests is also down and is urging people not to miss their appointments.\n\nIt sadly comes as no surprise to learn that 2020 was the worst year on record for UK retailers, especially those focused on clothing and homeware. Food bucked the trend, particularly over Christmas, with the highest ever festive spending on groceries. But overall, retail sales declined by 0.3% across the year, and non-food by nearly a quarter, the biggest annual dip since the British Retail Consortium began collating the figures in 1995. The BRC says many retailers are struggling to survive and the government should extend the business rates holiday to save jobs.\n\nA father who'd campaigned for a change in the coronavirus rules to make life easier for non-resident parents to see their children has welcomed a government rethink. Previously, parents could visit children they don't live with during lockdown, but restrictions prevented them from staying overnight in a hotel. Ex-BBC journalist Tom De Castella said the ban \"had a massive bearing on seeing my daughter\", who lives a three-and-a-half hour drive away from his home. Now the rules have been rewritten, he's relieved. \"This is about building a bond with your child, it's crucial to their development,\" he added.\n\nTom De Castella said the rethink was \"great news\" for parents like him\n\nFind more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nPlus, three vaccines are now approved for use in the UK, but there are many differences between them. BBC health correspondent Laura Foster explains.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Lockdown rule-breakers are more likely to be fined as Covid laws will be enforced \"more quickly\", the UK's most senior police officer has said.\n\nLondon's Metropolitan Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said her officers have had to break up parties, despite hospitals struggling to cope with rising patient numbers.\n\nA minister confirmed her pledge that fines were \"increasingly likely\".\n\nKit Malthouse said people have a \"duty\" to make this lockdown \"the last one\".\n\n\"We are urging the small minority of people who aren't taking this seriously to do so now, and [are illustrating] to them that if they don't they are much more likely to get fined by the police,\" Mr Malthouse, the policing minister, told BBC Breakfast.\n\n\"These current measures should in theory, if we all stick by them, be enough to drive the numbers down so that we can start to move through the gears of tiers from mid-February,\" he added.\n\nAsked if tighter restrictions for England were on the way - something the health secretary has refused to rule out - Mr Malthouse said ministers were \"on tenterhooks\" watching the daily figures for Covid deaths, new cases and hospital admissions, as rules continue to be kept under review.\n\nHe said the government's ramped-up efforts to give vulnerable people the coronavirus vaccine should help the UK to \"get back to some sort of normality later this year\".\n\nThe BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg said there was currently no expectation that Westminster will impose more extensive restrictions.\n\nScotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she discussed possible tighter restrictions with members of her cabinet on Tuesday morning.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel and chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council, Martin Hewitt, will hold a coronavirus press conference at Downing Street later.\n\nThe latest figures on Monday showed a further 529 people had died within 28 days of a positive test in the UK, while another 46,169 cases were reported.\n\nThere are also more than 32,200 people in hospital in the UK with coronavirus, data shows.\n\nDame Cressida told BBC Radio 4's Today programme some 75 police officers are joining 185 firefighters in being trained to drive ambulances in the capital, to help London Ambulance Service as the number of cases of the virus continues to rise.\n\nAnd writing in the Times, she said her officers had found people hosting raves, house parties and basement gambling events, despite clear laws that ban social gatherings.\n\n\"It is preposterous to me that anyone could be unaware of our duty to do all we can to stop the spread of the virus,\" she said, adding that people breaking Covid laws were \"increasingly likely to face fines\".\n\nPolice chiefs in other parts of England have also warned \"patience is running out\" with rule-breakers, with the public increasingly willing to report alleged rule breaches.\n\nSince March, some 32,000 penalties for breaching Covid laws have been issued in England and Wales - with a sharp rise in penalties during England's November lockdown.\n\nAlmost 6,500 penalty tickets were handed out in the weeks up to Christmas as police began moving more quickly from \"engage\", \"explain\" and \"encourage\" to the fourth \"e\" - \"enforcement\".\n\nExpect the rate of fines to continue upwards during January, given the scale of the emergency and the pressure from government on constabularies to enforce the law.\n\nBut there is also a tension here. Police chiefs have told their officers they will often have to use their own judgement because the list of \"reasonable excuses\" in the law for why someone can be outside is not fixed in stone.\n\nThere is a lot of wriggle room in the law to allow daily lives to continue.\n\nWhile ministers, scientists and health experts are all hammering home the message that people should stay at home as much as possible, the law is more liberal - for instance, there is no restriction on exercise in England.\n\nAnd that's why some police officers believe they are stuck between a rock and a hard place as people who don't want to be locked down find more and more creative ways to stretch the rules to breaking point.\n\nFines start at £200 in England and Northern Ireland, and £60 in Wales and Scotland. Large parties can be shut down by the police, with fines of up to £10,000.\n\nDame Cressida told the Today programme the move towards greater enforcement was \"common sense\" rather than a show of \"dictatorial policing\".\n\nShe also said Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cycle in east London at the weekend was \"not against the law\", but added the \"stay local\" guidance on exercise for England could be made more clear.\n\nUnder Scotland's lockdown restrictions, people must start and finish their exercise in the same place - and to do so, they may travel up to five miles from the boundary of their local authority area. People in Wales should start and finish exercising from their home, while those in Northern Ireland are advised not to go more than 10 miles from home when exercising.\n\nAsked if she would like to see similar detail in England's guidance, Dame Cressida said: \"That is certainly something the government could consider.\n\n\"Anything that brings greater clarity, for officers and the public, in general, will be a good thing.\"\n\nDame Cressida also said she was delighted that a proposal to prioritise frontline officers for vaccines was being discussed\n\nPolice chiefs have been under increasing pressure to enforce the lockdown laws - with a number of news reports about breaches of Covid rules in recent days.\n\nIn one case, Derbyshire Police withdrew penalties for two women who had been fined £200 each when they drove five miles for a walk together - following widespread media attention.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel has defended the way police have handled breaches, saying there is a need for \"strong enforcement\".\n\nFour people were arrested in Edinburgh on Monday after anti-lockdown protesters clashed with police\n\nEngland is currently under a national lockdown, meaning people must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar lockdown measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - which are in charge of making their own coronavirus restrictions.\n\nIn her article, Dame Cressida said she was \"delighted to hear\" that a proposal to prioritise frontline officers to get vaccinated was being \"actively discussed\", as the rate of officers self-isolating has risen.\n\nSo far 2.3 million people in the UK have had a first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, as part of the government's plan to vaccinate tens of millions of people by the spring.\n\nDefence Secretary Ben Wallace said members of the armed forces were working \"hand in hand with the NHS\" to help with the response to the UK's epidemic.\n\nSome 5,300 members of the armed forces are currently involved in the Covid response including personnel to help with vaccinations and community testing across the UK, he said.", "Rules governing the import of personal goods from the UK to the EU changed after Brexit formally came into effect\n\nA Dutch TV network has filmed border officials confiscating ham sandwiches and other foods from drivers arriving in the Netherlands from the UK, under post-Brexit rules.\n\nThe officials were shown explaining import regulations imposed since the UK formalised its separation from the EU.\n\nUnder EU rules, travellers from outside the bloc are banned from bringing in meat and dairy products.\n\nThe rules appeared to bemuse one driver.\n\n\"Since Brexit, you are no longer allowed to bring certain foods to Europe, like meat, fruit, vegetables, fish, that kind of stuff,\" a Dutch border official told the driver in footage broadcast by TV network NPO 1.\n\nIn one scene, a border official asked the driver whether several of his tin-foil wrapped sandwiches had meat in them.\n\nWhen the driver said they did, the border official said: \"Okay, so we take them all.\"\n\nSurprised, the driver then asked the officials if he could keep the bread, to which one replied: \"No, everything will be confiscated - welcome to the Brexit, sir. I'm sorry.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe UK officially finished its formal separation from the EU on 31 December, 2020.\n\nFrom 23:00 GMT on that date, the UK stopped following EU rules, with new arrangements for travel, trade, immigration and security co-operation coming into force.\n\nA trade deal with the EU was agreed on 24 December, and a week later, UK lawmakers voted in favour of the agreement.\n\nThe UK's departure means big changes for business - with the UK and EU forming two separate markets - the end of free movement, and new regulations, including those governing the import of personal goods.\n\nThe UK government has issued guidance to commercial drivers travelling to the EU, warning them to \"be aware of additional restrictions to personal imports\".\n\n\"You cannot bring POAO (products of an animal origin) such as those containing meat or dairy (e.g. a ham and cheese sandwich) into the EU,\" the guidance says. \"There are exceptions to this rule for certain quantities of powdered infant milk, infant food, special foods, or special processed pet feed.\"\n\nOn its website, the European Commission says the ban is necessary because such goods \"continue to present a real threat to animal health throughout the Union\".\n\n\"It is known, for example, that dangerous pathogens that cause animal diseases such as Foot and Mouth Disease and classical swine fever can reside in meat, milk or their products,\" the Commission says.\n\nSeparately, the Dutch customs agency shared a picture of foodstuffs it had confiscated from motorists in the ferry terminal the Hook of Holland.\n\n\"Since 1 January, you can't just bring more food from the UK,\" the agency said. \"So prepare yourself if you travel to the Netherlands from the UK and spread the word. This is how we prevent food waste and together ensure that the controls are speeded up.\"\n\nThe BBC's economics editor Faisal Islam described the confiscation of ham sandwiches and other foodstuffs at the EU's borders with the UK as \"a standard implication of [the] Brexit deal\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Faisal Islam This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The NHS Louisa Jordan was built in two weeks in April response to concerns over hospital capacity\n\nA shortage of NHS staff could prevent the opening of the NHS Louisa Jordan to Covid patients if capacity is exceeded elsewhere, a leading doctor has said.\n\nPresident of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, Prof Mike Griffin, said the increasing numbers off work was a \"major problem\".\n\nThe Scottish government says the NHS is not being \"overwhelmed\" and staffing plans are in place to deal with demand.\n\nThe NHS Louisa Jordan is currently being used for outpatient services.\n\nThe temporary hospital at the SEC in Glasgow was set up in April in response to concerns over hospital capacity.\n\nIt was not used for Covid care during the first surge of the pandemic and has since been made available for outpatient services, such as orthopaedics, plastic surgery and dermatology.\n\nIt is also being used for Covid vaccinations.\n\nProf Mike Griffin told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme that the pressure on the NHS workforce was particularly acute in the west of Scotland, where the number of cases was high.\n\n\"Particularly in Glasgow and Lanarkshire, there's been significant increases recently because of the new variant. Without any doubt, that new variant is increasing transmissibility, and therefore increasing infection rates and increasing hospital admissions,\" he said.\n\n\"But it's not just the admissions that's the problem. Our doctors, surgeons, nurses and everyone are really working extremely hard - but there is an increase in absenteeism because of illness and because of self-isolation amongst nursing staff.\"\n\nTwo of Scotland's health boards - NHS Ayrshire and Arran and NHS Lanarkshire - are currently over their capacity for Covid patients.\n\nNHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has reached 85% capacity and NHS Tayside is at 81% capacity, according to the latest Scottish government figures.\n\nThe NHS Louisa Jordan has capacity for 1,000 Covid patients if it is needed, but Prof Griffin said that using it as a Covid facility could be dependent on retired or former staff returning to work for NHS Scotland.\n\n\"Opening the Louisa Jordan as a Covid institution without staff is impossible,\" he said.\n\n\"It is equipped to be able to do it. And if the staffing is there, if we get returners and so on, then perhaps that might happen.\"\n\nThe number of Covid patients in hospital across Scotland is now higher than it was in April, although the numbers in intensive care are lower.\n\nNumbers initially appeared to be declining in November, but never reached low levels and began to climb sharply again at the end of the year.\n\nProf Griffin added that it was likely that better treatments for Covid patients were also reducing mortality and so keeping those patients in hospital for longer.\n\nNHS Scotland has an overall capacity for 13,000 beds, with 2,400 assigned to Covid patients.\n\nThis is down from a capacity of about 3,600 in the autumn because of additional seasonal pressures on the NHS, including weather-related issues and increased staff absence.\n\nScotland's national clinical director, Prof Jason Leitch, accepted that having around 1,500 patients in hospital with Covid had forced the cancellation of procedures such as cataract operations and hip replacements.\n\nBut he said that ability to \"flex\" within the system meant that the NHS remained within capacity.\n\nProf Leitch also pointed to the situation in England where there have been reports of limits being put on the amount of oxygen that patients can receive and some intensive care patients having to be treated in non-ICU beds.\n\nSpeaking at the first minister's coronavirus briefing, he said: \"People shouldn't be scared that the health service is full or overwhelmed - it isn't.\n\n\"It is fragile, and you just have to look a few hundred miles south to see what happens when it is even more fragile.\n\n\"So we need to avoid that as much as we can in Scotland.\"", "The Northern Lights from Munlochy on the Black Isle in the Highlands\n\nDisplays of the Aurora Borealis were visible from north and north east Scotland overnight.\n\nAlso known as the Northern Lights, the aurora appear as shimmering waves of light when atoms in the Earth's high-altitude atmosphere collide with energetic charged particles from the sun.\n\nBBC Weather Watchers photographed the \"lights\" from Shetland, the Highlands and Moray.\n\nBrae, Shetland, was among the vantage points for observing the aurora overnight on Monday into Tuesday\n\nA view of the aurora from Hopeman on the Moray Firth coast\n\nA colourful scene at Nairn on the Highlands' Moray Firth coast\n\nThe aurora from Glenelg in the west Highlands\n\nThis stunning image was captured at Durness by Andy Walker\n\nClear skies over Moray offered opportunities to see the lights, including from Elgin\n\nFreck Fraser's image of the aurora from a snowy Belladrum near Beauly\n\nThe green glow of the aurora from Portmahomack in the Highlands\n\nAnother image of the aurora from Brae in Shetland\n\nBright lights of the aurora from Uig in the Highlands", "Meddyg Care Dementia Home was due to receive vaccinations last week\n\nA care home manager is \"frightened\" for the residents after its delivery of Covid vaccinations failed to arrive.\n\nLorna Jones said Meddyg Care Dementia Home in Criccieth, Gwynedd, was due to have a delivery of the new Oxford-AstraZeneca jab a week ago.\n\nHowever the vaccine has not arrived amid claims other people in the area have already had the jab.\n\nBetsi Cadwaladr University Health Board admitted there had been \"logistical problems\" in north west Wales.\n\nThe health board insisted it is \"committed\" to vaccinating those most vulnerable.\n\nOn Monday, it was announced that all over-50s in Wales are to be offered jab by spring, after criticism the rollout of the vaccine in Wales has been slower than in other parts of the UK.\n\nWith family visits suspended, the care home has not recorded a single Covid-19 case and a phone call on New Year's Eve to say it was to receive the vaccine was met with \"glee and happiness\".\n\nUnder the Welsh Government's vaccination rollout plan, care home residents and staff are first in line to get the immunisation - or priority one - ahead of elderly people within communities across Wales.\n\nHowever the vaccine has not arrived while, the home claimed, local GP surgeries have been administering the vaccine to over 80s in the community.\n\nLorna Jones is demanding answers as to why the vaccine has not arrived\n\nMs Jones said: \"I can't understand why Betsi Cadwaladr have veered away from the priority list.\n\n\"It's very clear. If there are vaccines coming into the local community, which there are, why have our residents not been vaccinated?\n\n\"I know some care homes have had it in Caernarfon, so why haven't we. What's the difference?\"\n\nMs Jones said the delay is causing concern among staff, residents and families.\n\n\"I'm frightened for our residents. I'm getting a lot of contact from families and I just can't give them anything,\" she said.\n\nThe home's owner said he had now taken matters into his own hands.\n\nKevin Edwards, managing director of Meddyg Care, said he had spent hours ringing around GP surgeries \"begging\" for spare vaccines.\n\nHe said the residents would now be vaccinated on Tuesday.\n\n\"We're a specialist dementia home, you can't just turn up one day and give the vaccine to the residents, there needs to be an element of preparation,\" he told BBC Radio Wales.\n\nBetsi Cadwaladr health board said it was working to ensure those with the highest priority are vaccinated.\n\nTeresa Owen, the health board's executive director of public health, said: \"Last week we vaccinated nearly 10,000 people in north Wales.\n\n\"This week, staff from primary care practices will be going into the local nursing and residential homes to administer the Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccination to residents.\n\n\"The initial supply of vaccinations to the west of BCUHB has caused some logistical problems with commencing this programme, but vaccines have now been allocated for all the nursing and residential homes in the locality.\"", "Boris Johnson - pictured here in 2013 - is a keen cyclist\n\nDowning Street has defended Boris Johnson for riding his bicycle seven miles from home, saying he complied with Covid rules during his trip.\n\nLabour accused the prime minister of having double standards, after it was reported he had been spotted in the saddle at east London's Olympic Park.\n\nGovernment guidance says daily outdoor exercise is allowed but people should not travel outside their local area.\n\nThe PM's spokesman said any suggestion he had broken the rules was \"wrong\".\n\nBut he did not confirm whether Mr Johnson had been driven to the Olympic Park from Downing Street or cycled there.\n\nMetropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the trip had not been \"against the law - that's for sure\".\n\nPeople should go for exercise \"from your front door and come back to your front door\", she said, adding: \"That's my view of local.\"\n\nThe prime minister's press secretary said the Commissioner's words were \"wise\".\n\n\"The instruction is to stay local and for her a reasonable interpretation was to exercise from their front door but for some people it's more complicated. Everyone needs to exercise their own judgement\", she added.\n\nThe Evening Standard reported that the prime minister had been seen in the Olympic Park, with his security detail, on Sunday.\n\nThere's nothing in English lockdown law that says Boris Johnson shouldn't have pedalled around London's Olympic park on Sunday, seven miles from Downing Street.\n\nBut this comes at a time when the government is desperately pleading with people to take Covid-19 seriously and follow the rules.\n\nIn England that means leaving home only for essential work, shopping and exercise. The guidance also says \"stay local\" without defining how far people can roam.\n\nTravel for exercise is allowed \"a short distance within your area\" to access an open space.\n\nNumber 10 will insist that's precisely what Mr Johnson did.\n\nBut his ride highlights the problem everyone faces trying to interpret rules, and relying on people using common sense.\n\nThe outing certainly doesn't help ministers straining to tell the public - in clear, consistent, easy-to-understand terms - to stay at home.\n\nAndy Slaughter, Labour MP for Hammersmith, west London, criticised the prime minister for having a \"do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do\" attitude.\n\nSpeaking to Today, Policing Minister Kit Malthouse said: \"What we are asking people to do is when they exercise to stay local.\n\n\"Now local is, obviously, open to interpretation, but people broadly know what local means.\n\n\"If you can get there under your own steam and you are not interacting with somebody... then that seems perfectly reasonable to me.\"\n\nThe PM's official spokesman added: \"We have always trusted the public to exercise good judgement. We did throughout the first lockdown and continue to do so.\"\n\nDame Cressida Dick said Boris Johnson had not broken the law\n\nThe issue of travelling for exercise was highlighted at the weekend after police in Derbyshire fined two women £200 after they drove five miles from home to take a walk - a penalty that was later dropped.\n\nGovernment advice for England says people can leave home to exercise, but adds: \"This should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area.\"\n\nThe guidance adds: \"Stay local means stay in the village, town, or part of the city where you live.\"\n\nThe government also states: \"The law is what you must do; the guidance might be a mixture of what you must do and what you should do.\"\n\nIn Scotland, the advice is that exercise can be taken if it \"starts and finishes at the same place, which can be up to five miles from the boundary of your local authority area\".\n\nIn Wales, exercise also has to start from and finish at home. There no limits on distance travelled, although the advice is that \"the nearer you stay to your home, the better\".\n\nPeople in Northern Ireland are advised not to go more than 10 miles from home when exercising.", "Fans of the University of Alabama football team gathered in the streets of Tuscaloosa in Alabama, ignoring social distancing.\n\nThey were celebrating the university's third national championship in the past six years.", "More than 12,500 people have died with coronavirus, since the first reported death in Scotland on 13 March 2020.\n\nHere are the stories of some of those who have lost their lives.\n\nIf you would like to pay tribute to a loved one lost to Covid, please use the form below or email newsonline-scotland@bbc.co.uk and ensure you have read our terms and conditions and privacy policy.\n\nJean was born in 1937 Maryhill and spoke often and fondly of her childhood in \"the Butney\". This involved real hardships - including war-time evacuation to Holytown - though Jean's memories were all good and Maryhill became a touchstone when dementia became a factor in recent years.\n\nWorking at Rolls-Royce Hillington, Jean was transferred to its Derby HQ where, as a young woman, she made small component parts for jet engines. Even in her 80s, Jean could still perform all the machinist actions (with sound effects).\n\nShe loved to paint landscapes and had a life-long passion for music, especially jazz (with Frankie and Ella being constants). She was a great singer and dancer, always up for fun and laughs, brightening up any party.\n\nHer family said Jean was a fabulous mum to two daughters, a brilliant friend, and a warm-hearted women with kindness for everyone and anyone. She died on 27 October 2020.\n\nRashelle Baird's family describe her as \"kind, bubbly, and always the life and soul of the party\".\n\nThe 27-year-old mother-of-three from Brechin had put off appointments to get the vaccine because she was busy with her children.\n\nHer family stressed she was not anti-vaccine. \"She wanted to get her vaccine but she put her kids first,\" her father Stephen said.\n\nRashelle, who had asthma, initially thought she had caught a cold from her children, but her symptoms worsened and she was admitted to hospital.\n\nShe died in November 2021 after several days in Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, having been placed in an induced coma in the intensive care unit.\n\nDavid Trower worked as a clerical officer in the A&E department of University Hospital Monklands in Airdrie before retiring in 2016.\n\nBut he was committed to the NHS and even in retirement he chose to continue to work shifts, through NHS Lanarkshire's staff bank, right up until February. He died on 9 March 2021, aged 67.\n\nHis colleagues thought highly of him, saying: \"We have many happy memories of shifts together, laughs, nights out, and listening to all his stories of his many holidays abroad. We will miss him.\"\n\nBernadette White, his sister, said he was a caring, gentle and loving man with a wicked sense of humour.\n\nShe added: \"The last seven years, I would say, is when David started to live his life, doing the things that made him happy without having to worry about anyone else.\"\n\nStephen Stewart met his future wife, Heather, at a youth club when he was just 14. They got engaged on his 17th birthday and he had just turned 20 when they married.\n\nThe couple, who lived in Motherwell, came from \"very different\" backgrounds but they grew up together during their 25-year marriage while raising their only child.\n\nStephen took pride in his work for concrete manufacturer FP McCann, latterly as a lab technician working out what strength the concrete needed to be for certain projects.\n\nOutside work, he loved fishing, computer games, gadgets and during the first lockdown he managed to build a hot tub shelter with the help of a series of YouTube videos.\n\nHe died of Covid pneumonia at University Hospital Wishaw on 19 February 2021, aged 45.\n\nNan Douglas worked her way up from shorthand typist to headteacher during a remarkable career.\n\nShe was already a mother of three when she left her job as a school secretary at West Calder High School to enrol at Moray House in Edinburgh where she qualified as a primary school teacher.\n\nAfter losing her husband John when she was just 43, she found solace in working with disabled children and went on to be appointed head of Pinewood Special School in Blackburn, West Lothian.\n\nFollowing a spell living in Cornwall during her retirement, she returned to Scotland where she hosted a \"living wake\" with 80 friends and family on her 90th birthday.\n\nShe lived independently in Milnathort, Kinross, and was admitted to hospital for a minor issue just before Christmas 2020. But she picked up Covid and never left. She died on 19 February 2021, aged 95.\n\nGraeme McGrath's greatest passions were rowing and the River Clyde.\n\nOn the day of his funeral, fellow rowers held oars in a guard of honour at Glasgow Green in a tribute appreciated by his wife Anne and their three sons.\n\nFor 40 years Graeme volunteered with the Glasgow Humane Society and was often called on to row rescue boats on the Clyde, or to help evacuate families during floods.\n\nAfter undergoing a kidney transplant in his 50s, he was unable to get out on the river as much. He retired from his job as a Thomas Cook travel agent and moved to Prestwick in Ayrshire.\n\nBut he still felt the pull of the Clyde and regularly returned to the city to meet friends and row safety boats at regattas.\n\nHe died with Covid on 15 February 2021 at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, aged 66, after being admitted for an infection affecting his heart.\n\nTommy Morrow spent most of his life in the Maryhill area of Glasgow, where he met his partner Jackie and raised their children, Demi and Mark.\n\nHis family described him as a character and not a day went by without them laughing at his jokes.\n\nHe loved camping and fishing in places like Stornoway with his friends but the most important people in his life were his family, including grandchildren, Lacey and Louden.\n\nDuring his career he worked in various well-known hotels and restaurants in Glasgow but he had not worked for some years due to poor health, including COPD.\n\nHe died with Covid on 15 February 2021, aged 53. \"It was so cruel - he was so close to getting the vaccine,\" his family said.\n\nTommy Rooney was a bus driver for 36 years and hugely popular with colleagues at First Bus in Larbert.\n\nOn the day of his funeral they were among dozens of people who lined the streets and applauded as his cortege passed the depot.\n\nFirst Bus operations manager Jason Hackett told the Falkirk Herald that Tommy was the \"heart and soul\" of the Larbert station.\n\nMarried to Margaret, the Bonnybridge man had two daughters and a granddaughter who described him as a \"humble but proud family man who put everyone else's needs before his own\".\n\nAn avid Celtic fan, he spent much of the pandemic driving key workers to their essential duties. He died on 12 February 2021, aged 57.\n\nDavid Gray's first grandchild - a girl called Islay - was born in July 2020. The proud \"papa\" used to say that she was the love of his life and she gave him a reason to wake up in the morning.\n\nTragically, the 62-year-old only got to spend five months with her before falling ill with Covid. He died on 3 February 2021.\n\nDavid lived in Erskine and worked for BAE Systems for 20 years, first as a mechanical fitter then as records manager dealing with secret files for the Ministry of Defence.\n\nHis family describe him as \"music daft\" - he played guitar and he was performing a gig with his band in Glasgow when he met his wife, Joyce, 40 years ago.\n\nThey went on to have two children - Darren and Danielle - as well as his beloved Cocker Spaniels, Buster and Shimmer, who he described as his \"bairns\".\n\nHarry Osborne was a Dunkirk veteran whose life was full of adventures - his daughter said he was still able to recall stories until just a few days before he died.\n\nMr Osborne was deployed to France months after joining the Territorial Army in Glasgow, served with the 77th Highland Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery and later became a surveyor.\n\nFriends recall how upon joining, he promised his mother he would not swear and instead would say \"cricky jings\", which became his nickname in the forces.\n\nHe was also known as a keen golfer with a \"wicked sense of humour\".\n\nMr Osborne died from Covid-19 on 25 January, nine months after celebrating his 100th birthday.\n\nConnie Simpson's grandchildren say she was more like a pal than a granny - she was full of fun and laughter, and was always the first up to dance at a party.\n\nBorn in Kinning Park, Glasgow, she moved to the east end after marrying John who she met at the Barrowlands when they were teenagers.\n\nWhile John was away with the Merchant Navy, she brought up their four children in a house \"surrounded by love\", before taking work as a curtain consultant.\n\nShe was fabulous even in her 80s - she loved getting her hair, eyebrows and manicure done, meeting friends at Mecca Bingo in Parkhead and at a local pensioners' club.\n\nConnie died on 23 January 2021 at Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow, aged 82.\n\nSheila Gartly was as \"bright as a button\" and the \"heart of our family\", her loved ones said.\n\nShe was born and brought up in Deskford, Moray, before marrying and moving to Keith in 1954. Widowed in 1975, she remarried but lost her second husband in 2005.\n\nDuring her working life she had jobs in a florist and in a fish shop - both of which she thoroughly enjoyed.\n\nShe loved to watch the birds in her garden, read her daily newspaper, listen to traditional Scottish music, and the spring and summer when the nights were lighter and flowers bloomed.\n\nIn 2019 she had surgery on a broken leg but she was recovering well. She died with Covid on 19 January 2021, aged 86.\n\nAlex Goldie was an electrical engineer who latterly worked as a lecturer at Stow College in Glasgow before his retirement.\n\nHis family said he was a gregarious man, always interested in other people, who took great delight and pride in the antics and education of his two great-grandsons, Charlie and Joe.\n\nDuring his long life he enjoyed skiing, tennis, pottery, sailing, golf, holidays in Europe, Australia and North America, single malts and red wine.\n\nHe had been well cared for by Randolph Hill nursing home in Dunblane for 19 months after developing dementia. Covid restrictions meant he had not seen his family, other than by Skype, for a year.\n\nHe is thought to have contracted the virus on a trip to A&E after a fall. He died on 14 January, aged 100.\n\nVincent Logan became one of the youngest bishops in the world when he was ordained Bishop of Dunkeld in 1981, aged 39.\n\nHe served the Roman Catholic diocese for almost 32 years before his retirement in 2012.\n\nThe Scottish Catholic Church said he was \"dedicated and energetic\" and had \"an energy and zeal in all he did\".\n\nBorn in Bathgate in 1941, he was ordained a priest in Edinburgh in 1964. He died on 14 January, aged 79, the day after his friend the Archbishop of Glasgow, Philip Tartaglia.\n\n\"Both bishops succumbed to the lethal effects of the coronavirus,\" the current Bishop of Dunkeld, Stephen Robson, added.\n\nThe Archbishop of Glasgow, the Most Reverend Philip Tartaglia, died suddenly at his home in the city on 13 January - the Feast of St Mungo, the Patron Saint of Glasgow.\n\nHe had been self-isolating after testing positive for Covid shortly after Christmas.\n\nBorn in Glasgow in 1951, he was ordained a priest in 1975 and had served as leader of Scotland's largest Catholic community since 2012.\n\nScotland's Catholic bishops described Archbishop Tartaglia as a \"gentle, caring and warm-hearted pastor who combined compassion with a piercing intellect\".\n\nAmong those who paid tribute were First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken, who described the archbishop as \"a true Glaswegian\".\n\nLiz Shingleston was a well-known figure in the village of Dunragit and her death on 13 January had a big impact on the small community near Stranraer.\n\n\"Her hearse passed the bottom of the village and the amount of people who turned out to pay their respects was overwhelming,\" said her daughter, Lisa.\n\nLiz spent her early childhood in New Luce but moved to the railway station cottage in Dunragit where her father worked as a signalman.\n\nDuring a varied working life, Liz left school to work in the laboratory of the nearby Nestle factory and later replaced her own mother as the local school's dinner lady.\n\nThe 73-year-old was devoted to her grandchildren and great-grandson but she also liked to treat herself to afternoon tea (with Prosecco) at Trump Turnberry.\n\nHugh Polland, who was known as Shug to his friends and family, was born and raised in Glasgow's Easterhouse.\n\nHe was well known in the area where he ran the Casbah Pub for many years during the 1980s and early 90s.\n\nA huge Celtic fan, he loved to play golf and took up photography later in life - becoming \"unofficial photographer\" at many friends' weddings, christening and parties.\n\n\"Everyone wanted him at their party not just to take photos but because of his personality,\" said his son, Tony McAllister. \"Everyone loved him because what you seen is what you got.\"\n\nShug died at Glasgow Royal Infirmary on 5 January, aged 70. His sudden death has left his family heartbroken.\n\nFor more than 75 years George Wight lived on his dairy farm in the village of Drumoak in Aberdeenshire.\n\nBut he had more than one string to his bow - as well as being a dairy farmer, for 25 years he was also the publican of his local, the Irvine Arms.\n\nA loyal Aberdeen FC fan, he was one of the lucky ones - he was in Gothenburg in 1983 to see the his beloved Dons lift the European Cup Winners Cup.\n\nHe was devoted to his family, including wife Claire and their four children, and despite suffering a series of bereavements and health setbacks, he always bounced back.\n\n\"He was an inspiration and a hardy soul who kept going no matter what life threw at him,\" they said. George died at a nursing home on 4 January 2021, aged 85.\n\nHugh Bell loved to dance. As a young man, when he doing his national service with the RAF, he was a regular at the dancing at the YMCA in Paisley.\n\nIt was there he met the love of his life, Margaret. They were married for 63 years and had two children Alan and Stuart. Margaret passed away in 2013.\n\nA keen ballroom dancer, Hugh was often first on the dance floor and in his later years he enjoyed dancing to the entertainment at Southerness caravan park, near Dumfries, where Stuart and his friend had a holiday home.\n\nHe was a bright, bubbly sociable man who spent a career in logistics before working as a lollipop man in his retirement.\n\nHugh died on 31 December at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, aged 92.\n\nDavid Warnock was a keen sportsman who loved squash, tennis, rugby, football, cycling and climbing munros.\n\nIn fact, it was on the tennis courts in Aberdeen that he met his teenage sweetheart, Zena. He was 17 and she was 14 - they were married for 62 years.\n\nAn electrical engineer, he worked for Pye Communications, moving first to Cambridge and then Edinburgh.\n\nHe was a quiet man who never complained about anything and was happiest around his family - including four children, 11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.\n\nHis second great-grandchild was born shortly after he died in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on 31 December. He was 85.\n\nHenry Anderson, an SNP councillor on Perth and Kinross Council, died with Covid on 27 December.\n\nHe had represented the Almond and Earn ward since 2012 and colleagues said he would be \"hugely missed\".\n\nAmong those who paid tribute to the 68-year-old was Deputy First Minister John Swinney, who described him as \"a good, decent man and a faithful councillor\".\n\nMurray Lyle, the leader of Perth and Kinross Council, said Mr Anderson was an excellent advocate for his ward and \"passionate about local issues\".\n\n\"I had the pleasure of working with Henry for several years on the Local Review Body and always his enjoyed his company, good humour and sense of fun when we were out visiting planning sites.\"\n\nTeenage sweethearts Bryson Mitchell and his wife Irene were due to celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary in January,\n\nThey met when he was an 18-year-old apprentice electrician and was assigned to a contract with the company where Irene, who was 16, was working.\n\nAfter marrying in 1961, Bryson spent his adult life in Paisley and 35 years working as an aircraft electrician with British Airways.\n\nThe couple had two children and four grandchildren, who described him as a quiet man with a great sense of humour. \"He was kind and generous, very hardworking, and he lived for his family,\" they said.\n\nHe was in hospital being treated for an acute illness when he contracted Covid. He died on Christmas Eve, aged 82.\n\nAs a child, Sandy Adam survived pioneering surgery to remove his voice box - an operation that left him unable to speak normally.\n\nInstead he learned a different way to communicate - oesophageal speech (swallowing air) - by drinking lots of lemonade. He had a life-long hatred of the fizzy drink after that.\n\nAfter training to be a dentist in Dundee, he returned to his hometown of Aberdeen. In addition to surgeries around the city, at one time he worked at Craiginches Prison one afternoon a week.\n\nA father and a grandfather, he loved tinkering with cars, pranking his two children and sitting in the sun with a glass of red wine.\n\nThe 81-year-old, who had dementia, died on 16 December, shortly after testing positive for Covid.\n\nDavid Barr was born and grew up in Paisley and for more than 40 years he worked in the town's Anchor Mill.\n\nAs well as being a keen bowler, a church elder, and an active member of Martyrs Church Men's Club, he had a gift for carpentry.\n\nThe dolls houses and garages that he made for his children and grandchildren were much loved and they are still treasured.\n\nHis favourite place in the world was the East Neuk of Fife, where he spent many happy holidays.\n\nDavid had an underlying respiratory condition and he was admitted to hospital with shortness of breath in December. He died within days of being diagnosed with Covid on 16 December, aged 86.\n\nAna Lisa Sayson was a nurse who moved from the Philippines to work for the NHS in Scotland.\n\nShe was a staff nurse at Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow before she moved to Glasgow Royal Infirmary during the Covid crisis. The mother-of-two died on 15 December after testing positive for the virus.\n\n\"Ana Lisa was a much-loved member of the team and an incredibly compassionate nurse who was devoted to the care of her patients,\" said John Stuart, the chief nurse at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.\n\n\"Ana Lisa came to our country from the Philippines to care for our loved ones and my heart goes out to her family and especially her husband and children.\n\n\"My thoughts, and the thoughts of all of her NHS family here in Glasgow, are with them at this terribly sad time.\"\n\nBilly and May Fannin were married for 62 years after meeting at a ballroom in Glasgow in 1955.\n\nMay was a bookkeeper who gave up her job to look after her grandchildren in the 1980s. \"Her life revolved around her four grandchildren,\" their younger daughter Jennifer told BBC Scotland.\n\nBilly was a joiner by trade but his real passion was singing, performing under the name Scott Allan. And as a member of Equity, he also took on work as an extra on TV programmes like Take the High Road and Taggart.\n\nHe loved being the centre of attention and \"if he was chocolate he would have eaten himself\", Jennifer joked.\n\nWhen the couple from Barrhead caught Covid, their two daughters also fell ill with the virus and had to self-isolate. They were heartbroken they could not be with their 84-year-old mother when she died in hospital on 6 December.\n\nBut they chose not tell their 88-year-old father about her death, as he was also in hospital and had dementia. Jennifer was able to visit him to say goodbye before he slipped away just eight days after the passing of his wife.\n\nShe was president of the city's Bangladesh Association, a civil servant at Glasgow City Council and, according to her family, \"a pillar of the community\".\n\nThey said she was a \"devoted mother, daughter, aunt and friend [but] she would prefer to be remembered as a social activist, volunteer and community advocate\".\n\nBoth Mridula and her husband, Sarwar Hassan, were admitted to hospital with Covid in November. He was discharged but Mridula was moved to Aberdeen for specialist treatment.\n\nHer husband and two sons were able to spend time with her before she died at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary on 12 December, aged 50.\n\nBridget Turner and her husband Alan worked for years in the window blinds industry before setting up their own business, A&B Window Blinds, in 1992.\n\nThey lived next door to the shop in Paisley, where Bridget worked in the office and Alan went out to do the measuring. Their years of hard work paid off and the family business remains successful.\n\nThe mother-of-three \"loved a good gab and a good catch-up with friends\", according to her daughter, Lisa. \"She was amazing, such a good friend to lots of people.\"\n\nWhen the children were young, family holidays were spent at the Isle of Whithorn but later the couple, who moved to Greenock, spent winters in Gran Canaria where they made friends from around the world.\n\nBridget was treated for Covid at Inverclyde Royal Hospital, where she received \"amazing care\". She died, aged 71, on 7 December after saying goodbye to her family.\n\nAndrew Slorance was a civil servant in charge of the Scottish government's planning and response to crisis situations - including the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nHe grew up in Hawick and became a journalist before joining the Scotland Office. He led the new Scottish Parliament's media team when it opened in 1999, then became the official spokesman for First Minister Alex Salmond.\n\nA father-of-five, he was diagnosed with Mantle Cell Lymphoma in 2015. He documented his experience of the rare cancer - including six rounds of chemotherapy - in a blog he called \"The fight of my life\".\n\nHe relapsed in 2019 and a stem cell transplant scheduled for Easter 2020 was delayed by Covid. While shielding at home in Edinburgh, he spent the first part of the pandemic working on the government's response from a spare room.\n\nMr Slorance was finally admitted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow for his stem cell transplant in October. He tested positive for Covid shortly after that and died on 5 December, aged 49.\n\nTributes from across the political spectrum, including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, have been paid to Mr Slorance. His wife, Louise, told BBC Scotland: \"He was a proud family man who was the life and soul of any party, loving and loyal.\"\n\nAllan Harper was a salesman at Topps Tiles for 23 years, mainly in the Hillington branch.\n\nHe met Caroline through a dating website 21 years ago. They were due to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary in July.\n\nA father-of-one, he lived in Craigton, in the south-west of Glasgow, where he enjoyed computer games and playing pool with work colleagues.\n\nCaroline said they would spend their days off and holidays together with their three cats \"who sometimes got more attention than me\".\n\nHe was a kind man, a \"true gentleman\" and her \"forever love\", she added. He died on 1 December 2020, aged 60.\n\nEileen Terry was born and brought up in Renfrew before marrying Bob and moving to Milngavie in 1968.\n\nHe was a keen golfer and when their sons, Robert and David, reached secondary school she decided the time was right to join him on the golf course.\n\nIt led to a lifetime's love of the sport and she became the ladies captain of Clober Golf Club in 2001 - the club's centenary year.\n\nHer family say she was a kind and generous lady who was well-known in her local community, where she worked as a home help until her retirement.\n\nShe spent her final years in Mavisbank Nursing Home in Bishopbriggs after developing vascular dementia. She died in hospital on 25 November 2020, aged 84.\n\nDavie Burgess was one of 10 siblings born in the Townhead area of Glasgow, but he had a lifelong love of the fresh air and the scenery of the Scottish countryside.\n\nAs a young man, he worked as a fireman on the steam train to Crianlarich - a trip which included a two-hour stopover allowing him to explore the hills.\n\nLater in life he loved driving up to Acharacle to visit his son and his family, where he could go for long walks with his grandchildren and their dog, Mac.\n\nMarried for 60 years to May, the father-of-three worked for the Milk Marketing Board at Hogganfield Loch. He was a hard worker who even after he \"retired\" took on three jobs, including running a caravan park.\n\nHis family described him as a \"gentleman\" and a \"man of pride\". He died on 25 November, aged 86.\n\nRod Moore spent 40 years with the ambulance service, working as a technician, a paramedic, a trainer and then in managerial roles before returning to the front line and the job he loved.\n\nThe football fan from Falkirk was married to Clare for 31 years and they had a son, Craig.\n\n\"He was my best friend, he was always happy, joking around all the time, he was so funny... he made me laugh every day,\" Clare told BBC Scotland.\n\nAnd he was so close to their son \"you wouldn't have got a sheet of paper between them\", she added.\n\nAlthough they were not able to see Rod for four weeks while he was treated in hospital for Covid, they we allowed one final visit to say goodbye before he died on 21 November, aged 63.\n\nTom Kenmure was a manager at the Tesco distribution centre in Livingston, where he had worked for 28 years.\n\nThe 51-year-old was a friendly, sociable man and in normal times he liked nothing better than driving around the country exploring \"any little shop he could find\".\n\nAfter the restrictions came into force, the father-of-two from Carluke did everything he could to keep himself and his family safe from Covid.\n\nBut on the 6 October he felt a tightness in his chest on his way to work and had to get tested. It came back positive the next day.\n\nHe spent two weeks in Wishaw General before being transferred to an ECMO machine at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He died on 17 November.\n\nAndrew, or \"Andra\", Kettrick was a porter at Stirling Royal Infirmary for 28 years.\n\nHe would take patients out on \"mystery tours\" in a \"big blue hospital ambulance bus\" his son, also Andrew, told BBC Scotland.\n\n\"The old people loved my dad as he would often stop and buy them all fish and chips or ice cream - all this was paid for out of his pocket,\" he said.\n\nMr Kettrick's work was recognised by hospital bosses and they put him forward for a British Empire Medal which he received in 1991.\n\nThe father-of-three, from Cowie, Stirling, died at Caledonia Court care home in Larbert on 17 November. He was 86.\n\nJim - Flocky - Flockhart was the public face of the firefighters' strike in Glasgow in 1973.\n\nA leading figure in the Fire Brigade Union, he regularly appeared on TV and in newspapers during the controversial 10-day strike over pay.\n\nFirefighting was a dangerous - sometimes fatal - job in the \"tinderbox city\" and Jim was hailed a hero by colleagues after the dispute ended with a famous victory for the strikers.\n\nHe retired to Darvel in Ayrshire where he enjoyed a pint in the Black Bull and spent many years driving friends and local elderly men on trips around Scotland and to Ireland.\n\nA father and grandfather, he died with Covid on 13 November with his daughters Yvonne and Julie by his side. He was 77.\n\nTom Maley never wanted for anything, but after enduring months of Covid restrictions this year the 73-year-old retired joiner set his heart on a big Christmas tree.\n\nIt had been a tough year for the normally sociable pensioner who was renowned for his jokes (good and bad) and was devoted to his wife of 53 years, Georgina, and their family.\n\nThey usually decorate a small table-top tree for the festive season, but this year Mr Maley ordered a 5ft showstopper illuminated with multi-coloured stars to fill the window of their Grangemouth home.\n\nThe great-grandfather will never get to see the tree in its full glory. He died at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert on 12 November, shortly after falling ill with Covid-19.\n\nHis granddaughter Claire Taylor told BBC Scotland, said: \"My gran has made sure that the tree he ordered will go up and it will shine bright for Granda.\"\n\nTracey Donnelly was born and brought up in Edinburgh but she moved to the north-east of England after meeting her husband, George.\n\n\"I loved her the first time I saw her, and I always will,\" he said. \"She was so loving and kind - just an extra-special person in every way.\"\n\nTracey had four children, three step-children and eight grandchildren, and she worked as a support worker for the North East Autism Society.\n\nCare manager Michael Ross, said: \"She loved her family, and she loved the service-users in her care. This tragic news has ripped the heart out of the team and her colleagues are absolutely devastated.\"\n\nShe died at Sunderland General Hospital in mid-November after testing positive for coronavirus. She was 53.\n\nJim Grant was originally from Bo'ness but he spent most of his life in Grangemouth where he brought up two daughters, Margaret and Senga, with his wife Mary.\n\nHe worked as a labourer at BP before taking early retirement when he was 60.\n\nThe 88-year-old great-grandfather spent his last months at the Caledonian Court care home in Larbert before his death on 8 November. He was one of 20 residents who died in the space of a month after testing positive for Covid-19.\n\nHis granddaughter, Nicole Ritchie, said he was a gentleman who always had a huge smile on his face, and his death had had a huge impact on the family.\n\nShe told BBC Scotland \"As a family, we would like to thank Caledonian Court from the bottom of our hearts. They looked after my grandad for the last 11 months of his life and they couldn't have done a better job, he was so happy and very well looked after.\"\n\nFor more than 20 years until her retirement in February 2020, Liz Khan was a support worker for adults with learning and physical disabilities.\n\nShe also ran a drama group for them - it was always more than a job to her, her family said.\n\nLiz was also an elder at her local church, St Margaret's Parish Church in the Muirhouse area of Motherwell, North Lanarkshire.\n\n\"She devoted her life to her work, church and family,\" her children Stephen, Sonia and Lorraine told BBC Scotland.\n\nLiz died in hospital with Covid on 26 October 2020, aged 67 - eight months into her retirement.\n\nWhen Marie Ward broke her wrist in 2019, she asked her consultant whether she would be able to play the piano once it had healed.\n\nHe assured her she would, but when she replied \"that's great because I couldn't before\", the previously serious and solemn medic cracked up.\n\nShe was always laughing and joking, according to her granddaughter, Abby McNicol, and she enjoyed nothing more than knitting, shopping and a \"good blether\".\n\nMarried to Robert for 53 years, they started life together in a single-end tenement in Househillwood in Glasgow. Moving to a three-bedroom council house in Johnstone was \"like winning the lottery\".\n\nThe mother-of-three and grandmother-of-11 died on 18 October 2020, aged 83.\n\nFrances Brown spent lockdown shielding in her room in the Glasgow care home where she had lived for almost 10 years.\n\nAfter months of keeping in touch via video calls, the 76-year-old was finally able to meet up with her sister, Anne Turnbull, in August.\n\nMs Turnbull said her sister, who had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and bi-polar disorder, had a special bond with staff at the David Cargill care home.\n\nAnd she praised the home which remained Covid-free until a staff member tested positive on 4 October. Frances contracted the virus and died in hospital on 13 October.\n\nIn a statement, the care home described Frances as \"the most incredible woman, a real character, and an absolute pleasure to know and care for\".\n\nAfter a long battle against illness throughout the year, great grandfather Charlie Armstrong died on 10 October.\n\nThe 82-year-old retired property manager from Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire, had been allowed home after receiving treatment at Glasgow Royal Infirmary for chest problems.\n\nEight days later he was readmitted to the hospital and tested positive for coronavirus. The family say they were told he must have contracted Covid during his earlier stay at the Infirmary.\n\nHis wife, Joyce, who was also treated in hospital for the virus, said: \"He was very generous, very loving and very funny and he hated seeing anybody being put down. He didn't like to see injustice. He would stand up for people.\n\n\"We were together for 40 years and he was a very good father and a very good husband to me.\"\n\nMargaret Kerrigan was a \"force to be reckoned with\", according to her family - a matriarch who commanded respect.\n\nShe was born in Plymouth but her family moved to Glasgow when she was young. Growing up in Govan in the 1950s, she learned to be a \"tough cookie\".\n\nIt meant she must have been perfectly suited to her job as bar manager at Curlers in Byres Road in the 1960s. And it was there she met Joe, a customer at the pub, who she married in 1970.\n\nHe worked as a school janitor during many of their 50 years of marriage, and they had four sons, 12 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.\n\nClydebank Bowling Club provided Joe with a good social life, while Margaret loved having her family around her and going to the bingo.\n\nJoe had dementia and he died at Hill View care home in Dalmuir on 19 April 2020, aged 78. Margaret fell ill during the second wave and died in hospital on 8 October, aged 73.\n\nFormer ambulance technician George Cairns was a resident at LittleInch Care Home in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire.\n\nHis family said the move from his Renfrew flat to the home in January had reinvigorated him and brought out his mischievous sense of humour.\n\nDuring the lockdown period Mr Cairns, who was bipolar, even joked about topping up his tan in the garden.\n\nThe 71-year-old tested positive for Covid-19 on 8 May despite displaying no symptoms, but his condition deteriorated and he died in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley nine days later.\n\nHis daughter, Gillian, paid tribute to his caring nature, saying: \"Even if you only met him once he would tell you a story, a terrible joke or offer a supportive ear when you needed it the most.\"\n\nRetired farmer Jock Brown was a keen ice hockey player in his youth, and he represented Scotland for six years in the 1950s.\n\nHe told his family that he was selected for the team because he was the only Scotsman who played as goal tender (goalkeeper) at the time. They insist this is not true.\n\nMarried to Mary for 48 years, they had two children and four grandchildren.\n\nHe farmed near Falkirk - on land next to what is now home to The Kelpies - until his retirement in the 1980s.\n\nMr Brown's family said he was a quiet man with a great sense of humour. He had dementia and he died with Covid-19 at Burnbrae care home in Falkirk on 14 May. He was 89.\n\nIna Beaton was a well-known figure on the Isle of Skye and she lived in her own home in Balmaqueen until two years ago.\n\nShe died on 11 May aged 103, the seventh resident of Home Farm care home in Portree to die after contracting Covid-19.\n\nIna lived through the Great War and the 1919 Spanish Flu outbreak. During World War Two she moved to Glasgow to work as a conductress on the trams and survived the Clydebank blitz.\n\nHer grandson, Ailean Beaton, said his loss was shared across the island, especially the north end \"where she was mum, granny, friend to more than just the Beatons.\n\n\"Her crystal memory and broad experience of life in Skye over several generations meant that she contributed to our shared knowledge of the place we're from, its language and culture,\" he added.\n\nBetty Steele grew up in Paisley but later moved to Corby, Northamptonshire - the town known as \"little Scotland\".\n\nShe had seven children, 11 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, and she lived for her family, according to her granddaughter, Debbie Smiley.\n\nHer house was always the meeting point, and she was the life and soul of the party.\n\n\"She had such a zest for life, and anything she did it was done with care and love for others,\" Debbie added.\n\nJohn Angus Gordon, 83, spent the last few years of his life at the Home Farm care home in Portree on Skye.\n\nHe had dementia and the sense of touch reassured him - he liked to shake a hand or hold the hand of the person he was talking to.\n\nUnable to visit the home, his family spoke to him for the last time in a video-call a few hours before he died on 5 May.\n\nAs he listened to their voices, he reached out to the hand of the carer sitting with him, dressed in full personal protective equipment.\n\n\"We found it quite poignant that my dad put out his hand to hers and she was wearing these blue protective gloves,\" said his son, John.\n\nPaul McCaffrey was an \"amazing dad\" of two children and two step-children who was always busy, according to his partner Caroline McNultry.\n\n\"He was always helping someone, whether he was in someone's house helping them out or just on-the-go in work all the time,\" she said.\n\nThe healthy 49-year-old from Glasgow fell ill after returning home from work at a care home where he was a highly-regarded maintenance manager.\n\nRather than the traditional coronavirus symptoms, he complained of a headache and aching limbs but he was eventually admitted to hospital in Glasgow where he tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nHe was transferred to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary where he could be hooked up to an ECMO machine, which performs the tasks of the lungs. After three weeks, he died on 4 May.\n\nHGV driver Jim Russell kept his lorries so spotlessly clean he was known as \"Big Gorgeous\" by colleagues who joked that he must have worn his slippers in his cab.\n\nHe was a big character who loved cars, trucks, motorbikes, lorries and going to Truckfest with his fiancée Connie McCready, who he affectionately nicknamed \"Isa\" after the Still Game character.\n\nThis photograph was taken at the last concert the couple attended together on 8 March 2020.\n\nThey met online in 2014 and were due to get married last summer but Mr Russell fell ill with Covid three weeks after the concert. He died on 4 May, aged 51.\n\n\"Everyone is talking about life getting back to normal when coming out of lockdown, however for myself and many many others we are terrified as our lives will never be normal again,\" Connie said.\n\nClive Andrews was born in Trinidad and in 1967 he moved to Edinburgh where he \"immediately felt like he belonged\", according to his daughter, Nadine.\n\nThe father-of-six worked as a senior lecturer in ergonomics at Napier College, but he was also committed to the arts.\n\nDevoted to promoting and supporting artists and musicians, he held committee roles with groups including Theatre Alba and the Scottish Arts Council.\n\nHe helped establish the Edinburgh International Harp Festival and volunteered every year for decades with the Edinburgh International Jazz Festival.\n\nClive was a lover of life (and of salsa dancing), his family said. He died at The Elms Care Home in Edinburgh on 3 May 2020, aged 86.\n\nRobert Black was a paramedic but he was also a talented musician and part of the team behind Argyll FM.\n\nPaying tribute to him on social media, the community radio station said he was \"a genuine good guy... everyone was his pal\".\n\nThe Mull of Kintyre Music Festival described him as \"one of our pals\" and a \"true gent, wonderful musician\".\n\nHe was a well-known and loved character in Campbeltown, according to Kintyre Community Resilience Group.\n\nThe father-of-two died in hospital in Glasgow on 2 May.\n\nKaren Hutton was a \"much-loved\" care home nurse who died with coronavirus days after her granddaughter was born.\n\nThe 58-year-old was a staff nurse in the dementia unit at Lochleven Care Home in Broughty Ferry, Dundee.\n\nHer only daughter, Lauren, gave birth to a girl just two weeks ago, according to care home operators Thistle Healthcare.\n\nCare home manager Andrew Chalmers-Gall said: \"Karen was a tenacious advocate for her residents and she always put their needs first.\"\n\nShe died at home in Carnoustie, Angus, on 28 April after testing positive for Covid-19.\n\nMark McCarron Gillan bought his wife, Jan, flowers every Friday - a small gesture but something that she still misses following his death on 27 April.\n\nThey were married for 23 years, after first meeting as teenagers, and they have three daughters - twins Ebony and Hope, who are 20, and Brenna, 19.\n\nWhen his colleagues at a soap factory in Queenslie, Glasgow, learned of his death, they stopped production for the first time since opening.\n\nThey were among dozens of people - including friends and neighbours - who lined the streets on the day of his funeral to say a final farewell to the 53-year-old.\n\nMark loved golf, football and hill walking but he was also a family man. \"There is a such a void left in each of us and every life that he touched,\" his wife said.\n\nAlastair Sinclair split his younger years between Reay in Caithness and Lanark before being called up for national service.\n\nBut his army career was cut short when he stood on a mine in Korea and lost a foot.\n\nHis son told BBC Scotland that he was persuaded to pursue a career in developing artificial limbs as he was being fitted for his own prosthetic.\n\nIn retirement, the father-of-three moved with his wife from Newtown Mearns in East Renfrewshire to Wishaw in North Lanarkshire.\n\nHe moved into Erskine Park care home in Bishopton shortly before lockdown and died, aged 87, five weeks later on 27 April.\n\nPearl Paterson grew up in Dennistoun in the east end of Glasgow and was just 10 years old when World War II broke out.\n\nShe was a teenager when she joined the Women's Land Army but it wasn't until she was in her 80s that she received official recognition - and a badge - for her efforts from the UK government.\n\nPearl spent much of her working life employed as a domestic assistant in hotels across Scotland, before settling in Largs, Ayrshire, with her daughter, Fiona.\n\nAn animal lover, she had a special Chihuahua called Flash, and she read the People's Friend magazine every week.\n\nOn her 91st birthday in March, her family was able wave to her in the conservatory at her care home in Glasgow. She died with Covid-19 on 26 April.\n\nAnnie Munro's home was always filled with people - her husband, six children and many nieces and nephews who would often come to visit.\n\nHer family used to joke that the house in Eaglesham must have \"rubber walls\" and they often had to share beds and would \"wake up with somebody's feet up their nose\".\n\nShe was a real homemaker who could as easily run up a set of curtains as make a batch of jam from fruit she had grown in her own garden. She never turned anyone away who needed help.\n\nA mild-mannered woman, she never had any need to raise her voice - a look over the top of her spectacles was enough to keep her children under control.\n\nIn later life she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and her daughter, Linda, became her main carer before she moved into a care home. Annie died on 25 April, aged 84.\n\nKnown to all as Gogs, Gordon Reid was a taxi driver from Edinburgh who loved football, played golf, enjoyed a pint and doted on his grandchildren.\n\nHe stopped working as a precaution four days before the lockdown came into force but within a week had fallen ill with Covid-19.\n\nHis wife, Elaine, and daughter Leemo Goudie, were able to spend some time with him in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary before he died on 24 April, aged 68.\n\nLeemo said: \"My dad was a normal guy, no health issues, a non-smoker, fairly fit. It can happen to anyone.\"\n\nAs only a small number of mourners could attend his funeral, people stood and applauded as his hearse passed some of his favourite places in the city.\n\nDavid Allan joined a local running club in Edinburgh in retirement, after spending 36 years as a science technician at the city's Trinity Academy.\n\nThe fit and healthy 64-year-old was training for a half marathon and was planning to take part in some Park Runs in Sydney during a trip to visit his nephew in Australia this year.\n\nWhen the holiday - including a trip to Fiji - was cancelled due to coronavirus restrictions, David was pragmatic and told his wife, Glenda, they could rearrange for a later date.\n\nIt was a shock when he tested positive for Covid-19 after being admitted to hospital with a chest infection. He died on 24 April after more than four weeks in ICU.\n\nGlenda took comfort from the funeral, when neighbours lined the streets, running club friends and former colleagues stood outside the crematorium, and hundreds watched the service online.\n\nAngie Cunningham worked for NHS Borders for more than 30 years before her death.\n\nThe 60-year-old from Tweedbank was a much-respected and valued colleague who provided \"amazing care\" to her patients, the health board said.\n\nAs well as being a much-loved mother, sister, granny and great-granny, she was proud to be a nurse, her family added.\n\nShe died in the intensive care unit at Borders General Hospital from Covid-19 on 22 April, NHS Borders confirmed.\n\nKirsty Jones, a healthcare support worker with NHS Lanarkshire, was a bubbly, larger than life character, according to her colleagues.\n\nShe joined the health board after leaving school at 17 and spent much of her career working with older patients.\n\nBut the 41-year-old recently took up a role on the frontline of the pandemic, working at an assessment centre in Airdrie.\n\nHer husband, Nigel, said she devoted her life to caring for others and was a wonderful wife and mother to their two sons.\n\nAndy McGinley used to say he didn't need to win the lottery - his family meant he was already a millionaire.\n\nHe was brought up by adoptive parents in Glasgow's Maryhill area during World War Two and went on to become a carpenter at John Brown's Shipyard.\n\nAlthough he first met his wife, Margaret, at primary school they lost touch and got together after meeting at the Barrowland Ballroom years later.\n\nThey spent almost all of their 62 years of married life in the same house in Barmulloch, where they had five children. They also had 15 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.\n\nHe loved his garden, bowls, and a sing-song at family gatherings - his party piece was \"I'm glad that I was born in Glasgow\". He died on 29 April 2020, aged 84.\n\nEvelyn Brown dedicated her life to her family and her community. Born and bred in Peterhead, she was married to Charles for 50 years and they had two children.\n\nShe gave up her job as a bank manager to care for her son Craig after he was born with Down's syndrome in the 1970s.\n\nHer daughter Emma, who was born two years later, said her mother was a selfless woman who loved spoiling her grandchildren with \"gifts and love\".\n\nMrs Brown was an adult Guide leader and later a district commissioner, she volunteered with Barnardo's and was an active member of the Church of Scotland.\n\nAfter her death at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary on 19 April, aged 75, her family raised £3,000 in her name for the hospital's staff garden.\n\nWaqar Hussain Choudhry was a popular shopkeeper in the north of Glasgow.\n\nThe 65-year-old ran a convenience store on Skerray Street in Milton where he was affectionately known as Wacca.\n\nFollowing his death on 17 April 2020, well-wishers left flowers outside the shop he ran for almost 40 years.\n\nThey told The Glasgow Times that the father-of-three served generations of school children and put an extra sweet in their bags.\n\nHis son Zeeshan Chaudhry told the BBC: \"My beloved father was the most amazing hardworking human and parent.\"\n\nJane Murphy was known as \"Mama Murphy\" by close friends and colleagues at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.\n\nShe worked at the city hospital for almost 30 years, first as a cleaner before retraining as a clinical support worker.\n\nThe 73-year-old, from Bonnyrigg, was placed on sick leave due to her age when the pandemic broke out.\n\nIt's understood the mother-of-two died on 16 April.\n\nHer friend Gerry Taylor said: \"She wasn't afraid to tell nurses, doctors or consultants if they were not pulling their weight and they loved her for it.\"\n\nMary McCann, 70, was a \"strong, wonderful woman\" who was dedicated to her family, according to her son, David.\n\nShe spent the last three months of her life in an East Kilbride care home, having being diagnosed with cancer last year.\n\nThe grandmother was doing well in the Whitehills home, where she was putting on weight and smiling again, David said.\n\nBut in early April she developed a urinary tract infection. Her condition deteriorated quickly and within days she was struggling to breathe.\n\nShe died in the care home on 16 April with her son, Derek, by her side.\n\nVerity Watson met her husband Adam (Adie) in a bible class and together they raised three sons, Alan, Gordon and Adam.\n\nThey lived in South Africa for a few years but returned to their beloved home of Rutherglen in 1970.\n\nShe worked at the local Coulls Bakers until retiring aged 72 but in her spare time she enjoyed bowls, knitting and - best of all - a cream cake with a cup of tea.\n\nHer family were unable to be with her when she died at Roger Park Care Home on 15 April 2020, after a short stay in hospital.\n\nHer son Adam said he couldn't thank staff enough for their \"invaluable support\", sitting with his mother in her final moments. She was 98.\n\nDavid Whittick joined the Royal Navy as a pilot on his 18th birthday in the midst of World War Two. Aged 19, as part of 835 Naval Air Squadron, he was flying off aircraft carrier HMS Nairana in the Arctic.\n\nAlmost 70 years later he received the Arctic Star for his role in Arctic Convoys - described by Sir Winston Churchill as \"the worst journey in the world\".\n\nHe survived two serious accidents during his long civilian career with Scottish Airways and later British Airways, before dedicating himself to supporting the Riding for the Disabled charity in his retirement.\n\nHis work - including helping to raise funds for a purpose-built facility at Summerston in Glasgow - led to him being appointed an OBE by the Queen for his services to charity.\n\nHe was married to Joyce for more than 60 years and they had four children. His son, Peter, said he lived a full and active life, even enjoying a trip on a seaplane in January this year. He died at Erskine care home in Bishopton on 14 April, aged 95, after falling ill with coronavirus.\n\nHer daughter Linda, a lawyer for the BBC, had hoped she would survive the virus as she was from \"strong stock\".\n\nShe last saw her mother in March when she travelled from London to warn her they may not be able to visit her during the pandemic.\n\nThe pensioner had been \"extremely distressed\" afterwards, Ms Duncan said.\n\nShe was taken to Edinburgh's Western General Hospital on 12 April and died three days later.\n\nDerek Wilkie worked for 27 years as a firefighter before retiring in December 2017.\n\nHe had senior roles in Badenoch and Strathspey, and Shetland before becoming station commander for Inverness and Nairn District.\n\nColleagues said he was a \"diligent and capable firefighter... with a larger than life personality\".\n\nHis wife and two sons - who all work for the NHS - thanked those who cared for Mr Wilkie and urged people to stay at home.\n\nHe died at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness on 12 April.\n\nFormer Merchant Navy engineer Bill Campbell died of suspected Covid-19 at Erskine Park care home in Bishopton.\n\nThe 86-year-old had dementia and carers initially thought he had a chest infection but he developed a cough and a high temperature.\n\nHis condition deteriorated and he died on Easter Sunday, with his daughter, Linda Verlaque - in full protective clothing - by his side.\n\nShe praised the work of carers at the home but she said his death was \"horrific\" as undertakers came to take away his body in full hazmat gear and goggles.\n\n\"Instead of having people surrounding me and giving me a hug to say everything was all right, everyone was just standing there and we were watching my dad being taken away, which was traumatic,\" she said.\n\nProud Welshman Glyn Edwards did not learn to speak English until he was five years old, but in adulthood he made Edinburgh his home.\n\nA contemporary of Neil Kinnock at Cardiff University, he worked as a civil servant in London before marrying and moving to Scotland.\n\nHe was a regular at Robbie's Bar on Leith Walk where he was known as \"McTaffy\" but he could be a solitary character who could easily lose himself in a book or a concert.\n\nClassical music, politics and poetry were his passions - as a teenager he won a major Welsh poetry contest and his daughter, Mhairi Jarvie, treasures a ring-binder full of his poems.\n\nShe affectionately described her father as a cross between Coronation Street's Ken Barlow and Victor Meldrew - \"intelligent, opinionated, political, but grumpy and a tad anti-social\".\n\nMaths teacher Gerry McHugh was a \"true gentleman\", able to inspire every single student who walked through his door.\n\nHis death would have a \"devastating effect\" on the Notre Dame High School community in Greenock, head teacher Katie Couttie said.\n\nUnable to attend his funeral due to the lockdown, past and current pupils found a unique way to pay tribute to the 58-year-old.\n\nThey wore red and posted images on social media in memory of the lifelong Manchester United fan.\n\nEileen McCarron died in Glasgow Royal Infirmary less than 24 hours after falling ill. She had no underlying health concerns.\n\nA mother of three daughters, she spent 18 years working as a nursery teacher at Save the Children's Charles Street playgroup in Glasgow's Germiston.\n\nShe gave up the job to look after her only grandson, Patrick. Her husband of more than 35 years, also Patrick, died suddenly in 1997, aged just 57.\n\nAs well as volunteering at a Barnardo's charity shop, she liked shopping, knitting, going out for coffees and lunches, and holidays with her family.\n\nShe was 79 when she died on 9 April, leaving her family devastated and unable to comfort each other during lockdown. They had still not been able to hold a memorial service nine months later.\n\nHelen McMillan was 10 days short of her 85th birthday when she died at Almond Court care home in Glasgow's Drumchapel on 9 April.\n\nShe spent most of her life in Summerston, where she widely known as \"Auntie Ellen\" - even to those she wasn't related to.\n\n\"Everybody loved my mum,\" her daughter, Jackie Marlow, told BBC Scotland. \"She knew everybody in the community and was the life and soul of the party.\"\n\nHelen worked in McLellan's rubber factory in Maryhill until she was in her 50s.\n\nA grandmother to Hayley and Josh, she developed dementia in later life but she was still \"pretty agile and loving life\", her daughter said.\n\nMary Martin and her husband, Alex, were keen ballroom dancers.\n\nAlthough their roots were firmly in Glasgow, they spent seven years in Dunblane where they were tasked with encouraging people on to the dancefloor at the Dunblane Hydro.\n\nBefore that, Mrs Martin brought up her family in Mount Vernon, later moving to Bearsden. She had three children, six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and a great-great grandchild.\n\nHer daughter, Sandra O'Neill, told BBC Scotland she was \"just a wonderful person - gentle and kind\".\n\nIn her later years she had vascular dementia and she lived at the Almond Court care home in Drumchapel. She died there on 8 April, aged 88.\n\nVic and Maureen Sharp, who were both 74, had been together since they were teenagers.\n\nUnderlying health conditions meant the couple from Oakley in Fife were both asked to shield themselves during lockdown.\n\nBut their daughter, Yvonne Sharp, believes the letter came too late and they caught the virus during a weekly trip to the supermarket.\n\nMaureen died in hospital on 8 April and then, Yvonne said, her father \"just gave up\". He died the following day.\n\nOnly six members of the family could attend their funeral but a piper led the funeral cortege through Oakley, where locals lined the streets.\n\nWhen Ann Tonner left the Nazareth House orphanage in Glasgow as teenager, she was one of the few women of colour in the city, according to her son, Tony McCaffery.\n\nShe was \"exotic-looking and quite glamourous\" and was soon in demand as a model for local shops and boutiques before working as a celebrated hot-dog girl in an Odeon cinema.\n\nHer first husband tragically died and her second was largely absent, leaving her to bring up six children and - at times - hold down five jobs at once.\n\nShe was a \"remarkable, formidable woman with a strong work ethic\", Mr McCaffery told BBC Scotland, but she was also a \"gentle soul with an incredibly child-like sense of humour\".\n\nA grandmother and great-grandmother, Mrs Tonner died at a nursing home in Glasgow where she was living with Alzheimer's, on 8 April. She was 84.\n\nMary Nixon was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when she was just 18 but she was determined to never let it hold her back.\n\nBorn and raised in Greenock, she was a lone parent to four children who described her as a \"strong, independent woman who lived life to the full\".\n\n\"My mum made being a single parent look easy\", her daughter Alexis said. \"We were very happy kids growing up. Everyone loved her and always said she was a 'wee gem'.\"\n\nWhen she fell seriously ill in 2014, her family was told to prepare for the worst, but their \"invincible\" mum rallied, though she lost her mobility.\n\nShe died with Covid on 7 April 2020, aged 66. After everything she had been through in life, her family said they felt \"robbed... that this awful virus has taken her from us\".\n\nJanice Graham was the first NHS worker to die with coronavirus in Scotland.\n\nThe health care support worker and district nurse died at Inverclyde Royal Hospital on 6 April.\n\nOne colleague said she had a \"bright and engaging personality and razor sharp wit\".\n\nAnother said the 58-year-old was the \"most kind, caring and compassionate HCA I have had the privilege to work with\".\n\nHer son, Craig, told STV News he would miss everything about her.\n\nNewly-wed Andy Wyness developed a high temperature and a cough following a trip to Wales.\n\nWhen his symptoms worsened the 53-year-old drove himself from his Wishaw home to an appointment at an assessment centre.\n\nThat was the last time his wife, Sandra, saw him.\n\nThe grandfather, who was a keen bowler, was taken straight to hospital by ambulance. He died on 6 April.\n\n\"Even walking out the house that night, although I knew he wasn't well, I never imagined he would never walk back in,\" Sandra said.\n\nRita Hawthorn spent the first 35 years of her life in Hamilton, where she was born, grew up and had her own family.\n\nBut when her husband, Robert, lost his job as a miner the couple and their three children re-located from the west of Scotland to the far north in 1973.\n\nWhile Robert took up a new job at the Scottish Instruments Factory in Wick, she worked as a cleaner at a nearby job centre and became secretary of the Highlands and Islands Civil Service Union.\n\nShe was sadly widowed at 51 but she was \"fiercely independent\" and went on to fulfil her dreams of travelling - a trip up the Nile, a safari in South Africa, and solo bus tours to Austria and Paris.\n\nRita, who was a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, fell ill during the first week of lockdown. She died at Caithness General Hospital on 6 April, aged 82.\n\nBill Paul grew up in Giffnock on the south side of Glasgow and did his national service as a radar operator with the RAF in Malta.\n\nIn his youth he was an extremely accomplished tennis player and it was through the sport that he met his first wife, Frances, who died in 1984.\n\nWith his second wife, Liz, he loved to play golf and travel - hobbies that he continued after her death in 2012.\n\nAn extremely active man, he loved to go on cruises with a group of like-minded friends. However his last cruise to the Caribbean was cut short by the pandemic in March.\n\nHe returned home to Arran and fell ill with Covid within a week. He died at Lamlash Hospital on 5 April, aged 81.\n\nMofizul Islam was beginning a new life in Scotland after relocating from Bangladesh when he fell ill with coronavirus.\n\nHis family believe the 49-year-old caught the virus on his daily three-hour journeys between their Edinburgh home and his job at a pizza outlet in Midlothian.\n\nHe died on 5 April and was buried in the Muslim section of a city cemetery but his wife and children were in isolation and unable to attend.\n\nHis death has left the family \"completely helpless\", according to a family friend as they have no documents, no bank account and they are struggling for money.\n\n\"We are very worried about our future because we don't have our father,\" said Mofizul's 19-year-old son, Azahural. \"He was everything for us. And now we are just hopeless.\"\n\nCatherine Sweeney was a \"wonderful mother, sister and beloved aunty\", her family said after her death on 4 April.\n\nBorn and raised in Dumbarton, she worked as a home carer for more than 20 years.\n\nHer family said she would be sorely missed after a \"lifetime of service\" to the community.\n\nAnd they praised the medics at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley who \"heroically\" looked after her in her final days.\n\nJimmy Andrews was 17 years old when began his career in Glasgow Corporation's finance department in 1955.\n\nBy the turn of the century, he had risen to become chief executive of Glasgow City Council and in 2001 he was appointed CBE for services to local government - a \"career highlight\".\n\nHe was born in Kilsyth but spent much of his life living in Strathblane, Stirlingshire, with his wife of 52 years, Mary.\n\nIn retirement, he \"enjoyed life to the full\", spending time with his three children and six grandchildren, and visiting horse racing courses throughout the country.\n\nA gentle, intelligent man with a great sense of humour, he died at Glasgow Royal Infirmary on 3 April 2020, aged 81.\n\nLord Gordon of Strathblane was a former political editor of STV and he founded Radio Clyde.\n\nHe died at Glasgow Royal Infirmary on 31 March after contracting coronavirus, Radio Clyde reported. He was 83.\n\nHis family paid tribute to his \"generosity, his kindness and his enthusiasm for life\".\n\nFormer First Minister Jack McConnell said Lord Gordon had \"an outstanding career in business and public service\".\n\nRyan Storrie was in Scotland to celebrate his 40th birthday with a trip to a Rangers match when he fell ill.\n\nThe father-of-two was from Ardrossan but lived in Dubai.\n\nWhen he developed symptoms, the asthmatic isolated in his hotel room and waited for the virus to run its course.\n\nHis condition deteriorated but he wouldn't let his wife, Hilary, phone 999 as he was convinced he would recover and didn't want to bother the NHS.\n\nShe found him dead in his room on 31 March.\n\nMary and Andy Leaman began self-isolating at the end of March after falling ill with flu-like symptoms.\n\nTheir son, Andy, told the Glasgow Evening Times the couple were married 50 years and doted on their only granddaughter, nine-year-old Anna.\n\nMrs Leaman died at home in Castlemilk on 30 March - four days after the death of Anna's maternal grandfather, Dougie Chambers.\n\nThe schoolgirl lost her third grandparent almost three weeks later when Mr Leaman died in hospital on 19 April.\n\nHer mother, Lynsey Chalmers, told BBC Scotland: \"For a nine-year-old girl whose three grandparents were her world... why does a wee girl need to get punished like that over and over again?\"\n\nRobert Tarbet was \"self-opinionated and witty\", according to his daughter, Paula Karoly, but also \"hardworking, loyal and beautiful\".\n\nHe spent his working life as a plumber with Glasgow City Council before retiring in the early 2000s.\n\nIn his spare time, the sociable man was a mason who was a keen follower of Rangers FC. He loved country and western music and watching musicals in the theatre.\n\nA father and a grandfather-of-three, he was being treated for cancer when he contracted coronavirus.\n\nHe died on 29 March at Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, aged 76.\n\nSchool janitor Ian Wilson was at home in Coatbridge for two weeks with a high temperature and delirium before being admitted to hospital.\n\nDespite his worsening condition, doctors initially told his wife, Sandra, she would not be able to visit the 72-year-old who had a heart condition and diabetes.\n\nStaff eventually granted access provided she wore protective equipment - a decision which meant she could be at her husband's side when he died on 29 March.\n\nAlthough nurses were unable to comfort her with a hug due to social distancing protocols, Mrs Wilson is grateful they allowed her to be with her partner at the end.\n\n\"I was able to talk to him and just say goodbye. I've got strength from that,\" she said.\n\nDougie Chambers was one of several people who fell ill after the 40th birthday party of his daughter, Wendy, on 7 March.\n\nWithin days, the 66-year-old, who had an underlying health condition, went into hospital and tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nMr Chambers, who was from Castlemilk in Glasgow, died two weeks later, on 26 March.\n\nTwo other members of his extended family - Andy and Mary Leaman - also contracted the virus and later died.\n\nWendy said: \"If we knew then what we know now, we wouldn't have had the party. It wouldn't have happened.\"\n\nDanny Cairns was a healthy 68-year-old before he fell ill with coronavirus, according to his brother, Hugh.\n\nWhen he developed a cough and sore throat at the end of March, he isolated at home in Greenock.\n\nBut within days he was so ill he had to be taken to hospital by ambulance.\n\nIn a video call from his hospital bed, his last words to his brother were: \"I'm on my way out, mate\".\n\nHe died on 26 March, three days after arriving in hospital.\n\nMargaret Innes lived with her daughter, Sally McNaught, in Edinburgh for four years before her death at the very beginning of the pandemic.\n\nShe was housebound and very frail but she loved sitting with their pet cat and dog, doing crosswords and watching quiz shows.\n\nHer favourite soap was Neighbours and she used to say \"I'm off to Australia now\".\n\nMs McNaught said they stopped visitors coming to the house a week before lockdown, they washed their hands, cleaned everything and thought they would be safe.\n\nBut Ms Innes woke up on Mother's Day with severe breathing difficulties. She died on 25 March, three days after going into hospital. She was 93.\n\nHas one of your loved ones died recently after contracting Covid? We would like to pay tribute to some of them on the BBC Scotland website.\n\nIf you would like to see your relative or friend featured, use the form below to send us your details and we could be in touch.\n\nIn some cases your details will be published, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read the terms and conditions.\n\nIf you are reading this page on the BBC News app, you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question on this topic.", "England is currently under a third national lockdown, in an attempt to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed by coronavirus cases.\n\nBut there has been speculation that ministers could be considering tightening restrictions, amid concerns the \"stay-at-home\" message isn't being followed by enough people.\n\nAt Monday evening's Downing Street briefing, Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged people to follow the existing rules but added, \"we won't rule out taking further action if it's needed\". Other ministers have struck a similar tone.\n\nBut what is the case for more changes?\n\nIn March, nurseries closed to all but vulnerable children and those whose parents were key workers.\n\nBut so far this lockdown, early-years provision has remained open in England.\n\nScotland and Northern Ireland have chosen to keep nurseries closed to most children for now.\n\nBut England's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, said keeping them open \"would allow people who need to go to work, or need to do particular activities, to do so\".\n\nYounger children carry a lower risk of transmission than adolescents, scientists say.\n\nBut according to Public Health England, 10% of coronavirus outbreaks or clusters in educational settings since September have been in early-years provision.\n\nEngland's three main nursery organisations have called on the government to provide clear scientific evidence on the risks to early-years staff now there is a more transmissible variant of Covid-19.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show he too would like to hear more from scientists about the risks - and nurseries should \"probably\" close.\n\nGoing out to exercise once a day is one of the \"reasonable excuses\" for leaving home during lockdown.\n\nPeople can walk, run, cycle or swim with those they live - or are in a support bubble - with.\n\nIn addition, they can exercise, on their own, with one person, each time, from another household - as long as they stay 2m (6ft) apart.\n\nHowever, Mr Hancock said, \"we've been seeing large groups and that is not acceptable\" and warned that, \"if too many people keep breaking this rule, then we are going to have to look at it\".\n\nThe rules say exercise should be \"local\" - in the village, town, or part of the city where you live - but do not currently specify how far people can travel.\n\nDerbyshire Police recently fined two women £200 each for driving five miles to meet for a walk, saying driving for exercise was \"not in the spirit\" of lockdown. They were told the hot drinks they had brought along were not allowed, either, as they were \"classed as a picnic\".\n\nThe penalties have now been withdrawn.\n\nProf Whitty, meanwhile, has urged people to \"double down\", avoid unnecessary contact and stick to the rules.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio 5 Live about coffee shops remaining open for takeaways, he advised against meeting up there.\n\n\"Really, please don't,\" he said.\n\nFace coverings must be worn in almost all public indoor settings - including shops - unless people are exempt.\n\nPremises \"should take reasonable steps to promote compliance with the law\", government guidance says.\n\nLast summer, when customer face coverings became law, many supermarkets said they would not make their staff responsible for enforcing the rules.\n\nHowever, Morrisons has now updated its policy to bar shoppers who refuse to cover their faces, unless they are medically exempt. Sainsbury's says security guards at its stores will challenge customers who do not comply.\n\nTesco, Asda and Waitrose have followed suit and say they too will deny entry to shoppers who do not wear face masks unless they have an exemption.\n\nThere have been suggestions face coverings should be required in outdoor public places.\n\nHowever, Sage has previously suggested it would have a \"very low impact\" on community transmission\n\nProf Whitty told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the risk posed by joggers, for example, was \"very low\" - but there \"might be some logic\" to people wearing masks in a busy outdoor queue or crowded around a market stall.\n\nOne change the government has ruled out is to support bubbles - which allow people living alone and single, or new parents to mix with another household of any size, without having to socially distance.\n\nAt the government briefing, Mr Hancock said: \"I can rule out removing the bubbles.\"\n\nThe official guidance says it's best if a support bubble is formed with a household who live locally.\n\nBut there is currently no limit to how far people can travel to visit their bubble, meaning they could go from areas with high infection rates to those with lower ones, potentially spreading the virus.\n\nWhen \"bubbling\" was first suggested, in May, Sage rejected it as too dangerous, because the reproduction (R) number - the average number of people each infected person passes the virus on to - was close to one.\n\nCurrently, the R number in England is between 1.1 and 1.4. Sage says stopping all indoor contact between different households could lower this by as much as 0.2.\n\n\"Active contract tracing should be a precondition of introducing bubbling\", Sage added.\n\nUnlike in March, places of worship are allowed to open in England, although they are closed in Scotland.\n\nThey provide spiritual leadership for many and bring communities together - but their \"communal nature\" also makes them \"vulnerable to the spread of coronavirus\", the government guidance for England says.\n\nWhen the latest lockdown was announced, the Archbishop of Canterbury tweeted: \"The government hasn't suspended public worship - but some may feel it better not to attend in person and some parishes are expected to offer online services only for now.\"\n\nSage has previously suggested places of worship pose a high risk to vulnerable groups but closing them would have a low to moderate impact on overall coronavirus transmission.", "Isabella Curry urged others to get the jab and said it was just a little \"prick in the arm\"\n\nA woman has celebrated her 100th birthday by getting a covid vaccination at home.\n\nIsabella Curry, known as Ella, from Cramlington, was among some of the most vulnerable people in Northumberland to receive the vaccine.\n\nMs Curry, who lives alone, urged others not to be afraid to get the jab and said it was just a little \"prick in the arm\" and she now felt safe.\n\nHer birthday was also marked by the arrival of a card from the Queen.\n\nShe said: \"This vaccine means I'll be able to go out, meet my friends soon and feel safe.\"\n\nIsabella Curry's nephew Neil Curry thanked the \"army\" of helpers who cared for his aunt\n\nMs Curry's nephew, Neil Curry from Bristol, said he was delighted she had had the vaccination but sad the whole family could not get together for the milestone birthday.\n\n\"We had a family reunion for Ella's 90th - we all got together in Newcastle. We would have all got together again to mark this occasion, but we couldn't,\" he said.\n\nHe also said he wanted to thank the \"army\" of people who looked after his aunt including Noreen and Jim Hutchinson, who did her shopping and cut her grass.\n\nHe also thanked June and Peter Marshall and all the other people who collected her prescriptions and mobile library books.\n\nKate Fraser, the community nurse who administered the vaccination, said: \"It's been an emotional time being able to give Isabella her vaccination.\"\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.", "People's reaction to a sonic boom heard across the East of England has been caught on camera.\n\nIt happened after a Typhoon aircraft took off from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire to escort a plane to Stansted Airport because it had lost communications at about 13:05 GMT.\n\nPeople in Cambridgeshire, Essex and parts of London posted videos on social media, with one person heard asking if it was thunder.\n\nHeather Eastlake, who was filming herself exercising near Cambridge, described her reaction as being like \"a deer in the highlights\".", "The three main Covid-19 vaccines are from Pfizer-BioNTech, the University of Oxford and Astra-Zeneca and Moderna.\n\nThe Pfizer, Oxford and Moderna vaccines each require two doses and you are not fully vaccinated until you have had both shots.\n\nBut there are many differences between them.\n\nThe BBC's Laura Foster looks at how much immunity they give, how they prevent infection and how they compare.", "Jessica Allen and Eliza Moore said their cars were surrounded by police when they arrived at the reservoir\n\nTwo women who were fined £200 each when they drove five miles for a walk have had the penalties withdrawn.\n\nJessica Allen and Eliza Moore were walking at Foremark Reservoir, Derbyshire, when they were \"surrounded\" by officers.\n\nAt the time Derbyshire Police insisted driving to exercise was \"not in the spirit\" of the most recent lockdown.\n\nBut new national guidance for police has led the force to quash the fines, and apologise to the women.\n\nChief Constable Rachel Swann said the fines \"have been withdrawn and we have notified the women directly, apologising for any concern caused\".\n\nThe two friends travelled the short distance to the reservoir from their homes in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, on Wednesday afternoon.\n\nThey said their cars were \"surrounded\" by police. They were then questioned on why they were there and told the hot drinks they had brought along were not allowed as they were \"classed as a picnic\".\n\nIn a statement, the women said: \"This afternoon we both received a phone call from Derbyshire Police.\n\n\"After reviewing our case, our fines have been rescinded and we have received an apology on behalf of the constabulary for the treatment we received.\n\n\"We welcomed this apology and we are pleased to draw a line under this event.\"\n\nAfter the incident gained media attention, the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) \"clarified the policing response concerning travel and exercise\".\n\nThe guidance said: \"The Covid regulations which officers enforce and which enables them to issue FPNs [fixed penalty notices] for breaches, do not restrict the distance travelled for exercise.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid: Fined women 'could have been dealt with differently'\n\nDerbyshire Police said: \"Having received clarification of the guidance issued by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) on Friday, these FPNs as well as a small number of others issued, were reviewed in line with that latest advice, and so it is right that we have taken this action.\"\n\nThe county's police and crime commissioner Hardyal Dhinsda said: \"While the police are doing their absolute best to protect public safety during what is a critical time of the pandemic, the public should rightly expect a proportionate and balanced approach, taking full consideration of individual circumstances.\n\n\"We recognise that errors will occur in the face of complex guidance and legislation and it is important such situations are resolved quickly and fairly, as has been the case here.\"\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Rhondda Cynon Taf has the highest death rate from coronavirus in Wales - with another 34 hospital deaths in the latest week\n\nThere have now been more than 5,100 deaths in Wales involving Covid-19 since the pandemic began.\n\nThe latest weekly figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show 310 deaths in the week ending 1 January, which is 32 more than the week before.\n\nThis is nearly 42.6% of all deaths.\n\nCwm Taf Morgannwg saw the highest numbers of weekly deaths in Wales, the most since the end of April at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic.\n\nThere were 76 deaths in the area - including 66 in hospitals and six in care homes.\n\nLooking at council areas, Rhondda Cynon Taf had the second highest number of hospital deaths across England and Wales, with 34. The London borough of Newham had 35.\n\nThe ONS again urged caution when interpreting this week's figures, due to the Christmas and new year holidays, which will affect the number of registrations.\n\nThe total number of Covid deaths in Wales, up to and registered by 1 January, was 4,963.\n\nBut when deaths registered over the following few days are included, there was a total of 5,169.\n\nThe Aneurin Bevan health board, with 68 deaths registered involving Covid, also had its highest number in a single week since the end of April.\n\nHywel Dda health board reported 37 deaths - its highest weekly figure since the pandemic began. Of these, 18 were patients in hospital from Carmarthenshire and 10 were hospital patients from Pembrokeshire.\n\nSwansea Bay health board had 61 deaths in this week. The Swansea council area itself had the seventh highest number of hospital deaths across England and Wales.\n\nThere were 36 deaths in Cardiff and Vale, 25 deaths in Betsi Cadwaladr in north Wales - 10 of which were hospital deaths in Wrexham - and seven in Powys.\n\nAll counties recorded at least one death involving Covid-19.\n\nThis map shows three valleys areas in south Wales among the highest for crude mortality rates involving Covid in the pandemic so far\n\nRhondda Cynon Taf, with 685 deaths, has the largest number of Covid-19 deaths in Wales up to the latest week, followed by Cardiff with 578.\n\nWhen looking at crude death rates - based on the number of deaths compared to local populations - Wales has three of the five worst across England and Wales.\n\nRhondda Cynon Taf has 283 deaths per 100,000 in total so far in the pandemic.\n\nMerthyr Tydfil is second with 253.6 and Blaenau Gwent is ranked fourth.\n\nSo-called excess deaths, which compare all registered deaths with previous years, continue to be above the five-year average.\n\nLooking at the number of deaths we would normally expect to see at this point in the year is seen as a useful measure of how the pandemic is progressing.\n\nIn Wales, the number of deaths fell from 825 to 727 in the latest week, but this was still 209 deaths (40.3%) higher than the five-year average for that week. This is the second highest proportion after London.\n\nThe ONS figures report where doctors mention Covid-19 on death certificates, including confirmed and suspected cases.\n\nThey include deaths occurring in all places, not only hospitals and care homes but also people's own homes.\n\nIt has been estimated that Covid is the underlying cause in around 90% of these deaths and not just a contributory factor.", "An eye health charity is recommending people learn the \"20-20-20\" rule to protect their sight, as lockdown has increased people's time using screens.\n\nFight for Sight advises looking at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes you look at a screen.\n\nOut of 2,000 people, half used screens more since Covid struck and a third (38%) of those believed their eyesight had worsened, a survey suggested.\n\nOpticians remain open for those who need them, the charity said.\n\nThe representative survey of 2,000 adults suggested one in five were less likely to get an eye test now than before the pandemic, for fear of catching or spreading the virus.\n\nRespondents reported difficulty reading, as well as headaches and migraines and poorer night vision.\n\nThe research charity, which commissioned a survey from polling company YouGov, said it wanted to emphasise the importance of having regular eye tests and to remind people \"the majority of opticians are open for appointments throughout lockdown restrictions\".\n\nFight for Sight chief executive Sherine Krause said: \"More than half of all cases of sight loss are avoidable through early detection and prevention methods. Regular eye tests can often detect symptomless sight-threatening conditions.\"\n\nBut even simple screen breaks can help to prevent eye strain, the charity suggested.\n\nGovernment guidance states that under lockdown people can leave home for medical appointments and to \"avoid injury, illness or risk of harm\".\n\nThe College of Optometrists said its members should continue to provide eye care under lockdown for people who experience any eyesight changes or problems.\n\nOptometrists are the professionals who will carry out your eye test when you visit an optician's practice.\n\nRoutine appointments can also be provided \"if capacity permits, and if it is in the patients' best interests\", the guidance states.\n\nClinical adviser Paramdeep Bilkhu said the college's own research suggested just under a quarter of people noticed their vision deteriorate during the first lockdown.\n\n\"Our research showed us that many people believe that spending more time in front of screens worsened their vision,\" he said.\n\n\"The good news is that this is unlikely to cause any permanent harm to your vision. However, it is very important that if you feel your vision has deteriorated or if you are experiencing any problems with your eyes, such as them becoming red or painful, you contact your local optometrist by telephone or online.\"\n\nUK health and safety legislation states employers must pay for eye tests for their employees if they have to use a screen for work for more than one hour a day.\n\nIn the summer, the UK Ophthalmology Alliance and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists calculated that at least 10,000 people had missed out on essential eye care in Britain.\n\nIn the most extreme cases, the Royal National Institute of Blind People said it feared some people were at risk of losing their sight because of a fear of attending hospital during the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nA Royal College of Ophthalmologists spokesperson said: \"It is important that people who have found significant changes in their vision seek the advice of an optometrist who will examine, and determine if the changes require further investigation by an ophthalmologist - a medically-trained eye doctor.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Home Secretary Priti Patel: \"Our selfless police officers... will enforce the regulations and I will back them to do so\"\n\nPeople have been urged to \"play your part\" and follow Covid rules by Home Secretary Priti Patel, who says she will back police to enforce laws.\n\nAt a No 10 briefing, Ms Patel said a minority were \"putting the health of the nation at risk\" by flouting rules.\n\nPolice are \"moving more quickly to issuing fines\", she added, with nearly 45,000 fixed penalty notices issued across the UK.\n\nAnother 1,243 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid.\n\nAnd there have been a further 45,533 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.\n\nMeanwhile, another 145,076 people have received a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 20,768 a second dose, bringing the totals respectively to 2,431,648 and 412,167.\n\nAt the briefing, Ms Patel said: \"My message today to anyone refusing to do the right thing is simple: if you do not play your part, our selfless police officers - who are out there risking their own lives every day to keep us safe - they will enforce the regulations.\n\n\"And I will back them to do so, to protect our NHS and to save lives.\"\n\nIt comes after the UK's most senior police officer said lockdown rule-breakers were more likely to be fined as Covid laws would be enforced \"more quickly\".\n\nMetropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said her officers had been forced to break up parties, despite hospitals in London struggling to cope with rising patient numbers.\n\nChairman of the National Police Chiefs' Council Martin Hewitt, who also spoke at the Downing Street briefing, said people should be asking themselves whether their reason for leaving home was \"truly essential\".\n\nHe stressed that police officers had been \"putting themselves at risk in order to keep people safe\", and said it had been \"disappointing\" to see some of the behaviour by rule-breakers.\n\nHe said examples of recent breaches included:\n\nMr Hewitt said he made \"no apology\" for police issuing fines, and warned people breaking rules - such as by organising parties or not wearing face coverings on public transport - to \"expect\" a fine.\n\nAsked if there needed to be more clarity on the guidance around exercise and staying local, Mr Hewitt said it would be wrong to put a \"particular distance\" on how far people could exercise from their home - as it would be too difficult for police to enforce.\n\nHe said it was right there was an exception to allow people to exercise, but insisted it was the public's responsibility to make sure they were doing so safely.\n\nThere is a big focus on adherence to lockdown rules. But what has almost gone unnoticed is the fact that cases may have actually started falling.\n\nThere has now been two consecutive days where newly diagnosed cases have hovered around the 46,000 mark. Up to the weekend, the average was close to 60,000.\n\nThe drop has largely been driven by falls in new cases in London, the south east and east of England.\n\nIn some regions, cases are still going up. The north west of England is causing particular concern.\n\nIt is too early for the vaccination programme to be having any significant impact, so a combination of the national lockdown on top of the tier four restrictions that were imposed in some areas before Christmas look like they may be beginning to have an impact.\n\nCare must be taken in reading too much into a couple of days' data.\n\nHospital cases are still rising - patients being admitted at the moment are the ones who were infected a week or so ago - but it does at least offer a glimmer of hope.\n\nLater in the news conference, NHS medical director for London Dr Vin Diwakar said the capital's Nightingale hospital has reopened and was admitting patients to help with the coronavirus spread.\n\nHe told reporters it was taking non-Covid patients to help free up beds in London's hospitals.\n\nDr Diwakar warned that if levels of hospitalisation in the capital continued to rise then more patients would need to be transferred out of London, adding that the NHS across the country was under pressure.\n\nIn Birmingham, 200 doctors are being redeployed to one of the country's largest intensive care units as it nears capacity.\n\nThe University Hospitals Birmingham Trust said there were 873 patients with Covid-19 in their hospitals, with 125 in intensive care.\n\nEarlier, crime and policing minister Kit Malthouse said people have a \"duty\" to make this lockdown \"the last one\".\n\n\"We are urging the small minority of people who aren't taking this seriously to do so now, and [we say] to them that, if they don't, they are much more likely to get fined by the police,\" he told BBC Breakfast.\n\nDame Cressida told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the move towards greater enforcement was \"common sense\" rather than a show of \"dictatorial policing\".\n\nFines start at £200 in England and Northern Ireland, and £60 in Wales and Scotland. Large parties can be shut down by the police, with fines of up to £10,000.\n\nEngland is currently under a national lockdown, meaning people must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar lockdown measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - all of which are in charge of deciding and enforcing their own coronavirus restrictions.\n• None Could I be fined for exercising?", "New England Patriots's Bill Belichick is considered one of the most successful coaches in NFL history\n\nTop NFL coach Bill Belichick says he will not accept President Donald Trump's offer of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, citing the US Capitol riot.\n\nBelichick, of the New England Patriots, said he was flattered when he was first offered the medal - the top award given to civilians in the US.\n\nBut he said he changed his mind after a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress last week. Five people died.\n\nThe celebrated coach had previously spoken of his friendship with Mr Trump.\n\n\"Recently, I was offered the opportunity to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which I was flattered by out of respect for what the honour represents and admiration for prior recipients,\" Belichick said in a statement.\n\n\"Subsequently, the tragic events of last week occurred and the decision has been made not to move forward with the award.\"\n\nBelichick, who has won a record six Super Bowl titles, is considered one of the most successful coaches in NFL history.\n\nThe Presidential Medal of Freedom recognises individuals who have made outstanding contributions to \"the security or national interests of America\".\n\nIn 2019 Mr Trump gave the award to golfer Tiger Woods, as well as radio personality Rush Limbaugh and posthumously Elvis Presley.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Super Bowl: How Tom Brady and Bill Belichick built a New England Patriots dynasty\n\nDonald Trump may only have recently made a career of politics, but he's always loved sport.\n\nHe owns 17 golf courses and once bought and ran the New Jersey Generals of the US Football League.\n\nJust last week, he awarded three presidential medals of freedom to professional golfers. This week he was planning to honour the most successful professional football coach in modern times, Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots.\n\nThe president seems to particularly enjoy the company of sport figures and revel in their achievements and prowess.\n\nSo for Belichick, a personal friend of the president's, to decline the award is a stinging rebuke.\n\nThe coach's decision reflects the depth of the political crisis president has created in the past week. It also highlights the troubled relationship Trump has had with the National Football League and its players, who he has disparaged for Black Lives Matter protests during the US national anthem.\n\nBelichick, a sometimes bristling, controversial figure with more than a few detractors, is used to public animosity. A coach can't win without the commitment of his players, however, and Belichick clearly believed his relationship with his team would be jeopardised by associating himself with Trump at this point.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHundreds of people have joined a march organised following claims a man died hours after being released by police in Cardiff.\n\nThe family of Mohamud Mohammed Hassan, 24, claim he was assaulted in custody.\n\nMore than 300 people took part in a march from the city centre to Cardiff Bay police station.\n\nSouth Wales Police said it found no evidence of excessive force. The police watchdog said initial tests showed Mr Hassan was not killed by any injuries.\n\nThe Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said toxicology tests were now being carried out and it was awaiting the full post-mortem results.\n\nEarlier, First Minister Mark Drakeford said the reports of Mr Hassan's death were \"deeply concerning\".\n\nMr Hassan was arrested at his Roath home on Friday on suspicion of breach of the peace but released without charge on Saturday morning.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Hassan's aunt Zainab Hassan told BBC Wales she had seen Mr Hassan within an hour of his release.\n\n\"He was released on Saturday morning with lots of wounds on his body and lots of bruises,\" she said.\n\n\"He didn't have these wounds when he was arrested and when he came out of Cardiff Bay police station, he had them.\"\n\nIn a virtual session of the Welsh Parliament on Monday, Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price said: \"Every effort should be made to seek the truth of what happened.\"\n\nHe said he wanted to know why Mr Hassan was arrested and what happened during his arrest.\n\nMr Hassan's aunt Zainab Hassan said she saw him after his release\n\n\"Why did this young man die?,\" he added.\n\nMr Price said any inquiry should not be prejudged, but asked if the first minister would \"help the family find those answers\".\n\nIn response, Mr Drakeford said reports of the story were \"deeply concerning\".\n\n\"Our thoughts must be with the family of a young man who was... a fit and healthy individual,\" the Cardiff West MS said.\n\nMark Drakeford said he was deeply concerned by the reports\n\nMr Drakeford, who said the death must be \"properly investigated\", said the first step in any inquiry would be to allow the IOPC to carry out their work, which he said he expected \"to be done rigorously and with full and visible independence\".\n\nHe added that if there were things the Welsh Government could do \"I will make sure that we attend properly to those\".\n\nProtesters on Tuesday afternoon chanted \"no justice, no peace\" and called for the police force to release CCTV of Mr Hassan's time in custody.\n\nProtesters on Tuesday afternoon marched from the city centre to Cardiff Bay\n\nIn a statement on Monday, South Wales Police said Mr Hassan was arrested at his home in Newport Road on Friday night and taken to Cardiff Bay police station.\n\nHe was released at 08:30 GMT on Saturday and officers returned to the property at about 22:30 following his death.\n\nIt added: \"As part of the South Wales Police investigation CCTV and body-worn video has already been, and will continue to be, examined.\n\n\"This will assist in establishing and understanding the events that took place.\n\n\"Early findings by the force indicate no misconduct issues and no excessive force.\"\n\nProtesters were heard chanting \"no justice, no peace\"\n\nCatrin Evans, the IOPC's director for Wales, said its investigation would focus on Mr Hassan's arrest, the journey in a police van to custody and his time at Cardiff Bay police station, including whether relevant assessments were made before he was released.\n\nShe said they would be \"urgently examining the extensive relevant CCTV footage and body-worn video\" and would be speaking to the officers involved as well as witnesses who saw his arrest on Friday evening and his movements the next day after leaving custody.\n\nShe added: \"I send my condolences to Mr Hassan's family and friends, and to everyone affected by his sad death.\n\n\"We are aware of concerns being expressed and questions being asked about use of force by police officers. We will look carefully at the level of force used during the interaction and I would urge people show patience while our inquiries, which will take some time, are made.\"\n\nMs Evans added: \"An interim report from a post-mortem examination is awaited.\n\n\"Preliminary indications are that there is no physical trauma injury to explain a cause of death, and toxicology tests are required.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A 78-year-old French woman received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in France\n\nA global race is on to vaccinate people against Covid-19 - and with infections soaring in Europe many have complained that the roll-out is too slow in the EU.\n\nMember states decide individually who to vaccinate, when and where, but the EU is coordinating strategy and buying vaccines in bulk. On Friday, the EU Commission agreed to buy an extra 300 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine - that would give the EU nearly half of the firm's global output for 2021.\n\nBBC reporters in seven European capitals explain how the vaccinations are going on their patch.\n\nIn an election year, the vaccine has become a political battleground, writes Jenny Hill, in Berlin.\n\nThe fact it was German scientists who developed the first effective Covid vaccine has been the source of great national pride. And, by and large, Germans appear to be reasonably comfortable with the idea of immunisation.\n\nA recent survey found 65% were prepared to have the vaccine. Other research indicates that less than a quarter of those surveyed would not. But politically - and perhaps unsurprisingly, given this is an election year - Germany's vaccination programme has become a battleground.\n\nVaccinations began here just under two weeks ago and prioritise the over 80s and care home workers. By Thursday evening, more than 477,000 first doses had been administered.\n\nGermany's share of the EU order amounts to 56 million doses. So far, 1.3 million doses have been delivered.\n\nBut some of the hundreds of specially prepared vaccination centres are still not in use and even the government has admitted there simply isn't enough to go around. Angela Merkel and her health minister Jens Spahn have been accused of failing to secure enough doses.\n\nMuch of the criticism has come from Mrs Merkel's own coalition partners but some within the scientific community have echoed their concerns - that Germany put European interests above its own by insisting on a joint EU procurement process. The scientists who developed the vaccine have said publicly that the EU originally turned down an offer for a further order.\n\nGermany's share of the EU order amounts to 56 million doses. So far, 1.3 million doses have been delivered and it's thought that by the end of the month a further 2.68 million will have followed.\n\nMr Spahn, whose assured performance through the pandemic led some to wonder whether he might be a potential successor to Mrs Merkel, has blamed the shortage on the inability of the manufacturers of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to meet global demand.\n\nGermany has now ordered an extra 30 million doses and, following the recent European approval of the Moderna vaccine, expects to start rolling that out next week. The government is sticking to its pledge that the vaccination programme will be complete by the end of the summer.\n\nThe Czech prime minister has hit out at apparent delays in distributing the vaccine, writes Rob Cameron, in Prague.\n\nThe Czech vaccination effort began on 27 December, when the prime minister, Andrej Babis, became the first person in the country to receive the jab. Mr Babis, who is 66, had previously questioned whether he would be eligible, as he'd had his spleen removed as a teenager.\n\nBut the country's programme has got off to a sluggish start. Mr Babis - a billionaire businessman who has been dogged by both European and Czech investigations into alleged misuse of EU funds - has lost no time venting his (figurative) spleen at the European Commission over the delay. \"We believed when we contributed €12m to the European fund in November that we'd receive the vaccine,\" he told a newspaper this week.\n\nThe health minister conceded this week that immunising the higher-risk groups will take months.\n\nThe country has received 30,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. So far, it has managed to administer it to 19,918 people. The government says it is ready to roll out the jab en masse as soon as supplies arrive from the manufacturers.\n\nIt has also published a strategy, which envisages a three-stage process. The first will see targeted vaccination of high-risk groups. This will gradually give way to mass vaccination in 31 centres, using an online reservation system that will be open to all from 1 February. And the final stage will see the country's GPs deployed, hopefully to administer the Oxford-AstraZeneca and other jabs, which unlike the previous two can be stored and transported at fridge temperature.\n\nHowever, the timing in the original strategy document now appears optimistic. The health minister conceded this week that immunising the higher-risk groups - all health and social care staff, teachers, everyone over 65, all those with serious health conditions - will take months. GPs may not begin vaccinating young, healthy members of society until late spring, or summer.\n\nA sluggish start is being blamed on bureaucracy and vaccine scepticism, writes Hugh Schofield, in Paris.\n\nFrance's boast of a big, effective state apparatus has been badly exposed by the sluggish start to the Covid vaccination programme. After the first week, when neighbouring Germany had inoculated around 250,000 people, France was on a mere 530. By Friday, the figure had gone up to 45,500 - still so small as to be statistically meaningless.\n\nSo why has it taken so long for France to put the plan into action? It is not as if the authorities did not have time to prepare. And it is certainly not a question of a lack of vaccine. In fact, more than a million Pfizer doses are already in cold storage, waiting to be used.\n\nPolls suggest as many as 58% of the public do not want to be given the jab.\n\nThe primary reason for the delay seems to be the cumbersome, over-centralised nature of France's health bureaucracy. A 45-page dossier of instructions issued by the ministry in Paris had to be read and understood by staff at old people's homes.\n\nEach recipient then had to give informed consent in a consultation with a doctor, held no less than five days before injection. The lengthy procedure is in theory to save lives - those of patients who might have an adverse reaction. But as the critics have been arguing, delay in inoculating the population is also costing lives.\n\nAnother problem in France is the high level of scepticism towards vaccination - product of a more general suspicion of government. Polls suggest as many as 58% of the public do not want to be given the jab. The effect - critics say - has been to make the government unduly cautious. When urgency was required, the authorities were reluctant to move fast for fear of galvanising the anti-vaxxers.\n\nAfter President Emmanuel Macron communicated his anger at the delays at the weekend, the pace is picking up. The procedure for consent is being simplified. By the end of January, the plan is to have 500-600 vaccination centres open across the country - either in hospitals or other big public buildings.\n\nPolitically a lot is at stake. The government has already come under fire for failings in providing masks and tests. With opposition voices calling the vaccine delay a \"state scandal\", President Macron needs a roll-out that is fast and problem-free.\n\nNational pride accelerated Russia's rollout, but one man is conspicuously absent from the list of people vaccinated, writes Sarah Rainsford, in Moscow.\n\nRussia registered its main Covid vaccine for domestic use way back in August, before mass safety and efficacy trials had even begun. In December, with those trials still underway, it began rolling out Sputnik V to the public ahead of mass vaccination launches everywhere else in Europe. The rush was driven by national pride as well as medical necessity.\n\nSputnik was initially offered to front line health and education workers but early take-up of the two-dose vaccination was slow and the list of those eligible soon expanded.\n\nA poll by the Levada Centre in late December showed only 38% of respondents were willing to get the jab: wary of domestic healthcare and medicines, Russians were sceptical of bold early claims made for the vaccine and nervous about possible adverse reactions. Even so, and despite similar delays scaling-up production as in other countries, Sputnik's backers announced this week that more than a million people had been vaccinated.\n\nRussia began rolling out its Sputnik V vaccine in December\n\nBut one man still conspicuously absent from the list of the vaccinated is Vladimir Putin, despite the Kremlin saying he will - eventually - get the jab. In the meantime, those who meet him in person are obliged to test for Covid first and even quarantine. The president may need to lead by example, though. Mr Putin has said repeatedly that protecting the economy is his priority so he's banking on mass vaccination to avoid a return to national lockdown.\n\nRussia has built giant, temporary hospitals since the start of the pandemic and the health minister said this week that 25% of Covid beds remain free. There's also been a fall in the number of new daily cases reported - around 25,000 for the past 5 days. But that's not down to the vaccine yet. The country is nearing the end of a 10-day New Year holiday period and the number of Covid tests has also dropped.\n\nAs infection rates grow in a country praised by many for its no-lockdown approach, a successful vaccine programme is crucial writes Maddy Savage, in Stockholm.\n\nAlmost two weeks since 91-year-old care home resident Gun-Britt Johnsson became the first Swede to get the initial dose of a Pfizer jab, there is still no official tally of how many others have received the vaccination.\n\nThe Public Health Agency of Sweden says it's in the process of compiling data from the country's 21 regional health authorities tasked with vaccinating the entire adult population - around eight million people - by 26 June. The date isn't arbitrary, it's the biggest public holiday weekend of the year, when Swedes traditionally hold Midsummer celebrations. Karin Tegmark, a senior manager at the agency, says the date remains \"feasible\". But she says it depends on the delivery of vaccines to the country.\n\nAfter months of high trust levels in the country's no-lockdown approach, support for the health agency has dwindled.\n\nAlongside 4.5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Sweden has ordered 3.6 million jabs from Moderna, the first of which are expected to arrive next week. The country also plans to roll-out the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as soon as possible after it is approved by the EU - ideally by February.\n\nSwedes initially appeared lukewarm to the idea of taking a speedily-developed coronavirus vaccine, although a poll at the end of December found 71% would take one. A key driver of the initial scepticism is thought to be the failure of a voluntary mass vaccination programme for swine flu in 2009. Hundreds of Swedish children and young adults under 30 developed the sleeping disorder narcolepsy, which was found to be a side effect of the Pandemrix vaccine.\n\nA successful vaccination programme will be crucial, not least because it comes at a time when Swedish authorities are struggling to maintain public confidence. After months of high trust levels in the country's no-lockdown approach, support for the health agency has dwindled as Sweden has struggled with the second wave of coronavirus.\n\nMeanwhile, several high profile officials have faced heavy criticism for breaching their own recommendations - including the head of the civil contingencies agency (pictured), who resigned after spending Christmas with his daughter in the Canary Islands.\n\nA new government in Belgium seems unified on the vaccine rollout - for now at least, writes Nick Beake, in Brussels.\n\nIt seemed fitting that the first person in Belgium to receive a Covid jab lives in the place where the world's first approved Covid vaccine is being produced. Jos Hermans, a 96-year-old from the municipality of Puurs, was given the injection on 28 December, in his care home. A further 700 elderly residents were also administered a dose in what was a small, initial trial.\n\nThe mass vaccination programme in Belgium began on 5 January, but has been criticised for starting slowly. Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke had promised in November that the rollout would be \"seamless and fast\", tweeting: \"If that does not work, shoot me.\"\n\nThe first phase looks to vaccinate up to 200,000 nursing home residents by the end of this month, or early February. Healthcare professionals will be next in line and the aim was for the whole population to be inoculated by the end of September.\n\nJos Hermans, a 96-year-old from Puurs, was given the injection on 28 December\n\nYou may think the country would be at an advantage being the epicentre of the Pfizer-BioNTech production. While this clearly helps with distribution, Belgium cannot receive more doses - relative to its population - than other EU countries under strict Commission rules. That didn't stop the minister-president of the Flanders region, who admitted this week that he had contacted Pfizer directly in the hope of procuring more doses, only to be rebuffed.\n\nAfter getting a guarantee from Pfizer over supply of the jab, the federal Belgian authorities have adapted their strategy: they now propose giving as many available doses to as many people as they can - and no longer reserving vials for patients' second dose, given three weeks after the first. In general, the federal government, rather than the European Commission has faced any criticism for a delay and has defended its \"careful\" approach.\n\nAnd there appears to be an interesting regional or cultural discrepancy when it comes to whether people are willing to take the vaccine. Of the Flemish population interviewed in a poll, half have said they wanted the vaccine as soon as possible. Among French speakers - it was 20% fewer, which chimes with the deeper scepticism over the border in France.\n\nIn a country where politics are notoriously complicated and fractious - they've only recently agreed a government, after a 500-day vacuum - the Federal Coalition appears unified on its Covid vaccine strategy. For now, at least.\n\nRegional variances and political rows have marked the beginning of Spain's vaccination programme writes Guy Hedgecoe, in Madrid.\n\nSpain started administering the vaccine on 27 December. So far, 743,925 doses have been distributed to regional administrations, with 277,976 people vaccinated, according to the health ministry. The objective of the coalition government is to immunise 2.3 million people within 12 weeks. Priority is being given to elderly residents of care homes, those who look after them, and healthcare personnel.\n\nEach of the country's 17 regions has a high degree of control over healthcare and should receive the number of doses that corresponds to their populations. However, already there has been substantial geographical disparity.\n\nGovernment data showed, for example, that while the northern region of Asturias had used 55% of the doses it had received by 3 January, the Madrid region had only administered 5% by the same date. Some regions are holding back doses to administer a second follow-up jab to the same person in several weeks' time, and some have been vaccinating on national holidays while others have not.\n\nThe pandemic has been the cause of constant political conflict, with the right-wing opposition accusing the leftist government of incompetence.\n\nAlthough vaccination is voluntary, the government has said it is making a register of those who do not wish to be inoculated. That initiative has generated controversy, although the government has insisted the register will merely seek to clarify why people refuse the vaccination.\n\nHowever, the pandemic has been the cause of constant political conflict, with the right-wing opposition accusing the leftist government of Pedro Sánchez of incompetence, lack of transparency and using coronavirus to accumulate power.\n\nThe arrival of a vaccine has not stopped the rancour. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the conservative Popular Party (PP) president of Galicia, warned the number of doses being distributed to each region was being dictated by \"political affiliations or parliamentary needs\", a claim the central government has rejected.", "The US has placed Cuba back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, citing the communist country's backing of Venezuela.\n\nPresident Donald Trump's administration made the announcement just days before he leaves the White House.\n\nPresident-elect Joe Biden, who takes office on 20 January, has previously said he wants to improve US-Cuban relations.\n\nMr Biden has said he is seeking closer ties between the long-term adversaries but Mr Trump's decision is likely to hinder a quick repair of relations.\n\nCuba's place on the list will require a formal review that could take months, analysts say.\n\nThe Caribbean island was removed from the list by President Barack Obama in 2015, but Mr Trump has taken a harder line towards the country.\n\nIn 2016 Barack Obama became the first US president to visit Cuba since 1928\n\nWhen explaining the decision, officials cited Cuba's support of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro who the US refuses to recognise.\n\n\"With this action, we will once again hold Cuba's government accountable and send a clear message: the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of US justice,\" US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Monday.\n\nIn response, Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez tweeted: \"We condemn the cynical and hypocritical qualification of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, announced by the United States.\"\n\nIn advance of the announcement, House Democrat Gregory Meeks called it \"another stunt by President Trump and Pompeo, trying to tie the hands of the incoming Biden administration on their way out the door.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nPresident Obama began to normalise relations with Cuba in 2015. He called the decades-long US efforts to isolate the country \"a failure\".\n\nSince the Cold War era, the US had pursued various policies to undermine Cuba which it saw as a great threat.\n\nCuba now rejoins countries including Iran and North Korea on the list of sponsors of terrorism. The impact on the island country include severe limits on foreign investment.", "Mr Williamson says his department is doing all it can to support remote learning\n\nAn extra 300,000 laptops and tablets have been bought to help disadvantaged children in England learn at home, says Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.\n\nMr Williamson said the devices would be delivered to schools.\n\nHe also pledged to publish a remote education framework to support schools and colleges with delivering lessons during the latest national lockdown.\n\nIt comes as research says children from poorer families are likely to struggle more with remote learning.\n\nThe Department for Education said its data showed that over 700,000 devices had been delivered to schools in England so far during the pandemic - 100,000 of which were delivered last week.\n\nThe department says the additional 300,000 laptops and tablets lifts government investment by another £100m, meaning over £400m will have been invested in supporting disadvantaged children who need help with access to technology during the pandemic.\n\nBut the department has faced mounting criticism over huge percentages of pupils not having access to digital devices, nine months into the pandemic.\n\nMr Williamson said the DfE was \"doing everything in our power to support schools with high-quality remote education\".\n\nHe said: \"These additional devices, on top of the 100,000 delivered last week, add to the significant support we are making available to help schools deliver high-quality online learning, as we know they have been doing.\"\n\nOn top of this, the remote education framework would support schools and colleges with delivering education for pupils who are learning from home, he said.\n\nThe frameworks, which are voluntary and should be adapted for schools' individual circumstances, will \"help them to identify the strengths and areas for improvement in the lessons and teaching they provide remotely\".\n\nBut Geoff Barton, head of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: \"While we welcome the extra laptops and tablets announced, it is pretty poor that nearly a year after this crisis began we are only now inching up to the number of devices that are needed.\n\n\"The reality is that this extra provision is coming when we are already well into the new lockdown and after a heavily disrupted autumn term in which many children had to self-isolate in line with coronavirus protocols,\" he said.\n\n\"The government was slow off the mark to address the digital divide early in the crisis and is now trying to make up for lost time.\"\n\nMr Williamson's laptop announcement comes as research by the University of Sussex found that nearly one in five less advantaged parents said they struggled with home-learning during the first lockdown.\n\nThe research surveyed 3,409 parents in the UK between 5 May until 31 July last year and found families of lower socioeconomic status were more likely to report their home environment made it harder for pupils to complete schoolwork from home.\n\nThe study says secondary school pupils eligible for free school meals (39%) were more likely to report that a lack of technology - such as laptops and computers - made learning from home more difficult, compared to 19% of pupils who are not eligible for free school meals.\n\nThere are concerns poorer children will fall further behind\n\nPrimary school pupils from struggling households were found to be more likely to find home learning learning harder than their more comfortable off peers due to the environment - such as noise levels (59% to 50%), lack of space (45% to 22%), lack of technology (45% to 26%) and lack of internet (35% to 16%).\n\nThe researchers warned that educational inequalities were likely to increase due to further school closures this year.\n\nLead researcher Dr Matthew Easterbrook said: \"These results show that school closures disproportionately disrupt the education of those who are most economically disadvantaged, suggesting that educational inequalities are likely to rise because of the pandemic.\n\n\"The results show that parents of pupils from disadvantaged families - those who are eligible for free school meals, who have lower levels of education, or who are financially struggling - are much more likely to report that learning from home is challenging.\"\n\nReport co-author Lewis Doyle, doctoral researcher at the University of Sussex, added: \"School closures, while clearly necessary during this public health crisis, risk entrenching inequality.\"\n\nOn Tuesday the government also published figures on how many pupils were physically in schools across England before the Christmas holidays.\n\nThe data shows 79% of pupils in state schools were in class on Wednesday16 December - down from 85% on Thursday 10 December.\n\nIn secondary schools, attendance fell from 80% to 72% on 16 December, while pupil attendance in primary schools fell from 89% to 86%, the figures show.\n\nBetween 9% and 11% of pupils - up to 872,000 children - did not attend school for Covid-19 related reasons on 16 December.", "Tesco, Asda and Waitrose have become the latest supermarkets to say they will deny entry to shoppers who do not wear face masks unless they are medically exempt.\n\nIt follows a similar move by Morrisons, while Sainsbury's says it will challenge those who flout the rules.\n\nRetailers have been criticised for not doing enough to stop people breaking Covid rules as infections spread.\n\nBut enforcement of face coverings is officially a police responsibility.\n\nHowever, supermarkets can deny entry to their premises which is private property, and can call the police if someone refuses to follow the rules or becomes abusive.\n\nSenior police figures have reportedly said there is little officers can do to enforce the rules in shops because they are so busy.\n\nBut policing minister Kit Malthouse said that they would offer \"backup if things go seriously wrong\".\n\n\"What we hope is that in the vast majority of cases the enforcement, or the reminders if you like, put in place by the store owners will be enough,\" he told BBC News.\n\nA Tesco spokeswoman said the supermarket chain had decided to strengthen its policies.\n\n\"To protect our customers and colleagues, we won't let anyone into our stores who is not wearing a face covering, unless they are exempt in line with government guidance,\" she said.\n\n\"We are also asking our customers to shop alone, unless they're a carer or with children. To support our colleagues, we will have additional security in stores to help manage this.\"\n\nAn Asda spokesman said if customers had forgotten their face coverings, it would continue to offer them one free of charge.\n\nBut he added: \"Should a customer refuse to wear a covering without a valid medical reason and be in any way challenging to our colleagues about doing so, our security colleagues will refuse their entry.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How to wear your mask. Hint: it's not any of these three options\n\nAndrew Murphy, executive director of operations at Waitrose, said: \"We've listened carefully to the clear change in tone and emphasis of the views and information shared by the UK's governments in recent days.\n\n\"By insisting on the wearing of face coverings, over and above the social distancing measures we already have in place, we aim to make our shops even safer for customers.\"\n\nOn Tuesday, Sainsbury's told the BBC it did not have the power to deny entry to shoppers without masks. However, trials showed customers complied more when asked to wear masks by security guards at the door, it said.\n\nIn an interview with the BBC, Sainsbury's boss, Simon Roberts, said \"we are not going to ban customers\".\n\nBut he urged shoppers to wear a mask and shop alone.\n\n\"By doing that we will help keep everybody safe,\" he said.\n\nThe Co-op also said it would not ban shoppers without masks from entering, and instead urged customers to take responsibility for wearing a face covering when visiting its stores, as it was mandatory by law.\n\nBoss of Co-op Food Jo Whitfield said: \"We've increased our in-store messaging to remind customers and government guidance does state that the police can take measures if members of the public don't comply with this law.\"\n\nIceland said it would take a similar approach, adding the vast majority of its customers continued to shop in compliance with the law.\n\n\"In view of the rising tide of abuse and violence being directed at our store colleagues, we do not expect them to confront the small minority of customers who aggressively refuse to comply with the law,\" a spokesman added.\n\nIn England, the police can issue a £200 fine to someone breaking the face covering rules. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, a £60 fine can be imposed. Repeat offenders face bigger fines.", "Many hospitals are still under intense pressure with the increasing number of Covid patients arriving.\n\nDoctors say they are seeing more younger patients in their thirties and forties compared to the first wave.\n\nThe overall pattern of those at risk of becoming seriously ill or dying has not changed significantly and the older someone is, the greater their risk from Covid-19 - particularly those over the age of 65.\n\nThe BBC's Health Editor Hugh Pym was given access to film at Croydon University Hospital in South London.", "Morrisons will bar customers who refuse to wear face coverings from its shops amid rising coronavirus infections.\n\nFrom Monday, shoppers who refuse to wear face masks offered by staff will not be allowed inside, unless they are medically exempt.\n\nSainsbury's also said it would challenge those not wearing a mask or who were shopping in groups.\n\nThe announcements come amid concerns that social distancing measures are not being adhered to in supermarkets.\n\nVaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said the government is \"concerned\" shops are not enforcing rules strictly enough.\n\n\"Ultimately, the most important thing to do now is to make sure that actually enforcement - and of course the compliance with the rules - when people are going into supermarkets are being adhered to,\" Mr Zahawi told Sky News.\n\n\"We need to make sure people actually wear masks and follow the one-way system,\" he said.\n\nMorrisons said it had \"introduced and consistently maintained thorough and robust safety measures in all our stores\" since the start of the pandemic.\n\nBut it said: \"From today we are further strengthening our policy on masks.\"\n\nSecurity guards at the UK's fourth-biggest supermarket chain will be enforcing the new rules.\n\nMorrisons' chief executive, David Potts, said: \"Those who are offered a face covering and decline to wear one won't be allowed to shop at Morrisons unless they are medically exempt.\n\n\"Our store colleagues are working hard to feed you and your family, please be kind.\"\n\nFollowing Morrisons' announcement, Sainsbury's said that it was also putting trained security guards at the front of its stores to challenge shoppers who did not comply.\n\nChief executive Simon Roberts said: \"I've spent a lot of time in our stores reviewing the latest situation over the last few days and on behalf of all my colleagues, I am asking our customers to help us keep everyone safe.\n\n\"The vast majority of customers are shopping safely, but I have also seen some customers trying to shop without a mask and shopping in larger family groups.\n\n\"Please help us to keep all our colleagues and customers safe by always wearing a mask and by shopping alone. Everyone's care and consideration matters now more than ever.\"\n\nEarlier on Monday, Mr Zahawi stopped short of saying that supermarket staff should be responsible for enforcing rules on face masks.\n\nEnforcement of face coverings is the responsibility of the police, not retailers. Wearing face masks in supermarkets and shops is compulsory across the UK.\n\nIn England, the police can issue a £200 fine to someone breaking the face covering rules. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, a £60 fine can be imposed. Repeat offenders face bigger fines.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How to wear your mask. Hint: it's not any of these three options\n\nHowever, retail industry body the British Retail Consortium said that, workers have faced an increase in incidents of violence and abuse when trying to encourage shoppers to put them on.\n\nAndrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, added: \"Supermarkets continue to follow all safety guidance and customers should be reassured that supermarkets are Covid-secure and safe to visit during lockdown and beyond.\n\n\"Customers should play their part too by following in-store signage and being considerate to staff and fellow shoppers.\"\n\nUnder current lockdown restrictions across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, people must only leave home for essential reasons, such as buying food or medicine.\n\nIn a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus, supermarkets introduced social distancing measures during the UK's first nationwide lockdown last March. They included limits on the numbers of customers in the shops at any one time, protective plastic screens at tills and \"marshals\" to ensure shoppers were maintaining a two-metre distance.\n\nBut amid rising numbers of infections, some have expressed concerns about a \"lack of visible protections\" implemented by supermarkets in recent weeks.\n\nThe First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, said on Saturday that he wanted to see stores policed as they were during the first lockdown as people were worried the strict enforcement of rules did not \"appear to be there this time\".\n\n\"Given the fact the new variant is so much easier to catch... we are looking at supermarkets and other places where people leave their homes, to make sure they are organised in a way that keeps their staff and customers safe,\" he said.\n\nSupermarket Waitrose said that it was taking a \"cautious approach\" to the virus, with marshals checking that customers are wearing face coverings on the door, hand sanitiser stations at its entrances and written communications to shoppers reminding them to maintain their distance.\n\nTesco said it was limiting the number of customers in store and was also reminding customers to wear masks.\n\n\"We have clear signage explaining this, and we have packs of face coverings available for purchase near the front of our stores for any customers who have forgotten them.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Asda announced last week that it would extend its marshals' hours to 08:00 to 20:00 and increase how often baskets and trollies are cleaned.\n\nShop workers' union Usdaw has also called for firms to apply more stringent measures again.\n\nThe union's general secretary, Paddy Lillis, said that it had received reports that \"too many customers are not following necessary safety measures like social distancing, wearing a face covering and only shopping for essential items\".\n\n\"It is going to take some time to roll out the vaccine and we cannot afford to be complacent in the meantime, particularly with a new strain sweeping the nation,\" Mr Lillis said.\n\nThe trade union also suggested that \"'one-in one-out\" policies and proper queuing systems should be reintroduced in supermarkets.\n\nIt added that these systems should be managed by trained security staff where necessary.", "Parler has hit back after Amazon pulled support for its so-called \"free speech\" social network.\n\nParler is suing the tech giant, accusing it of breaking anti-trust laws by removing it.\n\nParler had been reliant on the tech giant's Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing service to provide its alternative to Twitter.\n\nThe platform was popular among supporters of Donald Trump, although the president is not a user.\n\nAmazon took the action after finding dozens of posts on the service that it said encouraged violence.\n\nIn response, the platform has asked a federal judge to order Amazon to reinstate it.\n\n\"AWS's decision to effectively terminate Parler's account is apparently motivated by political animus,\" the complaint reads.\n\n\"It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter.\"\n\n\"There is no merit to these claims,\" it said.\n\n\"AWS provides technology and services to customers across the political spectrum, and we respect Parler's right to determine for itself what content it will allow. However, it is clear that there is significant content on Parler that encourages and incites violence against others, and that Parler is unable or unwilling to promptly identify and remove this content, which is a violation of our terms of service.\n\n\"We made our concerns known to Parler over a number of weeks and during that time we saw a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to our suspension of their services Sunday evening.\"\n\nExamples Amazon had provided included posts calling for the killing of Democrats, Muslims, Black Lives Matter leaders, and mainstream media journalists.\n\nGoogle and Apple had already removed Parler from their app stores towards the end of last week saying it had failed to comply with their content-moderation requirements.\n\nHowever, it had still been accessible via the web - although visitors had complained of being unable to create new accounts over the weekend, without which it was not possible to view its content.\n\nParler has been online since 2018, and may return if it can find an alternative host.\n\nHowever, chief executive John Matze told Fox News on Sunday that \"every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too\".\n\n\"We're going to try our best to get back online as quickly as possible, but we're having a lot of trouble because every vendor we talk to says they won't work with us because if Apple doesn't approve and Google doesn't approve, they won't,\" he added.\n\nAWS's move is the latest in a series of actions affecting social media following the rioting on Capitol Hill last week.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Capitol riots: ‘We would have been murdered’\n\nFacebook and Twitter have also banned President Trump's accounts on their platforms, citing concerns that he might incite further violence.\n\nParler's users included the Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who had led an effort in the Senate to delay certifying Joe Biden's electoral college victory.\n\nHe had about five million followers on the platform - more than his tally on Twitter.\n\nParler's app now shows an error message and its website is offline\n\n\"Why should a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires have a monopoly on political speech?\" he tweeted over the weekend.\n\nParler's downfall appears to have benefited Gab - another \"free speech\" social network that is popular with far-right commentators.\n\nIt has claimed to have \"gained more users in the past two days than we did in our first two years of existing\".\n\nParler has long been a home for what you might call untouchables, people who had been excluded from mainstream services for offences such as blatant racism or incitement to violence.\n\nDuring a brief excursion onto the site over the weekend, I observed plenty of examples of such behaviour, with users exhibiting vile anti-Semitism, displaying Nazi symbols such as the swastika and uttering incoherent threats against those they perceive to be enemies of America.\n\nBut as Amazon's deadline approached something like panic took hold, with users desperately urging their followers to join them on other platforms.\n\nMost seemed to accept that Parler was doomed, while vowing to continue their fight elsewhere.\n\n\"Well this is the end,\" wrote one user, who proclaimed his support for the American Nazi Party.", "The disease is still spreading. There are more people in hospital with Covid-19 in the UK than at any other point in the pandemic.\n\nProf Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, hit the airwaves on Monday morning to tell us it's \"everyone's problem\".\n\nAnd a possible further increase in the numbers from those get-togethers that did take place over Christmas is yet to filter through.\n\nIt is cheering, and crucial, to see the elderly and vulnerable attending vaccine super-centres in huge numbers for their injections.\n\nBut there is no getting away from it: at this moment, the coronavirus situation seems pretty dire. And there is real concern in government that the public, this time round, is just not paying attention to the rules as closely as they did back in the spring.\n\nWhat is the government's answer? It is not, at least not yet, despite calls from the opposition, another big clampdown.\n\nIt might not feel like it, but it is only seven days since Boris Johnson took what used to be the rare step of making a national address, live on primetime TV, telling us, across the UK, once more to \"stay at home\".\n\nThere is hardly any political appetite to go even further.\n\nAs one senior minister said today: \"We have gone as far as we possibly can in terms of shutting things down\".\n\nThe prime minister was reluctant to go this far, only moving back to a lockdown in England when the evidence put forward by the government's top medics got worse, and worse and worse.\n\nThere are in fact even more limits that ministers, not just in Westminster but in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast too, could introduce.\n\nSchools could be forcibly closed to all pupils. Nurseries could shut.\n\nGovernment sources say the nurseries policy isn't going to change. Number 10 firmly denies they would ever take such a drastic step on schools which have always been open to key workers' children and it is hard to imagine that ever happening.\n\nIn extremis though there are measures that could be taken - in theory the government does not want to do any of this, but in practice there are other potential steps.\n\nBuilding sites could be made to lock their gates. Factories where machines are still whirring because they are operating under Covid guidelines could be made to pause.\n\nEngland, Scotland and Northern Ireland could follow Wales and ban people from seeing anyone they don't live with even outdoors.\n\nPlaygrounds, launderettes and chiropractors, could, along with many others on the list of premises allowed to stay open, have to shut up shop after all.\n\nBut while ministers have talked about squeezing the advice for takeaways to try to prevent big queues gathering at popular places, encouraged the supermarkets to make sure they are doing as much as they can to be safe, and even discussed the prospect of asking for masks to be worn outdoors, there is no expectation, at least at the start of this week, that a more extensive clampdown is coming from Westminster.\n\nAlthough, it's worth noting that the Scottish cabinet will discuss restrictions again on Tuesday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. On Monday Matt Hancock ruled out getting rid of support bubbles.\n\nOne reason for the reluctance to go much further is that every step that affects a business affects jobs and livelihoods too.\n\nThe chancellor told MPs on Monday that 800,000 people have lost their jobs since February, admitting the economy will get worse before it gets better.\n\nSo trying to preserve activity that can be done safely matters to the government too.\n\nThere's also a question in government circles about whether cranking up different rules bit by bit is really what would help.\n\nChris Whitty this morning bluntly suggested there was limited value in \"tinkering\" with the rules, and what is required instead is for all of us to realise how grave the situation really is.\n\nInstead of worrying about whether we are allowed to sit on a park bench at all, (and yes, this has been a lively conversation in Westminster today) , perhaps we should be asking ourselves whether we really need to be out at all.\n\nThe NHS has been under huge pressure dealing with a surge in Covid cases this winter.\n\nBut when what happens next will be in large part shaped by our behaviour as individuals, working out the dos and don'ts can get sticky fast.\n\nTwo women who hit the headlines for driving five miles to go for a snowy walk with a takeaway cuppa had their fines withdrawn today, just as the prime minister caused a stir when a newspaper revealed he'd gone seven miles to the other side of London for a cycle in the Olympic Park.\n\nYou might be a reader who feels, 'so what?'. In both cases they were exercising outside, within the law, so who cares?\n\nBut you might feel when the firm instruction is to stay at home, and stay local, that is pushing the rules.\n\nFor now though, with grimmer and grimmer medics' warnings ringing in our ears, and reminders about enforcement from the police coming too, ministers seem resolved to encourage the public to comply rather than crack down further.\n\nBut it is however, only a week since the lockdown the prime minister had so hoped to avoid returned. By now, it's not surprising, Boris Johnson would never quite rule anything out.\n\nP.S. In all the gloom, the cheerier news is that the vaccination programme across the UK is certainly getting going, with 2.3 million people having had their first jab.\n\nThe number of people getting vaccinated has been added to the list of statistics that the government publishes every day. The targets the government has set are tough, but the numbers so far, are growing fast.", "RAF Typhoons, similar to the aircraft pictured, took off from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire and escorted the civilian aircraft to London Stansted Airport\n\nA sonic boom has been heard across the East of England after RAF Typhoon aircraft were launched to intercept a plane that had lost communications.\n\nThe Typhoons took off from RAF Coningsby and \"safely escorted\" the civilian aircraft to Stansted Airport in Essex, an RAF spokesman said.\n\nThe boom, at about 13:05 GMT, was reported by people across social media.\n\n\"The Typhoon aircraft were authorised to transit at supersonic speed for operational reasons,\" the RAF said.\n\nPeople in Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and parts of London heard the boom.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. People's reaction to the sonic boom was caught on camera\n\n\"We have received numerous calls from the public with reports of a sonic boom... between Huntingdon and Cambridge,\" Cambridgeshire police said, in a Facebook post.\n\n\"Nobody has been injured. Some callers reported the incident had shaken properties but no major damage is thought to have occurred.\"\n\nAn image from a police officer's body-worn camera captured the RAF Typhoon aircraft flying over Cambridgeshire\n\nCommunications with the aircraft were re-established after the Typhoons were launched and it was intercepted before being escorted to Stansted.\n\nA spokesman for the airport said the \"private jet\" was believed to have been flying from Germany to Birmingham.\n\nHe confirmed the plane had been brought into land at about 13:40.\n\nWhen an aircraft approaches the speed of sound, the air in front of the nose of the plane builds up a pressure front because it has \"nowhere to escape\", said Dr Jim Wild of Lancaster University.\n\nA sonic boom happens when that air \"escapes\", creating a ripple effect which can be heard on the ground as a loud thunderclap.\n\nThe speed of sound varies. It is about 770mph (1,200km/h) at sea level, but slower at higher altitudes. A plane flying at 30,000ft would reach the speed of sound at about 675mph (1,085km/h), according to NASA's educational website.\n\nIt can be heard over such a large area because it moves with the plane, rather like the wake of a boat spreading out behind the vessel.\n\nRAF jets are only given permission to go supersonic over populated areas in emergencies, usually when they are required to intercept another aircraft.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nLeicester City climbed to second in the Premier League as they won a keenly contested encounter with fellow top-four hopefuls Southampton at King Power Stadium.\n\nJames Maddison fired in from a tight angle after 37 minutes, the Foxes midfielder instructing his team-mates to stand back as he performed a socially distanced celebration, before Harvey Barnes added a second deep into second-half stoppage-time.\n\nVictory takes Leicester within one point of leaders Manchester United, who travel to third-placed Liverpool on Sunday, while Southampton are eighth, three points outside the top four.\n• None How Leicester followed guidance on celebrations - and others didn't\n• None Reaction to Leicester v Southampton, plus the rest of Saturday's Premier League action\n\nThe Saints dominated in the opening stages and created the first opening when Che Adams stretched the home defence on the counter-attack, while Leicester's Barnes' powerful drive forced Alex McCarthy into action with the game's first shot after 19 minutes.\n\nThe visitors, without talisman Danny Ings after the striker tested positive for Covid-19 last week, went close to a response through Ryan Bertrand and Will Smallbone either side of half-time but neither could find a way past Kasper Schmeichel.\n\nIn an entertaining conclusion, Stuart Armstrong rattled the Leicester crossbar with an excellent strike from the edge of the penalty area, while Jan Bednarek produced a superb goalline clearance to deny Barnes and the returning McCarthy saved from Jamie Vardy as both sides pushed for a late goal.\n\nIt took Leicester until the 95th minute to seal the three points, Barnes calmly slotting past McCarthy on the break.\n\nLeicester manager Brendan Rodgers challenged his side to \"disrupt the Premier League hierarchy\" after a 2-1 win over Newcastle in their last league outing maintained their top-four hopes.\n\nVictory in this stern test ensured they continue to do just that.\n\nEnjoying their longest unbeaten run of the season, their streak now at six matches in all competitions since defeat by Everton a month ago, Rodgers' side delivered an assured performance to remain firmly in contention at the top.\n\nDespite their lofty position as the halfway stage approaches, Leicester have struggled at home this campaign - their four defeats at King Power Stadium in 2020-21 is as many as they suffered in the entirety of last season.\n\nThough largely frustrated in the early exchanges as the visitors retained possession, Leicester's superior quality in attack eventually ensured that record was improved with Maddison turning sharply to meet Youri Tielemans' through-ball before drilling home.\n\nThe in-form Barnes once again impressed and eventually got the goal his performance deserved to equal his best season tally of 10 after just 24 games.\n\nUnlike last season's post-Christmas collapse, the Foxes are yet to show signs of falling away. Maddison - involved in six of Leicester's last 12 league goals - and Barnes are easing the pressure on Vardy to deliver every week and there appears the strength in depth to better maintain this challenge.\n\nThe only concern for Rodgers at the end of a pleasing night was the sight of Vardy appearing to limp off as he was replaced by Kelechi Iheanacho in the final minutes.\n\nWhen Southampton claimed victory in the corresponding fixture last January, the 2-1 win marked a remarkable short-term recovery from a club-record defeat by the Foxes less than three months earlier.\n\nOne year on, this match served as another reminder of how quickly the Saints are progressing under Ralph Hasenhuttl.\n\nThey were, however, unable to set a club top-flight record of seven consecutive away games without defeat in the absence of frontman Ings. That was despite their relative freshness, having not played for 12 days after their FA Cup tie against Shrewsbury Town was postponed last weekend because of a Covid-19 outbreak at the League One club.\n\nFollowing their impressive 1-0 victory over Liverpool on 4 January, a triumph which left Hasenhuttl with tears in his eyes, Southampton once again applied themselves with commendable determination but ultimately failed to produce in the final third.\n\nAdams ran out of space at the byeline after breaking clear from the halfway line in the game's first opening, and neither Bertrand nor Smallbone were able to place past Schmeichel as the equaliser their hard work perhaps deserved evaded them.\n\nAt the back, Bednarek produced the heroics to keep his side in the game and full-back Kyle Walker-Peters provided a regular outlet on the right, but Southampton, who named four teenagers on their bench because of an injury crisis, have now scored only once in five league games.\n\nThat is an obvious concern for Hasenhuttl as he looks to ensure his side do not fade after their promising start.\n\n'We took social distancing to the letter' - what the managers said\n\nLeicester boss Brendan Rodgers told BBC Sport: \"It's a very good win against a good team. We were too passive at the start, we took social distancing to the letter and didn't get close to them. After that we had some sustained attacks and ended up getting a brilliant goal.\n\n\"At half-time we had to reiterate the importance of fighting, you have to fight for every result and Southampton keep going. We were outstanding second half and should have scored more goals. We did the dirty work much better and Harvey Barnes showed again that he is a finisher now.\"\n\nOn Maddison's celebration: \"I said to them there is lots of negativity around it but see it as a positive and be creative. Supporters still want to see players celebrate, the happiness, so be creative with it.\"\n\nSouthampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl said: \"It's never nice to lose a game but we had chances. We hit the bar, we fought with everything we have. We are definitely a team that is never giving up. The quality of the opponent was better than ours today.\n\n\"The first goal, you don't shoot at goal like that every day, it was fantastic from Maddison. We had good chances but we couldn't finish and that was the difference.\n\n\"It doesn't look good at the moment, we have a lot of injuries and not many alternatives. The good news is we have 29 points and they don't take them away from us. We did our best with the options we have. We have nine injured but we are fighting for everything.\"\n• None Leicester earned their first home league victory against Southampton since April 2016, ending a run of four without a win against the Saints at King Power Stadium.\n• None Southampton's first 12 Premier League games in 2020-21 witnessed 41 goals (24 scored) at an average of 3.4 per game. Their past six games have seen just six goals (two scored).\n• None Jamie Vardy had seven shots for Leicester, his highest tally without scoring in a single Premier League match in his career.\n• None Vardy has faced Southampton seven times at home in the Premier League, more than any other side at King Power Stadium without scoring in the competition.\n• None James Maddison scored in consecutive Premier League games for Leicester for the first time since October 2019, matching his goal tally at home from each of the previous two campaigns (three).\n\nBoth sides return to action on Tuesday. Leicester host Chelsea in the Premier League at 20:15 GMT, while Southampton welcome Shrewsbury to St Mary's in their postponed FA Cup third-round tie (20:00).\n• None Goal! Leicester City 2, Southampton 0. Harvey Barnes (Leicester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Youri Tielemans following a fast break.\n• None Attempt missed. Stuart Armstrong (Southampton) right footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the right following a corner.\n• None Offside, Leicester City. Marc Albrighton tries a through ball, but Ayoze Pérez is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Wilfred Ndidi (Leicester City) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Marc Albrighton.\n• None Attempt saved. Jamie Vardy (Leicester City) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by James Justin.\n• None Attempt missed. Daniel N'Lundulu (Southampton) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Kyle Walker-Peters with a cross.\n• None Offside, Leicester City. Timothy Castagne tries a through ball, but Ayoze Pérez is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Jamie Vardy (Leicester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Ayoze Pérez with a cross.\n• None Marc Albrighton (Leicester City) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt missed. James Ward-Prowse (Southampton) right footed shot from the centre of the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by Stuart Armstrong. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Hear how David Bowie always managed to stay ahead of his time\n• None Joe Wicks and guests are here to bring positivity to your day", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Health workers are the first in line to get Covid jabs\n\nA sanitation worker became the first Indian to receive a Covid vaccine as the country began the world's largest inoculation drive.\n\nPrime Minister Narendra Modi launched the programme, which aims to vaccinate more than 1.3 billion people against Covid.\n\nHe paid tribute to front-line workers who will be the first to receive jabs.\n\nIndia has recorded the second-highest number of Covid-19 infections in the world after the United States.\n\nMillions of doses of two approved vaccines - Covishield and Covaxin - were shipped across the country in the days leading up to the start of the drive.\n\n\"We are launching the world's biggest vaccination drive and it shows the world our capability,\" Mr Modi, said, addressing the country on Saturday morning.\n\nA sanitation worker is the first Indian to receive a Covid vaccine\n\nHe added that India was well prepared to vaccinate its population with the help of an app, which would help the government track the drive and ensure that nobody was left out.\n\nMr Modi spoke at length about doctors, nurses and other front-line workers \"who showed us the light\" in \"dark times\".\n\n\"They stayed away from their families to serve humanity. And hundreds of them never went home. They gave their life to save others. And that is why the first jabs are being given to healthcare workers - this is our way of paying respect to them.\"\n\nDoctors and medical staff at Delhi's Max hospital tell me a lot of hope is being pinned on the vaccination drive. One official described it \"as a new dawn\" and said \"it's the beginning of Covid's end\".\n\nInside the waiting room, there are posters on the wall with information about the documents one needs to bring, how safe the vaccine is, and the precautions that need to be taken even after one's been vaccinated. Among those being vaccinated on Saturday are doctors, nurses and front-office staff from all departments.\n\nThe names have been been chosen alphabetically so those getting jabs are mostly those with names starting with the letter A.\n\n\"The pandemic has played havoc in the country. I hope the vaccine will rid us of the fears and we will be able to breathe easy,\" Dr Anil Dass said after getting the jab.\n\nAshutosh Chaturvedi, a 31-year-old male nurse described as a \"Covid warrior\" by hospital officials, became the first recipient of the vaccine at Max.\n\n\"I'm fine, I feel good,\" he told reporters as he came down the hospital ramp, which has been decorated with blue, green and white balloons.\n\nSince April, he told me, he's worked in the emergency wing of the Covid ward, tending to those afflicted with the coronavirus.\n\n\"I haven't seen my wife and nine-month-old daughter since then. A month later, once I've received the second dose, I'll visit my family,\" he said.\n\nMr Modi also appealed to people to continue adhering to Covid-19 safety protocols like wearing masks and following social distancing. He said the country cannot afford to be complacent as vaccinating the entire population will take time.\n\nHe also urged people not to believe any \"propaganda and rumours about the safety of the vaccines\".\n\n\"I want to tell people that the approval to these vaccines was given only after scientists and experts were satisfied about its safety,\" he said.\n\nAn estimated 10 million health workers will be vaccinated in the first round, followed by policemen, soldiers, municipal and other front-line workers.\n\nHealth workers have been queuing up at vaccination centres for their turn\n\nNext in line will be people aged over 50 and anyone under 50 with serious underlying health conditions. India's electoral rolls, which contain details of some 900 million voters, will be used to identify eligible recipients.\n\nThe government plans to vaccinate 300 million people by early August. This will happen in state-run health care centres, schools, colleges, community halls, municipal offices and wedding halls.\n\nSeveral hospitals across India are giving the first doses of the vaccine.\n\nThe government plans to vaccinate 300 million people by early August\n\nDr Atul Peters was among those who got the jab at Max hospital.\n\n\"It's a very big day. I'm grateful to those who worked hard to make this a reality. I was very very happy when I got a call informing me that my name was on the list.\n\n\"We worked hard during the pandemic to save lives and we are also taking the jab first to dispel fears in people's minds that the vaccine is not safe,\" he told the BBC.\n\nMillions of vaccine doses have been shipped across India\n\nIndia's drug regulator has given the green light to two vaccines - Covishield (the local name for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine developed in the UK) and Covaxin, locally-made by pharma company Bharat Biotech.\n\nBut concerns have been raised over the efficacy of Covaxin because the regulator's emergency approval came before the completion of Phase 3 clinical trials. The regulator and the manufacturer have said the vaccine is safe, and that the efficacy data would be available by February.\n\nBoth vaccines will be given as two injections, 28 days apart, with the second dose being a booster. Immunity would begin to kick in after the first dose but reaches its full effect 14 days after the second dose.\n\nThe status of the vaccines and recipients will be electronically tracked in real time - some 8 million people who will receive the early jabs have been already registered. More than 600,000 people have been trained for the drive.\n\nThe jabs will be voluntary, and recipients will be given a certificate of vaccination after they complete both doses.\n\n\"I expect India's vaccination programme will be run much better than most countries because of the considerable government investment and early preparedness,\" Dr Gagandeep Kang, one of India's best-known vaccine experts, told the BBC.\n\nWith more than 10 million cases, India has recorded the second-highest number of Covid-19 infections in the world, after the US.\n\nThe largest vaccination drive in the country, however, begins at a time when infections have fallen sharply, and much of life has returned to normal. A limited availability of doses in the initial phase, therefore, is not likely to pose a problem.\n\nMost scientists feel India is primed for the challenge as it is a vaccine-making powerhouse and has run, for decades, a well-oiled immunisation programme for tens of millions of new-borns and mothers-to-be.\n\nBut the real challenges will begin when the general population starts receiving the jabs.\n\nIndia will use its formidable election machinery to deliver and track doses to recipients in far corners of the country. It is also likely to use digital platforms and apps to enable people to register for the doses.\n\nHowever, not every Indian owns a smart phone or knows how to operate an app, so it will be interesting to see what the government does to make sure that there are no inadvertent exclusions.\n\nVaccine hesitancy is the other concern.\n\nHealth activists Seema Pal and Rama Negi say they have been busting misinformation about the vaccine\n\nThe recent controversy over the hurried approval of Covaxin, many feel, could undermine confidence. There's a history of hesitancy about receiving the polio vaccine in parts of northern India, triggered by rumours about vaccines being impure and affecting fertility. Similar disinformation is now circulating about Covid vaccines on social networking apps, such as WhatsApp.\n\nThe government will need consistent, clear-eyed communication to bolster vaccine acceptance and community perception of the programme.\n\nVaccines come with side effects for some people. India has a 34-year-old surveillance programme for monitoring such \"adverse events\" following immunisation.\n\nBut researchers have found that benchmarks for reporting side effects still remain weak. A failure to transparently report adverse effects could easily lead to fear-mongering around vaccines.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "The number of reported incidents of children dying or being seriously harmed after suspected abuse or neglect rose by a quarter after England's first lockdown last year, figures indicate.\n\nThe Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel received 285 serious incident notifications from April to September.\n\nThis is an increase of 27% from 225 in the same period the previous year.\n\nThe data also includes children who were in care and died, regardless of whether abuse or neglect was suspected.\n\nThe Children's Society described the figures as \"shocking\".\n\nThe serious incident notification system requires councils in England to report all incidents of death or serious harm involving children in their area to the Department for Education, which publishes the data.\n\nThey are also required to inform the education secretary and Ofsted if a looked-after child dies, regardless of whether they suspect abuse or neglect.\n\nChild deaths increased from 89 to 119 and those seriously harmed rose from 132 with 153 compared with the same period in 2019, according to the data.\n\nThe number of serious incidents involving children under one increased by 30% as did the harm suffered by those aged 16 and over.\n\nThe majority (54%) of incidents related to boys, and almost two thirds related to white children.\n\nIn two-thirds of the 285 cases reported, the harm occurred while children were living at home.\n\nThe number of serious incident notifications had fallen in 2019-20 compared with 2018-19 when there were 274 such notifications.\n\nIryna Pona, policy manager at the Children's Society, said the increase in incidents last year happened at a time when Covid-19 was having a \"huge impact on the well-being of children and families and disrupted help available to those who needed it most\".\n\nEngland's first lockdown began at the end of March last year and ended on 4 July.\n\nMs Pona said: \"During the first lockdown many vulnerable children were stuck at home in difficult, sometimes dangerous situations, often isolated from friends and support networks.\n\n\"Sadly, children also continued to be targeted and groomed by people outside their families for sexual and criminal exploitation like county lines drug dealing operations, which can lead to serious violence or death.\n\n\"At the same time, they were often hidden from view of professionals like social workers and teachers who are best placed to spot the signs if they may be in danger.\"\n\nShe added that in the current lockdown it was \"vital\" that social care and schools work together closely to ensure all vulnerable children, including those in care, have regular contact with a trusted professional.\n\nA government spokeswoman said: \"Every single incident of this nature is a tragedy and we are working to understand the impact the pandemic may be having.\n\n\"Throughout the past months, we have prioritised the most vulnerable children and their families and put in place support to protect babies.\n\n\"We've maintained vital frontline services because we know it has been a challenge for many, especially for new parents, and we've invested thousands of pounds in charities working with vulnerable children and their families.\n\n\"Today we have launched a wholescale review of children's social care to reform the system and think afresh about how we support the most vulnerable. This data will provide important information to the care review to help address major challenges.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. UK weather: Will it snow where you are?\n\nSnow and ice weather warnings are in place for much of England and Scotland after widespread recent snowfall.\n\nThe Met Office has issued yellow weather warnings across England and Scotland for Saturday and warned of possible travel disruption.\n\nParts of England and Scotland could see as much as 5-10cm of snow in higher areas, the weather service said.\n\nIt comes as hundreds of schools remain closed after heavy snow hit the north of England on Thursday.\n\nA snow warning is in place for south-east England, including London, the east of England and the East Midlands. The Met Office said East Anglia and parts of Kent and Sussex are most at risk of snow.\n\nSome 1-3 cm of snow may fall fairly widely over these areas, with 5-10 cm possible in places, mostly over parts of East Anglia and any higher ground.\n\nA snow and ice warning is in place for most of Scotland, north-west and north-east England, Yorkshire and Humber, the East Midlands and parts of the West Midlands.\n\nSnow is likely to fall to low levels over east Scotland and northern England.\n\nThe Met Office said 1-3 cm is possible at low levels in these areas but is more likely at higher elevations, where 5-10 cm of snow is possible above 200m - and even 20cm at the highest places.\n\nFog is also forecast for parts of the Midlands and the North, along with mist around Glasgow which may pose hazards for motorists.\n\nPolice forces in Yorkshire have urged people to stay at home unless their travel is essential\n\nTwo girls took their sledge to a golf course near Penicuik, Midlothian\n\nThe coronavirus vaccine rollout has been affected by the weather.\n\nOver-80s who were due to receive their jab at Newcastle's Centre for Life were told they could re-book rather than risk making a trip in the icy conditions.\n\nNewcastle Hospitals tweeted: \"There's enough vaccine for everyone, so don't worry about making a trip to Newcastle.\"\n\nAnd Leeds University has delayed the opening of its asymptomatic Covid-19 test centre.\n\nHeavy snowfall has already caused travel disruption across sections of northern England and Scotland.\n\nTemperatures were as low as -6C on Friday morning in parts of Yorkshire and Cumbria, with yellow warnings set to last through most of Friday.\n\nThere was a loss of gas supply to approximately 700 homes in the Hebden Bridge area after water got into the local gas network and froze.\n\nThe Met Office has published advice from the Department for Transport advising people to clear snow and ice from footpaths outside their homes, preferably in the morning.\n\n\"You can then cover the path with salt before nightfall to stop it refreezing overnight,\" the advice says.\n\nTemperatures in the Greater London area are expected to drop to 1C on Friday and parts of the South East could fall to -2C.\n\nIt comes after \"hazardous\" conditions on Thursday caused problems for the ambulance service in Yorkshire, which struggled to keep up with the high demand, while Covid vaccinations were also affected.\n\nMark Millins, of Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said the bad weather was having a \"severe impact\" on its operations and urged people to \"take extra care\" when out walking or driving.\n\nIn Scotland, heavy snow in some areas resulted in road closures.\n\nThe deepest snow on Thursday was in Bingley, West Yorkshire, and Strathallan in Perth, Scotland, both of which recorded 11cm.", "CBBC star Archie Lyndhurst, the son of Only Fools and Horses actor Nicholas Lyndhurst, died in his sleep from a brain haemorrhage, his mother has said.\n\nLucy Lyndhurst said a second post-mortem exam had revealed his death was caused by a condition called Acute Lymphoblastic Lymphoma/Leukaemia.\n\nShe described Archie as \"the most magical human being we have ever met\".\n\nThe 19-year-old's death on 22 September had had a \"catastrophic effect\" on their family, she wrote on Instagram.\n\nArchie with his father Nicholas and mother Lucy Smith in 2017\n\nLucy said she and husband Nicholas were assured by the doctor who explained the post-mortem results to them that there \"wasn't anything anyone could have done as Archie showed no signs of illness\". She said it was \"not leukaemia as we know it\" and that acute in medical terms meant \"rapid\".\n\nThe couple were \"utterly floored\" to think something like this could happen, she wrote, adding: \"It's very rare and around only 800 people a year die from it.\"\n\nShe said that just days earlier he had been celebrating his birthday with \"the love of his life Nethra\".\n\n\"Life is fragile, precious and sometimes incredibly cruel,\" Lucy wrote.\n\nShe also criticised some media outlets for attempting to garner information about how her son had died from the coroner, before they knew the results of the post mortem themselves.\n\n\"To have a coroner call you a few days after your child has died to say the press have been calling for the results of Archie's post mortem, I think stoops to an all time low for us,\" she noted.\n\n\"What gives the press the right to badger a coroner's office solely to find the cause of death before the parents? The complete lack of empathy is astounding. We released no information at the time as we had no idea what he had died from.\"\n\nNicholas appeared alongside his son in an episode of So Awkward in 2019\n\nArchie began his acting career at the Sylvia Young Theatre School at the age of 10 and was best known for playing Ollie Coulton in the CBBC comedy show So Awkward.\n\nHe appeared in the sitcom, which followed the lives of a group of friends in secondary school, from its first series in 2015.\n\nNicholas appeared alongside his son in a 2019 episode of the programme.\n\nArchie's other roles included recurring appearances as a younger incarnation of comedian Jack Whitehall in various TV programmes.\n\nThese included BBC Three sitcom Bad Education, in which he was seen as a younger version of Whitehall's Alfie Wickers character.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Irish hauliers have been bypassing ports in Wales because of Brexit, say industry leaders\n\nIrish hauliers are bypassing Welsh ports to avoid Brexit bureaucracy, industry leaders say.\n\nSo-called \"teething problems\" with new export rules are causing \"enormous strain on staff\", according to one haulage company.\n\nBut others warn of a longer-term shift by truck firms from using Holyhead, Fishguard and Pembroke Dock.\n\nGwynedd Shipping said it was operating at 65% normal volumes and the pressure of extra paperwork was challenging.\n\nAndrew Kinsella, the firm's managing director, said: \"It's an enormous strain on our staff in terms of processing bookings.\n\n\"We process around 400 or 500 bookings a week, the reality is we're operating at 65-70% of previous volumes.\n\n\"Whilst we see recovery in the number of clients and we're starting to get to a better pattern in terms of shipments I still think it's going to take several weeks for things to return to normal. Whether things return to pre-Christmas, pre-Brexit volumes remains to be seen.\"\n\nMr Kinsella thinks there will be long-term consequences for the ports.\n\nStena Line is among firms that have made changes to the routes its uses\n\n\"You can already see the shift in terms of the number of sailings,\" he said.\n\n\"I think you're seeing a shift away from Holyhead particularly in terms of weekend, off-peak traffic. I think longer term, the viability of all of these services will be something those ferry services will continue to scrutinise.\"\n\nThis week Stena Line moved its new ship to the route from Rosslare, in the Republic of Ireland, to Cherbourg, France.\n\nAccording to Irish public broadcaster RTÉ, a new weekend sailing from Dublin to Cherbourg will also begin on 23 January, resulting in a temporary reduction in weekend capacity on the Dublin to Holyhead route.\n\nIt also intends to sail the Belfast-to-Liverpool route.\n\n\"Due to the current Brexit-related shift for direct routes and increasing customer demand, Stena Line has decided to temporarily deploy the Stena Embla on Rosslare-Cherbourg,\" Stena Line said.\n\nAt Rosslare Europort, business is booming, says general manager Glenn Carr.\n\n\"We've seen unprecedented demand in the first two weeks of trading compared to last year,\" Mr Carr said.\n\n\"On our European routes there's a 500% increase in freight volume going through the port compared to last year.\"\n\nHe added that 18 months ago they would have had three sailings a week directly to mainland Europe from Rosslare Europort: \"Today we have 15.\"\n\nMr Carr says his customers want to bypass the UK because of Brexit.\n\n\"I think that's testament to demand, particularly from our exporters and importers, on the island of Ireland and the need to unfortunately bypass the UK because of Brexit to trade directly with the EU,\" he added.\n\nHe believes this change in operations will not be temporary.\n\nHe said decisions by ferry companies and businesses who trade with the EU to re-direct freight, have been made based on market analysis.\n\n\"The business case for the extra services out of Rosslare were not based on the first two weeks of this year,\" Mr Carr said.\n\n\"They were based on analysis of the market and conversations with our exporters and importers who were switching.\n\n\"So there is a genuine switch and we foresee services being maintained out of Rosslare.\"\n\nUK government ministers have played down concerns about the long term viability of Welsh ports.\n\nGiving evidence to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee this week, Wales Office Minister David TC Davies MP, said former haulage industry colleagues referred to the issues as \"teething problems\".\n\nSecretary of State for Wales Simon Hart MP, said: \"There is some evidence that things aren't looking necessarily, permanently bleak.\n\n\"It's one of those areas where we have to keep a very wary eye on it, but I think and hope that it is a temporary dip in the graph.\"\n\nBut transport expert Prof Stuart Cole, of the University of South Wales, thinks Brexit delays will be the incentive Irish companies needed to switch permanently to trading directly with the European mainland.\n\nProf Cole said the EU wanted to reduce congestion and pollution in parts of Europe.\n\nOne solution was to move freight by sea rather than road.\n\nThere have been problems with paperwork for drivers travelling to the European mainland\n\nUntil now there was no reason for Irish hauliers to move from using Welsh ports and Dover, Prof Cole said.\n\n\"The route worked perfectly, there was a predictable journey time and that's important for food and component parts going to factories,\" he said.\n\n\"That kind of change required a significant shift, and that's what's there now.\"\n\nBangor University economics lecturer, Dr Edward Thomas Jones, believes it is too soon to predict longer term changes.\n\n\"Because businesses stockpiled before Christmas in anticipation of Brexit, there is of course less use of the port [at Holyhead] since Brexit,\" he said.\n\n\"On top of that, coronavirus means there are fewer tourists going on holiday to Ireland.\n\n\"We'll have a better idea of the future of the port in six months when these businesses who have stockpiled start buying again.\n\n\"Hopefully, by the second half of the year coronavirus will have been resolved and tourists will once again be able to travel back and forth.\"\n\nPlaid Cymru warned if traffic continued to be diverted away from the UK then Wales would suffer.\n\n\"I urge the UK government to work with the Welsh Government to provide substantial investment into Welsh ports to secure their viability into the future,\" said MP Hywel Williams, Plaid's Cabinet Office spokesman.\n\n\"If the trend of rerouting traffic through direct routes continues, I fear that our local economies both in the north west and south west of Wales will suffer enormously.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The four main engines were fired in unison for the first time, but had to be shut down early\n\nA critical engine test for Nasa's new \"megarocket\" has ended early, but the agency denied it amounted to a failure.\n\nShortly before 22:30 GMT (17:30 EST) on Saturday, the four engines ignited, burning for more than a minute before the event was aborted.\n\nThe core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) was being evaluated at Stennis Space Center, in Mississippi.\n\nThe engines were supposed to fire for eight minutes to simulate the rocket's climb to orbit.\n\nThe SLS is part of Nasa's Artemis programme, which aims to put Americans back on the lunar surface in the 2020s.\n\nWhen it makes its maiden flight - possibly later this year - the SLS will become the most powerful rocket ever to have flown to space.\n\nTeams at Stennis are still poring over the data to find out what happened. John Honeycutt, SLS program manager at Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, said there were \"a lot of dynamics going on\" when the engine shut down.\n\nThe engines' power levels were being throttled down and up again; they were also being prepared to pivot - or gimbal. This movement allows the rocket to be steered during flight.\n\nThe RS-25 engines are the same type that powered the space shuttle orbiter\n\n\"We did see a little bit of a flash come from around the interface between the thermal protection blanket on engine four at the time when we had initiated the gimbal,\" Honeycutt told reporters at a post-test briefing at Stennis.\n\nThe as-yet unknown problem triggered what Nasa calls a failure identification (Fid), followed by a major component failure (MCF). As a result of the fault, an onboard computer known as the engine controller sent a message to another computer called the core stage controller, which took a decision to shut down the vehicle.\n\n\"Any parameter that went awry on the engine could have sent that failure ID,\" said John Honeycutt.\n\nIt was the first time all four RS-25 engines had been ignited together, in a test known as a \"hotfire\".\n\nThe core stage of the rocket was anchored to a massive steel structure called the B-2 test stand on the grounds of the Stennis facility.\n\nTo prepare the core stage, engineers filled its tanks with more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million litres) of super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellant.\n\nThis was the eighth and final test in the Green Run, a programme of evaluation carried out by engineers from Nasa and Boeing - the rocket's prime contractor.\n\nAlthough the test was intended to run for eight minutes, engineers would have received all the data required to certify the rocket for flight after 250 seconds.\n\nThey wanted to iron out any problems before the core stage is used for the first SLS launch, in which it will send Nasa's next-generation Orion spacecraft on a loop around the Moon.\n\nNasa's outgoing administrator Jim Bridenstine declined to call Saturday's event a failure: \"This is why we test,\" he said, adding: \"Before we put American astronauts on American rockets, that's when we need it to be perfect.\"\n\nOfficials have not yet decided whether to re-run the hotfire, or proceed with shipping the core stage to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida to prepare it for the rocket's uncrewed maiden flight, a mission called Artemis-1.\n\n\"It depends what the anomaly was and how challenging it's going to be to fix it,\" said Bridenstine.\n\nNasa administrator Jim Bridenstine said perfection wasn't a realistic expectation for the first engine test\n\nAsked whether a launch this year was still feasible, he added: \"I think it's too early to tell. As we figure out what went wrong, we're going to know what the future holds.\"\n\nHowever, if one or more of the engines needs to be replaced, there are spares waiting to be used at Stennis Space Center.\n\nThe Artemis-1 mission will evaluate how both the SLS and Orion capsule perform prior to Nasa staging a repeat of this lunar loop with astronauts in 2023.\n\nThis will be followed by the first landing on the Moon by humans since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.\n\nThe SLS consists of the 65m (212 ft) -long core stage with two smaller solid rocket boosters (SRBs) attached to the sides. Engineers at KSC have begun stacking the individual SRB segments for Artemis-1.\n\n\"This powerful rocket is going to put us in a position to be ready to support the agency and the country in deep space missions to the Moon and beyond,\" John Honeycutt said during a media briefing on Tuesday.\n\nArtwork: The initial version of the SLS - known as Block 1 - during the climb to orbit\n\nOfficials have been planning to ship the core stage to Florida in February.\n\nIts engines are of the same type that powered the spaceplane-like shuttle orbiter - America's crewed space vehicle for 30 years from 1981-2011.\n\nNasa is re-using flown hardware: the RS-25 engines used in this test helped launch 21 shuttle missions. Two were used on the last shuttle flight - STS-135 in 2011.\n\nThe four RS-25s can generate 1.6 million lbs (7 Meganewtons) of thrust - the force that propels a rocket through the air.\n\nWhen the solid rocket boosters are added to the core stage, the combined system will produce 8.8 million pounds (39.1 Meganewtons) of thrust. This will make it 15% more powerful than the giant Saturn V rocket that sent astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s.\n\nPrior to Saturday's test, John Shannon, vice president and SLS program manager at Boeing praised teams at Stennis for keeping the Green Run on track despite the pandemic and this year's particularly active hurricane season.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHomes have been evacuated as Storm Christoph batters Wales with a three-day rainstorm.\n\nNorth Wales Police were called to help some residents in Ruthin who were being told to leave their homes.\n\nThey tweeted that \"people who do not live locally are driving to the area to 'see the floods'\".\n\nA rain warning issued by the Met Office is in place until midday on Thursday, with an ice warning for parts of north and mid Wales.\n\nSouth Wales fire crews pumped out water from homes in Pontypridd and Porth, in Rhondda, and roads were blocked in Powys and Flintshire.\n\nVehicles were pulled from floods by firefighters in Tenby, Llandovery, Llandeilo and Whitland, Mid and West Wales fire service said.\n\nUp to 20cm (8in) of rain is expected to fall, with the heaviest rain forecast for the north west of Wales.\n\nThere were flood warnings in 58 areas as forecasters warned heavy rain and melting snow could affect roads. There were also 57 flood alerts - meaning flooding is possible.\n\nA yellow warning for ice was issued for the north and parts of mid Wales, starting at 01:00 on Thursday and lasting until 10:00, as rain clears.\n\nA minor landslip was reported on the mountainside above Pentre in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Natural Resources Wales, who have responsibility for the land, said there is no immediate threat after an initial inspection, but the council urged residents to keep away from the area.\n\nThe River Taf at Llanglydwen in Carmarthenshire\n\nFlood warnings are in Carmarthenshire - the River Towy and isolated properties between Llandeilo and Abergwili, the River Gwendraeth Fawr at Pontyates and Ponthenry, the River Hydfron at Llanddowror and the River Taf at Trevaughan in Whitland.\n\nThe other flood warnings cover the River Ely at Peterston-Super-Ely in Vale of Glamorgan, the River Vyrnwy in the Meifod area in Powys, the River Rhyd Hir at Riverside Terrace in Gwynedd, two for the River Wye at Glasbury and Builth Wells, the Lower Dee Valley from Llangollen to Trevalyn Meadows, the River Dyfi at Pont ar Dyfi, the River Usk from Brecon to Glangrwyne, two at the River Severn at Abermule to Fron and Aberbechan and the River Lower Clydach at Clydach Bridge, Swansea.\n\nIn River Aeron at Aberaeron, in Ceredigion, the River Loughor at Ammanford and Llandybie and the River Wye at Builth Wells, Powys, are also covered by the warning.\n\nA person had to be saved from a car stuck in floodwater in Corwen, Denbighshire, North East Wales Search and Rescue tweeted.\n\nRest centres have been opened in St Asaph and Ruthin after some localised flooding following heavy rainfall throughout the day. Denbighshire council invited affected residents to use the facilities at the towns' main leisure centres.\n\nAnd Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service said crews were called to help a motorist whose vehicle had become stuck in 3ft of water in Machynlleth.\n\nThe waters lapped the doors of Ruthin's Ocean Pearl restaurant\n\nIn Broughton, Flintshire, Ray and Jacqui Littler said they and their daughter waited all afternoon for help at their flooded bungalow after emergency services told them they were \"flat out\".\n\nThey eventually decided to leave their home on Main Road, which was under 10 inches of water, to stay with friends.\n\nNeighbours blamed a blocked culvert on the fields opposite the road. Police closed the road at about 16:00 GMT and Flintshire council attended, after three houses were affected, with the gardens of two pensioners' bungalows also under water.\n\nOverflowing banks of the River Usk at Brecon\n\nSouth Wales Fire and Rescue Service said it had been called to two incidents overnight with reports of water entering properties in Pontycymmer in Bridgend and Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent.\n\nOn Wednesday morning, it dealt with flooding at properties in Tyfica Road, Pontypridd, and Trebanog Road in Porth, Rhondda, where a crew was helping residents divert and pump out water.\n\nFirefighters also had to rescue 46 sheep from land surrounded by water at Merthyr Road, Llanfoist, Monmouthshire.\n\nCrews from Abergavenny and Ebbw Vale were called to help the stricken animals near the River Usk.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service\n\nIn Rhondda Cynon Taf, there were also reports of flooding in properties at Pembroke Street, Aberdare and Clydach Vale, Tonypandy.\n\nA tweet from Pontypridd Plaid Cymru councillor Heledd Fychan showed fast-flowing water in the River Taff which runs through the town.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. 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The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nWater in the grounds of Gwydir Castle in Llanrwst\n\nJudy Corbett, owner of 16th Century Gwydir Castle in Llanrwst, Conwy, which flooded last year, told BBC Radio Wales things were \"looking pretty dire here this morning\".\n\nShe said: \"We've been obviously monitoring the levels overnight so we've had another sleepless night worrying about the weather but the levels are rising and the water is very violent this morning and of course, we've got another a whole day ahead of us.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Sabrina Lee This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSeveral roads have been hit by flooding, including the B5106 between Llanrwst and Trefriw\n\nThe Met Office warned spray and flooding could lead to \"difficult driving conditions and some road closures\" and the downpours could cause delays.\n\nTraffic Wales said restrictions were in place on the M48 Severn Bridge where traffic is coming off eastbound at junction two or westbound at junction one before being directed back on to cross the bridge, which remains open.\n\nIn Flintshire, the A548 Coast Road has been closed at Tan Lan and Mostyn, the A5118 at Padeswood, the A541 between Llong to Pontblyddyn, Bagillt High Street and the B5101 between Treuddyn and Llanfynydd.\n\nThe A485 in Garreg is also closed from the Brondaw Arms to Pont Aberglaslyn.\n\nThe Dyfi Bridge near Machynlleth is closed\n\nIn Powys, the A487 over the Dyfi Bridge, near Machynlleth, is closed while the A458 at Llanfair Caereinion is blocked in both directions from Bridge Street to Guilsfield turn-off because of flooding.\n\nThe A483 in Builth Wells at the station is also closed along with the bridge over the River Wye.\n\nCapel Bangor in Ceredigion has temporary traffic lights on the A44 at Lovesgrove Roundabout due to flooding, which is affecting traffic between Aberystwyth and Llangurig.\n\nIn Bridgend, New Inn Road has been closed in both directions at The Dipping Bridge, affecting traffic between Ewenny village and the A48.\n\nSouth Wales Police warned people not to attempt driving through floodwater after the A4118 at Llanddewi on Gower became blocked.\n\nIn Gwynedd, the council tweeted that Ffordd Siliwen, Bangor, had been closed following a landslip.\n\nA section of the A470 Dolgellau Bypass has also been closed along with the A4085 at Garreg.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by South Wales Police Swansea This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNational Rail said some lines between North Llanrwst, Conwy, and Blaenau Ffestiniog in Gwynedd were blocked due to heavy rain while services were also disrupted between Shrewsbury and Machynlleth in Powys.\n\nAlterative road transport will run in place of cancelled services, it said.\n\nThe Met Office said 56mm (2.2in) of rain had fallen at Capel Curig in Snowdonia by 18:00 GMT on Tuesday.\n\nA yellow warning for rain is in place for virtually the whole of Wales until Thursday\n\nForecasters also said fast flowing and deep floodwater \"could cause a danger to life\".\n\nThe Met Office warned flooding could lead to some communities being cut off and possible power cuts.\n\nStrong winds will also follow the torrential rain, with forecasters predicting this may cause \"travelling difficulties across areas higher and more exposed routes\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Douglas Jones was fulfilling a lifelong dream when he became a pilot\n\nThe aviation industry has been among those hardest hit by the Covid pandemic.\n\nPilot Douglas Jones was working for Aegean Airlines, flying out of Athens, when it began.\n\nIt cost him his job and also prompted him to return to the small Scottish town where he grew up.\n\nNow he is now turning his hand to a very different line of work producing PPE, in a sector which is enjoying something of a boom.\n\nMr Jones saw much of Europe in his work with Easyjet and Aegean Airlines\n\nThe 27-year-old, who was born in Haywards Heath in Sussex but raised in Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway, was enjoying his dream job at the start of 2020.\n\nHaving gained a commercial pilot's licence, he was based in Berlin with Easyjet before landing a position in Greece.\n\n\"It is definitely what I have always wanted to do,\" he said.\n\n\"With Aegean I have flown a good way across all the major airports of Europe.\"\n\nHowever, life changed \"very quickly\" as coronavirus spread across the continent.\n\n\"I flew to Copenhagen and I flew back from Copenhagen and I was on unpaid leave when I landed back in Athens,\" he explained.\n\nFearing being stranded in Greece, he booked a flight home to Scotland and within a couple of weeks he received confirmation that his job was gone.\n\nMr Jones returned to Moffat amid fears of being stranded in Greece\n\nMr Jones said it took some time for him to fully appreciate that he would not be returning to the skies any time soon.\n\n\"Half of my stuff is still in Greece because we came back to our home countries thinking this will only be three to six months and that will be that,\" he said.\n\n\"We had just no concept of how bad this was ever going to be.\"\n\nIt meant he was back home in a region where he admits there are \"not a huge amount of options career-wise in normal times\".\n\n\"When you have been used to living in Berlin and Athens and you move back to Moffat, living with your dad, it is a bit of slowdown,\" he said.\n\n\"I was just desperate to do something, to have work.\"\n\nAlpha Solway is producing millions of masks for NHS Scotland\n\nIt was a relative of a friend who spotted south of Scotland firm Alpha Solway was hiring new workers to meet demand for personal protective equipment (PPE).\n\nAfter interview, he was offered a job in June which proved to be something of a change of pace from day one.\n\n\"I came in and I sat and cut elastic for visors for most of the day - I think I cut like something like 3km worth of elastic because one of the machines had a fault,\" he said.\n\nSince then he has helped make filter units for masks, developed standard work procedures and become a \"jack of all trades\" for the business.\n\nMr Jones said of his abilities as a pilot were useful at the PPE factory\n\nHe said he had been \"surprised\" by what parts of his old job he could bring to his new post.\n\n\"A lot in commercial aviation is about awareness - situational awareness - and a lot of that can be built into manufacturing as well,\" he said.\n\n\"When you are talking health and safety around large automated machinery you have to be aware of what things are doing and when and who is doing what.\n\n\"As a pilot - as you might like to think - we have quite a logical way of looking at things. The way we are trained to look at problems is very applicable to manufacturing.\"\n\nAn \"incredible\" summer helped ease the transition from Greece to Moffat\n\nSo how has the transition back to rural Scotland gone?\n\n\"We are so lucky that the summer we had here was quite incredible,\" said Mr Jones.\n\n\"To be out in Moffat, even during lockdown, you can access the hills, you don't have to drive outside a five-mile radius.\n\n\"You can just go out and walk and you will never see a soul.\"\n\nSome things, however, take more getting used to, like his more conventional nine to five day.\n\n\"I think that has probably been the biggest shock to my system, getting into that working routine,\" he said.\n\nAlpha Solway is taking in large numbers of new staff to cope with demand\n\nAlpha Solway secured a major contract to supply the NHS in Scotland earlier this year which has helped to keep Mr Jones \"extremely busy\".\n\nHowever, flying gets \"into your blood\" and he hopes to get back into a plane at some time in the future.\n\n\"My goal is when the jobs start to come - which they will - I will return to the sky in some capacity,\" he said.\n\n\"But it will be a double-edged sword in that I have learned a huge amount here and I have met a lot of very good people.\n\n\"I'm working with a really good team of people here - there are good people here doing a good job and I am helping at least with that.\"", "Disabled workers at one of the UK's oldest charitable enterprises, Clarity, have allegedly been denied £200,000 in wages by the new owner.\n\nThe company produces toiletries and beauty products under the Clarity, Beco and Soap Co brands.\n\nActress Joanna Lumley and Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP have spoken out strongly over the claims.\n\nNicholas Marks, who bought the company last year, says all currently employed staff have been paid.\n\nCommunity, the union which represents Clarity's workers, claims that a number of disabled employees at the firm have not been paid wages and furlough payments.\n\nStephen Steppens says he has received no money since September\n\nStephen Steppens, 60, has been blind since birth, and has worked at Clarity since 1985. He is officially on furlough until his redundancy is completed at the end of January.\n\nHe says he has received no money since September and has been relying on his savings to get by.\n\n\"I loved it,\" he says of working there. Losing the job, and the fight over the organisation's future, have taken a toll on his mental health, he says.\n\n\"I want to see justice done, not just for me, but also for my friends who are visiting food banks.\"\n\nA number of employees have brought successful employment tribunal claims for unauthorised deduction of wages against Clarity, including Mr Steppens. Clarity was ordered to pay him £706. A number of other employment tribunal claims are ongoing, according to Community.\n\nJoanna Lumley, who had been a supporter of Clarity, called it \"the best of the best\" and said she was \"shocked\" to learn of the allegations over treatment of workers. \"Justice must be done as soon as possible,\" she told BBC News.\n\nClarity was founded in 1854 by a wealthy blind woman, Elizabeth Gilbert, as the Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind, to provide opportunities for workers whom other employers overlooked because of their disabilities. Before the takeover, three-quarters of its staff were disabled people.\n\nA factory in London run by General Welfare of the Blind, about 1901\n\nIts supporters and patrons in the past have included Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria.\n\nClarity went into administration last year, as it was losing money and unable to fund the hole in its pension scheme, according to a spokesman for the administrators, FRP. In January, it was bought by Nicholas Marks.\n\nSir Iain Duncan Smith, whose London constituency is home to Clarity's headquarters, raised the issue in the House of Commons on 12 January.\n\n\"Staff have failed to receive national insurance contributions, with many failing to receive their wages or support while undertaking childcare,\" he told MPs.\n\n\"The total amount that these decent but very vulnerable people have failed to receive is now around £200,000. They cannot claim benefits because they are essentially employed.\"\n\nCommunity estimates that about 60 former employees of Clarity are still awaiting payment of their wages and furlough payments, most of them disabled workers.\n\nA spokesman for Nicholas Marks said that Sir Iain's remarks were \"highly inaccurate\" and the company \"does not recognise\" the £200,000 figure.\n\n\"The grievances echoed by Sir Iain Duncan Smith simply reflect disgruntled ex-employees. All employees currently working have been paid in full up-to-date and the company is dealing with redundancies and gross misconduct of former employees,\" he said.\n\nCommunity says it is not aware of any staff who have been dismissed for gross misconduct.\n\nThe spokesman for Mr Marks said that Mr Marks had \"saved this historic company from permanent failure\".\n\nHowever, other bids for Clarity were made, including one from the well-known social entrepreneur, Cemal Ezel, who runs the Change Please coffee business, which creates opportunities for homeless people.\n\nHe is still interested in buying the brands, he told BBC News.\n\nThough Mr Ezel's final bid was slightly higher, the administrators' report says they chose to sell to Mr Marks because he was in a better position to complete the deal by 31 January.\n\nMr Marks's spokesman said that he had to make \"some sensible commercial decisions to place it on to a proper business footing and regrettably some staff had to be let go\".\n\nOn Wednesday, Clarity's website was still running the Certified Social Enterprise mark, denoting an organisation devoted to \"creating positive social change\".\n\nThe spokesman said Clarity Products was not a social enterprise and was not \"purporting to clients\" that it was, though it retained the \"social enterprise ethos through the continued employment of fully paid disabled staff\".\n\nWrongly using the logo for nearly a year was \"simply an oversight\", and it is being removed. On Thursday morning, the website was unavailable - the company spokesman said he was not aware why.\n\nIn a response to Sir Iain's query, Treasury Minister Jesse Norman wrote that he had \"specifically asked HMRC to note the circumstances you describe, and to consider whether and how there may be a case for early intervention\".\n\nAnother company owned by Mr Marks, a Preston-based caravan maker called Lunar Automotive, was reported to HMRC by the local MP, Sir Mark Hendrick, for allegedly refusing to pay wages and pension contributions for its workers.\n\nThis company was also bought out of an administration run by FRP.\n\nMr Marks's spokesman was not able to comment in detail on the Lunar Automotive case, but said the company had not heard back from HMRC.", "The Daily Telegraph must publish a correction over a \"significantly misleading\" column written by Toby Young, press regulator Ipso has ruled.\n\nThe July 2020 article claimed the common cold could provide \"natural immunity\" to Covid-19 and London was \"probably approaching herd immunity\".\n\nBut on Thursday Ipso found the paper had \"failed to take care not to publish inaccurate and misleading information\".\n\nIpso said the paper \"did not accept it has breached the [Editors] Code\".\n\nIt said the newspaper said that Young's comments on immunity referred to \"cross-reactive T-cells\" that work to combat the virus.\n\nHowever, the media watchdog sided with the complainant, James Whitehead, in its decision, who said that while these cells \"may lessen the impact of Covid-19\" after infection, they \"would not confer 'natural immunity'\"\n\nThe ruling added Young's statement \"misrepresented the nature of immunity\".\n\nIpso also found Young's suggestion that \"London is probably approaching herd immunity, even though only 17% tested positive [for antibodies] in the most recent seroprevalence survey\" could be misleading.\n\nThere is an antibody response and a cellular response to the coronavirus\n\nThe Telegraph referred to surveys listed in an article on Young's own Lockdown Sceptics website in its defence, but the Ipso committee judged these did not accurately reflect \"how herd immunity is reached and whether it exists in London\".\n\nThe ruling concluded that the paper had breached accuracy standards on a topic of \"public importance\", but deemed a correction an appropriate sanction, given the level of \"significant scientific uncertainty\" at the time of publication.\n\nYoung told the BBC: \"I think Ipso has been put in a difficult position because our scientific understanding of the virus is constantly evolving and there is a great deal about it that scientists still disagree about.\n\n\"While some of the things I wrote in that article would be contested by some scientists, they would be confirmed by others... Have we achieved herd immunity in London? I think that's an open question and the 'case' data is unreliable because of the well-documented shortcomings of the PCR test.\n\n\"I may have been over-emphatic in putting the anti-lockdown case, but it's not as if the advocates of a pro-lockdown position are any less emphatic.\n\n\"Don't forget the WHO initially estimated the global IFR [infection fatality rate] of Covid-19 at 3.4%. The consensus now is that it's less than 1% and almost certainly a lot less. Lots of journalists faithfully reported that alarmist figure. Why hasn't Ipso reprimanded them?\"\n\nLast week Young told BBC Newsnight that some of his claims from an article he wrote in June had been \"wrong\", where he had said a second spike of Covid-19 had \"refused to materialise\" and that one-metre rule is \"unnecessary\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by BBC Newsnight This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAt the start of the year, Young, an associate editor at The Spectator and general secretary of the Free Speech Union, installed an app that auto-deletes tweets more than a week old.\n\nHe said he did so to protect against \"politically-motivated offence archaeologists\" - a move unrelated to the Ipso ruling.\n\nReacting to criticism of his past comments on coronavirus from Neil O'Brien, Conservative MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, after the deletion, Young then tweeted a defence of his stance against lockdowns.\n\n\"This is an important public debate to have,\" he wrote, \"both because it helps us assess the present government's management of the pandemic and because it will help us prepare better for the next one.\"\n\nThe UK entered a second national lockdown last week in a bid to control spiralling virus infection rates. On Wednesday, the UK saw its biggest daily death figure since the start of the pandemic, with 1,564 deaths.\n\nFollow us on Facebook or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Police said Graeme Perks had gone to investigate the sound of breaking glass when he was stabbed\n\nPlastic surgeons have expressed shock at the stabbing of \"one of the most highly regarded and respected surgeons\" in their profession.\n\nGraeme Perks, 65, was stabbed in his abdomen and chest during a break-in at his house in Halam, a village near Southwell in Nottinghamshire.\n\nPolice said the attack on Thursday morning had left him \"fighting for his life\" and left his family, who were upstairs at the time, \"extremely upset\".\n\nGraeme Perks has been described as \"one of the most highly regarded and respected surgeons in the profession\"\n\nMr Perks previously served as president of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS).\n\nCurrent president Ruth Waters said BAPRAS had been contacted by colleagues all around the world as news of the attack spread.\n\n\"All have expressed their shock at what has happened and also their deep concern for his wellbeing and their hope for his speedy recovery,\" she said.\n\n\"It has been my good fortune and honour to know Graeme for many years. I have benefited from his kindness, generosity and extensive knowledge throughout my career in plastic surgery.\"\n\nBAPRAS described him as \"one of the most highly regarded and respected surgeons in the profession\".\n\nAs well as being a leading plastic surgeon, Mr Perks and his wife have raised thousands of pounds for charity by opening their garden to visitors. They were previously featured on BBC Radio Nottingham after raising more than £34,000.\n\nPolice were still outside the house in Halam more than 24 hours later\n\nPolice said Mr Perks had gone to investigate the sound of breaking glass at about 04:15 GMT, after an intruder is believed to have smashed his way into the house.\n\nThey said Mr Perks was stabbed and the suspect ran off.\n\nMr Perks was taken to the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham for surgery, where he remains in a serious condition.\n\nDet Insp Gayle Hart, who is leading the investigation, said: \"The swift arrest of this suspect we hope will provide some reassurance to local residents.\n\n\"This is a horrific incident which has left a man fighting for his life and his family who were upstairs at the time are extremely shocked and upset by the ordeal.\"\n\nMr Perks has served as president of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS)\n\nMr Perks has previously worked in London, Sheffield, Newcastle and Melbourne, Australia.\n\nHe returned to the UK in the mid-1990s and started working in Nottingham, with a special interest in microsurgical reconstruction after cancer surgery.\n\nHe later became head of the department of Plastic, Reconstructive and Burns Surgery at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.\n\nOutgoing BAPRAS president Mark Henley said: \"Graeme is an amazing colleague who it has been my pleasure and privilege to work with over the last 26 years.\n\n\"His dedication to patients, family and friends is an inspiration to us all and with his wisdom, kindness and humanity he has enabled us to achieve many things that I would never have thought possible. We are all willing him on.\"\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The international community has missed previous deadlines on ensuring access to school\n\nBoris Johnson says it is his \"fervent belief\" that improving girls' education in developing countries is the best way to \"lift communities out of poverty\".\n\nThe prime minister has announced MP Helen Grant as a special envoy for efforts to support girls' education.\n\nIt is expected to be a key theme of the UK's presidency this year of the G7 group of major industrial countries.\n\n\"It can change the fortunes of not just individual women and girls, but communities and nations,\" says the PM.\n\nEven before the pandemic, millions of children in developing countries did not have any access to school - and girls from disadvantaged families are particularly vulnerable to missing out on education. whether through poverty or prejudice.\n\nThe Covid pandemic has created even more barriers to education, with a peak of 1.6 billion children around the world having faced school closures.\n\nBoris Johnson wants girls' education to be a focus of the UK's G7 presidency\n\nMr Johnson, as foreign secretary and prime minister, has previously highlighted girls' education as a key to improving the health, wealth and security of the poorest countries.\n\nHe once described it as the \"Swiss army knife\" of development, as getting girls to stay in education could avoid early marriage, improve their chances of getting a job and provide more income for children to be better fed.\n\nThe prime minister said the international target of ensuring all girls can have 12 years of good quality education would be the \"simplest and most transformative thing we can do\" to tackle poverty and to \"end the scourge of gender-based violence\".\n\n\"The benefits of educating girls are enormous - a child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to live past the age of five and twice as likely to attend school themselves. With just one additional school year, a woman's earnings can increase by up to a fifth,\" said Mr Johnson.\n\nHelen Grant, now the special envoy for girls' education, said: \"High quality female education empowers women, reduces poverty and unleashes economic growth.\n\n\"I will be making it my mission to encourage a more ambitious approach to girls' education from the international community.\"\n\nThere has been a series of pledges from the international community over the past three decades to provide at least a primary school education for all children - all of which have been missed.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said hosting the G7 should be a chance for the UK to act as a \"moral force for good in the world\", but accused the Conservatives of engaging in \"a decade of global retreat\".\n\n\"We need to seize this chance to lead again, just as Blair and Brown did over global poverty and the financial crisis.\"", "Everyone has heard about doctors and nurses catching Covid-19 but some of the worst affected hospital staff have been cleaners and porters. Dr John Wright of Bradford Royal Infirmary tells the story of a cleaner who became ill, and is now stricken with guilt for taking the virus home.\n\nThe first person I see early each morning when I arrive at the hospital is our cleaner, Karen Smith. During 10 months of uncertainty, Karen has been the one constant, apart from a few weeks in spring, when she was ill with Covid-19.\n\nUsually Karen cleans the offices of the hospital's Institute for Health Research, but in the first wave of the pandemic she was called to the Covid wards. It was a frightening time for everyone, but Karen volunteered for an extra shift on Good Friday as there was a staff shortage - and on that day she thinks she was infected.\n\nWe know that working in hospitals increases your risk of infection by a factor of three, but this risk is not evenly spread. Antibody tests carried out in many NHS hospitals over the summer showed it was not the ICU consultants or infectious \"red zone\" clinical staff who had the highest rate of infection, but porters and cleaners working in those areas. Their risk of infection was double that of their clinical colleagues.\n\nThis heightened risk for hospital staff also applies to their household contacts.\n\nAs she cleaned the hospital in April, Karen was scared not for herself, but for her family. She and her husband, Mal, had moved into a caravan in Mal's parents' garden, while his mother was ill with cancer - and they stayed on after she died, to support Mal's 80-year-old father, Malcolm. Mal, a hospital porter, was shielding because he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Malcolm senior was clearly vulnerable because of his age.\n\nStopping work, however, was not a luxury Karen could afford. And unlike some hospital staff who were housed in hotels to protect their families, she went back home every night.\n\nShe became ill towards the end of April, followed by Mal at the beginning of May. The weather was hot, she remembers, as they coughed and wheezed in the caravan.\n\n\"It was like being in a tin box,\" she says. \"I got Covid and couldn't get over it properly. And then Mal got it and his was on another level compared to mine - and then his dad got ill, and that was a different ball game altogether.\"\n\nProf John Wright, a doctor and epidemiologist, is head of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, and a veteran of cholera, HIV and Ebola epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa. He is writing this diary for BBC News and recording from the hospital wards for BBC Radio.\n\nThe couple had to go inside the house to cook and to use the bathroom but did their best to keep away from the elderly Malcolm, who would go into a different room whenever they entered.\n\n\"We tried so, so hard not to give it to him - but then he got ill and he just went to his bed. Honestly, he was just like a little child, under the quilt looking all bewildered. He started with the shivers and we rang 111. They said to bring him to Accident and Emergency to get him tested, and we couldn't believe it when it came back positive,\" Karen says.\n\nLater, he was brought into hospital. I have fond memories of meeting Malcolm on the ward after he was admitted, acutely struggling with symptoms of cough and shortness of breath from his Covid infection. He was a kind and gentle man, stoical and patient.\n\nHe was adamant that he had been careful to keep his distance from Karen and Mal in the house, but admitted wandering over to show them articles in the Telegraph and Argus - Bradford's daily newspaper - whenever I was mentioned in it. I felt strangely culpable that I might have been the cause of the transmission.\n\nMalcolm made a good recovery and was eager to be discharged. But Covid is an unpredictable illness, and it can happen that improvements in a patient's condition are followed by a sharp deterioration. And this is what happened with Malcolm soon after he arrived home.\n\n\"He didn't want to go back into hospital - he said to get him some Tunes because they would help him breathe,\" says Karen. \"But nothing could help him, he was so, so ill. We had to say to him, 'No, you've got Covid and you need proper medical care.' He was such a lovely man, bless him.\"\n\nMalcolm was readmitted after two nights at home and died on 28 May.\n\nMalcolm as he turned 80, visiting his brother in Canada\n\nKaren returned to work. But like many people who have had this illness, she has been suffering the after-effects, both physically and mentally. She's now on an inhaler for breathlessness, can barely taste anything seven months later, and is constantly tired. She is also receiving medication for anxiety because of the fear that she will have to return to the Covid wards, where potentially she could get ill again.\n\nAnd in her case there is the added pain of having lost a loved one, mixed with feelings of guilt.\n\n\"When I start to think about him the tears come and sometimes I'll be crying almost all day - cleaning and crying. If I'm having a bad day, I won't be able to talk,\" she says.\n\n\"The guilt is always there, as I'll never know for sure where he picked it up. Mal's dad didn't set foot out of the door, and so in my head I feel such guilt, because we had to go into the house, we didn't have any choice. I go over it all but it's hard to escape from, because I got it, Mal got it and then his Dad got it. Deep down I think that's what's happened, and it will take time to come to terms with.\"\n\nKaren has been referred for counselling, but there is a long waiting list.\n\nBoth Karen and Mal also had to wait for the vaccine, though both had it on Wednesday. This was a huge relief for Karen, as anything that reduces her chance of reinfection also helps her cope with her anxiety. If NHS trusts are serious about following the science then arguably they should be vaccinating cleaners and porters first.\n\nThe fear of transmitting the virus to our loved ones at home is the ghost that haunts all front-line staff. Many went into isolation during the first wave, but this was never a sustainable approach, and with a virus that is so contagious and an environment in which it is so prevalent, transmission to family members is unfortunately common.\n\nKaren and Mal personify this occupational risk, and its potential deadly impact.", "Doctors and nurses need protection from prosecution over Covid-19 treatment decisions made under the pressures of the pandemic, medical bodies have said.\n\nGroups including the British Medical Association have written to ministers saying medical workers fear they could be at risk of unlawful killing charges.\n\nIt comes as the UK's chief medical officers said the NHS could be overwhelmed in weeks.\n\nThe government said staff should not have to fear legal action.\n\nThe letter from the health organisations points out that the prime minister warned in November that the NHS being overwhelmed would be a \"medical and moral disaster\", where \"doctors and nurses could be forced to choose which patients to treat, who would live and who would die\".\n\nIt said: \"With the chief medical officers now determining that there is a material risk of the NHS being overwhelmed within weeks, our members are worried that not only do they face being put in this position but also that they could subsequently be vulnerable to a criminal investigation by the police.\"\n\nCo-ordinated by the Medical Protection Society (MPS), the letter was signed by the British Medical Association, the Doctors' Association UK, the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and Medical Defence Shield.\n\nIt calls for emergency legislation to protect doctors and nurses from \"inappropriate\" legal action when dealing with circumstances outside their control.\n\nExisting guidance for doctors and nurses on when to administer or withdraw treatment does not give legal protection, the letter says.\n\nIt also says the guidance does not consider the circumstances of the pandemic where demand for healthcare may outstrip supply.\n\n\"The first concern of a doctor is their patients and providing the highest standard of care at all times,\" the medical bodies said.\n\n\"We do not believe it is right that healthcare professionals should suffer from the moral injury and long-term psychological damage that could result from having to make decisions on how limited resources are allocated, while at the same time being left vulnerable to the risk of prosecution for unlawful killing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What does it mean if the NHS is overwhelmed?\n\nThe medical organisations said no healthcare professional should be \"above the law\" and that the emergency legislation should only apply to decisions made \"in good faith\" and \"in circumstances beyond their control and in compliance with relevant guidance\".\n\nThey said the change in the law should be temporary and should apply retrospectively from the start of the pandemic.\n\nMedical staff in the NHS are protected financially from clinical negligence claims by indemnity schemes where the state pays the costs of claims.\n\nBut if someone dies as a result of a lack of treatment, doctors and nurses fear prosecutors could bring charges such as gross negligence manslaughter, which can carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.\n\nEarlier this month, a survey by the MPS of 2,420 of its members found that 61% were concerned about facing an investigation following a decision made in a high-pressure situation.\n\nAbout 36% were concerned about being investigated for a decision to withdraw or withhold life-prolonging treatment due to pressure on resources during the pandemic.\n\nA Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: \"Dedicated frontline NHS staff should be able to focus on treating patients and saving lives during the pandemic without fear of legal action.\"\n\nNHS staff have been told that existing indemnity arrangements will continue and will cover \"the vast majority of liabilities\", the spokesman said.", "Scottish fishermen have resorted to sailing to Denmark to land their catch as Brexit red tape continues to delay exports, an industry body has said.\n\nThe Scottish Fishermen's Federation, which campaigned to leave the EU, also said the Brexit trade deal was the worst of both worlds for the industry.\n\nMany fishermen \"now fear for their future\", it said.\n\nThe UK government said the deal would \"bring immediate gains to our fishermen and women across the whole UK\".\n\nLate last year, the Scottish Fishermen's Federation (SFF) said it was \"deeply aggrieved\" by the Brexit deal.\n\nFishing firms have also warned of impending bankruptcy as delays continue at ports following the introduction of post-Brexit regulations.\n\nOn Friday, the SFF kept up the pressure on the UK government.\n\nIn a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, it said some fishermen \"are now making a 72-hour round trip to land fish in Denmark, as the only way to guarantee that their catch will make a fair price and actually find its way to market while still fresh enough to meet customer demands\".\n\nQuotas are used by many countries to manage shared fish stocks. They determine how many fish of each species each country's fleets are allowed to catch.\n\nThe SFF said that Brexit quota gains \"can hardly be claimed as a resounding success\" and that the Brexit deal \"actually leaves the Scottish industry in a worse position on more than half of the key stocks\".\n\n\"This industry now finds itself in the worst of both worlds,\" said SFF chief executive Elspeth Macdonald, accusing Prime Minister Boris Johnson of broken promises on quotas.\n\nThe \"desperately poor deal\" reached on quotas, under which the EU \"have full access to our waters\" means that the UK has \"no ability to leverage more fish from the EU\", she said.\n\n\"This, coupled with the chaos experienced since 1 January in getting fish to market, means that many in our industry now fear for their future, rather than look forward to it with optimism and ambition,\" Ms Macdonald added.\n\nThe Scottish National Party said the letter was \"an utterly devastating verdict on Brexit from Scotland's fishing industry\".\n\nAn SNP spokesperson said the Scottish fishing industry was \"right to be angry\" about the Brexit deal, which it said was costing Scotland's fishing communities millions of pounds.\n\nThe spokesman called on the prime minister to deliver \"a multi-billion pound package of Brexit compensation for Scotland\", adding: \"Communities across Scotland will never forgive the Tories for the damage they are doing to our country with their extreme Brexit obsession.\"\n\nA UK government spokesperson said the Prime Minister would respond to the SFF letter in due course.\n\nThe spokesperson said: \"We have now taken back control of our waters and the agreement we have reached with the EU secures a 25% transfer of quota from EU to UK vessels over five years, starting with 15% this year.\"\n\nThe spokesperson said the government was looking at providing additional financial support for the Scottish fishing industry, which it recognised was facing \"some temporary issues\".\n\n\"The Prime Minister has already committed to investing £100m in the UK's fishing industry and provided the Scottish government with nearly £200m to minimise disruption for businesses,\" the spokesperson added.", "Louis Godwin said receiving the vaccine was \"no trouble at all\" and encouraged others to have it as soon as they could\n\nSalisbury Cathedral has been transformed into a vaccination centre with an RAF veteran being one of the first to receive the Covid-19 jab.\n\nFormer Flight Sergeant Louis Godwin, 95, gave a thumbs-up after being vaccinated in the cathedral, which dates back more than 800 years.\n\n\"I was so pleased to get it, especially in a setting like this,\" he said.\n\nOrganisers were aiming to vaccinate 1,000 people aged over 80 with the Pfizer/BioNTech jab on Saturday.\n\nPeople queuing to receive their vaccines at Salisbury Cathedral on Saturday\n\nMr Godwin, a great-grandfather of 12, joined the RAF aged 18 in 1943 and served as an air gunner during World War Two.\n\n\"I've had many jabs in my time, especially in the RAF. After the war, I was sent to Egypt and I had a couple of jabs which knocked me over for a week,\" he said.\n\n\"This one, the doctor said to me 'well that's done' and I thought he hadn't started. So it's no trouble at all and no pain.\"\n\nA health worker prepares the vaccine to be administered at the cathedral\n\nStella Bennett, 88, said she felt \"safer\" after receiving the jab.\n\n\"It was easy. I live on my own so it has been hard but I've managed. At least I'm at home and not in hospital with it,\" she said.\n\nDerek Burnett was also among those inoculated against the virus on Saturday.\n\n\"I feel unbelievably relieved as lockdown has been a big strain. It takes a big weight off my mind,\" said the 81-year-old.\n\nOrganisers hoped to vaccinate 1,000 people aged over 80 during the day\n\nThe Very Rev Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury described the vaccines as \"a real sign of hope for us at the end of this very, very difficult year\".\n\n\"I doubt that anyone is having a jab in surroundings that are more beautiful than this so I hope it will ease people as they come into the building,\" he said.\n\nThe Very Rev Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury, described hosting the event as \"absolutely wonderful\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Parts of the UK were blanketed in snow on Saturday as forecasters warned of the potential for disruption.\n\nEast Anglia woke up to a thick layer that had settled overnight and there were warnings that rural communities could be \"cut off\", with up to 8cm (3in) of snow forecast.\n\nPeople in eastern England were warned to expect power cuts and travel delays.\n\nHowever, by midday snow had stopped falling across most parts of the UK, replaced by rain and sleet in places.\n\nSome further light snow is still expected in the hills and mountains of Scotland.\n\nParts of Wales and Northern Ireland were mostly cloudy, with some bands of rain in the northern regions.\n\nThe Met Office had predicted between 4-8cm (1.5-3in) of snow could fall in the worst-affected regions, and warned drivers to accelerate their cars \"gently\" and leave a large gap between surrounding vehicles.\n\nBut the worst of the wintry weather has passed and earlier amber and yellow weather warnings have been cancelled.\n\nA man trekking through the snow at a golf course in Gleneagles\n\nGreg Dewhurst, a Met Office forecaster, said earlier that Saturday was expected to be the colder of the two days over the weekend.\n\nHe said: \"Temperatures are unlikely to rise above 10C, with a lot of areas closer to freezing.\"\n\nThere were also 25 flood warnings across England on Saturday\n\nLuke Miall, meteorologist at the Met Office, said earlier patches of snow could reach parts of Greater London.\n\nHe said the snow had the potential to cause some \"fairly significant disruption\".\n\nThere were also 22 flood warnings across England on Saturday, stretching from the South East to the North East, meaning \"immediate action is required\", according to the Environment Agency.\n\nThis is expected to clear up in the evening, going into Sunday, when southern and eastern parts of the UK will see dry, sunny spells.\n\nNorth-western regions are expected to see showers, with a \"spell of more persistent rain\" later on in the day.\n\nThe coronavirus vaccine rollout has been affected by the weather.\n\nOn Friday, over-80s who were due to receive their jab at Newcastle's Centre for Life were told they could rebook rather than risk making a trip in the icy conditions.\n\nAnd Leeds University has delayed the opening of its asymptomatic Covid-19 test centre.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prime Minister Boris Johnson: \"We will temporarily close all travel corridors from 0400 on Monday\"\n\nThe UK is to close all travel corridors from Monday morning to \"protect against the risk of as yet unidentified new strains\" of Covid, the PM has said.\n\nAnyone flying into the country from overseas will have to show proof of a negative Covid test before setting off.\n\nIt comes as a ban on travellers from South America and Portugal came into force on Friday over concerns about a new variant identified in Brazil.\n\nBoris Johnson said the new rules would be in place until at least 15 February.\n\nA further 1,280 people with coronavirus have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive test, taking the total to 87,291.\n\nThe latest government figures on Friday also showed another 55,761 new cases had been reported - up from 48,682 the previous day.\n\nMeanwhile, more than two million people around the world have now died with the virus since the pandemic began, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.\n\nSpeaking at a Downing Street press conference, the prime minister said it was \"vital\" to take extra measures now \"when day by day we are making such strides in protecting the population\".\n\n\"It's precisely because we have the hope of that vaccine and the risk of new strains coming from overseas that we must take additional steps now to stop those strains from entering the country.\"\n\nAll travel corridors will close from 04:00 GMT on Monday. After that, arrivals to the UK will need to quarantine for up to 10 days, unless they test negative after five days.\n\nMr Johnson, who said the rules would apply across the UK after talks with the devolved administrations, added that the government would be stepping up enforcement at the border and in the country.\n\nTravel corridors were introduced in the summer to allow people travelling from some countries with low numbers of Covid cases to come to the UK without having to quarantine on arrival.\n\nTrade body Airlines UK said it supported the latest restrictions \"on the assumption\" that the government would remove them \"when it is safe to do so\".\n\nChief executive Tim Alderslade said travel corridors were \"a lifeline for the industry\" last summer but \"things change and there's no doubting this is a serious health emergency\".\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was the \"right step\" but called the timing of the decision \"slow again\", adding that the public would be thinking \"why on earth didn't this happen before\".\n\nThe prime minister warned that the NHS was facing \"extraordinary pressures\", having had the highest number of hospital admissions on a single day of the pandemic earlier this week.\n\nHe said that came on Tuesday when there were 4,134 new admissions, while the UK currently has more than 37,000 Covid patients in hospitals.\n\nMr Johnson said that once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated by mid-February \"we will think about what steps we could take to lift the restrictions\".\n\nEngland is currently under a national lockdown, meaning people must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.\n\nSimilar measures are in place across much of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\n\nAlso speaking at the No 10 briefing, England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said the restrictions would need to be lifted gradually by \"testing what works, and then if that works going the next step\".\n\nHe said the peak of people entering hospital would be in the next week to 10 days for most places, but \"we hope\" the peak of infections \"already has happened\" in the south-east, east and London.\n\n\"The peak of deaths I fear is in the future, the peak of hospitalisations in some parts of the country may be around about now and beginning to come off the very, very top,\" he said.\n\nA ban on travellers from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde entering the UK came into force on Friday morning as a result of a new, potentially more infectious variant of coronavirus linked to Brazil.\n\nThe government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the press briefing that some of the new variants may be able to \"get round\" the Covid vaccines but it was \"really quite easy\" to adjust the vaccines to deal with mutations in the virus.\n\nNew variants causing concern have previously been identified in the UK and South Africa, with many countries imposing restrictions on arrivals from both nations.\n\nPublic Health England said a total of 35 genomically confirmed and 12 genomically probable cases of the Covid-19 variant which originated in South Africa have been identified in the UK as of 14 January.\n\nEarlier, a leading scientist said one of the two variants first detected in Brazil had been found in the UK - but not the variant that was causing concern.\n\n\"I think it is likely that the vaccine we have now is going to protect against the UK variant and is going to provide protection I suspect against the other variants as well,\" said Sir Patrick. \"The question is to what degree.\"\n\nLatest figures show that more than three million people in the UK have now received the first dose of a vaccine - 3,234,946 - an increase of 316,694 from the previous day.\n\nSir Patrick said he expected the vaccines would reduce transmission of the virus but that \"we shouldn't go mad\" as jabs are rolled out because a risk would remain.\n\n\"Just because you've been vaccinated doesn't mean you can't catch this and pass it on, it means you're protected against severe disease,\" he added.\n\nMeanwhile, the latest estimate of the UK's R number - which is the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to on average - is 1.2 to 1.3, compared with 1-1.4 last week.\n\nBut in London, where tight restrictions came in earlier, the R number is lower - between 0.9 and 1.2.\n\nIn Wales, new laws for shoppers and staff are to be introduced after \"significant evidence\" coronavirus is being spread in supermarkets.\n\nAre you due to travel back to the UK from overseas? Share your experiences. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The French government has imposed a nationwide curfew from 6pm - 6am to fight the surge in cases of coronavirus.\n\nWhile some departments were already under these restrictions, the majority of France was under an 8pm - 6am curfew.\n\nFrench Prime Minister Jean Castex said the measures would be in place for at least 15 days.", "Northern Ireland's statistics agency has recorded its highest weekly Covid-19 related registered deaths since the pandemic began.\n\nNisra said 145 deaths were registered in the first week of 2021, although administrative delays over Christmas may have affected the number.\n\nThat brings the agency's death toll to 1,976 by 8 January.\n\nThe figures come as the chief medical officers from NI and the Republic issued a joint stay-at-home plea.\n\nDr Michael McBride and Dr Tony Holohan said they were \"gravely concerned\" about the \"unsustainably high level of Covid-19 infection\" across the island of Ireland.\n\nConcern was raised in the Republic of Ireland this week as figures showed it has the world's highest number of confirmed new Covid-19 cases per million people.\n\nOn Friday evening, the Irish Department of Health reported 50 further deaths with Covid-19 and 3,498 new cases of the virus. More than half (54%) of those newly diagnosed are under the age of 45.\n\nNorthern Ireland is in the third week of a six-week lockdown, with ministers scheduled to review measures next week.\n\nHowever, health officials have warned that an extension of the restrictions could be required to reduce pressure on the health service.\n\nOf the 2,019 deaths recorded by Nisra by 8 January, 1,247 (62%) occurred in hospital, 622 (31%) in care homes, 12 (0.6%) in hospices and 138 (7%) at residential addresses or other locations.\n\nPeople aged 75 and over account for just over three-quarters of all Covid-19 related registered deaths (77.6%) between 19 March 2020 and 8 January 2021.\n\nJust over a fifth (22.2%) of all Covid-19 related registered deaths have been of people with an address in the Belfast council area.\n\nMeanwhile, the Department of Health reported 26 further Covid-related deaths on Friday.\n\nFive of these deaths did not occur in the past 24 hours.\n\nThe Department of Health bases its figures on a positive test result being recorded, whereas Nisra figures are based on mentions of the virus on death certificates, so people may or may not have been confirmed to have contracted the virus prior to death.\n\nA further 1,052 individuals have tested positive for Covid-19 and 63 patients are being treated in intensive care units, 47 of whom are on ventilators.\n\nThe chief medical officers warned the high infection rate was having a \"significant impact\" on the health of the population and the \"safe functioning\" of the healthcare systems.\n\nThey said the public should avoid all unnecessary journeys, including cross-border travel.\n\nPointing out that many of the patients admitted to hospital in January have been younger than 65, they warned coronavirus could affect anyone, \"regardless of age or underlying condition\".\n\n\"It highlights the need for us all to protect one another by staying at home,\" said the medical officers.\n\nNorthern Ireland's spike in infections has been put down to an easing of restrictions over Christmas.\n\nAsked if he regretted being part of the decision to ease restrictions, Health Minister Robin Swann said the executive had tried to be balanced in its approach.\n\n\"I regret the pressures we see now in our hospitals, but let's remember it's caused by this virus, we have it in our power to bring it back under control and get us back to where we were in the summer,\" he told BBC News NI on Friday.\n\nMr Swann pleaded with people to follow the current restrictions.\n\n\"We're in the middle of a very tough six-week scenario, and how we come out of this will be a more graduated approach to make sure we get the benefits of what we've already done, and also the benefits of the vaccine.\"", "Holiday firms say they are expecting more people to take holidays in the UK this year\n\nStaycations are expected to boom in 2021 after lockdown ends, UK holiday firms have said.\n\nBosses at the Caravan and Motorhome Club said the lifting of restrictions would be like \"a cork popping from a bottle\".\n\nDirector general Nick Lomas said although coronavirus had hit the industry hard, they were optimistic about the coming season.\n\nOther firms said they also expected more people to holiday in the UK.\n\nMr Lomas said: \"2020 was a very difficult year for the tourism and hospitality sector.\"\n\nThe West Sussex-based Caravan and Motorhome Club had suffered \"significant financial losses\", he said.\n\nHowever, he added: \"When our campsites were allowed to be open last year we actually saw record levels of bookings, with new memberships up by 14%.\n\n\"Sadly, this surge does not make up for the losses we suffered during nearly six months of lockdown.\"\n\nDuring the first lockdown popular resorts like Skegness were largely deserted\n\nBut, despite the current restrictions, Mr Lomas said he had every reason to believe this year could finish as one of \"the best and busiest yet\", due to the appetite for outdoor UK holidays.\n\n\"In fact, we think that 2021 is going to be like a cork popping from a bottle,\" he said.\n\nOperators say people are keen to experience the \"great outdoors\" once restrictions are lifted\n\nExperience Freedom, which operates glamping holidays in the UK, said bookings for 2021 were already up as people looked to spend more time in the \"great outdoors\".\n\nLincoln-based Anne's Vans said they were expecting a \"bumper year\"\n\nSmaller operators such as Anne's Vans, based in Lincoln, are also expecting to benefit.\n\nOwner Anne Davies said so far they had no bookings, saying \"uncertainty over when lockdown will end\" was putting people off at the moment.\n\nHowever, she said: \"Based on last year's experience we are expecting a bumper year in 2021... once this latest lockdown is over.\"\n\nThe Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority said it was inundated with visitors after restrictions were lifted last year\n\nThe chief executive of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, David Butterworth, said visitor numbers after the first lockdown ended were \"unprecedented\".\n\n\"The challenge for 2021 is to capitalise on this trend, and capture the hearts and minds of the people who have experienced the Dales for the first time to make sure they keep coming back,\" he added.", "Boris Johnson has said there is still a very substantial risk of intensive care units in hospitals being overwhelmed by the spread of the coronavirus.\n\nIt comes on a day when the UK has recorded the highest number of deaths in a single day in Europe.\n\nFergal Keane last visited the Imperial Healthcare Trust’s St Mary’s and Charing Cross hospital in London last April.\n\nHe's been back to see how they're coping.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Saturday morning. We'll have another update for you on Sunday.\n\nThe UK will face short-term delays in delivery of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, as the pharmaceutical company makes modifications to its plant in Belgium. But the government says it still plans on achieving its target of vaccinating all top four priority groups by 15 February. Six EU nations have called the situation \"unacceptable\" and warned it \"decreases the credibility of the vaccination process\". Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia urged the EU to apply pressure on Pfizer-BioNTech. Pfizer says the reduced deliveries are a temporary issue, and the changes being made to its plant will speed up production in the longer term. So will a vaccine give us our old lives back?\n\nNew tighter Covid restrictions have come into force in Scotland with changes for takeaway outlets and click and collect shopping. Among the six new rules announced by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, customers buying takeaway food and coffee are no longer allowed inside premises, and staff must serve from a hatch or doorway. Plus, only retailers selling essential items - clothing, footwear, baby equipment, homeware and books - can now provide click and collect services. Customer collections can only be made outdoors, with staggered pick-up times to avoid queues.\n\nEveryone has heard about doctors and nurses catching Covid-19, but some of the worst affected hospital staff have been cleaners and porters. Dr John Wright of Bradford Royal Infirmary tells the story of a cleaner who became ill while doing her job, and is now stricken with guilt for taking the virus home.\n\nIt is almost a month since Christmas was \"downsized\" across the country. But in most parts of the UK, people did meet in Christmas \"bubbles\" if only for just one day. So what impact did this have? The overall picture shows a sharp increase in cases around this time. However, a closer look at the numbers suggests this trend was already happening and was probably caused by the new, more infectious variant of the virus rather than increased contact between people. Take a closer look at what happened over Christmas.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nAnd if you're wondering whether you can catch the virus outside, our science editor David Shukman considers the risks.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Louis Godwin descibed the vaccine as \"no trouble at all\" Image caption: Louis Godwin descibed the vaccine as \"no trouble at all\"\n\nAn RAF veteran has been among hundreds of people over 80 to receive the Covid-19 vaccine at Salisbury Cathedral, in Wiltshire, today.\n\nFormer Flight Sergeant Louis Godwin described receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech jab as \"absolutely marvellous\".\n\nThe landmark cathedral is hosting a vaccination hub for five GP surgeries in the area, with the aim of vaccinating more than 1,000 elderly residents and staff.\n\nMr Godwin recalled having jabs in Egypt after the war \"which knocked me over for a week\".\n\n\"This one, the doctor said to me 'well that's done' - and I thought he hadn't started!\"\n\nThe veteran pilot, who has 12 great-grandchildren, said the pandemic could not be compared to the war.\n\n\"It was entirely different because this has divided people.\n\n\"The vaccine is nothing, you don't feel a thing... so anybody that needs one and can get one, I would say go ahead and do it quickly.\n\n\"It's the only way we're going to beat the virus.\"\n\nPatients queued for a short time around the cloisters on Saturday, before going into the cathedral where they were treated to a programme of music on the famous Father Willis organ.\n\n\"It is a bonus to be in such a iconic, wonderful place,\" said Dr Dan Henderson, co-clinical director for the Sarum South Primary Care Network.\n\n\"It's great to be getting the vaccine out there and getting them in people's arms and knowing that this is hopefully the start of some sort of normality again.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nLahiru Thirimanne's unbeaten 76 frustrated England as Sri Lanka fought back on the third day of the first Test in Galle.\n\nBowled out for 135 in the first innings, Sri Lanka showed great spirit to reach 156-2 - trailing by 130 - after England had posted 421.\n\nJoe Root progressed to a magnificent fourth Test double century before he was last man out for 228 as England lost their last six wickets for 49 runs.\n\nSam Curran and Jack Leach took a wicket apiece in Sri Lanka's second innings, but off-spinner Dom Bess rarely threatened on a pitch that has offered assistance to spin since day one.\n\nKusal Perera contributed 62 to an opening stand of 101 with the patient Thirimanne, who was dropped on 51 by Dom Sibley at gully as he compiled his highest Test score since 2013.\n\nThe left-hander will resume alongside nightwatchman Lasith Embuldeniya at 04:15 GMT on Sunday.\n\nEngland all-rounder Moeen Ali, who tested positive for coronavirus upon arrival in Sri Lanka, spent time at the ground in the afternoon after finishing his quarantine period.\n\nFor the first time in two years, England failed to take a wicket in the first 30 overs - with seamers Curran, Stuart Broad and Mark Wood finding the going tough given the minimal swing or seam movement on offer.\n\nHowever, credit must be paid to the Sri Lanka openers. Thirimanne and Perera were criticised for their first-innings failures, but their century stand was the first time in six Tests that a Sri Lanka opening pair had survived longer than 10 overs.\n\nPerera showed restraint - he scored at a strike-rate of 57, compared to 74 over his Test career - but hit Leach over mid-wicket for six and swept and also drove well before slapping a Curran long hop to wide third man.\n\nThirimanne, who averaged 22 in 70 Test innings before this match, was happy to play second fiddle to Perera, although he did find the leg-side boundary with flicks and sweeps.\n\nHaving taken 5-30 in the first innings, Bess failed to maintain a consistent length and allowed Thirimanne and Perera to play off the back foot too often.\n\nLeft-arm spinner Leach, who bowled more accurately, failed with a review for lbw against Thirimanne on 61 before having Kusal Mendis caught behind off a beautiful delivery that turned and bounced in what proved to be the penultimate over of the day.\n\nResuming on 168, Root reached his fourth Test double century with the minimum of fuss.\n\nHe showed more intent than on day two - when he was happy for debutant Dan Lawrence to take more risks - hitting the third ball of the day to the cover boundary before driving down the ground for six.\n\nIt was almost fitting that Root reached 200 with a sweep for four - it was a productive shot throughout his innings, with 88 runs coming via sweeps and reverse sweeps.\n\nIn his 321-ball innings Root became the eighth Englishman to pass 8,000 Test runs - in 178 innings, two more than Kevin Pietersen, who holds the record.\n\nEngland passed 400 in the first innings for the sixth time in their past 12 Tests, having failed to do so in their previous 23.\n\nBut they lost their last six wickets in 13 overs as they chased quick runs, possibly with an eye on the rain forecast later in the game.\n\nSri Lanka were much more disciplined than on the previous two days, with pace bowler Asitha Fernando impressing, while off-spinner Dilruwan Perera mopped up the tail to finish with 4-109.\n• 372-6: Sam Curran is bowled first ball as Fernando gets one to nip back and crash into off stump.\n• 382-7: Dom Bess disagrees and is well short of his ground, a third wicket to fall in 12 balls.\n• 398-8: Jack Leach is trapped lbw for four by Dilruwan Perera.\n• 406-9: Mark Wood toe-ends a sweep straight up in the air to be caught by Niroshan Dickwella off Dilruwan Perera.\n• 421 all out: Joe Root holes out on the mid-wicket boundary.\n\n'Chasing anything will be tricky' - reaction\n\nEngland captain Joe Root on BBC Test Match Special: \"It feels good to be in the position we are.\n\n\"It would have been nice to get a couple more wickets tonight but that one late on is a real bonus for us.\n\n\"It gives us a great opportunity in morning to apply a lot of pressure and hammer home what is a strong advantage in this game.\"\n\nEngland all-rounder Sam Curran: \"It is a strange looking wicket. It played a bit better than we thought this evening.\n\n\"It didn't offer much for the seamers and there was real slow turn for the spinners. The two openers played really well.\"\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan: \"Sri Lanka came back really well - they have shown fight and discipline.\n\n\"If Sri Lanka bat the whole day tomorrow things will get interesting. Chasing anything on last day becomes tricky.\n\n\"I expect England will take eight wickets tomorrow and win the game.\"\n\nFormer England batter Ebony Rainford-Brent: \"Sri Lanka really have fought back well. It is good to see.\n\n\"If weather plays a factor and there is some resistance from the lower order this could bubble into an exciting finish.\"\n• None Hear how David Bowie always managed to stay ahead of his time\n• None Joe Wicks and guests are here to bring positivity to your day", "The funeral of Gerry and the Pacemakers singer Gerry Marsden has been held at a church near his beloved River Mersey.\n\nMarsden died, aged 78, in hospital on 3 January following a blood infection.\n\nAs the frontman in the band Gerry and the Pacemakers, his hits included Ferry Cross The Mersey and a cover version of You'll Never Walk Alone.\n\nEx-Liverpool boss Sir Kenny Dalglish was among the mourners at the funeral which had to remain small because of Covid restrictions.\n\nSir Kenny managed the club at the time of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, which led to the deaths of 96 fans who were attending an FA Cup game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.\n\nGerry Marsden sings You'll Never Walk Alone before an Anfield match in 2010\n\nSir Kenny said: \"You'll Never Walk Alone has huge meaning to the lives of Liverpool supporters around the world and is synonymous with the club.\n\n\"He will be sadly missed by those who knew him and the millions he never got to meet.\"\n\nYou'll Never Walk Alone became a football terrace anthem for Marsden's hometown club soon after it topped the charts in 1963.\n\nThe song was played during the funeral by a guitarist while a version of Marsden singing Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying, a song he wrote for his wife Pauline, also featured.\n\nShe said: \"We, his family, are totally devastated and have been so moved and amazed at the extent of the respect, love and affection received from all over the world.\n\n\"When the time is right and we have come out of this terrible pandemic we hope a fitting memorial can be held for him in the city he loved so much.\"\n\nGerry and the Pacemakers was one of the biggest British bands in the 1960s\n\nReferring to the lyrics from Ferry Cross the Mersey, close friend Arthur Johnson said: \"He lived close to the banks of the Mersey for all his life and as the words of his song say: 'This land's the place I love and here I'll stay'.\"\n\nLiverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram said: \"I feel privileged he let me into his life, although that makes his passing even more painful.\"\n\nIn 1962, Beatles manager Brian Epstein signed up Gerry and the Pacemakers and, a year later, they became the first band to have their first three songs top the charts - How Do You Do It, I Like It and You'll Never Walk Alone.\n\nA flag on the Royal Iris Mersey ferry flew at half mast after the death of Gerry Marsden\n\nThey were one of the successes of the Merseybeat era, with former Beatles star Sir Paul McCartney saying at the time of Marsden's death that: \"Gerry was a mate from our early days in Liverpool\".\n\n\"He and his group were our biggest rivals on the local scene.\"", "Work to restore hundreds of thousands of fingerprint, DNA and arrest records accidentally wiped from police databases is ongoing, the Home Office has said.\n\nAround 400,000 records were lost, according to The Times, which first reported the story.\n\nThe Home Office did not comment on how many records were likely to be restored, or how long it would take.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said the issue was \"a result of human error\".\n\nData was wiped from the Police National Computer (PNC) - which stores and shares criminal records information across the UK - after being inadvertently flagged for deletion.\n\nThe PNC is used in police investigations and provides real-time checks on people, vehicles and crimes, as well as whether suspects are wanted for any unsolved offences.\n\nThe coding that caused the problem was introduced in November 2020, and the deletions started earlier this week.\n\nInitially, it was thought some 150,000 records were lost, but it since has emerged the number could be significantly higher.\n\nCommenting on the error, Ms Patel said: \"Engineers continue to work to restore data lost as a result of human error during a routine housekeeping process earlier this week.\n\n\"I continue to be in regular contact with the team, and working with our policing partners, we will provide an update as soon as we can.\"\n\nEarlier, Labour shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds called on Ms Patel to take responsibility for the error and be clear about the impact it had had.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Breakfast, he described the situation as \"extraordinarily serious\", adding: \"Priti Patel will be responsible for criminals walking free.\n\n\"We're not going to be able to link suspects to crime scenes without the DNA and fingerprint evidence.\"\n\nThe National Police Chiefs' Council said the lost data had resulted in a couple of \"near misses\" for serious crimes when trying to identify an offender.\n\nPolicing minister Kit Malthouse insisted the affected records \"apply to cases where individuals were arrested and then released with no further action\".\n\nHe added: \"We are working to recover the affected records as a priority. While we do so, the Police National Computer is functioning and the police are taking steps to mitigate any impact.\"", "Mr Laschet is now in a good position to stand for German chancellor\n\nCentrist Armin Laschet has been elected leader of Germany's Christian Democrats (CDU), the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel.\n\nMr Laschet, premier of North Rhine-Westphalia state, defeated two rivals in the party's virtual conference.\n\nHe is now in a good position in the race to succeed Mrs Merkel when she steps down as German chancellor in September, after 16 years in office.\n\nBut he faces a changed political landscape following the Covid pandemic.\n\nMr Laschet, 59, defeated conservative businessman Friedrich Merz in a run-off vote by 521 votes to 466. A third candidate, Norbert Röttgen, was eliminated in the previous round.\n\nHe replaces as chair of the party Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who failed to live up to her billing as Mrs Merkel's appointed successor after taking office more than two years ago.\n\nGermany goes to the polls in September, but the CDU leader is not guaranteed to become its candidate for chancellor.\n\nHealth Minister Jens Spahn, who has been elected as one of Mr Laschet's deputies, and Markus Söder, leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party the CSU, could also step into the ring, though neither has yet said that they want the job.\n\nA final decision will be made in the spring.\n\nMr Laschet is a loyal supporter of Mrs Merkel, and said during the campaign that a change of direction for the party would \"send exactly the wrong signal\".\n\nIn his victory speech, he said: \"I want to do everything so that we can stick together through this year... and then make sure that the next chancellor in the federal elections will be from the [CDU/CSU] union.\"\n\nArmin Laschet is a short, cheerful chap. The popular premier of Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, he throws himself with gusto into traditional carnival celebrations.\n\nHe touts himself as a continuity candidate and, for a time at least, was thought to have been Angela Merkel's preferred candidate. He defended her stance during the 2015 refugee crisis and is known for his liberal politics, passion for the EU and ability to connect with immigrant communities.\n\nBut his call for an early relaxation of Covid restrictions last spring surprised many and reportedly infuriated Mrs Merkel. He has since retreated from that position but he's had to work to repair the damage to his political credibility.\n\nThe big question now is whether the CDU will put him up as their chancellor candidate in September's general election.\n\nGerman Health Minister Jens Spahn - who supported Mr Laschet in his leadership bid - is thought to harbour ambitions to the chancellory. And recent opinion polls suggest that Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder would be a popular choice too.", "The US is in a race to vaccinate its population amid a winter surge\n\nA highly contagious coronavirus variant first detected in the UK could become the dominant strain in the US by March, health officials have said.\n\nThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned of \"rapid growth\" of the variant in coming weeks.\n\nIt said such a spike could further threaten health systems already strained by a winter Covid surge.\n\nThe warning came on Friday as President-elect Joe Biden unveiled an ambitious plan to ramp up vaccinations.\n\nTo meet his target of inoculating 100 million Americans within his first 100 days in office, Mr Biden said his administration would take a more active role in accelerating the distribution of vaccines.\n\nHe outlined a plan to set up new mass vaccination centres, hire extra health workers, and ensure the shot is available to everyone, including minority communities that have been hit hardest by the epidemic.\n\nOfficial data shows that, so far, 12.2 million vaccine doses of have been administered in the US - a figure Mr Biden has criticised as insufficient. More than 30 million doses have been distributed to states.\n\nIn a speech on Friday, Mr Biden told Americans that \"we remain in a very dark winter\", admitting that \"things will get worse before they get better\".\n\n\"This is going to be one of the most challenging operational efforts ever undertaken by our country,\" Mr Biden, who takes office on 20 January, said of the vaccination drive.\n\nHis address came a day after he announced a $1.9tn (£1.4tn) stimulus package for the battered US economy that included a further $20bn for the vaccine roll-out. The plan will need to pass Congress.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Biden: \"I promise we will not forget you\"\n\nThe US has recorded the highest number of confirmed coronavirus infections - 23.5 million - of any country in the world. At about 391,000, the country's coronavirus deaths account for a fifth of the global total, which passed the two-million mark on Friday.\n\nThe crisis is particularly acute in the state of California, where deaths have surged by more than 1,000% since November.\n\nIn its report, the CDC said that the UK variant would spread quickly in the coming weeks.\n\nThe latest research by Public Health England (PHE) suggests the variant - now dominant in much of Britain - is between 30% and 50% more transmissible than previous strains. There is currently no evidence to suggest it causes any more serious illness.\n\nExperts have also played down the possibility that the current vaccines will not be as effective against it.\n\nSo far, 76 people from 10 US states have been confirmed to have been infected with the UK variant, known as B.1.1.7.\n\nBut the CDC said: \"The modelled trajectory of this variant in the US exhibits rapid growth in early 2021, becoming the predominant variant in March.\"\n\nTwo other variants - one from South Africa and one from Brazil - are also thought to be more contagious than the original one that started the pandemic. Studies are under way to assess the threat they pose.", "Exam results are likely to appear before the end of the summer term\n\nExam results for A-levels and GCSEs in England could be published in early July this year, according to proposals for replacing cancelled exams.\n\nA consultation launched by the exams watchdog and the Department for Education confirmed that grades will be decided by teacher assessment.\n\nBut results this summer are likely to be released much earlier than usual.\n\nEducation Secretary Gavin Williamson said pupils would receive \"a grade that reflects their ability\".\n\nThere are also likely to be written test papers set by exam boards, but marked by teachers, with some later checks if there are concerns about fairness.\n\nFor vocational qualifications, exams which use mostly written papers are also likely to use teachers' grades - but qualifications which need a test of practical, hands-on skills will have separate arrangements.\n\nOfqual and the Department for Education have formally launched a two-week consultation on a system for how results will be decided, after disruption from the pandemic forced the cancellation of exams.\n\nThis is the second year of exam results being disrupted by the pandemic\n\nFor A-levels and GCSEs this could see the scrapping of the traditional results days in August, with a proposal to publish the results in \"early July\", increasing the time for appeals and adding more time before the start of the university term.\n\nLast year the process of replacement results ended with U-turns and confusion, as an algorithm initially used for deciding grades was abandoned and teachers' assessments used instead.\n\nThis time there will be no algorithm, but from the outset the process will rely on the judgement of teachers, who will be asked to use evidence such as coursework, essays, homework and mock exams.\n\nThere are also proposals for test papers, or mini-exams, which would be set by examiners but which would be likely to be marked within schools by teachers.\n\nThese would inform teachers' decisions rather than be a fixed proportion of the final grade - and could be used as evidence for any scrutiny of the reliability of a school's results or if there were appeals over grades.\n\nThere is also a recognition they might have to be taken by some pupils at home.\n\nBut it has still to be decided whether it would be mandatory to take these exams, and whether there would be a single paper per subject or the option to take more.\n\nThe Department for Education has said pupils will not face tests in subject areas they have not covered.\n\nGeoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, said the proposals seemed \"sensible\".\n\nBut he said the written tests would have to be \"exceptionally well designed\" to make them fair between students \"whose learning has been disrupted by the pandemic to greatly varying extents\".\n\n\"There are still many questions left unanswered,\" said the National Education Union's co-leader Kevin Courtney, about how tests could be flexible enough and how appeals will be decided.\n\nThere will be a process of training teachers in how the grading system will operate and be consistent between different schools.\n\nFor vocational qualifications, the proposals say those closer to written A-level and GCSE exams will be graded in a similar way to the academic exams, using teacher assessment to replace written papers.\n\nThere will be different approaches for qualifications requiring proof of practical skills, but there will be arrangements to make this possible.\n\nSome BTec exams have already gone ahead this month and IGCSE exams are still planned to continue this summer.\n\nA-levels and GCSEs have been cancelled in Wales and Northern Ireland, and in Scotland the Nationals, Highers and Advanced Highers have also been scrapped.\n\nEngland's Education Secretary, Mr Williamson, said: \"Fairness to young people has been and will continue to be fundamental to every decision we take on these issues.\"", "Men who had already had the virus were asked to donate blood plasma for the trial\n\nA potential treatment for Covid using blood plasma does not reduce deaths among hospital patients, trials show.\n\nThe results are a blow to researchers and the NHS, which led the drive to collect plasma donations.\n\nThis arm of the Recovery trial, which is investigating a number of promising Covid treatments, has now been closed.\n\nThe Oxford researchers involved say they are \"incredibly grateful\" for the contribution of patients across the country.\n\nDonations of plasma were temporarily suspended, according to NHS Blood and Transplant.**\n\nThere had been huge international interest in the role of convalescent plasma as a possible treatment for hospital patients with Covid-19.\n\nThe treatment involves blood plasma being taken from people who have recovered from the disease - which contains antibodies to coronavirus - and transfused into seriously ill patients.\n\nIt was hoped the plasma donation would give the recipient's struggling immune system a boost to fight off Covid.\n\nThe NHS had been urging people to donate, particularly men who are thought to have higher levels of antibodies in their blood.\n\nBut early analysis of 1,873 deaths in a study of 10,400 UK patients shows the treatment made \"no significant difference\".\n\nIn the group treated with convalescent plasma, 18% of patients died within 28 days - the same figure for the group given standard treatment.\n\nPatients in the study are still being followed up and the final results will be published shortly.\n\nEarlier this week, a separate study showed no evidence that the same treatment improved outcomes for patients in intensive care.\n\nMartin Landray, chief investigator and professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, said the Recovery trial showed \"the value of large randomised trials to properly assess the role of potential treatments\".\n\nThe trial is still investigating other treatments, including tocilizumab, aspirin and an antibody cocktail.\n\nProf Peter Horby, who also worked on the trial, said the largest ever trial of convalescent plasma \"was only possible thanks to the generous donation of plasma by recovered patients and the willingness of current patients to contribute to advancing medical care\".\n\n\"While the overall result is negative, we need to await the full results before we can understand whether convalescent plasma has any role in particular patient sub-groups,\" he said.\n\n**NHS Blood and Transplant restarted donations of blood plasma on 20 January. They could be used to see whether particular groups of patients, such as those with low antibody levels, could benefit.\n\nInternational trials are also testing if plasma helps people when it's used much earlier in the disease, before people get to hospital.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Duke of Cambridge shared his own experiences of seeing \"death and so much bereavement\"\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been told the pandemic will leave many emergency workers \"broken\".\n\nMany police and NHS workers are too concerned with battling the pandemic to look after their mental health, they were told.\n\nInsp Phil Spencer from Cleveland Police said staff did not engage enough with counselling \"because we don't want to take anybody else's valuable time\".\n\nPrince William said he \"really worries\" about the effect on front-line workers.\n\n\"When you're surrounded by that level of intense trauma and sadness and bereavement, it really does, it stays with you at home, it stays with you for weeks on end,\" he said.\n\nInsp Spencer said emergency workers \"run towards danger, run towards a terrorist attack, we run towards the pandemic\".\n\n\"Perhaps further down the line when all this is gone we're going to have some broken police officers and emergency services staff, because we're too busy focusing on protecting the most vulnerable,\" he said.\n\nThe couple also spoke to counsellors from Hospice UK's Harrogate-based Just B support line for NHS staff, social care workers, carers and emergency services, which their foundation helps financially.\n\nThe prince said he feared \"you're all so busy caring for everyone else that you won't take enough time to care for yourselves\".\n\nHe and Catherine said the stigma surrounding seeking help for mental health issues must end.\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n• None The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Police investigations have been compromised by an error that led to hundreds of thousands of records being deleted from UK-wide databases, according to a letter seen by the BBC.\n\nThe National Police Chiefs' Council said 213,000 records were deleted - more than the 150,000 first reported.\n\nThis resulted in a couple of \"near misses\" for serious crimes when trying to identify an offender, it said.\n\nThe Home Office has said it is assessing the impact of the mistake.\n\nData including fingerprint, DNA, and arrest histories was wiped from the Police National Computer (PNC) - which stores and shares criminal records information across the UK - after being inadvertently flagged for deletion.\n\nThe PNC is used in police investigations and provides real-time checks on people, vehicles and crimes, as well as whether suspects are wanted for any unsolved offences.\n\nThe Home Office said the lost entries related to people who were arrested and then released without further action.\n\nBut the letter from the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) says officers are aware of at least one instance where the DNA profile from a suspect in custody did not generate a match to a crime scene as expected, potentially impeding the investigation.\n\nIt says that some of the records had been marked for indefinite retention following earlier convictions for serious offences.\n\nAnd it reveals that a \"weeding system\", developed and deployed by a Home Office PNC team, started to delete records wrongly last November.\n\nThe process was only brought to a halt at the start of this week.\n\nThe letter was sent on Friday afternoon by Deputy Chief Constable Naveed Malik of the NPCC to chief constables and police and crime commissioners.\n\nThe deletion of the records has been blamed on a coding error.\n\nThis resulted in records that had been flagged for deletion being lost from the database before checks had been carried out to determine whether they could be lawfully held or not.\n\nPolicing minister Kit Malthouse said the problem had been identified and the process corrected so \"it cannot happen again\".\n\nHe said the Home Office, National Police Chiefs' Council and other law enforcement partners were working \"at pace\" to recover the data.\n\nThe Home Office said no records of criminal or dangerous persons had been deleted.\n\nBut Labour shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds called on Home Secretary Priti Patel to take responsibility for the error and be clear about the impact it had had.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Breakfast, he described the situation as \"extraordinarily serious\", adding: \"Priti Patel will be responsible for criminals walking free. We're not going to be able to link suspects to crime scenes without the DNA and fingerprint evidence.\"\n\nA home office source said the accusation was \"scaremongering and irresponsible\".\n\nFormer Cumbria Police Chief Constable Stuart Hyde told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday the \"very large\" loss of arrest records presented a \"risk to public safety\".\n\nThe records are linked to police investigations that were terminated before charge (No Further Action or NFA cases) or to those where an individual had been acquitted at court.\n\nIt is not yet known how many records of each type were lost and full extent of deletions is still being investigated. A minister is expected to update the House of Commons on Monday.\n\nIt comes after about 40,000 alerts relating to European criminals were removed from the PNC following the UK's post-Brexit security deal with the EU.", "A 24m section of the bridge parapet collapsed one mile from where a fatal crash took place\n\nPart of a rail bridge has collapsed near the site of the fatal Stonehaven train derailment.\n\nA 24m (79ft) section of the side wall has fallen from the bridge, about a mile north of where three people died when a train left the track and crashed last August.\n\nNetwork Rail said it was a \"structural fault\" and not caused by a landslip.\n\nThe line between Aberdeen and Dundee remains closed while structural engineers assess the fault.\n\nThe structure is located three miles north of Carmont signal box. The collapse was discovered just before 10:00 on Friday.\n\nThe rail company said the damage to the parapet was \"extensive\" and that the line was expected to be closed for a \"significant\" period of time while repairs to the bridge take place.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Network Rail Scotland This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Network Rail Twitter account told followers engineers would be working around the clock to complete repairs.\n\nSpecialist staff are also checking similar bridges as a precaution.\n\nThe line between Aberdeen and Dundee had just reopened in November, nearly three months after the Stonehaven derailment.\n\nThe driver, a conductor and a passenger died when the Aberdeen to Glasgow service derailed near Stonehaven on 12 August after heavy rain.\n\nNetwork Rail Scotland carried out \"complex\" repairs at the scene of the derailment\n\nAn interim report said the train hit washed-out rocks and gravel.\n\nA Network Rail spokesman said: \"The line is currently closed while our engineers repair a damaged side wall on a bridge between Carmont and Stonehaven.\n\n\"Specialist structural engineers are currently assessing the fault and putting plans in place for its repair.\n\n\"Our engineers will be working around-the-clock to complete this work as quickly as possible.\"", "Police officers who were targeted by a pro-Trump mob have been speaking out about the \"medieval battle\" that unfolded on the steps of the Capitol and inside the halls of American democracy last week.\n\nPolice faced off against rioters equipped with clubs, shields, pitchforks, firearms, and metal poles stripped from seating set up for next week's inauguration.\n\nHere's what we've learned from their interviews with US media.\n\nMichael Fanone, a 40-year-old DC plainclothes narcotics detective who was told to wear his uniform that day, rushed to the West Terrace of the Capitol where he took turns holding back the crowd, and resting to rinse his face of the the chemical irritants that that crowd was spraying on police.\n\n\"We weren't battling 50 or 60 rioters in this tunnel,\" the MPD (Metropolitan Police Department of District of Columbia) veteran told the Washington Post. \"We were battling 15,000 people. It looked like a medieval battle scene.\"\n\nAfter he was grabbed by his helmet and dragged face-first down several steps, he said the crowd started stripping gear from his vest, including spare ammo, his radio and his badge - all while chanting \"USA!\".\n\nMichael Fanone, a DC detective, was dragged into the crowd and beaten\n\n\"We got one! We got one!\" Mr Fanone said he heard people shout, with others chanting: \"Kill him with his own gun!\"\n\nSome members of the crowd protected him after he started yelling that he has children, the father of four told CNN. He sustained only minor injuries but later found out in hospital that he had suffered a mild heart attack during the brawl.\n\nMPD Officer Daniel Hodges, 32, had already been on shift for several hours before the rioting began.\n\n\"We were battling, you know, tooth and nail for our lives,\" he told ABC News.\n\nIn one viral video, Mr Hodges is seen pinned in a glass doorway between officers and the crowd, as rioters strip his gas mask from his face and beat him with his own police-issued baton. One rioter tried to gouge his eyes.\n\n\"That was one of the three times that day where I thought: Well, this might be it,\" said Mr Hodges. \"This might be the end for me.\"\n\nAs he choked on tear gas, he is seen on video gasping for air to call out for help. Enough police were eventually able to push through the melee to extract him.\n\n\"I had conspiracy theorists and everyone you could think of yelling at me, saying, 'Why are you doing this, you're the traitor,'\" Mr Hodges told radio station WAMU.\n\n\"We're not the traitors. We're the ones who saved Congress that day, and we'll do it as many times as necessary.\"\n\nDespite fearing for his life, Mr Hodges says he decided not to use his gun on the crowd.\n\n\"I didn't want to be the guy who starts shooting, because I knew they had guns - we had been seizing guns all day,\" he told the Post.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nRobert Glover, the commander on scene for MPD, declared a riot at 13:50 local time, nearly two hours after Trump's speech at the White House where he instructed his followers to go to the Capitol.\n\nHe quickly told officers to retake the inauguration bleachers, to stop the crowd from raining down heavy objects on officers from above.\n\nMr Glover told the Post that some rioters may have been caught up in the moment, but others seemed to be moving in \"military formation\" as if they had prepared for the assault. He said that some appeared to be using hand signals to co-ordinate tactics.\n\nSeveral US military veterans, as well as off-duty police officers from Virginia, Maryland and Texas, have since been suspended or arrested for participating in the riot.\n\nMPD Officer Christina Laury, 32, was among the first city police officers to arrive on the scene. When she got to the Capitol, officers were already being brutally attacked by rioters attempting to storm the building.\n\n\"They had bear mace, which is literally used for bears. I got hit with it plenty of times that day and it just seals your eyes shut. You just would see officers going down trying to douse themselves with water, trying to open their eyes up so they can see again.\"\n\n\"The bravery and the heroism that I saw in these officers - the second they were able to open their eyes, they were back up front and they were just trying to stop these individuals from coming in.\"\n\nOne officer being lauded as a hero has yet to speak about his experience - Officer Eugene Goodman, a member of Congress' 2,100 member Capitol Police force.\n\nMr Goodman, an African American Iraq War veteran, was seen singlehandedly distracting a rampaging mob, giving lawmakers enough time to clear the chamber and get to safety.\n\nOn Thursday, a cross-party group of lawmakers introduced a bill calling for him to receive the Congressional Gold Medal for his effort to defend democracy.\n\nThe Capitol Police have been criticised over their response and preparation.\n\nSeveral top Capitol security officials, including the Capitol Police chief and the sergeants-at-arms for the House and Senate, resigned in the wake of the siege amid claims from lawmakers that they had not done enough to prepare for the mob.\n\nProtesters climbed the bleachers that were erected for Biden's inauguration\n\nOn Friday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced General Russel Honoré would be leading an immediate investigation of the Capitol's security infrastructure.\n\nVideo footage has also emerged showing an officer taking a selfie with a rioter inside the Capitol. Some officers reportedly gave directions to rioters telling them how to get to the offices of Democratic lawmakers.\n\nSeveral Capitol Police officers have been suspended for allegedly violating policies as the agency conducts an internal probe.", "A man accused of allegedly tricking a 92-year-old woman out of £160 for a fake coronavirus vaccination has been charged with fraud and common assault.\n\nDavid Chambers is accused of administering the fake vaccine at her Surbiton home in London last month.\n\nThe 33-year-old, also from Surbiton, is charged with five offences including fraud and going outside in a tier four area without a good reason.\n\nHe denied the charges when he appeared before magistrates on Friday.\n\nMr Chambers was remanded in custody until a hearing on 12 February.\n\nIn the UK, coronavirus vaccines are free of charge and available via the NHS.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Nóra Quoirin went missing from her room on 4 August 2019\n\nAn inquest into the death of a teenager who went missing during a holiday in Malaysia has left several questions unanswered, her family has said.\n\nNóra Quoirin, whose mother is from Belfast, disappeared from her room at the Dusun resort on 4 August 2019.\n\nHer body was found 10 days later about 1.6 miles (2.5km) away.\n\nEarlier this month a coroner ruled that she died as a result of misadventure, but her family said they were \"utterly disappointed\" with the verdict.\n\nIn an interview with Irish broadcaster RTÉ, Nóra's mother Meabh said there is \"compelling evidence\" that her daughter was abducted.\n\nSearch and rescue teams were deployed in an effort to locate Nóra\n\nNóra, who was born to Irish-French parents, lived with her family in London and was understood to be in Malaysia on an Irish passport.\n\nShe was born with holoprosencephaly, a disorder which affects brain development.\n\nSince her disappearance, her parents have believed that she was abducted. They have always maintained that wandering off was not something they could imagine their daughter doing.\n\nMeabh Quoirin told RTÉ: \"One of the most compelling things that we found out was that in a relatively small area, the plantation where Nóra was eventually found, there was vast numbers of specialist personnel deployed to find Nóra.\n\n\"Not only that, on four different occasions, trained personnel went to the plantation area and searched it and, in fact, some officers were even in the precise location Nóra's body was recovered.\n\n\"They had all reported that there were no signs of human life at any point. That for us is compelling evidence to say that she was not there by herself.\"\n\nNóra went missing the day after she and her family arrived in Malaysia in August 2019\n\nMrs Quoirin added that \"there was a lack of evidence around DNA and prints\".\n\nShe said that when the family went to the inquest, \"we had a lot of unanswered questions and while many of those questions cannot be answered, we actually found out a great deal about what went on during those 10 days when Nóra was missing\".\n\nMeabh and Sebastien Quorin, pictured during the search for Nóra\n\n\"In fact we felt it really strengthened our case, our belief, that Nóra was abducted and we found some compelling evidence to support our view on that.\"\n\nMrs Quoirin added that her daughter \"was not physically or mentally capable\" of leaving the chalet via the window.\n\n\"Not only that - we also learned that none of her fingerprints could be found on the window and yet other unidentifiable prints were found on that window.\"", "Smoke rises from Mount Semeru, the highest volcano on the Indonesian island of Java\n\nIndonesia's Mount Semeru has erupted, pouring ash an estimated 5.6km (3.4 miles) into the sky above Java, the country's most densely populated island.\n\nNo evacuation orders have so far been issued, and no casualties reported.\n\nThe National Disaster Mitigation Agency (NDMA) warned villagers living on the mountain's slopes to be alert for ongoing volcanic activity.\n\nFootage showed ash from the 3,676m (12,060ft) volcano looming over homes.\n\n\"The villages of Sumber Mujur and Curah Koboan [in Lumajang municipality] are located in the trajectory of the hot clouds,\" local official Thoriqul Haq said on Saturday.\n\nResidents of the Curah Kobokan river basin have been urged to watch for possible \"cold lava\" mudflow, which can be triggered by intense rainfall combining with volcanic material.\n\nMount Semeru erupted at about 17:24 local time (10:24 GMT), authorities said.\n\nA picture from the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management shows ash rolling over the landscape\n\nIndonesia sits on the Pacific \"Ring of Fire\" where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent volcanic activity as well as earthquakes.\n\nSemeru - also known as \"The Great Mountain\" - is the highest volcano in Java and one of the most active. It is also one of Indonesia's most popular tourist hiking destinations.\n\nThe volcano previously erupted in December, when about 550 people were evacuated.", "A further 1,295 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test have been reported in the UK, the third-highest daily total since the pandemic began.\n\nIt brings the total number of deaths by this measure to 88,590.\n\nThere have also been a further 41,346 lab-confirmed cases, and 4,262 more people have been admitted to hospital.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director for Public Health England, said the \"continuous rise in cases and deaths should be a bitter warning for us all\".\n\n\"We must not forget the basics,\" she added. \"The lives of our friends and family depend on it.\n\n\"Keep your distance from others, wash your hands and wear a mask.\"\n\nThe latest figures come ahead of Monday's change in travel rules for the UK, with all travel corridors closing, meaning arrivals from every country will have to quarantine.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson announced the changes at Downing Street on Friday, saying they would \"protect against the risk of as yet unidentified new strains\" of Covid.\n\nWhile daily figures can fluctuate due to delays in reporting, the seven-day average of Covid deaths in the UK has now risen slightly to 1,103.\n\nFor cases, however, there has been a drop in the seven-day average, with the figure now at 48,565.\n\nThere are currently 37,475 people in hospital with the virus, government figures show, while a further 324,233 people have received their first vaccine dose.\n\nThe government has promised all the over-70s, the extremely clinically vulnerable and front-line health and care workers - about 15 million people - will be offered a jab by mid February.\n\nCurrently, just over 3.5 million doses have been administered.\n\nThe government has also announced £120m in funds for the social care sector to be used by local authorities to increase staffing levels.\n\nStaff absence rates have risen in care homes and among home care staff, due to them testing positive or having to self-isolate.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said the money would bolster staffing numbers in a \"controlled and safe way, whilst ensuring people continue to receive the highest quality of care\".\n\nA further £149m funding was announced in December to support rapid testing of care home staff.\n\nSpeaking alongside the PM on Friday, England's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, said the number of patients being admitted to hospital with coronavirus was set to peak within the next 10 days, while the peak for deaths was also yet to come.\n\nHe added, however, that he hoped the peak in infections had already happened in the South East, East and London, where there was a surge in the new, more transmissible variant.\n\n\"The peak of deaths I fear is in the future, the peak of hospitalisations in some parts of the country may be around about now and beginning to come off the very, very top,\" he said.\n\n\"Because people are sticking so well to the guidelines we do think the peaks are coming over the next week to 10 days for most places in terms of new people into hospital.\"\n\nHowever, chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance stressed it was a \"suppressed peak\" that would \"boil over for sure\" if controls were eased.\n\nHe said: \"This is not the natural peak that's going to come down on its own, it's coming down because of the measures that are in place.\n\n\"Take the lid off now and it's going to boil over for sure and we're going to end up with a big problem.\"\n\nMeanwhile, on Saturday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer suggested he would back further coronavirus measures, as \"the tougher the restrictions now the quicker we get the virus back under control\".\n\nSir Keir said he was \"still worried\" by the number of infections, despite signs they are falling - and that the \"sense that we are through the worst\" of the third wave was wrong.\n\n\"Nobody likes restrictions but the tougher the restrictions now the quicker we get the virus back under control, the quicker we reduce the number of hospital admissions and the quicker we get that number of deaths, tragically, down,\" he added.", "A further 1,610 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test - the biggest figure reported in a single day since the pandemic began.\n\nIt means the total number of deaths by that measure is now above 90,000.\n\nA total of 4,266,577 people have now received the first dose of a vaccine, according to the latest government figures.\n\nAnother 33,355 positive Covid cases have been recorded - less than half the peak figure of 68,053 on 8 January.\n\nIt is the lowest number of daily cases seen since 27 December - before the start of England's third nationwide lockdown.\n\nDr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said: \"Whilst there are some early signs that show our sacrifices are working, we must continue to strictly abide by the measures in place.\"\n\nShe said reducing contact with others and staying at home will lead to \"a fall in the number of infections over time\".\n\nThe figures come as new estimates from the Office for National Statistics show about one in 10 people across the UK tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies in December - roughly double the October figure.\n\nThe rising number of deaths was to be expected, sadly, after the surge in cases during December.\n\nAnd it is likely that the coming weeks will see figures even higher than this.\n\nToday's numbers are, though, inflated by the fact that delays in registering deaths over the weekend tends to lead to higher figures being reported on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.\n\nOn average, the UK is recording more than 1,100 deaths a day.\n\nTo put that in context, at Christmas it was less than half of that.\n\nBut there are two rays of hope in the daily update.\n\nFirstly, the number of cases is below 40,000 for a third day in a row. Just two weeks ago we saw a few days above 60,000.\n\nThat means in the coming weeks we should start to see fewer people in hospital and eventually fewer deaths.\n\nThe number of vaccinations also continues to rise.\n\nIt seems unlikely the NHS will manage its target of two million doses a week just yet.\n\nBut each increase at least takes us one step closer to getting on top of the virus.\n\nMeanwhile, NHS England said 400 military personnel were now assisting in hospitals in London and the Midlands, as wards face \"unprecedented pressure\".\n\nOn Monday, Prof Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, said it would be \"some time\" before the vaccination programme begins to reduce pressures on hospitals.\n\nAnd in other developments, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he is self-isolating after being alerted by the UK's NHS Covid-19 app .that he had been in close contact with somebody who tested positive.\n\nHe said self-isolation was \"perhaps the most important part of all the social distancing\" and urged others to do the same if contacted.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Martin Freeborn's wife, Helen, died from Covid at the Royal London Hospital: 'Don't end up like us, please'\n\nThe previous highest number of daily deaths was last Wednesday, when 1,564 deaths were recorded.\n\nTuesday's figure brings the total number of deaths recorded during the pandemic in the UK to 91,470.\n\nThese government figures count people who died within 28 days of testing positive, but there are other ways of measuring the total number of deaths.\n\nAnother method is to count all deaths where coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate. That figure has now officially reached 95,829, although that is only measured up to 8 January.\n\nThe UK has recorded the fifth-highest number of deaths globally, according to Johns Hopkins University - behind the US, Brazil, India and Mexico.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer tweeted: \"British people are paying the price for the government's serial incompetence.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video footage showed the aftermath of the deadly explosion\n\nAt least three people have died following an explosion that caused a building to partially collapse in centre of the Spanish capital, Madrid.\n\nA fourth person was missing and several others were hurt, officials said.\n\nCity officials said the blast, which destroyed four floors of the building, had been caused by a gas leak.\n\nMayor José Luis Martínez Almeida told reporters after the blast that a fire was raging inside the building, which belongs to the Catholic Church.\n\nThe blast happened shortly before 15:00 local time (14:00 GMT) as gas workers were repairing a boiler at the back of the building in the central Puerta de Toledo area of Madrid.\n\nAn 85-year-old woman passer-by and two men were killed while a third man who had been working on the boiler was missing, Spanish media reported. One of the injured was in a serious condition and taken to hospital, according to officials.\n\nSpanish reports said the upper floors affected were being used to house local priests.\n\nRescue workers evacuated more than 50 people from a care home next-door to the building in Caille de Toledo, but a school on the other side was closed at the time of the blast.\n\nFour floors of the building were destroyed in the explosion, which could be heard in many areas of Madrid. Images shared on social media showed billowing smoke and debris strewn along the street.\n\nEmergency services said nine fire crews and 11 ambulances were at the scene and some of those caught up in the blast were treated on the street.\n\nFour floors of the building were destroyed in the explosion\n\nPolice officers cleared the area, closing it to all traffic and pedestrians, and appealed to local residents not to come near.\n\n\"The noise was very loud, very loud, really,\" Lorenzo Fomento, who was working from home at a nearby apartment, told AFP news agency. \"I never heard anything so loud before,\" he added.\n\nThe director of the nursing home, Antonio Berlanga, said all the elderly residents were fine and places were being found for them to spend the night.", "In Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, residents have prepared their homes and businesses ahead of the heavy rain\n\nEmergency services in the north of England are preparing for widespread flooding caused by Storm Christoph.\n\nThe Environment Agency has warned of a \"volatile situation\" as heavy rain combines with melting snow, while police in South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester declared major incidents.\n\nAn amber rain warning is in place for Yorkshire, the North West, East Midlands and the east of England.\n\nA yellow rain warning was issued for the rest of the country.\n\nGreater Manchester Police Assistant Chief Constable Nick Bailey said the force had declared a major incident to ensure it was \"as prepared as possible\".\n\n\"The safety of the public is our number one priority and we're continuing to work alongside partner agencies across the region,\" he said.\n\nA government spokesperson said it had provided additional advice to local agencies to help them manage any evacuations and shelter provision in a Covid-secure way.\n\n\"The government has robust plans in place to support any areas affected by extreme weather this winter,\" they added.\n\nSandbags were laid in at-risk areas, with up to 70mm (2.75in) of rain due.\n\nIn isolated spots, particularly in the northern Peak District and parts of the southern Pennines, 200mm (7.87in) could be possible.\n\nNorthern Rail said buses were being used instead of trains on services between Bolton and Blackburn due to flooding at Darwen.\n\nSome motorists attempted to drive through floodwater on Derby Road in Hathern, Leicestershire\n\nIn the amber warning area, the Met Office said there was a \"danger to life\" due to fast-flowing or deep floodwater, and told some communities they might be \"cut off\" by flooded roads.\n\nIt also predicted delays and cancellations to public transport, with the amber warning in place until 12:00 GMT on Thursday.\n\nRos Jones, mayor of Doncaster, said key risk areas had been inspected over the past 36 hours, with the delivery of sandbags continuing on Tuesday.\n\n\"I do not want people to panic, but flooding is possible so please be prepared,\" she said.\n\nResidents of Fishlake, South Yorkshire, which saw severe flooding hit 160 homes and businesses in November 2019, said they felt much better prepared this time round.\n\nFlood warden and parish councillor Peter Trimingham said the arrival of sandbags had been a welcome sight.\n\n\"It gives us confidence,\" he said.\n\nResidents in Fishlake, near Doncaster, say they are better prepared than when flooding hit in 2019\n\nMr Trimingham added: \"We're absolutely hoping it doesn't rise to the same level. But, if it does, we're reasonably comfortable we've still got a chance because the Environment Agency have done tremendous work here along with Doncaster Council.\"\n\nHe said new defences had been built and their team of flood wardens had been expanded to 22 people.\n\nOn Yarlborough Terrace in Bentley, Doncaster, many residents were out of their homes for months after the 2019 floods.\n\nAnna Booth, 37, who was forced to live in a caravan on her drive, said residents were worried about it happening again.\n\n\"Being in the pandemic doesn't help either. Morale's a bit down but I think we'll all pull together again like last time,\" she said.\n\n\"It breaks your heart, it's really sad, but we can't stop the weather.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Environment Agency issued more than 30 flood warnings, meaning flooding is expected and immediate action required, covering parts of Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Merseyside, Staffordshire and Northamptonshire as of 03:00 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nThere are also more than 150 flood alerts, meaning flooding is possible, issued across northern England, the Midlands and the east.\n\nRiver levels in the Ouse, which flows through York in North Yorkshire, are high before the arrival of Storm Christoph\n\nCatherine Wright, acting executive director for flood and coastal risk management at the Environment Agency, said: \"That rain is falling on very wet ground and so we are very concerned that it's a very volatile situation and we are expecting significant flooding to occur on the back of that weather.\"\n\nShe said the agency would be working with local authorities to help with evacuation efforts should a severe flood warning be issued, adding: \"If you do need to evacuate then that is allowed within the Covid rules.\"\n\nWork took place on Tuesday morning to increase defences near the River Ouse\n\nDiscussing the different levels of flood warnings, she said: \"If you receive a flood alert, please pack valuables like medicines and insurance documents in a bag ready to go.\n\n\"If you receive a flood warning, please move valuables and precious possessions upstairs and be ready to turn off gas, electricity and water.\n\n\"If you receive a severe flood warning, which means you will be evacuated, please listen out and take heed of the advice from the local emergency services.\"\n\nSandbags have been used to help defend homes in Fishlake, Doncaster, which suffered devastating floods in November 2019\n\nBarry Greenwood, from the Upper Calder Valley Flood Prevention Group in West Yorkshire, has been \"sick\" with worry.\n\n\"I went round after the last [flood], people were there with their heads in their hands, thinking 'what am I going to do now?',\" he said.\n\nFlood sirens were sounded in Walsden on Tuesday evening after a flood warning was issued for the area.\n\nIn a tweet, Calderdale Council asked residents to put their flood plan into action and move valuables to a safe place.\n\n\"River levels across the Upper River Calder have risen and are now approaching levels where we expect properties to flood,\" it warned.\n\nEarlier it had said staff were on standby to respond overnight.\n\nThe amber rain warning is in place until Thursday, with yellow warnings covering most of the UK coming in over the next three days\n\nA yellow rain alert is also in place for Wales, Northern Ireland, central and northern England and southern Scotland on Tuesday.\n\nThis yellow warning extends to the rest of England from Wednesday, with a yellow alert for snow and ice in north east Scotland.\n\nHighways England advised drivers to take extra care on motorways and major A roads, while the RAC breakdown service said motorists should only drive if absolutely necessary.\n\nDrivers faced wet road conditions and reduced visibility on the A1(M) near Boston Spa, West Yorkshire, on Tuesday morning\n\nHebden Bridge's volunteer flood warden Keith Crabtree has been monitoring the river levels of Hebden Beck closely\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Israel is currently in its third lockdown since the pandemic began there last year Image caption: Israel is currently in its third lockdown since the pandemic began there last year\n\nA nationwide lockdown in Israel is to be extended until the end of the month amid a spike in cases - despite an intense vaccination campaign, with more than two of the nine million population already having received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.\n\nIt takes time for immunity to build up, so its expected to take several weeks for vaccines to have an impact on cases\n\nThe man coordinating Israel’s pandemic response, Nachman Ash, has warned that a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the country has been “less effective than we thought”.\n\nAccording to Israeli Army Radio, Prof Ash told cabinet members on Tuesday the data on the protective effect of a first dose against the virus was “lower than Pfizer presented”. Pfizer said its vaccine was roughly 52% effective two weeks after the first dose and reaches maximum efficacy of 95% after the second.\n\nIt’s not clear what data he is referring to, but a not-yet published study from Israel’s largest healthcare provider suggested a 33% fall in infections by day 14, at which point, full immunity would not have been reached.\n\nInfections continued to fall in the following days but the numbers were too small to put a percentage on it.\n\nIsrael saw its highest daily case figure on Monday with 10,000 new infections Image caption: Israel saw its highest daily case figure on Monday with 10,000 new infections\n\nThe health ministry said on Tuesday more than 12,400 Israelis had tested positive for Covid-19 ten days after being vaccinated – 69 of these had already received a second dose.\n\nThis was 6.6% of the 189,000 people who took Covid tests after being vaccinated, roughly tallying with the reported efficacy.\n\nHealth experts say they are analysing the new Israeli data closely but warn it may be too early to draw any conclusions on the single dose efficacy of the vaccine based on the initial data gathered in Israel, which began vaccinating its population on 19 December.", "Drug treatment services in England are to receive an extra £80m as part of government's efforts to cut crime.\n\nThis will mean more places for people released from prison and criminals handed community sentences.\n\nIt comes after warnings last year over government cuts to help for addicts.\n\nA further £40m is being earmarked for law enforcement to target drug gangs including so-called county lines operations in which young and vulnerable people act as couriers.\n\nThe investment will also see another £28m put into a three-year pilot project called ADDER - Addiction, Diversion, Disruption, Enforcement and Recovery - which will combine policing with treatment and recovery services.\n\nThe funding will see police target dealers, and local councils and health services help people with addictions, in five areas with high rates of drug use - Blackpool, Hastings, Middlesbrough, Norwich and Swansea Bay.\n\nAnnouncing the £148m package, Home Secretary Priti Patel said: \"The government's work to tackle county lines drugs gangs has already resulted in thousands more people being arrested and hundreds more vulnerable people being safeguarded, but we must do more to tackle the underlying drivers behind serious violence.\"\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock added: \"Addiction and crime are inextricably linked and to truly break the cycle we must make sure people can access the help they need to get their lives back on track for good.\"\n\nMs Patel told BBC Breakfast the government wanted to focus on rehabilitation and treatment for drug addicts as well as law enforcement, saying this was \"something we've not been doing enough of\".\n\n\"We have to do much more to support individuals whose lives have been blighted by years and years of drug abuse,\" she said.\n\nA Home Office-commissioned review into the drugs trade by Prof Dame Carol Black released last February put the total cost to society of illegal drugs at about £20bn a year in England and said treatment services have been curtailed by local government funding cuts.\n\nDame Carol welcomed the funding, saying: \"Drug treatment has a vital role to play in helping people to come off drugs and thereby reduce crime, from minor acquisitive crime right through to homicide.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Johnson: \"It's a big moment for us - we have things we want to do together.\"\n\nThe inauguration of President Joe Biden is a \"step forward\" for the United States, which has \"been through a bumpy period\", Boris Johnson has said.\n\nCongratulating Mr Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, the UK PM said it was a \"big moment\" for the UK and the US and their \"joint common agenda\".\n\nMr Johnson said he looked forward to working with the US on tackling climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nMaking his inaugural address, Mr Biden said \"democracy has prevailed\".\n\nHe promised to be a president \"for all Americans\" and said his \"whole soul is in putting America back together again\".\n\nOutgoing President Donald Trump, who has not formally conceded to Mr Biden, did not attend the ceremony.\n\nPresident Biden began work straight away on reversing a number of his predecessor's policies, including rejoining the Paris climate change agreement - gaining the praise of Mr Johnson.\n\nThe PM tweeted it was \"hugely positive news\", adding: \"I look forward to working with our US partners to do all we can to safeguard our planet.\"\n\nEarlier this week the former head of the civil service Lord Sedwill suggested Mr Johnson would be glad Mr Trump had not been re-elected for a second term as US president.\n\nWriting in the Daily Mail, Lord Sedwill said those who believed Boris Johnson would have preferred Mr Trump to win again were \"mistaken\".\n\nThe former cabinet secretary - who stepped down in September - said a second term for Mr Trump \"would not have been to the benefit of British or European security, to transatlantic trade, let alone the environmental agenda to which the prime minister is so committed\".\n\nBoris Johnson with Donald Trump at the G7 summit in 2019\n\nMr Johnson's public stance toward the former president has varied over the years.\n\nIn 2015, when he was Mayor of London, Mr Johnson accused Mr Trump of \"stupefying ignorance\" over his comments about violence in the city.\n\nBut as foreign secretary, following Mr Trump's election as president, he said there was a \"lot to be positive about\", and in 2019, praised his \"many good qualities\".\n\nFor his part, Mr Trump has appeared largely supportive of Mr Johnson, backing his flagship Brexit policy and at one point saying of the British PM: \"They call him Britain Trump.\"\n\nAnd echoing his predecessor, in 2019 Mr Biden described the UK prime minister as a \"physical and emotional clone\" of Mr Trump.\n\nAfter winning the presidential election Mr Biden phoned Mr Johnson ahead of other European leaders and expressed his desire to strengthen the historic \"special relationship\" between the two countries.\n\nSpeaking on Wednesday, Mr Johnson said it was the job of all UK prime ministers to have a \"good, close working relationship\" with US presidents but, right now, there were many things the two countries \"wanted to do together\".\n\n\"When you look at the issues which unite me and Joe Biden, the UK and the US right now, there is a fantastic joint common agenda,\" he said. \"For us and America, it is a big moment.\"\n\nHe said he hoped the UK could help the US commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 in the run up to the climate change conference COP 26, to be held in Glasgow this year.\n\nUK prime ministers like to consider American presidents as their best diplomatic friend.\n\nThat relationship, particularly when it comes to security and defence, is unusually close.\n\nWhen, as with Donald Trump, that friend has been unpredictable and unconventional, that has made for some very awkward political moments.\n\nSo for the government, this a really important and positive turning of the page.\n\nThe terribly over-used phrase the 'special relationship', which provokes neurotic behaviour on this side of the Atlantic, has meant the most when there has been a genuine personal chemistry between the two leaders - whether Thatcher and Reagan, or Bush and Blair.\n\nThere is nothing automatic about Mr Biden and Mr Johnson developing that kind of political friendship.\n\nBut in the words of one former senior minister, for the UK Biden means \"we will lose exclusivity but gain predictability: easier to work with, less cringeworthy and more dependable, but we may not be the only girlfriend on speed dial\".\n\nSpeaking to the Guardian, shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy described Mr Biden as \"a woke guy\".\n\nAsked if he agreed, Mr Johnson said: \"I can't comment on that. What I know is that he's a firm believer in the transatlantic alliance and that's a great thing.\"\n\nHe added that there was \"nothing wrong with being woke - I put myself in the category of people who believe that it's important to stick up for your history, your traditions and your values, the things you believe in.\"\n\nOpposition leader Sir Keir Starmer also sent his congratulations to the new president and vice-president.\n\n\"The US begins a new chapter in its history, one of hope, decency, compassion and strength,\" the Labour leader said, adding \"together, our two nations can build a better, more optimistic future for our world.\"\n\nAnd First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: \"Warm congratulations and best wishes to President Biden and Vice President Harris.\n\n\"Scotland and the USA share long-standing bonds of friendship and co-operation. We look forward to building on these in the years ahead.\"\n\nWriting in the Daily Mail, former UK Prime Minister Theresa May said Mr Biden's election presented the UK with a \"golden opportunity\" for Western democracies to reverse the trend towards \"absolutism\" - and a \"few strongmen facing off against each other\" - in global affairs.\n\nThe Queen sent a private message to Mr Biden before his inauguration, Buckingham Palace has said.", "Marion Dawson is the third oldest person in Scotland to be given the vaccine.\n\nA 108-year-old woman has received the Covid vaccination on her birthday.\n\nMarion Dawson, from Houston in Renfrewshire, is the third oldest person in Scotland to be given the vaccine.\n\nShe received her jab at Houston and Killellan Kirk, which is being used by the local GP surgery to deliver vaccinations to the community.\n\nBorn in 1913, Mrs Dawson has lived through two world wars and the Spanish flu pandemic.\n\nDr Diane Fisher, who gave the injection said: \"We are so excited to be starting vaccinations of our over-80s, and that our first patient to be vaccinated is doing so on her birthday.\"\n\nMrs Dawson is the most senior person in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde to be given the vaccine.\n\nAfter receiving her injection, she said: \"I'm glad it's passed. I never felt a thing.\"\n\nKirk minister, Rev Gary Noonan said: \"Mrs Dawson is a local treasure in Houston, until the lockdown she never missed a week at church.\n\n\"It's fitting she can get her vaccine in the Kirk, a place she loves.\"\n\nDr Mark Storey, partner at Strathgryffe Medical Practice, added: \"It's been a very difficult year in general practice and society as a whole.\n\n\"In our practice we have a family of 10,000 patients, so we are delighted to start vaccinating, especially with Mrs Dawson.\"", "That's where we'll end our coverage of this week's PMQs.\n\nAs events get underway in Washington DC ahead of the Joe Biden's swearing in as the 46th President of the USA, our colleagues will bring you all the details of the inauguration here.\n\nOur coverage of this week's PMQs was brought to you by Gavin Stamp, Justin Parkinson, and Sinead Wilson. The editor was Johanna Howitt.\n\nThanks for joining us.", "The publication of a letter from the Duchess of Sussex to her father was a \"triple-barrelled invasion\" of her privacy, the High Court has been told.\n\nMeghan is suing the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online over articles that reproduced parts of the private handwritten letter.\n\nShe claims her privacy and copyright were breached by the newspaper group.\n\nHer lawyers are asking for summary judgement - a dismissal of Associated Newspapers' defence instead of a trial.\n\nMeghan's lawyers argue Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) has \"no prospect\" of defending the privacy and copyright claims being brought against them.\n\nThey claim the publication of extracts from the private, handwritten letter to Thomas Markle was \"self-evidently... highly intrusive\".\n\nMeghan, 39, sent the letter to her father in August 2018, following her marriage to Prince Harry in May that year, which Mr Markle did not attend. The couple are now living in the US with their son Archie.\n\nThe five articles, published in February 2019, were a \"triple-barrelled invasion\" of the duchess's privacy, correspondence and family, the lawyers claim.\n\nMr Markle said in a witness statement provided to the remote hearing, which started on Tuesday, that he wanted the letter published to \"set the record straight\" about his relationship with his daughter - but one of Meghan's lawyers described this claim as \"ridiculous\".\n\nMeghan is seeking damages from the newspaper group for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act over the articles.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Sussex now live in the US with their son\n\nHer lawyers told the court the letter was written in sorrow rather than anger and was an attempt to get her father to stop talking to the press.\n\nBut the newspaper group said in its response to the court that Meghan had written the letter \"with a view to it being disclosed publicly at some future point\" in order to \"defend her against charges of being an uncaring or unloving daughter\".\n\nIn written submissions, the newspaper group's barrister Antony White said \"she must, at the very least, have appreciated that her father might choose to disclose it\" and pointed out that the Kensington Palace communications team had been shown the letter before it was sent.\n\n\"No truly private letter from daughter to father would require any input from the Kensington Palace communications team,\" said Mr White.\n\nBut Meghan's lawyers also pointed out the articles themselves had emphasised the private nature of the correspondence - and dismissed any argument that it was in the public interest for the newspaper to reproduce the letter, saying the public interest was at the \"very end of the bottom end of the scale\".\n\nJustin Rushbrooke, representing the duchess, described the handwritten letter as \"a heartfelt plea from an anguished daughter to her father\".\n\nHe said the \"contents and character of the letter were intrinsically private, personal and sensitive in nature\" and that Meghan \"had a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of the contents of the letter\".\n\nThe effect of publishing the letter was \"self-evidently likely to be devastating for the claimant\", said Mr Rushbrooke.\n\nThe barrister argued that, even if ANL was justified in publishing parts of the letter, \"on any view the defendant published far more by way of extracts from the letter than could have been justified in the public interest\".\n\nMr White said that the newspaper group would argue that Meghan's status as a member of the royal family was relevant to the case.\n\nIn response to that point, Mr Rushbrooke said: \"Yes, she is in some senses a public figure, but that does not reduce her expectation of privacy in relation to information of this kind.\"\n\nIn Thomas Markle's evidence, he said the letter \"signalled the end\" of his relationship with his daughter, and instead of a reconciliation attempt, the letter was a \"criticism\" of him.\n\nHe said that he had to \"defend himself\" against an article in People magazine. It carried an interview with a \"long-time friend\" of his daughter, who suggested Meghan sent the letter to repair her relationship with her father - something he claimed was false.\n\nThe People article, he claimed, made him appear \"dishonest, exploitative, publicity-seeking, uncaring and cold-hearted\".\n\nHe said he had \"never intended to talk publicly about Meg's letter\" until he read the People magazine piece which, he claimed, suggested he was \"to blame for the end of the relationship\".\n\nThe full trial of the duchess's claim had been due to be heard at the High Court this month, but last year the case was adjourned until autumn 2021.\n\nThis interim remote hearing - to consider the request for summary judgement - is due to last two days. Mr Justice Warby, who is hearing the case, is expected to reserve his judgement to a later date.", "Low-deposit mortgages have made a return as the market emerges from a Covid-related slowdown.\n\nMortgage products for homeowners with a deposit of 10% of their property's value have risen more than fourfold compared with last summer's low.\n\nThe increase, based on figures from financial information service Moneyfacts, could offer some relief to first-time buyers.\n\nBut the cost of mortgages will remain an issue for many.\n\nIn early September last year, there were only 44 mortgage products available for those able to offer a 10% deposit. At the same time, first-time buyers putting money aside for a deposit were faced with pressures of poor savings rates and rising house prices.\n\nThat choice has now risen to 197 products, according to the Moneyfacts figures, with some big lenders returning in recent weeks.\n\nMortgage products for those able to offer a 15% deposit have also risen sharply, although the choice was already much greater.\n\n\"First-time buyers who may have been concerned that with record low savings rates and increasing house prices, their homeownership dreams may have had to be shelved, may have been pleased to note that we are now seeing some providers return products for those with 10% deposits,\" said Eleanor Williams, from Moneyfacts.\n\nLenders had been grappling with the practical effects that the coronavirus pandemic brought to their business.\n\nWhile some new businesses targeted first-time buyers on social media, many traditional lenders withdrew products from the market.\n\nStaff shortages, and employees working from home, meant they were unable to process applications as fast as they had before the pandemic.\n\nThere were also concerns among lenders that, despite strong activity in the housing market, riskier - and younger - first-time buyers could find it difficult to make mortgage repayments during an economic slowdown caused by the pandemic.\n\nResearch has shown that younger workers are more at risk of redundancy.\n\nAaron Strutt, from mortgage broker Trinity Financial, said lenders were now working more efficiently despite staff still being at home.\n\nHe said that some of the biggest mortgage lenders had returned to the market. Some of the mortgage rates they were offering were not as attractive as they had been, but competition would help push down costs.\n\n\"If you are planning to purchase a property and have a 10% deposit the mortgage rates are not as cheap as they used to be, but they are getting better,\" he said.\n\nMany thousands of existing mortgage-holders who had struggled to make their repayments during the pandemic had taken payment \"holidays\", which are deferrals on payments.\n\nThe latest figures from UK Finance, which represents lenders, show that 130,000 mortgage payment holidays were in place at the end of December 2020, down from a peak of 1.8 million in June last year.", "Mr Trump referred to his \"complete power to pardon\" in a tweet\n\nUS President Donald Trump has insisted he has the \"complete power\" to pardon people, amid reports he is considering presidential pardons for family members, aides and even himself.\n\nThe US authorities are probing possible collusion between the Trump team and Russia. Intelligence agencies think Russia tried to help Mr Trump to power.\n\nRussia denies this, and the president says there was no collusion.\n\nThe Washington Post reported on Thursday that Mr Trump and his team were looking at ways to pardon people close to him.\n\nPresidents can pardon people before guilt is established or even before the person is charged with a crime.\n\nDescribing the reports as disturbing, Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said \"pardoning any individuals who may have been involved would be crossing a fundamental line\".\n\nOn Saturday, Mr Trump tweeted: \"While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. FAKE NEWS.\"\n\nMr Trump also attacked \"illegal leaks\" following reports his attorney general discussed campaign-related matters with a Russian envoy.\n\nThe Washington Post gave an account of meetings Attorney General Jeff Sessions held with the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak. The newspaper quoted current and former US officials who cited intelligence intercepts of Mr Kislyak's version of the encounter to his superiors.\n\nOne of those quoted said Mr Kislyak spoke to Mr Sessions about key campaign issues, including Mr Trump's positions on policies significant to Russia.\n\nDuring his confirmation hearing earlier this year, Mr Sessions said he had no contact with Russians during the election campaign. When it later emerged he had, he said the campaign was not discussed at the meetings.\n\nAn official confirmed to Reuters the detail of the intercepts, but there has been no independent corroboration.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Commander in tweets: What we can learn from Trump's Twitter\n\nThe officials spoken to by the Post said that Mr Kislyak could have exaggerated the account, and cited a Justice Department spokesperson who repeated that Mr Sessions did not discuss interference in the election.\n\nBut the Post's story was the focus of one of many tweets the US president fired off on Saturday morning.\n\n\"A new INTELLIGENCE LEAK from the Amazon Washington Post, this time against A.G. Jeff Sessions. These illegal leaks, like Comey's, must stop!\" Mr Trump said.\n\nThe Washington Post is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who has been an occasional sparring partner for Mr Trump. \"Comey\" refers to James Comey, the former FBI boss Mr Trump fired.\n\nEarlier this week, Mr Trump told the New York Times he regretted hiring Mr Sessions because he had stepped away from overseeing an inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the US election.\n\nMr Sessions recused himself in March amid pressure over his meetings with Mr Kislyak. He says he plans to continue in his role as attorney general.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sessions said he loved the job and the department\n\nSeveral other regular targets for Mr Trump featured in his series of tweets.\n\nHe accused the \"failing\" New York Times of foiling an attempt to assassinate the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.\n\nIt is not clear what Mr Trump was referring to, but on Saturday a US general complained on Fox News that a \"good lead\" on Baghdadi was leaked to a national newspaper in 2015.\n\nA New York Times report at the time revealed that valuable information had been extracted from a raid, but the paper stressed on Saturday that no-one had taken issue with their reporting until now.\n\nAnd Mr Trump again urged Republicans to \"step up to the plate\" and repeal and replace President Obama's healthcare reforms, a key campaign pledge of his that has collapsed in Congress.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nDoris Hobday and her twin sister Lilian Cox, known as the Tipton Twins, were admitted to hospital after testing positive earlier this month.\n\nHer family said Mrs Hobday had died on 5 January, adding they were \"totally heartbroken to lose Doris in this way\".\n\nMrs Cox has since been discharged from hospital and is continuing to recover, the family said. The siblings were among the UK's oldest living twins.\n\nDoris Hobday died in hospital on 5 January, her family has announced\n\n\"We are so grateful for all the special memories we have created and got to share with you all,\" the family said in a statement.\n\nThe twins, from Tipton, West Midlands, became popular figures online with their positive outlook on life and sense of humour.\n\nTipton Twins Doris and Lilian both tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this month\n\nThey appeared on BBC Breakfast, ITV's Good Morning Britain and This Morning, charming presenters with jokes about wearing their drawers inside out and their love for actor Jason Statham.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Dan Walker This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Piers Morgan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter���s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLilian and Doris said they did everything together. They lived in the same street after getting married, worked together at an ale-making factory in Birmingham and more recently lived next to one another at sheltered accommodation in Tipton.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC on their 95th birthday, Lilian revealed her sister's secret to a long life was \"no sex and plenty of Guinness\" - her own being simply \"lemonade\".\n\nDoris Hobday's family said she had passed away peacefully and they were grateful for all their memories with her\n\n\"Doris will be laid to rest with her husband who she lost 11 years ago after 65 years of happy marriage,\" her family said.\n\nA crowdfunding page has been set up in Mrs Hobday's memory, with funds raised being donated to The Beacon Centre for the Blind, which supported her late husband Raymond for 20 years.\n\nDoris will be buried next to her husband Ray, who, along with half a Guinness, was \"her favourite thing\"\n\nThe family said Mrs Cox had only been told of her sister's death on Monday, \"once she was strong enough to take the news\".\n\n\"She is now being comforted by family and staying with her daughter Vivien while she fully regains her strength.\"\n\n\"Both were determined to live until 100, they had so much to look forward to,\" their family said. \"It's just so cruel that Covid has stopped Doris like this.\"\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Mr Bannon was once considered among the most influential men in Mr Trump's administration\n\nPresident Trump's former top advisor, Steve Bannon, has been suspended from Twitter over the \"glorification of violence\" amid the election aftermath.\n\nMr Bannon said a re-elected Mr Trump should fire the top infectious disease expert and the FBI director, and called for violence against them.\n\nIt comes as the tech firms continue a clampdown on misinformation.\n\nFacebook has shut down a large group which alleges fraud, and announced new measures to amplify genuine results.\n\nMr Bannon, once widely thought of as one of the most powerful men in Washington, served as the boss of Mr Trump's 2016 campaign, and as a top presidential advisor for the first several months of his presidency.\n\nOn Thursday, he posted a video podcast to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, in which he said both Dr Anthony Fauci - the face of the country's fight against coronavirus - and FBI Director Christopher Wray, should be fired after Mr Trump's re-election, but also said they should be subjected to violence.\n\nPresident Trump has expressed frustration with both men, clashing with Dr Fauci over the pandemic, and with Mr Wray over what he sees as a failure to investigate his opponent, Joe Biden.\n\nFacebook and YouTube both removed the video, but Twitter issued an outright suspension of Mr Bannon's \"war room pandemic\" account, for violating its policy on the glorification of violence.\n\nThe account has been permanently suspended, rather than banned for a limited amount of time, Twitter said in a statement.\n\nPresident Trump, meanwhile, had another of his tweets hidden and labelled by Twitter after falsely claiming victory and alleging the existence of \"illegal votes\".\n\nThe President responded by tweeting: \"Twitter is out of control\".\n\nThe Stop the Steal Facebook group had about 350,000 members when the social media giant removed it, something the social network admitted was an \"exceptional\" measure. It did so because it was \"creating real-world events\" and \"we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group\", Facebook said.\n\nThe social network is now taking further measures to restrict the flow of \"inaccurate claims\" in order \"to keep this content from reaching more people\".\n\n\"These include demotions for content on Facebook and Instagram that our systems predict may be misinformation, including debunked claims about voting. We are also limiting the distribution of live videos that may relate to the election on Facebook,\" the firm said in a statement.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Facebook Newsroom This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAs President Trump continues to allege, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud took place, Facebook also said it would alter its election banner notifications and spread news of the projected winner, once a majority of independent outlets projected the result.\n\nThe same notice will be put on posts from both candidates.\n\nSeparately, Bloomberg reports that Twitter will remove the \"special treatment\" it affords President Trump as a world leader, in the event of Joe Biden winning the presidency.\n\nTwitter has specific rules for world leaders, which means it will not ordinarily ban them for the same offences for which it would ban ordinary users. Twitter argues that such posts - even when violating its rules - are sufficiently newsworthy to stay up, with a handful of exceptions.\n\nInstead, Twitter can label the post of a world leader, hiding it from view and restricting engagement - but leaving it viewable to anyone who clicks through a warning message about the content.\n\nIt has repeatedly done this to Mr Trump's tweets, leading to high-profile arguments with the president and his supporters.\n\nBut Mr Trump would return to the status of a regular user if he loses the election, Bloomberg reported - meaning that his tweets could be deleted outright or his account suspended, for policy violations.", "Liam Gallagher, Sir Elton John and Nicola Benedetti have put their names to the letter\n\nSome of the UK's biggest music stars have written to the government demanding action to ensure visa-free touring in the European Union.\n\nSir Elton John, Liam Gallagher and Nicola Benedetti are among 110 artists who have signed the open letter.\n\nIt said they had been \"shamefully failed\" by the government over post-Brexit travel rules for UK musicians.\n\nThe government said the signatories should be asking the EU why they \"rejected the sensible UK proposal\".\n\nCulture Secretary Oliver Dowden will meet music industry representatives on Wednesday to address their concerns.\n\nEarlier this week, culture minister Caroline Dinenage said the EU's \"very broad\" offer \"would not have been compatible with the government's manifesto commitment to take back control of our borders\".\n\nHowever, she said \"the door is open\" if the EU was willing to consider the UK's proposals to reach an agreement for musicians.\n\nIn the meantime, she confirmed, musicians and artists touring the continent \"will be required to check domestic immigration and visitor rules for each member state in which they intend to tour\".\n\nThat may require them to have multiple visas or work permits, which some industry experts say will be expensive and potentially prohibitive - especially for musicians at the start of their careers.\n\nOther names on the open letter include Ed Sheeran, Sir Simon Rattle, Sting, Radiohead, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Kim Wilde, Roger Daltrey, Glastonbury organisers Michael and Emily Eavis, and Judith Weir, Master of the Queen's Music.\n\nThe letter was organised by the Incorporated Society of Musicians and the Liberal Democrats, and published in The Times.\n\n\"The reality is that British musicians, dancers, actors and their support staff have been shamefully failed by their government,\" it said.\n\n\"The deal done with the EU has a gaping hole where the promised free movement for musicians should be. Everyone on a European music tour will now need costly work permits for many countries they visit and a mountain of paperwork for their equipment.\"\n\nThe extra costs will \"tip many performers over the edge\", it claimed.\n\n\"We call on the government to urgently do what it said it would do and negotiate paperwork-free travel in Europe for British artists and their equipment,\" it added.\n\n\"For the sake of British fans wanting to see European performers in the UK and British venues wishing to host them, the deal should be reciprocal.\"\n\nThe Who frontman Daltrey signed despite telling the BBC Radio 4's Front Row programme in 2018: \"It's nothing that can't be solved. I mean, we used to work in Europe before the EU was even thought about. We had the golden period of the 60s and the 70s.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Who frontman Roger Daltrey gave his take on Brexit in 2018\n\nOn Wednesday, the veteran rocker said the two positions were compatible. \"I have not changed my opinion on the EU,\" he said in a statement to the PA news agency. \"I'm glad to be free of Brussels, not Europe.\n\n\"I would have preferred reform, which was asked for by us before the referendum and was turned down by the then president of the EU. I do think our government should have made the easing of restrictions for musicians and actors a higher priority.\n\n\"Every tour, individual actors and musicians should be treated as any other 'goods' at the point of entry to the EU with one set of paperwork. Switzerland has borders with five EU countries, and trade is electronically frictionless. Why not us?\"\n\nDeborah Annetts, chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, said: \"World-renowned performers, emerging artists from every genre and the most respected figures from leading organisations within our sector are now sending a clear message.\n\n\"It is essential for the government to negotiate a new reciprocal agreement that allows performers to tour in Europe for up to 90 days, without the need for a work permit.\"\n\nResponding to the letter, a UK government spokesperson said that musicians' concerns were being taken seriously.\n\n\"We absolutely agree that musicians should be able to work across Europe,\" they said in a statement.\n\n\"The UK Government put forward a proposal, based on feedback from the music sector, that would have allowed musicians to tour - but the EU repeatedly rejected this.\n\n\"The EU's offer in the negotiations would not have worked for touring musicians: it did not deal with work permits at all, and would not have allowed support staff to tour with artists. The signatories of this letter should be asking the EU why they rejected the sensible UK proposal.\"\n\nCulture Secretary Oliver Dowden is due to host a roundtable discussion with representatives from the music industry, addressing their concerns, on Wednesday.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Joe Biden has spent 50 years in politics working towards this moment, but he could never have expected such huge challenges would be facing him on his first day at the helm. What are his priorities?\n\nHe'll get started with a 10-day flurry of executive orders.\n\nThese are presidential directives that don't require congressional approval.\n\nTop of the list are rescinding a controversial travel ban, imposed by his predecessor Donald Trump against countries he viewed as a security threat, and rejoining the Paris climate deal.\n\nHere's what else we know about what will demand the new president's immediate attention.\n\nThe coronavirus has killed more than 400,000 people in the US - and the pandemic and its wide-ranging impact will be the new administration's top priority.\n\nMr Biden has called it \"one of the most important battles our administration will face\" and has vowed to implement his Covid strategy straight away.\n\nOne of his first moves will be executive action requiring social distancing and the wearing of masks on federal property nationwide and by federal employees and contractors.\n\nStill, there's no guarantee the state governors who've so far opposed mask mandates will suddenly change their minds - there appears to be no legal authority that grants a president the power to bring in a nationwide mask rule.\n\nMr Biden seems to have conceded that point, and says he'll personally try to persuade governors to come around.\n\nIf they're not receptive, he's vowed to make calls to mayors and municipal officials to recruit them to the cause. There's also no word yet on how a mandate will be enforced.\n\nMr Biden wants to speed up the vaccine rollout with the ultimate goal of vaccinating 100 million people with at least a first dose against Covid in his first 100 days in office.\n\nOne part of the acceleration plan is to release all available vaccine doses instead of holding some in reserve for the necessary second jab.\n\nHe is also expected to take executive action on efforts to develop and deploy rapid testing and to put in place a national supply chain for equipment, medications and personal protective equipment, or PPE.\n\nOn his agenda is a pledge to reverse the decision to have the US leave the World Health Organization (WHO).\n\nMr Trump announced plans over the summer to pull the country out of the WHO, accusing it of mismanaging Covid after the virus emerged in China and saying it failed to make \"greatly needed reforms\".\n\nMr Biden's team has said he has immediate plans to extend a moratorium on evictions and on foreclosures on home mortgages - both of which were paused early in the pandemic - as well as the current pause on federal student loan payments and interest.\n\nMr Biden's transition team said he plans to direct Cabinet agencies this week to \"take immediate action to deliver economic relief to working families\", though they did not offer more detail.\n\n$1.9tn for the US coronavirus economy\n\nLast week, Mr Biden announced a $1.9tn (£1.4tn) stimulus plan for the coronavirus-sapped US economy, saying that \"a crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight and there's no time to waste\".\n\nIf passed by Congress, it would include direct payments of $1,400 to all Americans. He has also included funding to help schools safely reopen, which he wants to happen in the first 100 days.\n\nIt'll be in addition to a long-awaited $900bn stimulus package Congress passed in December, which Mr Biden had called a \"down payment\" on the larger proposed package.\n\nRepublicans lawmakers are likely to object to parts of the bill, which will add more debt to what the US has already spent dealing with the pandemic - and Mr Biden will need bipartisan support for the plan.\n\nDemocrats currently control both chambers of Congress, but only by narrow margins.\n\nCovid aid isn't the only priority on the incoming president's economic agenda. He has pledged to get rid of Mr Trump's signature tax cuts as soon as he takes office.\n\nMr Trump passed the cuts in 2017, early in his presidency, and the Biden team says they unfairly reward the wealthiest Americans and favour corporations over small businesses.\n\nMr Biden has also said he would swiftly double the taxes that US firms pay on foreign profits - part of his Made in America push - which would come in addition to a rise in corporate taxes.\n\nHis tax policy legislation will need to pass Congress.\n\nAnother move Mr Biden says he will make on his first day in office is to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, a global accord that includes the goal to keep temperatures below 2.0C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times and \"endeavour to limit\" them even more, to 1.5C.\n\nHis predecessor pulled the US out of the 2015 accord - it became official on 4 November - making it the first nation in the world to do so.\n\nThe US will officially be part of the agreement again within 30 days.\n\nMr Biden has also pledged to \"up the ante\" and aim for higher standards on climate mitigation measures, and to convene a climate world summit within the first 100 days in office.\n\nMr Biden has said he wants to work with Congress to enact legislation this year that will allow the US to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.\n\nIn a move that has already sparked alarm with his northern neighbours, Mr Biden is reportedly planning to immediately rescind the cross-border permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a planned project from the oil sands of Canada's Alberta province, through Montana and South Dakota, to rejoin an existing pipeline to Texas.\n\nA further agenda item is a U-turn on much of Mr Trump's legacy of climate and energy deregulation, like the easing of vehicle emissions targets.\n\nMr Biden has said he will negotiate \"rigorous\" new emissions limits on cars and heavy-duty vehicles, to conserve 30% of US lands and waters by 2030, to ban new drilling on public lands, and to close the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.\n\nThe new administration says it plans also to bring in \"aggressive\" methane pollution limits for oil and gas operations and to ban new oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters.\n\nThe travel ban, signed by Mr Trump just seven days after taking office in January 2017, will be among the first policies to be discarded.\n\nThe ban initially excluded people from seven majority-Muslim countries, but the list was modified following a series of court challenges.\n\nIt now restricts citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela and North Korea.\n\nIn another major immigration pledge, Mr Biden has said he'll swiftly send a bill to Congress laying out a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented immigrants.\n\n\"And all of those so-called dreamers, those Daca [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme] kids, they're going to be immediately certified again to be able to stay in this country and put on a path to citizenship,\" he said in late October.\n\nLate in the election, the campaign announced Mr Biden would create a task force to reunite some 545 migrant children separated from their parents at the US southern border.\n\nIn December, the Biden team conceded it would need more time to roll back one of Mr Trump's policies, the Migrant Protection Protocols that force thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for US immigration court hearings.\n\nOnce a \"Day One\" pledge, officials now say it could take about six months to address.\n\nMr Biden has vowed to halt construction of a project synonymous with Mr Trump's presidency - the border wall between the US and Mexico. His campaign had called it \"a waste of money\" that \"diverts critical resources away from the real threats\".\n\nThe administration says it will instead divert the federal funds towards efforts like new border screening measures.\n\nUS President Donald Trump tours and signs a section of the US-Mexico border wall\n\nThe national reckoning with race is the fourth crisis - alongside Covid, the economy and climate - Mr Biden says he must tackle quickly.\n\nSome of those policies - like addressing racial disparities in housing and healthcare - overlap with his other plans.\n\nMr Biden will sign an executive order on racial equality and call on all US agencies to create a plan to tackle any unequal barriers to opportunity. It will also rescind Mr Trump's executive order limiting the ability of federal government agencies to implement diversity and inclusion training.\n\nMr Biden has promised to set up a national police oversight body to assist in reforming police departments in his first 100 days in office, though details of that plan are scarce.\n\nHe has said he wants swift passage by Congress of the \"Safe Justice Act\", which includes measures on reforming mandatory minimum sentences and increasing funding for community based policing.\n\nHe has made commitments to the LGBT community as well, like directing resources towards helping prevent violence against transgender people, ending the ban on transgender people serving in the military, and restoring guidance for transgender students in schools.\n\nOne other priority is passing the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing federal civil rights laws, though how fast he can pass that legislation remains unclear.\n\nThe incoming president says he plans to quickly reach out to US allies to smooth ruffled feathers and promise that \"America has your back\", saying the US must \"prove to the world that [it] is prepared to lead again - not just with the example of our power but also with the power of our example\".\n\nHe has said on his first day in the Oval Office he would reach out to Nato allies with the message \"we're back and you can count on us again\".\n\nThough Mr Trump was not the first president to pressure other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation members to spend more on defence, he threatened at times to withdraw from the alliance that Mr Biden has called the \"bulwark of the liberal democratic ideal\".", "More than 127,000 people in the UK who contracted coronavirus have lost their lives - with the pandemic claiming more than 3.4 million deaths worldwide. As the UK marks a year since the first coronavirus lockdown was called, it's a time for reflection.\n\nWe have gathered tributes to more than 770 of those who have died. Below are words of remembrance from friends, family and colleagues.\n\nPlease enable JavaScript or upgrade your browser to see this interactive\n\nThe tributes are displayed at random, which means that you will see different faces each time you visit this page.\n\nIf we have used your tribute to your friend or family member, it will appear in the carousel above, or you can find it by entering their name in the search box below.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. Enter a name to search the tributes\n\nFor more on NHS and healthcare workers, please see this page dedicated to 100 people who died while helping to look after others.\n\nFor more on how it has affected people's lives, from family tragedy to its impact on everyday life, we have a collection of personal stories about life in lockdown.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Many were taken by surprise by the events in Washington, but to those who closely follow conspiracy and extreme right groups online, the warning signs were all there.\n\nAt 02:21 Eastern Standard Time on election night, President Trump walked onto a stage set up in the East Room of the White House and declared victory.\n\n\"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.\"\n\nHis speech came an hour after he'd tweeted: \"They are trying to steal the election\".\n\nHe hadn't won. There was no victory to steal. But to many of his most fervent supporters, these facts didn't matter, and still don't.\n\nSixty five days later, a motley coalition of rioters stormed the US Capitol building. They included believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory, members of \"Stop the Steal\" groups, far-right activists, online trolls and others.\n\nOn Friday 8 January - some 48 hours after the Washington riots - Twitter began a purge of some of the most influential pro-Trump accounts that had been pushing conspiracies and urging direct action to overturn the election result.\n\nThen came the big one - Mr Trump himself.\n\nThe president was permanently banned from tweeting to his more than 88 million followers \"due to the risk of further incitement of violence\".\n\nThe violence in Washington shocked the world and seemed to catch the authorities off guard.\n\nBut for anyone who had been carefully watching the unfolding story - online and on the streets of American cities - it came as no surprise.\n\nThe idea of a rigged election was seeded by the president in speeches and on Twitter, months before the vote.\n\nOn election day, the rumors started just as Americans were going to the polls.\n\nA video of a Republican poll watcher being denied entry to a Philadelphia polling station went viral. It was a genuine error, caused by confusion about the rules. The man was later allowed into the station to observe the count.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Will Chamberlain This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Will Chamberlain\n\nBut it became the first of many videos, images, graphics and claims that went viral in the days that followed, giving rise to a hashtag: #StopTheSteal.\n\nThe message behind it was clear - Mr Trump had won a landslide victory, but dark forces in the establishment \"deep state\" had stolen it from him.\n\nIn the early hours of Wednesday 4 November, while votes were still being counted and three days before the US networks called the election for Joe Biden, President Trump claimed victory, alleging \"a fraud on the American public\".\n\nMr Trump did not provide any evidence to back up his claims. Studies carried out for previous US elections have shown that voter fraud is extremely rare.\n\nBy mid-afternoon a Facebook group called \"Stop the Steal\" was created and quickly became one of the fastest-growing in the platform's history. By Thursday morning, it had added more than 300,000 members.\n\nMany of the posts focused on unsubstantiated allegations of mass voter fraud, including manufactured claims that thousands of dead people had voted and that voting machines had somehow been programmed to flip votes from Mr Trump to Mr Biden.\n\nBut some of the posts were more alarming, speaking of the need for a \"civil war\" or \"revolution\".\n\nBy Thursday afternoon, Facebook had taken down Stop the Steal, but not before it had generated nearly half a million comments, shares, likes, and reactions.\n\nDozens of other groups quickly sprang up in its place.\n\nThe idea of a stolen election continued to spread online and take hold. Soon, a dedicated Stop the Steal website was launched in a bid to register \"boots on the ground to protect the integrity of the vote\".\n\nOn Saturday 7 November, major news organisations declared that Joe Biden had won the election. In Democratic strongholds, throngs of people took to the streets to celebrate. But the reaction online from Mr Trump's most ardent supporters was one of anger and defiance.\n\nThey planned a rally in Washington DC for the following Saturday, dubbed the Million MAGA (Make America Great Again) March.\n\nTrump tweeted that he might try to stop by the demonstration and \"say hello\".\n\nPrevious pro-Trump rallies in Washington had failed to attract large crowds. But thousands gathered at Freedom Plaza that sunny morning.\n\nOne extremism researcher called it the \"debut of the pro-Trump insurgency\".\n\nAs Trump's motorcade drove through the city, supporters screaming with delight rushed to catch a glimpse of the president, who beamed at them wearing a red MAGA hat.\n\nWhile mainstream conservative figures were present, the event was dominated by far-right groups.\n\nDozens of members of the far-right, anti-immigrant, all-male group Proud Boys, who have repeatedly been involved in violent street protests and were among those who would later break into the US Capitol, joined the march. Militia groups, far-right media figures and promoters of conspiracy theories were also there.\n\nAs night fell, clashes between Trump supporters and counter-protesters broke out, including a brawl about five blocks from the White House.\n\nThe violence - although largely contained by police on this occasion - was a clear sign of things to come.\n\nBy now, President Trump and his legal team had invested their hopes in dozens of legal cases.\n\nAlthough a number of courts had already dismissed fraud allegations, many in the pro-Trump online world became fascinated with two lawyers with close ties to the president - Sidney Powell and L Lin Wood.\n\nMs Powell and Mr Wood promised they were preparing cases of voter fraud so comprehensive that when released, they would destroy the case for Mr Biden having won the presidency.\n\nMs Powell, 65, a conservative activist and former federal prosecutor, told Fox News that the effort would \"release the Kraken\" - a reference to a gigantic sea monster from Scandinavian folklore that rises up from the ocean to devour its enemies.\n\nThe \"Kraken\" quickly became an internet meme, representing sprawling, unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud.\n\nMs Powell and Mr Wood became heroes to followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory - who believe President Trump and a secret military intelligence team are battling a deep state made up of Satan-worshipping paedophiles in the Democratic Party, media, business and Hollywood.\n\nThe lawyers became a conduit between the president and his most conspiracy-minded supporters - a number of whom ended up inside the Capitol on 6 January.\n\nMs Powell and Mr Wood were successful in whipping up sound and fury online, but their legal efforts came to nothing.\n\nWhen they released almost 200 pages of documents in late November, it became clear that their lawsuit consisted predominantly of conspiracy theories and debunked allegations that had already been rejected by dozens of courts.\n\nThe filings contained simple legal errors - and basic misspellings and typos.\n\nStill, the meme lived on. The terms \"Kraken\" and \"Release the Kraken\" were used more than a million times on Twitter before the Capitol riot.\n\nDeath threats were made against a Georgia election worker, and Republican officials in the state - including Governor Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and the official in charge of the state's voting systems, Gabriel Sterling - were branded \"traitors\" online.\n\nMr Sterling issued an emotional and prescient warning to the president in a press conference on 1 December.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"This has to stop... someone's gonna get killed\": Mr Sterling calls on President Trump to condemn the threats\n\n\"Someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get shot, someone's going to get killed, and it's not right,\" he said.\n\nIn Michigan in early December, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, had just finished trimming her Christmas tree with her four-year-old son when she heard a commotion outside her Detroit home.\n\nAbout 30 protesters with banners stood outside, shouting \"Stop the steal!\" through megaphones.\n\n\"Benson, you are a villain,\" one person yelled.\n\nOne of the demonstrators live-streamed the protest on Facebook, stating that her group was \"not going away\".\n\nIt was just one of a rash of protests targeting people involved in the vote.\n\nIn Georgia, a constant stream of Trump supporters drove past Mr Raffensperger's home, honking their horns. His wife received threats of sexual violence.\n\nIn Arizona, demonstrators gathered outside of the home of Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, at one point warning: \"We are watching you.\"\n\nOn 11 December, the Supreme Court rejected an attempt by the state of Texas to throw out election results.\n\nAs the president's legal and political windows continued to close, the language in pro-Trump online circles became increasingly violent.\n\nOn 12 December, a second Stop the Steal rally was held in the capital. Once again, thousands attended, and once again prominent far-right activists, QAnon supporters, fringe MAGA groups and militia movements were among the demonstrators.\n\nMichael Flynn, Mr Trump's former national security advisor, likened the protesters to the biblical soldiers and priests breaching the walls of Jericho. This echoed the rally organisers' call for \"Jericho Marches\" to overturn the election result.\n\nNick Fuentes, the leader of Groypers, a far-right movement that targets Republican politicians and figures they deem too moderate, told the crowd: \"We are going to destroy the GOP!\"\n\nThe march once again turned violent.\n\nThen two days later, the Electoral College certified Mr Biden's victory, one of the final steps required for him to take office.\n\nOn online platforms, supporters were becoming resigned to the view that all legal avenues were dead ends, and only direct action could save the Trump presidency.\n\nSince election day, alongside Mr Flynn, Ms Powell and Mr Wood, a new figure had rapidly gained prominence among pro-Trump circles online.\n\nRon Watkins is the son of Jim Watkins, the man behind 8chan and 8kun - message boards filled with extreme language and views, violence and extreme sexual content. They gave rise to the QAnon movement.\n\nIn a series of viral tweets on 17 December, Ron Watkins suggested President Trump should follow the example of Roman leader Julius Caesar, and capitalise on \"fierce loyalty of the military\" in order to \"restore the Republic\".\n\nRon Watkins encouraged his more than 500,000 followers to make #CrossTheRubicon a Twitter trend, referring to the moment when Caesar launched a civil war by crossing the Rubicon river in 49BC. The hashtag was also used by more mainstream figures - including the chairwoman of Arizona Republican Party, Kelli Ward.\n\nIn a separate tweet, Ron Watkins said Mr Trump must invoke the Insurrection Act, which empowers the president to deploy the military and federal forces.\n\nMr Trump met Ms Powell, Mr Flynn and others at a strategy meeting at the White House the following day, 18 December.\n\nDuring the meeting, according to the New York Times, Mr Flynn called on Mr Trump to impose martial law and deploy the military to \"rerun\" the election.\n\nThe meeting further stoked online chatter about \"war\" and \"revolution\" in far-right circles. Many came to see the joint session of Congress on 6 January, normally a formality, as a last roll of the dice.\n\nA wishful story began to take hold among QAnon and some MAGA supporters. They hoped that Vice-President Mike Pence, who was set to preside over the 6 January ceremony, would ignore the electoral college votes.\n\nThe president, they said, would then deploy the military to quell any unrest, order the mass arrest of the \"deep state cabal\" who had rigged the election and send them to Guantanamo Bay military prison.\n\nBack in the land of reality, none of this was remotely feasible. But it launched a movement for \"patriot caravans\" to organise ride shares to help transport thousands from around the country to Washington DC on 6 January.\n\nLong processions of vehicles flying Trump flags and sometimes towing elaborately decorated trailers gathered in car parks in cities including Louisville, Kentucky, Atlanta, Georgia, and Scranton, Pennsylvania.\n\n\"We are on our way,\" one caravaner posted on Twitter with a picture of about two dozen supporters.\n\nAt an Ikea parking lot in North Carolina, another man showed off his truck. \"The flags are a little tattered - we'll call them battle flags now,\" he said.\n\nAs it became clear that Mr Pence and other key Republicans would follow the law and allow Congress to certify Mr Biden's win, the language towards them became vicious.\n\n\"Pence will be in jail awaiting trial for treason,\" Mr Wood tweeted. \"He will face execution by firing squad.\"\n\nOnline discussion reached boiling point. References to firearms, war and violence were rife on self-styled \"free speech\" social platforms such as Gab and Parler, which are popular with Trump supporters, as well as on other sites.\n\nIn Proud Boys groups, where members had once supported police, some turned against authorities, whom they deemed to no longer be on their side.\n\nHundreds of posts on a popular pro-Trump site, TheDonald, openly discussed plans to cross barricades, carry firearms and other weapons to the march in defiance of Washington's strict gun laws. There was open chatter about storming the Capitol and arresting \"treasonous\" members of Congress.\n\nOn Wednesday 6 January, Mr Trump addressed a crowd of thousands at the Ellipse, a park just south of the White House, for more than an hour.\n\nEarly on he encouraged supporters to \"peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard\", but he ended with a warning. \"We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.\n\n\"So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue… and we're going to the Capitol.\"\n\nTo some observers, the potential for violence that day was clear from the outset.\n\nMichael Chertoff, former secretary of homeland security under President George W Bush, blamed the Capitol Police, who reportedly turned down offers of assistance from the much larger National Guard ahead of time. He characterised it as \"the worst failure of a police force I can think of\".\n\n\"I think it was a very foreseeable potential negative turn of events,\" Mr Chertoff said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\n\"To be blunt, it was obvious. If you read the newspaper and were awake, you understood that you've got a lot of people who have been convinced there was a fraudulent election. Some of them are extremists, and violent. Some of the groups openly said, 'Bring your guns'.\"\n\nStill, many Americans were astonished by Wednesday's scenes, like James Clark, a 68-year-old Republican from Virginia.\n\n\"I find it absolutely shocking. I didn't think it would come to this,\" he told the BBC.\n\nBut the signs were there for weeks. A hodgepodge of extreme and conspiratorial groups were convinced that the election was stolen. Online, they repeatedly talked about arming themselves, and violence.\n\nPerhaps the authorities didn't think their posts were serious, or specific enough to investigate. They now face pointed questions.\n\nFor Joe Biden's inauguration on 20 January, Mr Chertoff is expecting a \"much stronger showing\" by security services than last Wednesday night.\n\nBut that hasn't stopped many on extreme platforms calling for further violence and disruption on the day.\n\nThere are questions, too, for the major social media platforms, which enabled conspiracy theories to reach millions of people.\n\nLate on Friday, Twitter deleted the accounts of Mr Flynn, the former Trump advisor, the \"Kraken\" lawyers Ms Powell and Mr Wood, and Mr Watkins. Then Mr Trump himself.\n\nArrests of those who stormed the Capitol continue. But most of the rioters still live in a parallel online universe - a subterranean world filled with alternative facts.\n\nThey have already come up with fanciful explanations to dismiss Mr Trump's video statement, posted on Twitter the day after the riots, in which he acknowledged for the first time that \"a new administration will be inaugurated on 20 January\".\n\nHe can't possibly be giving up, they contend. Among their new theories - it's not really him in the video but a computer-generated \"deep fake\". Or perhaps the president is being held hostage.\n\nMany still believe Mr Trump will prevail.\n\nThere's no evidence behind any of this, but it does prove one thing.\n\nNo matter what happens to Donald Trump, the rioters who stormed the US Capitol are not backing down anytime soon.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Covid in Scotland: Schools to stay closed until mid-February at least\n\nScotland's Covid-19 lockdown has been extended until at least the middle of February, with most school pupils to continue learning from home.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon told MSPs that transmission of the virus appeared to be declining but was still too high to ease restrictions.\n\nBut she hopes schools will be able to at least begin a phased return to the classroom in the middle of next month.\n\nThe level four restrictions have been in place since Boxing Day.\n\nMeanwhile the islands of Barra and Vatersay are being moved into the top level of restrictions due to a \"significant outbreak\" there.\n\nThe current restrictions, which have closed non-essential shops and seen a \"stay at home\" message put down in law, had been due to expire at the end of this month.\n\nBut Scottish government ministers agreed they should be extended after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.\n\nMs Sturgeon told MSPs that lockdown was \"beginning to have an impact\" on the number of new infections, but said Scotland remained in a \"very precarious position\".\n\nShe added: \"We need to be realistic that any improvement we are seeing is down, at this stage, to the fact that we are staying at home and reducing our interactions.\n\n\"Any relaxation of lockdown while case numbers, even though they might be declining, nevertheless remain very high, could quickly send the situation into reverse.\"\n\nThe vast majority of Scottish pupils have been home learning since the Christmas holiday\n\nThe announcement came as 1,165 new cases of Covid-19 were registered in Scotland, representing 11.1% of tests carried out.\n\nA total of 1,989 people are in hospital with the virus while a further 71 deaths of people who recently tested positive have been logged.\n\nMs Sturgeon said there was \"real and severe\" pressure on health services, with around 30% more patients in hospital than at the peak of the first wave in April 2020, and that this was \"almost certain to rise for a further period yet\".\n\nSchool buildings and nurseries have been closed to most pupils since the start of term, with all but the children of some key workers and vulnerable pupils learning from home.\n\nNot only will schools remain closed to most pupils until at least mid-February, they are unlikely to return to normal at that point.\n\nThe first minister has indicated that her aim is to begin a phased return, if coronavirus allows. So what might that mean?\n\nThe groups that will get back into class first are likely to include secondary school exam year pupils, the youngest primary school children and those in P7 getting ready to move to high school.\n\nFor others, online learning is likely to last a bit longer.\n\nBoth the return to school and the continuation of the wider lockdown will be reviewed again in a fortnight on 2 Feb.\n\nBy that week, first doses of vaccine should have been offered to all over 80s in Scotland as well as frontline NHS and social care staff and care home residents.\n\nWith only 15-20% of the over 80s reached so far, opposition parties think the programme is slipping behind schedule, which the first minister denies.\n\nMs Sturgeon said she knew how \"challenging and stressful\" home schooling was for families, but said community transmission was \"too high\" to allow a safe return to classrooms.\n\nShe said: \"If it is at all possible, as I very much hope it will be, to begin even a phased return to in-school learning in mid-February, we will.\n\n\"But I also have to be straight with families and say that it is simply too early to be sure about whether and to what extent this will be possible.\"\n\nStatistics released on Monday showed that Scotland had vaccinated 6% of its adult population so far - the same percentage as Wales, but lower than the 8% that have been vaccinated in England and 8.7% in Northern Ireland.\n\nEngland has also given a second dose of the vaccine to 427,386 people, compared to only 3,698 in Scotland.\n\nMs Sturgeon said approximately 100,000 people were being vaccinated per week in Scotland, and that health teams were \"on track\" to expand this to 400,000 per week by the end of February.\n\nStatistics have suggested the vaccination programme in Scotland is currently lagging behind England\n\nMore than 90% of care home residents have now been given a first dose, along with 70% of care home staff and 70% of all frontline health and care workers.\n\nThe first minister said the focus on care homes - where it is \"time consuming and labour intensive\" to give out jabs - was \"why overall figures are at this stage lower than in England\", where more over-80s have received the vaccine.\n\nShe said the \"pace of progress in the over-80s group is also now picking up\", and that the government remained on track to hit its target of completing everyone on the priority list by early May.\n\nScottish Conservative group leader Ruth Davidson said the Scottish government were \"lagging behind their own targets\" on vaccination, saying the focus on care homes \"doesn't explain how slowly the vaccine is reaching GP surgeries and the public\".\n\nShe read out a series of letters from elderly people who had not been contacted about getting a jab, saying they were \"anxious they don't get left behind\".\n\nMs Sturgeon said she would not apologise for \"prioritising the most vulnerable first\", saying all four UK nations were \"working to the same targets\".\n\nScottish Labour's interim leader Jackie Baillie asked if Ms Sturgeon was confident the government could hit its \"critical\" targets, saying GPs were still complaining about \"patchy\" distribution of vaccines.\n\nThe first minister replied that her government would hit its goals, saying it was \"always the intention\" to increase the pace of vaccination as infrastructure and supplies became available.\n\nThis would see care home residents, healthcare staff and all over-80s get a first dose by the start of February, with over-70s and those deemed \"extremely vulnerable\" by mid-February and all over-65s by the beginning of March.", "The last vestiges of the Trump presidency will be swept away on Wednesday, as the Bidens move into the White House. Desks will have been cleared out, rooms scrubbed clean and the president's aides will be replaced by a new team of political appointees. It's part of the massive transformation that a new presidency brings to the heart of government.\n\nOne evening last week, Stephen Miller, a policy adviser and central figure in the Trump White House, was lounging in the West Wing.\n\nMiller, who has crafted speeches and policies for the president since his early days in office, is also one of the few members of the president's initial team still with him at the end.\n\nLeaning against a wall and chatting with colleagues about a meeting scheduled for later that day, he seemed in no hurry to leave.\n\nThe West Wing usually hums with activity but it seemed deserted. The phones were quiet. Desks in empty offices were cluttered with papers and unopened letters, as if people had left in a hurry and would not be coming back. Dozens of senior officials and aides quit in the wake of the Capitol riots on 6 January. A handful of loyalists, like Miller, remain.\n\nAs the conversation began to wind down, he broke away from his colleagues. When I asked him where he was headed next, he smiled. \"Back to my office,\" he said and sauntered down the hall.\n\nOn inauguration day, Miller's office will have been cleaned out, swept of signs that he and his colleagues had ever been there, ready for the Biden team to move in.\n\nThe cleaning out of West Wing offices, and the transition between presidents, is part of a tradition that dates back centuries. It's a process that has not always been imbued with warmth.\n\nAnother impeached president, Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, snubbed Republican Ulysses S Grant in 1869 and skipped the inauguration. Grant, who had backed Johnson's removal from office, was hardly surprised.\n\nStaff have started moving paperwork and pictures out of the White House\n\nThis year, however, the transition stands out for its acrimony. The process usually starts straight after the election, but it started weeks late after Trump refused to accept the result. And the president has said he will not attend the inauguration. Most likely, he will instead travel to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.\n\nStill, the handover is taking place, just as it has in the past. \"The system is holding,\" says Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University. \"It's very rocky, it's very bumpy, but nevertheless the transition is going to occur.\"\n\nEven in the best of times, the logistics of a transition are daunting, involving the transfer of knowledge and employees on a massive scale.\n\nStephen Miller is just one of 4,000 political appointees hired by the Trump administration who will lose their job and be replaced by individuals hired by Mr Biden.\n\nDuring an average transition, between 150,000-300,000 people apply for these jobs, according to the Center for Presidential Transition, a nonpartisan organisation based in Washington. About 1,100 of the positions also require Senate confirmation. Filling all of these positions takes months, even years.\n\nFour years of policy papers, briefing books and artefacts relating to the president's work will be carted off to the National Archives where they will be kept secret for 12 years, unless the president himself decides that portions may be released early.\n\nOn a weekday evening during Trump's last week in office, the door to the office of Kayleigh McEnany, the president's press secretary, was partly open.\n\nMcEnany has been one of the president's most high-profile defenders. Impeccably groomed, she is a precise speaker who maintains her composure amidst chaos.\n\nKayleigh McEnany has packed up her office in the White House\n\nHer office, too, was organised in a meticulous manner, even as she prepared to leave. A mirror stood on her desk, and several fireplace logs were wrapped in clear plastic and packed up.\n\nGenerally, the last few days are \"controlled chaos,\" says Kate Andersen Brower, who has written a book about the White House, The Residence.\n\nFurniture in the White House, such as the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, most of the artwork, china and other objects, belong to the government and will remain on the premises.\n\nBut other items, like photos of the president that hang in the hallway, will be taken down as the White House is transformed for its new occupants.\n\nStaffers are already moving some items out of the building. One White House staffer, a woman in sturdy heels, was lugging several images of First Lady Melania Trump out of the East Wing. The pictures are known as \"jumbos\" because of their extra-large size, she says, and they will be taken to the National Archives.\n\nThe Trumps' personal belongings, such as clothes, jewellery, and other items will be moved to their new residence, most likely at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.\n\nAnd this year, the place will be deep cleaned.\n\nPresident Biden is expected to make decorative changes to the Oval Office\n\nThe president, as well as Mr Miller and dozens of others at the White House, were infected with the coronavirus over the past several months, and the six-floor building, with its 132 rooms, will be thoroughly scrubbed down. Everything from handrails to elevator buttons to restroom fixtures will be wiped and sanitised, according to a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration, the federal agency that oversees the housekeeping effort.\n\nIncoming first families usually do some redecoration. Within days of arriving at the White House, Mr Trump had chosen a portrait of populist president Andrew Jackson for the Oval Office. He also replaced the drapes, couches and a rug in the office with ones that were gold-coloured.\n\nOn inauguration day, Vice-President Pence and his wife will also make way for Kamala Harris, and her husband, Doug Emhoff. They will be settling into their official residence, a 19th Century residence on the Naval Observatory grounds, a couple of miles from the White House.\n\nPolicy adviser Stephen Miller may have lingered in the West Wing, but others were ready to go. At the White House, people were lugging thick manila envelopes, framed photos and bags from a gift shop. \"It's my last day,\" says one man, smiling as he took a photo of his sons on the north lawn. A bulging backpack was slung over his shoulder.\n\nA group of National Security officials posed in front of the West Wing, asking me to take their picture. \"Make sure you get the marine guard,\" says one of the officials, referring to a marine who stands in front of the doorway when the president is in the Oval Office. The officials were in high spirits, joking and vamping for the camera.\n\nThe political appointees at the White House were in a good mood for a reason. For weeks, they had been caught in an in-between world. Their boss was denying the validity of the election, but they knew that their days were numbered. Now they could plan openly for their future, and they seemed almost giddy.\n\nOne political appointee, a man dressed in a dark suit, was already making plans. He ran into a colleague outside the Palm room, a reception area on the ground floor. \"See you on the flip side,\" he said, brightly. He was referring to the time after the inauguration, when they will both be out of their White House jobs. He mused about where they might meet again. \"Hopefully in the Greek isles or somewhere.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. That is for sure,\" said his colleague, laughing. They smacked a high-five and then parted ways.", "Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has confirmed the government is looking at scrapping some EU labour laws now it is no longer bound by the bloc's rules.\n\nBut he promised there would be no dilution of workers' rights.\n\nMeasures under consideration include relaxing the working time directive which enshrines a 48-hour week.\n\nShadow business secretary Ed Miliband warned the government wanted to take a \"wrecking ball\" to hard-won rights.\n\nEarlier this week Mr Kwarteng said he wanted to \"protect and enhance\" labour law after the Financial Times reported that some rules could be weakened.\n\nThe minister later told business leaders the UK had an opportunity to reform regulation derived from EU law, but would not deliberately antagonise the EU - its biggest trading partner - immediately after the Brexit deal.\n\nConfirming the review on Tuesday, Mr Kwarteng told MPs there would be no \"bonfire of rights\".\n\n\"I think the view was that we wanted to look at the whole range of issues relating to our EU membership and examine what we wanted to keep, if you like,\" he said.\n\nBut he said \"the idea that we are trying to whittle down standards, that's not at all plausible or true\".\n\nAppearing before MPs, the business secretary said: \"I'm very struck as I look at EU economies how many EU countries - I think it's about 17 or 18 - have essentially opted out of the working time directive.\n\n\"So even by just following that we are way above the average European standard and I want to maintain that. I think we can be a high-wage, high-employment economy, a very successful economy, and that's what we should be aiming for.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kwasi Kwarteng This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Miliband said that after denying the FT's report, Mr Kwarteng had now \"let the cat out of the bag\" in admitting the government was conducting a review.\n\nHe warned that opting out of the 48-hour week would harm workers in key sectors like the NHS, road haulage and airlines from working excessive hours.\n\n\"A government committed to maintaining existing protections would not be reviewing whether they should be unpicked. This exposes that the government's priorities for Britain are totally wrong.\"\n\nDrew Hendry, the SNP's business spokesman, echoed the criticism, accusing the government of planning an \"assault\" on workers' rights.\n\nMeanwhile the boss of the UK's biggest recruitment firm, Reed, told the BBC's Today programme that there was \"no wish\" among employers to see \"a so-called bonfire of workers' rights.\n\n\"They must be protected because fair treatment is the bedrock of good workplace relations,\" James Reed said.\n\nThe chairman of the firm said the government should instead focus on lower-paid workers and measures that could be taken to improve unemployment, which is set to rise further into mid-2021.\n\n\"I would suggest two things are looked at before any EU rules: The apprenticeship levy, which is clearly failing... and also National Insurance on jobs. It's a tax on jobs - how can that be improved? Especially to help the low-paid back into work.\"\n\nUnder the post-Brexit trade deal with the EU, the UK has agreed to conditions that maintain fair competition, or a level playing field, between the two sides.\n\nHowever, the EU's ambassador to the UK, Joao Vale de Almeida, said Brussels could retaliate if Boris Johnson's government went too far in with deregulation.\n\n\"It will be for us to judge the extent to which it violates this principle of 'level playing field' and if that is the case there are mechanisms in the treaty, in the agreement, that allow us to discuss and eventually to come to an understanding,\" he said on Tuesday.\n\n\"If no understanding there are retaliation measures that can be applied on both sides.\"", "At 12:01, in the midst of his inaugural address, Joe Biden officially became the 46th president of the United States.\n\nHe was already well into outlining exactly how daunting a task he - and the nation - have ahead in what he called its \"winter of peril\".\n\nAmerica is facing a devastating pandemic which has resulted in massive job losses and business closures, a threatened environment, urgent cries for racial justice and resurgence in \"political extremism, white supremacy and domestic terrorism\".\n\nHis speech was not a laundry list of proposals and solutions. Those were reserved for his first 17 executive actions as president - on immigration, climate change, transgender rights and public health, among others.\n\nThe Biden administration has also frozen all of Trump's last-minute regulations pending further review.\n\nInstead, Biden used his speech to offer hope - and to argue, at times forcefully, that the nation must be united in facing the challenges ahead; that it has to move past its current \"uncivil war\".\n\n\"Without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury,\" he said. \"No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos.\"\n\n\"This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge,\" he continued. \"And unity is the path forward\".\n\nAt times, Biden's speech seemed a direct rebuttal to his predecessor's administration, although he did not mention Donald Trump by name.\n\nWhere Trump frequently spoke of American greatness and glorified its founders, Biden noted that the nation's history has been a \"constant struggle\" between its ideals and sometimes harsh realities.\n\nWhere Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway spoke of \"alternative facts\" almost four years ago, Biden said: \"There is truth and there are lies - lies told for power and for profit.\"\n\nBiden wrapped up his inaugural address by warning that America must not \"turn inward\" - both as individuals retreating into \"competing factions\" and as a nation on the world stage.\n\n\"We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again,\" he said.\n\nRhetorically, Biden turned the page from Trump's days of \"America first\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe first 100 days of any administration are always important to a new president. What are his priorities? What will he try to accomplish when his political capital is at its highest?\n\nJoe Biden and his presidential team have had nearly three months to plan out his first actions upon taking the oath of office, but executive action is the (relatively) easy part.\n\nHis speech reflected the reality that he enters office with his top priorities already determined for him.\n\nHis government will be responsible for distributing the coronavirus vaccine in an efficient and equitable way. After that, he will have to focus on the societal and economic disruptions caused by the pandemic.\n\nThe virus has exacerbated income inequality and pushed many households to the brink of economic ruin. It's devastated the travel and hospitality industries and placed incredible strain on the finances of state and local governments.\n\nHis pledge to seek unity will be tested early, as he pushes a sharply divided Congress to pass another, massive round of pandemic stimulus aid. If he wants to enact it quickly, he will need Republican support in the Senate, and already there are signs that some on the right may be lining up in opposition to more spending.\n\nThen there's Trump's Senate impeachment trial, which will present yet another challenge to national unity. It will keep Trump's name in the news for weeks, as his defenders rally to his side and his detractors call for consequences for his actions.\n\nAfter that, Biden's potential political paths diverge. He has said he wants to improve healthcare in the US, address growing college debt, make new investments in infrastructure and tackle climate change.\n\nHe's pledged to push immigration reform legislation that includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants - a political lightning rod that helped fuel Trump's first presidential run.\n\nWhat he prioritises, and how successful his first efforts are, could determine the overall success of his administration. To make lasting change - policies that can't be undone by future presidents - he will have to work with Congress.\n\nThe inauguration ceremony is over. But, as Biden noted in his speech, the American people face one of the most challenging times in their nation's history.\n\n\"We will be judged by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era,\" he said.\n\nBiden campaigned against Trump for the opportunity to face those crises. Now he has his chance.", "Anyone going on a Saga holiday or cruise in 2021 must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the tour operator has said.\n\nSaga, which specialises in holidays for the over-50s, said it wanted to protect customers' health and safety.\n\nThe firm said it would delay restarting its travel packages until May to give customers enough time to get jabs.\n\nPeople over 50 in the UK have been rushing to book holidays as vaccinations boost confidence.\n\n\"The health and safety of our customers has always been our number one priority at Saga, so we have taken the decision to require everyone travelling with us to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19,\" Saga said in a statement.\n\n\"Our customers want the reassurance of the vaccine and to know others travelling with them will be vaccinated too.\"\n\nThe firm's holidays were due to restart in March and its cruises in April after a long hiatus, but they will now both be delayed.\n\nSaga said that meant all trips before May would no longer go ahead as planned, acknowledging it would be \"a huge disappointment\" to customers.\n\n\"We will be contacting all guests affected to discuss their options,\" it said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Singapore's 'cruises to nowhere' set back by Covid scare\n\nThe firm said its vaccination policy added to stronger safety processes already planned for when its holidays resume.\n\nThese include requiring cruise passengers to have a Covid-19 test before their trip, as well as a full medical screening.\n\nCapacity on its ships will also be kept to a maximum of 800 people.\n\nThere were some severe covid outbreaks on cruise ships early on the pandemic, before coronavirus restrictions were imposed.\n\nBritish-registered ship the Diamond Princess, owned by the company Carnival, was quarantined for nearly a month in February in the Port of Yokohama in Japan.\n\nMore than 700 of its 3,711 passengers and crew were infected, and 14 died.\n\nThe UK has embarked on a mass vaccination programme as Covid-19 cases surge.\n\nPeople in England are being vaccinated at a rate of 140 jabs per minute, NHS England boss Sir Simon Stevens said this week.\n\nExperts believe in future that airlines, concert venues and restaurants could routinely ask customers to prove that they have been vaccinated.\n\nAnd last week, London plumbing firm Pimlico Plumbers said that all of its staff would be contractually obliged to get the jab.", "The government does not know how many cases might be affected by hundreds of thousands of police records being accidentally wiped, the PM has said.\n\nBoris Johnson told the House of Commons the police were working \"round the clock\" to rectify the error.\n\nAround 400,000 fingerprint, DNA and arrest records were deleted from the police database.\n\nEarlier, Home Secretary Priti Patel said it was not yet known whether any of the data had been permanently lost.\n\nSpeaking during Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said: \"The Home Office is actively working to assess the damage and... they believe that they will be able to rectify the results of this complex incident and they hope very much that they'll be able to restore the data in question.\"\n\nAsked by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer how many convicted criminals had had their records wrongly deleted, Mr Johnson said: \"We don't know how many cases might be frustrated as a result of what has happened.\"\n\nHe added: \"Of course it is outrageous that any data should have been lost.\"\n\nLast week it was revealed that the information was wiped from the Police National Computer (PNC) - which stores and shares criminal records information across the UK - after being inadvertently flagged for deletion.\n\nThe PNC is used in police investigations and provides real-time checks on people, vehicles and crimes, as well as whether suspects are wanted for any unsolved offences.\n\nAn estimated 213,000 offence records, 175,000 arrest records and 15,000 records on people were potentially incorrectly deleted as a result of a defective code.\n\nMs Patel, who has launched an internal investigation, told ITV's Good Morning Britain that criminals would not get away with serious crimes as a result of the error.\n\n\"It is not about serious criminals getting away with anything. Multiple records are held on the same individuals on the same crimes on other profiling systems as well.\"\n\nShe told the BBC that officials could be instructed to re-submit the entries manually.\n\n\"I'm also clear with Home Office engineers and technicians that if we have to do manual uploads from other systems, that is effectively what we will do and that will potentially take time, but that is another option for us right now.\n\n\"We will absolutely provide updates once we know what has happened in terms of retrieving data. This will take time because it is a coding error.\"\n\nThe Home Office previously said that the faulty script was introduced in November 2020, but it did not run until earlier this month when the error within it immediately became apparent.", "After vowing to uphold and defend the Constitution of United States, Joe Biden has been officially sworn in as the 46th US president.\n\nThe new president's oath of office was administered by Chief Justice John G Roberts.\n\nRead more:Joe Biden becomes the 46th US president", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Hill We Climb: Watch 22-year-old Amanda Gorman's poem reading at Joe Biden's inauguration\n\nAmanda Gorman has become the youngest poet ever to perform at a presidential inauguration, calling for \"unity and togetherness\" in her self-penned poem.\n\nThe 22-year-old delivered her work The Hill We Climb to both the dignitaries present in Washington DC and a watching global audience.\n\n\"When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?\" her five-minute poem began.\n\nShe went on to reference the storming of the Capitol earlier this month.\n\n\"We've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy,\" she declared.\n\n\"And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.\"\n\nThe poet was applauded by Vice President Kamala Harris\n\nIn her poem, Gorman described herself as \"a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother [who] can dream of becoming president, only to find her self reciting for one\".\n\nAmerica's first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate did her job, which was to find the right words at the right time.\n\nIt was a beautifully paced, well-judged poem for a special occasion, but it will live long beyond the time and space of the moment.\n\nAmanda Gorman delivered her piece with grace, the words it contained will resonate with people the world over: today, tomorrow, and far into the future.\n\nThe writer and performer, who became the country's first National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, followed in the footsteps of such famous names as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.\n\n\"I really wanted to use my words to be a point of unity and collaboration and togetherness,\" Gorman told the BBC World Service's Newshour programme before the ceremony.\n\n\"I think it's about a new chapter in the United States, about the future, and doing that through the elegance and beauty of words.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUS broadcaster and actress Oprah Winfrey tweeted that she had \"never been prouder to see another young woman rise\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Oprah Winfrey This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAlso on Twitter, Joanne Liu, the former head of aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières, described the poem as \"the most inspiring 5:43 minutes for the longest time\".\n\nFormer First Lady Michelle Obama praised Gorman's \"strong and poignant words\" adding: \"Keep shining, Amanda!\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Michelle Obama This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nUS politician and rights activist Stacey Abrams said the poem was \"an inspiration to us all\".\n\nFormer presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted that Gorman had promised to run for president in 2036 and added: \"I for one can't wait.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Hillary Clinton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIllinois poet laureate Angela Jackson said the recitation was \"so rich and just so filled with truth\".\n\n\"I was stunned that she was so young and so wise,\" Jackson told the Chicago Sun-Times.\n\nGorman said she \"screamed and danced her head off\" when she found out she had been chosen to read at President Biden's swearing-in ceremony.\n\nShe said she felt \"excitement, joy, honour and humility\" when she was asked to take part, \"and also at the same time terror\".\n\nAnd she added that she hoped her poem, completed on the day supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, would \"speak to the moment\" and \"do this time justice\".\n\nGorman, pictured with actor Morgan Freeman in 2018, became LA's youth poet laureate at 16\n\nBorn in Los Angeles in 1998, Gorman had a speech impediment as a child - an affliction she shares with America's new president.\n\n\"It's made me the performer that I am and the storyteller that I strive to be,\" she said in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times.\n\n\"When you have to teach yourself how to say sounds [and] be highly concerned about pronunciation, it gives you a certain awareness of sonics, of the auditory experience.\"\n\nGorman became LA's youth poet laureate at 16. Three years later, while studying sociology at Harvard, she became National Youth Poet Laureate.\n\nShe published her first book, The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough, in 2015 and will publish a picture book, Change Sings, later this year.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kamala Harris was sworn into office by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.\n\nKamala Harris has made history as the first female, first black and first Asian-American US vice-president.\n\nShe was sworn in just before Joe Biden took the oath of office to become the 46th US president.\n\nMs Harris, who is of Indian-Jamaican heritage, initially ran for the Democratic nomination.\n\nBut Mr Biden won the race and chose Ms Harris as his running mate, describing her as \"a fearless fighter for the little guy\".\n\nPrior to taking the oath at the US Capitol, Ms Harris paid tribute to the women who she says came before her.\n\n\"I stand on their shoulders,\" she said in a video.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kamala Harris This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEugene Goodman, the Capitol police officer who was hailed as a hero for steering a pro-Trump mob away from Senate chambers during the 6 January riot, escorted Ms Harris at the inauguration.\n\nMs Harris, 56, was born in Oakland, California, to two immigrant parents: an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father.\n\nKamala, left, as child with her mother and younger sister Maya\n\nShe went on to attend Howard University, one of the nation's preeminent historically black colleges and universities. She has described her time there as among the most formative experiences of her life.\n\nMs Harris says she's always been comfortable with her identity and simply describes herself as \"an American\".\n\nAfter four years at Howard, Ms Harris went on to earn her law degree at the University of California, Hastings, and began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.\n\nShe became the district attorney - the top prosecutor - for San Francisco in 2003, before being elected the first female and the first African American to serve as California's attorney general, the top lawyer and law enforcement official in America's most populous state.\n\nIn her nearly two terms in office as attorney general, Ms Harris gained a reputation as one of the Democratic party's rising stars, using this momentum to propel her to election as California's junior US senator in 2017. She was only the second black woman ever elected to the US senate.\n\nShe launched her candidacy for president to a crowd of more than 20,000 in Oakland at the beginning of 2019.\n\nBut Ms Harris failed to articulate a clear rationale for her campaign, and gave muddled answers to questions in key policy areas like healthcare.\n\nShe was also unable to capitalise on the clear high point of her candidacy: debate performances that showed off her prosecutorial skills, often placing Mr Biden in the line of attack, most notably criticising his praise for the \"civil\" working relationship he had with former senators who favoured racial segregation.\n\nShe dropped out of the presidential race in December 2019.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBut Mr Biden chose her as his number two in August, calling her \"one of the country's finest public servants\".\n\nAfter Mr Biden was announced as the next president in November, Ms Harris tweeted a video of her congratulating her running mate.\n\n\"We did it, we did it Joe. You're going to be the next president of the United States!\" she beamed.", "Sophie Davies, from Shropshire, recovering from cervical cancer, says delays to screening could be a matter of life and death\n\nSmear-test delays during lockdown have prompted calls for home-screening kits.\n\nCervical cancer screening has restarted across the UK - but some women say they will not attend their appointments for fear of catching Covid.\n\nJo's Cervical Cancer Trust is urging \"faster action\" on home tests for HPV, which causes 99% of cervical cancers.\n\nAn NHS official said GP practices should continue screening throughout lockdown, and \"anyone invited for a cervical smear test should attend\".\n\nCancer Research UK said it was not yet known how effective and accurate self-sampling could be in cervical screening.\n\nScreenings in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have restarted after being halted during the first lockdown.\n\nIn England, the NHS told GPs and clinics not to halt smear tests - but, as the prime minister heard last week, some patients were experiencing cancellations and long waiting times.\n\nAbout 600,000 tests had failed to go ahead in the UK in April and May, Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust said, in addition to a backlog of 1.5 million appointments missed annually.\n\nIn March, Sophie Davies was told she needed a hysterectomy \"within the month\" but had to wait until December for surgery\n\nA survey by gynaecological cancer charity the Eve Appeal indicates nearly one in three missed smear tests are the result of people being \"put off\" by coronavirus.\n\nAnd a Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust survey during the pandemic suggests the same proportion would prefer to take their own human-papillomavirus (HPV) test rather than go to a GP.\n\nActing chief executive Rebecca Shoosmith said coronavirus had added \"more barriers\" to going for a smear test.\n\n\"Sadly those who found it difficult before are likely to be no closer to getting tested,\" she said.\n\nBoth charities emphasise smear tests are for \"women and anyone with a cervix\" and transgender and non-binary people may have additional barriers to going.\n\nJo's Cervical Cancer Trust said DIY tests could also help people who had been sexually assaulted and those with disabilities or from backgrounds where smear tests were taboo.\n\nSamantha Renke felt anxious about catching coronavirus when she went for her smear test\n\nSamantha Renke had received an abnormal test result and needed to go for a follow-up test during the pandemic.\n\nThe broadcaster and campaigner, who has brittle bones and uses a wheelchair, said a home-testing kit would have made things easier.\n\n\"I am at very high risk of getting seriously ill from Covid-19,\" the 35-year-old, from Lancashire, said.\n\n\"So I was incredibly anxious sitting in the waiting room for my test.\n\n\"Women with a physical disability are so much more likely to find cervical screening difficult, to the point where it can sometimes be impossible just to get through the door.\n\n\"We shouldn't have to fight to get this life-saving test.\n\n\"Self-sampling would be so much easier for people like me.\n\n\"It would allow me to take my health into my own hands.\"\n\nIshita Ranjan said talk of smear tests was taboo in traditional South Asian families\n\nIshita Ranjan finally went for her smear test in August, having put it off for a \"really long time\".\n\n\"In most traditional South Asian families, women's sexual health is not something you talk about openly,\" the 31-year-old, from London, said.\n\n\"Young women are left to figure this stuff out.\n\n\"Until you get married, older female relatives find it problematic to share that kind of information.\"\n\nA fear of catching coronavirus could be also stopping people belonging to ethnic minorities attending appointments.\n\n\"We have seen high Covid infection and death rates and people are genuinely scared,\" Ms Ranjan said.\n\n\"And it's really important that you do still go and do it.\n\n\"I was in and out in five minutes, no sitting around waiting rooms.\"\n\nHelen Austin founded At your Cervix, a support network for people who find smear tests difficult\n\nAfter experiencing sexual violence, it took Helen Austin 10 years to work up the courage to go for her smear test.\n\n\"When my first invite arrived through the post, years ago, my body froze, and I then ripped it up,\" she said.\n\nSelf-sampling would have given her time and privacy, the 35-year-old, from Lincolnshire, said.\n\n\"If my appointment had been during the pandemic and I could not have brought someone I trust with me to help me, I would never have gone,\" she said.\n\n\"Other trauma survivors I speak to find wearing a mask triggering and are putting off attending their test partly for this reason too.\"\n\nSophie Davies, 32, saw in the new year alone in hospital, after having a hysterectomy\n\nAfter developing a rare form of cervical cancer, Sophie Davies had a trachelectomy to remove her cervix, in April 2018, allowing doctors to save her ovaries and two-thirds of her womb.\n\nBut in March 2020, she was told the risk of cancer coming back meant she needed a hysterectomy and the removal of both ovaries.\n\n\"I was advised the operation needed to be done 'the sooner the better' and 'within the month',\" the 32-year-old, from Shropshire, said.\n\nAnd she had an \"agonising\" wait, until 30 December, for her surgery.\n\n\"I'm still awaiting my results, more than three weeks on, and praying I have not been left for the best part of a year with cancer growing inside me,\" Ms Davies said.\n\n\"These months of delay could be the difference in saving fertility or losing fertility.\n\n\"It could be the difference in needing chemotherapy or radiotherapy or not needing it, or could be the difference of life or death.\"\n\nCancer Research UK early diagnosis head Dr Jodie Moffat said research was under way to understand how effective and accurate self-sampling could be in cervical screening.\n\nBut getting more people screened \"is not the only hurdle to overcome\".\n\n\"The NHS is under immense pressure and would need more staff and equipment to ensure patients receive their results and any follow-up treatment as quickly as possible,\" she said.\n\nAn NHS official said: \"The NHS guidance that cervical screening should continue has not changed, which has been communicated to GP practices, which have adjusted the way they work to remain open and safe, while local NHS services across the country have put extra measures in place to protect people from coronavirus and so anyone invited for a cervical smear test should attend.\"", "The government has unveiled details of a £23m fund to support fishing firms as it tries to quell industry anger over Brexit border delays.\n\nThe money will help firms whose exports to the EU have fallen sharply since rules changed on 1 January.\n\nFishing firms say extra paperwork has made it difficult to deliver fresh produce to the EU before it goes off, hammering their businesses.\n\nOne trade group called the fund \"welcome\" but a \"sticking plaster\".\n\nOn Monday, fish exporters held demonstrations outside government departments in central London, warning their livelihoods were under threat.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson admitted many had experienced \"bureaucratic delays [and] difficulties getting their goods through\" to buyers on the other side of the channel.\n\nHaving left the EU's customs union and the single market, UK exports are subject to new customs and veterinary checks which have caused problems at the border.\n\nCovid has worsened the issue, with the industry also facing lower market prices and demand from restaurants due to the pandemic.\n\nThe government said the scheme would be targeted at small and medium-sized fishing businesses who will be able to claim a maximum of £100,000 to cover losses.\n\nChief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay said: \"This further £23m package of support will help our hardworking fishing sector navigate the challenges of the next few months.\n\n\"It is vital that no community nor region within our United Kingdom is left behind as we continue to support British jobs and build back better from the coronavirus pandemic.\"\n\nIn addition to funding, the government will provide further training to help fishing businesses adapt to the new export processes.\n\nSeparately, the prime minister committed to providing a further £100m to help modernise UK fishing fleets and the fish processing industry.\n\nDonna Fordyce, chief executive of Seafood Scotland, said: \"After almost three weeks of voicing their concerns and frustrations, we welcome the fact that the Scottish seafood sector has been heard and action is being taken.\n\n\"This [fund] will offer a ray of light to some small and medium-sized companies that have experienced crippling losses over the past few weeks.\"\n\nHowever, while the money was \"a much-needed sticking plaster\", she said it would not \"completely staunch the wound\".\n\n\"The sector still needs a period of grace during which the [new trade] systems must be overhauled so they are fit for purpose.\"", "Under current rules, cafes and restaurants are only allowed to provide a takeaway service.\n\nNine Met Police officers have been fined for breaching lockdown rules to meet at a cafe while on duty.\n\nPictures emerged online showing the officers, from the South East Basic Command Unit, eating at The Chef House Kitchen Cafe, Greenwich, on 9 January.\n\nAll nine officers have been issued with a £200 fixed penalty notice.\n\nCh Supt Rob Atkin, said: \"It is right that they will pay a financial penalty and that they will be asked to reflect on their choices.\n\n\"Police officers are tasked with enforcing the legislation that has been introduced to stop the spread of the virus and the public rightly expect that they will set an example through their own actions.\n\n\"It is disappointing that on this occasion, these officers have fallen short of that expectation.\"\n\nThe group were spotted by a member of the public in the Greenwich cafe while their patrol vehicles were parked outside.\n\nUnder current rules, cafes and restaurants are only allowed to provide a takeaway service.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nPaul Pogba scored a superb winner as Manchester United reclaimed top spot in the Premier League by coming from behind for a club-record equalling away win at Fulham.\n\nIn what is becoming a familiar pattern for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side outside Manchester this season, they fell behind early in the game, with Ademola Lookman beating the offside trap before firing in an angled drive.\n\nBut for the seventh time away from Old Trafford in 2020-21, United found a winning response - taking their run to 17 games unbeaten away in the Premier League - courtesy of a gift from their opponents and a bit of magic from their French midfielder.\n\nGoalkeeper Alphonse Areola has been a good addition for the Cottagers but in dropping Bruno Fernandes' cross at the feet of Edinson Cavani, he gifted his former Paris St-Germain team-mate the simplest of equalisers.\n\nAnd on the hour mark, Pogba stepped up to decide the contest, firing a superb angled drive across the diving Areola and into the far corner from 20 yards.\n\nThe France international has come in for criticism at times this season but received nothing but praise from his manager after his winner.\n\n\"I am very happy with his performances,\" said Solskjaer.\n\n\"I know what he can do. He does everything. Now he is putting all the elements together in his performances and it is great to see.\n\n\"It was about getting him fit. He is enjoying his football, he is happy and physically in a good shape.\"\n\nThe win takes United to 40 points, two more than both Leicester and Manchester City, who had briefly taken top spot from the Foxes with a 2-0 win over Aston Villa on Wednesday.\n\nSolskjaer, though, was reluctant to get drawn into discussing his side's title credentials with so much of the campaign to go.\n\n\"It is always going to be talked about that when you are halfway through and top of the league, but we are not thinking about this, we just have to go one game at a time,\" he added. \"It is such an unpredictable season.\"\n\nFulham remain in the bottom three, four points behind 17th-placed Burnley.\n• None Man Utd or Man City to end day top? Cassia bassist Lou Cotterill takes on Lawro\n\nSolskjaer felt his side missed a big opportunity to fully assert their title credentials in failing to make the most of their chances in Sunday's 0-0 draw at champions Liverpool.\n\nUnited were clearly in no mood to repeat such a mistake at a wet and windy Craven Cottage on Wednesday against a less daunting and defining opposition, but one that is far more robust now than they were in the season's first month.\n\nThe visitors fell behind, but this is par for the course for this side, who once again did not panic, wrestled control of the game away from their opponents and took the win.\n\nIt is a handy trick for a title-challenging side to have in their locker, although one they would rather not have to repeatedly pull.\n\nIn truth, they should have won more handsomely.\n\nThey had the far greater share of possession and territory and were well ahead of their opponents on shots taken until a frantic finale in which the Cottagers threw in all they had in pursuit of a point.\n\nFred felt he should have had a penalty in the first half courtesy of being caught in the box by a loose challenge from Ruben Loftus-Cheek, but both on-field and VAR officials disagreed.\n\nHarry Maguire twice headed wide from corners, the first from a far less forgivable, unmarked position than the second.\n\nEqually, though, it is a game that could have seen them drop points, especially in light of Fulham's late barrage, which saw David de Gea save superbly with his legs to deny Loftus-Cheek, and the ball pinballing around the United box on more than one occasion.\n\nThe Cottagers demonstrated that they are no pushover, but they are making of habit of being on the rough end of fine margins.\n\nFive straight draws followed by two defeats by a single goal suggests their battle against the drop will go right down to the wire.\n\n\"I'm really pleased but I'm disappointed at the same time, which shows how far we've come,\" said Cottagers boss Scott Parker.\n\n\"I saw a team today that looked threatening and tried their hardest to get back into the game, but we go again. The next challenge is to maintain where we are and don't let defeat sink us.\n\n\"No doubt we can win and operate in this division and we just need to push on and keep improving.\"\n\nUnited lead the way in early concessions\n• None No side has conceded more goals in the opening five minutes of Premier League games this season than Manchester United (4). Manchester United have won seven Premier League games having gone behind this season - only Newcastle in 2001-02 (10) and Man Utd themselves in 2012-13 (9) have done so more in a single campaign.\n• None Manchester United are unbeaten in their last 17 Premier League away games (W13 D4), equalling their longest ever unbeaten run on the road in top-flight history (17 between December 1998 and September 1999).\n• None This was the 41st different game in which Fulham had led in all competitions under Scott Parker, but the first time they had lost such a game (W34 D6).\n• None Edinson Cavani became the first Man Utd player whose first four Premier League goals for the club were all scored away from home.\n• None Since his return to the club in 2016, no Man Utd player has scored more league goals from outside the box than Paul Pogba (6).\n• None Ademola Lookman has been involved in more Premier League goals than any other Fulham player this season (6 - 3 goals, 3 assists).\n• None Bruno Fernandes has gone three Premier League games without a goal or assist for the first time since his Manchester United debut in February 2020.\n\nFulham's next game is in the FA Cup, against Burnley on Sunday (14:30 GMT). Their next league fixture, an away game on Wednesday, 27 January, is a big one. Opponents Brighton are two places and five points above them in the table.\n\nManchester United host Liverpool in the FA Cup on Sunday at 17:00, live on the BBC. They are also in league action the following Wednesday hosting the league's bottom club Sheffield United in a 20:15 kick-off.\n• None Attempt missed. Aleksandar Mitrovic (Fulham) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Kenny Tete with a cross following a corner.\n• None Attempt blocked. Ademola Lookman (Fulham) left footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Mario Lemina.\n• None Offside, Fulham. Aboubakar Kamara tries a through ball, but Kenny Tete is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Mario Lemina (Fulham) right footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by Aboubakar Kamara.\n• None Attempt blocked. Joe Bryan (Fulham) left footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt missed. Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Fulham) right footed shot from the centre of the box is high and wide to the right following a fast break.\n• None Attempt blocked. Fred (Manchester United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Harry Maguire with a headed pass. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None You can stream five fourth-round games live on the BBC this weekend, including Liverpool's trip to Manchester United. Find out more here.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThis is America's day. This is democracy's day. A day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve. Through a crucible for the ages, America has been tested anew and America has risen to the challenge. Today we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate but of a cause, a cause of democracy. The people - the will of the people - has been heard, and the will of the people has been heeded.\n\nWe've learned again that democracy is precious, democracy is fragile and, at this hour my friends, democracy has prevailed. So now on this hallowed ground where just a few days ago violence sought to shake the Capitol's very foundations, we come together as one nation under God - indivisible - to carry out the peaceful transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries.\n\nAs we look ahead in our uniquely American way, restless, bold, optimistic, and set our sights on a nation we know we can be and must be, I thank my predecessors of both parties for their presence here. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. And I know the resilience of our Constitution and the strength, the strength of our nation, as does President Carter, who I spoke with last night who cannot be with us today, but who we salute for his lifetime of service.\n\nI've just taken a sacred oath each of those patriots have taken. The oath first sworn by George Washington. But the American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us. On we the people who seek a more perfect union. This is a great nation, we are good people. And over the centuries through storm and strife in peace and in war we've come so far. But we still have far to go.\n\nWe'll press forward with speed and urgency for we have much to do in this winter of peril and significant possibility. Much to do, much to heal, much to restore, much to build and much to gain. Few people in our nation's history have been more challenged or found a time more challenging or difficult than the time we're in now. A once in a century virus that silently stalks the country has taken as many lives in one year as in all of World War Two.\n\nMillions of jobs have been lost. Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed. A cry for racial justice, some 400 years in the making, moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer. A cry for survival comes from the planet itself, a cry that can't be any more desperate or any more clear now. The rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism, that we must confront and we will defeat.\n\nTo overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy - unity. Unity. In another January on New Year's Day in 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. When he put pen to paper the president said, and I quote, 'if my name ever goes down in history, it'll be for this act, and my whole soul is in it'.\n\nMy whole soul is in it today, on this January day. My whole soul is in this. Bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause. Uniting to fight the foes we face - anger, resentment and hatred. Extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness, and hopelessness.\n\nWith unity we can do great things, important things. We can right wrongs, we can put people to work in good jobs, we can teach our children in safe schools. We can overcome the deadly virus, we can rebuild work, we can rebuild the middle class and make work secure, we can secure racial justice and we can make America once again the leading force for good in the world.\n\nI know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real. But I also know they are not new. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal, that we are all created equal, and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism and fear have torn us apart. The battle is perennial and victory is never secure.\n\nThrough civil war, the Great Depression, World War, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifice, and setback, our better angels have always prevailed. In each of our moments enough of us have come together to carry all of us forward and we can do that now. History, faith and reason show the way. The way of unity.\n\nWe can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbours. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury, no progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge. And unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America.\n\nIf we do that, I guarantee we will not failed. We have never, ever, ever, ever failed in America when we've acted together. And so today at this time in this place, let's start afresh, all of us. Let's begin to listen to one another again, hear one another, see one another. Show respect to one another. Politics doesn't have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn't have to be a cause for total war and we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.\n\nMy fellow Americans, we have to be different than this. We have to be better than this and I believe America is so much better than this. Just look around. Here we stand in the shadow of the Capitol dome. As mentioned earlier, completed in the shadow of the Civil War. When the union itself was literally hanging in the balance. We endure, we prevail. Here we stand, looking out on the great Mall, where Dr King spoke of his dream.\n\nHere we stand, where 108 years ago at another inaugural, thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote. And today we mark the swearing in of the first woman elected to national office, Vice President Kamala Harris. Don't tell me things can't change. Here we stand where heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion rest in eternal peace.\n\nAnd here we stand just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground. It did not happen, it will never happen, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Not ever. To all those who supported our campaign, I'm humbled by the faith you placed in us. To all those who did not support us, let me say this. Hear us out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart.\n\nIf you still disagree, so be it. That's democracy. That's America. The right to dissent peacefully. And the guardrail of our democracy is perhaps our nation's greatest strength. If you hear me clearly, disagreement must not lead to disunion. And I pledge this to you. I will be a President for all Americans, all Americans. And I promise you I will fight for those who did not support me as for those who did.\n\nMany centuries ago, St Augustine - the saint of my church - wrote that a people was a multitude defined by the common objects of their love. Defined by the common objects of their love. What are the common objects we as Americans love, that define us as Americans? I think we know. Opportunity, security, liberty, dignity, respect, honour, and yes, the truth.\n\nRecent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and a responsibility as citizens as Americans and especially as leaders. Leaders who are pledged to honour our Constitution to protect our nation. To defend the truth and defeat the lies.\n\nLook, I understand that many of my fellow Americans view the future with fear and trepidation. I understand they worry about their jobs. I understand like their dad they lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling thinking: 'Can I keep my healthcare? Can I pay my mortgage?' Thinking about their families, about what comes next. I promise you, I get it. But the answer's not to turn inward. To retreat into competing factions. Distrusting those who don't look like you, or worship the way you do, who don't get their news from the same source as you do.\n\nWe must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts, if we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we're willing to stand in the other person's shoes, as my mom would say. Just for a moment, stand in their shoes.\n\nBecause here's the thing about life. There's no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days you need a hand. There are other days when we're called to lend a hand. That's how it has to be, that's what we do for one another. And if we are that way our country will be stronger, more prosperous, more ready for the future. And we can still disagree.\n\nMy fellow Americans, in the work ahead of us we're going to need each other. We need all our strength to persevere through this dark winter. We're entering what may be the darkest and deadliest period of the virus. We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation, one nation. And I promise this, as the Bible says, 'Weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning'. We will get through this together. Together.\n\nLook folks, all my colleagues I serve with in the House and the Senate up here, we all understand the world is watching. Watching all of us today. So here's my message to those beyond our borders. America has been tested and we've come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances, and engage with the world once again. Not to meet yesterday's challenges but today's and tomorrow's challenges. And we'll lead not merely by the example of our power but the power of our example.\n\nFellow Americans, moms, dads, sons, daughters, friends, neighbours and co-workers. We will honour them by becoming the people and the nation we can and should be. So I ask you let's say a silent prayer for those who lost their lives, those left behind and for our country. Amen.\n\nFolks, it's a time of testing. We face an attack on our democracy, and on truth, a raging virus, a stinging inequity, systemic racism, a climate in crisis, America's role in the world. Any one of these would be enough to challenge us in profound ways. But the fact is we face them all at once, presenting this nation with one of the greatest responsibilities we've had. Now we're going to be tested. Are we going to step up?\n\nIt's time for boldness for there is so much to do. And this is certain, I promise you. We will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era. We will rise to the occasion. Will we master this rare and difficult hour? Will we meet our obligations and pass along a new and better world to our children? I believe we must and I'm sure you do as well. I believe we will, and when we do, we'll write the next great chapter in the history of the United States of America. The American story.\n\nA story that might sound like a song that means a lot to me, it's called American Anthem. And there's one verse that stands out at least for me and it goes like this:\n\n'The work and prayers of centuries have brought us to this day, which shall be our legacy, what will our children say?\n\nLet me know in my heart when my days are through, America, America, I gave my best to you.'\n\nLet us add our own work and prayers to the unfolding story of our great nation. If we do this, then when our days are through, our children and our children's children will say of us: 'They gave their best, they did their duty, they healed a broken land.'\n\nMy fellow Americans I close the day where I began, with a sacred oath. Before God and all of you, I give you my word. I will always level with you. I will defend the Constitution, I'll defend our democracy.\n\nI'll defend America and I will give all - all of you - keep everything I do in your service. Thinking not of power but of possibilities. Not of personal interest but of public good.\n\nAnd together we will write an American story of hope, not fear. Of unity not division, of light not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing, greatness and goodness. May this be the story that guides us. The story that inspires us. And the story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history, we met the moment. Democracy and hope, truth and justice, did not die on our watch but thrive.\n\nThat America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world. That is what we owe our forbearers, one another, and generations to follow.\n\nSo with purpose and resolve, we turn to those tasks of our time. Sustained by faith, driven by conviction and devoted to one another and the country we love with all our hearts. May God bless America and God protect our troops.", "Father Lee Taylor said people have \"really missed communal singing\"\n\nOnline \"Pimm's and Hymns\" singalong sessions at a north Wales church have attracted people from as far away as South Africa, Brazil and Canada.\n\nFather Lee Taylor, from St Collen's Church, Llangollen, set up the Facebook Live shows when his pews fell silent due to Covid restrictions.\n\nThe former bartender said: \"People started to share it and the online audience just exploded.\"\n\nIt adds \"a real light in the darkness\" of lockdown and a \"few drinks\".\n\nThe sessions, which have been running since last March, are a homage to the summer garden party known as 'Pimm's and Hymns' Mr Taylor, 43, hosts each year.\n\n\"I get phone calls, emails and letters from people all over the world, saying, 'You've lifted my spirits', and asking me to pray for their loved ones who are sick with the virus,\" he said.\n\n\"I started the sessions as I was trying to think of ways to bring comfort reassurance and cheer to people at home.\n\n\"While I can't hear people joining in, I feel them there with me in the room.\"\n\nFather Lee Taylor hosted annual 'Pimm's and Hymns' garden parties before Covid restrictions came in last March\n\nBelting out everything from Abide With Me to Pack Up Your Troubles, the vicar, who lives with his partner of 14 years, Fabiano Duarte, is known for pouring a glass of wine or a cocktail before performing for his Facebook congregation.\n\n\"I like to keep a libation on the piano,\" he said.\n\n\"When we started, people tuning in could see a glass of wine one week and a gin and tonic the next, so began to join in and have a drink with me.\n\n\"Soon, this became a discussion in the Facebook comments and people would send in photos of themselves with a tipple, singing along.\n\n\"I've got a bit carried away on the piano after a few drinks and played all the wrong notes a couple of times - which is always quite funny. It's joyful, really.\"\n\nHe said \"losing the churches and restricting the number at funerals\" was painful and people were \"missing communal singing\".\n\n\"[So] I got some elderly people set up on the internet and sent out instructions via email, so they could watch the live stream singalongs,\" he said.\n\n\"People were soon chatting through the comments and it felt like we were all connected.\n\n\"I wanted to raise spirits through music and it's been a real light in the darkness.\"", "Louise worries about her prospects for the next 12 months\n\nFreelance TV and film sound editor Louise Burton is one of those who are unable to benefit from government pandemic support schemes, despite being out of work.\n\nLouise, 28, of St Albans, in Hertfordshire, has not had a single penny of assistance since her last job ended eight months ago.\n\n\"With the last production that I was on, I was hired as a PAYE freelancer, which means that I essentially do exactly the same job as what I do as a freelancer, but I was paying tax at source,\" she told the BBC.\n\n\"What often happens with film is that production companies are made for the sole purpose of the film. So they create these companies and everything goes through the company - and then once the film is completed, they then shut the company.\"\n\nThat means Louise fell foul of tax rules relating to self-employed people. And she could not go on furlough, because the company that had employed her no longer existed.\n\n\"I always feel guilty saying that I am one of the people who is suffering, because actually, I still have a roof over my head and I can just about put food on my table, but it's not easy,\" she says, adding that she fears for her prospects in the next 12 months.\n\nAccording to MPs, whole groups of people like Louise are falling through the cracks of Covid-19 support schemes because of out-of-date tax systems.\n\nSome freelancers and self-employed people have been particularly excluded, despite lockdowns and restrictions meaning they cannot work, the Public Accounts Committee said.\n\nOthers, meanwhile, are able to abuse the system, it said.\n\nThe government said its \"top priority\" was helping those who are struggling.\n\nSince March, HM Revenue and Customs has provided more than £80bn in support to companies and individuals through government coronavirus support schemes, the committee said.\n\nThey are also supporting the incomes of many of the self-employed.\n\nBut despite this, a report from the MPs says \"quirks in the tax system\" have meant that groups of workers - including freelancers and self-employed people who recently moved onto company payrolls or work on a series of short-term employment contracts with gaps in between - have been ineligible for furlough payments.\n\n\"As public spending balloons to unprecedented levels in response to the pandemic, out-of-date tax systems are one of the barriers to getting help to a significant number of struggling taxpayers who should be entitled to support,\" said MP Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).\n\nBy contrast, she said some large companies that had used government support schemes had continued to pay dividends to shareholders and high salaries to executives.\n\nShe added that HMRC was in many cases failing \"to capture or deal with those wrongly claiming\" support.\n\nThe tax agency should explain to freelancers and other groups why they have been excluded from receiving support and set out steps to fix the problem within six weeks, the MPs said.\n\nThe PAC also said that a lack of certainty about government coronavirus support schemes had made it difficult for businesses to plan effectively.\n\nFor example, HMRC could not provide clarity on whether the Job Retention Bonus scheme had been delayed or scrapped, the committee said.\n\nThe scheme was meant to pay employers an incentive for every worker they brought back from furlough and kept in employment until January.\n\n\"Such lack of clarity may lead to unnecessary hardships for some businesses, who in good faith were relying on the payments from the scheme to meet some of their needs,\" the MPs said.\n\nA government spokesperson said it had done \"all it can to help as many people as possible\".\n\n\"HMRC delivered Covid-19 support schemes at unprecedented speed, protecting the livelihoods of millions of people.\n\n\"We do not underestimate the challenges faced by individuals and businesses during the pandemic, and our top priority is getting financial support to those struggling... while protecting the taxpayer against fraud.\n\n\"Those not eligible for support through these schemes can still benefit from the strengthened welfare safety net, accessing help like universal credit.\"\n• None What extra help will the self-employed get?", "19 January is a special day for Orthodox Christians across Russia, including President Vladimir Putin. It's a day reserved for commemorating the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, and it's called Epiphany. Though temperatures are as low as -20 Celsius, some celebrated this by submerging themselves in ice-cold water.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Dame Louise Casey: \"The country has been torn to shreds by the pandemic\"\n\nThe government has been urged by its former homelessness adviser to extend benefit increases worth £20 a week beyond the end of March.\n\nDame Louise Casey said ending the universal credit top-up, introduced during the Covid pandemic, would be \"too punitive a policy right now\".\n\nShe said people would view the Tories as the \"nasty party\" if they did so.\n\nThe government said it was committed to supporting the lowest-paid families through the pandemic and beyond.\n\nA government spokesperson said: \"No decisions have yet been made on a range of Covid support measures that run through until the end of March and April, and it is right to wait until we know more about where we are in the vaccination process before making any decisions.\"\n\nLabour and anti-poverty campaigners are pressing for the increase, worth £1,000 a year, to remain in place beyond its scheduled end date of 31 March.\n\nOn Monday they were joined by six Conservative MPs, who defied party orders to abstain and backed a symbolic motion calling for an extension.\n\nIn an interview with BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, Dame Louise said the £20-a-week increase had proved a \"lifeline\" to poorer families.\n\n\"The Treasury need to step back and not feel this constant responsibility to close the books all the time, and fight and fight and fight,\" she said.\n\nOn the idea the top-up could end in March, she added: \"It's not the right thing to do.\"\n\nReferencing a phrase coined by Theresa May in 2002 about how the Conservatives were sometimes perceived, she added they would \"go back to being the nasty party\" if they did so.\n\nDame Louise added that the country had been \"torn to shreds\" by the pandemic, with an impact \"far deeper and greater than anything I've ever seen in my lifetime\".\n\n\"I think we will have to have a big plan to deal with the wounds inflicted by this pandemic once everybody's vaccinated,\" she added.\n\n\"And I think the government needs to turn its attention to that now, and not leave it until the summer.\"\n\nDame Louise, who was made a crossbench peer by the prime minister in July, also urged ministers to think about long-term reforms to the welfare system.\n\n\"Everybody is focused on the NHS and vaccinations, that I think everything else we see is incredibly reactive,\" she said.\n\nShe called on the government to take inspiration from the World War Two-era Beveridge report, which laid the foundations for the UK's welfare state, and draw up a long-term strategy for recovery after the pandemic.\n\n\"We're all in this storm, everybody's experienced it, just some people are in decent boats and some people are in rafts that are sinking.\n\n\"And that gives the prime minister the moment to say 'I am going to step into the shoes of a Beveridge moment'.\n\n\"If there's any reason for government to decide to actually rebuild Britain, so the divide between the rich and the poor isn't as big as it is... it's this pandemic\".\n\nUniversal credit can be claimed by both people who are in and out of work\n\nUniversal credit is a working-age benefit claimed by around 6m people, replacing six benefits and merging them into a single payment.\n\nPoverty campaign charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says 500,000 more people will be driven into poverty if the temporary £20 top-up is rolled back.\n\nHowever the Institute for Economic Affairs think tank has argued that \"across-the-board benefit increases are a wasteful use of taxpayers' money\".\n\nThe top-up, estimated to cost around £6bn a year, was brought in at the start of the pandemic as a temporary response due to lockdown.\n\nA government spokesperson said that support was being targeted by raising the living wage, spending on the furlough scheme, boosting welfare spending and introducing the £170m Covid Winter Grant Scheme.", "There is a photograph of Kamala Harris, taken in 1986, while she was a student at Howard University.\n\nShe and two other friends, all shoulder pads and plaid, are smiling and laughing, a crowd behind them. It's a picture brimming with energy and hope.\n\nIt's been used a lot in telling the extraordinary story of her rise to become the first black and Asian American woman to be vice-president and the first person who attended one of America's HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) to get to such a position.\n\nBut this is the story of the other women in the photograph, her two best friends - Valarie Pippen and Karen Gibbs - as well as of others who might have been milling about in the background there.\n\nThis was the 1980s, when the children of America's civil rights generation came of age. Being at Howard University, an HBCU at a time when solidarity with the global anti-apartheid movement was reaching fever pitch and at the height of Reaganism, was a formative experience for many of them.\n\nNow they are about to witness one of their own become vice-president. What have their journeys been like and what does this moment feel like?\n\nHistorically Black Colleges, like Howard University, were founded in order to educate African Americans who were otherwise prohibited from attending college, after slavery.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAlthough that has now changed, a core part of the Howard message remains its focus on cultivating black leaders - it is not just about academic achievement, but social activism too.\n\nKamala Harris has made clear the influence Howard University had on her career and life goals. Last week, on the anniversary of her sorority's founding date, she posted on Instagram, paying homage to her Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, and referring to her days at Howard, attending anti-apartheid marches and being part of the debate team: \"Howard taught me that while you will often find that you're the only one in the room who looks like you, or who has had the experiences you've had, you must remember: you are never alone.\"\n\nLike Ms Harris, I also went to Howard University and became a member of that same sorority decades later.\n\nI became intrigued by the stories of the other women and graduates who ventured out into the same world during the same time as Kamala.\n\nIn that photograph, Valarie Pippen is on the right and smiling with confidence at the camera.\n\nHer parents attended historically black colleges after moving north with the great migration, which was the movement over decades of millions of African Americans to the North from the South, where economic uncertainty and segregation prevailed. They settled in the Chicago region and forged successful careers.\n\nShe was led to Howard, specifically, after her older brother attended and brought home a yearbook that intrigued her.\n\nHoward had a festive celebratory atmosphere that the friends made the most of while they were there\n\n\"The culture was festive and lively yet focused on academic and cultural advancement of oppressed people,\" says Ms Pippen. \"We knew that our generation would make a difference with our success.\"\n\nMs Pippen says that at Howard University \"we all had more of a striving to do well, a striving to live with integrity and to make your mark on the world\".\n\nComing from a high-achieving and proud black family with high expectations of their children, she was brought up knowing that her college experience was going to be important.\n\nShe is now a healthcare consultant, and after graduating from Howard she attended medical school at Yale.\n\nShe recalls the commitment to academic excellence, the need to prove your worth out there in the world and how that also translated into many nights studying with her good friend Kamala.\n\n\"There was one year at Howard, we both stayed for summer school. We worked during the day, did night classes and we studied together afterwards. We did that for the whole summer and we had fun.\n\n\"She was born for the job. Her dedication - like mine - was to academics, being an all around good person and to integrity.\"\n\nIn the 1990s, 52% of black pharmacy recipients, 30% of dentistry degree recipients, and 27% of theology degree recipients were all educated at HBCUs.\n\nToday, the two oldest HBCU medical schools - Meharry Medical College and Howard University - are responsible for more than 80% of black doctors and dentists practising in the US.\n\nHBCUs have educated three-quarters of all black people holding a doctorate; three-quarters of all black officers in the armed forces; and four-fifths of all black federal judges, according to the US Department of Education.\n\nThe culture they fostered was hugely important for many ambitious and successful middle- and upper-class class black families going out into a world to become leaders in their field, within one generation of getting the right to vote.\n\nKaren Gibbs, pictured on the left in that photo, remains best friends with the vice-president elect and Valarie Pippen.\n\nShe is now an attorney and speaks of her time at Howard in the same way Kamala Harris has in the past.\n\nThere was \"a lot of black pride and a lot of black love\" in the Howard community, says Ms Gibbs.\n\n\"We had black professors who loved us. That was the beauty of going to Howard. They nurtured us, they groomed us. They were realistic to tell us what we would confront when we left Howard - but they equipped us to realise and achieve our dreams.\"\n\nThat environment was especially important as an escape from the realities of society.\n\n\"I was raised in a rural area in Delaware, and the people there were really racist. I had been called bad names by a lot of people, despite having a black family and smaller community filled with educators and proud of their roots,\" says Ms Gibbs.\n\nThat is one of the reasons that she wanted to attend Howard University, to become a civil rights lawyer. She made the move so that she could be surrounded by \"love\" and \"support\".\n\n\"It was never a matter if I would go to an HBCU,\" it was just a matter of which she would go to.\n\nMs Gibbs and Ms Pippen's experience at Howard University strikes a chord with others who were also there in the 1980s.\n\nThey speak of the open fostering of social awareness and political activism in movements happening off campus.\n\nBeing in the nation's capital, Howard in particular had a front-row seat to some memorable episodes in politics.\n\nThe debate team in 1981 at Howard University. Kamala Harris was one of the few women to join the club.\n\nDexter Cole, a Howard alumnus and now top executive at TV One, told the BBC that \"our parents actively participated in the civil rights movements and were at the forefront, and we came to Howard with a sense of commitment to not only improve the lives of ourselves, but others as well\".\n\nAcross the nation, HBCUs were training a generation who would have a large impact on the world, and the progression of the broader African-American community.\n\n\"We understood that we were agents of change.\"\n\nMr Cole explained that \"social unrest was very prevalent, but as a student body we knew that we had a seat at the table because of those we saw who went before us\".\n\n\"I remember marching on Capitol Hill on the National Mall. There was a group of students going to protest to make Martin Luther King Jr's birthday a national holiday, and now I look there is a memorial just where I marched.\n\n\"We knew what our rights were and we were determined to invoke our right. That's why there were so many of us active in the anti-apartheid movement - we saw it play out in the US,\" says Ms Gibbs.\n\n\"It was a time when a lot of people from the era transcended into important places in different parts of society,\" says Lita Rosario-Richardson.\n\nMs Rosario-Richardson is currently an entertainment lawyer. On campus, she recruited Ms Harris on to the debate team.\n\n\"The election of Kamala Harris has really made crystal clear that Howard prepares you for anything,\" she adds.\n\nAlthough it is no surprise to those who knew Kamala Harris that she is now the vice-president of the United States, it feels like a vindication for their own personal journeys and the philosophy they took forward with them into the wider world.\n\n\"It was instilled that with your education comes a responsibility to improve the world - specifically our own people. And, we see that that has benefited everyone in America.\n\n\"Kamala is a child of desegregation, like myself. Her nomination seemed historically fit, and she's the right person for it,\" Ms Rosario-Richardson adds.\n\nDexter Cole is now a top executive at TV One\n\n\"Alumni like Thurgood Marshall - the first black Supreme Court Justice - who attended Howard laid the framework.\"\n\nEven during their time as students, these alumni felt that they were connected to greatness and expected to make big strides in the world.\n\nIt was not a feeling confined to Kamala Harris. The stories of these women show many have become movers and shakers in their own fields.\n\n\"All this has come full circle,\" says Andrea Holmes, a graduate who is now a marketing executive.\n\n\"The vice-presidency is where she belongs. She is the role model of the world and to all women and little girls.\"\n\nThe original photograph of Kamala, Valarie and Karen was taken in 1986 at Howard University's famous Homecoming.\n\nAt most schools in the US, homecoming is an annual tradition marked by an American football game and partying. At Howard University, homecoming is marked by a football game as well as a week of events where all generations come back to meet and celebrate. Notable graduates as well as celebrities and artists come to perform, join discussions, and be part of the week.\n\nAs a graduate, I know Homecoming remains a highly anticipated annual event, an experience like no other. That picture captures the energy, friendship and ambition of a group of women, at Howard in an electric era, who felt capable of anything.\n\nValarie Pippen remembers the moment: \"The weekend was truly exhilarating, and you can see from the looks and smiles on our faces we were having the time of our lives.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMore than 2,000 homes in parts of Manchester are being evacuated due to flooding caused by Storm Christoph.\n\nThe Environment Agency (EA) has issued two severe flood warnings, which means danger to life, for the Didsbury and Northenden areas.\n\nAssistant Chief Constable Nick Bailey of Greater Manchester Police has warned some of those affected would \"be Covid-positive or isolating at home\".\n\nHe said the government was working to ensure it was \"totally prepared\" for floods \"in every part of the UK\".\n\nA major incident was earlier declared for the Greater Manchester area where up to 3,000 properties were feared to be at risk.\n\nMr Johnson urged people not to stay in their homes if they were told to evacuate.\n\n\"If you are told to leave your home then you should do so.\n\n\"People may think this is a minor issue at the moment, still relevantly minor by standards of previous floods, but never underestimate the suffering, the misery, that floods can cause people.\"\n\nUnder government restrictions due to the current national lockdown people are allowed to leave their homes to escape harm.\n\nIn an alert to those affected, ACC Bailey said: \"A basin at Didsbury to take water from the Mersey is full. It will over-top in the next few hours. As a result we will be issuing a flood warning to homes.\n\n\"This will be through texted flood alerts to some people, and police officers, PCSOs, firefighters, and volunteers will be knocking on doors.\"\n\nHe said police will be supported by North West Ambulance, the British Red Cross and St John Ambulance.\n\n\"I think it's important to stress that if you are contacted and advised to evacuate then we would strongly urge you to do so,\" he added.\n\nWater levels in the area were expected to peak at about 23:00 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nA major incident has also been declared in Derbyshire, where authorities believe a small number of evacuations are \"likely\" on Thursday morning, when the River Derwent is expected to peak.\n\nCounty council leader Barry Lewis said it could rival levels seen in November 2019, depending on the weather overnight.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The PM says the government is making sure it is “totally prepared in every part of the UK” for flooding after Storm Christoph.\n\nSpeaking after a Cobra emergency meeting on Wednesday, Mr Johnson said work was under way to ensure transport and energy networks, and local council services, were prepared.\n\nHe added that work was also taking place to ensure the necessary numbers of sandbags were available.\n\n\"We want to make sure that we are totally prepared in every part of the UK for flooding, because it is coming on top of the stress people are already under fighting Covid,\" he said.\n\n\"We looked at particularly Manchester, we've got a situation potentially developing there,\" Mr Johnson said.\n\n\"We are looking at a pattern of rainfall possibly not as bad at the end of this week, maybe worse next week.\"\n\nPeople in Greater Manchester have also been advised not to travel.\n\nStephen Rhodes, from Transport from Greater Manchester, said there was disruption across the network.\n\n\"Let's work together and not put our emergency services and the NHS - who are already working extremely hard due to the Covid-19 pandemic - under any more pressure,\" he said.\n\nIn Merseyside, the M57 has been closed in both directions between junction 6 and 7 due to flooding.\n\nThe Environment Agency has issued more than 100 flood warnings, meaning flooding is expected and immediate action required, while there are also more than 200 flood alerts, meaning flooding is possible.\n\nRiver levels have risen rapidly in parts of northern England\n\nThe North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands have been preparing for widespread flooding following the Met Office's amber weather warning for heavy rain until midday Thursday.\n\nThe Met Office said some isolated areas could see up to 200mm (7.8in).\n\nSandbags have been distributed as Storm Christoph batters parts of England\n\n\"Once again the government's response to inevitable flood events has been slow and uncoordinated,\" the Barnsley East MP said.\n\n\"We must ensure councils are supported to protect people, businesses, and local communities, and that all of the necessary precautions are also in place to protect those fighting the floods in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The Gender Identity Service is based at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust\n\nThe NHS's child gender-identity service has been rated \"inadequate\" after inspectors identified \"significant concerns\".\n\nThe Care Quality Commission inspected the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in October.\n\nMore than 4,600 young people were on the waiting list and some had waited over two years for a first appointment.\n\nThe trust said it took the CQC report \"very seriously\".\n\nEngland and Wales' only children's gender-identity service was inspected after healthcare professionals and the children's commissioner for England raised concerns around \"clinical practice, safeguarding procedures, and assessments of capacity and consent to treatment\".\n\nThe children's commissioner had been provided evidence of staff concerns by BBC Newsnight.\n\nThe CQC's previous inspection, in 2016, had resulted in an overall \"good\" rating.\n\nBut in the latest inspection at clinics run by the trust in north London and Leeds, Gids was rated:\n\nOverall, the service is now rated as \"inadequate\".\n\nAnd the CQC has begun enforcement action, demanding monthly updates of the numbers on the waiting list and actions to reduce them.\n\nThe inspectors found Gids \"difficult to access\" and raised concerns over managing the risk to those on the waiting list, saying many of those waiting for or receiving a service were \"vulnerable and at risk of self-harm\".\n\n\"The size of the waiting list meant that staff were unable to proactively manage the risks to patients waiting for a first appointment,\" they added.\n\nRecord-keeping at Gids was also criticised, with the CQC noting that \"staff had not consistently recorded the competency, capacity and consent of patients referred for medical treatment before January 2020\".\n\nThis had changed since, but the CQC noted that in an audit of 10 records of young people referred for hormone blockers in March 2020, \"only three contained a completed consent form and checklist for referral\".\n\nA rating of inadequate is the lowest a healthcare provider can receive from the Care Quality Commission. It means that a service is \"performing badly\".\n\nGids had been rated good at its last inspection in 2016, but since then a number of concerns have been raised about the service.\n\nThe number of young people referred to Gids has increased significantly in recent years - leading to some of the delays in care highlighted by the inspection.\n\nBBC Newsnight has explored the standard of healthcare received by young people questioning their gender identity for the last 18 months.\n\nIn that time, NHS England has changed its guidance on the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria, saying little is known about the long-term side effects, and an independent review of this area of health is under way.\n\nLast June we revealed how some Gids staff had raised serious concerns about safeguarding at the service, the speed of assessments, and whether patients' traumatic backgrounds and other difficulties were always adequately explored.\n\nThe comments were made as part of an official internal review into Gids, which also described how staff felt they had been \"shut down\". We also discovered that some of these concerns dated back to 2005.\n\nFurthermore, it was not possible to clearly understand why clinical decisions had been made.\n\nAfter reviewing 35 care records, the CQC found there was \"no clearly defined assessment process\" and \"many records did not demonstrate good practice\".\n\nThe records also appeared to be \"insufficient\" in considering the needs of young people with autism spectrum disorders.\n\nIn a sample of 22 records, the CQC found more than half mentioned autistic spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but \"records did not demonstrate consideration of the relationship between autistic spectrum disorder and gender dysphoria\".\n\nSignificant variation in the clinical approach of different staff members was also noted. Assessments of young people ranged from \"two or three sessions\" in some cases to over 25, or even more than 50.\n\nCQC deputy chief inspector of hospitals Kevin Cleary said his team continued to monitor the trust \"extremely closely\" and inspected the service again because \"we were extremely clear that there were improvements needed in providing person-centred care, capacity and consent, safe care and treatment, and governance\".\n\n\"In addition, vulnerable young people were not having their needs met as they were waiting too long for treatment.\"\n\nThe leadership at the trust knew \"exactly what improvements are needed\", he added.\n\nThe trust said: \"We take the CQC's report very seriously and would like to say sorry to patients for the length of time they are waiting to be seen, which was a critical factor in arriving at this rating.\"\n\nAccepting there was a \"need for improvements in our assessments, systems and processes\", the trust said it agreed with the CQC that the \"growth in referrals has exceeded the capacity of the service\".\n\nIt added improvements were being made, saying: \"We are already finalising plans to bring in senior clinical and operational expertise from outside the service to help us implement the necessary changes and consider how we can improve on current processes and practice - including how we standardise our assessment process.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned there will be \"tough weeks to come\" as the UK reported another all-time high of daily coronavirus deaths.\n\nA further 1,820 people have died within 28 days of a positive Covid test, according to government figures.\n\nIt means the total number of deaths by that measure is now 93,290.\n\nMr Johnson said there was now a \"race against time\" to vaccinate the vulnerable but he hoped there would be a \"real difference\" by spring.\n\nIn an interview with broadcasters, he said the high number of deaths was \"appalling\" and a reflection of the peak infection rates seen a couple of weeks ago.\n\nHe said: \"I must warn people there will be tough weeks to come, but as the vaccine goes in and that programme accelerates, there will be, I think, a real difference by spring.\"\n\nJust under half of the newly reported deaths occurred on Tuesday, while a further quarter took place on Monday or Sunday with the remainder last week or even earlier.\n\nThe previous highest number of daily deaths was the 1,610 reported on Tuesday.\n\nSome 4,609,740 people have now received the first dose of a vaccine - a rise of 343,163 from yesterday.\n\nThere were also a further 38,905 cases, with 3,887 more patients admitted into hospital.\n\nIt is the second consecutive day deaths have hit a new high.\n\nThat, sadly, was to be expected as it is a reflection of the surge in cases seen during December.\n\nIt takes a week or two from the point of infection for someone to become seriously ill - and they can then spend some time in hospital. The high number is also a result of delays reporting deaths - a quarter happened last week or even before.\n\nBut make no mistake the death toll is going up. If you look at the average over the course of a week, the numbers being reported at the moment are twice what they were just two weeks ago.\n\nHowever, we also know they should soon start coming down. Daily infections are falling, with signs lockdown is taking effect. For four days in a row new diagnoses have been below 40,000 - after averaging 60,000 at the start of year.\n\nIt could be another week or so before we start to see the impact of that in the death figures. The hope then would be that within a few weeks we could start seeing a more rapid fall as the impact of the vaccination programme begins to bite.\n\nBut before that happens the daily totals reported could, sadly, go even higher.\n\nNew coronavirus cases are down by 21.5% over the last seven days. But the number of patients being admitted into hospital in the same period has not yet fallen (up by 0.5%).\n\nThe prime minister said it looked as though infection rates across the country overall might now be peaking or flattening, but he cautioned that \"they're not flattening very fast\".\n\nAsked if daily deaths would continue to rise, he said it was \"difficult to predict\".\n\nHe added: \"We must hope that by getting the numbers of daily infections down in the way that perhaps has been happening since the lockdown that will feed through into a reduction in deaths as well.\n\n\"But I must stress that we have tough weeks to come now as we roll out the vaccine.\n\n\"The light will only really begin to dawn as we get those vaccination numbers up.\"\n\nEarlier, the government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, told Sky News: \"This is very, very bad at the moment, with enormous pressure, and in some cases it looks like a war zone in terms of the things that people are having to deal with.\"\n\nHe said there was \"light at the end of the tunnel\" in the form of the vaccination programme.\n\nBut he said vaccines were \"not going to do the heavy lifting for us at the moment, anywhere near it\".\n\nMilitary personnel are going to be deployed to a number of hospitals to help staff cope with high numbers of cases, including in Northern Ireland and Exeter.\n\nAnd this week 10 hospital trusts across England consistently reported having no spare adult critical care beds.\n\nIn other developments, Home Secretary Priti Patel said ministers were working to ensure police and other frontline workers were moved up the priority list for the Covid vaccine.\n\nMr Johnson said the government must rely on advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, but wanted front-line workers to be immunised \"as soon as possible\".\n\nHe also said the vaccination programme remained \"on track\" despite \"constraints on supply\".", "Theresa May has accused her successor Boris Johnson of \"abandoning\" the UK's moral leadership on the world stage.\n\nThe ex-prime minister said Mr Johnson's decision to cut the overseas aid budget below 0.7% of national income had reduced the UK's global \"credibility\".\n\nShe wrote in the Daily Mail the UK had to \"live up to its values\" and would be judged by its actions not its rhetoric.\n\nMr Johnson said the UK was \"embarking on a quite phenomenal year\" of global leadership.\n\nQuestioned about Mrs May's comments by the SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said: \"I think it's very important the prime minister of the UK has the best possible relationship with the president of the United States.\n\n\"That's part of the job description.\"\n\nHe cited the UK's hosting of a global vaccine summit, the upcoming COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, as well as the G7 summit of leading industrial nations, in Cornwall, and his pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 as examples of the UK's global leadership.\n\nMr Blackford called on the PM to reverse \"his cruel policy of cutting international aid for the world's poorest\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The SNP Westminster leader called in the PM to reverse his \"cruel\" international aid policy\n\nLater on Wednesday, Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States, succeeding Donald Trump.\n\nIn advance of the event, Mr Johnson said he looked forward to working \"hand-in-hand\" with the new administration and that post-Covid challenges could only be tackled by \"international co-operation\".\n\nBut, in an article in the Daily Mail, Mrs May suggested Mr Johnson had squandered international goodwill by choosing not to meet the longstanding UN target of spending 0.7% of income on international development.\n\nThe government says it cannot meet the figure - enshrined in UK law - this year because of the strain placed on the public finances by the pandemic.\n\nTheresa May has made these criticisms - on overseas aid and the threat by the government to override international law - before.\n\nQuite often she gets a dig in when she stands up in the House of Commons.\n\nBut packaging it all up in this way, on this day, is, in the words of one of her close former advisers, \"quite punchy\".\n\nThe government would rather focus on the relationship it is going to forge with the new US president.\n\nMinisters feel they have quite a lot in common with Joe Biden when it comes to working together on the world stage, fighting climate change and co-operating on global security.\n\nMrs May also criticised Mr Johnson's support for legislation which could have allowed the UK to go back on parts of its Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, had it been passed.\n\nControversial clauses were ultimately removed from the Internal Market Bill in December, after the UK and EU reached an agreement.\n\nBut Mr Johnson's threat to break international law was criticised in Europe and the US - where Mr Biden warned it could imperil peace in Northern Ireland.\n\nMrs May said the UK was \"well placed to play a decisive role in shaping this more co-operative world but to lead we must live up to our values\".\n\n\"Other countries listen to what we say not simply because of who we are, but because of what we do. The world does not owe us a prominent place on its stage,\" she added.\n\n\"Whatever the rhetoric we deploy, it is our actions which count. So, we should do nothing which signals a retreat from our global commitments.\"\n\nMrs May suggested the end of the Trump presidency could be a catalyst for a change in world politics\n\nMrs May, who had a sometimes strained relationship with Mr Trump, said Mr Biden's election presented the UK with a \"golden opportunity\" for Western democracies to reverse the trend towards \"absolutism\" - and a \"few strongmen facing off against each other\" - in global affairs.\n\nThe UK holds the presidency of the G7 this year and hosts the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.\n\nMr Johnson said he looked forward to welcoming Mr Biden to the UK at least twice in 2021.\n\n\"In our fight against Covid and across climate change, defence, security, and in promoting and defending democracy, our goals are the same and our nations will work hand-in-hand to achieve them,\" he added.", "(From left to right) Janet Yellen, Lloyd Austin, Deb Haaland\n\nPresident Joe Biden's first cabinet is being described as the most diverse ever. The latest historic first is an openly gay cabinet secretary.\n\nWhen George Washington convened the first cabinet meeting two centuries ago - though he didn't call it by that name - he enshrined the idea of promoting diverse perspectives at the heart of US government. Of course, back in 1791, all the voices in the room were white and male.\n\nYou won't find the cabinet mentioned in the lines of the Constitution, but the first president saw the value of advisers who could guide him on major issues while bringing different viewpoints to the table.\n\nIn 2021, America has seen its first openly gay cabinet secretary in Pete Buttigieg - the latest Biden confirmation - as well as its first female treasury secretary, first black Pentagon chief and more.\n\nMr Biden has been under pressure from all sides to deliver on his promises of a cabinet that truly reflects the country rather than a line-up of familiar political faces.\n\nThe graphic above shows all of Mr Biden's nominees - those with black and white photos are white men, while those with colour photographs are in one or more of these categories: women; people belonging to ethnic minorities; member of the LGBT community.\n\n\"This cabinet will be more representative of the American people than any other cabinet in history,\" Mr Biden told reporters in December.\n\nIf approved by the Senate, it will include Congresswoman Deb Haaland as the first Native American cabinet secretary in US history and Miguel Cardona, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, as his education chief.\n\nMr Biden's first cabinet is even more diverse than that put together by Barack Obama, who came close to truly reflecting the country but fell short with seven women to 16 men, and just one black secretary.\n\nBut not everyone has been pleased with his choices. When Mr Biden chose General Lloyd Austin to lead the Pentagon - the first black man to do so - other activists were upset that the position was yet again denied to a woman. And Mr Biden picked two white men to head the state and agriculture agencies - Anthony Blinken and Tom Vilsack - when progressive groups would rather have seen him nominate black women to the roles.\n\nProgressive liberals have also criticised Mr Biden's selections as too safe, too moderate, too establishment and too old. For many of the supporters who delivered Mr Biden the presidency, he's not there just yet.\n\nSince 1933, only 11 presidents have named women to cabinet-level positions. No cabinets have ever matched the gender or racial balance of the country.\n\nThe cabinet size can vary depending on administration, but they're roughly composed of around 15 executives. In the last 30 years, the trend has been towards greater representation - or at least it was, until the Trump administration.\n\nOn the day of President Bill Clinton's inauguration, the Washington Post wrote that the new Democratic leader had assembled \"the most diverse Cabinet in history: five women, four blacks and two Latinos\".\n\nMr Clinton's small business administrator Aida Alvarez was the first-ever Latina appointed to a cabinet-level position.\n\nPresident George W Bush's first cabinet was lauded by the New York Times as \"a governing team every bit as ethnically and racially diverse as President Clinton's\".\n\nMr Bush chose Colin Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants, to become the country's first black secretary of state. He also tapped Norman Mineta - a Democrat who became the first Asian American to hold a cabinet-level spot under Mr Clinton - to head his transportation department.\n\nLater on, the Bush administration made history again with the appointment of Condoleezza Rice: the first black woman to serve as secretary of state and then as national security adviser. Mr Bush also placed the first Pacific Islander and Asian American woman, Elaine Chao, in a cabinet role as labour secretary.\n\nPresident Barack Obama's history-making first cabinet was dubbed a \"majority-minority\". Mr Obama's inner circle had seven women, nine minorities and just eight white men.\n\nUnder Mr Obama, Susan Rice became the first black woman to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations, and Eric Holder became the first black US attorney general.\n\nIn a throwback to the Reagan era, President Donald Trump's inner circle was notably white, affluent and male - though he had more women in his White House than previous Republicans.\n\nAnd Mr Trump did appoint women to other roles in the administration. He named the first Indian-American, Nikki Haley, as UN ambassador.\n\nBut why has it taken this long for women and minorities to make it into the room where decisions happen?\n\n\"When we think about how you get to these roles, one way is to come through elected office,\" says Professor Kelly Dittmar of the Rutgers University Center for American Women and Politics.\n\n\"So if you have a dearth of women and women of colour in elective office, and that's where presidents are looking, in part, to identify cabinet officials, then you already start with an uneven pool.\"\n\nWe saw the first woman in US Congress in 1916, she explains, but it took nearly two more decades before President Franklin Roosevelt appointed the first woman to a cabinet role (that was Labor Secretary Frances Perkins).\n\nThe story for black and other ethnic minority Americans has taken even longer. The first black man took a seat in Congress in 1870, but we didn't see a black man in the cabinet until President Lyndon Johnson appointed Robert Weaver in 1966. It took until 1968 for the first black woman to be elected to Congress. The first black woman in the cabinet followed in 1977 (Patricia Roberts Harris, Housing Secretary).\n\nThe US has no formal rules requiring equal representation for these groups in government, either.\n\nCountries with quotas in government or at the political party level have made strides towards equality at leadership levels. For example, Rwanda in 2018 saw 61% women in its lower chamber.\n\nIn three key posts, the Defence, Treasury, and Veteran's Affairs departments, there has never been a woman in the job - until now.\n\nOn 25 January, Janet Yellen was confirmed as Treasury Secretary, breaking that particular glass ceiling.\n\nOld time stereotypes have given way in this sector. Surveys show people nowadays are more likely to rate the genders equal when it comes to handling the economy.\n\nProf Dittmar says there are more persistent stereotypes about men versus women's expertise when it comes to defence and national security matters, and public opinion polls have shown this divide. Women weren't allowed in the military until 1948.\n\n\"Even though we have certainly seen greater diversification, these fields are among the most male dominant, especially at the highest levels,\" says Prof Dittmar. \"There's all sorts of biases going on within those structures to prevent women's advancement, I'm sure. That helps explain why those gaps have been there at least historically.\"\n\nOhio State University political science and gender studies Professor Wendy Smooth says these appointments are a way of signalling broader initiatives and values - inextricably tied to policy, but also indicators of identity.\n\n\"One of the early ways that a presidential administration expresses that willingness to be accountable is through cabinet picks,\" Prof Smooth says.\n\n\"These are the first acts that demonstrate the will of the administration, the spirit of the administration, the values of the administration. It's an identity moment. It's going to be the who we are as the Biden administration and who we are interested in connecting with in the American public.\"\n\nIt may be difficult to directly measure the importance of symbolism, but turning preconceived notions of leadership upside down can have very tangible implications.\n\n\"If you see a woman as secretary of defence for the first time, does that start to disrupt expectations that men are better and more expert in areas of defence? Yes, inevitably it does,\" Prof Dittmar says.\n\nShe says the same is true for Vice-President Kamala Harris and her history-making appointment.\n\n\"I hope that after her tenure as vice-president, the next time we have women running for president that these questions about electability or qualifications or capability will be at least fewer than they were.\"\n\nAnd research from an increasingly diverse Congress has shown that women bring priorities and issues to the table that may otherwise have been ignored. \"And that, ultimately, is better for making policy that better speaks to the experiences of the population that they serve,\" Prof Dittmar explains.\n\n\"Unless you can tell me that living your life as a woman or as a black woman or as a South Asian woman in the United States is the same as living your life as a white man, then I don't at all understand why we wouldn't expect that to make a difference in the lens through which they see policy.\"", "Joy Morgan was a second year midwifery student at the University of Hertfordshire\n\nA student murdered by a fellow church member may have been given drugs without her knowing, an inquest heard.\n\nThe body of Joy Morgan, 20, was found in Hertfordshire woodland in October 2019, two months after Shohfah-El Israel was convicted of her murder.\n\nTraces of MDMA were found in her body and the inquest was told there was no evidence that Ms Morgan would have taken the drug herself voluntarily.\n\nIsrael, of Fordwych Road, north-west London, was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum term of 17 years for Ms Morgan's murder in August 2019, despite the fact her body had not been found.\n\nDuring sentencing, Judge Michael Soole said Israel's \"cruel and cowardly\" refusal to reveal her whereabouts caused \"continuing distress and suffering\" to her family.\n\nShohfah-El Israel was convicted by a jury at Reading Crown Court\n\nTwo months later, the remains of Ms Morgan were found in woodland off Chadwell Road, Norton Green, near Stevenage.\n\nPart of the police evidence showed the killer had been in the area of the woods shortly after Ms Morgan's disappearance in December 2018.\n\nShe was reported missing on 7 February 2019 after failing to return to her studies.\n\nBoth Israel and Ms Morgan, who was in her second year at the University of Hertfordshire studying midwifery, were worshippers at the Israel United in Christ Church in Ilford.\n\nAn inquest at Hatfield Coroner's Court heard her body was found badly decomposed, and wrapped in black plastic bin liners and gaffer tape.\n\nThe court heard toxicology tests showed MDMA in her body, and Det Insp Justine Jenkins said there was no evidence to indicate she would have voluntarily or knowingly taken illegal drugs.\n\n\"She was a church-goer, there is nothing to suggest [she took drugs] at all.\n\n\"We did, however, find MDMA in Israel's car, and it is likely that he was responsible for giving her these drugs.\"\n\nJoy Morgan's remains were found in woodland at Norton Green\n\nForensic pathologist Dr Charlotte Randall said there were three possible minor bruises on Ms Morgan's limbs. She added there was no evidence that Ms Morgan had been stabbed or shot, or restrained or suffered injuries consistent with a sexual assault.\n\nShe found evidence of a possible fracture to her hyoid bone, but there was nothing to suggest she had suffered compression of the neck.\n\nDr Randall said there was no evidence the student had suffered a head injury, but said she could have been rendered unconscious by a blow to the head that was \"non-fatal\".\n\nShe could not rule out suffocation as a cause of death, potentially following milder blunt force trauma to the head.\n\nCoroner Geoffrey Sullivan said: \"[The MDMA] is not something that she would have taken and one can't exclude that she was given that, and it in some way rendered her incapable or unconscious.\"\n\nHe said the cause of Ms Morgan's death could not be ascertained.\n\nAfter the inquest, her mother Carol Morgan described her daughter as \"an amazing person\".\n\n\"She's been cremated, I haven't decided where to put her ashes so at the moment she's still at home with me,\" she said.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "In the end, the master provocateur ended up provoking the wrong person in the wrong way at the wrong time.\n\nUntil August 2017, Steve Bannon was arguably the second most powerful man in Washington. The president's one-time chief strategist was the puller of strings, the Trump-whisperer, revelling in his role as an agent of chaos.\n\nAfter the 2016 election, he was among \"the best talent in politics\" - in Trump's words.\n\nThen he became \"Sloppy Steve\", a derogatory nickname used by the US president after Bannon was quoted in a book saying several things that appear to have made his former boss unhappy.\n\nOne example that made headlines was that the president's son, Donald Trump Jr, had committed a \"treasonous\" act in talking to Russians.\n\nBannon's backers cut their ties with him, he left the powerful right-wing media empire Breitbart, and the future of the man behind some of Trump's most headline-grabbing policies was left up in the air.\n\nAnd then in August 2020, more bad news. Bannon was arrested and charged with fraud over an online fundraising scheme to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.\n\nProsecutors said he received more than $1m - and used some of it to pay off personal expenses. He pleaded not guilty.\n\nEven in a White House where political careers have the life expectancy of a house fly, Bannon's sudden rise and fall over four years is remarkable. Here's how it came about.\n\nAs executive chairman of Breitbart - a combative conservative site with an anti-establishment agenda - Bannon was an early cheerleader for Trump and Trumpism.\n\nBut it was not until 15 months into the property tycoon's presidential race that Bannon joined his team.\n\nBy that point he was already, according to a profile on the Bloomberg website, \"the most dangerous political operative in America\", a man with Democrats and establishment Republicans in his crosshairs, and a knack for well-timed confrontation. A disruptive Trump presented Bannon with a golden opportunity.\n\nWithout Seinfeld, there is no Steve Bannon - it will become clear, don't worry\n\nBannon was born into a family of Irish Catholics - all Kennedy Democrats - in Virginia in November 1953.\n\nHe was not political, he said, until an eight-year stint with the Navy starting in 1977, when he became a Reagan Republican in response to President Carter's handling of the Iran conflict.\n\nA master of reinvention, he went on to work as an executive with the Goldman Sachs bank, before helping finance and produce Hollywood films and later emerging as a political Svengali.\n\nHis record in Hollywood can be described as patchy at best (\"The business runs on talent relationships,\" one former colleague told the New Yorker. \"He had this real will-to-power vibe that was so off-putting.\")\n\nBut Bannon did strike gold in one big way - by negotiating a share of the profits in a new television show, Seinfeld, in 1993. The show ran for nine seasons and was widely syndicated - in November 2016, Forbes estimated that Bannon, if he owned only a 1% share in the show's profits, would have earned $32.6m (£24m) by that point.\n\nAfter returning to the US from the Chinese city of Shanghai in 2008 feeling the Bush administration was a \"disaster\", Bannon was struck by what he described to the New Yorker as \"this phenomenon called Sarah Palin\". Bannon warmed to the brand of populism employed by the Alaskan governor picked as John McCain's Republican running mate in the 2008 presidential race.\n\nThat populist wave would come crashing to shore with Trump's participation in the 2016 election, a wave Bannon proudly rode the whole way. In Trump, he recognised a willing outlet for his idea that, according to Wolff, \"the new politics was not the art of compromise, but the art of conflict\".\n\nBannon had long talked up Trump's chances on Breitbart News Network, which he took over in 2012 after the death of its founder, Andrew Breitbart. Bannon considered Trump, according to Wolff's book, \"a big warm-hearted monkey\".\n\nLike many of the businessman's cheerleaders, Bannon was eventually invited into his inner circle, becoming the CEO of the Trump campaign in August 2016.\n\nDishevelled, regularly unshaven, and prone to wearing two shirts at the same time, he was an unlikely candidate to work closely with Trump, who places a high value on appearance. But somehow it worked.\n\nBannon's economic nationalist outlook and his eagerness for a \"deconstruction of the administrative state\" - a tearing apart of the system of taxes and regulations that he believed had hindered the US over years - chimed with Trump's \"Make America Great Again\" plea.\n\nTwo days after his arrival, Bannon replaced Paul Manafort as campaign chairman.\n\nBannon's counterpart in the Democratic camp, Robby Mook, responded furiously: \"Donald Trump has decided to double down on his most small, nasty and divisive instincts by turning his campaign over to someone who is best known for running a so-called news site that peddles divisive, sometimes racist... sometimes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.\"\n\nThe provocateur in Bannon will almost certainly have enjoyed the reaction to his appointment. Less than three months later, he'd have even more to celebrate.\n\nTrump and Bannon thought as one in the last weeks of the campaign, to the extent that the Republican candidate would often demand: \"Where's my Steve? Where's my Steve?\", according to one former Trump aide.\n\nIn interviews after the event, Bannon said he always believed Trump would win. But not everyone else did, according to Michael Wolff's book. Indeed, in the weeks after the billionaire won, \"he had come to credit Bannon with something like mystical powers\" for having predicted the victory.\n\nWhite House appointments aren't often met with wide protests - but then Steve Bannon's was no ordinary appointment\n\nDays after the election, Trump named his trusted lieutenant as \"chief strategist\" - a newly created role - in his cabinet.\n\nThere were wide protests against the decision, and 169 members of the House - all Democrats - sent a letter to the president-elect asking him to withdraw Bannon's nomination, saying \"bigotry, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia should have no place in our society, and they certainly have no place in the White House\".\n\nBannon's vision was made clear in Trump's bleak inaugural address, which he wrote. Wolff says in his book it was \"a Bannon-driven message to the other side that the country was about to undergo profound change... his take-back-the-country, America-first, carnage-everywhere vision of the country\".\n\nThe \"American carnage\" speech painted a vision of a US with \"mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation\".\n\nThe full ramifications of Bannon's America First policy were made clear a week later, with Trump signing an executive order dreamt up by his chief strategist that banned people from seven Muslim-majority countries from travelling to the US. It caught many White House staff unaware.\n\nBannon, Wolff writes, was \"satisfied\" at the move and the subsequent outrage. \"He could not have hoped to draw a more vivid line between the two Americas - Trump's and liberals',\" Wolff writes, adding that the timing of its release before a busy weekend was deliberate - so it could cause as much chaos as possible.\n\nOne word that regularly features in interviews with Bannon is \"war\". Trump HQ on election night was \"the war room\", the same name he gave to the Oval Office when Trump took over. When Bannon would go on to leave the White House, he said he was going to \"war\" on Trump's behalf.\n\nFor Bannon, disorder was the new order in the White House. He and Trump were creating conflict and confusion, and that suited Bannon just fine.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Steve Bannon's three goals for the Trump presidency\n\nA day after Trump's executive order on immigration was signed, there was another controversial announcement - the US president downgraded military chiefs of staff from his National Security Council and gave a regular seat to Bannon instead.\n\nOnly career diplomats and generals usually join the council, the main group advising the president on national security and foreign affairs. By being invited to be a member, Bannon - in his first government job, aged 63 - was allowed to join high-level discussions about national security.\n\nThe reaction was, predictably, one of shock.\n\nDemocrat former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called the move \"dangerous and unprecedented\", and Obama's former national security adviser Susan Rice tweeted: \"This is stone-cold crazy. After a week of crazy.\"\n\nThe White House, of course, defended their man as being more than capable enough to be on the council, pointing out his Navy service.\n\nBut in retrospect, this promotion is about as good as it got for Bannon in the White House.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Some of the people who have resigned or been fired under President Trump\n\nIn the end, Bannon lasted a little over two months on the National Security Council, leaving in April.\n\nIt was not a demotion, White House officials said, but the reasons for the change were not clear. Perhaps, just by shaking up the old order, the appointment had done its job.\n\nBut this change in his responsibilities became an indication of what was to come.\n\nAfter a summer of reports that Bannon was less and less visible in a White House suffering infighting and leaks, he left his position last August.\n\nIt was sold as a strategic move - Bannon would head back to Breitbart, where he would fight for Trump's agenda. \"I've got my hands back on my weapons,\" he said. \"It's Bannon the Barbarian.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBreitbart welcomed back what it called its \"populist hero\", with editor-in-chief Alex Marlow saying Bannon had \"his finger on the pulse of the Trump agenda\".\n\nBut his departure from the White House came at the end of a week in which Bannon had come under fire from a number of quarters, and amid reports of tension with key aides including National Security Adviser HR McMaster.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Charlottesville was the culmination of months of protests by white supremacists\n\nClashes had taken place the previous weekend between far-right and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, after which Trump blamed \"both sides\" for the violence - Bannon had once said his Breitbart site was \"a platform for the alt-right\" who were responsible for the violence.\n\nTwo days before he left his job, an interview with Bannon in the American Prospect, a liberal magazine, reportedly infuriated the president. Bannon was quoted as dismissing the idea of a military solution in North Korea, undercutting Trump.\n\nThen, a day later, a BuzzFeed report that said that Trump was unhappy with the credit his adviser was taking for the election victory.\n\n\"He undermined Trump's ego,\" Joshua Green, the author of a book on Bannon's relationship with Trump, Devil's Bargain, told the BBC.\n\n\"Trump can't abide the thesis of my book and Michael Wolff's book, which is that Bannon is the brains of the operation and Trump is an erratic charlatan. That's what Trump won't abide.\"\n\nBannon backed Roy Moore in the Alabama senate race - it didn't end well for them\n\nNow on the outside looking in, Bannon was more than happy to tell Trump where he thought he was going wrong. He attacked him through Breitbart for reversing course and sending more troops to Afghanistan, and called Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey the biggest mistake in \"modern political history\".\n\nBut Bannon was back in his natural habitat as he gunned for the Republican establishment, putting his weight behind ultra-conservative populist candidate Roy Moore in a senate race in Alabama.\n\nMoore comfortably won the primary against Luther Strange, the incumbent backed by Trump and the Republican machine.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBut Moore went on to face allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls, which he denied, and in December he lost the race to Doug Jones, who became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Alabama in 25 years.\n\nBannon's man, one eventually backed by Trump and the Republican party, had suffered a humiliating loss in what was supposed to be Bannon's first big victory. A win would have given him momentum in his campaign to field populist candidates against Republican senators in the 2018 mid-terms. A loss made that much harder.\n\nBannon - humbled, surprised - credited Democrats for having worked hardest, but the defeat risked grounding his populist movement to a halt.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Trump harsher on Bannon than he is on his 'worst enemies'\n\nTrump may once have been Bannon's \"big warm-hearted monkey\". But even cuddly monkeys can bite.\n\nAs details of Michael Wolff's book emerged, one key line stood out - Bannon described a meeting Donald Trump Jr held in New York with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential election campaign as \"treasonous\".\n\n\"They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV,\" he told Wolff.\n\nThe reaction from the White House - reeling from a special-counsel investigation into possible collusion between the Trump team and Russia - was swift. Bannon had \"lost his mind\" after losing his White House position, the president said.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSoon after, Rebekah Mercer, a wealthy benefactor of Bannon's, said she had ended her support for his political efforts.\n\nBannon, left with fewer and fewer allies, insisted his comments were not directed at Mr Trump's son but at another former aide, Paul Manafort, who was also present at the meeting in Trump Tower.\n\nBut there was only one way left to go. The goodbye from Breitbart was polite, and Bannon was out.\n\nSomewhere, somehow, Bannon the master string-puller will re-emerge - possibly in a different guise.\n\nCould he and Trump ever reconcile?\n\n\"Trump has fired people before and then let them back in,\" Joshua Green, the author of Devil's Bargain, said.\n\n\"But I've never seen Trump bury somebody as forcefully as he did Bannon, both in his statement and the parade of White House officials who have come out to heap scorn and derision on Bannon.\n\n\"It's awfully hard to imagine how Bannon could recover from that.\"\n\nAn unexpected twist unfolded ahead of the November 2020 election when Bannon and three other people were arrested and charged with fraud over a fundraising campaign to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.\n\nYou'll remember that building this wall was a key pledge of Trump's 2016 campaign, which Bannon played a leading role in.\n\nBannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with the \"We Build the Wall\" campaign, which raised $25m (£19m), the Department of Justice (DoJ) said.\n\nBannon received more than $1m, at least some of which he used to cover personal expenses, the DoJ said.\n\nEach of the two charges - conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering - carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.", "New legislation has been passed to protect Scottish shop workers from abuse from customers.\n\nThe Protection of Workers Bill will make it a new specific offence to assault, abuse or threaten staff.\n\nIncidents involving an age-restricted product, such as alcohol or cigarettes, could be treated more seriously.\n\nThe MSP behind the bill, Labour's Daniel Johnson, said attacks on retail workers had increased during the Covid pandemic.\n\nHe told Holyrood: \"Shop staff have been spat at for asking customers to socially distance, and stock has been smashed in retaliation for item limits being imposed.\n\n\"Violence, threats and abuse should not be just part of anyone's job.\"\n\nMr Johnson said that staff requesting age ID could be a \"trigger factor\" in many incidents of abuse.\n\nThe new legislation will also cover people working in bars, restaurants and hotels, and those delivering items bought online who may have to ask for proof of age.\n\nThe bill was supported by all parties at Holyrood, despite the government initially arguing that its provisions were already covered by existing criminal laws.\n\nThe Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service told MSPs that further legislation was not needed, noting that \"violence, threats and abuse against retail workers, or indeed any other person, are prosecuted every day in the courts in Scotland using offences which are commonly understood\".\n\nPolice Scotland meanwhile said there would be \"no significant change in how we go about our business\" as a result of it.\n\nCommunity safety minister Ash Denham said that while there was a \"wide range of existing criminal laws\" currently in place to protect staff, the new legislation could \"make the general public think more about their behaviour when they interact with retail workers\".\n\nThe Scottish Conservatives also backed the bill, although they argued that the presumption against short sentences in Scotland meant anyone convicted under the new law would ultimately not be jailed.\n\nPaul Gerrard, public affairs director for the Co-Op, told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime that the retailer had seen a 450% rise in violent incidents in the last few years.\n\n\"It is a huge problem,\" he said. \"We've seen an explosion in violence and abuse toward my colleagues.\n\n\"Now across 350 stores in Scotland we have someone attacked every day. And 10 colleagues are threatened or abused every day.\n\n\"Increasingly we have seen knives, syringes and axes all used against shopworkers.\"\n\nMr Gerrard added that previous incidents were centred on shoplifting or age-restricted sales, but staff were now facing more abuse around enforcing Covid shopping rules.\n\nThe new legislation was passed by 118 votes to 0 in the Scottish Parliament.\n\nThe Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) is now urging the UK government to introduce similar legislation to protect retail staff in England - something Labour MP Alex Norris is pursuing at Westminster.\n\nUsdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis said: \"It is a great result for our members in Scotland, who will now have the protection of the law that they deserve.\n\n\"So we are looking for MPs to support key workers across the retail sector and help turn around the UK government's opposition.\"", "Donald Trump won a surprise victory in 2016 partly because he promised to shake things up. He leaves office with two impeachments and the nation on edge. But his supporters say he kept his promises.", "More than 100 medically-trained military personnel will be deployed\n\nMembers of the military are to be brought in to help medical staff in Northern Ireland in the fight against Covid-19.\n\nHealth Minister Robin Swann has asked the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to help out, primarily at a number of hospitals across NI.\n\nMore than 100 medically-trained military personnel will be deployed.\n\nThose brought in will assist nursing staff and help on the wards in a move designed to ease the pressure on staff.\n\nIn the past, the use of the military in Northern Ireland has provoked controversy.\n\nWhile military help has already been used during the pandemic to transport equipment and patients, this is the first time military staff will be used in hospitals.\n\nIt is thought the first military staff will be made available as early as next week.\n\nMr Swann said it would have been an abdication of responsibility if he did not avail of help from the military.\n\nHe said while coronavirus cases were lower than two weeks ago, the challenge posed remained \"intense\" and intensive care pressures were expected to increase further in the next eight to 10 days.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Brandon Lewis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHe confirmed that a request for military assistance for NI's health service had been accepted by the MoD.\n\nThe health minister thanked the MoD for the Military Aid to the Civil Authorities agreement, which is being provided in other UK regions.\n\n\"The armed forces have provided invaluable support in this pandemic, including aeromedical evacuation, real-estate and ongoing logistical planning,\" he said.\n\n\"Our hospitals are under immense pressure and an additional staffing complement will be very welcome on the front line.\n\n\"This is a health decision and I am confident it will be supported on that basis.\"\n\nNI Secretary Brandon Lewis tweeted: \"Battling #COVID19 is a national effort. I'm pleased that 110 medically-trained personnel from our Armed Forces will support health and social care teams across Northern Ireland in their vital work on the frontline against coronavirus.\"\n\nThe move has been welcomed by the Democratic Unionist Party.\n\nWhen it was announced last April that the health minster had made requests for military help, Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill said Mr Swann had taken that decision unilaterally.\n\nHowever, she later said her party would not rule out any measure necessary to save lives.\n\nReacting to the latest request for help, Sinn Féin said its priority throughout the pandemic had been to save lives, keep people safe and protect the health service.\n\n\"The Minister of Health has made a request for staffing support from the British Ministry of Defence,\" the party said.\n\n\"We do not rule out any measures to do so, and any effort to make the threat posed by Covid-19 into a green and orange issue is divisive and a distraction.\"\n\nAs of Wednesday, there were 832 people in hospital in Northern Ireland with coronavirus, of whom 67 were in intensive care, with 57 ventilated.\n\nA further 22 people with coronavirus died, bringing the Department of Health's total to 1,671 while there were 905 new cases.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, 61 new Covid-19-related deaths were recorded on Wednesday, bringing the country's death toll to 2,768.\n\nA further 2,488 new cases of the virus were also confirmed by the Irish Department for Health.\n\nSpeaking at Stormont's press briefing on Wednesday, Mr Swann confirmed the executive would review the current lockdown regulations on Thursday.\n\nNorthern Ireland began a six-week lockdown on 26 December, in a bid to bring the virus under control.\n\nMinisters promised to review the regulations after four weeks.\n\nMr Swann said he would not pre-empt the outcome of Thursday's meeting but confirmed he would bring recommendations from his officials to the meeting.\n\n\"This is not the time to open floodgates or take premature decisions that would lead to another spike in cases,\" he added.\n\n\"We must stay the course.\"\n\nThe minister also provided the latest update on the number of vaccinations - 160,396 doses have now been administered in NI, with 21,690 of those second doses.\n\nHe said he understood the frustration of some people that they were still waiting to hear when their elderly or vulnerable relatives would receive their vaccine, but he urged patience.\n\n\"We cannot go faster than supplies allow,\" he said.", "The National Audit Office has had full access to the BBC's accounts since 2010\n\nThe BBC faces \"significant\" uncertainty over its financial future due to changes in viewing habits, a National Audit Office report has found.\n\n\"While the BBC remains the most used media brand in the UK, its share of younger audiences has been under pressure,\" the spending watchdog said.\n\n\"Falling audience share poses a financial risk as people are less likely to pay the licence fee.\"\n\nThe BBC said it had already set out plans for \"urgent\" reforms.\n\nAccording to the NAO report, the BBC has seen \"a notable drop\" in audience viewing while its income from the licence fee has also declined.\n\nThe BBC \"faces considerable uncertainty\" about its licence fee income and should produce \"a long-term financial plan... as soon as possible\", it states.\n\nSuch a plan, the report recommends, should \"set out the detail for the next stage of its savings, and how it will fund its new strategic priorities\".\n\nIn 2019-20, the BBC generated total income of £4.94bn, of which £3.52bn was public funding from the licence fee. That was £310m less than the corporation received from the licence fee between 2017-18.\n\nThe current cost of an annual television licence is £157.50\n\nThe report also highlighted a 30% decline in BBC TV viewing over the past decade. On average, the amount of time an adult spent watching broadcast BBC television fell from 80 minutes a day in 2010 to 56 minutes in 2019.\n\nAnd the NAO said the BBC's financial health had been \"unexpectedly weakened\" by the impact of the coronavirus response.\n\nLast November, the BBC began negotiations with the government about the future funding it will receive from the licence fee. The fee, which is currently £157.50 annually, is due to stay in place until at least 2027, when the BBC's Royal Charter ends.\n\nIn response, the BBC said it had made \"significant savings and increased efficiencies, while maintaining our spending on content, and continuing to be the UK's most-used media organisation\".\n\nIt added: \"We have set out plans for urgent reforms focused on providing great value for all audiences and we will set out further detail on this in the coming months.\n\n\"The report also stresses the importance of stable funding for the future, which we welcome as we begin negotiations with government over the licence fee.\"\n\nThe National Union of Journalists said the report's findings \"come as no surprise\" and that the BBC needs \"a financially secure long-term deal that will guarantee its future.\"\n\nThe NAO scrutinises the finances of government departments and other public sector bodies. Last week Richard Sharp, the BBC's incoming chairman, said the licence fee was the \"least worst\" way of funding the corporation, but it \"may be worth reassessing\" in future.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "At noon on Wednesday, President Donald Trump's term will end. It's been a whirlwind four years, so what might the legacy be of such a history-making president?\n\nThere's a lot to consider, so we asked the experts to break it down for us.\n\nResponses have been edited for length and clarity.\n\nMatthew Continetti is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, focusing on the development of the Republican Party and the American conservative movement.\n\nDonald Trump will be remembered as the first president to be impeached twice. He fed the myth that the election was stolen, summoned his supporters to Washington to protest the certification of the Electoral College vote, told them that only through strength could they take back their country, and stood by as they stormed the US Capitol and interfered in the operation of constitutional government.\n\nWhen historians write about his presidency, they will do so through the lens of the riot.\n\nThey will focus on Trump's tortured relationship with the alt-right, his atrocious handling of the deadly Charlottesville protest in 2017, the rise in violent right-wing extremism during his tenure in office, and the viral spread of malevolent conspiracy theories that he encouraged.\n\nWhat else stands out to you?\n\nIf Donald Trump had followed the example of his predecessors and conceded power graciously and peacefully, he would have been remembered as a disruptive but consequential populist leader.\n\nA president who, before the pandemic, presided over an economic boom, re-oriented America's opinion of China, removed terrorist leaders from the battlefield, revamped the space program, secured an originalist (conservative) majority on the US Supreme Court, and authorised Operation Warp Speed to produce a Covid-19 vaccine in record time.\n\nLaura Belmonte is a history professor and dean of the Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. She is a foreign relations specialist and author of books on cultural diplomacy.\n\nHis attempt to surrender global leadership and replace it with a more inward-looking, fortress-like mentality. I don't think it succeeded, but the question is how profound has the damage to America's international reputation been - and that remains to be seen.\n\nThe moment I found jaw-dropping was the press conference he had with Vladimir Putin in 2018 in Helsinki, where he took Putin's side over US intelligence in regard to Russian interference in the election.\n\nI can't think of another episode of a president siding full force with a non-democratic society adversary.\n\nIt's also very emblematic of a larger assault on any number of multilateral institutions and treaties and frameworks that Trump has unleashed, like the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, the withdrawal of the Iranian nuclear framework.\n\nWhat else stands out to you?\n\nTrump's applauding Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, really turning himself inside out to align the US with regimes that are the antithesis of values that the US says it wants to promote. That is something that I think was really quite distinctive.\n\nAnother aspect is extricating the US from any really assertive role in promoting human rights throughout the world, and changing the content of the annual human rights reports from the State Department and not including many topics, like LGBT equality, for instance.\n\nKathryn Brownell is a history professor at Purdue University, focusing on the relationships between media, politics, and popular culture, with an emphasis on the American presidency.\n\nBroadly speaking: Donald Trump, and his enablers in the Republican Party and conservative media, have put American democracy to the test in an unprecedented way. As a historian who studies the intersection of media and the presidency, it is truly striking the ways in which he has convinced millions of people that his fabricated version of events is true.\n\nWhat happened on 6 January at the US Capitol is a culmination of over four years during which President Trump actively advanced misinformation.\n\nJust as Watergate and the impeachment inquiry dominated historical interpretations of Richard Nixon's legacy for decades, I do think that this particular post-election moment will be at the forefront of historical assessments of his presidency.\n\nWhat else stands out to you?\n\nKellyanne Conway's first introduction of the notion of \"alternative facts\" just days into the Trump administration when disputing the size of the inaugural crowds between Trump and Barack Obama.\n\nPresidents across the 20th Century have increasingly used sophisticated measures to spin interpretation of policies and events in favourable ways and to control the media narrative of their administrations. But the assertion that the administration had a right to its own alternative facts went far beyond spin, ultimately foreshadowing the ways in which the Trump administration would govern by misinformation.\n\nTrump harnessed the power of social media and blurred the lines between entertainment and politics in ways that allowed him to bypass critics and connect directly to his supporters in an unfiltered way.\n\nFranklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan also used new media and a celebrity style to connect directly to the people in this unfiltered way, ultimately transforming expectations and operations of the presidency that paved the path for Trump.\n\nMary Frances Berry is a professor of American history and social thought at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on legal history and social policy. From 1980 to 2004, she was a member of the US Commission on Civil Rights.\n\nIn what he did with judges, Trump has made a long lasting change over the next 20 years, 30 years in how policies will stand up to legal tests and how they're able to be implemented - no matter what any particular president or administration proposes.\n\nThe courts are controlled by the Republican appointees. Sometimes judges surprise us, but for the most part, the historical evidence is that they pretty much do what their politics and their backgrounds say they will do.\n\nWhat else stands out to you?\n\nWhen he supported that package of measures that helped particular people in the black community, like First Step, pardoning people at the same time that he supported an amendment in the appropriations bill that gave a whole bunch of money to historically black colleges and universities for the first time.\n\nHe put all of these things together, as well as having the first stimulus programme making sure that black businessman and entrepreneurs get some of those loans they've had trouble getting before.\n\nThe effect of all of that, which we will see over time, was in the midterms, a lot more young black men voted for Trump than before. And if that's a trend, it may help the Republican party.\n\nTrump also made egregious comments about black people and other people of colour, tried to have protests against police abuse disrupted and in other ways appealed to his white supremacist base.\n\nHis lasting impact on race relations depends on what the Biden administration does on policy, and on healing and how long the pandemic and economic downturn lasts.\n\nMargaret O'Mara is history professor at the University of Washington, focusing on the political, economic, and metropolitan history of the modern US.\n\nContesting a very constitutionally and numerically clear election victory by Joe Biden.\n\nWe've had plenty of really unpleasant transitions. Herbert Hoover was incredibly unpleasant about his loss, but he still rode in that car down Pennsylvania Avenue at inauguration. He didn't talk to Franklin Roosevelt the whole time, but there still was a peaceful transfer of power.\n\nTrump is a manifestation of political forces that have been in motion for a half century or more. A culmination of what was not only going on in the Republican party, but also the Democratic party and more broadly in American politics - a kind of disillusionment with government and institutions and expertise.\n\nWhat else stands out to you?\n\nTrump is exceptional in many ways, but one of the things that really makes him stand out is that he is one of the rare presidents who was elected without having held any elected office before.\n\nTrump may go away, but there is this great frustration with the establishment, broadly defined. When you feel powerless, you vote for someone who's promising to do everything differently and Trump indeed did that.\n\nA presidency is also made by the people that the president appoints, and a great deal of experienced Republican hands were not invited to join the administration the first go round.\n\nOver time, his administration has diminished to a band of loyalists who are really not very experienced and are ideologically uninterested in wise governance of the bureaucracy. What has happened within the bowels of the bureaucracy is going to be a slow slog to rebuild.\n\nSaikrishna Prakash is a University of Virginia Law School professor focusing on constitutional law, foreign relations law and presidential powers.\n\nThe last gasps of his administration are the most consequential, as he exerts a control over his most devoted followers and he's talking about running again.\n\nHe forced people to consider what the presidency has become in a way that wasn't true I think either during the Bush or Obama administrations. Issues like the 25th Amendment and impeachment hasn't been thought of since Bill Clinton, really.\n\nIt's possible that people now when they think of the presidency are perhaps going to adopt a different stance going forward, knowing that someone like Trump could come along.\n\nIt's possible that Congress will delegate less to the president and take away some authority.\n\nWhat else stands out to you?\n\nThe president has demonstrated that there's a constituency who's opposed to a lot of these trade deals and that there are people willing to vote for those who will either extricate us from these trade deals or \"make them fairer\".\n\nThe president has also suggested that China has been taking advantage of the United States in ways that are deleterious to our economic and national security - and I think there's a consensus behind this view. No one wants to be accused of being soft on China, whereas no one cares if you're \"soft\" on Canada, right?\n\nI think people are going to fall all over themselves to be tougher or at least say they're tougher on China.\n\nDomestically the president had a populous tone to him. It wasn't ever fully realised in his policies, but we see more Republicans adopting populist ideas.", "Testing of close contacts of identified cases was due to start in secondary schools and colleges in England\n\nThe government has paused plans to roll out rapid daily coronavirus testing of close contacts, in all but a small number of secondary schools and colleges.\n\nTesting close contacts of a positive case as an alternative to isolation showed some benefits in trials.\n\nBut the emergence of a new variant means the risk of missing infections has risen, health officials say.\n\nRegular testing of staff will now increase to twice a week.\n\nMore research is needed on how daily contact testing would work given the new, more transmissible, coronavirus variant, Public Health England and NHS Test and Trace say.\n\nIn the meantime, routine testing to pick up asymptomatic cases in staff and pupils remains a key part of the government's plans.\n\nMass testing in schools, using pregnancy-style lateral flow tests to detect the virus, had been due to start in January.\n\nHowever, under new lockdown restrictions, schools have had to switch to providing online teaching until February - although children of key workers are still allowed to attend - and plans were postponed.\n\nHow testing of pupils will be organised once schools reopen is still not clear.\n\nThe original plan for rapid Covid testing in all secondary schools and colleges included:\n\nThe aim was to keep as many children in schools as possible by avoiding a whole bubble, class or year having to be sent home, and to reduce disruption from staff having to isolate.\n\nBut some scientists have consistently expressed concerns about the accuracy of the rapid tests, which do not need to be sent to a lab for the results.\n\nThey say the high number of false negatives means close contacts may wrongly think they are not infectious and go on to mix with more vulnerable people.\n\nAnd now PHE and NHS Test and Trace say the new variant, which \"increases the risk of transmission everywhere, including in school settings\", has made this a risk no longer worth taking.\n\n\"The balance between the risks (transmission of virus in schools and onward to households and the wider community) and benefits (education in a face-to-face and safe setting) for daily contact testing is unclear,\" their statement adds.\n\nA government spokesman said: \"NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England have reviewed their advice and concluded that, in light of the higher prevalence and rates of transmission of the new variant, further evaluation work is required to make sure it is achieving its aim of breaking chains of transmission and reducing cases of the virus in the community.\n\n\"There is no change to the main rollout of regular testing using rapid lateral flow tests in schools and colleges, which is already proving beneficial in finding teachers and students with coronavirus who do not have symptoms.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'You wouldn’t want to give this to anybody'\n\nI was last here at University Hospital Monklands on 1 May when those dealing with the first wave of an unknown disease were already tired.\n\nAt that time, the deaths of 29,059 people had been registered in the UK within 28 days of a positive test for Covid-19.\n\nI returned 259 days later with the number of deaths at 89,230 to find that the staff are exhausted.\n\n\"We're all physically, mentally and emotionally drained now,\" says Fiona Bauld, an intensive care unit (ICU) staff nurse.\n\nIn the first wave, the Lanarkshire hospital was almost empty except for patients being treated for Covid or other critical and emergency needs.\n\nThis time there are just a handful of spare beds in the entire building. Staff who had helped out with critical care last year are back in their own departments, and the ICU specialists are alone once more.\n\n\"There's not really enough extra nurses to account for the extra patients so the amount of work everyone is doing is much more,\" says intensive care consultant Daniel Silcock.\n\nThe patients are changing too.\n\nIn the first wave, most patients were old and often ill before they contracted the virus, says ICU ward manager Margaret Harkins.\n\n\"This time the patients are a much younger age group and some have no underlying health conditions,\" she adds.\n\n\"We are getting people in in their 20s, 30s and 40s,\" Ms Bauld says. \"Younger people are catching this virus and becoming really critically ill with it.\"\n\nMae Mamaril (right) and her parents Jaramias and Sonia tested positive\n\nMae Mamaril is one of them. She is 26 and has no underlying health conditions.\n\nMae and her parents Jaramias and Sonia, from Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, tested positive for Covid within days of being vaccinated for their jobs.\n\nAll three ended up in Monklands but Mae was the sickest and the only member of her family admitted to intensive care.\n\nShe had to wear an oxygen mask and lie face down on a bed for three days, a treatment called proning which medics say can improve lung function in many patients.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mae Mamaril, 26, was moved to intensive care at the start of the year\n\n\"I couldn't breathe,\" she says. \"It was really bad because they moved so quickly to give me oxygen and told me to lie on my stomach.\n\n\"All I could think about was wanting to come home, but then at the same time, I knew that if I didn't have enough oxygen, even if I went home, I would never survive.\"\n\nNot only is the hospital busy with younger people in this wave but senior doctors say a third of all patients here now have the virus.\n\nThere is another big difference outside the building.\n\nIn May, when I drove from Glasgow to the hospital in Airdrie the roads were empty, the streets silent.\n\nThat is no longer the case. Heading east to Monklands again, the M8 is the busiest I have seen it since the pandemic began.\n\nDoctors and nurses have noticed the increase in traffic too - and they are worried.\n\n\"Without a lockdown, I think it would just be a disaster,\" Dr Silcock says.\n\n\"We've had twice as many admissions this time as we did in the first wave.\"\n\nDr Sanjiv Chohan, who runs the intensive care department, says he too is worried.\n\nBut what about the many harmful side effects of lockdown - on other medical conditions, especially mental health, as well as the impact on education and the economy?\n\n\"I sympathise completely,\" says Dr Chohan, pointing out that the ICU staff are also affected by these issues.\n\n\"It's a really difficult balancing act. It's choosing the least harmful options,\" he says, adding: \"We have to preserve some ability to have functioning hospitals.\"\n\nAt times, Monklands has not been able to function normally.\n\nSince the autumn, around a third of all intensive care patients here have had to be transferred out of the hospital to other facilities — primarily to Wishaw and Hairmyres but sometimes out of Lanarkshire entirely.\n\nChief nurse Karen Goudie says she is worried about the coming weeks\n\nThe chief nurse at Monklands, Karen Goudie, says that was necessary to reduce pressure and create capacity for incoming patients.\n\nThere has not yet been a point when all Scotland's hospitals have been overwhelmed at the same time.\n\n\"No, not yet but we're worried about the coming weeks,\" says Ms Goudie. \"The projections look - scary, I guess, is the right word to use. \"\n\nStaff here believe a current increase in cases is attributable to families mixing at Christmas and to people not sticking to the current lockdown rules.\n\nStill, they have coped. Patients are now less likely than in the first wave to need the dangerous intervention of a ventilator as knowledge of how to treat the disease develops.\n\nFor many though, a Covid diagnosis can remain frightening and perilous.\n\nJim McShane, 56, works for a gas company in Motherwell. I leave intensive care to meet him on the Covid ward where he is being treated.\n\n\"You just don't know what's ahead,\" he tells me. \"It just destroys you sometimes. Brings you right down.\"\n\n\"I would tell people to stay out the road of one another,\" he says.\n\nAfter I leave, Jim is transferred to intensive care. He is now on a ventilator.\n\nThere may be some signs that Scotland's latest surge in hospital admissions may be easing.", "Gabriel is an ardent 'Latino for Trump' who is active in New York Republican circles. He wishes the Biden/Harris administration well but doesn't believe Democrats really want unity and thinks they'll reverse a lot of good Trump policies.\n\nHow did Joe Biden's inaugural speech on unity sit with you?\n\nI caught bits and pieces of the inauguration, but I did not watch the speech. I'll give it a watch when I'm not as busy. Hopefully, his message is not like what we saw on 6 January, when he tried to lambast people as white supremacists for showing up at the Capitol, because that will just alienate people.\n\nThis country has come a long way in terms of race relations and, if we really want unity, let's regain the sense of what an American is. An American isn't white, black or Jewish; it is a person within the United States that takes part in our republic.\n\nWhat do you think of the executive actions he is taking today?\n\nI knew Biden would come out swinging while he stills holds the majority in the legislative branch. It's certainly a statement in the same vein as President Trump's first few days of office, but I think it's horrible. As someone of Hispanic descent, the idea of potentially granting 11 million immigrants citizenship is a slap in the face to everyone who came through the legal process.\n\nJoining the Paris climate agreement again is widely regarded as a farce, even by some ecologists, because nations that are members in the agreement didn't actually hit their targets. The removal of the Keystone Pipeline is not only going to cost people jobs but it could potentially increase our carbon footprint. When it comes to the WHO, they failed us during the Covid pandemic. It's all just smoke and mirrors to undo what President Trump did and stick it in the face of Republicans.", "The former Western Daily Press journalist lived in the property from 1970 until 1994\n\nAn \"inspiring\" house previously owned by fantasy writer Sir Terry Pratchett has been put on the market.\n\nThe creator of the Discworld series lived in the 18th Century property, called Gaze Cottage, in the village of Rowberrow, Somerset, from 1970 until 1994.\n\nSir Terry died aged 66 in 2015, eight years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.\n\nHe wrote more than 70 books during his career and completed his final book in 2014.\n\nAt the turn of the century, Sir Terry was Britain's second most-read author, beaten only by JK Rowling.\n\nIn August 2007, it was reported he had suffered a stroke, but the following December he announced that he had been diagnosed with a very rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease.\n\nThe fitted kitchen is in the older half of the house\n\nRuth Treasure-Smith, from Robin King Estate Agent, said: \"He wrote most of his most famous novels in that house in the 80s.\n\n\"The house must have been inspiring. The current owner purchased the property from Terry Pratchett and has lived at the house since.\"\n\nShe said he had received letters to the house addressed to the \"Hogfather\", a quirky and satirical character from the Death collection in the Discworld series.\n\nThe sitting room has an inglenook fireplace complete with bread oven\n\nThe house is being sold at a guide price of £800,000\n\nThe first floor houses the master bedroom which overlooks the garden\n\nThe property has four bedrooms\n\nThe cottage sits on a plot comprising almost a third of an acre\n\nFollow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk", "The driver sat on his overturned van until rescuers arrived\n\nA supermarket delivery driver had to be rescued from his overturned van after he careered off the road and ended up in a fast-flowing ford, police said.\n\nFirefighters and police were called to the River Wear, Westgate, in Weardale, after reports that a Morrisons van was stuck at 17:00 GMT on Tuesday.\n\nPolice said the van had \"careered\" off the road and the man sat on top of the vehicle before being rescued.\n\nCounty Durham Fire and Rescue Service said the rescue was \"challenging.\"\n\nWater specialists from the fire service braved the river in a raft attached to a nearby footbridge and gave the man a life jacket.\n\nPolice said the driver was not injured but was taken to hospital as a precaution.\n\nThe fire service tweeted a video of the scene, and said they were \"so proud\" of the water rescue team.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by County Durham & Darlington Fire & Rescue Service This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nScott Bisset, who lives nearby, went to see if he could help after he was called by people who heard the driver shouting for help.\n\nMr Bisset, a member of the local mountain rescue team, said he thought the driver may have ended up there after being directed by his sat-nav.\n\nHe said: \"There's not a vehicle in the world that could have got through.\n\n\"The river was in flood - the snow here has melted and there was rain, so there was a lot of water in the river.\n\n\"The van was washed off and turned over on its side, luckily the front was pointing upstream, so it acted like a boat.\n\n\"If the water had been hitting the side of the van or the back, the driver would unfortunately have drowned.\n\n\"When I got there the driver was extremely distressed.\"\n\nThe van has not yet been recovered from the water\n\nHe also said that rescuers had put their lives at risk.\n\n\"I know they practice for this but in those conditions, with that freezing water travelling at great speed, in the dark and the pouring rain, it was very dangerous and they were very brave,\" he said.\n\nThe van has not yet been recovered from the water.\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "US President Joe Biden has officially announced his bid for re-election, asking Americans to help him \"finish the job\" he started more than two years ago.\n\nMr Biden, 80, faced a turbulent first two years in office marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, economic woes and geopolitical challenges including the US pull-out from Afghanistan and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nOn the campaign trail, Mr Biden - who served as Vice-President under Barack Obama - is likely to focus on his efforts to prop up the US economy after the pandemic, as well as his successes pushing through legislation focused on infrastructure, climate change and prescription drugs.\n\nBut a key argument for a second term will be what he has described as a turn towards authoritarianism from Donald Trump and his supporters in the \"Make America Great Again\" movement.\n\n\"The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer,\" he said in a video launching his new campaign. \"I know what I want the answer to be. This is not a time to be complacent. That's why I'm running for re-election.\"\n\nThe President, however, is also likely to face questions about his age and ability to serve, as well as about his handling of inflation, immigration and other issues that worry Americans.\n\nThe upcoming campaign is likely the last in a career in politics that has spanned more than four decades, and may again see him square off against Donald Trump.\n\nSo who is Joe Biden and how did he get to the White House?\n\nMr Biden ran for the Democratic 2008 nomination before dropping out and joining the Obama ticket.\n\nHis eight years in the Obama White House - where he frequently appeared at the president's side - has allowed Mr Biden to lay claim to much of Mr Obama's legacy, including passage of the Affordable Care Act, as well as the stimulus package and reforms enacted in response to the financial crisis.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A look back at Joe Biden's life and political career\n\nAs a long-time Washington insider, Mr Biden had solid foreign affairs credentials, and helped balance Mr Obama's comparative lack of executive experience.\n\nThe so-called \"Middle Class Joe\" was also brought on board to help woo the blue-collar white voters who had proved a difficult group for Mr Obama to win over.\n\nHe made headlines in 2012 by saying he was \"absolutely comfortable\" with same-sex marriage, comments that were seen to undercut the president, who had yet to give full-throated support for the policy. Mr Obama ultimately did so, just days after Mr Biden.\n\nMr Biden's two terms supporting the first black president followed a long political career.\n\nThe six-term senator from Delaware was first elected in 1972. He ran for president in 1988 but withdrew after he admitted to plagiarising a speech by the then leader of the British Labour Party, Neil Kinnock.\n\nHis lengthy tenure in the nation's capital has given critics ample material for attacks.\n\nEarly in his career, he sided with southern segregationists in opposing court-ordered school bussing to racially integrate public schools.\n\nAnd, as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991, he oversaw Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings and has been sharply criticised for his handling of Anita Hill's allegations that she was sexually harassed by the nominee.\n\nIn 1974, Biden was the youngest US senator\n\nMr Biden was also a fierce advocate of a 1994 anti-crime bill that many on the left now say encouraged lengthy sentences and mass incarceration.\n\nThe record made Mr Obama's moderate vice-president a sometimes uncomfortable fit for the modern Democratic Party.\n\nMr Biden's life has been dogged by personal tragedy.\n\nIn 1972, shortly after he won his first Senate race, he lost his first wife, Neilia, and baby daughter, Naomi, in a car accident. He famously took the oath of office for his first Senate term from the hospital room of his toddler sons Beau and Hunter, who both survived the accident.\n\nIn 2015, Beau died of brain cancer at the age of 46. The younger Biden was seen as a rising star of US politics and had intended to run for Delaware state governor in 2016.\n\nMr Biden garnered considerable goodwill following Beau's death, which served to highlight one of Mr Biden's central strengths: a reputation as a kind and relatable family man.\n\nThis perceived warmth is not without its pitfalls. After entering the 2020 race, he faced accusations of unwelcome physical contact during interactions with female voters - complete with uncomfortable accompanying footage.\n\nBut the avuncular politician responded by saying he was an empathetic person, though he accepted standards had changed. The episode, however, stoked a perception for some that he was out of touch.\n\nMr Biden's return to the White House came at a difficult time in US politics, with the country still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nJust two weeks before his inauguration, the country had also seen supporters of former President Donald Trump storm Congress in a bid to thwart the certification of his election victory after Mr Trump falsely claimed that the election had been rigged.\n\nMr Biden's new campaign is likely to focus heavily on the fight against the ideology on display during the 6 January riot. The video announcing his re-election bid opens with images of a mob of Trump supporters storming the Capitol.\n\n\"Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they've had to defend democracy,\" he said. \"This is ours. Let's finish the job.\"\n\nAs he campaigns, Mr Biden is likely to point to a number of accomplishments during his tenure, including job creation, efforts to prop up the economy in the wake of the pandemic and the passing of a bipartisan infrastructure law billed as a \"once-in-a-generation\" investment by the White House.\n\nBut he will face tough questions on his handling of immigration and the US-Mexico border, as well as on the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan.\n\nMr Biden has also acknowledged that many Americans have raised \"legitimate\" questions about his age and ability to serve as President.\n\n\"And the only thing I can say is, watch me,\" he said earlier this year.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Health workers can book an appointment at seven vaccination centres in operation across NI\n\nDoctors have insisted there is no postcode lottery when it comes to rolling out the coronavirus vaccines.\n\nNorthern Ireland's vaccination plan means all those over 80 should receive their first dose by the end of January.\n\nMore than 154,000 doses of a vaccine have now been administered, health officials said.\n\nDr Frances O'Hagan, deputy chairwoman of NI's GP committee, said practices had their own rollout plans but she expected them to meet official targets.\n\n\"As soon as we get the vaccine, we will get it to you,\" she told BBC News NI. \"But please, please wait until we contact you.\"\n\n\"We tailor our programmes to our individual patients and to our geography and to our surroundings.\n\n\"It's not actually a postcode lottery. It's the best way of doing it because we know what suits our patients.\"\n\nDr O'Hagan said she had not heard reports of some practices holding back vaccines until they received bigger amounts to allow for a larger number of vaccinations to be done.\n\nShe said rolling out the programme was a logistical challenge which fell on top of an already heavy workload but the jab would be given out in a \"safe and timely\" fashion.\n\nSinn Féin MP Órfhlaith Begley said doctors in her West Tyrone constituency were working above and beyond to administer the vaccine to as many people as possible.\n\n\"But unfortunately I am hearing that some GPs cannot access supplies of the vaccine,\" she said.\n\n\"There does appear to be, and it is a consistent message from GPs in my own constituency, a feeling the distribution of the vaccine has been unequal to date.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Health Minister Robin Swann has welcomed a further delivery of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine into Northern Ireland on Tuesday morning.\n\nIn a tweet, Robin Swann said: \"We now have the supply to complete all our over 80s and when that group is finished, there will be enough to start into the over 75 programme.\"\n\nPatricia Donnelly, the head of NI's vaccination programme said there had been 154,436 doses of the vaccine administered here, with 132,857 of those being first doses.\n\nOn Tuesday, she said three quarters of care home residents had already received both doses.\n\n\"With the arrival of additional vaccine today, which have been issued this afternoon and tomorrow to GPs, there will be enough to complete the over 80 population and to commence in the over 70 population,\" she added.\n\nA further 24 virus-related deaths and 713 more Covid-19 cases were reported in Northern Ireland on Tuesday.\n\nIt brings the total number of deaths recorded by the Department of Health to 1,649.\n\nThere are currently 842 people in hospital with the virus, 70 people in intensive care units (ICU) and 57 being ventilated.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, a further 93 Covid-19 related deaths were reported on Tuesday, bringing the country's death toll to 2,708.\n\nA further 2,001 positive cases were also recorded in the latest figures from the Republic's Department of Health.\n\nNorthern Ireland's rate of Covid-19 infection is now below one and has been at that level for a couple of weeks, according to the chief medical officer.\n\nHowever, Dr Michael McBride warned the reproduction (R) number for hospital transmission remains above one.\n\nDr McBride said new variants of the virus had made the job of curtailing the spread even more difficult, and warned he did not foresee any relaxation of restrictions any time soon.\n\n\"We need to ensure that we have as many people who remain at risk of severe disease vaccinated and prioritised with the first dose as possible before we consider significant relaxations in the current restrictions,\" he said.\n\nMeanwhile concerns have been raised that \"social media myths\" are encouraging some care home staff to reject the Covid vaccine.\n\nPauline Shepherd, from the Independent Health and Care Providers, said young women were especially vulnerable to misinformation about the vaccine and fertility.\n\nLast week, the Department of Health said there had been an uptake level of about 80% among care home staff.\n\n\"We are very keen obviously that everyone takes the vaccine, that is really the only way that we are going to get through this,\" she told BBC Radio Foyle.\n\n\"Obviously there are myths going around on social media about the vaccine and some are opting not to take it.\n\n\"Particularly younger females seem to have the view through social media that it may impact fertility\".\n\nA consultant anaesthetist says there is a \"reluctance\" among members of the black, Asian and minority ethnic communities to take Covid-19 vaccines\n\nThere are currently 139 confirmed Covid-19 outbreaks in NI's 483 care homes.\n\nThe Public Health Agency (PHA) and Department of Health were now exploring how \"to dispel the myths\", Ms Shepherd added.\n\nDr Mukesh Chugh, a consultant anaesthetist at Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry, said there had been a \"reluctance\" among black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people to take Covid-19 vaccines.\n\nDr Chugh says this is because of \"anti-vaccine messages\" posted across various social media platforms and messenger apps \"targeted at certain ethnic and religious groups\".\n\n\"I encourage them not to believe the messages they are getting on WhatsApp - these are not scientific messages,\" he said.\n\nOn Tuesday, Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots said a number of groups of key workers should be given priority access to vaccinations.\n\nPrioritisation was decided by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises UK health departments on immunisation.\n\nEdwin Poots said meat plant workers should be among those given priority vaccine access\n\nAsked if he supported prioritisation for food workers in meat plants, Mr Poots told the assembly he did and had raised it with the executive.\n\n\"It's been identified as an essential service - those people working in them are there in cold, wet conditions where we have had a number of outbreaks,\" he said.\n\n\"We should seek to introduce those people somewhat earlier than is currently the case - I will continue to endeavour to press that case.\"\n\nHe said other groups of workers who should be prioritised included \"teachers and police officers\".", "Four royal aides say they do not wish to \"take sides\" over a letter from the Duchess of Sussex to her father, the High Court has been told.\n\nIn a letter lawyers for the four said they believed their clients could \"shed some light\" on the letter's drafting but the four were \"strictly neutral\".\n\nMeghan is suing the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online publisher over articles that reproduced parts of the letter.\n\nShe claims her privacy and copyright were breached by the newspaper group.\n\nHer lawyers are asking for summary judgement - a dismissal of Associated Newspapers' (ANL) defence instead of a trial.\n\nThe five articles, published in February 2019, were a \"triple-barrelled invasion\" of the duchess's privacy, correspondence and family, the lawyers claim.\n\nShe is seeking damages from the newspaper group for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act over the articles.\n\nANL claims Meghan wrote her letter \"with a view to it being disclosed publicly at some future point\" in order to \"defend her against charges of being an uncaring or unloving daughter\", which she denies.\n\nOn the second day of the hearing on Wednesday, ANL's barrister Antony White QC told the court that a letter from the so-called \"palace four\" showed that \"further oral evidence and documentary evidence is likely to be available at trial which would shed light on certain key factual issues in this case\".\n\nHe said it was \"likely\" there was also further evidence about whether Meghan \"directly or indirectly provided private information\" to the authors of an unauthorised biography of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Finding Freedom.\n\nThe four aides are: Jason Knauf, former communications secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Christian Jones, their former deputy communications secretary, Samantha Cohen, formerly the Sussexes' private secretary, and Sara Latham, their ex-director of communications.\n\n\"None of our clients welcomes his or her potential involvement in this litigation, which has arisen purely as a result of the performance of his or her duties in their respective jobs at the material time,\" their lawyers said in a letter sent on their behalf.\n\n\"Nor does any of our clients wish to take sides in the dispute between your respective clients. Our clients are all strictly neutral.\n\n\"They have no interest in assisting either party to the proceedings. Their only interest is in ensuring a level playing field, insofar as any evidence they may be able to give is concerned.\"\n\nTheir letter said that their lawyers' \"preliminary view is that one or more of our clients would be in a position to shed some light\" on \"the creation of the letter and the electronic draft\".\n\nIt also said they may be able to shed light on \"whether or not the claimant anticipated that the letter might come into in the public domain\" and whether or not the duchess \"directly or indirectly provided private information, generally and in relation to the letter specifically, to the authors of Finding Freedom\".\n\nBut Justin Rushbrooke QC, representing the duchess, said the letter from the four \"contains no information at all that supports the defendant's case on alleged co-authorship (of Meghan's letter), and no indication that evidence will be forthcoming that will support the defendant's case should the matter proceed to trial\".\n\nMeghan, 39, sent a handwritten letter to her father in August 2018, following her marriage to Prince Harry in May that year, which Mr Markle did not attend. The couple are now living in the US with their son Archie.\n\nThe full trial of the duchess's claim had been due to be heard at the High Court this month, but last year the case was adjourned until autumn 2021.\n\nAt the conclusion of the hearing on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Justice Warby reserved his judgement, which he said he would deliver \"as soon as possible\".", "When Joe Biden becomes US president on 20 January plenty of change is expected under his new administration.\n\nFor those who want to put Donald Trump in the rear view mirror, there's a lot to look forward to.\n\nOthers are not sure if he can bring unity to a divided country and enact lasting change.\n\nHere's what members of our BBC voter panel told us.\n\nPeyton Forte is a recent college graduate who now works as a reporter. She was not the big supporter of Biden and Kamala Harris, but says getting rid of Donald Trump is an urgent and necessary first step towards change.\n\nWhat are you hopeful the Biden administration can accomplish?\n\nFor starters, easing the pandemic and ensuring more collaboration between federal and state governments on vaccine distribution. I'm looking forward to his stimulus packages to kickstart the economy and make sure people are actually alive to reap the benefits of it. We can also look forward to a president whose main mode of communication is not Twitter. The biggest thing is undoing the damage of the prior administration, from immigration laws to our relationships with foreign allies.\n\nWhat are your fears for the Biden presidency?\n\nTo be honest, I haven't really gotten to that point because I'm so ready for the Trump administration to be gone. So ask me that question again in a few weeks. I'm really encouraged by Biden's financial and economic cabinet picks because I think he is trying to stunt the racial wealth gap. There will be a time and place to nitpick his choices, but not yet. As somebody who is black, I know he rejected calls to defund the police. The phrase is inflammatory, but that money is redirected into our communities, so I'd like for him to take another look at it and maybe he'll reconsider.\n\nWith so much talk of the need for unity and healing, where does the country go from here?\n\n'Unity and healing' is the new 'thoughts and prayers'. I know it has been kind of a calling card for Biden to contrast himself with Trump, but I'm going to have to see it to believe it. Are you just faking it or are you doing the work to actually unify people? Time will tell if people actually want unity or if some are just mad that their candidate lost.\n\nJim is a property manager and conservative Republican who no longer supports President Trump since his refusal to accept the results of the election. He wants the incoming administration to find common ground rather than be too left wing.\n\nWhat are your hopes for Biden?\n\nI'm hopeful for some stability and less drama. America's standing in the world, particularly in the last couple of weeks, has really diminished and I would hope they would be able to return us to our traditional position in the world. I would like to see the bill he puts forward on Covid relief. If we're going to put money into people's hands, we need to make sure it actually makes a difference. Six hundred dollars is a slap in the face when you look at how we're giving away billions of dollars to other countries.\n\nWhat are your fears about his presidency?\n\nI am worried they're going to overreach and placate the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and create deeper polarisation. I worry they will try to pack the Supreme Court. I am concerned about immigration policy. I would hope they have the courage to be more moderate in tone, action and policy, at least for the first few years. That way, things can level off and then we can have reasonable debate about issues on a case-by-case basis. One side is really having a hard time accepting the reality of [Trump's] loss; that's too many people to just ignore and it seems like there's a real mood for retaliation.\n\nCompromises will need to happen and both sides on the extreme right and left will not be happy with it. In the immediate moment, we need to have a good tone from the top that is conciliatory and respectful. I'm looking for Biden to reassure Americans their vote was secure and legitimate, restore a sense of public confidence and competence to the US government and spend serious time on rebuilding unity.\n\nLesley is a small business owner and an immigrant from Canada. Joe Biden was not her first choice for president by a long shot, but she now says he is \"the best person\" for this moment in the country's history and she hopes he can follow through.\n\nWhat are your hopes for Biden?\n\nI'm looking forward to real leadership and an administration that actually cares about getting things done. We need to get the virus under control. They have an actual plan; I hate that it's going to cost another $2tn, but it wouldn't have cost that if we had taken the time to do the hard work early. From climate change and fire management to infrastructure and renewable energy, they'll get us back on track. From a civil rights perspective, we have the greatest opportunity. The administration is diverse and he's trying to give everyone a seat at the table.\n\nWhat are your fears about his presidency?\n\nNothing comes to mind. I feel like this administration is going to reset, refocus and prioritise things that should be prioritised. There's so much that needs to be addressed at once, but like the rest of the world, they have to learn to multitask and do their jobs.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What do countries around the world want from Joe Biden?\n\nWe need our elected officials, when doing their jobs, to not just represent one segment of the population. They can see what has happened by turning a blind eye and not listening. For the Democrats, they need to find a way to communicate so the concerns they've raised are taken seriously but without turning off the other side. For the Republicans, they need to pay attention not just to the loudest people - just being loud doesn't mean they're right. Moving forward, everybody has to do their part to prioritise what is best for the country. We're never going to get rid of the element that attacked the Capitol, but it's like herd immunity. The only people who were surprised by what happened last week were the ones who were not paying attention.\n\nJazmin is a writer and youth voting rights activist who says the past four years have damaged the psyche of young people. She wants the new administration to rebuild trust and show people like her that government can be a force for good in their lives.\n\nWhat are your hopes for Biden?\n\nI hope that the Biden administration is bold on climate, an equitable Covid economic recovery and racial justice. Personally though, I think we fundamentally need to look at our broken system. Restoring voting rights, stronger ethics and anti-corruption measures, as well as campaign finance reform can restore balance and transparency within our government, so we can trust in our elections and elected officials.\n\nWhat are your fears about his presidency?\n\nI've been thinking a lot about the pace of change. There's so much that needs to be done but we're also looking at departments that have been gutted. The damage of the past three years has been so deep and the rolling back of it will take a lot of time, so we have to practise patience and we have to be realistic.\n\nOur government only works when people decide not to disengage and be cynical, but instead step up and figure out how to get involved. The events of the Capitol work were horrific and traumatising for so many people, but the day before it was a Georgia election with incredibly high youth voter turnout. There is a lot of vitriol and hate, but the majority of folks believe in working to ensure our country is serving the best interests of everyone.\n\nGabriel is a writer and the activism chair for the New York Young Republicans. He wishes the Biden administration good luck, but is concerned it will sow more division in a vulnerable moment for the country.\n\nWhat are your hopes for Biden?\n\nAs an American, I am hopeful that things go well under this administration. I don't wish for Joe Biden to fail because the president is like the pilot of a plane: if he goes down, so do we. I hope he can answer the renewable energy debate, create more nuclear power plants and allow the United States to remain the number one exporter of energy. Hopefully, we'll see some sort of voter ID laws enforced, for greater election integrity. I hope he doesn't fuel more divisions.\n\nWhat are your fears about his presidency?\n\nMy fear is that he will listen to people like AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and Bernie Sanders, who are trying to push him to accept more far left policies that will do more harm than good to the US in an economic sense. He may continue the harsh lockdowns and ignore censorship of conservatives. Under the Trump administration, we decreased our presence in the Middle East and were stopping the forever wars, so I really hope we don't return there.\n\nAfter what happened at the Capitol, Biden came out and started very well, then devolved into race-baiting rhetoric - that's not something our country needs right now. There are millions of people who feel as though they were cheated and did not get a fair election, and some of them might not even recognise Biden as president, so it's very important that he treads lightly and focuses on unity. Don't lump them together as insurgents or other labels because you're going to further alienate people. Speak to every American and say that it is time to come together.", "As Donald Trump comes towards the end of his presidency, we've put together a selection of striking moments from his four years in office.\n\nCrowds are seen gathered at Mr Trump's inauguration ceremony on 20 January 2017.\n\nJust days later, the new president accused the media of lying about the attendance. He was said to be angry that images appeared to show the crowds were lower than for Barack Obama's first inauguration in 2009.\n\nWhite House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told the media it had been \"the largest audience to ever see an inauguration, period\".\n\nFar-right supporters and white nationalists took part in a torch-lit rally through Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.\n\nThe following day a woman was killed and 19 were injured when a car ploughed into a crowd of counter-protesters in the city.\n\nIn response, President Trump condemned violence by \"many sides\", prompting a wave of criticism. Some 48 hours later, he denounced far-right extremists calling \"KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists repugnant to everything we hold dear\".\n\nJoe Biden has said it was the president's response to the tragedy that prompted his own decision to run against him.\n\nMr Trump's attendance at the G7 summit in Canada in June 2018 did not get off to a good start, when prior to the event, the president announced import tariffs on steel and aluminium from the EU, Mexico and Canada.\n\nOther images from the meeting showed more friendly relations between the leaders - but this photo was considered by many to reflect the underlying tensions of the gathering.\n\nMr Trump left the summit before other leaders and claimed that America was \"like the piggy bank that everybody is robbing\".\n\nFirst Lady Melania Trump is pictured wearing a jacket in June 2018 which reads \"I really don't care, do you?\" on the back, during a trip to a migrant child detention centre.\n\nThere was speculation over what message Mrs Trump intended to send by wearing the jacket on that trip, which came as the president was under fire for his policy of separating children from their parents at the border.\n\nThe First Lady later admitted it had been a message \"for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticising me. I want to show them I don't care. You could criticise whatever you want to say. But it will not stop me to do what I feel is right\".\n\nMr Trump called for compromise in politics during his State of the Union address in February 2019 but Nancy Pelosi was pictured giving what many saw as a sarcastic clap.\n\nHe broke protocol by not waiting for the customary introduction from the House Speaker before beginning his speech.\n\nThe image, termed the \"Pelosi clap\" quickly went viral and appeared to show the political rivalry between the two.\n\nMr Trump walks into the northern side of the military demarcation line that divides North and South Korea in June 2019. In doing so, he became the first US sitting president to cross the line.\n\nHis decision to meet Kim Jong-un without pre-conditions stunned the world.\n\nDespite the apparent warming of relations, little concrete progress was made on negotiations over North Korea's nuclear programme.\n\nKim Kardashian West speaks at a White House event about prison reform in June 2019.\n\nIn 2018, the celebrity activist lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of a grandmother jailed for life. Alice Johnson was later granted clemency in a high-profile decision by Mr Trump.\n\nPresident Trump has already given pardons to 94 people and there is speculation he may pardon 100 others before he leaves office.\n\nMr Trump holds a bible in front of St John's Episcopal Church, just across the road from the White House in June 2020.\n\nPeaceful anti-racism demonstrators had been cleared from nearby Lafayette Square with pepper spray and flash-bang grenades so that the president and his entourage could walk to the church.\n\nHis actions prompted shock and anger from many religious leaders, who accused him of using religion for political purposes.\n\nThe Trump family watch as Donald Trump debates with Joe Biden at their first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio, on 29 September 2020.\n\nThey broke debate rules that all spectators wear masks - sparking the same criticism often aimed at their father for taking a cavalier attitude to the virus.\n\nA few days after the debate, the president tested positive himself.\n\nHe spent three nights in a hospital receiving treatment before returning to the White House and declaring he felt \"really good\" and urging others not to be afraid of the virus.\n\nCrowds of Trump supporters climb on the US Capitol in DC earlier this month following a \"Stop the Steal\" rally.\n\nIt followed a 70-minute address by the president in which he exhorted them to march on Congress where politicians were meeting to certify Democrat Joe Biden's win. The mob ransacked the Capitol building and attempted to enter the chambers where lawmakers were hiding.\n\nMr Trump has since been impeached, becoming the first president ever to be impeached twice. But he denies charges that he incited the mob to attack the Capitol.", "A tearful President-elect Joe Biden says goodbye to his home state before departing for Washington on the eve of his inauguration.", "Joe Biden has been sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, at a low key inauguration ceremony outside the US Capitol in Washington DC.\n\nIn his maiden speech as president, Mr Biden said: \"We've learned again that democracy is precious, democracy is fragile, and at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.\"\n\nRead more: Joe Biden replaces Trump as US president", "More than 60 flood warnings remain in place in northern, central and eastern England\n\nResidents have been evacuated, roads closed and rail services were suspended as Storm Christoph batters England.\n\nHouseboat residents were moved from Northwich, Cheshire, for their safety as Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to hold an emergency meeting later.\n\nNorthern, central and eastern England are braced for flooding which will be discussed at the Cobra meeting.\n\nMore than 60 flood warnings remain in place and three police forces have declared major incidents.\n\nThe North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands have been preparing for widespread flooding following the Met Office's amber weather warning for heavy rain until midday Thursday.\n\nPeople living in houseboats in Cheshire have been moved to hotels for their safety, say police\n\nCheshire Police has declared a major incident - along with forces in Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire - and moved 33 people from Hayhurst Marina for their safety as water levels rise.\n\nIn Greater Manchester up to 3,000 properties could be affected by flooding near the River Mersey where a peak is expected at 23:00 GMT.\n\nDowning Street said Covid-secure evacuation centres would be made available to those forced to leave their homes as a result of flooding.\n\n\"Preparations to create Covid-secure rest centres have been made by relevant agencies as a precautionary measure,\" the Prime Minister's official spokesman said.\n\n\"The important message for the public now is to continue to monitor the information the Environment Agency are providing and sign-up for flood alerts if they haven't already.\"\n\nThe River Eden has flooded Rickerby Park in Carlisle\n\nMore than 120mm (nearly 5in) of rain has already fallen in some parts of England, with 123.4mm at Honister Pass in Cumbria in the 24 hours up to 06:00 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nNearby Seathwaite saw the second highest total, with 107.2mm (4.2in), and some isolated spots could see up to 200mm (7.8in), the Met Office said.\n\nThe Environment Agency has issued more than 60 flood warnings, meaning flooding is expected and immediate action required, while there are also more than 180 flood alerts, meaning flooding is possible.\n\nA road in Lancashire was shut by police after six vehicles got stuck in surface water\n\nIn North Yorkshire, York is currently predicting the River Ouse could rise above 4m (13.1ft) but that is a level the defences can cope with.\n\nHowever, if people are forced out of their homes due to flooding they can stay with friends or family without the risk of a Covid fine during Storm Christoff, North Yorkshire Police has said.\n\nGreater Manchester Police Assistant Chief Constable Nick Bailey said the force declared it a major incident on Tuesday to ensure it was \"as prepared as possible\".\n\nHe believes up to 3,000 properties in the region could be affected by flooding in Didsbury, Northenden and Sale near the River Mersey.\n\nFlood sirens were sounded in Walsden, Todmorden on Tuesday\n\n\"This is a significant incident in terms of disruption to people and those people have been advised with regard to action to take,\" he said.\n\nThe Prime Minister's spokesman added: \"The Environment Agency is on the ground now working with local partners and stand ready to respond to any flooding.\n\n\"They have already ensured there are 40km (25 miles) of temporary barriers, which they are ready to deliver anywhere in the country and that is alongside high-powered pumps and trained staff who are ready to assist and provide information to local communities.\"\n\nWhen asked if local authorities would be given further financial support to deal with flooding, the Prime Minister's spokesman said: \"We have a number of flood recovery schemes that can be made available to those who are affected by flooding.\"\n\nFlood warden Keith Crabtree from Todmorden, West Yorkshire, said he was hoping improved flood defences had \"done the trick\" after checking river levels in Mytholmroyd.\n\n\"There appears to be plenty of rain about but it does not seem to be having and serious impact on the river levels,\" he said.\n\n\"We will see over the years to come how it performs in reducing the flood risk for the village. Things can change very quickly in the Calder Valley and we are not out of the woods yet.\"\n\nHow have you been affected by the floods? Email your experiences: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Mr Biden took his oath on a Bible that has been in his family since 1893 and was also used each time he was sworn in as Delaware senator. The book itself is five inches (12.5cm) thick with a Celtic cross on the cover", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe fluttering flight patterns of butterflies have long inspired poets but baffled scientists.\n\nResearchers have struggled to understand how these delicate creatures can fly with their large but inefficient wings.\n\nNow, a new study shows that butterflies evolved an effective way of cupping and clapping their wings to generate thrust.\n\nThe scientists say that this ability helps them avoid dangerous predators.\n\nFlying species have evolved various methods of evading death. Some have developed powerful and efficient wings to speed them to safety.\n\nOthers survive by tasting awful when eaten.\n\nBut what about the slow-moving, meandering butterfly?\n\nThe problem for these creatures is that they have unusually large wings relative to their body size, which are aerodynamically inefficient for flight.\n\nBack in the 1970s, researchers developed a theory that their big wings allowed the butterfly to clap them together on the upstroke to power their take off.\n\nBut no one has shown how this works in natural flying conditions.\n\nNow, Swedish scientists, using a wind tunnel and high-speed cameras, have captured the butterfly's unique flying skill.\n\n\"The wings are behaving in quite an interesting way,\" co-author Dr Per Henningsson, from Lund University, in Sweden, told BBC News.\n\n\"The leading and the trailing edge are meeting before the central part, forming this pocket shape.\n\n\"We think that sort of behaviour is going to improve the clap because it forms an air pocket between the wings which, when the wings collapse, that makes the jet even stronger and more efficient.\"\n\nA butterfly in the wind tunnel for the experiment\n\nAs well as recording slow-motion video of the butterflies in flight, the researchers constructed two simple pairs of mechanical clappers to test their ideas. One was rigid, the other flexible and more akin to the butterfly wings observed in the wind tunnel tests.\n\nThe team found that the flexible wings dramatically increased the force created by the clap.\n\nIt also improved the efficiency by 28%, which the authors describe as a huge amount for a flying animal.\n\nThis leads them to conclude that the large wings and cupped, clapping action were an evolutionary advantage for butterflies when faced with predators.\n\n\"If you are a butterfly that is able to take off quicker than the others, that gives you an obvious advantage,\" said Per Henningsson.\n\n\"It's a strong selective pressure then, because it's a matter of life and death.\"\n\nA silver washed fritillary , one of the creatures used to show the mechanics of butterfly flight\n\n\"I don't really know if they use it in free flight, but I think they typically don't flap their wings together.\n\n\"But in the take-off phase, they definitely do it a lot.\"\n\nThe authors believe that their research might prove useful in other spheres.\n\nSome drone devices and underwater vehicles already use propulsion systems based on wing clapping motion, but with limitations.\n\nThe incorporation of the approach used by butterflies might bring major improvements, the scientists say.\n\n\"We're suggesting that the people that are working on these designs, they should look into this cup-shape behaviour, since there are lots of efficiency and effectiveness to be gained from it,\" said Per Henningsson.\n\n\"It's certainly something that would be worthwhile looking into.\"\n\nThe report has been published in the journal of the Royal Society Interface.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nRelegation-threatened Fulham lost some of the momentum built up by their win at Everton but showed battling qualities to claim a point at Burnley.\n\nOf the three sides currently adrift at the bottom of the Premier League, the Cottagers seem the most capable of clawing their way to safety, as illustrated by their impressive win at Goodison Park on Sunday.\n\nBut they failed to repeat that bright and incisive display at Turf Moor against a typically hard-working and competitive Clarets side, who married their industry with the game's main moments of attacking ingenuity.\n\nIt was the visitors, though, who took the lead, as much through fortune as design, with Ola Aina's chested effort from a corner finding the net despite an attempted clearance from Robbie Brady on the line.\n\nCrucially, the visitors were denied the time to draw confidence from the opener, with Burnley hitting back three minutes later through a well-taken Ashley Barnes finish, following a superb low ball from Jay Rodriguez.\n\nThe same two strikers had both narrowly failed to get a goal-bound touch on a superb low cross from James Tarkowski in the first half, while Rodriguez saw a low drive kicked away by Alphonse Areola shortly after his side had levelled the score.\n\nThe draw represents an opportunity missed for Burnley to put further ground between themselves and the London side, with the gap between the two a sizeable but not yet entirely comfortable eight points.\n\nScott Parker's side remain six points shy of safety, with Newcastle the 17th-placed side most in danger of being reeled in.\n• None Follow live text commentary of Burnley v Fulham in the Premier League\n\nA point gained, or two lost for Fulham?\n\nEarning a result at Burnley against a side built to expose the mental and physical weaknesses in an opponent, especially a newly promoted one, is not an easy task.\n\nIn doing so, Fulham have further demonstrated their growth into a top-flight side, after claiming a number of creditable draws earlier in the campaign and then dispatching an aspiring big-hitter in Everton last weekend.\n\nUnfortunately, the Cottagers' development could have come too late.\n\nOnly wins will really eat into the gap between themselves and safety and they cannot afford to let one slip from their grasp when it is there to be had.\n\nIt is why Parker and his side will be so disappointed at the speed and manner with which they conceded the equaliser at Turf Moor, throwing away the lead and momentum they had seized by allowing Barnes a free run in on goal to finish.\n\nThey had been on the back foot for large periods before that and were indebted to a bit of fortune for their goal, but aesthetics come a distant second to actual points right now.\n\nThe biggest positive for Burnley will be that their advantage over the Cottagers remains the same as it was before kick-off.\n\nWith the likes of Newcastle and Palace in far worse form than they are, and Brighton a point worse off, they will feel relatively calm about their situation.\n\nWhat will worry manager Dyche is further injuries to his already depleted squad, with Johan Berg Gudmundsson having to depart, and his replacement Robbie Brady also needing to be replaced.\n\nThere is no respite for either side, with both facing further important fixtures at the weekend.\n\nBurnley host West Brom, the side a place below Fulham in the table, while Parker's men welcome bottom club Sheffield United to Craven Cottage.\n\n'When we get ahead we need to weather something'\n\nBurnley boss Sean Dyche talking to Sky Sports: \"Another point on the board, we are stripped to the bare bones. A committed performance.\n\n\"The reaction to their goal was excellent and I thought we defended well. It's remarkably unfortunate how many injuries we have had.\"\n\nFulham boss Scott Parker talking to Sky Sports: \"It is a tough place to come, the ball is in play not a lot, it is scrappy. We got our noses in front and disappointed with the goal we have conceded.\n\n\"We take the point though. That is four points so far this week. When we get ahead we need to weather something. There were a couple of mistakes for their goal.\n\n\"I thought we were solid, dealt with the threat of balls coming in but were not able to get our identity on it.\n\n\"We regroup, it has been a busy week. Every game is big for us. Six points. This team has honest belief and confidence.\"\n• None Burnley are unbeaten in their past 31 home meetings with Fulham in all competitions (W25 D6), extending their longest ever unbeaten run against an opponent at Turf Moor in their history. Their last such defeat was back in April 1951 (2-0).\n• None Fulham's 31-game winless streak away from home against Burnley in all competitions is their longest run without a victory on the road against an opponent in their history.\n• None There have been just 24 Premier League goals scored at Turf Moor this season (Burnley scoring 10 and conceding 14) - the joint-lowest total at a top-flight ground in 2020-21 (level with Craven Cottage).\n• None Fulham have gone six consecutive away games without defeat in the Premier League (W1 D5), their joint longest such run in the competition (also in August 2004 under Chris Coleman).\n• None Burnley have conceded the first goal of the game in eight of their 12 Premier League matches at Turf Moor this season, including each of the past five - only Sheffield United (10) have done so more often on home soil in the competition this campaign.\n• None There were just 224 seconds between Ola Aina's opener for Fulham and Ashley Barnes' equaliser for Burnley.\n• None Burnley's Jay Rodriguez has assisted in back-to-back Premier League games for the first time in his career, with this his 196th appearance in the competition.\n• None Burnley's Robbie Brady is the only player to have been substituted on and off in two separate Premier League games this season.\n• None Attempt missed. Ashley Barnes (Burnley) header from very close range misses to the left following a corner.\n• None Attempt missed. Ademola Lookman (Fulham) right footed shot from the left side of the box is close, but misses the top right corner. Assisted by Josh Maja.\n• None James Tarkowski (Burnley) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt missed. Josh Maja (Fulham) right footed shot from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Ruben Loftus-Cheek with a cross.\n• None Attempt missed. Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Fulham) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Ivan Cavaleiro with a cross. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Lifting the lid on the former president's 'America First' foreign policy\n• None Romesh returns with celebrity guests, a virtual nation and his mum...", "The editor of the British Medical Journal has asked the New York Times to correct an article that says UK guidelines allow two Covid-19 vaccines to be mixed.\n\nThe US publication reported that UK health officials would allow patients to be given a second dose that is a different vaccine to their first.\n\nFiona Godlee pointed out in her letter to the NYT that it was not a recommendation.\n\nShe said the NYT's headline claiming UK guidelines say such substitutions \"may happen\" was \"seriously misleading\".\n\nThe UK has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab - but both require two doses which are now to be administered 12 weeks apart\n\nMs Godlee said the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) does not make any recommendation to mix and match - in other words, having a shot of one vaccine and then a different one 12 weeks later.\n\nDr Mary Ramsay, Public Health England's head of immunisations, said: \"We do not recommend mixing the Covid-19 vaccines - if your first dose is the Pfizer vaccine you should not be given the AstraZeneca vaccine for your second dose and vice versa.\"\n\nDr Ramsay added that on the \"extremely rare occasions\" where the same vaccine is unavailable or it is unknown which jab the patient received, it is \"better to give a second dose of another vaccine than not at all\".\n\nMs Godlee urged the New York Times to print a \"highly visible correction\" as soon as possible.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Princess Royal Hospital at Haywards Heath was among the hospitals receiving a delivery\n\nMeanwhile, health staff have criticised the paperwork needed to gain NHS approval to give the coronavirus vaccine, with some medics being asked for proof they are trained in areas such as preventing radicalisation.\n\nThe first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are due to be given on Monday after the jab was approved for use in the UK last week.\n\nThe Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first vaccine approved in the UK, and 944,539 people have had their first jab.", "Police tweeted this photo, which appears to show the vehicle severely damaged in the crash\n\nFour ponies have been killed in a collision with a vehicle in the New Forest National Park.\n\nThe animals were hit on Thursday night while licking freshly laid salt on Roger Penny Way, Hampshire Constabulary said.\n\nThree ponies died at the scene while a fourth was found dead later a short distance away.\n\nIn December, three donkeys were killed on the road, which is a black spot for animal accidents.\n\nMark Ferrett, whose daughter owned the ponies, said the deaths were \"unacceptable\"\n\nThe crash happened at about 21:00 GMT on a 40mph (64km/h) section of the road north of Brook.\n\nThe car, a Land Rover Discovery, appears to have been severely damaged in the collision, according to a police tweet, which gave no further details.\n\nMark Ferrett, whose daughter owned the ponies, said the deaths were \"unacceptable\".\n\nHe said: \"I would favour a reduction in the speed [limit]. Please, everyone needs to slow down and stop this carnage.\"\n\nThe New Forest is one of the largest remaining areas of unenclosed land where commoners' cattle, ponies and donkeys roam throughout the open heath.\n\nIn 2019, 58 animals were killed and 32 were injured, according to the New Forest National Park Authority.\n\nThe crash happened on Roger Penny Way, where donkeys, cattle and horses roam freely\n\nAndrew Napthine, a New Forest Agister who helps manage the area's free-roaming animals, attended the scene of the crash, and said the male driver was not injured.\n\nHe said three of the ponies were killed on the road while a fourth fled the scene and died behind a bush.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Officers dispersed the party at the Grade II* listed church before midnight\n\nA 500-year-old church was damaged during an illegal New Year's Eve party at the venue.\n\nAll Saints' Church in East Horndon, near Brentwood, was broken into before crowds entered, Essex Police said.\n\nOfficers were threatened and had objects thrown at them as they dispersed hundreds of people and seized equipment, the force said.\n\nTwo men from Harlow, aged 27 and 22, and a 35-year-old from Southwark were arrested.\n\nThey were held on suspicion of public order and drugs offences.\n\nAstrid Gillespie, a volunteer with the Friends of All Saints', said event organisers had smashed a window to put in an extractor fan unit and wired sound equipment into the church's fuse box.\n\nShe said: \"It was a professional set-up, they'd hired portable loos, they had a bar area where you had to exchange tokens... obviously it's a mess.\n\n\"It's such a beautiful church, to find out it's been damaged is devastating.\"\n\nThe conservation group believes it will cost at least £1,000 to repair the Tudor building.\n\nEquipment was seized and fines issued over three illegal parties broken up by officers\n\nPolice later dispersed about 100 people at an illegal party at an abandoned warehouse in Brentwood and made two arrests.\n\nA woman was also fined £10,000 for organising a house party with 100 guests at Bury Road, Sewardstonebury, in Epping Forest.\n\nAssistant Chief Constable Andy Prophet said: \"Unfortunately, there were [those] who decided to blatantly flout the coronavirus rules and regulations and, ultimately, they decided that partying was more important than protecting other people.\n\n\"We've seized their equipment, arrested five people, and issued a large number of fines to those who think this behaviour is acceptable.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Last updated on .From the section European Football\n\nFormer Tottenham and Southampton boss Mauricio Pochettino has been appointed head coach of Paris St-Germain.\n\nThe Argentine, 48, who succeeded Thomas Tuchel, has signed a deal until 30 June 2022, with the option of an extra year.\n\nPochettino, who played for PSG between 2001 and 2003, has been out of work since being sacked by Spurs in November 2019.\n\nPSG are third in Ligue 1 and will face Barcelona in the last 16 of the Champions League in February and March.\n\nGerman Tuchel was sacked on 29 December after two and a half years in charge.\n• None Pochettino is back - but why has he chosen PSG? Read Guillem Ballague's column\n\nPochettino will take his first training session on Sunday following the French league's winter break.\n\nHe said he was \"happy and honoured\" to take on the role and that the club \"has always held a special place in my heart\".\n\n\"I return to the club today with a lot of ambition and humility, and am eager to work with some of the world's most talented players,\" said Pochettino.\n\n\"This team has fantastic potential and my staff and I will do everything we can to get the best for Paris St-Germain in all competitions. We will also do our utmost to give our team the combative and attacking playing identity that Parisian fans have always loved.\"\n\nPSG chairman and chief executive Nasser Al-Khelaifi said Pochettino's return \"fits perfectly with our ambitions\", adding: \"It will be another exciting chapter for the club and one I am positive the fans will enjoy.\"\n\nPochettino began his managerial career at Espanyol and spent 18 months at Southampton before joining Tottenham in May 2014.\n\nHe guided them to the League Cup final in his first full season, while two third-placed finishes sandwiched a runners-up spot in the Premier League in 2016-17.\n\nA former Argentina defender, Pochettino led Spurs to the Champions League final in 2019, where they lost to Liverpool.\n\nHe was sacked five months later, with the club 14th in the Premier League, and replaced by Jose Mourinho.\n\nTuchel's final game in charge of PSG was a 4-0 win over Strasbourg on 23 December, which moved the reigning champions to within a point of Ligue 1 leaders Lyon and second-placed Lille before a two-week winter break.\n\nPSG have been linked with a January loan move for Tottenham's Dele Alli, who made his Premier League debut under Pochettino.\n\nWe all wanted to see him back and we all thought he was waiting for the Manchester United job. PSG is a massive job. There's a massive expectation there.\n\nWith the squad he can pick from and the players he can attract, it's a match made in heaven.\n\nPochettino has got the best out of Dele Alli in the past and it would probably be a clever move all round to get him out there with with the Euros looming.\n\nYou have to have success [at PSG]. They have moved Thomas Tuchel on because PSG are actually in a title race rather than winning at a canter. It's a great opportunity for Pochettino.\n• None A special and exclusive one-off chat with the music icon\n• None How has their rise come to define our culture?", "Arwel Morris said national park staff and police had been engaging with visitors\n\nBeauty spots have been \"disappointingly busy over the last few days\" despite restrictions meaning all but essential travel should be avoided.\n\nSnowdonia park warden Arwel Morris reiterated the message that people should not be driving to visit places.\n\nOn Saturday, police stopped people from Milton Keynes attempting to walk up Snowdon in breach of Covid rules.\n\nMr Morris blamed a \"perfect storm\" of good weather and people being off work for the number of visitors in the area.\n\n\"We try and enforce the fact that exercise should begin and end at home, meaning people should not try and drive to a location where they plan to exercise,\" he told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.\n\n\"And this has been really difficult over the last few days.\n\n\"We have dealt with people from London, Birmingham… numerous people from north Wales travelling to beauty spots.\"\n\nMr Morris, a warden for Snowdonia National Park, said police had been doing their \"absolute best\" dealing with visitors despite other pressures, as wardens could not enforce breaches in lockdown rules.\n\nA breach of Covid rules can incur a £60 fine, which rises to £120 for a second breach.\n\nOn Saturday, North Wales Police said officers had \"turned away\" people who wanted to walk up Snowdon in breach of stay-at-home rules, including some some from Milton Keynes and London.\n\nOn New Year's Day, the force tweeted to say people had been reported for breaching travel restrictions.\n\nWales has been in a nationwide level four lockdown since 20 December.\n\nWales is in a tier four lockdown\n\nTravelling is only allowed for essential purposes, such as for work and for caring responsibilities. International travel is also not allowed.\n\nPeople are still allowed out of their homes to exercise for unlimited periods each day, but must maintain social distancing and not exercise with anyone outside their household.\n\nMore than three quarters of England is also under the strictest tier four coronavirus measures, putting restrictions on people's daily lives.", "The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has started to arrive in hospitals, with the first doses due to be given on Monday.\n\nThe Princess Royal Hospital at Haywards Heath in West Sussex was one of the hospitals taking a delivery on Saturday.\n\nThe UK has ordered 100 million doses of the new vaccine - enough to vaccinate 50 million people.", "Last updated on .From the section Olympics\n\nThe delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will go ahead this summer despite concern over rising coronavirus cases, says Japan's prime minister.\n\nThe Olympics are due to begin on 23 July with the Paralympics following a month later from 24 August.\n\nCases have surged in Japan in recent days with Tokyo reporting over 1,000 daily infections for the first time.\n\nBut prime minister Yoshihide Suga said the \"Games will be held this summer\" and be \"safe and secure\".\n\nJapan is responding to cases of the new variant of coronavirus first found in the UK, with Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike warning the number of infections could \"explode\".\n\nThere were a record 1,337 cases in Tokyo on 31 December with 783 new infections announced on Friday.\n\nJapan has recorded 239,041 coronavirus cases and 3,337 deaths during the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University.\n\nCosts for the Games have increased by $2.8bn (£2.1bn) because of measures needed to prevent the spread of coronavirus but organisers have ruled out a delay.\n\nThe Games could be the most expensive summer Olympics in history.\n\nA poll by national broadcaster NHK showed that the majority of the Japanese general public oppose holding the Games in 2021, favouring a further delay or outright cancellation of the event.\n\nSuga said the Games going ahead could serve as a \"symbol of global solidarity\".", "The next few weeks will be \"nail-bitingly difficult\" for the NHS, hospital bosses have warned.\n\nStaff absences and the new Covid variant are creating a \"challenging situation\", Saffron Cordery, of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts in England, said.\n\nDoctors are urging the public to \"take it seriously and follow the rules\" to protect the health service.\n\nThe year started with 53,285 more Covid cases and 613 deaths being reported.\n\nThe day's figures do not include data from Northern Ireland or Wales, or the numbers of deaths from Scotland - as these are not being published on certain days during the Christmas and New Year period.\n\nIt comes after the UK reported its highest daily cases on Thursday, with a record 55,892 infections.\n\nOn Friday evening, the government confirmed that all primary schools in London would remain closed for the start of the new term, following a review of Covid transmission rates.\n\nFrom Monday, all schools in the capital will now be required to provide remote learning.\n\nPrimaries in nine London boroughs and the City of London district had been set to reopen - while those in the remaining 23 boroughs would have stayed closed from 4 January.\n\nMeanwhile, new analysis by Imperial College London has confirmed the new variant of coronavirus has a much quicker rate of transmission than the original strain.\n\nAnd an analysis of NHS England data from 23 hospital trusts by the Health Service Journal shows that Covid-19 is putting intense pressure on adult acute care and general beds, as well as those in intensive care.\n\nIt found that more than a third of these beds were occupied by patients with Covid-19 on Tuesday, and in three trusts - North Middlesex in London, and Medway and Dartford and Gravesham in Kent - the figure was more than half.\n\nBased on the recent rise in numbers, the analysis suggests that all acute and general beds might soon be filled with Covid-19 patients.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Breakfast, Ms Cordery said the surging transmission and death rates were \"incredibly hard to deal with\".\n\n\"When we are seeing major London trusts saying they are under pressure, that's when we know we're in a very challenging space,\" she said.\n\nA leading intensive care doctor has urged people to follow restrictions until the vaccination programme is fully rolled out.\n\nProf Anthony Gordon, of Imperial College, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"There is light at the end of the tunnel so I would urge people to hold on for these few more months while the vaccination programme makes that difference and then we can truly get back to normal.\n\n\"But we can't overrun the health service because this will just lead to thousands more deaths.\"\n\nAdrian Boyle, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, urged people to follow guidance on hand washing, social distancing and face coverings to stop the \"entirely preventable\" spread of the virus.\n\nDr Boyle said staff are \"tired\" and at risk of \"burnout\", having \"worked really hard over the summer\" and \"put up with a lot of disruption\".\n\n\"This time people are frustrated, this is now an entirely preventable disease, we know what we did in spring made a lot of this go away. There's also now a vaccine,\" he added.\n\nMore than three-quarters of England is currently under the strictest tier four - \"stay at home\" - coronavirus measures, and other parts of the country have joined higher tiers.\n\nMainland Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are under lockdown.\n\nThere are also concerns the added pressures of rising numbers of Covid patients seen at London hospitals have begun to spread across the country.\n\nSpeaking on Today, Dr Alison Pittard, of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, said it was \"only a matter of time before it starts to spread to other parts of country\", adding that \"we're already starting to see that\".\n\nShe stressed it was \"really important that we try and stop the transmission in the community because that translates into hospital admissions\".\n\nIt comes as almost half the major hospital trusts in England are said to be dealing with more Covid-19 patients than at the peak of the first wave in April.\n\nAnd pressure has been so great on some hospitals in London and south-east England that some patients have been moved out of the area.\n\nLondon's Nightingale emergency hospital is ready to admit patients, the NHS has said, while other sites currently not in use are being readied.\n\nHowever, Mike Adams, director of the Royal College of Nursing, questioned whether there were the staff available to run the hospital.\n\n\"Nursing is already stretched beyond capacity so there is no magic pile of nurses we can call upon,\" he told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.\n\n\"I think the real battle is reducing the spread of the virus and getting the vaccine rolled out.\"\n\nThe new coronavirus variant has driven a big rise in cases, with the worst effects felt so far in London.\n\nResearchers at Imperial College London have confirmed it increases the R number - the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to - by about 0.4 to 0.7.\n\nThe UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nProf Axel Gandy, from the statistic section of Imperial College London, told the Today programme this higher rate of infection means that transmission of the disease would have tripled even during England's November lockdown conditions.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC's Laura Foster explains how to wear your mask correctly and help stop coronavirus spreading\n\nThe hunt is now on to find new ways to slow the spread of coronavirus, with the rules on mask wearing potentially coming up for review.\n\nBehavioural science group SPI-B (Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours), which reports to the Sage group of government advisers, has said that mandatory face coverings may be necessary in a wider number of settings, such as in workplaces and possibly outdoors.\n\nHowever, Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, told BBC Radio 4's World at One he was not convinced a move towards making the wearing of face coverings mandatory outdoors would make \"much difference\" to transmission rates.\n\nHe said the \"bigger problem\" was people touching their face covering or wearing it incorrectly, adding ministers should focus on ensuring people knew how to wear them and to change and wash them regularly.\n\nThe rollout of the newly approved Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will begin on Monday, almost a month after the Pfizer-BioNTech jab.\n\nSecond doses of either will now take place within 12 weeks rather than 21 days as had been initially planned with the Pfizer vaccine.", "The star started filming his role in secret last year\n\nComedian John Bishop is to join Jodie Whittaker for the 13th series of Doctor Who, the BBC has revealed.\n\nThe 54-year-old, who recently tested positive for coronavirus, said boarding the Tardis was a \"dream come true\".\n\nHe will play a character called Dan, who \"becomes embroiled in the Doctor's adventures\" and faces \"evil alien races beyond his wildest nightmares\".\n\nBishop fills the gap left by Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole, who bowed out in a special New Year's Day episode.\n\nHe began filming his role last November, but the BBC kept the signing under wraps until the broadcast of Revolution Of The Daleks on Friday night.\n\nBishop, who grew up on a Merseyside council estate, had a brief career as a professional footballer before turning his hand to comedy.\n\nHe has previously acted in the Channel 4 drama Skins and the Ken Loach film Route Irish.\n\nEarlier this week, the comedian revealed that he and his wife had tested positive for Coronavirus over Christmas, saying he had been \"flattened\" by \"the worst illness I have ever had\".\n\nWriting on Instagram, he described his symptoms as including \"incredible headaches, muscle and joint point, no appetite, nausea, dizziness [and] chronic fatigue like I didn't know existed\".\n\nHe updated fans on New Year's Eve, saying he and his wife were \"getting a little stronger\" every day, and promising he would return to work in January.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by johnbish100 This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIt is not thought his illness will disrupt production on Doctor Who. The show is on a scheduled break for Christmas and not due to resume filming until later this month.\n\nThe 13th series of the rebooted sci-fi stalwart will see Whittaker return as the extra terrestrial Time Lord, alongside Mandip Gill, who returns as Yaz.\n\nIn a statement, Bishop said: \"If I could tell my younger self that one day I would be asked to step on board the Tardis, I would never have believed it.\n\n\"It's an absolute dream come true to be joining Doctor Who and I couldn't wish for better company than Jodie and Mandip.\"\n\nJodie Whittaker became the first female actress to play The Doctor in 2017\n\nProgramme boss Chris Chibnall added: \"It's time for the next chapter of Doctor Who, and it starts with a man called Dan. Oh, we've had to keep this one secret for a long, long time.\n\n\"Our conversations started with John even before the pandemic hit.\n\n\"The character of Dan was built for him, and it's a joy to have him aboard the Tardis.\"\n\nDoctor Who will return to BBC One later this year.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nArsenal continued their Premier League resurgence with a ruthless victory over strugglers West Brom at The Hawthorns.\n\nDefender Kieran Tierney's excellent solo run and curling finish put the Gunners in front in the first half, before the impressive Bukayo Saka rounded off a stunning passing move to make it 2-0.\n\nAlexandre Lacazette added the third and fourth goals after the break - smashing in a rebound from Emile Smith Rowe's shot before he was set up by Tierney.\n\nIt was Arsenal's third league victory in a row after they had failed to win their previous seven.\n\nWest Brom, playing their fourth match under new manager Sam Allardyce, remain second from bottom and six points from safety.\n• None Confidence? Youth? How have Arsenal turned relegation talk into European hopes?\n\nArsenal boss Mikel Arteta said he wanted his players to \"show confidence\" at The Hawthorns, and they certainly did that in a dominant and eye-catching display.\n\nHector Bellerin forced Sam Johnstone into a save within two minutes after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang broke down the left, and Saka tormented full-back Dara O'Shea on the opposite wing constantly during the opening half.\n\nIt was Saka's ball that fizzed past the back post, inches away from the toe of Aubameyang, after the 19-year-old had got the better of O'Shea and hit it straight at Johnstone.\n\nWest Brom were being suffocated and Tierney's burst of pace to get around Darnell Furlong, before bending it into the far corner, was the perfect way to open the scoring.\n\nSaka made it 2-0 by rounding off a slick, one-touch passing move that former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger would have been proud of.\n\nWest Brom could offer no response after the break either and Arsenal were 3-0 up on the hour when Lacazette eventually blasted in the rebound from a catalogue of errors by defender Semi Ajayi.\n\nThat was game over but Lacazette was allowed to add a fourth when he was left unmarked to divert Tierney's cross into the roof of the net four minutes later.\n\nArteta, knowing the job was done, was able to bring off Saka and Emile Smith Rowe following impressive performances from both youngsters, while Arsenal continued to create chances to round off a very enjoyable evening in the snow.\n\nAllardyce's first match in charge of West Brom - a 3-0 drubbing by Aston Villa after captain Jake Livermore had been sent off - was a sign of just how tough this job was going to be.\n\nThen that 1-1 draw with Liverpool at Anfield provided hope. The Baggies were resilient, organised and tireless.\n\nBut heavy back-to-back defeats by Leeds United and now Arsenal at home have brought things back down to earth.\n\nWest Brom were overawed in defence, out-run in midfield and frustrated by a lack of opportunities in attack throughout this confidence-crushing defeat.\n\nTheir rare sniffs at goal came from a Granit Xhaka error in the first half - Matheus Pereira chipping it through to Matt Phillips who struck it straight at Bernd Leno - before Callum Robinson's finish was ruled out for offside in the second half.\n\nSubstitute Rekeem Harper's long-range strike deep in stoppage time was also comfortably turned behind by Leno.\n\nIt was West Brom's third home loss in three under Allardyce and they have conceded 12 goals with no reply in those games.\n\n'Everything looks much better' - what they said\n\nWest Brom manager Sam Allardyce: \"Another game gone by where we learn more about the players we have. We have learnt an awful lot about what we can and cannot do.\n\n\"We need to work out a way of not trying to be as sloppy as we have been at conceding goals. It appears when we try to open up we leave opportunities for the opposition and we cannot cope.\"\n\nArsenal manager Mikel Arteta: \"We had a big week, three games in seven days, and we managed to win them and everything looks much better. It was difficult conditions but the team looked sharp from the start. It's a big win.\n\n\"After the results we had before we had to lift things straight away. Now we have got some discipline back. We look more creative in the final third and we look solid at the back.\"\n\nThe best of the stats\n• None West Brom are the first side to lose consecutive home Premier League games by at least four goals since Wigan in August 2010.\n• None Arsenal have scored in all 25 of their Premier League meetings with West Brom, the best 100% scoring record by one side against an opponent in the competition's history.\n• None There were 20 passes in the build-up to Arsenal's first goal scored by Kieran Tierney - since Mikel Arteta's first game in charge on Boxing Day 2019, the Gunners have scored more goals following a sequence of 20+ passes than any other Premier League side (3).\n• None Tierney became the first Scottish player to score an away Premier League goal for Arsenal and the first to do so in the top flight since Charlie Nicholas against Ipswich Town in March 1986.\n• None Alexandre Lacazette has scored five away Premier League goals in 2020-21, his best such tally in a single season in the competition.\n\nWest Brom travel to Blackpool for an FA Cup third-round tie on Saturday, 9 January (15:00 GMT kick-off), before returning to Premier League action on Saturday, 16 January against Wolves (12:30 GMT).\n\nArsenal host Newcastle in their FA Cup match on the same day (17:30 GMT), before facing Crystal Palace at home in the league on Thursday, 14 January (20:00 GMT).\n• None Offside, West Bromwich Albion. Charlie Austin tries a through ball, but Kyle Bartley is caught offside.\n• None Attempt saved. Rekeem Harper (West Bromwich Albion) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Matheus Pereira.\n• None Attempt saved. Willian (Arsenal) left footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Dani Ceballos.\n• None Attempt missed. Joseph Willock (Arsenal) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Willian with a cross.\n• None Attempt saved. Conor Gallagher (West Bromwich Albion) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Callum Robinson.\n• None Attempt blocked. Charlie Austin (West Bromwich Albion) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Dara O'Shea.\n• None Dani Ceballos (Arsenal) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt saved. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal) left footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Kieran Tierney.\n• None Attempt missed. Charlie Austin (West Bromwich Albion) right footed shot from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Matt Phillips. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None A special and exclusive one-off chat with the music icon\n• None How has their rise come to define our culture?", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester United moved level on points with Premier League leaders Liverpool as a Bruno Fernandes penalty saw off stubborn Aston Villa.\n\nFernandes drilled his 11th league goal this season - and his fifth from the spot - into the bottom corner to punish Douglas Luiz's clip on Paul Pogba and hand United an eighth win in 10 games.\n\nBertrand Traore's calm finish underneath David de Gea had deservedly drawn Villa level, cancelling out Anthony Martial's stooping first-half header for the hosts.\n\nBut Fernandes' penalty extended United's hold over Villa - they have now won 32 and lost just one of the past 44 league meetings between the sides - and leaves Liverpool top only by virtue of goal difference.\n\nThe spot-kick award angered Aston Villa boss Dean Smith who claimed Pogba \"tripped himself\" and that the video assistant referee should have asked on-pitch official Michael Oliver to review his decision.\n\n\"I don't see why Michael couldn't have looked at it. That's what VAR is for isn't it?\" Smith told BBC Sport.\n\n\"I thought it was a penalty at the time, but I looked at it after the game and saw he tripped himself. I don't think it's a penalty.\n\n\"I think there's enough doubt there to send the referee over to the screen.\"\n\nSmith's side were perhaps unfortunate not to have left Old Trafford with at least a point from a thoroughly entertaining game but they also needed several fine saves from Emiliano Martinez to keep them in it.\n\nAfter Fernandes' spot-kick put United back in front, Martinez superbly tipped a stinging 25-yarder from the Portuguese on to the crossbar as well as denying Martial a second.\n\nMartinez's counterpart David de Gea was just as busy, with a late save from Matty Cash's long-range strike preserving the points, not long after Tyrone Mings had headed wide a glorious chance to level.\n\nOle Gunnar Solskjaer's side have displayed their ability to grind out points at Old Trafford in recent weeks, as evidenced in 1-0 home wins over both West Bromwich Albion and Wolves.\n\nBut they have also shown a willingness to go toe-to-toe with teams who are happy to open up the game and, while this was not quite the shootout of the 6-2 win over Leeds, it was just as easy on the eye.\n\nA number of fluid first-half moves produced chances before Martial's opener as the France forward saw a curler tipped over by Martinez, while Fernandes and Wan-Bissaka were narrowly off target with similar efforts.\n\nMartial stole between Mings and Ezri Konsa to nod the Red Devils ahead from Wan-Bissaka's inviting cross for only his second league goal of the season on his return to Solskjaer's starting line-up.\n\nWhile Luiz was unfortunate to be penalised for what might have been an accidental clip on Pogba, there was enough contact for the penalty to be given and Fernandes continued his excellent record from the spot.\n\nUnited were nine points behind Liverpool after a 1-0 defeat by Arsenal at Old Trafford on 1 November but have made up that gap in just two months to set an intriguing title race into motion.\n\nA minute's silence before the game paid tribute to former boss Tommy Docherty, who famously prevented Liverpool claiming the treble by leading United to an FA Cup win over the Reds in 1977.\n\nAnd while talk of foiling a second successive Liverpool title might be premature, moving alongside them at the Premier League's summit will give Solskjaer's side even more confidence as they eye up a trip to Anfield on 17 January.\n\nWhile Villa were ultimately outgunned by their hosts, their brave display was further evidence of the progress Smith's side have made this season.\n\nThey held their own in the first half, causing United a number of problems down the flanks, with playmaker Jack Grealish prompting and probing to show why the hosts have long considered a move for the Villa captain.\n\nBut they were even more impressive in the early stages of the second period, Grealish crossing for an Ollie Watkins header that was saved by De Gea before collecting a quick free-kick and finding Traore to tuck home the equaliser.\n\nLuiz's foul on Pogba came with Villa very much in the ascendancy and while they then had to ride a storm the visitors still came close to pinching a point as Mings beat fellow England centre-half Harry Maguire to a free-kick only to nod wide.\n\nWith Ross Barkley's return from a hamstring injury imminent, this performance should keep Villa optimistic even if defeat halted a five-game unbeaten run and saw them slip a place to sixth, behind Chelsea on goal difference.\n\nAnd while their rotten record at Old Trafford continues - just one win in 34 visits since 1983, which came courtesy of a Gabriel Agbonlahor header in 2009 - they have still only conceded five times in eight away games this campaign.\n\n'We have improved a lot in a year' - what they said\n\nManchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer told BBC Sport: \"You are always delighted with three points. The performance was good and we created chances.\n\n\"It was maybe a little too open and we wasted chances. We tried to play the Hollywood pass instead of securing the first one and using the space that was there.\n\n\"We are happy with what we are doing. We have shown we have improved a lot in a year. We lost to Arsenal away last New Year's Day. We have improved immensely.\"\n\nAston Villa boss Dean Smith told BBC Sport: \"I wasn't happy with the first half. We were miles off the levels where we have been. It felt like a testimonial pace then they deservedly had the lead at half-time. I told the players we needed to be upping our levels.\n\n\"We competed a lot better [in the second half], showed more quality and created chances. I'd take the second-half performance all day long. A dubious penalty has lost us the game.\n\n\"When you look at our performances and results, it shows we are very competitive in this league now, which is what we wanted it to be.\"\n\nUnited's hold over Villa goes on - the stats\n• None Manchester United are unbeaten in their past 16 Premier League matches against Aston Villa (W12 D4).\n• None Aston Villa have lost 13 of their past 15 away Premier League games against Manchester United at Old Trafford (W1 D1).\n• None In Premier League history, the only player to be directly involved in more goals in their first 30 appearances in the competition than Bruno Fernandes (33 - 19 goals, 14 assists) is Andrew Cole (37 - 28 goals, nine assists).\n• None Anthony Martial has now scored on all seven days of the week in the Premier League for Manchester United, becoming the fifth player to do so, after Ryan Giggs, Andrew Cole, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney.\n• None Only Tottenham's Harry Kane (10) has assisted more Premier League goals this season than Jack Grealish (7), while the last Aston Villa player to assist more than seven Premier League goals in a season was Ashley Young in 2010-11 (10).\n• None Since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's first Premier League match in charge of Manchester United in December 2018, the Red Devils have taken (27) and scored (21) the most Premier League penalties.\n\nManchester United host local rivals Manchester City in the Carabao Cup semi-finals on Wednesday (19:45 GMT) and welcome Watford in the FA Cup on Saturday 9 January (20:00 GMT). Their next Premier League game is away at Burnley on Tuesday 12 January (20:15 GMT).\n\nAston Villa host Liverpool in the FA Cup next Friday (19:45 GMT) before returning to Premier League action at home to Tottenham on Wednesday 13 January (20:15 GMT).\n• None Attempt blocked. Keinan Davis (Aston Villa) left footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt blocked. Keinan Davis (Aston Villa) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Ollie Watkins with a cross.\n• None Offside, Manchester United. Paul Pogba tries a through ball, but Marcus Rashford is caught offside.\n• None Attempt saved. Matthew Cash (Aston Villa) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Jack Grealish.\n• None Nemanja Matic (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Luke Shaw (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None A special and exclusive one-off chat with the music icon\n• None How has their rise come to define our culture?", "London's Nightingale Hospital is ready to admit patients as hospitals in the capital struggle, the NHS has said.\n\nThe Excel Centre site in east London has been \"reactivated\" amid a rise in the number of Covid-19 patients.\n\nOther Nightingale hospital sites across England are also being readied, with the UK recording a record daily rise in coronavirus cases.\n\nAn NHS spokesman said hospitals in London remain under \"significant pressure\".\n\nHe said: \"In anticipation of pressures rising from the spread of the new variant infection, NHS London were asked to ensure the London Nightingale was reactivated and ready to admit patients as needed, and that process is under way.\"\n\nSeveral NHS hospitals in London and the south-east are now reporting they are under extreme pressure as a result of a surge in the number of people falling seriously ill with Covid-19.\n\nAn email to staff at the Royal London Hospital says they are operating in disaster medicine mode - warning they can no longer provide high-standard critical care.\n\nNightingale hospitals in Manchester, Bristol and Harrogate are in use currently for non-Covid patients, the spokesman added.\n\nThe Exeter site received its first Covid patients in November when it began accepting those transferred from the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, which was described as \"very busy\".\n\nHe said: \"Covid inpatient numbers are rising sharply so the remaining Nightingales are being readied to admit patients once again should they be needed, in line with best clinical practice developed over the first and second waves of coronavirus.\"\n\nSenior intensive care doctor Prof Hugh Montgomery warned those who fail to follow the rules on social distancing, hand washing and wearing a face covering \"have blood on their hands\".\n\nNHS England medical director Stephen Powis has described the Nightingale hospitals as \"our insurance policy, there as our last resort\".\n\nLondon's Nightingale hospital was built in nine days, with the help of hundreds of soldiers\n\nHe told a Downing Street press conference on Wednesday: \"We asked all the Nightingale hospitals a few weeks ago to be ready to take patients if that was required.\n\n\"Indeed, some of them are already doing that, in Manchester taking step-down patients, in Exeter managing Covid patients, and in other places managing diagnostics, for instance.\n\n\"Our first steps though, in managing the extra demands on the NHS, are to expand capacity within existing hospitals - that's the best way to use our staff.\"\n\nLondon's Nightingale Hospital was opened on 3 April and placed on standby weeks later after fewer than 20 patients were treated there.", "Owen Thomas says metal detecting has been his escape from the stresses of the pandemic.\n\nThe writer from Tongwynlais, Cardiff started metal detecting after bumping into his long-time friend Bob Wiseman - an avid detectorist - during lockdown.\n\nAside from his first outing, when he followed his metal toe cap boots thinking he had found treasure, he has discovered artefacts dating back to the 13th Century.\n\nOwen says he has fallen in love with his new-found hobby and it is \"the link with a life that's gone” that appeals to him so much.", "A UK ticket-holder has started the new year by winning the EuroMillions jackpot of nearly £40m.\n\nOne ticket matched all five regular numbers and two lucky stars in the draw on Friday night to win the £39,774,466.40 prize.\n\nCamelot's Andy Carter, senior winners' adviser at the National Lottery, said: \"What an amazing start to 2021 for UK EuroMillions players.\"\n\nA ticket-holder has now come forward to claim their prize.\n\nCamelot, which operates the lottery, said checks were being made on the claim.\n\nMr Carter said: \"It is fantastic news that the jackpot winning lucky ticket-holder has now claimed this enormous prize. We will now focus on supporting the ticket-holder through the process.\"\n\nThe winning numbers were 16, 28, 32, 44 and 48 with the lucky stars 01 and 09.\n\nTen other ticket-holders each won £1m in the UK Millionaire Maker New Year's Day event.\n\nIn 2019, a UK ticket-holder won the full £170m EuroMillions jackpot, making them Britain's richest ever lottery winner.\n\nAnd last year, a £57m EuroMillions prize claim was validated just before the deadline. The ticket had been bought in South Ayrshire.\n\nThe winning ticket holder's newfound cash means they are now wealthier than former One Direction singer Zayn Malik, who is worth £36m, according to the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List.\n\nAnd if they have a bit more money in the bank, they could buy one of the UK's most expensive homes, which went on the market last year.\n\nNobody won the EuroMillons Hotpicks jackpot on Friday, which uses the same numbers as the main draw, but one winner scooped the Thunderball top prize of £500,000.\n\nThe Thunderball numbers were 13, 17, 30, 34, 35 and the Thunderball was 01.", "Lisa Montgomery is scheduled for execution in January 2021\n\nA US appeals court has lifted a stay of execution on the only woman awaiting a federal death penalty.\n\nLisa Montgomery strangled a pregnant woman in Missouri before cutting out and kidnapping the baby in 2004.\n\nIf the execution goes ahead, she will be the first female federal inmate to be put to death in almost 70 years.\n\nMontgomery's execution date was originally set for last month but a stay was put in place after her attorneys contracted Covid-19.\n\nIt was then rescheduled for 12 January by the Justice Department. But Montgomery's lawyers argued that the date could not be set while a stay was in place.\n\nA court sided with her attorneys, stopping an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons scheduling her death.\n\nBut on Friday, a panel of judges concluded that the director had acted under the law, allowing the execution to take place.\n\nMontgomery's legal team said they will file a petition for the judges to reconsider their ruling.\n\nThe last woman to be executed by the US government was Bonnie Heady, who died in a gas chamber in Missouri in 1953, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.\n\nFederal executions had been on pause for 17 years before President Donald Trump ordered them to resume earlier last year.\n\nIf the remaining executions go ahead, Mr Trump will have overseen the most executions by a US president in more than a century.\n\nMontgomery's execution date is just days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.\n\nMr Biden, who for decades was a fierce supporter of the death penalty as a Delaware senator, has now said he will seek to end federal executions once he takes office.\n\nIn December 2004, Montgomery drove from Kansas to the home of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, in Missouri, purportedly to purchase a puppy, according to a Department of Justice press release.\n\n\"Once inside the residence, Montgomery attacked and strangled Stinnett - who was eight months pregnant - until the victim lost consciousness,\" it says.\n\nMontgomery cut into Stinnett's body to remove the baby, which she took with her in an attempt to pass it off as her own.\n\nIn 2007, a jury found Montgomery guilty of federal kidnapping resulting in death, and unanimously recommended a death sentence.\n\nBut Montgomery's lawyers say she experienced brain damage from beatings as a child and is mentally unwell, so should not face the death penalty.\n\nUnder the US justice system, crimes can be tried either in federal courts, at a national level, or in state courts, at a regional level.\n\nCertain crimes, such as counterfeiting currency or mail theft, are automatically tried at a federal level, as are cases in which the US is a party or those which involve constitutional violations.\n\nThe death penalty was outlawed at state and federal level by a 1972 Supreme Court decision that cancelled all existing death penalty statutes.\n\nA 1976 Supreme Court decision allowed states to reinstate the death penalty and in 1988 the government passed legislation that made it available again at federal level.\n\nAccording to data collected by the Death Penalty Information Center, 78 people were sentenced to death in federal cases between 1988 and 2018 but only three were executed.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What's in store for US President-elect Biden in 2021? Senior North America reporter Anthony Zurcher looks ahead\n\nThe latest in a series of attempts by allies of President Donald Trump to overturn the November US election result has failed.\n\nA Texas judge rejected the case, brought by Republican Louie Gohmert, seeking to stop Vice-President Mike Pence from certifying the final result.\n\nLawyers for Mr Pence had asked for the case to be thrown out on Thursday.\n\nPresident-elect Joe Biden is due to take office on 20 January. Mr Trump is yet to concede.\n\nMr Gohmert, a Republican congressman, told Newsmax TV that he planned to appeal against the verdict.\n\nMr Trump's friends and colleagues in the Republican party have presented dozens of legal challenges to the November outcome which delivered a decisive win to Mr Biden.\n\nHis victory was announced after days of vote-counting that took longer than in recent years because of the huge number of postal ballots cast due to the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nMr Trump has made numerous unsubstantiated claims that Mr Biden's win, which saw the president-elect gain 306 electoral college votes to his rival's 232, was fraudulent.\n\nThe electoral college is a system whereby each US state has an allocated number of points that is granted to the overall winner in each state. The candidate who gains the majority wins the presidency.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Explaining the Electoral College and which voters will decide who wins\n\nCongressman Gohmert's case sought to allow Vice-President Mike Pence to reject some electoral college votes when they are ratified by Congress on 6 January.\n\nThe vice-president presides over the vote certification in Congress in a ceremonial role that involves opening and tallying the envelopes containing electoral college votes before announcing the result.\n\nMr Gohmert's case aimed to expand that role to allow Mr Pence to cast judgement on the validity of the votes and potentially replace votes for Mr Biden with ones for Mr Trump.\n\nBut Judge Jeremy Kernodle, who was appointed to the Texas court in 2018 by Mr Trump, rejected the case, saying it was based on speculative events.\n\nOn Thursday a lawyer from the US Justice Department representing Mr Pence urged Mr Gohmert to drop the case, suggesting that it was not the vice-president's office that should be scrutinising the outcome.\n\nAlthough most Republicans in Congress are expected to vote in favour of certifying the results, a small number including Senator Josh Hawley, say they plan to object. But their vote is not expected to change the outcome.\n\nMr Biden is due to be sworn in as president on 20 January at a scaled-back ceremony with just 1,000 tickets available due to Covid-19 precautions.", "All primary schools in London will remain closed for the start of the new term, the government has confirmed.\n\nLondon mayor Sadiq Khan said the government had \"finally seen sense and U-turned\" on its plan to allow pupils in some areas to return on Monday.\n\nLeaders of nine London local authorities had written to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson urging him to rethink the decision.\n\nMr Williamson said the city-wide closures were \"a last resort\".\n\nThe government said it had decided all primary schools in the capital would be required to provide remote learning after a further review of coronavirus transmission rates.\n\nVulnerable pupils and the children of key workers will continue to attend school, the government said.\n\nEarly years care, alternative provision and special schools will remain open, it added.\n\nSchools in nine London boroughs and the City of London district had been set to reopen - while those in the remaining 23 boroughs would have stayed closed from 4 January.\n\nThe decision was criticised and branded \"illogical\" by councillors and residents in the affected areas, who called for primary schools across the capital to move to online learning until 18 January.\n\nThey pointed out that Covid-19 infection rates were higher in some boroughs told to reopen schools than in others where they were not.\n\nIn a tweet, Mr Khan said a city-wide closure was \"the right decision\" and thanked education minister Nick Gibb for \"our constructive conversations over the past two days\".\n\n\"The government's original decision was ridiculous and has been causing immense confusion for parents, teachers and staff across the capital,\" Mr Khan said.\n\n\"It is right that all schools in London are treated the same, and that no primary schools in London will be forced to open on Monday\".\n\nDan Thorpe, leader of Greenwich council, said he was \"absolutely delighted\" to hear Mr Williamson had \"finally climbed down and reversed his decision\".\n\nKingston Council leader Caroline Kerr said she was \"dismayed\" at the government's handling of situation while a council statement added: \"It never made sense that neighbouring boroughs were being instructed to have different arrangements despite having similar rates of infection.\"\n\nIslington council leader Richard Watts said waiting until New Year's day to announce the further closures was \"unacceptable\".\n\nHe said the decision \"should have been made weeks ago, as the public health situation became clear\".\n\nMary Bousted, of the National Education Union, said the government was right to reverse its \"obviously nonsensical position\".\n\n\"What is right for London is right for the rest of the country,\" she said, and she called on ministers to \"do their duty\" by closing all primary and secondary schools nationwide for at least two weeks.\n\nPaul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, accused the government of damaging public confidence with a \"confusing and last-minute approach\".\n\n\"Just at the moment when we need some decisive leadership, the government is at sixes and sevens,\" he said.\n\nShadow education secretary Kate Green said the move was \"yet another government U-turn creating chaos for parents just two days before the start of term\".\n\n\"Gavin Williamson must still clarify why some schools in tier 4 are closing and what the criteria for reopening will be,\" she said.\n\nGavin Williamson said closing schools across London was a \"last resort\"\n\nIn a statement, Mr Williamson said children's education and wellbeing remained \"a national priority\" and moving the whole of London to remote education \"really is a last resort and a temporary solution\".\n\n\"We will continue keep the list of local authorities under review, and reopen classrooms as soon as we possibly can,\" he said.\n\nHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said the situation in London had continued to worsen in the past week and infections and hospital admissions had risen sharply.\n\n\"While our priority is to keep as many children as possible in school, we have to strike a balance between education and infection rates and pressures on the NHS,\" he said.\n\nThe Department for Education had previously said decisions on school closures and openings were based on new infections, positivity rates, and pressures on the NHS.\n\nA spokeswoman for the department said: \"In response to concerning data about the spread of coronavirus, we have implemented the contingency framework for education in a small number of areas of the country, requiring schools to provide remote learning to all but vulnerable and critical worker children and exam years.\n\n\"Decisions on which areas will be subject to the contingency framework are based on close work with PHE, the NHS, the Joint Biosecurity Centre and across government.\"\n\nAre you a parent or teacher who will be affected by the London primary school closures? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Bodycam footage shows the moments before a black man was killed by a police shooting in Minneapolis\n\nMinneapolis police have released bodycam footage of a fatal shooting by officers, the first death at the hands of police in the US city since that of George Floyd, a black man, in May.\n\nThe victim, Dolal Idd, 23, was a suspect in a felony and was stopped by police on Wednesday. He was also black.\n\nInitial witness statements and police say Mr Idd fired first and was shot dead when the officers returned fire.\n\nMinneapolis saw months of unrest after Mr Floyd's death in police custody.\n\nThe protests spread across the US amid allegations of police brutality.\n\nMr Floyd died after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.\n\nThe footage from Wednesday's fatal shooting, from the bodycam of one of the officers involved, was released late on Thursday.\n\nIt shows the officers' cars blocking a white vehicle at a petrol station on the city's south side, not far from where Mr Floyd died.\n\nThe police are heard shouting \"Stop your car, hands up, hands up!\" before shots are fired, including by the officers.\n\nA female passenger in the car with Mr Idd was not hurt, police said, nor were the officers.\n\nMinneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo said a gun was found at the scene.\n\n\"When I viewed the video that everyone else is viewing - and certainly the real-time slow-down version - it appears the individual inside the vehicle fired his weapon at the officers first,\" he said.\n\nPeople including Mr Idd's father Bayle Gelle gathered at the scene the following day, prompting fears of renewed protests.\n\n\"He was just sitting in the car, and bullets were shot at him, and no reason,\" he said, quoted by CBS News.\n\n\"Why are we here?... Because of colour. He is a black man. We want to know why my sweet son gets shot and killed.\"\n\nGeorge Floyd's death led to violent protests in the city, including this police station set on fire in May\n\nCity mayor Jacob Frey said he was committed to getting the facts and pursuing justice.\n\n\"We know a life has been cut short tonight and that trust between communities of colour and law enforcement is fragile,\" he said in a statement.\n\n\"Rebuilding that trust will depend on complete transparency.\"\n\nMr Floyd's death in May led to calls for reform or even abolition of the city's police department, but those efforts have stalled.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. More than 2,500 people take part in an illegal rave in northern France, despite the nationwide curfew\n\nAn illegal warehouse rave that began on New Year's Eve in France in defiance of coronavirus precautions has been shut down by police after arrests and clashes.\n\nSome of the 2,500 ravers in Lieuron near Rennes in Brittany had planned to party until Tuesday.\n\nPolice issued fines to revellers found leaving and the organisers were being identified as the party ended.\n\nA number of party-goers were from the UK and Spain, police said.\n\nAttendees clashed with police, setting fire to a car and throwing objects at officers attempting to shut the event down. At least three officers were injured.\n\nPolice broke up the three-day party that defied a nationwide curfew\n\nA driver was apprehended with turntables, speakers and a generator in the boot of the vehicle, according to French TV station BFM TV.\n\nPolice trying to stop the event faced \"fierce hostility from many partygoers\", a statement from local authorities said.\n\nBut at 05:30 local time on Saturday the ravers began to accept the party was over and started to leave the two disused warehouse hangars, the local prefecture said.\n\nSome revellers said they were hoping to stay until Tuesday\n\nInterior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Twitter that trucks, sound equipment and generators were seized at the scene and an investigation has been opened.\n\nMore than 1,200 fines were issued for non-compliance with the curfew, not wearing a mask and attending an illegal gathering, Mr Darmanin said.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Gérald DARMANIN This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOn Friday authorities said they had opened a sanitary cordon around the party and anyone leaving the event was urged to self-isolate for seven days.\n\nOne of the party-goers, who gave his name as Jo, told the AFP news agency that \"very few had respected social distancing\" at the event.\n\nA number of people slept in their cars before returning to dance, Le Monde newspaper reports.\n\nOne reveller told Le Monde that the rave was \"very well organised\" with food stalls inside.\n\nAnother, who came with four friends from Finisterre in north-west France, told the newspaper that she had wanted to \"escape\" for a few hours.\n\nOn Friday an interior ministry crisis meeting was held and all vehicle exits from the rave were blocked as police sought to shut down the party.\n\nFrance introduced strict rules ahead of the New Year including a curfew from 20:00 until 06:00.\n\nMore than 100,000 police officers were deployed across the country to break up parties and enforce the curfew.\n\nOfficers were instructed to break up underground parties as soon as they were reported, fine participants and identify the organisers.\n\nFrance has recorded more than 2.6 million coronavirus cases and 64,892 deaths since the pandemic began.\n\nOfficers elsewhere in Europe have also had to break up events in recent days.\n\nPolice dispersed a mass gathering near the Spanish city of Barcelona on Saturday where 300 people had been partying for more than 40 hours.\n\nThree footballers from London-based football team Tottenham Hotspur were photographed at a Christmas party last week in breach of coronavirus regulations.\n\nAnd in Essex, an illegal New Year's Eve party damaged All Saints Church near Brentwood. Church authorities have since received hundreds of pounds to pay for repairs.\n\nOfficers in Spain broke up the rave near Barcelona, which had been going on for more than 40 hours", "Officers dispersed the party at the Grade II* listed church before midnight\n\nThousands of pounds has been raised to pay for repairs to a 500-year-old church that was \"trashed\" during an illegal New Year's Eve party.\n\nHundreds of revellers attended the party at All Saints Church in East Horndon, near Brentwood, after the building was broken into.\n\nThree people were arrested on suspicion of public order and drugs offences.\n\nVolunteer group Friends of All Saints said it was \"completely overwhelmed\" by peoples' \"support and generosity\".\n\nChurch volunteer Astrid Gillespie said the damage was \"devastating\"\n\nThe fundraising page was set up on Friday and aimed to raise £2,000, but in less than 24 hours it had raised more than £8,700.\n\nIt said a \"massive clean-up\" was needed at the \"much-loved\" church after \"hundreds of revellers trashed the place\".\n\nEquipment was seized by police at the illegal party\n\nAstrid Gillespie, a volunteer with the Friends of All Saints, said event organisers had smashed a window to put in an extractor fan unit and wired sound equipment into the church's fuse box.\n\nShe said: \"It was a professional set-up. They had a bar area where you had to exchange tokens.\n\n\"It's such a beautiful church. To find out it's been damaged is devastating.\"\n\nReferring to the money that was raised, she said: \"Faith in humanity restored\".\n\nThe church, which is owned and maintained by the Churches Conservation Trust, has not been used for religious services since 1970, but regularly houses community events.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Researchers have been tracking changes to the \"spike\" of the virus\n\nThe new variant of Covid-19 is \"hugely\" more transmissible than the virus's previous version, a study has found.\n\nIt concludes the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.\n\nThe UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.\n\nProf Axel Gandy of London's Imperial College said the differences between the viruses types was \"quite extreme\".\n\n\"There is a huge difference in how easily the variant virus spreads,\" he told BBC News. \"This is the most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began,\" he added.\n\nThe Imperial College study suggests transmission of the new variant tripled during England's November lockdown while the previous version was reduced by a third.\n\nCases of Covid-19 have begun to increase rapidly during the second spike, and the number of cases recorded in a single day reached a new high on Thursday.\n\nEarly results indicated that the virus was spreading more quickly among under-20s, particularly among secondary school age children.\n\nBut the very latest data indicates that it was spreading quickly across all age groups, according to Prof Gandy who was a member of the research team.\n\n\"One possible explanation is that the early data was collected during the time of the November lockdown where schools were open and the activities of the adult population were more restricted. We are seeing now that the new virus has increased infectiousness across all age groups.\"\n\nProf Jim Naismith, of Oxford University, said he believed that the new findings indicated that even tougher restrictions would soon be needed.\n\n\"The data from Imperial represent the best analysis to date and imply that the measures we have employed to date, would - with the new virus - fail to reduce the R number to below 1.\n\n\"In simpler terms, unless we do something different the new virus strain is going to continue to spread, more infections, more hospitalisations and more deaths.\"\n\nThe R number is the average number of people an infected person infects. If it is above 1 the epidemic is growing.\n\nThe most chilling finding from this piece of research is that the November lockdown in England, hard though it was for many people, would not have stopped the variant form of the virus spreading. The same severe restrictions that saw cases of the previous version of the virus fall by a third, would see a tripling of the new variant. This is why there has been such a sudden tightening of restrictions across the country.\n\nIt is unclear whether the current restrictions will be enough to control the spread of the virus. Given the fact that it has taken two lockdowns to stop the earlier version of the virus overwhelming the NHS, many scientists fear that further tightening will be necessary.\n\nInfection levels will begin to drop as enough people are vaccinated. But until then it is now more important than ever for people to follow social distancing guidelines, wear masks where required and to regularly wash their hands.\n\nThe new year brings with it hope of a more normal life in the next few months but also a new form of the virus that all of us will have to combat in the coming days and weeks.\n\nProfessor Lawrence Young, of Warwick University, said early indications suggested that vaccines would be effective against the new form of the virus.\n\n\"Variants virus have been around since the beginning of the pandemic and are a product of the natural process by which viruses develop and adapt to their hosts as they replicate.\n\n\"Most of these mutations have no effect on the behaviour of the virus but very occasionally they can improve the ability of the virus to infect and/or become more resistant to the body's immune response.\"\n\nFurther research is needed to understand why the variant is spreading so quickly. But early indications are that vaccines should be effective against it.\n\nThe new virus has been designated \"Variant of Concern 202012/01\" or VOC by Public Health England.\n\nIt was detected in November and thought to have originated in the south-east England in September.\n\nThere is no evidence to suggest that it is more deadly, but it will increase the number of cases which in turn will add further pressure on the NHS.\n\nThe variant can now be found across the UK, except Northern Ireland, but it is heavily concentrated in London, as well as south-east and eastern England.", "Amanda Quinn, who has early onset dementia, is cared for by her 23-year-old daughter Bethany\n\n\"It feels like you're being punished for something you didn't do.\"\n\nAmanda Quinn describes living through lockdown with early onset dementia as \"scary\" and \"feeling lost\".\n\nTwo years ago, she was diagnosed with the condition aged 49, and said the disease was a \"ticking time bomb\" for her husband and four children.\n\nAlzheimer's Society Cymru support worker Lorraine Davies said lockdown had brought a \"great sense of loss\" to many families.\n\nSince her diagnosis, Amanda says she has lost her sense of what day it is, her concentration, and she struggles with speech occasionally and suffers more with incontinence.\n\nWhen Wales went into a UK national lockdown on 23 March, Amanda said she did not leave her home in Treorchy, Rhondda Cynon Taf, for weeks.\n\nShe said her children have noticed a \"big change\" in her.\n\n\"I used to have a wicked sense of humour - I still have one, but it's not how I used to be,\" she said.\n\nBut for Amanda one of the worst parts of her condition is \"losing so many friends\" whom she said \"would rather cross the road\" than talk to her.\n\n\"They don't know how to interact with me anymore,\" she said.\n\nAmanda says her children have noticed a \"big change\" since she was diagnosed aged 49\n\nHer 23-year-old daughter Bethany Kingsley, who cares for her, said the pandemic has caused caring work to increase ten-fold.\n\n\"I have to keep an eye on mum a lot more now, because she doesn't know what to do with herself.\n\n\"But I have also got to look after my mental health side of it as well. There are days where I'm struggling,\" she said.\n\nNow Amanda does activities at home such as adult colouring books, baking with Bethany, and watches movies.\n\n\"It is like being a child,\" Amanda explained.\n\n\"My daughter says it's like we've switched roles and she has become the adult as she holds my hand when we cross the road.\n\n\"Although I can see a car, it doesn't register to me that it is not safe to walk out, all I can think is that I need to be on the other side of the road.\"\n\nBefore the pandemic, she attended dementia support groups in person, such as Memoria, a theatrical group of people with dementia and carers, whereas now she does this virtually.\n\nBethany says Covid has had a big impact on caring for her mother\n\nLast year, before the pandemic, Bethany put off moving away to study midwifery at university in Bristol.\n\nAlthough she said it was a \"difficult\" decision as she had wanted to do it for years, she said she was glad she was home to care for her mother during the pandemic.\n\nInstead she chose to study for an Open University course in health and social care from home.\n\n\"I thought my mother is the only person I've got at the end of the day and I would rather make sure she is safe and happy, rather than go off and leave her,\" she said.\n\nBut Amanda said she was concerned about how her condition will progress and affect her family more.\n\nThe 51-year-old said it was \"not fair\" that her daughter had to stay home because of her condition.\n\n\"It worries me how it will affect my children. I'm fortunate, I suppose, that I'm not going to know.\n\n\"I say I don't want to go into a care home but that wouldn't be fair on them - they have still got their whole lives to lead\".\n\nAmanda was still in her 40s when she was diagnosed\n\nAlzheimer's Society Cymru support adviser for younger people Lorraine Davies said there was a stigma attached to younger people with the disease and a \"lack of public awareness\".\n\n\"Some have mortgages, some have young families, and often they also care for older adults - so it has a different impact on them, and their social network of people.\n\n\"A lot of people living with dementia don't always feel they will have next year, so 2020 has been a great sense of loss to them because of the lockdown and restrictions,\" she said.\n\nThe charity estimates that there are between 2,000 to 3,000 people with young onset dementia in Wales, according to 2018 figures from the first Welsh Government national dementia action plan.\n\nHowever Lorraine said the figure was likely to be higher as getting a dementia diagnosis can be harder for younger people, and can take more than a year to have it confirmed.\n\n\"It is also more common for younger people to have rarer forms of dementia, so rather than being a typical Alzheimer's disease, associated with memory loss, a patient might have behavioural changes, but you might just think they are upset, stressed, or put it down to mood swings.\n\n\"Some people have been accused of being drunk, because they have slurred speech, but actually that is a symptom.\"\n\nShe said the Alzheimer's Society has organised virtual support groups for people with the condition and their carers during lockdown.\n\n\"Often younger people want to meet people like them, because it helps them not to feel so alone in this. Knowing that brings people comfort.\"\n\nSimon Hatch, the director of Carers Trust Wales, said the pandemic had highlighted the \"crucial role unpaid carers play both in providing exceptional, expert care to family and friends\".\n\nMr Hatch said the trust found that 44% of young adult carers it spoke to felt overwhelmed by the pressures they were facing.\n\nHe said although there was support available to carers they would need \"sustainable\" forms of this in the future.\n\nThere are about 45,000 people with dementia in Wales, according to the Alzheimer's Society.\n\nThe disease is considered \"early onset\" when it affects people under 65, according to Young Dementia UK.\n\nLorraine said the age distinction was made to mark the difference in financial support, as 65 was state pension age at the time.\n\nDementia itself refers to a set of symptoms caused by many diseases of the brain. The most common symptom is memory loss and difficulty concentrating.\n\nOther symptoms can include struggling to remember recent events, changes to behaviour, mood, becoming lost in familiar places or being unable to find the right word in a conversation.\n\nSpecific symptoms will depend on the parts of the brain that are damaged and the disease that is causing the dementia.", "Police made 17 arrests at the demonstration in Hyde Park\n\nPolice have made arrests at an anti-lockdown demonstration in central London.\n\nCrowds of between 200 to 300 people began to gather in Hyde Park, which is in a tier four coronavirus area, at about 13:30 GMT on Saturday, the Metropolitan Police said.\n\nSeventeen people were arrested on suspicion of breaching public health regulations.\n\nMost demonstrators had left the park by 16:45, police said.\n\nThe Met tweeted: \"Officers continue to engage with groups of people who have gathered in the Hyde Park area.\n\n\"A number of people have been arrested under health protection regulations and taken into custody.\n\n\"We urge those in the area to leave immediately.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Metropolitan Police Events This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMore than two people are generally not allowed to meet in public under tier four rules.\n\nThe police force added: \"Officers will take enforcement action where we see clear breaches of the tier four rules.\n\n\"It's up to all of us to make the right choices and slow the spread of the virus.\"\n\nA group called The People's Lockdown, Stand For Your Human Rights, had said it was going to hold a event at Hyde Park on Saturday afternoon.\n\nIn an online post, it called on people to \"stand with your loved ones\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"I wish I could switch place with my daughter\" - Odd Steinar Sørengen's daughter is missing\n\nA body has been found shortly after rescuers and dog handlers began a risky ground search for 10 people missing in a hillside collapse in Norway.\n\nInitially it was thought too dangerous to send rescuers on to the site, after flowing mud sent homes toppling into a giant chasm in the village of Ask.\n\nHelicopters and drones spent two days searching the scene.\n\nBut on Friday police commander Roy Alkvist said one or two houses appeared safe to enter.\n\nRescuers, who included a Swedish specialist team, began moving into the danger zone on Styrofoam boards. The bright orange boards were laid down on the mud in a domino-effect as rescuers tried to reach one of the wrecked homes, which are 25km (15 miles) north-east of the capital Oslo.\n\nA missing Dalmatian dog was rescued on Thursday and police believe there is still a chance survivors could be found.\n\nHowever, on Friday afternoon an air ambulance helicopter landed near the site and police said a body had been found at 14:30 (13:30 GMT) without giving further details.\n\nRescuers are using orange Styrofoam boards to move around the landslide area\n\nPrime Minister Erna Solberg said her thoughts went out to the victim's family, and to those waiting for news of the other nine people who were missing.\n\nIn Friday's operation the rescuers also prepared a giant army vehicle called a \"paver\", which has a giant steel bridge on which rescuers can move.\n\nHowever, conditions were not yet good enough for the 50-tonne machine to be deployed.\n\nThe plan is to deploy a Norwegian army bridge-laying vehicle as soon as conditions are good enough\n\nFriday's search was a race against time, as the rescuers only had a few hours of daylight in the Norwegian winter. Medics and geologists were reportedly part of the ground rescue team.\n\nThe ground search was called off for the night at 17:30 and police said drones and heat-seeking cameras would continue overnight until rescue crews could return on Saturday morning.\n\nAbout 1,000 people have been evacuated from Gjerdrum municipality, which contains Ask village. Dozens more were moved out of their homes on New Year's Eve.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Aerial footage shows the scale of the landslide\n\nAlthough police have not given details of the missing, they are believed to include men, women and children.\n\nAmong them is a woman who was talking to her husband on the phone while walking the dog when the line went dead, according to Bergens Tidende newspaper.\n\nFurther reports say a couple and their small child are also missing, as well as a woman in her 50s and her adult son.\n\nMore than 30 homes have been destroyed, but officials say more could be lost as the edges of the crater left by the landslide are still breaking away.\n\nThe conditions have proved challenging, with temperatures dropping to -1C (30F) and the clay ground proving too unstable for emergency workers to walk on.\n\nThe scale of the landslide is shown by this aerial view of the disaster site\n\nThe landslide began early on Wednesday, with residents calling emergency services and telling them that their houses were moving, police said.\n\n\"There were two massive tremors that lasted for a long while and I assumed it was snow being cleared or something like that,\" Oeystein Gjerdrum, 68, told broadcaster NRK.\n\n\"Then the power suddenly went out, and a neighbour came to the door and said we needed to evacuate, so I woke up my three grandchildren and told them to get dressed quickly.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) told AFP that the landslide was a so-called \"quick clay slide\" measuring about 300m by 700m (985ft by 2,300ft).\n\n\"This is the largest landslide in recent times in Norway, considering the number of houses involved and the number of evacuees,\" Laila Hoivik said.\n\nQuick clay is a kind of clay found in Norway and Sweden that can collapse and behave as a fluid when it comes under stress.\n\nBroadcaster NRK said heavy rainfall may have made the soil unstable, but questions have since emerged over why construction was permitted in the area.\n\nA 2005 geological survey labelled the area as at high risk of landslides, according to a report seen by the broadcaster TV2. Despite this, the homes were built three years later in 2008.", "Hospitals across the UK are being told to prepare to face the same Covid pressures as the NHS in London and south-east England.\n\nSenior doctor Prof Andrew Goddard said the virus's highly infectious new variant was spreading nationwide.\n\nCase numbers were \"mild\" compared with where he expected them to be next week, he said, with doctors \"really worried\".\n\nIt comes as a further 57,725 people have tested positive for Covid - a new daily high.\n\nThis is the fifth day in a row new daily cases have been over 50,000 and brings the total number of cases to 2,599,789.\n\nAnother 445 deaths, of people who had tested positive within the previous 28 days, were reported on Saturday - bringing the total number of deaths to 74,570, according to government figures.\n\nThe UK-wide total for people in hospital with Covid has already passed the spring peak.\n\nHalf of the major hospital trusts in England are said to be dealing with more Covid-19 patients than at the worst point of the first wave in April, with the NHS facing its \"busiest winter ever\".\n\nProf Goddard, of the Royal College of Physicians, told BBC Breakfast: \"There's no doubt that Christmas is going to have a big impact, the new variant is also going to have a big impact, we know that is more infectious, more transmissible, so I think the large numbers that we're seeing in the South East, in London, in south Wales, is now going to be reflected over the next month, two months even, over the rest of the country.\"\n\nHe said: \"It seems very likely that we are going to see more and more cases, wherever people work in the UK, and we need to be prepared for that.\"\n\nPressure has been so great on hospitals in London and south-east England that some patients have been moved out of the area.\n\nLondon's weekly rate of coronavirus cases is 858 per 100,000 people, double the UK figure.\n\nDominic Harrison, director of public health for Blackburn and Darwen, said a decision on a new lockdown had to be decided \"in the next week\" - instead of waiting for the North to get to the same rates as the capital \"and 'call it late' which has been our pattern of response too often\".\n\nThe most recent UK-wide statistics, from 28 December, showed there were 23,823 people in hospital with Covid. That was already significantly higher than the spring peak, which saw 21,683 in hospital on 12 April.\n\nOnly English hospitals have released figures for the final three days of December - and these show that a further 2,302 Covid patients were occupying hospital beds on 31 December.\n\nLondon's Nightingale emergency hospital is ready to admit patients, the NHS has said, while other sites currently not in use are being readied.\n\nSorry, your browser cannot display this map\n\nProf Goddard said it was vital the public did not \"let their guard down\" and continued to follow government guidelines, including wearing a face mask, maintaining social distancing and washing hands.\n\n\"Until the vaccination hits and does its job - that's what our best defence is going to be,\" he said.\n\nDr Ami Jones, an intensive care consultant in Wales, told BBC Breakfast that \"hospitals are absolutely bursting\", adding that a quarter of her staff were currently off sick or self-isolating, making managing patients even more challenging.\n\n\"When we see the daily figures - we know that will sting us in about 10-12 days' time in the hospital,\" she said. \"We are not even at day 10 post-Christmas yet and it's already exceedingly busy.\n\n\"We are going to get to the point where we physically don't have the staff to look after people safely anymore.\"\n\nDr Jones also urged the public to \"please just obey the rules\", adding: \"Stop mixing with other households because it is spreading like wildfire - and we haven't got much more space in the hospitals left.\"\n\nDo you work in a hospital? Have you recently been treated in a hospital, or due to be treated? Email your experiences: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Last updated on .From the section Tottenham\n\nTottenham manager Jose Mourinho says he is \"disappointed\" after three of his players breached coronavirus rules by attending a party over Christmas.\n\nA picture on social media showed Argentina forward Erik Lamela, Spain defender Sergio Reguilon and Argentina midfielder Giovani lo Celso at a party.\n\n\"We are not happy - it was a negative surprise for us,\" said Mourinho.\n\nIn a statement, Tottenham said they were \"extremely disappointed\" and \"the matter would be dealt with internally\".\n\nWest Ham reminded Argentina forward Manuel Lanzini, who also attended the party, of his responsibilities.\n\nLanzini apologised in a tweet on Saturday, saying he made a \"bad mistake\".\n\n\"I take full responsibility for my actions,\" he said. \"I know people have made difficult sacrifices to stay safe and I should be setting a better example.\"\n\nLamela and Lo Celso were not involved in Saturday's 3-0 Premier League win at home to Leeds, while Reguilon, who joined from Real Madrid in September, was on the bench.\n\n\"I gave an amazing gift to Reguilon - Portuguese piglet,\" Mourinho said. \"Amazing for Portuguese and Spanish. I was told he would spend Christmas on his own. He was not alone as you could see.\n\n\"We, the club, feel disappointed because we gave the players all the education and conditions. We know what we are internally. We don't need to open the door to you and let you know what is going on internally.\n\n\"What are going to be the consequences and how deeply we approach that negative surprise? I feel disappointed.\"\n\nThe Spurs statement added: \"We strongly condemned the image showing some of our players with family and friends together at Christmas, particularly as we know the sacrifices everybody around the country made to stay safe over the festive period.\n\n\"The rules are clear, there are no exceptions, and we regularly remind all our players and staff about the latest protocols and their responsibilities to adhere and set an example.\"\n\nLamela has made two league starts and Lo Celso four this season.\n\nLanzini has featured in nine of West Ham's 17 league games, coming on as a substitute in Friday's 1-0 win at Everton.\n\nA West Ham spokesperson said: \"The club has set the highest possible standards with its protocols and measures relating to Covid-19 so we are disappointed to learn of Manuel Lanzini's actions.\n\n\"The matter has been dealt with internally and Manuel has been strongly reminded of his responsibilities.\"\n\nTottenham's home league game with Fulham, scheduled to take place on 30 December, was called off three hours before kick-off after a number of Fulham players tested positive for coronavirus or showed symptoms.\n\nMeanwhile, Fulham told BBC Sport they are looking into claims Aleksandar Mitrovic broke coronavirus rules by attending a New Year's party with Crystal Palace midfielder Luka Milivojevic.\n\nImages on social media, reported in the Sun , allegedly show the Serbia team-mates celebrating in London with at least seven other adults.\n\nThe mixing of households indoors is banned in London under the UK government's tier four restrictions.\n\n'Mourinho must be so angry'\n\nMourinho has been so critical and vocal of how the Premier League handled their situation [the Fulham postponement], which I totally disagree with him.\n\nYou have to accept we're in strange and difficult times - if it has to be called off at whatever time then it has to be called off.\n\nTo then see some of his players breaking the rules and laws, particularly when millions of people are sacrificing so much not only in this country but around the world, Mourinho must be so angry.\n• None A special and exclusive one-off chat with the music icon\n• None How has their rise come to define our culture?", "Liam Reilly fronted Bagatelle for more than 40 years\n\nIrish Eurovision singer and frontman of the rock band Bagatelle, Liam Reilly, has died aged 65.\n\nA family statement confirmed that Mr Reilly \"passed away suddenly but peacefully at his home\" on 1 January.\n\nMr Reilly fronted Bagatelle for more than 40 years and they had success with songs including Summer in Dublin and Second Violin.\n\nHe also came joint second at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1990 with the song Somewhere in Europe.\n\nThe song finished on 132 points, joint with France's entry sung by Joëlle Ursull, in the contest in Zagreb.\n\nMr Reilly, from Dundalk, County Louth, also composed Ireland's Eurovision entry for the contest in Rome in 1991, when Kim Jackson performed his song Could It Be That I'm In Love, which was placed 10th.\n\n\"We know that his many friends and countless fans around the world will share in our grief as we mourn his loss, but celebrate the extraordinary talent of the man whose songs meant so much to so many.\" the family statement added.\n\nJoe Gallagher, the band's promoter from Strabane, County Tyrone, told BBC Radio Ulster \"the talent that Liam brought to the music industry in Ireland is second to none\".\n\n\"Some of the songs that he has written are up there with some of the better songs written in Ireland,\" he said.\n\n\"He is one of the best singer-songwriters Ireland has ever seen or produced.\"\n\nMr Reilly also wrote songs for others, including The Wolfe Tones. The Irish group paid tribute to him on social media, describing him as \"a master songwriter\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by The Wolfe Tones 🇮🇪 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by The Wolfe Tones 🇮🇪\n\nStephen Travers, a member of the Miami Showband, said Mr Reilly was a \"national treasure\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Stephen Travers This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Bitcoin's value has soared over the past year\n\nBitcoin's value surged above $34,000 (£24,850) for the first time on Sunday as the leading cryptocurrency continued to soar.\n\nIt put the gain this year at almost $5,000, although by 17:00 GMT the price had drifted lower to about $33,000, according to the Coindesk website.\n\nThe rise was put down to interest from big investors seeking quick profits.\n\nIt comes after Bitcoin soared 300% last year, with the price of many other digital currencies also rising sharply.\n\nEthereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency, gained 465% in 2020\n\nSome analysts think Bitcoin's value could rise even further as the US dollar drops further.\n\nWhile the value of the US currency rose in March at the start of the coronavirus pandemic as investors sought safety amid the uncertainty, it has since dropped due to major stimulus from the US Federal Reserve. The currency ended last year with its biggest annual loss since 2017.\n\nBitcoin is traded in much the same way as real currencies like the US dollar and pound sterling.\n\nRecently it has won growing support as a form of payment online, with PayPal among the most recent adopters of digital currencies.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBut the cryptocurrency has also proved to be a volatile investment.\n\nThe soaring price has raised concerns that Bitcoin is due for a dramatic correction, as happened three years ago when the value collapsed after a bull run.\n\nDuring the rally in 2017 Bitcoin came close to breaking through the $20,000 level, only to hit extreme lows and fall below $3,300.\n\nIt passed $19,000 in November last year before dropping sharply again.\n\nIn October, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey cautioned over Bitcoin's use as a payment method.\n\n\"I have to be honest, it is hard to see that Bitcoin has what we tend to call intrinsic value,\" he said. \"It may have extrinsic value in the sense that people want it.\"\n\nMr Bailey added that he was \"very nervous\" about people using Bitcoin for payments pointing out that investors should realise its price is extremely volatile.", "The aftermath of an attack in August in Niger, which has suffered a number claimed by jihadist groups\n\nSuspected Islamist militants have attacked two villages in Niger, with reports of dozens of civilians killed.\n\nAround 49 died and 17 were injured in the village of Tchombangou, while another 30 died in Zaroumdareye - both near Niger's western border with Mali, Reuters reports.\n\nThere have been several recent violent incidents in Africa's Sahel region, carried out by militant groups.\n\nFrance said on Saturday that two of its soldiers were killed in Mali.\n\nHours earlier, a group with links to al-Qaeda said it was behind the killing of three French troops in a separate attack in Mali on Monday.\n\nFrance has been leading a coalition of West African and European allies against Islamist militants in the Sahel.\n\nBut the region continues to be affected by ethnic violence, banditry, and human and drug trafficking.\n\nIn light of Saturday's attacks, Interior Minister Alkache Alhada said soldiers had been sent to the area, according to French outlet RFI. But Mr Alhada did not say how many casualties there had been across the two villages.\n\nA local official, quoted by AFP news agency, said many people were killed, and a local journalist spoke of up to 50 deaths.\n\nNiger's Tillabéri region, where the villages are situated, lies within the so-called tri-border area between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, which has been plagued by jihadi attacks in recent years.\n\nTravel by motorbike has been banned in the region for a year, as part of efforts to stop incursions by Islamic militants, who often launch attacks from the vehicles.\n\nAreas of Niger are also facing repeated attacks by jihadists from Nigeria, where the government is fighting an insurgency by Boko Haram.\n\nLast month, members of the group killed at least 27 people in Niger's south-eastern Diffa region.\n\nThe latest attacks in Tillabéri come amid national elections in Niger, as President Mahamadou Issoufou steps down after two five-year terms.\n\nElection officials announced provisional results on Saturday, showing a lead for Mohamed Bazoum - a former minister and a member of Niger's ruling party.\n\nA second round of votes is expected to be held on 21 February, once ballots have been validated by the country's constitutional court.", "The former president posts that he has been told to report to a grand jury, \"which almost always means an Arrest\"."], "link": ["http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55732301", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55742664", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55752373", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55738183", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55741990", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55747064", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55736160", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55746745", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-55743084", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-55750944", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55735178", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-manchester-55745825", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55733527", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-55752056", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55742569", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55745714", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-55718070", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55741985", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55746293", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54373904", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55656823", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55738918", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55738564", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55738741", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55736239", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55753606", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-55755159", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55757807", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55734277", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55688932", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55642375", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55656824", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55751915", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55750776", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55751598", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-55745861", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-northern-ireland-55753796", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55739974", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55757934", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55657090", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55690001", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-55740965", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55748645", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55738174", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55742583", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55735237", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55739973", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-55749175", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-55730500", 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"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-55521541", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-55523137", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-55520915", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55523587", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55515455", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/55522152", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55450393", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-55508141", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-55520658", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-55525269", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55514792", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54373904", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55523447", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55503852", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-55521732", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55524795", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-55521687", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55507012", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55497274", 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"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-55660807", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42636667", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-55726381", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55683896", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55735237", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55731099", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55640427", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55733327", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-55718525", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-55730500", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-55739271", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-55732938", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51682000", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55719860", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55740365", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55683899", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55708411", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55727445", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55739803", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-55730322", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-55730480", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55719955", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55456854", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55519042", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-55506891", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-55506681", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55466395", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55514504", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55515831", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/55506388", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55505722", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55509582", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55450393", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55444188", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55503536", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55506661", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55514792", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55513158", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55514153", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55511169", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55509694", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55513167", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-55514853", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55507012", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55396492", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55518304", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55506734", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55514363", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55515555", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55515455", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55515529", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55497274", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/us2020"]}
\ No newline at end of file
+{"title": ["Ukraine accuses government interpreter of spying for Russia - BBC News", "Facebook ditches fake news warning flag - BBC News", "Damian Green: Vendetta or architect of his own downfall? - BBC News", "Priest Laurence Soper jailed for sexually abusing boys - BBC News", "Poundland removes Twinings tea from 'Naughty Elf' ad - BBC News", "UK car production driven down by fall in domestic demand - BBC News", "GCHQ cyber-spies 'over-achieved' say MPs - BBC News", "Commonwealth Games: Birmingham announced as host of 2022 event - BBC Sport", "Ramaphosa vows to fight South Africa corruption - BBC News", "Born in the wrong place for good schools? - BBC News", "Business Live: FTSE closes at all-time high - BBC News", "One teen has been campaigning to end period poverty - BBC News", "Damian Green sacked after 'misleading statements' on porn claims - BBC News", "Hospitals to cancel ops to cope with winter surge - BBC News", "North Korea defection: Warning shots as soldier crosses border to South - BBC News", "Brexit: Be more patriotic about cheese, says Michael Gove - BBC News", "Errington's Dunsyre Blue cheese recalled over listeria concerns - BBC News", "Hunt: Green sacking 'very sad moment' - BBC News", "Jonghyun: K-pop stars carry SHINee singer's coffin - BBC News", "'No 10 knew' of Damian Green claims in 2016, says Kate Maltby - BBC News", "MP Mark Garnier cleared of breaking ministerial code - BBC News", "Melbourne crash: Driver arrested after hitting pedestrians - BBC News", "Laura Kuenssberg on Damian Green sacking - BBC News", "Philippines ferry carrying 251 capsizes - BBC News", "Toys R Us staves off collapse after rescue talks - BBC News", "Damian Green: PM's university friend and political ally sacked - BBC News", "Stepfather jailed over boy's water park drowning - BBC News", "Chocolate poisoning risk to dogs at Christmas - BBC News", "Theresa May loses one of the few who understood her - BBC News", "Catalonia election amid crisis with Spain over independence - BBC News", "Kaci Sullivan: 'I gave birth as both genders' - BBC News", "IMF downgrades UK growth forecast on Brexit uncertainty - BBC News", "Aldi stabbing: Woman dies in Skipton supermarket attack - BBC News", "PM's deputy Damian Green denies inappropriate behaviour claim - BBC News", "Melbourne crash: Driver arrested after hitting pedestrians - BBC News", "US finds against Bombardier in Boeing dispute - BBC News", "Theresa May seeks to reassure UK's Polish residents - BBC News", "Virgin Trains West Coast strike called off - BBC News", "Sea turtle found tangled in floating cocaine bales - BBC News", "Catt Sadler: US TV host quits over equal pay dispute - BBC News", "Collapse of rape trials appalling, says attorney general - BBC News", "Damian Green: Timeline of his downfall - BBC News", "Sofa surfers: The young hidden homeless - BBC News", "Eating disorder care in Northern Ireland under review - BBC News", "Jailed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe 'eligible for early release' - BBC News", "Jerusalem UN vote: Trump threatens US aid recipients - BBC News", "Finsbury Park mosque attack suspect pleads not guilty - BBC News", "Frozen embryo record parents on 'miracle' baby - BBC News", "Cost of global disasters 'jumps to $306bn in 2017' - BBC News", "Nigel Farage defends Donald Trump's Britain First tweets - BBC News", "Ashes: Shaun Marsh puts Australia in control of second Test in Adelaide - BBC Sport", "Hawaii tests nuclear warning siren - BBC News", "South Korea boat collision leaves 13 dead - BBC News", "MP Nadine Dorries defends 'shared password' tweet - BBC News", "Children's commissioner may consider legal action over Universal Credit - BBC News", "Triple talaq: India considers jail for 'instant divorce' - BBC News", "Rak-Su: Boy band beat Grace Davies to win X Factor 2017 - BBC News", "Barclays axes free Kaspersky product as a 'precaution' - BBC News", "Saudi Arabia's House of Cards - BBC News", "Wiltshire Police find eleven people locked in lorry - BBC News", "Chief vet defends support of larger hen cages - BBC News", "Jarvis Cocker's BBC 6Music show to end - BBC News", "Pontiac Silverdome stadium fails to implode near Detroit - BBC News", "Whirlpool tumble dryers: MPs' anger as replacement ends - BBC News", "A new model for social mobility? - BBC News", "Motorway PC stops van from falling off bridge - BBC News", "Lottery win means couple can marry after 30-year engagement - BBC News", "Daisy Ridley denies wanting to leave Star Wars movies - BBC News", "Labour peer Lord Bassam to repay travel expenses - BBC News", "Manchester City 2-1 West Ham United - BBC Sport", "Metropolitan Opera suspends James Levine after sex abuse claims - BBC News", "Potsdam bomb 'was attempt to extort' from DHL shipping company - BBC News", "West Midlands Police release footage of M6 crash - BBC News", "Social mobility: The worst places to grow up poor - BBC News", "Social mobility board quits over lack of progress - BBC News", "Russia-Trump: President hits out at FBI over Russia inquiry - BBC News", "North Korea: US in race to address threat, says HR McMaster - BBC News", "Ireland's Late Late Toy Show surprise - BBC News", "Pledge to boost mental health support in schools - BBC News", "'Supermoon' brightens up skies for stargazers - BBC News", "Alternative for Germany: Police and protesters clash over meeting - BBC News", "Tony Blair: Brexit puts NI peace process at risk - BBC News", "Trump-Russia: Six big takeaways from the Flynn deal - BBC News", "Samuel Berkley: Family of teenager killed on M67 'heartbroken' - BBC News", "Arsenal 1-3 Manchester United - BBC Sport", "Star Wars: The Last Jedi takes $450m on opening weekend - BBC News", "Manchester City 4-1 Tottenham Hotspur - BBC Sport", "BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2017: World 10,000m champion Mo Farah wins - BBC Sport", "Appeal over death of Commons deputy speaker's daughter - BBC News", "Birmingham crash: Victim Imtiaz Mohammed 'was on last job' - BBC News", "Deaths of Canada billionaire Barry Sherman and wife 'suspicious' - BBC News", "Sydney man charged with being 'economic agent' for North Korea - BBC News", "Bradley Lowery: Award for Sunderland mascot at BBC Sports Personality - BBC Sport", "December shopper footfall down 'significantly' - BBC News", "The Apprentice: Lord Sugar surprises viewers with final result - BBC News", "Brexit: Guidelines for the next stage of talks - BBC News", "Brexit: Theresa May says she 'will not be derailed' - BBC News", "Ryanair pilots in Ireland suspend strike plans - BBC News", "Brent PCs critically hurt after being hit by Maserati - BBC News", "The beautiful flower with an ugly past - BBC News", "Santa Barbara evacuated as Thomas flares up again - BBC News", "François Gabart: French sailor slashes around the world solo record - BBC News", "Hundreds of sausage dogs don Christmas jumpers in Leeds - BBC News", "Chile election: Conservative Piñera elected president - BBC News", "Birmingham crash: Very harrowing scene, say police - BBC News", "Self-exclusion scheme in betting shops flawed - BBC News", "Switzerland funicular: World's steepest railway opens - BBC News", "Heart of Midlothian 4-0 Celtic - BBC Sport", "ARA San Juan: Argentina navy chief sacked after loss of submarine - BBC News", "ANC: Zuma pleads for unity as party picks new leader - BBC News", "Uber driver arrested after Briton murdered in Lebanon - BBC News", "Birmingham crash: Six dead in 'horrific' smash - BBC News", "Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport power cut strands thousands - BBC News", "Pensions: Automatic saving to start at 18 under new plans - BBC News", "Defence budget: New equipment at risk over MoD savings 'doubts' - BBC News", "Australia's first same sex wedding takes place - BBC News", "Austria country profile - BBC News", "Ban sale of mini mobile phones, justice secretary says - BBC News", "Heinz Wolff, Great Egg Race presenter and scientist, dies - BBC News", "Ashes: England face defeat as Australia inch closer to winning back urn - BBC Sport", "Funicular railway: Switzerland launches world's steepest service - BBC News", "Chile: Landslide destroys village and kills at least five - BBC News", "Campaigners threaten legal action over 'abortion pill' - BBC News", "Rocket rumbles give volcanic insights - BBC News", "Police investigate four baby deaths at South Korea hospital - BBC News", "Trump Putin call: CIA helped stop Russia terror attack - BBC News", "Five drivers traced over fatal Tulse Hill hit-and-run - BBC News", "Liver surgeon Simon Bramhall marked initials on patients - BBC News", "Leeds crash: Boy, 15, admits causing deaths - BBC News", "Disney set to seal $60bn 21st Century Fox takeover - BBC News", "Meghan Markle to spend Christmas with Queen at Sandringham - BBC News", "Couple jailed for plotting Birmingham terror attack - BBC News", "Chris Froome: Cyclist facing questions over adverse test result - BBC Sport", "Facebook and Twitter: Nine Russian Brexit ads found by inquiries - BBC News", "More than 20,000 meals bought for homeless people - BBC News", "LinkedIn hosted jihadist lectures, Blair institute reveals - BBC News", "Westminster rape trial: Samuel Armstrong 'victim gave story to press' - BBC News", "Donald Tusk calls Brexit talks a furious race against time - BBC News", "Armed forces veterans to get ID to recognise 'sacrifice' - BBC News", "Water bills set to fall by up to £25 from 2020 - BBC News", "Donald Trump tumbles to earth with a bump - BBC News", "Baby born with heart outside chest - BBC News", "Baby born with heart outside body 'doing well' - BBC News", "Spurs player in global teacher prize shortlist - BBC News", "Who will blink first? - BBC News", "Ceredigion Apprentice winner's product recall - BBC News", "Alabama Senate election: Roy Moore faces verdict of voters - BBC News", "NHS to fund baby Oliver's US heart operation - BBC News", "Vice chancellors' pay: Universities to sign new 'fair pay' code - BBC News", "Vote defeat will lead to 'compressed timetable' - BBC News", "Roy Moore: The eyes of the world are on Alabama election - BBC News", "Toni Mascolo, co-founder of salon chain Toni & Guy, dies - BBC News", "Ryanair pilots to strike before Christmas - BBC News", "US Federal Reserve raises interest rates again - BBC News", "Star power: Princes turn out for Star Wars premiere - BBC News", "Theresa May 'dancing to EU's tune' over Brexit, says Farage - BBC News", "Salford house fire 'targeted attack' - BBC News", "Salford house fire: Pair in court over murder of three children - BBC News", "New York bombing suspect Akayed Ullah warned Trump on Facebook - BBC News", "Doug Jones: The Democrat who upset Alabama Senate race - BBC News", "Roy Moore's skittish escape on horseback - BBC News", "DR Congo crisis: On Kasai's hunger road - BBC News", "UVF killer Haggarty shot Catholic to hide double life - BBC News", "US ready for North Korea talks without preconditions, says Tillerson - BBC News", "Row over 'smell of cannabis' police stops - BBC News", "Myles Bradbury: Victim 'destroyed’ by Addenbrooke's abuse doctor - BBC News", "Salford house fire: Lia Pearson dies in hospital - BBC News", "Labour reprimands Kezia Dugdale over I'm a Celebrity - BBC News", "USA Today editorial says Trump unfit to clean Obama's toilet - BBC News", "Warmer Arctic is the 'new normal' - BBC News", "Brexit vote: Total silence - then disbelief - BBC News", "Harvey Weinstein: Salma Hayek alleges he threatened to kill her - BBC News", "Drone smugglers caught on camera - BBC News", "Ed Sheeran picks up MBE at Buckingham Palace - BBC News", "Deptford double murder: Strangled father was sex offender - BBC News", "Daisy Ridley: Social media is bad for mental health - BBC News", "Brexit 'affecting London's talent pool' - BBC News", "Middle East media reacts to 'slap of the century' - BBC News", "Trump says US recognises Jerusalem: The speech in full - BBC News", "Liverpool 7-0 Spartak Moscow - BBC Sport", "Stanley Johnson: 'Is Boris still foreign secretary?' - BBC News", "Anger at Chancellor's disability employment comments - BBC News", "Storm Caroline disrupts travel and closes schools - BBC News", "Dexter Fletcher to direct Freddie Mercury biopic - BBC News", "Brexit: PM urged not to let Eurosceptics 'dictate' talks - BBC News", "UK City of Culture 2021: Coventry wins - BBC News", "Why Jerusalem matters - BBC News", "Irish border: New draft Brexit plan could break deadlock - BBC News", "Senator Al Franken to resign amid sexual misconduct claims - BBC News", "Coveney stands firm on Irish Brexit position - BBC News", "Uber's licence suspended in Sheffield - BBC News", "Hamilton musical wows first London audience - BBC News", "$450m 'Leonardo painting' heads to Louvre Abu Dhabi - BBC News", "Labour's Lord Bassam to quit as chief whip over expenses - BBC News", "Person of the Year: Time honours abuse 'silence breakers' - BBC News", "Brexit border talks entering critical 24 hours - BBC News", "Oxford student Lavinia Woodward fights suspended sentence - BBC News", "'Stark' increase in overweight youngsters - BBC News", "Google's 'superhuman' DeepMind AI claims chess crown - BBC News", "Ian Paterson: Independent inquiry into breast surgeon - BBC News", "California wildfires: Nearly 200,000 flee as new blaze spreads - BBC News", "Man 'cements microwave to head' in Wolverhampton - BBC News", "Poppi Worthington inquest: Expert casts doubt on abuse theory - BBC News", "Impact assessments of Brexit on the UK 'don't exist' - BBC News", "UK City of Culture: Broken train causes MP's rush to Hull - BBC News", "Cheers and a sing-song: Australian MPs back gay marriage - BBC News", "Bitcoin breaks through the $16,000 mark - BBC News", "Primark removes 'dangerous' Christmas candle from sale - BBC News", "School attendance and absence: The facts - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Johnson to urge Iran to free prisoner - BBC News", "David Davis questioned over Brexit impact assessments - BBC News", "Man saves rabbit from California wildfires - BBC News", "HMS Queen Elizabeth: UK's biggest warship commissioned - BBC News", "HMS Queen Elizabeth: Royals attend aircraft carrier ceremony - BBC News", "Fashion models expose sexual harassment - BBC News", "California wildfires surround LA freeway - BBC News", "What Trump's Jerusalem decision means for peace - BBC News", "UK snow: Ice could add to travel disruption as temperatures drop - BBC News", "India newborn 'mistakenly' declared dead passes away - BBC News", "Sean Rigg death: Police will not face charges, CPS rules - BBC News", "Mohammed Abdallah guilty of joining Islamic State - BBC News", "I should be home-schooled, but I spent 10 months on Xbox - BBC News", "Ballon d'Or 2017: Cristiano Ronaldo beats Lionel Messi to win fifth award - BBC Sport", "Ladbrokes Coral in talks over takeover by GVC - BBC News", "Terrorists have nowhere to hide, says defence secretary - BBC News", "Momentum under investigation by Electoral Commission - BBC News", "Prince Charles bomb plot: Real IRA leader jailed - BBC News", "South Live: Thursday 7 December - BBC News", "Jerusalem: Trump move prompts negative world reaction - BBC News", "Croydon tram crash: Report says driver 'probably dozed off' - BBC News", "Swimmers brave icy sea in Porthcawl on Christmas Day - BBC News", "Queen's message pays tribute to London and Manchester - BBC News", "Mum hopes royal photo can pay for university - BBC News", "Pope Francis pleads for migrants at Christmas Eve Mass - BBC News", "Skiers in French Alps lift ordeal at Chamrousse - BBC News", "M40 crash: Two men die and four people injured - BBC News", "Field Farm Fisheries' 'no Polish' sign taken down - BBC News", "Moscow subway bus crash kills four people - BBC News", "Tembin: Storm weakens as it nears southern Vietnam - BBC News", "Twitter #joinin campaign by comic Sarah Millican helps lonely - BBC News", "White Christmas for some areas of UK - BBC News", "Serena Williams to make comeback in Abu Dhabi after giving birth - BBC Sport", "Police watchdog investigates fatal crash - BBC News", "Burglars steal £2,000 of Christmas presents - BBC News", "Carles Puigdemont: The man who wants to break up Spain - BBC News", "TV dinners: The hidden cost of the processed food revolution - BBC News", "Meghan Markle to spend Christmas with Queen at Sandringham - BBC News", "China's huge new amphibious aircraft takes flight - BBC News", "Bethlehem Christmas: Church of the Nativity hosts pilgrims - BBC News", "Vitaly Mutko: Russia football head steps aside amid doping ban - BBC News", "Why did we use leaded petrol for so long? - BBC News", "The iPhone at 10: How the smartphone became so smart - BBC News", "Lost Mac the monkey returned to toddler for Christmas - BBC News", "Heather Menzies-Urich, The Sound of Music's Louisa von Trapp, dies - BBC News", "Russia elections: Hundreds vote to nominate Navalny - BBC News", "SPD crash: Car rammed into German political party's HQ - BBC News", "Archbishop Welby condemns populist leaders in Christmas sermon - BBC News", "Catalonia election: Spain's King Felipe warns separatists - BBC News", "The Royal Family attend church in Sandringham - BBC News", "The Queen's Christmas message - BBC News", "Meghan Markle joins royals for Christmas service - BBC News", "Cambridge burglary victim reunited with photo - BBC News", "Bob Givens: Bugs Bunny animator dies aged 99 - BBC News", "Trump Turnberry will no longer get business rates relief - BBC News", "Kabul blast: Suicide attack near Afghan intelligence HQ - BBC News", "Tunisia bans UAE Emirates airline from landing in Tunis - BBC News", "Catalan political landscape as divided as ever - BBC News", "How the humble S-bend made modern toilets possible - BBC News", "Wagamama apology for 'don't be sick' staff notice - BBC News", "Jodie Whittaker makes first Doctor Who appearance - BBC News", "Ashes: Tom Curran to make England Test debut on Boxing Day at MCG - BBC Sport", "Homeless tuck into Christmas dinner at Euston Station - BBC News", "Meghan Markle and Prince Harry: A royal shake-up - BBC News", "Slender Man stabbing: Girl gets 25 years in mental hospital - BBC News", "N Korea given 'unambiguous message' - Haley - BBC News", "'Iconic' blue British passport to return after Brexit - BBC News", "Boris Johnson says UK wants better relations with Russia - BBC News", "Big Ben to chime for Christmas and new year celebrations - BBC News", "Poundland removes Twinings tea from 'Naughty Elf' ad - BBC News", "Boris Johnson: Poor UK relations with Russia a tragedy - BBC News", "North Korea: How are countries defending themselves? - BBC News", "Eric Schmidt steps down as boss of Google owner - BBC News", "Amazon apologises for 'threats' to customer - BBC News", "Starvation in Sanaa: 1,000 days of Yemen's civil war - BBC News", "Christmas getaway: 'Frantic Friday' as thousands set off by road and rail - BBC News", "Russian politicians dismiss PM's 'election meddling' claims - BBC News", "Johanna Young 1992 murder: Key to case 'in local area' - BBC News", "Hospitals to cancel ops to cope with winter surge - BBC News", "MI5 warnings on Brexit, terror and Russia - BBC News", "Frozen embryo record parents on 'miracle' baby - BBC News", "Curbs on plastic bottle and packaging waste sought by MPs - BBC News", "Arsenal 3-3 Liverpool - BBC Sport", "Birmingham Crash: Hundreds attend taxi driver's funeral - BBC News", "'No 10 knew' of Damian Green claims in 2016, says Kate Maltby - BBC News", "MP Mark Garnier cleared of breaking ministerial code - BBC News", "Typhoon fighter jets intercept prime minister's plane in exercise - BBC News", "Rape conviction quashed over new Facebook evidence - BBC News", "Antibiotic use in meat revealed by UK supermarkets - BBC News", "Melbourne attack an isolated incident, says PM Turnbull - BBC News", "Theresa May accuses Vladimir Putin of election meddling - BBC News", "Sweetie: 'Girl' chatbot targets thousands of paedophiles - BBC News", "Australian WW1-era submarine found after 13th search mission - BBC News", "Australia methamphetamine seizure 'worth a record A$1bn' - BBC News", "Catalonia election amid crisis with Spain over independence - BBC News", "UK cyber-defence chief accuses Russia of hack attacks - BBC News", "Aldi stabbing: Woman dies in Skipton supermarket attack - BBC News", "PM's deputy Damian Green denies inappropriate behaviour claim - BBC News", "Italian 'ambulances of death' worker arrested - BBC News", "Aldi stabbing: Jodie Willsher murder suspect charged - BBC News", "Ed Sheeran (and Beyonce) have Christmas number one - BBC News", "Banbury mother dies after raising £40,000 for sons - BBC News", "I'm more than 'Madame Brexit' - Theresa May - BBC News", "Ladbrokes Coral bought by online rival GVC - BBC News", "Jailed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe 'eligible for early release' - BBC News", "Brexit transition deal is urgent, say select committee MPs - BBC News", "Liver surgeon Simon Bramhall marked initials on patients - BBC News", "Grenfell family: 'You feel like a prisoner living here' - BBC News", "UK must tackle loneliness, says Jo Cox Commission report - BBC News", "Hurricane Harvey rainfall 'weighed 127bn tonnes' - BBC News", "Deporting EU rough sleepers from UK unlawful, High Court rules - BBC News", "Black Friday lifts UK retail sales in November - BBC News", "Cannabis and vaping more popular than smoking among US teens - BBC News", "Britain First's Jayda Fransen appears in Belfast court - BBC News", "Watch BBC coverage of the Grenfell Tower memorial - BBC News", "MSF estimates more than 6,700 Rohingya killed in Myanmar - BBC News", "Suu Kyi stripped of Freedom of Dublin City award - BBC News", "If Brexit was a video game - BBC News", "Grenfell Tower fire memorial service: As it happened - BBC News", "Scottish income tax rises to be unveiled - BBC News", "Brexit: UK in Erasmus student scheme until at least 2020 - BBC News", "The priceless pictures that survived Grenfell fire - BBC News", "Vice chancellors' pay: Universities to sign new 'fair pay' code - BBC News", "US Federal Reserve raises interest rates again - BBC News", "Net neutrality rules weakened by US regulator - BBC News", "Haemophilia A trial results 'mind-blowing' - BBC News", "Grenfell fire: Families and survivors remember victims at St Paul's memorial - BBC News", "France Millas train crash: Children killed as bus cut in two - BBC News", "Grenfell memorial: Key moments - BBC News", "Grenfell fire: Worrying number of PTSD cases among survivors and locals - BBC News", "Concern over 'remote supervision' of offenders by phone - BBC News", "NHS in England told to reveal avoidable deaths data - BBC News", "Special-needs pupils 'struggle' with new tests - BBC News", "Ashes: No evidence of corruption in third Test after fixing claims - ICC - BBC Sport", "Theresa May 'dancing to EU's tune' over Brexit, says Farage - BBC News", "Salford house fire: Man in court charged with murder - BBC News", "UVF killer Haggarty shot Catholic to hide double life - BBC News", "Britain First's Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen arrested - BBC News", "Bank sees boost from Brexit progress - BBC News", "Grenfell Fire: Grief remains raw at St Paul's memorial - BBC News", "White House contradicts Tillerson on North Korea, adding to confusion - BBC News", "Salford house fire: Lia Pearson dies in hospital - BBC News", "Labour reprimands Kezia Dugdale over I'm a Celebrity - BBC News", "Brexit vote: Total silence - then disbelief - BBC News", "Harvey Weinstein: Salma Hayek alleges he threatened to kill her - BBC News", "Geminid meteor shower dazzles over northern hemisphere - BBC News", "Drone smugglers caught on camera - BBC News", "Who are the dual nationals jailed in Iran? - BBC News", "Man stripped in 50-hour kidnap ordeal in Thornton Heath - BBC News", "Snow in UK: Your photos of the wintry scenes - BBC News", "Portugal's Eurovision winner Salvador Sobral has heart transplant - BBC News", "Beirut protests: 'Jerusalem remains a rallying cry' - 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BBC News", "Almost half of under-25s 'never use a condom with a new partner' - BBC News", "US woman used bitcoin to move cash to Islamic State, police say - BBC News", "Brexit: Relief for Theresa May but a hard road ahead - BBC News", "Hillsborough officer not charged over horse burn claims - BBC News", "Net neutrality rules weakened by US regulator - BBC News", "Disabled man's cancer care criticised - BBC News", "Brexit: Guidelines for the next stage of talks - BBC News", "Boy, four, left on school bus tried to walk home - BBC News", "Brexit: Move to head off another Tory rebellion - BBC News", "Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to marry on 19 May 2018 - BBC News", "France Millas train crash: Children killed as bus cut in two - BBC News", "Grenfell fire: Families and survivors remember victims at St Paul's memorial - BBC News", "Grenfell memorial: Key moments - BBC News", "Ashes: Steve Smith hits 92 not out on second day of third Test - BBC Sport", "BBC appoints Fran Unsworth as next head of news - 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Haley - BBC News", "Tropical Storm Tembin: Rescuers search for victims - BBC News", "Philippines Tropical Storm Tembin kills more than 180 on Mindanao - BBC News", "Boris Johnson says UK wants better relations with Russia - BBC News", "Big Ben's iconic bongs return - BBC News", "Bruce McCandless, who made first untethered space flight, dies at 80 - BBC News", "Aldi stabbing: Jodie Willsher murder-accused Neville Hord in court - BBC News", "London Zoo fire kills aardvark 'and meerkats' - BBC News", "Syria war: Assad 'may evacuate cancer children' from Eastern Ghouta - BBC News", "'Remarkable' truffle discovery on Paris rooftop raises hopes of more - BBC News", "Daphne du Maurier's Cornish home listed - BBC News", "North Korea: How are countries defending themselves? - BBC News", "Amazon apologises for 'threats' to customer - BBC News", "Turkey blunder 'a potential dementia sign' - BBC News", "'World's ugliest pig' caught on camera - BBC News", "'Lonely' WW2 veteran's Christmas card plea answered - BBC News", "Conductor Charles Dutoit denies 'forced physical contact' claims - BBC News", "Arsenal 3-3 Liverpool - BBC Sport", "London Zoo 'devastated' by aardvark fire death - BBC News", "Tesco: No edible food will go to waste by February 2018 - BBC News", "Military keeping UK safe, PM says in Christmas message - BBC News", "Typhoon fighter jets intercept prime minister's plane in exercise - BBC News", "San Francisco: Man arrested over 'Christmas terror plan' - BBC News", "Melbourne car attack: Australia police charge man - BBC News", "Hidden camera captures rare pig thought extinct - BBC News", "Stephen Crabb MP cleared over harassment claims - BBC News", "Sweetie: 'Girl' chatbot targets thousands of paedophiles - BBC News", "Theresa May's Christmas 2017 message to the Armed Forces - BBC News", "Philippines country profile - BBC News", "Miss America leaked emails: CEO Sam Haskell and three others quit - BBC News", "Devon beach lifeguard's double life rescuing refugees - BBC News", "Aldi stabbing: Jodie Willsher murder suspect charged - BBC News", "Ed Sheeran (and Beyonce) have Christmas number one - BBC News", "GP warns Santa to 'give sherry a miss' - BBC News", "Garry Monk: Middlesbrough part company with manager despite victory - BBC Sport", "'Pay-per-mile' scheme for HGVs considered - BBC News", "I'm more than 'Madame Brexit' - Theresa May - BBC News", "Cancer Research award for 'Christmas miracle' boy - BBC News", "Sanremo tornado: Huge waterspout forms off Italian coast - BBC News", "Officer accidentally Tasers partner - BBC News", "Russia-Trump: Who's who in the drama to end all dramas? - BBC News", "Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wow Nottingham crowds on first joint visit - BBC News", "Kaspersky Labs: Warning over Russian anti-virus software - BBC News", "World Cup 2018: England boss Gareth Southgate 'will not write off' tournament - BBC Sport", "Jeremy Bowen: 'Why I testified against Praljak' - BBC News", "'Suicide pact' trial: Natasha Gordon found guilty - BBC News", "Welsh and Scottish health ministers call for folic acid in flour - BBC News", "PM 'cheering on' Debbie McGee on Strictly Come Dancing - BBC News", "Britain is braced for a cold snap overnight amid snow and sleet - BBC News", "How Theresa May's handling the Trump tweet row - BBC News", "'Escape' artist rescued after failing to escape - BBC News", "Southampton University in new pay row - BBC News", "Parents 'face tension at UK borders over surnames' - BBC News", "Morrisons data leak: Supermarket liable for staff details breach - BBC News", "Trump, Twitter and his 'filter bubble' - BBC News", "Police chief 'was told of Damian Green pornography claims' - BBC News", "Net migration falls by more than 100,000 after Brexit vote - BBC News", "Portsmouth hospital missed lung cancer cases - BBC News", "GQ editor Dylan Jones criticises cover star Jeremy Corbyn - BBC News", "Nasa footage shows lightning from ISS - BBC News", "Oxford University raises £750m from biggest bond issue - BBC News", "Sammy Wilson warns Brexit talks may jeopardise DUP-Tory deal - BBC News", "Grenfell Tower fire: Inquiry 'needs a diverse panel' - 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Archbishop of Canterbury - BBC News", "Who are the dual nationals jailed in Iran? - BBC News", "Boris Johnson under pressure over jailed mum in Iran case - BBC News", "So, did 'soft Brexit' just win? - BBC News", "Man stripped in 50-hour kidnap ordeal in Thornton Heath - BBC News", "California wildfires: Businesses face ruin as blaze rages - BBC News", "Uber settles defamation lawsuit filed by Indian rape victim - BBC News", "Portugal's Eurovision winner Salvador Sobral has heart transplant - BBC News", "Man charged over rocket launcher snowman in Londonderry - BBC News", "Will Gompertz reviews Charles II: Art & Power ★★★★☆ - BBC News", "Brexit deal: 'fair to the British taxpayer' - BBC News", "Iraq declares war with Islamic State is over - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Boris Johnson meets Iranian counterpart - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Prisoner caught in Iran power struggle - BBC News", "Brexit deal: Theresa May buys breathing space - BBC News", "Brexit deal: Theresa May's agreement with Brussels - 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BBC News", "Why British Muslims care about Jerusalem - BBC News", "Jail for cleaning fluid attack robbers - BBC News", "UK snow: Ice could add to travel disruption as temperatures drop - BBC News", "Amber snow warning issued for Sunday - BBC Weather", "Kevin Spacey 'groped Norwegian king's son-in-law' - BBC News", "North Korea: Urgent need to open channels, UN says after visit - BBC News", "Vaccination plea after Halesworth boy's meningitis death - BBC News", "Lord's Prayer: Pope Francis calls for change - BBC News", "Ashes: England's Ben Duckett poured drink over James Anderson in Perth bar - BBC Sport", "'Come out in class - if you want to', teachers urged - BBC News", "US lawmaker Trent Franks quits over 'surrogacy' talks with aides - BBC News", "Johnny Hallyday: Huge crowds gather to say farewell - BBC News", "Stormzy is BBC Music's artist of the year - BBC News", "Liberal Democrats 'broke EU referendum finance rules' - BBC News", "'Extra £450m funding' for police in England and Wales - 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BBC News", "Payout after woman was kept alive against her will - BBC News", "Banks should end unplanned overdraft charges, charity says - BBC News", "Cambridge News: Paper apologises over headline gaffe - BBC News", "Dolby estate gives Cambridge University Cavendish lab £85m - BBC News", "'My double life going to work from a homeless hostel' - BBC News", "'Santa's bone' proved to be correct age - BBC News", "Argentina stolen baby reunited with relatives 40 years on - BBC News", "Sean Rigg death: Police will not face charges, CPS rules - BBC News", "Posing as a schoolgirl to expose online groomers - BBC News", "McDonald's hijab row: Teenager says apology 'not enough' - BBC News", "Warning over eating raw dough due to E. coli risk in flour - BBC News", "Jeremy Hunt hits out at Facebook kids' app - BBC News", "Ventura fire: Thousands evacuated in southern California - BBC News", "Russian doping: IOC bans Russia from 2018 Winter Olympics - BBC Sport", "PC James Dixon: Tributes paid to 'hugely respected' officer killed in crash - BBC News", "Jerusalem: Trump move prompts negative world reaction - BBC News", "Liverpool 7-0 Spartak Moscow - BBC Sport", "N Korea given 'unambiguous message' - Haley - BBC News", "Peru's ex-President Fujimori taken from jail to hospital - BBC News", "Tropical Storm Tembin: Rescuers search for victims - BBC News", "Philippines Tropical Storm Tembin kills more than 180 on Mindanao - BBC News", "M40 crash: Two men die and four people injured - BBC News", "Field Farm Fisheries' 'no Polish' sign taken down - BBC News", "North Korea: How are countries defending themselves? - BBC News", "London Zoo fire kills aardvark 'and meerkats' - BBC News", "Syria war: Assad 'may evacuate cancer children' from Eastern Ghouta - BBC News", "Tropical Storm Tembin: Bridge damage hampers rescuers - BBC News", "Serena Williams to make comeback in Abu Dhabi after giving birth - BBC Sport", "Be 'proportionate' with anti-social powers, councils told - BBC News", "TV dinners: The hidden cost of the processed food revolution - BBC News", "UK's Christian heritage stressed in PM's Christmas message - BBC News", "China's huge new amphibious aircraft takes flight - BBC News", "Army halts plans to ditch 'Be the Best' slogan - BBC News", "Why did we use leaded petrol for so long? - BBC News", "Lost Mac the monkey returned to toddler for Christmas - BBC News", "The iPhone at 10: How the smartphone became so smart - BBC News", "'Lonely' WW2 veteran's Christmas card plea answered - BBC News", "Rachel Johnson to take part in Celeb Big Brother - BBC News", "Military keeping UK safe, PM says in Christmas message - BBC News", "Tesco: No edible food will go to waste by February 2018 - BBC News", "Russia elections: Hundreds vote to nominate Navalny - BBC News", "Strictly's Bruno Tonioli in tears on Desert Island Discs - BBC News", "Catalonia election: Spain's King Felipe warns separatists - BBC News", "Bob Givens: Bugs Bunny animator dies aged 99 - BBC News", "MPs hit back at abusive Christmas messages - BBC News", "Trump Turnberry will no longer get business rates relief - 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BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Husband 'sitting by the phone' - BBC News", "Skiers in French Alps lift ordeal at Chamrousse - BBC News", "Trump UK visit expected in new year, US ambassador says - BBC News", "The world's youngest island - BBC News", "France: Migrants at the frozen border - BBC News", "Birstall house explosion: Woman dies in hospital - BBC News", "Labour clears MP Clive Lewis of sexual harassment - BBC News", "Snow in UK: Your photos of the wintry scenes - BBC News", "Snow in Europe triggers transport chaos - BBC News", "Westfield shopping centres bought in $25bn deal - BBC News", "Skin betting: 'Children as young as 11 introduced to gambling' - BBC News", "UK forecast: Lying snow, ice and freezing fog - BBC News", "Three children die in suspicious house fire in Salford - BBC News", "'Worrying alarm call' for world's birds on brink of extinction - BBC News", "Heat-not-burn tobacco 'is a health risk' - BBC News", "Investigation ordered into 'misleading' festive tickets - BBC News", "Web pioneers plead to cancel US net vote - BBC News", "Michael Gove: I'll make Brexit work for animals too - BBC News", "New York Port Authority attack: Man held after Manhattan blast - BBC News", "Llanelli woman's nudist dating site £50,000 fraud - BBC News", "How hot is it where you are? - BBC News", "After Weinstein, Trump sexual misconduct accusers demand action - BBC News", "'Monster' fatberg to go on display in museum - BBC News", "Margaret Hodge repays £2.97 after Garden Bridge apology - BBC News", "Netflix defends A Christmas Prince tweet - BBC News", "Trump, Twitter and his 'filter bubble' - BBC News", "Donald Tusk calls Brexit talks a furious race against time - BBC News", "UK inflation rate at near six-year high - BBC News", "Alabama Senate election: Roy Moore faces verdict of voters - BBC News", "Baby born with heart outside body 'doing well' - BBC News", "Ceredigion Apprentice winner's product recall - BBC News", "Renting a home: How much space will £100 buy you? - BBC News", "UK forecast: Cold temperatures, ice and freezing fog - BBC News", "NHS to fund baby Oliver's US heart operation - BBC News", "Toni Mascolo, co-founder of salon chain Toni & Guy, dies - BBC News", "UK snow: Forecasters predicting coldest night of year - BBC News", "Will change to organ donor rules mean more transplants? - BBC News", "Keaton Jones: Bullied boy's family faces backlash - BBC News", "Salford house fire: Five questioned over child deaths - BBC News", "Ryanair pilots to strike before Christmas - BBC News", "Oxford teacher investigated for 'misgendering' to sue school - BBC News", "Brighton shoplifter sues Sussex Police over Taser arrest - BBC News", "Salford house fire: Officer's 'heart breaks' for family - BBC News", "Huntington’s breakthrough may stop disease - BBC News", "Trump sex harassment accusers demand congressional inquiry - BBC News", "Fears grow across the Atlantic over Brexit fallout - BBC News", "Salford house fire 'targeted attack' - BBC News", "Brexit: Right-to-stay forms 'will only take minutes' - BBC News", "UK service sector growth slows while prices rise - BBC News", "New York bombing suspect Akayed Ullah warned Trump on Facebook - BBC News", "Roy Moore's skittish escape on horseback - BBC News", "DR Congo crisis: On Kasai's hunger road - BBC News", "Row over 'smell of cannabis' police stops - BBC News", "Tyson Fury free to resume boxing career after compromise reached with Ukad - BBC Sport", "Corrie Mckeague: Landfill search for missing airman ends - BBC News", "Keith Chegwin: 'True telly legend' dies aged 60 - BBC News", "Facebook to overhaul Irish tax scheme - BBC News", "Inflation tracker: Will you feel the pinch this Christmas? - BBC News", "Budget 2017: The endless living squeeze - BBC News", "Theresa May says Brexit deal 'good news' for all voters - BBC News", "Marine flare explodes at Waterbeach recycling centre - BBC News", "Woman 'just left to die' in Tulse Hill hit-and-run - BBC News", "UK snow: Travellers struggle as icy conditions persist - BBC News", "One Culture: two generations - BBC News", "Manchester City 4-1 Tottenham Hotspur - BBC Sport", "Salford fatal fire: Family 'won't be broken' - BBC News", "Unilever sells margarine business to KKR for £6bn - BBC News", "US tax bill: Republicans agree sweeping changes - BBC News", "Aberdeen school bus crash driver named by police - BBC News", "Deaths of Canada billionaire Barry Sherman and wife 'suspicious' - BBC News", "Former PM takes on UK-China investment role - BBC News", "December shopper footfall down 'significantly' - BBC News", "Holy cow! 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drinking at Pennsylvania university - BBC News", "Salford fire deaths: Siblings 'will be buried side-by-side' - BBC News", "Weinstein 'derailed my career' Sorvino says after Peter Jackson claim - BBC News", "Boy, four, left on school bus tried to walk home - BBC News", "Brexit: EU leaders agree to move talks to next stage - BBC News", "Brexit: Relief for Theresa May but a hard road ahead - BBC News", "Austrian far-right joins coalition led by PM Sebastian Kurz - BBC News", "South Africa's ANC leadership battle: Top candidates - BBC News", "Corrie Mckeague: Reward to find missing airman doubles - BBC News", "Australia's first same sex wedding takes place - BBC News", "North Korea must earn right to talks, says US Secretary of State Tillerson - BBC News", "Austria country profile - BBC News", "Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to marry on 19 May 2018 - BBC News", "Student Liam Allan 'betrayed' after rape trial collapse - BBC News", "Heinz Wolff, Great Egg Race presenter and scientist, dies 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banned in Scotland - BBC News", "Student Liam Allan to sue after rape trial collapse - BBC News", "Commonwealth Games: Birmingham set to host 2022 event - BBC Sport", "One teen has been campaigning to end period poverty - BBC News", "UK homes to get faster broadband by 2020 - BBC News", "Damian Green sacked after 'misleading statements' on porn claims - BBC News", "Brexit: Be more patriotic about cheese, says Michael Gove - BBC News", "London: Banks and passporting rights after Brexit - BBC News", "Father's paternity pay rights tested at tribunal - BBC News", "Paul Flynn v Michael Gove over £350m Brexit figure - BBC News", "Grenfell children deliver the alternative Christmas message - BBC News", "Homelessness in England 'a national crisis', say MPs - BBC News", "UN Jerusalem vote: US 'will be taking names' - BBC News", "Damian Green: PM's university friend and political ally sacked - BBC News", "Sheffield arrests over 'alleged UK Christmas terror plot' - BBC News", "Christmas attack: German government admits mistakes in aftermath - BBC News", "Uber is officially a cab firm, says European court - BBC News", "Stepfather jailed over boy's water park drowning - BBC News", "Brexit: Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein suggests second vote - BBC News", "Post Office secures £370m funding from government - BBC News", "Contaminated blood report 'full of lies' - BBC News", "Theresa May loses one of the few who understood her - BBC News", "Mohammed Awan jailed for 10 years for terror plot - BBC News", "UK 'Christmas terror plot': Police searches resume - BBC News", "What's wrong with Rome's Christmas tree? - BBC News", "Harvey Weinstein: Ex-assistant criticises gagging orders - BBC News", "IMF downgrades UK growth forecast on Brexit uncertainty - BBC News", "Lottery millionaire to work at Slough care home on Christmas Day - BBC News", "Brexit 'affecting London's talent pool' - BBC News", "Sesame Street to help Syrian refugees - BBC News", "Derailed US train lacked automatic 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jailed for 1968 Paul Booth murder - BBC News", "Arsenal 1-3 Manchester United - BBC Sport", "Brexit offer 'must be acceptable to Ireland' - BBC News"], "published_date": ["2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-21", "2017-12-03", "2017-12-03", "2017-12-03", "2017-12-03", "2017-12-03", "2017-12-03", "2017-12-03", "2017-12-03", "2017-12-03", "2017-12-03", 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["https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews"], ["https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews"], ["https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews"], ["https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews"], ["https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews"], ["https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews"], [], ["https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews"]], "description": ["A senior government interpreter is arrested in Kiev amid claims he passed information on.", "The social network will no longer display a warning icon next to disputed stories.", "Was a former officer after \"payback\" when he disclosed details about a 2008 probe into Damian Green?", "Laurence Soper, 74, is the fourth man convicted of sexual assaults on children at the London school.", "The discount chain has removed box of the brand's tea from an ad after the company complained on Twitter.", "Car manufacturing output for the UK market drops by 28%, while production for export rises.", "The UK's ability to cyber-attack other countries has improved says a Parliament committee report.", "Birmingham will host the 2022 Commonwealth Games - the most expensive sports event to be held in Britain since London 2012.", "The new ANC leader pledges \"radical economic transformation\" for South Africa.", "There is a widening gap in access to good schools, with the north of England falling further behind.", "The FTSE 100 closed at an all-time high, up 1% with mining stocks featuring prominently.", "Amika George, 18, wants free menstrual products to be given to pupils on free school meals.", "The PM's deputy is asked to resign after making \"inaccurate statements\" after pornographic material was found on his Commons computer.", "Bosses say the move is needed to prepare for the early January spike in demand, but surgeons complain of short notice.", "The soldier appeared at a checkpoint in the South in thick fog, but a search party was in pursuit.", "Prices will go up if the UK leaves the EU without a deal but not if people buy British, says Michael Gove.", "Errington's Dunsyre Blue was named as the most likely source of an E.coli outbreak last year.", "Jeremy Hunt says Damian Green clearly breached ministerial code but that it is a sad moment.", "K-pop fans around the world have been mourning the 27-year-old, who took his own life this week.", "Kate Maltby raised concerns about Damian Green's conduct with aides but Theresa May says she was not told.", "Theresa May said \"a line should be drawn under the issue\" following a Cabinet Office investigation.", "Eyewitness Jim Stoupas describes a vehicle hitting pedestrians in Melbourne.", "Damian Green, one of Theresa May's closest allies, has been sacked from the cabinet after an inquiry found he had breached the ministerial code.", "Passengers say strong winds and waves meant the vessel started taking on water - and quickly sank.", "Last-minute talks with pension watchdog secure £9.8m pension fund injection, but stores will close.", "A profile of Theresa May's close ally, who has been sacked after he breached the ministerial code.", "Paul Smith had initially denied letting five-year-old Charlie Dunn wander off.", "Chocolate poisoning is a risk to the family dog over the festive season, vets are warning.", "Damian Green's resignation leaves the prime minister a lonelier figure.", "Updates and expert analysis as Spain's restive region elects a new parliament amid a crisis over independence.", "Kaci Sullivan's second child came after he began to transition and start living as a man.", "The IMF has cut its UK economic growth forecast, blaming Brexit uncertainty.", "Terrified shoppers screamed as the woman was stabbed in the store in Skipton during the afternoon.", "Senior minister Damian Green denies claims by a Tory activist that he acted inappropriately.", "A driver who hit pedestrians has \"mental health issues\" but no known terrorism links, police say.", "The Commerce Department's findings on Wednesday could lead to trade duties of almost 300%.", "Speaking in Warsaw, the PM says encouraging people to stay in the UK after Brexit is a key priority.", "Unions call off a planned strike for Friday and action on a number of days in January.", "The US Coast Guard tries to save the animal tangled in line connecting bales of cocaine in the Pacific.", "Catt Sadler says she found out she earned about half as much as her male co-host at E! News.", "Two young men were cleared after Met Police officers failed to disclose crucial evidence.", "The events and allegations that led to Damian Green being sacked as First Secretary of State.", "Almost one in 10 young people rely on goodwill for a bed for weeks on end, says BBC research.", "Patients battling eating disorders in Northern Ireland often have to leave the country for treatment.", "The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says he is hopeful his wife will be released soon.", "The US leader says countries thinking of voting against the US in a UN vote could lose financial aid.", "Darren Osborne denies killing one man and injuring others by driving a van into worshippers near a mosque.", "Tina Gibson's daughter was born from an embryo that had been frozen for nearly 25 years.", "Hurricanes, earthquakes and wildfires caused much of the estimated $306bn losses, a report says.", "The ex-UKIP leader says the \"outrage from the liberal elite\" is out of proportion to what happened.", "England face a battle to stay in the second Ashes Test after a Shaun Marsh century puts Australia in command in Adelaide.", "The US state of Hawaii has tested its nuclear warning siren for the first time since the end of the Cold War.", "A fishing boat overturns after colliding with a 336-tonne tanker off the South Korean coast.", "Nadine Dorries said she shared her log-in passwords with all her staff, triggering security questions.", "Scotland's children's commissioner says the rollout of Universal Credit may be impacting on youngsters' human rights.", "The Indian government is proposing a three-year jail sentence for men who use \"triple talaq\".", "Grace Davies faced boy band Rak-Su in the Sunday night final of the ITV singing contest.", "The bank emailed 290,000 customers on Saturday following warnings about Russian security software.", "The kingdom has always been conservative, but now Saudi Arabia is seen breaking with the past.", "Police were called after banging noises were heard coming from the back of the lorry.", "On Twitter, Nigel Gibbens says the pens are a \"necessary defence\" against bird flu.", "The Pulp singer has fronted a Sunday show since 2010; his slot will now be filled by performer Amy Lame.", "Detroit's Pontiac Silverdome stadium is still standing after Sunday's planned demolition didn't go to plan.", "Whirlpool ends a scheme that had offered cut-price replacements for tumble dryers linked to a fire risk.", "Could a new scheme to help talented students into prestigious US universities show a way to increase social mobility?", "The vehicle was in danger of tumbling to the ground before PC Martin Willis arrived on the scene.", "A £1m Lotto win not only saved a couple's house, it allowed them to get married.", "The British actress says her role is \"awesome\" and she has no plans to give it up.", "The party's chief whip in the Lords says he has not been told he broke the rules but will repay.", "Manchester City come from behind to win their 13th Premier League match in a row with victory over stubborn West Ham.", "The New York opera house investigating multiple claims of misconduct involving the conductor.", "A bomb found at a Christmas market in Germany on Friday was an attempt to extort from DHL.", "A lorry crashes into two cars when its driver 'falls asleep' at the wheel on the M6.", "Former industrial towns, rural and coastal areas fare worst in \"spiral of ever-growing division\".", "Chairman Alan Milburn criticises the government, which says it had decided not to renew his term.", "In a Twitter tirade, the president issues a fresh denial that he tried to obstruct an FBI investigation.", "National security adviser HR McMaster says North Korea is the \"greatest immediate threat to the US\".", "Adam and Kayla's visit to the show left the audience \"in bits\". Here's why.", "The government promises to bring in new mental health support teams and improve waiting times.", "The moon appeared larger and brighter in the sky, as it moved closer to Earth.", "Police use water cannon and batons as Alternative for Germany delegates gather to choose leaders.", "Free movement across the Irish border is central to the Good Friday Agreement, former PM tells BBC.", "Michael Flynn is facing prison, and the Trump White House is facing a political crisis.", "Samuel Berkley, 14, played for Hattersley FC and recently became an uncle.", "Manchester United end Arsenal's run of 12 home league wins despite Paul Pogba being sent off in a thrilling encounter.", "It is the second biggest grossing opening weekend in North America.", "Pep Guardiola says Kevin de Bruyne is helping Manchester City become \"a better institution\" after his display in the win over Spurs.", "Sir Mo Farah is voted Sports Personality of the Year 2017 after winning his third successive world 10,000m title.", "Natalie Lewis-Hoyle's father, the Commons deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle, said her death was \"devastating\".", "Imtiaz Mohammed, who had six children, had called his wife to say he was on his way home.", "Barry and Honey Sherman were discovered in the basement of their Toronto home by an estate agent.", "Chan Han Choi, 59, is arrested and charged with breaching sanctions and weapons laws.", "Bradley Lowery, the six-year-old Sunderland mascot who died from cancer, will be recognised with the Helen Rollason Award at Sunday's BBC Sports Personality show.", "The bad weather and rise in online shopping are both factors in the drop, retail researchers say.", "The latest series of The Apprentice came to an end on Sunday night - with a surprise result.", "What are the key phrases in the Brexit guidelines and what do they mean?", "The prime minister writes in two Sunday newspapers that she has \"proven the doubters wrong\".", "Ryanair pilots in Ireland join other unions in Europe and suspend strike planned for Wednesday", "The two officers were returning to their police car when they were struck.", "How the cornflower has become the centre of a political controversy in Austria.", "Strong winds drive the Thomas fire - now California's third-biggest on record - towards the coast.", "François Gabart cuts more than six days off the record for fastest solo sail around the globe.", "Hundreds of Dachshunds wearing Christmas jumpers gather for a walk in a Leeds Park.", "Sebastián Piñera returns to serve as Chilean president for a second term, after a clear second-round win.", "A crash in Birmingham in which six people have died is a tragic incident just before Christmas, police say.", "A self-exclusion scheme for addicted gamblers has been put to the test - and been found wanting.", "The specially designed barrel-shaped carriages rotate as it ascends precipitous mountain slopes.", "Hearts end Celtic's 69-game, 585-day unbeaten domestic run with a stunning Scottish Premiership victory at Tynecastle.", "Adm Marcelo Srur is sent into retirement following criticism of the operation to rescue the submarine.", "South Africa's governing party is picking a new head after a bitter leadership battle.", "Rebecca Dykes, a British embassy worker in Beirut, was strangled and sexually assaulted, police say.", "A seventh person was critically injured in the accident in Birmingham involving multiple vehicles.", "A handful of flights depart from the world's busiest airport after an overnight shutdown.", "An extra 900,000 young people could automatically save into a workplace pension under the plans.", "MPs warn plans for new military equipment - including warships and jets - could be at risk.", "Australia's first same sex wedding takes place, eight days after legislation is passed.", "Provides an overview of Austria, including key dates and facts about this central European country.", "The tiny devices are designed to evade prison body scanners, the justice secretary says.", "The renowned scientist behind BBC Two's The Great Egg Race died on Friday, his family says.", "England face defeat in the third Ashes Test after closing day four on 132-4 in their second innings, still 127 runs behind.", "Special barrel-shaped carriages allow the floors to tilt as it climbs.", "A search continues for 15 people missing, after five died in a village in the south of the country.", "An anti-abortion group opposes plans to allow women to take medication to end a pregnancy at home.", "Scientists install sensors at the Kennedy Space Center that would normally be used to monitor volcanoes.", "Family members say they had concerns about the health of the infants before they died.", "Vladimir Putin phoned Donald Trump to thank him for the information provided.", "The drivers of two lorries and three cars have been spoken to after a woman was struck and killed.", "Simon Bramhall admits marking his initials on the livers of two transplant patients.", "Five people - including three boys - died when the stolen car they were in hit a tree in Leeds.", "A sale of Rupert Murdoch's entertainment assets could be confirmed as soon as Thursday, reports say.", "Recently engaged Ms Markle and Prince Harry will attend the church service at the Sandringham estate.", "Ummarayiat Mirza and his wife Madihah Taheer were sentenced to 16 years and 10 years respectively.", "Team Sky cyclist Chris Froome is asked to provide more details after adverse findings show he had double the allowed level of a legal asthma drug in his urine.", "Twitter says it has also identified six referendum-related ads believed to be funded by Russia.", "The pre-paid meals were donated within 10 hours of a campaign being launched to help feed Scotland's rough sleepers.", "Lectures and essays by Islamist extremists have been shared on the Microsoft-owned social network.", "Jurors hear a woman allegedly raped by an MP's aide gave the story to the Sun and the Mail.", "The European Council's president urges EU countries to show \"unity\" in the next phase of talks.", "The move could see driving licences of 2.5 million ex-military personnel stamped with a \"V\" symbol.", "Water bills in England and Wales will fall by between £15 and £25 a year from 2020 onwards, the regulator Ofwat says.", "The president no longer has an aura of invincibility, neither have the Democrats' problems gone away.", "How a baby born with her heart outside her body has survived after surgery at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.", "A baby born in Leicester with her heart beating outside her body is said to be doing well after three operations.", "A PE teacher, who plays for Spurs, is shortlisted in a competition to find the world's best teacher.", "The government faces a potential defeat on the EU Withdrawal Bill.", "Ceredigion Apprentice winner Alana Spencer is recalling products over health risks.", "President Trump's populist brand faces a test as he backs a Republican accused of child abuse.", "Oliver's parents had so far raised £130,000 of the £150,000 needed for the life-saving operation.", "University leaders have agreed to a new code on senior pay, which will be published in the next few weeks.", "Labour's Keir Starmer calls the government defeat over the Brexit bill \"humiliating and entirely avoidable\", as David Davis says it will have the effect of compressing the timetable on the UK's exit from the EU.", "Roy Moore's bid for the US Senate was controversial long before he faced sexual misconduct claims.", "Italian-born hairdresser who built his south London salon into a global chain dies", "Some passengers face disruption after 79 Dublin-based pilots and others around Europe plan walkouts.", "The US central bank has moved to increase interest rates for the third time this year.", "William and Harry joined cast and crew of The Last Jedi at London's Royal Albert Hall.", "Ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage criticises \"Theresa the appeaser\" as MEPs back move to next phase of talks.", "A house fire in Salford which killed three children was a \"targeted attack\", police have said.", "A man and a woman are accused of murdering three children who died in a house fire in Salford.", "Akayed Ullah, 27, faces a series of terror charges over Monday's bus terminal attack in New York.", "The former lawyer who painted Alabama blue for the first time since 1992 in the fight for a Senate seat.", "Roy Moore's skittish escape happened after he appeared at an Alabama polling site to cast his vote.", "Fergal Keane reveals the crisis in DR Congo's Kasai region, where millions face starvation.", "Loyalist paramilitaries decided who would carry out a shooting by flipping a coin, a court hears.", "But hours later the White House says Trump's views \"had not changed\" and N Korea must first disarm.", "Some officers disagree with guidance not to search people purely because they smell of cannabis.", "The blood cancer specialist used a spy pen to take pictures of his victims and was jailed for 22 years.", "Three-year-old Lia Pearson died after the fire - thought to have been a targeted attack - in Salford.", "Scottish Labour gives its former leader a written warning over her appearance on the reality TV show.", "USA Today's unusually savage opinion also charged the president with an \"utter lack of morality\".", "The reliably frozen Arctic is history, say scientists who warn of an unprecedented rate of warming.", "Ministers looked like they felt sick as the government's Brexit bill defeat was announced.", "The Hollywood mogul said sexual allegations made by the Mexican actress are \"not accurate\"", "The Ministry of Justice has released footage of a gang caught using a drone to deliver contraband to prisons.", "The singer is honoured at Buckingham Palace for services to music and charity.", "The murders of Noel Brown and his daughter Marie could be linked to a sex attack in 1999, police say.", "The Star Wars actress says becoming famous has made her reconsider how she lives her life.", "The chief executive of Standard Chartered Bank says the capital will \"take hits\" from Brexit.", "Many regional newspapers condemn the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.", "The full text of the US president's speech in which he recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital.", "Philippe Coutinho scores a hat-trick as Liverpool thump Spartak Moscow to reach the knockout stage of the Champions League for the first time since 2009.", "This video has been removed for rights reasons.", "Disability groups call for apology after Philip Hammond's comments on disabled people and work.", "Rail and ferry services are cancelled and dozens of schools are closed as the storm passes.", "Bafta-nominated Dexter Fletcher will take on Bohemian Rhapsody following the firing of Bryan Singer.", "Theresa May is urged not to allow Eurosceptic MPs in her party to \"dictate the terms\" of the talks.", "It will hope to get a major boost from hosting the year-long celebration of arts and performance.", "The city's importance explained, as the controversial US embassy move to the city goes ahead.", "There are \"serious ideas\" on the table, a source says, as talks over the Irish border go into the night.", "The Democrat admits no wrongdoing, calls himself a \"champion of women\" and attacks President Trump.", "Talks to end an impasse continue, with the European Council chief set to address the issue on Friday.", "The taxi app firm failed to respond to official requests about its management, the city council says.", "The first UK performance of the Broadway hit leaves audience members singing the musical's praises.", "Salvator Mundi, reputedly by Leonardo da Vinci, was sold for a record sum in New York this month.", "Lord Bassam is to stand down in New Year amid scrutiny of his travel claims.", "Women and men who broke silence on sexual harassment and abuse are named Time's Person of the Year.", "EU and UK sources suddenly sound more cheerful - but the DUP are not yet fully on board.", "\"Extraordinarily able\" Lavinia Woodward was given a suspended term for stabbing her boyfriend.", "The highest rise in carrying excess weight occurs between the ages of seven and 11, data suggests.", "An algorithm developed by the DeepMind team claims victory against a world-beating AI chess program.", "Disgraced breast surgeon Ian Paterson carried out hundreds of botched operations on his patients.", "Some 200,000 residents have been evacuated and a state of emergency declared for a new blaze in San Diego", "Fire crews took an hour to free the man who \"could have suffocated\" in the prank.", "There was no clear evidence of sexual abuse, a pathologist tells the toddler's inquest.", "Labour calls it a \"shambles\" but David Davis says impact assessments would be of \"near zero\" use.", "Dozens of passengers were aboard the 09:48 London to Hull service when the engine failed.", "Same-sex marriage will become legal in Australia after MPs passed a historic bill.", "The digital currency has seen its value more than double in the last month in a volatile journey.", "The move comes after a mother raised concerns about the potential fire hazard on Facebook.", "Why do pupils not attend school? BBC Stories has been finding out.", "The foreign secretary's trip to Tehran will see him urge the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.", "Brexit Secretary David Davis had previously said the government had done 57 studies on 85% of the UK economy about the impact of Brexit.", "Footage captures the moment a motorist stops to rescue a wild animal amid California wildfires.", "The Queen described \"HMS Queen Elizabeth\" as the best of British technology and innovation", "Captain Jerry Kyd said the commissioning of the flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth was \"a proud day\".", "Models who have been sexually harassed while working tell the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme their stories.", "Drivers filmed the flames on the 405 near Bel Air, as firefighters continue to battle the blaze.", "The BBC's Lyse Doucet explains what the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital means for peace.", "Significant snowfall is forecast for the weekend, with warnings some communities could be cut off.", "The baby was handed over in a plastic bag but his parents saw him move on their way to his funeral.", "The family of Sean Rigg, who died at Brixton police station, call the decision \"shameful\".", "Mohammed Abdallah received help to travel to Syria from his brother in Manchester.", "After Mohammed was excluded for bad behaviour, he was home-schooled - but it didn't work out.", "Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo joins Lionel Messi on five Ballon d'Or awards by winning the 2017 title.", "The UK's biggest High Street bookmaker is in \"detailed\" talks about being taken over by online rival GVC.", "British armed forces will \"bring destruction\" to jihadists, says Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson.", "The Electoral Commission is investigating Labour-backing Momentum over spending at the 2017 election.", "Dissident republican jailed for more than 11 years for plotting attack during prince's visit to Ireland.", "All the latest headlines from across Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.", "Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital is met with a wave of disapproval.", "A report into the crash which killed seven people claims \"stronger windows\" could have saved lives.", "The Porthcawl Christmas morning swim is in its 53rd year and takes place on Sandy Bay.", "In her Christmas broadcast, she hails emergency service workers and those caught up in 2017 tragedies.", "Karen Anvil's image, which she put on Twitter, was liked almost 4,000 times and stoked media interest.", "The Pope will give his traditional \"Urbi et Orbi\" (\"to the city and the world\") address on Monday.", "At least 150 people are evacuated after being trapped for several hours in gondolas in Chamrousse.", "One vehicle is thought to have overturned in the crash, which happened between junctions 10 and 11.", "The owner of Field Farm Fisheries said the sign went up because he had caught Polish anglers stealing fish.", "It ploughed into a subway entrance, leaving at least four people dead, Russian media say.", "Storm Tembin killed at least 240 people when it battered the Philippines on its way to Vietnam.", "Launched by comedian Sarah Millican, the hashtag hopes to bring people together on Christmas Day.", "Light snowfall has been recorded by the Met Office in Cumbria and parts of south Scotland.", "Former world number one Serena Williams will play her first match since giving birth in September in Abu Dhabi next week.", "A man dies after a BMW being followed by a police car crashes into a bus stop in Liverpool.", "Children's toys, games, clothes and food were among the items stolen from an Oxford house.", "Catalonia's sacked President, Carles Puigdemont, has bet everything on a split from Spain.", "The industrialisation of food production has saved us time - but we are paying the price in other ways.", "Recently engaged Ms Markle and Prince Harry will attend the church service at the Sandringham estate.", "China's AG600 - which is roughly the size of a Boeing 737 - lifted off from Zhuhai airport in the southern province of Guangdong.", "Christians from around the world gather at the Church of the Nativity on Christmas Eve.", "Vitaly Mutko, who has stood down temporarily, was banned from the Olympics for life over doping.", "The arguments nearly a century ago over the use of leaded petrol.", "Tim Harford tells the surprising story of how the iPhone became a truly revolutionary technology.", "People began a race to unite toddler Finn with Mac the monkey in time for Christmas.", "Heather Menzies-Urich's son Ryan said she was diagnosed with brain cancer four weeks ago.", "Supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gather to nominate him for presidential elections.", "A man crashed into the entrance of the SPD's headquarters in Berlin on Christmas Eve.", "The Church of England's most senior cleric focuses on terrorist atrocities and deceitfulness of \"populist leaders\" in 2017.", "Felipe VI of Spain says separatist leaders must act responsibly after their election success.", "Prince Harry and fiancee Meghan Markle, join the Queen at church in Sandringham.", "This video has been removed for right reasons.", "Crowds gather to watch the Royal Family arrive at the Christmas church service in Sandringham.", "Susan Horrod, 70, always kept the photograph of her late husband in her handbag.", "Bob Givens was behind the design of many of the 20th Century's most famous animated characters", "The US president's golf resort in South Ayrshire had previously received business rates relief of more than £100,000.", "Ten people were killed in the bomb blast near the compound in the capital Kabul, officials say.", "The move comes after Tunisian women reported being stopped from boarding flights to the Gulf nation.", "The regional election fails to quell calls for independence from Spain, Kevin Connolly reports.", "Designed in 1775, the S-bend was key to the flushing toilet, and public sanitation as we know it.", "Noodle chain manager took \"highly unusual approach\" over festive staff shortage fears in London branch.", "The actress is the first female Doctor to appear in the BBC TV programme.", "Surrey pace bowler Tom Curran will make his England Test debut against Australia on Boxing Day, replacing the injured Craig Overton.", "Euston Station in London has become a banqueting hall for 200 homeless people on Christmas Day.", "The actress can now help modernise the monarchy alongside Prince Harry.", "The Wisconsin teen was convicted of helping stab a classmate to please the horror character in 2014.", "US ambassador Nikki Haley says a UN Security Council resolution sends a clear warning to North Korea.", "The 'iconic' design will replace the burgundy passports that have been in use for almost 30 years.", "Boris Johnson and Sergei Lavrov clash over cyber-attacks but also trade jokes after talks in Moscow.", "The iconic clock will temporarily resume service on December 23 until New Year's Day.", "The discount chain has removed box of the brand's tea from an ad after the company complained on Twitter.", "Boris Johnson is the first UK foreign secretary to visit Russia in five years.", "As missile tests become more frequent, how do South Korea, Japan and the US plan to stop an attack?", "The executive chairman of Google-owner Alphabet will remain on the board as a technical adviser.", "Amazon has apologised to a customer, who believed he was sent coded death threats by an employee.", "After 1,000 days of civil war in Yemen, 8 million people are at risk of starvation.", "Some train companies are urging passengers to travel by Saturday as maintenance work halts trains.", "The UK PM said Russia was trying to \"undermine free societies\" in the West and \"sow discord\".", "Johanna Young was 14 when she disappeared from home in Watton at Christmas in 1992.", "Bosses say the move is needed to prepare for the early January spike in demand, but surgeons complain of short notice.", "A rise in terror attacks in Europe has brought the UK closer to its European partners despite Brexit, says MI5.", "Tina Gibson's daughter was born from an embryo that had been frozen for nearly 25 years.", "MPs want deposits on plastic bottles and a higher levy on packaging to protect the seas from pollution.", "Roberto Firmino earns Liverpool a draw in an incredible Premier League encounter in which Arsenal score three goals in just five minutes.", "Huge crowds were at Birmingham Central Mosque for the funeral of 33-year-old Imtiaz Mohammed.", "Kate Maltby raised concerns about Damian Green's conduct with aides but Theresa May says she was not told.", "Theresa May said \"a line should be drawn under the issue\" following a Cabinet Office investigation.", "Theresa May watched the manoeuvre from the cockpit during her journey from Cyprus.", "A 26-year-old man jailed in 2013 for rape has his conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal.", "M&S, Waitrose and Asda all publish the figures as part of a drive to cut the use of antibiotics.", "Australia's prime minister says the attack was \"shocking\" but there were no known extremist links.", "The PM says Russia is trying to \"undermine free societies\" in the West and \"sow discord\".", "Automated chatbot \"Sweetie\" can handle thousands of conversations and send warnings to perpetrators.", "The discovery of the first Allied submarine lost in World War One solves Australia's oldest naval mystery.", "Eight men are arrested over the largest seizure of the drug in national history.", "Updates and expert analysis as Spain's restive region elects a new parliament amid a crisis over independence.", "Russia is accused of having attacked Britain's media, telecommunications and energy sectors.", "Terrified shoppers screamed as the woman was stabbed in the store in Skipton during the afternoon.", "Senior minister Damian Green denies claims by a Tory activist that he acted inappropriately.", "The Sicilian suspect injected air into patients' veins to earn cash from a funeral parlour, police say.", "Mum-of-one Jodie Willsher, 30, was stabbed while working at the Skipton store on Thursday.", "The British singer tops the festive chart with Perfect after holding off a challenge - from himself.", "Sam Kyme wanted a new life for her boys with her sister's family in Australia after her death.", "The PM insists she is \"in it for the long-term\" and shrugs off claims she has had a bad year.", "The UK's biggest High Street bookmaker is bought by GVC, owner of Sportingbet and Foxy Bingo.", "The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says he is hopeful his wife will be released soon.", "Treasury Select Committee says “temporary standstill agreement” will be necessary to ease business concerns.", "Simon Bramhall admits marking his initials on the livers of two transplant patients.", "Matthew Price meets Grenfell families six months on from the fire", "Commission set up by murdered MP Jo Cox says nine million adults in the UK are affected.", "Scientists established how much rain fell by measuring how much the Earth compressed during the storm.", "A Home Office policy of deporting EU nationals found sleeping rough must stop, the High Court rules.", "Deals on electrical household appliances boosted sales in November, official figures suggest.", "Some 15% of students had used marijuana, 12.1% had vaped but only 5% had smoked, found a study.", "Jayda Fransen is charged with using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour.", "A memorial service for the victims and survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire is held at St Paul's Cathedral", "Medecins Sans Frontieres' estimate far exceeds the official figure and includes more than 700 children.", "Dublin City Council votes to revoke Aung Sang Suu Kyi's Freedom of Dublin City award.", "The government lost a key vote, and it's a big deal.", "A service at St Paul's Cathedral was held to honour the 71 victims of the fire.", "The finance secretary is expected to announce tax increases for middle and higher earners.", "Theresa May confirms UK participation in student exchange will continue for a period after Brexit.", "Paul believed the photos of his late mother had been destroyed in the Grenfell Tower blaze.", "University leaders have agreed to a new code on senior pay, which will be published in the next few weeks.", "The US central bank has moved to increase interest rates for the third time this year.", "A US regulator votes to ease restrictions preventing ISPs prioritising some services' data over others'.", "Doctors use gene therapy to correct the defect that causes haemophilia A.", "Royal Family members joined the bereaved at the London memorial to pay tribute to the 71 victims.", "At least four children died and at least 18 people were hurt in the collision in southern France.", "Survivors of the tower fire which claimed 71 lives attend a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral.", "A unique NHS service helping Grenfell survivors has found high levels of mental trauma.", "Widespread use of the practice in England and Wales is not acceptable, says watchdog report.", "Most NHS trusts in England will publish information on deaths caused by failings in patient care by 2018.", "Primary school league tables show pupils with special needs are dropping further behind their classmates.", "There is \"no evidence\" that the third Ashes Test between Australia and England has been \"corrupted\", says the International Cricket Council.", "Ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage criticises \"Theresa the appeaser\" as MEPs back move to next phase of talks.", "A third person charged over the deaths of four children has appeared in court.", "Loyalist paramilitaries decided who would carry out a shooting by flipping a coin, a court hears.", "Jayda Fransen re-arrested after appearing in court while Paul Golding was arrested outside the courtroom.", "The Bank of England says progress in Brexit talks is likely to boost household and business confidence.", "There were a huge range of emotions at the St Paul's Cathedral service to remember the 71 Grenfell fire victims.", "The secretary of state appears to have been contradicted by the White House and his own department.", "Three-year-old Lia Pearson died after the fire - thought to have been a targeted attack - in Salford.", "Scottish Labour gives its former leader a written warning over her appearance on the reality TV show.", "Ministers looked like they felt sick as the government's Brexit bill defeat was announced.", "The Hollywood mogul said sexual allegations made by the Mexican actress are \"not accurate\"", "If you missed the annual Geminid meteor shower, cameras captured the celestial display over China.", "The Ministry of Justice has released footage of a gang caught using a drone to deliver contraband to prisons.", "An unknown number are in prison, with some serving long sentences and others sentenced to death.", "Police are trying to track down the gang of men responsible for the \"vicious and prolonged attack\".", "Snow has fallen across the UK, causing disruption for some and fun for others. Here are some of your photos.", "Salvador Sobral, who won this year's contest for Portugal, is doing well, surgeons in Lisbon say.", "Protests against US President Donald Trump's controversial decision turn ugly again in Beirut.", "BBC Weather presenter Sarah Keith-Lucas looks at the weather for Monday and Tuesday.", "England Lions batsman Ben Duckett is suspended from playing for the rest of their tour of Australia after pouring a drink over James Anderson in a Perth bar.", "The teenagers, who are suspected to have taken ecstasy, were found collapsed in the early hours.", "A teaching union compares energy drinks to “legal highs” and says pupils are consuming them in “excessive quantities.”", "The case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is first and foremost a story of terrible personal suffering.", "PM Haider al-Abadi says Iraqi troops are now in complete control of the country.", "The city's importance explained, as the controversial US embassy move to the city goes ahead.", "Compare the temperature in your area to other locations in the UK and around the world.", "Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and his Iranian counterpart discuss Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe during meeting.", "People shelter in a sweet shop amid protests after Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital", "Residents of an Australian town are being overwhelmed by thousands of flying foxes.", "Former celebrity publicist Max Clifford has died in hospital, aged 74, after collapsing in prison.", "Impromptu stage appearance after smoke alarm disrupts first performance at revamped Perth Theatre", "Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Ican's Beatrice Fihn appears to refer to the North Korean crisis.", "An 18-year-old man was being questioned by police following the pair's deaths in hospital.", "The move will help safeguard thousands of jobs at BAE Systems, mainly at Warton in Lancashire.", "The Thomas fire is the fifth largest blaze in recorded state history and has grown significantly.", "A German village is sold for a bargain price at auction", "A mummy dating back about 3,500 years is among items discovered in the two tombs.", "The Brexit secretary says he wants a tariff-free trade deal, as Labour suggests paying for market access.", "James DeGale says he will \"go back to the drawing board\" after his shock defeat by American Caleb Truax at London's Copper Box Arena.", "Germany's spy agency says China is using the site to gather information on politicians.", "The disgraced former celebrity publicist collapsed in prison in Cambridgeshire.", "The BBC's Lyse Doucet explains what the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital means for peace.", "Significant snowfall is forecast for the weekend, with warnings some communities could be cut off.", "Romelu Lukaku could be the most important player on the pitch in Sunday's Manchester derby, says Owen Hargreaves.", "A snowstorm and a signal error left 35 people dead and 179 hurt in North Lanarkshire in 1937.", "Motorists are warned of \"treacherous\" road conditions in many parts of the UK.,", "A warning has been issued by the Met Office advising significant snowfall on Sunday", "China has been building what it calls \"the world's biggest camera surveillance network\".", "The winner of the ITV show was crowned by Ant and Dec on Sunday evening.", "Heavy snow and flooding hits roads and rail and leaves about 900 homes without power.", "The 66-year-old singer-songwriter, whose hits include Driving Home for Christmas, is in hospital.", "After the visit, North Korea said it has agreed to better communication with the UN in future.", "Ben Duckett is dropped from an Ashes tour game and also suspended after pouring a drink over England bowler James Anderson in a Perth bar.", "Jose Mourinho says Manchester United's title hopes are \"probably over\" after their 2-1 loss to \"lucky\" Manchester City.", "Jo Johnson wants to change a system where three-year degrees have \"crowded out\" anything else.", "Weather affects travel and leads to power cuts, with hundreds of schools set to stay closed on Monday.", "Indian star Zaira Wasim, 17, says she was touched inappropriately on a flight from Delhi.", "Israel's prime minister says Jerusalem has \"never been the capital of any other people\".", "Hundreds of leather-clad bikers follow the French singer's coffin down the Champs-Elysees.", "The main opposition contender accuses electoral authorities of tampering with the results.", "The ex-UKIP leader says the \"outrage from the liberal elite\" is out of proportion to what happened.", "John Dardis didn't let his injury spoil the romance - popping the question while waiting for paramedics.", "As Brexit looms, we visit Belfast's peace walls, and meet those working to unite both sides in uncertain times.", "The former Scottish Labour leader was the second person to leave the I'm a Celebrity camp.", "Tim Wilson addressed his partner directly during a debate on legalising same-sex marriage.", "Nadine Dorries said she shared her log-in passwords with all her staff, triggering security questions.", "This can help to warm up winter air before it is breathed in and reduce the risk of an attack.", "Arlene Foster has said the DUP will not allow a Brexit deal that allows 'regulatory divergence' from the UK.", "Host Dermot O'Leary reveals the name concealed in a gold envelope.", "Leo Varadkar says UK had agreed a form of words on border, and Ireland is disappointed at lack of deal.", "Money earmarked for schools and hospitals was used for commemorative T-shirts, a report says.", "North Korea accuses them of \"begging for nuclear war\", days after it fired its 'highest' missile.", "The Information Commissioner's Office says it is making enquiries about MPs giving staff their logins.", "Grace Davies faced boy band Rak-Su in the Sunday night final of the ITV singing contest.", "Police were called after banging noises were heard coming from the back of the lorry.", "The veteran actor starred in major Bollywood hits as well as several British and US films.", "Two men put the victim in a headlock and strangled him until he apologised for being gay.", "The Ministry of Defence planned to destroy the dogs because it said they were too aggressive to rehome.", "The French president's wife got a shock when she went to name the first panda born in her country.", "Theresa May says there will be more Brexit talks this week and she is \"confident that we will conclude this positively\".", "The sensitive, streetwise soul of Jorja Smith has earned her the Brits Critics' Choice award.", "Australia finish day three of the second Ashes Test with a lead of 268 runs after an England batting collapse in Adelaide.", "\"I only saw her last Monday,\" says the star, who was estranged from his mother for several years.", "Detroit's Pontiac Silverdome stadium is still standing after Sunday's planned demolition didn't go to plan.", "President Maduro says the Petro crypto-currency will be backed by the country's oil and gas wealth.", "Cressida Dick says confidential information should be respected and that there could be prosecutions.", "The vehicle was hanging over the bridge on the A1 in Yorkshire.", "Manchester City come from behind to win their 13th Premier League match in a row with victory over stubborn West Ham.", "The New York opera house investigating multiple claims of misconduct involving the conductor.", "A bomb found at a Christmas market in Germany on Friday was an attempt to extort from DHL.", "Former Ampleforth College head teacher Father Leo Chamberlain denies influencing a boy's parents.", "Brussels is in an upbeat mood as the UK PM arrives for Brexit talks, says the BBC's Katya Adler.", "The car had been on a 999 call and the victim was pronounced dead at the scene in Haringey.", "The Nour al-Din al-Zinki group in Syria took funds through a UK-backed project, BBC Panorama finds.", "Taiwan's Chinese Culture University says the phenomenon breaks the record held by the UK.", "US social media giant says 2,300 people will work for the company in the UK by the end of 2018.", "A lorry crashes into two cars when its driver 'falls asleep' at the wheel on the M6.", "The court heard Marek Zakrocki shouted \"white power\" during a drunken rampage in Harrow.", "Jade Statt was inspired after walking past a rough sleeper and his dog on a night out.", "Riot-trained \"Tornado\" squad officers were called in to deal with violence among inmates on one wing.", "Scientists working on the BBC's Blue Planet II series talk of their dismay at the spread of discarded plastic.", "Half of the proceeds from the sale of the 709 carat gem will be invested in the local community.", "Chairman Alan Milburn criticises the government, which says it had decided not to renew his term.", "In a Twitter tirade, the president issues a fresh denial that he tried to obstruct an FBI investigation.", "Dr Alison Armour told an inquest she believed Poppi had been sexually assaulted.", "The moon appeared larger and brighter in the sky, as it moved closer to Earth.", "Prominent blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in a bomb attack which shocked the nation.", "A foreign aid scheme is suspended by the government, following a BBC Panorama investigation.", "Rolling updates as the UK and the EU seek to make a breakthrough on the Northern Ireland border.", "England batsman Alex Hales will not face a criminal charge over an incident outside a nightclub in September and is available for selection.", "Michael Flynn is facing prison, and the Trump White House is facing a political crisis.", "There is a worldwide ban on publishing anything revealing Jon Venables' current identity.", "The presenter says he will not take part in this year's holiday specials after offensive remarks.", "In her Christmas broadcast, she hails emergency service workers and those caught up in 2017 tragedies.", "The Formula 1 driver appeared to say the boy's outfit makes him \"so sad\" in an Instagram video.", "Karen Anvil's image, which she put on Twitter, was liked almost 4,000 times and stoked media interest.", "The two men, both key missile developers, are said to be among Kim Jong-un's most trusted aides.", "David Warner and Steve Smith help Australia close on 244-3 on the first day of the fourth Ashes Test at the MCG.", "It ploughed into a subway entrance, leaving at least four people dead, Russian media say.", "Storm Tembin killed at least 240 people when it battered the Philippines on its way to Vietnam.", "A year ago Donald Trump produced the biggest political upset in modern day USA, but were there historical clues that pointed to his unexpected victory?", "Launched by comedian Sarah Millican, the hashtag hopes to bring people together on Christmas Day.", "Light snowfall has been recorded by the Met Office in Cumbria and parts of south Scotland.", "Laura Plummer is jailed for three years after being accused of smuggling 300 painkiller tablets into Egypt.", "Previous spending and the income squeeze will hit the traditional Christmas season, a survey suggests.", "Vitaly Mutko, who has stood down temporarily, was banned from the Olympics for life over doping.", "London School of Economics students set up a Free Speech Society in response to what they say is increasing censorship on university campuses. What's behind the row?", "Heather Menzies-Urich's son Ryan said she was diagnosed with brain cancer four weeks ago.", "Footage shows officers separating teenagers at a London shopping centre during the Boxing Day sales.", "The officer was responding to a call out when his vehicle was in collision with a car on Christmas Day.", "Met Police officers cordon off an area around a smashed glass window at House of Fraser.", "Meet the leading impersonator of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.", "", "Snow storms sweep states from Midwest to Northeast, breaking snowfall records in some parts.", "Harry Kane grabs another hat-trick and breaks the record for the most Premier League goals scored in a calendar year as Tottenham thrash Southampton.", "Nearly two-thirds (63%) of university students believe the National Union of Students is right to have a \"no platforming\" policy, a Victoria Derbyshire programme survey suggests.", "The Church of England's most senior cleric focuses on terrorist atrocities and deceitfulness of \"populist leaders\" in 2017.", "This video has been removed for right reasons.", "Crowds gather to watch the Royal Family arrive at the Christmas church service in Sandringham.", "Prince Harry and fiancee Meghan Markle, join the Queen at church in Sandringham.", "Footage from state TV shows a power grid tower brought down in Hubei Province.", "Fewer people went bargain hunting, following Black Friday discounts and online shopping.", "Mother who snapped hugely popular picture of royals hopes to use proceeds for daughter's education.", "Experts believe the pork pie was developed as a portable snack for hunters.", "Up to 60 academics say they oppose \"the agenda\" of a project assessing the ethics of empire.", "The actress is the first female Doctor to appear in the BBC TV programme.", "Thousands of swimmers, many in fancy dress, brave the chilly waters around the English coast.", "The sister of jailed Briton Laura Plummer tells the BBC her crime was born out of kindness.", "Ian Paterson was jailed for 20 years for wounding with intent after needless operations.", "Euston Station in London has become a banqueting hall for 200 homeless people on Christmas Day.", "Bijan Ebrahimi was considered an \"attention seeker\" when he reported crimes against him, the police watchdog says.", "It is the second biggest grossing opening weekend in North America.", "The leader of a review into building regulations after Grenfell is 'shocked' by safety practices.", "Sir Mo Farah is voted Sports Personality of the Year 2017 after winning his third successive world 10,000m title.", "Natalie Lewis-Hoyle's father, the Commons deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle, said her death was \"devastating\".", "South Africa's deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa is the new leader of the ANC.", "Nearly 50 guests were evacuated as fire tore through the Gateway to Wales Hotel in Deeside.", "The leader and deputy of a far-right British political group's Twitter accounts are frozen.", "He outlines \"four pillars\" of new plan, which no longer labels climate change a threat.", "A four-point plan for tackling plastic waste has been outlined by the Environment Secretary Michael Gove.", "Imtiaz Mohammed, who had six children, had called his wife to say he was on his way home.", "The latest series of The Apprentice came to an end on Sunday night - with a surprise result.", "Liam Allan's trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.", "The Right Reverend Sarah Mullally becomes the most senior female bishop appointed by the Church of England.", "What are the key phrases in the Brexit guidelines and what do they mean?", "The family of Rebecca Dykes, killed in Beirut, have spoken of their loss.", "Ryanair pilots in Ireland join other unions in Europe and suspend strike planned for Wednesday", "The Everton striker said he was made to feel welcome at the garden centre where he is working.", "There are more ways to be banned from Twitter as it expands what it considers hateful behaviour.", "The law firm says the BBC breached confidentiality by misusing and publishing details within the documents.", "A report finds evidence of \"institutional racism\" in the case of murdered refugee Bijan Ebrahimi.", "Some prisoners live in dirty and dangerous cells that should be condemned, a leaked report says.", "Three other people, including a child, were treated in hospital after the blaze at the Cameron House Hotel.", "Provides an overview of Lebanon, including key dates and facts about this Middle Eastern country.", "Watch as Sir Mo Farah wins the 2017 Sports Personality of the Year award.", "Sebastián Piñera returns to serve as Chilean president for a second term, after a clear second-round win.", "The sister of murdered Bijan Ebrahimi welcomes a report which found evidence of institutional racism.", "The Commission says Ikea may have been given an unfair tax advantage in the Netherlands.", "The head of the UK's Infrastructure Commission says mobile phone and broadband coverage is deplorable.", "Rebecca Dykes, a British embassy worker in Beirut, was strangled and sexually assaulted, police say.", "Advertising standards watchdog has had complaints about Amazon delivery promises and may investigate.", "British heart doctors are warning that thousands of people who misuse anabolic steroids are putting themselves at greater risk of heart attacks and strokes.", "A handful of flights depart from the world's busiest airport after an overnight shutdown.", "Three police officers and a PCSO failed to act on complaints of a disabled man 48 hours before he was brutally murdered, a court hears.", "Actor Terence Beesley, 60, was found collapsed at his home in Somerset.", "Passenger Chris Karnes describes the moment an Amtrak train derailed and crashed onto a highway below.", "Sir Mo Farah says he was shocked to be voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2017 and \"never thought I would win having come so close before\".", "The elderly occupant refused to hand over cash to the intruder, police say.", "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's daughter will attend the London school in the new year.", "It's the regulator's first investigation since taking over responsibility for BBC standards.", "Heavy fog and repair work on a runway at Manchester Airport led to all flights being temporarily suspended.", "The first known interstellar asteroid may hold water from another star system in its interior, according to a study.", "Live: The BBC's Brexitcast podcast", "There are reports of fatalities after the train fell from a bridge on to the road in Washington state.", "A total of 53 phones were recovered by police after the show at the Arena Birmingham.", "One of the last two men hanged in the UK was mentally unstable - but his lawyers didn't plead diminished responsibility. So was it a miscarriage of justice?", "US personnel respond as a man drives through a checkpoint near to an aircraft at RAF Mildenhall.", "Jay-Z halted a concert in California for a fan who has survived cancer twice.", "Further details have emerged about the man accused of being an economic agent for North Korea.", "The tiny devices are designed to evade prison body scanners, the justice secretary says.", "Wendy Thomas hid three people in a car and tried to drive them into the UK via the Channel tunnel.", "A study accuses Russian-linked Twitter accounts of exploiting four terrorist attacks to divide the UK.", "People would rather talk to their colleagues about sex and money worries than mental health problems, says survey.", "Rates fell for both men and women, although men still account for three-quarters of cases.", "Australia regain the Ashes with an innings-and-41-run win over England in the third Test in Perth.", "Special barrel-shaped carriages allow the floors to tilt as it climbs.", "Vladimir Putin phoned Donald Trump to thank him for the information provided.", "Carriages plummeted off both sides of a highway bridge in Washington state after a train derailed.", "Updates as they came in after European Commission recommended \"sufficient progress\" had been made in Brexit talks.", "The government and the EU might be claiming success today – but as Donald Tusk said, the tough stuff starts now.", "Many regional newspapers condemn the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.", "More than 30 firefighters are tackling the blaze at Cairneyhill Primary School near Dunfermline.", "Police arrest a man in the House of Lords after a debate is interrupted by shouting.", "The window display appeared at a republican group's office in Londonderry in October.", "University student Averil Hart's family say she starved herself to death in 10 weeks.", "The Prime Minister said the deal has been struck after 'some tough conversations'", "Authorities are using Calvin Kleins and humorous videos to warn consumers over Christmas counterfeits.", "Travel difficulties and safety issues as a result of the \"worst snow storms since 2013\".", "No 10 has reached a critical short-term goal, and moved on from embarrassment to a temporary conclusion.", "Hackers targeted a Slovenian mining exchange in order to steal thousands of Bitcoin.", "Despite news of a \"breakthrough\" deal, companies want certainty about EU citizens living in the UK.", "It will hope to get a major boost from hosting the year-long celebration of arts and performance.", "The city's importance explained, as the controversial US embassy move to the city goes ahead.", "Mohammed Abdallah received help to travel to Syria from his brother Abdalraouf, who set up a Manchester \"hub\".", "Reality Check examines some of the key lines in the agreement document.", "The Democrat admits no wrongdoing, calls himself a \"champion of women\" and attacks President Trump.", "There are \"serious ideas\" on the table, a source says, as talks over the Irish border go into the night.", "The taxi app firm failed to respond to official requests about its management, the city council says.", "Talks to end an impasse continue, with the European Council chief set to address the issue on Friday.", "Three in 10 elite footballers may be affected by exercise-induced asthma, a study has found.", "EU and UK sources suddenly sound more cheerful - but the DUP are not yet fully on board.", "Charlie Douthwaite was the youngest patient on the UK transplant waiting list.", "The road was shut in both directions for more than four hours amid concerns for a man on a bridge.", "A passenger won a legal case against Northern, but was left waiting for about £300.", "Terry Adams had previously claimed paying back the money would breach his human rights.", "Some 200,000 residents have been evacuated and a state of emergency declared for a new blaze in San Diego", "BBC Ireland Correspondent Chris Buckler analyses the government's handling of the Irish border.", "Inspectors find areas of the west London jail are strewn with litter, which is attracting rats.", "Details of a new proposal are expected to be set out within the hour following the meeting.", "The attack, said to have been sparked by a succession feud, leaves three people dead.", "Labour calls it a \"shambles\" but David Davis says impact assessments would be of \"near zero\" use.", "Fire crews took an hour to free the man who \"could have suffocated\" in the prank.", "Young people are taking out loans to pay for fees without effective help or advice, a watchdog says.", "Many women benefit from the use of vaginal mesh and they should have a choice, surgeons say.", "The Border Force warns shoppers to be on the look-out for counterfeit products.", "The move comes after a mother raised concerns about the potential fire hazard on Facebook.", "Why do pupils not attend school? BBC Stories has been finding out.", "The foreign secretary's trip to Tehran will see him urge the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.", "The pair used the ammonia to target \"petite women\" who would not be able to fight back.", "Footage captures the moment a motorist stops to rescue a wild animal amid California wildfires.", "The EU-UK deal leaves a lot of questions unanswered but it goes some way to securing Theresa May's position.", "Trading in the digital currency remains volatile after hitting a new record high on Friday.", "The BBC's Lyse Doucet explains what the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital means for peace.", "Significant snowfall is forecast for the weekend, with warnings some communities could be cut off.", "The Queen described \"HMS Queen Elizabeth\" as the best of British technology and innovation", "DUP leader Arlene Foster says substantive changes to proposed text for a deal with the EU were made.", "A warning has been issued by the Met Office advising significant snowfall on Sunday", "The King of Norway's former son-in-law accuses Spacey of groping him at a Nobel Peace Prize concert.", "After Mohammed was excluded for bad behaviour, he was home-schooled - but it didn't work out.", "The parents of a boy, six, who died from meningitis B have called on all children to be vaccinated.", "Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo joins Lionel Messi on five Ballon d'Or awards by winning the 2017 title.", "The head of the Catholic Church calls for a better translation of a phrase about temptation.", "EU Commission says Brexit discussions can move on to the next phase, as \"sufficient progress\" has occurred.", "The grime artist caps a huge year by taking home the main prize at the 2017 BBC Music Awards.", "The PM needs to square the Democratic Unionists, the Dublin government and her own party. And smartish.", "Unionists are sceptical border trade harmonisation may be the thin end of an Irish unity wedge.", "Saint Lucia, Barbados and South Korea are among 17 territories labelled as tax havens by Brussels.", "Anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia died in an explosion in October.", "Conservative MP Heidi Allen was in tears after Labour's Frank Field's speech.", "Kamal Ahmed and Tina Daheley are among BBC journalists who will take part in events targeted at pupils.", "A carer who attacked a 90-year-old with a knife and hammer had a previous assault conviction.", "The Manchester Arena bomber had been a \"subject of interest\" of the security services, a review says.", "Because seemingly we can all relate to man who \"needs his nuggs\".", "Charlie Dunn's stepfather Paul Smith had denied any wrongdoing when the five year old drowned in a pool.", "Sex offenders learn how young people communicate online and use this to abuse them, police say.", "Arlene Foster has said the DUP will not allow a Brexit deal that allows 'regulatory divergence' from the UK.", "Leo Varadkar says UK had agreed a form of words on border, and Ireland is disappointed at lack of deal.", "The world's largest social network launches Messenger Kids, its first app aimed at children under 13.", "Money earmarked for schools and hospitals was used for commemorative T-shirts, a report says.", "A police officer who says he found pornography on a Westminster computer is threatening legal action.", "Get back to basics with the issues behind the talks - and the people they affect.", "Internet users join forces to buy Mothe-Chandeniers chateau in France, hoping to restore it.", "Mark Devenport outlines negotiating alternatives to raiding a thesaurus for synonyms for \"regulatory alignment\".", "Missed GP appointments cost the NHS time and money and a study reveals the extent of the problem.", "The model, who made headlines after her affair with a cabinet minister in the 1960s, dies aged 75.", "The Archbishop of Canterbury leads a debate in the House of Lords on boosting education, with contributions from peers such as Lord Sacks and Lord Adonis.", "The veteran actor starred in major Bollywood hits as well as several British and US films.", "The mother of a British man killed in Syria has spoken of her \"hero\" son, who she tried to persuade to come home.", "Isobel was one of 300 people on a trial that reversed type 2 in nearly half of patients.", "The Ministry of Defence planned to destroy the dogs because it said they were too aggressive to rehome.", "PC James Dixon died after the motorcycle he was riding collided with a car near Hare Hatch.", "The French president's wife got a shock when she went to name the first panda born in her country.", "Jeffrey Feltman's visit to Pyongyang is the first by a United Nations senior official in six years.", "\"I only saw her last Monday,\" says the star, who was estranged from his mother for several years.", "The PM has days to get Brexit talks back on track after the DUP objects to Irish border proposals.", "Both Northern Ireland and England have reached their highest point scores in reading tests taken in 50 countries.", "A 98-year-old woman is playing the donkey in her first nativity play in Castleford.", "Wild relatives of modern crops deemed crucial for food security are threatened with extinction.", "The Supreme Court says Carles Puigdemont and others have shown a willingness to return to Spain.", "Megan Lee, 15, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, died after suffering an allergic reaction to takeaway food.", "High winds have been forecast for Scotland and snow for other parts of the UK after the storm passes.", "A passenger train crashed into a goods train near the city of Düsseldorf, emergency services say.", "The court heard Marek Zakrocki shouted \"white power\" during a drunken rampage in Harrow.", "Joe Root's 67 not out gives England hope of winning a compelling second Ashes Test but Australia remain favourites.", "Migratory birds are arriving in the UK earlier each spring and leaving later each autumn, a study shows.", "John Oliver and Dustin Hoffman have a heated discussion about allegations made against the actor.", "Scientists working on the BBC's Blue Planet II series talk of their dismay at the spread of discarded plastic.", "Half of the proceeds from the sale of the 709 carat gem will be invested in the local community.", "The eyes of the sporting world will be on the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday for its decision on whether Russia will be at the 2018 Winter Games.", "YouTube's CEO says some users are exploiting the Google-owned website to \"mislead or even harm\".", "The 19-year-old Muslim student was told by a security guard that her hijab was a \"security threat\".", "How going undercover as a 14-year-old revealed the dangers children using streaming apps can face.", "The husband of a woman who died when a speedboat capsized hopes \"appropriate lessons can be learned\".", "At first the demolition of the Pontiac Silverdome didn't go as planned.", "The health secretary told the social network to \"stay away from my kids\" with its app for under-13s.", "Life in the seas risks irreparable damage from the ever-increasing tide of plastic waste, the UN's head of oceans has warned.", "The fast-moving fire is bearing down on the cities of Ventura and Santa Paula.", "The International Olympic Committee bans Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.", "There is a worldwide ban on publishing anything revealing Jon Venables' current identity.", "The presenter says he will not take part in this year's holiday specials after offensive remarks.", "Bryan Singer says the studio fired him after he fell ill while filming Bohemian Rhapsody.", "The ICRC says life for ordinary people trapped in a besieged rebel-held area is becoming impossible.", "Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill pays tribute to man who provided \"one of the most memorable scenes\".", "Model Chrissy Teigen live tweets as her flight is turned back to LA after four hours.", "The Formula 1 driver appeared to say the boy's outfit makes him \"so sad\" in an Instagram video.", "It was one of the biggest swaps of prisoners since the conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014.", "Laura Plummer is transferred to a notorious jail in Egypt, her family has said.", "The singer posts a tribute to her cousin and calls for an end to gun violence.", "The two men, both key missile developers, are said to be among Kim Jong-un's most trusted aides.", "George Michael's family pay tribute to the former Wham! frontman a year after his death.", "Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation manages almost 10,000 homes in west London.", "A year ago Donald Trump produced the biggest political upset in modern day USA, but were there historical clues that pointed to his unexpected victory?", "Syrian government forces are trying to starve rebels into submission and those suffering include children.", "Within 25 minutes, it was making its first steps.", "One man foresaw, very clearly, the risk of a devastating fire in Grenfell Tower. He wrote about it in a blog, but no journalists were there to follow it up.", "A key official says the failure to get seriously ill people out of a revel enclave shows \"impotence\".", "Laura Plummer is jailed for three years after being accused of smuggling 300 painkiller tablets into Egypt.", "Manchester City move 15 points clear at the top of the Premier League as Raheem Sterling scores the only goal in a dominant display away at Newcastle.", "Elon Musk promises a pick-up truck and a range of new features for existing Tesla vehicles.", "Celtic confirm Jonny Hayes sustained a broken leg in a challenge which also left Dundee's Josh Meekings on crutches.", "President Putin describes the explosion at a popular store in St Petersburg as a terrorist act.", "Arthur Collins wanted to make calls to his pregnant ex-girlfriend, reality TV star Ferne McCann.", "Four critically-ill patients are evacuated from rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, outside Syria's capital.", "Alastair Cook hits an unbeaten century as England close on 192-2 on the second day of the fourth Test, 135 runs behind Australia.", "PC Dave Fields and Lorraine Stephenson died in the collision in Sheffield on Christmas Day.", "Footage shows officers separating teenagers at a London shopping centre during the Boxing Day sales.", "Met Police officers cordon off an area around a smashed glass window at House of Fraser.", "MPs claim they will be \"hamstrung\" if they do not get to see the Treasury's Brexit analysis.", "", "The officer was responding to a call out when his vehicle was in collision with a car on Christmas Day.", "Snow storms sweep states from Midwest to Northeast, breaking snowfall records in some parts.", "There are ice warnings across the UK as flights are cancelled and motorists face hazardous conditions.", "Retailers warn a rise in shoplifting is partly fuelled by police not investigating smaller thefts.", "Two farmyard ducks have been reminding people to pay their tax - but have now retired to the country", "A woman gets a shock of her life after receiving an erroneous electricity bill for $284,460,000,000.", "Harry Kane grabs another hat-trick and breaks the record for the most Premier League goals scored in a calendar year as Tottenham thrash Southampton.", "Navigation error is blamed for US fighter pilot's near miss with a helicopter in Snowdonia.", "This footage from a drone shows heavy snowfall in the Lake District.", "A survey reveals 37% of Londoners think national rail services have worsened in the last 12 months.", "Southampton's Virgil van Dijk will join Liverpool on 1 January for £75m - a world record for a defender.", "Russian deputy prime minister Vitaly Mutko steps down from his role as chief organiser of next summer's World Cup in Russia.", "Divers estimate that about 250 million flame shells exist on the bed of a Highlands loch where dredging caused damage.", "Singer Joy Villa files charges against the president's former campaign manager.", "Fewer people went bargain hunting, following Black Friday discounts and online shopping.", "Mother who snapped hugely popular picture of royals hopes to use proceeds for daughter's education.", "Prince Harry says his fiancee's first Christmas with the Royal Family was \"fantastic\".", "Police think a 1m (3.2ft) freshwater crocodile found wandering the streets is likely an escaped pet.", "Snow has fallen in parts of the UK, causing disruption but it's not all gloom as your pictures show.", "The 13 crew members are reported to be safe and well and remain on board the vessel.", "Thousands of swimmers, many in fancy dress, brave the chilly waters around the English coast.", "The sister of jailed Briton Laura Plummer tells the BBC her crime was born out of kindness.", "Several roads and thousands of homes have been affected by snowy weather conditions in the UK.", "Britain's pay squeeze will end, but a meaningful pay rise remains out of sight, says research group.", "Prince Harry grills former US president Barack Obama in a quickfire quiz.", "Health regulator NHS Improvement announces the step after trust chairman, Lord Kerslake, resigns.", "Scientists think Hunga Tunga Hunga Ha'apai might hold clues on where to look for life on Mars.", "Britain and China are among the countries affected by the recall of baby milk formula products.", "Snow has fallen across the UK, causing disruption for some and fun for others. Here are some of your photos.", "Hundreds of flights are cancelled in the Netherlands and Belgium.", "It could be faster and cheaper than current methods, researchers say.", "BBC Weather presenter Sarah Keith-Lucas looks at the weather for Monday and Tuesday.", "Hearing the voices of the bereaved and survivors is \"of great importance\", the lead counsel says.", "Gamers as young as 11 bet using virtual weapons within video games which are then exchanged for cash.", "Protests against US President Donald Trump's controversial decision turn ugly again in Beirut.", "The teenagers, who are suspected to have taken ecstasy, were found collapsed in the early hours.", "Three men and a woman are arrested on suspicion of murder after three children died in the blaze.", "A Bangladeshi man is being held after a blast wounded several people at Port Authority bus terminal.", "A friend of Megan Bannister says the men who gave her drugs \"treated her like trash\".", "Compare the temperature in your area to other locations in the UK and around the world.", "Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has water and milk thrown at him and Manchester City coach Mikel Arteta suffers a cut head in a post-match row.", "President Nicolás Maduro says the three main opposition parties cannot compete against him in 2018.", "The 27-year-old reportedly came to the US from Bangladesh seven years ago.", "The Indian man was identified with help from the airline, Air Vistara, after Zaira Wasim complained.", "Former celebrity publicist Max Clifford has died in hospital, aged 74, after collapsing in prison.", "A major medical company failed to tell doctors the full extent of some of the risks posed by mesh implants.", "Snow and ice warnings are extended, with temperatures expected to drop as low as -15C overnight.", "Police said the man was arrested after he stepped over an outer fence and tried to climb a wall.", "The measure is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 reform programme.", "Russia begins withdrawing some of its troops from Syria, as President Putin visits the country.", "Joshua Sutcliffe was investigated for referring to a pupil who identifies as a boy as a girl.", "Paul McClelland, who was arrested four years ago in Brighton, is suing Sussex Police for damages.", "The first trial of a drug correcting the underlying defect that leads to Huntington's disease has started at University College London.", "The Thomas fire is the fifth largest blaze in recorded state history and has grown significantly.", "Scientists say it could be the biggest breakthrough in neurodegenerative diseases for 50 years.", "The move will help safeguard thousands of jobs at BAE Systems, mainly at Warton in Lancashire.", "Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Ican's Beatrice Fihn appears to refer to the North Korean crisis.", "Three women repeat claims the president groped, fondled, forcibly kissed and humiliated them.", "A woman breaks her ankle and 17 runners collapse with hypothermia at a Christmas Mud Run.", "Germany's spy agency says China is using the site to gather information on politicians.", "The rock star says he is sorry for kicking the female photographer, who says he did it on purpose.", "Motorists are warned of \"treacherous\" road conditions in many parts of the UK.,", "Simon Clark was diagnosed with the condition in 2003 but cannot utilise services of specialist nurse.", "Scientists re-measure the tallest mountains in the Antarctic territory claimed by Britain.", "China has been building what it calls \"the world's biggest camera surveillance network\".", "The winner of the ITV show was crowned by Ant and Dec on Sunday evening.", "The Forties pipeline's owner Ineos says that, despite pressure being reduced, a crack has extended.", "RAF airman Corrie Mckeague was last seen in September 2016 during a night out in Suffolk.", "The veteran TV presenter has died aged 60 after a long illness, his family says.", "Two in five UK women say they have experienced unwanted sexual behaviour at work, a BBC survey finds.", "Theresa May tells MPs the agreement should reassure both Leave and Remain supporters.", "Weather affects travel and leads to power cuts, with hundreds of schools set to stay closed on Monday.", "Other nominees for the Golden Globe awards include Helen Mirren and Judi Dench.", "Two people are airlifted to hospital with \"significant\" injuries and another suffers minor injuries.", "Israel's prime minister says Jerusalem has \"never been the capital of any other people\".", "Labour's Margaret Hodge tells MPs she is sorry for breaching rules about Parliamentary resources.", "Jose Mourinho says Manchester United's title hopes are \"probably over\" after their 2-1 loss to \"lucky\" Manchester City.", "Former Bishop of Chichester George Bell was accused of sexual abuse decades after his death in 1958.", "Oxford Dictionaries says the word, coined in the 1960s, sums up millennials driving political change.", "Commission set up by murdered MP Jo Cox says nine million adults in the UK are affected.", "BT will supply its sports channels to Sky, while selling Sky's Now TV service to its customers.", "A judge calls for an investigation after vital phone evidence was disclosed at the last minute.", "Penn State allowed \"sadistic\" rituals and failed to protect its students, a blistering report finds.", "The social media posts have been described as sending an \"incredibly dangerous message\".", "The Women and Equalities Committee said new guidance was a \"belated step in the right direction\".", "There will be sharp increase in the cost of alcohol if a minimum price is introduced, say researchers.", "The airline says it will recognise pilot unions as it seeks to avoid industrial action at Christmas.", "Jayda Fransen is charged with using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour.", "Several children escaped with minor injuries after a school bus crashed on the outskirts of Aberdeen.", "Police are accused of failing to disclose vital phone records to the defence before the trial.", "Theresa May confirms UK participation in student exchange will continue for a period after Brexit.", "RAF airman Corrie Mckeague was last seen in September 2016 during a night out in Suffolk.", "Public Health England launches a new campaign to get more people thinking about using condoms.", "She is accused of taking out fraudulent bank loans and buying bitcoin to funnel cash to IS.", "Theresa May's team will be happy phase one of Brexit talks are over but the way ahead could be fraught.", "The mounted officer and a farrier were accused of lying about fans burning a horse with cigarettes.", "A US regulator votes to ease restrictions preventing ISPs prioritising some services' data over others'.", "The family of disabled man Ian Shaw were told he was dying - now he is responding well to cancer treatment.", "What are the key phrases in the Brexit guidelines and what do they mean?", "The four-year-old was left on school transport in a bus depot and then tried to find his way home.", "Theresa May looks set to avoid another defeat after proposed changes to Brexit bill, the BBC understands.", "In a break with royal tradition, the wedding is being held on a Saturday rather than a weekday.", "At least four children died and at least 18 people were hurt in the collision in southern France.", "Royal Family members joined the bereaved at the London memorial to pay tribute to the 71 victims.", "Survivors of the tower fire which claimed 71 lives attend a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral.", "Australia captain Steve Smith hits an unbeaten 92 as the hosts finish the second day of the third Test on 203-3 - still 200 runs behind England.", "Fran Unsworth is appointed the new BBC director of news, replacing James Harding, who leaves in 2018.", "Nasa finds a distant star circled by eight planets, equal to the complement in our own Solar System.", "A unique NHS service helping Grenfell survivors has found high levels of mental trauma.", "Primary school league tables show pupils with special needs are dropping further behind their classmates.", "Theresa May welcomes \"important step\" and calls for \"rapid progress\" on transition discussions.", "Overpayments totalling £1.76m were made to 94 people, a committee of MPs says.", "The 29-year-old victim died after being struck by four vehicles on a pedestrian crossing in London.", "The children's mother remains in hospital in a coma \"bandaged from head to foot\".", "The manufacturer of Robinsons and Fruit Shoot is to move manufacturing to three other sites.", "The Anglo-Dutch firm is selling brands including Flora and ProActiv to the private equity giant.", "There were a huge range of emotions at the St Paul's Cathedral service to remember the 71 Grenfell fire victims.", "Many Britons still struggle with slow broadband, finds report from communications regulator Ofcom", "Theresa May was applauded by European counterparts at a dinner on Thursday, ahead of the EU decision.", "A 95-year-old man spent six hours in agony waiting for an ambulance after breaking his hip.", "About 10,000 homes and businesses are without water and schools are closed in Tewkesbury.", "If you missed the annual Geminid meteor shower, cameras captured the celestial display over China.", "US ambassador Nikki Haley says a UN Security Council resolution sends a clear warning to North Korea.", "This video has been removed for right reasons.", "Tropical Storm Tembin brings flash floods and mudslides to the southern island of Mindanao.", "Boris Johnson and Sergei Lavrov clash over cyber-attacks but also trade jokes after talks in Moscow.", "The moment the Great Bell of the Elizabeth Tower's hourly chimes resumed for the festive period.", "In February 1984, Bruce McCandless pushed off from the Space Shuttle and drifted alone into space.", "Neville Hord, 44, has been charged with stabbing supermarket worker Jodie Willsher, 30, to death.", "Staff from the zoo were treated for injuries and one person taken to hospital in the blaze.", "Seven children could be brought from a besieged suburb if Syria's president agrees, a charity says.", "A 21g truffle found in a Paris roof garden raises hopes that more could be grown in the city.", "The riverside home that inspired Daphne du Maurier's first novel is given Grade II listed status.", "As missile tests become more frequent, how do South Korea, Japan and the US plan to stop an attack?", "Amazon has apologised to a customer, who believed he was sent coded death threats by an employee.", "Seeing relatives for the first time in a while could be an opportunity to spot signs of confusion.", "Conservationists capture the first footage in the wild of the endangered Javan warty pig", "Former Royal Marine Ted Owens gets dozens of cards after a friend's Facebook plea.", "Charles Dutoit says allegations by women of \"forced physical contact\" have \"no basis in truth\".", "Roberto Firmino earns Liverpool a draw in an incredible Premier League encounter in which Arsenal score three goals in just five minutes.", "A nine-year-old aardvark has died after a fire at London Zoo, with four meerkats also presumed dead.", "The supermarket giant says its 2,654 stores will no longer throw away food that is fit to be eaten.", "PM recalls navy's hurricane relief efforts and fight against IS in Christmas message to troops.", "Theresa May watched the manoeuvre from the cockpit during her journey from Cyprus.", "The man allegedly discussed with undercover agents targeting San Francisco over Christmas.", "A former Afghan refugee faces 18 counts of attempted murder after the incident in Flinders Street.", "Scientists have filmed one of the world's rarest, and 'ugliest', pigs in a forest in Indonesia.", "Former Welsh secretary Stephen Crabb cleared of breaching Tory party rules.", "Automated chatbot \"Sweetie\" can handle thousands of conversations and send warnings to perpetrators.", "PM recalls navy's hurricane relief efforts and fight against IS in Christmas message to troops.", "Provides an overview of Philippines, including key facts about this South East Asian country.", "Four executives resign after the leaking of misogynistic emails about contestants.", "Beach lifeguard Richie Heard works in Devon in the summer and saves refugees in the winter.", "Mum-of-one Jodie Willsher, 30, was stabbed while working at the Skipton store on Thursday.", "The British singer tops the festive chart with Perfect after holding off a challenge - from himself.", "The head of the Royal College of GPs said we can all help Father Christmas get fitter this year.", "Championship side Middlesbrough part company with manager Garry Monk despite a victory hours earlier.", "The transport secretary says it would help ensure UK and international drivers pay for road upkeep.", "The PM insists she is \"in it for the long-term\" and shrugs off claims she has had a bad year.", "Brave three-year-old Ceylian survived surgery to remove a tumour half the size of his brain.", "It was spotted off the coast of Sanremo and moved inland as a tornado, causing damage in the city.", "Bodycam video has been released showing the moment it happened in Ohio.", "It was just like House of Cards. Or maybe Game of Thrones. Trump-Russia was the only drama that mattered.", "Well-wishers in Nottingham come out in force to welcome Prince Harry and his new fiancee.", "The government issues a new warning about the security risks of using Russian anti-virus software.", "Manager Gareth Southgate says England \"cannot go to a World Cup and not try to win it\", as they prepare for Friday's draw.", "How the BBC's Jeremy Bowen ended up in court with a war criminal who has died after taking poison.", "Natasha Gordon entered a suicide pact but left Matthew Birkinshaw to die alone.", "The Welsh and Scottish health ministers want Jeremy Hunt to act to reduce neural tube defects in babies.", "Theresa May says her constituent is doing very well on BBC dance show.", "Forecasters predict further wintery showers over parts of eastern England and Scotland.", "The PM seeks to make her point about Donald Trump's retweets - without causing a diplomatic crisis.", "A Belgian performance artist is cut free after spending 19 days chained to a marble block.", "Vice-chancellor Sir Christopher Snowden was awarded a pay package of £424,000 last year.", "MP says children's passports should include parents to avoid \"suspicion\" when their surnames differed.", "Thousands of current and former employees claim the supermarket failed to keep their data safe.", "The US president follows just 45 other Twitter users - all of whom agree with him, most of the time.", "Sir Paul Stephenson says he was told material was allegedly found on Damian Green's computer in 2008.", "Net migration was down by nearly a third to 230,000 in the year since the referendum, figures show.", "A national review is taking place after the failings were uncovered by the health watchdog.", "Dylan Jones says it was 'as difficult as shooting any celebrity,' prompting a Twitter backlash.", "Nasa releases footage captured over China, Korea and Japan of \"lightning, city lights and fishing boats\".", "Oxford University has turned to private investors in a record-breaking bond issue.", "The party says any attempt to \"placate Dublin and the EU\" will threaten its support for the UK government.", "Bereaved relatives say they will not attend the inquiry unless a more diverse panel is appointed.", "Supermarkets hike the price of Christmas biscuit selections as butter prices soar, according to a report.", "While meeting a group of Muslim Rohingya refugees, Pope Francis referred to them by name for the first time on his Asian visit.", "The UK government's plan for the border is \"untested and speculative\", the Brexit committee says.", "An ex-detective says he was \"shocked\" at the amount of porn found on a computer in Damian Green's office.", "Sadiq Khan says a \"catalogue of errors\" by his predecessor Boris Johnson led to the conversion costs soaring.", "England have been drawn with Belgium, Panama and Tunisia in Group G at next year's Fifa World Cup in Russia.", "Only 24 passengers used Barry Links station, between Dundee and Carnoustie, in 2016/17.", "He had refrained from referring to the refugees as Rohingya on his earlier visit to Myanmar.", "Birmingham may need to wait until next year to find out if it will host the 2022 Commonwealth Games.", "The latest news, sport, travel and weather for the East Midlands.", "The state-backed bank says there has been a big drop in branch use as more people bank online.", "An Anglican minister says people should pray George is blessed with \"the love of a fine young gentleman\".", "He won for his third novel The Destroyers, for a love scene set on a Greek island.", "Siblings separated for 25 years have been reunited after one spotted the other in a Wigan churchyard.", "The travel company says the proposed closures will affect up to 400 staff.", "Trump's former National Security Advisor has admitted lying to the FBI about dealings with Russia.", "Damian Green, a key ally of Theresa May, says claims by an ex-police officer are \"completely untrue\".", "Relatives of Krishna Devi Droch hope publishing the shocking images will lead to the capture of her killer.", "The court heard he sued some victims in the civil court, claiming loans to \"friends\" were not repaid.", "Work on the new Freddie Mercury biopic is suspended while the director deals with a health issue.", "Former Tory and UKIP politician Bob Spink was found guilty of permitting false signatures on a nomination form.", "Michael Flynn is facing prison, and the Trump White House is facing a political crisis.", "The traffic warden suffered a fractured shoulder when he was assaulted by the defendant.", "David Dearlove swung his 19-month-old stepson by his feet and smashed his head on a fireplace.", "Jeremy Corbyn retaliates after Morgan Stanley says a Labour government could be a bigger risk than Brexit.", "Charlie Dunn was pulled from a lagoon by children after being left alone \"for hours\", a court hears.", "The device filled with nails and wires was sent to a shop near a Potsdam Christmas market.", "European Council President Donald Tusk says \"the key to the UK's future lies - in some ways - in Dublin\".", "The case of Brendan Dassey and his uncle became the subject of a Netflix documentary.", "Justin Welby calls on the government to have an inclusive approach to the future of education.", "An unknown number are in prison, with some serving long sentences and others sentenced to death.", "When the foreign secretary arrives in Iran, some nifty diplomatic footwork will be required.", "The government and the EU might be claiming success today – but as Donald Tusk said, the tough stuff starts now.", "Police are trying to track down the gang of men responsible for the \"vicious and prolonged attack\".", "The fire, which has forced thousands from their homes, has damaged swathes of avocado farmland.", "A woman raped by a driver in Delhi says executives got her medical records after doubting her story.", "Salvador Sobral, who won this year's contest for Portugal, is doing well, surgeons in Lisbon say.", "The window display appeared at a republican group's office in Londonderry in October.", "A show about Charles II, and the artistic legacy he left but is it a right-royal success?", "The Prime Minister said the deal has been struck after 'some tough conversations'", "PM Haider al-Abadi says Iraqi troops are now in complete control of the country.", "The foreign secretary is pressing for release of dual nationals, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.", "The case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is first and foremost a story of terrible personal suffering.", "No 10 has reached a critical short-term goal, and moved on from embarrassment to a temporary conclusion.", "Reality Check examines some of the key lines in the agreement document.", "Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and his Iranian counterpart discuss Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe during meeting.", "The BBC's Adam Fleming shares how he watched the last-minute Brexit deal unfold from Brussels.", "Mikheil Saakashvili's detention comes days after he was freed from police custody by his supporters.", "Actor Kathryn Rossetter says she suffered an \"abusive experience\" during a Broadway play in 1984.", "Paris comes to a standstill as hundreds of thousands of fans pay tribute to a French icon", "The road was shut in both directions for more than four hours amid concerns for a man on a bridge.", "A passenger won a legal case against Northern, but was left waiting for about £300.", "Some 200,000 residents have been evacuated and a state of emergency declared for a new blaze in San Diego", "John Campbell assesses to what extent the first phase of Brexit talks offer all things to all people.", "Terry Adams had previously claimed paying back the money would breach his human rights.", "Impromptu stage appearance after smoke alarm disrupts first performance at revamped Perth Theatre", "An 18-year-old man was being questioned by police following the pair's deaths in hospital.", "Many women benefit from the use of vaginal mesh and they should have a choice, surgeons say.", "A mummy dating back about 3,500 years is among items discovered in the two tombs.", "Tension rises following President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.", "After Donald Trump officially recognised the city as Israel's capital, UK Muslims tell us why that matters.", "The pair used the ammonia to target \"petite women\" who would not be able to fight back.", "Significant snowfall is forecast for the weekend, with warnings some communities could be cut off.", "A warning has been issued by the Met Office advising significant snowfall on Sunday", "The King of Norway's former son-in-law accuses Spacey of groping him at a Nobel Peace Prize concert.", "After the visit, North Korea said it has agreed to better communication with the UN in future.", "The parents of a boy, six, who died from meningitis B have called on all children to be vaccinated.", "The head of the Catholic Church calls for a better translation of a phrase about temptation.", "Ben Duckett is dropped from an Ashes tour game and also suspended after pouring a drink over England bowler James Anderson in a Perth bar.", "Heads urged to offer more support to LGBT teachers to be their \"authentic selves\".", "Republican Trent Franks is the third lawmaker to resign in three days over sexual harassment claims.", "Hundreds of leather-clad bikers follow the French singer's coffin down the Champs-Elysees.", "The grime artist caps a huge year by taking home the main prize at the 2017 BBC Music Awards.", "The Electoral Commission fines the Lib Dems £18,000 over the way spending was reported.", "More government cash pledged but portion of council tax for policing could rise.", "Police release graphic details after rumours of a murderer on the loose swept through the rural town.", "South Africa's deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa is the new leader of the ANC.", "The Brexit and transport departments have the most work to do to narrow the gap, a new report suggests.", "Athletics anti-doping officials begin an investigation into allegations about world champion sprinter Justin Gatlin's coach and an agent.", "Matthew Petersen was unable to answer basic legal questions when senators quizzed him.", "The leader and deputy of a far-right British political group's Twitter accounts are frozen.", "He outlines \"four pillars\" of new plan, which no longer labels climate change a threat.", "Two people died and a couple and their baby were rescued from the blaze at the hotel on the banks of Loch Lomond.", "Arthur Collins threw the corrosive substance at revellers at the East London nightclub in April.", "World champion sprinter Justin Gatlin is \"shocked and surprised\" at doping allegations made against his coach and an agent.", "A Scottish government pilot project is helping women who can't afford sanitary products.", "The GMB Union tells Westminster Magistrates' Court it has evidence Uber drivers work \"excessive hours\".", "Liam Allan's trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.", "Carriages plummeted off both sides of a highway bridge in Washington state after a train derailed.", "The phone call is their first since a spat over the US President's re-tweeting of anti-Muslim videos.", "Donald Trump's national security adviser says the US is committed to a resolution of the crisis.", "At least 12 died and 18 were injured when the bus overturned on a trip to an ancient Mayan ruin.", "The law firm says the BBC breached confidentiality by misusing and publishing details within the documents.", "Some prisoners live in dirty and dangerous cells that should be condemned, a leaked report says.", "A friend of Jonghyun, the K-pop star who died on Monday, posts what she says was his final note.", "Three other people, including a child, were treated in hospital after the blaze at the Cameron House Hotel.", "Elliana Shand's grandfather says her mother, who has schizophrenia, is a \"very good mum, just not very well\".", "The former vice-presidential nominee's son is charged over a confrontation involving a firearm.", "Three 13-year-olds were questioned after a blaze at a former school in Newhaven, East Sussex.", "Scientists in the United States believe it may be possible to delay the diseases of ageing.", "Four men were arrested during raids involving counter-terror police and an Army bomb disposal unit.", "Government officials have apologised for using a discredited report into the contaminated blood products scandal, the BBC can reveal.", "Victims' relatives say they were not given timely information and were billed for autopsies.", "Boeing and Bombardier trade verbal blows over claims that the Canadian company gets state aid.", "Kasar Jehangir was one of six people killed in the multi-car crash in Birmingham.", "Zelda Perkins wants UK law to change, 19 years after accusing the film mogul of trying to rape a colleague.", "The Oscar winner says she \"didn't know\" about Harvey Weinstein's alleged abuse.", "Researchers develop a new technique to give a more accurate advance forecast for summer weather.", "Passenger Chris Karnes describes the moment an Amtrak train derailed and crashed onto a highway below.", "Whistleblowers tell BBC News prisoners have died and others injured due to poor care.", "Patricia Aldridge says she won't be giving up her job at a care home for the elderly.", "The first known interstellar asteroid may hold water from another star system in its interior, according to a study.", "US personnel respond as a man drives through a checkpoint near to an aircraft at RAF Mildenhall.", "There are reports of fatalities after the train fell from a bridge on to the road in Washington state.", "Police charge a man with racially aggravated common assault in relation to an alleged attack on Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling.", "Wendy Thomas hid three people in a car and tried to drive them into the UK via the Channel tunnel.", "The justice secretary rejects a recommendation to set targets to get more ethnically diverse judges.", "Hayley Martin's unborn daughter has no kidneys as a result of a fatal rare genetic disease.", "Captain Jerry Kyd said the commissioning of the flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth was \"a proud day\".", "The two men were guests at Cameron House Hotel on the shores of Loch Lomond when the blaze broke out.", "The WannaCry malware hit hospitals, banks and businesses across the world last May.", "It follows the collapse of two rape cases in a week, after police failed to disclose vital evidence.", "The Pension Protection Fund says it will vote against the retailer's restructuring plan.", "The Labour leader tells Grazia magazine \"I'm ready to be prime minister tomorrow\".", "Palestinian general delegate to UK says Jerusalem as capital is 'declaring war'.", "Victory in next year's election would mean that Mr Putin could lead the country until 2024.", "Reporter Kat Hawkins tried out prosthetic feet designed for skiing and snowboarding.", "Anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia died in an explosion in October.", "The Met Office forecasts winds gusting up to 90mph over parts of northern Scotland on Thursday.", "The Met Police says it is the first conviction of a so-called \"county lines\" crime.", "Conservative MP Heidi Allen was in tears after Labour's Frank Field's speech.", "Theresa May is urged not to allow Eurosceptic MPs in her party to \"dictate the terms\" of the talks.", "Kamal Ahmed and Tina Daheley are among BBC journalists who will take part in events targeted at pupils.", "Middle East correspondent Yolande Knell explains the significance of Jerusalem's flashpoint holy site", "Charlie Dunn's stepfather Paul Smith had denied any wrongdoing when the five year old drowned in a pool.", "Latest updates and reaction as President Trump speaks about the status of Jerusalem.", "The city's importance explained, as the controversial US embassy move to the city goes ahead.", "Women and men who broke silence on sexual harassment and abuse are named Time's Person of the Year.", "Husnain Rashid, 31, is accused of creating Telegram \"channels\" to assist terrorists by providing tips.", "Lord Bassam is to stand down in New Year amid scrutiny of his travel claims.", "The attacks took place on boys at St Benedict's School in Ealing in the 1970s and 80s.", "Google plans to stop Amazon's Fire TV devices being able to use YouTube from the start of 2018.", "The model, who made headlines after her affair with a cabinet minister in the 1960s, dies aged 75.", "The Archbishop of Canterbury leads a debate in the House of Lords on boosting education, with contributions from peers such as Lord Sacks and Lord Adonis.", "Dorothea Bate is believed to be the first woman scientist employed by the Natural History Museum.", "Lubaina Himid says her victory will make a difference to people who have supported her over the years.", "An algorithm developed by the DeepMind team claims victory against a world-beating AI chess program.", "Self-drive taxis will be tested in Japan next spring and could be on the roads by early 2020s.", "The Radio 1 DJ replaces Reggie Yates, who's stepped down from hosting the festive specials.", "Russian meddling and local council cuts are just two factors undermining credibility, the watchdog says.", "PC James Dixon died after the motorcycle he was riding collided with a car near Hare Hatch.", "There was no clear evidence of sexual abuse, a pathologist tells the toddler's inquest.", "As tensions increase between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem, the BBC's Erica Chernofsky explores what makes the city so holy.", "Labour calls it a \"shambles\" but David Davis says impact assessments would be of \"near zero\" use.", "The digital currency has seen its value more than double in the last month in a volatile journey.", "Court hears of a plan to bomb Downing Street security gates before trying to kill Theresa May.", "The boss of Steinhoff, which owns Poundland and Harveys, quits amid probe into accounting irregularities.", "The PM has days to get Brexit talks back on track after the DUP objects to Irish border proposals.", "England's fightback in the second Test comes to nothing as Australia power to a 120-run win in Adelaide and a 2-0 Ashes lead.", "A plan to rescue Charles Rennie Mackintosh's masterpiece - The Hill House in Helensburgh - is unveiled.", "Bullring shopping centre owner Hammerson is to acquire rival Intu, owner of Manchester's Trafford Centre.", "A Commons employee was arrested on suspicion of GBH and another taken to hospital after the incident on Tuesday evening.", "A CBS News reporter and her crew were asked to help evacuate a ranch as flames spread in California.", "Brexit Secretary David Davis had previously said the government had done 57 studies on 85% of the UK economy about the impact of Brexit.", "Nicknamed the French Elvis Presley, he sold 100 million records in a career that spanned six decades.", "Serena Williams enters the 2018 Australian Open in January, according to the tournament's director.", "Drivers filmed the flames on the 405 near Bel Air, as firefighters continue to battle the blaze.", "Brenda Grant tried to pull tubes out of her arm after being put in a nursing home, her family says.", "Banks should do more to identify customers who struggle to repay debts, a charity says.", "The paper accidentally put instructions to writers on the cover instead of a story about a \"sex lair\".", "The donation comes from the estate of famed sound pioneer and Cambridge PhD student Ray Dolby.", "As the number of homeless children hits a 10-year-high, a mother and daughter tell of their double life.", "Christmas comes early for researchers as a fragment of bone is confirmed to date from the era of St Nicholas.", "Born while her mother was in captivity, the 40-year-old woman only found out about her identity now.", "The family of Sean Rigg, who died at Brixton police station, call the decision \"shameful\".", "How going undercover as a 14-year-old revealed the dangers children using streaming apps can face.", "The 19-year-old Muslim student was told by a security guard that her hijab was a \"security threat\".", "US food chiefs have updated guidelines after investigating an E. coli outbreak caused by flour.", "The health secretary told the social network to \"stay away from my kids\" with its app for under-13s.", "The fast-moving fire is bearing down on the cities of Ventura and Santa Paula.", "The International Olympic Committee bans Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.", "PC James Dixon, whose wife is heavily pregnant, died in a collision on the A4 in Berkshire.", "Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital is met with a wave of disapproval.", "Philippe Coutinho scores a hat-trick as Liverpool thump Spartak Moscow to reach the knockout stage of the Champions League for the first time since 2009.", "US ambassador Nikki Haley says a UN Security Council resolution sends a clear warning to North Korea.", "The 79-year-old has low blood pressure and an abnormal heart rhythm, his doctor says.", "This video has been removed for right reasons.", "Tropical Storm Tembin brings flash floods and mudslides to the southern island of Mindanao.", "One vehicle is thought to have overturned in the crash, which happened between junctions 10 and 11.", "The owner of Field Farm Fisheries said the sign went up because he had caught Polish anglers stealing fish.", "As missile tests become more frequent, how do South Korea, Japan and the US plan to stop an attack?", "Staff from the zoo were treated for injuries and one person taken to hospital in the blaze.", "Seven children could be brought from a besieged suburb if Syria's president agrees, a charity says.", "Some 200 people have died in flash floods and mudslides brought by Tropical Storm Tembin.", "Former world number one Serena Williams will play her first match since giving birth in September in Abu Dhabi next week.", "Home Office tells councils in England and Wales to avoid using anti-social orders on the \"vulnerable\".", "The industrialisation of food production has saved us time - but we are paying the price in other ways.", "In their Christmas messages the prime minister and the Labour leader praise those who help others.", "China's AG600 - which is roughly the size of a Boeing 737 - lifted off from Zhuhai airport in the southern province of Guangdong.", "The 'Be the Best' slogan and crest depicting crossed swords, a crown and a lion, will stay.", "The arguments nearly a century ago over the use of leaded petrol.", "People began a race to unite toddler Finn with Mac the monkey in time for Christmas.", "Tim Harford tells the surprising story of how the iPhone became a truly revolutionary technology.", "Former Royal Marine Ted Owens gets dozens of cards after a friend's Facebook plea.", "Journalist Rachel Johnson, who is the sister of Boris Johnson, will take part in the first all female Celeb Big Brother.", "PM recalls navy's hurricane relief efforts and fight against IS in Christmas message to troops.", "The supermarket giant says its 2,654 stores will no longer throw away food that is fit to be eaten.", "Supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gather to nominate him for presidential elections.", "The Strictly judge breaks down as he dedicates a Beatles song to lost friends and relatives.", "Felipe VI of Spain says separatist leaders must act responsibly after their election success.", "Bob Givens was behind the design of many of the 20th Century's most famous animated characters", "Tory Zac Goldsmith tweeted a card he received which wished him a \"cancerous New Year\".", "The US president's golf resort in South Ayrshire had previously received business rates relief of more than £100,000.", "An aardvark and probably four meerkats died and staff needed medical treatment.", "Local authorities will work with charities to put forward pupils for bursaries and scholarships.", "The move comes after Tunisian women reported being stopped from boarding flights to the Gulf nation.", "Provides an overview of Philippines, including key facts about this South East Asian country.", "Designed in 1775, the S-bend was key to the flushing toilet, and public sanitation as we know it.", "Injured Australia pace bowler Mitchell Starc hopes that his replacement Jackson Bird \"sticks it up\" England in the fourth Ashes Test.", "Noodle chain manager took \"highly unusual approach\" over festive staff shortage fears in London branch.", "Four executives resign after the leaking of misogynistic emails about contestants.", "Scotland's party leaders use their Christmas messages to thank emergency service workers and volunteers.", "A man carrying 1,000 joints jumped in the back of a police car looking for a ride, Danish police say.", "At least 37 people are feared dead in the blaze that swept through a shopping centre in Davao.", "The punk magazine-turned-media empire faces accusations of workplace harassment and sexism.", "The head of the Royal College of GPs said we can all help Father Christmas get fitter this year.", "Championship side Middlesbrough part company with manager Garry Monk despite a victory hours earlier.", "At least 37 people are believed to have been trapped in a burning mall in the city of Davao.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband says he hopes she could be freed within a fortnight.", "At least 150 people are evacuated after being trapped for several hours in gondolas in Chamrousse.", "Woody Johnson says the president will visit in 2018 despite \"ruffled feathers\" over recent tweets.", "Scientists think Hunga Tunga Hunga Ha'apai might hold clues on where to look for life on Mars.", "Migrants attempt to cross from Italy to France through the mountains in sub zero temperatures.", "Two others were also injured when two houses collapsed in the blast on Monday morning.", "Clive Lewis says he is \"very pleased to be able to put this behind me and move on\".", "Snow has fallen across the UK, causing disruption for some and fun for others. Here are some of your photos.", "Hundreds of flights are cancelled in the Netherlands and Belgium.", "French property firm Unibail-Rodamco hopes to launch Westfield shopping centres in new markets.", "Gamers as young as 11 bet using virtual weapons within video games which are then exchanged for cash.", "There will be lying snow, ice and freezing fog for many during the morning, the BBC's Carol Kirkwood says.", "Three men and a woman are arrested on suspicion of murder after three children died in the blaze.", "Seabirds such as the kittiwake are being pushed to the brink of extinction, say conservationists.", "The new tobacco products are safer than cigarettes but not risk-free, say UK experts.", "Customers have been sold tickets for trains that will not run or will be disrupted, a watchdog says.", "An influential group calls for a controversial vote on net neutrality due this week to be cancelled.", "The environment secretary publishes legislation to recognise animal feelings in UK law.", "A Bangladeshi man is being held after a blast wounded several people at Port Authority bus terminal.", "A naturist is duped by a woman saying she needed cash for a cow insemination business.", "Compare the temperature in your area to other locations in the UK and around the world.", "More than a dozen women have accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. Now, in the moment of #MeToo, how do they feel?", "A slice of a monster fatberg, clogging up London's sewers, is going on display in a museum.", "Labour's Margaret Hodge tells MPs she is sorry for breaching rules about Parliamentary resources.", "The platform sent a tweet addressing the \"53 people\" that have watched the film 18 days in a row.", "The US president follows just 45 other Twitter users - all of whom agree with him, most of the time.", "The European Council's president urges EU countries to show \"unity\" in the next phase of talks.", "Inflation hits 3.1% as the squeeze on household incomes continues.", "President Trump's populist brand faces a test as he backs a Republican accused of child abuse.", "A baby born in Leicester with her heart beating outside her body is said to be doing well after three operations.", "Ceredigion Apprentice winner Alana Spencer is recalling products over health risks.", "The equivalent of a small garden shed in London, but five times that in Bradford.", "There will be cold temperatures, ice and freezing fog for many, the BBC's Carol Kirkwood says.", "Oliver's parents had so far raised £130,000 of the £150,000 needed for the life-saving operation.", "Italian-born hairdresser who built his south London salon into a global chain dies", "Snow and ice warnings are extended, with temperatures expected to drop as low as -15C overnight.", "The government is proposing a big change by moving to a system of \"presumed consent\" in England.", "The family of bullied Keaton Jones, who has had support from A-list celebs, is being accused of racism and money grabbing.", "Three children died in the suspicious Salford fire and a three-year-old is in a critical condition.", "Some passengers face disruption after 79 Dublin-based pilots and others around Europe plan walkouts.", "Joshua Sutcliffe was investigated for referring to a pupil who identifies as a boy as a girl.", "Paul McClelland, who was arrested four years ago in Brighton, is suing Sussex Police for damages.", "\"Words cannot describe\" how a family feels after losing three children in a house fire, police say.", "Scientists say it could be the biggest breakthrough in neurodegenerative diseases for 50 years.", "Three women repeat claims the president groped, fondled, forcibly kissed and humiliated them.", "US think tank warns nearly all UK's trading relationships with Europe will be worse after March 2019.", "A house fire in Salford which killed three children was a \"targeted attack\", police have said.", "And a UK minister says decisions on EU nationals' applications shouldn't take more than two weeks.", "Service sector firms increased prices at the fastest pace for nearly 10 years last month, a survey suggests.", "Akayed Ullah, 27, faces a series of terror charges over Monday's bus terminal attack in New York.", "Roy Moore's skittish escape happened after he appeared at an Alabama polling site to cast his vote.", "Fergal Keane reveals the crisis in DR Congo's Kasai region, where millions face starvation.", "Some officers disagree with guidance not to search people purely because they smell of cannabis.", "Tyson Fury is free to resume his boxing career after reaching an agreement over a backdated two-year doping ban.", "RAF airman Corrie Mckeague was last seen in September 2016 during a night out in Suffolk.", "The veteran TV presenter has died aged 60 after a long illness, his family says.", "The advertising giant is to change its tax arrangements in about 30 countries after a similar move in the UK.", "From smoked salmon to smartphones, 2017 is shaping up to be an expensive Christmas for consumers.", "The Budget downgrades for economic growth and productivity mean we could see stagnant wages until 2025.", "Theresa May tells MPs the agreement should reassure both Leave and Remain supporters.", "The marine flare goes off as a worker at a recycling centre is sifting through waste.", "The 29-year-old was hit by four vehicles on a pedestrian crossing and none of the drivers stopped.", "Wintry conditions continue to cause delays for travellers as hundreds of schools remain closed.", "A Ghanaian father and son rebuild their relationship after a stint in prison pulled them apart.", "Pep Guardiola says Kevin de Bruyne is helping Manchester City become \"a better institution\" after his display in the win over Spurs.", "The children's mother remains in hospital in a coma \"bandaged from head to foot\".", "The Anglo-Dutch firm is selling brands including Flora and ProActiv to the private equity giant.", "Senate and House lawmakers reveal final details of the biggest change to the US tax code in 30 years.", "The family of Ian Fordyce have described him as \"well known and popular with everyone he met\".", "Barry and Honey Sherman were discovered in the basement of their Toronto home by an estate agent.", "David Cameron is to lead a £750m fund to improve links between Britain and China, the government says.", "The bad weather and rise in online shopping are both factors in the drop, retail researchers say.", "A live nativity scene led to a police chase when one participant managed to break out twice in a day.", "About 10,000 homes and businesses are without water and schools are closed in Tewkesbury.", "After weeks of lobbying and vote-trading, one of the biggest tax changes in US history is about to happen.", "What are the key phrases in the Brexit guidelines and what do they mean?", "Matthew Petersen's hearing goes wrong quickly when a Republican senator poses basic legal questions.", "A 95-year-old man spent six hours in agony waiting for an ambulance after breaking his hip.", "How the cornflower has become the centre of a political controversy in Austria.", "Strong winds drive the Thomas fire - now California's third-biggest on record - towards the coast.", "The Republican plan is filled with targeted perks despite promises to simplify the code.", "The family of disabled man Ian Shaw were told he was dying - now he is responding well to cancer treatment.", "Severn Trent Water says most of the 10,000 customers cut off in the Tewkesbury area have now been reconnected.", "Conservative backbenchers are split over the terms of a transition period once the UK leaves the EU.", "Adm Marcelo Srur is sent into retirement following criticism of the operation to rescue the submarine.", "South Africa's governing party is picking a new head after a bitter leadership battle.", "Steve Smith and Mitchell Marsh put Australia in control of the third Ashes Test in Perth with huge centuries.", "Penn State allowed \"sadistic\" rituals and failed to protect its students, a blistering report finds.", "The uncle of four siblings who died after a house fire says he hopes they get the \"funeral they deserve\".", "Peter Jackson says he 'blacklisted' Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd on Harvey Weinstein's advice.", "The four-year-old was left on school transport in a bus depot and then tried to find his way home.", "Theresa May welcomes \"important step\" and calls for \"rapid progress\" on transition discussions.", "Theresa May's team will be happy phase one of Brexit talks are over but the way ahead could be fraught.", "The president approved a coalition involving the Freedom Party for the first time since 2005.", "The strengths and weaknesses of the top two candidates battling to lead South Africa's ruling party.", "RAF airman Corrie Mckeague was last seen in September 2016 during a night out in Suffolk.", "Australia's first same sex wedding takes place, eight days after legislation is passed.", "Secretary of State Rex Tillerson toughens his stance after earlier offering talks with no preconditions.", "Provides an overview of Austria, including key dates and facts about this central European country.", "In a break with royal tradition, the wedding is being held on a Saturday rather than a weekday.", "Police are accused of failing to disclose vital phone records to the defence before the trial.", "The renowned scientist behind BBC Two's The Great Egg Race died on Friday, his family says.", "The manufacturer of Robinsons and Fruit Shoot is to move manufacturing to three other sites.", "Theresa May looks set to avoid another defeat after proposed changes to Brexit bill, the BBC understands.", "Scientists install sensors at the Kennedy Space Center that would normally be used to monitor volcanoes.", "Thousands of people and European royals gather for the state funeral in Bucharest.", "A covert unit at Uber snooped on competitors and regulators, says a letter released by a US court.", "The Royal Court will stage Rita, Sue and Bob Too following accusations of censorship.", "The drivers of two lorries and three cars have been spoken to after a woman was struck and killed.", "The selfie cappuccino cafe, where customers can sip on a portrait of their own face.", "The BBC's Clive Coleman gives his analysis of the collapse of Liam Allan's rape trial.", "Brits are searching for Christmas earlier and more often than other countries, data shows.", "Police release graphic details after rumours of a murderer on the loose swept through the rural town.", "It follows the collapse of two rape cases in a week, after police failed to disclose vital evidence.", "The UK's ability to cyber-attack other countries has improved says a Parliament committee report.", "Arthur Collins threw the corrosive substance at revellers at the East London nightclub in April.", "A Scottish government pilot project is helping women who can't afford sanitary products.", "MSPs unanimously back legislation banning the use of wild animals in travelling circuses in Scotland.", "Liam Allan's trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.", "Birmingham is set to be officially announced as the host of the 2022 Commonwealth Games on Thursday.", "Amika George, 18, wants free menstrual products to be given to pupils on free school meals.", "Homes and businesses to have a legal right to demand access to high-speed broadband by 2020.", "The PM's deputy is asked to resign after making \"inaccurate statements\" after pornographic material was found on his Commons computer.", "Prices will go up if the UK leaves the EU without a deal but not if people buy British, says Michael Gove.", "Could the City of London remain the financial centre of Europe after Brexit?", "The case could determine whether firms have to pay new fathers the same as mothers.", "A Labour MP challenges Michael Gove over the Vote Leave campaign's use of the £350m figure.", "Children who survived June's fire will speak of family and home in a message broadcast by Channel 4.", "The government's approach to tackling the issue is \"unacceptably complacent\", a group of MPs warn.", "Donald Trump threatens to cut aid to states opposed to his recognition of the city as Israel's capital.", "A profile of Theresa May's close ally, who has been sacked after he breached the ministerial code.", "Four men were arrested during raids involving counter-terror police and an Army bomb disposal unit.", "Victims' relatives say they were not given timely information and were billed for autopsies.", "The ride-hailing firm had argued that it was an information society service.", "Paul Smith had initially denied letting five-year-old Charlie Dunn wander off.", "Lloyd Blankfein tweets that many want a \"confirming vote\" on a \"monumental and irreversible\" decision.", "About £160m of the money will go to village branches, but unions condemn a \"slash-and-burn\" of services.", "Government officials have apologised for using a discredited report into the contaminated blood products scandal, the BBC can reveal.", "Damian Green's resignation leaves the prime minister a lonelier figure.", "Dentistry student Mohammed Awan is the brother of so-called Islamic State suicide bomber Rizwan Awan.", "Four men remain in custody after counter-terror police raids in Sheffield and Chesterfield.", "Tourists and locals have described it as \"mangy\", \"sickly\" and \"plucked\".", "Zelda Perkins wants UK law to change, 19 years after accusing the film mogul of trying to rape a colleague.", "The IMF has cut its UK economic growth forecast, blaming Brexit uncertainty.", "Patricia Aldridge says she won't be giving up her job at a care home for the elderly.", "The chief executive of Standard Chartered Bank says the capital will \"take hits\" from Brexit.", "A $100m grant is going to bring Sesame Street characters to help traumatised refugee children in Syria.", "The US train that crashed on a bend did not have anti-speeding technology, investigators say.", "Two young men were cleared after Met Police officers failed to disclose crucial evidence.", "Europe's top court says countries must decide whether to recognise so-called \"private divorces\".", "Catt Sadler says she found out she earned about half as much as her male co-host at E! News.", "Former Met Police Det Insp Hamish Brown says \"there has to be some give somewhere\" when police are faced with cuts.", "RMT members at six train operating companies plan a series of new year strikes.", "Hayley Martin's unborn daughter has no kidneys as a result of a fatal rare genetic disease.", "Heather North provided the voice of \"danger-prone\" Daphne Blake from 1970 to 2003.", "Harvey Weinstein’s former personal assistant on what happens after you sign a non-disclosure agreement.", "A pod of 28 bottlenose dolphins is found to be permanently living off the south-west coast of England.", "A couple whose son spent his first Christmas in hospital are giving presents to premature babies.", "The corporation pledges to \"raise our game\" on religion in mainstream shows.", "At Christmas adjournment debate in the Commons, MPs raise any subject they are interested in.", "A convicted football hooligan is jailed for a racist attack on Manchester City and England winger Raheem Sterling.", "The US leader says countries thinking of voting against the US in a UN vote could lose financial aid.", "The US Coast Guard tries to save the animal tangled in line connecting bales of cocaine in the Pacific.", "European banks operating in the UK will be able to carry on as usual after Brexit, the BBC learns.", "It was spotted off the coast of Sanremo and moved inland as a tornado, causing damage in the city.", "It was just like House of Cards. Or maybe Game of Thrones. Trump-Russia was the only drama that mattered.", "Australia make 209-4 on a rain-shortened opening day of the second Ashes Test against England in Adelaide.", "For the first time since the Cold War, the US state tests its nuclear alert.", "The government issues a new warning about the security risks of using Russian anti-virus software.", "A new deal protects stocks in Arctic waters becoming more accessible because of global warming.", "Well-wishers in Nottingham come out in force to welcome Prince Harry and his new fiancee.", "Former PM tells the Financial Times there needs to be a way to meet \"catastrophic\" care costs.", "Vice-chancellor Sir Christopher Snowden was awarded a pay package of £424,000 last year.", "The US state of Hawaii has tested its nuclear warning siren for the first time since the end of the Cold War.", "A curfew is imposed and the army and police get extra powers after Sunday's disputed vote.", "MP says children's passports should include parents to avoid \"suspicion\" when their surnames differed.", "Scotland's children's commissioner says the rollout of Universal Credit may be impacting on youngsters' human rights.", "Australia edge out England in a tight and nervy Rugby League World Cup final to retain the trophy.", "England face odds-on favourites and defending champions Australia in the World Cup final on Saturday at 09:00 GMT.", "The bank emailed 290,000 customers on Saturday following warnings about Russian security software.", "On Twitter, Nigel Gibbens says the pens are a \"necessary defence\" against bird flu.", "Charlie Douthwaite was the youngest patient on the UK transplant waiting list.", "Whirlpool ends a scheme that had offered cut-price replacements for tumble dryers linked to a fire risk.", "Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina is behind the Saatchi Gallery’s latest exhibition in London.", "Could a new scheme to help talented students into prestigious US universities show a way to increase social mobility?", "The vehicle was in danger of tumbling to the ground before PC Martin Willis arrived on the scene.", "While meeting a group of Muslim Rohingya refugees, Pope Francis referred to them by name for the first time on his Asian visit.", "A £1m Lotto win not only saved a couple's house, it allowed them to get married.", "England have been drawn with Belgium, Panama and Tunisia in Group G at next year's Fifa World Cup in Russia.", "The president says the Republicans' plan for massive tax cuts won't benefit him. Is that true?", "The Republican plan is filled with targeted perks despite promises to simplify the code.", "Eight officers were injured and three people arrested after police were confronted by a crowd in east London.", "Former industrial towns, rural and coastal areas fare worst in \"spiral of ever-growing division\".", "Five mutilated cats have been found in the Northampton area, prompting warnings from police.", "Trump's former National Security Advisor has admitted lying to the FBI about dealings with Russia.", "Nabih al-Wahsh said it was a \"national duty\" to rape and harass women who wear ripped jeans.", "Syria says Israel attacked an army position outside Damascus and two missiles were destroyed.", "Chairman Alan Milburn criticises the government, which says it had decided not to renew his term.", "A bestiary of business terms explained - from sharks and bear markets to unicorns and zebras.", "Two groups argued shortly before several pedestrians were hit by a VW Golf in Brixton, south London.", "Police use water cannon and batons as Alternative for Germany delegates gather to choose leaders.", "Tenants living in London see twice as much of their salary going to their landlord than those in the North.", "William Kerr was apprehended after being spotted in Ipswich town centre by a member of public.", "Work on the new Freddie Mercury biopic is suspended while the director deals with a health issue.", "Michael Flynn is facing prison, and the Trump White House is facing a political crisis.", "Samuel Berkley, 14, played for Hattersley FC and recently became an uncle.", "David Dearlove swung his 19-month-old stepson by his feet and smashed his head on a fireplace.", "Manchester United end Arsenal's run of 12 home league wins despite Paul Pogba being sent off in a thrilling encounter.", "European Council President Donald Tusk says \"the key to the UK's future lies - in some ways - in Dublin\"."], "section": ["Europe", "Technology", "UK", "London", "Business", 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"US & Canada", "Manchester", "Tees", null, "Europe"], "content": ["Stanislav Yezhov (centre) pictured between Ukraine's Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and UK Prime Minister Theresa May\n\nUkraine's main security agency has arrested a senior government translator and accused him of being a Russian spy.\n\nStanislav Yezhov, who accompanied the country's prime minister on numerous trips, was detained in Kiev on Wednesday.\n\nThe Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said Mr Yezhov had gathered information about government activities.\n\nIn July, he was part of a delegation that visited UK Prime Minister Theresa May in Downing Street.\n\nA statement posted on the SBU website [in Ukrainian] said: \"Law enforcers found that an official was recruited by Russian intelligence agencies during a long-time foreign mission.\"\n\nThey said Mr Yezhov, who is facing charges of treason, used \"special equipment\" to gather information which he then passed on to his Russian handlers.\n\nUkraine's Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman posted about the arrest on his Facebook page.\n\nHe said Mr Yezhov was \"an official in the government's secretariat who was working in the interests of the enemy state [Russia] for a long time\".\n\nHe worked in the cabinet of ministers where he would have had access to sensitive government information. Prior to this, he served as a translator for Ukraine's former president Viktor Yanukovych.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jonah Fisher This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe SBU did not directly refer to Mr Yezhov but he was named by other senior officials.\n\nAnton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister, said Mr Yezhov had \"worked for the Russian special services for at least two years.\"\n\n\"It is known that he was recruited by the Russian special services during his work at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington several years ago,\" he said.\n\nA photograph taken in early July shows Mr Yezhov standing in between the UK and Ukrainian prime ministers as they walked down a corridor in Downing Street.\n\nAnother image seen by the BBC shows him leaving through the front door of the prime minister's residence.\n\nLast year, Mr Yezhov visited the White House where he translated for Mr Groysman during talks with former US Vice-President Joe Biden.\n\nTensions between Ukraine and Russia have escalated in recent years.\n\nIn 2014, Mr Yanukovych - who was pro-Moscow - was driven from power by violent protests in Kiev. Russian-backed forces then seized control of the Crimean peninsula, which is officially part of Ukraine.\n\nThe continued presence of the Russian fleet at the port of Sevastopol in Crimea has also been a focus of tension between the countries. In 2008, Ukraine demanded that Moscow not use the fleet that is based there during its conflict with Georgia.", "Facebook no longer displays red warning icons next to fake news stories shared on the platform, as it says the approach has not worked as hoped.\n\nIn December 2016, the site started showing a \"disputed\" warning next to articles that third-party fact checking websites said were fake news.\n\nHowever, it said research suggested the \"red flag\" approach actually \"entrenched deeply held beliefs\".\n\nIt will now display \"related articles\" next to disputed news stories.\n\n\"Academic research on correcting misinformation has shown that putting a strong image, like a red flag, next to an article may actually entrench deeply held beliefs - the opposite effect to what we intended,\" Facebook's Tessa Lyons wrote in a blog post.\n\nInstead of displaying a warning icon in the news feed, it will instead \"surface fact-checked articles\" and display them next to disputed stories.\n\nFacebook said it had tested the approach and found that although the new approach did not reduce the number of times disputed articles were clicked on, it did lead to them being shared fewer times.\n\nPeople who do try and share a disputed article are showed a pop-up with links to fact-checked sources.\n\nFact-checked articles will be given more prominence\n\n\"Using language that is unbiased and non-judgmental helps us to build products that speak to people with diverse perspectives,\" Facebook's designers said.\n\n\"Just as before, as soon as we learn that an article has been disputed by fact-checkers, we immediately send a notification to those people who previously shared it.\"\n\nCritics say social networks should face regulation if they do not tackle the spread of misinformation and propaganda.\n\n\"What Facebook is trying to do is respond to pressure that it should be treated as a publisher, rather than a platform,\" said Tim Luckhurst, professor of journalism at the University of Kent.\n\n\"I think that argument is dead. They are a publisher, so it is not enough to offer people a menu of other related stories.\n\n\"We have a generation of people that are so anti-establishment and sceptical of evidence-based news, we need regulation of the type imposed on broadcasters since they first emerged.\"\n\nProf Luckhurst said he was \"appalled\" by Facebook's argument that it was different from traditional media.\n\n\"They usually raise the objection that they cannot be regulated because they're international. Well so is the BBC, so is CNN.\"\n• None Fake news - is Facebook doing enough?", "Damian Green (right) described Bob Quick's claims as \"disreputable political smears\"\n\nAllies of Damian Green are said to regard his dismissal as the culmination of a nine-year vendetta by police, orchestrated by Bob Quick, the former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner.\n\nMr Quick oversaw a controversial investigation in 2008 into leaks from the Home Office which led to Mr Green's arrest, a raid on his Westminster office and the seizure of his parliamentary computers.\n\nThe Scotland Yard officer faced such heavy criticism over the inquiry that when he made a security blunder in April 2009, inadvertently revealing details of an anti-terror operation, support for him quickly drained away and he resigned.\n\nImplicit in the suggestion of the \"vendetta\" theory is that the first secretary of state's dismissal was somehow \"payback\" by Mr Quick for that career-ending leaks inquiry.\n\nBut the reality is that Mr Green was the architect of his own downfall.\n\nOn November 4, as the Sunday Times presses rolled with the exclusive story, confirmed by Mr Quick, that pornography had been found on Mr Green's work computers, the MP tweeted a statement dismissing the claims in the strongest possible terms.\n\nThe story was \"false\", said Mr Green, who described the allegations as \"disreputable political smears\" from a \"tainted, untrustworthy... and discredited\" officer.\n\nFurthermore, police had \"never suggested to me improper material was found\", he wrote.\n\nMr Green's statement was a calculated, but high-risk, gamble, apparently intended to recast the pornography claims in the light of a police feud and deflect attention on to Mr Quick's motives.\n\nAnd for a while it worked.\n\nIndeed, a week later, when the Met Commissioner at the time, Sir Paul Stephenson, told the BBC that he too had been aware of the pornography find, the cabinet minister repeated his assertion that he had never been told about \"improper material\" on his parliamentary computers, claiming again that the disclosure was being made for \"ulterior motives\".\n\nBut as the Cabinet Office inquiry has now established, Damian Green's statements were \"misleading and inaccurate\".\n\nIn fact, as Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has acknowledged, his former colleague \"lied\".\n\nMr Green knew about the pornography all along: police had told his lawyers in 2008 and then discussed it with him in 2013.\n\nOnly Mr Green can explain why he denied all knowledge of the material.\n\nMr Hunt suggested on the Today programme, on BBC Radio 4, it was something \"he didn't mean to say\", but Mr Green said it twice, which indicates it was rather more than a slip of the tongue.\n\nHis vehement protestations of innocence and counter-accusation against Bob Quick had the effect of ratcheting up the row when it might have served his interests better to dampen it down.\n\nDamian Green leaves his London house a day after standing down\n\nNeil Lewis, the detective who had inspected Mr Green's computers in 2008, was so angered at the minister's remarks that he contacted Mr Quick to offer support and made himself available to the Cabinet Office inquiry.\n\nThe inquiry never contacted Mr Lewis to give evidence, fuelling his concerns that it would not be able to establish the full facts about the pornography and might result in a whitewash.\n\nAs a result, the former police IT specialist later agreed to a broadcast interview.\n\nMr Lewis's decision to speak out, together with Mr Quick's public statements, are now being investigated by the Information Commissioner, who will assess whether they broke data protection laws.\n\nA number of senior politicians and police officers believe the two men breached their duty to keep confidential information gleaned during the course of a police inquiry.\n\nBut it is unclear if the pair, who claim they have acted in the public interest, have done anything illegal. They cannot face internal disciplinary sanctions because they have retired from the police service.\n\nBesides, the focus of this saga remains on Damian Green.\n\nAfter all, it was his conduct that sparked the revelations.\n\nDamian Green in his parliamentary office after his arrest in 2008\n\nAnd given that the Conservative MP now admits knowing about the claims pornography had been found on his work computers there are searching questions about what he did or should have done with that information.\n\nIf, as he alleges, he had not downloaded or viewed the material himself, did he inform the parliamentary authorities that his computers had been improperly accessed or hacked by someone else?\n\nDid Mr Green tell David Cameron that his computers' security may have been compromised when the former prime minister appointed him to the Home Office in 2010?\n\nAnd was Theresa May informed about it when Mr Green was her policing minister between 2012 and 2014, and later when she rejuvenated his political career by bringing him into the cabinet?\n\nThere may be wider issues for the police - particularly where the boundaries lie between maintaining confidentiality and exposing alleged wrongdoing. But that should not detract from the bigger questions facing a cabinet minister who failed to tell the truth.", "Laurence Soper fled to Kosovo in a bid to avoid prosecution for abusing the boys at St Benedict's School in west London\n\nA Catholic priest who abused boys at a London school in the 1970s and 1980s has been jailed for 18 years.\n\nLaurence Soper, 74, fled to Kosovo with £182,000 from the Vatican bank in a bid to avoid prosecution for abusing boys at the independent St Benedict's School, in Ealing, where he taught.\n\nHe was extradited to face 19 charges of indecent and serious sexual assault against 10 former pupils.\n\nHe is the fourth man to be convicted of molesting children at the school.\n\nSentencing, Judge Anthony Bate said Soper's conduct was \"the most appalling breach of trust\" and he had \"subverted the rules of the Benedictine order and teachings of the Catholic Church\".\n\nHe said the former abbot and headmaster's life would now be \"overshadowed by the proven catalogue of vile abuse\".\n\nAn Old Bailey jury took 14 hours to find Soper guilty of all charges on 6 December.\n\nLaurence Soper was a senior priest at the Catholic school\n\nProsecutor Gillian Etherton QC told how the victims were subjected to \"sadistic\" beatings by Soper for \"fake reasons\" and on many occasions \"with what can only have been a sexual motive\".\n\nThe \"reasons\" included kicking a football in the wrong direction, failing to use double margins and using the wrong staircase.\n\nSt Benedict's apologised for the \"serious wrongs of the past\" while Ealing Abbey said: \"We apologise to everyone who is affected by the crimes Soper committed.\n\n\"Our thoughts and prayers are with his victims. We admire them for their courage in coming forward as witnesses.\"\n\nSoper's victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were supported by relatives in court when he was sentenced.\n\nOne victim suffered from nightmares and flashbacks after the abuse, but chose not to come forward out of fear of more beatings, the jury heard during the trial.\n\nAnother victim said he was left faithless and suicidal.\n\nIn a statement read out in court, he said he wanted to be a vet or pilot before his life was ruined.\n\nHe said he began drinking to \"numb the pain of what was happening to him\".\n\nHaving been brought up a strict Catholic, he said he had since lost his faith, adding: \"I have tried countless times to take my own life - I just could not cope.\"\n\nSoper is the latest in a string of men to face allegations relating to their work at St Benedict's.\n\nIn 2010, Abbot Shipperlee announced an independent review of safeguarding arrangements, policies and procedures.\n\nThe following year, Lord Carlile produced a damning report calling for tougher rules to protect all faith pupils and stripped monks of control at the school.\n\nSoper resigned as an abbot at the £5,000-a-term school in 2000 and moved to Rome, during which time victims started to come forward.\n\nHe then skipped bail and spent six years living in Kosovo, with a European Arrest Warrant issued for his extradition.\n\nJudge Bate said: \"You have been a clandestine sex offender since your early 30s. Your disgrace is complete.\"\n\nSoper was attacked while on remand at Wormwood Scrubs prison, the court heard. He is now being held in segregation for his own protection.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Poundland has removed the image of a box of Twinings tea from a controversial social media advert after the company complained on Twitter.\n\nThe campaign displayed a toy elf in a suggestive pose with a plastic doll in front of a box of Twinings Classics tea.\n\nTwinings tweeted that the picture \"misuses our product\".\n\nThe picture has reappeared, but without the box of Classics Selection tea and a caption: \"Spot the difference?\"\n\nPoundland refused to comment on the change, but all the previous offending pictures had disappeared from Twitter by 17:30 GMT on Thursday.\n\nTwinings tweeted about the Poundland campaign: \"We had no involvement in this and... it is obviously not reflective of our brand values.\"\n\nPoundland has been running its \"Naughty Elf\" adverts since the beginning of December.\n\nThey have included tableaux of a toy elf in a hot tub with naked dolls and another of the toy elf playing strip poker.\n\nThe campaign has divided opinion on Twitter, with some praising it as \"brilliant\", others damning it as \"outdated misogyny\".\n\nMany tweets speculated that Poundland's Twitter Feed had been hacked.\n\nHowever, Poundland confirmed the adverts were genuine.\n\nMarketing Director Mark Pym said: \"The love on Facebook has been overwhelming, and that's because it connects with our shoppers.\n\n\"We're proud of a campaign that's only cost £25.53 and is being touted as the winning marketing campaign this Christmas!\"\n\nA spokesperson for the Advertising Standards Authority confirmed they had had eight complaints about the advertising campaign, all on Thursday, claiming that it was offensive and unsuitable to be seen by children.\n\nHe said: \"Because the complaints have only just come in we will assess them and then decide whether there is a problem, and whether the advertisements need to be investigated.\"", "The number of cars built in the UK last month fell by 4.6% compared with a year earlier, driven down by a sharp decline in domestic demand.\n\nNearly 161,500 vehicles were made in UK factories in November, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).\n\nBut output for the domestic market fell by 28.1%, as a result of \"Brexit uncertainty\" and \"confusion over diesel taxation\", the SMMT said.\n\nThe SMMT figures showed that of the 161,490 cars produced last month, 24,276 were for the UK market, while 137,214 were shipped overseas.\n\nExports reached their highest proportion of output so far this year at 85%.\n\nHowever, the SMMT said production for the home market \"continued to falter\" and fell for the fourth month in a row.\n\nEarlier this month, SMMT car registration figures showed that the number of cars sold in the UK fell for the eighth consecutive month in November, declining by 11.2%.\n\nSMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said: \"Brexit uncertainty, coupled with confusion over diesel taxation and air quality plans, continues to impact domestic demand for new cars and, with it, production output.\"\n\nHe added that it was good to see exports grow last month, but \"this only reinforces how overseas demand remains the driving force for UK car manufacturing.\n\n\"Clarity on the nature of our future overseas trading relationships, including details on transition arrangements with the EU, is vital for future growth and success.\"\n\nThe number of cars made so far this year is down 2% compared with the same period last year at 1.57 million.\n\nProduction for the home market has fallen by 9%, while production of vehicles for export is flat.", "GCHQ can detect the work of hackers around the globe\n\nThe UK has substantially increased its hacking capabilities in recent years, an official report says.\n\nThis includes the ability to attack other country's communications, weapons systems and even infrastructure.\n\nThe details were revealed in the annual report of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which oversees the work of intelligence agencies.\n\nIt said GCHQ had \"over-achieved\", creating double the number of new offensive cyber-capabilities expected.\n\nThe report said GCHQ's allocation of effort to develop hacks had increased \"very substantially\" from 2014.\n\nThe programme of developing the capabilities is divided into three tranches and GCHQ said that it had just finished the first. \"We… actually over-achieved and delivered [almost double the number of] capabilities [we were aiming for,\" an official from the agency told the committee.\n\nThe details of the successes are classified in the public version of the report.\n\nSuch capabilities could, in theory, be used to retaliate against others' cyber-attacks. The report comes a day after the Foreign Office publicly blamed North Korea for the Wannacry attack, which hit the NHS in May 2017.\n\nNot all the projects at GCHQ have been as successful. One - codenamed Foxtrot - was designed to deal with the spread of encryption.\n\nIt is described as an \"equipment interference programme to increase GCHQ's ability to operate in an environment of ubiquitous encryption\" and is considered critical to the agency's work.\n\nHowever, it was reported to have suffered a number of delays.\n\n\"The task has become more complex, the skills shortage has become more apparent,\" GCHQ told the committee.\n\n\"It is our number one priority and our number one worry.\"\n\nAnother priority was Project Golf - an effort to enhance its supercomputing capacity. GCHQ said this project was also critical but on track to be operational early next year.\n\nFor years the intelligence community, like much of government, has struggled with IT projects designed to facilitate the sharing of information.\n\nMI5's Alfa programme, described as crucial to the core business of managing information, is said by the committee to have faced major problems. It added that \"significant risks\" remained to its successful delivery.", "Last updated on .From the section Commonwealth Games\n\nBirmingham has been named host city for the 2022 Commonwealth Games - the most expensive sports event to be held in Britain since the London Olympics.\n\nThe city's bid was the only one submitted to the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) by the deadline of 30 September, after it was chosen ahead of Liverpool as Britain's candidate.\n\nThe CGF initially deemed the city's bid was \"not fully compliant\".\n\nHowever, it has now been confirmed as the host of the £750m event.\n\nWest Midlands mayor Andy Street described the announcement as a \"fantastic Christmas present for our region\".\n\nThe bidding process has been beset with problems, with the South African city of Durban awarded the Games in 2015 before being stripped of the event because it did not meet the CGF criteria.\n\nAfter Birmingham's bid was initially deemed to not meet the necessary criteria, previously interested cities such as Victoria in Canada and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia were given another two months to apply, but none came forward.\n\nBirmingham's organisers will now move forward with plans to build the UK's largest permanent athletics stadium, supplemented by four indoor arenas.\n\nThe decision will also enable the council to pursue the purchase of land for the athletes' village in Perry Barr, one of the city's northern suburbs.\n\nThis will be the third time the Commonwealth Games has been held in Britain since the turn of the century, after Manchester and Glasgow staged the event in 2002 and 2014 respectively.\n\nThe Games are expected to take place between 27 July and 7 August 2022.\n\nLouise Martin, president of the CGF, said Canada, Malaysia and Australia have all expressed interest in hosting the Games in 2026 or 2030.\n\nMaking the announcement at a school in Birmingham, Martin told pupils the Games would \"celebrate diversity, create opportunities and drive business links\".\n\n\"With its rich history, cultural diversity, youthful dynamism and ambitious spirit, Birmingham embodies all that we cherish about the Commonwealth,\" she said.\n\n\"We want this to be a brand new chapter in Birmingham's history, and we want you to be part of that.\"\n\nCulture secretary Karen Bradley said Birmingham will put on a \"brilliant Games that will showcase the best of Britain to the world and make the entire country proud\".\n\nA central aspect of the bid was a proposal to increase the capacity of Alexander Stadium.\n\nThe venue, which is already used to host Diamond League athletics events, will expand from 12,000 to 50,000 for the Games, with a permanent capacity of 25,000.\n\nIn addition, a new aquatics centre will be built at Sandwell for swimming, Para-swimming and diving events.\n\nIt is thought the government will pay 75% of the cost of hosting the Games, with the other 25% - about £180m - raised locally.\n\nBirmingham City Council leader Ian Ward has said the bid will not affect the council's provision of public services. A 'hotel tax' is one idea reportedly under consideration.\n\nIan Metcalfe, head of Commonwealth Games England, told BBC Sport the Games will be funded by private backers as well as local and national public funds.\n\n\"It's an extraordinary opportunity for the city and region to showcase itself to the world at a time when we will be leaving Europe and the relationship with our Commonwealth neighbours will be even more important,\" he said.\n\nCouncillor John Hunt, the leader of the Liberal Democrats at Birmingham City Council said: \"I and my colleagues talked intensively to local residents over about the Games. We found opinion equally divided. Some were enthusiastic, some were hostile because of the costs and the disruption and many wanted to ensure the Games leave the area with better facilities and better services.\"", "Cyril Ramaphosa is one of South Africa's wealthiest politicians\n\nThe new leader of South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC), Cyril Ramaphosa, has pledged to fight corruption and pursue a policy of \"radical economic transformation\".\n\nClosing the party's conference, he said tackling unemployment and poverty should also be key party policies.\n\nMr Ramaphosa was elected on Monday to succeed President Jacob Zuma as party leader.\n\nHe is in a strong position to become president at elections in 2019.\n\n\"This conference has resolved that corruption must be fought with the same intensity and purpose that we fight poverty, unemployment and inequality,\" he told delegates at the end of the five-day conference.\n\n\"We must also act fearlessly against alleged corruption and abuse of office within our ranks.\"\n\nHe said that the party had approved the seizure of land without compensation, but he cautioned against undermining the economy and food production.\n\nIt was a long wait for Cyril Ramaphosa's speech, which had been scheduled for Wednesday morning. When he finally made it at around midnight, he congratulated his party on having emerged from conference \"united\".\n\nBut there are many who point to issues like the alleged disappearance of 68 votes, cast for the powerful position of secretary general, and argue that splits in the party could well deepen.\n\nMr Ramaphosa's choice of words on the land issue was interesting. They reflect the careful tightrope the ANC is trying to walk: Addressing the concerns of the majority black population, whilst trying to assuage the business community and allay comparisons to its neighbour Zimbabwe.\n\nThere was also the expected condemnation of corruption in government and so-called state capture. What was not expected was his swipe at corporate corruption, and thinly veiled reference to the recent Steinhoff scandal.\n\nAgain this is indicative of the delicate balance Mr Ramaphosa is trying to achieve. He wants to let investors know he is serious about correcting the issues of the recent past, and convince black voters that he will equally address the mistakes of white-owned businesses.\n\nThe ANC has been under pressure to redress disparities which mean white farmers still own much of the best land in South Africa, more than two decades after the end of apartheid.\n\n\"This conference has resolved that the expropriation of land without compensation should be among the mechanisms available to government to give effect to land reform and redistribution,\" he said.\n\n\"It has also been resolved that we ensure we do not undermine the agricultural production or the economy - that is what is important.\"\n\nMr Ramaphosa praised his defeated rival for the ANC leadership, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What advice should South Africa's ruling party take on board?\n\nThe leadership battle caused fierce political infighting, raising fears that the party might split before the 2019 election.\n\nPresident Zuma has been embroiled in a series of corruption scandals - he denies any wrongdoing - and support for the ANC has declined in recent elections. However, it still gained more than 50% of the national vote in local polls last year.\n\nAnalysts say Mr Ramaphosa may move to sack Mr Zuma in the coming weeks, however this would need the backing of the party leadership.\n\nIn a separate development, the ANC conference passed a resolution to direct the government to downgrade the South African embassy in Israel to a liaison office.\n\nIt described the move as a \"practical expression of support to the oppressed people of Palestine\".\n\nEarlier this month, US President Donald Trump caused widespread controversy when he announced the US would recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocate its embassy there from Tel Aviv.", "The report warns that regional gaps in good schools have grown wider in recent years\n\nThere is a widening geographical divide in access to high-performing schools in England, says a report from the Education Policy Institute.\n\nBetween 2010 and 2015, London took an increasing share of the secondary schools where pupils were most likely to make good progress.\n\nBut the report says areas in the North and North East were being left behind.\n\nA Department for Education spokeswoman said social mobility plans would help chances to be spread more evenly.\n\nThe report picks up on concerns about social mobility now being increasingly affected by where families live - with disadvantaged youngsters in London having a much better chance of going to good schools than similarly deprived pupils in other parts of the country.\n\nDavid Laws, the think tank's chairman and a former education minister, said the widening inequality was \"shocking\".\n\nIn this study, \"high-performing\" schools are not those with the best exam results or rated as outstanding or good but those that are in the top third for how much progress pupils have made since starting secondary school.\n\nThe report says that a number of London boroughs are stretching further ahead in the density of such schools.\n\nHarrow, Hillingdon, Brent, Ealing and Camden are among those with the greatest increases in such schools with a high level of value added.\n\nAmong the 20 top authorities by this measure, 16 are in London.\n\nThe authorities with a decreasing number of such high-performing schools are clustered in the North and Midlands, including Blackburn, Derby, Wirral, Warrington and Dudley.\n\nYoung people in Blackpool and Hartlepool are named as having the least access to local secondary schools where pupil progress is in the top third by national standards.\n\nThe analysis shows how levels of deprivation are not necessarily linked to the availability of high-performing schools.\n\nHaringey has 29% of pupils eligible for free school meals, but has among the country's highest densities of successful schools, in terms of value added.\n\nThis measure of disadvantage is higher than any of the bottom 10 authorities with the least availability of good value-added schools.\n\n\"It is shocking to see that over recent years the access to high-quality secondary school places in England has become even more unequal,\" said Mr Laws.\n\n\"In one-fifth of local areas, children cannot access quality secondary school places. government rhetoric about spreading opportunity is not being matched by experience in areas such as the North, North East and parts of the Midlands.\"\n\nGeoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, said: \"The answer of course is pretty simple.\"\n\nHe said schools needed better funding, to be able to recruit high-quality teachers and to have a longer-term approach to keeping the best teachers and head teachers.\n\nA Department for Education spokeswoman said that a new plan to promote social mobility was designed \"to make sure opportunities are spread evenly across the country\".\n\n\"That's why we are targeting the areas that need the most support through the £72m opportunity areas programme, and by investing £280m over the next two years to target resources at the schools most in need to improve their performance and deliver more good school places.\"", "And we'll keep you signed in.", "After seeing a news article about some girls in Leeds who missed school because they couldn't afford menstrual products, one teenager took it upon herself to change things.\n\n\"I'm still at school and to imagine what it would be like to miss a week of school every month is what really got to me,\" says 18-year-old Amika George.\n\n\"So I started a petition and called it #FreePeriods.\n\n\"The idea is that everyone on free school meals would get free menstrual products.\n\nAmika George is calling for free menstrual products for those on free school meals\n\n\"I think some people will say they are really cheap, but it's easy to forget that you need to meet those costs every single month for several years in your life.\n\n\"So in the long run it adds up.\"\n\nAmika organised a protest opposite Downing Street where celeb speakers - including Adwoa Aboah, Aisling Bea and Daisy Lowe - called on Theresa May to provide free menstruation products for those already on free school meals.\n\nShe says the government has been \"dismissive of period poverty\" because it says schools have discretion over how they use the money in their budget.\n\n\"We all know schools are incredibly stretched for money and budgets are being cut,\" says Amika.\n\n\"But also there's still a lot of taboo around periods.\n\n\"It's something that doesn't make any sense to me as to why a completely natural process that half the world's population goes through is unspeakable and scary and disgusting.\n\n\"And that is something that really needs to change.\"\n\nIf given the chance to talk to the prime minister, Amika would say: \"There are girls missing school for up to a week every month and that's damaging the economy because it means those girls are less likely to get amazing jobs.\n\n\"There are people who are suffering from extreme poverty in the UK and it's awful she's not done enough to combat that.\n\n\"I'd say my solution of providing free menstrual products to all girls on free meals would work.\"\n\nThe government says it's invested more than £11bn since 2011 to help schools support their most disadvantaged pupils.\n\nIn a statement, it told Newsbeat: \"Current guidance to schools on relationship and sex education encourages schools to make adequate and sensitive arrangements to help girls cope with menstruation.\"\n\nFind us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat", "Damian Green, one of Theresa May's closest allies, has been sacked from the cabinet after an inquiry found he had breached the ministerial code.\n\nHe was \"asked to quit\" after he was found to have made \"inaccurate and misleading\" statements over what he knew about claims pornography was found on his office computer in 2008.\n\nHe also apologised for making writer Kate Maltby feel uncomfortable in 2015.\n\nLaura Kuenssberg said the PM \"had little choice but to ask him to go\".\n\nThe BBC's political editor said the departure of a close friend left Mrs May a \"lonelier figure\".\n\nMr Green, 61, who as first secretary of state was effectively the PM's deputy, is the third cabinet minister to resign in the space of two months - Sir Michael Fallon and Priti Patel both quit in November.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May \"will miss his advice, will miss his support\" - Laura Kuenssberg on Damian Green sacking\n\nIn her written response, Mrs May expressed \"deep regret\" at Mr Green's departure but said his actions \"fell short\" of the conduct expected of a cabinet minister.\n\nLike Mrs May, Mr Green campaigned for Remain in last year's EU referendum and had been a leading voice in Cabinet for a \"softer\" Brexit.\n\nHe had been under investigation regarding allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards journalist and Tory activist Ms Maltby. He denied suggestions that he made unwanted advances towards her in 2015.\n\nHe also denied that he had either downloaded or viewed pornography on a computer removed from his Commons office in 2008 and said police had \"never suggested to me that improper material was found\".\n\nIn his resignation letter, Mr Green said statements he made about what he knew about the pornography could have been \"clearer\", conceding that his lawyers had been informed by Met Police lawyers about their initial discovery in 2008 and the police had also raised the matter with him in a phone call in 2013.\n\n\"I apologise that my statements were misleading on this point,\" he said.\n\nHealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt told BBC Radio 4's Today programme Mr Green had \"lied\" about \"a particular incident\" and that was why he had to go but it was a \"sad moment\".\n\nAsked if his departure left Theresa May more isolated, he said \"leadership is lonely\" but she had shown \"extraordinary resilience in very challenging circumstances\" and was someone \"who is capable of taking very difficult decisions\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"I was shocked\": Former detective constable Neil Lewis speaks to the BBC\n\nAn official report by the Cabinet Office found that public statements he made relating to what he knew about the claims were \"inaccurate and misleading\" and constituted a breach of the ministerial code.\n\nThe report also found that although there were \"competing and contradictory accounts of what were private meetings\" between himself and Ms Maltby, the investigation found her account \"to be plausible\".\n\nHer parents, Colin and Victoria Maltby, said in a statement they were not surprised to find that the inquiry found Mr Green to have been \"untruthful as a minister, nor that they found our daughter to be a plausible witness\".\n\nThey praised their 31-year-old daughter for her courage in speaking out about the \"abuse of authority\".\n\nMs Maltby is not commenting on Mr Green's resignation until she receives more details from the Cabinet Office.\n\nDamian Green was a confidant of the prime minister for many years\n\nDamian Green has never been a politician with a huge public persona, or even a hugely well-known character.\n\nBut he was an extremely important ally of Theresa May. Not just a political friend but a genuine one, close to her for decades.\n\nThe government, so the joke in Westminster goes, has become \"weak and stable\", with number 10 taking back some control of the agenda in recent weeks.\n\nSo it is not likely that Mr Green's exit will suddenly unleash another bout of turmoil.\n\nBut the prime minister clearly took this decision very seriously.\n\nShe is a politician who guards her views, her own persona very closely. To lose one of the few who understood her, who she trusts, leaves her a lonelier figure.\n\nIn her reply, the PM said while the report had found his conduct to have been \"professional and proper\" in general, it was right that he had apologised for making Ms Maltby \"feel uncomfortable\".\n\nAddressing breaches of the ministerial code, she added: \"While I can understand the considerable distress caused to you by some of the allegations made in the past few weeks, I know that you share my commitment to maintaining the high standards that the public demands of ministers of the crown.\n\n\"It is therefore with deep regret that I asked you to resign from the government and have accepted your resignation.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Helen Catt This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Helen Catt This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Green's political future has been in question since Ms Maltby claimed in an article in the Times that the minister \"fleetingly\" touched her knee in a pub in 2015 and in 2016 sent her a \"suggestive\" text message which left her feeling \"awkward, embarrassed and professionally compromised\".\n\nMr Green, an acquaintance of the journalist's parents, said the claims were \"hurtful\" and \"completely false\".\n\nKate Maltby's account was found to be plausible, the report says\n\nBut they were referred for investigation by top civil servant Sue Gray - who is examining other claims that emerged during a swirl of allegations about harassment and other misconduct at Westminster.\n\nThe inquiry was subsequently expanded to consider claims that legal pornography was found on a computer removed from Mr Green's office in the House of Commons in 2008.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIt was one of a number of possessions seized by the police during a controversial inquiry into the leaking of official documents by a civil servant to Mr Green, at the time a shadow Home Office minister under David Cameron.\n\nMrs May, who has known Mr Green since they were contemporaries at Oxford, brought him into the cabinet after she became PM in 2016 and promoted him to first secretary of state in July.\n\nSince then, he has played a substantial role behind the scenes chairing key cabinet committees and has also deputised for Mrs May at Prime Minister's Questions.\n\nIt is not clear who will replace him in those roles but unconfirmed reports have suggested there will be no announcement until the New Year, with Parliament due to go on recess on Thursday.\n• None Theresa May loses one of the few who understood her", "Hospitals across England have been told to cancel non-emergency operations in the new year to prepare for a post-Christmas surge in patients.\n\nThe first weeks of January are often the busiest of the year with winter illnesses peaking, combined with the growing day-to-day demand in A&E.\n\nSo an emergency panel of NHS bosses is urging hospitals to cut back on their routine work, such as knee and hip ops.\n\nThey hope it will give hospitals some breathing space to cope.\n\nPublicly, no figure is being put on the number of operations that should be put off, although the BBC understands hospitals are working on the basis of doing 10% fewer.\n\nThat would mean in the region of 15,000 operations not taking place in the first two weeks of January.\n\nThe panel has suggested hospitals use the staff freed up by the move to set up \"hot clinics\" staffed by experts in conditions such as respiratory illness to take the pressure off A&E.\n\nThe directive is the first to be issued by the NHS National Emergency Pressures Panel, a new group of senior doctors, nurses and managers set up to advise NHS England.\n\nCan't find your health trust? Browse the full list Rather search by typing? Back to search\n\nIf you can't see the NHS Tracker, click or tap here.\n\nPanel chair Prof Sir Bruce Keogh said it would be sensible for hospitals to curtail the amount of planned work they are doing until at least mid January.\n\n\"NHS staff are working flat out to cope with seasonal pressures and ensure patients receive the best possible care.\n\n\"However, given the scale of the challenge, hospitals should be planning for a surge that comes in the new year by freeing up beds and staff where they can to care for our sickest patients.\"\n\nHe said this would reduce the need for last-minute cancellations which were unfair on patients.\n\nIt comes as figures released on Thursday showed pressures had already started building.\n\nThe weekly bulletin from NHS England showed over 1,000 beds were closed because of the vomiting bug Norovirus - nearly 10% of the hospital bed-stock - while ambulances were increasingly likely to find themselves delayed when they dropped off patients at A&E.\n\nPauline Philip, the NHS national director for emergency care, said it was a sensible move.\n\nShe also urged hospitals to make the most of the extra £350m winter funding provided by the government, which was released into the system last week.\n\nAnd she added: \"There is still time for the public to play their part by ensuring they have their flu jab and by using local pharmacies and NHS 111.\"\n\nProf Derek Alderson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, welcomed the move as it provided clarity over what should be done as pressures grow.\n\nBut he said it was still pretty \"short notice\" for those patients who face having their operations cancelled.\n\nAnd he urged hospitals to prioritise cancer treatment and other planned operations that, if cancelled, would harm patients.", "The DMZ is one of the world's most heavily guarded strips of land\n\nSouth Korea's military has fired warning shots at North Korean guards searching for a soldier who defected.\n\nThe North Korean soldier had walked across the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) shortly after 08:00 (23:00 GMT Wednesday).\n\nHe had emerged from thick fog at a checkpoint, said the South's military.\n\nHe is the fourth North Korean soldier to defect this year. The incident comes weeks after one of the most dramatic defections in recent times.\n\nIn that incident, on 13 November, a soldier was shot as he fled across to the southern side of the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the village of Panmunjom.\n\nThursday's incident took place at a checkpoint in the mid-western frontline, said Roh Jae-cheon, spokesman for South Korea's joint chiefs of staff.\n\nHeavy fog had descended on the area, limiting visibility to about 100m (110 yards), he told reporters. But as the North Korean soldier approached the post, his movements were picked up on surveillance equipment.\n\nMr Roh added that the defector was taken into custody and was \"safely secured\". Authorities are now investigating what drove him to make the crossing.\n\nThe soldier, thought to be 19 years old, was carrying an AK-47 rifle, reported The Korea Herald citing the military. No gunfire was exchanged at the time.\n\nBut shortly after his crossing, a group of border guards from the North approached the border, appearing to search for their comrade, according to South Korea's defence ministry. South Korean soldiers fired about 20 warning shots.\n\nOfficials said the sound of gunshots coming from the North was heard about 40 minutes later, although no bullets were found to have crossed the border.\n\nHeavy fog had descended on the checkpoint, said South Korea's military\n\nVery few North Korean defectors risk crossing to the South via the DMZ.\n\nOne of the world's most heavily guarded strips of land, the DMZ is a thin buffer zone between the two Koreas and is fortified on both sides with barbed wire, surveillance cameras, electric fencing and landmines.\n\nLast month's defection saw a soldier drive a jeep right up to the border, in a dramatic escape captured on surveillance cameras.\n\nHe ran across to the South in a hail of bullets from North Korean guards.\n\nShot five times, the soldier collapsed in a pile of leaves on the South's side, and was later rescued by South Korean soldiers.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A rare instance of a defector fleeing through the demilitarised zone was captured on CCTV in 2017\n\nHis recovery was closely tracked by South Korean media. He was released from intensive care and is reported to have written a thank you note to the doctors who treated him.\n\nTwo other North Korean soldiers defected, also via the DMZ, in June this year in separate incidents. Only one soldier defected last year.\n\nThe total number of North Koreans who directly defected to the South has also risen to 15 this year, compared to five last year, according to official figures reported by Yonhap news agency.\n\nHundreds more defect through China, before making their way to the South.\n\nIn a separate announcement on Thursday, South Korea's unification ministry said two defecting North Koreans had been found on a fishing boat in the South's waters.", "Michael Gove has hit back at claims the price of cheddar cheese will go up by 40% if Britain leaves the EU without a trade deal.\n\nThe environment secretary said that would not happen if consumers started buying more British cheddar.\n\n\"I am deeply concerned about your unpatriotic attitude towards cheese,\" he joked to the Labour MP quizzing him.\n\nHe said his department was \"very pro UK cheddar\" - and Britain's dairy farmers would respond to what the market wants.\n\nHis attempts to show off his knowledge of cheddar, by naming varieties such as \"Montgomery or Lincolnshire Poacher\", were cut short by environment committee chairman Neil Parish.\n\nBritain currently imports \"lots of cheddar\" from Ireland, the Commons environment committee was told, but if it leaves the EU without a trade deal and goes to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules it will face tariffs on that product of 40%.\n\nThat meant prices in British shops would go up by 40%, Labour's Angela Smith claimed.\n\nMr Gove said it would be important to have these WTO tariffs if Britain left without a deal to prevent British farmers being undercut by cheap food imports - but he insisted the price of cheddar would not rise by 40%.\n\nMr Gove has criticised standards in US chicken farms\n\nAgriculture minister George Eustice told the environment committee: \"What would probably happen, if everybody put up such a tariff wall, is that we would consume more of the cheese we produce, rather than send it to Ireland, and Ireland would be selling us less cheese.\"\n\nThe UK currently exports £320m of cheddar to Ireland every year and imports £389m of cheddar, he told the committee (Ireland accounts for about 80% of all cheddar imports, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board).\n\nMr Gove suggested going to WTO rules was as likely as \"a tsunami hitting the South West of England\" and the government did not want to do it - but he told the MPs that his department was planning for such an eventuality.\n\nHe said that if it happened it would lead to higher food prices in the shops, but also more export opportunities for farmers. Mr Eustice quoted research by the Resolution Foundation that under WTO rules retail prices might rise by 4.3%.\n\nMr Gove also suggested he could block a post-Brexit trade deal with the US if it included allowing the import of chlorine-washed chickens.\n\nHe said it was a matter of animal welfare rather than food safety - saying American chicken farmers were \"less respectful of the birds\" - and Britain would need to be \"assertive\" in trade talks.\n\nHe claimed his department \"punches above its weight\" and has \"extra muscle\" in Whitehall so it would be able to insist on keeping its chicken and other food standards.\n\n\"The Cabinet is agreed that there should be no compromise on high animal welfare and environmental standards,\" he said.\n\nIn response to Mr Gove's comments the pro-Remain Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, of the Open Britain group, said Mr Gove's comments meant \"a trade deal with Trump's America won't be happening anytime soon\".", "A cheesemaker that was named as the most likely source of an E.coli outbreak last year has recalled one of its products over listeria fears.\n\nSouth Lanarkshire-based Errington Cheese is recalling a batch of Dunsyre Blue after listeria monocytogenes was found by a wholesaler.\n\nHealth experts said it was the likely source of an outbreak of 26 cases of E. coli O157 last year.\n\nOne of the cases was a three-year-old girl, who later died.\n\nThe Crown Office later said there was no evidence available to link the cheese with the child's death in September 2016\n\nFood Standards Scotland has now said Errington Cheese Ltd has \"voluntarily\" recalled a batch of Dunsyre Blue after listeria was detected.\n\nThe batch number involved is J9, it said.\n\nThe food standards body advised people who had bought the product not to eat it.\n\nThey said customers should return it to where it was bought for a full refund.\n\nSymptoms caused by Listeria monocytogenes can be similar to flu and includes high temperature, muscle ache or pains, chills, feeling or being sick and diarrhoea.\n\nIn rare cases, the infection can be more severe, causing serious complications, such as meningitis.\n\nOlder people, pregnant women and babies are at most risk.", "Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has called the sacking of Damian Green a \"very sad moment\".\n\nMr Green, one of Theresa May's closest allies was fired for breaching the ministerial code after he was found to have made \"inaccurate and misleading\" statements over what he knew about claims pornography was found on his office computer in 2008.\n\nJeremy Hunt told the Today programme it was clear Mr Green had been sacked because he had breached the ministerial code.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nK-pop's biggest stars have led the procession for the funeral of singer Jonghyun who took his own life this week aged 27.\n\nJonghyun, whose real name was Kim Jong-hyun, was the lead singer of one of the biggest K-pop groups, SHINee.\n\nHis bandmates and others from the pop group Super Junior carried his coffin, dressed in all black.\n\nHis death has sparked waves of grief among fans with thousands visiting the hospital where his body was held.\n\nA note believed to have been sent by him to a friend spoke of his struggles with depression and fame.\n\nIt said he was \"broken from the inside\" and that \"the life of fame was never meant for me\".\n\n\"What else can I say more. Just tell me I've done well. That this is enough. That I've worked hard. Even if you can't smile don't fault me on my way.\"\n\nThe procession on Thursday left the Asan Medican Centre in Seoul with one of Jonghyun's band mates and his sister at the front.\n\nThe pallbearers carried the coffin to the hearse which was then driven to the private funeral. Only family members and friends attended.\n\nBut hundreds gathered at the hospital for a final farewell.\n\nJonghyun's sister carried a picture of him and walked ahead of the casket\n\nJonghyun was found unconscious in a Seoul apartment late on Monday. He was taken to hospital where he was declared dead.\n\nInvestigators said no post-mortem examination would be performed on his body and later ruled it a suicide.\n\nEarlier this week, SHINee posted an emotional tribute on their official Twitter account, saying in Korean: \"Jonghyun, who loved music more than anyone.... Forever, he will be remembered.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by SHINee This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nConceived in South Korea in the 1990s as a Western-Asian hybrid, K-pop is now a multi-million dollar industry.\n\nIt is at the forefront of the so-called Korean Wave - the spread of Korean music, drama and film across Asia and worldwide.\n\nSHINee were founded in 2008 as a five member group under SM Entertainment, and quickly rose to become of the biggest K-pop boy groups.\n\nOver the past years, SHINee recorded several albums in Japanese and in 2017 sold out the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome and part of their Japan tour. Earlier this year, they also played their first North American tour.\n\nDepression is more than just feeling a bit down for a few days. It is an illness which, at its most severe, can leave people feeling that life is no longer worth living. It can cause physical symptoms such as headaches, sleeplessness and constant tiredness which may last for months and months.\n\nPeople with depression can also feel anxious, irritable and agitated on a daily basis but it affects everyone differently and only in rare cases is it a reason for violence against others.\n\nIf people admit their symptoms and talk to someone about their feelings, depression can usually be treated but the biggest barrier to getting help is often stigma and the fear of disclosing mental health problems.\n\nIf you are feeling emotionally distressed, here are details of organisations in the UK which offer advice and support.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nKate Maltby, who claims Damian Green made inappropriate advances to her, says she told a senior Downing Street aide about his behaviour in 2016.\n\nThe MP, who denies the claims, was sacked from the cabinet on Wednesday.\n\nThis came after an inquiry found he had broken the ministerial code over \"misleading\" statements after pornography was found on his computer.\n\nPrime Minister Theresa May said she was not aware of the claims about Mr Green until last month.\n\nSpeaking on a visit to Cyprus, she said she had first read about them in an article by Ms Maltby in the Times newspaper.\n\nShe said: \"I recognise that Kate Maltby was obviously extremely distressed by what happened. Damian Green has recognised that and he has apologised. I think that is absolutely the right thing to do.\"\n\nShe has said it is important that people working in Parliament feel they can bring forward any concerns they have to be \"treated seriously\".\n\nThe Cabinet Office investigation into Mr Green was prompted by her allegations that Mr Green had \"fleetingly\" touched her knee in a pub in 2015, and in 2016 sent her a \"suggestive\" text message.\n\nThe inquiry was later widened to include the claims about legal pornography being discovered on his computer after a police raid on his Commons office in 2008.\n\nSpeaking after the inquiry, which concluded that her evidence was \"plausible\", Ms Maltby told the BBC she had not told many people about the alleged incident at the time - except her parents - as she \"wondered if it was a one-off\".\n\n\"Eventually I spoke to a very senior and long-serving aide of Theresa May,\" she added.\n\nWhen giving evidence to the inquiry, she told its head, Sue Gray, that Downing Street was aware of her allegations \"to the best of my knowledge\".\n\n\"I was aware that he was the deputy prime minister and I was aware that No 10 knew about it.\"\n\nMs Maltby said she had never called for Mr Green's sacking, but wrote her article because she wanted to change the culture of Downing Street.\n\n\"This whole story has been about power,\" she said. \"Damian Green became a very, very powerful person.\n\n\"I was aware that there seemed to be improper mixing of mentorship and sexual advance within the Conservative party in his case.\"\n\nMr Green was sacked after making \"misleading\" statement about pornography found on his computer\n\nMs Maltby added: \"My actions in this have never been guided by the quest to claim scalps, to force resignations to end people's careers.\n\n\"We need an end to the era in which the sexual exploitation of younger people is the sort of peccadillo of a politician.\n\n\"That is tolerated by those in power and perhaps exploited to enforce party discipline but not to actually do any good.\"\n\nA Downing Street source told the BBC: \"The Cabinet Office conducted a thorough investigation into a number of allegations about Damian Green.\n\n\"The PM has made it clear that everyone should be able to work in politics without fear or harassment - that is why she has brought forward a new code of conduct for the Conservative Party, and set up a cross-party working group to make recommendations about the Houses of Parliament.\"\n\nSpeaking on Thursday, Mrs May reiterated her personal \"sadness\" at sacking her close ally Mr Green but said it was \"absolutely right\" that he had apologised to Ms Maltby.\n\nAlthough Mr Green was sacked over his statements about the pornography on his computer, he used his resignation letter to also apologise to Ms Maltby, who was a family friend.\n\n\"I deeply regret the distress caused to Kate Maltby following her article about me and the reaction to it,\" he wrote.\n\n\"I do not recognise the events she described in her article, but I clearly made her feel uncomfortable and for this I apologise.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"I was shocked\": Former detective constable Neil Lewis speaks to the BBC\n\nMeanwhile, former senior police officer Bob Quick and retired detective Neil Lewis, who told the BBC he had been \"shocked\" by the contents of Mr Green's office computer, are being investigated for possible breaches of the Data Protection Act.\n\nThe Metropolitan Police, who referred the case to the data regulator, said the pair were under investigation over the \"apparent disclosure to the media of confidential material gathered during a police investigation in 2008\".\n\nConservative MPs are angry about the alleged actions of the two retired detectives, with Jeremy Hunt claiming they \"did not sit comfortably in a democracy\" - something, he added, Theresa May \"had made clear\" in her letter to Mr Green.\n\nBoris Johnson said the actions of the police \"had the slight feeling of a vendetta\", and needed to be investigated further.", "Some of the accusations date back to 2010 - before Mark Garnier was a minister\n\nMP Mark Garnier has been cleared of breaking the ministerial code after a Cabinet Office investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.\n\nInternational trade minister Mark Garnier was also said to have used derogatory language to his secretary and asked her to buy sex toys in 2010.\n\nThe investigation concluded there was \"no evidence\" to suggest he had broken the rules.\n\nTheresa May said \"a line should be drawn under the issue\".\n\nThe Conservative MP said he did not intend to comment on the outcome of the inquiry.\n\nThe allegations regarding his secretary, Caroline Edmondson, from before he was appointed a minister in 2016, came to light in October.\n\nMs Edmondson, who now works for another MP, told The Mail on Sunday he had given her money to buy two vibrators at a Soho sex shop and called her \"sugar tits.\"\n\nMr Garnier told the paper: \"I'm not going to deny it, because I'm not going to be dishonest. I'm going to have to take it on the chin.\"\n\nThe Cabinet Office investigation said there was \"no dispute about the facts of the incident\", but there was \"a significant difference of interpretation between the parties\", leaving a member of staff \"distressed\".\n\nA No 10 spokesman said: \"It was not his intention to cause distress, and Mr Garnier has apologised unreservedly to the individual.\n\n\"On that basis, the prime minister considers that a line should be drawn under the issue.\"\n\nThe announcement comes a day after Mrs May sacked her First Secretary of State, Damian Green, for breaching the ministerial code.\n\nHe was asked by the PM to quit after making \"inaccurate and misleading\" statements over what he knew about claims pornography was found on his office computer in 2008.\n\nMr Green also apologised for making writer Kate Maltby feel uncomfortable in 2015.\n\nIt made him the third cabinet minister to leave the table in recent weeks, following the resignations of Sir Michael Fallon and Priti Patel.", "Jim Stoupas describes what happened after a car drove into a crowd in Melbourne.\n\nAustralian police have arrested two people. Emergency services quickly arrived on the scene.", "Damian Green, one of Theresa May's closest allies, has been sacked from the cabinet after an inquiry found he had breached the ministerial code.\n\nHe was \"asked to quit\" after he was found to have made \"inaccurate and misleading\" statements about what he knew about claims pornography was found on a computer in his office in 2008.\n\nHe apologised for this and for making writer Kate Maltby feel uncomfortable.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA ferry carrying 251 people has capsized in stormy seas off the east coast of the Philippines.\n\nLocal fisherman and rescue boats saved more than 200 of those on board - but at least four people died and seven are missing, the coastguard says.\n\nPassengers say large waves and strong winds meant the vessel started taking in water near the island of Polillo - and quickly sank.\n\nRescuers said they were hampered by heavy rain and big waves.\n\nThe ferry was carrying 251 people when the accident occurred\n\nCoastguard spokesman Armand Balilo said the ferry had capacity for 280 people and had not been overloaded.\n\n\"We believe the weather was a big factor [in the accident],\" he added.\n\nBoat accidents are relatively common in the Philippines, which frequently experiences storms.\n\nTropical Storm Tembin is forecast to hit land early on Friday and people travelling home for Christmas had been warned to do so earlier than usual.", "Toys R Us has staved off collapse after creditors backed a rescue plan for the UK retailer.\n\nIt follows last-minute negotiations with the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) to secure a £9.8m injection into the company's pension fund.\n\nHowever, the rescue plan entails closing 26 of its 105 UK outlets, putting 800 jobs at risk, although no stores will close until spring 2018.\n\nToys R Us employs 3,200 staff in total in the UK.\n\nThe retailer's creditors met on Thursday to vote on the rescue plan, which hinged on a resolution of the pension deficit. Toys R Us's UK staff pension scheme has a deficit of more than £25m.\n\nThe PPF said the new offer from the company was composed of a payment of £3.8m in 2018, with a further £6m promised over 2019 and 2020.\n\nThe vote saw 98% of Toys R Us creditors backing the arrangement.\n\nToys R Us will continue to trade under its company voluntary arrangement (CVA), which is a step short of going into administration.\n\nSteve Knights, managing director of Toys R Us UK, said: \"The vote in favour of the CVA represents strong support for our business plan and provides us with the platform we need to transform our business so that we can better serve our customers today and long into the future.\n\n\"All of our stores across the UK will remain open for business as normal until spring 2018. Customers can continue to shop online and there will be no changes to our returns policies or gift cards across this period.\"\n\nThe company sells largely from warehouse-style stores at the edge of towns, but says these are now \"too big and expensive to run\". It is also finding it hard to compete against online toy retailers.\n\nThe chain said that, as part of the CVA proposal, a number of these stores had been identified for closure.\n\nIt said talks with employees would start in the New Year.\n\nToy's R Us's parent company in the US is in formal bankruptcy protection proceedings. Recent reports suggest it is considering closing between 100 and 200 stores in America.\n\nFigures released earlier this week show its US business lost $623m (£466.5m) in the quarter to the end of October, compared with $156m for the same period a year ago.", "Damian Green has been a confidant of the prime minister for many years\n\nDamian Green was one of the prime minister's closest allies in government. A university friend, he entered Parliament at the same time as Theresa May.\n\nBut now he has been sacked from the cabinet after an investigation found he breached the ministerial code.\n\nMr Green was a leading Conservative figure for 20 years and had been a friend of the prime minister since they were at Oxford university together in the 1970s.\n\nThey entered Parliament together in 1997.\n\nLater, he served in the Home Office during the coalition government.\n\nAfter she became Tory leader in June 2016, Mrs May brought the 61-year old into her cabinet and a year later named him as her effective deputy by giving him the title of first secretary of state.\n\nSince then, the former journalist, who campaigned for Remain in the EU referendum, has been a vital cog in a government beset by divisions and infighting over Brexit.\n\nHe has played a substantial role behind the scenes chairing key cabinet committees and, more publicly, deputised for Mrs May at Prime Minister's Questions as recently as last week.\n\nHe spent much of his early political career in the backroom, but the MP for Ashford in Kent has twice hit the headlines in a big way over the past decade.\n\nHis political future has been in question since journalist and Conservative activist Kate Maltby suggested, in an article in November for the Times, he had behaved inappropriately towards her.\n\nThe 31-year old claimed the minister \"fleetingly\" touched her knee in a pub in 2015 and in 2016 sent her a \"suggestive\" text message which left her feeling \"awkward, embarrassed and professionally compromised\".\n\nMr Green, who is an acquaintance of the journalist's parents, said the claims were \"hurtful\" and \"completely false\".\n\nBut they were referred to the Cabinet Office for investigation by a top civil servant amid a swirl of allegations about harassment and other misconduct at Westminster.\n\nIn his resignation letter, Mr Green apologised to Ms Maltby for making her feel \"uncomfortable\".\n\nThe civil servant's inquiry also considered claims that legal pornography was found on a computer removed from Mr Green's office in the House of Commons in 2008.\n\nDamian Green and his wife, Alicia Collinson, have two daughters\n\nMr Green, shadow immigration minister at the time, was arrested in November 2008 and was held for nine hours as part of a Scotland Yard inquiry into a Home Office leak.\n\nThe arrest was described as disproportionate and flawed by two inquiries in 2009 and no charges were brought against him.\n\nMr Green, who is married to barrister Alicia Collinson and has two grown-up daughters, has always strenuously denied that he either viewed or downloaded any pornographic material on his Commons computer.\n\nBut, in his resignation letter, he said he should have been clear that police lawyers talked to his lawyers in 2008 about the pornography, and the police raised the matter again in a phone call in 2013.\n\nAlthough it took Mr Green a comparatively long while to make it to the cabinet table, he is no stranger to being close to the centre of power - giving up a successful career in newspapers and broadcasting to work as an official in John Major's Downing Street in the early 1990s.\n\nThe Welsh-born politician was on the Tories' pro-European wing, having refused to rule out the UK one day joining the euro, long after many of his colleagues had done so.\n\nBut unlike EU diehards such as Ken Clarke and Lord Heseltine, who also campaigned on the remain side in the 2016 referendum, he has been on something of a journey and has taken a more pragmatic approach to Brexit.", "Charlie Dunn was pulled from the Blue Lagoon children's pool at Bosworth Water Park\n\nThe stepfather of a five-year-old boy who drowned at a water park has been jailed for seven-and-a-half years.\n\nPaul Smith pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence over the death of Charlie Dunn.\n\nCharlie, who could not swim, was found in a pool at Bosworth Water Park in Leicestershire on 23 July 2016.\n\nSmith, 36, of Tamworth, denied letting the boy wander off alone for more than two hours but changed his plea during a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.\n\nPaul Smith and Lynsey Dunn from Tamworth, Staffordshire, were sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court\n\nThe boy's mother, Lynsey Dunn, 28, also of Tamworth, Staffordshire, had a charge of manslaughter dropped.\n\nShe was given an eight-month suspended sentence after she admitted neglecting Charlie in a separate incident in 2015, when a neighbour prevented him driving a toy car onto a main road.\n\nThe court was told Smith was heard swearing and blaming others after Charlie - who was placed on the child protection register in 2012 - went missing while unsupervised.\n\nCharlie was left to \"fend for himself\" in a pool which had signs warning that children must be supervised.\n\nOne father who was in the pool had to explain to another parent that Charlie was not his son, Mrs Justice Jefford recounted.\n\nThe court heard Smith has 10 previous convictions for 28 crimes and was a \"person of interest\" to Staffordshire social services.\n\nThey had become involved with Charlie when he was 14 months old and put a child protection plan in place for him.\n\nMary Prior QC, prosecuting, said Smith \"had a status of being a risk to children\", but there was no evidence of Charlie having come to harm when the plan became effective.\n\nStaffordshire County Council is now conducting a serious case review into Charlie's death.\n\nIn sentencing, Mrs Justice Jefford said she did not doubt the defendants \"had genuine love and affection for Charlie\", but said Smith was \"completely indifferent\" to the boy's \"whereabouts and safety\".\n\n\"This was not a case in which there was an isolated and momentary lapse in care and supervision,\" she said.\n\nThe judge also praised three boys, aged 10, 11 and 12, who pulled Charlie from the pool, saying it \"must have been a horrific experience for them\".\n\nSmith was sentenced to five years and two months for manslaughter, with a consecutive two-year term handed down for threatening to petrol-bomb the home of a witness.\n\nHe was also given a further four months for driving while disqualified.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Dogs have been known to snaffle chocolate decorations, gifts and advent calendars\n\nChocolate poisoning is a risk to the family dog at Christmas, say vets.\n\nThey warn that dogs are four times more likely to fall ill from eating chocolate at this time of year.\n\nA study found hundreds of cases of dogs needing veterinary treatment after stealing chocolate Santas, selection boxes, chocolate oranges and even a mug of hot chocolate.\n\nVets are trying to get the message across that the confectionery should be kept out of reach of the family pet.\n\nWhile dogs like the taste of chocolate, it can make them ill, even in small quantities.\n\n''The take home message is firstly to make sure that people recognise that chocolate is a potential problem and to be vigilant with their chocolate gifts over the holiday period,'' said Dr Philip Jones, lecturer in veterinary epidemiology and public health at the University of Liverpool.\n\n''If their dog does get access... to make sure that they contact their veterinary surgeon.\n\n''And also before they contact their veterinary surgeon to have an estimate of how much chocolate and what type of chocolate the dog has eaten.''\n\nThe chemical theobromine, found in cocoa beans, is broken down more slowly in dogs. This can lead to sickness, increased heart rate, agitation, seizure, and, occasionally, death.\n\nElectronic health records from 200 veterinary practices - about 10% of the total number in the UK - were analysed for the study, between 2012 and 2017.\n\nThe research found chocolate intoxication was four times more likely at Christmas than on a normal day. The risk was half that at Easter, but there was no difference on Valentine's Day and Halloween.\n\nVomiting was the most common symptom of chocolate poisoning, followed by agitation and increased heart rare.\n\nYounger dogs were more likely to snaffle chocolate and fall ill. In most cases, only small amounts were consumed. However, there were exceptions, such as when a dog ate a large number of Easter eggs hidden in a garden for a children's party.\n\nTreatment for poisoning depends on the amount of time that has passed since the dog ate.\n\nThe dog may be given medicine to induce vomiting and activated charcoal to stop further absorption of the toxic substance.\n\nThe dog may then need fluid therapy and further medication to combat toxic effects on the heart.\n\nThe study is published in the journal, Veterinary Record.", "As Theresa May was just ending her year in a better place than her team could have imagined, her deputy has been forced to depart from government, despite his continued insistence that he has done nothing wrong.\n\nDamian Green has never been a politician with a huge public persona, or even a hugely well-known character.\n\nBut he was an extremely important ally of Theresa May. Not just a political friend but a genuine one, close to her for decades.\n\nThe government, so the joke in Westminster goes, has become \"weak and stable\", with number 10 taking back some control of the agenda in recent weeks.\n\nSo it is not likely that Mr Green's exit will suddenly unleash another bout of turmoil.\n\nBut the prime minister clearly took this decision very seriously.\n\nHis friends in government had believed that he would have been cleared, with one minister telling me today, \"he'll be fine\".\n\nAfter the prime minister received the initial report on Monday from the Cabinet Office official Sue Grey, who found flaws in his account, Mrs May asked for further advice, calling in her independent adviser, Sir Alex Allan.\n\nHe then, in turn, concluded that there had been breaches of the rules. With that, Mrs May had little choice but to ask him to go.\n\nBut just as Damian Green's friends say it is a disappointment for him, still insisting that he has done nothing wrong, so too it is a political blow for the prime minister.\n\nShe is a politician who guards her views, her own persona very closely. To lose one of the few who understood her, who she trusts, leaves her a lonelier figure tonight.", "We are now pausing our live coverage following Thursday's election in Catalonia.\n\nA pro-Spanish unity party has won the most seats but separatist parties will together be able to form a majority in parliament.\n\nThe results are a setback for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy who had imposed direct rule over the region after its illegal independence declaration.\n\nFor the latest updates see our main news story.", "Kaci Sullivan, from Missouri, first gave birth five years ago, before beginning to transition and start living as a man.\n\nLast month, he gave birth again after seven days in labour.\n\nKaci conceived with partner Steven after a break from taking male hormones.\n\nWatch the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.", "The IMF has cut its UK economic growth forecast, blaming Brexit uncertainty.\n\nThe Fund expects growth of 1.6% this year, down slightly from its previous forecast of 1.7%. It expects growth to slow further next year, to 1.5%.\n\nIMF chief Christine Lagarde said uncertainty over the Brexit deal was causing UK firms to delay investment plans.\n\nShe also said rising inflation, caused by the fall in the pound, and stagnant wages were squeezing spending power.\n\nMs Lagarde said that the government had made \"significant progress\" in reducing the deficit.\n\nBut she added that relative to growth in the rest of the world, \"the UK is losing out as a result of higher inflation, pressure on wages and incomes and delayed investment\".\n\n\"If you look at investment alone, with 2.1% of GDP in investment, with the global economy as it is, and the space the UK economy has in that global economy, it should be rolling at 6%.\"\n\nI asked Christine Lagarde at the launch of the IMF report how she responded to critics who said the IMF had been too gloomy before the referendum.\n\nIt's worth reproducing her answer in full.\n\n\"The numbers that we are seeing the economy deliver today are actually proving the point we made a year and a half ago when people said, you are too gloomy,\" she said.\n\n\"We were not too gloomy, we were pretty much on the mark, I mean within 0.1% or so - our forecast actually turned out to be the reality of the economy.\n\n\"Sterling has depreciated, inflation has gone up, wages have been squeezed as a result, and investments have been slowed down and are certainly lower than where we would expect them to be.\"\n\nYes, there are many positives in this report on record high employment and praise for progress on those Brexit talks.\n\nBut the big takeaway is this.\n\nIn a world of strong global growth, the IMF stands by its analysis that the UK economy has suffered since the referendum.\n\nMs Lagarde said that increased productivity was key to increasing living standards and that a new trade deal could help restore productivity levels in the UK.\n\nShe said: \"The shape of the new agreement with the EU will affect productivity performance through its implications for trade, investment and migration.\n\n\"The higher are any new barriers to the cross-border flow of services, goods and workers, the more negative the impact would be.\"\n\nHowever, Ms Lagarde also said: \"Brexit has the potential to reshape the structure of the UK economy. The impact will depend on the nature of the final agreement and may take many years to fully materialise.\"\n\nBrexit supporter and economist Ruth Lea said that while the fall in value of the pound had squeezed incomes, it had also helped exports.\n\nMs Lea, who is economic adviser to the Arbuthnot Banking Group, also said that inflation was likely to fall, which would help company and household finances.\n\nThe IMF has made dramatic changes to its growth forecasts for the UK since the Brexit referendum. Immediately after the vote in June 2016, it slashed its forecast for 2017 from 2.2% to 1.3%.\n\nIt then revised it sharply upwards at the start of this year, but since July has been steadily cutting it again.\n\nLabour's shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said: \"The IMF has today played the role of the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future to remind the chancellor that the last seven years of Tory economic failure is undermining our economy.\n\n\"As the IMF rightly points out, despite strong global growth, UK economic growth is revised down, and business growth is down despite Tory tax giveaways to big business; while working households this Christmas are struggling with rising prices and lagging wages.\"", "Shoppers at the store spoke of \"hearing screams\"\n\nA woman who was stabbed in an Aldi supermarket, in Skipton, North Yorkshire, has died.\n\nThe 30-year-old was attacked at the store in Keighley Road at about 15:30 GMT on Thursday.\n\nShoppers were left terrified, with one witness saying everyone \"screamed and ran up and down\". The witness also said she had \"never been so scared\".\n\nA 44-year-old local man has been arrested on suspicion of murder, North Yorkshire Police said.\n\nA force spokesman said: \"The suspect was initially detained by brave members of staff and public, before he was arrested by officers who were quickly on scene.\n\n\"He was taken into custody on suspicion of attempted murder, but it has now turned into a murder investigation despite the efforts of medics to save the victim.\"\n\nHe added that they were not in a position to identify the victim at this stage, but her family was being supported by specialist officers.\n\nThe store was busy with shoppers at the time, and one said: \"I just saw the aftermath, I was so scared I ran off.\n\n\"All the staff were racing about,\" she said, adding police vans arrived on the scene within minutes.\n\nIn a statement released on Friday, Aldi said the store would be closed until further notice to allow police to carry out investigations.\n\nA spokesperson said: \"We are working with the police following an incident at our Skipton store.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Prime Minister Theresa May's deputy, Damian Green, has said allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards a female activist are \"completely false\".\n\nMr Green has instructed libel lawyers over the claims, the BBC understands.\n\nTory activist Kate Maltby wrote in the Times that he \"fleetingly\" touched her knee in a pub in 2015, and in 2016 sent her a \"suggestive\" text message.\n\nThe cabinet secretary is to investigate whether Mr Green broke the ministerial code.\n\nMs Maltby, 31, a writer and academic, said Mr Green, 61, said he had sent her the text message after she posed in a corset for the Times.\n\nAccording to her article in the paper, it read: \"Long time no see. But having admired you in a corset in my favourite tabloid I felt impelled to ask if you are free for a drink anytime?\"\n\nThe encounters left her feeling \"awkward, embarrassed and professionally compromised\", she wrote.\n\nMr Green, now first secretary of state, and Theresa May's effective deputy, said he had known Ms Maltby since 2014 and the pair \"had a drink as friends twice-yearly\".\n\n\"The text I sent after she appeared in a newspaper article was sent in that spirit - as two friends agreeing to meet for a regular catch up - and nothing more,\" he said.\n\n\"This untrue allegation has come as a complete shock and is deeply hurtful, especially from someone I considered a personal friend.\"\n\nHe also denied the claim he put his hand on Ms Maltby's knee.\n\nAsked about the claims in the Times as he left his home on Wednesday morning, Mr Green told reporters: \"All these allegations are completely false.\"\n\nThe ministerial code requires ministers to \"behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety\".\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio 5 live, Small Business Minister Margot James said there was no need for Mr Green to resign during the cabinet secretary's investigation.\n\n\"I've read the article in the Times today, and I certainly don't think that it warrants anyone's resignation, temporary or otherwise, in my opinion,\" she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. William Hague tells Today he hopes Westminster is entering an era of greater accountability\n\nIt comes as allegations and rumours relating to sexual harassment and abuse by MPs swirl around Westminster.\n\nOn Tuesday, Labour confirmed it had launched an independent inquiry into claims that activist Bex Bailey, 25, was discouraged by a party official from reporting an alleged rape at a Labour event in 2011.\n\nShe told the BBC she had waived her anonymity to urge changes to the way such cases are handled.\n\nIn a separate case, an anonymous woman who claims she was sexually assaulted by an MP on a foreign work trip last year told the Guardian her allegations were not taken seriously.\n\nEarlier this week, a spokesman for Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon confirmed he was once rebuked by a journalist for putting his hand on her knee during dinner.\n\nMeanwhile, the BBC has seen a list, thought to have been compiled by staff and researchers at Westminster, detailing a range of mostly unproven allegations about 40 Conservative MPs and ministers.\n\nAmong the claims are a number of serious allegations of inappropriate behaviour with junior members of staff, the use of prostitutes and affairs between MPs.\n\nThe government has promised urgent action to improve the handling of complaints about the way MPs' staff are treated.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The crash happened on Flinders Street at a busy crossing in the centre of the city\n\nThe man who deliberately drove a car into a crowd in Melbourne is a drug user with mental health issues but no known terrorism links, police say.\n\nThe Australian citizen of Afghan descent was taken into custody after a struggle at the scene of the incident.\n\nThe car the 32-year-old was driving hit a number of pedestrians on Flinders Street, a busy thoroughfare in the city centre, said Victoria Police.\n\nFourteen people have been injured, with several in a critical condition.\n\nA second man, 24, was arrested after being seen filming the incident. He had a bag of knives with him, police added.\n\n\"It is now believed he had no links to the incident, however he is still assisting police with inquiries,\" they said.\n\nThe driver was arrested by an off-duty police officer. Police say he was the only person in the car.\n\nThe officer sustained shoulder and hand injuries during the arrest and was taken to hospital.\n\nThe driver was also taken to hospital, under police guard.\n\nPolice arrested this man at the scene\n\nThe white SUV struck pedestrians just after 16:30 local time (05:30 GMT).\n\nWitness Jim Stoupas, who runs a business nearby, told the BBC: \"It just barrelled through a completely full intersection of pedestrians. There was no attempt to brake, no attempt to swerve.\"\n\nHe added: \"I saw probably five to eight people on the ground with people swarming around them [to help]. Within a minute, I think, there were police on site, so it was very, very speedy.\"\n\nAmbulance Victoria said in a statement that a child of pre-school age with serious head injuries was among those taken to hospital.\n\nAnother witness, Lachlan Read, told the Herald Sun the whole incident lasted about 15 seconds.\n\n\"He has gone straight through the red light at pace and it was bang, bang, bang. It was just one after the other,\" he said of the moment the vehicle started hitting people.\n\nRossella Belardi told the BBC she was coming out of Flinders Street Station when she saw people running. \"Many people were on the floor and smoke was coming out of the car.\"\n\n\"Police and the ambulance service were incredible,\" she added. \"They came immediately out of nowhere.\"\n\nPolice have cordoned off the area by Flinders Street station\n\nPrime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Twitter that the investigations had begun, and sent \"thoughts and prayers\" to those affected.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Malcolm Turnbull This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe leader of the Australian opposition, Bill Shorten, also tweeted about the \"shocking scenes\" and praised the emergency services.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Bill Shorten This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn January, six people died when a man drove a car into pedestrians on Bourke Street.\n\nAfterwards, city authorities installed concrete blocks in various locations - including on Flinders Street - hoping to prevent vehicle-based attacks.\n\nIn September, a 15-year-old boy dressed in black combat gear was seen driving erratically down nearby Swanston Street.\n\nAfter a confrontation with police he was subdued with a Taser outside Flinders Street Station. Police later said it was not a terrorist incident.\n• None 'Car ploughed into us at 60mph' Video, 00:00:41'Car ploughed into us at 60mph'", "Parts of Bombardier's C-Series planes are made in Belfast\n\nThe US has ruled that Canada's Bombardier received government subsidies and sold C-Series jets below cost in the US, a step likely to lead to steep tariffs.\n\nThe US Commerce Department investigated the aerospace firm's US sales after a petition from rival American company Boeing.\n\nThe conflict has the potential to lead to job losses in Northern Ireland.\n\nBombardier said it was \"deeply disappointed\" in the decision.\n\nThe dispute has contributed to escalating trade tensions between the US and Canada.\n\nThe fight stems from a 2016 sale of 75 C-Series jets to Delta Air Lines. Boeing claims Delta paid $20m per plane, well below an estimated cost of $33m and what Bombardier charges in Canada.\n\nBombardier employs about 1,000 people in Belfast linked to the C-Series.\n\nThe Unite union in the UK called the Commerce Department decision \"nakedly political\", adding it had the potential to \"crush jobs, not only in Northern Ireland but in the US too\".\n\n\"More than 50 percent of C-Series components are sourced from the US, where the supply chain sustains 22,000 US jobs. The economic impact of these tariffs would be felt in communities on both sides of the Atlantic,\" said Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner.\n\n\"Boeing is using its meritless complaint as cover to close the US market, which is one of the biggest in the world, to new entrants such as Bombardier's C-Series aircraft.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Commerce Department's final determination on Wednesday set trade duties of about 292% - slightly lower than a preliminary finding.\n\nThe inquiry now moves to the US International Trade Commission, which will examine if the dumping and subsidies caused injury to Boeing. It is expected to make a final decision in February 2018, which would trigger the duties.\n\nThis week, Canada's ambassador to the US warned that it might take the fight to the World Trade Organization, if the US continues to side with Boeing.\n\nEarlier this month Canada scrapped plans to buy 18 Boeing Super Hornet fighter jets, underlining Canada's anger over the trade challenge.\n\nOn Wednesday, Bombardier said the Commerce Department had not taken into account Bombardier's plan to build a facility in the US, as part of a planned partnership with Airbus.\n\n\"This facility will provide US airlines with a US-built plane thereby eliminating any possibility of harm due to imports,\" said spokesman Mike Nadolski.\n\n\"Unfortunately, the Commerce Department decision is divorced from this reality and ignores long-standing business practices in the aerospace industry, including launch pricing and the financing of multibillion dollar aircraft programs.\"\n\nThe Commerce Department said it will collect the duties from the importer, if the US commission finds against Bombardier.\n\nDelta has said it plans to move forward with the order, but does not expect to pay the tariffs.", "Theresa May was in Poland to sign a defence treaty with the country\n\nTheresa May has sought to reassure Polish people living in the UK that they are still welcome after Brexit.\n\nSpeaking on a trip to Warsaw to sign a new defence treaty with the country, the PM said the one million Polish residents were a \"strong part of [UK] society\".\n\nShe promised a \"simple\" and \"easy\" process to get \"settled status\" to remain after the UK leaves the EU.\n\nThe trip comes after Mrs May sacked one of her closest allies, Damian Green.\n\nShe asked him to leave after he made \"misleading\" statements about claims pornography was found on his parliamentary computer.\n\nSenior members of the cabinet, including Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Chancellor Philip Hammond and Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, have joined her on the visit.\n\nThe prime minister told the bilateral summit in the Polish capital it was a \"key priority\" for her visit to \"give assurance\" to Polish nationals living in the UK that \"we want them to stay\".\n\n\"That's why we worked so hard to get a deal with the EU earlier this month, to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK,\" she added.\n\nMrs May said there would be certain requirements, such as the length of time a person has been in the UK, to achieve \"settled status\", but residents will be given a \"significant period\" to apply.\n\nShe added: \"We value Polish citizens and other EU citizens in the UK. They have made a life choice, we want them to be able to continue with that life choice.\"\n\nThe PM recently wrote to the 980,000 Poles in the UK urging them to stay in the country after Brexit, reassuring them that the process of applying for settled status will be quick and inexpensive.\n\nThe two leaders signed the defence treaty before giving speeches, saying it was a \"powerful symbol\" of co-operation.\n\nDowning Street said it was only the second such agreement the UK has with a European ally, after France.\n\nIt provides a framework for enhanced co-operation in training, information sharing, defence procurement and joint exercises between the Nato partners.\n\nThe UK has also backed an initiative to blunt Russian propaganda in the region.\n\n\"Poland matters greatly to the UK,\" Mrs May said. \"I am determined that Brexit will not weaken our relationship with Poland. Rather, it will serve as a catalyst to strengthen it.\"\n\nMrs May has also announced that the UK is to provide £5m of funding to a joint UK-Polish plan to counter Russian misinformation in the region.\n\nPart of the money will go towards supporting Belsat, a Polish-funded TV channel broadcasting in Belarus, one of Russia's closest allies in the region.\n\nLast month, Mrs May said Moscow was seeking to \"sow discord\" in the West by meddling in elections and mounting cyber attacks against critical infrastructure.\n\nTheresa May with Poland's former Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, who was replaced by Mateusz Morawiecki earlier this month\n\nHer visit comes hours after the EU announced disciplinary measures against Poland, accusing the country of undermining the independence of its judges.\n\nDowning Street said Mrs May would raise her concerns with new Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, but she told a press conference constitutional issues were \"primarily a matter for the country concerned, not the EU\".", "Virgin Trains says planned strikes by the RMT and TSSA unions on Virgin Trains West Coast have been called off.\n\nStrikes were due to take place on Friday and on four days in January.\n\nThe company said it would try to run a full service on Friday, but warned there could be some cancellations.\n\nVirgin advised customers to check the timetable before travelling. However, the revised timetable is not due to go live on its website until the early hours of Friday morning.\n\n\"We'll do everything we can to run a full service on Friday, but because the strike has been called off at the last minute there may be some cancellations,\" said Phil Whittingham, managing director for Virgin Trains on the west coast.\n\n\"We'll be working hard to make sure our customers can make it home as quickly and easily as possible for Christmas.\"\n\nThe strike was over pay, with the RMT seeking a \"suitable and equal\" pay offer for train managers and on-board catering workers on the West Coast route from Glasgow to Euston to that given to drivers.\n\nRMT general secretary Mick Cash said a breakthrough had been made in talks with the company and the offer, as yet unspecified, was good enough to be put to union members.\n\nTSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said: \"I am pleased Virgin has finally seen sense, come back to the negotiating table, and made an offer sparing our passengers further disruption at... Christmas.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "With rope wrapped around its neck, this loggerhead sea turtle became part of a US Coast Guard rescue effort in the Pacific Ocean.", "Catt Sadler has worked at the network for more than a decade\n\nUS TV news presenter Catt Sadler has quit her role with E! News after learning that she earned about half of what her male co-host does.\n\nSadler, who has worked at the network since 2006, said an executive had made her aware of the pay gap.\n\nIn a statement, she said she subsequently asked for \"what I know I deserve and [was] denied repeatedly\".\n\nShe made her final appearance on the network on Tuesday, fronting daytime programme Daily Pop and later E! News.\n\nSadler said in a post on her website: \"There was a massive disparity in pay between my similarly situated male co-host and myself. He was making close to double my salary for the past several years.\"\n\n\"How can I remain silent when my rights under the law have been violated? How can we make it better for the next generation of girls if we do not stand for what is fair and just today?\" she added.\n\nShe added that she had wanted to stay in her job but \"the decision was made for me and I must go\".\n\nIn a tweet, Sadler said it had been a \"difficult day\" but thanked her fans for sending supportive messages.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by catt sadler This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a statement to the BBC, an E! spokesperson said: \"E! compensates employees fairly and appropriately based on their roles, regardless of gender. We appreciate Catt Sadler's many contributions at E! News and wish her all the best following her decision to leave the network.\"\n\nEarlier this year, the female presenter of one of Australia's most prestigious TV news shows moved to a rival channel amid reports that she had been denied pay parity with her male co-presenter.\n\nLisa Wilkinson, 57, announced that she was joining Channel Ten's The Project because the Nine Network had been \"unable to meet her expectations\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe collapse of two rape cases in one week was an \"appalling failure\" of the criminal justice system, Attorney General Jeremy Wright has said.\n\nTwo young men were cleared when it emerged that Met Police officers had failed to disclose crucial evidence.\n\nAround 30 rape cases about to go to trial are to be reviewed immediately and \"scores\" more will be looked at.\n\nMetropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick admitted that police and prosecutors had made mistakes.\n\nShe said the 30 cases would not be reinvestigated, but would be reviewed to make sure everything that should have been disclosed had been.\n\nThe police have a duty to disclose any material to the defence that might support their case. If disclosure fails, innocent people go to jail, says the BBC's legal correspondent Clive Coleman.\n\n\"We need to learn lessons,\" Ms Dick told BBC Radio London, and insisted her officers were professional and fair with a \"very complex job\" to do.\n\nIsaac Itiary was charged with raping a child in July but the case collapsed\n\nThe trial of student Liam Allan, 22, was thrown out at Croydon Crown Court last week.\n\nThe case collapsed three days into the trial when the police were ordered to hand over phone records showing the alleged victim had pestered Mr Allan for casual sex.\n\nDays later, another prosecution case collapsed against Isaac Itiary, who was facing trial at Inner London Crown Court, accused of raping a child.\n\nHe was charged in July but police only disclosed \"relevant material\" in response to his defence case statement as his trial was about to start.\n\nThe same Met Police officer had worked on both men's cases. He remains on full duty.\n\nThe Met said it would review both these cases separately, as well as carrying out the wider review of other live rape cases.\n\nJustice minister Dominic Raab said it was \"absolutely right\" for the Met to carry out the review, adding: \"The basic principle of British justice is at stake.\"\n\n\"The proper disclosure obligations in these two cases have not been discharged, and that is deeply worrying,\" he told BBC Radio 5 live.\n\n\"This is not a new thing. It should be made easy by technology,\" he added.\n\nThe cases of Liam Allan and Isaac Itiary are very different.\n\nAs far as Mr Allan is concerned, the Met has accepted the case \"clearly went wrong\".\n\nCrucial information was disclosed to defence barristers so late that the trial was already well under way.\n\nIn Mr Itiary's case, procedures appear to have been followed, though it's possible police could have acted more quickly.\n\nWhat the cases have done is shine a light on the importance of following disclosure rules.\n\nUndoubtedly the squeeze on resources, with cuts in the Crown Prosecution Service and policing and a national shortage of detectives, together with the increased caseload for sexual offences units, have played their part.\n\nAn inspection report this year also pinpointed inadequacies in training and supervision.\n\nSome see the problems as a direct result of a misplaced culture of \"believing\" the victim, where police don't look for or withhold contradictory evidence - but that's an assertion for the attorney general's inquiry to examine.\n\nLast week, Attorney General of England and Wales Jeremy Wright ordered a review to look at disclosure processes - including codes of practice, guidelines and legislation relating to sex offences and other crimes - which is expected to report back next year.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, Mr Wright said the two cases of the young men were \"obviously appalling failures of the criminal justice system\".\n\n\"We need to understand and understand urgently what went wrong in those cases,\" he said.\n\nHe added that there were already concerns about the disclosure system due to the large amounts of digital information that needed filtering and sifting to find evidence that ought to be disclosed.", "Damian Green, one of Theresa May's closest allies, has been sacked from the cabinet following claims that pornography was found on his office computer.\n\nHere is a timeline of how Home Office leaks in 2008 sparked an investigation which would lead to his downfall.\n\n8 October 2008: The Cabinet Office calls the Metropolitan Police to investigate after a series of leaked official documents from the Home Office are published in national newspapers. The leaks, about illegal immigration and other issues, embarrass the Labour government. Damian Green is the Conservatives' immigration spokesman at the time.\n\n19 November 2008: Junior Home Office official Christopher Galley is arrested in connection with the leaked documents. No charges were brought against him, although he was later sacked.\n\n27 November 2008: Mr Green is arrested and held by the Metropolitan Police for nine hours on suspicion of \"conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office, and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office\". His home and his offices in Kent and parliament are searched. He is released on bail.\n\n2 December 2008: Scotland Yard announces an urgent review of its handling of the leaks probe.\n\n8 April 2009: The officer in charge of the inquiry into the leaks, Bob Quick, is forced to resign over an alleged security breach. He was widely criticised by Tory MPs for the raid of Mr Green's offices.\n\n16 April 2009: The Crown Prosecution Service announces Mr Green and Mr Galley will not face prosecution.\n\n17 June 2009: A parliamentary inquiry is announced into the arrest of Mr Green.\n\n19 August 2009: Mr Green hails a police decision to remove his DNA from a national database as a \"small but significant victory for freedom\".\n\nKate Maltby says Damian Green made inappropriate advances towards her\n\n31 October 2017: Theresa May asks Whitehall's top civil servant to investigate allegations that Mr Green, now First Secretary of State, made inappropriate advances towards journalist and activist Kate Maltby in 2015 - which he denies.\n\n1 November 2017: Ms Maltby writes in the Times that Damian Green \"fleetingly\" touched her knee in a pub in 2015, and in 2016 sent her a \"suggestive\" text message. The 31-year-old writer and academic says the encounters left her feeling \"awkward, embarrassed and professionally compromised\". Mr Green says he had known Ms Maltby since 2014 and the pair \"had a drink as friends twice-yearly\". He said the text he had sent to her was meant to be friendly and \"this untrue allegation has come as a complete shock and is deeply hurtful.\" He denies touching her knee in 2015.\n\n4 November 2017: Bob Quick tells the Sunday Times pornography was found on one of Mr Green's parliamentary computers during the 2008 inquiry into the home office leaks. Damian Green says: \"This story is completely untrue and comes from a tainted and untrustworthy source. The police have never suggested to me that improper material was found on my Parliamentary computer, nor did I have a 'private' computer as has been claimed.\"\n\n6 November 2017: The Cabinet Office investigation is expanded to include Mr Quick's allegations.\n\n11 November 2017: Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson says he had been aware of allegations about pornography being found on Mr Green's office computer. Mr Green says: \"I reiterate that no allegations about the presence of improper material on my parliamentary computers have ever been put to me or to the parliamentary authorities by the police. I can only assume that they are being made now, nine years later, for ulterior motives.\"\n\n1 December 2017: Former Scotland Yard detective Neil Lewis tells BBC News he was \"shocked\" by the amount of pornography on a computer seized from Mr Green's office in 2008, adding that the material had not been illegal.\n\n4 December 2017: The head of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, condemns retired officers Neil Lewis and Bob Quick over their allegations, saying all officers had a duty to protect sensitive information they discovered.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Damian Green speaking to reporters outside his home in his constituency of Ashford\n\n5 December 2017: Mr Quick calls on Mr Green to retract his \"deeply hurtful\" allegations that he lied about finding \"vast amounts\" of pornography on the MP's computer.\n\n18 December 2017: Theresa May receives the report on Damian Green's conduct by Cabinet Office official Sue Gray.\n\n20 December 2017: Theresa May sacks Mr Green from the cabinet after the inquiry found he breached the ministerial code over \"inaccurate and misleading\" statements he made on 4 and 11 November which suggested he did not know pornography was found on his office computer in 2008.\n\nIn his resignation letter, Mr Green said statements he made could have been \"clearer\", conceding that his lawyers had been informed by Met Police lawyers about their initial discovery in 2008 and the police had also raised the matter with him in a phone call in 2013.\n\nThe report also found that although there were \"competing and contradictory accounts of what were private meetings\" between himself and Ms Maltby, the investigation found her account \"to be plausible\".", "Sam: \"It takes pretty much every day of my life, trying to find out where I am going to be staying\"\n\nSam does not know where he will be sleeping tonight.\n\nNow 23, he says he first became homeless at 15 because of a family breakdown and has been in and out of bedsits, hostels and supported accommodation ever since.\n\n\"I've stayed at friends' in the past - I've never really had my own actual flat,\" he says.\n\n\"I've slept rough quite a few times but most of the time when I've slept rough I have not actually slept.\n\n\"I just wander round because I can't really shut off when I'm out in the cold.\"\n\nThis week a committee of MPs called homelessness a \"national crisis\", highlighting more than 9,000 rough sleepers and 78,000 families in temporary accommodation in England alone.\n\nSam drifts between friends' sofas, temporary accommodation and rough sleeping in and around Leyland in Lancashire. Young people like him do not always show in official statistics - but new UK-wide research for the BBC found:\n\nAt The Key drop-in centre for young homeless people in Leyland, Ian, 25, says he has been sofa-surfing for seven years.\n\nHis days revolve around a few hours at the drop-in centre.\n\nOtherwise, he walks the streets for hours, trying to stay warm and then heads to a mate's house in the evening.\n\n\"I end up spending a few hours there. Then I would finally ask him if I could stay the night. If he says yes I would stay there.\"\n\nHe says he feels a burden on his friends.\n\nSometimes he says he runs out of friends he feels able to ask and has to sleep out.\n\nThe most common reasons for young people resorting to friends' sofas included parents being unable or unwilling to provide housing, extended family being unable to help and splitting from a partner.\n\nOn the phone, looking for a room\n\nIan has been offered a friend's flat for the next three weeks.\n\nSam, who has spent time in prison, has come to the drop-in centre to make calls to try to find a room for the night.\n\nOn the coldest nights, the local council will find him somewhere to stay but that ends as soon as the temperature rises above zero.\n\n\"It takes pretty much every day of my life, trying to find out where I am going to be staying.\n\n\"It doesn't feel like it ever ends. I feel quite drained with it all.\"\n\nHe is on medication for depression. Sam says not having an address means he can't register with a GP to get the mental health support he needs.\n\nDepression affects Ian too and both young men say it's hard to study or look for work without an address.\n\n\"I feel like I'm going round in circles and circles and circles,\" says Ian.\n\n\"All I can do is keep trying.\"\n\nUrsula Patten, operations director at The Key, says sofa surfers should definitely be considered homeless.\n\n\"You are homeless if you haven't got a place you can stay on a consistent basis - somewhere that you can call home.\"\n\nShe says about 70% of the homeless young people on the charity's books have sofa-surfed before running out of options and seeking help.\n\nBut she believes that with the right support there is no reason why homeless young people should not have hope for the future.\n\n\"It's just a phase in your life. You may have got lost but you've got strengths. Everybody's got strengths. And I would say go and get some support and somebody to help you find your direction in life because you can attain great things.\"\n\nThe charity Centrepoint said the BBC data corroborated its own research, carried out in 2014 by Cambridge University.\n\nCo-author Anna Clarke said: \"Sofa-surfing is a not uncommon experience for young people in housing difficulties.\n\n\"It is really useful to have this kind of evidence on something that's inherently difficult to quantify.\"\n\nAnd Centrepoint chief executive Seyi Obakin said it was crucial to \"dispel the myth that there is anything fun or easy about sofa-surfing\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Five things about being homeless\n\n\"Goodwill is the only thing keeping too many young people from sleeping on the UK's streets.\n\n\"It's frightening just how many are trapped in a cycle that is detrimental to their health, sees them struggle to keep up in education, and where outstaying their welcome can mean becoming exposed to dangers no-one should have to face.\"\n• None 'I sofa-surfed after being kicked out of home on Christmas Day' - BBC Newsbeat\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Struggling to cope with an acute eating disorder is tough enough, but imagine if the hospital treatment you need is only available hundreds of miles away.\n\nThat's what it's like for many patients in Northern Ireland, who have to leave the country, their family and friends.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Richard Ratcliffe tells the BBC: \"Formally, on the system, she's eligible to be released at any point.\"\n\nBritish-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been held in Iran for 18 months, has been told she is eligible for early release, her husband has said.\n\nRichard Ratcliffe told BBC Radio 5 Live that an Iranian judiciary database had listed her as \"eligible for release\".\n\nHe said her lawyer was \"hopeful\" when he visited her in prison on Wednesday.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Iran since April 2016 after being accused of spying - charges she denies.\n\nHer family have always maintained she was on holiday with her daughter.\n\nMr Ratcliffe said his wife's case had previously been marked as \"closed\", so the status change was \"great news\".\n\n\"Part of me is trying not to get too hopeful and just to keep calm just in case there is more to come,\" he said.\n\n\"But he (her lawyer) was clearly hopeful. He told her that it's a matter of finalising paperwork and it might be days to weeks rather than tomorrow morning.\n\n\"But definitely it feels like the end is much closer in sight.\"\n\nMr Ratcliffe said he felt there was a \"change of the tide\" since Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson travelled to Iran, as since then a second case against his 37-year-old wife was postponed and then cancelled.\n\n\"And now suddenly the database is shifting and saying eligible for early release,\" he said.\n\n\"She's still in prison but everything is feeling very positive.\"\n\nMr Johnson was in Iran for talks earlier this month and pressed for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release on humanitarian grounds.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Iran since April 2016\n\nHe had been accused of risking an additional five years being added to her sentence when he told a parliamentary committee that she had been in Iran to train journalists.\n\nIn November, he apologised in the Commons, retracting \"any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity\".\n\nHampstead and Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq said the news had given the family a \"glimmer of light\".\n\n\"It has given Nazanin a real boost of positive energy, and now we wait impatiently to see what happens next,\" she told the BBC.\n\n\"Although we do not want to celebrate prematurely, it would be the perfect Christmas gift to see Nazanin released and back with her family where she belongs.\"\n\nMr Ratcliffe said part of him was still hoping his wife would be home in time for Christmas.\n\n\"Definitely hopeful, we will be singing our carols with great gusto,\" he said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUS President Donald Trump has threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that back a United Nations resolution opposing the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.\n\nEarlier this month, Mr Trump took that step amid international criticism.\n\n\"They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us,\" he told reporters at the White House.\n\n\"Let them vote against us. We'll save a lot. We don't care.\"\n\nHis comments come ahead of a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution opposing any recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.\n\nThe draft resolution does not mention the US, but says any decisions on Jerusalem should be cancelled.\n\nFourteen states backed a similar motion on Jerusalem at the UN Security Council on Monday\n\nEarlier, US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley warned member states that President Trump had asked her to report on \"who voted against us\" on Thursday.\n\nPresident Trump and Ambassador Haley are trying to use American muscle rather than diplomacy to convince countries to vote their way. From Washington's perspective, recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital and deciding to move its embassy there is its sovereign right.\n\nBut that's not how the majority of countries at the United Nations see it.\n\nThe strongest repudiation came, unsurprisingly, from Washington's critics.\n\nMeanwhile, many US allies are brushing off the tough rhetoric as an empty threat.\n\nA senior diplomat told me it was clear that the Trump administration was determined to take a stand for Israel at the UN, but he doubted that Washington would cut aid to, say, Egypt - which sponsored the failed Security Council measure on which the General Assembly draft resolution is based.\n\nWhat is certain is that the US will be isolated in the General Assembly on Thursday as the rest of the world once again tells President Trump that it does not agree with his decision on Jerusalem.\n\nThe status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.\n\nIsrael occupied the east of the city, previously occupied by Jordan, in the 1967 Middle East war and regards the entire city as its indivisible capital.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why the ancient city of Jerusalem is so important\n\nThe Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state and its final status is meant to be discussed in the latter stages of peace talks.\n\nIsraeli sovereignty over Jerusalem has never been recognised internationally, and all countries currently maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv. However, President Trump has told the US state department to start work on moving the US embassy.\n\nThe 193-member UN General Assembly will hold a rare emergency special session on Thursday at the request of Arab and Muslim states, who condemned Mr Trump's decision to reverse decades of US policy earlier this month.\n\nThe Palestinians called for the meeting after the US vetoed a Security Council resolution, which affirmed that any decisions on the status of Jerusalem were \"null and void and must be rescinded\", and urged all states to \"refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the holy city\".\n\nThe other 14 members of the Security Council voted in favour of the draft, but Ms Haley described it as an \"insult\".\n\nThe non-binding resolution put forward by Turkey and Yemen for the General Assembly vote mirrors the vetoed Security Council draft.\n\nThe Palestinian permanent observer at the UN, Riyad Mansour, said he hoped there would be \"overwhelming support\" for the resolution.\n\nBut on Tuesday, Ms Haley warned in a letter to dozens of member states that encouraged them to \"know that the president and the US take this vote personally\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nikki Haley This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those countries who voted against us. We will take note of each and every vote on this issue,\" she wrote, according to journalists who were shown the letter.\n\n\"The president's announcement does not affect final status negotiations in any way, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem,\" she added. \"The president also made sure to support the status quo of Jerusalem's holy sites.\"\n\nMs Haley echoed the warning on Twitter, writing: \"The US will be taking names.\"\n\nPalestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki and his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, accused the US of intimidation.\n\n\"We see that the United States, which was left alone, is now resorting to threats. No honourable, dignified country would bow down to this pressure,\" Mr Cavusoglu told a joint news conference in Ankara on Wednesday before travelling to New York.", "Darren Osborne pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder\n\nThe man accused of the Finsbury Park attack in June has pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder.\n\nDarren Osborne, 48, is accused of deliberately driving a hired van into worshippers near the Muslim Welfare House in north London.\n\nOne man, Makram Ali, was killed and 11 other people were injured.\n\nMr Osborne, from Cardiff, appeared via video-link from Belmarsh prison in south-east London.\n\nIt was the first time he has been asked to answer the charges against him.\n\nSpeaking in a clear voice, he pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Ali, 51, and not guilty to attempting to murder others at the junction of Seven Sisters Road and Whadcoat Street in Finsbury Park.\n\nHis trial will start on 22 January at Woolwich Crown Court.", "US couple Tina and Benjamin Gibson's daughter was born from an embryo that had been frozen for nearly 25 years.", "Hurricane Maria caused extensive damage in Puerto Rico which is still struggling to rebuild\n\nDisasters in 2017 caused losses of $306bn (£229bn), according to estimates from insurance giant Swiss Re.\n\nThe figure represents a 63% jump from last year, and is well above the average of the past decade.\n\nThe Americas was hardest hit, with hurricanes in the Caribbean and southern US, earthquakes in Mexico and wildfires in California.\n\nDespite the rise in the financial cost of disasters, there was no significant increase in the loss of lives.\n\nSwiss Re said more than 11,000 people died or went missing in disaster events in 2017, which is similar to 2016's figure.\n\nA report by the firm's research arm Sigma found insured losses amounted to $136bn (£102bn) - more than double last year's total and the third highest on record.\n\nHurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria together caused insured losses of about $93bn (£70bn) according to the the report.\n\nBut Swiss Re said the insurance industry had demonstrated that it could cope very well with such high losses, despite gaps in protection remaining.\n\n\"If the industry is able to extend its reach, many more people and businesses can become better equipped to withstand the fallout from disaster events\", said Martin Bertogg, head of catastrophe perils at Swiss Re.", "Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show, Nigel Farage has defended Donald Trump's retweeting of inflammatory tweets by saying he can't have known what he was doing.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nSecond Ashes Test, Adelaide Oval (day two of five)\n\nEngland face a battle to stay in the second Ashes Test after a Shaun Marsh century put Australia in command on day two in Adelaide.\n\nMarsh ended on 126 not out, taking Australia to 442-8 declared with the help of Tim Paine (57) and Pat Cummins (44).\n\nEngland spent 149 overs in the field after winning the toss and when they came to bat, facing an Australia attack armed with a pink ball under the floodlights, it seemed like a recipe for the top order to be blown away.\n\nThe tourists lost Mark Stoneman, lbw to Mitchell Starc for 18, before rain arrived to wipe almost 19 overs off the day.\n\nEngland closed on 29-1, 413 behind, with Alastair Cook on 11 and James Vince yet to score.\n\nWith Australia 1-0 up after a 10-wicket win in Brisbane, it is no exaggeration to say England's hopes of retaining the Ashes are already under huge threat, especially as the next Test comes in Perth, where England have not won since 1978.\n• None Ashes at stake seven days into series - Jonathan Agnew column\n\nThis Test, the first day-nighter in Ashes history, was earmarked as a must-win for England in their bid to defend the urn.\n\nThe pink ball, floodlights and often-wet weather seemed ideal to be exploited by the likes of James Anderson and Stuart Broad.\n\nBut after Joe Root became the first captain in 25 years to field first at the Adelaide Oval, England bowled poorly on day one and paid the price on day two.\n\nThough England improved on their first-day display, they spent most of Sunday in the field thanks to a combination of lucklessness and Marsh's admirable occupation of the crease.\n\nIt always seemed likely that Australia would declare and give England a difficult evening period to try to survive.\n\nThe home crowd had already been buoyed by some late Marsh hitting and were eager for English pain when Starc began delivering the ball at 93mph.\n\nWith England initially scoring freely, both sets of fans were vocal, only for Stoneman to be pinned by a searing Starc delivery that would have demolished leg stump.\n\nIn the end, England were pleased to see the rain.\n\nMarsh's call-up for the first Test was met with derision by some who feel he has been given too many opportunities at this level.\n\nSince making his debut six years ago he has only won 25 caps and this is his eighth recall.\n\nHowever, the left-hander made an important half-century in Brisbane and followed it up with a fifth Test century of grit, patience and potentially huge significance in the context of the series.\n\nWith Australia 209-4 overnight, Marsh, on 20, saw Peter Handscomb trapped leg before by Broad in the first over of the day, but built stands of 85 with Paine and 99 with Cummins.\n\nWicketkeeper Paine, himself a controversial recall, counter-attacked for a third first-class half-century in three weeks after going three years without passing 50. Two of those scores have come against England.\n\nCummins took 37 balls to get off the mark but took 44 runs off his next 53 with cuts and hits through the leg side.\n\nAt the other end, Marsh repeatedly left outside the off stump, scoring with clips off his toes, cover drives and the occasional cut.\n\nWhen he reached three figures he ran towards the Australian players and staff assembled on the boundary with his helmet off and bat raised.\n\nAnd, when the declaration was imminent, he took Broad for 14 from three deliveries to further tread England into the dirt.\n\nImprovement comes too late for luckless England\n\nThings could have been different for England had they started day one in the manner in which they began day two.\n\nBroad, with a ball only an over old, immediately found seam movement to pin Handscomb in front, celebrating with a roar at the batsman.\n\nEngland were still arguably bowling too short, but they were also without good fortune.\n\nThey beat the bat with regularity and Anderson had two lbw decisions overturned in as many overs. Marsh, on 29, and Paine, on 24, were both reprieved by height.\n\nCraig Overton, impressive on debut, eventually had Paine fall into the trap of hooking to deep square leg and Broad induced a mis-timed pull from Starc.\n\nBut, as the ball moved less in the middle session, any hope that England had of running through the tail was dashed by Cummins, who followed up the 42 he made at the Gabba.\n\nHe punished the disappointing Moeen Ali, the off-spinner struggling on a day when he was also hit for a huge six over mid-wicket by Paine.\n\nThe lowest point of England's day was a calamitous drop of Marsh, slip Cook and gully Vince colliding after Chris Woakes found the shoulder of the bat.\n\nAnd even after Overton had Cummins held at third man, Nathan Lyon swiped the same bowler for six in a stand of 32 with Marsh that came in only 22 balls.\n\n'England remain confident' - what they said\n\nEngland head coach Trevor Bayliss: \"The players are confident, there's a good feeling in the dressing room.\n\n\"Shaun Marsh showed it's possible to score runs out there. A lot of their batters made starts and there's a long time left in the game.\n\n\"It's up to one or two guys to go out there and make a big score, not just a 40 or 50.\"\n\nAustralia's Shaun Marsh: \"I haven't thought about all the incidental noise about my selection for the team.\n\n\"Six months ago I wasn't sure whether I'd be back here. I'd always dreamt of getting back in. I've just tried to come in and feel nice and relaxed.\n\n\"I've felt good about my game the last three or four months.\"\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan on Test Match Special: \"England didn't bowl well. They bowled 1.6m shorter than Australia and that is the problem.\n\n\"When you win the toss and bowl you have got to make sure you capitalise and bowl the right length.\n\n\"The pitch is playing well. The batsman should feel they can get runs.\"\n• None Get Ashes alerts sent to your phone", "The US state of Hawaii has tested its nuclear warning siren for the first time since the end of the Cold War.\n\nThe resumption of the monthly tests comes amid a growing threat from North Korea's missile and nuclear programme.\n\nPyongyang has tested a series of ballistic missiles and in September carried out its sixth nuclear test.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAt least 13 people have died after a fishing boat collided with a 336-tonne tanker and capsized off South Korea's west coast.\n\nTwo others were missing, South Korea's coast guard said, as a search and rescue operation continued.\n\nThe chartered fishing boat, the Seonchang-1, had been carrying 20 passengers and two crew during a fishing tour at the time of the crash.\n\nFootage from the scene showed the upturned boat being searched by divers.\n\nNavy helicopters and dozens of ships were taking part in the search southwest of Incheon, near Yeongheung island.\n\nSeven people were taken to hospital for treatment. The captain of the 10-tonne fishing boat was among the missing, according to one report from AFP.\n\nThere were no reported injuries on board the 336-tonne fuel tanker.\n\nThe coast guard took seven people to hospital\n\nSouth Korean news agency Yonhap said the collision happened nine minutes after the boat departed from the shoreline, possibly as the two vessels passed each other under a bridge.\n\n\"There's no specific problem related to weather conditions, sailing reports or other (pre-departure) preparations,\" a coast guard official told reporters. \"We are investigating how the accident happened.\"\n\nCold water temperatures may also have contributed to casualties, the official said.\n\nThe accident is believed to be the worst in South Korea since 15 people died on a fishing tour near Jeju in 2015.\n\nThe year before, a passenger ferry capsized and more than 300 people died, most of them school children on an outing.\n\nThe ship, the Sewol, was raised from the sea bed earlier this year.", "A Conservative MP has defended her cyber-security arrangements after revealing she shares her login passwords with all her staff.\n\nNadine Dorries said this included \"interns on exchange programmes\", triggering a backlash on Twitter.\n\nIn response, she said she was a backbench MP who did not have access to government documents.\n\nThe Mid Bedfordshire MP had been defending Conservative First Secretary of State Damian Green.\n\nA Cabinet Office inquiry is examining claims pornography was found on a computer in Mr Green's Parliamentary office.\n\nHe denies watching or downloading pornography on his computer.\n\nMs Dorries was questioning a retired police officer's claim that Mr Green must have been responsible for material found on his computer.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nadine Dorries This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Rory Cellan-Jones This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nShe defended herself in subsequent tweets, saying her team were responding to hundreds of emails every day.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Nadine Dorries This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA fellow MP, Nick Boles, tweeted that he shared his password with his staff for the same reasons.\n\nMs Dorries later tweeted that she was \"flattered\" by people thinking she would have access to \"government docs\", adding: \"Sorry to disappoint!\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Nadine Dorries This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nJim Killock, of the Open Rights campaign group, said: \"On the face of it, Nadine Dorries is admitting to breaching basic data protection laws, making sure her constituents' emails and correspondence is kept confidential and secure. She should not be sharing her log-in with interns.\n\n\"More worryingly, it appears this practice of MPs sharing their log-ins may be rather widespread. If so, we need to know.\"\n\nHe urged MPs' staff and former staff to get in touch with his campaign \"if they have knowledge about insecure data practices in MPs' offices\".", "The children's commissioner told BBC Scotland he cannot rule out legal action on the issue\n\nScotland's children's commissioner has said he may consider legal action over the Universal Credit rollout if it further disadvantages young people.\n\nBruce Adamson said poverty was the biggest human rights issue facing children in Scotland.\n\nHe told the BBC reforms to the benefits systems could be resulting in some children going without basics like a warm home and hot meals.\n\nThe UK government said Universal Credit was helping people improve their lives.\n\nA spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the system was \"working\" and that as a result of Universal Credit people were \"moving into work faster and staying in work longer than under the old system\".\n\nThe controversial measure, which is being rolled out across the UK, brings six existing benefit payments into one.\n\nIt faced criticism over claims some people had to wait six weeks for their first payment, contributing to a rise in debt, rent arrears and evictions.\n\nChancellor Philip Hammond announced changes aimed at speeding up claim times in his autumn budget last month.\n\nMr Adamson said he was engaging with ministers, from the both the UK and Scottish governments, about the impact the benefit changes were having on the human rights of children and young people.\n\nHe called for \"political leadership\" on the issue, but said he could not rule of the possibility of legal action in the future.\n\nIn an extended interview broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland on Sunday, the children's commissioner said: \"Poverty is the biggest human rights issue facing children in Scotland at the moment.\n\n\"And there's a number of issues around the way in which Universal Credit is calculated and how it is paid. But this leads to a much, much deeper issue. We are talking about the rights of children and the right to benefit from social security.\n\n\"We are talking about things like having a warm and secure place to live, having regular hot, nutritious meals and also the ability to access things like transport to get to school and to enjoy social and cultural activities that we know are so important to their development.\"\n\nAsked if there was any prospect of legal redress in Scotland, Mr Adamson said: \"While we don't have the Convention on the Rights of the Child within our domestic law yet, we do have the Humans Rights Act which brings in the European Convention on Human Rights and the courts look very closely if a state falls below that minimum standard required, where the state fails to provide those basics of life.\n\n\"So certainly if children in Scotland aren't getting those basic things then legal action may be the way to take this forward. But it's not the best way.\"\n\nHe added: \"We really need political leadership here and we need to make sure that we are never in a situation where children are going without the basics that they need.\"\n\nThe Unite union organised a day of action on Universal Credit on Saturday, with demonstrations held around Scotland\n\nThe DWP spokesman said no-one who needed support had to wait six weeks.\n\nHe added: \"In December, claimants can request an advance of up to 50% of their first payment and a further 50% in January if they need it, repayable over 12 months.\n\n\"Universal Credit lies at the heart of our commitment to help people improve their lives and raise their incomes. It provides additional, tailored support to help people move into work and stop claiming benefits altogether.\"\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Sunday Politics Scotland programme, Brexit Minister Mike Russell said he thought the Scottish government would be \"very sympathetic\" to potential legal action against Universal Credit if it infringed the human rights of children.\n\nHe said: \"The approach of the UK government on social security and welfare is truly appalling. It is impoverishing people. It is leading to despair.\n\n\"I think anybody who is standing up against that and arguing for a practical resolution, to what are awful, ideological problems being brought by the Tories, I think deserves all the support he can get.\"\n\nOn Saturday, a day of action, organised by the Unite union, saw demonstrations staged at various locations around Scotland protesting against changes to the benefits system.\n\nYou can listen again to the extended interview with Children's Commissioner Bruce Adamson on the BBC iplayer.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Divorce by a man saying \"talaq\" three times was declared unlawful in August\n\nHusbands who attempt \"instant divorce\" could be sentenced to three years in prison under draft legislation being considered in India.\n\nThe traditional practice involves a Muslim man saying \"talaq\" (divorce) three times - in any form, including email or text message.\n\nIt was declared unconstitutional by India's Supreme Court in August, but officials say it has continued since.\n\nThe proposed law also provides for fines and support for affected women.\n\nThe draft Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill has now been sent to regional governments for consultation.\n\nIt would explicitly ban \"triple talaq\", in line with the Supreme Court ruling, and lay out procedures legal procedures for a \"subsistence allowance\" and custody arrangements, the Press Trust of India said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThose provisions have been made \"to ensure that in case the husband asks the wife to leave the house she should have legal protection,\" it quoted a high-level official as saying.\n\nUnder the current draft, people suspected of the offence would not be eligible for bail.\n\nIt would also ban the practice in any form - including in writing, or by text message.\n\nIndian news outlets said the legislation is due to be considered during the winter parliamentary sessions, which begins in mid-December.\n\nMuslims are India's largest minority group, and it is one of a few countries where the practice of triple talaq - which has no basis in the Koran - has survived.\n\nThe Supreme Court ruling came after five women petitions the court, arguing the traditional practice violated their fundamental rights.\n\nThe court ruled 3-2 in their favour, and labelled it \"un-Islamic\".", "Rak-Su have been named the winners of the X Factor 2017.\n\nThe Watford-based group beat Grace Davies in the final of the ITV singing competition - the first boy band to win since the show started in 2004.\n\nRak-Su thanked viewers for voting for them, while their mentor Simon Cowell hailed them as \"stars\".\n\nProceeds from Rak-Su's winners' single Dimelo will go to children's hospice charities Together For Short Lives and Shooting Star Chase.\n\nThe track, a duet with Wyclef Jean and Naughty Boy, was first performed during Saturday's show.\n\nX Factor judge Cowell also praised runner-up Grace Davies, describing her as \"really an outstanding, outstanding artist\".\n\nSimon Cowell described runner up Davies as \"outstanding\"\n\nThe finalists performed several original songs during their appearances on X Factor, marking a change in the show's approach this year.\n\nIn the ratings battle, however, the first part of the X Factor final - which was shown on Saturday night - lost out to Strictly Come Dancing.\n\nThe BBC dance contest's quarter final had an average audience of 9.7 million, while the first night of the X Factor final averaged 4.4 million viewers. The two shows overlapped for just over an hour on Saturday.\n\nIt was a similar story on Sunday night, when they overlapped for 40 minutes, with an average audience of 5.2 million for the second part of the X Factor final and 10.3 million for Strictly.\n\nBoth Rak-Su and Davies previously had songs played by BBC Introducing before auditioning for the X Factor.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Barclays has stopped offering free Kaspersky anti-virus products to new customers following an official warning about Russian security software.\n\nThe bank emailed 290,000 online banking customers on Saturday to say the move was a \"precautionary decision\".\n\nUK cyber-security chiefs are warning government departments not to use software from Russian companies for systems relating to national security.\n\nBarclays said it treated the security of its customers \"very seriously\".\n\nA spokesman for Kaspersky said it was \"disappointed\" that Barclays had discontinued its offer to new customers.\n\nThe National Cyber Security Centre - the UK's authority on cyber security and part of GCHQ - is writing to all government departments telling them Russian security software could be exploited by the Kremlin.\n\nBut officials stressed they were not saying members of the public or companies should stop using Kaspersky products, which are used by about 400 million people globally.\n\nBarclays told customers it would no longer offer free Kaspersky software \"following the information that's been shared in the news\" - but advised people with the software already installed that they did not need to take any action.\n\nIt wrote: \"The UK government has been advised... to remove any Russian products from all highly sensitive systems classified as secret or above.\n\n\"We've made the precautionary decision to no longer offer Kaspersky software to new users.\n\n\"However, there's nothing to suggest that customers need to stop using Kaspersky.\"\n\nIt went on: \"At this stage there is no action for you to take. It's important that you continue to protect yourself with anti-virus software.\"\n\nThe 290,000 people who received emails from Barclays are all online banking customers, who had downloaded Kaspersky in the past decade as part of a 12-month free trial offered by the bank.\n\nMany of these customers, who could include individuals employed by the government, could have ended their subscription once the free trial ended.\n\nIan Levy, the NCSC's technical director, said there was no evidence the guidance to government departments should apply to the wider public.\n\n\"For example, we really don't want people doing things like ripping out Kaspersky software at large as it makes little sense,\" he said.\n\nA spokesman for Barclays said: \"Even though this new guidance isn't directed at members of the public, we have taken the decision to withdraw the offer of Kaspersky software from our customer website.\"", "Saudi Arabia is seeing dramatic developments after decades of slow change. Modernisation, women’s rights and squaring up to Iran are all on the agenda, driven by the kingdom’s new, young crown prince. BBC Arabic's Ahmed Zaki tells us why it has suddenly happened.", "Cafe owner David Thomas said he was told the occupants were in an area of the lorry trailer which was not refrigerated\n\nEleven people, including six children, were found locked in the back of a lorry in a lay-by.\n\nFirefighters cut the locks after police were called to reports of banging from inside the vehicle, which was parked at Willoughby Hedge on the A303 at West Knoyle on Saturday afternoon.\n\nThe Home Office said immigration enforcement officers found 10 Iraqi nationals and one Afghan national.\n\nPolice said the driver was helping with inquiries but had not been arrested.\n\nThe driver of the lorry had been returning to Taunton from Belgium and had stopped for lunch at a roadside cafe.\n\nDavid Thomas, who runs the cafe, said the driver could not open the back doors because they had been glued shut.\n\nHe said the occupants had been \"pretty lucky\" because part of the lorry was refrigerated.\n\n\"The compartment they were in contained a few pallets of rather expensive Belgian chocolate and was at a normal temperature,\" he said.\n\n\"I understand from the driver if they'd been in the front compartment that was quite well-chilled so they would have had a few problems there.\"\n\nPolice were called to the Willoughby Hedge lay-by on Saturday afternoon\n\nA Wiltshire Police spokesman said the adults found in the lorry were being kept in custody overnight and would be handed to Home Office officials on Monday.\n\n\"We are currently working with colleagues from the Home Office Immigration Department as our inquiries progress,\" a spokesman said.\n\n\"Where someone has no right to remain in the UK, we will take action to remove them,\" a Home Office spokeswoman added.\n\nWiltshire Council said it was working with its partner agencies \"to provide support and help to those involved\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Battery cages for chickens were banned in the EU in 2012\n\nSome cages for hens provide a \"necessary defence\" against bird flu, the government's chief vet has said.\n\nIn a tweet, Nigel Gibbens said the larger pens, which replaced so-called battery cages in 2012, have welfare benefits and offer more space.\n\nIt comes after 10 leading British vets, who believe caging hens is unethical, said his \"brazen endorsement\" was \"extremely disappointing\".\n\nThey said the restricted space was \"seriously detrimental to welfare\".\n\nBattery cages for chickens were banned in the EU in 2012. The ruling said that if laying hens were to be held they must be in enriched - also known as colony - cages instead.\n\nThe enriched cages provided extra space to nest, scratch and roost and the guidance from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), is that each bird in an enriched cage must have at least 750 square centimetres of space.\n\nThe minimum for battery cages was 550 square centimetres.\n\nDespite the banning of battery cages, a number of leading retailers have announced that they are moving towards selling free-range eggs only.\n\nBut at the Egg and Poultry Industry Conference in October, Mr Gibbens called this a \"regrettable move\" and said cages \"have a lot going for them\".\n\nCriticising him in a group letter to the Times, 10 vets said overcrowding and restricted space were \"seriously detrimental to welfare\".\n\n\"Hens in cages cannot carry out fundamental species-specific behaviours\", they added.\n\nThe group dismissed his claims about protection against bird flu saying there are other options to manage the threat and urged the chief vet to take a \"more progressive position\".\n\nMr Gibbens later defended his view on Twitter and said: \"Free range risks disease that is really bad for welfare.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by NigelGibbensChiefVet This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA Defra spokeswoman said: \"Enriched cages offer less exposure to the threat of bird flu during an outbreak than free range systems, and provide more floor space and more height than battery cages.\"", "Jarvis Cocker's BBC 6 Music show will finish at the end of December, the Pulp frontman has announced.\n\nHis weekly Sunday Service programme was launched in January 2010.\n\nCocker, who has periodically taken breaks from his radio show to pursue other projects, has been absent from it since July.\n\nHe will return to present five last programmes, finishing on 31 December. From 7 January, the slot will be filled by Amy Lame for a new show.\n\nCocker said: \"It's not goodbye, it's just farewell.\n\n\"We wanted to say farewell properly and so we're going to do a run of five extra-special shows throughout December, starting this Sunday.\n\nThe head of 6 Music, Paul Rodgers, said Mr Cocker had been an integral part of the station's development and called the show \"a real mould-breaker\".\n\n\"Jarvis will always be an important part of the 6 Music family and we are looking forward to him returning to work on new projects with us,\" he added.\n\nLame said she would miss Cocker but her new show was a \"dream come true\".\n\n\"I can't wait to get cracking, connect with listeners, and keep the alternative spirit of music and culture alive and well.\"", "The planned partial-demolition of the Pontiac Silverdome stadium near Detroit has failed.\n\nThe stadium, once home to the Detroit Lions NFL team, has been empty for a decade.\n\nIts staged demolition was due to begin with an implosion on Sunday, but while footage showed plumes of smoke rising, the building remained standing.\n\nLocal media quoted officials as saying the stadium was \"built a little too well\".", "MPs are demanding to know why the white goods manufacturer Whirlpool ended a product replacement scheme for dangerous tumble dryers.\n\nThe Commons business committee says one million of the defective machines remain in UK homes.\n\nLast week, a coroner blamed a fault in a Whirlpool dryer for a 2014 fire that killed two men in north Wales.\n\nThe firm says it is still offering free repairs, but ended a £50 offer for a replacement machine after demand fell.\n\nThe affected machines include dryers manufactured under the Hotpoint, Indesit, Creda, Swan or Proline brands between April 2004 and October 2015.\n\nAfter problems with the machines first emerged, Whirlpool initially told customers that the dryers were safe to use but should not be left unattended, but later said the machines should be unplugged until they could be repaired.\n\nWith growing waiting lists for a repair, the company then said it would allow customers to purchase a replacement dryer for the reduced price of £50.\n\nThe Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee has written to Whirlpool, asking why it has now chosen to end this replacement scheme.\n\nCommittee chairwoman Rachel Reeves accused the US manufacturer of \"falling significantly short of their responsibilities\" and asked why boss Ian Moverly failed to mention the end of the replacement scheme when he gave evidence to her committee in October.\n\nWhirlpool said anyone with an affected dryer was still eligible for a free repair, and should contact them immediately to arrange it.\n\nIt said in a statement: \"After two years of extensive measures to raise awareness, the number of consumers coming forward has fallen sharply.\n\n\"This suggests that few affected appliances remain in service.\"\n\nIt told customers who still owned one of the appliances it was \"never too late\" to get in touch.\n\nDoug McTavish and Bernard Hender died in the fire at the flat in Llanrwst\n\nIt continued: \"Previously, consumers who wished to upgrade their products to a newer model were offered the additional option of a brand-new dryer in exchange for a small contribution to the total cost.\n\n\"The scheme has now ended due to a fall in demand.\"\n\nThe coroner from the inquests into the deaths of Doug McTavish and Bernard Hender in Llanrwst, north Wales, told Whirlpool that it had to \"take action\".\n\nHe said the fire was caused \"on the balance of probabilities\" by an electrical fault with the door switch on the dryer.\n\nHe described evidence presented at the inquest by Whirlpool as \"defensive and dismissive\" and said the company's approach was an \"obstacle\" to finding steps to prevent future fires.\n\nHis final report has been sent to the company, which has until 26 December to respond.\n\nConsumer group Which? criticised both Whirlpool and the government, which it called on to step in.\n\nThe company's managing director of home products and services, Alex Neill, said: 'It is completely unacceptable that Whirlpool has shut down its replacement scheme for these dangerous tumble dryers.\n\n\"It is irresponsible that despite one million households potentially still using an affected machine, Whirlpool seems unwilling to do everything possible to deal with this issue.\n\n\"The government must step in and force Whirlpool to fully recall the remaining tumble dryers.\"", "Ben Hopkins is heading for a US university\n\nOn the steps of Downing Street, Theresa May pledged to promote social mobility, to make Britain a country that works for everyone.\n\nShe pointed out that a white working-class boy is currently less likely than anyone else to go to university, and that the privately educated dominated the \"top professions\".\n\nHer cabinet has the highest proportion of state-educated ministers since Clement Attlee was prime minister in 1945.\n\nJustine Greening is the first education secretary to have been wholly educated at a comprehensive school.\n\nHowever, promising social mobility and delivering it are different things, as previous governments have learned.\n\nFor decades now, the charity the Sutton Trust has been the standard-bearer for social mobility in Britain, developing schemes to help pupils from less advantaged backgrounds gain access to elite universities, and helping them into the professions.\n\nThe trust's chief executive, Lee Elliot Major, said the Brexit vote underlines the need for a broader policy now, as it exposed a divided country.\n\nMany areas which voted Leave are those same areas where opportunities are fewest.\n\nMr Elliot Major said: \"The political vote that we saw was a direct consequence of social immobility.\"\n\nOne of the Sutton Trust's newest schemes, in partnership with the Fulbright Commission, helps teenagers to apply to American universities and win scholarships to pay the fees.\n\nIt is very competitive. There are 10 applicants for every place.\n\nJust 61 British students are going to the US on the scheme this year.\n\nBen Hopkins, aged 18, from the village of Wheaton Aston in Staffordshire, will soon be heading for Bowdoin in Maine, where he has won a scholarship. It is one of the most highly rated liberal arts colleges in the US, with fees of $62,000 (£48,000) a year.\n\nBen Hopkins worried whether he would fit in at Oxford\n\nBen does not come from a privileged background. His father is a machinist, his mother a teaching assistant.\n\nNeither went to university. The family live in a modest, though immaculate, home, on the outskirts of the village.\n\nSouth Staffordshire is one of the more affluent parts of the Midlands, with a lower rate of unemployment than the national average.\n\nIt is a Conservative area. Nearly 65% voted Leave on 23 June. Those I spoke to cited fears over immigration.\n\nBen's mother, Tracy, told me he had always been very committed to his schoolwork, and he perseveres until he gets something right: \"He's a perfectionist.\"\n\nShe said she wasn't a \"tiger mother\". Ben had always set his own pace. Both parents are very supportive of their son and proud of his achievement.\n\nBen told me his teachers had helped him greatly. Some gave up their own free time to give him extra lessons.\n\nHe was a pupil at the local comprehensive, Wolgarston High, in the nearby market town of Penkridge. It is rated \"good\" by Ofsted, and improving. It currently gets some of the best A-level results in South Staffordshire.\n\nEvery year, some pupils go to Russell Group universities, and sometimes students go to Oxford or Cambridge.\n\nHowever, Ben told me that when he visited Oxford he wondered whether he would fit in, as so many students seemed to have gone to private school.\n\nHeadteacher Philip Tapp says there is very little in the local area to inspire and raise aspirations\n\nAdam Simmonds, head of sixth form at Wolgarston High, said others occasionally felt the same, as there is a strong sense of community in this part of South Staffordshire, and some 18-year-olds do not want to leave.\n\n\"Sometimes it's a powerful draw, their experiences in this locality, and they don't want to give that up to go to, well any university, actually,\" he said.\n\n\"We've had students with three As at A-level who've decided to stay at home because they like staying at home.\"\n\nThough Stafford is just over an hour from London by train, Ben had only visited the capital once before he went for the Sutton Trust assessment.\n\nThe school headteacher, Philip Tapp, said he was working to arrange more trips for all students. He said there was very little in the local area to inspire and raise aspirations.\n\nSo what made Ben such an exception? His family, his teachers and ultimately, himself. No-one told him about the Sutton Trust: he discovered it online.\n\nAdam Simmonds described Ben, outgoing head boy, as an \"elder statesman\" of the school whom everyone respected and felt they could talk to.\n\nLee Elliot Major, chief executive of the Sutton Trust, urged the new government to consider how to extend social mobility to help more people.\n\nHe said; \"We can pick talent and then catapult it into opportunity, as with our US programme where you have amazing young people who are going to the Ivy League and other leading universities.\n\n\"But what about those areas that are left behind? What about the children who don't go on those programmes? And I think no-one at the moment has got the answer to that.\"\n\nThe new government is considering reversing the ban on new grammar schools, as a way of promoting social mobility. But that's controversial - many argue it will not work.\n\nDavid Skelton, of the conservative think tank Renewal, said he thought a more sophisticated and complex approach was needed now. He said: \"1950s England should not be our model.\"\n\nHe suggested more streaming in schools could be effective, and he endorsed the comments of the new minister for skills, Robert Halfon, who has said apprenticeships should be more highly valued and more could be done to improve vocational and technical training, such as that provided by university technical colleges.", "PC Willis said he held onto the van to stop it toppling over a bridge\n\nA police officer held on to a van to stop it falling as it teetered on the edge of a motorway bridge.\n\nThe driver was trapped inside when PC Martin Willis arrived at the scene on the A1(M) in Yorkshire.\n\nWriting on Twitter, he said he grabbed on to the vehicle to stop it \"swaying in the wind\".\n\nPC Willis, known as Motorway Martin to his followers, said he couldn't \"begin to describe [his] relief\" when firefighters arrived.\n\nA view from below the bridge shows the van's precarious position\n\nThe van ended up in the precarious position when it came off the road near the border between North and West Yorkshire.\n\nPosting on Twitter, PC Willis described how he tried to stabilise the vehicle with the driver still trapped inside.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Motorway Martin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPC Willis was praised by colleagues for his swift action.\n\n\"Your superman cape isn't in this photo though! Must have come off in the fracas!,\" PC Adam Pace‏ tweeted.\n\nPC Willis he said he was relieved to see West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue arrive at the scene", "A couple who have been engaged for 30 years can finally marry after a £1m lottery win.\n\nTony Pearce, 66, and Deb Gellatly, 58, from Southend, have never been able to afford the cost of a wedding.\n\nThe Lotto raffle prize means they can clear their debts and finally get married.", "Daisy Ridley has denied reports that she wants to give up the role of Rey at the end of the current series.\n\nDaisy will be in the latest movie Star Wars: The Last Jedi and is due to be in the ninth episode.\n\n\"When I did sign up, I did sign up for three films and that's where I sort of saw the story ending,\" she said.\n\n\"I think everyone has perhaps taken that as me going, 'I don't want anything to do with it' which is vastly untrue because this is awesome.\"\n\nDaisy said it was meaningful that Rey features as the leading female role in a film produced by a major firm, Walt Disney Studios.\n\nShe also hailed director JJ Abrams who introduced Rey in the first instalment of the new era, The Force Awakens.\n\nEarlier this year, it was announced that JJ would return to direct Star Wars: Episode IX which is expected to be released December 2019.\n\n\"JJ has always put brilliant females in his things,\" Ridley said. \"So I think it was wonderful and then the fact it came from a big studio says a lot too, and I think there's a big change already.\n\n\"Obviously there's still a long way to go.\"\n\nAccording to research by the Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film, women account for just 29% of lead solo roles and 37% of major roles in the top 100 grossing Hollywood films of last year.\n\nStar Wars: The Last Jedi will debut in cinemas on the 15 December.\n\nFind us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat", "A Labour peer is to repay parliamentary travel expenses after accepting it would have been \"more appropriate\" not to have claimed the money.\n\nThe Mail On Sunday reports Lord Bassam, Labour's chief whip in the Lords, claimed the cost of travelling to and from his home in Brighton since 2010.\n\nHe also got an annual £36,366 allowance for overnight stays in London.\n\nLord Bassam said he had not been told rules were breached, but would not submit such claims again.\n\nThe Mail on Sunday reported Lord Bassam was making an hour-long train journey between his home on the south coast and London, claiming about £6,400 a year in expenses to cover train tickets and taxi fares.\n\nBut according to the paper, as chief whip and because his main home is not in London, Lord Bassam is one of a small number of front bench peers entitled to the Lords office holders allowance.\n\nThe payment is included in his salary and designed to cover \"expenses in staying overnight away from their main or only residence\".\n\nIn a statement Lord Bassam said: \"With my home outside of London, I have been in receipt of the relevant office holders allowance for the opposition chief whip in the Lords.\n\n\"At the same time, in accordance with rules laid down by the House, I have claimed costs for my regular travel to and from Parliament.\n\n\"While I have not been advised that any breach of the rules has taken place, waiving the right to such travel claims would perhaps have been a more appropriate response on my part.\n\n\"I will not be submitting any further claims in this way, and instead use the office holders allowance to cover those additional costs. I will also discuss with House officials the steps necessary to repay previous travel claims.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester City came from behind to win a record-equalling 13th Premier League match in a row with victory over stubborn West Ham at Etihad Stadium.\n\nAngelo Ogbonna's header on the stroke of half-time put the lowly Hammers ahead, but Nicolas Otamendi responded with a predatory finish shortly after the break.\n\nDavid Silva won it for City, acrobatically converting a Kevin de Bruyne pass with seven minutes left.\n\nVictory meant Pep Guardiola's side re-established their eight-point lead over Manchester United, who they play at Old Trafford next Sunday (16:30 GMT).\n\nThey also equalled the longest winning run within a top-flight season, matching Sunderland and Preston (1891-92), Arsenal (2001-02) and Chelsea (2016-17).\n\nWest Ham, though, have set a club record for the fewest points after 15 Premier League matches - they have just 10.\n\nThe Londoners had their chances - as well as Ogbonna's goal, Michail Antonio almost pounced when Ederson spilled the ball, and Manuel Lanzini forced the goalkeeper to save at his near post.\n\nBut it always looked as though City's pressure would tell and, shortly after De Bruyne's free-kick was palmed away, Gabriel Jesus skipped through and slid the ball to Otamendi, who scored.\n\nLeroy Sane, Raheem Sterling, De Bruyne and Jesus had further chances before Silva won it for the home side, but there was still time for the Hammers to go close, with Diafra Sakho shooting just wide after Marko Arnautovic pulled the ball back.\n• None Analysis: Total belief, squad unity and late goals - who can stop Man City?\n\nCity leave it late to win - again\n\nSilva's strike made this the fourth game in a row City have won thanks to a goal scored in or after the 83rd minute. Sterling had scored the past three, having also hit an injury-time winner at Bournemouth in August.\n\nA home victory always looked the likeliest result, with City extending their unbeaten run in all competitions to 28 matches.\n\nThey were made to fight for the points, though, and Silva's late winner was one of 18 shots they had in the second half.\n\nWhile City have been in full flow for much of the season, they have also shown their resilience - taking a league-high 10 points from losing positions.\n\nPrior to their late winners against Huddersfield last month and now West Ham, City had won only one of their past 30 games in which they had been behind at half-time.\n\nThat combination of silk and steel has taken them eight points clear at the top, and it will take something special to stop them.\n\nDespite the defeat, there was plenty for Hammers boss David Moyes to take heart from as his side kept the league leaders at bay for almost an hour.\n\nThe first half was particularly encouraging and, though a deflected strike from Silva extended Adrian, West Ham had better chances through Antonio and Lanzini.\n\nThey looked defensively solid and confident in their gameplan, and Moyes' only disappointment will be they could not keep it up.\n\nJesus' half-time introduction made a difference, but Sane, De Bruyne and Silva - who had not been at their best in the first half - also began to influence things.\n\nCity had had six shots to the Hammers' four prior to that, but Adrian was forced into a string of saves as the hosts bombarded his goal in search of a winner.\n\nAdrian, who came in as Joe Hart was unable to face his parent club, was a standout performer but the Hammers had opportunities of their own despite the absence of strikers Andy Carroll and Javier Hernandez.\n\nAnd the agonising nature of this defeat was summed up by the reaction of former City defender Pablo Zabaleta when Silva's shot hit the back of the net.\n\nDavid Moyes speaking to BBC Radio 5 live: \"I have to say it was a really good effort. We defended much better today. We've worked a bit on it, we had one day where we could prepare.\n\n\"We needed our goalkeeper to play well. He got both hands to most things. I thought most of it was outside the box. I have to say we did a really good job.\n\n\"What a chance we have to make it 2-2 late on. My feeling was I thought we deserved it (to equalise). You get results in different ways and it looked as though we might have got one today. For long parts of the game we were in with a chance.\"\n\nPep Guardiola speaking to Match of the Day: \"We started really well but we lost our patience. We didn't have any rhythm because Adrian was taking 30 seconds every time.\n\n\"It was similar to the last few games, in the second half I thought we would score. They played 10 players inside the box, it was almost impossible.\n\n\"It's a big victory. It showed what we are. We had two strikers in the second half and that helped, it was a big lesson for me. We created more with two.\n\n\"We spoke a lot about defending set-pieces but they are taller. It will happen again next week against United so we have to try and concede fewer set-pieces.\"\n\nRecord-equalling success and record-breaking disappointment - the best of the stats\n• None City have equalled the longest winning run within a top-flight season.\n• None City's haul of 43 points from 15 games is a joint top-flight record, level with Tottenham in 1960-61 (converted to three points for a win).\n• None West Ham's total of 10 points from 15 games is their lowest in the Premier League and lowest in the top-flight since 1976-77 (nine, converted to three for a win).\n• None Since his debut for City in September 2015, De Bruyne has provided 35 assists in the league - more than any other in the big five European leagues.\n• None Jesus has been directly involved in 21 goals in his 24 Premier League appearances so far (15 goals, 6 assists).\n• None Ogbonna scored his first goal in the big five European leagues, in his 144th appearance.\n\nWest Ham return to London Stadium to face Chelsea on Saturday (12:30 GMT) in the first of two successive home games - with Arsenal to come afterwards.\n\nManchester City travel to Ukraine to take on Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League on Wednesday (19:45 GMT) and return to league action against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday (16:30).\n• None Adrián (West Ham United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt missed. Diafra Sakho (West Ham United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Marko Arnautovic.\n• None Substitution, West Ham United. André Ayew replaces Michail Antonio because of an injury.\n• None Goal! Manchester City 2, West Ham United 1. David Silva (Manchester City) left footed shot from very close range to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Kevin De Bruyne.\n• None Attempt saved. Michail Antonio (West Ham United) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top right corner. Assisted by Pedro Obiang.\n• None Attempt blocked. Sergio Agüero (Manchester City) right footed shot from a difficult angle on the right is blocked. Assisted by David Silva.\n• None Attempt blocked. Sergio Agüero (Manchester City) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt blocked. Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Raheem Sterling.\n• None Attempt blocked. David Silva (Manchester City) left footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Raheem Sterling. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "James Levine was also a conductor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra\n\nNew York's Metropolitan Opera says it has suspended the renowned conductor James Levine following allegations of sexual misconduct.\n\nThe Met said Mr Levine, 74, would not appear this season and it had appointed a law firm to investigate his actions.\n\nThree men have now accused Mr Levine of abusing them decades ago when they were teenagers.\n\nMr Levine, who was music director at the Met for 40 years, has not commented publicly on the accusations.\n\nHe retired for health reasons in 2016 but has continued to work with the opera as music director emeritus.\n\nThe Met announced on Saturday it was investigating a claim based on a 2016 police report in which a man accused Mr Levine of abusing him as a teenager in the 1980s.\n\nPeter Gelb, general manager of the Met, told the New York Times on Sunday that it had decided to suspend its relationship with the conductor and cancel his forthcoming engagements after learning of the accounts of two other men who described similar sexual encounters beginning in the late 1960s.\n\n\"While we await the results of the investigation, based on these news reports, the Met has made the decision to act now,\" Mr Gelb said in a statement on Twitter, adding: \"This is a tragedy for anyone whose life has been affected.\"\n\nThe Times said the Met had been aware of the police report since last year. However, Mr Levine had denied the accusations and the Met had heard nothing further from police, the newspaper added.\n\nThe accusations follow a series of sexual abuse and harassment claims made against high-profile figures in the entertainment industry.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Metropolitan Opera This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAn Illinois police report, seen by the New York Times, said one of the alleged victims claimed that the abuse began in 1985 when he was 15 and Mr Levine was 41, and continued until 1993.\n\nDuring his career Mr Levine has conducted more than 2,500 performances at the Met.\n\nHe made his debut there in June 1971 with Puccini's Tosca, becoming principal conductor in the 1973-74 season and music director in 1976-77.\n\nHe conducted 85 different operas and also worked with the Three Tenors - Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo.\n\nHe has struggled with Parkinson's disease and other health issues and now conducts from a motorised wheelchair.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Germany is on high alert for attacks following last year's fatal attack on a Christmas market in Berlin\n\nPolice investigating a bomb found at a Christmas market in Germany on Friday say it was not terrorism but an attempt to blackmail the shipping company, DHL.\n\nThe nail bomb was sent in a parcel to a pharmacy near a market in Potsdam.\n\nPolice performed a controlled explosion on the device, which was full of explosives but had no detonator.\n\nAfter scanning a QR code on the package, police found that those involved demanded millions of euros to not set the bomb off.\n\n\"The good news is it that we can say, with all likelihood, that the package was not aimed at the Christmas market,\" Brandenburg's Interior Minister Karl-Heinz Schröter said.\n\nBut he and others warned that there might be more such attempts. Police said a similar package was sent to an online trader based in Frankfurt an der Oder recently.\n\nGermany is on a heightened terror alert, a year after 12 people died in an Islamist attack at a Berlin Christmas market.\n\nOfficials have warned people to call the police instead of opening suspicious packages.\n\nThey said people should watch out for smudges, visible wires and unfamiliar or missing return addresses.\n• None Germany attacks: What is going on?", "Footage has been released of the moment a lorry driver crashed into stationary cars on the M6 at 43mph.\n\nThe 47-year-old driver, from Liverpool, told police at the scene, \"I think I went to sleep for a moment\".\n\nHe admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was jailed for 16 months.\n\nWest Midlands Police said the two car drivers were treated for broken bones and back and neck injuries.\n\nMidlands Live: Man continued to be questioned in murder probe; Homes evacuated after grenade found", "Rhythmical Mike is a successful performer - but says his schooldays were \"a nightmare\"\n\n\"You've got this - the whirlwind that you're in - is the beginning of something wonderfully new - for you.\"\n\nRhythmical Mike, a 24-year-old East Midlands poet, performs his work to pupils at Lovers' Lane Primary school in Newark, Nottinghamshire.\n\nIt's an area where many children face big challenges and, according to a new State of the Nation report from the Social Mobility Commission, their educational and career prospects are too often limited from the outset.\n\nIt ranks all 324 local authorities in England in terms of the life chances of someone born into a disadvantaged background and it debunks the notion of a simple North-South divide.\n\nInstead, it says, there is a \"postcode lottery\" with \"hotspots\" (shown in orange on the map below) and \"cold spots\" (shown in blue) found in all regions.\n\nThe report highlights a \"self-reinforcing spiral of ever growing division\", with children in some areas getting a poor start in life from which they can never recover.\n\nSorry, your browser cannot display this map\n\nMap created with Carto. If you can't see the map, tap here.\n\nWest Somerset sits at the bottom of the league table, with average wages less than half those in the best performing parts of London.\n\nThere are some surprises, with wealthy areas such as West Berkshire, Cotswold and Crawley performing badly for their most vulnerable residents.\n\nThe report explains that wealthy areas can see high levels of low pay, with poorer young people at risk of being \"somewhat neglected\", particularly if they are scattered around isolated rural schools\n\nConversely, some of the most deprived areas are \"hotspots\", providing good education, employment opportunities and housing for their most disadvantaged residents.\n\nThese include London boroughs with big deprived populations such as Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham.\n\nIn Kensington and Chelsea half of disadvantaged teenagers make it to university, but the figure for the same group in Barnsley, Hastings and Eastbourne is just 10%.\n\n\"London and its hinterland are increasingly looking like a different country from the rest of Britain,\" says Alan Milburn, who chairs the Social Mobility Commission.\n\n\"It is moving ahead, as are many of our country's great cities.\n\n\"But too many rural and coastal areas and towns of Britain's old industrial heartlands are being left behind economically and hollowed out socially.\"\n\nLarge variations were also found within Scotland and Wales, although the data is not directly comparable with that for England, says the report.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"Not many opportunities\": People in the town of Newark share their experiences\n\nThe East Midlands is the English region with the worst outcomes for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, says the report - and within the East Midlands, Newark and Sherwood is the worst performing local authority.\n\nIn Newark, only 43% of children are ready for school when they start Reception, compared with 52% nationally, the research finds.\n\nAnd by adulthood only 21% are in professional or managerial roles, compared with 51% in Oxford.\n\nMike, real name Mike Markham, has been a poet for about six years, running his own company and playing at festivals, supporting stars like Rizzle Kicks and Russell Brand.\n\nFor him, school was a really negative experience. He feels he failed there.\n\n\"It was a nightmare,\" he says, but believes overcoming his early difficulties helped him succeed later in life.\n\n\"Anybody can achieve anything,\" is his message to the children.\n\nHe believes that, despite class structures, the world is changing.\n\n\"I think you've just got to be driven, you've got to be inspired you've got to be inspiring.\"\n\nEfforts to improve social mobility need to start early, says the report\n\nThe children themselves have big ambitions.\n\n\"I want to be a boxer. I want to get to the highest level and be a professional,\" says one boy.\n\n\"I want to be a heart surgeon and to do that I am going to have to get into the best universities there are and I've just got to try and pass all my exams,\" says a girl.\n\nBut head teacher Jenny Hodgkinson says too many parents are caught between low pay and rising living costs and are working so hard simply to put food on the table, that they often lack time and energy to focus on their children's schooling.\n\n\"There's a lot of challenges facing families at the moment,\" she says.\n\n\"In terms of working more than one job, people with low income aren't time rich.\n\n\"They want to do the best for their children and they work ever so hard but they don't always have the resources to do what they need to.\"\n\n\"It can be difficult trying to earn a living in this town,\" says parent Sian Mclachlan.\n\nIn the town centre, one young woman complained of few opportunities for young people.\n\n\"If there's a good job going it will be gone within a week or so,\" she adds.\n\n\"I've got job security,\" says one young man. \"But I could be doing a lot more. I took better money where I should have gone to college - but you're not really pushed in this area.\"\n\nThe school is making great efforts to improve children's mental health, resilience and self-esteem, along with extra reading support and individual mentoring.\n\nIt is working to draw in families, with classes to improve parents' basic skills which can help improve attitudes to education and boost their children's attendance.\n\nMs Mclachlan says workshops on CV writing, job interviews and money management are also on offer.\n\nBut the report warns of \"mind-blowing inconsistency\" in efforts to improve social mobility.\n\n\"Tinkering around the edges will not do the trick,\" says Mr Milburn.\n\n\"The analysis in this report substantiates the sense of political alienation and social resentment that so many parts of Britain feel.\"\n\nHe wants \"a new level of effort to tackle the phenomenon of left-behind Britain\" and urges the government to increase spending on regions that most need it.\n\nFor example, estimates suggest that the North of England is £6bn underfunded compared with London.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Alan Milburn: \"Your chances of getting on really depend on where you're born and where you live\"\n\nEducation Secretary Justine Greening said the findings underlined \"the importance of focusing our efforts in more disadvantaged areas where we can make the biggest difference\".\n\n\"We are making progress. There are now 1.8 million more children in good or outstanding schools than in 2010. Disadvantaged young people are entering universities at record rates and the attainment gap between them and their peers has narrowed.\n\n\"We are also boosting salaries through the introduction of the National Living Wage, creating more full-time, permanent jobs and investing £9bn in affordable housing. Taken together, this won't just change individual lives, it will help transform our country into a fairer society.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mr Milburn said Brexit meant ministers were unlikely to have the energy to tackle \"one of the biggest challenges\" facing the UK\n\nAll four members of the board of the government's Social Mobility Commission have stood down in protest at the lack of progress towards a \"fairer Britain\".\n\nEx-Labour minister Alan Milburn, who chairs the commission, said he had \"little hope\" the current government could make the \"necessary\" progress.\n\nThe government was too focused on Brexit to deal with the issue, he said.\n\nThe government said Mr Milburn's term had come to an end and it had already decided to get some \"fresh blood\" in.\n\nThe commission is charged with monitoring the government's progress in \"freeing children from poverty and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential\".\n\nIn his resignation letter to Theresa May, published in The Observer, Mr Milburn said he did not doubt her \"personal belief\" in social justice, but he saw \"little evidence of that being translated into meaningful action\".\n\nHe said individual ministers, such as the education secretary, had shown a deep commitment to social mobility.\n\nBut it had \"become obvious that the government as a whole is unable to commit the same level of support\".\n\nNeither, according to the former Labour minister and his colleagues on the board who include a former Conservative education secretary.\n\nTheir frustration demonstrates the extent to which Brexit is all-consuming for the government.\n\nLeaving the EU is taking up so much time, energy and effort that there is little capacity for anything else to get done.\n\nEven on an issue which is a personal priority for the prime minister.\n\nMr Milburn, a former health secretary, took up his role at the commission in July 2012, under the coalition government led by David Cameron and Nick Clegg.\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, he said divisions in Britain were becoming wider - pointing to the ongoing squeeze on wages.\n\nThe government lacked the \"bandwidth\" to tackle social division while also dealing with Brexit, he said, describing his task as being like \"pushing water uphill\".\n\nMr Milburn said Education Secretary Justine Greening had been a \"champion for the cause\" and had wanted him to stay in post - which Ms Greening, who also appeared on the show, would not be drawn on.\n\n\"He has done a fantastic job, but his term had come to an end and I think it was about getting some fresh blood into the commission,\" she said.\n\nShe denied the government lacked the will to tackle inequality, but admitted more needed to be done.\n\nIn a report published last week, the commission said economic, social and local divisions laid bare by the Brexit vote needed to be addressed to prevent a rise in far right or hard left extremism.\n\nIt said London and its commuter belt appeared to be a \"different country\" to coastal, rural and former industrial areas, with young people there facing lower pay and fewer top jobs.\n\nThe resignations come as Mrs May, who entered Downing Street in July 2016 promising to tackle the \"burning injustices\" that hold back poorer people, faces questions over the future of senior minister Damian Green - who is effectively her second in command - and is under pressure as Brexit talks continue.\n\nIn an interview in the Sunday Times, Mr Milburn said: \"There has been indecision, dysfunctionality and a lack of leadership.\"\n\nTheresa May pledged to \"make Britain a country that works for everyone\" when she became PM\n\nThe government said it was making \"good progress\" on social mobility and focusing on disadvantaged areas.\n\nIt said it had already told Mr Milburn it planned to appoint a new chair and would hold an open application process for the role.\n\nIt said it was committed to fighting injustice \"and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to go as far as their talents will take them\".\n\nIt highlighted its increase of the national living wage, cuts in income tax for the lowest paid and doubling of free childcare in England.\n\nThe process of appointing a new chairperson and commissioners would begin as soon as possible, it added.\n\nThe other board members standing down include deputy chair of the commission and Tory former education secretary Baroness Shephard.\n\nPaul Gregg, a professor of economic and social policy at the University of Bath, and David Johnston, the chief executive of the Social Mobility Foundation charity, are also leaving.\n\nShadow cabinet office minister Jon Trickett said the resignations came as \"no surprise\".\n\n\"As inequality has grown under the Tories, social mobility has totally stalled,\" he said.\n\n\"How well people do in life is still based on class background rather than on talent or effort.\"\n\nMr Milburn said he would be setting up a new social mobility institute, independent of the government.", "Donald Trump's presidency has been overshadowed by the inquiry into collusion with Russia\n\nDonald Trump lashed out at the FBI on Sunday, issuing a fresh denial that he asked former director James Comey to drop an investigation into the conduct of one of his top aides, Michael Flynn.\n\nIn a Twitter tirade, Mr Trump said the FBI's reputation was \"in tatters\".\n\nHis attack came amid a flurry of developments in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry into alleged Russian interference in the US election.\n\nMr Trump denies that his team colluded with Russia to get him elected.\n\nReports emerged over the weekend that Mr Mueller, a former FBI director, had dismissed an FBI officer from the investigation during the summer after he was discovered to have made anti-Trump remarks in text messages.\n\nThe president seized on the officer's dismissal, tweeting: \"Report: 'ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE' Now it all starts to make sense!\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA spokesman for Mr Mueller said the officer was dismissed from the investigating team as soon as the messages were discovered.\n\nMichael Flynn, the president's former national security adviser, announced on Friday that he was co-operating with Mr Mueller's investigation, in return for pleading guilty to a lesser charge.\n\nThe former general admitted lying to the FBI and has been offered a reduced sentence of six months. Analysts say the deal indicates that Mr Flynn has incriminating information about one or more senior members of the Trump administration.\n\nIn a series of tweets posted on Sunday morning, Mr Trump again attacked his former rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, who was investigated by the FBI ahead of the election after it emerged she had used a private email server to conduct state department business.\n\nNo charges were brought against Mrs Clinton or her team.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. After Flynn's guilty plea, what next for the Russia investigation?\n\nIn another tweet, the president accused ABC News of \"horrendously inaccurate and dishonest reporting\", after one of the network's reporters acknowledged making an error in a story about the president.\n\nChief investigative reporter Brian Ross reported that Mr Trump was a candidate when he directed Michael Flynn to make contact with Moscow.\n\nHe later corrected his report to say Mr Trump was president-elect when he gave the order to Mr Flynn. Mr Ross has been suspended by the network for four weeks.\n\nThe president fired Mr Flynn in February for misrepresenting the nature of his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak to Vice-President Mike Pence.\n\nThen-FBI director James Comey alleges that in a private meeting the day after Mr Flynn was fired, the president asked him to show leniency to the dismissed aide, saying, \"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.\"\n\nMichael Flynn was sacked in February, just 25 days after taking the job\n\nMr Comey took notes immediately after the meeting and shared copies with senior FBI officials. President Trump fired Mr Comey in May.\n\nTweeting on Sunday, Mr Trump issued a fresh denial that he had pushed Mr Comey to drop the investigation into Mr Flynn.\n\n\"I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!\" he wrote.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLegal experts say Mr Trump could theoretically have obstructed justice if he had attempted to have the FBI investigation into Mr Flynn squashed.\n\nThe president's surprising admission in a tweet on Saturday - that he knew Mr Flynn had lied to the FBI when he fired him - contradicted his own account from the time, and may have added weight to accusations that he obstructed justice.\n\nWhite House lawyer John Dowd later told the Axios news website that he had drafted the controversial tweet and sent the text to White House social media director Dan Scavino.\n\nThe revelations soured what should have been a celebratory weekend for the president, after his sweeping tax reform bill scraped through the Senate early on Saturday morning.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. HR McMaster: 'There isn't much time left' to address threat from North Korea\n\nWhite House national security adviser HR McMaster says the US is \"in a race\" to address the threat from North Korea.\n\nThe potential for war is increasing every day but armed conflict is not the only solution, he told a defence forum.\n\nHis comments came three days after North Korea carried out its first ballistic missile test in two months, in defiance of UN resolutions.\n\nThe latest missile flew higher than any others previously tested, before falling into Japanese waters.\n\nTensions have heated up in recent months over the north's continued development of its nuclear and missile programme, in spite of global condemnation and international sanctions. Pyongyang conducted its sixth nuclear test in September.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A statement read on North Korean state-run TV blamed the \"reckless nuclear war mania of the US\" for any possible escalation\n\nThe Pentagon was also reported to be scouting sites on the west coast of America to deploy extra defences, amid claims from North Korea that its latest missile could reach the whole of continental United States.\n\nPresident Donald Trump's national security adviser gave his unscripted comments at a forum in California on Saturday.\n\n\"There are ways to address this problem short of armed conflict, but it is a race because he's getting closer and closer, and there's not much time left,\" Mr McMaster said, in reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How could war with North Korea unfold?\n\nHe singled out China, urging the Beijing government to enforce a total oil embargo on the north to make it difficult to fuel missile launches.\n\n\"We're asking China to act in China's interest, as they should, and we believe increasingly that it's in China's urgent interest to do more.\"\n\n\"You can't shoot a missile without fuel,\" he added.\n\nNorth Korea, meanwhile, has accused the US and neighbouring South Korea of being warmongers ahead of large-scale joint air exercises between the two allies that begin on Monday.\n\n\"It is an open, all-out provocation against the DPRK [North Korea], which may lead to a nuclear war any moment,\" an editorial in the ruling party's Rodong newspaper said.\n\nNorth Korea said the Hwasong-15 missile it fired on Thursday, which reached an altitude of 4,475km (2,780 miles) and flew 950km in 53 minutes, could have been tipped with a \"super-large heavy warhead\" capable of striking the US mainland.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. North Korea said in November its latest missile was capable of reaching Washington DC\n\nHowever, while analysts agree the missile could have travelled more than 13,000km on a standard trajectory and reached the US, they have cast doubts over whether the missile would have been able successfully to carry a heavy warhead that distance.\n\nThey do not believe North Korea has mastered the technology to prevent the warhead from breaking up as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere.\n\nReuters news agency reported on Sunday that research was under way to locate new sites on the US west coast for the possible installation of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) anti-ballistic missiles, similar to those already deployed in South Korea to protect against potential attacks from the north.\n\nIt quoted two congressmen, who said the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) was aiming to install extra defences, although no details on locations or timing were given.\n\nHowever, the MDA, which is part of the US defence department, says it has not yet received instructions to deploy Thaad systems.\n\nTwo Thaad systems have already been deployed to South Korea and the US Pacific territory of Guam, which is 3,400km from Pyongyang.\n\nIn August, Kim Jong-un announced plans to fire medium-to-long-range rockets towards Guam, where US strategic bombers are based alongside more than 160,000 US citizens.\n\nThaad systems are able to shoot down short and medium-range ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of their flight using hit-to-kill technology where kinetic energy destroys the incoming warhead.", "The Late Late Toy Show is Ireland's biggest TV event of the year. When Adam and Kayla came on the show, they left the audience \"in bits\". Here's why.", "Children and young people in England are to be able to access mental health support at school or college under government plans to improve services.\n\nThe proposals include introducing a four-week waiting time for youngsters needing specialist support and new mental health support teams in schools.\n\nIt is hoped around one in four schools in England will have this provision in place by 2022.\n\nCampaigners say it was welcome, but overdue and \"only a start\".\n\nThe issue of young people's mental health has long been of concern, with parents, charities and healthcare professionals warning that families are not getting the support they need.\n\nAccording to new NHS figures, around one in 10 girls aged 16 or 17 were referred to specialist mental health services in England last year.\n\nThe new measures are part of a £300m investment by the Departments of Health and Education.\n\nFor 18-year-old Sienna (not her real name), the onset of an eating disorder and depression five years ago has meant she has been in and out of hospital units, sometimes for long periods.\n\nFor her, the main frustration with the current system has been the lack of joined-up care.\n\n\"One of the things is that I've had no continuity, because I've been sent to quite a lot of units and stuff and had different teams. I've never had one person that's been there the whole way.\n\n\"It's all very mixed up. It feels really out of control and like I've not got one person - I've just been sent to loads of different places, I've been given bits and bobs, but it doesn't all fit.\n\n\"It would have been helpful if I could just have had someone from the start or had a therapist that sort of stayed with me, some continuous treatment that isn't literally just putting me in hospital and keeping me alive and then discharging me.\n\n\"I've never had anything that's sort of continuous, so how do I know what works?\"\n\nSienna says she felt while the symptoms of her anorexia were addressed, the underlining issues causing them were not.\n\nRachel says her other children have also suffered\n\n\"I just feel like I've never been properly treated for the mental side - they just sort of put me in hospital when my physical side's bad and they don't treat anything else, and then they wonder why it keeps happening, why I have to keep going back into hospital.\"\n\nFor her mother Rachel, the visits to various hospitals - on one occasion 300 miles away from home - have left her in need of therapy.\n\n\"It's the most horrible feeling when you have your daughter or your young person taken away from you.\n\n\"It feels like you've had your heart ripped out. You keep going and you keep going to do all you can to aid their recovery and you travel wherever you've got to travel.\n\n\"It's so tough leaving them somewhere where you don't know the staff and getting on a plane or in a car travelling all those miles back home. It's difficult for them and it's excruciating for the family really left behind.\"\n\nSarah Brennan, chief executive of the charity Young Minds, said while the government's green paper was very welcome, it was \"still only a start\".\n\n\"What we want to see is a long-term strategy for children and young people's mental health.,\" she said.\n\nMs Brennan said a postcode lottery in provision must also be addressed.\n\nThe green paper will be published on Monday and will be followed by a 12-week consultation period.\n\nThe Local Government Association has previously said that it wanted it to \"deliver the root and branch reform\".\n\nIts chairman, Cllr Richard Watts, said: \"We cannot continue with a system that is leaving thousands of children and families in distress\".\n\nHealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: \"Around half of all mental illness starts before the age of 14, so it is vital children get support as soon as they need it - in the classroom.\n\n\"If we catch mental ill health early we can treat it and stop it turning into something more serious.\"\n\nEducation Secretary Justine Greening added that prevention and addressing mental health issues early was key.\n\n\"It actually really affects young people's learning when they're not able to engage at school as much as we want them to,\" she said.\n\n\"So it's about more expertise on the doorstep for schools, better organisation between schools and the health service and improving the waiting time steadily so that young people can get faster care.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The \"supermoon\" rising above Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire.\n\nSkywatchers have enjoyed spectacular views of this month's \"supermoon\" - when the Moon appears larger and brighter in the sky.\n\nThe supermoon phenomenon happens when the Moon reaches its closest point to Earth, known as a perigee Moon.\n\nThe Moon circuits the Earth in an elliptical or oval orbit - a supermoon occurs when the perigee Moon is also a full Moon.\n\nThe supermoon was the last opportunity to see one in 2017.\n\nThe moon loomed above Yeadon, in Leeds\n\nTo observers, the Moon appears about 7% larger and 15% brighter, although the difference is barely noticeable to the human eye.\n\nLast year the Moon made its closest approach to Earth since 1948 - it will not be that close again until 25 November 2034.\n\nNasa has called this weekend's sighting the first in a \"supermoon trilogy\" over the next two months, with others to come on 1 January and 31 January.\n\nDecember's full Moon is traditionally known as the cold Moon.\n\nThe full Moon on Sunday afternoon - when it sits opposite the sun in the sky - was 222,761 miles from Earth, closer than its average 238,900 miles.\n\nThe supermoon over the Christmas light trail at Blenheim Palace\n\nThe supermoon has also been seen over a lighthouse in South Shields, South Tyneside.\n\nThis Moon's elliptical orbit means that its distance from Earth is not constant but varies across a full orbit.\n\nBut within this uneven orbit there are further variations caused by the Earth's movements around the Sun.\n\nThese mean that the perigee - the closest approach - and full moon are not always in sync.\n\nBut occasions when the perigee and full moon coincide have become known as supermoons.\n\nThe supermoon was visible around the world, with this view coming from Washington\n\nThis picture of the supermoon was taken in Jakarta, Indonesia", "Five demonstrations were planned to coincide with the AfD convention on Saturday in Hanover, said reports\n\nSeveral people have been hurt in clashes between police and anti-fascist demonstrators in the city of Hannover.\n\nProtesters were trying to blockade the far-right Alternative for Germany's first conference since it entered parliament after September's elections.\n\nOnce the delayed conference began, delegates elected Alexander Gauland as co-leader along with Jörg Meuthen.\n\nBoth hardliners, their election suggests the party is continuing its march further to the right.\n\nGeorg Pazderski, the party's regional head in Berlin and a relative moderate, failed to get delegates' backing for the leadership.\n\nAfD won 12.6% of the vote in Germany's federal elections in September, becoming the third biggest force in the Bundestag after the centre-right and social democrat SPD.\n\nThey had never entered the federal parliament before but are now eyeing a real chance of becoming Germany's main opposition party.\n\nIf Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat alliance agrees a coalition deal with Martin Schulz's social democrats, AfD with 94 MPs would become the biggest non-government party.\n\nWith temperatures near freezing, Hanover police used water cannon, batons and pepper spray to clear a path for the 600 delegates.\n\nOne demonstrator's leg was broken after he chained himself to a barricade, while an officer was hit on the hand by a flying bottle.\n\nTen protesters were taken into custody.\n\nA total of five demonstrations were scheduled in the northern city on Saturday. Some 6,000 people joined a pro-immigration rally in the city centre and another rally called by trade unions was expected to draw thousands later.\n\nWhen the conference got under way an hour late, Mr Meuthen hailed delegates for helping the party achieve national success within five years of being founded.\n\nHe said the party was attracting support from voters put off by the other parties' \"pathetic childish games\" amid an ongoing struggle to form a coalition government.\n\nThe party has veered to the right since its inception as an anti-euro force, promoting anti-immigration and anti-Islam policies in its election campaign.\n\nBut this sharp turn has created tension within its own ranks, with former co-leader Frauke Petry quitting within days of the election.\n\nThe delegates on Saturday confirmed the AfD's rightward trajectory, backing Mr Gauland, the leader of the parliamentary party, for the co-leadership.\n\nMr Gauland, who has pledged to stop \"the invasion of foreigners\" into Germany, said he had \"allowed my friends to convince me to step in\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Post-war politics of Germany: A history of division and unity\n\nDelegates defeated a motion to install Mr Meuthen as the AfD's only president,\n\nThey are also due to elect a new executive board to decide the ideological direction of the party and debate policy motions.", "The Good Friday Agreement is \"at risk because of Brexit\" after the UK leaves the EU, former prime minister Tony Blair has told the BBC.\n\nUK and Irish membership of the EU was \"central\" to the 1998 deal, he told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend.\n\nFree movement on the border had been key to reaching an agreement, he said.\n\nThe Republic of Ireland's Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) Simon Coveney warned against a hard border becoming the \"collateral damage\" of Brexit.\n\nMr Coveney, who is also Ireland's foreign minister, told BBC One's Andrew Marr show that Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were \"uniquely vulnerable and exposed to a potentially bad outcome\" from Brexit.\n\n\"We cannot allow some kind of collateral damage or unintended consequence of Brexit to [be] the recreation of a border on the island of Ireland,\" he said.\n\nMr Blair said the prospect of a hard border posed \"real challenges\" to the peace process and it was difficult to see how the issue would be resolved.\n\nThe ex-PM, who helped orchestrate the Good Friday Agreement, said that the UK and Ireland's EU membership made it \"easy\" to appease nationalist feelings in 1998.\n\nThe free movement of people, goods and an open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland was \"part of that expression that the island of Ireland was together\", he said.\n\nBut there are concerns that Brexit could lead to a \"hard border\" like that seen before the Good Friday Agreement - for example, by reintroducing customs checks between the two countries.\n\nConservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg insisted the UK government was opposed to reintroducing a hard border - but said the Irish government or EU could make a \"political choice\" to impose one.\n\nHe told the BBC's Andrew Marr: \"If the Irish and EU wish to impose a border that would be a matter for them, but they don't have to do it, it is a question of political choice.\"\n\nMr Blair said: \"If you end up with a hard border, obviously that causes tensions.\n\n\"It doesn't mean that you should abandon the Good Friday Agreement, but it poses real challenges to it.\"\n\nHe urged negotiators to overcome the \"conundrum\" of creating a hard border between the UK and the rest of Europe, while preventing one from re-emerging between Northern Ireland and the South.\n\nBrexit negotiators have said that the Common Travel Area between the two countries, which predates the EU, will remain in place.\n\nMr Blair said Theresa May and Philip Hammond were trying to negotiate the \"fundamentally unnegotiable\" by leaving the EU, while also trying to maintain preferential treatment in the EU's common market.\n\n\"They're trying to negotiate getting out of the single market, but recreate all of its benefits,\" he said.\n\n\"That's not going to happen.\n\n\"The risk is, frankly, you end up with a muddle and the worst of both worlds.\"\n\nMr Blair, who was speaking about housing policies proposed in a new report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, also blamed Brexit for distracting the government from the \"huge problem\" of housing supply.\n\n\"The whole of the political class, as it were, is simply centred on Brexit,\" he said.\n\nHe proposed a series of policies designed to tackle the housing crisis - including a new \"land value tax\" which would see the value of underlying land taxed instead of property.\n\nHe also said there would be \"no extra money\" for the NHS through Brexit.\n\nTony Blair and the former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern signing the Good Friday Agreement in 1998\n\nHowever, he said Mrs May was \"right\" to criticise US President Donald Trump's recent tweeting of far-right videos.\n\nHe said it was the \"minimum\" she could have said - considering she needs to cooperate with the US.\n\nYou can hear the full interview with Tony Blair at 13:00 GMT on Radio 4's The World This Weekend.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. After Flynn's guilty plea, what next for the Russia investigation?\n\nSpecial Counsel Robert Mueller just dropped the hammer. Again.\n\nOn Friday it was Michael Flynn's turn \"in the barrel\", to borrow a line from Trump confidant Roger Stone. The former national security adviser pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about December 2016 conversations he had with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak and pledged to \"fully co-operate\" with Mr Mueller's ongoing investigations.\n\nMr Flynn has admitted he misled the FBI about his discussions regarding new sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration following evidence of alleged meddling in the 2016 election.\n\nThere had been hints this was coming, after word last week that Mr Flynn's defence lawyers had stopped co-operating with the Trump legal team. The president's own scattershot behaviour on Twitter this week could also have been a key tell, like a trick knee acting up before a big storm.\n\nSo why is this being billed as a major development in the ongoing investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to Russia? Let us count the ways.\n\n1) Trump's inner circle has been breached\n\nIt is difficult to overstate the significance of this felony plea deal. Mr Flynn was a close adviser and confidant of Mr Trump throughout the 2016 presidential race. He was a surrogate for the candidate on television and enjoyed a prominent speaking role at the July Republican National Convention. He had a pivotal role in Mr Trump's presidential transition.\n\nThe role of national security adviser in the White House, which Mr Flynn assumed upon Mr Trump's inauguration, is one of the most senior positions in any administration, responsible for being the key conduit between the sprawling US military and intelligence bureaucracies and the president. It is a post that has been held by the likes of Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.\n\nMr Trump was so partial to Mr Flynn that he was praising him as a \"wonderful man\" who had been \"treated very, very unfairly by the media\" just days after firing him.\n\nNow Mr Flynn could be going to jail - and, more importantly, could be sharing damaging information about the Trump inner circle he inhabited for so long.\n\nAccording to the \"Statement of the Offense\" filed by the special counsel's office, Mr Flynn is testifying that he had contact with Trump transition team officials before and after his fateful December 2016 conversation with Ambassador Kislyak. \"Members of the transition team,\" the document relates, \"did not want Russia to escalate the situation after the Obama administration imposed new sanctions on the Russian government\".\n\nThese conversations came more than a month after Mr Trump had won the presidency. Mr Flynn had already been announced as the national security adviser in the incoming White House - a top post in the president's inner circle.\n\nThe next big question is who exactly were the unnamed senior members of the presidential transition team. Some US news outlets are naming Jared Kushner and former Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland. Others seem to indicate it was Mr Trump himself. Eventually, Mr Flynn - and Mr Mueller - will have to lay their cards on the table.\n\nMr Flynn's assertions about his conversations with the transition team run directly counter to statements made by Mr Trump in a February press conference in which he said Mr Flynn was acting against orders when he reached out to Mr Kislyak.\n\nIn fact the White House said at the time that the president dismissed Mr Flynn as national security adviser because he lied to Vice-President Mike Pence about his Russian contacts. The true nature of Mr Flynn's conversations with Mr Kislyak first came out thanks to leaks to the press of information gleaned from government surveillance of Mr Kislyak.\n\nIf Mr Flynn has evidence corroborating his account of December contacts with the Trump transition team - which was headed by Mr Pence himself - the White House's explanation for its handling of the Flynn situation, denials of knowledge and all, starts to crumble.\n\nMr Flynn appeared in court in front of Judge Rudolph Contreras\n\nAnyone in the president's inner circle who told the FBI or Mr Mueller's investigators that they weren't privy to Mr Flynn's activities, when there is evidence that they knew, would be open to another round of charges of lying to the FBI.\n\nThe White House response, at least so far, seems to be that Mr Flynn is a lying liar who lies.\n\n\"The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year,\" White House lawyer Ty Cobb wrote in a press statement. \"Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr Flynn.\"\n\n4) Mr Mueller could be building an obstruction of justice case\n\nDust off that old political saw that \"it's not the crime, it's the cover-up\". While Mr Flynn's contact with the Russian ambassador is questionable, given that he was undercutting Obama administration policy efforts, it is probably not illegal.\n\nWhat is illegal, however, is obstruction of justice. Former FBI Director James Comey has testified that on 14 February - the day after Mr Flynn was sacked - Mr Trump urged the director to back off his investigation into Mr Flynn during a private Oval Office meeting.\n\nIf the president knew that the ongoing law-enforcement inquiry would discover Mr Flynn had been acting under orders - either by the president or a member of his transition team - that could be the kind of motive that would help support an obstruction of justice charge.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How Michael Flynn became entangled in Russia probe\n\n5) Only the tip of the iceberg?\n\nThere were a lot of rumours and allegations floating around about Mr Flynn before Friday's plea deal news. The special counsel's office was reportedly looking into Mr Flynn's Obama-era work as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was scrutinising his 2015 trip to Russia, paid for by the Kremlin-backed RT network, and his undisclosed lobbying on behalf of Turkish government interests.\n\nThe charge brought against him, however, was solely related to his December 2016 phone conversations with Mr Kislyak. Although it comes with a possible five-year prison sentence, Mr Mueller hardly threw the book at the former national security adviser. Is this all there is?\n\nMr Mueller is primarily tasked with investigating possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Mr Flynn was a senior adviser to and advocate for Mr Trump's presidential bid. Does the relative modesty of the charges against Mr Flynn indicate he may be offering information directly relevant to this inquiry?\n\nMr Flynn's plea deal is just one piece of a much larger puzzle the special counsel office is trying to solve.\n\nIn October Mr Mueller indicted former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, a top aide with White House ties, on money laundering charges predating their involvement with the Trump campaign.\n\nHe also struck a plea deal with former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who told prosecutors he lied about his own contacts with Russians.\n\nEach move is distinct and not directly related - at least not yet. A some point we are going to learn whether Mr Mueller is building a larger case against the Trump campaign out of these legal moves - or that the sum total of his efforts is nibbling around the edges.\n\nAs the president likes to say, stay tuned.", "The family of a teenager who died after he was hit by a car on a motorway said they are \"completely heartbroken\".\n\nSamuel Berkley, 14, was found on the hard shoulder of the M67 in Hyde, Greater Manchester, in a critical condition at about 17:25 GMT on Friday.\n\nHe had been struck by a BMW and later died in hospital. The driver stopped at the scene and spoke with police.\n\nSamuel's family said he was a \"fun, outgoing and friendly boy\" and a \"talented footballer\".\n\nHe lived at home with his parents in Denton and was described as having \"many friends\" at Audenshaw School, where he studied.\n\nThe teenager had started playing for Hattersley FC and recently became an uncle to his brother's new daughter.\n\nPolice had to shut the motorway for several hours\n\nThe motorway was shut for several hours on Friday while officers carried out investigations.\n\nSgt Lee Westhead, from Greater Manchester Police, said officers were working to \"uncover how this happened and piece together the moments before the collision\".\n\nHe appealed for witnesses to come forward.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester United ruthlessly punished defensive errors to become the first side to win a league game at Arsenal since January in one of the matches of the season so far.\n\nJose Mourinho's side were reduced to 10 men late on when Paul Pogba was sent off for a dangerous tackle and they were aided by a stunning goalkeeping display by David de Gea throughout.\n\nBut they did telling damage early on when Antonio Valencia pounced on a loose Laurent Koscielny pass to drill the opener, before Jesse Lingard side-footed a second after robbing Shkodran Mustafi to link smartly with Romelu Lukaku and Anthony Martial.\n\nThe strikes meant United had scored as many goals in 11 minutes as they had in eight away fixtures against the Premier League's so-called 'big six' clubs.\n• None What happened in the Premier League on Saturday?\n• None Watch: Pogba hopes injuries will cause Man City to slip up\n\nAn end-to-end first-half, which delivered 20 shots on goal, saw Arsenal hit the woodwork through Alexandre Lacazette and Granit Xhaka during a frenetic goalmouth scramble, before De Gea denied Hector Bellerin, Sead Kolasinac, and spectacularly prevented a Lukaku own goal.\n\nThe Spaniard could do nothing about Lacazette's simple finish on 48 minutes but after Lingard had hit the post in a breathless start to the second half, De Gea produced an unbelievable double save from Lacazette and Alexis Sanchez.\n\nHis heroics maintained the advantage during an opening 15 minutes to the second half which saw United have just 26% of possession, but Lingard was on hand to tap in a third on 63 minutes after good work by Pogba.\n\nPogba was dismissed when he mistimed a tackle to effectively stamp on the back of Bellerin's leg, and the Frenchman will now miss the Manchester derby next Sunday.\n\nBut his moment of woe felt merely a footnote in a riveting encounter which moved second-placed United to within five points of their city rivals.\n\nMourinho has garnered a reputation for defensive set-ups on trips to the league's traditional big clubs but his side went after their hosts early on, hounding possession high up the pitch to great effect.\n\nTheir opening two goals owed much to slack use of possession by the home side but needed clinical finishes, notably when Martial cleverly flicked into the path of Lingard for the second.\n\nThe reward for their adventure secured a first win for Mourinho in his past 12 away fixtures against the 'big six'.\n\nHe could be forgiven for not enjoying seeing Arsenal fire 33 shots at goal and said he later told De Gea - who equalled the league record for saves in a match - he had witnessed the \"best from a goalkeeper in the world\".\n\nArsene Wenger also labelled De Gea \"absolutely outstanding\" but while his brilliance points to United riding their luck at times, they were impressive in offering a balance between defence and attack.\n\nNemanja Matic was consistently well placed, never more so than when blocking a goal-bound Aaron Ramsey shot with the score at 2-0.\n\nAnd the presence of the defensive midfielder once again freed Pogba, who in bursting into the box to lay on Lingard's second now has five assists this season, surpassing his four in the previous campaign.\n\nWhether Mourinho will choose to live so dangerously against Manchester City next week remains to be seen, but those watching from a neutral stance would be fortunate to see a game as good as this one again.\n\nWenger spoke of a \"good performance\" and \"impeccable attitude\" from his players but he will be familiar with this feeling.\n\nOnly twice in 18 meetings with Mourinho has he got the upper hand and the charitable way in which his side gave away goals will not sit well.\n\nKoscielny's cross-field pass and Mustafi's indecision ultimately left a mountain to climb if Arsenal were to record a 12th straight home win in the league.\n\nThe ease with which Pogba sauntered into the area to create a third just as Arsenal were seeking to build on Lacazette's goal also smacked of weakness.\n\nArsenal can justifiably feel aggrieved by a penalty shout that was turned down late on when Danny Welbeck was caught by Matteo Darmian but by that point, the 10 men of United had finally managed to calm a frantic affair.\n\nWenger's side drop out of the Champions League qualification places into fifth. They were superb going forward at times and will scratch their heads as to how they only found the net once but, not for the first time, it was at the other end where their shortcomings showed up.\n\nIt was a magnificent game of football. We have talked about Manchester City going forward but what we saw at times from Manchester United was equally as good.\n\nThey were just breaking, too quick and too sharp with their pace and their power. They went after Arsenal, put them under pressure and wanted to get behind their defence, and Arsenal could not cope with their one- or two-touch football.\n\nIt was great to watch, and Manchester United were too good and too clever for Arsenal. Superb.\n\nI think De Gea is the best goalkeeper in the world. He was brilliant.\n\nI think it is a red card. It looks terrible. It was dangerous and he was endangering his opponent.\n\nArsenal manager Arsene Wenger said: \"David de Gea was man of the match by a clear mile.\n\n\"We played well but there is nothing more frustrating when you have that quality of performance and nothing to show for it at the end. The attitude was impeccable until the end. But you cannot make the mistakes we made at the beginning.\"\n\nManchester United manager Jose Mourinho said: \"I loved the way my team played and fought. Arsenal played in some period amazing attacking football - creating difficulties for us.\n\n\"But I have to say that my players deserve all the great words. I don't know so many in English but amazing, phenomenal, fantastic. They deserved three points.\"\n• None Arsenal suffered their first home league defeat since losing 2-1 to Watford in January.\n• None Manchester United have won more Premier League away games at Arsenal than any other side (8).\n• None David de Gea made 14 saves in the game, the joint-most in a Premier League game since 2003-04, when Opta started collecting this data. Vito Mannone and Tim Krul have also made 14 saves in a fixture.\n• None Paul Pogba has scored four goals and assisted six more in his past nine Premier League appearances.\n• None Alexandre Lacazette has scored more home goals in the Premier League this season than any other player (six).\n• None Paul Pogba received his first red card in league competition since May 2013 for Juventus v Palermo\n\nArsenal will follow Thursday's Europa League home game against BATE Borisov (20:05 GMT) by visiting Southampton on Sunday, 10 December (13:30). Manchester United need a point at home against CSKA Moscow to progress in the Champions League on Tuesday (19:45) and then host Manchester City on Sunday, 10 December (16:30).\n• None Offside, Arsenal. Alexandre Lacazette tries a through ball, but Nacho Monreal is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Aaron Ramsey (Arsenal) right footed shot from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Mesut Özil.\n• None Attempt saved. Nacho Monreal (Arsenal) header from the centre of the box is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Mesut Özil with a cross.\n• None Laurent Koscielny (Arsenal) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt blocked. Alexandre Lacazette (Arsenal) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Mesut Özil.\n• None Attempt blocked. Alex Iwobi (Arsenal) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Nacho Monreal.\n• None Attempt blocked. Alexis Sánchez (Arsenal) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Aaron Ramsey.\n• None Attempt missed. Danny Welbeck (Arsenal) header from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Aaron Ramsey. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "The Last Jedi had the second biggest grossing opening weekend in North America\n\nThe latest Star Wars film generated more than $450m (£337m) in global ticket sales on its opening weekend.\n\nThe movie dwarfed its nearest rival - the computer-animated comedy Ferdinand, which took $13m (£10m).\n\nThe total for The Last Jedi includes $220m (£165m) from box offices in the US and Canada, placing the film second in the all-time list for North America.\n\nIt trails behind the 2015 release Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opened with a record-breaking $248m (£185m).\n\nIn third place, the Disney/Pixar animation Coco brought in just over $10m (£7.5m) during its fourth weekend in North American cinemas.\n\nStar Wars: The Last Jedi is the eighth instalment of the 40-year-old space saga and is directed by Rian Johnson, whose credits include Brick and Looper.\n\nDaisy Ridley stars as Rey, a survivor toughened by life on a harsh planet\n\nIt sees Mark Hamill and the late Carrie Fisher reprise their roles as Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.\n\nBritish actors Daisy Ridley and John Boyega also return from The Force Awakens.\n\nThe film has been widely praised by critics, and has a score of 93% on the film review website Rotten Tomatoes.\n\nWill Gompertz, the BBC's Arts Editor, gave it four out of five stars and said it was \"packed with invention, wit, and action galore\".", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nPep Guardiola said Kevin de Bruyne is helping Manchester City become \"a better institution\" after the playmaker put in an inspired performance to help his side outclass Tottenham for a 16th successive Premier League victory that stretched their lead to 14 points.\n\nIlkay Gundogan, in for the absent David Silva, headed City in front from a corner after 14 minutes and the only surprise was that it took until 20 minutes before time until man-of-the-match De Bruyne's powerful shot extended their advantage.\n\nGabriel Jesus struck the post with a penalty after Jan Vertonghen fouled De Bruyne but Raheem Sterling crowned a sweeping move with a simple finish to put the game well and truly out of Spurs' reach.\n\nSterling then took advantage of Eric Dier's mistake to walk in the fourth for his 15th goal of the season before Spurs - for whom Harry Kane and Dele Alli were lucky not to get red cards from referee Craig Pawson for challenges on Sterling and De Bruyne respectively - pulled one back in stoppage time through Christian Eriksen.\n\nBoss Guardiola singled out De Bruyne for praise as he highlighted the Belgium international's work without the ball, calling it \"a good example for the young players, for our academy\".\n\n\"They know how good Kevin De Bruyne is and when they see how he runs and fights without the ball, that is the best example,\" added Guardiola.\n\n\"He helps us to be a better club, a better institution for the future, because that is what we want to do. His performance, I have no words to describe what he has done with the ball.\n\n\"And overall, without the ball, he is able to make pressure from 40 metres to the goalkeeper. And when that happens, the people who are behind him think 'if that guy runs like this, I have to run as well'.\"\n\nHow can anyone stop Manchester City?\n\nIt is the question being asked on a weekly basis - and no-one is any nearer finding the answer after another imperious performance from a City side who are surely now too far ahead to be caught in the Premier League title race.\n\nJose Mourinho went for a cautious approach with Manchester United in Sunday's derby at Old Trafford and was unpicked by the magic of David Silva as City won 2-1.\n\nSilva was absent here and Mauricio Pochettino's Tottenham adopted a more positive outlook - but this time the brilliant De Bruyne was the inspiration as another method was tried and failed against Guardiola's almost flawless side.\n\nCity swarmed all over Spurs, with goalkeeper Hugo Lloris often put under pressure in possession and in the end it was quite simply all too much for Pochettino's side, as it has been for pretty much everyone this season.\n\nOnly Everton have taken a point against City this season with a 1-1 draw in the second league game of the season at Etihad Stadium - and it is difficult to see how this winning run can be stopped as they play with such threat and variety.\n\nEven when City are threatened, Guardiola has successfully solved a problem which dogged his first season at the club with the acquisition of an excellent goalkeeper in Brazilian Ederson.\n\nWhen Spurs looked dangerous for a brief period at the start of the second half, Ederson made a superb flying save to his right from Harry Kane.\n\nIf there is a weakness in this City side no-one has yet found it.\n\nSilva may have been missing but this Manchester City side has more than enough brilliance to rely on one player - and it was De Bruyne who orchestrated the destruction of Spurs.\n\nThe Belgian had simply too much in his armoury, even shrugging off Dele Alli's crude challenge which left the England midfielder fortunate only to get a yellow card from referee Pawson.\n\nIndeed, De Bruyne turned his anger on Spurs, scoring City's second shortly after with a shot that was too fierce for keeper Lloris, drawing a foul from countryman Jan Vertonghen to earn the penalty that Jesus missed and playing a part in setting up the third for Sterling.\n\nSpurs, like many before them, found that if they closed down one option, Manchester City found another.\n\nAnd at the heart of it all was De Bruyne, now a world-class talent in a truly outstanding team.\n\nGuardiola added: \"The performance of Kevin de Bruyne, you cannot imagine how good he plays with the ball, but he runs like a player in the Conference league - it is easier for the manager and the club.\"\n\n'His feet are like paintbrushes'\n\nFormer Arsenal defender Martin Keown on Match of the Day:\n\nKevin de Bruyne's feet are like paintbrushes, he's an artist. He's a thinking footballer, so creative, he creates chances for everyone and he'll take his own when he gets them.\n\nHe'll work hard for you as well. Young kids watching this, he's not admiring passes. He wants to get after things, there's an energy and desire in his football.\n\nHe wants to work hard, he's giving his manager everything, he's on fire - the world is his oyster at the moment. He's taking people out of their seats. The calibre of football he's playing is outstanding.\n\nSpurs disappoint again - Alli most of all\n\nSpurs were yet again found wanting on their travels against a team they had hoped to be challenging for the Premier League title.\n\nAs at Manchester United and Arsenal this season, Spurs never looked like securing the sort of statement victory that suggests they could bridge the gap from Premier League runners-up last season to champions this term.\n\nSince they won 2-1 here in February 2016, they have not won in 10 away games against other teams in the so-called \"big six\", losing six and drawing four.\n\nIt is a telling statistic - although Pochettino is unlikely to believe it is because his players are struggling to climb a psychological barrier.\n\nOne of the most disappointing aspects of this defeat was the lack of impact from Alli, whose main contribution was that spiteful tackle on De Bruyne.\n\nHe was a peripheral figure and was roundly booed by City's fans when he was unsurprisingly substituted late on.\n\n'Thanks to the club for these amazing players'\n\nManchester City boss Pep Guardiola: \"They have good quality, but we played really good to beat one of the strongest teams in the Premier League.\n\n\"Without the ball we are a humble team.\"\n\nOn City's record winning run: \"Since August we are so happy and I admire the most the way we play without the ball - thank you to the club to provide me with these amazing players.\n\n\"We are on a good streak, but in three days we have another one.\"\n\nTottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino: \"I think it was a good experience for the team, when you win and play well you maybe don't learn, so you must learn this type of game. We have a lot of positive things, because we played a team in very good form with very good momentum.\n\n\"It wasn't bad at the start, but the way we conceded from a corner was a big mistake and a massive present for them. When you play a team in very good form, you cannot give away these gifts.\n\n\"When you're playing a team with good quality, if we take risks, we give them the possibility of making chances. We tried to play, but they were better, we have to congratulate them. So far, they are the best team in England.\"\n\nCity prove again to be Lloris' bogey side\n• None Guardiola is still three victories away from his best-ever winning streak in league football as a manager - 19 consecutive wins with Bayern Munich between October 2013 and March 2014.\n• None Since taking over at White Hart Lane in August 2014, Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino has enjoyed just one victory in his 18 Premier League games away to the 'big six' (W1 D6 L11).\n• None Tottenham's first shot on target came in the 55th minute, the longest they've had to wait in a Premier League game this season.\n• None Tottenham directed just two shots on target in the game, compared to Manchester City's 11, the biggest negative difference for the Lilywhites in a Premier League game since December 2013 against Liverpool (-10).\n• None Sane has been directly involved in 11 goals in eight Premier League home games this season (five goals, six assists), more than any other player.\n• None De Bruyne has been directly involved in 14 goals in his 15 Premier League appearances since the start of September (six goals, eight assists).\n• None Gundogan's opener was the 200th Premier League goal Lloris has conceded (203 in total now); 25 of them have come against Manchester City.\n\nCity are at Leicester on Tuesday in the Carabao Cup quarter-final (19:45 GMT) and then host Bournemouth in the league next Saturday at 15:00. Tottenham are at Burnley next Saturday (17:30).\n• None Relive the action from the Etihad Stadium\n• None Goal! Manchester City 4, Tottenham Hotspur 1. Christian Eriksen (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from outside the box to the bottom right corner.\n• None Goal! Manchester City 4, Tottenham Hotspur 0. Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal.\n• None Attempt saved. Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Kevin De Bruyne.\n• None Attempt saved. Bernardo Silva (Manchester City) left footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Raheem Sterling.\n• None Goal! Manchester City 3, Tottenham Hotspur 0. Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) right footed shot from very close range to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Leroy Sané. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Last updated on .From the section Sports Personality\n\nWorld 10,000m champion Sir Mo Farah has been voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2017.\n\nThe 34-year-old, a four-time Olympic champion, won his third successive world 10,000m gold medal in London in August - despite almost falling twice late in the race.\n\nHe becomes the first long-distance runner to win the Sports Personality award since Paula Radcliffe in 2002.\n\nWorld Superbike champion Jonathan Rea was second and two-time Paralaympic champion Jonnie Peacock third.\n\nFarah, who could not be at the ceremony in Liverpool, was presented the award on video link by stepdaughter Rhianna.\n• None 'I can't stop staring at the trophy' - Farah shocked to win\n• None How the night unfolded in pictures, video and on social\n\nFormer Liverpool and Scotland striker Kenny Dalglish announced the award at a sold-out Echo Arena after a public vote.\n\nFarah, who was at the Sir Mo Farah Track in London, looked genuinely surprised to be named the winner before the video link cut out.\n\nFormer sprinter Michael Johnson stepped in to say a few words on Farah's behalf.\n\n\"It's well deserved,\" the American four-time Olympic champion said. \"This year he came into his home championships, his last race on the track, and still delivered.\n\n\"Over the years he's dominated, he's out there by himself and always got the tactics right.\"\n\n'I cannot believe I have won'\n\nFarah, one of 12 contenders for the award, has been shortlisted five times before and enjoyed his previous highest finish of third in 2011.\n\nAfter the show went off air, Farah spoke to those inside the arena.\n\nAppearing close to tears, Farah said he was shocked to win because of the quality of the other athletes up for the award.\n\n\"It is pretty amazing and hard to think about,\" he said.\n\n\"I didn't imagine I was ever going to win this but anything can happen. If you work hard you can achieve your dreams.\n\n\"I am sorry I could not be there. My kid has been not well.\n\n\"I just cannot believe I have won.\"\n\nA third successive World Championships 10,000m gold medal was the highlight of a year in which Farah also won a world 5,000m silver, missing out on a fifth major championships distance double in a row.\n\nThe Somali-born Londoner received a knighthood from the Queen at Buckingham Palace in November.\n\nHe bowed out from his track career with a 5,000m victory at the Diamond League event in Zurich in August, and will now concentrate on road races.\n\nFarah took the prize with 83,524 votes - 2,957 more than second-placed Rea, while Peacock took third with 73,429, just 18 more than boxer Anthony Joshua.\n\nAfter moving to England aged eight to join his father Mukhtar, the young Farah's talent was soon spotted (1/6)\n\nNorthern Ireland's Rea became the first rider to clinch three successive World Superbike titles, breaking American Colin Edwards' 15-year record for the number of points scored in a season.\n\nHe was also made an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.\n\n\"To be called out not third, and then second was incredibly strange, and a big surprise,\" Rea told BBC Sport NI.\n\n\"I had a word with my wife beforehand and she asked me if I was nervous and I was like 'no not really'. I was just happy to be here. I never in my wildest dreams believed that people would get behind me that much and it's an incredible way to cap 2017.\n\n\"It's been a dream come true to win not one world championship but now three on the bounce and to cap it off at the end of the season with this, before I start my preparations for 2018, is just incredible.\"\n\nThird-placed Peacock won the T44 100m final in London in 10.75 seconds for his second world title after success in Lyon four years earlier.\n\nThe two-time Paralympic champion, who had his right leg amputated below the knee as a five-year-old after contracting meningitis, also became the first disabled contestant in the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing show this year.\n\n\"It's been a slightly strange year for me and tonight has been absolutely surreal,\" he told BBC Radio 5 live.\n\n\"I think watching everybody do their piece, you see the incredible athletes we have in this country.\n\n\"Every single person I was saying 'right, they're above, so are they' - just incredible names - so yes, it was a bit of a shock.\"\n\nHelen Rollason Award: Sunderland fan and club mascot Bradley Lowery, whose bravery touched the hearts of many people, died aged six from a rare form of cancer in July.\n\nYoung Sports Personality of the Year: Manchester City midfielder Phil Foden helped England win the Under-17 World Cup and took the Golden Ball award for the tournament's best player.\n\nUnsung Hero: Volunteer Denise Larrad for her fundraising work. The 55-year-old has had one sole aim - to get the people of Hinckley in Leicestershire active.\n\nLifetime Achievement: Former heptathlon champion Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill won Olympic gold at London 2012 and a silver at the Rio Games four years later.\n\nOverseas Sports Personality of the Year: Tennis player Roger Federer won the award for a record fourth time after claiming his eighth Wimbledon title and 19th Grand Slam in 2017.\n\nCoach of the Year: Sprint coaches Benke Blomkvist, Stephen Maguire and Christian Malcolm helped GB's men's 4x100m team to World Championship gold.\n\nTeam of the Year: England women's cricket team produced a stunning fightback to beat India and win the World Cup in July.\n\nNoel Gallagher's High Flying Birds opened the show in Liverpool and then later introduced the Unsung Hero award with a cover version of the Beatles classic All You Need Is Love.\n\nRea arrived on stage on his superbike, while, like Farah, contenders Johanna Konta, Lewis Hamilton and Chris Froome joined on video link.\n\nHowever, Farah's son Hussein stole the limelight when the runner was interviewed in the build-up, desperate for cuddles with his world champion dad and drawing a laugh from the crowd back in Liverpool as stepdaughter Rhianna stepped in on child-minding duties, only for Mo's microphone to then fall off.\n\nThere were plenty of other former winners present at the Echo Arena, from Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean to Sir Steve Redgrave.\n\nAnd Liverpool's finest were also in attendance, boxer Tony Bellew and new Everton manager Sam Allardyce on hand to present the Team of the Year prize.", "Natalie Lewis-Hoyle, 28, was found unconscious at an address in Beeches Road, Heybridge\n\nThe daughter of the Commons deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle has died, prompting an appeal for information about her final hours.\n\nNatalie Lewis-Hoyle, 28, was found unconscious at an address in Heybridge, near Maldon, Essex, on Friday morning.\n\nHer mother, Maldon councillor Miriam Lewis, said her daughter's phone was missing and urged anyone who spoke to her the night before to contact police.\n\nMr Hoyle, Labour MP for Chorley, said the family was \"truly devastated\".\n\nHe wrote on Twitter: \"Our family will never be the same without our loving granddaughter, sister & aunty. Thank you for the kind support we've received, it is overwhelming.\"\n\nMs Lewis asked anyone contacted by \"Natty\" on Thursday night to get in touch with police and said that her daughter's phone had possibly been left on a train from London Liverpool Street to Ipswich.\n\nShe wrote on Facebook: \"It is with unbearable sadness that I have to announce the sudden death of my beautiful, much-adored daughter Natalie.\n\n\"Natalie is my only child, my mini-me. Please help me find out what happened to her in the hours before her death.\"\n\nEssex Police said the death was \"not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Father-of-six Imtiaz Mohammed, described as a hard-working family man, was killed in the crash\n\nA taxi driver killed in a \"horrific\" six-car crash in Birmingham was on his last job of the night, his brother has said.\n\nImtiaz Mohammed, 33, who had six children aged under 15, was one of six people killed in the accident in Edgbaston in the early hours of Sunday.\n\nHis two passengers were among those who died.\n\nTwo men in another car - Mohammed Fahsha, 30, and Tauqeer Hussain, 26 - died at the scene.\n\nThe men, from Small Heath, Birmingham, and a 25-year-old man, died when they were thrown from the Audi they were travelling in.\n\nA 22-year-old man, who was also in the car, is in a serious condition at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.\n\nCrash investigators are trying to piece together what caused the pile-up, on Belgrave Middleway.\n\nThree men in the Audi, including Mohammed Fahsha, 30, pictured with his baby nephew, and Tauqeer Hussain, 26, known as Tox to his family, died at the scene.\n\nThe family of Mr Mohammed, who had five daughters and one son, said his death came the day before his daughter's fourth birthday.\n\nHis father, Ihktiar, said the \"very close\" family had been devastated by the loss and he had \"woken up crying\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A mourning father says the family was worried over his son's taxi-driving job\n\nHe said his grandchildren had gone to school as usual, adding that the younger of the children have not yet been told of their father's death.\n\nHe said: \"I am very sad, this is a tragedy for everyone - for my family and also for the other families as well.\n\n\"It is a sad day and a sad time.\"\n\nMr Mohammed added his son's work as a driver had \"worried the family\" and he had been hoping to get security work in the new year.\n\nPeople have been leaving tributes near the scene of the crash, including flowers with a card saying: \"To Mum, I love you loads. \"Life isn't going to be the same without you.\"\n\nImtiaz Mohammed (left) had called his wife to say he was on his way home just before the crash\n\nHe said his \"heart sank\" when police knocked on his door at 05:00 GMT and he \"knew there was something wrong\".\n\n\"I thought to myself, 'which of my sons is hurt',\" he said.\n\nThree vehicles were directly involved in the accident on Belgrave Middleway in the early hours of Sunday\n\nThe scene of the accident was described as \"harrowing\"\n\nThe victim's younger brother, Noorshad Mohammed, said Imtiaz called his wife just before the crash, to tell her he was on his way home.\n\nThe 32-year-old said: \"It was his last job of the night. That was the last time she spoke to him.\"\n\nThe taxi driver's employer, Castle Cars, said it was \"shocked and devastated\" to learn of Mr Mohammed's death.\n\n\"He was loved and respected by all who worked with him and he will be greatly missed.\n\n\"Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and all the other families affected by this tragedy.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Officers were dealing with \"a very harrowing scene\", Supt Sean Phillips said\n\nA 43-year-old female passenger in Mr Mohammed's taxi was confirmed dead at the scene of the crash, which happened on the underpass where Belgrave and Lee Bank Middleway meet.\n\nHer male companion, 42, died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.\n\nThe first car in the crash sustained extensive damage but, \"astonishingly\", the man and woman inside managed to get out with relatively minor injuries, an ambulance service spokesman said.\n\nFour men in the third car had all had been thrown from the vehicle\n\nThree other cars were caught up in the crash and suffered minor damage trying to avoid it.\n\nMichelle Brotherton, from the ambulance service, said crews had dealt with 13 patients.\n\nAs well as those who died and the man in a critical condition, four people were taken to Heartlands Hospital where their condition is believed to be non-life threatening.\n\nA further two patients were \"discharged on scene\".\n\nWest Midlands Police said all victims were from the Birmingham area and specialist officers were supporting their families.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by West Midlands Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPolice said they were following various lines of investigation including the condition of the road when the crash happened.\n\nAt a press conference Supt Sean Phillips said it was \"too early\" to speculate on the cause of the accident.\n\n\"It will take some time to unpick and just understand exactly what's happened. It would be unfair for me to speculate at this time,\" he said.\n\nHe said the road had been gritted at 17:00 GMT on Saturday.\n\nSam Lad, who lives in a flat overlooking the crash site, said people regularly used the road for racing.\n\nHe said: \"Lots of young people use that road as a competition, I see lots of people speeding.\"\n\nAn online fundraising page been set up for the families of those killed, through the Lord Mayor's Charity Appeal. It has raised more than £5,500.\n\nTwo people escaped with minor injuries from the crash\n\nThe stretch of road from Islington Row to Bristol Street was closed while officers investigate.\n\nThe road has two lanes either side and a 40mph speed limit.\n\nAnother resident who lives opposite said: \"This road is really dangerous. Young kids like to challenge themselves and go really fast.\n\n\"I can't believe six people have died, and so close to Christmas and New Year.\"\n\nThe road had been gritted at 17:00 GMT on Saturday, police say\n\nArea Commander Jason Campbell, of West Midlands Fire Service, said the crash site was \"spread over some distance\".\n\nWest Midlands Police described dealing with the aftermath of the crash as \"very difficult and upsetting\".\n\nA senior officer criticised the \"lack of humanity\" of people who took photographs and filmed at the scene.\n\nChief Inspector Stuart Bill said it was \"disappointing\" that people chose to \"disrupt\" emergency services rather than help.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by C/Insp Stu Bill This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSergeant Alan Hands, from the force's Collision Investigation Unit, said: \"We are still trying to establish exactly what happened and our thoughts remain with the families who have lost-loved ones.\n\n\"We aware of distressing images of the scene circulating on social media and we would ask the public to not share them and instead pass any footage to us to assist our investigation.\"\n\nAny witnesses have been asked to contact West Midlands Police.", "Honey and Barry Sherman were renowned for their charity fundraising\n\nA Canadian billionaire and his wife have been found dead at their home in Toronto in circumstances that police described as \"suspicious\".\n\nThe bodies of Barry Sherman and his wife Honey were found in the basement by an estate agent, reports said.\n\nMr Sherman was the founder and chairman of pharmaceutical giant Apotex, which sells generic medicines around the world.\n\nHe was one of Canada's richest men and a prominent philanthropist.\n\nThere was no sign of forced entry to the property, police said in a statement Friday evening. Local media reported that investigators were not searching for a suspect at this time.\n\nDetective Brandon Price told Canadian broadcaster CBC that investigators were still trying to determine if there was foul play involved.\n\nPolice gave few details and did not confirm the identities of the deceased. However, they were named locally by friends and by officials who reacted with shock at the news.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Justin Trudeau This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"I am beyond words right now,\" Ontario's Health Minister Eric Hoskins said on Twitter.\n\n\"My dear friends Barry and Honey Sherman have been found dead. Wonderful human beings, incredible philanthropists, great leaders in health care.\"\n\nSenator Linda Frum presented the couple with a Canadian 150th anniversary medal in late November, awarded to Canadians for \"generosity, dedication, volunteerism and hard work\".\n\n\"Today I am gutted by the loss of Honey and Barry Sherman. Our community is steeped in grief. I am heartbroken,\" she said.\n\nPrime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted his condolences to the couple's family and friends.\n\nThe bodies, covered in blankets, were removed from the house in north-east Toronto\n\nThe house was on sale for C$7m ($5.4m; £4m)\n\nA police spokesman said emergency services were called to the house just before noon on Friday.\n\n\"The circumstances of their death appear suspicious and we are treating it that way,\" said Constable David Hopkinson.\n\nThe couple had recently put their luxury home up for sale and their bodies were found by an estate agent who was at the property to prepare it for an open-house viewing, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported, citing a family member.\n\nApotex said in a statement: \"All of us at Apotex are deeply shocked and saddened by this news and our thoughts and prayers are with the family at this time.\"\n\nThe couple had four children.\n\nMr Sherman founded Apotex Inc in 1974 and the firm says it is now the seventh biggest generic drug maker in the world.", "It is the first time anyone has been charged under Australia's Weapons of Mass Destruction Act\n\nA man has been arrested in Sydney for allegedly acting as an economic agent for North Korea, Australian Federal Police (AFP) have said.\n\nChan Han Choi, 59, has been charged with brokering illegal exports from the country and discussing the supply of weapons of mass destruction.\n\nPolice allege he has broken both UN and Australian sanctions.\n\nThe case against the suspect, who has lived in Australia for more than 30 years, is a first for the country.\n\nNever before has someone been charged under the country's 1995 Weapons of Mass Destruction (Prevention of Proliferation) Act.\n\nPolice say there was evidence that Chan Han Choi had been in contact with \"high ranking officials in North Korea\".\n\nThey allege he had brokered services related to North Korea's weapons programme, including the sale of specialist services including ballistic missile technology to foreign entities, in order to generate income for the North Korean regime.\n\nChan Han Choi also was charged with brokering the sale of coal from North Korea to groups in Indonesia and Vietnam. He is facing six charges in total after being arrested at his home on Saturday night.\n\nThe arrest was made in the Eastwood area of Sydney on Saturday\n\nIn a Sunday news conference, police confirmed the man was a naturalised Australian citizen of Korean origin who had been in the country for over 30 years.\n\nThey described him as a \"loyal agent\" who \"believed he was acting to serve some higher patriotic purpose\".\n\nBut police insisted the man's actions did not pose any \"direct risk\" to Australians, with the actions occurring offshore.\n\n\"I know these charges sound alarming. Let me be clear we are not suggesting there are any weapons or missile component that ever came to Australian soil,\" AFP Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan said.\n\n\"Any individual who attempts to fly in the face of sanctions cannot and will not go unnoticed in Australia.\"\n\nThe suspect could face up to 10 years in prison and has been denied bail.\n\nIn October the Australian government said they had received a letter from North Korea urging Canberra to distance itself from the Trump administration.\n\nPyongyang had previously warned that Australia would \"not be able to avoid a disaster\" if it followed US policies towards Kim Jong-un's regime.", "Last updated on .From the section Sports Personality\n\nBradley Lowery, the boy whose bravery touched the hearts of many people, will be honoured at Sunday's BBC Sports Personality of the Year show.\n\nThe Sunderland fan and club mascot, who died aged six from a rare form of cancer, has been named the winner of the Helen Rollason Award.\n\nThe award, for achievement in the face of adversity, is in memory of the BBC presenter who died of cancer in 1999.\n\nIt will be presented to Bradley's parents, Gemma and Carl, in Liverpool.\n• None Meet the contenders for BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2017\n\nBradley was diagnosed with neuroblastoma - a rare type of cancer - when he was 18 months old.\n\nBut his positive attitude and cheery smile won him admirers across the world and he became \"best mates\" with Sunderland's former striker Jermain Defoe.\n\nWell-wishers raised more than £700,000 last year to pay for him to be given antibody treatment in New York, but medics then found his cancer had grown and his family was informed his illness was terminal.\n\nAfter his death in July 2017, Bradley's parents, who are from Blackhall Colliery, County Durham, said: \"He was our little superhero and put the biggest fight up but he was needed elsewhere.\"\n\nBournemouth striker Defoe said: \"Every time I saw him was a special feeling. He was my best friend.\"\n\nBradley became known worldwide following an appeal that led to him receiving 250,000 Christmas cards from countries as far away as Australia and New Zealand.\n\nIn December 2016, he met England manager Gareth Southgate and Match of the Day pundit Gary Lineker at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year event in Birmingham.\n\nBradley then won the programme's December goal of the month award after he took a penalty before Sunderland's game against Chelsea.\n\nHe also appeared as a mascot for Everton, with the club donating £200,000 to the Bradley Lowery Foundation set up in his honour, and was visited in hospital by a number of Sunderland players.\n\nA dream came true in March when he was mascot for the England team at Wembley Stadium before a World Cup qualifier where Defoe scored in a 2-0 win over Lithuania.\n\nHe was also given honorary 41st place in the racecard for the Grand National at Aintree in April.", "The number of people out shopping in the UK in the first two weeks of December fell \"significantly\" compared to last year, retail researchers say.\n\nAnalysis firm Springboard found a 4.9% decrease in footfall at shopping centres, retail parks and high streets.\n\nBad weather and rise in online shopping were both factors in the decline, according to Diane Wehrle.\n\nThe figures come as a retail analyst said it expected shops to make big discounts in the week before Christmas.\n\nConsultancy firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) said it was anticipating more retailers to be discounting in the week leading up to Christmas than during the Black Friday weekend.\n\nSpringboard's analysis for this month - up to 14 December - showed that the number of people visiting shops compared to the same period last year fell by 4.9% - almost three times the 1.7% decrease in 2016.\n\nMs Wehrle said last week's snow had a \"clear impact\" on footfall, but was just one of a number of factors.\n\nShe said: \"The reasons are associated with budgetary constraints, due to inflation and the recent interest rate rise, but also due to the heavy discounting in November.\n\n\"Black Friday pulled spending forward, thereby impacting on customer activity in December. And of course all of this is set against a backdrop of a continuing rise in online spending.\"\n\nShe added that while online spending accounts for about 15% of total retail spending, it is rising approximately 10% year on year.\n\nMeanwhile, PwC said it expected retailers to make big discounts in the final week before Christmas to convince shoppers to keep spending throughout the festive period.\n\nThe firm has analysed the number of promotions advertised in shops and online during November and December for the past seven years.\n\nIt found that many of the retailers offering promotions during the Black Friday weekend in late November returned to full price sales by the beginning of December, before relaunching discounts in the lead up to Christmas.\n\nLisa Hooker, consumer markets leader at PwC, said: \"As we rapidly approach Christmas itself, we are already seeing an uptick in promotional activity as retailers try to attract customers through their doors and clear festive stock.\"\n\nEarlier this week it was revealed that Black Friday helped retail sales to grow by 1.1% last month - despite average prices rising faster than average wages.\n\nThe six weeks from the end of November to the start of January account for up to half of any major retailer's annual profits.\n\nHave a bad Christmas, and you'll have a bad year.\n\nAdd in falling real incomes because inflation is high and wage growth is modest, and retailers are especially nervous this year.\n\nSo that's why some of them are offering decent discounts in the very fortnight before Christmas that they need to maximise their margins (profits). And the reason? Competition.\n\nThe rivalry on - and offline - between retailers is intense. No flash sale by a large company, will go unmatched by its rivals.\n\nAnd consumers, thanks to the internet, are now increasingly aware of sudden discounting. So bargains don't go a-begging.", "Who could choose between Sarah Lynn and James White?\n\nThe latest series of The Apprentice has reached a surprise climax.\n\nLord Sugar has chosen both finalists to be his business partners, for the first time in the BBC show's history.\n\nThe business mogul said he \"genuinely couldn't decide\" between sweet firm owner Sarah Lynn, 35, and James White, 26, who runs an IT recruitment company.\n\nAs a result, both candidates receive a £250,000 business investment and 50/50 partnership with Lord Sugar, who called them \"fantastically skilled people\".\n\n\"This particular year, I'm going to double my investment,\" Lord Sugar told them.\n\n\"I'm going to start a business with both of you.\"\n\nUsually, Lord Sugar gives £250,000 to just one winner.\n\nAccording to the BBC, this surprise double \"hiring\" does not constitute a format change.\n\nBut some fans were unhappy with the conclusion and reacted strongly on Twitter.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by James 🦉 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnother felt the candidates in the final weren't up to scratch.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Justine This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut not everybody minded the twist.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by 🌹 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Dr Leah This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAn audience of 6.5 million tuned into the final to see Lynn, from London, go up against White, from Birmingham.\n\nOver the course of the 12-week series, the pair had seen off 16 other candidates to compete with each other for the privilege of becoming Lord Sugar's business partner.\n\nThe final episode saw Lynn and White pitch their business plans to Lord Sugar and his panel of experts.\n\n\"It is quite obvious that there are two fantastically skilled people there,\" said the 70-year-old magnate before reaching his decision.\n\n\"Deciding on a winner was the most difficult decision I have had to make in all 13 series of The Apprentice to date,\" said Lord Sugar in a statement.\n\nLord Sugar (centre) reached his decision after consulting Karren Brady and Claude Littner\n\n\"James and Sarah were extremely impressive and their proposed business plans were very different but equally strong.\n\n\"I genuinely couldn't decide between them, so after deliberating long and hard, I decided to stump up £500,000 and invest in them both.\"\n\nLynn said she felt \"shocked and amazed\" to be declared the joint victor alongside White, who said it was \"very, very humbling\" to be Lord Sugar's business partner.\n\nThe investment will allow the pair to build their respective confectionery and recruitment businesses.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The European Council has said that Brexit talks can enter the second phase following last week's agreement.\n\nAs a result it has published its guidelines for the next stage of talks.\n\nHere are some of the key phrases from that document.\n\nDon't forget that there are plenty of crucial details that still need to be resolved before negotiations on a withdrawal agreement come to an end.\n\nThat means the financial settlement, citizens' rights and of course, the Irish border.\n\nSufficient progress is not the end of the story, but the text also makes it clear that there will be a concerted effort to lock in what has been agreed so far - and that if the EU detects any reluctance or backsliding from the UK then that will have a negative effect on discussions about the future.\n\nTheresa May has already agreed that a transition of about two years will take place under existing EU rules and regulations, but the EU's text makes crystal clear what it believes that means.\n\nThe UK will have to accept all EU law (that's what the acquis means) including new laws passed during the transition itself.\n\nBut it will no longer have a seat at the table when those laws are made. To put it brutally - the UK will, for a while, become a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker.\n\nBoth sides talk of a strictly time-limited transition period, so there doesn't appear to be much appetite at the moment for extending it.\n\nQuite what happens if a future trade deal isn't ready by the end of the transition, a scenario many experts think is quite possible, will have to be debated in the future.\n\nDuring the transition, the UK will have to accept the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and all four freedoms - including the freedom of movement of people.\n\nThe EU says the UK will remain in the single market and the customs union during a transition, while the UK insists that it will leave both on Brexit day.\n\nThis could become a semantic argument, because by accepting all rules and regulations - in other words, the status quo - the UK will remain in the single market and the customs union whether it likes it or not.\n\nThe British government has suggested that some things - like dispute resolution mechanisms - could change during the transition as agreement is made on future co-operation. But there's little appetite in the EU for that - in its view, you're either in or you're out.\n\nThe EU 27 stress that they want a close partnership with the UK in the future, but here they are setting out the limits of what they could mean.\n\nThe further away the UK wants to be from the rules and regulations of the single market the less access it will have - there is no such thing as partial membership.\n\nThis gets us back to the unresolved debate about what \"full alignment\" at the Irish border really means in practice.\n\nThe phrase \"preserve a level playing field\" is important too. The EU is anxious to ensure that the UK doesn't try to undercut the EU in any way by having looser regulations in certain key areas, and, if it does, then there will be consequences.\n\nEU negotiators won't have the authority to start discussions with the UK on future relations (including trade and also things like security and foreign policy) until another set of guidelines is adopted in March 2018.\n\nThat gives the two sides not much more than six months to agree the text of a broad political declaration on the outlines of the future relationship.\n\nThe EU hopes to get that finalised by October 2018, but it emphasises that formal trade negotiations can only begin after the UK has left the EU.\n\nInformal contacts on what the future might look like are probably taking place already, but the EU is still waiting for greater clarity from London about what exactly the UK government hopes to achieve in the long term.\n\nThe UK is trying to be as ambitious as possible about what can be done before Brexit actually happens. The EU, though, emphasises that trade talks will have to continue long after the UK has left.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The prime minister has said the government is \"proving the doubters wrong\" with its Brexit negotiations.\n\nEU leaders agreed talks can move on to the next stage in the new year, shortly after Theresa May suffered her first Commons defeat on Brexit.\n\nWriting in two Sunday papers, she vowed she would \"not be derailed\" from securing an \"ambitious\" deal.\n\nLabour's Diane Abbott told the BBC the Brexit negotiations were \"a mess\" and were causing concern.\n\nWriting in the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Express, Mrs May said the last 10 days had \"marked a watershed\" in the Brexit process and that the government would now \"begin to build that new, deep and special partnership\" with the EU.\n\n\"This is the exciting part of the negotiations and there is no limit on our ambition and creativity,\" she said.\n\nShe said talks would now start on the implementation period for Brexit and the future of trading relationships.\n\n\"Amid all the noise, we are getting on with the job,\" she added.\n\nCabinet ministers are due to discuss their stance on the relationship they want with the EU - the UK's \"end state\" - in the coming days, but some ministers are thought to favour a closer alignment than others.\n\nForeign Secretary Boris Johnson, who was a leading voice in the referendum Leave campaign, has argued that the UK cannot mirror EU law in the long term.\n\nThe EU's guidelines for phase two of the negotiations say the UK would \"continue to participate in the customs union and the single market during the transition\" - a period of up to two years after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 - and remain under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.\n\nMr Johnson said if the UK ended up being forced to mirror EU laws \"we would have gone from being a member state to a vassal state\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Diane Abbott says she does not want a second referendum on a final Brexit deal\n\nHe said the UK needed \"something new and ambitious, which allows zero tariffs and frictionless trade\" but maintains the freedom to \"decide our own regulatory framework and own laws\".\n\nSpeaking on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show, Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke said any final trade deal between the UK and EU must \"maximise\" access to the EU market.\n\n\"We are not looking for an EEA-type (European Economic Area) arrangement so that, essentially, it's continuity as far as the end state is concerned,\" he said.\n\n\"But it is also important that we maximise our access to the European markets, that is really important to the UK.\"\n\nLib Dem Leader Sir Vince Cable told BBC Radio 5live it was difficult to say where the prime minister stood on what the UK's final \"end state\" relationship with the EU would be.\n\nHe told Pienaar's Politics that his impression, in his five years working with Mrs May during the 2010-2015 coalition government, when she was home secretary, was that she was \"not terribly interested in economic matters\".\n\nHe added that that \"makes her quite difficult to place\" on whether she would prefer a close single market-type arrangement, the so-called Norway model, or a \"more distant\" variant like Canada.\n\n\"I've no idea how she would react to that because she was preoccupied, I would say, obsessed with, immigration as an issue and that was her job\".\n\nMeanwhile, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott was asked whether Labour would back a Norway-style deal for the UK.\n\nNorway is not in the EU but has access to the single market, in return for a financial contribution and accepting the majority of EU laws.\n\nShe said Labour was \"not conducting this negotiation\" but it would not back anything \"that damages jobs and the economy\".\n\nPressed on whether the UK may have to make payments to get access to the single market, she replied: \"We may have to do so, but we have to see how the Tories' negotiations go\".\n\nThe prime minister lost in the Commons earlier this week when MPs - including 11 from her own party - voted to give Parliament a legal guarantee of a vote on the final Brexit deal struck with Brussels.\n\nFollowing the vote, there were calls for the Tory rebels to be deselected by the party and some received death threats.\n\nTory peers Baroness Altmann and Baroness Wheatcroft have written in the Observer that such threats \"are worrying symptoms of the toxic atmosphere which has been created in our country\" and the Lords would be \"unlikely to be receptive to bullying over a restricted timetable or vigorous whipping to toe the party line\".\n\nBut former chancellor Ken Clarke, who was among the 11 rebels, said reports of de-selection threats were \"all nonsense\".\n\n\"I think it's caused by all the rubbish that keeps appearing in the right-wing newspapers, which have completely lost their heads over the whole thing,\" he said.", "Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary had always refused to recognise pilots' unions\n\nThe Impact union, which represents Irish-based pilots, has agreed to meet Ryanair's management on Tuesday ahead of the planned action on Wednesday.\n\nIt follows Ryanair's decision on Friday to recognise unions, in a bid to avert strikes across its European operations.\n\nUnions in other countries had already halted action, but Impact said Irish pilots wanted more clarification.\n\nIn a statement on Sunday, the union said: \"Impact has this evening suspended a planned one-day strike of Ryanair pilots next Wednesday after company management agreed to recognise the union as the representative of Irish-based pilots.\n\n\"The union has agreed to meet management on Tuesday evening, but says it is available to meet sooner.\n\n\"The union asked management to release its Ryanair pilot representatives to prepare for and attend the meeting.\n\n\"The union acknowledged the principled determination of Ryanair pilots.\"\n\nThe airline has offered to recognise trade unions for the first time after pilots in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal threatened walkouts.\n\nRyanair said on Saturday that it would meet the German pilots' union for talks on Wednesday.\n\nThe airline's chief operations officer, Peter Bellew, confirmed the planned meetings in a social media post on Saturday, saying \"let's keep talking\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Peter Bellew This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Dublin-based airline announced on Friday that it would recognise the unions \"as long as they establish committees of Ryanair pilots... as Ryanair will not engage with pilots who fly for competitor airlines\".\n\nIt is the first time Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has extended such an invitation to union leaders in the 32 years the company has been flying.\n\nBritain's Balpa union said on Saturday said it had accepted Ryanair's offer to represent British-based pilots, but only if the TUC federation of British trade unions was allowed to attend future talks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ryanair tells Today the airline is moving to recognise unions as it's \"time for change\"\n\nFriday's announcement led to Italian pilots' union Anpac and Portuguese union Spac calling off strike action due to take place next week.\n\nPilots in Germany had voted to take industrial action some time during the Christmas period.\n\nGerman union Vereinigung Cockpit said the onus was now on Ryanair to \"prove that this announcement is serious\".\n\nIn Spain, there are no strikes planned for pilots but ground staff unions have not ruled out action on 30 December.\n\nIn October, Mr O'Leary wrote to his airline's pilots to offer them better pay and conditions after Ryanair was forced to cancel thousands of flights.\n\nThe carrier admitted it had \"messed up\" the planning of its pilots' holidays.", "The two PCs were struck on the A406 North Circular Road near Dog Lane in Brent Park\n\nTwo police officers were critically injured after they were hit by a Maserati while walking back to their vehicle in north-west London.\n\nThe two PCs were returning to their marked car on the A406 North Circular Road in Brent Park, Neasden, at about 03:40 GMT when they were struck.\n\nThe male driver of the white luxury car was arrested at the scene.\n\nScotland Yard said one officer remained in a critical condition while the other was seriously injured.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Brent MPS This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA spokesperson said the officers, both aged in their 30s, had been at the location assisting with inquiries into an unrelated matter.\n\nThey said the male officer was critically injured while the female officer sustained a number of fractures and is in a serious but stable condition.\n\nA woman who was inside the Maserati was also taken to hospital but was not seriously injured.\n\nThe driver, aged in his 50s, was arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving and failing to provide a breath specimen.\n\nMet Commissioner Cressida Dick said her \"thoughts and prayers are with my officers\".\n\n\"It is incidents such as this that act as a stark reminder of the uncertainties of police work and the dangers that officers face every day,\" she said.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "It looks simple - a pretty blue cornflower - but this plant is causing controversy in Austria. It's the chosen flower of the far-right Freedom Party, even though it was once associated with the Nazis.\n\nDieter Dorner takes a long sip of his Gemischtes, a mix of dark beer and lager, and smiles.\n\nWe are sitting in an inn in Untersiebenbrunn, a little town east of Vienna, where he is a councillor for the far-right Freedom Party. Over a meal of sausage, chips and locally grown white asparagus, he tells me about a planned dance.\n\nIn true Austrian fashion, it's to be a ball - the local Freedom party's first Cornflower Ball, Der Kornblumenball.\n\n\"We've never had a Freedom Party Ball in Untersiebenbrunn before,\" he explains. \"So we said to ourselves, let's do something, let's have a ball. The band will play dance music. My favourite is the slow waltz.\"\n\nThe ball was arranged last September, but the timing is felicitous, because these days the Freedom Party in Untersiebenbrunn has a lot to celebrate. In the first round of voting in Austria's presidential election in April, 53% of people here voted for the Freedom Party candidate, Norbert Hofer.\n\nDotted through the town's leafy streets are the blue Freedom Party campaign placards and posters for the Kornblumenball, featuring a silhouette of a dancing couple in evening dress.\n\n\"Hasn't there been some controversy about the blue cornflower?\" I ask. \"Something to do with the Nazis?\" Dieter shakes his head. \"The cornflower is simply the Freedom Party flower and we like it,\" he says.\n\n\"To discuss what happened 80 years ago, or what didn't happen or perhaps happened doesn't bring us forward. There is certainly nothing deliberately nasty about it.\"\n\nBut other Austrians are not so sure.\n\n\"The cornflower is a complicated symbol,\" Vienna historian, Bernhard Weidinger, tells me. \"It was the German Kaiser Wilhelm's favourite flower, and was used by pan-German nationalists in the 19th Century.\n\n\"Then between 1934 and 1938, when the Nazis were a banned party in Austria, it was the secret symbol they used to wear in order to recognise each other.\"\n\nNowadays, it's traditional for Austrian MPs to wear a flower in their buttonholes at the opening of parliament, he explains. The colour of the Freedom Party is blue, so they wear a cornflower.\n\n\"You are not a neo-Nazi if you wear a cornflower,\" he continues. \"But it is fair to say that the Freedom Party cultivates a certain ambivalence when it comes to the past.\"\n\nTheir presidential hopeful, Norbert Hofer, continues to face sharp criticism about his occasional choice of floral decoration. In response to a question last week, he declared that he wanted nothing to do with the Nazis, and wouldn't let them take away things like the cornflower.\n\nThe Freedom Party has moved on a long way from the heyday of its firebrand leader, Joerg Haider, who died in a car crash in 2008. Back in the 1980s and 90s, Haider openly praised aspects of the Third Reich. These days, Freedom Party members who veer in that direction are quickly silenced or removed from their posts.\n\nA day or so later I fall into conversation with a young man called Michael, in a park in Vienna.\n\nIt's a balmy spring evening, the chestnut trees are in bloom, and in the distance a jazz band is playing a free concert on an open-air podium. \"What do you think about the Freedom Party and the cornflower?\" I ask.\n\n\"I hate those people,\" he replies. \"And the cornflower isn't great. But you know, I'm not quite as worried about their attitude towards the past as I am about their attitude to what's going on now. Their barely-concealed racism, their rhetoric against Muslims and refugees is really wrong.\"\n\nA demonstrator at an anti-Hofer rally in Vienna holds up an image of the cornflower\n\nHe looks around at a family playing with their well-groomed dogs. \"And the other thing that bothers me,\" he says, \"is that they are working on people's fears and encouraging our worst instincts. Like Donald Trump does. Austria is better off than most countries in the world. It's safe - and in general life is pretty good here. But to hear the Freedom Party talk, you'd think we were living in some desperately difficult country.\" He shrugs.\n\nI think back to my conversation with Dieter in the comfortable little town of Untersiebenbrunn. I had asked him if the Freedom Party was deliberately stirring up fears to gain votes.\n\n\"We don't create people's concerns, we express them,\" he had said. \"We're worried about our future. When you have a lot, you also have a lot to lose.\"\n\nSubscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox", "Firefighters are dropping red flame retardant to try to quench the flames\n\nAuthorities in California have issued new evacuation orders as a huge wildfire flares up again in Santa Barbara County.\n\nMeteorologists said fresh northerly winds were likely to drive the flames from the fire - named Thomas - towards the Pacific coast.\n\nThe blaze, the state's third largest on record, has now burnt almost 1,000 sq km (405 sq miles) since 4 December.\n\nTwo people are reported to have died as a result of the fire.\n\nFire apparatus engineer Cory Iverson was killed tackling the blaze last week, along with a woman, Virginia Rae Pesola, who was in a car crash as she evacuated.\n\nThe resurgence of strong \"sundowner\" winds combined with low humidity forecast for Sunday could fuel the flames and has prompted new mandatory evacuation orders for several Santa Barbara communities, including hillside homes in Montecito and Summerland.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by SBCountyOEM This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe fire has crossed the San Ysidro canyon, dashing firefighters' hope that it could be contained.\n\nMore than 8,000 firefighters are now tackling the blaze, which has destroyed about 1,000 structures including some 750 homes. The cost of the operation is now $104m (£78m), said Reuters news agency.\n\nUsing helicopters and planes to drop fire retardant on the flames, firefighters have managed to contain 40% of the blaze.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Drew Tuma This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. François Gabart was welcomed back to France by a flotilla of local boats escorting him home\n\nA French sailor has set a new world record for the fastest solo round-the-world navigation, beating the previous time by more than six days.\n\nFrançois Gabart finished his circuit of the globe early on Sunday, in a time of 42 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds.\n\nHe completed the journey non-stop, confined to his trimaran sailing yacht since 4 November.\n\nGabart broke the record set by his countryman Thomas Coville last year.\n\nThe record was held at one stage by British national Dame Ellen MacArthur.\n\nGabart's new record has yet to be verified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council, which will check the ship's GPS data before confirming the result.\n\nGabart celebrated aboard his trimaran as he reached port in Brest\n\nHe crossed the finish line near the western limit of the English Channel at about 01:45 GMT, before turning his ship homeward.\n\nCapturing the drama just ahead of the finish, Gabart said in a video recorded in front of an on-board computer monitor: \"The little blue bit is us, the red line is the finish. We should cross it any time now, the computer says 30 seconds.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by trimaranMACIF This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThen he reported: \"I've just crossed the finish line. It's pretty crazy. It's pretty unreal. I'm a bit overwhelmed. Just now I couldn't move I was at such a loss about what to do next. I'm in the dark. There are cargo ships and fishing boats around me. It's a pretty weird atmosphere and at the same time it's pretty extraordinary...\n\n\"I'm proud and happy to have made this pretty voyage around the planet.\"\n\nAs he arrived in the town of Brest in France's north-west several hours later, his yacht was escorted into port by a host of local boats in celebration of his accomplishment.\n\nGabart's success is partly down to good luck with weather, which can dramatically influence sailing speeds.\n\nFrançois Gabart spent 42 days alone on his ship\n\nAFP news agency reports that, while chasing the global speed record, Gabart broke several others for solo racing, including the fastest navigation of the Pacific and the longest distance covered in 24 hours - 1,575km (851 miles).\n\nBut his 30m (98ft) boat was also custom-designed for the purpose, using the latest technology, and reached speeds of 35 knots (65km/h) during the journey, it said.\n\nGabart posted photos and video on social media frequently during his 42 days at sea, sharing his sunset views or his success at fishing with fans.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by francoisgabart This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nWell-known sailor Michel Desjoyeaux told the AFP news agency it was not surprising that Gabart had broken Coville's record.\n\n\"The one thing we can be sure of is that Francois has a faster boat than Thomas had and if they raced head-to-head then he would be faster,\" he said. \"And he has spent a great deal of time on a multi-hull and is completely unafraid of high speeds.\"", "Hundreds of Dachshunds wearing Christmas jumpers have taken part in a festive frolic around a park in Leeds.\n\nThe event saw 288 pets gather in Roundhay for the annual walk organised by the Yorkshire Dachshund Group.", "Sebastián Piñera will serve as president for the second time\n\nA conservative billionaire and former president, Sebastián Piñera, has won Chile's presidential election run-off.\n\nLeft-winger Alejandro Guillier conceded and congratulated his opponent on his win and his return to the presidency after a four-year gap.\n\nWith nearly all votes counted, Mr Piñera polled more than 54%.\n\nIt is a clear move to the right for the country, which is currently led by socialist President Michelle Bachelet. She had backed Mr Guillier.\n\nAbout 14 million were eligible to vote in the ballot, including, for the first time, Chileans living abroad.\n\nHowever, voter turnout was low, at 48.5%. It had been thought that a high turnout would favour Mr Guillier.\n\nMr Piñera called for unity after his victory:\n\n\"Chile needs agreements more than confrontations,\" he said. \"The paths of the future unite us. Sometimes the stories of the past separate us.\"\n\nReaching out to his opponent, Mr Piñera added: \"I want to talk to him about the points we agree about.\"\n\nMr Guillier recognised his \"harsh defeat\" in the election while congratulating his opponent\n\nBillionaire businessman Mr Piñera won the first round of votes by a large margin, when the number of candidates reduced from eight to two for a final run-off.\n\nHe has already governed the country from 2010 to 2014, when he ended two decades of uninterrupted centre-left rule. But the former president and his Chile Vamos coalition had only a slim lead in the most recent opinion polls before Sunday's election vote.\n\nHe had the support of the business community, promising to lower taxes to get the economy growing again.\n\nDuring his campaign, he promised to rein in the reforms brought in by President Bachelet, while his opponent Mr Guillier, on the other hand, campaigned on the back of her legacy.\n\nWhile President Bachelet's progressive agenda has won plaudits abroad, her popularity plummeted during her second term, due in part to a 2015 corruption scandal involving her daughter-in-law.\n\nThis year, however, the president overcame conservative opposition to successfully ease Chile's strict anti-abortion laws.\n\nConservative critics say Ms Bachelet pushed her reforms too far. She was unable to seek re-election under the country's constitution.\n\nAs votes closed, projections indicated a victory for Mr Piñera, causing celebration among his supporters\n\nMr Guillier represents six parties in a left-wing coalition. He beat former president Ricardo Lagos for the Socialist Party nomination in April 2017, promising to continue Ms Bachulet's reforms.\n\nA decade ago, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Venezuela were all governed by left-wing leaders.\n\nBut in recent years, conservatives have come to power in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, and Venezuela's \"Bolivarian Revolution\" has come under severe pressure with anti-government protesters taking to the streets for months. The win by Mr Piñera further consolidates that trend.", "Six people have been killed in a multiple-vehicle crash in Birmingham.\n\nSpeaking at a news conference, Supt Sean Phillips from West Midlands Police said it was a \"very harrowing scene\".", "The Gambling Commission is to investigate the findings of a BBC 5 live report which found flaws in a scheme designed to help problem gamblers.\n\nAddicted gamblers can sign up to be self-excluded from betting shops near where they live, work and socialise, to help reduce or stop their gambling habit.\n\nBBC reporter Rob Cave put this scheme to the test, by self-excluding himself from 21 betting shops in Grimsby. He then went undercover, visiting them all to see if he was recognised.\n\nRob was able to place bets in 16 shops before he was finally recognised and asked to leave. Rob says: \"It begs the question - is a piece of paper with a name and a photograph on it, enough of a solution to help those who want to stop gambling when the fun stops.\"\n\nIn a statement, The Association of Bookmakers said: \"We accept that the current self-exclusion scheme is not without flaws however we are continually developing improved systems.\"\n\nThis clip is taken from 5 live Investigates on 17 December 2017. Have you got something you want investigating? We want to hear from you. Email us.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The floors adjust to the slope as the funicular climbs\n\nThe world's steepest funicular railway has opened to the public in Switzerland.\n\nSpecially constructed cylindrical carriages have been used to ensure that passengers can stay upright on the incline.\n\nThe floors tilt, adjusting to the slope as the funicular climbs at a gradient of 110% at its steepest point.\n\nThe railway runs from the town of Schwyz up 110m (328ft) to the car-free Alpine village of Stoos.\n\nThe Stoos Bahn took 14 years to build - two years longer than scheduled - at a cost of 52m Swiss francs (£40m; $53m).\n\nBut Ivan Steiner, spokesman for the railway, said the project's completion had made everyone \"very proud\".\n\nIn mountainous Switzerland, where children regularly use cable cars to get to school, the line will connect communities as well as provide a new tourist attraction, reports the BBC's Imogen Foulkes.\n\nShould potential passengers feel fainthearted, they can be reassured that the journey lasts just four minutes.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Scottish Premiership\n\nCeltic's 69-game unbeaten domestic run was ended in emphatic style as they were stunned 4-0 by Hearts in the Scottish Premiership.\n\nThe defeat at Tynecastle is the champions' first domestic loss since a 2-1 reverse at St Johnstone on 11 May 2016 - 585 days ago - and Brendan Rodgers' first as Celtic manager against Scottish opposition.\n\nThe streak began under Rodgers' predecessor Ronny Deila when Motherwell were thrashed 7-0 on the final day of the 2015-16 season.\n\nIn beating St Johnstone 4-0 in early November, Celtic surpassed their own 100-year-old British record of 62 domestic games without defeat.\n\nCeltic, who Rodgers led to the Scottish Premiership, Scottish Cup and Scottish League treble last season, remain top of the league table by two points, with a game in hand over second-placed Aberdeen.\n\nHearts had not scored three or more goals in a league match since a 4-0 thumping of Hamilton Academical in March.\n\nCraig Levein's men have conceded just 19 league goals this season, four more than Celtic, who have the best defensive record in Scotland's top flight.\n• None Celtic record may never be beaten - Rodgers\n• None As it happened: Hearts hammer Celtic to end 69-game run\n\nCeltic's unbeaten domestic run (all but one under Brendan Rodgers)\n\nSixteen-year-old Harry Cochrane and former Rangers striker Kyle Lafferty slammed home first-half goals as Hearts dominated the early skirmishes.\n\nManuel Milinkovic seized on a dreadful error from Jozo Simunovic to prod in a third early in the second half.\n\nCeltic piled forward, but it was Hearts who struck again, Milinkovic netting from the penalty spot.\n\nRodgers' side may well go onto claim the Premiership title but they were given a football lesson by a dogged and devastating Hearts, who were in no way flattered by the scoreline.\n\nThe hosts were dynamic and effective from the first whistle, pressing the Celtic defence at every opportunity and denying them the time and space to pass out from the back.\n\nCentre-back Dedryck Boyata and goalkeeper Craig Gordon were particularly unsettled, with the latter charged down by Don Cowie in his own goalmouth.\n\nAnd - after Lafferty, Christophe Berra and Ross Callachan had fired off target - Kieran Tierney's slip allowed Cowie to pilfer possession on the right wing, and slide the ball inside to Cochrane.\n\nThe teenager, making just his fifth start, took one touch on the 18-yard line before rifling a low left-foot effort beyond Gordon.\n\nThe Celtic goalkeeper produced a fine reaction save to divert Milinkovic's volley over the crossbar two minutes later, but it was a temporary reprieve.\n\nAgain, the champions surrendered possession, Milinkovic robbing Callum McGregor and sending Lafferty galloping into open space up the right flank.\n\nFrom the angle of the area, the Northern Ireland striker drove his shot across Gordon and into the back of the net via the inside of the post.\n\nThe half-time whistle blew with Celtic, uncharacteristically sloppy on the ball and outfought all over the pitch, trailing 2-0, and the refurbished Tynecastle a raucous cauldron of delirium.\n\nThe visitors' slackness continued after the break, as Simunovic allowed a speculative Connor Randall clearance to bounce over his head and into the path of the gleeful Milinkovic, who rounded Gordon and slotted from close range.\n\nUnder Rodgers, Celtic had never faced a three-goal deficit on domestic duty. They cascaded forward, with the manager introducing highly-rated French striker Moussa Dembele to assist Leigh Griffiths in attack.\n\nIt was Griffiths' vicious curling effort that gave Jon McLaughlin his first serious test of the afternoon, the Hearts goalkeeper tipping the ball smartly over the bar.\n\nOn came another Celtic striker, Odsonne Edouard this time, but spearheaded by their magnificent captain Berra, the hosts' defence repelled everything Rodgers and his team could throw at them.\n\nAnd it was Hearts who completed their remarkable triumph - the Gorgie side's biggest over Celtic since 1895 - when Gordon unnecessarily felled the speeding Ross Callachan in the box, Milinkovic striking low and decisively from 12 yards.\n\nAt full-time, Rodgers gathered his players in a huddle. Their run could not last forever, but few would have predicted its demise in such chastening fashion. Now, this group of players faces the challenge of responding to defeat by a Scottish opponent for the first time in 19 months.\n• None Attempt blocked. Scott Sinclair (Celtic) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt saved. Leigh Griffiths (Celtic) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal.\n• None Attempt missed. Anthony McDonald (Heart of Midlothian) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses the top left corner.\n• None Manuel Milinkovic (Heart of Midlothian) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\n• None Attempt missed. Moussa Dembele (Celtic) left footed shot from outside the box misses to the right.\n• None Attempt missed. Odsonne Edouard (Celtic) right footed shot from the right side of the box is close, but misses to the left.\n• None Attempt missed. Moussa Dembele (Celtic) left footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses the top left corner.\n• None Attempt saved. Stuart Armstrong (Celtic) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner.\n• None Goal! Heart of Midlothian 4, Celtic 0. Manuel Milinkovic (Heart of Midlothian) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom right corner.\n• None Penalty conceded by Craig Gordon (Celtic) after a foul in the penalty area.\n• None Penalty Heart of Midlothian. Ross Callachan draws a foul in the penalty area.\n• None Substitution, Heart of Midlothian. Cole Stockton replaces Kyle Lafferty because of an injury. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Adm Srur (right) is seen here with President Macri last month\n\nThe head of the Argentine navy has been sacked following the loss of a submarine and its crew in the South Atlantic last month.\n\nThe defence minister placed Adm Marcelo Srur in retirement on Friday night, it has emerged.\n\nThe ARA San Juan disappeared with 44 crew on board after reporting an electrical problem off the coast of Patagonia.\n\nAn international search operation has failed to locate the vessel.\n\nSome ships are still searching in an area where a loud noise was recorded in the hours following the disappearance - possible evidence that the submarine imploded.\n\nPresident Mauricio Macri has created a special independent commission to investigate the disappearance of the submarine, following criticism about the handling of the operation.\n\nThe commission will comprise three submariners - one the father of one of the disappeared crew.\n\nDefence Minister Oscar Aguad has promised the investigation will be \"transparent\" and will have an unlimited budget.\n\nThe crew of the ARA San Juan comprises 43 men and one woman\n\n\"We ask that they always tell us the truth, that they keep us informed about what's happening,\" said Jorge Villareal, father of missing crew member Fernando, according to Efe news agency.\n\n\"We just find things out through the media.\"\n\nAdm Srur, 60, was appointed by President Macri in January 2016.", "Mr Zuma said his ANC party was at a \"crossroads\"\n\nSouth Africa's President Jacob Zuma has called on the African National Congress (ANC) to stop infighting as it decides who will next lead the party.\n\nMr Zuma warned the future of the ANC was under threat, with South Africans \"not happy\" with it.\n\nThe main contenders to succeed him are the deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and former cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, President Zuma's ex-wife.\n\nWhoever wins is likely to succeed Mr Zuma as South African president.\n\nBut their bitter leadership battle has raised fears that the ANC could split before national elections in 2019.\n\nPresident Zuma can remain head of state until those elections. He has been in office since 2009 and South Africa limits the presidency to two five-year terms.\n\nThe leadership contest is expected to be a close one, with legal challenges a possibility.\n\nAddressing delegates at the beginning of a gathering to decide the next ANC leader, Mr Zuma said their movement was at a \"crossroads\".\n\n\"Petty squabbling that takes us nowhere needs to take back seat, our people are frustrated when we spend more time fighting among ourselves instead of solving the daily challenges they experience,\" he said.\n\nLast year's disappointing results for the ANC in local elections, Mr Zuma said, \"were a stark reminder that our people are not happy with the state of the ANC\".\n\nThe leading candidates are Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa\n\nPresident Zuma, 75, has been the focus of much controversy and has survived several votes of no confidence in parliament.\n\nHe faces numerous corruption allegations but denies any wrongdoing.\n\nIn his final speech as ANC president, he asserted that \"theft and corruption\" were as prominent in the private sector as they are in government. He added that \"being black and successful is being made synonymous to being corrupt\".\n\nHe lashed out at the media, which he said was not \"impartial and fair\". He also targeted the judiciary, arguing that the courts should have no role in deciding internal party matters.\n\nFor the leadership, President Zuma is backing his 68-year-old former wife, Ms Dlamini-Zuma, a veteran politician in her own right who has been critical of the enduring power of white-owned businesses.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What advice should South Africa's ruling party take on board?\n\nMr Ramaphosa, 65, has spoken out strongly against state corruption and has the backing of the business community.\n\nRecent news that he had a modest lead in the polls was quickly reflected by a rise in the financial markets.\n\nJacob Zuma came out fighting in his speech, hitting out at his critics both inside and outside the party.\n\nIt seemed like no one was spared - from ANC members who voted with the opposition to try and remove him, alliance partners who have booed him and called on him to stand down, to \"counter-revolutionary forces\" he said were intent on reversing the progress made since 1994, when apartheid was brought to an end.\n\nIndeed, that idea of malevolent forces working to bring down both him and the ANC was a thread that ran right through his speech. Mr Zuma placed his fight against his opponents within the wider framework of the fight against apartheid.\n\nHe ended his speech by saying \"I tried my best\", and of those who tried to bring him down \"I bear no grudges\". He then led the room in song.\n\nThis was Jacob Zuma in his element: a rousing speaker, a fierce opponent, delivering cutting rebukes with charm and charisma.\n\nMore than 5,000 delegates are taking part in the four-day ANC elective conference at the Expo Centre in Johannesburg.\n\nA vote on the new leader is expected on Sunday.\n\nThe first major engagement for the new leader will be the party's anniversary celebrations on 8 January.\n\nThe ANC has governed South Africa since the first democratic election more than 20 years ago.\n\nThe BBC's Andrew Harding says a question remains whether the ANC is in terminal decline, and what that might mean for South Africa's stability and its future.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The ANC was the party of Nelson Mandela but have people lost faith under Jacob Zuma?", "Police in Lebanon have arrested an Uber driver in connection with the murder of a British woman in Beirut.\n\nThe body of Rebecca Dykes, who worked at the British Embassy in the city, was found by a motorway on Saturday.\n\nThe arrested man was 35 and has served several prison sentences, a senior Lebanese security source told the BBC.\n\nMs Dykes had been sexually assaulted and strangled, and the man is expected to be charged with rape and murder later this week, police sources said.\n\nHer family said in a statement: \"We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. We are doing all we can to understand what happened.\"\n\nMs Dykes, who is believed to have been 30, had been working in Beirut as the programme and policy manager for the Department for International Development since January 2017.\n\nIt is thought she spent Friday evening at a going-away party for a colleague in the popular Gemmayzeh district of Beirut.\n\nAfter leaving the bar at about midnight it appears she was abducted. Her body was found close to a motorway on the outskirts of the city.\n\nThe body of Rebecca Dykes was found near a main road outisde Beirut\n\nThe Foreign Office said it was in contact with the Lebanese authorities and confirmed an arrest had been made.\n\nThe suspect was arrested in the early hours of Monday morning after police reportedly traced his car on traffic management CCTV.\n\nAn official told the Reuters and AFP news agencies the preliminary investigation had showed Ms Dykes's killing \"was not politically motivated\".\n\nThe Gemmayzeh district of Beirut where Rebecca Dykes was last seen alive is well-known for having some of the city's best and most expensive bars and restaurants.\n\nThere is normally a relaxed atmosphere. It is a neighbourhood where foreign aid workers, diplomats and journalists mingle with wealthy Lebanese often into the early hours of the morning.\n\nDespite the chaos seen elsewhere in the region, Beirut in recent years has been regarded as relatively safe. That is why this murder has left the international community so shocked.\n\nAfter a late night out, many people would previously have thought nothing of catching one of the cabs that ply the streets, or calling for an Uber.\n\nFor a short while, anyway, that is likely to change. People will be more careful about how they get home. Beirut may be relatively safe but - as in any big city across the world - this murder is a reminder of the dangers.\n\nJosie Ensor, the Daily Telegraph's correspondent in Beirut, says the case has left foreign residents in the city unsettled.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, she said Beirut was a \"very tight-knit community, so when something happens to one person, it feels quite close\".\n\nMs Ensor, who was due to attend the same party on Friday evening, added Ms Dykes \"had just landed on her feet in Beirut and was starting to make friends and getting to know the city\".\n\nHugo Shorter, the British Ambassador to Lebanon, said the whole embassy was \"deeply shocked\" and \"saddened\" by the news.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Hugo Shorter This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTributes were paid to Ms Dykes in the House of Lords on Monday.\n\nFormer Conservative MP Lady McIntosh said: \"The loss of Rebecca Dykes in these circumstances is felt very deeply.\n\n\"And can we pay tribute to the work that she and the all Dfid team do, often in very dangerous circumstances, particularly at this time of year, for humanitarian purposes?\"\n\nThe International Development Minister Lord Bates added: \"It's obviously a very distressing time, particularly for Becky's family, but also for the people who worked with her.\n\n\"It reminds us of the sacrifice which is made by over 1,200 Dfid personnel who work around the world, often in the most difficult and dangerous of environments.\"\n\nA Dfid spokesman said: \"Our thoughts are with Becky's family and friends at this very upsetting time.\n\n\"There is now a police investigation and the Foreign Office is providing consular support to Becky's family and working with the local authorities‎.\"\n\nRebecca Dykes had been working in Beirut since January 2017\n\nPrior to her posting in Beirut, Ms Dykes worked with the Foreign Office as a policy manager for its Libya team and as an Iraq research analyst.\n\nAccording to her LinkedIn profile, she studied anthropology at the University of Manchester, and had a master's in International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck, University of London.\n\nShe was a former pupil of Malvern Girls' College and Rugby School, and had also taught English at a Chinese international school.\n\nMs Dykes had reportedly been due to fly back to the UK for Christmas. She says on social media that she is from London.", "A taxi driver and two passengers were among those killed in the crash in Birmingham\n\nSix people have been killed in a \"horrific\" crash in Birmingham.\n\nThree vehicles were involved in the accident on Belgrave Middleway, near Edgbaston, at about 01:00 GMT.\n\nThree men in one car died at the scene and a fourth is critically injured in hospital. The driver of a taxi and his two passengers were also killed.\n\nWest Midlands Police described dealing with the wreckage as \"very difficult and upsetting\" and said officers were investigating how the crash happened.\n\nThree vehicles were involved in the accident on Belgrave Middleway, while another three were damaged trying to avoid it\n\nThe road has been closed and police have appealed for witnesses.\n\nThe first car in the crash had suffered extensive damage but, \"astonishingly\", the man and the woman inside managed to get out with relatively minor injuries, an ambulance service spokesman said.\n\n\"The second vehicle, a black cab, was on its side. Sadly, there was nothing that could be done to save the driver and he was confirmed dead at the scene.\"\n\nThe taxi driver has been named locally as father of six Imtiaz Mohammed, who worked for Castle Cars.\n\nThe female passenger was also confirmed dead at the scene, while her male companion died at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Officers were dealing with \"a very harrowing scene\", Supt Sean Phillips said\n\nThere were four men in the third car, and all had been thrown from the vehicle, the ambulance spokesman said.\n\n\"Tragically, three of them were confirmed dead at the scene.\"\n\nThe fourth was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and is in a critical condition.\n\nBlue tents can be seen where forensic teams are working\n\nPolice are working to reopen Belgrave and Lee Bank Middleway by Monday morning\n\nThree other cars were caught up in the crash and suffered minor damage trying to avoid it.\n\nMichelle Brotherton, from the ambulance service, said her staff had dealt with 13 patients in total.\n\nAs well as those who died and the man in a critical condition, four people were taken to Heartlands Hospital where their condition is believed to be non-life threatening.\n\nA further two patients were \"discharged on scene\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by West Midlands Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSupt Sean Phillips said the police officer in charge of the investigation had described the wreckage as \"very harrowing\".\n\nHe said it was \"too early\" to speculate on the cause of the accident.\n\n\"It will take some time to unpick and just understand exactly what's happened. It would be unfair for me to speculate at this time,\" he said.\n\nHe confirmed the road had been gritted at 17:00 GMT the previous evening.\n\nMetres of police cordon tape and a number of vehicles have been used to seal off the road, and blue forensic tents can be seen below in the underpass.\n\nThe cordon stretches at least 100 metres either side of the Middleway and I can see numerous police officers.\n\nAs locals find out what happened, they all say how tragic it is that six people should die so close to Christmas.\n\nIt is not yet known what caused the crash, but people are telling me there has long been a problem with speeding and racing on this road and the adjoining Bristol Street.\n\nA car involved in a separate crash nearby just a week ago is still on the side of the road.\n\nThe accident happened below the underpass on the A38/Bristol Road, where Belgrave Middleway meets Lee Bank Middleway.\n\nThe stretch of road from Islington Row to Bristol Street has been closed and is likely to remain so throughout Sunday, police said.\n\nThe wreckage was described by police as \"harrowing\"\n\nOne resident who lives opposite said she woke at about 02:00 and saw the emergency crews.\n\n\"This road is really dangerous. Young kids like to challenge themselves and go really fast,\" she said.\n\n\"I can't believe six people have died, and so close to Christmas and New Year.\"\n\nThe road has two lanes either side and a 40mph speed limit.\n\nPolice have said it \"will take some time to unpick\" what caused the crash\n\nArea Commander Jason Campbell, of West Midlands Fire Service, described it as a \"horrific\" incident.\n\nHe said the crash site was complex and \"spread over some distance\".\n\nAny witnesses have been asked to contact West Midlands Police.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by West Midlands Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n• None Very harrowing scene, say police. Video, 00:00:22Very harrowing scene, say police", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Passengers reacted with delight when the lights came back on\n\nPassengers at the world's busiest airport faced a second day of disruption on Monday after a power cut led to hundreds of cancellations.\n\nAtlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport lost power on Sunday, affecting tens of thousands of people.\n\nPassengers were left in darkened terminals or on board planes.\n\nPower was restored overnight and a handful of passenger flights resumed just after 06:00 local time (11:00 GMT) on Monday.\n\nHundreds of other flights, however, were cancelled.\n\nThe airport is the world's busiest, handling more than 250,000 passengers and almost 2,500 flights every day. But during its first hour of operation on Monday morning, fewer than a dozen commercial flights departed.\n\nA number of cargo flights had operated during the partial shutdown.\n\nMany hundreds of flights have been cancelled\n\nThousands remain stranded in the airport awaiting rescheduled flights. In a statement, the airport said it had distributed more than 5,000 meals to waiting passengers.\n\nSecurity processing began at about 03:30 local time, it said, but those with tickets dated Sunday would need to reprint them to pass through checkpoints.\n\nThe airport advised passengers to check the status of their particular flight directly with their airline.\n\nIn a statement, the airport confirmed it had suffered a power cut shortly after 13:00 on Sunday.\n\nMany flights scheduled to arrive from other airports were diverted elsewhere, or held at their departure airport.\n\nGeorgia Power, which supplies the airport's electricity, said it believed a fire at an underground electrical facility had caused the power cut. Officials said a piece of its switchgear could have failed and started the fire, causing cable damage.\n\nPower was fully restored to the airport around midnight on Sunday.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by cheforhire82 This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAtlanta's mayor confirmed the fire's cause was under investigation, and apologised to the thousands affected.\n\nA number of major airlines, including United, Southwest and American Airlines, completely suspended their operations on Sunday. Each had at least some flights scheduled to depart Monday.\n\nImages shared on social media showed passengers waiting in darkness. Some reported being stuck on board aircraft for six hours.\n\nOne passenger, Jannifer Lee, was travelling to Minnesota from Florida with her 10-year-old pet rescue cat Penny.\n\nHer first flight was stuck for almost four hours at the gate.\n\nMs Lee and her cat spent four hours stuck at the gate on her connecting flight from Florida\n\n\"I was hoping to have a really smooth flight, especially with a cat,\" she told the BBC.\n\n\"I've only ever flown with her for two or three hours before, not a 12-hour journey! I guess animals can be a lot more resilient than people.\"\n\nShe and thousands of others were left stranded without information from airlines about onward travel.\n\n\"There was a lot of confusion on the flight, because the national news knew more about the situation than we did,\" Ms Lee said.\n\nAnother passenger, Naomi Harm, was stranded on the tarmac on a Delta flight from Sacramento, California.\n\nShe told the BBC that airline staff had kept the passengers in good spirits by communicating regularly and handing out any food and drinks they had available.\n\nShe said one passenger seated close to her had been escorted down to the aircraft's cargo area to give insulin to his diabetic pet dog in the hold by an air marshal.\n\nAfter almost four hours she was guided out in darkness after portable steps were found for them to disembark.\n\n\"Inside the terminal there were thousands all over, children crying,\" she said. \"The air conditioning wasn't working and it was very hot inside.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Naomi Harm This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe local police department confirmed it had sent extra officers to help the airport with the situation.\n\nAbout 30,000 passengers were reportedly affected by the power cut.\n\nAtlanta is located within a two-hour flight of 80% of the US population, making the city a major port of entry into the US and a common stopover for travel within the country.\n• None Why do so many people hate US airports?", "Waiters are among the workers who have been enrolled in recent years\n\nEvery worker aged 18 or over will begin saving into a workplace pension unless they opt out, under government plans to extend its automatic enrolment scheme.\n\nAt present, the scheme means employers must enrol staff aged 22 and over and earning above £10,000 into a pension.\n\nMinisters hope to reduce the minimum age to 18 in the mid 2020s, and say it will affect about 900,000 young people.\n\nThe system has been credited with ensuring more prepare for older age, but it means extra costs for employers.\n\nIt has been introduced gradually since October 2012.\n\nWork and Pensions Secretary David Gauke told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show there had been \"greater saving for pensions\" since automatic enrolment came into effect.\n\n\"We want to extent that to young people under 22.\n\n\"I think we will get more people into the habit of saving.\"\n\nHe admitted increases in contributions from next year \"might put people off\", but added \"the evidence is that opt-out rates have been lower than people predicted\".\n\nOlly Browning, 21, welcomed the encouragement to save, adding that pensions had \"not really crossed my mind yet\".\n\nHe told the BBC: \"I think especially in London, [I have] moved jobs quite frequently, tend not to stay in one place too long, so pensions have always sort of been lower down the list of things I've been conscious of.\"\n\nHowever, one industry figure was unimpressed by aspects of the Department of Work and Pensions' wider pensions review.\n\nEx-pensions minister Steve Webb, director of policy at pensions firm Royal London, said: \"There are some great ideas in this review, including starting pension saving at age 18 and making sure that every pound that you earn is pensionable.\n\n\"But the proposed pace of change is shockingly lethargic.\n\n\"Talking about having reforms in place by the mid 2020s risks leaving a whole generation of workers behind.\"\n\nUnless they are already signed up to a workplace pension, a slice of a worker's pay packet is automatically diverted to a pension savings pot, which is invested until retirement.\n\nTheir employer also makes a contribution, as does the government.\n\nIndividuals have the option to opt out if they wish to, although that will mean losing the employers' contribution.\n\nAnyone on a short-term contract, working where an agency pays their wages, or who is on maternity, adoption or carer's leave should still be eligible.\n\nThe total minimum contribution is currently set at 2% of earnings (0.8% from the worker, 1% from an employer, and 0.2% as tax relief from the government).\n\nFrom April 2018, it will increase to 5% of earnings (2.4% from the worker, 2% from the employer, and 0.6% as tax relief).\n\nFrom April 2019 onwards, it will rise to 8% of earnings (4% from the individual, 3% from the employer, and 1% as tax relief).\n\nThe plan to lower the starting age follows a review of the system.\n\nThose earning less than £10,000 can ask their employer to enrol them.\n\nIona Bain, founder of the Young Money blog, said the move was still inadequate in solving a long-term pension crisis for the young.\n\nShe said that school leavers, facing a \"storm of financial pressures\", should have the same National Living Wage as those aged 25 and over, if they were expected to contribute into a pension.\n\nThe move will require legislation, as will the proposed other changes to the system including:\n\nThe proposals will cost employers an extra £1.4bn a year, and the government an extra £600m in tax relief a year.\n\n\"Requiring employers to contribute from the first pound of earnings, will mean that, by 2019, hundreds of thousands of small employers will have to pay up to £180 more per employee each year,\" said Mike Cherry, national chairman at the Federation of Small Businesses.\n\nMore than nine million people in the UK have been automatically enrolled into a pension so far, adding to the 10.8 million already contributing to a workplace pension.\n\nHowever, the average proportion of earnings put into an investment-based defined contribution pension has fallen from about 9% of earnings before auto-enrolment, to 4% now.\n\nThe DWP's review, led by industry representatives, estimated that 12 million people are not saving enough for their retirement, representing 38% of the working age population.", "Nine Boeing P-8A maritime patrol aircraft are among the vehicles the MoD is due to purchase\n\nPlans to buy new military equipment - including warships and jets - could be under threat, as MPs expressed \"serious doubts\" over whether the Ministry of Defence can afford them.\n\nThe Commons Defence Select Committee says the department will struggle to find the £7.3bn in savings required to pay for the new hardware.\n\nIt said the MoD had proved \"incapable\" of making such savings in the past.\n\nThe MoD said it was making \"good progress\" on its efficiency target.\n\nThis latest report echoes a warning from January of this year from government spending watchdog, the National Audit Office.\n\nThe cross-party committee of MPs backed the findings of the NAO that the defence equipment plan was at \"greater risk\" than at any time since 2012.\n\nIn 2016, the government pledged to spend £178bn on new military equipment over the next 10 years.\n\nBut that is on the assumption it can also find £7.3bn of efficiency savings - on top of £7.1bn previously announced - by selling off property and other efficiencies.\n\nThe committee chairman, Conservative MP Julian Lewis, said this was now \"extremely doubtful\" from an \"already stretched budget\".\n\n\"This will inevitably lead either to a reduction in the numbers of ships, aircraft and vehicles or to even greater delays in their acquisition,\" he added.\n\nBut the MoD said that in the face of \"intensifying threats\", its £178bn equipment plan \"continues to deliver the cutting-edge kit to keep the UK safe\".\n\nThe new equipment covered by the plan includes eight Type 26 frigates for the Royal Navy, new mechanised infantry vehicles and nine Boeing P-8A maritime patrol aircraft.\n\nEight Type 26 frigates will be bought by the MoD as part of its £178bn equipment plan\n\nThe committee also called for clarity on the \"difference between genuine improvements and efficiency\" and cuts to \"personnel, equipment and capability\".\n\nDefence Secretary Gavin Williamson has already been warned of a Tory revolt over cuts to army numbers and naval capability, and suggested he will be asking the chancellor for more money.\n\nThe Cabinet Office is currently carrying out a defence and security review which is due to report by the end of the year.", "Earlier this month Australia's marriage equality law came into effect.\n\nThe first weddings were expected in the new year to allow for a 30 day notice period, but this couple was given an exemption allowing them to legally wed.", "Austria was a major imperial power in Central Europe for centuries in various state guises, until the fall of its Habsburg dynasty after World War One.\n\nBut its position at the geographical heart of Europe, and its neutral status during the Cold War between Nato and the Soviet bloc, maintained the much-reduced country's strategic significance.\n\nAustria is now a member of the European Union, though not Nato, and an enduring legacy of its decades of post-war neutrality can be seen in the large number of international organisations that call its capital Vienna their home.\n\nThese include the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Opec, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.\n\nFor much of the post-war period, so-called \"grand coalition\" governments of left and right wing parties have ruled Austria, although the Social Democrats led by Bruno Kreisky ruled alone in the 1970s.\n\nMore recently, the centre-right People's Party ruled in coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, but this coalition collapsed in May 2019 after a scandal involving the leader of the Freedom Party.\n\nAlexander Van der Bellen was first elected as president in the December 2016 re-run of a highly polarised election earlier that year, defeating Norbert Hofer of the far-right Freedom Party.\n\nVan der Bellen - a Green Party politician running as an independent - had won a extremely narrow victory in the initial run-off vote against Hofer in May, but the result was annulled because of vote-counting irregularities.\n\nIn October 2022, Van der Bellen was re-elected president, taking 57% of the vote in the first round. Freedom Party candidate Walter Rosenkranz came second with 18% of the votes, far short of what Hofer received in 2016.\n\nInterior Minister Nehammer took over on as chancellor and leader of the conservative People's Party in December 2021, following months of turmoil after the resignation of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.\n\nMr Kurz's departure was a condition for the Green Party to remain in the governing coalition, pending a corruption investigation. Foreign Minister Alexander von Schallenberg was chancellor in the interim, but resigned to make way for Mr Nehammer when the later assumed the post of People's Party leader in December.\n\nAustria's public broadcaster, Oesterreichischer Rundfunk (ORF), has long-dominated the airwaves. It faces competition from private TV and radio broadcasters.\n\nCable or satellite TV is available in most Austrian homes and is often used to watch German stations, some of which tailor their output for local viewers.\n\nA daily newspaper is a must for many Austrians. National and regional titles contest fiercely for readers.\n\nFor much of the post-war period, so-called \"grand coalition\" governments of left and right wing parties have ruled Austria\n\n1278 - The Habsburg Rudolf I of Germany acquires the duchies of Austria and Styria after defeating his rival, King Ottokar II of Bohemia, at the Battle on the Marchfeld.\n\n14th and 15th Centuries - Habsburgs acquire other provinces neighbouring the Duchy of Austria.\n\n1526 - After the Battle of Mohács, Bohemia and the part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans comesunder Austrian rule.\n\n16th and 17th Centuries - Ottoman expansion into Hungary sees frequent conflicts between the two empires.\n\n1529 - Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent launches the first siege of Vienna. The besieging Turkish army retreats amid the snowfalls of an early winter.\n\n1683 - Second siege of Vienna. The city is freed after two months when the forces of the Holy Roman Empire and those of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under King John III Sobieski decisively defeat the Turkish army.\n\n1699 - The Treaty of Karlowitz, which ends the Great Turkish War (1683-1699) results in most of Hungary coming under Austrian control.\n\n1713 - The Pragmatic Sanction. Edict issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI to ensure the Habsburg lands - the archduchy of Austria, kingdom of Hungary, kingdom of Croatia, kingdom of Bohemia, duchy of Milan, kingdom of Naples, kingdom of Sardinia and Austrian Netherlands - could be inherited undivided by his daughter, Maria Theresa.\n\n1792-1815 - Austria engages in war with revolutionary and them Napoleonic France.\n\n1804 - The Empire of Austria is proclaimed, replacing the Holy Roman Empire which is dissolved two years later.\n\n1815 - Austria emerges from the Congress of Vienna as one of Europe's great powers.\n\n1848-49 - Hungarian revolution. This is eventually defeated with the aid of Russian forces, but leads to a constitutional government being founded in Hungary, which is now in a personal union with the Austrian emperor.\n\n1867 - The defeat leads to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, establishing the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, a military and diplomatic alliance of two sovereign states.\n\nIn the latter half of the 19th Century, ruling Austria-Hungary becomes increasingly difficult in an age of emerging nationalist movements in Europe.\n\n1908 - Following the Young Turk revolution in Turkey, Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, nominally part of the Ottoman Empire. The move provokes strong resentment in Serbian pan-Slav circles.\n\n1914 - The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip triggers the outbreak of World War One.\n\n1914-18 - Over one million Austro-Hungarian soldiers die in the war, which leads to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the end of Hapsburg rule.\n\n1933 - End of the republic, Chancellor Dollfuss suspends parliament and sets up autocratic regime\n\n1934 - Government crushes Socialist uprising, backed by the army. All political parties abolished except the Fatherland Front.\n\nImprisonment of Nazi conspirators leads to attempted Nazi coup. Dollfuss assassinated, succeeded by Kurt von Schuschnigg.\n\n1938 - The Anschluss (union): Austria incorporated into Germany by Hitler. Austria now called the Ostmark (Eastern March).\n\n1945 - Soviet troops liberate Vienna. Austria occupied and partitioned into four occupation zones by Soviet, British, US and French forces. Vienna is also divided between the four occupying powers.\n\n1955 - Treaty signed by Britain, France, US and Soviet Union establishes an independent but neutral Austria - a convenient buffer between the West and the Soviet bloc. The four powers withdraw their troops. Austria joins the United Nations.\n\n1986 - Ex-UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim elected president, despite controversy over his role in the German army in World War Two.\n\n1999 - Far-right Freedom Party led by Joerg Haider wins 27% of vote in national elections.\n\n2000 - International outcry as People's Party forms coalition government with Freedom Party. EU imposes diplomatic sanctions before ending it seven months later on grounds it is counter-productive.\n\n2011 - Otto von Habsburg - the last crown prince of Austria - is buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna amid much of the pomp associated with the days of the empire.\n\n2013 - Austrians vote to keep compulsory military service in a referendum.\n\n2017 - Government agrees to ban Islamic full-face veils in courts, schools and other public spaces.\n\nMozart's home town of Salzburg. Austria is seen by many as the birthplace of classical music\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This MoJ picture shows how small the phones - which are often smuggled internally - can be\n\nOnline retailers should ban the sale of miniature mobile phones designed to be smuggled into prisons, the justice secretary has said.\n\nDavid Lidington said the devices were advertised as being able to go undetected by the body orifice security scanners used in England and Wales.\n\n\"Beat the BOSS\" phones can be bought for £25, but are reportedly changing hands for up to £500 inside jails.\n\nAbout 20,000 illicit phones and Sim cards were recovered by guards in 2016.\n\nIt is estimated that up to a third of mobiles found are \"beat the BOSS\" phones, the Ministry of Justice says.\n\nSome as small as a lipstick, the mini mobiles are readily available from online marketplaces.\n\nThey are marketed as being virtually metal-free and therefore able to beat the detectors anyone entering a prison must pass through.\n\n\"It's pretty clear that these miniature phones are being advertised and sold with the purpose of being smuggled,\" Mr Lidington will say in a speech on Monday.\n\n\"I am calling on online retailers and trading websites to take down products that are advertised to evade detection measures in prisons.\"\n\nMobile phones, which are banned in prisons, can be used to facilitate more crime and intimidate victims from behind bars, the Ministry of Justice says.\n\nIt says it has invested £2m in detection equipment, including portable detection devices, which can be used to find mobiles in prisons.\n\nIt is has also acquired new powers to block specific phones from accessing communications networks.\n\nMini phones are listed for sale on websites including Amazon, Gumtree and eBay.\n\nEBay said it had made the decision to stop selling them some months ago and would make sure the justice secretary was aware it was \"already going above and beyond\" ahead of his intervention.\n\nThe firm said it would continue to manually remove any items that slip through.\n\nThe BBC has also contacted Amazon and Gumtree for comment.\n\nJust as those of us \"on the outside\" can't live without our phones, in prison they have become ubiquitous, prized possessions.\n\nThey are used to organise the lives of inmates intent on continuing illegal activity, be that the smuggling of contraband into prisons or ongoing criminal activities outside.\n\nPrison staff can't listen to mobile phone calls as they do legitimate calls that prisoners make to their families.\n\nMini phones like those worrying the justice secretary were among the material seized from a gang recently jailed for smuggling £1m of prohibited items into jails.\n\nAnd they're even harder for prisons to stamp out because they can be hidden inside people's bodies - hence the need for body orifice - or BOSS - scanners.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe German-born inventor and professor, famed for hosting BBC Two's long-running science show The Great Egg Race, died of heart failure on 15 December, his family said.\n\nA former advisor to the European Space Agency, he became emeritus professor at London's Brunel University, working on projects linked to ageing populations.\n\nHis son Laurence paid tribute to his humour, curiosity, and enthusiasm.\n\nSpeaking to BBC News, Laurence Wolff said his father had \"touched so many people through his ingenuity in terms of his inventing... and his great belief in educating about science and technology\".\n\nHe had a \"natural sense of fun and he knew that was also a way of engaging people... People would stop him in the street... and they would say, 'you got me into science'\".\n\nA Jewish refugee, Wolff moved to the UK from Berlin at the age of 11 on the day World War Two broke out in September 1939.\n\nAfter attending school in Oxford, he worked in haematology at the city's Radcliffe Infirmary, where he invented a machine for counting patients' blood cells.\n\nHe later went on to graduate from University College London with a first-class honours degree in physiology and physics.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Laurence Wolff says his father had a sense of humour, curiosity and enthusiasm\n\nWolff moved into television in 1966, first appearing on the BBC's Panorama programme with Richard Dimbleby, where he produced a pill that could measure pressure, temperature and acidity.\n\nHowever, he was best known for hosting BBC Two's The Great Egg Race from 1977 until 1986 - instantly recognisable for his trademark bow tie and eccentric hairstyle.\n\nThe show challenged contestants to invent useful objects with limited resources.\n\nFriends and colleagues also recalled his love of practical jokes, particularly one instance when he arrived at his 80th birthday party on a scooter propelled by fire extinguishers.\n\nWolff was an emeritus professor at Brunel University\n\nProfessor Julia Buckingham, vice-chancellor and president of Brunel University, said: \"Heinz's remarkable intellect, ideas and enthusiasm combined to make him the sparkling scientist we will so fondly remember.\n\n\"He was a wonderful friend and supporter to staff and to students - and an inspiration to all of us.\"\n\nBrunel colleague Professor Ian Sutherland added: \"There was nothing he loved more than having a team of people around him, devising completely new ways of doing things.\"\n\nAlongside his television appearances, Wolff continued in his efforts to advance human progress through his scientific work.\n\nHe was made an honorary member of the European Space Agency in 1975, and his work into how humans could survive hostile space environments led to Dr Helen Sharman becoming the first British astronaut and the 15th woman in space in 1991.\n\nWolff balanced his mischievous curiosity with serious scientific research\n\nLaurence Wolff said this space work - known as Project Jupiter - had been greatly valued by his father, who wished to \"inspire young people\" and use science to \"entertain as well as educate\".\n\nHe also described how Heinz Wolff's early interest in science had been stoked by his own father, who had him taking part in chemistry experiments at the age of four.\n\nHe added: \"The person that people saw when they met him was the person we knew at home. His sense of humour, his curiosity, his enthusiasm. That was our father.\"\n\nWolff was also a strong supporter of local charities throughout his life, including spending more than 25 years as a trustee, and then Life President, of the Hillingdon Partnership Trust.\n\nHe was married to his wife Joan until her death in 2014, and is survived by two sons and four grandchildren.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nThird Ashes Test, Waca (day four of five) England trail by 127 runs with six wickets remaining\n\nEngland's battle to save the Ashes will go into the final day of the third Test after rain brought an early end to day four in Perth.\n\nThe tourists had reached 132-4, still 127 short of making Australia bat again, when the weather intervened at the Waca.\n\nAustralia earlier declared on 662-9 in their first innings, a lead of 259.\n\nEngland were required to bat for the best part of five sessions to escape with a draw, yet lost Mark Stoneman, Alastair Cook and Joe Root cheaply.\n\nThey were steadied by James Vince, who made his second Test half-century before being bowled by a wonderful delivery from Mitchell Starc.\n\nAt 2-0 down in the series, England must not lose at a ground where they have not won since 1978 to avoid surrendering the urn at the earliest opportunity.\n\nRain threatened for much of a grey, blustery day in Perth, but a brief shower before tea was all that came before heavier rain arrived 45 minutes before the scheduled close.\n\nEngland's task of batting throughout Monday will not be helped by the cracks running down the length of the pitch, but more bad weather is forecast.\n• None Is this the ball of the 21st century?\n• None 'I can't see a great deal of longevity in his career' - Cook form concerns Swann\n\nAt 60-3, still 199 behind, England were in danger of being beaten inside four days.\n\nJosh Hazlewood, bowling an immaculate line, had Stoneman caught behind before Cook and Root fell.\n\nBut Vince batted beautifully, defending with a straight bat and playing his usual handsome shots through the off side - 48 of his 55 runs came in boundaries.\n\nHe was undone by a magical delivery from Starc, bowling his left-armers from round the wicket.\n\nAngled in, it straightened off a crack in the surface to take the top of off stump. Vince was perhaps guilty of playing too square, but there was no legislating for how much the ball moved.\n\nDawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow, who both made centuries in the first innings, had started to score more freely when the rain arrived, and it is they who will be together when play begins at the earlier time of 02:00 GMT on Monday.\n\nPrior to this series, the feeling was that the inexperienced nature of England's top five would mean they needed major contributions from their two senior batsmen, Cook and Root.\n\nHowever, with both registering 14 in the second innings, their combined total for the series is 259. Not only has Australia captain Steve Smith made more on his own - 167 more in fact - but so too has Malan.\n\nCook, England's all-time record runscorer playing in his 150th Test, has managed just 83 in six innings.\n\nOnce again he did not look in especially poor touch, but presented a leading edge to Hazlewood, who took a fine diving catch. Cook is now without a half-century in 10 Test innings.\n\nRoot has made two half-centuries in the series without converting them into something meaningful. He has also had to marshal a team being beaten on the field and distracted by a string of issues off it.\n\nHis shot here was poor. Off-spinner Nathan Lyon's first delivery was incredibly wide, with Root's uncontrolled drive resulting in an edge that was held at slip.\n\nSpeaking on Test Match Special, former England off-spinner Graeme Swann said of Root: \"Joe's dismissal disappointed me. He just meekly wafted his bat at it.\n\n\"When you're England's best player and you're trying to save the game, it's a bizarre shot. It's unusual from Joe.\n\n\"There's no difference between Joe and Steve Smith in terms of ability. Yet Steve Smith is so much more prolific than Root.\n\n\"It's because the captaincy suits Smith. He's really flourished. To me, that's not Joe's way. I think he was made captain because there was a lack of choice.\"\n\nEngland toiled on Saturday, taking only one wicket as Smith helped himself to a double century and Mitchell Marsh a big ton of his own. The tourists earned rewards on Sunday, with James Anderson nipping the ball around.\n\nMarsh was lbw to the second delivery of the day for 181, Smith dismissed in the same manner for 239, both to Anderson.\n\nWhen Starc was run out in strange circumstances - Tim Paine, the subject of an lbw appeal, set off, leaving his partner stranded as Vince ran in from gully - England had taken three wickets for 12 runs.\n\nPaine, though, overturned being given out leg before to Anderson and went on to make an unbeaten 49, sharing 93 with Pat Cummins, who added 41.\n\nCummins was yet another lbw victim of Anderson's and, after Lyon holed out to the Lancashire man, Australia declared.\n\nBy then, they had made their biggest Ashes total on home soil and Stuart Broad had figures of 0-142, the worst of his 112-Test career.\n\nA sorry tale - stats of the day\n• None Australia's 662-9 declared was their highest total against England on home soil and their ninth highest against any country\n• None England spent longer in the field - 179.3 overs - than any other side in a Test at Perth\n• None Broad's figures were the joint second most expensive without taking a wicket by an England bowler against Australia\n• None Five England bowlers conceded more than 100 runs, for only the third time in history\n• None This could be the sixth time a team have lost after making 400 in the first innings of a Test\n\n'We're still fighting' - what they said\n\nEngland bowler James Anderson: \"It's been a long few days. We're still fighting, we're still in the game. We've got a lot of hard work to do. We're going to keep believing and come tomorrow with a strong attitude.\n\n\"It's not gone our way with the ball - two of their guys played outstandingly well and we didn't bowl quite as well as we could. The cracks did a bit more today so there was some more encouragement.\n\n\"Yesterday was a tough day for us but we kept going all day. Sometimes you have to take your hat off to the opposition.\"\n\nEngland batsman James Vince: \"We will try to put the rain to the back of our minds.\n\n\"We have two guys at the crease who spent a lot of time there in the first innings. It's slightly different conditions, but we have to have belief that we can stay in the series.\n\n\"It will be tough, there will be good balls flying around, but these two showed in the first innings they can occupy the crease for a long time.\n\n\"Hopefully we'll get off to a good start in the morning.\"\n\nAustralia pace bowler Josh Hazlewood, speaking to BT Sport, on regaining the Ashes: \"We feel pretty close but we're never too sure unless it happens.\n\n\"We're pretty confident. Hopefully we can finish them off.\"", "The world's steepest funicular railway has opened in Switzerland.\n\nRotating carriages mean people stay upright while ascending the mountainside.", "The area in Chile's lake district is sparsely populated\n\nA landslide caused by torrential rain has killed at least five people in southern Chile and has destroyed dozens of houses.\n\nFifteen people are missing in the remote village of Villa Santa Lucía in the country's lake region, popular with tourists.\n\nPresident Michelle Bachelet has declared a state of emergency in the area.\n\nThousands remain without electricity and cut off from the rest of Chile.\n\n\"I have ordered rescue workers to put all the resources necessary towards protecting the people of Villa Santa Lucia,\" said Ms Bachelet.\n\nMost of the village was destroyed by the landslide\n\nPart of the valley where the village lies, some 1,100km (690 miles) south of the capital, Santiago, was engulfed by a huge amount of mud from surrounding mountains.\n\nLocal media reported that the region had experienced unusually heavy rain for the previous 24 hours.\n\nDozens of people have been airlifted and taken to the neighbouring town of Chaitén.\n\nThe village is near Corcovado National Park, popular with tourists for its volcanoes, fjords and forests.\n\nThe mud has blocked roads linking the area to the rest of Chile\n\nThe mudslide happened on Saturday morning, on the eve of the run-off election to choose Chile's next president.\n\nThe authorities say the vote is going ahead as planned.\n\nSome 14 million Chileans are eligible to choose between the centre-right candidate, Sebastián Piñera, and Alejandro Guillier, who is endorsed by Ms Bachelet.", "Women could take a second pill at home away from medical supervision\n\nAnti-abortion campaigners claim they have \"no alternative\" but to mount a legal challenge if the Scottish government approves plans for women to take abortion medication at home.\n\nThe Society of the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC), said it had already sought legal advice.\n\nIt said it had been assured \"a good chance of success\".\n\nThe Scottish government said it had worked hard to ensure women could always access clinically-safe services.\n\nIn October the chief medical officer told health boards the drug misoprostol could be taken outside a clinical setting.\n\nDr Catherine Calderwood said it was \"significant progress\" that women in Scotland who are up to nine weeks pregnant could take the second dose of the drug at home if they wanted, saying this would allow them \"more privacy, more dignity\".\n\nCampaign groups including Engender, Amnesty Scotland and Rape Crisis Scotland welcomed the move, while Prof Lesley Regan, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) described it as \"admirable\".\n\nMisoprostol is sold under the brand name Cytotec, among others\n\nBut the SPUC's John Deighan claimed that the potential health risks for women were \"horrific\".\n\nHe said: \"There would be no medical oversight and this development will result in dreadful threats to women's health.\"\n\nSPUC said it had received detailed legal advice from an advocate who specialises in human rights cases, who said that under the law the medication could not be taken without some form of medical supervision.\n\nThe advocate stated: \"In my view, the taking of the abortifacient drugs must be done under the supervision either of a registered medical practitioner, or by some other suitable member of staff who is acting under the control of a medical practitioner.\n\n\"It cannot be done by a patient unsupervised, at home or elsewhere.\"\n\nHe added: \"As the approval anticipates the patient administering the drug to herself without medical supervision, that approval proceeds upon a misdirection as to the requirements of the 1967 Act, and is accordingly unlawful.\"\n\nThe tablet will be given out at a clinic but can be taken at home\n\nMr Deighan added: \"Our advice is clear and we really have no alternative but to challenge these proposals which go to the core of our beliefs in the right to life for unborn children and the health and wellbeing of their mothers.\"\n\nThe government plans are not a change to abortion law but to powers available within the Abortion Act 1967.\n\nA Scottish government spokeswoman said: \"We've worked hard to ensure women are always able to access clinically safe services.\n\n\"Scotland is the only part of the UK to offer women the opportunity to take misoprostol at home, when this is clinically appropriate, a decision that allows women to be in control of their treatment and as comfortable as possible during this procedure.\"", "An \"upside down volcano\" (L) and an \"upside down rocket\" (R)\n\nWhat do volcanoes and rockets have in common?\n\n\"Volcanoes have a nozzle aimed at the sky, and rockets have a nozzle aimed at the ground,\" explains Steve McNutt, a geosciences professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa.\n\nIt explains why he and colleague Dr Glenn Thompson have installed the tools normally used to study eruptions at the famous Kennedy Space Center.\n\nComparing the different types of rumblings could yield new insights.\n\nIn the case of rockets, the team thinks their seismometers and infrasound (low-frequency acoustic waves) detectors might potentially be used by the space companies as a different type of diagnostic tool, to better understand the performance of their vehicles; or perhaps as a way to identify missiles in flight.\n\nIn the case of volcanoes, the idea is to take the lessons learned at Kennedy and fine-tune the algorithms used to interpret what is happening in an eruption.\n\nIt might even be possible to develop systems that give early warnings of some of the dangerous debris flows associated with volcanoes.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Glenn Thompson and Steve McNutt: \"Kennedy has strong signals to test equipment \"\n\n\"It all started really as a way to test and calibrate our equipment,\" says Glenn.\n\n\"We don't have any volcanoes in South Florida - obviously. But Kennedy provided some strong sources, and it also gave our students the opportunity to learn how to deploy stations and work with the data.\"\n\nThe team has now recorded the seismic and acoustic signals emanating from about a dozen rockets.\n\nMost have been associated with launches; a few have been related to what are called static fire tests, in which the engines on a clamped vehicle are briefly ignited to check they are flight-ready.\n\nBut perhaps the most fascinating event captured so far was the SpaceX pad explosion in September 2016.\n\nThis saw a Falcon 9 rocket suffer a catastrophic failure as it was being fuelled.\n\nMany people will have seen the video of the spectacular fireball. But Glenn's and Steve's equipment caught information not apparent in that film.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nFor example, they detected more than 150 separate sub-events in the infrasound over the course of 26 minutes.\n\nThese were likely individual tanks, pipes or other components bursting into flames.\n\nOf course, the SpaceX explosion was an unusual occurrence, and it is the more routine activity that most interests the team. And some clear patterns are starting to emerge in their study of \"upside down volcanoes\".\n\n\"As the rocket gets higher and higher and accelerates, we see a decrease in the frequency in the infrasound - that's basically a Doppler shift because the source is moving away from us,\" says Steve.\n\n\"And then you get a coupling of the signal in the air into the ground and this produces seismic waves recorded on the seismometer.\n\n\"So, we get some common features between the infrasound and the seismometer, but then there's a little separation of the energy between the two.\"\n\nA deadly pyroclastic flow heads down the flanks of the Soufrière Hills volcano in Montserrat\n\nThere is a lot still to learn, but the pair think they can distinguish the different types of rockets - to tell a Falcon from an Atlas from a Delta.\n\nThere are subtle but significant divergences in their spectral signatures, which almost certainly reflect their distinct designs and modes of operation.\n\nWhere in particular the rockets could have instruction for volcano monitoring is in describing moving sources.\n\nA rocket is a very well understood physical process. Its properties and parameters - such as the size of the nozzle orifice, the thrust, the trajectory and the distance - are all precisely known.\n\nThe related seismic and acoustic signals should therefore serve as templates to help decipher some of the features of eruptions that share similar behaviours.\n\nGood examples of rapid movement in the volcano setting are the big mass surges like pyroclastic flows (descending clouds of hot ash/rock) and lahars (mud/ash avalanches).\n\nAn objective of the team is to improve seismometer and infrasound systems' characterisation of these dangerous phenomena.\n\nThis could lead to useful alerts being sent to people who live around volcanoes.\n\n\"Assuming you can find a few safe places to put your instruments that are reasonably close, you'd get your advance warning,\" said Steve.\n\n\"What you'd be doing then is getting the time and the strength of the signal and then watching it evolve to figure out which direction it's going.\n\n\"If you can do that successfully then you can forecast with a couple of minutes in advance things like lahars and pyroclastic flows downstream.\"\n\nGlenn added: \"I worked on [the Caribbean island of] Montserrat during the crisis from 1995 to 2011, and we did have a rudimentary system even then for tracking the pyroclastic density currents coming down the slopes of the volcano.\n\n\"It wasn't quite a real-time application, but we hope with this kind of work that we can improve those algorithms and make them more of an automated alarm system.\"\n\nThe equipment at Kennedy has been temporary, but the team is looking for a permanent installation.\n\nLike everyone, Glenn and Steve are particularly looking forward to the launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy vehicle in the New Year.\n\nThe Heavy should produce nearly 23 meganewtons of thrust at lift-off, more than any rocket in operation today.\n\nIt is sure to make for some interesting seismic and infrasound signals.\n\nGlenn Thompson and Steve McNutt detailed their work here at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union.\n\nJonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Police are investigating the deaths of four newborn babies who died within 90 minutes of each other in an intensive care ward in South Korea.\n\nThe babies all went into cardiac arrest while lying in incubators at Seoul's Ewha Womans University Medical Centre.\n\nStaff performed CPR but efforts to revive the babies were unsuccessful, a hospital official said.\n\nFamily members told local media they were concerned about the health of the infants before they died on Saturday.\n\nThey said the babies all had bloated stomachs and difficulty breathing. Hospital staff say they do not know what caused the cardiac arrests but told police they did \"not seem to have originated from a contagious cause.\"\n\nOfficials said the four babies had already died by the time police arrived at the hospital, which is in the Mok-dong area of western Seoul.\n\nThe 12 remaining babies who were in the intensive care unit at the time of the incident have either been discharged or transferred to other hospitals.\n\nPolice have been searching the hospital. They said autopsies are expected to be conducted on Monday to determine the babies' cause of death.\n\nSouth Korea has spent about $70bn (£53bn) trying to boost the country's birth rate over the past decade, handing out baby bonuses, improving paternity leave and paying for infertility treatment.", "Information provided by the CIA helped Russian security services foil an attack on St Petersburg's Kazan cathedral, US and Russian leaders say.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin phoned Donald Trump to thank him for the information, the White House and Kremlin confirmed.\n\nThe attack was allegedly planned to take place on Saturday, Russia says.\n\nA White House statement said \"terrorists\" were captured prior to an attack \"that could have killed large numbers of people\".\n\nRussia's FSB security service said in a statement on Friday that it had detained seven members of a cell of Islamic State supporters and seized a significant amount of explosives, weapons and extremist literature.\n\nThe cell was planning to carry out a suicide attack at a religious institution and kill citizens on Saturday, the FSB statement said (in Russian).\n\nThe group was preparing explosions targeting the cathedral and other public places in Russia's second city, the Kremlin statement said on Sunday.\n\nMr Putin told Mr Trump that Russia's special services would hand over information on terror threats to their US counterparts, it added.\n\nMr Putin had asked the US president to pass on his thanks to the CIA director and the operatives involved, both countries said.\n\nUS intelligence agencies, including the CIA, believe that Russia tried to sway last year's US presidential election in favour of Mr Trump - claims rejected by the Republican.\n\nA special counsel is investigating whether anyone from the Trump campaign colluded.\n\nThe two leaders most recently met at a summit in Vietnam last month\n\nWhile Mr Trump categorically denies colluding with Russia, he has talked about the importance of working together \"constructively\".\n\nSunday's conversation between the two presidents marks the second time the two men have spoken in a week.\n\nOn Thursday they discussed North Korea and Mr Trump thanked Mr Putin \"for acknowledging America's strong economic performance\" in his annual press conference, according to the White House.\n\nThe White House said that the two leaders agreed in Sunday's phone call that the co-operation was \"an example of the positive things that can occur when our countries work together\".\n\nAn explosion on St Petersburg's metro system in April killed at least 13 people and is thought to be linked to jihadists.\n\nReturning militants from Syria pose a real threat to Russia, the head of the FSB was quoted as saying on Tuesday.\n\nSecurity services had already prevented 18 terrorist attacks in 2017, Alexander Bortnikov said in comments reported by Itar-Tass news agency.", "The victim was hit on a pedestrian crossing on the South Circular Road\n\nFive drivers who may have been involved in a hit-and-run which killed a woman in south London have all been traced.\n\nThe 29-year-old Polish national was hit by a lorry on a pedestrian crossing on Norwood Road, Tulse Hill, on Monday.\n\nIt is thought she was then struck by another lorry and up to three cars. None of the drivers stopped at the crash site, the Met said.\n\nThe identity of the victim, who was staying in Wandsworth, has not yet been released.\n\nA post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as multiple injuries.\n\nThe 49-year-old driver of the first lorry was interviewed under caution earlier in the week.\n\nThe driver of the second car - a 52-year-old man - was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of causing death by careless driving and released under investigation.\n\nPolice said the drivers of the first car and second lorry have now been spoken to, as has the driver of a third car which officers believe may also have struck the woman.\n\nNone of the three have been arrested.\n\nThe force is appealing for witnesses to the crash, which happened at about 06:50 GMT and when the lights were on green.\n\nActing Det Sgt Alastair Middleton, said: \"Even though we have traced all the vehicles that we believe were involved, I continue to appeal for anyone who witnessed the collision and the moments afterwards to contact us immediately.\n\n\"We are particularly interested in any dashcam footage that may have captured some of the incident before or after the collision.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A surgeon who marked his initials on the livers of two transplant patients has admitted assault by beating.\n\nSimon Bramhall, 53, committed the offences at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital in February and August 2013.\n\nThe liver, spleen and pancreas surgeon was suspended later that year.\n\nHe pleaded guilty to two charges at Birmingham Crown Court and will be sentenced at the same court on 12 January.\n\nHe denied the more serious charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm - a plea which was accepted by prosecutors.\n\nTony Badenoch QC said the case was \"without legal precedent in criminal law\".\n\nBramhall, who came to attention in 2010 when he transplanted a liver saved from a burning aircraft into a patient, was suspended when the branding was discovered by another surgeon.\n\nLiver surgeons use an argon beam to stop livers bleeding, but can also use it to burn the surface of the liver to sketch out the area of an operation.\n\nSimon Bramhall covered his face as he left Birmingham Crown Court\n\nBramhall was suspended from Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 2013\n\nIt is not believed to have been harmful to the liver and the marks normally disappear.\n\nIn one case it appears the organ was already damaged and as a result did not heal itself in the normal manner, allowing the marks to be seen.\n\nMr Badenoch said it had been a \"highly unusual and complex case, both within the expert medical testimony served by both sides and in law.\"\n\nHe said what Bramhall had done was not isolated and required \"some skill and concentration\".\n\n\"It was done in the presence of colleagues,\" he said.\n\nHis actions were carried out \"with a disregard for the feelings of unconscious patients\", the prosecutor added.\n\nBramhall resigned after a disciplinary hearing with University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust in May 2014.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC after his suspension he admitted he had made \"a mistake\".", "Clockwise from top left: Ellis and Elliott Thornton-Kimmitt, Robbie Meerun, Anthony Armour and Darnell Harte\n\nA 15-year-old boy has admitted causing the deaths of five people who were killed when the stolen car they were in hit a tree in Leeds.\n\nEllis, 12, and Elliott Thornton-Kimmitt, 14, died along with Darnell Harte, 15, Anthony Armour and Robbie Meerun, both 24, in the crash on 25 November.\n\nThe boy, who cannot be named, appeared at Leeds Crown Court by video link.\n\nHe pleaded guilty to five counts of causing death by dangerous driving.\n\nThe three boys and two men died when the Renault Clio they were in crashed into a tree in Stonegate Road, Meanwood, at 21:55 GMT.\n\nThe stolen car hit a tree on Stonegate Road in Meanwood\n\nWest Yorkshire Police said the car had been stolen in the Headingley area of the city hours earlier.\n\nA force spokesman previously said officers found a scene of \"complete carnage\" when they arrived at the crash site on a residential street about three miles north of Leeds city centre.\n\nThe boy was remanded in custody for reports to be prepared ahead of sentencing, which is expected to take place on 26 January.\n\nFloral tributes were placed close to the scene in the days after the crash\n\nSix people were in the car when it crashed on 25 November\n\nDuring the 20-minute hearing, several people in the public gallery wept as the guilty pleas were entered.\n\nJudge Peter Collier QC, the Recorder of Leeds, told the boy a custodial term was \"inevitable\" and he was warned to expect a lengthy sentence.\n\nInquests into the deaths were opened and adjourned at Wakefield Coroner's Court on Monday.\n\nThe Renault Clio struck a tree at speed, causing car parts to be strewn over the road and pavement\n\nPolice closed the road for several hours to allow forensic investigations to be carried out\n\nDavid Holderness, from the Crown Prosecution Service, described the incident as a \"truly shocking crime\".\n\nHe said: \"The defendant acted in a supremely dangerous way, driving erratically and at great speed in a residential area.\n\n\"Tragically his victims paid the price of the driver's utter irresponsibility with their lives.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Rupert Murdoch with his third wife, Jerry Hall\n\nWalt Disney is close to confirming a deal to buy 21st Century Fox's entertainment assets for about $60bn, reports say.\n\nThe sale would include the 20th Century Fox film studio and the Sky and Star satellite broadcasters in the UK, Europe and Asia.\n\nDisney was left as the front runner after Comcast, the NBC owner, dropped out of the race on Monday.\n\nThe Financial Times said talks about the price were continuing on Tuesday.\n\nCNBC reported that Fox and Disney were on a \"glide path\" for an announcement on Thursday, according to people familiar with the negotiations.\n\nThe Murdoch family was said to favour a deal with Disney because it would rather be paid in the entertainment giant's shares than Comcast stock.\n\nA deal with Disney could also face fewer US regulatory hurdles, although it is extremely unlikely to be waved through.\n\nAlso in question is what will happen to 21st Century Fox's bid to buy the 61% of Sky that it does not already own.\n\nThe deal is already under scrutiny by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which is expected to publish its provisional findings in January.\n\nIt is not clear whether Disney will continue with the takeover if it buys the 39% stake from 21st Century Fox as part of the wider transaction.\n\nMatthew Horsman, analyst at Mediatique, told Variety magazine that the CMA is likely to continue probing the deal. \"They've done all the work. I'm pretty sure they're going to announce a decision,\" he said.\n\nHow 21st Century Fox fits into the Murdoch empire\n\nThe assets being sold by Fox include its FX and National Geographic cable channels, 22 regional US sports networks and the company's stake in the Hulu streaming platform in the US.\n\nIt would also add to Disney's extensive film and television library, with movies such as Avatar and Deadpool, as well as small screen hits including The Simpsons and Modern Family.\n\nThe Fox broadcast network, Fox News and Fox Sports would remain under the Murdochs' control.\n\nAs well as its film studio, Disney also owns the ESPN sports network and cable channels.\n\nMr Murdoch's decision to sell most of Fox has surprised many commentators given his desire to continually expand his media empire over the past five decades.\n\nTalks were understood to have been held between the two companies in November but did not result in an agreement.\n\nShares in Disney rose 0.5% in New York on Tuesday, valuing the company at $162bn, while 21st Century Fox added 1%, valuing it at $62.6bn.\n\nFox shares have jumped by close to a third over the past three months.", "Meghan Markle will spend Christmas at Sandringham with the Queen and other senior members of the Royal Family, Kensington Palace has confirmed.\n\nMs Markle and Prince Harry, who announced their engagement last month, are expected to attend the traditional Christmas Day church service on the Queen's private estate in Norfolk.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will also spend Christmas Day there.\n\nThe prince and American Ms Markle are due to marry in May next year.\n\nIt is tradition for the Royal Family to attend the morning service at St Mary Magdalene Church on 25 December.\n\nThe Royal Family will gather for Christmas lunch at Sandringham House\n\nTypically, hundreds of well-wishers gather along the route to the church to catch a glimpse of the Queen and other royals.\n\nSome of the younger members of the family speak to the public and receive bouquets of flowers.\n\nLater, they all return to Sandringham House for Christmas lunch, before watching the Queen's Christmas Day address in the afternoon.\n\nIn step with German tradition, the family exchanges presents on Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "A married couple have been jailed for planning a terror attack in Birmingham.\n\nUmmarayiat Mirza, 21, and his wife Madihah Taheer, 22, were sentenced to 16 years and 10 years respectively.\n\nAn intelligence operation had led to Mirza's arrest at gunpoint in March. Woolwich Crown Court head the couple, from Birmingham, had been planning a knife attack and had looked at targets, including the city's central synagogue.\n\nMirza's sister, Zainub, was jailed for 30 months for sharing propaganda.\n\nMirza was thought to have been planning a rampage for just days after the Westminster Bridge attack.\n\nHis wife had brought him a large knife and the couple had fantasised about a life in the territories of the so-called Islamic State.\n\nHe had pleaded guilty to preparing terrorist acts while Taheer was convicted of the same charge.\n\nZainub Mirza admitted five counts of disseminating terrorist publications by sending her brother IS videos on social media.\n\nPassing sentence, Judge Christopher Kinch QC said Ummarayiat Mirza had made \"inexorable progress\" from enthusiasm for terrorism acts to training, sourcing of a weapon and researching a target.\n\nHis 16-year term comes with an additional five years on licence, during which he could be returned to jail if he reoffends.\n\nMadihah Taheer has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.\n\nHe described the case as a \"personal tragedy\" for Taheer as the trial began when her first child was only five months old but said she had been a willing partner at every stage of the plan.", "Last updated on .From the section Cycling\n\nChris Froome is facing questions after returning an \"adverse\" drugs test at the Vuelta a Espana.\n\nThe Team Sky rider had double the allowed level of legal asthma drug Salbutamol in his urine.\n\nCycling's world governing body the UCI wants more details from the team but says Froome is not suspended.\n\nThe Briton, 32, says he increased his dosage but it was within the legal limits and the UCI is \"absolutely right\" to ask questions.\n\nFroome says he took his team doctor's advice to up his inhaler use after his asthma symptoms got worse during the Vuelta.\n\nHe became the first Briton to win the three-week race around Spain and it followed his Tour de France victory in July.\n\nHe was notified of the \"adverse analytical finding\" on 20 September 2017.\n\nThe urine test, taken on 7 September, showed levels of the drug, Salbutamol, which is commonly taken for asthma, were at 2,000 nanograms per millilitre (ng/ml).\n\nThat compares to the World Anti-Doping Agency's (Wada) threshold of 1,000 ng/ml.\n• None 'The ambiguity in this is huge' - special BeSpoke podcast\n\nThe use of Salbutamol is permitted, without the need of a therapeutic use exemption (TUE), but only within certain doses.\n\nNo other samples taken from Froome during the race needed further examination.\n\nThe organising body of Vuelta said it will \"await the UCI's official conclusions\" before any further action, adding its position is one of \"extreme caution, as it hopes for this issue to be resolved as quickly as possible.\"\n\nThe information has only come to light following a Team Sky statement on Wednesday, issued on the back of recent media reports.\n\nThe UCI also published details of its investigation on Wednesday.\n\nThe UCI says analysis of Froome's A and B samples shows levels which exceed the limit.\n\nTeam Sky insist the rider inhaled no more than the permissible dose.\n\nFroome, who has suffered with asthma since childhood, says he welcomed the investigation.\n\n\"It is well known that I have asthma and I know exactly what the rules are. I use an inhaler to manage my symptoms (always within the permissible limits) and I know for sure that I will be tested every day I wear the race leader's jersey.\n\n\"My asthma got worse at the Vuelta so I followed the team doctor's advice to increase my Salbutamol dosage. As always, I took the greatest care to ensure that I did not use more than the permissible dose.\n\n\"I take my leadership position in my sport very seriously. The UCI is absolutely right to examine test results and, together with the team, I will provide whatever information it requires.\"\n\nTeam Sky boss Dave Brailsford said they are co-operating fully with the investigation.\n\n\"There are complex medical and physiological issues which affect the metabolism and excretion of Salbutamol. We're committed to establishing the facts and understanding exactly what happened on this occasion.\n\n\"I have the utmost confidence that Chris followed the medical guidance in managing his asthma symptoms, staying within the permissible dose for Salbutamol. Of course, we will do whatever we can to help address these questions.\"\n\nWhat the UCI says\n\nThe UCI says it is investigating Froome's case under organisation's anti-doping rules.\n\n\"The anti-doping control was planned and carried out by the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF), the independent body mandated by the UCI, in charge of defining and implementing the anti-doping strategy in cycling.\n\n\"The analysis of the B sample has confirmed the results of the rider's A sample and the proceedings are being conducted in line with the UCI Anti-Doping Rules.\n\n\"As a matter of principle, and whilst not required by the World Anti-Doping Code, the UCI systematically reports potential anti-doping rule violations via its website when a mandatory provisional suspension applies.\n\n\"Pursuant to Article 7.9.1. of the UCI Anti-Doping Rules, the presence of a Specified Substance such as Salbutamol in a sample does not result in the imposition of such mandatory provisional suspension against the rider.\"\n\nLast week former UCI chief Brian Cookson said Team Sky should have its reputation \"reinstated\" following unproven doping allegations and questions over its use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) - permission to use otherwise-banned substances when there is a proven medical need.\n\n\"I don't think anyone should be surprised when a professional sports team pushes the rules right to the very limit,\" Cookson said.\n\nIn November, UK Anti-Doping completed its investigation into allegations of wrongdoing at Team Sky and British Cycling.\n\nThe 14-month inquiry was looking into claims a 'mystery' medical package delivered for Sir Bradley Wiggins at the Criterium du Dauphine in 2011.\n\nUkad said it had been \"unable\" to prove the package contained a banned substance.\n\nWiggins had sought TUEs to use banned anti-inflammatory drug triamcinoclone for allergies and respiratory issues before the 2011 Tour de France, his 2012 Tour win and the 2013 Giro d'Italia.\n\nWiggins, British Cycling and Team Sky always denied any wrongdoing.\n\nLike Wiggins, Froome was named in leaked medical records by the Russian hackers Fancy Bears as one of the athletes to use TUEs during competition.\n\nThe documents claimed he was given the exemption for the asthma drug prednisolone in May 2013 and April 2014.\n\nEarlier this year, the rider admitted he rejected a TUE for his asthma during his Tour de France win in 2015.\n\nWhat now for Froome?\n\nThe greatest cyclist in the world and arguably Britain's most successful current sports star - now faces a fight to salvage his reputation. Such has been Froome's domination of his sport, and his use of medication to treat his asthma, he has repeatedly been forced to insist he is clean, and infamously faced abuse from some roadside spectators during the 2015 Tour de France. He has also been a vocal critic of \"abuse\" of TUEs.\n\nSome observers have made the point that Froome made no mention or seemed to show any signs of \"acute asthma symptoms\" or illness during the Vuelta. Some are also surprised at Froome's announcement two weeks ago that he was riding next summer's Giro d'Italia when he privately knew that this situation could mean he may be banned for the race. But others will remain confident and hopeful that he can satisfactorily explain the elevated levels of Salbutamol, and continue his lucrative career that has earned him a £4million a year contract with Team Sky. Certainly, there will be much at stake when the UCI rules.\n\nThis could also be yet another blow to Team Sky too. Already under pressure over their use of TUEs, last month a UK Anti-Doping investigation into a mystery delivery to former rider Sir Bradley Wiggins concluded, but made clear that a lack of medical records meant that there was no evidence to back up the team's version of events.\n\nThat episode was damaging enough, but this could be much, much worse. Not just for Froome and his team, but for the whole of the sport too.\n\nWhat about previous Salbutamol use in cycling?\n\nItalian rider Diego Ulissi got a nine-month ban in 2014 for having 1920ng/ml in his test results.\n\nHis countryman Alessandro Petacchi was banned for a year for a reading of 1320ng/ml in 2007.\n\nBut riders have also been able to successfully explain adverse analytic findings. Leonardo Piepoli avoided a ban in 2007.\n\nShould Froome not be able to similarly successfully explain the anomaly, he could be stripped of his Vuelta title and may be unable to ride in May's Giro d'Italia - as he seeks to become just the third rider to win three successive Grand Tours - or defend his Tour de France title in July.\n\nAccording to the NHS, Salbutamol is used to relieve symptoms of asthma such as coughing, wheezing and feeling breathless.\n\nIt works by relaxing the muscles of the airways into the lungs which makes it easier to breathe.\n\nSalbutamol comes in an inhaler, which is usually blue.\n\nIf people are unable to use an inhaler, Salbutamol can be given as tablets, capsules or syrup.\n\nWada introduced strict dosage regulations for 2017 for several asthma drugs - including Salbutamol - over concerns about the increase in use among athletes.\n\nSeveral medical studies have suggested there is no enhancement in performance for an athlete inhaling Salbutamol.\n\nDr Tom Bassindale, an anti-doping scientist at Sheffield Hallam University, now expects Froome to have laboratory tests to try to explain the abnormal result.\n\n\"The regulations allow the athlete to go through a controlled experiment where he will replicate the dosage taken and try so show why his body might have a different physiological make-up which gave the result,\" he told BBC Sport.\n\nBut he said he was surprised that such a common drug as Salbutamol had caused this issue.\n\n\"I wouldn't anticipate a few extra puffs on an inhaler would have any performance-enhancing effect,\" he added.\n\n\"The drug can have similar effects to drinking coffee - your heart beats faster, it can give you a quick boost like caffeine.\"\n\nDr Bassindale said there are a number of reasons why the test result could have been so high - but the main explanation in athletes would be dehydration.\n\n\"When the body is dehydrated, it can increase the concentration of the drug in the system,\" he said.\n\n\"Hours out riding a bike through the mountains might have that effect. But, having said that, Froome has been a professional athlete for some time and hasn't had any issue like this before.\"\n\nWhy do so many elite athletes have asthma?\n\nTop athletes are more likely to have asthma than the general population.\n\nThis is down to the large volumes of air they breathe in through their mouths when exercising at high intensity over long periods of time.\n\nWhen the air is cold and dry, this can trigger asthma-related symptoms such as wheezing, shortness of breath and tightness in the chest, also known as exercise-induced asthma. Cyclists are particularly at risk because of the high aerobic element of the sport. Air pollution getting into the airways out on the road can also be a trigger.\n\nResearch suggests that around 35-40% of British Olympic cyclists use an inhaler, compared with 21% of the Olympic team as a whole and 9% of the general population.\n\nIf asthma is already diagnosed in elite athletes, then intensive exercise can make it worse - but if it is properly treated, the condition should not prove a disadvantage.", "Facebook says its investigation into Russian attempts to influence the Brexit vote has determined the activity amounted to just three adverts.\n\nTwitter says its own inquiry has linked six ads promoting referendum-related content on its platform to Russian sources.\n\nThe Electoral Commission had asked the social media giants for the data.\n\nBut an MP who had also demanded the review has said he is dissatisfied with Facebook's response.\n\nSorry, we're having trouble displaying this content. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFacebook said it had looked into activity by accounts and pages it had previously tied to a Russian organisation called the Internet Research Agency.\n\nIt said the Brexit ads had cost less than $1 (75p) in total to post, and had reached no more than 200 UK-based viewers over four days.\n\nThe Kremlin has previously denied trying to meddle in the referendum.\n\nAn earlier investigation into Russian meddling during the 2016 US presidential election found more than $100,000 had been spent on 3,000 Facebook adverts, placed by the Internet Research Agency.\n\nIn January, the US Director of National Intelligence identified the same agency as a vehicle for spreading misinformation.\n\nIn a letter to the Electoral Commission, Facebook said: \"We strongly support the commission's efforts to regulate and enforce political campaign finance rules in the United Kingdom, and we take the commission's request very seriously.\"\n\nBut Damian Collins, MP and chair of the digital, culture and media select committee was not impressed.\n\n\"Facebook responded only with regards to funded advertisements to audiences in the UK from the around 470 accounts and pages run by the Russian based Internet Research Agency, which had been active during the US Presidential election.\n\n\"It would appear that no work has been done by Facebook to look for Russian activity around the EU referendum, other than from funded advertisements from those accounts that had already been identified as part of the US Senate's investigation.\n\n\"No work has been done by Facebook to look for other fake accounts and pages that could be linked to Russian-backed agencies and which were active during the EU referendum, as I requested.\"\n\nTwitter later issued its own response to the Electoral Commission.\n\n\"Among the accounts that we have previously identified as likely funded from Russian sources, we have thus far identified one account - @RT_com - which promoted referendum-related content during the regulated period,\" it said.\n\nThe account in question is run by the state-funded broadcaster RT, formerly known as Russia Today.\n\nTwitter added that a total of $1,031.99 had been spent on six referendum-related ads during the campaign.\n\nIn a speech in November, the prime minister accused Russia of spreading fake news, meddling in elections and mounting a sustained campaign of cyber-espionage.\n\nTheresa May made no specific mention of any meddling in the EU referendum, but there has been mounting pressure from politicians for an investigation into any attempts to interfere in the vote.\n\nA study by academics in the UK and US suggested that tens of thousands of Russia-based Twitter accounts, many of them apparently automated, had posted tweets about the EU vote during the campaign.", "The vouchers enable meals to be provided for homeless people\n\nMore than 20,000 pre-paid meals were bought for homeless people within 10 hours of a festive campaign being launched.\n\nItison began its fourth annual festive fundraiser for Social Bite on Tuesday.\n\nWithin 10 hours, 20,668 vouchers had been donated to help feed rough sleepers in Scotland.\n\nOn Saturday, about 9,000 spent the night in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh as part of Sleep in the Park, organised by Social Bite.\n\nJosh Littlejohn, co-founder of Social Bite, said: \"Before our first Itison fundraiser in 2014, we were a small social enterprise and often ran out of food donated through our pay-it-forward scheme, and would have to turn people away or ask them to come back later.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Organisers say Sleep in the Park was about more than raising money\n\n\"After the first Itison fundraiser ran, we were completely blown away by the response - over 32,000 vouchers were donated, allowing us to provide meals not just on Christmas Day but right throughout the year.\n\n\"Each year it gets bigger and bigger and since it launched we've never had to turn away a single person which is just incredible.\"\n\nLast year, 75,755 vouchers were donated on Itison, allowing Social Bite to provide hot meals for homeless people throughout the year.\n\nThe food firm's Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen cafes will open their doors to serve rough sleepers on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to serve dinners with all the trimmings.\n\nAll the money raised will go to Social Bite.\n\nLiam Gallagher, John Cleese and Deacon Blue performed at Sleep in the Park.\n\nOli Norman, chief executive of Itison, said: \"Around 18 of us took part in Social Bite's Sleep In The Park at the weekend and that teeny glimpse into what it's like sleeping in the freezing cold highlighted just how wrong it is that in this day in age, people are still having to sleep rough in such treacherous conditions.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Four lectures by the deceased cleric Anwar al-Awlaki were among the material found\n\nLectures by a radical Islamist cleric linked to the 9/11 attacks and other jihadist content have been discovered on LinkedIn.\n\nThe business-focused social network was alerted to the issue after an investigation by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.\n\nThe Microsoft-owned business has since removed the material.\n\nBut it faces criticism for not having taken a more proactive stance ahead of the discovery.\n\nAccording to the former prime minister's research body - whose remit includes counter-extremism - some of the documents had been on LinkedIn for eight years.\n\nThe researcher who made the discovery, earlier this month, said there had been no obvious way to flag the problem to the technology company, and ultimately relied on the Times newspaper to bring it to Microsoft's attention.\n\n\"Platforms must ensure that sufficient, effective reporting mechanisms are in place,\" Mubaraz Ahmed told the BBC.\n\n\"The likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Google have taken demonstrable and effective steps to counter terrorists' use of the internet, but other platforms must not ignore the risks or become complacent.\"\n\nA total of 18 jihadist documents uploaded between 2009 and 2016 were discovered by Mr Ahmed on LinkedIn's Slideshare service.\n\nSlideshare allows LinkedIn members to show each other documents and presentations\n\nBefore they were removed, they had collectively attracted more than 21,000 views.\n\nThe authors included Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American cleric who met two of the 11 September 2001 hijackers before their attack, as well as being linked to other plots before his death in 2011.\n\nThey also featured Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian-born preacher who once lived in the UK and has claimed to have helped radicalise one of the killers of murdered soldier Lee Rigby.\n\n\"These aren't exactly obscure [jihadist] ideologues,\" said Mr Ahmed.\n\nMicrosoft is a member of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, which was set up in June to co-ordinate how technology companies tackle extremist content posted to their sites.\n\nBritish politicians are currently considering following Germany's lead in introducing laws to fine such companies if they fail to take down extremist material fast enough.\n\n\"Where there's an audience, there's an audience for hate - LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or wherever,\" said Dr Bernie Hogan, from the Oxford Internet Institute.\n\n\"[But] it's exceedingly tricky [to police] because go too far and you trample rights.\"\n\nA spokesman for LinkedIn said it did provide a way for the public to report concerns, but acknowledged that it might need to make this clearer.\n\n\"We do not tolerate or permit activity on our site that violates our terms of service, including hate speech, violence and threats,\" he said.\n\n\"Within Slideshare, a Report Content option is present on the statistics tab of each presentation.\n\n\"We will review the placement of the reporting function to ensure it is more easily found. We are grateful for this issue being brought to our attention.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Samuel Armstrong has claimed what happened took place with \"full consent\"\n\nA woman who claims she was raped by an MP's chief of staff in Westminster gave the story to journalists hours after the alleged attack, a jury has heard.\n\nSamuel Armstrong, of Danbury, Essex, denies two charges of rape and two of sexual assault on 14 October 2016.\n\nSouthwark Crown Court heard the woman sent a message to her boyfriend.\n\n\"Keeping you in the loop. I've given it to Harry Cole who works for the Sun. It will either be in the Mail on Sunday or the Sun front page on Monday,\" it said.\n\nJurors were told the message was sent 15 hours after the alleged assault, and a later message said: \"The media already knew so this is my way of controlling it to ensure I get a sympathetic writer.\"\n\nWhen Sarah Forshaw QC, defending, asked the woman, a parliamentary worker in her 20s, about the messages, she insisted she did not sell the story and explained it had been a friend who spoke to the Sun.\n\nShe said: \"I really didn't want my identity to come out and it was a state where I had absolutely no control in the event, so I wanted a little bit of control.\"\n\nThe court has heard claims the attack happened in the early hours in the Westminster office of South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay after the woman fell asleep there after a night drinking.\n\nThe woman said Mr Armstrong, 24, of Copt Hill, called her a \"bitch\" and raped her twice after she turned down an invitation to go back to his flat in Clapham, south London.\n\nIt is claimed the attack happened in the Westminster office of South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay\n\nMs Forshaw suggested the woman became distressed when she tried to leave Westminster after having consensual sex with Mr Armstrong.\n\n\"When it was over you were not upset with him at all, were you?\" she asked.\n\nBut the woman answered: \"Yes - I was completely confused and devastated in the truest sense of that word.\"\n\nThe woman admitted sending a request to Mr Armstrong to follow him on Twitter in September 2017 but said it was an accident.\n\nMs Forshaw suggested to the victim she had told a lie at the time, but once she had told it she couldn't take it back, and the woman told her she was \"incorrect\".\n\nThe defence lawyer also put it to her that everything that happened in Mr Mackinlay's office was with her consent, but the woman answered: \"No, absolutely not.\"\n\nMr Armstrong's defence lawyer suggested the woman became distressed as she left\n\nThe court has heard the pair were at the sports and social bar on the evening of 13 October, before they went to the roof garden terrace to see Big Ben.\n\nJurors heard they later went to the leader's terrace in the Lords' office to drink wine, before taking a bottle back to Mr Mackinlay's office in the Norman Shaw building.\n\nThe court heard suggestions the pair mutually kissed as they danced to jazz music in the office, before they had consensual sex - a claim the woman denied.\n\nShe also denied a suggestion she had swept papers on to the floor so they could continue on a desk.\n\nMs Forshaw said to the woman: \"Far from being unhappy during this sexual encounter, you and he were chatting during sex?\"\n\nThe defence barrister asked the woman if she remembered Mr Armstrong saying something like \"how does the size suit the lady?\" - but the alleged victim replied \"no\".\n\nMs Forshaw added: \"You said that it suited you well. Do you remember that?\"\n\nThe woman again replied: \"No.\"\n\nJurors heard from cleaner Vincent Ble who said the woman was \"shaking and crying\" when he saw her.\n\nHe said she held on to him while his manager called the police.\n\nAnd the jury heard the phone call made on the parliamentary network in which the sobbing woman told an officer she was \"forced upon\", before she added: \"I got taken back, I don't know.... and I've just had sex and I really, really didn't want to.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Donald Tusk said the EU needed to show \"unity\" in the next phase of talks\n\nThe UK and the EU face a \"furious race against time\" to finalise Brexit talks before March 2019, the head of the European Council says.\n\nDonald Tusk urged EU leaders to show unity as they try to negotiate what the future relationship will look like and to set up transitional arrangements.\n\nThe EU is set to agree this week that enough progress has been made so far to move on from the first phase of talks.\n\nThe UK has been told not to \"backtrack\" on last week's divorce deal.\n\nThe comment from EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier came after UK Brexit Secretary David Davis suggested the divorce agreement unveiled by Theresa May amounted to a \"statement of intent\" rather than a binding agreement.\n\nMr Davis - the UK's Brexit secretary - said he was quoted out of context.\n\nBut European Parliament negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said the \"unacceptable remarks\" would harm \"good faith\" in the process.\n\nThe UK is set to leave the EU in March 2019, two years after Mrs May served formal notice of Brexit.\n\nBoth sides hope to finalise a deal by October 2018 on the future relationship, including trade, so the UK and European Parliaments have time to vote on it before the UK leaves.\n\nIn his formal letter on Tuesday inviting leaders to this week's EU summit, Mr Tusk told the 27 member states: \"This will be a furious race against time, where again our unity will be key.\"\n\nOn Sunday, Mr Davis said guarantees on the Northern Ireland border - included in a joint EU-UK report published on Friday - were not legally binding unless the two sides reached a final deal.\n\nBut he told LBC Radio on Monday they would be honoured whatever happened.\n\nA European Commission spokesman said the first-phase deal on the Northern Ireland border, the divorce bill and citizens' rights did not strictly have the force of law.\n\n\"But we see the joint report of Michel Barnier and David Davis as a deal between gentlemen and it is the clear understanding that it is fully backed and endorsed by the UK government.\"\n\nThe Brexit secretary's comments at the weekend about the legality of what's been agreed so far between the UK and the EU have been widely noted in Brussels, and a handful of member states have brought them up with me.\n\n\"To say we are annoyed is putting it too strongly, though,\" said one diplomat. \"This is the sort of stuff we expected,\" said another. \"It's never good when someone questions an agreement 24 hours after it was done,\" a third official suggested.\n\nThis forms the backdrop to the discussion taking place among EU ministers about the European Council's draft guidelines for Phase 2 of the Brexit talks.\n\nBut it is not clear if it will lead to any changes to the draft text that will be discussed by leaders on Friday morning. The document already states in its first paragraph that progress in phase 2 of the talks is contingent on commitments from phase 1 being kept.\n\nMr Verhofstadt has tabled two amendments for MEPs to debate on Wednesday, one of which says Mr Davis's comments risk undermining \"the good faith that has been built during the negotiations\".\n\nAnother amendment calls on Britain to \"fully respect\" last week's Brexit deal and ensure it is \"fully translated\" into a draft Withdrawal Agreement.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Guy Verhofstadt This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd at a press conference in Brussels, he said the UK must \"stick to its commitments\" and put them into a draft Withdrawal Agreement \"as soon as possible\" if there is to be progress in the second phase of talks.\n\nMr Davis replied with two tweets of his own, promising to work with Mr Verhofstadt to allay his concerns:\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by David Davis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by David Davis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe European Parliament gets a formal vote on the final Brexit deal but it has also been holding debates and issuing resolutions throughout the process to make its voice heard.\n\nMr Verhofstadt has introduced the amendments alongside the leaders of four other European Parliament political groups.\n• None May: Brexit deal 'good news' for everybody", "British armed forces veterans could have their driving licences stamped with a \"V\", as part of plans to improve the recognition of their service.\n\nThe move, similar to a US scheme, could see 2.5 million ex-military personnel issued with the new licence to \"clearly distinguish\" them as veterans.\n\nThe card would give holders easier access to specialist services and to offers, including retail discounts.\n\nPM Theresa May said veterans deserved \"recognition for their sacrifice\".\n\nThe scheme, to be announced by the prime minister later, could be implemented in the early 2020s.\n\nMrs May will say the card will be the first universally recognised ID for veterans in the UK and will create a new proof of service for veterans.\n\nThe Ministry of Defence is working with the Department for Transport and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) to adapt the design of the current driving licence.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Theresa May This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Theresa May\n\nThe idea came from Veterans Minister Tobias Ellwood, who said it would improve the recognition of veterans.\n\nThe Conservative MP for Bournemouth East said: \"As a former soldier, I am aware of the personal attachment with the service ID.\n\n\"Carried at all times it becomes symbolic of the responsibility and there is a strange sense of loss when upon departing the armed forces, it is taken from you.\n\n\"I'm delighted this initiative, which sits in the Armed Forces Covenant, will help us all better recognise our veterans and their service to our country.\"\n\nDefence Secretary Gavin Williamson said he hoped the card would become \"a badge of honour\" for veterans.\n\n\"I hope this ID will become a badge of honour for the veteran community,\" he added.\n\nThe proposed scheme is similar to one in the US, where ex-service personnel receive a veterans' card containing their names, photo and details of medals.\n\nThe card is also used to access some healthcare benefits.\n• None Not enough help on jobs for veterans", "Household water bills in England and Wales will fall by between £15 and £25 a year from 2020 to 2025, the regulator Ofwat has pledged.\n\nA forthcoming price review will give water companies less wiggle room to recover the costs of debt and equity from customers, the regulator said.\n\nOfwat was criticised by an influential government committee in 2016 for overestimating water firms' costs.\n\nWater UK, said it was a \"tough challenge from Ofwat\".\n\nConsumers can look forward to a real terms fall in water bills, Ofwat said.\n\nSince privatisation in 1989, water bills have risen above inflation by about 40%, leading to a debate about whether privatisation works for that industry.\n\nThe regulator's chief executive, Cathryn Ross, told the BBC: \"We have an early view on the financing costs that we're going to enable companies to recover from their customers.\n\n\"That's the biggest single driver of the bill. Financing costs are about a third of the average bill.\"\n\nShe said those financing costs for water companies had come down from 3.74% in 2014 to 2.4% now, and that difference can be passed on to customers.\n\nBut companies are allowed to add the cost of inflation on to bills.\n\nSo from 2020, customers will be paying less than they would have been paying had the price controls not been set at that level by Ofwat, but there may not be an actual, noticeable fall in the bill.\n\nMichael Roberts, Chief Executive of Water UK, said Ofwat's review would be \"tougher for some companies than others\".\n\nHowever, he added: \" The industry has a strong track record in providing customers with a world class product and service.\n\n\"We've cut bills, increased help for the less well-off, and reduced leakage by a third, and we are committed to achieving even more for customers in the future.\"\n\nThe final Ofwat price review will be published in 2019.\n\nJeremy Corbyn has a simple remedy for the perceived excessive profits and underperformance of water companies - nationalisation.\n\nOfwat's answer is not so easily digestible - 260 pages of dense regulatorese, full of catchy concepts like the \"weighted average cost of capital for appointee companies\".\n\nThe headline savings promised, just £15 to £25 a year from an average bill in the five years from 2020, will also not set many hearts racing.\n\nOfwat's problem is that the companies it regulates have by and large prospered despite its successive attempts to crack down on returns.\n\nSevern Trent, the largest quoted water company - one that has shares listed on the stock exchange - has promised its shareholders dividends of inflation plus 4% for the foreseeable future, an astonishing return for what is a low-risk utility stock.\n\nOfwat needs to find a much sharper tool if its solution, rather than Mr Corbyn's, is to catch the public imagination.\n\nMs Ross said nationalisation would be a political decision, but that since privatisation, water firms had invested £140bn.\n\n\"There has to be a question about whether government would do that if that were to land on the public balance sheet, but of course, government can borrow more cheaply,\" she said.\n\nIn a price review, Ofwat looks at the costs of financing that water firms face; the costs of service, such as how much it costs to transport water or treat it; and it looks at how water firms can improve their service.\n\nIn 2016, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said Ofwat had consistently overestimated water companies' costs.\n\nMs Ross said the regulator had taken a view in 2009 of what the financing costs would be, and \"actually the financing costs were a lot lower than that, and that's really why the MPs were criticising us\".\n\n\"We've taken that on board, and that's why today... we're taking a tougher line,\" she added.\n\nThe Consumer Council for Water, a watchdog, said an Ofwat decision to get rid of a cap on rewards for beating performance targets \"could open the door to bill instability\" after 2019.\n\nTony Smith, the watchdog's chief executive, said: \"This could hand companies an opportunity to claw back some of the money they would be unable to get through lower financing costs and it could lead to bill increases which many customers view as rewards for doing the day job.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Mr Trump had urged supporters to vote for Mr Moore\n\nFor Roy Moore it looks like the next time he saddles up his horse it will be to ride off into the sunset.\n\nThe maverick Christian conservative who enjoyed the full-throated support of Steve Bannon, the slightly-more-tempered endorsement of Donald Trump and the outright antipathy of certain sections of the GOP, has failed in the reddest of red states. So how much should be read into this defeat?\n\nNeedless to say - and understandably - most of the attention will fall on the humiliation this represents to Donald Trump, but the bigger loser is his erstwhile White House head of strategy Steve Bannon. Alabama was to be the Petri dish for next November's mid-term elections.\n\nAlabama would show that rabble-rousing, right-wing, anti-establishment, swamp-draining insurgents could take on the Republican Party grandees in primary races and then cruise to victory afterwards in the main election against the Democrats.\n\nRoy Moore's (R) defeat is a blow to Steve Bannon (L) and his insurgent campaign\n\nWell Mr Bannon got one out of two. Yes, Roy Moore beat Luther Strange to win the Republican nomination - but he lost where it mattered. And that is calamitous for Mr Bannon.\n\nThis is a result where you can be sure the Republican establishment will be savouring a Bannon defeat almost as much as the Democrats are rubbing their eyes in wonderment at their victory.\n\nMr Bannon, the self-declared Leninist wanting to rip down the walls of the establishment, looks a weaker man today. Not finished by any means, but certainly undermined.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What the Alabama upset will mean for Donald Trump's agenda\n\nDonald Trump, aside from finding himself on the losing side - which his opponents will revel in - will now find getting legislation through the Senate much more difficult. There will now be 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats.\n\nIt means the awkward squad in the GOP now have much more leverage over legislation. Senators Flake and Corker, who are standing down and loathe Donald Trump, will need to be courted rather than abused by the president. Those of a more liberal bent might seek to rein in the president's more far-reaching proposals.\n\nMr Trump's gut instinct got him the Republican nomination against all the odds and won him the presidential election.\n\nBut on Alabama he's now found himself on the losing side - twice. First backing Luther Strange and then, after he lost, getting behind - and more importantly sticking with - Roy Moore even when it became clear he was a political liability after repeated allegations of sexual abuse against teenage girls emerged.\n\nWhy this matters is that for two years now Donald Trump seems to have defied the laws of political gravity. Say what you like, insult who you like, do what you like, and when Newton's Law is suspended no harm will come to you.\n\nBut suddenly this president is no longer operating in a weightless environment. He has tumbled to earth with a bump. This is important. When someone seems invincible but turns out to be mortal after all, it will affect how your friends and enemies approach you. They might become less fearful.\n\nThe Democrats still have plenty of problems that need addressing\n\nNow let's say a word about the real winners in all this, the Democrats. After a dreadful 18 months they have a victory to crow about. They have won in Alabama. Alabama, for goodness sake. Surely this is the platform for sweeping the board at the mid-terms! Taking back control of Congress. A hammer blow to the Trump presidency.\n\nAll I would say to that is - steady. This was not a decisive vote for Democratic Party politics, this was a referendum on Roy Moore.\n\nAnd given the accusations against him, and given the number of prominent people who came out to say they had no reason to disbelieve his female accusers (the president's daughter, Ivanka, the Senate majority leader, the House Speaker to name but three), Mr Moore ran Doug Jones incredibly close.\n\nAnd what is it the Democrats stand for? Are they the party of Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? What is their distinct economic message? How do they win back the blue collar workers (and a lot of other groups besides who went over to Donald Trump in 2016)?\n\nThe Democrats are right to bask in their success today. Why wouldn't you? But the problems that led them to lose in November 2016 have not gone away with their astonishing victory in Alabama.", "How a baby born with her heart outside her body has survived after surgery at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Against the odds: The story of baby Vanellope\n\nA baby born with her heart outside her body has survived after surgery at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.\n\nVanellope Hope Wilkins, who has no breastbone, was delivered three weeks ago by Caesarean section.\n\nShe has had three operations to place her heart back in her chest.\n\nThe condition, ectopia cordis, is extremely rare, with only a few cases per million births, of which most are stillborn.\n\nThe hospital says it knows of no other case in the UK where the baby has survived.\n\nHer parents, Naomi Findlay, 31, and Dean Wilkins, 43, from Nottingham, say Vanellope is \"a real fighter\".\n\nNaomi said: \"It was a real shock when the ultrasound showed that her heart was outside her chest and scary because we didn't know what would happen.\"\n\nThe couple paid for a blood test which showed there were no chromosomal abnormalities and that made them determined to continue with the pregnancy.\n\nDean added: \"We were advised to have a termination and that the chances of survival were next to none - no-one believed she was going to make it except us.\"\n\nNaomi said having a termination was \"not something she could do\".\n\n\"To see, even at nine weeks, a heartbeat - no matter where it was. It was not something I was going to take away.\n\n\"In a way her strength gave me a strength to keep going,\" she added.\n\nVanellope had been due on Christmas eve but was delivered by Caesarean section on 22 November in order to reduce the chances of infection and damage to the heart.\n\nThere were around 50 medical staff present including obstetricians, heart surgeons, anaesthetists, neonatologists and midwives.\n\nMinutes after her birth, Vanellope's chest was covered with a sterile bag to keep her heart moist and reduce the risk of infection\n\nWithin 50 minutes of birth, the baby was undergoing the first of three operations to put her heart back inside the body.\n\nIn the most recent surgery, Vanellope's own skin was used to cover the hole in her chest.\n\nFrances Bu'Lock, consultant paediatric cardiologist, said: \"Before she was born things looked very bleak but now they are quite a lot better - Vanellope is doing really well and has proved very resilient.\n\n\"In the future we may be able to put in some internal bony protection for her heart - perhaps using 3D printing or something organic that would grow with her.\"\n\nA handful of children in the United States have also survived this condition.\n\nAmong them is Audrina Cardenas who was born in Texas in October 2012.\n\nShe also had surgery to place her heart back inside her chest and was sent home after three months.\n\nAudrina was given a protective plastic shield to cover her chest.\n\nGlenfield Hospital says Vanellope still faces \"a long road ahead\" - the major risk being infection.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Baby born with heart outside body goes home\n\nThe next step is to take her off a ventilator, which is being used to aid her recovery from surgery.\n\nDean Wilkins said: \"She defying everything - it's beyond a miracle.\"\n\nThe couple named Vanellope after a character in the Disney film \"Wreck-It Ralph\".\n\nNaomi said: \"Vanellope in the film is a real fighter and at the end turns into a princess so we thought it was fitting.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Eartha Pond has made the final 50 in a competition for the world's best teacher\n\nA London teacher who raised £100,000 for survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire and who plays top-level football has been named in the top 50 shortlist for the annual Global Teacher Prize.\n\nEartha Pond is a finalist in the $1m (£750,000) teaching competition.\n\nThe PE teacher, who plays for Tottenham Hotspur Ladies, is assistant vice-principal at the Crest Academy in Neasden, north-west London.\n\nShe says it's great to see the value of teachers' work being recognised.\n\nThe teachers in the final 50 are from 33 countries, in a competition run by the Varkey Foundation with the aim of raising the status of the teaching profession.\n\nMs Pond, who trained as a teacher six years ago, has helped to run Girls Allowed clubs in schools, encouraging young women to take part in sport.\n\nAs a footballer she played for Chelsea and Arsenal before signing for Spurs - and in teaching she has also been a top performer, with a strong record in results in sports qualifications.\n\nAs a teacher, she says \"every day is a lesson\". And combining teaching with football, she says can feel like trying to live the lives of two people.\n\nShe lives close to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire - and says that when she saw what had happened she began to raise funds.\n\n\"I hoped to raise £5,000,\" she said. But in the end she collected £80,000 and then a school's sports day and support from local businesses took the total to £100,000.\n\n\"It's my community, it was a natural reaction, my people needed help,\" she says of the efforts to support survivors.\n\nMs Pond is one of four teachers from the UK in the top 50, in a shortlist drawn from more than 30,000 nominations.\n\nThe winner will be presented next year with their prize at a ceremony in Dubai.\n\nLast year's winner was Maggie MacDonnell, who teaches at a remote village school in the Canadian Arctic and who has campaigned about the problem of youth suicides in the Inuit community.\n\nThe winner was announced by a video-link with astronauts on the International Space Station and with a message from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.\n\nSunny Varkey, founder of the Varkey Foundation, congratulated the finalists and said: \"We intend to keep this momentum going as our journey continues to return teachers to their rightful position as one of the most respected professions in society.\"", "Brexit Secretary David Davis is trying to steer the EU bill through Parliament - Dominic Grieve wants to amend it\n\nAnd the prospect of defeat takes on a whole new meaning for governments who don't have majorities. In other times, it's not that unusual for governments to lose votes on amendments, take stock and then alter their legislation.\n\nIt's part of the system, however messy it gets. But Theresa May's government, without a majority of its own, has been marked by trying to avoid defeat in the Commons by folding, budging, or making new promises to avoid losing actual votes (caveat - the government has lost opposition day debates, when they have refused to vote at all, but it's a very different picture on getting their own business done).\n\nFor vulnerable governments, to lose is potentially much more dangerous than the odd defeat for governments who are secure in the level of their support.\n\nIt's in that context that the government faces a potential defeat on Wednesday on the Withdrawal Bill and must weigh up its best course of action.\n\nThe legislation has been grinding its way through the Commons for weeks. Tory rebels have threatened to vote against the government on a few different occasions.\n\nThis time however, with the rebellion led by one of the most unlikely troublemakers, the former Attorney General Dominic Grieve, they really do mean business.\n\nAnd while the government today has sought to say ministers are listening, government sources say they are looking to do what they can to make peace - as things stand tonight, it's feasible that the prime minister will be beaten in the Commons tomorrow night. Yes, a possible defeat on the eve of the European Council.\n\nThe dispute (for once!) is pretty simple. A group of Tories, including former ministers and lawyers, are demanding a legal guarantee that MPs have a chance to vote on the terms of the final Brexit deal before we leave, what they say is a vital piece of democratic oversight.\n\nYes, the government has already promised MPs a vote, but the rebels and the opposition parties want the promise to be enshrined in law as soon as possible. The government has already conceded the principle, they say, given that there is going to be another bill (yes another one) relating to the final deal.\n\nBut for now, ministers, who are listening, and the government whips frantically trying to talk the rebels down, don't want to budge or give up their resistance to the proposed change.\n\nMeanwhile Labour is pushing the Tory rebels finally to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.\n\nThe role of Labour's small band of Brexiteers will be vital too. There are suggestions that for a couple of them, the temptation to defeat the government could override their consistent positions of voting with the government on Brexit. And the sums are so finally balanced every vote will count. One of the leading rebels said \"it really may come down to the twos or threes\".\n\nA ministerial statement is expected in the morning that could contain more concessions to the rebels, or at least restate and package up the guarantees the government has already put forward.\n\nThe situation could change rapidly, with another potential rebellion melting away. But the government may well have to budge, again, if they want to avoid defeat. It might have to be Theresa May and her ministerial team who blink this time.", "Alana Spencer toasts her Apprentice victory with Lord Sugar in December last year\n\nApprentice winner Alana Spencer's cake company has had to recall almost all of its range because of health risks.\n\nFood Standards Agency investigators said Ridiculously Rich by Alana inaccurately labelled its products.\n\nSome allergens were not listed and others were \"not correctly declared\", the agency said.\n\nA spokesman for the Aberystwyth company insisted only products sold online - less than 10% of its business - had been inaccurately labelled.\n\nBut the FSA's advice to the public does not distinguish between products the company sells online or through retail and wholesale outlets.\n\nIt warned that people with an allergy to soya, egg, peanuts, wheat, barley, oats or sulphites were at risk.\n\nThe FSA identifies inaccurate labelling on seven of the eight cakes and bars currently advertised for sale on the Ridiculously Rich by Alana's website.\n\nThe one product not highlighted as a risk by the FSA - spiced apple flapjack - is sold in mixed boxes with brandy butter brownies, which are on the list.\n\nThe warning only applies to products made before 1 December this year.\n\nThe company's spokesman said it had now corrected its labelling and contacted everyone who had bought its products to invite them to return their purchases free of charge for a replacement or refund.\n\nNo-one has yet returned any products, the spokesman said. He declined to disclose the number of items sold with inaccurate labels.\n\nCoeliac UK put out an allergy warning on twitter\n\nOn its website, the FSA listed the products with inaccurate labelling and advised customers: \"If you have bought any of the above products and have allergies to soya, peanuts, nuts, eggs and/or an allergy or intolerance to wheat, barley, oats (gluten), milk and/or a sensitivity to sulphites do not eat it. Instead return it to the store from where it was bought for a full refund.\"\n\nAn FSA spokesman said it was working with the company and Ceredigion council \"to ensure that clear allergen information is available to consumers who may have purchased products with inaccurate or insufficient information.\"\n\nMs Spencer was unavailable for comment, her company's spokesman said, as she was \"filming\".\n\nThe spokesman added: \"Lord Sugar was made aware of the situation immediately.\n\n\"He's spoken to Alana and is satisfied she has put the right measures in place to avoid a situation like this again.\"\n\nLord Sugar was made aware of the problem \"immediately\"\n\nMs Spencer, 25, shot to fame last year when she won BBC television's The Apprentice.\n\nHer victory in the 12th series of the show secured her a £250,000 investment and a 50/50 business partnership with Lord Sugar.\n\nThe company's range includes brownies, flapjacks and fudge cake and products cost £12.99 for a box of six.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe polls have closed in Alabama, where a firebrand Republican conservative is battling for a Senate seat against a Democrat hoping for a huge upset.\n\nPresident Donald Trump's populist brand will be tested after he backed Roy Moore, who denies allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls.\n\nMuch of the Republican establishment has distanced itself from the 70-year-old former Alabama judge.\n\nThe race between Mr Moore and Democrat Doug Jones is too close to call.\n\nThe Republican candidate has said homosexual activity should be illegal and argued against removing segregationist language from the state constitution.\n\nBut it is sexual abuse claims against him by a number of women, some when they were teenagers, that have made Washington conservatives baulk.\n\nOne accuser alleges Mr Moore molested her when she was 14.\n\nThe scandal has put an Alabama Senate seat within reach of Democrats for the first time in more than two decades.\n\nElections are rarely competitive in Alabama. It's the kind of place Republicans might as well weigh their votes rather than count them, such is the party's dominance here.\n\nThis special election has upended all the normal expectations and still, at this late stage, remains too close to call.\n\nDemocrat Doug Jones can win if he manages to galvanise the black vote in cities such as Birmingham and Montgomery.\n\nRoy Moore, his Republican rival, could easily lose if those rural, white, church-going conservatives stay at home amid the allegations against him.\n\nWhatever the outcome, the repercussions will be felt beyond Alabama.\n\nIf the Republicans lose, their Senate advantage contracts to just one vote.\n\nIf they win, their candidate is likely to face months of ethics inquiries, and an outside chance of being expelled from the Senate.\n\nFor the Democrats, a win would bolster their bargaining power in Congress, and place control of the Senate within definite grasp at next year's mid-term elections.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOn Tuesday, the world's press were waiting as he emerged on horseback from woodland to a ballot station.\n\nHe said people should \"go out and vote their conscience\".\n\nMaking his final pitch on election eve, Mr Moore reiterated his denials, again questioning why his accusers had kept quiet for 40 years while he had held various political offices.\n\nSpeaking alongside Mr Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, in front of a crowd that chanted the president's slogan \"Drain the Swamp\", Mr Moore drew heavily from the Bible.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kayla Moore: \"One of our attorneys is a Jew\"\n\n\"I want America great,\" he said, \"but I want America good and she can't be good until we go back to God.\"\n\nMr Moore was joined at Monday's rally by his wife Kayla, who said separate allegations last week that her husband was anti-Semitic were \"fake news\".\n\n\"One of our attorneys is a Jew, we have very close friends who are Jewish,\" she said.\n\nIn an automated phone message on Monday, Mr Trump's voice warned voters that his agenda would be \"stopped cold\" if Mr Moore lost.\n\nBut many other leading Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have kept arm's length from their party's candidate, or shunned him altogether.\n\nWithout mentioning Mr Moore by name, Republican former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, an African-American who grew up in Alabama, urged her home state to \"reject bigotry, sexism, and intolerance\".\n\nRichard Shelby, Alabama's other senator, said on Sunday the state \"deserves better\" than Mr Moore.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Roy Moore: How Alabamans are defending the accused judge\n\nA Democratic lawmaker has sent a letter to the Senate urging steps to protect teenagers working in the chamber's page programme from Mr Moore's \"predatory conduct\".\n\nMr Jones, a 63-year-old former prosecutor, denies opponents' claims he will be a \"puppet\" of the Democratic congressional leadership.\n\nHe is lauded for helping convict two Ku Klux Klan members who bombed a black church in 1963 in Birmingham, killing four girls.\n\nBut Mr Jones' support for abortion rights is toxic to many Christian conservatives in Alabama.\n\nAfter casting his ballot on Tuesday morning, he predicted: \"I don't think Roy Moore is going to win this election.\"\n\nFormer President Barack Obama has recorded an automated phone message for Mr Jones.\n\n\"This one's serious,\" Mr Obama told voters in his call. \"You can't sit it out.\"", "Oliver's heart condition causes his pulse to race dangerously fast\n\nThe family of a baby boy who have been fundraising for him to have life-saving heart surgery in the US has been told the NHS will now fund his treatment.\n\nDoctors in Boston have agreed to operate on Oliver Cameron, who was born with a rare heart tumour, after his first birthday in January.\n\nEarlier, his parents warned time was running out to raise the £150,000 needed for his treatment.\n\nThe NHS said it would pay because the procedure was not available in the UK.\n\nLydia and Tim Cameron, from Wantage in Oxfordshire, have already raised £130,000 for the surgery to have Oliver's tumour removed.\n\nThey have not indicated what they intend to do with the funds raised.\n\nPreviously doctors advised that to maximise Oliver's ability to recover his parents should ideally wait until his first birthday but, if his condition worsened, he may require the operation immediately.\n\nA statement from NHS England said it had \"agreed to fund Oliver's treatment abroad\" because there was \"not currently a surgical service in the UK with experience of treating this exceptionally rare condition\".\n\nOliver's condition - cardiac fibroma - is extremely rare and the number of patients with this type of tumour in England is estimated to be in single figures.\n\nHe needs around-the-clock care to stabilise his heart rate and an implant under his skin sends readings back to specialists at Southampton General Hospital, where he has been receiving treatment since doctors in Oxford discovered the tumour.\n\nSpecialists in Southampton said removing the tumour would be \"extremely high risk\" because there was limited experience in treating his condition in the UK so they had decided to support his parents' bid to find treatment elsewhere.\n\nThe NHS said it was also discussing whether a UK surgeon might accompany Oliver to Boston to learn from the surgeons in the US so the innovative surgery could \"potentially be offered in the UK in future\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "University leaders have been under pressure over high salaries\n\nUniversity leaders have agreed to a new code on senior pay, which is expected to be published in the next few weeks.\n\nUniversity representatives held a meeting with minister Jo Johnson on Wednesday where they accepted the need for more accountability.\n\nIt follows fierce criticism of university leaders over claims of excessive senior pay, with the head of the University of Bath stepping down.\n\nMr Johnson says \"public confidence\" over pay had to be restored.\n\nThe universities minister met leaders of Universities UK, the Russell Group and the Committee of University Chairs - with Mr Johnson calling for more restraint over pay.\n\nIt is understood that a \"fair remuneration code\" will be published in January for university leaders, by the Committee of University Chairs.\n\nMr Johnson told university leaders that there must be a more transparent and independent system for the setting of senior salaries - and an end to the \"upwards ratchet in pay\".\n\nHe set out a series of requirements, including that vice chancellors must not sit on the committee that decides their pay.\n\nJo Johnson has told universities they need to restore public confidence\n\nThere will also have to be disclosure of benefits, such as subsidised housing and expenses.\n\nThe size of pay gaps between university heads and academic staff will also have to be published.\n\n\"It is vital that pay arrangements command public confidence and deliver value for money for students and taxpayers,\" said Mr Johnson.\n\nUniversities, under increasing public pressure and protests from their own academic staff, say they also want to \"rebuild public confidence\".\n\n\"We agree more needs to be done to ensure the process for deciding senior pay is viewed as open and accountable,\" a Russell Group spokesperson said.\n\nThe group of leading universities says it is backing \"a new code to ensure pay-setting arrangements are as rigorous and transparent as they can be\".\n\nUniversities UK said \"competitive pay is necessary to attract first rate leaders\" but a new code would be a \"welcome step\".\n\n\"As universities receive funding from taxpayers and through student fees, it is reasonable to expect pay decisions to be fair, accountable and justified,\" said a Universities UK spokesman.\n\nMr Johnson last week warned the university sector that it needed to get pay under control - and that a new regulator would be used to enforce this.\n\nThere have been a series of protests over vice-chancellors' pay in recent weeks - including at the University of Bath, the University of Southampton and at Bath Spa.\n\n\"Has there been a problem? Most definitely,\" said Mr Johnson last week. But he said universities now recognised the need to answer public concerns about value for money.\n\n\"I think they really are starting to get it.\"", "Labour's Keir Starmer has called the Brexit vote, in which the government was defeated over amendment 7 last night, a \"humiliating and entirely avoidable defeat\".\n\nThe shadow Brexit secretary asked for a reassurance that the government will not seek to overturn the decision at report stage during Brexit questions in the Commons.\n\nDavid Davis said the effect of the vote was to see the powers available under section 9 deferred until after Royal Assent is given to the government's yet to be introduced Withdrawal and Implementation Bill.\n\nHe said it would have the effect of compressing the timetable.\n\nThe government wants to see a working statute book, as we leave the EU, he said, but as always we take the House of Commons view seriously.\n\nKeir Starmer called on the government to drop amendment 381 - this is the amendment which will put the date of exit on the bill.\n\nRather than repeat last night's debacle, \"drop this gimmick\", he said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Many in Alabama still back the controversial Republican candidate\n\nSexual misconduct claims against an already-controversial candidate have thrust a US Senate race into the global spotlight - and highlighted divisions between President Trump and top Republicans.\n\nQuestion: Just how interested is the world in the Alabama election tomorrow?\n\nAnswer: A reporter from Moldova is down there. It's pretty much all you need to know.\n\nNews organisations from foreign countries love stories about America that expose its weaknesses. They always have done.\n\nIt can sometimes be explained as schadenfreude, an almost indecent glee when things are perceived to have gone wrong in the world's superpower.\n\nThe riots in Ferguson, the shooting of Trayvon Martin, Hurricane Katrina, the financial crash, and now the Alabama race.\n\nThose reporters would not normally fly to the Deep South to cover a mere US Senate race, especially one that should have been a straightforward Republican win in this conservative state.\n\nThen again, you don't often get a candidate who believes homosexuality should be illegal, Muslims should be banned from serving in Congress and the last time America was great was when there was slavery.\n\nMoore supporters packed a barn to hear him speak earlier this month\n\nI deliberately omitted the sex allegations there because his record, even without serious claims of child molestation (which he denies), make him extreme, even by the standards of conservative, evangelical, Southern politicians.\n\nThe world's press probably would not have descended on Alabama for Tuesday's vote had it not been for the sexual harassment stories, but they should have done.\n\nThis was a fascinating story of America before that.\n\nAnd it's a fascinating indication of the state of American politics today.\n\nThe Alabama race has split the Republican party. Donald Trump this weekend recorded a phone message in support of Roy Moore and at a rally in Florida urged Alabamians to vote for him. The president warned the Trump agenda could be at risk if the Democrats win the seat and reduce the Republican's already-narrow majority in the Senate.\n\nThe failed effort to repeal and replace Obamacare earlier this year proved how fragile the party's control of the Senate is. They desperately want to avoid a similar fate when it comes to upcoming votes on tax cuts.\n\nYet, other top Republicans, including the sitting senator for Alabama, have said they can't vote for Mr Moore because of the allegations against him.\n\nSenator Richard Shelby is popular in the conservative state so it will be interesting to see whether his denunciation of Mr Moore has an impact at the polls.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nPlenty of Alabamians are sticking by the candidate.\n\nRoy Moore has what's been described as an almost \"cult-like\" following in Alabama.\n\nHe's the ultimate beneficiary of today's tribal politics. His supporters believe he embodies Christian values, will stand to bring the Bible back into politics and is prepared to defy politicians in Washington.\n\nThey see him as a true conservative who will consistently fight their side in America's bitter culture wars. But it's not his faith nor his opposition to abortion, immigration, and government that make him exceptional by US standards.\n\nRoy Moore has attracted controversy throughout his career\n\nOver the years he has said things that can in total fairness be described as discriminatory, things that might have been expected to kill a political career. And yet his aspirations have thrived and he may well be about to become an American senator.\n\nIn 2006, Mr Moore wrote an editorial comparing the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf. The piece argued Muslims should not be allowed to serve in the US Congress.\n\nIn a television interview in 2005 he said he believes \"homosexual conduct should be illegal\".\n\nMoore has also said Vladimir Putin, who says it's his duty to stop gay marriage, may be right on the issue.\n\nDespite America's formal separation of church and state, Mr Moore believes \"god's laws are always superior to man's\".\n\nHe says Christianity should be favoured by the state.\n\nIn 1997, he suggested a link between teaching evolution in schools and drive-by shootings.\n\nDemocrat Doug Jones hopes to upset the odds in this deeply conservative state\n\nAnd, yes, he told an African-American at a rally during this campaign that America was last great during the time of slavery \"when families were united - even though we had slavery\".\n\nAll that made the Alabama race extraordinary even before eight women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. One of them says she was just 14 at the time he allegedly assaulted her.\n\nIn the #MeToo moment that was what really got the world's attention.\n\nBut think about all the other things Mr Moore has said and this story should have grabbed our headlines from the beginning.", "Toni & Guy opened their first salon in Clapham during the 1960s\n\nThe co-founder of the hairdresser chain Toni & Guy - Giuseppe \"Toni\" Mascolo - has died at the age of 75.\n\nMr Mascolo and his brother, Gaetano 'Guy' Mascolo, opened their first salon in south London in 1963.\n\nOffering an \"Italian style\" hairdressing service, the unisex salon grew into an international brand and staple of the British high street.\n\nMr Mascolo, who was the chief executive of the firm, died on Sunday surrounded by his family.\n\nThe Mascolo family were Italian immigrants who arrived in England in the 1950s They settled in Clapham, south London, where the brothers opened their first salon.\n\nHairdressing ran in the family and Mr Mascolo senior - a celebrated hairdresser in his own right - taught all four of his sons to cut hair from a young age.\n\nFounded during the \"swinging sixties\", Toni and Guy offered a unisex service that appealed to both men and women, in contrast to traditional barber shops and woman-only hair salons.\n\nCelebrities such as composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, and singer Dusty Springfield were among the famous faces who frequented the salon.\n\nThe firm opened its first central London salon in London's West End in 1973.\n\nShortly afterwards two more Mascolo brothers, Bruno and Anthony, helped propel the family business into an international brand.\n\nSince then Toni & Guy has grown to comprise two global, franchised hair salon groups, with 475 shops in 48 countries.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by TONI&GUY This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nToni Mascolo was awarded an OBE for services to hairdressing in 2008 and in 2012 was honoured by the Fellowship of British Hairdressers with a lifetime achievement award\n\nHe is survived by wife Pauline, brothers Bruno and Anthony, children Sacha, Christian and Pierre, and many grandchildren.", "Ryanair passengers face disruption to their Christmas travel plans after pilots and crew announced industrial action in a bid to win union recognition and better conditions.\n\nIn Ireland, 79 pilots based in Dublin will strike for one day on 20 December.\n\nThe airline, which does not recognise unions, said they represented about 28% of its Dublin-based captains.\n\nMeanwhile, Ryanair pilots and cabin crew in Italy plan to strike for four hours on 15 December.\n\nThe airline said last week it would \"ignore\" the Italian move, claiming staff rarely heeded calls to walk out.\n\nPilots based in Portugal and Germany also plan industrial action.\n\nCockpit, the German pilots' union, said its Ryanair members would strike for better pay and conditions if the airline refused to begin talks, but vowed not to disrupt flights over Christmas.\n\nRyanair said it would \"not deal with or recognise\" the German union \"regardless of what action - if any - takes place\".\n\nUnions have long argued that their airline fails to offer pilots the same pay and conditions as its rivals.\n\nImpact, the Irish pilots' union, said the dispute was \"solely about winning independent representation for pilots in the company\", said official Ashley Connolly.\n\nThe union warned of further strikes if Ryanair failed to reach agreement with its members.\n\n\"Ryanair will deal with any such disruptions if, or when they arise, and we apologise sincerely to customers for any upset or worry this threatened action... may cause,\" the company said.\n\nIt said the Dublin staff who planned to strike were a \"small group of pilots who are working their notice and will shortly leave Ryanair, so they don't care how much upset they cause colleagues or customers\".\n\nAnalysts at Goodbody said although there were deep divisions between pilots and Ryanair management, the \"headlines are worse than the reality on the ground\" they wrote in a note.\n\nIn September Ryanair said more than 2,000 flights would be cancelled this winter after it rearranged pilots' rosters to comply with new aviation rules.\n\nLater that month it announced 18,000 further flights would be cancelled over the winter season, affecting more than 700,000 passengers.\n\nRyanair chief executive Michael O'Leary wrote to its 4,200 pilots to apologise for the changes to their rotas and urged them not to leave the airline.\n\nHowever, this week it warned Dublin pilots they would lose agreed benefits by striking.\n\nMany of the airline's pilots have joined unions following the cancellations, but Ryanair said it could legally decline to negotiate with them.", "Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen has raised interest rates three times this year\n\nThe US Federal Reserve has raised interest rates by 0.25%, the third rate rise in 2017.\n\nThe US central bank said the move, which was widely expected, underscores \"solid\" gains in the US economy.\n\nOfficials also boosted their economic forecasts, projecting 2.5% growth in GDP in 2017 and 2018, due in part to planned tax cuts.\n\nThe Fed said it anticipates three further increases in rates next year, unchanged from its previous forecast.\n\nThe decision to raise interest rates, raising the cost of borrowing, takes the Fed farther away from the ultra-low rates it put in place during the financial crisis to boost economic activity.\n\nThe Fed is targeting a range of 1.25% to 1.5% for its benchmark rate. But a majority of officials said they expect interest rates above 2% will be appropriate next year.\n\nThe shift in policy comes as the US economy gains strength.\n\nUS economic output has increased at an annual rate of more than 3% in recent quarters, while the unemployment rate fell to 4.1% last month - the lowest rate since 2001.\n\nFederal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who is stepping down from her post in February, said the economy, labour market and financial system have grown stronger under her watch.\n\n\"There's less to lose sleep about now than has been true for quite some time, so I feel good about the economic outlook,\" she said.\n\nMs Yellen said policymakers expect the economy to get a further lift from a package of tax cuts - one of President Trump's central campaign promises - and those expectations were factored in when they revised upwards their predictions for economic growth.\n\nThe Fed is now forecasting 2.5% GDP growth in 2018, compared to a forecast it made in September of 2.1%.\n\nWhile Congress and President Trump's Administration continue to wrangle over tax reform, the Fed had to judge what the final outcome of that political process would mean for the economy. Inevitably there is a lot of uncertainty in there but they have concluded that it would provide a boost over the next three years.\n\nThe Fed's policy makers expect somewhat stronger growth than they did in September. Janet Yellen said that reflected a view in the committee that the reforms would stimulate consumer spending and business investment.\n\nBut there has not been much change in what the Fed's policy makers think of the longer term prospects. The Fed publishes information showing the range of expectations that its policy makers have. The middle of that range for long term growth is unchanged at a rather modest 1.8%.\n\nDespite the acceleration in growth, members of the Federal Open Markets Committee said they expect interest rate increases to remain gradual - in part, a sign of ongoing concerns that inflation has remained below the Fed's 2% target.\n\nMs Yellen said she continues to believe the lacklustre inflation growth is due to one-off factors, such as declines in costs for mobile phone plans.\n\nBut she said the Fed will continue to watch those numbers and \"if necessary, re-think\" what is determining them.\n\n\"There's work undone there,\" she said.", "William and Harry joined cast and crew of Star Wars: The Last Jedi at London's Royal Albert Hall.", "The former UKIP leader suggested the UK had caved in over the \"divorce bill\" and citizens' rights\n\nThe UK has \"danced to the EU's tune\" during the Brexit negotiations, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has claimed.\n\nIn a debate in Strasbourg, he called the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, \"Theresa the appeaser\", saying she had \"given in on virtually everything\".\n\nThe European Parliament later voted to endorse an agreement struck by the UK and European Commission which is set to move the talks on to their next phase.\n\nBut MEPs also insisted the UK must honour the commitments it has made.\n\nAmid concerns about whether Friday's agreement on citizens' rights, the Northern Ireland border and the so-called \"divorce bill\" is legally binding, Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's Brexit spokesman, said he had been reassured the UK would not \"back-track\" on its commitments.\n\nThe agreement should be converted into a legal text in weeks, not months, he added.\n\nIn a symbolic but politically significant vote, the European Parliament backed the European Commission's view that sufficient progress had been made on so-called divorce issues to move to talks covering a transition phase and the EU's future relations with the UK.\n\nThe EU's negotiator Michel Barnier said there was \"no going back\" on Friday's agreement - which is expected to be rubber-stamped by all other 27 EU members later this week.\n\n\"It has been noted and recorded and is going to have to be translated into a legally binding withdrawal agreement,\" he said.\n\nDuring the debate, several MEPs criticised the UK's Brexit Secretary, David Davis, for suggesting in an interview on Sunday that the first-phase agreement was more of a \"statement of intent\" than a \"legally enforceable thing\" - comments he has since backed away from.\n\nGerman Christian Democrat MEP Manfred Weber, who leads the centre-right EPP group, said the remarks were \"not helpful\" for building trust between the two sides.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Farage - who has campaigned for 20 years to take the UK out of the EU - also attacked the British government, saying Mr Barnier \"didn't need\" to make many concessions to Theresa May.\n\n\"I'm not surprised you're all very pleased with Theresa the appeaser - who has given in on virtually everything,\" he said.\n\n\"She has danced to your tune all the way through this. You must be very, very happy indeed.\"\n\nWarning of a further betrayal of Brexit voters, he said the prospect of a two-year transition after the UK left in March 2019 would be the \"biggest deception yet\", meaning the UK would have left the EU \"in name only\".\n\n\"I think Brexit at some point in the future may need to be refought all over again,\" he added.\n\nBut defending the British prime minister, Conservative MEP Syed Kamall said both sides had needed to make compromises and concessions in order to \"avoid a no-deal situation\".\n\nImportant progress had been made, he added, when both sides \"understood the need for flexibility and focused on building a better future rather than looking back at the past\".\n• None Rebel Tory: I'll stand up and be counted", "A house fire which killed three children was a \"targeted attack\", police have said.\n\nDemi Pearson, 14, Brandon, eight, and Lacie, seven, died, while Lia, three, and mother Michelle, 35, remain in hospital.\n\nMs Pearson's son, Kyle, and a friend both escaped from the home, in Salford, before fire crews arrived.\n\nSix people have now been arrested, after a 25-year-old man was held on suspicion of murder.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"Words cannot describe\" how a family feels after losing three children, police say.\n\nMichelle Pearson is in a serious condition in hospital\n\nCh Supt Wayne Miller of Greater Manchester Police said detectives believe the attack was targeted after collecting CCTV from the area.\n\n\"We now have a much deeper understanding of the devastating events which lead to the tragic deaths,\" he said.\n\nCh Supt Miller said relatives of the family have been left \"completely devastated\".\n\n\"The loss of a child in any circumstance is unthinkable, to lose three in such deplorable circumstances words cannot describe.\n\n\"My heart breaks for them, it really does.\n\n\"We're doing all that we can to get them the answers they quite rightly deserve.\"\n\nTwo men, aged 19 and 20, arrested on suspicion of murder have been released on bail, as has a 24-year-old man arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.\n\nOfficers visited the house in Jackson Street, Walkden, a few hours before the blaze, which happened at about 05:00 GMT on Monday.\n\nPolice confirmed there had been previous incidents at the family's home.\n\nThe case has been referred by GMP to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which confirmed an investigation had started.\n\nIt feels it is \"necessary to independently investigate the circumstances of this incident in relation to the force's actions\".\n\nDemi Pearson, 14, was a pupil at Harrop Fold School in Salford\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police were filmed leading one of the suspects away after his arrest\n\nThe children's schools have paid tribute to them.\n\nDemi Pearson was a pupil at Harrop Fold School in Salford, which featured in the Channel 4 documentary Educating Greater Manchester.\n\nHead teacher Drew Povey said everyone at the school was \"truly devastated\".\n\n\"Team Harrop mourns alongside the relatives and friends of those whose lives were needlessly and mercilessly taken from them. The spirit of Salford cannot and will not be crushed. We will work together to comfort and rebuild those lives that have been forever changed,\" he said.\n\nEmma Henderson, head teacher at Bridgewater Primary school, said the school is consoling pupils and their families.\n\n\"Our school is very much part of this special community and understands the intense pain experienced at this senseless loss of precious life,\" she said.", "Three children aged 14, eight and seven, died in the blaze\n\nTwo people charged with murder over the deaths of three children in a house fire in Salford have appeared in court.\n\nZak Bolland, 23, and Courtney Brierley, 20, both of Worsley, Salford were also charged with arson and four counts of attempted murder.\n\nThey were remanded in custody until their next appearance.\n\nDemi Pearson, 14, Brandon, eight, and Lacie, seven, died in the blaze on Monday. Their mother Michelle and a three-year-old remain in hospital.\n\nMr Bolland, of Blackleach Drive, and Ms Brierley, of Worsley Avenue, did not apply for bail and are listed to appear at Manchester Crown Court on Thursday.\n\nTwo men, aged 19 and 20, arrested on suspicion of murder have been released on police bail.\n\nA 24-year-old man arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender has also been bailed.\n\nThe three-year-old, who cannot be named due to their age, is in a critical condition in hospital following the fire at a property in Walkden, which broke out at about 05:00 GMT.\n\nMs Pearson, 35, has been heavily sedated and has not yet been told about the deaths of her children.\n\nTwo 16-year-olds - who also can not be named for legal reasons - in the house at the time of the blaze managed to escape.\n\nGreater Manchester Police confirmed there had been incidents at the family's home prior to the blaze and it had referred the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).\n\nThe head teacher at the school Demi attended said she was a \"really good kid\"\n\nDrew Povey, head teacher at Harrop Fold School, Worsley, which Demi attended, paid tribute to the popular pupil.\n\nHe said she was a \"really good kid… fun-loving… and funny\".\n\n\"I don't know anyone that didn't really get on well with her… and it was the same outside of school as well,\" he added.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Akayed Ullah emigrated to the US with his family in 2011\n\nThe man who faces terror charges over Monday's bus terminal bombing in New York posted a warning to President Donald Trump just before the attack.\n\n\"Trump you failed to protect your nation,\" it read. The post by Akayed Ullah was revealed in charges filed by federal prosecutors on Tuesday.\n\nThey say the 27-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant carried out the bombing inspired by the Islamic State group.\n\nHe wounded himself and three others in Monday morning's attack.\n\nMr Ullah is accused of blowing up a crude device strapped to his body in an underpass at Manhattan's Port Authority Bus Terminal during the rush hour.\n\nThe New York Police Department (NYPD) tweeted that he was facing state charges including criminal possession of a weapon, supporting an act of terrorism and making a \"terroristic threat\".\n\nThe federal charges, announced later on Tuesday, include providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a public place.\n\nAccording to the federal complaint filed by prosecutors, Mr Ullah said after his arrest: \"I did it for the Islamic State.\"\n\nHe also told investigators he had been motivated by American air strikes on IS target, the document says.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe complaint says Mr Ullah used materials that included Christmas lights to make the device. It was affixed to his body with Velcro straps.\n\nA search of the suspect's home in the New York City borough of Brooklyn \"revealed metal pipes, pieces of wire and metal screws, which were consistent with the bomb materials recovered at the scene,\" prosecutor Joom Kim told reporters.\n\nHe said the suspect \"admitted that he began researching how to build bombs about a year ago, and had been planning this particular attack for several weeks\".\n\nHe selected the location and timing \"to maximise casualties\", Mr Kim added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The blast hit during New York's rush-hour - this is how events unfolded\n\nMr Ullah emigrated to the US on a family visa in 2011 from the Chittagong area of Bangladesh.\n\nThe Bangladeshi government says he had no criminal record in the country, which he last visited in September. The visit lasted about six weeks, his uncle told the Associated Press news agency.\n\nMr Ullah's wife did not join him in the US. She and other family members are now being questioned to try to understand how he was radicalised.\n\nUS President Donald Trump has said Monday's attack, which followed a terror attack in Manhattan in October that killed eight people, \"highlights the urgent need... to enact legislative reforms to protect the American people\".\n\n\"America must fix its lax immigration system, which allows far too many dangerous, inadequately vetted people to access our country,\" Mr Trump added.", "Alabama is a deeply conservative place, as its voting record amply demonstrates.\n\nUntil Doug Jones came along the state hadn't picked a Democrat for the US Senate since 1992 - and even that man, Richard Shelby, went on to defect to the Republicans.\n\nBut on 12 December Mr Jones, 63, painted the old red seat blue when voters chose him to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions's former berth.\n\nSo what do we know about the man who fought and beat Republican Roy Moore for the heart of Dixie?\n\nMr Jones' victory has been credited to an unusually high turnout of black voters\n\nWhen Mr Jones beat seven other candidates to win the Democratic primary in August 2017, it was the entry pass to a seriously tough fight. But he would argue he's used to those.\n\nGordon Douglas Jones, known as Doug, studied political science at the University of Alabama, followed by law at the state's Samford University in 1979. He rose to prominence in 1997, when Bill Clinton named him US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.\n\nThen in his forties, Mr Jones secured a string of high-profile prosecutions, including those of two Ku Klux Klan members who bombed a Baptist church in Birmingham in 1963, killing four black schoolgirls.\n\nThe Baptist church at 16th Street had been a centre for civil rights activities in Birmingham, Alabama\n\nHe was also linked to the indictment of Eric Rudolph, who killed an off-duty police officer in a 1998 attack on a Birmingham abortion clinic.\n\nThis record has helped Mr Jones present as a candidate for our violent times, where white nationalists are raising their banners unafraid on the streets of America.\n\n\"Sadly, the pattern of violence as a response to hope has reasserted itself,\" he wrote in the Huffington Post. \"We saw it in the Charleston church massacre in 2015. We saw it on display in Charlottesville this past August. We've seen it in the attacks on mosques and synagogues, and against the LGBT community. We see it in the hostility toward the Latino community.\n\n\"We cannot sweep this violence under the rug. We must address the forces that lead to it and prosecute those who perpetrate such acts.\"\n\nSupporters of Mr Jones saw him as a moderate, a foil to Roy Moore's Bible-bashing\n\nThough Roy Moore's evangelical fervour grabbed more attention, Mr Jones is also a Christian - specifically, a Methodist. He has worshipped at the same church for more than 30 years, and has said the message of Christianity should be one of fairness and inclusivity, not extremism.\n\nPolitics took an early hold on Jones, who began his career as a staff counsel to the US Senate Judiciary Committee, working for Alabama Senator Howell Heflin.\n\nFrom 1980 he spent four years as an Assistant US Attorney, then from 1984-97 worked for a criminal defence firm in Birmingham, Alabama. In 2013, he co-founded his own firm - Jones & Hawley.\n\nMr Jones counts former Vice President Joe Biden as an old friend, having led his 1988 presidential campaign in Alabama. Mr Biden said of him at an October 2017 rally: \"I can count on two hands the people I've campaigned for that have as much integrity, as much courage.\"\n\nHe added that Mr Jones \"helped remove 40 years of stain and pain from this state\" with the church bombing convictions.\n\nFrom the off, Mr Jones was aware he was facing poor odds in Alabama, which backed Donald Trump in 2016 with a 28-point landslide.\n\n\"They have told me time and again that this race is a long shot,\" Mr Jones said of the problem. \"Well, folks... When you are on the right side of history and the right side of justice, you can do anything.\"\n\nThe delicacy of the task was complicated by allegations against Mr Jones's anti-establishment opponent, Roy Moore. The gun-toting Republican faces several claims of historic sexual misconduct with underage girls, which he denies.\n\nRoy Moore is facing allegations of sexual abuse, which he denies\n\nMr Jones's campaign adverts have worked to paint him as the ethical choice for Alabama, even as prominent national Republicans broke ranks to refuse Mr Moore their votes.\n\nSome ads featured self-declared Republican voters voicing their support for Mr Jones with the words: \"Don't vote for the party. Vote for the man.\"\n\nThe New York Times reported in mid-November that Democrat cash had funded nearly $2m (£1.5m) in TV adverts for Mr Jones, while Mr Moore had spent only about $300,000.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Doug Jones This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPolicy-wise, Mr Jones has pitched himself as a moderate Democrat, calling for an increase in the minimum wage, but also lower corporate taxes \"to try to get reinvestment back into this country\".\n\nHe supports renewable energy, but is hawkish on the need for increased defence spending, saying it will protect the US and shore up Alabama's economy.\n\nOn healthcare, a key divide between Republicans and Democrats, he opposes the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, but wants changes to the existing \"broken\" system.\n\nWhile President Trump has stoutly supported Roy Moore, national stars of the Democratic Party waited until the last minute to descend on Alabama, to avoid spooking voters with their liberal associations.\n\nOn the eve of the election, reports said former President Barack Obama had recorded a robo-call - an automated telephone call to Alabama households - urging the public to back his man.\n\nFormer President Barack Obama stepped in at the final hour to rally voters for Doug Jones\n\n\"This one's serious,\" Mr Obama said in the message, according to CNN. \"You can't sit it out.\"\n\nOther senior Democrats who have spoken for Mr Jones include Ohio congressman Tim Ryan, and John Lewis, a revered civil rights leader who was one of the original Freedom Riders and led a famous protest march from Selma in Alabama.\n\nNew Jersey Senator Cory Booker, a rising Democrat star considered a possible 2020 presidential candidate, made the trip to Alabama in person, declaring: \"I'm here to try and help some folk get woke. Democracy is not a spectator sport.\"\n\nMr Jones has proved he is capable of causing a stunning upset in the ruby red Yellowhammer state. Now he'll be returning to work for the federal government for the first time since making his name with the church bombing prosecutions.", "The Republican candidate arrived at an Alabama polling site on horseback - but had trouble leaving the same way.", "Fergal Keane reveals the crisis along a road in the Democratic Republic of Congo that threatens hundreds of thousands.\n\nNearly half a million severely malnourished children are at risk of starvation in the country's Kasai region.\n\nThe UN has just declared the crisis in DRC as the highest level of emergency - the same as Yemen, Syria and Iraq.", "The most senior loyalist ever to agree to become a so-called supergrass volunteered to kill a Catholic to cover up the fact he was an informer.\n\nSean McParland died after being shot while babysitting in Belfast in 1994.\n\nThe Ulster Volunteer Force was to decide the identity of the killer by flipping a coin, Belfast Crown Court heard.\n\nBut Gary Haggarty volunteered to be the \"primary gunman\" because he feared he was suspected of being a police agent.\n\nThe intended target was a relative of Mr McParland, who was 55.\n\nHaggarty, an ex-commander of the UVF's north Belfast unit, was working as a paid Special Branch agent at the time of the killing.\n\nHe worked as an informer for 13 years.\n\nIn January 2010, he offered to become a supergrass - officially referred to as an assisting offender - and offered to give evidence against other UVF members he said were also involved in the crimes he committed.\n\nHaggarty, 45, a long-time police informer, has pleaded guilty to 202 terror offences, including five murders, as his part of a controversial state deal that offered a significantly reduced prison term in return for giving evidence against other terrorist suspects.\n\nThe two-day sentencing hearing is expected to conclude on Thursday.\n\nHaggarty is likely to be given mandatory life sentences for each of the murders he has admitted.\n\nBut he will also receive a significant reduction in his sentence in return for the amount of information he has provided as an assisting offender.\n\nMr Justice Colton will make that decision based on the information put before him during the hearing.\n\nIt is not clear when the sentence is likely to be imposed.\n\nHaggarty is to be the star prosecution witness in the trial of a man accused of murdering Catholic workmen Gary Convie and Eamon Fox in Belfast city centre in May 1994.\n\nBut before he can give evidence he must first be sentenced for his own crimes.\n\nGary Haggarty was the commander of the Ulster Volunteer Force's north Belfast unit\n\nThat formal process began on Wednesday when a prosecution lawyer outlined some of the details of Haggarty's confessions to police.\n\nIn one of the biggest and most complex cases undertaken in Northern Ireland, he was interviewed by detectives more than 1,000 times and the information he gave them ran beyond 12,000 pages.\n\nThe extent of his criminal activities is staggering.\n\nAs well as pleading guilty to 202 crimes, he asked that 301 others be taken into consideration.\n\nIn addition to the killing of Sean McParland, he also admitted the murders of:\n\nRelatives of some of the victims were in court on Wednesday as a prosecution lawyer spent more than four hours outlining the extent of Haggarty's activities.\n\nHe included harrowing details of some of the incidents.\n\nThe judge was told how three of Sean McParland's young grandchildren ran screaming from his house in Skegoneill Avenue when the UVF burst in to kill him.\n\nEamon Fox and Gary Convie were shot dead while eating their lunch at a building site in 1994\n\nIn police interviews, Haggarty said he shot the 55-year-old in the chest from close range.\n\nHe had planned to fire another five bullets into his chest, but could not do so because his gun jammed.\n\nThe prosecution lawyer said Haggarty, who was promoted within the UVF after the shooting, expressed regret during interviews after agreeing to become a supergrass.\n\n\"He said he is sorry, it was the wrong person killed, he is sorry for the kids that were there,\" said the lawyer.\n\nThe court was also told that Haggarty acknowledged that two more of his victims, Eamon Fox and Gary Convie, were innocent men and not republicans as claimed by the UVF at the time.\n\n\"He said he did not believe they were republicans, but just soft easy targets,\" added the lawyer.\n\nKieran Fox, one of Eamon Fox's six children, was one of the relatives in court as the details of Haggarty's litany of crimes was outlined, and welcomed the admission.\n\n\"To hear that Haggarty has admitted before they actually carried out the shooting that my dad and Gary were both innocent, that they were not republicans as they claimed at the time, it was nice to hear that part,\" he said.\n\nThe court also heard harrowing details about the extent of injuries to John Harbinson.\n\nThe dead man's son was also in the public gallery but left shortly after details of the injuries were described.\n\nHaggarty was involved in abducting Mr Harbinson, but told police he thought he was going to be beaten and shot in the legs, rather than killed.\n\nThe hearing will continue on Thursday, when a lawyer representing Gary Haggarty will outline details he gave his police handlers during 13 years as an informer.\n\nHe is said to have provided information on:\n\nProsecutors have said Haggarty's evidence is insufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of obtaining a conviction against 11 other suspected UVF members and two former police intelligence officers, allegedly his then handlers.\n\nThe police bristle at the very mention of the word supergrass, because of its association with a series of high-profile trials in the 1980s.\n\nHundreds of republicans and loyalists were convicted on the word of informers and suspects who agreed to give evidence in return for reduced sentences, new identities and lives outside Northern Ireland.\n\nThose deals were done at a political level, with the details kept secret.\n\nTechnically, those individuals were assisting offenders but they became known as \"touts\" and \"supergrasses\" in communities.\n\nThe system collapsed in 1985 because of concerns about the credibility of the evidence provided by the supergrasses.\n\nMembers of the judiciary complained that they were being used as political tools to implement government security policy.\n\nA change in law in 2005 implemented safeguards for trials of that kind.", "Rex Tillerson arrives at the Atlantic Council policy forum to discuss North Korea\n\nThe US is \"ready to talk any time\" with North Korea without preconditions, says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.\n\nHis statement appeared to shift the US position away from previous demands that North Korea must disarm before any talks can be held.\n\nBut hours later the White House said President Donald Trump's views on North Korea \"had not changed\".\n\nNorth Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons technology has led to heavy US-led sanctions against the regime.\n\nSeparately, the UN's political chief Jeffrey Feltman, who recently visited Pyongyang, told reporters that North Korean officials felt it was \"important to prevent war\".\n\nChina and Russia both welcomed Mr Tillerson's comments. The Chinese foreign ministry hoped there would now be \"meaningful steps towards dialogue and contact\" between the US and the North.\n\nRussian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said: \"Such constructive statements impress us far more than the confrontational rhetoric that we have heard up to now.\"\n\nDiplomatic relations between the US and North Korea have been strained by recent North Korean nuclear and missile tests, and by a war of words between Mr Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un.\n\nSpeaking at the Atlantic Council policy forum on Tuesday, Mr Tillerson said the US \"simply cannot accept a nuclear armed North Korea\".\n\nAppearing to soften the US stance towards potential future talks, he said: \"Let's just meet and let's talk about the weather if you want and talk about whether it's going to be a square table or a round table if that's what you're excited about.\n\n\"Then we can begin to lay out a map, a road map, of what we might be willing to work towards.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How could war with North Korea unfold?\n\nBut he insisted that there needed to be a \"period of quiet\" first, without any nuclear or missile tests.\n\nHe added that economic and diplomatic sanctions would continue until \"the first bomb drops\", and Mr Trump still wanted China - Pyongyang's main economic ally - to cut off oil supplies to North Korea.\n\nMr Tillerson also said China had made contingency plans to accommodate North Korean refugees in the event of a conflict, a major concern for China.\n\nSeveral hours after his comments, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders released a statement to reporters saying Mr Trump's views \"have not changed\".\n\n\"North Korea is acting in an unsafe way not only toward Japan, China, and South Korea, but the entire world. North Korea's actions are not good for anyone and certainly not good for North Korea.\"\n\nOn Wednesday, North Korean state media said Kim Jong-un had vowed his country would become \"the strongest nuclear power and military power in the world\".\n\nSpeaking at a munitions industry conference, he cited North Korea's recent launch of intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-15 as a \"great historic victory\".\n\nThe UN's Jeffrey Feltman said that while senior North Korean officials did not offer any commitments, they had agreed that discussions should continue.\n\n\"They agreed that it was important to prevent war,\" he said, in his first briefing since his four-day trip last week.\n\n\"We've left the door ajar and I fervently hope the door to a negotiated solution will now be opened wide.\"", "A row has broken out over advice given to police in England and Wales telling them not to stop and search people only because they smell of cannabis.\n\nIt was first given to police last year and was reiterated by an Inspectorate of Constabulary report on Tuesday.\n\nThe advice says officers should look at other factors like behaviour as well.\n\nBut some officers, including the chief constable of Merseyside Police, said they disagreed. The College of Policing said it plans to review the guidance.\n\nPolice officers can use stop-and-search powers if they have \"reasonable grounds\" to suspect someone is carrying items such as drugs, weapons or stolen property.\n\nLast year, they were given new guidance by the College of Policing that the smell of cannabis on its own would not normally justify stopping and searching someone or their vehicle.\n\nBut the Inspectorate of Constabulary said many officers were unaware of the guidance and it is now urging forces to encourage officers to not rely on a smell alone.\n\nHowever, Chief Constable Andy Cooke, of Merseyside Police, said he would not be giving that advice to his teams.\n\nHe tweeted: \"I disagree. The guidance in my view is wrong and the law does not preclude it.\n\n\"Smell of cannabis is sufficient to stop search and I will continue to encourage my officers to use it particularly on those criminals who are engaged in serious and organised crime.\"\n\nMatt Locke, of Northumbria Police, described the guidance as \"inconsistent\", adding that it was \"a bit of a dog's dinner\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Matt Locke This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnother police officer, from North Yorkshire Police, tweeted: \"If I smell cannabis on someone or coming from a vehicle then I'll conduct a search. I don't think there's a cop in this land that wouldn't.\n\n\"Recently not only had that led to me seizing quantities of cannabis, but also arresting drivers showing with it in their system.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Josh Bourne This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMike Cunningham, HM Inspector of Constabulary, responded to questions on social media about the guidance by saying the smell of cannabis \"can be reasonable grounds\" to search but it will be \"for the officer to explain\".\n\nHe added that the advice \"encourages multiple grounds\" to merit a stop and search.\n\nThe row came after the Inspectorate of Constabulary analysed more than 8,500 stop and search records and found almost 600 were conducted solely because police could smell cannabis.\n\nSearches based on other grounds, such as the suspect's behaviour, result in more arrests, the report said.\n\nAt the heart of this row is an important question: are too many people being needlessly stopped and searched for drugs?\n\nThe Inspectorate report drops a heavy hint that they are.\n\nIt says police carried out 3,698 searches, 43% of the sample, because officers believed a suspect had drugs on them for their own use, even though drug possession offences may not be \"priority crimes\".\n\nThe watchdog is concerned about this, firstly, because drug possession searches are not necessarily the best use of police time; and secondly, because they appear to affect ethnic minority groups disproportionately.\n\nThat's one of the key reasons why the Inspectorate has reinforced the College of Policing guidance on stop and searches, including the advice about smelling cannabis - even though it's caused a stink.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Danny Shaw This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by College of Policing This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 4 by College of Policing\n\nThe report said it was \"troubling\" that black people were eight times more likely to be stopped than white people.\n\nAt the same time, black people were less likely to have illegal substances found on them than white people.\n\nThe National Police Chiefs' Council said it was looking at why young black men were disproportionately stopped.\n\nThe NPCC said stop-and-search powers were important \"with rising knife and gun crime\", as well as being a deterrent for people considering carrying out acid attacks.", "Myles Bradbury was sentenced to 22 years in prison for abusing child patients\n\nThe mother of a child abused by a paedophile hospital doctor says her son has been \"destroyed\" by what happened.\n\nMyles Bradbury was jailed for 22 years in December 2014 after admitting abusing 18 victims at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.\n\nThe hospital has agreed a number of payouts with Bradbury's victims.\n\nSpeaking publicly for the first time, the mother of one victim said her son had had to be taken out of education and she fears he could kill himself.\n\nThe mother, who lives in Norfolk, said her son was taken out of education completely a few years ago and now spends most of his time in complete seclusion.\n\nAged between 10 and 12 when he was abused, the teenager has felt unable to see a doctor since the revelations about Bradbury first emerged three years ago, his mother said.\n\nThe pen used by Bradbury also had a small camera just above the clip and could be plugged into a computer to download the footage\n\n\"Myles Bradbury destroyed our beautiful boy's life,\" his mother said.\n\n\"So much so that I can't see any way that he'll ever recover.\n\n\"He is so bad that we live in fear of him committing suicide.\n\n\"We have to watch him 24 hours a day. The first thing we do every day when we wake, we check to see that he is still alive. If he is a bit late getting up we are worried that he will have done something terrible.\n\n\"It is completely heartbreaking. He hides away pretty much all day and refuses to leave the house.\n\n\"Whilst he has us around I hope he will be okay, but I feel that if we were not around, he'd do something awful.\"\n\nBradbury visited an orphanage in Swaziland in 2012 as part of a team helping 300 children\n\nBradbury, of Herringswell in Suffolk, admitted 25 offences, including sexual assault, voyeurism and possessing more than 16,000 indecent images.\n\nThe blood cancer specialist used a spy pen to take pictures of his victims.\n\nThat device was found to hold 170,425 images of \"boys partially clothed... none indecent\", Cambridge Crown Court heard at the time of his sentencing.\n\nThe images of his victims, some of whom had haemophilia, leukaemia and other serious illnesses, were gathered at Addenbrooke's Hospital.\n\nRenu Daly, of Hudgell's solicitors, said although some claims have been settled with the hospital, eight cases relating to child victims were ongoing, including some in which the victims suffered \"catastrophic psychological injuries\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A three-year-old girl has become the fourth child to die after a house fire which also killed three of her siblings.\n\nLia Pearson was left critically ill after the blaze in Walkden, Salford, on Monday. She died in hospital.\n\nDemi, 15, died at the scene on Jackson Street. Her brother and sister, Brandon, eight, and Lacie, seven, died later in hospital.\n\nPosting on Facebook, Sandra Lever, who described Lia as her \"beautiful granddaughter\", said she \"had passed away peacefully\".\n\nTwo people have been charged with the murder of the three older children.\n\nZac Bolland, 23, and Courtney Brierley, 20, both of Worsley, Salford, were also charged with arson and four counts of attempted murder.\n\nOne of the charges of attempted murder is likely to be changed to murder following Lia's death, Greater Manchester Police said.\n\nMr Bolland and Ms Brierley were remanded in custody when they appeared before magistrates.\n\nAny new charges would be heard when they next appear at Manchester Crown Court, police added.\n\nBrandon and Lacie died in hospital on Monday\n\nTwo 16-year-olds - who can not be named for legal reasons - in the house at the time of the blaze which broke out at about 05:00 GMT managed to escape.\n\nGreater Manchester Police confirmed there had been incidents at the family's home prior to the blaze and it had referred the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).\n\nMichelle Pearson is in a serious condition in hospital\n\nFour children aged 15, eight, seven, and three, died in the blaze\n\nDemi Pearson, 15, was a pupil at Harrop Fold School in Salford\n\nDrew Povey, head teacher at Harrop Fold School, Worsley, which Demi attended, paid tribute to the popular pupil.\n\nHe said she was a \"really good kid… fun-loving… and funny\".\n\n\"I don't know anyone that didn't really get on well with her… and it was the same outside of school as well,\" he added.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Ms Dugdale made no comment to journalists when she returned to the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday afternoon\n\nScottish Labour has given its former leader a written warning over her controversial appearance on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!.\n\nBut the party said Kezia Dugdale would face no further disciplinary action after her stint on the reality TV show.\n\nMs Dugdale flew into Glasgow Airport from Australia just before midday.\n\nShe then met party bosses, including her successor Richard Leonard, and was formally reprimanded over her \"unauthorised absence\".\n\nMs Dugdale later arrived at Holyrood in time for a vote at 17:00, and made no comment to waiting journalists when she left the chamber a short time later.\n\nA statement subsequently released by Scottish Labour said Ms Dugdale had been interviewed by its parliamentary group executive.\n\nMs Dugdale insisted she had used her time in the jungle to promote Labour values\n\nThe statement added: \"Following a discussion between Richard Leonard, Kezia Dugdale, and the group executive, it has been decided that the group will reprimand Ms Dugdale by way of written warning. She will not face further action.\"\n\nIt quoted Ms Dugdale as saying that she had \"deep regret\" that her appearance on the reality show had \"caused issues in the first weeks of Richard Leonard's leadership\", and that she was now \"getting back to work\".\n\nMs Dugdale, who faced criticism over her three-week absence from the Scottish Parliament while appearing on the show, had earlier said it was \"good to be back\" in Scotland as she arrived at the airport,\n\nThe MSP was the second contestant to be voted off the ITV show, which was won by Made in Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo.\n\nShe spent a week in Australia after being evicted from the jungle - and has pledged to donate a percentage of her appearance fee to charity, but has not said exactly how much.\n\nShe took her seat in the Holyrood chamber in time for a vote at the end of the day's business\n\nVoting statistics released by the programme showed that Ms Dugdale won just 1.67% of the votes on the day she was evicted.\n\nAs she arrived in Glasgow, Ms Dugdale said the experience was one she was never going to forget.\n\nThe politician, who remained in Australia until after the programme's final on Sunday, had said she wanted to use her appearance to reach out to young people about political values.\n\nAsked if she felt she had in fact promoted Labour values she replied: \"I did so in the jungle and will continue to do so.\"\n\nMs Dugdale arrived back in Glasgow earlier on Wednesday after three weeks in Australia\n\nMs Dugdale, who was not suspended despite fierce criticism from some within Scottish Labour, has acknowledged she has \"a bit of work to do to make amends\".\n\nShe previously told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme it was difficult to seek approval for her appearance on the show during the leadership contest between Richard Leonard and Anas Sarwar.\n\nThe election, triggered by her resignation in August, was won by Mr Leonard - who immediately expressed his disappointment at Ms Dugdale's decision, which was made public just hours before the leadership result was announced.\n\nMr Leonard said at the time that the party would consider suspending Ms Dugdale - but UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he did not believe suspension would be appropriate.\n\nAfter being voted out on the jungle, Ms Dugdale said: \"I do understand that it's controversial, I do understand there are lots of people at home that are unhappy that I've taken part in this programme and I've got a bit of work to do to make amends.\n\n\"But please don't doubt the fact that I'm devoted to the Labour Party, I love my job and I think I'm better-placed to do it for a long time now having had this experience.\"", "The editorial board of USA Today has said President Donald Trump is \"unfit to clean the toilets\" in Barack Obama's library or shine George W Bush's shoes.\n\nThe scathing editorial comes after Mr Trump claimed a female senator \"would do anything\" for campaign cash - words which some regarded as sexual innuendo.\n\n\"Rock bottom is no impediment for a president who can always find room for a new low,\" the newspaper added.\n\nUSA Today is not known for publishing such blistering editorials.\n\nOne of the nation's highest-circulated newspapers, it usually includes an \"opposing view\" column with each opinion piece.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBut during the 2016 election, the newspaper broke its tradition of not endorsing a presidential candidate by publishing an editorial outlining why, it argued, Mr Trump was \"unfit for the presidency\".\n\nAlthough USA Today did not endorse his challenger Hillary Clinton, it told their readers to vote \"just not for Donald Trump\".\n\nIts latest editorial came a day after Mr Trump tweeted that New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand had \"come to my office 'begging' for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them)\".\n\nMrs Gillibrand earlier this week called on Mr Trump to resign over allegations of sexual harassment by multiple women.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jessica Leeds is calling on Congress to open an inquiry into President Trump\n\nBy Wednesday, five other Democratic senators had joined her call.\n\nUSA Today responded: \"A president who would all but call Sen Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W Bush.\n\n\"This isn't about the policy differences we have with all presidents or our disappointment in some of their decisions.\n\n\"Obama and Bush both failed in many ways. They broke promises and told untruths, but the basic decency of each man was never in doubt.\"\n\nWhite House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Mr Trump was referring to political corruption in his tweet about the New York senator, and dismissed the notion that his words were sexist.\n\n\"I think only if your mind is in the gutter would you have read it that way,\" Ms Sanders told Tuesday's daily press briefing.\n\nThe USA Today piece goes on to describe Mr Trump as \"uniquely awful\", and having an \"utter lack of morality, ethics and simple humanity\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by People This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNearly 60 congresswomen have urged Congress to investigate claims against Mr Trump of sexual harassment and groping.\n\nMr Trump said this week Democrats were seeking to capitalise on \"the false accusations and fabricated stories of women who I don't know and/or have never met. FAKE NEWS!\"\n\nThe White House press secretary later qualified the president was only referring to three Trump accusers who appeared at a news conference on Monday.\n\nThat clarification came after one accuser offered photographic evidence of her meeting Mr Trump in December 2005.\n\nThe former writer for People Magazine claims Mr Trump pushed her against a wall and \"forc[ed] his tongue down my throat\" when she interviewed him at his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The 2017 'Arctic Report' showed that sea ice more than four years old has largely disappeared in the Arctic\n\nA warming, rapidly changing Arctic is the \"new normal\" and shows no signs of returning to the reliably frozen region of the past.\n\nThis is according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Arctic Report Card.\n\nDirector of the administration's Arctic Researcher Program, Dr Jeremy Mathis, said the region did a great service to the planet - acting as a refrigerator.\n\n\"We've now left that refrigerator door open,\" he added.\n\nDr Mathis was speaking at the annual American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans, where Noaa presented its annual summation of Arctic science.\n\nThis is the 12th report the administration has produced. And although it pointed to \"a few anomalies\" in a recent pattern of warming in the Arctic region, Dr Mathis said: \"We can confirm, it will not stay in its reliably frozen state.\"\n\n\"The thing I took that had the most resonance for me was we're able to use some really long-term records to put the Arctic change into context - going back more than 1,500 years.\n\n\"What's really alarming for me is that we're seeing the Arctic is changing faster than at any rate in recorded history.\"\n\nThe speed of change, Dr Mathis added, was making it very hard for people to adapt.\n\n\"Villages are being washed away, particularly in the North American Arctic - creating some of the first climate refugees,\" he said.\n\n\"And pace of sea level rise is increasing because the Arctic is warming faster than we anticipated even a decade ago.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Which cities might flood as the ice melts?\n\nScientists say it is clear that human-induced climate change is contributing to making the Arctic a warmer and more dynamic place.\n\n\"When we look at the darkening of the Arctic,\" said Dr Mathis, \"reflective, icy surfaces are melting to reveal darker surfaces that absorb more of the Sun's energy.\n\nGreening Arctic: Vegetation in the tundra is becoming 'bigger and leafier'\n\n\"So it probably only took a little bit of human-induced change to start the Arctic down this cascading pathway; a little bit of ice melting led to a little bit of warming, which led to more ice melting, which led to more warming.\n\n\"And now we're seeing an acceleration - a runaway effect that may eventually be a catastrophic runaway effect starting to take hold in the Arctic.\"\n\nOceanographer and retired US Navy Rear Admiral Timothy Gallaudet, who was appointed by the Trump Administration as acting administrator of Noaa, was asked during the Arctic report presentation about the response of the White House to the findings.\n\nMany scientists viewed President Trump's recent decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement as clear evidence of his scepticism about human-induced climate change.\n\nHe said that the White House was \"addressing and acknowledging it and factoring it in to their agenda\".\n\nDr Mathis added that information coming from this report was \"beyond reproach\".\n\n\"They're facts. Facts weighted in thousands and thousands of scientific measurements that have been validated and peer reviewed by a community of experts working in the area for decades.\n\n\"Policy-makers can use those facts as they see fit.\"", "The Tory rebels, and the government, believed that a last-minute panicked concession from the government side had walked Theresa May back from the brink of defeat.\n\nFrantic conversations between the government, the whips, the party managers and their MPs who were tempted to rebel had been taking place all day.\n\nWe saw cabinet ministers take MPs aside - for just a quiet chat of course - in the closing moments of the vote.\n\nAnd during the voting, which always takes about 15 minutes, some of those who were tempted tweeted that they had decided to abstain - the last minute promise from the minister, Dominic Raab, had changed their minds or delayed the clash.\n\nWe saw as one of the possible rebels, a new Scottish MP, Paul Masterton, was cajoled by the Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson (the chief whip until weeks ago) - then after the conversation, picked up his mobile phone and tweeted that he was going to abstain. But the arm twisting and arguments failed.\n\nAs the MPs who count the votes made their way to the Speaker's chair, the opposition teller made their way to the outside of the despatch box.\n\nIt's a physical signal of telling MPs who has won before the official announcement takes place. As that happened the House of Commons erupted - well at least the Labour side.\n\nMinisters looked like they felt sick. The deputy speaker had to call for silence so the chamber could hear the actual result.\n\nTotal silence, and then disbelief as the result was read out. The government had been beaten after all, by only four votes.\n\nIt's the first time that Theresa May has been defeated on her own business in the Commons. She has to front up in Brussels tomorrow with other EU leaders only hours after an embarrassing loss in Parliament.\n\nBeyond the red faces in government tonight, does it really matter? Ministers tonight are divided on that. Two cabinet ministers have told me while it's disappointing it doesn't really matter in the big picture.\n\nIt's certainly true that the Tory party is so divided over how we leave the EU that the Parliamentary process was always going to be very, very choppy.\n\nBut another minister told me the defeat is \"bad for Brexit\" and was openly frustrated and worried about their colleagues' behaviour.\n\nIt's possible too that it was a miscalculation that could have been avoided. Had the minister at the despatch box put forward the concession even a few hours earlier, that tiny number of votes might have gone the other way.\n\nThis is only the first big piece of legislation related to our withdrawal from the EU and it has run into trouble.\n\nAnd one of the leading Tory rebels predicted the government will have to drop one of its other plans, to put a Brexit date in the withdrawal bill, next week.\n\nThe broader risk for May is not just that she will have to budge on this particular issue, but that the small group of rebels in the Tory party is strengthened by actually having had this kind of impact - and the opposition parties are already emboldened.\n\nTheresa May had been having her first good week in many, many months. That brief respite just might have come to an end.\n\nStephen Hammond, one of the rebels, has just been sacked from his position as deputy Conservative Party chairman. Tonight, no-one is playing nice.", "Salma Hayek, seen here promoting Frida in 2003, which she starred in and co-produced\n\nActress Salma Hayek has described Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein as a rage-fuelled \"monster\", alleging he sexually harassed and threatened her.\n\nWriting in the New York Times, Hayek said Weinstein once told her: \"I will kill you, don't think I can't.\"\n\nDozens of actresses, including Rose McGowan, Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow, have accused Weinstein of harassment or assault.\n\nWriting in the New York Times, Hayek, 51, described working with the film mogul on what she called her \"greatest ambition\" - telling the story of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.\n\nShe wrote that, after striking a deal with Weinstein for the rights of the film that would eventually become 2002's Frida, she was forced to repeatedly refuse sexual advances.\n\n\"No to me taking a shower with him.\n\n\"No to letting him watch me take a shower.\n\n\"No to letting him give me a massage.\n\n\"No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage.\n\n\"No to letting him give me oral sex.\n\n\"No to my getting naked with another woman,\" she wrote.\n\nShe went on to accuse him of threatening to shut the film down unless she filmed a nude sex scene with another actress.\n\n\"I had to take a tranquilizer, which eventually stopped the crying but made the vomiting worse,\" she wrote of her emotional turmoil at filming a scene she thought unnecessary.\n\n\"As you can imagine, this was not sexy, but it was the only way I could get through the scene.\"\n\nWeinstein's spokeswoman said in a statement: \"Mr Weinstein does not recall pressuring Salma to do a gratuitous sex scene with a female co-star and he was not there for the filming.\"\n\n\"All of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma are not accurate and others who witnessed the events have a different account of what transpired.\"\n\nFrida would eventually gather six Oscar nominations, including a Best Actress nod for Hayek.\n\nMr Weinstein has been accused of rape, sexual assault and harassment, but has \"unequivocally denied\" any allegations of non-consensual relationships.", "The Ministry of Justice has released footage of a gang caught using a drone to deliver contraband to prisons. The ringleader, Craig Hickinbottom, organised the flights from behind bars. He's been sentenced to an extra seven years and two months in jail.", "Ed Sheeran has picked up his MBE from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace.\n\nThe singer was awarded his gong for services to music and charity.", "Marie Brown and Noel Brown were found dead on 4 December\n\nA father who was found strangled along with his adult daughter at his London home was a convicted sex offender, police have said.\n\nNoel Brown, 69, and Marie Brown, 41, were found in Deptford on Monday.\n\nPolice said a link to the 1999 sex attack was an \"obvious line of inquiry\" but they had no evidence that revenge was the motive for the murders.\n\nThey also revealed Mr Brown's attacker had tried to dismember his body. No arrests have been made.\n\nPolice have stepped up patrols in the area following the murders.\n\nPolice say Noel Brown had been to a betting shop on the last day he was seen alive\n\nThe bodies were found after Ms Brown's family reported her missing when she failed to come home after going to check on her father.\n\nPolice said Mr Brown had served a long prison sentence for the sex attack.\n\nDet Supt Paul Monk said there were \"no signs of forced entry to the property\" and police were trying to establish \"if the suspects or suspects were known to Noel and if Marie disturbed them.\"\n\nPost-mortem examinations found she and her father died as a result of strangulation.\n\nDet Supt Paul Monk said it was \"a deeply distressing time for Noel and Marie's family as they come to terms with their loss.\"\n\nHe said Mr Brown was \"well known and liked locally\" and was last seen alive on 30 November in his local betting shop, Paddy Power, in Deptford High Street.\n\n\"There has been speculation that his murder was as a result of a large gambling win, however at this time there is no evidence to suggest this was the case,\" he said.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Daisy Ridley deleted her social media after becoming famous\n\nStar Wars actress Daisy Ridley says becoming famous made her delete her social media.\n\nThe 25-year-old, who stars as Rey in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, quit Instagram earlier this year.\n\nIn an interview with Radio Times, she says she did it because of how bad it is for mental health.\n\nRidley says: \"The more I read about teenage anxiety, the more I think it's highly unhealthy for people's mental health.\"\n\nShe adds: \"It's such a weird thing for young people to look at distorted images of things they should be.\"\n\nRidley's big break came in 2014 when she was cast in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Before that she had only had minor roles in Casualty and Mr Selfridge.\n\nShe says her \"life suddenly got a bit different\" after being cast in the sci-fi film franchise.\n\n\"I'm definitely recognised more, but I find the whole taking pictures thing weird,\" she says.\n\n\"I'd prefer to have a conversation than someone asking for a picture, but I guess people feel the need to prove they've had the interaction through social media.\"\n\nRidley with her co-stars Gwendoline Christie, John Boyega and director Rian Johnson.\n\nRidley deleted her social media in September, following the likes of celebrities like Adele, Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber, who have all deleted their accounts in the past after being overwhelmed by the online world.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'We're preparing for the worst', says Standard Chartered boss Bill Winters\n\nThe UK's ability to attract talent is already suffering, following the vote to leave the EU, according to the boss of the UK's fifth-largest bank.\n\nStandard Chartered is \"preparing for the worst\" from Brexit, chief executive Bill Winters told the BBC.\n\nThe UK-headquartered bank is in the process of turning its Frankfurt branch into a subsidiary requiring additional capital, licences and staff.\n\nHe said this was \"inconvenient and expensive\" and will damage London.\n\n\"London will take hits in the context of Brexit… I think big parts of the euro-denominated corporate banking business will be forced into Europe.\n\n\"It's possible that through the Brexit negotiations that there is some sort of extended passporting rule [ability of banks to sell services across Europe from a UK base] but none of us are expecting that quite frankly, or preparing for that.\n\n\"We have to prepare for the worst… let's hope for the best, but we're prepared for the worst.\"\n\nMr Winters said he would be happy to take the tens of millions of pounds he has spent on Brexit contingency planning and \"flush it down the toilet\" if it meant he could carry on as before and maintain the bank's current structure.\n\nThe mood music from the UK has already affected the bank's ability to attract the best and brightest talent according to Mr Winters.\n\n\"We have already had some setbacks for the talent pool in London through the restriction on student visas. That's already a problem.\n\n\"Some of the best talent that we can have in the UK marketplace is coming from students that have chosen to study here and then stayed for some extended period afterwards… We've noticed that's been impacted already.\n\n\"More through a sense from non-UK [people] that this might not be such a hospitable place any longer - it's more psychological than contractual.\"\n\nOfficial numbers bear this out. After a decade of uninterrupted growth, applications from EU students for places at UK universities dropped by more than 7% last year, according to UCAS, even though their right to stay on and work is, as yet, unaffected.\n\nA Department for Education spokesperson said it was taking action to provide certainty for students.\n\n\"We have confirmed that EU students starting their courses in the academic year 18/19 or before will continue to be eligible for student loans and home fee status and will have a right to remain in the UK to complete their course,\" they added.\n\nBill Winters says US President Donald Trump is wrong to allow China to grow its economic influence\n\nStandard Chartered is not a High Street bank here in the UK.\n\nIt is probably best known here as Liverpool FC's shirt sponsor but it is a well-known financial brand in Asia, the Middle East and Africa and has a front row seat when it comes to financing global trade and investment.\n\nIt provides advice and cash to grease the wheels of commerce within and between some of the world's fastest-growing markets.\n\nFormer Wall Street banker Mr Winters is convinced the US under Donald Trump is making a big mistake in allowing China to grow its global economic influence in areas from which the US is retreating - as demonstrated when it dropped out of a trade mega deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership.\n\n\"They're creating effectively a multi-regional trading bloc creating these markets in much the same way that the US and UK created markets in Europe after the Second World War during a period of so much devastation.\n\n\"They are creating markets where they will be less dependent on Europe…the US is taking itself out of some of the key discussions for them and then actual trade agreements where the US could continue to have an extremely benevolent influence that it has had for decades. I think we have got to be extremely careful about that - and the UK does as well.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Winters understands risk. He was part of a major report into the stability of the UK financial system commissioned by the government after the financial crisis. He believes the banks are much more secure than they were a decade ago but that has presented another type of risk.\n\nA lot of banks have seen their profitability, their earning power reduced.\n\nThey have been forced to hold more shock-absorbing money in reserve and that has meant their earning power per pound of the capital they set aside has diminished.\n\nMeanwhile, technology companies are coming along and doing lots of the things banks like to charge for - like foreign exchange and making payments - and doing them more cheaply and conveniently.\n\nMany experts think banking's next crisis is the competition from nimble tech firms that don't have all the expense associated with being a bank.\n\nThis is one reason why many banks' shares (including Standard Chartered) - are trading at roughly half the price they appear to be worth on paper.\n\nThe idea that banks can't make enough money may seem perverse but any business that can't earn a sufficient return on the capital provided by investors is ultimately doomed as investors will take their capital away.\n\nMr Winters, however, is confident that banks are here to stay.\n\n\"For my thirty five years in banking I've started every year with people saying there is some enormous competitive threat looming - and they are right - there always is. But if you serve your customers as best you can you will stay relevant\"", "Headlines in Arab and Turkish newspapers are crowded with strident criticism and expressions of dismay in response to President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\n\nThose in the Israeli press welcome the move, saying it should never have taken decades to happen.\n\n\"Thank you Mr President for this brave and historic decision. Thank you for applying your famous common sense to such a critical declaration on such a crucial issue,\" says one commentator in the Israeli newspaper, Yisrael Hayom.\n\nAnother, in Maariv, says Trump \"broke the fear barrier\".\n\n\"It is time to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” says Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth\n\n\"Trump is right: The world's refusal of 70 years to officially recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has been a stupid mistake,\" says a commentator in Yedioth Ahronoth. \"The claim that the speech harms the peace process is untenable, because there is no peace process.\"\n\nThe paper printed the full text of Mr Trump's speech, dubbing it \"The Jerusalem Declaration\" - echoing the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which expressed the British government's support for a Jewish national home in Palestine and paved the way for Israel's creation.\n\n\"Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and in the same breath watered down the American commitment to the two-state solution,\" says an editorial in the broadsheet Haaretz. \"It is clear that America will not 'rescue Israel from itself' and will not bring about the end of the occupation.\"\n\nThe view from the Palestinian territories is rather different. A headline in the Palestinian Authority-owned newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadidah calls the US move the \"slap of the century\".\n\nPalestinian Al-Hayat al-Jadidah featured the announcement prominently on its front cover\n\nAn editorial in the paper warns that \"the gates of hell will be opened in the region\", echoing a statement made by the Islamist group Hamas.\n\nThere are also calls for effective and measured responses.\n\n\"Why should we not launch a calm intifada (uprising) and return to long-lasting negotiations?\" asks one commentator in the pro-Fatah Al-Ayyam newspaper. \"It would be better for us to wager on our political achievements and not on a third intifada.\"\n\nA commentator in the pro-Hamas biweekly Al-Risalah echoes this: \"We should reject the US and Israeli pressure, and move to enhance Palestinian national reconciliation until we achieve national unity. The least we can do is to concentrate all our energies and to overcome our differences in order to protect Jerusalem and reject the new US decision.\"\n\n\"For you, the city of prayer, I pray\" - Al Jazeera responded to the speech by showing the Fairouz song, Flower Among Cities\n\nThe main Arab TV news channels are running special coverage of the announcement, reporting on the international reaction and reflecting on Jerusalem's place in Arab culture.\n\nAn evocative song by the well-known Lebanese singer Fairouz, Flower Among Cities, has been played by some channels, including Al Jazeera. In it Fairouz sings about the loss of Jerusalem, and about the Palestinians' hope that they will one day return to it.\n\nAl Arabiya TV showed footage of a Christmas tree with its lights turned off in Ramallah\n\nAt the top of its morning bulletin, the Saudi-funded Al Arabiya TV cited the kingdom's official response expressing its \"deep regret\" over Mr Trump's decision and urging his administration to reconsider.\n\nIt highlighted demonstrations and strikes being held by Palestinians and reported that the lights on Bethlehem's Christmas tree had been switched off in protest.\n\nIn Egypt, Al-Dustur's front page says: \"Announcing the death of the Arabs\". Another daily complains that \"Trump gives what he doesn't own to those who don't deserve it\".\n\nIn Turkey, articles accuse Trump of going \"crazy\" and \"pouring petrol on fire\".\n\nBBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Trump says his Jerusalem decision is in the best interest of peace\n\nUS President Donald Trump announced in a speech on Wednesday that Washington was officially recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Here is the full transcript of what he said, as released by the White House.\n\nWhen I came into office, I promised to look at the world's challenges with open eyes and very fresh thinking. We cannot solve our problems by making the same failed assumptions and repeating the same failed strategies of the past. Old challenges demand new approaches.\n\nMy announcement today marks the beginning of a new approach to conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.\n\nIn 1995, Congress adopted the Jerusalem Embassy Act, urging the federal government to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem and to recognise that that city - and so importantly - is Israel's capital. This act passed Congress by an overwhelming bipartisan majority and was reaffirmed by a unanimous vote of the Senate only six months ago.\n\nYet, for over 20 years, every previous American president has exercised the law's waiver, refusing to move the US embassy to Jerusalem or to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital city.\n\nPresidents issued these waivers under the belief that delaying the recognition of Jerusalem would advance the cause of peace. Some say they lacked courage, but they made their best judgments based on facts as they understood them at the time. Nevertheless, the record is in. After more than two decades of waivers, we are no closer to a lasting peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. It would be folly to assume that repeating the exact same formula would now produce a different or better result.\n\nTherefore, I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\n\nWhile previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.\n\nI've judged this course of action to be in the best interests of the United States of America and the pursuit of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This is a long-overdue step to advance the peace process and to work towards a lasting agreement.\n\nIsrael is a sovereign nation with the right like every other sovereign nation to determine its own capital. Acknowledging this as a fact is a necessary condition for achieving peace.\n\nIt was 70 years ago that the United States, under President Truman, recognised the State of Israel. Ever since then, Israel has made its capital in the city of Jerusalem - the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times. Today, Jerusalem is the seat of the modern Israeli government. It is the home of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, as well as the Israeli Supreme Court. It is the location of the official residence of the prime minister and the president. It is the headquarters of many government ministries.\n\nFor decades, visiting American presidents, secretaries of state, and military leaders have met their Israeli counterparts in Jerusalem, as I did on my trip to Israel earlier this year.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why the ancient city of Jerusalem is so important\n\nJerusalem is not just the heart of three great religions, but it is now also the heart of one of the most successful democracies in the world. Over the past seven decades, the Israeli people have built a country where Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and people of all faiths are free to live and worship according to their conscience and according to their beliefs.\n\nJerusalem is today, and must remain, a place where Jews pray at the Western Wall, where Christians walk the Stations of the Cross, and where Muslims worship at al-Aqsa Mosque.\n\nHowever, through all of these years, presidents representing the United States have declined to officially recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. In fact, we have declined to acknowledge any Israeli capital at all.\n\nBut today, we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. This is nothing more, or less, than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It's something that has to be done.\n\nThat is why, consistent with the Jerusalem Embassy Act, I am also directing the state department to begin preparation to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This will immediately begin the process of hiring architects, engineers, and planners, so that a new embassy, when completed, will be a magnificent tribute to peace.\n\nIn making these announcements, I also want to make one point very clear: This decision is not intended, in any way, to reflect a departure from our strong commitment to facilitate a lasting peace agreement. We want an agreement that is a great deal for the Israelis and a great deal for the Palestinians. We are not taking a position on any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the resolution of contested borders. Those questions are up to the parties involved.\n\nThe United States remains deeply committed to helping facilitate a peace agreement that is acceptable to both sides. I intend to do everything in my power to help forge such an agreement. Without question, Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive issues in those talks. The United States would support a two-state solution if agreed to by both sides.\n\nIn the meantime, I call on all parties to maintain the status quo at Jerusalem's holy sites, including the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif.\n\nAbove all, our greatest hope is for peace, the universal yearning in every human soul. With today's action, I reaffirm my administration's longstanding commitment to a future of peace and security for the region.\n\nThere will, of course, be disagreement and dissent regarding this announcement. But we are confident that ultimately, as we work through these disagreements, we will arrive at a peace and a place far greater in understanding and co-operation.\n\nThis sacred city should call forth the best in humanity, lifting our sights to what it is possible; not pulling us back and down to the old fights that have become so totally predictable. Peace is never beyond the grasp of those willing to reach.\n\nSo today, we call for calm, for moderation, and for the voices of tolerance to prevail over the purveyors of hate. Our children should inherit our love, not our conflicts.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Palestinians and Israelis react to US plan to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital\n\nI repeat the message I delivered at the historic and extraordinary summit in Saudi Arabia earlier this year: the Middle East is a region rich with culture, spirit, and history. Its people are brilliant, proud, and diverse, vibrant and strong. But the incredible future awaiting this region is held at bay by bloodshed, ignorance, and terror.\n\nVice-President Pence will travel to the region in the coming days to reaffirm our commitment to work with partners throughout the Middle East to defeat radicalism that threatens the hopes and dreams of future generations.\n\nIt is time for the many who desire peace to expel the extremists from their midst. It is time for all civilised nations, and people, to respond to disagreement with reasoned debate - not violence.\n\nAnd it is time for young and moderate voices all across the Middle East to claim for themselves a bright and beautiful future.\n\nSo today, let us rededicate ourselves to a path of mutual understanding and respect. Let us rethink old assumptions and open our hearts and minds to possible and possibilities. And finally, I ask the leaders of the region - political and religious; Israeli and Palestinian; Jewish and Christian and Muslim - to join us in the noble quest for lasting peace.\n\nThank you. God bless you. God bless Israel. God bless the Palestinians. And God bless the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you.", "Last updated on .From the section European Football\n\nPhilippe Coutinho scored a hat-trick as Liverpool became the fifth English club to qualify for the last 16 of this season's Champions League with a thumping victory over Spartak Moscow at Anfield.\n\nJurgen Klopp's Group E leaders came into the game knowing they needed to avoid defeat to be sure of reaching the knockout stage for the first time since 2008-09 - and Coutinho gave them the lead with a fourth-minute penalty after Mohamed Salah was fouled by Georgi Dzhikiya.\n\nThey doubled their advantage after a superb move 11 minutes later, Coutinho tapping home from Roberto Firmino's pass.\n\nFirmino netted himself to make it 3-0 at half-time, and Sadio Mane's sublime volley extended the lead.\n\nCoutinho completed his first hat-trick for the club with a deflected shot, and Mane added the sixth before Salah completed the rout.\n\nLiverpool's victory means this is the first time five English teams have qualified for the Champions League last 16 in the same season.\n\nChelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham will join the Reds in Monday's draw at Uefa headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.\n\nAsked if his side would be a threat in the last 16, Klopp said: \"If we perform like this, if we are that clinical, then yes.\n\n\"If we perform like this then it is obviously a threat, 100%.\"\n• None Read more: English teams dominate - but can one of them win it?\n• None Listen to BBC Radio 5 live's Football Daily podcast: 'The Premier League is back'\n\nThis is a huge result for Liverpool, who failed to advance from the group stage on their previous two appearances - in 2009-10 and 2014-15.\n\nKlopp's side were close to qualifying last month, but Guido Pizarro poked home in the third minute of added time as Sevilla came from 3-0 down to snatch a dramatic draw.\n\nThere was no second-half collapse this time as the Reds produced another attacking masterclass to ensure they progress in Europe's most prestigious club competition.\n\nSpartak had held the Reds to a draw in Moscow but were blown away on Merseyside as Klopp once again unleashed Coutinho, Salah, Firmino and Mane from the start.\n\nThe quartet had scored 12 of their team's 16 goals in five previous group games - and they were once again in ruthless mood.\n\nDzhikiya clumsily hauled down Salah to allow Coutinho to score before the Brazilian made it 2-0 after finishing a delicious move started by Mane and involving Salah and Firmino.\n\nFirmino made it six goals in as many group games before the goal of the night by Mane - an exquisite volley from James Milner's inch-perfect cross.\n\nCoutinho's hat-trick goal came from a deflected shot off Salvatore Bocchetti before substitute Daniel Sturridge teed up Mane for the sixth and Salah pounced from close range for the seventh.\n\nHaving beaten Brighton 5-1 in the Premier League on Saturday, Liverpool have now scored 12 goals in two games.\n\nWho can Liverpool face in the last 16?\n\nLiverpool emerge from the group unbeaten but despite finishing top and being seeded they could still face a European heavyweight in the next round.\n\nAmong the unseeded teams the Reds could face are holders Real Madrid, five-time winners Bayern Munich and Italian champions Juventus.\n\nThey cannot face a team from the same country so will avoid Chelsea, and also cannot be drawn against Sevilla, who advance from Group E as runners-up following a 1-1 draw with Maribor.\n\nThe other teams they could be paired with are Swiss club Basel, Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk and Porto.\n\n\"I don't mind too much who we get - usually I always get Real Madrid so we will see,\" added Klopp.\n\n\"There are a lot of really strong teams. This year is quite special. Not often you can face Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, but Juventus and all the others.\n\n\"We will not be happy when we see who we face in the next round, but we will be ready.\"\n\nAnalysis: 'Great on the eye - but it gets hard now'\n\nLiverpool can score goals and that's the hardest part of the game - but coming up against opposition in the next round their defence might struggle.\n\nYou can still see Liverpool scoring but will they be strong enough at the back to deal with that quality?\n\nLiverpool are great on the eye but it starts to get hard now.\n• None Coutinho's penalty was Liverpool's fastest goal in a Champions League game at Anfield (three minutes 51 seconds).\n• None Spartak have lost 23 of their past 29 Champions League away games (W5 D1).\n• None Liverpool became the fourth English side to top their Champions League group this season - it is the first time since 2006-07 that four English teams have finished first in a single group campaign.\n• None Klopp's team are now unbeaten in their past eight Champions League games, winning three and drawing five.\n• None Salah has scored more goals in all competitions this season than any other Premier League player (18).\n\nLiverpool will look to cement their place in the Premier League's top four when they host neighbours Everton in the first Merseyside derby of the season at Anfield on Sunday (14:15 GMT).\n• None Attempt blocked. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Sadio Mané.\n• None Attempt saved. Fernando (Spartak Moscow) right footed shot from a difficult angle and long range on the left is saved in the bottom left corner.\n• None Goal! Liverpool 7, Spartak Moscow 0. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the top right corner. Assisted by James Milner with a headed pass.\n• None Attempt missed. Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool) left footed shot from very close range is too high. Assisted by Trent Alexander-Arnold.\n• None Emre Can (Liverpool) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\n• None Attempt missed. Lorenzo Melgarejo (Spartak Moscow) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Andrey Eshchenko.\n• None Offside, Liverpool. Philippe Coutinho tries a through ball, but Mohamed Salah is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "This video can not be played\n\nTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "The Chancellor has been criticised by a disabled charity for saying high levels of disabled people in the workforce may have had an impact on productivity.\n\nSpeaking to the Treasury Committee, Philip Hammond said the UK should be \"extremely proud of high levels of participation by disabled people\".\n\nBut he said that may have had an impact on the UK's overall productivity.\n\nDisabled charity Scope called for an apology, saying the comments were \"unacceptable and derogatory\".\n\nLast month the government announced plans to get a million more disabled people into work within a decade.\n\nAnna Bird, director of policy and research at Scope, said Mr Hammond's comments \"fundamentally undermine the government's policy and the ambition set out by the prime minister just a week ago\".\n\nShe called on him urgently to withdraw the remarks.\n\nOffice for National Statistics figures show that disabled people remain twice as likely to be unemployed as their able-bodied peers.\n\nLabour MP Marsha de Cordova, shadow minister for disabled people, tweeted: \"As a disabled person I am shocked and appalled that Philip Hammond is trying to blame me and other disabled people for the Tories' economic failure.\n\n\"He should apologise immediately for this disgraceful comment.\"\n\nShe said the disability productivity gap had been \"stuck at 30 odd percent\" since 2010 and she called for a massive investment strategy and education programmes.\n\nSophie Morgan, a disability rights campaigner and presenter, expressed her anger on Twitter.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by sophie morgan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nShe was joined by inclusion expert Mik Scarlet, who responded to Mr Hammond by documenting his journey to work.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Mik Scarlet This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Travel is disrupted due to high winds, and low-lying areas of coastline are hit by large waves\n\nRail and ferry travel has been disrupted and dozens of schools have been shut in Scotland due to Storm Caroline's strong winds.\n\nThe Met Office has amber \"be prepared\" and yellow \"be aware\" warnings in place for Thursday's storm for Scotland.\n\nYellow warnings have been issued for snow, ice and wind on Friday and Saturday for large parts of the UK.\n\nSome rail services have, however, now been restored as the worst of the storm moved away.\n\nThe West Highland line re-opened and speed restrictions were lifted on Inverness - Aberdeen route.\n\nA bus came off a road in Orkney as high winds hit the islands\n\nMountaineering Scotland has reported gusts reaching 116mph on the summit of Cairn Gorm mountain in the Cairngorms.\n\nWinds gusting to 91mph have also been recorded at Dounreay nuclear site in Caithness, which was closed for the day at 13:00 because of the bad weather.\n\nHigh winds in Orkney have seen wave heights of up 45ft (14m) being recorded at the European Marine Energy Centre's Billia Croo wave test site.\n\nThe Met Office updated its yellow warning for snow and ice on Thursday to include southern Scotland and Northern Ireland.\n\nAn image of Storm Caroline captured by the University of Dundee Satellite Receiving Station\n\nScrabster Harbour in Caithness where winds have been gusting to 91mph\n\nThe ferry, Hamnavoe, leaving Scrabster in Caithness for Orkney on Thursday morning\n\nA railway track at Patterton was blocked by a trampoline\n\nAll schools on Lewis, Harris, Uist and Barra in the Western Isles have been closed to pupils as a precaution.\n\nElectricity company SSE Networks confirmed power has been safely restored to more than 11,500 customers.\n\nThe main areas affected were the Western Isles, north west Highlands, Caithness, Moray, north east Aberdeenshire, Orkney and Shetland.\n\nAs of 16:00 about 4,600 homes remained without power, mainly in Caithness, Orkney and Shetland.\n\nThe company said teams were working to restore power where it was safe to do so.\n\nIn the Highland Council area, more than 50 schools, which include nurseries, primary and secondary schools, were closed because of the weather.\n\nA council spokeswoman confirmed Wick Campus - including Wick High School, Newtonpark Primary School and High Life Highland Leisure facilities - will remain closed on Friday after the gym roof was damaged.\n\nAll schools in Orkney were closed from 11:30.\n\nIn Shetland, where police have warned of debris on roads in Lerwick and issues affecting the A970, all schools were closed from lunchtime and will remain shut on Friday.\n\nTwo schools in Moray were also closed early because of the weather.\n\nSandbags in Macduff on the Aberdeenshire coast following warnings of high tides, strong winds and large waves\n\nWork to clear up debris from a wind-damaged tree in Inverness\n\nA wet and windy scene on Shetland where all schools closed from lunchtime\n\nRail services between Glasgow Central and Neilston were disrupted for almost two hours after a trampoline blew onto the track at Patterton in East Renfrewshire.\n\nAt the height of the storm, the bus company Stagecoach said it had to suspended its services in the north of Scotland.\n\nFerry operators Caledonian MacBrayne and Serco Northlink warned of continuing disruption to routes on Scotland's west and north coasts.\n\nFerry sailings to and from Shetland were cancelled on Thursday night.\n\nSerco Northlink is also advising customers that both of Friday's passenger sailings from Lerwick and Aberdeen are under review with a high probability of cancellations.\n\nThe crew of the ferry Hamnavoe that left Scrabster in Caithness earlier on Thursday, had to seek shelter in Scapa Flow in Orkney having been unable to berth in Stromness.\n\nA seal in wind-blown sand at Newburgh beach in Aberdeenshire\n\nDue to concerns about large waves during the storm, all personnel have been taken off the North Sea platform Ninian Southern off Shetland and production shut down.\n\nCairnGorm Mountain snowsports centre near Aviemore was closed on Thursday because of the expected high winds.\n\nBlustery conditions at Invergordon in an image taken by BBC Weather Watcher Winkers\n\nIt has emerged that, as the storm approached Scotland, bad weather caused a gangway connected to a North Sea oil platform to separate from an accommodation vessel.\n\nThe gangway between the Safe Boreas and the Mariner platform east of Shetland automatically disconnected due to worsening weather conditions.\n\nStatoil said no-one was injured, but it did leave 36 workers, who were on the neighbouring Noble Lloyd Noble rig unable to get back to the accommodation vessel. They made the short journey on Thursday morning by helicopter.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Fletcher's appointment followed the departure of Singer, who was accused of being \"unreliable\"\n\nDirecting duties for Bohemian Rhapsody, the Freddie Mercury film biopic, have been taken on by Eddie the Eagle's Dexter Fletcher, after the firing of Bryan Singer.\n\nThe actor turned Bafta-nominated director was previously set to direct the Mercury film only to leave the project in 2014.\n\n20th Century Fox said production would resume next week.\n\nRami Malek will play the Queen singer in the film.\n\nIt is expected to be released in December 2018 as planned.\n\nThe troubled project has faced a series of setbacks since it was first announced in 2010.\n\nSinger's departure was confirmed this week, with a source attributing his exit to \"a pattern of unreliable behaviour on set\".\n\nThe Usual Suspects director said he was disappointed to leave the film, which he described as \"a passion project\".\n\nIn a statement issued through his lawyer, Singer said he had asked for time off to deal with a \"pressing\" family matter.\n\n\"Unfortunately, the studio was unwilling to accommodate me and terminated my services,\" he continued.\n\nFilming has been taking place in the UK, with Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello and Gwilym Lee starring as Queen's other members.\n\nBefore turning to directing, Fletcher was best known for his roles in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and ITV's Press Gang.\n\nHe made his directorial debut in 2011 with urban drama Wild Bill, for which he was nominated for a Bafta Film Award, and also directed Sunshine on Leith in 2013.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Downing Street has insisted it is still confident of a first-phase Brexit deal before next week's summit\n\nTheresa May has been urged not to allow Eurosceptic MPs in her party to \"impose their own conditions\" on negotiations amid signs of fresh Tory infighting.\n\nNineteen Tory MPs who back a \"soft Brexit\" have written to her saying it is \"highly irresponsible\" for anyone to dictate terms which may scupper a deal.\n\nIt follows some Tories backing the DUP's decision to oppose a draft deal on the future of the Irish border.\n\nThe PM has spoken to the DUP's Arlene Foster to try to break the deadlock.\n\nThe DUP says there is \"more work to be done\" if it is to agree to plans for the future of the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic after Brexit - a prerequisite for talks to move on to their next phase.\n\nIrish PM Leo Varadkar, who also spoke to Mrs May on Wednesday, said he was willing to consider any new proposals, suggesting the UK might put something forward within the next 24 hours.\n\nAnd the BBC understands the ambassadors of the 27 EU member states, who received an update from chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier on Wednesday, are \"waiting for something from London\" in the next 48 hours.\n\nThe BBC's Adam Fleming said Mr Barnier and the member states agreed there must be clarity within 48 hours for them to have enough time to consult with their capitals about draft guidelines for phase two of the talks.\n\nAt a summit next week, European leaders will decide whether enough progress has been made in the negotiations on Ireland, the UK's \"divorce bill\" and citizens' rights so far to open trade talks.\n\nIn their letter, the 19 MPs - who largely backed Remain in the 2016 referendum - say they support the PM's handling of the negotiations, in particular the \"political and practical difficulties\" relating to the Irish border.\n\nBut they hit out at what they say are attempts by some in their party to paint a no-deal scenario in which the UK failed to agree a trade agreement as \"some status quo which the UK simply opts to adopt\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Citizens' rights, the Irish border and money are the three big negotiation points\n\n\"We wish to make it clear that we are disappointed yet again that some MPs and others seek to impose their own conditions on these negotiations,\" the MPs, including former cabinet ministers Stephen Crabb, Dominic Grieve, Anna Soubry and Nicky Morgan - write.\n\n\"In particular, it is highly irresponsible to seek to dictate terms which could lead to the UK walking away from these negotiations.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Faisal Islam This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIt urges the PM to \"take whatever time is necessary\" to get the next stage of negotiations right.\n\nOn Tuesday, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith argued the time was fast approaching for the UK to consider walking away from the talks if the EU did not allow negotiators to proceed to the next phase - in which future trade and security relations will take centre stage.\n\nThe suggestion of \"regulatory alignment\" between Northern Ireland and the European Union and any continuing role for the European Court of Justice has also concerned some Eurosceptic Conservative MPs.\n\nOn Monday Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party - whose support the PM needs to win key votes at Westminster - objected to draft plans drawn up by the UK and the EU.\n\nThe DUP said the proposals, which aimed to avoid a \"hard border\" by aligning regulations on both sides of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, were not acceptable.\n\nThis has left the UK government racing to find an agreement suiting all sides in time for next week's summit.\n\nThe Irish PM said he was willing to consider any new proposals from the UK\n\nThe DUP's deputy leader Nigel Dodds said the Irish government, which has said it wants firm guarantees that a hard border can be avoided, was playing a \"dangerous game\" with its own economy.\n\nAt a press conference with his Dutch counterpart on Wednesday, Irish PM Leo Varadkar insisted he wanted the talks to move beyond consideration of divorce issues to the future.\n\n\"Having consulted with people in London, she (Theresa May) wants to come back to us with some text tonight or tomorrow,\" he said. \"I expressed my willingness to consider that.\"\n\nIn a separate development, Chancellor Philip Hammond has suggested the UK could pay the so-called Brexit bill, regardless of whether or not there is a subsequent trade agreement with the EU.\n\nHe told MPs on the Treasury Committee he found it \"inconceivable\" that the UK would \"walk away\" from its financial obligations as \"frankly it would not make us a credible partner for future international agreements\".\n\nOn the issue of the divorce bill, a No 10 spokesman said the government's position remained that \"nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and that applies to the financial settlement\".\n\nReports have suggested the UK has raised its financial offer to a figure of up to 50bn euros (£44bn).", "The winning city was announced in the current UK City of Culture, Hull\n\nCoventry has been chosen to be the UK's City of Culture for 2021.\n\nThe bid team said their plans were \"about changing the reputation of a city\" as well as hosting a year of cultural celebration.\n\nThe title is awarded every four years and Coventry will hope to emulate the success of Hull, which is UK City of Culture this year.\n\nThe other places in the running for the title were Swansea, Paisley, Stoke-on-Trent and Sunderland.\n\nCoventry is the birthplace of Philip Larkin, one of England's finest poets, electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire and best-selling author Lee Child. It's also the home of the Two Tone ska movement through bands like The Specials and The Selecter.\n\nVenues will include Warwick Arts Centre, the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum and the Belgrade Theatre, which launched the Theatre In Education movement in 1965. It's also the home of the UK's first Shop Front Theatre and boasts the UK's largest free family music festival with the Coventry Godiva Festival.\n\nCoventry's bid team said the city had \"constantly reinvented itself to survive\".\n\nIt has suffered from the decline of its status as the heart of the British motor industry, and it was devastated by bombing during the World War Two.\n\nIt will hope to learn from Hull, whose status as UK City of Culture has boosted the local economy by an estimated £60m.\n\nHull has also seen more than £1bn of investment since being chosen to hold the 2017 title four years ago, and the year's artistic programme has been a hit with both residents and critics.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. UK City of Culture: Five things about Coventry\n\nLaura McMillan, manager of the Coventry City of Culture Trust, said the economic impact would \"be huge for the city and the West Midlands\".\n\n\"This is a win for Coventry, a win for young people and a win for diversity,\" she said.\n\n\"It's been a bid by and for the people of Coventry. It has brought so many people and organisations together and this is just the start.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Coventry2021 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nArts minister John Glen said it was \"an incredible opportunity for Coventry to boost investment in the local economy, grow tourism and put arts and culture centre stage\".\n\nHe said: \"In 2017 I have seen the truly transformative effect this prestigious title has had on Hull.\n\n\"The city has embraced City of Culture and in doing so has demonstrated how culture, the arts and heritage can bring communities together. I look forward to seeing what Coventry has in store in 2021.\"\n\nHe also congratulated the unsuccessful towns and cities for their \"excellent\" bids.\n\nCoventry will be the third UK City of Culture - after Hull and Londonderry, which held the title in 2013.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by pauline black This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Jim Lee This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAs part of the prize, Coventry will have access to a £3m Heritage Lottery Fund grant.\n\nThe UK City of Culture scheme is separate from the European Capital of Culture. The UK was due to have a turn choosing a city to hold that title in 2023, with Leeds, Dundee, Milton Keynes, Belfast/Derry and Nottingham all bidding.\n\nBut the European Commission recently confirmed that the UK will lose the right to have a host city after it leaves the EU in 2019.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The controversial US embassy move to Jerusalem is going ahead amid celebration and protest. The BBC's Yolande Knell explains why the city is so important.", "Disagreements remain over how the Irish border should be treated after Brexit\n\nBrexit negotiations are continuing into the night in a fresh push to reach agreement over the Irish border.\n\nThe BBC's Laura Kuenssberg has been told there are \"serious ideas\" on the table that the different parties are broadly content with.\n\nAdditional wording has been added to reassure the DUP, whose opposition on Monday led to talks breaking down.\n\nUK PM Theresa May could travel to Brussels early on Friday if a deal is reached.\n\nEuropean Council President Donald Tusk is due to make a statement at 0650 GMT, prompting speculation that a deal is close.\n\nEuropean Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas tweeted: \"We are making progress, but not yet fully there,\" adding: \"Tonight more than ever, stay tuned.\"\n\nBut a Democratic Unionist Party source urged caution, saying the team were \"still working\".\n\nAll sides want progress on the issue ahead of a crucial summit next week, so talks can move on to the future relationship between the UK and the EU after Brexit.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Laura Kuenssberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Laura Kuenssberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nWhat happens to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has been among the key sticking points in Brexit negotiations.\n\nOn Monday, the DUP - whose support the UK prime minister needs to win key votes in Westminster - objected to draft plans drawn up by the UK and the EU.\n\nThey included aligning regulations in Northern Ireland with those in the Republic so as to avoid border checks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"However many times you phrase it, we're not going to be making any comment\"\n\nThe DUP insists it will not accept any agreement in which Northern Ireland was treated differently from the rest of the UK.\n\nThe Republic of Ireland, on the other hand, which is an EU member, wants a guarantee that there will be no hard border between it and Northern Ireland after Brexit.\n\nThe UK, which is due to leave the EU in March 2019, wants to open talks on a new free trade deal as soon as possible.\n\nThe EU will only agree to discuss this when it judges that enough progress has been made on the \"separation issues\" - the \"divorce bill\", expat citizens' rights and the Northern Ireland border - that have been the subject of negotiations so far.\n\nSo the UK is trying to settle the Northern Ireland border issue before EU leaders meet next week.\n• None Johnson to EU: 'Go whistle' over exit bill", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Franken attacked Donald Trump and Roy Moore in his resignation speech\n\nDemocratic Senator and ex-comedian Al Franken has said he plans to quit \"in the coming weeks\" after string of sexual harassment allegations.\n\n\"I am proud that during my time in the Senate that I have used my power to be a champion of women,\" the Minnesota senator said from the US Senate floor.\n\nHis speech came a day after nearly 30 Democrats called on him to resign.\n\nHe would be the most prominent lawmaker to resign amid a wave of misconduct claims against high-profile figures.\n\nMeanwhile, the US House of Representatives Ethics Committee launched sexual harassment investigations into two Republican congressmen.\n\nTrent Franks of Arizona announced he was resigning as the inquiry was announced.\n\nMr Franken arrived at the Capitol holding hands with his wife\n\nHe acknowledged having made two female congressional aides \"uncomfortable\" by asking them about surrogacy when he and his wife faced infertility.\n\nThe committee also said it would investigate Blake Farenthold, who used $84,000 (£62,000) of taxpayers' money to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit with his former spokeswoman.\n\nOver in the Senate, Mr Franken told his colleagues on Thursday: \"Today I am announcing that in the coming weeks I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.\n\n\"I may be resigning my seat but I am not giving up my voice.\"\n\nThe former Saturday Night Live comic and two-term senator has apologised to several women who have accused him of groping and sexual harassment, but he faced mounting pressure to step aside after a new allegation surfaced on Wednesday.\n\nMr Franken said some of the claims against him \"are simply are not true\", but added that women \"deserve to be heard and their experiences taken seriously\".\n\nHe also referenced the sexual misconduct allegations that have been levelled against President Donald Trump and Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.\n\n\"I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Franken is not the only US politician to have found himself engulfed by sexual harassment in recent weeks.\n\nOn Tuesday, Michigan Democrat John Conyers announced he would resign amid claims of sexual harassment made by his congressional aides.\n\nSeven women have come forward to accuse Mr Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court judge, of sexual misconduct decades ago.\n\nSeveral Democratic female senators - including some who called for Mr Franken's resignation a day earlier - hugged the lawmaker after his speech.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Bernie Sanders This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFellow Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar thanked Mr Franken on Facebook, calling him a \"friend to me and many in our state\".\n\n\"Nothing is easy or pleasant about this,\" she wrote, \"but we all must recognise that our workplace cultures - and the way we treat each other as human beings - must change.\"\n\nThe decision to fill the vacancy left by Mr Franken will fall to Democratic Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, who said in a statement he has not determined who will replace him.\n\n\"I extend my deepest regrets to the women who have had to endure their unwanted experiences with Senator Franken,\" he said.", "European Council president Donald Tusk is to make an announcement about Brexit at 06:50 GMT on Friday\n\nThe core Brexit issues on which Ireland reached agreement earlier this week are not changing, the country's foreign minister has told the Irish parliament.\n\nDublin would look at new proposals but its core position needed to remain intact, said Mr Coveney.\n\nNegotiations between the UK government, the European Commission and the Irish government continued on Thursday.\n\nEuropean Council president Donald Tusk is now due to make an announcement about Brexit at 06:50 GMT on Friday.\n\nOn Monday, the UK and EU failed to strike a deal in Brexit talks when the DUP objected to the wording of a text on the future operation of the border.\n\nIt is unlikely the current phase of negotiations will be wrapped by the end of Thursday, says the BBC's Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg.\n\nThere is no sense of any real momentum in the talks, despite the hard work of all sides, she told BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme.\n\nThe real difficulty for UK PM Theresa May is that disagreement on a post-Brexit Irish border has sparked division within the Conservative Party on the differing versions of Brexit that could be tolerated by different parties, she added.\n\nThe DUP's deputy leader Nigel Dodds MP left talks with representatives on the Conservative Party in Whitehall earlier on Thursday evening without comment.\n\nDublin's core issues are protecting the Good Friday Agreement, maintaining the integrity of the European single market and the all-island economy.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Would you notice if you crossed the Irish border? (Video from 2017)\n\nMr Coveney told the Dáil (Irish parliament) on Thursday morning that sensitive negotiations were ongoing and he would not make any statement that might create difficulties.\n\nBut he was insistent the Republic would not support anything that might lead to a hard border on the island of Ireland.\n\n\"The Irish government's position hasn't changed,\" he said.\n\nThe Irish government has demanded a written agreement from the UK that there will be no return to a hard border - one involving checkpoints or barriers - after Brexit.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Laura Kuenssberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Laura Kuenssberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEarlier, the Irish prime minister said the UK government planned to suggest a new wording for a Brexit deal on the Irish border within the next 24 hours.\n\nLeo Varadkar said he had spoken by phone to UK PM Theresa May on Wednesday, adding that he wanted to move things forward and had indicated his willingness \"to consider any proposals that the UK side have\".\n\n\"Ultimately, it is up to them to come back to us, given the events that happened on Monday,\" he said.\n\nOn Monday, Mr Varadkar said he was \"surprised and disappointed\" a deal had not been reached, after the UK had agreed a text that met Irish concerns.\n\n\"I want us to move to phase two - if that is possible - next week, but the absolute red line that has been there for some time remains,\" he said.\n\n\"My responsibility as taoiseach (Irish PM) is to protect our fundamental national interest and that is the rights of Irish citizens in Ireland and Britain, and also the avoidance of a return to a border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.\"\n\nThe EU has agreed that Brexit talks cannot proceed to phase two - dealing with trade - until the Republic of Ireland is satisfied with a UK guarantee on the border issue.\n\nThe Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has said it will not accept any agreement in which Northern Ireland is treated differently from the rest of the UK.\n\nMrs May's Conservative Party currently relies on the support of the DUP's 10 MPs to keep its minority government in power at Westminster.\n\nEarlier, veteran Conservative MP Ken Clark said the government had made a \"pig's ear\" of the border negotiations.\n\n\"They agreed this regulatory compliance on both sides, which is what a free trade deal requires, but unfortunately they didn't make it clear that's the whole of the United Kingdom,\" he said.\n\nTaoiseach Leo Varadkar had a 15-minute phone call with Theresa May on Wednesday\n\n\"I quite understand that in Ulster people don't want a different arrangement from the whole of the United Kingdom and to have new protectionist barriers on the Irish Sea.\"\n\nHe added: \"They should have kept the DUP completely in the loop and discussed it with them and explained it with them as it went along.\n\n\"It's no good just reaching agreement with the taoiseach and then present it to the DUP who appear to have got the idea that somehow this was a special arrangement for Ulster.\"\n\nThe chair of Westminster's Brexit committee, Labour MP Hilary Benn, said it was right to describe Monday's deal collapse of as \"a shambles\".\n\nHe was speaking on a visit to the Irish border as part of a one-day fact-finding mission.\n\nA group of 14 cross party MPs are meeting local business leaders in County Armagh as well as representatives from the police, customs, and staff from the North-South Ministerial Council.\n\nMeanwhile, Sinn Féin's leader north of the border, Michelle O'Neill, said there could not be any \"rollback\" by the Irish government on its position, urging Dublin to be \"very alert\".\n\nMrs O'Neill added that the DUP did not represent the \"majority view\" in Northern Ireland.", "Uber has had its licence suspended in Sheffield after it failed to respond to official requests about its management, the city council has said.\n\nThe firm, also fighting a ban in London, can still operate in Sheffield until 18 December and can appeal against the decision, the council said.\n\nIf it decides not to appeal, the suspension will come into force.\n\nUber said that an \"administrative error\" by the council was to blame and hoped to resolve the issue soon.\n\nUber is still fighting its ban in London after it lost its licence there in September.\n\nTransport for London, which has criticised the firm's record over reporting criminal offences and carrying out driver background checks, decided not to renew Uber's London licence after it deemed the firm \"unfit\" to run a taxi service.\n\nA Sheffield City spokesperson said: \"Uber's licence was suspended last Friday (29 November) after the current licence holder failed to respond to requests, made by our licensing team, about the management of Uber.\n\n\"We received a new application, for a licence to operate taxis in Sheffield, from Uber Britannia Limited, on 18 October 2017 which we are currently processing.\"\n\nThe council said an operator's licence could not be transferred and that the new application would be dealt with by the council's licensing department.\n\nAn Uber spokesperson said: \"We informed Sheffield City Council on 5 October that we would need to change the name on our licence as the named individual would soon be leaving the company.\n\n\"The council told us they couldn't change the name on the licence, as most other councils have done, and that we would instead have to apply for a new one.\"\n\nUber said it had submitted an application for a new licence which was still being processed.\n\n\"While we are in regular contact with the council, we did not receive the correspondence the council refers to as they sent the letters to an incorrect address,\" the spokesperson said.\n\n\"We hope this administrative error can be quickly resolved so we can continue serving tens of thousands of riders and drivers in Sheffield.\"\n\nUber added that if the new application could not be approved by 18 December, the firm would of course appeal against its suspension.", "The first UK performance of Broadway hit Hamilton has left audience members singing the hip-hop musical's praises.\n\nSelf-proclaimed \"theatre addict\" Alex Packer called the performances from the London cast \"faultless\", and Jen Waller called the evening \"truly special\".\n\nThe Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye said it had been \"the best first preview of a musical [he'd] seen since Miss Saigon\".\n\nIn the Telegraph, meanwhile, Veronica Lee said the show at the Victoria Palace theatre \"went without a hitch\".\n\nThe opening of the show had been put back a fortnight, due to delays in the venue's extensive restoration.\n\nPreviews continue until 21 December, when the Tony-winning musical will have its official opening night.\n\n\"Saw the first performance of @HamiltonWestEnd tonight and it literally blew my mind,\" tweeted \"serial theatregoer\" Daniel Lewis.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Daniel Lewis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHis sentiments were echoed by David Cambridge, who said he felt \"so privileged to see the very first UK performance\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by David Cambridge This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFirst staged in New York in 2015, Hamilton uses hip-hop and rap to tell the life story of one of America's founding fathers.\n\nThe role of Alexander Hamilton is played in London by Jamael Westman, a 25-year-old Rada graduate with only two other professional stage credits to his name.\n\nRachelle Ann Go, Rachel John and Christine Allado play \"the Schuyler sisters\"\n\nAccording to the Evening Standard, whose editor George Osborne was among Wednesday's audience, Westman gives \"a superlative performance\".\n\n\"He absolutely smashed it,\" agreed Frank Ikenye on Instagram. \"Wouldn't think this was only his 3rd production.\"\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by frankikenye This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHamilton is already one of the hottest tickets in London, prompting its producers to bring in a paperless ticketing system to combat touts.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The painting has been cleaned and restored from the image on the left to the one on the right\n\nA 500-year-old painting of Christ believed to be the work of Leonardo da Vinci is heading to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the museum has said.\n\nThe newly-opened museum announced the news without specifying whether it had bought the painting at auction this month.\n\nMedia reports say it was purchased by a Saudi prince.\n\nThe work - known as Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World) - was sold in New York for a record $450m (£341m).\n\nIt was the highest auction price for any work of art.\n\nThe unidentified buyer was involved in a bidding contest, via telephone, that lasted nearly 20 minutes.\n\nThe New York Times reported that it was bought by Saudi prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud, citing documents the newspaper had reviewed.\n\nLeonardo da Vinci died in 1519 and there are fewer than 20 of his paintings in existence.\n\nSalvator Mundi, believed to have been painted sometime after 1505, is the only work thought to be in private hands.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Louvre Abu Dhabi museum opened earlier this month in the United Arab Emirates.\n\nIt cost £1bn to build the museum over the past 10 years.\n\nIt holds 600 artworks permanently and 300 loaned from France. The museum pays Paris hundreds of millions of dollars for this as well as for the use of the Louvre name and managerial advice.", "Labour's chief whip in the House of Lords is to stand down in the New Year following criticism of his expenses.\n\nLord Bassam has referred himself to the standards watchdog and agreed to repay the cost of travel to and from his Brighton home since 2010.\n\nThe peer, who also had a £36,366 allowance for staying overnight in London, says he has not been told he has broken any rules.\n\nBut he said it would have been \"more appropriate\" not to claim the money.\n\nLabour said Lord Bassam, who is a member of Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet, would make way once a successor had been elected in January or February.\n\nA spokesman said the peer had already referred himself to the Lords standards commissioner to determine whether he had broken the peers' code of conduct.\n\nAfter the Mail On Sunday reported Lord Bassam claimed the £6,400 annual cost of travelling to and from his home in Brighton, the former leader of Brighton Council said he would not submit such claims again.\n\nAccording to the paper, Lord Bassam is one of a small number of front bench peers also entitled to the Lords office holders allowance. This is because of his role as chief whip and because his main home is not in London.\n\nThe payment is included in his salary and designed to cover \"expenses in staying overnight away from their main or only residence\".\n\nIn a statement, Lord Bassam said: \"With my home outside of London, I have been in receipt of the relevant office holders allowance for the opposition chief whip in the Lords.\n\n\"At the same time, in accordance with rules laid down by the House, I have claimed costs for my regular travel to and from Parliament.\n\n\"While I have not been advised that any breach of the rules has taken place, waiving the right to such travel claims would perhaps have been a more appropriate response on my part.\n\n\"I will not be submitting any further claims in this way, and instead use the office holders allowance to cover those additional costs. I will also discuss with House officials the steps necessary to repay previous travel claims.\"", "Clockwise from top: Actor Ashley Judd, pop singer Taylor Swift, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, corporate lobbyist Adama Iwu and Isabel Pascual, a strawberry-picker from Mexico (not her real name)\n\nTime magazine has named \"the Silence Breakers\" - women and men who spoke out against sexual abuse and harassment - as its \"Person of the Year\".\n\nThe movement is most closely associated with the #MeToo hashtag which sprung up as allegations emerged against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.\n\nBut Time says the hashtag is \"part of the picture, but not all of it\".\n\n\"This is the fastest-moving social change we've seen in decades,\" editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said.\n\nHe told NBC's Today programme that it \"began with individual acts of courage by hundreds of women - and some men, too - who came forward to tell their own stories\".\n\nTwo celebrities are featured - Ashley Judd, one of the first to speak out against Mr Weinstein, and pop singer Taylor Swift, who won a civil case against an ex-DJ who she said had grabbed her bottom.\n\nThey are shown alongside Isabel Pascual, a 42-year-old strawberry picker from Mexico (not her real name); Adama Iwu, a 40-year-old corporate lobbyist in Sacramento; and Susan Fowler, 26, a former Uber engineer whose allegation brought down Uber's CEO.\n\nBut many more people are identified as part of the movement behind the cover shot.\n\nThis \"moment\", the magazine says, \"doesn't have a leader, or a single, unifying tenet. The hashtag #MeToo (swiftly adapted into #BalanceTonPorc, #YoTambien, #Ana_kaman and many others), which to date has provided an umbrella of solidarity for millions of people to come forward with their stories, is part of the picture, but not all of it...\n\n\"The women and men who have broken their silence span all races, all income classes, all occupations and virtually all corners of the globe.\"\n\nBut, it says, collectively they have helped turn shame into outrage and fear into fury, put thousands of people on to the streets demanding change, and seen a slew of powerful men held accountable for their behaviour.\n\nThose featured include Tarana Burke, the activist who created the #MeToo hashtag more than a decade ago, the actor Alyssa Milano who helped it explode on social media last October, actor Terry Crews, a group of hotel workers who have filed a lawsuit against their employer, State Senator Sara Gelser, an anonymous hospital worker who fears losing her job if she speaks openly, and Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News journalist whom Donald Trump accused of having \"blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever\" after she moderated a debate during the presidential campaign.\n\nIronically, President Trump - whose election Ms Kelly said was a \"setback for women\" that helps explain the #MeToo movement - was named as runner-up for Person of the Year this year, having been given the title last year.\n\nIn 2006, the Person of the Year was simply \"You\", reflecting the importance of user-generated internet content.\n\nThe magazine's tradition - begun in 1927 as \"Man of the Year\" - recognises the person who \"for better or for worse... has done the most to influence the events of the year\".\n\nThe great majority of people selected have been individuals - but by no means all. In 2014, \"Ebola fighters\" were recognised while in 2011 \"The Protester\" acknowledged the significance of the so-called Arab Spring.\n\nIt was in 1950, the magazine explains, that the \"mould was broken\" and \"The American fighting-man\" was chosen, to be followed by Hungarians in 1956 and later on Scientists, Americans under 25 and Mr and Mrs Middle America.\n\nIn 2006, the Person of the Year was simply \"You\", with a mirror cover design, reflecting the importance of user-generated internet content.", "Not yet. But, but, but, after two days where it has felt that there has been very little movement indeed, tonight, the atmosphere has changed.\n\nWell-placed sources on the EU and UK sides sound suddenly cheerful.\n\nNew language to add to the agreement that failed to persuade the DUP at the start of the week has been discussed approvingly in London, Brussels and Dublin.\n\nAnd on Thursday evening, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker's spokesman posted this:\n\nSorry, we're having trouble displaying this content. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut the DUP, who blocked the deal on Monday, humiliating Theresa May, are not yet fully on board.\n\nUntil their support can be guaranteed, don't expect Theresa May to get on the plane.\n\nThey are no strangers to taking their time, and making the most of their maximum moments of leverage.\n\nIt is possible that Theresa May could, by Friday evening, have been to Brussels and back, and have an agreement approved that would allow the Brexit talks to move on to the next phase.\n\nIt's also possible that this latest plan will fall foul of her Belfast allies and indeed, some figures in her own party.\n\nA senior source told me on Thursday: \"If she can't solve it in the next couple of days, how could she solve it in the next month?.\"\n\nThe next 24 hours are critical not just to the talks, but to Theresa May's future.", "Lavinia Woodward had ambitions to become a surgeon\n\nAn \"extraordinary\" University of Oxford student who avoided jail for stabbing her boyfriend is trying to appeal against her suspended sentence.\n\nLavinia Woodward, 24, pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding at Christ Church college after drinking heavily.\n\nJudge Ian Pringle QC suspended her 10-month jail sentence and at an earlier hearing said he believed immediate custody would damage her career.\n\nShe has now applied for permission to take her case to the Court of Appeal.\n\nThe case prompted a debate about inequality in the criminal justice system after Judge Pringle deferred her sentence to give her a chance to prove she was no longer addicted to drugs and alcohol.\n\nHe had described Woodward as \"an extraordinarily able young lady\" and said sending her to prison would damage her hopes of becoming a surgeon.\n\nIn his sentencing remarks he said there were \"many mitigating features\" of the case, and she had shown \"a strong and unwavering determination\" to rid herself of her addictions.\n\nWoodward has voluntarily suspended her studies at Oxford until the end of her sentence, when she will face a disciplinary procedure if she decides to return.\n\nWoodward stabbed her then boyfriend in the leg with a breadknife\n\nOxford Crown Court heard Woodward attacked her then boyfriend, whom she met on dating app Tinder, while he was visiting in December 2016.\n\nShe became angry when he contacted her mother on Skype when he realised she had been drinking.\n\nShe threw a laptop at him and stabbed him in the lower leg with a breadknife, also injuring two of his fingers.\n\nWoodward then tried to stab herself with the knife before he disarmed her.\n\nJudge Pringle said Woodward faced a possible maximum sentence of three years in prison for a \"category two\" offence of unlawful wounding.\n\nThe Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) rejected three complaints against Judge Pringle in connection with the case.\n\nA judge must now look at Woodward's application and decide whether to grant her permission to appeal.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "There is a \"stark\" increase between the ages of seven and 11 in the proportion of children in the UK who are overweight or obese, new data suggests.\n\nThe study of nearly 12,000 children found 25% were overweight or obese at age seven, rising to 35% at 11.\n\nBetween 11 and 14, there was little change, however, which researchers say may be because children of this age are making more of their own food choices.\n\nCampaigners are calling for more action on weight issues in younger children.\n\nResearchers from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) at the UCL Institute of Education analysed information on nearly 12,000 of the children taking part in the Millennium Cohort Study, who were born in 2000 and 2001 and have had their weight and height measured at the ages of three, five, seven, 11 and 14.\n\nRates of excess weight varied by nation, with nearly 40% of young people in Northern Ireland obese or overweight compared with 38% in Wales and 35% in both Scotland and England.\n\nThe levels showed little change up to the age of seven, but then made a big jump in the next four years.\n\nAt the age of seven, 25.5% of the boys were overweight or obese - but this proportion rose to 36.7% four years later.\n\nWith the girls, 23.7% were carrying excess weight at seven - but 33.9% were overweight or obese at 11.\n\nHowever, at 14 the boys' proportion had dropped to 34.1%, while the girls' had risen slightly to 36.3%.\n\nThe data, which was collected between January 2014 and March 2015, also revealed a link between young people's weight and their mothers' level of education.\n\nNearly 40% of 14-year-olds whose mothers had no qualifications above GCSE level were overweight or obese, while the proportion was 26% among those whose mum had a degree or higher qualifications.\n\nAlso, children who were breastfed as infants, and those whose parents owned their own home, had lower odds of carrying excess weight at 14.\n\nDr Benedetta Pongiglione, co-author of the study, told the BBC that while it did not investigate the reasons for the levelling off in rising obesity in 11- to 14-year-olds, trends suggested why this had occurred.\n\n\"We know that that age of early to mid adolescence is a time where children start to make more decisions on their own, which can imply different... physical activity, diet and other choices,\" she said.\n\n\"Peer pressure also plays a bigger role in their lives.\n\n\"From what we observe, maybe the time between seven and 11 is when parents take most of the decisions.\"\n\nProf Mary Fewtrell, nutrition lead at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and Caroline Cerny, from the Obesity Health Alliance, both called for restrictions or a 21:00 watershed on junk-food advertising.\n\nProf Fewtrell said a range of measures should be considered, including \"statutory school-based health education in all schools and robust evaluation of the soft drinks and sugar reduction programme\".\n\nMs Cerny said it had to be made \"easier for families to make healthier choices\".\n\nShe added: \"Children can see up to nine junk-food adverts in just 30 minutes while watching their favourite shows, and we know this influences their food choices and how much they eat.\"\n\nProf Emla Fitzsimons, another co-author of the study, said: \"Children who are overweight or obese face an increased risk of many health problems later in life, including cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes.\n\n\"There is still a worryingly high proportion of young people in this generation who are an unhealthy weight.\"\n\nThe government has plans to try to cut childhood obesity, with a tax on sugary drinks coming into force on 1 April 2018.\n\nIndependent think tank the Centre for Social Justice has suggested it follows the example of Amsterdam, which is the only European city to have lowered obesity rates in the past five years with a variety of programmes - mainly through schools.\n\nChildhood obesity rates have also fallen in New York after a poster campaign on the subway system.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Google says its AlphaGo Zero artificial intelligence program has triumphed at chess against world-leading specialist software within hours of teaching itself the game from scratch.\n\nThe firm's DeepMind division says that it played 100 games against Stockfish 8, and won or drew all of them.\n\nThe research has yet to be peer reviewed.\n\nBut experts already suggest the achievement will strengthen the firm's position in a competitive sector.\n\n\"From a scientific point of view, it's the latest in a series of dazzling results that DeepMind has produced,\" the University of Oxford's Prof Michael Wooldridge told the BBC.\n\n\"The general trajectory in DeepMind seems to be to solve a problem and then demonstrate it can really ramp up performance, and that's very impressive.\"\n\nDeepMind has previously won a series of Go games against some of the world's top human players\n\nDeepMind has previously defeated several of the world's top human players of the Chinese board game Go, as well as teaching itself how to play video games including Pong and Space Invaders.\n\nThe London-based team is currently trying to develop a system that can beat humans at the space strategy game Starcraft, which is seen as being an even more complex challenge.\n\nGoogle is not commenting on the research until it is published in a journal.\n\nHowever, details published on Cornell University's Arxiv site state that an algorithm dubbed AlphaZero was able to outperform Stockfish just four hours after being given the rules of chess and being told to learn by playing simulations against itself.\n\nIn the 100 games that followed, each program was given one minute's worth of thinking time per move.\n\nAlphaZero won 25 games in which it played with white pieces, giving it the first move, and a further three in which it played with black pieces.\n\nThe two programs drew the remaining 72 games.\n\nDeepMind described the level of performance achieved as being \"superhuman\".\n\nGoogle highlighted that Stockfish 8 had previously won 2016's Top Chess Engine Championship. The software was first released in 2008 and has been built on by volunteers in the years since.\n\nThe open source project has been beaten by another program, Komodo, in two major computer chess challenges this year.\n\nEven so, one human chess grandmaster was still hugely impressed by DeepMind's victory.\n\n\"I always wondered how it would be if a superior species landed on earth and showed us how they played chess,\" Peter Heine Nielsen told the BBC.\n\nAlphaGo Zero's latest achievements do not rest on chess alone.\n\nThe paper says it was also triumphant in the Japanese board game Shogi versus a leading artificial intelligence program named Elmo, after two hours of self-training.\n\nThe AlphaZero algorithm won 90 games, drew two and lost eight.\n\nFurthermore, after eight hours of self-training it was also able to beat the previous version of itself at Go - winning 60 games and losing 40.\n\nShogi is sometimes known as Japanese chess\n\nProf Wooldridge noted that all three games were fairly \"closed\" in the sense they had limited sets of rules to contend with.\n\n\"In the real world we don't know what is round the corner,\" he explained.\n\n\"Coping when you don't know what is coming is much more complicated, and things will get even more exciting when DeepMind moves on to more open problems.\"\n\nThe University of Bath's AI expert Prof Joanna Bryson added that people should be cautious about buying too deeply into the firm's hype.\n\nBut she added that its knack for good publicity had put it in a strong position against challengers.\n\n\"It's not only about hiring the best programmers,\" she said.\n\n\"It's also very political, as it helps makes Google as strong as possible when negotiating with governments and regulators looking at the AI sector.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "An independent inquiry is to be held into the malpractice of breast surgeon Ian Paterson, who carried out hundreds of botched operations.\n\nIt will aim to learn lessons from the case and improve care, the Department of Health said.\n\nPaterson was found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent in April after a trial at Nottingham Crown Court. He had his initial 15-year jail term increased to 20 years in August.\n\nThe inquiry will begin in January.\n\nThe DoH said the scope of the inquiry was likely to consider:\n\nHealth Minister Philip Dunne said: \"Ian Paterson's malpractice sent shockwaves across the health system due to the seriousness and extent of his crimes, and I am determined to make sure lessons are learnt from this.\"\n\nPaterson, of Altrincham, Greater Manchester, was jailed in May after an eight-week trial.\n\nPaterson was found guilty of wounding patients at Spire private hospitals\n\nThe court heard from nine women and one man who were treated in the private sector at Little Aston and Parkway Hospitals, run by Spire Healthcare, in the West Midlands between 1997 and 2011.\n\nHis sentence was increased by Court of Appeal judges who found his initial sentence was unduly lenient.\n\nOne of Paterson's victims, James Fernihough, welcomed news of the inquiry, but said: \"I think it's a bit late, it should have been looked into a long time ago.\"\n\nMr Fernihough, 43, of Wall Heath, West Midlands, who had three lumpectomies in 12 months but later learned the procedures were unnecessary, added: \"This should never happen again.\"\n\nThe inquiry follows a pledge by former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt in which he committed to hold a \"comprehensive and focused inquiry\".\n\nIt will be informed by the victims of Paterson and their families and chaired by the Right Reverend Graham James, Bishop of Norwich.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nNearly 200,000 residents have been evacuated from their homes in California as firefighters battle several raging wildfires.\n\nGovernor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in San Diego on Thursday after a new blaze spread from 10 acres to 4,100 acres in just a few hours.\n\nThree firefighters have been injured and about 500 buildings destroyed.\n\nOne death has been reported - a woman's body was found in a burned-out area in Ventura County.\n\nBut an official told the Ventura Country Star newspaper that the death, in the town of Ojai, may have been the result of a car crash not related to the fire.\n\nOn Friday, US President Donald Trump issued a state of emergency in California, which will free up funding to \"help alleviate the hardship and suffering that the emergency may inflict on the local population\".\n\nAbout 5,700 firefighters have been battling the brushfires, officials have said, with firefighters drafted in from neighbouring states to help.\n\nThe Thomas fire in Ventura County remains the largest, burning 180 square miles so far\n\nThe Thomas fire in Ventura County to the north of Los Angeles remains the largest of the blazes and has spread as far as the Pacific coast.\n\nIt has consumed 180 square miles (466 sq km) since it broke out on Monday, and destroyed more than 430 buildings, fire officials said.\n\nA BBC correspondent in Ojai says the blaze is burning in the hills all around and more than 100 fire engines have been seen driving through the town centre.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by CAL FIRE This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA Reuters news agency photographer in San Diego county, site of the Lilac fire, described seeing propane tanks under houses explode like bombs.\n\nSome 450 elite racehorses in the area were let loose from their stables to escape to safety, the Associated Press news agency reports. Officials say at least 25 thoroughbreds died in the blaze.\n\nBy Thursday afternoon local time, California's fire service said the blaze had forced the evacuation of 189,000 residents.\n\nFirefighters rescued both a work of art and the family Christmas tree from this Bel Air home\n\nMost homes in Bel Air cost millions of dollars\n\nCalifornia is entering its fifth day battling dangerous wildfires driven by extreme weather: low humidity, high winds and parched ground.\n\nAuthorities have issued a purple alert - the highest level warning - amid what it called \"extremely critical fire weather\".\n\nThe powerful desert-heated Santa Ana winds have been fanning the flames.\n\nBoth the The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Getty Center museum announced that they would reopen on Friday.\n\nFirefighters battling the Skirball fire had slept at the Getty overnight on Thursday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drivers filmed the flames from their cars near Bel Air\n\nOne in four schools in Los Angeles were also closed.\n\nIn the wealthy Los Angeles enclave of Bel Air, firefighters were seen removing artwork from luxury homes on Wednesday as the Skirball Fire raged.\n\nThe neighbourhood is home to celebrities and business leaders from Beyonce to Elon Musk.\n\nSinger Lionel Richie cancelled a Las Vegas performance for Wednesday evening, saying he was \"helping family evacuate to a safer place\".\n\nAn estate and vineyard owned by Rupert Murdoch also suffered some damage.\n\nThe media mogul said in a statement: \"We believe the winery and house are still intact.\"\n\nThe Los Angeles Times said Mr Murdoch paid nearly $30m (£22m) for the property four years ago.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Lionel Richie This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnother blaze north of Los Angeles, the Creek fire, was 20% contained and covered some 15,323 acres.\n\nAre you in the area? If it is safe to do so, share your experience with us by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:", "Crews took an hour to free the man\n\nAn internet \"prankster\" had to be freed by firefighters after cementing his head inside a microwave oven.\n\nWest Midlands Fire Service said it took an hour to free the man after they were called to a house in Fordhouses, Wolverhampton.\n\nFriends had managed to feed an air tube into the 22-year-old's mouth to help him breathe, the service said.\n\nWatch Commander Shaun Dakin said the man \"could quite easily have suffocated or have been seriously injured\".\n\nThe fire service said the mixture had been poured around the man's head, which was protected by a plastic bag\n\nMr Dakin said: \"He and a group of friends had mixed seven bags of Polyfilla which they then poured around his head, which was protected by a plastic bag inside the microwave.\n\n\"The oven was being used as a mould and wasn't plugged in. The mixture quickly set hard and, by the time we were called, they'd already been trying to free him for an hour and a half.\"\n\nCrews from the technical rescue team helped with taking the microwave apart, he added.\n\n\"It took us nearly an hour to free him,\" added Mr Dakin.\n\n\"All of the group involved were very apologetic, but this was clearly a call-out which might have prevented us from helping someone else in genuine, accidental need.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Some important items were lost or never recovered, including Poppi's last nappy and her pyjama bottoms, the inquest heard\n\nAn expert witness has cast doubt on suggestions toddler Poppi Worthington was sexually abused in the hours before her death.\n\nDr Nat Cary, a consultant forensic pathologist, told the inquest there was no clear-cut evidence of trauma implying third-party involvement.\n\nHis evidence contradicted the findings of Dr Alison Armour, who was called as a witness earlier in the week.\n\nPoppi died suddenly at a house in Barrow on 12 December 2012.\n\nNo-one has been prosecuted.\n\nAlthough he did not carry out his own post-mortem examination, Dr Cary said he had formed his opinion after studying photographs and slides.\n\nHe told the hearing in Kendal he discounted Dr Armour's assertion that marks found near Poppi's fallopian tube were bruises from sexual penetration.\n\nDr Cary said they were \"of no consequence\" and would have occurred naturally in the five days between the youngster's death and her examination by Dr Armour.\n\nAlthough he said he could not \"absolutely exclude\" penetration, Dr Cary said he would have \"expected very obvious injury and there wasn't anything of the sort\".\n\nHe said he could not be sure how the 13-month-old had died.\n\nThere could have been an \"element of asphyxia\" but there was no sign she had struggled against restraint, he said.\n\n\"Just because you don't find a natural cause it doesn't mean there isn't one,\" he said.\n\nHe told Leslie Thomas QC, representing Poppi's father Paul Worthington, there was no evidence of a criminal act directly or indirectly causing Poppi's death.\n\nThe presence of blood \"needs to be explained\" but there was only the \"possibility that something happened\", he said.\n\nDr Nat Cary (seen here at a crime scene in Ipswich in 2006) said Poppi's death was not necessarily criminal just because it was unexplained\n\nIn answer to further questions, he said it was not possible to say whether an injury to Poppi's leg was deliberate or accidental and, if the latter, whether it was not witnessed by a parent or seen but ignored.\n\nThe coroner David Roberts asked Dr Cary if Poppi's case affected the way he now carried out his work in other cases.\n\nWould he, for example, look for marks like those seen in Poppi, he asked.\n\nDr Cary said: \"Yes, I would have a better look than I used to.\"\n\nThe sheet from the double bed where Poppi was placed at the time of her collapse was not recovered, the inquest heard\n\nThe inquest was told earlier that vital evidence from Poppi's final hours was lost or never found by police.\n\nCatherine Thundercloud, a retired Cumbria Police officer, said it would have been \"imperative\" to get statements from people in the house and Poppi's aunt, Tracy Worthington, as quickly as possible.\n\nShe had been asked to review the evidence as part of an Independent Police Commission Complaint (IPCC) investigation.\n\nSheets, equipment and gloves used by paramedics and hospital staff should have been retained, she said.\n\nBut a number of these items had not been kept, the inquest has heard.\n\nAlison Hewitt, counsel for the coroner, asked Ms Thundercloud what officers should have known before they searched the house.\n\nMs Thundercloud said they should have had first accounts from the parents and details from hospital staff about what had happened.\n\nThe inquest has heard the first police search began before first accounts had been gathered from Mr Worthington.\n\nPaul Worthington has always denied harming his daughter\n\nMs Thundercloud said: \"Unless you've read what he said you can't do a proper strategy.\"\n\nShe said those failures may have resulted in \"vital evidence being lost\".\n\nThe account from Mr Worthington would have shown the pyjama bottoms, which have never been found, were needed, she said.\n\nMr Worthington's laptop and both parents' mobile phones should also have been seized, she said.\n\nMs Thundercloud said there had been \"a lot of failings by police\" and \"missed opportunities\" in the first two days of the investigation.\n\nA proper log of the investigation was not kept so it was \"very difficult\" to see \"the rationale of what was done and not done,\" she said.\n\nIn 2016, High Court family judge Mr Justice Peter Jackson ruled Poppi was probably sexually assaulted by her father shortly before she died.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe government has not carried out any impact assessments of leaving the EU on the UK economy, Brexit Secretary David Davis has told MPs.\n\nMr Davis said the usefulness of such assessments would be \"near zero\" because of the scale of change Brexit is likely to cause.\n\nHe said the government had produced a \"sectoral analysis\" of different industries but not a \"forecast\" of what would happen when the UK leaves the EU.\n\nThe Liberal Democrats said impact assessments were urgently needed while the SNP called it an \"ongoing farce\".\n\nMr Davis said a \"very major contingency planning operation\" was in place for Brexit.\n\nOpposition MPs have been on the trail of the \"Brexit impact assessments\" for months. And when David Davis told them they didn't exist, they were quick to highlight some similar-sounding studies he had referred to in the past:\n\nDowning Street told journalists: \"We have been clear that the impact assessments don't exist. They're a specific thing in Whitehall terms. We think we have complied with the terms of the motion.\"\n\nAt Wednesday morning's Brexit committee hearing, chairman Hilary Benn asked whether impact assessments had been carried out into various parts of the economy, listing the automotive, aerospace and financial sectors.\n\n\"I think the answer's going to be no to all of them,\" Mr Davis responded.\n\nWhen Mr Benn suggested this was \"strange\", the minister said formal assessments were not needed to know that \"regulatory hurdles\" would have an impact, describing Brexit as a \"paradigm change\" of similar impact to the financial crash, which could not be predicted.\n\n\"I am not a fan of economic models because they have all proven wrong,\" he said.\n\nDavid Davis has probably not done the Brexit cause a huge bundle of good this morning. First, his frank admission that no impact assessments have been completed will inevitably be seized on by critics to argue Team May simply haven't done the basic spadework.\n\nSecond his suggestion that he doesn't have the resources for this, and anyway some of the work his officials have done wasn't much good, is hardly a ringing endorsement of his Brexit department.\n\nThird, Mr Davis probably didn't help his own reputation by telling the committee he had been handed two chapters of the 850 pages of analysis but hadn't read them. At times Mr Davis even chided the committee over the time they were taking.\n\nFair enough the Brexit secretary had a cold - but at times he sounded thoroughly frazzled and cheesed off. Not a great look.\n\nThere has been a long-running row over the government's Brexit studies and their publication.\n\nMPs have been pushing for the documents to be published, and on 1 November the Commons passed a motion to release \"Brexit impact assessments\" to the Brexit Committee of MPs.\n\nIn response, the government said this motion \"misunderstood\" what the documents actually were, but has since provided an edited set of reports to the committee.\n\nDavid Davis said the impact of Brexit on different sectors had not been assessed\n\nMr Davis told the MPs this represented \"getting as close as we can to meeting what we took to be the intent of Parliament\".\n\nA \"quantitative economic forecast of outcome\" does not exist, he said. \"That is not there. We have not done that. What is there is the size of the industry, the employment and so on.\"\n\nMr Davis also said there was no \"systematic impact assessment\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jeremy Corbyn asks: \"Do they exist, or don’t they?\"\n\nDuring PMQs, Prime Minister Theresa May repeated Mr Davis' line that \"sectoral analysis\", not \"impact assessments\" had been drawn up, adding that the government would not give a running commentary on the negotiations.\n\n\"This really is a shambles,\" Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said.\n\nLater, Chancellor Philip Hammond was asked whether the Treasury had produced analysis of the potential economic impact of Brexit.\n\nHe said his department had \"modelled and analysed a whole range of potential alternative structures between the EU and the UK, potential alternative arrangements and agreements that might be made\".\n\nAppearing before the Treasury Select Committee, he suggested these could be made public when a Brexit deal has been agreed, but said to do so at this stage would be \"deeply unhelpful to the negotiation\".", "The London to Hull service broke down between Peterborough and Grantham\n\nThe arts minister had a last-minute rush to announce the next UK City of Culture after the train he was on was stranded for hours.\n\nJohn Glen MP revealed Coventry as Hull's successor live on The One Show, but his train from London to the city broke down near Peterborough.\n\nDozens of passengers were aboard the 09:48 service, with Hull Trains blaming a \"catastrophic engine failure\".\n\nHull Trains apologised to those on board the service.\n\nThe BBC previously reported Phil Redmond, chair of the UK City of Culture panel, was to fill in for the MP due to his delayed journey, but Mr Glen arrived in Hull in the nick of time.\n\nPassengers were helped off the stricken train and moved on to another\n\nEngineers initially thought the train had struck something, but it later emerged it had suffered engine problems.\n\nA Hull Trains spokesperson said: \"We have now been able to move passengers on to another train which will take them to Peterborough and on to their destinations.\"\n\nIn a tweet, the Conservative MP for Salisbury praised the staff onboard the service for being \"magnificent\" and said he had filled his time by writing Christmas cards. ;\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by John Glen MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Same-sex marriage will become legal in Australia after MPs passed a historic bill.\n\nThe result follows a decade of often bitter debate on the issue and a controversial national poll.", "At the start of the year Bitcoin was valued below $1,000\n\nBitcoin has breached the $16,000 mark, extending the digital currency's record-breaking surge.\n\nThe cryptocurrency began the year below $1,000 but continues to rise despite warnings of a dangerous bubble.\n\nAccording to Coindesk.com, Bitcoin reached $16,663.18 (£12, 358.35), having soared over 50% in a week.\n\nThe new high comes days before the launch of Bitcoin futures on two exchanges, including the world's largest futures exchange, CME.\n\nSpread betting firm CMC Markets said the rise had all the symptoms of a bubble market, warning \"there is no way to know when the bubble will burst\".\n\nThere are two key traits of Bitcoin: it is digital and it is seen as an alternative currency.\n\nUnlike the notes or coins in your pocket, it largely exists online.\n\nSecondly, Bitcoin is not printed by governments or traditional banks.\n\nA small but growing number of businesses, including Expedia and Microsoft, accept bitcoins - which work like virtual tokens.\n\nHowever, the vast majority of users now buy and sell them as a financial investment.\n\nThe digital currency's rapid ascent from around $1,000 at the start of the year has put it in the spotlight.\n\nCritics have said Bitcoin is going through a bubble similar to the dotcom boom, whereas others say it is rising in price because it is crossing into the financial mainstream.\n\nFinancial regulators have taken a range of views on the status of digital currencies and their risks.\n\nThe UK's Financial Conduct Authority warned investors in September they could lose all their money if they buy digital currencies issued by firms, known as \"initial coin offerings\".\n\nBut last week a US regulator agreed to let two traditional exchanges, CME Group and CBOE Global Markets, begin trading in Bitcoin-related financial contracts.\n\nThe announcement from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that it will allow investors to buy and sell \"future\" contracts in bitcoins - an agreement to buy the crypto-currency, for example, in three months time at a certain price - was seen as a watershed moment for Bitcoin.\n\nCambridge Global Payments director of global product and market strategy Karl Schamotta said that move was behind the latest rally: \"The perception in households around the world that the CME and the CBOE are providing legitimacy to Bitcoin is really what is driving the massive rally here.\"\n\nBut Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong, said the rise in Bitcoin's value was \"mostly motivated by fear of missing out and greed\".\n\nBitcoins are created through a complex computer process known as mining, and then monitored by a network of computers across the world.\n\nA steady stream of about 3,600 new bitcoins are created a day - with about 16.5 million now in circulation from a maximum limit of 21 million.", "The £5 Christmas candle began to burn an hour after it was first lit\n\nA picture of a Primark candle bursting into flames has gone viral, after a mother-of-three took to Facebook to raise awareness of the potential hazard.\n\nJenny Ferneyhough purchased the £5 candle - which she said developed into \"massive flames\" after an hour of burning - in Manchester on Saturday.\n\nThe 33-year-old's Facebook post has been shared 145,000 times.\n\nPrimark said it is removing the product from sale and investigating the matter.\n\nMrs Ferneyhough, a Manchester City Council benefits officer, said she lit the candle - in the shape of a Christmas tree - after putting her three children to bed.\n\nShe said the flame had spread from the wick to the whole candle within an hour.\n\nJenny Ferneyhough, left, was with her husband Evan when the candle burst into flames\n\nShe said: \"Obviously everyone knows not to leave a flame unattended, but if you went to the loo, a couple of seconds later it could have burst into flames.\n\n\"If it [develops into] a massive flame when anything else is around it, it could be very dangerous.\"\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, she added that she was especially concerned about people lighting the candle \"around neighbouring decorations\" during the festive period.\n\nMrs Ferneyhough sent the pictures to Primark, who replied to say they were \"very concerned\" about the discovery.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Primark This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA company spokesperson has since said the product is being removed from sale, while the complaint is investigated \"as a matter of urgency\".\n\nMrs Ferneyhough said she was \"reassured\" by the massive response she had received to her post, less than 24 hours after posting the picture.\n\nShe added the main reason for sharing the pictures was to raise awareness of the potential issue with the candle, and to stop people from lighting it unattended.\n\n\"My husband went into the Manchester store to take a picture of the packaging, and a mum and her daughter said they'd seen the photo I shared of it in flames,\" she added.\n• None This is how to pronounce Primark", "The overall pupil absence rate is 4.5%, according to the latest figures from the Department for Education. One in 10 of those school children are classed as \"persistently absent\".\n\nA persistently absent child is one who misses school for at least 10% of the time.\n\nSecondary schools had a higher rate of persistent absence than primary schools. And overall, unauthorised absence, whether persistent or not, also increased.\n\nSuch statistics are just one of the reasons the BBC Stories team decided to look behind the numbers to make a series of films about why children don't attend school.\n\nTaking to the streets in cities across the country, the team asked children themselves why they skipped classes. They gave a range of reasons including anxiety, depression, bullying and having little interest in the subjects they are taught.\n\nMany said they wanted more support at school and some wished they could go back and \"just start all over again\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'School's dead man, it's the same lessons every day'\n\nAccording to the Department for Education's latest statistics, sickness was the main reason for absence in the autumn 2016 and spring 2017 terms. But illness rates remained the same as the previous year at 2.7%. Unauthorised absences, however, rose, including unauthorised family holidays.\n\nIt is important to note that overall school absences in England declined since the same period a decade earlier, as did the percentage of pupils who were persistently absent.\n\nBath and North East Somerset is one of England's wealthiest local authorities\n\nBut what's most surprising is where truancy was at its highest. While high deprivation indicators based on health, crime, education and crucially income are commonly linked to high truancy, a closer look shows this isn't necessarily the case.\n\nBath and North East Somerset is one of England's wealthiest local authorities, according to deprivation indices, but it had one of the highest levels of truancy in 2015 to 2016.\n\nAt the other end of the scale Manchester, a city which ranks highly on deprivation levels, had one of the lowest levels of truancy.\n\nManchester had one of the lower levels of truancy\n\nIf you compare middle income areas, again there are contrasts. Norfolk and Herefordshire are very similar overall when you look at health, crime, education and income but the truancy rate in Norfolk in 2015 to 2016 was much higher than in Herefordshire.\n\nSo, how reliable is the data? Pupil absence in England is measured at local authority level and deprivation by district so we can only look at the picture as an average with variation within each area.\n\nWales, Scotland and Northern Ireland record pupil absence in different ways.\n\nIn Wales, overall absence increased in 2016 to 2017 from the previous year - unauthorised absence and persistent absence also increased. However, persistent absenteeism in Wales was less than half of what is was eight years earlier.\n\nIn Scotland, attendance rates are recorded only once every two years. In 2014 to 2015, the overall attendance rate improved since the previous report but the unauthorised absence rate also increased.\n\nIn Northern Ireland, the overall attendance rate in 2015 to 2016 remained unchanged from the previous year at 94.6%.", "Boris Johnson will urge Iran to free British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from jail when he visits Tehran.\n\nThe foreign secretary is expected to travel to Iran in the next few days.\n\nMs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been in prison since April 2016 after being accused of spying. She denies the claim.\n\nSupporters of the 38-year-old from London say that she recently had a health assessment to see if she was fit enough to remain in prison.\n\nMr Johnson's Tehran trip will see him raising the cases of other dual nationals being held in Iran.\n\nHe will also discuss British concerns over Iranian involvement in conflicts in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Yemen.\n\nIn November Mr Johnson apologised in the Commons after telling a committee of MPs that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been teaching journalism in Iran.\n\nHe retracted \"any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity\".\n\nCritics complained that the foreign secretary's initial comments could lead to her five-year jail term being increased.\n\nMr Johnson met her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, in November to discuss calls for her to be provided with diplomatic protection.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been visiting Iran with her daughter Gabriella when she was arrested\n\nMr Ratcliffe told BBC News his wife was due back in court on Sunday to face possible new charges and it was important Mr Johnson would be in Iran around the same time to \"make clear that he thinks Nazanin is innocent and should be home with her family\".\n\nHe said: \"I don't know if I'm expecting him to be able to unlock it all, and she comes out with him, but it can only be a good thing that he is there\".\n\nMr Ratcliffe said he had wanted to accompany Mr Johnson but the Foreign Office felt his presence would be \"too political\".\n\nWhen Boris Johnson arrives in Tehran this weekend, the foreign secretary will be required to perform some nifty diplomatic footwork even before he comes to address the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.\n\nFor relations between Britain and the Islamic Republic of Iran are delicate at the best of times.\n\nIt is only six years since a mob stormed and sacked Britain's embassy in Tehran.\n\nAnd to some in Iran, Britain will always be seen as the \"Little Satan\", a former imperial power that meddles in their country's affairs at America's bidding.\n\nBoth the UK and Iran have now restored diplomatic relations. But good relations are a work in progress.\n\nSo this visit, Mr Johnson's first, is designed above all to stabilise what has at times been a difficult relationship, a trip that was planned long before the case of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe became a frontline political issue.\n\nThe mother had been visiting Iran with her daughter Gabriella when she was arrested last year.\n\nThe child has been living with her maternal grandparents in Iran for the last 20 months.\n\nMr Ratcliffe has not seen his daughter during his wife's incarceration.\n\nThere were concerns about Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's health after lumps in her breasts were discovered but those were found to be non-cancerous.\n\nRichard Ratcliffe and Boris Johnson met at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in November\n\nIn November Mr Ratcliffe said: \"She talks about being on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I absolutely believe that's true.\n\n\"I think it's important I don't exaggerate anything in the media and I'm not melodramatic, but she is in a difficult place.\"", "The government has not carried out any impact assessments of leaving the EU on the UK economy, Brexit Secretary David Davis has told MPs.\n\nMr Davis had previously said the government had done 57 studies on 85% of the UK economy about the impact of Brexit.\n\nBBC News had a look in its archives.", "Footage has captured the moment a man stopped his car to rescue a wild rabbit from wildfires in California.\n\nThe incident took place on 101 freeway in La Conchita.\n\nMore than 150 homes have been destroyed in the Ventura area, near Los Angeles, and 50,000 people evacuated.", "The biggest and most powerful warship ever built for the Royal Navy has been officially commissioned.\n\nAt a ceremony in Portsmouth, the Queen described \"HMS Queen Elizabeth\" as the best of British technology and innovation.\n\nThe ship is capable of carrying up to 40 aircraft.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Queen has officially welcomed the UK's new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, at a ceremony to commission it into the Royal Navy fleet.\n\nThe monarch boarded her namesake ship in Portsmouth to see the Royal Navy White Ensign raised on the vessel for the first time.\n\nPrincess Anne, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Philip Jones also attended.\n\nThe ceremony took place on the giant hangar deck of the £3.1bn carrier.\n\nHMS Queen Elizabeth and its sister ship HMS Prince of Wales are the most expensive in the Royal Navy's history.\n\nHMS Queen Elizabeth sailed into Portsmouth in August following extensive preparations at the naval base.\n\nThe navy initially estimated both ships would cost £3.5bn to build but the total figure was revised to £6.2bn.\n\nAbout 3,700 guests attended the event, which came more than three years after the vessel's official naming ceremony in Rosyth when the Queen broke a bottle of whisky on its hull.\n\nDuring the ceremony, the commissioning warrant was read, and the Blue Ensign, which has been flying from the ship until it is formally handed over to the Royal Navy, was replaced with the White Ensign, raised by 20-year-old Able Seaman Ellie Smith from Hull.\n\nAddressing the assembled guests and ship's company, The Queen described the ship as \"the most powerful and capable ship ever to raise the White Ensign\".\n\n\"At the forefront of these responsibilities will be the men and women of the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, supported by the Army, Royal Air Force and by coalition partners.\n\n\"As the daughter, wife and mother of naval officers, I recognise the unique demands our nation asks of you and I will always value my special link to HMS Queen Elizabeth, her ship's company and their families,\" she said.\n\nThe White Ensign was raised to symbolised the ship's commissioning into the fleet\n\nAdmiral Sir Philip Jones, said: \"We have been on a long, complicated - but committed - journey to get to this point and commissioning the ship is a key milestone.\n\n\"The point of the big grey ship is it's enormously big, flexible, capable and adaptable.\"\n\nAs part of the ceremony, a 8ft-long (2.44m) cake replica of the ship was cut. As is traditional, it was carried out by the youngest member of the ship's company - Callum Hui, 17 - and the captain's wife Dr Karen Kyd.\n\nCallum Hui and Dr Karen Kyd cut the cake at the commissioning of HMS Queen Elizabeth.\n\nThis is a big day for the Royal Navy. A chance to look to the future and, at least for a moment, forget about recent defence cuts and fears of even more.\n\nAfter successfully completing her sea trials HMS Queen Elizabeth will be commissioned into service. For the first time she'll raise the White Ensign - officially becoming a Royal Navy Warship. But, this is still another milestone not the end of her journey.\n\nFlight trials will begin next year and her first proper deployment with jets on board isn't planned until 2021. It's also still not clear how many of the new F35 jets she'll carry.\n\nCertainly fewer than the 36 she was built for, with each jet costing around £100m. The Royal Navy believes the carrier - the first of two - will be a potent symbol of British military power. But it's already struggling with limited resources.\n\nCapt Jerry Kyd called the ceremony the \"culmination of a number of years of real excitement\".\n\nHe said: \"The first sailing from Rosyth was only nine months ago, we have come a long way.\n\n\"The first entry into Portsmouth was in the summer and here we are today accepting the ship into Her Majesty's fleet formally.\n\n\"So, it is right at the top, it is the latest milestone, many more to come, but hugely exciting and a very proud day.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe 900ft-long (280m) carrier cannot currently deploy planes but F-35B Lightning fighter jets are due to make their first trial flights from the carrier's deck next year, with 120 air crew currently training in the US.\n\nPreparations for the arrival of the flagship of the fleet and its 700-strong company led to more than 20,000 items, ranging from a human skull to sea mines, dredged up from Portsmouth Harbour.\n\nThe Ministry of Defence said specialist dredging vessels had removed 3.2 million cubic metres of sediment - equivalent to 1,280 Olympic swimming pools - during the dredging operation carried out to deepen the harbour mouth to enable the Queen Elizabeth to reach Portsmouth naval base.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The fashion industry is failing to deal with the problem of sexual harassment, the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme has been told.\n\nIn the UK, professional agencies represent about 12,000 models.\n\nThe Association of Model Agents (AMA) said member agencies \"do everything within their power to protect them\".\n\nHere are some of the models' stories.\n\n\"One example I can think of was for a jeans brand. I turned up at the shoot, got the clothes on, got my make-up done, and then the make-up artist then left and I was left with the photographer.\n\n\"And we did the shoot and I went to the bathroom for a break. I came back and the photographer was on his knees, where I was supposed to be standing, and I stepped in and he just grabbed me by the legs and wanted me to then perform an act on him.\n\n\"And I just froze. I think the trouble is that you just freeze in these situations as it came out of nowhere.\n\n\"I didn't tell anyone about it, I just went on the bus home, shaking.\n\n\"My first thought was 'Am I going to get paid for this now?' as he might go and tell my agent and then I wouldn't get paid for it, so I just kept quiet.\"\n\n\"I was sexually assaulted by a stylist on a well known hair brand.\n\n\"He grabbed me by the throat, grabbed me in-between my legs, and he told me my body was disgusting.\n\n\"I couldn't get out, I didn't have keys, I didn't have a phone. I pushed him away when he tried to kiss me.\n\n\"He ended up masturbating lying next to me.\n\n\"I told his boss, but he didn't do anything because I hadn't gone to the police.\n\n\"He's still working now in the industry with female models, around models all day.\"\n\nOther accounts from models who did not want to be identified:\n\nThe Association of Model Agents said member agencies had \"a huge duty of care to their models and do everything within their power to protect them.\n\n\"We do not send them to meetings at hotels or private addresses with clients or photographers who we do not know.\n\n\"Further, we do our best to educate models on what is and is not appropriate, professional behaviour.\"\n\n\"There was a pretty popular photographer who wanted to shoot me. But because we were in separate states, he wanted me to send nude photos of myself to him.\n\n\"I remember him asking me and me kind of knowing, 'I know I don't know much about the industry yet, but I'm pretty sure I don't have to send you a nude photo for you to be able to tell what type of model you want.'\n\n\"I tried to appease him but do it my way and I sent him photos of myself in my bikini. And he lashed out at me via text message, saying, 'If you aren't ready for the real modelling world, don't waste my time.'\n\n\"A photographer came to shoot me in my home town. As we were scouting for a location, he asked me to pull the car over.\n\n\"I'm still young, still 17-18, and he kissed me. And I remember being like, 'This is not OK.'\"\n\nWatch the Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.", "Homes are being consumed by large fires spreading across the southern California countryside.\n\nFirefighters are tackling the blaze as residents flee the affected areas, but attempts at controlling the spread of the fire have been unsuccessful.\n\nDrivers filmed the flames from their cars on the 405 near Bel Air.", "Tearing up convention, US President Donald Trump has recognised Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel.\n\nThe BBC's Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet breaks down what the decision means for Middle East peace.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nWeather warnings are still in place in large parts of the UK, amid concern that icy conditions could cause travel delays and \"cut off\" some rural areas.\n\nThe Met Office said snow showers would continue to affect parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, northern England and parts of the Midlands.\n\nA few centimetres of snow is likely but up to 20cm is possible in some areas.\n\nThere are yellow \"be aware\" warnings for parts of the country, with an amber \"be prepared\" alert in place on Sunday.\n\nThe Midlands, Wales, northern and eastern England and the far north of Scotland are most likely to have heavy snow early on Sunday morning.\n\nAccording to BBC Weather, a 10cm spread of snow will initially mount in the Midlands and eastern England, before gradually becoming lighter and patchier throughout the day and into Sunday evening.\n\nBirmingham Airport have warned passengers travelling on Sunday morning to allow more time for their journey as a result.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Birmingham Airport This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMeanwhile southern parts of England and Wales could face heavy rain and gale force winds of up to 70mph (112km/h), the Met Office said. Icy surfaces are likely to be an \"additional hazard\", it added.\n\nHighways England have urged drivers to \"prepare for every eventuality\", recommending they carry warm clothing, food, drink, required medication, boots, a shovel and a torch.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Highways England This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTemperatures are likely to reach lows of -10C (14F) in some parts of Scotland and Wales, particularly in rural areas.\n\nThe heaviest and most frequent snow showers are forecast to affect mainly north east Scotland.\n\nOn Sunday \"there is a good chance that some rural communities could become cut off\", the Met Office said.\n\nThe Met Office have issued yellow and amber weather warnings for Sunday\n\nOnly a small proportion of power cuts affecting homes and businesses across the Midlands, south west England and south Wales are related to the weather, Western Power Distribution said.\n\nAll current outages are set to be restored by 23:00 GMT on Saturday, ahead of further possible power cuts on Sunday due to the expected snowfall.\n\nMeanwhile in Scotland, where 18,000 households had been without power, electricity supplies have been restored.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHighways officials have reported \"hazardous\" driving conditions and police in Shropshire in the West Midlands advised against driving unless \"absolutely necessary\".\n\nThere are delays to some flights at Manchester Airport and it advises passengers to check with their airline before travelling.\n\nThe final day of Lincoln Christmas market has also been cancelled over safety concerns about the expected snowfall.\n\nIn the Brecon Beacons, one family made the most of an opportunity for a snowball fight\n\nBut it still was not cold enough for trousers in Greater Manchester\n\nHave you experienced any disruption? Please share your experience with us by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:", "The incident sparked outrage and a debate over the quality of private healthcare\n\nA premature baby who was \"mistakenly\" declared dead by doctors in India's capital Delhi has died in another hospital where he was being treated.\n\nThe doctors at the privately run Max Hospital had pronounced the baby dead hours after his twin, who was stillborn on 30 November, at 22 weeks.\n\nThe parents said the baby was alive while on their way to his funeral.\n\nTheir father told reporters that he would not take the child's body home unless the two doctors were arrested.\n\nThe incident sparked outrage and a debate over the quality of private healthcare which is often costly.\n\nThe two doctors were fired by the hospital on Sunday after an inquiry. The hospital also sent its condolences to the parents after hearing that the baby had died.\n\n\"Our deepest condolences are with the parents and other family members. While we understand that survival in extreme preterm births is rare, it is always painful for the parents and family. We wish them the strength to cope with their loss,\" it said.\n\nThe state health minister, Satyender Jain, has said the hospital's licence could be cancelled if a probe found it guilty of medical negligence.\n\nThe Delhi police said on Wednesday that it had transferred the case to its crime unit.\n\nThe incident came to light when the parents noticed one of the babies squirming inside the plastic bag that doctors had placed the infants in.\n\nAccording to the twins' grandfather, the stunned family rushed the newborn to a nearby hospital where they were told that their baby was still alive, local media reported.\n\nThis was the second instance in recent months where a private hospital in India has been called out for negligent care. Last month, a girl died of dengue fever in another hospital and the parents allege they were overcharged for her treatment.", "Sean Rigg died from a heart attack in police custody in 2008\n\nFive police officers will not face prosecution after the death of a mentally ill man in custody, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has ruled.\n\nSean Rigg's family said it was \"shameful\" the CPS had upheld its decision from 2016.\n\nThe musician, 40, died from a heart attack at Brixton police station in south London in 2008.\n\nIn 2012 an inquest jury found that police used \"unsuitable\" force after arresting Mr Rigg.\n\nThe CPS chose not to authorise charges against any of the officers last year because the evidential threshold was not met.\n\nA review began at the request of Mr Rigg's family.\n\nMr Rigg's sister, Marcia Rigg, said in a family statement: \"It is shameful that the CPS should yet again find there is insufficient evidence.\n\n\"After years of vigorous campaigning to highlight the flaws in this wretched and unfair judicial system, there is no justice in the UK for families like mine.\n\n\"Any hope has been crushed.\"\n\nIn the weeks before his death Mr Rigg, who had paranoid schizophrenia, had not taken his medication.\n\nMarcia Rigg believes the police have not been held accountable over her brother's death\n\nHe was held down for eight minutes in the \"prone position\" after his arrest in Balham for attacking passers-by and officers in August 2008. He fell ill in a police van and died in custody.\n\nThe Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and Met Police are still liaising over whether any officer has a misconduct case to answer.\n\nDaniel Machover, the family solicitor, said: \"As the police continue to pose a danger to those suffering from mental ill health, it is saddening that the CPS has failed to bring charges that would help to bring about change and accountability.\"\n\nA CPS spokesperson said: \"A full review of the evidence, including new material provided by the IPCC, was undertaken by a specialist CPS prosecutor who was not involved in the original decision.\n\n\"The review has now concluded and has upheld the original decision not to authorise charges in relation to the death of Mr Rigg, on the basis that the evidential test in the code for crown prosecutors is not met.\"\n\nThe Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said in a statement: \"The MPS has been notified by the Crown Prosecution Service that the decision not to prosecute any police officer in connection with the death of Sean Rigg has been reviewed and upheld.\n\n\"The MPS has responded to the IPCC about its findings in relation to whether any officer involved has a case to answer for either misconduct or gross misconduct. We await the IPCC's further response and continue to liaise in line with the regulations that govern police conduct matters.\n\n\"We will do all we can to progress matters as quickly as possible.\"", "Mohammed Abdallah will be sentenced on Friday\n\nA British man has been found guilty of travelling to join so-called Islamic State in Syria.\n\nMohammed Abdallah received help from his brother Abdalraouf, who set up a \"hub\" of communication for would-be fighters from his home in Manchester.\n\nThe Old Bailey heard the 26-year-old intended to meet three fellow jihadis in Syria.\n\nAbdallah, of Westerling Way, Moss Side, Manchester, was convicted following a trial lasting more than four weeks.\n\nHe was found guilty of possessing an AK47 gun, receiving £2,000 for terrorism purposes and membership of IS.\n\nAbdallah was remanded into custody until his sentencing on Friday.\n\nThe jury heard the defendant was assisted by his disabled younger brother Abdalraouf, who was previously jailed for helping other members of the same network.\n\nAbdalraouf Abdallah has been in a wheelchair since he was injured in Libya at the age of 18\n\nAbdalraouf was left paralysed after he was shot while taking part in the 2011 Libyan uprising.\n\nHis brother was outed as an IS fighter last year when an IS registration document listing him as a \"specialist sniper\" was leaked to Sky News by a defector.\n\nThe court heard how the defendant arrived in Britain as a refugee at the age of three after his family fled the Gaddafi regime in Libya.\n\nAbdallah went to Burnage High School in Manchester and also attended Didsbury Mosque, where Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi was also known to have worshipped, it can now be reported.\n\nAbdallah previously said he failed to pass any exams and was \"not particularly religious\", preferring to spend time drinking and smoking cannabis.\n\nAbdallah's IS registration document was translated into English and analysed by detectives\n\nIn 2011 the brothers joined the \"Tripoli Brigade\" and during a bloody battle against the Gaddafi regime, Abdalraouf was shot and paralysed from the waist down.\n\nJurors were shown video footage of both siblings handling heavy Russian-made machine guns on vehicles in Libya.\n\nIn the summer of 2014, Abdallah headed to Syria via Libya with fellow Libyan Nezar Khalifa, 27, the jury heard.\n\nProsecutor Mark Heywood QC said they planned to join IS with former RAF serviceman Stephen Gray, 34, and Raymond Matimba, 28, who were also from Manchester.\n\nGray was turned away in Turkey, but Matimba eventually caught up with the others and recently appeared in footage with the late IS killer Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John.\n\nIn 2016, Sky News received files from an IS defector which listed Abdallah as a specialist sniper with expertise with the \"Dushka\", a Russian heavy machine gun, and fighting experience in Libya.\n\nFormer RAF serviceman Stephen Gray also tried to enter Syria but was turned away in Turkey\n\nHis record, which had the IS flag in the top right-hand corner, listed his former occupation as \"supermarket vendor\", although jobless Abdallah told jurors he got by in Britain by stealing and selling cannabis.\n\nThe form listed Manchester recruiter Raphael Hostey, aka Abu Al-qaqa Al Britani, as a reference for Abdallah, as well as a \"family friend\", the Libyan narrator of an IS video entitled Demolishing Borders.\n\nGiving evidence, Abdallah denied swearing allegiance to the jihadist group, claiming he went to Syria to help deliver $5,000 to the poor.\n\nHe said someone else must have filled out the registration form without his knowledge.\n\n\"It's true I refused to swear allegiance. They did send me to prison,\" Abdallah told the court.\n\n\"I was threatened with being beheaded. I was shot at. I was hit. I had bruises and a black eye.\"\n\nMohammed Abdallah is thought to be the man on the back of this truck in TV footage taken during fighting in Libya\n\nAbdalraouf Abdallah, then aged 18, is also thought to have appeared in TV footage showing fighting in Libya\n\nHe denied knowing the man behind the Demolishing Borders IS video but admitted he knew Hostey through the Didsbury mosque.\n\nAbdalraouf Abdallah and Gray were arrested in Manchester in November 2014.\n\nIn 2016, Abdalraouf Abdallah was found guilty of assisting others in committing acts of terrorism, and terror funding and jailed for five and a half years.\n\nGray, of Whitnall Street in Manchester, admitted three terrorism offences, including his attempts to travel to Syria, and was jailed for five years.\n\nFellow Mancunian Hostey, described as an \"inspirational figure\" for would-be jihadis, left the UK in 2013 and is believed to have been killed in a drone strike in 2016.\n\nIt can now be reported that Abdallah's trial was delayed in the wake of the attack on the Manchester Arena over reported links with Abedi, who attended the same mosque as the defendant and Hostey.\n\nHe too had Libyan parents, lived in Manchester, and had travelled to Libya before returning to the city to plan the May 22 attack on an Ariana Grande concert that killed 22 people.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Mohammed spends his days playing computer games and looking after his granddad. He's only 14, but he hasn't been to school since December. The idea was to home school him - but things didn't quite work out like that, reports the BBC's Sue Mitchell.\n\nHe lives in a spotlessly clean Bradford semi-detached house, with pale wood flooring and deep, comfortable sofas. His mother works part time as a nursery nurse and his father is a taxi driver.\n\nHis mum admits she is totally out of her depth.\n\nShe says she agreed to try to educate Mohammed herself at the suggestion of his school, after he was excluded for bad behaviour. She wanted to keep him out of the only alternative, a pupil referral unit.\n\nMohammed wasn't opposed to the idea at first. \"I thought it would be good because I wouldn't mix in with bad children,\" he says.\n\nBut it was harder than he expected. \"My mum isn't a proper teacher, she just helps nursery kids. She's not a teacher for maths, science and English. I couldn't learn from her.\"\n\nHis dad, who works long hours, tells him that he is squandering his life opportunities. \"He says: 'You've just ruined your chances' - that I could have had a good education and done my GCSEs and had a good life, but now I've wasted that,\" Mohammed says.\n\nMany families say home schooling works well for them. But Mohammed is one of a growing number of children who find themselves falling out of the state education system, according to Richard Watts, the chair of the Local Government Association's Children and Young People's Board.\n\nHe says it's increasingly common to hear of schools \"effectively putting a lot of pressure on parents to home educate their kids to get them off their rolls, particularly when exam time comes around\".\n\nMohammed was only 13 when he was excluded from school for setting off fireworks in the corridor with other boys. \"We went to a meeting, but they said there's no way of him coming back to the school,\" says his mum.\n\nMohammed had already been in trouble with the school authorities for fighting. \"At school he thought they ganged up on him and called him names, trying to provoke him. Mohammed is really quiet, but if he hasn't done nothing he'll be upset by it,\" his mother says.\n\n\"When Mohammed first settled into secondary education he was good. I think it's that he finds it hard to settle down and so much depends on his friendship group.\"\n\nBy year nine it became clear that he would no longer have a place in mainstream education. It was either home education or a place at the same pupil referral unit that his older brother had attended. His family didn't want him getting into the same bad crowds as his brother.\n\nSo when the school suggested home education as the only alternative, Mohammed's mother readily agreed. \"I never knew about the home schooling. I'm not that very educated myself and I'm not good with computers,\" she says.\n\nThe council had suggested a home education website. \"We had a few links but because of my home life situation and working I hadn't enough hours. He'd be depressed every morning and I'd put him on the home education website but it wasn't working for him,\" says Mohammed's mum.\n\nWhen she tried to get Mohammed out of bed to work, he refused.\n\nNow she doesn't bother trying and he passes his time helping his granddad, who has a serious lung condition and needs round-the-clock care.\n\nFor a brief period he attended Raising Explorers, an after-school facility in Bradford that tutored Mohammed for a couple of hours a week.\n\n\"It was hard to start over and not mess about and think about what I'm doing and to concentrate,\" he says.\n\n\"When I first went to the after-school club I was new, my background was different and I made mistakes. I got put on report and was doing good, but when people disturb me I just get annoyed and retaliate back,\" he says. He was excluded for brawling with another boy.\n\nMohammed says he regrets the bad behaviour that lost him his place in a mainstream school.\n\n\"I used to go to school and do stupid things I didn't think it would come to this, I thought I'd just do it a bit and I'd have a chance. I was falling behind at school anyway, but now that I don't have school I won't have any education for my GCSEs. I do think about my future - it's not going to be good.\"\n\nOut of School, Out of Sight is broadcast at 11:00 on Wednesday 4 October on BBC Radio 4, or listen again on iPlayer\n\nAbdur Rahman, who runs a project working with excluded youngsters, says that like Richard Watts he is coming across an increasing number of cases where parents are persuaded to home educate, yet don't have the capacity to do so.\n\n\"These schools don't ask about the ability of parents to teach - that isn't part of the discussion. Schools work like businesses and it isn't about looking out for the child, it's about saying to Mum and Dad that: 'This is what you have to do because your child isn't engaging and it will keep you out of trouble.' It's a strategy that the schools are increasingly using.\"\n\nThe inspection of home education is carried out by local government officials, but it is a voluntary register and although numbers are thought to be growing, there is no real idea of how many families are doing this. It's because so little is known about the extent and quality of home education, that Lord Soley recently introduced a private members bill aimed at bringing in a mandatory registration system.\n\nHe says that there are concerns about the quality of education some youngsters are receiving. There is also a cost for schools who take back pupils like Mohammed when home education hasn't worked.\n\n\"These pupils who fall behind have disruption to their own education outcomes, but then if they go back into schools they cause problems across the board as they try to catch up. It isn't helping them and it isn't good for the schools when it doesn't work,\" he says.\n\nBradford Council is currently discussing school options with Mohammed and his family. A spokesman says the details of individual cases cannot be discussed, but any parent has the right to choose to home educate their child at any stage of their formal education.\n\n\"Local authorities can give advice but have no role in deciding whether this should happen,\" the spokesman continues.\n\n\"When the local authority becomes aware of an electively home-educated child, we offer a home visit or to meet at another venue. The local authority has no statutory duty to monitor the quality of home education on a routine basis. However, we always work to keep contact with parents to ensure our information about the child is kept up to date.\n\n\"All parents of electively home-educated children can contact our home education team at any time and parents can apply to the local authority for a school place at any point. The local authority will always look to work with the district's schools to find a solution which works for the child and their parents.\"\n\nMohammed's mum is currently trying to get her son back into school.\n\n\"I want him to do his GCSEs and go further, to study and move on to what he wants to do - instead of just finishing with no qualifications in a cruel world. I want him to try hard and I've told him, but there's nothing else I can do. Mohammed says he'll do anything to go back to school and to study,\" she says.\n\nMohammed agrees. He says he desperately wants to be back in the classroom.\n\n\"When I used to go to school I used to be around other children and I was happy. Now I'm by myself and it's just boring alone, I don't like it.\"\n\nJoin the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.", "Last updated on .From the section European Football\n\nReal Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo beat Barcelona's Lionel Messi to win the Ballon d'Or award for the fifth time - and the second year in a row.\n\nVictory took the 32-year-old Portugal international level with 30-year-old Argentine Messi, who won the most recent of his five awards in 2015.\n\nMessi's ex-Barcelona team-mate Neymar, now at Paris St-Germain, was third.\n\nLast season, Ronaldo helped Real Madrid win the Champions League and their first La Liga title since 2012.\n\nRonaldo added the 2017 Ballon d'Or to those he won in 2008, 2013, 2014 and 2016, and Messi is the only other recipient of the award since 2009.\n\n\"This is something I look forward to every year,\" he said, after receiving the award on the Eiffel Tower in Paris.\n\n\"Thanks to my Real Madrid team-mates. And I want to thank the rest of the people who helped me reach this level.\"\n\nThe 2016-17 campaign was a stellar season for the former Manchester United player.\n\nAfter helping Portugal win Euro 2016, he scored 42 goals for Real in all competitions as they won their 33rd La Liga title and 12th European Cup.\n\nHe scored twice in a 4-1 Champions League final win over Juventus and netted 25 times in 29 league games as Los Blancos finished three points ahead of Barcelona.\n• None Quiz: How well do you really know Messi and Ronaldo?\n\nWhat is the Ballon d'Or?\n\nThe Ballon d'Or is voted for by 173 journalists from around the world.\n\nIt has been awarded by France Football every year since 1956, but for six years it became the Fifa Ballon d'Or in association with world football's governing body and was awarded to the world's best player.\n\nHowever, Fifa ended its association with the award in September 2016.\n\nAt Fifa's awards in October, Ronaldo was named the world's best male player and also named in the Fifpro World XI.\n\nHow did Premier League players do?\n\nChelsea midfielder N'Golo Kante was the highest-placed Premier League player, finishing eighth. The France international won his second successive top-flight title last season and was named both the PFA and Football Writers' player of the year.\n\nTottenham striker Harry Kane, the only Englishman on the shortlist, finished 10th, Manchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne was 14th and Chelsea playmaker Eden Hazard was 19th.\n\nLiverpool forward Sadio Mane was 23rd while team-mate and playmaker Philippe Coutinho was 29th.", "Gambling giant Ladbrokes Coral is in \"detailed\" talks over a takeover by online rival GVC over a deal that could value the group at up to £3.9bn.\n\nUnder the proposals, GVC - which owns the Bwin and Sportingbet brands - would hold 53.5% of the combined group.\n\nLadbrokes Coral became the UK's biggest High Street bookmaker following last year's merger of Ladbrokes and Coral.\n\nThe maximum price GVC will pay will depend on the outcome of the government's review of gaming machines.\n\nLadbrokes Coral shares jumped 23% on news of the talks, while GVC's were up by 4%.\n\nThe Department of Culture, Media and Sport has said it will cap the size of stakes gamblers can make on fixed-odds betting terminals, amid concerns they may harm vulnerable people.\n\nMinisters proposed that bets on the machines be cut from a maximum of £100 a spin to somewhere between £2 and £50.\n\nGVC and Ladbrokes Coral said that the review could impact on the profitability of Ladbrokes Coral's UK business.\n\nUnder the proposed takeover deal, GVC will pay 160.9p for each Ladbrokes Coral share, which would value the company at £3.1bn.\n\nHowever, if the outcome of the government's review of gaming terminals is favourable to the gambling industry, and imposes a higher limit on fixed odds bets, then GVC will pay Ladbrokes Coral shareholders a so-called \"contingent value right\" (CVR) of up to 42.8p per share. When added to the original payment, this could value the company at up to £3.9bn.\n\nThe takeover of Ladbrokes Coral could go ahead before the government announces the result of its review. Following the outcome, GVC would then pay the CVR to Ladbrokes Coral shareholders.\n\nGVC and Ladbrokes Coral have previously held talks about a takeover, but they broke down.\n\n\"GVC got lucky at the third attempt and Ladbrokes Coral shareholders can count their winnings,\" said Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital.\n\n\"Whilst this deal was always likely, most had thought GVC would wait until the government's triennial review of fixed odds betting terminals was finished before it would happen.\"\n\nThe \"tie-up has always made sense\", he added.\n\nIsle of Man-based GVC \"has little debt and has the global and fast-growing online presence, Ladbrokes Coral has the physical footprint, High Street name and sports book\".\n\nUnder takeover rules GVC now has until 4 January to decide whether to make a firm offer for Ladbrokes Coral or to withdraw.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Gavin Williamson: \"We want to drive them out of Iraq and Syria\"\n\nThe UK will \"bring destruction\" to those who fight for so-called Islamic State, the defence secretary has said.\n\nGavin Williamson said British armed forces were \"making sure terrorists have nowhere to hide\" across the globe.\n\nSpeaking at the commissioning of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in Portsmouth, he said UK forces were driving IS out of Iraq and Syria.\n\nHe earlier told the Daily Mail: \"Quite simply, my view is a dead terrorist can't cause any harm to Britain.\"\n\nMr Williamson had said no British citizen who has fought for so-called Islamic State should be allowed back into the UK.\n\nAt least 800 Britons have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight for IS and 130 of those have been killed in conflict.\n\nMr Williamson, who took over as defence secretary last month, said the £3.1bn carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth was \"part of our armoury\" in dealing with terrorism.\n\n\"We will be able to deploy her any place in the globe,\" he said.\n\n\"We will destroy and bring destruction to these evil death corps such as Daesh and that's what British forces have continuously been doing.\"\n\nHe said it was important for the UK to tackle terrorism in \"ungoverned spaces\" abroad, after forces had spent the last few years driving jihadists from Iraq and Syria.\n\n\"We've also got to be realistic, as where we have taken territory from them: Where are they going to go? Where are they going to try and strike Britain next?\" he said.\n\nReyaad Khan, from Cardiff, was killed by an RAF airstrike in Syria\n\nSpeaking to the Mail, Mr Williamson said British fighters who had fled to other countries would be found and stopped from returning to the UK, adding that there would be no \"safe space\" abroad for them either.\n\n\"We have got to make sure that as (they) splinter and as they disperse across Iraq and Syria and other areas, we continue to hunt them down,\" he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Killing all jihadists is \"not a serious grown up policy response\", says Lord Macdonald\n\nLord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, said suggesting dead terrorists could not cause any harm to Britain was a \"juvenile response\".\n\n\"We can't simply say that everyone who has gone to Iraq will be hunted down and killed,\" he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme.\n\nMr Williamson's predecessor Sir Michael Fallon said in October that British IS fighters in Syria and Iraq had made themselves \"a legitimate target\" who could end up on \"the wrong end of an RAF or USAF missile\".\n\nHis comments came after it was reported that British IS recruiter Sally-Anne Jones had been killed in a US drone strike in Syria in June.\n\nAnd Rory Stewart, the minister for international development, said the \"only way\" to deal with British IS fighters in Syria is \"in almost every case\" to kill them.\n\nHe said they can expect to be killed because of the \"serious danger\" they pose to the UK's security.\n\nMax Hill QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, said there should be some allowance for \"young and naive\" individuals who were \"simply brainwashed\", for example as teenagers, but insisted that even these people should be prosecuted if they committed serious criminal offences.\n\nUnder British and international law, an aspiration to eliminate all known British IS recruits will take a little more consideration than simply launching a drone laden with fire-and-forget missiles.\n\nIn war, soldiers have immunity from prosecution for killing on the battlefield, unless they have committed a war crime. But the UK is not at war with the IS network - so the same immunity is not automatically available for counter-terrorism purposes.\n\nThere has to be some other legal basis for justifying the killing.\n\nTwo years ago, the government sent a three-paragraph letter to the United Nations Security Council setting out the case for killing Cardiff extremist Reyaad Khan.\n\nThat strike was legal under the \"inherent right of self-defence\", it said, because the 21-year-old had been directing \"imminent armed attacks\".\n\nMPs have pushed for more information on the decision-making process, that some critics say could amount to an unreviewable secret power to launch \"extra-judicial executions.\"", "The Electoral Commission is investigating whether the Labour-supporting Momentum group broke finance rules during the 2017 general election.\n\nThe elections watchdog says its probe will consider if Momentum's returns included accurate donation information.\n\nIt said questions over compliance risked harming voter confidence.\n\nMomentum said: \"Much of the Electoral Commission investigation refers to a series of administrative errors that can be easily rectified.\"\n\nIt said it would fully comply with the investigation.\n\nThe grassroots movement was set up to support Jeremy Corbyn's successful 2015 leadership bid and now campaigns for Labour.\n\nIt was registered as a non-party campaigner during the snap 2017 general election in June.\n\nBob Posner, the Electoral Commission's director of political finance, regulation and legal counsel, said: \"Momentum are a high profile active campaigning body.\n\n\"Questions over their compliance with the campaign finance rules at June's general election risks causing harm to voters' confidence in elections.\n\n\"There is significant public interest in us investigating Momentum to establish the facts in this matter and whether there have been any offences.\"\n\nThe Electoral Commission said the investigation would look at whether or not Momentum accurately recorded donations and payments relating to the 2017 campaign.\n\nIt would also consider whether a return failed to include all invoices and payments of more than £200.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Posner said: \"Once complete, the commission will decide whether any breaches have occurred and, if so, what further action may be appropriate, in line with its enforcement policy.\"\n\nUnder rules in place since 2000, non-party campaigners who wish to undertake \"targeted spending\" - intended to influence people to vote for one particular registered political party or any of its candidates - have to do so within prescribed limits.\n\nThe limits - £31,980 in England, £3,540 in Scotland, £2,400 in Wales and £1,080 in Northern Ireland - applied during the regulated period 9 June 2016 to 8 June 2017.\n\nRegistered non-party campaigners are only entitled to spend above these limits if they have the authorisation of the political party they are promoting, the commission said.\n\n\"It is an offence to spend above the statutory limits without the party's authorisation,\" it said. \"Should the party provide authorisation for a higher spending limit, any spending by that non-party campaigner up to that limit would count towards the party's national spending.\"\n\nMomentum said it \"put a lot of effort and resources into detailed budgeting and financial procedures during the election to ensure full compliance\".\n\n\"Our election campaign was delivered on a low budget because it tapped into the energy and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of volunteers across the country.\n\n\"We have a good working relationship with the Electoral Commission, and will fully comply with the investigation going forward.\"", "Prince Charles visited County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland in May 2015\n\nA dissident republican leader who plotted a bomb attack during Prince Charles' visit to Ireland has been jailed for more than 11 years.\n\nSeamus McGrane 63, from Little Road, Dromiskin in County Louth was found guilty of directing terrorism and membership of an illegal organisation.\n\nMcGrane had pleaded not guilty at Dublin's Special Criminal Court.\n\nHe was secretly recorded discussing explosives and a target of \"military significance\" in a Dublin pub.\n\nPassing a sentence of 11-and-a-half years in prison, the judge said McGrane's previous conviction for IRA membership was an aggravating factor.\n\nHis case is linked to that of Donal Ó Coisdealbha, who was sentenced to five-and-a-half years last December.\n\nSeamus McGrane was found guilty of directing terrorism and membership of an illegal organisation\n\nHe was convicted of possession of explosives in the run-up to Prince Charles' May 2015 state visit to the Republic.\n\nMcGrane met Ó Coisdealbha a number of times in the Coachman's Inn pub near Dublin airport early in 2015 to plan a bomb attack.\n\nPolice had installed listening devices and McGrane was recorded discussing strategy and experiments with explosives, as well as his involvement in training people in the dissident movement, whom he had sworn in as members.\n\nDetectives heard McGrane instructing Ó Coisdealbha to \"reactivate\" a man he called \"the science graduate\" so as to get advice on explosives.\n\nMcGrane was sentenced at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin\n\nHe told him to contact somebody whom he called the \"motorbike man\" to collect the explosives, to clean out the cylinder and return the bike, but not to dispose of it.\n\nMcGrane also told Ó Coisdealbha the target was to have \"military significance\" and he referred to someone \"coming on the 19th\" - the same day Prince Charles arrived in Ireland.\n\nThe recordings heard him refer to an attack on Palace Barracks - the MI5 headquarters in Northern Ireland - on 12 April, 2010, and to a bomb on a railway line.\n\nThe presiding judge said that there was \"the clearest evidence of directing an illegal organisation\".\n\nThe judge said that police had discovered \"a veritable arsenal of weapons and explosives substances\" in hides on land adjoining McGrane's house, which included ammunition, a revolver, mortar parts and bomb making components.\n\nOnly one other man has been convicted for directing terrorism in the Republic of Ireland - Michael McKevitt who was jailed for 20 years in 2003.\n\nIn a landmark civil case in 2009, the High Court in Belfast ruled McKevitt and three other men were responsible for the 1998 Omagh bomb that killed 29 people and unborn twins.\n\nMcKevitt did not face criminal charges in relation to the Omagh bombing.", "Video caption: CCTV footage of Simon Smith walking in Reading on Saturday when a bus hit him. CCTV footage of Simon Smith walking in Reading on Saturday when a bus hit him.\n\nA man will appear in court after a double-decker bus hit a pedestrian on a pavement in Reading.\n\nCheikh Daouda Senghor, 40, from St Johns Road, Wallingford, has been reported for summons for dangerous driving, Thames Valley Police said.\n\nCCTV footage from 24 June, showing Simon Smith being knocked down in Gun Street before getting up and walking into a bar, went viral.\n\nMr Senghor is due to appear at Reading Magistrates' Court on 14 December.", "US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv has been met with a wave of disapproval.\n\nLeaders from within the Arab and Muslim worlds, and from the wider international community, were swift to criticise the move. Some warned of the potential for violence and bloodshed as a result.\n\nThe status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians.\n\nThe city is home to key religious sites sacred to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, especially in East Jerusalem.\n\nIsrael occupied the sector, previously occupied by Jordan, in the 1967 Middle East war and regards the entire city as its indivisible capital.\n\nThe Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, and according to 1993 Israel-Palestinian peace accords, its final status is meant to be discussed in the latter stages of peace talks.\n\nMr Trump said his decision was a \"recognition of reality\", and that the US was \"not taking a position on any final status issues\".\n\nPresident Mahmoud Abbas said the decision was tantamount to the US \"abdicating its role as a peace mediator\".\n\n\"These deplorable and unacceptable measures deliberately undermine all peace efforts,\" he said in a speech broadcast after Mr Trump's announcement.\n\nHe insisted that Jerusalem was the \"eternal capital of the state of Palestine\".\n\nThe leader of the Islamist movement Hamas, Ismail Haniya, called for a new \"intifada\", or uprising.\n\n\"The American decision is an aggression against our people. It's a declaration of war against our Palestinian people,\" he told a news conference in Gaza.\n\n\"We should call for and we should work on launching an intifada in the face of the Zionist enemy,\" he added.\n\nIsrael's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the US announcement was a \"historic landmark\" and that Mr Trump's decision was \"courageous and just\".\n\nMr Netanyahu said the speech was \"an important step towards peace, for there is no peace that doesn't include Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel\". The city had \"been the capital of Israel for nearly 70 years\", he added.\n\nIn a speech on Thursday, he said: \"President Trump has inscribed himself in the annals of our capital for all time.\"\n\n\"His name will now be linked to the names of others in the context of the glorious history of Jerusalem and our people... We are already in contacts with other countries that will declare similar recognition,\" he said, adding: \"It's about time.\"\n\nTurkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the move, saying it was \"throwing the region into a ring of fire\".\n\n\"What do you want to do Mr Trump? What kind of an approach is this? Political leaders exist not to create struggles but to make peace,\" he said.\n\nHis Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu wrote on Twitter that \"the decision is against international law and relevant UN resolutions\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSaudi Arabia's King Salman told Mr Trump by telephone on Tuesday that the relocation of the embassy or recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital \"would constitute a flagrant provocation of Muslims, all over the world\".\n\n\"The US move represents a significant decline in efforts to push a peace process and is a violation of the historically neutral American position on Jerusalem.\"\n\nThose views were echoed by Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, who warned against \"complicating the situation in the region by introducing measures that would undermine chances for peace in the Middle East\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why the ancient city of Jerusalem is so important\n\nThe Arab League called it \"a dangerous measure that would have repercussions\" across the region, and also questioned the future role of the US as a \"trusted mediator\" in peace talks.\n\nIran said the decision risked a \"new intifada\", or uprising. Its foreign ministry said the US had clearly violated international resolutions.\n\nMeanwhile, Jordan's King Abdullah called for joint efforts to \"deal with the ramifications of this decision\" and a Jordanian government spokesman said Mr Trump was violating international law and the UN charter.\n\nLebanon's President Michel Aoun said the peace process would be set back decades, while Qatar's Foreign MinisterSheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said the move was \"a death sentence for all who seek peace\".\n\nPope Francis said: \"I cannot silence my deep concern over the situation that has emerged in recent days. At the same time, I appeal strongly for all to respect the city's status quo, in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions.\"\n\nUnited Nations Secretary General António Guterres said President Trump's statement \"would jeopardise the prospect of peace for Israelis and Palestinians\".\n\nMr Guterres said Jerusalem was \"a final status issue that must be resolved through direct negotiations between the two parties\".\n\nSuch negotiations must take \"into account the legitimate concerns of both the Palestinians and the Israeli sides,\" he said.\n\nThe European Union called for the \"resumption of a meaningful peace process towards a two-state solution\" and said \"a way must be found, through negotiations, to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of both states, so that the aspiration of both parties can be fulfilled\".\n\nEU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the announcement \"has a very worrying potential impact.\"\n\n\"It is a very fragile context and the announcement has the potential to send us backwards to even darker times than the ones we are already living in,\" she added.\n\n\"The worst thing that could happen now is an escalation of tensions around the holy places and in the region because what happens in Jerusalem matters to the whole region and the entire world.\"\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron said Mr Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital was \"regrettable\". He called efforts for \"avoid violence at all costs.\"\n\nGerman ChancellorAngela Merkel's spokesman said on Twitter that Berlin \"does not support this position because the status of Jerusalem can only be negotiated within the framework of a two-state solution\".\n\nBoth China and Russia also expressed their concern that the move could lead to an escalation of tensions in the region.\n\nUK Prime Minister Theresa May said her government disagreed with the US decision, which was \"unhelpful in terms of prospects for peace in the region\".\n\n\"The British embassy to Israel is based in Tel Aviv and we have no plans to move it,\" a statement said.\n\n\"Our position on the status of Jerusalem is clear and longstanding: it should be determined in a negotiated settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and Jerusalem should ultimately be the shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian states. In line with relevant [UN] Security Council Resolutions, we regard East Jerusalem as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.\"\n\nLabour Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said the move was \"reckless\" and had taken a \"hammer blow\" to the peace process. \"He is setting it back decades,\" she added.\n• None Jerusalem is Israel's capital, Trump to say", "Seven people were killed when a tram derailed near to Sandilands in November 2016\n\nThe driver of a tram which derailed in Croydon had probably dozed off moments before the fatal crash, an official report has found.\n\nSeven people died and more than 50 were injured in the derailment in south London in November last year.\n\nThe Rail Accident Investigation Branch also found action was not taken following a similar speeding incident just days before the tragedy.\n\nThe 174-page report has made 15 recommendations to improve tram safety.\n\nThese include the creation of a dedicated safety body for UK tramways, a better understanding of risk of trams and the introduction of stronger windows and doors on trams.\n\nInvestigators say all the fatalities and many of the serious injuries were caused by passengers being thrown out of carriage windows.\n\nThe tram was running from New Addington to Wimbledon via Croydon, and was on the approach to Sandilands tram stop soon after 06:00 on 9 November 2016.\n\nA previous report said although the speed limit approaching the junction was 12mph, the tram had been travelling at an estimated speed of 45mph.\n\nInvestigators found the tram derailed while travelling at three-and-a-half times the speed limit\n\nThe report said the most likely cause for the driver not applying the brakes was \"a temporary loss of awareness of the driving task during a period of low workload, which possibly caused him to micro-sleep\".\n\nIt adds: \"It is also possible that when regaining awareness, the driver became confused about his location and direction of travel.\"\n\nTests found no drugs or alcohol in the driver's system and no medical abnormalities were identified in him.\n\nSimon French, RAIB's chief inspector of rail accidents, added: \"There is no direct evidence of the driver closing his eyes or being asleep.\"\n\nWhen interviewed as part of the investigation, the driver said he had \"no recollection\" and \"couldn't explain what happened\", according to Mr French.\n\nA criminal investigation is being led by the British Transport Police (BTP) who arrested the driver on suspicion of manslaughter.\n\nThe 43-year-old man, from Beckenham, remains on bail, a BTP spokesman said.\n\nThe RAIB report also found management were not aware of previous incidents involving late braking on the approach to Sandilands.\n\nSome of this was down to a \"reluctance of some drivers to report their own mistakes\", the report said.\n\nOn 31 October a passenger raised concerns about a tram which went \"too fast\" round a bend near Sandilands.\n\nThe driver of that tram applied the hazard brake, but the driver did not report the incident.\n\nThe RAIB said on Thursday, that tram \"came close to coming off the tracks.\"\n\nPeople were \"ejected\" from the carriage and some became trapped and crushed as the speeding tram ground to a halt, the report found.\n\nThe RAIB is advising tram operators throughout the UK to make sure windows are fitted with stronger glass.\n\nLondon's Transport Commissioner Mike Brown said: \"Since the incident we have introduced a wide range of additional safety measures to make sure such a tragedy can never happen again.\n\nA stone plinth has been built as a memorial to the victims\n\n\"These include new signage and warning systems for drivers, additional speed restrictions, enhanced speed monitoring and an upgrade of the CCTV recording system.\n\n\"An in-cab driver protection device has been trialled and is now fitted to every tram, meaning that any sign of driver distraction or fatigue results in the driver being alerted immediately. Work to install a system to automatically reduce tram speeds if required is also underway.\"\n\nThe Croydon tram service is run on behalf of TfL by Tram Operations Limited, a subsidiary of FirstGroup.\n\nTim O'Toole, FirstGroup's chief executive officer, extended his condolences to the victims and added: \"The RAIB concluded that management of fatigue was not a factor in the incident, nor did a speeding culture contribute to it.\n\n\"Nevertheless, over the past year we have taken a series of actions, working closely with TfL on whose behalf we operate the system, to implement additional measures including enhanced speed monitoring and restrictions, improved signage and renewed guidance on fatigue management.\"\n\nWhat is totally damning is how fundamentally broken the reporting and complaints process was at the tram operator run by First Group.\n\nDrivers were afraid to report for fear of recriminations and when passengers complained - such as after a speeding incident on 31 October just 10 days before the crash - the investigation was glacial.\n\nThe families of those who died are heartbroken and outraged that opportunities to stop speeding incidents were missed.\n\nIn fact, the complaints procedure has been deemed so broken, TfL has taken it away from FirstGroup and brought it back in house.\n\nAgain this will raise huge questions about the fragmentation of the transport industry and I'm sure questions about the role of privatisation and companies operating concessions on behalf of public bodies.\n\nDespite the RAIB publishing its findings, there are still other separate investigations being carried out in parallel with each other.\n\nTfL has commissioned its own probe into the disaster, while the Office for Road and Rail (ORR) is looking at whether there were any health and safety breaches which contributed to the crash.\n\nIn response to the report, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: \"This was a preventable accident, seven people lost their lives and they shouldn't have done so. It's really important we learn lessons.\"\n\nThe driver's union ASLEF's Finn Brennan said tram drivers still have a \"fear\" of being sacked if they \"report being tired or sick\".\n\nHe added \"management culture\" at Tram Operations Ltd meant mistakes were not listened to and acted on properly.\n\nSarah Jones, MP for Croydon Central, said: \"Our first thoughts will always be for the victims' families.\n\n\"They will be reliving this tragedy yet again, and it will be another difficult day for them. The most important thing we can do for them is show that lessons have been learned and make sure this never happens again.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Swimmers went in all types of fancy dress\n\nAbout 1,200 people braved icy sea waters to take part in one of the UK's largest Christmas Day swims.\n\nThe Porthcawl Christmas morning swim is in its 53rd year, and took place on Sandy Bay.\n\nThis year's theme is \"Father Christmas\" in memory of Jack Bridge, who was the swim's original Santa.\n\nDave King, who is the chairman of the committee which organises the event, said: \"We are very pleased with how it went.\"", "The Queen has paid tribute to London and Manchester in her Christmas Day message for their handling of this year's terror attacks.\n\nShe said it was a \"privilege\" to meet the concert attack survivors in May and stressed both cities' \"powerful identities\".\n\nThe monarch also remembered the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.\n\nIn the year of her 70th wedding anniversary she praised the Duke of Edinburgh's support.\n\nDespite missing the Christmas morning service last year due to illness, the Queen spent this year at Sandringham with the Royal Family including Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle.\n\nLooking back over 2017, the Queen reflected fondly on her relationship with Prince Philip amid his decision to \"slow down a little\".\n\nShe said: \"I don't know that anyone had invented the term 'platinum' for a 70th wedding anniversary when I was born. You weren't expected to be around that long.\"\n\nThis summer Prince Philip retired from his programme of public engagements, although he has continued to attend some events involving the Queen.\n\nIn the broadcast, the Queen also praised her husband's \"unique sense of humour\".\n\nShe recorded this year's Christmas message to the Commonwealth a few days ago in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace.\n\nThe message's main theme is the importance of home, which she describes as a place of \"warmth, familiarity and love\", with a \"timeless simplicity\" and \"pull\".\n\nSurrounded by family photographs and a picture of newly engaged Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Queen said her family \"look forward to welcoming new members into it next year\".\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their third child in April. while the prince and Ms Markle will wed in May.\n\nOn a table, alongside photographs of Prince George and Princess Charlotte, were two pictures of the Queen with the Duke of Edinburgh, one of which was taken on their wedding day in 1947 and the other from their anniversary in November this year.\n\nThe Queen was dressed in an ivory white dress by Angela Kelly, which she first wore for the Diamond Jubilee Thames River Pageant in 2012.\n\nThe Queen and Prince Philip celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in November\n\nShe also expressed gratitude towards emergency service workers in a year of \"appalling attacks\" and highlighted the \"extraordinary bravery and resilience\" of survivors.\n\nReferencing the Grenfell Tower fire which claimed the lives of 71 people, the Queen described it as \"sheer awfulness\".\n\n\"Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who died and those who lost so much, and we are indebted to members of the emergency services who risked their own lives this past year saving others,\" the Queen said.\n\nFive people: four pedestrians and a police officer, were killed in the Westminster Bridge attack in March.\n\nIn May, the Queen visited victims of the bombing at Manchester Arena, in which 22 people died. A suicide bomber struck as they left the venue following a performance by US singer Ariana Grande.\n\n\"I describe that hospital visit as a 'privilege' because the patients I met were an example to us all,\" she said.\n\nThe Queen visited victims of the bombing at Manchester Arena in May\n\nThe following month, eight people died when three men in a van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge before going on a knife attack in nearby Borough Market.\n\nLater that June, a man died when a hired van ran into worshippers near the Muslim Welfare House in Finsbury Park, north London.\n\nThe Queen's Christmas message was broadcast at 15:00 GMT on BBC One, and can be watched again on iPlayer.", "A mother who snapped a lucky photograph of four smiling royals is hoping its sale will help her fund her daughter's university education.\n\nKaren Anvil, 39, from Watlington in Norfolk captured a beaming Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Sandringham.\n\nThe image, which was posted on Twitter, was liked almost 4,000 times and stoked mainstream media interest.\n\nMs Anvil told the BBC reaction to the picture has been \"bizarre and bonkers\".\n\nMs Anvil and her 17-year-old daughter, Rachel, have been to spot the Royals at their annual Christmas Day service a couple of times before.\n\nShe said that, while suffering from an illness last year, she promised her daughter they would go to St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham this Christmas.\n\nShe said: \"Sky News was on and we were looking at the crowds. My daughter said 'I'd love to do that'.\n\n\"'I said 'next year, when I'm better we'll go'. And so I took her.\"\n\nMs Anvil admitted she had a \"fan-girl\" moment while with her daughter Rachel, 17\n\nAsked how she got the Royals to look at the camera and capture the shot every photographer dreamt of, Ms Anvil admitted her secret was attracting their attention,\n\n\"I'm just very bubbly by nature and I was with my daughter and I got a bit excitable, I suppose.\n\n\"I was just sort of shouting and I just went 'Merry Christmas!' like an idiot. I was fan-girling.\n\n\"That's all I said and got them to look.\"\n\nMs Anvil posted the image on Twitter at about 11:00 GMT and got thousands of likes. Her previous record was just five likes.\n\nFour hours later she was still receiving messages asking for permission to use the picture - and advice from other Twitter users telling her to negotiate a price.\n\nShe said: \"At first I said oh yeah sure. Have the photo. I know nothing about that.\"\n\nBut soon afterwards she was flooded with suggestions to copyright the photograph and earn some Christmas Day cash.\n\n\"The thing is - and I hate to play the single mum card - I'm a single parent, I work two jobs, which I'm proud of and I've always worked.\n\n\"Now I want to save money for my daughter for uni and if I can do that, and can get that opportunity that's amazing.\"", "Many migrants, the pontiff said, were being forced to flee from leaders who \"see no problem in shedding innocent blood\"\n\nPope Francis has urged Roman Catholics not to ignore the plight of millions of migrants \"driven from their land\", during Christmas Eve Mass.\n\nThe pontiff compared them to Mary and Joseph, recounting the Biblical story of how they travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem but found no place to stay.\n\nHe has made defence of migrants around the world a major theme of his papacy.\n\nThe Pope is set to give his traditional \"Urbi et Orbi\" (\"to the city and to the world\") Christmas address on Monday.\n\n\"So many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary,\" he told worshippers who gathered in St Peter's Basilica on 24 December.\n\n\"We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away but, driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Church of the Nativity hosts pilgrims on Christmas Eve\n\nPope Francis, the leader of roughly 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, is himself the grandson of Italian migrants. He said many of today's refugees were fleeing from leaders who \"see no problem in shedding innocent blood\".\n\nThere are more than 22 million refugees worldwide. The latest cross-border influx involves the Rohingya fleeing violence in Myanmar. The Pope visited Myanmar last month and later met members of the Muslim minority who had sought refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh.\n\nThe Pope stressed that faith demanded that foreigners be welcomed everywhere.\n\nNuns watch a Christmas Eve procession at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem\n\nChristians celebrated Christmas morning Mass at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built on the site where tradition says Mary gave birth to Jesus.\n\nThere were fewer pilgrims than usual in the West Bank town this year. The town has seen clashes in recent weeks between Palestinian protesters and the Israeli army, after President Donald Trump's contentious decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.\n\nAt Midnight Mass in Bethlehem, local Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa condemned President Trump's decision and said Jerusalem could not be a city of peace if people were excluded.", "The cause of the breakdown has not been established\n\nAt least 150 people have been rescued after being trapped for several hours in ski lift gondolas in the resort of Chamrousse in the French Alps.\n\nA vast rescue operation was launched after the lift broke down at about 15:00 local time (14:00 GMT) and was completed by 17:30, AFP said.\n\nNo-one was injured during the incident.\n\nRescuers reached the top of each gondola and released the skiers through the roof hatch before lowering them to the ground.\n\nThe skiers had been suspended around 25m (82ft) above the snow before ropes were used to bring them down.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Morgane Goulot This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEach gondola has space for about 10 people.\n\nThe cause of the breakdown has not been established.\n\nThe ski lift - built in 2009 to replace a cable car and two chairlifts - connects the town of Chamrousse to the summit of the Croix de Chamrousse, 2,250m above sea level.", "Four people involved in the crash were taken to hospital\n\nTwo men have died in a crash involving five vehicles that closed part of the M40 in Oxfordshire for several hours.\n\nOne vehicle is thought to have overturned in the crash, which happened between junctions 10 and 11, near Banbury, at 23:40 GMT on Saturday.\n\nA 60-year-old man from Oxfordshire and a 29-year-old man from Warwickshire died.\n\nThe M40 was shut in both directions overnight for about three hours but has since reopened.\n\nThames Valley Police said the victims' next-of-kin had been informed.\n\nAnother man was taken to hospital with serious leg injuries, and three people were treated for minor injuries.\n\nYou might also be interested in:\n\nThe ambulance service, fire service and Highways England all attended the scene with police.\n\nCh Insp Henry Parsons said: \"Our thoughts are with both men's families at this difficult time.\n\n\"We would like to speak to anyone who may have witnessed the collision who has not yet spoken to police.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Polish fisherman Rado Papiewski wants to have the sign removed\n\nThe owner of a fishery which displayed a sign banning Polish and \"Eastern bloc\" anglers says it has been taken down after his family received threats.\n\nBilly Evans of Field Farm Fisheries said the sign went up because he had caught anglers stealing fish. He said he now may also shut the fishery.\n\nPolish fisherman Rado Papiewski raised more than £10,000 for a private prosecution to have the sign removed.\n\nThe Equality and Human Rights Commission says the sign was unlawful.\n\nIt had warned it would take \"enforcement action\" if necessary.\n\nMr Evans told the BBC: \"The sign has been removed because of threats to my family.\n\n\"I am not in the country. I will decide what to do on my return. I may close it to all public long term.\"\n\nMr Evans said the fishery, in Launton, near Bicester, Oxfordshire, was closed as usual for the winter but would remain so until further notice.\n\nHe added: \"I do not tolerate thieves, wherever they come from.\"\n\nBilly Evans (pictured in 2009) said there had been threats to his family\n\nMr Papiewski, from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, runs a project called Building Bridges, for the Angling Trust, which aims to \"educate and integrate\" anglers from other countries.\n\nThe project website explains that anglers from countries such as Poland have traditionally caught fish \"for the pot\", whereas in Britain anglers generally return fish to the water.\n\nHe believes the sign was is in breach of the Equality Act 2010.\n\nWriting on his crowdfunding page on Thursday, he called its removal a \"big step in the right direction and we are now seeking written confirmation that they have changed their policy and that all anglers are welcome on the site, regardless of their race or nationality\".\n\nHe said his legal team were taking the matter \"forward\" and said he would \"provide a further update early in the New Year\".\n\nAn EHRC spokeswoman said it had written to the fishery to advise it to take it down.\n\n\"It's right to challenge such out-of-date practices and any business that believes this is acceptable should think again before they find themselves facing legal action,\" she said.\n\nRado Papiewski has crowdfunded more than £10,000 to pay for legal fees\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The bus hit the entrance of a pedestrian underpass in Moscow\n\nA bus left a road in Moscow before ploughing into a subway entrance, leaving four people dead and 11 injured, Russian officials say.\n\nFootage shows people scattering as the bus ran down wide steps before being brought to a halt by the tunnel's roof.\n\nThere is no suggestion it was a terror attack. Russian investigators said the driver told police the vehicle had started to move suddenly.\n\nHe tried to apply the brakes but they did not work, the investigative committee said. The crash happened in icy conditions.\n\nAll those killed in the crash were knocked down by the bus, which had been at a standstill before it drove on to the pavement and careered down the steps of the underpass.\n\nThe victims included a woman in her thirties and a teenager. Health officials said two of the injured were in a serious condition.\n\nInterfax news agency reported that the bus was not even a year old. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin told reporters at the scene that an inspection of the entire Moscow bus fleet had been ordered.\n\nThe driver is being held by police\n\nIt is not the first deadly incident at the station\n\nSecurity camera footage broadcast on Russian television showed a number of people being struck by the bus as it went down the steps of the metro station in the west of the city.\n\nA preliminary examination showed the driver of the bus was sober, news agencies said. He has been held by police.\n\nIn July 2014, 21 people were killed when a train derailed near the same station after braking abruptly.\n\nMonday is a normal working day in Moscow, where the Orthodox Christmas will be celebrated on 7 January.", "People were earlier evacuated from the Vietnamese province of Ben Tre\n\nA tropical storm that was threatening southern Vietnam has weakened and is expected to dissipate within 48 hours.\n\nThe Weather Prediction Center says Storm Tembin, with wind gusts up to 58mph (93km/h), is 170 miles south-southwest of Ho Chi Minh City, and is moving westward.\n\nNearly a million people were earlier told to prepare for evacuation and some 70,000 were moved from low-lying areas.\n\nTembin killed at least 240 people as it swept through the Philippines.\n\nRescuers are searching for more than 100 people still missing.\n\nBridges and roads on the southern island of Mindanao were destroyed or blocked by landslides, while nearly 1,000 houses were wrecked and many rice fields washed away.\n\nIn Vietnam, the government earlier ordered oil rigs and vessels to be secured and warned that about 62,000 fishing boats should not go out to sea, Reuters news agency reports.\n\n\"Vietnam must ensure the safety of its oil rigs and vessels,\" Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc was quoted as saying. \"If necessary, close the oil rigs and evacuate workers.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The aftermath of Storm Tembin on Mindanao island\n\nIn the southern province of Bac Lieu, residents from a fishing village were moved to different schools that have been turned into shelters.", "People spending Christmas Day alone are finding company thanks to a Twitter campaign called #joinin.\n\nLaunched by comedian Sarah Millican several years ago, it encourages people to use the hashtag and link with one another so as not to feel lonely.\n\nPeople from around the world have already begun to tweet with their experiences.\n\n\"The main rule is to be kind,\" said Millican. \"We're all here for each other.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sarah Millican This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA number of tweeters explained why they were on their own on Christmas Day.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Spanna This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Anth This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by QuirkyT This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 5 by Jessica This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 6 by Maggie is NOT Merry 🎄 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 6 by Maggie is NOT Merry 🎄\n\nWhilst some shared their sadness, others were positive about their situation.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 7 by rbaldy This article contains content provided by Twitter. 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You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd there were reminders of the people spending Christmas Day alone to help us all.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 11 by Cat This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe campaign will run throughout the day. Just use the hashtag #joinin when tweeting to be part of it.", "A white Christmas in Peebles, in the Scottish Borders\n\nIt has officially been a white Christmas in the UK for some, with areas of Cumbria and the south of Scotland recording light snowfall.\n\nThe Met Office confirmed the snowfall in Spadeadam, Cumbria, at about 22:00 GMT.\n\nIn a tweet, the forecaster added that parts of the south of Scotland were \"also seeing rain turn to snow\".\n\nMore wintry showers are expected, with the chance of up to 10cm of snow on the highest ground in Scotland.\n\nThe last officially white Christmas was recorded in 2014, when parts of the Northern Isles in Scotland had some snowfall.\n\nA white Christmas used to be defined as the sighting, by a professional meteorologist, of one snow flake falling on the roof of the London Weather Centre.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Met Office This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Met Office has widened the rule to include other parts of the country.\n\nHowever, the snow still must be seen by a professional to count.\n\nThe Met Office has warnings covering southern, central and eastern Scotland and the most northern parts of England.\n\nMet forecaster Mark Wilson said the temperature would turn colder on Boxing Day, with averages of 2C and 4C in Scotland, and between 7C and 9C in the south of the UK.\n\nIt is also alerting people in Wales and central England to expect rain and snow from 18:00 GMT on Boxing Day until 11:00 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nPersistent rain moving east, from Wales into England, is likely to turn to snow early on Wednesday.\n\nMost of the UK enjoyed a mild Christmas Day, although it has been wet in some areas.\n\nThe highest temperature - of 12.5C - was recorded in Hawarden, Flintshire, in north-east Wales.\n\nIt failed to match the Christmas Day record of 15.6C in Killerton, Devon in 1920.", "Last updated on .From the section Tennis\n\nSerena Williams will return to tennis in Abu Dhabi next week, almost four months after giving birth.\n\nThe American, 36, will play world number seven Jelena Ostapenko in an exhibition match on 30 December during the Mubadala World Tennis Championship.\n\nWilliams, who has won an Open-era record 23 Grand Slams, said she was \"delighted to be returning to the court\".\n\nShe gave birth to daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian in September.\n• None Bumps, boobs and bouncing back - an athlete's path through pregnancy\n\nFormer world number one Williams has not played since winning the Australian Open in January.\n\nCoach Patrick Mouratoglou said in November that no decision had been made over whether Williams would play in the season's first Grand Slam.\n\nAustralian Open director Craig Tilley has said Williams is \"very likely\" to defend her title at the 2018 tournament, which starts on 15 January.\n\nRanked 22nd in the world, she would not need a wildcard.\n\nRafael Nadal, Milos Raonic and Stan Wawrinka have pulled out of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship, which runs from 28-30 December.\n\nLatvian Ostapenko, whose match against Williams will be the first between women to be played at a tournament first staged in 2009, said: \"It is a huge honour to be part of that history.\"", "The BMW was being followed by police when it crashed into a bus stop killing the front seat passenger\n\nThe police watchdog is investigating after a man died when the BMW in which he was a passenger crashed into a bus stop when being pursued by police.\n\nIt happened at the junction of Prescot Road and Bell Street in Old Swan, Liverpool, at 04:35 GMT on Monday.\n\nThe man in his 30s was the front seat passenger and later died in hospital. The driver was detained at the scene.\n\nMerseyside Police said officers were working to confirm the passenger's identity and tell his next of kin.\n\nThe case has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.\n\nAn IPCC spokeswoman said: \"We were notified of a fatal road traffic incident in Liverpool this morning by Merseyside Police.\n\n\"We have begun an independent investigation as initial information suggests the collision was preceded by a short police pursuit.\n\n\"We have deployed an investigator to the scene and police post incident procedures.\"\n\nThe BMW crashed at the junction of Prescot Road and Bell Street in Old Swan, police said\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Thieves stole £2,000 worth of Christmas presents and dumped the wrapping paper in the street, police have said.\n\nThe burglars took children's toys, games, food and clothes from an unoccupied bedroom in a property in Walton Street, Oxford.\n\nThe goods were stolen in the early hours of Christmas Eve and police have appealed for witnesses.\n\nThames Valley Police officers said the men would have been carrying five large bags of items at the time.\n\nPC Rebecca Nightingale said: \"Christmas presents were opened and wrapping paper dropped in the street following the burglary.\"\n\nThe police did not release a description of the culprits.", "Mr Puigdemont is not the first Catalan leader forced to leave the region\n\nCatalonia's sacked President Carles Puigdemont has spearheaded the region's peaceful drive for independence from Spain.\n\nIn defiance of the law and Spain's constitution, he has pushed forward in the hope of international recognition.\n\nBut his zeal for secession has put him on a collision course with Spain's authorities, which outlawed the independence referendum held in Catalonia on 1 October.\n\nBut the result on 21 December was bad news for Madrid. The separatists won a slim majority, even though a pro-unity party came top.\n\n\"[Rajoy] has only demonstrated a greater mobilisation of Catalans, greater votes,\" Mr Puigdemont said, calling for negotiations with the Spanish PM.\n\nHe was speaking in Brussels, having fled there with four ministers after declaring independence.\n\nThe election result proved that his campaigning via videolink from Brussels had worked.\n\nBut the village baker's son from Girona faces the weight of Spanish law if he returns to Spain. The separatist leaders are accused of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds.\n\nBorn in Amer in 1962, Carles Puigdemont grew up under the dictatorship of Gen Francisco Franco and was taught in Spanish at a Church-run boarding school, but spoke Catalan at home like others of his generation.\n\nJoan Matamala, a few years his senior at the school, remembers the boy everyone got on with, even the older pupils.\n\nBookseller Joan Matamala went to school with Carles Puigdemont\n\nMr Matamala runs a bookshop, Les Voltes, that has been promoting Catalan language and culture in Girona for 50 years.\n\nThe young Mr Puigdemont did not come over as a natural leader at the time, but he was someone you did not forget, he says.\n\n\"Despite the difference in age, he was a role model for others,\" Mr Matamala remembers.\n\nAs a young man, Mr Puigdemont had a passion for his native tongue, going on to study Catalan philology at the local university and polishing colleagues' copy when he first found work at the city's newspapers.\n\nMiquel Riera worked with him, often late into the night, at the fiercely pro-independence paper now known as El Punt Avui.\n\nMiquel Riera worked with Carles Puigdemont at the pro-independence newspaper now known as El Punt Avui\n\n\"Right from the start he was very interested in new technology and the internet,\" says Mr Riera. This may have fed Mr Puigdemont's awareness of social media, which was crucial in promoting the referendum campaign.\n\n\"He's a man who makes friends easily and remembers them,\" says Mr Riera, whose 25-year-old son, he says, was bruised on the chest by a police rifle butt at a polling station at the 1 October referendum.\n\nMr Puigdemont served as mayor of Girona from 2011 until 2016 when he was elected regional president of Catalonia.\n\nThere is no denying his star appeal among his supporters, who clamour to take selfies with him at rallies and avidly follow his social media accounts, which he curates himself.\n\n\"Mr Puigdemont has been absolutely key to bringing Catalonia to where we are now,\" said Montse Daban, international chairperson of the Catalan National Assembly, a grassroots pro-independence movement.\n\n\"An absolute and positive surprise for Catalan citizens\" - Montse Daban describing the impact of Puigdemont\n\nBut in the eyes of Spain's government, the Catalan leader has ruthlessly created a crisis, burning all the bridges in order to make a unilateral declaration of independence.\n\n\"Democracy is not about voting - there are referenda in dictatorships too,\" a Madrid government source told the BBC. \"Only when you vote with guarantees according to the law is it a democracy.\"\n\nImages of violence at the polling stations in October's banned referendum caused an international outcry.\n\nBut the source said this was \"150% part of Puigdemont's plan\".\n\n\"It's unfortunate because it was a trap. There's no doubt it looks bad for the Spanish government.\"\n\nMr Puigdemont talks the language of independence in a way his more cautious predecessor, Artur Mas, did not during the dry-run referendum of 2014, which was also banned by Madrid.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC after the 1 October referendum, Mr Puigdemont said: \"I think we've won the right to be heard, but what I find harder to understand is this indifference - or absolute lack of interest - in understanding what is happening here. They've never wanted to listen to us.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police were filmed violently tackling voters and appearing to pull a woman by her hair\n\n\"How can we explain to the world that Europe is a paradise of democracy if we hit old women and people who've done nothing wrong? This is not acceptable. We haven't seen such a disproportionate and brutal use of force since the death of the dictator Franco.\"\n\nHe calls for mediation - something the Spanish government says is unacceptable.\n\nA Madrid source dismissed the idea, telling the BBC it would be \"mediation between the Spanish government and part of the Spanish state\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nFrom Brussels, Mr Puigdemont has watched as his Catalan allies back home have been placed in Spanish custody to face trial.\n\nHe has been mocked by some for not going to Madrid along with them and placing himself in the hands of Spanish justice.\n\nOne cartoon apparently being circulated on the Whatsapp messaging app shows him, with his distinctive mop of hair and glasses, hiding out in a box of Belgian chocolates.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Pascal Hansens This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut Mr Puigdemont told Belgian TV he was not hiding from \"real justice\" but from the \"clearly politicised\" Spanish legal system.\n\nLast year Spain issued then dropped European arrest warrants against him and his four colleagues in Belgium.\n\nBut he was arrested in Germany on 25 March while travelling back to Brussels from a conference in Finland. The European arrest warrant against him had been reissued two days earlier, apparently taking him by surprise.\n\nGermany must now decide whether to extradite him to Spain.\n\nMeanwhile, the man from Girona is keeping the cause he holds so dear, Catalan independence, squarely on the doorstep of the European Union.", "It is a typical November Tuesday for Mary, who lives in the north-east of the United States.\n\nShe is 44, has a degree, and her family is prosperous - in the top quarter of American households by income. So what has she done today? Is she a lawyer or a teacher?\n\nNo. Mary spent an hour knitting and sewing, two hours setting the table and doing the dishes and well over two hours preparing and cooking food.\n\nShe is not unusual, because it is 1965 and at that time, many married American women - even those with an excellent education - spent large chunks of their day catering for their families.\n\n50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations which have helped create the economic world in which we live.\n\nWe know about Mary's day - and those of many others - because of time-use surveys conducted around the world. These diaries reveal precisely how different people use their time.\n\nFor educated women, the way time is spent in the US and other rich countries has changed radically over the past half a century.\n\nWomen in America now spend around 45 minutes per day in total cooking and cleaning up. That's still much more than men, who spend only 15 minutes a day doing such tasks. But it is a vast reduction from Mary's four hours.\n\nBehind this shift is a radical change to the way the food we eat is prepared, as seen by the introduction of the TV dinner in 1954.\n\nPresented in a space-age aluminium tray, and prepared so that everything would require the same cooking time, the \"frozen turkey tray TV dinner\" was developed by a bacteriologist called Betty Cronin.\n\nShe worked for the Swanson food processing company, keen to find ways to keep busy after the business of supplying rations to US troops had dried up.\n\nBut of course the TV dinner was only part of a panoply of changes, wrought by the availability of freezers, microwaves, preservatives and production lines.\n\nFood had been perhaps the last cottage industry: something that would overwhelmingly be produced in the home.\n\nBut food preparation has been industrialised - outsourced to restaurants and takeaways and to factories that prepare ready-to-eat or ready-to-cook meals.\n\nAnd the invention of the industrial meal - in all its forms - has led to a profound shift in the modern economy.\n\nHow we spend on food is changing.\n\nIn 2015, US consumers spent more money on food and drink outside their home than on groceries for the first time\n\nAmerican families spend increasingly more outside the home - on fast food, restaurant meals, sandwiches and snacks. Only a quarter of food spending was outside the home in the 1960s.\n\nThat has steadily risen over time and in 2015 a landmark was reached: for the first time, Americans spent more on food and drink outside the home than at grocery stores. The British passed that particular milestone more than a decade earlier.\n\nEven within the home, food is increasingly processed to save the chef time and effort: bagged chopped salad, pre-grated cheese, jars of pasta sauce, individual permeable tea bags, meatballs doused in sauce and chicken that comes plucked and gutted.\n\nEach new innovation would seem bizarre to the older generation.\n\nI have never plucked a chicken and perhaps my children will never chop salad. All this saves time - serious amounts of time.\n\nWhen the economist Valerie Ramey compared time-use diaries in the US between the 1920s and the 1960s, she found that surprisingly little had changed.\n\nWhether women were uneducated and married to farmers, or highly educated and married to urban professionals, they still spent similar amounts of time on housework across those 50 years.\n\nIt was only in the 1960s that this pattern began to shift.\n\nBut surely the innovation responsible for emancipating women was not the TV dinner, but the washing machine?\n\nThe idea is widely believed and is appealing. A frozen TV dinner does not really feel like progress, compared to home-cooked food.\n\nThe washing machine was innovative, but did not save much time\n\nBut a washing machine is clean and efficient and replaces work that was always drudgery. How could it not have been revolutionary?\n\nHowever, the revolution wasn't in the lives of women, it was in how lemon fresh we all started to smell.\n\nAs Alison Wolf argues in her book The XX Factor, the evidence is clear that the washing machine did not save a lot of time, because before washing machines, we did not wash clothes very often. When it took all day to wash and dry a few shirts, people used replaceable collars and cuffs or dark outer layers to hide the grime.\n\nIn contrast, when it took two or three hours to prepare a meal, someone had to take that time. There was not an alternative. The washing machine did not save much time, and the ready meal did, because we were not willing to starve, but we were willing to stink.\n\nThe availability of ready meals has had some regrettable side-effects.\n\nObesity rates rose sharply in developed countries between the 1970s and the early 21st Century, at much the same time as these culinary innovations were being developed. This is no coincidence, say health economists. The cost of calories has fallen dramatically, not just in financial terms but also in terms of time.\n\nConsider the humble potato. It has long been a staple of the American diet, but before World War Two potatoes were usually baked, mashed or boiled. There's a reason for that: roast potatoes need to be peeled, chopped, par-boiled and then roasted. French fries or chips must be finely chopped and then deep fried.\n\nOver time, however, the production of fried sliced potato chips - both French fries and crisps - was centralised. French fries can be peeled, chopped, fried and frozen in a factory and then refried in a fast-food restaurant or microwaved at home.\n\nObesity rates have risen sharply since the large scale industrialisation of food production\n\nBetween 1977 and 1995, American potato consumption increased by a third, almost entirely because of the rise of fried potatoes.\n\nEven simpler, crisps can be fried, salted, flavoured and packaged to last for many weeks on the shelf. But this convenience comes at a cost.\n\nIn the US, calorie intake by adults rose by about 10% between the 1970s and the 1990s. Not as a result of more calorific regular meals but because of increased snacking - usually of processed convenience food.\n\nPsychology - and common sense - suggest this should not be a surprise.\n\nExperiments by behavioural scientists show that we make very different decisions about what to eat depending on how far away the meal is. A long-planned meal is likely to be nutritious, but when we make more impulsive decisions, our snacks are more likely to be junk food than something nourishing.\n\nThe industrialisation of food - symbolised by the TV dinner - changed our economy in two important ways. It freed women from hours of domestic chores, removing a large obstacle to them adopting serious professional careers.\n\nBut by making empty calories ever more convenient to acquire, it also freed our waistlines to expand.\n\nThe challenge now - as with so many inventions - is to enjoy the benefit without also suffering the cost.", "Meghan Markle will spend Christmas at Sandringham with the Queen and other senior members of the Royal Family, Kensington Palace has confirmed.\n\nMs Markle and Prince Harry, who announced their engagement last month, are expected to attend the traditional Christmas Day church service on the Queen's private estate in Norfolk.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will also spend Christmas Day there.\n\nThe prince and American Ms Markle are due to marry in May next year.\n\nIt is tradition for the Royal Family to attend the morning service at St Mary Magdalene Church on 25 December.\n\nThe Royal Family will gather for Christmas lunch at Sandringham House\n\nTypically, hundreds of well-wishers gather along the route to the church to catch a glimpse of the Queen and other royals.\n\nSome of the younger members of the family speak to the public and receive bouquets of flowers.\n\nLater, they all return to Sandringham House for Christmas lunch, before watching the Queen's Christmas Day address in the afternoon.\n\nIn step with German tradition, the family exchanges presents on Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "China's huge new amphibious aircraft has made a successful one-hour maiden flight. China's AG600 - which is roughly the size of a Boeing 737 but with four turboprop engines - lifted off from Zhuhai airport in the southern province of Guangdong.", "Christian pilgrims from around the world have attended a Christmas Eve Mass at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, built on the site where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.\n\nFewer people than usual were in the West Bank town because of increased tensions between Palestinians and the Israeli army since US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\n\nDuring the Mass attended by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa said: \"Jerusalem is a city of peace, there is not peace if someone is excluded.\"\n\nEarlier, Palestinian scouts played bagpipes during an annual march towards the church.", "Vitaly Mutko will remain the chief organiser of the 2018 football World Cup\n\nRussia's most senior football official has temporarily stood down as he fights a ban given for state-backed doping.\n\nVitaly Mutko was banned from the Olympics for life in early December having been accused of running a huge Olympic doping programme.\n\nMr Mutko said he would stand down as president of the Russian Football Union while he contests the ban.\n\nHe has always denied taking part in doping but Russia was banned from competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics.\n\nMr Mutko will continue to carry out his role as the chief organiser of next summer's football World Cup in Russia.\n\nWhistleblower Vitaly Stepanov, a former Russian anti-doping agency worker, told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Mr Mutko, a former sports minister, \"created and ran\" Russia's \"state-directed\" doping programme.\n\nMr Mutko, he said, \"received help from other state officials\" including \"Vladimir Putin's authorisation of a decree that required urine and blood samples carried by foreign anti-doping inspectors to be approved\".\n\nMr Mutko was also directly implicated in the McLaren report, an independent investigation looking into whether the Russia state backed doping in sport.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. IOC president: An 'unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympics'\n\nMr Stepanov's testimony, made public in early December, led to Russia's ban from the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.\n\nRussian athletes who can prove they are clean would be allowed to compete in the Games under a neutral flag.\n\nMr Mutko, one of Russia's deputy prime ministers, said that he would step down \"so that our organisations are not disturbed during the legal investigation\". He said he was appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.", "Leaded petrol was safe. Its inventor was sure of it.\n\nFacing sceptical reporters at a press conference in October 1924, Thomas Midgley dramatically produced a container of tetraethyl lead - the additive in question - and washed his hands in it.\n\n\"I'm not taking any chance whatever,\" Midgley declared. \"Nor would I... doing that every day.\"\n\nMidgley was - perhaps - being a little disingenuous. He had recently spent several months in Florida, recuperating from lead poisoning.\n\nSome of those who'd made Midgley's invention hadn't been so lucky, which is why reporters were interested.\n\n50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations which have helped create the economic world in which we live.\n\nOn the Thursday of the week before Midgley's press conference, at a Standard Oil plant in New Jersey, a worker named Ernest Oelgert started hallucinating. By Friday, he was running around the laboratory, screaming in terror.\n\nOn Saturday, with Oelgert dangerously unhinged, his sister called the police. He was taken to hospital and forcibly restrained. By Sunday, he was dead. Within the week, so were four of his colleagues - and 35 more were in hospital.\n\nNone of this surprised workers elsewhere in Standard Oil's facility. They knew there was a problem with tetraethyl lead.\n\nAs Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner note in their book Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, the lab where it was developed was known as \"the loony gas building\".\n\nNor should it have shocked Standard Oil, General Motors or the DuPont Corporation, the three companies involved with adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline.\n\nAn aerial photograph of DuPont's Deepwater factory site, where tetraethyl lead was developed\n\nThe first production line in Ohio had already been shut down after two deaths. A third plant elsewhere in New Jersey had also seen fatalities. Workers kept hallucinating insects - the lab was known as \"the house of butterflies\".\n\nBetter working practices could make tetraethyl lead safe to produce. But was it really sensible to add it to petrol, when the fumes would be belched out on to city streets?\n\nAbout a century ago, when General Motors had first proposed adding lead to petrol - in order to improve performance - scientists were alarmed. They urged the government to investigate the public health implications.\n\nMidgley breezily assured the surgeon general that \"the average street will probably be so free from lead that it will be impossible to detect it or its absorption\", although he conceded that \"no actual experimental data has been taken\".\n\nGeneral Motors funded a government bureau to conduct some research, adding a clause saying it had to approve the findings.\n\nThe bureau's report was published amid the media frenzy over Oelgert's poisoned workmates. It gave tetraethyl lead a clean bill of health and was met with some scepticism.\n\nUnder pressure, the government organised a conference in Washington DC in May 1925. The debate there exemplified the two extremes of approach to any new idea that looks risky, but useful.\n\nIn one corner: Frank Howard, vice-president of the Ethyl Corporation - a joint venture between General Motors and Standard Oil. He called leaded petrol a \"gift of God\", arguing that \"continued development of motor fuels is essential in our civilization\".\n\nDr Alice Hamilton argued the benefits of adding lead to petrol were outweighed by the risks\n\nIn the other corner: Dr Alice Hamilton, the country's foremost authority on lead.\n\nShe argued leaded petrol was a chance not worth taking. \"Where there is lead,\" she said, \"some case of lead poisoning sooner or later develops, even under the strictest supervision.\"\n\nHamilton knew that lead had been poisoning people for thousands of years. In 1678, workers who made lead white - a pigment for paint - were described as suffering ailments including \"dizziness in the head, with continuous great pain in the brows, blindness, stupidity\".\n\nThe Romans used lead in water pipes. Lead miners often ended up mad or dead - and some correctly intuited that low-level, long-term exposure was also unwise.\n\n\"Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead,\" wrote the civil engineer Vitruvius, 2,000 years ago. \"This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour.\"\n\nMany societies still grapple with the general question on which Howard and Hamilton disagreed: how much pollution is a price worth paying for progress?\n\nThere's some evidence that as countries get richer, they tend initially to get dirtier and later clean up.\n\nEconomists call this the \"environmental Kuznets curve\", and it makes intuitive sense. If you're poor, you prioritise material gains. As your income grows, you may choose to spend some of it on a nicer, safer environment.\n\nThe Roman civil engineer Vitruvius warned against the dangers of lead 2,000 years ago\n\nBut was lead-free petrol really such an expensive luxury? True, the lead additive solved a problem: it enabled engines to use higher compression ratios, which made cars more powerful.\n\nHowever, it was not the only way to solve the problem.\n\nEthyl alcohol had much the same effect and wouldn't mess with your head, unless you drank it. Midgley knew this, having combined petrol with practically every imaginable substance, from iodine to camphor to melted butter.\n\nWhy did the petrol companies push tetraethyl lead instead of ethyl alcohol? Researchers who have studied the decision remain puzzled. Cynics might point out that any old farmer could distil ethyl alcohol from grain. It couldn't be patented, or its distribution profitably controlled. Tetraethyl lead could.\n\nThe US didn't tax lead in petrol until the 1970s, then finally banned it as part of clean air legislation, as the country moved down the far side of the environmental Kuznets curve.\n\nTwo decades later, in the 1990s, rates of violent crime started to go down. There are many reasons why this might have happened, but the economist Jessica Reyes had an intriguing thought.\n\nChildren's brains are especially susceptible to chronic lead poisoning. Is it possible that kids who didn't breathe leaded petrol fumes grew up to commit less violent crime?\n\nReyes could test her hypothesis: different US states phased out leaded petrol at different times.\n\nBy comparing the dates of clean air legislation with subsequent crime data, she concluded that more than half the drop - 56% - was because of cars switching to unleaded petrol.\n\nOther researchers have found similar links between lead water pipes and urban homicide.\n\nYou can put a dollar figure on the value of crime reduction, Reyes found. It's about 20 times higher than the cost of de-leading petrol - and that's before you count other downsides of children breathing lead, like worse performance in school.\n\nHow did the US get this so wrong for so long?\n\nAsbestos continued to be widely used in construction despite the emerging evidence of its dangers\n\nIt's a tale of disputed science and delayed regulation, much like you could tell about asbestos, or tobacco, or other products we now know slowly kill us.\n\nThe problem is that people who want to ban things aren't always disinterested visionaries like Hamilton. Sometimes they're obstructive cranks. The only way to tell the difference is by conducting studies.\n\nAnd, as Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner point out, \"For the next four decades, all studies of the use of tetraethyl lead were conducted by laboratories and scientists funded by the Ethyl Corporation and General Motors\".\n\nAnd what of the scientist who first put lead in petrol?\n\nBy all accounts, Midgley was a genial man who may even have believed his own spin about the safety of a daily tetraethyl lead handwash.\n\nBut, as an inventor, his inspirations seem to have been cursed. His second major contribution to civilisation was the chlorofluorocarbon, or CFC, which improved refrigerators, but destroyed the ozone layer.\n\nIn middle age, afflicted by polio, Midgley applied his inventor's mind to lifting his weakened body out of bed. He devised an ingenious system of pulleys and strings. They tangled around his neck, and killed him.", "On 9 January 2007, one of the most influential entrepreneurs on the planet announced something new - a product that was to become the most profitable in history.\n\nIt was, of course, the iPhone. There are many ways in which the iPhone has defined the modern economy.\n\nThere is the sheer profitability of the thing, of course: there are only two or three companies in the world that make as much money as Apple does from the iPhone alone.\n\nApple may not have sold the first smartphone, but the iPhone represented a quantum leap compared with earlier models, and its version became an object of desire for most of humanity.\n\nThere's the way the iPhone transformed other markets - software, music, and advertising.\n\nBut those are just the obvious facts about the iPhone. And when you delve more deeply, the tale is a surprising one. We give credit to Steve Jobs and other leading figures in Apple - his early partner Steve Wozniak, his successor Tim Cook, his visionary designer Sir Jony Ive - but some of the most important actors in this story have been forgotten.\n\n50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations which have helped create the economic world we live in.\n\nIt is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast.\n\nAsk yourself: what actually makes an iPhone an iPhone? It's partly the cool design, the user interface, the attention to detail in the way the software works and the hardware feels. But underneath the charming surface of the iPhone are some critical elements that made it, and all the other smartphones, possible.\n\nThe economist Mariana Mazzucato has made a list of 12 key technologies that make smartphones work: 1) tiny microprocessors, 2) memory chips, 3) solid state hard drives, 4) liquid crystal displays and 5) lithium-based batteries. That's the hardware.\n\nThen there are the networks and the software. So 6) Fast-Fourier-Transform algorithms - clever bits of maths that make it possible to swiftly turn analogue signals such as sound, visible light and radio waves into digital signals that a computer can handle.\n\nAt 7) - and you might have heard of this one - the internet. A smartphone isn't a smartphone without the internet.\n\nAt 8) HTTP and HTML, the languages and protocols that turned the hard-to-use internet into the easy-to-access World Wide Web. 9) Cellular networks. Otherwise your smartphone not only isn't smart, it's not even a phone. 10) Global Positioning Systems or GPS. 11) The touchscreen. 12) Siri, the voice-activated artificial intelligence agent.\n\nApple's designer Sir Jony Ive has been widely lauded for his contribution to the iPhone's success\n\nAll of these technologies are important components of what makes an iPhone, or any smartphone, actually work. Some of them are not just important, but indispensable. But when Mariana Mazzucato assembled this list of technologies, and reviewed their history, she found something striking.\n\nThe foundational figure in the development of the iPhone wasn't Steve Jobs. It was Uncle Sam. Every single one of these 12 key technologies was supported in significant ways by governments - often the American government.\n\nA few of these cases are famous. Many people know, for example, that the World Wide Web owes its existence to the work of Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He was a software engineer employed at Cern, the particle physics research centre in Geneva that is funded by governments across Europe.\n\nAnd the internet itself started as Arpanet - an unprecedented network of computers funded by the US Department of Defense in the early 1960s. GPS, of course, was a pure military technology, developed during the Cold War and opened up to civilian use only in the 1980s.\n\nOther examples are less famous, though scarcely less important.\n\nSmartphones have all benefited from government investment in technology\n\nThe Fast-Fourier-Transform is a family of algorithms that have made it possible to move from a world where the telephone, the television and the gramophone worked on analogue signals, to a world where everything is digitised and can therefore be dealt with by computers such as the iPhone.\n\nThe most common such algorithm was developed from a flash of insight from the great American mathematician John Tukey. What was Tukey working on at the time? You've guessed it: a military application.\n\nSpecifically, he was on President Kennedy's Scientific Advisory committee in 1963, trying to figure out how to detect when the Soviet Union was testing nuclear weapons.\n\nSmartphones wouldn't be smartphones without their touchscreens - but the inventor of the touchscreen was an engineer named EA Johnson, whose initial research was carried out while Johnson was employed by the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, a stuffily-named agency of the British government.\n\nThe work was further developed at Cern - those guys again. Eventually multi-touch technology was commercialised by researchers at the University of Delaware in the United States - Wayne Westerman and John Elias, who sold their company to Apple itself.\n\nTouchscreen technology has gone on to drive the development of tablet computers\n\nYet even at that late stage in the game, governments played their part: Wayne Westerman's research fellowship was funded by the US National Science Foundation and the CIA.\n\nThen there's the girl with the silicon voice, Siri.\n\nBack in the year 2000, seven years before the first iPhone, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, Darpa, commissioned the Stanford Research Institute to develop a kind of proto-Siri, a virtual office assistant that might help military personnel to do their jobs.\n\nTwenty universities were brought into the project, furiously working on all the different technologies necessary to make a voice-activated virtual assistant a reality.\n\nSeven years later, the research was commercialised as a start-up, Siri Incorporated- and it was only in 2010 that Apple stepped in to acquire the results for an undisclosed sum.\n\nIncreasingly sophisticated lithium-ion batteries have been essential for smartphone growth\n\nAs for hard drives, lithium-ion batteries, liquid crystal displays and semiconductors themselves - there are similar stories to be told.\n\nIn each case, there was scientific brilliance and plenty of private sector entrepreneurship. But there were also wads of cash thrown at the problem by government agencies - usually US government agencies, and for that matter, usually some arm of the US military.\n\nSilicon Valley itself owes a great debt to Fairchild Semiconductor - the company that developed the first commercially practical integrated circuits. And Fairchild Semiconductor, in its early days, depended on military procurement.\n\nOf course, the US military didn't make the iPhone. Cern did not create Facebook or Google. These technologies, that so many people rely on today, were honed and commercialised by the private sector. But it was government funding and government risk-taking that made all these things possible.\n\nThat's a thought to hold on to as we ponder the technological challenges ahead in fields such energy and biotechnology.\n\nSteve Jobs was a genius, there's no denying that. One of his remarkable side projects was the animation studio Pixar - which changed the world of film when it released the digitally animated film, Toy Story.\n\nEven without the touchscreen and the internet and the Fast-Fourier-Transform, Steve Jobs might well have created something wonderful.\n\nBut it would not have been a world-shaking technology like the iPhone. More likely it would, like Woody and Buzz, have been an utterly charming toy.\n\nTim Harford is the FT's Undercover Economist. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy was broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast.\n\nCorrection: An earlier version of this story suggested the iPhone was the first smartphone, but other smartphones had predated its launch in 2007.", "Mac was flown to Knock to join Finn who is spending Christmas in Ireland\n\nA lost toy monkey has been returned to its two-year-old owner after a race to reunite the pair for Christmas.\n\nFinn Regan-Alexander left the toy on an Aer Lingus plane after the family flew from Gatwick to Knock to visit relatives on 19 December.\n\nAfter Finn's mother Louise tweeted an appeal, \"sightings\" of Mac were reported in pubs, planes and lost and alone in Glasgow.\n\nThe real Mac was found and flown to Knock by the airline.\n\nThe tweet appealing for help in finding Mac was shared more than 1,500 times - with many sharing their own experiences of lost cuddly toy heartbreak.\n\nSome children, including a seven-year-old boy, offered to send their own soft toys to Finn.\n\nMac went missing when the family, from Camberwell, south London, travelled to visit Mrs Regan-Alexander's parents.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Louise This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nArchitect Mrs Regan-Alexander said a TV producer saw the appeal on the BBC News website and realised she had seen Mac - who wears a green tunic made out of an old sock and has two sticking plasters to match his owner's grazes - on the plane.\n\nAfter that sighting, airline staff alerted to Mac's plight managed to trace the toy and arrange its belated holiday trip to Ireland.\n\nMrs Regan-Alexander said: \"Mac was flown back in time for Christmas.\n\n\"Thanks to everyone who provided their online support and shared their own stories of love and loss.\n\n\"To all the children who offered Finn their monkeys, I hope Santa is listening.\"\n\nMac the monkey has clothes made out of a sock and sticking plasters to match his owner's grazes\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Heather Menzies, second right next to Julie Andrews, has died aged 68\n\nHeather Menzies-Urich, who played Louisa Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, has died aged 68.\n\nHer death was announced by the estate of the musical's creators, Rodgers & Hammerstein, on Monday.\n\nShe was diagnosed with brain cancer four weeks ago and died on Christmas Eve, news site TMZ quoted her son Ryan as saying.\n\n\"She was an actress, a ballerina and loved living her life to the fullest,\" he told TMZ.\n\nBorn Heather Menzies in Toronto, she was 15 when the musical film was released in 1965. It went on to win 10 Oscars, including best picture.\n\nShe played the mischievous third Von Trapp child Louisa, but her later television and film appearances did not hit the same heights.\n\nAt 23, she posed nude for Playboy magazine under the headline The Tender Trapp, a decision she said horrified her Presbyterian parents, who were originally from Scotland.\n\nShe married actor and film producer Robert Urich in 1975, but he died in 2002.\n\nAmong those to pay tribute were Kym Karath, who played Gretl in the film.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kym Karath This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by The Sound of Music This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 2 by The Sound of Music\n\n\"Heather was part of 'the family',\" Ted Chapin, of the Rodgers & Hammerstein estate, said.\n\n\"Heather was a cheerful and positive member of the group, always hoping for the next gathering. We are all lucky to have known her, and she will happily live on in that beautiful movie. We will miss her.\"\n\nHer death comes 14 months after that of Charmian Carr, who played the eldest Von Trapp daughter Liesl.\n\nFrom L to R: Heather Menzies-Urich (Louisa von Trapp), Debbie Turner (Marta) and Kym Karath (Gretl) at the 50th anniversary of the film in 2015", "Supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have gathered in Moscow to nominate him for presidential elections.\n\nBut the authorities say that because of a criminal conviction, which he says is politically motivated, he will not be allowed to stand.", "The driver crashed into the entranceway of the Social Democratic Party's Berlin headquarters\n\nA man rammed a car into the headquarters of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Berlin on Christmas Eve, police have said.\n\nThe crash happened at around midnight local time (23:00 GMT). The driver, a 58-year-old man, was believed to be the only person injured.\n\nThe driver told police he had intended to kill himself, Berlin police said.\n\nOfficers found petrol canisters and lighter fluid inside the car, according to local reports.\n\nInvestigators were treating the incident as a possible arson attempt and also revealed that the man had earlier left a bag containing gas canisters in front of the headquarters of Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, the Christian Democrat CDU, a few minutes' drive away.\n\nThere was no indication that the man, who was slightly injured in the crash, was an extremist, Berlin media said.\n\nIt was unclear whether the Social Democrats had been holding a function inside the building, known as the Willy Brandt House, at the time.\n\nAlthough a fire broke out, the building's sprinkler system put it out.\n\nThe SPD governed in a \"grand coalition\" with Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats between 2013 and 2017, but its leaders vowed to end the alliance in September, when the party got its worst results since 1949.\n\nChancellor Merkel has since been unable to form a majority government with other parties, and the SPD has agreed to \"open-ended\" talks on a possible new coalition.", "The Archbishop of Canterbury has used his Christmas Day sermon to focus on terrorist atrocities and deceitfulness of \"populist leaders\" in 2017.\n\nPreaching to worshippers at Canterbury Cathedral, the Most Rev Justin Welby compared the Holy Family to modern-day refugees.\n\nHe also contrasted Jesus with \"populist leaders that deceive\" their people.\n\nHis Catholic counterpart, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, called for a rejection of \"radical individualism\" in society.\n\nPreaching at the Sung Eucharist service, the Archbishop said that the nature of power meant those who have it, seek to hold on to it.\n\nHe said: \"In 2017 we have seen around the world tyrannical leaders that enslave their peoples, populist leaders that deceive them, corrupt leaders that rob them, even simply democratic, well-intentioned leaders of many parties and countries who are normal, fallible human beings.\"\n\nHe condemned terrorist atrocities and those who claimed that terror was \"the path to freedom in God\".\n\nLike the Pope the Archbishop drew parallels between the Nativity story and the migrant crisis.\n\nHe said: \"[The Holy Family] flee as refugees, like over 60 million people today.\n\n\"Yet their story is the beginning of ours, it is an invitation to lives of freedom, found through God's freely offered love.\"\n\nIn his midnight homily, the Roman Catholic Church's most senior cleric in England and Wales warned of \"radical individualism\" in society and said there was \"conflict in the air, not dialogue\".\n\nCardinal Nichols added he hoped Christmas would bring \"green shoots of hope\".\n\nSpeaking to the BBC before the Christmas midnight Mass in Westminster Cathedral, London, Cardinal Nichols said: \"In social media there's a barrage of views and once a statement or claim is made there's immediately a counterclaim, and the mode of exchange is conflict.\"\n\nHe added that society needs \"to get over that notion that faith in God and reason are somehow opposed\".\n\nHe said \"the heart has reasons that the mind doesn't always understand\".\n\nWhen asked about the part that religion plays in conflicts, he maintained faith was not the primary reason for unrest in places like the Middle East.\n\n\"Even the conflict in Northern Ireland; reading of it it that it was essentially about religious faith, is an inadequate rather superficial meaning.\n\n\"Most conflicts are about power and territories and borders and wealth,\" the cardinal said.\n\n\"Often religious identity is in there in the mix but I don't think for the most part it is the key issue.\"", "The king of Spain has issued a renewed call for unity amid the ongoing fallout from Catalonia's outlawed independence referendum.\n\nIn his Christmas message, Felipe VI urged the people of Catalonia to choose coexistence rather than confrontation.\n\nHe did not directly mention the leaders of the Catalan separatist movement.\n\nIn the wake of October's referendum in the region, the king heavily criticised those spearheading Catalonia's independence movement.\n\nSome Catalans were angered by this, and the fact that he made no mention of the heavy-handed Spanish police operation to block the vote.\n\nBBC Europe correspondent Kevin Connolly says the king's core underlying message about the importance of national unity remains unchanged, but his Christmas broadcast was more cautious and conciliatory.\n\nThe king said the politicians elected to the Catalan parliament this week - which included a narrow separatist majority - had to \"face the problems that affect all Catalans, with respect to plurality and bearing in mind their responsibility to the common good\".\n\n\"The road cannot lead again to confrontation and exclusion, which as we already know generate nothing but discord, uncertainty and discouragement,\" he said from his Madrid residence.\n\nHe praised what he called Catalonia's openness and creative spirit.\n\nCarles Puigdemont is calling for talks with the Spanish leadership\n\nThe leader of the bloc of separatist parties which won a majority in Thursday's election, Carles Puigdemont, remains in Brussels - a fugitive from the Spanish judicial authorities who have arrested and tried several key separatist leaders in the wake of the illegal referendum.\n\nMr Puigdemont has called on Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to meet him.\n\nOur correspondent says Mr Rajoy clearly has no intention of responding to this.", "The Queen and members of the Royal Family have been to church on the Sandringham estate for the traditional Christmas carol service.\n\nPrince Harry's fiancee, Meghan Markle, also attended, which is not usual as protocol stipulates that only partners who are married into the family are invited along.", "Her Majesty the Queen's Christmas message to the people of the Commonwealth.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Meghan Markle joined the Royal Family for the Christmas service\n\nPrince Harry's fiancee Meghan Markle has joined the Royal Family for the Christmas Day service at the Queen's Norfolk estate.\n\nThe couple arrived at a carol service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham along with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.\n\nThe Queen returned after missing last year's service due to a heavy cold.\n\nPrinces Philip and Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall also attended, along with other members of the family.\n\nAfter the service, Ms Markle joined members of the family in greeting the crowds - some of whom had been waiting outside since 05:00 GMT.\n\nThe Queen waved to the crowd after the service\n\nPrince Harry and Meghan Markle spoke to members of the public\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who are expecting their third child, smiled at the crowd.\n\nIf royal tradition from previous years was followed, the family will have exchanged presents on Christmas Eve and awoken to a stocking of small gifts and fruit at the end of their beds.\n\nThe Queen and Prince Phillip also attended an early Holy Communion service at the church.\n\nThey will return home for a traditional turkey lunch, before watching the Queen's speech together.\n\nPrince Charles spoke to the crowds outside the church\n\nThis year, the Queen will pay tribute to London and Manchester for the manner in which they dealt with this year's terror attacks, as well as praising the Duke of Edinburgh for his support in the year of the couple's 70th wedding anniversary.\n\nMeghan Markle arrived at the church on the Sandringham Estate looking every inch the future royal.\n\nShe walked along in the heart of her new family between her fiance Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.\n\nShe smiled at the crowd, which in some places, was five deep, some of whom had queued from 2.40am to be a part of the royal Christmas celebrations.\n\nWhen they left church, Meghan and Harry walked over to a couple of ladies who had been waiting.\n\nMeghan smiled as Prince Harry complimented them on their Christmassy coloured clothes and told them the royal children were so excited it was hard to keep them under control.\n\nThe Americans in the crowd were especially thrilled to see her, mainly from the bases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath, happy at the prospect of one of their compatriots marrying into a British institution in May next year.\n\nOne was so excited that he brought an engagement ring all the way from Wisconsin for his girlfriend and proposed to her in the queue. She said yes!\n\nA crowd of around 200 were waiting for the family's arrival from early morning.\n\nA number of Americans from nearby RAF Lakenheath made the journey to see the family and their new addition.\n\nLindsey Wells, from Nebraska, said it was \"intriguing\" and \"exciting\" that Ms Markle was marrying into the Royal Family, and she wanted to see them in person.\n\nPrince Edward joined his sister, Princess Anne, on the short walk\n\nSophie, Countess of Wessex, was also in attendance\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nFor one couple from Texas the wait outside the church took on extra significance. Michael Metz proposed to girlfriend Ashley Millican - and she accepted.\n\nMiss Millican told the Press Association: \"I had no idea. I was definitely very surprised. I never thought he would ask me right before we were about to see the Royal Family for the first time!\"\n\nMr Metz added: \"It was pretty tough to keep secret as I was so excited. It's memories to cherish forever.\"\n\nMichael Metz and Ashley Millican marked the service with a proposal of their own.", "The photo found floating in the River Cam by a rower on the water showed a smartly-dressed couple\n\nA woman who had a precious photo of her late husband stolen in a distraction burglary has been reunited with it.\n\nSusan Horrod, 70, had her handbag containing the photo stolen from her home in Milton, Cambridge.\n\nRower Stephanie Creasey spotted a piece of cardboard floating in the River Cam and fished it out, seeing it was a 1960s photo of a glamorous couple.\n\nA Facebook post found the owner and the photo was returned, with Mrs Horrod's family describing it as \"amazing\".\n\nMrs Horrod had her handbag containing the photo stolen from her home in Milton, Cambridge\n\n\"It's amazing to have it back in such good condition,\" said Mrs Horrod's son Martin, 42, also from Milton.\n\n\"My mother is particularly pleased to get the photo back as it was an original.\n\n\"There was actually no water damage - the frame had disintegrated but the photo remained intact. It looks perfect.\"\n\nAnother potential clue was a stamp on the back with the photographer's name\n\nThe picture shows Mr Horrod's mother and father at a friend's wedding in Cambridgeshire and is a particularly fond memory of hers.\n\n\"Mum is always telling stories about why she remembers it,\" he said.\n\n\"There were a few photos that she liked to take everywhere with her to keep them safe, and that was one of them.\"\n\nMs Creasey, a teacher who lives in Chesterton, Cambridge, has been rowing for eight years but said she had never come across such an interesting object in the water before.\n\n\"I'm really interested in old photos and social history, and I thought I'd share the photo on a Facebook page called Cambridge in the Good old Days 1960s,\" she said.\n\n\"Less than an hour after I'd shared it, someone recognised the man in it as a former colleague of hers.\n\n\"I managed to make contact with the woman's family and eventually took the photo back to her.\"", "Bob Givens redesigned the Bugs Bunny character for Warner Bros. in 1940\n\nBob Givens, the animator best known for his redesign of Bugs Bunny, has died aged 99.\n\nGivens' career spanned over 60 years and he worked as an animator for companies such as Disney, Warner Bros, and Hanna-Barbera.\n\nGivens also drew cartoon characters such as Tom & Jerry, Daffy Duck, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Popeye.\n\nHis daughter, Mariana Givens confirmed his death on her Facebook page earlier this month.\n\nGivens' first role, in 1937, was at Disney where he worked on Donald Duck and Snow White cartoons.\n\nHe joined Warner Bros in 1940 where he became famous for his work on the Bugs Bunny character.\n\nPrevious drawings were said to be \"too cute\" for the cartoons the company wanted to produce.\n\nGivens' redesign became the first official design for the lead character of the Looney Tunes franchise, making him a famous name in the industry.\n\nHe served in the US army during the World War Two, before returning to the animation industry. Givens' career spanned over 60 years.\n\nOn social media, many paid tribute to Givens' work.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Josh Cogan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOther Twitter users responded by posting GIFs of their favourite Givens animations.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by FilmNoirHolland This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n• None What we learned from the Disney expo", "Donald Trump's Turnberry resort in South Ayrshire is now above the cut-off point for tax relief\n\nA Scottish golf resort owned by US President Donald Trump will no longer qualify for a controversial tax break.\n\nA change in the Scottish government's recent budget will remove Trump Turnberry in South Ayrshire from a business rates relief scheme.\n\nThe Sunday Herald revealed the resort is now above the cut-off point with a rateable value of £1,650,000.\n\nScotland's finance secretary Derek Mackay introduced measures in February to help hospitality businesses.\n\nThe move was in response to growing pressure to intervene to help struggling restaurants and hotels cope with the first revaluation of the rateable value of businesses since 2010.\n\nMr Mackay faced calls to reform the transitional business rates relief scheme after it emerged in August that Trump Turnberry had benefited by £109,530 for 2017/18.\n\nIn response to a wider review of the business rates system, Mr Mackay announced in September that the transitional scheme would continue next year for \"all but the very largest hospitality properties\".\n\nDocuments published alongside the draft Scottish budget earlier this month state it will only apply for hospitality properties with a rateable value up to £1.5m.\n\nAccording to the Scottish Assessors Association website, Trump Turnberry is now above the cut-off point with a rateable value of £1,650,000.\n\nMr Trump bought Turnberry in 2014 but stepped away from the family business empire after being elected US president.\n\nHis other Scottish golf course, on the Menie estate in Aberdeenshire, did not qualify for relief because it is defined as a golf course rather than a hotel.", "Security forces sealed off the area after the attack\n\nTen people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack near the compound of Afghanistan's intelligence agency in Kabul, officials say.\n\nAnother five people were injured when the attacker, who was on foot, blew himself up as agency employees were on their way to work.\n\nThe victims included women whose car was going past the area at the time of the blast, reports said.\n\nSunni Muslim militant group Islamic State said it was behind the attack.\n\nThe director of hospitals in Kabul said the number of casualties could rise.\n\nThe number of such bombings in Afghanistan has grown in recent months:\n\nLast week, Islamic State (IS) also targeted a training centre belonging to the intelligence agency. The jihadist group has been active in Afghanistan since January 2015.", "Tunisia has banned Emirates airline from landing in the capital Tunis after a number of Tunisian women were prevented from boarding its flights.\n\nThe move comes amid widespread anger in Tunisia, with rights groups condemning \"racist and discriminatory\" measures.\n\nThe transport ministry said the measure would stay in place until Emirates was able to \"operate flights in accordance with law and international agreements\".\n\nThe UAE said \"security information\" had caused the delays.\n\n\"We contacted our Tunisian brothers about security information that necessitated taking specific procedures,\" Emirati Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash said on Twitter on Sunday.\n\n\"We highly value Tunisian women and respect them,\" he added.\n\nTunisian government officials said the UAE had banned Tunisian women from flying to or transiting through its territory.\n\nOn Friday the Tunisian government said it had asked the UAE ambassador to clarify what was happening and had been told that the measures had been temporary and had already been lifted.\n\nLocal media reported that Tunisian women had been blocked from boarding Emirates flights to Dubai over several days.\n\nAccording to AFP news agency, some Tunisian women said their journeys to the UAE had been delayed and some that their visas had to undergo additional examination.\n\nTunisia has been trying to improve relations with the UAE that were damaged by its 2011 revolution.\n\nTunisia's Ennahda party - part of the governing coalition - also has links to Qatar, which has been cut off by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain over its alleged support for terrorism.", "Pro-independence parties can one again form a majority in parliament\n\nThe voters of Catalonia went to the polls for the fourth time in four years on Thursday and once again produced a result which demonstrates how deeply divided their society has become.\n\nThe result provoked an outpouring of joyous relief from supporters of parties who want independence from Spain.\n\nThey just about hung on to their narrow overall majority in the parliament although the number of seats under their control fell from 72 to 70.\n\nThey say this was a victory won under duress.\n\nThe leader of one separatist party, Oriol Junqueras, was in solitary confinement in a Spanish prison when he was re-elected.\n\nThe head of another - the deposed former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont - was in self-imposed exile political in Brussels from where he told his supporters: \"The Spanish state has been defeated, the independence movement has won. This is a majority that wants a referendum.\"\n\nBut Catalonia's political landscape remains crowded and complicated and it is hard to see a way forward through it.\n\nSeven parties will be represented in the new parliament, none of them with more than a quarter of the overall vote.\n\nThe largest of them, Ciudadanos (Citizens), is a unionist movement - in other words it's as determined to keep Catalonia's links with Spain as its rivals are to break them.\n\nThe party leader, Inés Arrimadas, said: \"We'll see how a coalition can be formed. We have a very unjust law in Catalonia so that the pro-independence parties can have a majority (in parliament) that they don't have on the street.\"\n\nUnionists argue that the voting system is biased against them because the pro-independence parties have strong support in small towns and in villages, where it takes fewer votes to win a seat than it does in Barcelona, where a majority favours staying with Spain.\n\nBut the reality is it's very hard to see how Ms Arrimadas has any realistic chance of forming a government when the numbers are stacked against her - however narrowly.\n\nInés Arrimadas's Citizens party won the biggest number of seats but will struggle to form a government\n\nAt the party's \"victory\" rally in the centre of Barcelona, one of her supporters, Natalia Ferrer told me she thought Ciudadanos had done well enough to make it impossible for its rivals to push for immediate independence.\n\nAs she put it: \"I am so happy that we have shown to the rest of Europe and the rest of the world that not everyone in Catalonia is against Spain... there are a lot of people here who want to be part of Spain.\"\n\nAnd there, of course, is the problem.\n\nOne lesson from Thursday's election is that if you keep asking the same people more or less the same question then you'll keep getting, more or less, the same answer.\n\nAnd here is a further layer of complexity, in case this didn't seem complicated enough.\n\nThe real loser in this latest Catalonian election was a man who wasn't even standing, the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.\n\nHe is an unwavering opponent of the separatist movement and it was his decision to impose direct rule from Madrid after October's illegal referendum.\n\nSpain has an independent judiciary, of course, but it's also on Mr Rajoy's watch that opposition leaders from Catalonia have been sent to prison - and could yet face 30-year jail sentences for rebellion and sedition.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A look at the key players in Catalonia's regional election\n\nIt was Mariano Rajoy's decision to call these latest elections and it seems clear that he was gambling that the constitutional crisis of the past few months would have eroded the support for independence.\n\nThat gamble has failed and now he has to decide how to deal with jailed or exiled leaders who have demonstrated again that they have a popular mandate.\n\nHe is the man who would presumably have claimed a share of the victory if unionists here had won and on that basis, his is the defeat.", "\"Gentility of speech is at an end,\" thundered an editorial in London's City Press, in 1858. \"It stinks!\"\n\nThe stink in question was partly metaphorical: politicians were failing to tackle an obvious problem.\n\nAs its population grew, London's system for disposing of human waste became woefully inadequate. To relieve pressure on cess pits - which were prone to leaking, overflowing, and belching explosive methane - the authorities had instead started encouraging sewage into gullies.\n\nHowever, this created a different issue: the gullies were originally intended for only rainwater, and emptied directly into the River Thames.\n\nThat was the literal stink - the Thames became an open sewer.\n\nCholera was rife. One outbreak killed 14,000 Londoners - nearly one in every 100.\n\nCivil engineer Joseph Bazalgette drew up plans for new, closed sewers to pump the waste far from the city. It was this project that politicians came under pressure to approve.\n\nThe sweltering-hot summer of 1858 had made London's malodorous river impossible to politely ignore, or to discuss obliquely with \"gentility of speech\". The heatwave became popularly known as the \"Great Stink\".\n\nIf you live in a city with modern sanitation, it's hard to imagine daily life being permeated with the suffocating stench of human excrement.\n\nFor that, we have a number of people to thank - but perhaps none more so than the unlikely figure of Alexander Cumming.\n\n50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the economic world.\n\nA watchmaker in London a century before the Great Stink, Cumming won renown for his mastery of intricate mechanics.\n\nKing George III commissioned him to make an elaborate instrument for recording atmospheric pressure, and he pioneered the microtome, a device for cutting ultra-fine slivers of wood for microscopic analysis.\n\nAlexander Cumming's S-bend was crucial in the development of the flushing toilet\n\nBut Cumming's world-changing invention owed nothing to precision engineering. It was a bit of pipe with a curve in it.\n\nIn 1775, Cumming patented the S-bend. This became the missing ingredient to create the flushing toilet - and, with it, public sanitation as we know it.\n\nFlushing toilets had previously foundered on the problem of smell: the pipe that connects the toilet to the sewer, allowing urine and faeces to be flushed away, will also also let sewer odours waft back up - unless you can create some kind of airtight seal.\n\nCumming's solution was simplicity itself: bend the pipe. Water settles in the dip, stopping smells coming up; flushing the toilet replenishes the water.\n\nWhile we've moved on alphabetically from the S-bend to the U-bend, flushing toilets still deploy the same insight.\n\nRollout, however, came slowly: by 1851, flushing toilets remained novel enough in London to cause mass excitement when introduced at the Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace.\n\nUse of the facilities cost one penny, giving the English language one of its enduring euphemisms for emptying one's bladder, \"to spend a penny\".\n\nHundreds of thousands of Londoners queued for the opportunity to relieve themselves while marvelling at the miracles of modern plumbing.\n\nIf the Great Exhibition gave Londoners a vision of how public sanitation could be - clean, and smell-free - no doubt that added to the weight of popular discontent as politicians dragged their heels over finding the funds for Joseph Bazalgette's planned sewers.\n\nMore than 170 years later, about two-thirds of the world's people have access to what's called \"improved sanitation\", according to the World Health Organization, up from about a quarter in 1980.\n\nBut that still means two and a half billion people don't have access to it, and \"improved sanitation\" itself is a relatively low bar.\n\nIt \"hygienically separates human excreta from human contact\", but it doesn't necessarily treat the sewage itself.\n\nFewer than half the world's people have access to sanitation systems that do that.\n\nThe economic costs of this ongoing failure to roll out proper sanitation are many and varied, from health care for diarrhoeal diseases to foregone revenue from hygiene-conscious tourists.\n\nThe World Bank's Economics of Sanitation Initiative has tried to tot up the price tag.\n\nAcross various African countries, for example, it reckons inadequate sanitation lops one or two percentage points off gross domestic product (GDP), in India and Bangladesh over 6%, and in Cambodia 7%.\n\nOpen sewers are a common sight in Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya\n\nThe challenge is that public sanitation isn't something the market necessarily provides. Toilets cost money, but defecating in the street is free.\n\nIf I install a toilet, I bear all the costs, while the benefits of the cleaner street are felt by everyone.\n\nIn economic parlance, that's a \"positive externality\" - and goods that have positive externalities tend to be bought at a slower pace than society, as a whole, would prefer.\n\nThe most striking example is the \"flying toilet\" system of Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya.\n\nThe flying toilet works like this: you defecate into a plastic bag, and then in the middle of the night, whirl the bag around your head and hurl it as far away as possible.\n\nReplacing a flying toilet with a flushing toilet provides benefits to the toilet owner - but you can bet that the neighbours would appreciate it, too.\n\nContrast, say, the mobile phone. That also costs money, but its benefits accrue largely to me. That's one reason why, although the S-bend has been around for 10 times as long as the mobile phone, many more people already own a mobile phone than a flushing toilet.\n\nIf you want to buy a flushing toilet, it also helps if there's a system of sewers to plumb it into, and creating one is a major undertaking - financially and logistically.\n\nJoseph Bazalgette, standing top right, views the Northern Outfall sewer being built below the Abbey Mills pumping station in 1862\n\nWhen Joseph Bazalgette finally got the cash to build London's sewers, they took 10 years to complete and necessitated digging up 2.5 million cubic metres (88 million cubic ft) of earth.\n\nBecause of the externality problem, such a project might not appeal to private investors: it tends to require determined politicians, willing taxpayers and well-functioning municipal governments.\n\nAnd those, it seems, are in short supply. According to a study published in 2011, just 6% of India's towns and cities have succeeded in building even a partial network of sewers. The capacity for delay seems almost unlimited.\n\nLondon's lawmakers likewise procrastinated- but when they finally acted, they didn't hang about. As Stephen Halliday recounts in his book The Great Stink of London, it took just 18 days to rush through the necessary legislation for Bazalgette's plans. What explains this sudden, impressive alacrity?\n\nThe Houses of Parliament, photographed in 1858, the year of the Great Stink\n\nA quirk of geography: London's Parliament building is located right next to the River Thames.\n\nOfficials tried to shield lawmakers from the Great Stink, soaking the curtains in chloride of lime in a bid to mask the stench.\n\nBut it was no use. Try as they might, the politicians couldn't ignore it.\n\nThe Times described, with a note of grim satisfaction, how MPs had been seen abandoning the building's library, \"each gentleman with a handkerchief to his nose\".\n\nIf only concentrating politicians' minds was always that easy.", "Restaurant chain Wagamama has apologised after a manager warned workers they face disciplinary action for calling in sick over Christmas.\n\nA note on a rota at one of its London branches said it was the responsibility of ill staff to find colleagues to cover shifts.\n\nWagamama said the manager \"feared team member shortages\" and \"regrettably decided to take this highly unusual approach\", which is not company policy.\n\nA note beneath the rota states: \"No calling in sick! may I remind you that if you are unable to come in for your shift it is your responsibility [underlined] to find someone to cover your shift (as per contract and handbook).\n\n\"Calling in sick during the next 2 weeks will result in disciplinary action being taken\".\n\nWagamama insisted the rule was \"strictly not company policy\", and said it was an \"isolated incident\" at its North Finchley restaurant.\n\nA spokesman for the Unite Hospitality union said: \"To threaten workers with disciplinary action for being sick is not just morally reprehensible, it may be unlawful under the Health and Safety Act and Equality Act as it discriminates against those with long-term physical or mental health conditions.\"\n\nThe pan-Asian chain, which has been owned by the London-based private equity firm Duke Street Capital since 2011, has more than 100 branches across the UK.\n\nA Wagamama spokesperson said: \"Following reports of a notice posted in our North Finchley restaurant we can confirm this was an isolated incident and is strictly not company employment policy.\n\n\"The manager involved feared team member shortages over the festive period and regrettably decided to take this highly unusual approach.\n\n\"As a company we treat all our team with the greatest respect and understand and appreciate the hard work they all do. We sincerely apologise for what has happened and wish all our team members and customers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.\"\n\nThe person who brought the rota to Unite Hospitality's attention is a friend of someone who works at Wagamama in North Finchley.\n\n\"They sent me that picture,\" he told the BBC. \"They didn't want me to share it at all. But my blood was boiling. I needed to do something about it.\n\n\"I don't believe it is company policy. It might have been an idea of the manager because he doesn't know the law.\"\n\nThe rota was put up at Wagamama's branch in North Finchley\n\nHe said the note attached to the rota could be \"dangerous for the health and safety of people\".\n\n\"If you force people to work when they are sick they can poison the food. There is something very wrong.\"\n\nHe said many of the staff at that branch were young workers from Eastern Europe and \"maybe they are scared to lose their jobs or they don't know the law themselves\".\n\nThe Green MSP for the West Scotland region, Ross Greer, was one of the first people to post a photograph of the rota on Twitter, writing: \"That's the end of my custom with @wagamama_uk. Treat your staff with some respect.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Ross Greer This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n@dtaylor5633 also expresses concern about the potential health risks.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Taylor This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe rota note has led a #boycottwagamama campaign on Twitter, with people voicing concern the policy may lead to sick workers undertaking shifts.\n\nHowever, other people say customers should not \"vilify a whole company\" because of an issue related to a single branch. Former employees in other branches have also taken to social media to say they have not experienced similar practices.", "Jodie Whittaker as she appeared at the end of Twice Upon a Time\n\nJodie Whittaker has made her debut as the first female Doctor in the Christmas special of Doctor Who.\n\nGiven the role in July, the actress succeeds Peter Capaldi to become the 13th Doctor.\n\nThe 35-year-old Broadchurch star said she was \"beyond excited\" to take up the role and the offer had been \"overwhelming, as a feminist\".\n\nWhittaker will fully begin her role next year alongside Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole.\n\nCapaldi, who has had the role since 2013, regenerated at the end of the episode to become Whittaker's character.\n\nWhen she was appointed, Whittaker told fans not to be \"scared\" by her gender.\n\n\"It's more than an honour to play the Doctor. It means remembering everyone I used to be, while stepping forward to embrace everything the Doctor stands for: hope. I can't wait,\" she added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Actress Jodie Whittaker reveals four facts about herself\n\nActress Jenna Coleman returned as Doctor Who companion Clara Oswald in the Christmas programme alongside David Bradley.\n\nBradley playing the first Doctor, originally played by the late William Hartnell, while Pearl Mackie returned as companion Bill Potts.\n\nIt was the last episode for Potts and the show also marked an end for the programme's writer Steven Moffat, who has stepped down after seven years.\n\nHe has been replaced by Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall.\n\nFans reacted to Whittaker's introduction and Capaldi's departure on Twitter, with some praising the Doctor's gender.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Frances loves Kat 🥀 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOthers meanwhile were supportive of the actress's roots.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Ben ♸ This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nElsewhere, Whittaker's predecessor in the role had a few words of comfort for one young fan who was sad to see his favourite Doctor depart this week.\n\nNine-year-old David McGilloway, from Londonderry, found a letter from Capaldi in his Christmas stocking, which read: \"The new Doctor always becomes your favourite and the one that goes... well, he never really goes...\"\n\nAfter all, the Doctor is for life - not just for Christmas.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Brian McGilloway This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIf you missed Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time you can watch it on iPlayer.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nCoverage: Ball-by-ball Test Match Special commentary on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra, Radio 4 LW, online, tablets, mobiles and BBC Sport app. Live text commentary on the BBC Sport website and app\n\nSurrey pace bowler Tom Curran will make his England Test debut against Australia on Boxing Day.\n\nThe 22-year-old replaces the injured Craig Overton for the fourth Ashes Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.\n\n\"He's a feisty character and he gets the ball to move around a bit,\" said England captain Joe Root.\n\n\"He's always in the contest. At no point will he hide away from any challenge. If times become hard he will give it everything.\"\n• None Lehmann to step down as Australia coach after 2019 Ashes\n• None Get Ashes alerts sent to your phone\n\nThe void left by Overton, who has a fractured rib, could have been filled by fellow fast bowlers Jake Ball or Mark Wood.\n\nThere was also the option to hand a debut to 20-year-old leg-spinner Mason Crane, but that would have meant changing the balance of the attack.\n\nEngland have decided against making further changes, despite having already lost the Ashes, with Australia holding an unassailable 3-0 lead.\n\n\"This is the best side to win on this surface,\" said Root. \"Other guys are looking for form, and looking to turn things round, and they have an opportunity to do that this week.\n\n\"It's a great opportunity on such a big stage. It's an Ashes Test, with so much to play for.\"\n\nAustralia have also been forced into a change as Mitchell Starc's heel problem has resulted in a recall for fellow paceman Jackson Bird.\n\nBorn in Cape Town, Curran is the son of former Zimbabwe, Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire all-rounder Kevin.\n\nSpotted by former Surrey captain Ian Greig, the brother of ex-England skipper Tony, Curran moved to England to attend Wellington School in 2012.\n\nSoon after, his father collapsed whilst jogging and died at the age of 53.\n\nCurran remained at Wellington and made his Surrey debut in 2013, qualifying to play for England on residency grounds in 2015.\n\nHis younger brother Sam, a 19-year-old all-rounder, is also a Surrey regular, while a third brother, 21-year-old Ben, is a batsman who has played for four county second XIs and MCC Young Cricketers.\n\nTom Curran, capped in three Twenty20 internationals and a single one-day internationals, was added to the Ashes squad following an injury to Steven Finn, who himself made the trip to Australia after Ben Stokes was made unavailable.\n\nIn the tour game against a Cricket Australia XI before the third Test, he served notice of his batting talent by making an unbeaten 77. His bowling is lively, without being express, and contains the variety of a youngster reared on limited-overs cricket.\n\n\"He's skilful and a real competitor,\" added Root. \"It's a great chance for him - what a great occasion to start playing Test cricket.\n\n\"He never shies away from a challenge. It gives us a chance to see what he can provide at this level.\"\n\nThe build-up to the fourth Test has again involved the trading of opinions, both from within and outside the respective teams.\n\nFormer Australia captain Ricky Ponting said that Root acted like a \"little boy\" in the aftermath of his side's third Test defeat in Perth.\n\n\"He's entitled to his opinion,\" Root told BBC Sport. \"Obviously I think that is a load of rubbish.\n\n\"He doesn't see how we go about things behind the scenes, or how I go about things up close and personal. It's important I go about my things in my own way.\"\n\nMeanwhile, England seamer James Anderson said on his BBC Tailenders podcast that Australia's pace attack has \"problems\" beyond their first-choice trio of Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.\n\nIn response, Starc said he hopes that his replacement Bird \"sticks it up\" England in Melbourne.\n\nAnd Aussie captain Steve Smith said of Anderson's comments: \"That's rubbish, to be honest.\n\n\"Does he know that much about Australian domestic cricket? I'm not sure. I know there's plenty of guys who could come in and really do a job for us.\"\n\nAfter losing 5-0 in 2013-14, England are looking to avoid a second consecutive whitewash in Australia and a third in 11 years.\n\nThe tourists are also on a run of eight successive Test losses down under, having never previously lost nine on the trot.\n\nIn addition, they are on a losing sequence of seven Tests away from home, dating back to the trip to India at the end of 2016.\n\n\"It's been bitterly disappointing that we haven't been able to get a win yet,\" Root told BBC Sport. \"The mindset and desire within the team is for us to go and do that.\n\n\"We won't be happy until we leave this trip with a win under our belts. We won't be changing the way we go about things in terms of effort or energy.\n\n\"We won't be tailing off and we'll trying to turn those strong positions into winning ones.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Guests were given goodie bags filled with essentials\n\nIt's no ordinary commuter Monday at Euston Station in London.\n\nThe last train left at 23:00 on Sunday and the passengers are home - but the concourse is busy with people sitting down to a Christmas Day feast.\n\nAn arrivals board reads: \"Special notice: Network Rail invites you to Euston Station. Merry Christmas!\"\n\nFor the first time, the transport hub has become a homeless shelter for 200 people - as one of many public spaces that normally lie empty on Christmas.\n\nSome 45 volunteers have worked overnight to transform the station ready for a banquet of smoked salmon, soup, a roast, and Christmas pudding.\n\nNext to barred ticket terminals and a shut WH Smith, Boots and Paperchase, tables and chairs are decorated with red poinsettias.\n\nSharon has come to Euston for some company on Christmas Day\n\nOne of today's guests, Sharon, says she has worn her best dress for the occasion.\n\n\"My support worker Christine told me about this a couple of weeks ago,\" she says.\n\n\"I knew I didn't have anything to do. I would be at home on my own and at times you're lonely, especially at Christmas.\"\n\nSharon, who moved to London from the US two decades ago, says she had to give up work as a retail manager because of a leg injury, but hopes to return next year.\n\n\"I'm on the mend, I'll definitely be dancing today!\"\n\nAbout 120,000 people pass through Euston every day, making it Britain's fifth-busiest train station, according to ticket sales data.\n\nBut today is more relaxed; cheers erupt as a pianist plays Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.\n\nIt's a novelty for those who normally work at Euston, including station manager Joe Hendry.\n\n\"I initially didn't think it would be possible,\" he says.\n\n\"But turning up to work today at 06:30 this morning and seeing everyone here - it's wonderful.\n\n\"We have a big local homeless population here, so I've seen some familiar faces.\"\n\nJay, originally from Cork, moves from place to place in the area, and is currently living in an abandoned solicitors' office.\n\n\"If I wasn't here I'd be in the office - there's 20 of us - we would try and have a good time,\" he says.\n\nJay squats in local properties, and says he would otherwise be unable to afford a Christmas dinner\n\n\"We got tickets for today - it's nice to have something to do, we have bare cooking facilities and don't have much money for nice food.\"\n\nOutside the station, people - many clutching blankets and shopping bags - are trying to get entry to the dinner, which is ticket-only and tightly guarded by Euston's security staff.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Network Rail's Steve Naybour: \"Santa came last night\" to Euston\n\nThe event was the brainchild of a group of Network Rail workers, including Steve Naybour, who was inspired by the Glastonbury Festival's use of vacant fields.\n\n\"Every year the festival uses fallow ground that would otherwise be unused - in a similar way, we thought about how we can use our empty stations,\" he says.\n\nSteve's used to working over Christmas - and has a shift on Boxing Day - but says today is different.\n\n\"It's amazing to see the concourse looking so festive, which would normally be packed with commuters.\"\n\nVolunteers prepping the alcohol-free four-course meal tweeted their efforts using the #EustonChristmas hashtag.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by St Mungo's This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Streets Kitchen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNearly 50 different businesses and organisations have donated items - including food, drinks and thermal clothes - to the event.\n\nMr Naybour says he has been \"blown away\" by the generosity, adding: \"We've got a whole department store of clothes we're waiting to give out.\"\n\nTwo hundred children from schools in the local area have made Christmas cards to give to the guests, while local kitchens have opened up to help volunteers prepare the meal.\n\nCharity volunteer Jon Glackin says empty buildings should be used as shelters\n\nJon Glackin, from the charity Street Kitchen, says he \"jumped at the chance\" to help. \"People we've known over the years are coming along,\" he says.\n\n\"Something we've always tried to highlight is empty buildings, for feeding people, for sleeping and for shelters,\" adds Jon.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This is no ordinary royal engagement.\n\nMeghan Markle brings something different to the British Royal Family.\n\nShe is American, divorced, an actress and mixed race.\n\nShe is also a campaigner with a variety of humanitarian interests and won't want her marriage to limit her ability to speak out and support various causes - particularly those of gender equality.\n\nAs an advocate for UN Women, Ms Markle has worked on helping young girls reach their leadership potential. When she was first approached about working with the United Nations the Suits star insisted on undertaking a period of \"work experience\" first.\n\nIn her own time she shadowed Elizabeth Nyamayaro, a senior advisor at UN Women. Elizabeth was impressed by the intelligence, commitment and curiosity of the actress.\n\nThe pair have since worked together closely on a number of UN missions and Elizabeth has no doubt that her friend and colleague will thrive in her new royal role.\n\n\"Her ability to listen, her passion for other people, wanting to create social change with that level of platform can only be a positive thing. She'll be fine, she'll be great in fact.\"\n\nMs Markle addressed gender issues at the One Young World forum in Canada\n\nBut the media coverage of the relationship in its early days unsettled sections of the British press and its readers.\n\nPrince Harry even took the unprecedented step of issuing a public statement asking for privacy and describing some of the coverage as having \"racial undertones\".\n\nMuch was made of his fiancée's upbringing in Los Angeles, with the area described as gang-infested and a place riddled with racial tension.\n\nHowever, Ms Markle actually grew up in a very middle class neighbourhood of Los Angeles and attended a private Catholic school.\n\nBut in many ways she is an outsider.\n\nPrince Harry isn't following a traditional path - he's not marrying the daughter of a grand aristocratic family.\n\nHis wife-to-be now has to negotiate her way through the British aristocracy, in a similar vein to her future sister-in-law, the Duchess of Cambridge.\n\nIt is an experience American nutritionist and author Julie Montagu knows well, as the future Countess of Sandwich.\n\nBorn and brought up in Illinois, she married the son of the Earl of Sandwich and is now Viscountess Hinchingbrooke.\n\nShe splits her time between London and the family estate, Mapperton, in Dorset.\n\n\"Even now I still get things wrong,\" she told me. \"The British upper classes have their own way of doing things. But as an American I bring my optimism, positivity and work ethic into the mix which I believe is hugely important.\"\n\nMs Markle is joining a family and entering a world unlike anything she has previously experienced. Yes it brings with it great privilege. But it also means a lack of privacy and the acceptance of a public life. As an actress she may find herself well equipped to deal with the scrutiny ahead.", "Morgan Geyser (L) and Anissa Weier (R) were 12 at the time of the crime\n\nOne of two US girls convicted of a 2014 stabbing to honour the horror character Slender Man has been sentenced to 25 years in a mental hospital.\n\nAnissa Weier, 16, pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted second-degree homicide, but claimed she was mentally ill at the time.\n\nShe and Morgan Geyser lured a classmate into a Wisconsin wooded park where Geyser stabbed her 19 times as Weier stood by. The victim survived.\n\nAll three girls were 12 at the time.\n\nThe victim was found crawling from woods by a cyclist near the city of Waukesha, a western suburb of Milwaukee. She had stab wounds to her arms, legs and torso.\n\nWaukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren on Thursday sentenced Weier to the maximum punishment of 25 years in a psychiatric institution.\n\nThe sentencing is retroactive to the date of the crime in May 2014, which means she will be committed until the age of 37.\n\nWeier and Geyser told investigators that they believed they had to kill their victim in \"dedication\" to Slender Man, a fictional horror website character.\n\nBefore her sentencing, Weier told the judge: \"I do hold myself accountable for this and that I will do whatever I have to do to make sure I don't get any sort of delusion or whatever again.\n\n\"I want everybody involved to know I deeply regret everything that happened that day. I know that nothing I say is going to make this right and nothing I say is going to fix what I broke.\"\n\nHe is a skinny, shadowy figure, who has appeared in photos, drawings and articles across the internet.\n\nSome claim he has tentacles emerging from his back and most say he wears dark clothes and has a pale face.\n\nThe schoolgirls involved in the attack in Waukesha say there were inspired after reading about him in a creepypasta, a short online story designed to shock or scare the reader.\n\nSlender Man first appeared on the internet in 2009.\n\nEric Knudsen from Florida created the character in response to a call for submissions from the online forum SomethingAwful and posted the picture of the figure behind a crowd of people.\n\nEarlier this year Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in a deal with prosecutors to avoid a prison term.\n\nShe is scheduled to be sentenced in February. Prosecutors have asked that she be sent to a mental hospital for at least 40 years.", "US ambassador Nikki Haley said a unanimous UN Security Council resolution sent a clear warning to North Korea that further missile tests would invite more punishment.", "British passports will change from burgundy to blue after Britain leaves the EU, the Home Office has said.\n\nImmigration Minister Brandon Lewis said he was delighted to return to the \"iconic\" blue and gold design which came into use almost 100 years ago.\n\nThe new passports will be issued to those renewing or applying for a passport from October 2019.\n\nBurgundy passports were first issued in 1988. The EU has never compelled the UK to change the colour of its passport.\n\nFormer UKIP leader Nigel Farage responded to the announcement by tweeting \"Happy Brexmas!\"\n\nHe added: \"In the 2016 referendum, we wanted our passports back. Now we've got them back!\"\n\nBut Labour MP Mary Creagh tweeted: \"No-one under 45 will have owned a blue passport, and most will think they're not worth £50 billion and crashing the economy.\"\n\nMr Lewis told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he knew many Remain voters who still had an \"attachment\" and \"speak fondly\" of the blue passport.\n\nDid Brussels force the UK to change the colour of its passport? No.\n\nThe European Union has never had the power to force the UK to change the colour of the British passport.\n\nDumping the blue for burgundy was a decision taken by the UK in the 1980s after the then EEC (European Economic Community) member states tried to harmonise designs to make life easier for travellers and border officials.\n\nSo this wasn't a decision forced on the UK by Brussels Eurocrats. Ministers could have ignored it.\n\nCroatia retained its blue passport after it joined the EU in 2013.\n\nSome countries in the EU have a burgundy passport like Italy (left), but Croatia retained its blue passport (right) after joining the union in 2013\n\nIn a similar vein, the EU has never had the power to order the UK to remove references to Her Majesty The Queen from the passport. It is still a British document, but with added EU wording to guarantee freedom of movement.\n\nThe only legal requirement to harmonise EU passports related to security standards, part of a global governmental effort to combat forgery.\n\nIf the EU wanted passports to change in any other way, the plans would need each government to agree.\n\nTory MP Andrew Rosindell, who campaigned to bring back the blue passport, tweeted: \"A great Christmas present for those who care about our national identity - the fanatical Remainers hate it, but the restoration of our own British passport is a powerful symbol that Britain is Back!\"\n\nHowever, many other people have mocked the announcement on social media.\n\nSimon Blackwell, a comedy writer, said: \"Why do we need any colour passport? We should just be able to shout, \"British! Less of your nonsense!\" and stroll straight through.\"\n\nAccording to the Passport Index, 76 countries have blue passports, including a number of former colonial and Commonwealth countries, such as Australia, the United States, Canada, India and Hong Kong.\n\nSeveral Caribbean countries also have blue passports, including Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines.\n\nIn Europe, people from Iceland and Bosnia and Herzegovina both carry blue passports, while it is also a popular colour in central and south America - Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Uruguay and Venezuela are among those that have them.\n\nStig Abell, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, tweeted: \"I've just spent the last 10 minutes screaming 'Take that you burgundy symbol of EU oppression' at my passport.\n\n\"It just stares insolently back, as if it is an inanimate and merely functional object and its colour doesn't matter.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by John O'Farrell This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe new passports will also have updated security features to protect against fraud, Mr Lewis said.\n\nThe Home Office said there was no need for British passport holders to do anything ahead of their current passport renewal date, adding that the changes would be introduced in phases.\n\nWhen the UK leaves the EU in March 2019, burgundy passports will continue to be issued but with no reference to the European Union.\n\nThe blue passports will be issued later the same year, after a new contract for their production is negotiated.\n\n\"Leaving the EU gives us a unique opportunity to restore our national identity and forge a new path for ourselves in the world\", Mr Lewis said.\n\n1414: The first version of the passport - 'Safe Conducts' was introduced during the reign of King Henry V (seen here at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415).", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBoris Johnson says the UK's relations with Russia are \"not on a good footing\" but he wants them to improve, after talks in Moscow.\n\nRussia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused the UK of making \"insulting\" statements ahead of the meeting.\n\nBut he said he trusted Mr Johnson and they had agreed on the need to work together on the UN Security Council.\n\nMr Johnson is the first UK foreign secretary to visit Russia in five years.\n\nMr Lavrov said it was no secret that Britain's relations with Russia were at a \"low point\".\n\nAnd he accused Britain of making a series of \"aggressive and insulting\" public statements ahead of their meeting, saying Russia had done nothing to justify being seen as an aggressor in relation to its actions in Ukraine and Syria.\n\n\"I cannot recall any of Russia's actions that would be aggressive in relation to the United Kingdom. We did not blame London for anything,\" said Mr Lavrov.\n\n\"On the contrary, we have heard accusations, even insultingly formulated - that we support the criminal regime in Syria, that we are aggressors, that we are occupiers, we annex other territories.\n\n\"And all this despite the fact that on all the regional issues in question, and on many others, all information about what our position is, what it is based on, is regularly provided.\"\n\nThe pair also clashed over Russia's alleged attempts to interfere in elections in the West, following UK Prime Minister Theresa May's warnings about the risks of Russia's \"sustained campaign of cyber-espionage and disruption\".\n\nDespite the differences between London and Moscow, both sides have an interest in improving what is a poor relationship.\n\nThere are several issues where both Britain and Russia sometimes disagree but want more dialogue.\n\nOn Syria, the UK wants to help shape any future political settlement while Russia needs western money to help rebuild the country.\n\nOn North Korea, both Russia and the UK want to find ways of de-escalating the crisis prompted by Pyongyang's ballistic missile programme.\n\nAnd on Iran, both sides want to do what they can to protect the deal they helped negotiate to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.\n\nSo Friday's meeting may have allowed both sides to rehearse their differences - and the veteran Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, gave as good as he got from the comparative novice foreign secretary, Boris Johnson.\n\nBut it also allowed them to crack a few jokes and build a relationship that they could need in the years to come.\n\nThis was not a reset or a return to business as usual but the opening of a channel of communication that in recent years has been as frozen as the Moscow winter.\n\nAhead of the meeting in Moscow, the UK government said Mr Johnson would warn Russia to stop cyber-attacks which threaten Britain's national security or face retaliation of a similar kind from the UK.\n\nBut Mr Lavrov accused Mr Johnson of being a \"hostage\" of untrue Western narratives on the issue, insisting Russia had not meddled in elections in other countries.\n\nMr Johnson said there was \"abundant evidence\" of Russian interference in polls in the US, Germany, Denmark and France.\n\nBoris Johnson stands in front of Saint Basil's cathedral in Red square in Moscow\n\nAnd takes part in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier\n\nMr Lavrov hit back by telling Mr Johnson he himself had said Russia had not interfered in Britain's general election and Brexit referendum.\n\nMr Johnson interrupted his Russian counterpart to add: \"Not successfully.\"\n\nMr Lavrov said the evidence produced so far of Russian attempts at interference amounted to no more than the spending of \"a few kopecks\" on social media adverts.\n\n\"I think you have made all this up in your Western community and unfortunately right now you are hostage to this subject, it is very difficult for you to climb down from the fence you have climbed.\"\n\nHe also criticised Britain for cutting off ties with Russia's FSB security agency over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London, saying the UK authorities had refused to hand over information in the case.\n\nHe said government criticism of British politicians who speak to Russian media outlets, such as the RT television channel, damaged the reputation of the UK as \"the cradle of democracy\".\n\nMr Johnson acknowledged the \"difficulties\" in relations with Russia, adding: \"It is a regrettable state of affairs but it should not preclude co-operation.\"\n\nThe UK foreign secretary said they had identified common ground on issues such as North Korea, Syria and trade - and said the UK and Russian security services should co-ordinate ahead of next year's World Cup.\n\nAs the mood at the press conference relaxed, Mr Lavrov said: \"I trust Boris and I trust him to an extent that I am ready to call him BorIs [Russian-style pronunciation] rather than BOris.\"\n\nMr Johnson said he adopted the approach Ronald Reagan had taken with Mikhail Gorbachev: \"Trust, but verify.\"\n\nAnd he joked that his trust was so great that he had handed his coat with \"everything in my pockets, secret or otherwise\" to Mr Lavrov when he arrived at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.\n\nMr Lavrov joked back: \"I can say that there was nothing in the pockets of Boris's coat\", to which Mr Johnson responded in surprise: \"So you have searched it already?\"\n\nMr Johnson's trip follows Prime Minister Theresa May's accusation last month that Russia was trying to \"undermine free societies\".\n\nHer criticisms were repeated by Ciaran Martin, chief executive of GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre, who said that Russia was \"seeking to undermine the international system\".", "Big Ben is to temporarily chime again over the festive season.\n\nThe Great Bell, housed in the Palace of Westminster's Elizabeth Tower, will resume service from 9am on December 23 until 1pm on New Year's Day.\n\nIts hourly bongs were controversially halted in August until 2021 to ensure the safety of workers carrying out repairs on the tower.\n\nKeeper of the Great Clock, Steve Jaggs, said Big Ben's return would allow it to remain a \"focal point\" of celebrations.\n\nHe said that the chimes, most recently reactivated for Armistice Day in November, would continue to be rung for special occasions during its four-year restoration period.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBig Ben last fell silent in 2007 and before that, for major refurbishments between 1983 and 1985.\n\nIn operation for 157 years, the clock face and surrounding tower is currently clad in scaffolding.\n\n\"This essential programme of works will safeguard it for future generations, as well as protecting and conserving the Elizabeth Tower,\" Mr Jagg added.\n\nThe decision to silence the Great Bell sparked \"concern\" and criticism from MPs and Prime Minister Theresa May.\n\nIn response, the House of Commons said it would look again at the duration of the project and the scope for hearing the bell's famous bongs more often.\n\nThe full splendour of Big Ben is currently concealed by scaffolding\n\nThe estimated cost of repairs have now doubled to an estimated £61m, well above the original £25m repair costs, parliamentary authorities have said.\n\nThey expressed disappointment at the spiralling bill and said it would be analysed as part of the review.", "Poundland has removed the image of a box of Twinings tea from a controversial social media advert after the company complained on Twitter.\n\nThe campaign displayed a toy elf in a suggestive pose with a plastic doll in front of a box of Twinings Classics tea.\n\nTwinings tweeted that the picture \"misuses our product\".\n\nThe picture has reappeared, but without the box of Classics Selection tea and a caption: \"Spot the difference?\"\n\nPoundland refused to comment on the change, but all the previous offending pictures had disappeared from Twitter by 17:30 GMT on Thursday.\n\nTwinings tweeted about the Poundland campaign: \"We had no involvement in this and... it is obviously not reflective of our brand values.\"\n\nPoundland has been running its \"Naughty Elf\" adverts since the beginning of December.\n\nThey have included tableaux of a toy elf in a hot tub with naked dolls and another of the toy elf playing strip poker.\n\nThe campaign has divided opinion on Twitter, with some praising it as \"brilliant\", others damning it as \"outdated misogyny\".\n\nMany tweets speculated that Poundland's Twitter Feed had been hacked.\n\nHowever, Poundland confirmed the adverts were genuine.\n\nMarketing Director Mark Pym said: \"The love on Facebook has been overwhelming, and that's because it connects with our shoppers.\n\n\"We're proud of a campaign that's only cost £25.53 and is being touted as the winning marketing campaign this Christmas!\"\n\nA spokesperson for the Advertising Standards Authority confirmed they had had eight complaints about the advertising campaign, all on Thursday, claiming that it was offensive and unsuitable to be seen by children.\n\nHe said: \"Because the complaints have only just come in we will assess them and then decide whether there is a problem, and whether the advertisements need to be investigated.\"", "Boris Johnson says it is \"a tragedy\" that the UK's relationship with Russia isn't \"on a good footing\".\n\nThe foreign secretary held a press conference with Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on his visit to Russia.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nuclear N Korea: What do we know?\n\nNorth Korea's nuclear weapons programme has progressed faster than predicted, threatening the security of nearby nations – and potentially the United States.\n\nThe US envoy to the United Nations put it simply: \"Despite our efforts over the last 24 years, the North Korean nuclear programme is more advanced and dangerous than ever.\"\n\nAnalysts tend to agree that the country's leader, Kim Jong-un, is seeking a nuclear deterrent rather than an all-out war - but other nations are not taking chances.\n\nSo how do you defend against a politically isolated state with nuclear ambitions, when diplomacy, it appears, simply does not work?\n\nThe other half of the Korean peninsula has a long history of preparing to defend itself from its northern neighbour. The two countries are technically still at war, having never signed a peace treaty when the Korean War ended in 1953.\n\nThe Thaad system - seen here in testing - is one of several anti-missile defences\n\nOne key part of its defensive line is the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) - a region 250km (155 mile) long and 4km (2.5 mile) wide that separates the two nations, guarded by thousands of soldiers, lined with barbed wire fences, and filled with landmines.\n\nBut it is believed that North Korea's People's Army - with more than a million regular soldiers and millions more reserve troops - has drilled extensively on how to invade across the border.\n\nAnd the heavy land border fortifications do nothing, of course, to prevent a missile strike.\n\nFor a while, it was thought that Thaad - the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense - might be South Korea's best counter to a nuclear attack.\n\nThaad, funded by the South's military ally the United States, is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles as they descend in the final phase of a strike. The complex technology was first deployed in May 2017, and has been successfully tested.\n\nBut the politics of South Korea's relationship with the North means its rollout has not been easy.\n\nNorth Korea and its only ally China both see Thaad as a provocation, and many South Koreans living near the places its was deployed fear it could be seen as a military target.\n\nThe South's new president, President Moon Jae-in, suspended the rollout of the system in June, saying an environmental impact analysis was needed.\n\nBut in light of recent nuclear tests, the South's defence ministry has now said it will deploy the four remaining Thaad launchers that had been delivered, in addition to the two already operational.\n\nAt its closest point, Japan is just a little over 500km (310 miles) from North Korea - well within striking distance.\n\nIn August, Pyongyang fired a missile directly over Japan, in what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called an \"unprecedented\" threat to his country.\n\nThe close proximity of the two nations means that Japan has only minutes to respond to any launch. During the August missile test, people had about three minutes from receiving the emergency warning until the missile flew overhead. Many only learned about the threat later in the day.\n\nIn terms of defence options, Japan utilises the Patriot missile system which, like Thaad, is designed to shoot down incoming missiles. But it has a limited operational range, making it effective at defending key locations - and not the entire country.\n\nBut Japan does not have to worry about land invasion to the same extent North Korea does, and at sea, it has other options at its disposal.\n\nJapan, South Korea, the United States are among the countries with the Aegis naval defence system.\n\nAegis is yet another anti-missile system, but unlike Thaad or Patriot defences, it can also be deployed to ships patrolling the seas in the region.\n\nA test missile fired by the US on August 29, left, was shot down by the Aegis system similar to the file photo, right\n\nThose battleships come equipped with powerful radar which could detect the launch when deployed near the North Korean coast. They are also fitted with guided missiles, and could attempt to shoot down the incoming missile - or share its tracking data with another missile defence system closer to the target.\n\nThere are a handful of problems with the system, though. Aegis ships need to be deployed in the right place at the right time - and while they have been tested extensively, they have never been used to defend against an actual launch.\n\nFor years, the best defence for the US was its sheer distance from North Korea - some 5,000km (3,100 miles) to Alaska and almost 9,000km to San Francisco. But rapid advancements mean that distance might no longer be far enough.\n\nNorth Korea's military wants the capability to shrink a high-yield nuclear warhead to fit on an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM). In theory, that would allow Pyongyang to strike the United States.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. See the US anti-missile system in action\n\nAfter its latest test, North Korea claimed it had managed to shrink the warhead, posting photos of what it said was a hydrogen bomb - in keeping with a Washington Post report from early August.\n\nThat means the US is now reconsidering its missile defences, with President Trump having ordered a review of the entire system.\n\nIt already has detection and interception systems. But critics believe that the US system is far from reliable, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus wrote in July.\n\nIn the foreseeable future, only a handful of its interceptor missiles will be available to deal with the potential North Korean threat, he said.\n\nAnd it also has to worry about its overseas territory of Guam - a key military outpost in the Pacific which has been singled out by North Korea as a threat to be \"contained\".\n\nThat island already has a Thaad system deployed, but state media says Kim Jong-un has already been briefed on strike plans - and is waiting to see the next US actions.", "The executive chairman of Google owner Alphabet is to step down in January, the company has announced.\n\nEric Schmidt, who has been with the tech giant since 2001, will remain on the board as a technical adviser on science and technology issues.\n\nMr Schmidt has played a key role in the development of Google from a small California start-up to the global business it is today.\n\nAlphabet said it expected to appoint a non-executive chairman.\n\nIn a statement Mr Schmidt said \"the time is right in Alphabet's evolution for this transition\".\n\nHe added that in recent years he had spent a lot of his time on science and technology issues and philanthropy and he would expand that work.\n\nGoogle was founded as an internet search company in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.\n\nMr Schmidt joined the company as chief executive in 2001, becoming chairman in 2011.\n\nIn 2015 Google restructured and the new parent company was called Alphabet with Mr Schmidt becoming chairman.\n\nAlphabet has more than 70,000 employees worldwide, and owns Google Search, Maps, Ads, Gmail, Android, Chrome, and YouTube.\n\nJoe Beda, chief technology officer of technology firm Heptio and a former Google employee, said: \"He helped them mature into the powerhouse business it is today without throwing away the uniqueness that was Google during those early days.\"\n\nAlphabet board member John Hennessy said Mr Schmidt had been \"tremendously effective and tireless in guiding our board, particularly as we restructured from Google to Alphabet\".\n\nGoogle still makes up the most of Alphabet's revenue and income.\n\nHowever, the group also includes the so-called Other Bets unit, which includes the Waymo driverless car business and the Project Loon WiFi-enabled weather balloon venture.\n\nMr Schmidt said the Alphabet structure was \"working well\", and \"Google and the Other Bets are thriving\".", "Amazon has apologised to a customer who was emailed what he felt were \"coded death threats\" by a call centre worker.\n\nMichael Jacobson received five book recommendations including Death, Follow You Home and Suicide's An Option, he told BBC Radio 4's You and Yours.\n\n\"We have zero tolerance for any misuse of customer data and have apologised to the customer,\" Amazon, which offered Mr Jacobson a £50 goodwill gesture, said.\n\n\"The individual involved no longer works for Amazon,\" it told the BBC.\n\nMr Jacobson, a former special constable in London, first contacted Amazon's help centre after experiencing delivery issues with a package he had ordered in October.\n\nMr Jacobson was sent book recommendations including Death, Follow You Home and Death Made Me\n\nHe told You and Yours: \"Later that afternoon I checked my emails, and I'd received five, all from Amazon.\"\n\n\"They were all ostensibly book recommendations but the titles were pretty ominous and threatening, and I was pretty taken aback and I joked with my girlfriend, who I was with at the time, about it being a death threat.\"\n\nHe added: \"The more I looked into it, I realised that they had actually been sent manually by an employee at Amazon rather than via an algorithm.\"\n\nThe books were Death, Follow You Home, The Denial of Death, Death Made Me, and Suicide's An Option.\n\nMr Jacobson suspected the recommendations had been sent by an individual, which made him feel anxious about his safety.\n\n\"I was concerned, because as soon as I realised that this had been sent by an individual rather than by a computer, it meant an Amazon employee had access to my personal information.\"\n\nAfter getting in touch with Amazon to report the issue, they investigated and found the book recommendations had been sent by a then employee in India.\n\nIn an email to Mr Jacobson, Amazon said: \"On this occasion, an isolated individual was using the 'share page' function on our site to send you the emails in question.\n\n\"We are taking this matter very seriously,\" the company added, saying also that \"corrective actions have been taken internally both in relation to the agent who instigated the emails, and subsequent service failures\".\n\nDespite the investigation by Amazon, Mr Jacobson, who felt intimidated by the emails, says he feels the matter has not been handled well.\n\n\"At no point did (Amazon) say, we're confident you're not in any danger, this individual is thousands of miles away,\" he said.\n\n\"They told me none of that, which I was not happy about.\"\n\nYou and Yours is on BBC Radio 4 weekdays 12:15-13:00 GMT. Listen online or download the programme podcast.", "After 1,000 days of civil war in Yemen, 8 million people are at risk of starvation.", "Thousands of travellers have hit the UK's roads and railways at the start of the Christmas getaway on what was billed as \"frantic Friday\".\n\nAn estimated 1.3 million Christmas drivers were expected to add to the usual end-of-week traffic.\n\nBristol Airport cancelled flights after a plane came off the runway and several train lines reported disruption.\n\nHowever, road delays were less severe than predicted, with the RAC suggesting many may travel on Saturday instead.\n\nMany of Britain's mainline routes will be partially shut in the coming days as Network Rail carries out its biggest ever Christmas engineering programme.\n\nWith Paddington station completely closed between Christmas Eve and 27 December, Great Western Railway is urging passengers to get to their Christmas destination by the end of Saturday \"at the latest\".\n\nMeanwhile, the Association of British Travel Agents said 4.5 million people were expected to travel abroad in coming days.\n\nIt said airports, ports and international train stations would be exceptionally busy and advised people to begin their journeys earlier than usual.\n\nAbout 260 rail engineering projects will cause disruption to trains during the Christmas period.\n\nEarlier South Western Railway blamed sickness among train crew for the cancellation of some services on Friday.\n\nOn Southern, there have been delays to journeys between East Croydon and Milton Keynes, Redhill and Reigate, London terminals and Tattenham Corner, and London Bridge and East Grinstead.\n\nScotRail has been suffering delays and cancellations between Stranraer/Ardrossan Harbour and Kilmarnock/Glasgow Central after a train derailment in a depot.\n\nBut Virgin trains as running a full timetable on the West Coast mainline after a planned strike was called off.\n\nFlights in and out of Bristol Airport were suspended after a plane carrying 25 people came off the runway. The runway is now not expected to reopen until 23:00 GMT at the earliest.\n\nA post on the airport's Twitter feed apologised for the disruption and thanked customers for their \"continued patience.\"\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe RAC said: \"Friday has turned out to be slightly less frantic than it first looked although things are hotting up this evening as holiday traffic is competing with commuters and commercial traffic.\"\n\nIt said it had attended 9,000 breakdowns - 15% higher than the seasonal norm.\n\nIt warned that drivers might have altered their plans, increasing the risk of serious delays on Saturday.\n\nEarlier, the M1 was hit by three serious incidents with a vehicle fire closing three northbound lanes.\n\nThe M40 southbound was closed earlier between junction 10 (Brackley) and junction nine (Bicester), after a lorry caught fire.\n\nWitnesses said the vehicle was carrying bottles of beer which exploded due to the heat.\n\nHowever, according to Highways England, the disruption has now cleared. Some stretches of the M40 remain slow due to road works.\n\nBeer bottles were reported to be exploding on the M40 after the lorry carrying them caught fire\n\nA \"roadworks embargo\" is in place on English motorways and major A roads until 00:01 on 2 January in a bid to ease festive congestion.\n\nMany lanes are open and temporary speed restrictions are lifted. However, 27 sets of roadworks, covering a total of 122 miles, are staying in place because it would be too dangerous to lift them.\n\nIn Wales, no roadworks are taking place over Christmas and the New Year, other than essential or emergency work.\n\nCoach operator National Express is running extra services over the festive period.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Russia 'tries to sow discord in the West'\n\nSenior Russian politicians have dismissed accusations by Theresa May that Moscow has meddled in elections and carried out cyber-espionage.\n\nOn Monday night, Mrs May accused Moscow of \"planting fake stories\" to \"sow discord in the West\".\n\nShe said Vladimir Putin's government was trying to \"undermine free societies\".\n\nRussian senators accused the UK PM of \"making a fool of herself\" with a \"counterproductive\" speech.\n\nBut the top US diplomat in the UK, Woody Johnson, said countries engaging in such behaviour needed to be \"called out\".\n\nPresident Donald Trump's newly appointed ambassador to the UK told BBC News that Mrs May \"probably has evidence\" of Russian meddling and she had \"every right\" to draw attention to it.\n\nMrs May's comments, at the Lord Mayor's Banquet at London's Guildhall, were in contrast to those of US President Donald Trump, who last week said he believed President Putin's denial of intervening in the 2016 presidential election.\n\nThe Russian Embassy in the UK hit back at her criticism on Twitter and described her remarks as \"fake news\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by MFA Russia 🇷🇺 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAlexei Pushkov, a Russian senator involved in media policy, said: \"The world order that suits May, with the seizure of Iraq, war in Libya, the rise of IS and terrorism in Europe, has had its day. You can't save it by attacking Russia.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Wood Johnson on Mrs May's comments: 'She probably has evidence to indicate that that was the case'\n\nLeonid Slutsky, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of Russia's Parliament, said: \"Russia, like the UK, is by no means striving to bring back the Cold War. We are ready to develop a mutual dialogue and partnership relations.\"\n\nHe added: \"In this case, I completely disagree with the statement that Russia is allegedly trying to undermine the international system of rules.\"\n\nAnd Frants Klintsevich, deputy chairman of the defence and security committee in the Parliament's upper house, said: \"May has done more damage to herself than to us, making a fool of herself in the eyes of the world community and once again raising Russia's profile.\"\n\nUK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is due to visit Russia next month.\n\nIn what Mrs May described as a \"very simple message\" for President Putin, she said he must choose a very \"different path\" from the one that in recent years had seen Moscow annex Crimea, foment conflict in Ukraine and launch cyber-attacks on governments and parliaments across Europe.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What Boris Johnson told MPs about Russian meddling in UK elections\n\nRussia could be a valuable partner of the West but only if it \"plays by the rules\", she argued.\n\n\"Russia has repeatedly violated the national airspace of several European countries and mounted a sustained campaign of cyber-espionage and disruption.\n\n\"This has included meddling in elections and hacking the Danish Ministry of Defence and the Bundestag among many others.\n\n\"We know what you are doing and you will not succeed. Because you underestimate the resilience of our democracies, the enduring attraction of free and open societies and the commitment of Western nations to the alliances that bind us.\"\n\nShe said that as the UK left the EU and charted a new course in the world, it remained absolutely committed to Nato and securing a Brexit deal which \"strengthens our liberal values\", adding that a strong economic partnership between the UK and EU would be a bulwark against Russian agitation in Europe.\n\nThere are some countries in Europe that believe the West should engage more closely with Russia.\n\nThey argue the European Union and the United States should better understand Russia's point of view, its belief that it is threatened from all sides.\n\nAnd that more should be done to accommodate this sense of vulnerability, by softening Nato's approach and reducing sanctions.\n\nWell, not Theresa May. In a speech in the US in February, the prime minister spoke of the need to \"engage but beware\" of Russia. She has now switched the order and the focus is very much on beware.\n\nShe believes that President Putin should be called out for the threat that she believes he poses both internationally and in the UK.\n\nThe Electoral Commission is investigating claims that Russia used social media to meddle in the Brexit referendum.\n\nSo Mrs May is willing to engage with Russia - she is sending the foreign secretary to Moscow next month.\n\nBut she also wants Russia to know that Mr Johnson will come with a clear message that its destabilising activities will no longer be tolerated.\n\nMr Johnson, who will be making his first trip to Russia as foreign secretary in December, has said the UK's policy to Russia must be one of \"beware but engage\" following a decade of strained relations.\n\nHe told MPs earlier this month that he had not seen any evidence of Russia trying to interfere in British elections or the 2016 Brexit vote, in which Moscow has insisted it remained neutral.\n\nIn her speech, Mrs May said the UK would \"take the necessary action to counter Russian activity\".\n\n\"We do not want to return to the Cold War or to be in a state of perpetual confrontation.\n\n\"As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia has the reach and the responsibility to play a vital role in promoting international stability.\n\n\"Russia can, and I hope one day will, choose this different path. But for as long as Russia does not, we will act together to protect our interests and the international order on which they depend.\"", "Johanna Young's parents Robert and Carol want closure 25 years on\n\nPolice investigating the murder of a teenager 25 years ago remain convinced someone in the area where she died holds the key to the case.\n\nJohanna Young was 14 when she went missing from her family home in Watton, Norfolk, on 23 December 1992.\n\nHer partially-clothed body was found covered in scratches and face down in water on Boxing Day.\n\nInvestigating officer Marie James said: \"I am convinced the answer lies within the community of Watton.\"\n\n\"I'm quite sure that there is someone out there, whether they used to live in Watton or have since moved on, that has information that may unlock this case,\" said Det Insp James, of Norfolk Police.\n\nA post-mortem examination revealed Johanna - whose body was found close to Griston Road in Watton - died from drowning and a fractured skull.\n\nA fresh appeal in 2014 saw two people arrested and bailed but police said there was \"insufficient information to prove those individuals' involvement\".\n\nHer partially-clothed body was found covered in scratches and face down in water on Boxing Day, on 1992\n\nJohanna had left home, where she lived with her parents Carol and Robert and siblings Daniel and Emma, at 19:30 GMT on 23 December.\n\nWhen she did not return home that night, her parents assumed she was with friends or her boyfriend Ryan Firman.\n\nBut, she failed to turn up for her paper round on Christmas Eve and the police were called.\n\nAfter her body was recovered, investigations targeted local men and although three people were arrested and questioned, no charges were brought.\n\nMr Young, 64, said they would \"finally get closure\" if the case was solved.\n\n\"You live in hope that someday something will happen,\" added Mrs Young, 61.\n\nA cryptic letter was sent to the Eastern Daily Press soon after Johanna was found dead\n\nJohanna's body was found after a dog walker came across one of her trainers in undergrowth near the body.\n\nThere was no evidence of a sexual motive, police said.\n\nSoon after Johanna was found dead, a cryptic letter was sent to the Eastern Daily Press, featuring a drawing of a girl, a youth, a motorcycle, the date and naming Griston Road.\n\nIt is believed a \"young man\" with a motorcycle was seen in the area on the night she went missing, police said.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Hospitals across England have been told to cancel non-emergency operations in the new year to prepare for a post-Christmas surge in patients.\n\nThe first weeks of January are often the busiest of the year with winter illnesses peaking, combined with the growing day-to-day demand in A&E.\n\nSo an emergency panel of NHS bosses is urging hospitals to cut back on their routine work, such as knee and hip ops.\n\nThey hope it will give hospitals some breathing space to cope.\n\nPublicly, no figure is being put on the number of operations that should be put off, although the BBC understands hospitals are working on the basis of doing 10% fewer.\n\nThat would mean in the region of 15,000 operations not taking place in the first two weeks of January.\n\nThe panel has suggested hospitals use the staff freed up by the move to set up \"hot clinics\" staffed by experts in conditions such as respiratory illness to take the pressure off A&E.\n\nThe directive is the first to be issued by the NHS National Emergency Pressures Panel, a new group of senior doctors, nurses and managers set up to advise NHS England.\n\nCan't find your health trust? Browse the full list Rather search by typing? Back to search\n\nIf you can't see the NHS Tracker, click or tap here.\n\nPanel chair Prof Sir Bruce Keogh said it would be sensible for hospitals to curtail the amount of planned work they are doing until at least mid January.\n\n\"NHS staff are working flat out to cope with seasonal pressures and ensure patients receive the best possible care.\n\n\"However, given the scale of the challenge, hospitals should be planning for a surge that comes in the new year by freeing up beds and staff where they can to care for our sickest patients.\"\n\nHe said this would reduce the need for last-minute cancellations which were unfair on patients.\n\nIt comes as figures released on Thursday showed pressures had already started building.\n\nThe weekly bulletin from NHS England showed over 1,000 beds were closed because of the vomiting bug Norovirus - nearly 10% of the hospital bed-stock - while ambulances were increasingly likely to find themselves delayed when they dropped off patients at A&E.\n\nPauline Philip, the NHS national director for emergency care, said it was a sensible move.\n\nShe also urged hospitals to make the most of the extra £350m winter funding provided by the government, which was released into the system last week.\n\nAnd she added: \"There is still time for the public to play their part by ensuring they have their flu jab and by using local pharmacies and NHS 111.\"\n\nProf Derek Alderson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, welcomed the move as it provided clarity over what should be done as pressures grow.\n\nBut he said it was still pretty \"short notice\" for those patients who face having their operations cancelled.\n\nAnd he urged hospitals to prioritise cancer treatment and other planned operations that, if cancelled, would harm patients.", "Berlin has been remembering those hurt and killed in a terror attack on a Christmas market this time last year\n\nMI5 has had to reassure its European partners about co-operation since the Brexit referendum, the head of the security service says, but the twin fears of terrorism and Russia has meant that European countries still want the UK's help.\n\nWith a marked increase in the number of attacks in Europe, the committee said the government should be more forthcoming on any potential risks associated with Britain leaving the EU.\n\nThe annual report of the Intelligence and Security Committee provides the most detailed overview of the work of Britain's spy agencies.\n\nThe committee, chaired by Dominic Grieve MP, said that the last two years had seen a rise in attacks in Europe leading to questions over the capability of some countries to deal with the threat.\n\nThat had led to closer co-operation between different intelligence and security services.\n\nEuropean mechanisms played an essential role in the UK's national security, the committee said, and it urged the government to outline its assessment of the risks of the UK's departure from the EU and the measures it is putting in place.\n\nOne question the committee asked head of MI5 Andrew Parker was whether he was confident that Brexit would not have an impact on counter-terrorist work.\n\n\"Yes and no,\" he replied. \"There are two parts to this.\n\n\"My life has got more difficult since the referendum because of the need to invest reassurance time with all of our European partners, but the thing that is driving the quality of those relationships currently is the darkness of the threat and the common concern about it.\n\n\"Half of Europe is scared of terrorism and the other half is scared of Russia and both halves want us to help them.\"\n\nMr Parker said this would not change with Brexit since much of the national security work was outside of the EU anyway.\n\nHowever, he said his \"hesitancy\" was because there were certain issues which were within EU competence and might be affected by the negotiations, in particular those that relate to data-sharing across borders.\n\nHead of MI5 Andrew Parker says his life has got harder since the UK voted to leave the EU\n\nA witness from GCHQ also said it had concerns as to how European data-sharing would work after Brexit with the likely need for some kind of arrangement to share data in a way which accords with European privacy concerns.\n\n\"That's a policy issue way beyond intelligence, actually, but it will have big implications for us, so getting that right is important,\" the individual told the committee.\n\nMI5 said the most striking shift in counter-terrorist work in the last five years was the rise in what is called \"high-risk casework\" - referring to individuals who have received terrorist training or are attempting to procure the means to carry out an attack, but who may not yet have a current attack plan.\n\nIt is also estimated that more than 300 UK individuals who went to join so-called Islamic State remained in the Middle East and might pose a threat if they returned to the UK.\n\nOverall, it is thought 6,000 European fighters travelled out to fight with IS.\n\nThe annual report also points to the breadth of concerns for the agencies.\n\nMI5 told the committee that Northern Ireland represents the \"most concentrated area of terrorist activity probably anywhere in Europe\", with terrorist activity disrupted on a weekly basis.\n\nDissident republicans conducted 16 attacks on national security targets in 2015/16, they say.\n\nNorthern Ireland-related terrorism accounted for about 18% of MI5's operational and investigative resources. 64% is devoted to what is called international counter-terrorism (largely Islamist-related activity from groups like IS and al-Qaeda).\n\nMI5's work on hostile state activity, including counter-espionage, counterproliferation and protective security, accounts for around 18% of its effort.\n\nRussia has risen up the list of priorities in recent years.\n\nMI6 described the Russian state as \"formidable adversaries\" to the committee.\n\n\"They clearly are operating to risk thresholds which are nothing like those that the West operates,\" MI5 said.\n\nOfficials described a number of steps taken to protect the UK's political system from the kind of attack allegedly seen in 2016 in the US, including tracking the major known perpetrators and ensuring individuals involved in politics had access to security advice.\n\nSo far there are few signs of the close working relationship with the US being affected by the Trump administration, the committee says, although the agencies are aware of the potential risks, especially if campaign talk of returning to waterboarding of detainees was to actually become policy.\n\n\"Any significant change in US policies relating to detainee treatment would pose very serious questions for the UK-USA intelligence relationship,\" MI6 said.\n\nOne other revelation came in the report.\n\nMI6 - which spent £798,000 on external consultants to review its structure - is increasing accommodation through refurbishment of Vauxhall Cross. And for Britain's spies, that means they will have to start hot-desking.", "US couple Tina and Benjamin Gibson's daughter was born from an embryo that had been frozen for nearly 25 years.", "People should pay a deposit for using plastic bottles in an attempt to protect the seas from the \"devastating effects\" of plastic pollution, MPs say.\n\nThe House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) also wants free public drinking water fountains.\n\nAnd it says firms using plastic packaging should pay more for the waste they create.\n\nThe government says it is consulting with industry on a deposit scheme, and charges for single-use plastics.\n\nBut the MPs say ministers need to review society's relationship with plastics as a whole.\n\nThey are proposing a sliding scale of taxes on plastic packaging.\n\nThey want suppliers of hard-to-recycle complex plastics to be charged most and firms using simple easy-to-recycle packages to pay least.\n\nThe MPs are trying to tackle the rising tide of plastic waste in the ocean, which has been described by UN Oceans Chief Lisa Svensson as a \"planetary crisis\".\n\nEAC Chair Mary Creagh MP said: \"Urgent action is needed to protect our environment from the devastating effects of marine plastic pollution which, if it continues to rise at current rates, will outweigh fish by 2050.\"\n\nShe added that the current levy on plastics producers only raised a fraction of the cost of dealing with plastic waste.\n\n\"Packaging producers don't currently have to bear the full financial burden of recycling their packaging,\" she said.\n\n\"By reforming charges, the government can ensure that producers and retailers will have financial incentives to design packaging that is easily recyclable - or face higher compliance costs.\"\n\nThe committee also proposes a minimum 50% recycled plastic content in plastic bottles to stimulate the recycled plastics market.\n\nMichael Gove said he'd been moved by images of plastic pollution on the Blue Planet series\n\nThe Recycling Association strongly supports rules prompting packaging firms to simplify packaging and use fewer different types of plastics.\n\nThe Green Party's Amelia Womack said: \"We need to design out waste from the very start of the consumer chain. That means ending production of single-use plastics while providing the infrastructure to enable corporations and individuals to recycle close to 100% of the items they use.\n\n\"Second, we need to invest in alternatives to plastic. There is a slowly rising network of zero-waste shops across the UK and companies like Splosh and Lush create products designed to have a limited or no impact on the environment.\n\nSainsbury's chief executive Mike Coupe said \"tokenistic measures\" - such as introducing plastic-free aisles in stores - were not the answer to reducing plastic use.\n\n\"It needs a holistic solution,\" he told the BBC's Today programme. \"Whether that's recycling to make sure there are common recycling standards across the UK, whether it's the plastics we use.\"\n\nHe said Sainsbury's had reduced its plastic use by 30% since 2006 - but insisted plastic \"does perform a purpose\" for certain products.\n\n\"One of the things that is commonly cited is 'why do we put plastic on cucumbers' - it extends the life of those products,\" he said.\n\nThe government says it's taking the plastics waste problem very seriously - the Environment Secretary Michael Gove told me he's considering a four-point plan.\n\nMr Gove said he'd been moved by images of plastic pollution on the Blue Planet series.\n\nMinisters are consulting with firms on a deposit scheme for bottles, and on charges for single-use plastics.\n\nSome firms are highly sensitive to consumer pressure on the issue: Lucozade announced it would change the complex packaging on its bottles after being exposed as a recycling \"villain\" by BBC News.\n\nThe British Plastics Federation was unavailable for comment.\n\nLocal authorities are wary about any plans that would raise costs for them.\n\n\"It's crucial that local authorities are consulted on the introduction of any new plastic bottle deposit return scheme,\" said Councillor Martin Tett, the Local Government Association's Environment spokesman.\n\n\"If councils are to be given the responsibilities to facilitate such a service, it must be matched in funding and resources so that councils are able to successfully implement it.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nRoberto Firmino's powerful finish earned Liverpool a draw in an incredible Premier League encounter that had seen Arsenal score three goals in just five second-half minutes.\n\nThe Gunners had been trailing 2-0 after Philippe Coutinho scored his first headed league goal in England before Mohamed Salah added a second early in the second half with a deflected strike.\n\nBut Arsenal suddenly came alive as Alexis Sanchez headed in Hector Bellerin's cross from close range before Granit Xhaka's thumping strike was too powerful for Simon Mignolet's weak save.\n\nBarely two minutes later Mesut Ozil put Arsenal ahead with a neat clip over Mignolet.\n\nPlay swung from one end of the pitch to the other at blistering pace, with both sides looking capable of scoring with every attack.\n\nBut it was Liverpool who had the final say in one of the most thrilling Premier League encounters in years as Petr Cech could only take the sting out of Firmino's shot and the ball bounced over the line.\n\nThe point meant Liverpool held onto fourth place, with Arsenal remaining fifth - a point behind the Reds.\n• None Re-live the thrilling encounter between Arsenal and Liverpool\n\nHow a crazy six minutes panned out\n\nThis had looked like being a routine win for Liverpool after a dominant first half.\n\nThey led through Coutinho's clever header and should have had more but for some uncharacteristically wasteful finishing by Sadio Mane and Salah.\n\nHowever, it was not long until the Premier League's top scorer had his 15th of the season, and so began an incredible six minutes...\n\n52 mins: Salah races on to Firmino's superb pass and makes it 2-0 with a deflected finish. Arsenal, who have not had a single shot on target, look beaten.\n\n53 mins: Out of nowhere, Arsenal are back in it. Sanchez is well placed to nod in Bellerin's cross from close range.\n\n56 mins: What's going on!? Arsenal are level! Xhaka tries his luck from 25 yards and the ball fizzes through Mignolet's hand.\n\n58 mins: Goals! Goals! Goals! Arsenal are ahead as Ozil is on to Alexandre Lacazette's backheel before clipping the ball over Mignolet.\n\nLiverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is not too keen on the 'Fab Four' nickname that has been given to his attacking quartet of Coutinho, Salah, Mane and Firmino, but he might have to develop an acceptance for it as they continue to dominate the headlines.\n\nThree of them scored in this game and, in truth, all four should have been on the scoresheet, with Mane going for the acrobatic with a first-half scissor kick with Cech beaten.\n\nThe quartet have now collectively accounted for 29 of Liverpool's past 34 goals and while the Reds' attacking strength cannot be questioned - they have scored at least three goals in their past four Premier League away games - the defence can.\n\nLiverpool had conceded 16 goals in their first nine league games and while they had stemmed the tide in the games since the 4-1 defeat by Tottenham at the end of October, familiar frailties arose in this encounter as players switched off after conceding, while Mignolet should have done better with Xhaka's effort.\n\nA tale of two halves for Arsenal\n\nDavid de Gea's saves against Arsenal for Manchester United earlier this month appeared to have had a long-lasting impact on the Gunners.\n\nSince Jose Mourinho's side beat them 3-1 at the start of the month - with De Gea making 14 saves that day - Arsenal had struggled to convert shots into goals, having 56 attempts in the three Premier League games before Liverpool's visit, putting 12 of those on target and scoring just twice.\n\nIt was more of the same in the first half of this game as Mignolet enjoyed once of the easiest 45 minutes of his career. Arsenal managed just one shot - and that was wide of goal - but all that changed in the second half as they scored from all but one of their shots on target.\n\nThe Gunners were no doubt helped by Liverpool's poor defensive performance, but Arsene Wenger praised the character of his side to stage such a fightback.\n\n\"In the first half we were paralysed and frozen,\" said Wenger. \"We gave too many balls away and looked second best everywhere.\n\n\"In the second half we have shown quality, character and played at our level.\"\n\n'Point is the minimum we deserve'\n\nLiverpool boss Jurgen Klopp: \"You need to be angry with yourself, not sad or insecure. We came back into the game and scored our third. The point is the minimum we deserve. Because of the intensity of the game it was not easy to create clearer chances. When you get a point at Arsenal it is usually OK but after this give me a few minutes to get there.\n\n\"Three goals at Arsenal should be enough. We defended most of the time pretty well. We did not give space away. After they score the first and the second, it is not easy but we need to deal with these situations better.\"\n• None There have been 27 goals scored in the past five Premier League meetings between these teams (10 for Arsenal, 17 for Liverpool) at an average of 5.4 per game.\n• None Liverpool have scored 54 away goals in all competitions in 2017, their most in a calendar year since 1982 (66).\n• None There were just 388 seconds between Mo Salah putting Liverpool 2-0 ahead and Mesut Ozil scoring to make it 3-2 to Arsenal.\n• None Arsenal have conceded seven goals in two league games against Liverpool this season - in only one Premier League campaign have they conceded more against an opponent (10 against Man Utd in 2011-12).\n• None Since Jurgen Klopp's first Premier League match in charge in October 2015, Liverpool's games have seen 279 goals scored (174 for, 105 against), more than any other club.\n• None Philippe Coutinho has been involved in 16 goals in 11 away matches in all competitions (nine goals, seven assists).\n• None Coutinho scored his 53rd goal for Liverpool in all competitions - however, this was his first headed goal for the Reds.\n• None Roberto Firmino has been involved in eight goals in his past five Premier League appearances against Arsenal (five goals, three assists).\n• None Firmino has also scored and assisted in each of his past three Premier League games against the Gunners.\n\nArsenal have a bit of time to enjoy the Christmas break. They are next in action on 28 December when they travel to Crystal Palace (20:00 GMT). Liverpool, meanwhile, have a shorter turnaround because they host Swansea on Boxing Day (17:30 GMT).\n• None Attempt missed. Mesut Özil (Arsenal) left footed shot from the left side of the box is high and wide to the left.\n• None Offside, Arsenal. Ainsley Maitland-Niles tries a through ball, but Mesut Özil is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) left footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Georginio Wijnaldum following a fast break.\n• None Offside, Liverpool. James Milner tries a through ball, but Mohamed Salah is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Imtiaz Mohammed has been described as a \"happy, loving and friendly guy\" by his family\n\nThe funeral has been held for a taxi driver who was one of six people killed in a crash in Birmingham.\n\nImtiaz Mohammed had called his wife to say he was on his last job of the night shortly before the six-vehicle crash on Lee Bank Middleway on Sunday.\n\nHundreds gathered to celebrate his life in what was described as a \"peaceful and sobering service\" at the Central Mosque.\n\nThe mosque is just a few hundred yards from the scene of the accident.\n\nMr Mohammed, 33, had six children aged under 15. His death came the day before his daughter's fourth birthday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAfter the funeral and burial, mosque chairman Muhammad Afzal said: \"Hundreds of people attended and we prayed both for the assembly and for Imtiaz, may he rest in peace.\n\n\"People are very upset because in Birmingham this was the worst road accident we've had for many years.\n\n\"A lot of people are asking for some review of the speed limits and what safety measures can be put in place on the road, so that this does not happen again.\"\n\nThe funeral at Birmingham Central Mosque is on the same road where six people died\n\nThe taxi driver's father, Ikhtiar Mohammed, said: \"This is a tragedy, a tragic accident.\n\n\"I am sorry for my son who has lost his life and I am sorry for the others who have also lost human beings, like us.\n\n\"God bless them, and God bless my son.\"\n\nThe two passengers in the taxi, 43-year-old Lucy Davis, from Kingstanding in Birmingham, and 42-year-old Lee Jenkins, who worked at University Hospitals Birmingham, also died.\n\nMother Lucy Davis, 43, was described by her family as a \"beautiful Lady in Red\"\n\nTauqeer Hussain (L) and Mohammed Fahsha (R) were two of six crash victims\n\nKasar Jehangir, 25, Tauqeer Hussain, 26, and 30-year-old Mohammed Fahsha were killed when the Audi they were travelling in collided with the taxi.\n\nA 22-year-old friend, also a passenger in the car, is in a serious condition in hospital.\n\nA petition has been launched calling for better safety measures on Lee Bank Middleway, following the crash\n\nMore than 21,000 people have signed a petition calling for better safety measures on the Middleway.\n\nIt will be delivered to Birmingham City Council, calling for speed cameras in the underpass close to where the crash happened and for barriers to be placed along the dual carriageway.\n\nThe council said it will look into the petition, but said before Sunday, there had only been one serious accident in the last three years on the road.\n\nA police investigation into the crash is continuing.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nKate Maltby, who claims Damian Green made inappropriate advances to her, says she told a senior Downing Street aide about his behaviour in 2016.\n\nThe MP, who denies the claims, was sacked from the cabinet on Wednesday.\n\nThis came after an inquiry found he had broken the ministerial code over \"misleading\" statements after pornography was found on his computer.\n\nPrime Minister Theresa May said she was not aware of the claims about Mr Green until last month.\n\nSpeaking on a visit to Cyprus, she said she had first read about them in an article by Ms Maltby in the Times newspaper.\n\nShe said: \"I recognise that Kate Maltby was obviously extremely distressed by what happened. Damian Green has recognised that and he has apologised. I think that is absolutely the right thing to do.\"\n\nShe has said it is important that people working in Parliament feel they can bring forward any concerns they have to be \"treated seriously\".\n\nThe Cabinet Office investigation into Mr Green was prompted by her allegations that Mr Green had \"fleetingly\" touched her knee in a pub in 2015, and in 2016 sent her a \"suggestive\" text message.\n\nThe inquiry was later widened to include the claims about legal pornography being discovered on his computer after a police raid on his Commons office in 2008.\n\nSpeaking after the inquiry, which concluded that her evidence was \"plausible\", Ms Maltby told the BBC she had not told many people about the alleged incident at the time - except her parents - as she \"wondered if it was a one-off\".\n\n\"Eventually I spoke to a very senior and long-serving aide of Theresa May,\" she added.\n\nWhen giving evidence to the inquiry, she told its head, Sue Gray, that Downing Street was aware of her allegations \"to the best of my knowledge\".\n\n\"I was aware that he was the deputy prime minister and I was aware that No 10 knew about it.\"\n\nMs Maltby said she had never called for Mr Green's sacking, but wrote her article because she wanted to change the culture of Downing Street.\n\n\"This whole story has been about power,\" she said. \"Damian Green became a very, very powerful person.\n\n\"I was aware that there seemed to be improper mixing of mentorship and sexual advance within the Conservative party in his case.\"\n\nMr Green was sacked after making \"misleading\" statement about pornography found on his computer\n\nMs Maltby added: \"My actions in this have never been guided by the quest to claim scalps, to force resignations to end people's careers.\n\n\"We need an end to the era in which the sexual exploitation of younger people is the sort of peccadillo of a politician.\n\n\"That is tolerated by those in power and perhaps exploited to enforce party discipline but not to actually do any good.\"\n\nA Downing Street source told the BBC: \"The Cabinet Office conducted a thorough investigation into a number of allegations about Damian Green.\n\n\"The PM has made it clear that everyone should be able to work in politics without fear or harassment - that is why she has brought forward a new code of conduct for the Conservative Party, and set up a cross-party working group to make recommendations about the Houses of Parliament.\"\n\nSpeaking on Thursday, Mrs May reiterated her personal \"sadness\" at sacking her close ally Mr Green but said it was \"absolutely right\" that he had apologised to Ms Maltby.\n\nAlthough Mr Green was sacked over his statements about the pornography on his computer, he used his resignation letter to also apologise to Ms Maltby, who was a family friend.\n\n\"I deeply regret the distress caused to Kate Maltby following her article about me and the reaction to it,\" he wrote.\n\n\"I do not recognise the events she described in her article, but I clearly made her feel uncomfortable and for this I apologise.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"I was shocked\": Former detective constable Neil Lewis speaks to the BBC\n\nMeanwhile, former senior police officer Bob Quick and retired detective Neil Lewis, who told the BBC he had been \"shocked\" by the contents of Mr Green's office computer, are being investigated for possible breaches of the Data Protection Act.\n\nThe Metropolitan Police, who referred the case to the data regulator, said the pair were under investigation over the \"apparent disclosure to the media of confidential material gathered during a police investigation in 2008\".\n\nConservative MPs are angry about the alleged actions of the two retired detectives, with Jeremy Hunt claiming they \"did not sit comfortably in a democracy\" - something, he added, Theresa May \"had made clear\" in her letter to Mr Green.\n\nBoris Johnson said the actions of the police \"had the slight feeling of a vendetta\", and needed to be investigated further.", "Some of the accusations date back to 2010 - before Mark Garnier was a minister\n\nMP Mark Garnier has been cleared of breaking the ministerial code after a Cabinet Office investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.\n\nInternational trade minister Mark Garnier was also said to have used derogatory language to his secretary and asked her to buy sex toys in 2010.\n\nThe investigation concluded there was \"no evidence\" to suggest he had broken the rules.\n\nTheresa May said \"a line should be drawn under the issue\".\n\nThe Conservative MP said he did not intend to comment on the outcome of the inquiry.\n\nThe allegations regarding his secretary, Caroline Edmondson, from before he was appointed a minister in 2016, came to light in October.\n\nMs Edmondson, who now works for another MP, told The Mail on Sunday he had given her money to buy two vibrators at a Soho sex shop and called her \"sugar tits.\"\n\nMr Garnier told the paper: \"I'm not going to deny it, because I'm not going to be dishonest. I'm going to have to take it on the chin.\"\n\nThe Cabinet Office investigation said there was \"no dispute about the facts of the incident\", but there was \"a significant difference of interpretation between the parties\", leaving a member of staff \"distressed\".\n\nA No 10 spokesman said: \"It was not his intention to cause distress, and Mr Garnier has apologised unreservedly to the individual.\n\n\"On that basis, the prime minister considers that a line should be drawn under the issue.\"\n\nThe announcement comes a day after Mrs May sacked her First Secretary of State, Damian Green, for breaching the ministerial code.\n\nHe was asked by the PM to quit after making \"inaccurate and misleading\" statements over what he knew about claims pornography was found on his office computer in 2008.\n\nMr Green also apologised for making writer Kate Maltby feel uncomfortable in 2015.\n\nIt made him the third cabinet minister to leave the table in recent weeks, following the resignations of Sir Michael Fallon and Priti Patel.", "The jets also refuelled from the prime minister's plane during the training exercise\n\nTwo Typhoon jets armed with air-to-air missiles intercepted Theresa May's plane on its return to the UK from Cyprus as part of a training exercise.\n\nTheresa May watched pilots carry out the manoeuvre - a rehearsal for a suspected hijacking scenario - from the cockpit of the RAF Voyager.\n\nThe jets, scrambled from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, also hooked up to the PM's plane for air-to-air refuelling.\n\nMrs May was returning from a two-day trip to Poland and Cyprus.\n\nThe fighter jets pulled up alongside the converted Voyager at 17,000 feet, and tipped their wings as part of the exercise.\n\nPilots from 3 Squadron and 11 Squadron performed the manoeuvre.\n\nThe jets each took on four tonnes of fuel during the exercise, at 600kg-a-minute.\n\nThe Typhoons are the sort of jets that would be used to intercept foreign planes illegally entering British airspace and the exercise demonstrated how the RAF's Quick Reaction Alert would work.\n\nMrs May was said to have spent the rest of the journey working on papers from her ministerial Red Box and relaxing with a sudoku number puzzle.\n\nTheresa May visited RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus on her way back to the UK from Poland\n\nShe said: \"Witnessing the unique skill of the RAF at first hand is an absolute privilege and demonstrates that the British Armed Forces are the finest in the world.\n\n\"The work they do is admirable and impressive and I want to take this opportunity to thank them for everything they do to keep us safe.\"", "Mr Kay was jailed in 2013 for four and half years after a trial at Derby Crown Court\n\nA man jailed for rape four years ago has had his conviction overturned after new Facebook evidence emerged.\n\nDanny Kay's sentence was quashed by the Court of Appeal after deleted messages were found in an archived folder backing his version of events.\n\nThe 26-year-old had denied rape at Derby Crown Court in 2013 but was jailed for four-and-a-half years.\n\nJudges ruled on Thursday the new evidence supported his claim the sex was consensual.\n\nThe messages showed that jurors at the trial had been given an \"edited and misleading\" picture of the conversation between the pair, the court heard.\n\nIn his ruling, Mr Justice James Goss said: \"We have come to the conclusion that, in a case of one word against another, the full Facebook message exchange provides very cogent evidence both in relation to the truthfulness and reliability of (the woman) ... and the reliability of (Mr Kay's) account and his truthfulness.\"\n\nJudges heard police asked the woman to retrieve Facebook messages that they had exchanged.\n\nThree pages of messages had been printed and the woman, who cannot be identified, told jurors she had deleted some to free up storage space.\n\nShe had said there had been little contact after sex, but defence lawyers argued the new evidence showed otherwise.\n\nThe ruling comes after a Conservative MP's chief of staff was cleared of rape after saying sex was consensual.\n\nIn another high-profile case, charges against 22-year-old student Liam Allan were dropped after police failed to reveal vital phone evidence.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Three UK supermarket chains have published figures on the amount of antibiotics used by their farm suppliers, in an effort to cut use of the medicines.\n\nMarks and Spencer, Waitrose and Asda have all revealed the quantities of antibiotics in meat and dairy produce.\n\nCampaigners have called on all supermarkets to follow their lead.\n\nOveruse of antibiotics can cause drugs resistance leading to the prevalence of superbugs such as MRSA.\n\nEngland's Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies warned in October that if antibiotics lost their effectiveness it would \"spell the end to modern medicine\".\n\nThe campaign group, the Alliance To Save Our Antibiotics, which was founded by charities Sustain, Compassion in World Farming and the Soil Association welcomed the move by the supermarkets, saying it was a good start.\n\nCoilin Nunan, scientific advisor to the Alliance said: \"The publication of this data should help drive average use across the farming industry down, as it illustrates the extent to which many other producers are still overusing antibiotics, despite recent cuts.\n\n\"We are also calling for all supermarkets to publish antibiotic-use data by farming system, so that consumers can compare free-range and organic farming with indoor farming and intensive systems.\"\n\nFigures from all three supermarket chains show they are ahead of industry-wide targets on chicken farms.\n\nMr Nunan said Marks and Spencer figures showed their pig and chicken farmers were using less than one quarter of the UK averages.\n\nHe said antibiotic use in Waitrose's pig and chicken suppliers was about one third or less than industry averages and use in turkeys was about one sixth of the average.\n\nAsda's figures showed its suppliers' usage was less than half the industry average for chickens, and for turkey it was less than a quarter but their pig survey was still in progress, he added.\n\nInformation on the different sectors is not comprehensive and varies in detail so it is not always possible to make direct comparisons.\n\nThe supermarkets follow industry standards set by the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance which represents organisations involved in the food chain.\n\nThe UK Veterinary Antibiotics Resistance and Sales Surveillance Report 2016, released in October, showed sales of antibiotics for use in food-producing animals dropped by 27%, achieving a government-set target two years early.\n\nTesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi do not at present publish data on antibiotic use.\n\nLidl said: \"We are committed to meeting sector targets and fully support the disclosure of antibiotic usage, however we believe that it is important to support suppliers through the development of a centralised, industry-wide approach.\"\n\nMorrisons said it was \"open-minded\" about publishing data. Tesco said it had a comprehensive plan to reduce antibiotic use, \"including measuring and publishing progress against our commitments\".\n\nThe British Retail Consortium, which represents the big supermarkets, said all its members advocated the responsible use of antibiotics and were working to reduce usage without any detrimental effect on animal welfare.\n\nIt's director of food policy, Andrew Opie, said: \"All our members are collaborating with their suppliers to determine what data is available and the best way to communicate progress.\"", "Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said an attack involving a car in Melbourne was a \"shocking crime\" but an \"isolated incident\".\n\nOn Thursday, a 32-year old man drove his car into pedestrians on Flinders Street, injuring 19 people.\n\nPolice have said the driver had a history of mental illness and drug abuse but no known extremist links.\n\nHe had \"attributed his actions to perceived mistreatment of Muslims\", said a senior officer.\n\nThe man, who was arrested at the scene by an off-duty officer, is an Australian citizen of Afghan descent who arrived in Australia under a refugee programme.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The crash happened on Flinders Street at a busy crossing in the centre of the city\n\nAt this stage there were \"no known links to any political issues, or any links to extremist groups\" but he added that \"nothing should be ruled out\".\n\nActing Chief Commissioner Shane Patton earlier said the man was known to have a mental illness. He was on a treatment plan but had missed an appointment on Thursday.\n\nWhen interviewed by police he \"spoke about dreams, he spoke about voices\", said the chief inspector, \"but he also did attribute some of his actions to the poor treatment of Muslims\".\n\nMr Turnbull confirmed that nine foreign nationals were among the injured.\n\nAccording to media reports, these include three South Korean tourists, as well as tourists from China and Italy, India, Venezuela, Ireland, and New Zealand.\n\nSeveral of the injured remain in critical condition, one pre-school aged child is reportedly stable.\n\nOn Friday morning, streets in the city centre reopened and trams were operating as usual.\n\nPolice said a second man arrested at the scene was released and expected to be charged with possession of cannabis and a controlled weapon.\n\nThe charges are not linked to the car attack.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Russia 'tries to sow discord in the West'\n\nTheresa May has launched her strongest attack on Russia yet, accusing Moscow of meddling in elections and carrying out cyber espionage.\n\nAddressing leading business figures at a banquet in London, the prime minister said Vladimir Putin's government was trying to \"undermine free societies\".\n\nMrs May said it was \"planting fake stories\" to \"sow discord in the West\".\n\nWhile the UK did not want \"perpetual confrontation\" with Russia, it would protect its interests, she added.\n\nHer comments are in stark contrast to those of US President Donald Trump, who last week said he believed his Russian counterpart's denial of intervening in the 2016 presidential election.\n\nForeign Secretary Boris Johnson is due to visit Russia next month.\n\nIn a major foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet at London's Guildhall, which Mrs May described as a \"very simple message\" for President Putin, she said he must choose a very \"different path\" from the one that in recent years had seen Moscow annex Crimea, foment conflict in Ukraine and launch cyber attacks on governments and Parliaments across Europe.\n\nRussia could be a valuable partner of the West but only if it \"plays by the rules\", she argued.\n\n\"Russia has repeatedly violated the national airspace of several European countries and mounted a sustained campaign of cyber espionage and disruption.\n\n\"This has included meddling in elections and hacking the Danish Ministry of Defence and the Bundestag among many others.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What Boris Johnson told MPs about Russian meddling in UK elections\n\n\"We know what you are doing and you will not succeed. Because you underestimate the resilience of our democracies, the enduring attraction of free and open societies and the commitment of Western nations to the alliances that bind us.\"\n\nShe said as the UK left the EU and charted a new course in the world, it remained absolutely committed to Nato and securing a Brexit deal which \"strengthens our liberal values\", adding that a strong economic partnership between the UK and EU would be a bulwark against Russian agitation in Europe.\n\nThere are some countries in Europe that believe the West should engage more closely with Russia.\n\nThey argue the European Union and the United States should better understand Russia's point of view, its belief that it is threatened from all sides.\n\nAnd that more should be done to accommodate this sense of vulnerability, by softening Nato's approach and reducing sanctions.\n\nWell, not Theresa May. In a speech in the US in February, the prime minister spoke of the need to \"engage but beware\" of Russia. She has now switched the order and the focus is very much on beware.\n\nShe believes that President Putin should be called out for the threat she believes he poses both internationally and in the UK.\n\nThe Electoral Commission is investigating claims that Russia used social media to meddle in the Brexit referendum.\n\nSo Mrs May is willing to engage with Russia - she is sending the foreign secretary to Moscow next month.\n\nBut she also wants Russia to know that Mr Johnson will come with a clear message that its destabilising activities will no longer be tolerated.\n\nMr Johnson, who will be making his first trip to Russia since becoming foreign secretary in December, has said the UK's policy towards Moscow must be one of \"beware but engage\" following a decade of strained relations.\n\nHe told MPs earlier this month that he had not seen any evidence of Russia trying to interfere in British elections or the 2016 Brexit vote, in which Moscow has insisted it remained neutral.\n\n\"We will take the necessary action to counter Russian activity,\" Mrs May added.\n\n\"But this is not where we want to be and not the relationship with Russia we want.\n\n\"We do not want to return to the Cold War or to be in a state of perpetual confrontation.\n\n\"As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia has the reach and the responsibility to play a vital role in promoting international stability.\n\n\"Russia can, and I hope one day will, choose this different path. But for as long as Russia does not, we will act together to protect our interests and the international order on which they depend.\"\n\nResponding to Mrs May's speech, former Labour cabinet minister Ben Bradshaw - who has been raising the issue of Russian interference in UK elections for nearly a year - tweeted: \"Asking why May suddenly acknowledging Russian interference now having stonewalled for months.\"\n\n\"The international system of rules must be saved not from Russia but from the advocates of intervention, coups and regime change. Russia will not accept those 'rules',\" he tweeted.\n\n\"The world order that suits May, with the seizure of Iraq, war in Libya, the rise of IS and terrorism in Europe, has had its day. You can't save it by attacking Russia.\"\n\nIn Mrs May's speech, she also said the authorities in Myanmar - formerly known as Burma - must take \"full responsibility\" for what \"looked like ethnic cleansing\" of the Rohingya people in Rakhine province.", "Paedophiles are being targeted online by an automated chatbot that makes them think they're talking to a 12-year-old girl.\n\nThe \"Sweetie\" project first made headlines in 2013. It can now handle thousands of simultaneous conversations and send perpetrators warning messages.", "It's taken 103 years of searching but the wreck of Australia's first naval submarine has been found.\n\nThe HMAS AE-1 was the first Allied submarine lost in World War One.", "Six men were arrested at a dock near Geraldton, in Western Australia\n\nAustralian police have arrested eight men over the nation's largest ever seizure of the drug methamphetamine.\n\nThe haul, estimated to have a street value of A$1bn (£600m; $800m), was uncovered when police raided a dock in Western Australia, authorities said.\n\nPolice have charged the men, each of whom faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.\n\nCrystal methamphetamine, also known as ice, has been described as the most damaging illicit drug in Australia.\n\nThe 1.2-tonne (2,650lb) bust was larger than the previous record seizure, made in Melbourne in April.\n\n\"We are very pleased that 12 million hits of methamphetamine will be off the streets over the Christmas [and] new year period,\" said Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.\n\nSix men were arrested at a dock near the city of Geraldton, while two were arrested in Perth. All are Australians aged between 33 and 52.\n\nThe drugs were intercepted about 400km (250 miles) north of Perth\n\nThe arrests happened after 59 bags containing the drugs were loaded from a boat, Valkoista, into a white van on Thursday, Australian Federal Police said.\n\nIn 2015, Australia's government established a national taskforce to tackle the growing use of ice.\n\nThe move followed a report by the Australian Crime Commission that found ice posed the highest risk to communities of any illegal substance.", "We are now pausing our live coverage following Thursday's election in Catalonia.\n\nA pro-Spanish unity party has won the most seats but separatist parties will together be able to form a majority in parliament.\n\nThe results are a setback for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy who had imposed direct rule over the region after its illegal independence declaration.\n\nFor the latest updates see our main news story.", "The National Cyber Security Centre said the UK's energy sector had been targeted\n\nOne of the UK's cyber-defence chiefs has accused Russia of having attacked Britain's media, telecommunications and energy sectors over the past year.\n\nCiaran Martin, chief executive of GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), added that Russia was \"seeking to undermine the international system\".\n\nHis comments were made at an event organised by the Times newspaper.\n\nAhead of the speech, the paper reported that one of the attacks had targeted the UK's power supply on election day.\n\nThe Russian Embassy in London said it was concerned the assertions were misleading.\n\nThe NCSC was established about a year ago. Last month, it revealed that it had already classed a total of 590 attacks - from a variety of perpetrators - as being \"significant\", and that more than 30 incidents had been judged serious enough to require a cross-government response.\n\nMr Martin's accusations follow Prime Minister Theresa May's own claim that Russia had \"mounted a sustained campaign of cyber-espionage and disruption\".\n\nThe NCSC chief referenced this in his own speech.\n\n\"The prime minister made the point on Monday night - international order as we know it is in danger of being eroded,\" he said.\n\n\"This is clearly a cause for concern and the NCSC is actively engaging with international partners, industry and civil society to tackle this threat.\"\n\nHowever, Russia has suggested the accusations are \"non-transparent and biased\".\n\n\"We would be interested in finding out the details and seeing the original findings on which the statements are based,\" the country's London embassy said.\n\n\"It would be most unfortunate to see [Britain] informed by wrong intelligence.\"\n\nThe London-based National Cyber Security Centre was launched in October 2016\n\nTo coincide with its event, the Times also published details of a new study into how Russia used Twitter to influence 2016's Brexit referendum.\n\nThe research indicates that more than 156,000 Russia-based accounts - many of them automated bots - mentioned #Brexit in original posts or retweets in the days surrounding the vote.\n\nMany were in favour of the UK leaving the European Union, but a minority were pro-Remain. The academics involved believed the posts were seen hundreds of millions of times.\n\nOne of the researchers told the BBC that social media was providing Russia with a relatively cheap way to spread its propaganda.\n\n\"Ukraine experienced [a similar] information war in 2014 - and if it worked in Ukraine it can also work in Western democracies,\" said Prof Sasha Talavera from Swansea University.\n\n\"One can use it to split society and marginalise groups. Social media nowadays is a powerful tool.\"\n\nHe added that some form of regulation of the large social media firms might now be required.\n\nThe Guardian reports details of a separate University of Edinburgh study that also presents evidence of Russia using Twitter to sway opinion in the lead-up to the Brexit vote.\n\nThe Kremlin has previously denied trying to meddle in the referendum.\n\nBut the chairman of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Damian Collins, said he now wanted Twitter to share examples of tweets linked to a Russian \"troll factory\", known as the Internet Research Agency, about British politics.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Shoppers at the store spoke of \"hearing screams\"\n\nA woman who was stabbed in an Aldi supermarket, in Skipton, North Yorkshire, has died.\n\nThe 30-year-old was attacked at the store in Keighley Road at about 15:30 GMT on Thursday.\n\nShoppers were left terrified, with one witness saying everyone \"screamed and ran up and down\". The witness also said she had \"never been so scared\".\n\nA 44-year-old local man has been arrested on suspicion of murder, North Yorkshire Police said.\n\nA force spokesman said: \"The suspect was initially detained by brave members of staff and public, before he was arrested by officers who were quickly on scene.\n\n\"He was taken into custody on suspicion of attempted murder, but it has now turned into a murder investigation despite the efforts of medics to save the victim.\"\n\nHe added that they were not in a position to identify the victim at this stage, but her family was being supported by specialist officers.\n\nThe store was busy with shoppers at the time, and one said: \"I just saw the aftermath, I was so scared I ran off.\n\n\"All the staff were racing about,\" she said, adding police vans arrived on the scene within minutes.\n\nIn a statement released on Friday, Aldi said the store would be closed until further notice to allow police to carry out investigations.\n\nA spokesperson said: \"We are working with the police following an incident at our Skipton store.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Prime Minister Theresa May's deputy, Damian Green, has said allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards a female activist are \"completely false\".\n\nMr Green has instructed libel lawyers over the claims, the BBC understands.\n\nTory activist Kate Maltby wrote in the Times that he \"fleetingly\" touched her knee in a pub in 2015, and in 2016 sent her a \"suggestive\" text message.\n\nThe cabinet secretary is to investigate whether Mr Green broke the ministerial code.\n\nMs Maltby, 31, a writer and academic, said Mr Green, 61, said he had sent her the text message after she posed in a corset for the Times.\n\nAccording to her article in the paper, it read: \"Long time no see. But having admired you in a corset in my favourite tabloid I felt impelled to ask if you are free for a drink anytime?\"\n\nThe encounters left her feeling \"awkward, embarrassed and professionally compromised\", she wrote.\n\nMr Green, now first secretary of state, and Theresa May's effective deputy, said he had known Ms Maltby since 2014 and the pair \"had a drink as friends twice-yearly\".\n\n\"The text I sent after she appeared in a newspaper article was sent in that spirit - as two friends agreeing to meet for a regular catch up - and nothing more,\" he said.\n\n\"This untrue allegation has come as a complete shock and is deeply hurtful, especially from someone I considered a personal friend.\"\n\nHe also denied the claim he put his hand on Ms Maltby's knee.\n\nAsked about the claims in the Times as he left his home on Wednesday morning, Mr Green told reporters: \"All these allegations are completely false.\"\n\nThe ministerial code requires ministers to \"behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety\".\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio 5 live, Small Business Minister Margot James said there was no need for Mr Green to resign during the cabinet secretary's investigation.\n\n\"I've read the article in the Times today, and I certainly don't think that it warrants anyone's resignation, temporary or otherwise, in my opinion,\" she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. William Hague tells Today he hopes Westminster is entering an era of greater accountability\n\nIt comes as allegations and rumours relating to sexual harassment and abuse by MPs swirl around Westminster.\n\nOn Tuesday, Labour confirmed it had launched an independent inquiry into claims that activist Bex Bailey, 25, was discouraged by a party official from reporting an alleged rape at a Labour event in 2011.\n\nShe told the BBC she had waived her anonymity to urge changes to the way such cases are handled.\n\nIn a separate case, an anonymous woman who claims she was sexually assaulted by an MP on a foreign work trip last year told the Guardian her allegations were not taken seriously.\n\nEarlier this week, a spokesman for Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon confirmed he was once rebuked by a journalist for putting his hand on her knee during dinner.\n\nMeanwhile, the BBC has seen a list, thought to have been compiled by staff and researchers at Westminster, detailing a range of mostly unproven allegations about 40 Conservative MPs and ministers.\n\nAmong the claims are a number of serious allegations of inappropriate behaviour with junior members of staff, the use of prostitutes and affairs between MPs.\n\nThe government has promised urgent action to improve the handling of complaints about the way MPs' staff are treated.", "Police on the Italian island of Sicily have arrested an ambulance worker suspected of killing people to earn money from a funeral parlour linked to the mafia.\n\nThe man is alleged to have injected air into the veins of at least three terminally ill patients as they were transported back to their homes.\n\nHe is said to have been paid €300 (£265) for each corpse.\n\nItalian media have dubbed it the \"ambulances of death\" scandal.\n\nPolice arrested the man after a contact, said to be a reformed mafia member, gave details to authorities in the city of Catania and to an investigative TV programme. The ambulance worker is charged with voluntary homicide.\n\nIt is alleged that the suspect injected air into the veins of patients - causing them to die of an embolism - as they were being transported back to the small inland town of Biancavilla.\n\nThe 42-year-old man is said to have then taken advantage of grieving families by recommending a funeral agency linked to the Sicilian mafia, from which he gained a commission.\n\nReports suggest the scheme could have been operating since 2012 and there could have been many other victims.\n\nInvestigators say they have looked into dozens of deaths in Biancavilla but only 12 have so far been deemed \"meaningful\" and only three have been presented to an investigating magistrate.", "Jodie Willsher was working at the the Keighley Road Aldi store in Skipton, North Yorkshire, when she was stabbed\n\nA 44-year-old man has been charged with murdering a woman who was stabbed to death in an Aldi supermarket.\n\nMum-of-one Jodie Willsher, 30, was attacked as she worked in the Keighley Road store in Skipton, North Yorkshire, at 15:30 GMT on Thursday.\n\nShe sustained multiple serious injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene, North Yorkshire Police said.\n\nNeville Hord, from Skipton, has been remanded in custody and is to appear at York Magistrates' Court on Saturday.\n\nMalcolm Willsher described his wife as \"lovely and warm and always had a smile on her face\".\n\nHe added: \"She was amazing, beautiful and a lovely person. She was a doting mother and a loving wife.\"\n\nTributes have been paid to 30-year-old Jodie Willsher\n\nAldi said the store would be closed until further notice to allow police to carry out investigations.\n\nColin Breslin, regional managing director at Aldi, said: \"Jodie was a much loved and popular colleague.\n\n\"We are all deeply shocked and saddened by this incident. Our thoughts are with her family at this difficult time.\"\n\nMatthew Barnes, chief executive officer of Aldi UK and Ireland, said the company was \"doing everything we can to support our people and all those affected during this difficult time\".\n\nFlowers were left in the supermarket car park, with friends describing her as \"a truly lovely woman and very popular\".\n\nFlowers have been left outside the Aldi store in Keighley Road\n\nPolice have appealed for a \"brave witness who restrained the suspect\" to come forward.\n\nThe man, believed to be in his sixties, was wearing a flat cap and a two-tone light and dark walking jacket.\n\nOfficers believe he was shopping with a woman who has short light-brown hair and was wearing a light-coloured, possibly grey, jacket.\n\nThe force said: \"He was the first person to try and intervene and was involved in a sustained struggle.\n\n\"They appear to have left the store before the emergency services arrived.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sheeran said he felt \"very proud and happy\" in a video message\n\nEd Sheeran has beaten off competition from Eminem - and himself - to land his first UK Christmas number one single.\n\nPerfect - which he released in three separate versions in a bid to clinch the Christmas crown - had faced a challenge from Eminem's River, on which Sheeran provides guest vocals.\n\nBut the rapper ended in second place, while Wham's Last Christmas came third.\n\nIn a video message, the British singer said securing the Christmas top spot was \"an actual dream come true\".\n\nThe video for Perfect riffs on Wham's classic Last Christmas clip\n\n\"I'm very proud and happy,\" he said. \"Thank you so much and have a very merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy new year.\"\n\nSheeran's domination of the Christmas chart was all but assured after he released a new version of his doe-eyed ballad with Beyonce.\n\nThat version drove most of his sales - though chart rules mean Beyonce is denied a credit on the Christmas number one, with Sheeran's original counted as the lead track.\n\nEminem's River took an early lead on streaming services but faltered as the week went on.\n\nFans had hoped to send Last Christmas to number one to mark the first anniversary of George Michael's death.\n\nDespite support from ITV's This Morning and Michael's ex-bandmate Andrew Ridgeley, however, the song failed to beat its original chart position of number two.\n\nBack in 1984, it was denied the top spot by Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas? charity single.\n\nAs has become tradition, yuletide standards by Mariah Carey and The Pogues have returned to the Top 40 off the back of huge streaming figures.\n\nThere are 16 Christmas songs in the Top 40, among them such classics as Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee and Wonderful Christmastime by Sir Paul McCartney.\n\nThe presence of lesser-known tracks, like Ariana Grande's Santa Tell Me and Elton John's Step Into Christmas, can be explained by their prominent placing in Spotify's Christmas is Coming playlist.\n\n\"By and large, the most popular ones are the ones featured on the front page of Spotify,\" chart analyst James Masterton told the BBC.\n\n\"It exposes the amount of influence the application has over the singles market.\"\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by MariahCareyVEVO This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nMariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You was the UK's favourite festive song on Spotify this year.\n\nAnd it's not just an advent phenomenon. Data released by the BPI this week showed Carey's classic had been played 16,000 times in the first week of July.\n\nAccording to Spotify, the most popular day for streaming seasonal songs was 13 December, when 13% of all music played in the UK was Christmas-themed.\n\nIn the album chart, Eminem's album Revival did manage to dislodge Sheeran's Divide.\n\nIt is the star's eighth UK number one album in a row, with his six previous studio albums and the 2005 greatest hits collection Curtain Call all making the top spot.\n\nLed Zeppelin and Abba are the only other artists to accumulated eight consecutive number one albums in the UK.\n\nRevival's first week sales are the second highest of 2017, behind Divide.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sam Kyme made a plea through her friends to keep her sons out of care\n\nA woman with motor neurone disease who raised more than £40,000 to enable her sons to live with her sister in Australia has died.\n\nSam Kyme, 34, from Banbury, could no longer talk, but made the plea through her friends on a crowdfunding website.\n\nThe cash will be used to fund the funeral, plane tickets, and legal and school fees.\n\nSister Pippa Hughes said she passed away on Thursday \"knowing everything is sorted for her kids\".\n\nMs Hughes lives in Australia and it was her sister's \"last wish\" that her sons Joey and Harry could live with her there.\n\n\"It's amazing how life can change in a year,\" Ms Hughes said.\n\n\"This time last year it was Christmas and we were all together and this year it's completely changed.\n\n\"There was no warning, you just never know what's going to happen.\n\n\"We've got a few days now to scream and shout and cry, but Christmas, we're going to make it for Sam.\"\n\nSam dreamed her boys would have a new life in Australia after her death\n\nFriend Susanna Howard said Ms Kyme died \"peacefully with her family around her\".\n\n\"The family are deeply saddened but also relieved that she is no longer suffering,\" she said.\n\n\"We know that Sam would like everyone to celebrate her life by raising a glass to her and her family at this festive time.\"\n\nSam Kyme (left) was diagnosed four months after this picture was taken with her sister Pippa Hughes\n\nMs Kyme was diagnosed in April and told she had months to live. Within two months she could no longer speak.\n\nMs Howard said she had been \"battling to be here for Christmas\" so she could \"spend it with her boys and family\".\n\n\"My greatest fear is not that I am dying - it is the welfare of my boys,\" Ms Kyme's message had said on her crowdfunding page.\n\n\"I fear that Joey and Harry will go into care,\" it continued.\n\nMs Hughes said the funds meant the family could \"all move to Oz, start a new life together, while never forgetting Sam\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Theresa May has insisted she is more than \"Madame Brexit,\" having been given the title by Poland's prime minister.\n\nShe said there were \"other things\" she wanted to achieve apart from delivering a successful exit from the EU - such as improvements to education and training.\n\nAnd she insisted she was \"in it for the long-term\", shrugging off suggestions she had had a bad year.\n\nThe prime minister was speaking to reporters during a visit to UK troops stationed in Cyprus.\n\nMrs May gained her new nickname on Thursday, after holding talks in Warsaw with Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.\n\nMr Morawiecki told their joint press conference: \"As Madame Brexit has said, Brexit is Brexit.\"\n\nMrs May said she had been amused by the comment.\n\n\"You might have noticed I smiled when I heard the translation of Mrs Brexit or Madame Brexit,\" she told reporters.\n\n\"Look, I am going to deliver on Brexit. That is undoubtedly the case, but I am doing other things as well. If you look at the changes we are making on skills, education and training for example.\n\n\"The industrial strategy which actually was talked about with the Poles as well… and global Britain.\"\n\nShe said she had completed a number of foreign trips in the run up to Christmas \"promoting the UK both in trading terms, but also our role in defence and security\".\n\nAsked if she would characterise 2017 - a year which saw her lose her Commons majority in a snap election she had called - as one of the most difficult years of her career, Mrs May highlighted her recent breakthrough in Brexit talks.\n\n\"If you look at what's happened over the past couple of months we have made sufficient progress on the Brexit negotiations, we have had a good Budget that is building a Britain that is fit for the future.\n\n\"What we've put into the Budget in terms of funding for the health service but also housing is really important for the future of this country.\n\n\"We have had the industrial strategy, which I see as an absolutely crucial plan and part of actually ensuring that our economy does meet the needs of the future and is providing the jobs of the future for the people in the UK.\"\n\nShe said she was \"optimistic\" about making progress on defence and security, as well as trade, \"as we go into phase two of Brexit negotiations\".\n\n\"What we want to achieve is in the interests of the EU27 as well as ours,\" she added.", "Gambling giant Ladbrokes Coral has agreed to be bought by online rival GVC in a deal worth up to £4bn.\n\nUnder the deal, shareholders in GVC - which owns the Bwin, Sportingbet and Foxy Bingo brands - will hold 53.5% of the combined group.\n\nLadbrokes Coral became the UK's biggest High Street bookmaker following last year's merger of Ladbrokes and Coral.\n\nThe company has about 3,500 High Street outlets and employs more than 25,000 staff.\n\nGVC - which has 2,800 employees - has grown rapidly in recent years through a number of takeovers, most notably that of Bwin.party in February last year.\n\nThe final worth of the deal is dependent on the government's review of gaming machines known as fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs).\n\nThe Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has said it will cap the size of stakes gamblers can make on FOBTs, amid concerns they may harm vulnerable people.\n\nMinisters have proposed that bets on the machines should be cut from a maximum of £100 a spin to somewhere between £2 and £50.\n\nGVC and Ladbrokes Coral have said that the review could hit the profitability of Ladbrokes Coral's UK business.\n\nUnder the terms of the deal, for each share that Ladbrokes Coral shareholders own, they will get 32.7p in cash and 0.141 ordinary GVC shares, plus a \"contingent value right\" worth up to 42.8p.\n\nThe size of this contingent entitlement will be decided by the outcome of the DCMS review.\n\nGVC chief executive Kenneth Alexander described the takeover deal as \"a truly exciting prospect\".\n\nLadbrokes Coral chairman John Kelly said the tie-up with GVC would \"improve the customer experience, drive faster online growth and build a more diverse and extensive international portfolio of businesses\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Richard Ratcliffe tells the BBC: \"Formally, on the system, she's eligible to be released at any point.\"\n\nBritish-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been held in Iran for 18 months, has been told she is eligible for early release, her husband has said.\n\nRichard Ratcliffe told BBC Radio 5 Live that an Iranian judiciary database had listed her as \"eligible for release\".\n\nHe said her lawyer was \"hopeful\" when he visited her in prison on Wednesday.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Iran since April 2016 after being accused of spying - charges she denies.\n\nHer family have always maintained she was on holiday with her daughter.\n\nMr Ratcliffe said his wife's case had previously been marked as \"closed\", so the status change was \"great news\".\n\n\"Part of me is trying not to get too hopeful and just to keep calm just in case there is more to come,\" he said.\n\n\"But he (her lawyer) was clearly hopeful. He told her that it's a matter of finalising paperwork and it might be days to weeks rather than tomorrow morning.\n\n\"But definitely it feels like the end is much closer in sight.\"\n\nMr Ratcliffe said he felt there was a \"change of the tide\" since Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson travelled to Iran, as since then a second case against his 37-year-old wife was postponed and then cancelled.\n\n\"And now suddenly the database is shifting and saying eligible for early release,\" he said.\n\n\"She's still in prison but everything is feeling very positive.\"\n\nMr Johnson was in Iran for talks earlier this month and pressed for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release on humanitarian grounds.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Iran since April 2016\n\nHe had been accused of risking an additional five years being added to her sentence when he told a parliamentary committee that she had been in Iran to train journalists.\n\nIn November, he apologised in the Commons, retracting \"any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity\".\n\nHampstead and Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq said the news had given the family a \"glimmer of light\".\n\n\"It has given Nazanin a real boost of positive energy, and now we wait impatiently to see what happens next,\" she told the BBC.\n\n\"Although we do not want to celebrate prematurely, it would be the perfect Christmas gift to see Nazanin released and back with her family where she belongs.\"\n\nMr Ratcliffe said part of him was still hoping his wife would be home in time for Christmas.\n\n\"Definitely hopeful, we will be singing our carols with great gusto,\" he said.", "Theresa May must urgently agree a transitional deal with EU counterparts, say MPs\n\nAn influential group of MPs has urged Britain and the European Union to agree a \"status quo\" transition period following Britain's departure from the EU.\n\nThe Treasury Select Committee said that the temporary arrangement should be agreed as quickly as possible to ease business concerns over a \"no deal\" Brexit.\n\nThe committee's report said it \"strongly supported\" the prime minister's push for a comprehensive free trade deal which would keep borders as \"frictionless\" as possible.\n\nBut it said in order to reach that point, an implementation period would be necessary where the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was likely to retain supremacy over UK laws.\n\n\"An agreement between the UK and EU27 on 'standstill' transitional arrangements is now urgent,\" said Nicky Morgan, the Conservative chairwoman of the committee who campaigned for Remain before the referendum.\n\n\"The consequences of failing to reach an agreement are dramatic and damaging.\"\n\n\"Many businesses will begin to prepare for a 'no deal' outcome - moving jobs and activity, and incurring potentially unnecessary expenditure - early next year,\" said Ms Morgan.\n\n\"Transitional arrangements must therefore be straightforward enough to negotiate in a matter of weeks.\n\n\"This may well include accepting EU rules beyond those of the single market and customs union and it is likely to involve retaining, on a temporary basis, the jurisdiction of the ECJ, and the direct effect and supremacy of EU law.\n\n\"That is a price worth paying for stability and certainty after 30 March 2019.\"\n\nThe government has said that it may agree to a strictly time-limited implementation phase after Brexit.\n\nBritain would leave the EU customs union and the single market but would retain equivalent rules.\n\nMrs May has argued that if there is an agreement with the EU, it may mean the UK \"will start off with the ECJ governing the rules that we are part of\".\n\nAnd in her Florence speech in September the prime minister said an implementation period could last two years.\n\nNicky Morgan says transition arrangements should be negotiated \"in a matter of weeks\"\n\nEarlier this week, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said that there was now a \"furious race against time\" to negotiate implementation arrangements and the framework for a new free trade deal.\n\n\"We are ready to move to the second phase, which will expand discussions to cover transition and the framework for the future relationship,\" he said on Monday.\n\nThe select committee said a transition deal could be followed by a further \"adaption period\" for some sectors such as financial services.\n\n\"The difference between a 'no-deal' scenario and the temporary preservation of the status quo is dramatic,\" said John Mann, a Labour member of the committee who supported Britain leaving the EU in the run up to the referendum.\n\n\"A 'no-deal' scenario would be damaging to both sides; a 'standstill' transition is in the interests of both the UK and the EU27.\"\n\n\"In particular, a 'standstill' transition would mitigate the major risk that Her Majesty's Revenue and Custom's Customs Declarations Service [a new system for controlling the flow of goods across borders] is not ready in time for 30 March 2019.\n\n\"If this project were to fail, the committee remains to be convinced that contingency plans exist to avoid the severe disruption to goods that would occur in an unplanned 'no-deal' scenario.\"\n\nMany members of the financial services sector also support an implementation period.\n\nMiles Celic, chief executive of the financial services sector lobby group TheCityUK, said that both sides would suffer if implementation arrangements were not agreed.\n\n\"Now that talks seem likely to move on to the second phase, EU and UK negotiators must not delay discussing a transitional deal,\" he said.\n\nIt's not just London that would suffer without a transition, says Miles Celic\n\n\"The longer it takes, the less value it has.\n\n\"Many firms are already well underway with their contingency plans.\n\n\"Those which remain are ready to press 'go' early in the new year.\n\n\"There is still time to slow or adapt these plans, but without progress soon, it may be too late.\n\n\"This isn't just about business leaving the UK.\n\n\"It is about the very high risk of jobs, capital and inward investment leaving Europe.\n\n\"The resulting fragmented markets will be of benefit to no-one, with costs likely to increase for customers right across the continent.\"\n• None Fears grow across the Atlantic over Brexit\n• None So, did 'soft Brexit' just win?", "A surgeon who marked his initials on the livers of two transplant patients has admitted assault by beating.\n\nSimon Bramhall, 53, committed the offences at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital in February and August 2013.\n\nThe liver, spleen and pancreas surgeon was suspended later that year.\n\nHe pleaded guilty to two charges at Birmingham Crown Court and will be sentenced at the same court on 12 January.\n\nHe denied the more serious charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm - a plea which was accepted by prosecutors.\n\nTony Badenoch QC said the case was \"without legal precedent in criminal law\".\n\nBramhall, who came to attention in 2010 when he transplanted a liver saved from a burning aircraft into a patient, was suspended when the branding was discovered by another surgeon.\n\nLiver surgeons use an argon beam to stop livers bleeding, but can also use it to burn the surface of the liver to sketch out the area of an operation.\n\nSimon Bramhall covered his face as he left Birmingham Crown Court\n\nBramhall was suspended from Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 2013\n\nIt is not believed to have been harmful to the liver and the marks normally disappear.\n\nIn one case it appears the organ was already damaged and as a result did not heal itself in the normal manner, allowing the marks to be seen.\n\nMr Badenoch said it had been a \"highly unusual and complex case, both within the expert medical testimony served by both sides and in law.\"\n\nHe said what Bramhall had done was not isolated and required \"some skill and concentration\".\n\n\"It was done in the presence of colleagues,\" he said.\n\nHis actions were carried out \"with a disregard for the feelings of unconscious patients\", the prosecutor added.\n\nBramhall resigned after a disciplinary hearing with University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust in May 2014.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC after his suspension he admitted he had made \"a mistake\".", "Hotel living has been a struggle, says Mohammed Rasoul\n\nIt is only when you walk through the door of the hotel room that you even begin to understand what life has been like for so many of the survivors, six months on from the Grenfell fire.\n\nStacked along a short corridor, past the wardrobe and door to the bathroom, they've piled up cases and boxes. Clothes on top. It's tidy, but a squeeze.\n\nThis is the room that grandpa sleeps in.\n\nThen through the door into the adjoining room. You can't open it fully because of the single camp bed on the other side. Push through, however, and you're in another room, the same size.\n\nThe single bed is for dad - Mohammed. A double is shared by mum, son and daughter. They are five and two years old respectively, and there's little space in which to play.\n\nThey say there's nowhere for Mohammed's wife Munira to cook, so most of the time they get take-away meals. The plastic boxes are stacked up neatly on the side, ready to be washed.\n\nFor the last six months this is how the Rasoul family has lived.\n\n\"It's a struggle,\" says the father, Mohammed Rasoul. \"At first, immediately after the fire you think, 'Oh, OK, hotels, we'll be comfortable for a while.' But the novelty soon wears off when you realise it's the place you're going to be living in.\n\n\"It comes to the point where you feel like a prisoner living in here.\"\n\nMohammed's father had lived in the Grenfell tower for 37 years. Now 86, he has vascular dementia, and he's confused.\n\nThey have been offered a new home, but not close to where they used to live.\n\n\"All we want is to be rehoused in the same area. We want to be there back in the community, with our friends, my son's school,\" he says.\n\nTake the underground from the stop close to Mohammed's hotel, change at Notting Hill, and in half an hour you can be at another hotel, which is currently home to Rashida Ali and her 10-year-old daughter Hayam.\n\nThe council needs to find homes for 208 Grenfell families\n\n\"I have lots of nightmares. Sometimes I cry in the middle of the night and wake my mum and she calms me down and she says 'Don't worry, at least we're safe.'\n\n\"I don't feel safe when I'm by myself or like in a closed room and there's no escape next to me. I just feel I can't breathe.\"\n\nHayam and her mother are about to move into temporary accommodation. Rashida didn't want that initially, because she preferred not to have to uproot them twice. But she's decided to move, for her daughter's benefit.\n\n\"She needs to pack her stuff everyday, open suitcase, close suitcase, tidy up because this is not our home. We live in a hotel but it feels like we are homeless.\"\n\nLike many she says she doesn't trust the council to deliver on their promise to move people into permanent homes when a suitable one comes up.\n\n\"The system keeps changing,\" she says. \"I'm worried if I sign this (temporary accommodation contract) in a few months I'm not going to be allowed to move out.\"\n\nMost of those made homeless by the fire are still in hotels - 28 of them are families with children.\n\nThe council wants to move people out into temporary flats. The Alves family has taken up the offer.\n\nMiguel Alves says it allows them \"to have a family life, to have meals together.\"\n\nMiguel was one of the few leaseholders in the Grenfell Tower - he bought his flat in 2001 - and had 15 years of his mortgage left to pay. That adds another layer of complication.\n\nDespite all he's gone through, he says he's having to fight to get the council to accept his demand that the new home he eventually moves into will be the same size with the same number of bedrooms as his Grenfell flat.\n\n\"I asked for a meeting, and they take one week, nobody answers my emails.\"\n\nThis lack of communication isn't a one off. At a recent council meeting one woman - Lidia, whose elderly mother lived on the top floor and who survived because she was away that night - said she had had 11 different housing officers assigned to her in the last six months.\n\nLidia's hands and legs were shaking uncontrollably with stress as she spoke. Many say the delays and uncertainty are taking a mental toll.\n\nAny local authority would be stretched by the task that faces Kensington and Chelsea Council.\n\nIt needs to find homes for 208 households. It has set aside £235m to do that. It takes time to buy properties.\n\nLawyers representing the former residents are striving to ensure that the new tenancy agreements and leaseholds match exactly the terms and conditions people had in Grenfell.\n\nThe council's director of housing, Maxine Holdsworth, says she \"gets a huge amount of positive feedback about our frontline housing officers and how supportive they've been\".\n\nWhat then about the charges that officers change, that communications are difficult?\n\n\"Every single household has their own dedicated housing officer,\" she replies. \"I would be confident that if someone rang up today their call would be answered they would get to speak to their housing officer.\"\n\nThe deputy leader of the council admitted last week that he felt embarrassed about the speed of the rehousing process.\n\nBack down the Tube line, in the Rasoul family's hotel room they are keeping their spirits up, somehow.\n\n\"I'm OK,\" says Mohammed. \"I have my moments, but there's so much that needs to be dealt with, so many things going on.\n\n\"It's not just our housing issues, it's our personal issues, living here. No personal space, the kids have to go to sleep at certain times, lights out for the children. But we stay positive.\"\n\nAnd when he thinks about the home that he has lost?\n\n\"All my childhood memories, moments of happiness, laughter, food being enjoyed, my children being born there. I dare not delve into it too much, I know that will just break me.\"", "The government should create a national strategy to combat loneliness, says a report by a commission set up by the murdered MP Jo Cox.\n\nThe commission, formed by the MP before she was killed in her constituency in 2016, calls for the appointment of a minister to lead action on the issue.\n\nIt says loneliness is as harmful to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and affects nine million UK people.\n\nThe government says new initiatives will be announced next year.\n\nThe report acknowledges that government action alone cannot solve the problem.\n\nHowever, it says: \"Tackling loneliness is a generational challenge that can only be met by concerted action by everyone - governments, employers, businesses, civil society organisations, families, communities and individuals all have a role to play.\n\n\"Working together we can make a difference.\"\n\nThe report is calling for the Family Test, a measure of assessing the effect of government policies on stable families, to become a family and relationships test.\n\nThe cross-party commission was established by Mrs Cox when she was Labour MP for Batley and Spen.\n\nIt continued its work after she was murdered outside her constituency office in Birstall, West Yorkshire in June 2016.\n\nThe commission has been working with 13 charities including Age UK and Action for Children to come up with ideas for change.\n\nThe report will be presented in Birstall on Friday by the joint commission chairs, Labour MP Rachel Reeves and the Conservative's Seema Kennedy,\n\nThey will be joined by Mrs Cox's sister, Kim Leadbeater.\n\nMrs Cox set up the commission before she was killed in 2016\n\nThe joint chairs said: \"We know that loneliness will not end until we all recognise the role we can play in making that happen.\n\n\"Jo always looked forwards, not back. She would have said that what matters most now are the actions, big and small, that people take in response to the commission's work.\"\n\nThe report's release will coincide with the launch of three Royal Voluntary Service projects set to tackle loneliness and isolation in Mrs Cox's former constituency.\n\nThe schemes - partly financed by the Jo Cox Fund set up in her memory - will include lunch clubs, activities, and workshops as well as a new Community Connections Programme.\n\nThis will \"match up volunteers with lonely people in the area\" according to Royal Voluntary Service's Chief Executive Catherine Johnstone, acting as a practical template for the commission's recommendations.\n\nThe government said it welcomed the commission's work and tackling social isolation and loneliness is of \"huge importance\".\n\nA spokeswoman added: \"A number of government initiatives already help to reduce loneliness, such as improved mental health support and funding to create new green spaces for communities, but we are committed to doing more and look forward to setting out plans in the new year,\" she added.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Roads turned to rivers across Houston as Harvey hit\n\nScientists have weighed the water that fell on Texas during the record-breaking Hurricane Harvey in August.\n\nThey calculate, by measuring how much the Earth was compressed, that the Category 4 storm dropped 127 billion tonnes, or 34 trillion US gallons.\n\n\"One person asked me how many stadia is that. It's 26,000 New Orleans Superdomes,\" said Adrian Borsa from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.\n\nHis numbers were released as other scientists stated that this year's big hurricanes had a clear human influence.\n\nHarvey, Irma and Maria ripped through the US Gulf states and the Caribbean, leading to widespread flooding and wind damage.\n\nResearchers told the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union here in New Orleans that the heavy rainfall seen in Harvey was very likely exacerbated by the extra warming associated with increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.\n\nSea surface temperatures were particularly high in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico this hurricane season. Warm ocean water acts as a fuel for the storms.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's James Cook found a scene of devastation in Rockport\n\nHarvey devastated parts of the Texas coastline because it stalled, concentrating its deluge in a very narrow region. It was one of the heaviest precipitation events in recorded hurricane history.\n\nStandard rain gauges saw upwards of 1,270mm (50 inches) of precipitation in places. But these were point measurements and Dr Borsa attempted to get a much broader view by assessing how much the Earth moved in response to the weight of overlying water.\n\nThis was detected by a network of high-precision GPS stations, which registered the vertical displacement of the land. \"It's like you sitting down on a mattress - it depresses; you stand up and it rebounds. The Earth behaves very similarly, like a rubber block.\n\n\"So the Earth is recording the effects of the loads acting on its surface.\"\n\nThe GPS network is dense enough that a very wide picture of activity can be discerned. \"It gives us a holistic view, not just point measurements,” Dr Borsa told BBC News.\n\nWhat is especially smart is that the system can see the immediate change after the storm as water runs off the land through rivers, but also captures the much slower effect of water removal through evaporation, driven by the warmth of the Sun. This takes several weeks.\n\n\"One of the big deficiencies in our models is that evapotranspiration - that's the Sun and plants doing their things - is not currently directly observed, and it's half of the total water budget. I think GPS is going to be able to provide very useful information about this.\"\n\nAt the same AGU gathering, the American Meteorological Association revealed that its annual report on extreme weather events had identified three that would “not have been possible” without the influence of human-induced climate change.\n\nThese were: the record-breaking global temperatures in 2016; the 2016 heat wave across Asia and the high ocean temperatures measured off the coast of Alaska.\n\nThese were events that happened because “we have created a new climate,” said National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) climate scientist Stephanie Herring.\n\nThe report also concluded that other heat waves around the world were made more intense by climate change and that Arctic warming was “most likely” not possible without it.\n\nThe coral bleaching event in the Great Barrier Reef and other marine ecosystems in the Pacific Ocean were also amplified by “human-caused warming of the ocean”.\n\nThe research is primarily based on comparing models, or simulations, of our climate. “We run a model that shows what the world looks like today and we can validate those models against what is actually happening,” explained Dr Herring.\n\n“Then we compare it to a model of an ‘alternative world’ in which - theoretically - climate change never happened; as if humans didn’t emit greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution.\n\n“So we can look at a world with climate change and a world without it.”\n\nHarvey's rain could have filled 26,000 New Orleans Superdomes", "A Home Office policy of removing EU citizens found sleeping rough on UK streets is unlawful and must stop, the High Court has ruled.\n\nA judge said the measure, introduced last year, was discriminatory and broke freedom of movement rules.\n\nCampaigners brought the case on behalf of three men facing removal.\n\nThe government said it was disappointed by the ruling - which applies to people from the EU and European Economic Area - but would not be appealing.\n\nThe Public Interest Law Unit (PILU) at Lambeth Law Centre, which took out the judicial review, said the decision would affect hundreds of people.\n\nIt said the Home Office had been carrying out \"regular raids\" on locations where officials believed they would find European nationals who could be deported.\n\nIn her ruling, the judge, Mrs Justice Lang, also said the Home Office was wrong to have used the raids as a chance to verify whether the rough sleepers were abusing their right to reside in another European nation.\n\nPILU said the High Court had shown itself willing to protect the rights of a vulnerable group, adding: \"Homelessness cannot humanely be dealt with by detaining or forcibly removing homeless people.\"\n\nThree men facing removal orders from the Home Office were selected as \"test cases\" for the hearing:\n\nThe judge said the order should be dropped against Mr Gureckis, while Mr Cielecki is now expected to appeal against his. The order against Mr Perlinski was withdrawn in November after he began living with a relative.\n\nShe said \"rough sleeping, even accompanied by low level offending such as begging, drinking in a public place and other street nuisances, would not be grounds for removal\" and the Home Office's \"less favourable\" treatment of rough sleepers from outside the UK could not be justified.\n\nThe Home Office said the EU's Free Movement Directive allowed member states to impose restrictions on people in certain situations, including where there were concerns about security, public health, or fraud.\n\nIts lawyers had argued the operations to remove the rough sleepers were a \"sensible and lawful approach\".\n\nA spokesman said: \"We will consider carefully what steps are necessary to ensure we reflect the judgment in future enforcement.\"\n\nHe added that most of the people removed under the measure had not exercised their rights to residency in the UK when required and were therefore unlawfully in the country.\n\nSpeaking after the ruling, Matthew Downie from the homeless charity Crisis, who gave evidence against the Home Office, said the policy had been \"brutal and indiscriminate\". He said in many cases people had been taken away from help they were getting to resolve their homelessness.", "Black Friday helped to propel retail sales 1.6% higher in November from a year earlier, official figures suggest.\n\nThe Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that retailers had reported a particular uplift in sales of electrical household appliances.\n\nHowever, analysts said that Black Friday had distorted sales and retailers faced challenging conditions.\n\nThe ONS said that the quantity of food bought in November fell by 0.1% compared to the same month last year.\n\nHowever, the amount of money spent jumped by 3.5%, reflecting a rise in food prices that has contributed to the increase in inflation, which is now at a near six-year high of 3.1%.\n\nIn non-food sales, clothing and footwear rebounded from a slump in October to rise 2.3% in November from a year earlier. Department stores, however, saw their sales fall by 0.9% which the ONS said \"continues a recent pattern of slowdown in this sector\".\n\nAlex Marsh, managing director of Close Brothers Retail Finance, said: \"The final run up to Christmas may prove more difficult than usual for retailers as they battle low consumer confidence amid increasing inflation and a squeeze on wages.\"\n\nBlack Friday is an import from the US, where it takes place on the day after Thanksgiving and is regarded as the start of the Christmas shopping period.\n\nSamuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said: \"The surge in retail sales in November does not signal broader consumer strength.\"\n\nMr Tombs said Black Friday meant the strength in November retail sales \"merely reflected people bringing forward purchases that they otherwise would have made in December or January to November, due to the discounts available\".\n\nMonth-on-month, sales rose by 1.1% in November from October, which was ahead of analysts' forecasts for 0.4% growth.\n\nIan Geddes, head of retail at Deloitte, said that \"on the surface\" the data was \"promising\".\n\nBut he said: \"The next 10 days of pre-Christmas sales will be crucial for retailers. Trading is likely to peak on Friday 22 December, particularly for purchases of food and drink as consumers prepare for festive hosting.\n\n\"However, profitability is another matter and margins are under intense pressure.\"", "US teenagers are using marijuana and vaporisers more than they smoke cigarettes, a government study shows.\n\nSome 15% of high school students said they had used marijuana within the previous 30 days, found the report for the National Institute on Drug Abuse.\n\nAnd 12.1% of students said they had used a vaping device. But only 5% had smoked cigarettes.\n\nOne in 10 high school seniors said he or she had vaped marijuana at least once in the past year.\n\n\"It's much higher than I expected,\" said Richard Miech, the University of Michigan researcher who led the study, of the cannabis vaping figure.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe findings suggest cannabis use is up about 1% overall among teenagers.\n\nNearly a quarter of students said they had vaped, smoked or eaten marijuana in the previous year.\n\nOne in 17 high school seniors said he or she had used marijuana every day.\n\nDr Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said: \"These are teens that are supposed to be learning at school.\n\n\"When you're stoned, you can't learn much.\"\n\nSome students surveyed said they used vaporisers to smoke nicotine or flavouring, instead of marijuana.\n\nThe study suggests this as a possible reason why daily cigarette smoking among 17 and 18-year-old students was down to 4.2% this year from a recorded high of 24.6% in 1997.\n\nSome 43,703 students aged between 13 and 18 years old in public and private high schools were questioned for the study.", "Jayda Fransen is charged with using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour\n\nThe deputy leader of far right group Britain First has appeared in court charged in connection with an incident at a Belfast peace wall.\n\nJayda Fransen, 31, from Anerley, south-east London, was charged with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour.\n\nShe appeared briefly at Belfast Magistrates' Court on Friday morning.\n\nMs Fransen was arrested on Thursday after appearing in court in Belfast over a separate incident.\n\nShe was released on bail and is due to appear in court again next month.\n\nAfter bail was granted, Ms Fransen's supporters in the public gallery cheered and applauded.\n\nShe raised her arm in the air as they cheered.\n\nAmong her supporters was Paul Golding, the leader of Britain First.\n\nThe charge against Ms Fransen relates to comments she is alleged to have made in a video online that was filmed at a peace wall in west Belfast.\n\nFriday's charge stems from an incident at a peace wall on 13 December.\n\nPeace walls are used to separate Catholic and Protestant residents in Northern Ireland, in areas where tension between the two communities can run high.\n\nThe police objected in court to Ms Fransen being given bail. A PSNI detective told the court that \"our objection is that she's going to commit further offences\".\n\nHowever, the judge granted her bail on the condition that she did not go within 500m of any demonstration or procession in Northern Ireland.", "A memorial service for the victims and survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire is held at St Paul's Cathedral, six months on from the fire.", "Among the refugees are many young children\n\nAt least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the month after violence broke out in Myanmar in August, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says.\n\nBased on surveys of refugees in Bangladesh, the number is much higher than Myanmar's official figure of 400.\n\nMSF said it was \"the clearest indication yet of the widespread violence\" by Myanmar authorities.\n\nThe Myanmar military blames the violence on \"terrorists\" and has denied any wrongdoing.\n\nMore than 647,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh since August, MSF says.\n\nThe aid group's survey found that at least 9,000 Rohingya died in Myanmar, also known as Burma, between 25 August and 24 September.\n\n\"In the most conservative estimations\" at least 6,700 of those deaths have been caused by violence, including at least 730 children under the age of five, according to MSF.\n\nPreviously, the armed forces stated that around 400 people had been killed, most of them described as Muslim terrorists.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThere have been plenty of detailed reports by journalists and researchers, based on interviews conducted with refugees, which make it hard to dispute that terrible human rights abuses took place at the hands of the security forces.\n\nBut many of these reports focussed on the worst cases; there are several media reports about a massacre at one village called Tula Toli. Some Rohingya I interviewed told me they had fled in fear of violence, but had not actually experienced it.\n\nThis well-researched figure by MSF suggests the operation conducted by the military was brutal enough to raise the possibility of taking a case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity.\n\nThe problem would be that Myanmar has not ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC and is not bound to co-operate with it. Bringing a case would require the approval of all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and China has until now given its full support to the Myanmar government's handling of the crisis.\n\nThe military crackdown began on 25 August after Rohingya Arsa militants attacked more than 30 police posts.\n\nAfter an internal investigation, the Myanmar army in November exonerated itself of any blame regarding the crisis.\n\nIt denied killing any civilians, burning their villages, raping women and girls, and stealing possessions.\n\nThe mostly Muslim minority are denied citizenship by Myanmar, where they are seen as immigrants from Bangladesh. The government does not use the term Rohingya but calls them Bengali Muslims.\n\nThe government's assertions contradicted evidence seen by BBC correspondents. The United Nations human rights chief has said it seems like \"a textbook example of ethnic cleansing\".\n\nMSF says the experiences recounted by refugees were \"horrific\"\n\n\"What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured,\" MSF Medical Director Sidney Wong said.\n\nAmong the dead children below the age of five, MSF says more than 59% were reportedly shot, 15% burnt to death, 7% beaten to death and 2% killed by landmine blasts.\n\nMany refugees have been subject to brutal violence\n\n\"The numbers of deaths are likely to be an underestimation as we have not surveyed all refugee settlements in Bangladesh and because the surveys don't account for the families who never made it out of Myanmar,\" Mr Wong said.\n\nIn November, Bangladesh signed a deal with Myanmar to return hundreds of thousands of the refugees.\n\nMSF said the agreement was \"premature\" pointing out that \"currently people are still fleeing\" and reports of violence have come even in recent weeks.\n\nThe group also warned there was still very limited access for aid groups into Rakhine state.\n\nThe Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority who have long experienced persecution in Myanmar.", "Aung San Suu Kyi has faced widespread criticism over her reluctance to acknowledge the military violence, which the UN has called a \"textbook example of ethnic cleansing\".\n\nDublin City Councillors have voted to revoke Aung San Suu Kyi's Freedom of Dublin City award.\n\nMusician Bob Geldof handed back his Freedom of Dublin award last month to protest against the inclusion of Ms Suu Kyi on the honours list.\n\nShe has been accused of ignoring the persecution of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims; half a million have fled to Bangladesh following recent violence.\n\nSome 59 councillors backed the motion, with two against and one abstention.\n\nThe Dublin City councillors also agreed to remove Sir Bob Geldof's name from the roll of honour, after he returned his Freedom of Dublin City scroll to the council last month.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Bob Geldof hands back his Freedom of the City award", "Rebel MPs have defeated the government in a vote on the EU Withdrawal Bill - the bill that'll take the UK out of the EU.\n\nBut Esther Webber tells us why it's not quite game over for Brexit.", "Maria Jafari, who lost her father in the fire, told the Press Association: \"It's very, very hard. Still she (my mother) cries, every day, every second when we are talking about our father, all the memories come out again. It's six months and it's still very hard for us.\n\n\"I wish nobody could have this in the whole life, in the whole world, I wish nobody would have to go through all these things.\"", "Derek Mackay will be presenting his second draft budget as Scottish finance secretary\n\nScotland's finance secretary is expected to confirm income tax rises for middle and higher earners when he unveils his draft budget for next year.\n\nDerek Mackay will say the increase in taxation is needed to raise more money to help protect public services.\n\nIt will see many people in Scotland pay more income tax than those on the same salary elsewhere in the UK.\n\nBut First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said that 70% of taxpayers will pay no more than they do at present.\n\nThe Scottish government was given powers over income tax rates and bands last year.\n\nMr Mackay is also expected to promise extra money for the NHS, childcare, education and the police in his budget statement in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday afternoon, and to give details of pay rises for public sector workers.\n\nAnd he will outline a package of plans designed to boost business, including more extensive broadband provision.\n\nBut the most significant measure will be an increase in income tax, which comes after Ms Sturgeon suggested it was time for higher earners to pay a \"modest\" amount more.\n\nDerek Mackay and Nicola Sturgeon published a discussion paper on income tax last month\n\nBBC Scotland political editor Brian Taylor says he expects the 20p rate for lower earners to be frozen, but that there may be a new tax band created that would see those earning above about £30,000 pay more.\n\nThe government has hinted that the top 45p rate of tax for those earning more than £150,000 will not be raised to 50p, as some opposition parties have called for, but may go up by a smaller amount.\n\nBusiness leaders have warned that Scotland cannot afford to be associated with higher taxation than other parts of the UK.\n\nBut most people will pay no more tax than they do now - because the median salary in Scotland is £24,000.\n\nNobody likes paying income tax. Nobody likes paying more income tax. Therefore, the draft budget is potentially a challenge in terms of public support.\n\nIt is particularly a challenge given that the largest opposition party to the SNP are the Conservatives and the Conservatives will mount a very, very strong attack based upon any tax changes whatsoever.\n\nMr Mackay will seek to rebut that by accusing the Conservatives of hypocrisy - by saying that they demand spending on pet projects while at the same time demanding tax restraint.\n\nAgain, it will depend on what the public hears with regard to this - whether they listen to the government or whether they listen to the opposition, the Conservatives.\n\nMSPs will get their first chance to vote on the plans in the new year, with the minority SNP government needing support from at least one opposition party in order to pass the budget.\n\nEconomic forecasts from the new Scottish Fiscal Commission will be published alongside the draft budget for the first time.\n\nExperts have warned that the budget comes at a \"crucial\" time for Scotland's economy, which they say is \"stuck in a cycle of weak growth\".\n\nMs Sturgeon and Mr Mackay set out a series of possible income tax models last month, with many of them adding additional tax bands to those currently in place across the UK.\n\nThe various models were estimated to raise up to an additional £290m - less than 1% of the Scottish government's total budget, which was about £33bn last year.\n\nMr Mackay has conceded that the budget is \"set within a challenging context\", although he points the finger at \"continued austerity\" from Westminster.\n\nHe has highlighted analysis showing Holyrood's resource grant falling by £200m in real terms for the coming year - although the Conservatives contend that the block grant from the UK government is increasing overall, due to extra funds for capital spending.\n\nThe finance secretary said: \"The budget will bring forward key measures to protect public services like our NHS against the worst effects of UK budget cuts and continued Brexit uncertainty, and deliver a growth package to support the economy, unlock innovation and drive increased productivity.\n\n\"This will be a budget that is good for taxpayers, good for public services and good for business. It is a budget that will deliver for Scotland.\"\n\nMSPs will get their first chance to vote on the plans in the new year\n\nOpposition parties will ultimately be key as the minority SNP government will need support from at least one in order to pass its budget, with the final vote due in February.\n\nThe Conservatives have consistently argued against tax rises, and as such are highly unlikely to be persuaded to back Mr Mackay's budget.\n\nTory finance spokesman Murdo Fraser used a Holyrood debate on Wednesday to quote the SNP's manifesto back at them, saying the party had \"absolutely no mandate\" to increase the basic rate of tax.\n\nHe said 65% of the electorate had backed parties which had pledged not to increase the basic rate of tax - the SNP and Conservatives - and that the budget was about \"whether politicians can be trusted to keep their promises\".\n\nScottish Labour has called for \"radical decisions\" in the budget to tackle poverty, with new leader Richard Leonard saying Mr Mackay must not \"just tinker around the edges\".\n\nLabour has also repeatedly raised the issue of funding for local councils, which Mr Mackay has insisted will be \"fair\".\n\nThe Scottish Greens - seen as the most likely party to back the SNP on the budget - have set out priorities including \"progressive changes to income tax\", a move to \"reverse the cuts\" to local budgets, an above-inflation rise in public sector pay and investment in low-carbon infrastructure.\n\nThe Scottish Lib Dems, meanwhile, have called for \"specific, targeted investment\" with a particular focus on education, as well as action to tackle the \"woeful gap in the numbers of new mental health staff being trained\".", "The UK will continue to take part in the Erasmus student exchange programme until at least the end of 2020, the prime minister has said.\n\nTheresa May praised Erasmus+ and confirmed the UK would still be involved after Brexit in March 2019.\n\nWhether it is involved long term is among issues likely to be discussed during the next stage of negotiations.\n\nErasmus+ sees students study in another European country for between three and 12 months as part of their degree.\n\nThe prime minister is in Brussels where she will have dinner with EU leaders on Thursday.\n\nOn Friday, without Mrs May, they are expected to formally approve a recommendation that \"sufficient progress\" has been made in Brexit negotiations so far to move them onto the next stage.\n\nMrs May agreed a draft deal with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last week which would mean the UK would continue its funding of EU projects, including Erasmus, until the end of this EU budget period in 2020.\n\nIf EU leaders approve the draft deal, Brexit negotiations can begin on the next phase, covering the future relationship between the UK and EU and a two-year transition or implementation deal from March 2019. It is not clear whether this would include Erasmus+.\n\nMrs May said that British students benefitted from studying in the EU while UK universities were a popular choice for European students.\n\nSpeaking during a discussion on education and culture at the summit in Brussels, she added: \"I welcome the opportunity to provide clarity to young people and the education sector and reaffirm our commitment to the deep and special relationship we want to build with the EU.\"", "Paul escaped from the sixth floor of Grenfell Tower.\n\nHe believed photos of his mother - who died of a brain tumour in 2010 - had been lost, along with a jewellery box.\n\nBut he has now been able to retrieve them.\n\nWatch the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.", "University leaders have been under pressure over high salaries\n\nUniversity leaders have agreed to a new code on senior pay, which is expected to be published in the next few weeks.\n\nUniversity representatives held a meeting with minister Jo Johnson on Wednesday where they accepted the need for more accountability.\n\nIt follows fierce criticism of university leaders over claims of excessive senior pay, with the head of the University of Bath stepping down.\n\nMr Johnson says \"public confidence\" over pay had to be restored.\n\nThe universities minister met leaders of Universities UK, the Russell Group and the Committee of University Chairs - with Mr Johnson calling for more restraint over pay.\n\nIt is understood that a \"fair remuneration code\" will be published in January for university leaders, by the Committee of University Chairs.\n\nMr Johnson told university leaders that there must be a more transparent and independent system for the setting of senior salaries - and an end to the \"upwards ratchet in pay\".\n\nHe set out a series of requirements, including that vice chancellors must not sit on the committee that decides their pay.\n\nJo Johnson has told universities they need to restore public confidence\n\nThere will also have to be disclosure of benefits, such as subsidised housing and expenses.\n\nThe size of pay gaps between university heads and academic staff will also have to be published.\n\n\"It is vital that pay arrangements command public confidence and deliver value for money for students and taxpayers,\" said Mr Johnson.\n\nUniversities, under increasing public pressure and protests from their own academic staff, say they also want to \"rebuild public confidence\".\n\n\"We agree more needs to be done to ensure the process for deciding senior pay is viewed as open and accountable,\" a Russell Group spokesperson said.\n\nThe group of leading universities says it is backing \"a new code to ensure pay-setting arrangements are as rigorous and transparent as they can be\".\n\nUniversities UK said \"competitive pay is necessary to attract first rate leaders\" but a new code would be a \"welcome step\".\n\n\"As universities receive funding from taxpayers and through student fees, it is reasonable to expect pay decisions to be fair, accountable and justified,\" said a Universities UK spokesman.\n\nMr Johnson last week warned the university sector that it needed to get pay under control - and that a new regulator would be used to enforce this.\n\nThere have been a series of protests over vice-chancellors' pay in recent weeks - including at the University of Bath, the University of Southampton and at Bath Spa.\n\n\"Has there been a problem? Most definitely,\" said Mr Johnson last week. But he said universities now recognised the need to answer public concerns about value for money.\n\n\"I think they really are starting to get it.\"", "Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen has raised interest rates three times this year\n\nThe US Federal Reserve has raised interest rates by 0.25%, the third rate rise in 2017.\n\nThe US central bank said the move, which was widely expected, underscores \"solid\" gains in the US economy.\n\nOfficials also boosted their economic forecasts, projecting 2.5% growth in GDP in 2017 and 2018, due in part to planned tax cuts.\n\nThe Fed said it anticipates three further increases in rates next year, unchanged from its previous forecast.\n\nThe decision to raise interest rates, raising the cost of borrowing, takes the Fed farther away from the ultra-low rates it put in place during the financial crisis to boost economic activity.\n\nThe Fed is targeting a range of 1.25% to 1.5% for its benchmark rate. But a majority of officials said they expect interest rates above 2% will be appropriate next year.\n\nThe shift in policy comes as the US economy gains strength.\n\nUS economic output has increased at an annual rate of more than 3% in recent quarters, while the unemployment rate fell to 4.1% last month - the lowest rate since 2001.\n\nFederal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who is stepping down from her post in February, said the economy, labour market and financial system have grown stronger under her watch.\n\n\"There's less to lose sleep about now than has been true for quite some time, so I feel good about the economic outlook,\" she said.\n\nMs Yellen said policymakers expect the economy to get a further lift from a package of tax cuts - one of President Trump's central campaign promises - and those expectations were factored in when they revised upwards their predictions for economic growth.\n\nThe Fed is now forecasting 2.5% GDP growth in 2018, compared to a forecast it made in September of 2.1%.\n\nWhile Congress and President Trump's Administration continue to wrangle over tax reform, the Fed had to judge what the final outcome of that political process would mean for the economy. Inevitably there is a lot of uncertainty in there but they have concluded that it would provide a boost over the next three years.\n\nThe Fed's policy makers expect somewhat stronger growth than they did in September. Janet Yellen said that reflected a view in the committee that the reforms would stimulate consumer spending and business investment.\n\nBut there has not been much change in what the Fed's policy makers think of the longer term prospects. The Fed publishes information showing the range of expectations that its policy makers have. The middle of that range for long term growth is unchanged at a rather modest 1.8%.\n\nDespite the acceleration in growth, members of the Federal Open Markets Committee said they expect interest rate increases to remain gradual - in part, a sign of ongoing concerns that inflation has remained below the Fed's 2% target.\n\nMs Yellen said she continues to believe the lacklustre inflation growth is due to one-off factors, such as declines in costs for mobile phone plans.\n\nBut she said the Fed will continue to watch those numbers and \"if necessary, re-think\" what is determining them.\n\n\"There's work undone there,\" she said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What is net neutrality and how could it affect you?\n\nRestrictions on US broadband providers' ability to prioritise one service's data over another are to be reduced after a vote by a regulator.\n\nThe Federal Communications Commission voted three to two to change the way \"net neutrality\" is governed.\n\nInternet service providers (ISPs) will now be allowed to speed up or slow down different companies' data, and charge consumers according to the services they access.\n\nBut they must disclose such practices.\n\nAhead of the vote, protesters rallied outside the FCC's building to oppose the change.\n\nMany argue the reversal of rules introduced under President Barack Obama will make the internet less open and accessible.\n\nThe decision is already facing legal challenges, with New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, announcing he will lead a lawsuit challenging the FCC's decision.\n\nMr Schneiderman accused the watchdog of failing to investigate possible abuse of the public commenting process. He said as many as two million identities, some of dead New Yorkers, were used to post comments to the FCC website.\n\nDuring the hearing, FCC commissioner Mr Michael O'Rielly hit back at those claims, saying staff had been able to determine and discard comments that were illegitimate.\n\nThursday's proceedings in Washington were halted for about 15 minutes after a security alert forced an evacuation of the FCC's chamber, the final twist in a bitter and at times vitriolic debate.\n\nThe hearing was briefly suspended because of a security alert that occurred while chairman Ajit Pai was speaking\n\nThe FCC's chairman, Ajit Pai, argues the changes will foster innovation and encourage ISPs to invest in faster connections for people living in rural areas.\n\nHe refers to the change as \"restoring internet freedom\".\n\nTechnically, the vote was to reclassify broadband internet as an information service rather than telecommunications.\n\nThe consequence of this is that the FCC will no longer directly regulate ISPs.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: What do people know about net neutrality?\n\nInstead jurisdiction will pass to another regulator, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Its key responsibility will be to check that the companies disclose if they block data, throttle it or offer to prioritise traffic, rather than stopping such behaviour.\n\nOne criticism of this is that US consumers often have few if any ISPs to choose between. Moreover, opponents of the change claim it could take years to address any misbehaviour.\n\n\"I dissent to this legally-lightweight, consumer-harming, corporate-enabling, destroying-internet freedom order,\" said Democrat commissioner Mignon Clyburn ahead of the vote.\n\nBut fellow commissioner Mr O'Rielly, a Republican, said fears over the end of net neutrality were a \"scary bedtime story for the children of telecom geeks\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBritish doctors say they have achieved \"mind-blowing\" results in an attempt to rid people of haemophilia A.\n\nPatients are born with a genetic defect that means they do not produce a protein needed to stop bleeding.\n\nThirteen patients given the gene therapy at Barts Health NHS Trust are now off treatment with 11 producing near-normal levels of the protein.\n\nJake Omer, 29 from Billericay, Essex, was on the trial and says he feels like he has a new body.\n\nLike 2,000 other people in the UK, his body could not make clotting factor VIII.\n\nA minor injury used to cause severe bleeding. He remembers losing two front teeth as a child and bleeding for days afterwards.\n\nEven the impact of walking would lead to bleeding in his joints and eventually cause arthritis.\n\nJake has needed at least three injections of factor VIII a week for most of his life.\n\nBut in February 2016, he had a single infusion of gene therapy.\n\nJake told the BBC: \"I feel like a new person now - I feel like a well-oiled robot.\n\n\"I feel I can do a lot more. I feel my body allows me to do more.\n\n\"I don't think I would have been able to walk 500m without my joints flaring up, whereas now I think sort of two, three, four-mile walk - I could quite easily achieve that.\"\n\nThe first time he knew it had worked was four months after the therapy when he dropped a gym weight and bashed his elbow.\n\nHe started to panic, but after icing the injury that evening, everything was normal the next day.\n\nIt contains the instructions for factor VIII that Jake was born without.\n\nThe virus is used like a postman to deliver the genetic instructions to the liver, which then starts producing factor VIII.\n\nIn the first trials, low doses of gene therapy had no effect.\n\nOf the 13 patients given higher doses, all are off their haemophilia medication a year on and 11 are producing near-normal levels of factor VIII.\n\nProf John Pasi, who led the trials at Barts and Queen Mary University of London, said: \"This is huge.\n\n\"It's ground-breaking because the option to think about normalising levels in patients with severe haemophilia is absolutely mind-blowing.\n\n\"To offer people the potential of a normal life when they've had to inject themselves with factor VIII every other day to prevent bleeding is transformational.\"\n\nAn analysis of the first nine patients on the trial was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.\n\nLarger trials are now imminent to see if the therapy can truly transform the lives of patients.\n\nIt is also uncertain how long the gene therapy will be effective.\n\nLiz Carroll, the chief executive of The Haemophilia Society, said: \"Gene therapy is a potentially game-changing treatment.\n\n\"Despite world-leading treatment standards in the UK many still suffer painful bleeds leading to chronic joint damage.\"\n\nHowever, she warned there was a wide variation in who responded to therapy, which still needed to be explained.\n\nGene therapies are likely to be spectacularly expensive. However, the current cost of regular factor VIII injections is about £100,000 a patient per year for life.\n\nJake says the therapy should help him live a full life with his family: \"It's going to allow me as my boys grow up to be more active with them, to kick footballs about, to climb trees, to hopefully run around the park with them, not be someone who has to worry.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSurvivors of the Grenfell Tower fire have attended a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral, alongside members of the Royal Family and PM Theresa May.\n\nBereaved families, survivors and rescue workers were joined by the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.\n\nBishop of Kensington Graham Tomlin said he hoped the tragedy would represent a \"time we learnt a new, better way\".\n\nThe commemoration, marking six months since the tragedy, also gave thanks to all those who assisted at the time of the fire and since - including the emergency services, recovery teams, the community, public support workers and volunteers.\n\nArchbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and singer Adele were also among the more than 1,500 guests.\n\nThe families of victims held photographs of their loved ones outside the cathedral\n\nSinger Adele attended the service, among more than 1,500 guests\n\nAs the memorial began, a Green For Grenfell banner adorned with a heart was carried into the cathedral.\n\nOpening the service ahead of a minute's silence, Dean of St Paul's Dr David Ison said: \"We come together as different faiths as we remember those whose lives were lost.\"\n\n\"Be united in the face of suffering and sorrow,\" he added.\n\nHe said the UK grieved \"at the unspeakable tragedy, loss and hurt of that June day\".\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall joined the congregation\n\nSix months on from the Grenfell Tower fire, the grief and anger of those affected is still visibly raw.\n\nUnderneath the sadness there was dismay that many of the survivors attending the national memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral are still homeless.\n\nAnd while those who died in the fire were remembered, there was also comment on what has taken place since - and what more importantly still needs to be done.\n\nFamilies held photographs of victims of the fire, while voice recordings from people at the scene of the fire were played to the congregation.\n\nThe Al-Sadiq and Al-Zahra Schools Girls' Choir then sang out the words: \"Never lose hope.\"\n\nGraham Tomlin, Bishop of Kensington and organiser of the memorial, told the congregation: \"Today we ask why warnings were not heeded, why a community was left feeling neglected, uncared for, not listened to.\"\n\nBut he said he looked ahead to the New Year with \"hope\" of change from \"a city that didn't listen\".\n\nHe said he hoped the word \"Grenfell\" would change from a symbol of \"sorrow, grief or injustice\" to \"a symbol of the time we learnt a new and better way - to listen and to love\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBefore the service, Bishop Tomlin told the BBC: \"There was a very strong desire within the local community to have the service here, because faith is very important to a lot of people in the local area, and that can bring a real sense of strength to people.\"\n\nOne of those in attendance was Tiago Alves, who escaped the blaze with his family.\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast his thoughts would be with bereaved families during the \"emotional\" memorial: \"Today is a day not about survivors; today is purely about the bereaved, their families and the loved ones they have lost.\"\n\nHe said the memorial would bring back a lot of awful memories for many people, but added: \"The reason we are doing this today is so that people never forget - we want people to remember.\"\n\nFamilies stood on the steps of St Paul's after the service\n\nMany held white roses along with photographs of loved ones\n\nThe Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall also attended the service\n\nA young girl lights a memorial candle among tributes laid for the victims\n\nPortobello Road Salvation Army Band and St Paul's Cathedral Choir performed during the service, and the Ebony Steel Band, frequent performers at the Notting Hill Carnival, played a verse of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.\n\nAt the end of the service, bereaved families and survivors left the cathedral in silence, holding white roses.\n\nClarrie Mendy, who lost her cousin Mary and Mary's daughter, Khadija Saye, in the fire, said the memorial was \"what the community needs, what the survivors need\".\n\n\"It is a very emotional day,\" she said. \"I just hope everybody will get something from it.\"\n\nCouncillor Elizabeth Campbell, leader of Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, did not attend the service, after some families said they did not want the council there in an official capacity.\n\nHowever, a minute's silence was held outside the town hall in High Street Kensington as the memorial service began.\n\nThe final death toll from the fire was put at 53 adults and 18 children, including stillborn baby Logan Gomes, following an arduous process of recovering and identifying remains from the block.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Tiago Alves, who escaped the blaze with his family, attended the service\n\nEarlier, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said the force would do \"whatever it takes\" to bring to justice anyone who had committed a criminal offence linked to the fire.\n\nMs Dick said officers would investigate \"meticulously, fairly and fearlessly\", but said she would be \"vey surprised\" if the criminal investigation was completed within the next 12 months.\n\nScotland Yard has previously said it will be considering both individual and corporate manslaughter charges.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Footage of emergency vehicles at the scene of the crash\n\nA train and a school bus have collided near Perpignan in southern France, leaving at least four children dead.\n\nAt least 18 people were injured, some of them critically, after the crash on a level crossing between Millas and Saint-Féliu-d'Amont.\n\nThe bus had picked up pupils from a nearby secondary school before it was hit by a train travelling at about 80km/h (50mph).\n\nPictures from the scene showed the bus split in two by the force of the crash.\n\nTrain operator SNCF said witnesses had reported seeing the barriers at the level crossing down at the time of the collision, although that was not confirmed.\n\nThe bus, which had left the Christian Bourquin College in Millas, was on the crossing when it was hit by the train, which was travelling from Perpignan. Visibility was described as good.\n\nFour children died at the scene on Thursday. At one point local authorities said two 11-year-old girls had succumbed to their injuries on Friday morning, but later denied this report.\n\nSome 30 people were on the regional train at the time.\n\nPictures from the scene showed the school bus sheared in two\n\nInvestigators are waiting to interview the driver of the bus. She was slightly injured in the crash. The train driver also escaped serous injury.\n\nCarole Delga, president of the Occitanie regional council, said the level crossing had been upgraded recently and appeared to have been in very good condition. \"The level crossing was very visible,\" she said. SNCF said it had an automatic barrier with standard signals and was not considered particularly dangerous.\n\nBut the grandmother of an injured 11-year-old girl who had been on the bus told a very different story. The girl said the barrier had not come down but remained raised. \"The red lights that normally flash did not come on,\" she said. \"The [bus] driver went through and stopped half way, and that's where the train crashed into it.\"\n\nRail operator SNCF has modernised level crossings across France in recent years, following numerous accidents, the BBC's Chris Bockman reports from Toulouse.\n\nMore than 150 emergency workers and four helicopters were deployed as part of the rescue effort.\n\nTransport Minister Elisabeth Borne called the crash a \"terrible accident\" and Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer was due to visit a counselling centre set up at the Christian Bourquin College on Friday.\n\nA statement from the education minister's office said he would visit \"to support students, families, teachers and the entire educational community\".\n\nIn a tweet, French President Emmanuel Macron offered his condolences: \"All my thoughts for the victims of this terrible accident involving a school bus, as well as their families. The state is fully mobilised to help them.\"", "Survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire have attended a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral, alongside members of the Royal Family.", "A large proportion of the people living in buildings close to Grenfell Tower show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), six months after the tragedy, which killed 71 people, the NHS says.\n\nCaused by very stressful or distressing events, PTSD can lead to nightmares and flashbacks, with sufferers often feeling isolated, irritable and guilty.\n\nSo far, about 1,000 people have been screened for symptoms, with the number of PTSD sufferers at the highest end of a range of expectations after comparing it to other recent tragedies such as terror attacks.\n\nOverall, the NHS believes that as many as 11,000 people - including survivors, witnesses and the bereaved - could be suffering from the psychological impact of the fire, which took many hours to be brought under control.\n\nIt anticipates that thousands of these people will need therapy.\n\nA special team of more than 50 therapists and 20 outreach workers has been established, called the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service, in what the NHS says is its largest ever mental health response to a traumatic event.\n\nMore than 500 people have already attended sessions with NHS therapists to treat symptoms of anxiety and PTSD. So far, 150 children have completed or are having continuing therapy.\n\n\"I'm not coping,\" one woman told an outreach worker.\n\nShe lives in a flat in what is known as the walkways - right next to the burnt-out shell of Grenfell Tower, a potent and ever-present symbol of the fire.\n\nHer eyes filling with tears, she said she was having flashbacks and was struggling to sleep but had begun to get therapy, which was helping.\n\n\"I thought I would cope, but I can't because the tower is still there. It's a big reminder, which you can't forget.\"\n\nThe outreach work involves teams of NHS staff going door to door, working outwards from Grenfell Tower.\n\nThey ask each person how they are feeling and look for signs of trauma. If appropriate, they complete an on-the-spot PTSD questionnaire.\n\nThey call it \"street-screening\", and so far staff have screened about 1,000 people living close to the tower.\n\nThe rates of PTSD picked up by the screening range from 75% of those screened in the buildings nearest the tower to 40% in buildings a little further away.\n\nBut rates vary considerably from building to building.\n\nThe plan is to continue street-screening outwards from the tower until the PTSD rate drops.\n\nBut there are dozens of high-rise buildings, some miles away from Grenfell Tower, that had a clear line of sight to the burning building, and whose residents may also have been affected.\n\nThe teams have also screened survivors from Grenfell Tower, most of whom are still living in hotels. I joined two outreach workers as they spoke to one survivor.\n\n\"I'm feeling down, not depressed, but down.\"\n\n\"Is that every day, every other day, or for several days?\"\n\nThe man lived on the 13th floor, with his wife, son and daughter. The whole family survived.\n\nThe other family members are getting counselling, but he felt he didn't need help. Six months on, he's now changed his mind.\n\nThe family owned a leasehold flat in the tower, and he says the continuing process of seeking compensation from Kensington and Chelsea Council has made him feel increasingly anxious.\n\n\"I tried to prove to myself that I can manage without [counselling], but I think it's the right time now to ask for help.\n\n\"I've felt a bit sad, and I don't want to give up just because I'm not well. I have the feeling it's better to give up - that's the reason I'm going to accept some help.\"\n\nKensington and Chelsea Council says it is doing all it can to ensure survivors and local residents have access to the mental health support they need.\n\nThe outreach team is dealing with numerous logistical challenges, including incomplete lists of survivors living in temporary accommodation and frequently changing council key-workers who are meant to be the main point of contact with survivors.\n\nThe team has even had to provide therapy to key-workers who have themselves become traumatised by their work.\n\nThe Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service is the first response of its kind\n\nIt's all been an unusual challenge for the NHS.\n\n\"I think the outreach model is completely unique,\" said Emma Kennedy, from the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service.\n\n\"Seeking out people, bringing them in, and walking through the journey of therapy with them, hasn't been tried in any other service in terms of disaster response.\"\n\nPeople who score highly enough under the street-screening tool for PTSD or anxiety are referred to therapists for counselling, often a course of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or another talking therapy.\n\nShe said many had not been able to process their memories of what had happened on the night of the fire, because of the extreme stress they had been under as they had tried to escape the burning building.\n\n\"The memory evolves like a multi-sensory video which can be re-triggered at any time.\"\n\n\"People might start to get clips of what they saw, what they heard - even smelt, tasted, felt - on that night coming back to them in the months and years afterwards, and that can be very distressing.\"\n\nOne Grenfell resident now experiences those feelings whenever he goes downstairs.\n\n\"They actually smell smoke, and have the same fear they felt that night.\"\n\nTreating PTSD of this type involves a process known as reliving - having the patient talk through these experiences in minute detail in order to update the memory in a safe environment.\n\nI joined one patient, who asked to remain anonymous, during a CBT session. He witnessed the fire and lost three close family members in it.\n\n\"When doing therapy, you're basically writing down what you've got in your head, but you're also re-writing what you've got in your head in a way that you're able to deal with,\" he said.\n\n\"It most definitely put things into perspective for me, in terms of filtering the important thoughts and using them to move forward with my life.\"\n\nMany people living in the area say the constant physical presence of the gutted shell of the tower itself triggers flashbacks.\n\nAlastair Bailey, a consultant clinical psychologist who runs the adult part of the service, says it's a very difficult reminder for people.\n\n\"There's been a lot of support in the local community, and that's a really helpful thing.\n\n\"But there's another thing which is not so helpful in terms of developing trauma, and that's called rumination, which is going over what's happened to you again and again. Both things have occurred.\"\n\nThe service expects to continue offering therapy for years to come, as PTSD can sometimes take years to develop.\n\nAbout £7m has been budgeted for the NHS health response this year, and up to £10m will be needed next year.\n\nThe Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service is a free and confidential NHS service for children and adults affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.\n\nYou can access the service at The Curve, 4 Bard Road, W10 6TP between 10:00 and 20:00 every day.\n\nYou can also call 0800 0234 650 (lines open 24/7), email cnw-tr.spa@nhs.net or if you are deaf or have a hearing impairment, you can use the Next Generation Text Service on 18001 0800 0234 650.\n• None Self refer to the Grenfell health and wellbeing service The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Thousands of offenders given community sentences are being supervised via a phone call every six weeks, the chief probation inspector has said.\n\nIn a report, Dame Glenys Stacey said widespread use of the practice in England and Wales was \"not acceptable\".\n\nThe findings also revealed some junior probation officers had 200 cases at once. Dame Glenys said poor supervision was \"a risk to the public\".\n\nThe government said supervision by phone was only for low-risk cases.\n\nBut it acknowledged that improvements were needed to raise the standard of probation services.\n\nThe government's probation reforms, known as Transforming Rehabilitation, launched three years ago and split offender supervision between a state-run service and 21 privately-operated companies.\n\nIt created the National Probation Service (NPS) to deal with high-risk offenders, while Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) were assigned low and medium-risk cases.\n\nAn offender given a community sentence may be required to undertake unpaid work or attend a government-sanctioned programme.\n\nIn her annual report, Dame Glenys said the government's probation reforms had created a \"two-tier and fragmented\" system in which the private companies were \"struggling\" and she questioned whether the probation system could \"deliver sufficiently well\".\n\nDame Glenys Stacey became the chief probation inspector in March 2016\n\nIt revealed some offenders were only met once before being placed on \"remote supervision\" by private probation providers.\n\nThat could amount to no more than a telephone call every six weeks, with no further face-to-face meetings taking place.\n\nInspectors said the calls were little more than \"checking in\" and made it difficult to assess any change in the risk posed to the public.\n\nThese arrangements are allowed under the terms of the contracts, but the report emphasised that face-to-face work was vital.\n\nIt also found that inexperienced probation staff were responsible for monitoring 200 offenders each, when the recommended maximum number is 60.\n\nDame Glenys said: \"I find it inexplicable that, under the banner of innovation, these developments were allowed.\n\n\"We should all be concerned, given the rehabilitation opportunities missed, and the risks to the public if individuals are not supervised well.\"\n\nJacob Tas, chief executive of social justice charity Nacro, said there had been almost daily reports of problems and called for the government to act \"urgently\" to address failings.\n\nIt is hard to see this report as anything other than a damning indictment of the probation reforms introduced in 2014, by Chris Grayling, when he was justice secretary.\n\nThe 113-page document details how the privatised part of the new system simply is not functioning properly, with unmanageable caseloads and supervision-by-phone the most glaring examples.\n\nThe significance of these failings should not be under-estimated.\n\nSuccessful rehabilitation hinges on having a relationship of trust between offender and probation officer. That is exceptionally difficult if they are not in regular face-to-face contact.\n\nThe findings will also do little to inspire confidence in community sentences at a time when the government is encouraging judges and magistrates to consider non-custodial alternatives to the more costly option of imprisonment.", "The NHS in England is to become the first healthcare system in the world to publish figures on avoidable patient deaths, the health secretary has said.\n\nBy the end of 2017, some 170 out of 223 trusts will publish data on deaths they believe could have been prevented.\n\nIt is estimated there are up to 9,000 deaths in hospitals each year caused by failings in NHS care.\n\nThe Department for Health said it wanted to ensure the NHS learned lessons from every case.\n\nThere is no standard definition of an avoidable death and each hospital trust makes its own judgment.\n\nThe data released by the organisations will include details of reviews and investigations into deaths, and information on any action taken as a result.\n\nAs part of the release from more than three quarters of England's trusts, families of patients will also be given full explanations over relatives' deaths.\n\nThese explanations, the department says, will be used to support bereaved relatives and carers, and will ensure they are treated with empathy, compassion and respect.\n\nOut of a total of around 240,000 deaths in hospital, the government says there are between 1,200 and 9,000 deaths each year caused by problems with care.\n\nTwo cases highlighted by the government are that of 18-year-old Connor Sparrowhawk and one-year-old William Mead.\n\nIn 2013, Connor Sparrowhawk died in the care of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust at Slade House in Oxford. The trust has accepted his death was \"entirely preventable\".\n\nMeanwhile, an NHS England report into the death of William Mead said he might have lived if 111 call handlers had realised the seriousness of his condition.\n\nWilliam, from Cornwall, died of blood poisoning after a chest infection.\n\nChris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents trusts in England, said it was \"right\" that patient safety was made a priority.\n\n\"It is important this work is carried forward in the spirit of learning and sharing good practice, rather than recriminations,\" he said.\n\nSome avoidable deaths are deemed to have occurred among terminally-ill patients who might have lived longer if they had spent their final weeks at home - and Mr Hopson added too many patients were still dying in hospital.\n\nAnnouncing the roll-out, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said each trust was being asked to use the same methodology to determine whether a death was preventable or not.\n\nBut he added the data released could not be used to rank trusts against each other because of different reporting procedures used when mistakes happened.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's Today: \"It's about hospitals creating a culture which makes it easy for staff on the frontline to say, 'look, something went wrong; I think it could have had a different outcome and we need to learn from this so it doesn't happen again'.\"", "Pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in England are dropping further behind their classmates in national primary school tests, statistics show.\n\nThe gap between SEN pupils and their peers has risen from 48 percentage points in 2016 to 52 this year.\n\nThe figures are revealed in school league tables, published by the Department for Education (DfE), showing the results of about 16,000 primaries.\n\nHead teachers say special-needs education funding is in crisis.\n\nThe government statistics show 18% of children with SEN reached the expected level in reading, writing and mathematics, compared with 70% of their peers without special needs.\n\nAlthough SEN pupils' results edged upwards on last year, when 14% made the grade, their non-SEN peers boosted their results more dramatically from 62% to 70%.\n\nTeachers have been warning that pupils with special needs, such as mild autism or dyslexia, would struggle in the tougher tests introduced last year.\n\nA National Association of Head Teachers' spokesman said it was \"one of those situations where money is the solution and schools need the government's help\".\n\nThe tables also showed disadvantaged pupils still perform far worse than all other pupils in England, with around half passing the tests, compared to nearly two-thirds of non-disadvantaged.\n\nThe gap between the two groups of pupils is now as wide as it was in 2012 at about 20 percentage points.\n\nHowever, there does appear to be a small catch-up (one percentage point) in poorer pupils' attainment on 2016 when the tougher tests were introduced and results for all pupils dipped significantly.\n\nNAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: \"This data is a useful indication of school performance but it is not the whole story. One thing it does do, though, is confirm what NAHT has been saying for a long time about social mobility.\n\n\"Raising the Key Stage 2 standard (Sats test) was not going to help close the gap. The issues that underpin inequality reach far beyond the school gates and exist throughout the communities that schools serve.\"\n\nBut Schools Minister Nick Gibb hailed the achievements of pupils and teachers, saying they had responded well to the more rigorous curriculum.\n\nThis set of pupils was the first to benefit from the government's new approach to phonics, he said.\n\n\"Pupils are now leaving primary school better prepared for the rigours of secondary school and for future success in their education,\" Mr Gibb added.\n\nSorry, your browser cannot display this map\n\nOverall, pupils have scored better in their Sats results than last year, which was the first year of the new tests.\n\nThe DfE said this was partly because of \"increased familiarity\" with the new tests.\n\nThere was a nine percentage point increase in the proportion of black pupils passing the tests, to 60% - just one percentage point behind the national average and white pupils.\n\nThe top five local authorities were all London boroughs, with Richmond upon Thames at the top, Kensington and Chelsea coming second and Bromley third.\n\nThe inner city boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham and Hackney have claimed the fourth and fifth spots.\n\nIn 1999, Hackney, which had been one of the worst performing boroughs, became the first local education authority to be taken out of council control.\n\nIn this year's tests across England, local authority schools slightly outperformed academies and free schools, with 62% of their schools reaching the expected standard compared with 61% of academies and free schools.\n\nIn all, 511 schools - 4% of the total - have fallen beneath the government's expectations or \"floor standard\", where fewer than 65% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics and the school did not achieve sufficient progress scores in all three subjects.\n\nThis is an improvement on last year, where 665 - 5% - primaries were found wanting.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nThere is \"no evidence\" that the third Ashes Test between Australia and England in Perth has been \"corrupted\", says the International Cricket Council.\n\nThe Sun claimed Indian bookmakers offered to fix aspects of the match.\n\n\"We have now received all materials relating to The Sun investigation,\" said Alex Marshall, the ICC general manager anti-corruption.\n\n\"There is no indication that any players in this Test have been in contact with the alleged fixers.\"\n\nThe Test started on Thursday at 02:30 GMT, with Australia leading 2-0 in the series. They will regain the Ashes if they win any of the final three matches.\n\nThe Sun reported that a gang, working with an Australian called 'the Silent Man', was charging up to £138,000 to influence the game.\n\nNo England players were named as being involved but the gang claimed to have recruited one former Australian player.\n\nEngland captain Joe Root, who said he had been \"made aware\" of the claims, told BBC Test Match Special: \"It's very sad that this has been written about.\n\n\"We've got to focus on this Test match and do everything we can to win it.\"\n\nAustralia skipper Steve Smith said: \"As far as I know, there's nothing that's been going on or anything like that. There's no place for that in our game.\"\n\nIt is unclear how the bookmakers proposed to fix the Test, although, according to the newspaper, one told Sun investigators he could \"get players to follow 'scripts' - such as how many runs would be scored in a session, or an innings, when a wicket will fall and what a team would do if it won the toss\".\n\nMarshall added: \"We take the allegations extremely seriously and they will be investigated by the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit working with anti-corruption colleagues from member countries.\"The allegations are wide-ranging and relate to various forms cricket in several countries, including T20 tournaments.\"\n\nAn England and Wales Cricket Board statement read: \"We are aware of these allegations and there is no suggestion that any of the England team is involved in any way.\"\n\nCricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland said: \"Cricket Australia, the ICC and the England and Wales Cricket Board have a very strong stance against corruption.\n\n\"Any credible allegations will be taken very seriously. We have a zero-tolerance approach to corruption and we take seriously any allegation that threaten to undermine the integrity of our sport.\"\n\nBased on the information in the dossier received from the newspaper, Sutherland said: \"There's no evidence, substance or justification to suspect that this Test match or the Ashes series as a whole is subject to corrupt activities.\"\n\nHe said Cricket Australia had \"full confidence\" in its players.\n• None What difference does an extra 5mph make for a fast bowler?\n• None Cruel comedy and eviscerations - England's misery at the Waca", "The former UKIP leader suggested the UK had caved in over the \"divorce bill\" and citizens' rights\n\nThe UK has \"danced to the EU's tune\" during the Brexit negotiations, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has claimed.\n\nIn a debate in Strasbourg, he called the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, \"Theresa the appeaser\", saying she had \"given in on virtually everything\".\n\nThe European Parliament later voted to endorse an agreement struck by the UK and European Commission which is set to move the talks on to their next phase.\n\nBut MEPs also insisted the UK must honour the commitments it has made.\n\nAmid concerns about whether Friday's agreement on citizens' rights, the Northern Ireland border and the so-called \"divorce bill\" is legally binding, Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's Brexit spokesman, said he had been reassured the UK would not \"back-track\" on its commitments.\n\nThe agreement should be converted into a legal text in weeks, not months, he added.\n\nIn a symbolic but politically significant vote, the European Parliament backed the European Commission's view that sufficient progress had been made on so-called divorce issues to move to talks covering a transition phase and the EU's future relations with the UK.\n\nThe EU's negotiator Michel Barnier said there was \"no going back\" on Friday's agreement - which is expected to be rubber-stamped by all other 27 EU members later this week.\n\n\"It has been noted and recorded and is going to have to be translated into a legally binding withdrawal agreement,\" he said.\n\nDuring the debate, several MEPs criticised the UK's Brexit Secretary, David Davis, for suggesting in an interview on Sunday that the first-phase agreement was more of a \"statement of intent\" than a \"legally enforceable thing\" - comments he has since backed away from.\n\nGerman Christian Democrat MEP Manfred Weber, who leads the centre-right EPP group, said the remarks were \"not helpful\" for building trust between the two sides.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Farage - who has campaigned for 20 years to take the UK out of the EU - also attacked the British government, saying Mr Barnier \"didn't need\" to make many concessions to Theresa May.\n\n\"I'm not surprised you're all very pleased with Theresa the appeaser - who has given in on virtually everything,\" he said.\n\n\"She has danced to your tune all the way through this. You must be very, very happy indeed.\"\n\nWarning of a further betrayal of Brexit voters, he said the prospect of a two-year transition after the UK left in March 2019 would be the \"biggest deception yet\", meaning the UK would have left the EU \"in name only\".\n\n\"I think Brexit at some point in the future may need to be refought all over again,\" he added.\n\nBut defending the British prime minister, Conservative MEP Syed Kamall said both sides had needed to make compromises and concessions in order to \"avoid a no-deal situation\".\n\nImportant progress had been made, he added, when both sides \"understood the need for flexibility and focused on building a better future rather than looking back at the past\".\n• None Rebel Tory: I'll stand up and be counted", "Four siblings died as a result of the fire and their mother is in a coma in hospital\n\nA third person charged with murder over the deaths of four children in a house fire in Salford has appeared in court.\n\nDavid Worrall, 25, of no fixed address, who has also been charged with arson and attempted murder, appeared before Manchester and Salford magistrates.\n\nHe will appear at Manchester Crown Court on Friday, alongside Zak Bolland, 23, and Courtney Brierley, 20, both of Worsley, who face similar charges.\n\nFour siblings aged three to 15 died as a result of the blaze on Monday.\n\nDemi Pearson, 15, died at the scene on Jackson Street in Walkden. Her brother and sister, Brandon, eight, and Lacie, seven, died later in hospital.\n\nTheir mother Michelle, 35, is in a coma in a serious condition in hospital and unaware of their deaths.\n\nThe fire started at the house on Jackson Street in Walkden at 05:00 GMT on Monday\n\nTwo 16-year-olds, who cannot be named for legal reasons, managed to escape the blaze, which broke out at about 05:00 GMT.\n\nMr Worrall spoke only to confirm his name, age, nationality and that he was of no fixed address. He is accused of four counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder and one count of arson with intent to endanger life.\n\nMr Worrall, Mr Bolland and Ms Brierley have all been remanded in custody until the preliminary hearing on Friday.\n\nBoth Mr Bolland and Ms Brierley were due to appear at the crown court on Thursday but their hearing was postponed.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The most senior loyalist ever to agree to become a so-called supergrass volunteered to kill a Catholic to cover up the fact he was an informer.\n\nSean McParland died after being shot while babysitting in Belfast in 1994.\n\nThe Ulster Volunteer Force was to decide the identity of the killer by flipping a coin, Belfast Crown Court heard.\n\nBut Gary Haggarty volunteered to be the \"primary gunman\" because he feared he was suspected of being a police agent.\n\nThe intended target was a relative of Mr McParland, who was 55.\n\nHaggarty, an ex-commander of the UVF's north Belfast unit, was working as a paid Special Branch agent at the time of the killing.\n\nHe worked as an informer for 13 years.\n\nIn January 2010, he offered to become a supergrass - officially referred to as an assisting offender - and offered to give evidence against other UVF members he said were also involved in the crimes he committed.\n\nHaggarty, 45, a long-time police informer, has pleaded guilty to 202 terror offences, including five murders, as his part of a controversial state deal that offered a significantly reduced prison term in return for giving evidence against other terrorist suspects.\n\nThe two-day sentencing hearing is expected to conclude on Thursday.\n\nHaggarty is likely to be given mandatory life sentences for each of the murders he has admitted.\n\nBut he will also receive a significant reduction in his sentence in return for the amount of information he has provided as an assisting offender.\n\nMr Justice Colton will make that decision based on the information put before him during the hearing.\n\nIt is not clear when the sentence is likely to be imposed.\n\nHaggarty is to be the star prosecution witness in the trial of a man accused of murdering Catholic workmen Gary Convie and Eamon Fox in Belfast city centre in May 1994.\n\nBut before he can give evidence he must first be sentenced for his own crimes.\n\nGary Haggarty was the commander of the Ulster Volunteer Force's north Belfast unit\n\nThat formal process began on Wednesday when a prosecution lawyer outlined some of the details of Haggarty's confessions to police.\n\nIn one of the biggest and most complex cases undertaken in Northern Ireland, he was interviewed by detectives more than 1,000 times and the information he gave them ran beyond 12,000 pages.\n\nThe extent of his criminal activities is staggering.\n\nAs well as pleading guilty to 202 crimes, he asked that 301 others be taken into consideration.\n\nIn addition to the killing of Sean McParland, he also admitted the murders of:\n\nRelatives of some of the victims were in court on Wednesday as a prosecution lawyer spent more than four hours outlining the extent of Haggarty's activities.\n\nHe included harrowing details of some of the incidents.\n\nThe judge was told how three of Sean McParland's young grandchildren ran screaming from his house in Skegoneill Avenue when the UVF burst in to kill him.\n\nEamon Fox and Gary Convie were shot dead while eating their lunch at a building site in 1994\n\nIn police interviews, Haggarty said he shot the 55-year-old in the chest from close range.\n\nHe had planned to fire another five bullets into his chest, but could not do so because his gun jammed.\n\nThe prosecution lawyer said Haggarty, who was promoted within the UVF after the shooting, expressed regret during interviews after agreeing to become a supergrass.\n\n\"He said he is sorry, it was the wrong person killed, he is sorry for the kids that were there,\" said the lawyer.\n\nThe court was also told that Haggarty acknowledged that two more of his victims, Eamon Fox and Gary Convie, were innocent men and not republicans as claimed by the UVF at the time.\n\n\"He said he did not believe they were republicans, but just soft easy targets,\" added the lawyer.\n\nKieran Fox, one of Eamon Fox's six children, was one of the relatives in court as the details of Haggarty's litany of crimes was outlined, and welcomed the admission.\n\n\"To hear that Haggarty has admitted before they actually carried out the shooting that my dad and Gary were both innocent, that they were not republicans as they claimed at the time, it was nice to hear that part,\" he said.\n\nThe court also heard harrowing details about the extent of injuries to John Harbinson.\n\nThe dead man's son was also in the public gallery but left shortly after details of the injuries were described.\n\nHaggarty was involved in abducting Mr Harbinson, but told police he thought he was going to be beaten and shot in the legs, rather than killed.\n\nThe hearing will continue on Thursday, when a lawyer representing Gary Haggarty will outline details he gave his police handlers during 13 years as an informer.\n\nHe is said to have provided information on:\n\nProsecutors have said Haggarty's evidence is insufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of obtaining a conviction against 11 other suspected UVF members and two former police intelligence officers, allegedly his then handlers.\n\nThe police bristle at the very mention of the word supergrass, because of its association with a series of high-profile trials in the 1980s.\n\nHundreds of republicans and loyalists were convicted on the word of informers and suspects who agreed to give evidence in return for reduced sentences, new identities and lives outside Northern Ireland.\n\nThose deals were done at a political level, with the details kept secret.\n\nTechnically, those individuals were assisting offenders but they became known as \"touts\" and \"supergrasses\" in communities.\n\nThe system collapsed in 1985 because of concerns about the credibility of the evidence provided by the supergrasses.\n\nMembers of the judiciary complained that they were being used as political tools to implement government security policy.\n\nA change in law in 2005 implemented safeguards for trials of that kind.", "Jayda Fransen and Paul Golding outside the courtroom in Belfast on Thursday\n\nThe deputy leader of far-right group Britain First has been re-arrested after appearing in a Belfast court over a speech she gave in the city.\n\nJayda Fransen, 31, of Anerley, south-east London, was in court over two charges relating to behaviour intended to or likely to stir up hatred.\n\nHer lawyer told the court that she intended to plead not guilty.\n\nBritain First leader Paul Golding, 35, was also arrested outside the courtroom before the hearing.\n\nMr Golding was accompanying Ms Fransen to the hearing.\n\nThe police confirmed they have arrested a 35-year-old man as part of their investigation into the \"Northern Ireland Against Terrorism\" rally in August.\n\nIt is believed Ms Fransen has been re-arrested over social media posts she made from a peace wall in Belfast on Wednesday.\n\nPeace walls are used to separate Catholic and Protestant residents in areas where tension between the two communities can run high.\n\nThe Britain First leader Paul Golding was alongside his deputy as she arrived at court.\n\nBut instead of accompanying her into the courtroom, Mr Golding was detained by detectives and taken to a nearby police station.\n\nBritain First supporters holding a demonstration outside the court building\n\nMs Fransen spoke only once in the dock - to confirm she understood the charges against her.\n\nA small group of supporters were in Belfast Magistrates Court - and after Ms Fransen was re-arrested, they staged a short but angry demonstration, holding placards and chanting in front of the media gathered outside the building.\n\nThe police confirmed that a 31-year-old woman had been arrested as part of an investigation into \"an incident at a peace wall\".\n\nMs Fransen, whose anti-Islamic social media posts were retweeted by US President Donald Trump in November, appeared in the dock at Belfast Magistrate's Court on Thursday.\n\nThe court ordered her not to go within 500m of any demonstration or parade in Northern Ireland as part of her release on bail.\n\nA detective told the court that a \"Free Speech for Jayda\" rally was planned to take place last weekend and was postponed because of snow.\n\n\"We have concerns there would be further offences and also concerns about public order,\" the detective said.\n\nProsecutors has also sought curbs on Ms Fransen's social media use but the judge expressed doubts over whether the court's jurisdiction extended that far.\n\nMs Fransen is due to return to court on 9 January.", "The Bank of England says confidence among households and businesses is likely to be supported by last week's progress in Brexit talks.\n\nLast week the European Union agreed that sufficient progress had been made in Brexit negotiations to allow progress to the next stage and to put in place a transition period from 2019.\n\nThe Bank said that would reduce the likelihood of a \"disorderly\" Brexit.\n\nBank policy makers have also agreed to keep interest rates on hold at 0.5%.\n\nIn minutes from the latest meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), the Bank said that since its previous meeting in early November there had been two \"significant events\": the Autumn Budget and progress in Brexit talks.\n\nLast week's agreement between the UK and the European Union would \"reduce the likelihood of a disorderly exit, and was likely to support household and corporate confidence,\" the MPC said.\n\nHowever, it said the reaction of households, businesses and markets to developments on Brexit talks \"remain the most significant influence on, and source of uncertainty about, the economic outlook\".\n\nSince their last meeting, members of the MPC have also assessed the potential impact of the November's Autumn Budget.\n\nThey believe it will lift the level of GDP by 0.3% by 2020, as Chancellor Philip Hammond eased up on austerity measures.\n\nOn Tuesday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that inflation as measured by the Consumer Prices Index hit 3.1% in November, the highest rate in nearly six years.\n\nThat rise above 3% means Bank of England governor Mark Carney has to write to the government and explain why inflation is so far above the target of 2%.\n\nThat letter will be revealed along with the Bank's next Quarterly Inflation report, next February.\n\nThe MPC today repeated its view that inflation was \"likely to be close to its peak\".\n\nThe Bank argues that the main reason behind rising inflation has been the decline in value of the pound, which fell sharply in June 2016 when the UK voted to leave the European Union.\n\nAlthough the pound has recovered in recent months, it is still about 10% lower against the dollar and the euro, which makes imported goods, food and raw materials more expensive.\n\nLast month the MPC decided to raise interest rates for the first time in 10 years.\n\nIt attributed the 0.25% rise to record-low unemployment, rising inflation and stronger global growth.\n\nIt also indicated there would be two more rises over the next three years.\n\nIn the minutes from its latest meeting the Bank said \"modest\" increases in interest rates would be needed over the next few years, but repeated previous promises that those rises would be \"gradual and to a limited extent\".\n\nHigher interest rates have a big impact on the economy.\n\nOf the 8.1 million households with a mortgage, 3.7 million - or 46% - are on either a standard variable rate or a tracker rate - which generally move in line with the official bank rate.\n\nA move higher can also give savers a lift as High Street banks generally have to raise their rates of interest.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSix months on from the Grenfell Tower fire, the grief and anger of those affected is still visibly raw.\n\nUnderneath the sadness there was dismay that many of the survivors attending the national memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral are still homeless.\n\nAnd while those who died in the fire were remembered, there was also comment on what has taken place since - and what more importantly still needs to be done.\n\nOn a cold and crisp December morning, there was a noticeable silence around St Paul's as people stopped to reflect.\n\nThe poignant lull continued as survivors, friends and families of those affected by the fire quietly began to make their way into the cathedral.\n\nThis silence was only broken when the majestic bells of St Paul's tolled across the City of London at 10:30.\n\nAt the same time a spontaneous ripple of applause broke out from the crowd as firefighters made their way up the cathedral steps.\n\nMany held white roses along with photographs of loved ones\n\nIt was a sign of the gratitude for the efforts of the emergency services on the night of 14 June.\n\nThe bells continued to chime for 30 minutes, a mark of respect to the 71 who died in Grenfell Tower.\n\nAnd it is clear why the survivors chose St Paul's, a cathedral where so many services of national significance have taken place over the years.\n\nOne mourner, Damel Carayol, 55, who lost his 44-year-old cousin Mary Mandy in the fire, said the service was needed and the venue fitting.\n\nThe service was held at St Paul's Cathedral, in central London\n\n\"It recognises the tragedy on a national level,\" he said.\n\n\"It's a step, but the biggest step will be accountability.\"\n\nAnd while the service was being held it became apparent that the anger and uncertainty on display in the aftermath of the fire remained.\n\nThere are currently dozens of households still stuck in hotels.\n\nOutside St Paul's, Prof Chris Imafidon said he knows of 20 people who lost everything in the fire.\n\n\"It is a very sad day,\" he said. \"But the families want a service from the council, not a church service.\n\n\"This is just a big distraction from the fact that six months on many families are still homeless and will be spending Christmas in a hotel,\" he said.\n\nThere was another moment of reflection after the service finished.\n\nHundreds of relatives and survivors gathered on the steps of St Paul's, displaying single white roses and photographs of those who perished.\n\nSome survivors then went straight back to their hotels.\n\nBut there was then a range of emotions on display as others moved on to St Paul's churchyard.\n\nVisibly upset, they hugged and consoled each other, while some continued to vent their anger and speak of feeling neglected.", "Rex Tillerson is reportedly an increasingly marginalised figure as secretary of state\n\nUS Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appears to have been contradicted by the White House and his own department, after suggesting the US had softened its position on talks with North Korea.\n\nMr Tillerson said on Tuesday that he was ready to open dialogue with Pyongyang, without preconditions.\n\nBut within a day, the White House and State Department had reiterated the administration's hard line, stressing that North Korea must first commit to abandoning its nuclear weapons.\n\nThe mixed messages mark the third time in recent months that Mr Tillerson has been publicly at odds with the White House.\n\nSpeaking at a policy forum in Washington DC on Tuesday, the secretary of state told the audience: \"We've said from the diplomatic side we're ready to talk any time North Korea, would like to talk, and we're ready to have the first meeting without precondition.\"\n\nHe added: \"Let's just meet and let's talk about the weather if you want and talk about whether it's going to be a square table or a round table if that's what you're excited about.\"\n\nIn response to the remarks, an unnamed White House official told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday: \"The administration is united in insisting that any negotiations with North Korea must wait until the regime fundamentally improves its behavior.\n\n\"As the secretary of state himself has said, this must include, but is not limited to, no further nuclear or missile tests.\"\n\nAnd Heather Nauert, a spokeswoman for the State Department, tweeted to reiterate the administration position that preconditions apply regarding North Korea's nuclear programme.\n\nShe said: \"Our policy on #DPRK has not changed. Diplomacy is our top priority through our maximum pressure campaign.\n\n\"We remain open to dialogue when North Korea is willing to conduct a serious & credible dialogue on the peaceful denuclearization, but that time is not now.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How could war with North Korea unfold?\n\nThe contradiction is the latest clash between the White House and the secretary of state.\n\nIn August, then-White House advisor Sebastian Gorka criticised Mr Tillerson after the secretary of state attempted to moderate President Trump's remarks on North Korea.\n\n\"The idea that Secretary Tillerson is going to discuss military matters is simply nonsensical, it is the job of Secretary Mattis, the secretary of defence, to talk about military matters,\" Mr Gorka told the BBC.\n\nThen in September, after Mr Tillerson said he had established direct lines of communication with Pyongyang, the president accused the secretary of \"wasting his time\".\n\n\"Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!\" Mr Trump tweeted.\n\nMr Trump has been widely reported to be considering replacing Mr Tillerson, a former chief executive of energy giant Exxon Mobil. But the president has called the reports fake news.\n\nMr Tillerson has also defended the Obama administration deal to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, which Mr Trump has railed against and sought to overturn.", "A three-year-old girl has become the fourth child to die after a house fire which also killed three of her siblings.\n\nLia Pearson was left critically ill after the blaze in Walkden, Salford, on Monday. She died in hospital.\n\nDemi, 15, died at the scene on Jackson Street. Her brother and sister, Brandon, eight, and Lacie, seven, died later in hospital.\n\nPosting on Facebook, Sandra Lever, who described Lia as her \"beautiful granddaughter\", said she \"had passed away peacefully\".\n\nTwo people have been charged with the murder of the three older children.\n\nZac Bolland, 23, and Courtney Brierley, 20, both of Worsley, Salford, were also charged with arson and four counts of attempted murder.\n\nOne of the charges of attempted murder is likely to be changed to murder following Lia's death, Greater Manchester Police said.\n\nMr Bolland and Ms Brierley were remanded in custody when they appeared before magistrates.\n\nAny new charges would be heard when they next appear at Manchester Crown Court, police added.\n\nBrandon and Lacie died in hospital on Monday\n\nTwo 16-year-olds - who can not be named for legal reasons - in the house at the time of the blaze which broke out at about 05:00 GMT managed to escape.\n\nGreater Manchester Police confirmed there had been incidents at the family's home prior to the blaze and it had referred the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).\n\nMichelle Pearson is in a serious condition in hospital\n\nFour children aged 15, eight, seven, and three, died in the blaze\n\nDemi Pearson, 15, was a pupil at Harrop Fold School in Salford\n\nDrew Povey, head teacher at Harrop Fold School, Worsley, which Demi attended, paid tribute to the popular pupil.\n\nHe said she was a \"really good kid… fun-loving… and funny\".\n\n\"I don't know anyone that didn't really get on well with her… and it was the same outside of school as well,\" he added.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Ms Dugdale made no comment to journalists when she returned to the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday afternoon\n\nScottish Labour has given its former leader a written warning over her controversial appearance on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!.\n\nBut the party said Kezia Dugdale would face no further disciplinary action after her stint on the reality TV show.\n\nMs Dugdale flew into Glasgow Airport from Australia just before midday.\n\nShe then met party bosses, including her successor Richard Leonard, and was formally reprimanded over her \"unauthorised absence\".\n\nMs Dugdale later arrived at Holyrood in time for a vote at 17:00, and made no comment to waiting journalists when she left the chamber a short time later.\n\nA statement subsequently released by Scottish Labour said Ms Dugdale had been interviewed by its parliamentary group executive.\n\nMs Dugdale insisted she had used her time in the jungle to promote Labour values\n\nThe statement added: \"Following a discussion between Richard Leonard, Kezia Dugdale, and the group executive, it has been decided that the group will reprimand Ms Dugdale by way of written warning. She will not face further action.\"\n\nIt quoted Ms Dugdale as saying that she had \"deep regret\" that her appearance on the reality show had \"caused issues in the first weeks of Richard Leonard's leadership\", and that she was now \"getting back to work\".\n\nMs Dugdale, who faced criticism over her three-week absence from the Scottish Parliament while appearing on the show, had earlier said it was \"good to be back\" in Scotland as she arrived at the airport,\n\nThe MSP was the second contestant to be voted off the ITV show, which was won by Made in Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo.\n\nShe spent a week in Australia after being evicted from the jungle - and has pledged to donate a percentage of her appearance fee to charity, but has not said exactly how much.\n\nShe took her seat in the Holyrood chamber in time for a vote at the end of the day's business\n\nVoting statistics released by the programme showed that Ms Dugdale won just 1.67% of the votes on the day she was evicted.\n\nAs she arrived in Glasgow, Ms Dugdale said the experience was one she was never going to forget.\n\nThe politician, who remained in Australia until after the programme's final on Sunday, had said she wanted to use her appearance to reach out to young people about political values.\n\nAsked if she felt she had in fact promoted Labour values she replied: \"I did so in the jungle and will continue to do so.\"\n\nMs Dugdale arrived back in Glasgow earlier on Wednesday after three weeks in Australia\n\nMs Dugdale, who was not suspended despite fierce criticism from some within Scottish Labour, has acknowledged she has \"a bit of work to do to make amends\".\n\nShe previously told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme it was difficult to seek approval for her appearance on the show during the leadership contest between Richard Leonard and Anas Sarwar.\n\nThe election, triggered by her resignation in August, was won by Mr Leonard - who immediately expressed his disappointment at Ms Dugdale's decision, which was made public just hours before the leadership result was announced.\n\nMr Leonard said at the time that the party would consider suspending Ms Dugdale - but UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he did not believe suspension would be appropriate.\n\nAfter being voted out on the jungle, Ms Dugdale said: \"I do understand that it's controversial, I do understand there are lots of people at home that are unhappy that I've taken part in this programme and I've got a bit of work to do to make amends.\n\n\"But please don't doubt the fact that I'm devoted to the Labour Party, I love my job and I think I'm better-placed to do it for a long time now having had this experience.\"", "The Tory rebels, and the government, believed that a last-minute panicked concession from the government side had walked Theresa May back from the brink of defeat.\n\nFrantic conversations between the government, the whips, the party managers and their MPs who were tempted to rebel had been taking place all day.\n\nWe saw cabinet ministers take MPs aside - for just a quiet chat of course - in the closing moments of the vote.\n\nAnd during the voting, which always takes about 15 minutes, some of those who were tempted tweeted that they had decided to abstain - the last minute promise from the minister, Dominic Raab, had changed their minds or delayed the clash.\n\nWe saw as one of the possible rebels, a new Scottish MP, Paul Masterton, was cajoled by the Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson (the chief whip until weeks ago) - then after the conversation, picked up his mobile phone and tweeted that he was going to abstain. But the arm twisting and arguments failed.\n\nAs the MPs who count the votes made their way to the Speaker's chair, the opposition teller made their way to the outside of the despatch box.\n\nIt's a physical signal of telling MPs who has won before the official announcement takes place. As that happened the House of Commons erupted - well at least the Labour side.\n\nMinisters looked like they felt sick. The deputy speaker had to call for silence so the chamber could hear the actual result.\n\nTotal silence, and then disbelief as the result was read out. The government had been beaten after all, by only four votes.\n\nIt's the first time that Theresa May has been defeated on her own business in the Commons. She has to front up in Brussels tomorrow with other EU leaders only hours after an embarrassing loss in Parliament.\n\nBeyond the red faces in government tonight, does it really matter? Ministers tonight are divided on that. Two cabinet ministers have told me while it's disappointing it doesn't really matter in the big picture.\n\nIt's certainly true that the Tory party is so divided over how we leave the EU that the Parliamentary process was always going to be very, very choppy.\n\nBut another minister told me the defeat is \"bad for Brexit\" and was openly frustrated and worried about their colleagues' behaviour.\n\nIt's possible too that it was a miscalculation that could have been avoided. Had the minister at the despatch box put forward the concession even a few hours earlier, that tiny number of votes might have gone the other way.\n\nThis is only the first big piece of legislation related to our withdrawal from the EU and it has run into trouble.\n\nAnd one of the leading Tory rebels predicted the government will have to drop one of its other plans, to put a Brexit date in the withdrawal bill, next week.\n\nThe broader risk for May is not just that she will have to budge on this particular issue, but that the small group of rebels in the Tory party is strengthened by actually having had this kind of impact - and the opposition parties are already emboldened.\n\nTheresa May had been having her first good week in many, many months. That brief respite just might have come to an end.\n\nStephen Hammond, one of the rebels, has just been sacked from his position as deputy Conservative Party chairman. Tonight, no-one is playing nice.", "Salma Hayek, seen here promoting Frida in 2003, which she starred in and co-produced\n\nActress Salma Hayek has described Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein as a rage-fuelled \"monster\", alleging he sexually harassed and threatened her.\n\nWriting in the New York Times, Hayek said Weinstein once told her: \"I will kill you, don't think I can't.\"\n\nDozens of actresses, including Rose McGowan, Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow, have accused Weinstein of harassment or assault.\n\nWriting in the New York Times, Hayek, 51, described working with the film mogul on what she called her \"greatest ambition\" - telling the story of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.\n\nShe wrote that, after striking a deal with Weinstein for the rights of the film that would eventually become 2002's Frida, she was forced to repeatedly refuse sexual advances.\n\n\"No to me taking a shower with him.\n\n\"No to letting him watch me take a shower.\n\n\"No to letting him give me a massage.\n\n\"No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage.\n\n\"No to letting him give me oral sex.\n\n\"No to my getting naked with another woman,\" she wrote.\n\nShe went on to accuse him of threatening to shut the film down unless she filmed a nude sex scene with another actress.\n\n\"I had to take a tranquilizer, which eventually stopped the crying but made the vomiting worse,\" she wrote of her emotional turmoil at filming a scene she thought unnecessary.\n\n\"As you can imagine, this was not sexy, but it was the only way I could get through the scene.\"\n\nWeinstein's spokeswoman said in a statement: \"Mr Weinstein does not recall pressuring Salma to do a gratuitous sex scene with a female co-star and he was not there for the filming.\"\n\n\"All of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma are not accurate and others who witnessed the events have a different account of what transpired.\"\n\nFrida would eventually gather six Oscar nominations, including a Best Actress nod for Hayek.\n\nMr Weinstein has been accused of rape, sexual assault and harassment, but has \"unequivocally denied\" any allegations of non-consensual relationships.", "Each December, the Geminid meteor shower illuminates the night sky with a massive display of shooting stars. Cameras over China captured the peak of the show.", "The Ministry of Justice has released footage of a gang caught using a drone to deliver contraband to prisons. The ringleader, Craig Hickinbottom, organised the flights from behind bars. He's been sentenced to an extra seven years and two months in jail.", "The plight of British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained for almost six years in Iran on spying charges, focused attention on Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency being held in the Islamic Republic's prisons.\n\nIran does not recognise dual nationality, and there are no exact figures on the number of such detainees given the sensitive nature of the information. Some of the most prominent are:\n\nMorad Tahbaz and fellow conservationists were using cameras to track endangered species when they were arrested\n\nThe 67-year-old businessman and wildlife conservationist, who also holds American and British citizenship, was arrested during a crackdown on environmental activists in January 2018. His Canadian-Iranian colleague, Kavous Seyed-Emami, died in custody a few weeks later in unexplained circumstances.\n\nThe authorities accused Tahbaz and seven other conservationists of collecting classified information about Iran's strategic areas under the pretext of carrying out environmental and scientific projects.\n\nThe conservationists - members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation - had been using cameras to track endangered species including the Asiatic cheetah and Persian leopard, according to Amnesty International.\n\nUN human rights experts said it was \"hard to fathom how working to preserve the Iranian flora and fauna can possibly be linked to conducting espionage against Iranian interests\", while a government committee concluded that there was no evidence to suggest they were spies.\n\nBut in October 2018, Tahbaz and three of his fellow conservationists were charged with \"corruption on earth\", which carries the death penalty. The charge was later changed to \"co-operating with the hostile state of the US\". Three others were charged with espionage, and a fourth was accused of acting against national security.\n\nAll eight denied the charges and Amnesty International said there was evidence that they had been subjected to torture in order to extract forced \"confessions\".\n\nIn November 2019, they were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to 10 years and ordered to return allegedly \"illicit income\".\n\nHuman Rights Watch denounced what it said was an unfair trial, during which the defendants were apparently unable to see the full dossier of evidence against them.\n\nThe Court of Appeals reportedly upheld Tahbaz's convictions in February 2020.\n\nUN human rights experts warned in January 2021 that Tahbaz's health had continuously deteriorated during his imprisonment and that he had been denied access to proper treatment.\n\nIn March 2022, then-UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Tahbaz had been released from Evin prison on furlough.\n\nThe announcement came on the same day that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and fellow British national Anoosheh Ashoori were released by Iran and allowed to return to the UK.\n\nHowever, Tahbaz was returned to Evin just two days later. The UK Foreign Office said the Iranians had told them it was so that he could be fitted with an electronic ankle tag.\n\nHe was not allowed to resume his furlough and subsequently went on hunger strike for nine days to protest against his continued detention.\n\nHis daughter Roxanne said in April 2022 that he had \"made it very clear that he feels abandoned\" by the UK government.\n\nThe Foreign Office said Iran \"committed to releasing Morad from prison on an indefinite furlough\", but had \"failed to honour that commitment\".\n\nIn August 2023, Tahbaz was taken out of Evin and moved to house arrest along with three other Americans - including Siamak Namazi and Emad Shargi - after the US and Iran agreed a prisoner exchange.\n\nIn return for allowing them and a fifth American already under home confinement to leave, the US will reportedly release five Iranians jailed there and allow Iran to access $6bn (£4.7bn) of assets frozen in South Korea.\n\nSiamak Namazi was arrested in 2015 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges\n\nSiamak Namazi, 51, worked as head of strategic planning at Dubai-based Crescent Petroleum.\n\nHe was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in October 2015, while his father Baquer, 86, was arrested in February 2016 after Iranian officials granted him permission to visit his son in prison.\n\nThat October, they were both sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Revolutionary Court for \"co-operating with a foreign enemy state\". An appeals court upheld their sentence in August 2017.\n\nTheir lawyer said they denied the charges against them. He also complained that they had been held in solitary confinement and denied access to legal representation, and had suffered health problems. Siamak is also alleged to have been tortured.\n\nBaquer was released to house arrest on medical grounds in 2018, but his health continued to deteriorate. His sentence was commuted to time served in early 2020, but he was only allowed to leave Iran for medical treatment in October 2022.\n\nIn January 2023, Siamak went on a week-long hunger strike to protest against the failure of the US to free him and other dual nationals despite President Joe Biden's promise to make bringing them home a top priority.\n\nSeven months later, Siamak was again released to house arrest in anticipation of a prisoner exchange agreed by the US and Iran.\n\nHis brother, Babak, said in response: \"While this is a positive change, we will not rest until Siamak and others are back home; we continue to count the days until this can happen.\"\n\nThe Iranian-American businessman and his wife moved to Iran from the US in 2017.\n\nShargi, who is 58, was initially detained by the Revolutionary Guards in April 2018, when he was working in sales for Sarava, an Iranian venture capital fund. He was released on bail that December, when officials told him that a court had cleared him of spying charges that he had denied. However, authorities refused to return his passport.\n\nIn November 2020, Shargi was summoned by a Revolutionary Court and told that he had been convicted of espionage in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison, his family said. He was not imprisoned immediately and was released on bail ahead of an appeal.\n\nIn January 2021, Iran's judiciary spokesman said an unnamed \"defendant\" facing spying charges had been arrested as he attempted to leave the country while on bail. It came a week after a state-backed news agency reported that Shargi had been detained while trying to cross Iran's western border illegally.\n\nHis daughters wrote in the Washington Post in April 2021 that he was \"trapped in terrible conditions\" in prison and that he had only been allowed a couple of short, monitored phone calls.\n\nIn August 2023, Shargi was released to house arrest in anticipation of a prisoner exchange between the US and Iran.\n\nHis sister, Neda, said in a statement: \"My family has faith in the work that President Biden and government officials have undertaken to bring our families home and hope to receive that news soon.\"\n\nAhmadreza Djalali was sentenced to death in October 2017\n\nThe 51-year-old specialist in emergency medicine was arrested in April 2016 while on a business trip from Sweden.\n\nAmnesty International said Djalali was held at Evin prison by intelligence ministry officials for seven months, three of them in solitary confinement, before he was given access to a lawyer.\n\nHe alleged that he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment during that period, including threats to kill or otherwise harm his children, who live in Sweden, and his mother, who lives in Iran.\n\nIn October 2017, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran convicted Djalali of \"spreading corruption on Earth\" and sentenced him to death. His lawyers said the court relied primarily on evidence obtained under duress and alleged that he was prosecuted solely because of his refusal to use his academic ties in European institutions to spy for Iran.\n\nTwo months later, Iranian state television also aired what it said was footage of Djalali confessing that he had spied on Iran's nuclear programme for Israel. It suggested he was responsible for identifying two Iranian nuclear scientists who were killed in bomb attacks in 2010.\n\nIn February 2018, Sweden confirmed that it had given Djalali citizenship and demanded that his death sentence not be carried out. He had previously been a permanent resident.\n\nIn November 2021, Djalali's wife, Vida Mehran-Nia, said he had been informed by prison authorities that he faced imminent execution. He spent five months in solitary confinement, awaiting execution, until April 2021, when he reportedly was moved to a multi-occupancy cell.\n\nJust over a year later, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said Djalali's death sentence was \"final\" and was \"on the agenda\" of authorities.\n\nHe also insisted that the case was not linked to the war crimes trial in Sweden of former Iranian judiciary official Hamid Nouri, who was sentenced to life in prison over what prosecutors said was his leading role in the mass executions of Iranian opposition supporters in 1988.\n\nDjalali's wife and human rights groups have said Djalali is a \"hostage\" who Iran is threatening to execute in an attempt to negotiate a swap for Mr Nouri.\n\nNahid Taghavi was an advocate for women's rights in Iran\n\nThe 68-year-old retired architect, who is a German-Iranian dual national, was arrested at her apartment in Tehran in October 2020 and accused of \"endangering security\".\n\nShe was placed in solitary confinement at Evin prison and not given access to lawyers, German diplomats or members of her family, according to her daughter Mariam Claren.\n\nTaghavi was repeatedly subjected to coercive questioning without the presence of lawyers, according to Amnesty International. Interrogators reportedly asked her about meeting people to discuss women's and labour rights, and possessing literature about those issues.\n\nIn August 2021, she was convicted by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran of \"forming a group composed of more than two people with the purpose of disrupting national security\" and \"spreading propaganda against the system\". She was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison.\n\nTaghavi had denied the charges, the first of which was apparently related to a social media account about women's rights, and Amnesty said the trial was \"grossly unfair\".\n\nMs Claren wrote on Twitter that her mother \"did not commit any crime. Unless freedom of speech, freedom of thought are illegal\".\n\nShe has said her mother has been denied adequate healthcare by prison and prosecution authorities, despite doctors saying in September 2021 that she needed surgery on her spinal column.\n\nIn July 2022, Taghavi was granted urgent medical leave from prison for treatment for back and neck problems. She was sent back to Evin four months later.\n\nA fellow inmate in the prison warned in June 2023 that Taghavi's life was \"in danger\" following a further 220 days in solitary confinement.\n\n\"The pain is so severe that it can be clearly seen on her face. She can barely get out of her bed,\" a message posted on human rights activist Narges Mohammadi's Instagram account said.\n\nThe 64-year-old researcher at Sciences-Po university in Paris is a specialist in social anthropology and the political anthropology of post-revolutionary Iran, and has written a number of books.\n\nAt the time of her arrest in Tehran in June 2019, she was examining the movement of Shia clerics between Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, and had spent time in the holy city of Qom.\n\nAdelkhah was accused of espionage and other security-related offences.\n\nShe protested her innocence and after going on hunger strike, she was admitted to hospital for treatment for severe kidney damage.\n\nProsecutors dropped the espionage charge before her trial began at the Revolutionary Court in April 2020. The following month, the court sentenced Adelkhah to five years in prison for conspiring against national security and an additional year for propaganda against the establishment.\n\nFrench Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned the sentence and demanded her release.\n\nIn October 2020, due to what Sciences-Po called her \"health circumstances\", Adelkhah was released on bail and allowed to return to her home in Tehran.\n\nHowever, Iran's judiciary announced in January 2022 that it had returned Adelkhah to prison, accusing her of \"knowingly violating the limits of house arrest dozens of times\". French President Emmanuel Macron called the decision \"entirely arbitrary\".\n\nIn February 2023, Adelkhah Adelkhah was released from Evin prison after three and a half years in detention.\n\nHowever, Iranian authorities refused to return her identity papers, making it impossible for her to leave the country or resume her work as a researcher.\n\nJamshid Sharmahd with his wife (L) and daughter, Gazelle\n\nSharmahd, 68, who lived in the US, arrived in the United Arab Emirates in July 2020 and was awaiting a connecting flight to India when he disappeared. It is believed that he was kidnapped by Iranian agents in Dubai and then forcibly taken to Iran via Oman.\n\nThe following month, Iran's intelligence ministry announced that it had arrested Sharmahd following a \"complex operation\", without providing any details. It also published a video in which he appeared blindfolded and confessed to various crimes.\n\nIn February 2023, Iran's judiciary said Sharmahd had been sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran after being found guilty of \"spreading corruption on Earth through planning and leading terror operations\".\n\nIt alleged that he was the leader of a terrorist group known as Tondar and that he had \"planned 23 terror attacks\", of which \"five were successful\", including the 2008 bombing of a mosque in Shiraz in that killed 14 people.\n\nTondar - which means \"thunder\" in Persian - is another name of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran (KAI), a little-known US-based opposition group that seeks to restore the monarchy overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.\n\nAccording to Amnesty International, Sharmahd created a website to publish statements from the KAI, including claims of explosions inside Iran.\n\nHe also read out statements in radio and video broadcasts.\n\nHowever, he denied his involvement in the attacks, saying he was only a spokesman, and rejected all accusations during his trial.\n\nAmnesty said Sharmahd told his family that he had been tortured and subjected to other ill-treatment in detention, including by being held in prolonged solitary confinement.\n\nHe also told them that he had been denied adequate healthcare, with access to medications required for his Parkinson's disease delayed routinely.\n\nIn July, Sharmahd's daughter Gazelle told the BBC that he could be executed at any time.\n\n\"They're killing him softly in solitary confinement in this death cell. But even if he survives that, they're killing him by hanging him from a crane in public,\" she said.\n\nThe accountant was an adviser to the governor of Iran's central bank and was a member of the Iranian negotiating team for the country's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, in charge of financial issues.\n\nHe was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in August 2016 just before he was due to board a flight to Canada, and was accused of \"selling the country's economic details to foreigners\".\n\nIn May 2017, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran convicted Dorri Esfahani of espionage charges, including \"collaborating with the British secret service\", and sentenced him to five years in prison.\n\nThat October an appeals court upheld Dorri Esfahani's sentence, despite then-Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi insisting that he was innocent.\n\nDorri Esfahani was due to complete his sentence in 2022, but there were no reports of his release.\n\nDalili is a retired Iranian merchant navy captain who is a US permanent resident.\n\nHe has been detained in Iran since April 2016, when he visited Tehran to attend his father's funeral. He was later convicted of \"collaborating with a hostile state\" and sentenced to 10 years in prison.\n\nIn August 2023, his son, Darian, said he was not part of the prisoner exchange deal between the US and Iran.\n\n\"He feels betrayed. He is demoralized. He believes that the US would bring back anyone that they want to bring back,\" Darian told Reuters news agency.\n\nA US state department spokesman declined to tell reporters why Dalili was not included, but did reveal he had not yet been declared \"wrongfully detained\" - a designation that would mean the department dedicated more resources to their case and assigned it to a presidential envoy.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV of two men wanted in connection with the kidnap and burglary\n\nA man was stripped naked, beaten and tied up in a kidnapping ordeal that lasted 50 hours.\n\nThe 24-year-old victim was lured to a house in Thornton Heath, Croydon by two acquaintances, where he was set upon by an armed gang.\n\nHis keys were taken by the gang who burgled his parents' home.\n\nAs well as the man's £9,000 Rolex watch, a significant amount of cash was taken from the property in Sydenham, south-east London, police said.\n\nThe captors had previously forced the man to ring his parents and make a ransom demand for his release, which they could not pay.\n\nOn Wednesday, which was the third evening of the hostage ordeal, the victim was taken by car to a Metro bank cash machine in North End, Croydon, so he could withdraw money.\n\nHis tormentors waited in the vehicle, apparently out of fear of being captured on CCTV, giving the man an opportunity to escape.\n\nDet Sgt Samuel Bennett, of the Croydon Criminal Investigation Department, said: \"This was a vicious and prolonged attack of a nature that thankfully is very rare.\n\n\"It has left the victim utterly distraught and traumatised.\"\n\nThe entry of two suspects into the home of the victim's parents was captured on CCTV. The footage has now been released by police in a bid to identify them.\n\nDetectives have also named two other men they want to speak to in connection with the man's ordeal - two brothers, Ali Dervish, 28, and 19-year-old Sinan Dervish.\n\nAli Dervish is among the suspects wanted in connection with the kidnap and burglary\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Presha Taneja took this photo of driving conditions while stuck near junction 20 of the M25.", "Salvador Sobral missed a week of Eurovision rehearsals due to his heart condition\n\nPortugal's celebrated Eurovision Song Contest winner, Salvador Sobral, is recovering in hospital after undergoing a heart transplant.\n\nSurgeons at the Santa Cruz Hospital in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, said the 27-year-old was \"doing well\".\n\nSobral, who suffered from a longstanding heart condition, won this year's contest with the love song Amar Pelos Dois (Love for Both of Us).\n\nIt was the first time Portugal had taken the title.\n\n\"The surgery went well,\" said surgeon Miguel Abecasis, quoted by the Publico daily (in Portuguese).\n\n\"He was very well prepared. He is a young man who understood the difficulties of this type of procedure.\"\n\nMr Abecasis said that before Friday's operation the singer had wished him \"good luck\".\n\nThe recovery would take a long time, Mr Abecasis added, but said that if all went well, Sobral would have \"a completely normal life\".\n\nThe singer had to wait several months until a suitable donor was found, Publico reported. He announced in September that he was taking a break from performing.\n\nSobral's winning ballad, written by his older sister, Luisa, made him a national hero in Portugal.\n\nHe described it as \"an emotional song with a beautiful lyrical message and harmony - things people are not used to listening these days\".", "Protests in the Lebanese capital Beirut against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel have turned ugly again, with youths throwing stones at the US embassy.\n\nThe BBC's Martin Patience reports from the scene as police use tear gas to disperse the crowd.", "BBC Weather presenter Sarah Keith-Lucas looks at the forecast for Monday and Tuesday, and lists the parts of the UK which saw the most snow on Sunday.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland Lions batsman Ben Duckett has been suspended from playing on their tour of Australia after pouring a drink over James Anderson in a Perth bar.\n\nDuckett, 23, has also been fined and issued with a final written warning over his conduct as an England player.\n\nThe Lions will play three Twenty20 matches against Perth Scorchers and Duckett will remain with the squad.\n\nHe was dropped from England's two-day game against a Cricket Australia XI in Perth over the weekend.\n\nThe Northants left-hander, who has played four Tests, was set to play at Richardson Park after a number of the Ashes party were rested.\n• None Listen: England should be trying to win respect - Agnew\n• None Duckett dropped after pouring drink over Anderson in bar\n\nOn Thursday, Duckett was at a bar in Perth with members of the Lions and senior squads, who were not under a curfew.\n\nThere is no suggestion 35-year-old Anderson, who has played 131 Tests and is England's all-time leading Test wicket-taker, has done anything wrong.\n\nThough England coach Trevor Bayliss described the incident as \"trivial\", team management were left furious at another off-field misdemeanour.\n\nIn September, all-rounder Ben Stokes was arrested following an altercation outside a Bristol nightclub and is waiting for a Crown Prosecution Service decision on whether he will be charged.\n\nAt the beginning of the Ashes tour, wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow was accused of 'headbutting' Australia batsman Cameron Bancroft.\n\nThough both described that incident as \"without malice\", England were subsequently placed under a midnight curfew.\n\nAfter Duckett's indiscretion occurred on the first night the curfew was lifted, Bayliss said he was \"fed up\" of having to address off-field matters.\n\n\"I might review who is in the team,\" said Bayliss. \"They can't keep making the same mistakes.\n\n\"Most of the guys are fine, but somewhere along the line some of the guys have to pull their heads in.\"\n\nFollowing an investigation led by Lions coach Andy Flower, Duckett is not being sent home but has been fined what the England and Wales Cricket Board describes as the \"maximum allowable amount\" for a Lions player - thought to be about £1,500.\n\nHowever, his place on the Lions tour of the West Indies could now be under threat. A new squad will be named for the trip that begins at the end of January.\n\nOn Sunday, England all-rounder Moeen Ali said England's players know their behaviour must improve.\n\n\"We're all grown men and we should know how to behave,\" said Moeen. \"The individual needs to be responsible for his own behaviour.\"\n\nTaken in isolation, this was a minor event that ordinarily might not have come to light.\n\nBut, after the Bairstow and, in particular, Stokes incidents, England are battling to restore a damaged reputation.\n\nNot only that, but it is yet another distraction on a tour when all of the home players, media and fans will pounce on any weakness.\n\nEngland management were fuming on Saturday and are considering ending careers of those they think are repeat offenders.\n\nPerhaps it would have been harsh to send Duckett home, but he and everyone else who wants to play for England have been served with the most final of warnings.\n\nEx-England spinner Monty Panesar, a former Northants team-mate of Duckett, speaking to BBC Radio 5 live's Sportsweek\n\nBen Duckett's probably thinking: 'I wish I hadn't done that.'\n\nHe likes the odd drink to relax, but I think this is out of character. He looks up to senior figures, so he's probably devastated right now knowing he's done something out of line which nobody expected him to do.\n\nWe don't need any more incidents like this. I hear it was the same bar as Jonny Bairstow greeted Bancroft, so maybe they should avoid that bar.\n• None Get Ashes alerts sent to your phone", "Aaron Reilly (left) and Joshua Brock and were found unconscious at the Pryzm nightclub in Plymouth\n\nTributes have been paid to two 19-year-old men who died after apparently taking drugs at a nightclub.\n\nAaron Reilly and Joshua Brock were found unconscious at Pryzm in Plymouth in the early hours of Saturday,\n\nThe teenagers, who police said thought they were taking ecstasy, died later in hospital.\n\nThe club was evacuated and an 18-year-old man was arrested by Devon and Cornwall Police. He has been released under investigation, the force said.\n\nThe family of Mr Reilly, from Newton Abbot, described him as \"a much-loved son, brother, grandson and boyfriend\" who loved skateboarding and playing computer games.\n\nHis younger brother Kian said: \"My brother was one of the most responsible people I ever knew and everything he achieved I was so proud of, but I was so envious of his talent.\n\n\"I can't believe he was taken from me and my family from one silly mistake, just trying to have fun on a night out with his best mates.\"\n\nHundreds of young people had been attending a gig by the Swedish dance artist Basshunter when the pair collapsed\n\nMr Brock, from Okehampton, was described as \"a loving son to Steve and Sandra, an inspirational brother to Liam and Demelza and a loyal mate to all his friends\".\n\n\"Joshua was in his third year studying for a diploma in aircraft engineering at the Flybe Training Academy in Exeter when his life was cut short,\" the family said in a statement.\n\n\"He was the kindest, most helpful person you could hope to meet and had a great sense of humour.\n\n\"His main hobby was keeping fit and eating healthily, so what happened that night is so totally out of character as he was always against drug taking in any shape or form. One moment of madness led to this tragedy.\"\n\nOn Saturday, the nightclub described the deaths as \"tragic and very sad\", adding that staff were co-operating with the police investigation.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "One of the UK's largest teaching unions is calling for schools to ban energy drinks from their premises.\n\nThe NASUWT is warning about caffeine levels in the drinks, describing them as \"readily available legal highs\" which can contribute to poor behaviour.\n\nIt follows a report by academics, seen by 5 live investigates, calling on the government to consider making the sale of the drinks illegal to under-16s.\n\nBut the British Soft Drinks Association says the drinks have been deemed safe.\n\nAcademics from FUSE - the Centre for Transitional Research in Public Health in the North East - found children as young as 10 are buying energy drinks because they are \"cheaper than water or pop\".\n\nChildren told them they buy the drinks for as little as 25p, and that they choose energy drinks to \"fit in\" or \"look tough\".\n\nThey also found that the drinks are targeted at young people online in pop-up adverts, on TV, in computer games, and through sports sponsorship.\n\nA typical energy drink contains 32mg of caffeine per 100ml and cans carry warnings saying they are \"not recommended for children\".\n\nA single 500ml can contains 160mg of caffeine, equivalent to around two shots of espresso coffee.\n\nThe researchers highlight European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) guidance which recommends an intake of no more than 105mg caffeine per day for an average 11-year-old. They also point out that young people in the UK are among the highest consumers of energy drinks in Europe.\n\nFigures from the British Soft Drinks Association show sales of energy drinks increased by 185% between 2006 and 2015, equating to 672 million litres consumed in 2015, and a total market value of over £2bn.\n\nDarren Northcott, NASUWT national official for education, said: \"Teachers have registered concerns with the NASUWT about the contribution of high energy drinks to poor pupil behaviour as a result of pupils consuming excessive quantities of these drinks.\n\n\"They are popular among young people who often think they are just another soft drink, and young people and parents are often not aware of the very high levels of stimulants that these drinks contain.\n\n\"They are readily available legal highs sold in vending machines, supermarkets and corner shops.\"\n\nHe added: \"The evidence of the impact of these drinks, including that uncovered by 5 live, is compelling and serves to emphasise that further action needs to be taken.\n\n\"The NASUWT has always been clear that drinks with high levels of sugar should not be sold on school premises. It is time to look again at the School Food Standards, and the enforcement of the standards, to make sure that every school in the country is free of highly-caffeinated soft drinks, as well as those that are high in sugar.\"\n\nVictoria Stean, from Milton Keynes, started consuming energy drinks when she was 16 and was soon drinking around seven 500ml cans a day.\n\nShe said: \"I was definitely hooked. I would have a can for breakfast, another one mid-morning, and several in the afternoon.\n\n\"It took me a while to wean myself off energy drinks. I would get headaches if I didn't drink them. Since I have stopped drinking them I have lost weight and my vision has improved again.\n\n\"Ironically, I also have more energy now and I sleep better.\"\n\nVictoria was able to lose half her body weight after she stopped drinking around seven 500ml cans of energy drinks a day.\n\nNorman Lamb, chair of the Commons Science and Technology Committee and a former Liberal Democrat health minister, said: \"The potential health risks and impact on sleep of energy drinks is something I would like the committee to consider evidence on in the new year.\n\nHe added that \"given epidemic levels of consumption among under-16s we have to consider banning the sale of these drinks to that group\".\n\nIn a statement, the British Soft Drinks Association, which represents manufacturers, said: \"Energy drinks and their ingredients have been deemed safe by regulatory authorities around the world.\n\n\"In 2010 we introduced a voluntary Code of Practice to support consumers who want to make informed choices. In 2015 this was updated to include more stringent guidelines around marketing and promoting, including reference to in and around schools.\"\n\nThe Food Standards Agency said: \"The FSA reviews guidance when significant new work in the subject area becomes available. Our current guidance was developed following the European Food Safety Authority's assessment of caffeine in 2015.\"\n\n5 live Investigates: Energy Drinks is broadcast on Sunday 10th December 2017 at 11am GMT. If you've missed it you can catch up on the iPlayer.\n\nHave you got something you want us to investigate? We want to hear from you. Email us.", "The case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is first and foremost a story of terrible personal suffering for a young woman, her husband and their baby girl.\n\nEighteen months into a five-year sentence, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe faces the prospect of up to 16 years in an Iranian jail.\n\nIt is also, however, a story of an internal power struggle in Iran, as well as of the nation's deeply difficult relationship with the UK.\n\nTo understand how she fits into this, the first thing to examine is the timing of her arrest. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in April 2016, a few months ahead of the first anniversary of Iran's historic nuclear deal.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe accord, on which President Hassan Rouhani had staked his reputation, was bitterly opposed by elements of the powerful Revolutionary Guards.\n\nThey had often benefited financially from the sanctions regime. They were adamant that the nuclear deal must be seen as a failure, that it had changed nothing and that compromise with the West was a fruitless exercise.\n\nArrests of a number of Iranians with dual nationality came about in this context:\n\nIran is in the grip of an ideological power-struggle, with two competing world views.\n\nPresident Rouhani came to power promising to open Iran up to the world; the supreme leader, the Revolutionary Guards and the judiciary have a far more hardline position, both in relation to how the country should be run as well as its foreign relations.\n\nAll the arrests were seen as an attempt by the Revolutionary Guards to undermine not just the president, but the very process of thawing relations with the West.\n\nOf the three dual-national prisoners arrested after the deal was agreed, only one has since been released: Ms Hoodfar was sent home a few months later on what the Iranians called \"humanitarian grounds\".\n\nThe only significant difference between her case and Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's was their nationalities: one was half-Canadian, the other half-British.\n\nTo Iranian minds, the UK is viewed with almost unique suspicion. Indeed, in 2009 the supreme leader said that of all the world's \"arrogant powers\", the UK was the \"most evil\".\n\nTo understand why, one must go back to the 1953 coup-d'état that overthrew nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, returning the autocratic Shah to power. Behind it were the British and American intelligence agencies.\n\nAlmost 300 people were killed in the streets of Tehran after protesting against the prime minister's removal in a US- and British-organised coup in 1953\n\nThis led to deep-rooted suspicions of the West's intentions; once the Shah was ousted by the Islamic Revolution of 1979, those suspicions became open hostilities. Relations have never really recovered.\n\nOver the years there have been a number of key points, notably the 1989 fatwah calling for the death of British author Salman Rushdie. His book, The Satanic Verses, was denounced as blasphemous by the supreme leader; he called on Muslims around the world to try and kill Rushdie. The controversy led to a severing of diplomatic ties, which were not repaired until 1998.\n\nIn 2007, 15 British Royal Navy personnel were detained off the South Coast of Iran. They were paraded on TV, a show of power by Tehran, but ultimately released under diplomatic pressure.\n\nThe 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was followed by peaceful street protests, which the supreme leader accused the West of encouraging. A number of staff at the British embassy were arrested and forced to sign confessions.\n\nIn November 2011, relations deteriorated further. After the UK increased sanctions on Iran, the parliament voted to expel the British ambassador. Before he could pack his bags, members of the hardline Basij militia ransacked the British embassy in Tehran. It did not re-open until 2014.\n\nBut, it is not just the British government that has been viewed with great hostility. Western media, most notably the BBC's Persian Service, has long been regarded with deep distrust, fear and often hatred by the hardline Iranian establishment.\n\nFor years Persian Service journalists have been harassed and intimidated by the Iranian authorities. Two months ago all the assets of 150 BBC staff, former staff and contributors were frozen for \"conspiracy against national security\".\n\nAnd here we come to the final part of the story of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Many years ago, she worked for BBC Media Action, the charitable wing of the BBC. Although it has no direct connection to the BBC's Persian service, it has been used as evidence that she was in Iran for political reasons.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIt is, therefore, for this reason that the recent comments by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson were so controversial, and potentially damaging.\n\nBy stating that she was involved in \"training journalists\", he has given ammunition to those elements of the establishment who view her as just another example what the supreme leader described as \"an infiltration project\" by the West.\n\nAll the while, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe languishes in Tehran's Evin jail. Her daughter, who has now forgotten how to speak English, can only see her for an hour-and-a-half a week. Meanwhile her husband Richard suffers in London.\n\nThe future of a family, half-British, half-Iranian, has been torn apart by the suspicion and distrust caused by their own countries' pasts.", "Recapturing Mosul was the bloodiest conflict - for both combatants and civilians\n\nIraq has announced that its war against so-called Islamic State (IS) is over.\n\nPrime Minister Haider al-Abadi told a conference in Baghdad that Iraqi troops were now in complete control of the Iraqi-Syrian border.\n\nThe border zone contained the last few areas IS held, following its loss of the town of Rawa in November.\n\nThe US state department welcomed the end of the \"vile occupation\" of IS in Iraq and said the fight against the group would continue.\n\nIraq's announcement comes two days after the Russian military declared it had accomplished its mission of defeating IS in neighbouring Syria.\n\nThe jihadist group had seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, when it proclaimed a \"caliphate\" and imposed its rule over some 10 million people.\n\nBut it suffered a series of defeats over the past two years, losing Iraq's second city of Mosul this July and its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria last month.\n\nSome IS fighters are reported to have dispersed into the Syrian countryside, while others are believed to have escaped across the Turkish border.\n\nThis is undeniably a proud moment for Mr Abadi - a victory that once looked like it might only ever be rhetorical rather than real.\n\nBut if the direct military war with IS in Iraq is genuinely over, and the country's elite forces can now step back after a conflict that's taken a huge toll on them, it doesn't mean the battle against the group's ideology or its ability to stage an insurgency is finished - whether in Iraq, Syria or the wider world.\n\nAttacks may be at a lower level than they once were, but Iraqi towns and cities still fall prey to suicide bombers, while the conditions that fuelled the growth of jihadism remain - even in the territory that's been recaptured.\n\nMr Abadi said on Saturday: \"Our forces are in complete control of the Iraqi-Syrian border and I therefore announce the end of the war against Daesh [IS].\n\n\"Our enemy wanted to kill our civilisation, but we have won through our unity and our determination. We have triumphed in little time.\"\n\nThe Iraqi armed forces issued a statement saying Iraq had been \"totally liberated\" from IS.\n\n\"The United States joins the government of Iraq in stressing that Iraq's liberation does not mean the fight against terrorism, and even against Isis [IS], in Iraq is over,\" she added.\n\nUK Prime Minister Theresa May congratulated Mr Abadi on a \"historic moment\" but warned that IS still posed a threat, including from across the border in Syria.\n\nLast month, the Syrian military said it had \"fully liberated\" the eastern border town of Albu Kamal, the last last urban stronghold of IS in that country.\n\nOn Thursday, the head of the Russian general staff's operations, Col-Gen Sergei Rudskoi, said: \"The mission to defeat bandit units of the Islamic State terrorist organisation on the territory of Syria, carried out by the armed forces of the Russian Federation, has been accomplished.\"\n\nEstimates of civilian deaths in Mosul alone vary wildly, with one figure as high as 40,000\n\nHe said Russia's military presence in Syria would now concentrate on preserving ceasefires and restoring peace.\n\nThe collapse of IS has raised fears that its foreign fighters will escape over Syria's borders to carry out more attacks abroad.\n\nCivilians flee as Iraqi forces battle to retake Mosul in March 2017", "The controversial US embassy move to Jerusalem is going ahead amid celebration and protest. The BBC's Yolande Knell explains why the city is so important.", "Compare the temperature where you are with more than 50 cities around the world, including some of the hottest and coldest inhabited places. Enter your location or postcode in the search box to see your result.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and his Iranian counterpart have spoken \"frankly\" in Tehran about jailed Briton Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.\n\nHe met Mohammed Javad Zarif to urge her freeing on humanitarian grounds, along with other dual nationals held in Iran.\n\nMs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Tehran since April 2016, after being accused of spying, a charge she denies.\n\nHer husband, Richard Ratcliffe, spoke of his \"hopes and fears\", telling the BBC \"it could go any which way\".\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Iran since April 2016\n\nIn what was described as \"a useful meeting\", Mr Johnson and the Iranian foreign minister talked for two hours in Tehran on a range of subjects including the nuclear deal, as well \"obstacles in their relationship\".\n\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan has tweeted his support for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, calling on Mr Johnson to do \"everything he can to secure her release\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sadiq Khan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested on a visit to see her parents with her baby daughter Gabriella.\n\nAfter the arrest her daughter's passport was confiscated and for the last 20 months she has been living with her maternal grandparents in Iran.\n\nThe case was further complicated when Mr Johnson erroneously told a parliamentary committee in November that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Iran to train journalists.\n\nThe foreign secretary later apologised in the Commons, retracting \"any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why one mother's personal plight is part of a complicated history between Iran and the UK (video published August 2019 and last updated in October 2019)\n\nReports suggest Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe could appear in court on Sunday to face new charges and possibly have her sentence doubled as a result of Mr Johnson's comments.\n\n\"His fate and her fate have been aligned a little bit, and he is now in Iran battling for her,\" her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, told the BBC. \"It's a case of 'watch this space'\".\n\nHe said he believed Mr Johnson's \"charm and presence\" in Iran would \"make a difference\", but the situation remained very unclear.\n\n\"It's all up in the air,\" said Mr Ratcliffe. \"We're holding on to the good bits - it could go any which way.\"\n\nHe said he wanted his wife to be with her family in the UK for Christmas but he was not expecting her to be on the foreign secretary's plane when Mr Johnson returns to the UK on Monday.\n\nHe added: \"Fingers crossed it can be solved by Christmas, which means in the week or so afterwards there might be a happy outcome.\"\n\nAs Boris Johnson and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif shook hands on their way into talks it could have seemed routine.\n\nBut there was nothing routine about this encounter. The foreign secretary looked uncharacteristically tense, and with good reason.\n\nHis mission - to improve relations - point to Britain's continuing support for the Iran nuclear deal, while at the same time being critical of Iran's actions in Yemen and Syria.\n\nAnd, hardest of all, argue for prisoner releases, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a case many accuse him of damaging by loose talk last month.\n\nBoris Johnson will say nothing at all publicly while in Iran, such is the sensitivity of his visit.\n\nBut in one good sign, Iran's foreign minister confirmed Mr Johnson should be able to meet President Rouhani on Sunday.\n\nWe should not expect immediate consequences, but Iran is in little doubt of the importance the British side attaches to getting Ms Zahari-Ratcliffe home.\n\nRelations between the UK and Iran have long been difficult. Mr Johnson's visit is only the third by a British foreign minister to Iran in the last 14 years.\n\nThe Foreign Office would not confirm the names or number of other dual nationals being held, saying their families had asked for their cases to be kept out of the public domain.\n\nSpeaking ahead of his visit, Mr Johnson said the talks would cover the \"bilateral relationship and I will stress my grave concerns about our dual national consular cases and press for their release where there are humanitarian grounds to do so\".\n\nLast month, the Free Nazanin Campaign said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had suffered panic attacks, insomnia, bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts and had been given a health assessment.", "After Donald Trump said the US will recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, here is what life is like for one business.", "Residents of one town in North Queensland are being overwhelmed by bats.\n\nThey're demanding action to deal with a situation they call \"the stuff of nightmares\".", "Max Clifford had been serving an eight-year jail sentence for sex offences\n\nDisgraced celebrity publicist Max Clifford has died in hospital, aged 74, after collapsing in prison.\n\nClifford collapsed in his cell at Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire on Thursday and again on Friday, his daughter said. He was taken to hospital where he suffered a cardiac arrest.\n\nHe had been serving an eight-year sentence for historical sex offences.\n\nThe Ministry of Justice said as with all deaths in custody, there would an investigation by the ombudsman.\n\nA spokeswoman added: \"Our condolences are with Mr Clifford's family at this difficult time.\"\n\nHis daughter Louise, 46, had told the Mail on Sunday that Clifford first collapsed in his cell on Thursday when he was trying to clean it, adding: \"It was just too much.\"\n\nShe said he collapsed again the next day and was unconscious for several minutes, and after seeing a nurse was transferred to a local hospital where he suffered a cardiac arrest on Friday.\n\nDuring his trial he accused his victims of being fantasists\n\nThe Ministry of Justice confirmed Clifford died in hospital on 10 December.\n\nIn May 2014, Clifford was jailed after being convicted of eight historical indecent assaults on women and young girls under Operation Yewtree - the Met Police investigation set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.\n\nDuring this trial, evidence was heard about Clifford's manipulative behaviour, including how he promised to boost the careers of aspiring models and actresses in return for sexual favours.\n\nAfter his convictions, he continued to protest his innocence.\n\nThe Court of Appeal was due to hear his case appealing against his sentence in the New Year.\n\nClifford's lawyer, John Szepietowski, said his death meant there were a number of unresolved legal issues.\n\nHe said Clifford had been suing News International and Mirror Group Newspapers for allegedly hacking his phone.\n\nHis daughter Louise supported him through his trial\n\nThe lawyer also said Clifford was being sued by a number of women who claimed he had sexually assaulted them.\n\nMr Szepietowski said his legal team would meet in the coming days to decide whether Clifford's criminal appeal case should continue.\n\nHe said Clifford had been receiving legal aid for the appeal, after being declared bankrupt earlier this year and having to sell his Surrey home to pay his debts.\n\nDuring his long career as a publicist, Clifford, who started his own company at 27, looked after press and publicity for a mixed range of clients such as Marlon Brando, Marvin Gaye, Muhammad Ali and Jade Goody.\n\nHe claimed he had helped to launch the career of The Beatles by sending press releases about their debut single, Love Me Do, when record company bosses were unsure about the group's potential.\n\nHigh-profile clients came to him because of his connections in the tabloid press - while journalists turned to Clifford to provide stories.\n\nHowever, after 50 years in the showbiz industry allegations against him began to emerge.\n\nIn a Facebook post following the announcement that Clifford had died, former X Factor winner Steve Brookstein, claimed Clifford had \"orchestrated a media hate campaign\" against him.\n• None The rise and fall of Max Clifford\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "They're behind you! Firefighters on stage during the Perth Theatre pantomime\n\nThe first performance at Perth Theatre in four years defied all expectations when two real-life firefighters appeared on stage.\n\nA smoke alarm mid-way through Aladdin on Saturday forced the evacuation of the Edwardian theatre which has just had a £16.6m refurbishment.\n\nAfter checks to the building, the show resumed with one of the actors carried back on stage by the firefighters.\n\nThe theatre management blamed a \"snagging\" fault for the alarm.\n\nGwylym Gibbons, chief executive of Horsecross Arts which runs the theatre, said: \"There was a lovely moment when the firefighters came on stage, carrying one of the cast members.\n\n\"The beauty of pantomime is that you can adapt it to the moment - and everyone got back into the panto spirit.\"\n\nThe theatre's 500-seat B-listed Edwardian auditorium has been closed for four years while it was restored to its former glory.\n\nA new 200-capacity performance studio has also been created to encourage new writing, music and dance.\n\nThe Edwardian auditorium has been restored to its former glory\n\nThe refurbishment includes a new box office, cafe, bar and shop\n\nArtistic director Lu Kemp said the cast became accustomed to dealing with unforeseen events during rehearsals.\n\nShe said: \"It's been hilarious. At times we've had rehearsals where a couple of builders with a very long pipe will walk through the room.\n\n\"But it's nothing that's ever got in the way of rehearsals: it's just added an extra layer of hilarity to the whole event.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Ican's executive director Beatrice Fihn (right) said nuclear disaster may be a \"tantrum away\"\n\nThe world faces a \"nuclear crisis\" from a \"bruised ego\", the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) has warned in an apparent reference to US-North Korea tensions.\n\nAccepting the Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday, Ican's executive director Beatrice Fihn said \"the deaths of millions may be one tiny tantrum away\".\n\n\"We have a choice, the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us,\" she added.\n\nTensions over North Korea's weapons programme have risen in recent months.\n\nThe open hostility between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leadership under Kim Jong-un has at times descended into personal attacks this year.\n\nSpeaking at the ceremony in Oslo, Ms Fihn said \"a moment of panic\" could lead to the \"destruction of cities and the deaths of millions of civilians\" from nuclear weapons.\n\nThe risk of such weapons being used, she added, was \"greater today than during the Cold War\".\n\nIcan, a coalition of hundreds of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), has worked for a treaty to ban the weapons.\n\nPrior to presenting the prize on Sunday, Nobel committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen offered a similar warning, saying that \"irresponsible leaders can come to power in any nuclear state\".\n\nMs Reiss-Andersen commended Ican which, she said, had succeeded in highlighting the dangers of nuclear weapons as well as trying to eradicate them.\n\nMs Reiss-Andersen also acknowledged the contributions of Setsuko Thurlow, an 85-year-old survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and now an Ican campaigner.\n\nMs Thurlow, who was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building at the time, said that most of her classmates, who were in the same room, were burned alive.\n\n\"Processions of ghostly figures shuffled by,\" she said on Sunday. \"Grotesquely wounded people, they were bleeding, burnt, blackened and swollen.\"\n\nMr Trump has warned that North Korea's government will be \"utterly destroyed\" if war breaks out.\n\nWhite House national security adviser HR McMaster said last week that the potential for war with North Korea was increasing every day.\n\nIn November, Pyongyang said it had tested a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching the whole of continental United States.\n\nIcan, formed in 2007 and inspired by a similar campaign to ban the use of landmines, has made it its mission to highlight the humanitarian risk of nuclear weapons.\n\nA coalition of hundreds of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the Geneva-based group helped pave the way for the introduction of a UN treaty banning the weapons, which was signed this year.\n\nWhile 122 countries backed the treaty in July, the talks were notably boycotted by the world's nine known nuclear powers and the only Nato member to discuss it, the Netherlands, voted against.\n\nOnly three countries, the Holy See, Guyana and Thailand, have so far ratified the treaty, which requires 50 ratifications to come into force.", "Two 19-year-old men have died in hospital in the early hours after apparently taking drugs at a nightclub.\n\nThey were found unconscious at the Pryzm club in Plymouth, where hundreds of young people were attending a gig by the Swedish dance artist Basshunter.\n\nPolice said the teenagers, from Okehampton and Newton Abbot, were thought to have taken MDMA.\n\nThe club was evacuated and an 18-year-old man was arrested by Devon and Cornwall Police.\n\nAt about 02:00 GMT the poorly men were taken to Plymouth's Derriford Hospital, where they were later pronounced dead.\n\nThe two men were believed to have taken the recreational drug MDMA\n\nDet Insp Julie Scoles said the two who died were part of a larger group who took the drug.\n\n\"We have located the rest of the group who are thankfully showing no ill-effects at this time,\" she said.\n\n\"I am urging the public, especially those going out and planning to take recreational drugs, to be aware of this incident and think twice before taking any unknown substance - there is always a risk when taking drugs and the only way of staying safe is to avoid drugs altogether.\"\n\nNext-of-kin have been informed, but formal identification of the victims has yet to take place and police have asked anyone with any information to contact them.\n\nThe nightclub said the deaths were \"tragic and very sad\", and staff were co-operating with the police investigation.\n\nA statement said: \"We are devastated by the events of this morning where two young men tragically lost their lives, and we would like to extend our thoughts and condolences to the families and friends at this very sad time.\"\n• None The rise in strength and popularity of ecstasy\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "BAE makes the Eurofighter Typhoon at its Warton plant\n\nA £6bn deal to sell Eurofighter Typhoons to Qatar will help safeguard thousands of UK jobs.\n\nBAE Systems employs about 5,000 people in the UK to build the fighter jets, mainly at Warton in Lancashire.\n\nQatar's purchase of 24 jets includes a support and training package from BAE, with deliveries due to start in 2022.\n\nThe deal was announced in Doha by Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and his Qatari counterpart, Khalid bin Mohammed al Attiyah.\n\nMr Williamson said it was a \"massive vote of confidence, supporting thousands of British jobs and injecting billions into our economy\".\n\nAn RAF Typhoon at the Akrotiri base in Cyprus\n\nBAE chief executive Charles Woodburn said the contract, worth £5bn to the company, was the start of a long-term relationship with Qatar and its armed forces.\n\n\"This agreement is a strong endorsement of Typhoon's leading capabilities and underlines BAE Systems' long track record of working in successful partnership with our customers,\" he said.\n\nThe Typhoon entered service with the RAF in 2007 to replace the ageing Tornado fleet.\n\nAlthough the Qatar order secures the production of the Typhoon at BAE into the next decade, it will not stop the 2,000 job cuts announced in October from going ahead.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBAE has suffered amid declining military spending among major Nato members, but remains a key contractor on the world's most expensive defence programme, the US-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project.\n\nThe UK's deal with Qatar also includes an agreement with MBDA for Brimstone and Meteor missiles and Raytheon's Paveway IV laser-guided bomb.\n\nQatar signed a letter of intent in September to buy the 24 jets from BAE.\n\nIt is the ninth country to buy the Typhoon, with other customers including Saudi Arabia. Talks about a second batch of sales to the kingdom are ongoing.\n\nIn June countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ben Rich updates the situation on the California wildfires\n\nThe most destructive wildfire raging in southern California has expanded significantly, scorching an area larger than New York City.\n\nThe Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties has consumed 230,000 acres (930 sq km) in the past week.\n\nFanned by strong winds, it has become the fifth largest wildfire in recorded state history after it grew by more than 50,000 acres in a day.\n\nResidents in coastal beach communities have been ordered to leave.\n\nSatellite imagery shows the vast Thomas Fire, north of Los Angeles, which has spread as far as the Pacific coast\n\nOn Sunday, firefighters reported that 15% of the blaze had been contained but were forced to downgrade that to 10% as it continued to spread.\n\n\"This is a menacing fire, certainly, but we have a lot of people working very diligently to bring it under control,\" Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.\n\nThousands of firefighters are working round the clock to tackle the blaze, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.\n\nThe containment operation is not only being hampered by dry winds. It is proving challenging for firefighters because of the location and mountainous terrain.\n\nFirefighters face challenging conditions to contain the Thomas fire\n\nAn analyst with the California fire protection department, Tim Chavez, said the emergency services were struggling because \"a hot interior\" was in parts practically meeting the ocean, making access difficult.\n\n\"It's just a very difficult place to fight fire,\" Mr Chavez said, adding: \"It's very dangerous and has a historical record of multiple fatalities occurring over the years.\"\n\nThe other fires hitting California are largely controlled, but 200,000 people have evacuated their homes and some 800 buildings have been destroyed since 4 December.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Thomas fire has the potential to be one of the worst in California's history\n\nEvacuation orders were issued overnight on Sunday for parts of Carpinteria close to Los Padres National Forest, about 100 miles (160km) northwest of Los Angeles.\n\nForecasters said wind speeds were expected to increase throughout the day, before dying down again overnight.\n\nThe local fire department tweeted pictures of a wall of flames advancing on homes on the outskirts of Carpinteria early on Sunday morning.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by SBCFireInfo This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA member of the emergency services in Carpinteria said he would continue working alongside his colleagues until the fire was under complete control.\n\n\"What they did last night was amazing,\" firefighter Michael Gallagher said, adding: \"They saved this entire community.\n\n\"We've been up, I'm at 29 hours straight, every other day... we are exhausted, but they're not coming off until this is done.\"\n\nMeanwhile, actor Rob Lowe, who lives in Santa Barbara, a city of close to 100,000 people, tweeted that he was praying for his town as fires closed in.\n\n\"Firefighters making brave stands. Could go either way. Packing to evacuate now,\" Lowe added.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Rob Lowe This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCalifornia has spent the past seven days battling wildfires. Six large blazes, and other smaller ones, erupted on Monday night in southern California.\n\nThe Thomas Fire - named according to where it started, near the Thomas Aquinas College - is by far the largest of the fires.\n\nThey swept through tens of thousands of acres in a matter of hours, driven by extreme weather, including low humidity, high winds and parched ground.\n\nThe authorities issued a purple alert - the highest level warning - amid what it called \"extremely critical fire weather\", while US President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency.\n\nOn Saturday, California Governor Jerry Brown described the situation as \"the new normal\" and predicted vast fires, fuelled by climate change, \"could happen every year or every few years\".\n\nSeveral firefighters have been injured, but only one person has died - a 70-year-old woman who was found dead in her car on an evacuation route.\n\nThere are also fears the blaze will seriously hit California's multi-million dollar agricultural industry.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drivers filmed the flames from their cars near Bel Air", "The village of Alwine in Germany goes under the hammer and sells for a bargain price.", "The mummy is believed to be that of a senior official from the New Kingdom\n\nArchaeologists in Egypt have displayed items, including a mummy, from one of two previously unexplored tombs in the ancient Nile city of Luxor.\n\nThe mummy is believed to be that of a senior official from Egypt's \"New Kingdom\", about 3,500 years ago.\n\nThe tombs lie in the Draa Abul Naga necropolis, an area famed for its temples and burial grounds.\n\nIt is close to the Valley of the Kings where many of ancient Egypt's pharaohs were buried.\n\nEgypt's antiquities ministry said that the tombs had been discovered by a German archaeologist in the 1990s, but were kept sealed until recently.\n\nThe identity of the mummified body is not known but the ministry says there are two possibilities.\n\nIt could be a person named Djehuty Mes, whose name is engraved on one of the walls, or it could be a scribe called Maati whose name - and the name of his wife, Mehi - are written on funerary cones, officials said.\n\nThe other tomb was only recently \"uncovered\" and has not yet been fully excavated, the ministry said.\n\nIn September, archaeologists discovered the tomb of a royal goldsmith near Luxor.\n\nThe tomb, which also dated back to the New Kingdom, contained a statue of the goldsmith Amenemhat, sitting beside his wife.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Davis: \"No deal means we won't be paying the money\"\n\nBrexit Secretary David Davis says the UK wants to secure a free-trade deal with no tariffs when it leaves the EU.\n\nHe described it as \"Canada plus plus plus\" - a reference to the free trade deal struck between Canada and the EU.\n\nBut unlike the Canada deal, he wants financial services included in the tariff-free area, he told Andrew Marr.\n\nLabour says the UK should \"stay aligned\" to the EU after Brexit and could pay to access the single market like Norway.\n\nThe Conservatives claim this would \"mean billions of pounds going to the EU in perpetuity\" and the UK \"being forced to obey rules over which we have no say\".\n\nCanada's deal with the EU, signed last year, removes the vast majority of customs duties on EU exports to Canada and Canadian exports to the EU but without paying for access to the single market.\n\nBut Mr Davis said he wanted a \"bespoke\" deal with the EU and was aiming for \"overarching\" agreement with no tariffs, that included the service industries - which are a key part of the British economy.\n\nReferring to some of the EU's trade deals, he said: \"We'll probably start with the best of Canada, and the best of Japan and the best of South Korea and then add to that the bits that are missing which is the services.\"\n\nHe said the odds of the UK exiting without a deal had \"dropped dramatically\" following Friday's joint EU-UK statement in Brussels.\n\nBut he stressed that the deal struck by Theresa May on Friday to move to the next phase of talks was a \"statement of intent\" and not \"legally enforceable\".\n\nAnd if the UK failed to get a trade deal with the EU then it would not pay its divorce bill, which the Treasury says will be between £35bn and £39bn.\n\nBut the Irish government said that as far as it was concerned the agreement signed on Friday between the EU and the UK was binding.\n\n\"The European Union will be holding the United Kingdom to account,\" the Irish government's chief whip told RTE.\n\n\"My question to anybody within the British government would be, why would there be an agreement, a set of principled agreements, in order to get to phase two, if they weren't going to be held up? That just sounds bizarre to me,\" Joe McHugh told RTE Radio's This Week.\n\nMr Davis stressed in his Marr interview that the UK was committed to keeping a \"frictionless and invisible\" Irish border and it would \"find a way\" to do this if there was a \"no deal\" Brexit.\n\nMrs May signed an agreement on Friday ruling out the return of a \"hard border\" on the island of Ireland, protecting the rights of EU and UK citizens and agreeing a formula for the divorce bill.\n\nEU leaders are now expected to recommend starting the next phase of Brexit talks at a summit on Thursday.\n\nMr Davis stressed Friday's agreement was conditional on getting a trade deal, agreements on security and foreign affairs, as well as the two-year transition period the UK wants after if officially leaves the EU in March 2019.\n\nFriday's agreement includes a fallback position if the UK fails to get a trade deal, which proposes full regulatory \"alignment\" between the EU and the UK.\n\nThis clause had been diluted at the insistence of the Democratic Unionist Party, which fears Northern Ireland would be separated from the rest of the UK, and move closer to Ireland, if it had to adopt EU rules to keep goods flowing across the border.\n\nBut there is still controversy, and confusion, over what \"full alignment\" would mean in practice, with some Brexiteers fearing the UK would have to continue to abide by EU regulations on agriculture and other issues after Brexit and would not be able to strike its own trade deals.\n\nMr Davis has said \"full alignment\" would apply to the whole of the UK, not just Northern Ireland, but the Sunday Telegraph said Conservative Brexiteers had been reassured that it was \"non-binding\" and had been included to secure Ireland's backing for the deal.\n\nPushed to explain what it meant, Mr Davis told Andrew Marr: \"We want to protect the peace process and we also want to protect Ireland from the impact of Brexit for them. This was a statement of intent more than anything else.\"\n\nThe Labour party has ruled out remaining in the EU single market and customs union if it wins power.\n\nBut the party's shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said he wanted a partnership with the EU that \"retains the benefits of the single market and the customs union\".\n\nLabour's Sir Keir Starmer suggested the UK could pay for single market access\n\nThe EU has asked for more clarity from the UK on what it wants from trade talks. But today it was the opposition who gave more details than ever before.\n\nSo far Labour has said, if in power, it would stay in the single market and customs union in a transition period.\n\nBut now the shadow Brexit secretary has talked about the benefits of staying in alignment with the EU in the longer term.\n\nAnd he has even suggested he'd be willing to pay for the type of single market access that Norway enjoys.\n\nShadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry has raised the possibility of staying in a form of customs union.\n\nThat might restrict the ability to do global trade deals but - as she puts it - she doesn't want to \"kybosh\" trade with the EU.\n\nFor the Conservatives in the short term it's a political gift - they can portray Labour as rule takers who are prepared to pay far more to Brussels than their divorce settlement.\n\nBut it's more likely a sign that \"creative ambiguity\" across the political spectrum could be unsustainable when serious trade talks begin.", "James DeGale says he will \"go back to the drawing board\" after his shock defeat by American Caleb Truax at London's Copper Box Arena.\n\nDeGale lost his IBF world super-middleweight title as Truax won 114-114 115-112 116-112 on the cards.\n\nThe Briton was as short as 1-100 with some bookmakers as he fought for the first time since January.\n\n\"There's something missing in the ring,\" said 31-year-old DeGale, who had shoulder surgery in July.\n\nTruax, 34, offered constant pressure and rocked DeGale in the fifth as a stiff right drew gasps in the venue.\n\nDeGale, timid for large parts, rallied late on but Truax took the title.\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio 5 live after the fight, DeGale - who suffered his second professional defeat - added: \"I honestly did [think I'd won], I've got to go back to the drawing board.\n\n\"My nose is blocked again, I've got to sort it out. The shoulder - I had serious reconstruction - there's no pain but I'll have to go back, have a look and see. I've probably rushed back to be honest, maybe I should have waited till next year.\"\n\nHe added: \"I'm going to speak to Al Haymon [his boxing advisor] later, maybe I can get a rematch.\"\n\nTruax, who extended his record to 29-3, said: \"All week all I heard was who he's going to fight next. Well guess what? Those fights are mine now.\n\n\"I'd love to [fight in the UK again]. I'm staying until Wednesday - if anybody sees me, buy some pints.\"\n\nTruax sank to his knees on the bell and was convinced he had landed arguably the biggest shock the sport has seen this year.\n\nWhile DeGale had questions to answer following shoulder surgery in July and having suffered ear and dental damage in drawing with Badou Jack in January, he was expected to shine against the 34-year-old, who was contesting a world title for the second time.\n\nBig money bouts with WBA super-middleweight champion George Groves, or other stellar names at the weight such as Callum Smith or Chris Eubank Jr will likely now have to wait and afterwards DeGale said he hoped for a rematch.\n\nShortly after the fight, Groves tweeted: \"Call it a day, mate, you ain't got it no more.\"\n\nEubank Jr wrote: \"After all the trash talk and disrespectful comments James DeGale you go and put on a display like that! All I can say is WOW! You have properly let down British Boxing #Shameful.\"\n\nMinnesota's Truax achieved his goal in the sport of paying off his student debt with this bout but he will leave the UK with so much more thanks to a game fighting style which unsettled DeGale from the second round onwards.\n\nDeGale, 31, found himself backed to the ropes consistently and while there were flurries of good work, Truax's solid straight shot rocked his head in the third and a left hook landed crisply in the fourth.\n\nBut it was the fifth where trouble really arose for the champion. He was bloodied and Truax delivered variety with good body work, a clean uppercut and later ramrod right.\n\nBBC Radio 5 live's ringside pundit Adam Booth pointed to DeGale showing \"immense signs of distress\" as he offered little in return.\n\nEarlier in the year, DeGale told BBC Sport he did not want too many more battles like he shared with Jack in January. But he had no choice but to dig in and take punishment as this slipped away from him.\n\nTwo counter lefts in the seventh gave DeGale hope he had stemmed the flow but the challenger still walked his man down, digging a right hook into the left abdomen in the eighth.\n\nA good body shot from the 2008 Olympic champion briefly threatened to save him in the 10th but Truax was not to be denied as he dished up DeGale's second career loss.\n\nCaleb Truax on BBC Radio 5 live: \"He was sleeping and now he's going to have nightmares about me.\n\n\"All week all I heard was who he's going to fight next. Well, guess what, those fights are mine now. I'd love to [fight in the UK again]. I'm staying until Wednesday - if anybody sees me, buy some pints.\"\n\nBBC pundit and world-level trainer Adam Booth: \"An hour ago James was world champion and thinking about unifying belts. Now he's being asked if he's a has-been former champion and it's brutal. It's easy for us to say we know what he can do and he didn't do it tonight, so he can't do it anymore. That's not necessarily the case.\"\n\nElsewhere on the night, IBF world featherweight champion Lee Selbyclaimed a wide points win against Mexico's Eduardo Ramirez to all but seal an all-British dust up with Leeds' Josh Warrington early in 2018.\n\nSelby could not lose his title after Ramirez failed to make weight for the bout which was supposed form part of a world-title double header. But the 30-year-old excelled nonetheless, showcasing evasive footwork to move to 26 wins from 27 fights.\n\nWBO European light-heavyweight champion Anthony Yarde became the first man to stop the durable Nikola Sjekloca, completing the win with impressive combinations in round four.\n\nAnd heavyweight prospect Daniel Dubois took his record to six knockouts from six fights with a second-round stoppage of Wales' Dorian Darch.", "Germany's domestic intelligence agency says China used Linkedin to target at least 10,000 people\n\nChina is using fake LinkedIn profiles to gather information on German officials and politicians, the German intelligence agency (BfV) has said.\n\nThe agency alleges that Chinese intelligence used the networking site to target at least 10,000 Germans, possibly to recruit them as informants.\n\nIt released a number of fake profiles allegedly used for this purpose.\n\nBfV head Hans-Georg Maassen said the accounts show China's efforts to subvert top-level German politics.\n\n\"This is a broad-based attempt to infiltrate in particular parliaments, ministries and government agencies,\" he said.\n\nChina has denied similar allegations of cyber espionage in the past and has not yet responded to the German allegation.\n\nThe BfV published eight of what they say are the most active profiles used to contact German LinkedIn users. They are designed to look enticing to other users, and promote young Chinese professionals -who do not exist.\n\nSpy chief Hans-Georg Maassen says the accounts show an attempt to infiltrate German politics\n\nSome of the accounts include \"Allen Liu\", said to be a human resources manager at an economic consultancy, and \"Lily Wu\", who reportedly works at a think tank in eastern China.\n\nThe BfV says both accounts are fake.\n\nThe agency is increasingly worried that Chinese intelligence is using the method to recruit high-ranking politicians as informants.\n\nThey asked users who believed they had been targeted by suspect accounts to contact them.\n\nLast year, the BfV said they had detected \"increasingly aggressive cyber-espionage\" including \"intensifying\" attempts to influence September's parliamentary elections.\n\nThey said the hacker group known as \"Fancy Bear\" or APT28 was especially active - and it is believed to be controlled by the Russian state.", "Clifford is serving an eight-year jail sentence for sex offences\n\nDisgraced former celebrity publicist Max Clifford has suffered a cardiac arrest in hospital after collapsing in prison.\n\nThe 74-year-old had been serving eight years in a Cambridgeshire jail for historical sex offences.\n\nIt is understood he collapsed in his cell last Thursday while trying to clean it, then again the following day.\n\nHis daughter Louise told the Mail on Sunday he was in the critical care unit and was in a \"bad way\".\n\nA Prison Service spokesperson said the safety and welfare of people in custody was its \"top priority\". Clifford was serving his sentence at HMP Littlehey.\n\nHis daughter said that he was trying to clean his prison cell when he collapsed, adding \"it was just too much\".\n\n\"Next day he collapsed again and was unconscious for several minutes - though he doesn't know how long.\n\n\"He was seen by a nurse, who insisted he must be transferred to a local hospital. That's where he had his cardiac arrest, later on Friday.\"\n\nIn May 2014, Clifford was jailed after being convicted of a number of charges under Operation Yewtree - the Met Police investigation set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.", "Tearing up convention, US President Donald Trump has recognised Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel.\n\nThe BBC's Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet breaks down what the decision means for Middle East peace.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nWeather warnings are still in place in large parts of the UK, amid concern that icy conditions could cause travel delays and \"cut off\" some rural areas.\n\nThe Met Office said snow showers would continue to affect parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, northern England and parts of the Midlands.\n\nA few centimetres of snow is likely but up to 20cm is possible in some areas.\n\nThere are yellow \"be aware\" warnings for parts of the country, with an amber \"be prepared\" alert in place on Sunday.\n\nThe Midlands, Wales, northern and eastern England and the far north of Scotland are most likely to have heavy snow early on Sunday morning.\n\nAccording to BBC Weather, a 10cm spread of snow will initially mount in the Midlands and eastern England, before gradually becoming lighter and patchier throughout the day and into Sunday evening.\n\nBirmingham Airport have warned passengers travelling on Sunday morning to allow more time for their journey as a result.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Birmingham Airport This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMeanwhile southern parts of England and Wales could face heavy rain and gale force winds of up to 70mph (112km/h), the Met Office said. Icy surfaces are likely to be an \"additional hazard\", it added.\n\nHighways England have urged drivers to \"prepare for every eventuality\", recommending they carry warm clothing, food, drink, required medication, boots, a shovel and a torch.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Highways England This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTemperatures are likely to reach lows of -10C (14F) in some parts of Scotland and Wales, particularly in rural areas.\n\nThe heaviest and most frequent snow showers are forecast to affect mainly north east Scotland.\n\nOn Sunday \"there is a good chance that some rural communities could become cut off\", the Met Office said.\n\nThe Met Office have issued yellow and amber weather warnings for Sunday\n\nOnly a small proportion of power cuts affecting homes and businesses across the Midlands, south west England and south Wales are related to the weather, Western Power Distribution said.\n\nAll current outages are set to be restored by 23:00 GMT on Saturday, ahead of further possible power cuts on Sunday due to the expected snowfall.\n\nMeanwhile in Scotland, where 18,000 households had been without power, electricity supplies have been restored.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHighways officials have reported \"hazardous\" driving conditions and police in Shropshire in the West Midlands advised against driving unless \"absolutely necessary\".\n\nThere are delays to some flights at Manchester Airport and it advises passengers to check with their airline before travelling.\n\nThe final day of Lincoln Christmas market has also been cancelled over safety concerns about the expected snowfall.\n\nIn the Brecon Beacons, one family made the most of an opportunity for a snowball fight\n\nBut it still was not cold enough for trousers in Greater Manchester\n\nHave you experienced any disruption? Please share your experience with us by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nManchester United's Romelu Lukaku could be the most important player on the pitch in Sunday's Manchester derby, says ex-England player Owen Hargreaves.\n\nAfter joining United from Everton for £75m in the summer, Lukaku hit seven goals in his first eight league games but has scored only twice since.\n\nHargreaves, who played for both Manchester clubs, believes another element of his game will be crucial.\n\n\"United will need to get out of defence through Lukaku,\" he said.\n\n\"Everyone said before he came to the club that his hold-up play was not good enough for a top, top player but in the past few weeks it has been much better.\n\n\"United need that so they can get players up the pitch. He could be the most important player in the game.\"\n\nUnited are second in the Premier League, eight points behind their city rivals.\n\nPep Guardiola's side boast the most prolific attack in England's top flight, having scored 46 goals in 15 games.\n\nUnited, meanwhile, have the best defence. They have conceded just nine goals, with only one of those at Old Trafford.\n\nJose Mourinho's side adopted a cautious approach in their 0-0 draw at Liverpool in October, and Hargreaves believes they will have to be more adventurous against City if they are to retain hopes of winning the title.\n\n\"United have to win,\" said the 36-year-old, who played for United from 2007-2011 before spending a season at City\n\n\"A draw is good for City. How many points are they going to drop over the rest of the season? They've already won the league so the goal for them is to make some noise in the Champions League.\n\n\"It is more a must-win game for United. If City win, the title race is over.\"\n\nIs Pep in for the long run?\n\nGuardiola is in his second season as City manager - and his first was mixed.\n\nHe won his first 10 matches in charge before a streak of six games without a win - the worst run of his managerial career - as City finished third.\n\nBut the Spaniard has revitalised the squad, and Hargreaves expects him to be City manager for years to come.\n\nHe said: \"Manchester City were building towards Pep for a long time and I think some of the players that went there before were his mould - the likes of Kevin de Bruyne and Raheem Sterling.\n\n\"I would say Pep, with how young the squad is in terms of the players he is signing, that's a long-term project.\n\n\"It is hard to think where he could go. He has done Barcelona and Bayern Munich, he isn't going to Real Madrid, so there is only really Paris St-Germain or a national team. I think he will be there for a long time.\"\n\nHargreaves does not think the same can be said for Mourinho's spell at Old Trafford.\n\n\"If he wins the league, he could fancy a different challenge, or if doesn't work out and United are not in a position where they are pushing City then you could imagine him going after a few years.\"\n\nA good game to be without Pogba?\n\nUnited will be without midfielder Paul Pogba on Sunday as he serves the first game of a three-match suspension following his sending-off at Arsenal.\n\nThe France international has been hugely influential for the Red Devils this season, but Hargreaves feels United may thrive without him.\n\nHe said: \"For Pogba, you would have to argue the weakest part of the game is defending. As much as he is irreplaceable, for this one-off game Mourinho might not mind having someone more defensive in.\n\n\"Pogba may help with that out ball and the ability to play a precise pass, but in terms of the defensive structure and being disciplined I don't think anything will change for Mourinho, he will demand they defend as a group, break and play on the counter.\n\n\"City will dominate the game but Watford and Arsenal had control of their games against United and were beaten comfortably.\"\n\nWe asked you to create your starting XI from the combined squads of Manchester United and Manchester City, and from almost 90,000 teams selected, this was the most popular.\n\nCity midfielder Kevin de Bruyne was the most-picked player, closely followed by United goalkeeper David de Gea.\n\nJohn Stones narrowly missed out on taking one of the centre-back berths, and while United's Antonio Valencia was among the top 11 most-popular players, he failed to make the cut because City's Kyle Walker was by far the most selected player at right-back and right wing-back.\n\nRaheem Sterling has been in superb form for City, and he was the highest-ranked attacking player to miss out on the XI, with United midfielder Nemanja Matic also falling just short of the team.\n\nData recorded from 00:01 GMT on Wednesday, December to 12:00 GMT on Friday, 8 December.", "One of Britain's worst train crashes is to be remembered in a memorial service.\n\nThe Castlecary rail disaster cost 35 people their lives in a freezing snowstorm on a December Friday night in 1937.\n\nAnother 179 were hurt in the tragedy when an Edinburgh to Glasgow express ploughed into a stationary train just west of Castlecary village.\n\nAn inquiry found a signalling error led the driver of the express to believe the line was clear.\n\nThe crash happened in the evening of 10 December 1937 as the express from Edinburgh Waverley was travelling at high speed in a blizzard.\n\nBoth the express and the other train, from Dundee, were bound for Glasgow's Queen Street Station.\n\nThe Edinburgh to Glasgow train crashed into the back of a stationary Dundee train heading for Queen Street\n\nThirty five people died and 179 were injured in the disaster\n\nThe Dundee train was running late and had stopped at signals outside Castlecary Station when the express train rammed into the stationary carriages.\n\nAn investigation after the incident found a signaller error was to blame, with driver error and challenging weather conditions contributing factors.\n\nFor years the disaster was remembered by the local people in Castlecary with a makeshift memorial by the side of the railway.\n\nBut, keen to create a fitting tribute to those who died and those who helped in the aftermath of the terrible tragedy, Castlecary Community Council created a permanent memorial in 2007, made from railway sleepers, pieces of track and a wheel from a piece of rolling stock.\n\nIt is at this memorial that the victims of the disaster will be remembered on Sunday evening.\n\nOfficial documents from the time of the disaster\n\nSecretary of the community council Albert McBeath said the memory of the tragedy endured despite the passage of time.\n\n\"I knew a lot of people who remembered and had seen the aftermath,\" she said.\n\n\"It must have been horrendous, in one of our worst winters, the temperature was -20C.\n\n\"I moved to the village 30 years ago and have always heard people talking about it.\n\n\"Even now, they have grandparents who remember what happened after the crash.\"\n\nFalkirk councillor Billy Buchanan will be joined for a short service by the Provost of North Lanarkshire to remember those who lost their lives.\n\nThey will also pay tribute to a later crash in 1968 which saw the loss of two men.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "With nearly 500 schools closed across Wales, families had a chance to enjoy the winter landscape, like this snow-covered wood, near Mold Image caption: With nearly 500 schools closed across Wales, families had a chance to enjoy the winter landscape, like this snow-covered wood, near Mold\n\nResidents in Ruthin, north Wales, woke up to an idyllic white canvas of snow on Monday morning Image caption: Residents in Ruthin, north Wales, woke up to an idyllic white canvas of snow on Monday morning\n\nOn Sunday, snowfall caused treacherous conditions in places, leading some people to abandon their cars on the side of the road Image caption: On Sunday, snowfall caused treacherous conditions in places, leading some people to abandon their cars on the side of the road", "Parts of England and Wales fall under an amber 'be prepared' weather warning on Sunday. Significant snowfall is forecast with impacts for travel expected. Louise Lear explains the potential impacts.", "China has been building what it calls \"the world's biggest camera surveillance network\". Across the country, 170 million CCTV cameras are already in place and an estimated 400 million new ones will be installed in the next three years.\n\nMany of the cameras are fitted with artificial intelligence, including facial recognition technology. The BBC's John Sudworth has been given rare access to one of the new hi-tech police control rooms.", "Georgia Toffolo has been named the winner of this year's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.\n\nThe shocked reality star, known as Toff, was crowned by Ant and Dec on Sunday evening after more than nine million votes were cast.\n\nShe was odds-on favourite to win the ITV show, but said: \"I am so taken aback. Is this real?\"\n\nFormer Hollyoaks star Jamie Lomas came in second place, with radio and TV presenter Iain Lee coming in third.\n\nToff, 23, is known for appearing on E4's Made in Chelsea, joining in the seventh series. She also works for The Lady magazine and is head of events for think tank Parliament Street.\n\nThe I'm A Celebrity final attracted an average of 9.2 million live viewers on Sunday night. It was ITV's third biggest audience of the year - behind the series' launch show and the One Love Manchester concert - with a 41% share of the total TV audience.\n\nThe Strictly Come Dancing results show earlier in the night had more viewers however, with an average of 11.1 million viewers; while the final episode of Blue Planet II attracted an audience of 10.36m.\n\nJamie Lomas came second in the ITV series\n\nToff's fellow campmate Stanley Johnson - father of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson - said: \"I knew she was going to make it. I said right from the start that Toff is the one.\"\n\nThe winner said her favourite moment of the show was going to collect water with Johnson, with whom she struck up a strong friendship.\n\nShe follows in the footsteps of previous Queens of the Jungle Scarlett Moffatt and Vicky Pattinson.\n\nMoffatt, who won last year's series, said: \"It's girls like you that make me feel proud to be a young woman. I am so proud of you.\"\n\nIain Lee was voted into third place by the public\n\nAfter her win, Toff welcomed the prospect of earning money on the back of her appearance on the show, admitting: \"I haven't paid my rent.\"\n\nShe told Good Morning Britain's Susanna Reid and Piers Morgan she wanted to take a shot at presenting, saying: \"I want to do what you guys do. I want to try it. Who knows?\"\n\nToff also said she wanted to \"do good\" with her win, saying: \"There are so many worthy causes that I would love to get involved with.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Bethan Hiscocks, a teacher from near Sennybridge, says \"there's not much chance of getting out\"\n\nHeavy snow, flooding and high winds have caused widespread disruption across Wales.\n\nSennybridge, near Brecon, Powys, has seen the highest snowfall in the UK - about 30cm (12ins) - and hundreds of homes are without power.\n\nRoads have been shut, some rail routes were blocked and police have advised people not to travel unless necessary.\n\nNurses in the Cardiff and Bridgend area have been asked to work extra shifts.\n\nCardiff and Vale Health Board made a social media appeal to boost staff numbers at its University Hospital of Wales and Llandough sites.\n\nA yellow \"be aware\" warning remains in place for much of Wales until 23:55 GMT, while a warning for ice for the whole of Wales has been issued for Monday morning.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThis car overturned on the A487 at Rhiw Penglais near Aberystwyth, Ceredigion on Sunday\n\nA tree hits a camper van on the A40 in Llandovery, Carmarthenshire, but no-one was injured\n\nSnow settles on the Guardian of the former Six Bells colliery site, near Abertillery in Blaenau Gwent\n\nA snow stick shows 20cm of snowfall in the Brecon Beacons\n\nMeanwhile in Carmarthenshire, Coleg Eidyr, a residential college for people with learning disabilities at Rhandirmwym, near Llandovery, is without heat and electricity.\n\nAmong the roads closed, is the A4233 Maerdy Mountain Road between Aberdare and Maerdy in Rhondda Cynon Taff, while two milk tankers which came off the road in Llanilar, near Aberystwyth, had to be pulled free by tractors.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Gareth Wyn Jones This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMany roads were treacherous, including the A470 near Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons\n\nNorth east Wales was particularly badly hit with snow, like here at Chirk Castle, near Wrexham\n\nDerwen Gam near Aberaeron, Ceredigion, is looking picture postcard perfect\n\nEarlier on Sunday, two women were carried to safety by fire crews after their car became stuck in water at Kenfig Hill, Bridgend, while a stream broke its banks at Margam Village in Port Talbot.\n\nFlood water also left cars submerged in the capital and Vale of Glamorgan area with South Wales Fire and Rescue Service reporting water half way up vehicles.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by SWP_Roads This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nWestern Power Distribution has said hundreds of homes in mid, west and south Wales are without power and advised residents to access its power cut map online.\n\nScottish Power customers across north Wales can check supply status using its postcode checker.\n\nTwo milk tankers which came off the road in Llanilar near Aberystwyth on Sunday had to be pulled free by tractors\n\nThe 10:20 GMT flight from Cardiff to Amsterdam was cancelled and Cardiff Airport has advised all passengers to check its live flight information.\n\nA number of rail services have also been affected and Arriva Trains Wales has advised commuters to check if services are still running before travelling.\n\nPowys, Monmouthshire, Flintshire and Wrexham councils have already confirmed some schools will be closed on Monday, with warnings more could follow.\n\nDetails of any school closures are available on council websites.", "Chris Rea is currently touring around Europe and the UK\n\nSinger Chris Rea is said to be in a stable condition in hospital after collapsing during a performance.\n\nFans posted on Twitter that they saw the 66-year-old \"fall backwards\" mid-song at the New Theatre Oxford.\n\nRea, who is known for his hits \"Driving Home for Christmas\" and \"Road to Hell\", is on tour to promote his new album.\n\nA concert due to take place in Brighton on Sunday has now been cancelled. A decision has not yet been made on a concert due in Bournemouth on Tuesday.\n\nDarren Fewins, who was in the audience in Oxford, said Rea had been on stage for about 45 minutes when he collapsed halfway through a song.\n\nHe told the Press Association that Rea, who was born in Middlesbrough, was \"playing the best I have ever seen\" before his fall.\n\nSouth Central Ambulance Service said it was called at 21:30 GMT to an incident at the venue and that one patient had been taken to hospital.\n\nStaff at the theatre tweeted that they \"appreciate everyone's patience\" and will update people with news when they have it.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by New Theatre Oxford This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by New Theatre Oxford\n\nRea had his pancreas removed in 2001 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.\n\nHe suffered a stroke in 2016, but recovered to launch an album in September and embark on his tour around Europe from October.\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast in August this year that he still felt the effects of the stroke.\n\n\"I'm fine when I'm sitting down. I've just got a little bit of balance - it's a bit dodgy, just in case anyone thinks I'm drunk on-stage.\"", "A top UN official told senior North Korean figures there was an \"urgent need\" to keep channels open to avoid the risk of war, the organisation says.\n\nThe statement follows a visit to Pyongyang by Jeffrey Feltman, the highest-level trip by a UN official to the isolated nation in six years.\n\nNorth Korea says it has agreed to regular communication with the UN.\n\nTensions over the North's weapons programme were raised further after a fresh ballistic missile test last week.\n\nNorth Korea said it was its most advanced missile yet, capable of reaching the continental US.\n\nThe test was the latest in a series of nuclear and missile tests conducted in defiance of UN sanctions.\n\nSouth Korea and the US have meanwhile been carrying out large-scale military drills in a show of force.\n\nOn Sunday, South Korea said it will join the US in imposing fresh sanctions against the North.\n\nTwenty North Korean firms and 12 individuals have reportedly been added to a South Korean blacklist, which will take effect from Monday.\n\nThe move by Seoul, its second set of unilateral sanctions in a month, was designed to cut off international sources of funding for North Korea's nuclear missile programme, a foreign ministry official in Seoul said.\n\nThe measures are in addition to those imposed by the UN Security Council.\n\nThe UN continues to operate in North Korea, with programmes providing food, agricultural and health aid but the last visit by a senior official was back in 2011.\n\nAfter the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Mr Feltman met senior North Koreans all agreed \"the current situation was the most tense and dangerous peace and security issue in the world today\", according to the statement.\n\n\"Noting the urgent need to prevent miscalculations and open channels to reduce the risks of conflict, Mr Feltman underlined that the international community, alarmed by escalating tensions, is committed to the achievement of a peaceful solution,\" it added.\n\nNorth Korean state media earlier said current tensions were \"entirely ascribable to the US hostile policy\".\n\nSome of latest pictures released by North Korea showed Kim Jong-un on Mount Paektu, the country's highest peak\n\nBut in its reporting of Mr Feltman's trip, KCNA also said both sides agreed on \"communication through visits at different level on a regular basis in the future\".\n\nBefore leaving for Pyongyang, Mr Feltman held talks in China, North Korea's historic ally and main trading partner.\n\nDespite calls from other world leaders for restraint, this year has seen US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hurl insults at each other, both at one time saying the other was mad.\n\nUS Secretary of State Rex Tillerson though has said that lines of communication are open between the two sides.\n\nNorth Korea argues nuclear capabilities are its only deterrent against an outside world seeking to destroy it.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nBen Duckett was dropped from Saturday's Ashes tour game after pouring a drink over England bowler James Anderson in a Perth bar.\n\nThe 23-year-old batsman, part of the England Lions squad, was due to play against a Cricket Australia XI as a number of the senior party were rested.\n\nOn Thursday, he was socialising with Lions and senior squad members, who were not under a curfew.\n\n\"It's trivial, but in the current climate not acceptable,\" said coach Trevor Bayliss.\n\nAnderson, who has played in 131 Tests, is England's all-time leading wicket-taker and there is no suggestion the 35-year-old did anything wrong.\n• None Listen: England should be trying to win respect - Agnew\n• None Ballance fails to press England case as he fails in Perth\n\nIn September, England all-rounder and vice-captain Ben Stokes was arrested on suspicion of actual bodily harm after an altercation outside a Bristol nightclub.\n\nThen, at the start of the Ashes tour, Jonny Bairstow was accused of 'headbutting' Australia's Cameron Bancroft in a Perth bar.\n\n\"Everyone has been warned about how even small things can be blown out of all proportion,\" added Bayliss.\n\n\"I'm disappointed. With what we have had to go through already with these problems, it is not acceptable.\"\n\nDuckett has been suspended pending a disciplinary investigation that will be led by Lions coach Andy Flower.\n\n\"Andy will look after his player and if anything needs to be said or done with the first team, we'll handle that,\" added Australian Bayliss.\n\n\"I'm not sure what more I can say to the players. I'm sure there will be some stern words from above.\"\n\nWhen asked if he is \"fed up\" about having to address off-field matters, Bayliss replied: \"Very much so. I'm here to coach the team and I end up spending most of the time trying to explain behaviour that the boys have been warned about.\"\n\nThe latest indiscretion involving the England team is thought to have left management incredibly angry.\n\nThere is a feeling trouble usually centres around the same small group of players and that they could pay with their place in the squad, even if that weakens the overall strength of the team.\n\n\"I might review who is in the team,\" said Bayliss. \"They can't keep making the same mistakes.\n\n\"Most of the guys are fine, but somewhere along the line some of the guys have to pull their heads in.\"\n\nNorthants left-hander Duckett averages 15.71 in four Tests for England, the last of which was against India in November 2016.\n\nHe was replaced in the England team for the game at Richardson Park by Joe Clarke.\n\nEngland are 2-0 down in the Ashes series and will relinquish the urn if they are beaten in the third Test in Perth, which begins on Thursday.\n\nThe Ashes squad had been placed under a curfew after the incident between Bairstow and Bancroft came to light during England's 10-wicket defeat in the first Test in Brisbane.\n\nThough both Bairstow and Bancroft described the occurrence as \"without malice\", England's players were subsequently required to return to their hotel by midnight.\n\nThat curfew was lifted for the first time on the night of Duckett's indiscretion.\n\nIt is understood that no members of the public were involved and England team security were present.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester United manager Jose Mourinho said his side's title hopes are \"probably\" over because referee Michael Oliver failed to award them a penalty in their 2-1 loss to \"lucky\" Manchester City.\n\nPep Guardiola's team stretched their lead at the top of the table to 11 points and became the first team to win 14 successive English top-flight games in a single season.\n\nCity took the lead their vast superiority deserved when man-of-the-match David Silva hooked home from close range after confusion at a corner on 42 minutes, only for United to be handed a lifeline in first-half stoppage time when poor defending from Nicolas Otamendi and Fabian Delph allowed Marcus Rashford to steal in for a composed finish.\n\nOtamendi made amends nine minutes after the break when Romelu Lukaku - who had a poor game - lashed at a clearance in the area and the City defender pounced on the rebound to score.\n• None Has Mourinho lost the battle with Guardiola?\n• None My Barcelona philosophy is working in England - Guardiola\n\nMourinho's post-match focus centred on an incident in the 79th minute, when Ander Herrera went down in the box under a challenge from Otamendi and was booked for diving.\n\n\"My first reaction is I feel sorry for Michael Oliver because he had a very good match but unfortunately he made an important mistake,\" Mourinho told BBC Match of the Day.\n\n\"The result was made with a big penalty not given. That would have been 2-2.\n\n\"Michael was unlucky because it was a clear penalty.\"\n\nAsked whether the title race was over, Mourinho replied: \"Probably, yes. Manchester City are a very good team and they are protected by the luck, and the gods of football are behind them.\"\n\nBefore Sunday's game, Mourinho had suggested City's players go down too easily - something Guardiola dismissed, along with the Portuguese's assertion United should have had a penalty.\n\n\"Last season it was the same - we won here and it was the referee. Today as well,\" Guardiola said.\n\n\"Yesterday he spoke about the referee. We are an honest team. We had 65% ball possession, which means we wanted to play. We came here and did that.\n\n\"It's not true that my players go down easily. That is not an argument I believe.\"\n\nSunday's result ended United's 40-match unbeaten run at home - which stretched back to City's win here in September 2016.\n\nCity, who have dropped only two points in their first 16 league games, had opportunities to extend their lead but it was keeper Ederson who made the decisive late intervention with a miraculous double late save from the luckless Lukaku and substitute Juan Mata.\n• None Podcast: Is the Premier League title race over?\n\nIs the title race over?\n\nIt is a brave call to declare the title race over in early December - but the statistics and evidence are piling up to suggest the chase is on for second place behind City.\n\nCity will effectively have to lose four games while all of their rivals need to keep winning, tough to see with Guardiola's team having won every league match since Everton took a point at Etihad Stadium in the second game of the season.\n\n\"We are still in December. If we have 11 points when we play the second derby in April then maybe I will tell you that we have the title,\" said Guardiola, who was full of praise for his side's performance.\n\n\"We won at Old Trafford again, that is why I am the most pleased and of course for the three points,\" he added. \"We played good, with a lot of courage. I'm so satisfied.\"\n\nThe trip to Old Trafford, and the renewal of old rivalries between Guardiola and Mourinho, was the most eagerly awaited game of the season between the two teams at the top of the table and was seen as the acid test of City's apparent infallibility.\n\nThose looking for cracks in the Guardiola armour pointed to City having to secure three wins against Huddersfield Town, Southampton and West Ham United with late, late goals.\n\nIf City's confidence had been shaken at all by having to fight for victories, there was no sign here as they played with a composure and positivity that was a level above United.\n\nThere can be no doubt City were deserved winners and even showed the street wisdom of champions to run down the clock in the closing seconds, to the fury and frustration of Old Trafford.\n\nThe title race may not be over - but there was no escaping the feeling a crucial blow has been inflicted on United and the rest of City's pursuers.\n\nSilva may be small in stature but he stood head and shoulders above every other player in the intense heat of this game.\n\nThe Spaniard may now be 31 but it is little wonder City were so delighted to secure him on a new contract until 2020.\n\nSilva showed again why he deserves to be ranked as a Premier League great, and one of the finest players to play for City.\n\nHe had more time on the ball than any other player, the hallmark of class, and always seemed to have more options in possession than any other player.\n\nSilva pounced for City's crucial first goal, held his own in the physical exchanges and even shrugged off a heavy bang to the head in a clash with United's Marcos Rojo.\n\nIt was a complete performance from a world-class player.\n\nCity fans stayed in their seats long after the final whistle, delivering a taunt that had echoed around Old Trafford throughout this landmark victory.\n\n\"Park The Bus, Park The Bus, Man United…\" was the chant that was met with a muted response from the home support, who had seen City show more attacking intent and flair than Mourinho's side could muster.\n\nUntil a predictable late charge, this was a strangely muted display from United. Their need for victory was arguably greater than City's as they started the game with an eight-point deficit, but they spent much of the first half on the back foot.\n\nMourinho's line-up demonstrated attacking intent with the inclusion of Lukaku, Rashford, Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial. United also missed the power and influence of Paul Pogba, suspended after his red card at Arsenal.\n\nIt was still a surprise, however, to see City so comprehensively dominant from the opening exchanges and United were barely able to believe their luck that they went in at half-time on level terms.\n\nLukaku's lack of confidence and touch did not help and there was an element of good fortune about Ederson's late saves - but there was no doubt United did not push hard enough for victory and were second best.\n• None This was just the second time a team has scored more than one goal in the Premier League at Old Trafford against Mourinho's Manchester United (also City in September 2016, 2-1).\n• None Mourinho has lost nine matches in all competitions against Guardiola, more than against any other manager.\n• None United posted a 35% possession figure, their lowest at Old Trafford in the Premier League since 2003-04 (when Opta started collecting this data).\n• None Rashford has been involved in 11 goals in 12 games in all competitions at Old Trafford this season (six goals, five assists), more than any other United player.\n• None Otamendi is now the top-scoring defender in the Premier League this season (four goals).\n• None Lukaku has scored just five goals in his past 40 Premier League appearances against the 'big six'.\n\nUnited welcome Bournemouth to Old Trafford on Wednesday at 20:00 GMT and are at West Brom on Sunday, 17 December at 14:15.\n\nCity travel to Swansea on Wednesday (19:45), before hosting Tottenham on Saturday (17:30).\n• None Attempt saved. Bernardo Silva (Manchester City) left footed shot from the left side of the six yard box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Kevin De Bruyne with a through ball.\n• None Ashley Young (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Delay over. They are ready to continue.\n• None Delay in match Ederson (Manchester City) because of an injury.\n• None Attempt saved. Juan Mata (Manchester United) left footed shot from very close range is saved in the centre of the goal.\n• None Attempt saved. Romelu Lukaku (Manchester United) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Anthony Martial.\n• None Offside, Manchester United. Nemanja Matic tries a through ball, but Juan Mata is caught offside.\n• None Offside, Manchester United. Ashley Young tries a through ball, but Zlatan Ibrahimovic is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "More students will be encouraged to take degrees in two years\n\nStudents in England are going to be offered degrees in two years with a £5,500 saving in tuition fees, says the universities minister Jo Johnson.\n\nUndergraduate courses will be condensed into \"accelerated\" degrees, with fees 20% less than a three-year course.\n\nMr Johnson said he wants to \"break the mould\" of a system in which three-year degrees have \"crowded out\" any more flexible ways of studying.\n\nThe Office for Fair Access says the plan could help to widen opportunities.\n\nBut Labour's shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said there was no evidence that \"squeezing three years of learning into two will stop the huge drop in part-time students or lead to better outcomes\".\n\nInstead she said that in effect it would mean that for each of the two years of study, tuition fees would be more expensive than the current £9,250, at about £11,000 per year.\n\nThe idea of a two-year degree had been proposed earlier this year - but this latest version has moved further towards making it cheaper for students.\n\nStudents would take the same number of units and have the same amount of teaching and supervision, but degree courses would be delivered in one less year.\n\nAs well as reduced tuition fees, students will save on a year's living costs and will be able to start working a year earlier - a package which Mr Johnson says could cut costs by £25,000.\n\nIt would also be cheaper for the government, which would have lower tuition fee loans to fund, with this fee arrangement intended to be available from autumn 2019.\n\nIt is part of Mr Johnson's push for more value for money for students - after concerns that students did not think they were getting good value from their tuition fees.\n\nIt comes ahead of a wider review of fees and university funding expected in the next few weeks.\n\nJo Johnson says universities have to address value for money for students\n\nThe minister says the level of tuition fees for two year courses strikes the \"right balance\" between the fixed costs for universities, where the teaching hours will be the same as a three-year course, and a reduction for students for less time on campus.\n\nThere have been previous attempts to promote two-year degrees, but Mr Johnson said the numbers currently taking them were \"pitiful\", with only 0.2% of students on such accelerated courses.\n\n\"I think this reflects that the incentives in the system are completely skewed against it.\"\n\nThe minister said he wanted to promote a more diverse and flexible set of choices at university level - in a market currently dominated by the traditional three-year, residential degree.\n\nNumbers of mature students have been declining in recent years - and Mr Johnson says that the two-year degree model could be a much more practical option for them.\n\n\"This policy will be particularly attractive for mature students who are looking to change their skills and adapt to changes in the economy - and who might want to go through higher education at a faster pace,\" he said.\n\nMr Johnson said that if universities saw students being attracted by such courses, there could be a \"snowball\" effect which would result in such courses becoming widespread.\n\nThe universities minister says he wants to move beyond being \"stuck with a system that has increasingly focused on offering only one way of benefiting from higher education\".\n\nMr Johnson said he \"massively supported\" new providers such as Sir James Dyson's engineering institute, which he said provided the kind of innovation that had been \"sorely missing in the system\".\n\nThis is a high-quality, work-focused project, where students learn alongside leading engineers - and where students do not pay tuition fees.\n\nNick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said that \"making two-year degrees more makes sense\", particularly as a way to support mature students.\n\nBut he warned that this would mean a higher charge per year in fees than the current three-year degree.\n\nAnd Mr Hillman warned that \"it remains an open question whether there is sufficient support in Parliament for a higher tuition fee cap for a minority of courses\".\n\nProf Les Ebdon, head of the Offa access watchdog, backed the calls for such fast-track courses.\n\n\"Accelerated degrees are an attractive option for mature students who have missed out on the chance to go to university as a young person,\" said Prof Ebdon.\n\n\"Having often battled disadvantage, these students can thrive in higher education and I hope that now many more will be able to take up the life-changing opportunity to get a degree.\"\n\nThe proposal was supported by Sir Anthony Seldon, vice chancellor of the University of Buckingham, an institution which already offers two year degrees.\n\n\"Two years are the ideal solution for those students who want to get on with their degree and forsake three-month summer holidays,\" said Sir Anthony.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Scenes of fun and frustration over wintry showers\n\nHeavy snow has led to power cuts and disrupted air, rail and road travel in many parts of the UK.\n\nThe deepest snow recorded was 30cm (12in) in Sennybridge, near Brecon, while High Wycombe saw 17cm.\n\nSnow is forecast to remain in Northern Ireland and Scotland but give way to icy conditions overnight elsewhere. Met Office yellow \"be aware\" warnings for ice affect England and Wales.\n\nHundreds of schools across England and Wales will be closed on Monday.\n\nFlights have been disrupted at several airports, including Heathrow, where snowploughs were used to clear the runways.\n\nHeathrow remains open but says the de-icing of aircraft is resulting in some delays and cancellations. But passengers flying into the airport have also said they are experiencing delays in disembarking from planes.\n\nElectricity supplier SSE said about 5,400 homes in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire remain without power after snow and wind saw tree branches coming into contact with overhead cables.\n\nIts engineers are working to carry out repairs but because of \"continuing issues with access to fault locations\" about 800 homes in Oxfordshire will remain without power overnight. The company is serving free hot food and drinks to affected customers.\n\nAcross the Midland, South West England and Wales, about 9,000 properties served by Western Power Distribution were affected by power cuts. The company says it is working to restore power overnight.\n\nBuckinghamshire County Council and Shropshire Council say the majority of their schools will be closed on Monday because of the snow.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The forecast is for icy conditions on Monday\n\nThere have been similar announcements in Denbighshire, Birmingham, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, while Hertfordshire County Council says some of its schools have taken the decision to shut.\n\nMeanwhile, drivers have been advised by police to avoid non-essential journeys.\n\nThe scene on the A40 near Sennybridge in Powys\n\nTemperatures reached lows of -10C (14F) in some parts of Scotland and Wales, falling to as low as -14C (6.8F) in isolated rural areas.\n\nAn amber warning for snow was extended on Sunday to cover Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex but areas including Liverpool and South Yorkshire were downgraded to a yellow \"be aware\" warning.\n\nThe Met Office's yellow weather warning for snow and ice on Monday\n\nThe Met Office says ice is likely to be the \"main hazard\" over the next 24 hours as it issued a further yellow \"be aware\" warning for snow and ice in Scotland and Northern Ireland.\n\nIt warned of icy surfaces on Monday in Wales and in the Midlands, East of England, London and the South East, the North West, South West, and Yorkshire.\n\nOvernight temperatures into Monday are forecast to be between -1C and 1C in built-up areas but as low as -10C in the countryside.\n\n\"Ice is expected to form across many places overnight into Monday morning. Some injuries are likely from slips and falls on icy surfaces as well as icy patches on some untreated roads, pavements and cycle paths,\" the Met Office said.\n\n\"As well as this lying snow from Sunday will continue to be a hazard leading to longer and potentially hazardous journeys.\"\n\nIt said some snow may fall over parts of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire on Monday morning but it was not expected to settle.\n\nThe snow failed to stop the three Premier League matches going ahead - although ground staff were on hand during the Liverpool v Everton derby\n\nThe snow showers have swept across London\n\nA gritter ploughs the quiet roads in the Peak District\n\nWhile this dog owner in Leicestershire braves the cold\n\nA picturesque view was captured in Derwen Gam near Aberaeron, in Wales\n\nHill walkers made the most of the bright skies over Ben Lawers in Perthshire\n\nThe Edward Carson statue in Belfast was barely visible through the snow\n\nBut plenty of people were out and about in central London", "Ms Wasim shared her experience on her Instagram account, which has almost 400,000 followers\n\nAn actress who starred in Bollywood's biggest film says she was molested on a flight between Delhi and Mumbai.\n\nZaira Wasim, 17, said a \"middle-aged man\" had repeatedly moved his foot up and down her neck and back while she was \"half-asleep\".\n\nShe documented the incident on Instagram and tried to film the man's behaviour but said it was too dark.\n\nThe airline, Air Vistara, said it was carrying out a detailed investigation into the incident.\n\nA suspect has been arrested, Indian media reports say, but his identity has not been disclosed.\n\nMs Wasim posted on her Instagram account early on Sunday. \"I was sure of it,\" she wrote. He kept nudging my shoulder and continued to move his foot up and down my back and neck.\"\n\nShe said she blamed the turbulence at first but was later woken by the man's foot touching her neck.\n\nMs Wasim shared a video of herself after the flight, in which she was visibly upset. \"This is terrible,\" she said. \"No one will help up if we don't decide to help ourselves.\"\n\nZaira Wasim made her acting debut in Dangal, the top grossing Bollywood movie of all time\n\nLast year, Ms Wasim made her acting debut in Dangal, which became the top-grossing Bollywood movie of all time.\n\nShe was awarded the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement earlier this year by India's President Ram Nath Kovind.\n\nAir Vistara said on Twitter that staff had not become aware of the incident until the plane was on its descent to Mumbai but it apologised for what Ms Wasim had experienced.\n\n\"We have zero tolerance for such behaviour,\" its statement read.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Vistara This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn recent months, a growing number of women have spoken out about their experiences of sexual harassment.\n\nIt followed a campaign encouraging victims to share their stories of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour under the #metoo hashtag.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIsrael's prime minister has said Palestinians must \"get to grips with\" the reality that Jerusalem is Israel's capital in order to move towards peace.\n\nBenjamin Netanyahu said Jerusalem had been the capital of Israel for 3,000 years and had \"never been the capital of any other people\".\n\nHe spoke amid ongoing protests in the Muslim and Arab world at a US decision recognising Jerusalem as the capital.\n\nViolence flared near the US embassy in Lebanon and elsewhere on Sunday.\n\nIn Jerusalem itself, a Palestinian was arrested after stabbing and seriously wounding an Israeli security guard at the central bus station.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Netanyahu: Paris is the capital of France, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel\n\nSpeaking in Paris after talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, Mr Netanyahu said efforts to deny the \"millennial connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem\" were \"absurd\".\n\n\"You can read it in a very fine book - it's called the Bible,\" he said. \"You can read it after the Bible. You can hear it in the history of Jewish communities throughout our diaspora... Where else is the capital of Israel, but in Jerusalem?\n\n\"The sooner the Palestinians come to grips with this reality, the sooner we will move towards peace.\"\n\nMeanwhile a spokesman for the US Vice-President, Mike Pence, strongly criticised the Palestinian Authority, saying it was \"unfortunate\" that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was declining to meet Mr Pence on his forthcoming trip to the region.\n\nIn Egypt, the country's top Muslim and Christian clerics have also cancelled scheduled talks with Mr Pence in protest at the US move.\n\nThere has been widespread condemnation of President Donald Trump's decision - announced on Wednesday - to reverse decades of US neutrality on the status of Jerusalem which cuts to the heart of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.\n\nThe city is home to key religious sites sacred to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, especially in East Jerusalem.\n\nIsrael has always regarded Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel in the 1967 war - as the capital of a future Palestinian state.\n\nSunday has seen a further raft of protests at the US move:\n\nIn Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told a large rally in Istanbul he would not abandon Jerusalem to a state that \"kills children\".\n\nMr Netanyahu said the Turkish leader had \"attacked Israel\".\n\n\"I'm not used to receiving lectures about morality from a leader who bombs Kurdish villages in his native Turkey, who jails journalists, helps Iran go around international sanctions and who helps terrorists, including in Gaza, kill innocent people,\" he added.\n\nMr Erdoğan has described Jerusalem as a \"red line\" issue for Muslims and warned Turkey could end up severing diplomatic ties with Israel over the issue.\n\nTurkey and Israel only restored diplomatic relations last year, six years after Turkey cut ties in protest at the killing of nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists in clashes with Israeli commandos on board a ship trying to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza.", "Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered to bid farewell to the French rock star Johnny Hallyday, who died this week.\n\nPresident Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the singer in a eulogy at the Madeleine church.", "Opposition parties in Honduras have formally demanded the annulment of last month's presidential election.\n\nThe main opposition contender, Salvador Nasralla, accused the electoral authorities of tampering with the results in favour of the incumbent, Juan Orlando Hernández.\n\nOfficial results show that Mr Hernández won the vote by a narrow margin, but a partial recount is under way.\n\n\"We are not making a simple demand,\" said Mr Nasralla.\n\n\"The whole world knows what has happened and I do not believe the world will allow Honduras be robbed of the people's will,\" he added.\n\nThe partial recount was requested by the regional body, the Organisation for American States (OAS).\n\nIt said that the electoral court must check a number of alleged irregularities before announcing a result for the 26 November poll.\n\nVotes from nearly 5,000 ballot boxes are being tallied again. Officials say results are due to be announced by Monday.\n\nMr Nasralla had established a five-point lead over Mr Hernández on the first day of counting.\n\nBut the gap began to close after a computer problem was reported at the vote tallying centre in the capital, Tegucigalpa.\n\nGovernment supporters say the opposition should accept defeat\n\nThousands of people took to the streets in rival demonstrations over the past two weeks. Human rights group Amnesty International says 14 people died in days of clashes.\n\nThe government imposed a curfew, which was lifted after on Friday, as violence was controlled.\n\nThe electoral tribunal has until 26 December to publish the result of the election.", "Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show, Nigel Farage has defended Donald Trump's retweeting of inflammatory tweets by saying he can't have known what he was doing.", "Suzannah Newham said yes to John Dardis\n\nA man's romantic proposal plans were almost ruined when he fell and broke his ankle on a coast path - but he popped the question anyway, while waiting for emergency services.\n\nSuzannah Newham said yes as John Dardis lay on wet ground unable to move, Newquay Coastguard said.\n\nRescuers had some \"great banter\" with the Bristol pair while fitting a splint and administering pain killers.\n\n\"He literally fell for her,\" a spokesman said.\n\nThe couple were said to be staying at Mawgan Porth near Newquay for the weekend and had gone for a coastal walk when Mr Dardis slipped on wet ground.\n\nHowever, he decided to carry on with his plans to propose despite suffering a broken ankle in the fall.\n\nThe rescue team carried John Dardis across fields to an ambulance\n\nThe groom-to-be posted a picture on Facebook of his ankle in a cast next to a bottle of champagne and thanked the rescuers for their \"great banter\" after the accident on Saturday morning.\n\nSuzannah Newham showed off her ring on the way to the hospital\n\nRegie Butler, Newquay Coastguard rescue officer, said: \"It was an unfortunate accident but John was very stoic.\n\n\"The best man's got the best speech to give now.\"", "Since the Good Friday agreement was signed in 1998, marking the end of 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland, relationships between Catholics and Protestants have improved.\n\nBut in some areas, peace walls are still in use to separate the two communities.\n\nThese walls have now become an attraction for tourists visiting Belfast.", "Kezia Dugdale said she knew appearing on I'm A Celebrity would be a \"political gamble\".\n\nThe former Scottish Labour leader, known as Kez on the ITV show, was the second person to be evicted from the Australian jungle.\n\nMs Dugdale said she expected criticism but would be coming home \"with my head held high\".\n\nShe faced a backlash after it emerged she joined the reality show without permission from the Labour Party.\n\nThe MSP lasted 11 days in the camp.\n\nThe Edinburgh and Lothians MSP had asked for three weeks off from Holyrood business but did not reveal her plans to go on the show.\n\nNew leader Richard Leonard initially had said he was \"not persuaded\" that his predecessor should be punished, despite his own \"personal disappointment\" and strong criticism from others in the party.\n\nScottish Labour later announced that Ms Dugdale she would not be suspended from the party.\n\nHowever, she will be interviewed on her return to parliament and will \"have the opportunity to present her account of events.\"\n\nMs Dugdale was expected to be paid tens of thousands of pounds, part of which she said she would be donating to charity, along with her MSP's salary for the time she is away.\n\nIn an interview with ITV's Lorraine, she said: \"I always knew it was going to be a big gamble for me politically.\n\n\"I know I'm going back to a good deal of criticism and I will take that face on. I've got to have a lot of conversations with people but I'm going back with my head held high.\n\n\"I came out here to do what I wanted to do. I love my job, it's a great privilege to be a Labour politician and I fully intend on continuing to do it for a very long time.\"\n\nThe 36-year-old said she appeared on the programme to show young viewers that not all politicians were like fellow camper Stanley Johnson, who is Boris Johnson's father.\n\nIn her exit interview she told presenters Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly she wanted to use the appearance to talk about the things she cared about.\n\nShe added: \"And to take on the myth that every politician looks like Stanley - old, white, male, pale and stale. I wanted to show that there is a variety of people out there.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Will you marry me? Australian politician proposes to his partner in parliament\n\nAn Australian MP has proposed to his partner during a parliamentary debate on legalising same-sex marriage.\n\nTim Wilson's proposal to Ryan Bolger, who was sitting in the public gallery, was met with a loud \"yes\" - reaffirming a commitment they made nine years ago.\n\nThe House of Representatives began debating the bill on Monday, five days after it was passed in the Senate.\n\nMr Wilson is believed to be the first MP to propose on the floor of the house, officials said.\n\n\"In my first speech, I defined our bond by the ring that sits on both of our left hands. They [the rings] are the answer to the question we cannot ask,\" an emotional Mr Wilson said in his speech.\n\n\"So there is only one thing left to do. Ryan Patrick Bolger, will you marry me?\"\n\nThe question drew cheers and applause. The speaker congratulated the pair, before confirming that Mr Bolger's response had been officially recorded in Hansard.\n\nTim Wilson proposed to his partner, who was sitting in the public gallery\n\nMr Wilson said the protracted national debate on same-sex marriage had been the \"soundtrack\" to their relationship.\n\nEarlier, the government MP spoke about his own experience growing up as a gay teenager and struggling with a stigma surrounding homosexuality.\n\n\"This bill rams a stake into the heart of that stigma and its legacy,\" he said.\n\nMr Wilson is among 77 MPs who will speak on the bill. A vote is likely to happen this week unless there are significant amendments.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Long-time same-sex couples on what a law change would mean for them\n\nConservative politicians are expected to suggest amendments to the bill, such as additional exemptions for celebrants who refuse to marry same-sex couples. The Senate rejected such amendments in its debate last week.", "A Conservative MP has defended her cyber-security arrangements after revealing she shares her login passwords with all her staff.\n\nNadine Dorries said this included \"interns on exchange programmes\", triggering a backlash on Twitter.\n\nIn response, she said she was a backbench MP who did not have access to government documents.\n\nThe Mid Bedfordshire MP had been defending Conservative First Secretary of State Damian Green.\n\nA Cabinet Office inquiry is examining claims pornography was found on a computer in Mr Green's Parliamentary office.\n\nHe denies watching or downloading pornography on his computer.\n\nMs Dorries was questioning a retired police officer's claim that Mr Green must have been responsible for material found on his computer.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nadine Dorries This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Rory Cellan-Jones This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nShe defended herself in subsequent tweets, saying her team were responding to hundreds of emails every day.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Nadine Dorries This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA fellow MP, Nick Boles, tweeted that he shared his password with his staff for the same reasons.\n\nMs Dorries later tweeted that she was \"flattered\" by people thinking she would have access to \"government docs\", adding: \"Sorry to disappoint!\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Nadine Dorries This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nJim Killock, of the Open Rights campaign group, said: \"On the face of it, Nadine Dorries is admitting to breaching basic data protection laws, making sure her constituents' emails and correspondence is kept confidential and secure. She should not be sharing her log-in with interns.\n\n\"More worryingly, it appears this practice of MPs sharing their log-ins may be rather widespread. If so, we need to know.\"\n\nHe urged MPs' staff and former staff to get in touch with his campaign \"if they have knowledge about insecure data practices in MPs' offices\".", "Covering the mouth and nose can help to warm up air being breathed in by those with asthma\n\nAsthma sufferers are being encouraged to wear a scarf over their nose and mouth to prevent asthma attacks this winter.\n\nBreathing in cold, damp air can make the airways tighten and trigger an attack in three out of four people, charity Asthma UK says.\n\nThis can leave people coughing, wheezing and gasping for breath.\n\nThe charity's #Scarfie campaign says \"a scarf can save a life\" but it's not a replacement for asthma medicines.\n\nFour million people with asthma in the UK say that breathing in cold winter air makes their asthma symptoms worse.\n\nEthan Jennings, who is nearly four, and from Lancashire, has had severe asthma symptoms since he was a baby. In one year, he was rushed to hospital 17 times for treatment.\n\nHis dad, Trevor, says winter is always a bad time for him.\n\nEthan was 11 months old when he first started gasping for breath\n\n\"When it gets cold, it's bedlam, he's more prone to colds and that brings out his symptoms.\"\n\nThe winter when he turned one was particularly awful - \"we nearly lost him\", Trevor says.\n\nEthan spent a week in hospital fighting for his life having been given all available treatments.\n\nSince then, he has responded better but his parents know that they have to be particularly vigilant in winter.\n\n\"I'm just waiting to hear a cough. He hasn't yet got the vocabulary to tell me his chest is tight, but that is coming.\n\n\"In the meantime, anything we can do to protect him when he's outdoors - we do it.\"\n\nDr Andy Whittamore, clinical lead at Asthma UK and a practising GP, said just going outside on a cold day could be life-threatening for many people with asthma.\n\n\"Living in the UK means that cold weather is impossible to avoid over winter, but if people have asthma, simply wrapping a scarf around their nose and mouth can warm up the air before they breathe it in, reducing their risk of having an asthma attack.\n\n\"We are urging everyone - whether they have asthma or know someone that does - to share the message that something as simple as a scarf could save a life.\"\n\nIn the UK, 5.4 million people have asthma and just over one million of them are children.\n\nLast year, 1,410 people died from asthma - 14 were children.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "DUP leader Arlene Foster has said her party will not accept any Brexit deal that \"separates\" Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.", "Rak-Su were crowned the winners of the X Factor final beating Grace Davies.\n\nThe group from Watford will release Dimelo with Wyclef Jean and Naughty Boy.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIreland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he was \"surprised and disappointed\" that an anticipated deal on Brexit was not reached on Monday.\n\nHe said Ireland could not go into a second phase of Brexit talks without \"firm guarantees that there will not be a hard border in Ireland\".\n\nMr Varadkar said the UK had agreed a text that met Irish concerns.\n\nHowever, he was then later told that the British government was not in a position to conclude \"what was agreed\".\n\nThe taoiseach told a press conference in Dublin that earlier on Monday, he had been in touch with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU Council President Donald Tusk and confirmed to both Ireland's agreement on the form of words about the Irish border.\n\nBut the deal did not go ahead.\n\nThe BBC's Laura Kuenssberg said the deal broke down after the DUP refused to accept UK concessions on the Irish border issue.\n\nIrish ministers say the border is \"more than a customs issue\" and must be handled sensitively\n\nPrime Minister Theresa May is understood to have broken off from talks with Mr Junker to speak to DUP leader Arlene Foster.\n\nIt happened after the DUP leader had held a press conference saying her party would \"not accept any form of regulatory divergence\" that separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.\n\nHowever, Downing Street sources insist it was not only the intervention by the DUP that meant a deal was not concluded.\n\nThe DUP insists NI must leave the EU on the same terms as the rest of the UK\n\nIt is understood that there are still differences of opinion over citizens' rights, the role of the European Courts after the implementation period and also over the technicalities of the Irish border.\n\nThe UK was reportedly prepared to accept that Northern Ireland may remain in the EU's customs union and single market in all but name.\n\nAt her press conference on Monday afternoon, Mrs Foster accused Dublin of trying to change the 1998 Belfast Agreement without unionists' consent.\n\n\"We will not stand for that,\" she said.\n\n\"The prime minister has told the House of Commons that there will be no border in the Irish Sea and the prime minister has been clear that the UK is leaving the EU as a whole and that the territorial and economic integrity of the UK will be protected,\" said the DUP leader.\n\nThis is the latest in a series of meetings between Theresa May and EU officials\n\nThe Irish prime minister told a news conference that it \"would not be helpful\" for him to attribute blame for the breakdown in agreement.\n\nWhen asked about the DUP's influence with the UK government, Mr Varadkar said that although they are the largest party in Northern Ireland, and their views have to be taken into account, they \"don't represent the majority of people in Northern Ireland\".\n\nHe added that the majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU during the Brexit referendum.\n\nThe Irish government had been seeking guarantees from the UK that there would be no customs checks on the border with Northern Ireland after Brexit and movements of goods and people would remain seamless.\n\nJohn O'Dowd, Sinn Féin, accused the DUP leader, Mrs Foster, of putting party political needs ahead of border issues.\n\n\"It appears from the leaks of the paper that were presented today - and we will examine the paper in its totality - that there is certainly a significant section of the UK government who are prepared to treat us different because they either understand the unique circumstances of this island or they accept that these talks are going nowhere until this matter is dealt with,\" he said.\n\nUK Prime Minister Theresa May has been meeting key EU figures in an attempt to hammer out a deal ahead of a summit in 10 days time.\n\nMr Tusk represents the leaders of the other 27 EU members, who all need to agree for there to be a move to the next phase of talks.\n\nThe UK voted for Brexit last year and is due to leave in March 2019, but negotiations have been deadlocked over three so-called separation issues: the status of expat citizens, the \"divorce\" bill and the Northern Ireland border.\n\nThe Good Friday Agreement or Belfast Agreement was reached on 10 April 1998 by the British and Irish governments and most of the political parties in Northern Ireland about how NI should be governed.\n\nThe agreement aimed to set up a nationalist and unionist power-sharing government in Northern Ireland.", "Four years have passed since South African hero Nelson Mandela died\n\nSouth Africa's corruption watchdog has found officials misused millions of dollars during Nelson Mandela's funeral four years ago.\n\nAccording to the report, 300m rand ($22m; £16m) was redirected from a development fund to help with costs.\n\nIt had been earmarked for things like \"sanitation, the replacement of mud schools and the refurbishment of hospitals,\" the report stated.\n\nInstead, the authorities allegedly spent it on items like $24 T-shirts.\n\nAllegations of misuse first emerged in 2014, months after Mr Mandela's funeral in Qunu, Eastern Cape, in December 2013, which was attended by heads of state from around the world.\n\nNow, nearly four years after Mr Mandela's death at the age of 95, the country's public protector, Busi Mkhwebane, has asked President Jacob Zuma to pursue the allegations further using the special investigations unit.\n\nThe 300-page report describes how officials in the Eastern Cape pocketed funds, ignored basic rules, and inflated costs.\n\nMr Mandela spent 27 years in prison after being charged with trying to overthrow the apartheid government\n\nMs Mkhwebane described the failure to follow regulations on the spending of public money as \"very scary\" and \"appalling\", according to South Africa's Mail&Guardian newspaper.\n\n\"It is very concerning that we can use a funeral to do such things,\" she told a press conference. \"How do you charge or escalate prices or even send an invoice for something you have not delivered?\"\n\nMs Mkhwebane said disorganisation had a role to play in the misuse, but also hit out at how South Africa's ruling ANC party had apparently issued instructions to officials on how the money should be spent.\n\n\"There are invoices we are showing with letterheads from the ANC. And monies were paid but again services were not rendered,\" she was quoted as saying by South Africa's EyeWitness News.\n\nShe added: \"We are hopeful whoever has committed these acts will be taken to task.\"\n\nThis is not the first scandal to surround official events commemorating the apartheid struggle hero's life.\n\nThe man tasked with providing a sign language interpretation at the memorial service was accused of making up gestures, while a fight for control over Mandela's legacy within his own family mired the last months of his life.", "This is the US's largest deployment of stealth fighter jets to South Korea.\n\nTens of thousands of South Korean and American troops are involved in the annual exercises.", "The MP Nadine Dorries wrote on Twitter that all her staff had her login details\n\nThe UK's data privacy regulator has cautioned MPs about sharing work computer passwords.\n\nIt follows tweets by three Conservative Party MPs over the weekend claiming that they had provided their staff with access to their login details.\n\nSharing passwords is not a breach of the UK's Data Protection Act.\n\nBut the law says that \"appropriate\" security measures concerning personal data must be in place and that those with access must be properly vetted.\n\n\"We're aware of reports that MPs share logins and passwords and are making enquiries of the relevant parliamentary authorities,\" the Information Commissioner's Office said in a tweet of its own.\n\n\"We would remind MPs and others of their obligations under the Data Protection Act to keep personal data secure.\"\n\nIt added a link to a guide outlining the types of safety measures that should be enforced.\n\nThe issue was raised by Nadine Dorries - the member of parliament for mid-Bedfordshire - who posted on Saturday evening that her team logged into her computer using her login details \"everyday\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nadine Dorries This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nShe had made the point in order to cast doubt over claims that First Secretary of State Damian Green must have been responsible for viewing pornography allegedly found on his computer. The minister denies the accusation, but has faced calls to resign.\n\nNick Boles - MP for Grantham and Stamford - followed up saying that he had shared his password with his four members of his staff, so they could deal with letters and emails from constituents.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Nick Boles MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd Will Quince - who represents Colchester - said that he had given his login to his office manager, adding that he did not always lock his machine to allow other team members access.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Will Quince MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 3 by Will Quince MP\n\nThe House of Commons Staff Handbook explicitly states that its employees must not share their passwords, but the rule does not appear to cover logins of the MPs themselves.\n\nEven so, some politicians have stressed that they do keep their details private.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Peter Grant MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 5 by Melanie Onn MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSecurity experts have expressed concern about the suggestion that password-sharing is commonplace among MPs and their staff.\n\nTroy Hunt blogged about a variety of alternative ways to share access to emails and other documents without providing full access to a computer's contents.\n\nAnd the consultant Graham Cluley suggested: \"it should worry us all if the very people who are tasked with legislating on internet privacy and security issues are proving to be so utterly clueless\".", "Rak-Su have been named the winners of the X Factor 2017.\n\nThe Watford-based group beat Grace Davies in the final of the ITV singing competition - the first boy band to win since the show started in 2004.\n\nRak-Su thanked viewers for voting for them, while their mentor Simon Cowell hailed them as \"stars\".\n\nProceeds from Rak-Su's winners' single Dimelo will go to children's hospice charities Together For Short Lives and Shooting Star Chase.\n\nThe track, a duet with Wyclef Jean and Naughty Boy, was first performed during Saturday's show.\n\nX Factor judge Cowell also praised runner-up Grace Davies, describing her as \"really an outstanding, outstanding artist\".\n\nSimon Cowell described runner up Davies as \"outstanding\"\n\nThe finalists performed several original songs during their appearances on X Factor, marking a change in the show's approach this year.\n\nIn the ratings battle, however, the first part of the X Factor final - which was shown on Saturday night - lost out to Strictly Come Dancing.\n\nThe BBC dance contest's quarter final had an average audience of 9.7 million, while the first night of the X Factor final averaged 4.4 million viewers. The two shows overlapped for just over an hour on Saturday.\n\nIt was a similar story on Sunday night, when they overlapped for 40 minutes, with an average audience of 5.2 million for the second part of the X Factor final and 10.3 million for Strictly.\n\nBoth Rak-Su and Davies previously had songs played by BBC Introducing before auditioning for the X Factor.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Cafe owner David Thomas said he was told the occupants were in an area of the lorry trailer which was not refrigerated\n\nEleven people, including six children, were found locked in the back of a lorry in a lay-by.\n\nFirefighters cut the locks after police were called to reports of banging from inside the vehicle, which was parked at Willoughby Hedge on the A303 at West Knoyle on Saturday afternoon.\n\nThe Home Office said immigration enforcement officers found 10 Iraqi nationals and one Afghan national.\n\nPolice said the driver was helping with inquiries but had not been arrested.\n\nThe driver of the lorry had been returning to Taunton from Belgium and had stopped for lunch at a roadside cafe.\n\nDavid Thomas, who runs the cafe, said the driver could not open the back doors because they had been glued shut.\n\nHe said the occupants had been \"pretty lucky\" because part of the lorry was refrigerated.\n\n\"The compartment they were in contained a few pallets of rather expensive Belgian chocolate and was at a normal temperature,\" he said.\n\n\"I understand from the driver if they'd been in the front compartment that was quite well-chilled so they would have had a few problems there.\"\n\nPolice were called to the Willoughby Hedge lay-by on Saturday afternoon\n\nA Wiltshire Police spokesman said the adults found in the lorry were being kept in custody overnight and would be handed to Home Office officials on Monday.\n\n\"We are currently working with colleagues from the Home Office Immigration Department as our inquiries progress,\" a spokesman said.\n\n\"Where someone has no right to remain in the UK, we will take action to remove them,\" a Home Office spokeswoman added.\n\nWiltshire Council said it was working with its partner agencies \"to provide support and help to those involved\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Shashi Kapoor acted in more than 150 films\n\nKapoor, who acted in huge hits like Deewar and Kabhie Kabhie, had been ill for some time and was in hospital.\n\nHe was a member of the Kapoor dynasty, which has dominated the Hindi film industry for decades.\n\nHe won several national film awards and was awarded the Padma Bhushan civilian honour by the Indian government in 2011. He also acted in a number of British and American films.\n\nKapoor died at the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in the western city of Mumbai.\n\n\"Yes he has passed away. He had kidney problem since several years. He was on dialysis for several years,\" his nephew, actor Randhir Kapoor, told Press Trust of India. The funeral will be held on Tuesday morning, he said.\n\nThe actor was married to late English actress Jennifer Kendal, with whom he set up Mumbai's iconic Prithvi Theatre in 1978. His sister-in-law is British actress Felicity Kendal.\n\nKapoor began his career as a child actor and appeared in more than 150 films, including a dozen in English. He became known internationally for his roles in Merchant Ivory productions like \"Shakespeare-wallah\" and \"Heat and Dust\".\n\nIn 2015, he was given the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award, the highest honour in Indian cinema.\n\nKapoor was known for his charming smile and was often described by his fans as the \"handsomest star ever\". He had a huge fan following among women.\n\nHe was cast alongside superstar Amitabh Bachchan in some of the biggest Bollywood blockbusters of the 1970s and 1980s, and the two actors played brothers, best friends or rivals.\n\nHis comment in Deewar - \"Mere paas maa hai\" (But I have mother's support) - during a tense confrontation with screen-sibling Bachchan tops the list of best Bollywood lines for millions of fans around the globe.\n\nOver the years, it has found its way on to merchandise like shoulder bags, coffee mugs and cushion covers.\n\nAs news of his death spread, fans took to social media to express their grief and pay tributes, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi:\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Narendra Modi This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by WAGH $AGAR 🇮🇳 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Aamir Khan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Shashi Tharoor This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "British Transport Police have released images of two men they want to speak to over the attack\n\nPolice are searching for two men after a teenager was attacked on a Tube train and forced to apologise for being gay.\n\nThe 19-year-old had been travelling with friends on the Jubilee line in south-east London on 21 October when he was verbally abused by two men.\n\nOne of them put him in a headlock while the other took his phone and threatened to stab him. He was then strangled until he said sorry for being gay.\n\nThe British Transport Police (BTP) said \"hate crime would not be tolerated\".\n\nThe group that included the victim were dressed in fancy dress and had been travelling between West Ham and North Greenwich when the attack occurred.\n\nAfter the men released the teenager they gave him back his phone but got into a fight with the rest of the group, police said.\n\nA 25-year-old woman suffered bruising after she was punched and pushed to the ground.\n\nIn a statement, the BTP said: \"We won't tolerate behaviour where someone is targeted because they are perceived to be different, or made to feel uncomfortable on their journey.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "One of the dogs, Dazz, was featured in MoD publicity shots at the Defence Animal Centre\n\nTwo retired army dogs which faced being destroyed because they were too aggressive to rehome have been saved, the BBC understands.\n\nKevin and Dazz, both Belgian shepherds, were deployed in Afghanistan and were retired from frontline service in 2013.\n\nThe dogs are based at the Defence Animal Centre in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.\n\nForeign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan wrote to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Friday to call for a reprieve.\n\nThe MoD has assured their dog handlers that they could be saved.\n\nA third animal, a police dog named Driver, who was also at risk, could also be rehomed.\n\nSir Alan, the MP for Melton and Rutland and Minister of State for Europe and the Americas, said: \"It is very good news, as long as they have a good home, which also guarantees safety for people.\n\n\"We are all happy for Kevin and Dazz and also good luck to Driver.\"\n\nHe said they were \"hero dogs who have fought fearlessly alongside our soldiers\" and any danger to people \"must be proven\".\n\nThe dogs have been trained to show aggression which makes rehoming difficult\n\nFormer soldier turned author Andy McNab launched an online petition, which has more than 370,000 signatures and will be delivered to the centre in Melton Mowbray.\n\n\"Service dogs have saved my life on numerous occasions,\" he said.\n\n\"Dogs like Kevin, Dazz, and Driver are an asset when they are serving but they are even more of an asset when they are retired.\"\n\nThe Belgian shepherds went on patrol with troops in Afghanistan and were used for their aggression.\n\nThe MoD had said: \"Wherever possible, we endeavour to re-home them [dogs] at the end of their service life.\n\n\"Sadly, there are some occasions where this is not possible.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Brigitte Macron got a shock when she went to name the first panda born in France.\n\nThe wife of the French president is also the panda's \"godmother\".\n\nIn a speech, she later said France had been \"proud and happy\" to host the pandas from China and that the cub was a symbol of the countries' historic ties.", "Theresa May said the two sides had been \"working hard\" and \"negotiating hard\" but differences remained on two issues.\n\nSpeaking after Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, the UK Prime Minister said they would meet again this week, and she was \"confident that we will conclude this positively.\"", "R&B singer Jorja Smith has won the Brits Critics' Choice award, singling her out as one to watch next year.\n\nThe 20-year-old, who comes from Walsall in the West Midlands, beat two other newcomers, Mabel and Stefflon Don, to the prize.\n\nThe award, which recognises \"the future stars of British recording talent\", has previously gone to Adele, Emeli Sande and last year's winner, Rag N Bone Man.\n\n\"This is such a special way to end the year,\" said Smith.\n\nThe singer, who took fourth place on the BBC Sound of 2017, was working in a Starbucks less than two years ago when she posted her first single, Blue Lights, on SoundCloud.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jorja Smith performs So Lonely for the BBC Music Sound of 2017\n\nA soulful, semi-autobiographical look at her childhood in the West Midlands (it references the number four bus she used to catch home) it quickly earned shout-outs from Stormzy, Skrillex and Drake - who put her on his More Life mixtape earlier this year, alongside the likes of Kanye West and Young Thug.\n\nThe Canadian R&B star also invited Smith on stage during his concerts at London's O2 arena and the Barclays Center in Birmingham. After the second show, the pair popped out to a local Co-Op to buy sweets, to the surprise of fans.\n\nThis year, she has released two smooth-but-streetwise singles, Teenage Fantasy and On My Mind, both of which were named \"Hottest Record In The World\" by BBC Radio 1's Annie Mac.\n\nSmith said she \"couldn't believe\" she'd been given the Critics' Choice award, which is chosen by a panel of music industry experts - including critics, record label employees and the heads of the UK's biggest radio stations.\n\n\"It's been an unforgettable 2017 during which I've fulfilled so many of my dreams,\" she said.\n\n\"And to be part of an all-female shortlist alongside Mabel and Stefflon Don, who've both had incredible 2017s, makes it even better!\n\n\"There's lots more to come in 2018 from all of us and I will do my best to make it another memorable year.\"\n\nThe Critics' Choice prize is the first accolade to be announced before the official Brit Awards ceremony, which will take place at London's O2 Arena on 21 February, 2018.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland tore into the Australia top order late on the third day of the second Ashes Test to give themselves faint hope of a remarkable escape in Adelaide.\n\nJames Anderson and Chris Woakes took two wickets each to reduce the home side to 53-4.\n\nThat, though, is still a lead of 268 after the tourists were bowled out for 227.\n\nThrough a combination of poor strokes, excellent Australian bowling and some even better catching, England slumped from their overnight 29-1 to 142-7.\n\nRespectability was earned by a stand of 66 between Chris Woakes (36) and debutant Craig Overton, who added 41 not out to the three wickets he took in Australia's first innings.\n\nThe England batting effort was made all the more lamentable by the way their bowlers performed after the hosts opted not to enforce the follow-on.\n\nEngland will have to cause more dramatic damage on the fourth day so they are not left with a notional run chase or a rearguard attempt to bat for a draw.\n\nEither will be severely hampered by the likelihood of Australia having two opportunities to bowl in evening sessions under floodlights.\n\nIf England are beaten, they will travel to the Waca in Perth, a ground where they have not won since 1978, knowing that defeat would hand the Ashes to Australia.\n• None Is England's glimmer of hope well founded? Ashes analysis\n• None Listen to TMS highlights on loop throughout the day\n\nEngland arrived at the Adelaide Oval on Monday knowing they needed to get as close to Australia's total as possible.\n\nInstead, James Vince was out to the fourth delivery he faced, the first of four wickets to fall in a morning session that appeared to have put the match beyond the visitors.\n\nWhen Australia were not being gifted wickets by poor strokes, they created moments of magic - Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Starc both took incredible catches off their own bowling.\n\nIt took Overton and Woakes to bravely set an example to the top order, both men withstanding a barrage from the home pacemen.\n\nAnd, curiously, England's thrilling display with the ball late in the day only served to increase the frustration of their poor first-day effort after Joe Root won the toss and asked Australia to bat.\n\nEngland were full of the intent they lacked on Saturday, Anderson particularly brilliant in swinging the pink ball under the lights.\n\nCameron Bancroft was caught behind and Usman Khawaja trapped leg before.\n\nWoakes had David Warner held at second slip and, after Steve Smith successfully overturned being given out lbw to Anderson, he could not avoid a similar fate from the Warwickshire man.\n\nIt was wonderful theatre in the Adelaide night but, despite England's late surge, their earlier failings have left them well behind in this match.\n\nFor almost two days, Australia built their large first-innings total through patience, application and occupation of the crease.\n\nIt was something England could not replicate.\n\nOf the six men from the top seven to fall on Monday, only Alastair Cook and Dawid Malan can feel like they did not play a part in their own downfall.\n\nVince's shot, an attempted backfoot drive at Josh Hazlewood in the second over of the day, was woeful, matched by Root's flash at Pat Cummins.\n\nCook was batting nicely until he edged Lyon to slip to depart for 37, while Malan received a beautiful delivery from Cummins and gloved behind.\n\nMoeen Ali and Jonny Bairstow were the victims of the two brilliant return catches, but both were playing uppishly. Moeen poked at Lyon, Bairstow drove at Starc.\n\nIt required the guts and doggedness of Woakes and Overton to drag England towards 200, both standing up to bouncer after bouncer and pouncing on the rare opportunities to score.\n\nWoakes eventually miscued a pull off Starc, with the swift departures of Stuart Broad and Anderson leaving the impressive Overton unbeaten.\n\nAustralia's attack twice ran through England's tail in their 10-wicket first Test victory and here they exhibited the skills that deserted the tourists over the first two days.\n\nWhen they were not purposely bowling short with the intention to intimidate, their three pacemen bowled the full length that England could not find.\n\nCummins was especially dangerous with movement off the seam. He and Starc were hostile, while Hazlewood also came close to 90mph.\n\nAt the other end, off-spinner Lyon found the turn and bounce that eluded Moeen, while also providing precious control.\n\nThe highlights were the catches taken by Lyon and Starc.\n\nFirst Lyon leapt goalkeeper-style across the pitch to snare Moeen in his left hand with his body almost parallel to the ground.\n\nThen Starc stuck out a right hand to parry Bairstow's drive upwards, taking the rebound with the ball behind him.\n\nAustralia got a touch ragged when faced by Woakes and Overton, overdoing the short bowling.\n\nBut, after Starc got Woakes with the third caught-and-bowled of the innings, Lyon accounted for Broad and Anderson to end with 4-60.\n\n'We're still in the game' - reaction & analysis\n\nEngland all-rounder Chris Woakes, speaking to Test Match Special: \"We fought back nicely but are still behind in the game. It is good to see a fightback and we showed good character and put them under pressure.\n\n\"We could have had a better day with the bat. We have played a few loose shots as a batting unit. We have to bat for longer periods and make the bowlers come back and bowl three, four or five spells.\n\n\"When you build a partnership and work as a pair it gets easier. When you first go to the crease it is tough but it is Ashes cricket - you expect it to be tough.\"\n\nEngland's James Anderson: \"We're a long way behind in the game so we can't over-attack in the field. We've got an outside chance. We've got a lot of work to do.\n\n\"We gave it absolutely everything and we've come away with four wickets, which we're delighted with. We attacked where we could, bowled as full as we could and we got the rewards.\n\n\"We've got some very frustrated players in the dressing room. We should have got more runs than we did.\"\n\nBBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew on Test Match Special: \"I am frustrated that England didn't run in like this on the first morning. There has been real intent and energy but they were already over 200 behind.\"", "Elton John poses with his mother in 2002\n\nSir Elton John says he is \"in shock\" after the death of his mother, Sheila Farebrother, just months after their reconciliation.\n\n\"So sad to say that my mother passed away this morning,\" he said on his Facebook page, alongside a photo of them together.\n\n\"I only saw her last Monday and I am in shock. Travel safe, mum. Thank you for everything.\"\n\nSir Elton, who was born Reginald Dwight, was Ms Farebrother's only son.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by eltonjohn This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAlthough his father - a flight lieutenant in the RAF - was a trumpeter in his spare time, it was his mother who ignited his love of pop music.\n\nAn avid record collector, she brought home music by artists such as Elvis Presley and Bill Haley and supported Sir Elton throughout his career.\n\nBut they fell out over a \"petty\" argument in 2008, when Sir Elton asked her to sever ties with two old friends, Bob Halley and John Reid.\n\nMr Halley had worked for Sir Elton for three decades, first as a driver then later as a personal assistant, before he resigned as part of a series of changes Sir Elton was making to his team.\n\nMr Reid, who had been Sir Elton's manager and briefly his lover, helped the musician become one of the world's most famous - and richest - performers, but they too fell out.\n\nSir Elton and David Furnish, pictured here last month, have two children together\n\n\"I told him: 'I'm not about to do that and drop them,'\" Ms Farebrother told the Daily Mail.\n\n\"Then to my utter amazement, he told me he hated me. And he then banged the phone down. Imagine! To me, his mother!\"\n\nMs Farebrother told the newspaper at the time that she had never met her grandsons Zachary and Elijah, who Sir Elton and his partner David Furnish fathered through IVF with an American surrogate mother.\n\nFor her 90th birthday, Ms Farebrother hired an Elton John tribute act to perform.\n\nHer son got in touch soon after, sending her white orchids to celebrate the milestone.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post 2 by eltonjohn This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut their relationship was still strained. Sir Elton told Rolling Stone that his mother had not called him to say thank you after the bouquet arrived.\n\n\"To be honest with you, I don't miss her,\" he said. \"I look after her, but I don't want her in my life.\"\n\nHowever, the pair appear to have fully reconciled this year, after Sir Elton recovered from a potentially fatal bacterial infection.\n\n\"Dear Mum, Happy Mother's Day!\" he wrote on Instagram in February. \"So happy we are back in touch. Love, Elton xo\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The planned partial-demolition of the Pontiac Silverdome stadium near Detroit has failed.\n\nThe stadium, once home to the Detroit Lions NFL team, has been empty for a decade.\n\nIts staged demolition was due to begin with an implosion on Sunday, but while footage showed plumes of smoke rising, the building remained standing.\n\nLocal media quoted officials as saying the stadium was \"built a little too well\".", "President Maduro made the announcement during his weekly TV and radio programme\n\nVenezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has announced the creation of a new virtual currency in a bid to ease the country's economic crisis.\n\nHe said the Petro would be backed by Venezuela's oil, gas, gold and diamond wealth.\n\nOpposition lawmakers, however, poured scorn on the plan.\n\nVenezuela's economy has been hit by falling oil revenue and the plummeting value of its existing currency, the bolivar.\n\nPresident Maduro has also railed against US sanctions which he describes as a \"blockade\".\n\nIn a televised announcement on Sunday, Mr Maduro said the new crypto-currency would allow Venezuela \"to advance in issues of monetary sovereignty, to make financial transactions and overcome the financial blockade\".\n\n\"The 21st Century has arrived!\" he added to cheers from supporters.\n\nHe gave no details on how, or when, the new currency would be launched.\n\nOil has long been the mainstay of the Venezuelan economy\n\nThe move follows increasing global interest in the crypto-currency Bitcoin.\n\nA US regulator recently said it would let two traditional exchanges begin trading in Bitcoin-related financial contracts, although the digital currency continues to prove volatile.\n\nVenezuela owes an estimated $140bn (£103bn) to foreign creditors and economists suggest Mr Maduro is looking to try to pay them with Petros as he seeks to restructure the country's debt.\n\nOpposition lawmakers insisted the proposed currency would need the backing of the National Assembly, and some doubted it would ever happen.\n\n\"It's Maduro being a clown. This has no credibility,\" opposition lawmaker and economist Ángel Alvarado told Reuters news agency.\n\nVenezuela has historically relied on its oil wealth to support its economy but a decline in oil prices has sent the country into economic and political crisis.\n\nThe US and European Union have imposed sanctions, citing repressive policies by the government.\n\nLast month, Russia agreed to restructure $3.15bn (£2.4bn) in debt owed by Venezuela. The deal allows Venezuela to make \"minimal\" repayments on its Russian obligations over the next six years.\n• None Venezuela's debt problem: To default or to pay", "The head of the Metropolitan Police has condemned retired officers over their claims about finding pornography on Conservative Damian Green's computer.\n\nCommissioner Cressida Dick said all officers had a duty to protect sensitive information they discovered.\n\nShe said the Met was investigating whether an offence had been committed and that there could be a prosecution.\n\nFirst Secretary of State Mr Green denies watching or downloading pornography on his computer.\n\nThe allegations were first made last month by former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Bob Quick, who led a 2008 inquiry into Home Office leaks which saw Mr Green's Commons office being searched.\n\nMr Quick made his claims after the Cabinet Office launched an investigation into accusations of inappropriate behaviour by Mr Green towards journalist Kate Maltby, which the MP has described as \"completely false\".\n\nAnd then on Friday, retired Met detective Neil Lewis said \"thousands\" of thumbnail images of legal pornography had been found on Mr Green's parliamentary computer in 2008.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio London, Ms Dick said: \"All police officers know very well that they have a duty of confidentiality, a duty to protect personal information.\n\n\"That duty in my view clearly endures after you leave the service.\n\n\"And so it is my view that what they have done based on my understanding of what they're saying... what they have done is wrong, and I condemn it.\"\n\nOfficers come across sensitive information every day, the commissioner said, and \"know full well\" it is their duty to protect it.\n\nShe declined to give a \"running commentary\" on the Met's investigation - which is running parallel to the Cabinet Office probe - into whether confidential information has been disclosed.\n\nShe added: \"I can say that we are reviewing...to see whether any offences have been committed.\"\n\nMs Dick told LBC there \"could be a prosecution\" but that this would be for the Crown Prosecution Service to decide.\n\nBBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said a prosecution under the Data Protection Act - which includes a public interest defence - was a possibility, although he added that things were at a very early stage.\n\nThe Met is currently reviewing the circumstances of the case and has not launched a full investigation, he added.", "A police officer held on to a van to stop it falling from the edge of a motorway bridge.\n\nPC Martin Willis arrived at the scene on the A1(M) in Yorkshire and the van driver was trapped inside.\n\nWriting on Twitter, he said he grabbed on to the vehicle to stop it \"swaying in the wind\".\n\nPC Willis, known as Motorway Martin to his followers, said he couldn't \"begin to describe [his] relief\" when firefighters arrived.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester City came from behind to win a record-equalling 13th Premier League match in a row with victory over stubborn West Ham at Etihad Stadium.\n\nAngelo Ogbonna's header on the stroke of half-time put the lowly Hammers ahead, but Nicolas Otamendi responded with a predatory finish shortly after the break.\n\nDavid Silva won it for City, acrobatically converting a Kevin de Bruyne pass with seven minutes left.\n\nVictory meant Pep Guardiola's side re-established their eight-point lead over Manchester United, who they play at Old Trafford next Sunday (16:30 GMT).\n\nThey also equalled the longest winning run within a top-flight season, matching Sunderland and Preston (1891-92), Arsenal (2001-02) and Chelsea (2016-17).\n\nWest Ham, though, have set a club record for the fewest points after 15 Premier League matches - they have just 10.\n\nThe Londoners had their chances - as well as Ogbonna's goal, Michail Antonio almost pounced when Ederson spilled the ball, and Manuel Lanzini forced the goalkeeper to save at his near post.\n\nBut it always looked as though City's pressure would tell and, shortly after De Bruyne's free-kick was palmed away, Gabriel Jesus skipped through and slid the ball to Otamendi, who scored.\n\nLeroy Sane, Raheem Sterling, De Bruyne and Jesus had further chances before Silva won it for the home side, but there was still time for the Hammers to go close, with Diafra Sakho shooting just wide after Marko Arnautovic pulled the ball back.\n• None Analysis: Total belief, squad unity and late goals - who can stop Man City?\n\nCity leave it late to win - again\n\nSilva's strike made this the fourth game in a row City have won thanks to a goal scored in or after the 83rd minute. Sterling had scored the past three, having also hit an injury-time winner at Bournemouth in August.\n\nA home victory always looked the likeliest result, with City extending their unbeaten run in all competitions to 28 matches.\n\nThey were made to fight for the points, though, and Silva's late winner was one of 18 shots they had in the second half.\n\nWhile City have been in full flow for much of the season, they have also shown their resilience - taking a league-high 10 points from losing positions.\n\nPrior to their late winners against Huddersfield last month and now West Ham, City had won only one of their past 30 games in which they had been behind at half-time.\n\nThat combination of silk and steel has taken them eight points clear at the top, and it will take something special to stop them.\n\nDespite the defeat, there was plenty for Hammers boss David Moyes to take heart from as his side kept the league leaders at bay for almost an hour.\n\nThe first half was particularly encouraging and, though a deflected strike from Silva extended Adrian, West Ham had better chances through Antonio and Lanzini.\n\nThey looked defensively solid and confident in their gameplan, and Moyes' only disappointment will be they could not keep it up.\n\nJesus' half-time introduction made a difference, but Sane, De Bruyne and Silva - who had not been at their best in the first half - also began to influence things.\n\nCity had had six shots to the Hammers' four prior to that, but Adrian was forced into a string of saves as the hosts bombarded his goal in search of a winner.\n\nAdrian, who came in as Joe Hart was unable to face his parent club, was a standout performer but the Hammers had opportunities of their own despite the absence of strikers Andy Carroll and Javier Hernandez.\n\nAnd the agonising nature of this defeat was summed up by the reaction of former City defender Pablo Zabaleta when Silva's shot hit the back of the net.\n\nDavid Moyes speaking to BBC Radio 5 live: \"I have to say it was a really good effort. We defended much better today. We've worked a bit on it, we had one day where we could prepare.\n\n\"We needed our goalkeeper to play well. He got both hands to most things. I thought most of it was outside the box. I have to say we did a really good job.\n\n\"What a chance we have to make it 2-2 late on. My feeling was I thought we deserved it (to equalise). You get results in different ways and it looked as though we might have got one today. For long parts of the game we were in with a chance.\"\n\nPep Guardiola speaking to Match of the Day: \"We started really well but we lost our patience. We didn't have any rhythm because Adrian was taking 30 seconds every time.\n\n\"It was similar to the last few games, in the second half I thought we would score. They played 10 players inside the box, it was almost impossible.\n\n\"It's a big victory. It showed what we are. We had two strikers in the second half and that helped, it was a big lesson for me. We created more with two.\n\n\"We spoke a lot about defending set-pieces but they are taller. It will happen again next week against United so we have to try and concede fewer set-pieces.\"\n\nRecord-equalling success and record-breaking disappointment - the best of the stats\n• None City have equalled the longest winning run within a top-flight season.\n• None City's haul of 43 points from 15 games is a joint top-flight record, level with Tottenham in 1960-61 (converted to three points for a win).\n• None West Ham's total of 10 points from 15 games is their lowest in the Premier League and lowest in the top-flight since 1976-77 (nine, converted to three for a win).\n• None Since his debut for City in September 2015, De Bruyne has provided 35 assists in the league - more than any other in the big five European leagues.\n• None Jesus has been directly involved in 21 goals in his 24 Premier League appearances so far (15 goals, 6 assists).\n• None Ogbonna scored his first goal in the big five European leagues, in his 144th appearance.\n\nWest Ham return to London Stadium to face Chelsea on Saturday (12:30 GMT) in the first of two successive home games - with Arsenal to come afterwards.\n\nManchester City travel to Ukraine to take on Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League on Wednesday (19:45 GMT) and return to league action against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday (16:30).\n• None Adrián (West Ham United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt missed. Diafra Sakho (West Ham United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Marko Arnautovic.\n• None Substitution, West Ham United. André Ayew replaces Michail Antonio because of an injury.\n• None Goal! Manchester City 2, West Ham United 1. David Silva (Manchester City) left footed shot from very close range to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Kevin De Bruyne.\n• None Attempt saved. Michail Antonio (West Ham United) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top right corner. Assisted by Pedro Obiang.\n• None Attempt blocked. Sergio Agüero (Manchester City) right footed shot from a difficult angle on the right is blocked. Assisted by David Silva.\n• None Attempt blocked. Sergio Agüero (Manchester City) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt blocked. Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Raheem Sterling.\n• None Attempt blocked. David Silva (Manchester City) left footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Raheem Sterling. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "James Levine was also a conductor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra\n\nNew York's Metropolitan Opera says it has suspended the renowned conductor James Levine following allegations of sexual misconduct.\n\nThe Met said Mr Levine, 74, would not appear this season and it had appointed a law firm to investigate his actions.\n\nThree men have now accused Mr Levine of abusing them decades ago when they were teenagers.\n\nMr Levine, who was music director at the Met for 40 years, has not commented publicly on the accusations.\n\nHe retired for health reasons in 2016 but has continued to work with the opera as music director emeritus.\n\nThe Met announced on Saturday it was investigating a claim based on a 2016 police report in which a man accused Mr Levine of abusing him as a teenager in the 1980s.\n\nPeter Gelb, general manager of the Met, told the New York Times on Sunday that it had decided to suspend its relationship with the conductor and cancel his forthcoming engagements after learning of the accounts of two other men who described similar sexual encounters beginning in the late 1960s.\n\n\"While we await the results of the investigation, based on these news reports, the Met has made the decision to act now,\" Mr Gelb said in a statement on Twitter, adding: \"This is a tragedy for anyone whose life has been affected.\"\n\nThe Times said the Met had been aware of the police report since last year. However, Mr Levine had denied the accusations and the Met had heard nothing further from police, the newspaper added.\n\nThe accusations follow a series of sexual abuse and harassment claims made against high-profile figures in the entertainment industry.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Metropolitan Opera This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAn Illinois police report, seen by the New York Times, said one of the alleged victims claimed that the abuse began in 1985 when he was 15 and Mr Levine was 41, and continued until 1993.\n\nDuring his career Mr Levine has conducted more than 2,500 performances at the Met.\n\nHe made his debut there in June 1971 with Puccini's Tosca, becoming principal conductor in the 1973-74 season and music director in 1976-77.\n\nHe conducted 85 different operas and also worked with the Three Tenors - Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo.\n\nHe has struggled with Parkinson's disease and other health issues and now conducts from a motorised wheelchair.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Germany is on high alert for attacks following last year's fatal attack on a Christmas market in Berlin\n\nPolice investigating a bomb found at a Christmas market in Germany on Friday say it was not terrorism but an attempt to blackmail the shipping company, DHL.\n\nThe nail bomb was sent in a parcel to a pharmacy near a market in Potsdam.\n\nPolice performed a controlled explosion on the device, which was full of explosives but had no detonator.\n\nAfter scanning a QR code on the package, police found that those involved demanded millions of euros to not set the bomb off.\n\n\"The good news is it that we can say, with all likelihood, that the package was not aimed at the Christmas market,\" Brandenburg's Interior Minister Karl-Heinz Schröter said.\n\nBut he and others warned that there might be more such attempts. Police said a similar package was sent to an online trader based in Frankfurt an der Oder recently.\n\nGermany is on a heightened terror alert, a year after 12 people died in an Islamist attack at a Berlin Christmas market.\n\nOfficials have warned people to call the police instead of opening suspicious packages.\n\nThey said people should watch out for smudges, visible wires and unfamiliar or missing return addresses.\n• None Germany attacks: What is going on?", "Allegations of sex abuse at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire are being probed by the independent child sex abuse inquiry\n\nPolice raised concerns that the head of a Roman Catholic boarding school tried to \"control\" a child sex abuse investigation, an inquiry has heard.\n\nA former North Yorkshire detective said officers were \"excluded\" from inquiries at Ampleforth College in 1995 and 2002.\n\nBut former head teacher Father Leo Chamberlain denied influencing a boy's parents during a phone call in 1995.\n\nHe told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse there had been \"no skulduggery\".\n\nThe Catholic Church is one of 13 public organisations being scrutinised by the inquiry, which is being headed by Prof Alexis Jay.\n\nDet Supt Barry Honeysett said he had told Fr Chamberlain in 2003 that he did not trust the private school, because alleged victims of abuse had been spoken to by staff before police were called in.\n\nMr Honeysett, who led an inquiry into abuse at Ampleforth College, said: \"The issue was largely around the delay in the police becoming involved.\n\n\"A direct approach had been made to the victim which I felt was inappropriate.\"\n\nEarlier in the hearing, the priest was questioned about another policy officer, Det Sgt Hartnett, who was involved investigating allegations at Ampleforth.\n\nLead counsel to the inquiry Riel Karmy-Jones put it to Fr Chamberlain that Det Sgt Hartnett believed the priest was trying to \"control the investigation\".\n\nFr Chamberlain, who began working at the school in 1961, said the suggestion was \"completely subjective\".\n\nHe said he had to spoken to the boy's parents to inform them of the situation and in doing so, had \"made no obstruction\" to the police inquiry.\n\nFather Leo Chamberlain taught at Ampleforth College from 1961 to 2003\n\nEvidence was heard that the Abbott of Ampleforth, Fr Timothy Wright, went to visit a complainant of child sex abuse, causing mistrust between the Church and North Yorkshire Police.\n\nSpeaking via video link, Fr Chamberlain - head teacher at Ampleforth between 1992 and 2003 - said police thought there was a conspiracy between him and Fr Wright \"to close the matter down\", which he said was not the case.\n\nFr Chamberlain told the inquiry that during the 1980s, a teacher who had abused pupils would \"be got rid of and it was thought wrongly that to keep it all very quiet was in the best interests of the victim\".\n\nAn earlier hearing was told the former head teacher was warned about employing Fr Piers Grant-Ferris - who was later jailed for abusing boys.\n\nGrant-Ferris, who the pupils had nicknamed \"Pervy Piers\", was convicted of 20 counts of indecent assault in 2006.\n\nThe inquiry was shown a letter by a psychologist employed by the school, Elizabeth Mann, who wrote in 2003 that Grant-Ferris and a second monk posed a risk to pupils.\n\nAt the time, Fr Chamberlain said he thought it was safe to employ Grant-Ferris in the abbey's shop, which he had described as \"something of a goldfish bowl\", regularly visited by guests and students.\n\nHe told the inquiry: \"Because it was a very visible place I thought well, we could probably make it work. But I think I could have been wrong about that.\"", "Theresa May will hold talks with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker\n\nBrussels is in an upbeat mood. Which is rather rare when it comes to Brexit.\n\nIn fact, I've been taken aback by the positive tone of my many conversations.\n\nSuddenly, after hearing endless EU complaints about perceived foot-dragging by London during these grey and grumpy months of Brexit negotiations, EU diplomats spoke to me this weekend of \"movement\", \"traction\" and a \"lack of negativity\" in the frantic last-minute talks ahead of Monday's visit by Theresa May.\n\nOf course, this might all be misplaced optimism. After all, as both the UK and EU love to point out, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and that won't be until autumn next year but...\n\nWhat's at stake here is not a final Brexit deal but whether Brexit negotiations can now widen to include talk of a transition deal and the future shape of EU/UK relations (in or out of the single market and customs union etc).\n\nThat depends on whether the EU deems that \"sufficient progress\" has been made on citizens' rights, Ireland and the financial settlement.\n\nDiplomats reached broad agreement on money and citizens over the weekend.\n\nThere is strong opposition to a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland\n\nI understand some sovereignty issues are still outstanding on citizens' rights but one EU source told me: \"The Brits gave us pretty much everything we asked for.\"\n\nDublin wants written assurances from Downing Street that the Good Friday Agreement will be protected and that there will be no re-introduction of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.\n\nThe search for political wording acceptable to all sides continued throughout the night.\n\nBrussels deemed it a good omen on Sunday when Arlene Foster, the leader of the DUP - a unionist party in Northern Ireland that supports Theresa May's government in Westminster - said she was in favour of a \"sensible Brexit\".\n\nThe EU has told member state Ireland that it has the final say in any part of the Brexit agreement that pertains to the Irish border but Prime Minister Leo Varadkar seems loath to use his veto.\n\nIn trade terms alone, Ireland believes it has more to lose than any other EU country, if there is a no-deal scenario post-Brexit.\n\nThis is why so much is riding on Monday on Theresa May's lunch with EU Commission chief Jean Claude Juncker.\n\nBlood, sweat and tears of negotiating teams aside, the prime minister's personal assurances will be sought in Brussels, on Ireland and other matters.\n\nIf all goes smoothly, a joint UK-EU report is being drawn up for publication later in the day to lock in all Brexit understandings agreed to date.\n\nA sure sign that the commission is feeling confident is Jean-Claude Juncker's invitation to European Parliament representatives to meet ahead of Theresa May's arrival.\n\nThe parliament is particularly exacting when it comes to citizens' rights and it has a Brexit deal veto.\n\nThe European Commission president clearly feels he has enough in his pocket to get them on board.\n\nAll EU sources I have spoken to described themselves at the very least as \"cautiously optimistic\" ahead of the prime minister's arrival.\n\nSo much so, that EU diplomats tell me they're already debating the \"what next?\"\n\nWhat mandate should the lead EU negotiator Michel Barnier be given by Europe's leaders at their mid-December summit if there is a green light to proceed to Brexit Phase 2?\n\nThere is heated debate right now as to whether Mr Barnier will first be instructed to talk transition deals with the UK and only later - in March next year - have his mandate widened to include negotiations on the future shape of EU-UK relations, which would touch on trade, of course.\n\nBrussels may be feeling Brexit-buoyant at the start of the day but if all goes according to their plan - and that, I stress, is by no means a fait accompli - there will be pockets of disgruntlement amongst those in the UK who view the government as caving in to EU demands and amongst EU countries like Germany that are more cautious than the EU Commission about leaping in to the realms of Brexit Phase 2.", "The crash happened on Seven Sisters Road on Sunday evening\n\nA pedestrian has died after being hit by a police car on an emergency call in London.\n\nOfficers gave first aid at the scene in Haringey but the man in his 40s was pronounced dead.\n\nThe crash occurred at 18:45 GMT on Sunday on Seven Sisters Road close to the junction with Elizabeth Road.\n\nThe Directorate of Professional Standards and the Independent Police Complaints Commission have been informed, the Met Police said.\n\nOne local shopkeeper, Mehmet, said: \"I was with two or three customers, and I heard a big noise outside.\"\n\n\"We saw that a police car had hit a person. We saw the police car stop, and two officers got out and tried to resuscitate him.\"\n\nHe said a number of people had been struck by vehicles nearby in the past.\n\n\"I think the council should put a zebra crossing in. People are often crossing and the road is very busy, and it's very dangerous for them.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The extremist Syrian group Nour al-Din al-Zinki took funds through a UK-backed foreign aid project, a BBC Panorama investigation has found.\n\nTaxpayers' money was diverted to Zinki via the Free Syrian Police scheme.\n\nThe government has suspended funding while it investigates the allegations.\n\nUK users can watch the full BBC Panorama investigation on BBC iPlayer.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. This may be the longest-lasting rainbow ever\n\nA rainbow may be a wondrous sight but for most people it's also a fairly fleeting one.\n\nBut last week, professors and students of the Chinese Culture University in Taipei's mountains were treated to one that lasted for nine hours.\n\n\"It was amazing… It felt like a gift from the sky... It's so rare!\" said Chou Kun-hsuan, a professor in the university's Department of Atmospheric Sciences.\n\nProf Chou and a second professor, Liu Ching-huang, led the efforts to document the rainbow with the help of the department's students and the campus community.\n\nRainbows typically last much less than an hour\n\nTheir observations, pictures and video recordings showed the rainbow lasted from 06:57 until 15:55 - eight hours and 58 minutes.\n\nIf confirmed, it would shatter the previous record for the longest-lasting rainbow, set in Yorkshire, England, on 14 March 1994.\n\nThat rainbow was recorded as lasting six hours, from 09:00 to 15:00, according to the Guinness World Records.\n\nRainbows typically last much less than an hour, according to the Guinness website.\n\nThe rainbow lasted from 06:57 until 15:55 - eight hours and 58 minutes - the university said\n\n\"After four hours, we mobilised all our students and began to notify everyone in the school to take pictures and send us pictures,\" Prof Chou said.\n\n\"When we broke the previous record after passing six hours, I was hardly able to stay seated for lunch; it was around lunchtime. I was so excited; I wanted to make sure we captured the rainbow. But then it did something even more incredible; it went on to beat the previous record by another three hours!\"\n\nThe professors and department were ready to capture the rainbow because they had recorded a rainbow lasting about six hours the previous Monday, Prof Chou said.\n\nThe department is now gathering all the evidence to apply for the Guinness record.\n\nSuch atmospheric conditions are common in winter in Taipei's Yangmingshan mountain range\n\n\"With the 10,000 pictures we took in our department alone, and the many more taken by others on campus and people living nearby, I'm confident we can prove to Guinness second by second that this rainbow lasted for nine hours,\" Prof Chou said.\n\nThe conditions that made the rainbow last so long were a seasonal north-east monsoon that trapped moisture in the air, forming clouds; sunlight and a relatively slow wind speed of 2.5-5 metres per second.\n\nSuch atmospheric conditions are common in winter in Taipei's Yangmingshan mountain range, where the campus is located, making it an ideal place for spotting long-lasting rainbows, Prof Chou said.\n\nHe added: \"I plan to contact the Taipei City tourism department to promote this, 'you can see a nine-hour rainbow in Taipei in the winter, it's amazing! Come to Taipei!'\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Tech giant opens its biggest engineering hub outside the US\n\nFacebook is opening a new London office that will allow it to create 800 new UK jobs in 2018.\n\nBy the end of next year about 2,300 people will work for the social media company in the UK.\n\nThe office will be Facebook's biggest engineering hub outside the US, and opens during its tenth year in the UK.\n\nNicola Mendelsohn, Facebook's Europe, Middle East and Asia vice-president, said the company was \"more committed than ever to the UK\".\n\nShe said Britain's \"entrepreneurial ecosystem and engineering excellence\" made it an ideal location for technology firms.\n\nThe seven-floor building at Rathbone Place, near Oxford Circus in central London, was designed by Frank Gehry, the architect best known for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.\n\nIt will accommodate engineers and developers as well as marketing and sales teams.\n\nThe building will also house a dedicated incubator space for start-ups, called LDN-LAB.\n\nUK-based start-ups will be invited to take part in three month programmes designed to help kickstart their businesses.\n\nFacebook experts from disciplines including engineering, product and partnerships will work with the companies as part of the initiative.\n\nJulian David of techUK, which represents 950 technology firms in the UK, welcomed a world-leading company such as Facebook investing in London despite the uncertainties surrounding Brexit.\n\nChancellor Philip Hammond said Facebook's decision to expand in London was a \"sign of confidence\" in Britain.\n\n\"The UK is not only the best place to start a new business, it's also the best place to grow one,\" he added.", "Footage has been released of the moment a lorry driver crashed into stationary cars on the M6 at 43mph.\n\nThe 47-year-old driver, from Liverpool, told police at the scene, \"I think I went to sleep for a moment\".\n\nHe admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was jailed for 16 months.\n\nWest Midlands Police said the two car drivers were treated for broken bones and back and neck injuries.\n\nMidlands Live: Man continued to be questioned in murder probe; Homes evacuated after grenade found", "Marek Zakrocki shouted \"white power\" before using his van as a weapon\n\nA supporter of the far-right group Britain First gave a Nazi salute and drove at a curry house owner during a drunken rampage in London.\n\nThe Old Bailey heard Marek Zakrocki shouted \"white power\" before using his van as a weapon outside Spicy Night in Harrow on 23 June.\n\nThe 48-year-old window fitter was heard to say \"I'm going to kill a Muslim. I'm doing it for Britain\".\n\nHe pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and beating his wife.\n\nProsecutor Denis Barry said: \"Mr Zakrocki had plainly, during the course of that afternoon, had far too much to drink.\n\n\"During the course of that evening he assaulted his wife, drove off in his work vehicle, insulted a series of passers-by and then drove his vehicle at the owner of a curry house, breaking the window of the curry house.\n\n\"It's plain that his conduct is very likely to have been motivated by his views about our diverse society.\"\n\nThe drunken rampage took place at the Spicy Night restaurant in Harrow\n\nThe attack happened on the anniversary of the Brexit vote.\n\nThe court heard he had also said at the time: \"This is how I'm going to help the country. You people cannot do anything.\"\n\nFollowing his arrest by armed officers, a Nazi coin was found in his pocket and copies of Britain First newspapers and flyers at his home in Harrow.\n\nMr Barry said Zakrocki had been \"fixated\" by Muslims and had made donations to Britain First in the past.\n\nThe court heard Zakrocki's van mounted the pavement twice before making contact with restaurant owner Kamal Ahmed.\n\nThe windows of the curry house were also smashed during the attack, some of which was caught on CCTV.\n\nJonathan Lennon, defending, said Zakrocki had \"not intended to kill anybody\".\n\nZakrocki will be sentenced later.\n\nFurther charges of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and having a knife in Northolt Road, Harrow, were ordered to lie on file.", "Jade Statt helped set up Street Vet after a meeting with one rough sleeper and his dog.", "The violence was contained in one wing, the Prison Service said\n\nAn inmate has been injured during a disturbance at a jail that led to riot officers being called in.\n\nSpecialist \"Tornado\" squad officers were brought in at HMP Swaleside, on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, on Sunday.\n\nA small number of inmates on one wing were involved in the violence, which has since been \"successfully resolved\", the Prison Service (PS) said.\n\nAlmost a year ago, up to 60 inmates took over part of the prison for 12 hours.\n\nOn the latest incident, the PS said: \"We do not tolerate violence in our prisons and are clear that those responsible will be referred to police and could spend longer behind bars.\"\n\nIn September, a report revealed there had been an \"unacceptable escalation of instability\" at the jail.\n\nThe HM Inspectorate of Prisons said there had been too many assaults on both staff and prisoners and the smuggling of weapons was an issue.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Wandering albatrosses scour the oceans for food to bring back to their chicks\n\nScientists who advised the Blue Planet II documentary team say they feel \"shame and anger\" at the “plague of plastic” impacting the natural world.\n\nEven in the remote waters of Antarctica, they have found evidence of plastic killing and harming seabirds.\n\nWandering albatrosses – which have the longest wingspan of any birds alive today – are thought to be especially vulnerable.\n\nNesting on the barren islands of South Georgia, they feed their young by scouring thousands of miles of ocean for squid and fish but often bring back plastic instead.\n\nThe final episode of what has become the most-watched TV programme of the year explores how the oceans are threatened by human activities including overfishing and pollution.\n\nIt will be broadcast on Sunday 10 December.\n\nThe final programme in the series will look at some of the threats facing the oceans\n\nIn a particularly moving scene, Dr Lucy Quinn, a zoologist, is seen checking albatross chicks on Bird Island where she was the British Antarctic Survey’s winter manager for more than two years.\n\nOne chick that Dr Quinn found dead and later dissected was killed because a plastic toothpick that it swallowed had pierced its stomach.\n\nOthers had regurgitated plastic items including cling film, food packaging, cutlery and parts of bottles.\n\nDr Quinn told me: “I feel real shame and anger that it’s humans who have caused this problem.\n\n\"It’s really sad because you get to know the birds and how long it takes the parents, away for ten days at a time, to collect food for their chicks and what they bring back is plastic.\n\n\"And what’s sad is that the plague of plastic is as far-reaching as these seemingly pristine environments.\"\n\nLucy Quinn seen checking albatrosses on Bird Island, part of South Georgia\n\nIt's not known how many albatross chicks in Antarctica die from plastic pollution every year – it's thought to be fewer than the losses suffered by Laysan albatrosses on Midway Atoll in the Pacific .\n\nBut on Bird Island, predators often eat dead chicks before the researchers can reach them – and the suspicion is that the effect of the plastic goes beyond the direct killing of seabirds.\n\nAccording to Dr Quinn, the threat is more insidious, weakening birds as they waste energy trying to digest plastic, which has no nutritional value, and potentially poisoning them as chemicals are released when the plastic breaks down in their stomachs.\n\nResearch at the other end of the world into a smaller relative of the albatross – the fulmars of the North Sea – shows that while plastics may directly kill seabirds, it is the debilitating effects of the waste that could be more serious.\n\nIf a human had ingested the equivalent plastic volume as the average fulmar does (L), it would fill a lunchbox (R)\n\nStudies of fulmars found dead on beaches or caught accidentally by fishermen – which Dr Quinn has also been involved in – show that from 2010-2014, UK fulmars were found to contain on average 39 particles of plastic weighing a total of 0.32 grams.\n\nIn an unsettling image, the volume of space taken up by that plastic in a fulmar’s belly is the equivalent in a human stomach of the contents of a typical lunchbox, and usually the plastic is made up of consumer items used just once and then thrown away.\n\nMost shocking is the effect of party balloons, released in a moment of celebration, but then catching the eye of a fulmar searching for food.\n\nDr Quinn remembers one occasion when she dissected one of the birds.\n\n\"I couldn’t believe my eyes, seeing a balloon in the bird’s oesophagus, which would have killed it, along with cling film, toothbrushes and packaging – I feel extremely sad for the birds and impatient to do something,\" she said.\n\nThe plastic may be undermining the fulmars’ health, which could affect their ability to breed - with long-term implications for the population as a whole.\n\nCayman Trough: Plastic debris has descended to the deepest parts of the world's oceans\n\nThe threat from plastic waste is not limited to pieces that are visible – bottles, bags and other items break down into minute fragments, or \"micro-plastics\", which enter the food chain in every corner of the ocean.\n\nScientists from the University of Newcastle even identified tiny fibres in the smallest creatures living in the deepest part of the Pacific, the Mariana Trench.\n\nDr Jon Copley, of the University of Southampton, who joined the Blue Planet submarine filming in Antarctica, says that although he did not spot any plastic in the polar waters, he has been shocked by its presence elsewhere.\n\n\"When I've seen plastic in the deep ocean - such as a bin liner we found near deep-sea vents in the Cayman Trough - there's an initial shock and disappointment that our rubbish has got here before us as explorers.\n\n\"But then there's the realisation that our everyday lives are more connected to the deep ocean than we perhaps think.\n\n\"Every piece of plastic rubbish has a story, so it also makes me wonder about the chain of events that led to that particular item ending up in the deep ocean, and whether any of those events could have been prevented.\"", "The government of Sierra Leone has auctioned a 709 carat rough diamond, named the 'peace diamond', which will benefit its people.\n\nHalf of the proceeds from the sale of the diamond will go directly towards bringing clean water, electricity, schools, medical facilities, bridges and roads to the community where the stone was discovered.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mr Milburn said Brexit meant ministers were unlikely to have the energy to tackle \"one of the biggest challenges\" facing the UK\n\nAll four members of the board of the government's Social Mobility Commission have stood down in protest at the lack of progress towards a \"fairer Britain\".\n\nEx-Labour minister Alan Milburn, who chairs the commission, said he had \"little hope\" the current government could make the \"necessary\" progress.\n\nThe government was too focused on Brexit to deal with the issue, he said.\n\nThe government said Mr Milburn's term had come to an end and it had already decided to get some \"fresh blood\" in.\n\nThe commission is charged with monitoring the government's progress in \"freeing children from poverty and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential\".\n\nIn his resignation letter to Theresa May, published in The Observer, Mr Milburn said he did not doubt her \"personal belief\" in social justice, but he saw \"little evidence of that being translated into meaningful action\".\n\nHe said individual ministers, such as the education secretary, had shown a deep commitment to social mobility.\n\nBut it had \"become obvious that the government as a whole is unable to commit the same level of support\".\n\nNeither, according to the former Labour minister and his colleagues on the board who include a former Conservative education secretary.\n\nTheir frustration demonstrates the extent to which Brexit is all-consuming for the government.\n\nLeaving the EU is taking up so much time, energy and effort that there is little capacity for anything else to get done.\n\nEven on an issue which is a personal priority for the prime minister.\n\nMr Milburn, a former health secretary, took up his role at the commission in July 2012, under the coalition government led by David Cameron and Nick Clegg.\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, he said divisions in Britain were becoming wider - pointing to the ongoing squeeze on wages.\n\nThe government lacked the \"bandwidth\" to tackle social division while also dealing with Brexit, he said, describing his task as being like \"pushing water uphill\".\n\nMr Milburn said Education Secretary Justine Greening had been a \"champion for the cause\" and had wanted him to stay in post - which Ms Greening, who also appeared on the show, would not be drawn on.\n\n\"He has done a fantastic job, but his term had come to an end and I think it was about getting some fresh blood into the commission,\" she said.\n\nShe denied the government lacked the will to tackle inequality, but admitted more needed to be done.\n\nIn a report published last week, the commission said economic, social and local divisions laid bare by the Brexit vote needed to be addressed to prevent a rise in far right or hard left extremism.\n\nIt said London and its commuter belt appeared to be a \"different country\" to coastal, rural and former industrial areas, with young people there facing lower pay and fewer top jobs.\n\nThe resignations come as Mrs May, who entered Downing Street in July 2016 promising to tackle the \"burning injustices\" that hold back poorer people, faces questions over the future of senior minister Damian Green - who is effectively her second in command - and is under pressure as Brexit talks continue.\n\nIn an interview in the Sunday Times, Mr Milburn said: \"There has been indecision, dysfunctionality and a lack of leadership.\"\n\nTheresa May pledged to \"make Britain a country that works for everyone\" when she became PM\n\nThe government said it was making \"good progress\" on social mobility and focusing on disadvantaged areas.\n\nIt said it had already told Mr Milburn it planned to appoint a new chair and would hold an open application process for the role.\n\nIt said it was committed to fighting injustice \"and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to go as far as their talents will take them\".\n\nIt highlighted its increase of the national living wage, cuts in income tax for the lowest paid and doubling of free childcare in England.\n\nThe process of appointing a new chairperson and commissioners would begin as soon as possible, it added.\n\nThe other board members standing down include deputy chair of the commission and Tory former education secretary Baroness Shephard.\n\nPaul Gregg, a professor of economic and social policy at the University of Bath, and David Johnston, the chief executive of the Social Mobility Foundation charity, are also leaving.\n\nShadow cabinet office minister Jon Trickett said the resignations came as \"no surprise\".\n\n\"As inequality has grown under the Tories, social mobility has totally stalled,\" he said.\n\n\"How well people do in life is still based on class background rather than on talent or effort.\"\n\nMr Milburn said he would be setting up a new social mobility institute, independent of the government.", "Donald Trump's presidency has been overshadowed by the inquiry into collusion with Russia\n\nDonald Trump lashed out at the FBI on Sunday, issuing a fresh denial that he asked former director James Comey to drop an investigation into the conduct of one of his top aides, Michael Flynn.\n\nIn a Twitter tirade, Mr Trump said the FBI's reputation was \"in tatters\".\n\nHis attack came amid a flurry of developments in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry into alleged Russian interference in the US election.\n\nMr Trump denies that his team colluded with Russia to get him elected.\n\nReports emerged over the weekend that Mr Mueller, a former FBI director, had dismissed an FBI officer from the investigation during the summer after he was discovered to have made anti-Trump remarks in text messages.\n\nThe president seized on the officer's dismissal, tweeting: \"Report: 'ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE' Now it all starts to make sense!\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA spokesman for Mr Mueller said the officer was dismissed from the investigating team as soon as the messages were discovered.\n\nMichael Flynn, the president's former national security adviser, announced on Friday that he was co-operating with Mr Mueller's investigation, in return for pleading guilty to a lesser charge.\n\nThe former general admitted lying to the FBI and has been offered a reduced sentence of six months. Analysts say the deal indicates that Mr Flynn has incriminating information about one or more senior members of the Trump administration.\n\nIn a series of tweets posted on Sunday morning, Mr Trump again attacked his former rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, who was investigated by the FBI ahead of the election after it emerged she had used a private email server to conduct state department business.\n\nNo charges were brought against Mrs Clinton or her team.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. After Flynn's guilty plea, what next for the Russia investigation?\n\nIn another tweet, the president accused ABC News of \"horrendously inaccurate and dishonest reporting\", after one of the network's reporters acknowledged making an error in a story about the president.\n\nChief investigative reporter Brian Ross reported that Mr Trump was a candidate when he directed Michael Flynn to make contact with Moscow.\n\nHe later corrected his report to say Mr Trump was president-elect when he gave the order to Mr Flynn. Mr Ross has been suspended by the network for four weeks.\n\nThe president fired Mr Flynn in February for misrepresenting the nature of his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak to Vice-President Mike Pence.\n\nThen-FBI director James Comey alleges that in a private meeting the day after Mr Flynn was fired, the president asked him to show leniency to the dismissed aide, saying, \"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.\"\n\nMichael Flynn was sacked in February, just 25 days after taking the job\n\nMr Comey took notes immediately after the meeting and shared copies with senior FBI officials. President Trump fired Mr Comey in May.\n\nTweeting on Sunday, Mr Trump issued a fresh denial that he had pushed Mr Comey to drop the investigation into Mr Flynn.\n\n\"I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!\" he wrote.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLegal experts say Mr Trump could theoretically have obstructed justice if he had attempted to have the FBI investigation into Mr Flynn squashed.\n\nThe president's surprising admission in a tweet on Saturday - that he knew Mr Flynn had lied to the FBI when he fired him - contradicted his own account from the time, and may have added weight to accusations that he obstructed justice.\n\nWhite House lawyer John Dowd later told the Axios news website that he had drafted the controversial tweet and sent the text to White House social media director Dan Scavino.\n\nThe revelations soured what should have been a celebratory weekend for the president, after his sweeping tax reform bill scraped through the Senate early on Saturday morning.", "Poppi Worthington was blue and not breathing when she was brought to hospital\n\nThere were no natural causes to account for the death of 13-month-old Poppi Worthington at her Cumbria home, a pathologist has told an inquest.\n\nThe toddler died suddenly at a house in Barrow, early on 12 December 2012. No-one has ever been prosecuted.\n\nIn evidence to an inquest into Poppi's death, Dr Alison Armour said she believed Poppi was sexually assaulted.\n\nDr Armour also said she had suspected Poppi had been physically abused before she started to examine her body.\n\nDr Armour said: \"I think it is very important to state in this case the autopsy revealed no natural causes to account for Poppi Worthington's death.\"\n\nShe said her conclusions were based on all of her findings which were \"in keeping\" with Poppi suffering a penetrative injury.\n\nWhen asked if there was anything she had seen that contradicted her conclusion.\n\nHowever, she maintained the \"mechanism\" of Poppi's death remained \"unascertained\".\n\nShe said it would be wrong to say that a penetrative injury alone caused the death, but she believed it happened and it may have been a contributing factor.\n\nGillian Irving QC asked Dr Armour: \"Is the reality five years on that we really are never going to know the cause of death of Poppi Worthington?\"\n\nDr Armour said: \"I do appreciate the mother wants a cause of death, but there are some times when we cannot give a cause of death.\n\n\"We have to to be sure, we cannot speculate.\n\n\"I know it would bring closure to your client, but I cannot give it, not even on the balance of probabilities.\n\n\"There isn't enough for me to sure.\"\n\nThe double bed where Poppi was placed at the time of her collapse\n\nThe inquest had heard a detailed account of the various tests done on Poppi during the post-mortem examination carried out by Dr Armour.\n\nThe Home Office pathologist said she did find evidence of an \"upper respiratory tract infection\" which was consistent with Poppi's parents claims she was \"a bit snuffly\" and had a cold.\n\nShe also said she found a \"tiny focus\" of pneumonia in Poppi's lungs, but it would not account for Poppi's death.\n\nDr Armour, who has been a Home Office pathologist for 30 years, was asked about bright red blood, known as frank blood, found in Poppi's nose.\n\nShe said a cause could not be given for certain, but it can be found in cases of smothering or suffocation.\n\nEarlier, Dr Armour told the inquest in Kendal, that an X-ray revealed the child had leg fractures.\n\nBoth of Poppi's parents have said they could not explain the fractures and did not believe they were causing her pain.\n\nCounsel for the coroner, Alison Hewitt, asked Dr Armour if she had expressed concern about child abuse before carrying out her post-mortem examination - a comment Det Sgt John Carton claimed he had heard the Home Office pathologist make.\n\nDr Armour confirmed she made the remark having been \"very concerned\" by the fractures revealed by a full body X-ray and skeletal survey.\n\nThe sofa on the ground floor of the family home where Poppi Worthington was resuscitated\n\nShe added: \"I think the phrase might have been: 'In cases where there are fractures with no history of accidental trauma and it is picked up at the time of the death of a child, this is strongly suspicious of child abuse'.\n\nDr Armour carried out the post-mortem examination at the Royal Children's Hospital in Manchester. Poppi weighed 10.7kg and was 81cm tall.\n\nThe Cumbria force has been criticised for its handling of the investigation by the police watchdog.\n\nThe new inquest was ordered after a seven-minute hearing in 2014 determined Poppi's death was \"unascertained\".\n\nIn 2016, High Court family judge Mr Justice Peter Jackson ruled Poppi was probably sexually assaulted by her father shortly before she died.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The \"supermoon\" rising above Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire.\n\nSkywatchers have enjoyed spectacular views of this month's \"supermoon\" - when the Moon appears larger and brighter in the sky.\n\nThe supermoon phenomenon happens when the Moon reaches its closest point to Earth, known as a perigee Moon.\n\nThe Moon circuits the Earth in an elliptical or oval orbit - a supermoon occurs when the perigee Moon is also a full Moon.\n\nThe supermoon was the last opportunity to see one in 2017.\n\nThe moon loomed above Yeadon, in Leeds\n\nTo observers, the Moon appears about 7% larger and 15% brighter, although the difference is barely noticeable to the human eye.\n\nLast year the Moon made its closest approach to Earth since 1948 - it will not be that close again until 25 November 2034.\n\nNasa has called this weekend's sighting the first in a \"supermoon trilogy\" over the next two months, with others to come on 1 January and 31 January.\n\nDecember's full Moon is traditionally known as the cold Moon.\n\nThe full Moon on Sunday afternoon - when it sits opposite the sun in the sky - was 222,761 miles from Earth, closer than its average 238,900 miles.\n\nThe supermoon over the Christmas light trail at Blenheim Palace\n\nThe supermoon has also been seen over a lighthouse in South Shields, South Tyneside.\n\nThis Moon's elliptical orbit means that its distance from Earth is not constant but varies across a full orbit.\n\nBut within this uneven orbit there are further variations caused by the Earth's movements around the Sun.\n\nThese mean that the perigee - the closest approach - and full moon are not always in sync.\n\nBut occasions when the perigee and full moon coincide have become known as supermoons.\n\nThe supermoon was visible around the world, with this view coming from Washington\n\nThis picture of the supermoon was taken in Jakarta, Indonesia", "Police in Malta have arrested 10 Maltese nationals in connection with the car bomb murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.\n\nPrime Minister Joseph Muscat told reporters that police operations were under way in the town of Marsa, and the Bugibba and Zebbug areas.\n\nCaruana Galizia was killed close to her home on 16 October in an attack which shocked the country.\n\nThe 53-year-old was known for her blog accusing top politicians of corruption.\n\nThe government offered a €1m (£890,000; $1.2m) reward for information about her murder.\n\nInternational experts, including from the FBI, were called in to help in the investigation.\n\nPolice and troops are being used in the security operation, with roads blocked and a patrol boat deployed.\n\nMr Muscat said some of the detainees were already known to the police while others had criminal records.\n\nWhen asked if the eight arrested had participated in the murder, or if they also included the mastermind, Mr Muscat would not comment, Malta Today reports.\n\n\"I have a clear idea of what they did and who they are but I cannot give out more details at this time,\" he said.\n\nOn her Running Commentary blog, Caruana Galizia had relentlessly reported on alleged corruption among politicians across party lines.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Andrew Borg Cardona: \"My friend has been killed there\"\n\nWith a career spanning more than three decades, she was \"one of Malta's most important, visible, fearless journalists\", in the words of former Home Affairs Minister Louis Galea.\n\nHer funeral was attended by hundreds of people but the tiny EU state's leaders were barred by her family.\n\nHer three sons refused to endorse the reward and called on Mr Muscat to resign for failing to uphold \"fundamental freedom\".\n\nThe editors of eight of the world's largest news organisations, including the BBC, called for the European Commission - the EU executive - to investigate the murder.\n\nIn response, Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the commission, urged the authorities to leave \"no stone unturned\" in the case.", "The Free Syrian Police project is run from Gaziantep in Turkey, just across the border from Syria\n\nThe government has suspended a foreign aid project after a BBC Panorama investigation found taxpayers' cash was being diverted to extremists in Syria.\n\nOfficers from a UK-backed police force in Syria have also been working with courts carrying out brutal sentences.\n\nA UK government spokesman said it takes allegations of co-operation with terrorist groups \"extremely seriously\".\n\nAdam Smith International, the British company running the project, said it strongly denies the allegations.\n\nThe Free Syrian Police (FSP) was set up following the uprising in Syria, to bring law and order to parts of the country that were controlled by opposition forces.\n\nAdam Smith International (ASI) has been running the project since October 2014.\n\nBritain was one of six donor countries paying for the project, which provides community policing to the rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Idlib and Daraa provinces.\n\nIt is intended to be an unarmed civilian police force, and not co-operate with extremist groups, but Panorama has found examples where that was not the case. Some of Panorama's allegations against the project include:\n\nForeign Secretary Boris Johnson announced in April that the UK would commit a further £4 million to the UK-funded Access to Justice and Community Security (AJACS) scheme that supports the FSP.\n\nASI says the FSP is an unarmed community police force that brings the rule of law and safety to millions of people in a war-torn country.\n\nAn ASI spokesman said it \"strongly refutes Panorama's allegations\".\n\n\"We have managed taxpayers' money effectively to confront terrorism, bring security to Syrian communities and mitigate the considerable risks of operating in a war zone,\" he said.\n\n\"ASI has managed the project successfully alongside our partner in an extremely challenging, high-risk environment under the close supervision of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and five other governments.\"\n\nThe company says it uses cash to fund the police because there is no practical alternative - and that the British government is aware of the payments.\n\nA police station in Koknaya was supposed to be the base for 57 officers - but ASI staff could not find any police officers during a visit in 2016\n\nPanorama has obtained ASI documents that show dead and fictitious people were on the police payroll.\n\nOne police station in Koknaya in Idlib province was supposed to be the base for 57 police officers. But the documents show that when ASI's staff visited in September 2016, they couldn't find a single officer.\n\nASI said officers were accounted for on subsequent visits. The company has now suspended the payment of all salaries at the Koknaya police station.\n\nIt said it had identified very few examples across Syria where deceased officers had remained on the salary list.\n\nThe documents also show how some police officers in Aleppo province were forced to hand over cash to the extremist group - Nour al-Din al-Zinki - in control of the area.\n\nAn ASI report from July 2016 warned that 20% of all police salaries were being handed over \"to pay for the military and security support that Zinki provides to the five FSP stations located areas under its control\".\n\nAs well as handing over a cut of British aid money to Zinki, the police had also worked with a Zinki court \"by writing up warrants, delivering notices, and turning criminals over to the court\".\n\nThe police cooperation has continued despite allegations of torture and summary executions involving the court at al-Qasimiyeh.\n\nTory MP Crispin Blunt, former chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said the FSP should not be supporting extremist courts.\n\nHe said: \"You've got people being sentenced to death for homosexuality.\n\n\"Clearly that is completely and utterly unacceptable by any standard and the idea that British taxpayers' money was associated with that would of course be wholly abhorrent.\"\n\nASI says it has strict guidelines in place to ensure detainees are treated fairly and humanely, and that payments to the police stations which were paying Zinki were stopped in August 2016. It says donor governments were kept fully informed.\n\nA road near Sarmin - where two women were stoned to death in the presence of FSP officers\n\nPanorama also discovered that the Free Syrian Police provided support for courts run by the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda - Jabhat al-Nusra - which handed out extreme punishments.\n\nPolice officers were present when two women were stoned to death near Sarmin in December 2014. Sources have told Panorama the officers closed the road so that the execution could take place.\n\nASI says the police officers who attended the stoning were not formally under FSP control and have since been removed.\n\nPanorama has also seen evidence that al-Nusra handpicked police officers in two stations in Idlib province.\n\nASI says that the officers imposed by al-Nusra were detected in under two months and that payments to the station were then stopped.\n\nThe company says the payments in question only amounted to $1,800 (£1,340) and did not come from British government funds. But ASI didn't explain how they could be sure when the whole project is funded by cash.\n\nA UK government spokesman said: \"We take any allegations of co-operation with terrorist groups and of human rights abuses extremely seriously and the Foreign Office has suspended this programme while we investigate these allegations.\n\n\"We believe that such work in Syria is important to protect our national security interest but of course we reach this judgment carefully given that in such a challenging environment no activity is without risk.\n\n\"That's why all our programmes are designed carefully and subject to robust monitoring.\"\n\nYou can see more on this story on Panorama, Jihadis You Pay For on BBC One at 7.30pm on Monday 4 December and afterwards on iPlayer.", "Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been talking to the BBC about today's Brexit developments.\n\nShe says no-one wants to see a hard border on the island of Ireland and suggests the \"unhealthy influence\" of the DUP at Westminster was a major factor in the apparent failure to finalise an agreement.\n\nIf the concept of a distinct status for Northern Ireland is borne out in the final phase one agreement, she says \"this will change everything\".\n\nQuote Message: The bottom line is the UK government appears to be accepting parts of the UK can effectively stay within the single market, so if that's good enough and possible enough for Northern Ireland there's no reason why it can't be the case for Scotland.\" The bottom line is the UK government appears to be accepting parts of the UK can effectively stay within the single market, so if that's good enough and possible enough for Northern Ireland there's no reason why it can't be the case for Scotland.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland batsman Alex Hales will not face criminal charges over an incident outside a nightclub in Bristol in September and is available for selection, the England and Wales Cricket Board says.\n\nHe had been with all-rounder Ben Stokes, who was arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm.\n\nHales, 28, was not arrested but was interviewed under caution by police and was not considered for selection.\n\nHe could still be punished by the ECB.\n\nThe ECB's internal disciplinary process is on hold until any criminal proceedings against Stokes are concluded.\n\n\"Alex Hales will now be considered for England selection,\" the ECB said in a statement.\n\nHales is a one-day and T20 specialist, who last played Test cricket in August 2016 and could return for the limited-overs leg of England's tour of Australia.\n\nEngland will play a five-game one-day series against Australia in January, before a triangular Twenty20 series against New Zealand and Australia in February.\n\nThe ECB has also allowed Hales to play in the inaugural T20 Cricket League in Dubai from 21 to 24 December.\n\nStokes was arrested after a night out that followed England's victory over West Indies in the third one-day international.\n\nVideo footage emerged which allegedly showed him in a brawl in the early hours of the morning.\n\nA man suffered a fractured eye socket in the incident on 25 September.\n\nIn the aftermath, Hales, who voluntarily helped police with their inquiries, was left out of the fourth ODI along with Stokes.\n\nThe ECB then announced Stokes and Hales would not be considered for selection until further notice.\n\nOn 29 November, Avon and Somerset Police said it had completed its investigation and sent the findings to the Crown Prosecution Service to decide if Stokes would be charged.\n\nWith a decision not to be made for several weeks, Stokes seems unlikely to play in England's current Ashes series in Australia.\n\nHowever, he can play domestic cricket in any country and signed for Canterbury last week after travelling to New Zealand to visit his family.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. After Flynn's guilty plea, what next for the Russia investigation?\n\nSpecial Counsel Robert Mueller just dropped the hammer. Again.\n\nOn Friday it was Michael Flynn's turn \"in the barrel\", to borrow a line from Trump confidant Roger Stone. The former national security adviser pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about December 2016 conversations he had with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak and pledged to \"fully co-operate\" with Mr Mueller's ongoing investigations.\n\nMr Flynn has admitted he misled the FBI about his discussions regarding new sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration following evidence of alleged meddling in the 2016 election.\n\nThere had been hints this was coming, after word last week that Mr Flynn's defence lawyers had stopped co-operating with the Trump legal team. The president's own scattershot behaviour on Twitter this week could also have been a key tell, like a trick knee acting up before a big storm.\n\nSo why is this being billed as a major development in the ongoing investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to Russia? Let us count the ways.\n\n1) Trump's inner circle has been breached\n\nIt is difficult to overstate the significance of this felony plea deal. Mr Flynn was a close adviser and confidant of Mr Trump throughout the 2016 presidential race. He was a surrogate for the candidate on television and enjoyed a prominent speaking role at the July Republican National Convention. He had a pivotal role in Mr Trump's presidential transition.\n\nThe role of national security adviser in the White House, which Mr Flynn assumed upon Mr Trump's inauguration, is one of the most senior positions in any administration, responsible for being the key conduit between the sprawling US military and intelligence bureaucracies and the president. It is a post that has been held by the likes of Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.\n\nMr Trump was so partial to Mr Flynn that he was praising him as a \"wonderful man\" who had been \"treated very, very unfairly by the media\" just days after firing him.\n\nNow Mr Flynn could be going to jail - and, more importantly, could be sharing damaging information about the Trump inner circle he inhabited for so long.\n\nAccording to the \"Statement of the Offense\" filed by the special counsel's office, Mr Flynn is testifying that he had contact with Trump transition team officials before and after his fateful December 2016 conversation with Ambassador Kislyak. \"Members of the transition team,\" the document relates, \"did not want Russia to escalate the situation after the Obama administration imposed new sanctions on the Russian government\".\n\nThese conversations came more than a month after Mr Trump had won the presidency. Mr Flynn had already been announced as the national security adviser in the incoming White House - a top post in the president's inner circle.\n\nThe next big question is who exactly were the unnamed senior members of the presidential transition team. Some US news outlets are naming Jared Kushner and former Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland. Others seem to indicate it was Mr Trump himself. Eventually, Mr Flynn - and Mr Mueller - will have to lay their cards on the table.\n\nMr Flynn's assertions about his conversations with the transition team run directly counter to statements made by Mr Trump in a February press conference in which he said Mr Flynn was acting against orders when he reached out to Mr Kislyak.\n\nIn fact the White House said at the time that the president dismissed Mr Flynn as national security adviser because he lied to Vice-President Mike Pence about his Russian contacts. The true nature of Mr Flynn's conversations with Mr Kislyak first came out thanks to leaks to the press of information gleaned from government surveillance of Mr Kislyak.\n\nIf Mr Flynn has evidence corroborating his account of December contacts with the Trump transition team - which was headed by Mr Pence himself - the White House's explanation for its handling of the Flynn situation, denials of knowledge and all, starts to crumble.\n\nMr Flynn appeared in court in front of Judge Rudolph Contreras\n\nAnyone in the president's inner circle who told the FBI or Mr Mueller's investigators that they weren't privy to Mr Flynn's activities, when there is evidence that they knew, would be open to another round of charges of lying to the FBI.\n\nThe White House response, at least so far, seems to be that Mr Flynn is a lying liar who lies.\n\n\"The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year,\" White House lawyer Ty Cobb wrote in a press statement. \"Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr Flynn.\"\n\n4) Mr Mueller could be building an obstruction of justice case\n\nDust off that old political saw that \"it's not the crime, it's the cover-up\". While Mr Flynn's contact with the Russian ambassador is questionable, given that he was undercutting Obama administration policy efforts, it is probably not illegal.\n\nWhat is illegal, however, is obstruction of justice. Former FBI Director James Comey has testified that on 14 February - the day after Mr Flynn was sacked - Mr Trump urged the director to back off his investigation into Mr Flynn during a private Oval Office meeting.\n\nIf the president knew that the ongoing law-enforcement inquiry would discover Mr Flynn had been acting under orders - either by the president or a member of his transition team - that could be the kind of motive that would help support an obstruction of justice charge.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How Michael Flynn became entangled in Russia probe\n\n5) Only the tip of the iceberg?\n\nThere were a lot of rumours and allegations floating around about Mr Flynn before Friday's plea deal news. The special counsel's office was reportedly looking into Mr Flynn's Obama-era work as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was scrutinising his 2015 trip to Russia, paid for by the Kremlin-backed RT network, and his undisclosed lobbying on behalf of Turkish government interests.\n\nThe charge brought against him, however, was solely related to his December 2016 phone conversations with Mr Kislyak. Although it comes with a possible five-year prison sentence, Mr Mueller hardly threw the book at the former national security adviser. Is this all there is?\n\nMr Mueller is primarily tasked with investigating possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Mr Flynn was a senior adviser to and advocate for Mr Trump's presidential bid. Does the relative modesty of the charges against Mr Flynn indicate he may be offering information directly relevant to this inquiry?\n\nMr Flynn's plea deal is just one piece of a much larger puzzle the special counsel office is trying to solve.\n\nIn October Mr Mueller indicted former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, a top aide with White House ties, on money laundering charges predating their involvement with the Trump campaign.\n\nHe also struck a plea deal with former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who told prosecutors he lied about his own contacts with Russians.\n\nEach move is distinct and not directly related - at least not yet. A some point we are going to learn whether Mr Mueller is building a larger case against the Trump campaign out of these legal moves - or that the sum total of his efforts is nibbling around the edges.\n\nAs the president likes to say, stay tuned.", "Jon Venables was 10 when he and Robert Thompson killed James Bulger\n\nA potential breach of a court order which prevents the identification of one of James Bulger's killers is being investigated, the Attorney General's Office has confirmed.\n\nJon Venables, now 35, was convicted of killing two-year-old James in Merseyside in 1993, along with Robert Thompson.\n\nThe pair were released in 2001.\n\nThere is a worldwide ban on publishing anything revealing their current identities.\n\nA spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office said: \"We have received a complaint that the anonymity order has been breached and we are investigating.\"\n\nA High Court injunction prohibits the publication of any images or information claiming to identify or locate the pair- even if it is not actually them.\n\nThe order also covers material published on the internet.\n\nIn 2013 two men who published photographs on Twitter and Facebook said to show the killers of James Bulger received suspended jail sentences for being in contempt of court.\n\nVenables was recalled to prison last month after being suspected of having child abuse images on his computer.\n\nIt is the second time he has been sent back to jail for the same suspected offence.\n\nHe was first recalled in 2010, following his release in 2001 after serving eight years for the murder of James, aged two, in 1993.\n\nJames Bulger was two when he was abducted and killed in 1993\n\nOn 12 February 1993, James - just a few weeks before his third birthday - was reported missing by his mother from outside a butcher's shop in the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside.\n\nCCTV images revealed he had been lured away by Venables and Thompson, both then aged 10.\n\nHis body was found two days later on a railway line.\n\nThompson and Venables were arrested and charged within days. They were both convicted at Preston Crown Court of James's murder, in November 1993.\n\nIn 2001, the pair were released - with new identities - from secure children's homes on life licence, meaning they can be recalled at any time.", "Reggie Yates was due to present the Christmas and New Year TOTP specials with Fearne Cotton\n\nReggie Yates will not host this year's Top of the Pops holiday specials after making \"ill-considered remarks\" in a podcast interview.\n\nYates apologised last month for using the phrase \"fat Jewish guy\" to refer to managers in the music industry.\n\nHe has now tweeted to say he has \"taken the decision to step down\" from hosting the music shows, which were due to air on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.\n\nThe presenter added that he apologised \"unreservedly to the Jewish community\".\n\nIn the Halfcast Podcast, hosted by DJ Chuckie Lothian, he had used the phrase while praising artists who chose to remain independently managed, adding: \"They're managed by their brethren.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by REGYATES This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn his latest statement on Twitter, he said his words \"reinforced offensive stereotypes\" and that the comment was \"no reflection on how I truly feel\".\n\nThe host, who also presents The Insider series for BBC Three, was due to present this year's holiday specials of long-running show Top of the Pops with Fearne Cotton.\n\nA BBC spokesperson said: \"We take these issues very seriously and Reggie is in no doubt about the BBC's view of his comments.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The Queen has paid tribute to London and Manchester in her Christmas Day message for their handling of this year's terror attacks.\n\nShe said it was a \"privilege\" to meet the concert attack survivors in May and stressed both cities' \"powerful identities\".\n\nThe monarch also remembered the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.\n\nIn the year of her 70th wedding anniversary she praised the Duke of Edinburgh's support.\n\nDespite missing the Christmas morning service last year due to illness, the Queen spent this year at Sandringham with the Royal Family including Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle.\n\nLooking back over 2017, the Queen reflected fondly on her relationship with Prince Philip amid his decision to \"slow down a little\".\n\nShe said: \"I don't know that anyone had invented the term 'platinum' for a 70th wedding anniversary when I was born. You weren't expected to be around that long.\"\n\nThis summer Prince Philip retired from his programme of public engagements, although he has continued to attend some events involving the Queen.\n\nIn the broadcast, the Queen also praised her husband's \"unique sense of humour\".\n\nShe recorded this year's Christmas message to the Commonwealth a few days ago in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace.\n\nThe message's main theme is the importance of home, which she describes as a place of \"warmth, familiarity and love\", with a \"timeless simplicity\" and \"pull\".\n\nSurrounded by family photographs and a picture of newly engaged Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Queen said her family \"look forward to welcoming new members into it next year\".\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their third child in April. while the prince and Ms Markle will wed in May.\n\nOn a table, alongside photographs of Prince George and Princess Charlotte, were two pictures of the Queen with the Duke of Edinburgh, one of which was taken on their wedding day in 1947 and the other from their anniversary in November this year.\n\nThe Queen was dressed in an ivory white dress by Angela Kelly, which she first wore for the Diamond Jubilee Thames River Pageant in 2012.\n\nThe Queen and Prince Philip celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in November\n\nShe also expressed gratitude towards emergency service workers in a year of \"appalling attacks\" and highlighted the \"extraordinary bravery and resilience\" of survivors.\n\nReferencing the Grenfell Tower fire which claimed the lives of 71 people, the Queen described it as \"sheer awfulness\".\n\n\"Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who died and those who lost so much, and we are indebted to members of the emergency services who risked their own lives this past year saving others,\" the Queen said.\n\nFive people: four pedestrians and a police officer, were killed in the Westminster Bridge attack in March.\n\nIn May, the Queen visited victims of the bombing at Manchester Arena, in which 22 people died. A suicide bomber struck as they left the venue following a performance by US singer Ariana Grande.\n\n\"I describe that hospital visit as a 'privilege' because the patients I met were an example to us all,\" she said.\n\nThe Queen visited victims of the bombing at Manchester Arena in May\n\nThe following month, eight people died when three men in a van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge before going on a knife attack in nearby Borough Market.\n\nLater that June, a man died when a hired van ran into worshippers near the Muslim Welfare House in Finsbury Park, north London.\n\nThe Queen's Christmas message was broadcast at 15:00 GMT on BBC One, and can be watched again on iPlayer.", "Lewis Hamilton has apologised for making \"inappropriate\" comments in a video in which he appeared to mock his nephew's princess dress.\n\nIn an Instagram video, which has since been deleted, the Formula 1 driver says \"boys don't wear princess dresses\".\n\nHe was criticised on social media for the clip, which was apparently filmed on Christmas Day.\n\nThe 32-year-old tweeted his \"deepest apologies\", saying he loved that his nephew \"feels free to express himself\".\n\nThe video, posted on his Instagram story, shows Hamilton speaking to the camera before turning it on his young relative.\n\n\"I'm so sad right now. Look at my nephew,\" he says.\n\nThe camera then shows the boy wearing a pink and purple dress, while holding a toy magic wand.\n\nHamilton asks him: \"Why are you wearing a princess dress? Is this what you got for Christmas?\"\n\nThe young boy starts laughing as the British racing driver continues: \"Why did you ask for a princess dress for Christmas? Boys don't wear princess dresses.\"\n\nIn response to the video, founder of anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label Liam Hackett tweeted: \"Disappointing to see somebody with such a huge platform use it to publicly shame and attempt to undermine a small child.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Imraan Sathar of discrimination support charity Stay Brave UK, called for the driver to be stripped of his MBE.\n\nHamilton later apologised for his behaviour and said it was \"really not acceptable\" to marginalise or stereotype anyone.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Lewis Hamilton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Lewis Hamilton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Lewis Hamilton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A mother who snapped a lucky photograph of four smiling royals is hoping its sale will help her fund her daughter's university education.\n\nKaren Anvil, 39, from Watlington in Norfolk captured a beaming Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Sandringham.\n\nThe image, which was posted on Twitter, was liked almost 4,000 times and stoked mainstream media interest.\n\nMs Anvil told the BBC reaction to the picture has been \"bizarre and bonkers\".\n\nMs Anvil and her 17-year-old daughter, Rachel, have been to spot the Royals at their annual Christmas Day service a couple of times before.\n\nShe said that, while suffering from an illness last year, she promised her daughter they would go to St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham this Christmas.\n\nShe said: \"Sky News was on and we were looking at the crowds. My daughter said 'I'd love to do that'.\n\n\"'I said 'next year, when I'm better we'll go'. And so I took her.\"\n\nMs Anvil admitted she had a \"fan-girl\" moment while with her daughter Rachel, 17\n\nAsked how she got the Royals to look at the camera and capture the shot every photographer dreamt of, Ms Anvil admitted her secret was attracting their attention,\n\n\"I'm just very bubbly by nature and I was with my daughter and I got a bit excitable, I suppose.\n\n\"I was just sort of shouting and I just went 'Merry Christmas!' like an idiot. I was fan-girling.\n\n\"That's all I said and got them to look.\"\n\nMs Anvil posted the image on Twitter at about 11:00 GMT and got thousands of likes. Her previous record was just five likes.\n\nFour hours later she was still receiving messages asking for permission to use the picture - and advice from other Twitter users telling her to negotiate a price.\n\nShe said: \"At first I said oh yeah sure. Have the photo. I know nothing about that.\"\n\nBut soon afterwards she was flooded with suggestions to copyright the photograph and earn some Christmas Day cash.\n\n\"The thing is - and I hate to play the single mum card - I'm a single parent, I work two jobs, which I'm proud of and I've always worked.\n\n\"Now I want to save money for my daughter for uni and if I can do that, and can get that opportunity that's amazing.\"", "Ri Pyong-chol (L) and Kim Jong-sik (R) are reportedly among Kim Jong-un's most trusted aides\n\nThe US has placed sanctions on two North Korean officials it says have led the development of nuclear missiles.\n\nThe US treasury named the two men as Kim Jong-sik and Ri Pyong-chol, and said both were \"key leaders\" of North Korea's ballistic missile programme.\n\nThe UN Security Council imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Friday in response to ballistic missile tests.\n\nNorth Korea said the move was \"an act of war\" and tantamount to a total economic blockade.\n\nThe new US sanctions will block any transactions by the two men carried out in the US, essentially freezing any American assets they may have.\n\nBoth men are regularly photographed alongside North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at missile launches.\n\nIn the past year, the country has tested ever more ambitious types of missile, and says it can now reach the entire continental United States.\n\nRi Pyong-chol has been photographed laughing with Kim Jong-un\n\nA Reuters investigation in May said that the two men, along with weapons developer Jang Chan-ha, were handpicked by Kim Jong-un and were very popular with him.\n\nTheir behaviour around him, Reuters said, \"is sharply at variance with the obsequiousness of other senior aides, most of whom bow and hold their hands over their mouths when speaking to the young leader\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How could war with North Korea unfold?\n\nThe news agency reported that Ri Pyong-chol was a former air force general educated in Russia and that Kim Jong-sik was a veteran rocket scientist.\n\nThey were both among 16 North Koreans placed under UN sanctions on Friday.\n\nThe UN sanctions came in response to Pyongyang's 28 November firing of a ballistic missile, which the US said was its highest yet.\n\nIn response, North Korea's official KCNA news agency said: \"The United States, completely terrified at our accomplishment of the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force, is getting more and more frenzied in the moves to impose the harshest-ever sanctions and pressure on our country.\"", "Australia opener David Warner struck a century as England endured a tough time in the field on the opening day of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.\n\nWarner dazzled with some fine strokeplay in a one-sided morning session against an England side that looked flattened after surrendering the Ashes in Perth.\n\nThe tourists fought back and Warner could have been dismissed on 99, only for Tom Curran to be denied his maiden Test wicket when replays showed that he had overstepped.\n\nStill, Warner was dismissed shortly after reaching three figures and England had an opening when Australia were reduced to 160-3.\n\nBut, under a cloudless sky and on a flat surface, home captain Steve Smith made an unbeaten half-century to guide Australia to 244-3 in front of a crowd of 88,172.\n\nEngland, already 3-0 down, are looking to avoid a second successive Ashes whitewash down under and third in 11 years.\n\nCurrently on an eight-match losing streak in Australia, they have never previously lost nine consecutively.\n\nAfter a lacklustre start, the touring pacemen grew into the day but Moeen Ali posed no threat.\n\nAnd, ultimately, Joe Root's men are in urgent need of early wickets on day two to prevent Australia from racking up another huge total.\n• None How day one unfolded in the live text\n\nThe swashbuckling manner in which Warner played during the morning session made run scoring look much easier than it later proved to be and set an ominous tone for England.\n\nThe left-hander, faced with boundary sweepers on both sides as early as the fourth over of the match, punched through mid-off, cut, and whipped off his pads, all whilst running with urgency.\n\nBefore his scoring was checked, there was a prospect of a century before lunch, but instead he had to settle for 83 of the 102-0 that Australia reached by the interval.\n\nEngland, however, got a grip on scoring in the afternoon. Warner saw Cameron Bancroft pinned leg before by Chris Woakes for a painstaking 26 and spent eight overs in the 90s.\n\nThe tourists' pressure looked to have paid off when Warner, one short of three figures, attempted a pull off Curran and top-edged to Stuart Broad at mid-on.\n\nAs England celebrated, the big-screen replay of Curran overstepping brought a huge cheer from the home fans that was superseded one ball later when Warner nudged into the leg side and launched a sustained and emotional celebration to mark his 21st Test ton.\n\nCurran's error was not too costly, with Warner on 103 when he followed one that James Anderson got to move away, resulting in an edge to wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow.\n\nAfter losing the toss in scorching heat and on a surface that initially seemed perfect for batting, England were always in danger of enduring a difficult day.\n\nTheir new-ball bowling was nothing more than adequate and, as Warner showed his intent to score, the tourists were subdued for large parts of a morning that was barely a contest.\n\nTo their credit, they improved immeasurably after lunch. The pace attack had the control to bowl to packed off side fields and Australia's scoring slowed on a pitch that increasingly revealed itself to be two-paced.\n\nFrom piling on more than 100 before lunch, Australia could only add 43 for the loss of two wickets in an attritional afternoon session.\n\nCurran impressed with seam movement and slower balls and, after tea, Broad ended a personal run of 69 wicketless overs by having Usman Khawaja caught behind.\n\nOff-spinner Moeen, though, remains a concern. A doubt on the morning of the match because of a finger injury, his six overs cost 35 runs and forced Root to turn to Dawid Malan's part-time leg-spin.\n\nFor their improvement and endeavour, England have only three wickets and are facing a huge challenge to get back into this match.\n\nTheir biggest concern is the continuing presence of Smith, who has already made two big hundreds in this series. The skipper has scored a century in each of the past three Boxing Day Tests and has not been dismissed in Melbourne since 2014.\n\nSmith shared an unbroken stand of 84 with Marsh, the subject of big Broad lbw appeals from the first two balls that he faced, one of which was unsuccessfully reviewed.\n\nThe world's number one batsman helped himself to an unflustered, problem-free half-century with the minimum of fuss. There was the occasional boundary through the off side, but scoring mainly came with tucks off the pads.\n\nHis scores in first-innings in this series are 141 not out, 40, 239 and now an unbeaten 65.\n\nSmith saw off three overs with the new ball alongside Marsh, who has 31, and Australia have a platform from which they can bat England out of the game.\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan: \"David Warner was fantastic. England had triggered his mindset into being negative with the way they've bowled this series. He's thought, 'I'll see off Broad and Anderson' and that's affected his game.\n\n\"From the first over today, however, Warner came out with more positivity and that's the best way he plays.\n\n\"He's a wonderful player to watch when he bats like he did today.\n\n\"I've always felt there is something there in this pitch for the bowlers. Go back to 1998 and 2010 when it did plenty on the first day. You don't get too many draws at the MCG.\n\n\"I can't see this Test match being a draw either so England are going to have to bat very well in their first innings.\"\n\nEngland seamer James Anderson, speaking to TMS: \"It was a long day, we didn't start well or adjust to conditions. It was a flat, slow wicket and we bowled too many bad balls and let them get away.\n\n\"But the way we came back in the second session was very impressive. The pace of the pitch didn't help us, but we stuck to our task well and just didn't get the breaks at the end.\n\n\"It was not ideal to lose the toss but we were due to lose one. We're still in the game. We need to bowl really well with the new ball tomorrow to get some breakthroughs.\"\n\nAustralia opener David Warner, speaking to BT Sport: \"It was a hard fought day. England brought it back in the afternoon and bowled fantastic when the ball reversed but towards the end we got on a bit of a roll and as we have seen over the last couple of years Steve Smith comes in makes it look very easy.\n\nOn his century: \"I am obviously pleased but disappointed I didn't manage to go on. We talk about cashing in but I felt I let myself and the guys down. Credit to Jimmy he bowled fantastic in that spell.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The bus hit the entrance of a pedestrian underpass in Moscow\n\nA bus left a road in Moscow before ploughing into a subway entrance, leaving four people dead and 11 injured, Russian officials say.\n\nFootage shows people scattering as the bus ran down wide steps before being brought to a halt by the tunnel's roof.\n\nThere is no suggestion it was a terror attack. Russian investigators said the driver told police the vehicle had started to move suddenly.\n\nHe tried to apply the brakes but they did not work, the investigative committee said. The crash happened in icy conditions.\n\nAll those killed in the crash were knocked down by the bus, which had been at a standstill before it drove on to the pavement and careered down the steps of the underpass.\n\nThe victims included a woman in her thirties and a teenager. Health officials said two of the injured were in a serious condition.\n\nInterfax news agency reported that the bus was not even a year old. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin told reporters at the scene that an inspection of the entire Moscow bus fleet had been ordered.\n\nThe driver is being held by police\n\nIt is not the first deadly incident at the station\n\nSecurity camera footage broadcast on Russian television showed a number of people being struck by the bus as it went down the steps of the metro station in the west of the city.\n\nA preliminary examination showed the driver of the bus was sober, news agencies said. He has been held by police.\n\nIn July 2014, 21 people were killed when a train derailed near the same station after braking abruptly.\n\nMonday is a normal working day in Moscow, where the Orthodox Christmas will be celebrated on 7 January.", "People were earlier evacuated from the Vietnamese province of Ben Tre\n\nA tropical storm that was threatening southern Vietnam has weakened and is expected to dissipate within 48 hours.\n\nThe Weather Prediction Center says Storm Tembin, with wind gusts up to 58mph (93km/h), is 170 miles south-southwest of Ho Chi Minh City, and is moving westward.\n\nNearly a million people were earlier told to prepare for evacuation and some 70,000 were moved from low-lying areas.\n\nTembin killed at least 240 people as it swept through the Philippines.\n\nRescuers are searching for more than 100 people still missing.\n\nBridges and roads on the southern island of Mindanao were destroyed or blocked by landslides, while nearly 1,000 houses were wrecked and many rice fields washed away.\n\nIn Vietnam, the government earlier ordered oil rigs and vessels to be secured and warned that about 62,000 fishing boats should not go out to sea, Reuters news agency reports.\n\n\"Vietnam must ensure the safety of its oil rigs and vessels,\" Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc was quoted as saying. \"If necessary, close the oil rigs and evacuate workers.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The aftermath of Storm Tembin on Mindanao island\n\nIn the southern province of Bac Lieu, residents from a fishing village were moved to different schools that have been turned into shelters.", "A year ago Donald Trump produced the biggest political upset in modern-day America, but were there historical clues that pointed to his unexpected victory?\n\nFlying into Los Angeles, a descent that takes you from the desert, over the mountains, to the outer suburbs dotted with swimming pools shaped like kidneys, always brings on a near narcotic surge of nostalgia.\n\nThis was the flight path I followed more than 30 years ago, as I fulfilled a boyhood dream to make my first trip to the United States. America had always fired my imagination, both as a place and as an idea. So as I entered the immigration hall, under the winsome smile of America's movie star president, it was hardly a case of love at first sight.\n\nMy infatuation had started long before, with Westerns, cop shows, superhero comic strips, and movies such as West Side Story and Grease. Gotham exerted more of a pull than London. My 16-year-old self could quote more presidents than prime ministers. Like so many new arrivals, like so many of my compatriots, I felt an instant sense of belonging, a fealty borne of familiarity.\n\nEighties America lived up to its billing, from the multi-lane freeways to the cavernous fridges, from the drive-in movie theatres to the drive-through burger joints. I loved the bigness, the boldness, the brashness. Coming from a country where too many people were reconciled to their fate from too early an age, the animating force of the American Dream was not just seductive but unshackling.\n\nUpward mobility was not a given amongst my schoolmates. The absence of resentment was also striking: the belief success was something to emulate rather than envy. The sight of a Cadillac induced different feelings than the sight of a Rolls Royce.\n\nIt was 1984. Los Angeles was hosting the Olympics. The Soviet boycott meant US athletes dominated the medals table more so than usual. McDonald's had a scratch-card promotion, planned presumably before Eastern bloc countries decided to keep their distance, offering Big Macs, Cokes and fries if Americans won gold, silver or bronze in selected events. So for weeks I feasted on free fast food, a calorific accompaniment to chants of \"USA! USA!\"\n\nThis was the summertime of American resurgence. After the long national nightmare of Vietnam, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis, the country demonstrated its capacity for renewal. 1984, far from being the dystopian hell presaged by George Orwell, was a time of celebration and optimism. Uncle Sam - back then, nobody gave much thought to the country being given a male personification - seemed happy again in his own skin.\n\nFor millions, it really was \"Morning Again in America\", the slogan of Ronald Reagan's re-election campaign. In that year's presidential election, he buried his Democratic opponent Walter Mondale in a landslide, winning 49 out of 50 states and 58.8% of the popular vote.\n\nThe United States could hardly be described as politically harmonious. There was the usual divided government. Republicans retained control of the Senate, but the Democrats kept their stranglehold on the House of Representatives. Reagan's sunniness was sullied by the launch of his 1980 campaign with a call for \"states' rights\", which sounded to many like a dog-whistle for denial of civil rights.\n\nRonald Reagan on the campaign trail in 1979\n\nHis chosen venue was Philadelphia, but not the city of brotherly love, the cradle of the Declaration of Independence, but rather Philadelphia, Mississippi, a rural backwater close to where three civil rights workers had been murdered by white supremacists in 1964. Reagan, like Nixon, pursued the southern strategy, which exploited white fears about black advance.\n\nStill, the anthem of the hour was Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA and politics was not nearly as polarised as it is today. Even though the Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill reviled Reagan's trickle-down economics - he called him a \"cheerleader for selfishness\" and \"Herbert Hoover with a smile\" - these two Irish-Americans found common ground as they sought to act in the national interest.\n\nBoth understood the Founding Fathers had hard-wired compromise into the governmental system, and that Washington, with its checks and balances, was unworkable without give and take. They worked together on tax reform and safeguarding Social Security.\n\nThe country was in the ascendant. Not so paranoid as it was in the 1950s, not so restive as it was in the 1960s, and nowhere near as demoralised as it had been in the 1970s.\n\nHistory is never neat or linear. Decades do not automatically have personalities, but it is possible to divide the period since 1984 into two distinct phases. The final 16 years of the 20th Century was a time of American hegemony. The first 16 years of the 21st Century has proven to be a period of dysfunction, discontent, disillusionment and decline. The America of today in many ways reflects the dissonance between the two.\n\nIn those twilight years of the last millennium, America enjoyed something akin to the dominance achieved at the Los Angeles Olympics. Just two years after Reagan demanded that Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall, that concrete and ideological barricade was gone. The United States won the Cold War. In the New World Order that emerged afterwards, it became the sole superpower in a unipolar world.\n\nA Berliner celebrates in front of the Berlin wall on 15 November 1989\n\nThe speed at which US-led forces won the first Gulf War in 1991 helped slay the ghosts of Vietnam. With a reformist leader, Boris Yeltsin, installed in the Kremlin, there was an expectation Russia would embrace democratic reform. Even after Tiananmen Square, there was a hope that China might follow suit, as it moved towards a more market-based economy.\n\nThis was the thrust of Francis Fukuyama's thesis in his landmark 1989 essay, The End of History, which spoke of \"the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government\".\n\nFor all the forecasts Japan would become the world's largest economy, America refused to cede its financial and commercial dominance. Instead of Sony ruling the corporate world, Silicon Valley became the new high-tech workshop of business.\n\nBill Clinton's boast of building a bridge to the 21st Century rang true, although it was emergent tech giants such as Microsoft, Apple and Google that were the true architects and engineers. Thirty years after planting the Stars and Stripes on the Sea of Tranquillity, America not only dominated outer space but cyberspace too.\n\nThis phase of US dominance could never be described as untroubled. The Los Angeles riots in 1992, sparked by the beating of Rodney King and the acquittal of the police officers charged with his assault, highlighted deep racial divisions.\n\nIn Washington, Bill Clinton's impeachment exhibited the hyper-partisanship that was changing the tenor of Washington life. In the age of 24/7 cable news, politics was starting to double as soap opera.\n\nYet as we approached 31 December 1999, the assertion that the 20th Century had been The American Century was an axiom. I was in the capital as Bill Clinton presided over the midnight celebrations on the National Mall, and as the fireworks skipped from the Lincoln Memorial down the Reflecting Pool to illuminate the Washington monument, the mighty obelisk looked like a giant exclamation mark or a massive number one.\n\nThe national story changed dramatically and unexpectedly soon after. While doomsday predictions of a Y2K bug failed to materialise, it nonetheless felt as if the United States had been infected with a virus. 2000 saw the dot-com bubble explode. In November, the disputed presidential election between George W Bush and Al Gore badly damaged the reputation of US democracy.\n\nWhy, a Zimbabwean diplomat even suggested Africa send international observers to oversee the Florida recount. Beyond America's borders came harbingers of trouble. In Russia, 31 December 1999, as those fireworks were being primed, Vladimir Putin took over from Boris Yeltsin.\n\nThe year 2001 brought the horror of September 11th, an event more traumatic than Pearl Harbor. Post-9/11 America became less welcoming and more suspicious. The Bush administration's \"war on terror\" - open-ended conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq - drained the country of blood and treasure.\n\nThe collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, and the Great Recession that followed, arguably had a more lasting impact on the American psyche than the destruction of the Twin Towers. Just as 9/11 had undermined confidence in the country's national security, the financial collapse shattered confidence in its economic security.\n\nWith parents no longer certain their children would come to enjoy more abundant lives than they did, the American Dream felt like a chimera. The American compact, the bargain that if you worked hard and played by the rules your family would succeed, was no longer assumed. Between 2000 and 2011, the overall net wealth of US households fell. By 2014, the richest 1% of Americans had accrued more wealth than the bottom 90%.\n\nTo many in the watching world, and most of the 69 million Americans who voted for him, the election of the country's first black president again demonstrated America's capacity for regeneration.\n\nAlthough his presidency did much to rescue the economy, he couldn't repair a fractured country. The creation of a post-partisan nation, which Obama outlined in his breakthrough speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, proved just as illusory as the emergence of a post-racial society, which he always knew was beyond him.\n\nDuring the Obama years, Washington descended into a level of dysfunction unprecedented in post-war America.\n\n\"My number one priority is making sure President Obama's a one-term president,\" declared then-Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, summing up the obstructionist mood of his Republican colleagues. It led to a crisis of governance, including the shutdown of 2013 and the repeated battles over raising the debt ceiling. The political map of America, rather than taking on a more purple hue, came to be rendered in deeper shades of red and blue.\n\nBeyond Capitol Hill, there was a whitelash to the first black president, seen in the rise of the Birther movement and in elements of the Tea Party movement. On the right, movement conservatives challenged establishment Republicans. On the left, identity politics displaced a more class-oriented politics as union influence waned. Both parties seemed to vacate the middle ground, relying instead on maximising support from their respective bases - African-Americans, evangelicals, the LGBT community, gun-owners - to win elections.\n\nThroughout his presidency, Barack Obama continued to talk about moving towards a more perfect union. But reality made a mockery of these lofty words. Sandy Hook. Orlando. The spate of police shootings. The gang-related mayhem in his adopted home of Chicago. The mess in Washington. The opioid crisis. The health indices even pointed to a sick nation, in which the death rate was rising. By 2016, life expectancy fell for the first time since 1993.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. US election: Relive the wild ride in 170 seconds\n\nThis was the backdrop against which the 2016 election was fought, one of the most dispiriting campaigns in US political history. A battle between the two most unpopular major party candidates since polling began, ended with a victor who had higher negative ratings than his opponent and in the end, three million fewer votes.\n\nJust as I had been on the National Mall to ring in the new millennium in 2000, I was there again on 20 January 2017, for Donald Trump's inaugural celebrations. They included some Reagan-era flourishes. At the eve of the inauguration concert, Lee Greenwood reprised his Reaganite anthem God Bless the USA, albeit with a frailer voice.\n\nThere were chants of \"USA, USA,\" a staple of the billionaire's campaign rallies - usually triggered by his riff on building a wall along the Mexican border. There was also an 80s vibe about the telegenic first family, who looked fresh from a set of a primetime soap, like Dynasty or Falcon Crest.\n\nThe spectacle brought to mind what Norman Mailer once said of Reagan, that the 40th president understood \"the President of the United States was the leading soap opera figure in the great American drama, and one had better possess star value\". Trump understood this, and it explained much of his success, even if his star power came from reality TV rather than Hollywood B-movies.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Michael Cockerell: The parallels between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump\n\nYet Trump is not Reagan. His politics of grievance, and the fist-shaking anger it fed off, struck a different tone than the Gipper's more positive pitch. It played on a shared sense of personal and national victimhood that would have been alien to Reagan.\n\nIn the space of just three decades, then, the United States had gone from \"It's morning in America again\" to something much darker: \"American Carnage\", the most memorable phrase from Trump's inaugural address.\n\nIt is tempting to see Trump's victory this time last year as an aberration. A historical mishap. The election all came down, after all, to just 77,744 votes in three key states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. But when you consider the boom-to-bust cycle of the period between 1984 and 2016, the Trump phenomenon doesn't look so accidental.\n\nIn many ways Trump's unexpected victory marked the culmination of a large number of trends in US politics, society and culture, many of which are rooted in that end-of-century period of American dominion.\n\nConsider how the fall of the Berlin Wall changed Washington, and how it ushered in an era of destructive and negative politics. In the post-war years, bipartisanship was routine, partly because of a shared determination to defeat communism. America's two-party system, adversarial though it was, benefited from the existence of a shared enemy. To pass laws, President Eisenhower regularly worked with Democratic chieftains such as House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson.\n\nReforms such as the 1958 National Defense Education Act, which improved science teaching in response to the launch of Sputnik, were framed precisely with defeating communism in mind.\n\nMuch of the impetus to pass landmark civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s came from the propaganda gift Jim Crow laws handed to the Soviet Union, especially as Moscow sought to expand its sphere of influence among newly decolonised African nations.\n\nPatriotic bipartisanship frayed and ripped after the end of the Cold War. It was in the 1990s the then-Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole started to use the filibuster more aggressively as a blocking device. Government shutdowns became politically weaponised.\n\nIn the 1994 congressional mid-terms, the Republican revolution brought a wave of fierce partisans to Washington, with an ideological aversion to government and thus little investment in making it work. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the first Republican to occupy the post in 40 years, personified the kind of abrasive partisan that came to the fore on Capitol Hill.\n\nGrudging bipartisanship was still possible, as Clinton and Gingrich demonstrated over welfare and criminal justice reform in the mid-1990s. But this period witnessed the acidification of DC politics. The gerrymandering of the House of Representatives encouraged strict partisanship, because the threat to most lawmakers came from within their own parties. Moderates or pragmatists who strayed from the partisan path were punished with a primary challenge from more doctrinaire rivals.\n\nBy the 112th Congress in 2011-2012, there was no Democrat in the House more conservative than a Republican and no Republican more liberal than a Democrat. This was new. In the post-war years, there had been considerable ideological overlap between liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. In this more polarised climate, bipartisanship became a dirty word. One leading conservative thinker and anti-tax campaigner, Grover Norquist, likened it to date rape.\n\nWould Congress have impeached Bill Clinton, ostensibly for having an affair with an intern, had America still been waging the Cold War? I sense not - it would have been seen, in those more serious times, as a frivolous distraction. When Congress moved towards impeaching Richard Nixon it did so because Watergate and its cover-up truly rose to the level of high crimes and misdemeanours.\n\nClinton's impeachment signalled the emergence of another new political trend: the delegitimisation of sitting presidents. And both parties played the game. The Democrats cast George W Bush as illegitimate because Al Gore won the popular vote and the Supreme Court controversially ruled in the Republican's favour during the Florida recount.\n\nThe Birther movement, led by Donald Trump, tried to delegitimise Barack Obama with specious and racist claims that he was not born in Hawaii. Most recently, the Democrats have cast aspersions on Trump's victory, partly because he lost the popular vote and partly because they allege he achieved a Kremlin-assisted victory.\n\nOver this period, the political discourse also became shriller. Rush Limbaugh, after getting his first radio show in 1984, rose to become the king of the right-wing shock jocks. Fox News was launched in 1996, the same year as MSNBC, which became its progressive counterpoint. The internet quickened the metabolism of the news industry and became the home for the kind of hateful commentary traditional news outlets rarely published.\n\nHome foreclosures skyrocketed at the end of the last decade\n\nMaybe the Jerry Springerisation of political news coverage can be traced to the moment the Drudge Report first published the name Monica Lewinsky, \"scooping\" Newsweek which hesitated before publishing such an explosive story. The success of the Drudge Report demonstrated how new outlets, which didn't share the same news values as the mainstream media, could establish brands literally overnight. This lesson was doubtless learnt by Andrew Breitbart, an editor at Drudge who founded the right-wing website Breitbart News.\n\nThe internet and social media, trumpeted initially as the ultimate tool for bringing people together, actually became a forum for cynicism, division and various outlandish conspiracy theories. America became more atomised.\n\nAs Robert D Putnam identified in his 1995 seminal essay, Bowling Alone, lower participation rates in organisations such as unions, parent teacher associations, the Boy Scouts and women's clubs had reduced person to person contacts and civil interaction.\n\nEconomically, this period saw the continuation of what's been called the \"Great Divergence\" which produced stark inequalities in wealth and income. Between 1979 and 2007, household income in the top 1% grew by 275% compared to just 18% growth in the bottom fifth of households.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Clinton-era was a period of financial deregulation, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the landmark reform passed during the depression, as well as legislation exempting credit default swaps from regulation.\n\nDisruptive technologies changed the workplace and upended the labour market. Automation, more so than globalisation, was the big jobs killer during this phase. Between 1990 and 2007, machines killed off up to 670,000 US manufacturing jobs alone.\n\nThe Rust Belt rebellion that propelled Trump to the White House has been described as a revolt against robots, not that his supporters viewed it that way. Encouraged by the billionaire, many blamed increased foreign competition and the influx of foreign workers.\n\nThe opioid crisis can be traced back to the early 1990s with the over-prescription of powerful painkillers. Between 1991 and 2011, painkiller prescriptions tripled.\n\nAmerica seemed intoxicated by its own post-Cold War success. Then came the hangover of the past 16 years.\n\nOver the past few months, I've followed that same westward flight path to California on a number of occasions, and found myself asking what would an impressionable 16-year-old make of America now. Would she share my adolescent sense of wonder, or would she peer out over the Pacific at twilight and wonder if the sun was setting on America itself?\n\nWhat would she make of the gun violence, brought into grotesque relief again by the Las Vegas massacre? Multiple shootings are not new, of course. Just days before I arrived in the States in 1984, a gunman had walked into a McDonalds in a suburb of San Diego and shot dead 21 people. It was then the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.\n\nWhat's different between now and then, however, is the regularity of these massacres, and how the repetitiveness of the killings has normalised them. What was striking about Las Vegas was the muted nationwide response to a gunman killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more.\n\nOnce-shocking massacres no longer arouse intense emotions for those unconnected to the killings. A month on, and it is almost as if it didn't happen.\n\nWhat would she make of race relations? Back in 1984, black athletes such as Carl Lewis, Edwin Moses and Michael Jordan were unifying figures as they helped reap that Olympic golden harvest. Now some of America's leading black athletes are vilified by their president for taking a knee to protest, a right enshrined in the First Amendment. These athletes now find themselves combatants in the country's endless culture wars.\n\nWhat would she make of the confluence of gun violence and race, evident in the spate of police shootings of unarmed black men and in the online auction where the weapon that killed Trayvon Martin fetched more than $100,000?\n\nCharlottesville, with its torch-wielding and hate-spewing neo-Nazis, was another low point. So, too, were the president's remarks afterwards, when he described the crowd as including some \"very fine people\" and implied a moral equivalence between white supremacists and anti-racist protesters.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What Trump said versus what I saw - by the BBC's Joel Gunter\n\nI was at the news conference in Trump Tower that day. An African-American cameraman next to me yelled out \"What message does this send to our children?\" The question went unanswered, but concerned parents ask it everyday about Donald Trump's behaviour.\n\nWhat about the monuments debate? The last civil war veteran died in 1959, but the conflict rumbles on in various guises and upon various proxy battlefields, as America continues to grapple with the original sin of slavery.\n\nBut what if she landed in the American heartland, rather than flying over it? Coastal separateness can sometimes be exaggerated, but it would be a very different experience than Los Angeles. In the Rust Belt, stretches of riverway are crowded again with coal barges, and local business leaders believe in the Trump Bump because they see it in their order books and balance sheets.\n\nIn the Coal Belt, there's been delight at the rescinding of Obama's Clean Power Plan. In the Bible Belt, evangelicals behold Trump as a fellow victim of sneering liberal elites. In the Sun Belt, close to the Mexican border, there's wide support for his crackdown on illegal immigration.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn many football stadiums, she would hear the chorus of boos from fans who agree with the president that the take-the-knee protests denigrate the flag. In bars, union branches and American Legion halls, you'll find many who applaud Donald Trump for \"telling like it is\", refusing to be bound by norms of presidential behaviour or political correctness.\n\nThere are pointers of national success elsewhere. The New York Stock Exchange is still reaching record highs. Business confidence is on the up. Unemployment is at a 16-year low. Of the 62 million people who voted for Trump, a large number continue to regard him more as a national saviour than a national embarrassment.\n\nIn many red states, \"Make America Great Again\" echoes just as strongly as it did 12 months ago. Trump has a historically low approval rating of just 35%, but it's 78% among Republicans.\n\nIn the international realm, it's plausible foreign adversaries fear the United States more under Trump than Obama, and foreign allies no longer take the country for granted. The so-called Islamic State has been driven from Raqqa. Twenty-five Nato allies have pledged to increase defence spending. Beijing, under pressure from Washington, appears to be exerting more economic leverage over Pyongyang.\n\nHowever, America First increasingly means America alone, most notably on the Paris climate change accord and the Iranian nuclear deal. Trump has also Twitter-shamed longstanding allies, such as Germany and Australia, and infuriated its closest friend Britain, with rash tweets about crime rates and terror attacks.\n\nHis labelling of foes such as Kim Jong Un as Little Rocket Man seems juvenile and self-diminishing. It hardly reaches the Reagan standard of \"tear down this wall\". Indeed, with North Korea, there's the widespread fear that Trump's tweet tirades could spark a nuclear confrontation.\n\nFew countries look anymore to Trump's America as a global exemplar, the \"city upon a hill\" Reagan spoke of in his farewell address to the nation. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel is routinely described as the leader of the free world, the moniker bestowed on the US president since the days of FDR.\n\nThe Economist, which trolls Trump almost weekly, has described Chinese President Xi Jinping as the most powerful man in the world. American exceptionalism is now commonly viewed as a negative construct. \"Only in America\" is a term of derision.\n\nRonald Reagan used to talk of the 11th commandment - No Republican should speak ill of another Republican. So it is worth noting that some of Trump's most caustic and thoughtful critics have come from within his own party. Senator Jeff Flake called him \"a danger to democracy\".\n\nBob Corker described the White House as an \"adult day care centre\". John McCain, a frequent critic, has railed against \"spurious, half-baked nationalism\". George W Bush sounded the alarm about bigotry being emboldened and of how politics \"seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication\", without specifically naming the current president.\n\nTrump's determination to be an anti-president has arguably had a vandalising effect on the office of the presidency, and to civil society more broadly. Artists have boycotted the White House reception held ahead of the annual Kennedy Center Awards, a red letter night in the country's cultural calendar.\n\nThe Golden State Warriors were disinvited from appearing at the White House after their championship win because of the take-the-knee protest. It's new for these kinds of commemorations to become contested.\n\nTrump has even politicised one of the commander-in-chief's most solemn acts, offering condolences to the families of the fallen. It led to an indecorous row with a war widow. Small wonder long time Washington watchers, on both the right and left, consider this the nastiest and most graceless presidency of the modern era.\n\nThe corollary is the historical stock of his predecessors is rising. When the five living former presidents appeared together in Texas earlier this month they were greeted like a group of superheroes donning their capes for one final mission. It speaks of these unreal times that George W Bush is spoken of fondly, even wistfully, by long-time liberal foes.\n\nTrump's claim he could be just as presidential as Abraham Lincoln is one of the more comical boasts to come from the White House. Then there are the falsehoods, the \"alternative facts\" and attacks on the \"fake media\" - his label for news organisations such as the New York Times and Washington Post, whose reporting has rarely been better. Recently he has even threatened to revoke the licences of networks whose news divisions have published critical stories. To some it has shades of 1984, but Orwell's version.\n\nAs for Morning in America, it has a new connotation - checking Trump's Twitter for pre-dawn tweets. The president commonly starts the day by lashing out at opponents or mercilessly mocking them. The new normal, it is often called. But it seems more apt to call it the new abnormal.\n\nThere is an extent to which America is politics-proof and president-proof. However bad things got in Washington, my sense has long been that the US would be rescued by its other vital centres of power. New York, its financial and cultural capital. San Francisco, its tech hub. Boston, its academic first city. Hollywood, its entertainment centre.\n\nAdrienne Mccallister, director of Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality business development at Google, speaks during a launch event\n\nBut Los Angeles is reeling from the Harvey Weinstein revelations, the Uber scandal has shone a harsh light on corporate ethics in the tech sector and the Wells Fargo affair has once again shown Wall Street in a dismal light.\n\nUS universities dominate global rankings, but its top colleges could hardly be described as engines of intergenerational mobility. A study by the New York Times of 38 colleges, including Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth, showed that students from the top 1% income bracket occupied more places than the students from the bottom 60%. Of this year's intake at Harvard, almost a third were the sons and daughters of alumni.\n\nAutomation will also continue to be a jobs killer. One study this year predicted that nearly 40% of US jobs will be lost to computers and machines over the next 15 years. Spending time in the Rust Belt valleys around Pittsburgh last year I was struck by how many taxi and Uber drivers used to work in the steel industry. Now America's one-time Steel City is a centre of excellence for robotics and where Uber is road testing its driverless cars.\n\nThere's still truth in the adage that America is always going to hell, but it never quite gets there. But how that is being tested. Presently, it feels more like a continent than a country, with shared land occupied by warring tribes. Not a failing state but not a united states.\n\nAs I've travelled this country, I struggle to identify where Americans will find common political ground. Not in the guns debate. Not in the abortion debate. Not in the healthcare debate. Not even in the singing of the national anthem at American football games. Even a cataclysmic event on the scale of 9/11 failed to unify the country.\n\nIf anything it sowed the seeds of further division, especially over immigration. Some Americans agree with Donald Trump that arrivals from mainly Muslim countries need to be blocked. Others see that as an American anathema.\n\nWhen I made my first journey to the US all those years ago I witnessed a coming together. Those Olympic celebrations were in some ways an orgy of nationalism, but there was also a commonality of spirit and purpose. From Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue performed on 84 grand pianos to a polyglot team of athletes bedecked with medals.\n\nFrom the pilot who flew around the LA Coliseum in a jet pack to the customers who left McDonald's with free Big Macs. There was reason for rejoicing. The present was golden. America felt like America again.", "People spending Christmas Day alone are finding company thanks to a Twitter campaign called #joinin.\n\nLaunched by comedian Sarah Millican several years ago, it encourages people to use the hashtag and link with one another so as not to feel lonely.\n\nPeople from around the world have already begun to tweet with their experiences.\n\n\"The main rule is to be kind,\" said Millican. \"We're all here for each other.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sarah Millican This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA number of tweeters explained why they were on their own on Christmas Day.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Spanna This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Anth This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by QuirkyT This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 5 by Jessica This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 6 by Maggie is NOT Merry 🎄 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 6 by Maggie is NOT Merry 🎄\n\nWhilst some shared their sadness, others were positive about their situation.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 7 by rbaldy This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. 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View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 9 by Tim.A.Roberts This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 10 by ° This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd there were reminders of the people spending Christmas Day alone to help us all.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 11 by Cat This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe campaign will run throughout the day. Just use the hashtag #joinin when tweeting to be part of it.", "A white Christmas in Peebles, in the Scottish Borders\n\nIt has officially been a white Christmas in the UK for some, with areas of Cumbria and the south of Scotland recording light snowfall.\n\nThe Met Office confirmed the snowfall in Spadeadam, Cumbria, at about 22:00 GMT.\n\nIn a tweet, the forecaster added that parts of the south of Scotland were \"also seeing rain turn to snow\".\n\nMore wintry showers are expected, with the chance of up to 10cm of snow on the highest ground in Scotland.\n\nThe last officially white Christmas was recorded in 2014, when parts of the Northern Isles in Scotland had some snowfall.\n\nA white Christmas used to be defined as the sighting, by a professional meteorologist, of one snow flake falling on the roof of the London Weather Centre.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Met Office This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Met Office has widened the rule to include other parts of the country.\n\nHowever, the snow still must be seen by a professional to count.\n\nThe Met Office has warnings covering southern, central and eastern Scotland and the most northern parts of England.\n\nMet forecaster Mark Wilson said the temperature would turn colder on Boxing Day, with averages of 2C and 4C in Scotland, and between 7C and 9C in the south of the UK.\n\nIt is also alerting people in Wales and central England to expect rain and snow from 18:00 GMT on Boxing Day until 11:00 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nPersistent rain moving east, from Wales into England, is likely to turn to snow early on Wednesday.\n\nMost of the UK enjoyed a mild Christmas Day, although it has been wet in some areas.\n\nThe highest temperature - of 12.5C - was recorded in Hawarden, Flintshire, in north-east Wales.\n\nIt failed to match the Christmas Day record of 15.6C in Killerton, Devon in 1920.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Karl Turner MP: \"This is a... decent, honest, hard-working Hull woman, who was simply naive\"\n\nA British woman has been convicted of smuggling 300 painkiller tablets into Egypt and jailed for three years.\n\nLaura Plummer, 33, was arrested after she was found with the Tramadol tablets in her suitcase, on 9 October.\n\nPlummer, from Hull, claimed the painkiller, legal on prescription in the UK but banned in Egypt, was to treat her Egyptian partner's back pain.\n\nHer family said her lawyers had lodged an appeal. Plummer previously said she had \"no idea\" the tablets were illegal.\n\nPlummer's mother Roberta Synclair, who was in court for the hearing, told the BBC: \"I'm still in shock after today's verdict. It's difficult and I can't believe it after waiting for two months.\"\n\nShe said her daughter has now been moved to another police station ahead of her move to prison.\n\nLaura Plummer said the prescription pills were for her partner Omar Caboo\n\nThe family has previously said Plummer had no idea that what she was doing was illegal and was just \"daft\".\n\nThey said she did not try to hide the medicine, which she had been given by a friend, and thought it was a joke when she was taken aside by officials.\n\nPlummer was detained on arriving at the Red Sea resort of Hurghada for a holiday with her partner, Omar Caboo.\n\nHer sister Rachel Plummer said: \"My mum's obviously devastated. She's out there by herself.\"\n\nIt is not clear when an appeal against her sentence might be heard.\n\nShe said: \"We're just hoping. Even half of that would be better. Anything less than three years. She doesn't deserve that.\"\n\nTramadol is a strong painkiller used to treat moderate to severe pain.\n\nIt is a class C drug and is only available in the UK with a prescription from a doctor or other qualified healthcare professional.\n\nAs a class C drug, it is illegal for anyone else to supply Tramadol, to have it or to give it away, even to friends.\n\nHer other sister Jayne Synclair said Plummer had only been trying to help her partner.\n\n\"She was taking those tablets to help her man who had been in an accident,\" she said.\n\n\"He did not even know she was bringing them. She was doing it to be kind. How can you be sentenced to three years just for being kind?\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jayne Sinclair, sister: \"She's on the verge of a mental breakdown\"\n\nReacting to news of the sentence, Karl Turner, MP for Hull East, said the court's decision was \"devastating\" for Plummer and her family.\n\nHe said: \"Laura, most of all, will be absolutely devastated. She's not been well lately, she's sleep deprived and she's been very anxious\n\n\"I think it's a damning indictment about good sense and fair play.\"\n\nMr Turner accepted Plummer had been naive but was \"decent, honest and hard-working\".\n\n\"[She was] going to visit her partner in Egypt, taking what she thought was a painkiller and no more than that,\" he said.\n\n\"It clearly is a banned substance and whilst we must respect the law of other countries there must be good sense and fair play as well.\"\n\nA Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said: \"We will continue to provide assistance to Laura and her family following the court ruling in Egypt, and our embassy is in regular contact with the Egyptian authorities.\"", "Traditional UK Boxing Day sales will suffer owing to spending on Black Friday and the squeeze on incomes, a survey suggests.\n\nThe majority of shoppers (56%) who took part in the survey for BBC Radio 4 think Boxing Day sales have lost their appeal.\n\nOnly a handful said they planned to get up early for a sales bargain.\n\nSome 37% of people surveyed expect to spend less this Boxing Day owing to spending on Black Friday.\n\nThe survey of 1,000 shoppers was carried out for Radio 4's You and Yours by consumer analysts, Savvy Marketing. It found four out of 10 of people made a purchase during the Black Friday sales this year compared with three out of 10 in 2016.\n\nSatwinder and Jyoti Matoo from Leeds go shopping together every weekend. They told You and Yours they would not be getting up early to go shopping this time.\n\n\"The sales are on every day now. You can buy sale stuff whenever you like. I have queued up before on Boxing Day and I've got some bargains, but this year I'm going to stay in bed,\" said Satwinder.\n\nCatherine Shuttleworth, from Savvy Marketing, said: \"The data shows that people spent more money this Black Friday than last year and people can't spend that money twice, so the Boxing Day sales will suffer.\n\n\"Shoppers expect things to be discounted because times are tough and family spending isn't as flexible as it has been.\"\n\nFestive cheer has been in short supply for retailers this season. Consumer spending has fallen for the third month in a row, according to analysis from Visa. The credit card company predicts the UK will see its first fall in overall Christmas spending by consumers since 2012.\n\nMs Shuttleworth said retailers needed to get as many people into their shops as possible. \"If there aren't any deals, shoppers will go elsewhere, so sales are like a drug which retailers can't get off,\" she said.\n\nDespite this apparent addiction to discounting, 62% of people surveyed thought that constant sales devalued the brand of a shop.\n\nOnline retailer Jenny Parker sells 180 different brands through her website. She agreed that year-round sales were detrimental.\n\n\"If you look at the brands which are doing well, they don't have blanket discounts. They are strategic about their pricing and when they go into sale,\" she said.\n\nThe British Retail Consortium said other factors such as the weather, the timing of Christmas Day or the health of consumers' incomes could affect how much was spent during post-Christmas sales. Many more people were shopping online, it added.\n\nRachel Lund, head of retail insight and analytics at the British Retail Consortium, said: \"Our data shows that sales of non-food products in the two weeks after Christmas are typically 20% to 30% lower than the average in the weeks leading up to Christmas.\"\n• None Would you sleep in your favourite shop?", "Vitaly Mutko will remain the chief organiser of the 2018 football World Cup\n\nRussia's most senior football official has temporarily stood down as he fights a ban given for state-backed doping.\n\nVitaly Mutko was banned from the Olympics for life in early December having been accused of running a huge Olympic doping programme.\n\nMr Mutko said he would stand down as president of the Russian Football Union while he contests the ban.\n\nHe has always denied taking part in doping but Russia was banned from competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics.\n\nMr Mutko will continue to carry out his role as the chief organiser of next summer's football World Cup in Russia.\n\nWhistleblower Vitaly Stepanov, a former Russian anti-doping agency worker, told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Mr Mutko, a former sports minister, \"created and ran\" Russia's \"state-directed\" doping programme.\n\nMr Mutko, he said, \"received help from other state officials\" including \"Vladimir Putin's authorisation of a decree that required urine and blood samples carried by foreign anti-doping inspectors to be approved\".\n\nMr Mutko was also directly implicated in the McLaren report, an independent investigation looking into whether the Russia state backed doping in sport.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. IOC president: An 'unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympics'\n\nMr Stepanov's testimony, made public in early December, led to Russia's ban from the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.\n\nRussian athletes who can prove they are clean would be allowed to compete in the Games under a neutral flag.\n\nMr Mutko, one of Russia's deputy prime ministers, said that he would step down \"so that our organisations are not disturbed during the legal investigation\". He said he was appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.", "Students at the London School of Economics set up a Free Speech Society in January in response to what they say is increasing censorship on university campuses. Now students are voting on whether the society should be banned. What's behind the row?\n\nUniversities have long been considered places for debate and for ideas to be challenged, but alongside that they are also meant to be places where minorities of all kinds can feel safe, comfortable and not sidelined in a way they may be elsewhere.\n\nThese two ideals are currently causing conflict on campuses, fuelled by concepts such as \"safe space\" and \"no platforming\" - used by students with a view to gathering and having discussions without views or opinions that are deemed offensive or threatening.\n\nSo how can these terms best be defined?\n\n·No platform asserts that no proscribed person or organisation should be given a platform to speak, nor should a union officer share a platform with them.\n\n·A safe space is an accessible environment in which every student feels comfortable, safe, and can get involved free from intimidation or judgment.\n\nThe National Union of Students (NUS) has an official no platform list which includes the BNP and Al-Muhajiroun, but individual unions and student groups can decide their own. Some recent decisions have caused a stir.\n\nFeminist writer Julie Bindel was banned from speaking at Manchester University's student union last October as they said her views on transgender people could \"incite hatred towards and exclusion of our trans students\".\n\nAnd at Canterbury Christ Church University, an NUS rep refused to share a platform with gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, whom she regarded as having been racist and \"transphobic\".\n\nThis decision and others are still being rowed about online - free speech advocates calling \"censorship\", but others arguing safe spaces allow free speech for those shut down throughout history.\n\nBrendan O'Neill is one of those who think this all amounts to censorship - the editor of current affairs magazine Spiked Online held a conference last week on the issue.\n\nHe first campaigned against no platform while at university two decades ago - then it was only used against racists and Zionists.\n\n\"We argued that if you censored these groups, there's nothing to stop the censorious logic from spreading and encapsulating more and more people - and that's exactly what happened.\n\n\"When you accept the idea that some thoughts are too dangerous to have in public life, there's nothing to stop other thoughts from being swallowed up.\"\n\nBut NUS president Megan Dunn said: \"It's simply not the case that they are banned or censored, it's just whether they are invited to a students' union to speak or not. This is about students' unions, they're democratic organisations.\"\n\nThe Free Speech Society was started at LSE in January in reaction to incidents including the suspension of the rugby team for handing out sexist leaflets. On Friday, in what they describe as an ironic move, students are voting on whether the society should be banned.\n\nIts head, Charlie Parker, believes freedom of expression is being stifled.\n\n\"Free speech has always been there to help and protect minorities - if you look at gay rights movements, civil rights movements, feminism, all the great progression under these movements was made possible through the use of freedom of expression,\" he said.\n\nBut many students argue that safe spaces are in place to make sure all students have a voice.\n\nRayhan Uddin, Labour Society black and minority ethnic officer at LSE says safe spaces are useful in certain circumstances to allow repressed voices to speak.\n\n\"Clearly we have some problems when it comes to structural barriers for certain groups. And if women and ethnic minority students on campuses want to self-organise to help overcome some of the barriers they face, I would say all power to them,\" he said.\n\nMegan Dunn of the NUS said it has to listen to students when they find some views threatening\n\nThe National Union of Students said it has to listen to students when they say they find others' views threatening.\n\n\"There have certainly been moments in my education when I have been uncomfortable, my views have been challenged - I think most of us will be able to draw a distinction between times we have been uncomfortable and times we have felt threatened,\" Ms Dunn said.\n\n\"Some people would say opinions are threatening to them, and we have to be able to listen to that view as well.\"\n\nThe debate continues but the one thing that everyone I spoke to agreed on is that they want everyone to have a voice at university - they just disagreed about how best to achieve that.\n\nThe Victoria Derbyshire programme is broadcast on weekdays between 09:15 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.", "Heather Menzies, second right next to Julie Andrews, has died aged 68\n\nHeather Menzies-Urich, who played Louisa Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, has died aged 68.\n\nHer death was announced by the estate of the musical's creators, Rodgers & Hammerstein, on Monday.\n\nShe was diagnosed with brain cancer four weeks ago and died on Christmas Eve, news site TMZ quoted her son Ryan as saying.\n\n\"She was an actress, a ballerina and loved living her life to the fullest,\" he told TMZ.\n\nBorn Heather Menzies in Toronto, she was 15 when the musical film was released in 1965. It went on to win 10 Oscars, including best picture.\n\nShe played the mischievous third Von Trapp child Louisa, but her later television and film appearances did not hit the same heights.\n\nAt 23, she posed nude for Playboy magazine under the headline The Tender Trapp, a decision she said horrified her Presbyterian parents, who were originally from Scotland.\n\nShe married actor and film producer Robert Urich in 1975, but he died in 2002.\n\nAmong those to pay tribute were Kym Karath, who played Gretl in the film.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kym Karath This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by The Sound of Music This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 2 by The Sound of Music\n\n\"Heather was part of 'the family',\" Ted Chapin, of the Rodgers & Hammerstein estate, said.\n\n\"Heather was a cheerful and positive member of the group, always hoping for the next gathering. We are all lucky to have known her, and she will happily live on in that beautiful movie. We will miss her.\"\n\nHer death comes 14 months after that of Charmian Carr, who played the eldest Von Trapp daughter Liesl.\n\nFrom L to R: Heather Menzies-Urich (Louisa von Trapp), Debbie Turner (Marta) and Kym Karath (Gretl) at the 50th anniversary of the film in 2015", "Police have dealt with a disturbance at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London.\n\nAn eyewitness told the BBC the incident happened during the Boxing Day sales, when two groups of teenagers began \"pushing and shouting\".\n\nNearby shops closed their shutters, while shoppers gathered above the scene to watch events unfold.\n\nThe Met Police said officers said they attended at around 14:30GMT, and \"groups causing the disorder were dispersed\".\n\nIn a statement on Twitter, Westfield Stratford said the \"minor disturbance\" had been resolved.", "The collision happened on the A57 between Coisley Hill and Moss Way\n\nA police officer and a 61-year-old woman died in a crash on Christmas Day.\n\nThe 46-year-old officer was responding to an incident when the marked BMW 3 Series he was driving was in collision with a Citroen C3 on the A57 in Sheffield.\n\nSouth Yorkshire Police said the officer died at the scene and the woman, who was a passenger in the second vehicle, died in hospital.\n\nThe collision happened near to Coisley Hill at about 20:15 GMT.\n\nA force spokesman said the officer was responding to an \"immediate incident\" when he was in collision with the silver Citroen which was travelling in the opposite direction.\n\nThe woman who died was from Sheffield, he added.\n\nA 63-year-old man who was driving the Citroen was taken to hospital where he remains in a serious condition.\n\nSouth Yorkshire Police said the officer died at the scene of the crash on the A57 in Sheffield\n\nAssistant Chief Constable of South Yorkshire David Hartley, said: \"On behalf of the force I'd like to offer my sincere condolences to all of those left bereaved by this terrible tragedy - our thoughts, love and support are extended to all those affected.\n\n\"We are doing everything we can to support them through this difficult time.\"\n\nHe went on to pay tribute to the officer killed in the collision.\n\n\"We have lost a friend and a colleague from our police family in this incident,\" ACC Hartley added.\n\n\"The officer has been with us for 12 years and was a passionate, professional and universally liked officer.\n\n\"His colleagues, and everyone across the force, are devastated by what has happened.\"\n\nThe force said the collision had been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Police were called to Oxford Street on Boxing Day\n\nA woman was injured when shoppers fled from London's Oxford Street after false reports of shots being fired.\n\nThe Metropolitan Police were called to the scene at 16:50 GMT and cordoned off an area around a smashed glass window at House of Fraser.\n\nThe police said that a woman received \"non-life threatening injuries\" as a result of a fall.\n\nThey added there was \"nothing to indicate\" that shots had been fired or a crime committed.\n\nOfficers cordoned off an area around a smashed glass window at House of Fraser\n\nThe BBC's James Waterhouse, who is at the scene, said two witnesses told him they saw three women run into the window, knocking displays over as they tried to leave.\n\nHe said a police officer told him \"it was an accident\" and said that \"there was a panic and someone tried to get out on the inside\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by James Waterhouse This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOne shopper spoke of \"craziness in House of Fraser\" on Twitter, adding that she had \"never been in a stampede before\", while another one posted there was a \"stampede of people running\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Julia Dixon This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBBC World Service reporter Faith Orr, who was passing by the scene in a taxi, said a \"huge window\" was \"completely smashed\" and that people had been evacuated.\n\nHouse of Fraser told the BBC the store has now fully reopened.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMeanwhile, police were called to reports of disturbances at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London.\n\nOfficers attended at about 14:30 on Tuesday and \"groups causing the disorder were dispersed\", a Met Police spokesman said.\n\nA man was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon, the force added.\n\nIn a statement on Twitter, Westfield Stratford said the \"minor disturbance\" had been resolved.\n\n\"The centre was not evacuated and is trading normally,\" it added.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Meet Dragon Kim, the leading impersonator of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and find out how people react to him in different countries.", "At exactly 11:15, the front door of a council flat in Brixton opened. Two women stepped out on to a quiet residential street.\n\nThe younger woman, Rosie, had an awkward gait. Her movement was stiff and clunky, as though she simply wasn't used to walking any distance. In fact, she had spent the past 30 years - her whole life - in captivity.\n\nNow she was ill and needed urgent medical attention.\n\nBorn into a “collective”, she was not allowed to see a doctor, had never been allowed outside alone and had been told that if she tried to leave she would spontaneously combust and die.\n\nWorried she might not survive her illness, on 25 October 2013, Rosie and another woman, Josie, sneaked out.\n\nWaiting for them just round the corner were members of an organisation that helps people who have been abused, trafficked or enslaved. Along with the police, they had helped organise the escape.\n\nIt soon became apparent that Rosie and 57-year-old Josie weren't the only women who lived in the flat, and when police officers returned they met Aisha - a 69-year-old woman originally from Malaysia. At first she didn't want to leave, but as they talked, she changed her mind.\n\nIn the weeks that followed, it became clear how extraordinary their life had been.\n\nAll three women seemed extremely frightened, often referring to an all-powerful force called Jackie, which they believed might seek retribution or cause them terrible harm. They were terrified of electricity, which they called “eeee” and seemed anxious that household appliances might blow up or explode.\n\nAs they revealed details of their existence and Rosie gradually became more confident, she decided to change her name to Katy, inspired by the lyrics of Katy Perry's song, Roar, which is about a woman overcoming a difficult relationship and finding her voice.\n\nKaty's own story, and everything she had managed to overcome, proved far stranger than anyone could have imagined.", "Snow has swept US states from Midwest to Northeast, breaking snowfall records in some parts.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nHarry Kane grabbed another hat-trick and broke the record for the most Premier League goals scored in a calendar year as Tottenham thrashed Southampton at Wembley.\n\nThe Spurs and England striker headed home his 37th league goal of 2017 on 22 minutes to surpass Alan Shearer's landmark, which was set during his time at Blackburn in 1995.\n\nKane then added two more either side of half-time to bring his total for the year - for both club and country - to 56, two more than Barcelona and Argentina striker Lionel Messi.\n\nBefore Kane's third, Dele Alli had made it 3-0 on 49 minutes when he drilled in from outside the area, before setting up Son Heung-min two minutes later, who powered a confident finish past Fraser Forster.\n\nSouthampton, without top scorer Charlie Austin, got off the mark when Sofiane Boufal struck low under Hugo Lloris, and Dusan Tadic added a second with a lofted effort.\n\nDespite a second-half recovery, Saints never looked like spoiling the Spurs party and have now gone a month without a win in the Premier League.\n\nSpurs, meanwhile, stay fifth after Liverpool beat Swansea 5-0 in Tuesday's late kick-off.\n\nIt was an impressive display from Mauricio Pochettino's side, but the game will always be remembered for Kane's record-breaking day, as he cemented his status as one of the top flight's most prolific strikers.\n\nSpeaking about his 22-year record being taken, Shearer tweeted: \"You've had a magnificent 2017, Harry Kane. You deserve to hold the record of most Premier League goals in a calendar year. Well done and keep up the good work.\"\n• None Kane reached his goal-scoring record in 36 games - six fewer than Shearer in 1995\n• None The 24-year-old has scored more league goals this season than Bournemouth, West Brom, Swansea, Crystal Palace, Brighton and Huddersfield\n• None He is the first player in Premier League history to score six hat-tricks in a single calendar year\n• None Kane has scored eight Premier League hat-tricks, as many as Thierry Henry and Michael Owen - only Alan Shearer (11) and Robbie Fowler (9) have more in the competition.\n• None Kane has scored 56 goals in 52 appearances in all competitions for Tottenham and England in 2017. He is Europe's top scorer over the past 12 months in the five major countries (England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France)\n• None The Spurs striker has now scored 96 Premier League goals for the club - one off Teddy Sheringham's record\n\nSouthampton had drawn three and lost three of their past six games and arrived at Wembley without two key players in Austin, who is injured and suspended, and Virgil van Dijk, who was left out of the squad again amid reports of a January exit.\n\nThey looked overwhelmed at times and contributed to Tottenham's dominance.\n\nPierre-Emile Hojbjerg fouled Danny Rose on the edge of the area and gave away the Christian Eriksen free-kick which led to Kane's opener.\n\nAnd Nathan Redmond's mistake in the Spurs half gifted the hosts possession and their counter-attack finished with Son's strike for 4-0.\n\nSouthampton, three points above the relegation zone in 13th, were able to recover some pride as they twice beat a stuttering Lloris, but it was too little, too late.\n\nMauricio Pellegrino's side face more tough tasks ahead, with an away trip to Manchester United up next.\n\n\"We were a little bit unlucky because in the second half we were close to going 1-2 but once we conceded the third one the game was gone,\" said Pellegrino.\n\n\"I want to see a team with character fighting and playing for the ball. Sometimes you do well, sometimes you do not but the minimum is to show this from the beginning. The wrong thing is we waited until the Tottenham goal to react.\"\n\nOn Van Dijk's omission, the Southampton boss added: \"We know that around Virgil there will be a lot of speculation. You will have to wait until January, I pick the best for my team right now. That is my decision.\"\n\nWhile Kane will quite rightly dominate the headlines, there were some other stand-out performances for the hosts.\n\nAlli ended his two-month goal drought in the Premier League when he turned on Oriol Romeu and struck a sweet strike from distance, while Son was rewarded for his all-round display with a well-executed finish.\n\nSpurs now have five wins from their past six matches in all competitions, and Pochettino wants their form to continue into 2018.\n\n\"We are ambitious but I am happy that we finished the year in a very good way,\" said the Argentine.\n\n\"For next year? We must win - win every game. The mentality is so important for us.\"\n\nSouthampton are back in action on Saturday, 30 December against Manchester United at Old Trafford (17:30 GMT), while Spurs return in 2018, when they travel to Swansea on Tuesday, 2 January (19:45)\n• None Attempt missed. Manolo Gabbiadini (Southampton) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Dusan Tadic.\n• None Dusan Tadic (Southampton) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt missed. Maya Yoshida (Southampton) header from the centre of the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by Dusan Tadic following a set piece situation.\n• None Attempt missed. Erik Lamela (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Dele Alli.\n• None Goal! Tottenham Hotspur 5, Southampton 2. Dusan Tadic (Southampton) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the top left corner following a corner.\n• None Attempt saved. Pierre-Emile Højbjerg (Southampton) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Sofiane Boufal. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Nearly two-thirds (63%) of university students believe the National Union of Students is right to have a \"no platforming\" policy, a survey suggests.\n\nThe policy means people or groups on a banned list for holding racist or fascist views are not given a platform to speak on student union premises.\n\nAnd 54% of 1,001 students asked thought the policy should be enforced against people who could be found intimidating.\n\nThe NUS said the policy allowed free speech without intimidation.\n\nComRes interviewed 1,001 UK university students online for the survey, commissioned by the Victoria Derbyshire programme, with data weighted by course year, university type and gender.\n\nThe NUS official no platform list contains six groups including the BNP and Al-Muhajiroun, but individual unions and student groups can decide their own.\n\nThe Victoria Derbyshire programme broadcast a special programme on the issue of no platform on Monday. If you missed it you can catch up here.\n\nThe NUS said it was proud of the policy and that the poll results showed students recognised it was important to stand up to racism and fascism.\n\n\"In the past, students have been physically harmed and tragically even killed as a result of such organisations coming on to campuses and inciting hatred. That is why no platform was introduced in the first place, to keep students safe in a very real sense,\" a spokeswoman said.\n\n\"Our policy does not limit free speech, but acts to defend it by calling out violence, hate speech, bullying and harassment, which allows debate to take place without intimidation. Students' unions are champions of debate on campus, in fact a recent survey showed zero out of 50 students' unions had banned a speaker in the past year.\"\n\nIn recent years, individuals believed to be sexist, transphobic or rape apologists have also been banned from speaking at universities.\n\nIt is argued these speakers would threaten a \"safe space\", which is described as an accessible environment in which every student feels comfortable, safe and can get involved free from intimidation or judgment.\n\nAt Canterbury Christ Church University, an NUS rep refused to share a platform with gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, whom she regarded as having been racist and \"transphobic\".\n\nResponding to the charge, he told the Victoria Derbyshire programme's debate on no platforming: \"I simply say where is the evidence for that claim? I've asked all my accusers, none of them can provide a single bit of evidence.\n\n\"This is what is particularly offensive about some aspects of student politics today - people make false, baseless allegations to try and discredit their opponents.\"\n\nFeminist writer Julie Bindel was banned from speaking at Manchester University's student union last October as students said her views on transgender people could \"incite hatred towards and exclusion of our trans students\".\n\nShe told the debate: \"Thirteen years ago I wrote an article which some transgender activists took offence at. Since then it's been like an anti-feminist witch-hunt against me. I am no platformed by a couple of committees within the NUS and I'm constantly described as being like Hitler. It's deeply offensive but we don't have the right not to be offended.\n\n\"I don't mind students not inviting me, but other students get really fed up with me not being invited. I get more emails each week from feminist students who want to hear me speak on how to end men's violence.\"\n\nWatch the Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The Archbishop of Canterbury has used his Christmas Day sermon to focus on terrorist atrocities and deceitfulness of \"populist leaders\" in 2017.\n\nPreaching to worshippers at Canterbury Cathedral, the Most Rev Justin Welby compared the Holy Family to modern-day refugees.\n\nHe also contrasted Jesus with \"populist leaders that deceive\" their people.\n\nHis Catholic counterpart, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, called for a rejection of \"radical individualism\" in society.\n\nPreaching at the Sung Eucharist service, the Archbishop said that the nature of power meant those who have it, seek to hold on to it.\n\nHe said: \"In 2017 we have seen around the world tyrannical leaders that enslave their peoples, populist leaders that deceive them, corrupt leaders that rob them, even simply democratic, well-intentioned leaders of many parties and countries who are normal, fallible human beings.\"\n\nHe condemned terrorist atrocities and those who claimed that terror was \"the path to freedom in God\".\n\nLike the Pope the Archbishop drew parallels between the Nativity story and the migrant crisis.\n\nHe said: \"[The Holy Family] flee as refugees, like over 60 million people today.\n\n\"Yet their story is the beginning of ours, it is an invitation to lives of freedom, found through God's freely offered love.\"\n\nIn his midnight homily, the Roman Catholic Church's most senior cleric in England and Wales warned of \"radical individualism\" in society and said there was \"conflict in the air, not dialogue\".\n\nCardinal Nichols added he hoped Christmas would bring \"green shoots of hope\".\n\nSpeaking to the BBC before the Christmas midnight Mass in Westminster Cathedral, London, Cardinal Nichols said: \"In social media there's a barrage of views and once a statement or claim is made there's immediately a counterclaim, and the mode of exchange is conflict.\"\n\nHe added that society needs \"to get over that notion that faith in God and reason are somehow opposed\".\n\nHe said \"the heart has reasons that the mind doesn't always understand\".\n\nWhen asked about the part that religion plays in conflicts, he maintained faith was not the primary reason for unrest in places like the Middle East.\n\n\"Even the conflict in Northern Ireland; reading of it it that it was essentially about religious faith, is an inadequate rather superficial meaning.\n\n\"Most conflicts are about power and territories and borders and wealth,\" the cardinal said.\n\n\"Often religious identity is in there in the mix but I don't think for the most part it is the key issue.\"", "Her Majesty the Queen's Christmas message to the people of the Commonwealth.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Meghan Markle joined the Royal Family for the Christmas service\n\nPrince Harry's fiancee Meghan Markle has joined the Royal Family for the Christmas Day service at the Queen's Norfolk estate.\n\nThe couple arrived at a carol service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham along with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.\n\nThe Queen returned after missing last year's service due to a heavy cold.\n\nPrinces Philip and Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall also attended, along with other members of the family.\n\nAfter the service, Ms Markle joined members of the family in greeting the crowds - some of whom had been waiting outside since 05:00 GMT.\n\nThe Queen waved to the crowd after the service\n\nPrince Harry and Meghan Markle spoke to members of the public\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who are expecting their third child, smiled at the crowd.\n\nIf royal tradition from previous years was followed, the family will have exchanged presents on Christmas Eve and awoken to a stocking of small gifts and fruit at the end of their beds.\n\nThe Queen and Prince Phillip also attended an early Holy Communion service at the church.\n\nThey will return home for a traditional turkey lunch, before watching the Queen's speech together.\n\nPrince Charles spoke to the crowds outside the church\n\nThis year, the Queen will pay tribute to London and Manchester for the manner in which they dealt with this year's terror attacks, as well as praising the Duke of Edinburgh for his support in the year of the couple's 70th wedding anniversary.\n\nMeghan Markle arrived at the church on the Sandringham Estate looking every inch the future royal.\n\nShe walked along in the heart of her new family between her fiance Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.\n\nShe smiled at the crowd, which in some places, was five deep, some of whom had queued from 2.40am to be a part of the royal Christmas celebrations.\n\nWhen they left church, Meghan and Harry walked over to a couple of ladies who had been waiting.\n\nMeghan smiled as Prince Harry complimented them on their Christmassy coloured clothes and told them the royal children were so excited it was hard to keep them under control.\n\nThe Americans in the crowd were especially thrilled to see her, mainly from the bases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath, happy at the prospect of one of their compatriots marrying into a British institution in May next year.\n\nOne was so excited that he brought an engagement ring all the way from Wisconsin for his girlfriend and proposed to her in the queue. She said yes!\n\nA crowd of around 200 were waiting for the family's arrival from early morning.\n\nA number of Americans from nearby RAF Lakenheath made the journey to see the family and their new addition.\n\nLindsey Wells, from Nebraska, said it was \"intriguing\" and \"exciting\" that Ms Markle was marrying into the Royal Family, and she wanted to see them in person.\n\nPrince Edward joined his sister, Princess Anne, on the short walk\n\nSophie, Countess of Wessex, was also in attendance\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nFor one couple from Texas the wait outside the church took on extra significance. Michael Metz proposed to girlfriend Ashley Millican - and she accepted.\n\nMiss Millican told the Press Association: \"I had no idea. I was definitely very surprised. I never thought he would ask me right before we were about to see the Royal Family for the first time!\"\n\nMr Metz added: \"It was pretty tough to keep secret as I was so excited. It's memories to cherish forever.\"\n\nMichael Metz and Ashley Millican marked the service with a proposal of their own.", "The Queen and members of the Royal Family have been to church on the Sandringham estate for the traditional Christmas carol service.\n\nPrince Harry's fiancee, Meghan Markle, also attended, which is not usual as protocol stipulates that only partners who are married into the family are invited along.", "This video can not be played\n\nTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Fewer people have hit the UK's Boxing Day sales this year as Black Friday discounts and savvy online shoppers lowered turnout.\n\nShop visits dropped by 4.5% up to 5pm compared with last year, according to research group Springboard.\n\nDiane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said that although it had expected a downturn, \"the scale of the drop is greater than expected.\"\n\nShe said: \"What we have seen in the last couple of years is a structural shift in the Christmas trading period.\"\n\nWhile Black Friday sales have changed the way people shop in the UK, Ms Wehrle said the impact was particularly felt this year, as retailers began discounting a week before 24 November and carried on right up until Christmas.\n\n\"The hotspots for Christmas trading around Boxing Day and New Year's Day are dissipating,\" she said.\n\nOn the upside, Springboard said early indicators pointed to a strong rise in online shopping for the full 24-hour Boxing Day period.\n\nIt expects internet transactions to surpass last year, when they rose by 6.2%.\n\nBut Ms Wehrle said that people were increasingly looking online for bargains before they visited a store or deciding to \"click and collect\".\n\nAs a result of this targeted shopping, there is less window-shopping and fewer spur-of-the-moment purchases.\n\nFootfall on UK High Streets fell by 5.8%, while in shopping centres, it tumbled by 4% in the first 17 hours of Boxing Day.\n\nChris Daly, chief executive at the Chartered Institute of Marketing, said: \"Gone are the days of setting the alarm at 06:00 to be first in line for the Boxing Day sales, something borne out by the footage of quiet shopping centres up and down the country.\"\n\nHowever, Hammerson, the property group that owns a number of Britain's largest shopping centres, said that about 600 people were lining up to grab bargains at the retailer Next's store in Birmingham's Bullring. Queues began forming there at half past midnight.\n\nOver the long term, Ms Wehrle believes that shopping habits in the UK have changed for good, with people looking for more of a \"leisure experience\" when they hit the stores.\n\n\"If people go out to eat, they don't have money to spend in the shops,\" she said.", "Ms Murdoch's photograph has now been seen by millions of people\n\nA mother has been \"overwhelmed\" by the response to her photograph of four smiling royals, which appeared on the front of numerous national newspapers.\n\nKaren Murdoch, of Watlington, Norfolk, captured a beaming Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on Christmas Day at Sandringham.\n\nHer image made the front pages of the Sun, Daily Mail, Mirror, Star, Daily Telegraph and Express newspapers.\n\nMs Murdoch, 39, said reaction to the picture has been \"bizarre and bonkers\".\n\nShe is hoping to use any proceeds from the snap to fund her daughter's studies. She says she now has an agent working on her behalf.\n\nThe amateur photographer told BBC Breakfast: \"It was pure luck - I took it on an iPhone and it was a great photograph.\n\nAsked how she got the Royals to look at the camera and capture the shot every photographer dreamt of, Ms Murdoch, who calls herself Karen Anvil on Twitter, said the secret was attracting their attention.\n\nBoth Prince Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge are looking directly into the camera with relaxed and natural smiles.\n\nMs Murdoch admitted she had a \"fan-girl\" moment while with her daughter Rachel, 17\n\nMs Murdoch posted the image on Twitter at about 11:00 GMT on Christmas Day - and got thousands of likes. Her previous record was just five.\n\nFour hours later she was still receiving messages from media organisations asking for permission to use the picture. Other Twitter users advised her to negotiate a price.\n\nArthur Edwards, royal photographer at The Sun and veteran of more than 200 royal tours, was also at the scene - and happily admits Ms Murdoch's image was the best of the day.\n\nHe told the BBC News website: \"Getting all four of them lined up like that - it was a stunning snap.\n\n\"It was pot luck her being in the right spot, but she still got the photo.\n\n\"I rang her up to congratulate her on getting the front page of the Sun today.\"\n\nHe added: \"We had probably the 20 best photographers in the country there, and she's scooped us all.\"\n\nMs Murdoch is now directing enquiries to a photographic agent.\n\n\"Now I want to save money for my daughter for uni and if I can get that opportunity that's amazing,\" she said.\n\n\"I hope this will help, because she wants to go into some form of nursing.\n\n\"I want to be able to support her as her mum.\"\n\nMs Murdoch has tweeted that the Daily Mail paid her £50 to use the image online.", "Turkey with all the trimmings was undoubtedly on the Christmas Day menu for millions of Brits.\n\nBut in Leicestershire, thousands will have also tucked into a pork pie - for breakfast.\n\nThe county's tradition is said to date back to when members of the aristocracy decamped to Melton for hunting season.\n\nIt is believed the pork pie was developed as an on-the-go snack for hungry hunters.", "The Ethics and Empire project is being hosted by the McDonald Centre based at Christ Church college\n\nUp to 60 Oxford University academics have signed a letter in opposition to \"the agenda\" of a project assessing the ethics of empire.\n\nThe programme is led by Prof Nigel Biggar, who claimed in a recent article in The Times, there are aspects of empire Britain can be proud of.\n\nIn a letter, published in The Conversation, the academics expressed their \"firm rejection\" of his views.\n\nProf Biggar said none of the academics had raised their concerns in person.\n\nThe Ethics and Empire project aims to explore ethical questions of empire, which it has argued are not currently explored, because \"most reaches\" of academic discourse believe \"by definition empire is imperialist\" and \"wicked\".\n\nIt will seek to measure apologies and critiques of empire against historical data from around the world, Prof Biggar said.\n\nProf Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor of moral and pastoral theology at Oxford University\n\nThe letter's signatories said the ideas and aims of the project are not representative of Oxford scholarship and were \"too simplistic to be taken seriously\".\n\nThey added they would also not be engaging with the programme because it consists of closed invitation-only seminars.\n\nIn response, Prof Biggar said \"in the current illiberal climate such discussion is only possible in private\" as \"enemies of free speech and thought would disrupt it\".\n\nHe added any of the academics would be at liberty to refuse an invitation, but they \"would not close the discussion down\".\n\nCommon Ground, a student group that aims to examine Oxford's \"colonial past\", has also criticised Prof Biggar and the project.\n\nIt said the University of Oxford should not \"stand idly\" in the face of his \"apologies for colonialism\".\n\nA university spokesperson said \"arguments and differing approaches\" are to be expected, and defended Prof Biggar as an \"entirely suitable\" person to lead the \"valid evidence-led academic\" project\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Jodie Whittaker as she appeared at the end of Twice Upon a Time\n\nJodie Whittaker has made her debut as the first female Doctor in the Christmas special of Doctor Who.\n\nGiven the role in July, the actress succeeds Peter Capaldi to become the 13th Doctor.\n\nThe 35-year-old Broadchurch star said she was \"beyond excited\" to take up the role and the offer had been \"overwhelming, as a feminist\".\n\nWhittaker will fully begin her role next year alongside Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole.\n\nCapaldi, who has had the role since 2013, regenerated at the end of the episode to become Whittaker's character.\n\nWhen she was appointed, Whittaker told fans not to be \"scared\" by her gender.\n\n\"It's more than an honour to play the Doctor. It means remembering everyone I used to be, while stepping forward to embrace everything the Doctor stands for: hope. I can't wait,\" she added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Actress Jodie Whittaker reveals four facts about herself\n\nActress Jenna Coleman returned as Doctor Who companion Clara Oswald in the Christmas programme alongside David Bradley.\n\nBradley playing the first Doctor, originally played by the late William Hartnell, while Pearl Mackie returned as companion Bill Potts.\n\nIt was the last episode for Potts and the show also marked an end for the programme's writer Steven Moffat, who has stepped down after seven years.\n\nHe has been replaced by Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall.\n\nFans reacted to Whittaker's introduction and Capaldi's departure on Twitter, with some praising the Doctor's gender.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Frances loves Kat 🥀 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOthers meanwhile were supportive of the actress's roots.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Ben ♸ This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nElsewhere, Whittaker's predecessor in the role had a few words of comfort for one young fan who was sad to see his favourite Doctor depart this week.\n\nNine-year-old David McGilloway, from Londonderry, found a letter from Capaldi in his Christmas stocking, which read: \"The new Doctor always becomes your favourite and the one that goes... well, he never really goes...\"\n\nAfter all, the Doctor is for life - not just for Christmas.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Brian McGilloway This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIf you missed Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time you can watch it on iPlayer.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Hundreds of people raced into the North Sea off the Norfolk coast\n\nBoxing Day dips have attracted thousands of swimmers and spectators around the English coast.\n\nDippers have dashed into the chilly waters off beaches in Northumberland, Tyneside, Wearside and Dorset, among others.\n\nMany were fundraising for charity dressed as Father Christmas, nuns, elves, Christmas puddings and turkeys.\n\nSea temperatures were estimated to be about 8.9C (48F) in the north and 11.1C (52F) in the south.\n\nSome people braved the sea dressed as Redcar’s famous Lemon Tops\n\nCostumes ranged from simple swimming costumes, wetsuits and sports gear to something more... complicated\n\nConditions were \"the roughest they have been for a number of years\" at Tynemouth Longsands, with swim time limited to 10 minutes, according to participants.\n\nRun by the North Sea Volunteer Lifeguards, the dip first took place in 1999.\n\nSwim veteran Geoff Wade said it was a \"great way to clear your head after the excesses of Christmas\".\n\n\"It felt warmer to me but it was my wife's first time and she didn't think the same,\" he said.\n\nThe Tynemouth dip had a time limit, just in case anyone needed it\n\nSome brave Tynemouth dippers didn't even need fancy dress costumes to keep warm\n\nRNLI Lifeboat operations manager Dave Cocks said the Redcar dip had had \"as many spectators as we've ever seen\".\n\nThe weather was \"bright but cold\" and there had been \"lots of young and old doing the dip\", he said.\n\nPeople might run into the water but it's slower work getting out again\n\nJade Thirlwall, who is a member of pop band Little Mix, returned to her home town of South Shields to raise funds for a local charity at the Little Haven beach dip.\n\n\"My great-aunty Norma, she passed away last year from pancreatic cancer so it means a lot to me to do what I can,\" she said.\n\nLittle Mix singer Jade Thirlwall was raising money for local charity Cancer Connections\n\nNearly 200 people dipped at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea on the Northumberland coast, with local lifeboat volunteers and coastguard teams providing safety cover.\n\nJust as many spectators watched their efforts from the relative warmth of the beach and promenade.\n\nSpeed seemed to be the trick at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea\n\nOf the annual dips one of the largest, organised by Sunderland Lions Clubs, has been held since 1974.\n\nIt attracts up to 900 dippers and raises tens of thousands of pounds for charity.\n\nAnd there is always a man in a dress... always\n\nThousands of pounds is raised for charity by dippers\n\nA 70m (230ft) swim across Weymouth Harbour on Christmas Day attracted 483 swimmers - a record number for the event.\n\nIt was started this year by Don Laker, 93, whose father inaugurated the event in 1948 with a swimming bet against a friend.\n\nWeymouth and Portland Lions Club took over running it the 1970s.\n\nThe hardy souls of Dorset braved Weymouth Harbour on Christmas Day\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A British woman convicted of smuggling 300 painkiller tablets into Egypt is \"on the verge of a mental breakdown\", her sister has told the BBC.\n\nLaura Plummer, who was found with Tramadol tablets in her suitcase, has been sentenced to three years in prison.\n\nJayne Sinclair says Laura was trying to help her Egyptian boyfriend who was in pain after an accident.", "Some victims of disgraced surgeon Ian Paterson \"may have been missed\", say survivors' campaigners.\n\nThe Breast Friends group has called on Paterson's ex-employers Heart of England NHS Foundation (HEFT) and Spire Healthcare to contact all patients.\n\nPaterson was found guilty in April of 17 counts of wounding with intent, leaving patients at risk of cancer.\n\nHEFT said of Paterson's 1,206 patients that underwent mastectomies, 675 have since died.\n\nHis employers said they will fully cooperate with a new bid to contact his former patients.\n\nPaterson, 60, worked as a consultant at Solihull Hospital from 1998 and carried out \"cleavage sparing mastectomies\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHe was sentenced to 15 years in prison at Nottingham Crown Court in April. This was later increased to 20 years.\n\nThe Breast Friends group said reviews to date risk missing out victims of Paterson, who underwent general procedures, such as gall bladder removal.\n\n\"He was a general surgeon as well as a breast cancer surgeon,\" said Deborah Douglas, one of Paterson's victims.\n\n\"For me, the big thing now is how many other people were affected.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Debbie Douglas: \"He has mutilated me\"\n\nHEFT said it had not recalled all of Paterson's patients but has reviewed more than 24,000 mastectomy procedure patients' records to see if Paterson was involved.\n\nMrs Douglas, 59, said the new drive to contact patients will add figures from the private sector which will be \"a step forward\".\n\nShe added hospital bosses will be \"missing a massive trick\" if the pathology of the deceased is not reviewed to uncover the rates of cancer recurrence.\n\nBut HEFT said a review of deceased patients \"cannot repair any damage that has already been caused\" or provide \"any tangible benefit\" to survivors.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Guests were given goodie bags filled with essentials\n\nIt's no ordinary commuter Monday at Euston Station in London.\n\nThe last train left at 23:00 on Sunday and the passengers are home - but the concourse is busy with people sitting down to a Christmas Day feast.\n\nAn arrivals board reads: \"Special notice: Network Rail invites you to Euston Station. Merry Christmas!\"\n\nFor the first time, the transport hub has become a homeless shelter for 200 people - as one of many public spaces that normally lie empty on Christmas.\n\nSome 45 volunteers have worked overnight to transform the station ready for a banquet of smoked salmon, soup, a roast, and Christmas pudding.\n\nNext to barred ticket terminals and a shut WH Smith, Boots and Paperchase, tables and chairs are decorated with red poinsettias.\n\nSharon has come to Euston for some company on Christmas Day\n\nOne of today's guests, Sharon, says she has worn her best dress for the occasion.\n\n\"My support worker Christine told me about this a couple of weeks ago,\" she says.\n\n\"I knew I didn't have anything to do. I would be at home on my own and at times you're lonely, especially at Christmas.\"\n\nSharon, who moved to London from the US two decades ago, says she had to give up work as a retail manager because of a leg injury, but hopes to return next year.\n\n\"I'm on the mend, I'll definitely be dancing today!\"\n\nAbout 120,000 people pass through Euston every day, making it Britain's fifth-busiest train station, according to ticket sales data.\n\nBut today is more relaxed; cheers erupt as a pianist plays Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.\n\nIt's a novelty for those who normally work at Euston, including station manager Joe Hendry.\n\n\"I initially didn't think it would be possible,\" he says.\n\n\"But turning up to work today at 06:30 this morning and seeing everyone here - it's wonderful.\n\n\"We have a big local homeless population here, so I've seen some familiar faces.\"\n\nJay, originally from Cork, moves from place to place in the area, and is currently living in an abandoned solicitors' office.\n\n\"If I wasn't here I'd be in the office - there's 20 of us - we would try and have a good time,\" he says.\n\nJay squats in local properties, and says he would otherwise be unable to afford a Christmas dinner\n\n\"We got tickets for today - it's nice to have something to do, we have bare cooking facilities and don't have much money for nice food.\"\n\nOutside the station, people - many clutching blankets and shopping bags - are trying to get entry to the dinner, which is ticket-only and tightly guarded by Euston's security staff.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Network Rail's Steve Naybour: \"Santa came last night\" to Euston\n\nThe event was the brainchild of a group of Network Rail workers, including Steve Naybour, who was inspired by the Glastonbury Festival's use of vacant fields.\n\n\"Every year the festival uses fallow ground that would otherwise be unused - in a similar way, we thought about how we can use our empty stations,\" he says.\n\nSteve's used to working over Christmas - and has a shift on Boxing Day - but says today is different.\n\n\"It's amazing to see the concourse looking so festive, which would normally be packed with commuters.\"\n\nVolunteers prepping the alcohol-free four-course meal tweeted their efforts using the #EustonChristmas hashtag.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by St Mungo's This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Streets Kitchen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNearly 50 different businesses and organisations have donated items - including food, drinks and thermal clothes - to the event.\n\nMr Naybour says he has been \"blown away\" by the generosity, adding: \"We've got a whole department store of clothes we're waiting to give out.\"\n\nTwo hundred children from schools in the local area have made Christmas cards to give to the guests, while local kitchens have opened up to help volunteers prepare the meal.\n\nCharity volunteer Jon Glackin says empty buildings should be used as shelters\n\nJon Glackin, from the charity Street Kitchen, says he \"jumped at the chance\" to help. \"People we've known over the years are coming along,\" he says.\n\n\"Something we've always tried to highlight is empty buildings, for feeding people, for sleeping and for shelters,\" adds Jon.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Bijan Ebrahimi was considered an \"attention seeker\" - he was told to \"shut up\" by a police officer\n\nA disabled Iranian refugee repeatedly reported death threats and racial abuse to police for seven years before being brutally murdered, a report has found.\n\nBijan Ebrahimi was beaten to death and set alight on a Bristol estate amid false claims he was a paedophile.\n\nThe IPCC said he had been treated \"consistently differently from his neighbours\" in what could be \"racial bias, conscious or unconscious\".\n\nAvon and Somerset's police chief said \"we failed him in his hour of need\".\n\nMr Ebrahimi's sisters, Mojgan Kahayatian and Manisha Moores, said the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report showed \"how terrible a life he had during those last few years\".\n\nMr Ebrahimi was killed by his neighbour Lee James in Brislington in July 2013.\n\nBijan Ebrahimi was brutally murdered outside his flat in Brislington in July 2013\n\nThree days before his death, police arrested Mr Ebrahimi following complaints he had taken pictures of children near his home. However nothing suspicious was found and he was released without charge.\n\nThese false allegations led to what Mr Justice Simon called during James's sentencing \"a vigilante crime\" and \"an act of murderous injustice\".\n\nDuring the fatal attack, James repeatedly stamped on the victim's head shouting \"have some of that\".\n\nEvidence gathered by the IPCC uncovered \"poor responses\" by police for at least seven years before the murder and repeated failures to protect him or record crimes against him.\n\nIn 73 of the calls Mr Ebrahimi made between 2007 and 2013, he reported incidents of racial abuse, criminal damage and threats to kill.\n\nBut police failed to record crimes on at least 40 occasions, the watchdog said.\n\nThe report also found there was \"consistent systematic failure\" by call handlers, who breached standards on recording crimes, identifying hate offences and repeat victims.\n\nIPCC commissioner Jan Williams said: \"Bijan Ebrahimi self-identified as a victim of race hate crime, but was never recognised as a repeat victim of abuse who needed help.\n\n\"Instead, his complaints about abusive neighbours were disbelieved and he was considered to be a liar, a nuisance and an attention seeker.\"\n\nHis sister Mojgan said the family had been \"devastated\" by his death and the police had \"failed\" him.\n\n\"It was so hard to see Bijan all these years suffering and his voice never listened to,\" she said.\n\n\"He was always waiting on police, he was thinking it's their duty to care for him and protect him so he didn't think it was up to us.\n\n\"He never gave up and he always thought he was in a country that police was there to protect people and he couldn't see anything beyond that.\"\n\nBijan Ebrahimi was murdered near his home in Brislington, Bristol\n\n2007 - 9 reports made, the number recorded as a crime is unknown\n\nMs Williams said police accepted the neighbours' versions of events at face value and viewed Mr Ebrahimi as the culprit rather than the victim.\n\nShe described Mr Ebrahimi's faith in the force despite their repeated rejection of his version of events, as a \"sad, poignant fact\".\n\nThe commissioner added: \"We found evidence that Bijan Ebrahimi had been treated consistently differently from his neighbours, to his detriment and without reasonable explanation.\n\n\"Some of the evidence has the hallmarks of what could be construed as racial bias, conscious or unconscious.\"\n\nPC Kevin Duffy and PCSO Andrew Passmore were convicted of misconduct and jailed\n\nPC Kevin Duffy and PCSO Andrew Passmore were jailed last year for misconduct over their dealings with Mr Ebrahimi. They and two other police officers were also dismissed from the force.\n\nChief Constable Andy Marsh said: \"We failed [Mr Ebrahimi] in his hour of need and I am unreservedly sorry for the pain his family have suffered in the last four years.\n\n\"Some of these failings were systematic but it's important to acknowledge that the actions of a very small number of individuals had a catastrophic effect.\"\n\nBristol's elected mayor, Marvin Rees said this was \"a horrific case which highlighted the need for many things to change\". He said the city council is \"very sorry for any shortcomings that are identified\".\n\nMr Rees added he had been assured the council's current practice \"meets the needs of vulnerable people\" and that the authority would be looking \"very closely\" at the IPCC report.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAvon and Somerset Police has since implemented changes across its systems relating to culture, anti-social behaviour and vulnerability.\n\nPolice and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens said: \"There is nothing that can do justice to the collective failure to protect Mr Ebrahimi and to treat him as a victim of hate crime.\n\n\"Over the past four years I am satisfied that the constabulary has recognised the mistakes that were made and put in place wide-reaching changes which are already embedded today.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The Last Jedi had the second biggest grossing opening weekend in North America\n\nThe latest Star Wars film generated more than $450m (£337m) in global ticket sales on its opening weekend.\n\nThe movie dwarfed its nearest rival - the computer-animated comedy Ferdinand, which took $13m (£10m).\n\nThe total for The Last Jedi includes $220m (£165m) from box offices in the US and Canada, placing the film second in the all-time list for North America.\n\nIt trails behind the 2015 release Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opened with a record-breaking $248m (£185m).\n\nIn third place, the Disney/Pixar animation Coco brought in just over $10m (£7.5m) during its fourth weekend in North American cinemas.\n\nStar Wars: The Last Jedi is the eighth instalment of the 40-year-old space saga and is directed by Rian Johnson, whose credits include Brick and Looper.\n\nDaisy Ridley stars as Rey, a survivor toughened by life on a harsh planet\n\nIt sees Mark Hamill and the late Carrie Fisher reprise their roles as Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.\n\nBritish actors Daisy Ridley and John Boyega also return from The Force Awakens.\n\nThe film has been widely praised by critics, and has a score of 93% on the film review website Rotten Tomatoes.\n\nWill Gompertz, the BBC's Arts Editor, gave it four out of five stars and said it was \"packed with invention, wit, and action galore\".", "The Grenfell Tower fire claimed the lives of 71 people in June 2017\n\nBuilding regulations are leaving room for shortcuts, the woman leading a review into fire safety after the Grenfell Tower blaze has said.\n\nIn her interim report, Dame Judith Hackitt said she was \"shocked\" by some of the practices she had seen, calling for better enforcement to \"hold to account those who try to cut corners.\"\n\nShe said a \"cultural change\" was needed instead of \"doing things cheaply\".\n\nThe government says it accepts all of the report's recommendations.\n\nThe independent review follows the 14 June fire, which killed 71 people.\n\nA final report is expected in spring next year.\n\nDame Judith's report said the fire in the west London block - in which many people also lost their homes - \"should not have happened in our country in the 21st century\".\n\nHer review is aimed at making sure similar events do not happen in the future, rather than investigating the specific circumstances at Grenfell.\n\nShe said the whole system of fire safety regulation regarding complex and high-rise buildings was \"not fit for purpose\", and left room for those who wanted to take shortcuts to do so.\n\nShe called for a whole new system of enforcement and regulation for high-rise and complex buildings.\n\nBut she added this did not mean buildings were unsafe, with major building failures \"very rare\" and many people in the housing system doing the right thing.\n\nThe six-month anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire was marked earlier this month with a silent candlelit march\n\nKey problems Dame Judith found included regulations that were too complex and unclear; a lack of clarity about roles in design, construction and maintenance and a lack of a clear system to help residents raise concerns.\n\nDame Judith said a \"tremendous amount of work\" had been done by central government and the fire and rescue service since Grenfell to reassure residents.\n\nBut she called for a culture change across the entire industry and those parts of government that oversee it.\n\nA national memorial service was also held at St Paul's Cathedral\n\nAlthough separate from the public inquiry into the tragedy, being headed by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the review will run in parallel and add to his inquiry where it can.\n\nIn a statement to MPs, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Sajid Javid said the government agreed there was a need for a change in culture and a more effective system \"to encourage people to do the right thing and hold to account those who try to cut corners\".\n\nHe added: \"We fully support this direction of travel that has been signalled in Dame Judith's report.\n\n\"Achieving cultural change will inevitably take time, but while Dame Judith explores these issues further, she has also identified a number of areas where we can make a start today.\"\n\nHe went on to discuss measures that the government has already taken. \"While Dame Judith continues her vital work, we are continuing to support wider work to make existing buildings safer,\" he said.\n\n\"In the past six months, we have overseen a comprehensive set of fire safety tests on cladding components and systems,\" he said, adding that fire services had now inspected every residential tower block thought to be at risk.\n\nBut Labour said the recommendations should have been implemented after a fire at Lakanal House, south London, in 2009, which left six dead.\n\nShadow housing secretary John Healey said ministers had to start acting on existing recommendations immediately, rather than waiting for the final Hackitt report.\n\nLord Gary Porter, chairman of the Local Government Association, said the report \"reinforces our warnings about the complexity and confusion in the current system\".\n\nHe said the government should take action straightaway to work with councils and the industry to take the process of reform forward.\n\nDame Judith is due appear in front of the Commons' local government committee to discuss the report.\n• None Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety- terms of reference - GOV.UK The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Sports Personality\n\nWorld 10,000m champion Sir Mo Farah has been voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2017.\n\nThe 34-year-old, a four-time Olympic champion, won his third successive world 10,000m gold medal in London in August - despite almost falling twice late in the race.\n\nHe becomes the first long-distance runner to win the Sports Personality award since Paula Radcliffe in 2002.\n\nWorld Superbike champion Jonathan Rea was second and two-time Paralaympic champion Jonnie Peacock third.\n\nFarah, who could not be at the ceremony in Liverpool, was presented the award on video link by stepdaughter Rhianna.\n• None 'I can't stop staring at the trophy' - Farah shocked to win\n• None How the night unfolded in pictures, video and on social\n\nFormer Liverpool and Scotland striker Kenny Dalglish announced the award at a sold-out Echo Arena after a public vote.\n\nFarah, who was at the Sir Mo Farah Track in London, looked genuinely surprised to be named the winner before the video link cut out.\n\nFormer sprinter Michael Johnson stepped in to say a few words on Farah's behalf.\n\n\"It's well deserved,\" the American four-time Olympic champion said. \"This year he came into his home championships, his last race on the track, and still delivered.\n\n\"Over the years he's dominated, he's out there by himself and always got the tactics right.\"\n\n'I cannot believe I have won'\n\nFarah, one of 12 contenders for the award, has been shortlisted five times before and enjoyed his previous highest finish of third in 2011.\n\nAfter the show went off air, Farah spoke to those inside the arena.\n\nAppearing close to tears, Farah said he was shocked to win because of the quality of the other athletes up for the award.\n\n\"It is pretty amazing and hard to think about,\" he said.\n\n\"I didn't imagine I was ever going to win this but anything can happen. If you work hard you can achieve your dreams.\n\n\"I am sorry I could not be there. My kid has been not well.\n\n\"I just cannot believe I have won.\"\n\nA third successive World Championships 10,000m gold medal was the highlight of a year in which Farah also won a world 5,000m silver, missing out on a fifth major championships distance double in a row.\n\nThe Somali-born Londoner received a knighthood from the Queen at Buckingham Palace in November.\n\nHe bowed out from his track career with a 5,000m victory at the Diamond League event in Zurich in August, and will now concentrate on road races.\n\nFarah took the prize with 83,524 votes - 2,957 more than second-placed Rea, while Peacock took third with 73,429, just 18 more than boxer Anthony Joshua.\n\nAfter moving to England aged eight to join his father Mukhtar, the young Farah's talent was soon spotted (1/6)\n\nNorthern Ireland's Rea became the first rider to clinch three successive World Superbike titles, breaking American Colin Edwards' 15-year record for the number of points scored in a season.\n\nHe was also made an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.\n\n\"To be called out not third, and then second was incredibly strange, and a big surprise,\" Rea told BBC Sport NI.\n\n\"I had a word with my wife beforehand and she asked me if I was nervous and I was like 'no not really'. I was just happy to be here. I never in my wildest dreams believed that people would get behind me that much and it's an incredible way to cap 2017.\n\n\"It's been a dream come true to win not one world championship but now three on the bounce and to cap it off at the end of the season with this, before I start my preparations for 2018, is just incredible.\"\n\nThird-placed Peacock won the T44 100m final in London in 10.75 seconds for his second world title after success in Lyon four years earlier.\n\nThe two-time Paralympic champion, who had his right leg amputated below the knee as a five-year-old after contracting meningitis, also became the first disabled contestant in the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing show this year.\n\n\"It's been a slightly strange year for me and tonight has been absolutely surreal,\" he told BBC Radio 5 live.\n\n\"I think watching everybody do their piece, you see the incredible athletes we have in this country.\n\n\"Every single person I was saying 'right, they're above, so are they' - just incredible names - so yes, it was a bit of a shock.\"\n\nHelen Rollason Award: Sunderland fan and club mascot Bradley Lowery, whose bravery touched the hearts of many people, died aged six from a rare form of cancer in July.\n\nYoung Sports Personality of the Year: Manchester City midfielder Phil Foden helped England win the Under-17 World Cup and took the Golden Ball award for the tournament's best player.\n\nUnsung Hero: Volunteer Denise Larrad for her fundraising work. The 55-year-old has had one sole aim - to get the people of Hinckley in Leicestershire active.\n\nLifetime Achievement: Former heptathlon champion Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill won Olympic gold at London 2012 and a silver at the Rio Games four years later.\n\nOverseas Sports Personality of the Year: Tennis player Roger Federer won the award for a record fourth time after claiming his eighth Wimbledon title and 19th Grand Slam in 2017.\n\nCoach of the Year: Sprint coaches Benke Blomkvist, Stephen Maguire and Christian Malcolm helped GB's men's 4x100m team to World Championship gold.\n\nTeam of the Year: England women's cricket team produced a stunning fightback to beat India and win the World Cup in July.\n\nNoel Gallagher's High Flying Birds opened the show in Liverpool and then later introduced the Unsung Hero award with a cover version of the Beatles classic All You Need Is Love.\n\nRea arrived on stage on his superbike, while, like Farah, contenders Johanna Konta, Lewis Hamilton and Chris Froome joined on video link.\n\nHowever, Farah's son Hussein stole the limelight when the runner was interviewed in the build-up, desperate for cuddles with his world champion dad and drawing a laugh from the crowd back in Liverpool as stepdaughter Rhianna stepped in on child-minding duties, only for Mo's microphone to then fall off.\n\nThere were plenty of other former winners present at the Echo Arena, from Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean to Sir Steve Redgrave.\n\nAnd Liverpool's finest were also in attendance, boxer Tony Bellew and new Everton manager Sam Allardyce on hand to present the Team of the Year prize.", "Natalie Lewis-Hoyle, 28, was found unconscious at an address in Beeches Road, Heybridge\n\nThe daughter of the Commons deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle has died, prompting an appeal for information about her final hours.\n\nNatalie Lewis-Hoyle, 28, was found unconscious at an address in Heybridge, near Maldon, Essex, on Friday morning.\n\nHer mother, Maldon councillor Miriam Lewis, said her daughter's phone was missing and urged anyone who spoke to her the night before to contact police.\n\nMr Hoyle, Labour MP for Chorley, said the family was \"truly devastated\".\n\nHe wrote on Twitter: \"Our family will never be the same without our loving granddaughter, sister & aunty. Thank you for the kind support we've received, it is overwhelming.\"\n\nMs Lewis asked anyone contacted by \"Natty\" on Thursday night to get in touch with police and said that her daughter's phone had possibly been left on a train from London Liverpool Street to Ipswich.\n\nShe wrote on Facebook: \"It is with unbearable sadness that I have to announce the sudden death of my beautiful, much-adored daughter Natalie.\n\n\"Natalie is my only child, my mini-me. Please help me find out what happened to her in the hours before her death.\"\n\nEssex Police said the death was \"not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Cyril Ramaphosa has been elected as the new leader of South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC).\n\nBut who is he and what does the result mean for South Africa?", "Dozens of people were evacuated from the hotel and surrounding properties\n\nAn investigation has begun after a fire engulfed a Deeside hotel, prompting the evacuation of almost 50 people.\n\nThe blaze destroyed the first floor, roof and most of the ground floor of the Gateway to Wales Hotel on Welsh Road near Queensferry in Flintshire.\n\nThe alarm was raised at about 04:30 GMT and 60 firefighters worked to put the fire out by 12:00. Nobody was injured in the blaze.\n\nRoads and a nearby school were closed because of billowing smoke.\n\nNorth Wales fire service said all 47 guests and a member of staff had been accounted for.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Stuart Millington, of the fire service, said guests were safe thanks to the smoke alarm\n\nStuart Millington, senior operations manager at the fire service, said they all got to safety after the hotel's smoke alarms went off.\n\n\"Our fire investigators are speaking to local residents and to people in the building,\" he said.\n\n\"The building is quite badly damaged and therefore their ability to get in and take their investigation safely will take some time.\"\n\nTwenty firefighters remained at the scene on Monday afternoon, damping down the building.\n\nThe fire is causing significant smoke in the area\n\nHotel guest Barbara from Heywood in Greater Manchester, who had been visiting her son to exchange Christmas presents, praised the night manager for carrying her disabled brother-in-law out of the burning hotel.\n\n\"By the time we got outside the whole roof was alight, \" she said.\n\n\"We're very, very lucky and thankfully it wasn't full. It had a lot of people in but it wasn't full. So everyone got out.\"\n\nThe Gateway to Wales Hotel - pictured before the fire - has about 40 bedrooms\n\nStacey Roberts, 26, who was staying in the hotel with her six-month-old son and partner, said: \"The alarm stopped and then started again.\n\n\"No member of staff was seen, no sprinklers went off - if it wasn't for a gentleman shouting through the corridors 'fire, fire'... I dread to think. We're all traumatised.\"\n\nDanny Lawton, who lives in a block of flats next to the hotel with his girlfriend and their baby, said he was woken at 05:00 by police banging on the door.\n\n\"When we went outside you couldn't tell it was a winter night as the heat coming off the fire was immense,\" he said.\n\n\"When we came outside the whole roof and top floor was on fire on the side facing our building.\"\n\nThe roof of the hotel has been destroyed\n\nStation Road and the exit slip road on the A494 eastbound carriageway at the A548 has reopened but traffic is reported to be slow in the area, while nearby Sealand Primary School was closed for the day.\n\nCouncillor Christine Jones, who lives on Welsh Road, said the fire must have been \"dreadful\" and \"so frightening\" for guests.\n\nA Welsh Ambulance Service spokeswoman said it sent four ambulances, two rapid response vehicles, two duty officers and a hazardous area response team.\n\nThe fire is causing disruption on nearby roads\n• None Fire hotel guests safe 'thanks to alarm' Video, 00:00:34Fire hotel guests safe 'thanks to alarm'", "The Britain First Twitter account and that of its two leaders have been blocked\n\nTwitter has suspended the accounts of two leaders of a British far-right group shortly after revising its rules on hate speech.\n\nPaul Golding, Britain First's leader, and Jayda Fransen, his deputy, can no longer tweet and their past posts no longer appear.\n\nThe organisation's official Twitter page has suffered the same fate.\n\nIt appears that three of Ms Fransen's posts that President Trump retweeted have gone from his feed as a result.\n\nThe messages had featured anti-Muslim videos and proved highly controversial when the American leader shared them in November.\n\nBritish Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said it had been \"wrong for the president to have done this\".\n\nMs Fransen and Mr Golding were arrested earlier this week over separate behaviour relating to Northern Ireland.\n\nTwitter announced in October that it planned to take a tougher stance against hate symbols as well as those who posted messages that glorified or condoned violence.\n\nIt has now said that those who express an affiliation with groups that use or celebrate violence to achieve their aims will be permanently suspended.\n\nHateful imagery - such as the Nazi swastika - can still be posted, but will initially be hidden behind a \"sensitive media\" warning, that visitors must disable to proceed. However, such content will no longer be allowed on a person's profile page.\n\nThose that featured examples will be asked to remove them. Repeat violators will be banned.\n\nThe company said the move would \"reduce the amount of abusive behaviour and hateful conduct\" on the network.\n\n\"If an account's profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended,\" it explained.\n\n\"We plan to develop internal tools to help us identify violating accounts to supplement user reports.\"\n\nTwitter has promised a more robust system to appeal against decisions, but said that it was still in development.\n\nThe company is not commenting about the action it is taking against individual accounts citing \"privacy and security reasons\".\n\nThat has left it to others to play detective and report who else has been suspended. Many are using the hashtag #twitterpurge to do so.\n\nUS accounts that appear to have fallen foul of the new rules include:\n\nSeveral other members of the so-called alt-right have tweeted that fans should sign up to Gab.ai - a social network that pitches itself as a free speech alternative to Twitter - if they too are suspended.\n\nGeneration Identity, a pan-European nationalist group that opened a British branch last month, has also had its UK and Ireland Twitter account suspended.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Analysis: Trump's plan to confront - and sometimes work with - US rivals\n\nUS President Donald Trump has outlined his new national security strategy, labelling China and Russia the primary threats to US economic dominance.\n\nHis speech - which was based on his platform of \"America First\" - attacked the \"failures\" of past foreign policy.\n\nHe criticised Pakistan and North Korea, and how previous administrations approached other world powers.\n\nThe US faces a new era of competition, the US president said at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington.\n\nRussia and China are \"rival powers\", he said, but the US must attempt to build a \"great partnership with them\".\n\nAs an example of this new spirit of co-operation, Mr Trump referred to a phone call of thanks he received from Russian President Vladimir Putin for intelligence the CIA provided to the Kremlin about an alleged terror plot.\n\nBut there was harsher language for Russia and China in the new National Security Strategy document itself, published before the speech, which called them \"revisionist powers\".\n\nMr Trump described \"four pillars\" to his new plan but made no mention of human rights or climate change, his critics noted.\n\nThe four themes are protecting the homeland, promoting American prosperity, demonstrating peace through strength and advancing American influence.\n\nThe 68-page document, which White House officials began work on 11 months ago, suggests a return to Mr Trump's campaign promises.\n\nIt explicitly states that \"the United States will no longer turn a blind eye to violations, cheating or economic aggression\".\n\nMr Trump will renew his call for a wall on the southern border\n\nReferring to his election victory during the speech, he said that in 2016 voters chose to \"Make America Great Again\".\n\nPrevious American leaders had \"drifted\" and \"lost sight of America's destiny\" he said, standing before a backdrop of American flags.\n\n\"Now less than one year later I am proud to report that the entire world has heard the news and has seen the signs,\" he said.\n\n\"America is coming back and America is coming back strong.\"\n\nNational security strategies are usually released without fanfare, but President Trump wanted to make an event out of this announcement, which builds on his America First campaign priorities.\n\nSo the document emphasises the economy and fair trade as security issues, as well as tough border controls and immigration policies.\n\nMr Trump's decision to call out Russia and China as global competitors reflected the wariness within his administration about these two \"revisionist powers\".\n\nThe president himself shifted quickly to talk about his recent phone calls with President Vladimir Putin, with whom he seeks a closer relationship. But the text of the document goes into quite biting detail about Russia's alleged interference in domestic politics, and about Chinese economic practices that anger the Americans.\n\nThat was part of an overall theme that emphasised competition more than co-operation in international relations.\n\nIt signalled engagement with the world rather than an isolationist retreat, but on more muscular terms than his predecessors.\n\nHe named the US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal among his successes in office.\n\nMr Trump also said that wealthy countries must recognise that they need to \"reimburse\" the US for the costs of defending them.\n\nHe criticised North Korea for their repeated nuclear missile tests, and Pakistan for not doing enough to tackle Islamic extremism.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHe also outlined his campaign promise to build a wall on the southern border, as well as reform of the immigration visa system, which he said is necessary to defend the homeland.\n\nThe new policy stresses economic security but does not recognise climate change as a national security threat.\n\nHis predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 declared climate change an \"urgent and growing threat to our national security\".", "A four-point plan for tackling plastic waste has been outlined by the Environment Secretary Michael Gove.\n\nHe told BBC News that he wants to reduce the amount of plastic used in the UK, and to make it simpler for people to recycle.\n\nEnvironmentalists fear Mr Gove will be reluctant to set tighter rules for firms which benefit from the current use of plastics.\n\nThe Environment Secretary outlined his thoughts during an informal meeting.\n\nRecycling schemes often differ from one borough to the next, making it very confusing for households.\n\nMr Gove said he was considering introducing common standards throughout local authorities to make recycling simpler.\n\nBut Martin Tett, from the Local Government Association told BBC News that wouldn't work. He said: \"Common standards for recycling wouldn't be effective, as there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem.\"\n\n\"A key component is reducing the amount of unrecyclable waste we produce in the first place, which is why it's essential that manufacturers and retailers work with us to achieve this.\n\n\"What we need is packaging that is easily recyclable - this would not only make waste disposal easier for our residents, but save considerable amounts of money and energy, whilst protecting our environment.\n\nMr Gove agreed the UK must expand its capacity to recycle, especially in the light of China's decision to refuse to recycle British waste in future.\n\nIn the short term, he said, the UK would look to other East Asian nations to recycle British waste. But he said in the longer term the nation must \"stop offshoring our dirt.\"\n\nHe says he's been spurred to action by David Attenborough's Blue Planet series, which highlighted the harm to marine life from plastic litter.\n\nMr Gove says the rate of recycling needs to be improved\n\nMr Gove has already been consulting with drinks firms on a deposit scheme to cut the amount of plastic bottles finding their way into rivers and the sea.\n\nSome environmentalists doubt that plastics manufacturers, retailers, drinks manufacturers and fast food outlets will volunteer to take the measures needed to reduce the use of plastics.\n\nDr Dominic Hogg, from the Eunomia consultancy, said the plastics issue was huge, complex and urgent.\n\nHe told BBC News the problem started with industry allowing pellets used to produce plastics to escape into the environment.\n\nThen, he said there are big problems with current recycling.\n\n\"We have a variety of collection and sorting systems,\" he said. \"Not all of which generate good quality plastics. The Chinese are about to close the border on us. We have a real problem.\n\n\"We're not recycling enough plastics. We're obsessed with convenience. Too much stuff is used to deliver a product which is soon discarded - often without any recycling.\n\n\"What we're throwing is increasingly being incinerated - and incinerators are not efficient generators of electrical energy.\"\n\nMany nations are trying to tackle plastic litter. Kenya, for instance, is one of many African nations that have banned single use plastic bags. It is now about to clamp down on plastic bottles, too.\n\nPlastic waste is just one of the big issues in Mr Gove's in-tray. The Environment Secretary told me he also intended to unveil the government's long-delayed 25-year Environment Plan in the New Year.\n\nHe acknowledged that recent Brexit negotiations had delayed his plans for an early reform of fishing and farm policy in the UK.\n\nHe confessed that the Brexit deal to keep current EU policies during the transition period would make early changes extremely difficult.\n\nMr Gove said he was working with the Department for International Development (DFID) to see how UK aid money could be used to help developing nations tackle the tide of plastic waste.\n\nThis would be on the agenda for the next Commonwealth heads of governments meeting, he said.\n\nHe said he also wanted to expand the UK's world-leading network of ocean protected zones round far-flung territories.", "Father-of-six Imtiaz Mohammed, described as a hard-working family man, was killed in the crash\n\nA taxi driver killed in a \"horrific\" six-car crash in Birmingham was on his last job of the night, his brother has said.\n\nImtiaz Mohammed, 33, who had six children aged under 15, was one of six people killed in the accident in Edgbaston in the early hours of Sunday.\n\nHis two passengers were among those who died.\n\nTwo men in another car - Mohammed Fahsha, 30, and Tauqeer Hussain, 26 - died at the scene.\n\nThe men, from Small Heath, Birmingham, and a 25-year-old man, died when they were thrown from the Audi they were travelling in.\n\nA 22-year-old man, who was also in the car, is in a serious condition at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.\n\nCrash investigators are trying to piece together what caused the pile-up, on Belgrave Middleway.\n\nThree men in the Audi, including Mohammed Fahsha, 30, pictured with his baby nephew, and Tauqeer Hussain, 26, known as Tox to his family, died at the scene.\n\nThe family of Mr Mohammed, who had five daughters and one son, said his death came the day before his daughter's fourth birthday.\n\nHis father, Ihktiar, said the \"very close\" family had been devastated by the loss and he had \"woken up crying\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A mourning father says the family was worried over his son's taxi-driving job\n\nHe said his grandchildren had gone to school as usual, adding that the younger of the children have not yet been told of their father's death.\n\nHe said: \"I am very sad, this is a tragedy for everyone - for my family and also for the other families as well.\n\n\"It is a sad day and a sad time.\"\n\nMr Mohammed added his son's work as a driver had \"worried the family\" and he had been hoping to get security work in the new year.\n\nPeople have been leaving tributes near the scene of the crash, including flowers with a card saying: \"To Mum, I love you loads. \"Life isn't going to be the same without you.\"\n\nImtiaz Mohammed (left) had called his wife to say he was on his way home just before the crash\n\nHe said his \"heart sank\" when police knocked on his door at 05:00 GMT and he \"knew there was something wrong\".\n\n\"I thought to myself, 'which of my sons is hurt',\" he said.\n\nThree vehicles were directly involved in the accident on Belgrave Middleway in the early hours of Sunday\n\nThe scene of the accident was described as \"harrowing\"\n\nThe victim's younger brother, Noorshad Mohammed, said Imtiaz called his wife just before the crash, to tell her he was on his way home.\n\nThe 32-year-old said: \"It was his last job of the night. That was the last time she spoke to him.\"\n\nThe taxi driver's employer, Castle Cars, said it was \"shocked and devastated\" to learn of Mr Mohammed's death.\n\n\"He was loved and respected by all who worked with him and he will be greatly missed.\n\n\"Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and all the other families affected by this tragedy.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Officers were dealing with \"a very harrowing scene\", Supt Sean Phillips said\n\nA 43-year-old female passenger in Mr Mohammed's taxi was confirmed dead at the scene of the crash, which happened on the underpass where Belgrave and Lee Bank Middleway meet.\n\nHer male companion, 42, died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.\n\nThe first car in the crash sustained extensive damage but, \"astonishingly\", the man and woman inside managed to get out with relatively minor injuries, an ambulance service spokesman said.\n\nFour men in the third car had all had been thrown from the vehicle\n\nThree other cars were caught up in the crash and suffered minor damage trying to avoid it.\n\nMichelle Brotherton, from the ambulance service, said crews had dealt with 13 patients.\n\nAs well as those who died and the man in a critical condition, four people were taken to Heartlands Hospital where their condition is believed to be non-life threatening.\n\nA further two patients were \"discharged on scene\".\n\nWest Midlands Police said all victims were from the Birmingham area and specialist officers were supporting their families.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by West Midlands Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPolice said they were following various lines of investigation including the condition of the road when the crash happened.\n\nAt a press conference Supt Sean Phillips said it was \"too early\" to speculate on the cause of the accident.\n\n\"It will take some time to unpick and just understand exactly what's happened. It would be unfair for me to speculate at this time,\" he said.\n\nHe said the road had been gritted at 17:00 GMT on Saturday.\n\nSam Lad, who lives in a flat overlooking the crash site, said people regularly used the road for racing.\n\nHe said: \"Lots of young people use that road as a competition, I see lots of people speeding.\"\n\nAn online fundraising page been set up for the families of those killed, through the Lord Mayor's Charity Appeal. It has raised more than £5,500.\n\nTwo people escaped with minor injuries from the crash\n\nThe stretch of road from Islington Row to Bristol Street was closed while officers investigate.\n\nThe road has two lanes either side and a 40mph speed limit.\n\nAnother resident who lives opposite said: \"This road is really dangerous. Young kids like to challenge themselves and go really fast.\n\n\"I can't believe six people have died, and so close to Christmas and New Year.\"\n\nThe road had been gritted at 17:00 GMT on Saturday, police say\n\nArea Commander Jason Campbell, of West Midlands Fire Service, said the crash site was \"spread over some distance\".\n\nWest Midlands Police described dealing with the aftermath of the crash as \"very difficult and upsetting\".\n\nA senior officer criticised the \"lack of humanity\" of people who took photographs and filmed at the scene.\n\nChief Inspector Stuart Bill said it was \"disappointing\" that people chose to \"disrupt\" emergency services rather than help.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by C/Insp Stu Bill This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSergeant Alan Hands, from the force's Collision Investigation Unit, said: \"We are still trying to establish exactly what happened and our thoughts remain with the families who have lost-loved ones.\n\n\"We aware of distressing images of the scene circulating on social media and we would ask the public to not share them and instead pass any footage to us to assist our investigation.\"\n\nAny witnesses have been asked to contact West Midlands Police.", "Who could choose between Sarah Lynn and James White?\n\nThe latest series of The Apprentice has reached a surprise climax.\n\nLord Sugar has chosen both finalists to be his business partners, for the first time in the BBC show's history.\n\nThe business mogul said he \"genuinely couldn't decide\" between sweet firm owner Sarah Lynn, 35, and James White, 26, who runs an IT recruitment company.\n\nAs a result, both candidates receive a £250,000 business investment and 50/50 partnership with Lord Sugar, who called them \"fantastically skilled people\".\n\n\"This particular year, I'm going to double my investment,\" Lord Sugar told them.\n\n\"I'm going to start a business with both of you.\"\n\nUsually, Lord Sugar gives £250,000 to just one winner.\n\nAccording to the BBC, this surprise double \"hiring\" does not constitute a format change.\n\nBut some fans were unhappy with the conclusion and reacted strongly on Twitter.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by James 🦉 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnother felt the candidates in the final weren't up to scratch.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Justine This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut not everybody minded the twist.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by 🌹 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Dr Leah This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAn audience of 6.5 million tuned into the final to see Lynn, from London, go up against White, from Birmingham.\n\nOver the course of the 12-week series, the pair had seen off 16 other candidates to compete with each other for the privilege of becoming Lord Sugar's business partner.\n\nThe final episode saw Lynn and White pitch their business plans to Lord Sugar and his panel of experts.\n\n\"It is quite obvious that there are two fantastically skilled people there,\" said the 70-year-old magnate before reaching his decision.\n\n\"Deciding on a winner was the most difficult decision I have had to make in all 13 series of The Apprentice to date,\" said Lord Sugar in a statement.\n\nLord Sugar (centre) reached his decision after consulting Karren Brady and Claude Littner\n\n\"James and Sarah were extremely impressive and their proposed business plans were very different but equally strong.\n\n\"I genuinely couldn't decide between them, so after deliberating long and hard, I decided to stump up £500,000 and invest in them both.\"\n\nLynn said she felt \"shocked and amazed\" to be declared the joint victor alongside White, who said it was \"very, very humbling\" to be Lord Sugar's business partner.\n\nThe investment will allow the pair to build their respective confectionery and recruitment businesses.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Liam Allan said he was \"disappointed\" he had not yet received an apology from the Met Police\n\nA man wrongly accused of rape says he will sue the Metropolitan Police over its failure to disclose vital evidence that led to the collapse of the trial.\n\nLiam Allan was charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault but his trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.\n\nThe 22-year-old student said he was \"disappointed\" he had not yet received an apology.\n\nThe Met Police said it was \"urgently reviewing the investigation\".\n\nThe case against Mr Allan at Croydon Crown Court was dropped after three days when the evidence on a computer disk containing 40,000 messages revealed the alleged victim pestered him for \"casual sex\".\n\nTalking to the Victoria Derbyshire programme, Mr Allan said: \"University is meant to be the best years of your life and the last two years have been spent worrying and not concentrating on anything.\n\n\"It has completely ripped apart my normal personal life.\"\n\nThe 22-year-old student had been charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault\n\nHe added he had not yet received any contact or an apology from the Met and found that \"disappointing\".\n\n\"I feel relief on one side, that the case is over, but now there's the stress of getting compensation and the process of suing - so it's not over completely\", he said.\n\nMr Allan faced a possible jail term of 12 years and being put on the sex offenders register for life had he been found guilty.\n\nHe said he felt \"pure fear\" when he learned he had been accused of rape but would never be able to understand why the accusations were made.\n\nIt is understood police had looked at thousands of phone messages when reviewing evidence in the case, but had failed to disclose to the prosecution and defence teams messages between the complainant and her friends which cast doubt on the allegations against Mr Allan.\n\nA Met spokesman said the force was \"urgently reviewing this investigation and will be working with the Crown Prosecution Service to understand exactly what has happened in this case.\n\n\"The Met understands the concerns that have been raised as a result of this case being dismissed from court and the ongoing review will seek to address those,\" he said.\n\nA spokesman for the CPS said: \"In November 2017, the police provided more material in the case of Liam Allan. Upon a review of that material, it was decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.\n\n\"We will now be conducting a management review together with the Metropolitan Police to examine the way in which this case was handled.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Right Reverend Sarah Mullally: \"For some the appointment of a bishop who is a woman may be difficult\"\n\nThe Right Reverend Sarah Mullally has been named as the first female Bishop of London, becoming the most senior woman bishop appointed by the Church of England.\n\nShe takes over the role from Dr Richard Chartres, who retired in February.\n\nLegislation to allow women bishops was formally adopted by the Church in 2014.\n\nThe Church consecrated its first female bishop in 2015 when the Rt Revd Libby Lane was made Bishop of Stockport.\n\nThe latest appointment means the former NHS chief nurse, who is currently the Bishop of Crediton in Devon, will hold the third most senior position in the Church of England.\n\nShe became a priest in 2006, and has spent over 35 years in the NHS, including being chief nursing officer for England from 1999 to 2004.\n\nBishop Sarah, 55, - who was made a dame in 2005 for services to nursing - will be the third woman to run a diocese, and will take a seat in the House of Lords.\n\nShe said: \"Having lived and worked in London for over 32 years, the thought of returning here is about returning home.\n\n\"I am often asked what it has been like to have had two careers, first in the NHS and now in the Church.\n\n\"I prefer to think that I have always had one vocation: to follow Jesus Christ, to know him and to make him known, always seeking to live with compassion in the service of others, whether as a nurse, a priest, or a bishop.\n\n\"To be given the opportunity to do that now in this vibrant world-city is a wonderful privilege.\"\n\nThe Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, described the appointment as \"wonderful news\" in a tweet.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Justin Welby ن This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nShe will be installed as the 133rd Bishop of London at St Paul's Cathedral in the New Year.\n\nThe position was previously held by the Right Reverend Dr Richard Chartres\n\nActing Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Pete Broadbent, also welcomed the appointment.\n\n\"Bishop Sarah's work in the public square uniquely equips her for the important outward focus that is required in leading the diocese in this great world-city,\" he said.\n\n\"She also brings strong experience of parish and cathedral life, and sees her vocational experience as nurse, civil servant, priest and bishop as a totality.\"", "The European Council has said that Brexit talks can enter the second phase following last week's agreement.\n\nAs a result it has published its guidelines for the next stage of talks.\n\nHere are some of the key phrases from that document.\n\nDon't forget that there are plenty of crucial details that still need to be resolved before negotiations on a withdrawal agreement come to an end.\n\nThat means the financial settlement, citizens' rights and of course, the Irish border.\n\nSufficient progress is not the end of the story, but the text also makes it clear that there will be a concerted effort to lock in what has been agreed so far - and that if the EU detects any reluctance or backsliding from the UK then that will have a negative effect on discussions about the future.\n\nTheresa May has already agreed that a transition of about two years will take place under existing EU rules and regulations, but the EU's text makes crystal clear what it believes that means.\n\nThe UK will have to accept all EU law (that's what the acquis means) including new laws passed during the transition itself.\n\nBut it will no longer have a seat at the table when those laws are made. To put it brutally - the UK will, for a while, become a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker.\n\nBoth sides talk of a strictly time-limited transition period, so there doesn't appear to be much appetite at the moment for extending it.\n\nQuite what happens if a future trade deal isn't ready by the end of the transition, a scenario many experts think is quite possible, will have to be debated in the future.\n\nDuring the transition, the UK will have to accept the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and all four freedoms - including the freedom of movement of people.\n\nThe EU says the UK will remain in the single market and the customs union during a transition, while the UK insists that it will leave both on Brexit day.\n\nThis could become a semantic argument, because by accepting all rules and regulations - in other words, the status quo - the UK will remain in the single market and the customs union whether it likes it or not.\n\nThe British government has suggested that some things - like dispute resolution mechanisms - could change during the transition as agreement is made on future co-operation. But there's little appetite in the EU for that - in its view, you're either in or you're out.\n\nThe EU 27 stress that they want a close partnership with the UK in the future, but here they are setting out the limits of what they could mean.\n\nThe further away the UK wants to be from the rules and regulations of the single market the less access it will have - there is no such thing as partial membership.\n\nThis gets us back to the unresolved debate about what \"full alignment\" at the Irish border really means in practice.\n\nThe phrase \"preserve a level playing field\" is important too. The EU is anxious to ensure that the UK doesn't try to undercut the EU in any way by having looser regulations in certain key areas, and, if it does, then there will be consequences.\n\nEU negotiators won't have the authority to start discussions with the UK on future relations (including trade and also things like security and foreign policy) until another set of guidelines is adopted in March 2018.\n\nThat gives the two sides not much more than six months to agree the text of a broad political declaration on the outlines of the future relationship.\n\nThe EU hopes to get that finalised by October 2018, but it emphasises that formal trade negotiations can only begin after the UK has left the EU.\n\nInformal contacts on what the future might look like are probably taking place already, but the EU is still waiting for greater clarity from London about what exactly the UK government hopes to achieve in the long term.\n\nThe UK is trying to be as ambitious as possible about what can be done before Brexit actually happens. The EU, though, emphasises that trade talks will have to continue long after the UK has left.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The family of a British woman killed in Lebanon have described her as \"irreplaceable\".\n\nThe body of Rebecca Dykes, who worked at the British Embassy, was found near a motorway in Beirut on Saturday.\n\nMs Dykes had been sexually assaulted and strangled.\n\nPolice in Beirut have arrested an Uber driver in connection with her death. It has emerged that he had served several prison sentences.\n\nThe man is expected to be charged with rape and murder later this week, police sources said.\n\nHer family said in a statement: \"For Becky to have her life cruelly taken away in these circumstances is devastating to our family.\n\n\"Becky is simply irreplaceable and we will never fully recover from this loss.\"\n\nMs Dykes, 30, had been working in Beirut as the programme and policy manager for the Department for International Development since January 2017.\n\nShe had been helping Lebanon to cope with the influx of refugees from the war in neighbouring Syria.\n\nIt is thought she spent Friday evening at a going-away party for a colleague in the popular Gemmayzeh district of Beirut.\n\nAfter leaving the bar at about midnight it appears she was abducted. Her body was found close to a motorway on the outskirts of the city.\n\nThe body of Rebecca Dykes was found near a main road outisde Beirut\n\nThe Foreign Office said it was in contact with the Lebanese authorities and confirmed an arrest had been made.\n\nThe suspect was arrested in the early hours of Monday morning after police reportedly traced his car on traffic management CCTV.\n\nAn official told the Reuters and AFP news agencies the preliminary investigation had showed Ms Dykes's killing \"was not politically motivated\".\n\nThe Gemmayzeh district of Beirut where Rebecca Dykes was last seen alive is well-known for having some of the city's best and most expensive bars and restaurants.\n\nThere is normally a relaxed atmosphere. It is a neighbourhood where foreign aid workers, diplomats and journalists mingle with wealthy Lebanese often into the early hours of the morning.\n\nDespite the chaos seen elsewhere in the region, Beirut in recent years has been regarded as relatively safe. That is why this murder has left the international community so shocked.\n\nAfter a late night out, many people would previously have thought nothing of catching one of the cabs that plough the streets, or calling for an Uber.\n\nFor a short while, anyway, that is likely to change. People will be more careful about how they get home. Beirut may be relatively safe but - as in any big city across the world - this murder is a reminder of the dangers.\n\nJosie Ensor, the Daily Telegraph's correspondent in Beirut, says the case has left foreign residents in the city unsettled.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, she said Beirut was a \"very tight-knit community, so when something happens to one person, it feels quite close\".\n\nMs Ensor, who was due to attend the same party on Friday evening, added Ms Dykes \"had just landed on her feet in Beirut and was starting to make friends and getting to know the city\".\n\nHugo Shorter, the British Ambassador to Lebanon, said the whole embassy was \"deeply shocked\" and \"saddened\" by the news.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Hugo Shorter This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTributes were paid to Ms Dykes in the House of Lords on Monday.\n\nThe International Development Minister Lord Bates added: \"It's obviously a very distressing time, particularly for Becky's family, but also for the people who worked with her.\n\n\"It reminds us of the sacrifice which is made by over 1,200 Dfid personnel who work around the world, often in the most difficult and dangerous of environments.\"\n\nRebecca Dykes had been working in Beirut since January 2017\n\nPrior to her posting in Beirut, Ms Dykes worked with the Foreign Office as a policy manager for its Libya team and as an Iraq research analyst.\n\nShe had reportedly been due to fly back to the UK for Christmas.", "Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary had always refused to recognise pilots' unions\n\nThe Impact union, which represents Irish-based pilots, has agreed to meet Ryanair's management on Tuesday ahead of the planned action on Wednesday.\n\nIt follows Ryanair's decision on Friday to recognise unions, in a bid to avert strikes across its European operations.\n\nUnions in other countries had already halted action, but Impact said Irish pilots wanted more clarification.\n\nIn a statement on Sunday, the union said: \"Impact has this evening suspended a planned one-day strike of Ryanair pilots next Wednesday after company management agreed to recognise the union as the representative of Irish-based pilots.\n\n\"The union has agreed to meet management on Tuesday evening, but says it is available to meet sooner.\n\n\"The union asked management to release its Ryanair pilot representatives to prepare for and attend the meeting.\n\n\"The union acknowledged the principled determination of Ryanair pilots.\"\n\nThe airline has offered to recognise trade unions for the first time after pilots in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal threatened walkouts.\n\nRyanair said on Saturday that it would meet the German pilots' union for talks on Wednesday.\n\nThe airline's chief operations officer, Peter Bellew, confirmed the planned meetings in a social media post on Saturday, saying \"let's keep talking\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Peter Bellew This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Dublin-based airline announced on Friday that it would recognise the unions \"as long as they establish committees of Ryanair pilots... as Ryanair will not engage with pilots who fly for competitor airlines\".\n\nIt is the first time Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has extended such an invitation to union leaders in the 32 years the company has been flying.\n\nBritain's Balpa union said on Saturday said it had accepted Ryanair's offer to represent British-based pilots, but only if the TUC federation of British trade unions was allowed to attend future talks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ryanair tells Today the airline is moving to recognise unions as it's \"time for change\"\n\nFriday's announcement led to Italian pilots' union Anpac and Portuguese union Spac calling off strike action due to take place next week.\n\nPilots in Germany had voted to take industrial action some time during the Christmas period.\n\nGerman union Vereinigung Cockpit said the onus was now on Ryanair to \"prove that this announcement is serious\".\n\nIn Spain, there are no strikes planned for pilots but ground staff unions have not ruled out action on 30 December.\n\nIn October, Mr O'Leary wrote to his airline's pilots to offer them better pay and conditions after Ryanair was forced to cancel thousands of flights.\n\nThe carrier admitted it had \"messed up\" the planning of its pilots' holidays.", "Wayne Rooney says his drink-drive punishment of community service in a garden centre is \"refreshing\" and \"relaxing\".\n\nRooney was ordered to complete 100 hours' unpaid work in September after admitting being nearly three times over the legal limit when stopped by police.\n\nThe former England and Manchester United captain said he was made to feel welcome and was \"really enjoying it\".\n\nThe Everton striker was banned from driving for two years in September.\n\nRooney, who earns £150,000 a week, told Talksport: \"I knew straight away I had made a stupid mistake and I have to move on.\"\n\nRooney, who said he was about halfway through the community service, added: \"I've really enjoyed doing it.\"\n\nHe said he had been working with adults with learning difficulties in a garden centre and had been \"helping them with different things they're making over Christmas\".\n\nHe added: \"Honestly, I'm really enjoying it, working with these people, and I think it's a place now where I'll certainly keep in touch with when obviously my hours are over.\"\n\nThe striker said the staff there were \"doing a fantastic job\" and made him \"feel really welcome\".\n\nAsked if he got any \"stick\", Rooney said: \"No, not at all.\n\n\"We actually don't even talk about football in there. It's a refreshing place to go and it's relaxing.\"\n\nThe 32-year-old pleaded guilty at Stockport Magistrates' Court to drink-driving following an incident in the early hours of 1 September.\n\nRooney had reportedly left a cocktail bar in Wilmslow, Cheshire, in a taxi with lettings agent Laura Simpson, 29, and later went on to take the wheel of her vehicle.\n\nPolice stopped Rooney in Altrincham Road at 02:10 BST - with Ms Simpson in the front passenger seat - after they noticed a rear light was not working.\n\nAfter failing a roadside breath test the footballer was taken to a local police station where he produced a reading of 104 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit in England and Wales is 35 microgrammes.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Twitter has not disclosed which accounts face closure as a consequence of its new rules\n\nTwitter has widened what constitutes hateful and harmful behaviour on its platform, and says it will begin enforcing stricter rules concerning it.\n\nInformation contained in a person's profile, regardless of what they actually tweet, will now be considered.\n\nThose who express an affiliation with groups that use or celebrate violence to achieve their aims will be permanently suspended, Twitter said.\n\nHateful imagery - such as the Nazi swastika - will now be hidden.\n\nA \"sensitive media\" prompt will be shown to users before they can opt to view it.\n\nBut such content will no longer be allowed on a person's profile page, and users will be asked to remove it. Repeat violators will be banned.\n\nThe company said the move would \"reduce the amount of abusive behaviour and hateful conduct\" on the network. A spokeswoman confirmed profiles would be removed, but would not give an example of an account in violation of the rules.\n\n\"If an account’s profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended,\" she explained.\n\n\"We plan to develop internal tools to help us identify violating accounts to supplement user reports.\"\n\nTwitter has promised a more robust system to appeal against decisions, but said that it was still in development.\n\nThe new rulings will also have an important exception.\n\n\"This policy does not apply to military or government entities and we will consider exceptions for groups that are currently engaging in (or have engaged in) peaceful resolution,\" the company said.\n\nThe changes had been made following consultations with Twitter's Trust and Safety Council, a group consisting of representatives from more than 40 organisations dealing with, among other things, anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism and racism.\n\nTwitter has defined hateful imagery as \"logos, symbols, or images whose purpose is to promote hostility and malice against others based on their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin\".\n\nThe announcement is Twitter's latest attempt, in a difficult year for the company, to clamp down on what many people consider its most pressing issue: disgusting behaviour from a significant number of users.\n\nThe challenge for the company has been to grapple with offensive content while not being seen to censor legitimate political views.\n\nThis was recently brought sharply into view when US President Donald Trump retweeted three tweets by Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of far-right group Britain First. Ms Fransen was previously convicted of religiously-aggravated harassment.\n\nUK Prime Minister Theresa May's official spokesman said it was \"wrong for the president to have done this\".\n\nA Twitter spokesperson would not say if Britain First would fall foul of the stricter rules, adding it would not comment on individual groups or accounts.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Law firm Appleby is taking legal action against the BBC and the Guardian over their reporting of leaked documents detailing offshore tax-avoidance schemes, known as the Paradise Papers.\n\nIt is suing for breach of confidence and wants the documents disclosed.\n\nAppleby said confidential information had been taken in a \"criminal act\".\n\nThe BBC and the Guardian said they would \"vigorously\" defend the revelations, which were in the \"highest public interest\".\n\nThe leak of financial documents revealed how the powerful and ultra-wealthy secretly invest cash in offshore tax havens.\n\nThe papers contained details about investments made by the Queen's private estate and a tax avoidance scheme used by three stars of BBC sitcom Mrs Brown's Boys.\n\nThey also showed that Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton avoided tax on his £16.5m luxury jet.\n\nAbout half of the 13.4m leaked documents were from Appleby, one of the world's largest providers of offshore legal services.\n\nPanorama led research for the BBC as part of a global investigation involving nearly 100 other media organisations in 67 countries, after the records were passed to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.\n\nThe BBC does not know the identity of the source. Appleby says the data was taken by hackers.\n\nAppleby is also seeking a permanent injunction stopping any further use of the information, and the return of all copies of the documents.\n\nIn a statement, it said its overwhelming responsibility was to its clients and colleagues.\n\nThe BBC said its \"serious and responsible journalism\" had revealed matters which would otherwise have remained secret and that authorities around the world were taking action as a consequence.\n\nThe Guardian said the legal action was an attempt to \"undermine responsible public interest journalism\".", "Bijan Ebrahimi was beaten to death and set alight in July 2013\n\nA police force and council \"repeatedly sided with the abusers\" of a man murdered after being wrongly accused of being paedophile, a report has found.\n\nThe Safer Bristol Partnership (SBP) found a \"collective failure\" by Avon and Somerset Police and Bristol City Council in the case of Bijan Ebrahimi.\n\nThe disabled Iranian refugee was beaten to death and set alight on a Bristol estate in July 2013.\n\nThe SBP found there was \"institutional racism\" from both parties.\n\nThe council and police say they accept the report's findings.\n\nLee James, then 24, was jailed for life in November 2013 for killing Mr Ebrahimi three days after the Iranian national was arrested following complaints he had been taking pictures of children near James's home.\n\nJames repeatedly stamped on the 44-year-old's head during the attack in Brislington, shouting \"have some of that\".\n\nWhile the SBP report said there was no evidence of any individual being intentionally racist towards Mr Ebrahimi, it did find he had been \"repeatedly targeted for racist abuse and victimisation by some members of the public\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mr Ebrahimi's sister Manisha Moores said the findings were \"shocking\"\n\nIt said this had been repeatedly reported to the police and the council but representatives of both organisations took the side of those who had been victimising him.\n\nHe said: \"We accept all of the findings of the Safer Bristol-commissioned independent review, including 'evidence of both discriminatory behaviour and institutional racism on the part of Bristol City Council.\n\n\"We appreciate that no amount of lessons learned or changes in practice can possibly mitigate the impact this had on Bijan and his family.\"\n\nAvon and Somerset Police, which was criticised for \"conscious or unconscious racial bias\" in the case in an IPCC report earlier this year, also said it accepted the findings.\n\n\"We failed him when he needed us the most and for that we're extremely sorry,\" a spokesman said.\n\n\"We continue to do everything in our power to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.\"\n\nThe phrase \"institutional racism\" was notoriously used in the 1999 MacPherson report into the Metropolitan Police's handling of the Stephen Lawrence case.\n\nNow, the Ebrahimi family say they are \"disgusted\" and \"shocked\" to see the same phrase used again - two decades later - in a report about the way Bijan was treated in Bristol.\n\nAlthough they accept that changes have been made since Bijan was murdered, his sisters say they now want more extensive changes across the UK - to make sure institutional racism is a thing of the past.\n\nThe SBP report accuses council and police officers of being \"prejudicial\" in their dealings with Mr Ebrahimi.\n\nIt said they accepted allegations against him without investigating them objectively and had not appreciated his vulnerability as a refugee.\n\nThe report said: \"As an Iranian man living in this environment, Mr Ebrahimi was disadvantaged by the inappropriate responses by Avon and Somerset Constabulary and Bristol City Council to his racist victimisation.\n\n\"Representatives of those organisations displayed a distinct lack of understanding of his plight and, accordingly, unwitting prejudice against him.\n\n\"There is therefore, based on the definition from the Macpherson report, evidence of both discriminatory behaviour and institutional racism on the part of Bristol City Council and Avon and Somerset Constabulary.\"\n\nThe SBP added that institutional racism was defined as \"the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin\".\n\nThe report makes 14 recommendations, including changes to the way crimes are recorded at Avon and Somerset Police and a staff awareness programme around institutional racism.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Racism \"blighted\" the life of Bijan Ebrahimi, says family lawyer Tony Murphy\n\nMr Ebrahimi's sisters, Mojgan Kahayatian and Manisha Moores, said: \"No review can ever bring back our beloved Bijan but it is important that his voice has been heard.\n\n\"Bijan always said that racism must be challenged wherever it is found, including in town halls and police stations.\n\n\"Bristol City Council took nearly five years to accept that it failed Bijan and the need for change.\n\n\"This is far too long, although late is better than never.\n\n\"We will not rest until improved systems are put in place to protect other vulnerable people.\"\n\nThe family's solicitor, Tony Murphy of Bhatt Murphy, said: \"Acknowledging the institutional nature of the racism at the core of this tragedy is an essential first step towards systemic change.\n\n\"There is no reason why the council could not have taken this step much sooner and its delay has been injurious, not just to Bijan's family, but to public confidence in the council's ability to combat racism. \"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Inspectors at Liverpool jail found filthy, leaking toilets and some areas so hazardous they could not be cleaned\n\nInmates at Liverpool prison are being kept in the worst living conditions inspectors have ever seen, according to a report seen by BBC News.\n\nRats and cockroaches were rife, with one area of the jail so dirty, infested and hazardous it could not be cleaned.\n\nSome prisoners live in cells that should be condemned, says the leaked document, with exposed electrical wiring and filthy, leaking lavatories.\n\nThe Ministry of Justice said it didn't comment on leaked documents.\n\nPrison inspectors made what they called an unannounced visit to HMP Liverpool in September, having been made aware of concerns.\n\nWhat they found, says the report, was an \"abject failure… to offer a safe, decent and purposeful environment\".\n\nCockroaches: There was no credible plan to tackle the most basic issues, says the report\n\nThe \"highly experienced\" inspection team said they \"could not recall having seen worse living conditions than those at HMP Liverpool\".\n\nHighlighting one particular incident, the chief inspector, Peter Clarke, could not contain his exasperation.\n\n\"I found a prisoner who had complex mental health needs being held in a cell that had no furniture other than a bed,\" he said.\n\n\"The windows of both the cell and the toilet recess were broken, the light fitting in his toilet was broken with wires exposed, the lavatory was filthy and appeared to be blocked, his sink was leaking and the cell was dark and damp.\n\n\"Extraordinarily, this man had apparently been held in this condition for some weeks.\"\n\nThe inspectors found broken windows with jutting glass in cells\n\nThe chief cause of the problems, says the report, was a failure of leadership - at local, regional and national level.\n\nViolence of all kinds had increased, fuelled by the prevalence of drugs, with most inmates telling inspectors it was \"easy or very easy\" to get drugs.\n\nIn addition however, inspectors found allegations of excessive use of force by prison officers were not properly investigated by managers.\n\nSome officers are described as having a \"dismissive\" attitude to prisoners, with some staff applying \"unacceptable\" unofficial punishments, such as restricting showers.\n\nThere were more than 2,000 outstanding maintenance jobs, and only 22 of the 89 recommendations made following a poor inspection report in 2015 had been fully implemented.\n\n\"It is hard to understand how the leadership of the prison could have allowed the situation to deteriorate to this extent,\" writes the chief inspector, directly criticising the Ministry of Justice.\n\n\"We saw clear evidence that local prison managers had sought help from regional and national management to improve conditions they knew to be unacceptable long before our arrival, but had met with little response.\"\n\nMost damningly of all perhaps, the report concludes: \"We could see no credible plan to address these basic issues.\"\n\nThe report talks of a failure of leadership locally, regionally and nationally\n\n\"It's as bad a report as I've ever seen,\" said Lord Ramsbotham, a former chief inspector of prisons.\n\n\"But… how could anyone come up from headquarters, go into Liverpool and not feel ashamed about it?\n\n\"How on Earth did the head of the prison service allow the prison to get into that state?\"\n\nAsked if, in light of the report, Liverpool could be described as England's worst jail, Lord Ramsbotham replied: \"I wouldn't dispute that.\"\n\nOne recently released prisoner told the BBC: \"The cockroach problem was so bad, you can hear them gnawing at you at night.\"\n\nAnother said a leaking toilet in his cell had led to him \"waking up with the pad swimming in urine\".\n\nDarren Harley, released last summer, said his time there was like living in a tip\n\nAnd Darren Harley, released in the summer after 27 months inside for drugs offences, said the prison was \"like living in a tip\".\n\n\"If you put a dog in a place like this, people would come and take you away and lock you up for cruelty to animals.\n\n\"We're human beings. So we need to be treated right.\"\n\nHMP Liverpool may now have the unwelcome attribute of being labelled England's worst jail, but prisons across England and Wales are under pressure.\n\nUnder the coalition government, the then Justice Secretary Chris Grayling dramatically cut prison budgets and staff.\n\nSince the cuts, there has been a rapid rise in suicides, self-harm, violence and assaults within prisons.\n\nRecognising its errors, the Ministry of Justice is in the process of hiring 2,500 new prison officers by next summer.\n\nThe governor of HMP Liverpool, Peter Francis, was removed within days of the inspection visit, and last week a former officer at the jail, Pia Sinha, was appointed as his replacement.\n\nIn a statement on the failings at Liverpool, a Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: \"We do not comment on leaked reports.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Footage of the fire at Cameron House\n\nTwo guests have died after fire broke out at the Cameron House Hotel beside Loch Lomond.\n\nMore than 200 guests were evacuated from the luxury resort after the alarm was raised at about 06:40.\n\nPolice said one person was pronounced dead at the scene while another died after being taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.\n\nA newly-married couple and their young son were taken to hospital for treatment and later discharged.\n\nPolice Scotland said the hotel, near Balloch, had been extensively damaged.\n\nPolice and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service confirmed that two people had died\n\nA number of guests were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation.\n\nThe three people taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow were members of the same family who were rescued by firefighters.\n\nSpeaking to the media gathered at the hotel's entrance, David McGown of the Scottish Fire and Rescue said: \"Unfortunately, and tragically, this has resulted in two people losing their life as a result of the fire.\n\n\"The fire and rescue service's condolences go out to the people involved in this tragic incident and our thoughts are very much with the family and friends of the two people who lost their lives this morning.\n\n\"The fire has caused extensive damage to the central section of the hotel.\n\n\"Our crews have been working tirelessly since 07:00. We have 14 fire appliances at its height tackling this fire and more than 70 firefighters.\n\n\"As you can imagine, as well as being an absolutely tragic incident where people have lost their lives, it is an extremely complicated incident and fire to contain and will continue to do so.\n\n\"We will continue to work with partners to bring this incident to a conclusion.\"\n\nCh Insp Donald Leitch from Police Scotland said work was ongoing to establish the cause of the fire.\n\nHe said: \"Police Scotland were called to Cameron House Hotel where 200 people were evacuated from the hotel which has been partly damaged.\n\n\"One person was pronounced dead at the scene. Four were taken to hospital where one person tragically died.\"\n\nA report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal.\n\nFourteen fire appliances were sent to the scene\n\nFirefighters used jets to tackle the flames and smoke\n\nSmoke rises over Loch Lomond from the fire, as seen from Balloch\n\nA guest at the hotel told BBC Radio Scotland how she initially thought the fire alarm was a drill.\n\nAinsley Huxham said: \"As soon as we left our room - I just thought it was a fire alarm, just like a practise go.\n\n\"But when we left - five stairs down from our room - we saw a whole room full of smoke and flames.\n\n\"So we had to run back down the hall, chapped on everyone's doors and shouted 'fire!'.\"\n\nEmergency services working at the scene of the fire watched by guests\n\nShe added: \"We got out within five minutes of the fire brigade getting called.\n\n\"And by the time we had got outside, the whole field was full of people.\"\n\nStaff who turned up for their shifts at the hotel during the morning were being stopped at the entrance.\n\nMuch of the interior of the main central section of the hotel, thought to be the oldest part, was visibly blackened, with upper floor windows smashed to allow the firefighters' water jets access to the flames.\n\nThe Salvation Army were in attendance to provide the emergency services with food and drink.\n\nOne woman who works in the kitchen told the BBC news website she just heard about the fire as she was getting ready for work.\n\nShe said she didn't believe the news until she came down and saw the smoke.\n\n\"It's a really lovely hotel,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm so sorry to see this.\"\n\nStewart King, general manager of the neighbouring Duck Bay Marina, said he had been down to the hotel and was shocked by the extent of the damage.\n\n\"It was very bad,\" he said.\n\nGuests were sheltered in Cameron House's Boathouse restaurant while the situation was ongoing.\n\nCameron House is one of Scotland's most luxurious hotels, with views across Loch Lomond.\n\nThe venue offers a romantic location for weddings, a championship standard course for golfers and five-star facilities for guests.\n\nThe chef Martin Wishart has a Michelin-starred restaurant at the hotel.\n\nCameron House is owned by US investment firm KSL Capital Partners, which was reported to have paid between £70m and £80m for the 132-room property in 2015.\n\nA statement on the hotel's website read: \"Due to an ongoing incident please be aware that Cameron House will remain closed to arriving guests for at least the next 72 hours.\n\n\"We would ask all guests and customers to remain patient as we work with the emergency services to establish the extent of the damage and ascertain when we will be able to re-open.\n\n\"More information will follow in due course.\"\n\nFlags were being flown at half-mast at West Dunbartonshire Council buildings.\n\nProvost William Hendrie said: \"For something like this to happen so close to Christmas is just too painful to comprehend.\n\n\"I know the staff at Cameron House will also be devastated and our thoughts also go out to them.\"\n\nAndy Roger, resort director at Cameron House, said the hotel was working closely with investigators to identify the cause of the fire.\n\n\"The safety and well-being of our guests, employees and neighbours is our first priority, and our deepest condolences are with the families of those affected.\n\n\"We are working closely with the authorities to determine the cause of the fire, and to provide support to our guests and the families of those affected.\"\n\nCameron House situated by Loch Lomond is one of Scotland's most prestigious hotels\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "With its high literacy rate and traditional mercantile culture, Lebanon has been an important commercial hub for the Middle East.\n\nIt has also often been at the centre of Middle Eastern conflicts, despite its small size, because of its borders with Syria and Israel and its uniquely complex communal make-up.\n\nShia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Christians and Druze are the main population groups in a country that has been a refuge for the region's minorities for centuries.\n\nThe post is currently vacant. After Michel Aoun left the presidency in 2022, prime minister Najib Mikati said he would not be assuming the powers of the presidency, as they would be delegated to the council of ministers as a whole, as per Lebanon's constitution, which does not allow for an interim president.\n\nNajib Mikati, Lebanon's richest man, returned to head the government in September 2021, having served as prime minister twice before.\n\nHis appointment ended months of political paralysis, as the country struggled with a collapsing economy and nearly two years of protests demanding wholesale political reform.\n\nLebanon had been without a government since Hassan Diab resigned after a massive blast destroyed Beirut port and the surrounding area in August 2020.\n\nLebanon's broadcasting scene is developed, lively and diverse, and reflects the country's pluralism and divisions.\n\nIt was the first Arab country to permit private radio and TV. These outlets dominate the broadcasting scene and air some of the most outspoken TV talk shows in the region.\n\nMuch of downtown Beirut has been rebuilt after being devastated during the civil war\n\n1920 - The League of Nations grants the mandate for Lebanon and Syria to France, which creates the State of Greater Lebanon out of the provinces of Mount Lebanon, north Lebanon, south Lebanon and the Bekaa.\n\n1926 - Lebanese Representative Council approves a constitution and the unified Lebanese Republic under the French mandate is declared.\n\n1944 - France agrees to transfer power to the Lebanese government.\n\n1958 - Faced with increasing opposition which develops into a civil war, President Camille Chamoune asks the US to send troops to preserve Lebanon's independence. The US sends marines.\n\n1967 - Lebanon plays no active role in the Arab-Israeli war but is to be affected by its aftermath when Palestinians use Lebanon as a base for attacks on Israel.\n\n1975 - Phalangist gunmen ambush a bus in Beirut's Ayn-al-Rummanah district, killing 27 mainly Palestinian passengers, claiming guerrillas had previously attacked a nearby church. These clashes start Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.\n\n1976 - Syrian troops enter Lebanon to restore peace but also to curb the Palestinians, thousands of whom are killed in a siege of the Tel al-Zaatar camp by Syrian-allied Christian militias in Beirut.\n\n1978 - In reprisal for a Palestinian attack, Israel launches a major invasion of southern Lebanon. It withdraws from all but a narrow border strip, which it hands over to its proxy South Lebanon Army mainly Christian militia.\n\n1982 - Following an attempted assassination of Israel's UK ambassador by a Palestinian splinter group, Israel launches a full-scale invasion of Lebanon.\n\n1982 - Pro-Israeli president-elect Bachir Gemayel is assassinated. Israel occupies West Beirut. Phalangist militia kills thousands of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps. US, French and Italian peacekeeping force arrives in Beirut.\n\n1983 - Suicide attack on US embassy kills 63 people in April, and another in October on the headquarters of the peacekeepers kills 241 US and 58 French troops. US troops withdraw in 1984.\n\n1985 - Most Israeli troops withdraw apart from a \"security zone\" in the south.\n\n1988 - Outgoing President Amine Gemayel appoints an interim military government under Maronite commander Michel Aoun in East Beirut after inconclusive presidential elections. Prime Minister Selim el-Hoss forms a mainly Muslim rival administration in West Beirut.\n\n1989 - Parliament meets in Taif, Saudi Arabia, to endorse a Charter of National Reconciliation transferring much of the authority of the president to the cabinet and boosting the number of Muslim MPs.\n\n1990 - The Syrian air force attacks the Presidential Palace at Baabda and Aoun flees. This formally ends the civil war.\n\n1991 - The National Assembly orders the dissolution of all militias, except for the powerful Shia group Hezbollah. The Lebanese army defeats the PLO and takes over the southern port of Sidon.\n\n1992 - After the first elections since 1972, wealthy businessman Rafik Hariri becomes prime minister.\n\n2005 - Former prime minister Rafik Hariri is killed by a car bomb in Beirut, sparking anti-Syrian rallies and a political crisis.\n\n2006 - Israel attacks after Hezbollah kidnaps two Israeli soldiers. Civilian casualties are high and there is widespread damage in the 34-day war. UN peacekeeping force deploys along the southern border, followed by Lebanese army troops for first time in decades.\n\n2008 - Lebanon establishes diplomatic relations with Syria for first time since both countries gained independence.\n\n2012 - The Syrian civil war that began in March 2011 spills over into Lebanon in clashes between Sunni Muslims and Alawites in Tripoli and Beirut.\n\n2013 - European Union lists the military wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.\n\n2014 - UN says there are now more than one million Syrian refugees in Lebanon.\n\n2020 - Government quits after months of protests over falls in the value of the currency, the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown, and rioting after a massive chemical explosion in Beirut's port.\n\nTourism and leisure are important to the Lebanese economy\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played\n\nTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Sebastián Piñera will serve as president for the second time\n\nA conservative billionaire and former president, Sebastián Piñera, has won Chile's presidential election run-off.\n\nLeft-winger Alejandro Guillier conceded and congratulated his opponent on his win and his return to the presidency after a four-year gap.\n\nWith nearly all votes counted, Mr Piñera polled more than 54%.\n\nIt is a clear move to the right for the country, which is currently led by socialist President Michelle Bachelet. She had backed Mr Guillier.\n\nAbout 14 million were eligible to vote in the ballot, including, for the first time, Chileans living abroad.\n\nHowever, voter turnout was low, at 48.5%. It had been thought that a high turnout would favour Mr Guillier.\n\nMr Piñera called for unity after his victory:\n\n\"Chile needs agreements more than confrontations,\" he said. \"The paths of the future unite us. Sometimes the stories of the past separate us.\"\n\nReaching out to his opponent, Mr Piñera added: \"I want to talk to him about the points we agree about.\"\n\nMr Guillier recognised his \"harsh defeat\" in the election while congratulating his opponent\n\nBillionaire businessman Mr Piñera won the first round of votes by a large margin, when the number of candidates reduced from eight to two for a final run-off.\n\nHe has already governed the country from 2010 to 2014, when he ended two decades of uninterrupted centre-left rule. But the former president and his Chile Vamos coalition had only a slim lead in the most recent opinion polls before Sunday's election vote.\n\nHe had the support of the business community, promising to lower taxes to get the economy growing again.\n\nDuring his campaign, he promised to rein in the reforms brought in by President Bachelet, while his opponent Mr Guillier, on the other hand, campaigned on the back of her legacy.\n\nWhile President Bachelet's progressive agenda has won plaudits abroad, her popularity plummeted during her second term, due in part to a 2015 corruption scandal involving her daughter-in-law.\n\nThis year, however, the president overcame conservative opposition to successfully ease Chile's strict anti-abortion laws.\n\nConservative critics say Ms Bachelet pushed her reforms too far. She was unable to seek re-election under the country's constitution.\n\nAs votes closed, projections indicated a victory for Mr Piñera, causing celebration among his supporters\n\nMr Guillier represents six parties in a left-wing coalition. He beat former president Ricardo Lagos for the Socialist Party nomination in April 2017, promising to continue Ms Bachulet's reforms.\n\nA decade ago, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Venezuela were all governed by left-wing leaders.\n\nBut in recent years, conservatives have come to power in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, and Venezuela's \"Bolivarian Revolution\" has come under severe pressure with anti-government protesters taking to the streets for months. The win by Mr Piñera further consolidates that trend.", "The family of Bijan Ebrahimi, who was murdered following failures by Avon and Somerset Police and Bristol City Council, has welcomed a report which found evidence of institutional racism in both organisations.\n\nThe council and police say they accept the report's findings.\n\nMr Ebrahimi's sister Manisha Moores said the findings were \"shocking\".", "The European Commission is to open an in-depth investigation into Ikea's corporate tax structure.\n\nThe Commission said Dutch-based Inter Ikea, one of the Swedish giant's two divisions, may have been given unfair tax advantages by the Netherlands.\n\nEuropean Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said all firms \"big or small, multinational or not, should pay their fair share of tax\".\n\nThe EU will look at whether Ikea's tax affairs breach EU rules on state aid.\n\nUnder EU law, member states cannot give selective tax benefits to multinational groups that are not available to other firms.\n\n\"The Commission has concerns that two [Dutch] tax rulings may have given Inter Ikea Systems an unfair advantage compared to other companies,\" it said.\n\nThe move is the latest crackdown by the EU competition authority on tax deals between EU countries and multi-nationals.\n\nA spokesman for Inter Ikea Group said the way it had been taxed \"has in our view been in accordance with EU rules\".\n\n\"It is good if the investigation can bring clarity and confirm that,\" he added.\n\nThe Commission's Ikea inquiry is focused on two tax agreements between the Netherlands and Inter Ikea which it alleges \"have significantly reduced\" the firm's taxable profits in the Netherlands.\n\nNetherlands-based Inter Ikea operates the franchise business of Ikea. It collects royalties from other parts of Ikea and pays little tax on the proceeds.\n\nThe Commission says that in 2006, a Dutch tax ruling enabled Inter Ikea to pay a \"significant\" annual licence fee to another Ikea unit in Luxembourg, thereby shifting revenue to a jurisdiction where it remained untaxed.\n\nThen in 2011, after the Luxembourg tax scheme was deemed illegal, Inter Ikea arranged a second tax ruling with the Netherlands.\n\nThis ruling focused on a loan deal with an Ikea unit in Liechtenstein, which enabled Inter Ikea to shift \"a significant part of its franchise profits\" to a low-tax jurisdiction.\n\nA senior Dutch EU official said it would look at the details of the case.\n\n\"The Netherlands fully supports the Commission's work,\" they added.\n\nRichard Murphy, professor of practice in international political economy at City University, said Ikea's tax arrangements were \"unusually complicated\" and as a result, an EU probe was \"inevitable\".\n\n\"Is their level of tax disproportionate to their overall activity in a country is undoubtedly what [the European Commission] are looking at here,\" he said.\n\nThe European Commission is not so much worried about different countries in the European Union having different tax policies, in fact considering it is supposed to be one, seamless market, there are a whole range of company tax rates and policies across the EU.\n\nWhat it does not like are tax deals that are available for one type of company, huge multi-nationals, but not to everyone else.\n\nYour local High Street furniture store has enough trouble competing with the likes of Ikea, with its massive stores, name recognition, buying power and marketing budget, without Ikea also having access to tax breaks that it could never use.\n\nThat is why Ikea is just the latest in a long line of giant companies that the European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has gone after.\n\nShe has already had Amazon, McDonalds and Apple in her sights, and this is big-game hunting; Apple alone was found to have benefited to the tune of £11.5bn in unfair tax breaks.\n\nThe EU's competition chief Margrethe Vestager is worried giant firms are gaining unfair advantages over smaller rivals\n\nThe Commission has recently ordered various member states to collect billons of euros' worth of back taxes from Apple, Starbucks, Amazon and Fiat.\n\nThe European Commission is worried that giant companies gain an unfair advantage over smaller rivals which have no chance of using similar tax schemes.", "The head of the National Infrastructure Commission has called for urgent action to tackle poor mobile phone coverage.\n\nLord Adonis has written to the telecoms regulator Ofcom urging it to take action to deal with the issue.\n\nIt follows a report that one million homes have poor broadband and large parts of the UK have no 4G coverage.\n\nOn Friday Ofcom said calls and text messages could not be sent on all four mobile phone networks in 30% of the entire UK landmass.\n\nIt is not the first time Lord Adonis has criticised the state of the UK's mobile and broadband services.\n\nIn October he launched a public consultation on the quality of the state of UK infrastructure generally, but singled out mobile services as an area needing urgent attention.\n\nNow, in his letter, Lord Adonis says that Ofcom and the government need to \"put all options on the table\" to tackle coverage black spots. These should include possible legal and regulatory changes, he said.\n\nThe chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission said that it was a concern that four out of five rural homes did not have any 4G service indoors.\n\n\"In an age when access to a mobile signal is regarded as a must-have, it is deplorable that even in areas previously considered to have strong coverage, operators are still delivering such poor services that customers can struggle to make a quick phone call,\" he said.\n\n\"It demonstrates the need for urgent and radical action to tackle this issue immediately, ahead of new mobile spectrum being auctioned and 5G technology being rolled out,\" he said.\n\nThe former Labour transport secretary said significantly higher signal strengths were required to improve customer service and mobile phone companies should share masts where appropriate.\n\nThe government minister overseeing the sector agreed that industry must do more.\n\nMatt Hancock, minister for digital, said there was a \"clear need\" for rapid improvements to mobile coverage.\n\n\"We've recently removed outdated restrictions, giving mobile operators more freedom to improve their networks including hard-to-reach rural areas,\" he said.\n\n\"But industry needs to play its part too through continued investment and improvement in their networks, making sure that customers are not paying for services they don't receive.\"\n\nOfcom said it agreed that mobile coverage should urgently improve and it was setting new rules for operators' licences.", "Police in Lebanon have arrested an Uber driver in connection with the murder of a British woman in Beirut.\n\nThe body of Rebecca Dykes, who worked at the British Embassy in the city, was found by a motorway on Saturday.\n\nThe arrested man was 35 and has served several prison sentences, a senior Lebanese security source told the BBC.\n\nMs Dykes had been sexually assaulted and strangled, and the man is expected to be charged with rape and murder later this week, police sources said.\n\nHer family said in a statement: \"We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. We are doing all we can to understand what happened.\"\n\nMs Dykes, who is believed to have been 30, had been working in Beirut as the programme and policy manager for the Department for International Development since January 2017.\n\nIt is thought she spent Friday evening at a going-away party for a colleague in the popular Gemmayzeh district of Beirut.\n\nAfter leaving the bar at about midnight it appears she was abducted. Her body was found close to a motorway on the outskirts of the city.\n\nThe body of Rebecca Dykes was found near a main road outisde Beirut\n\nThe Foreign Office said it was in contact with the Lebanese authorities and confirmed an arrest had been made.\n\nThe suspect was arrested in the early hours of Monday morning after police reportedly traced his car on traffic management CCTV.\n\nAn official told the Reuters and AFP news agencies the preliminary investigation had showed Ms Dykes's killing \"was not politically motivated\".\n\nThe Gemmayzeh district of Beirut where Rebecca Dykes was last seen alive is well-known for having some of the city's best and most expensive bars and restaurants.\n\nThere is normally a relaxed atmosphere. It is a neighbourhood where foreign aid workers, diplomats and journalists mingle with wealthy Lebanese often into the early hours of the morning.\n\nDespite the chaos seen elsewhere in the region, Beirut in recent years has been regarded as relatively safe. That is why this murder has left the international community so shocked.\n\nAfter a late night out, many people would previously have thought nothing of catching one of the cabs that ply the streets, or calling for an Uber.\n\nFor a short while, anyway, that is likely to change. People will be more careful about how they get home. Beirut may be relatively safe but - as in any big city across the world - this murder is a reminder of the dangers.\n\nJosie Ensor, the Daily Telegraph's correspondent in Beirut, says the case has left foreign residents in the city unsettled.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, she said Beirut was a \"very tight-knit community, so when something happens to one person, it feels quite close\".\n\nMs Ensor, who was due to attend the same party on Friday evening, added Ms Dykes \"had just landed on her feet in Beirut and was starting to make friends and getting to know the city\".\n\nHugo Shorter, the British Ambassador to Lebanon, said the whole embassy was \"deeply shocked\" and \"saddened\" by the news.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Hugo Shorter This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTributes were paid to Ms Dykes in the House of Lords on Monday.\n\nFormer Conservative MP Lady McIntosh said: \"The loss of Rebecca Dykes in these circumstances is felt very deeply.\n\n\"And can we pay tribute to the work that she and the all Dfid team do, often in very dangerous circumstances, particularly at this time of year, for humanitarian purposes?\"\n\nThe International Development Minister Lord Bates added: \"It's obviously a very distressing time, particularly for Becky's family, but also for the people who worked with her.\n\n\"It reminds us of the sacrifice which is made by over 1,200 Dfid personnel who work around the world, often in the most difficult and dangerous of environments.\"\n\nA Dfid spokesman said: \"Our thoughts are with Becky's family and friends at this very upsetting time.\n\n\"There is now a police investigation and the Foreign Office is providing consular support to Becky's family and working with the local authorities‎.\"\n\nRebecca Dykes had been working in Beirut since January 2017\n\nPrior to her posting in Beirut, Ms Dykes worked with the Foreign Office as a policy manager for its Libya team and as an Iraq research analyst.\n\nAccording to her LinkedIn profile, she studied anthropology at the University of Manchester, and had a master's in International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck, University of London.\n\nShe was a former pupil of Malvern Girls' College and Rugby School, and had also taught English at a Chinese international school.\n\nMs Dykes had reportedly been due to fly back to the UK for Christmas. She says on social media that she is from London.", "Amazon's promise of next-day deliveries could be investigated amid customer complaints that it is failing to meet that pledge.\n\nThe UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is considering whether to launch a formal inquiry into Amazon.\n\nThe ASA said: \"We have received a handful of complaints about Amazon parcel deliveries and we are at the initial assessment stage.\"\n\nAn Amazon spokesman told the BBC the ASA had confirmed to it there was no investigation at this time.\n\nThe ASA said there had been five complaints since the start of the month.\n\nAmazon offers free delivery above a certain minimum spend, but express, unlimited delivery for Prime customers.\n\nIt also offers this coming Saturday, 23 December, as its final order date for Christmas orders, three days later than the Wednesday offered for non-Prime customers.\n\nThe BBC has been inundated with comments from Amazon Prime customers. Most reported problems with deliveries.\n\nGary from Farnham in Surrey, said: \"Our Amazon Prime deliveries often miss their 'next day' target. We always make a point of complaining, and are generally given a 30-day extension to our annual subscription.\"\n\nCraig from Carluke in South Lanarkshire, said his Prime orders were rarely delivered within a day: \"They offer next-day delivery but it actually takes two days to come, which also isn't part of the agreement which I pay for. Not acceptable.\"\n\nBut other customers were happy. One pointed out that it was \"unreasonable\" to expect perfection every time. \"It is a fantastic service and it is totally unreasonable to expect that things may rarely not work out,\" he said.\n\nAmazon advises customers to contact customer services if they do not receive a parcel by the estimated delivery date.\n\nThe consumer rights group Which? points out that a company missing its delivery date is in breach of contract.\n\nIt says that consumers have the right to terminate the purchase and get a full refund in that instance.\n\nIt says the first step should be to contact the retailer directly to make a complaint that a parcel has not been delivered and request they take action to remedy the situation.", "Public health experts say the use of anabolic steroids is one the rise\n\nTens of thousands of people may be at increased risk of dying early from heart attacks and strokes by misusing anabolic steroids, according to doctors.\n\nThe British Cardiovascular Society gave the warning amid concern steroids are now being taken by hundreds of thousands of people.\n\nPublic health experts say men in their teens and 20s are behind the rise.\n\nSteroids are legal to use but illegal to supply, unless you're a doctor.\n\nAs well as heart attacks and strokes, NHS guidelines show people who misuse anabolic steroids also risk health problems like infertility and mood swings.\n\nGareth Jenkins, 29, who lives just outside Cardiff says he's been using them for nearly five years.\n\n\"Everything that we do in life now carries the risk of heart attack, cancer whatever it is - so I'm going to get those risks anyway,\" he says.\n\nGareth says he doesn't smoke or drink - and that's why he feels it is ok to take steroids.\n\n\"It's still probably stupid from a medical point of view. But that's the way I choose to live my life.\"\n\nSteroid user Gareth Jenkins underwent a series of tests to find out what damage, if any, he'd done to his heart\n\nGareth agreed to be put through a series of health checks to see what, if any damage, he'd done to his body.\n\nThe tests showed the wall of his heart had thickened and the results were \"at the very edge of normal\".\n\nHearing what had happened to his heart concerned Gareth.\n\n\"I class myself as a sensible person. I don't want to push things to a point that's irreversible.\"\n\nWhile he doesn't plan to stop taking steroids immediately, he says he will aim to come off them \"in the next one or two years\".\n\nOne illegal supplier says many of his clients are young guys\n\nAnabolic steroids cause an imbalance of hormones which can damage many different organs, but in particular the heart.\n\nIf you're found guilty of supplying them you can face a prison sentence of up to 14 years.\n\nBut that hasn't stopped one man, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, from dealing them.\n\nHe told Newsbeat there's a \"very broad spectrum of people that use steroids\".\n\n\"It ranges from young guys at 18, 19 or 20 - and they're just starting training and they're looking to bulk out for a summer holiday or just to attract the girls.\"\n\nHe says that's different to even just a few years ago - when most steroid users were in it for the long term, not just for a quick, cosmetic fix.\n\n\"These are the guys who are less aware. So you do have to tell them about the risks,\" he says.\n\nAnd that change has been recognised at professional level too.\n\n\"We're seeing now a different population of steroid users, predominantly young men who are using purely for cosmetic purposes,\" says Jim McVeigh, one of the UK's leading experts on anabolic steroid misuse.\n\nHe points to social media and advertising as being partly to blame.\n\n\"Whenever you see a man with his shirt off on TV, the chances are he'll have a quite a well defined physique,\" says Jim.\n\n\"This is something women have had to deal with for generations but this is quite a new thing for men.\"\n\nIf you've got any questions on this story check out the BBC Radio 1 Advice pages.\n\nFind us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Passengers reacted with delight when the lights came back on\n\nPassengers at the world's busiest airport faced a second day of disruption on Monday after a power cut led to hundreds of cancellations.\n\nAtlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport lost power on Sunday, affecting tens of thousands of people.\n\nPassengers were left in darkened terminals or on board planes.\n\nPower was restored overnight and a handful of passenger flights resumed just after 06:00 local time (11:00 GMT) on Monday.\n\nHundreds of other flights, however, were cancelled.\n\nThe airport is the world's busiest, handling more than 250,000 passengers and almost 2,500 flights every day. But during its first hour of operation on Monday morning, fewer than a dozen commercial flights departed.\n\nA number of cargo flights had operated during the partial shutdown.\n\nMany hundreds of flights have been cancelled\n\nThousands remain stranded in the airport awaiting rescheduled flights. In a statement, the airport said it had distributed more than 5,000 meals to waiting passengers.\n\nSecurity processing began at about 03:30 local time, it said, but those with tickets dated Sunday would need to reprint them to pass through checkpoints.\n\nThe airport advised passengers to check the status of their particular flight directly with their airline.\n\nIn a statement, the airport confirmed it had suffered a power cut shortly after 13:00 on Sunday.\n\nMany flights scheduled to arrive from other airports were diverted elsewhere, or held at their departure airport.\n\nGeorgia Power, which supplies the airport's electricity, said it believed a fire at an underground electrical facility had caused the power cut. Officials said a piece of its switchgear could have failed and started the fire, causing cable damage.\n\nPower was fully restored to the airport around midnight on Sunday.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by cheforhire82 This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAtlanta's mayor confirmed the fire's cause was under investigation, and apologised to the thousands affected.\n\nA number of major airlines, including United, Southwest and American Airlines, completely suspended their operations on Sunday. Each had at least some flights scheduled to depart Monday.\n\nImages shared on social media showed passengers waiting in darkness. Some reported being stuck on board aircraft for six hours.\n\nOne passenger, Jannifer Lee, was travelling to Minnesota from Florida with her 10-year-old pet rescue cat Penny.\n\nHer first flight was stuck for almost four hours at the gate.\n\nMs Lee and her cat spent four hours stuck at the gate on her connecting flight from Florida\n\n\"I was hoping to have a really smooth flight, especially with a cat,\" she told the BBC.\n\n\"I've only ever flown with her for two or three hours before, not a 12-hour journey! I guess animals can be a lot more resilient than people.\"\n\nShe and thousands of others were left stranded without information from airlines about onward travel.\n\n\"There was a lot of confusion on the flight, because the national news knew more about the situation than we did,\" Ms Lee said.\n\nAnother passenger, Naomi Harm, was stranded on the tarmac on a Delta flight from Sacramento, California.\n\nShe told the BBC that airline staff had kept the passengers in good spirits by communicating regularly and handing out any food and drinks they had available.\n\nShe said one passenger seated close to her had been escorted down to the aircraft's cargo area to give insulin to his diabetic pet dog in the hold by an air marshal.\n\nAfter almost four hours she was guided out in darkness after portable steps were found for them to disembark.\n\n\"Inside the terminal there were thousands all over, children crying,\" she said. \"The air conditioning wasn't working and it was very hot inside.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Naomi Harm This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe local police department confirmed it had sent extra officers to help the airport with the situation.\n\nAbout 30,000 passengers were reportedly affected by the power cut.\n\nAtlanta is located within a two-hour flight of 80% of the US population, making the city a major port of entry into the US and a common stopover for travel within the country.\n• None Why do so many people hate US airports?", "Mr Ebrahimi was murdered outside his flat in Brislington in July 2013\n\nThree police officers and a PCSO failed to act on complaints of a disabled man just two days before he was brutally murdered by a neighbour, a court heard.\n\nBijan Ebrahimi, 44, was killed in a vigilante attack in 2013 after he was falsely accused of being a paedophile.\n\nBristol Crown Court was told PCs Kevin Duffy, 52, Leanne Winter, 38, Helen Harris, 40, and PCSO Andrew Passmore 55, saw Mr Ebrahimi as \"a nuisance\".\n\nThey each deny a charge of misconduct in public office.\n\nThe trial follows an investigation by the police watchdog into his death.\n\nOpening the case for the prosecution, Crispin Aylett QC described the events leading up to the murder.\n\nMr Ebrahimi called the police on 11 July 2013 to report he had been attacked by his neighbour Lee James, 26, who suspected him of being a paedophile.\n\nJames, who later admitted murder, was described at the time by PC Winter to be \"foaming at the mouth\" and vowed he would \"do time to protect his children\", the court learned.\n\nMr Aylett said James was with a crowd who all took his side and \"vigilantism was in the air\".\n\nLee James (l) and Steven Morley were jailed in 2013\n\nFollowing the episode, Mr Ebrahimi was arrested but James' threats were overlooked, the court heard.\n\nMr Ebrahimi was released by police the following day, 12 July, and after returning to his home on Capgrave Crescent, Brislington, Bristol, made 12 calls to the police in the hope PC Duffy, the local beat manager, would intervene.\n\nThe prosecution claimed the officer regarded Mr Ebrahimi as a \"liar and a nuisance\" and the defendants were \"not interested\" in his complaints.\n\nThe court heard PC Duffy asked PCSO Passmore to patrol the area and Mr Passmore claimed to have spent an hour in the area.\n\n\"The truth is that he can only have driven up and down the road,\" Mr Aylett said.\n\n\"Had something been done, Lee James would have at least known the police were keeping an eye.\n\n\"This was a toxic situation that required proactive policing,\" he added.\n\n\"Instead we allege that these individuals failed Mr Ebrahimi. It's not just incompetence - we suggest they disliked Mr Ebrahimi.\"\n\nTwo days later James attacked Mr Ebrahimi outside his flat then, with help, set fire to his body.\n\nHe pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence. Accomplice Steven Morley was sentenced to four years in prison for assisting an offender.\n\nEarlier, PC Duffy told the court Mr Ebrahimi's complaints about various neighbours were always met with counter-allegations.\n\nAfter Mr Ebrahimi's death, the police watchdog interviewed PC Duffy. He told them his \"experience\" of dealing with Mr Ebrahimi \"taught\" him to \"evaluate all information\" and \"seek other accounts\" before filing a report.\n\nProsecuting, Mr Aylett added that PC Duffy's \"starting point\" was to \"disbelieve\" Mr Ebrahimi unless it was corroborated.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Jensen and Beesley attended the Emmy Awards in 2008\n\nAshley Jensen has been left \"devastated\" after the sudden death of her husband Terence Beesley.\n\nThe 60-year-old died late last month at their home in Somerset. The information was only made public on Sunday.\n\nBeesley, who had starred in Victoria, married Jensen in 2007 after meeting on the set of a play. They have an eight-year-old son together.\n\nUgly Betty and Extras actress Jensen is currently starring in BBC drama Love, Lies and Records.\n\nA spokesman for Jensen said: \"Ashley is devastated and respectfully asks for privacy for her, her young child and the family at this extremely sad and difficult time.\"\n\nJensen is currently starring in BBC One's Love, Lies and Records\n\nBeesley was perhaps best known for playing Buxton in ITV's Victoria and General Bennigsen in BBC One's War and Peace.\n\nHe had also been the first actor to star as Derek Branning in EastEnders and also appeared in film London Has Fallen in 2016.\n\nHis representative said: \"It is with great sadness that I can confirm that Terence passed away at the end of November.\"\n\nThe couple met in 1999 when they appeared in a London theatre production of King Lear, marrying eight years later while Jensen was filming in America.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Passenger Chris Karnes describes the moment an Amtrak train derailed and crashed onto a highway below in Washington state.", "Last updated on .From the section Sports Personality\n\nWorld 10,000m champion Sir Mo Farah said he was in shock and \"can't stop staring at the trophy\" after being voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year.\n\nThe 34-year-old had been considered third favourite by bookmakers, but topped the poll ahead of motorcyclist Jonathan Rea and Para-athlete Jonnie Peacock.\n\n\"To be honest, I'm kind of shocked. I didn't prepare any speech,\" Farah, 34, said via a video link after the show.\n\nBoxer Anthony Joshua, rated favourite to win, was just 18 votes behind Peacock in fourth place.\n\nFarah, the winner of 10 major global titles, has just moved back to England from the United States and was not in Liverpool for the awards show.\n• None Relive how Farah won Sports Personality of the Year 2017\n• None Sports Personality - the night in video, pictures and on social\n\nIn a chaotic interview from London during the programme, his stepdaughter Rhianna was alongside him, helping to take care of Farah's two-year-old son Hussein who was suffering from a sickness bug and wanting cuddles.\n\nAs the result was announced, millions of viewers saw Farah's initial delight at winning the award before the video link cut out.\n\nAfter the show, the Somali-born Londoner told the media: \"I can't stop staring at the trophy. I do owe it to the public, to the people who voted for me and supported me.\n\n\"It's incredible, amazing. To be honest with you, I never thought I would win having come so close before.\n\n\"What a night. It's been very entertaining. I've got my son pulling my mic and Rhianna shouting out. [Presenter] Gabby [Logan] was talking to me and I couldn't even hear what she was saying. I can't do two things at once - I can't.\"\n\nFarah, one of 12 contenders for the award, has been shortlisted five times before and enjoyed his previous highest finish of third in 2011.\n\n\"Over the years, I've come third, fourth, or thereabouts, and I was like 'this thing, is hard to win'. But I guess you just got to do what you've got to do and over the past 10 years I've been very lucky with the career I've had and the support I've had,\" he said.\n\n\"The people who voted at home for me and have supported me on the track - without their support it's a long road and I wouldn't have done it without them, they keep me grafting.\n\n\"It's been an incredible night. I do wish I was there. It would have been nice to give back to the people. The most important thing in my life is my family.\n\n\"My son's ill, the twins have been sick. It's been a pretty hard transition moving back from the US to here. They've been struggling a bit.\n\n\"You saw my son and, in fact, he was throwing up everywhere in the other room.\"\n\nFarah won with 83,524 votes, ahead of World Superbikes champion Rea (80,567) and Paralympic sprint champion Peacock (73,429).\n\nJoshua was fourth despite beating Wladimir Klitschko in front of 90,000 fans at Wembley, and retaining his WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles with victory over Carlos Takam.\n\nFor Farah, a third successive World Championship 10,000m gold medal was the highlight of a year in which he also won a world 5,000m silver, missing out on a fifth major championships distance double in a row.\n\nThe four-time Olympic champion received a knighthood from the Queen at Buckingham Palace in November.\n\nHe bowed out from his track career with a 5,000m victory at the Diamond League event in Zurich in August and will now concentrate on road races.\n\n\"I'm looking forward to the marathon training. It's not easy, but it's exciting and you have to graft. My challenge is to compete fully in the marathon and go out as far as I can - and, who knows, get to the 2020 Olympics,\" he said.\n\nAsked if an Olympic marathon victory would top his achievements so far, he said: \"It would definitely top it. There's no athlete that's ever gone all the way up from the track straight to the marathon and been successful.\n\n\"I want to do the marathon and go all the way. If I'm in great shape and things are good, I will go for 2020.\"\n\nFarah becomes the first long-distance runner to win the Sports Personality award since Paula Radcliffe in 2002.\n\nFormer Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill, who received the Lifetime Achievement award, paid tribute.\n\n\"There was a bit of bit of drama at the end with the result, but I think Mo's had a fantastic year, a fantastic career,\" she said.\n\n\"It shows that he's definitely got the public behind him. He wouldn't have won otherwise. I think he will be very happy.\n\n\"He definitely deserves it and it's great to see athletics back on the top again.\"\n\nIt was a night of high emotion with the parents of Bradley Lowery given a standing ovation by the 11,000 crowd at the Echo Arena as they collected a posthumous honour.\n\nSunderland fan and club mascot Bradley, who died aged six from a rare form of cancer, was named the winner of the Helen Rollason Award.\n\nThe award, for achievement in the face of adversity, is in memory of the BBC presenter who died of cancer in 1999.\n\n\"I'm so proud to be here to collect this on Bradley's behalf,\" his mum Gemma said.\n\n\"It's amazing to know that even though he was my baby, the nation are still behind us. I can't believe he was even trending on Twitter this morning.\"\n\nBradley's positive attitude and cheery smile won him admirers across the world and he became \"best mates\" with Sunderland's former striker Jermain Defoe.\n\n\"He was only here for six years and it was a hard six years but he did so much in that short time,\" added Gemma.\n• Phil Foden helped England win the Under-17 World Cup and took the Golden Ball award for the tournament's best player.\n• Denise Larrad for her fundraising work. The 55-year-old has had one sole aim - to get the people of Hinckley in Leicestershire active.\n• Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill won Olympic gold at London 2012 and a silver at the Rio Games four years later.\n• Roger Federer won the award for a record fourth time after claiming his eighth Wimbledon title and 19th Grand Slam in 2017.\n• England women's cricket team produced a stunning fightback to beat India and win the World Cup in July.", "An 84-year-old man chased a knife-wielding burglar from his house during a night-time break-in.\n\nThe elderly man, who suffered hand injuries, refused to hand over cash when the burglar entered his home in Gateshead on Sunday at 21:20 GMT.\n\nThe intruder, thought to be a young man, fled the address at Oakwood Gardens, Lobley Hill.\n\nHe was described as being about 5ft 9in (1.75m) tall, white, of medium build with black crew-cut hair and stubble.\n\nHe was wearing a black tracksuit with white stripes on the arms and a hood, Northumbria Police said.\n\nA spokesman said: \"A man entered the rear of the address and approached the occupant, an 84-year-old man, inside the house and made threats with a knife.\n\n\"The victim refused to hand over any money and chased the offender out of the house [from] where the offender made off down a back path leading under the A1.\n\n\"The victim demonstrated great bravery and courage in this incident, and thankfully he was not seriously injured.\n\n\"An investigation has already been launched and... officers are in the area carrying out house to house enquiries and viewing CCTV to help us identify the man responsible.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Princess Charlotte will begin attending a London nursery school in January, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have announced.\n\nThe couple's daughter, aged two, will start at the Willcocks Nursery School, close to their Kensington Palace home.\n\nEarlier this year Charlotte's brother Prince George, four, started at Thomas's Battersea, an £18,000-a-year prep school.\n\nA spokesperson for Willcocks said it was \"delighted\" by the news.\n\nFees for Willcocks vary depending on age and whether a child goes to the morning or afternoon school.\n\nThe highest cost per term is £3,050 for the morning school.\n\nPreviously Prince George attended the £33-a-day Westacre Montessori School Nursery in Norfolk, near the Duke and Duchess's home in Norfolk, Anmer Hall.\n\nWhen Prince William was an infant, he attended the Minors Nursery School, which was also close to Kensington Palace.\n\nThe Duke of Cambridge was one of the first members of the direct Royal Family to attend a nursery.\n\nIn 2016 he told a Vietnam talk show: \"I would like George and Charlotte to grow up being a little bit more simple in their approach and their outlook.\"\n\nThe news of Princess Charlotte's nursery comes after the royals released the photo which will feature on their Christmas card, taken by Getty Images royal photographer Chris Jackson.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge released their Christmas card photo on the day they announced Princess Charlotte would be attending nursery\n\nThe photo features Prince George and Princess Charlotte both wearing light blue, standing directly in front of the Duke and Duchess.\n\nThe Duchess of Cambridge is currently expecting the couple's third child, which is due in the spring.", "Interviews with former Chancellor Lord Lawson sparked complaints in 2014 and 2017\n\nMedia watchdog Ofcom has launched its first broadcasting standards investigation into the BBC since taking over as its regulator in April.\n\nOfcom will look into whether Radio 4's Today programme broke broadcasting rules during an interview with climate change sceptic Lord Lawson in August.\n\nThe BBC has admitted the item broke its guidelines and said Lord Lawson should have been challenged \"more robustly\".\n\nIt followed a 2014 interview with Lord Lawson that also breached BBC rules.\n\nAfter that appearance, the BBC's editorial complaints unit upheld complaints from three listeners that Today had given undue weight to his views and had conveyed a misleading impression of the scientific evidence.\n\nThe flagship news programme invited the Conservative peer back in August 2017.\n\nOn that occasion, he said \"official figures\" showed average world temperatures had \"slightly declined\" - but he wasn't challenged on air and that view was shown to be false by the Met Office.\n\nThe BBC admitted it should have challenged him and that the interview had breached its \"guidelines on accuracy and impartiality\".\n\nAlthough the BBC upheld the complaints again, one listener referred the matter to Ofcom, saying the BBC hadn't taken sufficient action.\n\nThat prompted the regulator - which took over responsibility for overseeing the BBC's editorial standards in April - to investigate whether the interview broke its broadcasting code.\n\nOfcom said: \"We are investigating whether this interview, which followed a similar interview in 2014, breached our rules on due accuracy and due impartiality.\"\n\nA BBC spokeswoman said: \"We have already acknowledged that we should have challenged some of Lord Lawson's statements more robustly.\n\n\"We recognise the weight of scientific consensus on climate change and the Today programme has covered the subject on many separate occasions with a range of voices from scientific backgrounds.\"\n\nIn 2011, the BBC Trust drew up guidelines saying BBC coverage should reflect the \"general agreement among climate scientists\" that the evidence is in favour of global warming caused by human activity.\n\nThat doesn't mean scientific research shouldn't be properly scrutinised or that sceptical views should be excluded from BBC programmes, according to the guidelines.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Runway Two was closed because of fog\n\nAll flights were temporarily suspended at Manchester Airport due to heavy fog and a \"minor defect\" on a runway.\n\n\"Essential repairs\" were being made to Runway One while weather conditions meant flights were \"unable to make use of Runway Two\", a spokeswoman said.\n\nIt resulted in the cancellation of a number of flights and departure delays of more than five hours.\n\nRunway One was reopened shortly after 17:00 GMT but there were still some delays due to the backlog.\n\nThe spokeswoman said passengers \"should check the status of their flights with their airline\" but added it hoped \"to have passengers on their way with minimal delays\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The first known interstellar asteroid may hold water from another star system in its interior, according to a study.\n\nDiscovered on 19 October, the object's speed and trajectory strongly suggested it originated beyond our Solar System.\n\nThe body showed no signs of \"outgassing\" as it approached the Sun, strengthening the idea that it held little if any water-ice.\n\nBut the latest findings suggest water might be trapped under a thick, carbon-rich coating on its surface.\n\nThe results come as a project to search for life in the cosmos has been using a radio telescope to check for radio signals coming from the strange, elongated object, named 'Oumuamua.\n\nAstronomers from the Breakthrough Listen initiative have been looking across four different radio frequency bands for anything that might resemble a signal resulting from alien technology.\n\nBut their preliminary results have drawn a blank. The latest research - along with a previous academic paper - support a natural origin for the cosmic interloper.\n\nFurthermore, they measured the way that 'Oumuamua reflects sunlight and found it similar to icy objects from our own Solar System that are covered with a dry crust.\n\n\"We've got high signal-to-noise spectra (the 'fingerprint' of light reflected or emitted by the asteroid) both at optical wavelengths and at infrared wavelengths. Putting those together is crucial,\" Prof Alan Fitzsimmons, from Queen's University Belfast (QUB), one of the authors of the new study in Nature Astronomy.\n\nHe added: \"What we do know is that the spectra don't look like something artificial.\"\n\nTheir measurements suggest that millions of years of exposure to cosmic rays have created an insulating, carbon-rich layer on the outside that could have shielded an icy interior from its encounter with the Sun.\n\nThis process of irradiation has left it with a somewhat reddish hue, similar to objects encountered in the frozen outer reaches of our Solar System.\n\n\"When it was near the Sun, the surface would have been 300C (600 Kelvin), but half a metre or more beneath the surface, the ice could have remained,\" Prof Fitzsimmons told BBC News.\n\nThe Gemini North observatory was used to gather observations of 'Oumuamua\n\nPrevious measurements suggest the object is at least 10 times longer than it is wide. That ratio is more extreme than that of any asteroid or comet ever observed in our Solar System. Uncertainties remain as to its size, but it is thought to be at least 400m long.\n\n\"We don't know its mass and so it could still be fragile and have a relatively low density,\" said Prof Fitzsimmons.\n\n\"That would still be consistent with the rate at which it is spinning - which is about once every seven-and-a-half hours or so. Something with the strength of talcum powder would hold itself together at that speed.\"\n\nHe added: \"It's entirely consistent with cometary bodies we've studied - with the Rosetta probe, for example - in our own Solar System.\"\n\nCo-author Dr Michele Bannister, also from QUB, commented: \"We've discovered that this is a planetesimal with a well-baked crust that looks a lot like the tiniest worlds in the outer regions of our Solar System, has a greyish/red surface and is highly elongated, probably about the size and shape of the Gherkin skyscraper in London.\n\n\"It's fascinating that the first interstellar object discovered looks so much like a tiny world from our own home system. This suggests that the way our planets and asteroids formed has a lot of kinship to the systems around other stars.\"\n\nA number of ideas have been discussed to explain the unusual shape of 'Oumuamua. These include the possibility that it could be composed of separate objects that joined together, that a collision between two bodies with molten cores ejected rock that then froze in an elongated shape, and that it is a shard of a bigger object destroyed in a supernova.\n\nArtwork: 'Oumuamua may have spent millions of years travelling the Milky Way (shown here) before its encounter with the Sun\n\nIn a paper recently published on the Arxiv pre-print server, Gábor Domokos, from the Budapest University of Technology in Hungary, and colleagues suggest that, over millions of years, collisions between 'Oumuamua and many speeding interstellar dust grains could produce the object's observed shape.\n\nProf Fitzsimmons said this idea was very interesting, and added: \"I think what we're looking at here is the initial flurry of scientists running around saying: 'How did it get like this, where's it come from, what's it made of.' It's incredibly exciting.\n\n\"I think after a few months you will see people focus down on one or two possibilities for all these things. But this just shows you: it's a symptom of what an amazing, interesting object this is... we can't wait for the next one.\"\n\nIf planets form around other stars the same way they did in the Solar System, many objects the size of 'Oumuamua should get slung out into space. The interstellar visitor may provide the first evidence of that process.\n\n\"All the data we have at the moment turn out to be consistent with what we might expect from an object ejected by another star,\" he said.\n\nBut asked about Breakthrough Listen's initiative, he said: \"If I had a radio telescope, I might give it a go.\"\n• None Asteroid to be checked for alien tech", "This video can not be played.", "We're now closing our live page following the derailment of the passenger train on its inaugural run in Washington state.\n\nA recovery operation is continuing, and officials are so far declining to provide any casualty numbers.\n\nHere's a quick recap of what we know and also latest reports in the US media:\n• more than 80 people were on board the southbound Train 501 from Seattle to Portland which was running on a new, shorter route\n• the accident on a bridge over interstate motorway I-5 happened at 07:30 local time (15:30 GMT) some 45 minutes into the journey\n• thirteen of the train's 14 carriages jumped the tracks, with some crashing onto the motorway below\n• officials say there were multiple fatalities, with the Associated Press reporting that at least six people died\n• reports say 77 people were taken to local hospitals\n• the cause of the crash is being investigated, with some reports say the train may have hit something\n• one passenger was quoted as saying that the train started to wobble a little before the crash\n• Washington governor declared a state of emergency to mobilise all resources for the recovery operation and assistance to the injured\n\nYou can still follow all the latest updates on this story and other news on the BBC News website.", "A man who stole more than 50 phones at a gig has been jailed for three years.\n\nAlin Marin, 22, of no fixed address, took the phones at a Royal Blood gig in Birmingham on 19 November.\n\nThe construction worker admitted theft and was sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court earlier.\n\nA total of 53 phones were recovered by officers after the show at the Arena Birmingham, West Midlands Police previously said.\n\nThe phones were recovered after the Royal Blood gig at the Arena Birmingham on 19 November\n\nThe force said it received intelligence that suggested gig-goers had been targeted at previous performances by the band, which led to Marin's arrest in nearby Broad Street.\n\nRoyal Blood are singer/bassist Mike Kerr (right) and drummer Ben Thatcher\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "He was one of the last two men hanged in Britain. A habitual liar convicted of murdering a man who had been his friend, and perhaps his lover. But according to a leading criminal lawyer, who has viewed documents uncovered by the BBC, he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.\n\nMedical reports released to the National Archives this summer show that Gwynne Owen Evans, who was hanged in 1964 at the age of 24, had serious psychological problems. But his defence team made no attempt to enter a plea of diminished responsibility - a plea that, if accepted would have saved his life.\n\nJust after three o'clock in the morning, on Tuesday 7 April 1964, Mr and Mrs Fawcett, an elderly couple living in the village of Seaton, Cumbria, were awakened by a series of thuds, a shrill scream, and then more bumps coming from the adjoining house.\n\nMr Fawcett got up, and as he was getting dressed he saw the lights in the house being switched on, upstairs and down. Then he heard a car driving away towards the village centre. He looked out, but it was going too fast for him to make out the number plate or any other details.\n\nHe called a neighbour, Walter Lister, who walked over to the house and knocked on the door. When no-one answered, he called the police. By 03:25 a group of officers, led by Sgt Park, had entered the house\n\nThey found the occupant, John West, lying dead at the foot of the stairs, on his back and naked from the waist down. A single 53-year-old man who worked as a driver for a local laundry, West was in a pool of blood, his head covered with cuts. More blood was spattered on the walls, down the side of the stairs, and on the banister. On the floor near the body was a home-made cosh - a piece of rubber tube with a short piece of steel tube at one end, and putty at the other.\n\nSearching upstairs, police found a lightweight raincoat folded on a chair in West's bedroom. In the pocket was a lifesaving medallion inscribed \"G O Evans\", and a piece of paper with the name Norma O'Brien written on it, next to an address in Liverpool.\n\nThat tied Gwynne Evans to the murder.\n\nWhen police interviewed the 17-year-old O'Brien in Liverpool the next day, she remembered meeting Evans and seeing his medal while visiting her brother-in-law, a soldier at Fulwood Barracks in Preston, four months earlier. Evans had then been in the Army too, but had been discharged shortly afterwards.\n\nPolice learned that Evans was one of the dead man's friends. The year before he'd been seen chauffeuring him around the neighbourhood, which suggested they were close: West was very particular about his car and hardly anyone else was allowed to drive it.\n\nThey also quickly discovered that Evans was a local boy - his parents lived in Workington, just down the road from Seaton - and that until recently his name had been John Walby. He'd changed it in a third attempt to join the Army, having been kicked out twice under his original name.\n\nFrom Evans's parents police had obtained his current address, a small terraced house in Preston, 100 miles (160km) away. He was living there with Peter Allen, 21, Allen's wife and two young children. At the house, though, police found and arrested only Allen. Evans was out with Allen's wife, Mary, in Manchester. When the police tracked them down, Evans had in his pocket a wristwatch that had belonged to West, and Mary had a bloodstained shirt in her basket. It belonged to her husband.\n\nAccording to police records, Gwynne Evans quickly volunteered information about the murder - putting all the blame on Allen. He and Allen had stolen a car to drive up to Seaton to borrow money, he said, as West was an old friend who'd offered to help him in the past. Both Allen and Evans were hard up, with fines and bills to pay.\n\nAllen's wife and children came along for the drive too, and waited, asleep, outside in the car. Evans went in first, by his account, and he told police he just had a chat with West, whom he called Jack.\n\n\"I had some tea and a cheese bun and as we were talking there was a knock at the door. I honestly didn't know who it was, anyway Jack went to the door and I heard some banging. I went into the hall and I saw Peter hitting Jack with something that looked like a pipe... There was a lot of blood and I shouted to Peter, 'For Christ's sake stop it!'\"\n\nEvans insisted he hadn't hit Jack himself. \"Peter did the thumping,\" he said. Evans told police the two men had stolen bank books from West's home, and managed to withdraw £10 cash from his accounts. He said he knew the police had found his coat, with the medallion and keys in the pocket.\n\n\"If I wanted, I could have said that my coat had been stolen and my keys were in it and no judge in the country would convict me. But I am glad I have got it off my chest,\" he said.\n\nAn odd thing to say, but as further questioning would show, characteristic of Evans.\n\nThat evening, in Preston, Peter Allen was interviewed. Initially, he claimed ignorance of the murder.\n\n\"You can get a stack of Bibles in here and I'll stand on them and swear I know nothing about it,\" he told Det Supt Roberts, who was leading the investigation.\n\nBut just a few minutes later, according to the police notes, Allen struck the desk with his fist, buried his head in his arm and said, \"All right. I'll tell you. I'd like to tell the whole flipping world about it.\"\n\nHe said it started out as an innocent robbery. Sandy, as he called Evans, was to go in first, and let Allen in. But as Evans opened the front door West came out of his bedroom, and saw him. So Allen hit the older man with his fists. Then, Allen claimed, Evans gave him \"the bar\" and he set upon West with that too. Later, he revised his statement to say that Evans had also beaten West.\n\nThat evening, at a quarter to midnight, the detective superintendent interviewed Gwynne Evans. First, he asked if that was his real name. The reply was surprising.\n\n\"No, I adopted it after I found out I was born in Innsbruck in 1940 and that both my parents were German,\" Evans said.\n\nThe post-mortem showed West hadn't only been hit around the head, with a cosh - he'd also been stabbed through the heart. Initially, neither man said anything about that, but according to the police report Evans - unprompted - said: \"I don't know anything about a knife. I don't have to use a knife to kill a man. I'm an expert at judo and karate. I never hit Jack- it was Peter that did all the hitting.\"\n\nPolice found Allen's account more credible. It tallied with the crime scene. Allen said Evans had opened the door for him, and West had unexpectedly come out of his bedroom upstairs. Evans, by contrast, claimed both he and West had been downstairs.\n\nPolice thought it unlikely West would have answered the door without any trousers on, his false teeth were found on the landing at the top of the stairs, and there was blood on the wall by the staircase.\n\nJust after midnight, police interviewed Allen's wife, Mary. She said Evans had gone in first, and had come out about two hours later to get Allen. Then the two men had run out. When she asked them what had happened they said West had punched Peter - who'd punched back. Evans, she said, had told her he'd joined in.\n\nThe two men appeared in the magistrates' court a few hours later, on Thursday 9 April.\n\nMary Allen then revised her evidence, telling police Evans had stopped the car on the drive back to Preston and she'd seen him throw something away. That afternoon, she showed officers the spot, on the road between Workington and Windermere. A police dog easily found a bloodstained knife.\n\nAnd after reading a local newspaper report of the court hearing, Mary Allen remembered something else. She told police that when they'd all returned to Preston, early on Tuesday morning, Evans had said \"he never expected it to go in below the alarm clock\". She now realised, she said, that he was referring to the stab wound to the heart.\n\nAfter his appearance in court, Gwynne Evans was remanded in custody at Durham prison, where he was seen by the senior medical officer, P J Waddington.\n\nThere was no evidence of medical disorder, he wrote. Evans was \"correctly orientated\". In other words, \"He knew where he was and he was fully aware of the reasons for his arrest and his committal to prison.\"\n\nWaddington described Evans as being \"of spare physique\", just over 5ft 9in tall, with no physical ailments except flat feet and some small cuts on his face, possibly from picking pimples.\n\nIn another report the following month, he noted that from a very young age Evans had experienced psychological problems. As a boy he'd been referred to a child guidance clinic (elsewhere identified as Dovenby mental hospital) because he was \"untrustworthy, lacked moral sense, was untruthful, and inclined to steal\".\n\nEvans confused truth with fantasy. \"Evans believes that he was born in Innsbruck and his reasons for doing so are quite absurd…\" the doctor wrote.\n\nHe said he was married to a German girl, and had two children - which also seemed entirely invented.\n\nEvans claimed too that he'd been employed by Securicor for a year, and there become an expert in judo. In fact he'd only worked there for a week; he left as soon as his references had been checked, presumably because they were unsatisfactory.\n\nHe lied constantly. The doctor said these were for the most part \"prestige lies\" to enhance his standing.\n\nOn four occasions he joined the services, only to be medically discharged.\n\nEvans had enlisted at 17 in the Border Regiment, where his fabrications led to him being sent for a psychiatric assessment. \"This soldier was sent to me by his training wing officer,\" wrote one doctor, \"on account of his frequent telling of big lies which he apparently believed himself.\" His first expulsion followed four months later.\n\nIn less than a year, he signed up for another regiment, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers - but here too, his lies brought about his downfall. Within three months he was before a medical board which recommended discharge on the grounds of \"personality inadequacy\".\n\nHis commanding officer remarked: \"He is a failure. He cannot make friends because of feeling superior and telling complete fairy tales all the time.\"\n\nThe following year he joined the Royal Air Force, but was quickly discharged on the grounds of \"nervous instability\". In 1963, he signed up for the Army again, under the name of Evans, but was soon found out, and discharged for the final time.\n\nWaddington, the medical officer at Durham Prison, acknowledged Evans's \"abnormal personality\" and thought most doctors would consider him an individual with a \"psychopathic personality, using this term in the broadest sense\".\n\nBut he didn't believe this amounted to an \"abnormality of mind\" that would substantially impair his \"mental responsibility for his acts and omissions\" - the legal definition of diminished responsibility under the 1957 Homicide Act.\n\nEvans's own lawyers commissioned Dr G F Duggan Keen, an experienced consultant psychiatrist, to examine him. He noted that Evans had been employed in 32 jobs, by his own account, from the age of 15, excluding the spells in the Army and RAF. Many had just lasted a few weeks, due he thought, to Evans's problems forming relationships, and excessive drinking.\n\nAfter four meetings with Evans, he said there was \"absolutely no doubt in my mind that this man is a psychopathic personality\". But he could not identify a condition or disease. He said Evans was not \"subnormal\", nor schizophrenic, nor epileptic. He too concluded that Evans's mental responsibility was not \"substantially impaired\".\n\nNeither Waddington nor Duggan Keen explained why they came to that conclusion, and this surprises Dr Tim McInerney, a consultant forensic psychiatrist at the Bethlem Royal hospital in South London, who often gives expert assessments in murder cases.\n\n\"If, as an expert now, giving advice to the courts or to a jury as to why I don't support diminished [responsibility] I would have to explain very clearly why I reached that position,\" he says.\n\nThe psychiatric reports are cursory by modern standards, running to just a few pages. Though McInerny says that was the style at the time, John Cooper QC, an experienced defence barrister and professor of law, says their brevity strikes him as a cause for concern.\n\n\"For those reports to be relied upon without them being tested, without further questions being asked of them, without further experts being used, as far as I'm concerned, is quite startling. And I would say quite startling not just to the modern eye but also at the time.\"\n\nBut these psychiatric judgements would play an important role in the events that led to Gwynne Evans's conviction - and his hanging.\n\nEvans and Allen went on trial at Manchester Crown Court on 29 June 1964. The prosecution expected Evans to plead diminished responsibility. They had lined up their own psychiatrist, Dr Begg, who had met Evans twice. Like the other doctors, he said Evans was a \"grossly psychopathic personality\", and that responsibility for his actions was impaired - but, again, not substantially.\n\nHowever, the following day, without explanation, Evans's lawyers decided to drop the diminished responsibility plea. The note on the Director of Public Prosecutions file reads simply: \"Def advise Dim Res not being raised. Dr Begg informed.\"\n\nEach man blamed the other for the murder. The evidence against Allen was much stronger - he admitted beating West and his clothes had been soaked in blood. There was no blood on Evans.\n\nThere was, admittedly, evidence incriminating Evans from Allen's wife - but she would have had good reason to try to shift the blame.\n\nEvans said he'd been friendly with West, who \"was like a father to me\", and that he would never have hurt him.\n\nHowever, both agreed they'd been ready to rob West. And unsurprisingly, Evans lied in court - and was shown to be lying.\n\nAllen's barrister undermined Evans further by suggesting he'd had sex with West just before the murder, something Evans vehemently denied, but which was supported by medical evidence. At the time homosexuality was illegal, and it's likely this would have lowered the jury's opinion of Evans even further.\n\nThe trial ran until 6 July. The prosecution argued that the men were acting \"in concert\" and it did not matter who delivered the fatal blow.\n\nWithout much deliberation the jury found both guilty of capital murder - that is, murder and robbery.\n\n\"Without diminished responsibility, on my reading of these papers, the verdict of guilty was all but inevitable,\" he says.\n\nA successful plea of diminished responsibility, on the other hand, would have saved Evans's life.\n\nEvans's mother, Hannah Walby, wrote to him in clumsy round handwriting on blue notepaper: \"Please don't give up hope yet.\" The verdict had been a great shock to her, she continued, and to his brothers and sister. \"All is being done possible, you may get a reprieve.\"\n\nAt his appeal, heard at the High Court in July, Evans's lawyers also made no attempt to argue that he was not fully responsible for his actions.\n\nInstead his barrister, Guthrie Jones QC, sought to challenge Mary Allen's evidence, on the basis that she was Allen's wife. However, the judge had flagged this up to the jury at the trial, warning them that she was not an impartial witness - so the appeal was dismissed.\n\nThe only avenue left was a reprieve.\n\nOn 24 July Evans's solicitor, John Marsham of Midland Bank Chambers in Whitehaven, Cumbria, wrote to the Home Secretary, Henry Brooke.\n\nHe pointed out that three doctors agreed Evans suffered mental impairment. He referred to a statement - not presented in court - from the father of a girl Evans had been seeing, a Mr Hampton. He'd put an end to their relationship because he had been so concerned about Evans's immaturity. He was \"completely childish in everything he did\" wrote the lawyer, \"he would make toys that a child would make and play with them for hours before pulling them to pieces.\"\n\nMarsham added that Evans had been shown in court to be a liar, which made his conviction \"inevitable\". \"Even in the witness box he could not refrain from telling stupid and unnecessary lies\" - a story about being chased by a police car, for example.\n\nThe letter was dismissed by the Home Office. Officials did nonetheless commission a final medical assessment. Three psychiatrists, Dr Pickering, Dr Mather and Prof Anderson, visited him in prison, on 27 and 28 July.\n\n\"He was a pallid slightly built young man, clearly tense, tremulous, with knitted brows throughout the interview,\" they wrote. He admitted being a habitual liar, and even lying to the doctors themselves.\n\nPrison staff also reported that he lied often, to boost his self-confidence. The governor thought him a \"happy-go-lucky extrovert liking to stand high in people's favour\". No staff thought him insane, as \"no sign of fits or transient losses or changes of consciousness were observed\".\n\nThe news that there would be no reprieve reached Evans's family. On 3 August, Mrs Walby sent a letter to the Home Secretary.\n\n\"I write to you on behalf of my son who is under sentence of Death at Manchester Prison,\" she wrote.\n\nShe said Evans had never been in serious trouble before he met \"this Preston couple\". He had been brought up in the church, a member of the choir and the Boy Scouts, she explained. She pointed out he had been friends with West for five years, often staying overnight at his house.\n\n\"My son is mentally impaired and I had him under a mental doctor at the age of 8 years but he is not a wicked boy,\" she pleaded.\n\n\"Please may God guide you to make a mercyful judgement. I remain, yours respectfully Mrs H Walby.\"\n\nThree days later, on 6 August the Home Secretary wrote in red ink on the file: \"I regret I can find no mitigating circumstances such as would justify a reprieve in either case. The law must take its course.\"\n\nThe two men were hanged, in different prisons, at the same time: 08:00 on 13 August.\n\nI came across Evans's medical reports by chance, while checking newly released files at the National Archives earlier this year. I then showed them to John Cooper QC and Dr Tim McInerney.\n\nCooper has no hesitation in saying that Evans was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.\n\n\"Evans was a vulnerable individual,\" he says. \"And that vulnerable individual was sent into court, into trial without the proper defence put forward for the jury to consider.\"\n\nThe proper defence, in his view, would have been a plea of diminished responsibility. And this plea, he argues, would have had a far greater chance of success if there had been a more thorough psychiatric examination.\n\nThe 1957 Homicide Act led to a sharp drop in the number of hangings for two reasons. One was that murder became punishable by death only when combined with other offences. This did not help Evans and Allen, because they were charged with robbery as well as murder.\n\nThe other reason was the new defence of diminished responsibility. It allowed many to escape the noose, and might have saved Evans.\n\nTim McInerney has seen one case from 1963, a double murder, where the killer - with a similar psychiatric profile to Evans - escaped trial entirely, being sent instead to a special hospital.\n\nDoctors operate on the principle of \"do least harm\", he says. So he wonders what went through the minds of the doctors who examined Evans - knowing that if they didn't support diminished responsibility, he'd be hanged.\n\nJohn Cooper also points out that in the last years of the death penalty, \"it was in essence a postcode lottery - depending on which prison you were in, as to whether you survived\". This \"adds to the macabre nature of the last few months of the death penalty\", in his view.\n\nIn 1964, Allen and Evans were the only people hanged in the UK. There were only two hangings the year before, as well. And less than a year after the two young men were executed, capital punishment was suspended in Great Britain.\n\nParliament voted to make the suspension permanent in 1969.\n\nPictures courtesy of the National Archives. Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans images copyright Mirrorpix.\n\nJoin the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.", "A man has been arrested after driving through a military checkpoint, getting close to an aircraft at a base in Suffolk used by the US Air Force.\n\nShots were fired by US personnel before the 44-year-old British man was overcome by staff at RAF Mildenhall.\n\nThe base was temporarily put into lockdown as Suffolk police responded to reports of what they called a \"significant incident\".\n\nPolice said the incident was being treated as trespass, not terrorism.\n\nSupt Kim Warner, from Suffolk Police, said the man, who suffered cuts and bruises, was arrested after a \"short pursuit\" and his vehicle was stopped by US security services.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The base was temporarily put on lockdown\n\nThere was \"no obvious motive at this stage\", he said, adding there was no wider threat to the public or the base and police were not looking for anyone else.\n\nThe vehicle was brought to a halt close to a US plane, an Osprey, and it was not thought there was \"any significant damage\" to the vehicle or the aircraft, Supt Warner said.\n\nSuffolk Police was notified about a breach of security at about 13:40 GMT.\n\n\"Shots were fired by US security, I don't know how many, but I do know that shots were fired,\" Supt Warner said.\n\n\"It would be fair to say some of the minor injuries were probably as a result of him being apprehended,\" he added.\n\nThe superintendent said there would now be an internal investigation by the US airbase into why guns were discharged.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Suffolk Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRAF Mildenhall is protected by Ministry of Defence police and US armed guards.\n\nThe US Air Force said in a statement it was continuing to work with local authorities.\n\nThe base is used as a transport hub by the US and is home to a fleet of refuelling aircraft and special operations forces.\n\nIt has about 3,200 military personnel, with 400 to 500 UK civilian staff employed there.\n\nThe base was one of 56 MoD sites earmarked for closure.\n\nHowever, the US Air Force said in September it was delaying plans to relocate its operations to a base in Germany until 2024.\n\nRAF Mildenhall has previously been a potential target for a terror attack against US military personnel.\n\nIn May 2016, Junead Khan was given a life sentence for preparing terrorist acts after a court heard how he used his job as a delivery driver to gather information about the base.\n\nIt's highly unusual for shots to be fired by US personnel. That said, in the past few years security has been stepped up at the US base, which now has a much tighter perimeter.\n\nYou can't just drive into the base, you have to go through what's called the '\"shed\" - your car is checked and you have to go through lots of tight security measures.\n\nRAF Mildenhall is essentially a little piece of America, with more than 3,000 US personnel based here, and there's very close co-operation between the American military police and the British civilian police.\n\nUS bases here are governed by the Status of Forces Act so there are very clear rules of engagement here, with certain protocols in place when it come to the discharge of firearms.\n\nUS personnel are allowed to fire guns, but these rules of engagement are not made public because of security considerations.\n\nThere will undoubtedly be a conversation as a result of this incident between the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence as to exactly what happened here and why guns were fired.\n• None Welcome to England's 'Little America'", "Jay-Z halted a concert in California for a fan who has survived cancer twice.", "Chan Han Choi was arrested at his Sydney unit on Saturday night\n\nFurther details have emerged about the Australian man accused of being an economic agent for North Korea.\n\nChan Han Choi, 59 was arrested in Sydney by Australian police and charged with brokering sales and discussing the supply of weapons of mass destruction.\n\nPolice allege he broke UN and domestic sanctions against the country in the first case of its kind in Australia.\n\nThey described him as a \"loyal agent\" who believed himself to be acting for \"some higher patriotic purpose\".\n\nMr Choi was born in South Korea but lived in Australia for more than 30 years and was a naturalised citizen, police said.\n\nHe is the first person to be charged under Australia's Weapons of Mass Destruction Act\n\nAccording to The Australian newspaper, the 59-year-old was a hospital cleaner who lived by himself in a rental unit in the Sydney suburb of Eastwood and was known in the local Korean Christian community.\n\nSome of his former church friends told the newspaper they had broken off their friendship with Mr Choi when he began to express support for North Korea.\n\nHe had allegedly \"turned\", and visited the rogue regime frequently, the newspaper said.\n\n\"I hated that my husband met with him and I don't like anything related to North Korea; many people are scared for their safety,\" the wife of a former friend told The Australian.\n\n\"All those trips to North Korea — he was very private and we thought it was very strange.\"\n\nThe pair said they were shocked to hear of Saturday's arrest, but weren't surprised. Mr Choi had told them that he sent his own money to North Korea, they said.\n\nHis neighbours described a man who was \"softly spoken\", \"polite\" and \"nice\", to local newspaper The Daily Telegraph.\n\nMr Choi is the first person to be charged under Australia's weapons of mass destruction act and faces six charges.\n\nPolice allege he discussed the sale of ballistic missile technology with foreign entities, and brokered the sale of commodities such as coal, in order to raise income for North Korea.\n\nHe could face up to 10 years in jail and was released on bail on Sunday.", "This MoJ picture shows how small the phones - which are often smuggled internally - can be\n\nOnline retailers should ban the sale of miniature mobile phones designed to be smuggled into prisons, the justice secretary has said.\n\nDavid Lidington said the devices were advertised as being able to go undetected by the body orifice security scanners used in England and Wales.\n\n\"Beat the BOSS\" phones can be bought for £25, but are reportedly changing hands for up to £500 inside jails.\n\nAbout 20,000 illicit phones and Sim cards were recovered by guards in 2016.\n\nIt is estimated that up to a third of mobiles found are \"beat the BOSS\" phones, the Ministry of Justice says.\n\nSome as small as a lipstick, the mini mobiles are readily available from online marketplaces.\n\nThey are marketed as being virtually metal-free and therefore able to beat the detectors anyone entering a prison must pass through.\n\n\"It's pretty clear that these miniature phones are being advertised and sold with the purpose of being smuggled,\" Mr Lidington will say in a speech on Monday.\n\n\"I am calling on online retailers and trading websites to take down products that are advertised to evade detection measures in prisons.\"\n\nMobile phones, which are banned in prisons, can be used to facilitate more crime and intimidate victims from behind bars, the Ministry of Justice says.\n\nIt says it has invested £2m in detection equipment, including portable detection devices, which can be used to find mobiles in prisons.\n\nIt is has also acquired new powers to block specific phones from accessing communications networks.\n\nMini phones are listed for sale on websites including Amazon, Gumtree and eBay.\n\nEBay said it had made the decision to stop selling them some months ago and would make sure the justice secretary was aware it was \"already going above and beyond\" ahead of his intervention.\n\nThe firm said it would continue to manually remove any items that slip through.\n\nThe BBC has also contacted Amazon and Gumtree for comment.\n\nJust as those of us \"on the outside\" can't live without our phones, in prison they have become ubiquitous, prized possessions.\n\nThey are used to organise the lives of inmates intent on continuing illegal activity, be that the smuggling of contraband into prisons or ongoing criminal activities outside.\n\nPrison staff can't listen to mobile phone calls as they do legitimate calls that prisoners make to their families.\n\nMini phones like those worrying the justice secretary were among the material seized from a gang recently jailed for smuggling £1m of prohibited items into jails.\n\nAnd they're even harder for prisons to stamp out because they can be hidden inside people's bodies - hence the need for body orifice - or BOSS - scanners.", "Wendy Thomas hid two women and a man in a car she tried to drive into the UK\n\nA woman who hid three people in a car and tried to drive them into the UK has been jailed for people smuggling.\n\nThe Home Office said officers discovered the stowaways after stopping Wendy Thomas' car at the Eurotunnel terminal in France on 9 October 2016.\n\nTwo of them were unresponsive and were rushed to hospital.\n\nThomas, 50, of Cardiff, admitted assisting illegal immigration and was sentenced to 33 months at Blackfriars Crown Court.\n\nThe man was found under a duvet in the car's foot well\n\nThe two women were taken to hospital after being found unresponsive\n\nTwo women were found inside a large black holdall in the boot of Thomas' car and had been covered by pillows and a large soft toy.\n\nThe third passenger, a man who later claimed to be an Iranian national and was handed to the French authorities, was found hiding under cushions and a quilt in the rear foot wells.\n\nThomas' co-conspirators Adriano Bettoja-Allen, 37, and his wife Jeanette, 49, of Newport, were also sentenced for their parts in two separate \"carefully planned\" attempts to smuggle people into the UK.\n\nThe Home Office said investigations started following the arrest of Dawood Shahbeik at St Pancras International station, after he arrived on the Eurostar from Calais on 2 October 2016.\n\nText messages on his mobile phone referred to a person who had been taken to a house in Newport, while a search of his luggage revealed a damaged Iranian passport and a large amount of cash.\n\nThe pillows and large toy used to hide the three stowaways\n\nThomas was arrested a week after Shahbeik and text messages on both their phones showed they had been in regular contact with Adriano Bettoja-Allen.\n\nInvestigators found he and his wife had travelled through Calais on 2 October after meeting Shahbeik in Dunkirk.\n\nThey also found Thomas and Bettoja-Allen had travelled in separate vehicles from Folkestone, Kent, to Coquelles, France, on the same Eurotunnel train on 8 October.\n\nAdriano Bettoja-Allen returned to the UK less than two hours after Thomas had been stopped by Border Force officers and financial checks also uncovered a large deposit into Thomas' bank account in September 2016.\n\nAdriano Bettoja-Allen was jailed for five years for his part in the smuggling operation\n\nAdriano Bettoja-Allen admitted assisting illegal immigration and was sentenced to five years in prison.\n\nJeanette Bettoja-Allen pleaded guilty to the same charge and was sentenced to 11 months, suspended for two years.\n\nShahbeik, who also admitted the same charge, was sentenced to 18 months in prison at an earlier hearing.\n\nSpeaking after the case concluded, David Fairclough, assistant director from Immigration Enforcement's Criminal and Financial Investigation team, said: \"Adriano Bettoja-Allen was revealed by our investigations to be the common link between what initially appeared to be unconnected incidents.\n\n\"Our investigations showed that far from being opportunistic attempts to undermine the UK's border controls, the offences had been carefully planned.\n\n\"The fact that two women ended up in hospital demonstrates the dangerous lengths people smugglers will go to.\"", "The study indicated that the Russian-linked accounts were most active after the Manchester Arena attack\n\nSuspected Russia-linked Twitter accounts were used to \"extend the impact and harm\" of four 2017 terrorist attacks in the UK, a study says.\n\nCardiff University researchers have found hundreds of related messages in 47 accounts previously tied to Russia.\n\nSome posts were anti-Muslim in nature, while others were critical of those who held such views, they report.\n\nMoscow has not commented but has denied past claims it sought to meddle in Western democracies via social media.\n\nEven so, one influential MP has condemned the activity.\n\n\"It is wrong that any organisation should spread disinformation following a terrorist attack, with the purpose of spreading hatred and making worse an already desperate and confusing situation,\" Damian Collins, chair of the digital, culture, media and sport select committee, told the BBC.\n\n\"At a time when victims are still lying on the ground and loved ones are in need of clear and accurate information about the situation, the deliberate spreading of disinformation is unforgivable.\n\n\"The methods of organisations such as the Russian-backed Internet Research Agency are becoming increasingly clear. Through our inquiry into fake news, I am determined that they should be exposed.\"\n\nThe BBC understands that the researchers did not share details of the accounts with Twitter.\n\nThe social network limited itself to a brief comment: \"In each of the attacks, the tweets identified in this research represent less than 0.01% of the total tweets sent in the 24-hour period following the attack.\"\n\nCardiff University's Crime and Security Research Institute analysed millions of posts and comments gathered from various social media platforms, before honing in on 70 suspected \"sock puppet\" Twitter accounts.\n\nForty-seven of these had previously been tied to Russia by US Congressional investigators, the Russian magazine RBK and others. It was these on which the inquiry then focused.\n\nFive people were killed and 50 injured in the Westminster attack on 22 March\n\nThe researchers then determined that after:\n\nThis tally of 475 messages were reposted more than 153,000 times in total by others, the researchers determined.\n\nExamples included: \"Another day, another Muslim terrorist attack. Retweet if you think that Islam needs to be banned!\"\n\nIn one case, an account named @TEN_GOP - which presented itself as belonging to a Tennessee-based American - took issue with a photo of a woman in a hijab supposedly ignoring victims of the Westminster Bridge attack.\n\n\"She is being judged for her own actions & lack of sympathy. Would you just walk by? Or offer help?\" said the tweet.\n\nBut another Russian-linked account, @Crystal1Johnson - which appeared to belong to a civil rights advocate - took an opposing stance.\n\n\"So this is how a world with glasses of hate look like [sic] - poor woman, being judged only by her clothes,\" it posted.\n\nThe researchers highlighted that the accounts sometimes tweeted the messages directly at celebrities, including the author JK Rowling, in an attempt to get their posts noticed by their followers.\n\nOne account asked JK Rowling why she had not expressed \"outrage at the Muslim terror attack\" in Manchester\n\nIn addition, they note that several messages were directed at the English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson and UKIP's ex-leader Nigel Farage.\n\n\"The evidence suggests a systematic strategic political communications campaign being directed at the UK designed to amplify the public harms of terrorist attacks,\" concluded the authors.\n\n\"The implication is that we... should focus upon rapidly establishing what counter-measures are effective in offsetting the impact of 'soft facts' propagated by overseas interests as they seek to do the work of terrorist organisations by amplifying the capacity and capability of violent acts.\"\n\nThe researchers acknowledged that it was difficult to prove the activity had indeed been backed by the Russian authorities, but they added that they believed there were likely additional accounts they had not spotted.\n\nAnother independent researcher who has also investigated suspected Russian social media posts said more work needed to be done.\n\n\"Using fragmented datasets we have observed unusual activities on Twitter - eg an increase in the number of fake accounts spreading biased information,\" commented Prof Sasha Talavera from Swansea University.\n\n\"But we cannot comment definitively about their scale and influence without a large-scale investigation.\"", "Natalie says colleagues often don't know what to say\n\n\"I'd sit at my desk and not be able to stop the tears rolling down my face.\n\n\"A few people said, 'Are you all right, do you need to be here?' but no-one was really that interested.\"\n\nFor Natalie Hall, 36, the fear that she might lose her job or not be trusted in her day-to-day judgements was a barrier to talking openly to colleagues about her depression and anxiety disorder.\n\nBut this may not be uncommon as a survey suggests mental health problems remain a taboo in the workplace.\n\nThe poll of 2,025 UK workers by the charity Time to Change found they would rather talk to colleagues about sex or money worries than a mental health issue.\n\nWhen asked to select from a list the issues they felt they could talk openly about at work, 36% said they would open up about a physical health matter, 26% about money problems and 18% about sex - while just 13% selected mental health illness.\n\nHowever, 58% said they would encourage a colleague to open up to them, or someone else at work, if they noticed he or she was struggling with their mental health and 16% said they would raise the matter with a line manager.\n\nFor Natalie, an intelligence analyst for Northumbria Police, putting on a brave face about the state of her mental health seemed the logical thing to do.\n\n\"At work I tried to carry on because I didn't want to give up, I didn't want to be defeated and I was ashamed as well because it wasn't talked about.\n\n\"I was really worried that if I said, 'I've got depression and anxiety,' that would affect my career and my job prospects for the future.\n\n\"And, you know, would I lose my job? Would I be seen as incapable? That the judgements I make aren't rational any more, that my work wasn't trusted and that I'd be sidelined for things?\"\n\nEventually Natalie's mental health deteriorated to such an extent that she sought medical help from a new doctor and was signed off sick.\n\nNow back in the office, thanks in part to a phased return to work and a supportive line manager, Natalie says colleagues just didn't know what to say.\n\n\"Don't get me wrong, I did have support and there were some supportive colleagues, but nobody really knows what to say and how to help.\n\n\"At that point I hadn't told anybody because I was still too ashamed to say it, I felt a massive failure and so I just retreated, I was no longer really bubbly and involved in the office, I very much kept my head down, stayed hidden behind a computer screen to just survive the day at work.\"\n\nBut she says small gestures can go a long way to help a colleague who's suffering with a mental health issue.\n\n\"It's simple things - 'I'll make you a cup of tea', 'Shall we go and have a little walk?' 'Shall we get out of the office and go for a coffee?'\n\n\"And it's about someone giving up a bit of their time, not saying, 'I can make it better,' but just being there and that's what makes the difference.\n\n\"Definitely, when I was on the sick, it was those little thinking-of-you cards and the bunch of flowers that arrived in the post - those were the things that I hung on to and kept going for.\n\n\"It doesn't have to be a big project or anything, it's just taking the time to say, 'Are you all right?' and not just walk away - it's taking the time out to actually sit down and speak to people.\n\n\"In the workplace, we spend so much time at work, but do we really know what's going on in each other's lives?\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Suicide rates in the UK have seen the largest decrease in 20 years, official figures reveal.\n\nThere were 3.6% fewer suicides registered in 2016 than in 2015 - a decrease by 223 deaths from 6,188, Office for National Statistics data shows.\n\nRates fell for both men and women, although men still account for three-quarters of cases.\n\nExperts believe the drop shows suicide-prevention initiatives are helping.\n\nFor deaths registered in 2016 in the UK:\n\nMental health problems are important influences, as well as alcohol and substance misuse.\n\nRelationship breakdown can also be a factor - suicide risk is high among divorced men.\n\nBereavement and social loneliness can be contributors.\n\nFrom 1981 to 1990, men aged 75 and over had the highest age-specific suicide rate. Between 1981 and 2016, the male rate of suicide for this age group more than halved.\n\nThe Samaritans says deprivation is another link. Men from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are 10 times more likely to die by suicide than those in more affluent areas.\n\nA spokeswoman said: \"There is still a lot of work to be done because suicide still kills three times more people than road traffic accidents.\n\n\"Samaritans is working hard with partners, including the NHS, other charities and local authorities, to bring these figures down further.\n\n\"Suicide is not inevitable, it's preventable and politicians, employers, health bodies and educators all have a role in identifying and supporting those most at risk.\"\n\nCall the Samaritans on 116 123 (UK and Ireland), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of the nearest branch.\n\nVicki Nash, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Mind, the mental health charity, said: \"It is encouraging to see that the number of suicides appears to be falling. Not all suicides are mental-health related but the majority are and we know from previous research that there has been particular progress when it comes to people in touch with mental health services.\n\n\"We need to ensure that these are the beginnings of much longer-term trends - we lose almost 6,000 lives a year to suicide and every one is a tragedy, so despite these positive findings it is clear that we still have a long way to go.\"\n• None Zero suicide - is it achievable?\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nThird Ashes Test, Waca (day five of five) Australia won by an innings and 41 runs\n\nEngland surrendered the Ashes as Australia stormed to a massive win in the third Test in Perth and an unassailable 3-0 lead.\n\nNeeding 259 to make the home side bat again, the tourists lost their remaining six wickets in 34 overs to be bowled out for 218 on the fifth day.\n\nJosh Hazlewood took 5-48 for Australia, who won by an innings and 41 runs despite play being delayed by three hours because of a wet patch on the pitch.\n\nWater got under the covers during overnight rain and meant ground staff had to dry the surface with leaf blowers.\n\nHazlewood bowled Jonny Bairstow with his first delivery of the day and had Dawid Malan caught down the leg side for 54, before Pat Cummins wrapped it up by having Chris Woakes caught behind.\n\nThis is Australia's seventh win in eight Ashes series down under and a regaining of the urn after England's triumph on home soil in 2015.\n\nAustralia have also won eight consecutive home Tests against England, equalling a record that goes back to the 1920s.\n\nThey will now target a second successive 5-0 whitewash in Australia - and third in 11 years - with matches in Melbourne and Sydney still to come.\n• None I'm still the right man to coach England - Bayliss\n• None 'No hasty decisions after three games' - Root expects senior players to continue\n\nEngland's defence of the urn was damaged before they even named their squad, when all-rounder and talisman Ben Stokes was arrested for his part in an altercation outside a Bristol nightclub in September.\n\nStokes did not make the trip down under, while the tourists also had to deal with the off-field distractions of Bairstow being accused of 'headbutting' Australia opener Cameron Bancroft and Lions batsman Ben Duckett pouring a drink over James Anderson.\n\nOn the field, they had opportunities. Australia were reduced to 76-4 and 209-7, yet still won the first Test by 10 wickets, while England were poor with ball and bat in the first innings of the second Test, with a recovery coming too late.\n\nIn Perth, they slipped from 368-4 to 403 all out, then saw Australia rack up 662-9 declared.\n\nTheir inexperienced players have performed admirably - Malan is their highest runscorer, Mark Stoneman and James Vince have each made two half-centuries and Craig Overton has impressed with the ball in his first two Tests.\n\nBut, Anderson aside, England's established players have disappointed. Captain Joe Root and Alastair Cook have managed only 259 runs between them and Stuart Broad's five wickets have cost 61.80 apiece.\n\nBar a transitional team being beaten by Andrew Strauss' brilliant England side in 2010-11, Australia have been dominant in Ashes matches down under for 30 years.\n\nIn the past 38 Tests against England on home soil, Australia have won 27 and lost only five.\n\nThe urn has so often been sealed at the Waca, a ground where Australia have not lost to England since 1978 and was staging its last Ashes Test - this is the fourth successive occasion that the home side have reclaimed the Ashes in Perth.\n\nHere, as in the rest of the series, Australia were more ruthless with the bat and more potent with the ball.\n\nCaptain Steve Smith averages 142, pace trio Hazlewood, Cummins and Mitchell Starc have provided a constant, fearsome threat, while off-spinner Nathan Lyon has taken 14 wickets of his own.\n\nWhen at least five members of the ground staff were trying to dry a spot at the Swan River End, on a length around a right-hander's off stump, there seemed to be a chance that no play would be possible on the final day.\n\nAs showers continued to roll in, both skippers had discussions with the umpires, who eventually decided on a resumption of 13:00 local time.\n\nEngland, 132-4 overnight and with 70 overs to bat, saw their chances of an escape evaporate almost immediately when Bairstow, perhaps mindful of the surface, tentatively played inside the line to Hazlewood and was bowled.\n\nIn reality, the cracks running down the pitch were more hazardous than the wet patch - one delivery from the unerringly accurate Hazlewood moved so much from straight that it ended up at second slip.\n\nMoeen Ali was lbw to Lyon before the resistance from the impressively assured Malan, who made his maiden century in the first innings, was ended with a gloved hook shot to wicketkeeper Tim Paine.\n\nHazlewood got his fifth wicket by having Overton caught at gully, Broad flapped at a short ball from Cummins, who then hit last man Anderson on the head.\n\nAnderson had two sets of treatment and, as Woakes tried to protect him from the strike, an attempted uppercut at Cummins ended in Paine's gloves.\n\n'I have to take responsibility' - reaction & analysis\n\nEngland captain Joe Root: \"It's bitterly disappointing. You take a lot of responsibility as captain. Fair play to Australia, they outplayed us in this game and won the key moments.\n\n\"I am proud of the way we battled, but we were outskilled. We have been in every game but not managed to drive it forwards.\n\n\"We haven't been completely outplayed we just haven't performed at that level for long periods of time.\n\n\"It's hard to take but it's part of cricket.\"\n\nFormer England batsman Geoffrey Boycott: \"Nothing we have in English cricket would have changed the result. I can't think of any player at home who could have made so much difference.\n\n\"Ben Stokes would have helped the batting and I would be surprised if he didn't score runs at some point over here because he's a good player but we've been outplayed.\n\n\"They have more pace than us, a better spinner than us and when their batsmen get in they make it count like Smith and the two Marsh's have.\"\n\nFormer Australia bowler Glenn McGrath: \"The Ashes means so much to Australian players - and you could see the emotion after that last wicket fell. They have outplayed England in most departments. It will be a special time for the boys tonight.\"", "The world's steepest funicular railway has opened in Switzerland.\n\nRotating carriages mean people stay upright while ascending the mountainside.", "Information provided by the CIA helped Russian security services foil an attack on St Petersburg's Kazan cathedral, US and Russian leaders say.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin phoned Donald Trump to thank him for the information, the White House and Kremlin confirmed.\n\nThe attack was allegedly planned to take place on Saturday, Russia says.\n\nA White House statement said \"terrorists\" were captured prior to an attack \"that could have killed large numbers of people\".\n\nRussia's FSB security service said in a statement on Friday that it had detained seven members of a cell of Islamic State supporters and seized a significant amount of explosives, weapons and extremist literature.\n\nThe cell was planning to carry out a suicide attack at a religious institution and kill citizens on Saturday, the FSB statement said (in Russian).\n\nThe group was preparing explosions targeting the cathedral and other public places in Russia's second city, the Kremlin statement said on Sunday.\n\nMr Putin told Mr Trump that Russia's special services would hand over information on terror threats to their US counterparts, it added.\n\nMr Putin had asked the US president to pass on his thanks to the CIA director and the operatives involved, both countries said.\n\nUS intelligence agencies, including the CIA, believe that Russia tried to sway last year's US presidential election in favour of Mr Trump - claims rejected by the Republican.\n\nA special counsel is investigating whether anyone from the Trump campaign colluded.\n\nThe two leaders most recently met at a summit in Vietnam last month\n\nWhile Mr Trump categorically denies colluding with Russia, he has talked about the importance of working together \"constructively\".\n\nSunday's conversation between the two presidents marks the second time the two men have spoken in a week.\n\nOn Thursday they discussed North Korea and Mr Trump thanked Mr Putin \"for acknowledging America's strong economic performance\" in his annual press conference, according to the White House.\n\nThe White House said that the two leaders agreed in Sunday's phone call that the co-operation was \"an example of the positive things that can occur when our countries work together\".\n\nAn explosion on St Petersburg's metro system in April killed at least 13 people and is thought to be linked to jihadists.\n\nReturning militants from Syria pose a real threat to Russia, the head of the FSB was quoted as saying on Tuesday.\n\nSecurity services had already prevented 18 terrorist attacks in 2017, Alexander Bortnikov said in comments reported by Itar-Tass news agency.", "Carriages plummeted off both sides of a highway bridge over the I-5 highway in Washington state, after a high speed train derailed.", "Most Brexit-suppporting Tories seem to be happy about what's been agreed although some are picking the odd hole in the documents.\n\nFormer Welsh Secretary David Jones is worried about the implications if there is no agreement on how cross-border trade in Ireland is regulated.\n\nIn such a scenario, he tells Radio 4's World at One the UK will be fully aligned to existing EU single market rules relating to North-South co-operation - a situation he thinks would hamper efforts to strike trade deals with other countries after the UK leaves.\n\nQuote Message: The worry about that is of course that it could relate to very important areas such as, for example, agriculture which we would want to throw into the mix in negotiating a free trade agreement with a third country. And if this was to persist it could severely handicap our ability to enter into those free trade agreements so I think we do need to see that particular provision refined.\" The worry about that is of course that it could relate to very important areas such as, for example, agriculture which we would want to throw into the mix in negotiating a free trade agreement with a third country. And if this was to persist it could severely handicap our ability to enter into those free trade agreements so I think we do need to see that particular provision refined.\"", "The agreement commits both sides to an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic\n\n\"The test of a first-rate intelligence,\" F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Crack-Up, \"is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.\"\n\nToday the British government and the European Union are making a fist of passing that test.\n\nReading the joint report between the UK and the EU, it is clear that the most important section when considering the economics of Brexit is the section on Ireland.\n\nThe document commits both sides to an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and that there will be \"no new regulatory barriers\" between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.\n\nIt also commits to the UK leaving the EU's single market and customs union.\n\nThese two positions appear to be in contradiction.\n\nIf Britain does become a \"third country\" - that is trading with the EU as other non-EU countries outside the single market and the customs union do - then border controls will be necessary.\n\nAnd that open border will become very much more closed.\n\nThere is at least a partial way around this conundrum.\n\nAnd it necessitates the comprehensive free trade deal the British government has said it wants.\n\nAnd at least closely mirroring customs arrangements we presently adhere to as members of the EU's customs union.\n\nThat equates for many with a \"soft Brexit\" and is the trajectory many economists argue would be best for the UK economy.\n\nThis is because, if there is no free trade agreement, it is difficult to see how Theresa May's government could maintain \"full alignment with the rules of the internal market and the customs union which support north-south co-operation [on the island of Ireland]\" which the joint report commits the PM to.\n\nAnd still say that Britain has left the EU.\n\nThis document has been described as the \"withdrawal deal\".\n\nBut it is actually far more importantly a signal of what the future might hold.\n\nAnd that appears to be a relationship where the UK closely follows the EU's single market and customs union rules despite not being a formal member of either.\n\nWhich might very well constrain Britain's ability to sign free trade deals with other countries outside the EU.\n\nThe government will have to find a way through that if it is not to make Liam Fox's job as international trade secretary redundant.\n\nAnd in its deliberate ambiguity (every side needs to be able to claim victory) today's joint agreement leaves that debate for another day.\n\nThe EU has said it wants to move urgently onto discussing and agreeing transition arrangements to be applied once Britain has officially left the union in March 2019.\n\nThat now looks like being Phase II of this process.\n\nAnd from there, onto mapping out an agreement on free trade which will be put in place after the transition period has expired.\n\nThat has been seen as good news by businesses which need clarity on the trade rules they will be required to play by.\n\nAnd the more \"frictionless\" that trade is, many believe, the better for the economy.\n\nWhat today's deal has revealed is that there is a genuine desire - it appears from both sides - to get that free trade deal nailed down.\n\n\"One should be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise,\" Fitzgerald wrote.\n\nToday, the UK and the EU have moved the process of Brexit significantly forward.\n\nEven if the end point is still shrouded in much uncertainty.", "Headlines in Arab and Turkish newspapers are crowded with strident criticism and expressions of dismay in response to President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\n\nThose in the Israeli press welcome the move, saying it should never have taken decades to happen.\n\n\"Thank you Mr President for this brave and historic decision. Thank you for applying your famous common sense to such a critical declaration on such a crucial issue,\" says one commentator in the Israeli newspaper, Yisrael Hayom.\n\nAnother, in Maariv, says Trump \"broke the fear barrier\".\n\n\"It is time to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” says Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth\n\n\"Trump is right: The world's refusal of 70 years to officially recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has been a stupid mistake,\" says a commentator in Yedioth Ahronoth. \"The claim that the speech harms the peace process is untenable, because there is no peace process.\"\n\nThe paper printed the full text of Mr Trump's speech, dubbing it \"The Jerusalem Declaration\" - echoing the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which expressed the British government's support for a Jewish national home in Palestine and paved the way for Israel's creation.\n\n\"Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and in the same breath watered down the American commitment to the two-state solution,\" says an editorial in the broadsheet Haaretz. \"It is clear that America will not 'rescue Israel from itself' and will not bring about the end of the occupation.\"\n\nThe view from the Palestinian territories is rather different. A headline in the Palestinian Authority-owned newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadidah calls the US move the \"slap of the century\".\n\nPalestinian Al-Hayat al-Jadidah featured the announcement prominently on its front cover\n\nAn editorial in the paper warns that \"the gates of hell will be opened in the region\", echoing a statement made by the Islamist group Hamas.\n\nThere are also calls for effective and measured responses.\n\n\"Why should we not launch a calm intifada (uprising) and return to long-lasting negotiations?\" asks one commentator in the pro-Fatah Al-Ayyam newspaper. \"It would be better for us to wager on our political achievements and not on a third intifada.\"\n\nA commentator in the pro-Hamas biweekly Al-Risalah echoes this: \"We should reject the US and Israeli pressure, and move to enhance Palestinian national reconciliation until we achieve national unity. The least we can do is to concentrate all our energies and to overcome our differences in order to protect Jerusalem and reject the new US decision.\"\n\n\"For you, the city of prayer, I pray\" - Al Jazeera responded to the speech by showing the Fairouz song, Flower Among Cities\n\nThe main Arab TV news channels are running special coverage of the announcement, reporting on the international reaction and reflecting on Jerusalem's place in Arab culture.\n\nAn evocative song by the well-known Lebanese singer Fairouz, Flower Among Cities, has been played by some channels, including Al Jazeera. In it Fairouz sings about the loss of Jerusalem, and about the Palestinians' hope that they will one day return to it.\n\nAl Arabiya TV showed footage of a Christmas tree with its lights turned off in Ramallah\n\nAt the top of its morning bulletin, the Saudi-funded Al Arabiya TV cited the kingdom's official response expressing its \"deep regret\" over Mr Trump's decision and urging his administration to reconsider.\n\nIt highlighted demonstrations and strikes being held by Palestinians and reported that the lights on Bethlehem's Christmas tree had been switched off in protest.\n\nIn Egypt, Al-Dustur's front page says: \"Announcing the death of the Arabs\". Another daily complains that \"Trump gives what he doesn't own to those who don't deserve it\".\n\nIn Turkey, articles accuse Trump of going \"crazy\" and \"pouring petrol on fire\".\n\nBBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.", "More than 200 pupils have been evacuated from a primary school in Fife after a large fire broke out.\n\nAt least 30 firefighters were involved in tackling the blaze at Cairneyhill Primary School near Dunfermline.\n\nPupils and staff were all \"safe and well\" and were moved to a nearby church hall, Fife Council said.\n\nLocal residents were asked to keep their windows closed and stay away from Northbank Road while emergency service workers dealt with the blaze.\n\nThe fire, which broke out just after 13:00, was later contained by the fire crews, some parts of the school were badly damaged.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A fire broke out in a Fife primary school on Friday lunchtime\n\nMore than 200 pupils were evacuated from the school when the fire broke out\n\nFirefighters remained at the scene on Friday evening to check for any hidden fire spread.\n\nGroup manager Richie Hall, the incident commander, said: \"It was a challenging environment but they did a tremendous job through difficult conditions to find that source, contain the fire - and then fight it.\n\n\"Their efforts meant that the fire, located in the centre of the building, was prevented from spreading any further.\n\n\"They are now searching for any further pockets of fire to ensure the building is made absolutely safe.\"\n\nMr Hall commended firefighters for their efforts in bringing the incident to a \"swift and safe\" conclusion.\n\nHe added: \"I must also pay credit to both the children and the school staff who evacuated quickly and calmly, and made their way to a place of safety.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Fife Council This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe children were looked after at Cairneyhill parish church hall until they could be collected by parents.\n\nThere are around 223 pupils on the roll at the primary school, with approximately 48 in its nursery, according to its website.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by SWFifePolice This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by SWFifePolice This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Peers were debating the role of education in society when shouts were heard\n\nA man has been arrested in the House of Lords after a debate was interrupted by shouting.\n\nThe man was held on suspicion of common assault and criminal damage, following the incident in the public gallery.\n\nLabour peer Lord Giddens was speaking in a debate on Friday morning when he paused as a shout was heard, noting a \"continuing disturbance from outside\".\n\nThe annual Archbishop of Canterbury's debate was about the role of education in building a flourishing society.\n\nA spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: \"At approximately 11:15am on Friday, 8 December police were called to reports of a disturbance within the Palace of Westminster.\n\n\"A man, believed aged in his 20s, was escorted from the premises by officers.\n\n\"He was subsequently arrested on suspicion of common assault and criminal damage and remains in custody at a central London police station. Enquiries continue.\"", "The window display included the message \"wishing you an explosive Christmas\"\n\nA 29-year-old man has been charged after a snowman holding a rocket launcher was painted on the window of a republican support group's office in Londonderry.\n\nThe image included the message: \"Wishing you an Explosive Christmas.\"\n\nIt appeared at the office of the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association in Chamberlain Street.\n\nThe man has been charged with two counts of permitting display of anything provocative.\n\nIt follows the appearance of the display in October.\n\nThe Police Service of Northern Ireland said the man is due to appear at the magistrates' court in Derry on 3 January.\n\nAll charges will be reviewed by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicholas Hart says his daughter Averil's \"death was avoidable\"\n\nA teenager who \"starved to death\" in a matter of weeks was failed by \"every NHS organisation that should have cared for her\", a review has found.\n\nAveril Hart, 19, died in 2012 after her anorexia rapidly worsened at university in Norwich.\n\nHer father Nicholas said in just 10 weeks she went from being fit and healthy to \"being at death's door\".\n\nThe Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) found her death could and should have been prevented.\n\nThe NHS services involved say changes have been made, with one saying it accepted the report's findings.\n\nAveril Hart went to the University of East Anglia to study creative writing\n\nMiss Hart, the youngest of three sisters, from Newton, near Sudbury, became unwell after her A-levels and spent 10 months as an in-patient at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.\n\nShe was discharged to study creative writing at the University of East Anglia.\n\nMiss Hart was found collapsed at the university in December 2012 and taken to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital by ambulance but saw no specialist eating disorders clinician for three days after admission, by which time her condition had deteriorated.\n\nShe was transferred to Addenbrooke's Hospital on 11 December.\n\nOvernight her blood sugar fell to very low levels, but she did not receive appropriate treatment for this and became unconscious, suffering brain damage. She died three days later.\n\nAveril Hart's father says his daughter \"literally starved to death\"\n\nThe ombudsman found Miss Hart did not receive \"appropriate care and treatment\".\n\n\"In addition, the local investigation into her death was wholly inadequate with the organisations involved being defensive and protective of themselves, rather than taking responsibility,\" the ombudsman's report said.\n\nMiss Hart's father Nicholas Hart, who lives in Newton, near Sudbury, said: \"As a parent I suppose it is a great relief to finally know that the words you knew were true all along and that Averil's death was avoidable.\n\n\"It is good to know that the report itself will enable other children and families to potentially not have to go through what we have been through.\n\n\"It was a needless death, it did not have to happen. It took only 10 weeks for her to go from fit and healthy to being at death's door.\"\n\nOmbudsman Rob Behrens said: \"Averil's tragic death would have been avoided if the NHS had cared for her appropriately.\n\n\"Sadly, these failures, and her family's subsequent fight to get answers, are not unique.\n\n\"The families who brought their complaints to us have helped uncover serious issues that require urgent national attention - I hope that our recommendations will mean that no other family will go through the same ordeal.\"\n\nDr Bill Kirkup, who led part of the investigation, said: \"I hope this report will act as a wake-up call to the NHS and health leaders to make urgent improvements to services for eating disorders so that we can avoid similar tragedies in the future.\"\n\nAndrew Radford, chief executive at the eating disorder charity BEAT, said: \"The PHSO report is very clear, if the eating disorder had been recognised earlier and effective and timely care was put in place, Averil Hart's death would have been prevented.\n\n\"We await a response from the Government and NHS England who must learn and take action following this tragedy, we cannot continue to fail people with eating disorders.\n\n\"We must see good, joined-up intensive home and community-based treatment for people of all ages, and in all locations across the UK. This does require the NHS to reorganise but it will deliver improved outcomes for patients and considerable cost savings to the NHS.\n\n\"It is also clear there were multiple failings across the health service in the lead-up to this tragedy, and the behaviour of each responsible part of the NHS in evading and obfuscating justice is appalling, and piled even more distress on an already distraught family. This requires further investigation and action taken to ensure it cannot be repeated.\n\n\"This tragedy demonstrates, once again, the devastation eating disorders can cause.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital said: \"We met Averil's family in 2014 to offer our sincere condolences for their sad and devastating loss.\n\n\"Since then we have taken into account the learning from this tragic event and our structure and processes have been reviewed.\"\n\nAs well has holding a black belt in karate, Averil Hart had travelled extensively\n\nA spokesman for Cambridge University Hospital said: \"The trust would like to repeat the apologies previously made to Averil Hart's family and accepts the findings and recommendations in the ombudsman's report.\n\n\"When Averil was transferred to Addenbrooke's in December 2012, she was already very unwell but her death, at that time, may have been avoided had failures in her care not taken place.\n\n\"A thorough investigation has been carried out, lessons have been learned from what happened to Averil and a number of changes made.\"\n\nThe Norfolk Community Eating Disorder unit, which was tasked with providing community care to Miss Hart, has been approached for comment but is yet to respond.\n\nThe University of East Anglia declined to comment on the report, claiming it had \"been informed that legal action is pending subject to the outcome of an inquest\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "European Union officials say sufficient progress has been made in the Brexit negotiations, meaning they can move on to trade talks with the UK.\n\nTheresa May travelled to Brussels early this morning to present proposals on the so-called divorce bill, citizens rights and the Northern Ireland border.", "Border officials have seized £1.5m worth of counterfeit Calvin Klein pants, along with fake Dyson fans, Superdry hoodies and Nike shoes.\n\nThe authorities are using the hauls to highlight the risk of buying cut-price, substandard counterfeits at Christmas.\n\nThe Intellectual Property Office is also using humour to fight the fakes.\n\nIt has created a Youtube series in which a couple sing about their 12 days of rashes, injuries and humiliation due to dodgy Christmas gifts.\n\nThe daily updates feature warnings about \"copy floppy\" boxer shorts, perfume that \"smelt like sick\" and \"risky whisky\" containing anti-freeze.\n\nEvery year dire warnings are issued over the dangers posed by fake goods, from poisonings to electrical fires.\n\nThe Intellectual Property Office hopes that by taking a more light-hearted tone they will reach consumers who have ignored their previous messages.\n\nThe couple sing about \"copy floppy boxer shorts\" and perfume that \"smelt like sick\"\n\nIn the run up to Christmas a surge in counterfeits enters the country, from designer watches to children's toys, as shoppers, keen to save money at a costly time of year, are either hoodwinked or turn a blind eye to the lack of authenticity.\n\nAnd border officials step up their efforts to block them, employing huge x-ray machines to check that the items inside shipping crates match the accompanying documents.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Millions of pounds of fake goods seized ahead of Christmas\n\n\"Counterfeiters will counterfeit anything,\" said Sean Gigg, Border Force higher officer at Southampton Dock. \"It's based on supply and demand.\"\n\n\"It can be anything from cosmetics to jewellery to watches to the latest toys but also undergarments as well.\"\n\nAmong the items seized in recent weeks are:\n\nBy highlighting the range of products seized, the authorities hope to alert consumers to the chance that if a price is too good to be true for a sought after item, the product probably isn't genuine.\n\nWhile designer handbags are perennial favourites, other faked items vary from year to year following fashions, suggesting counterfeiters have an understanding of the market to match the top retail buyers.\n\nBack in 2013 officials seized mock-versions of Beats by Dr Dre headphones and Ugg boots.\n\nIn 2015 fake - and dangerous - hoverboards were a big problem. Last year saw a lot of Harry Potter wands, Nike Air Max trainers and Pokemon, Nintendo and Minecraft cuddly toys being stopped.\n\nThe IPO said it hoped to grab attention \"rather than be seen as shaking a stick\" by trying a more light-hearted approach in its video this year, in the hope that it will be shared on social media.\n\nHowever Ros Lynch, director of copyright and enforcement at the Intellectual Property Office, said the underlying issues were ultimately very serious.\n\n\"Those involved in counterfeiting are in the business to take advantage of consumers and make huge profits in the process.\n\n\"The goods are often of inferior quality, dangerous and the proceeds can be used to fund other serious organised crime.\n\n\"Counterfeiters have a total disregard for safety or quality, and even if items look genuine at first, they may end up being a dangerous or inferior copy.\"", "Roads have been closed across the island\n\nThe Isle of Man's worst snow storms for four years have caused \"major travel disruption\" across the island, said the government.\n\nAll schools were closed on Friday as was the National Sports Centre and University College Isle of Man.\n\nThe government said the decision had been taken as a result of \"travel difficulties and safety issues\".\n\nDirector of Highway Services, Jeff Robinson said \"it's the worst weather we've seen since 2013.\"\n\nHe added: \"We've had relatively little snow since then so it's a bit of a shock to the system for us all.\"\n\nIn March 2013, thousands of livestock died on the Isle of Man after becoming buried in the heaviest snowfall for 40 years.\n\nManx farmers lost thousands of sheep and cattle during the snow storm of 2013\n\nNoble's Hospital cancelled all outpatient clinics on Friday and advised people to only attend in an emergency.\n\nTravel problems are continuing with roads closures and flight delays to and from the island.\n\nA flight to Birmingham was cancelled and a \"small number\" of flights to Belfast, Liverpool and Manchester were delayed.\n\nA spokesman at Ronaldsway Airport said some departures were held up as planes had to be de-iced.\n\nMost flights did manage to land at Ronaldsway on Friday\n\nRoad conditions have been described as \"very bad\" and the Department of Infrastructure urged people to \"stay indoors after dark if possible\".\n\nThe Isle of Man Constabulary said its control room had been inundated with calls about road closures and problems with abandoned cars.\n\nA force spokesman added: \"It's Christmas party season at the moment so we are appealing for people to be extra mindful about making travel arrangements, especially over the weekend\".\n\nAll non-urgent district nurse appointments have been cancelled, as have some GP appointments.\n\nThe government has also announced that all of its offices closed at 15:00 GMT.\n\nThe Isle of Man Met Office has issued an amber weather warning for ice and snow, which remains in place until 18:00 on Saturday.\n\nForecasters predict snow or hail showers throughout the day which will \"affect all parts of the island\".\n\nSnow led to some delays at Isle of Man Airport\n\nExtra help was drafted in to get hospital staff into work\n\nA blanket of snow covered the island including the TT Grandstand\n\nThere was deep snow near Peel", "The prime minister made her decisions on Thursday night while the No 10 Downing Street Christmas party carried on.\n\nIt isn't celebration on Friday though for her government, but relief.\n\nAnd her allies note that in those fraught hours she made the decision to go to Brussels even though the DUP had continued to make its objections known, despite the progress it had secured.\n\nThat may be a comfort to her internal critics who believe that Theresa May is all too often a prisoner of circumstance rather than a bold decision maker.\n\nAnd after a rocky few months, Downing Street can breathe out, for once, because it reached a critical short-term goal, moving on from Monday's embarrassment to a temporary conclusion.\n\nBrexit is the biggest political and policy project any British government has undertaken for many, many years.\n\nAs the leader of the government pursuing the policy, the prime minister's own record rises and falls with the progress of our departure from the EU.\n\nSimply, while No 10 always maintains that she wants to focus on domestic reforms, Mrs May's fate is intertwined with these negotiations.\n\nThe deal was sealed at an early hours breakfast meeting on Friday\n\nThe talks stumble, and so does she. The negotiators muddle through, so does her leadership.\n\nAnd the deal at dawn mutes the criticism of her inside her party, and restores some of the faith perhaps in Brussels.\n\nHad it not been struck, had she not made the decision to get on the plane, there would have been serious rumblings in her party.\n\nIt might not have been the end of her leadership.\n\nThere are plenty of hopeful leadership contenders, but few who would be guaranteed to put their head above the parapet to try to push her out.\n\nBut critical Brexiteers have been conspicuous by their absence.\n\nAnd Remainers are relieved that she has, as they see it, been firm in the face of some of their and the DUP's demands, and left the route pointing to a softer Brexit.\n\nIn truth, so much has not been agreed.\n\nThis is a document that to a large extent, resolves to solve problems and contradictions together in the future.\n\nThe document contains more ambiguities than pages.\n\nAnd as with any compromises there are some losses, and some victories.\n\nOver time those fault lines will appear. The two sides of the Tories' internal debates over Europe have not suddenly met in the middle.\n\nThe brooding clash has been delayed, again, allowing the prime minister to press on into the next phase.\n\nAnd above all, the agreements in this document may never come to pass.\n\nTruly, \"nothing is agreed until everything is agreed\".\n\nThis is a big, first, political step that allows the real journey to begin.\n\nWith this progress, however limited, Theresa May buys breathing space.", "NiceHash was targeted by hackers in the early hours of Wednesday\n\n\"Highly professional\" hackers made off with around 4,700 Bitcoin from a leading mining service, a Bitcoin exchange has said.\n\nThe value of Bitcoin is currently extremely volatile, but at the time of writing, the amount stolen was worth approximately $80m.\n\nIt said it was working hard to recover the Bitcoin for its users, adding: \"Someone really wanted to bring us down.\"\n\nThe attack happened early on Wednesday, said NiceHash's chief executive Marko Kobal. Attackers accessed the company's systems at 01:18 CET (00:18 GMT). By 03:37 the hackers, whom the company believes were based outside the European Union, had begun stealing Bitcoin.\n\nThe theft comes as the price of Bitcoin continues to surge, dumbfounding experts and stoking concerns of a bubble.\n\nHigh-stakes attacks like this are not uncommon, with several large breaches and thefts hitting Bitcoin and other related services over the past year.\n\nNiceHash is a mining service, a company that pairs up people with spare computing power with those willing to pay to use it to mine for new Bitcoin.\n\nMr Kobal appeared on Facebook Live to address concerns about the hack.\n\n\"We have not abandoned you guys,\" he said.\n\nHe explained that an employee's computer was compromised in the attack. He added that \"forensic analysis\" involving local and international authorities was taking place, but did not expand on which specific agencies were involved when asked by the BBC.\n\nThe company was heavily criticised by its users who commented in droves on Facebook. Communications were complicated further when a spoof Facebook page for the company was set up and spreading disinformation about the breach.\n\nSecurity issues involving Bitcoin and other related services are a frequent cause for concern for virtual currency traders.\n\nYou can reach Dave securely through encrypted messaging app Signal on: +1 (628) 400-7370", "Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker announce progress in Brexit talks in Brussels on Friday\n\nMore clarity on the Brexit transition is needed to stop companies proceeding with contingency plans despite the progress announced on Friday, the CBI has warned.\n\nPaul Drechsler, president of the business lobby group, said companies had begun triggering plans months ago.\n\nHowever, more detail could help suspend further action by firms, he said.\n\nSterling was trading higher at just under $1.35 and €1.15 after the announcement in Brussels.\n\nEuropean Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the \"breakthrough\" meant Brexit talks could now move on to the next phase.\n\nThe CBI's Mr Drechsler also called for \"unconditionality\" about the status of EU citizens living in the UK.\n\n\"It's an important political milestone, but clarity on transition is the most important thing from a business point of view at this stage,\" he told the BBC's Today programme.\n\nThe Institute of Directors (IoD) echoed the CBI's call for certainty on the rights of EU citizens.\n\nStephen Martin, IoD director-general, said companies urgently needed certainty about the future of EU staff in the UK.\n\n\"We have grounds to hope now that our members will be able to send their employees off for the Christmas break feeling more comfortable about their status here,\" he said.\n\n\"We look forward to further clarity about what the UK's objectives are for that new relationship, as well as a firm commitment on transition in the very near future.\"\n\nThe reaction from big business organisations has been - broadly - \"phew, about time\". But it's not job done on Brexit - far from it.\n\nWhat companies say they need is certainty about future trading and customs arrangements with the EU, Britain's biggest trading partner. We are nowhere near such clarity.\n\nThe immediate priority for businesses is a temporary transitional deal that kicks in as the UK leaves the EU. Only that will stop companies continuing to implement any Brexit contingency plans to relocate staff or offices, leaders warn.\n\nSome businesses say a long-term trade deal is not needed as global rules will suit the UK just fine. The government disagrees.\n\nHowever, ministers have not yet spelled out in detail what they hope the future trading relationship will look like. It will have to do that soon.\n\nTrade talks typically take years to complete. Those talks look set to be tougher than those on the divorce which - remember - have taken longer than both sides hoped.\n\nIt took seven years for the EU and Canada to negotiate a deal, the EU's most ambitious yet. The UK hopes for an even more comprehensive arrangement than that. But there isn't seven years to spare. There are just 476 days until Brexit Day.\n\nAdam Marshall, the director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said \"clarity and security\" for European employees had been the biggest priority for UK companies since the referendum vote.\n\n\"We are delighted that they, as well as UK citizens living and working in the EU, now have more clarity and can plan their future with greater confidence,\" he said.\n\nAs attention turns to trade negotiations, the BCC said companies wanted \"absolute clarity\" on the long-term deal being sought.\n\n\"Businesses want answers on what leaving the EU will mean for regulation, customs, hiring, standards, tariffs and taxes.\"\n\nThe EEF, which represents manufacturers, said the agreement was one step forward in a complex and long process.\n\nEEF chief executive Stephen Phipson said: \"We need to pin down the transition arrangements, which will be in place after March 2019, to ensure it's business as usual for companies for as long as it takes until a final deal is reached.\n\n\"Until we get to that point, many businesses will need to prepare for any and every eventuality.\"\n\nThe ADS Group, the trade organisation that represents the aerospace, defence, security and space sectors, called Friday's announcement \"an important step\".\n\n\"Continued uncertainty over arrangements for a transition period benefits no-one and it is vital that both parties make formal commitments as soon as possible to a transition lasting at least two years, allowing businesses to continue to invest in our economy with confidence,\" said ADS chief executive Paul Everitt.", "The winning city was announced in the current UK City of Culture, Hull\n\nCoventry has been chosen to be the UK's City of Culture for 2021.\n\nThe bid team said their plans were \"about changing the reputation of a city\" as well as hosting a year of cultural celebration.\n\nThe title is awarded every four years and Coventry will hope to emulate the success of Hull, which is UK City of Culture this year.\n\nThe other places in the running for the title were Swansea, Paisley, Stoke-on-Trent and Sunderland.\n\nCoventry is the birthplace of Philip Larkin, one of England's finest poets, electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire and best-selling author Lee Child. It's also the home of the Two Tone ska movement through bands like The Specials and The Selecter.\n\nVenues will include Warwick Arts Centre, the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum and the Belgrade Theatre, which launched the Theatre In Education movement in 1965. It's also the home of the UK's first Shop Front Theatre and boasts the UK's largest free family music festival with the Coventry Godiva Festival.\n\nCoventry's bid team said the city had \"constantly reinvented itself to survive\".\n\nIt has suffered from the decline of its status as the heart of the British motor industry, and it was devastated by bombing during the World War Two.\n\nIt will hope to learn from Hull, whose status as UK City of Culture has boosted the local economy by an estimated £60m.\n\nHull has also seen more than £1bn of investment since being chosen to hold the 2017 title four years ago, and the year's artistic programme has been a hit with both residents and critics.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. UK City of Culture: Five things about Coventry\n\nLaura McMillan, manager of the Coventry City of Culture Trust, said the economic impact would \"be huge for the city and the West Midlands\".\n\n\"This is a win for Coventry, a win for young people and a win for diversity,\" she said.\n\n\"It's been a bid by and for the people of Coventry. It has brought so many people and organisations together and this is just the start.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Coventry2021 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nArts minister John Glen said it was \"an incredible opportunity for Coventry to boost investment in the local economy, grow tourism and put arts and culture centre stage\".\n\nHe said: \"In 2017 I have seen the truly transformative effect this prestigious title has had on Hull.\n\n\"The city has embraced City of Culture and in doing so has demonstrated how culture, the arts and heritage can bring communities together. I look forward to seeing what Coventry has in store in 2021.\"\n\nHe also congratulated the unsuccessful towns and cities for their \"excellent\" bids.\n\nCoventry will be the third UK City of Culture - after Hull and Londonderry, which held the title in 2013.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by pauline black This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Jim Lee This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAs part of the prize, Coventry will have access to a £3m Heritage Lottery Fund grant.\n\nThe UK City of Culture scheme is separate from the European Capital of Culture. The UK was due to have a turn choosing a city to hold that title in 2023, with Leeds, Dundee, Milton Keynes, Belfast/Derry and Nottingham all bidding.\n\nBut the European Commission recently confirmed that the UK will lose the right to have a host city after it leaves the EU in 2019.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The controversial US embassy move to Jerusalem is going ahead amid celebration and protest. The BBC's Yolande Knell explains why the city is so important.", "Mohammed Abdallah was convicted following a trial at the Old Bailey\n\nA British man who travelled to Syria to join so-called Islamic State has been jailed for 10 years.\n\nMohammed Abdallah was helped by his brother Abdalraouf, who set up a \"hub\" of communication for would-be fighters from his home in Manchester.\n\nAbdallah, of Westerling Way, Moss Side, Manchester, was convicted after a trial at the Old Bailey.\n\nHe was found guilty of membership of IS, possessing an AK47 gun and receiving £2,000 for terrorism.\n\nThe judge said Abdallah had \"bragged\" about acquiring weapons in messages and was \"totally committed\" to signing up to IS.\n\nHaving seen first-hand people being maimed and killed in Libya, he was undeterred from travelling abroad again to \"kill or be killed\" in Syria, she said.\n\n\"There is no evidence of possession of extremist propaganda material. The evidence of your mindset is to be found in your actions.\n\n\"Your commitment to violence abroad is clear and you have not shown any sign of changing your views or attitudes,\" she said.\n\nThe judge added: \"I do accept to some extent you acted under the influence of your brother.\"\n\nThe court heard Abdallah had an IQ of 68 and had a previous conviction in 2013 for assaulting a police officer while drunk or high.\n\nAbdallah's IS registration document was translated into English and analysed by detectives\n\nThe trial heard the 26-year-old intended to meet three fellow jihadis in Syria.\n\nHe was outed as an IS fighter last year when his IS registration document listing him as a \"specialist sniper\" was leaked to Sky News by a defector.\n\nIn mitigation, Rajiv Menon QC said there was no evidence Abdallah was \"on a mission\" in the two years between leaving Syria after four weeks and the time his involvement with IS emerged.\n\nMrs Justice McGowan jailed Abdallah for 10 years with five years on extended licence.\n\nThe trial was told the Abdallah brothers, who had dual Libyan nationality, joined the \"Tripoli Brigade\" in 2011 and during a bloody battle against the Gaddafi regime, Abdalraouf was shot and paralysed from the waist down.\n\nAbdalraouf Abdallah has been in a wheelchair since he was injured in Libya at the age of 18\n\nIn the summer of 2014, Abdallah headed to Syria via Libya with fellow Libyan Nezar Khalifa, 27, planning to join IS with former RAF serviceman Stephen Gray, 34, and Raymond Matimba, 28, who were also from Manchester.\n\nGray was turned away in Turkey, but Matimba eventually caught up with the others and appeared in footage with IS killer Jihadi John.\n\nIn 2016, Sky News received files from an IS defector which listed Abdallah as a specialist sniper with expertise with the \"Dushka\", a Russian heavy machine gun, and fighting experience in Libya.\n\nIt cited Manchester recruiter Raphael Hostey, also known as Abu Al-qaqa Al Britani, as a reference in Raqqa as well as a \"family friend\", the Libyan narrator of an IS video called Demolishing Borders.\n\nDuring the trial Abdallah denied swearing allegiance, saying he only went to Syria to help deliver $5,000 to the poor and someone else must have filled out the form without his knowledge.\n\nHe said: \"It's true I refused to swear allegiance. They did send me to prison.\n\n\"I was threatened with being beheaded.\n\n\"I was shot at. I was hit. I had bruises and a black eye.\"\n\nAbdallah's trial was delayed in the wake of the attack on the Manchester Arena over reported links with bomber SalmanAbedi, who attended the same mosque as the defendant and Hostey.\n\nHe too had Libyan parents, lived in Manchester, and had travelled to Libya before returning to the city to plan the May 22 attack on an Ariana Grande concert that killed 22 people.\n\nIn 2016, Abdalraouf Abdallah was found guilty of assisting others in committing acts of terrorism, and terror funding and jailed for five-and-a-half years.\n\nGray, of Whitnall Street in Manchester, admitted three terrorism offences, including his attempts to travel to Syria, and was jailed for five years.\n\nHostey left the UK in 2013 and is believed to have been killed in a drone strike in 2016.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The UK and European Commission have reached an agreement that should allow them to move Brexit talks on to the next stage.\n\nHere are some of the key lines in the agreement document.\n\nSo here's the first linguistic somersault. This agreement is designed to lock in the progress made so far, and allow technical experts to continue to work on it during the second phase of talks.\n\nBut EU negotiations always work on the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and that raises the prospect that if the second phase runs into trouble, then what has been agreed so far could, in theory, unravel.\n\nThat is certainly not the intention on either side, but it underscores that the negotiating process still has a very long way to run - and the hardest part is still to come.\n\nThe separation agreement on citizens' rights will not fall under the direct jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (officially called the CJEU but commonly referred to as the ECJ) which was the initial demand from the European Union.\n\nBut the ECJ will continue to play a role, because this agreement says UK courts will have to pay \"due regard\" to its decisions on an indefinite basis.\n\nAnd for eight years after Brexit, there will be a mechanism for UK courts to refer questions of interpretation directly to the ECJ.\n\nIt is a compromise, but the sort of compromise that some supporters of Brexit will find hard to stomach.\n\nThis detail on citizens' rights is important.\n\nThe agreement will apply to anyone taking up residence before the UK leaves the EU, so people could still take the decision to move next year, or even in early 2019, and they would be fully protected by it. That option will remain open for new arrivals until the day the UK leaves - currently presumed to be 29 March 2019.\n\nIn fact the European Commission argues that the \"specified date\" should be considerably later. In an official communication to the European Council it argues that during a transition all EU citizens should have all their rights upheld. In other words, it says, the \"specified date\" should not be the actual date of withdrawal, but the final day of a transition period (potentially two years later or even longer).\n\nThere are also a lot of technical details hidden in the weeds of the agreement that remain to be negotiated, and that's why some groups representing citizens who are caught up in this dilemma are far from happy.\n\nThe reaction of the European Parliament, which has taken a tough line on citizens' rights, will be important because it has to ratify the final agreement.\n\nThis is the key phrase in the long section setting out how the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will operate after the UK leaves the EU.\n\nThe preference on both sides is for an ambitious free trade agreement, which will address many of the concerns that have been raised (although questions of customs duties would still have to be addressed).\n\nAs a backstop though, the UK has guaranteed that it will maintain \"full alignment\" with the EU's single market and customs rules that govern cross-border trade.\n\nIt is a form of words that everyone can (just about) live with for now, but there is plenty of tough negotiating ahead.\n\nIt's not entirely clear how full alignment could be maintained without Northern Ireland staying in the single market and the customs union, especially as there is no such thing as partial membership. It is another sign that the competing demands that have been discussed this week have been sidestepped, but not fully resolved.\n\nThis sentence about the financial settlement is a bureaucratic masterpiece, and suggests that plenty of detail still needs to be sorted out behind the scenes.\n\nFor months, the money appeared to be the most intractable issue in the withdrawal negotiations, but money is easier to finesse than borders or courts.\n\nA method for calculating the bill has been agreed, but the calculation of an exact UK share will depend on exchange rates, on interest rates, on the number of financial commitments that never turn into payments, and more.\n\nThe question of how and when payments will be made still needs to resolved, but it will be a schedule lasting for many years to come, and it is highly unlikely that anyone will ever be able to give an exact figure for the size of the divorce bill.\n\nUK sources say it will be up to £40bn, but some EU sources expect it to be higher than that. No-one can say for sure, and both sides want to keep it that way.\n\nUpdate 11 December 2017: This piece was amended to take account of the European Commission's view on the specified date for EU citizens' rights.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Franken attacked Donald Trump and Roy Moore in his resignation speech\n\nDemocratic Senator and ex-comedian Al Franken has said he plans to quit \"in the coming weeks\" after string of sexual harassment allegations.\n\n\"I am proud that during my time in the Senate that I have used my power to be a champion of women,\" the Minnesota senator said from the US Senate floor.\n\nHis speech came a day after nearly 30 Democrats called on him to resign.\n\nHe would be the most prominent lawmaker to resign amid a wave of misconduct claims against high-profile figures.\n\nMeanwhile, the US House of Representatives Ethics Committee launched sexual harassment investigations into two Republican congressmen.\n\nTrent Franks of Arizona announced he was resigning as the inquiry was announced.\n\nMr Franken arrived at the Capitol holding hands with his wife\n\nHe acknowledged having made two female congressional aides \"uncomfortable\" by asking them about surrogacy when he and his wife faced infertility.\n\nThe committee also said it would investigate Blake Farenthold, who used $84,000 (£62,000) of taxpayers' money to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit with his former spokeswoman.\n\nOver in the Senate, Mr Franken told his colleagues on Thursday: \"Today I am announcing that in the coming weeks I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.\n\n\"I may be resigning my seat but I am not giving up my voice.\"\n\nThe former Saturday Night Live comic and two-term senator has apologised to several women who have accused him of groping and sexual harassment, but he faced mounting pressure to step aside after a new allegation surfaced on Wednesday.\n\nMr Franken said some of the claims against him \"are simply are not true\", but added that women \"deserve to be heard and their experiences taken seriously\".\n\nHe also referenced the sexual misconduct allegations that have been levelled against President Donald Trump and Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.\n\n\"I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Franken is not the only US politician to have found himself engulfed by sexual harassment in recent weeks.\n\nOn Tuesday, Michigan Democrat John Conyers announced he would resign amid claims of sexual harassment made by his congressional aides.\n\nSeven women have come forward to accuse Mr Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court judge, of sexual misconduct decades ago.\n\nSeveral Democratic female senators - including some who called for Mr Franken's resignation a day earlier - hugged the lawmaker after his speech.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Bernie Sanders This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFellow Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar thanked Mr Franken on Facebook, calling him a \"friend to me and many in our state\".\n\n\"Nothing is easy or pleasant about this,\" she wrote, \"but we all must recognise that our workplace cultures - and the way we treat each other as human beings - must change.\"\n\nThe decision to fill the vacancy left by Mr Franken will fall to Democratic Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, who said in a statement he has not determined who will replace him.\n\n\"I extend my deepest regrets to the women who have had to endure their unwanted experiences with Senator Franken,\" he said.", "Disagreements remain over how the Irish border should be treated after Brexit\n\nBrexit negotiations are continuing into the night in a fresh push to reach agreement over the Irish border.\n\nThe BBC's Laura Kuenssberg has been told there are \"serious ideas\" on the table that the different parties are broadly content with.\n\nAdditional wording has been added to reassure the DUP, whose opposition on Monday led to talks breaking down.\n\nUK PM Theresa May could travel to Brussels early on Friday if a deal is reached.\n\nEuropean Council President Donald Tusk is due to make a statement at 0650 GMT, prompting speculation that a deal is close.\n\nEuropean Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas tweeted: \"We are making progress, but not yet fully there,\" adding: \"Tonight more than ever, stay tuned.\"\n\nBut a Democratic Unionist Party source urged caution, saying the team were \"still working\".\n\nAll sides want progress on the issue ahead of a crucial summit next week, so talks can move on to the future relationship between the UK and the EU after Brexit.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Laura Kuenssberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Laura Kuenssberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nWhat happens to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has been among the key sticking points in Brexit negotiations.\n\nOn Monday, the DUP - whose support the UK prime minister needs to win key votes in Westminster - objected to draft plans drawn up by the UK and the EU.\n\nThey included aligning regulations in Northern Ireland with those in the Republic so as to avoid border checks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"However many times you phrase it, we're not going to be making any comment\"\n\nThe DUP insists it will not accept any agreement in which Northern Ireland was treated differently from the rest of the UK.\n\nThe Republic of Ireland, on the other hand, which is an EU member, wants a guarantee that there will be no hard border between it and Northern Ireland after Brexit.\n\nThe UK, which is due to leave the EU in March 2019, wants to open talks on a new free trade deal as soon as possible.\n\nThe EU will only agree to discuss this when it judges that enough progress has been made on the \"separation issues\" - the \"divorce bill\", expat citizens' rights and the Northern Ireland border - that have been the subject of negotiations so far.\n\nSo the UK is trying to settle the Northern Ireland border issue before EU leaders meet next week.\n• None Johnson to EU: 'Go whistle' over exit bill", "Uber has had its licence suspended in Sheffield after it failed to respond to official requests about its management, the city council has said.\n\nThe firm, also fighting a ban in London, can still operate in Sheffield until 18 December and can appeal against the decision, the council said.\n\nIf it decides not to appeal, the suspension will come into force.\n\nUber said that an \"administrative error\" by the council was to blame and hoped to resolve the issue soon.\n\nUber is still fighting its ban in London after it lost its licence there in September.\n\nTransport for London, which has criticised the firm's record over reporting criminal offences and carrying out driver background checks, decided not to renew Uber's London licence after it deemed the firm \"unfit\" to run a taxi service.\n\nA Sheffield City spokesperson said: \"Uber's licence was suspended last Friday (29 November) after the current licence holder failed to respond to requests, made by our licensing team, about the management of Uber.\n\n\"We received a new application, for a licence to operate taxis in Sheffield, from Uber Britannia Limited, on 18 October 2017 which we are currently processing.\"\n\nThe council said an operator's licence could not be transferred and that the new application would be dealt with by the council's licensing department.\n\nAn Uber spokesperson said: \"We informed Sheffield City Council on 5 October that we would need to change the name on our licence as the named individual would soon be leaving the company.\n\n\"The council told us they couldn't change the name on the licence, as most other councils have done, and that we would instead have to apply for a new one.\"\n\nUber said it had submitted an application for a new licence which was still being processed.\n\n\"While we are in regular contact with the council, we did not receive the correspondence the council refers to as they sent the letters to an incorrect address,\" the spokesperson said.\n\n\"We hope this administrative error can be quickly resolved so we can continue serving tens of thousands of riders and drivers in Sheffield.\"\n\nUber added that if the new application could not be approved by 18 December, the firm would of course appeal against its suspension.", "European Council president Donald Tusk is to make an announcement about Brexit at 06:50 GMT on Friday\n\nThe core Brexit issues on which Ireland reached agreement earlier this week are not changing, the country's foreign minister has told the Irish parliament.\n\nDublin would look at new proposals but its core position needed to remain intact, said Mr Coveney.\n\nNegotiations between the UK government, the European Commission and the Irish government continued on Thursday.\n\nEuropean Council president Donald Tusk is now due to make an announcement about Brexit at 06:50 GMT on Friday.\n\nOn Monday, the UK and EU failed to strike a deal in Brexit talks when the DUP objected to the wording of a text on the future operation of the border.\n\nIt is unlikely the current phase of negotiations will be wrapped by the end of Thursday, says the BBC's Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg.\n\nThere is no sense of any real momentum in the talks, despite the hard work of all sides, she told BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme.\n\nThe real difficulty for UK PM Theresa May is that disagreement on a post-Brexit Irish border has sparked division within the Conservative Party on the differing versions of Brexit that could be tolerated by different parties, she added.\n\nThe DUP's deputy leader Nigel Dodds MP left talks with representatives on the Conservative Party in Whitehall earlier on Thursday evening without comment.\n\nDublin's core issues are protecting the Good Friday Agreement, maintaining the integrity of the European single market and the all-island economy.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Would you notice if you crossed the Irish border? (Video from 2017)\n\nMr Coveney told the Dáil (Irish parliament) on Thursday morning that sensitive negotiations were ongoing and he would not make any statement that might create difficulties.\n\nBut he was insistent the Republic would not support anything that might lead to a hard border on the island of Ireland.\n\n\"The Irish government's position hasn't changed,\" he said.\n\nThe Irish government has demanded a written agreement from the UK that there will be no return to a hard border - one involving checkpoints or barriers - after Brexit.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Laura Kuenssberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Laura Kuenssberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEarlier, the Irish prime minister said the UK government planned to suggest a new wording for a Brexit deal on the Irish border within the next 24 hours.\n\nLeo Varadkar said he had spoken by phone to UK PM Theresa May on Wednesday, adding that he wanted to move things forward and had indicated his willingness \"to consider any proposals that the UK side have\".\n\n\"Ultimately, it is up to them to come back to us, given the events that happened on Monday,\" he said.\n\nOn Monday, Mr Varadkar said he was \"surprised and disappointed\" a deal had not been reached, after the UK had agreed a text that met Irish concerns.\n\n\"I want us to move to phase two - if that is possible - next week, but the absolute red line that has been there for some time remains,\" he said.\n\n\"My responsibility as taoiseach (Irish PM) is to protect our fundamental national interest and that is the rights of Irish citizens in Ireland and Britain, and also the avoidance of a return to a border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.\"\n\nThe EU has agreed that Brexit talks cannot proceed to phase two - dealing with trade - until the Republic of Ireland is satisfied with a UK guarantee on the border issue.\n\nThe Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has said it will not accept any agreement in which Northern Ireland is treated differently from the rest of the UK.\n\nMrs May's Conservative Party currently relies on the support of the DUP's 10 MPs to keep its minority government in power at Westminster.\n\nEarlier, veteran Conservative MP Ken Clark said the government had made a \"pig's ear\" of the border negotiations.\n\n\"They agreed this regulatory compliance on both sides, which is what a free trade deal requires, but unfortunately they didn't make it clear that's the whole of the United Kingdom,\" he said.\n\nTaoiseach Leo Varadkar had a 15-minute phone call with Theresa May on Wednesday\n\n\"I quite understand that in Ulster people don't want a different arrangement from the whole of the United Kingdom and to have new protectionist barriers on the Irish Sea.\"\n\nHe added: \"They should have kept the DUP completely in the loop and discussed it with them and explained it with them as it went along.\n\n\"It's no good just reaching agreement with the taoiseach and then present it to the DUP who appear to have got the idea that somehow this was a special arrangement for Ulster.\"\n\nThe chair of Westminster's Brexit committee, Labour MP Hilary Benn, said it was right to describe Monday's deal collapse of as \"a shambles\".\n\nHe was speaking on a visit to the Irish border as part of a one-day fact-finding mission.\n\nA group of 14 cross party MPs are meeting local business leaders in County Armagh as well as representatives from the police, customs, and staff from the North-South Ministerial Council.\n\nMeanwhile, Sinn Féin's leader north of the border, Michelle O'Neill, said there could not be any \"rollback\" by the Irish government on its position, urging Dublin to be \"very alert\".\n\nMrs O'Neill added that the DUP did not represent the \"majority view\" in Northern Ireland.", "Asthma symptoms can be brought on by exercise in elite athletes\n\nProfessional footballers should be screened for exercise-induced asthma, researchers say, after a study found three in 10 could be affected.\n\nUniversity of Kent scientists used lung tests to identify players with symptoms and improved their fitness after treatment.\n\nElite athletes are known to be prone to asthma-related problems because of their high-intensity breathing.\n\nExperts said screening made sense and could prevent later problems.\n\nIn the study, presented at a meeting of the British Thoracic Society, 97 footballers in England from two Premier League clubs, one Championship club and a League One club had their lung health tested during pre-season.\n\nTwenty-seven players tested positive for airway or breathing problems, also known as exercise-induced asthma.\n\nTen of those had no previous history of asthma or airway problems.\n\nWhen they were treated with appropriate medication, their symptoms - such as tightness of the chest, wheezing and coughing after playing - reduced, and their lung function improved over time.\n\nThe researchers also found that their aerobic fitness and performance on the pitch improved.\n\nAirway problems can be treated using lung health screening, experts say\n\nDr John Dickinson, from the school of sport and exercise science at the University of Kent, said although top football clubs were good at screening players for heart problems, they were not carrying out tests which could identify respiratory problems - which were much more common.\n\n\"Clubs can't rely on players reporting symptoms because they are not always that obvious and sometimes they are written off as poor fitness,\" he said.\n\nThe researchers used medical tests to assess the footballers' breathing, airway function and how efficiently they could empty their lungs.\n\nThey were then able to detect asthma-related symptoms accurately and tailor treatment for those affected.\n\nImproving the health of footballers' airways also has other benefits, Dr Dickinson said.\n\n\"They are less likely to pick up coughs and colds.\"\n\nHigh rates of exercise-induced asthma have been found in other sports among elite athletes.\n\nExperts believe it may be connected to athletes exercising regularly at high intensity which means their breathing rates are also high\n\nWhen the air is cold and dry, and if there is exposure to air pollution or other allergens like pollen, this could worsen symptoms - but more research is needed to confirm this.\n\nDr Lisa Davies, consultant respiratory physician and chairwoman of the British Thoracic Society's board of trustees, said lungs were pivotal to exercise and life in general.\n\n\"In key sports, where the lungs are worked hard and are prone to repeat exposure to different and challenging internal and external conditions - it really makes sense to have lung health screening, so if there are any airway problems they can be treated.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Not yet. But, but, but, after two days where it has felt that there has been very little movement indeed, tonight, the atmosphere has changed.\n\nWell-placed sources on the EU and UK sides sound suddenly cheerful.\n\nNew language to add to the agreement that failed to persuade the DUP at the start of the week has been discussed approvingly in London, Brussels and Dublin.\n\nAnd on Thursday evening, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker's spokesman posted this:\n\nSorry, we're having trouble displaying this content. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut the DUP, who blocked the deal on Monday, humiliating Theresa May, are not yet fully on board.\n\nUntil their support can be guaranteed, don't expect Theresa May to get on the plane.\n\nThey are no strangers to taking their time, and making the most of their maximum moments of leverage.\n\nIt is possible that Theresa May could, by Friday evening, have been to Brussels and back, and have an agreement approved that would allow the Brexit talks to move on to the next phase.\n\nIt's also possible that this latest plan will fall foul of her Belfast allies and indeed, some figures in her own party.\n\nA senior source told me on Thursday: \"If she can't solve it in the next couple of days, how could she solve it in the next month?.\"\n\nThe next 24 hours are critical not just to the talks, but to Theresa May's future.", "Charlie Douthwaite had his transplant at the Freeman Hospital\n\nA nine-week-old baby who received a new heart may be rejecting the organ.\n\nA Europe-wide appeal to help Charlie Douthwaite - who was born with heart defect - was launched last month and he underwent a transplant last week.\n\nBut his father Steven Douthwaite has posted on Facebook that Charlie has had a \"rough few days\" and may be rejecting the new heart.\n\nCharlie, who has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, was the youngest patient on the UK transplant waiting list.\n\nAfter his nine-hour operation at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital, Charlie's mother, Tracie Wright, said the donor family had given him \"a second chance at life\".\n\nMr Douthwaite said on Facebook Charlie's blood pressure had dropped and medics suspected he had sepsis.\n\nHe also said his son had had to undergo open heart surgery again.\n\nThe post said: \"Charlie has had a rough few days - we were told this could be the first stage of his body rejecting the heart, we also found out that they believe Charlie has caught sepsis so they have started him on antibiotics.\n\n\"Terrible feeling being told that his body might of been rejecting the heart, not nice living every second of your life on edge.\"\n\nCharlie had to have open heart surgery when he was three days old, after being born weighing 6lb 5oz at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.\n\nA spokesman for the hospital said on Friday Charlie was \"stable\".\n\nBy the age of five weeks, Charlie had undergone 11 operations.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Some motorists said they were stuck on the closed motorway for more than four hours\n\nDrivers were left stuck in vehicles for several hours in freezing temperatures as the M5 was shut in both directions.\n\nIt followed \"concerns for the welfare of a man\" on a bridge at junction 28, near Cullompton, at about 16:00 GMT, police said.\n\nJust after 20:40, Devon and Cornwall Police said the man had been moved from the bridge and the road was reopening.\n\nRichard Jones, said his wife and eight-week old baby were among those stuck in traffic in a \"very cold Skoda\".\n\nThe closure caused traffic jams stretching back for seven miles (11km) from the bridge, in mid-Devon.\n\nHighways England confirmed the motorway was \"fully open\" at 21:43 after work to move broken down vehicles.\n\nMany people were stranded in their cars for hours and some posted on social media to say they risked running out of fuel on the motorway.\n\nForecasters had predicted temperatures in the area would be going down to -1C during the night.\n\nPolice said the road was reopening just after 20:40 GMT\n\nSara Morgan-Broom, who was one of those stuck in the queues, said she had not moved on the motorway between 16:20 and 20:12.\n\nDevon and Cornwall Police said there were a number of breakdowns in the area and warned surrounding roads remained busy.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by DevonCornwall Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThey also tweeted that the man who had been on the bridge was now receiving support from mental health professionals.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by DevonCornwall Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Phil Davies complained about how Northern dealt with passengers on his journey and later took them to court after they failed to reply\n\nA train passenger's lengthy fight for compensation from a rail company got to the stage where bailiffs were \"pursuing them at their registered office\".\n\nPhil Davies was on a Leeds to Barnsley service which \"abandoned\" him and 40 other passengers in Wakefield due to a signal failure.\n\nHe claimed for compensation and won a legal case, but said he was left waiting for about £300 from Northern.\n\nNorthern apologised and said the \"matter had been resolved\".\n\nOn an evening train on 10 June, Mr Davies was travelling to his home in Barnsley when the line suffered signal problems.\n\nThe passenger said they were left on the platform of Wakefield Westgate with no access to toilets, with a promise of a Northern representative arranging their onward journey not kept.\n\nBritish Transport Police eventually advised passengers to walk into Wakefield and find a taxi.\n\nMr Davies said he complained, but was still waiting for a response after four weeks so began a small claims court case against the company.\n\nIn October, a court ruled in favour of his claim for £283 plus £25 court fees, as Northern did not attend the hearing.\n\nAfter two weeks, Mr Davies said the bailiffs \"automatically stepped in\" as no payment had been made.\n\n\"It's frustrating when a big corporation just snubs a consumer - we're small and insignificant.\" Mr Davies said.\n\n\"Too often, the public are fobbed off by big corporations and they simply can't be bothered. It's about challenging poor standards so they're improved.\"\n\nNorthern said it was reviewing its procedures after the legal wrangle\n\nA spokesman for Northern said: \"We apologise for any distress and frustration experienced by our customer following the incident and his subsequent contact with Northern.\n\n\"We fully accept the judgement of the court and have made contact to ensure the matter is settled. We have also made a significant offer of compensation to our customer - which is over and above the figure set out by the court.\"\n\nHe added: \"We are now undertaking a review of our processes to help ensure such situations do not happen again.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Terry Adams had argued it would breach his human rights to pay\n\nA former member of one of Britain's most notorious crime gangs has paid nearly £730,000 to settle a legal battle over his criminal assets.\n\nTerry Adams, who was associated with the north London \"Adams family\", had claimed he was too poor to pay.\n\nHe agreed to make the payment after being warned he would go back to prison if he did not, the BBC understands.\n\nAdams had argued it would breach his human rights to pay, after he was jailed for money laundering in 2007.\n\nNick Price of the Crown Prosecution Service said: \"The CPS is determined to ensure that crime doesn't pay and that criminals including Adams cannot avoid paying back what they owe.\n\n\"Our prosecutors and caseworkers have worked tirelessly to secure assets from Adams, who sought to benefit from his crimes and went to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nNearly 200,000 residents have been evacuated from their homes in California as firefighters battle several raging wildfires.\n\nGovernor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in San Diego on Thursday after a new blaze spread from 10 acres to 4,100 acres in just a few hours.\n\nThree firefighters have been injured and about 500 buildings destroyed.\n\nOne death has been reported - a woman's body was found in a burned-out area in Ventura County.\n\nBut an official told the Ventura Country Star newspaper that the death, in the town of Ojai, may have been the result of a car crash not related to the fire.\n\nOn Friday, US President Donald Trump issued a state of emergency in California, which will free up funding to \"help alleviate the hardship and suffering that the emergency may inflict on the local population\".\n\nAbout 5,700 firefighters have been battling the brushfires, officials have said, with firefighters drafted in from neighbouring states to help.\n\nThe Thomas fire in Ventura County remains the largest, burning 180 square miles so far\n\nThe Thomas fire in Ventura County to the north of Los Angeles remains the largest of the blazes and has spread as far as the Pacific coast.\n\nIt has consumed 180 square miles (466 sq km) since it broke out on Monday, and destroyed more than 430 buildings, fire officials said.\n\nA BBC correspondent in Ojai says the blaze is burning in the hills all around and more than 100 fire engines have been seen driving through the town centre.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by CAL FIRE This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA Reuters news agency photographer in San Diego county, site of the Lilac fire, described seeing propane tanks under houses explode like bombs.\n\nSome 450 elite racehorses in the area were let loose from their stables to escape to safety, the Associated Press news agency reports. Officials say at least 25 thoroughbreds died in the blaze.\n\nBy Thursday afternoon local time, California's fire service said the blaze had forced the evacuation of 189,000 residents.\n\nFirefighters rescued both a work of art and the family Christmas tree from this Bel Air home\n\nMost homes in Bel Air cost millions of dollars\n\nCalifornia is entering its fifth day battling dangerous wildfires driven by extreme weather: low humidity, high winds and parched ground.\n\nAuthorities have issued a purple alert - the highest level warning - amid what it called \"extremely critical fire weather\".\n\nThe powerful desert-heated Santa Ana winds have been fanning the flames.\n\nBoth the The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Getty Center museum announced that they would reopen on Friday.\n\nFirefighters battling the Skirball fire had slept at the Getty overnight on Thursday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drivers filmed the flames from their cars near Bel Air\n\nOne in four schools in Los Angeles were also closed.\n\nIn the wealthy Los Angeles enclave of Bel Air, firefighters were seen removing artwork from luxury homes on Wednesday as the Skirball Fire raged.\n\nThe neighbourhood is home to celebrities and business leaders from Beyonce to Elon Musk.\n\nSinger Lionel Richie cancelled a Las Vegas performance for Wednesday evening, saying he was \"helping family evacuate to a safer place\".\n\nAn estate and vineyard owned by Rupert Murdoch also suffered some damage.\n\nThe media mogul said in a statement: \"We believe the winery and house are still intact.\"\n\nThe Los Angeles Times said Mr Murdoch paid nearly $30m (£22m) for the property four years ago.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Lionel Richie This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnother blaze north of Los Angeles, the Creek fire, was 20% contained and covered some 15,323 acres.\n\nAre you in the area? If it is safe to do so, share your experience with us by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:", "The wording of the UK's Brexit deal with the EU has finally been agreed - but negotiations were nearly scuppered this week over the tinder-box issue of the Irish border.\n\nWhen Theresa May appointed ministers to her specially formed Brexit Cabinet Committee it was an early sign that she had failed to realise the significance and importance of the Irish border.\n\nI interviewed James Brokenshire shortly afterwards and he was left having to awkwardly defend his exclusion in favour of, among others, the International Development Secretary and the Conservative Party Chairman.\n\nThe truth is, during those early stages, the Prime Minister was perhaps more concerned with keeping her own party together rather than addressing the practical problems of Brexit.\n\nThe cabinet committee was a carefully balanced selection of leavers and remainers.\n\nNorthern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire was not appointed to the Brexit Cabinet committee\n\nBesides, she seemed to reason, if you included the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how could you exclude his equivalents representing Scotland and Wales?\n\nHowever, it did not go unnoticed in Dublin.\n\nFrom the start there has been frustration there at what they see as internal party politicking at the expense of dealing with one of the really big issues of Brexit - the border.\n\nIn the Irish government's view, since the Brexit vote, Brussels has seemed more concerned than Westminster about the implications for Northern Ireland.\n\nThe Irish government has made it clear they do not want to see a hard border in place after Brexit\n\nThere is some sense in the UK's position.\n\nThe sticking point has never been about the free movement of people but instead the transport of goods.\n\nThe final trading deal could ultimately decide whether there is a need for customs posts on the island of Ireland.\n\nHowever the Irish government is not prepared to wait until 2019.\n\nThere are currently no check points along the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland\n\nAnd given that they could veto negotiations moving on to that vital issue of trade the UK has had to listen.\n\nIt was with that in mind a form of words was worked out in Downing Street to satisfy the Irish.\n\nWhat seems bizarre is that they did not keep the DUP fully informed.\n\nAmid all the hoopla and what was to be the early celebration of an apparent deal on Monday, unionists were left less-than-quietly fuming.\n\nThe DUP entered into a confidence and supply deal with the Conservatives after the general election in June\n\nFor weeks, they had been issuing pretty explicit warnings that Northern Ireland should not be treated any differently to England, Scotland or Wales.\n\nThe bluntest came from Sammy Wilson, the always straight-talking DUP MP for East Antrim.\n\nHe said anything else could ruin their relationship with the Conservative government, who rely on the Democratic Unionists' support at Westminster.\n\nSammy Wilson said Northern Ireland must not be treated differently or be left 'half in' the EU\n\n\"If there is any hint that in order to placate Dublin and the EU, they're prepared to have Northern Ireland treated differently than the rest of the UK, then they can't rely on our vote,\" Mr Wilson announced last Thursday.\n\nRemember that was just days before the UK put forward the controversial text that derailed the whole deal.\n\nNot showing the DUP those words before Theresa May travelled to Brussels seems truly remarkable, particularly as they seemed to promise that Northern Ireland would indeed be treated differently.\n\nThey won't accept Dublin having any say in day-to-day affairs north of the Border and have even accused the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar of pushing a united-Ireland agenda in these tortured negotiations.\n\nWhen security check points were in place it could add an extra hour to a round trip between Belfast and Dublin\n\nThe DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds recently set out the constitutional difficulties for the party in having Northern Ireland tied to the EU's regulations.\n\n\"Northern Ireland would have to have somebody else other than the United Kingdom speak for it and vote for it in the European Councils,\" he told me at the DUP's party conference.\n\n\"Who would that be? It would be Dublin. It would be completely unacceptable.\"\n\nThere have been many conspiracy theories touted, particularly in Belfast where the DUP's position is most clearly understood.\n\nSome commentators have written pieces saying it is just not feasible that Downing Street could have got it so wrong and there must be a negotiating ploy in play here.\n\nThe reality appears to be a lot more simple.\n\nDonald Tusk said the UK's offer on Brexit must be acceptable to the Republic of Ireland before negotiations can move on\n\nFaced with time running out and Donald Tusk reinforcing that the Irish government had the right to veto talks from moving on to phase two, negotiators came up with the best phrasing they could find.\n\nBut there is a simple problem with that - what the DUP, London and Dublin want are mutually exclusive.\n\nThe Irish government is demanding no trading differences between Northern Ireland and the Republic.\n\nThe DUP insists there can be no trading differences between Northern Ireland and Britain.\n\nAnd the British negotiating team don't want the whole UK to be tied to the EU's trading rules.\n\nNigel Dodds is the deputy leader of the DUP\n\nEarly on some seemed to think that the question of the Irish border could be easily answered because no one wanted a 'hard border'.\n\nThe practical challenges meant that was never the case and a failure to grasp that at an early stage has left Theresa May in the middle of two Brexit negotiations - one with the EU and the other with the DUP.", "Wormwood Scrubs is one of the UK's most iconic prisons\n\nChronic staff shortages, food running out and a surge in violence were among the findings of a critical prison report into Wormwood Scrubs.\n\nInspectors also found areas of the west London jail were strewn with litter, attracting rats and cockroaches.\n\nChief inspector of prisons Peter Clarke said the findings painted an \"extremely concerning picture\".\n\nThe Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said the jail was recruiting staff in a bid to \"urgently\" raise standards.\n\nThe HM Inspectorate of Prisons' report said Wormwood Scrubs, which holds more than 1,200 men, had high levels of often serious violence, resulting in some significant injuries.\n\nIt also detailed how food routinely ran out in one wing, with staff having to source a half-used tray from another servery or distribute \"mountain survival\" dried food packs.\n\nPublishing the latest assessment, Mr Clarke said: \"Wormwood Scrubs is an iconic local prison serving communities in London.\n\n\"Overall, this was an extremely concerning picture, and we could see no justification as to why this poor situation had persisted since 2014.\n\n\"The governor and his team were, to their credit, working tirelessly to address the problems faced.\"\n\nThe MoJ said the prison had taken \"decisive action\" to reduce violence and was working to urgently improve conditions.\n\nA spokesman said: \"We know staffing remains an issue, so we are recruiting 120 extra officers and will cut the time taken for new recruits to begin training.\n\n\"The addition of new, senior probation staff has also led to significant improvements in resettling offenders into the community following release.\n\n\"We are pleased inspectors recognised the hard work and dedication of staff at the prison, especially in improving education and purposeful activity.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Theresa May has arrived in Brussels following overnight talks on the issue of the Irish border.\n\nThe PM and Brexit Secretary David Davis are meeting European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU negotiator Michel Barnier.\n\nDetails of an agreement are expected to be set out at a joint news conference within the hour.\n\nIf the border question has been settled, talks can move on to the future of trade after Brexit.\n\nAdditional wording is understood to have been added to reassure the DUP, whose opposition on Monday led to talks breaking down.\n\nThe leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster, said on Friday she was \"pleased\" to see changes which mean there is \"no red line down the Irish sea\".\n\nA senior aide to Mr Juncker, Martin Selmayr, has tweeted a picture of white smoke - the traditional way of signalling that a new Pope has been chosen - suggesting a deal may have been agreed.\n\nThe BBC's Laura Kuenssberg was told last night that there were \"serious ideas\" on the table that the different parties were broadly content with.\n\nIn the early hours of Friday, the prime minister's chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, tweeted: \"Home for 3 hours sleep then back to work\", without offering any further details.\n\nAll sides want progress on the issue ahead of a crucial summit next week, so talks can move on to the future relationship between the UK and the EU after Brexit.\n\nWhat happens to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has been among the key sticking points in Brexit negotiations.\n\nOn Monday, the DUP - whose support the UK prime minister needs to win key votes in Westminster - objected to draft plans drawn up by the UK and the EU.\n\nThey included aligning regulations in Northern Ireland with those in the Republic so as to avoid border checks.\n\nThe DUP insists it will not accept any agreement in which Northern Ireland was treated differently from the rest of the UK.\n\nThe Republic of Ireland, on the other hand, which is an EU member, wants a guarantee that there will be no hard border between it and Northern Ireland after Brexit.\n\nThe UK, which is due to leave the EU in March 2019, wants to open talks on a new free trade deal as soon as possible.\n\nThe EU will only agree to discuss this when it judges that enough progress has been made on the \"separation issues\" - the \"divorce bill\", expat citizens' rights and the Northern Ireland border - that have been the subject of negotiations so far.\n\nSo the UK is trying to settle the Northern Ireland border issue before EU leaders meet next week.\n• None Johnson to EU: 'Go whistle' over exit bill", "The Tomioka Hachimangu shrine is famous for a summer festival in August\n\nAn attack believed to have been sparked by a succession feud has left three people dead at a well-known Shinto shrine in Tokyo.\n\nThe chief priestess was stabbed to death, reportedly by her brother. A bloodied Samurai sword was found at the scene, along with other knives.\n\nThe attacker's wife also took part in the ambush on Thursday evening, police say, injuring the priestess's driver.\n\nThe male attacker then stabbed his wife to death before killing himself.\n\nThe attack began when the 58-year-old priestess, Nagako Tomioka, got out of her car at the shrine and was confronted by her brother, Shigenaga Tomioka, 56, and his wife, said to be in her 30s.\n\nThe wife reportedly attacked the priestess's driver, stabbing him with a sword. The driver fled the scene, pursued by the woman. Police said there was a trail of blood down the road but the driver's wounds were not life-threatening.\n\nThe priestess suffered a deep stab wound to her chest, along with a laceration on the back of her neck, and was later pronounced dead.\n\nThe suspects then moved to another part of the shrine's grounds.\n\n\"We believe the male suspect stabbed the woman before stabbing himself,\" a police spokesman said.\n\nShinto priests attend a ritual during an autumn festival at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo\n\nShintoism is Japan's indigenous religion. The essence of Shinto is its spirits, or kami, to which its followers are devoted. The kami are said to intervene in human lives if treated well by followers.\n\nThe shrine is an essential part of Shinto. Along with rituals, the shrines are used to communicate with the kami. Devotees have a close relationship with their local shrine and often have a small shrine-altar at home.\n\nShinto is regarded as less of a religion, more as a way of life.\n\nThe name Shinto comes from Chinese characters for Shen (divine being), and Tao (way) and means Way of the Spirits.\n\nThere are some 80,000 shrines, and about as many Shinto priests, in Japan but female priests make up only a tiny fraction of the number.\n\nAbout 80% of Japan's population practise some form of Shinto.\n\nAccording to local media, the murders were sparked by a longstanding succession feud between the priestess and her brother.\n\nMr Tomioka had himself been chief priest of the shrine, having taken over from his father in the 1990s, according to the Asahi Shimbun.\n\nHowever, he was sacked in 2001 and their father returned to the position as main priest, installing his daughter Nagako Tomioka as the second-ranked in the shrine. It was not clear why he was removed.\n\nDuring those years, the suspect is said to have sent threatening letters to his sister and was arrested in 2006 after sending her a note saying he would \"send her to hell\".\n\nAfter their father retired in 2010, Ms Tomioka became the chief priestess, breaking with a Shinto shrine umbrella organisation after it failed to rubberstamp the succession, according to the Asahi Shimbun.\n\nThe Tomioka Hachimangu shrine dates back to 1627 and is famous for the Fukagawa Hachiman summer festival in August.\n\nAccording to its website, it was among those to start the tradition in Edo (now Tokyo) of holding sumo tournaments on its grounds to attract visitors and donations - a custom still common at many Shinto shrines.\n\nJapan's emperor and empress visited the shrine in 2012.\n• None Japan suspect 'killed nine in two months'", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe government has not carried out any impact assessments of leaving the EU on the UK economy, Brexit Secretary David Davis has told MPs.\n\nMr Davis said the usefulness of such assessments would be \"near zero\" because of the scale of change Brexit is likely to cause.\n\nHe said the government had produced a \"sectoral analysis\" of different industries but not a \"forecast\" of what would happen when the UK leaves the EU.\n\nThe Liberal Democrats said impact assessments were urgently needed while the SNP called it an \"ongoing farce\".\n\nMr Davis said a \"very major contingency planning operation\" was in place for Brexit.\n\nOpposition MPs have been on the trail of the \"Brexit impact assessments\" for months. And when David Davis told them they didn't exist, they were quick to highlight some similar-sounding studies he had referred to in the past:\n\nDowning Street told journalists: \"We have been clear that the impact assessments don't exist. They're a specific thing in Whitehall terms. We think we have complied with the terms of the motion.\"\n\nAt Wednesday morning's Brexit committee hearing, chairman Hilary Benn asked whether impact assessments had been carried out into various parts of the economy, listing the automotive, aerospace and financial sectors.\n\n\"I think the answer's going to be no to all of them,\" Mr Davis responded.\n\nWhen Mr Benn suggested this was \"strange\", the minister said formal assessments were not needed to know that \"regulatory hurdles\" would have an impact, describing Brexit as a \"paradigm change\" of similar impact to the financial crash, which could not be predicted.\n\n\"I am not a fan of economic models because they have all proven wrong,\" he said.\n\nDavid Davis has probably not done the Brexit cause a huge bundle of good this morning. First, his frank admission that no impact assessments have been completed will inevitably be seized on by critics to argue Team May simply haven't done the basic spadework.\n\nSecond his suggestion that he doesn't have the resources for this, and anyway some of the work his officials have done wasn't much good, is hardly a ringing endorsement of his Brexit department.\n\nThird, Mr Davis probably didn't help his own reputation by telling the committee he had been handed two chapters of the 850 pages of analysis but hadn't read them. At times Mr Davis even chided the committee over the time they were taking.\n\nFair enough the Brexit secretary had a cold - but at times he sounded thoroughly frazzled and cheesed off. Not a great look.\n\nThere has been a long-running row over the government's Brexit studies and their publication.\n\nMPs have been pushing for the documents to be published, and on 1 November the Commons passed a motion to release \"Brexit impact assessments\" to the Brexit Committee of MPs.\n\nIn response, the government said this motion \"misunderstood\" what the documents actually were, but has since provided an edited set of reports to the committee.\n\nDavid Davis said the impact of Brexit on different sectors had not been assessed\n\nMr Davis told the MPs this represented \"getting as close as we can to meeting what we took to be the intent of Parliament\".\n\nA \"quantitative economic forecast of outcome\" does not exist, he said. \"That is not there. We have not done that. What is there is the size of the industry, the employment and so on.\"\n\nMr Davis also said there was no \"systematic impact assessment\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jeremy Corbyn asks: \"Do they exist, or don’t they?\"\n\nDuring PMQs, Prime Minister Theresa May repeated Mr Davis' line that \"sectoral analysis\", not \"impact assessments\" had been drawn up, adding that the government would not give a running commentary on the negotiations.\n\n\"This really is a shambles,\" Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said.\n\nLater, Chancellor Philip Hammond was asked whether the Treasury had produced analysis of the potential economic impact of Brexit.\n\nHe said his department had \"modelled and analysed a whole range of potential alternative structures between the EU and the UK, potential alternative arrangements and agreements that might be made\".\n\nAppearing before the Treasury Select Committee, he suggested these could be made public when a Brexit deal has been agreed, but said to do so at this stage would be \"deeply unhelpful to the negotiation\".", "Crews took an hour to free the man\n\nAn internet \"prankster\" had to be freed by firefighters after cementing his head inside a microwave oven.\n\nWest Midlands Fire Service said it took an hour to free the man after they were called to a house in Fordhouses, Wolverhampton.\n\nFriends had managed to feed an air tube into the 22-year-old's mouth to help him breathe, the service said.\n\nWatch Commander Shaun Dakin said the man \"could quite easily have suffocated or have been seriously injured\".\n\nThe fire service said the mixture had been poured around the man's head, which was protected by a plastic bag\n\nMr Dakin said: \"He and a group of friends had mixed seven bags of Polyfilla which they then poured around his head, which was protected by a plastic bag inside the microwave.\n\n\"The oven was being used as a mould and wasn't plugged in. The mixture quickly set hard and, by the time we were called, they'd already been trying to free him for an hour and a half.\"\n\nCrews from the technical rescue team helped with taking the microwave apart, he added.\n\n\"It took us nearly an hour to free him,\" added Mr Dakin.\n\n\"All of the group involved were very apologetic, but this was clearly a call-out which might have prevented us from helping someone else in genuine, accidental need.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Universities could be accused of \"mis-selling\" courses to teenagers who have little understanding of money matters, the public spending watchdog says.\n\nNational Audit Office head Amyas Morse said young people were taking out large loans to pay for tuition fees without much effective help or advice.\n\nIt compared the higher education market to financial products, highlighting how little regulation universities faced.\n\nThe government said its reforms were helping students make informed choices.\n\nBut the NAO report highlights that tighter rules apply to the sale of complex financial products than to universities offering courses that may well be more expensive.\n\nMr Morse said: \"If this was a regulated financial market, we would be raising the question of mis-selling.\"\n\nThe report says a student loan is likely to be a person's biggest sum for borrowing after a mortgage and will require a long-term commitment.\n\nThe average loan is expected to top £50,000 by the time it is repaid.\n\nBut the decision whether or not to go to university and which course and provider to choose is typically made at the age of 16 or 17.\n\nThese choices can have a long-lasting impact on future employment and earnings prospects, the report says.\n\nAnd where services or markets are especially complex, consumers often need additional support and protection to make good choices.\n\nThe report says the Financial Conduct Authority requires companies to disclose clearly the risks of such products to potential customers.\n\nBut for universities there are limited comparable disclosure requirements, despite the clear strong financial incentives to attract as many students as possible.\n\nMr Morse said: \"We are deliberately thinking of higher education as a market, and as a market, it has a number of points of failure.\n\n\"Young people are taking out substantial loans to pay for courses, without much effective help and advice, and the institutions concerned are under very little competitive pressure to provide best value.\"\n\nThe report also suggests only a third of higher education students say their course offers value for money.\n\nMr Morse added: \"The [education] department is taking action to address some of these issues, but there is a lot that remains to be done.\"\n\nThe report also highlights how despite increased participation by students from disadvantaged groups, they are far more likely to attend courses at \"lower ranked providers\".\n\nThe report does, however, note that students have statutory protections - including the fact repayments are based on earnings and liability is written off after a set amount of time - and that graduates earn on average 42% more than non-graduates.\n\nThe government said its student finance system removed the financial barriers for those going to university.\n\nIt is also planning a review of tertiary education to ensure a joined up system works for everyone.\n\nMeg Hillier MP, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, said the government was failing to give inexperienced young people the advice and protection they needed when making one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives.\n\n\"It has created a generation of students hit by massive debts, many of whom doubt their degree is worth the money paid for it,\" she said.\n\nBut Universities UK said universities had increased investment in teaching and learning, and that students were now reporting record levels of satisfaction with their courses.\n\n\"Graduates leaving our universities are also increasingly in demand from employers and continue to benefit from their degrees. They earn on average almost £10,000 a year more than people without degrees and are more likely to be employed.\"\n\nIt added that they would be working with the new Office for Students to ensure that students have the necessary information to make informed decisions and to ensure that competition works in the interests of all students.", "The mesh is made of a type of plastic and surgeons routinely use it in hernia repairs\n\nBanning vaginal mesh implants would remove an important treatment for some women suffering from a prolapse, says the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.\n\nSome women benefit from the implants and should have a choice, it said.\n\nThe health watchdog NICE is expected to recommend that the implants be banned.\n\nAround 800 women are taking legal action against the NHS and mesh manufacturers, saying they have suffered from painful complications.\n\nWhen a prolapse occurs, doctors sometimes insert a mesh into the wall of the vagina to act as scaffolding to support organs - such as the uterus, bowel and bladder - which have fallen out of place.\n\nHundreds of women have reported problems with this plastic mesh, which is made of polypropylene.\n\nProf Linda Cordozo says banning vaginal mesh is not a good idea\n\nHowever another smaller device made from the same material, called a tape, which is used to stem the flow of urine from a leaking bladder, has a much lower risk of complications.\n\nProf Linda Cardozo, a surgeon at King's College Hospital in London, said there was a misconception that all types of mesh were a problem.\n\nShe explained that she was not in favour of banning the use of mesh for prolapses.\n\n\"I don't think a total ban on anything is a good idea. It stifles the opportunity to offer the minority something that might benefit them,\" she said.\n\nDraft guidelines from NICE say the implants should only be used for research - and not routine operations.\n\nBut Prof Cardozo said that a ban would stop any further research as well.\n\n\"If mesh is banned, there will be no more clinical trials,\" said the professor.\n\n\"Banning it is a retrograde step - we will go back to how we were a century ago when we couldn't offer women a range of options.\"\n\nProf Cardozo pointed out that artificial hips and knees were not perfect when they were first introduced, but thanks to further research and progress they ended up improving lives.\n\n\"We need to be very careful that [mesh] is used in the right women by the right doctors... who have explained the risk-benefit ratio and all other types of treatment,\" she added.\n\nSome doctors did not have the skills or training to put in vaginal meshes, and the devices have been overused, the professor has argued.\n\nShe also said the debate over vaginal mesh was making some women who had had surgery unnecessarily anxious.\n\n\"They are panicking because they believe something terrible may be happening inside their body as a result of tape or mesh, but most women are problem-free,\" said Prof Cardozo.\n\nKathryn Taylor says her mesh implant has improved her life\n\nKathryn Taylor was just 35 when she suffered her first prolapse.\n\nShe was later diagnosed with a condition that had weakened the muscles around her uterus and bowel.\n\nLast year she had a second vaginal mesh implant to help keep those organs in place.\n\n\"Mesh isn't right for everyone, but it's totally changed my life for the better,\" Kathryn said.\n\n\"Without it I wouldn't be able to work and lead a normal life.\n\n\"I'd have to have a colostomy bag attached to my leg,\" she explained.\n\nStephanie Williams is waiting to have her mesh implant removed after being left in constant pain\n\nHowever campaigners, like Stephanie Williams, are protesting against all types of vaginal mesh and tape.\n\nThey are calling for more research into the types of mesh products used and their longer-term effects. They say women have not been given the full facts about the possible side effects.\n\nIn her own case, Stephanie says she didn't realise she was having a vaginal mesh implant and it has left her in constant pain.\n\n\"The word mesh was never mentioned,\" she said.\n\n\"I would not have even known what mesh meant at the time and if it was mentioned beforehand we would have looked into it before,\" she added.\n\nShe is now waiting to have her mesh removed.\n\nJohn Wilkinson, the director of devices at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said: \"Patient safety is our highest priority and we recognise some women do develop serious complications which can be very significant for the affected women.\"\n\n\"We also know many women gain benefit from these surgical procedures for what can be extremely debilitating conditions,\" he added.\n\nMr Wilkinson encouraged patients and doctors to report any complications linked with the mesh implants through the Yellow Card scheme.\n\nThe NHS has always insisted that the vast majority of procedures using mesh are a success and many women have benefitted from surgery.\n\nThe health watchdog - the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) - is due to make its final recommendations next week.\n\nCompanies in the US have already paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to patients.", "Ahead of Christmas, fake goods worth millions of pounds have been seized around the UK.\n\nImitation clothes, toys and gadgets are among thousands of counterfeit items seized by the Border Force.\n\nOfficers have targeted airports, ports and postal hubs to detect if imported goods are fake, banned or if the correct duty has been paid.\n\nThey are warning shoppers to watch out for counterfeit goods this Christmas.", "The £5 Christmas candle began to burn an hour after it was first lit\n\nA picture of a Primark candle bursting into flames has gone viral, after a mother-of-three took to Facebook to raise awareness of the potential hazard.\n\nJenny Ferneyhough purchased the £5 candle - which she said developed into \"massive flames\" after an hour of burning - in Manchester on Saturday.\n\nThe 33-year-old's Facebook post has been shared 145,000 times.\n\nPrimark said it is removing the product from sale and investigating the matter.\n\nMrs Ferneyhough, a Manchester City Council benefits officer, said she lit the candle - in the shape of a Christmas tree - after putting her three children to bed.\n\nShe said the flame had spread from the wick to the whole candle within an hour.\n\nJenny Ferneyhough, left, was with her husband Evan when the candle burst into flames\n\nShe said: \"Obviously everyone knows not to leave a flame unattended, but if you went to the loo, a couple of seconds later it could have burst into flames.\n\n\"If it [develops into] a massive flame when anything else is around it, it could be very dangerous.\"\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, she added that she was especially concerned about people lighting the candle \"around neighbouring decorations\" during the festive period.\n\nMrs Ferneyhough sent the pictures to Primark, who replied to say they were \"very concerned\" about the discovery.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Primark This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA company spokesperson has since said the product is being removed from sale, while the complaint is investigated \"as a matter of urgency\".\n\nMrs Ferneyhough said she was \"reassured\" by the massive response she had received to her post, less than 24 hours after posting the picture.\n\nShe added the main reason for sharing the pictures was to raise awareness of the potential issue with the candle, and to stop people from lighting it unattended.\n\n\"My husband went into the Manchester store to take a picture of the packaging, and a mum and her daughter said they'd seen the photo I shared of it in flames,\" she added.\n• None This is how to pronounce Primark", "The overall pupil absence rate is 4.5%, according to the latest figures from the Department for Education. One in 10 of those school children are classed as \"persistently absent\".\n\nA persistently absent child is one who misses school for at least 10% of the time.\n\nSecondary schools had a higher rate of persistent absence than primary schools. And overall, unauthorised absence, whether persistent or not, also increased.\n\nSuch statistics are just one of the reasons the BBC Stories team decided to look behind the numbers to make a series of films about why children don't attend school.\n\nTaking to the streets in cities across the country, the team asked children themselves why they skipped classes. They gave a range of reasons including anxiety, depression, bullying and having little interest in the subjects they are taught.\n\nMany said they wanted more support at school and some wished they could go back and \"just start all over again\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'School's dead man, it's the same lessons every day'\n\nAccording to the Department for Education's latest statistics, sickness was the main reason for absence in the autumn 2016 and spring 2017 terms. But illness rates remained the same as the previous year at 2.7%. Unauthorised absences, however, rose, including unauthorised family holidays.\n\nIt is important to note that overall school absences in England declined since the same period a decade earlier, as did the percentage of pupils who were persistently absent.\n\nBath and North East Somerset is one of England's wealthiest local authorities\n\nBut what's most surprising is where truancy was at its highest. While high deprivation indicators based on health, crime, education and crucially income are commonly linked to high truancy, a closer look shows this isn't necessarily the case.\n\nBath and North East Somerset is one of England's wealthiest local authorities, according to deprivation indices, but it had one of the highest levels of truancy in 2015 to 2016.\n\nAt the other end of the scale Manchester, a city which ranks highly on deprivation levels, had one of the lowest levels of truancy.\n\nManchester had one of the lower levels of truancy\n\nIf you compare middle income areas, again there are contrasts. Norfolk and Herefordshire are very similar overall when you look at health, crime, education and income but the truancy rate in Norfolk in 2015 to 2016 was much higher than in Herefordshire.\n\nSo, how reliable is the data? Pupil absence in England is measured at local authority level and deprivation by district so we can only look at the picture as an average with variation within each area.\n\nWales, Scotland and Northern Ireland record pupil absence in different ways.\n\nIn Wales, overall absence increased in 2016 to 2017 from the previous year - unauthorised absence and persistent absence also increased. However, persistent absenteeism in Wales was less than half of what is was eight years earlier.\n\nIn Scotland, attendance rates are recorded only once every two years. In 2014 to 2015, the overall attendance rate improved since the previous report but the unauthorised absence rate also increased.\n\nIn Northern Ireland, the overall attendance rate in 2015 to 2016 remained unchanged from the previous year at 94.6%.", "Boris Johnson will urge Iran to free British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from jail when he visits Tehran.\n\nThe foreign secretary is expected to travel to Iran in the next few days.\n\nMs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been in prison since April 2016 after being accused of spying. She denies the claim.\n\nSupporters of the 38-year-old from London say that she recently had a health assessment to see if she was fit enough to remain in prison.\n\nMr Johnson's Tehran trip will see him raising the cases of other dual nationals being held in Iran.\n\nHe will also discuss British concerns over Iranian involvement in conflicts in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Yemen.\n\nIn November Mr Johnson apologised in the Commons after telling a committee of MPs that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been teaching journalism in Iran.\n\nHe retracted \"any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity\".\n\nCritics complained that the foreign secretary's initial comments could lead to her five-year jail term being increased.\n\nMr Johnson met her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, in November to discuss calls for her to be provided with diplomatic protection.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been visiting Iran with her daughter Gabriella when she was arrested\n\nMr Ratcliffe told BBC News his wife was due back in court on Sunday to face possible new charges and it was important Mr Johnson would be in Iran around the same time to \"make clear that he thinks Nazanin is innocent and should be home with her family\".\n\nHe said: \"I don't know if I'm expecting him to be able to unlock it all, and she comes out with him, but it can only be a good thing that he is there\".\n\nMr Ratcliffe said he had wanted to accompany Mr Johnson but the Foreign Office felt his presence would be \"too political\".\n\nWhen Boris Johnson arrives in Tehran this weekend, the foreign secretary will be required to perform some nifty diplomatic footwork even before he comes to address the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.\n\nFor relations between Britain and the Islamic Republic of Iran are delicate at the best of times.\n\nIt is only six years since a mob stormed and sacked Britain's embassy in Tehran.\n\nAnd to some in Iran, Britain will always be seen as the \"Little Satan\", a former imperial power that meddles in their country's affairs at America's bidding.\n\nBoth the UK and Iran have now restored diplomatic relations. But good relations are a work in progress.\n\nSo this visit, Mr Johnson's first, is designed above all to stabilise what has at times been a difficult relationship, a trip that was planned long before the case of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe became a frontline political issue.\n\nThe mother had been visiting Iran with her daughter Gabriella when she was arrested last year.\n\nThe child has been living with her maternal grandparents in Iran for the last 20 months.\n\nMr Ratcliffe has not seen his daughter during his wife's incarceration.\n\nThere were concerns about Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's health after lumps in her breasts were discovered but those were found to be non-cancerous.\n\nRichard Ratcliffe and Boris Johnson met at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in November\n\nIn November Mr Ratcliffe said: \"She talks about being on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I absolutely believe that's true.\n\n\"I think it's important I don't exaggerate anything in the media and I'm not melodramatic, but she is in a difficult place.\"", "Sadik Kamara (left) and Joshua Jordan were part of a gang of five who targeted the women\n\nTwo robbers who laughed after spraying women in their faces with cleaning fluid have been jailed for 10 years.\n\nRapper Sadik Kamara, 24, known as Trizzy Trapz, and Joshua Jordan, 20, both of Newham, east London, used the ammonia to target \"petite women\" who would not be able to fight back.\n\nJudge John Dodd QC jailed them for the \"horrifying, cruel and barbaric\" crimes which he said were \"gratuitous\".\n\nBoth women they attacked suffered facial burns but were not disfigured.\n\nProsecutor Benn Maguire told the Old Bailey how the defendants were among a gang of five who set out to deliberately target \"petite women\" to rob on 10 March.\n\n\"During the robbery and undoubtedly to instil fear in the minds of their victims, the attackers sprayed ammonia into the faces of their victims,\" he said.\n\n\"Any attempt to shout for help has resulted in ammonia being sprayed into the open mouths of the female victims - cowardly in the extreme.\"\n\nThe pair were previously found guilty of using the corrosive fluid with intent to injure or cause grievous bodily harm.\n\nThey were also convicted of robbery and attempted robbery.\n\nJailing Kamara and Jordan for 10 years with four years on extended licence, the judge said: \"These are dreadful and shocking offences. You chose to rob women who would have stood no chance against you, a gang of five men.\n\n\"Even if you were unarmed, you still chose to take ammonia with you and use it against two slight women.\"\n\nIn one attack in Hackney, shopkeeper Quyen Bei, 51, fought off the raiders.\n\nFour men with faces covered were captured on CCTV as they entered the store wearing hoods and gloves.\n\nThe pair were sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday\n\nDuring the attempted robbery, Kamara squirted ammonia in Mrs Bei's face at least three times.\n\nThe other robbers, including Jordan, struggled with Mrs Bei, who was punched to the ground and kicked.\n\nShe managed to press the panic alarm despite suffering burns to her face. The gang fled empty-handed.\n\nAbout 10 minutes later, the defendants attacked a random woman in the street, the court heard.\n\nThe pair forced Vietnamese Thi Le Nguyen, 49, to the ground and one pinned her face to the pavement while the other repeatedly sprayed her face with the cleaning fluid.\n\nThey snatched her handbag and ran back to their getaway car laughing together.\n\nBottles of household cleaner containing high-strength ammonia were found nearby, clearly marked with warnings it could cause \"severe skin burns and blindness\".\n\nFollowing sentencing, Det Con Ben Kahane said: \"The level of violence used was completely disproportionate.\n\n\"The witness testimony describing how two of the suspects ran off laughing I think sums up the callous enjoyment the gang felt in targeting their victims.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Footage has captured the moment a man stopped his car to rescue a wild rabbit from wildfires in California.\n\nThe incident took place on 101 freeway in La Conchita.\n\nMore than 150 homes have been destroyed in the Ventura area, near Los Angeles, and 50,000 people evacuated.", "At 04:57 GMT Downing Street officially confirmed the wheels of Theresa May's plane were going up. The plans that had been put in place for a middle of the night dash to Brussels were going ahead.\n\nAfter many calls to DUP leader Arlene Foster in the early hours, all that was left for the prime minister was to share croissants with Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk and, finally, agree.\n\nMrs May has achieved what she wanted - the green light to move on.\n\nHad she not, she would have been in deep, deep political trouble.\n\nBut the 15 pages of the agreed joint EU-UK report, described as a \"personal success\" for Mrs May by Donald Tusk, give her what she needs for now.\n\nThere are additional guarantees for Northern Ireland and the border, but an undefined statement on \"full alignment\", if there is no big trade deal.\n\nThe implications of what \"full alignment\" means will be fought over by the two wings of the Conservative Party.\n\nOne prominent Remainer this morning was frankly delighted that line was there, believing it is an opportunity to push for continued membership of the customs union for the whole UK.\n\nThe DUP, for their part, agreed enough to move ahead. But they are clearly not happy about that particular issue, saying there is still a big debate to be had about what it really means.\n\nThe UK has agreed a future role for the European Court of Justice, which Brexiteers may object to.\n\nBut No 10 says it is temporary and narrow, and may only affect a handful of cases a year.\n\nAnd, as expected, there are no specific figures on the Brexit bill, although there are pretty chunky hypothetical commitments.\n\nThroughout the document, however, a lot is left open. This is a political agreement, not a practical one, that answers every single question.\n\nBut for Downing Street today, the important thing is that it is done. It is a big first step that goes some way to securing Mrs May's position.", "Bitcoin's value has been volatile in recent weeks\n\nBitcoin continued its rollercoaster ride on Friday, hitting a new high above $17,000 (£12,615) before falling.\n\nThe digital currency slid as low as $13,963, according to Coindesk.com, before rallying again to trade at about $15,600 on Friday afternoon.\n\nBitcoin has soared about 70% this week, with its dramatic rise being likened to a \"charging train with no brakes\".\n\nAs concerns mount, an industry group has warned plans to start Bitcoin futures trading have been \"rushed\".\n\nCritics have said Bitcoin is going through a bubble similar to the dotcom boom, but others argue it is rising in price because it is crossing into the financial mainstream.\n\n\"Bitcoin now seems like a charging train with no brakes,\" said Shane Chanel, from Sydney-based ASR Wealth Advisers.\n\nNigel Green, of financial consultancy deVere Group, said he expected Bitcoin to see-saw in coming weeks.\n\n\"Today's digital world needs crypto-currencies. One or two of the existing ones will succeed. Whether it's Bitcoin or not remains to be seen,\" he added.\n\nThe surging price of Bitcoin has been helped by the start of trading on the Chicago-based Cboe Futures Exchange on Sunday. The world's largest futures exchange, CME, will begin its Bitcoin offering a week later.\n\nTrading on futures exchanges allows investors to buy and sell contracts for the crypto-currency at a certain point in the future at an agreed price.\n\nTim McCourt, CME's global head of equity index and alternative investment products, said customers are excited but he is not certain how much interest the futures will attract in the first days of trading.\n\nHe said he will consider the launch successful if there is a balance of buyers and sellers, and market movements correspond to the underlying Bitcoin price.\n\n\"That's the larger measure of success,\" he said. \"What does the market look like - not necessarily how much does it trade.\"\n\nThe Futures Industry Association, which includes Wall Street's largest banks, brokers and traders, has written to the US regulator over concerns that the contracts were approved \"without properly weighing the risks\".\n\n\"A more thorough and considered process would have allowed for a robust public discussion among clearing member firms, exchanges and clearing houses,\" the association said.\n\nEdward Tilly, chief executive of Cboe, said he thinks the criticism is unfair.\n\nHe said his firm worked extensively with regulators to figure out how this would work. For example, the firm set up rules in the contracts to address concerns that Bitcoin's value has sometimes varied widely, depending on the exchange.\n\n\"This is a walk-before-you-run launch,\" he said. \"It is mindful that this is new to the marketplace.\"\n\nWhile Goldman Sachs is a member of the futures industry association, it is also one of the banks that will work as an intermediary to help clear Bitcoin futures contracts for some clients.\n\nA spokeswoman for the investment bank said it was evaluating the risks as part of its due diligence process.\n\nMany big investors have been reluctant to pile into the crypto-currency market unless it is regulated.\n\nHowever, the prospect of a Bitcoin futures market has raised hopes that it will be regarded as sufficiently \"regulated\".\n\nWhile Bitcoin has become more mainstream in recent weeks, many observers warn the market could be a bubble waiting to pop.\n\nMr Green added: \"Bitcoin remains a major gamble as it is very much an asset that remains in uncharted waters... an asset that goes almost vertically up should typically raise alarm bells for investors.\"\n\nEven a crash or a major correction is unlikely to pose risks to the global economy, some analysts say.\n\nWhile billions of dollars have been invested in Bitcoin, its $268bn total market value is still small compared to other asset classes.", "Tearing up convention, US President Donald Trump has recognised Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel.\n\nThe BBC's Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet breaks down what the decision means for Middle East peace.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nWeather warnings are still in place in large parts of the UK, amid concern that icy conditions could cause travel delays and \"cut off\" some rural areas.\n\nThe Met Office said snow showers would continue to affect parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, northern England and parts of the Midlands.\n\nA few centimetres of snow is likely but up to 20cm is possible in some areas.\n\nThere are yellow \"be aware\" warnings for parts of the country, with an amber \"be prepared\" alert in place on Sunday.\n\nThe Midlands, Wales, northern and eastern England and the far north of Scotland are most likely to have heavy snow early on Sunday morning.\n\nAccording to BBC Weather, a 10cm spread of snow will initially mount in the Midlands and eastern England, before gradually becoming lighter and patchier throughout the day and into Sunday evening.\n\nBirmingham Airport have warned passengers travelling on Sunday morning to allow more time for their journey as a result.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Birmingham Airport This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMeanwhile southern parts of England and Wales could face heavy rain and gale force winds of up to 70mph (112km/h), the Met Office said. Icy surfaces are likely to be an \"additional hazard\", it added.\n\nHighways England have urged drivers to \"prepare for every eventuality\", recommending they carry warm clothing, food, drink, required medication, boots, a shovel and a torch.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Highways England This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTemperatures are likely to reach lows of -10C (14F) in some parts of Scotland and Wales, particularly in rural areas.\n\nThe heaviest and most frequent snow showers are forecast to affect mainly north east Scotland.\n\nOn Sunday \"there is a good chance that some rural communities could become cut off\", the Met Office said.\n\nThe Met Office have issued yellow and amber weather warnings for Sunday\n\nOnly a small proportion of power cuts affecting homes and businesses across the Midlands, south west England and south Wales are related to the weather, Western Power Distribution said.\n\nAll current outages are set to be restored by 23:00 GMT on Saturday, ahead of further possible power cuts on Sunday due to the expected snowfall.\n\nMeanwhile in Scotland, where 18,000 households had been without power, electricity supplies have been restored.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHighways officials have reported \"hazardous\" driving conditions and police in Shropshire in the West Midlands advised against driving unless \"absolutely necessary\".\n\nThere are delays to some flights at Manchester Airport and it advises passengers to check with their airline before travelling.\n\nThe final day of Lincoln Christmas market has also been cancelled over safety concerns about the expected snowfall.\n\nIn the Brecon Beacons, one family made the most of an opportunity for a snowball fight\n\nBut it still was not cold enough for trousers in Greater Manchester\n\nHave you experienced any disruption? Please share your experience with us by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:", "The biggest and most powerful warship ever built for the Royal Navy has been officially commissioned.\n\nAt a ceremony in Portsmouth, the Queen described \"HMS Queen Elizabeth\" as the best of British technology and innovation.\n\nThe ship is capable of carrying up to 40 aircraft.", "The leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster, has said she is \"pleased\" to see changes which mean there is \"no red line down the Irish Sea\".\n\nPM Theresa May said there would be no hard border and the Good Friday Agreement would be upheld.", "Parts of England and Wales fall under an amber 'be prepared' weather warning on Sunday. Significant snowfall is forecast with impacts for travel expected. Louise Lear explains the potential impacts.", "Ari Behn was married to Princess Martha Louise from 2002-16\n\nThe King of Norway's former son-in-law has accused Kevin Spacey of groping him after a Nobel Peace Prize concert.\n\nAri Behn told radio station P4 that it happened after the actor had hosted the event in 2007.\n\n\"I am a generous person, but this was a bit more than I had in mind,\" said Behn, who was married to King Harald's daughter Martha Louise until last year.\n\nSpacey has been accused of sexual abuse and harassment by a string of men and has been written out of House of Cards.\n\nA spokesman for Spacey said last month that he was \"taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment\" in the wake of the allegations.\n\nKevin Spacey, pictured before the Nobel Peace Prize concert in 2007\n\nRecalling the alleged incident, Behn said: \"We had a great talk, he sat right beside me.\n\n\"After five minutes he said, 'hey, let's go out and have a cigarette'. Then he puts his hand under the table and grabs me by the balls.\"\n\nBehn said he put Spacey off by telling him: \"Er, maybe later.\"\n\nHe added: \"My hair was dark at the time, I was 10 years younger and right up his alley.\"\n\nLast month, the Old Vic theatre in London said it had received 20 personal testimonies of alleged inappropriate behaviour by Spacey while he was artistic director there.\n\nHe has faced other allegations too, with the claims leaving his career in ruins.\n\nHe has been removed from the sixth season of House of Cards, which will instead focus on his on-screen wife, played by Robin Wright.\n\nSpacey has also been replaced by Christopher Plummer in the new Ridley Scott film All the Money in the World.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk", "Mohammed spends his days playing computer games and looking after his granddad. He's only 14, but he hasn't been to school since December. The idea was to home school him - but things didn't quite work out like that, reports the BBC's Sue Mitchell.\n\nHe lives in a spotlessly clean Bradford semi-detached house, with pale wood flooring and deep, comfortable sofas. His mother works part time as a nursery nurse and his father is a taxi driver.\n\nHis mum admits she is totally out of her depth.\n\nShe says she agreed to try to educate Mohammed herself at the suggestion of his school, after he was excluded for bad behaviour. She wanted to keep him out of the only alternative, a pupil referral unit.\n\nMohammed wasn't opposed to the idea at first. \"I thought it would be good because I wouldn't mix in with bad children,\" he says.\n\nBut it was harder than he expected. \"My mum isn't a proper teacher, she just helps nursery kids. She's not a teacher for maths, science and English. I couldn't learn from her.\"\n\nHis dad, who works long hours, tells him that he is squandering his life opportunities. \"He says: 'You've just ruined your chances' - that I could have had a good education and done my GCSEs and had a good life, but now I've wasted that,\" Mohammed says.\n\nMany families say home schooling works well for them. But Mohammed is one of a growing number of children who find themselves falling out of the state education system, according to Richard Watts, the chair of the Local Government Association's Children and Young People's Board.\n\nHe says it's increasingly common to hear of schools \"effectively putting a lot of pressure on parents to home educate their kids to get them off their rolls, particularly when exam time comes around\".\n\nMohammed was only 13 when he was excluded from school for setting off fireworks in the corridor with other boys. \"We went to a meeting, but they said there's no way of him coming back to the school,\" says his mum.\n\nMohammed had already been in trouble with the school authorities for fighting. \"At school he thought they ganged up on him and called him names, trying to provoke him. Mohammed is really quiet, but if he hasn't done nothing he'll be upset by it,\" his mother says.\n\n\"When Mohammed first settled into secondary education he was good. I think it's that he finds it hard to settle down and so much depends on his friendship group.\"\n\nBy year nine it became clear that he would no longer have a place in mainstream education. It was either home education or a place at the same pupil referral unit that his older brother had attended. His family didn't want him getting into the same bad crowds as his brother.\n\nSo when the school suggested home education as the only alternative, Mohammed's mother readily agreed. \"I never knew about the home schooling. I'm not that very educated myself and I'm not good with computers,\" she says.\n\nThe council had suggested a home education website. \"We had a few links but because of my home life situation and working I hadn't enough hours. He'd be depressed every morning and I'd put him on the home education website but it wasn't working for him,\" says Mohammed's mum.\n\nWhen she tried to get Mohammed out of bed to work, he refused.\n\nNow she doesn't bother trying and he passes his time helping his granddad, who has a serious lung condition and needs round-the-clock care.\n\nFor a brief period he attended Raising Explorers, an after-school facility in Bradford that tutored Mohammed for a couple of hours a week.\n\n\"It was hard to start over and not mess about and think about what I'm doing and to concentrate,\" he says.\n\n\"When I first went to the after-school club I was new, my background was different and I made mistakes. I got put on report and was doing good, but when people disturb me I just get annoyed and retaliate back,\" he says. He was excluded for brawling with another boy.\n\nMohammed says he regrets the bad behaviour that lost him his place in a mainstream school.\n\n\"I used to go to school and do stupid things I didn't think it would come to this, I thought I'd just do it a bit and I'd have a chance. I was falling behind at school anyway, but now that I don't have school I won't have any education for my GCSEs. I do think about my future - it's not going to be good.\"\n\nOut of School, Out of Sight is broadcast at 11:00 on Wednesday 4 October on BBC Radio 4, or listen again on iPlayer\n\nAbdur Rahman, who runs a project working with excluded youngsters, says that like Richard Watts he is coming across an increasing number of cases where parents are persuaded to home educate, yet don't have the capacity to do so.\n\n\"These schools don't ask about the ability of parents to teach - that isn't part of the discussion. Schools work like businesses and it isn't about looking out for the child, it's about saying to Mum and Dad that: 'This is what you have to do because your child isn't engaging and it will keep you out of trouble.' It's a strategy that the schools are increasingly using.\"\n\nThe inspection of home education is carried out by local government officials, but it is a voluntary register and although numbers are thought to be growing, there is no real idea of how many families are doing this. It's because so little is known about the extent and quality of home education, that Lord Soley recently introduced a private members bill aimed at bringing in a mandatory registration system.\n\nHe says that there are concerns about the quality of education some youngsters are receiving. There is also a cost for schools who take back pupils like Mohammed when home education hasn't worked.\n\n\"These pupils who fall behind have disruption to their own education outcomes, but then if they go back into schools they cause problems across the board as they try to catch up. It isn't helping them and it isn't good for the schools when it doesn't work,\" he says.\n\nBradford Council is currently discussing school options with Mohammed and his family. A spokesman says the details of individual cases cannot be discussed, but any parent has the right to choose to home educate their child at any stage of their formal education.\n\n\"Local authorities can give advice but have no role in deciding whether this should happen,\" the spokesman continues.\n\n\"When the local authority becomes aware of an electively home-educated child, we offer a home visit or to meet at another venue. The local authority has no statutory duty to monitor the quality of home education on a routine basis. However, we always work to keep contact with parents to ensure our information about the child is kept up to date.\n\n\"All parents of electively home-educated children can contact our home education team at any time and parents can apply to the local authority for a school place at any point. The local authority will always look to work with the district's schools to find a solution which works for the child and their parents.\"\n\nMohammed's mum is currently trying to get her son back into school.\n\n\"I want him to do his GCSEs and go further, to study and move on to what he wants to do - instead of just finishing with no qualifications in a cruel world. I want him to try hard and I've told him, but there's nothing else I can do. Mohammed says he'll do anything to go back to school and to study,\" she says.\n\nMohammed agrees. He says he desperately wants to be back in the classroom.\n\n\"When I used to go to school I used to be around other children and I was happy. Now I'm by myself and it's just boring alone, I don't like it.\"\n\nJoin the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.", "The parents of a six-year-old boy who died from meningitis B have called for a wider vaccination programme.", "Last updated on .From the section European Football\n\nReal Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo beat Barcelona's Lionel Messi to win the Ballon d'Or award for the fifth time - and the second year in a row.\n\nVictory took the 32-year-old Portugal international level with 30-year-old Argentine Messi, who won the most recent of his five awards in 2015.\n\nMessi's ex-Barcelona team-mate Neymar, now at Paris St-Germain, was third.\n\nLast season, Ronaldo helped Real Madrid win the Champions League and their first La Liga title since 2012.\n\nRonaldo added the 2017 Ballon d'Or to those he won in 2008, 2013, 2014 and 2016, and Messi is the only other recipient of the award since 2009.\n\n\"This is something I look forward to every year,\" he said, after receiving the award on the Eiffel Tower in Paris.\n\n\"Thanks to my Real Madrid team-mates. And I want to thank the rest of the people who helped me reach this level.\"\n\nThe 2016-17 campaign was a stellar season for the former Manchester United player.\n\nAfter helping Portugal win Euro 2016, he scored 42 goals for Real in all competitions as they won their 33rd La Liga title and 12th European Cup.\n\nHe scored twice in a 4-1 Champions League final win over Juventus and netted 25 times in 29 league games as Los Blancos finished three points ahead of Barcelona.\n• None Quiz: How well do you really know Messi and Ronaldo?\n\nWhat is the Ballon d'Or?\n\nThe Ballon d'Or is voted for by 173 journalists from around the world.\n\nIt has been awarded by France Football every year since 1956, but for six years it became the Fifa Ballon d'Or in association with world football's governing body and was awarded to the world's best player.\n\nHowever, Fifa ended its association with the award in September 2016.\n\nAt Fifa's awards in October, Ronaldo was named the world's best male player and also named in the Fifpro World XI.\n\nHow did Premier League players do?\n\nChelsea midfielder N'Golo Kante was the highest-placed Premier League player, finishing eighth. The France international won his second successive top-flight title last season and was named both the PFA and Football Writers' player of the year.\n\nTottenham striker Harry Kane, the only Englishman on the shortlist, finished 10th, Manchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne was 14th and Chelsea playmaker Eden Hazard was 19th.\n\nLiverpool forward Sadio Mane was 23rd while team-mate and playmaker Philippe Coutinho was 29th.", "The Pope is suggesting changes to Christianity's best-known prayer\n\nPope Francis has called for a translation of a phrase about temptation in the Lord's Prayer to be changed.\n\nThe current wording that says \"lead us not into temptation\" is not a good translation because God does not lead humans to sin, he says.\n\nHis suggestion is to use \"do not let us fall into temptation\" instead, he told Italian TV on Wednesday night.\n\nThe Lord's Prayer is the best-known prayer in Christianity.\n\nThe pontiff said France's Roman Catholic Church was now using the new wording \"do not let us fall into temptation\" as an alternative, and something similar should be used worldwide.\n\n\"Do not let me fall into temptation because it is I who fall, it is not God who throws me into temptation and then sees how I fell,\" he told TV2000, an Italian Catholic TV channel.\n\n\"A father does not do that, a father helps you to get up immediately.\"\n\nIt is a translation from the Latin Vulgate, a 4th-Century Latin translation of the Bible, which itself was translated from ancient Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.\n\nSince the beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis has not shied away from controversy and has tackled some issues head-on, Vatican observers say.\n\nHe has previously said the Roman Catholic Church should apologise to gay people for the way it has treated them.\n\nHe has also compared European migrant detention centres with concentration camps.", "The European Commission has said \"sufficient progress\" has been made in the first phase of Brexit talks to allow discussions to move on to Britain's future relationship with the EU.\n\nPresident Jean-Claude Juncker said he was confident the leaders of the other 27 EU members, who will meet next week, would allow the talks to progress.", "Stormzy made the transition from underground success to household name in 2017\n\nStormzy has been named artist of the year at the 2017 BBC Music Awards, capping a hugely successful year.\n\nThe south London MC, whose debut album Gang Signs & Prayer was the first grime record to reach number one, beat Ed Sheeran and Lorde to the prize.\n\nHe adds it to a collection that already includes three Mobos and the Q Award for best solo artist.\n\nRag N Bone Man collected album of the year, while Foo Fighters won best live performance for their Glastonbury set.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe US band headlined the festival this June, two years after they were forced to pull out when frontman Dave Grohl broke his leg.\n\nTaking to the stage this summer, Grohl blamed the delay on \"bad traffic\", before launching into a blistering, hit-filled set.\n\nTheir performance eventually overran by 20 minutes because the crowd kept singing between songs.\n\n\"It really did just turn into this one big ball of love and energy and celebration and music,\" Grohl said as he collected the BBC Music Award.\n\n\"That's what you want every show to be, but when it's on that scale it's a big feeling.\"\n\nThis year's BBC Music Award winners pose with their trophies\n\nRag N Bone Man's prize came in recognition of his debut album Human, which is the year's biggest-selling debut.\n\n\"That's a proper good award,\" he said. \"I keep thinking at one point that someone is going to fishhook me off and tell me it's a joke, but it's not, and it's a wonderful thing to have.\"\n\nIn previous years, the BBC Music Awards have been handed out at a glitzy televised arena concert, with performances from the likes of One Direction, Little Mix and Robbie Williams.\n\nHowever, after disappointing ratings (2016's show was watched by 2.7 million people) this year's awards were handed out during a a one-hour BBC Two special titled The Year In Music 2017.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by BBC Music This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nHosted by Claudia Winkleman and Clara Amfo, it looked at some of the year's biggest music stories, from the One Love concert in Manchester to Black Sabbath's last ever gig.\n\nStormzy, who self-released his debut album in February, has been one of the year's biggest breakout stars.\n\nThe rapper also contributed a heartbreaking verse to the Artists for Grenfell single, and collaborated with the likes of Ed Sheeran, Krept & Konan and Little Mix.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video 2 by BBC Radio 1 This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\n\"When I done the song with Little Mix, some people thought that questioned my integrity,\" he told the BBC Two show. \"I was like, 'bro, I rate Little Mix more than I rate some of your favourite rappers.'\"\n\nOn receiving his artist of the year prize, the star, whose real name is Michael Omari, said: \"I'm actually blessed to be able to say that I'm an artist that's managed to be regarded as someone that's worthy of this award.\n\n\"I don't know what the future holds for me but I'm definitely ready for it.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Declan McKenna talks to BBC Breakfast about his award\n\nOne final award, for BBC Introducing artist of the year, went to rising star Declan McKenna, whose effervescent indie-pop songs address weighty topics like police brutality, transgender conversion therapy and corruption at Fifa.\n\nThe star, who first got played on radio after uploading songs to the BBC Introducing website as a 15-year-old, thanked the organisation \"for relentlessly rooting for me throughout the years\".\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "It is not clear if the DUP saw the final wording of the agreement on the Irish border\n\nIt is pretty clear how it all went wrong yesterday.\n\nBut as we left Brussels in the pitch black this morning we're still in the dark about what happens next, and how Theresa May can get this whole process back on track, and smartish.\n\nWhile it's not the end of the potential overall deal if the two sides can't move on to the next phase of talks at the summit next week, it is what both sides desperately want.\n\nThe longer it takes, the more risk there is of course of other parts of yesterday's draft being unpicked. The idea was, remember, to lock in the agreement so far, then get on with the rest. It isn't clear what happens next though.\n\nThere are some big political and practical questions to ask. (If you are not very interested in the minutiae of all of this, look away now.... but guess what, it's not just about a fight with her allies in Northern Ireland, but her friends and rivals around the cabinet table too).\n\n1. How can Theresa May get the DUP back on board quickly?\n\nThere is a dispute over whether or not they had seen the full text of the draft agreement yesterday.\n\nSome sources say they hadn't seen the whole thing, therefore they hadn't seen the full context of what was being said, and flew off the handle over the initial leaks from Brussels over what had been agreed, the UK government \"conceding\" on the border as MEPs outside the Commission building told us before May even arrived.\n\nWhile it's clear the DUP was in close contact with the government it is possible to believe they hadn't seen the whole text complete with the caveats, because even senior officials involved in the talks weren't allowed to have electronic copies of the document, only hard copies.\n\nAnd as there had been lots and lots of changes to the text over the weekend, it's not impossible to imagine that the final, final, final version that then emerged had not been shown in full to the DUP.\n\nOthers in government suggest the DUP had seen it all, and as we reported last night, the Tory chief whip told the PM it was all signed off. If that's the case, it is a much bigger political problem of trust for the PM, if the DUP had been kept in the loop and given their approval, but then threw their toys out of the pram.\n\nIt's not clear whether the PM and Arlene Foster will meet in the next couple of days in person, but from late last night talks between the two sides were under way.\n\nBut with such strong objections on the record now, it is very difficult to see how the DUP can just say, ok then prime minister, when we said we couldn't back it, we really meant that we could, unless there is a change in the language in the text that has already taken weeks of painful negotiation to agree. It's said there are three different policy options that could provide a fix, but this feels more like a battle of wills.\n\nAnd don't forget, there are a number of Tory MPs who agree with them. The idea of close \"alignment\", is anathema to some Conservative Brexiteers too.\n\nThere is however a very big difference between allowing Northern Ireland to choose to keep cooperating in some sectors and write that into the deal, and imposing a much bigger change where it essentially stands alone from the rest of the UK, and is pushed much closer to the EU.\n\n2. This morning it feels pretty much impossible for the other side, Dublin, to back down in any way.\n\nIrish leader Leo Varadkar, who is in the middle of a political whirlwind of his own, went public yesterday to make it clear that there was indeed an agreed text, and that there was no way that it could be unpicked.\n\nBeyond the reassurances on policy that the Irish so desired, to change tack politically and suddenly give back the concessions that appear to have been so hard won seems extremely unlikely to happen.\n\n3. It's worth pondering too whether the EU pushed the Republic of Ireland, or the Republic of Ireland pushed the EU, too hard?\n\nThe last week or so have been the moment of maximum leverage for the Republic of Ireland and they have squeezed every drop out of it. But if, with the EU's backing, they have pushed May into an impossible trap, no one will win. Several weeks ago a senior government official suggested to me that we should be worried about France and Germany underestimating the PM's political difficulties.\n\nIf the calculus became impossible for her to stay at the table, there was, they feared, no guaranteed way of her being being able to \"get back in the harness\". Because we are leaving the EU, the old expectations that the UK will always be able to keep talking, to keep going, don't apply any more.\n\n4. Is the only way out then for the prime minister to face down her allies?\n\nPerhaps, indeed, but why didn't she do that yesterday? There was not due to be a vote in Parliament on the suggested deal at the end of phase one. There was no moment on this specific issue when she required the DUP's backing. Northern Ireland is yet to receive the bulk of the billion that was promised to them after the DUP did a deal with the government.\n\nOne insider wondered aloud yesterday why she just hadn't dared them to take her on. The DUP will try to max out its influence at every stage and won't give up easily. The government knows how hard they can negotiate, after they spun out their confidence and supply agreement with No 10 over many days in the summer.\n\nBut when the stakes are high, the one thing the Northern Ireland contingent truly don't want is a Jeremy Corbyn government. And if Brexit is completely derailed, arguably that risk for the DUP and the Tories moves into view. And above all, if all the PM has really promised is voluntary alignment in some sectors that shouldn't be hypothetically impossible to agree, if she really demands it.\n\n5. The amount of trouble the prime minister is in also depends what the cabinet demands to know this morning, and what the promises over \"alignment\" really amounted to.\n\nWhile the crucial paragraphs over the Irish border did emerge into the public, the text of the whole document is still a secret.\n\nThe suspicion in some circles is that Theresa May and Olly Robbins, her top EU official, might have been suggesting that \"regulatory alignment\", where the rules in the UK mirror very closely those in the EU, was an option, not just for Northern Ireland, but for the rest of the country, or at least some sectors of the economy.\n\nThat had not been scoped out by the Brexit department, it's suggested, let alone signed off by the cabinet.\n\nRound that table, be in no doubt, there are very different views over how close the UK's \"alignment\" should be. If Brexiteers Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and others feel this morning that the prime minister somehow tried to bounce them into agreeing to a future outside the EU where the UK was permanently bound tightly to Brussels, expect fireworks at home.\n\nThat could end up being much more troublesome for Theresa May than the behaviour of the Northern Ireland party whose votes she needs.\n\nNo 10 sources say the suggestions that the PM wants alignment for the whole of the UK are wide of the mark. But Brexiteers are likely to demand reassurance.", "Unionists are sceptical Irish border trade harmonisation may be the thin end of an Irish unity wedge\n\nLast Friday, European Council President Donald Tusk visited Dublin and told British politicians that, whether they liked it or not, the key to the UK's future after Brexit lay in Dublin.\n\nThis week began with the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, reminding the EU, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Theresa May that, whether they like it or not, her party holds some cards in the Brexit game.\n\nThe DUP says it never assented to any of the wording which leaked out of the Brexit discussions, whether it be \"no regulatory divergence\" across the island of Ireland after Brexit or \"continued regulatory alignment\".\n\nThose words were meant to provide reassurance to the Irish government that, should the EU and the UK not be able to reach a trade deal, there would be a backstop that would guarantee trade across the border would continue pretty much as it does now.\n\nIt would mean Northern Ireland businesses adhering to the same standards and rules as their southern counterparts.\n\nHowever, unionists tend to view with scepticism any proposal for harmonisation of rules on either side of the border.\n\nThey are concerned such an approach may be the thin end of a wedge towards Irish unity.\n\nIn addition, the committed Brexiteers among the DUP argue that if, over time, Northern Ireland diverges from the trading regulations applied elsewhere in the UK, it could create a barrier to trade within the UK and prevent Belfast benefiting from any deals London might negotiate in the future.\n\nPerhaps if the parliamentary arithmetic had been different, the prime minister might have pushed ahead and signed a deal with the EU against the DUP's wishes.\n\nSorry, we're having trouble displaying this content. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut Theresa May needs the DUP's backing at Westminster.\n\nIf she had ignored their concerns, there's little doubt that the party's 10 MPs would have sat on their hands and not supported the Conservatives in important votes on the EU Withdrawal Bill this week.\n\nGovernment negotiators have 10 days until the full European summit to try to placate the DUP and make progress towards the Holy Grail of phase two trade talks.\n\nBut that task has been complicated by the DUP's show of strength, the publication of the sensitive wording from the draft negotiating text and Leo Varadkar's public insistence that the British government had signed up to a formula which the DUP found so hard to swallow.\n\nA deadline has been missed and difficult negotiations lie ahead.\n\nIn other words, we are back in a scenario with which the DUP, with all of its Stormont experience, is very familiar.", "Saint Lucia is on the EU's 17 \"non-cooperative jurisdictions\"\n\nThe European Union has published its first blacklist of tax havens, naming 17 territories including Saint Lucia, Barbados and South Korea.\n\nA \"watchlist\" of 47 countries promising to change their tax rules to meet EU standards has also been issued.\n\nThe \"grey list\" includes several with UK links, including Hong Kong, Jersey, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, as well as Switzerland and Turkey.\n\nBoth lists have been criticised as omitting the most notorious tax havens.\n\nThe lists follow the leaking of the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers, revealing how companies and individuals hid their wealth from tax authorities around the world in offshore accounts.\n\nEU tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici said the blacklist represented \"substantial progress\", adding: \"Its very existence is an important step forward. But because it is the first EU list, it remains an insufficient response to the scale of tax evasion worldwide.\"\n\nTo determine whether a country is a \"non-cooperative jurisdiction\" the EU index measures the transparency of its tax regime, tax rates and whether the tax system encourages multinationals to unfairly shift profits to low tax regimes to avoid higher duties in other states. In particular these include tax systems that offer incentives such as 0% corporate tax to foreign companies.\n\nEU members have been left to decide what action to take against the offenders. Ministers ruled out imposing a withholding tax on transactions to tax havens as well as other financial sanctions.\n\nSome states, such as Luxembourg and Malta, opposed stricter sanctions, according to officials. EU Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said \"stronger countermeasures would have been preferable\".\n\nPanama is one of the 17 countries listed by the EU but its president, Juan Carlos Varela, said the country was \"not in any way a tax haven\".\n\nPanama is on the EU's tax havens blacklist\n\nThe EU is encouraging member states to take what it calls \"defensive actions\" against those countries that do not reform their tax systems.\n\nThe UK-based charity Oxfam last week published its own list of 35 countries that it said should be blacklisted.\n\nOli Pearce, Oxfam's inequality and tax policy advisor, said: \"It is disturbing to see mostly small countries on the EU blacklist, while the most notorious tax havens - UK-linked places like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Jersey and the Virgin Islands - escape with a place on the 'grey list'.\n\n\"Although we recognise this is a step in the right direction, if EU leaders let too many tax havens off the hook we'll all lose out. A place on the grey list must not mean tax havens get off scot-free.\"\n\nHowever, tax campaigner Richard Murphy said some countries on the grey list could still face heavy sanctions if they failed to reform their tax systems.\n\nHe said EU countries will be encouraged to disallow payments made to these places for tax purposes, or to charge withholding taxes on interest payments to them.\n\nThat tactic could \"utterly neuter their so-called status as 'tax neutral international financial centres' by ensuring that all monies they receive have been taxed before getting there\", Mr Murphy said.\n\n\"The EU is also saying to the UK that it is taking real measures against British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, and the message is - if you go the same way as them with a similar low-tax regime after Brexit, you'll be sanctioned too.\"\n\nThe EU made exceptions for countries faced with natural disasters such as hurricanes, and put the process temporarily on hold.", "Three men have been charged with the murder of Maltese investigative journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia.\n\nBrothers George and Alfred Degiorgio, aged 55 and 53, and Vincent Muscat, 55, all pleaded not guilty.\n\nThey were also accused of possession of bomb-making material and weapons.\n\nCaruana Galizia died in an explosion shortly after she left her home in Bidnija, near Mosta, on 16 October.\n\nThe 53-year-old was known for her blog accusing top politicians of corruption.\n\nOn Monday, police arrested 10 Maltese nationals in connection with the murder. Police operations took place in the town of Marsa, and the Bugibba and Zebbug areas.\n\nPrime Minister Joseph Muscat, who is not related to Vincent Muscat, said some of the 10 detainees were already known to the police while others had criminal records.\n\nThe Times of Malta reports that the three men who have been charged were among those arrested.\n\nA close friend of Caruana Galizia told Reuters news agency that she did not think the journalist had ever investigated the men.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Andrew Borg Cardona: \"My friend has been killed there\"\n\nThe government had offered a €1m (£890,000; $1.2m) reward for information about Caruana Galizia's murder.\n\nHer three sons refused to endorse the reward, and said they were \"not interested in justice without change\".\n\nIn her Running Commentary blog, Caruana Galizia had relentlessly reported on alleged corruption among politicians across party lines.\n\nWith a career spanning more than three decades, she was \"one of Malta's most important, visible, fearless journalists\", in the words of former Home Affairs Minister Louis Galea.\n\nHer funeral was attended by hundreds of people but the tiny EU state's leaders were barred by her family.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a pillar of Malta's democracy, her friend says\n\nInternational experts, including from the FBI, were called in to help in the investigation.\n\nThe editors of eight of the world's largest news organisations, including the BBC, called for the European Commission - the EU executive - to investigate the murder.\n\nIn response, Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the commission, urged the authorities to leave \"no stone unturned\" in the case.", "Conservative MP Heidi Allen was left in tears after Labour's Frank Field described the \"destitution\" faced by his constituents during a Commons debate about universal credit.", "Kamal Ahmed and Tina Daheley will help mentor students\n\nThe BBC is launching a new scheme to help young people identify real news and filter out fake or false information.\n\nThe project is targeted at secondary schools and sixth forms across the UK.\n\nFrom March, up to 1,000 schools will be offered mentoring in class and online to help them spot so-called fake news.\n\nBBC journalists including Kamal Ahmed, Tina Daheley, Amol Rajan and Huw Edwards will also take part in events aimed at helping students.\n\nJames Harding, the director of BBC News, said: \"This is an attempt to go into schools to speak to young people and give them the equipment they need to distinguish between what's true and what's false.\"\n\nThe move follows a year-long study, conducted by the University of Salford in conjunction with BBC Newsround, looking at how well children aged between nine and 14 can spot false information.\n\nAlthough most of the children from across all age groups said they knew what fake news was, many of them could not always distinguish between fake and real stories when presented with them.\n\nBBC Director of News James Harding: \"Some information is downright lies.\"\n\nThe term \"fake news\" was popularised by Donald Trump during his presidential election campaign last year.\n\nHe used the term to denigrate the output of the traditional news media, although it is also used to describe news stories that achieve significant traction despite being palpably false.\n\nRecent examples include a satirical story claiming that the Pope had endorsed Trump for president, which was widely circulated as an established fact.\n\nThe issue surfaced again this month when the President retweeted three inflammatory videos from a British far-right group whose authenticity was subsequently challenged.\n\nIn November, The Independent - now an online newspaper - streamed a video \"live from space\" that turned out to be footage recorded in 2015.\n\nIn July, meanwhile, a Facebook Live video purporting to show a storm was outed by social media users as a gif.\n\n\"I think that people are getting the news all over the place - there's more information than ever before,\" said Harding.\n\n\"But, as we know, some of it is old news, some of it is half truths. Some of it is just downright lies. And it's harder than ever when you look at those information feeds to discern what's true and what's not.\n\n\"But there are 'tells', there are ways that you can look at your news feed and identify a story that's true and a story that's not.\n\n\"And we think that's a skill that enables people to make good choices about the information they get and good choices in their lives.\"\n\nLast month a survey by media watchdog Ofcom found almost three quarters of children aged between 12 and 15 were aware of so-called \"fake news\" and that half of them has read a story they suspected of being false.\n\nThe BBC has set up a mailing list for those interested in finding out more about the project.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Pamela Batten suffered a fractured skull in the attack by her husband's former carer\n\nThe son of a 90-year-old woman who was stabbed in the neck by a carer with a previous assault conviction is calling for a change to criminal record checks.\n\nAbosede Adeyinka hit Pamela Batten on the head with a hammer and stabbed her at her home in Hillingdon, west London.\n\nAdeyinka was jailed for 21 years in November for attempted murder.\n\nBut Mrs Batten's son Sammy said the carer should never have been given a job because of her previous convictions.\n\nAdeyinka, who had built a relationship with the victim after she cared for Mrs Batten's husband, let herself into the house in April before pushing the elderly grandmother to the floor.\n\nThe 52-year-old pulled a hammer from her handbag and fractured Mrs Batten's skull, then plunged a knife into her victim's neck, narrowly missing her spinal cord.\n\nMrs Batten has recovered well from most of her injuries, but her son said she is now very nervous and has lost the \"happy-go-lucky\" side of her personality.\n\nSammy Batten said Adeyinka should never have been allowed to work with vulnerable people\n\nBut Mr Batten is \"angry\" and \"astonished\" Adeyinka was allowed to look after vulnerable people when her employers knew about her previous convictions for fraud and shoplifting.\n\nIt was revealed during the trial Adeyinka also had convictions for actual bodily harm and burglary.\n\nMr Batten said: \"Everyone's got to have a job, but you can't put a fox in charge of the hen house.\n\n\"What's the point of vetting someone if you then ignore the results?\"\n\nA spokesman for Adeyinka's employer Avant Healthcare said the firm undertook a \"robust\" interviewing process, including thorough referencing and criminal checks.\n\nAvant said it was not aware of the actual bodily harm conviction.\n\nThe spokesman added: \"If Avant Healthcare had been aware of an assault conviction, Abosede Adeyinka would not have been employed.\"\n\nAbosede Adeyinka was jailed for 21 years, last month\n\nThe Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) said anyone employing people to work with vulnerable adults or children should request an enhanced DBS check.\n\nIt added convictions held by police will be revealed by the enhanced check, but that this is \"subject to filtering arrangements\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The Manchester Arena bomber had been a \"subject of interest\" and opportunities to stop him were missed, a review says.\n\nIts author, David Anderson QC, said it was conceivable Salman Abedi's attack, which killed 22 people, could have been avoided had \"cards fallen differently\".\n\nBut he said it was \"unknowable\" whether reopening investigations into Abedi would have thwarted his plans, adding: \"MI5 assesses that it would not.\"\n\nGreater Manchester Police said its officers would \"never stop learning\".\n\nAfter the Manchester bombing and three terror attacks in London this year, counter-terror police and MI5 conducted internal reviews. Mr Anderson carried out an independent assessments of their findings.\n\nThe reviews, which remain largely secret, are summarised in Mr Anderson's report, and show:\n\nSalman Abedi was named by police as the suicide bomber shortly after the attack in Manchester\n\nThe reviews also showed the two other attackers who had been on MI5's radar were Khuram Butt, the leader of the London Bridge and Borough Market attack, and Khalid Masood who targeted Westminster Bridge in March.\n\nButt had been identified by MI5 and the police as someone who wanted to attack the UK two years earlier.\n\nHe was still a \"live subject of interest\" who was under investigation at the time of the attack, though more for his intention to travel to Syria and for radicalising others.\n\nHe was also the main target of \"Operation Hawthorn\" - but this was suspended twice because of a lack of resources after the Bataclan attack in Paris and the Westminster Bridge attack.\n\nOperation Hawthorn had resumed and was running on the day Butt attacked.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Anderson, a former independent reviewer of terror legislation, said: \"Despite elevated threat levels, the fundamentals are sound and the great majority of attacks continue to be thwarted.\n\n\"But the shock of these incidents has prompted intensive reflection and a commitment to significant change.\n\n\"In particular, MI5 and the police have identified the need to use data more effectively, to share knowledge more widely, to improve their own collaboration and to assess and investigate terrorist threats on a uniform basis, whatever the ideology that inspires them.\"\n\nCould MI5 really have stopped the attacks?\n\nIt says not - but Mr Anderson believes there were opportunities. Given the scale of terrorism-related activity since 2013 - when the Syria crisis gave a boost to recruitment in the UK - there is no doubt that the security service has been juggling a huge numbers of cases.\n\nThe real question is whether the manpower is matched with the right data tools and relationships with other bodies to stop more of the threats before it is too late.\n\nData analysis will play an increasingly important role in trying to spot individuals who may pose a threat after years of being quiet.\n\nPerhaps the most important change to come is that MI5 may be told to share some of what it knows with other agencies - such as local councils - in the hope that people on the ground can provide the missing piece of information they need to disrupt a threat.\n\nThis raises huge cultural challenges for an organisation that necessarily operates below the radar.\n\nSome relatives of victims have given their views on the report.\n\nSteve Goodman, whose step-granddaughter 15-year-old Olivia Campbell-Hardy was killed in the blast, said: \"The police were doing their jobs as best they could.\n\n\"Unfortunately information is not always reliable.\"\n\nDan Hett lost his brother Martyn, 29, in the explosion.\n\nIn a series of tweets said he could not \"fathom how complicated modern antiterrorism intelligence is\".\n\nHe added that the positive aspects of the emergency services' response should also be highlighted.\n\nThe home secretary said nine terror attacks had been prevented in the UK since the Westminster attack in March.\n\nIn a statement to the Commons, Ms Rudd said MI5 and the police had made 126 recommendations.\n\nThese included issues such as data sharing and analysis and how so-called \"closed subjects\" should be managed, as well as a new approach to managing domestic extremism, particularly of right-wing groups.\n\n\"We will shortly be announcing the budgets for policing for 2017-18, and I am clear that we must ensure counter terrorism policing has the resources needed to deal with the threats that we face,\" she told MPs.\n\nMr Anderson's predecessor Lord Carlile said the 126 recommendations should be \"put into effect as soon as possible\".\n\nThe Met Police said the number of dangerous, radicalised individuals was \"a major issue\".\n\nCommissioner Cressida Dick said her force needed \"to make rapid progress in implementing the recommendations, many of which require new technology, better infrastructures and resources\".\n\nFollowing the publication of the report, the prime minister's spokesman said the government would pay £9.8m in special funding to Greater Manchester Police, in relation to its response to the Manchester Arena bombing.\n\nThe Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said the report would be difficult reading for the people of his city.\n\n\"It is clear that things could, and perhaps should, have been done differently and that wrong judgements have been made,\" he said.\n\nBut, he said, it should reassure the public to know MI5 were closing in on Abedi.\n\nIt would be much more worrying if nothing had been known about the attack, he added.\n\nChris Phillips, a former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said: \"When you look back, within terrorism, you will always find some way that we could have stopped something.\n\n\"I always equate it to spinning plates. They've got hundreds and thousands of plates spinning at any given time.\n\n\"Someone has to make some risk-assessed decisions as to who is at the top of the pile to be watched.\"\n\nThe current threat level for terrorism in the UK is severe, meaning an attack is highly likely,", "Carter told Newsbeat he couldn't believe the response to his tweet\n\nA tweet from a 16-year-old who wanted a year's free supply of chicken nuggets was the UK's most retweeted of 2017.\n\nAfter fast food chain Wendy's set Carter Wilkerson a target of 18m retweets to get the food, he tweeted: \"Help me please. A man needs his nuggs.\"\n\nAnd the internet stepped up. It's been shared 3.6m times globally and is now the most retweeted post of all time.\n\nJeremy Clarkson and Jermain Defoe also appear on the UK's 2017 list.\n\nIn April, the teenager told Newsbeat it was \"super fun\" to see his tweet get so many retweets.\n\nWendy's went on to give Carter the free supply - despite him not receiving the set target.\n\nSecond on the list was Ariana Grande responding to the terror attack at her concert in Manchester in May, which was shared 1.1m times worldwide.\n\nAfter the show she wrote: \"Broken. From the bottom of my heart, I am so so sorry. I don't have words.\"\n\nJermain Defoe's tribute to his \"best friend\" Bradley Lowery completes the top three with 240,000 retweets.\n\nAfter the six-year-old died, following a fight with a rare type of cancer in July, the footballer tweeted: \"Sleep tight little one.\"\n\nFourth on the list was a tweet from former US President Barack Obama, who captioned a picture of children from different ethnic backgrounds with a message of equality.\n\nDespite having a total of 1.1m retweets, fewer of those users were based in the UK than those who shared Jermain Defoe's tweet.\n\nFormer footballer Andy Johnson is fifth on the UK list after he supported Aaron Lennon as he battled with mental health issues.\n\nHe's closely followed by Jeremy Clarkson dabbing, a police officer who raised awareness for a suicide prevention line and Peter Crouch suggesting a picture of him with giraffes was spending \"time with family\" which all have more than 100,000 shares.\n\nThe top 10 is rounded off with a picture raising awareness of how to spot breast cancer and a tweet with a caption to a video of Jeremy Corbyn clapping his hands as he walks down some stairs.\n\nFind us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat", "Charlie Dunn's stepfather Paul Smith had denied any wrong-doing in relation to his death\n\nThe stepfather of a five-year-old boy who drowned in a pool at a water park has pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence.\n\nCharlie Dunn, who could not swim, was pulled from the water at Bosworth Water Park in Leicestershire on 23 July 2016.\n\nPaul Smith, 36, had denied letting the boy wander off alone for more than two hours but changed his plea during the trial at Birmingham Crown Court.\n\nCharlie's mother, Lynsey Dunn, 28, has had the same charge dropped.\n\nPaul Smith and Lynsey Dunn will be sentenced later this month\n\nShe did admit a charge of neglect in connection with Charlie after an incident between July 2014 and July 2016, in which she failed to supervise him near a busy road.\n\nDunn also pleaded guilty to a second charge of neglect in relation to another youngster, who cannot be named, after an incident in the summer of 2015.\n\nIt can also now be reported that prior to the trial Smith admitted witness intimidation in connection with another incident relating to Charlie.\n\nBoth defendants, of Glascote Heath, Tamworth, Staffordshire, will be sentenced on 20 December.\n\nCharlie was found in the Blue Lagoon children's pool at the park\n\nCharlie was found submerged in a 1.4m-deep lagoon at the busy attraction, in Market Bosworth, and pulled from the water by other children.\n\nA paramedic carried out CPR, before he was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.\n\nThe court had previously heard he had been allowed to play unsupervised in the park.\n\nOpening the Crown's case on 30 November, prosecutor Mary Prior QC said: \"This case is not about parents turning their back for a minute whilst a tragedy occurs.\n\n\"We don't prosecute parents for unavoidable tragedies nor do we expect perfection in parenting.\n\n\"This is a gross failure to supervise not for seconds, and not for a few minutes, but for protracted periods of time in circumstances where the child was exposed to danger.\"\n\nThe trial was told Smith was overheard shouting he did not know where Charlie was on the day he died\n\nActing Det Insp Nikki McLatchie, of Leicestershire Police, who worked on the case, said there were about a thousand people at the park on the day Charlie drowned.\n\n\"Witness testimony showed that Charlie was left alone on numerous occasions, despite him not being able to swim,\" she said.\n\n\"Smith was looking after Charlie at the park, and his failure as a parent came with the most tragic consequences and ultimately led to his death.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'He switched his webcam on and started groaning'\n\nSex offenders are increasingly using live online streaming platforms to exploit children, police have warned.\n\nChildren need to be educated on the risks associated with streaming sites, the National Crime Agency said.\n\nIt said offenders were learning how young people communicated online and \"using this knowledge to abuse them\".\n\nIn one week, authorities identified 345 vulnerable children and arrested 192 people, 30% involving streaming, blackmail and grooming.\n\nSocial media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat all allow some form of live capability, while there are also many pure live streaming services, including Periscope, Omegle, Liveme and Lively.\n\nPolice say abusers thrive on the immediacy these live platforms offer - targeting children with tricks, dares and threats to manipulate them into nudity or sexual acts.\n\nThey called for help from parents and internet companies to help manage the evolving threat children face online.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Child Sexual Exploitation lead explains why parents need to be more intrusive online.\n\nNational Police Chiefs' Council Lead for Child Protection Chief Constable Simon Bailey said: \"We need parents and carers to talk to their children about healthy relationships and staying safe online.\n\n\"We need internet companies to help us stop access to sexual abuse images and videos and prevent abuse happening on their platforms.\"\n\nAn NCA survey found that while 84% of the 927 people who responded said they were alert to the potential dangers their children faced online, more than 30% had not spoken to their children about online safety in the last month. Almost 58% were not sure if they had adequate online security.\n\nFor many parents the world of live streaming apps is a bewildering one. Every month new ones emerge, to become the latest \"must do\".\n\nAt their most basic they allow young people to broadcast live to the world from anywhere - classroom, playground or bedroom. Some only let a limited number of people see the broadcaster, others are open to anyone using the app - and that includes predators.\n\nIt's easy to see why children like the apps. It's immediate, it seems like fun and many idolise the vloggers and Youtubers doing the same thing. The more viewers or \"likes\" the greater the affirmation for the child.\n\nAnd for tech companies? Video engages people for longer than anything else online and advertisers love that. The more video a platform can boast, the more advertisers it can attract.\n\nThe growth of live streaming apps poses a stark question for the tech industry, one underlined by the NCA campaign - when you create an app that allows children to broadcast live to the world and allows the world to talk back - is it really possible to keep them safe?\n\nIn a bid to raise awareness among children, a short animation - featuring a fictional abuser called Sam - is being launched by the NCA's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop).\n\nReleased alongside the hashtag #WhoIsSam, the clip will show children and young people how offenders attempt to build exploitative virtual relationships.\n\nZoe Hilton, from the NCA, said: \"Offenders will take advantage of the fact that young peoples' inhibitions are lower online so we're also encouraging parents to talk to their children about what a healthy relationship looks like and how to spot when someone might not be who they say they are.\n\n\"As well as ensuring that privacy settings are in place on the sites and apps they use, it's so important that we have regular and open conversations with our children about being safe online and encouraging them to speak up if something is worrying them or doesn't feel right.\"\n\nUpdated guidelines have been added to Ceop's Thinkuknow website, providing parents and guardians, and children of all ages with the latest advice on keeping safe online.\n\nFurther guidelines have been issued in a report called Digital Childhood which looks at concerns and makes recommendations for specific age groups.\n\nFor example, it says parents should supervise their under-fives at all times online and suggests greater efforts should be made to stop 10 to 12-year-olds signing up to social media sites that are for those aged 13 and older.\n\nUK police forces have also increased offline intervention activity, working with schools, universities and after school clubs to increase awareness.", "DUP leader Arlene Foster has said her party will not accept any Brexit deal that \"separates\" Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIreland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he was \"surprised and disappointed\" that an anticipated deal on Brexit was not reached on Monday.\n\nHe said Ireland could not go into a second phase of Brexit talks without \"firm guarantees that there will not be a hard border in Ireland\".\n\nMr Varadkar said the UK had agreed a text that met Irish concerns.\n\nHowever, he was then later told that the British government was not in a position to conclude \"what was agreed\".\n\nThe taoiseach told a press conference in Dublin that earlier on Monday, he had been in touch with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU Council President Donald Tusk and confirmed to both Ireland's agreement on the form of words about the Irish border.\n\nBut the deal did not go ahead.\n\nThe BBC's Laura Kuenssberg said the deal broke down after the DUP refused to accept UK concessions on the Irish border issue.\n\nIrish ministers say the border is \"more than a customs issue\" and must be handled sensitively\n\nPrime Minister Theresa May is understood to have broken off from talks with Mr Junker to speak to DUP leader Arlene Foster.\n\nIt happened after the DUP leader had held a press conference saying her party would \"not accept any form of regulatory divergence\" that separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.\n\nHowever, Downing Street sources insist it was not only the intervention by the DUP that meant a deal was not concluded.\n\nThe DUP insists NI must leave the EU on the same terms as the rest of the UK\n\nIt is understood that there are still differences of opinion over citizens' rights, the role of the European Courts after the implementation period and also over the technicalities of the Irish border.\n\nThe UK was reportedly prepared to accept that Northern Ireland may remain in the EU's customs union and single market in all but name.\n\nAt her press conference on Monday afternoon, Mrs Foster accused Dublin of trying to change the 1998 Belfast Agreement without unionists' consent.\n\n\"We will not stand for that,\" she said.\n\n\"The prime minister has told the House of Commons that there will be no border in the Irish Sea and the prime minister has been clear that the UK is leaving the EU as a whole and that the territorial and economic integrity of the UK will be protected,\" said the DUP leader.\n\nThis is the latest in a series of meetings between Theresa May and EU officials\n\nThe Irish prime minister told a news conference that it \"would not be helpful\" for him to attribute blame for the breakdown in agreement.\n\nWhen asked about the DUP's influence with the UK government, Mr Varadkar said that although they are the largest party in Northern Ireland, and their views have to be taken into account, they \"don't represent the majority of people in Northern Ireland\".\n\nHe added that the majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU during the Brexit referendum.\n\nThe Irish government had been seeking guarantees from the UK that there would be no customs checks on the border with Northern Ireland after Brexit and movements of goods and people would remain seamless.\n\nJohn O'Dowd, Sinn Féin, accused the DUP leader, Mrs Foster, of putting party political needs ahead of border issues.\n\n\"It appears from the leaks of the paper that were presented today - and we will examine the paper in its totality - that there is certainly a significant section of the UK government who are prepared to treat us different because they either understand the unique circumstances of this island or they accept that these talks are going nowhere until this matter is dealt with,\" he said.\n\nUK Prime Minister Theresa May has been meeting key EU figures in an attempt to hammer out a deal ahead of a summit in 10 days time.\n\nMr Tusk represents the leaders of the other 27 EU members, who all need to agree for there to be a move to the next phase of talks.\n\nThe UK voted for Brexit last year and is due to leave in March 2019, but negotiations have been deadlocked over three so-called separation issues: the status of expat citizens, the \"divorce\" bill and the Northern Ireland border.\n\nThe Good Friday Agreement or Belfast Agreement was reached on 10 April 1998 by the British and Irish governments and most of the political parties in Northern Ireland about how NI should be governed.\n\nThe agreement aimed to set up a nationalist and unionist power-sharing government in Northern Ireland.", "Children can do video chats with friends and approved adults\n\nHow young is too young to be on social media?\n\nStrictly speaking, only those aged 13 and over are allowed to use Facebook. But the prevention methods are trivial, meaning more than 20 million under-13-year-olds are thought to be using the network.\n\nSo on Monday, Facebook launched its first app tailored for young users. It's a ringfenced network that needs parental approval before use, and will not - the company has promised - be used to feed data for advertising.\n\nMessenger Kids is a simplified, locked-down version of the messaging app Facebook today offers those over 13.\n\n\"Parents are increasingly allowing their children to use tablets and smartphones, but often have questions and concerns about how their kids use them and which apps are appropriate,\" said Loren Cheng, product manager for Messenger Kids.\n\n\"So when we heard about the need for better apps directly from parents during research and conversations with parents, we knew we needed to develop it alongside the people who were going to use it, as well as experts who could help guide our thinking.\"\n\nIf two children want to be friends on Messenger Kids, that friendship has to be approved by a parent for each child. Once confirmed to be safe, friends can do live video chat and send pictures and text to each other.\n\nParental controls are designed to ensure communications are safe and approved\n\nThere will also be \"a library of kid-appropriate and specially chosen GIFs, frames, stickers, masks and drawing tools lets them decorate content and express their personalities\".\n\nApproved adults can also contact children through the app - although they will get their messages through the normal Facebook Messenger app.\n\nMessenger Kids will of course collect data: the child's name, the content of the messages, and typical usage reports for how the app is used.\n\nFacebook will share that information with third parties, which must have data protection policies that comply with Coppa, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act in the US.\n\nFacebook has promised the data will not be used in any way to power the \"grown up\" Facebook.\n\nFacebook has added an array of effects to make the video chat more enjoyable for children\n\nThat's important - the obvious commercial benefit to this new app might be to target ads to parents based on what their kids are talking about. Or use what was discussed in Messenger Kids to target ads at teens as they graduate into over-13 Facebook.\n\nNeither of those things would happen, Facebook said. The app doesn't know specifically how old the children signing up are, so users will not be prompted to move onto Facebook when they are old enough.\n\nIf a child does decide to join full Facebook, it will be a brand new account with no data carried over from what was said on Messenger Kids.\n\nHaving youngsters graduate onto Facebook proper is of key strategic importance for the company as it seeks to make sure it is the social network of choice for the next generation of users.\n\nIf it can capture the attention of 6 to 12-year-olds before Snapchat (or some other competitor) can, then chances are those same kids will naturally progress into using Facebook as teenagers and young adults. It is this demographic causing them the most headaches right now.\n\nBut business sense aside, you have to ask: should children that young be using social media at all? Sean Parker, one of Facebook's early investors and its first president, recently opined on the negative impact of the service he helped create.\n\n“God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains,\" he said, reflecting on the small \"dopamine hit\" we get when someone gives us a \"like\" on social media.\n\nThe \"like\" mechanism is a key part of Messenger Kids - and as a society we might wonder if we want to introduce children as young as six to the concept of online peer validation. Six-year-olds should be playing with worms, not getting FOMO.\n\nOthers want broader transparency on the various privacy issues that arise from the launch of this app. Facebook's blogpost on Monday was carefully crafted to alleviate various anticipated worries, and name-dropping experts and agencies that deal with protection of children is a key part of its marketing strategy here.\n\nThere is tentative support for what Facebook is doing. The prevailing mood is that since kids are using social networks, you might as do what you can to make sure that use is safe and monitored.\n\nCommon Sense Media, a US non-profit \"dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families\", has looked extensively at the proliferation of social media use among young children.\n\n“A messenger app for kids under 13 that only parents can sign them up for sounds like a nice idea on its face,\" said James Steyer, the organisation's chief executive.\n\n\"But without clear policies about data collection, what happens to the content children post, and plans for the future, it is impossible to fully trust the platform.\n\n\"We appreciate that for now, the product is ad-free and appears designed to put parents in control. But why should parents simply trust that Facebook is acting in the best interest of kids?\"\n\nFacebook knows this move into looking after far more vulnerable users will be watched extremely closely. Any harmful content that makes its way onto Messenger Kids will be a major issue for the firm.\n\nAs YouTube found out when disturbing videos found their way onto YouTube Kids, trying to make a child-safe space is difficult - a minority of people will always be looking at ways to get around protections.\n\nThe app is only available in the US on Apple's iOS operating system initially.\n\nYou can reach Dave securely through encrypted messaging app Signal on: +1 (628) 400-7370", "Four years have passed since South African hero Nelson Mandela died\n\nSouth Africa's corruption watchdog has found officials misused millions of dollars during Nelson Mandela's funeral four years ago.\n\nAccording to the report, 300m rand ($22m; £16m) was redirected from a development fund to help with costs.\n\nIt had been earmarked for things like \"sanitation, the replacement of mud schools and the refurbishment of hospitals,\" the report stated.\n\nInstead, the authorities allegedly spent it on items like $24 T-shirts.\n\nAllegations of misuse first emerged in 2014, months after Mr Mandela's funeral in Qunu, Eastern Cape, in December 2013, which was attended by heads of state from around the world.\n\nNow, nearly four years after Mr Mandela's death at the age of 95, the country's public protector, Busi Mkhwebane, has asked President Jacob Zuma to pursue the allegations further using the special investigations unit.\n\nThe 300-page report describes how officials in the Eastern Cape pocketed funds, ignored basic rules, and inflated costs.\n\nMr Mandela spent 27 years in prison after being charged with trying to overthrow the apartheid government\n\nMs Mkhwebane described the failure to follow regulations on the spending of public money as \"very scary\" and \"appalling\", according to South Africa's Mail&Guardian newspaper.\n\n\"It is very concerning that we can use a funeral to do such things,\" she told a press conference. \"How do you charge or escalate prices or even send an invoice for something you have not delivered?\"\n\nMs Mkhwebane said disorganisation had a role to play in the misuse, but also hit out at how South Africa's ruling ANC party had apparently issued instructions to officials on how the money should be spent.\n\n\"There are invoices we are showing with letterheads from the ANC. And monies were paid but again services were not rendered,\" she was quoted as saying by South Africa's EyeWitness News.\n\nShe added: \"We are hopeful whoever has committed these acts will be taken to task.\"\n\nThis is not the first scandal to surround official events commemorating the apartheid struggle hero's life.\n\nThe man tasked with providing a sign language interpretation at the memorial service was accused of making up gestures, while a fight for control over Mandela's legacy within his own family mired the last months of his life.", "A former senior police officer has demanded cabinet minister Damian Green publicly retracts a claim that he lied about pornography being found on a computer in the MP's office in 2008.\n\nBob Quick said he would consider legal action against the first secretary of state if he did not do so.\n\nIn a tweet, Mr Green had described Mr Quick as \"untrustworthy\" and accused him of making \"untrue\" allegations.\n\nMr Green denies downloading or watching pornography on his work computers.\n\nIn a statement issued by his lawyers, Mr Quick said: \"Damian Green called me a liar in the statement he tweeted on 4 November 2017. That is completely untrue.\n\n\"Everything I have said is accurate, in good faith, and in the firm belief that I have acted in the public interest.\"\n\nHe added: \"I am in no way motivated politically and bear no malice whatsoever to Damian Green.\n\n\"This is despite unfortunate and deeply hurtful attempts to discredit me.\"\n\nWhen he was assistant commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police Service, Mr Quick led an inquiry into Home Office leaks, which saw Mr Green's Commons office being searched in 2008.\n\nHaving resigned in 2009, Mr Quick made the allegations last month after the Cabinet Office launched an investigation into accusations of inappropriate behaviour by Mr Green towards journalist Kate Maltby, which the MP has described as \"completely false\".\n\nMr Green then tweeted his reaction, describing the pornography claims as \"disreputable political smears\" and accusing Mr Quick of acting in \"flagrant breach\" of his duty of confidentiality.\n\nOn Friday, retired Met detective Neil Lewis also alleged that \"thousands\" of thumbnail images of legal pornography had been found on Mr Green's parliamentary computer.\n\nBut he was condemned by the Met's Commissioner Cressida Dick, who said all officers had a duty to protect sensitive information they discovered.\n\nResponding the Mr Quick's comments on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Tory MP said: \"It would be inappropriate for Mr Green to comment while the Cabinet Office inquiry is ongoing and while the Metropolitan Police is investigating the conduct of former officers.\"", "As talks appear to have broken down, we get back to basics, and meet the people affected by the politics.", "Thousands of internet users have joined forces to save Mothe-Chandeniers chateau in France.\n\nBy contributing at least €51 (£45; $61) each, they managed to raise €500,000 needed to buy the ruined 13th Century castle.\n\nEach participant is now a co-owner of Mothe-Chandeniers, which the online community plans to restore.", "DUP leader Arlene Foster last week declared that her party was \"in constant contact\" on Brexit issues with the government\n\n\"Rubbish\" - the response from a senior DUP source when I put it to them that the party had been kept in the loop about Theresa May's Brexit deal, but got cold feet when the likes of Nicola Sturgeon, Carwyn Jones and Sadiq Khan started demanding the same special treatment for Scotland, Wales and London.\n\nLast Thursday, DUP leader Arlene Foster declared that her party was \"in constant contact on these issues with the government\".\n\nWas that via face-to-face meetings of the two parties' \"co-ordination committee\", or just via telephone conversations? If the latter, the line must have been very crackly.\n\nBut also last Thursday, the DUP loudly and publicly denounced a report in The Times which talked about the devolution of extra powers to Stormont and hinted at the possibility of customs convergence.\n\nIt wasn't exactly what the Eurocrats were working on in their draft texts.\n\nHowever, the similarity of the proposals and the vehemence of the DUP reaction should surely have alerted the negotiators to sound out the DUP first, rather than bouncing them into accepting a fait accompli.\n\nHow to get out of this hole?\n\nThe diplomats could try raiding a thesaurus to find synonyms for \"regulatory alignment\", although the DUP will now be on their guard for any cosmetic change which does not alter the thrust of the draft UK-EU agreement.\n\nEarlier, another DUP source told me unionists just wanted to be treated the same as the rest of the UK. If regulations on animal health or agriculture are good enough for Northern Ireland, went the argument, then why not for the UK as a whole?\n\nNegotiations between the UK and UK broke up without a deal on Monday\n\nThe DUP's critics are quick to point out that the party has been prepared to contemplate different regimes for corporation tax, air passenger duty and water charges. Not to mention that it doesn't back a \"one-size-fits-all\" UK-wide policy on abortion or same-sex marriage.\n\nPutting all that to one side for the purpose of this Brexit negotiation, one obvious way to resolve the current conundrum might be for the government to pledge that any \"regulatory alignment\" between Northern Ireland and the European Union will also apply across the UK.\n\nSuch a wider east-west deal would not offend the DUP's unionist sensibilities, although it might create tensions between Theresa May and some of her Conservative Brexit purists.\n\nSo you could widen out the deal. However, another approach might be to narrow down its terms.\n\nThe draft text referred to \"regulatory alignment\" in areas relevant to the Good Friday Agreement (the 1998 deal that brought to an end the 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland).\n\nThat is open to interpretation - some say the EU provided the entire context in which the 1998 Agreement was negotiated. By contrast the UK Supreme Court ruled that Brexit was not in breach of the Agreement.\n\nWe have had north-south \"areas of cooperation\" for the past 19 years.\n\nTransport is one of them, but drivers still need to stick to speed limits in kilometres south of the border and in miles per hour on the north.\n\nTourism is another area of cooperation, but airport bosses in Northern Ireland will remind you that their passengers pay duty which the Irish Republic abolished some time ago.\n\nTourism is one key area of north-south cooperation\n\nSo simply saying the magic words \"Good Friday Agreement\" doesn't mean every rule and regulation has to be the same.\n\nTwo different forms of words are now doing the rounds.\n\nLeaks from Brussels on Monday claimed a draft text said: \"In the absence of agreed solutions, the UK will ensure that continued regulatory alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support north-south cooperation and the protection of the Good Friday Agreement.\"\n\nThis would be open to the UK government to parse on the grounds of which rules are relevant to that agreement.\n\nThe Irish Times has reported another formula which has apparently been disputed by the British government.\n\nIt says: \"The UK remains committed to protecting north-south co-operation and a guarantee to avoiding a hard border.\n\n\"The UK's intention is to achieve these objectives through the overall EU-UK relationship.\n\n\"Should this not be possible, the UK will propose specific solutions to address the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland.\n\n\"In the absence of agreed solutions, the UK will maintain full alignment with the internal market, customs union and protection of the Good Friday agreement.\"\n\nThis appears more a comprehensive text, less open to interpretation and potentially creating an internal customs barrier within a post-Brexit UK.\n\nSo does the government widen the playing field across the UK or try to narrow the terms of the text dealing with Ireland?\n\nEither way it's quite a challenge to rescue this deal.", "Up to one in five patients is regularly missing GP appointments in Scotland, new research reveals.\n\nA study of more than 500,000 people in the country found poorer patients living in affluent areas were the most likely to miss an appointment.\n\n\"No-showers\" tended to be aged 16 to 30, or older than 90, according to the researchers from Lancaster, Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities.\n\nThe study findings are published The Lancet Public Health journal.\n\nThere is no centrally collected data on total number of GP appointments or how many of them are missed.\n\nThe study found 19% of patients missed more than two appointments in a three-year period.\n\nThose appointments that were booked two or three days in advance were more likely to be missed than those made two weeks in advance.\n\nDavid Ellis, of the University of Lancaster, one of the lead authors of the study, says the research has identified where doctors' surgeries need to focus their efforts.\n\n\"Some of the solutions might include practices learning to better manage patients who are more likely to not attend.\n\n\"So for example that might mean giving more appointments on the day than say, two to three days in advance.\n\n\"And because we've already got a kind of profile of what those patients might look like who are more likely to not attend, that's where the more targeted interventions could be pushed.\"\n\nBut Stockport GP Ranjit Gill believes there has been a shift in how the health service is seen by a younger \"I want it now\" generation.\n\nDr Gill says missed appointments cost the NHS time and money\n\n\"The NHS is now, for our younger population, seen as a consumer service, a bit like John Lewis and so perhaps valued differently to the way our older population see the NHS.\n\n\"I can't think of the last time one of my older patients ever missed an appointment.\"\n\nAnd Dr Gill points out that as well as the financial loss to the health service, a missed GP appointment also represents a loss of valuable time.\n\n\"We have to check for each missed appointment that there wasn't a worrying reason behind that missed appointment whether it be mental health, safeguarding issues or other welfare concerns about patients.\n\n\"That takes time and that's a lost opportunity again, for that patient and other patients as well.\"\n\nProf Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs, says it can be frustrating for doctors when patients don't turn up to their appointments.\n\n\"Whilst practices will always try to offer appointments that are timely and convenient for patients, the current resource and workforce pressures we are facing, with GPs conducting more consultations than ever before to meet increasing demand, is making this more and more difficult.\n\n\"GP practices across the country are already implementing some successful schemes to reduce missed appointments, from text messaging reminders to better patient education and awareness posters detailing the unintended consequences of a patient not attending.\n\n\"But ultimately, we need NHS England's GP Forward View - promising £2.4bn extra a year for general practice and 5,000 more GPs - to be delivered in full and as a matter of urgency.\n\n\"And we need equivalent promises made and delivered in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so that we can deliver the care our patients need, whatever their circumstances, and wherever in the country they live.\"\n\nIn 2014, NHS England estimated that more than 12 million GP visits are missed each year in the UK.\n\nThat could cost the health service in excess of £162m per year.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Christine Keeler worked as a model in the 1960s\n\nChristine Keeler, the model embroiled in the 1963 Profumo affair, has died aged 75, her son has said.\n\nSeymour Platt said Ms Keeler had been ill for several months with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.\n\nHe told the BBC: \"She was always a fighter, but sadly lost the final fight against a terrible lung disease.\"\n\nShe became famous for her part in the scandal, which shook Harold Macmillan's government, but her son said that fame came \"at a huge personal price\".\n\nAt the height of the Cold War, the-then teenager claimed she had an affair with Conservative cabinet minister John Profumo.\n\nShe also claimed to be in a relationship with a Russian diplomat - Eugene Ivanov, an assistant naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy - at the same time.\n\nMr Profumo was forced to resign after lying about the affair to Parliament and the scandal is considered to have contributed to the fall of the Macmillan government.\n\nMs Keeler's family said she died on Monday at 23:30 GMT at the Princess Royal University Hospital in Orpington, south-east London.\n\nPaying tribute to his mother, Mr Platt told the BBC: \"She earned her place in British history but at a huge personal price.\"\n\n\"And regardless, we are all very proud of who she was to the end,\" he added.\n\nDouglas Thompson, the journalist and author who worked with Ms Keeler on her memoir The Truth At Last, paid tribute to a \"funny and bright\" woman, whom he described as \"one of the most honest people I have ever met\".\n\n\"She believed absolutely everything she ever said about the Profumo affair,\" he said.\n\n\"She said what she thought,\" he continued. \"I think that honesty is very surprising.\"\n\nHe described Ms Keeler as a \"victim of the time\", adding that she would probably have had her own TV show had the scandal happened today.\n\n\"The interesting thing about her is she tried to escape it,\" he said. \"I don't think she ever got away from it - that was a tragedy.\"\n\n\"She could never stop being Christine Keeler,\" he added.\n\nIn 1963, Mr Profumo told the House of Commons he and Ms Keeler were \"on friendly terms\" and there was \"no impropriety\" in their relationship, after opposition MPs voiced concerns about national security implications.\n\nEventually he admitted lying to the house and resigned as Secretary of State for War and from the Commons.\n\nMs Keeler was briefly married twice, with both ending in divorce. She had two sons.\n\nThe Profumo affair will be the subject of a BBC One drama which begins filming next year.", "The Archbishop of Canterbury rises at the end of the debate to thank members for taking part - \"so thoughtfully and so widely\".\n\n\"We need adaptability and imagination,\" he says, because needs vary, urging a reimagining of the education system.\n\nAnd that's it for today in the Lords.\n\nJoin us again on Monday afternoon for education questions at 2.30pm in the Commons - and the second reading of the Finance Bill, which enacts measures announced by the chancellor in the Budget.", "Shashi Kapoor acted in more than 150 films\n\nKapoor, who acted in huge hits like Deewar and Kabhie Kabhie, had been ill for some time and was in hospital.\n\nHe was a member of the Kapoor dynasty, which has dominated the Hindi film industry for decades.\n\nHe won several national film awards and was awarded the Padma Bhushan civilian honour by the Indian government in 2011. He also acted in a number of British and American films.\n\nKapoor died at the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in the western city of Mumbai.\n\n\"Yes he has passed away. He had kidney problem since several years. He was on dialysis for several years,\" his nephew, actor Randhir Kapoor, told Press Trust of India. The funeral will be held on Tuesday morning, he said.\n\nThe actor was married to late English actress Jennifer Kendal, with whom he set up Mumbai's iconic Prithvi Theatre in 1978. His sister-in-law is British actress Felicity Kendal.\n\nKapoor began his career as a child actor and appeared in more than 150 films, including a dozen in English. He became known internationally for his roles in Merchant Ivory productions like \"Shakespeare-wallah\" and \"Heat and Dust\".\n\nIn 2015, he was given the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award, the highest honour in Indian cinema.\n\nKapoor was known for his charming smile and was often described by his fans as the \"handsomest star ever\". He had a huge fan following among women.\n\nHe was cast alongside superstar Amitabh Bachchan in some of the biggest Bollywood blockbusters of the 1970s and 1980s, and the two actors played brothers, best friends or rivals.\n\nHis comment in Deewar - \"Mere paas maa hai\" (But I have mother's support) - during a tense confrontation with screen-sibling Bachchan tops the list of best Bollywood lines for millions of fans around the globe.\n\nOver the years, it has found its way on to merchandise like shoulder bags, coffee mugs and cushion covers.\n\nAs news of his death spread, fans took to social media to express their grief and pay tributes, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi:\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Narendra Modi This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by WAGH $AGAR 🇮🇳 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Aamir Khan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Shashi Tharoor This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Jane Lyndon says she did not know her son was in Syria\n\nThe mother of a British man who was killed in Syria has spoken of her \"hero\" son, who she tried to persuade to come home.\n\nOliver Hall, 24 volunteered to fight with the YPG, the Kurdish-led armed group which has been battling against so-called Islamic State.\n\nMr Hall was killed during an operation to clear mines from Raqqa in November.\n\nJane Lyndon said \"he was a fun loving, cheeky, mischievous boy, who grew up to be a courageous and handsome man.\"\n\nMr Hall went to Bay House School, in Gosport, Hampshire, and after leaving school attended Fareham College, where he trained to be a telecommunications engineer.\n\nMs Lyndon said her son went on to work for his stepfather \"whilst still trying to find his vocation in life\".\n\nShe had no idea he was planning to travel to Syria.\n\n\"The first I knew about it was when I received a message from him saying he was abroad doing charity work.\n\n\"Ollie asked me not to be disappointed or angry with him and, in his own words, said: 'I am away for a couple of months doing voluntary work, this is something I have to do. I have never known what to do with my life but after a lot of time thinking and planning I have decided to come and do some charity work'.\"\n\nThis message was sent in August. A couple of weeks later Ms Lyndon found out he was in northern Syria.\n\n\"This was the most devastating news I could ever receive,\" she said.\n\nJane Lyndon says her son was trying to find his vocation in life\n\nIt is estimated that hundreds of Westerners have travelled to Syria during the conflict to volunteer as fighters with the US-backed YPG, which has been fighting to recapture territory held by IS.\n\nDozens of British volunteer fighters have been amongst them.\n\nMs Lyndon said she, friends and family pleaded with her son to come home but he refused.\n\n\"He stated he was an adult and he had finally found his purpose in life and was making an impact on the world,\" she said.\n\n\"I would never want another family to go through this but at the same time Ollie is my hero, I am so proud of my son and miss him greatly.\"\n\n\"Please could I ask that my family and I are now left in peace to grieve for a wonderful son and brother.\"\n\nOliver Hall had travelled to Syria in August to fight against so-called Islamic State\n\nMr Hall's body will be repatriated to the UK, and the YPG has offered its support to his family.\n\nA spokesman said he \"will always be remembered by our people\".\n\nMr Hall is the seventh British citizen to be killed with the YPG.\n\nThere will be a ceremony for him at the Smelka Border crossing in Syria, before his body is taken over the border into Iraq to begin the journey home.\n\nThe Foreign and Commonwealth Office continues to warn against all travel to Syria.", "Isobel Murray no longer thinks of herself as diabetic\n\nNearly half of patients have reversed type 2 diabetes in a \"watershed\" trial, say doctors in Newcastle and Glasgow.\n\nPeople spent up to five months on a low-calorie diet of soups and shakes to trigger massive weight loss.\n\nIsobel Murray, 65, who had weighed 15 stone, lost over four stone (25kg) and no longer needs diabetes pills. She says: \"I've got my life back.\"\n\nThe charity Diabetes UK says the trial is a landmark and has the potential to help millions of patients.\n\nIsobel, from Largs in North Ayrshire, was one of 298 people on the trial.\n\nHer blood sugar levels were too high, and every time she went to the doctors they increased her medication.\n\nSo, she went on to the all-liquid diet for 17 weeks - giving up cooking and shopping. She even ate apart from her husband, Jim.\n\nInstead, she had four liquid meals a day.\n\nIt is hardly Masterchef - a sachet of powder is stirred in water to make a soup or shake. They contain about 200 calories, but also the right balance of nutrients.\n\nIsobel told the BBC it was relatively easy as \"you don't have to think about what you eat\".\n\nOnce the weight has been lost, dieticians then help patients introduce healthy, solid meals.\n\n\"Eating normal food is the hardest bit,\" says Isobel.\n\nThe trial results, simultaneously published in the Lancet medical journal and presented at the International Diabetes Federation, showed:\n\nProf Roy Taylor, from Newcastle University, told the BBC: \"It's a real watershed moment.\n\n\"Before we started this line of work, doctors and specialists regarded type 2 as irreversible.\n\n\"But if we grasp the nettle and get people out of their dangerous state, they can get remission of diabetes.\"\n\nHowever, doctors are not calling this a cure. If the weight goes back on, then the diabetes will return.\n\n\"I will never go there again,\" says Isobel. So far, she has kept the weight off for two years.\n\nBody fat building up around the pancreas causes stress to the beta cells in the organ that controls blood sugar levels.\n\nThey stop producing enough of the hormone insulin, and that causes blood sugar levels to rise out of control.\n\nDieting loses the fat, and then the pancreas works properly again.\n\nThe trial looked at only patients diagnosed in the past six years. It is thought having type 2 diabetes for very long periods of time may cause irreversible damage.\n\nProf Mike Lean, from Glasgow University, told the BBC: \"It's hugely exciting.\"\n\n\"We now have clear evidence that weight loss of 10-15kg is enough to turn this disease around.\n\nOne in 11 adults worldwide has diabetes, and most of them have type 2.\n\nUncontrolled sugar levels cause damage throughout the body, leading to organ failure, blindness and limb amputations.\n\nTreating the disease costs the UK's NHS about £10bn a year.\n\nDr Elizabeth Robertson, the director of research at Diabetes UK, said: \"[The trial has] the potential to transform the lives of millions of people.\n\n\"The trial is ongoing, so that we can understand the long-term effects of an approach like this.\"\n\nIsobel said: \"I don't look at myself as a diabetic at all.\n\n\"You have to be fired up, you have to be prepared, but anybody can do it if you feel strongly enough.\"", "One of the dogs, Dazz, was featured in MoD publicity shots at the Defence Animal Centre\n\nTwo retired army dogs which faced being destroyed because they were too aggressive to rehome have been saved, the BBC understands.\n\nKevin and Dazz, both Belgian shepherds, were deployed in Afghanistan and were retired from frontline service in 2013.\n\nThe dogs are based at the Defence Animal Centre in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.\n\nForeign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan wrote to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Friday to call for a reprieve.\n\nThe MoD has assured their dog handlers that they could be saved.\n\nA third animal, a police dog named Driver, who was also at risk, could also be rehomed.\n\nSir Alan, the MP for Melton and Rutland and Minister of State for Europe and the Americas, said: \"It is very good news, as long as they have a good home, which also guarantees safety for people.\n\n\"We are all happy for Kevin and Dazz and also good luck to Driver.\"\n\nHe said they were \"hero dogs who have fought fearlessly alongside our soldiers\" and any danger to people \"must be proven\".\n\nThe dogs have been trained to show aggression which makes rehoming difficult\n\nFormer soldier turned author Andy McNab launched an online petition, which has more than 370,000 signatures and will be delivered to the centre in Melton Mowbray.\n\n\"Service dogs have saved my life on numerous occasions,\" he said.\n\n\"Dogs like Kevin, Dazz, and Driver are an asset when they are serving but they are even more of an asset when they are retired.\"\n\nThe Belgian shepherds went on patrol with troops in Afghanistan and were used for their aggression.\n\nThe MoD had said: \"Wherever possible, we endeavour to re-home them [dogs] at the end of their service life.\n\n\"Sadly, there are some occasions where this is not possible.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Officers said the road will remain closed for the remainder of Tuesday\n\nAn on-duty police officer and a 91-year-old woman have died following a crash on the A4 in Berkshire.\n\nPC James Dixon died after the motorcycle he was riding was in collision with a car on Bath Road near Hare Hatch at 13:50 GMT.\n\nThe pensioner, who was a passenger in the car, was killed while the driver, also a woman, was taken to hospital.\n\nOfficers said the road would remain closed for the remainder of Tuesday.\n\nThames Valley Police said the next of kin of both PC Dixon and the deceased woman have been informed.\n\nA force spokesman said officers remained at the scene of the collision and had advised motorists to avoid the area.\n\nThe incident has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).\n\nIPCC Associate Commissioner Guido Liguori said: \"My thoughts and sympathies are with their families and friends and the colleagues of the officer at this very difficult time.\n\n\"IPCC investigators are attending the scene as part of an independent investigation to determine the circumstances which lead to the collision.\"\n\nPC Dixon was based at Loddon Valley police station, near Reading.\n\nPolice said the injuries of the driver involved are \"not thought to be life threatening\".\n\nTributes to PC Dixon have been posted in comments on Thames Valley Police's Facebook page.\n\nDaniel Ruffle said: \"Ride the sky and the clouds big man, it was a pleasure knowing you and working with you.\"\n\nBernadette Ellison said: \"God bless you Dixie, you made me laugh with your wicked sense of humour.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Brigitte Macron got a shock when she went to name the first panda born in France.\n\nThe wife of the French president is also the panda's \"godmother\".\n\nIn a speech, she later said France had been \"proud and happy\" to host the pandas from China and that the cub was a symbol of the countries' historic ties.", "Mr Feltman is not expected to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un\n\nThe United Nations political affairs chief begins a rare four-day visit to Pyongyang on Tuesday.\n\nThe trip by Jeffrey Feltman is the first by a senior UN official in six years.\n\nNorth Korea had extended an invitation to the UN in September to visit for a \"policy dialogue\".\n\nIt comes after last week's launch of what North Korea called its \"most powerful\" intercontinental ballistic missile, claiming it could hit the US.\n\nMr Feltman, a former US diplomat and the highest ranking American in the UN, will be in Pyongyang until Friday. His visit comes as South Korea and the US conduct their largest ever round of aerial drills.\n\nA UN spokesman told reporters that Mr Feltman will be meeting senior North Korean officials including foreign minister Ri Yong-ho, and will have a wide-ranging policy discussion on \"issues of mutual interest and concern\".\n\nHe is not scheduled to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. North Korea said in November its latest missile was capable of reaching Washington DC\n\nIt wasn't until last week - the day after North Korea's latest missile test - that Pyongyang confirmed the invitation it issued in September.\n\nThe timing seems significant: Kim Jong-un had just announced his country's success in creating a nuclear force.\n\nIn the absence of any other meaningful diplomatic channels, the UN clearly believes it's important to pursue whatever opportunities exist for dialogue.\n\nOn his way to Pyongyang, Mr Feltman held talks in Beijing - no doubt interested to hear what, if anything, came out of China's latest talks with the North Korean regime.\n\nChina, a historic ally of North Korea and its main trading partner, had sent a top-ranking diplomat to Pyongyang last month for discussions with officials there.\n\nThe UN has said there are no plans at present for UN chief Antonio Guterres, who has offered to mediate in the North Korean crisis, to visit Pyongyang.\n\nThe last visit by a senior UN official was when Valerie Amos, then the UN's aid chief, travelled there in October 2011. Mr Feltman's predecessor Lynn Pascoe also visited in 2010.\n\nThe UN operates six agencies with 50 international staff in North Korea which provide food, agricultural and health aid. Malnutrition is a significant problem in the country.\n\nThe US has deployed F-22 fighter jets to take part in drills with South Korea\n\nMr Feltman's trip comes during a period of high tensions following North Korea's test launch of a missile which drew another round of international condemnation.\n\nThe US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley had said last week that if war broke out, the North Korean regime would be \"utterly destroyed\".\n\nOn Monday, South Korea and the US began a five-day air combat exercise, their largest ever involving more than 200 aeroplanes and thousands of troops.\n\nNorth Korea, which routinely condemns such drills, has called it a \"provocation\".", "Elton John poses with his mother in 2002\n\nSir Elton John says he is \"in shock\" after the death of his mother, Sheila Farebrother, just months after their reconciliation.\n\n\"So sad to say that my mother passed away this morning,\" he said on his Facebook page, alongside a photo of them together.\n\n\"I only saw her last Monday and I am in shock. Travel safe, mum. Thank you for everything.\"\n\nSir Elton, who was born Reginald Dwight, was Ms Farebrother's only son.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by eltonjohn This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAlthough his father - a flight lieutenant in the RAF - was a trumpeter in his spare time, it was his mother who ignited his love of pop music.\n\nAn avid record collector, she brought home music by artists such as Elvis Presley and Bill Haley and supported Sir Elton throughout his career.\n\nBut they fell out over a \"petty\" argument in 2008, when Sir Elton asked her to sever ties with two old friends, Bob Halley and John Reid.\n\nMr Halley had worked for Sir Elton for three decades, first as a driver then later as a personal assistant, before he resigned as part of a series of changes Sir Elton was making to his team.\n\nMr Reid, who had been Sir Elton's manager and briefly his lover, helped the musician become one of the world's most famous - and richest - performers, but they too fell out.\n\nSir Elton and David Furnish, pictured here last month, have two children together\n\n\"I told him: 'I'm not about to do that and drop them,'\" Ms Farebrother told the Daily Mail.\n\n\"Then to my utter amazement, he told me he hated me. And he then banged the phone down. Imagine! To me, his mother!\"\n\nMs Farebrother told the newspaper at the time that she had never met her grandsons Zachary and Elijah, who Sir Elton and his partner David Furnish fathered through IVF with an American surrogate mother.\n\nFor her 90th birthday, Ms Farebrother hired an Elton John tribute act to perform.\n\nHer son got in touch soon after, sending her white orchids to celebrate the milestone.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post 2 by eltonjohn This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut their relationship was still strained. Sir Elton told Rolling Stone that his mother had not called him to say thank you after the bouquet arrived.\n\n\"To be honest with you, I don't miss her,\" he said. \"I look after her, but I don't want her in my life.\"\n\nHowever, the pair appear to have fully reconciled this year, after Sir Elton recovered from a potentially fatal bacterial infection.\n\n\"Dear Mum, Happy Mother's Day!\" he wrote on Instagram in February. \"So happy we are back in touch. Love, Elton xo\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Labour: May to blame for Brexit 'embarrassment'\n\nMinisters say no part of the UK will be treated differently in the Brexit talks as Labour branded their approach an \"embarrassment\".\n\nNo agreement has been reached with the EU after a DUP backlash against proposals for the Irish border.\n\nBrexit Secretary David Davis told MPs the government was close to concluding the first phase of talks.\n\nDUP leader Arlene Foster said the text of the deal was a \"big shock\" and \"it was not going to be acceptable.\"\n\nShe told the Republic of Ireland national broadcaster RTÉ that her party only saw the text on Monday morning, despite asking to see it for five weeks.\n\nTheresa May, speaking as she welcomed Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to Downing Street, said talks with the EU had \" made a lot of progress\".\n\n\"There are still a couple of issues we need to work on. But we'll be reconvening in Brussels later this week as we look ahead to the December European Council,\" she said.\n\nMrs Foster was invited to hold talks with Mrs May in London on Tuesday, but the party's Westminster leader met the government's chief whip instead.\n\nThe meeting lasted for several hours, but sources suggested to the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg that there was not much sign of a breakthrough yet, with a DUP insider saying the deal needed \"radical surgery\", rather than a few word changes.\n\nA phone call between Mrs May and Mrs Foster had then been expected this evening, but sources added that it would not go ahead, suggesting it had never been arranged.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Citizens' rights, the Irish border and money are the three big negotiation points\n\nThe UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019 and Mrs May is under pressure to reach agreement on the Northern Ireland border so negotiations can move forward.\n\nThe prime minister needs the support of the DUP - the Democratic Unionist Party - which is Northern Ireland's largest party and has 10 MPs at Westminster, because she does not have a majority to win votes in the House of Commons.\n\nResponding to an urgent question from Labour in the Commons on Tuesday, Mr Davis defended the controversial proposal for \"regulatory alignment\" between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland - intended to avoid the need for border checks after Brexit - saying this would apply to the whole of the UK.\n\nThe DUP is unhappy about any agreement which treats Northern Ireland differently.\n\nIt would not mean \"having exactly the same rules\" as the EU, Mr Davis said, but would involve \"sometimes having mutually recognised rules\".\n\nBackbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg warned that having \"regulatory divergence\" from the EU after Brexit was a \"red line\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nLabour's Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer said that when the DUP objected to the draft agreement, \"fantasy met brutal reality\", adding: \"The DUP tail is wagging the Tory dog.\"\n\nMr Starmer also called for the government to drop its plan to enshrine the 29 March 2019 Brexit date in UK law.\n\nMeanwhile, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith suggested the UK should walk away from the negotiations if the EU does not change its position.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Iain Duncan Smith: EU needs to 'back off' or 'move on'\n\nBut Tory MP and former cabinet minister, Nicky Morgan, said his comments were \"madness\" and walking away would \"betrays the futures of millions of young people and those who never wanted to leave in the first place\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nicky Morgan MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe DUP has said \"it is not a question of us budging\" as the talks were between the UK and the EU\n\nDublin - which as an EU member is part of its single market and customs union - has been calling for written guarantees that a \"hard border\" involving customs checks on the island of Ireland will be avoided after Brexit\n\nIt is concerned this could undermine the 1998 peace treaty - the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.\n\nMr Davis said that while the \"integrity\" of the single market and customs union must be respected after Brexit, it was \"equally clear we must respect the integrity of the United Kingdom\" and individual nations could not have separate arrangements.\n\nMrs May needs to show \"sufficient progress\" has been made so far on \"divorce\" issues before European leaders meet on 14 December to decide whether to allow talks on future trade relations to begin.\n\nThe three issues that need to be resolved are the Northern Ireland border, citizens' rights and the amount of money the UK will pay as it leaves.\n\nTalks between Mrs May and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker broke up without agreement on Monday, after the DUP objected to a draft agreement on the future of the Irish border.\n\nKey to the row is how closely aligned Northern Ireland's regulations will be with those of the Republic of Ireland, and the rest of the EU, in order to avoid a \"hard\" border.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Irish PM Leo Varadkar said he was \"surprised and disappointed\"\n\nIreland's deputy prime minister Simon Coveney said Dublin would not budge from its position on the border.\n\nThe EU is treating the row as a \"domestic British political issue\", BBC Brussels correspondent Adam Fleming said.\n\n\"The show is now in London,\" said a European Commission spokesman.\n\nDowning Street has insisted the border was not the only outstanding problem and disagreement remains over the role of the European Court of Justice in overseeing EU citizens' rights in the UK after Brexit.", "Almost 320,000 pupils took the tests, with girls ahead in almost every country\n\nNorthern Ireland and England are in the top 10 of the world's best primary school readers in global rankings.\n\nThe Progress in International Reading Literacy Study - known as PIRLS - shows Northern Ireland in joint sixth place, with England in joint eighth.\n\nBoth Northern Ireland and England have reached their highest point scores in reading tests taken in 50 countries.\n\nRussia takes the top place in this international education league table, based on tests taken every five years.\n\nThe Republic of Ireland, in fourth, is second only to Russia among European countries.\n\nGirls are ahead of boys in almost every country taking the tests.\n\nGeoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, praised the work of schools in England and Northern Ireland and said the results reflected \"the huge focus that schools have placed on the teaching of reading over the course of many years\".\n\nThe tests taken by almost 320,000 10-year-olds around the world, show Northern Ireland's pupils as among the highest achievers, ranked joint sixth with Poland.\n\nThe result puts them only marginally behind long-standing high achievers such as Finland.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"I like reading because I get smarter and smarter\" - here's what the kids make of it all\n\nWith the Northern Ireland assembly still suspended, there is no current education minister, but Northern Ireland's education department pointed to the success of a \"Count, Read: Succeed\" strategy introduced in 2011 with targets to improve literacy and numeracy.\n\nThere are no Sats tests for 11-year-olds in Northern Ireland, but pupils in the last year of primary can take transfer tests for grammar schools. It's also a system in which many places are allocated on the basis of religious faith.\n\nThe National Foundation for Educational Research, which administered the tests in Northern Ireland, says families and local communities seemed to put a \"high value on academic success\".\n\nSenior research manager Juliet Sizmur said the international comparison suggested that reading was particularly valued in Northern Ireland.\n\nEngland was ranked joint eighth, alongside Norway and Taiwan, and England's school standards minister Nick Gibb hailed the positive impact of the phonics system of learning to read.\n\n\"Our rise through the global rankings is even more commendable because it has been driven by an increase in the number of low-performing pupils reading well,\" said Mr Gibb.\n\nThis is a much higher ranking than in the international Pisa tests for secondary school pupils, run by the OECD, in which England is not in the top 20 for reading or maths.\n\nScotland and Wales did not take part in these latest PIRLS tests.\n\nComparisons with the last rankings from five years ago depend on which measures are used, says the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), which runs the PIRLS tests with Boston College in the US.\n\nThe Netherlands-based IEA says that this year England is 10th, but because \"there is no statistical significant difference\" with two countries above, they are effectively joint eighth.\n\nFive years ago, the IEA says England was ranked 11th, but as there was no statistical significant difference with US, Denmark, Croatia, Chinese Taipei, and Ireland this \"could be interpreted as a joint sixth ranking\".\n\nThe IEA's executive director, Dirk Hastedt, says that Russia's success reflects a series of education reforms and a \"lot of emphasis on academic excellence\" and much more rigour over standards.\n\nDr Hastedt says such tests reveal international trends in education.\n\nGirls are ahead of boys in almost every country taking the tests, says Dr Hastedt.\n\nHe says there are increasing numbers of children in pre-school education - and this seems to be linked to higher performance.\n\nPupils in Russia were the highest achieving in this global test\n\nThere are also signs that parents are more likely to get involved in helping their children's learning.\n\nThe national comparisons are based on representative samples of pupils, designed by researchers to reflect different regions and types of school.\n\nIn England, there were about 5,000 pupils taking the tests last year, drawn from 170 schools. In Russia, the sample was based on about 4,600 pupils in 206 schools.\n\nMost of the pupils taking the tests were aged about 10 - but there were differences depending on the sample.\n\nIn Russia and Finland, the average of those taking the tests was 10.8 years, a year older than the average age of those taking the test in Italy and France.\n\nMichael Martin, executive director of the TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Center at Boston College, says that this year's results showed the importance of early years education and parental interest.\n\n\"Children whose parents had engaged them in literacy activities - reading books or playing word games - from an early age are better equipped with basic reading skills when they begin primary schools and go on to have higher reading achievements,\" said Prof Martin.", "A 98-year-old woman is playing the donkey in her first nativity play at a care home in Castleford.\n\nStaff at Newfield Lodge Care Home have teamed up with the residents to put on their first production for the public.\n\nThe cast, which includes an 87-year-old shepherd, have a combined age of nearly 350 - not counting the staff!", "Wild wheat can be bred with modern crops to boost resilience\n\nWild relatives of modern crops deemed crucial for food security are being pushed to the brink of extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.\n\nMore than 20 rice, wheat and yam plants have been listed as threatened on the latest version of the IUCN's Red list.\n\nThe wild plants are being squeezed out by intensive farming, deforestation and urban sprawl, say scientists.\n\nModern crops can be crossbred with their wild cousins to safeguard foods.\n\n''To lose them would be a disaster,'' said Dr Nigel Maxted of the University of Birmingham, who is co-chair of the IUCN's specialist group on crop wild relatives.\n\n''It would be much more difficult to maintain food security without them.''\n\nCommercial crops have lost genetic diversity. They are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which may bring drought, diseases and new pests.\n\nWork is under way to breed new varieties of grains, cereals and vegetables by crossing them with tough, wild species that can grow in a range of habitats, such as mountains, deserts or salt marshes.\n\nResearchers are collecting wild relatives of crops in Nepal\n\nThese efforts rely on protecting plants related to modern food crops at the sites where they grow in the wild as well as preserving their seeds in gene banks.\n\nThe first systematic assessment of wild wheat, rice and yam has led to the listing of three types of rice, two types of wheat (used to make bread) and 17 types of yam.\n\nMarie Haga is Executive Director of The Crop Trust, an international organisation that is working to safeguard crop diversity.\n\nShe welcomed the inclusion of wild crops on the Red List.\n\n''The IUCN has high legitimacy among decision makers and the general population, so it's extremely interesting that they are putting these wild relatives on their Red List,'' she told BBC News.\n\n''I hope that will contribute to raising the awareness even further that we've got to take action, and we've got to take action now.''\n\nWild relatives of crops act as ''an insurance policy for the world'', she added.\n\nMost of the wild rice crops that are threatened with extinction grow in South East Asia, while a few are found in Africa. The wild wheat plants that are of concern are found mainly in the Near and Middle East, including war-torn areas that are off-limits to conservationists.\n\nYams feed around 100 million people in Africa alone. Paul Wilkin of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, said conservation work is being undertaken to make sure that wild yam plants are available to provide food and medicines worldwide, now and in the future.\n\n''They will also be sources of key traits to breed improved, future-proof crop varieties,'' he said.\n\n''These assessments enable the most threatened species of yams and other crop wild relatives to be prioritised effectively for conservation actions.''\n\nThe economic value of crop wild relatives is put at US$115bn per year to the global economy.\n\nIn addition to wild crops, the IUCN highlighted other flora and fauna that have been added to the latest update of the Red List:\n\nBut there is a success story; kiwis in New Zealand are recovering thanks to conservation efforts.\n\nAn effort to wipe out predators such as stoats and ferrets, as well as raising chicks in captivity to release in the wild, has boosted the number of two species of New Zealand's native bird.", "Campaigning for the vote officially began at midnight\n\nA Spanish judge has withdrawn European arrest warrants for ousted Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and four other ex-ministers.\n\nThey fled to Belgium a month ago after declaring unilateral independence in a referendum ruled illegal by Spain.\n\nDespite the move, the judge said they still faced possible charges for sedition and rebellion.\n\nRebellion is considered one of the most serious crimes in Spain, carrying a jail term of up to 30 years.\n\nSpanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llareno announced the warrant's withdrawal on Tuesday morning, citing the willingness the Catalan leaders had shown to return ahead of fresh regional elections being held on 21 December.\n\nHe said the European-wide warrant would complicate the Spanish legal probe, and its removal allows Spain to gain full control over the investigation.\n\nThe ministers turned themselves into Belgian authorities after the warrant was issued last month, but were freed after being questioned.\n\nA Belgian judge was previously expected to rule whether to extradite the ministers on 14 December. The five were fighting the move, saying they may not receive a fair trial on their return.\n\nMr Puigdemont has previously said he would return if this was guaranteed.\n\nOn Monday six Catalan ex-ministers being held in a prison near Madrid were released from prison on bail. But two others, including former Catalan Vice President Orial Junqueras, were remanded in custody.\n\nCampaigning has now officially started ahead of the new vote organised by Spanish authorities in an attempt to try and resolve the Catalonia crisis.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why the colour yellow has become contentious in Catalonia\n\nMr Puigdemont labelled the election as a choice between \"nation or submission\" while speaking on a video link from Belgium to a rally in Barcelona on Monday night.\n\nHe said voters must chose \"between Catalan institutions or dark characters in Madrid\".\n\nA seat reserved for the former leader at the event was marked with a yellow ribbon, an emblem that has become a symbol of support for the jailed politicians.\n\nAll but one of the 13 Catalan leaders sacked by the Spanish government after the independence referendum are standing for election again in the fresh vote.\n\nA new opinion poll, conducted by the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) in late November, suggests that pro-independence parties will fall narrowly short of an absolute majority in the December election.\n\nMr Puidgemont and Mr Junqueras' pro-separatist parties are campaigning separately in the new vote, after a divide emerged over the future of the region following the nulled referendum.\n\nThe parties ran together in the 2015 election when separatist parties won an overall majority in the Catalan parliament when they won 72 seats.", "Megan Lee died two days after she was admitted to Royal Blackburn Hospital\n\nTwo men have been charged with manslaughter over the death of a 15-year-old girl who suffered an allergic reaction to takeaway food.\n\nMegan Lee from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, died on 1 January, two days after she was admitted to hospital.\n\nShe had eaten food from the Royal Spice takeaway in Hyndburn.\n\nMohammed Kuddus, 39, of Blackburn and Harun Rashid, 38, of Haslingden are due to appear at Blackburn Magistrates' Court on 4 January.\n\nA post-mortem examination showed Megan died from acute asthma due to a nut allergy, Lancashire Police said.\n\nRoyal Spice was temporarily closed by Hyndburn Council but is now trading under new ownership.\n\nMr Kuddus of Belper Street, Blackburn and Mr Rashid of Rudd Street, Haslingden are both charged with manslaughter, failing to discharge general health/safety duty to a person other than an employee and contravening or failing to comply with EU provision concerning food safety and hygiene.\n\nThe company that owned Royal Spice has been charged with one count of failing to discharge general health/safety duty to a person other than an employee.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "An illustration of expected high winds on Thursday\n\nThe UK's next named storm has been forecast to hit Scotland on Thursday.\n\nStorm Caroline is expected to see winds gusting to 80mph near north-facing coasts, and reaching speeds of 60 to 70mph more widely in northern and north east Scotland.\n\nThe Met Office warned that the conditions could disrupt travel.\n\nSnow and freezing temperatures have been forecast for Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales on Friday and Saturday in the wake of Caroline.\n\nThe two previous named storms were Aileen in September and Brian in October.\n\nA yellow \"be aware\" warning is in place for Scotland between 08:00 and 23:55 on Thursday.\n\nYellow warnings have also been issued by the Met Office for 00:05 Friday to 18:00 Saturday.\n\nThe forecast for Thursday includes winds reaching gusts of up 60mph across northern and north east Scotland\n\nThe Met Office said snow showers were expected to become increasingly frequent over northern Scotland late on Thursday.\n\nSnow is expected to fall across many other parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and western England on Friday, with between 2cm and 5cm likely in some areas.\n\nThe Met Office said up to 20cm was possible over high ground, mainly in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.\n\nIt added: \"Icy surfaces are also likely to be an additional hazard, especially overnight.\n\n\"Strong northwest winds may cause drifting of the snow in places, with blizzard conditions possible at times across northern Scotland.\"\n\nThe Cairngorms, including its ski area, have already seen heavy snow falls in recent weeks\n\nThe wintry weather follows snow and cold temperatures experienced in parts of Scotland earlier this month.\n\nAberdeen and parts of Aberdeenshire along with Scotland's mountain ranges, including the Cairngorms and Glen Coe, have already seen heavy snow falls in recent weeks.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "More than 40 people have been injured in a train crash near the German city of Düsseldorf, emergency services say.\n\nA passenger train collided with a freight train near the town of Meerbusch, in North Rhine-Westphalia, on Tuesday night.\n\nOf 173 people on board, seven people were badly injured and one suffered serious injuries, the Meerbusch fire department said.\n\nAnother 33 people had minor injuries and 132 were unhurt, it added.\n\nThe fire department's operation finished at around 02:20 (00:20 GMT).\n\nAll passengers had left the train in a rescue operation that at its peak involved 400 people, it said.\n\nCasualty estimates escalated rapidly overnight from an early figure of about five people.\n\nRescue efforts were hindered by a broken cable which \"posed a risk of electric shock to persons outside the train\".\n\nThe accident occurred at about 19:30, according to a statement from Germany's state-owned railway group, Deutsche Bahn.\n\nThe train, operated by a subsidiary of Britain's National Express bus company, apparently collided with a stationary cargo train on the track.\n\nA spokesman for the company told Germany's Bild newspaper that the driver had hit the emergency brake when he saw the other vehicle on the track.", "Marek Zakrocki shouted \"white power\" before using his van as a weapon\n\nA supporter of the far-right group Britain First gave a Nazi salute and drove at a curry house owner during a drunken rampage in London.\n\nThe Old Bailey heard Marek Zakrocki shouted \"white power\" before using his van as a weapon outside Spicy Night in Harrow on 23 June.\n\nThe 48-year-old window fitter was heard to say \"I'm going to kill a Muslim. I'm doing it for Britain\".\n\nHe pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and beating his wife.\n\nProsecutor Denis Barry said: \"Mr Zakrocki had plainly, during the course of that afternoon, had far too much to drink.\n\n\"During the course of that evening he assaulted his wife, drove off in his work vehicle, insulted a series of passers-by and then drove his vehicle at the owner of a curry house, breaking the window of the curry house.\n\n\"It's plain that his conduct is very likely to have been motivated by his views about our diverse society.\"\n\nThe drunken rampage took place at the Spicy Night restaurant in Harrow\n\nThe attack happened on the anniversary of the Brexit vote.\n\nThe court heard he had also said at the time: \"This is how I'm going to help the country. You people cannot do anything.\"\n\nFollowing his arrest by armed officers, a Nazi coin was found in his pocket and copies of Britain First newspapers and flyers at his home in Harrow.\n\nMr Barry said Zakrocki had been \"fixated\" by Muslims and had made donations to Britain First in the past.\n\nThe court heard Zakrocki's van mounted the pavement twice before making contact with restaurant owner Kamal Ahmed.\n\nThe windows of the curry house were also smashed during the attack, some of which was caught on CCTV.\n\nJonathan Lennon, defending, said Zakrocki had \"not intended to kill anybody\".\n\nZakrocki will be sentenced later.\n\nFurther charges of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and having a knife in Northolt Road, Harrow, were ordered to lie on file.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nSecond Ashes Test, Adelaide Oval (day four of five) England need 178 more runs to win\n\nCaptain Joe Root made an unbeaten 67 to keep England in with a slim chance of a remarkable win in the second Ashes Test against Australia in Adelaide.\n\nRoot, who overturned being given out lbw and was also dropped, took his side to 176-4 in their chase of 354.\n\nIn a thrilling and dramatic evening session, he received support from Dawid Malan, who was bowled by Pat Cummins 10 minutes before the close.\n\nThat England are still in the contest is not only down to their fourth-wicket pair, but also to some fine lower-order batting in their first innings and an outstanding bowling display in Australia's second innings that continued in Tuesday's first session.\n\nAustralia, reduced to 53-4 overnight, were bowled out for 138, with James Anderson claiming his first five-wicket haul in this country.\n\nHe was backed up by Chris Woakes' 4-36 and some excellent catching as no home batsman managed to pass 20.\n\nThe tourists' momentum continued to build as an opening stand of 53 between Mark Stoneman and Alastair Cook brought Australian frustration and English optimism.\n\nBut both men fell tamely and James Vince played an awful stroke, leaving Root and Malan to battle through an intense period under the lights.\n\nRoot's continued presence gives England a small chance of pulling off a historic victory on what could be a thrilling final day, which begins at 03:00 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nStill, it is more likely that Australia will triumph on Wednesday, go 2-0 up and move to Perth knowing that the Ashes can be regained at the Waca.\n• None Listen to TMS highlights on loop throughout the day\n• None Bairstow receives pair of father's gloves held by fan for 39 years\n• None England require their highest successful fourth-innings chase in Tests. Their previous best is 332-7 against Australia at Melbourne in 1928.\n• None They also have to produce the highest successful chase at the Adelaide Oval, beating the current record of 315-6 by Australia against England in 1902.\n• None If England are successful it will be the 10th highest successful fourth-innings chase in Test history.\n• None Only South Africa captain Dudley Nourse against Australia in 1950 has previously lost a Test after failing to enforce the follow-on.\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan: \"My money is still with Australia just because of the history. What England have done is given themselves a sniff. They have given everyone hope.\n\n\"There is a real air of positivity because of the way they have come back. Australia captain Steve Smith has to be thinking about 24 hours ago when he didn't enforce the follow-on. If he had the game would have been done and dusted.\"\n\nFormer England spinner Phil Tufnell: \"What an amazing Test. It was an amazing day - really good for England. They've somehow manufactured a chance. It's been enthralling, every ball. I've been down walking around the ground - everyone is on the edge of their seats lapping up the tension.\"\n\nEngland ended their 10-wicket defeat in the first Test in Brisbane with the frustration of having competed strongly for three and a half days, only to ultimately be well beaten.\n\nHere, they gave Australia a two-and-a-half-day head-start that made the incredible tension of the fourth evening so unlikely midway through Monday.\n\nA poor first-day display with the ball after asking Australia to bat ultimately allowed the tourists to rack up 442-8 declared, before the tourists needed Craig Overton and Woakes to drag them from 142-7 to 227 all out.\n\nBetter batting and bowling in the first innings could have made their eventual target more manageable, rather than leave an attempt at their highest ever run chase and the 10th largest of all-time.\n\nStill, that takes nothing away from their efforts on an entertaining, competitive fourth day, where the total crowd ticked over to 173,849, a record for this ground.\n\nWhereas Monday evening's effort involved swinging the pink ball around under the lights, on Tuesday England mainly nipped it around off the pitch in warm sunshine.\n\nA slip catch by Malan and, in particular, a fine diving hold in the deep by Overton were further examples of England's extra vigour in the second half of the game.\n\nStoneman's strokeplay got England off to a fast start and, after Australia chipped away, the night-time examination of Root and Malan by the home pacemen was gripping drama in front of some raucous travelling support.\n\nAs they increasingly found ways to score, they seemed set to make it to the close, only for Cummins to intervene.\n\nAnderson, England's all-time leading Test wicket-taker, had never before managed more than four wickets in an innings in 14 previous matches in Australia.\n\nHe was culpable of bowling too short in Australia's first innings, but roared in on the third evening and followed it up when the fourth day began.\n\nIn all, Anderson bowled 22 of the 29 overs delivered from the Cathedral End, his fuller length on Tuesday ensuring the edge of the bat was always at risk when the ball moved.\n\nNightwatchman Nathan Lyon had been softened up by a Stuart Broad bouncer to the grille before he backed off and chipped Anderson to mid-off.\n\nPeter Handscomb, footwork all at sea, was given a torrid time by Anderson until he poked to third slip, where Malan took a very smart catch diving to his right.\n\nEngland were held up by Tim Paine and Shaun Marsh in the first innings, but Woakes got Paine to top-edge a pull and Overton, diving full stretch at long leg, clung on before the ball hit the turf.\n\nMitchell Starc chanced his arm to push the lead to 350, but after Marsh played across the line to a Woakes inswinger, Starc lobbed Anderson to mid-off to complete the Lancashire man's five-wicket haul.\n\nOverton bowled only one over in the session, but had last man Josh Hazlewood caught at gully as England took six wickets before the first interval.\n\nWhen England began their chase, Stoneman immediately took it to the Australia pacemen, sweetly clipping the ball through mid-wicket.\n\nAs he and Cook put on their biggest opening stand of the series, home captain Steve Smith was visibly frustrated, not helped when he opted against reviewing a Hazlewood lbw shout against Cook that would have sent the former skipper on his way for one.\n\nBut Cook played across a Lyon off-break to be leg before on review, Stoneman tamely patted Cummins to gully for 36 and Vince played an awful drive at Starc to be caught behind.\n\nAt 91-3, England were in danger of being all but beaten by the close.\n\nCaptain Root, though, was joined by the increasingly impressive Malan and, through a combination of luck, unsuccessful reviews, bravery and no little skill, they kept Australia at bay.\n\nRoot was given out lbw on 32 when he shouldered arms at Lyon, but the review system showed it to be too high.\n\nIn a torrid Cummins over, Root almost played on and survived when Smith wanted a second look at a caught behind decision, only to learn the ball flicked his opposite number's thigh pad.\n\nTwo balls later, Smith called for a failed lbw review against Malan off Hazlewood and the home captain's poor evening got worse when he dropped the left-hander on eight at slip when Lyon found the edge.\n\nThis came a day after he opted against enforcing the follow-on and saw his batsmen buckle in helpful bowling conditions.\n\nRuns began to trickle, Root in particular pushing the score along square of the wicket, all while the Barmy Army sang and taunted the home side about their lost reviews.\n\nEngland's evening got even better when a Root off Cummins drive burst through the hands of Cameron Bancroft to give the Yorkshireman another life on 52.\n\nCummins, though, had the final say, seaming one between Malan's bat and pad to take the top off stump and end the partnership at 78.\n\n'We are in a fantastic position' - what they said\n\nJames Anderson on Test Match Special: \"It is pretty even. We definitely would have taken this position after the first two or three days. We have fought really hard to get back in the game.\n\n\"We followed on from last night really well as a group and fought really hard with the bat. We spoke about not doing ourselves justice with the bat in the first innings but we have shown what can do.\n\n\"We are a good amount of runs short but are in a fantastic position. We have got batters in the shed to get us close.\"\n\nAustralia bowling coach David Saker: \"We've got a hell of a game haven't we? It's turned quite quickly but we're still in the ascendancy. Joe's innings was special but if we go bang, bang in the morning, we're well on top.\n\n\"Malan was a huge wicket for the team. Pat Cummins really deserves it. He's been the best fast bowler in this game. A really good reward for us, but for him in particular. Tomorrow he'll be a really important player for us.\n\n\"Tomorrow will be very nervy from where I'm sitting. It's easier to be a player in those situations. It's set up for a fantastic game of cricket.\"\n• None Get Ashes alerts sent to your phone", "Migratory birds are arriving in the UK earlier each spring and leaving later each autumn, a report has confirmed.\n\nSome visitors are now appearing more than 20 days earlier than they did in the 1960s, according to the state of the UK's birds 2017 report.\n\nThe swallow, for instance, is arriving 15 days earlier than 50 years ago.\n\nOngoing monitoring is essential to track the future effects of a changing climate on birds, says a coalition of wildlife organisations.\n\nThe report is by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) , the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) and the UK's nature conservation bodies. It pulls together data from the latest bird surveys and monitoring studies.\n\nThe report warns that there will be winner and losers in a changing world, with opportunities for some bird species but higher extinction risks for others.\n\nSome, such as the night heron, are breeding in the UK for the first time as their range expands north, while others, such as the snow bunting are in decline.\n\nDr Daniel Hayhow, lead author of the report, said familiar species such as swallows and sand martins are changing their migratory behaviour.\n\n''We need to take that almost as a warning sign,'' he told BBC News.\n\n''The report is aiming to show to people that these changes are happening and there is potential for such changes in timing to cause a mismatch between the time when the chicks need to be fed and the food that's available for them, meaning they may be less successful in their breeding.''\n\nMigratory birds such as the swallow have long been symbols of the changing seasons. But, climate change appears to be having an impact on their delicate seasonal clocks.\n\nThe UK's Slavonian grebe population declined by 61% over 25 years\n\nArriving at the wrong time, even by a few days, may cause birds to miss out on food and nesting places, which in turn affects their chances of survival.\n\nThe report found that the distribution, numbers and behaviours of birds are changing:\n\nBirds are being monitored for signs of decline\n\nDr Stuart Newson of the BTO said thousands of volunteers have submitted observations over many decades to show how birds like the cuckoo, swallow and house martin have responded to a changing climate.\n\n''Ongoing monitoring is essential if we are to track the future effects of a changing climate on our birds,'' he said.\n\nCollette Hall, monitoring officer at WWT, said it is vital to continue to monitor the bird population in the UK.\n\n''We also need to think beyond the UK and make sure that the protected site network continues to cover the right places throughout Europe and that they're monitored elsewhere as thoroughly as they are in the UK,'' she said.", "Dustin Hoffman has said he has \"the utmost respect for women\"\n\nJohn Oliver has confronted Dustin Hoffman in a tense public discussion about allegations of sexual harassment that have been made against the actor.\n\nHoffman defended himself after Anna Graham Hunter alleged he groped her on a film set when she was 17, in 1985.\n\nThe actor questioned Ms Graham Hunter's claims, asking Oliver: \"Do you believe this stuff that you're reading?\"\n\nHoffman said the HBO talk show host was not keeping an \"open mind\" and was unquestionably believing the accusers.\n\n\"I believe what she wrote, yes,\" Oliver replied. \"Because there's no point in her lying.\"\n\nThe actor countered: \"Well, there's a point in her not bringing it up for 40 years.\"\n\nOliver was hosting a panel discussion in New York to mark the 20th anniversary of Hoffman's film Wag The Dog.\n\nOliver said he wasn't sure whether to broach the subject of the allegations but decided he'd end up \"hating myself\" if he didn't.\n\nThe tetchy exchange was reported by The Washington Post, which also posted a video of part of the conversation.\n\nMs Graham Hunter published her account of her encounters with Hoffman - including diary entries she said she had written at the time in which she accused him of being a \"dirty old man\" - in The Hollywood Reporter in November.\n\nThe veteran star responded at the time by putting out a statement saying: \"I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation.\n\n\"I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am.\"\n\nOliver picked him up on that line at Monday's public question-and-answer session - saying he wasn't satisfied with it because \"it is reflective of who you were\".\n\nHe went on: \"If it happened and you've given no evidence to show it didn't happen then there was a period of time for a while when you were a creeper around women.\n\n\"So it feels like a cop-out to say, 'It wasn't me.' Do you understand how that feels like a dismissal?\"\n\nHoffman replied: \"It's difficult to answer that question. You weren't there.\"\n\nAccording to The Washington Post, Hoffman accused Oliver of making an \"incredible assumption about me\", adding sarcastically: \"You've made the case better than anyone else can. I'm guilty.\"\n\nMs Graham Hunter worked as an intern on Hoffman's 1985 TV movie Death of A Salesman.\n\n\"I still don't know who this woman is,\" Hoffman said on Monday. \"I never met her. If I met her it was in concert with other people.\"\n\nThe paper's video also showed Hoffman explaining that it was normal to talk about subjects like sex within the close-knit confines of the film crew, who he said were like \"a family\".\n\nHe said: \"I said a stupid thing but I said it in the midst of the crew, and they said their stupid things. But they were sexual in terms of the humour of it. But that's 40 years ago.\"\n\nHoffman described touching his The Graduate co-star Katharine Ross on the bottom as \"nothing\"\n\nHoffman also told a story about touching his The Graduate co-star Katharine Ross on the bottom during rehearsals - an act he played down, describing it as \"nothing\".\n\nShe became angry, Hoffman explained but described that as \"an overreaction\", saying that she later apologised.\n\nThe discussion comes as Hollywood grapples with how to clean up its act amid allegations against a string of stars and executives, and was a rare example of one of those men being challenged in public.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Wandering albatrosses scour the oceans for food to bring back to their chicks\n\nScientists who advised the Blue Planet II documentary team say they feel \"shame and anger\" at the “plague of plastic” impacting the natural world.\n\nEven in the remote waters of Antarctica, they have found evidence of plastic killing and harming seabirds.\n\nWandering albatrosses – which have the longest wingspan of any birds alive today – are thought to be especially vulnerable.\n\nNesting on the barren islands of South Georgia, they feed their young by scouring thousands of miles of ocean for squid and fish but often bring back plastic instead.\n\nThe final episode of what has become the most-watched TV programme of the year explores how the oceans are threatened by human activities including overfishing and pollution.\n\nIt will be broadcast on Sunday 10 December.\n\nThe final programme in the series will look at some of the threats facing the oceans\n\nIn a particularly moving scene, Dr Lucy Quinn, a zoologist, is seen checking albatross chicks on Bird Island where she was the British Antarctic Survey’s winter manager for more than two years.\n\nOne chick that Dr Quinn found dead and later dissected was killed because a plastic toothpick that it swallowed had pierced its stomach.\n\nOthers had regurgitated plastic items including cling film, food packaging, cutlery and parts of bottles.\n\nDr Quinn told me: “I feel real shame and anger that it’s humans who have caused this problem.\n\n\"It’s really sad because you get to know the birds and how long it takes the parents, away for ten days at a time, to collect food for their chicks and what they bring back is plastic.\n\n\"And what’s sad is that the plague of plastic is as far-reaching as these seemingly pristine environments.\"\n\nLucy Quinn seen checking albatrosses on Bird Island, part of South Georgia\n\nIt's not known how many albatross chicks in Antarctica die from plastic pollution every year – it's thought to be fewer than the losses suffered by Laysan albatrosses on Midway Atoll in the Pacific .\n\nBut on Bird Island, predators often eat dead chicks before the researchers can reach them – and the suspicion is that the effect of the plastic goes beyond the direct killing of seabirds.\n\nAccording to Dr Quinn, the threat is more insidious, weakening birds as they waste energy trying to digest plastic, which has no nutritional value, and potentially poisoning them as chemicals are released when the plastic breaks down in their stomachs.\n\nResearch at the other end of the world into a smaller relative of the albatross – the fulmars of the North Sea – shows that while plastics may directly kill seabirds, it is the debilitating effects of the waste that could be more serious.\n\nIf a human had ingested the equivalent plastic volume as the average fulmar does (L), it would fill a lunchbox (R)\n\nStudies of fulmars found dead on beaches or caught accidentally by fishermen – which Dr Quinn has also been involved in – show that from 2010-2014, UK fulmars were found to contain on average 39 particles of plastic weighing a total of 0.32 grams.\n\nIn an unsettling image, the volume of space taken up by that plastic in a fulmar’s belly is the equivalent in a human stomach of the contents of a typical lunchbox, and usually the plastic is made up of consumer items used just once and then thrown away.\n\nMost shocking is the effect of party balloons, released in a moment of celebration, but then catching the eye of a fulmar searching for food.\n\nDr Quinn remembers one occasion when she dissected one of the birds.\n\n\"I couldn’t believe my eyes, seeing a balloon in the bird’s oesophagus, which would have killed it, along with cling film, toothbrushes and packaging – I feel extremely sad for the birds and impatient to do something,\" she said.\n\nThe plastic may be undermining the fulmars’ health, which could affect their ability to breed - with long-term implications for the population as a whole.\n\nCayman Trough: Plastic debris has descended to the deepest parts of the world's oceans\n\nThe threat from plastic waste is not limited to pieces that are visible – bottles, bags and other items break down into minute fragments, or \"micro-plastics\", which enter the food chain in every corner of the ocean.\n\nScientists from the University of Newcastle even identified tiny fibres in the smallest creatures living in the deepest part of the Pacific, the Mariana Trench.\n\nDr Jon Copley, of the University of Southampton, who joined the Blue Planet submarine filming in Antarctica, says that although he did not spot any plastic in the polar waters, he has been shocked by its presence elsewhere.\n\n\"When I've seen plastic in the deep ocean - such as a bin liner we found near deep-sea vents in the Cayman Trough - there's an initial shock and disappointment that our rubbish has got here before us as explorers.\n\n\"But then there's the realisation that our everyday lives are more connected to the deep ocean than we perhaps think.\n\n\"Every piece of plastic rubbish has a story, so it also makes me wonder about the chain of events that led to that particular item ending up in the deep ocean, and whether any of those events could have been prevented.\"", "The government of Sierra Leone has auctioned a 709 carat rough diamond, named the 'peace diamond', which will benefit its people.\n\nHalf of the proceeds from the sale of the diamond will go directly towards bringing clean water, electricity, schools, medical facilities, bridges and roads to the community where the stone was discovered.", "The eyes of the sporting world will be on the International Olympic Committee's headquarters in Lausanne later on Tuesday when President Thomas Bach announces whether he and his board have banned Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics.\n\nFor an Olympic powerhouse nation, the hosts of the next football World Cup no less, to be cast as an international sporting pariah, would be unprecedented.\n\nBut just 66 days before Pyeongchang 2018 starts on 9 February, the signs point to Bach doing precisely that.\n\nThe German and his board will have spent the afternoon poring over the findings and recommendations of a 16-month investigation headed up by the former president of Switzerland, Samuel Schmid.\n\nHis team have been looking into the allegations of government involvement in the cheating when Russia hosted the last Winter Games in Sochi in 2014, and deciding whether there is enough evidence to conclude that this is indeed what happened, despite repeated denials.\n\nCertainly this is one of the biggest decisions the IOC has ever taken, and the most important moment yet in the doping saga that has cast a shadow over the Olympic movement. We are expecting to find out the outcome at around 18:30 GMT.\n• None 'Russia must be banned from Winters'\n\nWe have been here before...\n\nOn the eve of the 2016 Rio Games, the IOC came under huge pressure to ban the Russian team from the Olympics after an independent report by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren concluded the country had engaged in a state-sponsored doping conspiracy that benefitted 1,000 athletes across 30 sports between 2012 and 2015.\n\nDespite this, the IOC could not bring itself to do so, handing responsibility for sanctions to the various international sporting federations, meaning hundreds of athletes competed, and 56 medals were won.\n\nSo why should things be any different this time around?\n\nDespite initial fears that Bach's close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin - and a lack of proof that would satisfy legal requirements - may mean the IOC could try to swerve a ban and resort to a hefty fine as an alternative means of punishing Russia, matters first started to look bleak for the country last month.\n\nThat was when the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) decided the country's anti-doping agency Rusada was still non-compliant with its rules.\n\nThis was accompanied by a breakthrough in evidence, with Wada obtaining what it said was a Russian laboratory database which it felt corroborated McLaren's conclusions.\n\nRe-tests of Russian athletes' samples, meanwhile, resulted in a host of retrospective bans and stripping of medals, costing the country its position at the top of the Sochi 2014 medal table.\n\nTwenty five Russians have now been banned in the last month.\n\nAnd then, last week, another IOC commission, led by Swiss lawyer Denis Oswald, which has been looking into re-tests of samples from Sochi and the individual cases of alleged doping, crucially gave its full backing to evidence provided by Dr Grigory Rodchenkov, the key whistleblower in the scandal, describing him as a \"truthful witness\".\n\nHaving published its reasoned decision in the case of the cross-country skier Alexander Legkov, the commission also revealed a diary kept by Rodchenkov - the former head of the Wada-accredited anti-doping laboratories in Moscow and Sochi and a central figure in the conspiracy - was also described as \"significant evidence\".\n\nThe diary detailed alleged meetings Rodchenkov says he had with Russia's Deputy Prime Minister and former Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko to discuss the doping programme.\n\nMutko has always denied being involved, vehemently rejected the suggestion that the cheating was in any way state-sponsored, and has cast the saga as a Western conspiracy, unfairly singling out Russia.\n\nWhat are the Russians saying?\n\nDespite a denial on Monday from a Kremlin spokesman, some observers believe that if the IOC follows the example set by athletics' governing body the IAAF and the International Paralympic Committee, both of which only allowed Russian athletes who could prove they were clean to compete as neutrals at the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics, there could be a boycott.\n\nWith his country's presidential election looming next year, Putin may not tolerate the idea of an Olympics with no Russian flag or anthem, and order his athletes to stay at home, rather than compete under a white flag.\n\nBach, already under significant pressure from national anti-doping agencies to come down heavily on Russia, and aware of the need to be seen to act decisively and in the interests of the future of the Olympic movement following recent IOC corruption allegations, could now be ready to take that risk.\n\nPlenty of Russians would be dismayed by such an outcome.\n\n\"It would be unfair,\" former Olympic speed-skating champion and politician Svetlana Zhurova told BBC Sport from her office in the Duma, the Russian parliament.\n\n\"I cannot advise the IOC, they know better than me, but I hope they will remember about the young and clean athletes for whom this will be their first Games.\n\n\"You feel so proud when you see your flag, it's very important for yourself and your country. It has to be individual responsibility, not collective.\n\n\"Our anti-doping programmes and legislation have improved. Things have changed a lot and everyone in Russia understands that doping is evil.\n\n\"For any sport, it's very important that all countries are there and if you win you know you are the best in the world. For the IOC it's a very hard decision and I hope they calculate and make the right decision for innocent clean, Russian athletes.\"\n\nWhat is the alternative view?\n\nFormer Wada president Dick Pound told the BBC: \"I think it's a real tipping point, you've got to walk the walk as well as to talk the talk. You can't say we're at zero tolerance for doping in Olympic sport … unless it's Russia.\n\n\"I mean your credibility is shot so they've got to say we're a principle organisation, here are the facts, the conduct was unacceptable and a country acting in that manner should not be allowed to participate in the next Games.\n\n\"I think we missed an opportunity in Rio... Certainly all the recent indications are there will be strong action… this stuff in Sochi was a direct attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and the IOC president has recently been starting to focus in on that and saying this is a direct attack on the integrity of the world's most important international competition, there will have to be strong measures.\n\n\"We'll see whether he follows through.\"\n\nLast week in Moscow, as Russia tried desperately to focus on the prestige that comes with hosting the World Cup, and football's world governing body Fifa attempted to pretend none of this mattered to the credibility of their flagship event, I managed to ask Mutko directly if he expected Russia to be banned by the IOC, just four days after the draw.\n\nHe angrily suggested that the BBC and New York Times would know before him, and then suggested Russia was being unfairly criticised by the Western media, just like it was before the Sochi Games.\n\nHe spoke like a man who suspected that Russia may have run out of chances.", "Google will dedicate more than 10,000 staff to rooting out violent extremist content on YouTube in 2018, the video sharing website's chief has said.\n\nWriting in the Daily Telegraph, Susan Wojcicki said some users were exploiting YouTube to \"mislead, manipulate, harass or even harm\".\n\nShe said the website, owned by Google, had used \"computer-learning\" technology that could find extremist videos.\n\nMore than 150,000 of these videos have been removed since June, she said.\n\nIn March, the UK government suspended its adverts from YouTube, following concerns they were appearing next to inappropriate content.\n\nAnd in a speech at the United Nations general assembly in September, UK Prime Minister Theresa May challenged tech firms to take down terrorist material in two hours.\n\nThe prime minister has repeatedly called for an end to the \"safe spaces\" she says terrorists enjoy online.\n\nMs Wojcicki said that staff had reviewed nearly two million videos for violent extremist content since June.\n\nThis is helping to train the company's machine learning technology to identify similar videos, which is enabling staff to remove nearly five times as many videos as they were previously, she said.\n\nShe said the company was taking \"aggressive action\" on comments, using technology to help staff find and shut down hundreds of accounts and hundreds of thousands of comments.\n\nAnd its teams \"work closely with child safety organisations around the world to report predatory behaviour and accounts to the correct law enforcement agencies\".\n\nMeanwhile, police in the UK have warned that sex offenders are increasingly using live online streaming platforms to exploit children.\n\nEarlier this year, Google announced it would give a total of £1m ($1.3m) to fund projects that help counter extremism in the UK.\n\nAnd, in June, YouTube announced four new steps it was taking to combat extremist content:\n\nCalum Chace, author of Surviving AI and The Economic Singularity, said that machine learning is developing fast.\n\n\"People are often unduly cynical about the prospects for AI because they judge it by what is possible today,\" he said.\n\n\"They forget that our machines are on an exponential growth curve: they get twice as powerful every 18 months or so. This means that we are just at the beginning of their story.\n\n\"Although YouTube's automated systems are probably among the best in the world since it is a subsidiary of Google, they need human support. For now.\"", "A woman has criticised McDonald's after she was told to remove her hijab because it posed a \"security threat\".\n\nThe 19-year-old Muslim student, who wants to remain anonymous, was approached by a security guard at a London branch of the fast food chain.\n\nMcDonald's says it has suspended the security guard and is investigating the matter. It added that the restaurant was managed and owned by a franchisee.\n\nBut the student told BBC Asian Network \"it's not enough\".\n\n\"They basically said that the security guard was employed by a third-party company and so what they're trying to say is, 'We don't condone his conduct but we can't be held responsible because we're not the people who hire them'.\n\n\"But if you're going to use a separate company you need to be aware of what kind of policies they have, especially in a city like London.\"\n\nThe student was with her friend Sabrina at the Holloway Road restaurant in north London on 30 November.\n\nIn video footage recorded on her mobile phone, a black security guard can be heard saying: \"If you just don't mind taking it off,\" to which the 19-year-old responds: \"It's not just a matter of taking it off, I wear it for religious reasons and I'm not ashamed of it.\n\n\"I live down the street,\" she adds. \"This is a hate crime.\"\n\nShe told the BBC: \"You would expect someone of colour to be more sympathetic to a minority that is persecuted.\n\n\"That just reflects how current this issue is - almost anyone could actually believe that I am a security threat.\"\n\nSabrina shared the video on Twitter, and had an overwhelming response.\n\n\"A white British national... stood up for her,\" said Sabrina.\n\n\"People on social media were praising the man who defended her.\n\n\"As a non-hijab wearing Muslim, I recognise my privilege in society.\n\n\"Discrimination that I might face isn't necessarily as overt.\n\nBut her friend said she would not be deterred from wearing the hijab.\n\n\"If you want to dress modestly, you should have the right to dress modestly and it shouldn't be politicised,\" said the 19-year-old.\n\n\"It's my choice. If I want to cover my hair, I should have the right to cover my hair.\"\n\nMcDonald's UK chief executive Paul Pomroy said in a statement: \"I am deeply sorry that this happened, and am taking the matter very seriously.\n\n\"We welcome people of all faiths and do not have any policy which restricts or prevents anyone wearing a hijab, or any other religious attire, in our restaurants.\n\n\"The restaurant involved is managed and owned by Amir Atefi, a franchisee.\n\n\"Mr Atefi is proud of his diverse workforce, and was upset and concerned to hear how one of his valued customers has been treated.\"", "A BBC investigation has found online streaming apps used by children to make live broadcasts are being infiltrated by men trying to groom them.\n\nInternet safety campaigner Qudsiyah Shah posed as a 14-year-old girl to find out what kind of dangers children could be exposed to on such services.\n\nIt comes as the National Crime Agency says it arrested more than 190 men across the UK in a single week in connection with sexual offences against children.", "Survivors were pulled from the sea after the boat capsized\n\nThe deaths of two Britons in a Thai boat crash could \"have been prevented\", the husband of one has said.\n\nMonica O'Connor, 28, and Jason Parnell, 46, drowned after the speedboat capsized in monsoon conditions near the island of Koh Samui in May 2016.\n\nDelivering a narrative conclusion, coroner Alison Mutch said the captain's decision to ignore weather warnings contributed to their deaths.\n\nAfter the hearing, Tim O'Connor said his wife's death was \"tragic\".\n\nThe couple, from Sale in Greater Manchester, had been on their honeymoon, while Mr Parnell, from Sileby in Leicestershire, was celebrating his first wedding anniversary.\n\nThirty-two people were on board when the crash - in which a German and a Chinese national also died - occurred off the coast of Thailand.\n\nThe inquest heard small boats were warned not to sail by Thailand's meteorological department.\n\nThe hearing was also told the boat's passengers had been given no safety advice, there was no individual allocation of life jackets and a decision was made to sail the boat too close to the shore.\n\nBoat captain Sanan Sridakeow was jailed for a year, and operator Limited Partnership Angthong Discovery Tour was fined 15,000 Thai baht (£342) after admitting recklessness.\n\nTim and Monica O'Connor were on honeymoon in Koh Samui when the boat capsized\n\nRecording a narrative conclusion, the senior coroner for South Manchester Alison Mutch said they \"died as a result of drowning, contributed to by the decision to operate the tour when a known weather warning was in force\".\n\nShe added that she was \"truly sorry that what should have been memorable holidays in the most positive and happy ways ended in the ways they did\".\n\nSpeaking after the hearing, Mr O'Connor said he hoped that \"appropriate lessons can be learned from today's findings to ensure no one else has to suffer the heartache and pain of losing a loved one\".\n\nHe added that the inquest process had been \"incredibly difficult, particularly with the findings outlining just how Monica's death could and perhaps should have been prevented\".", "The demolition of the Pontiac Silverdome didn't go as planned after a partial implosion failed to bring down the stadium. The second attempt proved more successful.", "Jeremy Hunt has told Facebook to \"stay away from my kids\" after it launched a new messaging app aimed at children.\n\nThe social network announced on Tuesday it was testing Messenger Kids in the US for those under 13 who cannot sign up for its full service.\n\nThe health secretary took to Twitter to condemn the new tool, saying the firm had promised to prevent under-age use of its product.\n\n\"Instead they are actively targeting younger children,\" he wrote.\n\n\"Stay away from my kids please Facebook and act responsibly!\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jeremy Hunt This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAccording to the BBC's North America technology reporter, Dave Lee, the prevention methods to stop under-age children using Facebook are \"trivial\", meaning more than 20 million under-13-year-olds are thought to be using the network.\n\nMessenger Kids is a simplified version of Facebook's existing messaging app which needs parents to approve any contacts added by their children.\n\nOnce confirmed to be safe, friends can do live video chats, send pictures and text each other.\n\nThe firm said it offered a more appropriate app, which parents could allow their children to use on tablets and smartphones.\n\nIt has not responded directly to Mr Hunt's tweet, but in a blog post, Facebook's Loren Cheng said the company had spoken to thousands of parents and dozens of experts in child development and online safety.", "Plastic waste has a variety of detrimental effects on the environment\n\nLife in the seas risks irreparable damage from a rising tide of plastic waste, the UN oceans chief has warned.\n\nLisa Svensson said governments, firms and individual people must act far more quickly to halt plastic pollution.\n\n\"This is a planetary crisis,\" she said. \"In a few short decades since we discovered the convenience of plastics, we are ruining the ecosystem of the ocean.\"\n\nShe was speaking to BBC News ahead of a UN environment summit in Nairobi.\n\nDelegates at the meeting want tougher action against plastic litter.\n\nMs Svensson had just been saddened by a Kenyan turtle hospital which treats animals that have ingested waste plastic.\n\nShe saw a juvenile turtle named Kai, brought in by fishermen a month ago because she was floating on the sea surface.\n\nPlastic waste was immediately suspected, because if turtles have eaten too much plastic it bloats their bellies and they can't control their buoyancy.\n\nKai was given laxatives for two weeks to clear out her system, and Ms Svensson witnessed an emotional moment as Kai was carried back to the sea to complete her recovery.\n\n\"It's a very happy moment,\" she said. \"But sadly we can't be sure that Kai won't be back again if she eats more plastic.\n\n\"It's heart-breaking, but it's reality. We just have to do much more to make sure the plastics don't get into the sea in the first place.\"\n\nCaspar van de Geer runs the turtle hospital for the group Local Ocean Conservation at Watamu in eastern Kenya.\n\nHe had demonstrated earlier how uncannily a plastic film pulsating in the water column mimics the actions of the jellyfish some turtles love to eat.\n\n\"Turtles aren't stupid,\" he said. \"It's really difficult to tell the difference between plastics and jellyfish, and it may be impossible for a turtle to learn.\"\n\nOn a pin board he's compiled a grid of sealed clear plastic bags like the ones used at airports for cosmetics.\n\nHere they contain the plastic fragments removed from the stomachs of sick turtles. Half of the turtles brought here after eating plastics have died.\n\nA huge table at the hospital is laden with an array of plastic waste collected off local beaches - from fishing nets and nylon ropes to unidentifiable fragments of plastic film.\n\nMany seabirds, such as this albatross, accidentally eat plastic\n\nThere's waste from down the coast as far as Tanzania - but also from Madagascar, the Comoros Islands, Thailand, Indonesia and even a bottle from far-away Japan.\n\nThere's a score of mysterious white plastic rings which staff speculate are the rims of yoghurt pots, a plastic lighter. There are disintegrating woven plastic fertiliser bags, plastic straws - and much more.\n\nBite marks show some items like small suncream bottles have clearly been nibbled at by fish, because they look like potential food.\n\nLocal people scour the beach daily for plastic waste. They want clean beaches, and they're aware that local hotels want the same.\n\nBut along the high water line millions of the fragments of plastics are mixed in with dried sea grass, too small to be collected.\n\n\"The scale of the challenge is absolutely enormous,\" says Ms Svensson. She's backing a resolution by Norway this week for the world to completely eliminate plastic waste into the ocean.\n\nIf all nations agree to that long-term goal it'll be considered a UN success.\n\nCertainly, it sounds more ambitious than the current commitment to substantially decrease waste inputs into the sea by 2025.\n\nBut some environmentalists argue that the absence of a timetable for preventing waste is a huge failing.\n\nTisha Brown from Greenpeace told BBC News: \"We welcome that they are looking at a stronger statement, but with billions of tonnes of plastic waste entering the oceans we need much more urgent action.\n\n\"We need manufacturers to take responsibility for their products - and we need to look at our consumption patterns that are driving all this.\"\n\nIndonesia - the world's second biggest plastics polluter after China - has pledged to reduce plastic waste into the ocean 75% by 2025, but some observers doubt legal rules are strong enough to make this happen.\n\nPlastic waste is also on the agenda for this month's China Council - an influential high level dialogue in which world experts advise China's leaders on environmental issues.\n\nKenya itself has banned single-use plastic bags, along with Rwanda, Tanzania and - soon- Sri Lanka. Bangladesh has had controls for many years, especially to stop bags clogging up drains and causing floods.\n\nBut bags are just one part of the problem - there are so many other types of plastic flowing through waterways.\n\n\"The UN process is slow,\" Ms Svensson admitted. \"It could take 10 years to get a UN treaty agreed on plastic litter and a further two years to get it implemented.\n\n\"We have to progress through the UN because this is a truly global problem - but we can't wait that long.\n\n\"We need to get much stronger actions from civil society, putting pressure on business to change - they can switch their supply chains very fast. And we need more individual governments to take urgent action too.\"\n\nShe praised the BBC's Blue Planet series and urged other parts of the media to highlight the issue.\n\nMs Svensson said the ocean was facing multiple assault from over-fishing; pollution from chemicals, sewage and agriculture; development in coastal areas; climate change; ocean acidification; and over-exploitation of coral reefs.\n\n\"This is a planetary emergency,\" she said. \"I sense there is a momentum now about the need to act. We just have to be much faster.\"\n\nAs we left Watamu after Kai's joyous release, I turned back for one last glance at the Indian Ocean. A small boy tossed a plastic bottle over his shoulder into the sparkling water.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSome 27,000 residents were forced to flee their homes in the middle of the night as a fast-moving wildfire ripped through southern California.\n\nSeveral thousand homes are under mandatory evacuation in the cities of Ventura and Santa Paula, some 70 miles (115 km) north of Los Angeles.\n\nFirefighters warned the fire was moving so fast they were unable to contain it.\n\nFanned by high winds, the fire swept through tens of thousands of acres in a matter of hours.\n\nCalifornia Governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in Ventura County, promising to attack the fire \"with all we've got\".\n\nIt was earlier reported that one person died in a traffic accident while trying to flee the blaze, but Ventura County Fire Capt Steve Kaufmann has since told the Associated Press that no body was found in an overturned car.\n\nOfficials said one firefighter was injured. They also said 150 structures had been destroyed, and more than 260,000 people were without power.\n\nHundreds of firefighters worked through the night to tackle the blaze, named the Thomas Fire, but fire chiefs admitted they were fighting a losing battle.\n\n\"The prospects for containment are not good. Really, Mother Nature is going to decide,\" Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen earlier told reporters.\n\nMore than 1,000 firefighters are now battling the fires, which have burned 45,500 acres. Authorities have warned of widespread smoke and advised people with health conditions, the elderly and children to stay indoors in affected areas.\n\nForecasters say ferocious Santa Ana winds and low humidity will continue for a few days, making for extremely dangerous conditions.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by VCFD PIO This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nResidents of Santa Paula and Ventura received mandatory evacuation notices via their phones and from emergency workers going house to house.\n\n\"My son is a firefighter and I'm not going to wait around for someone to rescue me,\" June Byrum told CBS, saying her 91-year-old father, husband and dog had already left for a safe place.\n\nSanta Paula has 30,000 residents, while Ventura's population is about 110,000. Both are in Ventura County.\n\nAnother fire broke out early on Tuesday local time closer to Los Angeles, in Sylmar. Homes have been damaged and more than 400 firefighters have been deployed there.\n\nThe Ventura County fire is believed to have broken out close to Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula at some time after 18:00 local time on Monday (02:00 GMT).\n\nIt was quickly fanned by gusts of up to 70mph (115 kph) that burned through dry brush.\n\nCalifornia has been hit hard by wildfires in recent months. At least 40 people were killed when fires ripped through parts of northern California's wine region in October. Some 10,000 structures were destroyed.\n\nAt least 150 structures are believed to have been destroyed by the blaze", "Last updated on .From the section Winter Sports\n\nRussia has been banned from competing at next year's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang by the International Olympic Committee.\n\nBut Russian athletes who can prove they are clean would be allowed to compete in South Korea under a neutral flag.\n\nIt follows an investigation into allegations of state-sponsored doping at the 2014 Games hosted by Russia in Sochi.\n\n\"This should draw a line under this damaging episode,\" the IOC said.\n\nThe decision has been widely condemned in Russia, with some politicians urging a boycott of the Games, though other officials have welcomed the chance for 'clean' athletes to take part.\n\nIOC president Thomas Bach and his board - who made the announcement in Lausanne on Tuesday - came to the decision after reading through the findings and recommendations of a 17-month investigation headed up by the former president of Switzerland, Samuel Schmid.\n\nThe Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) has been suspended but the IOC said it will invite Russian clean athletes to compete in February under the name 'Olympic Athlete from Russia' (OAR).\n\nDespite repeated Russian denials, the Schmid report has found evidence of \"the systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system\" which back up previous allegations of government involvement in cheating in the run-up to and during the Winter Olympics almost four years ago.\n\nBach said: \"This was an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and sport. This should draw a line under this damaging episode and serve as a catalyst for a more effective anti-doping system.\"\n\nThe Games in South Korea, which start on 9 February, will now be without one of the powerhouses of Olympic sport.\n• None Who gets Russia's medals in Pyeongchang?\n• None Russian doping - how we got here\n\nThis entire investigation was instigated by whistleblowing doctor Grigory Rodchenkov, who was director of Russia's anti-doping laboratory during Sochi 2014.\n\nHe alleged the country ran a systematic programme of doping and claimed he had created substances to enhance athletes' performances and switched urine samples to avoid detection.\n\nThe World Anti Doping Agency (Wada) enlisted the services of Canadian law professor and sports lawyer Dr Richard McLaren to look into the allegations.\n\nThe McLaren report concluded 1,000 athletes across 30 sports benefitted from the doping programme between 2012 and 2015.\n\nWada obtained what it said was a Russian laboratory database which it felt corroborated McLaren's conclusions, while re-testing of Russian athletes' samples resulted in a host of retrospective bans and stripping of medals.\n\nLast week, another IOC commission, led by Swiss lawyer Denis Oswald, gave its full backing to evidence provided by Dr Rodchenkov.\n\nWhat else has the IOC ruled?\n\nAs well as the Olympic Committee ban, the IOC has also decided to ban Russia's deputy Prime Minister and former Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko from all future Olympic Games. He is currently the lead organiser for the 2018 World Cup, which is being staged in Russia next summer.\n\nIn his report to the IOC executive board, Schmid says Mutko, as the then minister for sport, \"had the ultimate administrative responsibility for the acts perpetrated at the time\".\n\nResponding to the report, Fifa said the IOC ruling had \"no impact\" on preparations for the World Cup.\n\nFootball's world governing body added that it \"continues to take every measure at its competitions to ensure football remains free from doping\" and every player will be tested next summer and \"the analysis of all doping samples will be carried out at Wada laboratories outside Russia\".\n• None No accreditation for any official from the Russian ministry of sport for the Olympic Winter Games Pyeongchang 2018\n• None Former Deputy sports minister, Yuri Nagornykh, is excluded from any participation in all future Olympic Games\n• None Dmitry Chernyshenko, the former CEO of the organising committee Sochi 2014, is withdrawn from the Co-ordination Commission Beijing 2022\n• None ROC President Alexander Zhukov is suspended as an IOC member, given that his membership is linked to his position as ROC president\n• None The ROC is fined 15 million dollars (£11.2 million) to reimburse the costs of the investigations and to contribute to the establishment of the Independent Testing Authority (ITA)\n• None If Russia \"respects and implements\" what the IOC has called for, the sanctions may be lifted in time for the closing ceremony.\n\nHow can clean Russian athletes get to Pyeongchang?\n\nThe IOC will allow athletes from Russia to compete individually or as part of a team in South Korea, providing they wear an OAR uniform. The Olympic Anthem will be played in any ceremony.\n\nA specialist panel appointed by the IOC will decide whether an athlete can compete by following these rules:\n• None Athletes must have qualified according to the qualification standards of their respective sport\n• None Athletes must not have been disqualified or declared ineligible for any violation of anti-doping rules\n• None Athletes must have undergone all the pre-Games targeted tests recommended by the Pre-Games Testing Task Force\n• None Athletes must have undergone any other testing requirements specified by the panel to ensure a level playing field\n\nAction taken so far\n• None A total of 25 Russians have so far been banned from the Olympics for life on the recommendation of the IOC commission\n• None The first part of the McLaren report was when Wada called on the IOC to ban Russia from the Rio Olympics\n• None instead asking individual sporting federations to rule on their participation\n\nWada has not called again for the IOC to ban Russia, but recently declared that the country remains 'non-compliant' with its code.\n• None Russia 'not to blame' for Sochi scandal\n\nThe IPC will make public its decision on the potential participation of Russian athletes at the 2018 Winter Paralympics in London on 22 December.\n\nPresident of the ROC, Alexander Zhukov, said there was positive and negative news from the IOC's decision.\n\nHe welcomed the invitation for clean athletes to compete in South Korea but does not agree with the ruling that they must compete under a neutral flag.\n\n\"If, as proposed, the temporary restrictions are lifted on the last day, then on the last day Russian athletes will compete under their flag with all the athletes from the rest of the world,\" he told reporters in Lausanne.\n\nHe said a final decision on participation is still to be made.\n\nRussian politicians and athletes were united in their condemnation of the IOC decision.\n\nThe deputy chairman of Russian parliament's defence committee, Frants Klintsevich, said Russian athletes should not take part in the Olympics in 2018 if they are not allowed to compete under the national flag.\n\n\"I don't know what Russia's decision will be in the end, but in my view, a great power can't go 'incognito' to the Olympics,\" state-owned RIA Novosti news agency reported him saying.\n\nIgor Morozov, another politician said \"hybrid war\" had been declared on Russia by the IOC decision.\n\nThe head of Russia's speed-skating body Alexei Kravtsov said it should be down to the athletes themselves.\n\n\"My opinion is that every athlete should decide for themselves whether to take part under a neutral flag or not,\" R-Sport reported. \"But there is an admittance procedure, and that in itself is humiliating.\"\n\nRussian bobsleigh federation president Alexander Zubkov said on Tuesday he was \"shocked\" by the decision.\n\nZubkov was stripped last month of the two gold medals he won at the 2014 Sochi Games and banned from the Olympics for life over alleged doping violations.\n\nRussian state broadcaster VGTRK has said it will not broadcast the winter Olympic games if the Russian team is not participating.\n• None Life on the run for Russian whistleblower\n\nJohn Jackson, who led Great Britain's men's bobsleigh team in Sochi in 2014, and could now be awarded a bronze medal because of Russian doping bans thanked the IOC for the ruling.\n\n\"I believe it is the correct decision to allow the clean athletes of Russia to compete under a neutral flag,\" he said.\n\nBritish sports minister Tracey Crouch tweeted that she was \"pleased\" with the announcement.\n\n\"We believe that this decision goes a long way towards protecting the interests of clean athletes,\" said Wada vice-president Linda Hofstad Helleland.\n\nJim Walden, a lawyer representing whistleblower Rodchenkov, said the decision \"sends a powerful message that the IOC will not tolerate state-sponsored cheating by any nation\".\n\n\"Dr Rodchenkov personally agrees with the IOC's determination that innocent athletes should compete as neutrals,\" he added.\n\nWhat could a Winter Olympics look like without Russia?\n\nThe Olympics ban for Russia, who had finished top of the Sochi 2014 medal table, could potentially leave opportunities for gold, silver and bronze open to several other nations.\n\nIt is not yet clear how many Russian athletes, if any, will seek to compete under a neutral flag.\n\nOther athletes are considering appeals against their doping bans.\n\nRussia were among the favourites for gold in men's ice hockey following the National Hockey League's decision to withdraw its players from Pyeongchang.\n\nAt the last six Winter Games, Russian figure skaters won 14 of the 26 gold medals available and occupied 26 of the 75 podium places.\n\n'Some concessions, but still dark day for Russia' - analysis\n\nThe punishment is unprecedented in Olympic history. This is a proud sporting superpower that uses such events to promote its image to the world. Not this time.\n\nThe hosts of next year's World Cup have just become an international pariah, with the life ban given to deputy prime minister and head of Russia 2018 - Vitaly Mutko - hugely embarrassing for Fifa - an IOC member federation.\n\nMany will say the IOC should have done this 18 months ago before the Rio Olympics, and that both they and WADA should have acted more decisively years ago when reports of Russian cheating first emerged. And could the IOC have been tougher, given the scale of the cheating and the damage done to clean athletes?\n\nThe fact that those athletes who meet the criteria and can take part will be called 'Olympic Athletes from Russia' seems a concession to the country. Why not just 'Neutral Athletes'? President Bach also suggested the Russian flag may be flown at the closing ceremony in South Korea.\n\nYet this is still a dark day for Russian sport and President Vladimir Putin is now understood to be considering whether to boycott Pyeongchang 2018 altogether and forbid any Russian athletes to compete.", "Jon Venables was 10 when he and Robert Thompson killed James Bulger\n\nA potential breach of a court order which prevents the identification of one of James Bulger's killers is being investigated, the Attorney General's Office has confirmed.\n\nJon Venables, now 35, was convicted of killing two-year-old James in Merseyside in 1993, along with Robert Thompson.\n\nThe pair were released in 2001.\n\nThere is a worldwide ban on publishing anything revealing their current identities.\n\nA spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office said: \"We have received a complaint that the anonymity order has been breached and we are investigating.\"\n\nA High Court injunction prohibits the publication of any images or information claiming to identify or locate the pair- even if it is not actually them.\n\nThe order also covers material published on the internet.\n\nIn 2013 two men who published photographs on Twitter and Facebook said to show the killers of James Bulger received suspended jail sentences for being in contempt of court.\n\nVenables was recalled to prison last month after being suspected of having child abuse images on his computer.\n\nIt is the second time he has been sent back to jail for the same suspected offence.\n\nHe was first recalled in 2010, following his release in 2001 after serving eight years for the murder of James, aged two, in 1993.\n\nJames Bulger was two when he was abducted and killed in 1993\n\nOn 12 February 1993, James - just a few weeks before his third birthday - was reported missing by his mother from outside a butcher's shop in the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside.\n\nCCTV images revealed he had been lured away by Venables and Thompson, both then aged 10.\n\nHis body was found two days later on a railway line.\n\nThompson and Venables were arrested and charged within days. They were both convicted at Preston Crown Court of James's murder, in November 1993.\n\nIn 2001, the pair were released - with new identities - from secure children's homes on life licence, meaning they can be recalled at any time.", "Reggie Yates was due to present the Christmas and New Year TOTP specials with Fearne Cotton\n\nReggie Yates will not host this year's Top of the Pops holiday specials after making \"ill-considered remarks\" in a podcast interview.\n\nYates apologised last month for using the phrase \"fat Jewish guy\" to refer to managers in the music industry.\n\nHe has now tweeted to say he has \"taken the decision to step down\" from hosting the music shows, which were due to air on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.\n\nThe presenter added that he apologised \"unreservedly to the Jewish community\".\n\nIn the Halfcast Podcast, hosted by DJ Chuckie Lothian, he had used the phrase while praising artists who chose to remain independently managed, adding: \"They're managed by their brethren.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by REGYATES This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn his latest statement on Twitter, he said his words \"reinforced offensive stereotypes\" and that the comment was \"no reflection on how I truly feel\".\n\nThe host, who also presents The Insider series for BBC Three, was due to present this year's holiday specials of long-running show Top of the Pops with Fearne Cotton.\n\nA BBC spokesperson said: \"We take these issues very seriously and Reggie is in no doubt about the BBC's view of his comments.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The director of the new Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, has been fired due to \"unreliable behaviour\".\n\nIn a statement, Twentieth Century Fox said Bryan Singer was no longer the director of the film.\n\nA source told the BBC the main reason for the firing was \"a pattern of unreliable behaviour on the set\".\n\nBut Singer said his firing came while he was ill and that the studio was \"unwilling to accommodate\" him during his illness.\n\nThe Hollywood Reporter reported on Monday that Singer had clashed with lead actor Rami Malek and failed to show up for filming on multiple occasions.\n\nThe studio had earlier said production had been suspended so Singer could deal with \"a personal health matter\".\n\nIn a statement issued through his lawyer to the BBC, Singer - the director of The Usual Suspects, four X-Men movies and Superman Returns - said he was disappointed not to be able to finish the film, \"a passion project of mine\".\n\nRami Malek has so far made no public comments on the latest developments\n\n\"With fewer than three weeks to shoot remaining, I asked Fox for some time off so I could return to the US to deal with pressing health matters concerning one of my parents,\" he said.\n\n\"This was a very taxing experience, which ultimately took a serious toll on my own health. Unfortunately, the studio was unwilling to accommodate me and terminated my services. This was not my decision and it was beyond my control.\"\n\nHe added that rumours of clashes with Malek, the star of the Mr Robot TV series, were not true.\n\n\"While, at times, we did have creative differences on set, Rami and I successfully put those differences behind us and continued to work on the film together until just prior to Thanksgiving,\" he said.\n\nFilming has been taking place in the UK, with Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello and Gwilym Lee starring as Queen's other members.\n\nThe movie is still expected to be released in December 2018 as planned.\n\nAs well as directing, Singer is listed as a co-producer, alongside Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor, among others.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Food shortages have led to the acute malnutrition rate among children rising to 11.9%\n\nThe situation in a besieged rebel-held area near Syria's capital has reached a \"critical point\", the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned.\n\nScores of civilians have been killed or injured in the Eastern Ghouta in the past month and life is slowly becoming \"impossible\", the organisation says.\n\nAbout 500 people are waiting to be evacuated for life-saving medical care.\n\nThere are also shortages of food, fuel and medicines, and the cold weather threatens to worsen the hardship.\n\n\"Chronic disease sufferers and people with severe injuries are struggling to access care,\" said the ICRC's Middle East director, Robert Mardini.\n\n\"The sick and injured must not be used as pawns in negotiations between the different parties involved in the fighting. Medical attention must be promptly given to those who need it irrespective of who they are.\"\n\nThe 400,000 people trapped in the Eastern Ghouta are also facing a \"frightening\" food shortage and a huge increase in food prices, according to the ICRC.\n\n\"Some families can afford to eat only one meal a day, an especially sad situation for people with children. As a result, most people have been relying entirely on aid from humanitarian organisations,\" Mr Mardini said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Children in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta are among those suffering\n\nThe Eastern Ghouta has been under siege by government forces since 2013.\n\nThe area has been designated a \"de-escalation zone\" by Russia and Iran, the government's main allies, along with Turkey, which supports the opposition.\n\nBut hostilities intensified on 14 November, when the Syrian military stepped up air and artillery attacks on the enclave in response to a rebel offensive.\n\nAlthough the government agreed to truce on 28 November, the fighting has continued.\n\nLast week, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator for Syria rebuked Russia and Iran for not doing more to give aid agencies access to the Eastern Ghouta.\n\nJan Egeland told the BBC that the failure to persuade the government to allow desperately ill children to be evacuated to hospitals only 30 minutes' drive away in Damascus showed \"complete impotence\".", "Alfie Curtis, who played Dr Evazan in Star Wars: A New Hope, has died at the age of 87.\n\nThe London-born actor had also appeared in the 1980 film The Elephant Man and the 80s UK TV series Cribb.\n\nHis Star Wars character famously threatened Luke Skywalker at Mos Eisley Cantina in the first of the original trilogy in 1977, telling him: \"I have the death sentence on 12 systems\".\n\nMark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, tweeted his tribute to Alfie Curtis.\n\nHe called him a \"funny, kind\" man who helped provide \"one of the most memorable [scenes] I've ever been a part of\".\n\n\"Alfie Curtis made the #Star Wars Mos Eisley Cantina scene (one of the most memorable I've ever been a part of) even MORE memorable. As horrific as he was on-camera, off-camera he was funny, kind & a real gentleman,\" he wrote.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by @HamillHimself This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe news broke on the Comic Book Star Wars website on Tuesday evening and the cause of death has not yet been revealed.\n\nThe character of Dr Evazan did pop up briefly in the 2016 Star Wars film Rogue One, but the younger version of the character was played by Michael Smiley.\n• None The Last Jedi: The most divisive film ever?", "Chrissy Teigen live tweeted the ordeal to her 9.2 million followers\n\nA Tokyo-bound flight carrying the model Chrissy Teigen and her musician husband John Legend turned back to LA after someone reportedly boarded in error.\n\nAccording to Ms Teigen, the passenger boarded at LAX airport with a ticket for a different airline, although this was not confirmed by authorities.\n\nThe plane turned back four hours into the flight, over the Pacific Ocean.\n\nThe airline, All Nippon Airways (ANA), said only that there had been a problem with a customer's \"flight arrangement\".\n\nAdonis Cutchlow, of the LAX Police, told the LA Times there had been no criminal or illegal activity on board the plane, and it was not clear why it had turned back.\n\nThe plane should have flown 11 hours to Tokyo. Instead, passengers spent eight hours in the air only to return to the same airport.\n\nAccording to a series of tweets posted by Ms Teigen to her 9.2 million followers from the plane, the passenger in question boarded the ANA flight with a ticket from United Airlines.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by christine teigen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by christine teigen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by christine teigen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by christine teigen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOnline flight tracker Flightaware showed the plane making a sharp turn over the Pacific, just over four hours out of LA, and returning.\n\nOne fellow passenger racked up 45,000 retweets and nearly 1,000 followers with a single tweet after posting a picture of the famous couple aboard the flight.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 5 by Raffy This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAbout six hours after the first flight landed, Ms Teigen reported boarding another plane.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 6 by christine teigen This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Lewis Hamilton has apologised for making \"inappropriate\" comments in a video in which he appeared to mock his nephew's princess dress.\n\nIn an Instagram video, which has since been deleted, the Formula 1 driver says \"boys don't wear princess dresses\".\n\nHe was criticised on social media for the clip, which was apparently filmed on Christmas Day.\n\nThe 32-year-old tweeted his \"deepest apologies\", saying he loved that his nephew \"feels free to express himself\".\n\nThe video, posted on his Instagram story, shows Hamilton speaking to the camera before turning it on his young relative.\n\n\"I'm so sad right now. Look at my nephew,\" he says.\n\nThe camera then shows the boy wearing a pink and purple dress, while holding a toy magic wand.\n\nHamilton asks him: \"Why are you wearing a princess dress? Is this what you got for Christmas?\"\n\nThe young boy starts laughing as the British racing driver continues: \"Why did you ask for a princess dress for Christmas? Boys don't wear princess dresses.\"\n\nIn response to the video, founder of anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label Liam Hackett tweeted: \"Disappointing to see somebody with such a huge platform use it to publicly shame and attempt to undermine a small child.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Imraan Sathar of discrimination support charity Stay Brave UK, called for the driver to be stripped of his MBE.\n\nHamilton later apologised for his behaviour and said it was \"really not acceptable\" to marginalise or stereotype anyone.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Lewis Hamilton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Lewis Hamilton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Lewis Hamilton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ukrainian soldiers have been reunited with their families\n\nUkraine and separatist rebels in the east of the country have exchanged hundreds of prisoners, in one of the biggest swaps since the conflict began in 2014.\n\nSome 230 people were sent to rebel-held areas in return for 74 prisoners who had been held by pro-Russia rebels in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.\n\nIt was the first swap in 15 months.\n\nThe release and exchange of prisoners was one of the points in the Minsk peace agreement, signed in 2015.\n\nThe deal has stalled since and analysts say the swap does not signify wider progress. Both sides continue to hold other prisoners.\n\nThe number of prisoners swapped was lower than initially announced after dozens of people who were meant to be returned to rebel-held territory refused to go to the other side.\n\n\"Some of them have already been released and the charges against them have been cleared by the Ukrainian authorities and then they prefer to stay in the government-controlled side,\" Miladin Bogetic, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine, told the BBC.\n\nThe operation was carried out amid tight security\n\nTwo Ukrainians - a man and a woman - opted to stay on the rebel side, AFP news agency reports.\n\nThe months-long negotiations for the exchange saw the involvement of presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, as well as the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.\n\nBuses and other vehicles carrying the prisoners assembled at the Mayorsk checkpoint near the city of Horlivka in Donetsk for the swap.\n\nIt took months of negotiations for the exchange to happen\n\nHistorian Igor Kozlovskiy, 63, who was captured by Donetsk rebels on suspicion of storing weapons, told AFP: \"I was in captivity for two years... Still a lot of prisoners remain [in Donetsk].\"\n\nThe UK government said the prisoner swap was a \"welcome step towards meeting the commitments all sides have made\".\n\nThe conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted in April 2014, soon after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. The UN says more than 10,000 people have died in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.", "A British woman convicted of smuggling painkiller tablets into Egypt has already been transferred to a notorious jail, her family has said.\n\nLaura Plummer, 33, from Hull, was arrested after she was found with the Tramadol tablets in her suitcase on 9 October.\n\nThe shop worker was jailed for three years in Egypt on Boxing Day.\n\nThe prison move had left Plummer's mother no chance to say goodbye to her daughter, her family said.\n\nPlummer was detained on arriving at the Red Sea resort of Hurghada for a holiday with her Egyptian partner Omar Caboo.\n\nShe was found to be carrying almost 300 Tramadol tablets in her suitcase, a painkiller which is legal on prescription in the UK but banned in Egypt.\n\nPlummer claimed the painkiller was to treat her Mr Caboo's back pain and has previously said she had \"no idea\" the tablets were illegal.\n\nLaura Plummer said the prescription pills were for her partner Omar Caboo\n\nPlummer's sister Rachel said their mother Roberta Synclair had been told her daughter would be held in police cells so she could visit her.\n\nBut the family said Ms Synclair went to the cells only to find that Plummer had already been transferred to a prison in Qena.\n\n\"Obviously that's even more devastating for my mum because she's not got to say goodbye to Laura,\" Rachel Plummer said.\n\n\"No prisons are nice but I think Qena's the bad one.\"\n\nPlummer's lawyer Mohamed Othman told the BBC he was applying for her to be moved to Qanater prison, which is closer to Cairo, and has \"better conditions\" ahead of an appeal against her conviction.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Laura Plummer's sister Jayne Sinclair: \"She's on the verge of a mental breakdown\"\n\nHowever, reports her sister had been attacked in prison were not true, Rachel said.\n\nShe said during the trial, Plummer told her mother she couldn't wait to get back to work and \"was speaking like she was coming home\".\n\n\"All the evidence was presented to show that this was a massive mistake and Laura's intentions were as she said, just to treat Omar's back pain,\" Rachel added.\n\nBut, she said, after two hours the judges came back with the judgement and \"Laura collapsed crying, she got led away, she got taken away in this cage\".\n\nA spokesperson for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: \"We are continuing to provide assistance to Laura and her family following the court ruling in Egypt.\"\n\nTramadol is a strong painkiller used to treat moderate to severe pain.\n\nIt is a class C drug and is only available in the UK with a prescription from a doctor or other qualified healthcare professional.\n\nAs a class C drug, it is illegal for anyone else to supply Tramadol, to have it or to give it away, even to friends.", "Rihanna has called for an end to gun violence after her cousin was killed in Barbados on Boxing Day.\n\nShe's been paying tribute to her 21-year-old relative - they had just spent Christmas together.\n\nRihanna added the hashtag #endgunviolence to an emotional post on Instagram.\n\n\"RIP cousin... can't believe it was just last night that I held you in my arms!\" she wrote.\n\nThe message was put up with a photo gallery dedicated to her cousin.\n\nRihanna didn't name him, but according to Barbadian news station Nation News, the victim of a shooting is 21-year-old Tavon Kaiseen Alleyne.\n\nShe went on to write: \"Never thought that would be the last time I felt the warmth in your body!!!\n\nShe also tagged his profile in the series of photos.\n\nIn February he posted a heartfelt message under a photo of the two of them together celebrating Rihanna's 29th birthday.\n\n\"Your presence in my life is a source of joy and happiness,\" he wrote.\n\nIt's believed Tavon was walking through a track by his house in St Michael, Barbados when he was approached by a man who shot him multiple times before fleeing the scene.\n\nPolice are currently on the hunt for the shooter and have asked anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers or the District A Police Station in Barbados.\n\nGun crime has been rife on the Caribbean island recently with police confirming a significant increase, with 22 out of 28 murders committed there being gun-related.\n\nFind us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat", "Ri Pyong-chol (L) and Kim Jong-sik (R) are reportedly among Kim Jong-un's most trusted aides\n\nThe US has placed sanctions on two North Korean officials it says have led the development of nuclear missiles.\n\nThe US treasury named the two men as Kim Jong-sik and Ri Pyong-chol, and said both were \"key leaders\" of North Korea's ballistic missile programme.\n\nThe UN Security Council imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Friday in response to ballistic missile tests.\n\nNorth Korea said the move was \"an act of war\" and tantamount to a total economic blockade.\n\nThe new US sanctions will block any transactions by the two men carried out in the US, essentially freezing any American assets they may have.\n\nBoth men are regularly photographed alongside North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at missile launches.\n\nIn the past year, the country has tested ever more ambitious types of missile, and says it can now reach the entire continental United States.\n\nRi Pyong-chol has been photographed laughing with Kim Jong-un\n\nA Reuters investigation in May said that the two men, along with weapons developer Jang Chan-ha, were handpicked by Kim Jong-un and were very popular with him.\n\nTheir behaviour around him, Reuters said, \"is sharply at variance with the obsequiousness of other senior aides, most of whom bow and hold their hands over their mouths when speaking to the young leader\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How could war with North Korea unfold?\n\nThe news agency reported that Ri Pyong-chol was a former air force general educated in Russia and that Kim Jong-sik was a veteran rocket scientist.\n\nThey were both among 16 North Koreans placed under UN sanctions on Friday.\n\nThe UN sanctions came in response to Pyongyang's 28 November firing of a ballistic missile, which the US said was its highest yet.\n\nIn response, North Korea's official KCNA news agency said: \"The United States, completely terrified at our accomplishment of the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force, is getting more and more frenzied in the moves to impose the harshest-ever sanctions and pressure on our country.\"", "George Michael's family have paid tribute to the former Wham! frontman a year after his death.\n\nA note posted on his website urges fans to \"appreciate your family and friends\" and to \"raise a glass, enjoy his music and think of him fondly\".\n\nMichael died aged 53 on Christmas Day 2016 at his home in Oxfordshire as a result of heart and liver disease.\n\nHis old band's seasonal song Last Christmas returned to number three in the Christmas singles charts last week.\n\nYoung George Michael and childhood friend David in around 1967\n\nThe message, which refers to Michael using his family nickname \"Yog\", is signed \"Melanie, Yioda, Jack & David - looking up… Yog, Lesley, Anselmo, Hippy, Mo & Meg - smiling down\" and is accompanied by a childhood picture.\n\nMichael's family thank fans for having made his second solo album Listen Without Prejudice number one in the UK album charts again this year.\n\n\"This year has been a series of new and tough challenges for those of us close and loyal to Yog, not least of which was steeling ourselves this month, to hear 'Last Christmas' and 'December Song' streaming out of shops, cars, and radios, as it has done for decades, knowing he's no longer here with us, missing him,\" they say.\n\n\"This Christmas will be hard without him, but we know that we are not alone in our mourning the anniversary of his loss, and that the sadness of our wider family, and true friends, is shared by many of you.\"\n\nThe family go on to urge everyone not to hold \"important words and feelings inside\", adding: \"If you can, in his memory this year, take a moment and a deep breath and say those 'I love you's' out loud.\"\n\nListen again to Radio 2's tribute to George, one year on, and re-live our George Michael tributes live page from last year.", "The firm that managed Grenfell Tower says it will hand over responsibility for thousands of properties to the local council by the end of January.\n\nKensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) said it would \"temporarily\" give control to London's Kensington and Chelsea Council.\n\nThe council voted in September to end the contract, a month after the TMO was stripped of responsibility for managing homes in the estate around the tower.\n\nIt was heavily criticised after the 14 June fire, in which 71 people died.\n\nIn August, it was stripped of its responsibility for the management of properties in the Lancaster West housing estate, including Grenfell Tower.\n\nThen in September Kensington and Chelsea councillors unanimously voted to end the contract with the TMO, saying the firm \"no longer has the trust of residents in the borough\".\n\nThe following month, the TMO and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) said they were working together to secure an \"orderly transition\".\n\nIn a letter to residents, dated 22 December, chairwoman Fay Edwards said the TMO's board had \"reluctantly decided\" it could \"no longer guarantee that it can fulfil its obligations\" in regards to its contract with the council.\n\n\"The board has decided that it would be in the best interests of all residents that the services which the TMO currently provides are temporarily handed back to the council while it carries out consultation with you about the future management of its housing stock,\" she said.\n\nShe said the consultation \"will take some time\" and said the handover of responsibilities will take place by 31 January.\n\nThe letter continued: \"The TMO will continue to exist as an independent corporate entity and the board will continue to be accountable to its members.\"\n\nResidents demonstrated outside Kensington Town Hall after the fire, criticising the management company and the council\n\nBut Joe Delaney, who lived in a block formerly managed by the TMO and is a member of the council's Grenfell recovery scrutiny committee, criticised the decision.\n\nHe said: \"My main concern at the moment is capacity - [the council] hasn't even shown the capacity to deal with the Grenfell disaster, so how can they demonstrate that they have got capacity to bring stuff in-house at this time?\"\n\nHe added: \"And also, what precisely is KCTMO going to do during this time? It is still going to be getting money from the council to keep itself up and running, but it won't have a job.\"\n\nA council spokesman said: \"We are aware of the update from the TMO to residents and we will be writing to all residents to make sure they have clarity on next steps.\n\n\"We are clear, though, that this is only an interim measure.\"\n\nIn a letter which will be sent to residents, deputy council leader Kim Taylor-Smith said they would decide how \"you want your homes managed in future\".", "A year ago Donald Trump produced the biggest political upset in modern-day America, but were there historical clues that pointed to his unexpected victory?\n\nFlying into Los Angeles, a descent that takes you from the desert, over the mountains, to the outer suburbs dotted with swimming pools shaped like kidneys, always brings on a near narcotic surge of nostalgia.\n\nThis was the flight path I followed more than 30 years ago, as I fulfilled a boyhood dream to make my first trip to the United States. America had always fired my imagination, both as a place and as an idea. So as I entered the immigration hall, under the winsome smile of America's movie star president, it was hardly a case of love at first sight.\n\nMy infatuation had started long before, with Westerns, cop shows, superhero comic strips, and movies such as West Side Story and Grease. Gotham exerted more of a pull than London. My 16-year-old self could quote more presidents than prime ministers. Like so many new arrivals, like so many of my compatriots, I felt an instant sense of belonging, a fealty borne of familiarity.\n\nEighties America lived up to its billing, from the multi-lane freeways to the cavernous fridges, from the drive-in movie theatres to the drive-through burger joints. I loved the bigness, the boldness, the brashness. Coming from a country where too many people were reconciled to their fate from too early an age, the animating force of the American Dream was not just seductive but unshackling.\n\nUpward mobility was not a given amongst my schoolmates. The absence of resentment was also striking: the belief success was something to emulate rather than envy. The sight of a Cadillac induced different feelings than the sight of a Rolls Royce.\n\nIt was 1984. Los Angeles was hosting the Olympics. The Soviet boycott meant US athletes dominated the medals table more so than usual. McDonald's had a scratch-card promotion, planned presumably before Eastern bloc countries decided to keep their distance, offering Big Macs, Cokes and fries if Americans won gold, silver or bronze in selected events. So for weeks I feasted on free fast food, a calorific accompaniment to chants of \"USA! USA!\"\n\nThis was the summertime of American resurgence. After the long national nightmare of Vietnam, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis, the country demonstrated its capacity for renewal. 1984, far from being the dystopian hell presaged by George Orwell, was a time of celebration and optimism. Uncle Sam - back then, nobody gave much thought to the country being given a male personification - seemed happy again in his own skin.\n\nFor millions, it really was \"Morning Again in America\", the slogan of Ronald Reagan's re-election campaign. In that year's presidential election, he buried his Democratic opponent Walter Mondale in a landslide, winning 49 out of 50 states and 58.8% of the popular vote.\n\nThe United States could hardly be described as politically harmonious. There was the usual divided government. Republicans retained control of the Senate, but the Democrats kept their stranglehold on the House of Representatives. Reagan's sunniness was sullied by the launch of his 1980 campaign with a call for \"states' rights\", which sounded to many like a dog-whistle for denial of civil rights.\n\nRonald Reagan on the campaign trail in 1979\n\nHis chosen venue was Philadelphia, but not the city of brotherly love, the cradle of the Declaration of Independence, but rather Philadelphia, Mississippi, a rural backwater close to where three civil rights workers had been murdered by white supremacists in 1964. Reagan, like Nixon, pursued the southern strategy, which exploited white fears about black advance.\n\nStill, the anthem of the hour was Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA and politics was not nearly as polarised as it is today. Even though the Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill reviled Reagan's trickle-down economics - he called him a \"cheerleader for selfishness\" and \"Herbert Hoover with a smile\" - these two Irish-Americans found common ground as they sought to act in the national interest.\n\nBoth understood the Founding Fathers had hard-wired compromise into the governmental system, and that Washington, with its checks and balances, was unworkable without give and take. They worked together on tax reform and safeguarding Social Security.\n\nThe country was in the ascendant. Not so paranoid as it was in the 1950s, not so restive as it was in the 1960s, and nowhere near as demoralised as it had been in the 1970s.\n\nHistory is never neat or linear. Decades do not automatically have personalities, but it is possible to divide the period since 1984 into two distinct phases. The final 16 years of the 20th Century was a time of American hegemony. The first 16 years of the 21st Century has proven to be a period of dysfunction, discontent, disillusionment and decline. The America of today in many ways reflects the dissonance between the two.\n\nIn those twilight years of the last millennium, America enjoyed something akin to the dominance achieved at the Los Angeles Olympics. Just two years after Reagan demanded that Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall, that concrete and ideological barricade was gone. The United States won the Cold War. In the New World Order that emerged afterwards, it became the sole superpower in a unipolar world.\n\nA Berliner celebrates in front of the Berlin wall on 15 November 1989\n\nThe speed at which US-led forces won the first Gulf War in 1991 helped slay the ghosts of Vietnam. With a reformist leader, Boris Yeltsin, installed in the Kremlin, there was an expectation Russia would embrace democratic reform. Even after Tiananmen Square, there was a hope that China might follow suit, as it moved towards a more market-based economy.\n\nThis was the thrust of Francis Fukuyama's thesis in his landmark 1989 essay, The End of History, which spoke of \"the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government\".\n\nFor all the forecasts Japan would become the world's largest economy, America refused to cede its financial and commercial dominance. Instead of Sony ruling the corporate world, Silicon Valley became the new high-tech workshop of business.\n\nBill Clinton's boast of building a bridge to the 21st Century rang true, although it was emergent tech giants such as Microsoft, Apple and Google that were the true architects and engineers. Thirty years after planting the Stars and Stripes on the Sea of Tranquillity, America not only dominated outer space but cyberspace too.\n\nThis phase of US dominance could never be described as untroubled. The Los Angeles riots in 1992, sparked by the beating of Rodney King and the acquittal of the police officers charged with his assault, highlighted deep racial divisions.\n\nIn Washington, Bill Clinton's impeachment exhibited the hyper-partisanship that was changing the tenor of Washington life. In the age of 24/7 cable news, politics was starting to double as soap opera.\n\nYet as we approached 31 December 1999, the assertion that the 20th Century had been The American Century was an axiom. I was in the capital as Bill Clinton presided over the midnight celebrations on the National Mall, and as the fireworks skipped from the Lincoln Memorial down the Reflecting Pool to illuminate the Washington monument, the mighty obelisk looked like a giant exclamation mark or a massive number one.\n\nThe national story changed dramatically and unexpectedly soon after. While doomsday predictions of a Y2K bug failed to materialise, it nonetheless felt as if the United States had been infected with a virus. 2000 saw the dot-com bubble explode. In November, the disputed presidential election between George W Bush and Al Gore badly damaged the reputation of US democracy.\n\nWhy, a Zimbabwean diplomat even suggested Africa send international observers to oversee the Florida recount. Beyond America's borders came harbingers of trouble. In Russia, 31 December 1999, as those fireworks were being primed, Vladimir Putin took over from Boris Yeltsin.\n\nThe year 2001 brought the horror of September 11th, an event more traumatic than Pearl Harbor. Post-9/11 America became less welcoming and more suspicious. The Bush administration's \"war on terror\" - open-ended conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq - drained the country of blood and treasure.\n\nThe collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, and the Great Recession that followed, arguably had a more lasting impact on the American psyche than the destruction of the Twin Towers. Just as 9/11 had undermined confidence in the country's national security, the financial collapse shattered confidence in its economic security.\n\nWith parents no longer certain their children would come to enjoy more abundant lives than they did, the American Dream felt like a chimera. The American compact, the bargain that if you worked hard and played by the rules your family would succeed, was no longer assumed. Between 2000 and 2011, the overall net wealth of US households fell. By 2014, the richest 1% of Americans had accrued more wealth than the bottom 90%.\n\nTo many in the watching world, and most of the 69 million Americans who voted for him, the election of the country's first black president again demonstrated America's capacity for regeneration.\n\nAlthough his presidency did much to rescue the economy, he couldn't repair a fractured country. The creation of a post-partisan nation, which Obama outlined in his breakthrough speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, proved just as illusory as the emergence of a post-racial society, which he always knew was beyond him.\n\nDuring the Obama years, Washington descended into a level of dysfunction unprecedented in post-war America.\n\n\"My number one priority is making sure President Obama's a one-term president,\" declared then-Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, summing up the obstructionist mood of his Republican colleagues. It led to a crisis of governance, including the shutdown of 2013 and the repeated battles over raising the debt ceiling. The political map of America, rather than taking on a more purple hue, came to be rendered in deeper shades of red and blue.\n\nBeyond Capitol Hill, there was a whitelash to the first black president, seen in the rise of the Birther movement and in elements of the Tea Party movement. On the right, movement conservatives challenged establishment Republicans. On the left, identity politics displaced a more class-oriented politics as union influence waned. Both parties seemed to vacate the middle ground, relying instead on maximising support from their respective bases - African-Americans, evangelicals, the LGBT community, gun-owners - to win elections.\n\nThroughout his presidency, Barack Obama continued to talk about moving towards a more perfect union. But reality made a mockery of these lofty words. Sandy Hook. Orlando. The spate of police shootings. The gang-related mayhem in his adopted home of Chicago. The mess in Washington. The opioid crisis. The health indices even pointed to a sick nation, in which the death rate was rising. By 2016, life expectancy fell for the first time since 1993.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. US election: Relive the wild ride in 170 seconds\n\nThis was the backdrop against which the 2016 election was fought, one of the most dispiriting campaigns in US political history. A battle between the two most unpopular major party candidates since polling began, ended with a victor who had higher negative ratings than his opponent and in the end, three million fewer votes.\n\nJust as I had been on the National Mall to ring in the new millennium in 2000, I was there again on 20 January 2017, for Donald Trump's inaugural celebrations. They included some Reagan-era flourishes. At the eve of the inauguration concert, Lee Greenwood reprised his Reaganite anthem God Bless the USA, albeit with a frailer voice.\n\nThere were chants of \"USA, USA,\" a staple of the billionaire's campaign rallies - usually triggered by his riff on building a wall along the Mexican border. There was also an 80s vibe about the telegenic first family, who looked fresh from a set of a primetime soap, like Dynasty or Falcon Crest.\n\nThe spectacle brought to mind what Norman Mailer once said of Reagan, that the 40th president understood \"the President of the United States was the leading soap opera figure in the great American drama, and one had better possess star value\". Trump understood this, and it explained much of his success, even if his star power came from reality TV rather than Hollywood B-movies.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Michael Cockerell: The parallels between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump\n\nYet Trump is not Reagan. His politics of grievance, and the fist-shaking anger it fed off, struck a different tone than the Gipper's more positive pitch. It played on a shared sense of personal and national victimhood that would have been alien to Reagan.\n\nIn the space of just three decades, then, the United States had gone from \"It's morning in America again\" to something much darker: \"American Carnage\", the most memorable phrase from Trump's inaugural address.\n\nIt is tempting to see Trump's victory this time last year as an aberration. A historical mishap. The election all came down, after all, to just 77,744 votes in three key states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. But when you consider the boom-to-bust cycle of the period between 1984 and 2016, the Trump phenomenon doesn't look so accidental.\n\nIn many ways Trump's unexpected victory marked the culmination of a large number of trends in US politics, society and culture, many of which are rooted in that end-of-century period of American dominion.\n\nConsider how the fall of the Berlin Wall changed Washington, and how it ushered in an era of destructive and negative politics. In the post-war years, bipartisanship was routine, partly because of a shared determination to defeat communism. America's two-party system, adversarial though it was, benefited from the existence of a shared enemy. To pass laws, President Eisenhower regularly worked with Democratic chieftains such as House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson.\n\nReforms such as the 1958 National Defense Education Act, which improved science teaching in response to the launch of Sputnik, were framed precisely with defeating communism in mind.\n\nMuch of the impetus to pass landmark civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s came from the propaganda gift Jim Crow laws handed to the Soviet Union, especially as Moscow sought to expand its sphere of influence among newly decolonised African nations.\n\nPatriotic bipartisanship frayed and ripped after the end of the Cold War. It was in the 1990s the then-Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole started to use the filibuster more aggressively as a blocking device. Government shutdowns became politically weaponised.\n\nIn the 1994 congressional mid-terms, the Republican revolution brought a wave of fierce partisans to Washington, with an ideological aversion to government and thus little investment in making it work. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the first Republican to occupy the post in 40 years, personified the kind of abrasive partisan that came to the fore on Capitol Hill.\n\nGrudging bipartisanship was still possible, as Clinton and Gingrich demonstrated over welfare and criminal justice reform in the mid-1990s. But this period witnessed the acidification of DC politics. The gerrymandering of the House of Representatives encouraged strict partisanship, because the threat to most lawmakers came from within their own parties. Moderates or pragmatists who strayed from the partisan path were punished with a primary challenge from more doctrinaire rivals.\n\nBy the 112th Congress in 2011-2012, there was no Democrat in the House more conservative than a Republican and no Republican more liberal than a Democrat. This was new. In the post-war years, there had been considerable ideological overlap between liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. In this more polarised climate, bipartisanship became a dirty word. One leading conservative thinker and anti-tax campaigner, Grover Norquist, likened it to date rape.\n\nWould Congress have impeached Bill Clinton, ostensibly for having an affair with an intern, had America still been waging the Cold War? I sense not - it would have been seen, in those more serious times, as a frivolous distraction. When Congress moved towards impeaching Richard Nixon it did so because Watergate and its cover-up truly rose to the level of high crimes and misdemeanours.\n\nClinton's impeachment signalled the emergence of another new political trend: the delegitimisation of sitting presidents. And both parties played the game. The Democrats cast George W Bush as illegitimate because Al Gore won the popular vote and the Supreme Court controversially ruled in the Republican's favour during the Florida recount.\n\nThe Birther movement, led by Donald Trump, tried to delegitimise Barack Obama with specious and racist claims that he was not born in Hawaii. Most recently, the Democrats have cast aspersions on Trump's victory, partly because he lost the popular vote and partly because they allege he achieved a Kremlin-assisted victory.\n\nOver this period, the political discourse also became shriller. Rush Limbaugh, after getting his first radio show in 1984, rose to become the king of the right-wing shock jocks. Fox News was launched in 1996, the same year as MSNBC, which became its progressive counterpoint. The internet quickened the metabolism of the news industry and became the home for the kind of hateful commentary traditional news outlets rarely published.\n\nHome foreclosures skyrocketed at the end of the last decade\n\nMaybe the Jerry Springerisation of political news coverage can be traced to the moment the Drudge Report first published the name Monica Lewinsky, \"scooping\" Newsweek which hesitated before publishing such an explosive story. The success of the Drudge Report demonstrated how new outlets, which didn't share the same news values as the mainstream media, could establish brands literally overnight. This lesson was doubtless learnt by Andrew Breitbart, an editor at Drudge who founded the right-wing website Breitbart News.\n\nThe internet and social media, trumpeted initially as the ultimate tool for bringing people together, actually became a forum for cynicism, division and various outlandish conspiracy theories. America became more atomised.\n\nAs Robert D Putnam identified in his 1995 seminal essay, Bowling Alone, lower participation rates in organisations such as unions, parent teacher associations, the Boy Scouts and women's clubs had reduced person to person contacts and civil interaction.\n\nEconomically, this period saw the continuation of what's been called the \"Great Divergence\" which produced stark inequalities in wealth and income. Between 1979 and 2007, household income in the top 1% grew by 275% compared to just 18% growth in the bottom fifth of households.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Clinton-era was a period of financial deregulation, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the landmark reform passed during the depression, as well as legislation exempting credit default swaps from regulation.\n\nDisruptive technologies changed the workplace and upended the labour market. Automation, more so than globalisation, was the big jobs killer during this phase. Between 1990 and 2007, machines killed off up to 670,000 US manufacturing jobs alone.\n\nThe Rust Belt rebellion that propelled Trump to the White House has been described as a revolt against robots, not that his supporters viewed it that way. Encouraged by the billionaire, many blamed increased foreign competition and the influx of foreign workers.\n\nThe opioid crisis can be traced back to the early 1990s with the over-prescription of powerful painkillers. Between 1991 and 2011, painkiller prescriptions tripled.\n\nAmerica seemed intoxicated by its own post-Cold War success. Then came the hangover of the past 16 years.\n\nOver the past few months, I've followed that same westward flight path to California on a number of occasions, and found myself asking what would an impressionable 16-year-old make of America now. Would she share my adolescent sense of wonder, or would she peer out over the Pacific at twilight and wonder if the sun was setting on America itself?\n\nWhat would she make of the gun violence, brought into grotesque relief again by the Las Vegas massacre? Multiple shootings are not new, of course. Just days before I arrived in the States in 1984, a gunman had walked into a McDonalds in a suburb of San Diego and shot dead 21 people. It was then the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.\n\nWhat's different between now and then, however, is the regularity of these massacres, and how the repetitiveness of the killings has normalised them. What was striking about Las Vegas was the muted nationwide response to a gunman killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more.\n\nOnce-shocking massacres no longer arouse intense emotions for those unconnected to the killings. A month on, and it is almost as if it didn't happen.\n\nWhat would she make of race relations? Back in 1984, black athletes such as Carl Lewis, Edwin Moses and Michael Jordan were unifying figures as they helped reap that Olympic golden harvest. Now some of America's leading black athletes are vilified by their president for taking a knee to protest, a right enshrined in the First Amendment. These athletes now find themselves combatants in the country's endless culture wars.\n\nWhat would she make of the confluence of gun violence and race, evident in the spate of police shootings of unarmed black men and in the online auction where the weapon that killed Trayvon Martin fetched more than $100,000?\n\nCharlottesville, with its torch-wielding and hate-spewing neo-Nazis, was another low point. So, too, were the president's remarks afterwards, when he described the crowd as including some \"very fine people\" and implied a moral equivalence between white supremacists and anti-racist protesters.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What Trump said versus what I saw - by the BBC's Joel Gunter\n\nI was at the news conference in Trump Tower that day. An African-American cameraman next to me yelled out \"What message does this send to our children?\" The question went unanswered, but concerned parents ask it everyday about Donald Trump's behaviour.\n\nWhat about the monuments debate? The last civil war veteran died in 1959, but the conflict rumbles on in various guises and upon various proxy battlefields, as America continues to grapple with the original sin of slavery.\n\nBut what if she landed in the American heartland, rather than flying over it? Coastal separateness can sometimes be exaggerated, but it would be a very different experience than Los Angeles. In the Rust Belt, stretches of riverway are crowded again with coal barges, and local business leaders believe in the Trump Bump because they see it in their order books and balance sheets.\n\nIn the Coal Belt, there's been delight at the rescinding of Obama's Clean Power Plan. In the Bible Belt, evangelicals behold Trump as a fellow victim of sneering liberal elites. In the Sun Belt, close to the Mexican border, there's wide support for his crackdown on illegal immigration.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn many football stadiums, she would hear the chorus of boos from fans who agree with the president that the take-the-knee protests denigrate the flag. In bars, union branches and American Legion halls, you'll find many who applaud Donald Trump for \"telling like it is\", refusing to be bound by norms of presidential behaviour or political correctness.\n\nThere are pointers of national success elsewhere. The New York Stock Exchange is still reaching record highs. Business confidence is on the up. Unemployment is at a 16-year low. Of the 62 million people who voted for Trump, a large number continue to regard him more as a national saviour than a national embarrassment.\n\nIn many red states, \"Make America Great Again\" echoes just as strongly as it did 12 months ago. Trump has a historically low approval rating of just 35%, but it's 78% among Republicans.\n\nIn the international realm, it's plausible foreign adversaries fear the United States more under Trump than Obama, and foreign allies no longer take the country for granted. The so-called Islamic State has been driven from Raqqa. Twenty-five Nato allies have pledged to increase defence spending. Beijing, under pressure from Washington, appears to be exerting more economic leverage over Pyongyang.\n\nHowever, America First increasingly means America alone, most notably on the Paris climate change accord and the Iranian nuclear deal. Trump has also Twitter-shamed longstanding allies, such as Germany and Australia, and infuriated its closest friend Britain, with rash tweets about crime rates and terror attacks.\n\nHis labelling of foes such as Kim Jong Un as Little Rocket Man seems juvenile and self-diminishing. It hardly reaches the Reagan standard of \"tear down this wall\". Indeed, with North Korea, there's the widespread fear that Trump's tweet tirades could spark a nuclear confrontation.\n\nFew countries look anymore to Trump's America as a global exemplar, the \"city upon a hill\" Reagan spoke of in his farewell address to the nation. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel is routinely described as the leader of the free world, the moniker bestowed on the US president since the days of FDR.\n\nThe Economist, which trolls Trump almost weekly, has described Chinese President Xi Jinping as the most powerful man in the world. American exceptionalism is now commonly viewed as a negative construct. \"Only in America\" is a term of derision.\n\nRonald Reagan used to talk of the 11th commandment - No Republican should speak ill of another Republican. So it is worth noting that some of Trump's most caustic and thoughtful critics have come from within his own party. Senator Jeff Flake called him \"a danger to democracy\".\n\nBob Corker described the White House as an \"adult day care centre\". John McCain, a frequent critic, has railed against \"spurious, half-baked nationalism\". George W Bush sounded the alarm about bigotry being emboldened and of how politics \"seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication\", without specifically naming the current president.\n\nTrump's determination to be an anti-president has arguably had a vandalising effect on the office of the presidency, and to civil society more broadly. Artists have boycotted the White House reception held ahead of the annual Kennedy Center Awards, a red letter night in the country's cultural calendar.\n\nThe Golden State Warriors were disinvited from appearing at the White House after their championship win because of the take-the-knee protest. It's new for these kinds of commemorations to become contested.\n\nTrump has even politicised one of the commander-in-chief's most solemn acts, offering condolences to the families of the fallen. It led to an indecorous row with a war widow. Small wonder long time Washington watchers, on both the right and left, consider this the nastiest and most graceless presidency of the modern era.\n\nThe corollary is the historical stock of his predecessors is rising. When the five living former presidents appeared together in Texas earlier this month they were greeted like a group of superheroes donning their capes for one final mission. It speaks of these unreal times that George W Bush is spoken of fondly, even wistfully, by long-time liberal foes.\n\nTrump's claim he could be just as presidential as Abraham Lincoln is one of the more comical boasts to come from the White House. Then there are the falsehoods, the \"alternative facts\" and attacks on the \"fake media\" - his label for news organisations such as the New York Times and Washington Post, whose reporting has rarely been better. Recently he has even threatened to revoke the licences of networks whose news divisions have published critical stories. To some it has shades of 1984, but Orwell's version.\n\nAs for Morning in America, it has a new connotation - checking Trump's Twitter for pre-dawn tweets. The president commonly starts the day by lashing out at opponents or mercilessly mocking them. The new normal, it is often called. But it seems more apt to call it the new abnormal.\n\nThere is an extent to which America is politics-proof and president-proof. However bad things got in Washington, my sense has long been that the US would be rescued by its other vital centres of power. New York, its financial and cultural capital. San Francisco, its tech hub. Boston, its academic first city. Hollywood, its entertainment centre.\n\nAdrienne Mccallister, director of Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality business development at Google, speaks during a launch event\n\nBut Los Angeles is reeling from the Harvey Weinstein revelations, the Uber scandal has shone a harsh light on corporate ethics in the tech sector and the Wells Fargo affair has once again shown Wall Street in a dismal light.\n\nUS universities dominate global rankings, but its top colleges could hardly be described as engines of intergenerational mobility. A study by the New York Times of 38 colleges, including Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth, showed that students from the top 1% income bracket occupied more places than the students from the bottom 60%. Of this year's intake at Harvard, almost a third were the sons and daughters of alumni.\n\nAutomation will also continue to be a jobs killer. One study this year predicted that nearly 40% of US jobs will be lost to computers and machines over the next 15 years. Spending time in the Rust Belt valleys around Pittsburgh last year I was struck by how many taxi and Uber drivers used to work in the steel industry. Now America's one-time Steel City is a centre of excellence for robotics and where Uber is road testing its driverless cars.\n\nThere's still truth in the adage that America is always going to hell, but it never quite gets there. But how that is being tested. Presently, it feels more like a continent than a country, with shared land occupied by warring tribes. Not a failing state but not a united states.\n\nAs I've travelled this country, I struggle to identify where Americans will find common political ground. Not in the guns debate. Not in the abortion debate. Not in the healthcare debate. Not even in the singing of the national anthem at American football games. Even a cataclysmic event on the scale of 9/11 failed to unify the country.\n\nIf anything it sowed the seeds of further division, especially over immigration. Some Americans agree with Donald Trump that arrivals from mainly Muslim countries need to be blocked. Others see that as an American anathema.\n\nWhen I made my first journey to the US all those years ago I witnessed a coming together. Those Olympic celebrations were in some ways an orgy of nationalism, but there was also a commonality of spirit and purpose. From Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue performed on 84 grand pianos to a polyglot team of athletes bedecked with medals.\n\nFrom the pilot who flew around the LA Coliseum in a jet pack to the customers who left McDonald's with free Big Macs. There was reason for rejoicing. The present was golden. America felt like America again.", "Syrian government forces are trying to starve rebels in Eastern Ghouta into submission and those suffering include children who dream of a better life.", "Within 25 minutes, it was making its first steps.", "When fire engulfed Grenfell Tower nearly six months ago, with the loss of 71 lives, many were astonished that a London tower block could burn so quickly and with such devastating results. But one of the building's residents foresaw it all too clearly - he just couldn't find anyone to listen to his warnings.\n\nLast November, on a grey Sunday with the rain drizzling constantly outside his window, a man sat at his computer on the 16th floor of his West London tower block and began to write a blog.\n\n\"It is our conviction that a serious fire in a tower block... is the most likely reason that those who wield power at the KCTMO [Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation] will be found out and brought to justice!\"\n\nSix months later, on 14 June, London woke up to the news that a fire had blazed through Grenfell Tower on the Lancaster West estate in North Kensington, killing dozens of residents. By the following night the blog had received more than two million hits.\n\n\"You know when you just get the pen and just write?\" says the blog's author. \"That's what happened that day, and looking back it's like a premonition that's so awful. I would never have written that had I known what was going to happen.\"\n\nThe man behind the blog is Edward Daffarn, a 55-year-old social worker who had lived on the estate for 16 years. He was in his flat two-thirds of the way up Grenfell Tower when the fire took hold. Luckily, a neighbour called him in time and urged him to get out. He wrapped a wet towel around his head and ran into the smoke that had already filled the building. That night he lost his home, all his possessions, and the community he loved.\n\nEdward Daffarn lost everything in the fire\n\nDaffarn is understandably emotional when reflecting on the last few months, but more than that he is angry. Angry with the way he feels Grenfell residents were treated by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation - the people who were entrusted to maintain the estate and keep its residents safe. Angry with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council, which was meant to scrutinise the KCTMO. Angry with a society which didn't seem to care about people like him - people who live on housing estates - until it was too late.\n\n\"The reality is if you're on a housing estate it's indifference and neglect, two words that sum up everything about the way we were treated,\" he says. \"They weren't interested in providing housing services, keeping us safe, maintaining the estate. They were just interested in themselves.\"\n\nDaffarn and fellow Grenfell resident Francis O'Connor had been blogging on behalf of the Grenfell Action Group since 2012. They wrote about issues that concerned their tight-knit community - air pollution, the closure of the local public library, and their fears that corners were being cut during the refurbishment of the tower.\n\n\"We wanted to record for history how a community on a housing estate in the fifth richest country in the world could be ignored, neglected, treated with indifference. We never thought we could make change. We just wanted to record what was happening,\" he says.\n\nDaffarn and O'Connor shared a theory that Kensington and Chelsea - a London borough more widely known for its museums, designer shops and flower shows - actually wanted its council estates to go into decline, so that the residents would leave and expensive flats could be built in this sought-after location. For this they were described as fantasists.\n\n\"We weren't fantasists,\" he says, visibly hurt. \"We were trying to raise genuine concerns about how our community was being run down.\"\n\nThe natural consequence, he concluded, would be loss of life. Which is why on 20 November 2016, frustrated and desperate, Edward wrote the blog post KCTMO - Playing with fire!\n\n\"It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord.\"\n\nA few months earlier a fire had ripped through five floors of a tower block in Shepherd's Bush, just down the road. Edward was worried that if a fire broke out in his tower block residents wouldn't know what to do. They had been given no proper fire safety instructions from the KCTMO. There were no instructions on individual floors on how residents should act in the event of a fire, there was only a recent newsletter saying residents should remain in their flats - advice which in the case of the Shepherd's Bush fire would have led to fatalities.\n\nIn March 2017 the KCTMO installed fire safety instruction notices in the entrance hallway to Grenfell Tower and outside the lifts on every floor of the building, again urging residents to \"stay put\" unless the fire was \"in or affecting your flat\".\n\nIt wasn't the first time the Grenfell blog's authors had raised concerns about fire safety.\n\nBefore the blog began, when a school was built on the only green space the residents had, they wrote to the borough pointing out that access for fire and emergency vehicles had been compromised.\n\nLater they blogged about the blocking of a fire exit with mattresses during the refurbishment and the power surges in 2013 that manifested in flickering lights, computers and stereos blowing up, and entire rooms filling with smoke. These continued for three weeks, Daffarn says.\n\n\"We were tenants we weren't fire safety specialists but we were switched on enough to feel this was important and it was not being dealt with on our estate and that's why we were blogging. It wasn't for us to tell the council what they should be doing., We were just trying to raise an alarm.\"\n\nAn alarm that went unanswered. The November 2016 blog post represented the last moment at which something might have been done to avert the disaster which followed six months later. But why didn't anyone heed or investigate Daffarn's claims?\n\nThe other side of Kensington and Chelsea - a golden Ferrari parked outside Chanel on Sloane Street\n\nHidden within the story of the Grenfell blog is another story of the decline of local media. There simply was no local press on the ground in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea scrutinising the authorities and helping to amplify the voice of people like Edward Daffarn.\n\nThe last time he had the attention of a local journalist was in 2014 when Camilla Horrox, the reporter for the Kensington and Chelsea Chronicle ran front page stories about Grenfell residents' concerns regarding the possible presence of asbestos on the site of the new school and about the power surges.\n\nShe had met Daffarn several times, and had been concerned about KCTMO's dealings with the residents of the properties it managed.\n\nBut when the newspaper was closed down later that year Horrox was made redundant and all her Grenfell articles disappeared from the web. The Kensington and Chelsea Chronicle was incorporated into a website that reports on 29 west London districts. Horrox's replacement was expected to report on three boroughs - Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham - while based in Surrey, an hour's drive away.\n\nSome residents of the borough might have been under the mistaken impression that they did have a local newspaper. In 2015 a free paper, The Kensington and Chelsea News, was established to fill the gap left by the closing of the Chronicle. But when I tracked down its reporter he explained that he was the sole reporter working on the paper, and on two other local newspapers - his salary was £500 a week and he did almost all his reporting from home in Dorset, 150 miles away. He made it to the borough only twice in two-and-a-half years, and the one story he ever published about Grenfell was from a council press release about the installation of the new cladding.\n\nLocal News: What Are We Missing? was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Listen again on iPlayer.\n\nThough he always searched for a \"good front page splash\" for each of the three editions, he also made sure to find two pages of royal stories and two pages of entertainment stories.\n\nEdward Daffarn didn't take his concerns to the media in November 2016 because he no longer thought anyone would listen. But the blog was out there for everyone to see, he points out, if only they had been looking.\n\n\"We'd been blogging for three or four years and you go back over that time there's a lot of abusive behaviour evidenced forensically about what was happening to our community, but it wasn't sexy so it never got picked up.\"\n\nFor Edward, what was going on at Grenfell wasn't just a local story, but a national one. A story about invisible people in a society that cared more about celebrity and wealth than its most vulnerable residents.\n\nClose to tears, he admonishes the nation's journalists.\n\n\"If you look back now our whole community of North Kensington, the policy that the local authority was taking every public space and privatising it, that that could be missed by the BBC, by Channel Four, by these wider news agencies... The question should be for you, why did you miss it?\n\n\"Why aren't our lives important enough for you?\"\n\nResponding to Edward Daffarn's allegations, a spokesman for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council said:\n\n\"The Tenant Management Organisation was responsible for managing and maintaining Grenfell Tower. Our residents deserve answers about what went wrong and the public inquiry will help provide these.\n\n\"We're changing our Council and the way we work with our communities, ensuring residents are at the heart of everything we do. We will provide all households from Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk with the best offer of new housing possible - and we are listening to what they want and moving at their pace.\"\n\nA spokesman for the Tenant Management Organisation declined to respond to specific allegations because of the public inquiry and police investigation into the tragic events at Grenfell Tower.\n\nHe added: \"As a resident-led organisation we want to fully understand what happened at Grenfell Tower. We recognise our responsibility to ensure that the public inquiry and police investigation processes are not hampered or undermined in any way; to that end we are co-operating fully with them and are determined to continue to help with these processes.\"\n\nJoin the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Children in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta are among those suffering\n\nThe UN's humanitarian co-ordinator for Syria has rebuked Russia and Iran for not doing more to give aid agencies access to a besieged rebel enclave.\n\nJan Egeland told the BBC the failure to persuade the Syrian government, their ally, to allow desperately ill children to be evacuated from the Eastern Ghouta showed \"complete impotence\".\n\nAnother two civilians died this week while waiting for permission to leave.\n\nSome 400,000 people are trapped in the area, which is just outside Damascus.\n\nDozens of civilians are also reported to have been killed in air and artillery attacks by government forces in the past month, though a ceasefire is now in place.\n\nFood shortages have led to the acute malnutrition rate among children in the Eastern Ghouta rising to 11.9% - five or six times what was reported in January, and the highest so far recorded in the country since the civil war began in 2011.\n\nLimited electricity, fuel, safe drinking-water and basic sanitation services are meanwhile increasing the risk of outbreaks of diarrheal diseases.\n\nThe BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says Mr Egeland was visibly angry when discussing the inability of the UN and its partners to evacuate people with life-threatening medical conditions from an area only 30 minutes' drive from Damascus.\n\nHe listed examples of children who he said would die unless they got medical help - Noor, two months old, with a rare form of cancer; and Mohammed, 45 days old, with kidney failure.\n\n\"We made the lists of patients. We submitted the first ones in May. We resubmitted in September, October, and in November we got Russians and Iranians and Chinese and Americans and others to say they would work on this. We have collectively failed. It's not good,\" Mr Egeland said.\n\nMr Egeland, who is secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said he would press the cases of the 494 men, women and children in urgent need of medical evacuation in meetings with Russian, Iranian and US officials in Geneva.\n\nDozens of people have reportedly been killed by government bombardment in recent weeks\n\n\"My message to them is the following: if you're spending billions and billions of roubles, you have Iranian resources, and you have thousands of soldiers on the ground, and you're flying airplanes in the air, you have to be able to deliver this.\"\n\n\"If not, in my view, [you] show complete impotence, and you also show a lack of interest in humanitarian law and in saving civilian life.\"\n\nJoint UN and Syrian Red Crescent aid convoys have only been able to deliver enough food and medical supplies for 68,000 of the 400,000 civilians trapped in the Eastern Ghouta over the past two months.\n\nThat is despite the area, which has been besieged since 2013, being designated as a \"de-escalation zone\" by Russia, Iran and Turkey, which supports the opposition.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Karl Turner MP: \"This is a... decent, honest, hard-working Hull woman, who was simply naive\"\n\nA British woman has been convicted of smuggling 300 painkiller tablets into Egypt and jailed for three years.\n\nLaura Plummer, 33, was arrested after she was found with the Tramadol tablets in her suitcase, on 9 October.\n\nPlummer, from Hull, claimed the painkiller, legal on prescription in the UK but banned in Egypt, was to treat her Egyptian partner's back pain.\n\nHer family said her lawyers had lodged an appeal. Plummer previously said she had \"no idea\" the tablets were illegal.\n\nPlummer's mother Roberta Synclair, who was in court for the hearing, told the BBC: \"I'm still in shock after today's verdict. It's difficult and I can't believe it after waiting for two months.\"\n\nShe said her daughter has now been moved to another police station ahead of her move to prison.\n\nLaura Plummer said the prescription pills were for her partner Omar Caboo\n\nThe family has previously said Plummer had no idea that what she was doing was illegal and was just \"daft\".\n\nThey said she did not try to hide the medicine, which she had been given by a friend, and thought it was a joke when she was taken aside by officials.\n\nPlummer was detained on arriving at the Red Sea resort of Hurghada for a holiday with her partner, Omar Caboo.\n\nHer sister Rachel Plummer said: \"My mum's obviously devastated. She's out there by herself.\"\n\nIt is not clear when an appeal against her sentence might be heard.\n\nShe said: \"We're just hoping. Even half of that would be better. Anything less than three years. She doesn't deserve that.\"\n\nTramadol is a strong painkiller used to treat moderate to severe pain.\n\nIt is a class C drug and is only available in the UK with a prescription from a doctor or other qualified healthcare professional.\n\nAs a class C drug, it is illegal for anyone else to supply Tramadol, to have it or to give it away, even to friends.\n\nHer other sister Jayne Synclair said Plummer had only been trying to help her partner.\n\n\"She was taking those tablets to help her man who had been in an accident,\" she said.\n\n\"He did not even know she was bringing them. She was doing it to be kind. How can you be sentenced to three years just for being kind?\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jayne Sinclair, sister: \"She's on the verge of a mental breakdown\"\n\nReacting to news of the sentence, Karl Turner, MP for Hull East, said the court's decision was \"devastating\" for Plummer and her family.\n\nHe said: \"Laura, most of all, will be absolutely devastated. She's not been well lately, she's sleep deprived and she's been very anxious\n\n\"I think it's a damning indictment about good sense and fair play.\"\n\nMr Turner accepted Plummer had been naive but was \"decent, honest and hard-working\".\n\n\"[She was] going to visit her partner in Egypt, taking what she thought was a painkiller and no more than that,\" he said.\n\n\"It clearly is a banned substance and whilst we must respect the law of other countries there must be good sense and fair play as well.\"\n\nA Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said: \"We will continue to provide assistance to Laura and her family following the court ruling in Egypt, and our embassy is in regular contact with the Egyptian authorities.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester City manager Pep Guardiola said it is \"difficult to play\" against ultra-defensive teams after his side moved 15 points clear at the top of the Premier League with a win at Newcastle.\n\nRaheem Sterling scored the only goal in a dominant display by the visitors to St James' Park in which they clocked up 78% of possession and 21 shots to Newcastle's six.\n\n\"We did absolutely everything but it is difficult to play when the other team doesn't want to play,\" said Guardiola.\n\n\"In the last minutes we played in their rhythm and then it was not easy because it is not over at 1-0 - we created enough chances to win 2-0, 3-0, 4-0.\n\n\"As a manager I have to adapt. We have played teams who high press, low press, attack us. Any manager and team can play how they want. And you have to find a way to beat them.\"\n\nEngland winger Sterling poked home from Kevin de Bruyne's lobbed pass after Sergio Aguero had twice hit the woodwork in the opening half hour.\n\nRolando Aarons saw a shot cleared off the line by Nicolas Otamendi in a rare Newcastle raid forward before the break, but City should have been well clear after De Bruyne thumped the post and then side-footed wide in the second half.\n\nThe hosts showed more ambition late on and Christian Atsu teed up fellow substitute Dwight Gayle to head wide in the final five minutes.\n• None Reaction from St James' Park as leaders City march on\n\nCity were not to be denied an 18th successive league victory however as they extended an English top-flight record.\n\nThe Magpies' fifth successive home defeat leaves them a point off the relegation zone.\n\nWith the very first kick of the match, Jonjo Shelvey thumped a shot at goal which was easily gathered by Ederson. But for the next 30 minutes Newcastle did not get close to another.\n\nInstead the hosts sat so deep they were practically subterranean with lone striker Joselu playing 15 yards inside his own half.\n\nCity, brimming with confidence and well used to such tactics, sniffed out space and carved out chances regardless.\n\nBetween being denied by the frame, Aguero brought a superb one-handed stop from Newcastle goalkeeper Rob Elliot.\n\nWhen Vincent Kompany pulled up injured, Pep Guardiola felt confident enough to replace the defender with striker Gabriel Jesus.\n\nThe home fans were reduced to cheering throw-ins as their side's possession statistic stayed stubbornly south of 20%.\n\nTo hold out would have been one of the great rearguard actions. De Bruyne ensured it wasn't to be. Allowed space and time 40 yards from goal, the Belgian scooped a sublime pass onto Sterling's instep for his team-mate's 13th Premier League goal of the season.\n\nAfter surviving a raft of City chances, Newcastle gave the leaders some concerns in the final 15 minutes.\n\nManager Rafael Benitez brought on Gayle and Atsu, urged his side to press higher and generally threw caution to the wind. A home point would have been a heist of the highest order.\n\nBenitez is the most streetwise of tacticians but the Spaniard is hamstrung by a squad that lacks the quality that comes with serious, sustained investment.\n\nThe prospect of relegation hangs over the takeover talks between owner Mike Ashley and British businesswoman Amanda Staveley that could be the key to a new era.\n\nClub legend Alan Shearer, watching for BBC Radio 5 live, described his former team as \"a Championship side playing in the Premier League\".\n\nEncounters against all-conquering City are unlikely to decide Newcastle's fate, but their next three league matches - against Brighton, Stoke and Swansea - will provide a better indication of which side of the relegation divide they will end up in May.\n\nAnother win, another milestone for Manchester City.\n\nThis was their 11th consecutive away victory, matching the record for the English top flight set by Chelsea between April and December 2008.\n\nNext on the horizon is one of their manager's own.\n\nBeating Crystal Palace away on Sunday would equal the 19 successive wins that Bayern Munich strung together in the 2013-14 season under Guardiola. No team in the English, Italian, German, Spanish or French top flights have ever managed more than that.\n\n'We have to bring someone in' - what the managers said\n\nNewcastle boss Rafael Benitez: \"We had some chances at the end, and we expected to have to defend and play counter-attack. We needed to stay compact and defend well to play like that.\n\n\"In the last 20 minutes we did what was expected, being on top of them and expecting to press high. I am really pleased with the team in terms of organisation, but we discussed we could be better on the ball in the first half.\n\n\"We have to bring someone in to help the team but still have a lot of confidence in the team.\"\n\nManchester City boss Pep Guardiola: \"Any manager can decide what he wants - I prefer to try to play but I respect a lot what opponents do and we have to try to discover how to attack against them.\n\n\"Always you have to expect this kind of situation - and it is not always easy to maintain that level.\n\n\"Raheem Sterling is scoring a lot and is playing good - so we are happy with that.\"\n\nNewcastle's low five at home - the stats\n• None Newcastle have lost five consecutive home league matches for the first time since October 1953.\n• None Nicolas Otamendi completed 122 passes for Man City in this match - seven more than all the outfield players of Newcastle managed combined (115).\n• None Rafael Benitez has now lost six of his past 10 home Premier League matches - he had lost six of his previous 110 before this run; 38% of Benitez's total home Premier League defeats have come this season, six of 16.\n• None Since his Premier League debut for Manchester City, Kevin de Bruyne has 36 assists - four more than any other player.\n• None In all competitions this season, only Harry Kane (24) has scored more goals than Raheem Sterling (17) among English Premier League players.\n• None The Magpies have collected 18 points from their 20 Premier League matches this season - just one more than they managed after 20 games in the 2015-16 season, when they were relegated.\n\nNewcastle play Brighton at home at 15:00 GMT on Saturday, with Manchester City travelling to Crystal Palace on New Year's Eve at 12:00.\n• None Attempt missed. Jonjo Shelvey (Newcastle United) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the left. Assisted by Jamaal Lascelles.\n• None Attempt missed. Dwight Gayle (Newcastle United) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Christian Atsu with a cross.\n• None Offside, Manchester City. Nicolás Otamendi tries a through ball, but Gabriel Jesus is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Ilkay Gündogan (Manchester City) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Gabriel Jesus.\n• None Offside, Newcastle United. Paul Dummett tries a through ball, but Christian Atsu is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Dwight Gayle (Newcastle United) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Jonjo Shelvey.\n• None Offside, Newcastle United. Jacob Murphy tries a through ball, but DeAndre Yedlin is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Elon Musk tweeted about Tesla's future plans over a six hour period\n\nTesla's chief has pledged to make a pick-up truck as part of future plans for the electric vehicle-maker.\n\nElon Musk made the promise on Twitter after asking his followers for suggestions about how the firm could improve.\n\nHe said the open-backed truck would follow the Model Y - a yet-to-be detailed car, which is expected to be based on its Model 3 sedan.\n\nThat has led some to question whether the loss-making company can meet its existing commitments - which also include a forthcoming articulated lorry and sports car.\n\nMr Musk also made several promises about new features Tesla intends to add to its existing vehicles, including intelligent windscreen wipers.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Elon Musk This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPick-up trucks are particularly popular in the US, with sales by the three leading manufacturers currently totalling about $90bn (£67bn) a year, according to data from Morningstar Equity Research.\n\nDemand for the trucks has also risen over the past 12 months, despite a drop for other types of \"light vehicle\".\n\nMr Musk had previously hinted at his plans when an image showing an obscured pick-up was briefly shown being carried on the back of its Semi lorry at a press conference in November.\n\nAn artist's drawing of a pick-up truck was displayed at the unveiling of the Tesla Semi\n\nIn his tweets, Mr Musk said the vehicle would likely be \"slightly bigger\" than Ford's bestselling F-150 pick-up to allow it to contain an unspecified \"game-changing\" feature.\n\n\"[I] have had the core design/engineering elements in my mind for almost five years,\" he added.\n\nIn addition, the entrepreneur also appeared to make several commitments to requested updates for its current vehicle range via a series of brief replies, including:\n\nIn November, the firm declared its biggest quarterly loss to date - $619m - and admitted that it was months behind schedule with Model 3 deliveries.\n\nMr Musk said that Tesla's pick-up truck was likely to be larger than Ford's F-150\n\nIt said that problems with battery assembly and steel welding were among reasons for production bottlenecks.\n\nNews agency Bloomberg subsequently warned that if the firm did not slow down its losses it would exhaust its cash reserves in 2018 unless it raised fresh funds.\n\n\"There are a growing number of people who are looking to Tesla to fulfil on its existing promises rather than make more ones,\" Paul Newton, an analyst at the IHS Automotive consultancy, told the BBC.\n\n\"It has a large number of back orders for the Model 3, and only a handful of painstakingly hand-built cars have been delivered.\n\n\"There's bound to be growing scepticism if waiting lists and waiting times grow longer while yet another new model is unveiled.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Celtic\n\nCeltic have confirmed winger Jonny Hayes suffered a broken leg in a tackle with Josh Meekings against Dundee.\n\nRepublic of Ireland international Hayes, 30, and Dundee defender Meekings, 25, both went off after coming together in a challenge.\n\nMeekings was able to hobble off but was on crutches after the game.\n\nCeltic manager Brendan Rodgers was hopeful after the game that Hayes had only suffered bruising to this shin, but tests confirmed a broken leg.\n\n\"Celtic Football Club has to report that, regrettably, Jonny Hayes suffered a broken leg during the game against Dundee at Dens Park,\" the club said in a statement.\n\n\"Jonny had surgery today and will now be out for some time as he begins the long road back to full fitness. He will make a full recovery but he's unlikely to feature again this season.\n\n\"He will receive the best care and attention throughout the months ahead, while the thoughts and best wishes of everyone at Celtic and, indeed, the whole Celtic family, are with Jonny. \"\n\nDundee boss Neil McCann reported that Meekings \"is on a set of crutches, so that is never a good sign, but hopefully it is only precautionary\".\n\n\"Josh took a really sore one on the top of his foot,\" McCann explained. \"I am hoping Jonny is OK as well. It was just one of those challenges - full steam ahead from both players.\n\n\"I felt the game should have been stopped immediately, with the noise of it, and Jonny's reaction suggested it was a bad one. But, as long as both players are OK, I won't gripe about that.\"\n\nMcCann admitted there were few positives his side could take from the game.\n\n\"It was disappointing in terms of what we have been doing with the players,\" he explained. \"We were a bit too tentative and too often took the easy option - going sideways when we needed a bit more cutting edge.\n\n\"We started to trust our game a bit after the first goal but then we gave away a really sloppy second goal.\n\n\"There was no great belief that we could get back into it in the second half.\"\n\nRodgers, meanwhile, reflected on an \"excellent performance\" that featured goals by James Forrest and Leigh Griffiths.\n\n\"It was about the hunger to win the game and I think that was pretty clear how we started the game,\" he said.\n\n\"We scored a very good goal. Great move. Great passing. Our possession was really good and we opened them up in numbers and finished off really well.\n\n\"And the second one was a great demonstration of that hunger.\"\n\nIt was the first time since September that Celtic had won three games in a row, and they will aim to extend that in their last match before a three-week winter break - an Old Firm clash with Rangers on Saturday, 30 December.\n\n\"I think we're looking pretty good,\" Rodgers added. \"I think we're looking fit and strong and focused, especially at this time of year.\n\n\"It was an important three points for us today. We'll recover now and get ready for what will be another really good game at the weekend.\"", "The supermarket in St Petersburg was quickly evacuated by police and emergency services\n\nAt least 10 people have been injured in an explosion at a supermarket in the Russian city of St Petersburg.\n\nOne person was said to be in serious condition after the detonation of an improvised explosive device (IED).\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin described the blast, at the Perekrestok supermarket chain late on Wednesday, as a terrorist act.\n\nNo group has said it carried out the attack, which officials say produced a blast equivalent to 200g (7oz) of TNT.\n\nRussia's investigative committee said the home-made device was packed with lethal components.\n\nThe blast took place in an area of the shop that housed lockers for storing bags.\n\nInvestigators said they were treating the incident as an attempted murder\n\nThe property was quickly evacuated and there were no reports of a fire, but images circulating on social media in Russia showed extensive damage in an area of the store close to the tills.\n\nMr Putin commented on the blast at a military awards ceremony on Thursday. Officials had earlier suggested the attack was being treated as attempted murder.\n\nEarlier this month, the Russian president and his US counterpart Donald Trump spoke by phone after information provided by the CIA helped Russian security services foil an attack on St Petersburg's Kazan cathedral.\n\nAt the time, Russia's Interfax news agency reported that a group had been planning attacks at a number of sites. Several people were reportedly detained.\n\nIn April, an explosion on the St Petersburg metro system killed at least 13 people and injured more than 50 others.", "Arthur Collins admitted one charge of possession of a prohibited item while in prison\n\nA man jailed for throwing acid across a packed nightclub has pleaded guilty to hiding a mobile phone inside a crutch while in prison.\n\nArthur Collins, 25, also hid two Sim cards and two USB sticks in the medical aid while on remand at HMP Thameside.\n\nHe was being held there prior to his trial over the acid attack at a London nightclub, which injured 22 people.\n\nCollins, the ex-boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne McCann, appeared via video link at Bromley Magistrates' Court.\n\nHe admitted one charge of possession of a prohibited item while in prison and will be sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court at a later date.\n\nThe court heard Collins obtained the phone to make private calls to Miss McCann.\n\nAt the time Miss McCann was heavily pregnant with their daughter, who was born in November.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV of the acid attack in London club\n\nCollins' lawyer, Audrey Mogan, told the court: \"He did not have the phone for any sinister purpose.\"\n\nShe said Collins wanted to use the mobile rather than a legitimate phone he had access to in his cell which records calls.\n\nCollins and Miss McCann - who have since split - were being \"hounded by the media\" and feared recorded calls would be leaked, Ms Morgan said.\n\nThe court heard evidence was later found on the phone of calls and messages to family and friends.\n\nThe acid attack happened in Mangle E8 in Dalston in April\n\nCollins threw acid at revellers in Mangle E8 in Dalston on 17 April and was sentenced for the attack on 19 December.\n\nHe was being held at HMP Thameside prior his trial over the acid attack.\n\nThe court heard the phone, Sim cards and USB sticks were found on 10 September when a prison officer removed the rubber stopper from the bottom of the crutch in his private shower during a cell search.\n\nProsecutor Samantha Mitchell said: \"He had been using the crutch because of an ankle injury.\"\n\nCollins was injured trying to evade police while on the run for the acid attack, which left 16 people with chemical burns and temporarily blinded three people, one of whom still suffers from blurred vision in one eye.\n\nHe told his trial at Wood Green Crown Court he did not know the bottle contained acid and said he believed it to contain a liquid date rape drug which he had snatched from two men after overhearing them planning to spike a girl's drink.\n\nBut the jury convicted him of five counts of grievous bodily harm with intent and nine counts of actual bodily harm in November.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Critically ill children are evacuated from the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, outside Damascus\n\nMedical evacuations are taking place from a rebel-held area on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus.\n\nFour critically-ill patients were taken out of the Eastern Ghouta overnight by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Syrian Arab Red Crescent.\n\nAnother 25 should be evacuated in the coming days as part of a deal agreed by the government and rebels, though hundreds more are in need of treatment.\n\nSome 400,000 residents have been under siege by government forces since 2013.\n\nThe Eastern Ghouta has been designated a \"de-escalation zone\" by Russia and Iran, the government's main allies, along with Turkey, which backs the opposition.\n\nBut hostilities intensified six weeks ago, when the Syrian military stepped up air and artillery attacks on the enclave in response to a rebel offensive, reportedly killing dozens of civilians.\n\nThere are also severe shortages of food, fuel and medicines, and the cold winter weather is threatening to worsen the hardship.\n\nThe Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) announced early on Wednesday that medics had started to transfer patients from the Eastern Ghouta \"after long negotiations\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Syrian Red Crescent This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIt gave no further details, but the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) later confirmed that four people with critical medical conditions had been taken with their families to hospitals in Damascus, and that it hoped that a total of 29 people would be evacuated \"over the coming few days\".\n\n\"The operation is clearly a positive step that will give some respite to the people in Eastern Ghouta, especially those who are in dire need of life-saving medical treatment,\" spokeswoman Anastasia Isyuk told the BBC.\n\n\"We hope this medical evacuation will only be the beginning of more to come, as there many more people in need. It is also vital for humanitarian organisations to reach people in Eastern Ghouta with aid on a regular basis and without conditions.\"\n\nThe Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), a medical relief organisation that supports hospitals in rebel-held Syria, said the 29 patients included 18 children and four women suffering from heart disease, cancer, kidney failure, and blood diseases. The seven other patients require advanced surgery.\n\nSARC official Ahmed al-Saour told AFP news agency that the first four patients to be evacuated were \"a girl with haemophilia, a child with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a child suffering from leukaemia, and a man in need of a kidney transplant\".\n\nThe main rebel group in the Eastern Ghouta, Jaysh al-Islam, meanwhile said on Twitter that the government had agreed to the evacuations in exchange for the release of 29 of its prisoners.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Mohamad Katoub This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLast week, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator for Syria, Jan Egeland, said 494 people were on the priority list for medical evacuations submitted in November.\n\n\"That number is going down, not because we are evacuating people but because they are dying,\" he said. \"We have tried now every single week for many months to get medical evacuations out, and food and other supplies in.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Children in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta are among those suffering\n\nMr Egeland said the UN had been waiting for the Syrian government to provide \"facilitation letters\" to allow ambulances and aid convoys into the Eastern Ghouta.\n\nSAMS said the area's medical infrastructure had been \"decimated\" by the government's siege and bombardment, and that only 107 doctors remained there to provide care for an estimated 130,000 children and 270,000 adults while facing a severe shortage of medical supplies.\n\nRecently, the UN reported that the rate of malnutrition in children under the age of five had increased to 11.9% - five or six times what was reported in January, and the highest so far recorded in the country since the civil war began in 2011.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nFourth Ashes Test, Melbourne Cricket Ground (day two of five)\n\nAlastair Cook made his first Ashes century for almost seven years to lead England's resurgence on day two of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.\n\nThe 33-year-old, in his 151st Test, reached his hundred in the final over of the day to take the tourists to 192-2, a deficit of 135 runs.\n\nThat came after Stuart Broad claimed 4-51 as the home side were bowled out for 327.\n\nAustralia, who have already secured the Ashes, looked set to push on from an overnight 244-3, with Steve Smith (76) and Shaun Marsh (61) extending their partnership past 100.\n\nBut when captain Smith became Tom Curran's first Test wicket, it began a slide that saw the hosts lose their last seven wickets for 67 runs.\n\nOn a slow surface, Cook blunted an Australia attack already without the injured Mitchell Starc and further weakened by a stomach upset suffered by Pat Cummins.\n\nThe left-hander passed 50 for the first time in six Tests, then had the good fortune of being dropped by Smith on 66.\n\nWhen England won the Ashes down under in 2010-11, Cook piled on 766 runs but has not reached three figures against Australia since the final Test of that series.\n\nHere, he played with increasing freedom as a crowd of 67,882 gradually emptied to leave the Barmy Army singing the former captain's name.\n\nCook shared an unbroken stand of 112 with successor Joe Root, who is 49 not out.\n\nOn day three, it will be the goal of the third-wicket pair, and the rest of England's batting, to earn a lead large enough to negate batting last on a surface on which the bounce could get lower.\n• None How day two unfolded at the MCG\n\nThe failure of England's senior players on this tour has been a key factor in relinquishing the urn.\n\nBefore this Test, Broad had taken only five wickets and Cook had mustered 83 runs in six innings.\n\nIndeed, ex-captain Michael Vaughan had questioned Broad's place in the side, while former spinner Graeme Swann doubted the \"longevity\" left in Cook's international career.\n\nBroad, though, responded by picking up his best figures for a year and Cook showed his trademark patience, composure and judgement to sap Australia's bowlers in temperatures in the mid-30s.\n\nThe result is a turnaround in a fourth Test where Australia were 102-0 on the first day and later, at the close, in a position from which they could have batted England out of the contest.\n\nEven if they still have plenty of work to do, England have a real opportunity to end an eight-match losing streak in Australia and escape the humiliation of another whitewash.\n\nEngland have been guilty of squandering strong positions throughout the series and they lost two wickets in very different circumstances.\n\nOpener Mark Stoneman made 15 before offering a leading edge to off-spinner Nathan Lyon, who took a wonderful, one-handed return catch above his right shoulder.\n\nAnd James Vince was lbw to Josh Hazlewood in the second over after tea for 17, with replays showing that he would have been reprieved by an inside edge had he asked for a review.\n\nCook, however, stood firm at the other end, moving his feet with certainty and showing an intent to score.\n\nThe left-hander played wonderfully straight, but also punished anything short to accumulate square on both sides of the wicket.\n\nCook's moment of fortune arrived when wicketkeeper Paine came up to the stumps to Mitchell Marsh and, from the next delivery, he edged to slip. Smith tumbled and made two grabs for the ball before it hit the turf.\n\nRoot, meanwhile, busily earned his runs off the pads and behind square on the off side.\n\nOn 93 as the final over the day began, Cook was greeted by Smith's part-time leg-spin. He bunted a full-toss for four, scampered two more, then pulled a century-clinching boundary.\n\nEarlier, England got their rewards in the field with the help of some good fortune and poor Australian batting.\n\nThe lack of pace in the pitch was highlighted by three players chopping the ball on to their own stumps, the first of which was Smith.\n\nThe skipper, 65 not out overnight, began in ominous touch and looked nailed on for a fourth successive century in Boxing Day Tests.\n\nBut, to Curran's second delivery of the day, he tried to force an innocuous short ball through the off side and disturbed his own stumps to be dismissed in Melbourne for the first time since 2014.\n\nBroad bowled with good pace on a full length and was rewarded when Shaun Marsh, who passed 50 for the third time in the series, was given out lbw on review.\n\nAustralia's tail has so often frustrated England, but after Tim Paine's breezy 24 was ended with a play-on off James Anderson, the hosts lost their last three wickets for only two runs.\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan: \"It has been a tough tour for the senior pros but for the first time the experienced batsmen have been at the crease for a few hours.\n\n\"Throughout the whole day Cook had a mindset of challenging the bowler. The pitch played beautifully in the afternoon session.\n\n\"England are in a fantastic position and have won day two convincingly. Can they win day three?\n\n\"From what I have seen from this Australia attack and the pitch, England should have plenty to see the day out and get in front but we can't get ahead of ourselves with this England side.\"\n\nEx-England batsman Ed Smith: \"The sadness is this shows Australia's weakness. It shows if England had performed earlier they could have been beaten.\"\n\nAustralia's Josh Hazlewood, speaking to ABC: \"They are a little on top. We were a little inconsistent but it is a very good wicket. We could have bowled straighter and dried the scoring up.\n\n\"We should have pushed on to 400-plus but we lost wickets early. We definitely left runs out there.\"\n\nAsked if Australia were complacent with the bat, he said: \"You could say that. Lazy is another way. A few of the boys know that they need to be better.\"", "PC Dave Fields had served with South Yorkshire Police for 12 years\n\nA police officer and a 61-year-old woman who died in a crash on Christmas Day have been named.\n\nPC Dave Fields was responding to an incident when the marked BMW 3 Series he was driving was in collision with a Citroen C3 on the A57 in Sheffield.\n\nThe woman, who was a passenger in the Citroen, has been named as Lorraine Stephenson.\n\nIn a tribute issued by South Yorkshire Police, PC Field's family said they were \"heartbroken\" and \"devastated\".\n\n\"Dave was a loving husband and dad-of-two, who was a dedicated officer committed to his job,\" his family said.\n\n\"We are heartbroken by our loss and ask that our privacy please be respected at this devastating time.\"\n\nLorraine Stephenson also suffered fatal injuries in the collision\n\nA 63-year-old man who was driving the Citroen was taken to hospital where he remains in a serious condition.\n\nAssistant Chief Constable David Hartley said PC Fields had been with the force 12 years and was \"a passionate, professional and universally-liked officer\".\n\n\"His colleagues, and everyone across the force, are devastated by what has happened,\" he said.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by SouthYorkshirePolice This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSouth Yorkshire's Police and Crime Commissioner Alan Billings said he was \"deeply shocked\" at the news.\n\n\"While an incident like this is difficult at any time of year, it is particularly sad at Christmas,\" he added.\n\n\"I hold the families of PC Dave Fields and Lorraine Stephenson, their relatives, friends and colleagues in my prayers at this most difficult time.\"\n\nSouth Yorkshire Police said it was flying its flag \"at half-mast to mark the tragic death of PC Dave Fields\"\n\nPC Fields was also a football referee in his local area.\n\nIn a tribute on Facebook, the Sheffield Referees Association paid tribute to the officer.\n\n\"He was one of the good guys. Giving up his time to help anyone,\" it said.\n\nA Just Giving page has been set up to help raise funds for the families affected by the fatal crash.\n\nThe force said the collision had been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Police have dealt with a disturbance at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London.\n\nAn eyewitness told the BBC the incident happened during the Boxing Day sales, when two groups of teenagers began \"pushing and shouting\".\n\nNearby shops closed their shutters, while shoppers gathered above the scene to watch events unfold.\n\nThe Met Police said officers said they attended at around 14:30GMT, and \"groups causing the disorder were dispersed\".\n\nIn a statement on Twitter, Westfield Stratford said the \"minor disturbance\" had been resolved.", "Police were called to Oxford Street on Boxing Day\n\nA woman was injured when shoppers fled from London's Oxford Street after false reports of shots being fired.\n\nThe Metropolitan Police were called to the scene at 16:50 GMT and cordoned off an area around a smashed glass window at House of Fraser.\n\nThe police said that a woman received \"non-life threatening injuries\" as a result of a fall.\n\nThey added there was \"nothing to indicate\" that shots had been fired or a crime committed.\n\nOfficers cordoned off an area around a smashed glass window at House of Fraser\n\nThe BBC's James Waterhouse, who is at the scene, said two witnesses told him they saw three women run into the window, knocking displays over as they tried to leave.\n\nHe said a police officer told him \"it was an accident\" and said that \"there was a panic and someone tried to get out on the inside\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by James Waterhouse This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOne shopper spoke of \"craziness in House of Fraser\" on Twitter, adding that she had \"never been in a stampede before\", while another one posted there was a \"stampede of people running\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Julia Dixon This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBBC World Service reporter Faith Orr, who was passing by the scene in a taxi, said a \"huge window\" was \"completely smashed\" and that people had been evacuated.\n\nHouse of Fraser told the BBC the store has now fully reopened.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMeanwhile, police were called to reports of disturbances at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London.\n\nOfficers attended at about 14:30 on Tuesday and \"groups causing the disorder were dispersed\", a Met Police spokesman said.\n\nA man was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon, the force added.\n\nIn a statement on Twitter, Westfield Stratford said the \"minor disturbance\" had been resolved.\n\n\"The centre was not evacuated and is trading normally,\" it added.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Philip Hammond said releasing his analysis now would \"deeply unhelpful\"\n\nA group of Labour MPs are trying to keep pressure on the government to publish reports about how Brexit will affect the economy.\n\nThe 25 pro-Remain politicians have written to Chancellor Philip Hammond saying people \"have a right to know what the impact of Brexit will be for them and for their families\".\n\nMr Hammond has said it would be \"deeply unhelpful\" to release his analysis now.\n\nOpposition MPs have been pursuing the \"Brexit impact assessments\" for months.\n\nBut the government has said the sector-by-sector assessments they have been demanding do not exist, and has instead provided MPs with a series of documents it calls \"sectoral analyses\".\n\nSo far, MPs' efforts have mostly focused on Brexit Secretary David Davis.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nNow, a group of Labour MPs who are supporters of the pro-EU Open Britain group have turned their attention to the Treasury.\n\nMr Hammond said earlier this month that a \"whole range of potential alternative structures between the EU and the UK\" have been assessed.\n\nThe MPs say in their letter to the chancellor: \"Without access to the latest taxpayer-funded analysis and research, Parliament will be hamstrung in its ability to scrutinise the government's approach and to present the facts to our constituents.\n\n\"It is vital that light is shed on the modelling and analysis that the Treasury has carried out. The best way to achieve that would be for the analysis to be published in its entirety.\"\n\nSignatories to the letter to Mr Hammond include Chris Leslie, Maria Eagle, Stella Creasy and Alison McGovern.\n\nStella Creasy signed the letter to the chancellor\n\nIn response, the Treasury pointed to Mr Hammond's remarks at the time - where he said that when a final Brexit deal has been negotiated and is going before MPs, \"the maximum amount of analysis being placed in the public domain would be helpful\".\n\nHowever, at this stage it would be \"deeply unhelpful\" for the Treasury's analysis to be made public, he added.", "At exactly 11:15, the front door of a council flat in Brixton opened. Two women stepped out on to a quiet residential street.\n\nThe younger woman, Rosie, had an awkward gait. Her movement was stiff and clunky, as though she simply wasn't used to walking any distance. In fact, she had spent the past 30 years - her whole life - in captivity.\n\nNow she was ill and needed urgent medical attention.\n\nBorn into a “collective”, she was not allowed to see a doctor, had never been allowed outside alone and had been told that if she tried to leave she would spontaneously combust and die.\n\nWorried she might not survive her illness, on 25 October 2013, Rosie and another woman, Josie, sneaked out.\n\nWaiting for them just round the corner were members of an organisation that helps people who have been abused, trafficked or enslaved. Along with the police, they had helped organise the escape.\n\nIt soon became apparent that Rosie and 57-year-old Josie weren't the only women who lived in the flat, and when police officers returned they met Aisha - a 69-year-old woman originally from Malaysia. At first she didn't want to leave, but as they talked, she changed her mind.\n\nIn the weeks that followed, it became clear how extraordinary their life had been.\n\nAll three women seemed extremely frightened, often referring to an all-powerful force called Jackie, which they believed might seek retribution or cause them terrible harm. They were terrified of electricity, which they called “eeee” and seemed anxious that household appliances might blow up or explode.\n\nAs they revealed details of their existence and Rosie gradually became more confident, she decided to change her name to Katy, inspired by the lyrics of Katy Perry's song, Roar, which is about a woman overcoming a difficult relationship and finding her voice.\n\nKaty's own story, and everything she had managed to overcome, proved far stranger than anyone could have imagined.", "The collision happened on the A57 between Coisley Hill and Moss Way\n\nA police officer and a 61-year-old woman died in a crash on Christmas Day.\n\nThe 46-year-old officer was responding to an incident when the marked BMW 3 Series he was driving was in collision with a Citroen C3 on the A57 in Sheffield.\n\nSouth Yorkshire Police said the officer died at the scene and the woman, who was a passenger in the second vehicle, died in hospital.\n\nThe collision happened near to Coisley Hill at about 20:15 GMT.\n\nA force spokesman said the officer was responding to an \"immediate incident\" when he was in collision with the silver Citroen which was travelling in the opposite direction.\n\nThe woman who died was from Sheffield, he added.\n\nA 63-year-old man who was driving the Citroen was taken to hospital where he remains in a serious condition.\n\nSouth Yorkshire Police said the officer died at the scene of the crash on the A57 in Sheffield\n\nAssistant Chief Constable of South Yorkshire David Hartley, said: \"On behalf of the force I'd like to offer my sincere condolences to all of those left bereaved by this terrible tragedy - our thoughts, love and support are extended to all those affected.\n\n\"We are doing everything we can to support them through this difficult time.\"\n\nHe went on to pay tribute to the officer killed in the collision.\n\n\"We have lost a friend and a colleague from our police family in this incident,\" ACC Hartley added.\n\n\"The officer has been with us for 12 years and was a passionate, professional and universally liked officer.\n\n\"His colleagues, and everyone across the force, are devastated by what has happened.\"\n\nThe force said the collision had been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Snow has swept US states from Midwest to Northeast, breaking snowfall records in some parts.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Homes in the Midlands, south-west England and Wales have been left without power\n\nHeavy snow and ice have disrupted road and air travel in parts of the UK and left thousands of homes without power.\n\nDrivers were at a standstill on the A14 in Northamptonshire for several hours, while a lorry crash on the M1 blocked the motorway.\n\nThe Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for ice overnight across most of the UK.\n\nPassengers at Stansted Airport faced long delays as flights were suspended twice to clear snow from the runway.\n\nA spokesman for the airport said the snow had passed over and they were not anticipating any more closures. Many flights have been delayed and almost 30 outbound Ryanair flights have been cancelled.\n\nSome passengers have complained on social media that they have been stuck on planes on the ground for several hours.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Fiona Thatcher This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLuton Airport said it had to significantly reduce the number of inbound flights it was accepting.\n\nSome flights have also been cancelled and there have been delays to allow de-icing of aircraft, a spokesman added.\n\nRyanair apologised for having to cancel \"a small number of flights\" because of runway closures at several UK airports.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMeanwhile, Western Power Distribution said about 4,000 homes were without power in the Midlands, south-west England and Wales, but that more than 25,000 customers had had their power restored since Tuesday morning.\n\nThe firm said the cuts were all snow-related and extra staff - who had been on standby for poor weather - had been called in to work to reconnect properties.\n\nScottish and Southern Electricity Networks said about 2,000 customers were still without power at 16:30 GMT.\n\nAndover and Basingstoke in Hampshire, Melksham and Swindon in Wiltshire, Newbury in Berkshire, as well as areas of Oxfordshire, had all been affected, it added.\n\nPower had now been restored to about 17,000 properties, the firm said.\n\nA lorry stuck on the A14 in Northampton\n\nSnow caused problems on the A417 between Gloucester and Cheltenham\n\nAn easyJet plane was de-iced before taking off at Luton Airport\n\nFrank Bird, from Highways England, said the worst of the conditions were now over in the West Midlands, as the bad weather had moved eastwards.\n\nHe said 2,000 tonnes of salt and grit had been put down in the region overnight, adding that treating roads was a \"battle that we are constantly fighting\".\n\nOne of those caught up in the problems on the A14 was lorry driver Simon Talbot, who told BBC News he had been stuck for more than three hours.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Two mountain walkers were rescued in Snowdonia on Boxing Day\n\n\"I've been stationary since about 02:20 GMT westbound on the A14, there is approximately 5ins (12cm) of snow we've had and I'm just stationary,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm on an incline and there are lorries and vans in front that are unable to get up the hill because of the snow. So it is just a waiting game at the moment.\"\n\nTara DeFabrizio was stuck on the road for five hours, after leaving home from Northampton at 06:00 GMT.\n\n\"It's a complete standstill. I've called my boss now to say I won't be coming in.\"\n\nShe added: \"I don't know why it's so bad this time - when we had a lot of snow two weeks ago, I got to work fine.\"\n\nThe Met Office has yellow warnings in place for ice and rain and snow\n\nHeavy snow also affected parts of the M1\n\nLorries on the A14 in Northampton\n\nSome people woke up on Wednesday to a blanket of snow\n\nHighways England said all lanes are now open on the M3 westbound between junction two and three following an earlier collision.\n\nHowever, it advised passengers to allow for extra time when travelling on the M25 clockwise, as one lane between junction 26 and 27 remains closed due to an accident.\n\nReferring to an earlier incident on the M1, Leicestershire Police tweeted there had been an accident involving a lorry, which had blocked all three lanes.\n\nThe force said the motorway had been reopened shortly after 10:00 GMT.\n\nIt added: \"Please be aware that snow is falling across the county and in some cases it is settling, causing hazardous conditions for drivers. Please take care and take the necessary precautions.\"\n\nOfficers said there have been \"long delays\" on the A34 between the M4 and A4185 in Berkshire due to the weather conditions and slow moving traffic.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Highways England This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNorthamptonshire Roads and Armed Policing Team (RAPT) tweeted: \"Heavy snow has started. The M1 has quickly become treacherous. RAPT on scene at a single vehicle RTC (road traffic collision).\"\n\nThree lanes of the M25 were also closed near Heathrow earlier following an accident.\n\nElsewhere, the Welsh Grand National horse race was postponed after 6cm (2.3in) of rain and snow fell on the course within 48 hours.\n\nMeanwhile, the Environment Agency currently has flood warnings in place - meaning flooding is expected - in some areas, as well as dozens of flood alerts.", "Retailers are warning that a sharp rise in shoplifting is being fuelled partly by police forces not investigating the theft of items worth less than £200.\n\nThe Daily Telegraph says persistent offenders are exploiting a change in the law that allows for more minor cases to be dealt with by post.\n\nThe government said it did not diminish the seriousness of the crimes.\n\nPolice chiefs said their focus on prolific offenders and organised crime networks was working.\n\nThe £200 threshold was introduced in England and Wales in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.\n\nThe act allows anyone stealing goods costing less than £200 to plead guilty by post - or face the magistrates' court.\n\nThey might then face a fine or up to a year in prison.\n\nBut Chris Noice, from the Association of Convenience Stores, said criminals were getting savvy as to how much they could get away with, and only half of those caught were paying their fines.\n\nHe also said there was concern that police forces were not sharing information and those that were stealing to fund a drug or alcohol addiction might not be getting the necessary help.\n\nIn February, the ACS estimated that convenience stores were losing on average £2,600 a year due to shoplifting - a record high.\n\nLast year, one shop owner in Harwich, Essex resorted to screening CCTV footage on Facebook to \"shame\" shoplifters, and almost completely cut out thefts.\n\nNottinghamshire Police is among those forces that say they are no longer able to investigate shoplifting unless violence is involved.\n\nThe area's Labour Police and Crime Commissioner, Paddy Tipping, blamed government cuts, saying: \"We can't do the job that we used to do when you've got 25% less resources.\n\n\"There are tough choices that need to be made and we need to have a debate about what can be expected of the police going forward.\"\n\nA spokesman for the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) said: \"Police focus on targeting prolific offenders and organised crime networks as well as prevention measures by businesses are working.\n\n\"Forces will continue to work closely with retailers to deter shoplifters and prevent thefts from taking place.\"\n\nA government spokesperson said shoplifting was not a \"victimless crime\", coming at a cost to businesses and consumers, and should be reported.\n\nThe police were expected to take all reported crimes seriously, for these to be investigated and where appropriate, for the offenders to be taken through the courts, they added.", "Risking the accusation that the taxman himself has gone quackers, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has employed some farmyard ducks to encourage people to file their tax returns on time.\n\nThe online and billboard adverts feature a man in the bath, being niggled by a duck.\n\nInstead of quacking, the duck repeats the word \"tax\".\n\nHMRC confirmed that real ducks posed for the photos, before being retired to a bird sanctuary in Oxfordshire.\n\n\"With the January 31 deadline edging closer we want to help remind our customers to get it done so they can alleviate that niggling feeling, ensuring they can relax and not have to worry about doing their tax return,\" explained Angela MacDonald, HMRC's director general for customer services.\n\nIn the meantime HMRC revealed that more than 16,000 people spent part of their Christmas filing a tax return:\n\nEleven million people in the UK need to file self-assessment tax returns - including those who are self-employed or who have significant savings income.\n\nThose who fail to complete a return by 31 January face an automatic fine of £100. After that interest is charged on late payments.\n\nAnyone who wants to pay their bill through their PAYE code must complete a return by 30 December.\n\nEarlier this month HMRC announced plans to phase out fines for one-off offenders, although this will not be in place for several years.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "An electricity bill for more than $284bn (£212bn) left a woman in the US state of Pennsylvania stunned... until she found out the amount was wrong.\n\nMary Horomanski from Erie said the latest bill showed that she had to pay the entire amount by November 2018.\n\n\"My eyes just about popped out of my head,\" she told the Erie Times-News. \"We had put up Christmas lights and I wondered if we had put them up wrong.\"\n\nThe electricity provider later said the actual amount was $284.46.\n\nA company's spokesman said it did not know how the error had occurred, stating that Ms Horomanski had to pay $284,460,000,000 with a first payment of $28,176 due later in December.\n\n\"I can't recall ever seeing a bill for billions of dollars,\" Mark Durbin told the Erie Times-News.\n\n\"We appreciate the customer's willingness to reach out to us about the mistake.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nHarry Kane grabbed another hat-trick and broke the record for the most Premier League goals scored in a calendar year as Tottenham thrashed Southampton at Wembley.\n\nThe Spurs and England striker headed home his 37th league goal of 2017 on 22 minutes to surpass Alan Shearer's landmark, which was set during his time at Blackburn in 1995.\n\nKane then added two more either side of half-time to bring his total for the year - for both club and country - to 56, two more than Barcelona and Argentina striker Lionel Messi.\n\nBefore Kane's third, Dele Alli had made it 3-0 on 49 minutes when he drilled in from outside the area, before setting up Son Heung-min two minutes later, who powered a confident finish past Fraser Forster.\n\nSouthampton, without top scorer Charlie Austin, got off the mark when Sofiane Boufal struck low under Hugo Lloris, and Dusan Tadic added a second with a lofted effort.\n\nDespite a second-half recovery, Saints never looked like spoiling the Spurs party and have now gone a month without a win in the Premier League.\n\nSpurs, meanwhile, stay fifth after Liverpool beat Swansea 5-0 in Tuesday's late kick-off.\n\nIt was an impressive display from Mauricio Pochettino's side, but the game will always be remembered for Kane's record-breaking day, as he cemented his status as one of the top flight's most prolific strikers.\n\nSpeaking about his 22-year record being taken, Shearer tweeted: \"You've had a magnificent 2017, Harry Kane. You deserve to hold the record of most Premier League goals in a calendar year. Well done and keep up the good work.\"\n• None Kane reached his goal-scoring record in 36 games - six fewer than Shearer in 1995\n• None The 24-year-old has scored more league goals this season than Bournemouth, West Brom, Swansea, Crystal Palace, Brighton and Huddersfield\n• None He is the first player in Premier League history to score six hat-tricks in a single calendar year\n• None Kane has scored eight Premier League hat-tricks, as many as Thierry Henry and Michael Owen - only Alan Shearer (11) and Robbie Fowler (9) have more in the competition.\n• None Kane has scored 56 goals in 52 appearances in all competitions for Tottenham and England in 2017. He is Europe's top scorer over the past 12 months in the five major countries (England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France)\n• None The Spurs striker has now scored 96 Premier League goals for the club - one off Teddy Sheringham's record\n\nSouthampton had drawn three and lost three of their past six games and arrived at Wembley without two key players in Austin, who is injured and suspended, and Virgil van Dijk, who was left out of the squad again amid reports of a January exit.\n\nThey looked overwhelmed at times and contributed to Tottenham's dominance.\n\nPierre-Emile Hojbjerg fouled Danny Rose on the edge of the area and gave away the Christian Eriksen free-kick which led to Kane's opener.\n\nAnd Nathan Redmond's mistake in the Spurs half gifted the hosts possession and their counter-attack finished with Son's strike for 4-0.\n\nSouthampton, three points above the relegation zone in 13th, were able to recover some pride as they twice beat a stuttering Lloris, but it was too little, too late.\n\nMauricio Pellegrino's side face more tough tasks ahead, with an away trip to Manchester United up next.\n\n\"We were a little bit unlucky because in the second half we were close to going 1-2 but once we conceded the third one the game was gone,\" said Pellegrino.\n\n\"I want to see a team with character fighting and playing for the ball. Sometimes you do well, sometimes you do not but the minimum is to show this from the beginning. The wrong thing is we waited until the Tottenham goal to react.\"\n\nOn Van Dijk's omission, the Southampton boss added: \"We know that around Virgil there will be a lot of speculation. You will have to wait until January, I pick the best for my team right now. That is my decision.\"\n\nWhile Kane will quite rightly dominate the headlines, there were some other stand-out performances for the hosts.\n\nAlli ended his two-month goal drought in the Premier League when he turned on Oriol Romeu and struck a sweet strike from distance, while Son was rewarded for his all-round display with a well-executed finish.\n\nSpurs now have five wins from their past six matches in all competitions, and Pochettino wants their form to continue into 2018.\n\n\"We are ambitious but I am happy that we finished the year in a very good way,\" said the Argentine.\n\n\"For next year? We must win - win every game. The mentality is so important for us.\"\n\nSouthampton are back in action on Saturday, 30 December against Manchester United at Old Trafford (17:30 GMT), while Spurs return in 2018, when they travel to Swansea on Tuesday, 2 January (19:45)\n• None Attempt missed. Manolo Gabbiadini (Southampton) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Dusan Tadic.\n• None Dusan Tadic (Southampton) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt missed. Maya Yoshida (Southampton) header from the centre of the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by Dusan Tadic following a set piece situation.\n• None Attempt missed. Erik Lamela (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Dele Alli.\n• None Goal! Tottenham Hotspur 5, Southampton 2. Dusan Tadic (Southampton) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the top left corner following a corner.\n• None Attempt saved. Pierre-Emile Højbjerg (Southampton) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Sofiane Boufal. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "A helicopter had to take \"immediate evasive action\" to avoid the RAF Lakenheath-based F15\n\nA US fighter pilot was involved in a near miss with a helicopter while travelling in a no-fly area.\n\nAn RAF Griffin training helicopter was flying over Snowdonia when it detected a fighter jet \"closing rapidly\".\n\nThe incident in July left the helicopter having to take \"immediate evasive action\" to avoid the Lakenheath-based F15.\n\nThe UK Airprox Board, which probes near misses, found the F15 should not have been in the Llanberis Pass.\n\nIn its report into the episode the board said the helicopter crew \"would not have been expecting such a fast-moving aircraft to be in the vicinity\" because the UK Military Low Flying Handbook states that fixed wing aircraft should not enter the Llanberis Pass\".\n\nThe report said: \"It has long been recognised by the [48th Fighter] Wing that the Llanberis Pass is not to be entered by fixed wing aircraft.\n\n\"In this case, the crew mistook the Llanberis Pass for the adjacent Nant Ffrancon Pass, which resulted in the Airprox [near miss].\n\n\"They have been debriefed accordingly.\"\n\nHowever, the board also found the wording and interpretation of current guidance for aircraft training in the Snowdonia area was ambiguous.\n\nIt currently says fixed wing aircraft \"should not\" - rather than \"shall not\" - go down the Llanberis Pass.\n\nThe board said the wording should be reviewed and made clearer to avoid any confusion.\n\nLt Elias Small, spokesman for the 48th Fighter Wing, said: \"Our pilots train every day to improve their skills, and they understand the importance of adhering to local UK flying procedures.\n\n\"Although the crew mistook the Llanberis Pass for the adjacent Nant Ffrancon Pass in this instance, we concur with the board's assessment that a review of the regulation will help reduce risk in the future.\"\n• None US jets and RAF plane in 'near miss'\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This footage from a drone shows heavy snowfall in the Lake District.\n\nSnow in other parts of the UK left 14,000 homes without power.", "Londoners think national suburban rail services have got worse\n\nMore than a third of Londoners think commuter trains have deteriorated over the last year, a new survey suggests.\n\nThe YouGov poll which surveyed 1,087 people found 37% said national rail services had worsened while eight per cent said they had improved.\n\nThe findings have been described as a \"damning indictment\" of rail companies.\n\nNetwork Rail, which manages rail infrastructure, claims Londoners will benefit from a \"huge increase in rail capacity\" in the coming months.\n\nA Network Rail spokesperson said this was due to new services, new rolling stock and a £10bn taxpayer-funded investment.\n\nThe spokesperson added: \"We have the safest, fastest growing network in Europe and the railway is more reliable now than it has ever been.\"\n\nThe poll was released ahead of an average rail fare increase of 3.4% - the biggest in five years - coming into effect.\n\nMayor of London Sadiq Khan said: \"These latest figures are a damning indictment of the continuing failure of train operating companies to provide an adequate service for passengers.\n\n\"Londoners are fed up with repeated delays, cancelations and overcrowding.\n\n\"Growing dissatisfaction with private train companies shows why a further hike in rail fares this January is simply unjustifiable.\"\n\nThe mayor claimed the \"only viable long-term solution\" was for suburban rail services to be devolved to Transport for London (TfL).\n\nThat idea was backed by 61% of respondents as well as the Campaign for Better Transport.\n\nThe group's chief executive, Stephen Joseph, said the survey's findings \"chime with our own and others' research which shows that the rail services TfL controls consistently outperform most other London rail services\".\n\nThe Department for Transport (DfT) said in November it would \"work with TfL to explore options for transferring selected services such as the West London line to TfL\".\n\nNetwork Rail said \"improved working with TfL at times of disruption to the rail network would be helpful in redirecting passengers to other stations where they can complete their journeys.\"\n\nA DfT spokesperson said decisions on devolution were made \"based on what will make journeys better for passengers\".", "Last updated on .From the section Liverpool\n\nSouthampton centre-back Virgil van Dijk will join Liverpool when the transfer window re-opens on 1 January in a world record £75m deal.\n\nThe Netherlands international had been expected to join the Reds last summer after he handed in a transfer request.\n\nBut a move fell through when Liverpool apologised for making an alleged illegal approach for the 26-year-old.\n\nThe fee is the most ever paid for a defender - Manchester City paid £52m to Monaco for Benjamin Mendy in July.\n\nVan Dijk said in a statement he was \"delighted and honoured\" to sign for the Merseyside club and accepted he had had a \"difficult last few months\" at St Mary's.\n\nHe was left out of Southampton's squad for their 5-2 Premier League defeat by Tottenham on Tuesday, prompting speculation he was set to leave the club.\n\n\"Southampton have agreed a fee that will set a new world record for a defender,\" the south coast club confirmed on Wednesday.\n\nThe player only signed a new six-year contract last year, having joined the Saints from Celtic for £13m in September 2015.\n\nHowever, Liverpool's interest in the summer prompted a transfer request from the player which saw him forced to train alone by manager Mauricio Pellegrino.\n\nHe returned to first team action in September, featuring in a win at Crystal Palace.\n\nVan Dijk's former club Celtic will benefit from the record transfer fee - the Scottish champions are understood to have had a 10% sell-on agreement on any future deal.\n\nThough he will join the club on 1 January, Van Dijk will not be able to register as a player until 2 January so will not be available for Liverpool's trip to Burnley on Monday.\n\nThe Anfield club also announced he will wear the number four shirt.\n\nThe Van Dijk fee tops the £48m release clause the Reds have agreed for RB Leipzig midfielder Naby Keita, who will move to Anfield next summer.\n\n'Proud to join one of biggest clubs in world' - Van Dijk statement\n\n\"Delighted and honoured to have agreed to become a Liverpool FC player. Today is a proud day for me and my family as I join one of the biggest clubs in world football.\n\n\"I can't wait to pull on the famous red shirt for the first time in front of the Kop and will give everything I have to try and help this great club achieve something special in the years to come.\n\n\"I would also like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Les Reed, the board, manager, players, fans and everyone at Southampton.\n\n\"I will always be indebted to the club for giving me the opportunity to play in the Premier League and despite a difficult last few months, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Saints and have made friends for life at the club.\"\n\nIt has cost Liverpool an additional £15m and half a season, but manager Jurgen Klopp has finally got his man.\n\nSouthampton pulled the plug on a proposed £60m deal during the summer, such was their unhappiness at the way they were being railroaded into a transfer.\n\nHowever, the tell-tale sign Klopp knew who he wanted to address defensive deficiencies and wouldn't be changing his mind came through the fact Liverpool did not try for an alternative.\n\nAfter conceding 23 goals in 20 Premier League games so far, Klopp has been reminded often enough he needed to strengthen his defence.\n\nNow he has done it, he will hope his side can retain their attacking brilliance and close the gap to Manchester United and Chelsea and, in time, start to challenge at the very top of the Premier League table.\n\nLiverpool's desire to sign Van Dijk comes through the size of the fee, which Manchester City - who were also interested - were not prepared to match.\n\nAs for Southampton, they have got rid of a player who clearly had no wish to remain on the south coast and generated the funds that will allow them to reinforce a squad that has struggled for the past 12 months and led to speculation manager Mauricio Pellegrino is on dodgy ground.\n\nFrance full-back Benjamin Mendy moved from Monaco to Manchester City in 2017, with Kyle Walker joining Pep Guardiola's side from Tottenham in the same year.\n\nDavid Luiz joined Paris St-Germain from Chelsea in 2014, while John Stones arrived at City from Everton in 2016.\n\nVan Dijk will become the sixth Southampton player signed by Liverpool since 2014 - at a total cost of £171.5m.\n\nThe other five to have joined are: Sadio Mane (£34m), Adam Lallana (£25m), Dejan Lovren (£20m), Nathaniel Clyne (£12.5m) and Rickie Lambert (£5m).\n\nSouthampton have got one hell of a deal. Van Dijk is a good player, yes, but for £75m? No, he's not worth it at all.\n\nSouthampton could have named any price they wanted. They knew Liverpool were absolutely desperate for a centre-half. Everyone is aware they are desperate - we have seen them come up short several times this season.\n\nWhen Liverpool try and sign a goalkeeper - which they also desperately need - they will find the same thing.\n\nWe've been saying it for a number of years now - that transfer fees have gone through the roof - and this one has taken it to another level.\n\nIt seems inevitable for Southampton to lose top players every year. It must be disappointing to see so many players leave. Their scouting system has been good - they tend to sell and make profits but eventually that will back fire. They're in a relegation battle this season - they're going to have to scrap.\n\nIt's crazy money for a central defender. When he was at Celtic, a lot didn't think he was good enough for a top-six club at that time. Southampton took a chance and suddenly his fee has gone through the roof. It's a crazy fee. Southampton have been good at finding replacements, but whether they can do that again is now the question.\n\nIt has always been on the cards. It was just a case of when and for how much. Virgil has been outstanding at Southampton. I looked at him as a player who could quite literally go to any club in the world. He is that good.\n\nI would say since he came back into the side this season he hasn't quite been firing on all cylinders and looking quite as good as he was before the injury, but that could be said for the whole side.\n\nTom McCarron: £75m for Van Dijk? Football has officially gone mad; that's 1 Gareth Bale or 2 Mohamed Salah's or 315 Luke Chadwicks\n\nDavid Jennings: Just got to say... £75m... really?!\n\nAjay Yadaz: Liverpool signing Virgil van Dijk for £75m tells us something is wrong with modern football. Amazed, gutted, pathetic.", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nVitaly Mutko has stepped down from his role as chief organiser for next summer's World Cup in Russia, two days after he temporarily left his post as Russian Football Union (RFU) president.\n\nRussia's deputy prime minister was banned from the Olympics for life having been accused of running a huge \"state-directed\" doping programme.\n\nMutko stood down from his RFU position on Monday while he contests the ban.\n\nAnd he has now left his World Cup role to \"concentrate on government work\".\n\nMutko said Alexei Sorokin will instead chair the World Cup 2018 organising committee.\n\n\"There is still a lot of work, but I am absolutely sure that everything will be ready on time,\" he told R Sports.\n\nThe organising committee spoke of its \"great regret\" at Mutko's decision, but added it would not affect its plans for the tournament, which starts on 14 June.\n\nFootball's world governing body Fifa said it had \"taken note of the decision\" and thanked Mutko for his work so far.\n\nWhistleblower Vitaly Stepanov, a former Russian anti-doping agency worker, told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Mutko, a former sports minister, \"created and ran\" the country's \"state-directed\" doping programme.\n\nHe has always denied being part of a doping programme, but Russia was banned from competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics.\n\nLast month, Mutko told BBC sports editor Dan Roan it was a \"huge disappointment\" there was so much focus on doping issues in the build-up to World Cup 2018.", "Flame shell beds act as a nursery for other marine life such as scallops\n\nA rare marine feature wrecked by a dredging boat has been identified as the biggest known reef of its kind.\n\nDivers have estimated that about 250 million flame shells exist on the bed of Loch Carron in Wester Ross.\n\nMinisters will now seek to make the emergency measures put in place to protect the reef permanent.\n\nIn April, a scallop dredger dragged its gear through the reef on two occasions causing damage from which it is likely to take decades to recover.\n\nFishing on Loch Carron was immediately banned and divers have been assessing the size of the reef.\n\nThey have discovered it is two-and-a-half times larger than a similar feature in Loch Alsh, previously thought to be the biggest.\n\nFishermen have urged caution on the widespread use of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) which prevent them operating in sensitive areas.\n\nEnvironment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said: \"This is an astonishing find and I think that we would be completely remiss not to take notice of it and to do what we can to protect it.\n\n\"The measures that get put in place for MPAs we put in place in consultation with the fishermen to make sure they are reasonable and appropriate.\"\n\nThe reef, which is inhabited by numerous other creatures, is much larger than previously thought\n\nDredging involves towing gear across the seabed to scrape-up the scallops which live there. They can also be caught in smaller numbers by divers.\n\nThe dredger which damaged the Loch Carron reef was operating legally because no protection measures existed at the time.\n\nNick Underdown, from Open Seas, said: \"Flame shells are highly sensitive to damaging fishing activities like scallop dredging and prawn trawling. It just does not make sense to tow across these fragile habitats.\"\n\nFishermen's groups have distanced themselves from the skipper's actions, saying he did not belong to any industry organisation.\n\nBertie Armstrong, from the Scottish Fishermen's Federation (SFF), said: \"The Scottish Fishermen's Federation is foursquare behind environmental protection. We are working closely with Marine Scotland on the identification, designation and management measures for the MPA network seeking a balance with sustainable economic activity.\n\n\"Flame shells are already covered by a number of representative areas. Inclusion of additional examples of any feature will always be considered carefully, again taking due account of all the needs of fishing communities.\n\n\"SFF member associations have no objection to formalising the emergency provisions for the Loch Carron flame shell bed.\"\n\nScottish Natural Heritage (SNH) has conducted a series of dives at the site to establish the extent of the damage and the size of the reef.\n\nThe vibrant red flame shells are not normally visible as they live a few centimetres into the sand. Their beds are nursery grounds for young scallops.\n\nAfter the dredger had crossed the reef, flame shells were uprooted and scattered across the loch.\n\nBen James, from SNH, said: \"They used to be much more widely distributed and the habitat, whilst it's a firm mesh if you like, it's like fabric and it's very sensitive and easily ripped and torn apart.\n\n\"They sort of ripped the beds up and all the flame shells were exposed, and once they're exposed the flame shells die.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Corey Lewandowski pictured on Donald Trump's campaign trail in 2016\n\nA US singer has filed a sexual assault claim against President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.\n\nJoy Villa says Mr Lewandowski hit her twice on the backside during an event in Washington last month.\n\nShe told the US media she spoke to the police on Christmas Eve, having been persuaded to launch a formal complaint by friends.\n\nMr Lewandowski has not responded to US media's requests for comment.\n\nThe accusations are the latest in a long line of sexual harassment and assault claims linked to celebrities, politicians and companies, which have gathered pace in the past year, particularly following the downfall of film mogul Harvey Weinstein.\n\n\"I was initially fearful to come forward with this,\" she said, according to the Associated Press news agency. She said she did not want to embarrass Mr Lewandowski's family or hers.\n\nMs Villa, who is a vocal Trump supporter and wore a \"Make America Great Again\" dress to the 2017 Grammy Awards, was at a gathering at Trump International Hotel when she posed for a photograph with Mr Lewandowski, whom, she says, she had never met before.\n\nShe alleges he hit her once on the buttocks, and when she asked him to stop and joked about reporting him for sexual harassment, he did it again. She said he laughed, adding \"I work in the private sector\".\n\nShe said the hard slaps felt \"disgusting and shocking and demeaning\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Joy Villa This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNews site Politico first reported on the incident last week, saying they had talked to a witness who spoke out before she did.\n\nMs Villa has previously said she is considering running for Congress - and President Trump has tweeted his support.\n\nMr Trump fired Mr Lewandowski as campaign manager in June 2016.\n\nEarlier last year, he was charged with battery after allegedly yanking a female reporter out of Mr Trump's way after a campaign event. The charges were later dropped.\n\nMore on sexual assault and harassment:", "Fewer people have hit the UK's Boxing Day sales this year as Black Friday discounts and savvy online shoppers lowered turnout.\n\nShop visits dropped by 4.5% up to 5pm compared with last year, according to research group Springboard.\n\nDiane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said that although it had expected a downturn, \"the scale of the drop is greater than expected.\"\n\nShe said: \"What we have seen in the last couple of years is a structural shift in the Christmas trading period.\"\n\nWhile Black Friday sales have changed the way people shop in the UK, Ms Wehrle said the impact was particularly felt this year, as retailers began discounting a week before 24 November and carried on right up until Christmas.\n\n\"The hotspots for Christmas trading around Boxing Day and New Year's Day are dissipating,\" she said.\n\nOn the upside, Springboard said early indicators pointed to a strong rise in online shopping for the full 24-hour Boxing Day period.\n\nIt expects internet transactions to surpass last year, when they rose by 6.2%.\n\nBut Ms Wehrle said that people were increasingly looking online for bargains before they visited a store or deciding to \"click and collect\".\n\nAs a result of this targeted shopping, there is less window-shopping and fewer spur-of-the-moment purchases.\n\nFootfall on UK High Streets fell by 5.8%, while in shopping centres, it tumbled by 4% in the first 17 hours of Boxing Day.\n\nChris Daly, chief executive at the Chartered Institute of Marketing, said: \"Gone are the days of setting the alarm at 06:00 to be first in line for the Boxing Day sales, something borne out by the footage of quiet shopping centres up and down the country.\"\n\nHowever, Hammerson, the property group that owns a number of Britain's largest shopping centres, said that about 600 people were lining up to grab bargains at the retailer Next's store in Birmingham's Bullring. Queues began forming there at half past midnight.\n\nOver the long term, Ms Wehrle believes that shopping habits in the UK have changed for good, with people looking for more of a \"leisure experience\" when they hit the stores.\n\n\"If people go out to eat, they don't have money to spend in the shops,\" she said.", "Ms Murdoch's photograph has now been seen by millions of people\n\nA mother has been \"overwhelmed\" by the response to her photograph of four smiling royals, which appeared on the front of numerous national newspapers.\n\nKaren Murdoch, of Watlington, Norfolk, captured a beaming Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on Christmas Day at Sandringham.\n\nHer image made the front pages of the Sun, Daily Mail, Mirror, Star, Daily Telegraph and Express newspapers.\n\nMs Murdoch, 39, said reaction to the picture has been \"bizarre and bonkers\".\n\nShe is hoping to use any proceeds from the snap to fund her daughter's studies. She says she now has an agent working on her behalf.\n\nThe amateur photographer told BBC Breakfast: \"It was pure luck - I took it on an iPhone and it was a great photograph.\n\nAsked how she got the Royals to look at the camera and capture the shot every photographer dreamt of, Ms Murdoch, who calls herself Karen Anvil on Twitter, said the secret was attracting their attention.\n\nBoth Prince Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge are looking directly into the camera with relaxed and natural smiles.\n\nMs Murdoch admitted she had a \"fan-girl\" moment while with her daughter Rachel, 17\n\nMs Murdoch posted the image on Twitter at about 11:00 GMT on Christmas Day - and got thousands of likes. Her previous record was just five.\n\nFour hours later she was still receiving messages from media organisations asking for permission to use the picture. Other Twitter users advised her to negotiate a price.\n\nArthur Edwards, royal photographer at The Sun and veteran of more than 200 royal tours, was also at the scene - and happily admits Ms Murdoch's image was the best of the day.\n\nHe told the BBC News website: \"Getting all four of them lined up like that - it was a stunning snap.\n\n\"It was pot luck her being in the right spot, but she still got the photo.\n\n\"I rang her up to congratulate her on getting the front page of the Sun today.\"\n\nHe added: \"We had probably the 20 best photographers in the country there, and she's scooped us all.\"\n\nMs Murdoch is now directing enquiries to a photographic agent.\n\n\"Now I want to save money for my daughter for uni and if I can get that opportunity that's amazing,\" she said.\n\n\"I hope this will help, because she wants to go into some form of nursing.\n\n\"I want to be able to support her as her mum.\"\n\nMs Murdoch has tweeted that the Daily Mail paid her £50 to use the image online.", "Prince Harry discusses his fiancee Meghan Markle's first Christmas with the Royal Family.\n\nThe fifth in line to the throne was interviewed as part of his guest editorship of Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. This Christmas croc was found in a Melbourne suburb\n\nAustralian police are looking for the owner of a small crocodile found wandering the streets of Melbourne on Christmas Day.\n\nLocals taking an evening stroll stumbled across the reptile outside a suburban business.\n\nVictoria Police said they were initially sceptical and went to the scene expecting to find a large lizard.\n\nInstead they found a 1m (3.2ft) long freshwater crocodile \"sitting quietly on the footpath\".\n\nSnake catcher Mark Pelley was called on to handle the unusual Christmas find in the suburb of Heidelberg Heights.\n\nHe said police called him that night saying: \"There's a crocodile walking the streets and it's currently outside a medical centre.\"\n\nMr Pelley told local radio station 3AW he rushed to the scene where he found \"five police members being stared down by a decent-sized crocodile, about three and a half foot, and the crocodile wouldn't back down\".\n\nThe 1m (3.2ft) crocodile was found \"walking the streets\" of Melbourne on Christmas\n\nThe crocodile attempted to scamper off into the bushes but was caught by its tail and is now in the care of state wildlife authorities.\n\n\"We're running on the presumption that it was a pet at some stage, it's a long way from any bodies of water,\" Acting Sergeant Daniel Elliott said on Tuesday.\n\nPet owners in Victoria are allowed to keep crocodiles up to 2.5m in length.", "This image taken by Mark Toms shows that some people are still enjoying their Christmas holidays in Surrey.", "The Mekhanik Yartsev lost some of its load off Worthing before becoming stricken in the Solent\n\nCoastguards are continuing to monitor a Russian cargo ship with a \"significant list\" in the Solent.\n\nThe Mekhanik Yartsev got into difficulties off Lee-on-the-Solent on Tuesday morning.\n\nThe 13 crew members are reported to be safe and well and remain on board the vessel, which is carrying wooden pallets.\n\nSurveyors have assessed the ship and it is expected to sail to Southampton Harbour on Thursday.\n\nThe Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said preparations were being made to \"facilitate the arrival\" of the ship.\n\nIt had been expected to sail on Tuesday night but the move was hampered by poor weather.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The 13 crew members are reported to be safe and well (Video: @SolentShipping)\n\nAlthough the vessel, which is currently off Hill Head, has developed a 20-degree list, it has power and is stable, the MCA said.\n\nIt added it was issuing navigational safety broadcasts every half hour to warn shipping in the area.\n\nLes Chapman, the Secretary of State's Representative for Maritime Salvage and Intervention, said the ship lost some pallets overboard before \"limping\" into sheltered water in the Solent.\n\n\"There does not appear to be any danger at all at the moment - there's no pollution, she's in a safe, stable position at a safe anchorage with a tug in attendance and a lifeboat in attendance,\" he said.\n\nHe added the weather was expected to improve and the ship would then be taken to Southampton where its cargo would be unloaded in a bid to \"right\" the ship.\n\nThe MCA said further pieces of cargo were lost from the vessel during the early hours of Wednesday and it has warned some may wash ashore.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Hundreds of people raced into the North Sea off the Norfolk coast\n\nBoxing Day dips have attracted thousands of swimmers and spectators around the English coast.\n\nDippers have dashed into the chilly waters off beaches in Northumberland, Tyneside, Wearside and Dorset, among others.\n\nMany were fundraising for charity dressed as Father Christmas, nuns, elves, Christmas puddings and turkeys.\n\nSea temperatures were estimated to be about 8.9C (48F) in the north and 11.1C (52F) in the south.\n\nSome people braved the sea dressed as Redcar’s famous Lemon Tops\n\nCostumes ranged from simple swimming costumes, wetsuits and sports gear to something more... complicated\n\nConditions were \"the roughest they have been for a number of years\" at Tynemouth Longsands, with swim time limited to 10 minutes, according to participants.\n\nRun by the North Sea Volunteer Lifeguards, the dip first took place in 1999.\n\nSwim veteran Geoff Wade said it was a \"great way to clear your head after the excesses of Christmas\".\n\n\"It felt warmer to me but it was my wife's first time and she didn't think the same,\" he said.\n\nThe Tynemouth dip had a time limit, just in case anyone needed it\n\nSome brave Tynemouth dippers didn't even need fancy dress costumes to keep warm\n\nRNLI Lifeboat operations manager Dave Cocks said the Redcar dip had had \"as many spectators as we've ever seen\".\n\nThe weather was \"bright but cold\" and there had been \"lots of young and old doing the dip\", he said.\n\nPeople might run into the water but it's slower work getting out again\n\nJade Thirlwall, who is a member of pop band Little Mix, returned to her home town of South Shields to raise funds for a local charity at the Little Haven beach dip.\n\n\"My great-aunty Norma, she passed away last year from pancreatic cancer so it means a lot to me to do what I can,\" she said.\n\nLittle Mix singer Jade Thirlwall was raising money for local charity Cancer Connections\n\nNearly 200 people dipped at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea on the Northumberland coast, with local lifeboat volunteers and coastguard teams providing safety cover.\n\nJust as many spectators watched their efforts from the relative warmth of the beach and promenade.\n\nSpeed seemed to be the trick at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea\n\nOf the annual dips one of the largest, organised by Sunderland Lions Clubs, has been held since 1974.\n\nIt attracts up to 900 dippers and raises tens of thousands of pounds for charity.\n\nAnd there is always a man in a dress... always\n\nThousands of pounds is raised for charity by dippers\n\nA 70m (230ft) swim across Weymouth Harbour on Christmas Day attracted 483 swimmers - a record number for the event.\n\nIt was started this year by Don Laker, 93, whose father inaugurated the event in 1948 with a swimming bet against a friend.\n\nWeymouth and Portland Lions Club took over running it the 1970s.\n\nThe hardy souls of Dorset braved Weymouth Harbour on Christmas Day\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A British woman convicted of smuggling 300 painkiller tablets into Egypt is \"on the verge of a mental breakdown\", her sister has told the BBC.\n\nLaura Plummer, who was found with Tramadol tablets in her suitcase, has been sentenced to three years in prison.\n\nJayne Sinclair says Laura was trying to help her Egyptian boyfriend who was in pain after an accident.", "Stansted Airport has been forced to close twice and thousands of homes have been left without power due to the snowy weather.\n\nPolice are also warning drivers to be careful on the roads.", "The UK's pay squeeze will end next year, but a meaningful rise in wages remains out of sight, an influential research group has warned.\n\nThe Resolution Foundation, which campaigns for fair pay, predicted inflation would no longer outpace wage growth by the end of 2018.\n\nBut it said real wage growth would still be flat and that many households were pessimistic about their finances.\n\nThe Treasury said it was \"helping families to earn more\".\n\nThe Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR), the government's economic watchdog, projects that when the full figures for 2017 are confirmed they will show that wages have fallen by 0.4% in real terms as inflation has soared to more than 3%.\n\nThe squeeze, caused by the fall in the pound since the Brexit vote, has contributed to weaker consumer spending and a slowdown in the housing market.\n\nThe Resolution Foundation, which based its outlook on OBR data, said the trend would worsen in the first few months of next year before levelling out.\n\nThis would result in \"zero real wage growth\" in 2018 - an improvement on 2017, but worse than any year in the three decades leading up to the financial crisis.\n\nTorsten Bell, director of the research group, said 2017 had been \"a tough year for living standards\".\n\n\"The good news is that things will get better next year. The bad news is we may only go from backwards to standing still, with prospects for a meaningful pay recovery still out of sight.\"\n\nReferencing Bank of England data, the research group added that 27% of working age households thought their financial positions would worsen in the coming 12 months - roughly the same as those who think it will get better.\n\nHowever, it noted the lowest paid workers were set for a pay rise of 4.3% in April as the National Living Wage reached £7.83.\n\nOverall, it said UK workers would not see a \"noticeable\" pay rise until December 2018.\n\nA Treasury spokeswoman said: \"We are helping families to earn more and keep more of what they earn. Our National Living Wage is delivering the fastest pay rise for the lowest earners in 20 years and we are cutting taxes for millions of people.\"", "Queen or the Queen? Boxers or briefs? Rachel or Monica from Friends? Barack Obama faces some seriously tough questions from Prince Harry.\n\nThe royal interviewed the former US president for his guest editorship of Radio 4's Today programme.", "Lord Kerslake said \"our problems lie in the way that the NHS is funded and organised\"\n\nA major London hospital trust has been placed in special measures because of funding problems.\n\nNHS Improvement announced the sanction against King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust the day after chairman Lord Kerslake resigned criticising the \"unrealistic\" approach to NHS finances.\n\nThe regulator said a deficit of £92m was now forecast this year - more than twice the original £38m planned for.\n\nChief executive Ian Dalton said the position was simply \"not acceptable\".\n\nCan't find your health trust? Browse the full list Rather search by typing? Back to search\n\nIf you can't see the NHS Tracker, click or tap here.\n\n\"The financial situation at King's has deteriorated very seriously over recent months,\" he said.\n\n\"We understand that the wider NHS faces financial and operational challenges, and other trusts and foundation trusts have large deficits.\n\n\"However, none has shown the sheer scale and pace of the deterioration at King's.\n\n\"It is not acceptable for individual organisations to run up such significant deficits when the majority of the sector is working extremely hard to hit their financial plans, and in many cases have made real progress.\"\n\nThe regulator has already appointed a new interim chairman - former private health care boss Ian Smith - to replace Lord Kerslake. He will have to work with NHS Improvement's team to carry out a review and agree a recovery plan, which will be closely monitored.\n\nThe BBC understands the move comes after NHS Improvement bosses met with Lord Kerslake on Friday, when he was warned special measures would be needed given the decline in financial performance.\n\nIn a statement, Lord Kerslake said of his decision to quit: \"I do not do this lightly as I love King's but believe the government and regulator are unrealistic about the scale of the challenge facing the NHS and the trust.\n\n\"I want to pay tribute to the staff and their excellent patient care.\"\n\nKing's College said Lord Kerslake had led the hospital \"through a challenging period\"\n\nThe peer also paid tribute to the \"world-class\" care given at the hospital, especially after the Westminster and London Bridge terror attacks, in a self-penned Guardian article.\n\nHe added: \"There are undoubtedly things that I and the trust could have done better, there always are, but fundamentally our problems lie in the way that the NHS is funded and organised.\"\n\nLord Kerslake carried out a review for Labour into the Treasury last year, but has denied there was any political motivation behind his comments.\n\nLord Kerslake's comments come after the board of NHS England said targets for waiting times could not be met next year even with the extra money allocated in the Budget.\n\nComing from a figure with such high level Whitehall experience the latest criticism of the government's handling of the NHS carries some weight.\n\nKing's College Hospital has been in long-running discussions with the regulator NHS Improvement about reducing its deficit.\n\nIt's understood that it was close to being put into a financial special measures regime in which NHS Improvement staff would work alongside hospital management.\n\nLabour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the resignation was \"embarrassing for the government\".\n\nKing's College Hospital described Lord Kerslake as a \"passionate advocate and champion\" of the trust who had a \"heartfelt commitment to staff and patients\".\n\nIt added that he had led King's \"through a challenging period which has also seen some notable successes, our response to three major incidents in London, the launch of the helipad and delivering some of the highest patient outcomes of any Trust in the UK\".", "Scientists think Hunga Tunga Hunga Ha'apai might hold clues on where to look for life on Mars.", "The global recall affects consumers in several countries including Britain, China and Sudan.\n\nFrench baby milk formula maker Lactalis has ordered a global product recall over fears of salmonella contamination.\n\nHealth authorities in France said 26 infants in the country have become sick since early December.\n\nThe recall affects products and exports to countries including Britain, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sudan.\n\nIt covers hundreds of baby milk powder products marketed globally under the Milumel, Picot and Celi brands.\n\nLactalis is one of the world's biggest dairy producers. Company spokesman Michel Nalet told AFP \"nearly 7,000 tonnes\" of production may have been contaminated, but the company is currently unable to say how much remains on the market, has been consumed or is in stock.\n\nLactalis believes the salmonella outbreak can be traced to a tower used to dry out the milk powder at its factory in the town of Craon in northwest France, according to AFP.\n\nAll products made there since mid-February have been recalled and the company said precautionary measures have been taken to disinfect all of its machinery at the factory.\n\nThe recall expands a health scare that started at the beginning of December after 20 children in France under the age of six fell sick.\n\nAt the time a limited recall was issued but regulators found the measures Lactalis had put in place to manage the contamination risk were \"not sufficient\".\n\nSalmonella bacteria can cause food poisoning and symptoms include diarrhoea, stomach cramps and vomiting.\n\nThe illness, caused by intestinal bacteria from farm animals, is dangerous for the very young and elderly because of the risk of dehydration.\n\nIt is not the first time the baby milk formula industry has been rocked by a health scare.\n\nSix babies died and around 300,000 others fell ill in 2008 after Chinese manufacturers added the industrial chemical melamine to their infant milk powder products.", "Presha Taneja took this photo of driving conditions while stuck near junction 20 of the M25.", "A traffic jam near Mülheim - one of many in snow-bound Germany\n\nHeavy snow blanketing northern Europe has caused many flight cancellations and delays at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands and Brussels airport.\n\nAbout 400 flights were cancelled at Schiphol - one of Europe's biggest airports - and about 200 in Brussels.\n\nTravellers have been advised to check flight updates at home, rather than set off for the airport in bad weather.\n\nIn Germany the heavy snow has caused many car crashes and traffic jams, as well as train delays.\n\nMore than 300 flights were cancelled on Sunday at Frankfurt airport, the busiest in Germany.\n\nThe Dutch airport at Eindhoven was temporarily closed because of the snow, and many Dutch schools remained shut on Monday.\n\nConditions improved later at Brussels airport, where planes were able to take off from one de-iced runway. But Brussels Airlines scrapped all its flights.\n\nIn the UK, dozens of flights were cancelled at Heathrow and road conditions were described as treacherous in many areas.\n\nThe heavy snow left thousands of British homes without electricity and hundreds of schools were shut on Monday.\n\nIn France 32 regions were put on an emergency \"orange alert\" footing, as a storm nicknamed \"Ana\" battered the Atlantic coast, with winds gusting as high as 150km/h (93mph). Later the alert was reduced to eight regions in the north and far south.\n\nThere were also avalanche warnings in some French Alpine ski resorts, after a metre (3.3ft) or more of fresh snow fell above 2,000 metres.\n\nNationwide at least 120,000 homes had power cuts on Monday, most of them in the Loire Valley.\n\nThe motorway section between Calais and Boulogne was closed after heavy snow in northeastern France.\n\nNot what you expect in Venice: snowflakes on the gondolas\n\nSnow also spread southwards to Italy, causing some travel disruption in northern regions.\n\nThe snow caused the closure of schools in Liguria, Piedmont and Tuscany, Italy's La Stampa daily reported.\n\nFerry services to the islands off Naples were suspended because of strong winds.\n\nVal d'Isère, France: The plentiful snow is generally good news for ski resorts", "Scientists say they may have found the world's first blood test that predicts when someone at risk is likely to get Huntington's disease and tracks how quickly damage to the brain occurs.\n\nExperts describe the early research as a \"major advance\" in this field.\n\nThe study, in the Lancet Neurology, suggests the prototype test could help in the hunt for new treatments.\n\nHuntington's disease is an inherited and incurable brain disorder that is currently fatal.\n\nAbout 10,000 people in the UK have the condition and about 25,000 are at risk.\n\nIt is passed on through genes, and children who inherit a faulty gene from parents have a 50% chance of getting the disease in later life.\n\nPeople can develop a range of problems including involuntary movements, personality changes and altered behaviour and may be fully dependent on carers towards the end of their lives.\n\nIn this study, an international team - including researchers from University College London - looked at 200 people with genes for Huntington's disease - some of whom already had signs of the disease, and others at earlier stages.\n\nThey compared them to some 100 people who were not at risk of getting the condition.\n\nVolunteers had several tests over three years, including brain scans and clinical check-ups to see how Huntington's disease affected people's thinking skills and movement as the condition became more severe.\n\nAt the same time scientists looked for clues in blood samples - measuring a substance called neurofilament light chain (NFL) - released from damaged brain cells.\n\nThey found levels of the brain protein were high in people with Huntington's disease and were even elevated in people who carried the gene for Huntington's disease but were many years away from showing any symptoms.\n\nAnd researchers found NFL levels rose as the condition worsened and as people's brains shrank over time.\n\nDr Edward Wild, at UCL, said: \"Neurofilament light chain has the potential to serve as a speedometer in Huntington's disease, since a single blood test reflects how quickly the brain is changing.\n\n\"We have been trying to identify blood biomarkers to help track the progression of Huntington's disease for well over a decade and this is the best candidate we have seen so far.\"\n\nResearchers suggest it could be more rapid and cheaper than current methods of measuring the progress of the disease, such as invasive tests of spinal fluid and brain scans.\n\nAnd they say the blood test could be particularly helpful when checking if new treatments show any signs of being able halt the progress of the condition.\n\nCommenting in the Lancet Neurology, Prof Christopher Ross and Prof Jee Bang of John Hopkins University described the study as \"remarkable\".\n\nThey added: \"The study represents a major advance in the field of Huntington's disease and neurodegeneration in general…\"\n\nBut they cautioned that it was important to carry out further, larger trials to confirm the results.\n\nScientists working on the original study agreed that further experiments were needed to fully understand the pros and cons of the test, before it could be of any help to patients.\n\nCath Stanley, chief executive of Hungtington's Disease Association, said: \"This is a ground breaking piece of research that takes nearer to having a better understanding about Huntington's disease.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "BBC Weather presenter Sarah Keith-Lucas looks at the forecast for Monday and Tuesday, and lists the parts of the UK which saw the most snow on Sunday.", "Survivors are calling for a more central role in the inquiry\n\nIt is hoped the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire will give \"some measure of closure\" to survivors and the bereaved, its lead counsel says.\n\nRichard Millett said hearing their voices was of \"great importance\".\n\nBut Michael Mansfield QC, representing some of the 71 victims, called for a diverse panel to sit alongside the chairman, Sir Martin Moore-Bick.\n\nHe said there was a \"distinct feeling today that those people most affected have not been included\".\n\nHe told Sir Martin: \"You yourself cannot be expected to reflect the diversity.... no one person could do that.\"\n\nSpeaking at the start of procedural hearings at Holborn Bars in London, Mr Mansfield said a broader panel would help the victims' families to \"respond and engage\" with the inquiry.\n\nSir Martin suggested creating \"a consultative panel\" instead, able to advise, but not make decisions in the inquiry.\n\nMr Mansfield said that \"would help, but... wouldn't quite solve\" the problem.\n\nSir Martin was warned that he would have to do more to win the victim's trust.\n\nSam Stein, another lawyer representing some victims said: \"The gaining of trust from survivors of a tragedy of this magnitude, whose lives have been broken and ruined by the very state that appointed you, is not easy and it will take time.\"\n\nThe Metropolitan Police is investigating offences including manslaughter, corporate manslaughter, misconduct in public office and breaches of fire safety regulations in relation to the fire, the inquiry heard.\n\nThe force has already gathered 31 million documents and 2,500 physical exhibits. Some 1,144 witnesses have given statements and 383 companies are part of the investigation.\n\nThe inquiry plans to deliver an interim report into the fire's causes and the emergency response by next autumn.\n\nAhead of the start of the hearings, it emerged that six months on from the fire, only 42 of the 208 families who needed rehousing after the fire have so far been moved to permanent homes.\n\nMohammed Rasoul and his family - including two young children and his 86-year-old father, who has dementia - are still living in a hotel room.\n\n\"You feel like you're a prisoner living in here,\" he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nSpeaking about the inquiry, Mr Rasoul was pessimistic, saying: \"I personally have lost confidence in our justice system. I hope they can prove me wrong but it doesn't look like people are going to be held accountable.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThree days after the fire, the prime minister twice stated - unprompted - in a BBC interview that all those affected would be rehoused within three weeks.\n\nBut last week, survivors' group Grenfell United said 118 families would still be in emergency accommodation or staying with friends over Christmas.\n\nIt said a further 48 households had accepted offers for permanent housing - but have still not been moved in, leaving them in temporary accommodation.\n\nElizabeth Campbell, leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, said \"an army of people\" had been working to get people rehoused.\n\n\"We have been buying homes in this part of London at a rate of about two a day.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Labour councillor Paul Mason accused Kensington and Chelsea of not caring about those left homeless\n\nShe said \"every family\" in a hotel had been offered \"alternative accommodation\" - but many had refused \"for perfectly understandable reasons\".\n\nAs the inquiry begins, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced its own investigation examining whether authorities failed in their legal obligations to residents.\n\nIt will also look at whether the government has adequately investigated the fire - including looking into the public inquiry - and expects to conclude its work in April.\n\nOn Monday the inquiry heard from several other lawyers who called for a panel to be appointed to support Sir Martin.\n\nPete Weatherby, who represents 73 individuals, said: \"Our clients are all different, they are young and old, men and women, they are of diverse heritage.\n\n\"Most of my clients are Muslim, they need an inquiry that understands their experience as much as possible.\"\n\nHe also raised concerns that companies involved may \"not act with candour\" and may become \"defensive\", and said this was delaying the release of documents to survivors and families.\n\nAnother representative of survivors, Danny Friedman QC, said people wanted the inquiry \"to be a proud and positive example of justice and equality in 21st Century Britain\".\n\nHowever, the families denied that they were trying to \"hijack\" the process by putting themselves on the panel.\n\nInstead, they believe panel members can be found with expertise in the wider social issues at stake, to give the inquiry a broader view.\n\nAdel Chaoui, who lost his cousin and her family, said: \"What we're asking for is reasonable and proportionate - particularly given that past inquiries have had a panel. We're being asked to accept a single point of judgement.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. University student Ryan Archer's love of gaming spiralled into gambling when he was 15\n\nThousands of children and young people are losing money on websites which allow them to trade virtual items, gambling experts have warned.\n\nThe Gambling Commission's annual report has, for the first time, looked at the problem of so-called \"skin betting\".\n\nThe items won - usually modified guns or knives within a video game known as a skin - can often be sold and turned back into real money.\n\nThe commission says cracking down on the industry is now a top priority.\n\nExperts say third party websites enable children to gamble the virtual weapons - or skins - on casino or slot machine type games, offering them the chance to generate real money.\n\nOverall, the report shows that around 370,000 11-16 year-olds spent their own money on gambling in the past week, in England, Scotland and Wales.\n\nMost commonly, children were using fruit machines, National Lottery scratch cards or placing private bets.\n\nBangor University student Ryan Archer's love of gaming spiralled into gambling when he was 15 and he became involved in skin betting.\n\nFour years later he has lost more than £2,000.\n\n\"I'd get my student loan, some people spend it on expensive clothes, I spend it on gambling virtual items,\" he said.\n\n\"There have been points where I could struggle to buy food, because this takes priority.\"\n\nRyan wanted to build an inventory of skins, but when he could not afford the price tag attached to some of them he began gambling on unlicensed websites to try to raise money.\n\nHe said: \"It's hard to ask your parents for £1,000 to buy a knife on CSGO (the multiplayer first-person shooter game Counter Strike: Global Offensive), it's a lot easier to ask for a tenner and then try and turn that into £1,000.\"\n\nIn CSGO, players can exchange real money for the chance to obtain a modified weapon known as a skin and a number of gambling websites have been built around the game.\n\n\"You wouldn't see an 11-year-old go into a betting shop, but you can with this, there's nothing to stop you,\" Ryan said.\n\nSkins modify the look of a gun\n\nSkins are collectable, virtual items in video games that change the appearance of a weapon - for example, turning a pistol into a golden gun.\n\nSometimes skins can be earned within a game, but they can also be bought with real money.\n\nSome games also let players trade and sell skins, with rarer examples attracting high prices.\n\nA number of websites let players gamble with their skins for the chance to win more valuable ones.\n\nSince skins won on such a website could theoretically be sold and turned back into real-world money, critics say betting with skins is unlicensed gambling.\n\nSarah Harrison, chief executive of the Gambling Commission, said: \"Because of these unlicensed skin betting sites, the safeguards that exist are not being applied and we're seeing examples of really young people, 11 and 12-year-olds, who are getting involved in skin betting, not realising that it's gambling.\n\n\"At one level they are running up bills perhaps on their parents' Paypal account or credit card, but the wider effect is the introduction and normalisation of this kind of gambling among children and young people.\"\n\nEarlier this year, the Gambling Commission for the first time prosecuted people for running an unlicensed gambling website connected to a video game.\n\nCraig Douglas, a prominent gamer known as Nepenthez, and his business partner Dylan Rigby, were fined £91,000 ($112,000) and £164,000 respectively after admitting offences under the UK's Gambling Act.\n\nThe men ran a website called FUT Galaxy that was connected to the Fifa video game and let gamers gamble virtual currency.\n\nMs Harrison said the regulator was prepared to take criminal action, but said the \"huge issue\" also required help from parents, game platform providers and payment providers.\n\nSome games providers have put more safeguards in place, but many of the sites are based abroad.\n\nVicky Shotbolt, from the group Parentzone said: \"It's a huge emerging issue that's getting bigger and bigger, but parents aren't even thinking about it.\n\n\"When we talk to people about skin gambling, we normally get a look of complete confusion.\"\n\nShe called on regulators to take more action over the issue.", "Protests in the Lebanese capital Beirut against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel have turned ugly again, with youths throwing stones at the US embassy.\n\nThe BBC's Martin Patience reports from the scene as police use tear gas to disperse the crowd.", "Aaron Reilly (left) and Joshua Brock and were found unconscious at the Pryzm nightclub in Plymouth\n\nTributes have been paid to two 19-year-old men who died after apparently taking drugs at a nightclub.\n\nAaron Reilly and Joshua Brock were found unconscious at Pryzm in Plymouth in the early hours of Saturday,\n\nThe teenagers, who police said thought they were taking ecstasy, died later in hospital.\n\nThe club was evacuated and an 18-year-old man was arrested by Devon and Cornwall Police. He has been released under investigation, the force said.\n\nThe family of Mr Reilly, from Newton Abbot, described him as \"a much-loved son, brother, grandson and boyfriend\" who loved skateboarding and playing computer games.\n\nHis younger brother Kian said: \"My brother was one of the most responsible people I ever knew and everything he achieved I was so proud of, but I was so envious of his talent.\n\n\"I can't believe he was taken from me and my family from one silly mistake, just trying to have fun on a night out with his best mates.\"\n\nHundreds of young people had been attending a gig by the Swedish dance artist Basshunter when the pair collapsed\n\nMr Brock, from Okehampton, was described as \"a loving son to Steve and Sandra, an inspirational brother to Liam and Demelza and a loyal mate to all his friends\".\n\n\"Joshua was in his third year studying for a diploma in aircraft engineering at the Flybe Training Academy in Exeter when his life was cut short,\" the family said in a statement.\n\n\"He was the kindest, most helpful person you could hope to meet and had a great sense of humour.\n\n\"His main hobby was keeping fit and eating healthily, so what happened that night is so totally out of character as he was always against drug taking in any shape or form. One moment of madness led to this tragedy.\"\n\nOn Saturday, the nightclub described the deaths as \"tragic and very sad\", adding that staff were co-operating with the police investigation.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Fire crews were called to the scene on Jackson Street at about 05:00 GMT\n\nThree children have died in a house fire in Salford, while a three-year-old is said to be in a critical condition.\n\nA 14-year-old girl, named locally as Demi Pearson, was declared dead at the scene, while an eight-year-old boy and a girl aged seven died in hospital.\n\nTheir mother, named as Michelle Pearson, 35, is in a serious condition.\n\nFour people have been arrested on suspicion of murder over the fire, which broke out at the house in Jackson Street, Walkden, at about 05:00 GMT.\n\nMs Pearson has been heavily sedated and has not yet been told that her children are dead, a Greater Manchester Police (GMP) spokesperson said.\n\nThree men, aged 18, 20 and 23, and a 20-year-old woman have been arrested on suspicion of murder and remain in custody for questioning.\n\nA 24-year-old man has also been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.\n\nGMP confirmed it had had very recent contact with the family and had visited the house in the hours before the blaze.\n\nThe case has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).\n\nThe roads around Jackson Street have been cordoned off\n\nCh Supt Wayne Miller said what had happened was \"the murder, using fire, of three children and we have a three-year-old girl fighting for her life\".\n\nHe said officers were \"keeping an open mind\" over whether the tragedy was related to organised crime.\n\nAppealing for any information \"no matter how small\", he added the deaths would \"devastate this family forever\".\n\nNeighbour Susan Smith said she saw the children being carried to the ambulances\n\nNeighbour Susan Smith said she heard \"people screaming and shouting and then I opened the bathroom window and it was just like if you can imagine an orange cloud and a bang and fireballs coming from the house\".\n\nShe said paramedics were \"pulling up outside our house and they were carrying the children to the ambulances\".\n\nThe four children, their mother and one other person were taken to hospital.\n\nTwo boys, aged 16, who were also in the house, were described as \"walking wounded\".\n\nIt is understood one of the boys is a family member, while the other is not related.\n\nPolice are treating the fire as suspicious\n\nGreater Manchester Fire Service said crews rescued five people when they arrived on the scene, while two people had already got out of the house.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The blast hit during New York's rush-hour - this is how events unfolded\n\nA man is being held after an attempted terror attack at New York City's main bus terminal.\n\n\"Terrorists won't win,\" Mayor Bill de Blasio said after a blast at the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan during the morning rush hour on Monday.\n\nThe suspect, Akayed Ullah, a 27-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant, was injured by a \"low-tech explosive device\" strapped to his body, officials say.\n\nThree other people suffered minor wounds when it blew up in an underpass.\n\nA photo circulating on social media shows a man, said to be Akayed Ullah, lying on the ground with his clothes ripped and lacerations on his upper body.\n\nMayor De Blasio said he was believed to have acted alone.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. NYC police commissioner: 'Suspect has burns and wounds to body'\n\nNew York Governor Andrew Cuomo said: \"This is New York. The reality is that we are a target by many who would like to make a statement against democracy, against freedom.\n\n\"We have the Statue of Liberty in our harbour and that makes us an international target.\"\n\nThe explosion occurred at about 07:30 (12:30 GMT). Andre Rodriguez, 62, told the New York Times: \"I was going through the turnstile. It sounded like an explosion, and everybody started running.\"\n\nAnother eyewitness, Alicja Wlodkowski, told Reuters news agency that she had seen a group of about 60 people running. \"A woman fell. And nobody even went to stop and help her because the panic was so scary,\" she said.\n\nNearby subway stations were evacuated, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal temporarily shut.\n\nIt is the biggest and busiest bus terminal in the world, serving more than 65 million people a year.\n\nThe suspect's home in the New York City borough of Brooklyn is being searched, the New York Times reports.\n\nHe may have been recently working at an electrical company, according to the New York Post.\n\nMr Ullah emigrated to the US on a family visa in 2011. The Bangladeshi government said he had no criminal record in the country, which he last visited in September.\n\nWhite House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders claimed that if Mr Trump's proposed immigration crackdown had already been in place, \"the attacker would have never been allowed to come into the country\".\n\n\"This attack underscores the need for Congress to work with the president on immigration reforms that enhance our national security and public safety,\" she added during a daily news briefing on Monday.\n\nSeveral blocks of the city have been cordoned off\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Spectrum News NY1 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Megan Bannister was found lifeless on the back seat of a crashed car\n\nThe best friend of a teenager who died after taking drugs has called for a law to oblige people to seek help for someone they know is dangerously ill.\n\nSixteen-year-old Megan Bannister died while in a car driven by the men who had supplied the drugs.\n\nJason Burder, 29, and Adam King, 28, were jailed for supplying MDMA but cleared of her manslaughter.\n\nLouis King said he wanted a new law that could see people prosecuted for failing to call an ambulance.\n\n\"I was angry, I felt that Megan had not had any justice,\" he added.\n\nLouis King says Jason Burder and Adam King's sentences were not long enough\n\nLouis said Megan's death \"counted as an aggravating factor to the drugs charges but I don't think [the sentence] was anywhere near long enough\".\n\nWhat happened has prompted him to call for a change in the law.\n\n\"They gave her these drugs and then they recorded her having a completely different reaction to what they were having,\" he said\n\n\"They should have known something was wrong with her, they did know and they did nothing about it.\n\n\"It's their fault she is gone, they took away her chance of having any help.\"\n\nLouis said Burder and King \"showed none of the kindness she showed to friends, they just treated her like trash\".\n\nJason Burder (left) was jailed for eight and a half years and Adam King was sentenced to four and a half years\n\nMegan was found lying in the back of a Vauxhall Astra which had crashed near Enderby, Leicestershire, on 14 May.\n\nTheir trial heard Burder and King had given Megan ecstasy, then filmed her bad reaction.\n\nThe men, both from Leicester, then drove around buying beer and calling escorts while the teenager was left to die.\n\nThey were acquitted of manslaughter as it was unclear that their failure to seek medical help had caused Megan's death.\n\nBurder was jailed for eight and a half years and King for four and a half years.\n\nKirsten Bannister said her family's lives had been ruined\n\nLouis has started an online petition to try to have the idea debated in Parliament.\n\nMegan's sister Kirsten, who is backing the move, said she missed her sister every day.\n\n\"Megan was caring, kind and beautiful,\" she added.\n\n\"We are taking each day as it comes and we are lucky to have a big family and a big support network.\n\n\"But our lives are ruined, they will never be the same again.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Compare the temperature where you are with more than 50 cities around the world, including some of the hottest and coldest inhabited places. Enter your location or postcode in the search box to see your result.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester United manager Jose Mourinho had water and milk thrown at him and Manchester City coach Mikel Arteta suffered a cut head during a post-match row.\n\nUnited were upset at what they viewed as an excessive City reaction to Sunday's 2-1 win at Old Trafford, which sent them 11 points clear at the top of the Premier League.\n\nCity's players celebrated in front of their fans after the final whistle and coaching staff tried to persuade manager Pep Guardiola to join them, but he refused.\n\nAfter the players headed down the tunnel, it is understood Mourinho made his feelings known outside the visitors' dressing room as he made his way to post-match interviews.\n\nThe City camp reacted, with Brazil goalkeeper Ederson and Mourinho exchanging words angrily in Portuguese - but Mourinho carried out his post-match media engagements as normal and made no mention of it.\n\nArteta was left with a cut after he was hit by a plastic drinks bottle, but it is not known who threw it and sources from both clubs say no punches were thrown during the incident.\n• None The incident started when Mourinho responded to what he perceived to be over the top celebrations.\n• None The row took place outside the visitors' dressing room, the door to which was open. It was noisy but lasted no more than two minutes.\n• None A one-pint milk carton - which had been left in the City dressing room for tea and coffee - was thrown at Mourinho. The United manager did not get splattered but a member of his staff was.\n• None After the row, the Portuguese went into the referees' room, which is opposite the visitors' dressing room, and then to the tunnel to do his post-match interviews.\n• None Players from both sides were talking to each other normally after they had got changed.\n\nThe Football Association announced on Monday that it will seek observations from both clubs in relation to the incident with the clubs having until 13 December to respond.\n\nThe referee, Michael Oliver, did not see the incident and did not include it in his report of the match.\n\nIn October 2004, then United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was hit by pizza thrown by Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas after a bad-tempered encounter between the sides at Old Trafford.\n\nIn the build-up to Sunday's Premier League game, City were irritated when United denied them permission to use cameras to gather footage for their £10m behind-the-scenes documentary.\n\nThe Old Trafford club said there was not enough room because of the number of rights holders wanting to attend the game.\n• None City beat United to become first team to win 14 straight English top-flight games in one season\n• None We won because he played better - Guardiola\n\nIn his pre-match news conference - and again on Sunday - Mourinho said he did not think he would be allowed to make to make a political statement on the touchline like Guardiola.\n\nThe City boss has recently worn a yellow ribbon - a symbol of protest against the imprisonment of pro-independence politicians in the Spanish region of Catalonia.\n\nMourinho also suggested on Friday that City players go to ground too easily, saying: \"A little bit of wind and they fall.\"\n\nHowever, on Sunday United midfielder Ander Herrera was booked for diving in the second half when he went down in the box under challenge from Nicolas Otamendi - though his Portuguese boss was adamant his side should have been awarded a penalty.", "Venezuelans look for their names on electoral rolls before voting in Sunday's mayoral polls\n\nVenezuela's President, Nicolás Maduro, says the country's main opposition parties are banned from taking part in next year's presidential election.\n\nHe said only parties which took part in Sunday's mayoral polls would be able to contest the presidency.\n\nLeaders from the Justice First, Popular Will and Democratic Action parties boycotted the vote because they said the electoral system was biased.\n\nPresident Maduro insists the Venezuelan system is entirely trustworthy.\n\nIn a speech on Sunday, he said the opposition parties had \"disappeared from the political map\".\n\n\"A party that has not participated today and has called for the boycott of the elections can't participate anymore,\" he said.\n\nIn October, the three main opposition parties announced they would be boycotting Sunday's vote, saying it only served what they called President Maduro's dictatorship.\n\nPresident Maduro says his party won more than 300 of the 335 mayoral races being contested. The election board put turn out at 47%.\n\nVenezuela has been mired in a worsening economic crisis characterised by shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation.\n\nMr Maduro's pronouncement is designed to provoke the opposition. Especially since he justified the move saying it was a condition set out by the National Constituent Assembly - a body that the opposition refuses to recognise because they say it is undemocratic.\n\nMr Maduro has lost popularity because of the worsening economic crisis. In the face of criticism, his strategy has been one of \"divide and conquer\" - find ways of weakening the opposition to make them less of a threat.\n\nAnd he hs succeeded - he has imprisoned some of the most popular opposition leaders like Leopoldo López. He has prevented others like Henrique Capriles from running for office. And now this threat - banning the most influential parties from taking part in future elections. The opposition is in crisis and Mr Maduro is gloating.\n\nMr Maduro said he was following the criteria set by the National Constituent Assembly in banning opposition parties from contesting next year's election.\n\nBut the assembly, which came into force in August and has the ability to rewrite the constitution, is made up exclusively of government loyalists. Opposition parties see it as a way for the president to cling to power.\n\nThe presidential vote had been scheduled for December 2018, but analysts say it could now be brought forward.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Your video guide to the crisis gripping Venezuela\n\nVenezuela, in the north of South America, is home to more than 30 million people. It has some of the world's largest oil deposits as well as huge quantities of coal and iron ore.\n\nDespite its rich natural resources many Venezuelans live in poverty. This led President Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chávez, to style himself as a champion of the poor during his 14 years in office.\n\nNow the country is starkly divided between supporters of President Maduro and those who want an end to the Socialist Party's 18 years in government.\n\nSupporters of Mr Maduro say his party has lifted many people out of poverty, but critics say it has eroded Venezuela's democratic institutions and mismanaged its economy.", "The man suspected of trying to bomb New York City's main bus terminal is 27-year-old Akayed Ullah, according to New York City Police Commissioner James O'Neill.\n\nHe was wearing an \"improvised, low-tech, explosive device attached to his body\", which he detonated intentionally, Mr O'Neill said.\n\nThe bomber suffered burns and other wounds and was taken to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.\n\nMr Ullah came from Chittagong, Bangladesh, and entered the US with his parents and siblings in 2011 on an immigrant visa, according to CBS News.\n\nBangladesh is not one of the six countries affected by President Trump's travel ban.\n\nWhite House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Mr Ullah had entered the US on an F43 visa. This means he was the child of someone with an F41 visa, which is available to people who are the \"brother or sister of a US citizen at least 21 years old\".\n\nMr Trump has proposed eliminating so-called chain migration, which is when US immigrants legally bring family members into the country.\n\nMr Ullah was inspired by the Islamic State group but had no direct contact with it, law enforcement officials in the US told the Associated Press news agency.\n\nHe said he had been motivated by US air strikes on IS targets in Syria and elsewhere, the New York Times reports.\n\nHe told police investigators he had been inspired by Christmas terror attacks in Europe and selected the Port Authority bus terminal after seeing a number of festive posters on the subway walls.\n\nMr Ullah was a permanent US resident, living in Brooklyn, New York City.\n\nPolice in Bangladesh say he last visited that country on 8 September.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The blast hit during New York's rush-hour - this is how events unfolded\n\nHe lived in the same apartment building as his brother whom he recently worked with at an electrical company close to Port Authority, police said.\n\nThe New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission told CNN that Mr Ullah had held a taxi driver's licence from March 2012 to March 2015.\n\nHowever, he did not drive a New York yellow taxi or work for Uber.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. NYC police commissioner: \"Suspect has burns and wounds to body\"\n\nThe Inspector General of Police in Bangladesh, AKM Shahidul Haque, said Mr Ullah had had no criminal record in the country.\n\nBangladesh police are continuing to investigate Mr Ullah's background, police said.\n\nMr Ullah has, up to now, also held a clean record in the US, with just traffic violations cited by the police.", "Ms Wasim shared her experience on her Instagram account, which has almost 400,000 followers\n\nPolice have arrested an Indian man accused of molesting a Bollywood actress on a flight from Delhi to Mumbai on Sunday.\n\nZaira Wasim, 17, said a \"middle-aged man\" sitting behind her had repeatedly moved his foot up and down her neck and back while she was \"half-asleep\".\n\nShe documented the incident on Instagram and tried to film the man but said it was too dark to see his face.\n\nIndian media reports said that the man had been identified with help from the airline, Air Vistara.\n\nMs Wasim had accused the airline of not doing anything to help her when she raised the issue, but did not file an official complaint against them.\n\nShe posted about the incident on her Instagram account early on Sunday. \"I was sure of it,\" she wrote. He kept nudging my shoulder and continued to move his foot up and down my back and neck.\"\n\nShe said she blamed the turbulence at first but was later woken by the man's foot touching her neck.\n\nMs Wasim shared a video of herself after the flight, in which she was visibly upset. \"This is terrible,\" she said. \"No one will help up if we don't decide to help ourselves.\"\n\nMs Wasim made her acting debut in Dangal last year.\n\nZaira Wasim made her acting debut in Dangal, the top grossing Bollywood movie of all time\n\nShe was awarded the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement earlier this year by India's President Ram Nath Kovind.\n\nAir Vistara said on Twitter that staff had not become aware of the incident until the plane was on its descent to Mumbai but it apologised for what Ms Wasim had experienced.\n\n\"We have zero tolerance for such behaviour,\" its statement read.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Vistara This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn recent months, a growing number of women have spoken out about their experiences of sexual harassment.\n\nIt followed a campaign encouraging victims to share their stories of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour under the #metoo hashtag.", "Max Clifford had been serving an eight-year jail sentence for sex offences\n\nDisgraced celebrity publicist Max Clifford has died in hospital, aged 74, after collapsing in prison.\n\nClifford collapsed in his cell at Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire on Thursday and again on Friday, his daughter said. He was taken to hospital where he suffered a cardiac arrest.\n\nHe had been serving an eight-year sentence for historical sex offences.\n\nThe Ministry of Justice said as with all deaths in custody, there would an investigation by the ombudsman.\n\nA spokeswoman added: \"Our condolences are with Mr Clifford's family at this difficult time.\"\n\nHis daughter Louise, 46, had told the Mail on Sunday that Clifford first collapsed in his cell on Thursday when he was trying to clean it, adding: \"It was just too much.\"\n\nShe said he collapsed again the next day and was unconscious for several minutes, and after seeing a nurse was transferred to a local hospital where he suffered a cardiac arrest on Friday.\n\nDuring his trial he accused his victims of being fantasists\n\nThe Ministry of Justice confirmed Clifford died in hospital on 10 December.\n\nIn May 2014, Clifford was jailed after being convicted of eight historical indecent assaults on women and young girls under Operation Yewtree - the Met Police investigation set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.\n\nDuring this trial, evidence was heard about Clifford's manipulative behaviour, including how he promised to boost the careers of aspiring models and actresses in return for sexual favours.\n\nAfter his convictions, he continued to protest his innocence.\n\nThe Court of Appeal was due to hear his case appealing against his sentence in the New Year.\n\nClifford's lawyer, John Szepietowski, said his death meant there were a number of unresolved legal issues.\n\nHe said Clifford had been suing News International and Mirror Group Newspapers for allegedly hacking his phone.\n\nHis daughter Louise supported him through his trial\n\nThe lawyer also said Clifford was being sued by a number of women who claimed he had sexually assaulted them.\n\nMr Szepietowski said his legal team would meet in the coming days to decide whether Clifford's criminal appeal case should continue.\n\nHe said Clifford had been receiving legal aid for the appeal, after being declared bankrupt earlier this year and having to sell his Surrey home to pay his debts.\n\nDuring his long career as a publicist, Clifford, who started his own company at 27, looked after press and publicity for a mixed range of clients such as Marlon Brando, Marvin Gaye, Muhammad Ali and Jade Goody.\n\nHe claimed he had helped to launch the career of The Beatles by sending press releases about their debut single, Love Me Do, when record company bosses were unsure about the group's potential.\n\nHigh-profile clients came to him because of his connections in the tabloid press - while journalists turned to Clifford to provide stories.\n\nHowever, after 50 years in the showbiz industry allegations against him began to emerge.\n\nIn a Facebook post following the announcement that Clifford had died, former X Factor winner Steve Brookstein, claimed Clifford had \"orchestrated a media hate campaign\" against him.\n• None The rise and fall of Max Clifford\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The mesh implants are used to ease incontinence and to support organs\n\nOne of the world's biggest medical companies failed to tell doctors and patients of the full extent of some of the risks posed by mesh implants.\n\nA BBC Panorama investigation has seen documents that show one of Ethicon's own in-house doctors warned it had not updated information on complications.\n\nIt said doctors were informed of the risks and that the company cared deeply about patient safety.\n\nOver the past 20 years, more than 100,000 women across the UK have had transvaginal mesh implants, which are used to treat prolapse and incontinence, often after childbirth.\n\nThe vast majority of women suffer no side effects but others have reported chronic and debilitating pain, with some being left unable to walk.\n\nThe plastic meshes, which are made of polypropylene - the same material used to make certain drinks bottles - are used to support organs such as the vagina, uterus, bowel, bladder or urethra which have prolapsed.\n\nThe Panorama investigation obtained insider emails that show Ethicon was warned repeatedly by one of their own in-house doctors, about the risks of mesh.\n\nIn 2008, Ethicon's associate medical director wrote to managers at the company with her concerns about the fact the information provided by Ethicon to surgeons had not been updated since 2005.\n\nShe said \"post-market knowledge\" of the products had provided much more information than was given to doctors.\n\nEthicon's own in-house doctor advised updating the information for users\n\nThe associate medical director recommended updating the \"potential adverse reactions\" section of the Instructions for Use (IFUs) for all types of TVTs (tension-free vaginal tape) it had on the market at the time.\n\nIn January 2009, she wrote again to say the information for doctors had not been updated and still referred to several complications as \"transitory\".\n\n\"From what I see each day, these patient experiences are not 'transitory' at all,\" she wrote.\n\nClaire Daisley says she is in constant pain\n\nShe struggles to walk after a simple operation to treat a weakened bladder.\n\nClaire had the mesh surgically removed but it can be difficult to take out and after the operation her pain got worse.\n\nShe now faces having her bowel removed.\n\n\"I don't want to be here any more,\" she said.\n\n\"That's how far it's taken me because sometimes you don't know if you can take the next day.\"\n\nShe is one of 501 women in Scotland now taking legal action.\n\nDr Agur addressed the Scottish Parliament on the issue of mesh implants\n\nDr Wael Agur, a consultant urogynaecologist, told Panorama that the information for use leaflet was vital for doctors.\n\n\"It's so important for me as a surgeon to understand full the risks of a medical device I'm about to implant during a surgical procedure and my first resource would be the instructions for use,\" he said.\n\n\"I would expect the manufacturer to have a comprehensive list of the adverse events and the risks within the instructions for use so I fully understand these and communicate them.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for Ethicon said: \"The risks associated with the use of a permanent mesh implant were properly identified in Ethicon's Instructions for Use (IFUs).\"\n\nDocuments seen by Panorama also show that the clinical testing of the vaginal tape TVT Secur before it was put on the market only included trials in sheep and five weeks' monitoring in 31 women.\n\nCarl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, said: \"It's just unacceptable and outrageous.\n\n\"It just blatantly says we don't care about patients. We don't care about safety, we just want to get out and start making money.\"\n\nClaire Daisley struggles to walk after surgery to remove the mesh\n\nEthicon said that it empathised with those women who had suffered complications but said the company had always had the best interests of patients at heart.\n\nThe firm said that all pelvic floor surgery came with a risk and that millions of women had benefited from having treatment for incontinence and prolapse.\n\nMillions of women around the world have had transvaginal mesh implants.\n\nFor the vast majority, the surgery has been a success but thousands of women have suffered devastating consequences as a result of mesh surgery.\n\nIn some cases the damage is irreversible.\n\nMore than 100,000 women around the world are now suing the manufacturers, including Ethicon.\n\nThat includes more than 1,000 women in the UK - many of whom are also taking legal action against the NHS who they will claim failed to inform them of the potential risks.\n\nFigures compiled for Panorama show that more than 6,000 women in the UK have had mesh surgery removals in the past decade.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC forecaster Philip Avery says temperatures will plunge below zero overnight\n\nFreezing conditions are continuing to affect parts of the UK, as forecasters warn it could be facing the coldest night of the year.\n\nA fourth day of wintry weather has caused widespread disruption, affecting flights, trains and ferries.\n\nYellow Met Office warnings for snow and ice have been extended until 11:00 GMT on Tuesday. Forecasters are predicting temperatures could hit -15C (5F).\n\nHundreds of schools are to stay closed for a second successive day on Tuesday.\n\nThe Met Office's weather warning covers Wales, Northern Ireland, parts of Scotland, the Midlands, London and the South East of England.\n\nClear skies overnight could lead temperatures to drop lowest in Wales and central England.\n\nA low of -11.6C (11F) was recorded on Sunday night in Chillingham Barns, Northumberland, although Saturday was the coldest night of the year so far, reaching -12.4C.\n\nBBC weather forecaster Steve Cleaton said hazardous conditions would continue in the coming days, although there would be less snow than at the weekend.\n\n\"A perishingly cold night is expected as we move through Monday evening into Tuesday, with another widespread and severe frost, and temperatures plummeting to below -10C across any snowfields,\" he said.\n\nOver 350 schools in the West Midlands are to close for another day, while in Wales about 180 schools so far have said they will shut.\n\nMore than 1,000 schools didn't open on Monday - nearly 600 of those were in Wales.\n\nThis snowy Monday commute was on the A21 in Hastings\n\nA car turns around after a fallen tree blocks the A40 near Sennybridge, Wales, on Sunday\n\nMeanwhile, a trackside fire at London Waterloo added to the delays, causing major disruption to journeys to and from the station.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMore than 1,000 homes are still without power after 140,000 were cut off on Sunday.\n\nWestern Power Distribution said 900 homes were still cut off, including more than 700 in the West Midlands.\n\nScottish and Southern Electricity Networks said 750 remained cut off in Oxfordshire.\n\nSunset over the Chiltern Hills on Monday afternoon\n\nWootton by Woodstock Primary is one of at least 183 schools in Oxfordshire which are closed\n\nSnow on the coast at Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear on Monday morning\n\nHave you experienced any disruption? Please share your experiences with us by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:", "A 24-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of trespass at Buckingham Palace.\n\nPolice said the man had stepped over a low perimeter fence and was trying to climb an outer wall on Sunday evening.\n\nHe was not found to be carrying a weapon and the incident is not being treated as terrorist related. He has been released on conditional bail.\n\nHe was also held on suspicion of being in possession of a controlled substance but faces no further action over this.", "Fans dressed as famous film characters at a Comic Con Arabia event in Riyadh last month\n\nSaudi Arabia has announced it will lift a ban on commercial cinemas that has lasted more than three decades.\n\nThe ministry of culture and information said it would begin issuing licences immediately and that the first cinemas were expected to open in March 2018.\n\nThe measure is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 social and economic reform programme.\n\nThe conservative Muslim kingdom had cinemas in the 1970s, but clerics persuaded authorities to close them.\n\nAs recently as January, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al al-Sheikh reportedly warned of the \"depravity\" of cinemas, saying they would corrupt morals if allowed.\n\nSaudi Arabia's royal family and religious establishment adhere to an austere form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, and Islamic codes of behaviour and dress are strictly enforced.\n\nA statement issued by the culture ministry on Monday said the decision to license cinemas was \"central to the government's programme to encourage an open and rich domestic culture for Saudis\".\n\n\"This marks a watershed moment in the development of the cultural economy in the Kingdom,\" Culture Minister Awwad Alawwad said.\n\n\"Opening cinemas will act as a catalyst for economic growth and diversification; by developing the broader cultural sector we will create new employment and training opportunities, as well as enriching the kingdom's entertainment options.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A young crown prince is shaping change in the Saudi kingdom.\n\nThe ministry said the move would open up a domestic market of more than 32 million people and that it anticipated there would be more than 300 cinemas with 2,000 screens by 2030.\n\nVision 2030, unveiled by the 32-year-old crown prince last year, aims to increase household spending on cultural and entertainment activities in the oil-dependent kingdom from 2.9% to 6% by 2030.\n\n\"It is a beautiful day in #SaudiArabia!\" wrote the Saudi director Haifaa Al Mansour‏ on Twitter following the announcement.\n\nUS hip hop artist Nelly and Algerian singer Cheb Khaled will perform in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Thursday, though the event is open to men only.\n\nHiba Tawaji became the first female musician to perform at a concert in Saudi Arabia last week\n\nIn September, King Salman announced that women would be permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia for the first time from June 2018 - another move opposed by clerics,\n\nAnd at an economic conference attended by foreign investors the following month, Prince Mohammed declared that Saudi Arabia would once again be \"a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions, traditions and people\".\n\nSeventy per cent of the Saudi population were under 30 and they wanted a \"life in which our religion translates to tolerance, to our traditions of kindness \", he said.\n\nHe insisted Saudi Arabia \"was not like this before 1979\", when there was an Islamic revolution in Iran and militants occupied Mecca's Grand Mosque. Afterwards, public entertainment was banned and clerics were given more control over public life.\n\nPrince Mohammed has also cracked down on dissent and launched an anti-corruption drive that has seen hundreds of people, among them senior princes and prominent businessmen, detained and offered pardons in exchange for financial settlements with the state.", "Mr Putin announced the move at the Russian Hmeimim airbase in Syria\n\nRussia has begun withdrawing some of its troops from Syria, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin ordered the partial withdrawal during an unannounced visit to Syria on Monday.\n\nRussian support has been crucial in turning the tide of Syria's civil war in favour of government forces, led by president Bashar al-Assad.\n\nWhen asked how long it would take for Russia to withdraw its military contingent, Mr Shoigu said that this would \"depend on the situation\" in Syria.\n\nThe Russian president was met by Mr al-Assad at the Russian Hmeimim airbase near Latakia.\n\nMr Putin said: \"I order the defence minister and the chief of the general staff to start withdrawing the Russian group of troops to their permanent bases,\" according to the Russian RIA Novosti news agency.\n\n\"I have taken a decision: a significant part of the Russian troop contingent located in Syria is returning home to Russia,\" he added.\n\nLess than a week after announcing he will stand for re-election, Vladimir Putin flies to Syria and declares victory. Coincidence? Probably not.\n\nSignalling the end of Russia's military operation in Syria will go down well with Russian voters.\n\nElectoral concerns apart, Moscow views its two-year campaign in Syria as a success - and not only in terms of fighting international terrorism.\n\nThe Russians have succeeded in keeping a key ally, President Assad, in power. In the process, Russia has been guaranteed a long-term military presence in Syria, with its two bases Hmeimim and Tartus. Moscow has also raised its profile across the Middle East.\n\nThen there's the global stage. The operation in Syria prevented Moscow's international isolation.\n\nRussia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 had sparked Western sanctions and earned the country, in the eyes of some Western governments, the label \"pariah state\". The Syria operation forced Western leaders to sit down and negotiate with Russia's leadership.\n\nMr Putin said that if \"terrorists raise their heads again\", Russia would \"carry out such strikes on them which they have never seen\".\n\n\"We will never forget the victims and losses suffered in the fight against terror both here in Syria and also in Russia,\" he said.\n\nHe told President Assad that Russia wanted to work with Iran, the government's other key ally, and Turkey, which backs the opposition, to help bring peace to Syria.\n\nRussia has been carrying out air strikes in Syria since September 2015\n\nLast week, Mr Putin announced the \"total rout\" of jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State (IS) along the Euphrates river valley in eastern Syria.\n\nRussia launched an air campaign in Syria in September 2015 with the aim of \"stabilising\" Mr Assad's government after a series of defeats.\n\nOfficials in Moscow stressed that it would target only \"terrorists\", but activists said its strikes mainly hit mainstream rebel fighters and civilians.\n\nThe campaign has allowed pro-government forces to break the deadlock on several key battlefronts, most notably in Aleppo.\n\nThe Syrian and Russian air forces carried out daily air strikes on the rebel-held east of the city before it fell in December 2016, killing hundreds of people and destroying hospitals, schools and markets, according to UN human rights investigators.\n\nMoscow has consistently denied that its air strikes have caused any civilian deaths.\n\nHowever, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Sunday that Russian air strikes had killed 6,328 civilians, including 1,537 children.\n\nThe UK-based monitoring group has documented the deaths of 346,612 people in total since the start of the uprising against Mr Assad in 2011.", "Joshua Sutcliffe said he apologised after the student became angry\n\nA teacher who faced disciplinary action after he referred to a transgender pupil as a girl is taking his school to an employment tribunal.\n\nJoshua Sutcliffe, from Oxford, says he was investigated after he said \"well done girls\" to a group that included a student who identifies as a boy.\n\nThe 27-year-old Christian pastor is now suing the school for constructive dismissal and discrimination.\n\nThe secondary school previously said it would be \"inappropriate\" to comment.\n\nMr Sutcliffe, who teaches children aged between 11 and 18, said the incident took place on 2 November and he apologised after the pupil became angry.\n\nHe said a week-long investigation found he had \"misgendered\" the pupil and \"contravened the school's equality policy\".\n\nMr Sutcliffe claims the school has \"systematically and maliciously\" breached his rights and he had left his job as it had made it impossible for him to continue working there.\n\nIn a letter to the head teacher he wrote: \"As a Christian, I do not share your belief in the ideology of transgenderism.\n\n\"I do not believe that young children should be encouraged to self-select a 'gender' which may be different from their biological sex.\n\n\"Or that everyone at school should adjust their behaviour to accommodate such a 'transition'; or that people should be punished for lack of enthusiasm about it.\"\n\nThe maths teacher, who is also a pastor at the Christ Revelation church in Oxford, said he tried to balance his beliefs with the need to treat the pupil sensitively.\n\nHe claimed he did this by avoiding the use of gender-specific pronouns and by referring to the pupil by name.\n\nThe state academy school where he was employed said it has received indication Mr Sutcliffe proposes to take legal action against it.\n\nIt has not received formal confirmation that he has resigned, it added.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Paul McClelland was Tasered in July 2013 in a Brighton car park as he was being arrested\n\nA man suing Sussex Police after he was Tasered has told a court the incident left him anxious and suicidal.\n\nA Taser was used on Paul McClelland in July 2013 in a car park in Brighton as he was being arrested for shoplifting.\n\nA video of the arrest was passed to The Argus newspaper at the time.\n\nIn a civil case against the chief constable of Sussex, Mr McClelland is claiming the police used excessive force in carrying out the arrest. Sussex Police has rejected the claim.\n\nSophie Khan, Mr McClelland's solicitor advocate, said he was bringing the case against Chief Constable Giles York because he believed he was Tasered unreasonably when he was surrendering and moving backwards to be handcuffed.\n\nHe was arrested in Western Road, Brighton. An internal police investigation found the force had done everything correctly and there was no evidence of misconduct.\n\nMr McClelland, 42, pleaded guilty to obstructing a police officer, common assault and theft at Brighton Magistrates' Court two months later, and was given a community service order.\n\nOn Monday, His Honour Judge Simpkiss, sitting at the County Court at Brighton, was shown the video of what happened.\n\nThe court was shown the situation from three different angles, as recorded by council CCTV, a body-worn police camera, and a video filmed by a passer-by.\n\nMr McLelland admitted he had been sitting on the beach drinking strong lager before the incident.\n\nBefore he was Tasered he removed his shirt and adopted a boxing stance, shouting to police: \"Come on.\"\n\nHe agreed that he would not have behaved that way had he been sober, the court heard.\n\nHe said the pain of the electric shock was like \"death\".\n\n\"You can't breathe, it takes your breath away,\" he told the court.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The first drug that can potentially correct the underlying defect that causes Huntington's disease has been taken by patients in a clinical trial.\n\nDoctors at University College London, which is leading the study, said it was an important moment in tackling the incurable condition.\n\nCurrent medication treats the symptoms, but cannot slow or prevent the progressive damage to the brain.\n\nThe Huntington's Disease Association said the trial was \"very exciting\".\n\nThe disease is caused by the brain producing a mutant protein called huntingtin which damages and ultimately kills off brain cells.\n\nAs Huntington's progresses it leads to uncontrolled movements, behaviour changes and poor cognition. Life expectancy after diagnosis can be as short as 10 years.\n\nThe drug, known as ISIS-HTT, is from an experimental class of medicines known as \"gene silencers\".\n\nThe huntingtin gene in a patient's DNA contains the instructions for building the destructive protein.\n\nThose blueprints are carried to a cell's protein-making factories and the drug effectively kills the messenger.\n\nErrors in DNA lead to the production of the mutant huntingtin protein\n\nThe trial will be led by Prof Sarah Tabrizi, the director of the Huntington's Disease Centre at University College London.\n\nShe told the BBC News website: \"It's the beginning of quite an important journey in Huntington's disease, it is clearly very early but this is a step forward.\n\n\"The preclinical work shows that if you lower production of the mutant protein then animals recover a large amount of motor function.\n\n\"Huntington's is a really terrible disease that blights families. I know a mother whose husband and three children were affected, this would have a massive impact [if it works].\"\n\nThe trial will test the drug's safety by progressively increasing the dose in 32 patients.\n\nIt will be injected into the spinal cord of patients once a month for four months and they will then be observed for a further three months.\n\nClinicians will be ensuring there are no dangerous side-effects, such as allergic reactions, as well as measuring the impact on levels of the corrupted huntingtin protein.\n\nAt the highest doses they hope to halve levels of the protein.\n\nCath Stanley, the chief executive of the Huntington's Disease Association, told the BBC News website: \"There's a lot of different trials and avenues of research, but this is the most exciting.\n\n\"People develop Huntington's disease between the age of 30 and 50 so delaying it for a few years allows people to spend more time with family in the prime of their life.\n\n\"This is the first, potential, major breakthrough in terms of delaying symptoms of Huntington's disease, it's such an exciting step forward.\"\n\nThe drug has been developed by ISIS-pharmaceuticals.\n\nIt targets strands of genetic code called messenger RNA which carry instructions for huntingtin out of a cell's nucleus.\n\nThe drug is a manufactured stretch of genetic code that is the mirror-image of the messenger RNA that binds strongly to it to neutralising it.\n\nIn the UK, 12 in every 100,000 people have the condition.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ben Rich updates the situation on the California wildfires\n\nThe most destructive wildfire raging in southern California has expanded significantly, scorching an area larger than New York City.\n\nThe Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties has consumed 230,000 acres (930 sq km) in the past week.\n\nFanned by strong winds, it has become the fifth largest wildfire in recorded state history after it grew by more than 50,000 acres in a day.\n\nResidents in coastal beach communities have been ordered to leave.\n\nSatellite imagery shows the vast Thomas Fire, north of Los Angeles, which has spread as far as the Pacific coast\n\nOn Sunday, firefighters reported that 15% of the blaze had been contained but were forced to downgrade that to 10% as it continued to spread.\n\n\"This is a menacing fire, certainly, but we have a lot of people working very diligently to bring it under control,\" Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.\n\nThousands of firefighters are working round the clock to tackle the blaze, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.\n\nThe containment operation is not only being hampered by dry winds. It is proving challenging for firefighters because of the location and mountainous terrain.\n\nFirefighters face challenging conditions to contain the Thomas fire\n\nAn analyst with the California fire protection department, Tim Chavez, said the emergency services were struggling because \"a hot interior\" was in parts practically meeting the ocean, making access difficult.\n\n\"It's just a very difficult place to fight fire,\" Mr Chavez said, adding: \"It's very dangerous and has a historical record of multiple fatalities occurring over the years.\"\n\nThe other fires hitting California are largely controlled, but 200,000 people have evacuated their homes and some 800 buildings have been destroyed since 4 December.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Thomas fire has the potential to be one of the worst in California's history\n\nEvacuation orders were issued overnight on Sunday for parts of Carpinteria close to Los Padres National Forest, about 100 miles (160km) northwest of Los Angeles.\n\nForecasters said wind speeds were expected to increase throughout the day, before dying down again overnight.\n\nThe local fire department tweeted pictures of a wall of flames advancing on homes on the outskirts of Carpinteria early on Sunday morning.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by SBCFireInfo This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA member of the emergency services in Carpinteria said he would continue working alongside his colleagues until the fire was under complete control.\n\n\"What they did last night was amazing,\" firefighter Michael Gallagher said, adding: \"They saved this entire community.\n\n\"We've been up, I'm at 29 hours straight, every other day... we are exhausted, but they're not coming off until this is done.\"\n\nMeanwhile, actor Rob Lowe, who lives in Santa Barbara, a city of close to 100,000 people, tweeted that he was praying for his town as fires closed in.\n\n\"Firefighters making brave stands. Could go either way. Packing to evacuate now,\" Lowe added.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Rob Lowe This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCalifornia has spent the past seven days battling wildfires. Six large blazes, and other smaller ones, erupted on Monday night in southern California.\n\nThe Thomas Fire - named according to where it started, near the Thomas Aquinas College - is by far the largest of the fires.\n\nThey swept through tens of thousands of acres in a matter of hours, driven by extreme weather, including low humidity, high winds and parched ground.\n\nThe authorities issued a purple alert - the highest level warning - amid what it called \"extremely critical fire weather\", while US President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency.\n\nOn Saturday, California Governor Jerry Brown described the situation as \"the new normal\" and predicted vast fires, fuelled by climate change, \"could happen every year or every few years\".\n\nSeveral firefighters have been injured, but only one person has died - a 70-year-old woman who was found dead in her car on an evacuation route.\n\nThere are also fears the blaze will seriously hit California's multi-million dollar agricultural industry.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drivers filmed the flames from their cars near Bel Air", "Peter has Huntington's disease and his siblings Sandy and Frank also have the gene\n\nThe defect that causes the neurodegenerative disease Huntington's has been corrected in patients for the first time, the BBC has learned.\n\nAn experimental drug, injected into spinal fluid, safely lowered levels of toxic proteins in the brain.\n\nThe research team, at University College London, say there is now hope the deadly disease can be stopped.\n\nExperts say it could be the biggest breakthrough in neurodegenerative diseases for 50 years.\n\nHuntington's is one of the most devastating diseases.\n\nSome patients described it as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and motor neurone disease rolled into one.\n\nPeter Allen, 51, is in the early stages of Huntington's and took part in the trial: \"You end up in almost a vegetative state, it's a horrible end.\"\n\nHuntington's blights families. Peter has seen his mum Stephanie, uncle Keith and grandmother Olive die from it.\n\nTests show his sister Sandy and brother Frank will develop the disease.\n\nThe three siblings have eight children - all young adults, each of whom has a 50-50 chance of developing the disease.\n\nThe unstoppable death of brain cells in Huntington's leaves patients in permanent decline, affecting their movement, behaviour, memory and ability to think clearly.\n\nPeter, from Essex, told me: \"It's so difficult to have that degenerative thing in you.\n\n\"You know the last day was better than the next one's going to be.\"\n\nHuntington's is caused by an error in a section of DNA called the huntingtin gene.\n\nNormally this contains the instructions for making a protein, called huntingtin, which is vital for brain development.\n\nBut a genetic error corrupts the protein and turns it into a killer of brain cells.\n\nThe treatment is designed to silence the gene.\n\nOn the trial, 46 patients had the drug injected into the fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord.\n\nThe procedure was carried out at the Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London.\n\nDoctors did not know what would happen. One fear was the injections could have caused fatal meningitis.\n\nBut the first in-human trial showed the drug was safe, well tolerated by patients and crucially reduced the levels of huntingtin in the brain.\n\nProf Sarah Tabrizi , from the UCL Institute of Neurology, led the trials.\n\nProf Sarah Tabrizi, the lead researcher and director of the Huntington's Disease Centre at UCL, told the BBC: \"I've been seeing patients in clinic for nearly 20 years, I've seen many of my patients over that time die.\n\n\"For the first time we have the potential, we have the hope, of a therapy that one day may slow or prevent Huntington's disease.\n\n\"This is of groundbreaking importance for patients and families.\"\n\nDoctors are not calling this a cure. They still need vital long-term data to show whether lowering levels of huntingtin will change the course of the disease.\n\nThe animal research suggests it would. Some motor function even recovered in those experiments.\n\nPeter, Sandy and Frank - as well as their partners Annie, Dermot and Hayley - have always promised their children they will not need to worry about Huntington's as there will be a treatment in time for them.\n\nPeter told the BBC: \"I'm the luckiest person in the world to be sitting here on the verge of having that.\n\n\"Hopefully that will be made available to everybody, to my brothers and sisters and fundamentally my children.\"\n\nHe, along with the other trial participants, can continue taking the drug as part of the next wave of trials.\n\nThey will set out to show whether the disease can be slowed, and ultimately prevented, by treating Huntington's disease carriers before they develop any symptoms.\n\nProf John Hardy, who was awarded the Breakthrough Prize for his work on Alzheimer's, told the BBC: \"I really think this is, potentially, the biggest breakthrough in neurodegenerative disease in the past 50 years.\n\n\"That sounds like hyperbole - in a year I might be embarrassed by saying that - but that's how I feel at the moment.\"\n\nThe UCL scientist, who was not involved in the research, says the same approach might be possible in other neurodegenerative diseases that feature the build-up of toxic proteins in the brain.\n\nThe protein synuclein is implicated in Parkinson's while amyloid and tau seem to have a role in dementias.\n\nOff the back of this research, trials are planned using gene-silencing to lower the levels of tau.\n\nProf Giovanna Mallucci, who discovered the first chemical to prevent the death of brain tissue in any neurodegenerative disease, said the trial was a \"tremendous step forward\" for patients and there was now \"real room for optimism\".\n\nBut Prof Mallucci, who is the associate director of UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, cautioned it was still a big leap to expect gene-silencing to work in other neurodegenerative diseases.\n\nShe told the BBC: \"The case for these is not as clear-cut as for Huntington's disease, they are more complex and less well understood.\n\n\"But the principle that a gene, any gene affecting disease progression and susceptibility, can be safely modified in this way in humans is very exciting and builds momentum and confidence in pursuing these avenues for potential treatments.\"\n\nThe full details of the trial will be presented to scientists and published next year.\n\nThe therapy was developed by Ionis Pharmaceuticals, which said the drug had \"substantially exceeded\" expectations, and the licence has now been sold to Roche.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "BAE makes the Eurofighter Typhoon at its Warton plant\n\nA £6bn deal to sell Eurofighter Typhoons to Qatar will help safeguard thousands of UK jobs.\n\nBAE Systems employs about 5,000 people in the UK to build the fighter jets, mainly at Warton in Lancashire.\n\nQatar's purchase of 24 jets includes a support and training package from BAE, with deliveries due to start in 2022.\n\nThe deal was announced in Doha by Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and his Qatari counterpart, Khalid bin Mohammed al Attiyah.\n\nMr Williamson said it was a \"massive vote of confidence, supporting thousands of British jobs and injecting billions into our economy\".\n\nAn RAF Typhoon at the Akrotiri base in Cyprus\n\nBAE chief executive Charles Woodburn said the contract, worth £5bn to the company, was the start of a long-term relationship with Qatar and its armed forces.\n\n\"This agreement is a strong endorsement of Typhoon's leading capabilities and underlines BAE Systems' long track record of working in successful partnership with our customers,\" he said.\n\nThe Typhoon entered service with the RAF in 2007 to replace the ageing Tornado fleet.\n\nAlthough the Qatar order secures the production of the Typhoon at BAE into the next decade, it will not stop the 2,000 job cuts announced in October from going ahead.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBAE has suffered amid declining military spending among major Nato members, but remains a key contractor on the world's most expensive defence programme, the US-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project.\n\nThe UK's deal with Qatar also includes an agreement with MBDA for Brimstone and Meteor missiles and Raytheon's Paveway IV laser-guided bomb.\n\nQatar signed a letter of intent in September to buy the 24 jets from BAE.\n\nIt is the ninth country to buy the Typhoon, with other customers including Saudi Arabia. Talks about a second batch of sales to the kingdom are ongoing.\n\nIn June countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism.", "Ican's executive director Beatrice Fihn (right) said nuclear disaster may be a \"tantrum away\"\n\nThe world faces a \"nuclear crisis\" from a \"bruised ego\", the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) has warned in an apparent reference to US-North Korea tensions.\n\nAccepting the Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday, Ican's executive director Beatrice Fihn said \"the deaths of millions may be one tiny tantrum away\".\n\n\"We have a choice, the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us,\" she added.\n\nTensions over North Korea's weapons programme have risen in recent months.\n\nThe open hostility between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leadership under Kim Jong-un has at times descended into personal attacks this year.\n\nSpeaking at the ceremony in Oslo, Ms Fihn said \"a moment of panic\" could lead to the \"destruction of cities and the deaths of millions of civilians\" from nuclear weapons.\n\nThe risk of such weapons being used, she added, was \"greater today than during the Cold War\".\n\nIcan, a coalition of hundreds of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), has worked for a treaty to ban the weapons.\n\nPrior to presenting the prize on Sunday, Nobel committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen offered a similar warning, saying that \"irresponsible leaders can come to power in any nuclear state\".\n\nMs Reiss-Andersen commended Ican which, she said, had succeeded in highlighting the dangers of nuclear weapons as well as trying to eradicate them.\n\nMs Reiss-Andersen also acknowledged the contributions of Setsuko Thurlow, an 85-year-old survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and now an Ican campaigner.\n\nMs Thurlow, who was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building at the time, said that most of her classmates, who were in the same room, were burned alive.\n\n\"Processions of ghostly figures shuffled by,\" she said on Sunday. \"Grotesquely wounded people, they were bleeding, burnt, blackened and swollen.\"\n\nMr Trump has warned that North Korea's government will be \"utterly destroyed\" if war breaks out.\n\nWhite House national security adviser HR McMaster said last week that the potential for war with North Korea was increasing every day.\n\nIn November, Pyongyang said it had tested a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching the whole of continental United States.\n\nIcan, formed in 2007 and inspired by a similar campaign to ban the use of landmines, has made it its mission to highlight the humanitarian risk of nuclear weapons.\n\nA coalition of hundreds of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the Geneva-based group helped pave the way for the introduction of a UN treaty banning the weapons, which was signed this year.\n\nWhile 122 countries backed the treaty in July, the talks were notably boycotted by the world's nine known nuclear powers and the only Nato member to discuss it, the Netherlands, voted against.\n\nOnly three countries, the Holy See, Guyana and Thailand, have so far ratified the treaty, which requires 50 ratifications to come into force.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jessica Leeds is calling on Congress to open an inquiry into President Trump\n\nThree women who accused President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct have demanded a congressional inquiry.\n\nAt a New York City news conference, the trio accused Mr Trump of groping, fondling, forcibly kissing, humiliating or harassing them.\n\nThree of them - Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey, and Rachel Crooks - detailed their allegations shortly beforehand live on television.\n\nThe White House said the women were making \"false claims\".\n\nMonday morning's press conference was organised by Brave New Films, which last month released a documentary, 16 Women and Donald Trump, about the claims made by multiple women.\n\nMs Leeds, Ms Holvey and Ms Crooks originally went public separately with their allegations a month before last year's US presidential election.\n\nThe claims have been given a new lease of life by the harassment scandals that have engulfed high-profile public figures since October's fall of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.\n\nOn NBC News on Monday, Ms Holvey said Mr Trump had ogled her and other competitors in 2006 at the Miss USA beauty pageant, which he owned.\n\nThe former Miss North Carolina, who was 20-years-old at the time, said \"he lined all of us up\" and was \"just looking me over like I was just a piece of meat\".\n\n\"It left me feeling very gross,\" Ms Holvey told NBC host Megyn Kelly.\n\nShe later told the reporters: \"They've investigated other Congress members, so I think it only stands fair that he [Mr Trump] is investigated as well\n\n\"This isn't a partisan issue, this is, how women are treated every day.\"\n\nMs Leeds, now in her 70s, says that when she was 38 she sat next to Mr Trump in the first-class cabin of a flight to New York and he sexually assaulted her.\n\nMs Leeds said: \"He jumped all over me.\"\n\nShe said she came forward because: \"I wanted people to know what kind of person Trump really is, and what a pervert he is.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Speaking in 2016, Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos accuses Donald Trump of 'thrusting his genitals' at her\n\nMs Crooks said she was kissed on the lips by Mr Trump outside a lift in Trump Tower when she was a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate company there.\n\n\"I was shocked,\" she said. \"Devastated.\"\n\nThe White House said on Monday: \"These false claims, totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts, were addressed at length during last year's campaign, and the American people voiced their judgment by delivering a decisive victory.\n\n\"The timing and absurdity of these false claims speaks volumes and the publicity tour that has begun only further confirms the political motives behind them.\"\n\nThe president rejected such allegations last year and vowed to sue the accusers, though no lawsuit has yet been filed.\n\nBut over the weekend Mr Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said his accusers \"should be heard\".\n\nSpeaking to CBS News, Mrs Haley said she was \"incredibly proud of the women who have come forward\".\n\nMeanwhile, three Democratic senators - Cory Booker of New Jersey, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York - called on Mr Trump to resign over the allegations.\n\nDuring his successful run for the presidency last year, Mr Trump was heard boasting of grabbing women's vaginas in a leaked videotape.", "Fun in the mud for most of the 200 competitors\n\nSeventeen runners collapsed with hypothermia at a charity mud run in near-freezing temperatures.\n\nTwo ambulances were called to the annual Christmas Mud Run in St Davids, Pembrokeshire, as another runner had to be stretchered off with a broken ankle.\n\nAbout 200 competitors took part in the event run by Man-Up UK on Saturday.\n\nOrganisers blamed near-freezing weather conditions and poor preparation by some of the runners taking part in the four-mile race this year.\n\nCompetitors had to wade through waist-high mud pits, clamber over obstacles and climb up rocky waterfalls during the race, which is in its eighth year.\n\nCompetitors had to run through waist-high mud and water\n\nMan-Up UK director Fintan Godkin - himself an Ironman finisher and marathon runner - said it was the first time the charity race had seen so many casualties.\n\n\"They were dropping like flies,\" he said.\n\n\"At the finish line, 17 people were reported to have signs of hypothermia. We immediately wrapped them in space blankets, duvets, anything we could get our hands on to keep them warm and gave them hot drinks.\n\n\"Some collapsed soon after crossing the line and others were collapsing in the showers.\n\n\"Of the 17, four needed further treatment from paramedics who arrived in two ambulances. One had to be taken to hospital because her blood pressure had dropped very low, but she was discharged from Withybush Hospital later that evening.\"\n\nMr Godkin said the runner who broke her ankle had fallen badly as she approached a 20-ft (6.1m) slide near the start of the course.\n\nShe was stretchered back to the race headquarters and taken to hospital.\n\nHe said temperatures on the day were between 4C and 7C. \"Not as cold as some years and certainly not cold enough for us to have considered cancelling,\" Mr Godkin added.\n\nThe course also features gruelling sections of muddy fields\n\n\"Of course, the weather was a factor because runners get cold in the mud and water, but I think people also need to look at their preparations for these kind of events.\n\n\"They need to ensure they have trained more specifically for the assault course nature of the race, not just the distance.\"\n\nHe said 25 race marshals were out on the course, almost half of whom were qualified first aiders.\n\nMr Godkin added: \"In eight years, we've had 1,750 competitors and this is the first time we've had to call an ambulance.\"\n\nA Welsh Ambulance Service spokesman said it sent two ambulances to the event, while a number of people were checked over at the scene.", "Germany's domestic intelligence agency says China used Linkedin to target at least 10,000 people\n\nChina is using fake LinkedIn profiles to gather information on German officials and politicians, the German intelligence agency (BfV) has said.\n\nThe agency alleges that Chinese intelligence used the networking site to target at least 10,000 Germans, possibly to recruit them as informants.\n\nIt released a number of fake profiles allegedly used for this purpose.\n\nBfV head Hans-Georg Maassen said the accounts show China's efforts to subvert top-level German politics.\n\n\"This is a broad-based attempt to infiltrate in particular parliaments, ministries and government agencies,\" he said.\n\nChina has denied similar allegations of cyber espionage in the past and has not yet responded to the German allegation.\n\nThe BfV published eight of what they say are the most active profiles used to contact German LinkedIn users. They are designed to look enticing to other users, and promote young Chinese professionals -who do not exist.\n\nSpy chief Hans-Georg Maassen says the accounts show an attempt to infiltrate German politics\n\nSome of the accounts include \"Allen Liu\", said to be a human resources manager at an economic consultancy, and \"Lily Wu\", who reportedly works at a think tank in eastern China.\n\nThe BfV says both accounts are fake.\n\nThe agency is increasingly worried that Chinese intelligence is using the method to recruit high-ranking politicians as informants.\n\nThey asked users who believed they had been targeted by suspect accounts to contact them.\n\nLast year, the BfV said they had detected \"increasingly aggressive cyber-espionage\" including \"intensifying\" attempts to influence September's parliamentary elections.\n\nThey said the hacker group known as \"Fancy Bear\" or APT28 was especially active - and it is believed to be controlled by the Russian state.", "Josh Homme performing in Los Angeles where the incident happened\n\nQueens of the Stone Age musician Josh Homme has apologised after a female photographer said he kicked her in the head during a concert in Los Angeles.\n\nChelsea Lauren posted a video on social media showing Homme kicking her camera as she took pictures close to the stage on Saturday night.\n\n\"I now get to spend my night in the ER. Seriously, WHO DOES THAT?\", she said.\n\nIn a statement, Homme apologised and said he would never intentionally cause harm to someone.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by chelsealaurenla This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMs Lauren described the \"obviously very intentional\" incident to Variety magazine.\n\n\"I saw him coming over and I was shooting away,\" she said. \"He looked straight at me, swung his leg back pretty hard and full-blown kicked me in the face. \"\n\nShe says she will file a police report.\n\nMs Lauren posted an update to Instagram along with two photographs she had taken seconds before the incident. She said her eyebrow was bruised and her neck was sore.\n\n\"I hold nobody accountable for this but Josh himself\", she added.\n\nHomme, 44, initially issued an apology through the Queens of the Stone Age Twitter account but following criticism the singer later shared an emotional video response, which has been posted on YouTube.\n\n\"I'd just like to apologise to Chelsea Lauren. I don't have any excuse or reason to justify what I did. I'm truly sorry and I hope you're okay,\" he said.\n\n\"I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, and last night was definitely one of them,\" Homme added.\n\nIn his earlier statement, he said that he was \"in a state of being lost in performance\" when he kicked over some equipment on stage and made contact with Ms Lauren.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by QOTSA This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut his post was criticised by some Twitter users, including Homme's friend, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, who branded it \"weak\".\n\nMs Lauren later thanked the Queens of the Stone Age fan base for their support following the incident.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Chelsea Lauren This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nJosh Homme was due to appear on the Bedtime Stories series on the BBC children's channel, CBeebies\n\nThe episodes featuring Homme will now not be aired \"until the matter is resolved\", a spokesperson for the channel said.\n\nIt is not the first time Homme has been criticised for his on-stage behaviour.\n\nIn 2008, he was accused of homophobia after insulting a fan during a concert in Norway. He had threatened to kick the fan in the face before throwing a bottle at him.", "With nearly 500 schools closed across Wales, families had a chance to enjoy the winter landscape, like this snow-covered wood, near Mold Image caption: With nearly 500 schools closed across Wales, families had a chance to enjoy the winter landscape, like this snow-covered wood, near Mold\n\nResidents in Ruthin, north Wales, woke up to an idyllic white canvas of snow on Monday morning Image caption: Residents in Ruthin, north Wales, woke up to an idyllic white canvas of snow on Monday morning\n\nOn Sunday, snowfall caused treacherous conditions in places, leading some people to abandon their cars on the side of the road Image caption: On Sunday, snowfall caused treacherous conditions in places, leading some people to abandon their cars on the side of the road", "A person with Huntington's disease has a 50% chance of passing it on to their children\n\nA Londonderry man with Huntington's disease has said it is outrageous that he cannot be seen by Northern Ireland's only specialist nurse because of where he lives.\n\nSimon Clark was diagnosed with the genetic condition in 2003.\n\nThe nurse can only provide support to people who live within the Belfast and South Eastern trust areas.\n\nThe health and social care board said that it is working to improve care pathways.\n\nHuntington's disease is an inherited and incurable brain disorder that is currently fatal.\n\nAbout 10,000 people in the UK have the condition and about 25,000 are at risk.\n\nMr Clark has said that it is \"disgusting\" that he cannot get access to the services that he needs.\n\n\"It is not fair that there is only one specialist nurse in Northern Ireland,\" he said.\n\n\"There is nothing out there for us and there should be.\"\n\nHuntington's disease is passed on through genes, and children who inherit a faulty gene from parents have a 50% chance of getting the disease in later life.\n\nMr Clark is cared for by his 23 year-old daughter, Laura, who has also been told she has a 50% chance of inheriting the condition.\n\nShe told BBC Radio Foyle that she is not ready to get tested for the condition just yet.\n\nSimon Clark and his daughter, Laura, both have the Huntington's disease association logo tattooed on their arms.\n\n\"It is hard to watch my dad knowing that that might be my future,\" she said.\n\n\"There needs to be more awareness of the disease.\"\n\nThe Western Trust confirmed it is not funded by the Health and Social Care Board for a specialist nurse for Huntington's disease .\n\nThey said that patients who are diagnosed with the illness are referred to the neurology service at Belfast City Hospital for expert help and advice.\n\nA spokesperson for the health and social care board said: \"The Belfast Trust has one specialist nurse for Huntington's disease who covers the Belfast Trust and South Eastern Trust areas.\n\n\"Belfast Trust are currently recruiting a Huntington's disease adviser and are currently working with the board and the Huntington's Disease Association to agree how the region is supported.\"", "Mount Hope is more than twice the height of Ben Nevis in Scotland\n\nMt Hope, which is sited in the part of the Antarctic claimed by the UK, was recently re-measured and found to tower above the previous title holder, Mt Jackson, by a good 50m (160ft).\n\nHope is now put at 3,239m (10,626ft); Jackson is 3,184m (10,446ft).\n\nThe map-makers at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) were prompted to take another look at the mountains because of concerns for the safety of pilots flying across the White Continent.\n\n\"In Antarctica there are no roads, so to get around you have to fly planes. And if you're flying planes you really need to know where the mountains are and how high they are,\" explained Dr Peter Fretwell.\n\nAs well as giving Mt Hope its new status, the reassessment has provided a more complete description of the relief across the quadrant of Antarctica claimed by Britain. This encompasses the long peninsula that stretches north towards South America.\n\nSome of its mountains have now been \"moved\" up to 5km to position them more accurately on future maps.\n\nMount Vinson, which sits just outside the British Antarctic Territory, remains the undisputed tallest peak on the continent at 4,892m (16,049ft).\n\nDr Fretwell's team is releasing its findings on UN International Mountain Day.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Peter Fretwell: \"If mountains are missing or in the wrong place on maps - that's dangerous\"\n\nElevation data-sets are a topic of discussion here at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) - the world's largest annual gathering of Earth and planetary scientists.\n\nThe BAS group used a combination of elevation models built from satellite data to make the new mountain assessment.\n\nWhen this medium-resolution information threw up the possibility that Mt Hope had been underestimated, the researchers then ordered in some very high-resolution photos for confirmation.\n\nThese pictures, taken from orbit by the American WorldView-2 spacecraft, allowed for a stereo view of the summits of both Hope and Jackson.\n\n\"We call this photogrammetry,\" said Dr Fretwell. \"Because we know the position of the satellite so well, if we use it to take two images of a mountain that are ever so slightly offset from each other, we can then employ simple trigonometry to work out the height of that mountain.\"\n\nThe process raised Hope from 2,860m to 3,239m. The measurement technique carries an uncertainty of just 5m, so there should be no argument over the mountain's new-found superiority.\n\nThe long chain of peaks that runs down the spine of the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most spectacular landscapes on Earth.\n\nThe chain was initially built some 50-100 million years ago when an oceanic tectonic plate slid under the Antarctic continent, said BAS geophysicist Dr Tom Jordan.\n\n\"This produced volcanism and a shortening and a thickening of the crust. Then, more recently, the ice sheet and its glaciers have cut deep trenches into the Antarctic Peninsula, removing rock and depositing it offshore.\n\n\"As this mass has been removed so the whole of the peninsula has rebounded, uplifting the peaks fairly significantly,\" he explained.\n\nAt the AGU meeting in New Orleans, US researchers are showcasing very similar work - but on a much more extensive scale.\n\nDr Paul Morin, from the Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota, has led an effort to re-map the elevation of both the Arctic and the Antarctic.\n\nThese projects have access to several years of WorldView images and time on a supercomputer to process all the data.\n\nThe Arctic map has an elevation point, or \"posting,\" every 2m across the region. The Antarctic map, due to be released early next year, will have the postings every 8m.\n\n\"With this availability of data, Antarctica has gone from the poorest mapped place on the planet to one the best,\" Dr Morin told BBC News. \"It makes better science cheaper and faster to achieve. And it also makes science much safer because we know where everything is.\"\n\nArtwork: WorldView-2 has one of the sharpest views of Planet Earth\n\nJonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos", "China has been building what it calls \"the world's biggest camera surveillance network\". Across the country, 170 million CCTV cameras are already in place and an estimated 400 million new ones will be installed in the next three years.\n\nMany of the cameras are fitted with artificial intelligence, including facial recognition technology. The BBC's John Sudworth has been given rare access to one of the new hi-tech police control rooms.", "Georgia Toffolo has been named the winner of this year's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.\n\nThe shocked reality star, known as Toff, was crowned by Ant and Dec on Sunday evening after more than nine million votes were cast.\n\nShe was odds-on favourite to win the ITV show, but said: \"I am so taken aback. Is this real?\"\n\nFormer Hollyoaks star Jamie Lomas came in second place, with radio and TV presenter Iain Lee coming in third.\n\nToff, 23, is known for appearing on E4's Made in Chelsea, joining in the seventh series. She also works for The Lady magazine and is head of events for think tank Parliament Street.\n\nThe I'm A Celebrity final attracted an average of 9.2 million live viewers on Sunday night. It was ITV's third biggest audience of the year - behind the series' launch show and the One Love Manchester concert - with a 41% share of the total TV audience.\n\nThe Strictly Come Dancing results show earlier in the night had more viewers however, with an average of 11.1 million viewers; while the final episode of Blue Planet II attracted an audience of 10.36m.\n\nJamie Lomas came second in the ITV series\n\nToff's fellow campmate Stanley Johnson - father of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson - said: \"I knew she was going to make it. I said right from the start that Toff is the one.\"\n\nThe winner said her favourite moment of the show was going to collect water with Johnson, with whom she struck up a strong friendship.\n\nShe follows in the footsteps of previous Queens of the Jungle Scarlett Moffatt and Vicky Pattinson.\n\nMoffatt, who won last year's series, said: \"It's girls like you that make me feel proud to be a young woman. I am so proud of you.\"\n\nIain Lee was voted into third place by the public\n\nAfter her win, Toff welcomed the prospect of earning money on the back of her appearance on the show, admitting: \"I haven't paid my rent.\"\n\nShe told Good Morning Britain's Susanna Reid and Piers Morgan she wanted to take a shot at presenting, saying: \"I want to do what you guys do. I want to try it. Who knows?\"\n\nToff also said she wanted to \"do good\" with her win, saying: \"There are so many worthy causes that I would love to get involved with.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The oil is transported to the Kinneil terminal at Grangemouth where it is processed and stabilised\n\nOne of the UK's most important oil pipelines is being closed after a crack was discovered in Aberdeenshire.\n\nThe Forties pipeline carries crude North Sea oil across land for processing at Grangemouth.\n\nThe crack was discovered last week at Red Moss near Netherley.\n\nThe pipeline's owner Ineos said on Monday that, despite pressure being reduced, the crack had extended. The Forties pipeline carries about 40% of North Sea crude oil.\n\nMore than 80 platforms will have to suspend production. The price of Brent crude rose about 2% to $64.69 a barrel amid surprise that the pipeline could be shut for about three weeks - far longer than expected.\n\nIneos said there would be a big impact on the industry but not on consumers.\n\nIneos said in a statement: \"Last week during a routine inspection Ineos contractors discovered a small hairline crack in the pipe at Red Moss near Netherley.\n\n\"A repair and oil spill response team was mobilised on Wednesday, after a very small amount of oil seepage was reported.\n\n\"Measures to contain the seepage were put in place, no oil has been detected entering the environment and the pipe has been continuously monitored.\"\n\nThe company added: \"A 300m cordon was set-up and a small number of local residents were placed in temporary accommodation as precautionary measure. The pipeline pressure was reduced while a full assessment of the situation was made.\n\n\"The incident management team has now decided that a controlled shutdown of the pipeline is the safest way to proceed.\"\n\nIneos said the shutdown would \"allow for a suitable repair method to be worked up based on the latest inspection data, while reducing the risk of injury to staff and the environment\".\n\nA spokesman for BP said: \"Ineos has been in regular contact with us since this issue came to light last week, as per protocol. Ineos requested, and we have initiated, a temporary shutdown of production through our Andrew, Etap and Bruce hubs until this is resolved.\n\n\"We will continue to liaise with Ineos and offer any support we can to help bring this situation to a successful conclusion as quickly as possible.\"\n\nDeirdre Michie, chief executive of Oil & Gas UK, said: \"We have been in touch with Ineos and are closely monitoring the situation and hope this can be resolved safely and as quickly as possible.\"\n\nA UK government spokeswoman said: \"There is no security of supply issue for fuel or gas supplies as a result of the repairs needed to the Forties pipeline. The government will continue to liaise with industry operators to monitor the situation to ensure repairs are undertaken as quickly as possible.\"\n\nEnergy consultancy Wood Mackenzie warned that even a temporary shutdown of the Forties Pipeline System (FPS) would have \"wide-reaching implications\".\n\nSenior analyst Fiona Legate said: \"FPS transports liquids from over 80 fields, including the two largest producers in the UK - Buzzard and Forties.\n\n\"Companies with fields utilising the FPS export route will suffer from reduced cash-flows during the shutdown period.\"\n\nThe FPS system runs from the unmanned offshore Forties Unity platform to the onshore terminal at Cruden Bay in Aberdeenshire.\n\nFrom there an onshore pipeline transports oil 130 miles south to the Kinneil terminal, next to Ineos' Grangemouth refinery and chemical plant, where it is processed and stabilised.", "The airman was seen on CCTV pictures walking through Bury St Edmunds after a night out\n\nThe search of a landfill site for missing RAF airman Corrie Mckeague, who vanished during a night out in September 2016, has ended.\n\nPolice believe Mr Mckeague climbed into a waste bin in Bury St Edmunds and was taken away by a bin lorry.\n\nThe search of a site at Milton, Cambridgeshire, restarted in October after a search there ended earlier in the year.\n\nSuffolk Police said \"no trace\" of the airman had been found.\n\nThe force said it was \"content\" he was not in the landfill areas that had been searched and the investigation into his disappearance would continue.\n\nMr Mckeague's mother, Nicola Urquhart, said by searching the waste site the police had given her \"immeasurable peace of mind\".\n\nHis father Martin said they had a \"lifelong debt of gratitude\" to all those involved in searching for his son.\n\nThe latest landfill search focused on an area next to the original excavation site\n\nMr Mckeague, who was 23 at the time he went missing, was last seen at 03:25 BST on 24 September 2016.\n\nHe was captured on CCTV entering a bin loading bay known as the Horseshoe and his phone was tracked as taking the same route as a bin lorry.\n\nPolice started a 20-week search of the landfill site in March before ending it in July.\n\nThe latest excavation has been focused on an area next to the site of the original search.\n\nDet Supt Katie Elliott said there were \"a number of theories\" about what happened to Mr Mckeague and they were \"continuing to test the evidence\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Veteran TV presenter Keith Chegwin has died aged 60 after a long illness, his family has said.\n\nThey said he had endured a \"long-term battle with a progressive lung condition\" which \"rapidly worsened towards the end of this year\".\n\nHe died at home on Monday with his family by his side, who said they were \"heartbroken\".\n\nTributes have been paid from the world of entertainment for the \"true telly legend\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Noel Edmonds pays a tearful tribute to his \"first telly chum\" Keith Chegwin\n\nChegwin was perhaps best known for hosting programmes including children's game show Cheggers Plays Pop, Swap Shop and Saturday Superstore.\n\nThe Liverpool-born star began his career as a child actor, starring in films such as Roman Polanski's Macbeth and TV shows including The Liver Birds, The Adventures of Black Beauty and Z-Cars.\n\nHe went on to appear in reality TV shows including Celebrity Big Brother.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe larger-than-life character, described by his family as \"a loving husband, father, son, brother, uncle and friend\", leaves his wife Maria and two children.\n\nChegwin had been cared for at a hospice in recent weeks.\n\nHis last tweet was posted on 28 September.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Keith Chegwin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nChegwin was previously married to fellow TV presenter Maggie Philbin, whom he had met on Swap Shop.\n\nPhilbin paid tribute to her former husband, saying: \"It is incredibly sad. Keith was a one-off. Full of life, generous and with a focus on things that mattered - his family.\n\n\"I saw him two months ago at his sister Janice's wedding, where he was still attempting to be life and soul of the party despite being on portable oxygen and made sure he knew how much he meant to us all.\n\n\"Our daughter Rose flew home from San Francisco to be with him over the last few weeks and I know he was surrounded by so much love from his second wife Maria, their son Ted, his sister Janice, his twin brother Jeff and his father Colin.\"\n\nFellow Swap Shop presenter Noel Edmonds said in a statement: \"I've lost my first real telly chum and I'm certain I'm not alone in shedding tears for a true telly legend.\n\n\"The greatest achievement for any TV performer is for the viewers to regard you as a friend and today millions will be grateful for Keith's contribution to their childhood memories and like me they will mourn the passing of a friend.\"\n\nRicky Gervais, who created the series Extras which Chegwin starred in, described him as a \"national treasure\".\n\nGaby Roslin, who worked with Chegwin on The Big Breakfast, described him as \"so generous and kind\" and a \"happy and joyous man\".\n\nChegwin had two children, including a daughter with his first wife Maggie Philbin\n\nJohn Craven, who worked with Chegwin on Swap Shop told BBC News that his colleague \"never lost his cool. I never saw Keith when he wasn't happy. He was a great, great character.\"\n\nHe added: \"We were great friends for many years, but we lost touch a bit and [his death] came as a huge shock for me.\"\n\nPresenter Chris Evans, who worked with Chegwin on the Big Breakfast, tweeted: \"Very sad and shocked to hear of the passing of Keith Chegwin. The king of outside broadcast.\"\n\nBobby Davro said Chegwin was \"one of the nicest guys\" in showbiz.\n\nAnd Tony Blackburn said he was \"devastated\" at the loss of his friend.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Tony Blackburn This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBlackburn told BBC News that Chegwin was \"exactly the same (off air) as he was on television\" and that he never saw him with a script.\n\n\"He was the most lovely person I've ever met and I'm so sad he's no longer with us,\" he added.\n\nBreakfast presenter Lorraine Kelly said he was \"a kind, funny, brave man\".\n\nAnd Fiona Phillips, who also worked with him on breakfast TV, also paid tribute to her friend.\n\nPhillip Schofield, who presented Saturday morning show Going Live, described Chegwin as \"one of my many original Saturday morning heroes\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Phillip Schofield This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nChegwin also had a hit single with I Wanna Be A Winner in 1981. The novelty hit, which was recorded by Chegwin and his Swap Shop co-hosts under the name Brown Sauce, reached number 15 in the charts.\n\nHis career fell away in the 80s and 90s and he had a well-documented struggle with alcoholism for many years. But it was revived by a stint on the Big Breakfast.\n\nHe went on to make infamous Channel 5 nudist gameshow Naked Jungle, appearing naked except for a hat - which he later described as the \"worst career move\" of his \"entire life\".\n\nChegwin - known affectionately by the nickname Cheggers - also appeared in Celebrity Big Brother, Bargain Hunt Famous Finds and Dancing on Ice.\n\nHe was due to appear in the 2012 Dancing on Ice series but had to pull out after breaking his ribs during the first day of rehearsal. He returned as a contestant the following year.\n\nHe also took part in Pointless Celebrities and Masterchef.\n\nThe disease Chegwin had is called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which causes scarring of the lungs.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. These young women told the BBC about their experiences of sexual harassment at work\n\nNilufer Guler is a waitress, but says she feels more like a sex worker at times.\n\nOn the second day in a new job, a table of wealthy, suited men said they would \"buy her\" off her manager so she could eat expensive steak with them.\n\nThey asked if she had an intimate piercing and stared at her throughout their meal.\n\n\"It's so disrespectful but I couldn't complain. It's a very precarious industry,\" she says.\n\nTwo in five women in the UK say they have experienced unwanted sexual behaviour at work and only a quarter of them reported it, a BBC survey has found.\n\nAmong men, one in five (18%) said they have been harassed at work.\n\nThe poll of more than 6,000 men and women, one of the largest ever conducted into sexual harassment in the workplace, suggested those who work flexibly are more likely to encounter this type of behaviour.\n\nOf those in flexible working - including those on zero hours contracts, self employed, freelancers and gig economy workers - 43% had experienced some form of sexual harassment at work.\n\nIt's a situation Camille Ukpanah from London can relate to.\n\nThe 24-year-old worked as a bartender and waitress for an agency. She says guests would make derogatory remarks towards her and her colleagues, and she once saw a man trying to pull up her colleague's skirt in a room full of people.\n\n\"The girl had to keep working otherwise she wouldn't have got paid,\" she says.\n\nWhen she went to the agency, she says she was met with a cold response.\n\n\"You explain certain things that happen but they brush it over. They would say 'if you want to leave, you can go - there are so many people looking for work.'\"\n\n\"With the use of zero hour contracts, agency work and unfair tipping schemes it's no surprise that sexual harassment is rife in the industry.\"\n\n\"They take power away from workers so that they cannot demand better conditions. They can't come forward about sexual harassment and win.\"\n\nShe says she believes there is hostility towards unions and democracy in the hospitality industry.\n\n\"This is why there's no avenue for waitresses to speak out, no process of accountability... This is why we need to form unions and work collectively to bring an end to sexual harassment and its normalisation.\"\n\nThose taking part in the survey were asked about the most common behaviours they had faced, ranging from unwelcome jokes to pornography and rape.\n\nThe public spotlight has been focused on sexual harassment since October when Hollywood heavyweight Harvey Weinstein was first accused of harassment and assault.\n\nThe story snowballed as A-listers Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and Cara Delevingne added their names to a long list of women claiming Weinstein had preyed on them.\n\nThe scandal deepened as men and women shared their own experiences at the hands of powerful men in Hollywood, on TV and beyond, culminating in the #metoo Twitter campaign, which saw people across the world tell their stories.\n\nFor those who have spent decades in the workplace, the whole idea of sexual harassment at work is relatively new, but one that has prompted reflection.\n\nThose polled were asked if they agreed that: \"Looking back over my working life, I have witnessed behaviour that I now believe to constitute sexual harassment but didn't think it at the time.\"\n\nFour in 10 (42%) over-55s agreed. Among those near the start of their working lives (18 to 34-year-olds), three in 10 felt the same way.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sandy tells the BBC how a surgeon would put his hands up nurses' skirts\n\nMeg, who did not want to give her surname, said she believed change was already under way, as people had begun to talk about things as \"unacceptable\".\n\n\"A few years ago, it was just like 'oh, he's just a dirty old man and that's what happens'\".\n\nHer friend, Maureen, agreed. \"It sounds shocking but we didn't use the term assault, we were molested.\n\n\"You were molested in transport, in pubs, in social gatherings. It was normal.\"\n\nThere was a general optimism among most people surveyed that the recent scandal would bring sustained improvements in behaviour, but almost a third thought the scandals were irrelevant to people's behaviour.\n\nConfidence that things would change was highest among younger people - three quarters of 18 to 34-year-olds expected to see long-term changes in behaviour, while about a third of over-65s had their doubts.\n\nOffice worker Honey Jamie said: \"It is fantastic that so many strong women are now banding together. And they refuse to accept it.\n\n\"It's great that so many people are standing up against it, but it's sad that we still have to,\" she said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May: “What we are looking for is a deal that is right for the United Kingdom\"\n\nAn agreement to move on to the next phase of Brexit talks is \"good news\" for both Leave and Remain voters, Theresa May has told MPs.\n\nShe told Parliament it should reassure those who feared the UK would get \"bogged down\" in endless negotiations or \"crash out\" without a deal.\n\nShe said the UK did not want a trade arrangement based on any other country but \"a deal that is right for the UK\".\n\nLabour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Mrs May had only just \"scraped through\".\n\nThe negotiations so far, he said, had been \"punctuated by posturing and delays\", with confusion about how legally watertight the agreements were.\n\nUpdating Parliament on the terms of Friday's phase one agreement - which is expected to be approved by the other 27 EU leaders later this week - the PM said it would see the UK pay a \"fair\" divorce bill, avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and see the rights of UK and EU expat citizens \"enshrined in UK law and enforced by British courts\".\n\nBut she said that if the UK was not able to agree a withdrawal deal with the EU prior to its scheduled exit in March 2019, \"this deal is off the table\".\n\nEarlier, the EU said that although the agreement was not strictly legally binding, the two sides had \"shaken hands\" on it with a \"gentleman's agreement\" between David Davis and Michel Barnier.\n\nOn Sunday the Brexit Secretary David Davis said guarantees on the Northern Ireland border were not legally binding unless the two sides reached a final deal.\n\nBut he told LBC Radio on Monday they would be honoured whatever happened.\n\nThe BBC's assistant political editor Norman Smith said the Brexit Secretary's clarification - in which he insisted one of the government's key aims was to ensure that the Northern Ireland peace process was not harmed - came after concerns in Dublin about the enforceability of Friday's phase one agreement.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Davis: \"No deal means we won't be paying the money\"\n\nMr Davis said he had been taken out of context when he appeared to tell the BBC's Andrew Marr that guarantees designed to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland were a \"statement of intent\".\n\n\"What I actually said yesterday in terms was, we want to protect the peace process, want to protect Ireland from the impact of Brexit for them,\" he said.\n\n\"I said this was a statement of intent which was much more than just legally enforceable. Of course it's legally enforceable under the withdrawal agreement but even if that didn't happen for some reason, if something went wrong, we would still be seeking to provide a frictionless invisible border with Ireland.\"\n\nA European Commission spokesman said the first-phase deal on the Northern Ireland border, the divorce bill and citizens' rights did not strictly have the force of law.\n\n\"But we see the joint report of Michel Barnier and David Davis as a deal between gentlemen and it is the clear understanding that it is fully backed and endorsed by the UK government.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Citizens' rights, the Irish border and money are the three big negotiation points\n\nShe added: \"President Juncker had a meeting with Prime Minister May last Friday morning to ascertain that this is precisely the case. They shook hands.\"\n\nIn her statement to Parliament, Theresa May said she expected EU leaders to agree immediately to start talks about a two-year transition deal immediately, paving the way for continued access to the single market for a time-limited period.\n\n\"This is good news for the people who voted Leave, who were worried that we were so bogged down in the negotiations, tortuous negotiations it was never going to happen,\" she said.\n\n\"It is good news for people who voted Remain, who were worried we were going to crash out without a deal. We are going to leave but we are going to do so in a smooth and orderly way.\"\n\nThe prime minister, who also written an open letter to EU nationals in the UK, was praised by leading figures from both wings of the Tory party.\n\nOn the pro-EU side, Anna Soubry said there was \"complete unanimity\" within the party that Friday's agreement was a \"major step forward\" while Nicky Morgan said it was an \"early Christmas present\".\n\nWhile commending the PM, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, who had urged her to walk away from the talks if there was no progress, sought reassurances the transition period would be used to \"implement things that have been achieved\" and \"not carry on with no change\".\n\nIn response, the PM said firms needed time to adjust and avoid the danger of a \"double cliff-edge\" change in rules - but she also said there would be changes such as EU citizens arriving in the UK having to register.\n\nFor Labour, Mr Corbyn said the government's \"shambolic\" approach was continuing with ministers \"contradicting themselves\" over whether the UK would pay a financial settlement if there was no trade deal.\n\nLib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday that the EU was unlikely to offer the UK a bespoke trade deal modelled on the one it has with Canada, but with financial services included.\n\n\"The EU has effectively ruled that option out,\" he said. \"The EU has also said if you want a Canadian-style approach you have to link it to all kind of conditions to do with state aid, environmental rules and employment rights which effectively rules out the government's philosophy of taking back control\".\n\nHis party has tabled an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill - to be considered on Tuesday - which would see \"the Norway option\" of remaining in the single market kept open as long as possible.\n\nUrging Labour MPs and \"pragmatic\" Tories to support this approach, he said it was \"inferior to where we are but it is better than the alternative of not having a close relationship with the EU\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Scenes of fun and frustration over wintry showers\n\nHeavy snow has led to power cuts and disrupted air, rail and road travel in many parts of the UK.\n\nThe deepest snow recorded was 30cm (12in) in Sennybridge, near Brecon, while High Wycombe saw 17cm.\n\nSnow is forecast to remain in Northern Ireland and Scotland but give way to icy conditions overnight elsewhere. Met Office yellow \"be aware\" warnings for ice affect England and Wales.\n\nHundreds of schools across England and Wales will be closed on Monday.\n\nFlights have been disrupted at several airports, including Heathrow, where snowploughs were used to clear the runways.\n\nHeathrow remains open but says the de-icing of aircraft is resulting in some delays and cancellations. But passengers flying into the airport have also said they are experiencing delays in disembarking from planes.\n\nElectricity supplier SSE said about 5,400 homes in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire remain without power after snow and wind saw tree branches coming into contact with overhead cables.\n\nIts engineers are working to carry out repairs but because of \"continuing issues with access to fault locations\" about 800 homes in Oxfordshire will remain without power overnight. The company is serving free hot food and drinks to affected customers.\n\nAcross the Midland, South West England and Wales, about 9,000 properties served by Western Power Distribution were affected by power cuts. The company says it is working to restore power overnight.\n\nBuckinghamshire County Council and Shropshire Council say the majority of their schools will be closed on Monday because of the snow.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The forecast is for icy conditions on Monday\n\nThere have been similar announcements in Denbighshire, Birmingham, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, while Hertfordshire County Council says some of its schools have taken the decision to shut.\n\nMeanwhile, drivers have been advised by police to avoid non-essential journeys.\n\nThe scene on the A40 near Sennybridge in Powys\n\nTemperatures reached lows of -10C (14F) in some parts of Scotland and Wales, falling to as low as -14C (6.8F) in isolated rural areas.\n\nAn amber warning for snow was extended on Sunday to cover Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex but areas including Liverpool and South Yorkshire were downgraded to a yellow \"be aware\" warning.\n\nThe Met Office's yellow weather warning for snow and ice on Monday\n\nThe Met Office says ice is likely to be the \"main hazard\" over the next 24 hours as it issued a further yellow \"be aware\" warning for snow and ice in Scotland and Northern Ireland.\n\nIt warned of icy surfaces on Monday in Wales and in the Midlands, East of England, London and the South East, the North West, South West, and Yorkshire.\n\nOvernight temperatures into Monday are forecast to be between -1C and 1C in built-up areas but as low as -10C in the countryside.\n\n\"Ice is expected to form across many places overnight into Monday morning. Some injuries are likely from slips and falls on icy surfaces as well as icy patches on some untreated roads, pavements and cycle paths,\" the Met Office said.\n\n\"As well as this lying snow from Sunday will continue to be a hazard leading to longer and potentially hazardous journeys.\"\n\nIt said some snow may fall over parts of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire on Monday morning but it was not expected to settle.\n\nThe snow failed to stop the three Premier League matches going ahead - although ground staff were on hand during the Liverpool v Everton derby\n\nThe snow showers have swept across London\n\nA gritter ploughs the quiet roads in the Peak District\n\nWhile this dog owner in Leicestershire braves the cold\n\nA picturesque view was captured in Derwen Gam near Aberaeron, in Wales\n\nHill walkers made the most of the bright skies over Ben Lawers in Perthshire\n\nThe Edward Carson statue in Belfast was barely visible through the snow\n\nBut plenty of people were out and about in central London", "Christopher Plummer has been nominated for a Golden Globe for the role in which he replaced Kevin Spacey.\n\nThe actor took over the role in All the Money in the World after a string of sexual harassment allegations were made against Spacey.\n\nThe nominees for best drama film include Call Me By Your Name, Dunkirk, The Post, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.\n\nDame Helen Mirren and Dame Judi Dench are among the British nominees.\n\nThey are in the best actress in a comedy or musical category, alongside Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie and Emma Stone.\n\nThe Shape of Water received the most nominations of any film - with seven in total. The Post and Three Billboards each have six.\n\nIt was announced last month that Plummer would take over the role of the late oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty in All the Money in the World.\n\nAccording to Variety, Spacey had already filmed about two weeks of footage for the film, which is directed by Ridley Scott.\n\nSpacey had also appeared in a trailer which was released in September.\n\nMark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams, who also star in the movie, had to take part in reshoots for the film, which is still scheduled for release at the end of the month.\n\nBut another film in which Spacey stars, Baby Driver, attracted one nomination - Ansel Elgort is up for best actor in a musical or comedy film.\n\nGary Oldman is nominated for best actor in a drama, for playing Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour - the film's only nod.\n\nOldman faces competition from Timothee Chalamet (for Call Me By Your Name), Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread), Tom Hanks (The Post) and Denzel Washington (Roman J Israel, Esq).\n\nAngelina Jolie gets a nomination in the best foreign language film category for her Cambodia-set drama First They Killed My Father.\n\nHer competition includes Palme d'Or winner The Square, an art world satire from Sweden that won six prizes at Saturday's European Film Awards.\n\nNicole Kidman and Robert De Niro are among the nominees in the television categories.\n\nKidman and Reese Witherspoon are both nominated for best actress in a limited series for their roles in Big Little Lies.\n\nThe show received six nominations in total - making it the most-nominated TV series this year.\n\nThe pair are up against Jessica Biel, who is nominated for her role in The Sinner, and Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, both of whom are nominated for Feud: Bette and Joan.\n\nReese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman star in Big Little Lies\n\nDe Niro is nominated for best actor in a limited series for The Wizard of Lies, alongside Jude Law for The Young Pope and Geoffrey Rush for Genius.\n\nThe category is completed by Ewan McGregor, who is nominated for Fargo, and Kyle MacLachlan, for Twin Peaks.\n\nThe 75th annual Golden Globe Awards, hosted by US comedian Seth Meyers, will take place on 7 January.\n\nThe nominations were announced at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in California by Kristen Bell, Sharon Stone, Alfre Woodard and Garrett Hedlund.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The blast destroyed two houses in Allington Drive in Birstall and damaged several others\n\nThree people have been hurt - two seriously - in a gas explosion at a house.\n\nPolice, ambulance and fire crews were called to a loud bang at the home in Birstall, Leicestershire, at 07:30 GMT.\n\nOne house had completely collapsed, one was partially destroyed and others were damaged. The explosion left glass and roof tiles scattered across the street.\n\nBetween 30 and 50 properties are thought to have been damaged in total in the explosion.\n\nThe fire service said three people were rescued, who were all taken to hospital.\n\nEmergency services were called to the blast site just after 07:30 GMT\n\nAllington Drive is shut and a number of houses in the street have been evacuated as a precaution.\n\nThe semi-detached property had collapsed, a neighbouring property partially collapsed and other properties had been damaged\n\nThree people were injured in the gas blast and taken to three different hospitals\n\nLeicestershire Fire and Rescue Service said two of the injured people were in the partially collapsed house and one was in the fully collapsed property.\n\nThe fire service said it believed there had been no fire and no reports of gas being smelt.\n\nThe gas company said it was too early to speculate on the cause at this time\n\nMatt Cane, from Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service, said: \"When crews arrived, they found two buildings had suffered significant structural collapse.\n\n\"We had reports of three people being missing in those buildings.\n\n\"Crews worked really hard in difficult conditions to gain access to the three people and rescue them. They have now been transported to hospital by road and air ambulance.\n\n\"One has fairly minor injuries. Two have significant injuries.\"\n\nA number of houses in the street have been evacuated\n\nTim Hargraves, East Midlands Ambulance Service duty operations manager, said: \"One patient has been taken by air ambulance to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, one patient has been taken by air ambulance to the Major Trauma Centre in Coventry, and one patient is due to be taken by ambulance to the Leicester Royal Infirmary.\"\n\nA spokesman from Cadent Gas, the collapsed home's supplier, said: \"We are currently on site and our priority at this time is to make safe and we are working with the emergency services to achieve this.\n\n\"It's too early to speculate on the cause at this time.\"\n\nA Charnwood Borough Council spokesman said: \"We were called to support the emergency services following reports of a loud bang and a house being damaged in Allington Drive, Birstall earlier this morning.\n\n\"We have sent a senior officer to the scene, an officer from our building control team and volunteers to help provide temporary emergency accommodation at Birstall Parish Council offices in Birstall.\n\n\"An officer is also visiting the scene in case people affected by the incident need short-term temporary accommodation in the coming days.\"\n\nA fundraising page has been set up to help those affected by the gas explosion\n\nTony Timson, who lives nearby, said: \"I was in bed and heard this massive explosion about 7:30.\n\n\"I quickly looked out of the window and saw debris settling on the street. I came out of the house and about 100 yards down the road was a house and a big black puff of smoke. It was completely demolished.\n\n\"We knew someone was in there.\"\n\nHe said within 10 minutes of calling the emergency services, the fire brigade was there.\n\nA fundraising page has been set up to help those affected by the gas explosion.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIsrael's prime minister has said Palestinians must \"get to grips with\" the reality that Jerusalem is Israel's capital in order to move towards peace.\n\nBenjamin Netanyahu said Jerusalem had been the capital of Israel for 3,000 years and had \"never been the capital of any other people\".\n\nHe spoke amid ongoing protests in the Muslim and Arab world at a US decision recognising Jerusalem as the capital.\n\nViolence flared near the US embassy in Lebanon and elsewhere on Sunday.\n\nIn Jerusalem itself, a Palestinian was arrested after stabbing and seriously wounding an Israeli security guard at the central bus station.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Netanyahu: Paris is the capital of France, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel\n\nSpeaking in Paris after talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, Mr Netanyahu said efforts to deny the \"millennial connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem\" were \"absurd\".\n\n\"You can read it in a very fine book - it's called the Bible,\" he said. \"You can read it after the Bible. You can hear it in the history of Jewish communities throughout our diaspora... Where else is the capital of Israel, but in Jerusalem?\n\n\"The sooner the Palestinians come to grips with this reality, the sooner we will move towards peace.\"\n\nMeanwhile a spokesman for the US Vice-President, Mike Pence, strongly criticised the Palestinian Authority, saying it was \"unfortunate\" that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was declining to meet Mr Pence on his forthcoming trip to the region.\n\nIn Egypt, the country's top Muslim and Christian clerics have also cancelled scheduled talks with Mr Pence in protest at the US move.\n\nThere has been widespread condemnation of President Donald Trump's decision - announced on Wednesday - to reverse decades of US neutrality on the status of Jerusalem which cuts to the heart of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.\n\nThe city is home to key religious sites sacred to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, especially in East Jerusalem.\n\nIsrael has always regarded Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel in the 1967 war - as the capital of a future Palestinian state.\n\nSunday has seen a further raft of protests at the US move:\n\nIn Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told a large rally in Istanbul he would not abandon Jerusalem to a state that \"kills children\".\n\nMr Netanyahu said the Turkish leader had \"attacked Israel\".\n\n\"I'm not used to receiving lectures about morality from a leader who bombs Kurdish villages in his native Turkey, who jails journalists, helps Iran go around international sanctions and who helps terrorists, including in Gaza, kill innocent people,\" he added.\n\nMr Erdoğan has described Jerusalem as a \"red line\" issue for Muslims and warned Turkey could end up severing diplomatic ties with Israel over the issue.\n\nTurkey and Israel only restored diplomatic relations last year, six years after Turkey cut ties in protest at the killing of nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists in clashes with Israeli commandos on board a ship trying to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza.", "A senior Labour MP has apologised to the Commons and repaid £2.97 after she was found to have breached Parliament's code of conduct.\n\nDame Margaret Hodge offered a \"sincere\" apology for \"inadvertently\" breaching the rules over her review of the London Garden Bridge project.\n\nAn inquiry said the Barking MP should not have used Parliamentary resources for the review.\n\nThe £2.97 repayment was the cost of House of Commons stationery, she said.\n\nThe code of conduct states MPs should use public resources only \"in support of parliamentary duties\".\n\nThe inquiry concluded the review had not been carried out as part of Dame Margaret's parliamentary activities, because it had been commissioned by an outside body for its own purposes.\n\nThe £200m plan to build a bridge covered with trees over the River Thames was abandoned following Dame Margaret's review, which was published in April.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester United manager Jose Mourinho said his side's title hopes are \"probably\" over because referee Michael Oliver failed to award them a penalty in their 2-1 loss to \"lucky\" Manchester City.\n\nPep Guardiola's team stretched their lead at the top of the table to 11 points and became the first team to win 14 successive English top-flight games in a single season.\n\nCity took the lead their vast superiority deserved when man-of-the-match David Silva hooked home from close range after confusion at a corner on 42 minutes, only for United to be handed a lifeline in first-half stoppage time when poor defending from Nicolas Otamendi and Fabian Delph allowed Marcus Rashford to steal in for a composed finish.\n\nOtamendi made amends nine minutes after the break when Romelu Lukaku - who had a poor game - lashed at a clearance in the area and the City defender pounced on the rebound to score.\n• None Has Mourinho lost the battle with Guardiola?\n• None My Barcelona philosophy is working in England - Guardiola\n\nMourinho's post-match focus centred on an incident in the 79th minute, when Ander Herrera went down in the box under a challenge from Otamendi and was booked for diving.\n\n\"My first reaction is I feel sorry for Michael Oliver because he had a very good match but unfortunately he made an important mistake,\" Mourinho told BBC Match of the Day.\n\n\"The result was made with a big penalty not given. That would have been 2-2.\n\n\"Michael was unlucky because it was a clear penalty.\"\n\nAsked whether the title race was over, Mourinho replied: \"Probably, yes. Manchester City are a very good team and they are protected by the luck, and the gods of football are behind them.\"\n\nBefore Sunday's game, Mourinho had suggested City's players go down too easily - something Guardiola dismissed, along with the Portuguese's assertion United should have had a penalty.\n\n\"Last season it was the same - we won here and it was the referee. Today as well,\" Guardiola said.\n\n\"Yesterday he spoke about the referee. We are an honest team. We had 65% ball possession, which means we wanted to play. We came here and did that.\n\n\"It's not true that my players go down easily. That is not an argument I believe.\"\n\nSunday's result ended United's 40-match unbeaten run at home - which stretched back to City's win here in September 2016.\n\nCity, who have dropped only two points in their first 16 league games, had opportunities to extend their lead but it was keeper Ederson who made the decisive late intervention with a miraculous double late save from the luckless Lukaku and substitute Juan Mata.\n• None Podcast: Is the Premier League title race over?\n\nIs the title race over?\n\nIt is a brave call to declare the title race over in early December - but the statistics and evidence are piling up to suggest the chase is on for second place behind City.\n\nCity will effectively have to lose four games while all of their rivals need to keep winning, tough to see with Guardiola's team having won every league match since Everton took a point at Etihad Stadium in the second game of the season.\n\n\"We are still in December. If we have 11 points when we play the second derby in April then maybe I will tell you that we have the title,\" said Guardiola, who was full of praise for his side's performance.\n\n\"We won at Old Trafford again, that is why I am the most pleased and of course for the three points,\" he added. \"We played good, with a lot of courage. I'm so satisfied.\"\n\nThe trip to Old Trafford, and the renewal of old rivalries between Guardiola and Mourinho, was the most eagerly awaited game of the season between the two teams at the top of the table and was seen as the acid test of City's apparent infallibility.\n\nThose looking for cracks in the Guardiola armour pointed to City having to secure three wins against Huddersfield Town, Southampton and West Ham United with late, late goals.\n\nIf City's confidence had been shaken at all by having to fight for victories, there was no sign here as they played with a composure and positivity that was a level above United.\n\nThere can be no doubt City were deserved winners and even showed the street wisdom of champions to run down the clock in the closing seconds, to the fury and frustration of Old Trafford.\n\nThe title race may not be over - but there was no escaping the feeling a crucial blow has been inflicted on United and the rest of City's pursuers.\n\nSilva may be small in stature but he stood head and shoulders above every other player in the intense heat of this game.\n\nThe Spaniard may now be 31 but it is little wonder City were so delighted to secure him on a new contract until 2020.\n\nSilva showed again why he deserves to be ranked as a Premier League great, and one of the finest players to play for City.\n\nHe had more time on the ball than any other player, the hallmark of class, and always seemed to have more options in possession than any other player.\n\nSilva pounced for City's crucial first goal, held his own in the physical exchanges and even shrugged off a heavy bang to the head in a clash with United's Marcos Rojo.\n\nIt was a complete performance from a world-class player.\n\nCity fans stayed in their seats long after the final whistle, delivering a taunt that had echoed around Old Trafford throughout this landmark victory.\n\n\"Park The Bus, Park The Bus, Man United…\" was the chant that was met with a muted response from the home support, who had seen City show more attacking intent and flair than Mourinho's side could muster.\n\nUntil a predictable late charge, this was a strangely muted display from United. Their need for victory was arguably greater than City's as they started the game with an eight-point deficit, but they spent much of the first half on the back foot.\n\nMourinho's line-up demonstrated attacking intent with the inclusion of Lukaku, Rashford, Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial. United also missed the power and influence of Paul Pogba, suspended after his red card at Arsenal.\n\nIt was still a surprise, however, to see City so comprehensively dominant from the opening exchanges and United were barely able to believe their luck that they went in at half-time on level terms.\n\nLukaku's lack of confidence and touch did not help and there was an element of good fortune about Ederson's late saves - but there was no doubt United did not push hard enough for victory and were second best.\n• None This was just the second time a team has scored more than one goal in the Premier League at Old Trafford against Mourinho's Manchester United (also City in September 2016, 2-1).\n• None Mourinho has lost nine matches in all competitions against Guardiola, more than against any other manager.\n• None United posted a 35% possession figure, their lowest at Old Trafford in the Premier League since 2003-04 (when Opta started collecting this data).\n• None Rashford has been involved in 11 goals in 12 games in all competitions at Old Trafford this season (six goals, five assists), more than any other United player.\n• None Otamendi is now the top-scoring defender in the Premier League this season (four goals).\n• None Lukaku has scored just five goals in his past 40 Premier League appearances against the 'big six'.\n\nUnited welcome Bournemouth to Old Trafford on Wednesday at 20:00 GMT and are at West Brom on Sunday, 17 December at 14:15.\n\nCity travel to Swansea on Wednesday (19:45), before hosting Tottenham on Saturday (17:30).\n• None Attempt saved. Bernardo Silva (Manchester City) left footed shot from the left side of the six yard box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Kevin De Bruyne with a through ball.\n• None Ashley Young (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Delay over. They are ready to continue.\n• None Delay in match Ederson (Manchester City) because of an injury.\n• None Attempt saved. Juan Mata (Manchester United) left footed shot from very close range is saved in the centre of the goal.\n• None Attempt saved. Romelu Lukaku (Manchester United) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Anthony Martial.\n• None Offside, Manchester United. Nemanja Matic tries a through ball, but Juan Mata is caught offside.\n• None Offside, Manchester United. Ashley Young tries a through ball, but Zlatan Ibrahimovic is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "George Bell was Bishop of Chichester from 1929 until his death in 1958\n\nThe Church of England has apologised to the relatives of a bishop for the way it investigated child abuse claims made against him decades after his death.\n\nFormer Bishop of Chichester George Bell, who died in 1958, was alleged to have repeatedly abused a young girl.\n\nShe made a formal complaint in 1995 and, 10 years later, won an apology and compensation from the Church.\n\nA report into the handling of the case has criticised the Church's actions, describing its process as \"deficient\".\n\nThe current Bishop of Chichester the Right Reverend Martin Warner praised the \"dignity and integrity\" of Bishop Bell's accuser, but said the Church inquiry paid \"inadequate attention to the rights of those who are dead\".\n\nIn his review, Lord Carlile said the Church \"failed to follow a process that was fair and equitable to both sides\".\n\nThe allegations against George Bell were first made by the victim, known as \"Carol\", in 1995, but were not investigated or referred to the police.\n\nShe said the bishop began abusing her when she was five and molested her in Chichester Cathedral as she sat listening to stories.\n\nCarol said the abuse continued for about four years.\n\nIn 2013, she wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, at which point the matter was referred to police.\n\nTwo years later the Church paid £16,800 in an out of court settlement and apologised to Carol.\n\nHowever, the \"George Bell Group\" of supporters of the former bishop sought and gained a review into how the Church arrived at that decision.\n\nLord Carlile criticised the Church response as \"deficient\" in a number of respects and said the most significant was that \"it failed to follow a process that was fair and equitable to both sides\".\n\nHe said the Church should be ready to acknowledge sexual abuse committed by the clergy - but that did not mean the reputations of the dead were without value.\n\nThe independent reviewer said even when alleged perpetrators had died there should be methodical and sufficient investigations.\n\nHe said in this case it was \"clear that the Crown Prosecution Service evidential charging standard... would not have been met\".\n\nMaking 15 recommendations, Lord Carlile concluded the Church, feeling it should be supportive of the complainant and transparent in its dealings, failed to engage in a process that gave proper consideration to the rights of the bishop.\n\nThe review recommended alleged perpetrators, living or dead, should not be identified unless adverse findings of fact are found, or it is in the public interest.\n\nIt said: \"Whereas in this case the settlement is without admission of liability, the settlement generally should be with a confidentiality provision.\"\n\nBut the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said: \"The decision to publish his name was taken with immense reluctance, and all involved recognised the deep tragedy involved. However, we have to differ from Lord Carlile's point.\n\n\"The Church of England is committed to transparency and therefore we would take a different approach.\"\n\nBishop Warner said: \"We welcome Lord Carlile's assessment of our processes, and apologise for failures in the work of the Core Group of national and diocesan officers and its inadequate attention to the rights of those who are dead.\n\n\"The emotive principle of innocent until proven guilty is a standard by which our actions are judged and we have to ensure as best we can that justice is seen to be done.\n\n\"Irrespective of whether she is technically a complainant, survivor, or victim, 'Carol' emerges from this report as a person of dignity and integrity.\n\n\"It is essential that her right to privacy continues to be fully respected.\"\n\nThe Church also repeated its apology for failing to report Carol's allegations to the police when she first came forward in 1995.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Jeremy Corbyn was said to have benefited from a \"youthquake\" after a surge in support from millennials\n\nOxford Dictionaries has deemed \"youthquake\" the 2017 word of the year, reflecting what it calls a \"political awakening\" among millennial voters.\n\nIt was first coined in the 1960s by Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, who used it to describe sudden changes in fashion, music and attitudes.\n\nOxford Dictionaries said its use had seen a recent resurgence, to describe young people driving political change.\n\nOxford Dictionaries' Casper Grathwohl said it was \"not an obvious choice\".\n\nBut he said Youthquake's use in everyday speech had increased five-fold during 2017.\n\n\"In the UK, where it rose to prominence as a descriptor of the impact of the country's young people on its general election, calls it out as a word on the move,\" he said.\n\nMr Grathwohl said youthquake's use in Britain peaked during the June general election, after polls delivered a better-than-expected result for the Labour party.\n\nOxford Dictionaries said the word sounded a note of hope after what it described as a \"difficult and divisive year\".\n\nThe word of the year is a word, or expression, that Oxford Dictionaries deems has \"attracted a great deal of interest during the year to date\" and is drawn from newspapers, books, blogs and transcripts of spoken English.\n\nLast year's word, \"post-truth\", was chosen after the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election.\n\nThe Oxford English Dictionary has updated its definition of youthquake to: \"A significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young.\"\n\nIt was previously defined as the \"series of radical political and cultural upheavals occurring among students and young people in the 1960s\".", "The government should create a national strategy to combat loneliness, says a report by a commission set up by the murdered MP Jo Cox.\n\nThe commission, formed by the MP before she was killed in her constituency in 2016, calls for the appointment of a minister to lead action on the issue.\n\nIt says loneliness is as harmful to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and affects nine million UK people.\n\nThe government says new initiatives will be announced next year.\n\nThe report acknowledges that government action alone cannot solve the problem.\n\nHowever, it says: \"Tackling loneliness is a generational challenge that can only be met by concerted action by everyone - governments, employers, businesses, civil society organisations, families, communities and individuals all have a role to play.\n\n\"Working together we can make a difference.\"\n\nThe report is calling for the Family Test, a measure of assessing the effect of government policies on stable families, to become a family and relationships test.\n\nThe cross-party commission was established by Mrs Cox when she was Labour MP for Batley and Spen.\n\nIt continued its work after she was murdered outside her constituency office in Birstall, West Yorkshire in June 2016.\n\nThe commission has been working with 13 charities including Age UK and Action for Children to come up with ideas for change.\n\nThe report will be presented in Birstall on Friday by the joint commission chairs, Labour MP Rachel Reeves and the Conservative's Seema Kennedy,\n\nThey will be joined by Mrs Cox's sister, Kim Leadbeater.\n\nMrs Cox set up the commission before she was killed in 2016\n\nThe joint chairs said: \"We know that loneliness will not end until we all recognise the role we can play in making that happen.\n\n\"Jo always looked forwards, not back. She would have said that what matters most now are the actions, big and small, that people take in response to the commission's work.\"\n\nThe report's release will coincide with the launch of three Royal Voluntary Service projects set to tackle loneliness and isolation in Mrs Cox's former constituency.\n\nThe schemes - partly financed by the Jo Cox Fund set up in her memory - will include lunch clubs, activities, and workshops as well as a new Community Connections Programme.\n\nThis will \"match up volunteers with lonely people in the area\" according to Royal Voluntary Service's Chief Executive Catherine Johnstone, acting as a practical template for the commission's recommendations.\n\nThe government said it welcomed the commission's work and tackling social isolation and loneliness is of \"huge importance\".\n\nA spokeswoman added: \"A number of government initiatives already help to reduce loneliness, such as improved mental health support and funding to create new green spaces for communities, but we are committed to doing more and look forward to setting out plans in the new year,\" she added.", "The rising cost of sports rights is behind the agreement, analysts say\n\nSky and BT have have signed a deal to sell their channels on each other's platforms.\n\nUnder the deal, BT will now supply its sports channels - which show UEFA Champions League and Premier League football - to Sky.\n\nIn addition, BT will be able to sell Sky's Now TV service - which includes Sky Sports, Sky Cinema and the Sky Atlantic channel - to its customers.\n\nThe deal comes as the firms face growing competition from online rivals.\n\nMarc Allera, the chief executive of BT Consumer, told the BBC that the deal was partly so the firms could join forces against the potential online threat.\n\n\"A lot of technology companies are coming into the market with vast budgets, and changing the market. We need to ensure our customers get the best choice,\" he said.\n\nIn a complex market, potential rivals can also be partners, he added.\n\nHe said the Sky deal was a \"clear indication\" of the importance BT attached to how digital and TV markets were converging, adding the firm would bid fiercely for exclusive content.\n\nBidding is due to begin in the next Premier League football rights auction in February, and digital giants such as Amazon and Facebook could throw their hats in the ring for streaming rights.\n\nHowever, Mr Allera said: \"I wouldn't say [the deal with Sky] takes the pressure off at all... we believe in holding exclusive rights.\"\n\nBT has spent more than £3.5bn on Champions League and Premier League football rights since 2012 in an attempt to compete with Sky.\n\nFor the 2016 to 2019 football seasons, BT agreed to pay £960m to show 42 Premier League games, and Sky agreed to pay £4.17bn to show 126 games.\n\nFor the seasons from 2019 to 2021, the number of games shown could rise to 190.\n\nBT has exclusive TV rights for Champions League games until 2021\n\nSky boss Jeremy Darroch said: \"This is great news for Sky customers who will be able to access all matches on Sky and BT channels from the Premier League, UEFA Champions League and Europa League directly with a single Sky TV subscription.\"\n\nThe new services will be available to BT and Sky customers from early 2019.\n\nAt present, BT customers can get BT TV via a box, an app, or online, and can only get a pared down version of Sky Sports.\n\nSky customers can get BT Sport at present, but only if they subscribe through BT.\n\nRichard Broughton, research director at media analysts Ampere, called the deal \"very unusual\" because of the rivalry between the two firms, but said it was a consequence of the rising costs of sports rights.\n\n\"The new rights are up for renewal very soon and this is a pre-emptive shot from both companies to limit their exposure to damage should they not get key rights and also allow them to be a little less aggressive in their bidding.\"\n\nMichael Hewson, an analyst with CMC Markets, said the BT-Sky deal seemed better for BT than Sky, \"given that Sky will take BT's sport content while BT gets Sky's sports, cinema and Sky Atlantic channel, and could even gain more access to content further down the road\".\n\nThe big online firms have been part of a seismic shift in how people access content.\n\nOn Thursday, Disney announced a deal to buy a large chunk of 21st Century Fox, including its 39% stake in Sky.\n\nMedia mogul Rupert Murdoch told Sky News he was selling Fox's entertainment assets in part due to the rise of online giants.\n\n\"[Amazon and Netflix] are growth companies... Amazon, I don't know how much they want to do. They are spending $5bn or $6bn I believe on new programmes, but it's basically to widen the appeal of [Amazon] Prime.\n\n\"Anyone who joins Prime seems to spend about $3,000 immediately on retail... you know, they are a huge disruptor if you look at what they're doing.\"\n\nHe said the new Fox company that remained would have the strength to bid for sports rights, but that all companies could be \"threatened by big nonsensical bids from the likes of Facebook\".", "Liam Allan had been on bail for two years before his trial collapsed\n\nThe Met Police is to hold an \"urgent\" review of a rape case after being accused of failing to disclose vital evidence.\n\nLiam Allan, 22, was charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault but his trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.\n\nA computer disk containing 40,000 messages revealed the alleged victim pestered Mr Allan for \"casual sex\".\n\nThe charges against the criminology student were dropped three days into the trial at Croydon Crown Court when Mr Hayes took over the case.\n\nIt is understood police had looked at thousands of phone messages when reviewing evidence in the case, but had failed to disclose to the prosecution and defence teams messages between the complainant and her friends which cast doubt on the allegations against Mr Allan.\n\nThe CPS said it offered no evidence in the case on Thursday as there was \"no longer a realistic prospect of conviction\".\n\nMr Allan told the BBC he was \"overwhelmed\" at the moment, adding: \"It's a huge amount of confusion to go from being the villain to being innocent.\"\n\nHe also told The Times he had suffered two years of \"mental torture... I feel betrayed by the system which I had believed would do the right thing — the system I want to work in.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Hayes said there had very nearly been \"a massive miscarriage of justice\" which could have led to Mr Allan being imprisoned for 12 years and being put on the sex offenders register for life.\n\nHe said the disk contained information which \"completely blew the prosecution case out of the water\", although he believed the information had not been disclosed because of \"sheer incompetence\".\n\n\"The trouble is everyone is under pressure... This is a criminal justice system which is not just creaking, it's about to croak,\" he said.\n\nThe BBC's Legal Correspondent Clive Coleman said he understood the defence had asked repeatedly for the phone messages to be disclosed, which included details saying how the alleged victim had spoken to friends about how much she enjoyed having sex with Mr Allan.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's legal correspondent Clive Coleman gives his analysis of the case\n\nMr Allan's solicitor Simone Meerabux said when her client was arrested he had told police about the existence of the messages but \"in spite of all that he was charged\".\n\nShe said prior to the trial the CPS had told them there was \"nothing further to disclose\" and it was only after they reiterated their request on the first day in court that the information was made available.\n\nA Met spokesman said the force was \"urgently reviewing this investigation and will be working with the Crown Prosecution Service to understand exactly what has happened in this case.\n\n\"The Met understands the concerns that have been raised as a result of this case being dismissed from court and the ongoing review will seek to address those,\" he said.\n\nA spokesman for the CPS said: \"In November 2017, the police provided more material in the case of Liam Allan. Upon a review of that material, it was decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.\n\n\"We will now be conducting a management review together with the Metropolitan Police to examine the way in which this case was handled.\"", "Several fraternity members are still facing charges related to the death of Tim Piazza (centre)\n\nA committee probing the Pennsylvania State University's response to drinking in fraternities has issued a blistering report following a student's death.\n\nA grand jury found on Friday that administrators displayed a \"shocking apathy\" to dangerous levels of drinking and hazing in university social clubs.\n\nThe report claims officials knew of the dangers but did nothing.\n\nThe report says Tim Piazza, a 19 year old who died last February after binge drinking, \"did not have to die\".\n\nPenn State officials have yet to comment on the damning report.\n\nThe findings say officials \"were aware of the excessive and dangerous alcohol abuse indulged by fraternities, such that it was only a matter of time before a death would occur during a hazing event\".\n\n\"The university bears the ultimate responsibility for the failure to supervise the safety of its students involved in the fraternity system,\" the report says, adding that although the university's actions were not themselves illegal, their \"inaction set the table to allow these criminal acts to occur\", which caused Piazza's death.\n\nTim Piazza, from New Jersey, was left unconscious for hours and suffered internal injuries after falling down steps during an initiation ritual. He later died in hospital.\n\nOther members of the fraternity waited nearly 12 hours to call an ambulance, and were charged with manslaughter, although the most serious charges were later dropped.\n\nOfficials say he was fed 18 drinks in a period of one hour and 22 minutes, and that he never obtained the drinks on his own.\n\nHazing at the school, the report found, is \"rampant and pervasive\" and encourages \"sadistic\" rituals that reach \"peaks of depravity\".\n\nThe jury calls for \"profound changes on college campuses and communities in Pennsylvania\", and for universities to ensure protections for younger students wishing to join fraternities, and sororities - which together are known as campus Greek social life.\n\nOther US universities have taken measures recently to protect students who are seeking to join social clubs.\n\nOn Thursday, a University of Houston fraternity in Texas was indicted for hazing, with officials charging that students were deprived of adequate food, water and sleep during a three-day initiation event.\n\nThe president of Florida State University told the Associated Press on Thursday that there is currently no timeline for reinstating campus Greek activities there, after they were suspended in November following a student's death.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA police force has faced a backlash over social media posts that appeared to support domestic abuse victims staying with their partners.\n\nSheila's Story describes how a woman who \"knew that the abuse in her relationship was wrong\" is given help and support to stay with her husband.\n\nEssex Police apologised for the offence caused by the post's use of \"clumsy language\".\n\n\"However, the stories featured in the campaign are real stories,\" a force spokesman said.\n\n\"Our message in this campaign isn't 'stay in any relationship no matter how abusive', it's 'if something is happening in your relationship even if you've been with someone for decades there is help you can get'\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Essex Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSocial media users reacted angrily to the posts on Facebook and Twitter, with one describing them as \"idiotic\".\n\nWriter and food blogger Jack Monroe said they had \"no words for what an irresponsible, silencing, diminishing campaign this is\".\n\n\"Basically telling women to 'put up and shut up' re domestic abuse. In 2017. This is absurd,\" Monroe wrote on Twitter.\n\nAnother Twitter user remarked: \"There's no such thing as staying safe in an abusive relationship\".\n\nThe force is running the campaign in partnership with Southend, Essex and Thurrock Domestic Abuse Board.\n\nChair of the board, Dick Madden, said Sheila's Story had been \"thought very carefully about\" before being shared as part of the campaign.\n\n\"Not all domestic abuse cases are the same, and not all victims will want to leave or consider reporting to the police,\" he said.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by jack monroe |🍴📚 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"Through this particular scenario, we are aiming to reach out to this audience and give them information about the support available, whatever their circumstances.\n\n\"We want to make sure victims know where to turn to for support.\"\n\nMr Madden said the campaign had been developed with domestic abuse specialists, refuges, partners and survivors of abuse.\n\n\"The message is clear: domestic abuse is never acceptable,\" he said.\n\n\"Within the comments on this particular post, there were a number of supportive comments - some from survivors who sought support and have stayed within their relationship.\n\n\"We think it is positive that the campaign has sparked a debate on a very important issue.\"\n\nCommenting on the Essex Police Facebook post, one user - who runs a relationships service in Essex - said that many older victims of domestic abuse wanted support to stay with their partners.\n\nThe campaign's message \"recognises the views of many older victims\", she said, and would hopefully encourage them \"to come forward without the fear that we are going to swoop in and make them end the relationship\".\n\n\"That may happen along the line but at least it will be done more safely than had they tried without support,\" she said.\n\nBut chief executive of Women's Aid, Katie Ghose, said the message being promoted was \"extremely dangerous\".\n\n\"It minimises the devastating impact of coercive control, and could leave women stuck in an abusive relationship and feeling that there is nowhere to turn for help,\" she said.", "Teachers should be aware of the likelihood that that harassment can spread on social media\n\nSexual harassment or violence at school should never be dismissed as \"banter\", new Department for Education guidance to schools and colleges has stressed.\n\n\"Sexting\" explicit images and videos of under-18s is illegal, it says, and girls are the most likely victims.\n\nSchools still have a duty to act if incidents outside school are reported.\n\nThe Women and Equalities Committee described the issuing of the guidance as a \"belated, but critical, step in the right direction\".\n\nIt adds that more still needs to be done to make sure girls - who are the most likely victims of sexual violence in schools according to the guidance - are \"safe and equal\" at school.\n\nThe guidance, published on the government's website on Thursday, highlights \"best practice\" but says it is for individual schools and colleges to develop their own policies and procedures. It has also launched a consultation on changes to statutory guidance - which sets out the legal duty on schools and colleges.\n\nThe new advice stresses that educational establishments should be making clear that sexual attacks and harassment \"will never be tolerated and is not an inevitable part of growing up\", warning that if it is allowed, then it can \"provide an environment that may lead to sexual violence\".\n\nBehaviour such as \"grabbing bottoms, breasts and genitalia\" is potentially criminal and must not be permitted, it says.\n\nThe advice says those accused of sexual attacks or misbehaviour also need support and may be victims of abuse and trauma themselves.\n\nTeachers should consider the ages of the pupils involved in deciding whether behaviour is harmful - particularly if there is more than two years between them, if one child is disabled or physically much smaller.\n\nIn any case of reported rape, the child accused should be removed from any classes they share with the alleged victim, \"in the best interests of both children\". Schools or colleges should do \"everything they reasonably can to protect the victim from bullying and harassment as a result of any report they have made\".\n\n\"Schools and colleges should also consider the potential impact of social media in facilitating the spreading of rumours and exposing victims' identities,\" the guidance says.\n\nThe government says a \"whole school approach\" should be taken which might include teaching pupils about healthy and respectful relationships, gender stereotyping, self-esteem and prejudice.\n\nSocial workers should be alerted if a child has been harmed and rape or assault allegations should be referred to the police. Parents should usually be informed, unless it is considered that this would put pupils at greater risk.\n\nBBC Panorama discovered that reports of sexual offences on school premises in England and Wales increased from 386 in 2013-14 to 922 in 2016-17, according to 31 police forces - including 225 rapes on school grounds over the four years.\n\nIn its report last year, the Women and Equalities Committee warned that harassment of girls in English schools was being \"accepted as part of daily life\" and must be acted upon.\n\nIts chairman, Maria Miller, said it was important that the new advice was being well promoted: \"It is well over a year since the committee called for the government and schools to make girls' safety an immediate priority and this is a belated, but critical, step in the right direction.\n\n\"The advice addresses in detail important issues that we highlighted in our report, including the need to get support from specialist services and recognising the forms that sexual harassment in schools can take.\"\n\nBut she said more long-term work was needed \"so that future generations of girls are safe and equal at school\".\n\nFor the government, Minister for Children Robert Goodwill said schools and colleges \"should be safe places\".\n\n\"All schools must have an effective child protection policy that addresses a range of issues. To support schools we have published new advice specifically on sexual violence and sexual harassment.\n\n\"We are consulting proposed changes to the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance, to ensure it reflects the challenges that schools must be prepared to deal with.\"", "Introducing a minimum price per unit of alcohol would push up the cost to consumers of most alcohol, not just the cheapest strong drinks, according to researchers.\n\nThe Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said a floor of 50p per unit would raise the cost of 70% of alcohol bought in shops.\n\nIt said there was a \"strong case\" for reforming alcohol duties instead.\n\nThe Scottish government is due to bring in a minimum price for alcohol in May.\n\nIt is consulting on its preferred rate of 50p per unit.\n\nA similar policy is being considered by the Welsh National Assembly.\n\nThe IFS looked at what the impact on prices would be if a compulsory minimum price of at least 50p per alcohol unit were introduced, meaning that drinks that currently cost less than that would have to go up in price.\n\nIt found the average price rise would be about 35%, but low-cost lagers would increase by 44%, while most ciders would cost 90% more.\n\nAbout 85% of lager and 80% of cider (measured by units of alcohol) are priced below 50p per unit.\n\nThe IFS said most wines, fortified wines and spirits also cost less than 50p per unit and would see their prices go up.\n\nFor example, a bottle of sherry containing 17.5 units of alcohol and sold for £7.15 by a supermarket would have to be sold for £8.75 if a minimum price of 50p per unit were introduced.\n\nTwenty cans of cider containing 44 units of alcohol, currently available for £11, would double in price to £22.\n\nThe researchers concluded that a minimum price of 50p would have a financial impact on heavy drinkers who tend to buy cheaper and stronger alcohol. But it would also affect a large number of moderate drinkers.\n\nHowever, the IFS said \"it may be better to reform duties and not have a minimum price at all\".\n\nIt said minimum unit pricing had a \"substantial disadvantage\" because the policy was \"likely to dampen competition in the retail market, resulting in increases in profits to the alcohol industry.\n\n\"In contrast, reform of alcohol duties that act to raise the price of strong products, as well as cider, is likely to raise tax revenue,\" it added.\n\nAnomalies in the current UK alcohol duty system made it \"chaotic\", it said.\n\nAt the moment, for example, EU rules mean wine and cider have to be taxed per litre, with the result they are taxed less per unit of alcohol than stronger drinks.\n\nSeparately, the tax on a litre of 7.5% beer is three times that on a litre of 7.5 % cider.\n\n\"A sensible reform that would substantially improve the system of alcohol duties would entail taxing directly the alcohol in wine and cider (a move which exiting the European Union will presumably make legally feasible) and increasing the tax on cider to bring it in line with that levied on beer,\" it said.\n\nAny change to the system of alcohol duty would be under the control of government in Westminster.", "Ryanair has said it is prepared to recognise pilot unions as it seeks to avoid strike disruption over the Christmas period.\n\nEarlier this week, 79 Dublin-based Ryanair pilots said they would strike for one day on 20 December.\n\nThe airline was also facing action by pilots elsewhere in Europe.\n\nRyanair has never recognised unions, but it said it would change this policy in order to avoid disruption to flights and passengers in Christmas week.\n\nIt has written to pilot unions in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal inviting them for talks.\n\nOn Friday afternoon, Irish union Impact, which represents pilots, said it had \"made contact with\" Ryanair management after receiving a letter from the airline.\n\n\"Impact has indicated its belief that an immediate meeting, between management and the union, is now necessary to clarify issues and make progress.\"\n\nThe union said its officials were available \"today or at any time over the coming weekend\". However, they have not called off next week's strike action in Ireland.\n\nThe UK pilots' union Balpa, which was not planning to strike next week, said it had written to Ryanair to accept the offer of talks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ryanair tells Today the airline is moving to recognise unions as it's \"time for change\"\n\nThe carrier said it would recognise unions \"as the representative body for pilots in Ryanair in each of these countries, as long as they establish committees of Ryanair pilots to deal with Ryanair issues, as Ryanair will not engage with pilots who fly for competitor airlines in Ireland or elsewhere\".\n\nRyanair chief operations officer Peter Bellew told the BBC there were \"no strings\" attached to the offer.\n\n\"The basis of what we've asked to do is the same as other airlines do around the world and within Europe, so I don't believe there's any strings there.\"\n\nRyanair called on the unions to cancel the planned strike on 20 December.\n\nHowever, Mr Bellew said the offer to hold talks about collective bargaining was not just about next week's planned strikes.\n\n\"This is about the long term. We have 4,500 pilots working for Ryanair at the moment, great aviation professionals, we need to get a basis with them to work going forward.\n\n\"We feel it's the best grounds to move forward with our workforce for the next 10/20 years where we intend to grow to be the biggest airline in the world.\"\n\nRyanair's share price fell 8.6% after the invitation to talks became public, amid investors' fears that any change could push up costs.\n\nMr Bellew said: \"I think there might be some minor changes but I don't think it's going to be material in the overall cost of the company.\"\n\nPilots in Italy had been due to strike on Friday for four hours, between 13:00 and 17:00 CET (12:00-16:00 GMT).\n\nHowever, following receipt of the letter from Ryanair, the main pilots' union, Anpac, said it had suspended its walkout.\n\nChief executive Michael O'Leary admitted union recognition would be a \"significant change\" for the airline.\n\n\"Christmas flights are very important to our customers and we wish to remove any worry or concern that they may be disrupted by pilot industrial action next week,\" he said.\n\n\"If the best way to achieve this is to talk to our pilots through a recognised union process, then we are prepared to do so.\"\n\nIn October, Mr O'Leary wrote to the Ryanair's pilots to offer them better pay and conditions after the airline was forced to cancel thousands of flights.\n\nAt the time of the cancellations the airline admitted it had \"messed up\" the planning of its pilots' holidays.\n\nIn his letter, Mr O'Leary also apologised for changes that caused disruptions to their rotas and urged them not to leave the airline.\n\nAviation expert John Strickland of JLS Consulting said the idea of Ryanair recognising unions was \"revolutionary\" for the company.\n\n\"I think the company realises they need to pay more, they recognise it's a labour group who they cannot do without, they cannot simply replace pilots off the street on a short-term basis.\n\n\"There's a global pilot shortage and Ryanair is actually pretty well placed in the pecking order for pilot jobs but they have to make sure these people are on side and not inflame personal feelings with that part of the workforce,\" he added.", "Jayda Fransen is charged with using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour\n\nThe deputy leader of far right group Britain First has appeared in court charged in connection with an incident at a Belfast peace wall.\n\nJayda Fransen, 31, from Anerley, south-east London, was charged with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour.\n\nShe appeared briefly at Belfast Magistrates' Court on Friday morning.\n\nMs Fransen was arrested on Thursday after appearing in court in Belfast over a separate incident.\n\nShe was released on bail and is due to appear in court again next month.\n\nAfter bail was granted, Ms Fransen's supporters in the public gallery cheered and applauded.\n\nShe raised her arm in the air as they cheered.\n\nAmong her supporters was Paul Golding, the leader of Britain First.\n\nThe charge against Ms Fransen relates to comments she is alleged to have made in a video online that was filmed at a peace wall in west Belfast.\n\nFriday's charge stems from an incident at a peace wall on 13 December.\n\nPeace walls are used to separate Catholic and Protestant residents in Northern Ireland, in areas where tension between the two communities can run high.\n\nThe police objected in court to Ms Fransen being given bail. A PSNI detective told the court that \"our objection is that she's going to commit further offences\".\n\nHowever, the judge granted her bail on the condition that she did not go within 500m of any demonstration or procession in Northern Ireland.", "A 68-year-old man has died after the school bus he was driving was involved in a crash with a lorry and car on the outskirts of Aberdeen.\n\nThe accident happened on the B979 South Deeside Road near Maryculter Bridge at about 07:45.\n\nThere were 13 children on the bus, of primary and secondary age. They suffered only cuts and bruises.\n\nThe bus involved was carrying pupils from Lathallan private school in Johnshaven.\n\nThe male drivers of the DAF lorry, aged 56, and red Audi A4, aged 40, were taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.\n\nThey were not thought to have suffered life-threatening injuries.\n\nInsp Neil Morrison said: \"Sadly the driver of the coach died of his injuries at the scene.\n\n\"The 13 on the coach were not seriously injured. They have been reunited with their parents.\n\n\"Any collision of this nature is traumatic and out thoughts are with those involved.\"\n\nThe road was closed for most of Friday\n\nHe added of the road conditions: \"It's been cold, the road surface is a consideration for us.\"\n\nLathallan headmaster Richard Toley said: \"We have been informed by Police Scotland that the driver has sadly passed away.\n\n\"Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, he was a larger than life character who was extremely popular with our pupils.\n\n\"He will be missed by us all.\"\n\nThe road between Leggart Terrace and Netherley Road has been reopened.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Liam Allan talks about what it is like being falsely accused of rape\n\nA man whose rape trial collapsed after detectives failed to disclose vital evidence to the defence said he felt \"betrayed\" by police and the CPS.\n\nLiam Allan was charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault but his trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.\n\nThe 22-year-old student said his life had been \"flipped upside down\" and he wanted lessons to be learned.\n\nThe Met Police said it was \"urgently reviewing this investigation\".\n\nThe case against Mr Allan at Croydon Crown Court was dropped after three days when the evidence on a computer disk containing 40,000 messages revealed the alleged victim pestered him for \"casual sex\".\n\nHe told the BBC his life had been \"torn away\" by the process, which included being on bail for two years.\n\n\"You just think the worst case scenario... People have to start planning for life without you,\" he said.\n\nMr Allan faced a possible jail term of 12 years and being put on the sex offenders register for life had he been found guilty.\n\nHe said he felt \"pure fear\" when he learned he had been accused of rape but would never be able to understand why the accusations were made.\n\nThe 22-year-old student had been charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault\n\n\"There was no possible real gain from it other than destroying somebody else's life... It's something I will never be able to forgive or forget.\"\n\nBut he said he wanted to use his experience \"to change the system\".\n\n\"This wasn't a case of people trying to prove my innocence, it was a case of people trying to prove I was guilty,\" Mr Allan said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIt is understood police had looked at thousands of phone messages when reviewing evidence in the case, but had failed to disclose to the prosecution and defence teams messages between the complainant and her friends which cast doubt on the allegations against Mr Allan.\n\nProsecution barrister Jerry Hayes accused police of \"sheer incompetence\" over the case.\n\nBefore the trial the defence team had repeatedly asked for the phone messages to be disclosed but was told there was nothing to disclose.\n\nMr Hayes, who demanded the messages to be passed to the defence, said he believed the trial had come about because \"everyone is under pressure\".\n\n\"This is a criminal justice system which is not just creaking, it's about to croak,\" he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's legal correspondent Clive Coleman gives his analysis of the case\n\nMr Allan's lawyer Simone Meerabux said it had been \"a very traumatic experience\" for her client.\n\nShe said it was \"amazing\" the case had got to the stage it did \"but it's not uncommon\" because of problems with disclosure.\n\nA Met spokesman said the force was \"urgently reviewing this investigation and will be working with the Crown Prosecution Service to understand exactly what has happened in this case.\n\n\"The Met understands the concerns that have been raised as a result of this case being dismissed from court and the ongoing review will seek to address those,\" he said.\n\nA spokesman for the CPS said: \"In November 2017, the police provided more material in the case of Liam Allan. Upon a review of that material, it was decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.\n\n\"We will now be conducting a management review together with the Metropolitan Police to examine the way in which this case was handled.\"", "The UK will continue to take part in the Erasmus student exchange programme until at least the end of 2020, the prime minister has said.\n\nTheresa May praised Erasmus+ and confirmed the UK would still be involved after Brexit in March 2019.\n\nWhether it is involved long term is among issues likely to be discussed during the next stage of negotiations.\n\nErasmus+ sees students study in another European country for between three and 12 months as part of their degree.\n\nThe prime minister is in Brussels where she will have dinner with EU leaders on Thursday.\n\nOn Friday, without Mrs May, they are expected to formally approve a recommendation that \"sufficient progress\" has been made in Brexit negotiations so far to move them onto the next stage.\n\nMrs May agreed a draft deal with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last week which would mean the UK would continue its funding of EU projects, including Erasmus, until the end of this EU budget period in 2020.\n\nIf EU leaders approve the draft deal, Brexit negotiations can begin on the next phase, covering the future relationship between the UK and EU and a two-year transition or implementation deal from March 2019. It is not clear whether this would include Erasmus+.\n\nMrs May said that British students benefitted from studying in the EU while UK universities were a popular choice for European students.\n\nSpeaking during a discussion on education and culture at the summit in Brussels, she added: \"I welcome the opportunity to provide clarity to young people and the education sector and reaffirm our commitment to the deep and special relationship we want to build with the EU.\"", "Corrie Mckeague's mother said all they have is \"theories\" but \"no evidence\"\n\nA reward offered to find missing airman Corrie Mckeague has been doubled to £100,000.\n\nMr Mckeague, who was 23 when he disappeared, vanished during a night out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in September 2016.\n\nOn Monday, police said they had stopped searching a landfill site after finding no trace of Mr Mckeague.\n\nHis mother Nicola Urquhart has begged people with information to come forward.\n\nShe said all the family have is \"theories\" but \"no evidence\".\n\n\"I plead to anybody involved that's spoken to us in the past, spoken to the police, to please get back in touch with us again,\" Mrs Urquhart added.\n\nCorrie Mckeague was last seen at 03:25 BST on 24 September 2016\n\nThe reward has been offered by local businessman Colin Davey.\n\nThe search of the waste site at Milton, Cambridgeshire, restarted in October after a 20-week excavation ended earlier in the year.\n\nSuffolk Police said it was \"content\" Mr Mckeague was not in the landfill areas that had been searched and the investigation into his disappearance would continue.\n\nPolice have stopped searching the landfill site after finding no trace of Mr Mckeague\n\nMr Mckeague, from Dunfermline, Fife, was on a night out with colleagues from his base RAF Honington when he went missing.\n\nHe was last seen at 03:25 BST on 24 September 2016 when he was captured on CCTV entering a bin loading bay known as the Horseshoe.\n\nHis phone was tracked as taking the same route as a bin lorry, which led police to believe he had climbed in a bin and been taken to the landfill site.\n\nA £50,000 reward was first offered in December 2016.\n\nIt was later withdrawn because it had not led to any new information, but was reinstated in August.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A new campaign's being launched by Public Health England to get more under-25s to use condoms to prevent sexually transmitted infections spreading.\n\nIt's the first government sexual health campaign in eight years.\n\nIt comes as a survey carried out by PHE and YouGov revealed that almost half of sexually active young people have had sex with someone new for the first time without using a condom.\n\nOne in 10 had never even used one.\n\nSTIs can cause infertility, pelvic inflammatory disease, swollen or painful testicles and even meningitis.\n\nPublic Health England and YouGov spoke to more than than 2,000 16-24-year-olds about their sexual health.\n\nThe main reason for not using a condom was because they said sex felt better without one.\n\nJordan, who's 19 and from Wrexham, admits he only uses them around \"half the time\".\n\nHe told Newsbeat that being drunk was one of the reasons he hadn't used one with a new partner.\n\n\"Drink definitely has an effect, because when you're drunk, you're more careless.\"\n\nThe poll found half the people who admitted to not using a condom had done so when drunk.\n\nWe also spoke to Lydia who admits she's more cautious when sober.\n\nLydia says when she's drunk she's less likely to practise safe sex\n\nBut she adds the feeling is \"not as nice\" when a partner uses a condom.\n\nBoth admit to feeling guilty the day after having unprotected sex and have visited an STI clinic to get tested.\n\nOther reasons given in the survey for not using a condom during sex included one of a couple being on the pill or having a contraceptive implant.\n\nThat's something student Ellie says is common.\n\nThe 20-year-old admits some men she's slept with are far more worried about getting her pregnant than getting an STI.\n\nEllie says men she's slept with are far more concerned about pregnancy than STIs\n\n\"It's on them then, isn't it? If it's a baby, it's them too.\n\n\"If it's an STI, it's your responsibility.\"\n\nJordan adds: \"If a girl's on the pill, then it's another way of saying 'you don't need to use a condom then'.\"\n\nIn 2016, there were more than 141,000 chlamydia and gonorrhoea diagnoses in people aged between 15 and 24 in England.\n\nJesse, who's 24, told Newsbeat he contracted both because he didn't use a condom.\n\nJesse admits he used to sleep around and didn't use protection\n\n\"It wasn't a nice experience. They caused pain in my groin and discomfort when urinating.\n\n\"The worst of it though was having to tell my previous and current sexual partner that I had contracted the STIs, so they also needed to get checked and treated.\n\nSymptoms vary but some, like chlamydia, may not even show any.\n\n\"I had symptoms, but I know there are so many people who don't have symptoms,\" says Jesse.\n\n\"Now when having sex with someone new I will definitely use a condom.\"\n\nDoctors are worried because gonorrhoea is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, and may become untreatable in the future.\n\nGP Dr Sara Kayat says the only way to avoid getting an STI is to use a condom.\n\n\"Whilst many STIs are symptomless, contracting them can have serious health consequences if left untreated and even lead to infertility.\n\n\"As I tell patients in my clinic every week, it's just not worth putting yourself at risk by not using a condom.\"\n\nFor more info and advice on STIs, check out the BBC Advice pages. and find out where you can get free condoms here.\n\nFind us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat", "Bitcoin can be purchased online or via special ATMs\n\nA New York woman has been accused of laundering bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and wiring the money to help the so-called Islamic State.\n\nZoobia Shahnaz, 27, was charged with bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering and is being held without bail.\n\nMs Shahnaz was born in Pakistan and worked as a lab technician in the US.\n\nProsecutors say she took out fraudulent loans of $85,000 (£63,000) in order to buy the bitcoin online.\n\nBitcoin is an online currency. Despite not being legal tender, the value of bitcoin has rocketed this year.\n\nIt has been exploited by criminals to launder money. British authorities are pushing to increase regulation of the currency.\n\nAccording to court records, Ms Shahnaz, who lives in Brentwood on Long Island, was a lab technician at a Manhattan hospital until June.\n\nProsecutors said that Ms Shahnaz obtained a Pakistani passport in July and booked a flight to Pakistan with a layover in Istanbul, intending to travel to Syria.\n\nShe was arrested at John F Kennedy airport carrying $9,500 in cash, just under the limit of $10,000 that a person can legally take out of the country without declaring the funds.\n\nSearches of her electronic devices showed numerous searches for Islamic State-related material.\n\nMs Shahnaz faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the money laundering charges and up to 30 years for the bank fraud charge.\n\nHer lawyer, Steve Zissou, said she was sending money overseas to help Syrian refugees.\n\n\"What she saw made her devoted to lessening the suffering of a lot of the Syrian refugees and everything she does is for that purpose,\" Mr Zissou said outside the courthouse.", "Phew. After the six months she has had, Theresa May might be entitled to breathe a sigh of relief, as the European Council officially declared that the first phase of our long goodbye from the European Union is over.\n\nStand back from the daily dramas and perhaps it was always bound to happen.\n\nBoth sides are committed to getting an agreement.\n\nThe EU and the UK both want a deal to be done, and while there has, inevitably, been grumpiness on both sides, they have, in the main, dealt with each other in good faith.\n\nBut the fragility of the government, and the complexities of some of the issues, have meant that, on some occasions, it has felt like the prime minister might not get there. Had she not been able to get this far, there genuinely could have been questions about her future.\n\nThe conventional wisdom is that the next phase will be more complicated, even more fraught.\n\nThere are some optimists in government who believe it doesn't have to be that way - because the UK and the EU are already partners, it's a question of unpicking an existing relationship, rather than putting one together from scratch.\n\nBut there are significant contradictions to iron out, contrasting motivations, conflicting views inside the Conservative Party as well as among the EU 27.\n\nThe experience of the past few months suggests, in fact, that the way ahead will be extremely fraught and the prime minister's goal of a full agreement by March 2019 is hopeful, rather than grounded in reality.\n\nBut for today, at least, Mrs May's team can be satisfied, if only for a moment or two, that they have managed even to come this far.\n• None Brexit talks to move to next stage - EU", "The scene unfolding at the Leppings Lane terrace where Liverpool fans were standing\n\nA mounted officer and a police worker who claimed Liverpool fans burned a horse with cigarettes during the Hillsborough disaster will not face criminal charges.\n\nThe former South Yorkshire Police officer and the civilian farrier were accused of making up the story.\n\nBoth men were referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) by the police watchdog.\n\nThe CPS said the families of the 96 Hillsborough victims had been informed.\n\nThe Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) had submitted files on the two men following allegations about falsified evidence.\n\nProsecutors said the mounted officer had been seen on camera before the FA Cup semi-final lashing out towards fans, whom he later claimed were burning his horse with cigarettes.\n\nThe farrier, who was a friend of the officer, also described the injuries sustained by the horse.\n\nIt was alleged that the accounts were false and given to protect the officer from disciplinary action.\n\nThe CPS said the evidential threshold for a charge of perverting the course of justice had been met in relation to the farrier, but it was concluded that it was not in the public interest to charge him.\n\nIt said the evidential threshold had not been met in relation to the officer.\n\nIPCC deputy chairwoman Rachel Cerfontyne said: \"It was vitally important that allegations of such a serious nature were investigated robustly.\"\n\nSix men, including match commander David Duckenfield, are already facing prosecution for alleged offences related to the disaster on 15 April 1989 and its aftermath.\n\nOnce all criminal proceedings have concluded, the IPCC will consider whether any former officers would have had cases to answer for misconduct.\n\nEvidence supporting these findings will be set out in a final investigation report.\n\nA total of 96 Liverpool fans were fatally crushed during the stadium disaster on 15 April as their FA Cup semi-final began against Nottingham Forest.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What is net neutrality and how could it affect you?\n\nRestrictions on US broadband providers' ability to prioritise one service's data over another are to be reduced after a vote by a regulator.\n\nThe Federal Communications Commission voted three to two to change the way \"net neutrality\" is governed.\n\nInternet service providers (ISPs) will now be allowed to speed up or slow down different companies' data, and charge consumers according to the services they access.\n\nBut they must disclose such practices.\n\nAhead of the vote, protesters rallied outside the FCC's building to oppose the change.\n\nMany argue the reversal of rules introduced under President Barack Obama will make the internet less open and accessible.\n\nThe decision is already facing legal challenges, with New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, announcing he will lead a lawsuit challenging the FCC's decision.\n\nMr Schneiderman accused the watchdog of failing to investigate possible abuse of the public commenting process. He said as many as two million identities, some of dead New Yorkers, were used to post comments to the FCC website.\n\nDuring the hearing, FCC commissioner Mr Michael O'Rielly hit back at those claims, saying staff had been able to determine and discard comments that were illegitimate.\n\nThursday's proceedings in Washington were halted for about 15 minutes after a security alert forced an evacuation of the FCC's chamber, the final twist in a bitter and at times vitriolic debate.\n\nThe hearing was briefly suspended because of a security alert that occurred while chairman Ajit Pai was speaking\n\nThe FCC's chairman, Ajit Pai, argues the changes will foster innovation and encourage ISPs to invest in faster connections for people living in rural areas.\n\nHe refers to the change as \"restoring internet freedom\".\n\nTechnically, the vote was to reclassify broadband internet as an information service rather than telecommunications.\n\nThe consequence of this is that the FCC will no longer directly regulate ISPs.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: What do people know about net neutrality?\n\nInstead jurisdiction will pass to another regulator, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Its key responsibility will be to check that the companies disclose if they block data, throttle it or offer to prioritise traffic, rather than stopping such behaviour.\n\nOne criticism of this is that US consumers often have few if any ISPs to choose between. Moreover, opponents of the change claim it could take years to address any misbehaviour.\n\n\"I dissent to this legally-lightweight, consumer-harming, corporate-enabling, destroying-internet freedom order,\" said Democrat commissioner Mignon Clyburn ahead of the vote.\n\nBut fellow commissioner Mr O'Rielly, a Republican, said fears over the end of net neutrality were a \"scary bedtime story for the children of telecom geeks\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ian's family were told he was dying\n\nThe failure to offer a learning disabled young man cancer treatment has been described as a shocking example of health inequalities by charities.\n\nIan Shaw was sent home to die, but a doctor queried that decision after seeing his story on the BBC.\n\nIan, 35, who has since been given chemotherapy, is now doing well.\n\nThe hospital involved has said his learning disabilities had not been a factor in the decision to put him on end-of-life care.\n\nIn December 2016, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.\n\nHis parents say they were told by doctors nothing more could be done for him as the cancer had spread too far.\n\nIn February, he arrived home for what his family believed would be his final few months.\n\nIan, whose behaviour could at times be challenging, spent nearly a decade in secure units, moving between three different places.\n\nHis family believe in the units he was over-medicated and his health neglected.\n\nThey had to fight to get him moved to a supported home in the community, it was a few months after the move that the cancer was detected.\n\nHis parents believe it could have been found the year before when he was treated for a testicular swelling, if there had been a thorough investigation.\n\nIn July of this year, the BBC reported on Ian's case after it led to a call for the prime minister to appoint a commissioner to champion the rights of people with learning disabilities.\n\nSir Stephen Bubb, who had written two reports for NHS England on secure units, described Ian's case as \"all too typical\" of the continuing failures vulnerable people faced.\n\nDr Justin Wilson was watching the report on the BBC News at Six and Ten.\n\nHe is a psychiatrist who has also studied treatment of cancer in people with learning disabilities. He asked to be put in touch with the family.\n\nHe says: \"Knowing that testicular cancer is one of the most treatable cancers that there is, I was surprised that the decision had been made not to provide treatment and I wanted to understand what that was about.\"\n\nAs a result, a second opinion was sought about Ian's treatment.\n\n\"My concern was that perhaps judgements were made about the quality of life that he has because of his severe learning disabilities and because of the physical impact of how the cancer has spread,\" says Dr Wilson.\n\n\"I'm also clearly aware that providing cancer treatment for someone with the problems that Ian has is a real challenge.\n\n\"It is really difficult to give the best possible treatment to somebody in that situation, but my view is those challenges can be overcome.\"\n\nIan is now undergoing chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital - and he is doing well.\n\nA scan at the end of November showed after four rounds of chemotherapy the tumour, which had spread to his stomach, had shrunk.\n\nIan's mother, Jan, says: \"Especially when I thought there was no treatment and no cure, it was just a waiting game, but now there is hope.\"\n\nIan was a patient at Luton and Dunstable Hospital when his family were told last February that he was terminally ill and could not be treated.\n\nIn a statement, the University Hospital Trust said a course of chemotherapy had been planned but Ian's condition had then worsened.\n\nA range of experts had been consulted and it had been decided he had been too ill to undergo treatment.\n\nIt added: \"The decision was therefore taken, in consultation with his family, to start palliative care.\n\n\"The trust can confirm that Mr Shaw's learning difficulties were not a factor in the decision to move to a palliative care pathway.\"\n\nIan's family were told he was dying\n\nNHS England says it is working to reduce the health inequalities faced by people with learning disabilities. But neither it nor the Department of Health wanted to comment on Ian's case.\n\nNHS policy is that reasonable adjustments should be made to ensure that people with learning disabilities get the medical help they need.\n\nIn Ian's case, he is put under an anaesthetic for a short time while he is given the chemotherapy.\n\nThe tumour has affected Ian's spine so he is unable to walk, but after 10 months in bed, in November he was moved into a wheelchair.\n\nIn a joint statement, the charities Mencap and Challenging Behaviour Foundation said: \"We know 1,200 people with a learning disability die every year when their lives could have been saved had they had access to good quality healthcare at the right time.\n\n\"Failures to train healthcare professionals on how to support patients with a learning disability and the refusal to involve families in key decisions about their loved one's health continue to contribute to this scandal of unequal health treatment.\"", "The European Council has said that Brexit talks can enter the second phase following last week's agreement.\n\nAs a result it has published its guidelines for the next stage of talks.\n\nHere are some of the key phrases from that document.\n\nDon't forget that there are plenty of crucial details that still need to be resolved before negotiations on a withdrawal agreement come to an end.\n\nThat means the financial settlement, citizens' rights and of course, the Irish border.\n\nSufficient progress is not the end of the story, but the text also makes it clear that there will be a concerted effort to lock in what has been agreed so far - and that if the EU detects any reluctance or backsliding from the UK then that will have a negative effect on discussions about the future.\n\nTheresa May has already agreed that a transition of about two years will take place under existing EU rules and regulations, but the EU's text makes crystal clear what it believes that means.\n\nThe UK will have to accept all EU law (that's what the acquis means) including new laws passed during the transition itself.\n\nBut it will no longer have a seat at the table when those laws are made. To put it brutally - the UK will, for a while, become a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker.\n\nBoth sides talk of a strictly time-limited transition period, so there doesn't appear to be much appetite at the moment for extending it.\n\nQuite what happens if a future trade deal isn't ready by the end of the transition, a scenario many experts think is quite possible, will have to be debated in the future.\n\nDuring the transition, the UK will have to accept the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and all four freedoms - including the freedom of movement of people.\n\nThe EU says the UK will remain in the single market and the customs union during a transition, while the UK insists that it will leave both on Brexit day.\n\nThis could become a semantic argument, because by accepting all rules and regulations - in other words, the status quo - the UK will remain in the single market and the customs union whether it likes it or not.\n\nThe British government has suggested that some things - like dispute resolution mechanisms - could change during the transition as agreement is made on future co-operation. But there's little appetite in the EU for that - in its view, you're either in or you're out.\n\nThe EU 27 stress that they want a close partnership with the UK in the future, but here they are setting out the limits of what they could mean.\n\nThe further away the UK wants to be from the rules and regulations of the single market the less access it will have - there is no such thing as partial membership.\n\nThis gets us back to the unresolved debate about what \"full alignment\" at the Irish border really means in practice.\n\nThe phrase \"preserve a level playing field\" is important too. The EU is anxious to ensure that the UK doesn't try to undercut the EU in any way by having looser regulations in certain key areas, and, if it does, then there will be consequences.\n\nEU negotiators won't have the authority to start discussions with the UK on future relations (including trade and also things like security and foreign policy) until another set of guidelines is adopted in March 2018.\n\nThat gives the two sides not much more than six months to agree the text of a broad political declaration on the outlines of the future relationship.\n\nThe EU hopes to get that finalised by October 2018, but it emphasises that formal trade negotiations can only begin after the UK has left the EU.\n\nInformal contacts on what the future might look like are probably taking place already, but the EU is still waiting for greater clarity from London about what exactly the UK government hopes to achieve in the long term.\n\nThe UK is trying to be as ambitious as possible about what can be done before Brexit actually happens. The EU, though, emphasises that trade talks will have to continue long after the UK has left.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Schoolboy John Robertson relaxing at home following his ordeal last week\n\nA four-year-old boy tried to walk home from a bus depot after being left on his school bus.\n\nJohn Robertson was travelling home to North Kessock from Munlochy Primary School on the Black Isle last Friday.\n\nBut he did not get off at his stop and ended up, unnoticed, in the bus in D&E Coaches' Inverness Longman depot, about three miles and across the A9's Kessock Bridge from where he lives.\n\nThe boy was spotted close to Inverness Caledonian Thistle's stadium.\n\nHe told his parents he had waited onboard the mini bus after it stopped at the depot, expecting the driver to come and find him.\n\nAfter a time, still on his own inside the bus unnoticed, he managed to open the door and set out to find his way home.\n\nD&E Coaches said it was \"extremely disappointed\" by the circumstances of the incident. It has dismissed the driver for gross misconduct.\n\nHighland Council, which contracts D&E Coaches as a provider of its school transport, and Police Scotland have begun investigations into the incident.\n\nJohn's parents, Nikki and John, had thought he was late home because the school bus had been delayed by bad weather, which included snow showers.\n\nHis father was waiting for John at home where the boy should have been dropped off.\n\nJohn Robertson snr had expected his son to be dropped off at home\n\nJohn tried to make his way home after being left on a bus in a coach depot\n\nIt was the boy's fifth time taking the school bus, which takes about eight children to and from Munlochy Primary. John's parents usually take him to and from school by car, but the car had broken down.\n\nOn the previous four days, John was dropped off near the door of his home. But the bus did not appear near the flats that Friday.\n\nJohn's father initially believed this may have been because of the snow and that John had been dropped off a short distance away.\n\nWhen John still had not come home, his family called the bus company and were told that John had been dropped off. In a follow up call they were told that he had not got on the bus.\n\nJohn's parents began calling friends, family and police in an effort to find him.\n\nFamily and friends also made searches of North Kessock and Munlochy for the youngster.\n\nMr Robertson told BBC Radio Scotland's John Beattie programme he was half way through a call to police when officers received information that John had been found and was being taken to a police station.\n\nJohn told his parents that he had sat on the bus in the depot for a time thinking the bus driver would come back and find him.\n\nMr Robertson said: \"It was a mini bus, so he was able to open the door.\n\n\"He decided to get to the Kessock Bridge to get home. He said he crossed a couple of roads. Luckily two teachers found him.\n\n\"They said he was shaken up, cold and after some persuasion, because we've taught him not to talk to strangers, they managed to get him into their warm car.\"\n\nMr Robertson said he was proud of his son's actions. John has been getting a lift to and from school from a family friend since the incident.\n\nThe four-year-old thought the driver would come to find him\n\nA spokeswoman for Highland Council said: \"We are extremely concerned about this incident and we are carrying out a full investigation into the circumstances with our contracted school transport provider.\n\n\"The incident is also the subject of an ongoing police investigation.\"\n\nEarlier Black Isle councillor Gordon Adam told BBC Alba it was a concerning incident.\n\nHe said he thought the boy had fallen asleep and woke up at the depot and was not seen by the driver.\n\n\"Somehow he got himself to the stadium, which in itself is very worrying as it would have involved crossing a main road,\" he added.\n\nD&E Coaches said it had carried out its own investigation of the incident.\n\nA spokesman said: \"We are extremely disappointed at the circumstances in which a child was left on one of our minibuses going from Munlochy Primary School to North Kessock last Friday when it was parked in a yard in Inverness.\n\n\"A full internal investigation has been conducted and the driver concerned has been dismissed for gross misconduct.\n\n\"Relying on an assurance from another pupil that this child was not on the bus is unacceptable.\n\n\"All drivers are expected to check their buses at the end of the journey but this clearly did not occur in this instance.\"\n\nJohn ended up in the D&E Coaches' Inverness Longman depot\n\nIn a response to the incident, the company has introduced a new course on Driver Awareness in School Contracts as part of the accreditation process for a driver licence.\n\nLong-term employees were being given refresher courses.\n\nThe spokesman added: \"We wish to express our sincere apologies to the family of the child for the distress caused and we are extremely relieved that the child was safe and sound.\n\n\"D&E Coaches have been running school contracts for over 20 years and currently have 58 school contracts conveying 3,000 children a day to and from school.\n\n\"This is the first time anything of this nature has occurred to mar our excellent record and the new measures will enhance driver vigilance to try to ensure there is never a repeat.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The government looks likely to avoid another potential Commons defeat on Brexit, the BBC understands.\n\nTory rebels have been concerned about plans to put the Brexit date and time - 11pm on 29 March 2019 - into law.\n\nBut backbenchers have tabled an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill allowing some flexibility.\n\nMinisters are highly likely to accept the amendment in a vote next week, BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg said.\n\nIt comes as EU leaders agreed to move to the next phase of Brexit talks.\n\nTheresa May suffered her first Commons defeat as prime minister on Wednesday, as Tory rebels joined forces with Labour and the SNP to vote for a plan to give MPs a bigger say in any Brexit deal.\n\nMinisters feared they might be heading for a further defeat on Wednesday, when MPs vote on a plan to enshrine the Brexit date in law.\n\nA number of Conservative MPs had echoed Labour concerns the move could box Britain into a corner if negotiations with the EU go to the wire.\n\nSeveral Conservative MPs, including former Cabinet minister Oliver Letwin, have now tabled an amendment to the bill that would give the government more flexibility over the exit day.\n\nThe new amendment seeks to allow the government to change the \"exit day\" through further legislation, if the negotiations are continuing.\n\nMinisters are likely to accept their plan, which is a change that some of the potential rebels have been asking for, the BBC understands.\n\nSenior sources are confident they can see off a defeat, after No 10 said there were no plans to take the date out of the bill.\n\nConservative MP Dominic Grieve, who led Wednesday's rebellion, told BBC Three Counties Radio: \"I am aware that the government has, I think, this afternoon tabled a further amendment for next Wednesday, which very sensibly looks like it will resolve the issue that was troubling some of us.\n\n\"If that is the case, and I am fairly confident it is, then that issue will be satisfactorily resolved.\"\n\nBernard Jenkin, a leading Tory Brexiteer, said: \"The purpose of this amendment is to avoid needless division over matters of detail when we should be supporting the PM.\n\n\"Nothing that has occurred alters the determination of the government to achieved the kind of Brexit that the PM set out in her Lancaster House speech - which takes back control of our borders, our money and our laws and our our ability to do meaningful trade deals.\"\n• None Relief for May but a hard road ahead", "The couple announced their engagement in November\n\nPrince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding will be held on Saturday 19 May 2018, Kensington Palace has announced.\n\nThe pair confirmed their engagement in November and said the service would be at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.\n\nThe date breaks with tradition as royal weddings usually take place on a weekday - the Queen wed on a Thursday and the Duke of Cambridge on a Friday.\n\nThe wedding will be on the same day as the FA Cup Final, which Prince William normally attends as FA president.\n\nThe time of the match has yet to be confirmed, but in recent years it has taken place at 17:30 GMT.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kensington Palace This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Royal Family will pay for the wedding, including the service, music, flowers and reception.\n\nThe event will take place just a month after the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expected to welcome their third child to the family.\n\nMs Markle will be baptised into the Church of England and confirmed before the wedding.\n\nEarlier this week, Kensington Palace announced the couple will be spending Christmas together at Sandringham with the Queen.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe prince and the American actor, 36, carried out their first official engagement in Nottingham on 1 December.\n\nPrince Harry made a public appearance at Sandhurst earlier on Friday - 11 years after he graduated from the military academy - for the Sovereign's Parade.\n\nBBC Royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell said the Saturday date was \"unusual, but not unprecedented\" and would give people the opportunity to go to Windsor for the celebrations.\n\nHe added: \"Downing Street clearly hasn't been persuaded [into giving a Bank Holiday]… these things are so ruled by precedent.\"\n\nPrince Harry and Ms Markle on their first official engagement in Nottingham\n\nReacting to the clash with the cup match, an FA spokesman said the organisation was \"delighted\" for Prince Harry and Ms Markle.\n\nHe added: \"Saturday 19 May promises to be a wonderful day with such a special royal occasion being followed by English football's showpiece event, the Emirates FA Cup Final.\n\n\"With millions coming together to watch both events at home and around the world, it will be a day to celebrate.\"\n\nThe couple visited a gallery and school in Nottingham\n\nThe prince designed her engagement ring, which features two diamonds that belonged to Princess Diana", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Footage of emergency vehicles at the scene of the crash\n\nA train and a school bus have collided near Perpignan in southern France, leaving at least four children dead.\n\nAt least 18 people were injured, some of them critically, after the crash on a level crossing between Millas and Saint-Féliu-d'Amont.\n\nThe bus had picked up pupils from a nearby secondary school before it was hit by a train travelling at about 80km/h (50mph).\n\nPictures from the scene showed the bus split in two by the force of the crash.\n\nTrain operator SNCF said witnesses had reported seeing the barriers at the level crossing down at the time of the collision, although that was not confirmed.\n\nThe bus, which had left the Christian Bourquin College in Millas, was on the crossing when it was hit by the train, which was travelling from Perpignan. Visibility was described as good.\n\nFour children died at the scene on Thursday. At one point local authorities said two 11-year-old girls had succumbed to their injuries on Friday morning, but later denied this report.\n\nSome 30 people were on the regional train at the time.\n\nPictures from the scene showed the school bus sheared in two\n\nInvestigators are waiting to interview the driver of the bus. She was slightly injured in the crash. The train driver also escaped serous injury.\n\nCarole Delga, president of the Occitanie regional council, said the level crossing had been upgraded recently and appeared to have been in very good condition. \"The level crossing was very visible,\" she said. SNCF said it had an automatic barrier with standard signals and was not considered particularly dangerous.\n\nBut the grandmother of an injured 11-year-old girl who had been on the bus told a very different story. The girl said the barrier had not come down but remained raised. \"The red lights that normally flash did not come on,\" she said. \"The [bus] driver went through and stopped half way, and that's where the train crashed into it.\"\n\nRail operator SNCF has modernised level crossings across France in recent years, following numerous accidents, the BBC's Chris Bockman reports from Toulouse.\n\nMore than 150 emergency workers and four helicopters were deployed as part of the rescue effort.\n\nTransport Minister Elisabeth Borne called the crash a \"terrible accident\" and Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer was due to visit a counselling centre set up at the Christian Bourquin College on Friday.\n\nA statement from the education minister's office said he would visit \"to support students, families, teachers and the entire educational community\".\n\nIn a tweet, French President Emmanuel Macron offered his condolences: \"All my thoughts for the victims of this terrible accident involving a school bus, as well as their families. The state is fully mobilised to help them.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSurvivors of the Grenfell Tower fire have attended a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral, alongside members of the Royal Family and PM Theresa May.\n\nBereaved families, survivors and rescue workers were joined by the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.\n\nBishop of Kensington Graham Tomlin said he hoped the tragedy would represent a \"time we learnt a new, better way\".\n\nThe commemoration, marking six months since the tragedy, also gave thanks to all those who assisted at the time of the fire and since - including the emergency services, recovery teams, the community, public support workers and volunteers.\n\nArchbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and singer Adele were also among the more than 1,500 guests.\n\nThe families of victims held photographs of their loved ones outside the cathedral\n\nSinger Adele attended the service, among more than 1,500 guests\n\nAs the memorial began, a Green For Grenfell banner adorned with a heart was carried into the cathedral.\n\nOpening the service ahead of a minute's silence, Dean of St Paul's Dr David Ison said: \"We come together as different faiths as we remember those whose lives were lost.\"\n\n\"Be united in the face of suffering and sorrow,\" he added.\n\nHe said the UK grieved \"at the unspeakable tragedy, loss and hurt of that June day\".\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall joined the congregation\n\nSix months on from the Grenfell Tower fire, the grief and anger of those affected is still visibly raw.\n\nUnderneath the sadness there was dismay that many of the survivors attending the national memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral are still homeless.\n\nAnd while those who died in the fire were remembered, there was also comment on what has taken place since - and what more importantly still needs to be done.\n\nFamilies held photographs of victims of the fire, while voice recordings from people at the scene of the fire were played to the congregation.\n\nThe Al-Sadiq and Al-Zahra Schools Girls' Choir then sang out the words: \"Never lose hope.\"\n\nGraham Tomlin, Bishop of Kensington and organiser of the memorial, told the congregation: \"Today we ask why warnings were not heeded, why a community was left feeling neglected, uncared for, not listened to.\"\n\nBut he said he looked ahead to the New Year with \"hope\" of change from \"a city that didn't listen\".\n\nHe said he hoped the word \"Grenfell\" would change from a symbol of \"sorrow, grief or injustice\" to \"a symbol of the time we learnt a new and better way - to listen and to love\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBefore the service, Bishop Tomlin told the BBC: \"There was a very strong desire within the local community to have the service here, because faith is very important to a lot of people in the local area, and that can bring a real sense of strength to people.\"\n\nOne of those in attendance was Tiago Alves, who escaped the blaze with his family.\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast his thoughts would be with bereaved families during the \"emotional\" memorial: \"Today is a day not about survivors; today is purely about the bereaved, their families and the loved ones they have lost.\"\n\nHe said the memorial would bring back a lot of awful memories for many people, but added: \"The reason we are doing this today is so that people never forget - we want people to remember.\"\n\nFamilies stood on the steps of St Paul's after the service\n\nMany held white roses along with photographs of loved ones\n\nThe Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall also attended the service\n\nA young girl lights a memorial candle among tributes laid for the victims\n\nPortobello Road Salvation Army Band and St Paul's Cathedral Choir performed during the service, and the Ebony Steel Band, frequent performers at the Notting Hill Carnival, played a verse of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.\n\nAt the end of the service, bereaved families and survivors left the cathedral in silence, holding white roses.\n\nClarrie Mendy, who lost her cousin Mary and Mary's daughter, Khadija Saye, in the fire, said the memorial was \"what the community needs, what the survivors need\".\n\n\"It is a very emotional day,\" she said. \"I just hope everybody will get something from it.\"\n\nCouncillor Elizabeth Campbell, leader of Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, did not attend the service, after some families said they did not want the council there in an official capacity.\n\nHowever, a minute's silence was held outside the town hall in High Street Kensington as the memorial service began.\n\nThe final death toll from the fire was put at 53 adults and 18 children, including stillborn baby Logan Gomes, following an arduous process of recovering and identifying remains from the block.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Tiago Alves, who escaped the blaze with his family, attended the service\n\nEarlier, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said the force would do \"whatever it takes\" to bring to justice anyone who had committed a criminal offence linked to the fire.\n\nMs Dick said officers would investigate \"meticulously, fairly and fearlessly\", but said she would be \"vey surprised\" if the criminal investigation was completed within the next 12 months.\n\nScotland Yard has previously said it will be considering both individual and corporate manslaughter charges.", "Survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire have attended a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral, alongside members of the Royal Family.", "Third Ashes Test, Waca (day two of five)\n\nCaptain Steve Smith made an unbeaten 92 as Australia forced their way back into the third Ashes Test on day two in Perth.\n\nSmith's chanceless and controlled knock took the home side to 203-3, 200 behind England.\n\nJonny Bairstow earlier completed a century for the tourists, but after Dawid Malan fell for 140, they lost their last six wickets for 35 runs in 51 balls to be 403 all out.\n\nThough Craig Overton removed both openers to leave Australia 55-2, Smith shared 124 with Usman Khawaja, who was dropped twice in his 50.\n\nKhawaja was eventually trapped lbw by Chris Woakes, but Smith remained, making batting look quite effortless in perfect conditions.\n\nEngland's lead is healthy and Australia will have to bat last on a surface showing occasional signs of variable bounce - yet Smith's continuing presence leaves the hosts with a chance of gaining first-innings parity at least.\n\nWith Australia 2-0 up, England must not be beaten at the Waca - a ground where they have not won since 1978 - in order to avoid surrendering the Ashes at the earliest opportunity.\n\nTheir efforts in the last hour were hampered by an injury to Overton, who took a blow to the ribs in trying to take a return catch off Khawaja.\n• None Reaction and analysis to second day's play\n\nSmith had seen David Warner caught behind and Cameron Bancroft pinned leg before, both by the increasingly impressive Overton, when he made his way to the crease with Australia 348 runs behind.\n\nThe captain's unbeaten 141 was the difference between the sides in the hosts' first Test win in Brisbane and though he was kept relatively quiet at the Adelaide Oval, this was Smith again looking every inch the number one Test batsman in the world.\n\nAt the Gabba he favoured the leg side; here he played handsome drives through the off side to go with one pull for six off Overton.\n\nKhawaja, scoring square of the wicket, played the supporting role until he was undone by one from Woakes that skidded and nipped off the seam.\n\nThere seemed every chance that Smith would complete a century before the close, but England stopped him from reaching three figures and it is his wicket that they will prize over all others when play gets back under way at 02:30 GMT on Saturday.\n\nHe will be joined by Shaun Marsh, who took 18 balls to get off the mark, but is coming off the back of a century of his own in Adelaide.\n\nAs well as Malan batted, the moment that he danced at off-spinner Nathan Lyon, miscued to point and was well held by diving substitute fielder Peter Handscomb can be pinpointed as when Australia began to get back in the game.\n\nFrom there, the England lower order meekly surrendered - as they have in three of the four previous innings in this series.\n\nMoeen Ali limply poked Pat Cummins to second slip, Woakes helped Josh Hazlewood to long leg and Bairstow played across the line to be bowled by Starc.\n\nOverton patted Hazlewood to short leg and a swiping Stuart Broad top-edged Starc, who ended with 4-91. The final six wickets fell in a little over 45 minutes.\n\nWith the ball, England needed Overton to show them the correct length, while James Anderson curiously did not deliver a single ball to Smith until the skipper had reached 47. Moeen has not taken a wicket with his off-breaks since the third day of the first Test.\n\nMore costly were the lives given to Khawaja - first by a diving Overton attempting a return catch when the left-hander had not scored, then by second slip Joe Root, who appeared not to see an edge off Woakes when he was on 28.\n\nAnd, late on, Marsh could have been held off Moeen by either wicketkeeper Bairstow or short leg Mark Stoneman, when the ball flew off the latter's boot but could not be gathered as both dived for it.\n\nThe early progress of Malan and Bairstow was as serene as the first evening, when Malan reached his maiden Test century.\n\nFrom 305-4 overnight, it took them 27 balls to score the first run of the day, after which Malan was once again into his trademark cover-driving.\n\nAs he did on Thursday, Bairstow ignored short deliveries and instead waited for anything overpitched to score on both sides of the wicket.\n\nWhen he reached three figures with a single off Mitchell Marsh, the wicketkeeper celebrated his fourth Test century with a 'headbutt' of his helmet, referencing the accusation that he did the same to Bancroft at the beginning of the tour.\n\nThe Malan-Bairstow partnership of 237 is an England record for the fifth wicket against Australia and, when they were together, the tourists had the chance to bat themselves into an unbeatable position.\n\nMalan was furious with himself when he gave his wicket to Lyon - rightly so, considering how Australia then turned the tide.\n\n'400 is a great effort from the guys'\n\nEngland's Jonny Bairstow, speaking to Test Match Special: \"We've got 400 on the board. From 100-4, we could have been out for a lot less than that.\n\n\"For us to get 400 from that position was a great effort from the guys.\n\n\"We're happy so far. Tomorrow the first couple of sessions are massive for us. There's no reason why we can't come out and take a couple of wickets.\n\n\"If we can take a lead into that second innings, who knows what can happen down the line?\"\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan: \"That was Jonny Bairstow's best Test innings. He ducked and swayed away from the short stuff and had so much balance on the front foot. It was as good as I have seen him.\n\n\"England bowled too short again - especially Chris Woakes. He's struggling on this tour.\n\n\"England have to take every chance they get tomorrow. Concentration is key.\"\n• None Get Ashes alerts sent to your phone", "Fran Unsworth has been appointed the new BBC director of news and current affairs, replacing James Harding, who is leaving at the beginning of 2018.\n\nUnsworth is currently director of the BBC World Service Group and deputy director of news and current affairs.\n\nShe started her BBC career in local radio, before moving to Newsbeat. She went on to become head of political programmes and then newsgathering.\n\nAfter four years at the BBC, Harding is setting up his own news media venture.\n\nBBC director general Tony Hall described the role as \"one of the most demanding of any in broadcasting\", saying he was \"delighted she is taking up the role\".\n\n\"She brings a combination of excellent news judgement, authority, management knowhow, and the trust of her colleagues both in news and across the BBC,\" he added.\n\nThe job of director for news and current affairs, which has been accepted by Fran Unsworth, is undoubtedly one of the biggest in British, some would say international, journalism. It is also, by all accounts, an invitation to hell.\n\nDespite being one of the most powerful jobs in journalism, the job is not wholly, or even mainly, editorial. If you are in charge of a particular programme, or publication, the idea is that as editor you get to focus on the exciting business of editorial judgement: what stories, pictures, campaigns, headlines to use and so on.\n\nUnfortunately, the sorry financial state of much modern media means that editors' time is increasingly spent doing less fun things, like begging advertisers for money, or sacking people.\n\nAt the BBC, however, there is a whole other world of pain, and rightly too: as an organisation owned by the public, every penny has to be accounted for, and most of the decision making too.\n\nJames Harding came to the BBC from The Times newspaper\n\nUnsworth said she was \"delighted\", adding: \"We are living through a period of significant change at home and abroad. In a complex world, the BBC's journalism matters more than ever.\n\n\"I am proud to lead a team of such dedicated and talented people.\"\n\nUnsworth, who will sit on the BBC's executive committee, will take up the role at the start of the new year.\n\nIn the past year she has overseen the biggest expansion of the World Service since the 1940s, adding 12 new global language services including Korean and Pidgin.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Artwork: the Kepler-90 system is the first to tie with our Solar System in number of planets\n\nNasa has found a distant star circled by eight planets, equal to the complement in our own Solar System.\n\nIt's the largest number of worlds ever discovered in a planetary system outside our own.\n\nThe star known as Kepler-90, is just a bit hotter and larger than the Sun; astronomers already knew of seven planets around it.\n\nThe newly discovered world is small enough to be rocky, according to scientists.\n\n\"This makes Kepler-90 the first star to host as many planets as our own Solar System,\" said Christopher Shallue, a software engineer at Google, which contributed to the discovery.\n\nEngineers from Google used a type of artificial intelligence called machine learning to find planets that were missed by previous searches.\n\nArtwork: The Kepler telescope was launched to detect new worlds using the \"transit method\"\n\nThe discovery was based on observations gathered by Nasa's Kepler Space Telescope.\n\nIts parent star is very distant, lying 2,545 light-years away. But its planetary system appears to be ordered in a similar way to our own.\n\nAndrew Vanderburg, a co-discoverer at the University of Texas at Austin, said: \"The Kepler-90 star system is like a mini version of our Solar System. You have small planets inside and big planets outside, but everything is scrunched in much closer.\"\n\nTo give a sense of how close, the outermost planet in the system orbits at around the same distance the Earth does from the Sun.\n\nBecause the new world, dubbed Kepler-90i, is so much further in - it completes one circuit of its star every 14.4 days - it's estimated to have a scorching hot surface temperature of around 425C.\n\nThe machine learning technique was also used to find a new Earth-sized planet, called Kepler 80g, around a different star.\n\nSome 3,500 exoplanets - worlds circling other stars - have been documented in recent decades.", "A large proportion of the people living in buildings close to Grenfell Tower show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), six months after the tragedy, which killed 71 people, the NHS says.\n\nCaused by very stressful or distressing events, PTSD can lead to nightmares and flashbacks, with sufferers often feeling isolated, irritable and guilty.\n\nSo far, about 1,000 people have been screened for symptoms, with the number of PTSD sufferers at the highest end of a range of expectations after comparing it to other recent tragedies such as terror attacks.\n\nOverall, the NHS believes that as many as 11,000 people - including survivors, witnesses and the bereaved - could be suffering from the psychological impact of the fire, which took many hours to be brought under control.\n\nIt anticipates that thousands of these people will need therapy.\n\nA special team of more than 50 therapists and 20 outreach workers has been established, called the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service, in what the NHS says is its largest ever mental health response to a traumatic event.\n\nMore than 500 people have already attended sessions with NHS therapists to treat symptoms of anxiety and PTSD. So far, 150 children have completed or are having continuing therapy.\n\n\"I'm not coping,\" one woman told an outreach worker.\n\nShe lives in a flat in what is known as the walkways - right next to the burnt-out shell of Grenfell Tower, a potent and ever-present symbol of the fire.\n\nHer eyes filling with tears, she said she was having flashbacks and was struggling to sleep but had begun to get therapy, which was helping.\n\n\"I thought I would cope, but I can't because the tower is still there. It's a big reminder, which you can't forget.\"\n\nThe outreach work involves teams of NHS staff going door to door, working outwards from Grenfell Tower.\n\nThey ask each person how they are feeling and look for signs of trauma. If appropriate, they complete an on-the-spot PTSD questionnaire.\n\nThey call it \"street-screening\", and so far staff have screened about 1,000 people living close to the tower.\n\nThe rates of PTSD picked up by the screening range from 75% of those screened in the buildings nearest the tower to 40% in buildings a little further away.\n\nBut rates vary considerably from building to building.\n\nThe plan is to continue street-screening outwards from the tower until the PTSD rate drops.\n\nBut there are dozens of high-rise buildings, some miles away from Grenfell Tower, that had a clear line of sight to the burning building, and whose residents may also have been affected.\n\nThe teams have also screened survivors from Grenfell Tower, most of whom are still living in hotels. I joined two outreach workers as they spoke to one survivor.\n\n\"I'm feeling down, not depressed, but down.\"\n\n\"Is that every day, every other day, or for several days?\"\n\nThe man lived on the 13th floor, with his wife, son and daughter. The whole family survived.\n\nThe other family members are getting counselling, but he felt he didn't need help. Six months on, he's now changed his mind.\n\nThe family owned a leasehold flat in the tower, and he says the continuing process of seeking compensation from Kensington and Chelsea Council has made him feel increasingly anxious.\n\n\"I tried to prove to myself that I can manage without [counselling], but I think it's the right time now to ask for help.\n\n\"I've felt a bit sad, and I don't want to give up just because I'm not well. I have the feeling it's better to give up - that's the reason I'm going to accept some help.\"\n\nKensington and Chelsea Council says it is doing all it can to ensure survivors and local residents have access to the mental health support they need.\n\nThe outreach team is dealing with numerous logistical challenges, including incomplete lists of survivors living in temporary accommodation and frequently changing council key-workers who are meant to be the main point of contact with survivors.\n\nThe team has even had to provide therapy to key-workers who have themselves become traumatised by their work.\n\nThe Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service is the first response of its kind\n\nIt's all been an unusual challenge for the NHS.\n\n\"I think the outreach model is completely unique,\" said Emma Kennedy, from the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service.\n\n\"Seeking out people, bringing them in, and walking through the journey of therapy with them, hasn't been tried in any other service in terms of disaster response.\"\n\nPeople who score highly enough under the street-screening tool for PTSD or anxiety are referred to therapists for counselling, often a course of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or another talking therapy.\n\nShe said many had not been able to process their memories of what had happened on the night of the fire, because of the extreme stress they had been under as they had tried to escape the burning building.\n\n\"The memory evolves like a multi-sensory video which can be re-triggered at any time.\"\n\n\"People might start to get clips of what they saw, what they heard - even smelt, tasted, felt - on that night coming back to them in the months and years afterwards, and that can be very distressing.\"\n\nOne Grenfell resident now experiences those feelings whenever he goes downstairs.\n\n\"They actually smell smoke, and have the same fear they felt that night.\"\n\nTreating PTSD of this type involves a process known as reliving - having the patient talk through these experiences in minute detail in order to update the memory in a safe environment.\n\nI joined one patient, who asked to remain anonymous, during a CBT session. He witnessed the fire and lost three close family members in it.\n\n\"When doing therapy, you're basically writing down what you've got in your head, but you're also re-writing what you've got in your head in a way that you're able to deal with,\" he said.\n\n\"It most definitely put things into perspective for me, in terms of filtering the important thoughts and using them to move forward with my life.\"\n\nMany people living in the area say the constant physical presence of the gutted shell of the tower itself triggers flashbacks.\n\nAlastair Bailey, a consultant clinical psychologist who runs the adult part of the service, says it's a very difficult reminder for people.\n\n\"There's been a lot of support in the local community, and that's a really helpful thing.\n\n\"But there's another thing which is not so helpful in terms of developing trauma, and that's called rumination, which is going over what's happened to you again and again. Both things have occurred.\"\n\nThe service expects to continue offering therapy for years to come, as PTSD can sometimes take years to develop.\n\nAbout £7m has been budgeted for the NHS health response this year, and up to £10m will be needed next year.\n\nThe Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service is a free and confidential NHS service for children and adults affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.\n\nYou can access the service at The Curve, 4 Bard Road, W10 6TP between 10:00 and 20:00 every day.\n\nYou can also call 0800 0234 650 (lines open 24/7), email cnw-tr.spa@nhs.net or if you are deaf or have a hearing impairment, you can use the Next Generation Text Service on 18001 0800 0234 650.\n• None Self refer to the Grenfell health and wellbeing service The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in England are dropping further behind their classmates in national primary school tests, statistics show.\n\nThe gap between SEN pupils and their peers has risen from 48 percentage points in 2016 to 52 this year.\n\nThe figures are revealed in school league tables, published by the Department for Education (DfE), showing the results of about 16,000 primaries.\n\nHead teachers say special-needs education funding is in crisis.\n\nThe government statistics show 18% of children with SEN reached the expected level in reading, writing and mathematics, compared with 70% of their peers without special needs.\n\nAlthough SEN pupils' results edged upwards on last year, when 14% made the grade, their non-SEN peers boosted their results more dramatically from 62% to 70%.\n\nTeachers have been warning that pupils with special needs, such as mild autism or dyslexia, would struggle in the tougher tests introduced last year.\n\nA National Association of Head Teachers' spokesman said it was \"one of those situations where money is the solution and schools need the government's help\".\n\nThe tables also showed disadvantaged pupils still perform far worse than all other pupils in England, with around half passing the tests, compared to nearly two-thirds of non-disadvantaged.\n\nThe gap between the two groups of pupils is now as wide as it was in 2012 at about 20 percentage points.\n\nHowever, there does appear to be a small catch-up (one percentage point) in poorer pupils' attainment on 2016 when the tougher tests were introduced and results for all pupils dipped significantly.\n\nNAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: \"This data is a useful indication of school performance but it is not the whole story. One thing it does do, though, is confirm what NAHT has been saying for a long time about social mobility.\n\n\"Raising the Key Stage 2 standard (Sats test) was not going to help close the gap. The issues that underpin inequality reach far beyond the school gates and exist throughout the communities that schools serve.\"\n\nBut Schools Minister Nick Gibb hailed the achievements of pupils and teachers, saying they had responded well to the more rigorous curriculum.\n\nThis set of pupils was the first to benefit from the government's new approach to phonics, he said.\n\n\"Pupils are now leaving primary school better prepared for the rigours of secondary school and for future success in their education,\" Mr Gibb added.\n\nSorry, your browser cannot display this map\n\nOverall, pupils have scored better in their Sats results than last year, which was the first year of the new tests.\n\nThe DfE said this was partly because of \"increased familiarity\" with the new tests.\n\nThere was a nine percentage point increase in the proportion of black pupils passing the tests, to 60% - just one percentage point behind the national average and white pupils.\n\nThe top five local authorities were all London boroughs, with Richmond upon Thames at the top, Kensington and Chelsea coming second and Bromley third.\n\nThe inner city boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham and Hackney have claimed the fourth and fifth spots.\n\nIn 1999, Hackney, which had been one of the worst performing boroughs, became the first local education authority to be taken out of council control.\n\nIn this year's tests across England, local authority schools slightly outperformed academies and free schools, with 62% of their schools reaching the expected standard compared with 61% of academies and free schools.\n\nIn all, 511 schools - 4% of the total - have fallen beneath the government's expectations or \"floor standard\", where fewer than 65% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics and the school did not achieve sufficient progress scores in all three subjects.\n\nThis is an improvement on last year, where 665 - 5% - primaries were found wanting.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brexit: Theresa May says agreement is \"important step\" on the road to Brexit\n\nEU leaders have agreed to move Brexit talks on to the second phase but called for \"further clarity\" from the UK about the future relationship it wants.\n\nThe first issue to be discussed, early next year, will be the details of an expected two-year transition period after the UK's exit in March 2019.\n\nTalks on trade and security co-operation are set to follow in March.\n\nTheresa May hailed an \"important step\" on the road but Germany's Angela Merkel said it would get \"even tougher\".\n\nDonald Tusk, the president of the European Council, broke the news that the 27 EU leaders were happy to move on to phase two after they met in Brussels.\n\nHe congratulated Mrs May on reaching this stage and said the EU would begin internal preparations for the next phase right now as well as \"exploratory contacts with the UK to get more clarity on their vision\".\n\nWhile securing a deal in time for the UK's exit in March 2019 was realistic, he suggested that the next phase would be \"more challenging and more demanding\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Donald Tusk This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Theresa May This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 2 by Theresa May\n\nMrs May said the two sides would begin discussions on future relations straight away and hoped for \"rapid progress\" on a transitional phase to \"give certainty\" to business.\n\n\"This is an important step on the road to delivering the smooth and orderly Brexit that people voted for in June 2016,\" she said.\n\n\"The UK and EU have shown what can be achieved with commitment and perseverance on both sides.\"\n\nLabour's international trade spokesman, Barry Gardiner, welcomed the move forward, but said it would be a \"real problem\" for business if the EU didn't start talking trade for a further three months.\n\nHe also said his party would not put a time limit on a post-Brexit transition phase, as the expected two-year period would be \"extremely tight\".\n\nEmmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel held a joint news conference at the end of the summit\n\nThe EU has published its guidelines for phase two of the negotiations, with discussions on future economic co-operation not likely to begin until March.\n\nThe three-page document says the UK will remain under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and be required to permit freedom of movement during any transition period.\n\nAnd agreements on the Irish border, the so-called divorce bill and the rights of EU and UK citizens, agreed by Mrs May last Friday, must be \"respected in full and translated faithfully into legal terms as quickly as possible\".\n\nThe document says: \"As the UK will continue to participate in the customs union and the single market during the transition, it will have to continue to comply with EU trade policy.\"\n\nWhile the EU is willing to engage in \"preliminary and preparatory discussions\" on trade as part of building a \"close partnership\" after the UK's departure, this means any formal agreement \"can only be finalised and concluded once the UK has become a third country\".\n\nAfter the six months she has had, Theresa May might be entitled to breathe a sigh of relief, as the European Council officially declared that the first phase of our long goodbye from the European Union is over.\n\nStand back from the daily dramas and perhaps it was always bound to happen.\n\nBoth sides are committed to getting an agreement.\n\nThe EU and the UK both want a deal to be done, and while there has, inevitably, been grumpiness on both sides, they have, in the main, dealt with each other in good faith.\n\nThe document \"calls on the UK to provide further clarity on its position on the framework for the future relationship\".\n\nBut in a passage added during the past week, it invites the EU's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier to \"continue internal preparatory discussions\" on future relations rather than having to wait until March to do so.\n\nSources have told the BBC that the government is highly likely to accept an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill next week to see off another potential Commons defeat for Theresa May.\n\nConservative rebels have been concerned about plans to put the Brexit date and time - 11pm on 29 March 2019 - into law.\n\nBackbenchers, including former minister Oliver Letwin, have tabled an amendment, suggesting a change to the legislation.\n\nMinisters are likely to accept their plan, which is a change that some of the potential rebels have been asking for, the BBC understands.\n\nSenior sources are confident they can see off a defeat, after No 10 said there were no plans to take the date out of the bill.\n\nResponding to the reports, Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer wrote on Twitter: \"After a car-crash defeat on Brexit vote, rumours that PM will now U-turn on gimmick exit day amendment: forced to get a Tory MP to amend her own amendment before its put to the vote!\"\n\nEuropean Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU's initial priority was to \"formalise the agreement\" that had already been reached before moving forward, adding \"the second phase will be significantly harder and the first was very difficult\".\n\nPraising Mrs May as a \"tough, smart and polite\" negotiator, he said he was \"entirely convinced\" that the final agreement reached would be approved by the UK and European Parliaments.\n\nGiving his response, French President Emmanuel Macron said that in moving forward the EU had maintained its unity, protected the integrity of the single market and ensured \"compliance with our own rules\".\n\nMrs May is set to discuss her vision of the \"end state\" for the UK outside the EU at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, having suffered her first Commons Brexit defeat earlier this week.\n• None Relief for May but a hard road ahead", "A computer generated image of an HS2 train on the Birmingham and Fazeley viaduct\n\nUnauthorised redundancy payments made by the state-owned company managing the HS2 rail project were a \"shocking waste of taxpayers' money\", MPs have said.\n\nThe Public Accounts Committee said the firm overseeing construction of a high-speed rail line offered staff terms \"well in excess\" of authorised levels.\n\nThe MPs blamed \"weak internal processes\" at HS2 for overpayments to 94 people totalling £1.76m.\n\nAn HS2 spokesperson acknowledged \"a serious error\" had been made.\n\nThe company made the payments in 2016-17 after shedding 94 staff in a move from London to Birmingham.\n\nA combination of compulsory and voluntary redundancy schemes were offered on enhanced terms, resulting in a total bill of £2.76m, despite instructions from the Department of Transport that they should be at statutory rates, which would have incurred payments of £1m, MPs on the committee said.\n\nThe MPs' report says that HS2's chief executive at the time, Simon Kirby, had an email from the government telling him that he wasn't allowed to offer staff larger, enhanced redundancy payments when the firm relocated.\n\nBut it says Mr Kirby didn't pass that email on to anyone else.\n\nHowever, Mr Kirby - who now works at Rolls Royce - said in a statement that he had not been responsible for the decision to approve more generous severance packages.\n\n\"I did not approve the payments at issue and deny any allegation of wrongdoing,\" he said.\n\n\"I left HS2 in December last year and the decision to make senior managers redundant, and under what terms, was not made until after I left.\"\n\nMPs concluded a lack of basic financial controls at HS2 Ltd heightened the risk of fraud and financial errors, a situation it said was exacerbated by high rates of staff turnover.\n\n\"The unauthorised schemes were able to proceed because weak internal processes at HS2 Ltd prevented key decision-making and scrutiny bodies from receiving accurate information,\" the committee said.\n\nThe HS2 rail link being built between London, Manchester and Leeds, via Birmingham has already proved controversial for its impact on communities in the path of the new line, over its environmental impact and for its £55.7bn price tag.\n\nThe HS2 spokesperson said: \"HS2 is on track and has achieved a lot in its short lifespan. It has been able to do so because of our ability to have the right people in the right jobs at the right time.\n\n\"But while that was the reason for these payments it is clear that we got the process wrong and we are now putting the right systems in place to make sure that does not happen again.\"\n\nA Department for Transport spokesperson said: \"We have made clear to HS2 Ltd in the strongest terms that we expect them to always meet their obligations and responsibilities to the taxpayer.\n\n\"As the NAO said this was a failure in the internal process at HS2 Ltd that resulted in these payments being made without approval in place.\n\n\"The Department has received legal advice that bringing a claim against Mr Kirby for breaching his duties and responsibilities as CEO and director of HS2 Ltd would not be justified.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The victim was hit on a pedestrian crossing on the South Circular Road near Norwood Road\n\nPolice investigating a fatal hit-and-run in which a woman was struck four times have released CCTV images of vehicles they believe were involved.\n\nThe victim, 29, was \"left to die\" on the pedestrian crossing, when all four drivers failed to stop, on Monday.\n\nShe was hit as she crossed Norwood Road in Tulse Hill, in south London, as the traffic went through on a green light.\n\nThe images show a white lorry - possibly a Mercedes, and a black car, similar to a Vauxhall SUV.\n\nDetectives have traced two drivers allegedly involved but are still looking for the other two.\n\nOne of the vehicles believed to be involved in the hit-and-run was a white lorry\n\nPolice are urging the driver to come forward\n\nTwo of the four drivers have been traced so far\n\nThe victim, who was Polish and staying with family in Wandsworth, was struck by one lorry, before being hit by a second lorry and two cars, the Metropolitan Police believe.\n\nShe was treated by paramedics but died from her injuries, less than an hour after she was fatally injured at about 06:45 GMT on Monday.\n\nHer family is due in the UK later, to enable her to be formally identified.\n\nPolice interviewed the 49-year-old male driver of the first lorry under caution and arrested the 52-year-old male driver of the second car on Tuesday.\n\nHe was detained on suspicion of causing death by careless driving and later released under investigation.\n\nThe Met said it was \"grateful for all those witnesses who have come forward\".\n\nBut, they are still seeking any dashcam footage from drivers who were in the Norwood Road area between 06:30 and 07:00 GMT.\n\nActing Det Sgt Alastair Middleton, of the Met Police, said: \"We continue to appeal for anyone who was passing and witnessed the collision and the moments afterwards to contact us immediately.\n\n\"Enquiries are continuing to trace the two outstanding vehicles involved. A number of actions, including the recovery of local CCTV footage are in hand. I would urge the two drivers we are yet to trace come forward and speak with my team.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The children's aunt Claire Pearson shared her memories of them\n\nThe aunt of four children who died in a house fire in Salford says the family is trying to cope with their grief but \"nothing will ever break us\".\n\nDemi Pearson, 15, and siblings Brandon, eight, and Lacie, seven, died in the blaze in Walkden on Monday. Lia, three, died in hospital on Wednesday.\n\nClaire Pearson said: \"What's happened is tragic but it won't separate this family. We are all very close.\"\n\nHer sister and the children's mother, Michelle, 35, is in hospital in a coma.\n\nTwo men and a woman appeared in court earlier charged with murdering the siblings. They were remanded in custody until 9 March for a plea and trial preparation hearing.\n\nMs Pearson says her sister is \"an amazing woman\" and the house on Jackson Street \"was like a youth club with the amount of kids\" who would visit.\n\n\"She was such a mother to everybody else's kids as well as her own,\" she said.\n\n\"When it was family time they'd all cuddle up on the couch together, they were so close.\n\n\"Lacie was a little diva, she didn't stop dancing. Lia was obsessed with Peppa Pig. Brandon and Lacie were so close.\"\n\nThe family said they were \"dreading the day\" they have to tell Michelle \"the awful news about her babies\".\n\nLia, Demi, Brandon and Lacie died following Monday's fire, while their mum Michelle is still in a coma\n\nSpeaking of how the family feels, she said: \"You can't feel pain, you can't feel grief, you can't feel anything, you're so numb inside, it's too much to take in.\"\n\nMike Pearson, Michelle's father, said: \"The kids were just like any other kids. They were very supportive, very independent, but very tightly-knit.\n\n\"Demi was a little star. She'd been a diabetic and had problems in and out of hospital with that but nothing phased her, she was a beautiful girl.\n\n\"Brandon was quite funny, he was more like a school teacher, he was so intelligent.\"\n\nMike Pearson said Michelle Pearson is expected to be in a medically-induced coma for the next three or four weeks\n\nHe described Michelle, who they said was in critical but stable condition, as \"fiercely independent\".\n\n\"Michelle would do things her way. She loved her kids to pieces, she'd look after anyone. She was a friend to everyone,\" he said.\n\n\"She didn't have a bad word to say about anyone. She had a heart of gold, but she was nobody's fool, she'd stand her corner.\"\n\nHe said the family has recently been to church to pray for her recovery.\n\n\"She's so badly burned, she's bandaged from head to foot, she looks like a mummy and she's going to be in the medically-induced coma for the next three or four weeks,\" he said.\n\n\"It's going to be a long road but hopefully she'll pull through. Whether she'll have the fight, I don't know. I'm hoping she'll get the strength from somewhere but she's lost all her babies and that's the heartbreaking thing.\n\n\"We've got to focus on Michelle and try and be there for her.\"\n\nClaire Pearson said the house on Jackson Street \"was like a youth club with the amount of kids\" who visited\n\nHe added he was \"gobsmacked\" at the support the family has received from the local community.\n\n\"The outpouring of love and support, it's been overwhelming. People have come from miles to leave flowers and teddy bears and messages of support,\" he said.\n\n\"They've been absolutely outstanding. We thank everyone for the messages and the love.\"", "Britvic co-owns the site with Unilever, which owns Colman's Mustard\n\nBritvic has confirmed it will leave its Norwich site, with the loss of hundreds of jobs in the city, in 2019.\n\nThe drinks manufacturer, which co-owns Carrow Works with Unilever, said it would transfer production of Robinsons and Fruit Shoot to its other sites.\n\nIt said it would offer employees redeployment and \"help to find alternative employment\".\n\nThe Unite union said the announcement just before Christmas was a bid to \"bury bad news\".\n\nBritvic said it currently employed 249 people at the site, which it shares with Colman's Mustard.\n\nManufacturing will instead take place at Rugby, east London and Leeds.\n\n\"Transferring production will improve efficiency and productivity and reduce our environmental impact,\" the company said.\n\nThe decision follows a consultation with employee representatives, including the GMB and Unite unions.\n\nBritvic said it would transfer production of Robinsons and Fruit Shoot to other factories\n\nChief executive Simon Litherland said: \"This was not a proposal that we made lightly and we understand that the outcome of the collective consultation process will be upsetting for our colleagues in Norwich.\n\n\"It is a sad and difficult time.\n\n\"I want to thank everyone at Norwich, past and present, for their dedication, hard work and commitment, and I would like to say again that this decision is in no way a reflection of their performance.\"\n\nThe Unite union criticised the timing of the announcement and described the closure as \"a hammer blow for the workers and the economy of Norwich in the run up Christmas\".\n\nIts national officer for the food and drink sector, Julia Long, branded the announcement as \"a classic case of trying to bury bad news\".\n\nThe move by Britvic has been mooted for several months, with fears expressed for the future of Colman's Mustard, which has been manufactured at the site since 1860.\n\nUnilever, which owns Colman's, has previously said it could shut the site if Britvic closed operations.\n\nIt is conducting its own review and is looking at three sites in the city, including staying at Carrow Works.\n\nUnilever has been approached for comment.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Unilever has agreed to sell its margarine and spreads business, which include Flora and ProActiv, to private equity giant KKR for €6.8bn ($8bn; £6bn).\n\nThe move follows a wide-ranging review of its business which was prompted by a takeover attempt by rival Kraft.\n\nUnilever said it would look for a buyer of the spreads business in April.\n\nAt the time, it said the firm would step up its cost-cutting, aiming for a 20% margin by 2020.\n\nIt said the margarine business was a \"declining segment\" that could be \"better managed by others\".\n\nAs well as Flora and ProActiv, it also owns I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and Bertolli.\n\nPaul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, said: \"The announcement today marks a further step in reshaping and sharpening our portfolio for long term growth.\n\n\"I am confident that under KKR's ownership, the spreads business, with its iconic brands, will be able to fulfil its full potential as well as societal responsibilities.\"\n\nIt operates across more than 190 countries.\n\nThe deal is expected to be completed in the middle of next year, and is subject to regulator approval in certain jurisdictions.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSix months on from the Grenfell Tower fire, the grief and anger of those affected is still visibly raw.\n\nUnderneath the sadness there was dismay that many of the survivors attending the national memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral are still homeless.\n\nAnd while those who died in the fire were remembered, there was also comment on what has taken place since - and what more importantly still needs to be done.\n\nOn a cold and crisp December morning, there was a noticeable silence around St Paul's as people stopped to reflect.\n\nThe poignant lull continued as survivors, friends and families of those affected by the fire quietly began to make their way into the cathedral.\n\nThis silence was only broken when the majestic bells of St Paul's tolled across the City of London at 10:30.\n\nAt the same time a spontaneous ripple of applause broke out from the crowd as firefighters made their way up the cathedral steps.\n\nMany held white roses along with photographs of loved ones\n\nIt was a sign of the gratitude for the efforts of the emergency services on the night of 14 June.\n\nThe bells continued to chime for 30 minutes, a mark of respect to the 71 who died in Grenfell Tower.\n\nAnd it is clear why the survivors chose St Paul's, a cathedral where so many services of national significance have taken place over the years.\n\nOne mourner, Damel Carayol, 55, who lost his 44-year-old cousin Mary Mandy in the fire, said the service was needed and the venue fitting.\n\nThe service was held at St Paul's Cathedral, in central London\n\n\"It recognises the tragedy on a national level,\" he said.\n\n\"It's a step, but the biggest step will be accountability.\"\n\nAnd while the service was being held it became apparent that the anger and uncertainty on display in the aftermath of the fire remained.\n\nThere are currently dozens of households still stuck in hotels.\n\nOutside St Paul's, Prof Chris Imafidon said he knows of 20 people who lost everything in the fire.\n\n\"It is a very sad day,\" he said. \"But the families want a service from the council, not a church service.\n\n\"This is just a big distraction from the fact that six months on many families are still homeless and will be spending Christmas in a hotel,\" he said.\n\nThere was another moment of reflection after the service finished.\n\nHundreds of relatives and survivors gathered on the steps of St Paul's, displaying single white roses and photographs of those who perished.\n\nSome survivors then went straight back to their hotels.\n\nBut there was then a range of emotions on display as others moved on to St Paul's churchyard.\n\nVisibly upset, they hugged and consoled each other, while some continued to vent their anger and speak of feeling neglected.", "Decent broadband can be hard to find in some rural areas, said Ofcom\n\nThe UK's digital divide has narrowed but more than one million homes and offices still struggle to get good broadband, says an Ofcom report.\n\nThe Connected Nations report found that about 4% of properties cannot get a broadband speed fast enough to meet their needs.\n\nLast year, about 1.6 million UK properties were in this position.\n\nSmartphone access to the net also needed to improve, it said, as many only got weak signals when travelling.\n\n\"Broadband coverage is improving, but our findings show there's still urgent work required before people and businesses get the services they need,\" said Steve Unger, Ofcom's technology chief, in a statement.\n\n\"Everyone should have good access to the internet, wherever they live and work,\" he added.\n\nThe UK's appetite for data has grown at a huge rate in the last 12 months, found the report.\n\nThe average amount of data carried across UK networks grew by 52% during that period. The average home broadband connection now carries about 190 gigabytes of data every month, it found.\n\nTelecommunications watchdog Ofcom defines decent broadband as a speed of about 10 megabits per second (Mbps) to download and one mbps to upload.\n\nAt these speeds, downloading a high-definition movie could take up to 90 minutes, said Ofcom, if no one else was using that link to the net.\n\nOfcom said the 1Mbps upload speed was becoming more critical as small businesses and families make greater use of video-sharing and conferencing, which require good upload speeds.\n\nOfcom said the problem of poor broadband was most pronounced in rural areas, where about 17% lack decent broadband.\n\nThe 10 down/one up split is the specification for Ofcom's proposed universal service offering - which every property in the UK should be able to receive, it said.\n\nMany places cannot obtain these speeds because they are in rural areas that are far from telephone exchanges or street cabinets through which broadband is delivered.\n\nMore broadly, said the report, access to superfast broadband services that run in excess of 30Mbps was improving.\n\nBy May 2017, 91% of properties could receive such a service - a small increase from last year when the figure stood at 89%.\n\nThe higher speeds were proving popular, suggested the report, with 38% of premises that can get it signing up for the service.\n\nMobile signals are often weak on road and rail routes\n\nAs well as fixed-line broadband, the Ofcom report also said mobile operators needed to work harder to give customers a better experience.\n\nNow, about 58% of premises can get a 4G signal indoors - up from 40% in 2016.\n\nHowever, it said, many people struggled to receive good coverage when they were out and about. Currently only 43% of the UK's landmass can get signals from all four mobile operators.\n\nCoverage was often poor on roads and railways, said Ofcom.\n\nIt said it was engaged in work to measure mobile connectivity on travel routes to monitor if operators are improving services for customers.\n\n\"People have never relied so much on their phones in daily life,\" said Mr Unger, adding that Ofcom's work would help to give people a more accurate picture of the quality of the service they can expect.\n\nMatt Hancock, minister for digital, said there was a \"clear need\" for rapid improvements to mobile coverage.\n\n\"We've recently removed outdated restrictions, giving mobile operators more freedom to improve their networks including hard-to-reach rural areas,\" he said. \"But industry need to play their part too through continued investment and improvement in their networks, making sure that customers are not paying for services they don't receive.\"", "The 27 other EU leaders have stressed there is still a long way to go\n\nEU leaders are expected to formally agree to start the next phase of Brexit negotiations later.\n\nIt means talks can move on to the long-term relationship between the UK and EU, days after Theresa May suffered her first defeat in the House of Commons.\n\nThe next round of talks on a transition period after the UK leaves in March 2019 could begin as early as next week.\n\nEuropean Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said this process would be \"significantly harder\".\n\nMrs May was applauded by other leaders at dinner in Brussels on Thursday night after she made a speech urging the two sides to embrace the way ahead with \"creativity and ambition\".\n\nThe European Commission has said \"sufficient progress\" has been made on the first phase to move onto discussing the framework of a future relationship - including issues such as security and trade.\n\nMr Juncker said the EU's initial priority was to \"formalise the agreement we have now\" on issues such as citizens' rights before starting negotiations on a future relationship after the UK leaves in March 2019.\n\n\"The second phase will be significantly harder than the first and the first was very difficult,\" he warned.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. May: We've won 35 out of 36 votes\n\nSpeaking to reporters, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said progress had been made but there was \"much more work to be done and time is of the essence\".\n\nUnder EU rules, the prime minister will not attend the meeting where the decision is formally confirmed. She has now returned to the UK.\n\nDuring the dinner with the 27 other EU leaders, Mrs May urged them to approve an agreement to move Brexit talks on to a second phase.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Adam Fleming This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a brief speech, she stressed her keenness to get on with shaping a \"deep and special\" future partnership as quickly as possible, leaving no doubt that she believes she was \"on course to deliver Brexit\".\n\nShe said she made \"no secret\" of wanting to move on to the next phase and to approaching it with \"ambition and creativity\".\n\n\"A particular priority should be agreement on the implementation period so that we can bring greater certainty to businesses in the UK and across the 27,\" she said.\n\nGerman chancellor Angela Merkel has warned \"time is of the essence\"\n\nIn applauding Mrs May, Mr Juncker said her EU colleagues \"felt that she did make a big effort and this has to be recognised\" while Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said he appreciated \"her efforts and engagement\".\n\nBut Maltese PM Joseph Muscat said the UK must spell out \"very clearly\" what it wanted from its post-Brexit relationship with the EU for the talks to proceed smoothly.\n\nThe text likely to be rubber-stamped by the leaders will promise to work towards a \"framework\" for a trade deal - with a wait until March before guidelines for the way ahead are produced.\n\nThe document states that a formal free trade agreement cannot be signed until after the UK has left the EU.\n\nThe talks will first prioritise translating recent headway on the issues of citizens' rights, the Irish border and the \"divorce bill\" into a legally-binding withdrawal agreement - as well as to work out the terms for a transition period to follow the official date of Brexit.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Is it game over for Brexit?\n\nThe EU leaders will stay on to discuss the eurozone as the two-day summit draws to a close - having also debated the flow of migrants over the Mediterranean and sanctions on Russia.\n\nMrs May has said the Brexit process is still \"on course\" despite her defeat in a Parliamentary vote on Wednesday night.\n\nSpeaking in Brussels, Mrs May said she was \"disappointed\" at the vote on the EU Withdrawal Bill, but the legislation was making \"good progress\".\n\nMPs backed an amendment giving them a legal guarantee of a vote on the final Brexit deal struck with Brussels.\n\nMinisters are due to have their first discussion of the \"end state\" relationship between UK and the EU in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.\n\nMeanwhile, Mrs May is facing a further challenge next week when MPs vote on a government amendment to enshrine the Brexit date of 29 March 2019 in law.\n\nThe BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg said there was no sign so far that Mrs May was going to budge on the issue but further compromises could be \"forced on her\".", "A 95-year-old Middlesbrough man spent six hours in agony waiting for an ambulance after breaking his hip.", "Bottled water is being distributed from a supermarket car park in Tewkesbury\n\nSome 10,000 homes and businesses have been left without water due to a burst main.\n\nThirteen schools have also been closed in Tewkesbury, north Gloucestershire, as engineers work to repair the burst.\n\nSevern Trent Water used a helicopter and drones to locate the problem.\n\nIt apologised and confirmed \"water is gradually returning to normal for customers in Tewkesbury\" and added it \"aims to have everyone restored tonight as quickly as possible\".\n\nTens of thousands of litres of bottled water are currently being distributed across three water handout sites.\n\nThe firm said it was using tankers to inject water directly into pipes to help customers.\n\nA spokesperson said: \"As it's a wide area that's been affected, it's a complicated job to get the system back to normal and it will take a while for the pipes to refill, so please bear with us.\n\n\"There may be some intermittent supplies or poor pressure overnight while we get everything sorted.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Severn Trent This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMany local supermarkets quickly sold out of bottled water as news of the outage spread.\n\nQueues quickly built up for bottled water as supermarket shelves were stripped\n\nIt is the second major leak to hit the utility in recent months.\n\nIn October more than 7,000 households had no water in Churchdown, Cheltenham, after a 24in (60cm) main ruptured.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Each December, the Geminid meteor shower illuminates the night sky with a massive display of shooting stars. Cameras over China captured the peak of the show.", "US ambassador Nikki Haley said a unanimous UN Security Council resolution sent a clear warning to North Korea that further missile tests would invite more punishment.", "This video has been removed for right reasons.\n\nTropical Storm Tembin brought flash flooding and mudslides to many parts of Mindanao island, in the southern Philippines, before heading west.\n\nRescuers are searching for survivors and thousands of people have been evacuated.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The aftermath of Storm Tembin on Mindanao island\n\nMore than 180 people are reported to have been killed as a tropical storm swept through the southern Philippines, with dozens more missing.\n\nStorm Tembin brought flash flooding and mudslides to parts of Mindanao island.\n\nTwo towns badly hit were Tubod and Piagapo, where a number of homes were buried by boulders.\n\nTembin, with winds of up to 80km/h (50 mph), has passed across Mindanao and reached the resort islands of Palawan, and will now move further west.\n\nThe Philippines suffers regularly from deadly tropical storms, although Mindanao is not often hit.\n\nTembin, known as Vinta in the Philippines, started lashing Mindanao on Friday, with a state of emergency declared in some areas including the Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur regions.\n\nRegional officials quoted by the Rappler website said there were 127 fatalities in Lanao del Norte, up to 50 in the Zamboanga peninsula and at least 18 in Lanao del Sur.\n\nTubod police officer Gerry Parami told the AFP news agency that there had been at least 19 deaths in the town, which is in Lanao del Norte. The remote village of Dalama was wiped out by flash floods.\n\n\"The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there,\" he said.\n\nHe said volunteers were digging through mud to try to recover bodies in the village.\n\nAnother official told AFP that at least 10 people had died in the town of Piagapo, 10km east of Tubod.\n\n\"We've sent rescuers but they're making little progress,\" Saripada Pacasum said.\n\nMore deaths were reported in the towns of Sibuco and Salug.\n\nPower cuts and the loss of communication lines have hampered rescue efforts.\n\nAndrew Morris, from the UN children's agency Unicef in Mindanao, said in some areas there were big risks for disease, particularly for children, and restoring clean water supplies would be a priority.\n\n\"Lanao del Sur province is the poorest in the Philippines, and in the past seven months there have been around 350,000 people displaced in that province because of fighting,\" he told the BBC, referring to battles between government forces and Islamist militants in Marawi.\n\n\"So the priority yesterday and this morning has really been to check their situation.\"\n\nStorm Tembin made a second landfall on Balabac island in the Palawan archipelago and is forecast to travel west, south of the Spratly Islands, reaching southern Vietnam in about three days.\n\nThe region is still recovering from Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 5,000 people and affected millions in 2013.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBoris Johnson says the UK's relations with Russia are \"not on a good footing\" but he wants them to improve, after talks in Moscow.\n\nRussia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused the UK of making \"insulting\" statements ahead of the meeting.\n\nBut he said he trusted Mr Johnson and they had agreed on the need to work together on the UN Security Council.\n\nMr Johnson is the first UK foreign secretary to visit Russia in five years.\n\nMr Lavrov said it was no secret that Britain's relations with Russia were at a \"low point\".\n\nAnd he accused Britain of making a series of \"aggressive and insulting\" public statements ahead of their meeting, saying Russia had done nothing to justify being seen as an aggressor in relation to its actions in Ukraine and Syria.\n\n\"I cannot recall any of Russia's actions that would be aggressive in relation to the United Kingdom. We did not blame London for anything,\" said Mr Lavrov.\n\n\"On the contrary, we have heard accusations, even insultingly formulated - that we support the criminal regime in Syria, that we are aggressors, that we are occupiers, we annex other territories.\n\n\"And all this despite the fact that on all the regional issues in question, and on many others, all information about what our position is, what it is based on, is regularly provided.\"\n\nThe pair also clashed over Russia's alleged attempts to interfere in elections in the West, following UK Prime Minister Theresa May's warnings about the risks of Russia's \"sustained campaign of cyber-espionage and disruption\".\n\nDespite the differences between London and Moscow, both sides have an interest in improving what is a poor relationship.\n\nThere are several issues where both Britain and Russia sometimes disagree but want more dialogue.\n\nOn Syria, the UK wants to help shape any future political settlement while Russia needs western money to help rebuild the country.\n\nOn North Korea, both Russia and the UK want to find ways of de-escalating the crisis prompted by Pyongyang's ballistic missile programme.\n\nAnd on Iran, both sides want to do what they can to protect the deal they helped negotiate to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.\n\nSo Friday's meeting may have allowed both sides to rehearse their differences - and the veteran Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, gave as good as he got from the comparative novice foreign secretary, Boris Johnson.\n\nBut it also allowed them to crack a few jokes and build a relationship that they could need in the years to come.\n\nThis was not a reset or a return to business as usual but the opening of a channel of communication that in recent years has been as frozen as the Moscow winter.\n\nAhead of the meeting in Moscow, the UK government said Mr Johnson would warn Russia to stop cyber-attacks which threaten Britain's national security or face retaliation of a similar kind from the UK.\n\nBut Mr Lavrov accused Mr Johnson of being a \"hostage\" of untrue Western narratives on the issue, insisting Russia had not meddled in elections in other countries.\n\nMr Johnson said there was \"abundant evidence\" of Russian interference in polls in the US, Germany, Denmark and France.\n\nBoris Johnson stands in front of Saint Basil's cathedral in Red square in Moscow\n\nAnd takes part in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier\n\nMr Lavrov hit back by telling Mr Johnson he himself had said Russia had not interfered in Britain's general election and Brexit referendum.\n\nMr Johnson interrupted his Russian counterpart to add: \"Not successfully.\"\n\nMr Lavrov said the evidence produced so far of Russian attempts at interference amounted to no more than the spending of \"a few kopecks\" on social media adverts.\n\n\"I think you have made all this up in your Western community and unfortunately right now you are hostage to this subject, it is very difficult for you to climb down from the fence you have climbed.\"\n\nHe also criticised Britain for cutting off ties with Russia's FSB security agency over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London, saying the UK authorities had refused to hand over information in the case.\n\nHe said government criticism of British politicians who speak to Russian media outlets, such as the RT television channel, damaged the reputation of the UK as \"the cradle of democracy\".\n\nMr Johnson acknowledged the \"difficulties\" in relations with Russia, adding: \"It is a regrettable state of affairs but it should not preclude co-operation.\"\n\nThe UK foreign secretary said they had identified common ground on issues such as North Korea, Syria and trade - and said the UK and Russian security services should co-ordinate ahead of next year's World Cup.\n\nAs the mood at the press conference relaxed, Mr Lavrov said: \"I trust Boris and I trust him to an extent that I am ready to call him BorIs [Russian-style pronunciation] rather than BOris.\"\n\nMr Johnson said he adopted the approach Ronald Reagan had taken with Mikhail Gorbachev: \"Trust, but verify.\"\n\nAnd he joked that his trust was so great that he had handed his coat with \"everything in my pockets, secret or otherwise\" to Mr Lavrov when he arrived at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.\n\nMr Lavrov joked back: \"I can say that there was nothing in the pockets of Boris's coat\", to which Mr Johnson responded in surprise: \"So you have searched it already?\"\n\nMr Johnson's trip follows Prime Minister Theresa May's accusation last month that Russia was trying to \"undermine free societies\".\n\nHer criticisms were repeated by Ciaran Martin, chief executive of GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre, who said that Russia was \"seeking to undermine the international system\".", "This was the moment Big Ben's iconic bongs returned, to ring across the festive period.\n\nThe Great Bell of the Elizabeth Tower fell silent in August whilst repair work was carried out.\n\nThe chimes were most recently reactivated for Armistice Day in November and will continue to be rung for special occasions during its four-year restoration period.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBruce McCandless, who was captured in a stunning photograph in 1984 as he made the first untethered flight in space, has died aged 80, Nasa said.\n\nWith a jetpack, McCandless travelled 100m (328ft) from the Space Shuttle.\n\n\"That may have been one small step for Neil, but it's a heck of a big leap for me,\" he joked, riffing on Neil Armstrong's famous moon-landing line.\n\nArmstrong's words were in fact relayed to McCandless, who was in mission control for the moon landing in 1969.\n\nHis voice was recorded in those era-defining moments, communicating with Armstrong and his fellow astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins as they planted the US flag on the moon.\n\n\"Oh, it's beautiful, Mike. It really is,\" McCandless said over the radio.\n\nHe died at home in California on Thursday, Nasa said. No cause of death was given.\n\n\"The iconic photo of Bruce soaring effortlessly in space has inspired generations of Americans to believe that there is no limit to the human potential,\" said Senator John McCain, who was a classmate of McCandless at the US Naval Academy.\n\nMcCandless was the youngest of 19 astronauts selected by Nasa in 1966 to join the space programme. He was 28, with a navy career that had seen him in action during the Cuban missile crisis.\n\nIt would be 1984 before he first flew to space, at the age of 46, but his untethered flight captured the imagination of a public that was becoming accustomed to space flight.\n\nMcCandless orbited at 18,000mph (29,000km/h), using a hefty jet pack to propel himself away from and then back towards the Space Shuttle.\n\nBruce McCandless pictured with his jetpack in 1982\n\nAt a post-flight news conference back on Earth, he said he had experienced no fear of flying loose from the craft.\n\n\"Once you're accustomed to seeing the Earth rushing by at four miles per second and you concentrate on the Orbiter and/or the spar as your references at hand, you feel quite comfortable flying around at the relatively slow velocities with respect to them,\" he said.\n\n\"It's sort of like two rather fast airplanes flying formation over one another.\"\n\nMcCandless had over the years been involved with the design and development of the jet pack that allowed him to fly alone, and over the radio from space he told mission control \"we sure have a nice flying machine here\".\n\nAlongside McCandless, Robert Stewart, an army colonel, also tested the jetpack, officially known as the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).\n\nDown on earth, the New York Times described their flight in a front page article as \"a spectacle of bravery and beauty\".\n\n\"Free from any lifeline and propelled into the dark void by tiny jets, they became, in effect, the first human satellites,\" the paper wrote.\n\nMcCandless went back up to space for a second mission in 1990, helping to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope. In total he spent 312 hours in space, four of them flying the MMU.\n\nIn a 2015 article for the Guardian, he reflected on the photo which made him famous, noting that he had his visor down because he was looking at the sun.\n\n\"It's also one of its attractions: my anonymity means people can imagine themselves doing the same thing,\" he wrote. \"Like Neil said in 1969, I was representing mankind up there.\"\n\nMcCandless is survived by his wife, Ellen Shields McCandless, two children and two grandchildren.", "Jodie Willsher's husband Malcolm said she was \"lovely and warm and always had a smile on her face\"\n\nThe man accused of stabbing an Aldi supermarket worker to death has appeared in court charged with murder.\n\nNeville Hord, 44, from Bradford, is accused of attacking Jodie Willsher, 30, as she worked at the store in Skipton, North Yorkshire.\n\nMother-of-one Mrs Willsher suffered multiple injuries and died at the scene on Thursday.\n\nMr Hord, of Great Horton Road, was remanded by York magistrates to appear at Leeds Crown Court on 28 December.\n\nNeville Hord will appear at Leeds Crown Court on 28 December\n\nThere were no family members present in court for the short hearing.\n\nMr Hord was remanded in custody until his next court appearance\n\nMalcolm Willsher described his wife as \"lovely and warm and always had a smile on her face\".\n\nHe added: \"She was amazing, beautiful and a lovely person. She was a doting mother and a loving wife.\"\n\nAldi has said the store would be closed until further notice to allow police to carry out investigations.\n\nColin Breslin, regional manager at Aldi described Mrs Willsher as \"a much loved and popular colleague\" and said they were \"all deeply shocked and saddened by this incident\".\n\nFriends described Jodie Willsher as \"a truly lovely woman\"\n\nMatthew Barnes, chief executive officer of Aldi UK and Ireland, said the company was \"doing everything we can to support our people and all those affected during this difficult time\".\n\nFloral tributes have been left in the supermarket car park, with friends describing her as \"a truly lovely woman and very popular\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nStaff have been injured and an aardvark and possibly four meerkats killed in a fire at London Zoo.\n\nAbout 70 firefighters tackled the blaze at its height in the Animal Adventure section that spread to a shop.\n\nOne person was taken to hospital and eight were treated at the scene.\n\nThe zoo said an aardvark called Misha died in the fire and four meerkats were still unaccounted for, presumed dead. The zoo was shut on Saturday but said it would reopen on Sunday.\n\nThe cause of the fire is not yet known.\n\nPhotographs posted on social media showed orange flames rising from the building\n\nTen fire engines went to the zoo, which sits in the capital's Regent's Park, shortly after 06:00 GMT and the fire was brought under control about three hours later.\n\nSix people were given help at the scene for the effects of smoke inhalation and two for minor injuries, London Ambulance Service said.\n\nOne person was taken to a north-west London hospital, the service said.\n\nDuty staff who live on site were on the scene \"immediately\" and started moving animals to safety, the zoo said.\n\nIn a statement the zoo said it was \"devastated\" about what had happened.\n\nIt said: \"Sadly our vets have confirmed the death of our nine-year-old aardvark, Misha. There are also four meerkats still unaccounted for, but we are now presuming these have also died.\n\n\"All other animals in the vicinity are being monitored closely by our vets, but early signs suggest they have not been affected. We will continue to monitor them over the coming days.\n\n\"We are all naturally devastated by this, but are immensely grateful to the fire brigade, who reacted quickly to the situation to bring the fire under control. \"\n\nYou might also be interested in:\n\nAdnan Abdul Husein said he saw the blaze from a nearby park when he was out walking his dog, and alerted zoo security.\n\n\"It didn't look like smoke just coming out of a chimney - it was quite heavy\", he said.\n\n\"As I got closer to the zoo I could see that it was actually inside the zoo so I went over to the security and told them, 'there's flames or there's smoke coming from inside there, do you know anything about it?'. And they obviously didn't have a clue.\"\n\nLondon Fire Brigade (LFB) station manager Clive Robinson, who was at the scene, said three-quarters of the cafe and shop had been affected by the fire and half of the roof.\n\nHe said: \"Firefighters worked hard to bring the fire under control as quickly as possible and to stop it from spreading to neighbouring animal enclosures.\"\n\nThe cause of the fire is not yet known, London Fire Brigade said\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Rama, 4, has lymphoma and last received medication eight months ago\n\nSyrian President Bashar al-Assad is considering a request to evacuate seven children with cancer from a besieged area, a British charity says.\n\nHamish de Bretton-Gordon, an adviser to the charity, told the BBC that Mr Assad's private office had said he would decide next week.\n\nThe children are among more than 130 needing urgent medical treatment in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta.\n\nThe Damascus suburb has been under government siege for four years.\n\nEarlier this month the Red Cross said life in Eastern Ghouta was becoming \"impossible\" and the situation there had reached a \"critical point\".\n\nThe UN has been trying for weeks to arrange medical evacuations. Dozens of civilians are reported to have died in recent government bombardments and food shortages have led to severe malnutrition.\n\n\"We understand Assad is thinking about it. And we're calling him back on Tuesday morning to speak to him direct,\" said Mr de Bretton-Gordon, who advises the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations (UOSSM), which operates in Eastern Ghouta.\n\n\"And if he gives us the go-ahead then the plan is that we will get to Ghouta as quickly as we can, get the children.\"\n\nThe seven children who could be evacuated include Rama, 4, who has lymphoma, is suffering from malnutrition and has a malignant tumour in her throat.\n\nRama is also malnourished and has a throat tumour\n\nThe last time she received the medication she needs was eight months ago, the UOSSM said.\n\nMr de Bretton-Gordon said the UN had told him that she and the other children could be treated elsewhere in Syria or abroad.\n\nHowever, an evacuation would not include children in Eastern Ghouta with other medical conditions, such as two-month-old baby Karim, who lost an eye and suffered severe injuries in a reported government attack.\n\nKarim's father, four siblings and aunt have taken care of him since his mother's death\n\nPhotos of Karim have sparked a social media campaign to raise awareness about his and the other children's plight. People in Syria and abroad have posted photographs of themselves covering their left eyes.\n\nLast month, UN humanitarian co-ordinator Jan Egeland said nine people with urgent medical needs had died in Eastern Ghouta after requests to evacuate them were denied.\n\n\"The men with guns and power on the ground are denying us access to the most vulnerable. They are attacking civilians - including massively schools and hospitals. It's been on both sides,\" he said.\n\nHe called on Iran and Russia to put pressure on Mr Assad to allow the evacuations.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Children in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta are among those suffering\n\nNearly 12% of children in Eastern Ghouta are suffering from acute malnutrition - the highest level recorded in Syria since the war began - the UN says. Joint UN and Syrian Red Crescent aid convoys have not been able to deliver enough food for all 400,000 civilians trapped there.\n\nMeanwhile limits on electricity, fuel, safe drinking-water and basic sanitation services are increasing the risk of outbreaks of diarrheal diseases, the UN says.\n\nThe area has been designated a \"de-escalation zone\" by Russia and Iran, the government's main allies, along with Turkey, which supports the opposition.", "There was celebration among French foodies after a wild truffle was discovered on a Paris rooftop.\n\nThe discovery, at the base of a hornbeam tree in a hotel roof garden near the Eiffel Tower, is thought to be a first for the city.\n\nTruffles usually grow further south, in more Mediterranean climes, and are dug up by specially-trained pigs or dogs.\n\nPrices for the aromatic fungi have recently doubled to more than 5,000 euros ($6,000) a kilo.\n\nThe winter black truffle found in Paris is not the most prized of the truffle family but it is valued by chefs for use with scallops, sausage or potatoes.\n\nExperts at France's Museum of Natural History said it was remarkable the truffle had grown so far from its usual habitat.\n\n\"The discovery of this wild truffle is a wonderful example of how roof gardens and green roofs have a huge potential for urban biodiversity,\" said the museum, which revealed the find.\n\nFrederic Madre, a researcher from the museum's centre of ecology and conservation, told the AFP news agency he felt a \"great surge of joy\" at the discovery.\n\nHe said he had to resist the temptation to taste the 21g (0.75oz) fungus before handing it over for analysis.\n\nThe museum's mushroom expert, Professor Marc-Andre Selosse, said the truffle growth in a northern city was \"remarkable\".\n\n\"This shows that it could happen again and that it might be possible to cultivate truffles on Paris roofs,\" he told AFP.\n\nThe French capital is trying to increase urban gardening, aiming to transform the roofs of office buildings and other spaces into 100 acres of garden over the next two years.", "Daphne du Maurier's riverside Cornish holiday home was a shipwright's workshop before it was bought by the Du Maurier family\n\nThe Cornish holiday home where Daphne du Maurier wrote her first novel has been given Grade II listed status.\n\nThe author wrote The Loving Spirit, published in 1931, at the former boatyard on the River Fowey in Bodinnick, southeast Cornwall.\n\nAfter its publication, Du Maurier said the novel was inspired by \"the sense of freedom\" the home brought.\n\nThe house and its quay were listed by the Culture Department on the advice of Historic England.\n\nThe author is probably best known for her novel Rebecca.\n\nFerryside was bought in 1926 by the du Maurier family who transformed it into a second home.\n\nMany of British novelist Daphne du Maurier novels were set in Cornwall, a region that inspired some of the greatest novels of the 20th century\n\nDu Maurier's son, Christian Browning, said: \"My mother adored the house and fell in love with Cornwall, which was to be the backdrop of her most famous novels.\n\n\"I feel sure that she would be immensely proud that Historic England have granted Ferryside a Grade II listing.\"\n\nFerryside's transformation reflected a wider trend for second homes which began in the 19th century and has had a significant impact on Cornwall\n\nThe building was constructed of local granite in the early 1800s, serving as a shipwright's workshop, yard and quay, and is an important survivor of Cornwall's maritime heritage, Historic England said.\n\nAfter it was bought by the du Mauriers, the original quay was turned into a domestic garden, the sail loft became bedrooms and a bathroom, and the former boat store was changed into the family sitting room.\n\nThe Grade II listed status reflects the home's connection to du Maurier and its wider architectural and historical significance.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nuclear N Korea: What do we know?\n\nNorth Korea's nuclear weapons programme has progressed faster than predicted, threatening the security of nearby nations – and potentially the United States.\n\nThe US envoy to the United Nations put it simply: \"Despite our efforts over the last 24 years, the North Korean nuclear programme is more advanced and dangerous than ever.\"\n\nAnalysts tend to agree that the country's leader, Kim Jong-un, is seeking a nuclear deterrent rather than an all-out war - but other nations are not taking chances.\n\nSo how do you defend against a politically isolated state with nuclear ambitions, when diplomacy, it appears, simply does not work?\n\nThe other half of the Korean peninsula has a long history of preparing to defend itself from its northern neighbour. The two countries are technically still at war, having never signed a peace treaty when the Korean War ended in 1953.\n\nThe Thaad system - seen here in testing - is one of several anti-missile defences\n\nOne key part of its defensive line is the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) - a region 250km (155 mile) long and 4km (2.5 mile) wide that separates the two nations, guarded by thousands of soldiers, lined with barbed wire fences, and filled with landmines.\n\nBut it is believed that North Korea's People's Army - with more than a million regular soldiers and millions more reserve troops - has drilled extensively on how to invade across the border.\n\nAnd the heavy land border fortifications do nothing, of course, to prevent a missile strike.\n\nFor a while, it was thought that Thaad - the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense - might be South Korea's best counter to a nuclear attack.\n\nThaad, funded by the South's military ally the United States, is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles as they descend in the final phase of a strike. The complex technology was first deployed in May 2017, and has been successfully tested.\n\nBut the politics of South Korea's relationship with the North means its rollout has not been easy.\n\nNorth Korea and its only ally China both see Thaad as a provocation, and many South Koreans living near the places its was deployed fear it could be seen as a military target.\n\nThe South's new president, President Moon Jae-in, suspended the rollout of the system in June, saying an environmental impact analysis was needed.\n\nBut in light of recent nuclear tests, the South's defence ministry has now said it will deploy the four remaining Thaad launchers that had been delivered, in addition to the two already operational.\n\nAt its closest point, Japan is just a little over 500km (310 miles) from North Korea - well within striking distance.\n\nIn August, Pyongyang fired a missile directly over Japan, in what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called an \"unprecedented\" threat to his country.\n\nThe close proximity of the two nations means that Japan has only minutes to respond to any launch. During the August missile test, people had about three minutes from receiving the emergency warning until the missile flew overhead. Many only learned about the threat later in the day.\n\nIn terms of defence options, Japan utilises the Patriot missile system which, like Thaad, is designed to shoot down incoming missiles. But it has a limited operational range, making it effective at defending key locations - and not the entire country.\n\nBut Japan does not have to worry about land invasion to the same extent North Korea does, and at sea, it has other options at its disposal.\n\nJapan, South Korea, the United States are among the countries with the Aegis naval defence system.\n\nAegis is yet another anti-missile system, but unlike Thaad or Patriot defences, it can also be deployed to ships patrolling the seas in the region.\n\nA test missile fired by the US on August 29, left, was shot down by the Aegis system similar to the file photo, right\n\nThose battleships come equipped with powerful radar which could detect the launch when deployed near the North Korean coast. They are also fitted with guided missiles, and could attempt to shoot down the incoming missile - or share its tracking data with another missile defence system closer to the target.\n\nThere are a handful of problems with the system, though. Aegis ships need to be deployed in the right place at the right time - and while they have been tested extensively, they have never been used to defend against an actual launch.\n\nFor years, the best defence for the US was its sheer distance from North Korea - some 5,000km (3,100 miles) to Alaska and almost 9,000km to San Francisco. But rapid advancements mean that distance might no longer be far enough.\n\nNorth Korea's military wants the capability to shrink a high-yield nuclear warhead to fit on an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM). In theory, that would allow Pyongyang to strike the United States.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. See the US anti-missile system in action\n\nAfter its latest test, North Korea claimed it had managed to shrink the warhead, posting photos of what it said was a hydrogen bomb - in keeping with a Washington Post report from early August.\n\nThat means the US is now reconsidering its missile defences, with President Trump having ordered a review of the entire system.\n\nIt already has detection and interception systems. But critics believe that the US system is far from reliable, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus wrote in July.\n\nIn the foreseeable future, only a handful of its interceptor missiles will be available to deal with the potential North Korean threat, he said.\n\nAnd it also has to worry about its overseas territory of Guam - a key military outpost in the Pacific which has been singled out by North Korea as a threat to be \"contained\".\n\nThat island already has a Thaad system deployed, but state media says Kim Jong-un has already been briefed on strike plans - and is waiting to see the next US actions.", "Amazon has apologised to a customer who was emailed what he felt were \"coded death threats\" by a call centre worker.\n\nMichael Jacobson received five book recommendations including Death, Follow You Home and Suicide's An Option, he told BBC Radio 4's You and Yours.\n\n\"We have zero tolerance for any misuse of customer data and have apologised to the customer,\" Amazon, which offered Mr Jacobson a £50 goodwill gesture, said.\n\n\"The individual involved no longer works for Amazon,\" it told the BBC.\n\nMr Jacobson, a former special constable in London, first contacted Amazon's help centre after experiencing delivery issues with a package he had ordered in October.\n\nMr Jacobson was sent book recommendations including Death, Follow You Home and Death Made Me\n\nHe told You and Yours: \"Later that afternoon I checked my emails, and I'd received five, all from Amazon.\"\n\n\"They were all ostensibly book recommendations but the titles were pretty ominous and threatening, and I was pretty taken aback and I joked with my girlfriend, who I was with at the time, about it being a death threat.\"\n\nHe added: \"The more I looked into it, I realised that they had actually been sent manually by an employee at Amazon rather than via an algorithm.\"\n\nThe books were Death, Follow You Home, The Denial of Death, Death Made Me, and Suicide's An Option.\n\nMr Jacobson suspected the recommendations had been sent by an individual, which made him feel anxious about his safety.\n\n\"I was concerned, because as soon as I realised that this had been sent by an individual rather than by a computer, it meant an Amazon employee had access to my personal information.\"\n\nAfter getting in touch with Amazon to report the issue, they investigated and found the book recommendations had been sent by a then employee in India.\n\nIn an email to Mr Jacobson, Amazon said: \"On this occasion, an isolated individual was using the 'share page' function on our site to send you the emails in question.\n\n\"We are taking this matter very seriously,\" the company added, saying also that \"corrective actions have been taken internally both in relation to the agent who instigated the emails, and subsequent service failures\".\n\nDespite the investigation by Amazon, Mr Jacobson, who felt intimidated by the emails, says he feels the matter has not been handled well.\n\n\"At no point did (Amazon) say, we're confident you're not in any danger, this individual is thousands of miles away,\" he said.\n\n\"They told me none of that, which I was not happy about.\"\n\nYou and Yours is on BBC Radio 4 weekdays 12:15-13:00 GMT. Listen online or download the programme podcast.", "You did turn it on, didn't you?\n\nForgetting to turn on the oven for the Christmas turkey could be a sign of early dementia in a loved one, says the NHS's top dementia expert.\n\nProf Alistair Burns said becoming confused in a strange house and forgetting relatives' names may also be early signs of the disease.\n\nHe said it was important to look for changes in normal behaviour in older family members.\n\nThere is usually a rise in calls to the Alzheimer's Society in January.\n\nThe charity said this was because many people had seen relatives at Christmas gatherings and wanted advice on how to broach the subject.\n\nProf Burns, NHS England's national clinical director for dementia and older people's mental health, has drawn up a list of dementia signs:\n\nAround 850,000 people have dementia in the UK, and it mainly affects people over 65 - although it can develop earlier.\n\nIt is estimated that one in three of us will care for someone with dementia at some point in our lives.\n\nProf Burns said: \"Dementia is something that happens slowly so it may slip by unnoticed in people we see regularly.\n\n\"That's why the Christmas visit to wider family and friends is an opportunity to spot the early warning signs.\"\n\nHe urged everyone to take time to consider whether someone they know may need help.\n\nProf Burns also said a visit to a relative or neighbour who might be alone could make a huge difference to their mental health, particularly if they were lonely.\n\nBroadcaster Fiona Phillips, whose parents both had early-onset dementia, said Christmas was a \"huge benchmark\" in spotting the symptoms.\n\n\"I spent every Christmas with my parents,\" she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nBut one year, \"we got there and I was absolutely staggered - there was no tree up, both of them were very, very stressed\".\n\nMs Phillips, an Alzheimer's Society ambassador, said her mother showed signs of dementia in her 50s.\n\nBut she noticed a change that Christmas - when her parents bought her a fluffy toy and her brother an orange ladies' jumper.\n\n\"We went into a horrible scene,\" she said. \"We knew things weren't right.\"\n\nErika Aldridge, from Alzheimer's Society, said: \"It can be difficult to know how to discuss concerns with a loved one, and there is no right or wrong way to approach this.\n\n\"Play a board game instead of watching another hour of TV, get up and take the dog for a walk or go for a family ramble instead of snoozing in the chair for an hour.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. It had been feared the Javan warty pig had become extinct\n\nScientists have captured the first footage in the wild of one of the world's rarest - and ugliest - pigs.\n\nThe Javan warty pig is under such threat from hunting and habitat loss that conservationists surveying its habitat believed it might already have been driven to extinction.\n\nCamera traps have now revealed that small populations survive in Java's increasingly fragmented forests.\n\nThe team says its aim now is to protect the rare animals' habitat.\n\nThe survey was led by Dr Johanna Rode-Margono from Chester Zoo, who said she and her colleagues were \"thrilled\" to see that the pigs were still there.\n\nMotion-activated camera traps captured the images of the shy, endangered animals\n\nThe last study of these lowland forested areas was back in 2004 and revealed a \"serious decline\" in the population of the species.\n\n\"We were worried that all or most would have disappeared,\" she told BBC News.\n\nWhile these hairy, warty-faced beasts may not be Java's most photogenic residents, Dr Rode-Margono says they fulfil an important role in the forest's ecology - tilling the soil and spreading seeds as they forage.\n\nAnd in Java, Indonesia's most crowded island, they are also emblematic of the burgeoning human pressure on the country's tropical forest.\n\nThe pigs are losing habitat to deforestation for agricultural and urban development, but are also coming into direct conflict with humans. The animals are considered pests and often hunted because they raid crops.\n\n\"Hunting for sport is also a problem,\" says Dr Rode-Margono, \"and the species may be hybridising with European wild boar.\" That could result in the species being bred into extinction.\n\nMost lowland forest in Java has been cleared for building and agriculture\n\nOut of seven areas the team surveyed - using hidden, motion-activated cameras - only three had Javan warty pigs.\n\n\"That means the threat is ongoing and if we don't do anything, more and more populations will disappear,\" said Dr Rode-Margono. \"This is a big red flag.\"\n\nOne wildlife centre in Java has started a captive breeding programme for the Javan warty pigs, and the scientists hope to identify some areas where these animals could be released and protected in the wild.\n\nCaptive-bred pigs could be released into the wild if the threats to their survival can be tackled\n\n\"There is still hope,\" Dr Rode-Margono told BBC News. \"If we can manage to design some effective conservation projects, maybe we can keep them.\n\n\"For me,\" she added, \"they are not ugly - they are beautiful.\n\n\"And everything in our ecosystem is connected - every tree, every plant, every animal. They depend on each other.\n\n\"If something breaks away, something else [could] break away, and that's a chain reaction where we can't foresee what will happen.\"\n• None The forests that are falling silent", "A \"lonely\" World War Two veteran has been made \"very happy\" after being inundated with Christmas cards following a friend's Facebook plea.\n\nTed Owens, 93, a former Royal Marines Commando from Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire, has received dozens of cards, which he said made him \"feel young again\".\n\nAuthor Mark Llewhellin, a former Army Commando, met Mr Owens a year ago when he interviewed him and posted the request on Facebook on Wednesday.\n\nThe pair have since thanked everyone who sent the cards.", "Renowned conductor Charles Dutoit has said allegations by a number of women of \"forced physical contact\" have \"absolutely no basis in truth\".\n\nDutoit issued a statement after the Associated Press news agency reported three opera singers and a musician as saying he had forced himself on them.\n\nDutoit said he was taking legal advice and planned to defend himself.\n\nThe Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) has cancelled its principal conductor and artistic director's appearances.\n\nThe RPO said on Friday it had \"jointly agreed\" with Dutoit that he would not appear \"for the immediate future\", following the allegations.\n\nThe Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and New York Philharmonic have been among those distancing themselves from the Swiss-born conductor.\n\nDutoit's statement read: \"The allegations made against me are as shocking to me as they are to my friends and colleagues. I do not recognise the man or the actions being described in the media.\n\n\"Whilst informal physical contact is commonplace in the arts world as a mutual gesture of friendship, the serious accusations made involving coercion and forced physical contact have absolutely no basis in truth.\"\n\nHe continued: \"I believe within this current climate, media accusations on serious physical abuse do not help society tackle these issues properly if the claims are in fact not true.\"\n\nOne of the accusations reported by AP was from retired opera singer Paula Rasmussen, who alleged that Dutoit had \"shoved my hand down his pants and shoved his tongue down my throat\".\n\nAnother singer, Sylvia McNair, alleged Dutoit \"tried to have his way\" with her at a hotel after a rehearsal with the Minnesota Orchestra in 1985, AP reported.\n\nThe four women who have made accusations against Dutoit said they felt confident to speak after Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine was suspended earlier this month after allegations against him surfaced. Mr Levine says the claims are \"unfounded\".\n\nThe RPO said the accusations against Dutoit were being \"taken very seriously by the orchestra\".\n\nIt said: \"The immediate action taken by the RPO and Charles Dutoit allows time for a clear picture to be established. Charles Dutoit needs to be given a fair opportunity to seek legal advice and contest these accusations.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nRoberto Firmino's powerful finish earned Liverpool a draw in an incredible Premier League encounter that had seen Arsenal score three goals in just five second-half minutes.\n\nThe Gunners had been trailing 2-0 after Philippe Coutinho scored his first headed league goal in England before Mohamed Salah added a second early in the second half with a deflected strike.\n\nBut Arsenal suddenly came alive as Alexis Sanchez headed in Hector Bellerin's cross from close range before Granit Xhaka's thumping strike was too powerful for Simon Mignolet's weak save.\n\nBarely two minutes later Mesut Ozil put Arsenal ahead with a neat clip over Mignolet.\n\nPlay swung from one end of the pitch to the other at blistering pace, with both sides looking capable of scoring with every attack.\n\nBut it was Liverpool who had the final say in one of the most thrilling Premier League encounters in years as Petr Cech could only take the sting out of Firmino's shot and the ball bounced over the line.\n\nThe point meant Liverpool held onto fourth place, with Arsenal remaining fifth - a point behind the Reds.\n• None Re-live the thrilling encounter between Arsenal and Liverpool\n\nHow a crazy six minutes panned out\n\nThis had looked like being a routine win for Liverpool after a dominant first half.\n\nThey led through Coutinho's clever header and should have had more but for some uncharacteristically wasteful finishing by Sadio Mane and Salah.\n\nHowever, it was not long until the Premier League's top scorer had his 15th of the season, and so began an incredible six minutes...\n\n52 mins: Salah races on to Firmino's superb pass and makes it 2-0 with a deflected finish. Arsenal, who have not had a single shot on target, look beaten.\n\n53 mins: Out of nowhere, Arsenal are back in it. Sanchez is well placed to nod in Bellerin's cross from close range.\n\n56 mins: What's going on!? Arsenal are level! Xhaka tries his luck from 25 yards and the ball fizzes through Mignolet's hand.\n\n58 mins: Goals! Goals! Goals! Arsenal are ahead as Ozil is on to Alexandre Lacazette's backheel before clipping the ball over Mignolet.\n\nLiverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is not too keen on the 'Fab Four' nickname that has been given to his attacking quartet of Coutinho, Salah, Mane and Firmino, but he might have to develop an acceptance for it as they continue to dominate the headlines.\n\nThree of them scored in this game and, in truth, all four should have been on the scoresheet, with Mane going for the acrobatic with a first-half scissor kick with Cech beaten.\n\nThe quartet have now collectively accounted for 29 of Liverpool's past 34 goals and while the Reds' attacking strength cannot be questioned - they have scored at least three goals in their past four Premier League away games - the defence can.\n\nLiverpool had conceded 16 goals in their first nine league games and while they had stemmed the tide in the games since the 4-1 defeat by Tottenham at the end of October, familiar frailties arose in this encounter as players switched off after conceding, while Mignolet should have done better with Xhaka's effort.\n\nA tale of two halves for Arsenal\n\nDavid de Gea's saves against Arsenal for Manchester United earlier this month appeared to have had a long-lasting impact on the Gunners.\n\nSince Jose Mourinho's side beat them 3-1 at the start of the month - with De Gea making 14 saves that day - Arsenal had struggled to convert shots into goals, having 56 attempts in the three Premier League games before Liverpool's visit, putting 12 of those on target and scoring just twice.\n\nIt was more of the same in the first half of this game as Mignolet enjoyed once of the easiest 45 minutes of his career. Arsenal managed just one shot - and that was wide of goal - but all that changed in the second half as they scored from all but one of their shots on target.\n\nThe Gunners were no doubt helped by Liverpool's poor defensive performance, but Arsene Wenger praised the character of his side to stage such a fightback.\n\n\"In the first half we were paralysed and frozen,\" said Wenger. \"We gave too many balls away and looked second best everywhere.\n\n\"In the second half we have shown quality, character and played at our level.\"\n\n'Point is the minimum we deserve'\n\nLiverpool boss Jurgen Klopp: \"You need to be angry with yourself, not sad or insecure. We came back into the game and scored our third. The point is the minimum we deserve. Because of the intensity of the game it was not easy to create clearer chances. When you get a point at Arsenal it is usually OK but after this give me a few minutes to get there.\n\n\"Three goals at Arsenal should be enough. We defended most of the time pretty well. We did not give space away. After they score the first and the second, it is not easy but we need to deal with these situations better.\"\n• None There have been 27 goals scored in the past five Premier League meetings between these teams (10 for Arsenal, 17 for Liverpool) at an average of 5.4 per game.\n• None Liverpool have scored 54 away goals in all competitions in 2017, their most in a calendar year since 1982 (66).\n• None There were just 388 seconds between Mo Salah putting Liverpool 2-0 ahead and Mesut Ozil scoring to make it 3-2 to Arsenal.\n• None Arsenal have conceded seven goals in two league games against Liverpool this season - in only one Premier League campaign have they conceded more against an opponent (10 against Man Utd in 2011-12).\n• None Since Jurgen Klopp's first Premier League match in charge in October 2015, Liverpool's games have seen 279 goals scored (174 for, 105 against), more than any other club.\n• None Philippe Coutinho has been involved in 16 goals in 11 away matches in all competitions (nine goals, seven assists).\n• None Coutinho scored his 53rd goal for Liverpool in all competitions - however, this was his first headed goal for the Reds.\n• None Roberto Firmino has been involved in eight goals in his past five Premier League appearances against Arsenal (five goals, three assists).\n• None Firmino has also scored and assisted in each of his past three Premier League games against the Gunners.\n\nArsenal have a bit of time to enjoy the Christmas break. They are next in action on 28 December when they travel to Crystal Palace (20:00 GMT). Liverpool, meanwhile, have a shorter turnaround because they host Swansea on Boxing Day (17:30 GMT).\n• None Attempt missed. Mesut Özil (Arsenal) left footed shot from the left side of the box is high and wide to the left.\n• None Offside, Arsenal. Ainsley Maitland-Niles tries a through ball, but Mesut Özil is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) left footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Georginio Wijnaldum following a fast break.\n• None Offside, Liverpool. James Milner tries a through ball, but Mohamed Salah is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "London Zoo says a nine-year-old aardvark called Misha has died and four meerkats are missing, presumed dead, following a fire there.\n\nA number of zoo staff were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation and shock.\n\nKeepers and security worked to keep animals safe before firefighters arrived.", "No food fit for human consumption will be wasted by Tesco's UK stores by the end of February, the retail giant says.\n\nChief executive Dave Lewis told the Daily Telegraph food waste had been \"talked about for years\" as he unveiled the plans for all 2,654 stores.\n\nUrging other chains to follow suit, he said edible food should be used for people, not go to waste.\n\nTesco, with all major UK supermarkets, has signed a commitment to cut food waste by one-fifth within a decade.\n\nThe voluntary agreement is known as the Courtauld Commitment 2025.\n\nMany supermarkets have introduced initiatives to tackle waste - such as moving away from \"buy-one-get-one-free\" offers that have been criticised for potentially increasing the amount of food thrown away in the home.\n\nEast of England Co-op recently became the first major retailer to sell food beyond its \"best before\" dates.\n\nBut Mr Lewis, who joined Tesco in 2014 from consumer brand Unilever, said the contrast between the amount of wasted food in the UK and the situation in countries suffering food shortages was \"really stark\".\n\nHe said: \"Last year we sold 10 million tons [10.2 million tonnes] of food to the British public. But even if our waste is just 0.7% of the food, that's still 70,000 tons [71,100 tonnes] of food.\n\n\"And so long as that food is fit for human consumption, I'd much prefer it to go to people than animal feed or fuel.\"\n\nThe UK throws away 8.1 million tons [8.2 million tonnes] of food a year, according to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.\n\nTesco says it cuts waste by selling surplus groceries with \"reduced to clear\" stickers and running a scheme giving unsold items to local charities.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIt uses an app, FoodCloud, to scan and upload surplus food that stores have at the end of the day, which is shared with registered charities that collect the food.\n\n\"That goes a long way in reducing charities' bill burdens, so they can spend the money on other things, like the cost of housing two more addicts, or providing much more needed services,\" Mr Lewis said.\n\nBut he admitted it was \"impossible\" to prevent food surpluses in supermarkets.\n\n\"In retail there will always be some surplus food,\" he said.\n\n\"No matter how sophisticated the ordering systems are, it will be impossible to perfectly match the supply and demand for every one of our shops, 365 days a year, when there's so much volatility.\n\n\"Food waste has been talked about for years but if Tesco can make this work, with all of our different stores across the country, then why can't everybody,\" he added.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The PM praised troops for their high standards and devotion to duty\n\nThe prime minister has used her Christmas message to the armed forces to pay tribute to the \"valiant hearts\" of British servicemen and women who are working to keep the UK safe.\n\nTheresa May said the RAF, and soldiers training and supporting Iraqi forces, have helped tackle the threat of the so-called Islamic State group in 2017.\n\nAnd she referenced troops on UK streets after terror attacks.\n\nShe praised the sacrifice of those who could not be home for Christmas.\n\nMrs May also paid tribute to the Royal Navy for helping to bring disaster relief to people in the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Irma.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by UK Prime Minister This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMrs May began her message by referring to the centenary commemorations for the World War One battle of Passchendaele in Belgium.\n\nShe said the nation remembered the hundreds of thousands of young men who died \"in the cause of freedom\".\n\n\"Through a century of great change since, the high standards and devotion to duty of our armed forces have remained constant,\" she said.\n\nThe prime minister added: \"Whenever you are called upon - regulars or reserves - you always give of your best and inspire us all with your service.\"\n\nBut she said the achievements of the armed forces were \"made possible by the love and support of your families\".\n\n\"Partners and children are often called on to make huge sacrifices of their own - from a change of school or job, to coping with extended periods of separation,\" she said.\n\n\"That separation is especially difficult at Christmas time, and we should all be immensely grateful for that sacrifice.\"\n\nShe added: \"This Christmas, as people across the United Kingdom celebrate this special time of year with their families and friends, we will do so secure in the knowledge that the valiant hearts of our servicemen and women, many far away from their own loved ones at this special time of year, are working to keep us safe.\"\n\nOn Friday, Mrs May visited troops at the RAF base in Cyprus, where operations against IS have been launched, and last month she met UK military personnel stationed in Iraq.", "The jets also refuelled from the prime minister's plane during the training exercise\n\nTwo Typhoon jets armed with air-to-air missiles intercepted Theresa May's plane on its return to the UK from Cyprus as part of a training exercise.\n\nTheresa May watched pilots carry out the manoeuvre - a rehearsal for a suspected hijacking scenario - from the cockpit of the RAF Voyager.\n\nThe jets, scrambled from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, also hooked up to the PM's plane for air-to-air refuelling.\n\nMrs May was returning from a two-day trip to Poland and Cyprus.\n\nThe fighter jets pulled up alongside the converted Voyager at 17,000 feet, and tipped their wings as part of the exercise.\n\nPilots from 3 Squadron and 11 Squadron performed the manoeuvre.\n\nThe jets each took on four tonnes of fuel during the exercise, at 600kg-a-minute.\n\nThe Typhoons are the sort of jets that would be used to intercept foreign planes illegally entering British airspace and the exercise demonstrated how the RAF's Quick Reaction Alert would work.\n\nMrs May was said to have spent the rest of the journey working on papers from her ministerial Red Box and relaxing with a sudoku number puzzle.\n\nTheresa May visited RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus on her way back to the UK from Poland\n\nShe said: \"Witnessing the unique skill of the RAF at first hand is an absolute privilege and demonstrates that the British Armed Forces are the finest in the world.\n\n\"The work they do is admirable and impressive and I want to take this opportunity to thank them for everything they do to keep us safe.\"", "The 25-year-old had unknowingly been communicating with undercover FBI agents\n\nA former marine has been arrested by the FBI on suspicion of planning a terror attack in San Francisco over Christmas.\n\nEveritt Aaron Jameson, 25, was held after allegedly discussing the plot with undercover FBI agents.\n\nCriminal documents allege he planned to target the Pier 39 area, popular with tourists in the city.\n\nAuthorities say firearms, a will and a letter claiming the attack were found during a search of his home.\n\nThe FBI criminal complaint says that the Muslim convert's letter made reference to Donald Trump's decision to designate Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\n\nThey say Mr Jameson came to their attention in September after expressing \"radical jihadi beliefs\" and support of so-called Islamic State through social media use.\n\nThe FBI complaint said he had expressed his support of attacks, including the October 31 truck attack in New York.\n\nMr Jameson allegedly named the San Francisco's Pier 39 as a target, an area popular for its restaurants, shops and resident sea lions, because \"he had been there before and knew that it was a heavily crowded area\".\n\nThe area is an attraction because of the sea lions that frequent Pier 39's famous K-Dock\n\nInvestigators allege Mr Jameson had expressed a will to use explosives in the attack to \"tunnel\" or \"funnel\" people into a smaller area to inflict casualties. The FBI says he sought materials that could be made into a pipe bomb from an agent.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jameson's father: \"It's just hard to fathom right now\"\n\nBut on 18 December Mr Jameson apparently hesitated, telling an agent: \"I don't think I can do this after all. I've reconsidered.\"\n\nA search warrant for his home was issued, where a number of firearms and related material was found.\n\nHe has been charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation.\n\nMr Jameson completed basic recruitment training for the US Marine Corps in 2009, but was reportedly discharged for not disclosing details of his asthma.", "The car ploughed into Christmas shoppers near Flinders Street railway station\n\nA man accused of driving his car into pedestrians in the Australian city of Melbourne has been charged with 18 counts of attempted murder.\n\nFormer Afghan refugee Saeed Noori, 32, appeared before magistrates on Saturday and was remanded in custody.\n\nPolice have said they do not believe the attack terrorism related and that Mr Noori has mental health issues.\n\nTwelve people are still being treated in hospital after Thursday's incident in Flinders Street.\n\nThree are in a critical condition. Nine of the injured are foreign nationals from countries including South Korea, Ireland, Venezuela, China, India and Italy.\n\nThe broadcaster ABC said Mr Noori became emotional in court, putting his head in his hands when he saw his mother crying ahead of the brief hearing.\n\nThe magistrate called for a psychological report. Mr Noori is scheduled to be back in court on Wednesday. There was no application for bail.\n\nMelbourne police charged Mr Noori after he was released from hospital on Friday and have called the incident a \"deliberate attack\".\n\nIn addition to the attempted murder charges, he also faces one count of conduct endangering life.\n\nPolice have found no link between Mr Noori and any terrorist group. Islamist militants have used vehicles to attack people in Europe and the United States in recent years.\n\nSecurity has been stepped up around Melbourne.\n\nPolice said there would be a \"highly visible\" presence of officers at the fourth Ashes Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground between Australia and England, which starts on Tuesday.", "Scientists have filmed one of the world's rarest, and 'ugliest', pigs in a forest in Java, Indonesia.\n\nThe Javan warty pig is under such threat from hunting and habitat loss that conservationists surveying its habitat believed it might already have been driven to extinction.", "The allegations made about Stephen Crabb were published in national newspapers\n\nFormer Welsh secretary Stephen Crabb has been cleared of breaching party rules following an investigation into allegations of inappropriate conduct.\n\nThe Preseli Pembrokeshire MP was alleged to have sent explicit messages to a 19-year-old who applied for a job in his office in 2013.\n\nThe Conservative Party found his behaviour fell short but it \"did not constitute harassment\".\n\nChris Pincher MP was also cleared after allegations of inappropriate conduct.\n\nThey had been referred to a disciplinary panel, set up under a new Tory code of conduct amid a number of allegations about MPs.\n\nReferring to Mr Crabb's case, a Conservative Party spokesman said: \"Following an investigation, a panel headed by an independent QC has concluded that Mr Crabb's behaviour did not constitute harassment.\n\n\"However, it found that his behaviour in this matter was inappropriate and fell short of the standards the party expects.\n\n\"The party chairman has reminded Mr Crabb of the need to adhere to the spirit and letter of the code of conduct at all times. He accepted this unreservedly and has made a full apology.\"\n\nThe married MP, who was Welsh secretary between 2014 and 2016, was one of several contenders for the Tory leadership who lost out to Theresa May.\n\nTamworth MP Mr Pincher stood down from the whips' office and referred himself to the Tory complaints procedure following reports that he had been accused of making an unwanted pass at former Olympic rower and Conservative activist Alex Story.\n\nThe party spokesman said: \"Following media allegations, Chris Pincher referred himself to our code of conduct.\n\n\"Following an investigation, a panel headed by an independent QC considered the evidence and has concluded there has not been a breach of the code of conduct.\"", "Paedophiles are being targeted online by an automated chatbot that makes them think they're talking to a 12-year-old girl.\n\nThe \"Sweetie\" project first made headlines in 2013. It can now handle thousands of simultaneous conversations and send perpetrators warning messages.", "Prime Minister Theresa May has used her Christmas message to the armed forces to pay tribute to the \"valiant hearts\" of British servicemen and women who are working to keep the UK safe.", "More than 7,000 islands make up the Philippines, but the bulk of its fast-growing population lives on just 11 of them.\n\nMuch of the country is mountainous and prone to earthquakes and eruptions from around 20 active volcanoes. It is often buffeted by typhoons and other storms.\n\nThe Philippines - a Spanish colony for more than three centuries, and named after a 16th Century Spanish king - was taken over by the US in the early 20th Century after a protracted rebellion against rule from Madrid.\n\nSpanish and US influences remain strong, especially in terms of language, religion and government. Self-rule in 1935 was followed by full independence in 1946 under a US-style constitution.\n\nThe US is a close ally and has provided military aid to help combat Islamist and communist insurgencies.\n\nThe son of authoritarian President Ferdinand Marcos won a landslide victory in the May 2022 election.\n\nHe took over from firebrand Rodrigo Duterte, who came to power in 2016 after winning over voters with promises of a no-holds-barred campaign to take on crime, drugs and corruption.\n\nPresident Marcos, known by the nickname Bongbong, enlisted Sara Duterte, the daughter of the outgoing president, as his vice-president, thereby uniting two populist right-wing dynasties.\n\nPowerful commercial interests control or influence much of the media.\n\nThe lively TV scene is dominated by free-to-air networks ABS-CBN and GMA. There are hundreds of radio stations and a vigorous newspaper scene.\n\nThe constitution guarantees press freedom, but the Philippines is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.\n\nSpain's fabled galleons plied the Pacific trade route between Manila and Acapulco\n\nSome key dates in The Philippines' history:\n\n900AD - Laguna Copperplate Inscription, mostly written on Old Malay, is the earliest record of a Philippine language and the presence of writing in the islands.\n\n11th Century - Some areas become part of China's tributary system.\n\n14th Century - Indian cultural traits such as linguistic terms and religious practices began to spread in the Philippines.\n\n15th Century - Islam is first established in the Sulu Archipelago.\n\n1542 - Spanish expedition claims the islands and names them the Philippines after the heir to the Spanish throne. Three centuries of Spanish rule fail to conquer Muslim areas in the south.\n\n1896-98 - Philippine Revolution: Filipino revolutionaries fight against the Spanish colonial authorities in an attempt to win the archipelago's independence.\n\n1897 - Spanish authorities and revolutionaries sign the Pact of Biak-na-Bato, which temporarily reduces, and revolutionary officers exile themselves to Hong Kong.\n\n1898 - During the Spanish-American War, the US navy destroys the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. Spain cedes the Philippines to the US, which proclaims military rule and begins to forcibly incorporate Muslim areas.\n\n1898-1902 - Philippine-American War: Tensions arise after the US annexes the Philippines under the Treaty of Paris at end of the Spanish-American War rather than acknowledging the Philippines' declaration of independence. The war can be seen as a continuation of the Philippine struggle for independence that began in 1896 with the Philippine Revolution.\n\n1916 - Jones Act, or Philippine Autonomy Act, which has the first formal declaration by the US to grant eventual independence to the Philippines.\n\n1935 - Commonwealth of the Philippines: Philippines gains internal self-government, with the US responsible for foreign relations.\n\n1941-1945 - The Philippines are occupied by Japan during the World War Two, but are retaken by the US in bitter fighting. More than 500,000 Filipinos die during the war.\n\n1946 - The islands are granted full independence and renamed the Republic of the Philippines.\n\n1942-1954 - Hukbalahap Rebellion: Rebellion by former Hukbalahap or Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (\"People's Army Against Japan\") soldiers against the Philippine government. During the Japanese occupation the Huk guerrillas created village strongholds against the Japanese. After 1945, the new Philippine government, prompted by the US disarmed and arrested the Huks for allegedly being communists. The rebellion eventually petered out in the 1950s.\n\n1965 - Ferdinand Marcos is elected president; he declares martial law in 1972.\n\n1983 - Anti-Marcos lawyer Benigno Aquino is assassinated at Manila's airport as he returns from exile.\n\n1986 - Marcos ousted in \"people power\" revolt after claiming victory over Aquino's widow in an election that many believe was stolen.\n\n2001 - President Joseph Estrada is forced out by a military-backed \"people power\" uprising.\n\n2014 - The Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebel group signs a peace deal with the government, ending one of Asia's longest and deadliest conflicts.\n\n2017 - Islamic State jihadists attack the city of Marawi in Mindanao.\n\n2022 - Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the previous dictator, is elected president.\n\nThe Philippines capital Manila is among the most-populous and fastest-growing cities in South East Asia\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Sam Haskell (pictured on the front row) watches the 2017 contest\n\nThe Miss America Organization CEO, Sam Haskell, has resigned over leaked emails that disparaged pageant contestants.\n\nThe organisation said it would accept Mr Haskell's immediate resignation. Its chairperson, Lynn Weidner and two other executives are also leaving.\n\nThe emails reportedly include vulgar references to past winners and comments about their sex lives.\n\nThe organisation's president and chief operating officer, Josh Randle, has also resigned \"in light of recent and new developments\", a spokesperson confirmed to the BBC.\n\nAnnouncing the resignation of Mr Haskell in a statement posted on its Twitter account, the Miss America Organisation (MAO) said Ms Weidner would help install a new leadership before leaving.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Miss America Org This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe announcement of Mr Haskell's resignation came only hours after the MAO put out a statement saying he had been suspended.\n\nThe Huffington Post published the alleged contents of three years of emails between Mr Haskell and other pageant officials.\n\nSome of the emails referred to Mallory Hagan, the winner of the 2013 contest\n\nThe internal emails include name-calling, slut-shaming and fat-shaming of some of the contestants who had taken part in the pageant.\n\nThe revelations caused Dick Clark Productions, MAO's television sponsor, to cut ties with the long-standing pageant.\n\nDick Clark Productions said in a statement on Friday they had been made aware of the emails \"several months ago\" and were \"appalled by their unacceptable content\".\n\nPressure for the resignation of Mr Haskell also came from 49 former Miss Americas in an open letter.\n\nA former Miss America winner, Mallory Hagan, who was mocked in some of the emails said she \"wasn't shocked, but [felt] validated by the emails\".\n\n\"For the longest time, I've tried to explain to people around me that this is happening or these things are being said,\" the winner of the 2013 pageant told NBC.\n\nGretchen Carlson, a former Miss America and a television presenter, said the alleged emails contained \"disgusting statements about women\" and \"vulgar slurs\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Gretchen Carlson This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a statement, Mr Haskell said he had been \"under stress from a full year of attacks by two Miss Americas, and while I don't ever want to offer an excuse, I do want to offer context\".\n\nBut he also said the original story was \"vicious\" with \"conveniently edited emails\".", "Beach lifeguard Richie Heard spends summers working in north Devon and winters saving refugees in the Aegean Sea.\n\nHe spoke during a visit home from the Greek island of Lesbos, where he is operations manager with Refugee Rescue.\n\nHe said the sound of crying babies, stranded with their parents in boats on rocks, never leaves him.", "Jodie Willsher was working at the the Keighley Road Aldi store in Skipton, North Yorkshire, when she was stabbed\n\nA 44-year-old man has been charged with murdering a woman who was stabbed to death in an Aldi supermarket.\n\nMum-of-one Jodie Willsher, 30, was attacked as she worked in the Keighley Road store in Skipton, North Yorkshire, at 15:30 GMT on Thursday.\n\nShe sustained multiple serious injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene, North Yorkshire Police said.\n\nNeville Hord, from Skipton, has been remanded in custody and is to appear at York Magistrates' Court on Saturday.\n\nMalcolm Willsher described his wife as \"lovely and warm and always had a smile on her face\".\n\nHe added: \"She was amazing, beautiful and a lovely person. She was a doting mother and a loving wife.\"\n\nTributes have been paid to 30-year-old Jodie Willsher\n\nAldi said the store would be closed until further notice to allow police to carry out investigations.\n\nColin Breslin, regional managing director at Aldi, said: \"Jodie was a much loved and popular colleague.\n\n\"We are all deeply shocked and saddened by this incident. Our thoughts are with her family at this difficult time.\"\n\nMatthew Barnes, chief executive officer of Aldi UK and Ireland, said the company was \"doing everything we can to support our people and all those affected during this difficult time\".\n\nFlowers were left in the supermarket car park, with friends describing her as \"a truly lovely woman and very popular\".\n\nFlowers have been left outside the Aldi store in Keighley Road\n\nPolice have appealed for a \"brave witness who restrained the suspect\" to come forward.\n\nThe man, believed to be in his sixties, was wearing a flat cap and a two-tone light and dark walking jacket.\n\nOfficers believe he was shopping with a woman who has short light-brown hair and was wearing a light-coloured, possibly grey, jacket.\n\nThe force said: \"He was the first person to try and intervene and was involved in a sustained struggle.\n\n\"They appear to have left the store before the emergency services arrived.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sheeran said he felt \"very proud and happy\" in a video message\n\nEd Sheeran has beaten off competition from Eminem - and himself - to land his first UK Christmas number one single.\n\nPerfect - which he released in three separate versions in a bid to clinch the Christmas crown - had faced a challenge from Eminem's River, on which Sheeran provides guest vocals.\n\nBut the rapper ended in second place, while Wham's Last Christmas came third.\n\nIn a video message, the British singer said securing the Christmas top spot was \"an actual dream come true\".\n\nThe video for Perfect riffs on Wham's classic Last Christmas clip\n\n\"I'm very proud and happy,\" he said. \"Thank you so much and have a very merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy new year.\"\n\nSheeran's domination of the Christmas chart was all but assured after he released a new version of his doe-eyed ballad with Beyonce.\n\nThat version drove most of his sales - though chart rules mean Beyonce is denied a credit on the Christmas number one, with Sheeran's original counted as the lead track.\n\nEminem's River took an early lead on streaming services but faltered as the week went on.\n\nFans had hoped to send Last Christmas to number one to mark the first anniversary of George Michael's death.\n\nDespite support from ITV's This Morning and Michael's ex-bandmate Andrew Ridgeley, however, the song failed to beat its original chart position of number two.\n\nBack in 1984, it was denied the top spot by Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas? charity single.\n\nAs has become tradition, yuletide standards by Mariah Carey and The Pogues have returned to the Top 40 off the back of huge streaming figures.\n\nThere are 16 Christmas songs in the Top 40, among them such classics as Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee and Wonderful Christmastime by Sir Paul McCartney.\n\nThe presence of lesser-known tracks, like Ariana Grande's Santa Tell Me and Elton John's Step Into Christmas, can be explained by their prominent placing in Spotify's Christmas is Coming playlist.\n\n\"By and large, the most popular ones are the ones featured on the front page of Spotify,\" chart analyst James Masterton told the BBC.\n\n\"It exposes the amount of influence the application has over the singles market.\"\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by MariahCareyVEVO This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nMariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You was the UK's favourite festive song on Spotify this year.\n\nAnd it's not just an advent phenomenon. Data released by the BPI this week showed Carey's classic had been played 16,000 times in the first week of July.\n\nAccording to Spotify, the most popular day for streaming seasonal songs was 13 December, when 13% of all music played in the UK was Christmas-themed.\n\nIn the album chart, Eminem's album Revival did manage to dislodge Sheeran's Divide.\n\nIt is the star's eighth UK number one album in a row, with his six previous studio albums and the 2005 greatest hits collection Curtain Call all making the top spot.\n\nLed Zeppelin and Abba are the only other artists to accumulated eight consecutive number one albums in the UK.\n\nRevival's first week sales are the second highest of 2017, behind Divide.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "A leading doctor tells Santa to swap his mince pies for some of Rudolph's carrots this Christmas\n\nFather Christmas could be doing serious harm to his health by overloading with mince pies and sherry, a leading doctor has warned.\n\nProfessor Helen Stokes-Lampard, head of the Royal College of GPs, said Santa could face a raft of health issues because of his diet and busy schedule.\n\nSome of his conditions could include gout, sleep deprivation and alcoholism.\n\nBut we can all help Santa get a bit fitter, and inspire ourselves too, she says.\n\nProfessor Stokes-Lampard said: \"He's overweight, and all of us do our bit to add to his obesity by leaving mince pies and cookies out for him, and milk or alcohol.\n\n\"If Mr Claus was a patient at my practice, I would be encouraging him to adopt a vastly healthier diet and take more exercise in the new year.\"\n\nSanta could risk 'mixing up important presents' if he has too much sherry\n\nAs well as running between houses, rather than riding on his sleigh, the professor thinks he should \"give the sherry a miss\" and share some of Rudolph's carrots instead.\n\n\"The human body can only process one unit of alcohol per hour, which means excessive consumption could make Santa drunk very quickly,\" she said.\n\n\"This not only increases the likelihood of him slipping in the snow or mixing up important presents, but could also lead to long-term issues affecting his mood and mental health.\"\n\nSo now Prof Stokes-Lampard thinks it is time for Saint Nicholas to take better care of himself and lead by example.\n\n\"Although he sets a brilliant example of good behaviour and teaches the importance of giving rather than receiving, he could probably do more to encourage healthy lifestyles - something youngsters and adults alike can benefit from,\" she says.", "Last updated on .From the section Middlesbrough\n\nChampionship side Middlesbrough parted company with manager Garry Monk hours after a 2-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday.\n\nThe former Swansea and Leeds United boss has been replaced by academy manager Craig Liddle on an interim basis \"while a successor is appointed\", the club said.\n\nMiddlesbrough are ninth in the league and have won 10 of their 23 games.\n\nNews of Monk's departure was announced on the club's Twitter feed and comes just six months after he was appointed.\n\nMonk took charge of the club in June and was tasked with leading the side back to the Premier League following relegation last season.\n\nHe oversaw just four wins in Middlesbrough's first 13 league games but the club won six of their next 10 games to move to within three points of the play-off places.\n\nSpeaking after Saturday's win at Hillsborough, Monk said: \"That was our best away performance of the season and I thought it was a thoroughly deserved win.\n\n\"They are a good team with some quality players, but overall we dealt with their moments pretty well.\n\n\"We have to build on this and use it as a springboard. There are more things to work on and improve.\"\n\n\"I'm certain there will have been talks behind the scenes, certain someone is lined up.\n\n\"It's still an attractive job, people will be really thinking about this job because they know the chairman [Steve Gibson], he's is one of the best in the business.\n\n\"Don't get me wrong though, when things need to be changed, the chairman is ruthless and Middlesbrough Football Club comes first.\"", "The new scheme would pay to fix damage caused by lorries to roads\n\nThe government is considering a \"pay-per-mile\" scheme for lorries to cover the cost of damage to roads.\n\nTransport Secretary Chris Grayling confirmed the current HGV levy, used to pay for wear and tear on the road network, was being consulted on.\n\nCritics say the current scheme means international drivers using the roads do not have to pay towards upkeep.\n\nBut the Road Haulage Association (RHA) said it was unfair to target lorries and it needs to see more detail.\n\nMr Grayling denied any plans for a road toll system for other vehicles for the \"foreseeable future\".\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the minister said it was about creating a \"level playing field\" for British and international hauliers.\n\n\"Our hauliers often complain that a continental trucker comes in with a tank full of lower duty diesel, spends several days working in the country, goes away again and pays nothing towards the use of the roads,\" he said.\n\n\"We already have a system in place that provides some limited contribution, but we're now consulting the industry.\"\n\nBut a spokesman for the RHA said he was \"worried\" about the announcement.\n\n\"Although it's good news that more money is being spent on roads, it's not right to target only lorries with a new tax,\" he said.\n\n\"This has to be revenue neutral for lorry firms. If we fail to do this, it will make us less competitive than our European counterparts.\"\n\nThe government is also consulting on a fund for work to A-roads\n\nThe news came as the government launched a separate consultation to find out which A-roads in England needed cash to bring them up to scratch.\n\nThe Department for Transport announced funding in the summer to rejuvenate the road network, but is now asking councils to apply for up to £100m per road.\n\nPriority will go to road widening projects on dual carriageways, improving road safety measure and major junction improvements.\n\nAbout 5,000 miles of A-roads across the country will be eligible for the multi-billion pound funding pot to improve the nation's strategic road network.\n\nThe consultation will last for 12 weeks, but Mr Grayling said he hoped plans to start development next year and building work to start within three years.\n\n\"We've been spending a lot of money recently on the motorways and big dual carriageways,\" he said. \"What we have not been doing is sorting out the next tier down.\n\n\"This [consultation] is all about medium-sized towns on those A-roads that have got clogged up centres, that have got lorries waiting at traffic lights, that have got pollution in the centre.\n\n\"It's about time we started to build those bypasses, improve those roads, add extra stretches of dual carriageway and focus on the next tier down of roads.\"\n\nMotorists in the UK drove 324 billion miles in 2016 - up 2.2% on the previous year - but AA spokesman Luke Bosdet said many drivers suffered a \"daily nightmare\" at notorious pinch points.\n\nAs a result, he said improvements to ease traffic flow were \"very welcome\".\n\nRAC director of motoring Steve Gooding said: \"For many businesses an economically important major road is the one that runs right up to the factory gate.\n\n\"It will be interesting to see whether the business bodies consider the government's plans to go far enough in designating the roads that matter to their members.\"\n\nBut Bridget Fox, of the Campaign for Better Transport, said the government should focus on improving major transport links, rather than overhauling major road networks.\n\nShe said the Department for Transport should apply a \"fix it first\" strategy to prioritising road maintenance, and improving public transport and cycling routes.", "Theresa May has insisted she is more than \"Madame Brexit,\" having been given the title by Poland's prime minister.\n\nShe said there were \"other things\" she wanted to achieve apart from delivering a successful exit from the EU - such as improvements to education and training.\n\nAnd she insisted she was \"in it for the long-term\", shrugging off suggestions she had had a bad year.\n\nThe prime minister was speaking to reporters during a visit to UK troops stationed in Cyprus.\n\nMrs May gained her new nickname on Thursday, after holding talks in Warsaw with Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.\n\nMr Morawiecki told their joint press conference: \"As Madame Brexit has said, Brexit is Brexit.\"\n\nMrs May said she had been amused by the comment.\n\n\"You might have noticed I smiled when I heard the translation of Mrs Brexit or Madame Brexit,\" she told reporters.\n\n\"Look, I am going to deliver on Brexit. That is undoubtedly the case, but I am doing other things as well. If you look at the changes we are making on skills, education and training for example.\n\n\"The industrial strategy which actually was talked about with the Poles as well… and global Britain.\"\n\nShe said she had completed a number of foreign trips in the run up to Christmas \"promoting the UK both in trading terms, but also our role in defence and security\".\n\nAsked if she would characterise 2017 - a year which saw her lose her Commons majority in a snap election she had called - as one of the most difficult years of her career, Mrs May highlighted her recent breakthrough in Brexit talks.\n\n\"If you look at what's happened over the past couple of months we have made sufficient progress on the Brexit negotiations, we have had a good Budget that is building a Britain that is fit for the future.\n\n\"What we've put into the Budget in terms of funding for the health service but also housing is really important for the future of this country.\n\n\"We have had the industrial strategy, which I see as an absolutely crucial plan and part of actually ensuring that our economy does meet the needs of the future and is providing the jobs of the future for the people in the UK.\"\n\nShe said she was \"optimistic\" about making progress on defence and security, as well as trade, \"as we go into phase two of Brexit negotiations\".\n\n\"What we want to achieve is in the interests of the EU27 as well as ours,\" she added.", "Ceylian Bonnet Bocher's mother had him baptised ahead of the operation as doctors feared the worse\n\nA boy hailed a \"Christmas miracle\" after surviving surgery to remove an orange-sized tumour from his brain has received a national award for courage.\n\nIt was feared Ceylian Bonnet Bocher, three, from Leicestershire, would not survive a 10-hour operation on Christmas Eve 2016.\n\nHowever, on Christmas Day he was able to sit up and open his presents.\n\nHis mother said she had him baptised ahead of the operation as the doctors were doubtful he would pull through.\n\nMarina Bonnet Bocher, who nominated her son for the Cancer Research UK award, said: \"I'll never forget [the medical staff] bringing him out of surgery into intensive care.\n\n\"They were smiling and so proud. They called Ceylian their 'Christmas miracle'.\"\n\nMrs Bonnet Bocher said she noticed her son was not walking properly in November last year and thought he needed new shoes.\n\nHis walking became worse and after a visit to a GP, Ceylian was referred for an MRI scan.\n\n\"By then he couldn't even sit up in bed without falling down,\" she said.\n\n\"The surgeon told us he'd found the biggest tumour he'd ever seen in a child that age and didn't know if it was even possible to operate.\n\n\"We were so scared we got a priest to come and baptise him before the operation at Birmingham Children's Hospital.\"\n\nCeylian was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a rare type of bone and soft tissue cancer.\n\nHe was able to return home to Ashby de la Zouch in January, before undergoing cycles of chemotherapy which he finished in September.\n\nHe had also visited the US, in May, to have proton beam therapy.\n\nMrs Bonnet Bocher said: \"He was so brave throughout his treatment and now our energetic boy is back, smiling from morning to evening, cycling and playing football.\"\n\nThe three-year-old was awarded the Cancer Research UK Kids and Teens Star award for bravery.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "It was spotted off the coast of Sanremo and moved inland as a tornado, causing damage in the city.", "Bodycam video has been released showing the moment a police officer Tasered his partner.\n\nThe incident happened in Riverside, Ohio when the officers were attempting an arrest.", "It was more gripping than any box set we could get our hands on.\n\nOver two years, the investigations into Russian interference in the US election, and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin, delivered daily developments and drama worthy of anything seen in House of Cards.\n\nIn the end, 35 people and three companies were charged by Robert Mueller, the special counsel who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.\n\nHere's our guide to the main characters in the four seasons of the only political drama that mattered.\n\nThis was the season in which Donald Trump, the reality TV star, took centre stage in his own political drama by launching a presidential campaign. He was supported by his family and got the attention of the Russians. The season ended with a cliffhanger - could Trump the outsider actually win?!\n\nIt's been a while since all of this happened, so let's remind you of the key players in this season.\n\nWho was he? Donald Trump, the billionaire candidate (who by Season Three is the 45th president of the United States). If you really need a refresher, here's his life story.\n\nKey plot line As Donald Trump was busy traversing the country canvassing for votes in Season One, Russia hacked into the emails of his Democratic rivals, investigators later said.\n\nThe question is why? Was the Kremlin trying to alter the outcome of the election, and what did Trump and his campaign know?\n\nSkip forward to the end of Season Four and Mr Trump stood triumphant before reporters in a Florida airport, celebrating what he called \"a complete and total exoneration\".\n\nBut in between, there was no shortage of drama or tension.\n\nWho was he? He was Trump's campaign chairman before being forced to quit over his ties to Russian oligarchs and Ukraine.\n\nKey plot line He was one of the biggest dominoes to fall. When he ended up being arrested, it was a big season-ending shocker.\n\nManafort hung around a bit in Season One, but then disappeared from view for a while.\n\nHe quit the campaign after being accused of having links to pro-Russian groups in Ukraine. He also sat in on a crucial meeting with a Russian lawyer who may have been trying to feed the Trump team classified information (more on that later).\n\nAfter an FBI raid on his home in Season Three, Manafort was found guilty on eight charges of tax fraud, bank fraud, and failing to disclose foreign banks accounts and is sentenced to 47 months in prison.\n\nIn Season Four, he agreed to co-operate with a special counsel inquiry in exchange for a reduced prison term. But then, in a twist - prosecutors claimed he breached his plea bargain by repeatedly lying to the FBI.\n\nRead more: The man who helped Trump win\n\nWho was he? The president's eldest child, who it emerged met some questionable Russians.\n\nKey plot line Donald Trump Jr's role in this unfolding saga all came down to a meeting he had with a Russian lawyer, which was set up by a music publicist (the full details of which come out in Season Three). If it sounds random, then in many ways it is.\n\nThe publicist, Rob Goldstone, offered Trump Jr a meeting with lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, promising him dirt on Hillary Clinton.\n\nThis meeting was the key to much of our plot line because it raised several key questions. Did this amount to the campaign colluding with a foreign government? Why did he agree to the meeting?\n\nWhat happened at the meeting was the scene investigators played over and over again as they tried to work out if there was any impropriety. In the end, no collusion charges were brought.\n\nDonald Trump confounded his critics by winning the presidency. But the transition was as gripping as the season before it as Trump picked his cabinet, introducing key characters to the mix.\n\nThe season ended with Trump taking the oath of office on a cold January morning - but there were more twists to come.\n\nWho was he? The granite-faced former general who later became the shortest-serving member of Donald Trump's cabinet. He resigned after not being honest about his contact with a Russian official - and was later charged with making false statements to the FBI.\n\nKey plot line Flynn was appointed national security adviser just days after the election, against the advice of then-President Obama, who warned Trump not to hire him. Flynn's starring role came in December 2016, just before Trump was sworn in, when he spoke to the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak.\n\nThe Washington Post and New York Times said the men discussed Russian sanctions, and that Flynn later lied to the Vice President Mike Pence about the conversation (Mr Kislyak says the men discussed only \"simple things\").\n\nThe substance of those talks eventually led to Flynn being prosecuted as part of the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller.\n\nAt the end of Season Three, in December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to making \"false, fictitious and fraudulent statements\" to the FBI about what he and Kislyak discussed.\n\nWith that, the investigation reached Trump's inner circle.\n\nRead more: Out after 23 days - who is Michael Flynn?\n\nWho was he? Many roads in this drama led back to Sergei Kislyak, the jolly and charismatic figure, who up until July 2017 was the Russian ambassador to Washington.\n\nKey plot line Kislyak's role in this drama remained unclear up to the end - but many of the players in this drama had meetings with him, and that put them in awkward spots.\n\nThe key questions for investigators were: why were they drawn to him, and what was said? The Russian ambassador spoke to both Flynn and Attorney-General Jeff Sessions - meetings which both Trump officials didn't initially acknowledge took place.\n\nAnything else we should know? Well, Russia fiercely fought back against claims on CNN that Kislyak was a \"top spy and recruiter of spies\".\n\nWho was he? Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III hovered in the background during Season One, when he was an Alabama senator and a trusted Trump adviser, but we really got to know him during Season Two, when he became Trump's nominee for attorney general, a job he kept for almost two years.\n\nKey plot line Sessions was one of several Trump aides to meet Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, and question marks emerged over the nature of those meetings.\n\nWhen the FBI investigation focused on the Trump campaign, Sessions stood down from the inquiry, much to Trump's irritation.\n\nThat decision to step down dogged him to the end, and he was written out of the series close to the end of Season Four, when Trump forced him to resign.\n\nThat move put control of the Mueller investigation into the hands of a Trump loyalist.\n\nRead more: An attorney general dogged by scandal\n\nThis was where the drama really picked up and all the plot lines came together. A lot of the background characters we saw in Season One came back with a vengeance and the infighting got nasty - and this is when the police started circling.\n\nWho was she? A Russian lawyer with a fearsome reputation who fought against US restrictions on Russia. But was she a Kremlin stooge?\n\nDespite earlier denials, she admitted in April 2018 to being an \"informant\" for Russia's prosecutor general.\n\nKey plot line Hers was a small but crucial role - she's the one who Manafort, Trump Jr and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner met in June 2016, the details of which begin trickling out a year later in a flashback sequence.\n\nShe said the meeting was to discuss adoptions - but those who helped set it up said she was offering dirt on the Democrats and Hillary Clinton's campaign.\n\nWhile the meeting became a central plot point, whatever happened inside never actually led to any charges.\n\nThat meeting would never have happened without...\n\nWho were they? Emin Agalarov is Azerbaijan's biggest pop star, of course. Have you not heard Love is a Deadly Game? Emin helped bring Donald Trump's Miss Universe competition to Russia and the two are close enough to send each other birthday messages. His dad, Aras, is a billionaire who mixes in the highest circles of influence in Moscow.\n\nKey plot line Again in a flashback scene, we met Emin as he set the wheels in motion on that Trump Jr meeting.\n\nAn email sent to Trump Jr suggested Emin was offering information on the Democrats (Emin said he wasn't). The email also said Aras Agalarov had apparently met the \"crown prosecutor\" of Russia - a role that weirdly didn't exist - and got information on Hillary Clinton.\n\nWho was he? He became deputy attorney general under Jeff Sessions. In the TV drama of the Russia scandal, this is the sort of role that would go to a solid Broadway actor you recognise but can't put a name to.\n\nKey plot line When Sessions stood down from leading the main investigation into the Trump-Russia ties, it fell to Rosenstein to do that job. In a major plot development, he appointed a special investigator - not a popular move with the White House.\n\nRead more: Who is Rod Rosenstein?\n\nWho was he? Married to Trump's daughter, Ivanka, Kushner was the character who was seen but very rarely heard.\n\nKey plot line Amid cries of nepotism, he was given a plum White House job as senior adviser to the president with a wide-ranging portfolio. It was his contacts with the Russians during the election campaign and beyond that led investigators to circle him.\n\nIn June 2016, Kushner attended THAT meeting with Donald Trump Jr and the Russian lawyer. He said he was so bored he messaged his assistant to call him so he could leave.\n\nKushner was also another character who had repeated contact with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak - contact that he initially failed to disclose.\n\nRead more: The son-in-law with Trump's ear\n\nWho was he? A British former tabloid journalist, with a penchant for selfies in silly hats, was perhaps an unlikely addition to the cast, but in most good dramas there's always room for the slightly out-of-place eccentric.\n\nKey plot line Rob Goldstone found his way into Donald Trump's circle of trust thanks to his connections with Russian pop star Emin Agalarov.\n\nGoldstone managed the pop star, and it was he who contacted Donald Trump Jr on behalf of his client to set up that now-infamous meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016. Goldstone sent an email to Trump Jr promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.\n\nRead more: The Music Man with a love for hats\n\nWho was he? At 6ft 8in, James Comey was a towering figure, the character who gave little away about himself personally but had a huge role in this story.\n\nKey plot line He first entered this drama in Season One, when as head of the FBI he reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails - just weeks before the election. Democrats blamed him for her loss, Republicans hailed him a hero. That, we thought, was the last we'd seen of him.\n\nJump ahead to Season Three, when months into the Trump presidency, Comey was fired by the new president. In true television drama style, he learned of his sacking as he was watching TV news during a trip to LA. Up to then, Comey was heading up an investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.\n\nEven by the end of the series, whether this amounted to obstruction of justice by the president remained an unresolved plot point.\n\nComey's testimony to the Senate was one of the most set-pieces in the series up to this point, as - under oath - he told politicians he was asked to pledge loyalty to the president, but refused.\n\nRead more: The FBI director who took centre stage\n\nWho was he? A former election adviser to Trump, although you'd be forgiven if you didn't remember the face. He was in only a few scenes in Season Two, but he had a massive role to play in Season Three, becoming the first person to plead guilty as part of the investigation.\n\nKey plot line In late October 2017, court documents emerged showing Papadopoulos had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the timing of meetings with alleged go-betweens for Russia.\n\nAfter lying to the FBI, he deleted an incriminating Facebook account and destroyed a phone.\n\nHis guilty plea and co-operation with the investigation had the potential to damage the US leader because it related directly to his campaign - but in the end, it didn't do so.\n\nWho was he? The man who held the fate of the Trump presidency in his hands.\n\nKey plot line Some characters wielded a lot of power, but didn't have a starring role, such as Robert Mueller, the tall chiselled figure who was appointed as \"special counsel\" to take over the Russia investigation after the dismissal of James Comey. Mueller came from the same stock as Comey - both were former heads of the FBI.\n\nThere were no showboating scenes and powerhouses speeches from Mueller in this series - we only ever saw him studiously working in his office.\n\nThere were reports that the president considered firing Mueller at one point - but Mueller stayed in the background doing his job until the very end of the series.\n\nAfter Season Three ended with the first charges being laid down by Robert Mueller, things really sped up in Season Four. The president's fury with the special counsel investigation increased and he fired his Attorney-General. But the series ended with no charges laid against the president and a sense of victory in the White House. Might we see a spin-off series...?\n\nWho was he? OK, he wasn't Putin's chef by this point, but he once was. In Season Four, he was the man accused of spearheading Russia's attempts to interfere in the 2016 election.\n\nKey plot line A little out of the blue, Mueller announced charges against Prigozhin and 12 other Russians, accusing them of tampering with the US election by (among other things) organising and promoting political rallies in the US.\n\nIn one surreal flashback sequence, we even see the Russians trying to buy a cage large enough to hold an actress dressed as Hillary Clinton in a prison costume.\n\nRead more: Seven key takeaways from indictment\n\nWho was he? The man who once said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump - but who instead turned against him.\n\nKey plot line Cohen, as Trump's long-time personal lawyer, lingered around the edges of the plot for the first three seasons, but became the big player of the fourth.\n\nWhen Mueller's team began looking into Cohen's finances, they passed on their concerns to investigators in New York.\n\nThen the plot took an unexpected new turn: Cohen, a long-time Trump loyalist, flipped and began co-operating with investigators. Not only that, but he ended up giving them a lot of help in exchange for a lighter sentence.\n\nCohen ended up admitting violating campaign finance laws, committing tax evasion and lying to Congress.\n\nThe last shot of the entire series was a mournful Cohen being locked into his jail cell.\n\nWho was he? A long-time Washington political operative who acted as an informal adviser to the Trump campaign. He called himself an agent provocateur, and once defended his actions by saying: \"One man's dirty trick is another man's political, civic action.\"\n\nKey plot line Stone was one of those memorable bit-part characters in Seasons One and Two - a colourful character known for his fiery tongue, sharp suits and the Richard Nixon tattoo spread across his back.\n\nTowards the end of Season One, he appeared to let the cat out of the bag, hinting on Twitter that there was damaging information coming out on Hillary Clinton. Soon after, that information (that we later learned was found by Russia) was made public.\n\nAfter a bit of a lull in the middle of Season Four, investigators indicted Stone on seven counts of witness tampering, obstruction and false statements, although he wasn't charged with co-ordinating with Russia.\n\nAll the way through, he denied any wrongdoing. He, like the president, called the investigation a \"witch-hunt\" and once said the accusations of collusion with Russia were \"a steaming plate of bull\".\n\nText by Rajini Vaidyanathan and Roland Hughes; illustrations by Gerry Fletcher", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during their 2017 visit to Nottingham\n\nMeghan Markle has had a taste of royal life, as she joined her fiance Prince Harry on their first joint official public engagement in Nottingham.\n\nExcited crowds cheered as the couple greeted well-wishers ahead of a visit to a World Aids Day charity fair hosted by the Terrence Higgins Trust.\n\nThey split up to talk to people lining both sides of their route and were given cards, flowers and chocolate.\n\nAfter the charity fair, they met head teachers at a nearby school.\n\nWell-wishers gathered in the city ahead of the visit to catch a glimpse of the couple, including Helena Bottomley, Zoe Scott and Carole Bingham, from East and West Bridgford.\n\nMs Scott said: \"We love the royals. We are genuinely happy for Harry.\"\n\n\"We all had our children at the same time as Diana [Princess of Wales] so we feel a real allegiance. She would be so thrilled,\" said Ms Bottomley.\n\nThe couple announced their engagement on Monday and are due to marry at Windsor Castle in May.\n\nOne of the people Prince Harry stopped to speak to was Julie Ball, 51, of Netherfield, who said the prince had commented on her Santa gloves.\n\n\"He said 'great gloves' and pulled one down over my fingers,\" she said. \"I said they're from Primark for £3.\n\n\"When Meghan walked past she said the same thing. She said, 'We have the same taste.'\"\n\nAnother member of the public shouted to Prince Harry: \"How does it feel being a ginger with Meghan?\"\n\n\"It's great isn't it?\" The prince replied.\n\nDickie Arbiter, former royal spokesman, told the BBC the couple took their time to talk to as many people as possible on their 30-minute walkabout.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A card designed especially for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has been given to them\n\nThe couple's engagement was announced on Monday\n\nUniversity of Nottingham students Raushana Nurzhubalina, from Kazakhstan, and Jenn Galandy, from Canada, set their alarms for 06:00 GMT to get a prime spot to try to see Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.\n\n\"It is such an honour to see the royals,\" Ms Nurzhubalina said.\n\n\"I'm also a fan of Suits, so it is a chance to see a star of that too.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kensington Palace This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRoyal fan Irene Hardman had a goody bag ready to hand over to the couple, including copies of the local paper and two fridge magnets \"so they don't fight over it\".\n\nSpeaking afterwards, the 81-year-old said: \"I cried - she's wonderful, and it's fantastic. They're so genuine.\"\n\nThey are due to marry at Windsor Castle in May\n\nBy the time the royal couple arrived, the pavements in the Lace Market were packed.\n\nPrince Harry and Meghan spent around half an hour meeting the people of Nottingham who had come out in force despite the cold.\n\nMeghan appeared very relaxed and perfectly at ease. This was her first official royal engagement with Harry and if she was nervous at all it did not show.\n\nShe smiled, she chatted, at one point she even picked up someone's glove and handed it back to them.\n\nThis was a confident first public appearance. The couple split up at points to cover both parts of the pavement and meet the maximum number of people. Meghan was happy to shake hands with the crowd and as she wasn't wearing gloves, the ring was on show.\n\nTactile with her fiancée and the crowd - it's fair to say the response from the people was overwhelmingly positive.\n\nAfter the walkabout, Prince Harry and Ms Markle went to the Nottingham Contemporary Exhibition Centre for an event to mark World Aids Day.\n\nDominic Edwards, from the Terrence Higgins Trust, told the BBC the charity was \"thrilled\" the couple had chosen to visit Nottingham, and said: \"I think it really underlines his great support for HIV as a cause.\"\n\nRoyal commentator Richard FitzWilliams, said this visit represented a link with the legacy of Princess Diana's influential work on HIV 30 years ago and was \"no coincidence\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Kensington Palace This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPrince Harry has spent time in Nottingham both publicly and privately since he first met young people there in 2013, when he was exploring issues around youth violence.\n\nA year later, he established the Full Effect programme, which aims to stop youth violence in the city.\n\nAt Nottingham Academy, the couple will watch a \"hip hopera\" and meet students.\n\nThe handbag Ms Markle chose to carry on her Nottingham visit has already sold out.\n\nThe bag was made by the Scottish label, Strathberry, which said \"it was a fantastic surprise\" to see the bride-to-be carrying one of its designs.\n\nMs Markle was wrapped up in a long navy coat by Mackage - a brand also favoured by actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Halle Berry, Eva Mendes and Blake Lively.\n\nShe wore the coat over a beige cotton, full midi skirt from British-based fashion label Joseph, priced at £595, which also sold out on the brand's website.\n\nOn Tuesday, the couple's spokesman said Ms Markle would not be continuing her work on gender with the United Nations or with other organisations and instead would start new charity work as a full-time royal.\n\nMr Knauf said she planned to focus her attention on the UK and Commonwealth.\n\n\"This is the country that's going to be her home now and that means travelling around, getting to know the towns and cities and smaller communities,\" he said.\n\nShe will also become the fourth patron of the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.\n\nThe foundation is behind Prince Harry's Invictus Games - the Paralympic-style competition for injured servicemen and women and veterans - and also the mental health charity Heads Together.\n\nIt has also been announced that Ms Markle intends to become a British citizen and will work towards it in the coming years.", "The British government has issued a fresh warning about the security risks of using Russian anti-virus software.\n\nThe National Cyber Security Centre is to write to all government departments warning against using the products for systems related to national security.\n\nThe UK cyber-security agency will say the software could be exploited by the Russian government.\n\nSecurity firm Kaspersky Labs, accused in the US of being used by the Russian state for espionage, denied wrongdoing.\n\nKaspersky Labs is widely used by consumers and businesses across the globe, although they are not being advised to stop using the software, as well as by some parts of the UK government.\n\nOfficials stress they are not recommending members of the public or companies stop using Kaspersky products, which are used by about 400 million people globally.\n\nBarclays has stopped offering free Kaspersky software to customers as a \"precautionary decision\".\n\nOn Saturday, the UK bank emailed 290,000 online banking customers who had downloaded Kaspersky over the past decade - but advised those with the software already installed to take no action.\n\nA Barclays spokesman said: \"Even though this new guidance isn't directed at members of the public, we have taken the decision to withdraw the offer.\"\n\nFor it to work, anti-virus software like that sold by Kaspersky Labs requires extensive access to files on computers and networks to scan for malicious code.\n\nIt also requires the ability to communicate back to the company in order to receive updates and share data on what it finds.\n\nHowever, the concern is that this could be used by the Russian state for espionage.\n\nOfficials say the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)'s decision is based on a risk analysis, rather than evidence that such espionage has already taken place.\n\nIn the new government guidance, Ian Levy, NCSC's technical director, said: \"Given we assess the Russians do cyber-attacks against the UK for reasons of state, we believe some UK government and critical national systems are at increased risk.\"\n\nThe NCSC is understood to have been in dialogue with Kaspersky Labs and says it will explore ways of mitigating the risks to see if a system can be developed to independently verify the security of its products.\n\nIt comes amid heightened concern about Russian activity against the UK.\n\nLast month, Prime Minister Theresa May warned the Russian state was acting against the UK's national interest in cyberspace.\n\nFollowing her warning, Ciaran Martin, chief executive of the NCSC, said Russia had targeted British infrastructure, including power and telecoms.\n\n\"Beyond this relatively small number of systems, we see no compelling case at present to extend that advice to the wider public sector, more general enterprises, or individuals,\" Mr Levy said.\n\n\"Whatever you do, don't panic.\n\n\"For example, we really don't want people doing things like ripping out Kaspersky software at large as it makes little sense.\"\n\nKaspersky has faced a series of accusations in the US press in recent months.\n\nIt responded to one claim, that it downloaded classified US material from a home computer in the US, by presenting a detailed explanation of what took place.\n\nIt has always said there is no truth to the claims.\n\nEarlier this week, Eugene Kaspersky, chief executive and co-founder of the company, told me: \"We don't do anything wrong. We would never do that. It's simply not possible.\"\n\nHe denied claims the Russian state could use the company.\n\n\"It's not true that the Russian state has access to the data. There are no facts about that,\" he added.\n\nMr Kaspersky said that if he was ever asked by the Russian state to hand over data he would move his company out of the country.", "Last updated on .From the section England\n\nCoverage: Watch live on BBC Two & the BBC Sport app from 15:00 GMT, live on BBC Radio 5 live Drive from 15:20 GMT and follow live text commentary from 13:00 GMT on the BBC Sport website.\n\nEngland manager Gareth Southgate says his side \"cannot go to a World Cup and not try to win it\".\n\nThe draw for next summer's tournament in Russia takes place from 15:00 GMT on Friday, with the Three Lions in the second pot of seeded teams.\n\nIt will be Southgate's first major finals in charge of the national team.\n\n\"We've got to attempt to win each game, be as prepared as we can be, and see how far we can go,\" the 47-year-old told BBC Sport.\n\n\"Of course, a lot of these players are going to peak in two to four years' time, but we can't just write off the tournament. I don't think anyone in England would accept that.\n\n\"We can't go to a World Cup and not try to win it.\"\n• None England's best and worst scenarios in Russia\n• None All you need to know about the World Cup draw\n\nEngland have not won a knockout game at a major tournament since the 2006 World Cup in Germany, when they were beaten in the quarter-finals by Portugal during Sven-Goran Eriksson's reign.\n\nAt last year's European Championship, England's failure to make it past the last-16 stage cost Roy Hodgson his job as manager.\n\n\"Our last two tournaments have been a disappointment,\" said Southgate, who took over following Sam Allardyce's short-lived spell in charge last year.\n\n\"We've got to remember where we are starting from with this group of young players. But equally they're fiercely ambitious, everything is ahead of them and it's not for me to put a limit on their expectations.\"\n• None How have England improved since the 2014 World Cup?\n• None Listen: Butland should be England number one - Banks\n\nWho is Southgate desperate to avoid?\n\nA tough scenario for England in Friday's draw, which will be shown live across the BBC, would see them drawn in the same group as five-time winners Brazil, seven-time Africa Cup of Nations champions Egypt, and Serbia.\n\nAn easier draw, on paper, would see them in a group with Poland, Iran and Panama.\n\nEngland know they cannot meet Spain in the group stage, but Southgate is not focusing on who he would like to avoid.\n\n\"It's not that the draw is irrelevant but you can worry yourself silly thinking who you are going to play. We have got to be prepared to play everybody,\" he said.\n\n\"In the past we have become unstuck against teams we'd be expected to beat perhaps, and at times we have played really well against teams that might be seeded higher than us.\"\n\nHow will England acclimatise in Russia?\n\nSpread over 1,800 miles, 12 stadiums across Russia will host the 64 matches that comprise the 2018 World Cup.\n\nSouthgate confirmed England will be based in Repino, which is about 50km from St Petersburg, no matter what happens in Friday's draw.\n\n\"The longest flight is three hours, we do that on a bus journey from St George's Park for our games at Wembley, for us that's neither here nor there,\" said Southgate.\n\n\"Of course with any venue you never get absolutely everything you like but feel that's the best option for us.\"\n\nSouthgate earned 57 caps for his country between 1995 and 2004, and said he is able to draw on his experiences of playing at three major tournaments.\n\n\"Under both Glenn Hoddle and Kevin Keegan there was a relaxed environment,\" said the former Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough defender.\n\n\"There is enough tension around tournaments anyway without the manager adding to that. It's important for the players to feel relaxed on a day-to-day basis. You are trying to maintain some normality around the bubble that is the World Cup.\n\n\"That's not easy, but I think we have a good culture within the team, a group of players who enjoy each others' company.\"", "In 2007, Jeremy Bowen testified against Slobodan Praljak – a war criminal who has died after taking poison at the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague.\n\nThis is the story of the role the BBC's Middle East editor played in the trial of one of the key figures in the Bosnian civil war.", "Natasha Gordon denied assisting in the death of Matthew Birkinshaw\n\nA woman has been found guilty of encouraging the suicide of a man she met online.\n\nNatasha Gordon, 44, had denied encouraging or assisting in the death of Matthew Birkinshaw.\n\nThe 31-year-old postman, from Walsall, West Midlands, was found dead in his car at Rutland Water in December 2015.\n\nGordon, of Paston in Peterborough, was found guilty at Leicester Crown Court. Sentencing has been adjourned to a later date.\n\nAfter the trial, Mr Birkinshaw's parents said it had been the \"longest, hardest, saddest and most traumatic two years of our lives\".\n\nMatthew Birkinshaw's parents paid tribute to their \"thoughtful, sensitive, generous and compassionate\" son\n\nThe court heard the pair made contact on an internet forum where Mr Birkinshaw spoke of ending his life.\n\nGordon had attempted to encourage six others to commit suicide and told the postman she was prepared to be his \"suicide partner\", prosecutor Tim Cray told the jury.\n\nIn a message to Mr Birkinshaw, Gordon said: \"I really can't wait to go tomorrow, I hope you do not change your mind.\"\n\nThe court heard the pair travelled to Rutland Water together but Gordon left Mr Birkinshaw because she \"couldn't go through with it\".\n\nMr Cray said: \"This is a million miles from a mercy killing. All the evidence shows she thought and talked about suicide and was prepared to tell people she'd just met that it was the right thing to do.\"\n\nThe court was told Mr Birkinshaw was in good health, part of a loving family and had a girlfriend.\n\nHis parents urged others \"who may be struggling with these feelings\" to seek out agencies that can help.\n\n\"If this message averts one tragedy, it will mean that something positive has come out of the death of such a beautiful and much-loved son,\" they said.\n\nGordon told the court she had no input into Mr Birkinshaw's decision to kill himself and he had \"wanted to die\".\n\nShe told the jury: \"Matthew offered for me to go with him, it wasn't the other way round.\"\n\nThe court heard Gordon had a history of depression and in January 2015 had attempted to kill herself.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The Welsh and Scottish health ministers want Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to make it compulsory for UK suppliers of flour to fortify it with folic acid.\n\nIn a joint letter, they argue this will help reduce neural tube defects, such as spina bifida, in unborn babies.\n\nFigures from Food Standards Scotland show roughly four out of five women of childbearing age in the two nations are deficient in the key nutrient.\n\nThe US and 85 other countries already have a policy in place.\n\nScotland's Health Minister, Aileen Campbell, and her Welsh counterpart, Vaughan Gething, wrote: \"Both our governments have long called for further action in this area at a UK level.\n\n\"There remains a compelling case for action across the UK to reduce neural tube defects incidence, particularly in the most socio-economically deprived areas.\"\n\nIt came after an independent Scottish review found it would not be cost-effective or practical to implement that change in Scotland alone.\n\nThe Scottish government had considered making the change last year.\n\nFolic acid occurs naturally in dark green leafy vegetables but the findings found three-quarters of women across the UK don't get enough.\n\nThe ministers said their position is supported by the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, where 83% of women of childbearing age have folate deficiency.\n\nGovernment advisers have recommended adding folic acid to flour for 18 years.\n\nIn the meantime, some food manufacturers have reduced the amount of folic acid they add to other foods, such as cereals, in anticipation of the fortification of flour.\n\nA Department of Health spokesperson said they will carefully consider the recommendations and \"respond in due course.\"\n\nIn Scotland, 158 babies were born between 2007 and 2011 who were suffering from neural tube defects while 131 pregnancies were terminated after these were detected over the same period.\n\nA spokeswoman from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) also backed the call, saying: \"We strongly support the mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid to reduce the incidence of neural tube defects in the UK, which often result in the termination of a much-wanted pregnancy.\n\n\"There are very few public health interventions which have such a strong evidence base as this one.\"\n\nAndy Wynd from the charity Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus Scotland said: \"The issue of flour fortification is particularly relevant in Scotland as more children are born with spina bifida in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK.\"\n\nCiting research from other countries, Mr Wynd said that adding folic acid could reduce neural tube defects in Scotland by some 70%.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The prime minister says she is \"cheering on\" Debbie McGee to win this year's Strictly Come Dancing.\n\nTheresa May said Ms McGee, who is one of her constituents, was \"doing very well\" in the BBC show but her rival Alexandra Burke was also \"very good\".\n\nLast year the PM backed her political rival, ex-shadow chancellor Ed Balls.\n\nThe show has proved popular with politicians. Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable and former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe have both taken part in past series.\n\nMs McGee made her name as assistant to her late husband, the magician Paul Daniels.\n\nShe is a former ballet dancer and is one of the favourites to win the dancing show.\n\nThe prime minister said she had not been watching the foreign secretary's father, Stanley Johnson, on I'm A Celebrity; Get Me Out of Here.\n\nBut she told reporters, during a trip to the Middle East, she had been \"cheering on my constituent Debbie McGee in Strictly Come Dancing\".\n\nAsked if she thought Ms McGee could win, the prime minister replied: \"She's very good. Alexandra Burke is also very good, but one or two of the men seem to be quite dark horses too.\n\n\"So it is a good quality competition this year.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Snow footage from around the UK\n\nParts of the UK could face disruption on Friday morning, amid warnings of wintry showers and plunging temperatures.\n\nParts of eastern England, Kent and Scotland have been blanketed in a layer of snow, but forecasters say another 5cm (2ins) could fall in some areas.\n\nThe Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for ice and snow over eastern England and Scotland.\n\nIt urged people to be careful on roads and pavements.\n\nThe warnings are in place until 10:00 GMT on Friday.\n\nOvernight temperatures will be below freezing across much of the UK, falling to as low as -8C degrees in some parts of Scotland.\n\nBBC weather presenter Rebecca Graham said the wintry showers will continue coming further inland, into the East Midlands, the South East and Kent.\n\nSnow surrounded the Angel of the North, near Gateshead\n\nNunnington Hall in North Yorkshire in the snow\n\nBradders sent this picture of a residential street in Harrogate to BBC Weather\n\nSnow fell at the coast, including at Scarborough\n\n\"There will be a mix of snow and sleet, chopping and changing between the two,\" she added.\n\nShe said icy roads may be a problem where gritters had not managed to be out.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn Scotland, snow and ice caused road accidents and school closures, while a number of higher routes were closed.\n\nUnusually, snow also blanketed beaches on the east coast, creating picturesque scenes.\n\nBut a light dusting in London - which caused \"snowwatch\" to trend on social media - led some to wonder what all the fuss was about.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jeremy Vine This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Pixie Lott This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Clarence House This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Should Donald Trump's state visit be called off?\n\nThere are many - not all of them Opposition party MPs - who frankly detest Donald Trump and all his works, who wanted to see Theresa May and her ministers come down much harder on the 45th President of the United States today.\n\nThey hoped the PM would hit back at his dismissive tweet against her in harsher language - and even announce that the president's state visit to the UK was now off.\n\nBut it's also worth noting that publicly cancelling a state visit - and remember these invitations come, at least officially, from Buckingham Palace not from Downing Street - would elevate this unprecedented and extraordinary trans-Atlantic spat into a full blown diplomatic crisis between the UK, and its most important strategic ally.\n\nThe prime minister has reason to try to avoid that. There's the strategic partnership she and the home secretary mentioned today, and there's the importance of the US to Britain's hopes of building new trading links after Brexit, which they didn't mention.\n\nThere's also the fact that Theresa May plainly felt she had made her point today without escalating this row beyond the point of no return.\n\nMrs May and her home secretary, Amber Rudd, were at pains to stress that no date has been set for a state visit no-one at Westminster now imagines will happen any time soon.\n\nYou could argue preserving Britain's influence as a global player after Brexit looks like a tough challenge.\n\nBut managing a calm and stable relationship with a president like Donald Trump looks like a task that's well beyond Theresa - and arguably - anyone else.", "A Belgian performance artist has been cut free after spending 19 days chained to a marble block.\n\nBut Mikes Poppe, who had been chipping away at the block, said he did not see his inability to escape as a failure.", "The vice-chancellor of Southampton University was awarded a pay package of £424,000 last year - £72,000 more than he earned the previous year.\n\nAccounts show Sir Christopher Snowden was paid £352,000 in 2015-16, during which he was in post for 10 months.\n\nThe university said the extra reflected a full year's salary and the national higher education pay award of 1.1%.\n\nBut Sally Hunt, of the University and College Union, criticised his decision to accept the pay rise.\n\nMs Hunt, the union's general secretary, said the rise demonstrated \"once again how out of touch university vice-chancellors can be\".\n\nShe said that Sir Christopher was \"already one of the best-paid vice-chancellors in the UK, on a salary that had been publicly questioned by the universities minister\".\n\nAnd she added: \"To accept this kind of pay rise, while saying he must axe 75 academic jobs because money is tight, beggars belief.\"\n\nA statement from the university said the 1.1% pay rise was the only increase in Sir Christopher's remuneration since his appointment, and that he had declined a similar increment for 2017-18.\n\n\"The lower salary figure published for 2015-16 reflected only 10 months of his first year spent in office,\" it said.\n\n\"The vice-chancellor's salary was set and is regularly reviewed and agreed by the university's independently-chaired remuneration committee, which reports to the University Council.\n\n\"The vice-chancellor is not a member of the remuneration committee and only attends by invitation to discuss other business.\"\n\nThe university also paid £9,000 into a pension scheme from which he had opted out.\n\nThe university drew criticism from Universities Minister Jo Johnson in the summer.\n\nHe said in a speech: \"There is one institution on the south coast that has seen vice-chancellor pay rise from £227,000 in 2009-10 to £350,000 to 2015-16, which is really quite a sharp increase.\"\n\nIt comes two days after the UK's highest paid vice-chancellor Dame Prof Glynis Breakwell stepped down.\n\nThe University of Bath boss had become the focus of criticism for her £468,000 salary.\n\nLecturers had complained that her pay had risen much more rapidly than the salaries of university staff.\n\nDr Gill Rider, chair of the University Council, said: \"The University of Southampton is a world-renowned teaching and research institution with over 24,000 students, 6,500 members of staff and a turnover of £590 million per annum, less than a quarter of which comes from EU/home tuition fees.\n\n\"We recruited Sir Christopher to Southampton two years ago because we wanted an outstanding leader for the university.\n\n\"He is a hugely respected academic, knighted for his services to engineering and higher education.\n\n\"He is one of the most experienced vice-chancellors in the sector with a track record of delivering long-term exceptional results, and he is a former president of Universities UK.\n\n\"He has held international leadership roles in the private sector, including as a plc chief executive, and he has served on the prime minister's Council for Science and Technology.\n\n\"Sir Christopher brings breadth and depth of experience that is critical to Southampton's long-term success.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Parents who have a different surname to their children have felt \"humiliated\" at British ports by \"over-zealous\" border officials, MPs have heard.\n\nLabour's Tulip Siddiq said she faced an \"air of suspicion\" after a holiday, as her daughter has her father's name.\n\nShe said if Brexit was to bring new passports, it would be a good time to \"iron out\" difficulties and include parents' names on children's passports.\n\nThe government said it would \"actively consider\" how to tackle the issue.\n\nBut Home Office minister Nick Hurd warned there were \"formidable difficulties\" with what was being proposed.\n\nMs Siddiq, MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, said a \"growing number of parents in the UK\" found holidays being \"blighted by confrontations that are both unnecessary and entirely avoidable\".\n\nIn a Commons debate on Friday, she described being stopped at the UK border before boarding Eurostar, after a trip to France, having been separated from her husband.\n\nPushing her 18-month-old daughter in a pram, she found herself being questioned about her identity.\n\n\"To my shock, the situation became quite tense. The official kept asking me for more and more documentation which I did not have and I explained over and over again that the child had my husband's last name, not my last name.\n\n\"My daughter was saying 'mama, mama' and crying because the unfortunate incident took so long, but even that didn't seem to convince the border official.\n\n\"My problem was that there was a real air of suspicion and I was made to feel like I was doing something wrong when I had just gone on holiday with my daughter and husband.\"\n\nShe said it was not only women travelling with their children but foster parents and \"numerous LGBT couples\" travelling with adopted children who had contacted her having been \"questioned mercilessly\" at borders.\n\nShe said she did not want to compromise the efforts of Border Force to tackle child trafficking, but \"thousands of British parents\" had been \"unduly harassed and interrogated by officials at the UK border\".\n\nOne constituent returned to Gatwick from a holiday with her eldest daughter from a previous marriage who had special needs. The girl was asked \"is this your mother?\".\n\nShe told Ms Siddiq it had been a \"painful\" experience \"genuinely thinking that our re-entry to the UK depended on my daughter, who has minimal cognitive ability\".\n\nAnother had been left \"humiliated\" at Stansted when border officials \"refused to believe\" her 12-year-old was her daughter.\n\n\"These stories are the tip of the iceberg,\" said Ms Siddiq. \"Children's passports were introduced in the 1990s and list the child's name, and date and place of birth only. It is high time that they were updated to reflect the changing circumstances of British families.\"\n\nShe said both parents' names could be included on children's passports which would save \"time, confusion and ultimately money at border control\".\n\nChildren should be able to grow up knowing their identity was one of their choosing and \"does not leave them treated by over-zealous border officials as criminals\", she added.\n\nMr Hurd, a father of six, said he understood the challenge of travelling with small children and that the border system should not be doing anything to exacerbate parents' \"stress\".\n\nHe said it was \"not in doubt\" that many people felt a grievance about the issue, but there were occasions where children were taken across borders which \"gave rise to safeguarding concerns\", and \"reasonable steps\" were needed to avoid putting children at risk. Questioning by Border Force officials was done \"with the best of motives\".\n\nEven if children's passports contained parents' names \"it would not provide conclusive evidence to a border officer that the person accompanying the child had the right to do so or was acting in the best interest of the child\".\n\nBut Mr Hurd said: \"Having spoken to the immigration minister, I know that he does understand the present situation is causing difficulties, particularly in cases where children have different surnames to a parent.\n\n\"Therefore I am happy to give her the commitment on his behalf that he is going to actively consider how we can take this forward.\"\n\nThe Home Office's advice on the subject says it would help single parents with a different surname to their child to have a marriage or divorce certificate with them.", "More than 5,000 current and former employees are seeking compensation from Morrisons\n\nMorrisons has been found liable for the actions of a former member of its staff who stole the data of thousands of employees and posted it online.\n\nWorkers brought a claim against the company after employee Andrew Skelton stole the data, including salary and bank details, of nearly 100,000 staff.\n\nThe High Court ruling now allows those affected to claim compensation for the \"upset and distress\" caused.\n\nThe case is the first data leak class action in the UK.\n\nMorrisons said it believed it should not have been held responsible and would be appealing against the decision.\n\nThe case follows a security breach in 2014 when Skelton, then a senior internal auditor at the retailer's Bradford headquarters, leaked the payroll data of employees.\n\nHe posted the information - including names, addresses, bank account details and salaries - online and and sent it to newspapers.\n\nSkelton's motive appeared to have been a grudge over an incident when he was accused of dealing so-called legal highs at work.\n\nAndrew Skelton worked as senior internal auditor at the company's Bradford head office\n\nHe was jailed for eight years in 2015 after being found guilty at Bradford Crown Court of fraud, securing unauthorised access to computer material and disclosing personal data.\n\nLawyers said the data theft meant 5,518 former and current employees were exposed to the risk of identity theft and potential financial loss and that the company was responsible for breaches of privacy, confidence and data protection laws.\n\nAt the High Court hearing sitting in Leeds, the judge, Mr Justice Langstaff, ruled that Morrisons was vicariously liable, adding that primary liability had not been established.\n\nAnya Proops, QC for Morrisons, said Skelton had already caused serious damage to the company and it had incurred more than £2m in costs in responding to the misuse.\n\nShe argued the extent to which an employer could be held liable for the criminal misuse of third-party data by an employee was of \"huge importance\" for individuals, businesses and organisations.\n\nFollowing the ruling, Nick McAleenan of JMW Solicitors, acting for the claimants, said the leak had caused them \"significant worry, stress and inconvenience\".\n\nHe said: \"This private information belonged to my clients. They are Morrisons checkout staff, shelf stackers, factory workers - ordinary people doing their jobs.\n\n\"We welcome the judgment and believe that it is a landmark decision, being the first data leak class action in the UK.\"\n\nAny further hearing about amounts of compensation will not take place until the company's appeal has concluded.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Although his main Twitter account has nearly 44 million followers, President Donald Trump chooses to follow just 45 other Twitter users - all of whom agree with him, most of the time.\n\nNow that seeming reluctance to expose himself to alternative viewpoints is being put forward as a possible factor in the president's decision to retweet three videos by a far-right UK group.\n\nSocial media experts call it the \"filter bubble\" - the ability to choose only the news and views that we agree with.\n\nEarlier this year, Microsoft founder Bill Gates warned against the negative effects of the filter bubble, which he said increasingly prevented people from \"mixing and sharing and understanding other points of view\".\n\n\"It's turned out to be more of a problem than I, or many others, would have expected, \" he told the Quartz website.\n\nSometimes the bubble is automatic, created for us by a combination of our browsing history data, plus the algorithms of Facebook and Google. The end result: posts, people and stories that conform to our individual world view.\n\nSometimes we get to build our own bubble, by deliberately cutting ourselves off from dialogue with people who don't agree with us.\n\nIf Wednesday morning followed the president's typical routine, he woke up, turned on the TV and opened Twitter on his phone.\n\nAlthough the White House has refused to discuss the \"process\" by which the video was shared, most observers think it was the president who chose to retweet the video \"Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!\"\n\nThe authenticity of that video has now been challenged.\n\nThe anger deepened when it was confirmed the three videos had originally been shared by the deputy leader of an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim group - Britain First.\n\nThey had made their way onto the president's feed - it's thought - via one of the few people the president follows on Twitter: right-wing commentator Ann Coulter.\n\nOn Thursday, she defended her retweet, telling the BBC: \"A video is a video…you don't need to fact-check it.\"\n\nMs Coulter is one of the 45 Twitter users that the president \"follows\" on his most effective communication tool - @realDonaldTrump has 43.7 million followers\n\nBut compared with his predecessor, Mr Trump follows a tiny number of other users.\n\nBarack Obama - with 94.7 million Twitter followers - follows 626,000 other Twitter users.\n\nMr Trump, on the other hand, is much more selective about who he follows.\n\nTrump also uses another Twitter handle, @POTUS (president of the United States) which follows 41 other accounts, mainly family and government departments. He tends to tweet less frequently from this account.\n\nYou can recreate the president's @realDonaldTrump feed here https://twitter.com/trumps_feed, courtesy of the Washington Post.\n\nIt may be, however, that Mr Trump does expose himself to other viewpoints, according to social media marketer Alex McCann (@altrinchamhq): \"We have to remember that he has hundreds of thousands of notifications every day of people replying to his tweets.\"\n\n\"Hopefully he does check these and get a bigger picture than presented by his curated feed of the 45 people he follows. He may have created a Twitter list as well that might give more variety, but we don't know.\" (No public lists are available on @realDonaldTrump.)\n\n\"But if he is restricting himself to 45 people that's going to create a very monotonous feed - an echo chamber of people that agree with you.\"\n\nAmelia Tait (@ameliargh), tech and digital culture writer at the New Statesman, said that compared with a \"normal\" user, Mr Trump follows very few people on Twitter.\n\n\"This isn't necessarily surprising, as he has always used the site as more of a place to talk rather than listen.\n\n\"It could have troubling implications about what he sees and interacts with, though. It's been theorised he saw the Britain First tweets via Twitter's \"in case you missed it\" tool. Had his feed been busier, he might have missed that too!\" she said.\n\nOn the @realDonaldTrump's \"following\" list are seven family members, including wife Melania, his children, and two daughters in law.\n\nHe follows four government departments, such as the Department of State, and eight Trump commercial organisations such as his main company, five golf courses and two Trump-branded hotels.\n\nCurrent and former employees include Vice-President Mike Pence, White House spokesperson Kellyanne Conway and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders also feature.\n\nThere are a smattering of \"others\", including people Mr Trump has worked with before he became president - like World Wrestling Entertainment boss Vince McHahon and former Apprentice star Katrina Campins.\n\nVeteran golfer Gary Player is also on this list. Player has previously praised Mr Trump's game, telling CNBC in October: \"The strength is his length, he's a long hitter. He can really get the ball out there.\"\n\nBut by far the largest subset of people and organisations that Mr Trump follows is made up of conservative journalists and TV presenters.\n\nTen of them work, or have worked, for the conservative news channel Fox News, like Bill O'Reilly and Eric Bolling - both of whom left Fox following allegations of sexual misconduct.\n\nStaunch Trump defender Sean Hannity is also on the president's \"follow\" list.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sean Hannity This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe show Fox and Friends - thought to be a major opinion former on the president - is on the list.\n\nFox and Friends has been known to cover a story, only for the president to tweet on the same story a few minutes after the programme ends - and sometimes while it is still on air.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by FOX & friends This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMs Tait said: \"Trump's Twitter feed is most definitely an echo chamber, which is problematic for someone in an elected office who is ostensibly the voice of the people.\n\n\"He frequently criticises 'fake news' TV channels but has never rebutted any number of viral tweets calling him out. Is it possible he never saw them?\"\n\nHowever, Alex McCann believes that Trump is only doing what comes naturally.\n\n\"Most people gravitate towards opinions they share,\" he said. \"It might be more healthy to consume different opinions. But it will make you more angry.\n\n\"Twenty years ago our parents did the same thing - only they bought newspapers that conformed with their world view.\"\n\nBut Mr McCann believes leaders have a special responsibility to step outside of the filter bubble.\n\n\"Leaders are supposed to represent everyone,\" he said. \"Not just the people who agree with them.\"", "Former Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said the allegations against Mr Green showed \"no criminality\"\n\nA former Scotland Yard chief was aware pornography had allegedly been found on Damian Green's office computer during a 2008-9 police probe, he has said.\n\nSir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner between 2009-11, said he was briefed about the claims but regarded them as a \"side issue\".\n\nThe allegations were first made public last week by former Met Assistant Commissioner, Bob Quick.\n\nFirst Secretary of State Mr Green said his accusers had \"ulterior motives\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Porn was allegedly found to have been viewed on Mr Green's office computer after police raids in 2008\n\nMr Green, who is Prime Minister Theresa May's second-in-command, said: \"I reiterate that no allegations about the presence of improper material on my parliamentary computers have ever been put to me or to the parliamentary authorities by the police.\n\n\"I can only assume that they are being made now, nine years later, for ulterior motives.\"\n\nBut Mr Quick, who led the investigation into Home Office leaks which saw Mr Green's Commons office being searched, says pornography was found on a computer there.\n\nBoth Sir Paul and Mr Quick gave evidence to a Cabinet Office inquiry into Mr Green's conduct last week, led by senior Cabinet Office official Sue Gray.\n\nThe inquiry, which is being held behind closed doors, is also looking at a separate claim that Mr Green, made inappropriate advances towards a female Conservative activist in 2015. He also denies that allegation.\n\nDamian Green denies claims police found pornography on a computer in his office\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, Sir Paul said he thought the claim about Mr Green \"wasn't relevant to the criminal inquiry\" into Home Office leaks, which began in October 2008.\n\nMr Green's home and office were searched as part of that probe and he was briefly arrested in November that year, but the then shadow immigration minister faced no further action.\n\nA review of the police inquiry found that \"less intrusive methods\" could have been used.\n\nReferring to the pornography allegations, Sir Paul said: \"I regret it's in the public domain.\n\n\"There was no criminality involved, there were no victims, there was no vulnerability and it was not a matter of extraordinary public interest.\"\n\nSir Paul added that it was not Scotland Yard's role to \"police the workplace\".\n\nThe Met declined to say whether it was helping the Cabinet Office investigate the claims, but said in a statement: \"As this is not our inquiry the MPS does not believe it is appropriate to comment upon it.\"", "Net migration is estimated to have fallen by nearly a third to 230,000 in the year to June, new figures show.\n\nIt is the first time that a full year of data has been available since the UK voted to leave the EU last June.\n\nThe figure is still short of the Conservatives' target to reduce net migration to the \"tens of thousands\".\n\nNet migration is the difference between people coming to the UK for more than a year, and the number of people leaving the UK for a year or more.\n\nIn this 12-month period, 572,000 people arrived in the UK, and 342,000 emigrated, the Office for National Statistics report showed.\n\nImmigration specifically fell by 80,000 people over the year - and three-quarters of that drop was down to fewer EU citizens coming to live in the UK, figures showed.\n\nNicola White, head of migration statistics at the ONS, said: \"The decline follows historically high levels of immigration and it is too early to say whether this represents a long-term trend.\"\n\nShe pointed to figures showing the number of people coming to the UK for a definite job has remained stable but those coming to \"look for work\", especially EU citizens, was down 43%.\n\n\"These changes suggest that Brexit is likely to be a factor in people's decision to move to or from the UK - but decisions to migrate are complex and other factors are also going to be influencing the figures,\" she added.\n\nImmigration minister Brandon Lewis said the UK was still a country able to attract the \"brightest and the best\".\n\nWith more Europeans continuing to arrive than leave, these figures showed that claims of a \"Brexodus\" were misguided, he said.\n\nHe added that his focus was on making sure businesses have access to the skills needed from Europe and around the world; ensuring a controlled immigration system and making sure people were in the UK legally, being an important part of the economy and communities.\n\nThe ONS said the 106,000 fall on the previous year's net migration figure was the largest annual decrease recorded.\n\nThis was substantially down on its high of June 2016 and now at similar levels to 2014, the ONS said.\n\nBBC home affairs correspondent Dominic Casciani said there was a combination of factors at play.\n\n\"Anecdotally you pick up the fears around the Brexit effect,\" he said.\n\nBut the economic effects and the falling value of the pound might also be a factor, for example a Polish worker would get six zloty for every pound earned before Brexit.\n\nThat's fallen by a quarter since the referendum, he added.\n\nProfessor Jonathan Portes, of King's College, London, who works for the research group UK in a Changing Europe, said the statistics showed the country has become a \"less attractive place for European migrants\".\n\n\"Whatever your views on the impact of immigration, it cannot be good news that the UK is a less attractive place to live and work, and that we will be poorer as a result,\" he said.\n\nLord Green of Deddington, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said the figures showed a \"very welcome reduction in net migration - especially by EU citizens who do not have a job to come to\".\n\n\"It points to what could be achieved once the UK regains full control over migration,\" he added.\n\nThe Conservatives' aim since 2010 has been to reduce net migration to below 100,000.\n\nThe pledge to reduce net annual migration to the \"tens of thousands\" was in the 2010, 2015 and 2017 Tory manifestos.\n\nNeither Prime Minister Theresa May nor her predecessor, David Cameron, have come close to meeting that target.", "Inspectors also found a backlog of 23,000 X-rays at the hospital\n\nA hospital failed to spot cases of lung cancer because it did not check patients' chest X-rays properly, the Care Quality Commission has found.\n\nThe health watchdog found that three patients at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth suffered \"significant harm\".\n\nIt emerged that junior doctors complained they had been asked to carry out specialist radiology work without the appropriate training.\n\nThe CQC has now launched a review of NHS radiology services in England.\n\nAll NHS bodies have been instructed to provide details about their backlogs, turnaround times, staffing and arrangements for routine reporting of images.\n\nPortsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust said it had made an unreserved apology to the families of the three patients, two of whom have died.\n\nDuring their visit in July, CQC inspectors also found the hospital had a backlog of 23,000 chest X-rays.\n\nNone of the 23,000 images from the preceding 12 months had been formally reviewed by a radiologist or appropriately-trained clinician.\n\nDuring the visit, inspectors learned some junior doctors had been given responsibility for reviewing the chest and abdomen X-rays.\n\nProf Ted Baker, from the CQC, said \"When a patient is referred for an X-ray or scan, it is important that the resulting images are examined and reported on by properly trained clinical staff who know what they are looking for - this is a specialist skill.\"\n\nFollowing the inspection, the trust has had to put in place steps to make sure images are examined and reported on by properly trained clinical staff.\n\nIt was also tasked with providing a weekly report of the number of outstanding X-rays to the CQC and told it must notify those patients if their X-ray was held up.\n\nIn August, the CQC rated the hospital's medical care \"inadequate\".\n\nPortsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Mark Cubbon said: \"We have issued an unreserved apology to the families of the three patients who experienced harm because of the delays to their care.\n\n\"We have carried out a thorough review of the scans and X-rays reported so far; to date nearly 50% of the backlog has been cleared and we are in touch with any patients as necessary.\"\n\nThe trust has set up a free phone helpline - 0800 7837118 - for anyone who is concerned they may be affected.\n\nThe hospital in Cosham has 975 beds and provides services to a local population of about 610,000 people.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. GQ editor tells Today it was like Corbyn was being \"pushed around like Grandpa\"\n\nThe editor of GQ has criticised Jeremy Corbyn - on the day the Labour leader appears on the magazine's cover.\n\nDylan Jones told the BBC Mr Corbyn's photo shoot was \"as difficult as shooting any Hollywood celebrity\".\n\nMr Jones claimed that despite the Labour leader's \"rock star persona\" he was \"underwhelming\" in person.\n\nThe editor faced a backlash on Twitter with Corbyn supporters and others accusing him of political bias and carrying out a \"hatchet job\".\n\nMr Jones has written in the past about his support for the Conservatives and authored \"Cameron on Cameron\" - a series of interviews with the former Tory leader before he became PM in 2010.\n\nMr Corbyn's former spokesman Matt Zarb-Cousin said Mr Jones had not been in the room for the interview and said the editor's politics were \"well known\".\n\n\"It's slightly puzzling that the editor of GQ would put Jeremy Corbyn on the cover of his magazine looking like a prime minister in waiting, only to go on the Today programme and say the complete opposite,\" he said.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jessica Elgot This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Cal Stannard This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Corbyn joins David Cameron and Boris Johnson on the list of politicians to feature on the cover of men's \"fashion and style\" magazine GQ - in his case under the headline: \"Jeremy Corbyn's hostile takeover\".\n\nAccording to Mr Jones the Labour leader was \"adamant\" he would wear a Marks and Spencer suit for the photo shoot.\n\nIn the interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Jones said: \"The actual shoot itself was quite tortuous. It was as difficult as shooting any Hollywood celebrity.\n\n\"We've shot many politicians for our cover ... but never have we encountered such a ring. Obviously [Labour director of communications] Seumas Milne and his crew are very particular gate-keepers.\n\n\"They didn't really seem to understand the process at all, didn't understand (a) that he would have to be photographed in the first place (b) that he would need to be presentable or that he couldn't just turn up in his anorak.\n\n\"When he actually turned up for the shoot it was almost like he was being pushed around like a grandpa for the family Christmas photograph. He wasn't particularly aware of what was going on. But we're very pleased with what we ended up with.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Harriet Notton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHe also said Mr Corbyn had turned down an interview with Tony Blair's former communications chief Alastair Campbell.\n\nMr Campbell, who is a regular writer for the magazine has criticised Mr Corbyn in the past - warning the party not to risk \"driving itself off a cliff\" by electing him leader in 2015. Last year he had a memorable clash on BBC Question Time with shadow chancellor John McDonnell over the future of the party.\n\nAsked whether he had fallen out with Mr Corbyn's team, Mr Jones said: \"We haven't fallen out with anyone, we are just describing the process of what we went through to get the cover, which I found very intriguing.\"\n\nThe interview, a short version of which appears on the GQ website, includes Mr Corbyn rejecting claims that he had avoided saying outright that he supported remaining in the EU in the 2016 referendum campaign.\n\nHe also said he would be happy to meet US President Donald Trump and would speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin, if he became prime minister.", "Nasa has released footage of lightning strikes, captured from the International Space Station.\n\nThe film was taken as the ISS passed over China, Korea and Japan.\n\nAstronaut Randolph Bresnik said the view was from his favourite window, and showed \"lightning, city lights and fishing boats in the Sea of Japan\".", "Oxford University has raised a record amount of funding for a UK university bond issue\n\nOxford University has revealed that it will raise £750m from its first bond issue - the biggest amount raised this way by a UK university.\n\nIt is the most significant example so far of universities turning to the capital markets for investment rather than student fees.\n\nIt will mean more funds will be raised from these loans than Oxford's research funding from last year.\n\nThe university says it will use the money for improving facilities.\n\nThe bond means the university will receive funds from investors, which will be repaid after 100 years, with an annual interest rate of 2.54%.\n\nThe amount is higher than had been anticipated, after a starting point of selling bonds worth £250m. It is understood that the bond offer was heavily oversubscribed, with £2bn of funds offered by investors.\n\nIt will be seen as a long-term, low-risk opportunity for investors, but also a further shift in university finances.\n\nWith uncertainty about tuition fees and government funding, universities have increasingly begun to turn to raising money from private investors.\n\nOxford says it will give them \"confidence and freedom\" to spend on major developments, with plans to invest £1.5bn in building projects over the next 10 to 15 years.\n\nThis will be substantially bigger than any other UK university bond issue so far, but Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester, Cardiff and Liverpool are among the institutions which have previously raised money this way.\n\nIndividual Oxford colleges have also issued bonds, but this is the first time that the university itself has made such an offer to investors.\n\nIt means borrowing to raise cash in the short-term and paying back in the long-term, with the funds often used for capital projects, such as new buildings, libraries or overhauling facilities.\n\nIt is also likely to raise questions about richer universities using investment markets to create an even wider wealth gap with other institutions.\n\nThe Moody's credit rating agency this week gave Oxford its highest Aaa rating - citing its \"extraordinary market position\".\n\nMoody's reported that this reflected the strong demand from students, significant research funding and an endowment worth £2.6bn.\n\nThe credit rating agency said that Oxford's research income last year stood at £730m, a figure overshadowed by a single entry into the investment market.\n\nThe university's vice-chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, said the rating was \"gratifying testament to the belief of the outside world in the extraordinary institution that has been developed over the centuries\".\n\n\"It is our responsibility to ensure that we use the opportunities accorded us by this bond to pass on to our successors an even stronger university.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Any attempt to 'placate Dublin and the EU' could jeopardise DUP support for Tories\n\nDUP MP Sammy Wilson has warned that his party's deal to support the Conservative government could be jeopardised by the Brexit negotiations.\n\nHe said any attempt to \"placate Dublin and the EU\" could mean a withdrawal of DUP support at Westminster.\n\nFormer DUP leader and first minister Peter Robinson also responded, saying \"the south needs to wind its neck in\".\n\nHe said Dublin politicians had taken to \"lecturing the UK,\" doing \"significant harm to north/south relations\".\n\n\"Sensible solutions can be found and positive outcomes are more likely to be reached if a spirit of friendship and mutual understanding exists,\" he said.\n\nA story, published earlier in the Times newspaper, reported that British and EU officials could be about to seek separate customs measures for Northern Ireland after the UK leaves the European Union.\n\nThis could avoid any divergence in trade rules between Northern Ireland and the Republic.\n\nMr Wilson said that the UK government would \"have to recognise that if this is about treating Northern Ireland differently, or leaving us half in the EU, dragging along behind regulations which change in Dublin, it's not on\".\n\nEarlier on Thursday, DUP leader Arlene Foster said that the government had a \"clear understanding that the DUP will not countenance any arrangement that could lead to a new border being created in the Irish Sea\".\n\nMr Wilson said the proposal mooted in The Times report was unworkable, and revealed the DUP would be seeking clarification from the government on its accuracy.\n\nThe DUP struck a deal with the Conservative government in June, agreeing to support Tory policies at Westminster, in return for an extra £1bn in government spending for Northern Ireland.\n\nThe DUP signed a \"confidence and supply\" deal to keep Theresa May's government in power\n\nMr Wilson said his party will be \"making clear to the government we have a confidence and supply arrangement with them\".\n\nThe East Antrim MP added that \"if there is any hint that in order to placate Dublin and the EU, they're prepared to have Northern Ireland treated differently than the rest of the UK, then they can't rely on our vote\".\n\nMr Wilson was speaking in a BBC interview in his East Antrim constituency on Thursday afternoon.\n\nSammy Wilson was angered by the details in the newspaper report\n\nThe DUP has consistently opposed calls for Northern Ireland to be granted \"special status\" within the EU, in a bid to resolve border issues.\n\nThe party has accused Irish nationalists of using the special status campaign as \"an opportunity separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom, with a border in the Irish Sea\".\n\nUnder the type of plan mooted in The Times report, regulations relating to customs would be harmonised on both sides of the Irish border.\n\nIt would allow a freer flow of traffic and goods, in line with the UK's aim of making the crossing as \"frictionless\" as possible.", "The Grenfell Tower fire inquiry could become a whitewash unless there is a diverse panel to oversee proceedings, survivors and bereaved families say.\n\nThey say chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick should sit with people from a range of backgrounds who understand the issues facing those affected by the blaze, in which 71 people died on 14 June.\n\nThey have started a petition calling for Theresa May to intervene.\n\nThe government said the process of considering the panel was ongoing.\n\nSir Martin's appointment as the inquiry chairman has already been criticised by residents, who say he is an establishment figure.\n\nVictims groups were further angered when the retired Court of Appeal judge said he would not appoint a member of the Grenfell community to the panel, arguing it would \"risk undermining impartiality\".\n\nAdel Chaoui, who lost four relatives in the fire, said their complaint was \"not about ethnicity\".\n\n\"It's nothing to do with whether you're black, white, Arab, whatever - it is to do with experiences,\" he said.\n\n\"(Sir Martin) is very, very good at what he does, but he does not necessarily understand us.\n\n\"At the same time, we are up against these industry bodies that are spending millions of pounds on legal resources that we are never going to get anywhere near.\"\n\nSir Martin has been criticised by some families as an establishment figure\n\nMr Chaoui said he and others would likely not attend the inquiry unless the format was changed.\n\nHe added: \"I'm really hoping the Prime Minister sees all we're asking for is a fair crack at justice.\"\n\nThe petition organisers say about 50 victims are backing the call for Downing Street to add people to the panel who have the \"breadth and experience\" of the \"big social issues\" that led to the tragedy.\n\nKarim Mussilhy, whose uncle Hesham Rahman died in the fire, said: \"We don't want to whitewash this inquiry, we don't want to feel like we're not being listened to, or belittled, or ignored just like the residents were before and after the [fire at the] tower.\"\n\nHesham Rahman's body was recovered from the 23rd floor of the tower block\n\nSir Martin has appointed three assessors to the inquiry, which will open its first procedural hearing on 11 December.\n\nOne of the assessors is from a black and ethnic minority background.\n\nBut Sandra Ruiz, who lost her niece in the tower blaze, has said the assessors have \"no decision-making capacity\".\n\n\"I think it's just a nod to what we've been asking but I don't think there's enough of a response there,\" she added.\n\nKarim Mussilhy and Sandra Ruiz are calling on Theresa May to use special powers to appoint more diverse panel members to the Grenfell Tower inquiry\n\nA government spokesman said: \"The prime minister has given a commitment to consider the inquiry panel after the chair determined what further expertise he required, and this process is ongoing.\n\n\"We would like to assure all those affected by the tragedy that legal representatives of core participants will receive all relevant evidence, be able to offer opening and closing statements at hearings, and will be able to suggest lines of questioning for witnesses.\"", "Cracking open some fancy biscuits is a welcome treat over Christmas, but this year the observant shopper might notice a hefty rise in prices.\n\nResearch by The Grocer based on data from Brandview has found price rises of up to a third on own-label Christmas biscuits sold by supermarkets.\n\nIt said five supermarkets had increased prices with shortbread and gingerbread the main victims.\n\nThe report says that a steep rise in butter prices is partly to blame.\n\nA Sainsbury's spokesperson said: \"The cost of individual products is determined by a number of factors and prices can fluctuate, both up and down, as a consequence. We remain committed to providing our customers with great quality and value every time they shop with us.\"\n\nWaitrose disputed the report's finding that its Christmas Choc Shortcake Selection (585g) had risen from £4 to £5. It said The Grocer had taken a discounted price in 2016 and the price was actually unchanged from last year.\n\nThere has been a trend this year of rising food prices, driven by the weakness of the pound which makes imported food more expensive.\n\nThe latest inflation figures showed that in October the price of food and non-alcoholic drinks rose at an annual rate of 4.1%, the highest since September 2013.\n\nButter has seen even steeper rises, which experts says reflects falling milk production.\n\nData from European Commission showed that for the year to the end of October, butter prices had risen by 47% compared to last year. In recent weeks the price has fallen a bit, which has been welcomed by the Food and Drink Federation (FDF).\n\nA spokesperson for the FDF said: \"We will continue to monitor dairy market developments closely because extremes of price volatility are not helpful for UK food manufacturers or for the wider supply chain.\"", "While meeting a group of Muslim Rohingya refugees, Pope Francis referred to them by name for the first time on his Asian visit.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Would you notice if you crossed the Irish border?\n\nIt is not possible to see how the Irish border issue can be resolved after Brexit, the influential group of MPs scrutinising the process has said.\n\nThe government wants no hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland and no customs border between the latter and the rest of the UK.\n\nBut the Committee for Exiting the EU said the proposals were \"untested\" and \"to some extent speculative\".\n\nIreland's foreign minister Simon Coveney told the BBC his country \"can't be asked to leap into the dark\" by simply accepting UK assurances.\n\nNorthern Ireland will be the only part of the UK to share a land border with an EU member state after the UK leaves.\n\nThere is currently no physical infrastructure on the border but there is concern that this will have to change after Brexit.\n\nIf the UK leaves the EU's single market and customs union, as the government intends, the Irish land border will become the external border for the EU's single market and customs union.\n\nThe Irish Republic wants Northern Ireland to keep following EU rules, so that goods can continue moving across the border - in effect, staying within the customs union and single market.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Irish Deputy Prime Minister says UK and Ireland need to agree parameters on border\n\nBut this would effectively push the customs border out into the Irish Sea, becoming an internal customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK - which the UK government rejects.\n\nIn its report, the Exiting the European Union Committee says it does not see how it will be possible to reconcile these positions.\n\nThe government has put forward two proposals, one using \"technology-based solutions\", such as pre-screening of goods and trusted trader schemes, to reduce the need for customs checks at the Irish border.\n\nThe other would involve a \"customs partnership\", with the UK leaving the single market without introducing an EU-UK border - something the UK has admitted would be \"challenging\".\n\nThe committee is urging the government to set these proposals out in more detail.\n\n\"Ministers say they don't want a border, they don't want any infrastructure,\" said its Labour chair Hilary Benn.\n\n\"We all agree with that...but self-evidently, the Irish government is not persuaded by what it has read so far.\"\n\nUK Prime Minister Theresa May has said the UK and Irish governments \"have the same desire\" on the border - to ensure that the movement of trade and people continues \"as now\" and that no new barriers are created.\n\nThe government added that it remained \"absolutely committed to finding a solution that works for the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Any attempt to 'placate Dublin and the EU' could jeopardise DUP support for Tories\n\nBut Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said it would be hard to avoid physical checks if there were different standards for animal welfare, food safety and medical regulation on either side of the border.\n\n\"What the British government has been asking of the Irish government is 'just trust us we'll solve these issues with a broad bold trade agreement',\" he told Radio 4's Today.\n\n\"But that may not be possible, we don't know. We can't be asked to leap into the dark by opening up phase two discussions in the hope that these issues might be resolved.\"\n\nHe added: \"The area that we've focused in on is the need to give reassurance that there will not be regulatory divergence between the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland\n\n\"Because if there is it is very hard to avoid a checking system.\"\n\nNorthern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party has warned that any attempt to \"placate Dublin and the EU\" could lead to the end of its confidence-and-supply agreement with the UK's Conservative government.\n\nThe DUP struck a deal with the minority Conservative government in June, agreeing to support Tory policies at Westminster, in return for an extra £1bn in government spending for Northern Ireland.\n\nThe Committee for Exiting the EU itself was split over the report, with five of its 21 members - four Conservatives and a DUP MP - voting to reject it.\n\nThe report also includes a call for the government to publish the likely terms of any transition period governing what will happen immediately after Brexit in March 2019.\n\nIt says it is \"essential\" that the details of the arrangements be published by the end of March so as to give businesses enough time to prepare.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Damian Green speaking to reporters outside his home in his constituency of Ashford\n\nA former Scotland Yard detective has told BBC News he was \"shocked\" by the amount of pornography viewed on a computer seized from the Commons office of senior Tory MP Damian Green.\n\nNeil Lewis examined the device during a 2008 inquiry into government leaks and has not spoken publicly before.\n\nHe said \"thousands\" of thumbnail images of legal pornography were on it.\n\nMr Green, Theresa May's deputy, has said he never watched or downloaded pornography on the computer.\n\nFellow Tory MP Andrew Mitchell defended Mr Green on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, saying: \"It is the misuse of entirely legal information to blacken the name of a serving cabinet minister.\"\n\nBut Mr Lewis said a check of the computer's internet history over a three-month period showed pornography had been viewed \"extensively\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"I was shocked\": Former detective constable Neil Lewis speaks to the BBC\n\nOn Tuesday, Scotland Yard confirmed its department for professional standards was examining allegations that Mr Lewis had disclosed confidential information.\n\nA statement from the Metropolitan Police said: \"Confidential information gathered during a police inquiry should not be made public.\"\n\nOn some days, websites containing pornography were being searched for and opened for several hours.\n\nMr Lewis, who retired from the Metropolitan Police in 2014, said although \"you can't put fingers on a keyboard\", a number of factors meant that he was sure it was Mr Green, the MP for Ashford, Kent, who was accessing the pornographic material.\n\nHis analysis of the way the computer had been used left the former detective constable in \"no doubt whatsoever\" that it was Mr Green, who was then an opposition immigration spokesman but is now the first secretary of state.\n\n\"The computer was in Mr Green's office, on his desk, logged in, his account, his name,\" said Mr Lewis, who at the time was working as a computer forensics examiner for SO15, the counter-terrorism command.\n\n\"In between browsing pornography, he was sending emails from his account, his personal account, reading documents... it was ridiculous to suggest anybody else could have done it.\"\n\nSimilar material had also been accessed on Mr Green's laptop, he claimed.\n\nNeil Lewis said he was \"shocked\" by the quantity of porn viewed on a computer used by Damian Green\n\nA Cabinet Office inquiry, set up last month to investigate allegations that the 61-year-old had made inappropriate advances to a political activist, Kate Maltby, is also examining the pornography claims.\n\nThe inquiry is believed to centre on the ministerial code, which sets out the standards of conduct expected of government ministers.\n\nThe code says they are expected to demonstrate \"the highest standards of propriety\" and contains reference to the Nolan Principles that holders of public office should be \"truthful\".\n\nA spokesperson for Mr Green said: \"It would be inappropriate for Mr Green to comment on these allegations while the Cabinet Office investigation is ongoing, however, from the outset he has been very clear that he never watched or downloaded pornography on the computers seized from his office.\n\n\"He maintains his innocence of these charges and awaits the outcome of the investigation.\"\n\nLabour MP Hilary Benn told Today that the evidence from Mr Lewis should be considered.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Andrew Mitchell defends Damian Green on Today over porn found on computer\n\nDespite being told about Mr Lewis's role examining Mr Green's computers, the Cabinet Office inquiry has not contacted him to give evidence.\n\nThe Cabinet Office declined to give an explanation for that, but it's thought its inquiry may have approached the Metropolitan Police directly for details about the computers.\n\nThe force has confirmed it is co-operating with the inquiry.\n\nPolice evidence tag for the computer found in Damian Green's office\n\nDuring his time on SO15, Mr Lewis worked on some of Britain's most high-profile terrorism inquiries, including the 21/7 attack on London's transport network in 2005 - when he took a lead role examining digital devices.\n\nHe also worked on Operation Miser, an investigation into Home Office leaks that began in October 2008 and resulted in Mr Green's Commons office being searched by police.\n\nMr Lewis's job on the investigation was to search for material relating to documents that had been disclosed without authorisation from the Home Office, on computers used by Mr Green.\n\nIn accordance with standard police practice, Mr Lewis carried out the examination on digital copies he had made of the computers' hard drives.\n\nWhen he ran a \"gallery view\" of images viewed on the desktop computer in Mr Green's Portcullis House office he noticed \"a lot of pornography thumbnails which indicated web browsing\", that he later confirmed by an examination of the computer's internet history.\n\nThe pornography was not \"extreme\", as some reports have suggested, and did not contain images of children or abuse, said Mr Lewis, who previously served in the Met's obscene publications unit and carried out investigations into paedophiles.\n\nThe matter was not referred to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision.\n\nThe former detective, who spent 25 years with the Met, said after the leaks inquiry ended he was ordered by the force to delete the data on the computer copies he had made.\n\n\"Morally and ethically I didn't think that was a correct way to continue,\" he said.\n\nThe officer erased the data, as instructed, but kept the copies knowing experts could retrieve the information if they had to. However, he now believes the items may have been destroyed.\n\nWhen he left the force after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Mr Lewis said the only police notebook he took with him was the one he had used during Operation Miser.\n\nThe notebook, seen by the BBC, contains a reference to pornography.\n\n\"This one case, Operation Miser, I have never been comfortable with,\" he said, claiming the Parliamentary authorities should have been informed about the \"extensive\" time Mr Green allegedly spent looking at pornographic material.\n\n\"If a police officer does that, or anyone else, you'd be dismissed, you'd be thrown out.\"\n\nThe MPs' code of conduct states members should always behave with \"probity and integrity, including in their use of public resources\".\n\nThe pornography allegations were first alluded to by Bob Quick, a former Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner, in written evidence to a Parliamentary committee in 2009.\n\nHe said the discovery of \"private material\" on Mr Green's office computer had \"complicated\" the inquiry into Home Office leaks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Porn was allegedly viewed on Mr Green's office computer after police raids in 2008\n\nIn 2011, Mr Quick expanded on the matter in a draft statement for the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics, but it was removed from the final version, only to resurface last month in a Sunday Times article.\n\nMr Green responded to Mr Quick's assertions by accusing him of spreading \"disreputable political smears\", an attack that so infuriated Mr Lewis that he approached the former counter-terrorism chief to offer his support. He even thought about contacting the cabinet minister directly.\n\n\"His outright denial of that was quite amazing, followed by his criticism of Bob Quick,\" said Mr Lewis.\n\n\"I think he [Mr Green] should have resigned a long time ago.\"\n\nSir Paul Stephenson, Met Commissioner during the leaks investigation, told the BBC he had been briefed about the pornography in 2008 but considered it to be a \"side issue\".\n\nThe Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has said it has no record of a referral being made.", "An independent review says the cost of converting the Olympic Stadium was £323million\n\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan has agreed to take over the former Olympic Stadium amid \"financial challenges\".\n\nMr Khan says a \"catalogue of errors\" by his predecessor Boris Johnson led to the costs of transforming it into West Ham United's new ground soaring.\n\nAn independent review says the conversion cost £323m - the original estimate was £190m.\n\nMayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales said Mr Johnson left the stadium's finances in a \"dreadful mess\".\n\nThe review says that E20, the public sector company set up to run the London Stadium, is projected to make a loss of £20m next year and a total loss of £140m over its first 10 years.\n\nMr Khan claims Mr Johnson's decision to make taxpayers foot the bill means Londoners will have to shoulder the predicted loss.\n\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan will now take over the running of the former Olympic Stadium\n\nHe will take control of the stadium in order to \"renegotiate deals\" and \"minimise ongoing losses\".\n\nMr Khan said: \"I ordered the review into the finances of the London Stadium to understand how key decisions were made about its transformation and why costs were allowed to spiral out of control.\n\n\"What has been presented is simply staggering.\"\n\nWest Ham were awarded tenancy of the stadium in 2013, however under the agreement the club would not have to pay for certain running costs.\n\nThese instead would be paid for by the taxpayer and include policing, stewarding, goalposts, corner flags, cleaners and turnstile operators.\n\nHowever, the review notes that since that deal was signed, policing and stewarding costs have \"increased notably\".\n\nWest Ham United moved to the London Stadium from Upton Park in August 2016\n\nWest Ham said: \"The concession agreement is a watertight, legally binding contract signed in 2013 in good faith by West Ham United, who remain absolutely committed to its terms for the entire 99-year duration.\n\n\"It is not in West Ham United's interests for the stadium to be not performing in line with aspiration and, as we have done ever since moving to Stratford in the summer of 2016, we continue to offer the benefit of our commercial expertise and substantial experience in managing successful stadia.\"\n\nThe club added the stadium \"craves renewed leadership\" and it welcomed \"the mayor's decision to step in and deliver this\".\n\nNewham Council said it received a business plan from E20 in October 2016 which indicated there was likely to be an \"ongoing deficit\" which could make it \"financially unsustainable\" in the long term.\n\nMr Johnson, pictured with Karren Brady, was the Mayor of London between May 2008 and May 2016\n\nAn internal review was carried out by the council at the same time the Mayor of London launched his own inquiry.\n\nReacting to Mr Khan's takeover, Sir Robin said: \"On behalf of Newham residents, I am angry that the deals and decisions made by the former Mayor of London and his administration have left the stadium finances in such a dreadful mess.\n\n\"It is regrettable that the finances of the stadium have not followed the expected course.\"\n\nHe added it was \"vital\" for Newham that the stadium remained a public asset.\n\nA source close to Mr Johnson, who was the Mayor of London between May 2008 and May 2016, rejected the criticisms.\n\nHe said: \"No other city has an Olympic legacy like London's - all seven venues on the park are in private hands, with millions of visitors a year, and a positive economic legacy for east London.\n\n\"The stadium has a secure future with athletics and football.\n\n\"The mistakes belonged to Khan's Labour predecessor Ken Livingstone and the Blair government. Signing off on a stadium fit only for athletics was a massive error. The only option for Boris was conversion to a multi-use venue.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section World Cup\n\nEngland have been drawn with Belgium, Panama and Tunisia in Group G at next year's Fifa World Cup in Russia.\n\nGareth Southgate's men will begin their tournament against Tunisia on Monday, 18 June (19:00 BST) in Volgograd.\n\nThey will then face World Cup debutants Panama in Nizhny Novgorod on 24 June (13:00 BST) before playing top seeds Belgium four days later in Kaliningrad (19:00 BST).\n\nRussia play Saudi Arabia in the opening game in Moscow on 14 June (16:00 BST).\n\nHolders Germany are in Group F with Mexico, Sweden and South Korea while five-times winners Brazil are in Group E alongside Switzerland, Costa Rica and Serbia.\n\nThe 2018 tournament takes place in 12 stadiums across Russia between 14 June and 15 July.\n• None All the groups and fixtures\n• None 'If England don't qualify from the group, it's time to pack it in'\n• None A guide to the grounds hosting games in Russia\n• None Find out more about the 32 teams who qualified\n\n\"We need to find out more about Tunisia and Panama as we haven't been tracking them,\" Southgate told BBC Radio 5 live.\n\n\"We know everything about Belgium. I think that will capture the imagination back home as they have so many players in our league. They have probably the best group of players they've ever had.\n\n\"My experience of tournaments is you need to get a result in all three matches. In the past we've assumed we'll be in certain rounds but we need to make sure we get out of our group.\"\n\nWho got the hardest draw?\n\nThere is not one group that obviously stands above the rest as being the toughest.\n\nIn terms of ranking positions, Group B looks the most difficult.\n\nEuropean champions Portugal, ranked third in the world, have been drawn with 2010 World Cup winners Spain as well as Iran - who went unbeaten in 10 Asian qualifying matches - and Morocco, who topped an African group that featured Ivory Coast.\n\nGroup F also looks tricky for the reigning champions. Germany, who beat Argentina 1-0 in the 2014 final in Brazil, will likely face three robust examinations against Mexico, Sweden and South Korea as they try to retain the title for the first time since Brazil did so in 1962.\n\nResurgent Brazil - thrashed 7-1 in the 2014 semi-final in Belo Horizonte - have also been handed what looks like a quietly exacting group.\n\nAlongside Neymar's Brazil in Group E are Switzerland, Costa Rica and Serbia while Lionel Messi and his Argentina team-mates play debutants Iceland - who reached the quarter-finals of Euro 2016 - Croatia and Nigeria.\n\nEngland will know all about Belgium, given the large number of their squad who play in the Premier League. Chelsea's Eden Hazard and Kevin de Bruyne of Manchester City are both enjoying superb seasons so far while Manchester United striker Romelu Lukaku recently became the country's leading all-time top scorer.\n\nEngland have not lost to Belgium in their past 11 meetings - and their only defeat against them in 21 games was in 1936.\n\nThe Three Lions have met Tunisia twice before, drawing a friendly in 1990 and beating the North Africans in their opening game of the 1998 World Cup in France, a match Southgate remembers well.\n\n\"It was a fantastic day as a player to play in a brilliant occasion, our fans made an incredible atmosphere that day,\" the former defender said of the game in Marseille that England won 2-0.\n\n\"It's nice to be able to relive that.\"\n\nTunisia coach Nabil Maaloul says he \"knows all about\" England's players and when asked about whether he was happy to be in the same group as them, he said: \"Yes, and we will win.\"\n\nEngland have never met Central America country Panama and won't be familiar with their players with only three of their current squad playing in Europe.\n\nThe Panamanians sealed their place at a first World Cup at the expense of the USA when they controversially defeated Costa Rica 2-1, with Gabriel Torres' header for their first goal not appearing to cross the line.\n\nPick the order teams will finish in England's group\n\nEngland's possible route to the final\n\nIn summary, reaching the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on 15 July is not going to be easy.\n\nIf England top their group, their path to the final could see them come up against Colombia, Brazil, France and then Germany.\n\nIf Southgate's side finish second then it could be Poland, Germany, Spain and then Brazil in the final.\n\nIf you are viewing this page on the BBC News app please click here to vote.\n\nBBC Sport's chief football writer Phil McNulty: England can have no excuses if there is a repeat of the embarrassment of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, when they failed to progress from the group phase.\n\nManager Gareth Southgate will understandably publicly exercise caution about the group with Belgium, Tunisia and Panama - but privately he and the Football Association will surely regard this as a highly satisfactory outcome.\n\nThere was certainly no need for FA chairman Greg Clarke to repeat the cut-throat gesture predecessor Greg Dyke delivered when England were drawn against Italy, Uruguay and Costa Rica before the last World Cup in Brazil.\n\nBarring surprises, the final group game against Belgium in Kaliningrad is likely to decide the group winners - and this will clearly be the toughest assignment for Southgate and his team.\n\nBelgium coach Roberto Martinez has an intimate knowledge of the Premier League from his time at Wigan Athletic and Everton, while their outstanding generation of players has a heavy top-flight influence, including two performers of undoubted world class in Manchester City's Kevin de Bruyne and Chelsea's Eden Hazard.\n\nTunisia, England's opponents in their opening game in Volgograd on Monday 18 June, are ranked 27th in the Fifa rankings, and will be heavy underdogs while a meeting with Panama, ranked 56th and at their first World Cup, should hold no fear.\n\nEngland's immediate fate appears to hang on that meeting with Belgium but Southgate will surely be confident of qualifying from Group G.\n\nHow far will England travel during the group stage?\n\nEngland will be based in the village of Repino, which is about 30 miles from St Petersburg (number 8, above). From there they will travel 930 miles to and from Volgograd (10) to play Tunisia at Volgograd Arena and then 600 miles to Nizhny Novgorod (3) for their game against Panama.\n\nFinally, it's a 500-mile trip to Kaliningrad (9) for their final Group G game against Belgium.\n\n\"Travel wise, the way tournaments are now, you've got to be adaptable, but our kick-off times are decent as well,\" added Southgate.\n\nIn total, England's players will travel approximately 4,000 miles during the group stage, compared to the 4,400 they covered in Brazil.", "Barry Links station is located between Dundee and Carnoustie\n\nA railway station in Angus is the least used in Great Britain, new figures have revealed.\n\nJust 24 passengers travelled to or from Barry Links station in 2016/17, according to data published by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR)\n\nOnly two ScotRail trains stop at the station, which is unstaffed and has no facilities, each day between Monday and Saturday.\n\nThe station, which opened in 1851, is located between Dundee and Carnoustie.\n\nBrian Boyd, an independent councillor on Angus Council, said the station was used more than the figures suggested.\n\nHe said: \"Many people buy Carnoustie tickets but get off at Barry.\n\n\"These figures are quoted based on who buys tickets for stations and you can't buy a ticket at Barry so you buy it at Carnoustie.\n\n\"I can assure you there's at least a dozen passengers coming off each and every evening from the tea-time train at Barry.\n\n\"Yes, there aren't many trains that stop there but the figures are way out, in my opinion.\"\n\nMr Boyd, who represents the Carnoustie and District Ward, expects the station to be well-used next summer as golf fans travel to the Open Championship.\n\nHe said: \"With golf coming in 2018, it will used considerably more because it's right on the perimeter of the world-renowned golf course.\n\n\"It's an important station for the area.\"\n\nLast year's least-used station, Shippea Hill in Cambridgeshire, saw its passenger figures rise from 12 to 156 over the last 12 months.\n\nThe numbers of people using at Shippea Hill have risen dramatically\n\nIt received a publicity boost when Great British Bake Off finalist Ian Cumming offered mince pies to people who disembarked at the station on Christmas Eve 2016.\n\nThe data suggested that Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverley are Scotland's busiest railway stations, with 32,060,134 and 22,582,342 entries and exits respectively.\n\nLondon Waterloo maintained its title as Britain's busiest station for the 14th consecutive year.\n\nSome 99.4 million passengers used the station in the past year, up by more than 250,000 on 2015/16.\n\nFive other stations - Tees-side Airport, Breich, Kildonan, British Steel Redcar, and Reddish South had fewer than 100 entries and exits.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nPope Francis has met a group of Muslim Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and referred to them by name for the first time on his Asian visit.\n\nThe Pope told a group of 16 refugees at an interfaith meeting in the capital Dhaka: \"The presence of God today is also called Rohingya.\"\n\nHe refrained from using the term on his earlier visit to Myanmar, which does not regard Rohingya as an ethnic group.\n\nSome 620,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar since August.\n\nThe Pope had been criticised by rights groups for not using the term in Myanmar, whose military has been accused of ethnic cleansing by the United Nations. He had used the term before his visit.\n\nMyanmar's government rejects the term Rohingya, labelling the community \"Bengalis\". It says they migrated illegally from Bangladesh so should not be listed as one of the country's ethnic groups.\n\nIt was a poignant moment when Pope Francis met Rohingya refugees in Dhaka. One by one they went up on stage and met him. He held their hands and they each had a chance to say a few words to him. He placed his hand on the head of a little girl who was part of the group.\n\nThen in a short speech that was not part of the original programme Pope Francis used the contentious word \"Rohingya\" for the first time sending out his strongest message so far about the crisis during his visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh.\n\nBut does it really make a difference especially since he didn't use the word or speak directly about the issue in Myanmar, the country that matters? Mark Pierce from Save the Children told me his organisation would certainly have preferred the Pope to be more vocal about the crisis in Myanmar but says it is significant that he has spoken about it here in Bangladesh because it helps keep the spotlight on the plight of the refugees.\n\nAbout 3,000 refugees are estimated to have crossed over from Myanmar to Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh in the past week alone adding to the hundreds of thousands who are already there living in camps.\n\nWhile there is an agreement between the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar for the refugees to return, there are still no details of when or how this will happen.\n\nPope Francis' comment to refugees in Dhaka was made in an improvised remark and was not in his speech to the interfaith meeting.\n\n\"In the name of all of those who have persecuted you, hurt you, I ask forgiveness,\" Pope Francis told the refugees. \"I appeal to your large hearts to give us the forgiveness that we are asking.\"\n\nRights groups had urged the Pope to use the term Rohingya to back the community.\n\nHowever, he had been warned by Catholic representatives in Myanmar not to use the term for fear of alienating the Buddhist majority.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Rohingya girls say they were forced into sex work in Bangladesh\n\nThe number of Catholics in Bangladesh is very small. The 350,000-strong community makes up 0.2% of the population.\n\nEarlier, the Pope ordained 16 priests at an outdoor Mass in Dhaka's Suhrawardy Udyan park.\n\nOn the penultimate day of his Asia trip, he told the crowd: \"I know that many of you came from afar, for a trip for more than two days. Thank you for your generosity. This indicates the love you have for the Church.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drone footage shows the extent of sprawling camps on the Bangladesh border", "Last updated on .From the section Commonwealth Games\n\nBirmingham may need to wait until next year to find out if it will host the 2022 Commonwealth Games.\n\nThe Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) said on Wednesday they are \"confident\" a city will be chosen in the next four weeks but they \"will remain flexible\".\n\nBirmingham was the only interested city before the 30 September deadline but was deemed \"not fully compliant\".\n\nLast week, CGF said it had \"updates\" from Australia, Canada and Malaysia - but did not confirm any official bids.\n\nAnd the body said on Wednesday they need \"further clarification on a range of issues\" before choosing a host city.\n\nThe bidding process has been beset with problems, with the South African city of Durban originally awarded the Games in 2015 before being stripped of the event in March because it did not meet the CGF criteria.\n\nAfter Birmingham's subsequent bid did not meet criteria, the CGF extended the deadline for bids to 30 November, and said a further meeting would be held on 6 December.\n\nKuala Lumpur and Victoria are thought to be the cities involved from Malaysia and Canada respectively.\n\nIan Ward, Birmingham city council leader and chair of Birmingham 2022's bid team, said they \"are continuing to have productive discussions\" with the CGF.\n\n\"It's a hugely significant decision and we welcome the robustness of the process,\" he said. \"We look forward to a decision from the CGF in the near future.\"", "The parents of Matthew Birkinshaw said their son's death has left a \"space no-one else can ever fill\".\n\nIt follows the conviction of Natasha Gordon for encouraging his suicide in a car park at Rutland Water.\n\nThey said: \"It is impossible to put into words the effect the loss of Matthew has had on our family.\n\n\"He was everything to us and he has left a space no-one else can ever fill.\"\n\nThey added: \"It has become clear to us during this process how many people consider suicide without ever displaying any signs even to those closest to them. It has been heartbreaking to hear how when Matt needed kindness and support, he met someone who wanted to do him harm.\"", "RBS is closing 259 branches - one in four of its outlets - and cutting 680 jobs as more customers bank online.\n\nThe closures involve 62 Royal Bank of Scotland and 197 NatWest branches.\n\nRBS, which is 71%-owned by the taxpayer, said it would try to ensure compulsory redundancies were \"kept to an absolute minimum\".\n\nThe bank said use of its branches by customers had fallen 40% since 2014, but the Unite union, which represents bank staff, called the cuts \"savage\".\n\nFollowing the closures, the RBS group will be left with 744 branches.\n\nRBS's branch closure announcement is the third such this week, following Lloyds, which on Wednesday said it would close 49 branches, and Yorkshire Building Society, which said it would close 13 branches.\n\nAn RBS spokesperson said: \"More and more of our customers are choosing to do their everyday banking online or on mobile.\n\n\"Since 2014 the number of customers using our branches across the UK has fallen by 40% and mobile transactions have increased by 73% over the same period. Over 5 million customers now use our mobile banking app and one in five only bank with us digitally.\n\n\"We realise this is difficult news for our colleagues and we are doing everything we can to support those affected.\"\n\nUnite said serious questions needed to be asked about whether the closures marked the end of branch network banking.\n\nRob MacGregor, Unite national officer, said: \"This announcement will forever change the face of banking in this country resulting in over a thousand staff losing their jobs and hundreds of High Streets without any banking facilities.\n\n\"The closure of another 259 branches is savage. Why is the government signing off this alarming branch closure programme?\"\n\nRBS, like many of its competitors, says that branch use has dropped dramatically as people bank on the go.\n\nIndustry analysts CACI forecasts that typical consumers will only visit a bank branch four times a year by 2022, as virtually all transactions or paperwork can be done online, or by letter or at a post office.\n\nYet visiting a branch remains a way of life for many people - older people and small businesses particularly. A report into branch closures by Professor Russel Griggs likened losing a local branch to a \"bereavement\" for some people.\n\nSo what is being done for them?\n\nThe major banks have signed up to a protocol that ensures specially trained staff are in place to help customers find alternatives when a local branch is closing, such as using the Post Office.\n\nThey must work more proactively to support elderly and vulnerable customers, and tell communities as quickly as possible after the decision has been made.\n\nPaul Wheelhouse, Scottish Government Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy, said: \"The news of further branch closures from RBS will be hugely concerning to many people in Scotland as it now not only affects, potentially, staff at RBS but also leaves large areas of Scotland, particularly rural areas, with limited branch coverage.\n\n\"While recognising that footfall in branches is falling, due to online banking, RBS, and other banks, must take into account the needs of all customers - not just those who can access and use digital services.\"\n\nThe news comes as RBS continues its rehabilitation from its state-backed bailout in 2008, prompted by the financial crisis.\n\nOn Thursday, it said it had closed its so-called \"bad bank\", which was set up to handle toxic assets stemming from the crisis.\n\nEarlier this week, RBS passed the Bank of England stress tests, having failed in 2016.\n\nIn last week's Budget, the government revived plans to sell down its stake in the bank, aiming to sell £15bn of its shares by 2023.", "Prince George is third in line to the throne\n\nA senior Anglican minister has been criticised for saying people should pray for Prince George to be gay to help the Church of England recognise same-sex marriage.\n\nThe Very Reverend Kelvin Holdsworth wrote a blog post urging people to pray for him \"to be blessed one day with the love of a fine young gentleman\".\n\nHis comments have been described as \"unkind\" and \"destructive\".\n\nMr Holdsworth is provost of St Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow.\n\nHe is from the Scottish Episcopal Church, which voted to allow gay couples to marry earlier this year.\n\nSame-sex marriages in Anglican churches are banned in England and Wales.\n\nIn his blog post, Mr Holdsworth said that if Prince William's four-year-old son married another man in the future it would help the Church of England become more inclusive.\n\n\"A royal wedding might sort things out remarkably easily though we might have to wait 25 years for that to happen,\" he wrote.\n\n\"Who knows whether that might be sooner than things might work out by other means?\"\n\nRev Holdsworth says Prince George being gay would help the Church to become more inclusive\n\nHe told the BBC he first wrote the blog post more than a year ago but it gained traction after he tweeted it again following the news of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's engagement.\n\n\"This quote seems to be getting a lot of attention because it was picked up by a number of anti-gay campaigners in the Church of England,\" he said.\n\n\"It is a shame that the happy news about the royal wedding has been hijacked in this way.\"\n\nMr Holdsworth tweeted his blog post following Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's engagement\n\nGavin Ashenden, a former chaplain to the Queen and a Christian Episcopal Church missionary bishop, said the comments were not Christian.\n\n\"To use prayer as a mechanism for wishing this on Prince George is an unkind and destructive thing to do,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"It doesn't have the prince's best interests at heart, but uses him as a gender-political football to please 1.7% of the population.\n\n\"What is especially odd and incongruous is the fact that it is suddenly OK to pray for someone to be gay, but totally unacceptable to pray for them to be free from being gay and to resume a sexuality that was in tune with their biology.\n\n\"This seems not only contradictory but hypocritical.\"\n\nSusie Leafe, the director of the conservative evangelical group Reform, was also critical of Mr Holdsworth's blog.\n\n\"I was very disappointed that he was prepared to bring a child in to this same-sex marriage debate,\" she told the BBC.\n\n\"As a Christian minister he should pray for all people to come to know the love of Christ, rather than a fine young gentleman.\"\n\nThe Church of England declined to comment on Mr Holdsworth's blog post as he is a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church.\n\nRt Rev Dr Gregor Duncan, Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway, said: \"The comments made by Provost Holdsworth were made on his personal blog.\n\n\"As his blog indicates, the views expressed there are his personal ones.\n\n\"They do not represent an official view of the Scottish Episcopal Church nor are they ones with which I would concur. I will be discussing this matter with Provost Holdsworth.\"", "US author Christopher Bollen has won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award for his novel The Destroyers.\n\nThe judges voted him the winner after reading a scene depicting the book's protagonist, Ian, with his ex-girlfriend on the island of Patmos.\n\nHe wrote: \"She covers her breasts with her swimsuit... The skin along her arms and shoulders are different shades of tan like water stains in a bathtub.\"\n\nBollen - editor-at-large of Interview magazine - did not attend the ceremony.\n\nWilbur Smith's War Cry was among the nominees\n\nThe Destroyers is his third novel and the judges said he \"prevailed against strong competition\".\n\nThe award, organised by the Literary Review, was presented by Carry On star Fenella Fielding at London's Naval and Military Club - also known as the In & Out.\n\nIt was established in 1993 by journalist and writer Auberon Waugh.\n\nOrganisers say the purpose of the prize is \"to draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction\".\n\nIt does not cover pornographic or expressly erotic literature.\n\nOther nominees included Wilbur Smith's War Cry, which included a male character saying he wants to explore his lover \"like Dr Livingstone and Mr Stanley exploring Africa\".\n\nAnother shortlisted work - The Future Won't Be Long by Turkish-American author Jarett Kobek - likens sexual intercourse to a \"pulsing wave\", a \"holy burst\" and a \"congress of wonder\".\n\nAnother nominee - The Seventh Function of Language by France's Laurent Binet - features a man wooing a woman with the words: \"Let's construct an assemblage.\"\n\nIn her shortlisted debut novel Mother of Darkness, Venetia Welby wrote about a character called Tera who \"moans in colours\" as her lover approaches.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Siblings separated for 25 years have been reunited after one spotted the other in a Wigan churchyard.", "Thomas Cook has said it is planning to close 50 of its 690 stores as part of a review of its UK retail network.\n\nThe proposed closures will take place by March next year and will affect up to 400 staff at a mix of Thomas Cook and Co-operative Travel branded stores.\n\n\"We hope to redeploy a large proportion of those people,\" a spokesperson said.\n\nThomas Cook says the stores affected are either close to other stores or are located where a fall in customers has hit profitability.\n\nThe firm would not disclose the location of the stores under threat.\n\nLess than half (47%) of its holidays have been booked in store this year, Thomas Cook said, while online sales in the UK grew by 27%.\n\n\"We continually review our network of stores across the UK to make sure we're offering customers the best of Thomas Cook, and it is clear that to succeed we have to operate as a truly omni-channel business,\" said Thomas Cook UK's director of retail and customer experience, Kathryn Darbandi.\n\nThe announcement comes just a week after the firm reported that earnings at its UK division had plunged by 40% in the year to 30 September.\n\nRising hotel prices, the fall in the pound and competition in the Spanish market have all affected the travel firm.\n\nA spate of fraudulent illness claims and arrangements to help customers caught up in Hurricane Irma had also pushed up costs at the company.\n\nAt the time, chief executive Peter Fankhauser promised to arrest the slide in the UK, saying it had \"implemented a set of actions to improve performance.\"", "Trump's former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has admitted lying to the FBI about his dealings with Russia.", "Damian Green said the allegations were from a \"tainted and untrustworthy source\"\n\nTheresa May's most senior minister has denied a claim that police found pornography on a computer in his office during a raid in 2008.\n\nFirst Secretary of State Damian Green said ex-police chief Bob Quick's claims in the Sunday Times were \"completely untrue\" and \"political smears\".\n\nAnd he said police had never told him that any improper material had been found on a parliamentary computer.\n\nMr Quick said he \"stood\" by the claim and would take part in an inquiry.\n\nMeanwhile, Conservative MP Chris Pincher has resigned as a government whip and referred himself to police following newspaper allegations about his conduct made by a party activist.\n\nThe revelations are the latest in a growing sexual misconduct scandal in Westminster.\n\nChris Pincher is the MP for Tamworth in Staffordshire\n\nOn Sunday, further details emerged about allegations against Sir Michael Fallon, who this week resigned as defence secretary over his behaviour.\n\nThe Observer reported that he quit shortly after journalist Jane Merrick told Downing Street he had lunged at her and attempted to kiss her on the lips in 2003 after they had lunch together.\n\nAnd Tory MPs Daniel Poulter, Stephen Crabb and Daniel Kawczynski have been referred to the Conservative Party disciplinary committee after media allegations about their conduct.\n\nThe allegation regarding Mr Green, who is effectively the prime minister's deputy, relates to an inquiry into Home Office leaks which briefly led to his arrest in 2008.\n\nDaniel Poulter, Stephen Crabb and Daniel Kawczynski have faced questions about their professional conduct\n\nFormer Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick said on Sunday that his officers had found pornographic material on a computer in Mr Green's Commons office after they searched it as part of their controversial investigation - which resulted in no charges.\n\nThe ex-anti-terror chief said he had made an appointment to speak to a senior official in the Cabinet Office, which last week launched an inquiry into an unrelated allegation against Mr Green, to discuss the matter.\n\n\"I bear no malice to Damian Green,\" he told BBC News.\n\nMr Quick, who quit his role in 2009 after inadvertently revealing secret documents, accepted he had not asked officers to report the matter at the time, saying they \"didn't expect to find the material\" and were in the midst of a \"very difficult inquiry with a lot of pressure to drop the case\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Andrew Marr asked Home Secretary Amber Rudd whether the centre of government was close to collapse\n\nBut Mr Green said \"the allegations about the material and computer, now nine years old, are false, disreputable political smears\", adding that they \"amount to little more than an unscrupulous character assassination\".\n\nThe Cabinet Office inquiry was triggered after journalist Kate Maltby, who is three decades younger than Mr Green, told the Times he \"fleetingly\" touched her knee during a meeting in a pub in 2015 and a year later sent her a \"suggestive\" text message after she was pictured wearing a corset in the newspaper.\n\nMr Green said any allegation that he made sexual advances to Ms Maltby was \"untrue (and) deeply hurtful\".\n\nTwo Tory MPs, Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen, have urged Mr Green to step aside pending the outcome of the investigation but Home Secretary Amber Rudd said her cabinet colleague had the right to defend himself.\n\n\"I do think that we shouldn't rush to allege anything until that inquiry has taken place,\" she told the BBC's Andrew Marr.\n\nMore generally, she said abuse of power could not be tolerated and there needed to be a \"clearing out\" of Westminster to get rid of any such behaviour.\n\nMeanwhile, Conservative MP Anna Soubry has said former Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon was \"responsible for his own downfall\" amid fresh claims about his past behaviour.\n\nMs Merrick told the Observer she \"shrank away in horror\" when Sir Michael tried to kiss her when she was a 29-year-old reporter at the Daily Mail.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jeremy Corbyn says there must be change following recent revelations of sexual harassment\n\n\"I felt humiliated, ashamed. Was I even guilty that maybe I had led him on in some way by drinking with him?\" she said. \"After years of having a drink with so many other MPs who have not acted inappropriately towards me, I now know I was not.\"\n\nFriends of Sir Michael have not denied the allegation, but the BBC understands that his ministerial career ended because he could not guarantee there would be no further revelations after he admitted repeatedly touching another journalist's knee at a conference dinner 15 years ago.\n\nMs Soubry praised the journalist's \"outstanding bravery\" in coming forward and said she had put her in touch with Downing Street after Ms Merrick had confided in her and Labour's Harriet Harman.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jane Merrick \"outstandingly brave\" for speaking out about Sir Michael Fallon - Conservative MP Anna Soubry\n\nTheresa May, she added, must ensure an independent complaints system immediately so victims of harassment and those accused of misconduct did not have to undergo \"trial by newspapers\".\n\nLabour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said this must be a \"turning point\" for how the whole political class behaves, telling activists that his party - under fire for how it has handled harassment and rape allegations - was not afraid to \"shine a spotlight\" on itself.\n\n\"We must say, no more. We must no longer allow women, or anyone else for that matter, to be abused in the workplace or anywhere else,\" he said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe family of a grandmother who died in a hit-and-run crash has released CCTV of the moment she was killed in the hope of catching the driver.\n\nKrishna Devi Droch, 62, was hit by a silver Vauxhall Zafira travelling on the wrong side of the road in Handsworth, Birmingham, on 9 November.\n\nShe died at the scene and the car was found burnt out two miles away.\n\nThree people arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving were released pending further inquiries.\n\nDarren Holness, 47, of Leonard Road, Handsworth, has been charged with perverting the course of justice.\n\nMs Droch's brother Baldev Korotania said: \"The individuals responsible are still out there and the only closure for our family throughout this difficult period is for them to be brought to justice.\"\n\nThe car hit Ms Droch as she crossed Rookery Road on her way to morning prayers.\n\nMoments earlier, it had sped through a red traffic light in Soho Road, and was being closely followed by a light green Corsa and a silver/grey Ford Mondeo.\n\nThe family has backed the release of the CCTV footage by police\n\nAll three cars - two of which had false plates - were found abandoned within 24 hours.\n\nMr Korotania added: \"Krishna was the foundation of our family, who was always there when we needed her.\n\n\"Her caring and compassionate nature will forever be missed by us.\n\n\"The grandchildren she has left behind are still waiting for her to come home.\n\n\"Although nothing can replace what we have lost, her love and care will remain in our hearts forever.\"\n\nDet Sgt Paul Hughes of West Midlands Police said: \"This tragic event has brought devastation and loss to a whole family and a larger community who knew and loved Krishna.\n\n\"We know that there were many people on Rookery Road that day, and there will be people we have not spoken to.\n\n\"I would appeal directly to them to come forward. The information you have may seem insignificant to you, but may be the piece of the puzzle we need to identify the occupants of the cars.\n\n\"I would urge those responsible to give themselves up before we come knocking at their door.\"\n\nDet Sgt Paul Hughes appealed for anyone who recognised the Zafira's number plate to come forward\n\nMr Holness is due at Birmingham Magistrates' Court on 12 December.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. One victim said Sparey threatened to set fire to her house when she could not repay him\n\nA loan shark nicknamed Del Boy who charged astronomical interest to more than 100 victims has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.\n\nRobert Sparey, 55, from Caerphilly, who claimed disability benefits, handed out illegal loans of about £250,000.\n\nHe admitted illegal money lending over 20 years, along with other offences.\n\nCardiff Crown Court heard he successfully sued some victims in the civil court, claiming he had loaned \"friends\" money and was not repaid.\n\nSparey also admitted selling counterfeit tobacco and attempting to pervert the course of justice.\n\nThe court heard he made his collections in a motability car using a disabled family member as \"a front\".\n\nTim Evans, prosecuting for the Wales Illegal Money Lending Unit, said many people who end up borrowing from illegal money lenders are vulnerable and at first consider the person a friend.\n\nHe said Sparey portrayed himself as a victim of physical and financial circumstances - but seized records, which only covered the past three years, showed an estimated £264,405 in loans was to be repaid by his victims.\n\nThe loans themselves totalled £183,991 - with £61,839 the interest.\n\nOne loan was a repayment within two days of £475 on a loan of £350.\n\nMr Evans said it was difficult to know exactly how much money Sparey had made due to limited records, but about £20,000 in cash was found in his home, hidden in chocolate tins, food jars and bedroom cupboards.\n\nHe also had made large payments to credit card companies.\n\nThe court heard some victims were taken to the civil court by Sparey over the money he was owed.\n\n\"Bailiffs came to take property from [one victim's] home but she was so penniless there was nothing to take,\" Mr Evans said.\n\nSparey was found to have about £43,000 in assets - including an £18,000 caravan, two genuine Rolex watches worth £3,000, and gold jewellery and ingots valued at £1,750.\n\n\"He would open the fridge where he kept rolls and rolls of money. He used to joke that his fridge was his safe,\" Mr Evans said.\n\nThe court heard in mitigation that Sparey took more than 30 medications each day, suffered from renal failure and was at risk of having a heart attack.\n\nSentencing him, Judge Eleri Rees said: \"We've heard a catalogue of the misery you've caused.\n\n\"Not only were you preying on some of the most vulnerable in society often unable to obtain credit elsewhere… but in some cases this was accompanied by threats of violence.\n\n\"At the time you were claiming benefits you were making substantial amounts of cash.\"\n\nAfter the case, head of the Wales Illegal Money Lending Unit, Stephen Grey said: \"This is a man who portrayed himself as a victim of physical and financial circumstances.\n\n\"(He) hasn't been employed since 1990, received full council tax benefit, housing benefit, £57 per week from the mobility scheme for his car, the highest level of employment support allowance possible and was in fact making substantial amounts of money being a loan shark.\"", "Bryan Singer has been filming Bohemian Rhapsody in the UK\n\nProduction on the new Freddie Mercury biopic has been suspended so director Bryan Singer can deal with \"a personal health matter\".\n\nThe film, titled Bohemian Rhapsody, will tell the story of the late Queen frontman's life.\n\nTwentieth Century Fox told the BBC work had been temporarily halted \"due to the unexpected unavailability\" of Singer.\n\nThe director's representative said it was \"a personal health matter concerning Bryan and his family\".\n\nA statement added: \"Bryan hopes to get back to work on the film soon after the holidays.\"\n\nBrian May, pictured with Freddie Mercury in 1984, is among the film's producers\n\nBoth Singer and a family member are believed to be suffering from health problems. There's no information about the nature of his illness.\n\nA spokesman for the film studio said: \"Twentieth Century Fox Film has temporarily halted production on Bohemian Rhapsody due to the unexpected unavailability of Bryan Singer.\"\n\nFilming has been taking place in the UK, with Mr Robot actor Rami Malek in the lead role.\n\nThe movie is still expected to be released in December 2018 as planned.\n\nAs well as directing, Singer is listed as a co-producer, alongside Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor, among others.\n\nSinger's past directing credits include The Usual Suspects, four X-Men movies and Superman Returns.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Bob Spink told the court he had collected more than 1,000 signatures in his career\n\nA former Tory MP and UKIP politician has been found guilty of election fraud.\n\nBob Spink, 69, former MP for Castle Point, Essex, committed the offences during the Castle Point borough council elections in May last year.\n\nA jury at Southwark Crown Court found him guilty of four counts of permitting a false signature to be included on a nomination form for a UKIP councillor.\n\nUKIP agent James Parkin, 38, of Canvey Island, was also convicted.\n\nHe was found guilty on two counts of the same charge.\n\nJudge Ian Graham said: \"These types of offences are taken very seriously.\"\n\nJurors heard Spink tricked \"elderly and infirm\" voters into signing the forms in April 2016, without making it clear what the documents were or which party he represented.\n\nThe court heard people in Spink's constituency signed forms believing they were petitions, and having no idea they were supporting the UKIP candidate in the Castle Point council elections.\n\nSpink claimed everything was above board; that residents knew what they were signing; and that he only introduced the topic of the local elections once he had gained their support for his campaign to become a police and crime commissioner (PCC).\n\nMr Spink told the court he had been involved in politics for 30 years\n\nThe pair were found guilty by majority verdicts. They will be sentenced in the new year. Both men were released on bail.\n\nMr Spink, from Benfleet, Essex, was Conservative MP for Castle Point from 1992 to 1997, and again from 2001.\n\nIn 2008, he defected from the Conservative Party and joined UKIP, effectively becoming its first MP.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. After Flynn's guilty plea, what next for the Russia investigation?\n\nSpecial Counsel Robert Mueller just dropped the hammer. Again.\n\nOn Friday it was Michael Flynn's turn \"in the barrel\", to borrow a line from Trump confidant Roger Stone. The former national security adviser pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about December 2016 conversations he had with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak and pledged to \"fully co-operate\" with Mr Mueller's ongoing investigations.\n\nMr Flynn has admitted he misled the FBI about his discussions regarding new sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration following evidence of alleged meddling in the 2016 election.\n\nThere had been hints this was coming, after word last week that Mr Flynn's defence lawyers had stopped co-operating with the Trump legal team. The president's own scattershot behaviour on Twitter this week could also have been a key tell, like a trick knee acting up before a big storm.\n\nSo why is this being billed as a major development in the ongoing investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to Russia? Let us count the ways.\n\n1) Trump's inner circle has been breached\n\nIt is difficult to overstate the significance of this felony plea deal. Mr Flynn was a close adviser and confidant of Mr Trump throughout the 2016 presidential race. He was a surrogate for the candidate on television and enjoyed a prominent speaking role at the July Republican National Convention. He had a pivotal role in Mr Trump's presidential transition.\n\nThe role of national security adviser in the White House, which Mr Flynn assumed upon Mr Trump's inauguration, is one of the most senior positions in any administration, responsible for being the key conduit between the sprawling US military and intelligence bureaucracies and the president. It is a post that has been held by the likes of Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.\n\nMr Trump was so partial to Mr Flynn that he was praising him as a \"wonderful man\" who had been \"treated very, very unfairly by the media\" just days after firing him.\n\nNow Mr Flynn could be going to jail - and, more importantly, could be sharing damaging information about the Trump inner circle he inhabited for so long.\n\nAccording to the \"Statement of the Offense\" filed by the special counsel's office, Mr Flynn is testifying that he had contact with Trump transition team officials before and after his fateful December 2016 conversation with Ambassador Kislyak. \"Members of the transition team,\" the document relates, \"did not want Russia to escalate the situation after the Obama administration imposed new sanctions on the Russian government\".\n\nThese conversations came more than a month after Mr Trump had won the presidency. Mr Flynn had already been announced as the national security adviser in the incoming White House - a top post in the president's inner circle.\n\nThe next big question is who exactly were the unnamed senior members of the presidential transition team. Some US news outlets are naming Jared Kushner and former Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland. Others seem to indicate it was Mr Trump himself. Eventually, Mr Flynn - and Mr Mueller - will have to lay their cards on the table.\n\nMr Flynn's assertions about his conversations with the transition team run directly counter to statements made by Mr Trump in a February press conference in which he said Mr Flynn was acting against orders when he reached out to Mr Kislyak.\n\nIn fact the White House said at the time that the president dismissed Mr Flynn as national security adviser because he lied to Vice-President Mike Pence about his Russian contacts. The true nature of Mr Flynn's conversations with Mr Kislyak first came out thanks to leaks to the press of information gleaned from government surveillance of Mr Kislyak.\n\nIf Mr Flynn has evidence corroborating his account of December contacts with the Trump transition team - which was headed by Mr Pence himself - the White House's explanation for its handling of the Flynn situation, denials of knowledge and all, starts to crumble.\n\nMr Flynn appeared in court in front of Judge Rudolph Contreras\n\nAnyone in the president's inner circle who told the FBI or Mr Mueller's investigators that they weren't privy to Mr Flynn's activities, when there is evidence that they knew, would be open to another round of charges of lying to the FBI.\n\nThe White House response, at least so far, seems to be that Mr Flynn is a lying liar who lies.\n\n\"The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year,\" White House lawyer Ty Cobb wrote in a press statement. \"Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr Flynn.\"\n\n4) Mr Mueller could be building an obstruction of justice case\n\nDust off that old political saw that \"it's not the crime, it's the cover-up\". While Mr Flynn's contact with the Russian ambassador is questionable, given that he was undercutting Obama administration policy efforts, it is probably not illegal.\n\nWhat is illegal, however, is obstruction of justice. Former FBI Director James Comey has testified that on 14 February - the day after Mr Flynn was sacked - Mr Trump urged the director to back off his investigation into Mr Flynn during a private Oval Office meeting.\n\nIf the president knew that the ongoing law-enforcement inquiry would discover Mr Flynn had been acting under orders - either by the president or a member of his transition team - that could be the kind of motive that would help support an obstruction of justice charge.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How Michael Flynn became entangled in Russia probe\n\n5) Only the tip of the iceberg?\n\nThere were a lot of rumours and allegations floating around about Mr Flynn before Friday's plea deal news. The special counsel's office was reportedly looking into Mr Flynn's Obama-era work as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was scrutinising his 2015 trip to Russia, paid for by the Kremlin-backed RT network, and his undisclosed lobbying on behalf of Turkish government interests.\n\nThe charge brought against him, however, was solely related to his December 2016 phone conversations with Mr Kislyak. Although it comes with a possible five-year prison sentence, Mr Mueller hardly threw the book at the former national security adviser. Is this all there is?\n\nMr Mueller is primarily tasked with investigating possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Mr Flynn was a senior adviser to and advocate for Mr Trump's presidential bid. Does the relative modesty of the charges against Mr Flynn indicate he may be offering information directly relevant to this inquiry?\n\nMr Flynn's plea deal is just one piece of a much larger puzzle the special counsel office is trying to solve.\n\nIn October Mr Mueller indicted former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, a top aide with White House ties, on money laundering charges predating their involvement with the Trump campaign.\n\nHe also struck a plea deal with former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who told prosecutors he lied about his own contacts with Russians.\n\nEach move is distinct and not directly related - at least not yet. A some point we are going to learn whether Mr Mueller is building a larger case against the Trump campaign out of these legal moves - or that the sum total of his efforts is nibbling around the edges.\n\nAs the president likes to say, stay tuned.", "A man has been jailed for two years for an attack on a traffic warden, which sent his victim crashing into the window of a restaurant, fracturing his shoulder.\n\nDaniel Corneille, 47, of Estuary Road, Sheerness, pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm at Maidstone Crown Court and was sentenced on Thursday.\n\nThe traffic warden was issuing Corneille a parking ticket as he was blocking paving which was designed to help visually impaired people cross the road. He was also on double yellow lines.\n\nCorneille started to shout and swear at him before pushing him over, Kent Police said. He then got in his car and drove away.", "David Dearlove claimed Paul Booth was injured when he fell out of bed\n\nA man who swung his toddler stepson by the ankles and smashed his head into a fireplace has been been jailed for a minimum of 13 years.\n\nDavid Dearlove, 71, murdered 19-month-old Paul Booth at their home in Stockton-on-Tees in October 1968.\n\nPaul's brother Peter, who was three years old when he witnessed the attack after he crept downstairs for a drink, went to police in 2015.\n\nDavid Dearlove was convicted of murder and three child cruelty charges\n\nThe inquest into Paul's death in 1968 recorded an open verdict.\n\nBut in 2015, Peter went to the police after seeing a photo on Facebook of his little brother sitting on Dearlove's knee.\n\nHe said as a three-year-old he had seen Dearlove, now of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, swinging Paul round their living room and witnessed the boy's head striking the fireplace.\n\nPaul Booth was 19 months old when he died\n\nDuring the trial, Dearlove insisted Paul suffered the fatal head injury when he fell out of bed onto a concrete floor, although he told police when he was arrested in 2015 that the toddler collapsed in the living room.\n\nHe claimed he changed his story because he had forgotten the events of 1968.\n\nThe court heard Dearlove had been violent towards Peter and Paul as well as their sister Stephanie Marron who also accused him of cruelty, saying he punched her and pulled her down the stairs.\n\nPaul Booth had suffered bruising less than a month before his death\n\nA mannequin was used to show jurors how Paul Booth's injuries were inflicted\n\nHome Office pathologist Mark Egan demonstrated how the toddler could have died by swinging a doll by the ankles and banging its head on the surface of the witness box, causing some of the 10 men and two women of the jury to weep.\n\nHe also said he believed it would have taken separate blows to cause the \"z-shaped\" skull fracture on the side of Paul's head.\n\nDearlove was also convicted of three child cruelty charges.\n\nSentencing, Mr Justice Males told him: \"You were a young and no doubt immature man.\n\n\"You were also a cruel man and you made the lives of those three young children a misery.\"\n\nDearlove swung Paul Booth by his ankles, smashing the toddler's head against the living room fireplace\n\nThe Crown Prosecution Service said it had not been able to exhume Paul's body as burial records had been lost, with the case relying on the documents prepared for his inquest at the time.\n\nIn a statement after the verdict, the Booth family said Dearlove's actions \"not only physically killed Paul but also destroyed his memory\".\n\n\"He was buried into an unmarked grave the location of which remains unknown and he was not spoken about for many years.\"\n\nDet Insp Mark Dimelow, from Cleveland Police, said the murder investigation had been \"challenging due to its historic nature\".\n\n\"I want to pay tribute to Paul's family and other witnesses who provided such an emotive testimony and I praise their bravery in having to relive events from 50 years ago,\" he added.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has hit back at investment bank Morgan Stanley, telling the company it was right to regard him as a threat.\n\nHis comments came after the bank said in a report earlier this week that the risks of an incoming Labour government could be \"as significant as Brexit\".\n\nOn social media, he said bankers were the same \"speculators and gamblers\" who crashed the economy in 2008.\n\nBankers like Morgan Stanley \"should not run our country\", Mr Corbyn added.\n\nEarlier this week, Morgan Stanley's European equity team warned investors: \"For the UK market, domestic politics may be perceived as a bigger risk than Brexit.\n\n\"From a UK investor perspective, we believe that the domestic political situation is at least as significant as Brexit, given the fragile state of the current government and the perceived risks of an incoming Labour administration that could potentially embark on a radical change in policy direction.\"\n\nIn a video posted on social media Mr Corbyn hit out at bankers like Morgan Stanley.\n\n\"Their greed plunged the world into crisis and we're still paying the price, because the Tories used the aftermath of the financial crisis to push through unnecessary and deeply damaging austerity,\" he said.\n\nLabour was a \"government-in waiting,\" he said, \"so when they say we're a threat, they're right.\n\n\"We're a threat to a damaging and failed system that's rigged for the few.\"\n\nMr Corbyn also said Morgan Stanley's chief executive, James Gorman, was paid £21.5m last year and UK banks paid out £15bn in bonuses, while \"nurses, teachers, shop workers, builders, just about everyone is finding it harder to get by\".", "Before Charlie Dunn was pulled out of the lagoon his stepfather was heard swearing about not knowing where the youngster was\n\nA five-year-old boy was found drowned more than two hours after his mother and stepfather let him \"go off by himself\", a court heard.\n\nCharlie Dunn, who could not swim, was pulled from a lagoon at Bosworth Water Park in Leicestershire in July 2016.\n\nHis stepfather Paul Smith was overheard saying he did not know where the boy was, Birmingham Crown Court was told.\n\nCharlie's mother Lynsey Dunn and Mr Smith, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, deny causing death by gross negligence.\n\nLynsey Dunn and Paul Smith deny causing Charlie's death by gross negligence by permitting him to enter a bathing area unsupervised\n\nCharlie was pulled from the 1.4-metre deep pool, known as the Blue Lagoon, by other children, jurors heard.\n\nOpening the Crown's case, prosecutor Mary Prior QC said Charlie was supervised near the water by strangers - including a man who was mistaken for his father - after being left alone.\n\nMrs Prior told the court: \"No-one knows how it happened, no-one knows why it happened and at the time he died neither Miss Dunn or Mr Smith had any idea where he was.\n\n\"Charlie had been permitted to go off by himself. The prosecution say that Charlie died because he was not supervised by any adult.\"\n\nThe court heard Charlie was pulled from the water of a special children's pool at the park\n\nMrs Prior added that the defendants had shown \"ingrained and entrenched indifference\" at the time of the tragedy.\n\nShe also claimed they only saw Charlie during the two-hour period \"for the odd minute\" when he returned to their car for something to eat or drink.\n\nMrs Prior said: \"This case is not about parents turning their back for a minute whilst a tragedy occurs.\n\n\"This is a gross failure to supervise not for seconds, and not for a few minutes, but for protracted periods of time in circumstances where the child was exposed to danger.\"\n\nThe court also heard that a woman had told the couple in \"no uncertain terms that she was not happy that they were not supervising Charlie near to the water\" during a previous visit to the park.\n\nBoth defendants are said to have replied that Charlie \"would be all right\".\n\nIn 2015, a neighbour prevented the unsupervised toddler, then aged four, from driving a toy car on to a main road, the jury was told.\n\nMr Smith, 36, and Ms Dunn, 28, of Caledonian, Glascote Heath, both deny causing the youngster's death by gross negligence by permitting him to enter a bathing area unsupervised.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Police in the German city of Potsdam are investigating a device filled with nails found next to a Christmas market.\n\nThe device, that also held batteries and wires, was sent to a pharmacy in the city south-west of Berlin.\n\nPolice initially said there were explosives inside, but then clarified there was no detonator.\n\nGermany is on a heightened terror alert, a year after 12 people died in an Islamist attack at a Berlin Christmas market.\n\nThe device was found near Brandenburgerstrasse in the centre of Potsdam, which has a number of other Christmas markets.\n\nA police spokesman said an X-ray scan was conducted on the device, which found that it had nails inside. It was then made safe.\n\nThe Interior Minister for Brandenburg, Karl-Heinz Schröter, said police were searching the area in case more devices were sent.\n\n\"We just don't know at this point if this was a device that could have actually exploded, or a fake, or a test,\" he said.\n\nMore than 2,600 Christmas markets opened across Germany on Monday. They bring in an estimated £2bn (€2.3bn; $2.7bn) of business a year.\n\nThere is an increased police presence in city centres this year and car barriers have been put up around some Christmas markets.\n\nGermany's interior ministry said this week that the risk of an attack on its territory or in Europe was \"continuously high\".\n\nIn last December's Berlin Christmas market attack, Anis Amri, a Tunisian asylum seeker, hijacked a lorry and killed its driver before ramming it into shoppers, killing another 11 people.", "Donald Tusk was speaking after talks with the Irish prime minister in Dublin\n\nThe UK's offer on Brexit must be acceptable to the Republic of Ireland before the negotiations can move on, the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, has said.\n\nMr Tusk was speaking after talks with the Irish prime minister in Dublin on Friday.\n\nHe said: \"The UK's future lies - in some ways - in Dublin\".\n\nThe European Union has said \"sufficient progress\" must be made on the Irish border before negotiations can move on.\n\n\"The Irish request is the EU's request,\" Mr Tusk said.\n\n\"I realise that for some British politicians this may be hard to understand.\n\n\"But such is the logic behind the fact that Ireland is the EU member while the UK is leaving.\n\nThe Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) said the EU was 'a family which sticks together'\n\n\"This is why the key to the UK's future lies - in some ways - in Dublin, at least as long as Brexit negotiations continue.\"\n\nIn a press conference with Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Leo Varadkar, Mr Tusk said that the UK's decision to leave the EU had created \"uncertainty for millions of people\".\n\n\"The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is no longer a symbol of division, it is a symbol of cooperation and we cannot allow Brexit to destroy this achievement of the Good Friday Agreement,\" he said.\n\nThere is a lively debate about whether the Irish government has a veto over the decision - to be taken at the summit of EU leaders on 14 and 15 December - about whether Brexit talks can move to the next phase.\n\nCall it what you like, but now Donald Tusk has told us for sure that the rest of the EU will do what Ireland decides.\n\nThere was a put-down for British politicians who may find it \"hard to understand\" why this is important.\n\nBut there was some comfort for the British government: Donald Tusk shares their view that the issue of the border can only be solved when there is more clarity about the UK's future relationship with the EU.\n\nAnd Mr Tusk ended by saying \"the key to the UK's future lies - in some ways - in Dublin.\" Is this a hint that the Irish government's suggestion that Northern Ireland remain in the EU's single market and customs union is the answer for the whole of the UK?\n\nOr is it just a reminder that Dublin is first among equals among the remaining 27 members of the EU?\n\n\"The UK started Brexit and now it is their responsibility to propose a credible commitment to do what is necessary to avoid a hard border.\n\n\"As you know, I asked Prime Minister May to put a final offer on the table by the 4th of December so that we can assess whether sufficient progress can be made at the upcoming European Council.\n\n\"Let me say very clearly. If the UK offer is unacceptable for Ireland, it will also be unacceptable for the EU.\"\n\nThe taoiseach thanked Mr Tusk for the solidarity demonstrated by all EU partners and called the EU \"a family which sticks together\".\n\nHe said he was optimistic that a deal could be achieved by Monday.\n\nHowever, he said any UK offer must indicate how a hard border can be avoided and avoid the risk of regulatory divergence.\n\nOn Thursday, the DUP's Sammy Wilson said any attempt to \"placate Dublin and the EU\" could mean a withdrawal of DUP support at Westminster.\n\nHe was responding to reports of a possible strategy to deal with the Irish border after Brexit.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Any attempt to 'placate Dublin and the EU' could jeopardise DUP support for Tories\n\nThe story suggested that British and EU officials could be about to seek separate customs measures for Northern Ireland after the UK leaves the European Union.\n\nThe DUP struck a deal with Prime Minister Theresa May's government in June, agreeing to support Tory policies at Westminster, in return for an extra £1bn in government spending for Northern Ireland.", "A court has ruled that Brendan Dassey's murder confession was voluntary\n\nA US appeals court has upheld the conviction of Brendan Dassey, whose case was the focus of the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer.\n\nDassey and his uncle Steven Avery were convicted of murdering a young woman, Teresa Halbach, in 2005.\n\nLast year, Dassey's conviction was overturned on the basis that his confession was coerced.\n\nBut the state asked for a review and, on Friday, judges voted 4-3 that Dassey's confession was voluntary.\n\nThe split decision from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Chicago, is a big blow for the 27-year-old's hopes of being freed.\n\nOne of the judges, who voted that Dassey's confession was not voluntary, told the Chicago-Sun Times: \"His confession was not voluntary and his conviction should not stand. I view this as a profound miscarriage of justice.\"\n\nHis confession, made when he was 16, was a key factor in his conviction. He admitted helping his uncle Avery - who had already served 18 years for a crime he did not commit - rape, kill and mutilate Ms Halbach.\n\nDassey said he and his uncle Steven Avery (pictured) killed a photographer in 2005\n\nHe was sentenced to life in prison, but the documentary filmmakers cast doubt on the legal process used to convict him.\n\nIn 2016, Judge William Duffin ordered he be freed immediately after finding that investigators in the 2007 trial made \"repeated false promises\" to Dassey by assuring him \"he had nothing to worry about\".\n\nWhen considered with \"Dassey's age, intellectual deficits, and the absence of a supportive adult\", he considered the confession coerced.\n\nBut the decision in Chicago on Friday has overturned Judge Duffin's ruling. Dassey will now remain in prison pending any further appeals.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHis case received wide attention after the release of the 10-part documentary Making a Murderer in December 2015.\n\nIt investigated the killing of Ms Halbach, whose charred remains were found at Avery's car salvage yard a week after she went there to photograph a minivan for sale, and the subsequent court cases.", "Justin Welby says governments should not look to the past to improve education\n\nThe Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised grammar schools as \"contrary to the notion of the common good\".\n\nSpeaking in the House of Lords, the Most Rev Justin Welby called for education to focus on \"drawing the best out of every person\", rather than a selective approach.\n\nHe said governments should not look to the past and \"waste our time rummaging there for the solutions of tomorrow.\"\n\nThe archbishop led a debate on education, saying the country was now in a \"fourth digital revolution\" and schools had one of the \"greatest challenges\" in tackling the \"seismic shift\" when it comes to preparing children for the future.\n\nHowever, he said \"children of privilege continue to inherit privilege\" and the system was not acting in a way to help everyone.\n\n\"The academic selective approach to education, one which prioritises separation as a necessary precondition for the nurture of excellence, makes a statement about the purpose of education that is contrary to the notion of the common good,\" the archbishop said.\n\n\"An approach that neglects those of lesser ability or because of a misguided notion of levelling out does not give the fullest opportunity to those of highest ability or does not enable all to develop a sense of community and mutuality.\"\n\nHis comments have been denounced by some MPs who back the schools.\n\nConservative Andrew Bridgen told the Daily Mail: \"[Mr Welby] is obviously entitled to his own views, but the evidence is that grammar schools are a great way for under-privileged children to escape poverty.\n\n\"It is well known that they provide social mobility for the under-privileged.\"\n\nFellow Conservative MP Conor Burns also told the newspaper: \"Many grammar school provide invaluable opportunities for children from both poor and rich backgrounds, and give them the opportunities they may not otherwise have.\"\n\nIn 2016, Theresa May outlined plans to introduce a \"new generation\" of grammar schools by 2020, removing the ban introduced by Labour in 1997.\n\nHowever, after the general election in June - and without a majority in Parliament - the government scrapped the plans, saying instead they would \"look at all options\" for opening new schools, without removing the ban.\n• None Grammar schools: What are they?", "The plight of British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained for almost six years in Iran on spying charges, focused attention on Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency being held in the Islamic Republic's prisons.\n\nIran does not recognise dual nationality, and there are no exact figures on the number of such detainees given the sensitive nature of the information. Some of the most prominent are:\n\nMorad Tahbaz and fellow conservationists were using cameras to track endangered species when they were arrested\n\nThe 67-year-old businessman and wildlife conservationist, who also holds American and British citizenship, was arrested during a crackdown on environmental activists in January 2018. His Canadian-Iranian colleague, Kavous Seyed-Emami, died in custody a few weeks later in unexplained circumstances.\n\nThe authorities accused Tahbaz and seven other conservationists of collecting classified information about Iran's strategic areas under the pretext of carrying out environmental and scientific projects.\n\nThe conservationists - members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation - had been using cameras to track endangered species including the Asiatic cheetah and Persian leopard, according to Amnesty International.\n\nUN human rights experts said it was \"hard to fathom how working to preserve the Iranian flora and fauna can possibly be linked to conducting espionage against Iranian interests\", while a government committee concluded that there was no evidence to suggest they were spies.\n\nBut in October 2018, Tahbaz and three of his fellow conservationists were charged with \"corruption on earth\", which carries the death penalty. The charge was later changed to \"co-operating with the hostile state of the US\". Three others were charged with espionage, and a fourth was accused of acting against national security.\n\nAll eight denied the charges and Amnesty International said there was evidence that they had been subjected to torture in order to extract forced \"confessions\".\n\nIn November 2019, they were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to 10 years and ordered to return allegedly \"illicit income\".\n\nHuman Rights Watch denounced what it said was an unfair trial, during which the defendants were apparently unable to see the full dossier of evidence against them.\n\nThe Court of Appeals reportedly upheld Tahbaz's convictions in February 2020.\n\nUN human rights experts warned in January 2021 that Tahbaz's health had continuously deteriorated during his imprisonment and that he had been denied access to proper treatment.\n\nIn March 2022, then-UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Tahbaz had been released from Evin prison on furlough.\n\nThe announcement came on the same day that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and fellow British national Anoosheh Ashoori were released by Iran and allowed to return to the UK.\n\nHowever, Tahbaz was returned to Evin just two days later. The UK Foreign Office said the Iranians had told them it was so that he could be fitted with an electronic ankle tag.\n\nHe was not allowed to resume his furlough and subsequently went on hunger strike for nine days to protest against his continued detention.\n\nHis daughter Roxanne said in April 2022 that he had \"made it very clear that he feels abandoned\" by the UK government.\n\nThe Foreign Office said Iran \"committed to releasing Morad from prison on an indefinite furlough\", but had \"failed to honour that commitment\".\n\nIn August 2023, Tahbaz was taken out of Evin and moved to house arrest along with three other Americans - including Siamak Namazi and Emad Shargi - after the US and Iran agreed a prisoner exchange.\n\nIn return for allowing them and a fifth American already under home confinement to leave, the US will reportedly release five Iranians jailed there and allow Iran to access $6bn (£4.7bn) of assets frozen in South Korea.\n\nSiamak Namazi was arrested in 2015 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges\n\nSiamak Namazi, 51, worked as head of strategic planning at Dubai-based Crescent Petroleum.\n\nHe was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in October 2015, while his father Baquer, 86, was arrested in February 2016 after Iranian officials granted him permission to visit his son in prison.\n\nThat October, they were both sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Revolutionary Court for \"co-operating with a foreign enemy state\". An appeals court upheld their sentence in August 2017.\n\nTheir lawyer said they denied the charges against them. He also complained that they had been held in solitary confinement and denied access to legal representation, and had suffered health problems. Siamak is also alleged to have been tortured.\n\nBaquer was released to house arrest on medical grounds in 2018, but his health continued to deteriorate. His sentence was commuted to time served in early 2020, but he was only allowed to leave Iran for medical treatment in October 2022.\n\nIn January 2023, Siamak went on a week-long hunger strike to protest against the failure of the US to free him and other dual nationals despite President Joe Biden's promise to make bringing them home a top priority.\n\nSeven months later, Siamak was again released to house arrest in anticipation of a prisoner exchange agreed by the US and Iran.\n\nHis brother, Babak, said in response: \"While this is a positive change, we will not rest until Siamak and others are back home; we continue to count the days until this can happen.\"\n\nThe Iranian-American businessman and his wife moved to Iran from the US in 2017.\n\nShargi, who is 58, was initially detained by the Revolutionary Guards in April 2018, when he was working in sales for Sarava, an Iranian venture capital fund. He was released on bail that December, when officials told him that a court had cleared him of spying charges that he had denied. However, authorities refused to return his passport.\n\nIn November 2020, Shargi was summoned by a Revolutionary Court and told that he had been convicted of espionage in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison, his family said. He was not imprisoned immediately and was released on bail ahead of an appeal.\n\nIn January 2021, Iran's judiciary spokesman said an unnamed \"defendant\" facing spying charges had been arrested as he attempted to leave the country while on bail. It came a week after a state-backed news agency reported that Shargi had been detained while trying to cross Iran's western border illegally.\n\nHis daughters wrote in the Washington Post in April 2021 that he was \"trapped in terrible conditions\" in prison and that he had only been allowed a couple of short, monitored phone calls.\n\nIn August 2023, Shargi was released to house arrest in anticipation of a prisoner exchange between the US and Iran.\n\nHis sister, Neda, said in a statement: \"My family has faith in the work that President Biden and government officials have undertaken to bring our families home and hope to receive that news soon.\"\n\nAhmadreza Djalali was sentenced to death in October 2017\n\nThe 51-year-old specialist in emergency medicine was arrested in April 2016 while on a business trip from Sweden.\n\nAmnesty International said Djalali was held at Evin prison by intelligence ministry officials for seven months, three of them in solitary confinement, before he was given access to a lawyer.\n\nHe alleged that he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment during that period, including threats to kill or otherwise harm his children, who live in Sweden, and his mother, who lives in Iran.\n\nIn October 2017, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran convicted Djalali of \"spreading corruption on Earth\" and sentenced him to death. His lawyers said the court relied primarily on evidence obtained under duress and alleged that he was prosecuted solely because of his refusal to use his academic ties in European institutions to spy for Iran.\n\nTwo months later, Iranian state television also aired what it said was footage of Djalali confessing that he had spied on Iran's nuclear programme for Israel. It suggested he was responsible for identifying two Iranian nuclear scientists who were killed in bomb attacks in 2010.\n\nIn February 2018, Sweden confirmed that it had given Djalali citizenship and demanded that his death sentence not be carried out. He had previously been a permanent resident.\n\nIn November 2021, Djalali's wife, Vida Mehran-Nia, said he had been informed by prison authorities that he faced imminent execution. He spent five months in solitary confinement, awaiting execution, until April 2021, when he reportedly was moved to a multi-occupancy cell.\n\nJust over a year later, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said Djalali's death sentence was \"final\" and was \"on the agenda\" of authorities.\n\nHe also insisted that the case was not linked to the war crimes trial in Sweden of former Iranian judiciary official Hamid Nouri, who was sentenced to life in prison over what prosecutors said was his leading role in the mass executions of Iranian opposition supporters in 1988.\n\nDjalali's wife and human rights groups have said Djalali is a \"hostage\" who Iran is threatening to execute in an attempt to negotiate a swap for Mr Nouri.\n\nNahid Taghavi was an advocate for women's rights in Iran\n\nThe 68-year-old retired architect, who is a German-Iranian dual national, was arrested at her apartment in Tehran in October 2020 and accused of \"endangering security\".\n\nShe was placed in solitary confinement at Evin prison and not given access to lawyers, German diplomats or members of her family, according to her daughter Mariam Claren.\n\nTaghavi was repeatedly subjected to coercive questioning without the presence of lawyers, according to Amnesty International. Interrogators reportedly asked her about meeting people to discuss women's and labour rights, and possessing literature about those issues.\n\nIn August 2021, she was convicted by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran of \"forming a group composed of more than two people with the purpose of disrupting national security\" and \"spreading propaganda against the system\". She was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison.\n\nTaghavi had denied the charges, the first of which was apparently related to a social media account about women's rights, and Amnesty said the trial was \"grossly unfair\".\n\nMs Claren wrote on Twitter that her mother \"did not commit any crime. Unless freedom of speech, freedom of thought are illegal\".\n\nShe has said her mother has been denied adequate healthcare by prison and prosecution authorities, despite doctors saying in September 2021 that she needed surgery on her spinal column.\n\nIn July 2022, Taghavi was granted urgent medical leave from prison for treatment for back and neck problems. She was sent back to Evin four months later.\n\nA fellow inmate in the prison warned in June 2023 that Taghavi's life was \"in danger\" following a further 220 days in solitary confinement.\n\n\"The pain is so severe that it can be clearly seen on her face. She can barely get out of her bed,\" a message posted on human rights activist Narges Mohammadi's Instagram account said.\n\nThe 64-year-old researcher at Sciences-Po university in Paris is a specialist in social anthropology and the political anthropology of post-revolutionary Iran, and has written a number of books.\n\nAt the time of her arrest in Tehran in June 2019, she was examining the movement of Shia clerics between Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, and had spent time in the holy city of Qom.\n\nAdelkhah was accused of espionage and other security-related offences.\n\nShe protested her innocence and after going on hunger strike, she was admitted to hospital for treatment for severe kidney damage.\n\nProsecutors dropped the espionage charge before her trial began at the Revolutionary Court in April 2020. The following month, the court sentenced Adelkhah to five years in prison for conspiring against national security and an additional year for propaganda against the establishment.\n\nFrench Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned the sentence and demanded her release.\n\nIn October 2020, due to what Sciences-Po called her \"health circumstances\", Adelkhah was released on bail and allowed to return to her home in Tehran.\n\nHowever, Iran's judiciary announced in January 2022 that it had returned Adelkhah to prison, accusing her of \"knowingly violating the limits of house arrest dozens of times\". French President Emmanuel Macron called the decision \"entirely arbitrary\".\n\nIn February 2023, Adelkhah Adelkhah was released from Evin prison after three and a half years in detention.\n\nHowever, Iranian authorities refused to return her identity papers, making it impossible for her to leave the country or resume her work as a researcher.\n\nJamshid Sharmahd with his wife (L) and daughter, Gazelle\n\nSharmahd, 68, who lived in the US, arrived in the United Arab Emirates in July 2020 and was awaiting a connecting flight to India when he disappeared. It is believed that he was kidnapped by Iranian agents in Dubai and then forcibly taken to Iran via Oman.\n\nThe following month, Iran's intelligence ministry announced that it had arrested Sharmahd following a \"complex operation\", without providing any details. It also published a video in which he appeared blindfolded and confessed to various crimes.\n\nIn February 2023, Iran's judiciary said Sharmahd had been sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran after being found guilty of \"spreading corruption on Earth through planning and leading terror operations\".\n\nIt alleged that he was the leader of a terrorist group known as Tondar and that he had \"planned 23 terror attacks\", of which \"five were successful\", including the 2008 bombing of a mosque in Shiraz in that killed 14 people.\n\nTondar - which means \"thunder\" in Persian - is another name of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran (KAI), a little-known US-based opposition group that seeks to restore the monarchy overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.\n\nAccording to Amnesty International, Sharmahd created a website to publish statements from the KAI, including claims of explosions inside Iran.\n\nHe also read out statements in radio and video broadcasts.\n\nHowever, he denied his involvement in the attacks, saying he was only a spokesman, and rejected all accusations during his trial.\n\nAmnesty said Sharmahd told his family that he had been tortured and subjected to other ill-treatment in detention, including by being held in prolonged solitary confinement.\n\nHe also told them that he had been denied adequate healthcare, with access to medications required for his Parkinson's disease delayed routinely.\n\nIn July, Sharmahd's daughter Gazelle told the BBC that he could be executed at any time.\n\n\"They're killing him softly in solitary confinement in this death cell. But even if he survives that, they're killing him by hanging him from a crane in public,\" she said.\n\nThe accountant was an adviser to the governor of Iran's central bank and was a member of the Iranian negotiating team for the country's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, in charge of financial issues.\n\nHe was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in August 2016 just before he was due to board a flight to Canada, and was accused of \"selling the country's economic details to foreigners\".\n\nIn May 2017, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran convicted Dorri Esfahani of espionage charges, including \"collaborating with the British secret service\", and sentenced him to five years in prison.\n\nThat October an appeals court upheld Dorri Esfahani's sentence, despite then-Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi insisting that he was innocent.\n\nDorri Esfahani was due to complete his sentence in 2022, but there were no reports of his release.\n\nDalili is a retired Iranian merchant navy captain who is a US permanent resident.\n\nHe has been detained in Iran since April 2016, when he visited Tehran to attend his father's funeral. He was later convicted of \"collaborating with a hostile state\" and sentenced to 10 years in prison.\n\nIn August 2023, his son, Darian, said he was not part of the prisoner exchange deal between the US and Iran.\n\n\"He feels betrayed. He is demoralized. He believes that the US would bring back anyone that they want to bring back,\" Darian told Reuters news agency.\n\nA US state department spokesman declined to tell reporters why Dalili was not included, but did reveal he had not yet been declared \"wrongfully detained\" - a designation that would mean the department dedicated more resources to their case and assigned it to a presidential envoy.", "Boris Johnson's visit to Iran will be his first as foreign secretary\n\nWhen Boris Johnson arrives in Tehran this weekend, the foreign secretary will be required to perform some nifty diplomatic footwork even before he comes to address the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.\n\nFor relations between Britain and the Islamic Republic of Iran are delicate at the best of times.\n\nIt is only six years since a mob stormed and sacked Britain's embassy in Tehran.\n\nAnd to some in Iran, Britain will always be seen as the \"Little Satan\", a former imperial power that meddles in their country's affairs at America's bidding.\n\nBoth the UK and Iran have now restored diplomatic relations. But good relations are a work in progress.\n\nSo this visit, Mr Johnson's first, is designed above all to stabilise what has at times been a difficult relationship, a trip that was planned long before the case of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe became a frontline political issue.\n\nAnd when Mr Johnson sits down for a lengthy session with his counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, on Saturday, there will be much else to discuss.\n\nThey will talk about the Iran nuclear deal.\n\nTehran believes it has not reaped the economic benefits it expected from the agreement it struck to curb its nuclear ambitions.\n\nBritain wants to encourage Iran to stick with the agreement despite Donald Trump's decision not to certify the deal.\n\nThey will talk about Yemen where Iran is backing the rebel Houthi forces.\n\nThe foreign secretary will want to urge Tehran not to supply missiles that the Houthis have targeted at Saudi Arabia's airport.\n\nTehran will want to see what kind of political process, if at all, is being contemplated by the Saudi-led coalition.\n\nThey will also want to talk about Iran's behaviour in the Middle East that Britain sees as destabilising.\n\nTehran will want to discuss how the West is planning to help rebuild Syria now that so-called Islamic State has been largely routed out.\n\nSo it is within the context of these debates that both sides will discuss the fate of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British Iranian mother who was arrested in 2016 and jailed for five years for vague charges of plotting against the Iranian state - charges she categorically denies.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Iran in 2016\n\nThe difficulty that Mr Johnson has is one of expectations.\n\nEver since the foreign secretary mistakenly told MPs that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists in Iran when in fact her family have always insisted she was on holiday, Mr Johnson has been under pressure to compensate for his error.\n\nHis erroneous remarks were used by the Iranian regime to justify fresh charges against Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe.\n\nSo Mr Johnson is now under huge pressure from campaigners and her husband Richard Ratcliffe to bring her home.\n\nYet Mr Johnson will not be travelling with Mr Ratcliffe, as some had hoped might be possible.\n\nThe Foreign Office says it wants to secure a permanent family reunion, not a temporary one.\n\nAnd Mr Johnson is also not expected to visit Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe in prison, something else that was asked of him.\n\nIf the British ambassador has been refused access, why might the Iranians grant it to a visiting foreign secretary?\n\nThe problem is that there might actually be only so much that Mr Johnson can do.\n\nHe can talk to Mr Zarif until he is blue in the face.\n\nBut there are others within Iran - such as the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the ultra-conservative judiciary - who perhaps will have a greater say over her fate.\n\nThe Iranians know how much the British want to get Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe home.\n\nBeing told that again directly by Mr Johnson may not change matters significantly.\n\nSome in the UK want Mr Johnson to pay off a long standing debt owed to the Iranians in an attempt to curry favour with Tehran.\n\nThe UK owes Iran about £400m for some Chieftain tanks it promised the former Shah of Iran but never delivered after the 1979 revolution.\n\nThe problem is that this debt has nothing to do with the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case.\n\nThe UK has agreed to pay the money but can't until a legal way is found to get round the sanctions that currently make repayment impossible.\n\nThere is also the strategic reluctance to allow any linkage between the two issues.\n\nIran could pocket the money and quite legitimately refuse to release Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe because this is a debt, not a quid pro quo.\n\nThe UK is also arguing strongly that she should be released on humanitarian grounds and is reluctant for her to be caught up in some grand bargain with Tehran.\n\nRichard Ratcliffe has been campaigning for his wife's release\n\nBritain does have some cards in its favour.\n\nIt has come out strongly in favour of keeping the Iran nuclear deal, backing Tehran over Washington.\n\nThe UK has also spoken out strongly against President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\n\nThe problem is that this is, above all, a consular case.\n\nThat means Britain can make an argument but ultimately it is Iran that will decide.\n\nTehran does not recognise the concept of dual nationality so in its eyes Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is Iranian.\n\nAnd her future is thus seen as a matter for the sovereign state of Iran.\n\nIn truth, though, this is not just any other consular case.\n\nMr Ratcliffe believes his wife is a pawn in a much larger diplomatic game, a bargaining chip whose life is being cruelly manipulated by some parts of the Iranian government to secure their political objectives.\n\nThere are occasional moments of hope.\n\nIn recent weeks a spokesman for Iran's judiciary has said that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe could be freed if she qualified for conditional release.\n\nAn Iranian health commissioner has conducted an assessment of her mental and physical well-being after she suffered from insomnia, depression and panic attacks.\n\nMr Ratcliffe says that Mr Johnson being in Iran \"can only make things better\".\n\nBut right now all his wife can look forward to is her next court appearance, which is scheduled for Sunday.", "The agreement commits both sides to an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic\n\n\"The test of a first-rate intelligence,\" F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Crack-Up, \"is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.\"\n\nToday the British government and the European Union are making a fist of passing that test.\n\nReading the joint report between the UK and the EU, it is clear that the most important section when considering the economics of Brexit is the section on Ireland.\n\nThe document commits both sides to an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and that there will be \"no new regulatory barriers\" between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.\n\nIt also commits to the UK leaving the EU's single market and customs union.\n\nThese two positions appear to be in contradiction.\n\nIf Britain does become a \"third country\" - that is trading with the EU as other non-EU countries outside the single market and the customs union do - then border controls will be necessary.\n\nAnd that open border will become very much more closed.\n\nThere is at least a partial way around this conundrum.\n\nAnd it necessitates the comprehensive free trade deal the British government has said it wants.\n\nAnd at least closely mirroring customs arrangements we presently adhere to as members of the EU's customs union.\n\nThat equates for many with a \"soft Brexit\" and is the trajectory many economists argue would be best for the UK economy.\n\nThis is because, if there is no free trade agreement, it is difficult to see how Theresa May's government could maintain \"full alignment with the rules of the internal market and the customs union which support north-south co-operation [on the island of Ireland]\" which the joint report commits the PM to.\n\nAnd still say that Britain has left the EU.\n\nThis document has been described as the \"withdrawal deal\".\n\nBut it is actually far more importantly a signal of what the future might hold.\n\nAnd that appears to be a relationship where the UK closely follows the EU's single market and customs union rules despite not being a formal member of either.\n\nWhich might very well constrain Britain's ability to sign free trade deals with other countries outside the EU.\n\nThe government will have to find a way through that if it is not to make Liam Fox's job as international trade secretary redundant.\n\nAnd in its deliberate ambiguity (every side needs to be able to claim victory) today's joint agreement leaves that debate for another day.\n\nThe EU has said it wants to move urgently onto discussing and agreeing transition arrangements to be applied once Britain has officially left the union in March 2019.\n\nThat now looks like being Phase II of this process.\n\nAnd from there, onto mapping out an agreement on free trade which will be put in place after the transition period has expired.\n\nThat has been seen as good news by businesses which need clarity on the trade rules they will be required to play by.\n\nAnd the more \"frictionless\" that trade is, many believe, the better for the economy.\n\nWhat today's deal has revealed is that there is a genuine desire - it appears from both sides - to get that free trade deal nailed down.\n\n\"One should be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise,\" Fitzgerald wrote.\n\nToday, the UK and the EU have moved the process of Brexit significantly forward.\n\nEven if the end point is still shrouded in much uncertainty.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV of two men wanted in connection with the kidnap and burglary\n\nA man was stripped naked, beaten and tied up in a kidnapping ordeal that lasted 50 hours.\n\nThe 24-year-old victim was lured to a house in Thornton Heath, Croydon by two acquaintances, where he was set upon by an armed gang.\n\nHis keys were taken by the gang who burgled his parents' home.\n\nAs well as the man's £9,000 Rolex watch, a significant amount of cash was taken from the property in Sydenham, south-east London, police said.\n\nThe captors had previously forced the man to ring his parents and make a ransom demand for his release, which they could not pay.\n\nOn Wednesday, which was the third evening of the hostage ordeal, the victim was taken by car to a Metro bank cash machine in North End, Croydon, so he could withdraw money.\n\nHis tormentors waited in the vehicle, apparently out of fear of being captured on CCTV, giving the man an opportunity to escape.\n\nDet Sgt Samuel Bennett, of the Croydon Criminal Investigation Department, said: \"This was a vicious and prolonged attack of a nature that thankfully is very rare.\n\n\"It has left the victim utterly distraught and traumatised.\"\n\nThe entry of two suspects into the home of the victim's parents was captured on CCTV. The footage has now been released by police in a bid to identify them.\n\nDetectives have also named two other men they want to speak to in connection with the man's ordeal - two brothers, Ali Dervish, 28, and 19-year-old Sinan Dervish.\n\nAli Dervish is among the suspects wanted in connection with the kidnap and burglary\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The wildfires have devastated parts of southern California\n\nMuch of California's avocado crop has been destroyed by wildfires that have ripped through the southern part of the state, industry experts say.\n\n\"We've lost at least several hundred acres of avocados, probably more,\" the California Avocado Commission told agriculture news site AgNet West.\n\nAbout 90% of US avocados are grown in California, and the industry is worth millions to the economy.\n\nAbout 5,700 firefighters have been battling the fires, officials say.\n\nOne death has been confirmed - that of a 70-year-old woman found in her car on Wednesday. Three firefighters have been injured and about 500 buildings destroyed.\n\nThere are now fears the fires will have serious implications for California's vast agricultural industry.\n\nLast season's avocado harvest produced a crop worth more than $400m (£300m), according to the California Avocado Commission. Much of this was grown on family-owned farms in the south of the state.\n\nA firefighter tackles a blaze at an avocado orchard near Ojai, California\n\nVentura County, which is California's largest growing region for avocados, has seen the worst of the fires with 180 square miles (466 sq km) consumed, according to officials.\n\nJohn Krist, chief executive of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, told Reuters news agency: \"A lot of that fruit everybody was looking forward to harvesting next year is lying on the ground.\"\n\nFood safety regulations mean the crop cannot be sold once it falls from the tree.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drivers filmed the flames from their cars near Bel Air\n\nThe fires mean the upcoming harvest, which usually takes place in February or March, is likely to be smaller than usual. However experts say it too soon to assess the full extent of the damage.\n\nElsewhere, US President Donald Trump has declared a state of emergency, which will free up funding to \"help alleviate the hardship and suffering that the emergency may inflict on the local population\".\n\nNearly 200,000 residents have been evacuated from their homes as firefighters battle the wildfires on several fronts.\n\nGovernor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in San Diego on Thursday after a new blaze spread from 10 acres to 4,100 acres in just a few hours.\n\nAuthorities have issued a purple alert - the highest level warning - amid what they have called \"extremely critical fire weather\".\n\nThe powerful desert-heated Santa Ana winds have been fanning the flames.", "Uber driver Shiv Kumar Yadav was sentenced to life in prison over the rape\n\nUber has agreed to settle a US civil lawsuit with a woman who accused its executives of improperly obtaining her medical records after she was raped by a driver in India.\n\nThe lawsuit, which follows on from a crime committed in 2014, cited media reports where officials at the firm were said to have doubted her account.\n\nThe Indian woman was living in the US when she filed the lawsuit.\n\nThe Uber driver was sentenced to life in prison for the rape in 2015.\n\nIn December 2014, the 26-year-old Delhi woman, who later moved to Texas, filed a case anonymously in which she said she had been kidnapped and raped by Shiv Kumar Yadav.\n\nShe had used the Uber smartphone app to book a taxi home but said she had been taken by Yadav to a secluded area and raped.\n\nYadav was sentenced to life in prison following a criminal case in India. As well as the court case, the woman sued Uber and settled out of court.\n\nHowever, she filed a new suit in the US after reports emerged that Uber had investigated the complaint, obtained her medical records and speculated that she made up the claims to hurt the firm's business.\n\nShe alleged in the lawsuit that Uber had violated her privacy and defamed her character.\n\nThe lawsuit, which was settled in San Francisco where Uber has its headquarters, also said the company had kept a copy of the woman's medical records.\n\nSeveral media reports cited in the lawsuit said that senior staff at the ride-hailing company, including Travis Kalanick, the former Uber chief executive who was ousted in June this year, and former executives Emil Michael and Eric Alexander, had questioned the victim's account of her ordeal.\n\n\"Uber executives duplicitously and publicly decried the rape, expressing sympathy for the plaintiff, and shock and regret at the violent attack, while privately speculating, as outlandish as it is, that she had colluded with a rival company to harm Uber's business,\" the lawsuit said.\n\nAt the time the later lawsuit was filed, an Uber spokesperson said: \"No one should have to go through a horrific experience like this, and we're truly sorry that she's had to relive it over the last few weeks.\"\n\nThe plaintiff dropped Emil Michael from her complaint in October before settling the case.\n\nTerms of the latest settlement have not been disclosed.\n\nIt comes as the new CEO of Uber, Dara Khosrowshahi, is trying to clean up the image of the company, which has been plagued by scandals and lawsuits.", "Salvador Sobral missed a week of Eurovision rehearsals due to his heart condition\n\nPortugal's celebrated Eurovision Song Contest winner, Salvador Sobral, is recovering in hospital after undergoing a heart transplant.\n\nSurgeons at the Santa Cruz Hospital in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, said the 27-year-old was \"doing well\".\n\nSobral, who suffered from a longstanding heart condition, won this year's contest with the love song Amar Pelos Dois (Love for Both of Us).\n\nIt was the first time Portugal had taken the title.\n\n\"The surgery went well,\" said surgeon Miguel Abecasis, quoted by the Publico daily (in Portuguese).\n\n\"He was very well prepared. He is a young man who understood the difficulties of this type of procedure.\"\n\nMr Abecasis said that before Friday's operation the singer had wished him \"good luck\".\n\nThe recovery would take a long time, Mr Abecasis added, but said that if all went well, Sobral would have \"a completely normal life\".\n\nThe singer had to wait several months until a suitable donor was found, Publico reported. He announced in September that he was taking a break from performing.\n\nSobral's winning ballad, written by his older sister, Luisa, made him a national hero in Portugal.\n\nHe described it as \"an emotional song with a beautiful lyrical message and harmony - things people are not used to listening these days\".", "The window display included the message \"wishing you an explosive Christmas\"\n\nA 29-year-old man has been charged after a snowman holding a rocket launcher was painted on the window of a republican support group's office in Londonderry.\n\nThe image included the message: \"Wishing you an Explosive Christmas.\"\n\nIt appeared at the office of the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association in Chamberlain Street.\n\nThe man has been charged with two counts of permitting display of anything provocative.\n\nIt follows the appearance of the display in October.\n\nThe Police Service of Northern Ireland said the man is due to appear at the magistrates' court in Derry on 3 January.\n\nAll charges will be reviewed by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland.", "There is something hauntingly contemporary about this exhibition.\n\nIt starts with a disgruntled England, which has made a cataclysmic decision to break with an imperfect but effective Europe-entwined institution that has been the basis for the country's social, economic, and political life.\n\nWe'd be better off without 'em, is the feeling.\n\nThe Irish and Scots are not so sure, but the will of a group of charismatic and self-righteous metropolitan politicians prevails, and people are warily readying themselves for a collective leap into the dark.\n\nThe population is divided on the matter, split like a pair of cheap trousers.\n\nThe fact is this scepter'd isle is going to be run differently from now on.\n\nWe stand poised. It is mid December. But we are not in 2017.\n\nWe are in 1649 and, like it or not, the country is going to be a republic. The old monarchical system along with its network of tactical intercontinental marriages is over. Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army rule, OK.\n\nCharles I, by Edward Bower, is the first painting in the exhibition\n\nWhich brings us to the first painting in the show where we meet Charles I shortly before his execution, commissioned, apparently, by Cromwell and his chums. The incarcerated King looks wizard-like, nonchalant, and inwardly majestic.\n\nIt is a respectful seated portrait suggesting the God-fearing Parliamentarian was uncomfortable doing away with a man widely believed to be hot-wired to God.\n\nIt didn't stop him, though. As we see in an explicitly detailed image called The Execution of Charles I. This gory print became an instant blockbuster; a bloodthirsty hit both at home and throughout an intrigued and amazed Europe.\n\nAlongside it is a copy of a small book with a big title, Eikon Basilike: The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings.\n\nThis is important. It is basically a mix of memoire, prayer, and personal statement, probably - but not definitely - written by Charles I shortly before his public beheading at Whitehall.\n\nWhat is certain is the date of its publication 10 days after the event, when it quickly became a bestseller and in-turn a cunning piece of beyond the grave Royalist propaganda.\n\nMaybe the King wasn't so bad after all.\n\nMaybe he was a martyr. And look at that lovely little woodcut image of him blessing his divine son as his chosen successor. The Restoration had begun in people's minds less than two weeks into the new Commonwealth.\n\nThe exhibition then jump cuts to 1660 and the return of the exiled Charles II.\n\nThe Coronation of King Charles II in Westminster Abbey, by Wenceslaus Hollar\n\nBacked with parliamentary cash, the soon-to-be crowned King has been out on a shopping spree to replace all the regalia and formal royal tableware Cromwell had melted down and flogged off.\n\nIt is a fine line the young man has to walk. His purchases need to be glitzy enough to impress and cement his status and legitimacy. But they can't be as flashy as the stuff his French cousin Louis XIV buys because: a) it might go down badly with the public and cost him his head, and b) he can't afford it.\n\nHe opts for silver gilt, which nearly 360 years later still looks magnificent. The craftsmanship and quality of the plates, candlesticks, chalices, and salts are impressive. As is an exquisitely embroidered bible given to the newly restored King, signalling a more liberal, post-Cromwellian, era.\n\nThe brakes are off. Theatres are re-opened.\n\nCharles II, painted by John Michael Wright, is a powerful image of the monarchy restored\n\nCharles II takes on a coterie of lovers (including the saucily depicted actress Nell Gwyn), and poses for a huge portrait by John Michael Wright.\n\nWhat the painting lacks in terms of technique - which is quite a lot - it more than makes up for with size and visual impact. It is designed to establish the new King as the top man. We see him sitting in an elevated position, wearing the crown of state, and sporting his Order of the Garter costume under Parliament robes. He is holding his newly acquired orb and sceptre.\n\nThe idea is to hark back to Tudor and Elizabethan styles to imply stability through continuity. Frankly, he looks ridiculous; like an aging rock-star who has been allowed to rummage around in the royal dressing up box.\n\nIt sums up what quickly becomes apparent in this show, which is Charles II was not blessed with the same curatorial eye as his late father. OK he acquired some wonderful drawings by Leonardo, Michelangelo and Holbein - some of which are on display.\n\nBut when it came to the task of retrieving the great paintings Cromwell sold off, or commissioning new pictures, he comes up short.\n\nHe did make a few decent purchases.\n\nThe Massacre of the Innocents by Pieter Bruegel the Elder\n\nYou'll see a very good Pieter Bruegel the Elder painting called The Massacre of the Innocents. Although, it is slightly odd in so much as there are no innocents being massacred.\n\nThere were originally, but when the Habsburg Emperor, Rudolf II, owned the painting he recognised the occupying troops as his own (specifically depicted as such by Bruegel, who was making a political point) and had all the dead babies painted out. The upshot is a scene in which women are bent over, crying their eyes out over loaves of bread and various poultry.\n\nIf you're after an exhibition stuffed to its royal gunnels with painterly masterpieces, the chances are you'll be underwhelmed by Charles II: Art & Power and should wait until January when the Royal Academy will do what he didn't and reunite much of his father's collection.\n\nIf, however, you are in the market for a richly told, thought-provoking history lesson that feels surprisingly relevant in today's Brexit Britain, with the added bonus that its central protagonist looks like Brian May from Queen, then you might consider the £11 ticket price as money well spent.\n\nCharles II: Art and Power is at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London SW1A.", "European Union officials say sufficient progress has been made in the Brexit negotiations, meaning they can move on to trade talks with the UK.\n\nTheresa May travelled to Brussels early this morning to present proposals on the so-called divorce bill, citizens rights and the Northern Ireland border.", "Recapturing Mosul was the bloodiest conflict - for both combatants and civilians\n\nIraq has announced that its war against so-called Islamic State (IS) is over.\n\nPrime Minister Haider al-Abadi told a conference in Baghdad that Iraqi troops were now in complete control of the Iraqi-Syrian border.\n\nThe border zone contained the last few areas IS held, following its loss of the town of Rawa in November.\n\nThe US state department welcomed the end of the \"vile occupation\" of IS in Iraq and said the fight against the group would continue.\n\nIraq's announcement comes two days after the Russian military declared it had accomplished its mission of defeating IS in neighbouring Syria.\n\nThe jihadist group had seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, when it proclaimed a \"caliphate\" and imposed its rule over some 10 million people.\n\nBut it suffered a series of defeats over the past two years, losing Iraq's second city of Mosul this July and its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria last month.\n\nSome IS fighters are reported to have dispersed into the Syrian countryside, while others are believed to have escaped across the Turkish border.\n\nThis is undeniably a proud moment for Mr Abadi - a victory that once looked like it might only ever be rhetorical rather than real.\n\nBut if the direct military war with IS in Iraq is genuinely over, and the country's elite forces can now step back after a conflict that's taken a huge toll on them, it doesn't mean the battle against the group's ideology or its ability to stage an insurgency is finished - whether in Iraq, Syria or the wider world.\n\nAttacks may be at a lower level than they once were, but Iraqi towns and cities still fall prey to suicide bombers, while the conditions that fuelled the growth of jihadism remain - even in the territory that's been recaptured.\n\nMr Abadi said on Saturday: \"Our forces are in complete control of the Iraqi-Syrian border and I therefore announce the end of the war against Daesh [IS].\n\n\"Our enemy wanted to kill our civilisation, but we have won through our unity and our determination. We have triumphed in little time.\"\n\nThe Iraqi armed forces issued a statement saying Iraq had been \"totally liberated\" from IS.\n\n\"The United States joins the government of Iraq in stressing that Iraq's liberation does not mean the fight against terrorism, and even against Isis [IS], in Iraq is over,\" she added.\n\nUK Prime Minister Theresa May congratulated Mr Abadi on a \"historic moment\" but warned that IS still posed a threat, including from across the border in Syria.\n\nLast month, the Syrian military said it had \"fully liberated\" the eastern border town of Albu Kamal, the last last urban stronghold of IS in that country.\n\nOn Thursday, the head of the Russian general staff's operations, Col-Gen Sergei Rudskoi, said: \"The mission to defeat bandit units of the Islamic State terrorist organisation on the territory of Syria, carried out by the armed forces of the Russian Federation, has been accomplished.\"\n\nEstimates of civilian deaths in Mosul alone vary wildly, with one figure as high as 40,000\n\nHe said Russia's military presence in Syria would now concentrate on preserving ceasefires and restoring peace.\n\nThe collapse of IS has raised fears that its foreign fighters will escape over Syria's borders to carry out more attacks abroad.\n\nCivilians flee as Iraqi forces battle to retake Mosul in March 2017", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Iran since April 2016\n\nBoris Johnson has held talks in Iran to press for the release of British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.\n\nThe UK foreign secretary met his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif to call for the release of the mother-of-one on humanitarian grounds, along with other dual nationals.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Tehran since April 2016 after being accused of spying, which she denies.\n\nMr Johnson's first visit to Iran comes amid rising tension in the Middle East.\n\nOn Saturday afternoon he will meet the speaker of the Iranian parliament and the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.\n\nBBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins said Mr Johnson is expected to emphasise Britain's continuing support for the international nuclear deal with Iran, but he will also make clear Britain's concerns about some of Iran's activities, notably in Yemen and Syria.\n\nOur correspondent said Mr Johnson's trip to Tehran - only the third made by a UK foreign secretary since 2003 - could \"hardly be more sensitive\".\n\nMr Johnson did not speak to reporters before going into the meeting with Mohammad Javad Zarif\n\nHe added that Mr Johnson had been careful to lower any expectations of imminent release for 37-year-old Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, warning that such cases are very difficult.\n\nMr Ratcliffe met with Mr Johnson to discuss his wife's case earlier this year\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a holiday visit to enable her parents to meet her baby daughter Gabriella.\n\nAfter the arrest her daughter's passport was confiscated and for the last 20 months she has been living with her maternal grandparents in Iran.\n\nEven before Boris Johnson took off for Tehran, the foreign office wisely lowered expectations of an immediate release of the imprisoned dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.\n\nThe Iranians will have prepared very carefully for this visit, as they have concerns and demands of their own.\n\nIn Iran there is a pervading sense that the West is not fully living up to its side of the bargain in the 2015 Vienna nuclear deal.\n\nFlows of money through London, for example, are still restricted and the hoped-for economic dividend has failed to materialise for many Iranians.\n\nComplicating matters for Boris Johnson is the fact that there are essentially 'two Irans'.\n\nThere is the elected government, which he has been meeting today.\n\nThen there is the deep state: the Revolutionary Guards Corps, the judiciary and the intelligence and security apparatus, all of which are hostile to the West and likely to impose a hard line on any negotiations.\n\nMr Johnson was accused of risking an additional five years being added to her sentence when he told a parliamentary committee that she had been in Iran to train journalists.\n\nIn November, he apologised in the Commons, retracting \"any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity\".\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and daughter, Gabriella\n\nMr Johnson then met with her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, to discuss her case, including calls for her to be given diplomatic protection.\n\nMr Ratcliffe told The Guardian that he was \"waiting on tenterhooks, biting my nails\", ahead of Mr Johnson's visit.\n\nThere have been concerns about Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's health after lumps in her breasts were discovered, but those were found to be non-cancerous.\n\nTulip Siddiq, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's MP, said she had been told by the Foreign Office that Mr Johnson probably would not be able to secure her imminent release.\n\n\"It was made very clear that we shouldn't expect any miracles,\" the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn said.\n\nAlthough not mentioning her by name, Mr Johnson said: \"I will stress my grave concerns about our dual national consular cases and press for their release where there are humanitarian grounds to do so.\"\n\nThe Foreign Office would not confirm the names or number of other people being held in Iran, saying their families had asked for their cases to be kept out of the public domain.\n\nIn addition, the BBC has issued a statement on Twitter, urging Mr Johnson to raise the case of the BBC Persian staff during his visit.\n\nThe BBC Persian Service has long been viewed with hostility by hardline Iranians. Two months ago, Iranian authorities launched an investigation into 152 present and former journalists and staff, accusing them of conspiracy against national security.\n\nThe BBC News Press Team called upon Iran \"to stop the harassment and persecution of our staff and their families\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn his statement, the foreign secretary listed topics he would raise with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, including finding a political solution to the conflict in Yemen and securing \"greater humanitarian access to ease the immense suffering there\".\n\nHe also said he would underline the UK's support for the 2015 nuclear deal - struck between Iran and six world powers - but \"make clear\" concerns over the country's activity.\n\nMr Johnson added: \"Iran is a significant country in a strategically important, but volatile and unstable, region which matters to the UK's security and prosperity.\n\n\"While our relationship with Iran has improved significantly since 2011, it is not straightforward and on many issues we will not agree.\n\n\"But I am clear that dialogue is the key to managing our differences and, where possible, making progress on issues that really matter, even under difficult conditions.\"", "The case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is first and foremost a story of terrible personal suffering for a young woman, her husband and their baby girl.\n\nEighteen months into a five-year sentence, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe faces the prospect of up to 16 years in an Iranian jail.\n\nIt is also, however, a story of an internal power struggle in Iran, as well as of the nation's deeply difficult relationship with the UK.\n\nTo understand how she fits into this, the first thing to examine is the timing of her arrest. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in April 2016, a few months ahead of the first anniversary of Iran's historic nuclear deal.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe accord, on which President Hassan Rouhani had staked his reputation, was bitterly opposed by elements of the powerful Revolutionary Guards.\n\nThey had often benefited financially from the sanctions regime. They were adamant that the nuclear deal must be seen as a failure, that it had changed nothing and that compromise with the West was a fruitless exercise.\n\nArrests of a number of Iranians with dual nationality came about in this context:\n\nIran is in the grip of an ideological power-struggle, with two competing world views.\n\nPresident Rouhani came to power promising to open Iran up to the world; the supreme leader, the Revolutionary Guards and the judiciary have a far more hardline position, both in relation to how the country should be run as well as its foreign relations.\n\nAll the arrests were seen as an attempt by the Revolutionary Guards to undermine not just the president, but the very process of thawing relations with the West.\n\nOf the three dual-national prisoners arrested after the deal was agreed, only one has since been released: Ms Hoodfar was sent home a few months later on what the Iranians called \"humanitarian grounds\".\n\nThe only significant difference between her case and Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's was their nationalities: one was half-Canadian, the other half-British.\n\nTo Iranian minds, the UK is viewed with almost unique suspicion. Indeed, in 2009 the supreme leader said that of all the world's \"arrogant powers\", the UK was the \"most evil\".\n\nTo understand why, one must go back to the 1953 coup-d'état that overthrew nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, returning the autocratic Shah to power. Behind it were the British and American intelligence agencies.\n\nAlmost 300 people were killed in the streets of Tehran after protesting against the prime minister's removal in a US- and British-organised coup in 1953\n\nThis led to deep-rooted suspicions of the West's intentions; once the Shah was ousted by the Islamic Revolution of 1979, those suspicions became open hostilities. Relations have never really recovered.\n\nOver the years there have been a number of key points, notably the 1989 fatwah calling for the death of British author Salman Rushdie. His book, The Satanic Verses, was denounced as blasphemous by the supreme leader; he called on Muslims around the world to try and kill Rushdie. The controversy led to a severing of diplomatic ties, which were not repaired until 1998.\n\nIn 2007, 15 British Royal Navy personnel were detained off the South Coast of Iran. They were paraded on TV, a show of power by Tehran, but ultimately released under diplomatic pressure.\n\nThe 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was followed by peaceful street protests, which the supreme leader accused the West of encouraging. A number of staff at the British embassy were arrested and forced to sign confessions.\n\nIn November 2011, relations deteriorated further. After the UK increased sanctions on Iran, the parliament voted to expel the British ambassador. Before he could pack his bags, members of the hardline Basij militia ransacked the British embassy in Tehran. It did not re-open until 2014.\n\nBut, it is not just the British government that has been viewed with great hostility. Western media, most notably the BBC's Persian Service, has long been regarded with deep distrust, fear and often hatred by the hardline Iranian establishment.\n\nFor years Persian Service journalists have been harassed and intimidated by the Iranian authorities. Two months ago all the assets of 150 BBC staff, former staff and contributors were frozen for \"conspiracy against national security\".\n\nAnd here we come to the final part of the story of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Many years ago, she worked for BBC Media Action, the charitable wing of the BBC. Although it has no direct connection to the BBC's Persian service, it has been used as evidence that she was in Iran for political reasons.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIt is, therefore, for this reason that the recent comments by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson were so controversial, and potentially damaging.\n\nBy stating that she was involved in \"training journalists\", he has given ammunition to those elements of the establishment who view her as just another example what the supreme leader described as \"an infiltration project\" by the West.\n\nAll the while, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe languishes in Tehran's Evin jail. Her daughter, who has now forgotten how to speak English, can only see her for an hour-and-a-half a week. Meanwhile her husband Richard suffers in London.\n\nThe future of a family, half-British, half-Iranian, has been torn apart by the suspicion and distrust caused by their own countries' pasts.", "The prime minister made her decisions on Thursday night while the No 10 Downing Street Christmas party carried on.\n\nIt isn't celebration on Friday though for her government, but relief.\n\nAnd her allies note that in those fraught hours she made the decision to go to Brussels even though the DUP had continued to make its objections known, despite the progress it had secured.\n\nThat may be a comfort to her internal critics who believe that Theresa May is all too often a prisoner of circumstance rather than a bold decision maker.\n\nAnd after a rocky few months, Downing Street can breathe out, for once, because it reached a critical short-term goal, moving on from Monday's embarrassment to a temporary conclusion.\n\nBrexit is the biggest political and policy project any British government has undertaken for many, many years.\n\nAs the leader of the government pursuing the policy, the prime minister's own record rises and falls with the progress of our departure from the EU.\n\nSimply, while No 10 always maintains that she wants to focus on domestic reforms, Mrs May's fate is intertwined with these negotiations.\n\nThe deal was sealed at an early hours breakfast meeting on Friday\n\nThe talks stumble, and so does she. The negotiators muddle through, so does her leadership.\n\nAnd the deal at dawn mutes the criticism of her inside her party, and restores some of the faith perhaps in Brussels.\n\nHad it not been struck, had she not made the decision to get on the plane, there would have been serious rumblings in her party.\n\nIt might not have been the end of her leadership.\n\nThere are plenty of hopeful leadership contenders, but few who would be guaranteed to put their head above the parapet to try to push her out.\n\nBut critical Brexiteers have been conspicuous by their absence.\n\nAnd Remainers are relieved that she has, as they see it, been firm in the face of some of their and the DUP's demands, and left the route pointing to a softer Brexit.\n\nIn truth, so much has not been agreed.\n\nThis is a document that to a large extent, resolves to solve problems and contradictions together in the future.\n\nThe document contains more ambiguities than pages.\n\nAnd as with any compromises there are some losses, and some victories.\n\nOver time those fault lines will appear. The two sides of the Tories' internal debates over Europe have not suddenly met in the middle.\n\nThe brooding clash has been delayed, again, allowing the prime minister to press on into the next phase.\n\nAnd above all, the agreements in this document may never come to pass.\n\nTruly, \"nothing is agreed until everything is agreed\".\n\nThis is a big, first, political step that allows the real journey to begin.\n\nWith this progress, however limited, Theresa May buys breathing space.", "The UK and European Commission have reached an agreement that should allow them to move Brexit talks on to the next stage.\n\nHere are some of the key lines in the agreement document.\n\nSo here's the first linguistic somersault. This agreement is designed to lock in the progress made so far, and allow technical experts to continue to work on it during the second phase of talks.\n\nBut EU negotiations always work on the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and that raises the prospect that if the second phase runs into trouble, then what has been agreed so far could, in theory, unravel.\n\nThat is certainly not the intention on either side, but it underscores that the negotiating process still has a very long way to run - and the hardest part is still to come.\n\nThe separation agreement on citizens' rights will not fall under the direct jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (officially called the CJEU but commonly referred to as the ECJ) which was the initial demand from the European Union.\n\nBut the ECJ will continue to play a role, because this agreement says UK courts will have to pay \"due regard\" to its decisions on an indefinite basis.\n\nAnd for eight years after Brexit, there will be a mechanism for UK courts to refer questions of interpretation directly to the ECJ.\n\nIt is a compromise, but the sort of compromise that some supporters of Brexit will find hard to stomach.\n\nThis detail on citizens' rights is important.\n\nThe agreement will apply to anyone taking up residence before the UK leaves the EU, so people could still take the decision to move next year, or even in early 2019, and they would be fully protected by it. That option will remain open for new arrivals until the day the UK leaves - currently presumed to be 29 March 2019.\n\nIn fact the European Commission argues that the \"specified date\" should be considerably later. In an official communication to the European Council it argues that during a transition all EU citizens should have all their rights upheld. In other words, it says, the \"specified date\" should not be the actual date of withdrawal, but the final day of a transition period (potentially two years later or even longer).\n\nThere are also a lot of technical details hidden in the weeds of the agreement that remain to be negotiated, and that's why some groups representing citizens who are caught up in this dilemma are far from happy.\n\nThe reaction of the European Parliament, which has taken a tough line on citizens' rights, will be important because it has to ratify the final agreement.\n\nThis is the key phrase in the long section setting out how the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will operate after the UK leaves the EU.\n\nThe preference on both sides is for an ambitious free trade agreement, which will address many of the concerns that have been raised (although questions of customs duties would still have to be addressed).\n\nAs a backstop though, the UK has guaranteed that it will maintain \"full alignment\" with the EU's single market and customs rules that govern cross-border trade.\n\nIt is a form of words that everyone can (just about) live with for now, but there is plenty of tough negotiating ahead.\n\nIt's not entirely clear how full alignment could be maintained without Northern Ireland staying in the single market and the customs union, especially as there is no such thing as partial membership. It is another sign that the competing demands that have been discussed this week have been sidestepped, but not fully resolved.\n\nThis sentence about the financial settlement is a bureaucratic masterpiece, and suggests that plenty of detail still needs to be sorted out behind the scenes.\n\nFor months, the money appeared to be the most intractable issue in the withdrawal negotiations, but money is easier to finesse than borders or courts.\n\nA method for calculating the bill has been agreed, but the calculation of an exact UK share will depend on exchange rates, on interest rates, on the number of financial commitments that never turn into payments, and more.\n\nThe question of how and when payments will be made still needs to resolved, but it will be a schedule lasting for many years to come, and it is highly unlikely that anyone will ever be able to give an exact figure for the size of the divorce bill.\n\nUK sources say it will be up to £40bn, but some EU sources expect it to be higher than that. No-one can say for sure, and both sides want to keep it that way.\n\nUpdate 11 December 2017: This piece was amended to take account of the European Commission's view on the specified date for EU citizens' rights.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and his Iranian counterpart have spoken \"frankly\" in Tehran about jailed Briton Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.\n\nHe met Mohammed Javad Zarif to urge her freeing on humanitarian grounds, along with other dual nationals held in Iran.\n\nMs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Tehran since April 2016, after being accused of spying, a charge she denies.\n\nHer husband, Richard Ratcliffe, spoke of his \"hopes and fears\", telling the BBC \"it could go any which way\".\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Iran since April 2016\n\nIn what was described as \"a useful meeting\", Mr Johnson and the Iranian foreign minister talked for two hours in Tehran on a range of subjects including the nuclear deal, as well \"obstacles in their relationship\".\n\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan has tweeted his support for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, calling on Mr Johnson to do \"everything he can to secure her release\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sadiq Khan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested on a visit to see her parents with her baby daughter Gabriella.\n\nAfter the arrest her daughter's passport was confiscated and for the last 20 months she has been living with her maternal grandparents in Iran.\n\nThe case was further complicated when Mr Johnson erroneously told a parliamentary committee in November that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Iran to train journalists.\n\nThe foreign secretary later apologised in the Commons, retracting \"any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why one mother's personal plight is part of a complicated history between Iran and the UK (video published August 2019 and last updated in October 2019)\n\nReports suggest Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe could appear in court on Sunday to face new charges and possibly have her sentence doubled as a result of Mr Johnson's comments.\n\n\"His fate and her fate have been aligned a little bit, and he is now in Iran battling for her,\" her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, told the BBC. \"It's a case of 'watch this space'\".\n\nHe said he believed Mr Johnson's \"charm and presence\" in Iran would \"make a difference\", but the situation remained very unclear.\n\n\"It's all up in the air,\" said Mr Ratcliffe. \"We're holding on to the good bits - it could go any which way.\"\n\nHe said he wanted his wife to be with her family in the UK for Christmas but he was not expecting her to be on the foreign secretary's plane when Mr Johnson returns to the UK on Monday.\n\nHe added: \"Fingers crossed it can be solved by Christmas, which means in the week or so afterwards there might be a happy outcome.\"\n\nAs Boris Johnson and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif shook hands on their way into talks it could have seemed routine.\n\nBut there was nothing routine about this encounter. The foreign secretary looked uncharacteristically tense, and with good reason.\n\nHis mission - to improve relations - point to Britain's continuing support for the Iran nuclear deal, while at the same time being critical of Iran's actions in Yemen and Syria.\n\nAnd, hardest of all, argue for prisoner releases, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a case many accuse him of damaging by loose talk last month.\n\nBoris Johnson will say nothing at all publicly while in Iran, such is the sensitivity of his visit.\n\nBut in one good sign, Iran's foreign minister confirmed Mr Johnson should be able to meet President Rouhani on Sunday.\n\nWe should not expect immediate consequences, but Iran is in little doubt of the importance the British side attaches to getting Ms Zahari-Ratcliffe home.\n\nRelations between the UK and Iran have long been difficult. Mr Johnson's visit is only the third by a British foreign minister to Iran in the last 14 years.\n\nThe Foreign Office would not confirm the names or number of other dual nationals being held, saying their families had asked for their cases to be kept out of the public domain.\n\nSpeaking ahead of his visit, Mr Johnson said the talks would cover the \"bilateral relationship and I will stress my grave concerns about our dual national consular cases and press for their release where there are humanitarian grounds to do so\".\n\nLast month, the Free Nazanin Campaign said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had suffered panic attacks, insomnia, bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts and had been given a health assessment.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The prime minister said the deal will allow more to be invested in \"priorities at home\"\n\nI had been warned to keep my phone by the bed. It rang at 05:09 here in Brussels (04:09 GMT). \"The prime minister is in the air,\" said my government source.\n\nTheresa May's motorcade arrived at the HQ of the European Commission less than two hours later.\n\nThere were hugs for all as she, her chief civil servant negotiator Olly Robbins and Brexit Secretary David Davis were met by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Michel Barnier, the EU's Mr Brexit.\n\nPictures were released showing the two sides enjoying fruit juice and pastries.\n\nIt was obvious a deal was being done. Why put everyone through this otherwise?\n\nAides filed into the briefing room ahead of the big news conference. They wore the opposite expressions they had had on Monday when hopes of a deal evaporated under pressure from Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party.\n\nThe two sides of Brexit shared juice and pastries in Brussels on Friday morning\n\nMr Juncker sketched out the agreement that had been reached: financial obligations had been clarified, the European Court of Justice would remain \"competent\" to guarantee the rights of EU nationals in the UK, and a hard border would be avoided on the island of Ireland.\n\nIt was a personal triumph for the prime minister, he said.\n\nI asked the prime minister what compromises had been made to get here. She said it had been about both sides working together.\n\nDiplomats said the display of mutual respect demonstrated that the next phase of talks will be less bad-tempered, less fraught and more collegiate now that divorce-related issues have been broadly settled.\n\nDeal: Mrs May is welcomed by Mr Juncker in Brussels\n\nLater we heard from Michel Barnier. At length.\n\nHis pride in the deal he had negotiated was evident as he explained it in painstaking detail. He gently chided journalists who had failed to grasp the complexities of the compromise on Ireland.\n\nHe reminded everyone that he had never speculated about the size of the UK's financial obligations (£35bn-£39bn, according to British estimates).\n\nMr Barnier complained that I always posed the same question about whether he was prepared to make any concessions.\n\nAfterwards I asked if he would be cracking open a bottle of champagne. \"No,\" he replied. \"You have to drink water when you are negotiating and there's still a lot of work to do.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"No champagne\" for the Brexit negotiators, who \"have to drink water\"\n\nThe scale of that work became clear as the action switched to the European Council, where the member states are represented.\n\nDonald Tusk, who will chair next week's summit of EU leaders, said this had been the easy part. Negotiating a transition deal and the outlines of a future partnership on trade, security and defence will be more difficult and had to be done within a year, he said.\n\nThe EU desperately wants the UK to clarify what kind of post-Brexit relationship it wants.\n\nSome European officials fear the debate triggered at Westminster this week by the impasse over Northern Ireland is a harbinger of the row to come as Britain tries to define its future.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Tusk: 'Breaking up is hard, building a new relationship is harder'\n\nFor me, the series of mini dramas I have covered for the last six months have been consolidated into 15 pages of pledges and commitments.\n\nThe draft guidelines for the second phase of the talks hint at some of the plot twists to come.\n\nBriefly it felt like Brexit was sorted. It is just starting.", "Mikheil Saakashvili is suspected of receiving financing from a criminal group\n\nFormer Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has been detained in Ukraine's capital Kiev, days after his supporters freed him from a police van.\n\nMr Saakashvili, who in 2015-16 served as regional governor in Ukraine under President Petro Poroshenko, has been leading anti-corruption rallies against his former ally.\n\nOn Tuesday, he was dragged from his home in Kiev and arrested.\n\nHe has been calling for Mr Poroshenko's impeachment since his first arrest.\n\nThe authorities responded by giving him a deadline of 24 hours to hand himself in.\n\nMr Saakashvili is accused of receiving financing from a criminal group linked to ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.\n\nHis detention was part of an operation \"to disrupt a plan of revenge of pro-Kremlin forces in Ukraine\", Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said on Tuesday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jonah Fisher watched as Mr Saakashvili's car was surrounded by his supporters and Ukrainian police\n\nProsecutors released audio and video recordings which they say proved he had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the criminal group.\n\nMr Saakashvili said the recordings were fake.\n\nIf found guilty, he could face up to five years in jail.\n\nMr Saakashvili also faces the threat of extradition to Georgia, where he is wanted on corruption charges. He says the accusations are politically motivated.\n\nHe was governor of the southern Odessa region for 18 months after being appointed by Mr Poroshenko in 2015.\n\nBefore moving to Ukraine, Mr Saakashvili served for almost 10 years as president of Georgia.", "Hoffman has not commented on the latest allegations\n\nA co-star of Hollywood actor Dustin Hoffman has accused him of a \"horrific, demoralising and abusive experience\" while on a 1984 Broadway production.\n\nKathryn Rossetter's allegation comes a month after author Anna Graham Hunter accused Hoffman of sexual misconduct.\n\nHoffman has not commented on the latest claims in the Hollywood Reporter.\n\nIt said it had spoken to several people on the 1984 set who questioned Rossetter's account and said they had not witnessed the conduct described.\n\nThe latest allegation is one of a string made against Hollywood stars and executives, sparked by initial allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein.\n\nRossetter's account was carried in a guest column in the Hollywood Reporter on Friday, as Anna Graham Hunter's allegations had been in an article on 1 November.\n\nRossetter said the alleged events had occurred on the 1984 Broadway production of Death Of A Salesman.\n\nShe said Hoffman would regularly grope her. The actor would grab her breast and then remove his hand just before a photograph was taken, she alleged.\n\nOn one night, she said, Hoffman exposed her body to the stage crew. \"Suddenly he grabs the bottom of my slip and pulls it up over my head, exposing my breasts and body to the crew and covering my face,\" she said.\n\nRossetter added: \"Night after night I went home and cried. I withdrew and got depressed and did not have any good interpersonal relationships with the cast.\"\n\nShe said: \"I considered reporting him to Actors Equity. But I was cautioned by some respected theatre professionals that if I did, I would probably lose my job and, because he was such a powerful star, any hope of a career.\"\n\nThe Reporter said Hoffman's lawyers had put it in touch with others who had worked on the set, including Hoffman's brother-in-law, Lee Gottsegen, and actors Anne McIntosh, Debra Mooney, Linda Hogan, Michael Quinlan and Andrew Bloch.\n\nThe paper said they had not witnessed the alleged misconduct and had questioned Rossetter's account.\n\nProduction stage manager Tom Kelly said: \"It just doesn't ring true.\"\n\nEarlier in the week, TV host John Oliver confronted Dustin Hoffman, 80, in a tense public discussion about the allegations of sexual harassment made by Graham Hunter.\n\nAt a Q&A panel for the 20th anniversary of Hoffman's film Wag The Dog, the actor defended himself, asking Oliver: \"Do you believe this stuff that you're reading?\" and saying he still did not know who Graham Hunter was.\n\nShe worked as a 17-year-old intern on Hoffman's 1985 TV movie version of Death Of A Salesman.\n\nHoffman had earlier put out a statement following Graham Hunter's allegations, saying: \"I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation.\n\n\"I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Fans lined the streets to bid farewell to the 'French Elvis'\n\nHundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Paris on Saturday to bid farewell to the French rock star Johnny Hallyday, who died this week at the age of 74 after a battle with lung cancer.\n\nHis coffin was driven in a cortege down the Champs-Elysees followed by hundreds of leather-clad bikers.\n\nPresident Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the singer in a eulogy at the Madeleine church.\n\nParis was brought to a standstill by the ceremony, which was broadcast live.\n\nAs the cortege carrying his coffin left the funeral home in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, some 700 bikers took to the Champs-Elysees.\n\nPeople gathered on Place de la Concorde to pay a \"popular tribute\" to Hallyday\n\nFans ride their bikes down the Champs-Elysees as part of the tribute\n\nLarge crowds gathered to pay their respects outside the Madeleine church in Paris\n\nHallyday's white coffin was driven slowly from the Arc de Triomphe along the famous avenue as emotional fans cheered and wept.\n\nDuring the service, members of his band performed instrumental versions of his songs outside at the Madeleine church as the crowds sang along.\n\nMembers of Hallyday's band and other musicians performed as part of the ceremony\n\nHallyday's white coffin leaves the church with a picture of the singer on display at the entrance\n\nFans began to gather in the city overnight in anticipation of the country's \"national homage\" to the singer as giant screens were erected to show footage of the man known as the \"French Elvis\".\n\nNational television and radio have put out a stream of special programmes since his death on Wednesday, with Hallyday's best-known songs being played along with recordings of tributes from friends and fans.\n\nMr Macron approved Saturday's ceremony along with Hallyday's widow Laeticia amid a popular clamour for a national homage.\n\nThe French president said the singer had touched everyone's lives: \"In each of your lives there have been moments where one of his songs translated what you had in your heart, what we have in our hearts.\n\n\"A love story, a loss, a moment of defiance, the birth of a child, pain - in his voice, in his songs, in his face.\"\n\nAs Mr Macron addressed the large crowd gathered at the church, many of whom were in tears, they chanted: \"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Hallyday.\"\n\nMany of those gathered outside the church became emotional during the tributes\n\nFans had earlier gathered outside the star's home in Marnes-la-Coquette, west of Paris\n\nSome of the musician's fans have demanded that a monument be built in recognition of his achievements.\n\nOthers have expressed disappointment at news that Hallyday is likely to be buried on the French Caribbean island of St Barts, where he had his home.\n\nOne fan, Francois Le Lay, told AFP news agency: \"We would have preferred if he was buried in Paris, but if Johnny wanted that, we will respect it.\n\n\"My wife and I will put the money aside that we would have spent going to his concerts so we can fly to Saint Barts one day.\"\n\nOn Friday, the Eiffel Tower was lit up with the words \"Merci Johnny\".\n\nAt the famous L'Olympia music venue in Paris where Hallyday once enjoyed a three-week residency to mark 40 years in show business, the singer's name was displayed as a tribute.\n\nThe Eiffel Tower displays the message \"Merci Johnny\" (Thank you Johnny)\n\nThe star, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Smet, sold more than 110 million records and starred in a number of films, including one directed by Jean-Luc Godard.\n\nHe once performed before a million people in a mobile musical cavalcade down the Champs-Elysees.\n\nHowever despite 6,000 fans chartering flights from Paris to see him play Las Vegas in 1996, he failed to crack the American or any other English-speaking market.\n\nThe singer, who was once condemned as the rock 'n' roll \"corrupter of youth\", was often referred to as \"the French Elvis\" by critics.", "Some motorists said they were stuck on the closed motorway for more than four hours\n\nDrivers were left stuck in vehicles for several hours in freezing temperatures as the M5 was shut in both directions.\n\nIt followed \"concerns for the welfare of a man\" on a bridge at junction 28, near Cullompton, at about 16:00 GMT, police said.\n\nJust after 20:40, Devon and Cornwall Police said the man had been moved from the bridge and the road was reopening.\n\nRichard Jones, said his wife and eight-week old baby were among those stuck in traffic in a \"very cold Skoda\".\n\nThe closure caused traffic jams stretching back for seven miles (11km) from the bridge, in mid-Devon.\n\nHighways England confirmed the motorway was \"fully open\" at 21:43 after work to move broken down vehicles.\n\nMany people were stranded in their cars for hours and some posted on social media to say they risked running out of fuel on the motorway.\n\nForecasters had predicted temperatures in the area would be going down to -1C during the night.\n\nPolice said the road was reopening just after 20:40 GMT\n\nSara Morgan-Broom, who was one of those stuck in the queues, said she had not moved on the motorway between 16:20 and 20:12.\n\nDevon and Cornwall Police said there were a number of breakdowns in the area and warned surrounding roads remained busy.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by DevonCornwall Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThey also tweeted that the man who had been on the bridge was now receiving support from mental health professionals.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by DevonCornwall Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Phil Davies complained about how Northern dealt with passengers on his journey and later took them to court after they failed to reply\n\nA train passenger's lengthy fight for compensation from a rail company got to the stage where bailiffs were \"pursuing them at their registered office\".\n\nPhil Davies was on a Leeds to Barnsley service which \"abandoned\" him and 40 other passengers in Wakefield due to a signal failure.\n\nHe claimed for compensation and won a legal case, but said he was left waiting for about £300 from Northern.\n\nNorthern apologised and said the \"matter had been resolved\".\n\nOn an evening train on 10 June, Mr Davies was travelling to his home in Barnsley when the line suffered signal problems.\n\nThe passenger said they were left on the platform of Wakefield Westgate with no access to toilets, with a promise of a Northern representative arranging their onward journey not kept.\n\nBritish Transport Police eventually advised passengers to walk into Wakefield and find a taxi.\n\nMr Davies said he complained, but was still waiting for a response after four weeks so began a small claims court case against the company.\n\nIn October, a court ruled in favour of his claim for £283 plus £25 court fees, as Northern did not attend the hearing.\n\nAfter two weeks, Mr Davies said the bailiffs \"automatically stepped in\" as no payment had been made.\n\n\"It's frustrating when a big corporation just snubs a consumer - we're small and insignificant.\" Mr Davies said.\n\n\"Too often, the public are fobbed off by big corporations and they simply can't be bothered. It's about challenging poor standards so they're improved.\"\n\nNorthern said it was reviewing its procedures after the legal wrangle\n\nA spokesman for Northern said: \"We apologise for any distress and frustration experienced by our customer following the incident and his subsequent contact with Northern.\n\n\"We fully accept the judgement of the court and have made contact to ensure the matter is settled. We have also made a significant offer of compensation to our customer - which is over and above the figure set out by the court.\"\n\nHe added: \"We are now undertaking a review of our processes to help ensure such situations do not happen again.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nNearly 200,000 residents have been evacuated from their homes in California as firefighters battle several raging wildfires.\n\nGovernor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in San Diego on Thursday after a new blaze spread from 10 acres to 4,100 acres in just a few hours.\n\nThree firefighters have been injured and about 500 buildings destroyed.\n\nOne death has been reported - a woman's body was found in a burned-out area in Ventura County.\n\nBut an official told the Ventura Country Star newspaper that the death, in the town of Ojai, may have been the result of a car crash not related to the fire.\n\nOn Friday, US President Donald Trump issued a state of emergency in California, which will free up funding to \"help alleviate the hardship and suffering that the emergency may inflict on the local population\".\n\nAbout 5,700 firefighters have been battling the brushfires, officials have said, with firefighters drafted in from neighbouring states to help.\n\nThe Thomas fire in Ventura County remains the largest, burning 180 square miles so far\n\nThe Thomas fire in Ventura County to the north of Los Angeles remains the largest of the blazes and has spread as far as the Pacific coast.\n\nIt has consumed 180 square miles (466 sq km) since it broke out on Monday, and destroyed more than 430 buildings, fire officials said.\n\nA BBC correspondent in Ojai says the blaze is burning in the hills all around and more than 100 fire engines have been seen driving through the town centre.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by CAL FIRE This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA Reuters news agency photographer in San Diego county, site of the Lilac fire, described seeing propane tanks under houses explode like bombs.\n\nSome 450 elite racehorses in the area were let loose from their stables to escape to safety, the Associated Press news agency reports. Officials say at least 25 thoroughbreds died in the blaze.\n\nBy Thursday afternoon local time, California's fire service said the blaze had forced the evacuation of 189,000 residents.\n\nFirefighters rescued both a work of art and the family Christmas tree from this Bel Air home\n\nMost homes in Bel Air cost millions of dollars\n\nCalifornia is entering its fifth day battling dangerous wildfires driven by extreme weather: low humidity, high winds and parched ground.\n\nAuthorities have issued a purple alert - the highest level warning - amid what it called \"extremely critical fire weather\".\n\nThe powerful desert-heated Santa Ana winds have been fanning the flames.\n\nBoth the The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Getty Center museum announced that they would reopen on Friday.\n\nFirefighters battling the Skirball fire had slept at the Getty overnight on Thursday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drivers filmed the flames from their cars near Bel Air\n\nOne in four schools in Los Angeles were also closed.\n\nIn the wealthy Los Angeles enclave of Bel Air, firefighters were seen removing artwork from luxury homes on Wednesday as the Skirball Fire raged.\n\nThe neighbourhood is home to celebrities and business leaders from Beyonce to Elon Musk.\n\nSinger Lionel Richie cancelled a Las Vegas performance for Wednesday evening, saying he was \"helping family evacuate to a safer place\".\n\nAn estate and vineyard owned by Rupert Murdoch also suffered some damage.\n\nThe media mogul said in a statement: \"We believe the winery and house are still intact.\"\n\nThe Los Angeles Times said Mr Murdoch paid nearly $30m (£22m) for the property four years ago.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Lionel Richie This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnother blaze north of Los Angeles, the Creek fire, was 20% contained and covered some 15,323 acres.\n\nAre you in the area? If it is safe to do so, share your experience with us by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:", "An agreement on phase one of the Brexit negotiations between the EU and UK was reached on Friday\n\nThe UK government's guarantees on the Irish border seem to sharply limit the variety of Brexit that's now on offer.\n\nIt has pledged that, even if there's no deal, the UK, as a whole, will fully align with the rules of single market and customs union which are necessary to support north-south cooperation.\n\nThe debates on \"full alignment\" are already under way and there are also big differences of opinion on what rules actually support that cross-border cooperation.\n\nBut, at a minimum, it would seem that the UK would have to continue to follow EU rules on trade in goods and agriculture.\n\nFormer Brexit minister and Leave campaigner David Jones zoomed in on this possibility.\n\nHe told the BBC Radio 4's World at One: \"What we have got is just a commitment to try to work towards agreed solutions and if there are no agreed solutions then the clause provides that the UK will maintain full alignment with the rules of the internal market which support north-south cooperation.\n\n\"The worry about that is, of course, that it could relate to very important areas such as, for example, agriculture which we would want to throw into the mix in negotiating a free trade agreement with a third country.\n\n\"And if this was to persist, it could severely handicap our ability to enter into those free trade agreements, so I think we do need to see that particular provision refined.\"\n\nThe EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, was somewhat ambiguous in his comment.\n\n\"It's a unique situation, therefore specific solutions are needed,\" he said.\n\n\"That's a very clear line. And the UK's line is very clear too. We shall work on solutions which will be relevant only to the island of Ireland and not other parts (of the United Kingdom).\"\n\nBut if the fallback \"no deal\" position is UK-wide alignment, then doesn't it mean that the preferred option of a deep and special partnership would be something close to the Swiss or Norway option?\n\nThat sort of deal is not currently compatible with the UK's red lines.\n\nThe EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier says that the present UK position would mean a trade deal would have to be along the lines as the one the EU has with Canada.\n\nThere is going to be a lot of hard negotiating to come and compromises to be made.\n\nThere is another interpretation of the deal that it still leaves the door open for a special status for Northern Ireland.\n\nTUV leader Jim Allister notes that the pledge of \"unfettered access\" for NI business to the whole of the UK internal market is not reciprocated with a promise of equal, unfettered access from GB to NI.\n\nFriday's Brexit deal allows talks to move to second stage.\n\nCould that mean that Northern Ireland would have some sort of different relationship with the single market while having preferential access to the GB market?\n\nThe DUP leadership would say no, pointing to the assurances they have received from the prime minister.\n\nSir Nick Macpherson, the former permanent secretary to the Treasury, gave a neat summary of the deal in a tweet this morning.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nick Macpherson This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Terry Adams had argued it would breach his human rights to pay\n\nA former member of one of Britain's most notorious crime gangs has paid nearly £730,000 to settle a legal battle over his criminal assets.\n\nTerry Adams, who was associated with the north London \"Adams family\", had claimed he was too poor to pay.\n\nHe agreed to make the payment after being warned he would go back to prison if he did not, the BBC understands.\n\nAdams had argued it would breach his human rights to pay, after he was jailed for money laundering in 2007.\n\nNick Price of the Crown Prosecution Service said: \"The CPS is determined to ensure that crime doesn't pay and that criminals including Adams cannot avoid paying back what they owe.\n\n\"Our prosecutors and caseworkers have worked tirelessly to secure assets from Adams, who sought to benefit from his crimes and went to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "They're behind you! Firefighters on stage during the Perth Theatre pantomime\n\nThe first performance at Perth Theatre in four years defied all expectations when two real-life firefighters appeared on stage.\n\nA smoke alarm mid-way through Aladdin on Saturday forced the evacuation of the Edwardian theatre which has just had a £16.6m refurbishment.\n\nAfter checks to the building, the show resumed with one of the actors carried back on stage by the firefighters.\n\nThe theatre management blamed a \"snagging\" fault for the alarm.\n\nGwylym Gibbons, chief executive of Horsecross Arts which runs the theatre, said: \"There was a lovely moment when the firefighters came on stage, carrying one of the cast members.\n\n\"The beauty of pantomime is that you can adapt it to the moment - and everyone got back into the panto spirit.\"\n\nThe theatre's 500-seat B-listed Edwardian auditorium has been closed for four years while it was restored to its former glory.\n\nA new 200-capacity performance studio has also been created to encourage new writing, music and dance.\n\nThe Edwardian auditorium has been restored to its former glory\n\nThe refurbishment includes a new box office, cafe, bar and shop\n\nArtistic director Lu Kemp said the cast became accustomed to dealing with unforeseen events during rehearsals.\n\nShe said: \"It's been hilarious. At times we've had rehearsals where a couple of builders with a very long pipe will walk through the room.\n\n\"But it's nothing that's ever got in the way of rehearsals: it's just added an extra layer of hilarity to the whole event.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Two 19-year-old men have died in hospital in the early hours after apparently taking drugs at a nightclub.\n\nThey were found unconscious at the Pryzm club in Plymouth, where hundreds of young people were attending a gig by the Swedish dance artist Basshunter.\n\nPolice said the teenagers, from Okehampton and Newton Abbot, were thought to have taken MDMA.\n\nThe club was evacuated and an 18-year-old man was arrested by Devon and Cornwall Police.\n\nAt about 02:00 GMT the poorly men were taken to Plymouth's Derriford Hospital, where they were later pronounced dead.\n\nThe two men were believed to have taken the recreational drug MDMA\n\nDet Insp Julie Scoles said the two who died were part of a larger group who took the drug.\n\n\"We have located the rest of the group who are thankfully showing no ill-effects at this time,\" she said.\n\n\"I am urging the public, especially those going out and planning to take recreational drugs, to be aware of this incident and think twice before taking any unknown substance - there is always a risk when taking drugs and the only way of staying safe is to avoid drugs altogether.\"\n\nNext-of-kin have been informed, but formal identification of the victims has yet to take place and police have asked anyone with any information to contact them.\n\nThe nightclub said the deaths were \"tragic and very sad\", and staff were co-operating with the police investigation.\n\nA statement said: \"We are devastated by the events of this morning where two young men tragically lost their lives, and we would like to extend our thoughts and condolences to the families and friends at this very sad time.\"\n• None The rise in strength and popularity of ecstasy\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The mesh is made of a type of plastic and surgeons routinely use it in hernia repairs\n\nBanning vaginal mesh implants would remove an important treatment for some women suffering from a prolapse, says the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.\n\nSome women benefit from the implants and should have a choice, it said.\n\nThe health watchdog NICE is expected to recommend that the implants be banned.\n\nAround 800 women are taking legal action against the NHS and mesh manufacturers, saying they have suffered from painful complications.\n\nWhen a prolapse occurs, doctors sometimes insert a mesh into the wall of the vagina to act as scaffolding to support organs - such as the uterus, bowel and bladder - which have fallen out of place.\n\nHundreds of women have reported problems with this plastic mesh, which is made of polypropylene.\n\nProf Linda Cordozo says banning vaginal mesh is not a good idea\n\nHowever another smaller device made from the same material, called a tape, which is used to stem the flow of urine from a leaking bladder, has a much lower risk of complications.\n\nProf Linda Cardozo, a surgeon at King's College Hospital in London, said there was a misconception that all types of mesh were a problem.\n\nShe explained that she was not in favour of banning the use of mesh for prolapses.\n\n\"I don't think a total ban on anything is a good idea. It stifles the opportunity to offer the minority something that might benefit them,\" she said.\n\nDraft guidelines from NICE say the implants should only be used for research - and not routine operations.\n\nBut Prof Cardozo said that a ban would stop any further research as well.\n\n\"If mesh is banned, there will be no more clinical trials,\" said the professor.\n\n\"Banning it is a retrograde step - we will go back to how we were a century ago when we couldn't offer women a range of options.\"\n\nProf Cardozo pointed out that artificial hips and knees were not perfect when they were first introduced, but thanks to further research and progress they ended up improving lives.\n\n\"We need to be very careful that [mesh] is used in the right women by the right doctors... who have explained the risk-benefit ratio and all other types of treatment,\" she added.\n\nSome doctors did not have the skills or training to put in vaginal meshes, and the devices have been overused, the professor has argued.\n\nShe also said the debate over vaginal mesh was making some women who had had surgery unnecessarily anxious.\n\n\"They are panicking because they believe something terrible may be happening inside their body as a result of tape or mesh, but most women are problem-free,\" said Prof Cardozo.\n\nKathryn Taylor says her mesh implant has improved her life\n\nKathryn Taylor was just 35 when she suffered her first prolapse.\n\nShe was later diagnosed with a condition that had weakened the muscles around her uterus and bowel.\n\nLast year she had a second vaginal mesh implant to help keep those organs in place.\n\n\"Mesh isn't right for everyone, but it's totally changed my life for the better,\" Kathryn said.\n\n\"Without it I wouldn't be able to work and lead a normal life.\n\n\"I'd have to have a colostomy bag attached to my leg,\" she explained.\n\nStephanie Williams is waiting to have her mesh implant removed after being left in constant pain\n\nHowever campaigners, like Stephanie Williams, are protesting against all types of vaginal mesh and tape.\n\nThey are calling for more research into the types of mesh products used and their longer-term effects. They say women have not been given the full facts about the possible side effects.\n\nIn her own case, Stephanie says she didn't realise she was having a vaginal mesh implant and it has left her in constant pain.\n\n\"The word mesh was never mentioned,\" she said.\n\n\"I would not have even known what mesh meant at the time and if it was mentioned beforehand we would have looked into it before,\" she added.\n\nShe is now waiting to have her mesh removed.\n\nJohn Wilkinson, the director of devices at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said: \"Patient safety is our highest priority and we recognise some women do develop serious complications which can be very significant for the affected women.\"\n\n\"We also know many women gain benefit from these surgical procedures for what can be extremely debilitating conditions,\" he added.\n\nMr Wilkinson encouraged patients and doctors to report any complications linked with the mesh implants through the Yellow Card scheme.\n\nThe NHS has always insisted that the vast majority of procedures using mesh are a success and many women have benefitted from surgery.\n\nThe health watchdog - the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) - is due to make its final recommendations next week.\n\nCompanies in the US have already paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to patients.", "The mummy is believed to be that of a senior official from the New Kingdom\n\nArchaeologists in Egypt have displayed items, including a mummy, from one of two previously unexplored tombs in the ancient Nile city of Luxor.\n\nThe mummy is believed to be that of a senior official from Egypt's \"New Kingdom\", about 3,500 years ago.\n\nThe tombs lie in the Draa Abul Naga necropolis, an area famed for its temples and burial grounds.\n\nIt is close to the Valley of the Kings where many of ancient Egypt's pharaohs were buried.\n\nEgypt's antiquities ministry said that the tombs had been discovered by a German archaeologist in the 1990s, but were kept sealed until recently.\n\nThe identity of the mummified body is not known but the ministry says there are two possibilities.\n\nIt could be a person named Djehuty Mes, whose name is engraved on one of the walls, or it could be a scribe called Maati whose name - and the name of his wife, Mehi - are written on funerary cones, officials said.\n\nThe other tomb was only recently \"uncovered\" and has not yet been fully excavated, the ministry said.\n\nIn September, archaeologists discovered the tomb of a royal goldsmith near Luxor.\n\nThe tomb, which also dated back to the New Kingdom, contained a statue of the goldsmith Amenemhat, sitting beside his wife.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIsrael says it has targeted sites in Gaza belonging to militant group Hamas in retaliation for rocket strikes.\n\nIsrael's military said it had hit weapons sites early on Saturday. Two people died, a Gaza hospital said, bringing the deaths in Israeli strikes and gunfire over the past day to four.\n\nThree rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza late on Friday.\n\nIsraeli-Palestinian tensions have risen since President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital.\n\nWednesday's decision reversed decades of US neutrality on one of the most sensitive issues between the two sides.\n\nIsrael has always regarded Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel in the 1967 war - as the capital of a future Palestinian state.\n\nThe diplomatic fallout over Mr Trump's move has continued, with Palestinian officials saying that President Mahmoud Abbas will refuse to meet US Vice-President Mike Pence later this month.\n\nEgypt's Coptic Church has also cancelled a planned meeting, saying Mr Trump's declaration \"did not take into account the feelings of millions of Arab people\".\n\nAt a security conference in Bahrain, the UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said the Jerusalem announcement was \"a gift to radicalism\", Reuters news agency reports.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. On Friday, crowds gathered in Jerusalem's Old City to protest against Mr Trump's decision\n\nThere have been fresh protests in the West Bank city of Bethlehem and in East Jerusalem.\n\nEarlier on Friday, Fathi Hammad, a senior Hamas leader, said anyone seeking to move their embassy to Jerusalem was \"an enemy of the Palestinians\".\n\nSpeaking before the United Nations on Friday, US ambassador Nikki Haley said the US \"recognises the obvious; that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel\".\n\nShe said the US continued to be \"committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement\", and accused the UN of bias, saying it \"has outrageously been one of the world's foremost centres of hostility towards Israel\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\n\"Israel will never be, and never should be, bullied into an agreement by the United Nations or by any collection of countries that have proven their disregard for Israel's security,\" Mrs Haley said.\n\nIsrael had deployed extra battalions to the West Bank in anticipation of violence after Palestinian leaders called for protests after Friday prayers.\n\nThere were protests held elsewhere on Friday against Mr Trump's announcement.\n\nThousands of pro-Palestinian protesters held demonstrations in Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, Tunisia and Iran.\n\nFurther afield, protesters rallied in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indian-administered Kashmir and Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why the ancient city of Jerusalem is so important\n\nJerusalem is of huge importance to both Israel and the Palestinians. It contains sites sacred to the three major monotheistic faiths - Judaism, Islam and Christianity.\n\nIsrael occupied the eastern sector - previously occupied by Jordan - in 1967, and annexed it in 1980, but the move has never been recognised internationally.\n\nSome 330,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem, along with about 200,000 Israeli Jews in a dozen settlements there. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel does not regard them as settlements but legitimate neighbourhoods.\n\nAccording to the 1993 Israel-Palestinian peace accords, the final status of Jerusalem is meant to be discussed in the latter stages of peace talks.\n\nThe last round of talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2014 and while the US is formulating fresh proposals, Palestinian officials say Mr Trump's announcement has disqualified the US from brokering future negotiations.", "This week US President Donald Trump said his country would officially recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reversing decades of American policy.\n\nIsraelis (predominantly Jewish) and Palestinians (predominantly Muslim) have been in conflict for years over the city.\n\nWe asked Muslims in Bradford, which has one of the UK's largest Muslim populations, whether Jerusalem matters to them.", "Sadik Kamara (left) and Joshua Jordan were part of a gang of five who targeted the women\n\nTwo robbers who laughed after spraying women in their faces with cleaning fluid have been jailed for 10 years.\n\nRapper Sadik Kamara, 24, known as Trizzy Trapz, and Joshua Jordan, 20, both of Newham, east London, used the ammonia to target \"petite women\" who would not be able to fight back.\n\nJudge John Dodd QC jailed them for the \"horrifying, cruel and barbaric\" crimes which he said were \"gratuitous\".\n\nBoth women they attacked suffered facial burns but were not disfigured.\n\nProsecutor Benn Maguire told the Old Bailey how the defendants were among a gang of five who set out to deliberately target \"petite women\" to rob on 10 March.\n\n\"During the robbery and undoubtedly to instil fear in the minds of their victims, the attackers sprayed ammonia into the faces of their victims,\" he said.\n\n\"Any attempt to shout for help has resulted in ammonia being sprayed into the open mouths of the female victims - cowardly in the extreme.\"\n\nThe pair were previously found guilty of using the corrosive fluid with intent to injure or cause grievous bodily harm.\n\nThey were also convicted of robbery and attempted robbery.\n\nJailing Kamara and Jordan for 10 years with four years on extended licence, the judge said: \"These are dreadful and shocking offences. You chose to rob women who would have stood no chance against you, a gang of five men.\n\n\"Even if you were unarmed, you still chose to take ammonia with you and use it against two slight women.\"\n\nIn one attack in Hackney, shopkeeper Quyen Bei, 51, fought off the raiders.\n\nFour men with faces covered were captured on CCTV as they entered the store wearing hoods and gloves.\n\nThe pair were sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday\n\nDuring the attempted robbery, Kamara squirted ammonia in Mrs Bei's face at least three times.\n\nThe other robbers, including Jordan, struggled with Mrs Bei, who was punched to the ground and kicked.\n\nShe managed to press the panic alarm despite suffering burns to her face. The gang fled empty-handed.\n\nAbout 10 minutes later, the defendants attacked a random woman in the street, the court heard.\n\nThe pair forced Vietnamese Thi Le Nguyen, 49, to the ground and one pinned her face to the pavement while the other repeatedly sprayed her face with the cleaning fluid.\n\nThey snatched her handbag and ran back to their getaway car laughing together.\n\nBottles of household cleaner containing high-strength ammonia were found nearby, clearly marked with warnings it could cause \"severe skin burns and blindness\".\n\nFollowing sentencing, Det Con Ben Kahane said: \"The level of violence used was completely disproportionate.\n\n\"The witness testimony describing how two of the suspects ran off laughing I think sums up the callous enjoyment the gang felt in targeting their victims.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nWeather warnings are still in place in large parts of the UK, amid concern that icy conditions could cause travel delays and \"cut off\" some rural areas.\n\nThe Met Office said snow showers would continue to affect parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, northern England and parts of the Midlands.\n\nA few centimetres of snow is likely but up to 20cm is possible in some areas.\n\nThere are yellow \"be aware\" warnings for parts of the country, with an amber \"be prepared\" alert in place on Sunday.\n\nThe Midlands, Wales, northern and eastern England and the far north of Scotland are most likely to have heavy snow early on Sunday morning.\n\nAccording to BBC Weather, a 10cm spread of snow will initially mount in the Midlands and eastern England, before gradually becoming lighter and patchier throughout the day and into Sunday evening.\n\nBirmingham Airport have warned passengers travelling on Sunday morning to allow more time for their journey as a result.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Birmingham Airport This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMeanwhile southern parts of England and Wales could face heavy rain and gale force winds of up to 70mph (112km/h), the Met Office said. Icy surfaces are likely to be an \"additional hazard\", it added.\n\nHighways England have urged drivers to \"prepare for every eventuality\", recommending they carry warm clothing, food, drink, required medication, boots, a shovel and a torch.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Highways England This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTemperatures are likely to reach lows of -10C (14F) in some parts of Scotland and Wales, particularly in rural areas.\n\nThe heaviest and most frequent snow showers are forecast to affect mainly north east Scotland.\n\nOn Sunday \"there is a good chance that some rural communities could become cut off\", the Met Office said.\n\nThe Met Office have issued yellow and amber weather warnings for Sunday\n\nOnly a small proportion of power cuts affecting homes and businesses across the Midlands, south west England and south Wales are related to the weather, Western Power Distribution said.\n\nAll current outages are set to be restored by 23:00 GMT on Saturday, ahead of further possible power cuts on Sunday due to the expected snowfall.\n\nMeanwhile in Scotland, where 18,000 households had been without power, electricity supplies have been restored.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHighways officials have reported \"hazardous\" driving conditions and police in Shropshire in the West Midlands advised against driving unless \"absolutely necessary\".\n\nThere are delays to some flights at Manchester Airport and it advises passengers to check with their airline before travelling.\n\nThe final day of Lincoln Christmas market has also been cancelled over safety concerns about the expected snowfall.\n\nIn the Brecon Beacons, one family made the most of an opportunity for a snowball fight\n\nBut it still was not cold enough for trousers in Greater Manchester\n\nHave you experienced any disruption? Please share your experience with us by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:", "Parts of England and Wales fall under an amber 'be prepared' weather warning on Sunday. Significant snowfall is forecast with impacts for travel expected. Louise Lear explains the potential impacts.", "Ari Behn was married to Princess Martha Louise from 2002-16\n\nThe King of Norway's former son-in-law has accused Kevin Spacey of groping him after a Nobel Peace Prize concert.\n\nAri Behn told radio station P4 that it happened after the actor had hosted the event in 2007.\n\n\"I am a generous person, but this was a bit more than I had in mind,\" said Behn, who was married to King Harald's daughter Martha Louise until last year.\n\nSpacey has been accused of sexual abuse and harassment by a string of men and has been written out of House of Cards.\n\nA spokesman for Spacey said last month that he was \"taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment\" in the wake of the allegations.\n\nKevin Spacey, pictured before the Nobel Peace Prize concert in 2007\n\nRecalling the alleged incident, Behn said: \"We had a great talk, he sat right beside me.\n\n\"After five minutes he said, 'hey, let's go out and have a cigarette'. Then he puts his hand under the table and grabs me by the balls.\"\n\nBehn said he put Spacey off by telling him: \"Er, maybe later.\"\n\nHe added: \"My hair was dark at the time, I was 10 years younger and right up his alley.\"\n\nLast month, the Old Vic theatre in London said it had received 20 personal testimonies of alleged inappropriate behaviour by Spacey while he was artistic director there.\n\nHe has faced other allegations too, with the claims leaving his career in ruins.\n\nHe has been removed from the sixth season of House of Cards, which will instead focus on his on-screen wife, played by Robin Wright.\n\nSpacey has also been replaced by Christopher Plummer in the new Ridley Scott film All the Money in the World.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk", "A top UN official told senior North Korean figures there was an \"urgent need\" to keep channels open to avoid the risk of war, the organisation says.\n\nThe statement follows a visit to Pyongyang by Jeffrey Feltman, the highest-level trip by a UN official to the isolated nation in six years.\n\nNorth Korea says it has agreed to regular communication with the UN.\n\nTensions over the North's weapons programme were raised further after a fresh ballistic missile test last week.\n\nNorth Korea said it was its most advanced missile yet, capable of reaching the continental US.\n\nThe test was the latest in a series of nuclear and missile tests conducted in defiance of UN sanctions.\n\nSouth Korea and the US have meanwhile been carrying out large-scale military drills in a show of force.\n\nOn Sunday, South Korea said it will join the US in imposing fresh sanctions against the North.\n\nTwenty North Korean firms and 12 individuals have reportedly been added to a South Korean blacklist, which will take effect from Monday.\n\nThe move by Seoul, its second set of unilateral sanctions in a month, was designed to cut off international sources of funding for North Korea's nuclear missile programme, a foreign ministry official in Seoul said.\n\nThe measures are in addition to those imposed by the UN Security Council.\n\nThe UN continues to operate in North Korea, with programmes providing food, agricultural and health aid but the last visit by a senior official was back in 2011.\n\nAfter the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Mr Feltman met senior North Koreans all agreed \"the current situation was the most tense and dangerous peace and security issue in the world today\", according to the statement.\n\n\"Noting the urgent need to prevent miscalculations and open channels to reduce the risks of conflict, Mr Feltman underlined that the international community, alarmed by escalating tensions, is committed to the achievement of a peaceful solution,\" it added.\n\nNorth Korean state media earlier said current tensions were \"entirely ascribable to the US hostile policy\".\n\nSome of latest pictures released by North Korea showed Kim Jong-un on Mount Paektu, the country's highest peak\n\nBut in its reporting of Mr Feltman's trip, KCNA also said both sides agreed on \"communication through visits at different level on a regular basis in the future\".\n\nBefore leaving for Pyongyang, Mr Feltman held talks in China, North Korea's historic ally and main trading partner.\n\nDespite calls from other world leaders for restraint, this year has seen US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hurl insults at each other, both at one time saying the other was mad.\n\nUS Secretary of State Rex Tillerson though has said that lines of communication are open between the two sides.\n\nNorth Korea argues nuclear capabilities are its only deterrent against an outside world seeking to destroy it.", "The parents of a six-year-old boy who died from meningitis B have called for a wider vaccination programme.", "The Pope is suggesting changes to Christianity's best-known prayer\n\nPope Francis has called for a translation of a phrase about temptation in the Lord's Prayer to be changed.\n\nThe current wording that says \"lead us not into temptation\" is not a good translation because God does not lead humans to sin, he says.\n\nHis suggestion is to use \"do not let us fall into temptation\" instead, he told Italian TV on Wednesday night.\n\nThe Lord's Prayer is the best-known prayer in Christianity.\n\nThe pontiff said France's Roman Catholic Church was now using the new wording \"do not let us fall into temptation\" as an alternative, and something similar should be used worldwide.\n\n\"Do not let me fall into temptation because it is I who fall, it is not God who throws me into temptation and then sees how I fell,\" he told TV2000, an Italian Catholic TV channel.\n\n\"A father does not do that, a father helps you to get up immediately.\"\n\nIt is a translation from the Latin Vulgate, a 4th-Century Latin translation of the Bible, which itself was translated from ancient Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.\n\nSince the beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis has not shied away from controversy and has tackled some issues head-on, Vatican observers say.\n\nHe has previously said the Roman Catholic Church should apologise to gay people for the way it has treated them.\n\nHe has also compared European migrant detention centres with concentration camps.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nBen Duckett was dropped from Saturday's Ashes tour game after pouring a drink over England bowler James Anderson in a Perth bar.\n\nThe 23-year-old batsman, part of the England Lions squad, was due to play against a Cricket Australia XI as a number of the senior party were rested.\n\nOn Thursday, he was socialising with Lions and senior squad members, who were not under a curfew.\n\n\"It's trivial, but in the current climate not acceptable,\" said coach Trevor Bayliss.\n\nAnderson, who has played in 131 Tests, is England's all-time leading wicket-taker and there is no suggestion the 35-year-old did anything wrong.\n• None Listen: England should be trying to win respect - Agnew\n• None Ballance fails to press England case as he fails in Perth\n\nIn September, England all-rounder and vice-captain Ben Stokes was arrested on suspicion of actual bodily harm after an altercation outside a Bristol nightclub.\n\nThen, at the start of the Ashes tour, Jonny Bairstow was accused of 'headbutting' Australia's Cameron Bancroft in a Perth bar.\n\n\"Everyone has been warned about how even small things can be blown out of all proportion,\" added Bayliss.\n\n\"I'm disappointed. With what we have had to go through already with these problems, it is not acceptable.\"\n\nDuckett has been suspended pending a disciplinary investigation that will be led by Lions coach Andy Flower.\n\n\"Andy will look after his player and if anything needs to be said or done with the first team, we'll handle that,\" added Australian Bayliss.\n\n\"I'm not sure what more I can say to the players. I'm sure there will be some stern words from above.\"\n\nWhen asked if he is \"fed up\" about having to address off-field matters, Bayliss replied: \"Very much so. I'm here to coach the team and I end up spending most of the time trying to explain behaviour that the boys have been warned about.\"\n\nThe latest indiscretion involving the England team is thought to have left management incredibly angry.\n\nThere is a feeling trouble usually centres around the same small group of players and that they could pay with their place in the squad, even if that weakens the overall strength of the team.\n\n\"I might review who is in the team,\" said Bayliss. \"They can't keep making the same mistakes.\n\n\"Most of the guys are fine, but somewhere along the line some of the guys have to pull their heads in.\"\n\nNorthants left-hander Duckett averages 15.71 in four Tests for England, the last of which was against India in November 2016.\n\nHe was replaced in the England team for the game at Richardson Park by Joe Clarke.\n\nEngland are 2-0 down in the Ashes series and will relinquish the urn if they are beaten in the third Test in Perth, which begins on Thursday.\n\nThe Ashes squad had been placed under a curfew after the incident between Bairstow and Bancroft came to light during England's 10-wicket defeat in the first Test in Brisbane.\n\nThough both Bairstow and Bancroft described the occurrence as \"without malice\", England's players were subsequently required to return to their hotel by midnight.\n\nThat curfew was lifted for the first time on the night of Duckett's indiscretion.\n\nIt is understood that no members of the public were involved and England team security were present.", "Grahame Colclough: \"Nothing was whispered, rushed, or secretive\"\n\nWhen senior staff member Grahame Colclough and his partner Jon decided to get married, his head teacher made the announcement in a school assembly.\n\nShe presented gifts to the couple who had \"been together for years\".\n\n\"Nothing was whispered, rushed or secretive,\" Grahame remembers.\n\nNow, guidance from the heads' union NAHT urges all schools to be similarly supportive of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans staff who want to reveal their sexual identities in classrooms.\n\nBilled as the first of its kind in the UK and endorsed by the campaign group Stonewall, the guidance covers key issues faced by LGBT staff - such as harassment, discrimination, bullying and lack of visibility.\n\nIt also lays out the role and responsibilities of school leaders in creating workplaces where \"staff can feel safe and be open with colleagues and with pupils\".\n\nThe NAHT says 2014 research from Manchester Business School found that individuals from sexual minority groups were more than twice as likely as heterosexuals to be bullied or discriminated against in the workplace, with knock-on effects on their physical and mental health.\n\nIt also notes that a 2016 review for the government's Equalities Office found very high levels of workplace bullying and harassment against trans people.\n\nThe guidance advises heads to take personal responsibility for promoting inclusion and tackling bullying based on sexual orientation.\n\n\"We haven't made as much progress as we should on LGBT-plus rights in schools.\n\n\"We need to change that,\" said NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman.\n\n\"Schools decide the kind of society that we have, they transform children into citizens of the world and if we aren't getting the treatment of LGBT-plus pupils and teachers right in schools then we won't be getting it right in society.\n\n\"It shouldn't take bravery to be yourself or to stand up for your colleagues' rights, but it does sometimes.\n\n\"This can have a serious impact on the mental health, happiness and motivation of school staff as well as pupils.\"\n\nThe union's equalities group chairwoman, Sally Bates, said that while some LGBT-plus staff chose not to be open about their sexual orientation, too many others kept quiet for fear of discrimination, bullying or harassment.\n\nNick Ward, director of Teach First, said he wanted a world where teachers are \"not just permitted but supported and encouraged to discuss their sexual and gender identity in order to provide what all teachers aim to provide, a role model for their students\".\n\nTroy Jenkinson, a Leicestershire primary head teacher who is open about his sexuality, said: \"It is crucial for us to get it right now in our schools so we can prepare our students for accepting diversity as they become the next generation of adults.\n\n\"In the words of one of my Year 6 pupils, 'Love is love.'\"\n\nThe NAHT wants all schools to behave like Grahame Colclough's where he says the wedding announcement was \"perfectly normal and exactly how it happens for all of the staff in our school who are getting married\".\n\nThe guidance will be published next week on the NAHT website.", "Trent Franks is accused of offering a former aide $5m to act as a surrogate mother\n\nArizona Republican Trent Franks has resigned amid an ethics investigation into claims he repeatedly asked female staff to be surrogate mothers.\n\nThe announcement came after a congressional panel said it was opening an inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against Mr Franks.\n\nThe lawmaker acknowledged discussing surrogacy with two female aides when he and his wife were facing infertility.\n\nHe is the third member of Congress to resign in three days.\n\nThe Associated Press reports one of Mr Franks' former aides accuses him of offering her $5m (£3.7m) to act as a surrogate mother, repeatedly pressing her to carry his child.\n\nShe told the news agency that another female staff member had also been approached by Mr Franks about surrogacy.\n\nOne of the aides reportedly said Mr Franks retaliated against her after she turned down his alleged surrogacy requests by ignoring her and withholding assignments.\n\nA spokesman for the eight-term congressman - who has a net worth of $33m - would not comment on whether he had offered aides money to act as surrogates.\n\nMr Franks said on Thursday his resignation would take effect next month.\n\nBut on Friday he said he had decided to quit immediately after his wife was admitted to a Washington hospital \"due to an ongoing ailment\".\n\nIn a statement on Thursday, the 60-year-old Republican acknowledged \"my discussion of surrogacy with two previous female subordinates, making each feel uncomfortable.\n\n\"I deeply regret that my discussion of this option and process in the workplace caused distress.\"\n\nMr Franks said he and his wife, Josephine, had used a surrogate to carry their two twins.\n\nHe stood down as the House of Representatives ethics committee opened an inquiry against him into a matter that \"constitutes sexual harassment and/or retaliation for opposing sexual harassment\".\n\nRepublican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said he had advised the congressman to stand down.\n\nIn the space of one week, three members of Congress have announced they are resigning because of sexual misconduct allegations. That, in all likelihood, is just the beginning.\n\nIf the past is any guide, the worst transgressions and abuses of power come in institutions - Hollywood, the Catholic Church, the athletic department of a major state university - where authority is unchecked and accountability is limited. The halls of Congress all too often fit that description.\n\nEach congressional office is like a mini kingdom, with the member of Congress as monarch. Employees work at the \"will and pleasure\" of the elected politician. Staffers share stories of abuse - sometimes of the walk-my-dog, pick-up-my-dry-cleaning variety and sometimes much darker.\n\nThose darker stories are beginning to come to light. Journalists are digging, and there are already reports of dozens of legislators under the microscope.\n\nBoth parties are being tested. If politicians in Washington aren't sweating, they should be.\n\nThe real test, however, will come when voters head to the polls in the months ahead. Will they hold lawmakers accountable? The answer will go a long way to determining whether the #MeToo movement is a blip or if it will fundamentally reshape the Washington power structure.\n\nThe ethics committee also announced on Thursday it was investigating Texas Republican Blake Farenthold amid claims of sexual misconduct against him by a former member of staff.\n\nIt was revealed last week that Mr Farenthold used $84,000 of taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit with his former communications director.\n\nResignations of two Democratic lawmakers have shaken Washington this week.\n\nDemocratic congressman John Conyers announced on Tuesday that he will step down after multiple aides accused him of sexual misconduct.\n\nHours before Mr Franks' announcement, Minnesota Democratic Senator Al Franken said he too was resigning over claims of groping after several Democrats called on him to step down.", "Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered to bid farewell to the French rock star Johnny Hallyday, who died this week.\n\nPresident Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the singer in a eulogy at the Madeleine church.", "Stormzy made the transition from underground success to household name in 2017\n\nStormzy has been named artist of the year at the 2017 BBC Music Awards, capping a hugely successful year.\n\nThe south London MC, whose debut album Gang Signs & Prayer was the first grime record to reach number one, beat Ed Sheeran and Lorde to the prize.\n\nHe adds it to a collection that already includes three Mobos and the Q Award for best solo artist.\n\nRag N Bone Man collected album of the year, while Foo Fighters won best live performance for their Glastonbury set.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe US band headlined the festival this June, two years after they were forced to pull out when frontman Dave Grohl broke his leg.\n\nTaking to the stage this summer, Grohl blamed the delay on \"bad traffic\", before launching into a blistering, hit-filled set.\n\nTheir performance eventually overran by 20 minutes because the crowd kept singing between songs.\n\n\"It really did just turn into this one big ball of love and energy and celebration and music,\" Grohl said as he collected the BBC Music Award.\n\n\"That's what you want every show to be, but when it's on that scale it's a big feeling.\"\n\nThis year's BBC Music Award winners pose with their trophies\n\nRag N Bone Man's prize came in recognition of his debut album Human, which is the year's biggest-selling debut.\n\n\"That's a proper good award,\" he said. \"I keep thinking at one point that someone is going to fishhook me off and tell me it's a joke, but it's not, and it's a wonderful thing to have.\"\n\nIn previous years, the BBC Music Awards have been handed out at a glitzy televised arena concert, with performances from the likes of One Direction, Little Mix and Robbie Williams.\n\nHowever, after disappointing ratings (2016's show was watched by 2.7 million people) this year's awards were handed out during a a one-hour BBC Two special titled The Year In Music 2017.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by BBC Music This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nHosted by Claudia Winkleman and Clara Amfo, it looked at some of the year's biggest music stories, from the One Love concert in Manchester to Black Sabbath's last ever gig.\n\nStormzy, who self-released his debut album in February, has been one of the year's biggest breakout stars.\n\nThe rapper also contributed a heartbreaking verse to the Artists for Grenfell single, and collaborated with the likes of Ed Sheeran, Krept & Konan and Little Mix.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video 2 by BBC Radio 1 This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\n\"When I done the song with Little Mix, some people thought that questioned my integrity,\" he told the BBC Two show. \"I was like, 'bro, I rate Little Mix more than I rate some of your favourite rappers.'\"\n\nOn receiving his artist of the year prize, the star, whose real name is Michael Omari, said: \"I'm actually blessed to be able to say that I'm an artist that's managed to be regarded as someone that's worthy of this award.\n\n\"I don't know what the future holds for me but I'm definitely ready for it.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Declan McKenna talks to BBC Breakfast about his award\n\nOne final award, for BBC Introducing artist of the year, went to rising star Declan McKenna, whose effervescent indie-pop songs address weighty topics like police brutality, transgender conversion therapy and corruption at Fifa.\n\nThe star, who first got played on radio after uploading songs to the BBC Introducing website as a 15-year-old, thanked the organisation \"for relentlessly rooting for me throughout the years\".\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The Liberal Democrats campaigned for Remain in the EU referendum\n\nThe Liberal Democrats have been fined £18,000 for breaking spending rules in last year's EU referendum.\n\nThe Electoral Commission said the party had \"failed to deliver a complete and accurate spending return\".\n\nProper receipts and invoices were not provided for 80 payments worth more than £80,000, the watchdog said.\n\nThe Lib Dems said the breaches of the rules were down to \"human error\" and that the party was taking steps so they are not repeated.\n\nThe Electoral Commission is responsible for regulating election spending and political donations in the UK.\n\nIt has recently launched several investigations into spending in last year's referendum, which resulted in a vote to leave the European Union.\n\nAnnouncing the Lib Dem fine, Bob Posner, the commission's director of political finance, said it was \"disappointing\" that the \"clear\" rules had been breached.\n\nHe added: \"Where the rules are not followed, transparency is lost which is not in the public interest or as parliament intended.\"\n\nThe commission said the Lib Dems had not provided any invoices or receipts in some cases, while in others those provided were inadequate or incomplete.\n\nThe deadline for paying the fine is 3 January, 2018.\n\nIn response, a Lib Dem spokesman said: \"The Liberal Democrats always endeavour to provide complete reports of national campaign expenses in good time and according to all of the applicable rules.\n\n\"The mistakes that have occurred in this case are a result of human error, and we are taking the necessary steps to ensure these mistakes are not repeated in future.\"\n\nMeanwhile the official Remain campaign, now known as Open Britain, has been fined £1,250 for wrongly reporting its spending.\n\nMost of this is because of payments that were added together rather than being reported individually.", "A potential £450m in extra funding for police in England and Wales in the next financial year has been announced by the Home Office.\n\nPolice and crime commissioners are to be given the power to raise the portion of council tax which goes towards policing by £12 per household annually.\n\nThat would raise £270m, while £130m for national priorities, such as firearms, would come from central government.\n\nAn extra £50m for counter terrorism has already been pledged.\n\nThe government also announced the overall grant for the 43 forces in England and Wales would remain the same in cash terms in 2018-19 at £12.6bn.\n\nHowever, opposition MPs described the main settlement for next year as a \"real-terms cut\".\n\nAlthough funding for police was protected in the 2015 spending review, police and crime commissioners have been expressing concern about increased demands on officers.\n\nIn a statement, the Home Office said next year's extra funding came after Policing Minister Nick Hurd spoke to every force about the issues they face.\n\n\"It is clear that with more victims of serious, hidden crimes such as domestic abuse, modern slavery and child sexual exploitation coming forward, this has placed greater demand on policing,\" it said.\n\nSpeaking in the Commons, Mr Hurd said the money amounted to a \"comprehensive settlement that makes sure police have the resources they need\".\n\nHe said the government had responded positively to requests from the police and crime commissioners for \"more flexibility\" around the level of the police precept included in council tax.\n\nMr Hurd acknowledged that the £270m increase in funding would depend on every commissioner applying to raise their precept.\n\nShadow home secretary Diane Abbott questioned whether the settlement would \"really enable police forces to meet the challenge and the reality of modern policing\".\n\nShe said: \"Since 2010 the Tories have made huge cuts to the police, 20,000 police officers have been lost and an increasing number of overstretched forces say they cannot respond to certain crimes. Further cuts in police officer numbers are now inevitable.\"\n\nIn June, London's police force, the Met, said it needed to secure more funding after being left \"stretched\" by terror attacks and a rise in violent crime.\n\nBut responding to the new announcement, London's Labour mayor Sadiq Khan, said the government had \"refused to give the Met the resources they need to do their job once again\" and the policing element of council tax was likely to be increased by the maximum allowed.\n\nAndy Burnham, Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, said people were noticing the loss of visible policing and accused the government of gambling with public safety amid the terror threat.\n\nHe said a rise in council tax would mean some of the most deprived communities in the country would bear the \"burden of the government's failure to fairly fund policing\".\n\nOn Tuesday, the Communities Secretary Sajid Javid announced that the largest local authorities in England would be allowed to raise council tax by up to 5.99% next year.\n\nDavid Jamieson, the Labour police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands, said the settlement fell a \"long way short\" of the extra £22m his police needed.\n\nIn its statement, the Home Office said it had identified a further £100m of potential savings to be made through \"smarter procurement of everything from cars to uniform\".\n\nIt also said improving levels of productivity could see officers spend an extra hour a day on the frontline.\n\nHome Secretary Amber Rudd said: \"Taxpayers will invest more money in forces because the work our officers do to protect us is absolutely vital and we recognise demand is changing.\n\n\"However, my message to police forces is that this increased investment must mean we raise the pace of reform.\n\n\"For too long embracing digital and increasing productivity have been tomorrow's policing problems - now they are today's necessities. The government is committed to meeting this challenge and we want policing to do the same.\"", "Tonka and Pacman have since been put down\n\nPolice in rural Virginia have released disturbing details about a woman who they say was killed by her two dogs while taking them for a walk last week.\n\nFour days after Bethany Stephens, 22, was found, police held a second press conference to describe her death and refute rumours of foul play.\n\nWhen deputies found the dogs on Friday they were guarding what police at first thought was an animal carcass.\n\nBut the body was Stephens's, and police say the pit bulls were eating her.\n\nWarning: Some people may find the details below upsetting\n\n\"I observed, as well as four other deputy sheriffs observed,\" Goochland County Sheriff Jim Agnew said, \"the dogs eating the rib cage on the body\".\n\n\"The first traumatic injury to her was to her throat and face,\" he said.\n\n\"It appears she was taken to the ground, lost consciousness, and the dogs then mauled her to death,\" he added, pausing several times.\n\nSheriff Agnew said in Monday's press conference that he did not want to initially release the graphic detail, out of concern for the victim's family.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kristin Smith This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut after rumours began to swirl in the small town 30 miles (48km) outside Richmond, Virginia - and the sheriff was inundated with calls from concerned citizens - he chose to release the information in order to assure the public that there was not a killer on the loose.\n\nFriends had questioned what would have led the pit bulls to kill their owner who had raised them since they were puppies.\n\nOne friend told local media that the dogs were gentle. \"They'd kill you with kisses,\" Barbara Norris told WWBT News.\n\nThe two dogs - who have since been put down with the family's permission - together weighed twice as much as Stephens, who authorities described as \"petite\" and weighing 100lbs (45kg).\n\nThe dogs, named Tonka and Pacman, were found by Stephens's father after he went looking for her in a wooded area on Friday, one day after she disappeared.\n\n\"Ms Stephens was terribly, terribly injured, but it was very apparent to us that she had been dead for quite some time,\" Sheriff Agnew told reporters, adding that her bloody clothes were scattered around her corpse.\n\nHe added that her body was so badly mauled, and her injuries were \"so extensive that there was nothing left to compare bite marks to\".\n\nAuthorities say the bite marks on her head match those of the dogs, and that they were not consistent with any other type of wild animal such as a bear.\n\nThe dogs' bodies have been preserved for a post-mortem examination.", "Cyril Ramaphosa has been elected as the new leader of South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC).\n\nBut who is he and what does the result mean for South Africa?", "Transport has the widest gender pay gap of any government department, with women earning 16.9% on average less than male colleagues, closely followed by the Brexit department.\n\nWomen are paid less than men across the civil service, new figures show, with a gap of 10% in seven other departments.\n\nThe lowest disparity is 3% - in the culture, media and sport department.\n\nThe UK's top civil servant, Sir Jeremy Heywood, said the data was a \"matter for concern\".\n\nBut he hailed a fall in the overall pay gap from 13.6% to 12.7%.\n\nThe pay gap does not necessarily mean women are paid less than men for doing the same job - the transport and Brexit departments suggest the figures are a result of more women in lower-paid roles and more men in the highest paid roles.\n\nThe figures show the following gender pay gaps between men and women in various departments:\n\nThe Department of Transport said its gender pay gap was mainly due to the \"large numbers of female employees in administrative grades\" among the 5,600 people employed at the DVLA, in Swansea, who do not get their salary topped up by London weighting.\n\nBut it has also traditionally been a \"very male-dominated environment\", officials said.\n\n\"There is a disproportionate representation of men due to the technical, engineering, construction and maritime skills required and lower proportions of female students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects leading into those careers,\" said permanent secretary Bernadette Kelly.\n\nDavid Davis's department is dominated by men at the senior levels, figures show\n\nThe Department for Exiting the EU, which is not far behind the Transport department when it comes to the disparity between male and female wages, has nearly twice as many men in the most senior roles.\n\nIf senior roles are taken out of the figures, the mean gender pay gap drops to -0.39%, \"a negative percentage means that women are paid more than men,\" according to the department.\n\nBut, like the transport department it says it is taking steps to close the gap and believed there was already \"equal treatment for work of equal or similar value\".\n\nA DExEU spokesperson said: \"Ninety per cent of our staff are on loan from other government departments and devolved administrations, who operate their own pay scales and grading systems. These people have their base pay set by their home department, which we have no control over.\n\n\"As many staff come from departments with higher pay scales, this could have had an impact on skewing our data in terms of the mean being above the median.\"\n\nThe civil service, which employs 419,000 staff, compares favourably with the public sector as a whole, where women are paid on average 19.4% less than men and the private sector where the figure is 23.7%.\n\nAll government departments are now required to publish an annual gender pay audit under regulations introduced by Theresa May earlier this year applying to all public bodies with 250 or more employees.\n\nSir Jeremy, the cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, said he was committed to improving the gender balance at all grades within the civil service.\n\n\"I am pleased to say that the overall civil service gender pay gap is narrowing although it is still a matter of concern,\" he said.\n\nBut the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, said that it was wrong that women were still being \"discriminated against and undervalued\".\n\n\"While the civil service should be applauded for shining a light on its gender pay gap with this latest data, departments have a long way to go if they are serious about closing it,\" said its equality officer Zohra Francis.", "Athletics anti-doping officials have begun an investigation into what the president of the sport's governing body called \"serious allegations\" about world champion sprinter Justin Gatlin's coach and an agent.\n\nThe Daily Telegraph said an agent linked to Gatlin, Robert Wagner, offered to \"illicitly supply performance-enhancing drugs\" to undercover reporters.\n\nAnd it said Gatlin's coach, former Olympic gold medallist Dennis Mitchell, told reporters that athletes are able to get away with doping because the drugs they use cannot be detected by tests.\n\nThe paper said the journalists had posed as representatives of a film company wanting to make a sports film who were looking for a coach to train their star to look like an athlete.\n\nThe Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) - set up by the sport's world governing body the IAAF - and the US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada), said they had opened an investigation into the claims.\n\n\"Investigations stemming from tips and whistleblowers play a critical role in anti-doping efforts,\" Usada said in a statement. \"We are presently co-ordinating with the Athletics Integrity Unit in order to investigate these claims fully.\n\n\"As with all investigations, we encourage individuals with information to come forward as an important tool to help protect clean athletes. Importantly, individuals are innocent unless and until the established process determines otherwise. It's only fair to let due process occur before jumping to any conclusions.\"\n\nIAAF president Lord Coe said: \"These allegations are extremely serious and I know the independent Athletics Integrity Unit will investigate in accordance with its mandate.\"\n\nAmerican Gatlin, 35, who has served two doping bans, won 100m gold at August's World Championships in London, beating Usain Bolt in the Jamaican's final individual 100m race before retiring.\n\nGatlin's legal representatives said the sprinter had sacked Mitchell and said he had more than five years' worth of official drugs tests to show \"he has never tested positive for any banned substance\", the paper reported.\n\nIn a statement to the Daily Telegraph, Mitchell said: \"I never suggested in any way that any of my current athletes used any banned substances or that I was familiar with training any of my current athletes with those substances.\"\n\nWagner told the paper: \"I wasn't involved in doping. Obviously I played along because I knew what was going on. I had to get them hooked.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUS President Donald Trump's latest judiciary nominee has withdrawn his name after failing to answer basic legal questions at his Senate confirmation hearing.\n\n\"It has become clear to me over the last few days that my nomination has become a distraction,\" Mr Petersen wrote in a letter.\n\nMr Petersen was nominated as a federal judge in the District of Columbia.\n\nMr Trump had accepted his offer to withdraw, the White House said.\n\nMr Peterson, a Republican member of the Federal Election Commission, is the latest of Mr Trump's conservative judicial nominations to fail.\n\nAt the hearing, Mr Peterson stumbled over questions asked by Republican Senator John Kennedy.\n\nSenator Kennedy starts by asking Mr Petersen and the four other nominees who appeared with him: \"Have any of you not tried a case to verdict in a courtroom?\"\n\nSenator Kennedy: Have you tried a jury trial?\n\nSenator Kennedy: Have you ever taken a deposition by yourself?\n\nSenator Kennedy: Just for the record, do you know what a motion in limine is?\n\nMatthew Petersen: I would probably not be able to give you a good definition right here at the table.\n\nThe Louisiana Senator and former law professor, who still fully supports Mr Trump, openly criticised his nominee in a later TV interview.\n\n\"Just because you've seen My Cousin Vinny doesn't qualify you to be a federal judge,\" Mr Kennedy told local station WWL-TV, referring to the 1992 comedy film about a novice lawyer.\n\nMr Kennedy told the station that Mr Trump called him after learning of the exchange and agreed that Mr Peterson was too inexperienced.\n\nMr Peterson, who became the third of Mr Trump's judicial picks to flounder in just a week, said: \"I had hoped that my nearly two decades of public service might carry more weight than my two worst minutes on television.\"\n\nDespite recent setbacks, Mr Trump has made progress filling other judicial vacancies with conservative judges and notably restored the Supreme Court's conservative majority with the appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch.", "The Britain First Twitter account and that of its two leaders have been blocked\n\nTwitter has suspended the accounts of two leaders of a British far-right group shortly after revising its rules on hate speech.\n\nPaul Golding, Britain First's leader, and Jayda Fransen, his deputy, can no longer tweet and their past posts no longer appear.\n\nThe organisation's official Twitter page has suffered the same fate.\n\nIt appears that three of Ms Fransen's posts that President Trump retweeted have gone from his feed as a result.\n\nThe messages had featured anti-Muslim videos and proved highly controversial when the American leader shared them in November.\n\nBritish Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said it had been \"wrong for the president to have done this\".\n\nMs Fransen and Mr Golding were arrested earlier this week over separate behaviour relating to Northern Ireland.\n\nTwitter announced in October that it planned to take a tougher stance against hate symbols as well as those who posted messages that glorified or condoned violence.\n\nIt has now said that those who express an affiliation with groups that use or celebrate violence to achieve their aims will be permanently suspended.\n\nHateful imagery - such as the Nazi swastika - can still be posted, but will initially be hidden behind a \"sensitive media\" warning, that visitors must disable to proceed. However, such content will no longer be allowed on a person's profile page.\n\nThose that featured examples will be asked to remove them. Repeat violators will be banned.\n\nThe company said the move would \"reduce the amount of abusive behaviour and hateful conduct\" on the network.\n\n\"If an account's profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended,\" it explained.\n\n\"We plan to develop internal tools to help us identify violating accounts to supplement user reports.\"\n\nTwitter has promised a more robust system to appeal against decisions, but said that it was still in development.\n\nThe company is not commenting about the action it is taking against individual accounts citing \"privacy and security reasons\".\n\nThat has left it to others to play detective and report who else has been suspended. Many are using the hashtag #twitterpurge to do so.\n\nUS accounts that appear to have fallen foul of the new rules include:\n\nSeveral other members of the so-called alt-right have tweeted that fans should sign up to Gab.ai - a social network that pitches itself as a free speech alternative to Twitter - if they too are suspended.\n\nGeneration Identity, a pan-European nationalist group that opened a British branch last month, has also had its UK and Ireland Twitter account suspended.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Analysis: Trump's plan to confront - and sometimes work with - US rivals\n\nUS President Donald Trump has outlined his new national security strategy, labelling China and Russia the primary threats to US economic dominance.\n\nHis speech - which was based on his platform of \"America First\" - attacked the \"failures\" of past foreign policy.\n\nHe criticised Pakistan and North Korea, and how previous administrations approached other world powers.\n\nThe US faces a new era of competition, the US president said at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington.\n\nRussia and China are \"rival powers\", he said, but the US must attempt to build a \"great partnership with them\".\n\nAs an example of this new spirit of co-operation, Mr Trump referred to a phone call of thanks he received from Russian President Vladimir Putin for intelligence the CIA provided to the Kremlin about an alleged terror plot.\n\nBut there was harsher language for Russia and China in the new National Security Strategy document itself, published before the speech, which called them \"revisionist powers\".\n\nMr Trump described \"four pillars\" to his new plan but made no mention of human rights or climate change, his critics noted.\n\nThe four themes are protecting the homeland, promoting American prosperity, demonstrating peace through strength and advancing American influence.\n\nThe 68-page document, which White House officials began work on 11 months ago, suggests a return to Mr Trump's campaign promises.\n\nIt explicitly states that \"the United States will no longer turn a blind eye to violations, cheating or economic aggression\".\n\nMr Trump will renew his call for a wall on the southern border\n\nReferring to his election victory during the speech, he said that in 2016 voters chose to \"Make America Great Again\".\n\nPrevious American leaders had \"drifted\" and \"lost sight of America's destiny\" he said, standing before a backdrop of American flags.\n\n\"Now less than one year later I am proud to report that the entire world has heard the news and has seen the signs,\" he said.\n\n\"America is coming back and America is coming back strong.\"\n\nNational security strategies are usually released without fanfare, but President Trump wanted to make an event out of this announcement, which builds on his America First campaign priorities.\n\nSo the document emphasises the economy and fair trade as security issues, as well as tough border controls and immigration policies.\n\nMr Trump's decision to call out Russia and China as global competitors reflected the wariness within his administration about these two \"revisionist powers\".\n\nThe president himself shifted quickly to talk about his recent phone calls with President Vladimir Putin, with whom he seeks a closer relationship. But the text of the document goes into quite biting detail about Russia's alleged interference in domestic politics, and about Chinese economic practices that anger the Americans.\n\nThat was part of an overall theme that emphasised competition more than co-operation in international relations.\n\nIt signalled engagement with the world rather than an isolationist retreat, but on more muscular terms than his predecessors.\n\nHe named the US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal among his successes in office.\n\nMr Trump also said that wealthy countries must recognise that they need to \"reimburse\" the US for the costs of defending them.\n\nHe criticised North Korea for their repeated nuclear missile tests, and Pakistan for not doing enough to tackle Islamic extremism.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHe also outlined his campaign promise to build a wall on the southern border, as well as reform of the immigration visa system, which he said is necessary to defend the homeland.\n\nThe new policy stresses economic security but does not recognise climate change as a national security threat.\n\nHis predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 declared climate change an \"urgent and growing threat to our national security\".", "The Scottish Fire and Rescue service remained at the scene on Tuesday morning\n\nPolice and fire service investigations are continuing after two people died in a blaze at Cameron House Hotel on the banks of Loch Lomond.\n\nOne person was pronounced dead at the hotel, near Balloch, while another died after being taken to hospital.\n\nA recently-married couple and their young son were rescued from an upper floor of the building by firefighters.\n\nAndrew and Louise Logan, and their son Jimmy, from Worcestershire, were taken to hospital but were later discharged.\n\nFirefighters and police remained at the scene on Tuesday morning, with the scale of the damage becoming more apparent.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBBC Scotland's Andrew Black was allowed on site and said: \"The damage to the building is pretty extensive, especially the upper floors. There's a smell of burning wood and we could hear a fire alarm from part of the building still going off.\"\n\nMany of the 200 guests who were evacuated returned home while others were transferred to nearby lodges.\n\nPolice Scotland said the full circumstances surrounding the fire had yet to be established.\n\nThe BBC understands that a wedding due to take place at Cameron House hotel this weekend has been moved to another luxury hotel.\n\nA young baby was rescued by firefighters from an upper floor of the hotel\n\nIt is believed to have started at about 06:40 on Monday, and at its height 14 fire appliances and more than 70 firefighters were tackling the blaze.\n\nCameron House resort director Andy Roger offered his condolences to the families of those who died.\n\nHe said: \"Tragically, the authorities have confirmed two fatalities from the fire. In addition, three individuals were transported to the local hospital, but have since been discharged.\n\n\"The safety and well-being of our guests, employees and neighbours is our first priority, and our deepest condolences are with the families of those affected.\"\n\nThe guests were transferred to the Boathouse restaurant in the immediate aftermath of the fire.\n\nHotel guest Ainsley Huxham praised staff at the hotel for they way the looked after people.\n\n\"The staff were amazing. They got us to the Boathouse. They went to Tescos and bought us all the essentials we needed, and got the food on. They were great,\" she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA Police Scotland spokeswoman said they were working with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to try to determine exactly how the fire broke out.\n\nCameron House Hotel also said it was working closely with investigators to identify the cause of the fire.\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme, John Gow from forensic investigations firm IFIC, said: \"There will be a number of strands to this investigation, running in tandem.\n\n\"Obviously, sadly, there is the death investigation due to the fatalities that occurred.\n\n\"There is the origin and cause investigation which is establishing how the fire started and spread throughout the property.\n\n\"It is also likely there will be an investigation to establish if the fire precaution measures were adequate and operated as they should.\"\n\nCameron House, an 18th Century mansion, was converted into a luxury hotel and resort in 1986.\n\nIt is a popular wedding venue and houses the Michelin-starred Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond restaurant.\n\nIn a statement on its website, Cameron House said it would remain closed to arriving guests for at least the next 72 hours while it worked to assess the damage.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Arthur Collins had denied knowing the substance he threw was acid\n\nA man who threw acid across a packed London nightclub injuring 22 people has been jailed for 20 years.\n\nArthur Collins, the ex-boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne McCann, threw the corrosive substance at revellers in Mangle E8 in Dalston on 17 April.\n\nThe 25-year-old admitted throwing the liquid but had claimed he believed it was a date rape drug.\n\nHe was sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court to 20 years in prison with an extra five years on licence.\n\nLast month he was found guilty of five counts of GBH with intent and nine counts of ABH.\n\nSentencing Collins, of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, Judge Noel Lucas QC described the crime as a \"despicable act\".\n\nJudge Lucas said: \"His defence from first to last was carefully researched and choreographed in order to explain away the evidence against him.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV of the acid attack in London club\n\nCollins, he added, threw the acid \"irrespective of the persons on whom it landed\" and that \"his motivations for such a vicious course of conduct was nothing more than a perceived personal slight\".\n\nAddressing Collins, he said: \"You knew precisely what strong acid would do to human skin.\n\n\"Having thrown the acid over the club you slunk away and hid in the rear and pretended to be nothing to do with the mayhem you had caused.\n\n\"It was deliberate and calculated and you were intent on causing really serious harm to your victims.\"\n\nThe judge labelled him an \"accomplished liar\" and someone who has \"not the slightest remorse for his actions.\"\n\nCollins was in the dock wearing a suit and showed no reaction as his sentence was read out.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Club acid attack victim: \"I'm not the Lauren who walked into Mangle\"\n\nA total of 22 people were injured as a result of the attack, 16 of whom suffered serious burns.\n\nOne man suffered third-degree chemical burns to the left side of the face and required a skin graft. Others had eye injuries.\n\nOne of his victims Sophie Hall, from Poole, Dorset, said she had hoped for a life sentence, but felt justice had been served.\n\nShe said after the sentencing: \"Arthur showed no signs of remorse in court. I have to live with my scars for life.\"\n\nJudge Lucas said that security at Mangle E8 was \"poor\", adding that had it been better, the injuries and offences \"might not have happened\".\n\nThe BBC has contacted the club for comment.\n\nThe attack happened in Mangle E8 in Dalston on 17 April\n\nCollins had six previous convictions including using threatening words, possession of cocaine, drink-driving and assault, the court heard.\n\nHe was given a six-month sentence suspended for 12 months at Woolwich Crown Court for punching a man in a nightclub on 28 December 2015, and was still subject to the suspended sentence when he carried out the attack at Mangle E8.\n\nThe court also heard how he had made acid attack threats to the mother of an ex-girlfriend.\n\nThe father of Ms McCann's child referred to the attack as a \"stupid little mistake\" during Tuesday's hearing.\n\nVictims who read impact statements to the court spoke of feeling \"scared\", \"traumatised\" and \"suicidal\" as a result of the attack.\n\nThroughout the victims' statements, Collins showed little emotion.\n\nTwenty two people were injured when acid was thrown in the Mangle E8 nightclub\n\nCollins had claimed in court he had taken the bottle from a group of men with whom he had got into an argument.\n\nHe said he snatched it thinking it was a date rape drug.\n\n\"I wanted to show them the drug was gone; show them there was nothing left in the bottle.\"\n\nCCTV from inside the club shows Collins throwing acid at the men.\n\nSeemingly unaware of the mayhem caused, Collins returned to the dancefloor \"drinking, dancing, Snapchatting and having a good time\", the court heard.\n\nAt a preliminary hearing at magistrates court, the prosecutor said the incident bore \"the hallmarks of both drug-related activity and gang-related activity\".\n\nHowever, Collins and his legal team have always denied any kind of gang-related activity, insisting that there was \"not a shred of evidence\" to support the theory.", "Last updated on .From the section Athletics\n\nWorld champion sprinter Justin Gatlin says he is \"shocked and surprised\" at doping allegations made against his coach and an agent.\n\nAthletics anti-doping officials have begun an investigation into what the president of the sport's governing body called \"serious allegations\" about Dennis Mitchell and Robert Wagner.\n\nThe Daily Telegraph said Wagner - an agent linked to Gatlin - offered to \"illicitly supply performance-enhancing drugs\" to undercover reporters.\n\nA video released by the Telegraph features a man the newspaper says is Wagner insinuating Gatlin is taking banned drugs, \"just like every other sprinter in America\".\n\nThe paper also said Gatlin's coach, former Olympic gold medallist Mitchell, told reporters that athletes are able to get away with doping because the drugs they use cannot be detected by tests.\n\nWriting on Instagram on Tuesday, Gatlin said he \"fired\" Mitchell \"as soon as I found out about this\".\n\nThe 35-year-old American said he is \"not using and have not used\" performance-enhancing drugs.\n\nHe added: \"All legal options are on the table as I will not allow others to lie about me like this.\"\n\nThe Telegraph said its journalists had posed as representatives of a film company wanting to make a sports film who were looking for a coach to train their star to look like an athlete.\n\nThe Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) - set up by the sport's world governing body the IAAF - and the US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) said they had opened an investigation into the claims.\n\n\"Investigations stemming from tips and whistleblowers play a critical role in anti-doping efforts,\" Usada said in a statement. \"We are presently co-ordinating with the Athletics Integrity Unit in order to investigate these claims fully.\n\n\"As with all investigations, we encourage individuals with information to come forward as an important tool to help protect clean athletes. Importantly, individuals are innocent unless and until the established process determines otherwise. It's only fair to let due process occur before jumping to any conclusions.\"\n\nIAAF president Lord Coe said: \"These allegations are extremely serious and I know the independent Athletics Integrity Unit will investigate in accordance with its mandate.\"\n\nThe World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) said it would monitor the AIU investigation and offer support.\n\n\"I hope that first of all that the journalists from the Telegraph will make their information available to the investigators. We will monitor and offer assistance where we can,\" said Wada president Sir Craig Reedie.\n\n\"I think the investigation will concentrate on the allegation that everybody is using performance enhancing drugs. It's an easy allegation to make but it needs to be tied down - I'm not sure the evidence exists to support it.\"\n\nGatlin, who has served two doping bans, won 100m gold at August's World Championships in London, beating Usain Bolt in the Jamaican's final individual 100m race before retiring.\n\nGatlin's legal representatives said the sprinter had more than five years' worth of official drugs tests to show \"he has never tested positive for any banned substance\", the paper reported.\n\nIn a statement to the Telegraph, Mitchell said: \"I never suggested in any way that any of my current athletes used any banned substances or that I was familiar with training any of my current athletes with those substances.\"\n\nWagner told the paper: \"I wasn't involved in doping. Obviously I played along because I knew what was going on. I had to get them hooked.\"", "Thousands of women in the UK cannot afford to buy sanitary products.\n\nResearch by the charity Plan International suggests that one in 10 girls and women - aged between 14 and 21 - in the UK has been affected at some point.\n\nA Scottish government pilot project is providing towels and tampons to those who need them through an Aberdeen food bank.\n\nTwo women tell the BBC's Scotland Editor Sarah Smith about their experiences.", "Uber drivers work \"excessive hours\", making the taxi app service a danger to public safety, a union has warned.\n\nThe GMB Union told Westminster Magistrates' Court it had evidence that Uber \"encourages and incentivises\" its drivers to work long hours.\n\nThe hearing will determine whether the union can take part in the taxi app's battle to renew its London licence.\n\nAn Uber spokeperson said it would \"shortly be introducing hours limits\" for drivers in its app.\n\nIt said that on average, drivers spent 30 hours a week logged into its app.\n\n\"We take the issue of tired driving seriously, which is why we regularly remind drivers to take rest breaks,\" Uber added.\n\nIn September, Transport for London deemed Uber unfit to run a taxi service and refused to renew its licence.\n\nTaxi drivers have been campaigning against Uber, such as engaging in this \"go slow\" protest in 2014\n\nGMB representative Gerry Facenna told the court that it wanted Uber to introduce a maximum hours cap for drivers, as well as a limit on how many drivers can operate in one area at the same time.\n\n\"From a public safety point of view, being driven around London by a driver who has worked a 15-hour shift is no better than being driven around by a driver who has not had background checks,\" he added.\n\nAround 2,000 of GMB Union's members are Uber drivers.\n\nIn February 2017, the Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee heard evidence from Uber drivers who said they were forced to work long hours to cover their costs, which included the purchase of their cars.\n\nIn response to the committee's request on driver hours, Uber said last month that over a quarter of its drivers used the app for more than 40 hours a week and more than 2,000 drivers used the app for more than 60 hours.\n\nTransport for London cited \"public safety and security\" concerns - including Uber's approach to carrying out background checks on drivers and reporting serious criminal offences - for its decision to remove Uber's operating license.\n\nUber's licence expired in October but its drivers can continue to operate in the capital while it pursues an appeal.\n\nThe mayor of London Sadiq Khan has warned that the appeal process could \"go on for a number of years\".", "Liam Allan said he was \"disappointed\" he had not yet received an apology from the Met Police\n\nA man wrongly accused of rape says he will sue the Metropolitan Police over its failure to disclose vital evidence that led to the collapse of the trial.\n\nLiam Allan was charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault but his trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.\n\nThe 22-year-old student said he was \"disappointed\" he had not yet received an apology.\n\nThe Met Police said it was \"urgently reviewing the investigation\".\n\nThe case against Mr Allan at Croydon Crown Court was dropped after three days when the evidence on a computer disk containing 40,000 messages revealed the alleged victim pestered him for \"casual sex\".\n\nTalking to the Victoria Derbyshire programme, Mr Allan said: \"University is meant to be the best years of your life and the last two years have been spent worrying and not concentrating on anything.\n\n\"It has completely ripped apart my normal personal life.\"\n\nThe 22-year-old student had been charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault\n\nHe added he had not yet received any contact or an apology from the Met and found that \"disappointing\".\n\n\"I feel relief on one side, that the case is over, but now there's the stress of getting compensation and the process of suing - so it's not over completely\", he said.\n\nMr Allan faced a possible jail term of 12 years and being put on the sex offenders register for life had he been found guilty.\n\nHe said he felt \"pure fear\" when he learned he had been accused of rape but would never be able to understand why the accusations were made.\n\nIt is understood police had looked at thousands of phone messages when reviewing evidence in the case, but had failed to disclose to the prosecution and defence teams messages between the complainant and her friends which cast doubt on the allegations against Mr Allan.\n\nA Met spokesman said the force was \"urgently reviewing this investigation and will be working with the Crown Prosecution Service to understand exactly what has happened in this case.\n\n\"The Met understands the concerns that have been raised as a result of this case being dismissed from court and the ongoing review will seek to address those,\" he said.\n\nA spokesman for the CPS said: \"In November 2017, the police provided more material in the case of Liam Allan. Upon a review of that material, it was decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.\n\n\"We will now be conducting a management review together with the Metropolitan Police to examine the way in which this case was handled.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Carriages plummeted off both sides of a highway bridge over the I-5 highway in Washington state, after a high speed train derailed.", "The two leaders wished each other a happy Christmas and said they would remain in \"close touch\"\n\nTheresa May has discussed Brexit and events in the Middle East in a pre-Christmas phone call with Donald Trump.\n\nIt is the first time they have spoken since last month's diplomatic spat over the US president's re-tweeting of anti-Muslim videos by a UK far-right group.\n\nNo 10 said the two agreed on the importance of a \"swift\" transatlantic trade deal after the UK leaves the EU.\n\nMrs May also reiterated her opposition to Mr Trump's plan to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\n\nMr Trump said last month that he intended to move the country's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a shift in longstanding US policy which has been criticised by European allies and much of the Arab world.\n\nThe two leaders, who last met in September, had earlier clashed over Mr Trump's apparent endorsement of inflammatory tweets posted by a senior member of Britain First.\n\nNo 10 described his actions as wrong which prompted the US president, in return, to chastise Mrs May on Twitter and urge her to focus her attention on tackling Islamic extremism.\n\nIn a summary of Tuesday's phone call, Downing Street said the two leaders had covered a range of issues, including the humanitarian situation in Yemen amid the continuing conflict in the country.\n\nNo 10 said the two leaders agreed \"on the vital importance of reopening humanitarian and commercial access to prevent famine and alleviate the suffering of innocent Yemenis\".\n\nOn Israel, the leaders discussed their \"different positions\" on the US recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, agreeing \"on the importance of the US bringing forward new proposals for peace and the international community supporting these efforts\".\n\nIsrael regards Jerusalem as its \"eternal and undivided\" capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel in the 1967 war - as the capital of a future Palestinian state.\n\nOn the UK's future relations with Europe and the US, Downing Street said the two agreed \"on the importance of a swift post-Brexit bilateral trade deal\".\n\nIt added: \"The prime minister updated the president on the recent good progress of the Brexit negotiations, and the president set out the progress he had made on his economic agenda.\"\n\nMr Trump has repeatedly said he wants to strike a quick trade agreement with the UK after it leaves in March 2019 but experts have said it will take years to negotiate.\n\nSoon after he took office in January, Mr Trump was invited on a state visit to the UK but no date has been set for the trip amid criticism from MPs of the president's conduct and stance on key issues.\n\nIn its summary of the leaders' conversation, the White House made no direct reference to any discussion on Israel, focusing instead on the \"next steps in forging peace\" in the Middle East as well as on Yemen and Brexit.\n\n\"President Trump congratulated the prime minister on the decision by European Union leaders to move to the second phase of the Brexit negotiations,\" its statement concluded.\n\nLabour said it had taken two weeks for the British prime minister to raise her concerns about what it said was the president's \"dangerous\" policy towards Israel.\n\n\"She seems to have failed to use the opportunity to call him out for retweeting abhorrent Islamophobic material,\" a spokesman for the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn added.\n\n\"As prime minister, May has a responsibility to stand up against hate and for all communities in our country.\"", "In a wide-ranging interview with the BBC's Yalda Hakim, US National Security Adviser HR McMaster said that the United States has \"to be prepared, if necessary, to compel the denuclearisation of North Korea\", with or without their cooperation.\n\nDonald Trump's top security aide also gave his views on Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election and the challenge of working around Trump's tweets.", "The bus had been taking tourists to Mayan ruins at Chaccobén\n\nA bus carrying tourists from a cruise ship has overturned in south-eastern Mexico, killing at least 12 people, officials say.\n\nAnother 18 people were injured in the crash between Mahahual and Cafetal in Quintana Roo state.\n\nThe bus was taking 31 people, who were on a Royal Caribbean cruise, to the ancient Mayan ruin at Chaccobén.\n\nEight Americans died, as well as two Swedes, one Canadian, and one Mexican, Mexican media report.\n\nAmong the victims was a 78-year-old grandmother from Miami, according to US media.\n\nAnna Behar, her 11-year-old-son Daniel, and her mother Fanya Shamis, 78, all died in the crash.\n\nThe Quintana Roo state government confirmed the dead included at least one child.\n\nA spokeswoman for the US Department of State confirmed the death of multiple US citizens, and sent \"heartfelt condolences to those affected by this tragedy\".\n\nA local driver and tour guides were also said to be on the trip.\n\nThe injured were taken to four hospitals and five people were discharged, the Costa Maya bus company said.\n\nRoyal Caribbean said it had 27 guests on the bus and described the crash as \"heartbreaking\".\n\n\"Our hearts go out to all those involved. We are doing all we can to care for our guests, including assisting with medical care and transportation,\" it said on Twitter.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Heather Nauert This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBus crashes are common in Mexico where people often travel along dangerous routes at night - but an accident involving the deaths of so many tourists in broad daylight is rare, the BBC Mexico correspondent Will Grant says.\n\nIt is not known what caused the crash. Photographs from the scene showed the vehicle on its side with dazed survivors sitting nearby.\n\nThe driver of the bus was taken into custody, and the cause of the crash is being investigated, local media report.", "Law firm Appleby is taking legal action against the BBC and the Guardian over their reporting of leaked documents detailing offshore tax-avoidance schemes, known as the Paradise Papers.\n\nIt is suing for breach of confidence and wants the documents disclosed.\n\nAppleby said confidential information had been taken in a \"criminal act\".\n\nThe BBC and the Guardian said they would \"vigorously\" defend the revelations, which were in the \"highest public interest\".\n\nThe leak of financial documents revealed how the powerful and ultra-wealthy secretly invest cash in offshore tax havens.\n\nThe papers contained details about investments made by the Queen's private estate and a tax avoidance scheme used by three stars of BBC sitcom Mrs Brown's Boys.\n\nThey also showed that Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton avoided tax on his £16.5m luxury jet.\n\nAbout half of the 13.4m leaked documents were from Appleby, one of the world's largest providers of offshore legal services.\n\nPanorama led research for the BBC as part of a global investigation involving nearly 100 other media organisations in 67 countries, after the records were passed to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.\n\nThe BBC does not know the identity of the source. Appleby says the data was taken by hackers.\n\nAppleby is also seeking a permanent injunction stopping any further use of the information, and the return of all copies of the documents.\n\nIn a statement, it said its overwhelming responsibility was to its clients and colleagues.\n\nThe BBC said its \"serious and responsible journalism\" had revealed matters which would otherwise have remained secret and that authorities around the world were taking action as a consequence.\n\nThe Guardian said the legal action was an attempt to \"undermine responsible public interest journalism\".", "Inspectors at Liverpool jail found filthy, leaking toilets and some areas so hazardous they could not be cleaned\n\nInmates at Liverpool prison are being kept in the worst living conditions inspectors have ever seen, according to a report seen by BBC News.\n\nRats and cockroaches were rife, with one area of the jail so dirty, infested and hazardous it could not be cleaned.\n\nSome prisoners live in cells that should be condemned, says the leaked document, with exposed electrical wiring and filthy, leaking lavatories.\n\nThe Ministry of Justice said it didn't comment on leaked documents.\n\nPrison inspectors made what they called an unannounced visit to HMP Liverpool in September, having been made aware of concerns.\n\nWhat they found, says the report, was an \"abject failure… to offer a safe, decent and purposeful environment\".\n\nCockroaches: There was no credible plan to tackle the most basic issues, says the report\n\nThe \"highly experienced\" inspection team said they \"could not recall having seen worse living conditions than those at HMP Liverpool\".\n\nHighlighting one particular incident, the chief inspector, Peter Clarke, could not contain his exasperation.\n\n\"I found a prisoner who had complex mental health needs being held in a cell that had no furniture other than a bed,\" he said.\n\n\"The windows of both the cell and the toilet recess were broken, the light fitting in his toilet was broken with wires exposed, the lavatory was filthy and appeared to be blocked, his sink was leaking and the cell was dark and damp.\n\n\"Extraordinarily, this man had apparently been held in this condition for some weeks.\"\n\nThe inspectors found broken windows with jutting glass in cells\n\nThe chief cause of the problems, says the report, was a failure of leadership - at local, regional and national level.\n\nViolence of all kinds had increased, fuelled by the prevalence of drugs, with most inmates telling inspectors it was \"easy or very easy\" to get drugs.\n\nIn addition however, inspectors found allegations of excessive use of force by prison officers were not properly investigated by managers.\n\nSome officers are described as having a \"dismissive\" attitude to prisoners, with some staff applying \"unacceptable\" unofficial punishments, such as restricting showers.\n\nThere were more than 2,000 outstanding maintenance jobs, and only 22 of the 89 recommendations made following a poor inspection report in 2015 had been fully implemented.\n\n\"It is hard to understand how the leadership of the prison could have allowed the situation to deteriorate to this extent,\" writes the chief inspector, directly criticising the Ministry of Justice.\n\n\"We saw clear evidence that local prison managers had sought help from regional and national management to improve conditions they knew to be unacceptable long before our arrival, but had met with little response.\"\n\nMost damningly of all perhaps, the report concludes: \"We could see no credible plan to address these basic issues.\"\n\nThe report talks of a failure of leadership locally, regionally and nationally\n\n\"It's as bad a report as I've ever seen,\" said Lord Ramsbotham, a former chief inspector of prisons.\n\n\"But… how could anyone come up from headquarters, go into Liverpool and not feel ashamed about it?\n\n\"How on Earth did the head of the prison service allow the prison to get into that state?\"\n\nAsked if, in light of the report, Liverpool could be described as England's worst jail, Lord Ramsbotham replied: \"I wouldn't dispute that.\"\n\nOne recently released prisoner told the BBC: \"The cockroach problem was so bad, you can hear them gnawing at you at night.\"\n\nAnother said a leaking toilet in his cell had led to him \"waking up with the pad swimming in urine\".\n\nDarren Harley, released last summer, said his time there was like living in a tip\n\nAnd Darren Harley, released in the summer after 27 months inside for drugs offences, said the prison was \"like living in a tip\".\n\n\"If you put a dog in a place like this, people would come and take you away and lock you up for cruelty to animals.\n\n\"We're human beings. So we need to be treated right.\"\n\nHMP Liverpool may now have the unwelcome attribute of being labelled England's worst jail, but prisons across England and Wales are under pressure.\n\nUnder the coalition government, the then Justice Secretary Chris Grayling dramatically cut prison budgets and staff.\n\nSince the cuts, there has been a rapid rise in suicides, self-harm, violence and assaults within prisons.\n\nRecognising its errors, the Ministry of Justice is in the process of hiring 2,500 new prison officers by next summer.\n\nThe governor of HMP Liverpool, Peter Francis, was removed within days of the inspection visit, and last week a former officer at the jail, Pia Sinha, was appointed as his replacement.\n\nIn a statement on the failings at Liverpool, a Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: \"We do not comment on leaked reports.\"", "\"The life of fame was never meant for me,\" the note said\n\nA note said to have been written by K-pop superstar Jonghyun has been posted on social media by his close friend, revealing a struggle with depression.\n\n\"The depression that was slowly devouring me at last consumed me,\" said the note, posted by fellow singer Nine.\n\nJonghyun, 27, was found dead on Monday in a suspected suicide.\n\nHe was the lead singer of one of South Korea's biggest pop groups SHINee. His death has triggered an outpouring of grief from fans around the world.\n\nGroups of distraught and tearful fans gathered at the Seoul hospital\n\nOn Tuesday, Nine, a member of another pop group Dear Cloud, shared on Instagram the note she said Jonghyun had sent to her, with instructions to make it public if he \"disappeared from the world\".\n\nDear Cloud's management Mymusic Entertainment confirmed to news agency Yonhap the note was posted after consultation with Jonghyun's family.\n\nIt spoke about his struggle with living in the public eye, saying \"I was broken from the inside\" and \"the life of fame was never meant for me\".\n\n\"What else can I say more. Just tell me I've done well. That this is enough. That I've worked hard. Even if you can't smile don't fault me on my way.\"\n\nHowever, no details were given as to when the note was written or sent to Nine.\n\nOn Twitter, his fans have interpreted the message as the singer's last request to them.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by juju1108 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by DeAnna This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nJonghyun, whose full name was Kim Jong-hyun, was found unconscious in a Seoul apartment. He was taken to hospital where he was declared dead.\n\nAccording to news agency AFP, he had sent several text messages to his sister, including one saying \"this is my last farewell\".\n\nPolice said they would not be conducting a post-mortem examination, following a request from Jonghyun's family.\n\nOfficers said it \"looks certain\" that he had killed himself, but did not officially confirm his cause of death as they were still conducting investigations.\n\nThe singer was considered by many of his fans to be a very sensitive young man who did not embrace the hedonism that often comes with stardom.\n\nAs well as being a singer and dancer, he played a large part in songwriting and production for SHINee. He also launched a parallel successful solo career in 2015.\n\nFan Wang, a BBC Chinese journalist who worked as an interpreter for Jonghyun during a fan meeting in 2014, recalled that: \"Apart from the time he performed, he didn't talk much most of the time... the thing he cared the most about was his singing and performance.\"\n\nAnother interpreter who worked with the band told the BBC that Jonghyun \"didn't attract as much attention as other band members when he was offstage. Quiet and reticent, he was always walking behind the others.\n\n\"Yet during rehearsals, he came across as a lead singer. He took his singing and dancing rehearsals really seriously - you could tell he was a serious, grounded person.\"\n\n\"He was also very polite. Once, he'd just finished brushing his teeth when he saw me standing by the door - he hadn't even dried his mouth yet, but hurried to bow and greet me right away,\" the interpreter, who wanted to be identified only as Ms Shu, added.\n\nThe management of SHINee, SM Entertainment, released a statement saying he was \"the best artist\" and that they were \"heartbroken\" about his death.\n\nThe band also posted an emotional tribute to the pop idol on its official Twitter account, saying in Korean: \"Jonghyun, who loved music more than anyone.... Forever, he will be remembered.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by SHINee This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFans were paying their respects at a funeral hall at the hospital in Seoul throughout Tuesday.\n\nSHINee's other members were there to receive mourners, who included K-pop stars such as singer BoA and members of girl group Girls Generation, reported newspaper The Korea Herald.\n\nA private funeral will be held on Thursday.\n\nAn altar with Jonghyun's portrait was set up at the hospital\n\nSHINee were founded in 2008 as a five member group under SM Entertainment, and quickly rose to become of the biggest K-pop boy groups.\n\nConceived in South Korea in the 1990s as a Western-Asian hybrid, K-pop is now a multi-million dollar industry.\n\nIt is at the forefront of the so-called Korean Wave - the spread of Korean music, drama and film across Asia and worldwide.\n\nOver the past years, SHINee recorded several albums in Japanese and in 2017 sold out the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome and part of their Japan tour. Earlier this year, they also played their first North American tour.\n\nIf you are feeling emotionally distressed, here are details of organisations in the UK which offer advice and support.\n\nDepression is more than just feeling a bit down for a few days. It is an illness which, at its most severe, can leave people feeling that life is no longer worth living. It can cause physical symptoms such as headaches, sleeplessness and constant tiredness which may last for months and months.\n\nPeople with depression can also feel anxious, irritable and agitated on a daily basis, but it affects everyone differently.\n\nIf people admit their symptoms and talk to someone about their feelings, depression can usually be treated but the biggest barrier to getting help is often stigma and the fear of disclosing mental health problems.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Footage of the fire at Cameron House\n\nTwo guests have died after fire broke out at the Cameron House Hotel beside Loch Lomond.\n\nMore than 200 guests were evacuated from the luxury resort after the alarm was raised at about 06:40.\n\nPolice said one person was pronounced dead at the scene while another died after being taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.\n\nA newly-married couple and their young son were taken to hospital for treatment and later discharged.\n\nPolice Scotland said the hotel, near Balloch, had been extensively damaged.\n\nPolice and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service confirmed that two people had died\n\nA number of guests were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation.\n\nThe three people taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow were members of the same family who were rescued by firefighters.\n\nSpeaking to the media gathered at the hotel's entrance, David McGown of the Scottish Fire and Rescue said: \"Unfortunately, and tragically, this has resulted in two people losing their life as a result of the fire.\n\n\"The fire and rescue service's condolences go out to the people involved in this tragic incident and our thoughts are very much with the family and friends of the two people who lost their lives this morning.\n\n\"The fire has caused extensive damage to the central section of the hotel.\n\n\"Our crews have been working tirelessly since 07:00. We have 14 fire appliances at its height tackling this fire and more than 70 firefighters.\n\n\"As you can imagine, as well as being an absolutely tragic incident where people have lost their lives, it is an extremely complicated incident and fire to contain and will continue to do so.\n\n\"We will continue to work with partners to bring this incident to a conclusion.\"\n\nCh Insp Donald Leitch from Police Scotland said work was ongoing to establish the cause of the fire.\n\nHe said: \"Police Scotland were called to Cameron House Hotel where 200 people were evacuated from the hotel which has been partly damaged.\n\n\"One person was pronounced dead at the scene. Four were taken to hospital where one person tragically died.\"\n\nA report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal.\n\nFourteen fire appliances were sent to the scene\n\nFirefighters used jets to tackle the flames and smoke\n\nSmoke rises over Loch Lomond from the fire, as seen from Balloch\n\nA guest at the hotel told BBC Radio Scotland how she initially thought the fire alarm was a drill.\n\nAinsley Huxham said: \"As soon as we left our room - I just thought it was a fire alarm, just like a practise go.\n\n\"But when we left - five stairs down from our room - we saw a whole room full of smoke and flames.\n\n\"So we had to run back down the hall, chapped on everyone's doors and shouted 'fire!'.\"\n\nEmergency services working at the scene of the fire watched by guests\n\nShe added: \"We got out within five minutes of the fire brigade getting called.\n\n\"And by the time we had got outside, the whole field was full of people.\"\n\nStaff who turned up for their shifts at the hotel during the morning were being stopped at the entrance.\n\nMuch of the interior of the main central section of the hotel, thought to be the oldest part, was visibly blackened, with upper floor windows smashed to allow the firefighters' water jets access to the flames.\n\nThe Salvation Army were in attendance to provide the emergency services with food and drink.\n\nOne woman who works in the kitchen told the BBC news website she just heard about the fire as she was getting ready for work.\n\nShe said she didn't believe the news until she came down and saw the smoke.\n\n\"It's a really lovely hotel,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm so sorry to see this.\"\n\nStewart King, general manager of the neighbouring Duck Bay Marina, said he had been down to the hotel and was shocked by the extent of the damage.\n\n\"It was very bad,\" he said.\n\nGuests were sheltered in Cameron House's Boathouse restaurant while the situation was ongoing.\n\nCameron House is one of Scotland's most luxurious hotels, with views across Loch Lomond.\n\nThe venue offers a romantic location for weddings, a championship standard course for golfers and five-star facilities for guests.\n\nThe chef Martin Wishart has a Michelin-starred restaurant at the hotel.\n\nCameron House is owned by US investment firm KSL Capital Partners, which was reported to have paid between £70m and £80m for the 132-room property in 2015.\n\nA statement on the hotel's website read: \"Due to an ongoing incident please be aware that Cameron House will remain closed to arriving guests for at least the next 72 hours.\n\n\"We would ask all guests and customers to remain patient as we work with the emergency services to establish the extent of the damage and ascertain when we will be able to re-open.\n\n\"More information will follow in due course.\"\n\nFlags were being flown at half-mast at West Dunbartonshire Council buildings.\n\nProvost William Hendrie said: \"For something like this to happen so close to Christmas is just too painful to comprehend.\n\n\"I know the staff at Cameron House will also be devastated and our thoughts also go out to them.\"\n\nAndy Roger, resort director at Cameron House, said the hotel was working closely with investigators to identify the cause of the fire.\n\n\"The safety and well-being of our guests, employees and neighbours is our first priority, and our deepest condolences are with the families of those affected.\n\n\"We are working closely with the authorities to determine the cause of the fire, and to provide support to our guests and the families of those affected.\"\n\nCameron House situated by Loch Lomond is one of Scotland's most prestigious hotels\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Jessica Richards took her daughter after she was placed into care by the local authority\n\nThe grandparents of a girl abducted by her mother, who has schizophrenia, have pleaded for her return.\n\nElliana Shand, who is four on Tuesday, and her mother, Jessica Richards, 26, disappeared from London in May.\n\nHer grandfather told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme Ms Richards was \"a very good mum\" but unwell.\n\nThe judge overseeing the case said Ms Richards could be in the grip of hallucinations and might pose a \"very real risk\" to Elliana.\n\nThe child was placed in the care of her paternal grandparents, Sean and Eileen Doyle, in May, after social services staff at Barking and Dagenham Council intervened.\n\nLast month, in an unusual move, Mr Justice Hayden released Elliana's name and photograph in the hope that someone could help locate her.\n\nThe judge, who has been overseeing Elliana's case at the family division of the High Court, said evidence showed Elliana had travelled with her maternal grandmother, Sharon Shand, to Jamaica.\n\nIt is thought she also went to the USA, Sweden and Spain.\n\nMr Doyle said they had lost track of their granddaughter in Spain but thought she could be in London.\n\n\"We've got no idea where she is, which is frustrating in this day and age,\" he said.\n\nMr Justice Hayden said Ms Richards, who has schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder, \"under stress, no longer taking her anti-psychotic mediation, perhaps in the grip of auditory hallucinations... poses a very real risk to her daughter's safety\".\n\nHe also described the relationship between Ms Richards and her daughter as very warm and affectionate.\n\n\"Her mum's a very good mum, she's just not very well. We want to find them both, but we genuinely don't know where they are,\" Mr Doyle said.\n\n\"We're grandparents. Our job is to look after our grandkids, it's a good job to have, and we just want to look after her.\n\n\"We're not at any stage trying to take her child, our job is to look after her until she's better.\"\n\nThe couple have been distributing leaflets and missing posters in areas where they think she could be, including Godalming in Surrey, north-west London and west London.\n\nMr and Mrs Doyle have urged anyone with information of Elliana's location to call the police\n\nBoth they and the judge have asked people to contact the police immediately if they know where Elliana is.\n\nAppealing directly to Ms Richards, Mrs Doyle said: \"Please give us a ring, let us hear Elliana's voice, let us know you're both OK, let's talk, we're happy to have a meeting.\"\n\nMr Doyle added: \"We know them, we know they're not bad people, we're just in a situation that's escalated out of control that has got to the highest court in the land, it's bizarre that we're even there.\"\n\nWatch the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.", "Track Palin (left), an Iraq war veteran, appeared regularly with Mrs Palin at campaign events\n\nThe son of former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been charged with assault and burglary after a confrontation with his father involving a firearm.\n\nPolice say Track Palin allegedly broke into his parents' Alaska home through a window on Saturday night.\n\nDocuments obtained by US media say the 28-year-old said he was on pain medication and had been drinking.\n\nHe was arrested in 2016 for allegedly punching his girlfriend.\n\nAfter he eventually pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm while intoxicated, other charges were dismissed in that case.\n\nPolice documents, published by the LA Times newspaper, said Mrs Palin called the police at about 20:40 on Saturday night (06:40 GMT on Sunday) to say her son was on \"some type of medication\" and was allegedly \"freaking out\".\n\nThe affidavit by a responding officer said they found the former Alaskan governor \"visibly upset\" at the property.\n\nMrs Palin has said previously that her son has suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder\n\nPolice say that when they arrived they had a stand-off with Mr Palin in which he moved around the house and at one stage went out onto the garage roof. They say he demanded police put their weapons on the ground and allegedly called them \"peasants\".\n\nPolice say the struggle between the two men happened after Mr Palin said he was coming to the property to retrieve a vehicle, and threatened to beat his father.\n\nTodd Palin, Mrs Palin's husband, told police he armed himself with a pistol when his son arrived, but was disarmed and was left bloodied.\n\nTrack Palin was charged by police with first-degree burglary, fourth-degree assault and criminal mischief, and remains in police custody.\n\nA statement to US media from the family requested privacy, and said the Palins were unable to comment further on the case.\n\nEarlier this year his ex-girlfriend Jordan Loewe applied for a protective order against Mr Palin, having previously requested full custody of their one-year-old son.", "Two 13-year-old girls have been arrested following a fire\n\nTwo girls and a boy, all aged 13, have been arrested on suspicion of arson after a blaze at a former school.\n\nForty firefighters were sent to the former Grays School in Western Road, Newhaven, on Monday morning.\n\nThe fire ripped through the building and caused extensive damage. Thick black smoke was seen along the East Sussex coast.\n\nNobody was injured in the fire. The three teenagers have been released while inquiries continue.\n\nThe blaze could be seen along the Sussex coast\n\nAn East Sussex County Council spokesman said once the fire service and police had finished their investigations on site, it would be \"working to secure the building\".\n\nThe school closed in 2014 and later that year was declared surplus to requirements by East Sussex County Council.\n\nThe authority agreed to sell the site to a developer, which has now received planning permission from Lewes District Council to demolish the school and build housing.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Hilda Jaffe is still working at 95\n\nImagine having to ask a 95-year-old to slow down - well, I did. Hilda Jaffe was walking so fast there was a risk that the small group following her would be left behind.\n\nWe had just met in the lobby of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, where Hilda is a volunteer tour guide, and she was escorting us to the vast, elaborately decorated Rose Main Reading Room.\n\nHilda doesn't walk so much as stride. I know people 60 years her junior who are less nimble on their feet.\n\nIn common with other super-agers, Hilda has retained her zest for life and knowledge.\n\nHilda completes the New York Times crossword each day, belongs to two book clubs, goes to the opera, classical music concerts and the theatre.\n\nShe also goes everywhere by foot, describing New York as a \"great city for older people\".\n\nHilda on honeymoon with her late husband Gerry\n\nI asked Hilda what was the secret of her long and healthy life?\n\nShe said: \"Pick your parents; my father died at 88, my mother at 93, so it has to be genetic.\"\n\nSamples of Hilda's DNA are stored in a freezer at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.\n\nShe is among more than 600 people aged over 90 who are part of the Longevity Genes Project.\n\nThe Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library, which opened in 1911 and where Hilda Jaffe is a tour guide\n\nDr Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging, said what was striking about the group was what unhealthy lives many had lived.\n\nHe told me: \"Almost 50% of them were overweight. Many were heavy smokers, did not exercise and had unhealthy diets - they did not do what their doctors said they should.\"\n\nHis research found several genetic variants among the group that appeared to confer protection against the diseases of ageing.\n\nHe says only about one in 10,000 people is lucky enough to have these protective super-ager genes, but believes science could help the rest of us.\n\nSome pharmaceutical companies are exploring whether these genetic traits could be used to create anti-ageing drugs.\n\nFor more than 60 years metformin has been used as a very cheap first-line treatment for diabetes.\n\nNow, trials in a variety of animals have shown they live healthier, longer lives.\n\nExactly how metformin might delay the diseases of ageing is not well understood, but it appears to reduce oxidative damage and inflammation in cells.\n\nIn humans, studies have linked metformin to a lower risk of heart disease, diabetes and cognitive decline.\n\nDr Barzilai, who is also deputy scientific director of the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), is planning a randomised study of 3,000 adults aged 65-79 - half will take metformin tablets each day and half a placebo or dummy pill.\n\nAbout half the $70m dollars needed has been raised; it is hoped the six-year trial will start in 2018, but this may depend on the support of one or more wealthy philanthropists.\n\nAt present, the US medicines regulator, the FDA, does not recognise ageing as a medical condition.\n\nBut Dr Barzilai says if the metformin trial was successful it would provide a proof of principle that ageing can be targeted\n\nAnd he believes better drugs will come in the future.\n\nAnother promising area of ageing research is cellular senescence - the process by which cells stop dividing.\n\nMost human cells can reproduce a limited number of times - this protects against cancer as the more cells divide, the greater the chance they will accumulate errors.\n\nCellular senescence helps keep humans predominantly free of cancer in the first half of life.\n\nBut as we age, the senescent cells accumulate, secreting inflammatory molecules that can damage neighbouring tissue and help trigger several diseases of ageing.\n\nSenescent cells congregate in tissue affected by ageing, such as the joints and eyes - and are implicated in both osteoarthritis and age-related macular degeneration.\n\nUnity Biotechnology, in California, is planning to begin human trials next year of a drug to clear senescent cells from the knee.\n\nDr Jamie Dananberg, chief medical officer, told me: \"Osteoarthritis is a key reason why it hurts to get old. Our hope is that a single injection will alleviate pain, halt and perhaps even begin to repair the knee.\"\n\nEven if the drug, which might need to be injected every few months, was partially successful, it could have huge implications for improving quality of life for those affected.\n\nUnity is also targeting eye, lung and kidney disease.\n\nThese drugs are not designed to make us live longer, but to make old age less painful and more healthy - to put more life in our years.\n\nIf they work, then more of us could emulate Hilda Jaffe and become super-agers.\n• None What are the secrets of the superagers?", "Police and the bomb disposal unit were seen outside a property in Chesterfield, Derbyshire\n\nAction has been taken against an alleged Islamist terror plot in the UK that could have happened at Christmas, counter terrorism sources say.\n\nFour men were arrested early on Tuesday in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire.\n\nAn Army bomb disposal team cordoned off a street in Chesterfield where a 31-year-old man was arrested. Nearby homes were evacuated.\n\nThree other men aged 22, 36 and 41 were arrested in the Burngreave and Meersbrook areas of Sheffield.\n\nAll four suspects were detained on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.\n\nThey have been taken to a police station in West Yorkshire for questioning. The cordon in Chesterfield was later lifted.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Elizabeth Fogarty lives on the street where a raid by police took place this morning\n\nThe cordon around one of the properties - the Fatima community centre on Brunswick Road in Burngreave - was extended on Tuesday afternoon and the bomb disposal unit attended.\n\nA large number of police vehicles and officers were outside the two-storey building. The main door appeared to be broken on the ground.\n\nFive raids at houses took place on Tuesday at:\n\nFour men were arrested - all at their home addresses.\n\nAt 21:30 GMT, police said searches had been stood down for the evening but would resume at the scenes in Burngreave and Chesterfield in the morning.\n\nA neighbour in Shirebrook Road, Sheffield, reported hearing \"an enormous bang\" as one of the raids took place at 05:30.\n\nCarol Perry, who lives two doors from the scene, said: \"I was asleep and then I was woken suddenly... and the house shook.\n\n\"My immediate thought was that it was an earthquake.\"\n\nA large police presence could be seen outside the Fatima community centre in Sheffield\n\nA spokeswoman from Counter Terrorism Policing North East said: \"The public may have heard a loud bang at the time as police entered one of the properties, but it was not an explosion.\n\n\"[We] would like to reassure them that it was part of the method to gain entry to the property.\"\n\nRetired Joan Miller, 63, who lives opposite the run-down house, said she looked out of her window to see many plain-clothed armed officers in the street.\n\nMs Miller said: \"[There] was very loud bang. It shook the house.\n\n\"I pulled the curtains and saw lots of armed men in the street, so I kept watching because that was quite extraordinary.\"\n\nPolice and Army activity is continuing in Chesterfield\n\nShe said the officers shouted \"very abruptly\" for people to stay in their homes.\n\nElizabeth Fogarty, who lives across the road from the house in Meersbrook, said: \"I've only recently moved up from London.\n\n\"One of the reasons we moved up north to Sheffield is because we felt quite nervous living in London with all the terrorist attacks taking place.\"\n\nThere are two types of terrorism raids in the UK. Many occur very quietly as detectives knock on the door and take the suspect into custody under normal police powers.\n\nThen there are the full-on raids where doors or windows have to be knocked in, cordons set up and the bomb squad called.\n\nSuch operations are only ever mounted because secret intelligence - perhaps from an intercepted communication and often only fragmentary - suggests there is something at a property they need to get to the bottom of.\n\nNone of which is proof that any of those who have been arrested have committed an offence - but officers now have up to 14 days, subject to court oversight, to build a case.\n\nOne of their priorities is likely to be forensically examining phones. All recent major terrorism investigations have turned on not just what officers found during searches, but what they uncovered from online lives.\n\nSupt Una Jennings of South Yorkshire Police said: \"I understand our local communities will have concerns about this morning's police activity but I want to offer my reassurance that we will continue to serve and protect the public of South Yorkshire.\"\n\nDerbyshire's Assistant Chief Constable Bill McWilliam said: \"We of course understand that police activity of this nature can be unsettling.\n\n\"However, please be reassured, the arrest we wanted to make has been made.\n\n\"Our advice remains to be vigilant, which is not different to our day-to-day advice in the current climate, but continue to go about your business as usual.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Carol Grayson's husband, Peter, died after contracting hepatitis C and HIV from infected blood products\n\nGovernment officials have apologised for using a discredited report into the contaminated blood products scandal that left thousands of NHS patients infected with viruses including HIV.\n\nDespite assurances that the \"inadequate\" document would be ditched, a health minister has referred to it this year, the BBC can reveal.\n\nThe government admits that the document was used for too long.\n\nThis week it will announce who will run its official inquiry into the scandal.\n\nCritics say the whole process has taken far too long and have accused the government of a \"whitewash\".\n\nCampaigners have always said that the 2006 report - originally billed by the government as an official account of how the scandal unfolded - was misleading and incomplete because original documents had been destroyed.\n\nIt has been called the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.\n\nAt least 2,400 people died after they were given blood products that were infected with hepatitis C and HIV during the 70s and 80s.\n\nThousands of NHS patients with an inherited bleeding disorder called haemophilia were given the plasma products, which came from abroad, including the US.\n\nMuch of the plasma used to make the clotting treatment Factor VIII came from donors like prison inmates in the US, who sold their blood.\n\nCarol Grayson's husband, Peter, was one of the victims who died.\n\nShe says campaigners have challenged the Department of Health over its investigations for more than a decade.\n\nShe told BBC News: \"I had to give my career up to care for my husband for many years and I didn't have my own children because at the time I wanted to conceive, I was told I might infect the child and the advice at the time was, don't have children. So there are huge implications for families. It doesn't just impact on one person, it impacts on the whole family.\n\n\"I go from being absolutely furious and thinking everything I was brought up to believe in, you know about democracy, about justice is a lie.\"\n\nIn July, the prime minister ordered the Cabinet Office to oversee the independent investigation into how the scandal happened, after family members warned that the involvement of the Department of Health would mean it would be, in effect, investigating itself.\n\nThe BBC has now seen a series of letters from ministers and civil servants, accepting that the 2006 report (Self-Sufficiency in Blood Products in England and Wales) previously seen within Whitehall as a \"definitive account\", was inadequate.\n\nSir Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department of Health, wrote to Liberal Democrat peer Lady Featherstone in August assuring her that the document \"has not been used by officials in recent years… and it will not be used in the future\".\n\nBut the BBC has also seen a letter written by health minister Lord O'Shaughnessy to another MP in January this year, which referenced the report and its conclusions.\n\nWhen this was brought to Sir Chris's attention, he apologised, and said there were \"some instances in recent years where the department had referred to the document\" and reiterated the assurance that the document would be taken out of use.\n\nLady Featherstone told the BBC that civil servants promised to make clear online that the document had been discredited, but this was not yet apparent.\n\nThe peer, whose own nephew died from an infection from contaminated blood products, said: \"That document is full of holes, and lies, and mistruths, and lines to take, and I went to the Department of Health to challenge the use of this document.\n\n\"I think the permanent secretary was quite genuine in his desire - he saw that the evidence proved that they couldn't use the document - and he wrote to me to assure me that this document was not being used any longer, had not been used in recent years and would never be used again in the future.\n\n\"It indicated to me that they knew it was wrong, that they must have acknowledged it was telling untruths.\"\n\nA Department of Health spokesperson said: \"The 2006 document, Self-Sufficiency in Blood Products in England and Wales: A Chronology from 1973 to 1991, remained in use by the department for too long. It is no longer used.\n\n\"The infected blood scandal of the 1970s and 80s is an appalling tragedy and the government has announced an independent statutory inquiry to ensure that victims and their families finally get the answers they have spent decades waiting for.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Angela Merkel visits the scene soon after the 2016 attack in Berlin\n\nGermany has admitted that mistakes were made in the aftermath of last year's attack on a Christmas market in Berlin that left 12 dead.\n\n\"Everything humanly possible\" was being done to help those affected and improve security, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on the first anniversary of the attack.\n\nMrs Merkel has come under fire for her government's response.\n\nFamilies have said they were not given timely information and that they were sent bills for the costs of autopsies.\n\nAfter a private ceremony for the bereaved and emergency workers, Mrs Merkel said it was time to work to \"correct the things that went wrong\".\n\n\"Not only to guarantee security, but to give those whose lives were destroyed or impacted, the chance to return to their lives as well as possible,\" she added.\n\nThe chancellor also attended an event that unveiled a memorial for the victims at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz, the site of the Christmas market.\n\nSeveral family members had accused Mrs Merkel of \"inaction\", saying that she had failed to reach out to them. She met victims' relatives for the first time on Monday, and described the conversation as \"brutally honest\".\n\nLast year's attack in Berlin also left dozens injured\n\nEarlier, in an article in the Tagesspiegel newspaper (in German), Justice Minister Heiko Maas acknowledged the country was not \"sufficiently prepared\" for the consequences of such an attack, saying: \"For this we can only apologise to the victims and surviving relatives\".\n\nHe proposed the creation of a government co-ordination office to improve communication with victims of future attacks and called for a change in the law so that all victims could be treated and compensated equally, regardless of their nationalities or the circumstances of the attack.\n\nTributes are paid to the victims of the attack at the market in Berlin\n\nA report commissioned by the government and released last week cited a number of failures in the response to the attack, including delays in confirming the identities of the victims to their relatives.\n\nA separate report in October revealed \"gross mistakes\" by German police and security services.\n\nAnis Amri, a Tunisian asylum seeker who drove a lorry into the crowded market, was shot and killed in Italy four days after the attack.", "Parts of the C-Series jet are produced by workers at Bombardier's Belfast plant\n\nBoeing and Bombardier traded verbal blows on Monday over claims by the US planemaker that the Canadian company receives massive subsidies.\n\nThe two sides appeared before the US International Trade Commission (ITC) in the latest round of their bitter row.\n\nBoeing accused Bombardier of harming sales of its 737 aircraft and urged the ITC to support tariffs on its rival.\n\nBut Bombardier, which makes wings in Belfast, said Boeing makes \"money hand over fist\" from the 737.\n\nBoeing claims Bombardier's new C-Series aircraft is being sold in the US below cost because of Canadian subsidies.\n\nThe US company won the first round of the fight in October when the US Commerce Department ordered that tariffs of up to 300% should be imposed on the C-Series.\n\nThe ITC will decide if the tariffs should be made permanent, which could effectively shut off the US market to the C-Series.\n\nIn opening remarks to the ITC hearing, Bombardier representative Peter Lichtenbaum said: \"Boeing is making money hand over fist. And with a backlog of 737 orders years into the future, there are no signs of difficulty on the horizon.\"\n\nBoeing countered that it had already been \"established beyond question that Bombardier has taken billions of dollars in illegal government subsidies to prop up its C-Series programme. The C-Series would not even exist at this point but for those subsidies\".\n\nCanada's ambassador to the US, David MacNaughton, warned that a ruling in favour of Boeing would not be the end of the dispute.\n\nHe told the ITC panel that backing Boeing risked a possible violation of World Trade Organization rules.\n\n\"Boeing's assertion that future imports from Canada threaten to cause material injury is necessarily based on just the type of speculation and conjecture that is prohibited under both US and international law,\" he said.\n\nCanada earlier this month scrapped plans to buy 18 Boeing Super Hornet fighter jets, underlining Ottawa's anger over the trade challenge.\n\nThe dispute is also being closely watched by the UK government, which fears any impact on C-Series sales will threaten jobs.\n\nThe dispute stems from a 2016 sale of 75 C-Series jets to Delta Air Lines. Boeing claims Delta paid $20m per plane, well below an estimated cost of $33m and what Bombardier charges in Canada.\n\nEarlier this year, European planemaker Airbus took a controlling stake in the C-Series programme, and will begin production in Alabama. This will increase the US content of the aircraft, and generate hundreds of jobs.", "One of the six victims of a multi-car crash in Birmingham had served a prison sentence over a 130mph police chase, the BBC understands.\n\nKasar Jehangir, 25, was jailed for three years for dangerous driving and possession of drugs with intent to supply in November last year.\n\nHe was one of two men who threw heroin from an Audi while being chased by police on the M6 in 2015.\n\nLucy Davis and Lee Jenkins have also been named as victims of the crash.\n\nMr Jehangir - released earlier in 2017 under probation service supervision - died on Sunday alongside Tauqeer Hussain, 26, and Mohammed Fahsha.\n\nAnother man, 22, was seriously injured when the Audi the four men were in crashed with a taxi on Lee Bank Middleway, near the city centre.\n\nMr Hussain's mother suffered a heart attack after learning of her son's death, a family member said.\n\n\"Beautiful and fun-loving\" Lucy Davis was one of the taxi passengers killed in the crash\n\nTaxi driver Imtiaz Mohammed and his passengers, 42-year-old Mr Jenkins, and his partner 43-year-old Ms Davis from Kingstanding in Birmingham, died after the vehicle was smashed on to its side.\n\nMs Davis, who had two children, worked as a sign language interpreter.\n\nHer family said: \"Lucy was a beautiful and fun-loving mother, daughter, sister, auntie and friend who brought happiness to the lives of all she met. Rest in Peace our Lady in Red.\"\n\nHer relatives have taken to social media to express their \"unbearable\" pain.\n\nMr Jenkins' employer, University Hospitals Birmingham, said: \"The trust extends its deepest condolences to the family of Lee Jenkins and also to his friends and colleagues at this very sad time.\"\n\nMr Mohammed, 33, has been described by relatives as a \"happy, loving and friendly guy\", was on his last job before heading home to his wife and family, according to his brother.\n\nThe family of Mr Mohammed, who had five daughters and one son, said his death came the day before his daughter's fourth birthday.\n\nFather-of-six Imtiaz Mohammed, described as a hard-working family man, was killed in the crash\n\nThree men in the Audi, including Mohammed Fahsha, 30, pictured with his baby nephew, and Tauqeer Hussain, 26, known as Tox to his family, died at the scene.\n\nPeople have been leaving tributes near the scene of the crash, including flowers with a card saying: \"To Mum, I love you loads. \"Life isn't going to be the same without you.\"\n\nThree vehicles were directly involved in the accident on Belgrave Middleway in the early hours of Sunday\n\nThe scene of the accident was described as \"harrowing\"\n\nTousif Hussain Kiani, whose younger brother Tauqeer died in the crash, revealed that their mother had a heart attack after hearing about her son's death.\n\nMr Hussain was abroad when his sister contacted him in the middle of the night to tell him his 26-year-old brother was among the men thrown from the Audi.\n\nHe said he managed to get the next flight back to the UK, only to return to the news that his mother, Jamil Ahktar, had been taken to hospital.\n\nThe death of Tauqeer is another tragedy for the family as Mr Hussain's older brother, Khrum Munir, was killed in a car accident almost 10 years ago when the 28-year-old was coming home from work.\n\nHe said his father was \"holding it together because he is a strong man... but emotionally, I'm not sure what he is feeling.\"\n\nTousif Hussain Kiani said his brother Tauqeer was 'happy and carefree'\n\nMr Hussain described Tauqeer, known as Tox, as someone who was \"friendly to everybody\" and always outside the house on St Benedicts Road, Small Heath, with his friends \"laughing and joking\".\n\nHe was due to start a new job in January.\n\nHe said Mohammed Fahsha lived opposite and was a childhood friend to them both.\n\n\"We were always in each other's houses... always together. It doesn't seem real because they're not here,\" he said.\n\nThe brothers had known Kasar Jehangir for several years and the fourth person in the car who survived, an unnamed 22-year-old man, since he was about 15 years old.\n\nHe said the group were going to get food when the crash happened.\n\nMr Hussain said he was upset at Mr Jehangir's past drug convictions being referenced following his death.\n\n\"It's irrelevant to what has happened now... it's a matter in his own private life and not something his family want to be seeing.\n\n\"Everybody does bad and good in their life.\"\n\nHe said he was also angry at graphic images and footage of the aftermath of the crash scene being shared on social media.\n\n\"When I checked my social media [after learning of his brother's death] I saw people uploading pictures and videos.\n\n\"Fair enough you want to record the cars or whatever, but people were recording the bodies lying on the floor and that's not how I'd like to see any person lying on the floor while they are dead in that state, never mind if they're my brother and my best friends.\"\n\nPolice said investigations into the cause of the crash were ongoing.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Zelda Perkins: \"Everyone sees [Harvey] as this repulsive monster... he was also an extremely exciting person to be around.\"\n\nA former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, who accused him of attempting to rape a colleague 19 years ago, has called for a change to UK law on gagging orders.\n\nZelda Perkins worked for Weinstein's Miramax Films in the UK in the 1990s. She left after a co-worker said he'd tried to rape her, which he denied.\n\nMs Perkins told BBC Newsnight she tried to expose his behaviour, but was told by lawyers she \"didn't have a chance\".\n\nShe signed a non-disclosure agreement but said the process was \"immoral\".\n\nMs Perkins was 24 when she signed the confidentiality agreement in 1998, which prevented her from speaking to anyone about the alleged sexual assault.\n\nShe's now broken her 19 years of silence by speaking publicly about the movie mogul's mistreatment of women.\n\nIn her first broadcast interview, she told Newsnight's Emily Maitlis she wanted UK law on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) reformed to dismantle a legal system which she says enables the rich and powerful to cover up sexual assault and harassment.\n\n\"The last 19 years have been distressing, where I've not been allowed to speak, where I've not been allowed to be myself,\" she told the BBC Two programme.\n\n\"It's not just distressing for me, but for lots of women who have not been able to own their past, and for many of them, their trauma. Although the process I went through was legal, it was immoral.\"\n\nShe said she was \"emotionally and psychologically\" threatened by Weinstein during her three years working for him, but was never physically threatened.\n\nWhen, on a trip abroad, a younger colleague came to her in a distressed state to say that Weinstein had attempted to rape her, Ms Perkins felt it was her duty to act.\n\n\"She was shaking, very distressed, and clearly in shock,\" she said. \"She didn't want anybody to know and was absolutely terrified of the consequences. I spoke with her and tried to calm her down before confronting Harvey face to face.\"\n\nWeinstein denied the attempted rape. The women were advised to take legal advice, but were shocked by what they were told.\n\n\"The lawyers made it very clear that we didn't have very many options,\" she said. \"We had no physical evidence because we hadn't gone to the police when we were abroad, and ultimately, it would be two young women's words against Harvey Weinstein.\n\n\"In hindsight, my lawyers were giving me the advice they thought was best.\n\n\"However, they were saying, 'You will get dragged backwards, forwards and sideways through the courts. As will your family, as will your friends, as will anybody who knows anything about you. You haven't got a chance. You will be destroyed.'\"\n\nThey were advised that their best option was to take legal action against Weinstein. What followed eventually led to the signing of an agreement so shrouded in secrecy that Ms Perkins herself is not permitted to own a copy of the document, but can look at it under supervision.\n\nShe fought to get terms included, including Weinstein's commitment to attend therapy. The document is so closely guarded because it's \"a smoking gun\", she said.\n\n\"If you have an agreement that somebody has signed, that says that he will go to therapy, that he will be dismissed from his own company if anybody else makes a claim in the ensuing period, that an HR policy for sexual harassment has to be brought into the company, it's pretty clear that something's wrong.\"\n\nShe received £125,000 as part of the settlement - which she now views as a payment for her silence. But she says she regrets that the agreement meant that money changed hands.\n\nShe said the experience left her \"pretty broken and exhausted and so disillusioned\" and she doesn't know whether the conditions regarding therapy were carried out.\n\nShe said: \"I didn't have the energy to go on fighting. It was not my obligation to follow up on his obligation.\n\n\"What's extraordinary looking back is you'd imagine that Miramax Films would have been bending over backwards to make sure all of those obligations were fulfilled. But they weren't. I really couldn't stay in the industry at that point.\"\n\nNow, Ms Perkins says her motives for breaking the terms of her agreement by speaking publicly are as much about shedding light on the gagging orders that can protect the rich and powerful as they are about exposing Harvey Weinstein's alleged abusive behaviour.\n\nNDAs are widely used in the business world to share confidential information and keep trade secrets, but their usage in sexual harassment cases is more controversial.\n\nThe allegations against Harvey Weinstein have caused some law-makers in the US to readdress the use of NDAs in these instances. Senators in New York, New Jersey and California have drafted legislation aimed at banning them in such circumstances.\n\nMs Perkins now wants the UK Parliament to follow suit and debate the issue.\n\nGeoffrey Roberston QC said NDAs could be very useful, especially in employment law, and a blanket ban was \"not the way to go\".\n\nBut he added: \"There is, however, an entirely legitimate case for the UK Parliament to pass an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act, making it a crime to offer money to employees to silence them in relation to criminal offences that they know about.\n\n\"This is also a question of legal ethics - the Weinstein story has highlighted an area in the law that can cover up sexual crime.\"\n\nMs Perkins said: \"I understand that non-disclosure agreements have a place in society, and for both sides. But it's really important that legislation is changed around how these agreements are regulated.\"\n\nThe BBC asked Mr Weinstein for a response to the allegations. His lawyers said Mr Weinstein categorically denied engaging in any non-consensual conduct or alleged threatening behaviour. Miramax had no comment.\n\nThe lawyers representing Zelda Perkins at the time that the NDA was signed said it was inappropriate for them to comment, given the terms of the NDA.\n\nWatch the full interview on Newsnight on BBC Two at 22:30 GMT.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Streep said she's \"truly sorry she [McGowan] sees me as an adversary\"\n\nActress Meryl Streep has defended herself against criticism from Harvey Weinstein accuser Rose McGowan.\n\nMcGowan, who accused Weinstein of rape, tweeted her anger at plans for stars to wear black to the Golden Globes in a silent protest against sexual abuse.\n\n\"Actresses like Meryl Streep... YOUR SILENCE is THE problem,\" actress McGowan wrote in the now deleted tweet.\n\nStreep responded by saying she \"didn't know\" about Weinstein's alleged behaviour when she worked with him.\n\nThe movie mogul has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.\n\nStreep said Weinstein \"needed me much more than I needed him\"\n\nMcGowan's tweet in full said: \"Actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black @goldenglobes in a silent protest. YOUR SILENCE is THE problem. You'll accept a fake award breathlessly & affect no real change. I despise your hypocrisy. Maybe you should all wear Marchesa.\"\n\nMarchesa is the fashion line that the film producer started with his wife Georgina Chapman, who left him in October when the allegations emerged.\n\nIn Streep's statement, given to the Huffington Post, the Oscar winner said she was \"hurt\" to be \"attacked\" by McGowan and said she \"did not know\" about Weinstein's alleged abuse.\n\nShe said: \"I have never in my life been invited to his hotel room.\"\n\nMatt Damon has faced a backlash for his comments on the scandal\n\nStreep added: \"He needed me much more than I needed him and he made sure I didn't know....\n\n\"Rose assumed and broadcast something untrue about me, and I wanted to let her know the truth,\" she wrote, adding that she had passed on her phone number to McGowan through friends after seeing the tweet.\n\n\"I sat by the phone all day,\" she wrote, adding: \"I hoped that she would give me a hearing. She did not, but I hope she reads this.\n\n\"I am truly sorry she sees me as an adversary, because we are both, together with all the women in our business, standing in defiance of the same implacable foe.\"\n\nStreep worked with Weinstein on such films as The Iron Lady and August: Osage County and jokingly referred to him as \"God\" in a 2012 acceptance speech.\n\nIt is not the first time Streep has spoken out about the allegations.\n\nWhen they first surfaced, she said she wanted to make it clear that \"not everybody\" had known about the allegations, including herself.\n\nMeanwhile, actor Matt Damon has spoken out again about the Hollywood scandal, telling Business Insider he thinks the men in Hollywood who aren't sexual predators should be talked about more.\n\n\"We're in this watershed moment, and it's great, but I think one thing that's not being talked about is there are a whole load of guys - the preponderance of men I've worked with - who don't do this kind of thing,\" he said.\n\nHis comments follow criticism from actresses including his former girlfriend Minnie Driver of an interview he gave to ABC.\n\nDamon said: \"I do believe that there's a spectrum of behaviour and we're going to have to figure, you know, there's a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation,\" he said.\n\n\"Both of those behaviours need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn't be conflated.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Minnie Driver This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Forecasters may soon be able to give a longer term warning of wet UK summers\n\nResearchers in the UK have developed a method of improving the long range accuracy of summer weather forecasts in the UK and Europe.\n\nThe scientists found a connection between sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic in March and April and the subsequent summer's rain or shine.\n\nThe researchers say the new method may benefit agriculture, tourism and construction.\n\nThe study has been published in the journal PNAS.\n\nScientific effort to improve longer term forecasts have been focussed on winter weather patterns, which can pose a sizeable threat to humans and the environment. Developing better seasonal forecasts for the summer has lagged significantly behind.\n\nNow researchers at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) at the University of Reading have found that springtime temperature anomalies in the north Atlantic are connected to the circulation of the atmosphere and the position of the jet stream over Europe in the following July and August.\n\n\"We found a strong link between sea surface temperatures east of Newfoundland during the spring and the position of the jet stream and the weather in the UK,\" said lead author Dr Albert Osso from the University of Reading.\n\n\"We found that there is a predictability.\"\n\nThe researchers believe the temperature anomalies in the sea change what is termed the meridional gradient and the position of the jet stream is strongly influenced by this factor.\n\nPredicting barbecue weather might still be beyond the scope of this approach\n\n\"The jet stream gives the direction of the storms that cross the Atlantic and affect Europe and the UK,\" said Dr Osso.\n\n\"What we have seen is that when temperatures are warmer than normal in this area of the ocean, the storms basically move far north and they miss the UK, not all of them, but on average most of the storms are going to miss.\"\n\nThe scientists say that their findings mean that there is considerable potential to improve the seasonal forecast - with important implications for many sectors.\n\n\"This is an exciting finding. It shows that some aspects of summer weather in the UK appear to be much more predictable, many months ahead, than was previously thought,\" said Professor Rowan Sutton, from the University of Reading, and a co-author of the research.\n\n\"Farmers could potentially make more informed decisions on planting and harvesting. Shops could have more information to plan their stocks of sun cream or wellies. Forecasters still won't be able to tell you in May if an August bank holiday barbecue is a good idea or not, but they may be able to say if the summer is likely to be wetter or drier than average, with much more accuracy.\"\n\nIn the study, the scientists found that the rainfall in Europe can be predicted several months ahead with a correlation skill of 0.56, where 0 would be pure chance and 1 would be perfect prediction every time. The researchers believe that their new process could be a big help to weather forecasters,\n\n\"I think it could become a standard procedure and I think it can help to improve the numerical forecast,\" said Dr Osso.\n\n\"Knowing that these connections exist in observations, the forecasters can improve their models to reproduce these links and then get a better numerical forecast, not just a statistical one. \"", "Passenger Chris Karnes describes the moment an Amtrak train derailed and crashed onto a highway below in Washington state.", "The report says there is \"a lack of support for people with mental health needs, and in-patients have an impoverished regime\"\n\nMajor failings in the provision of healthcare at Liverpool prison have been uncovered by a BBC investigation.\n\nWhistleblowers have told BBC News that prisoners have died and others have been injured due to poor care.\n\nMost of the incidents have happened since inspectors said conditions at the jail were the worst they had seen.\n\nLancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust said it was sorry it had not managed to improve services as much as it had hoped.\n\nFor the past three months, healthcare staff at HMP Liverpool have been highlighting ongoing concerns about the treatment of some of the approximately 1,100 prisoners at the jail.\n\nMP Rosie Cooper said there was a \"systemic failure to provide decent healthcare\" at the prison\n\nTheir decision to speak out, they say, was borne of a sense that senior management at the trust were not listening to concerns and hiding failings from regulators.\n\nA draft copy of its report, obtained by the BBC, says while there have been some improvements, \"there is a lack of support for people with mental health needs, and in-patients have an impoverished regime. There had been failures of leadership and management at all levels.\"\n\nJust days after the inspectors left, the BBC was informed of the suicide of a patient.\n\nThe man, who the BBC is not naming, killed himself in the healthcare unit.\n\nA fortnight later, staff told of the suicide of a second inmate.\n\n\"He did not have his secondary screening at the prison, a national requirement,\" wrote staff in an email to the BBC. \"The prison at the moment is so risky.\"\n\nA month later, a third death. On the day the man died, the BBC was told he had been waiting \"nearly 17 hours\" to see a prison GP.\n\nAnother inmate, we were told, was left with life-changing injuries after staff failed to notice for 12 hours that he had broken his neck despite a medic checking on him.\n\nDarren Harley said he removed the roots of his tooth himself because he did not receive medication\n\nDarren Harley was convicted of drugs offences and spent 27 months in Liverpool prison before being released in the summer.\n\nDuring his time inside, he says, he developed toothache but the healthcare regime failed on four separate occasions to provide him with proper medication, forcing him to take drastic action.\n\n\"My tooth actually shattered and because of the agony I was in, I ended up having to remove the roots myself. I don't understand how it is taking so long for people to get important medication,\" he said.\n\nOn some occasions, potentially life-saving drugs, such as warfarin and insulin, were not available despite being prescribed to prisoners.\n\nAt other times, mistakes led to inmates getting double doses of certain drugs.\n\nLancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust, which has provided healthcare services at the prison for two years, said it inherited some very significant challenges from the previous provider.\n\nIt said improvements had been made but the scale of the changes needed and the challenging environment within prisons has limited its ability to address everything.\n\nRosie Cooper, the Labour MP for West Lancashire, has been campaigning for improvements at the prison for years and is appalled by the continuing failures.\n\n\"We expect those prisoners to obey our rules outside of prison, yet inside prison the authorities abandon all rules and regulations and treat prisoners in this way and leave them suffering. I cannot accept that that's right.\"\n\nAs the BBC revealed on Monday, the inspectorate's findings on HMP Liverpool - a local category B/C prison, which also takes people on remand - are damning across the board.\n\nLawyer Leanne Devine said there was \"a culture of denial\"\n\nIt describes living conditions \"as amongst the worst we have seen\", with many prisoners living in \"squalid\" conditions.\n\n\"Many cells have broken windows with dangerous jagged glass, broken observation panels, damp, leaks and broken or blocked toilets,\" says the report.\n\n\"There is a significant problem with cockroaches and rats throughout the prison.\"\n\nThe problems are understood to have contributed to the removal of the governor last month and to some urgent repairs being carried out on one wing.\n\n\"There is a culture of denial,\" said Leanne Devine, a lawyer with Broudie Jackson Canter who regularly takes action against HMP Liverpool on behalf of inmates and their families.\n\n\"We've not seen any evidence of change.\n\n\"What is frustrating for the families is when they go away and they hope for change and then they see years later, coming through the press, the same cases, the same failings.\"\n\nA Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: \"We do not comment on leaked reports.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Lottery millionaire to work at Slough care home on Christmas Day\n\nA care home worker who won £1 million on the lottery says she will still do her 12-hour Christmas Day shift.\n\nPatricia Aldridge, 55, a care assistant from Wexham, near Slough, won the money after the Lotto draw on 9 December.\n\nShe was announced as a new millionaire on Tuesday, along with her husband Robert, 57, who described the winnings as \"life-changing\".\n\nMrs Aldridge said: \"You hear people say 'if I won a lot of money I'd give up work', but I love what I do.\"\n\nShe discovered her new riches after checking an app on her phone.\n\n\"I rang Robert, and I said 'how many zeros are there in a million? I think I've won a million pounds,' said Mrs Aldridge.\n\nShe will continue to work at the elderly people's care home in Slough despite her millionaire raffle win, where she will do her 08:00 GMT to 20:00 GMT shift on 25 December.\n\nMr Aldridge, a site manager at a school, will also not be giving up work.\n\nHe said: \"We'll still be the same people. I'm not giving up work, I'll still go out with my friends, I'll still do my crib night.\n\n\"It just makes us more secure knowing that we can help the children buy a house and that sort of thing.\"", "The first known interstellar asteroid may hold water from another star system in its interior, according to a study.\n\nDiscovered on 19 October, the object's speed and trajectory strongly suggested it originated beyond our Solar System.\n\nThe body showed no signs of \"outgassing\" as it approached the Sun, strengthening the idea that it held little if any water-ice.\n\nBut the latest findings suggest water might be trapped under a thick, carbon-rich coating on its surface.\n\nThe results come as a project to search for life in the cosmos has been using a radio telescope to check for radio signals coming from the strange, elongated object, named 'Oumuamua.\n\nAstronomers from the Breakthrough Listen initiative have been looking across four different radio frequency bands for anything that might resemble a signal resulting from alien technology.\n\nBut their preliminary results have drawn a blank. The latest research - along with a previous academic paper - support a natural origin for the cosmic interloper.\n\nFurthermore, they measured the way that 'Oumuamua reflects sunlight and found it similar to icy objects from our own Solar System that are covered with a dry crust.\n\n\"We've got high signal-to-noise spectra (the 'fingerprint' of light reflected or emitted by the asteroid) both at optical wavelengths and at infrared wavelengths. Putting those together is crucial,\" Prof Alan Fitzsimmons, from Queen's University Belfast (QUB), one of the authors of the new study in Nature Astronomy.\n\nHe added: \"What we do know is that the spectra don't look like something artificial.\"\n\nTheir measurements suggest that millions of years of exposure to cosmic rays have created an insulating, carbon-rich layer on the outside that could have shielded an icy interior from its encounter with the Sun.\n\nThis process of irradiation has left it with a somewhat reddish hue, similar to objects encountered in the frozen outer reaches of our Solar System.\n\n\"When it was near the Sun, the surface would have been 300C (600 Kelvin), but half a metre or more beneath the surface, the ice could have remained,\" Prof Fitzsimmons told BBC News.\n\nThe Gemini North observatory was used to gather observations of 'Oumuamua\n\nPrevious measurements suggest the object is at least 10 times longer than it is wide. That ratio is more extreme than that of any asteroid or comet ever observed in our Solar System. Uncertainties remain as to its size, but it is thought to be at least 400m long.\n\n\"We don't know its mass and so it could still be fragile and have a relatively low density,\" said Prof Fitzsimmons.\n\n\"That would still be consistent with the rate at which it is spinning - which is about once every seven-and-a-half hours or so. Something with the strength of talcum powder would hold itself together at that speed.\"\n\nHe added: \"It's entirely consistent with cometary bodies we've studied - with the Rosetta probe, for example - in our own Solar System.\"\n\nCo-author Dr Michele Bannister, also from QUB, commented: \"We've discovered that this is a planetesimal with a well-baked crust that looks a lot like the tiniest worlds in the outer regions of our Solar System, has a greyish/red surface and is highly elongated, probably about the size and shape of the Gherkin skyscraper in London.\n\n\"It's fascinating that the first interstellar object discovered looks so much like a tiny world from our own home system. This suggests that the way our planets and asteroids formed has a lot of kinship to the systems around other stars.\"\n\nA number of ideas have been discussed to explain the unusual shape of 'Oumuamua. These include the possibility that it could be composed of separate objects that joined together, that a collision between two bodies with molten cores ejected rock that then froze in an elongated shape, and that it is a shard of a bigger object destroyed in a supernova.\n\nArtwork: 'Oumuamua may have spent millions of years travelling the Milky Way (shown here) before its encounter with the Sun\n\nIn a paper recently published on the Arxiv pre-print server, Gábor Domokos, from the Budapest University of Technology in Hungary, and colleagues suggest that, over millions of years, collisions between 'Oumuamua and many speeding interstellar dust grains could produce the object's observed shape.\n\nProf Fitzsimmons said this idea was very interesting, and added: \"I think what we're looking at here is the initial flurry of scientists running around saying: 'How did it get like this, where's it come from, what's it made of.' It's incredibly exciting.\n\n\"I think after a few months you will see people focus down on one or two possibilities for all these things. But this just shows you: it's a symptom of what an amazing, interesting object this is... we can't wait for the next one.\"\n\nIf planets form around other stars the same way they did in the Solar System, many objects the size of 'Oumuamua should get slung out into space. The interstellar visitor may provide the first evidence of that process.\n\n\"All the data we have at the moment turn out to be consistent with what we might expect from an object ejected by another star,\" he said.\n\nBut asked about Breakthrough Listen's initiative, he said: \"If I had a radio telescope, I might give it a go.\"\n• None Asteroid to be checked for alien tech", "A man has been arrested after driving through a military checkpoint, getting close to an aircraft at a base in Suffolk used by the US Air Force.\n\nShots were fired by US personnel before the 44-year-old British man was overcome by staff at RAF Mildenhall.\n\nThe base was temporarily put into lockdown as Suffolk police responded to reports of what they called a \"significant incident\".\n\nPolice said the incident was being treated as trespass, not terrorism.\n\nSupt Kim Warner, from Suffolk Police, said the man, who suffered cuts and bruises, was arrested after a \"short pursuit\" and his vehicle was stopped by US security services.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The base was temporarily put on lockdown\n\nThere was \"no obvious motive at this stage\", he said, adding there was no wider threat to the public or the base and police were not looking for anyone else.\n\nThe vehicle was brought to a halt close to a US plane, an Osprey, and it was not thought there was \"any significant damage\" to the vehicle or the aircraft, Supt Warner said.\n\nSuffolk Police was notified about a breach of security at about 13:40 GMT.\n\n\"Shots were fired by US security, I don't know how many, but I do know that shots were fired,\" Supt Warner said.\n\n\"It would be fair to say some of the minor injuries were probably as a result of him being apprehended,\" he added.\n\nThe superintendent said there would now be an internal investigation by the US airbase into why guns were discharged.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Suffolk Police This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRAF Mildenhall is protected by Ministry of Defence police and US armed guards.\n\nThe US Air Force said in a statement it was continuing to work with local authorities.\n\nThe base is used as a transport hub by the US and is home to a fleet of refuelling aircraft and special operations forces.\n\nIt has about 3,200 military personnel, with 400 to 500 UK civilian staff employed there.\n\nThe base was one of 56 MoD sites earmarked for closure.\n\nHowever, the US Air Force said in September it was delaying plans to relocate its operations to a base in Germany until 2024.\n\nRAF Mildenhall has previously been a potential target for a terror attack against US military personnel.\n\nIn May 2016, Junead Khan was given a life sentence for preparing terrorist acts after a court heard how he used his job as a delivery driver to gather information about the base.\n\nIt's highly unusual for shots to be fired by US personnel. That said, in the past few years security has been stepped up at the US base, which now has a much tighter perimeter.\n\nYou can't just drive into the base, you have to go through what's called the '\"shed\" - your car is checked and you have to go through lots of tight security measures.\n\nRAF Mildenhall is essentially a little piece of America, with more than 3,000 US personnel based here, and there's very close co-operation between the American military police and the British civilian police.\n\nUS bases here are governed by the Status of Forces Act so there are very clear rules of engagement here, with certain protocols in place when it come to the discharge of firearms.\n\nUS personnel are allowed to fire guns, but these rules of engagement are not made public because of security considerations.\n\nThere will undoubtedly be a conversation as a result of this incident between the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence as to exactly what happened here and why guns were fired.\n• None Welcome to England's 'Little America'", "We're now closing our live page following the derailment of the passenger train on its inaugural run in Washington state.\n\nA recovery operation is continuing, and officials are so far declining to provide any casualty numbers.\n\nHere's a quick recap of what we know and also latest reports in the US media:\n• more than 80 people were on board the southbound Train 501 from Seattle to Portland which was running on a new, shorter route\n• the accident on a bridge over interstate motorway I-5 happened at 07:30 local time (15:30 GMT) some 45 minutes into the journey\n• thirteen of the train's 14 carriages jumped the tracks, with some crashing onto the motorway below\n• officials say there were multiple fatalities, with the Associated Press reporting that at least six people died\n• reports say 77 people were taken to local hospitals\n• the cause of the crash is being investigated, with some reports say the train may have hit something\n• one passenger was quoted as saying that the train started to wobble a little before the crash\n• Washington governor declared a state of emergency to mobilise all resources for the recovery operation and assistance to the injured\n\nYou can still follow all the latest updates on this story and other news on the BBC News website.", "Last updated on .From the section Man City\n\nPolice have charged a man with racially aggravated common assault in relation to an alleged attack on Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling.\n\nKarl Anderson, 29, of Manchester, was remanded in custody and will appear at Manchester and Salford Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.\n\nIt was reported Sterling was racially abused and attacked on Saturday after arriving at City's training ground.\n\nCity are yet to comment on the allegation or arrest.\n\nSterling is City's top scorer so far this season, with 15 goals in all competitions.", "Wendy Thomas hid two women and a man in a car she tried to drive into the UK\n\nA woman who hid three people in a car and tried to drive them into the UK has been jailed for people smuggling.\n\nThe Home Office said officers discovered the stowaways after stopping Wendy Thomas' car at the Eurotunnel terminal in France on 9 October 2016.\n\nTwo of them were unresponsive and were rushed to hospital.\n\nThomas, 50, of Cardiff, admitted assisting illegal immigration and was sentenced to 33 months at Blackfriars Crown Court.\n\nThe man was found under a duvet in the car's foot well\n\nThe two women were taken to hospital after being found unresponsive\n\nTwo women were found inside a large black holdall in the boot of Thomas' car and had been covered by pillows and a large soft toy.\n\nThe third passenger, a man who later claimed to be an Iranian national and was handed to the French authorities, was found hiding under cushions and a quilt in the rear foot wells.\n\nThomas' co-conspirators Adriano Bettoja-Allen, 37, and his wife Jeanette, 49, of Newport, were also sentenced for their parts in two separate \"carefully planned\" attempts to smuggle people into the UK.\n\nThe Home Office said investigations started following the arrest of Dawood Shahbeik at St Pancras International station, after he arrived on the Eurostar from Calais on 2 October 2016.\n\nText messages on his mobile phone referred to a person who had been taken to a house in Newport, while a search of his luggage revealed a damaged Iranian passport and a large amount of cash.\n\nThe pillows and large toy used to hide the three stowaways\n\nThomas was arrested a week after Shahbeik and text messages on both their phones showed they had been in regular contact with Adriano Bettoja-Allen.\n\nInvestigators found he and his wife had travelled through Calais on 2 October after meeting Shahbeik in Dunkirk.\n\nThey also found Thomas and Bettoja-Allen had travelled in separate vehicles from Folkestone, Kent, to Coquelles, France, on the same Eurotunnel train on 8 October.\n\nAdriano Bettoja-Allen returned to the UK less than two hours after Thomas had been stopped by Border Force officers and financial checks also uncovered a large deposit into Thomas' bank account in September 2016.\n\nAdriano Bettoja-Allen was jailed for five years for his part in the smuggling operation\n\nAdriano Bettoja-Allen admitted assisting illegal immigration and was sentenced to five years in prison.\n\nJeanette Bettoja-Allen pleaded guilty to the same charge and was sentenced to 11 months, suspended for two years.\n\nShahbeik, who also admitted the same charge, was sentenced to 18 months in prison at an earlier hearing.\n\nSpeaking after the case concluded, David Fairclough, assistant director from Immigration Enforcement's Criminal and Financial Investigation team, said: \"Adriano Bettoja-Allen was revealed by our investigations to be the common link between what initially appeared to be unconnected incidents.\n\n\"Our investigations showed that far from being opportunistic attempts to undermine the UK's border controls, the offences had been carefully planned.\n\n\"The fact that two women ended up in hospital demonstrates the dangerous lengths people smugglers will go to.\"", "The government is committed to exposing injustice, says David Lidington\n\nSetting targets to hire judges from ethnic minority backgrounds would be the \"wrong way\" to solve the issue of diversity, says the justice secretary.\n\nDavid Lidington has outlined steps to tackle \"race bias\" in the legal system in England and Wales, following a damning report from MP David Lammy.\n\nBut the minister says the government needs to \"look at the critical path\" into the law - rather than targets.\n\nMr Lammy said he was \"disappointed\" with the government's response.\n\nThe Lammy Review, published in September, said that people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds make up 25% of the prison population and 41% of the youth justice system - but only 14% of the general population.\n\nEthnic minority groups make up only 11% of magistrates and 7% of judges.\n\nAs a result, Mr Lammy had called for a national target to achieve representation in the courts by 2025.\n\nHowever, Mr Lidington said a target would be \"the wrong way to attack this particular objective\" and he was looking at alternatives.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"When you look at the judges, you have got a group of people who have been practising in law perhaps for 20 years... because we need people who are experienced, who are expert, to sit on the bench.\n\n\"In getting a more diverse judiciary... you need to look at the critical path of how do people get into the legal profession in the first place.\"\n\nMr Lammy disagreed and instead called for a \"bold approach\".\n\nThe Tottenham MP told the BBC: \"It is not about the pipeline. BAME (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic) lawyers are applying to join the judiciary.\n\n\"If you set a target or a goal, then it concentrates the mind to achieve that. But the government has not affected that.\n\n\"The UK is behind the curve on diversity and it needs to catch up.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nLawyer and diversity campaigner Funke Abimbola was also disappointed with the decision, telling Today: \"It is an important element of [the recommendations] because bias in the judiciary has a direct impact on decision-making.\n\n\"This whole report was about there being proven bias against those minority ethnic backgrounds. [Targets are] a key part in driving diversity of thought, which impacts decisions in court.\"\n\nThe government's response to David Lammy's proposals suggests it's following them in spirit - but not to the letter.\n\nMany of the recommendations relate to changes to data collection, which should be relatively straightforward to implement.\n\nThe harder task set by Mr Lammy involves increasing diversity, so those who work in the criminal justice system better reflect and understand the people who use it.\n\nAlthough ministers have agreed challenging targets to raise ethnic minority representation among prison officers, they've balked at doing the same for judges and magistrates.\n\nThe experience of the police service, which failed to meet 10-year BME targets set in 1999 after the Macpherson report, may have influenced their decision.\n\nTargets can help focus efforts in achieving a goal - but if they're too stretching, they may prove counter-productive.\n\nThe Lammy Review concluded that people from minority backgrounds still faced bias, \"including overt discrimination\", in parts of the justice system.\n\nMr Lidington pledged to implement a \"key principle\" of \"change or explain\" when racial discrimination is found in the system.\n\n\"Where we cannot explain differences in outcomes for different groups, we will reform,\" he said, pledging to work on each of Mr Lammy's 35 recommendations - even if not following them to the letter.\n\nAnd he added this was the \"very first step\" in a change of attitude towards race disparity \"that will touch on every part of the criminal justice system for years to come\".\n\nWithin the government's response, it said it would:\n\nSome of the changes would take longer to achieve than others, the Ministry of Justice said.\n\nBut it had already made progress on several recommendations, including publishing data on race bias in the system.\n\nIt said a new race and ethnicity board would drive through the reforms - but alternative approaches would be found where proposals could not be implemented in full.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "The couple will donate their unborn daughter's heart valves\n\nA mother who has been told her unborn baby girl will not survive at birth is carrying her to full term so she can donate heart tissue to help others.\n\nHayley Martin was told at her 20-week scan that her child has a rare genetic disorder meaning she will die during labour or within minutes of being born.\n\nSpeaking on ITV's This Morning show, Mrs Martin, 30, said they would be able to donate her daughter's heart valves.\n\nExplaining her decision, she added: \"I wouldn't have it any other way.\"\n\nAlready a mother-of-three, Mrs Martin and her husband Scott, from Hull, discovered their baby had bilateral renal agenesis at the five-month scan.\n\nMrs Martin said she had a feeling early on in the pregnancy and that things were not right\n\nThe condition is fatal and means the baby has no kidneys and is not surrounded by enough amniotic fluid, causing malformed lungs.\n\nAfter speaking to specialist doctors, the couple were given the weekend to consider terminating the pregnancy but Mrs Martin told This Morning her reaction was \"automatically, I don't want to let her go just yet\".\n\nThe couple said they had taken the decision to give birth to their daughter, who they have already named Ava-Joy, to help others in need of a transplant.\n\nIt is likely that their baby's heart valves will be used to help other seriously-ill children.\n\n\"With the heart valves they can store them up to ten years,\" Mrs Martin told the show.\n\n\"Anything is better than nothing. I know she can't donate proper organs but tissue is just as valuable.\"\n\nAngie Scales, a NHS organ donation and transplantation nurse, said around 10 to 15 families a year ask about the possibility of donation in relation to their unborn child.\n\nShe said: \"However, proceeding to actual donation in these cases is extremely rare due to the complexities of the processes that are required.\"\n\nThree people a day, including children, die waiting for a transplant, she added.\n\nThe couple said their other children would grow up knowing about their younger sister\n\nThe couple said the support they had received through a specialist charity in Leeds had helped them bond with their unborn daughter.\n\nThe charity funded a blood test to enable them to find out the sex of the baby so they were able to give her a name and buy clothes to dress her once she is born.\n\nThe Martins said they were starting a charity project in Ava-Joy's memory to help other families who decided to carry to term, despite a fatal diagnosis.\n\n\"It was not an easy decision but it was the right decision and it has helped me cope with the heartbreak,\" said Mrs Martin.\n\n\"A part of her will live on, she won't be completely gone. She will be alive in somebody else.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe Queen has officially welcomed the UK's new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, at a ceremony to commission it into the Royal Navy fleet.\n\nThe monarch boarded her namesake ship in Portsmouth to see the Royal Navy White Ensign raised on the vessel for the first time.\n\nPrincess Anne, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Philip Jones also attended.\n\nThe ceremony took place on the giant hangar deck of the £3.1bn carrier.\n\nHMS Queen Elizabeth and its sister ship HMS Prince of Wales are the most expensive in the Royal Navy's history.\n\nHMS Queen Elizabeth sailed into Portsmouth in August following extensive preparations at the naval base.\n\nThe navy initially estimated both ships would cost £3.5bn to build but the total figure was revised to £6.2bn.\n\nAbout 3,700 guests attended the event, which came more than three years after the vessel's official naming ceremony in Rosyth when the Queen broke a bottle of whisky on its hull.\n\nDuring the ceremony, the commissioning warrant was read, and the Blue Ensign, which has been flying from the ship until it is formally handed over to the Royal Navy, was replaced with the White Ensign, raised by 20-year-old Able Seaman Ellie Smith from Hull.\n\nAddressing the assembled guests and ship's company, The Queen described the ship as \"the most powerful and capable ship ever to raise the White Ensign\".\n\n\"At the forefront of these responsibilities will be the men and women of the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, supported by the Army, Royal Air Force and by coalition partners.\n\n\"As the daughter, wife and mother of naval officers, I recognise the unique demands our nation asks of you and I will always value my special link to HMS Queen Elizabeth, her ship's company and their families,\" she said.\n\nThe White Ensign was raised to symbolised the ship's commissioning into the fleet\n\nAdmiral Sir Philip Jones, said: \"We have been on a long, complicated - but committed - journey to get to this point and commissioning the ship is a key milestone.\n\n\"The point of the big grey ship is it's enormously big, flexible, capable and adaptable.\"\n\nAs part of the ceremony, a 8ft-long (2.44m) cake replica of the ship was cut. As is traditional, it was carried out by the youngest member of the ship's company - Callum Hui, 17 - and the captain's wife Dr Karen Kyd.\n\nCallum Hui and Dr Karen Kyd cut the cake at the commissioning of HMS Queen Elizabeth.\n\nThis is a big day for the Royal Navy. A chance to look to the future and, at least for a moment, forget about recent defence cuts and fears of even more.\n\nAfter successfully completing her sea trials HMS Queen Elizabeth will be commissioned into service. For the first time she'll raise the White Ensign - officially becoming a Royal Navy Warship. But, this is still another milestone not the end of her journey.\n\nFlight trials will begin next year and her first proper deployment with jets on board isn't planned until 2021. It's also still not clear how many of the new F35 jets she'll carry.\n\nCertainly fewer than the 36 she was built for, with each jet costing around £100m. The Royal Navy believes the carrier - the first of two - will be a potent symbol of British military power. But it's already struggling with limited resources.\n\nCapt Jerry Kyd called the ceremony the \"culmination of a number of years of real excitement\".\n\nHe said: \"The first sailing from Rosyth was only nine months ago, we have come a long way.\n\n\"The first entry into Portsmouth was in the summer and here we are today accepting the ship into Her Majesty's fleet formally.\n\n\"So, it is right at the top, it is the latest milestone, many more to come, but hugely exciting and a very proud day.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe 900ft-long (280m) carrier cannot currently deploy planes but F-35B Lightning fighter jets are due to make their first trial flights from the carrier's deck next year, with 120 air crew currently training in the US.\n\nPreparations for the arrival of the flagship of the fleet and its 700-strong company led to more than 20,000 items, ranging from a human skull to sea mines, dredged up from Portsmouth Harbour.\n\nThe Ministry of Defence said specialist dredging vessels had removed 3.2 million cubic metres of sediment - equivalent to 1,280 Olympic swimming pools - during the dredging operation carried out to deepen the harbour mouth to enable the Queen Elizabeth to reach Portsmouth naval base.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Richard Dyson and Simon Midgley were thought to be on a winter break in Scotland\n\nTwo men who died when a fire tore through a luxury five-star hotel on the shores of Loch Lomond have been named.\n\nSimon Midgley and Richard Dyson, believed to be from London, were staying at Cameron House Hotel when the blaze broke out on Monday morning.\n\nPolice have not confirmed the identity of those who died, but relatives have paid tribute on social media.\n\nThe hotel's director has praised the actions of the emergency services in preventing further tragedy.\n\nFirefighters who brought a couple and their baby to safety from an upper floor have been hailed as \"heroes\".\n\nA baby was rescued by firefighters from an upper floor of the hotel\n\nAndrew and Louise Logan, and their son Jimmy, from Worcestershire, were taken to hospital after being brought to safety, but were later discharged.\n\nMore than 200 guests were evacuated from the building when the blaze broke out. A joint investigation into the cause of the fire is under way.\n\nSocial media posts suggested that Mr Midgley and Mr Dyson were on a winter break in Scotland.\n\nA post on Mr Midgley's Instagram account on Saturday showed pictures of Cameron House Hotel and said: \"Home for the weekend.\"\n\nRelatives have been expressing their shock at news of the couple's deaths.\n\nMr Midgley's sister posted a picture of her brother and his partner on Facebook, while another relative wrote: \"I'm beyond heartbroken.\"\n\nKate Baxter wrote on Twitter: \"Such unbearably sad news.. RIP @SimonMidgleyPR, a shining star in our wonderfully close-knit industry.\"\n\nAccording to his Facebook page, Mr Midgley was a freelance journalist at the London Evening Standard and ran his own PR company, while Mr Dyson is believed to be a TV producer.\n\nPolice and firefighters remained at the scene on Tuesday morning, with the scale of the damage becoming more apparent.\n\nBBC Scotland's Andrew Black was allowed on site and said: \"The damage to the building is pretty extensive, especially the upper floors. There's a smell of burning wood and we could hear a fire alarm from part of the building still going off.\"\n\nThe BBC understands that a wedding due to take place at Cameron House hotel this weekend has been moved to another luxury hotel.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Drone footage from above Loch Lomond shows the extent of the damage at Cameron House\n\nIn a new statement, Cameron House's director, Andy Roger, praised the \"very swift actions of the emergency services\".\n\nHe said: \"Everyone associated with Cameron House Hotel is still coming to terms with the events of yesterday and we are all hugely conscious that two people tragically lost their lives in the fire.\n\n\"Their families and friends are foremost in our thoughts as we co-operate fully with the investigation teams to try to establish the circumstances surrounding this terrible incident.\n\n\"The emergency services were on the scene long into the night and I cannot praise their efforts highly enough. They are true heroes. The firemen bringing out a couple and their young child by ladder from a second-floor room was a heart-stopping moment for all those who witnessed it.\n\n\"We're also enormously grateful for the many, many offers of practical support and good wishes from the UK hospitality industry and also from the local community, which has rallied around to help. It's been a humbling experience, but we are a small, tight-knit community on Loch Lomond and a response like that is typical of our many friends and neighbours.\"\n\nMr Roger said the hotel had made arrangements for the vast majority of the guests to travel home or continue with their breaks and he thanked them for their patience and \"good spirits\".\n\nHe also paid tribute to the staff at Cameron House who he said had shown \"an enormous degree of care and teamwork throughout the last two days\".\n\nLocal people have been speaking of their shock and sadness at what happened at the hotel.\n\nOne woman told BBC Scotland: \"We are just very sad for all the families involved and so sorry for the people who work there.\"\n\nAnother added: \"It's absolutely horrific. I think the local community really feels it.\"\n\nReverend Ian Miller, a retired minister who lives locally and was called in to offer guests support in the aftermath of the fire, said those affected \"fell into two groups\".\n\n\"There were those in the side bedrooms which weren't really touched and they just realised they had escaped something terrible,\" he said.\n\n\"But for those in the main building then there were degrees of trauma. Some had escaped with virtually nothing.\n\n\"One man came out in his underwear. Another woman told me she just grabbed her baby, change bag and moved out.\"\n\nThe Scottish Fire and Rescue service remained at the scene on Tuesday morning\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme, John Gow, from forensic investigations firm IFIC, said: \"There will be a number of strands to this investigation, running in tandem.\n\n\"Obviously, sadly, there is the death investigation due to the fatalities that occurred.\n\n\"There is the origin and cause investigation which is establishing how the fire started and spread throughout the property.\n\n\"It is also likely there will be an investigation to establish if the fire precaution measures were adequate and operated as they should.\"\n\nCameron House, an 18th Century mansion, was converted into a luxury hotel and resort in 1986.\n\nIt is a popular wedding venue and houses the Michelin-starred Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond restaurant.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Attackers encrypted user's devices, and typically demanded a ransom of $300-600 in Bitcoin\n\nThe US and UK governments have said North Korea was responsible for the WannaCry malware attack affecting hospitals, businesses and banks across the world earlier this year.\n\nThe attack is said to have hit more than 300,000 computers in 150 nations, causing billions of dollars of damage.\n\nIt is the first time the US and UK have officially blamed them for the worm.\n\nThomas Bossert, an aide to US President Donald Trump, first made the accusation in the Wall Street Journal newspaper.\n\nMr Bossert, who advises the president on homeland security, said the allegation was \"based on evidence\".\n\nHe did not produce any evidence in the article, but said US findings concurred with judgments from other governments and private companies.\n\nHe added that Australia, Canada, and New Zealand also share the US conclusion that North Korea was behind the attack.\n\nFollowing the interview, the UK Foreign Office also blamed \"North Korean actors using their cyber programme to circumvent sanctions\".\n\nThe National Cyber Security Centre assessed that is \"highly likely\" that the North Korean Lazarus hacking group had committed the attacks, Minister for Cyber Lord Ahmad said in a statement.\n\nIn May, Windows computers hit by the cyber-attack had their contents locked, with users asked to a pay a ransom to have their data restored. EU police body Europol called the scale of the attack \"unprecedented\".\n\nBritain's National Cyber Security Centre, part of the GCHQ signals intelligence agency, first attributed the May 2017 Wannacry attack to North Korea within weeks of the ransomware spreading.\n\nThe speed was because the UK led the international investigation after the National Health Service was hit hard.\n\nThe US intelligence community may have taken longer to concur with that assessment but there is still the question of why the White House is only going public now.\n\nGovernments used to be cautious about attribution in cyber attacks but it is becoming increasingly common - beginning with the claim North Korea was behind the attack on Sony in 2014 and more recently involving Russia's alleged hacking in the 2016 US election.\n\nThis latest claim is almost certainly an attempt to put more pressure on North Korea in the crisis over its nuclear programme with the attempt to rally international support behind the notion that the country is a real danger - whether from cyber weapons or nuclear weapons. And to make the case that further action, of some kind, needs to be contemplated.\n\nMr Bossert warned that \"we will continue to hold accountable those who harm or threaten us\"\n\nIn the Wall Street Journal piece, Mr Bossert said North Korea must be held \"accountable\" and that the US would continue to use a \"maximum pressure strategy\" to hinder the regime's ability to mount cyber-attacks.\n\nHe did not specify what action, if any, the US government planned to take in response to the findings.\n\nNorth Korea is already facing major economic sanctions after being redesignated a state-sponsor of terrorism last month amid tension over its nuclear programme and missile tests.\n\n\"North Korea has acted especially badly, largely unchecked, for more than a decade, and its malicious behaviour is growing more egregious. WannaCry was indiscriminately reckless,\" Mr Bossert wrote.\n\n\"As we make the internet safer, we will continue to hold accountable those who harm or threaten us, whether they act alone or on behalf of criminal organisations or hostile nations,\" he went on.\n\n\"The tool kits of totalitarian regimes are too threatening to ignore.\"\n\nHe added that Microsoft and Facebook both acted to disable North Korean cyber-attacks \"on their own initiative last week, without any direction or participation by the US\".\n\nMicrosoft later issued a statement, saying that last week the company \"working together with Facebook and others in the security community, took strong steps to protect our customers and the internet from ongoing attacks by an advanced persistent threat actor known to us as ZINC, also known as the Lazarus Group\".\n\n\"Among other steps, last week we helped disrupt the malware this group relies on, cleaned customers' infected computers, disabled accounts being used to pursue cyber-attacks and strengthened Windows defences to prevent reinfection,\" the statement said.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kevin Beaumont 🤨 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHowever, some social media users said that - while crediting Microsoft and Facebook - Mr Bossert did not mention a UK security researcher who had \"accidentally\" halted the spread of the malicious software.\n\nThe 22-year-old man, known by the pseudonym MalwareTech, managed to bring the spread to a halt when he found what appeared to be a \"kill switch\" in the rogue software's code.\n\nIn the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) was hit particularly hard by the cyber-attack, with 48 affected health trusts forced to turn many patients away for appointments and even surgeries.\n\nIt spread across the world, with Russia reportedly being badly hit, causing problems to the country's postal service.\n\nNorth Korea has not yet responded to the US allegation\n\nIn 2014, the US claimed North Korea were behind cyber-attacks on Sony Pictures, after it released a film featuring the fictional killing of its leader Kim Jong-un.\n\nThe entertainment company had its films leaked and details of corporate finances and private emails released online.\n\nThe North Koreans hit out at former president Barack Obama over the claim, but has not yet responded to the White House accusations about the WannaCry hack.\n\nIn October it said rumours from a UK government minister that they were behind the 2017 attack was \"groundless speculation\", and a \"wicked attempt\" to tighten international sanctions on the country.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAbout 30 rape cases due to go to trial and \"scores\" more investigations are to be reviewed after the collapse of two cases in a week.\n\nOn Tuesday, prosecutors dropped a case against a man charged with raping a child under 16 due to police providing \"relevant\" evidence in recent days.\n\nLast week, student Liam Allan's trial collapsed because of the late disclosure of evidence.\n\nThe Met said the same officer worked on both cases and remains on full duty.\n\nThe force has not referred the officer involved to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), a Met spokesman said.\n\nThe IPCC told the BBC it was \"monitoring the situation\".\n\nIn the most recent case of Isaac Itiary, the Crown Prosecution Service said \"new material\" provided by Scotland Yard meant the case could not proceed.\n\nIsaac Itiary was charged with raping a child in July but the case collapsed\n\nThe Met review is aimed at ensuring all digital evidence in other sex crime cases has been disclosed to the CPS.\n\nConservative MP Nigel Evans, who was cleared of rape and sexual assault charges in 2014, said there was a \"systemic\" problem, which could leave innocent people in jail.\n\nPrime Minister Theresa May said the attorney general had already started a review into the disclosure of evidence, telling PMQs: \"It is important that we look at this again so we make sure we are truly providing justice.\"\n\nLiam Allan, 22, was charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault but his trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records crucial to the case.\n\nA computer disk containing 40,000 messages revealed the alleged victim had pestered him for \"casual sex\".\n\nMr Allan, who spent almost two years on bail, has said he intends to sue the Met.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nJerry Hayes, the barrister prosecuting the case against Mr Allan, agreed with Mr Evans' assertion that the problem was \"systemic\" within the police, telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"You speak to any barrister they will tell you stories that this happens every single day and it has got to stop.\"\n\nHe said anyone about to go to trial should seek a letter from the police force to say all evidence has been disclosed, and for those convicted, \"they will have to be looked at again\".\n\nThe cases of Liam Allan and Isaac Itiary are very different.\n\nAs far as Mr Allan is concerned, the Met has accepted the case \"clearly went wrong\".\n\nCrucial information was disclosed to defence barristers so late that the trial was already well under way.\n\nIn Mr Itiary's case, procedures appear to have been followed, though it's possible police could have acted more quickly.\n\nWhat the cases have done is shine a light on the importance of following disclosure rules.\n\nUndoubtedly the squeeze on resources, with cuts in the Crown Prosecution Service and policing and a national shortage of detectives, together with the increased caseload for sexual offences units, have played their part.\n\nAn inspection report this year also pinpointed inadequacies in training and supervision.\n\nSome see the problems as a direct result of a misplaced culture of \"believing\" the victim, where police don't look for or withhold contradictory evidence - but that's an assertion for the attorney general's inquiry to examine.\n\nCommander Richard Smith, who oversees the Met's rape investigations, said he understood the failure of the latest case would raise further concerns.\n\nHe added: \"The Met is completely committed to understanding what went wrong in the case of Mr Allan and is carrying out a joint review with the CPS, the findings of which will be published.\"\n\nBut Nigel Evans said the late disclosure of evidence was \"common\" in investigations.\n\nMr Evans was cleared in 2014 of charges of raping a student\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, he said: \"It seems to be in too many cases that police are cherry-picking the evidence that is there in order to get a prosecution. \"\n\nMr Evans called for a \"proper review\" involving police forces across the country, not just the Met.\n\nDame Elish Angiolini led a review in 2015 into how the Met and the CPS deal with rape cases.\n\nShe said she was \"concerned about the impact of excessive workloads on the effectiveness of both police and prosecutors\".\n\nIn response to her review, the Met said it had carried out \"significant work\", with an extra 196 officers allocated to the relevant units and additional lawyers for the CPS.\n\nFormer Met detective chief inspector Peter Kirkham told the Victoria Derbyshire programme it was a resources issue.\n\n\"Since 2010, we have reduced the number of police officers around the country by about 20,000 - that's about 15%,\" he said.\n\nHe warned that officers were \"stressed\" and \"haven't got time to do their jobs properly\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe number of adults reporting rape in England and Wales has more than doubled from 10,160 in 2011-12 to 23,851 in 2015-16, according to figures from the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary's rape monitoring group.\n\nA Home Office study suggests only 4% of cases of sexual violence reported to police are thought to be false.\n\nAnd statistics from Rape Crisis indicate only 5.7% of reported rape cases end in a conviction.", "Toys R Us's future in the UK has been plunged into doubt after the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) said it would vote against the company's rescue plan.\n\nThe retailer was told to put £9m into its struggling pension fund by the PPF in order for it to support the toy retailer's restructuring plan.\n\nFailure to agree a deal could put all its 3,200 staff at risk of redundancy.\n\nThe PPF's Malcolm Weir said it believed it was \"reasonable\" to seek guarantees on the pension scheme's future.\n\n\"Since the company lodged the CVA [company voluntary agreement] proposals we have spent significant time and effort, with the help of PwC, assessing the current and future financial position of the company to ensure the pension scheme would not be weakened by the CVA, leading to an even bigger claim on the PPF and its levy payers further down the line,\" said Mr Weir.\n\n\"Given the position of the company, we strongly believe seeking assurances for the pension scheme is reasonable given the deficit in the scheme and questions about the overall position of the company.\"\n\nMr Weir did give Toys R Us a glimmer of hope, adding: \"We remain in dialogue with the company and their advisers and we are able to amend our vote if suitable assurances are provided.\"\n\nBefore the PPF announcement, Toys R Us reassured shoppers seeking last-minute presents by saying: \"There will be no disruption for customers shopping through the Christmas and New Year period.\"\n\nThe deadline for the vote on the CVA, which allows the firm to restructure its finances, is on Thursday.\n\nIf the CVA does not go through, the company could fall into administration.\n\nRetail consultant Richard Hyman told the Today programme it was a \"real Catch 22 situation\", as it left Toys R Us having to choose between the futures of its past or present employees.\n\nMeanwhile, Frank Field, chairman of the Work and Pensions select committee, has written to Toys R Us managing director Stephen Knights, querying two consecutive years of big rises in executive pay.\n\nMr Field asked how the pay increase was \"justified at a time of operating losses\" and how the board decided to distribute resources between executive pay and employees' pension benefits.\n\nIt's workers versus pensioners; a choice between the present and the future.\n\nThe Pensions Protection Fund has become one of Toys R Us's biggest creditors as it takes over the voting rights of pension trustees in restructuring situations.\n\nIf the PPF backs the rescue without further financial assurances for the pension fund, pensioners could be affected in future, and its warnings would be seen as meaningless.\n\nIn many cases, it's a false choice; current employees are paying into the pension fund which they one day hope to live off. The PPF is said to be aware of its responsibility in this case, but its role is to protect members of the pension scheme and the other funds.\n\nA \"no\" vote doesn't mean administration is certain for Toys R Us; it could propose a new restructuring plan, one the PPF can back. Talks are taking place so a solution can be found. The PPF is clearly trying to say that companies can't treat pension funds as an inconvenient afterthought.\n\nToy industry expert Peter Jenkinson did offer some hope to the company, if it can resolve its current difficulties.\n\n\"The toy industry was in rude health in the UK last year,\" he told BBC 5 live Breakfast.\n\n\"Toys R Us does suffer because it has some very big stores in prime locations and the rent has gone up.\n\n\"Its in-store activity has been found wanting a little bit compared with other toy retailers and it has fallen behind.\n\n\"However, if the restructuring goes through then some of its stores could thrive. There are stores I've been into over the last month that have really started to up their game.\n\n\"The UK toy industry is behind them and wants to see them survive in some format.\n\n\"Buying toys is as much as of an experience as playing with them and taking a trip out to the toy shop is starting to come back into fashion.\"\n\nToy's R Us's parent company in the US is in formal bankruptcy protection proceedings. Recent reports suggest it is considering closing between 100 and 200 stores in America.", "Mr Corbyn insisted the adulation of his supporters will 'never' go to his head\n\nJeremy Corbyn believes there is likely to be another election in \"the next 12 months\" and Labour will \"probably\" win it with a majority.\n\n\"I'm ready to be prime minister tomorrow,\" the Labour leader told Grazia in what it billed as his first interview with a women's magazine.\n\nIt comes as Mr Corbyn's ally Diane Abbott predicted that Labour would take a \"decisive\" opinion poll lead in 2018.\n\nMost recent polls put the party neck-and-neck with the Conservatives.\n\nBut Ms Abbott told BBC Newsnight she expected Labour to \"move ahead of this government steadily and surely as next year unravels\" and said there was likely to be another election.\n\nMr Corbyn said another election was \"quite possible\" in his Grazia interview.\n\nAsked if the public were ready for another election, he said the Conservatives did not have \"much confidence in being able to command a majority in parliament\" so \"I think the country would want an election in order to bring about some degree of stability\".\n\nHe added: \"I think we'd probably win it, with a majority... we're working very hard on that.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHe was also quizzed about Brexit and whether he backed his predecessor as Labour leader - and long time adversary - Tony Blair's call for a second EU referendum because of the way the Leave campaign had been conducted.\n\nHe said: \"Some were extremely irresponsible in what they did and said, but we have to recognise it was the largest participation of people in an electoral process ever in Britain and they chose to leave.\"\n\nAsked if he thought people had cast their votes on the basis of false promises, he said: \"People still voted as they did. Yes, I thought there were some ridiculous and exaggerated claims made and I said so at the time.\"\n\nBut he ruled out campaigning for a second referendum, saying: \"I think we should continue putting pressure on the government to allow a transition period to develop, because at the moment we're in danger of getting into a complete mess in March 2019 (the date Britain leaves the EU).\"\n\nMr Corbyn also said he had not heard many \"whispers\" about sexual harassment at Westminster before the current scandal - and he had been \"horrified and appalled by it all\".\n\nHe told the magazine he was \"utterly determined all Labour Party events should be a safe place for women to go to\".\n\nThe Labour leader says Meghan Markle is clearly 'a decent person'\n\nOn Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding, Mr Corbyn - a long-time republican - said \"she's clearly a very decent person\".\n\nAsked about the cost of the wedding, he said: \"Weddings come pretty pricey, I understand, but I think the cost should be borne by the family themselves.\"\n\nHe said his own wedding, to third wife Laura Alvarez, which took place in in a country hotel in Mexico in 2013, \"didn't cost very much at all\".\n\nThe Royal family will pay for Prince Harry's wedding, including the church service, the music, the flowers and the reception but the security costs will be picked up by taxpayers, the Palace has said.\n\nThe Labour leader was interviewed en route to Geneva, in Switzerland, where he was giving a speech to the United Nations and receiving an award from the International Peace Bureau for \"his political work for disarmament and peace\".\n\nHe insisted the adulation shown by his supporters at events like Glastonbury would \"never\" go to his head.\n\nAsked if he ever sang \"Oh Jeremy Corbyn\" - the chant that followed him wherever he went over the summer - in the shower, he revealed an apparent fondness for a 50-year-old biker anthem by American rockers Steppenwolf.\n\n\"I'm more likely to sing Born To Be Wild,\" said the Labour leader.", "The Palestinian general delegate to the UK has said that President Trump would be \"declaring war\" on the Middle East should he acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\n\nManuel Hassassian told the Today programme the move would cast doubt over the peace process and he warned that Muslims and Christians would not be able to accept Israel's \"hegemony\" over Jerusalem's holy shrines.", "Vladimir Putin had hinted that he might stand during a youth event earlier in the day\n\nRussia's Vladimir Putin has said he will seek another term as president in next year's election.\n\nHe made the announcement in a speech to workers at a car factory in the Volga city of Nizhny Novgorod.\n\n\"I will put forward my candidacy for the post of president of the Russian federation,\" he said.\n\nMr Putin has been in power since 2000, either as president or prime minister. If he wins the March election he will be eligible to serve until 2024.\n\nRussian TV journalist Ksenia Sobchak has already said she will stand in the election but opinion polls suggest Mr Putin will win easily.\n\nRussia's main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, has been formally barred from standing because he was found guilty of embezzlement - a charge he claims was politically motivated.\n\nMr Putin is popular with many Russians, who see him as a strong leader who has restored Russia's global standing with a decisive military intervention in the Syrian civil war and Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.\n\nBut his critics accuse him of facilitating corruption and illegally annexing Crimea, which has led to international condemnation.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Putin was given a puppy by Turkmenistan for his birthday", "Technology advancements are allowing disabled athletes to compete in more and more sports previously inaccessible to them.\n\nBBC Click reporter Kat Hawkins had her legs amputated 10 years ago. She went to try out some new feet that could help amputees carve up the slopes this winter.\n\nSee more at Click's website and @BBCClick.", "Three men have been charged with the murder of Maltese investigative journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia.\n\nBrothers George and Alfred Degiorgio, aged 55 and 53, and Vincent Muscat, 55, all pleaded not guilty.\n\nThey were also accused of possession of bomb-making material and weapons.\n\nCaruana Galizia died in an explosion shortly after she left her home in Bidnija, near Mosta, on 16 October.\n\nThe 53-year-old was known for her blog accusing top politicians of corruption.\n\nOn Monday, police arrested 10 Maltese nationals in connection with the murder. Police operations took place in the town of Marsa, and the Bugibba and Zebbug areas.\n\nPrime Minister Joseph Muscat, who is not related to Vincent Muscat, said some of the 10 detainees were already known to the police while others had criminal records.\n\nThe Times of Malta reports that the three men who have been charged were among those arrested.\n\nA close friend of Caruana Galizia told Reuters news agency that she did not think the journalist had ever investigated the men.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Andrew Borg Cardona: \"My friend has been killed there\"\n\nThe government had offered a €1m (£890,000; $1.2m) reward for information about Caruana Galizia's murder.\n\nHer three sons refused to endorse the reward, and said they were \"not interested in justice without change\".\n\nIn her Running Commentary blog, Caruana Galizia had relentlessly reported on alleged corruption among politicians across party lines.\n\nWith a career spanning more than three decades, she was \"one of Malta's most important, visible, fearless journalists\", in the words of former Home Affairs Minister Louis Galea.\n\nHer funeral was attended by hundreds of people but the tiny EU state's leaders were barred by her family.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a pillar of Malta's democracy, her friend says\n\nInternational experts, including from the FBI, were called in to help in the investigation.\n\nThe editors of eight of the world's largest news organisations, including the BBC, called for the European Commission - the EU executive - to investigate the murder.\n\nIn response, Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the commission, urged the authorities to leave \"no stone unturned\" in the case.", "The forecast for Thursday includes winds reaching gusts of up 90mph over parts of north and north east Scotland\n\nThe Met Office has updated its weather warnings for Storm Caroline on Thursday.\n\nAn amber \"be prepared\" warning, which includes winds gusting up to 90mph in some areas, has been issued for north and north east Scotland.\n\nA yellow \"be aware\" warning has also now been put in place for central and parts of southern Scotland.\n\nSnow and ice has been forecast for large parts of the UK in the wake of Caroline on Friday and Saturday.\n\nYellow warnings are in place for the weekend.\n\nOrkney and Shetland, which are included in the amber warning for Thursday, are expected to continue to experience high winds on Friday and Saturday.\n\nThe Met Office has warned of the potential for damage to property and travel disruption on Thursday. Energy firm SSE has also said there was the potential of power cuts.\n\nThe Met Office has amber and yellow warnings in place for Thursday\n\nHighland Council said Thursday's conditions could affect its Corran Ferry services in Lochaber.\n\nIn its amber warning, the Met Office said gusts of 70mph to 80mph were expected widely with gusts to 90mph possible in exposed areas.\n\nIt added: \"Flying debris is likely and could lead to injuries or danger to life.\n\n\"Some damage to buildings is possible, such as tiles blowing off roofs.\n\n\"Longer journey times and cancellations are likely, as road, rail, air and ferry services may be affected.\"\n\nThe Met Office has also warned of large waves along the coast.\n\nDozens of workers have been taken off a North Sea platform amid fears of huge waves due to the approaching Storm Caroline.\n\nCNR International said it was taking the precaution on Ninian Southern, 75 miles (120km) east of Shetland.\n\nThe firm has been carrying out checks on the platform's \"jacket\", the steel support frame of the structure.\n\nA total of 159 people were working the Ninian South platform. CNR said 90 personnel remained on board.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Mahad Yusuf and Fesar Mahamud, of north London, have been convicted of trafficking a vulnerable teenager\n\nTwo north London gang members have been convicted of exploiting a vulnerable teenager in the first so-called \"county lines\" case of its kind.\n\nMahad Yusuf, 20, and Fesar Mahamud, 19 pleaded guilty to human trafficking offences on 5 December.\n\nThe 19-year-old victim was told she \"belonged\" to Yusuf as she was lured into a car and driven to Swansea.\n\nKnown as \"county lines\", gangs use other people to traffic drugs for them remotely via dedicated mobile phones.\n\nPolice say the teenager was held at an address in Swansea for five days and forced to store Class A drugs against her will.\n\nSpecialist officers found the woman when they executed a search warrant on 25 May.\n\nDet Insp Rick Stewart said: \"The victim in this case suffered a horrendous ordeal at the hands of these two men, who trafficked her for their own criminal gain.\n\n\"Unfortunately this case is by no means unique. Drug dealers are exploiting vulnerable people across the country via county lines.\"\n\nYusuf, of Cuckoo Hall Lane, Edmonton, and Mahamud, of Zambezie Drive, Edmonton also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine and heroin.\n\nThe pair will be sentenced at Swansea Crown Court on 4 January.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Conservative MP Heidi Allen was left in tears after Labour's Frank Field described the \"destitution\" faced by his constituents during a Commons debate about universal credit.", "Downing Street has insisted it is still confident of a first-phase Brexit deal before next week's summit\n\nTheresa May has been urged not to allow Eurosceptic MPs in her party to \"impose their own conditions\" on negotiations amid signs of fresh Tory infighting.\n\nNineteen Tory MPs who back a \"soft Brexit\" have written to her saying it is \"highly irresponsible\" for anyone to dictate terms which may scupper a deal.\n\nIt follows some Tories backing the DUP's decision to oppose a draft deal on the future of the Irish border.\n\nThe PM has spoken to the DUP's Arlene Foster to try to break the deadlock.\n\nThe DUP says there is \"more work to be done\" if it is to agree to plans for the future of the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic after Brexit - a prerequisite for talks to move on to their next phase.\n\nIrish PM Leo Varadkar, who also spoke to Mrs May on Wednesday, said he was willing to consider any new proposals, suggesting the UK might put something forward within the next 24 hours.\n\nAnd the BBC understands the ambassadors of the 27 EU member states, who received an update from chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier on Wednesday, are \"waiting for something from London\" in the next 48 hours.\n\nThe BBC's Adam Fleming said Mr Barnier and the member states agreed there must be clarity within 48 hours for them to have enough time to consult with their capitals about draft guidelines for phase two of the talks.\n\nAt a summit next week, European leaders will decide whether enough progress has been made in the negotiations on Ireland, the UK's \"divorce bill\" and citizens' rights so far to open trade talks.\n\nIn their letter, the 19 MPs - who largely backed Remain in the 2016 referendum - say they support the PM's handling of the negotiations, in particular the \"political and practical difficulties\" relating to the Irish border.\n\nBut they hit out at what they say are attempts by some in their party to paint a no-deal scenario in which the UK failed to agree a trade agreement as \"some status quo which the UK simply opts to adopt\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Citizens' rights, the Irish border and money are the three big negotiation points\n\n\"We wish to make it clear that we are disappointed yet again that some MPs and others seek to impose their own conditions on these negotiations,\" the MPs, including former cabinet ministers Stephen Crabb, Dominic Grieve, Anna Soubry and Nicky Morgan - write.\n\n\"In particular, it is highly irresponsible to seek to dictate terms which could lead to the UK walking away from these negotiations.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Faisal Islam This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIt urges the PM to \"take whatever time is necessary\" to get the next stage of negotiations right.\n\nOn Tuesday, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith argued the time was fast approaching for the UK to consider walking away from the talks if the EU did not allow negotiators to proceed to the next phase - in which future trade and security relations will take centre stage.\n\nThe suggestion of \"regulatory alignment\" between Northern Ireland and the European Union and any continuing role for the European Court of Justice has also concerned some Eurosceptic Conservative MPs.\n\nOn Monday Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party - whose support the PM needs to win key votes at Westminster - objected to draft plans drawn up by the UK and the EU.\n\nThe DUP said the proposals, which aimed to avoid a \"hard border\" by aligning regulations on both sides of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, were not acceptable.\n\nThis has left the UK government racing to find an agreement suiting all sides in time for next week's summit.\n\nThe Irish PM said he was willing to consider any new proposals from the UK\n\nThe DUP's deputy leader Nigel Dodds said the Irish government, which has said it wants firm guarantees that a hard border can be avoided, was playing a \"dangerous game\" with its own economy.\n\nAt a press conference with his Dutch counterpart on Wednesday, Irish PM Leo Varadkar insisted he wanted the talks to move beyond consideration of divorce issues to the future.\n\n\"Having consulted with people in London, she (Theresa May) wants to come back to us with some text tonight or tomorrow,\" he said. \"I expressed my willingness to consider that.\"\n\nIn a separate development, Chancellor Philip Hammond has suggested the UK could pay the so-called Brexit bill, regardless of whether or not there is a subsequent trade agreement with the EU.\n\nHe told MPs on the Treasury Committee he found it \"inconceivable\" that the UK would \"walk away\" from its financial obligations as \"frankly it would not make us a credible partner for future international agreements\".\n\nOn the issue of the divorce bill, a No 10 spokesman said the government's position remained that \"nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and that applies to the financial settlement\".\n\nReports have suggested the UK has raised its financial offer to a figure of up to 50bn euros (£44bn).", "Kamal Ahmed and Tina Daheley will help mentor students\n\nThe BBC is launching a new scheme to help young people identify real news and filter out fake or false information.\n\nThe project is targeted at secondary schools and sixth forms across the UK.\n\nFrom March, up to 1,000 schools will be offered mentoring in class and online to help them spot so-called fake news.\n\nBBC journalists including Kamal Ahmed, Tina Daheley, Amol Rajan and Huw Edwards will also take part in events aimed at helping students.\n\nJames Harding, the director of BBC News, said: \"This is an attempt to go into schools to speak to young people and give them the equipment they need to distinguish between what's true and what's false.\"\n\nThe move follows a year-long study, conducted by the University of Salford in conjunction with BBC Newsround, looking at how well children aged between nine and 14 can spot false information.\n\nAlthough most of the children from across all age groups said they knew what fake news was, many of them could not always distinguish between fake and real stories when presented with them.\n\nBBC Director of News James Harding: \"Some information is downright lies.\"\n\nThe term \"fake news\" was popularised by Donald Trump during his presidential election campaign last year.\n\nHe used the term to denigrate the output of the traditional news media, although it is also used to describe news stories that achieve significant traction despite being palpably false.\n\nRecent examples include a satirical story claiming that the Pope had endorsed Trump for president, which was widely circulated as an established fact.\n\nThe issue surfaced again this month when the President retweeted three inflammatory videos from a British far-right group whose authenticity was subsequently challenged.\n\nIn November, The Independent - now an online newspaper - streamed a video \"live from space\" that turned out to be footage recorded in 2015.\n\nIn July, meanwhile, a Facebook Live video purporting to show a storm was outed by social media users as a gif.\n\n\"I think that people are getting the news all over the place - there's more information than ever before,\" said Harding.\n\n\"But, as we know, some of it is old news, some of it is half truths. Some of it is just downright lies. And it's harder than ever when you look at those information feeds to discern what's true and what's not.\n\n\"But there are 'tells', there are ways that you can look at your news feed and identify a story that's true and a story that's not.\n\n\"And we think that's a skill that enables people to make good choices about the information they get and good choices in their lives.\"\n\nLast month a survey by media watchdog Ofcom found almost three quarters of children aged between 12 and 15 were aware of so-called \"fake news\" and that half of them has read a story they suspected of being false.\n\nThe BBC has set up a mailing list for those interested in finding out more about the project.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif is the most contentious religious site in Jerusalem.\n\nIt is revered by Jews at the location of two biblical temples and is the holiest site in Judaism.\n\nThe compound also houses the Dome of the Rock, pictured here, and the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam.", "Charlie Dunn's stepfather Paul Smith had denied any wrong-doing in relation to his death\n\nThe stepfather of a five-year-old boy who drowned in a pool at a water park has pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence.\n\nCharlie Dunn, who could not swim, was pulled from the water at Bosworth Water Park in Leicestershire on 23 July 2016.\n\nPaul Smith, 36, had denied letting the boy wander off alone for more than two hours but changed his plea during the trial at Birmingham Crown Court.\n\nCharlie's mother, Lynsey Dunn, 28, has had the same charge dropped.\n\nPaul Smith and Lynsey Dunn will be sentenced later this month\n\nShe did admit a charge of neglect in connection with Charlie after an incident between July 2014 and July 2016, in which she failed to supervise him near a busy road.\n\nDunn also pleaded guilty to a second charge of neglect in relation to another youngster, who cannot be named, after an incident in the summer of 2015.\n\nIt can also now be reported that prior to the trial Smith admitted witness intimidation in connection with another incident relating to Charlie.\n\nBoth defendants, of Glascote Heath, Tamworth, Staffordshire, will be sentenced on 20 December.\n\nCharlie was found in the Blue Lagoon children's pool at the park\n\nCharlie was found submerged in a 1.4m-deep lagoon at the busy attraction, in Market Bosworth, and pulled from the water by other children.\n\nA paramedic carried out CPR, before he was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.\n\nThe court had previously heard he had been allowed to play unsupervised in the park.\n\nOpening the Crown's case on 30 November, prosecutor Mary Prior QC said: \"This case is not about parents turning their back for a minute whilst a tragedy occurs.\n\n\"We don't prosecute parents for unavoidable tragedies nor do we expect perfection in parenting.\n\n\"This is a gross failure to supervise not for seconds, and not for a few minutes, but for protracted periods of time in circumstances where the child was exposed to danger.\"\n\nThe trial was told Smith was overheard shouting he did not know where Charlie was on the day he died\n\nActing Det Insp Nikki McLatchie, of Leicestershire Police, who worked on the case, said there were about a thousand people at the park on the day Charlie drowned.\n\n\"Witness testimony showed that Charlie was left alone on numerous occasions, despite him not being able to swim,\" she said.\n\n\"Smith was looking after Charlie at the park, and his failure as a parent came with the most tragic consequences and ultimately led to his death.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "That brings to an end our live coverage of the announcement by President Donald Trump that the US now recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.\n\nTo read our main news story and to watch Trump's briefing click here.\n\nFor more on the reaction to Trump's statement from around the world:\n\nAnd for comprehensive reports and analysis from the BBC, please visit our Israel & the Palestinians coverage.\n\nMany thanks for reading.", "The controversial US embassy move to Jerusalem is going ahead amid celebration and protest. The BBC's Yolande Knell explains why the city is so important.", "Clockwise from top: Actor Ashley Judd, pop singer Taylor Swift, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, corporate lobbyist Adama Iwu and Isabel Pascual, a strawberry-picker from Mexico (not her real name)\n\nTime magazine has named \"the Silence Breakers\" - women and men who spoke out against sexual abuse and harassment - as its \"Person of the Year\".\n\nThe movement is most closely associated with the #MeToo hashtag which sprung up as allegations emerged against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.\n\nBut Time says the hashtag is \"part of the picture, but not all of it\".\n\n\"This is the fastest-moving social change we've seen in decades,\" editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said.\n\nHe told NBC's Today programme that it \"began with individual acts of courage by hundreds of women - and some men, too - who came forward to tell their own stories\".\n\nTwo celebrities are featured - Ashley Judd, one of the first to speak out against Mr Weinstein, and pop singer Taylor Swift, who won a civil case against an ex-DJ who she said had grabbed her bottom.\n\nThey are shown alongside Isabel Pascual, a 42-year-old strawberry picker from Mexico (not her real name); Adama Iwu, a 40-year-old corporate lobbyist in Sacramento; and Susan Fowler, 26, a former Uber engineer whose allegation brought down Uber's CEO.\n\nBut many more people are identified as part of the movement behind the cover shot.\n\nThis \"moment\", the magazine says, \"doesn't have a leader, or a single, unifying tenet. The hashtag #MeToo (swiftly adapted into #BalanceTonPorc, #YoTambien, #Ana_kaman and many others), which to date has provided an umbrella of solidarity for millions of people to come forward with their stories, is part of the picture, but not all of it...\n\n\"The women and men who have broken their silence span all races, all income classes, all occupations and virtually all corners of the globe.\"\n\nBut, it says, collectively they have helped turn shame into outrage and fear into fury, put thousands of people on to the streets demanding change, and seen a slew of powerful men held accountable for their behaviour.\n\nThose featured include Tarana Burke, the activist who created the #MeToo hashtag more than a decade ago, the actor Alyssa Milano who helped it explode on social media last October, actor Terry Crews, a group of hotel workers who have filed a lawsuit against their employer, State Senator Sara Gelser, an anonymous hospital worker who fears losing her job if she speaks openly, and Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News journalist whom Donald Trump accused of having \"blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever\" after she moderated a debate during the presidential campaign.\n\nIronically, President Trump - whose election Ms Kelly said was a \"setback for women\" that helps explain the #MeToo movement - was named as runner-up for Person of the Year this year, having been given the title last year.\n\nIn 2006, the Person of the Year was simply \"You\", reflecting the importance of user-generated internet content.\n\nThe magazine's tradition - begun in 1927 as \"Man of the Year\" - recognises the person who \"for better or for worse... has done the most to influence the events of the year\".\n\nThe great majority of people selected have been individuals - but by no means all. In 2014, \"Ebola fighters\" were recognised while in 2011 \"The Protester\" acknowledged the significance of the so-called Arab Spring.\n\nIt was in 1950, the magazine explains, that the \"mould was broken\" and \"The American fighting-man\" was chosen, to be followed by Hungarians in 1956 and later on Scientists, Americans under 25 and Mr and Mrs Middle America.\n\nIn 2006, the Person of the Year was simply \"You\", with a mirror cover design, reflecting the importance of user-generated internet content.", "A man has appeared in court charged with terrorism offences including sharing the address of Prince George's school with potential attackers.\n\nHusnain Rashid, 31, is accused of creating Telegram \"channels\" to assist terrorists by providing guides, tips, and suggested targets for attacks.\n\nIt is alleged Mr Rashid from Nelson, Lancashire, shared a picture of Prince George and details of his school.\n\nHe was remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey on 20 December.\n\nHusnain Rashid is accused of sharing Prince George's photograph in tips for would-be attackers\n\nMr Rashid is also alleged to have used the encrypted messaging application Telegram to send \"channels\" - or groups - a list of UK stadiums.\n\nHe is also accused of planning to travel to areas of Syria controlled by Islamic State to join the fighting.\n\nHe appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court and spoke only to confirm his details.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Labour's chief whip in the House of Lords is to stand down in the New Year following criticism of his expenses.\n\nLord Bassam has referred himself to the standards watchdog and agreed to repay the cost of travel to and from his Brighton home since 2010.\n\nThe peer, who also had a £36,366 allowance for staying overnight in London, says he has not been told he has broken any rules.\n\nBut he said it would have been \"more appropriate\" not to claim the money.\n\nLabour said Lord Bassam, who is a member of Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet, would make way once a successor had been elected in January or February.\n\nA spokesman said the peer had already referred himself to the Lords standards commissioner to determine whether he had broken the peers' code of conduct.\n\nAfter the Mail On Sunday reported Lord Bassam claimed the £6,400 annual cost of travelling to and from his home in Brighton, the former leader of Brighton Council said he would not submit such claims again.\n\nAccording to the paper, Lord Bassam is one of a small number of front bench peers also entitled to the Lords office holders allowance. This is because of his role as chief whip and because his main home is not in London.\n\nThe payment is included in his salary and designed to cover \"expenses in staying overnight away from their main or only residence\".\n\nIn a statement, Lord Bassam said: \"With my home outside of London, I have been in receipt of the relevant office holders allowance for the opposition chief whip in the Lords.\n\n\"At the same time, in accordance with rules laid down by the House, I have claimed costs for my regular travel to and from Parliament.\n\n\"While I have not been advised that any breach of the rules has taken place, waiving the right to such travel claims would perhaps have been a more appropriate response on my part.\n\n\"I will not be submitting any further claims in this way, and instead use the office holders allowance to cover those additional costs. I will also discuss with House officials the steps necessary to repay previous travel claims.\"", "Laurence Soper was found guilty of 19 counts of sexual assault against boys at St Benedict's School in Ealing, where he taught\n\nAn ex-Roman Catholic priest has been found guilty of abusing boys at a London school during the 1970s and 80s.\n\nLaurence Soper, 74, was extradited to face 19 charges of indecent and serious sexual assault against 10 former pupils at the independent St Benedict's School in Ealing, where he taught.\n\nSoper fled to Kosovo with £182,000 from the Vatican bank in a bid to avoid prosecution for molesting boys.\n\nAn Old Bailey jury took 14 hours to find him guilty of all charges.\n\nProsecutor Gillian Etherton QC told how the victims were subjected to sadistic beatings by Soper for \"fake reasons\" and on many occasions \"with what can only have been a sexual motive\".\n\nThey included kicking a football \"in the wrong direction\", \"failing to use double margins\", and \"using the (wrong) staircase\", leading to a caning and a sexual assault, she said.\n\nLaurence Soper was a senior priest at St Benedict's School in Ealing, west London\n\nMs Etherton said at least one of Soper's alleged victims suffered serious mental health problems, while another was too afraid to speak out because the abusers \"were like saints to me\".\n\nThe court heard Soper quit as an abbot in 2000 and moved to Rome. He then skipped bail and spent six years living in Kosovo, with a European Arrest Warrant issued for his extradition.\n\nSoper denied using the cane as a ruse to abuse boys who were given the choice of six lashes with trousers on, or three with them off.\n\nHe told jurors he went on the run out of \"stupidity and cowardice\", fearing that his life's work would be wrecked.\n\nSoper is the latest in a string of men to face allegations relating to their work at St Benedict's.\n\nIn 2010, Abbot Shipperlee announced an independent review of safeguarding arrangements, policies and procedures.\n\nThe following year, Lord Carlile produced a damning report calling for tougher rules to protect all faith pupils and stripped monks of control at the school.\n\nIn a statement issued by Lord Carlile QC, the school apologised for the \"serious wrongs of the past\".\n\nHe said: \"The school regrets that Soper did not have the courage to plead guilty. The result has been that innocent victims, whom he abused when they were boys in the school, were compelled to give evidence.\n\n\"The tough lessons of the past have been learned, and the errors and crimes of the past are in the daily consciousness and conscience of the school management.\"\n\nSoper was remanded in custody to be sentenced on 19 December.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Amazon's Fire TV devices are advertised as providing access to YouTube\n\nGoogle plans to stop Amazon's Fire TV streaming devices being able to use YouTube from the start of 2018.\n\nThe search giant has also blocked a workaround that Amazon introduced to restore YouTube access to a screen-based version of its smart speaker.\n\nExperts say the steps mark an escalation of a business row in which consumers have been caught up in the fallout.\n\nAmazon had previously stopped selling several of Google's hardware products.\n\nIt removed the latest Nest-branded smart home kit - including a home security system and a new version of its thermostat - from its online stores last month.\n\nAnd since 2015, Amazon has refused to sell Google's Chromecast video and audio-streaming dongles.\n\nThe latest development coincides with the release of Amazon's Prime Video app for the Apple TV.\n\nIts absence had previously put Apple's set-top box at a disadvantage to Amazon's Fire TV line-up.\n\nFire TV owners have reported that trying to watch YouTube clips now prompts an alert warning them that they will lose the functionality on 1 January.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Eqbal Ashraf This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"We've been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other's products and services,\" Google said in a statement.\n\n\"But Amazon doesn't carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn't make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest's latest products.\n\n\"Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and FireTV. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon.\"\n\nGoogle had stopped Amazon's Echo Show speakers being able to play YouTube videos in September, on the basis that the retailer had altered the way the software worked.\n\nThe version Amazon presented had lacked next video recommendations, subscriptions and other features - but these were restored in November, when Amazon made the device present a more normal view of YouTube.\n\nOne of the Echo Show's most popular features was its ability to search for YouTube clips by voice\n\nBut, according to Techcrunch, the search firm believes its rights have still been violated because Amazon continues to overlay its own voice controls.\n\nAmazon has responded, saying: \"Echo Show and Fire TV now display a standard web view of YouTube.com and point customers directly to YouTube's existing website. Google is setting a disappointing precedent by selectively blocking customer access to an open website. We hope to resolve this with Google as soon as possible.\"\n\nThe dispute disadvantages consumers in two ways. Users will be unable to access a service that Amazon's devices had promised to deliver. And Amazon's refusal to even allow third-parties to sell certain Google products via its site makes it harder to find them at their lowest price.\n\n\"It's a surprising turn of events in both respects,\" commented Ben Wood from the CCS Insight tech consultancy.\n\n\"YouTube is all about maximising the number of people who see its content, and Amazon wants to be the so-called 'everything store'.\n\n\"It's all very unfortunate for consumers, who will have little understanding of the commercial tensions between the two companies.\n\n\"I wonder whether the next step might be the intervention of a regulator to investigate whether they are behaving anti-competitively.\"", "Christine Keeler worked as a model in the 1960s\n\nChristine Keeler, the model embroiled in the 1963 Profumo affair, has died aged 75, her son has said.\n\nSeymour Platt said Ms Keeler had been ill for several months with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.\n\nHe told the BBC: \"She was always a fighter, but sadly lost the final fight against a terrible lung disease.\"\n\nShe became famous for her part in the scandal, which shook Harold Macmillan's government, but her son said that fame came \"at a huge personal price\".\n\nAt the height of the Cold War, the-then teenager claimed she had an affair with Conservative cabinet minister John Profumo.\n\nShe also claimed to be in a relationship with a Russian diplomat - Eugene Ivanov, an assistant naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy - at the same time.\n\nMr Profumo was forced to resign after lying about the affair to Parliament and the scandal is considered to have contributed to the fall of the Macmillan government.\n\nMs Keeler's family said she died on Monday at 23:30 GMT at the Princess Royal University Hospital in Orpington, south-east London.\n\nPaying tribute to his mother, Mr Platt told the BBC: \"She earned her place in British history but at a huge personal price.\"\n\n\"And regardless, we are all very proud of who she was to the end,\" he added.\n\nDouglas Thompson, the journalist and author who worked with Ms Keeler on her memoir The Truth At Last, paid tribute to a \"funny and bright\" woman, whom he described as \"one of the most honest people I have ever met\".\n\n\"She believed absolutely everything she ever said about the Profumo affair,\" he said.\n\n\"She said what she thought,\" he continued. \"I think that honesty is very surprising.\"\n\nHe described Ms Keeler as a \"victim of the time\", adding that she would probably have had her own TV show had the scandal happened today.\n\n\"The interesting thing about her is she tried to escape it,\" he said. \"I don't think she ever got away from it - that was a tragedy.\"\n\n\"She could never stop being Christine Keeler,\" he added.\n\nIn 1963, Mr Profumo told the House of Commons he and Ms Keeler were \"on friendly terms\" and there was \"no impropriety\" in their relationship, after opposition MPs voiced concerns about national security implications.\n\nEventually he admitted lying to the house and resigned as Secretary of State for War and from the Commons.\n\nMs Keeler was briefly married twice, with both ending in divorce. She had two sons.\n\nThe Profumo affair will be the subject of a BBC One drama which begins filming next year.", "The Archbishop of Canterbury rises at the end of the debate to thank members for taking part - \"so thoughtfully and so widely\".\n\n\"We need adaptability and imagination,\" he says, because needs vary, urging a reimagining of the education system.\n\nAnd that's it for today in the Lords.\n\nJoin us again on Monday afternoon for education questions at 2.30pm in the Commons - and the second reading of the Finance Bill, which enacts measures announced by the chancellor in the Budget.", "Dorothea Bate was born at Napier House in Carmarthen\n\nThe woman believed to be the first to be employed as a scientist at London's Natural History Museum has had a blue plaque dedicated in her home town.\n\nDorothea Bate, born in 1878, had little formal education but a fascination with wildlife and nature prompted her to leave Carmarthenshire aged 19 and ask for a job at the museum.\n\nShe spent more than 50 years there and led expeditions around the world.\n\nThe plaque was unveiled at Napier House in Carmarthen where she was born.\n\nMs Bates became an expert in archaeozoology, the study of animal remains, and her largest discoveries included fossilised elephants and the bones of a giant tortoise in Bethlehem.\n\nThe plaque will be dedicated by paleobiologist Tori Herridge at a ceremony organised by Carmarthen Civic Society at 18:00 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nDr Herridge said: \"She's pretty special - can you imagine in 1898 marching up to the museum and asking to see the curator of birds?\n\n\"I hope anybody who walks past Napier House and looks at that blue plaque, it makes them think 'that's interesting, who is she?'\n\n\"Little signs might open people's minds up to a world they weren't previously aware of.\"\n\nDorothea Bate (centre) with Sir Temi Zammit and Dr Joseph Baldacchino at the National Museum in Valletta, Malta, in April 1934\n\nMs Bate's first job at the museum was classifying bird skins, but the focus of what became her life's work was exploring how and why different species adapt and change.\n\nShe studied fossils and was fascinated by archaeology which led her to specialise in archaeozoology.\n\nDr Herridge said her work at the museum came from a passion for the natural world that her upbringing afforded \"the money and freedom to explore\".\n\n\"She was very self-confident, very clever and very determined and totally and deeply interested in the subject she wanted to study.\"\n\nMs Bate's expeditions took her as far afield as Cyprus, Malta, Crete, China and Palestine, from where her finds were taken back to the museum in Kensington.\n\nContrary to what people might expect, Dr Herridge said when Ms Bate was in Crete in 1904, she was one of three female scientists involved in excavations.\n\nDuring World War Two, Ms Bate worked in the zoological branch of the museum in Tring, Hertfordshire, and became its officer in charge.\n\nShe was elected fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1940 and continued working until her death in 1951.", "The Turner Prize's oldest winner, Lubaina Himid, says her victory will make a difference to people who have supported her over the years.\n\nThe 63-year-old won the £25,000 award for work addressing racial politics and the legacy of slavery.", "Google says its AlphaGo Zero artificial intelligence program has triumphed at chess against world-leading specialist software within hours of teaching itself the game from scratch.\n\nThe firm's DeepMind division says that it played 100 games against Stockfish 8, and won or drew all of them.\n\nThe research has yet to be peer reviewed.\n\nBut experts already suggest the achievement will strengthen the firm's position in a competitive sector.\n\n\"From a scientific point of view, it's the latest in a series of dazzling results that DeepMind has produced,\" the University of Oxford's Prof Michael Wooldridge told the BBC.\n\n\"The general trajectory in DeepMind seems to be to solve a problem and then demonstrate it can really ramp up performance, and that's very impressive.\"\n\nDeepMind has previously won a series of Go games against some of the world's top human players\n\nDeepMind has previously defeated several of the world's top human players of the Chinese board game Go, as well as teaching itself how to play video games including Pong and Space Invaders.\n\nThe London-based team is currently trying to develop a system that can beat humans at the space strategy game Starcraft, which is seen as being an even more complex challenge.\n\nGoogle is not commenting on the research until it is published in a journal.\n\nHowever, details published on Cornell University's Arxiv site state that an algorithm dubbed AlphaZero was able to outperform Stockfish just four hours after being given the rules of chess and being told to learn by playing simulations against itself.\n\nIn the 100 games that followed, each program was given one minute's worth of thinking time per move.\n\nAlphaZero won 25 games in which it played with white pieces, giving it the first move, and a further three in which it played with black pieces.\n\nThe two programs drew the remaining 72 games.\n\nDeepMind described the level of performance achieved as being \"superhuman\".\n\nGoogle highlighted that Stockfish 8 had previously won 2016's Top Chess Engine Championship. The software was first released in 2008 and has been built on by volunteers in the years since.\n\nThe open source project has been beaten by another program, Komodo, in two major computer chess challenges this year.\n\nEven so, one human chess grandmaster was still hugely impressed by DeepMind's victory.\n\n\"I always wondered how it would be if a superior species landed on earth and showed us how they played chess,\" Peter Heine Nielsen told the BBC.\n\nAlphaGo Zero's latest achievements do not rest on chess alone.\n\nThe paper says it was also triumphant in the Japanese board game Shogi versus a leading artificial intelligence program named Elmo, after two hours of self-training.\n\nThe AlphaZero algorithm won 90 games, drew two and lost eight.\n\nFurthermore, after eight hours of self-training it was also able to beat the previous version of itself at Go - winning 60 games and losing 40.\n\nShogi is sometimes known as Japanese chess\n\nProf Wooldridge noted that all three games were fairly \"closed\" in the sense they had limited sets of rules to contend with.\n\n\"In the real world we don't know what is round the corner,\" he explained.\n\n\"Coping when you don't know what is coming is much more complicated, and things will get even more exciting when DeepMind moves on to more open problems.\"\n\nThe University of Bath's AI expert Prof Joanna Bryson added that people should be cautious about buying too deeply into the firm's hype.\n\nBut she added that its knack for good publicity had put it in a strong position against challengers.\n\n\"It's not only about hiring the best programmers,\" she said.\n\n\"It's also very political, as it helps makes Google as strong as possible when negotiating with governments and regulators looking at the AI sector.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Nissan's Easy Ride could launch in Japan in early 2020s\n\nCarmaker Nissan plans to test self-driving taxis on Japanese roads from March next year.\n\nThe company is partnering with Japanese software company DeNA, which operates online services for the gaming, healthcare and automotive industries.\n\nIt will adapt a Nissan Leaf electric car, which passengers will summon using an app.\n\nThe free trials will be held over a two-week period in March in Yokohama.\n\nThe Easy Ride system could be launched in Japan in the early 2020s.\n\n\"With 'more freedom of mobility' as its concept, Easy Ride is envisioned as a service for anyone who wants to travel freely to their destination of choice in a robo-vehicle,\" Nissan said in a statement.\n\n\"The goal is to allow customers to use a dedicated mobile app to complete the whole process, from setting destinations and summoning vehicles to paying the fare.\"\n\nDuring tests, there will be a staff member in the driver's seat to comply with Japanese law.\n\nCustomers, who can apply from now until 15 January, can select local destinations and sightseeing routes.\n\nMeanwhile, Japanese robotics maker ZMP is working with a Tokyo taxi operator to develop self-driving taxis for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.\n\nElsewhere, Uber is working on its own self-drive service and in November struck a deal with Volvo to buy up to 24,000 cars.\n\nAnd Waymo, owned by Google parent company Alphabet, is planning to test autonomous cars with no human safety driver.", "Clara Amfo said she was \"honoured\" to be hosting the iconic music show\n\nBBC Radio 1 DJ Clara Amfo is to replace Reggie Yates on BBC One's Top of the Pops Christmas and New Year specials.\n\nYates stepped down from the shows on Monday after making \"ill-considered remarks\" in a podcast.\n\nHe apologised last month for using the phrase \"fat Jewish guy\" to refer to managers in the music industry.\n\nYates has co-hosted the festive shows with Fearne Cotton since 2004, but his place will now be taken by Amfo, who hosts Radio 1's mid-morning programme.\n\n\"I'm so happy and honoured to be presenting Top of the Pops alongside Fearne,\" she said in a statement.\n\n\"It's an iconic show that I've grown up with and continue to enjoy watching, especially during the festive season. 2017 has been a rich year in pop and I can't wait to celebrate it with the artists, Fearne and everyone at home.\"\n\nFearne Cotton and Reggie Yates have been a Christmas TOTP double act for 13 years\n\nThe Christmas Day edition will feature stars including Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, James Arthur, Clean Bandit, Rita Ora and The Script.\n\nCraig David, Bastille and Paloma Faith will appear in the New Year special.\n\nOn Monday, Yates tweeted to say he had \"taken the decision to step down\" from his hosting duties and apologised \"unreservedly to the Jewish community\".\n\nHe said his words \"reinforced offensive stereotypes\" and that the comment was \"no reflection on how I truly feel\".\n\nHe used the offending phrase in the Halfcast Podcast, hosted by DJ Chuckie Lothian, while praising artists who chose to remain independently managed, adding: \"They're managed by their brethren.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The UK faces a \"perfect storm\" of threats that could put its entire electoral system at risk, the head of the elections watchdog has warned.\n\nRussian meddling on social media and local council cuts were just two of the factors threatening the credibility of the system, Sir John Holmes said.\n\nHe told BBC Radio 4's Today programme Britain's electoral laws were a \"mess\" and needed to be updated.\n\nHe will set out the steps he says need to be taken in a speech later.\n\nThe Electoral Commission has launched an investigation into allegations of Russian interference in last year's Brexit referendum and the general election.\n\n\"It would be naive to assume that what we know happened in the US and France around their elections did not and could not happen here,\" Sir John told Today.\n\n\"And there has been evidence coming from the US inquiry that some of that activity was happening.\n\n\"What we have done is asked companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook to tell us what was happening here in the same way they did in the US.\"\n\nResponding to Sir John's comments, a UK government spokesman said: \"We have one of the most robust democratic processes in the world - one that is not vulnerable to international malicious influence.\n\nHowever, this government is not complacent and we are already undertaking work to strengthen our electoral process and ensure it is fit for the future.\"\n\nIn the US, both the House and Senate intelligence committees are looking into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election - something the Kremlin strongly denies.\n\nCongress has released images of social media posts alleged to be Russian propaganda.\n\nTechnology companies display alleged examples of Russian-backed posts to US senators\n\nSir John, a former diplomat who has served in Moscow, said it was \"impossible\" for the Electoral Commission to \"regulate or prevent what Russia is doing\".\n\nBut he wants new rules requiring political campaigners to identify themselves to give voters \"transparency about who is trying to influence them, who is paying for it\".\n\nHe also wants to see photo IDs introduced at polling booths, following allegations of voter fraud in Tower Hamlets, in east London, and other areas.\n\nCritics say the plan discriminates against people on low incomes who don't have photo IDs.\n\nBut Sir John said they could be given free photo ID cards, as was already happening in Northern Ireland, where the new system is up and running.\n\nHe ruled out a move to online voting, because of concerns about hacking - but he wants it to be made easier to check online whether you are registered to vote.\n\nHe also wants bigger fines for political parties and campaign groups that try to get round spending limits.\n\nSir John Holmes is a former diplomat and UN official\n\nThe watchdog has repeatedly complained that it lacks the teeth to tackle abuses of the system, with Sir John warning some well resourced parties could see fines as \"a cost of doing business\" after the Conservatives were fined £70,000 for breaking the rules.\n\nHe has also warned that cuts to local authorities could undermine the proper running of elections in the UK.\n\nJune's general election had been generally well run, he said, but \"returning officers and electoral administrators face reduced resources and a growing number of skilled professionals are leaving local authority elections teams\".\n\nPrime Minister Theresa May has accused Russia of \"planting fake stories\" to \"sow discord in the West\", although Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told MPs last month he had not seen any evidence of Russian interference in the Brexit vote or general election.\n\nResearchers at the University of Edinburgh found more than 400 fake Twitter accounts attempting to influence UK politics out of 2,752 accounts suspended by Twitter in the US.\n\nThe accounts were believed to have been run from the Kremlin-linked Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA).\n\nThe Commons Culture Select Committee is carrying out a separate inquiry into \"fake news\", and Britain's intelligence and security watchdog is facing calls to investigate whether Russian \"troll factories\" interfered in UK politics.", "Officers said the road will remain closed for the remainder of Tuesday\n\nAn on-duty police officer and a 91-year-old woman have died following a crash on the A4 in Berkshire.\n\nPC James Dixon died after the motorcycle he was riding was in collision with a car on Bath Road near Hare Hatch at 13:50 GMT.\n\nThe pensioner, who was a passenger in the car, was killed while the driver, also a woman, was taken to hospital.\n\nOfficers said the road would remain closed for the remainder of Tuesday.\n\nThames Valley Police said the next of kin of both PC Dixon and the deceased woman have been informed.\n\nA force spokesman said officers remained at the scene of the collision and had advised motorists to avoid the area.\n\nThe incident has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).\n\nIPCC Associate Commissioner Guido Liguori said: \"My thoughts and sympathies are with their families and friends and the colleagues of the officer at this very difficult time.\n\n\"IPCC investigators are attending the scene as part of an independent investigation to determine the circumstances which lead to the collision.\"\n\nPC Dixon was based at Loddon Valley police station, near Reading.\n\nPolice said the injuries of the driver involved are \"not thought to be life threatening\".\n\nTributes to PC Dixon have been posted in comments on Thames Valley Police's Facebook page.\n\nDaniel Ruffle said: \"Ride the sky and the clouds big man, it was a pleasure knowing you and working with you.\"\n\nBernadette Ellison said: \"God bless you Dixie, you made me laugh with your wicked sense of humour.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Some important items were lost or never recovered, including Poppi's last nappy and her pyjama bottoms, the inquest heard\n\nAn expert witness has cast doubt on suggestions toddler Poppi Worthington was sexually abused in the hours before her death.\n\nDr Nat Cary, a consultant forensic pathologist, told the inquest there was no clear-cut evidence of trauma implying third-party involvement.\n\nHis evidence contradicted the findings of Dr Alison Armour, who was called as a witness earlier in the week.\n\nPoppi died suddenly at a house in Barrow on 12 December 2012.\n\nNo-one has been prosecuted.\n\nAlthough he did not carry out his own post-mortem examination, Dr Cary said he had formed his opinion after studying photographs and slides.\n\nHe told the hearing in Kendal he discounted Dr Armour's assertion that marks found near Poppi's fallopian tube were bruises from sexual penetration.\n\nDr Cary said they were \"of no consequence\" and would have occurred naturally in the five days between the youngster's death and her examination by Dr Armour.\n\nAlthough he said he could not \"absolutely exclude\" penetration, Dr Cary said he would have \"expected very obvious injury and there wasn't anything of the sort\".\n\nHe said he could not be sure how the 13-month-old had died.\n\nThere could have been an \"element of asphyxia\" but there was no sign she had struggled against restraint, he said.\n\n\"Just because you don't find a natural cause it doesn't mean there isn't one,\" he said.\n\nHe told Leslie Thomas QC, representing Poppi's father Paul Worthington, there was no evidence of a criminal act directly or indirectly causing Poppi's death.\n\nThe presence of blood \"needs to be explained\" but there was only the \"possibility that something happened\", he said.\n\nDr Nat Cary (seen here at a crime scene in Ipswich in 2006) said Poppi's death was not necessarily criminal just because it was unexplained\n\nIn answer to further questions, he said it was not possible to say whether an injury to Poppi's leg was deliberate or accidental and, if the latter, whether it was not witnessed by a parent or seen but ignored.\n\nThe coroner David Roberts asked Dr Cary if Poppi's case affected the way he now carried out his work in other cases.\n\nWould he, for example, look for marks like those seen in Poppi, he asked.\n\nDr Cary said: \"Yes, I would have a better look than I used to.\"\n\nThe sheet from the double bed where Poppi was placed at the time of her collapse was not recovered, the inquest heard\n\nThe inquest was told earlier that vital evidence from Poppi's final hours was lost or never found by police.\n\nCatherine Thundercloud, a retired Cumbria Police officer, said it would have been \"imperative\" to get statements from people in the house and Poppi's aunt, Tracy Worthington, as quickly as possible.\n\nShe had been asked to review the evidence as part of an Independent Police Commission Complaint (IPCC) investigation.\n\nSheets, equipment and gloves used by paramedics and hospital staff should have been retained, she said.\n\nBut a number of these items had not been kept, the inquest has heard.\n\nAlison Hewitt, counsel for the coroner, asked Ms Thundercloud what officers should have known before they searched the house.\n\nMs Thundercloud said they should have had first accounts from the parents and details from hospital staff about what had happened.\n\nThe inquest has heard the first police search began before first accounts had been gathered from Mr Worthington.\n\nPaul Worthington has always denied harming his daughter\n\nMs Thundercloud said: \"Unless you've read what he said you can't do a proper strategy.\"\n\nShe said those failures may have resulted in \"vital evidence being lost\".\n\nThe account from Mr Worthington would have shown the pyjama bottoms, which have never been found, were needed, she said.\n\nMr Worthington's laptop and both parents' mobile phones should also have been seized, she said.\n\nMs Thundercloud said there had been \"a lot of failings by police\" and \"missed opportunities\" in the first two days of the investigation.\n\nA proper log of the investigation was not kept so it was \"very difficult\" to see \"the rationale of what was done and not done,\" she said.\n\nIn 2016, High Court family judge Mr Justice Peter Jackson ruled Poppi was probably sexually assaulted by her father shortly before she died.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "There are increasing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem, the fate of which is one of the most contentious issues in the Israel-Arab conflict.\n\nThe BBC's Erica Chernofsky takes a closer look at why this city is so important to Christianity, Islam and Judaism, the three religions which trace their shared origins back to the biblical figure of Abraham.\n\nJerusalem - its name resonates in the hearts of Christians, Jews and Muslims alike and echoes through centuries of shared and disputed history.\n\nKnown in Hebrew as Yerushalayim and in Arabic as al-Quds, it is one of the oldest cities in the world. It has been conquered, destroyed and rebuilt time and again, and every layer of its earth reveals a different piece of the past.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nWhile it has often been the focus of stories of division and conflict among people of different religions, they are united in their reverence for this holy ground.\n\nAt its core is the Old City, a maze of narrow alleyways and historic architecture that characterises its four quarters - Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Armenian. It is surrounded by a fortress-like stone wall and home to some of the holiest sites in the world.\n\nEach quarter represents its own population. The Christians have two, because Armenians are also Christians, and their quarter, the smallest of the four, is one of the oldest Armenian centres in the world.\n\nIt is unique in that their community has preserved its own particular culture and civilisation inside the St James Church and monastery, which comprises most of their section.\n\nInside the Christian Quarter is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a significant focus for Christians all over the world. It is located on a site which is central to the story of Jesus, his death, crucifixion and resurrection.\n\nAccording to most Christian traditions, Jesus was crucified there, on Golgotha, or the hill of Calvary, his tomb is located inside the sepulchre and this was also the site of his resurrection.\n\nThe church is managed jointly by representatives of different Christian denominations, mainly the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, Franciscan friars from the Roman Catholic Church and the Armenian Patriarchate, but also by the Ethiopians, Coptics and Syrian Orthodox Church.\n\nIt is one of the main pilgrimage destinations for millions of Christians worldwide who visit the empty tomb of Jesus and seek solace and redemption in prayer at the site.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilus III explains why Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the holiest place in Christianity\n\nThe Muslim Quarter is the largest of the four and contains the shrine of the Dome of Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque on a plateau known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary.\n\nThe mosque is the third holiest site in Islam and is under the administration of an Islamic trust called the Waqf.\n\nMuslims believe the Prophet Muhammad travelled here from Mecca during his night journey and prayed with the souls of all the prophets. A few steps away, the shrine of the Dome of the Rock holds the foundation stone, where Muslims believe Muhammad then ascended to heaven.\n\nMuslims visit the holy site all year round, but every Friday during the holy month of Ramadan, hundreds of thousands of Muslims come to pray at the mosque.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib al-Tamimi explains the importance of Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque to Islam\n\nThe Jewish Quarter is home to the Kotel, or the Western Wall, a remnant of the retaining wall of the mount on which the Holy Temple once stood.\n\nInside the temple was the Holy of Holies, the most sacred site in Judaism.\n\nJews believe that this was the location of the foundation stone from which the world was created, and where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. Many Jews believe the Dome of the Rock is the site of the Holy of Holies.\n\nToday, the Western Wall is the closest place Jews can pray to the Holy of Holies.\n\nIt is managed by the Rabbi of the Western Wall and every year hosts millions of visitors. Jewish people from all over the world visit this place to pray and connect to their heritage, especially during the High Holidays.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz explains why Jerusalem's Western Wall is so important to the Jewish faith\n\nVideo and production by Avi Halfon and Alon Farago", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe government has not carried out any impact assessments of leaving the EU on the UK economy, Brexit Secretary David Davis has told MPs.\n\nMr Davis said the usefulness of such assessments would be \"near zero\" because of the scale of change Brexit is likely to cause.\n\nHe said the government had produced a \"sectoral analysis\" of different industries but not a \"forecast\" of what would happen when the UK leaves the EU.\n\nThe Liberal Democrats said impact assessments were urgently needed while the SNP called it an \"ongoing farce\".\n\nMr Davis said a \"very major contingency planning operation\" was in place for Brexit.\n\nOpposition MPs have been on the trail of the \"Brexit impact assessments\" for months. And when David Davis told them they didn't exist, they were quick to highlight some similar-sounding studies he had referred to in the past:\n\nDowning Street told journalists: \"We have been clear that the impact assessments don't exist. They're a specific thing in Whitehall terms. We think we have complied with the terms of the motion.\"\n\nAt Wednesday morning's Brexit committee hearing, chairman Hilary Benn asked whether impact assessments had been carried out into various parts of the economy, listing the automotive, aerospace and financial sectors.\n\n\"I think the answer's going to be no to all of them,\" Mr Davis responded.\n\nWhen Mr Benn suggested this was \"strange\", the minister said formal assessments were not needed to know that \"regulatory hurdles\" would have an impact, describing Brexit as a \"paradigm change\" of similar impact to the financial crash, which could not be predicted.\n\n\"I am not a fan of economic models because they have all proven wrong,\" he said.\n\nDavid Davis has probably not done the Brexit cause a huge bundle of good this morning. First, his frank admission that no impact assessments have been completed will inevitably be seized on by critics to argue Team May simply haven't done the basic spadework.\n\nSecond his suggestion that he doesn't have the resources for this, and anyway some of the work his officials have done wasn't much good, is hardly a ringing endorsement of his Brexit department.\n\nThird, Mr Davis probably didn't help his own reputation by telling the committee he had been handed two chapters of the 850 pages of analysis but hadn't read them. At times Mr Davis even chided the committee over the time they were taking.\n\nFair enough the Brexit secretary had a cold - but at times he sounded thoroughly frazzled and cheesed off. Not a great look.\n\nThere has been a long-running row over the government's Brexit studies and their publication.\n\nMPs have been pushing for the documents to be published, and on 1 November the Commons passed a motion to release \"Brexit impact assessments\" to the Brexit Committee of MPs.\n\nIn response, the government said this motion \"misunderstood\" what the documents actually were, but has since provided an edited set of reports to the committee.\n\nDavid Davis said the impact of Brexit on different sectors had not been assessed\n\nMr Davis told the MPs this represented \"getting as close as we can to meeting what we took to be the intent of Parliament\".\n\nA \"quantitative economic forecast of outcome\" does not exist, he said. \"That is not there. We have not done that. What is there is the size of the industry, the employment and so on.\"\n\nMr Davis also said there was no \"systematic impact assessment\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jeremy Corbyn asks: \"Do they exist, or don’t they?\"\n\nDuring PMQs, Prime Minister Theresa May repeated Mr Davis' line that \"sectoral analysis\", not \"impact assessments\" had been drawn up, adding that the government would not give a running commentary on the negotiations.\n\n\"This really is a shambles,\" Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said.\n\nLater, Chancellor Philip Hammond was asked whether the Treasury had produced analysis of the potential economic impact of Brexit.\n\nHe said his department had \"modelled and analysed a whole range of potential alternative structures between the EU and the UK, potential alternative arrangements and agreements that might be made\".\n\nAppearing before the Treasury Select Committee, he suggested these could be made public when a Brexit deal has been agreed, but said to do so at this stage would be \"deeply unhelpful to the negotiation\".", "At the start of the year Bitcoin was valued below $1,000\n\nBitcoin has breached the $16,000 mark, extending the digital currency's record-breaking surge.\n\nThe cryptocurrency began the year below $1,000 but continues to rise despite warnings of a dangerous bubble.\n\nAccording to Coindesk.com, Bitcoin reached $16,663.18 (£12, 358.35), having soared over 50% in a week.\n\nThe new high comes days before the launch of Bitcoin futures on two exchanges, including the world's largest futures exchange, CME.\n\nSpread betting firm CMC Markets said the rise had all the symptoms of a bubble market, warning \"there is no way to know when the bubble will burst\".\n\nThere are two key traits of Bitcoin: it is digital and it is seen as an alternative currency.\n\nUnlike the notes or coins in your pocket, it largely exists online.\n\nSecondly, Bitcoin is not printed by governments or traditional banks.\n\nA small but growing number of businesses, including Expedia and Microsoft, accept bitcoins - which work like virtual tokens.\n\nHowever, the vast majority of users now buy and sell them as a financial investment.\n\nThe digital currency's rapid ascent from around $1,000 at the start of the year has put it in the spotlight.\n\nCritics have said Bitcoin is going through a bubble similar to the dotcom boom, whereas others say it is rising in price because it is crossing into the financial mainstream.\n\nFinancial regulators have taken a range of views on the status of digital currencies and their risks.\n\nThe UK's Financial Conduct Authority warned investors in September they could lose all their money if they buy digital currencies issued by firms, known as \"initial coin offerings\".\n\nBut last week a US regulator agreed to let two traditional exchanges, CME Group and CBOE Global Markets, begin trading in Bitcoin-related financial contracts.\n\nThe announcement from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that it will allow investors to buy and sell \"future\" contracts in bitcoins - an agreement to buy the crypto-currency, for example, in three months time at a certain price - was seen as a watershed moment for Bitcoin.\n\nCambridge Global Payments director of global product and market strategy Karl Schamotta said that move was behind the latest rally: \"The perception in households around the world that the CME and the CBOE are providing legitimacy to Bitcoin is really what is driving the massive rally here.\"\n\nBut Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong, said the rise in Bitcoin's value was \"mostly motivated by fear of missing out and greed\".\n\nBitcoins are created through a complex computer process known as mining, and then monitored by a network of computers across the world.\n\nA steady stream of about 3,600 new bitcoins are created a day - with about 16.5 million now in circulation from a maximum limit of 21 million.", "Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman (left) and Mohammad Aqib Imran appeared at Westminster at Magistrates' Court\n\nA man has been remanded in custody after appearing in court accused of a plot to bomb Downing Street's security gates and then kill Theresa May.\n\nWestminster Magistrates' Court heard that Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman, 20, from north London, planned to detonate a homemade bomb and attack the PM with a suicide vest and a knife.\n\nA second man also appeared in court charged with preparing terrorist acts.\n\nBoth men will appear at London's Old Bailey on 20 December.\n\nMr Rahman is charged with the preparation of terrorist acts and is also charged with assisting another man to prepare separate acts of terrorism.\n\nThe second charge relates to allegedly helping Mohammad Aqib Imran, 21, from Birmingham, who is accused is charged with preparing acts of terrorism.\n\nHe is alleged to have taken several steps in an attempt to travel to Libya.\n\nThat included saving money, trying to secure a false passport, and researching extremist ideologies and travel options.\n\nThe men were arrested by Metropolitan Police officers on 28 November within 90 minutes of one another.\n\nThe men arrived at court in a police van\n\nDuring the seven minute hearing, the men - dressed in light grey sweatshirts and trousers - confirmed their names, addresses and dates of birth.\n\nMr Rahman gave his nationality as Bangladeshi-British, while Mr Imran gave his as Pakistani-British.\n\nChief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot remanded the men in custody ahead of the Old Bailey appearance.\n\nThe magistrates' court appearances comes a day after a security review said it was \"conceivable\" that the Manchester Arena bombing in May, in which 22 people were killed, could have been prevented.\n\nBut MI5 chief Andrew Parker told Mrs May and the Cabinet on Tuesday that about nine alleged Islamist terror plots have been foiled since March.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Hardware Warehouse is among the brands Steinhoff owns in South Africa\n\nPoundland owner Steinhoff International has seen its shares fall by almost two thirds after it said it would launch a probe into accounting irregularities.\n\nIt came as chief executive Markus Jooste resigned and the South African group postponed its full-year results.\n\nSteinhoff has asked accountancy giant PwC to conduct an independent investigation.\n\nShares in the company, listed in South Africa and Germany, ended the day 63% lower.\n\nSteinhoff owns 40 local brands in more than 30 countries. As well as furniture and homeware, it also sells products including clothing, footwear and consumer goods.\n\nIts brands include Bensons for Beds and Harveys in the UK, Conforama in Europe, Pep and Ackermans in South Africa and Snooze in Australia. Steinhoff derives about 60% of its earnings in Europe and 34% in Africa.\n\nLast year the firm lost out in a battle with Sainsbury's to take over Argos owner Home Retail Group.\n\nEarlier this year Poundland put UK discount chain 99p Stores - which it bought for £55m two years ago - into administration.\n\nMr Jooste had been in charge for close to two decades and oversaw Steinhoff's expansion from a furniture manufacturer in South Africa to one of the biggest global household goods retailers.\n\nThe company said late on Tuesday that he had resigned with immediate effect, after the discovery of new information prompted the firm to ask PwC to perform an \"independent investigation\".\n\n\"The supervisory board of Steinhoff wishes to advise shareholders that new information has come to light today which relates to accounting irregularities requiring further investigation,\" the group said in a statement.\n\nSteinhoff's largest shareholder and chairman, billionaire Christo Wiese, will take over in an executive capacity on an interim basis.\n\nThe group has been under investigation for suspected accounting irregularities by the state prosecutor in Oldenburg in Germany since 2015.\n\nIt is not clear if these are the accounting irregularities the company was referring to in its statement.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Labour: May to blame for Brexit 'embarrassment'\n\nMinisters say no part of the UK will be treated differently in the Brexit talks as Labour branded their approach an \"embarrassment\".\n\nNo agreement has been reached with the EU after a DUP backlash against proposals for the Irish border.\n\nBrexit Secretary David Davis told MPs the government was close to concluding the first phase of talks.\n\nDUP leader Arlene Foster said the text of the deal was a \"big shock\" and \"it was not going to be acceptable.\"\n\nShe told the Republic of Ireland national broadcaster RTÉ that her party only saw the text on Monday morning, despite asking to see it for five weeks.\n\nTheresa May, speaking as she welcomed Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to Downing Street, said talks with the EU had \" made a lot of progress\".\n\n\"There are still a couple of issues we need to work on. But we'll be reconvening in Brussels later this week as we look ahead to the December European Council,\" she said.\n\nMrs Foster was invited to hold talks with Mrs May in London on Tuesday, but the party's Westminster leader met the government's chief whip instead.\n\nThe meeting lasted for several hours, but sources suggested to the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg that there was not much sign of a breakthrough yet, with a DUP insider saying the deal needed \"radical surgery\", rather than a few word changes.\n\nA phone call between Mrs May and Mrs Foster had then been expected this evening, but sources added that it would not go ahead, suggesting it had never been arranged.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Citizens' rights, the Irish border and money are the three big negotiation points\n\nThe UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019 and Mrs May is under pressure to reach agreement on the Northern Ireland border so negotiations can move forward.\n\nThe prime minister needs the support of the DUP - the Democratic Unionist Party - which is Northern Ireland's largest party and has 10 MPs at Westminster, because she does not have a majority to win votes in the House of Commons.\n\nResponding to an urgent question from Labour in the Commons on Tuesday, Mr Davis defended the controversial proposal for \"regulatory alignment\" between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland - intended to avoid the need for border checks after Brexit - saying this would apply to the whole of the UK.\n\nThe DUP is unhappy about any agreement which treats Northern Ireland differently.\n\nIt would not mean \"having exactly the same rules\" as the EU, Mr Davis said, but would involve \"sometimes having mutually recognised rules\".\n\nBackbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg warned that having \"regulatory divergence\" from the EU after Brexit was a \"red line\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nLabour's Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer said that when the DUP objected to the draft agreement, \"fantasy met brutal reality\", adding: \"The DUP tail is wagging the Tory dog.\"\n\nMr Starmer also called for the government to drop its plan to enshrine the 29 March 2019 Brexit date in UK law.\n\nMeanwhile, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith suggested the UK should walk away from the negotiations if the EU does not change its position.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Iain Duncan Smith: EU needs to 'back off' or 'move on'\n\nBut Tory MP and former cabinet minister, Nicky Morgan, said his comments were \"madness\" and walking away would \"betrays the futures of millions of young people and those who never wanted to leave in the first place\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nicky Morgan MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe DUP has said \"it is not a question of us budging\" as the talks were between the UK and the EU\n\nDublin - which as an EU member is part of its single market and customs union - has been calling for written guarantees that a \"hard border\" involving customs checks on the island of Ireland will be avoided after Brexit\n\nIt is concerned this could undermine the 1998 peace treaty - the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.\n\nMr Davis said that while the \"integrity\" of the single market and customs union must be respected after Brexit, it was \"equally clear we must respect the integrity of the United Kingdom\" and individual nations could not have separate arrangements.\n\nMrs May needs to show \"sufficient progress\" has been made so far on \"divorce\" issues before European leaders meet on 14 December to decide whether to allow talks on future trade relations to begin.\n\nThe three issues that need to be resolved are the Northern Ireland border, citizens' rights and the amount of money the UK will pay as it leaves.\n\nTalks between Mrs May and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker broke up without agreement on Monday, after the DUP objected to a draft agreement on the future of the Irish border.\n\nKey to the row is how closely aligned Northern Ireland's regulations will be with those of the Republic of Ireland, and the rest of the EU, in order to avoid a \"hard\" border.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Irish PM Leo Varadkar said he was \"surprised and disappointed\"\n\nIreland's deputy prime minister Simon Coveney said Dublin would not budge from its position on the border.\n\nThe EU is treating the row as a \"domestic British political issue\", BBC Brussels correspondent Adam Fleming said.\n\n\"The show is now in London,\" said a European Commission spokesman.\n\nDowning Street has insisted the border was not the only outstanding problem and disagreement remains over the role of the European Court of Justice in overseeing EU citizens' rights in the UK after Brexit.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nSecond Ashes Test, Adelaide Oval (day five of five) Australia won by 120 runs; take lead 2-0 in series\n\nEngland's fightback in the second Test ultimately came to nothing as Australia powered to a 120-run win in Adelaide and a 2-0 Ashes lead.\n\nBeginning the final day on 176-4 in pursuit of 354, the tourists lost nightwatchman Chris Woakes to the second ball and Joe Root for 67 in the third over, both to Josh Hazlewood.\n\nIf Root's departure all but confirmed England's fate, Moeen Ali fell six overs later to make the rest little more than a formality.\n\nJonny Bairstow gamely resisted for 36, but Mitchell Starc ruthlessly wrapped it up with the second new ball to finish with 5-88.\n\nEngland lost six wickets in the first session and were bowled out for 233.\n\nThe hosts will regain the Ashes if they win the third Test in Perth, which begins on 14 December.\n\nEngland have not won at the Waca since 1978 and must reverse an awful run in Australia - they have now lost seven consecutive Tests down under - to have any chance of retaining the urn.\n\nRoot's men only need a draw to keep the Ashes, but England have never come from 2-0 down to draw or win a series against Australia.\n• None We're still massively in this series - Root\n• None Analysis: Jonathan Agnew on the challenges now facing England\n• None How the final day unfolded in Adelaide\n• None Listen to TMS highlights on loop throughout the day\n\nEngland's fight too little, too late\n\nIt is deflating for England that they failed on the final day but the truth is they lost this match - the first day-night Test in Ashes history - in the first half.\n\nAfter winning the toss and putting Australia in, poor bowling allowed the home side to rack up 442-8 declared.\n\nThe tourists were reduced to 142-7 before the fightback began.\n\nWoakes and Craig Overton dragged them past 200 and, when Australia opted against enforcing the follow-on, England utilised the pink ball under lights to set the home side on the way to being 138 all out.\n\nFaced with completing their highest successful run-chase and looking to win after conceding a first-innings deficit in excess of 200 for the first time since Ian Botham's heroics at Headingley in 1981, England gave themselves a chance with a battling batting display on the fourth evening.\n\nWith a potentially historic fifth day in the offing and the warmest conditions of the match to enjoy, plenty of spectators made the gold coin donation to enter the Adelaide Oval.\n\nThe Barmy Army were singing before play began but if Woakes' dismissal gave Australia an ideal start, Root's departure was a mortal blow.\n\nWith the result all but assured, Starc needed only 14 deliveries with the second new ball to take the final three wickets for 13 runs.\n\nEngland can take heart from the punches they landed on Australia - at times home captain Steve Smith was rattled, their bowlers were magnificent in the second innings and some of their batsmen showed they can stand up to the hosts' attack.\n\nStill, England's highest total in four attempts in this series is 302 and Australia have followed up a 10-wicket win in Brisbane with another resounding victory.\n\nThat the next destination is Perth, an Australian Ashes fortress, could well mean that England's time holding the urn is running out.\n\nBefore the final day, Australia had been on the back foot for the majority of the previous four sessions.\n\nOn Tuesday evening, frustration was visible, catches went down and the wasting of both reviews in the space of three deliveries led to loud taunting from the travelling fans.\n\nSmith's men returned refreshed on Wednesday and pace bowler Hazlewood all but guaranteed the outcome of the match with his first 11 deliveries of the day.\n\nFirst he found movement back in to Woakes, who reviewed being given out caught behind for five and shook his head when the third umpire detected the finest of edges.\n\nRoot, so brave the previous night, fell in similar fashion in Hazlewood's next over without adding to his overnight score. He knew a review could not save him and dragged himself from the field.\n\nFrom there, it was little more than a formality.\n\nMoeen was lbw sweeping Nathan Lyon - in all four innings in the series Lyon has dismissed fellow off-spinner Moeen.\n\nBairstow and Overton, dropped at a short third slip by Cameron Bancroft off Pat Cummins, resisted for nine overs, but Overton was pinned leg before from Starc's first delivery with the second new ball.\n\nIn Starc's next over, Stuart Broad edged to wicketkeeper Tim Paine before Bairstow played on to his stumps.\n\nEngland captain Joe Root on BBC Test Match Special: \"We came to the ground expecting. We were right in the game but losing early wickets hampered our chances.\n\n\"The way we went about it yesterday was exceptional and that has to be the benchmark going forward. That shows how we are still massively in this series.\"\n\nOn his decision to bowl first after winning the toss: \"At the time I thought it was the right thing to do. It is easy to question now. I fully back our bowlers in those conditions to take 10 wickets.\"\n\nAustralia captain Smith, on BT Sport, on not enforcing the follow-on: \"Would I do the same again? I'm not sure. It's played on my mind a bit over the last couple of days - have I made a mistake?\n\n\"My rationale was it's really long summer and I don't want to bowl my bowlers into the ground. England fought really hard with the ball and last night.\n\n\"I was a little bit nervous. On another day I might decide to go another way, but we've won the Test match, so it's irrelevant.\"\n\nAustralia pace bowler Josh Hazlewood on ABC: \"We didn't expect England to collapse this morning. We expected them to dig in and fight hard for every run.\"", "A plan to rescue Charles Rennie Mackintosh's masterpiece - The Hill House in Helensburgh - has been unveiled.\n\nThe building's survival is threatened by the effects of weather.\n\nNow, the National Trust for Scotland is hoping to enclose it in a huge see-through structure while a longer term solution is found.", "Shopping centre owner Hammerson, which owns Birmingham's famous Bullring, has agreed a £3.4bn takeover of rival Intu.\n\nThe deal will create the UK's biggest property company, worth £21bn.\n\nIntu owns the Lakeside shopping centre, in Essex. and the Trafford Centre, in Manchester, while Hammerson owns Bicester Village designer outlet and London's Brent Cross shopping centre.\n\nShares in Intu jumped by nearly 19% on the news, while Hammerson's fell by 3%.\n\nAt market close, Intu shares were trading up 13.6% at 226p, while Hammerson's was down 6.2% to trade at 501.5p.\n\nThe combined group plans to target fast growing markets in Spain and Ireland.\n\nJohn Strachan, chairman of Intu, said: \"Intu offers high-quality retail and leisure destinations in the UK and Spain, which, when merged with Hammerson's own top-quality assets in the UK, in France and in Ireland, present a highly attractive proposition for retailers and shoppers in Europe's leading cities.\"\n\nHammerson chairman David Tyler said: \"This transaction will deliver real value for shareholders. The financial strength of the enlarged group and its strong leadership team will make it well-placed to take advantage of higher growth opportunities on a pan-European scale.\"\n\nHammerson shareholders will own 55% of the combined firm and Intu investors the rest. Shareholders will vote on the deal next year.\n\nThe combined group would be led by Hammerson chief executive David Atkins and chaired by Mr Tyler.\n\nRuss Mould, AJ Bell investment director, described Hammerson's takeover of Intu as \"dramatic, given how terribly Intu's shares have gone down this year, amid fears over not just what Brexit may do to consumer confidence but also the fate of bricks-and-mortar retailers at the hands of Amazon and other online rivals\".\n\nThe union of Hammerson and Intu - the company formerly known as Capital Shopping Centres - has been the Holy Grail of property investment for more than a decade.\n\nThe relative underperformance on Intu shares, which have at times traded at a discount to book value as high as 50%, has brought an opportunity for David Atkins, Hammerson's ambitious chief executive.\n\nThe other key factor was the willingness of John Whittaker, the secretive billionaire who was the big shareholder in Intu, to come to the table.\n\nThe end result is a shopping centre monster - £21bn worth of assets across Europe - that will quickly weed out underperforming properties once the deal is done.\n\nGlobalData retail analyst Sofie Willmott said the deal would give the combined group a stake in 12 of the 20 UK super-malls - large shopping centres of more than 20 million sq ft that attract more than 20 million customers a year.\n\nThis \"dominance\" would \"bolster the group's negotiating power with both retailers and leisure operators\", she added, and help Hammerson to compete better with rival Westfield.\n\nAccording to GlobalData forecasts, spending growth in supermalls is due to outstrip overall spending growth in bricks-and-mortar stores over the next five years.\n\nMs Willmott said she expected the enlarged group to \"prioritise\" supermall development.\n\n\"As clothing and footwear retailers focus on super-malls to create large-scale, experience-led stores, physical retail spend will move away from town centres towards destination shopping centres, ensuring supermalls space is hot property,\" she said.\n\n\"The proposed deal will net the group a stake in almost 60% of all UK supermalls space, making it a force in the retail landscape, well placed to benefit from retail spend shifting across locations.\"\n• None Westfield to be 'catalyst' for Croydon", "A member of House of Commons staff was arrested after a fight outside one of Parliament's busiest bars.\n\nThe Sports and Social Club has been closed and a 57-year-old man arrested on suspicion of GBH and affray.\n\nPolice later released the man, who remains under investigation.\n\nA 64-year-old man, also a Commons employee, is reported to have been taken to hospital in an ambulance following the incident, which took place on Tuesday evening.\n\nScotland Yard said police were still investigating what happened but no-one else was thought to have been involved.\n\nA House of Lords spokesperson said the Sports and Social Club bar would stay closed until the investigation was complete.\n\nThe venue, which is a popular haunt for MPs and their staff, is a large traditional pub in the bowels of the Parliamentary estate.\n\nIt was recently taken back under the direct control of the House of Lords authorities from an outside contractor and its future was already thought to be in doubt.", "A CBS News reporter and her cameraman were asked to help evacuate a ranch as flames spread quickly.", "The government has not carried out any impact assessments of leaving the EU on the UK economy, Brexit Secretary David Davis has told MPs.\n\nMr Davis had previously said the government had done 57 studies on 85% of the UK economy about the impact of Brexit.\n\nBBC News had a look in its archives.", "Hallyday broke from France's classic \"chanson\" tradition in the 1950s, starting singing rock and roll in French\n\nFrance's biggest rock star Johnny Hallyday has died after a battle with lung cancer. He was 74.\n\nThe singer sold about 100 million records and starred in a number of films in a career that began in 1960.\n\nHe was made a Chevalier of the Legion D'Honneur by President Jacques Chirac in 1997.\n\nThe French simply called him \"Our Johnny\". However, outside the Francophone zone, Hallyday was virtually unknown.\n\nIn a statement, his wife Laeticia said: \"Johnny Hallyday has left us. I write these words without believing them. But yet, it's true. My man is no longer with us.\n\n\"He left us tonight as he lived his whole life, with courage and dignity.\"\n\nHallyday, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Smet, decided he wanted to be a singer after seeing Elvis Presley on screen in 1957. Hallyday was nicknamed the \"French Presley\" by his numerous fans.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by JohnnyHallydayVEVO This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nHis children, Laura and David, wrote a joint statement, saying: \"Today we lost our father,\" and thanking fans for the outpouring of support.\n\n\"Our pain is immense,\" they said.\n\nThat sentiment was echoed by Laura's mother, Nathalie Baye, who posted an empty black square to Instagram with the single line caption: \"My grief is immense.\"\n\nReacting to the news, French President Emmanuel Macron referenced the title of a recent tribute album by saying: \"There is a little bit of Johnny in all of us.\"\n\nHe added: \"Across generations, he carved himself into the lives of French people. He charmed them through the generosity you saw in his concerts: so epic, so intimate, in huge venues, in small spots.\"\n\nOther French politicians followed suit, including former presidents François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, and former Prime Minister Alain Juppé.\n\nFans gathered outside the star's home in the town of Marnes-la-Coquette, west of Paris.\n\nSpeaking to the AFP news agency, one fan said: \"My heart is in two, my heart is broken.\" He added that he had hoped to see 1,000 of Johnny's concerts.\n\nAnother, Michele, told reporters: \"He was a great love of my youth... he always rocked me. I've always loved this man.\n\n\"It's an homage to show him, if he still sees us, that I still love him and I'll always love him.\"\n\nTributes also rolled in from his peers in the entertainment industry.\n\nFrench film icon of the 1950s and 60s, Brigitte Bardot, wrote that she was \"in shock\".\n\n\"Johnny is a monument. He is France,\" she said in a social media post alongside a photo of her hugging the singer.\n\nAmong those outside of France to pay tribute was American guitarist Lenny Kravitz.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Lenny Kravitz This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a French-language tweet, singer Celine Dion called him \"a legend of showbusiness\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Celine Dion This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHeavily influenced by Elvis, Hallyday broke from France's classic \"chanson\" tradition in the 1950s and began singing rock and roll in French.\n\n\"He introduced rock and roll to France. He's one of the few singers about whom people say that he's an animal on stage,\" journalist Philippe Le Corre once said.\n\n\"He's quite incredible. People of all ages like him,\" he added.\n\nDespite his success at home, he failed to crack the lucrative American or any English-speaking market.\n\nThe USA Today newspaper once described him as \"the greatest rock star you never heard of\".\n\nHallyday was known for his hard work and almost non-stop touring.\n\nBut he was also famous for his wild rock star antics, both on and off stage.\n\nHeavy drinking, drug-taking and five marriages all contributed a sometimes chaotic lifestyle.\n• None Can we learn to love 'le pop'?", "Last updated on .From the section Tennis\n\nSerena Williams has entered the Australian Open in January, tournament director Craig Tiley has said.\n\nTiley told the Herald Sun the 23-time Grand Slam winner is \"very likely\" to return to tennis in Melbourne.\n\n\"She's got her visa, she's entered, she's practising,\" he said. \"There's no question she'll be ready in our view.\"\n• None Bumps, boobs and bouncing back: An athlete's path through pregnancy\n\nWilliams, who has won the Australian Open seven times, has posted on social media that she has returned to training.\n\nAustralia's Margaret Court, with 24, is the only player still ahead of Serena in terms of Grand Slam singles titles.\n\n\"She wants to break a record that is Margaret Court's,\" added Tiley. \"It would be a pretty significant accomplishment for her to be able to do that.\"", "Homes are being consumed by large fires spreading across the southern California countryside.\n\nFirefighters are tackling the blaze as residents flee the affected areas, but attempts at controlling the spread of the fire have been unsuccessful.\n\nDrivers filmed the flames from their cars on the 405 near Bel Air.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Woman was kept alive despite her advance directive wishes\n\nThe family of an 81-year-old woman has received a £45,000 payout after she was kept alive against her will.\n\nBrenda Grant made a living will stating she feared degradation and indignity more than death after seeing her mum lose independence through dementia.\n\nBut the George Eliot hospital, in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, misplaced the document and she was artificially fed for 22 months.\n\nThe trust has apologised for its failure.\n\nMrs Grant, from Nuneaton, had an advance directive drawn up to say if she were no longer of sound mind or had suffered from a list of medical ailments, she should not have treatment to prolong her life.\n\nIt also confirmed she should not be given food, but that distressing symptoms should be controlled by pain relief even though the treatment might shorten her life.\n\nMrs Grant's daughter said she wanted to prevent other people going through similar problems\n\nIn October 2012, Mrs Grant suffered a catastrophic stroke that left her unable to walk, talk or swallow.\n\nAfter spending nearly three months in the George Eliot Hospital she was fitted with a stomach peg so she could be fed directly, then discharged into a nursing home.\n\nThe hospital had the advance directive but it was hidden in the middle of a thick pile of medical notes, Mrs Grant's daughter Tracy Barker said.\n\nOnce in the nursing home, Mrs Grant became agitated and tried to pull out the tubes in her arm, prompting staff to put mittens on her hands.\n\nMrs Barker said: \"She had a fear of being kept alive because she had a fear of going into a nursing home.\n\n\"She never wanted to be a burden to anybody, so she wouldn't have wanted any of us to look after her.\"\n\nBrenda Grant, pictured with her grandson, \"never wanted to become a burden to anybody\"\n\nMrs Grant did not tell her children about the living will.\n\nIt was her GP who alerted them to it shortly before Mrs Grant was re-admitted to hospital.\n\nIn a meeting with hospital medics, the GP then argued alongside Mrs Grant's family that her living will should be respected, Mrs Barker said.\n\nTubes were withdrawn and she died a few days later on 4 August 2014.\n\n\"I'm very, very angry with myself that I let my mum suffer for two years that she didn't need to suffer for,\" Mrs Barker said.\n\n\"I didn't want my mum to die, nobody wants their mum to die.\n\n\"But my mum died the day she had that stroke because she was never, ever capable of doing anything that she did before.\n\n\"I know she would not have wanted to live like she was.\"\n\nBrenda Grant's advance directive was buried in the middle of a thick pile of medical notes, her daughter said\n\nMrs Barker said she had sought legal advice to highlight the case so the same thing did not happen to others.\n\nRichard Stanford, from law firm BTTJ, said: \"It was a really interesting case, we instructed a human rights barrister very early on because the case appeared to be unique.\"\n\nThe George Eliot Hospital Trust admitted liability and in an out-of-court settlement agreed to pay £45,000.\n\nIn a letter, it stated: \"It is accepted that the trust failed to act in accordance with the deceased's advance directive and failed to store the advance directive in a way that it could easily be noted.\"\n\nThe trust said it had now begun recording the existence of an advanced directive on the front page of a patient's notes.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Banks should end all unauthorised overdraft charges because they are trapping people in persistent debt, the financial charity StepChange has said.\n\nThe organisation also wants banks and regulators to do more to identify people caught up in a \"vicious cycle of borrowing\".\n\nEven where customers have admitted they are in trouble, it said banks often fail to help.\n\nHowever, High Street banks said they were committed to lending responsibly.\n\nIn 2016 some 2.1 million people used their overdraft every month of the year, according to industry figures.\n\nThe UK's biggest bank, Lloyds, has already abolished charges for unplanned overdrafts.\n\nCustomers of Barclays cannot get an unauthorised overdraft, but they can apply for \"emergency lending\".\n\nHowever others, including Santander, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and NatWest still offer unplanned borrowing.\n\nSantander charges up to £95 for each month a customer is overdrawn. RBS, NatWest and HSBC have a cap of £80 a month.\n\nAs part of its study into high cost credit the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it was considering a ban on charges for unplanned overdrafts - but it is not due to report until 2018.\n\nHalf of StepChange's clients have overdrafts and each owe an average of £1,722.\n\nThey often use their overdrafts to pay off household bills, so end up in a cycle of debt.\n\nCallum Bell told the BBC he is spending more time worrying about debt\n\nCallum Bell, a mental health nurse from north-eastern England, is reliant on borrowing to boost his income.\n\n\"Every month I'm dipping a little bit more into my overdraft,\" he told the BBC. \"Over Christmas it's even more difficult.\n\n\"I spend more time worrying about my finances and I'm not alone in this. It's a problem across the country.\"\n\nBanks also insist on giving customers large overdrafts, even though they may not be able to afford the repayments, the charity claims.\n\nOne of its clients was offered an overdraft of £2,250, even though they were working part-time and on benefits.\n\nIt says such banks are guilty of \"unaffordable lending\".\n\nWhile it is still well nigh impossible to understand the charging structure for overdrafts, things are better than they used to be.\n\nBack in 2014, for example, Oliver Foster-Burnell, from Taunton, won a case against Lloyds TSB, who charged him £743 after he went into his overdraft by just £2.67.\n\nSubsequently banks began capping overdraft fees. Indeed, since September 2017 all banks have been obliged to publish a maximum monthly charge.\n\nBut while the average borrower benefits from a cap, some individuals end up paying more.\n\n\"Lenders and regulators must take action to need to ensure that overdraft lending is affordable, that borrowers in financial difficulty get the right support and that we break the cycle of persistent overdraft debt,\" said Peter Tatton, head of policy at StepChange.\n\nHowever the banking industry said it was already doing its best to help customers in financial difficulty.\n\n\"Overdrafts can help customers smooth their household spending, but if circumstances change or they are struggling with their finances, they should contact their lender straightaway,\" said a spokesperson for UK Finance.\n\n\"Lenders will support customers and allow them a period of time to seek impartial and independent debt advice.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The paper blamed the error on \"a technical problem\"\n\nA local newspaper accidentally published instructions to writers on the front page instead of a headline.\n\nThe Cambridge News left \"100pt splash heading here\" as the text in place of a headline about a \"sex lair\" school.\n\nThe newspaper's editor-in-chief David Bartlett apologised and said it was unclear how it had happened but blamed the gaffe on \"a technical problem\".\n\nReaders were quick to poke fun at the paper on social media, with some suggesting a headline competition.\n\nOne person suggested \"austerity ate our headline\" as a possible entry.\n\nAnother commented: \"The 100PT Splash heading... doesn't get as much coverage as it should.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Cambridge News This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA further apology explained \"the headline should have read '£2m for 'sex lair' school' in reference to a story printed on page 11 of today's newspaper\".\n\nMr Bartlett added: \"I want to apologise sincerely to our readers for this mistake, which happened due to a technical problem.\n\n\"We are still looking into how this happened and want our readers to know we take this seriously.\"\n\nThe Cambridge News is owned by Trinity Mirror plc.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Ray Dolby died in 2013 at the age of 80\n\nThe family of sound pioneer Ray Dolby has donated £85m from his estate to Cambridge University.\n\nThe US-born engineer was best known for his work in developing noise reduction and surround-sound technology. He died in 2013 aged 80.\n\nThe donation will go to the Department of Physics' Cavendish Laboratory where Dr Dolby worked on his PhD in 1961.\n\nIt is the second largest gift to the university in its 808-year history after Bill Gates donated $210m in 2000.\n\nDr Dolby came to Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar in 1957 and studied physics at Pembroke College which itself received £35m from his estate in 2015.\n\nThe bequest will complete the redevelopment of the Cavendish Laboratory, known as Cav III, with the Ray Dolby Centre set to open in 2021/22.\n\nA research group and a professorship in physics will also be named in honour of the inventor.\n\nProfessor Andy Parker, head of the Cavendish, said: \"In addition to serving as a home for physics research at Cambridge, it will be a top-class facility for the nation.\n\n\"This gift is the most significant investment in physics research in generations.\"\n\nThe money will go towards development of the new Cavendish Laboratory, which specialises in physics\n\nDr Dolby's widow, Dagmar, said the university played a pivotal role in his life \"both professionally and personally\".\n\nCambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen Toope also described the donation as \"a fitting tribute to Ray Dolby's legacy\".\n\n\"His research paved the way for an entire industry,\" he said.\n\n\"A century from now, we can only speculate on which discoveries will alter the way we live our lives and which new industries will have been born in the Cavendish Laboratory, in large part thanks to this extraordinarily generous gift.\"\n\nThe multimillion-pound donation also pushes Cambridge University's £2bn fundraising campaign - which was launched in 2015 - over the halfway mark.\n\nThe campaign will support students and university facilities, as well as boost its international reputation.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Sarah sits at a windowsill to do her homework\n\nMary, and her nine-year-old daughter, Sarah, are homeless and have spent the past 13 months living in a single room in a hostel.\n\n\"Nobody knows how we are living,\" says Mary. \"No-one knows we are in this situation.\"\n\n\"They know we are in temporary accommodation, but they don't know we are living in a hostel - that we've got no space.\"\n\nAnd there certainly is a lack of space. It is just about possible to walk around one side of the double bed.\n\nThere is a small table, but not enough room for mother and daughter to sit and eat a meal together.\n\nTheir belongings are piled up precariously in laundry-bag towers against the wall, and there is not a free surface in the room. Their stuff is everywhere.\n\nSarah has to sit cross-legged on the bed and lean on the windowsill to do her homework.\n\nShe is one of the 128,000 children in Britain who will spend Christmas in temporary accommodation this year, according to official figures - the highest number for a decade.\n\nVery few of these will be sleeping rough, but they will be saddled with the hardships of living in temporary accommodation.\n\nMary and Sarah (not their real names) found themselves homeless when their landlord wanted his property back and they could not afford another deposit and rent in advance.\n\nThe office worker struggles to eat let alone cook healthy meals in the room, where just one of the cooker rings works.\n\n\"I am leading a double life because I go to work in my suit all dressed up and I go to church all dressed up, but nobody knows what I am going through.\"\n\nAnd despite her young years, Sarah seems to want to keep her living conditions secret from her school friends too.\n\n\"I have friends and I really want my friends to come to my house, but they can't come here.\n\n\"They have to come to a nice house. So if they ask me I say I'll have to ask my mum.\n\n\"It's stopping me from having friends and hanging out.\"\n\nAccording to housing and homelessness charity Shelter, families living in temporary accommodation are often confined to one single room, which significantly disrupts the children's ability to play or follow a daily routine\n\nInterviews by the charity with some families in such conditions, revealed children feeling anxious, afraid and ashamed.\n\nMary says the practicalities of living in such a small space are very challenging.\n\n\"It's the storing of our clothes, the washing of our clothes.\"\n\nLike others in similar situations, Mary struggles to stay positive.\n\n\"It's very easy to not do anything and just come back from wherever and go to bed. I'm trying so hard to fight that.\"\n\nMary adds: \"What keeps us going, for me and my daughter, is our faith.\n\n\"I think if I didn't have that I would have ended up in a mental hospital.\"\n\nThe government says it is working with Shelter and others to end homelessness.\n\nIt is providing £1bn until 2020 to tackle the issue and putting into practice the Homelessness Reduction Act, which aims to ensure people receive the support they need earlier.\n\nA Department for Communities and Local Government spokesman said: \"Councils have a duty to provide safe, secure and suitable temporary accommodation.\n\n\"This means that people are getting help now and no family is without a roof over their head this Christmas.\"\n\nMary and her daughter have since been moved out of the hostel by their local council but only into another temporary setting.", "The bone claimed to be from St Nicholas has been radio carbon tested for the first time\n\nA fragment of bone claimed to be from St Nicholas - the 4th-Century saintly inspiration for Father Christmas - has been radio carbon tested by the University of Oxford.\n\nThe test has found that the relic does date from the time of St Nicholas, who is believed to have died about 343AD.\n\nWhile not providing proof that this is from the saint, it has been confirmed as authentically from that era.\n\nThe Oxford team says these are the first tests carried out on the bones.\n\nRelics of St Nicholas, who died in modern-day Turkey, have been kept in the crypt of a church in Bari in Italy since the 11th Century.\n\nBut the popularity of the saint, and the associations with Christmas, have seen many fragments of bones being taken to other locations, raising questions about how many of these are authentic.\n\nThe tests in Oxford have been carried out on a fragment of pelvis, which had been in a church in France and is currently owned by a priest, Father Dennis O'Neill, from Illinois in the United States.\n\nSt Nicholas figures meeting in southern Germany this week, at the start of the Christmas season\n\nThe radio carbon dating tests, for the Oxford Relics Cluster at Keble College's Advanced Studies Centre, have confirmed that the bone is from the correct era for St Nicholas.\n\nProf Tom Higham, a director of the centre, says this is unlike many such relics which often turn out to be much later inventions.\n\n\"This bone fragment, in contrast, suggests that we could possibly be looking at remains from St Nicholas himself,\" says the Oxford archaeologist.\n\nThere are hundreds of other bones claimed to be from St Nicholas, including a collection in a church in Venice.\n\nAnd the researchers now want to use DNA testing to see how many bones are really from a single individual - and how many might be linked to the bone tested in Oxford.\n\nThe Oxford team are interested in whether the part of the pelvis they have tested matches the relics in Bari, where the collection does not include a full pelvis.\n\nDr Georges Kazan, co-director of the centre at Keble College, says: \"It is exciting to think that these relics, which date from such an ancient time, could in fact be genuine.\"\n\nFor the researchers, this might seem like Christmas has come early. But the findings cannot provide evidence that this is definitely from the real St Nicholas.\n\n\"Science is not able to definitely prove that it is, it can only prove that it is not, however,\" says Prof Higham.", "A woman taken from her mother as a newborn in Argentina has been reunited with her relatives by campaign group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.\n\nAdriana, 40, who asked not to have her surname released, was identified after she took a DNA test.\n\nHer DNA matched those of relatives of her parents, who disappeared under Argentina's military rule.\n\nAdriana is the 126th child found by the Grandmothers, who campaign for victims of the \"Dirty War\".\n\nSpeaking at a news conference, Adriana said that when the couple who had brought her up died, she was told by someone that she was not their biological child.\n\n\"I found out on a Saturday and on the Monday I had already gone to the Grandmothers, I wanted to know if I was the daughter of people who had disappeared, more than anything because of my date of birth,\" she said referring to the hundreds of children who were taken from left-wing activists under military rule between 1976 and 1983.\n\nShe took a DNA test but, after four months, still no match had been found in the database the Grandmothers keep of relatives of those who disappeared or were murdered by the military regime.\n\n\"I began to think I had been abandoned, given away, sold, that they hadn't wanted me,\" said Adriana about her biological parents.\n\nBut on Monday she finally got a call from the National Commission for the Right to Identity (CONADI) telling her they had information they would like to give her in person.\n\nAdriana went there straight away and was told she was the daughter of Violeta Ortolani and Edgardo Garnier.\n\nActivists held up pictures of Adriana's parents, who disappeared in 1977\n\nThe couple had met as engineering students in the city of La Plata, where they were also active in a left-wing student group.\n\nMs Ortolani was detained by the military in December 1976 when she was eight months pregnant.\n\nAdriana was born in captivity in January 1977. Mr Garnier was detained a month later while he was searching for his missing partner and child.\n\nNeither Violeta Ortolani nor Edgardo Garnier, who were 23 and 21 years old at the time of their detention, were ever seen again. They are two of some 30,000 people who disappeared during military rule.\n\nMr Garnier's mother never stopped looking for her missing grandchild and has been a key figure in the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.\n\nShe could not attend Tuesday's news conference but Adriana said she had already spoken to her by phone.\n\n\"She is beautiful inside and out and such a personality.\" Adriana said. \"Love is stronger than hate, always.\"", "Sean Rigg died from a heart attack in police custody in 2008\n\nFive police officers will not face prosecution after the death of a mentally ill man in custody, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has ruled.\n\nSean Rigg's family said it was \"shameful\" the CPS had upheld its decision from 2016.\n\nThe musician, 40, died from a heart attack at Brixton police station in south London in 2008.\n\nIn 2012 an inquest jury found that police used \"unsuitable\" force after arresting Mr Rigg.\n\nThe CPS chose not to authorise charges against any of the officers last year because the evidential threshold was not met.\n\nA review began at the request of Mr Rigg's family.\n\nMr Rigg's sister, Marcia Rigg, said in a family statement: \"It is shameful that the CPS should yet again find there is insufficient evidence.\n\n\"After years of vigorous campaigning to highlight the flaws in this wretched and unfair judicial system, there is no justice in the UK for families like mine.\n\n\"Any hope has been crushed.\"\n\nIn the weeks before his death Mr Rigg, who had paranoid schizophrenia, had not taken his medication.\n\nMarcia Rigg believes the police have not been held accountable over her brother's death\n\nHe was held down for eight minutes in the \"prone position\" after his arrest in Balham for attacking passers-by and officers in August 2008. He fell ill in a police van and died in custody.\n\nThe Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and Met Police are still liaising over whether any officer has a misconduct case to answer.\n\nDaniel Machover, the family solicitor, said: \"As the police continue to pose a danger to those suffering from mental ill health, it is saddening that the CPS has failed to bring charges that would help to bring about change and accountability.\"\n\nA CPS spokesperson said: \"A full review of the evidence, including new material provided by the IPCC, was undertaken by a specialist CPS prosecutor who was not involved in the original decision.\n\n\"The review has now concluded and has upheld the original decision not to authorise charges in relation to the death of Mr Rigg, on the basis that the evidential test in the code for crown prosecutors is not met.\"\n\nThe Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said in a statement: \"The MPS has been notified by the Crown Prosecution Service that the decision not to prosecute any police officer in connection with the death of Sean Rigg has been reviewed and upheld.\n\n\"The MPS has responded to the IPCC about its findings in relation to whether any officer involved has a case to answer for either misconduct or gross misconduct. We await the IPCC's further response and continue to liaise in line with the regulations that govern police conduct matters.\n\n\"We will do all we can to progress matters as quickly as possible.\"", "A BBC investigation has found online streaming apps used by children to make live broadcasts are being infiltrated by men trying to groom them.\n\nInternet safety campaigner Qudsiyah Shah posed as a 14-year-old girl to find out what kind of dangers children could be exposed to on such services.\n\nIt comes as the National Crime Agency says it arrested more than 190 men across the UK in a single week in connection with sexual offences against children.", "A woman has criticised McDonald's after she was told to remove her hijab because it posed a \"security threat\".\n\nThe 19-year-old Muslim student, who wants to remain anonymous, was approached by a security guard at a London branch of the fast food chain.\n\nMcDonald's says it has suspended the security guard and is investigating the matter. It added that the restaurant was managed and owned by a franchisee.\n\nBut the student told BBC Asian Network \"it's not enough\".\n\n\"They basically said that the security guard was employed by a third-party company and so what they're trying to say is, 'We don't condone his conduct but we can't be held responsible because we're not the people who hire them'.\n\n\"But if you're going to use a separate company you need to be aware of what kind of policies they have, especially in a city like London.\"\n\nThe student was with her friend Sabrina at the Holloway Road restaurant in north London on 30 November.\n\nIn video footage recorded on her mobile phone, a black security guard can be heard saying: \"If you just don't mind taking it off,\" to which the 19-year-old responds: \"It's not just a matter of taking it off, I wear it for religious reasons and I'm not ashamed of it.\n\n\"I live down the street,\" she adds. \"This is a hate crime.\"\n\nShe told the BBC: \"You would expect someone of colour to be more sympathetic to a minority that is persecuted.\n\n\"That just reflects how current this issue is - almost anyone could actually believe that I am a security threat.\"\n\nSabrina shared the video on Twitter, and had an overwhelming response.\n\n\"A white British national... stood up for her,\" said Sabrina.\n\n\"People on social media were praising the man who defended her.\n\n\"As a non-hijab wearing Muslim, I recognise my privilege in society.\n\n\"Discrimination that I might face isn't necessarily as overt.\n\nBut her friend said she would not be deterred from wearing the hijab.\n\n\"If you want to dress modestly, you should have the right to dress modestly and it shouldn't be politicised,\" said the 19-year-old.\n\n\"It's my choice. If I want to cover my hair, I should have the right to cover my hair.\"\n\nMcDonald's UK chief executive Paul Pomroy said in a statement: \"I am deeply sorry that this happened, and am taking the matter very seriously.\n\n\"We welcome people of all faiths and do not have any policy which restricts or prevents anyone wearing a hijab, or any other religious attire, in our restaurants.\n\n\"The restaurant involved is managed and owned by Amir Atefi, a franchisee.\n\n\"Mr Atefi is proud of his diverse workforce, and was upset and concerned to hear how one of his valued customers has been treated.\"", "The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned against eating raw dough, batter or cake mixture because of the risk of E. coli from flour.\n\nThe FDA updated its guidelines following an investigation into an E. coli outbreak in the US in 2016 where flour was found to be the cause.\n\nCooking the flour kills any bacteria that can cause infections.\n\nThe FDA says commercially made cookie dough ice-cream products are OK as manufacturers use treated flour.\n\nIn 2016, dozens of people across the US were made sick by a strain of bacteria called Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O121, that was linked to flour.\n\nA mill in Kansas City, Missouri, was found to be the probable source of the outbreak and ten million pounds of flour were recalled.\n\nPreviously there have been warnings about eating raw dough and cake mixture due to the presence of raw eggs that can pose a risk of salmonella.\n\nThe UK Food Standards Agency advises against eating raw dough \"because it may not be safe\".\n\nBut Leslie Smoot, a senior adviser for the FDA, says flour alone is also a risk.\n\n\"Flour is derived from a grain that comes directly from the field and typically is not treated to kill bacteria.\"\n\nBacteria from animal waste in the field could contaminate the grain, which is then harvested and milled into flour.\n\nE. coli O121 can cause abdominal cramps and diarrhoea (often bloody) but most people recover within a week.\n\nIn rare cases it can cause a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome.\n\nYoung and elderly people and those with weakened immune systems are most at risk of complications.\n\nThe FDA says we should not eat or taste any raw biscuit dough, cake mix, batter, or any other raw dough or batter product that is supposed to be cooked or baked.", "Jeremy Hunt has told Facebook to \"stay away from my kids\" after it launched a new messaging app aimed at children.\n\nThe social network announced on Tuesday it was testing Messenger Kids in the US for those under 13 who cannot sign up for its full service.\n\nThe health secretary took to Twitter to condemn the new tool, saying the firm had promised to prevent under-age use of its product.\n\n\"Instead they are actively targeting younger children,\" he wrote.\n\n\"Stay away from my kids please Facebook and act responsibly!\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jeremy Hunt This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAccording to the BBC's North America technology reporter, Dave Lee, the prevention methods to stop under-age children using Facebook are \"trivial\", meaning more than 20 million under-13-year-olds are thought to be using the network.\n\nMessenger Kids is a simplified version of Facebook's existing messaging app which needs parents to approve any contacts added by their children.\n\nOnce confirmed to be safe, friends can do live video chats, send pictures and text each other.\n\nThe firm said it offered a more appropriate app, which parents could allow their children to use on tablets and smartphones.\n\nIt has not responded directly to Mr Hunt's tweet, but in a blog post, Facebook's Loren Cheng said the company had spoken to thousands of parents and dozens of experts in child development and online safety.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSome 27,000 residents were forced to flee their homes in the middle of the night as a fast-moving wildfire ripped through southern California.\n\nSeveral thousand homes are under mandatory evacuation in the cities of Ventura and Santa Paula, some 70 miles (115 km) north of Los Angeles.\n\nFirefighters warned the fire was moving so fast they were unable to contain it.\n\nFanned by high winds, the fire swept through tens of thousands of acres in a matter of hours.\n\nCalifornia Governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in Ventura County, promising to attack the fire \"with all we've got\".\n\nIt was earlier reported that one person died in a traffic accident while trying to flee the blaze, but Ventura County Fire Capt Steve Kaufmann has since told the Associated Press that no body was found in an overturned car.\n\nOfficials said one firefighter was injured. They also said 150 structures had been destroyed, and more than 260,000 people were without power.\n\nHundreds of firefighters worked through the night to tackle the blaze, named the Thomas Fire, but fire chiefs admitted they were fighting a losing battle.\n\n\"The prospects for containment are not good. Really, Mother Nature is going to decide,\" Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen earlier told reporters.\n\nMore than 1,000 firefighters are now battling the fires, which have burned 45,500 acres. Authorities have warned of widespread smoke and advised people with health conditions, the elderly and children to stay indoors in affected areas.\n\nForecasters say ferocious Santa Ana winds and low humidity will continue for a few days, making for extremely dangerous conditions.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by VCFD PIO This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nResidents of Santa Paula and Ventura received mandatory evacuation notices via their phones and from emergency workers going house to house.\n\n\"My son is a firefighter and I'm not going to wait around for someone to rescue me,\" June Byrum told CBS, saying her 91-year-old father, husband and dog had already left for a safe place.\n\nSanta Paula has 30,000 residents, while Ventura's population is about 110,000. Both are in Ventura County.\n\nAnother fire broke out early on Tuesday local time closer to Los Angeles, in Sylmar. Homes have been damaged and more than 400 firefighters have been deployed there.\n\nThe Ventura County fire is believed to have broken out close to Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula at some time after 18:00 local time on Monday (02:00 GMT).\n\nIt was quickly fanned by gusts of up to 70mph (115 kph) that burned through dry brush.\n\nCalifornia has been hit hard by wildfires in recent months. At least 40 people were killed when fires ripped through parts of northern California's wine region in October. Some 10,000 structures were destroyed.\n\nAt least 150 structures are believed to have been destroyed by the blaze", "Last updated on .From the section Winter Sports\n\nRussia has been banned from competing at next year's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang by the International Olympic Committee.\n\nBut Russian athletes who can prove they are clean would be allowed to compete in South Korea under a neutral flag.\n\nIt follows an investigation into allegations of state-sponsored doping at the 2014 Games hosted by Russia in Sochi.\n\n\"This should draw a line under this damaging episode,\" the IOC said.\n\nThe decision has been widely condemned in Russia, with some politicians urging a boycott of the Games, though other officials have welcomed the chance for 'clean' athletes to take part.\n\nIOC president Thomas Bach and his board - who made the announcement in Lausanne on Tuesday - came to the decision after reading through the findings and recommendations of a 17-month investigation headed up by the former president of Switzerland, Samuel Schmid.\n\nThe Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) has been suspended but the IOC said it will invite Russian clean athletes to compete in February under the name 'Olympic Athlete from Russia' (OAR).\n\nDespite repeated Russian denials, the Schmid report has found evidence of \"the systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system\" which back up previous allegations of government involvement in cheating in the run-up to and during the Winter Olympics almost four years ago.\n\nBach said: \"This was an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and sport. This should draw a line under this damaging episode and serve as a catalyst for a more effective anti-doping system.\"\n\nThe Games in South Korea, which start on 9 February, will now be without one of the powerhouses of Olympic sport.\n• None Who gets Russia's medals in Pyeongchang?\n• None Russian doping - how we got here\n\nThis entire investigation was instigated by whistleblowing doctor Grigory Rodchenkov, who was director of Russia's anti-doping laboratory during Sochi 2014.\n\nHe alleged the country ran a systematic programme of doping and claimed he had created substances to enhance athletes' performances and switched urine samples to avoid detection.\n\nThe World Anti Doping Agency (Wada) enlisted the services of Canadian law professor and sports lawyer Dr Richard McLaren to look into the allegations.\n\nThe McLaren report concluded 1,000 athletes across 30 sports benefitted from the doping programme between 2012 and 2015.\n\nWada obtained what it said was a Russian laboratory database which it felt corroborated McLaren's conclusions, while re-testing of Russian athletes' samples resulted in a host of retrospective bans and stripping of medals.\n\nLast week, another IOC commission, led by Swiss lawyer Denis Oswald, gave its full backing to evidence provided by Dr Rodchenkov.\n\nWhat else has the IOC ruled?\n\nAs well as the Olympic Committee ban, the IOC has also decided to ban Russia's deputy Prime Minister and former Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko from all future Olympic Games. He is currently the lead organiser for the 2018 World Cup, which is being staged in Russia next summer.\n\nIn his report to the IOC executive board, Schmid says Mutko, as the then minister for sport, \"had the ultimate administrative responsibility for the acts perpetrated at the time\".\n\nResponding to the report, Fifa said the IOC ruling had \"no impact\" on preparations for the World Cup.\n\nFootball's world governing body added that it \"continues to take every measure at its competitions to ensure football remains free from doping\" and every player will be tested next summer and \"the analysis of all doping samples will be carried out at Wada laboratories outside Russia\".\n• None No accreditation for any official from the Russian ministry of sport for the Olympic Winter Games Pyeongchang 2018\n• None Former Deputy sports minister, Yuri Nagornykh, is excluded from any participation in all future Olympic Games\n• None Dmitry Chernyshenko, the former CEO of the organising committee Sochi 2014, is withdrawn from the Co-ordination Commission Beijing 2022\n• None ROC President Alexander Zhukov is suspended as an IOC member, given that his membership is linked to his position as ROC president\n• None The ROC is fined 15 million dollars (£11.2 million) to reimburse the costs of the investigations and to contribute to the establishment of the Independent Testing Authority (ITA)\n• None If Russia \"respects and implements\" what the IOC has called for, the sanctions may be lifted in time for the closing ceremony.\n\nHow can clean Russian athletes get to Pyeongchang?\n\nThe IOC will allow athletes from Russia to compete individually or as part of a team in South Korea, providing they wear an OAR uniform. The Olympic Anthem will be played in any ceremony.\n\nA specialist panel appointed by the IOC will decide whether an athlete can compete by following these rules:\n• None Athletes must have qualified according to the qualification standards of their respective sport\n• None Athletes must not have been disqualified or declared ineligible for any violation of anti-doping rules\n• None Athletes must have undergone all the pre-Games targeted tests recommended by the Pre-Games Testing Task Force\n• None Athletes must have undergone any other testing requirements specified by the panel to ensure a level playing field\n\nAction taken so far\n• None A total of 25 Russians have so far been banned from the Olympics for life on the recommendation of the IOC commission\n• None The first part of the McLaren report was when Wada called on the IOC to ban Russia from the Rio Olympics\n• None instead asking individual sporting federations to rule on their participation\n\nWada has not called again for the IOC to ban Russia, but recently declared that the country remains 'non-compliant' with its code.\n• None Russia 'not to blame' for Sochi scandal\n\nThe IPC will make public its decision on the potential participation of Russian athletes at the 2018 Winter Paralympics in London on 22 December.\n\nPresident of the ROC, Alexander Zhukov, said there was positive and negative news from the IOC's decision.\n\nHe welcomed the invitation for clean athletes to compete in South Korea but does not agree with the ruling that they must compete under a neutral flag.\n\n\"If, as proposed, the temporary restrictions are lifted on the last day, then on the last day Russian athletes will compete under their flag with all the athletes from the rest of the world,\" he told reporters in Lausanne.\n\nHe said a final decision on participation is still to be made.\n\nRussian politicians and athletes were united in their condemnation of the IOC decision.\n\nThe deputy chairman of Russian parliament's defence committee, Frants Klintsevich, said Russian athletes should not take part in the Olympics in 2018 if they are not allowed to compete under the national flag.\n\n\"I don't know what Russia's decision will be in the end, but in my view, a great power can't go 'incognito' to the Olympics,\" state-owned RIA Novosti news agency reported him saying.\n\nIgor Morozov, another politician said \"hybrid war\" had been declared on Russia by the IOC decision.\n\nThe head of Russia's speed-skating body Alexei Kravtsov said it should be down to the athletes themselves.\n\n\"My opinion is that every athlete should decide for themselves whether to take part under a neutral flag or not,\" R-Sport reported. \"But there is an admittance procedure, and that in itself is humiliating.\"\n\nRussian bobsleigh federation president Alexander Zubkov said on Tuesday he was \"shocked\" by the decision.\n\nZubkov was stripped last month of the two gold medals he won at the 2014 Sochi Games and banned from the Olympics for life over alleged doping violations.\n\nRussian state broadcaster VGTRK has said it will not broadcast the winter Olympic games if the Russian team is not participating.\n• None Life on the run for Russian whistleblower\n\nJohn Jackson, who led Great Britain's men's bobsleigh team in Sochi in 2014, and could now be awarded a bronze medal because of Russian doping bans thanked the IOC for the ruling.\n\n\"I believe it is the correct decision to allow the clean athletes of Russia to compete under a neutral flag,\" he said.\n\nBritish sports minister Tracey Crouch tweeted that she was \"pleased\" with the announcement.\n\n\"We believe that this decision goes a long way towards protecting the interests of clean athletes,\" said Wada vice-president Linda Hofstad Helleland.\n\nJim Walden, a lawyer representing whistleblower Rodchenkov, said the decision \"sends a powerful message that the IOC will not tolerate state-sponsored cheating by any nation\".\n\n\"Dr Rodchenkov personally agrees with the IOC's determination that innocent athletes should compete as neutrals,\" he added.\n\nWhat could a Winter Olympics look like without Russia?\n\nThe Olympics ban for Russia, who had finished top of the Sochi 2014 medal table, could potentially leave opportunities for gold, silver and bronze open to several other nations.\n\nIt is not yet clear how many Russian athletes, if any, will seek to compete under a neutral flag.\n\nOther athletes are considering appeals against their doping bans.\n\nRussia were among the favourites for gold in men's ice hockey following the National Hockey League's decision to withdraw its players from Pyeongchang.\n\nAt the last six Winter Games, Russian figure skaters won 14 of the 26 gold medals available and occupied 26 of the 75 podium places.\n\n'Some concessions, but still dark day for Russia' - analysis\n\nThe punishment is unprecedented in Olympic history. This is a proud sporting superpower that uses such events to promote its image to the world. Not this time.\n\nThe hosts of next year's World Cup have just become an international pariah, with the life ban given to deputy prime minister and head of Russia 2018 - Vitaly Mutko - hugely embarrassing for Fifa - an IOC member federation.\n\nMany will say the IOC should have done this 18 months ago before the Rio Olympics, and that both they and WADA should have acted more decisively years ago when reports of Russian cheating first emerged. And could the IOC have been tougher, given the scale of the cheating and the damage done to clean athletes?\n\nThe fact that those athletes who meet the criteria and can take part will be called 'Olympic Athletes from Russia' seems a concession to the country. Why not just 'Neutral Athletes'? President Bach also suggested the Russian flag may be flown at the closing ceremony in South Korea.\n\nYet this is still a dark day for Russian sport and President Vladimir Putin is now understood to be considering whether to boycott Pyeongchang 2018 altogether and forbid any Russian athletes to compete.", "An on-duty police officer who died along with a 91-year-old woman in a crash on the A4 in Berkshire was due to become a father.\n\nPC James Dixon, whose wife Samantha is heavily pregnant, died when his motorcycle was in collision with a car near Hare Hatch on Tuesday.\n\nThe 39-year-old had appeared in the Sky TV programme Road Wars.\n\nThe pensioner, who was a passenger in the car, was also killed while the female driver was taken to hospital.\n\nThe incident, which happened on Bath Road, has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).\n\nPC James Dixon died after the motorcycle he was riding was in collision with a car on Bath Road near Hare Hatch\n\nThe IPCC said PC Dixon was on a training exercise and was not responding to an emergency or pursuing the vehicle he collided with.\n\nHe was also not involved in any other pursuit and his unmarked police bike did not have flashing lights or sirens on.\n\nPC Dixon, known as \"Dixie\" to friends, was based at Loddon Valley police station, near Reading.\n\nPrime Minister Theresa May paid tribute to PC Dixon and the elderly woman during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday.\n\nShe said: \"I'm sure the whole house will wish to join me in offering condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of police constable James Dixon from Thames Valley Police who was killed while on motorcycle duty yesterday...\"\n\nTributes to PC Dixon have been posted in comments on Thames Valley Police's Facebook page, with many referring to watching him on the Sky 1 TV series Road Wars.\n\nPC James Dixon was a \"hugely respected\" officer and had served 18 years \"in a variety of roles\" in the force\n\nThames Valley Chief Constable Francis Habgood said PC Dixon was a \"hugely respected\" officer and had served 18 years \"in a variety of roles\" in the force.\n\nAll the force's flags will fly at half-mast for the next week as a mark of respect to PC Dixon.\n\nJo Gill said: \"Goodnight Dixie, you really were one of the funniest and best blokes I worked with. You are un-replaceable and my heart goes out to Your family both blood and blue.\"\n\nDave Bulger added: \"Stand down Dixie, I can't believe you're gone mate. It was a real pleasure to know you and my heart goes out to your family and loved ones.\"\n\nOn Twitter, Ryan Sheehan said: \"Growing up I was a big fan of PC James 'Dixie' Dixon and his @tvprp colleagues as they featured in #RoadWars.\n\n\"It's well respected officers like PC Dixon that inspire me to be a police officer...\"\n\nRoad Wars followed 14 members of Thames Valley Police's roads policing officers from 2003 to 2010.\n\nPC Dixon, who grew up in Winchester, is believed to have taken part in several series of the programme and was filmed with his partner \"Yorkie\".", "US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv has been met with a wave of disapproval.\n\nLeaders from within the Arab and Muslim worlds, and from the wider international community, were swift to criticise the move. Some warned of the potential for violence and bloodshed as a result.\n\nThe status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians.\n\nThe city is home to key religious sites sacred to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, especially in East Jerusalem.\n\nIsrael occupied the sector, previously occupied by Jordan, in the 1967 Middle East war and regards the entire city as its indivisible capital.\n\nThe Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, and according to 1993 Israel-Palestinian peace accords, its final status is meant to be discussed in the latter stages of peace talks.\n\nMr Trump said his decision was a \"recognition of reality\", and that the US was \"not taking a position on any final status issues\".\n\nPresident Mahmoud Abbas said the decision was tantamount to the US \"abdicating its role as a peace mediator\".\n\n\"These deplorable and unacceptable measures deliberately undermine all peace efforts,\" he said in a speech broadcast after Mr Trump's announcement.\n\nHe insisted that Jerusalem was the \"eternal capital of the state of Palestine\".\n\nThe leader of the Islamist movement Hamas, Ismail Haniya, called for a new \"intifada\", or uprising.\n\n\"The American decision is an aggression against our people. It's a declaration of war against our Palestinian people,\" he told a news conference in Gaza.\n\n\"We should call for and we should work on launching an intifada in the face of the Zionist enemy,\" he added.\n\nIsrael's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the US announcement was a \"historic landmark\" and that Mr Trump's decision was \"courageous and just\".\n\nMr Netanyahu said the speech was \"an important step towards peace, for there is no peace that doesn't include Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel\". The city had \"been the capital of Israel for nearly 70 years\", he added.\n\nIn a speech on Thursday, he said: \"President Trump has inscribed himself in the annals of our capital for all time.\"\n\n\"His name will now be linked to the names of others in the context of the glorious history of Jerusalem and our people... We are already in contacts with other countries that will declare similar recognition,\" he said, adding: \"It's about time.\"\n\nTurkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the move, saying it was \"throwing the region into a ring of fire\".\n\n\"What do you want to do Mr Trump? What kind of an approach is this? Political leaders exist not to create struggles but to make peace,\" he said.\n\nHis Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu wrote on Twitter that \"the decision is against international law and relevant UN resolutions\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSaudi Arabia's King Salman told Mr Trump by telephone on Tuesday that the relocation of the embassy or recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital \"would constitute a flagrant provocation of Muslims, all over the world\".\n\n\"The US move represents a significant decline in efforts to push a peace process and is a violation of the historically neutral American position on Jerusalem.\"\n\nThose views were echoed by Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, who warned against \"complicating the situation in the region by introducing measures that would undermine chances for peace in the Middle East\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why the ancient city of Jerusalem is so important\n\nThe Arab League called it \"a dangerous measure that would have repercussions\" across the region, and also questioned the future role of the US as a \"trusted mediator\" in peace talks.\n\nIran said the decision risked a \"new intifada\", or uprising. Its foreign ministry said the US had clearly violated international resolutions.\n\nMeanwhile, Jordan's King Abdullah called for joint efforts to \"deal with the ramifications of this decision\" and a Jordanian government spokesman said Mr Trump was violating international law and the UN charter.\n\nLebanon's President Michel Aoun said the peace process would be set back decades, while Qatar's Foreign MinisterSheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said the move was \"a death sentence for all who seek peace\".\n\nPope Francis said: \"I cannot silence my deep concern over the situation that has emerged in recent days. At the same time, I appeal strongly for all to respect the city's status quo, in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions.\"\n\nUnited Nations Secretary General António Guterres said President Trump's statement \"would jeopardise the prospect of peace for Israelis and Palestinians\".\n\nMr Guterres said Jerusalem was \"a final status issue that must be resolved through direct negotiations between the two parties\".\n\nSuch negotiations must take \"into account the legitimate concerns of both the Palestinians and the Israeli sides,\" he said.\n\nThe European Union called for the \"resumption of a meaningful peace process towards a two-state solution\" and said \"a way must be found, through negotiations, to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of both states, so that the aspiration of both parties can be fulfilled\".\n\nEU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the announcement \"has a very worrying potential impact.\"\n\n\"It is a very fragile context and the announcement has the potential to send us backwards to even darker times than the ones we are already living in,\" she added.\n\n\"The worst thing that could happen now is an escalation of tensions around the holy places and in the region because what happens in Jerusalem matters to the whole region and the entire world.\"\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron said Mr Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital was \"regrettable\". He called efforts for \"avoid violence at all costs.\"\n\nGerman ChancellorAngela Merkel's spokesman said on Twitter that Berlin \"does not support this position because the status of Jerusalem can only be negotiated within the framework of a two-state solution\".\n\nBoth China and Russia also expressed their concern that the move could lead to an escalation of tensions in the region.\n\nUK Prime Minister Theresa May said her government disagreed with the US decision, which was \"unhelpful in terms of prospects for peace in the region\".\n\n\"The British embassy to Israel is based in Tel Aviv and we have no plans to move it,\" a statement said.\n\n\"Our position on the status of Jerusalem is clear and longstanding: it should be determined in a negotiated settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and Jerusalem should ultimately be the shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian states. In line with relevant [UN] Security Council Resolutions, we regard East Jerusalem as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.\"\n\nLabour Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said the move was \"reckless\" and had taken a \"hammer blow\" to the peace process. \"He is setting it back decades,\" she added.\n• None Jerusalem is Israel's capital, Trump to say", "Last updated on .From the section European Football\n\nPhilippe Coutinho scored a hat-trick as Liverpool became the fifth English club to qualify for the last 16 of this season's Champions League with a thumping victory over Spartak Moscow at Anfield.\n\nJurgen Klopp's Group E leaders came into the game knowing they needed to avoid defeat to be sure of reaching the knockout stage for the first time since 2008-09 - and Coutinho gave them the lead with a fourth-minute penalty after Mohamed Salah was fouled by Georgi Dzhikiya.\n\nThey doubled their advantage after a superb move 11 minutes later, Coutinho tapping home from Roberto Firmino's pass.\n\nFirmino netted himself to make it 3-0 at half-time, and Sadio Mane's sublime volley extended the lead.\n\nCoutinho completed his first hat-trick for the club with a deflected shot, and Mane added the sixth before Salah completed the rout.\n\nLiverpool's victory means this is the first time five English teams have qualified for the Champions League last 16 in the same season.\n\nChelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham will join the Reds in Monday's draw at Uefa headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.\n\nAsked if his side would be a threat in the last 16, Klopp said: \"If we perform like this, if we are that clinical, then yes.\n\n\"If we perform like this then it is obviously a threat, 100%.\"\n• None Read more: English teams dominate - but can one of them win it?\n• None Listen to BBC Radio 5 live's Football Daily podcast: 'The Premier League is back'\n\nThis is a huge result for Liverpool, who failed to advance from the group stage on their previous two appearances - in 2009-10 and 2014-15.\n\nKlopp's side were close to qualifying last month, but Guido Pizarro poked home in the third minute of added time as Sevilla came from 3-0 down to snatch a dramatic draw.\n\nThere was no second-half collapse this time as the Reds produced another attacking masterclass to ensure they progress in Europe's most prestigious club competition.\n\nSpartak had held the Reds to a draw in Moscow but were blown away on Merseyside as Klopp once again unleashed Coutinho, Salah, Firmino and Mane from the start.\n\nThe quartet had scored 12 of their team's 16 goals in five previous group games - and they were once again in ruthless mood.\n\nDzhikiya clumsily hauled down Salah to allow Coutinho to score before the Brazilian made it 2-0 after finishing a delicious move started by Mane and involving Salah and Firmino.\n\nFirmino made it six goals in as many group games before the goal of the night by Mane - an exquisite volley from James Milner's inch-perfect cross.\n\nCoutinho's hat-trick goal came from a deflected shot off Salvatore Bocchetti before substitute Daniel Sturridge teed up Mane for the sixth and Salah pounced from close range for the seventh.\n\nHaving beaten Brighton 5-1 in the Premier League on Saturday, Liverpool have now scored 12 goals in two games.\n\nWho can Liverpool face in the last 16?\n\nLiverpool emerge from the group unbeaten but despite finishing top and being seeded they could still face a European heavyweight in the next round.\n\nAmong the unseeded teams the Reds could face are holders Real Madrid, five-time winners Bayern Munich and Italian champions Juventus.\n\nThey cannot face a team from the same country so will avoid Chelsea, and also cannot be drawn against Sevilla, who advance from Group E as runners-up following a 1-1 draw with Maribor.\n\nThe other teams they could be paired with are Swiss club Basel, Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk and Porto.\n\n\"I don't mind too much who we get - usually I always get Real Madrid so we will see,\" added Klopp.\n\n\"There are a lot of really strong teams. This year is quite special. Not often you can face Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, but Juventus and all the others.\n\n\"We will not be happy when we see who we face in the next round, but we will be ready.\"\n\nAnalysis: 'Great on the eye - but it gets hard now'\n\nLiverpool can score goals and that's the hardest part of the game - but coming up against opposition in the next round their defence might struggle.\n\nYou can still see Liverpool scoring but will they be strong enough at the back to deal with that quality?\n\nLiverpool are great on the eye but it starts to get hard now.\n• None Coutinho's penalty was Liverpool's fastest goal in a Champions League game at Anfield (three minutes 51 seconds).\n• None Spartak have lost 23 of their past 29 Champions League away games (W5 D1).\n• None Liverpool became the fourth English side to top their Champions League group this season - it is the first time since 2006-07 that four English teams have finished first in a single group campaign.\n• None Klopp's team are now unbeaten in their past eight Champions League games, winning three and drawing five.\n• None Salah has scored more goals in all competitions this season than any other Premier League player (18).\n\nLiverpool will look to cement their place in the Premier League's top four when they host neighbours Everton in the first Merseyside derby of the season at Anfield on Sunday (14:15 GMT).\n• None Attempt blocked. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Sadio Mané.\n• None Attempt saved. Fernando (Spartak Moscow) right footed shot from a difficult angle and long range on the left is saved in the bottom left corner.\n• None Goal! Liverpool 7, Spartak Moscow 0. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the top right corner. Assisted by James Milner with a headed pass.\n• None Attempt missed. Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool) left footed shot from very close range is too high. Assisted by Trent Alexander-Arnold.\n• None Emre Can (Liverpool) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\n• None Attempt missed. Lorenzo Melgarejo (Spartak Moscow) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Andrey Eshchenko.\n• None Offside, Liverpool. Philippe Coutinho tries a through ball, but Mohamed Salah is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "US ambassador Nikki Haley said a unanimous UN Security Council resolution sent a clear warning to North Korea that further missile tests would invite more punishment.", "Peru's former President Alberto Fujimori has been taken from prison to a hospital because of low blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythm.\n\nHis doctor was quoted by local media as saying cardiologists had advised the 79-year-old needed urgent treatment.\n\nFujimori - who was in power from 1990 to 2000 - is serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses.\n\nHe is admired by some Peruvians for combating Maoist rebels. His critics consider him a corrupt dictator.\n\nIn 2007, Fujimori was sentenced to six years in jail for bribery and abuse of power.\n\nIn 2009, he was sentenced to another 25 years in prison for human rights abuses committed during his time in office, including authorising killings carried out by death squads.\n\nHe has been in and out of hospital for a variety of health problems in recent years.\n\nThe latest medical emergency comes just days after Fujimori's supporters in Congress helped President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski avoid impeachment over alleged corruption.\n\nOpposition politicians allege that the president had promised the supporters to free Fujimori in exchange for their backing.", "This video has been removed for right reasons.\n\nTropical Storm Tembin brought flash flooding and mudslides to many parts of Mindanao island, in the southern Philippines, before heading west.\n\nRescuers are searching for survivors and thousands of people have been evacuated.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The aftermath of Storm Tembin on Mindanao island\n\nMore than 180 people are reported to have been killed as a tropical storm swept through the southern Philippines, with dozens more missing.\n\nStorm Tembin brought flash flooding and mudslides to parts of Mindanao island.\n\nTwo towns badly hit were Tubod and Piagapo, where a number of homes were buried by boulders.\n\nTembin, with winds of up to 80km/h (50 mph), has passed across Mindanao and reached the resort islands of Palawan, and will now move further west.\n\nThe Philippines suffers regularly from deadly tropical storms, although Mindanao is not often hit.\n\nTembin, known as Vinta in the Philippines, started lashing Mindanao on Friday, with a state of emergency declared in some areas including the Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur regions.\n\nRegional officials quoted by the Rappler website said there were 127 fatalities in Lanao del Norte, up to 50 in the Zamboanga peninsula and at least 18 in Lanao del Sur.\n\nTubod police officer Gerry Parami told the AFP news agency that there had been at least 19 deaths in the town, which is in Lanao del Norte. The remote village of Dalama was wiped out by flash floods.\n\n\"The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there,\" he said.\n\nHe said volunteers were digging through mud to try to recover bodies in the village.\n\nAnother official told AFP that at least 10 people had died in the town of Piagapo, 10km east of Tubod.\n\n\"We've sent rescuers but they're making little progress,\" Saripada Pacasum said.\n\nMore deaths were reported in the towns of Sibuco and Salug.\n\nPower cuts and the loss of communication lines have hampered rescue efforts.\n\nAndrew Morris, from the UN children's agency Unicef in Mindanao, said in some areas there were big risks for disease, particularly for children, and restoring clean water supplies would be a priority.\n\n\"Lanao del Sur province is the poorest in the Philippines, and in the past seven months there have been around 350,000 people displaced in that province because of fighting,\" he told the BBC, referring to battles between government forces and Islamist militants in Marawi.\n\n\"So the priority yesterday and this morning has really been to check their situation.\"\n\nStorm Tembin made a second landfall on Balabac island in the Palawan archipelago and is forecast to travel west, south of the Spratly Islands, reaching southern Vietnam in about three days.\n\nThe region is still recovering from Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 5,000 people and affected millions in 2013.", "Four people involved in the crash were taken to hospital\n\nTwo men have died in a crash involving five vehicles that closed part of the M40 in Oxfordshire for several hours.\n\nOne vehicle is thought to have overturned in the crash, which happened between junctions 10 and 11, near Banbury, at 23:40 GMT on Saturday.\n\nA 60-year-old man from Oxfordshire and a 29-year-old man from Warwickshire died.\n\nThe M40 was shut in both directions overnight for about three hours but has since reopened.\n\nThames Valley Police said the victims' next-of-kin had been informed.\n\nAnother man was taken to hospital with serious leg injuries, and three people were treated for minor injuries.\n\nYou might also be interested in:\n\nThe ambulance service, fire service and Highways England all attended the scene with police.\n\nCh Insp Henry Parsons said: \"Our thoughts are with both men's families at this difficult time.\n\n\"We would like to speak to anyone who may have witnessed the collision who has not yet spoken to police.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Polish fisherman Rado Papiewski wants to have the sign removed\n\nThe owner of a fishery which displayed a sign banning Polish and \"Eastern bloc\" anglers says it has been taken down after his family received threats.\n\nBilly Evans of Field Farm Fisheries said the sign went up because he had caught anglers stealing fish. He said he now may also shut the fishery.\n\nPolish fisherman Rado Papiewski raised more than £10,000 for a private prosecution to have the sign removed.\n\nThe Equality and Human Rights Commission says the sign was unlawful.\n\nIt had warned it would take \"enforcement action\" if necessary.\n\nMr Evans told the BBC: \"The sign has been removed because of threats to my family.\n\n\"I am not in the country. I will decide what to do on my return. I may close it to all public long term.\"\n\nMr Evans said the fishery, in Launton, near Bicester, Oxfordshire, was closed as usual for the winter but would remain so until further notice.\n\nHe added: \"I do not tolerate thieves, wherever they come from.\"\n\nBilly Evans (pictured in 2009) said there had been threats to his family\n\nMr Papiewski, from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, runs a project called Building Bridges, for the Angling Trust, which aims to \"educate and integrate\" anglers from other countries.\n\nThe project website explains that anglers from countries such as Poland have traditionally caught fish \"for the pot\", whereas in Britain anglers generally return fish to the water.\n\nHe believes the sign was is in breach of the Equality Act 2010.\n\nWriting on his crowdfunding page on Thursday, he called its removal a \"big step in the right direction and we are now seeking written confirmation that they have changed their policy and that all anglers are welcome on the site, regardless of their race or nationality\".\n\nHe said his legal team were taking the matter \"forward\" and said he would \"provide a further update early in the New Year\".\n\nAn EHRC spokeswoman said it had written to the fishery to advise it to take it down.\n\n\"It's right to challenge such out-of-date practices and any business that believes this is acceptable should think again before they find themselves facing legal action,\" she said.\n\nRado Papiewski has crowdfunded more than £10,000 to pay for legal fees\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nuclear N Korea: What do we know?\n\nNorth Korea's nuclear weapons programme has progressed faster than predicted, threatening the security of nearby nations – and potentially the United States.\n\nThe US envoy to the United Nations put it simply: \"Despite our efforts over the last 24 years, the North Korean nuclear programme is more advanced and dangerous than ever.\"\n\nAnalysts tend to agree that the country's leader, Kim Jong-un, is seeking a nuclear deterrent rather than an all-out war - but other nations are not taking chances.\n\nSo how do you defend against a politically isolated state with nuclear ambitions, when diplomacy, it appears, simply does not work?\n\nThe other half of the Korean peninsula has a long history of preparing to defend itself from its northern neighbour. The two countries are technically still at war, having never signed a peace treaty when the Korean War ended in 1953.\n\nThe Thaad system - seen here in testing - is one of several anti-missile defences\n\nOne key part of its defensive line is the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) - a region 250km (155 mile) long and 4km (2.5 mile) wide that separates the two nations, guarded by thousands of soldiers, lined with barbed wire fences, and filled with landmines.\n\nBut it is believed that North Korea's People's Army - with more than a million regular soldiers and millions more reserve troops - has drilled extensively on how to invade across the border.\n\nAnd the heavy land border fortifications do nothing, of course, to prevent a missile strike.\n\nFor a while, it was thought that Thaad - the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense - might be South Korea's best counter to a nuclear attack.\n\nThaad, funded by the South's military ally the United States, is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles as they descend in the final phase of a strike. The complex technology was first deployed in May 2017, and has been successfully tested.\n\nBut the politics of South Korea's relationship with the North means its rollout has not been easy.\n\nNorth Korea and its only ally China both see Thaad as a provocation, and many South Koreans living near the places its was deployed fear it could be seen as a military target.\n\nThe South's new president, President Moon Jae-in, suspended the rollout of the system in June, saying an environmental impact analysis was needed.\n\nBut in light of recent nuclear tests, the South's defence ministry has now said it will deploy the four remaining Thaad launchers that had been delivered, in addition to the two already operational.\n\nAt its closest point, Japan is just a little over 500km (310 miles) from North Korea - well within striking distance.\n\nIn August, Pyongyang fired a missile directly over Japan, in what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called an \"unprecedented\" threat to his country.\n\nThe close proximity of the two nations means that Japan has only minutes to respond to any launch. During the August missile test, people had about three minutes from receiving the emergency warning until the missile flew overhead. Many only learned about the threat later in the day.\n\nIn terms of defence options, Japan utilises the Patriot missile system which, like Thaad, is designed to shoot down incoming missiles. But it has a limited operational range, making it effective at defending key locations - and not the entire country.\n\nBut Japan does not have to worry about land invasion to the same extent North Korea does, and at sea, it has other options at its disposal.\n\nJapan, South Korea, the United States are among the countries with the Aegis naval defence system.\n\nAegis is yet another anti-missile system, but unlike Thaad or Patriot defences, it can also be deployed to ships patrolling the seas in the region.\n\nA test missile fired by the US on August 29, left, was shot down by the Aegis system similar to the file photo, right\n\nThose battleships come equipped with powerful radar which could detect the launch when deployed near the North Korean coast. They are also fitted with guided missiles, and could attempt to shoot down the incoming missile - or share its tracking data with another missile defence system closer to the target.\n\nThere are a handful of problems with the system, though. Aegis ships need to be deployed in the right place at the right time - and while they have been tested extensively, they have never been used to defend against an actual launch.\n\nFor years, the best defence for the US was its sheer distance from North Korea - some 5,000km (3,100 miles) to Alaska and almost 9,000km to San Francisco. But rapid advancements mean that distance might no longer be far enough.\n\nNorth Korea's military wants the capability to shrink a high-yield nuclear warhead to fit on an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM). In theory, that would allow Pyongyang to strike the United States.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. See the US anti-missile system in action\n\nAfter its latest test, North Korea claimed it had managed to shrink the warhead, posting photos of what it said was a hydrogen bomb - in keeping with a Washington Post report from early August.\n\nThat means the US is now reconsidering its missile defences, with President Trump having ordered a review of the entire system.\n\nIt already has detection and interception systems. But critics believe that the US system is far from reliable, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus wrote in July.\n\nIn the foreseeable future, only a handful of its interceptor missiles will be available to deal with the potential North Korean threat, he said.\n\nAnd it also has to worry about its overseas territory of Guam - a key military outpost in the Pacific which has been singled out by North Korea as a threat to be \"contained\".\n\nThat island already has a Thaad system deployed, but state media says Kim Jong-un has already been briefed on strike plans - and is waiting to see the next US actions.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nStaff have been injured and an aardvark and possibly four meerkats killed in a fire at London Zoo.\n\nAbout 70 firefighters tackled the blaze at its height in the Animal Adventure section that spread to a shop.\n\nOne person was taken to hospital and eight were treated at the scene.\n\nThe zoo said an aardvark called Misha died in the fire and four meerkats were still unaccounted for, presumed dead. The zoo was shut on Saturday but said it would reopen on Sunday.\n\nThe cause of the fire is not yet known.\n\nPhotographs posted on social media showed orange flames rising from the building\n\nTen fire engines went to the zoo, which sits in the capital's Regent's Park, shortly after 06:00 GMT and the fire was brought under control about three hours later.\n\nSix people were given help at the scene for the effects of smoke inhalation and two for minor injuries, London Ambulance Service said.\n\nOne person was taken to a north-west London hospital, the service said.\n\nDuty staff who live on site were on the scene \"immediately\" and started moving animals to safety, the zoo said.\n\nIn a statement the zoo said it was \"devastated\" about what had happened.\n\nIt said: \"Sadly our vets have confirmed the death of our nine-year-old aardvark, Misha. There are also four meerkats still unaccounted for, but we are now presuming these have also died.\n\n\"All other animals in the vicinity are being monitored closely by our vets, but early signs suggest they have not been affected. We will continue to monitor them over the coming days.\n\n\"We are all naturally devastated by this, but are immensely grateful to the fire brigade, who reacted quickly to the situation to bring the fire under control. \"\n\nYou might also be interested in:\n\nAdnan Abdul Husein said he saw the blaze from a nearby park when he was out walking his dog, and alerted zoo security.\n\n\"It didn't look like smoke just coming out of a chimney - it was quite heavy\", he said.\n\n\"As I got closer to the zoo I could see that it was actually inside the zoo so I went over to the security and told them, 'there's flames or there's smoke coming from inside there, do you know anything about it?'. And they obviously didn't have a clue.\"\n\nLondon Fire Brigade (LFB) station manager Clive Robinson, who was at the scene, said three-quarters of the cafe and shop had been affected by the fire and half of the roof.\n\nHe said: \"Firefighters worked hard to bring the fire under control as quickly as possible and to stop it from spreading to neighbouring animal enclosures.\"\n\nThe cause of the fire is not yet known, London Fire Brigade said\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Rama, 4, has lymphoma and last received medication eight months ago\n\nSyrian President Bashar al-Assad is considering a request to evacuate seven children with cancer from a besieged area, a British charity says.\n\nHamish de Bretton-Gordon, an adviser to the charity, told the BBC that Mr Assad's private office had said he would decide next week.\n\nThe children are among more than 130 needing urgent medical treatment in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta.\n\nThe Damascus suburb has been under government siege for four years.\n\nEarlier this month the Red Cross said life in Eastern Ghouta was becoming \"impossible\" and the situation there had reached a \"critical point\".\n\nThe UN has been trying for weeks to arrange medical evacuations. Dozens of civilians are reported to have died in recent government bombardments and food shortages have led to severe malnutrition.\n\n\"We understand Assad is thinking about it. And we're calling him back on Tuesday morning to speak to him direct,\" said Mr de Bretton-Gordon, who advises the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations (UOSSM), which operates in Eastern Ghouta.\n\n\"And if he gives us the go-ahead then the plan is that we will get to Ghouta as quickly as we can, get the children.\"\n\nThe seven children who could be evacuated include Rama, 4, who has lymphoma, is suffering from malnutrition and has a malignant tumour in her throat.\n\nRama is also malnourished and has a throat tumour\n\nThe last time she received the medication she needs was eight months ago, the UOSSM said.\n\nMr de Bretton-Gordon said the UN had told him that she and the other children could be treated elsewhere in Syria or abroad.\n\nHowever, an evacuation would not include children in Eastern Ghouta with other medical conditions, such as two-month-old baby Karim, who lost an eye and suffered severe injuries in a reported government attack.\n\nKarim's father, four siblings and aunt have taken care of him since his mother's death\n\nPhotos of Karim have sparked a social media campaign to raise awareness about his and the other children's plight. People in Syria and abroad have posted photographs of themselves covering their left eyes.\n\nLast month, UN humanitarian co-ordinator Jan Egeland said nine people with urgent medical needs had died in Eastern Ghouta after requests to evacuate them were denied.\n\n\"The men with guns and power on the ground are denying us access to the most vulnerable. They are attacking civilians - including massively schools and hospitals. It's been on both sides,\" he said.\n\nHe called on Iran and Russia to put pressure on Mr Assad to allow the evacuations.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Children in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta are among those suffering\n\nNearly 12% of children in Eastern Ghouta are suffering from acute malnutrition - the highest level recorded in Syria since the war began - the UN says. Joint UN and Syrian Red Crescent aid convoys have not been able to deliver enough food for all 400,000 civilians trapped there.\n\nMeanwhile limits on electricity, fuel, safe drinking-water and basic sanitation services are increasing the risk of outbreaks of diarrheal diseases, the UN says.\n\nThe area has been designated a \"de-escalation zone\" by Russia and Iran, the government's main allies, along with Turkey, which supports the opposition.", "Bridges and roads have been destroyed\n\nBadly-damaged infrastructure is hampering relief efforts following a deadly tropical storm in the southern Philippines, the local Red Cross says.\n\nBridges and roads on the island of Mindanao have been destroyed or blocked by landslides, Richard Gordon told the BBC.\n\nSome 200 people have died and at least 70,000 have been displaced by Tropical Storm Tembin.\n\nRescuers say people were surprised by the strength of the storm.\n\nNearly 1,000 houses have been wrecked and many rice-fields washed away, Mr Gordon said. About 150 people are still missing.\n\nContinuing heavy rain, power cuts and blocked roads are creating difficulties for rescuers, who have not yet reached some affected areas.\n\nUnited Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was saddened by the loss of life, adding that the UN was ready to help.\n\nPolice said 135 people had been killed and 72 were missing in northern Mindanao. Forty-seven were killed and 72 missing in the Zamboanga peninsula. In Lanao del Sur, another 18 died.\n\nBetween 40,000 and 60,000 people are reported to be housed in evacuation centres.\n\nThe mountain village of Dalama was one of the worst affected places. Houses were buried in mud or engulfed in floodwaters.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The aftermath of Storm Tembin on Mindanao island\n\n\"The flood was already close and the people were not able to get out from their homes,\" survivor Armando Sangcopan told local TV.\n\nThe bodies of eight children were extracted from thick mud in the town of Salvador in Lanao del Norte, the Inquirer reports.\n\n\"It's very painful to see the dead bodies of children, whom we also considered to be our own,\" the principal, Ricardo Abalo, told the paper.\n\nAid workers said people had not heeded warnings to evacuate before Tembin arrived, either because they believed the storm would not be severe or they had nowhere else to go.\n\nMany victims were swept away from low-lying residential areas when the flash floods and landslides struck.\n\nMore deaths were reported in Bukidnon, Iligan and Misamis Occidental.\n\nAndrew Morris, from the UN children's agency Unicef in Mindanao, said in some areas there were big risks of disease, particularly for children, and restoring clean water supplies would be a priority.\n\n\"Lanao del Sur province is the poorest in the Philippines, and in the past seven months there have been around 350,000 people displaced in that province because of fighting,\" he told the BBC, referring to battles between government forces and Islamist militants in Marawi.\n\nThe region is still recovering from Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 5,000 people and affected millions in 2013.", "Last updated on .From the section Tennis\n\nSerena Williams will return to tennis in Abu Dhabi next week, almost four months after giving birth.\n\nThe American, 36, will play world number seven Jelena Ostapenko in an exhibition match on 30 December during the Mubadala World Tennis Championship.\n\nWilliams, who has won an Open-era record 23 Grand Slams, said she was \"delighted to be returning to the court\".\n\nShe gave birth to daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian in September.\n• None Bumps, boobs and bouncing back - an athlete's path through pregnancy\n\nFormer world number one Williams has not played since winning the Australian Open in January.\n\nCoach Patrick Mouratoglou said in November that no decision had been made over whether Williams would play in the season's first Grand Slam.\n\nAustralian Open director Craig Tilley has said Williams is \"very likely\" to defend her title at the 2018 tournament, which starts on 15 January.\n\nRanked 22nd in the world, she would not need a wildcard.\n\nRafael Nadal, Milos Raonic and Stan Wawrinka have pulled out of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship, which runs from 28-30 December.\n\nLatvian Ostapenko, whose match against Williams will be the first between women to be played at a tournament first staged in 2009, said: \"It is a huge honour to be part of that history.\"", "New guidance on the use of anti-social behaviour powers has been issued to ensure they are reasonably applied.\n\nThe Home Office told councils and police in England and Wales the laws should not be used on the vulnerable.\n\nIt comes amid concerns orders were being used to target buskers, rough sleepers, dog walkers and groups gathering to chat in town centres.\n\nVictoria Atkins, minister for crime, safeguarding and vulnerability, said powers should be used proportionately.\n\nShe said: \"We know that these powers are being used to very good effect by the police and local councils across England and Wales, and we are very keen to encourage their continued use.\n\n\"But we are also clear that the powers should be used proportionately to tackle anti-social behaviour, and not to target specific groups or the most vulnerable in our communities.\"\n\nThe guidance follows feedback from charities and other groups that the orders were being used to disproportionately target certain groups, including rough sleepers.\n\nHundreds of fines have been issued for violations such as playing music too loudly in cars and not having a dog on a lead.\n\nMartha Spurrier, director of campaign group Liberty, said some councils were \"compassionless\" in applying orders on vulnerable people.\n\n\"In the last year, very sadly, six people have been sent to prison for being homeless as a result of these orders,\" she said.\n\n\"They've gone very off-piste and have been used by these local councils in a pretty compassionless way - so that poverty effectively ends up being criminalised.\"\n\nLocal agencies, including councils, police and social landlords, have six powers to tackle anti-social behaviour - the civil injunction, criminal behaviour order, community protection notice, public spaces protection order, closure power, and the dispersal power.\n\nThey were introduced in 2014 after the government overhauled old anti-social behaviour powers, believing they were ineffective.\n\nThe revised guidelines state orders should be focused on \"specific behaviours and are proportionate to the detrimental effect that the behaviour is causing or can cause, and are necessary to prevent it from continuing, occurring or recurring\".\n\nThe Home Office said parents often cannot do a \"great deal\" to stop a baby crying\n\nAnyone issuing an order should ask themselves if the behaviour in question is unreasonable, the guidance states.\n\n\"For instance, a baby crying in the middle of the night may well have a detrimental effect on immediate neighbours and is likely to be persistent in nature,\" it said.\n\n\"However, it is unlikely to be reasonable to issue the parents with a Community Protection Notice if there is not a great deal that they can do to control or affect the behaviour.\"\n\nSimon Blackburn, chairman of the Local Government Association's safer and stronger communities board, said: \"Many anti-social behaviour offences are serious issues for local residents and businesses, and councils are keen to protect them from offenders who can make the lives of those they target a misery.\n\n\"Councils will take a proportionate approach to using the tools at their disposal to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour.\"", "It is a typical November Tuesday for Mary, who lives in the north-east of the United States.\n\nShe is 44, has a degree, and her family is prosperous - in the top quarter of American households by income. So what has she done today? Is she a lawyer or a teacher?\n\nNo. Mary spent an hour knitting and sewing, two hours setting the table and doing the dishes and well over two hours preparing and cooking food.\n\nShe is not unusual, because it is 1965 and at that time, many married American women - even those with an excellent education - spent large chunks of their day catering for their families.\n\n50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations which have helped create the economic world in which we live.\n\nWe know about Mary's day - and those of many others - because of time-use surveys conducted around the world. These diaries reveal precisely how different people use their time.\n\nFor educated women, the way time is spent in the US and other rich countries has changed radically over the past half a century.\n\nWomen in America now spend around 45 minutes per day in total cooking and cleaning up. That's still much more than men, who spend only 15 minutes a day doing such tasks. But it is a vast reduction from Mary's four hours.\n\nBehind this shift is a radical change to the way the food we eat is prepared, as seen by the introduction of the TV dinner in 1954.\n\nPresented in a space-age aluminium tray, and prepared so that everything would require the same cooking time, the \"frozen turkey tray TV dinner\" was developed by a bacteriologist called Betty Cronin.\n\nShe worked for the Swanson food processing company, keen to find ways to keep busy after the business of supplying rations to US troops had dried up.\n\nBut of course the TV dinner was only part of a panoply of changes, wrought by the availability of freezers, microwaves, preservatives and production lines.\n\nFood had been perhaps the last cottage industry: something that would overwhelmingly be produced in the home.\n\nBut food preparation has been industrialised - outsourced to restaurants and takeaways and to factories that prepare ready-to-eat or ready-to-cook meals.\n\nAnd the invention of the industrial meal - in all its forms - has led to a profound shift in the modern economy.\n\nHow we spend on food is changing.\n\nIn 2015, US consumers spent more money on food and drink outside their home than on groceries for the first time\n\nAmerican families spend increasingly more outside the home - on fast food, restaurant meals, sandwiches and snacks. Only a quarter of food spending was outside the home in the 1960s.\n\nThat has steadily risen over time and in 2015 a landmark was reached: for the first time, Americans spent more on food and drink outside the home than at grocery stores. The British passed that particular milestone more than a decade earlier.\n\nEven within the home, food is increasingly processed to save the chef time and effort: bagged chopped salad, pre-grated cheese, jars of pasta sauce, individual permeable tea bags, meatballs doused in sauce and chicken that comes plucked and gutted.\n\nEach new innovation would seem bizarre to the older generation.\n\nI have never plucked a chicken and perhaps my children will never chop salad. All this saves time - serious amounts of time.\n\nWhen the economist Valerie Ramey compared time-use diaries in the US between the 1920s and the 1960s, she found that surprisingly little had changed.\n\nWhether women were uneducated and married to farmers, or highly educated and married to urban professionals, they still spent similar amounts of time on housework across those 50 years.\n\nIt was only in the 1960s that this pattern began to shift.\n\nBut surely the innovation responsible for emancipating women was not the TV dinner, but the washing machine?\n\nThe idea is widely believed and is appealing. A frozen TV dinner does not really feel like progress, compared to home-cooked food.\n\nThe washing machine was innovative, but did not save much time\n\nBut a washing machine is clean and efficient and replaces work that was always drudgery. How could it not have been revolutionary?\n\nHowever, the revolution wasn't in the lives of women, it was in how lemon fresh we all started to smell.\n\nAs Alison Wolf argues in her book The XX Factor, the evidence is clear that the washing machine did not save a lot of time, because before washing machines, we did not wash clothes very often. When it took all day to wash and dry a few shirts, people used replaceable collars and cuffs or dark outer layers to hide the grime.\n\nIn contrast, when it took two or three hours to prepare a meal, someone had to take that time. There was not an alternative. The washing machine did not save much time, and the ready meal did, because we were not willing to starve, but we were willing to stink.\n\nThe availability of ready meals has had some regrettable side-effects.\n\nObesity rates rose sharply in developed countries between the 1970s and the early 21st Century, at much the same time as these culinary innovations were being developed. This is no coincidence, say health economists. The cost of calories has fallen dramatically, not just in financial terms but also in terms of time.\n\nConsider the humble potato. It has long been a staple of the American diet, but before World War Two potatoes were usually baked, mashed or boiled. There's a reason for that: roast potatoes need to be peeled, chopped, par-boiled and then roasted. French fries or chips must be finely chopped and then deep fried.\n\nOver time, however, the production of fried sliced potato chips - both French fries and crisps - was centralised. French fries can be peeled, chopped, fried and frozen in a factory and then refried in a fast-food restaurant or microwaved at home.\n\nObesity rates have risen sharply since the large scale industrialisation of food production\n\nBetween 1977 and 1995, American potato consumption increased by a third, almost entirely because of the rise of fried potatoes.\n\nEven simpler, crisps can be fried, salted, flavoured and packaged to last for many weeks on the shelf. But this convenience comes at a cost.\n\nIn the US, calorie intake by adults rose by about 10% between the 1970s and the 1990s. Not as a result of more calorific regular meals but because of increased snacking - usually of processed convenience food.\n\nPsychology - and common sense - suggest this should not be a surprise.\n\nExperiments by behavioural scientists show that we make very different decisions about what to eat depending on how far away the meal is. A long-planned meal is likely to be nutritious, but when we make more impulsive decisions, our snacks are more likely to be junk food than something nourishing.\n\nThe industrialisation of food - symbolised by the TV dinner - changed our economy in two important ways. It freed women from hours of domestic chores, removing a large obstacle to them adopting serious professional careers.\n\nBut by making empty calories ever more convenient to acquire, it also freed our waistlines to expand.\n\nThe challenge now - as with so many inventions - is to enjoy the benefit without also suffering the cost.", "Britons should \"take pride\" in their country's Christian heritage at Christmas, Theresa May has said.\n\nIn her Christmas message, the prime minister said there is a \"confidence... that in Britain you can practise your faith free from question or fear\".\n\nShe also praised the emergency services for their Grenfell Tower and Manchester and London terror attacks responses.\n\nLabour leader Jeremy Corbyn's message says people should help those \"cut off and lonely\", and in war-torn nations.\n\nThe Lib Dem Leader Vince Cable spoke of the need for more affordable housing, and mental health support, while SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon paid tribute to people working as volunteers at Christmas.\n\nMrs May began her message by thanking \"those whose service to others means they will be spending time away from their loved ones this Christmas\".\n\nShe paid tribute to the \"men and women in our armed forces, whose humbling bravery and daily sacrifices help to ensure the security of our nation and our allies around the world.\n\nAnd she spoke of \"the heroes in our emergency services, whose courage and dedication so inspired the nation in response to tragedy at Grenfell Tower and the abhorrent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London.\"\n\nMrs May also praised volunteers who give up their time at Christmas to take on faith inspired projects, and aid agency staff working abroad.\n\nThe prime minister, who grew up in a vicarage, added: \"As we celebrate the birth of Christ, let us celebrate all those selfless acts - and countless others - that epitomise the values we share: Christian values of love, service and compassion that are lived out every day in our country by people all faiths and none.\"\n\nMrs May referred to Christians in some parts of the Middle East being denied religious freedoms and the \"sickening persecution of the Rohingya Muslims\".\n\nShe concluded: \"This Christmas, whatever our faith, let us come together confident and united in the values we share.\"\n\nMr Corbyn said Christmas was \"a time of the year when we think about others. Like those who have no home to call their own or who are sleeping rough on our streets.\n\n\"We think about those who feel cut off and lonely. Many older citizens to whom we owe so much will be spending what should be a time of joy alone.\n\n\"We think of others such as carers who look after loved ones, people with disabilities or dementia.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHe said thoughts were also with those \"living in nations like Yemen, Syria and Libya in fear of bombs and bullets, of injury and death\".\n\nHe said: \"None of this is inevitable. We pride ourselves on being a compassionate nation.\n\n\"My Christmas wish is that we all do more to help bring about the kind of society and world we want to live in.\"\n\nIn her message, Ms Sturgeon said Christmas was a time of celebration, but also a \"time for thinking about and helping others\".\n\nThe SNP leader added: \"For many people - for example workers in our emergency services, our health service and in our armed forces - Christmas isn't a holiday at all.\n\n\"Your hard work is appreciated all the year round, but is particularly valued at Christmas time. So over this festive period, let's thank those who are working so hard on our behalf.\"", "China's huge new amphibious aircraft has made a successful one-hour maiden flight. China's AG600 - which is roughly the size of a Boeing 737 but with four turboprop engines - lifted off from Zhuhai airport in the southern province of Guangdong.", "Plans to ditch the Army's Be the Best slogan and its crest logo have been halted by the defence secretary.\n\nThe Mail on Sunday said the Army was considering changing the slogan after market research said it was considered \"dated, elitist and non-inclusive\".\n\nThe Ministry of Defence said the Army-commissioned rebrand had cost £520,000.\n\nBut a spokesman told BBC News that Gavin Williamson believed the Army was \"the best of the best\" and that the rebrand proposals had been put on hold.\n\nAccording to the newspaper, a leaked document from the department - written by the Army's most senior officer, General Sir Nick Carter - said market research carried out by the MoD showed the slogan \"did not resonate with many of our key audiences\".\n\nAs a result, the Army's executive committee agreed \"its use should be phased out as soon as affordably possible\", with plans for the \"retirement of Be the Best [to] commence immediately\".\n\nThe research also found the Army's crest - depicting crossed swords, a crown and a lion - to be \"non-inclusive\" and recommended replacing both with a union jack with the word ARMY in bold underneath.\n\nIt is not clear when Mr Williamson became aware of the plans, but he has since put them on hold.\n\nChairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee, Julian Lewis, told the newspaper that being the best was \"nothing to be ashamed of\".\n\nHe said: \"It is a matter for pride and a very positive message to transmit. Why should we be afraid of excellence when we are constantly saying our Armed Forces are the best in the world?\"\n\nDefence Minister Tobias Ellwood has tweeted that \"whatever the strapline\" the force is \"the most professional Army in the world\", adding: \"That makes them the best\".\n\nSorry, we're having trouble displaying this content. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nColonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of UK troops in Afghanistan, added that it was \"lunacy to squander money on a futile branding project\" when there was already pressure on the defence budget.\n\nIn 2016, the government pledged to spend £178bn on new military equipment over the next 10 years.\n\nHowever, it can only do so if the department can find £7.3bn of efficiency savings - on top of £7.1bn previously announced - by selling off property and making other efficiencies.\n\nMr Williamson has also been warned of a Tory revolt if any cuts to Army and Navy numbers are announced as part of an ongoing security review.", "Leaded petrol was safe. Its inventor was sure of it.\n\nFacing sceptical reporters at a press conference in October 1924, Thomas Midgley dramatically produced a container of tetraethyl lead - the additive in question - and washed his hands in it.\n\n\"I'm not taking any chance whatever,\" Midgley declared. \"Nor would I... doing that every day.\"\n\nMidgley was - perhaps - being a little disingenuous. He had recently spent several months in Florida, recuperating from lead poisoning.\n\nSome of those who'd made Midgley's invention hadn't been so lucky, which is why reporters were interested.\n\n50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations which have helped create the economic world in which we live.\n\nOn the Thursday of the week before Midgley's press conference, at a Standard Oil plant in New Jersey, a worker named Ernest Oelgert started hallucinating. By Friday, he was running around the laboratory, screaming in terror.\n\nOn Saturday, with Oelgert dangerously unhinged, his sister called the police. He was taken to hospital and forcibly restrained. By Sunday, he was dead. Within the week, so were four of his colleagues - and 35 more were in hospital.\n\nNone of this surprised workers elsewhere in Standard Oil's facility. They knew there was a problem with tetraethyl lead.\n\nAs Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner note in their book Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, the lab where it was developed was known as \"the loony gas building\".\n\nNor should it have shocked Standard Oil, General Motors or the DuPont Corporation, the three companies involved with adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline.\n\nAn aerial photograph of DuPont's Deepwater factory site, where tetraethyl lead was developed\n\nThe first production line in Ohio had already been shut down after two deaths. A third plant elsewhere in New Jersey had also seen fatalities. Workers kept hallucinating insects - the lab was known as \"the house of butterflies\".\n\nBetter working practices could make tetraethyl lead safe to produce. But was it really sensible to add it to petrol, when the fumes would be belched out on to city streets?\n\nAbout a century ago, when General Motors had first proposed adding lead to petrol - in order to improve performance - scientists were alarmed. They urged the government to investigate the public health implications.\n\nMidgley breezily assured the surgeon general that \"the average street will probably be so free from lead that it will be impossible to detect it or its absorption\", although he conceded that \"no actual experimental data has been taken\".\n\nGeneral Motors funded a government bureau to conduct some research, adding a clause saying it had to approve the findings.\n\nThe bureau's report was published amid the media frenzy over Oelgert's poisoned workmates. It gave tetraethyl lead a clean bill of health and was met with some scepticism.\n\nUnder pressure, the government organised a conference in Washington DC in May 1925. The debate there exemplified the two extremes of approach to any new idea that looks risky, but useful.\n\nIn one corner: Frank Howard, vice-president of the Ethyl Corporation - a joint venture between General Motors and Standard Oil. He called leaded petrol a \"gift of God\", arguing that \"continued development of motor fuels is essential in our civilization\".\n\nDr Alice Hamilton argued the benefits of adding lead to petrol were outweighed by the risks\n\nIn the other corner: Dr Alice Hamilton, the country's foremost authority on lead.\n\nShe argued leaded petrol was a chance not worth taking. \"Where there is lead,\" she said, \"some case of lead poisoning sooner or later develops, even under the strictest supervision.\"\n\nHamilton knew that lead had been poisoning people for thousands of years. In 1678, workers who made lead white - a pigment for paint - were described as suffering ailments including \"dizziness in the head, with continuous great pain in the brows, blindness, stupidity\".\n\nThe Romans used lead in water pipes. Lead miners often ended up mad or dead - and some correctly intuited that low-level, long-term exposure was also unwise.\n\n\"Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead,\" wrote the civil engineer Vitruvius, 2,000 years ago. \"This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour.\"\n\nMany societies still grapple with the general question on which Howard and Hamilton disagreed: how much pollution is a price worth paying for progress?\n\nThere's some evidence that as countries get richer, they tend initially to get dirtier and later clean up.\n\nEconomists call this the \"environmental Kuznets curve\", and it makes intuitive sense. If you're poor, you prioritise material gains. As your income grows, you may choose to spend some of it on a nicer, safer environment.\n\nThe Roman civil engineer Vitruvius warned against the dangers of lead 2,000 years ago\n\nBut was lead-free petrol really such an expensive luxury? True, the lead additive solved a problem: it enabled engines to use higher compression ratios, which made cars more powerful.\n\nHowever, it was not the only way to solve the problem.\n\nEthyl alcohol had much the same effect and wouldn't mess with your head, unless you drank it. Midgley knew this, having combined petrol with practically every imaginable substance, from iodine to camphor to melted butter.\n\nWhy did the petrol companies push tetraethyl lead instead of ethyl alcohol? Researchers who have studied the decision remain puzzled. Cynics might point out that any old farmer could distil ethyl alcohol from grain. It couldn't be patented, or its distribution profitably controlled. Tetraethyl lead could.\n\nThe US didn't tax lead in petrol until the 1970s, then finally banned it as part of clean air legislation, as the country moved down the far side of the environmental Kuznets curve.\n\nTwo decades later, in the 1990s, rates of violent crime started to go down. There are many reasons why this might have happened, but the economist Jessica Reyes had an intriguing thought.\n\nChildren's brains are especially susceptible to chronic lead poisoning. Is it possible that kids who didn't breathe leaded petrol fumes grew up to commit less violent crime?\n\nReyes could test her hypothesis: different US states phased out leaded petrol at different times.\n\nBy comparing the dates of clean air legislation with subsequent crime data, she concluded that more than half the drop - 56% - was because of cars switching to unleaded petrol.\n\nOther researchers have found similar links between lead water pipes and urban homicide.\n\nYou can put a dollar figure on the value of crime reduction, Reyes found. It's about 20 times higher than the cost of de-leading petrol - and that's before you count other downsides of children breathing lead, like worse performance in school.\n\nHow did the US get this so wrong for so long?\n\nAsbestos continued to be widely used in construction despite the emerging evidence of its dangers\n\nIt's a tale of disputed science and delayed regulation, much like you could tell about asbestos, or tobacco, or other products we now know slowly kill us.\n\nThe problem is that people who want to ban things aren't always disinterested visionaries like Hamilton. Sometimes they're obstructive cranks. The only way to tell the difference is by conducting studies.\n\nAnd, as Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner point out, \"For the next four decades, all studies of the use of tetraethyl lead were conducted by laboratories and scientists funded by the Ethyl Corporation and General Motors\".\n\nAnd what of the scientist who first put lead in petrol?\n\nBy all accounts, Midgley was a genial man who may even have believed his own spin about the safety of a daily tetraethyl lead handwash.\n\nBut, as an inventor, his inspirations seem to have been cursed. His second major contribution to civilisation was the chlorofluorocarbon, or CFC, which improved refrigerators, but destroyed the ozone layer.\n\nIn middle age, afflicted by polio, Midgley applied his inventor's mind to lifting his weakened body out of bed. He devised an ingenious system of pulleys and strings. They tangled around his neck, and killed him.", "Mac was flown to Knock to join Finn who is spending Christmas in Ireland\n\nA lost toy monkey has been returned to its two-year-old owner after a race to reunite the pair for Christmas.\n\nFinn Regan-Alexander left the toy on an Aer Lingus plane after the family flew from Gatwick to Knock to visit relatives on 19 December.\n\nAfter Finn's mother Louise tweeted an appeal, \"sightings\" of Mac were reported in pubs, planes and lost and alone in Glasgow.\n\nThe real Mac was found and flown to Knock by the airline.\n\nThe tweet appealing for help in finding Mac was shared more than 1,500 times - with many sharing their own experiences of lost cuddly toy heartbreak.\n\nSome children, including a seven-year-old boy, offered to send their own soft toys to Finn.\n\nMac went missing when the family, from Camberwell, south London, travelled to visit Mrs Regan-Alexander's parents.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Louise This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nArchitect Mrs Regan-Alexander said a TV producer saw the appeal on the BBC News website and realised she had seen Mac - who wears a green tunic made out of an old sock and has two sticking plasters to match his owner's grazes - on the plane.\n\nAfter that sighting, airline staff alerted to Mac's plight managed to trace the toy and arrange its belated holiday trip to Ireland.\n\nMrs Regan-Alexander said: \"Mac was flown back in time for Christmas.\n\n\"Thanks to everyone who provided their online support and shared their own stories of love and loss.\n\n\"To all the children who offered Finn their monkeys, I hope Santa is listening.\"\n\nMac the monkey has clothes made out of a sock and sticking plasters to match his owner's grazes\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "On 9 January 2007, one of the most influential entrepreneurs on the planet announced something new - a product that was to become the most profitable in history.\n\nIt was, of course, the iPhone. There are many ways in which the iPhone has defined the modern economy.\n\nThere is the sheer profitability of the thing, of course: there are only two or three companies in the world that make as much money as Apple does from the iPhone alone.\n\nApple may not have sold the first smartphone, but the iPhone represented a quantum leap compared with earlier models, and its version became an object of desire for most of humanity.\n\nThere's the way the iPhone transformed other markets - software, music, and advertising.\n\nBut those are just the obvious facts about the iPhone. And when you delve more deeply, the tale is a surprising one. We give credit to Steve Jobs and other leading figures in Apple - his early partner Steve Wozniak, his successor Tim Cook, his visionary designer Sir Jony Ive - but some of the most important actors in this story have been forgotten.\n\n50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations which have helped create the economic world we live in.\n\nIt is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast.\n\nAsk yourself: what actually makes an iPhone an iPhone? It's partly the cool design, the user interface, the attention to detail in the way the software works and the hardware feels. But underneath the charming surface of the iPhone are some critical elements that made it, and all the other smartphones, possible.\n\nThe economist Mariana Mazzucato has made a list of 12 key technologies that make smartphones work: 1) tiny microprocessors, 2) memory chips, 3) solid state hard drives, 4) liquid crystal displays and 5) lithium-based batteries. That's the hardware.\n\nThen there are the networks and the software. So 6) Fast-Fourier-Transform algorithms - clever bits of maths that make it possible to swiftly turn analogue signals such as sound, visible light and radio waves into digital signals that a computer can handle.\n\nAt 7) - and you might have heard of this one - the internet. A smartphone isn't a smartphone without the internet.\n\nAt 8) HTTP and HTML, the languages and protocols that turned the hard-to-use internet into the easy-to-access World Wide Web. 9) Cellular networks. Otherwise your smartphone not only isn't smart, it's not even a phone. 10) Global Positioning Systems or GPS. 11) The touchscreen. 12) Siri, the voice-activated artificial intelligence agent.\n\nApple's designer Sir Jony Ive has been widely lauded for his contribution to the iPhone's success\n\nAll of these technologies are important components of what makes an iPhone, or any smartphone, actually work. Some of them are not just important, but indispensable. But when Mariana Mazzucato assembled this list of technologies, and reviewed their history, she found something striking.\n\nThe foundational figure in the development of the iPhone wasn't Steve Jobs. It was Uncle Sam. Every single one of these 12 key technologies was supported in significant ways by governments - often the American government.\n\nA few of these cases are famous. Many people know, for example, that the World Wide Web owes its existence to the work of Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He was a software engineer employed at Cern, the particle physics research centre in Geneva that is funded by governments across Europe.\n\nAnd the internet itself started as Arpanet - an unprecedented network of computers funded by the US Department of Defense in the early 1960s. GPS, of course, was a pure military technology, developed during the Cold War and opened up to civilian use only in the 1980s.\n\nOther examples are less famous, though scarcely less important.\n\nSmartphones have all benefited from government investment in technology\n\nThe Fast-Fourier-Transform is a family of algorithms that have made it possible to move from a world where the telephone, the television and the gramophone worked on analogue signals, to a world where everything is digitised and can therefore be dealt with by computers such as the iPhone.\n\nThe most common such algorithm was developed from a flash of insight from the great American mathematician John Tukey. What was Tukey working on at the time? You've guessed it: a military application.\n\nSpecifically, he was on President Kennedy's Scientific Advisory committee in 1963, trying to figure out how to detect when the Soviet Union was testing nuclear weapons.\n\nSmartphones wouldn't be smartphones without their touchscreens - but the inventor of the touchscreen was an engineer named EA Johnson, whose initial research was carried out while Johnson was employed by the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, a stuffily-named agency of the British government.\n\nThe work was further developed at Cern - those guys again. Eventually multi-touch technology was commercialised by researchers at the University of Delaware in the United States - Wayne Westerman and John Elias, who sold their company to Apple itself.\n\nTouchscreen technology has gone on to drive the development of tablet computers\n\nYet even at that late stage in the game, governments played their part: Wayne Westerman's research fellowship was funded by the US National Science Foundation and the CIA.\n\nThen there's the girl with the silicon voice, Siri.\n\nBack in the year 2000, seven years before the first iPhone, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, Darpa, commissioned the Stanford Research Institute to develop a kind of proto-Siri, a virtual office assistant that might help military personnel to do their jobs.\n\nTwenty universities were brought into the project, furiously working on all the different technologies necessary to make a voice-activated virtual assistant a reality.\n\nSeven years later, the research was commercialised as a start-up, Siri Incorporated- and it was only in 2010 that Apple stepped in to acquire the results for an undisclosed sum.\n\nIncreasingly sophisticated lithium-ion batteries have been essential for smartphone growth\n\nAs for hard drives, lithium-ion batteries, liquid crystal displays and semiconductors themselves - there are similar stories to be told.\n\nIn each case, there was scientific brilliance and plenty of private sector entrepreneurship. But there were also wads of cash thrown at the problem by government agencies - usually US government agencies, and for that matter, usually some arm of the US military.\n\nSilicon Valley itself owes a great debt to Fairchild Semiconductor - the company that developed the first commercially practical integrated circuits. And Fairchild Semiconductor, in its early days, depended on military procurement.\n\nOf course, the US military didn't make the iPhone. Cern did not create Facebook or Google. These technologies, that so many people rely on today, were honed and commercialised by the private sector. But it was government funding and government risk-taking that made all these things possible.\n\nThat's a thought to hold on to as we ponder the technological challenges ahead in fields such energy and biotechnology.\n\nSteve Jobs was a genius, there's no denying that. One of his remarkable side projects was the animation studio Pixar - which changed the world of film when it released the digitally animated film, Toy Story.\n\nEven without the touchscreen and the internet and the Fast-Fourier-Transform, Steve Jobs might well have created something wonderful.\n\nBut it would not have been a world-shaking technology like the iPhone. More likely it would, like Woody and Buzz, have been an utterly charming toy.\n\nTim Harford is the FT's Undercover Economist. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy was broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast.\n\nCorrection: An earlier version of this story suggested the iPhone was the first smartphone, but other smartphones had predated its launch in 2007.", "A \"lonely\" World War Two veteran has been made \"very happy\" after being inundated with Christmas cards following a friend's Facebook plea.\n\nTed Owens, 93, a former Royal Marines Commando from Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire, has received dozens of cards, which he said made him \"feel young again\".\n\nAuthor Mark Llewhellin, a former Army Commando, met Mr Owens a year ago when he interviewed him and posted the request on Facebook on Wednesday.\n\nThe pair have since thanked everyone who sent the cards.", "Journalist Rachel Johnson's been confirmed as the first celebrity to enter the Big Brother house on 2nd January 2018.\n\nThe 52-year-old is the sister of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and daughter of politician, author and I'm a Celebrity contestant Stanley Johnson.\n\nThe new series will feature an all female house for the first time.\n\nIt marks 100 years since women won the right to vote.\n\nIt will be called Celebrity Big Brother: Year Of The Woman, but men will be slowly introduced throughout the series.\n\nRachel confirmed the news in her column in the Mail on Sunday, writing: \"I'm going into the actual Big Brother House. For real. I know. Believe me, I know.\n\n\"I am a firm believer that you only regret the things in life you don't do, not the things you do do.\"\n\nIt's only been a few weeks since her dad left the Australian jungle, after appearing in I'm a Celeb.\n\nShe even said that when she told her husband about her new role, he joked \"Are the Johnsons the new Kardashians?\"\n\nStanley Johnson was the fifth celeb to leave the jungle\n\nRachel hinted at the other celebs that may appear alongside her in the house saying it's a \"classy all-female line-up\" and will include \"female politicians, performance artists, broadcasters\".\n\n\"Big names were duly dropped, and the emphasis on 'empowerment' rather than 'ritual humiliation' promised,\" she added.\n\nChannel 5 promises the series will \"test their - and our - assumptions, challenge gender stereotypes and reveal fascinating truths about what it is to be a woman - and man - in the 21st century\".\n\nFind us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The PM praised troops for their high standards and devotion to duty\n\nThe prime minister has used her Christmas message to the armed forces to pay tribute to the \"valiant hearts\" of British servicemen and women who are working to keep the UK safe.\n\nTheresa May said the RAF, and soldiers training and supporting Iraqi forces, have helped tackle the threat of the so-called Islamic State group in 2017.\n\nAnd she referenced troops on UK streets after terror attacks.\n\nShe praised the sacrifice of those who could not be home for Christmas.\n\nMrs May also paid tribute to the Royal Navy for helping to bring disaster relief to people in the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Irma.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by UK Prime Minister This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMrs May began her message by referring to the centenary commemorations for the World War One battle of Passchendaele in Belgium.\n\nShe said the nation remembered the hundreds of thousands of young men who died \"in the cause of freedom\".\n\n\"Through a century of great change since, the high standards and devotion to duty of our armed forces have remained constant,\" she said.\n\nThe prime minister added: \"Whenever you are called upon - regulars or reserves - you always give of your best and inspire us all with your service.\"\n\nBut she said the achievements of the armed forces were \"made possible by the love and support of your families\".\n\n\"Partners and children are often called on to make huge sacrifices of their own - from a change of school or job, to coping with extended periods of separation,\" she said.\n\n\"That separation is especially difficult at Christmas time, and we should all be immensely grateful for that sacrifice.\"\n\nShe added: \"This Christmas, as people across the United Kingdom celebrate this special time of year with their families and friends, we will do so secure in the knowledge that the valiant hearts of our servicemen and women, many far away from their own loved ones at this special time of year, are working to keep us safe.\"\n\nOn Friday, Mrs May visited troops at the RAF base in Cyprus, where operations against IS have been launched, and last month she met UK military personnel stationed in Iraq.", "No food fit for human consumption will be wasted by Tesco's UK stores by the end of February, the retail giant says.\n\nChief executive Dave Lewis told the Daily Telegraph food waste had been \"talked about for years\" as he unveiled the plans for all 2,654 stores.\n\nUrging other chains to follow suit, he said edible food should be used for people, not go to waste.\n\nTesco, with all major UK supermarkets, has signed a commitment to cut food waste by one-fifth within a decade.\n\nThe voluntary agreement is known as the Courtauld Commitment 2025.\n\nMany supermarkets have introduced initiatives to tackle waste - such as moving away from \"buy-one-get-one-free\" offers that have been criticised for potentially increasing the amount of food thrown away in the home.\n\nEast of England Co-op recently became the first major retailer to sell food beyond its \"best before\" dates.\n\nBut Mr Lewis, who joined Tesco in 2014 from consumer brand Unilever, said the contrast between the amount of wasted food in the UK and the situation in countries suffering food shortages was \"really stark\".\n\nHe said: \"Last year we sold 10 million tons [10.2 million tonnes] of food to the British public. But even if our waste is just 0.7% of the food, that's still 70,000 tons [71,100 tonnes] of food.\n\n\"And so long as that food is fit for human consumption, I'd much prefer it to go to people than animal feed or fuel.\"\n\nThe UK throws away 8.1 million tons [8.2 million tonnes] of food a year, according to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.\n\nTesco says it cuts waste by selling surplus groceries with \"reduced to clear\" stickers and running a scheme giving unsold items to local charities.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIt uses an app, FoodCloud, to scan and upload surplus food that stores have at the end of the day, which is shared with registered charities that collect the food.\n\n\"That goes a long way in reducing charities' bill burdens, so they can spend the money on other things, like the cost of housing two more addicts, or providing much more needed services,\" Mr Lewis said.\n\nBut he admitted it was \"impossible\" to prevent food surpluses in supermarkets.\n\n\"In retail there will always be some surplus food,\" he said.\n\n\"No matter how sophisticated the ordering systems are, it will be impossible to perfectly match the supply and demand for every one of our shops, 365 days a year, when there's so much volatility.\n\n\"Food waste has been talked about for years but if Tesco can make this work, with all of our different stores across the country, then why can't everybody,\" he added.", "Supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have gathered in Moscow to nominate him for presidential elections.\n\nBut the authorities say that because of a criminal conviction, which he says is politically motivated, he will not be allowed to stand.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nStrictly Come Dancing judge Bruno Tonioli has broken down in tears as he recalled losing his mother, as well as friends and relatives, as a young man.\n\nSpeaking on the Christmas edition of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, he dedicated Rod Stewart's version of the Beatles' In My Life to his loved ones.\n\nHe said: \"They are still part of me... I'm getting emotional\".\n\nThe star also told how he avoided Italian military service by telling a top official he was gay.\n\nTonioli joined the BBC TV dance contest show when it first aired in 2004 and has become one of its best-known faces.\n\nHis first break was in theatre with a touring Parisian company and he then went on to work in London in the 1980s as a choreographer for stars including Bananarama, the Rolling Stones and Elton John. His mother died in 1994.\n\nHe told presenter Kirsty Young that In My Life was \"one of the best poems ever written\" - citing its lyrics \"All these places had their moments/With lovers and friends I still can recall/Some are dead and some are living/In my life I've loved them all.\"\n\nTonioli said: \"This song is dedicated to all the people that have passed away....\n\n\"In spite of what has happened in my life, I might have moved away - hopefully I will keep moving - but they are still part of me, they are still... I'm getting emotional.\"\n\nTonioli said filming Strictly at the same time as the US version of the show, Dancing With The Stars, in Los Angeles, had taken its toll on his health.\n\nThe schedule forced him to miss a weekend of this year's Strictly, but he defended himself against reports that the absence was connected to his personal relationship.\n\n\"It was a total overlap all the way through,\" Tonioli said.\n\n\"I said, 'You have to give me a week off because I don't have time for my body to re-energise,' and it was agreed. I didn't just say I didn't want to do it. I would never do that, I'm a pro.\"\n\nTonioli also talked about avoiding military service after telling a top official he was gay, which was not permitted in the Italian armed forces at the time.\n\nHe said: \"He was actually very nice and said he understood I was not pretending.\n\n\"What happened, and I have never told anybody, was that somebody got a whiff and said they would call my parents' house and tell them I'm a queen. So I said, 'Well, do it, who cares?'.\"\n\nDesert Island Discs is on BBC Radio 4 at 11.15 GMT on Sunday, or listen later on iPlayer", "The king of Spain has issued a renewed call for unity amid the ongoing fallout from Catalonia's outlawed independence referendum.\n\nIn his Christmas message, Felipe VI urged the people of Catalonia to choose coexistence rather than confrontation.\n\nHe did not directly mention the leaders of the Catalan separatist movement.\n\nIn the wake of October's referendum in the region, the king heavily criticised those spearheading Catalonia's independence movement.\n\nSome Catalans were angered by this, and the fact that he made no mention of the heavy-handed Spanish police operation to block the vote.\n\nBBC Europe correspondent Kevin Connolly says the king's core underlying message about the importance of national unity remains unchanged, but his Christmas broadcast was more cautious and conciliatory.\n\nThe king said the politicians elected to the Catalan parliament this week - which included a narrow separatist majority - had to \"face the problems that affect all Catalans, with respect to plurality and bearing in mind their responsibility to the common good\".\n\n\"The road cannot lead again to confrontation and exclusion, which as we already know generate nothing but discord, uncertainty and discouragement,\" he said from his Madrid residence.\n\nHe praised what he called Catalonia's openness and creative spirit.\n\nCarles Puigdemont is calling for talks with the Spanish leadership\n\nThe leader of the bloc of separatist parties which won a majority in Thursday's election, Carles Puigdemont, remains in Brussels - a fugitive from the Spanish judicial authorities who have arrested and tried several key separatist leaders in the wake of the illegal referendum.\n\nMr Puigdemont has called on Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to meet him.\n\nOur correspondent says Mr Rajoy clearly has no intention of responding to this.", "Bob Givens redesigned the Bugs Bunny character for Warner Bros. in 1940\n\nBob Givens, the animator best known for his redesign of Bugs Bunny, has died aged 99.\n\nGivens' career spanned over 60 years and he worked as an animator for companies such as Disney, Warner Bros, and Hanna-Barbera.\n\nGivens also drew cartoon characters such as Tom & Jerry, Daffy Duck, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Popeye.\n\nHis daughter, Mariana Givens confirmed his death on her Facebook page earlier this month.\n\nGivens' first role, in 1937, was at Disney where he worked on Donald Duck and Snow White cartoons.\n\nHe joined Warner Bros in 1940 where he became famous for his work on the Bugs Bunny character.\n\nPrevious drawings were said to be \"too cute\" for the cartoons the company wanted to produce.\n\nGivens' redesign became the first official design for the lead character of the Looney Tunes franchise, making him a famous name in the industry.\n\nHe served in the US army during the World War Two, before returning to the animation industry. Givens' career spanned over 60 years.\n\nOn social media, many paid tribute to Givens' work.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Josh Cogan This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOther Twitter users responded by posting GIFs of their favourite Givens animations.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by FilmNoirHolland This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n• None What we learned from the Disney expo", "MPs have revealed some of the abusive, threatening and racist messages sent to them in the build-up to Christmas.\n\nThey include a racist card targeting shadow home secretary Diane Abbott which said \"stop Labour stealing our white Christmas\".\n\nTory Zac Goldsmith tweeted a card he received which wished him a \"cancerous New Year\".\n\nLast week a watchdog raised concern about the \"vile and shocking abuse\" of politicians.\n\nThe Committee on Standards in Public Life said an \"intensely hostile online environment\" had been created and warned people would be put off from entering politics because of the abuse.\n\nIts report found that Ms Abbott received more online abuse than any other female MP.\n\nThe Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP has previously described receiving a torrent of \"mindless\" racist and sexist abuse, which has been \"turbocharged\" by the speed and anonymity of social media.\n\nHer Labour colleague Clive Lewis shared the racist Christmas card that attacked her, which was received by leader Jeremy Corbyn.\n\nMr Lewis tweeted: \"I'm not keen on sharing racist propaganda but I think it's important folk see the kind of hate Diane is subjected to for doing nothing more than standing up for her beliefs.\"\n\nSeveral other MPs have since tweeted expressing their support for Ms Abbott.\n\nAnother MP on the receiving end of abuse is Labour's David Lammy, who shared an email he received giving a \"friendly warning\" he could \"suffer the same fate as Jo Cox\", the Labour MP who was murdered last year.\n\n\"If this is meant to be a subtle way of intimidating me, scaring me or stopping me raising important issues as an elected representative it isn't going to work,\" he said.\n\nMr Lammy, the MP for Tottenham, shared more abusive mail he received on Thursday.\n\nOn Wednesday, Mr Goldsmith, who represents Richmond Park, tweeted what he said was a \"sweet message\" from people criticising his support for Brexit.\n\nAs well as wishing cancer on him, it included abusive language, branding him \"nasty\" and \"a total disgrace\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. MPs are 'never mutineers nor traitors'\n\nAt the weekend, rebel Conservative MPs revealed the threats they had received after the government was defeated on its Brexit bill.\n\nTwo of them, Anna Soubry and Nicky Morgan, said they had contacted the police.\n\nAbusive emails seen by the BBC included one which said \"you should hang for your crimes\" and another saying, \"I hope you do live the rest of your life looking over your shoulder in fear\".\n\nPublishing his report earlier this month, Lord Bew, the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said: \"The increasing prevalence of intimidation of Parliamentary candidates, and others in public life, should concern everyone who cares about our democracy.\n\n\"This is not about defending elites from justified criticism or preventing the public from scrutinising those who represent them: it is about defending the fundamental structures of political freedom.\"", "Donald Trump's Turnberry resort in South Ayrshire is now above the cut-off point for tax relief\n\nA Scottish golf resort owned by US President Donald Trump will no longer qualify for a controversial tax break.\n\nA change in the Scottish government's recent budget will remove Trump Turnberry in South Ayrshire from a business rates relief scheme.\n\nThe Sunday Herald revealed the resort is now above the cut-off point with a rateable value of £1,650,000.\n\nScotland's finance secretary Derek Mackay introduced measures in February to help hospitality businesses.\n\nThe move was in response to growing pressure to intervene to help struggling restaurants and hotels cope with the first revaluation of the rateable value of businesses since 2010.\n\nMr Mackay faced calls to reform the transitional business rates relief scheme after it emerged in August that Trump Turnberry had benefited by £109,530 for 2017/18.\n\nIn response to a wider review of the business rates system, Mr Mackay announced in September that the transitional scheme would continue next year for \"all but the very largest hospitality properties\".\n\nDocuments published alongside the draft Scottish budget earlier this month state it will only apply for hospitality properties with a rateable value up to £1.5m.\n\nAccording to the Scottish Assessors Association website, Trump Turnberry is now above the cut-off point with a rateable value of £1,650,000.\n\nMr Trump bought Turnberry in 2014 but stepped away from the family business empire after being elected US president.\n\nHis other Scottish golf course, on the Menie estate in Aberdeenshire, did not qualify for relief because it is defined as a golf course rather than a hotel.", "The zoo reopened on Sunday after being shut on Saturday after the fire\n\nLondon Zoo has reopened following a fire which killed a number of animals and left several staff needing medical attention.\n\nAn aardvark called Misha died and it is thought meerkats Robbie, Norman, Billy and Nigel were also killed.\n\nOne person was taken to hospital and eight were treated at the scene.\n\nThe zoo said families had offered to help clear up and local builders were offering help with rebuilding enclosures.\n\nAbout 70 firefighters tackled the blaze in the Animal Adventure section that spread to a shop. The cause of the fire is till unclear.\n\nFamilies who had tickets for the zoo's Meet Santa experience on Saturday will be offered refunds, the zoo said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nPhotographs posted on social media showed orange flames rising from the building\n\nLondon Zoo reopened on Christmas Eve following the fire\n\nTen fire engines went to the zoo, which is in Regent's Park, shortly after 06:00 GMT on Saturday.\n\nThe fire was brought under control about three hours later.\n\nIn a statement the zoo said it was devastated about what had happened but was overwhelmed by the support of the community.\n\n\"While it's been heartening to hear the chatter of excited children back in the zoo again today, our work investigating all aspects of the fire continues\", Dominic Jermey, director general at ZSL said.\n\n\"One important update is that our vets completed an initial post-mortem on Misha, the aardvark; they have concluded that she most likely died from smoke inhalation whilst asleep in her den.\n\n\"Sadly though, after a thorough search of the site, we must presume that our four meerkats - brothers Robbie, Norman, Billy and Nigel - have died.\n\n\"We've been overwhelmed by the hundreds of emails, phone calls and letters of support from all over the country - these kind and generous messages range from families offering to give up their Christmas Day to help us clean up, to offers from local builders to rebuild the enclosures for us.\"\n\nThe blaze, which broke out in the children's area, damaged the Adventure Cafe roof\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Boarding schools in England are to offer free places to children with links to the care system, the Department for Education has announced.\n\nLocal authorities will work with children's charities to put forward pupils for bursaries and scholarships.\n\nIt is part of a government pledge to get independent and state schools working more closely together and help students from \"vulnerable\" backgrounds.\n\nAbout 1,000 young people are already being supported by similar schemes.\n\nThe DfE said the Boarding School Partnerships aimed to help children of both primary and secondary age who have previously been in care or are at risk of going into care.\n\nIt says research shows a correlation between the boarding environment and improved educational outcomes for vulnerable children.\n\nParliamentary Under Secretary of State for the School System Lord Agnew said: \"Children who have previously been in care or are at risk of care have often gone through difficult, challenging experiences that can have a lasting impact throughout their lives.\n\n\"These placements won't be right for every child, but the pastoral care and educational support provided by our top boarding schools can have profound benefits for some young people.\"\n\nBoth independent boarding schools and state boarding schools - those funded by local authorities but where fees are charged for accommodation - are taking part in the scheme, which is backed by the Boarding Schools' Association.\n\nThe charities involved are the Reedham Children's Trust, Buttle UK and the Royal National Children's Springboard Foundation.\n\nTwo Surrey schools, King Edward's Witley, and the Royal Alexandra & Albert in Reigate, have been named as participants, with others across the country also said to be involved.\n\nJohn Attwater, headmaster of King Edward's Witley, said boarding could provide a \"life-transforming opportunity for vulnerable children and their families and it is core to our founding mission as a school\".\n\nIt is understood that some local authorities could save money in the long-run because the cost of an annual boarding school placement is much cheaper than foster care.\n\nLabour, however, has called the announcement \"flimsy\" and says the government has already taken money out of children's services.\n\nThe announcement comes after Education Secretary Justine Greening announced a £23m fund to support bright children from poorer backgrounds in England whose talent might otherwise be \"wasted\".", "Tunisia has banned Emirates airline from landing in the capital Tunis after a number of Tunisian women were prevented from boarding its flights.\n\nThe move comes amid widespread anger in Tunisia, with rights groups condemning \"racist and discriminatory\" measures.\n\nThe transport ministry said the measure would stay in place until Emirates was able to \"operate flights in accordance with law and international agreements\".\n\nThe UAE said \"security information\" had caused the delays.\n\n\"We contacted our Tunisian brothers about security information that necessitated taking specific procedures,\" Emirati Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash said on Twitter on Sunday.\n\n\"We highly value Tunisian women and respect them,\" he added.\n\nTunisian government officials said the UAE had banned Tunisian women from flying to or transiting through its territory.\n\nOn Friday the Tunisian government said it had asked the UAE ambassador to clarify what was happening and had been told that the measures had been temporary and had already been lifted.\n\nLocal media reported that Tunisian women had been blocked from boarding Emirates flights to Dubai over several days.\n\nAccording to AFP news agency, some Tunisian women said their journeys to the UAE had been delayed and some that their visas had to undergo additional examination.\n\nTunisia has been trying to improve relations with the UAE that were damaged by its 2011 revolution.\n\nTunisia's Ennahda party - part of the governing coalition - also has links to Qatar, which has been cut off by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain over its alleged support for terrorism.", "More than 7,000 islands make up the Philippines, but the bulk of its fast-growing population lives on just 11 of them.\n\nMuch of the country is mountainous and prone to earthquakes and eruptions from around 20 active volcanoes. It is often buffeted by typhoons and other storms.\n\nThe Philippines - a Spanish colony for more than three centuries, and named after a 16th Century Spanish king - was taken over by the US in the early 20th Century after a protracted rebellion against rule from Madrid.\n\nSpanish and US influences remain strong, especially in terms of language, religion and government. Self-rule in 1935 was followed by full independence in 1946 under a US-style constitution.\n\nThe US is a close ally and has provided military aid to help combat Islamist and communist insurgencies.\n\nThe son of authoritarian President Ferdinand Marcos won a landslide victory in the May 2022 election.\n\nHe took over from firebrand Rodrigo Duterte, who came to power in 2016 after winning over voters with promises of a no-holds-barred campaign to take on crime, drugs and corruption.\n\nPresident Marcos, known by the nickname Bongbong, enlisted Sara Duterte, the daughter of the outgoing president, as his vice-president, thereby uniting two populist right-wing dynasties.\n\nPowerful commercial interests control or influence much of the media.\n\nThe lively TV scene is dominated by free-to-air networks ABS-CBN and GMA. There are hundreds of radio stations and a vigorous newspaper scene.\n\nThe constitution guarantees press freedom, but the Philippines is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.\n\nSpain's fabled galleons plied the Pacific trade route between Manila and Acapulco\n\nSome key dates in The Philippines' history:\n\n900AD - Laguna Copperplate Inscription, mostly written on Old Malay, is the earliest record of a Philippine language and the presence of writing in the islands.\n\n11th Century - Some areas become part of China's tributary system.\n\n14th Century - Indian cultural traits such as linguistic terms and religious practices began to spread in the Philippines.\n\n15th Century - Islam is first established in the Sulu Archipelago.\n\n1542 - Spanish expedition claims the islands and names them the Philippines after the heir to the Spanish throne. Three centuries of Spanish rule fail to conquer Muslim areas in the south.\n\n1896-98 - Philippine Revolution: Filipino revolutionaries fight against the Spanish colonial authorities in an attempt to win the archipelago's independence.\n\n1897 - Spanish authorities and revolutionaries sign the Pact of Biak-na-Bato, which temporarily reduces, and revolutionary officers exile themselves to Hong Kong.\n\n1898 - During the Spanish-American War, the US navy destroys the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. Spain cedes the Philippines to the US, which proclaims military rule and begins to forcibly incorporate Muslim areas.\n\n1898-1902 - Philippine-American War: Tensions arise after the US annexes the Philippines under the Treaty of Paris at end of the Spanish-American War rather than acknowledging the Philippines' declaration of independence. The war can be seen as a continuation of the Philippine struggle for independence that began in 1896 with the Philippine Revolution.\n\n1916 - Jones Act, or Philippine Autonomy Act, which has the first formal declaration by the US to grant eventual independence to the Philippines.\n\n1935 - Commonwealth of the Philippines: Philippines gains internal self-government, with the US responsible for foreign relations.\n\n1941-1945 - The Philippines are occupied by Japan during the World War Two, but are retaken by the US in bitter fighting. More than 500,000 Filipinos die during the war.\n\n1946 - The islands are granted full independence and renamed the Republic of the Philippines.\n\n1942-1954 - Hukbalahap Rebellion: Rebellion by former Hukbalahap or Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (\"People's Army Against Japan\") soldiers against the Philippine government. During the Japanese occupation the Huk guerrillas created village strongholds against the Japanese. After 1945, the new Philippine government, prompted by the US disarmed and arrested the Huks for allegedly being communists. The rebellion eventually petered out in the 1950s.\n\n1965 - Ferdinand Marcos is elected president; he declares martial law in 1972.\n\n1983 - Anti-Marcos lawyer Benigno Aquino is assassinated at Manila's airport as he returns from exile.\n\n1986 - Marcos ousted in \"people power\" revolt after claiming victory over Aquino's widow in an election that many believe was stolen.\n\n2001 - President Joseph Estrada is forced out by a military-backed \"people power\" uprising.\n\n2014 - The Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebel group signs a peace deal with the government, ending one of Asia's longest and deadliest conflicts.\n\n2017 - Islamic State jihadists attack the city of Marawi in Mindanao.\n\n2022 - Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the previous dictator, is elected president.\n\nThe Philippines capital Manila is among the most-populous and fastest-growing cities in South East Asia\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "\"Gentility of speech is at an end,\" thundered an editorial in London's City Press, in 1858. \"It stinks!\"\n\nThe stink in question was partly metaphorical: politicians were failing to tackle an obvious problem.\n\nAs its population grew, London's system for disposing of human waste became woefully inadequate. To relieve pressure on cess pits - which were prone to leaking, overflowing, and belching explosive methane - the authorities had instead started encouraging sewage into gullies.\n\nHowever, this created a different issue: the gullies were originally intended for only rainwater, and emptied directly into the River Thames.\n\nThat was the literal stink - the Thames became an open sewer.\n\nCholera was rife. One outbreak killed 14,000 Londoners - nearly one in every 100.\n\nCivil engineer Joseph Bazalgette drew up plans for new, closed sewers to pump the waste far from the city. It was this project that politicians came under pressure to approve.\n\nThe sweltering-hot summer of 1858 had made London's malodorous river impossible to politely ignore, or to discuss obliquely with \"gentility of speech\". The heatwave became popularly known as the \"Great Stink\".\n\nIf you live in a city with modern sanitation, it's hard to imagine daily life being permeated with the suffocating stench of human excrement.\n\nFor that, we have a number of people to thank - but perhaps none more so than the unlikely figure of Alexander Cumming.\n\n50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the economic world.\n\nA watchmaker in London a century before the Great Stink, Cumming won renown for his mastery of intricate mechanics.\n\nKing George III commissioned him to make an elaborate instrument for recording atmospheric pressure, and he pioneered the microtome, a device for cutting ultra-fine slivers of wood for microscopic analysis.\n\nAlexander Cumming's S-bend was crucial in the development of the flushing toilet\n\nBut Cumming's world-changing invention owed nothing to precision engineering. It was a bit of pipe with a curve in it.\n\nIn 1775, Cumming patented the S-bend. This became the missing ingredient to create the flushing toilet - and, with it, public sanitation as we know it.\n\nFlushing toilets had previously foundered on the problem of smell: the pipe that connects the toilet to the sewer, allowing urine and faeces to be flushed away, will also also let sewer odours waft back up - unless you can create some kind of airtight seal.\n\nCumming's solution was simplicity itself: bend the pipe. Water settles in the dip, stopping smells coming up; flushing the toilet replenishes the water.\n\nWhile we've moved on alphabetically from the S-bend to the U-bend, flushing toilets still deploy the same insight.\n\nRollout, however, came slowly: by 1851, flushing toilets remained novel enough in London to cause mass excitement when introduced at the Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace.\n\nUse of the facilities cost one penny, giving the English language one of its enduring euphemisms for emptying one's bladder, \"to spend a penny\".\n\nHundreds of thousands of Londoners queued for the opportunity to relieve themselves while marvelling at the miracles of modern plumbing.\n\nIf the Great Exhibition gave Londoners a vision of how public sanitation could be - clean, and smell-free - no doubt that added to the weight of popular discontent as politicians dragged their heels over finding the funds for Joseph Bazalgette's planned sewers.\n\nMore than 170 years later, about two-thirds of the world's people have access to what's called \"improved sanitation\", according to the World Health Organization, up from about a quarter in 1980.\n\nBut that still means two and a half billion people don't have access to it, and \"improved sanitation\" itself is a relatively low bar.\n\nIt \"hygienically separates human excreta from human contact\", but it doesn't necessarily treat the sewage itself.\n\nFewer than half the world's people have access to sanitation systems that do that.\n\nThe economic costs of this ongoing failure to roll out proper sanitation are many and varied, from health care for diarrhoeal diseases to foregone revenue from hygiene-conscious tourists.\n\nThe World Bank's Economics of Sanitation Initiative has tried to tot up the price tag.\n\nAcross various African countries, for example, it reckons inadequate sanitation lops one or two percentage points off gross domestic product (GDP), in India and Bangladesh over 6%, and in Cambodia 7%.\n\nOpen sewers are a common sight in Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya\n\nThe challenge is that public sanitation isn't something the market necessarily provides. Toilets cost money, but defecating in the street is free.\n\nIf I install a toilet, I bear all the costs, while the benefits of the cleaner street are felt by everyone.\n\nIn economic parlance, that's a \"positive externality\" - and goods that have positive externalities tend to be bought at a slower pace than society, as a whole, would prefer.\n\nThe most striking example is the \"flying toilet\" system of Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya.\n\nThe flying toilet works like this: you defecate into a plastic bag, and then in the middle of the night, whirl the bag around your head and hurl it as far away as possible.\n\nReplacing a flying toilet with a flushing toilet provides benefits to the toilet owner - but you can bet that the neighbours would appreciate it, too.\n\nContrast, say, the mobile phone. That also costs money, but its benefits accrue largely to me. That's one reason why, although the S-bend has been around for 10 times as long as the mobile phone, many more people already own a mobile phone than a flushing toilet.\n\nIf you want to buy a flushing toilet, it also helps if there's a system of sewers to plumb it into, and creating one is a major undertaking - financially and logistically.\n\nJoseph Bazalgette, standing top right, views the Northern Outfall sewer being built below the Abbey Mills pumping station in 1862\n\nWhen Joseph Bazalgette finally got the cash to build London's sewers, they took 10 years to complete and necessitated digging up 2.5 million cubic metres (88 million cubic ft) of earth.\n\nBecause of the externality problem, such a project might not appeal to private investors: it tends to require determined politicians, willing taxpayers and well-functioning municipal governments.\n\nAnd those, it seems, are in short supply. According to a study published in 2011, just 6% of India's towns and cities have succeeded in building even a partial network of sewers. The capacity for delay seems almost unlimited.\n\nLondon's lawmakers likewise procrastinated- but when they finally acted, they didn't hang about. As Stephen Halliday recounts in his book The Great Stink of London, it took just 18 days to rush through the necessary legislation for Bazalgette's plans. What explains this sudden, impressive alacrity?\n\nThe Houses of Parliament, photographed in 1858, the year of the Great Stink\n\nA quirk of geography: London's Parliament building is located right next to the River Thames.\n\nOfficials tried to shield lawmakers from the Great Stink, soaking the curtains in chloride of lime in a bid to mask the stench.\n\nBut it was no use. Try as they might, the politicians couldn't ignore it.\n\nThe Times described, with a note of grim satisfaction, how MPs had been seen abandoning the building's library, \"each gentleman with a handkerchief to his nose\".\n\nIf only concentrating politicians' minds was always that easy.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nCoverage: Ball-by-ball Test Match Special commentary on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra, Radio 4 LW, online, tablets, mobiles and BBC Sport app. Live text commentary on the BBC Sport website and app\n\nInjured Australia bowler Mitchell Starc hopes his replacement Jackson Bird \"sticks it up\" England in the fourth Test, which starts on 26 December.\n\nStarc, the leading wicket-taker in the series with 19, misses Melbourne's Boxing Day Test with a bruised heel.\n\nLast week England's James Anderson said Ashes winners Australia have \"problems\" beyond their first-choice attack.\n\nStarc hit back: \"I think they have got bigger things to worry about than the depth of Australia's fast bowlers.\"\n\nAustralia have been helped to their unassailable 3-0 lead in the series by the pace of Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood - bowlers who have been bowling in excess of 90mph.\n\nEngland have not managed to take the full 20 wickets in any of the first three Tests.\n\nBut Anderson told his BBC Tailenders podcast: \"They've had three bowlers who all can bowl 90mph. They've stayed fit for all three games. But you look beyond that, they've got problems.\n\n\"They've not got much other than these three that are bowling at the minute. We've got some very skilful bowlers, we've just come up against a team that are better than us this series.\"\n\nStarc was ruled out of the fourth Test on Sunday and, in endorsing right-arm bowler Bird, responded to Anderson.\n\n\"I'm really happy for Jackson to get a go,\" he said. \"I hope he takes five wickets and sticks it up for those daft comments from the Poms.\n\n\"They haven't taken 20 wickets so far in the series and we have and they are having a crack at our depths. I certainly don't like facing Jacko in the nets. I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do to the English batters in this Test.\"\n\n'Sometimes you go into your shell like a turtle'\n\nAustralia opener David Warner also took aim at Anderson, England's all-time leading wicket-taker with 518.\n\nAnderson took five wickets in the second innings of the second Test in Adelaide, while also discomforting home captain Steven Smith with some on-field chatter.\n\nIn the third Test in Perth, Australia racked up 662-9 declared, with Anderson taking four more wickets.\n\n\"Conditions must have suited Jimmy in Adelaide,\" said Warner. \"That's generally what happens. He talks about us being up all the time when we're in front, but it's a different story when he's firing shots at the captain.\n\n\"He went very quiet as soon as he saw the wicket quite flat at the Waca. Sometimes you pick your times when you want to go at people, sometimes you go into your shell like a turtle.\n\n\"We've probably shut them up a little bit at the moment. Hopefully this gets them up and going and they fire some barbs at us, because I love that. I love when we're in a contest and I feel like they were quite flat in Perth.\"\n\nEngland all-rounder Chris Woakes said he would not rise to Warner's challenge.\n\n\"He won't be getting any barbs from me personally, but David can go about his business the way he wants to,\" said Woakes.\n\n\"Maybe that contest will fire him up and make him score a few more runs, so we'll probably keep quiet, to be honest.\n\n\"The amount of chat that goes on in an Ashes series in ludicrous, to be brutally honest. The thing that is most important is how you perform. We haven't performed well enough and we'll try to put that right at the MCG.\"\n\nEngland will definitely be without pace bowler Craig Overton, who has a fractured rib. They could hand a debut to fellow seamer Tom Curran or leg-spinner Mason Crane.\n\nAustralia wicketkeeper Tim Paine has arrived in Melbourne and will play, despite his father-in-law suffering a stroke.\n\nCaptain Smith is fit despite taking a blow on the hand during net practice.", "Restaurant chain Wagamama has apologised after a manager warned workers they face disciplinary action for calling in sick over Christmas.\n\nA note on a rota at one of its London branches said it was the responsibility of ill staff to find colleagues to cover shifts.\n\nWagamama said the manager \"feared team member shortages\" and \"regrettably decided to take this highly unusual approach\", which is not company policy.\n\nA note beneath the rota states: \"No calling in sick! may I remind you that if you are unable to come in for your shift it is your responsibility [underlined] to find someone to cover your shift (as per contract and handbook).\n\n\"Calling in sick during the next 2 weeks will result in disciplinary action being taken\".\n\nWagamama insisted the rule was \"strictly not company policy\", and said it was an \"isolated incident\" at its North Finchley restaurant.\n\nA spokesman for the Unite Hospitality union said: \"To threaten workers with disciplinary action for being sick is not just morally reprehensible, it may be unlawful under the Health and Safety Act and Equality Act as it discriminates against those with long-term physical or mental health conditions.\"\n\nThe pan-Asian chain, which has been owned by the London-based private equity firm Duke Street Capital since 2011, has more than 100 branches across the UK.\n\nA Wagamama spokesperson said: \"Following reports of a notice posted in our North Finchley restaurant we can confirm this was an isolated incident and is strictly not company employment policy.\n\n\"The manager involved feared team member shortages over the festive period and regrettably decided to take this highly unusual approach.\n\n\"As a company we treat all our team with the greatest respect and understand and appreciate the hard work they all do. We sincerely apologise for what has happened and wish all our team members and customers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.\"\n\nThe person who brought the rota to Unite Hospitality's attention is a friend of someone who works at Wagamama in North Finchley.\n\n\"They sent me that picture,\" he told the BBC. \"They didn't want me to share it at all. But my blood was boiling. I needed to do something about it.\n\n\"I don't believe it is company policy. It might have been an idea of the manager because he doesn't know the law.\"\n\nThe rota was put up at Wagamama's branch in North Finchley\n\nHe said the note attached to the rota could be \"dangerous for the health and safety of people\".\n\n\"If you force people to work when they are sick they can poison the food. There is something very wrong.\"\n\nHe said many of the staff at that branch were young workers from Eastern Europe and \"maybe they are scared to lose their jobs or they don't know the law themselves\".\n\nThe Green MSP for the West Scotland region, Ross Greer, was one of the first people to post a photograph of the rota on Twitter, writing: \"That's the end of my custom with @wagamama_uk. Treat your staff with some respect.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Ross Greer This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n@dtaylor5633 also expresses concern about the potential health risks.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Taylor This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe rota note has led a #boycottwagamama campaign on Twitter, with people voicing concern the policy may lead to sick workers undertaking shifts.\n\nHowever, other people say customers should not \"vilify a whole company\" because of an issue related to a single branch. Former employees in other branches have also taken to social media to say they have not experienced similar practices.", "Sam Haskell (pictured on the front row) watches the 2017 contest\n\nThe Miss America Organization CEO, Sam Haskell, has resigned over leaked emails that disparaged pageant contestants.\n\nThe organisation said it would accept Mr Haskell's immediate resignation. Its chairperson, Lynn Weidner and two other executives are also leaving.\n\nThe emails reportedly include vulgar references to past winners and comments about their sex lives.\n\nThe organisation's president and chief operating officer, Josh Randle, has also resigned \"in light of recent and new developments\", a spokesperson confirmed to the BBC.\n\nAnnouncing the resignation of Mr Haskell in a statement posted on its Twitter account, the Miss America Organisation (MAO) said Ms Weidner would help install a new leadership before leaving.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Miss America Org This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe announcement of Mr Haskell's resignation came only hours after the MAO put out a statement saying he had been suspended.\n\nThe Huffington Post published the alleged contents of three years of emails between Mr Haskell and other pageant officials.\n\nSome of the emails referred to Mallory Hagan, the winner of the 2013 contest\n\nThe internal emails include name-calling, slut-shaming and fat-shaming of some of the contestants who had taken part in the pageant.\n\nThe revelations caused Dick Clark Productions, MAO's television sponsor, to cut ties with the long-standing pageant.\n\nDick Clark Productions said in a statement on Friday they had been made aware of the emails \"several months ago\" and were \"appalled by their unacceptable content\".\n\nPressure for the resignation of Mr Haskell also came from 49 former Miss Americas in an open letter.\n\nA former Miss America winner, Mallory Hagan, who was mocked in some of the emails said she \"wasn't shocked, but [felt] validated by the emails\".\n\n\"For the longest time, I've tried to explain to people around me that this is happening or these things are being said,\" the winner of the 2013 pageant told NBC.\n\nGretchen Carlson, a former Miss America and a television presenter, said the alleged emails contained \"disgusting statements about women\" and \"vulgar slurs\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Gretchen Carlson This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a statement, Mr Haskell said he had been \"under stress from a full year of attacks by two Miss Americas, and while I don't ever want to offer an excuse, I do want to offer context\".\n\nBut he also said the original story was \"vicious\" with \"conveniently edited emails\".", "Scotland's political leaders have paid tribute to people working over the holidays in their Christmas messages.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon visited a community cafe in Glasgow and hailed those \"thinking about and helping others\".\n\nScottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson thanked armed forces personnel and organisations like the Samaritans.\n\nLabour's Richard Leonard asked people to \"spare a thought\" for those who cannot spend Christmas with loved ones.\n\nAnd Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said his party had \"turned a corner\" in 2017.\n\nDuring a visit to Woodlands Community Cafe, the first minister paid tribute to volunteers who give up their own time to help other people.\n\nShe said: \"This cafe, and the volunteers here, are among thousands of organisations and individuals throughout Scotland who do so much for our local communities - not just at Christmas, but all throughout the year. They exemplify the solidarity and compassion which is so important to our society.\n\n\"I also know that for many people - for example workers in our emergency services, our health service and in our armed forces - Christmas isn't a holiday at all. Your hard work is appreciated all the year round, but is particularly valued at Christmas time.\n\n\"So over this festive period, let's thank those who are working so hard on our behalf. And let's also - like the people here at Woodlands - do our bit to help others, and to spread some Christmas cheer.\"\n\nRuth Davidson gave a special mention to people who lost a loved one over the last year.\n\n\"The first Christmas without a spouse, sibling, child, parent or friend is always difficult and I hope they find comfort in the company of loved ones,\" she said.\n\n\"For many of us, Christmas is one of the few moments of the year when we get a chance to disengage from work and take a step back for a few days.\n\n\"After a year in which we've often seen more heat than light in our public debate, I hope the holiday season will provide us with a moment to remember what we have in common.\"\n\nThe party leaders got into the festive spirit for Christmas jumper day earlier this month\n\nScottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said he hoped that the homeless have shelter and respite from the cold and those who rely on food banks were able to eat well over Christmas.\n\n\"Those of us who are fortunate enough to celebrate Christmas with our loved ones should spare a thought for those who are not so lucky,\" he added.\n\n\"We should think of those who cannot take time off, those who work in our emergency services over Christmas, those who devote their lives to public service, to taking care of us all, from hospitality workers to nurses, firefighters and all emergency workers, to the people keeping the lights on.\n\n\"And we should think of those refugees who have come to Scotland for sanctuary and to build a new life, and all those who are fighting to survive in too many countries riven with war or internal unrest.\"\n\nMeanwhile Willie Rennie was optimistic about the future of the Scottish Liberal Democrats after success in 2017.\n\n\"We started winning elections again with more MPs and in charge of more councils,\" he said. \"I believe that winning is not just good for the Liberal Democrats but is also good for the country.\n\n\"It means that we have moderate, outward looking, optimistic voices making the case for change and challenging authority and government.\n\n\"With a bigger team of Liberal Democrats we can stand up for people who benefit from the police service, mental health services, education services and a stronger economy.\"\n\nThe Scottish Green Party is expected to issue its leaders' message at New Year.", "Police said the man was carrying about 1,000 joints\n\nAn alleged drug dealer in Copenhagen received an unwanted surprise for Christmas when he jumped into the back of a taxi with about 1,000 joints on him, only to find it was a police car.\n\nDanish police said the man was rushing home when he made the grave error.\n\nThe mistake occurred in Christiania, a semi-autonomous district of the capital founded by hippies in the 1970s and known as a centre for the drug trade.\n\nPolice said the man could face a custodial sentence.\n\nThe full statement from the force earlier in the week read: \"Last night a cannabis dealer from Christiania who wanted to get home quickly got into a taxi. He received a big surprise when he realised it was actually a police car he was sitting in.\n\n\"The police officers were happy to see him, since he was carrying around 1,000 joints.\"\n\nCannabis is illegal in Denmark, with prohibitions on dealing and possession.\n\nPolice have carried out a number of raids in the Christiania district in recent months, mostly seeking out drug dealers rather than the other way around.", "At least 37 people are feared to have died in a fire that swept through a shopping mall in the Philippines. It happened in the southern Philippine city of Davao.", "Digital media company Vice has admitted to a \"boy's club\" culture that failed to protect women staff from harassment.\n\nCo-founders Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi said in a statement that the company had taken action over \"multiple instances of unacceptable behavior\".\n\nThe statement came in response to an in-depth New York Times investigation.\n\nVice began life as a free magazine with a reputation for edgy coverage of youth culture, but has since been backed by major corporations including Fox.\n\nBut Mr Smith and Mr Alvi acknowledged in their statement that the company's roots had contributed to unprofessional conduct that persisted though its rapid growth.\n\nThey said: \"Cultural elements from our past, dysfunction and mismanagement were allowed to flourish unchecked. That includes a detrimental \"boy's club\" culture that fostered inappropriate behavior that permeated throughout the company.\"\n\nMore than two dozen women told the New York Times they had \"experienced or witnessed sexual misconduct,\" including unwanted kisses, lewd remarks, propositions and groping.\n\n\"There is a toxic environment,\" said Sandra Miller, a former Vice executive, \"where men can say the most disgusting things and... where women are treated far inferior than men.\"\n\nThe revelations make Vice the latest in a long list of companies and public bodies, including Ford car company and the US Congress, to face sexual harassment allegations against members and staff, triggered by revelations about the film producer Harvey Weinstein.\n\nThe New York Times report on Vice outlines four settlements reached by the company with staff who alleged sexual harassment or defamation. One involved a 2003 interview by a freelance journalist, Jessica Hopper, with the rapper Murs, in which Ms Hopper wrote that the rapper propositioned her for sex and she said no.\n\nBefore her article was published however, the magazine changed her response to \"Yes\" and printed it. According to records seen by the Times, Vice reached a settlement with Ms Hopper and printed a retraction.\n\nThe company statement outlined steps it had taken to reform its workplace culture, including the hiring of a new HR director, a commitment to pay equity, and an advisory board including feminist icon Gloria Steinem.\n\nFirst published in Canada in 1994 and distributed for free in clothing shops, Vice expanded rapidly with investment from major corporations. The Walt Disney Company now owns an 18% stake in Vice Media.", "A leading doctor tells Santa to swap his mince pies for some of Rudolph's carrots this Christmas\n\nFather Christmas could be doing serious harm to his health by overloading with mince pies and sherry, a leading doctor has warned.\n\nProfessor Helen Stokes-Lampard, head of the Royal College of GPs, said Santa could face a raft of health issues because of his diet and busy schedule.\n\nSome of his conditions could include gout, sleep deprivation and alcoholism.\n\nBut we can all help Santa get a bit fitter, and inspire ourselves too, she says.\n\nProfessor Stokes-Lampard said: \"He's overweight, and all of us do our bit to add to his obesity by leaving mince pies and cookies out for him, and milk or alcohol.\n\n\"If Mr Claus was a patient at my practice, I would be encouraging him to adopt a vastly healthier diet and take more exercise in the new year.\"\n\nSanta could risk 'mixing up important presents' if he has too much sherry\n\nAs well as running between houses, rather than riding on his sleigh, the professor thinks he should \"give the sherry a miss\" and share some of Rudolph's carrots instead.\n\n\"The human body can only process one unit of alcohol per hour, which means excessive consumption could make Santa drunk very quickly,\" she said.\n\n\"This not only increases the likelihood of him slipping in the snow or mixing up important presents, but could also lead to long-term issues affecting his mood and mental health.\"\n\nSo now Prof Stokes-Lampard thinks it is time for Saint Nicholas to take better care of himself and lead by example.\n\n\"Although he sets a brilliant example of good behaviour and teaches the importance of giving rather than receiving, he could probably do more to encourage healthy lifestyles - something youngsters and adults alike can benefit from,\" she says.", "Last updated on .From the section Middlesbrough\n\nChampionship side Middlesbrough parted company with manager Garry Monk hours after a 2-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday.\n\nThe former Swansea and Leeds United boss has been replaced by academy manager Craig Liddle on an interim basis \"while a successor is appointed\", the club said.\n\nMiddlesbrough are ninth in the league and have won 10 of their 23 games.\n\nNews of Monk's departure was announced on the club's Twitter feed and comes just six months after he was appointed.\n\nMonk took charge of the club in June and was tasked with leading the side back to the Premier League following relegation last season.\n\nHe oversaw just four wins in Middlesbrough's first 13 league games but the club won six of their next 10 games to move to within three points of the play-off places.\n\nSpeaking after Saturday's win at Hillsborough, Monk said: \"That was our best away performance of the season and I thought it was a thoroughly deserved win.\n\n\"They are a good team with some quality players, but overall we dealt with their moments pretty well.\n\n\"We have to build on this and use it as a springboard. There are more things to work on and improve.\"\n\n\"I'm certain there will have been talks behind the scenes, certain someone is lined up.\n\n\"It's still an attractive job, people will be really thinking about this job because they know the chairman [Steve Gibson], he's is one of the best in the business.\n\n\"Don't get me wrong though, when things need to be changed, the chairman is ruthless and Middlesbrough Football Club comes first.\"", "Employees of a call centre were trapped on the fourth floor, officials said\n\nAt least 37 people are feared to have died in a fire that tore through a shopping mall in the southern Philippine city of Davao, local officials say.\n\nFirefighters battled for hours to extinguish the blaze that started on the third floor and spread to the floor above, trapping call centre employees.\n\nTheir chances of survival were \"zero\", Davao's Vice-Mayor Paolo Duterte said.\n\nPresident Duterte, a Davao native, met families of the missing outside the burning NCCC mall.\n\nThe cause of the fire, which began on Saturday morning, is being investigated.\n\nThe mall's marketing manager, Janna Abdullah Mutalib, said the blaze started on the third floor, where clothes, appliances and furniture were sold, the Philippines Star website reports.\n\nDavao lies about 800km (500 miles) south-east of the capital Manila.\n\nThe fire comes as the country is coming to terms with a deadly tropical storm.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian mother who has been held in Iran for 20 months, could be freed within a fortnight, her husband says.\n\nRichard Ratcliffe told BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House programme that the \"best case\" was a 25 December release.\n\n\"We are sitting by the phone hoping\", he said, days after an Iranian database listed her as eligible for release.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who turns 39 on Boxing Day, is being held in Iran on spying charges - which she denies.\n\nHer lawyer had visited her in prison, Mr Ratcliffe said, and expected her to be released within the next two weeks.\n\n\"She's still in prison today, so best case is tomorrow,\" he said.\n\n\"It's her birthday on Boxing Day so we were sort of hoping she'd be out for then\".\n\nThe charity worker travelled to Iran last year with her daughter Gabriella, but maintains she was on holiday there.\n\nMr Ratcliffe initially hoped for his wife's return to the UK before Christmas, after learning of a status change in her case from \"closed\" to \"eligible for release\".\n\nHe said \"there's no sign of a new court case\" and that he was \"sitting by the phone hoping\".\n\nBut Iran's spokesman for the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i, refused to rule out a second charge for \"spreading propaganda\".\n\nSpeaking on Sunday, he said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving a five-year prison sentence for alleged spying, had only received a final verdict on this charge.\n\nOn 3 April 2016, she was arrested at an Iranian airport while travelling home with her young daughter and accused of plotting against the Iranian government.\n\nShe says she took her daughter Gabriella, three, to Iran to celebrate the country's new year and visit her parents.\n\nBefore her arrest, she lived in London with accountant husband Richard Ratcliffe and worked as a project manager for the charity Thomson Reuters Foundation.\n\nMr Ratcliffe said he would light the candles on a birthday cake for his wife whatever happens, and telephone three-year-old Gabriella who is being looked after by her grandparents in Iran.\n\n\"She quite likes to watch a birthday cake having its candles blown out,\" he said.\n\n\"[We] sort of try and defiantly celebrate if we can, and keep spirits up.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Richard Ratcliffe tells the BBC: \"Formally, on the system, she's eligible to be released at any point.\"\n\nMr Ratcliffe said his wife's prospects had improved since her case was taken up by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson - after he apologised for a gaffe which appeared to contradict claims she was on holiday.\n\nHe admitted to being \"critical\" of Mr Johnson, but said: \"He's been making every effort in the past couple of weeks and his visit to Iran was profoundly important.\"\n\nHe admitted the progress of his wife's case in Iran was \"bewildering\", adding: \"We're trying not to get too up or too down and just keep battling on\".\n\n\"We're just watching everything now,\" he said.", "The cause of the breakdown has not been established\n\nAt least 150 people have been rescued after being trapped for several hours in ski lift gondolas in the resort of Chamrousse in the French Alps.\n\nA vast rescue operation was launched after the lift broke down at about 15:00 local time (14:00 GMT) and was completed by 17:30, AFP said.\n\nNo-one was injured during the incident.\n\nRescuers reached the top of each gondola and released the skiers through the roof hatch before lowering them to the ground.\n\nThe skiers had been suspended around 25m (82ft) above the snow before ropes were used to bring them down.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Morgane Goulot This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEach gondola has space for about 10 people.\n\nThe cause of the breakdown has not been established.\n\nThe ski lift - built in 2009 to replace a cable car and two chairlifts - connects the town of Chamrousse to the summit of the Croix de Chamrousse, 2,250m above sea level.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Woody Johnson tells Today the US president was not \"namby-pamby\" about voicing his opinions\n\nThe US ambassador to Britain says he expects Donald Trump to visit the UK in the new year despite his recent Twitter row with Theresa May.\n\nWoody Johnson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the disagreement was \"probably misinterpreted\".\n\nMrs May had said Mr Trump was \"wrong\" to share videos posted by the far-right group Britain First, prompting an online backlash from the US president.\n\nMr Johnson said Mr Trump's relationship with the UK was still \"very very good\".\n\nBut Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable said the visit would be \"massively opposed in Britain\" and a full state visit should be \"absolutely off limits\".\n\nSir Vince told the BBC Mr Trump had been \"openly abusing and insulting our own prime minister.\"\n\nLiberal Democrat leader, Sir Vince Cable, said a state visit should \"off limits\"\n\nThe US ambassador said Mr Trump had not yet set a date for the visit - which could be scaled back to a working trip, where the president would not meet the Queen.\n\n\"Absolutely, I think he will come,\" Mr Johnson told Today.\n\n\"It hasn't been officially announced, but I hope he does.\n\n\"I think it's a very very good relationship,\" he said.\n\nSpeaking of Mrs May's visit to the Oval Office in January, he said: \"The prime minister was his first visitor, the first official foreign leader to visit.\"\n\nThere were calls for a reciprocal visit to be abandoned after Mr Trump retweeted three anti-Muslim videos last month.\n\nWhen a Downing Street spokesman said he had been \"wrong\" to do so the president hit back, telling Mrs May to focus on \"destructive\" terrorism in the UK.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nStella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, opposes the visit and said British people deserved a special relationship that works \"both ways\".\n\n\"By sharing and promoting videos by Britain First he's undermined our democratic process and put at risk people in our communities,\" she told Radio 4.\n\n\"He didn't listen to our own prime minister who said this is not acceptable.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Ambassador Johnson This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFormer NFL tycoon Mr Johnson - who has known Mr Trump for 35 years - said he was \"familiar with these kinds of emotions people have\" from his background in sport.\n\nHe accepted there \"may be disagreements\" over how the president says or does things, agreeing that Mr Trump was not \"namby-pamby\" about expressing his views.\n\n\"Maybe he'll ruffle feathers - there's no question that maybe some feathers were ruffled.\"\n\nMr Johnson, who took up his post in September, responded to comments from Twitter users at the time of the row, writing of a \"long history\" of \"speaking frankly\" between the US and UK.\n\nSir Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to the US, said withdrawing the invitation now would give \"serious offence\" to many people in the States, including those who did not vote for Mr Trump.\n\n\"But I think it will be a highly circumscribed visit when it does go ahead,\" he told Today.\n\nThe security risks - including the risk of protests and public disorder - will be \"very great,\" he added.\n\n\"US investment in the UK creates (up to) two million jobs, let's think about the essentials and not the fisticuffs above the surface,\" Sir Christopher said.", "Scientists think Hunga Tunga Hunga Ha'apai might hold clues on where to look for life on Mars.", "Migrants attempting to cross illegally from Italy to France through the snow-covered mountains may be met by police or receive a local welcome.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA woman has died following a gas explosion at a house in Leicestershire.\n\nJanet Jasper was taken to hospital following the blast, which happened on Allington Drive, Birstall, at about 07:30 GMT on Monday.\n\nTwo men were also injured - one is in a stable condition in hospital and the other has been discharged.\n\nOne house was destroyed, another torn in half and 50 others were damaged. A \"handful\" of families spent Monday night in temporary accommodation.\n\nAn investigation is under way.\n\nThe two collapsed houses before and after\n\nThe gas maintenance company Cadent, which supplied the collapsed house in Birstall, has confirmed it attended a call-out on Allington Drive on Sunday.\n\nChris Rison, from Cadent, said: \"We were called and we attended to a job on this street.\n\n\"I can't go through the details of that attendance because that's all part of the investigation but it's true that we attended.\"\n\nThe blast destroyed two houses in Allington Drive, Birstall, and damaged several others\n\nLeicestershire Fire and Rescue Service said two of the injured were rescued from the partially collapsed house and one from the fully collapsed property\n\nThe three injured in the gas blast were taken to three different hospitals\n\nThe Shah family, who live next door to the demolished house, cannot return home because it is not structurally safe.\n\nLocal people have offered them shelter, food and hot drinks.\n\nTina Shah said: \"We have had lots of phone calls and messages. The whole community has been fantastic.\"\n\nTalking about the explosion, she said: \"My son was in bed with me and our roof came in. I didn't know what had happened to my daughter because she was in another room.\n\n\"I am just really grateful I have been able to walk out of my house with my two children.\"\n\nAn online fundraising page for those affected has already raised more than £2,800\n\nAllington Drive remains closed and curtains and blinds can be seen hanging from properties\n\nCharnwood Borough Council said it was too early to tell if those left temporarily homeless would be able to return home before Christmas.\n\nRichard Smith, who lives three doors down from the blast site, has lost dozens of tiles and damaged windows but stayed at home on Monday night in freezing temperatures.\n\n\"It is a bad state, but we are lucky. A lot of people are even worse,\" he said.\n\n\"I can't imagine how those poor people feel. If we had lost our house like they have, I don't know what we would have done really.\n\n\"I just feel terrible for them. I am just hoping and praying that they are OK.\"\n\nAn investigation into the cause is under way\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Clive Lewis said he was \"taken aback\" by the allegation\n\nLabour MP Clive Lewis has been cleared of sexual harassment by a party inquiry, the BBC understands.\n\nThe Norwich South MP was put under investigation last month after a party supporter claimed that she had been groped by him at the Labour conference in Brighton in September.\n\nMr Lewis, the former shadow defence secretary, had always denied the allegation.\n\nHe said: \"I am very pleased to be able to put this behind me and move on.\"\n\nHe added: \"I believe it right and proper that the Labour Party treats all allegations of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct seriously.\n\n\"I want to express my gratitude to my wife, friends and constituents who have supported me during recent weeks.\"\n\nThe Labour Party launched its investigation into Mr Lewis after an unnamed woman told the Independent newspaper that he had groped her.\n\nAt the time, Mr Lewis told the BBC he was \"vigorously\" disputing the allegation, which he said he had been \"pretty taken aback\" by.\n\n\"I don't as a rule at packed Labour Party conferences grope people's bottoms when I greet them,\" he said.\n\n\"It's just not how I roll, it's not what I do.\n\n\"Is the person mistaken? Have I given them a hug and this has been misinterpreted? I don't know.\n\n\"All I know is that I would not deliberately do that, do what's alleged. I completely deny that.\"\n\nAnnouncing the conclusion of the case, a Labour Party spokesman said: \"After consideration of statements provided by the complainant and the respondent, the National Executive Committee's sexual harassment panel has ruled that on the balance of the evidence the matter should not be referred to a full hearing of the National Constitutional Committee.\"", "Presha Taneja took this photo of driving conditions while stuck near junction 20 of the M25.", "A traffic jam near Mülheim - one of many in snow-bound Germany\n\nHeavy snow blanketing northern Europe has caused many flight cancellations and delays at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands and Brussels airport.\n\nAbout 400 flights were cancelled at Schiphol - one of Europe's biggest airports - and about 200 in Brussels.\n\nTravellers have been advised to check flight updates at home, rather than set off for the airport in bad weather.\n\nIn Germany the heavy snow has caused many car crashes and traffic jams, as well as train delays.\n\nMore than 300 flights were cancelled on Sunday at Frankfurt airport, the busiest in Germany.\n\nThe Dutch airport at Eindhoven was temporarily closed because of the snow, and many Dutch schools remained shut on Monday.\n\nConditions improved later at Brussels airport, where planes were able to take off from one de-iced runway. But Brussels Airlines scrapped all its flights.\n\nIn the UK, dozens of flights were cancelled at Heathrow and road conditions were described as treacherous in many areas.\n\nThe heavy snow left thousands of British homes without electricity and hundreds of schools were shut on Monday.\n\nIn France 32 regions were put on an emergency \"orange alert\" footing, as a storm nicknamed \"Ana\" battered the Atlantic coast, with winds gusting as high as 150km/h (93mph). Later the alert was reduced to eight regions in the north and far south.\n\nThere were also avalanche warnings in some French Alpine ski resorts, after a metre (3.3ft) or more of fresh snow fell above 2,000 metres.\n\nNationwide at least 120,000 homes had power cuts on Monday, most of them in the Loire Valley.\n\nThe motorway section between Calais and Boulogne was closed after heavy snow in northeastern France.\n\nNot what you expect in Venice: snowflakes on the gondolas\n\nSnow also spread southwards to Italy, causing some travel disruption in northern regions.\n\nThe snow caused the closure of schools in Liguria, Piedmont and Tuscany, Italy's La Stampa daily reported.\n\nFerry services to the islands off Naples were suspended because of strong winds.\n\nVal d'Isère, France: The plentiful snow is generally good news for ski resorts", "The owner of Westfield shopping centres is being bought for $24.7bn (£18.5bn) in a deal that will see the malls launched in new markets.\n\nAustralia's Westfield Corporation has agreed to be sold to French property group Unibail-Rodamco.\n\nThere are 35 Westfield shopping centres in the UK and the US, while Unibail-Rodamco has 71 sites in Europe.\n\nUnibail-Rodamco said the takeover would result in a \"progressive roll-out of the world famous Westfield brand\".\n\nThe takeover is the second major deal involving shopping centre owners to emerge in just over a week.\n\nOn 6 December, Hammerson, which owns the Bullring in Birmingham, announced a £3.4bn bid for Intu, whose properties include the Arndale shopping centre in Manchester.\n\nWestfield owns 35 shopping centres in Britain and the US\n\nThe deals come as owners of shopping centres face increasing competition from the shift to shopping online.\n\nSir Frank Lowy, the billionaire property tycoon who co-founded Westfield in the 1950s, will retire as chairman of Westfield. His sons Peter and Steven will also step down as co-chief executives of the business.\n\nKate Hardcastle helped the Westfield Corporation with it future retail strategy in 2012, but has no continuing relationship with it: \"Customers like Westfield's shopping centres because they're not just places to buy things. They try to be aspirational destinations that seek to entertain and include everyone. In their luxury sections there is never an aloof atmosphere which makes people feel unwelcome.\n\n\"Importantly they have also invested in good quality, clean toilets and baby changing areas which are an on-going expense. It is all about keeping shoppers in a retail space because the longer they stay there the more they will spend.\n\n\"But Westfield will have to keep innovating to fend off competition from companies such as NewRiver. It owns nearly 30 shopping centres in the UK and is developing a community focused strategy, appealing to different demographics - for instance by hosting coffee mornings for older people.\"\n\nSpeaking at a news conference in Sydney, Westfield chairman Sir Frank Lowy, the billionaire property tycoon who co-founded Westfield in the 1950s said the sale to Unibail-Rodamco would create \"the leading shopping centre company in the world\".\n\n\"It will have the highest quality assets in the best markets across Europe, the United Kingdom and United States. For the assets I've spent my life building I could not imagine a better home for them than in this new company.\"\n\nSir Frank will retire as chairman of Westfield following the sale. He is one of the richest people in Australia with a fortune of $5.9bn, according to Forbes magazine, and was knighted by the Queen last week.\n\nChristophe Cuvillier, chief executive of Unibail-Rodamco, said the acquisition of Westfield \"adds a number of new attractive retail markets in London and the wealthiest catchment areas in the United States\".\n\nHe added that the deal would allow it to cut advertising and marketing costs. At the moment, Unibail shopping centres advertise individually under different brands for big events, such Christmas.\n\nIt intends to roll-out the recognisable Westfield brand across its flagship shopping centres in areas such as Paris, Barcelona, Vienna and Warsaw.\n\nUnibail and Westfield said they would make €100m (£88.2m) in savings a year following the tie-up.\n\nThe group is expected to sell €3bn (£2.65bn) worth of assets over the next few years, which will involving shedding some of its smaller shopping centres.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. University student Ryan Archer's love of gaming spiralled into gambling when he was 15\n\nThousands of children and young people are losing money on websites which allow them to trade virtual items, gambling experts have warned.\n\nThe Gambling Commission's annual report has, for the first time, looked at the problem of so-called \"skin betting\".\n\nThe items won - usually modified guns or knives within a video game known as a skin - can often be sold and turned back into real money.\n\nThe commission says cracking down on the industry is now a top priority.\n\nExperts say third party websites enable children to gamble the virtual weapons - or skins - on casino or slot machine type games, offering them the chance to generate real money.\n\nOverall, the report shows that around 370,000 11-16 year-olds spent their own money on gambling in the past week, in England, Scotland and Wales.\n\nMost commonly, children were using fruit machines, National Lottery scratch cards or placing private bets.\n\nBangor University student Ryan Archer's love of gaming spiralled into gambling when he was 15 and he became involved in skin betting.\n\nFour years later he has lost more than £2,000.\n\n\"I'd get my student loan, some people spend it on expensive clothes, I spend it on gambling virtual items,\" he said.\n\n\"There have been points where I could struggle to buy food, because this takes priority.\"\n\nRyan wanted to build an inventory of skins, but when he could not afford the price tag attached to some of them he began gambling on unlicensed websites to try to raise money.\n\nHe said: \"It's hard to ask your parents for £1,000 to buy a knife on CSGO (the multiplayer first-person shooter game Counter Strike: Global Offensive), it's a lot easier to ask for a tenner and then try and turn that into £1,000.\"\n\nIn CSGO, players can exchange real money for the chance to obtain a modified weapon known as a skin and a number of gambling websites have been built around the game.\n\n\"You wouldn't see an 11-year-old go into a betting shop, but you can with this, there's nothing to stop you,\" Ryan said.\n\nSkins modify the look of a gun\n\nSkins are collectable, virtual items in video games that change the appearance of a weapon - for example, turning a pistol into a golden gun.\n\nSometimes skins can be earned within a game, but they can also be bought with real money.\n\nSome games also let players trade and sell skins, with rarer examples attracting high prices.\n\nA number of websites let players gamble with their skins for the chance to win more valuable ones.\n\nSince skins won on such a website could theoretically be sold and turned back into real-world money, critics say betting with skins is unlicensed gambling.\n\nSarah Harrison, chief executive of the Gambling Commission, said: \"Because of these unlicensed skin betting sites, the safeguards that exist are not being applied and we're seeing examples of really young people, 11 and 12-year-olds, who are getting involved in skin betting, not realising that it's gambling.\n\n\"At one level they are running up bills perhaps on their parents' Paypal account or credit card, but the wider effect is the introduction and normalisation of this kind of gambling among children and young people.\"\n\nEarlier this year, the Gambling Commission for the first time prosecuted people for running an unlicensed gambling website connected to a video game.\n\nCraig Douglas, a prominent gamer known as Nepenthez, and his business partner Dylan Rigby, were fined £91,000 ($112,000) and £164,000 respectively after admitting offences under the UK's Gambling Act.\n\nThe men ran a website called FUT Galaxy that was connected to the Fifa video game and let gamers gamble virtual currency.\n\nMs Harrison said the regulator was prepared to take criminal action, but said the \"huge issue\" also required help from parents, game platform providers and payment providers.\n\nSome games providers have put more safeguards in place, but many of the sites are based abroad.\n\nVicky Shotbolt, from the group Parentzone said: \"It's a huge emerging issue that's getting bigger and bigger, but parents aren't even thinking about it.\n\n\"When we talk to people about skin gambling, we normally get a look of complete confusion.\"\n\nShe called on regulators to take more action over the issue.", "There will be lying snow, ice and freezing fog for many during the morning, the BBC's Carol Kirkwood says.", "Fire crews were called to the scene on Jackson Street at about 05:00 GMT\n\nThree children have died in a house fire in Salford, while a three-year-old is said to be in a critical condition.\n\nA 14-year-old girl, named locally as Demi Pearson, was declared dead at the scene, while an eight-year-old boy and a girl aged seven died in hospital.\n\nTheir mother, named as Michelle Pearson, 35, is in a serious condition.\n\nFour people have been arrested on suspicion of murder over the fire, which broke out at the house in Jackson Street, Walkden, at about 05:00 GMT.\n\nMs Pearson has been heavily sedated and has not yet been told that her children are dead, a Greater Manchester Police (GMP) spokesperson said.\n\nThree men, aged 18, 20 and 23, and a 20-year-old woman have been arrested on suspicion of murder and remain in custody for questioning.\n\nA 24-year-old man has also been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.\n\nGMP confirmed it had had very recent contact with the family and had visited the house in the hours before the blaze.\n\nThe case has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).\n\nThe roads around Jackson Street have been cordoned off\n\nCh Supt Wayne Miller said what had happened was \"the murder, using fire, of three children and we have a three-year-old girl fighting for her life\".\n\nHe said officers were \"keeping an open mind\" over whether the tragedy was related to organised crime.\n\nAppealing for any information \"no matter how small\", he added the deaths would \"devastate this family forever\".\n\nNeighbour Susan Smith said she saw the children being carried to the ambulances\n\nNeighbour Susan Smith said she heard \"people screaming and shouting and then I opened the bathroom window and it was just like if you can imagine an orange cloud and a bang and fireballs coming from the house\".\n\nShe said paramedics were \"pulling up outside our house and they were carrying the children to the ambulances\".\n\nThe four children, their mother and one other person were taken to hospital.\n\nTwo boys, aged 16, who were also in the house, were described as \"walking wounded\".\n\nIt is understood one of the boys is a family member, while the other is not related.\n\nPolice are treating the fire as suspicious\n\nGreater Manchester Fire Service said crews rescued five people when they arrived on the scene, while two people had already got out of the house.", "Black-legged kittiwake: Colonies are struggling to feed their chicks\n\nOverfishing and changing sea temperatures are pushing seabirds to the brink of extinction, according to new data on the world's birds.\n\nBirds that are now globally threatened include the kittiwake and the Atlantic puffin, which breed on UK sea cliffs.\n\nMeanwhile, on land, the Snowy Owl is struggling to find prey as ice melts in the North American Arctic, say conservation groups.\n\nThe iconic bird is listed as vulnerable to extinction for the first time.\n\n\"Birds are well-studied and great indicators of the health of the wider environment,'' said Dr Ian Burfield, global science coordinator at BirdLife International, the IUCN Red List authority on birds.\n\n''A species at higher risk of extinction is a worrying alarm call that action needs to be taken now. ''\n\nHe added that success in kiwi and pelican conservation had shown that, when well-resourced and supported, conservation efforts do pay off.\n\nWorldwide, over a quarter of more than 200 bird species reassessed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature have been moved to higher threat categories while a similar number have been downgraded.\n\nSeabirds are of particular concern, including Cape gannets, which are now classified as Endangered, and the Antipodean Albatross, which risks being drowned by fishing lines.\n\nFishing pressures and ocean changes caused by climate change are reducing food supply for the chicks of seabirds, while adults receive little protection when they fly over areas of the ''high seas'' that do not fall under the jurisdiction of any country, says BirdLife International.\n\nThe kittiwake (Rissa Tridactyla, or black-legged kittiwake), which breeds along northern coasts, has declined globally by about 40% since the 1970s.\n\nMore than 70% of the British breeding kittiwake population is found in Scotland.\n\nHowever, there has been a dramatic decline, particularly in Orkney and Shetland and on St Kilda in the Western Isles.\n\n\"Some efforts are underway to protect important seabird foraging areas in international waters, but there is much more we could do around the UK to protect our internationally important and increasingly threatened seabird populations,\" said Laura Bambini, the RSPB Scotland's seabird recovery officer.\n\nSandeels are a vital food source for breeding seabirds in the North Sea. The eels are threatened by rising sea temperatures and are also harvested by commercial fisheries.\n\n\"We need to ensure that the future management of the sandeel fishery is sustainable,'' said Dr Euan Dunn, the RSPB's marine policy specialist.\n\nCape gannet: Fish stocks are depleted, so it is going hungry\n\nThe other birds found in the UK to be placed on the IUCN Red List are:\n\nElsewhere, the Snowy Owl has moved up the rankings from Least Concern to Vulnerable. The North American population has declined by 64% since 1970, as changing temperatures affect its habitat and prey. Collisions with vehicles and utility lines are also a threat to the owl, made famous in the Harry Potter books.\n\n\"Arctic biodiversity is under pressure from a number of stressors, including climate change, so hopefully the uplisting of the Snowy Owl as a flagship species will also draw attention to wider issues in this region,'' said Dr Burfield.\n\nDalmatian pelican: On the rise due to added protection measures\n\nIn Asia, the Yellow-breasted Bunting (Emberiza aureola), which is illegally trapped for food, has been uplisted from Endangered to Critically Endangered.\n\nMore positive news comes from Europe, where Dalmatian Pelicans are recovering after conservation efforts. This year, pelicans on Lake Skadar in Montenegro had their most successful breeding season ever, raising 60 chicks.\n\nHowever, while two species of kiwi in New Zealand are now less threatened, the Kea is declining, in part due to tourists feeding the parrots with junk food like bread and chips.", "The health risks are lower than smoking cigarettes\n\n\"Heat-not-burn\" tobacco products are harmful to health even though they are safer than regular cigarettes, say UK experts.\n\nThe advisory panel to the government said the devices produce \"a number of compounds of concern\", including some that can cause cancer.\n\nManufacturers say their products are aimed at smokers who want the \"taste of tobacco with no smoke and less smell\".\n\nThe panel was concerned that young non-smokers might start using the products.\n\nThere were also worries that the products could lead people to take up smoking cigarettes.\n\nThe Committee on Toxicity (Cot) looked at the available evidence about the risks of two heat-not-burn products that have recently gone on sale in the UK - IQOS and iFuse.\n\nThe devices heat tobacco to a high enough temperature to create a vapour but not smoke.\n\nThey are different to e-cigarettes, which vaporise a liquid containing nicotine - the highly addictive compound in tobacco smoke.\n\nThe committee found that people using heat-not-burn products are exposed to between 50% to 90% fewer \"harmful and potentially harmful\" compounds compared with conventional cigarettes.\n\nBut it was unable to quantify the exact health risk.\n\nProf Alan Boobis, committee chairman, said: \"The evidence suggests that heat-not-burn products still pose a risk to users. There is likely to be a reduction in risk for cigarette smokers who switch to heat-not-burn products but quitting entirely would be more beneficial.\"\n\nThere was not enough evidence for the committee to compare heat-not-burn with e-cigarettes.\n\nBut the committee noted: \"If people perceive e-cigarettes as safe this perception could transfer to heat-not-burn tobacco products, despite a lack of data on which to establish this.\"\n\nPublic Health England says there is a large amount of evidence that shows e-cigarettes are much less harmful than smoking - at least 95%.\n\n\"We encourage smokers to try e-cigarettes as a way of stopping smoking. People who combine e-cigarettes with support from their local stop-smoking service have some of the highest quit success rates.\"\n\nQuitting tobacco-use completely is still the healthiest option, say health experts.\n\nA spokesman for Philip Morris Limited, which makes IQOS, said: \"We are encouraged by today's statement of the UK's Committee on Toxicity and will continue to share our scientific evidence.\n\n\"We believe that smoke-free alternatives, including heated tobacco products like IQOS and e-cigarettes, have significant potential to be less harmful than cigarettes and can play an important role for smokers and public health.\"\n\nSimon Clark from the smokers' group Forest said: \"Electronic cigarettes are a step too far for many smokers so if the government wants smokers to quit there has to be a range of products that fills the gap between combustible tobacco and e-cigarettes.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has ordered an investigation after reports rail firms \"misled\" customers.\n\nThe watchdog Transport Focus said companies were selling tickets for services over Christmas, despite knowing they will not run.\n\nMr Grayling said was \"unacceptable\" for passengers to have to pay higher \"walk-up\" fares at Christmas.\n\nIndustry body the Rail Delivery Group said its members would \"develop a plan\" to address the complaints.\n\nMr Grayling said: \"It would be totally unacceptable if any passenger has to pay walk-up fares this Christmas because advance tickets were not available.\"\n\n\"I expect passengers to be offered the highest standards of customer service and have ordered an immediate investigation into this report.\"\n\nHe also urged Network Rail and train companies to work closer together to minimise disruption and make sure the problem did not happen again.\n\nTransport Focus found more than 2,600 incorrect journeys - those already cancelled or scheduled to face disruption - were on offer during the Christmas week alone.\n\nThe group also found that by 13 October - 11 weeks before Christmas - reservations had not opened on Great Western, London Midland, South Western Railway and Southern - despite regulations stating they should.\n\nOnly 15% of services were open for reservation on Greater Anglia and 25% on Virgin Trains.\n\nTransport Focus chief executive Anthony Smith said: \"Failure to release timetables 12 weeks ahead of travel can mean passengers buy tickets for trains that will not run.\n\n\"That can't be right. Train operators' advice is to book early at Christmas to get the best deal.\n\n\"But if the timetable has not been finalised only more expensive 'on the day' tickets can be bought.\"\n\nHelen Firth, 37, from Surrey commutes to London for work and says getting home on time to see her nine-year-old son was important.\n\nBut she said she was unable to plan her Christmas journeys.\n\n\"It's unfair if someone's forked out a bunch of money, but don't know if their train will be delayed,\" she said.\n\n\"Companies should at least advise people so they have the option of knowing and planning other routes.\"\n\nPaul Plummer, chief executive of Rail Delivery Group responded to the Transport Focus criticisms, saying the issue was \"important\" and he would reply more fully before Christmas.\n\nTransport Focus have called for a network-wide review to ensure train operators publish correct timetables 12 weeks in advance.\n\nThey also want incorrect information to be removed from online timetables, and say passengers who have already bought tickets must be notified when there are changes to their journeys.", "Several influential figures responsible for creating the internet have demanded that a controversial vote be cancelled.\n\nThis week the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will decide on whether to repeal an Obama-era law that protects \"net neutrality\".\n\nIt refers to the principle that all traffic on the internet is treated equally.\n\nThe pioneers said the FCC did not know what it was doing.\n\n\"It is important to understand that the FCC’s proposed Order is based on a flawed and factually inaccurate understanding of internet technology,\" the open letter read.\n\nSignees included several of the architects of the early internet and world wide web, such as Vint Cerf and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, along with Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder.\n\nThe letter calls for the vote, due to be held on 14 December, to be cancelled due to what the authors regard as a lack of transparency and a refusal to listen to critics of the plan.\n\n\"The FCC’s rushed and technically incorrect proposed Order to abolish net neutrality protections without any replacement is an imminent threat to the internet we worked so hard to create,\" the letter states. \"It should be stopped.\"\n\nApple co-founder Steve Wozniak is calling for net neutrality to be maintained\n\nThe letter, signed by 21 notable people, was sent to the Senate's commerce subcommittee on communications, technology, innovation and the internet.\n\nThis week could be pivotal in the history of the internet. Although it is yet to vote, there is no doubt that the Republican-controlled FCC will choose to end net neutrality when it makes its ruling on Thursday.\n\nWithout laws protecting the principles, campaigners say internet service providers (ISPs) will have free rein to exploit new power by throttling certain types of internet traffic.\n\nFor example, an ISP may decide to charge extra to use a service such as Netflix, or give a company an upper hand by not counting use of certain services when charging users for data bandwidth.\n\nSuch moves are theoretical, but until now were prevented by law.\n\nThe FCC believes the possible impact of the move has been exaggerated, and said the change in regulations would help improve competition and remove government meddling in the internet.\n\nIt said the open market should mean users are not unfairly treated by ISPs - despite many Americans only having one choice of provider in certain parts of the country.\n\nIn a move designed to allay fears of foul play, the FCC and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Monday announced new coordination to clamp down on unfair behaviour from telecoms companies.\n\nThe FCC and the FTC, the government body tasked with protecting consumer rights, will jointly investigate any issues.\n\nVint Cerf is known as one of the \"fathers of the internet\"\n\n\"Instead of saddling the Internet with heavy-handed regulations, we will work together to take targeted action against bad actors,\" the FCC said.\n\nThe FCC's pledge reads that internet providers must be transparent in providing \"information concerning an ISP’s practices with respect to blocking, throttling, paid prioritization, and congestion management\".\n\nThat wording only seemed to intensify campaigners' fears.\n\nChris Lewis, from pro-net neutrality group Public Knowledge, said: \"There is no comfort in this announcement from the FTC.\n\n\"Not only is the FCC eliminating basic net neutrality rules, but it’s joining forces with the FTC to say it will only act when a broadband provider is deceiving the public.\"\n\nHe added: \"This gives free rein to broadband providers to block or throttle your broadband service as long as they inform you of it.\"\n\nProtests against the FCC's move will step up a gear on Tuesday. Campaigners have pledged to \"break the internet\" with floods of messages urging people to contact their representatives.", "The government has published a new law that says it must treat animals as \"sentient beings\" when it makes laws.\n\nEnvironment Secretary Michael Gove promised to \"make Brexit work not just for citizens but for the animals we love and cherish too\".\n\nThe draft law also increases the maximum sentence for serious animal cruelty to five years in jail.\n\nThe Green Party said the government had done a \"screeching U-turn\".\n\nThe move follows last month's animal sentience \"fake news\" row involving a celebrity-backed social media campaign.\n\nAfter MPs voted not to incorporate part of an EU treaty recognising that animals could feel emotion and pain into the EU Withdrawal Bill, some widely-shared reports and petitions suggested it had been a vote against the idea of animal sentience itself.\n\nHigh-profile figures such as explorer Ben Fogle shared the stories. He later apologised for posting \"misleading threads\" but defended sharing details on \"important stories\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn the aftermath Mr Gove hit out at the way social media \"corrupts and distorts\" political reporting and promised new UK legislation to ensure the principle of animal sentience is recognised.\n\nThe draft bill says the government \"must have regard to the welfare needs of animals as sentient beings in formulating and implementing government policy\".\n\nMr Gove said: \"Animals are sentient beings who feel pain and suffering, so we are writing that principle into law and ensuring that we protect their welfare.\n\n\"Our plans will also increase sentences for those who commit the most heinous acts of animal cruelty to five years in jail.\n\n\"We are a nation of animal lovers so we will make Brexit work not just for citizens but for the animals we love and cherish too.\"\n\nSpeaking in a House of Commons debate, Environment Minister Therese Coffey said that \"contrary to the fake news that was spread recently\" the \"direct effect of animal sentience\" was already recognised \"throughout the statute book\" but the new measure would put animals' capability of feeling pain or pleasure \"more clearly than ever before in domestic law\".\n\nDavid Bowles, the RSPCA's head of public affairs, said the plans were \"potentially great news\" for animals post-Brexit.\n\nHe said: \"To include the recognition of animal sentience as well as increasing animal cruelty sentencing to five years into the new 2018 Animal Welfare Bill is a very bold and welcome move by the government.\"\n\nGreen Party MP Caroline Lucas, whose amendment to the EU bill sparked the debate about animal sentience, said the government had \"performed a screeching U-turn\" after previously insisting it was covered by existing UK law.\n\n\"There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that this legislation wouldn't have emerged now without the pressure of thousands of people who have taken action after the government voted against my amendment,\" she said.\n\nLabour's Sue Hayman, shadow environment, food and rural affairs secretary, said: \"This is a rushed and haphazard attempt to backtrack on the government's mistake of not including animal sentience in the EU Withdrawal Bill.\n\n\"There are serious questions about whether this Bill is equivalent to current EU standards given that it does not appear to cover wild animals - giving this Tory government freedom to pursue their pro-fox hunting and reckless badger culling agenda across England.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The blast hit during New York's rush-hour - this is how events unfolded\n\nA man is being held after an attempted terror attack at New York City's main bus terminal.\n\n\"Terrorists won't win,\" Mayor Bill de Blasio said after a blast at the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan during the morning rush hour on Monday.\n\nThe suspect, Akayed Ullah, a 27-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant, was injured by a \"low-tech explosive device\" strapped to his body, officials say.\n\nThree other people suffered minor wounds when it blew up in an underpass.\n\nA photo circulating on social media shows a man, said to be Akayed Ullah, lying on the ground with his clothes ripped and lacerations on his upper body.\n\nMayor De Blasio said he was believed to have acted alone.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. NYC police commissioner: 'Suspect has burns and wounds to body'\n\nNew York Governor Andrew Cuomo said: \"This is New York. The reality is that we are a target by many who would like to make a statement against democracy, against freedom.\n\n\"We have the Statue of Liberty in our harbour and that makes us an international target.\"\n\nThe explosion occurred at about 07:30 (12:30 GMT). Andre Rodriguez, 62, told the New York Times: \"I was going through the turnstile. It sounded like an explosion, and everybody started running.\"\n\nAnother eyewitness, Alicja Wlodkowski, told Reuters news agency that she had seen a group of about 60 people running. \"A woman fell. And nobody even went to stop and help her because the panic was so scary,\" she said.\n\nNearby subway stations were evacuated, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal temporarily shut.\n\nIt is the biggest and busiest bus terminal in the world, serving more than 65 million people a year.\n\nThe suspect's home in the New York City borough of Brooklyn is being searched, the New York Times reports.\n\nHe may have been recently working at an electrical company, according to the New York Post.\n\nMr Ullah emigrated to the US on a family visa in 2011. The Bangladeshi government said he had no criminal record in the country, which he last visited in September.\n\nWhite House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders claimed that if Mr Trump's proposed immigration crackdown had already been in place, \"the attacker would have never been allowed to come into the country\".\n\n\"This attack underscores the need for Congress to work with the president on immigration reforms that enhance our national security and public safety,\" she added during a daily news briefing on Monday.\n\nSeveral blocks of the city have been cordoned off\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Spectrum News NY1 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A fraudster who met her victim on a dating website for naturists scammed him out of £50,000.\n\nMoira Etchells, 45, met Ian Chatting-Tonks in 2013 and persuaded him to lend her the cash to start a business artificially inseminating cows.\n\nSwansea Crown Court heard she spent £35,000 on a new Land Rover and banked the rest.\n\nEtchells, of Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, admitted fraud and got an 18-month sentence, suspended for two years.\n\nWidower Mr Chatting-Tonks, from Norfolk, went online to search for a new partner who was also interested in naturism, which is when he found Etchells' profile.\n\nHe paid for her to fly to Alicante where she persuaded him to back a new cow insemination and hoof trimming business.\n\nShe said it would give her more time to visit him once a month in Spain, where he had retired to live.\n\nHe sent her a total of £50,000, but became suspicious when she started taking longer to respond to his emails.\n\nWhen Mr Chatting-Tonks said he was going to visit Etchells in Wales, she claimed to have moved to Ireland.\n\nDyfed-Powys Police began investigating and when caught, she repaid £50,000 in full after selling the Land Rover.\n\nThe court was told Etchells had underlying bipolar effective disorder and her condition led to her making \"fanciful\" claims.\n\n\"I have found this case truly bizarre,\" said Judge Geraint Walters.", "Compare the temperature where you are with more than 50 cities around the world, including some of the hottest and coldest inhabited places. Enter your location or postcode in the search box to see your result.", "Decades ago, Jessica Leeds says Donald Trump groped her on a flight. It's a story she first shared during the 2016 election - and multiple other women soon followed suit.\n\nNow, some of them are demanding that Congress holds the president accountable for the allegations. The BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan reports.", "The museum will show how fat is blocking London's Victorian infrastructure\n\nPart of one of the capital's biggest fatbergs is going to be put on display in the Museum of London next year.\n\nIt is a slice of a monster fatberg, over 250m (820ft) long, which had been clogging up sewers below Whitechapel.\n\nThe museum says it was a congealed concoction of \"fat, oil, grease, wet wipes and sanitary products\".\n\nThe display will show how modern living and high levels of rubbish are putting pressure on the \"arteries\" of London's Victorian infrastructure.\n\nThe Whitechapel fatberg became something of a celebrity in its own right last autumn - with Thames Water fighting a nine-week battle against a \"rock hard\" blockage weighing 130 tonnes.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Part of the fatberg was filmed by Thames Water engineers trying to remove the blockage\n\nThe museum describes the fatberg's dimensions as being longer than Tower Bridge and as heavy as 11 double-decker buses.\n\nCurator Vyki Sparkes said it \"will be one of the most fascinating and disgusting objects we have ever had on display\".\n\nThames Water's Stuart White says that part of its fascination is that it is the product of our own modern-day living, describing it as \"repulsively human\".\n\nThere is an eco-friendly ending to what happened to the rest of the fatberg.\n\nIt was chopped up and mostly converted into bio-diesel.\n\nDespite the name, fatbergs are actually mainly made up of wet wipes. They account for a startling 93% of the material blocking our sewers according to Water UK, the membership body for water providers.\n\nThey collected samples to analyse from blockages in sewers, pumps and wastewater treatment works.\n\nWet wipes - mostly baby wipes, but also those used to remove make up and clean surfaces - made up the vast majority of the material.\n\nFat, oil and grease only made up 0.5%.\n\nThe other 7% was made up of a range of other materials including feminine hygiene products, cotton pads and plastic wrappers.\n\nToilet paper made up just 0.01% of the material blocking our pipes and sewers.\n\nEnvironmental charities including Greenpeace and the Marine Conservation Society say they are not surprised by this high number since wet wipes are often marketed as \"flushable\".", "A senior Labour MP has apologised to the Commons and repaid £2.97 after she was found to have breached Parliament's code of conduct.\n\nDame Margaret Hodge offered a \"sincere\" apology for \"inadvertently\" breaching the rules over her review of the London Garden Bridge project.\n\nAn inquiry said the Barking MP should not have used Parliamentary resources for the review.\n\nThe £2.97 repayment was the cost of House of Commons stationery, she said.\n\nThe code of conduct states MPs should use public resources only \"in support of parliamentary duties\".\n\nThe inquiry concluded the review had not been carried out as part of Dame Margaret's parliamentary activities, because it had been commissioned by an outside body for its own purposes.\n\nThe £200m plan to build a bridge covered with trees over the River Thames was abandoned following Dame Margaret's review, which was published in April.", "Netflix has defended a tweet that revealed 53 people had watched its new Christmas film every day for 18 days in a row.\n\n\"Who hurt you?\" read the tweet, addressed to them.\n\nThe tweet caused controversy, with some saying it was \"creepy\" of the platform to keep such close tabs on its audience, and mock their choices.\n\nHowever, others found it entertaining - and unsurprising that Netflix should know what its customers were viewing.\n\nIn a statement, Netflix said the privacy of its members was important.\n\n\"This information represents overall viewing trends, not the personal viewing information of specific, identified individuals,\" said a representative.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Netflix US This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Netflix US\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Michele Musso This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by ben goldacre This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNetflix has been studying its user data closely for some time but doesn't often share it.\n\nWhen the platform first decided to start producing its own material, it mined its user data to see what the most popular content was among its existing customers.\n\nAt that time it discovered that the most searched-for and viewed material included that which featured (now disgraced) actor Kevin Spacey, the director David Fincher and BBC political dramas - and that led to the re-make of the 1990 BBC political thriller House of Cards, involving the pair.\n\n\"Netflix, like any company these days, keeps a sharp eye on what its users like so that it can offer them more of what they like,\" said technology commentator Kate Bevan.\n\n\"What's a bit creepy, however, is extracting data points with no context and offering up data that should be anonymised in a way that could identify individuals.\"\n\nDr Bernie Hogan, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, accused Netflix of \"humblebragging\" by suggesting its Christmas movie was so compelling it was worth watching every day.\n\n\"It is in poor taste,\" he added.\n\n\"Some people have little children who love the comforting repetition of seeing the same movie every day.\n\n\"To wryly say 'who hurt you' as they did in the tweet shows not only that they are interested in making moral judgments for the sake of a laugh but also that they probably do not have much contact with young children. It sounds like a cheeky social media account operator who was too clever for their own good.\"\n\nMusic streaming service Spotify has been using data like this in its advertising since 2016.\n\nBillboards featuring straplines such as \"Be as loving as the person who put 48 Ed Sheeran songs on their 'I love gingers' playlist,\" form part of its winter season campaign, reports Adweek.\n• None Netflix viewers like comedy over their cornflakes", "Although his main Twitter account has nearly 44 million followers, President Donald Trump chooses to follow just 45 other Twitter users - all of whom agree with him, most of the time.\n\nNow that seeming reluctance to expose himself to alternative viewpoints is being put forward as a possible factor in the president's decision to retweet three videos by a far-right UK group.\n\nSocial media experts call it the \"filter bubble\" - the ability to choose only the news and views that we agree with.\n\nEarlier this year, Microsoft founder Bill Gates warned against the negative effects of the filter bubble, which he said increasingly prevented people from \"mixing and sharing and understanding other points of view\".\n\n\"It's turned out to be more of a problem than I, or many others, would have expected, \" he told the Quartz website.\n\nSometimes the bubble is automatic, created for us by a combination of our browsing history data, plus the algorithms of Facebook and Google. The end result: posts, people and stories that conform to our individual world view.\n\nSometimes we get to build our own bubble, by deliberately cutting ourselves off from dialogue with people who don't agree with us.\n\nIf Wednesday morning followed the president's typical routine, he woke up, turned on the TV and opened Twitter on his phone.\n\nAlthough the White House has refused to discuss the \"process\" by which the video was shared, most observers think it was the president who chose to retweet the video \"Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!\"\n\nThe authenticity of that video has now been challenged.\n\nThe anger deepened when it was confirmed the three videos had originally been shared by the deputy leader of an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim group - Britain First.\n\nThey had made their way onto the president's feed - it's thought - via one of the few people the president follows on Twitter: right-wing commentator Ann Coulter.\n\nOn Thursday, she defended her retweet, telling the BBC: \"A video is a video…you don't need to fact-check it.\"\n\nMs Coulter is one of the 45 Twitter users that the president \"follows\" on his most effective communication tool - @realDonaldTrump has 43.7 million followers\n\nBut compared with his predecessor, Mr Trump follows a tiny number of other users.\n\nBarack Obama - with 94.7 million Twitter followers - follows 626,000 other Twitter users.\n\nMr Trump, on the other hand, is much more selective about who he follows.\n\nTrump also uses another Twitter handle, @POTUS (president of the United States) which follows 41 other accounts, mainly family and government departments. He tends to tweet less frequently from this account.\n\nYou can recreate the president's @realDonaldTrump feed here https://twitter.com/trumps_feed, courtesy of the Washington Post.\n\nIt may be, however, that Mr Trump does expose himself to other viewpoints, according to social media marketer Alex McCann (@altrinchamhq): \"We have to remember that he has hundreds of thousands of notifications every day of people replying to his tweets.\"\n\n\"Hopefully he does check these and get a bigger picture than presented by his curated feed of the 45 people he follows. He may have created a Twitter list as well that might give more variety, but we don't know.\" (No public lists are available on @realDonaldTrump.)\n\n\"But if he is restricting himself to 45 people that's going to create a very monotonous feed - an echo chamber of people that agree with you.\"\n\nAmelia Tait (@ameliargh), tech and digital culture writer at the New Statesman, said that compared with a \"normal\" user, Mr Trump follows very few people on Twitter.\n\n\"This isn't necessarily surprising, as he has always used the site as more of a place to talk rather than listen.\n\n\"It could have troubling implications about what he sees and interacts with, though. It's been theorised he saw the Britain First tweets via Twitter's \"in case you missed it\" tool. Had his feed been busier, he might have missed that too!\" she said.\n\nOn the @realDonaldTrump's \"following\" list are seven family members, including wife Melania, his children, and two daughters in law.\n\nHe follows four government departments, such as the Department of State, and eight Trump commercial organisations such as his main company, five golf courses and two Trump-branded hotels.\n\nCurrent and former employees include Vice-President Mike Pence, White House spokesperson Kellyanne Conway and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders also feature.\n\nThere are a smattering of \"others\", including people Mr Trump has worked with before he became president - like World Wrestling Entertainment boss Vince McHahon and former Apprentice star Katrina Campins.\n\nVeteran golfer Gary Player is also on this list. Player has previously praised Mr Trump's game, telling CNBC in October: \"The strength is his length, he's a long hitter. He can really get the ball out there.\"\n\nBut by far the largest subset of people and organisations that Mr Trump follows is made up of conservative journalists and TV presenters.\n\nTen of them work, or have worked, for the conservative news channel Fox News, like Bill O'Reilly and Eric Bolling - both of whom left Fox following allegations of sexual misconduct.\n\nStaunch Trump defender Sean Hannity is also on the president's \"follow\" list.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sean Hannity This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe show Fox and Friends - thought to be a major opinion former on the president - is on the list.\n\nFox and Friends has been known to cover a story, only for the president to tweet on the same story a few minutes after the programme ends - and sometimes while it is still on air.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by FOX & friends This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMs Tait said: \"Trump's Twitter feed is most definitely an echo chamber, which is problematic for someone in an elected office who is ostensibly the voice of the people.\n\n\"He frequently criticises 'fake news' TV channels but has never rebutted any number of viral tweets calling him out. Is it possible he never saw them?\"\n\nHowever, Alex McCann believes that Trump is only doing what comes naturally.\n\n\"Most people gravitate towards opinions they share,\" he said. \"It might be more healthy to consume different opinions. But it will make you more angry.\n\n\"Twenty years ago our parents did the same thing - only they bought newspapers that conformed with their world view.\"\n\nBut Mr McCann believes leaders have a special responsibility to step outside of the filter bubble.\n\n\"Leaders are supposed to represent everyone,\" he said. \"Not just the people who agree with them.\"", "Donald Tusk said the EU needed to show \"unity\" in the next phase of talks\n\nThe UK and the EU face a \"furious race against time\" to finalise Brexit talks before March 2019, the head of the European Council says.\n\nDonald Tusk urged EU leaders to show unity as they try to negotiate what the future relationship will look like and to set up transitional arrangements.\n\nThe EU is set to agree this week that enough progress has been made so far to move on from the first phase of talks.\n\nThe UK has been told not to \"backtrack\" on last week's divorce deal.\n\nThe comment from EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier came after UK Brexit Secretary David Davis suggested the divorce agreement unveiled by Theresa May amounted to a \"statement of intent\" rather than a binding agreement.\n\nMr Davis - the UK's Brexit secretary - said he was quoted out of context.\n\nBut European Parliament negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said the \"unacceptable remarks\" would harm \"good faith\" in the process.\n\nThe UK is set to leave the EU in March 2019, two years after Mrs May served formal notice of Brexit.\n\nBoth sides hope to finalise a deal by October 2018 on the future relationship, including trade, so the UK and European Parliaments have time to vote on it before the UK leaves.\n\nIn his formal letter on Tuesday inviting leaders to this week's EU summit, Mr Tusk told the 27 member states: \"This will be a furious race against time, where again our unity will be key.\"\n\nOn Sunday, Mr Davis said guarantees on the Northern Ireland border - included in a joint EU-UK report published on Friday - were not legally binding unless the two sides reached a final deal.\n\nBut he told LBC Radio on Monday they would be honoured whatever happened.\n\nA European Commission spokesman said the first-phase deal on the Northern Ireland border, the divorce bill and citizens' rights did not strictly have the force of law.\n\n\"But we see the joint report of Michel Barnier and David Davis as a deal between gentlemen and it is the clear understanding that it is fully backed and endorsed by the UK government.\"\n\nThe Brexit secretary's comments at the weekend about the legality of what's been agreed so far between the UK and the EU have been widely noted in Brussels, and a handful of member states have brought them up with me.\n\n\"To say we are annoyed is putting it too strongly, though,\" said one diplomat. \"This is the sort of stuff we expected,\" said another. \"It's never good when someone questions an agreement 24 hours after it was done,\" a third official suggested.\n\nThis forms the backdrop to the discussion taking place among EU ministers about the European Council's draft guidelines for Phase 2 of the Brexit talks.\n\nBut it is not clear if it will lead to any changes to the draft text that will be discussed by leaders on Friday morning. The document already states in its first paragraph that progress in phase 2 of the talks is contingent on commitments from phase 1 being kept.\n\nMr Verhofstadt has tabled two amendments for MEPs to debate on Wednesday, one of which says Mr Davis's comments risk undermining \"the good faith that has been built during the negotiations\".\n\nAnother amendment calls on Britain to \"fully respect\" last week's Brexit deal and ensure it is \"fully translated\" into a draft Withdrawal Agreement.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Guy Verhofstadt This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd at a press conference in Brussels, he said the UK must \"stick to its commitments\" and put them into a draft Withdrawal Agreement \"as soon as possible\" if there is to be progress in the second phase of talks.\n\nMr Davis replied with two tweets of his own, promising to work with Mr Verhofstadt to allay his concerns:\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by David Davis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by David Davis This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe European Parliament gets a formal vote on the final Brexit deal but it has also been holding debates and issuing resolutions throughout the process to make its voice heard.\n\nMr Verhofstadt has introduced the amendments alongside the leaders of four other European Parliament political groups.\n• None May: Brexit deal 'good news' for everybody", "Inflation rose to 3.1% in November, the highest in nearly six years, as the squeeze on households continued.\n\nThe Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that airfares and computer games contributed to the increase.\n\nThe most recent data shows that average weekly wages are growing at just 2.2%.\n\nMark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, will now have to write a letter to Chancellor Philip Hammond explaining how the Bank intends to bring inflation back to its 2% target.\n\nMr Carney has to write a letter to the chancellor if the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation rate is above 3% or below 1%.\n\nIn November, the Bank of England raised its key interest rate for the first time in more than a decade from 0.25% to 0.5%.\n\nHowever, it is not expected to announce a further increase when it publishes the results of the Monetary Policy Committee's two-day meeting on Thursday.\n\nMr Carney had said that he expected inflation to peak in October or November.\n\nThe last time he wrote to the chancellor was in December 2016, after inflation fell to 0.9% in October that year.\n\nMr Carney's latest letter will be published in February, when the Bank of England will also release its quarterly Inflation Report.\n\nIt may be the highest rate of inflation for nearly six years. But that tells you not so much how high it has got but how low it has been for so long.\n\nIn the past 10 years, inflation's peak has been 5.2% (in 2011). Tell anyone over the age of 50 that inflation at 3.1% is out of control and you're likely to get a scoff, followed by memories of the 70s and 80s.\n\nWhat they may forget, though, is that for most of that time wages were also rising - and faster than prices. The tendency of wages to respond to higher prices and outpace them seemed to follow an iron logic back then.\n\nBigger price rises led to bigger pay rises, forcing many employers to charge higher prices to cover higher labour costs: the so-called \"wage-price spiral\".\n\nBut those rules don't seem to apply these days. The breakdown of that logic is why we have a squeeze on living standards. It is also why the Bank of England isn't that worried about above-target inflation getting higher or even staying above target. In the City, a second rise in interest rates isn't expected until August next year.\n\nLucy O'Carroll, chief economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments, said: \"It's quite possible that inflation is now close to its peak. But some of the latest surveys suggest that service sector costs and prices are rising. Given how dominant services are in the economy, this could feed through to inflation overall.\n\n\"That means that further interest rate rises are definitely not off the table.\"\n\nThe ONS said that although airfares fell in November - down 10.4% - the decline was not as steep as last year when they tumbled 13.4%.\n\nData also shows that food inflation has picked up, especially prices for fish, oil and fats, such as butter and chocolate.\n\nFigures from market researcher Kantar Worldpanel released on Tuesday indicated that food inflation hit 3.6% in the three months to 3 December, the highest rate since 2013.\n\nIt also noted that prices for butter and fish had grown as well an increase in the cost of fresh pork. Kantar said only a few items were cheaper during the period, such as fresh chicken and crisps.\n\nRichard Lim, chief executive at Retail Economics, said that the rise in inflation had come \"at precisely the wrong time for retailers\".\n\n\"In the run-up to Christmas, the cost of living, now rising at the fastest rate in five years, remains uncomfortably high for households.\"\n\nHe said that food inflation \"is one of the most transparent indicators of living costs and often the catalyst to cut back on spending elsewhere\".\n\nHowever, he expects the inflation rate to now fall and could reach 2.5% by Easter.\n\nThe ONS will announce employment data for the August to October period on Wednesday, which will include figures for wage growth.\n\nBen Brettell, senior economist at Hargreaves Lansdown, forecasts that average weekly wages have risen by 2.5% during the period.\n\nHe said: \"With wage growth picking up we should see an end to falling real pay in due course.\n\n\"That'll be of small comfort, however, to households facing a significant increase in the cost of Christmas this year.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe polls have closed in Alabama, where a firebrand Republican conservative is battling for a Senate seat against a Democrat hoping for a huge upset.\n\nPresident Donald Trump's populist brand will be tested after he backed Roy Moore, who denies allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls.\n\nMuch of the Republican establishment has distanced itself from the 70-year-old former Alabama judge.\n\nThe race between Mr Moore and Democrat Doug Jones is too close to call.\n\nThe Republican candidate has said homosexual activity should be illegal and argued against removing segregationist language from the state constitution.\n\nBut it is sexual abuse claims against him by a number of women, some when they were teenagers, that have made Washington conservatives baulk.\n\nOne accuser alleges Mr Moore molested her when she was 14.\n\nThe scandal has put an Alabama Senate seat within reach of Democrats for the first time in more than two decades.\n\nElections are rarely competitive in Alabama. It's the kind of place Republicans might as well weigh their votes rather than count them, such is the party's dominance here.\n\nThis special election has upended all the normal expectations and still, at this late stage, remains too close to call.\n\nDemocrat Doug Jones can win if he manages to galvanise the black vote in cities such as Birmingham and Montgomery.\n\nRoy Moore, his Republican rival, could easily lose if those rural, white, church-going conservatives stay at home amid the allegations against him.\n\nWhatever the outcome, the repercussions will be felt beyond Alabama.\n\nIf the Republicans lose, their Senate advantage contracts to just one vote.\n\nIf they win, their candidate is likely to face months of ethics inquiries, and an outside chance of being expelled from the Senate.\n\nFor the Democrats, a win would bolster their bargaining power in Congress, and place control of the Senate within definite grasp at next year's mid-term elections.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOn Tuesday, the world's press were waiting as he emerged on horseback from woodland to a ballot station.\n\nHe said people should \"go out and vote their conscience\".\n\nMaking his final pitch on election eve, Mr Moore reiterated his denials, again questioning why his accusers had kept quiet for 40 years while he had held various political offices.\n\nSpeaking alongside Mr Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, in front of a crowd that chanted the president's slogan \"Drain the Swamp\", Mr Moore drew heavily from the Bible.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kayla Moore: \"One of our attorneys is a Jew\"\n\n\"I want America great,\" he said, \"but I want America good and she can't be good until we go back to God.\"\n\nMr Moore was joined at Monday's rally by his wife Kayla, who said separate allegations last week that her husband was anti-Semitic were \"fake news\".\n\n\"One of our attorneys is a Jew, we have very close friends who are Jewish,\" she said.\n\nIn an automated phone message on Monday, Mr Trump's voice warned voters that his agenda would be \"stopped cold\" if Mr Moore lost.\n\nBut many other leading Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have kept arm's length from their party's candidate, or shunned him altogether.\n\nWithout mentioning Mr Moore by name, Republican former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, an African-American who grew up in Alabama, urged her home state to \"reject bigotry, sexism, and intolerance\".\n\nRichard Shelby, Alabama's other senator, said on Sunday the state \"deserves better\" than Mr Moore.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Roy Moore: How Alabamans are defending the accused judge\n\nA Democratic lawmaker has sent a letter to the Senate urging steps to protect teenagers working in the chamber's page programme from Mr Moore's \"predatory conduct\".\n\nMr Jones, a 63-year-old former prosecutor, denies opponents' claims he will be a \"puppet\" of the Democratic congressional leadership.\n\nHe is lauded for helping convict two Ku Klux Klan members who bombed a black church in 1963 in Birmingham, killing four girls.\n\nBut Mr Jones' support for abortion rights is toxic to many Christian conservatives in Alabama.\n\nAfter casting his ballot on Tuesday morning, he predicted: \"I don't think Roy Moore is going to win this election.\"\n\nFormer President Barack Obama has recorded an automated phone message for Mr Jones.\n\n\"This one's serious,\" Mr Obama told voters in his call. \"You can't sit it out.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Against the odds: The story of baby Vanellope\n\nA baby born with her heart outside her body has survived after surgery at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.\n\nVanellope Hope Wilkins, who has no breastbone, was delivered three weeks ago by Caesarean section.\n\nShe has had three operations to place her heart back in her chest.\n\nThe condition, ectopia cordis, is extremely rare, with only a few cases per million births, of which most are stillborn.\n\nThe hospital says it knows of no other case in the UK where the baby has survived.\n\nHer parents, Naomi Findlay, 31, and Dean Wilkins, 43, from Nottingham, say Vanellope is \"a real fighter\".\n\nNaomi said: \"It was a real shock when the ultrasound showed that her heart was outside her chest and scary because we didn't know what would happen.\"\n\nThe couple paid for a blood test which showed there were no chromosomal abnormalities and that made them determined to continue with the pregnancy.\n\nDean added: \"We were advised to have a termination and that the chances of survival were next to none - no-one believed she was going to make it except us.\"\n\nNaomi said having a termination was \"not something she could do\".\n\n\"To see, even at nine weeks, a heartbeat - no matter where it was. It was not something I was going to take away.\n\n\"In a way her strength gave me a strength to keep going,\" she added.\n\nVanellope had been due on Christmas eve but was delivered by Caesarean section on 22 November in order to reduce the chances of infection and damage to the heart.\n\nThere were around 50 medical staff present including obstetricians, heart surgeons, anaesthetists, neonatologists and midwives.\n\nMinutes after her birth, Vanellope's chest was covered with a sterile bag to keep her heart moist and reduce the risk of infection\n\nWithin 50 minutes of birth, the baby was undergoing the first of three operations to put her heart back inside the body.\n\nIn the most recent surgery, Vanellope's own skin was used to cover the hole in her chest.\n\nFrances Bu'Lock, consultant paediatric cardiologist, said: \"Before she was born things looked very bleak but now they are quite a lot better - Vanellope is doing really well and has proved very resilient.\n\n\"In the future we may be able to put in some internal bony protection for her heart - perhaps using 3D printing or something organic that would grow with her.\"\n\nA handful of children in the United States have also survived this condition.\n\nAmong them is Audrina Cardenas who was born in Texas in October 2012.\n\nShe also had surgery to place her heart back inside her chest and was sent home after three months.\n\nAudrina was given a protective plastic shield to cover her chest.\n\nGlenfield Hospital says Vanellope still faces \"a long road ahead\" - the major risk being infection.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Baby born with heart outside body goes home\n\nThe next step is to take her off a ventilator, which is being used to aid her recovery from surgery.\n\nDean Wilkins said: \"She defying everything - it's beyond a miracle.\"\n\nThe couple named Vanellope after a character in the Disney film \"Wreck-It Ralph\".\n\nNaomi said: \"Vanellope in the film is a real fighter and at the end turns into a princess so we thought it was fitting.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Alana Spencer toasts her Apprentice victory with Lord Sugar in December last year\n\nApprentice winner Alana Spencer's cake company has had to recall almost all of its range because of health risks.\n\nFood Standards Agency investigators said Ridiculously Rich by Alana inaccurately labelled its products.\n\nSome allergens were not listed and others were \"not correctly declared\", the agency said.\n\nA spokesman for the Aberystwyth company insisted only products sold online - less than 10% of its business - had been inaccurately labelled.\n\nBut the FSA's advice to the public does not distinguish between products the company sells online or through retail and wholesale outlets.\n\nIt warned that people with an allergy to soya, egg, peanuts, wheat, barley, oats or sulphites were at risk.\n\nThe FSA identifies inaccurate labelling on seven of the eight cakes and bars currently advertised for sale on the Ridiculously Rich by Alana's website.\n\nThe one product not highlighted as a risk by the FSA - spiced apple flapjack - is sold in mixed boxes with brandy butter brownies, which are on the list.\n\nThe warning only applies to products made before 1 December this year.\n\nThe company's spokesman said it had now corrected its labelling and contacted everyone who had bought its products to invite them to return their purchases free of charge for a replacement or refund.\n\nNo-one has yet returned any products, the spokesman said. He declined to disclose the number of items sold with inaccurate labels.\n\nCoeliac UK put out an allergy warning on twitter\n\nOn its website, the FSA listed the products with inaccurate labelling and advised customers: \"If you have bought any of the above products and have allergies to soya, peanuts, nuts, eggs and/or an allergy or intolerance to wheat, barley, oats (gluten), milk and/or a sensitivity to sulphites do not eat it. Instead return it to the store from where it was bought for a full refund.\"\n\nAn FSA spokesman said it was working with the company and Ceredigion council \"to ensure that clear allergen information is available to consumers who may have purchased products with inaccurate or insufficient information.\"\n\nMs Spencer was unavailable for comment, her company's spokesman said, as she was \"filming\".\n\nThe spokesman added: \"Lord Sugar was made aware of the situation immediately.\n\n\"He's spoken to Alana and is satisfied she has put the right measures in place to avoid a situation like this again.\"\n\nLord Sugar was made aware of the problem \"immediately\"\n\nMs Spencer, 25, shot to fame last year when she won BBC television's The Apprentice.\n\nHer victory in the 12th series of the show secured her a £250,000 investment and a 50/50 business partnership with Lord Sugar.\n\nThe company's range includes brownies, flapjacks and fudge cake and products cost £12.99 for a box of six.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Renters in Bradford get more floor space for their money than in many other major cities\n\nSpending £100 a month on rent in London secures floor space equivalent to a small garden shed, compared with nearly five times that in parts of northern England, new research shows.\n\nData released to BBC News shows cheaper properties to rent in the capital \"simply don't exist\", letting agents said.\n\nAgents said people were compromising on where they live to make ends meet.\n\nThe government said it was increasing spending on affordable housing.\n\nData from 20 areas of England and Wales relating to two-bedroom houses and flats advertised on OpenRent, and shared with BBC News, reveals:\n\nTypes of property for rent also vary in size. The average London one-bed flat for rent measures 51 sq m, according to the data. By contrast, in rural Shropshire and mid Wales, the average is 77 sq m.\n\nThe amount of space you get for your rent is reflected in the space you get for your money when buying. The Office for National Statistics said 1 sq m of floor space - about the size of a red phone box - costs £19,439 in Kensington and Chelsea, while in Blaenau Gwent the same amount of space costs £777.\n\nEd Stennett found renting with a friend was the only way to afford somewhere big enough\n\nFor Ed Stennett £1,000 a month, almost twice the national average rent, should have been plenty.\n\nYet when the app designer moved to central London from Winchester he struggled to find anywhere bigger than a one-room flat for his money.\n\n\"Winchester is an expensive place, but even there your money goes further,\" he said.\n\n\"When I was looking in London, £1,000 would get me a studio.\n\n\"For some of those it was little more than a room with a sink, a kettle and a microwave.\n\n\"Some of the nicer ones might have had space for a double bed, but nothing you'd call a living space. There wouldn't be room for a sofa or a TV.\"\n\nThe 22-year-old said a friend had got a job in London at the same time and the two were able to rent a two-bedroom flat in Bow.\n\nThat costs £1,640 a month between them. The national average rent for a property in England and Wales is £926.\n\nSam Hurst, spokesman for OpenRent, said: \"Despite cities like Oxford, Bristol and London being hugely expensive in terms of monthly rents, the properties afforded by those high rents are by no means luxury.\n\n\"Having enough room in our homes is very important to our wellbeing, but renters in the south of England are paying a huge premium for it.\n\n\"The result is that many in London are compromising on location or who they live with, just to make ends meet.\n\n\"Young families who can't afford to buy are in a tough position, since to find the space they need for their growing families, they are forced to move cities.\n\n\"Simply looking for smaller properties isn't a solution for renters in the South, either. Those properties simply don't exist.\"\n\nSeb Klier, policy and campaigns manager for campaign group Generation Rent, said: \"The huge difference in rents around the country lays bare the failure to build enough homes in those areas that have the largest jobs markets.\n\n\"It may be much cheaper to rent in Shropshire or Northumberland than in London, Oxford and Bristol, but people are moving to these cities for work and need homes that are affordable.\n\n\"To fix this we need much greater ambition from politicians to build homes where they're needed, along with powers to control rents where demand is highest.\"\n\nA spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: \"We are fixing our broken housing market and making the rental sector fairer and more transparent. Overall rents are now increasing at a lower level than inflation.\n\n\"But we're determined to do more and that's why we have increased the affordable housing budget to more than £9bn and introduced measures to boost the delivery of properties.\n\n\"We're also delivering on our promise to ban tenant fees, alongside other measures to make renting fairer and increase protection for people.\"\n\nWhere can you afford to live? Try our housing calculator to see where you could rent or buy This interactive content requires an internet connection and a modern browser. Do you want to buy or rent? Use the buttons to increase or decrease the number of bedrooms: minimum one, maximum four. Alternatively, enter a number into the text input How much is your deposit? Enter your deposit below or adjust the deposit amount using the slider Return to 'How much is your deposit?' This calculator assumes you need a deposit of at least 5% of the value of the property to get a mortgage. The average deposit for UK first-time buyers is . How much can you pay monthly? Enter your monthly payment below or adjust the payment amount using the slider Return to 'How much can you pay monthly?' Your monthly payments are what you can afford to pay each month. Think about your monthly income and take off bills, council tax and living expenses. The average rent figure is for England and Wales. Amount of the that has housing you can Explore the map in detail below Search the UK for more details about a local area What does affordable mean? You have a big enough deposit and your monthly payments are high enough. The prices are based on the local market. If there are 100 properties of the right size in an area and they are placed in price order with the cheapest first, the “low-end” of the market will be the 25th property, \"mid-priced\" is the 50th and \"high-end” will be the 75th.", "There will be cold temperatures, ice and freezing fog for many, the BBC's Carol Kirkwood says.", "Oliver's heart condition causes his pulse to race dangerously fast\n\nThe family of a baby boy who have been fundraising for him to have life-saving heart surgery in the US has been told the NHS will now fund his treatment.\n\nDoctors in Boston have agreed to operate on Oliver Cameron, who was born with a rare heart tumour, after his first birthday in January.\n\nEarlier, his parents warned time was running out to raise the £150,000 needed for his treatment.\n\nThe NHS said it would pay because the procedure was not available in the UK.\n\nLydia and Tim Cameron, from Wantage in Oxfordshire, have already raised £130,000 for the surgery to have Oliver's tumour removed.\n\nThey have not indicated what they intend to do with the funds raised.\n\nPreviously doctors advised that to maximise Oliver's ability to recover his parents should ideally wait until his first birthday but, if his condition worsened, he may require the operation immediately.\n\nA statement from NHS England said it had \"agreed to fund Oliver's treatment abroad\" because there was \"not currently a surgical service in the UK with experience of treating this exceptionally rare condition\".\n\nOliver's condition - cardiac fibroma - is extremely rare and the number of patients with this type of tumour in England is estimated to be in single figures.\n\nHe needs around-the-clock care to stabilise his heart rate and an implant under his skin sends readings back to specialists at Southampton General Hospital, where he has been receiving treatment since doctors in Oxford discovered the tumour.\n\nSpecialists in Southampton said removing the tumour would be \"extremely high risk\" because there was limited experience in treating his condition in the UK so they had decided to support his parents' bid to find treatment elsewhere.\n\nThe NHS said it was also discussing whether a UK surgeon might accompany Oliver to Boston to learn from the surgeons in the US so the innovative surgery could \"potentially be offered in the UK in future\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Toni & Guy opened their first salon in Clapham during the 1960s\n\nThe co-founder of the hairdresser chain Toni & Guy - Giuseppe \"Toni\" Mascolo - has died at the age of 75.\n\nMr Mascolo and his brother, Gaetano 'Guy' Mascolo, opened their first salon in south London in 1963.\n\nOffering an \"Italian style\" hairdressing service, the unisex salon grew into an international brand and staple of the British high street.\n\nMr Mascolo, who was the chief executive of the firm, died on Sunday surrounded by his family.\n\nThe Mascolo family were Italian immigrants who arrived in England in the 1950s They settled in Clapham, south London, where the brothers opened their first salon.\n\nHairdressing ran in the family and Mr Mascolo senior - a celebrated hairdresser in his own right - taught all four of his sons to cut hair from a young age.\n\nFounded during the \"swinging sixties\", Toni and Guy offered a unisex service that appealed to both men and women, in contrast to traditional barber shops and woman-only hair salons.\n\nCelebrities such as composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, and singer Dusty Springfield were among the famous faces who frequented the salon.\n\nThe firm opened its first central London salon in London's West End in 1973.\n\nShortly afterwards two more Mascolo brothers, Bruno and Anthony, helped propel the family business into an international brand.\n\nSince then Toni & Guy has grown to comprise two global, franchised hair salon groups, with 475 shops in 48 countries.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by TONI&GUY This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nToni Mascolo was awarded an OBE for services to hairdressing in 2008 and in 2012 was honoured by the Fellowship of British Hairdressers with a lifetime achievement award\n\nHe is survived by wife Pauline, brothers Bruno and Anthony, children Sacha, Christian and Pierre, and many grandchildren.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC forecaster Philip Avery says temperatures will plunge below zero overnight\n\nFreezing conditions are continuing to affect parts of the UK, as forecasters warn it could be facing the coldest night of the year.\n\nA fourth day of wintry weather has caused widespread disruption, affecting flights, trains and ferries.\n\nYellow Met Office warnings for snow and ice have been extended until 11:00 GMT on Tuesday. Forecasters are predicting temperatures could hit -15C (5F).\n\nHundreds of schools are to stay closed for a second successive day on Tuesday.\n\nThe Met Office's weather warning covers Wales, Northern Ireland, parts of Scotland, the Midlands, London and the South East of England.\n\nClear skies overnight could lead temperatures to drop lowest in Wales and central England.\n\nA low of -11.6C (11F) was recorded on Sunday night in Chillingham Barns, Northumberland, although Saturday was the coldest night of the year so far, reaching -12.4C.\n\nBBC weather forecaster Steve Cleaton said hazardous conditions would continue in the coming days, although there would be less snow than at the weekend.\n\n\"A perishingly cold night is expected as we move through Monday evening into Tuesday, with another widespread and severe frost, and temperatures plummeting to below -10C across any snowfields,\" he said.\n\nOver 350 schools in the West Midlands are to close for another day, while in Wales about 180 schools so far have said they will shut.\n\nMore than 1,000 schools didn't open on Monday - nearly 600 of those were in Wales.\n\nThis snowy Monday commute was on the A21 in Hastings\n\nA car turns around after a fallen tree blocks the A40 near Sennybridge, Wales, on Sunday\n\nMeanwhile, a trackside fire at London Waterloo added to the delays, causing major disruption to journeys to and from the station.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMore than 1,000 homes are still without power after 140,000 were cut off on Sunday.\n\nWestern Power Distribution said 900 homes were still cut off, including more than 700 in the West Midlands.\n\nScottish and Southern Electricity Networks said 750 remained cut off in Oxfordshire.\n\nSunset over the Chiltern Hills on Monday afternoon\n\nWootton by Woodstock Primary is one of at least 183 schools in Oxfordshire which are closed\n\nSnow on the coast at Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear on Monday morning\n\nHave you experienced any disruption? Please share your experiences with us by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Odette has been waiting for a kidney and pancreas transplant for a year.\n\nIn an attempt to make more organs available for transplant, ministers are proposing a radical change by moving to a system of \"presumed consent\".\n\nCurrent rules in England mean those willing to donate their organs, should they die, sign up to a donor register.\n\nA consultation on the new system, which would see opting out of organ donation replacing opting in, starts on Tuesday.\n\nWales has already adopted an approach of presumed consent. Scotland plans to introduce a similar scheme.\n\nNorthern Ireland has also expressed an interest in doing likewise.\n\nAbout 6,500 people in the UK are waiting for an organ transplant.\n\nEvery year, 450 of those on the waiting list die before the right donor is found.\n\nEmma was diagnosed with type-1 diabetes as a child. After nearly 30 years, the condition has wrecked her kidneys.\n\nEmma is on the waiting list for a transplant\n\nEvery night Emma plugs herself in to a dialysis machine, and then nearly two litres (3.5 pints) of fluid is pumped in and out of her body, doing the job of her damaged organs.\n\n\"Everything I do is the dialysis and medical,\" she says.\n\n\"You get up, you come home and then you sit on a machine.\n\n\"I don't do anything else, I don't enjoy life, I don't have a hobby, nothing... so that's all I do.\"\n\nWith a young daughter, Emma relies a lot on her husband and family. And she still manages to hold down an office job.\n\nBut, she says: \"You're tired all the time as it is, and it's like how much of this can I take, how much can you take being tired all the time?\n\n\"You want to do stuff - you need to do stuff - but where do you get the energy to do it? Where do I find that energy?\"\n\nIt is still too early to say what impact the change in Wales has had, but so far about 205,000 people have signed the opt-out register, 6% of the population.\n\nThe Health Secretary for England, Jeremy Hunt, says: \"The issue here is really we know the vast majority of people are willing for their organs to be used but the vast majority of people are not on the organ donor register.\n\n\"So it's about how we change that, and so the issue of presumed consent is one of the things we are looking at.\n\n\"But what we need really is to have much better communication inside families so people know what their family members actually want.\"\n\nThe percentage of all families who, if approached after their relative's death, consent to donation has remained stubbornly at 60-65%.\n\nIt is rare for the family of a registered donor to object, but it is more common when people have not signed up or discussed it with their family.\n\nThe donor system was radically overhauled in 2008, with the introduction of specialist nurses liaising closely with families.\n\nThere were 793 deceased donors in 2007, and 10 years later that number had risen 78%, to 1,413.\n\nMeanwhile, the number of registered donors has risen 67%, from 14.1 million to 23.6 million.\n\nBut the 2008 taskforce rejected the ides of presumed consent.\n\nRetired kidney transplant surgeon and former head of the UK's transplant services Prof Chris Rudge says: \"The key question is, 'Will it work? Will it make a difference?'\n\n\"And if the answer is yes, then that would be very good. But if the answer is no, then I question why we are going down this route.\n\n\"The only evidence I have seen is that it won't make any difference and it is not the answer to the problem, but there is a risk that it may make things worse.\n\n\"That is my starting point. I am not totally against it, but if I am right, it won't improve things.\n\n\"There is no good evidence it will increase the number of donors.\"\n\nBut Dr Afshin Tavakoli, a transplant surgeon at one of the UK's busiest units at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, says it's not the issue of presumed consent that matters most.\n\n\"It is very important that people talk about their wishes to members of their family, to their children, to their parents.\n\n\"The time can come at any time, for any one of us, and and at that moment our wishes need to be known.\n\n\"Members of the family have to respect that and they can only do so if they really know what we want.\"\n• None The boy who inspired the change in organ donation - Radio 4", "The family of bullied Keaton Jones have faced a backlash online following allegations they've been asking for money and have racist views.\n\nA Facebook video of the US schoolboy talking about being bullied went viral earlier this week and celebrities posted their support.\n\nBut now they've faced online criticism after photos emerged allegedly showing the family with the Confederate flag.\n\nHis mum Kimberly Jones has told ABC News: \"We're not racists.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The footage of Keaton Jones has more than 22m views\n\nThe Confederate flag is controversial as it was first introduced in the US Civil War by the states fighting to keep slavery legal and some see it as a symbol of racial hatred.\n\nIn an interview with ABC News, Kimberly said the photo with the flag was meant to be \"ironic, funny, extreme\".\n\n\"I am genuinely, truly sorry. If I could take it back I would.\"\n\nPeople have also been questioning Kimberly's motives for posting the original video.\n\nIt's after someone using the Instagram account KimberlyJones_38 asked for donations for her son and linked to a PayPal account and GoFundMe page.\n\nIt is not clear whether the real Kimberly Jones was behind that appeal. BBC Newsbeat has approached her for comment but she has not responded.\n\nIt is not unusual for people to set up fake donation pages off the back of high-profile events.\n\nSocial media users, believing the crowdfunding message to be from Keaton's mother, criticised her for trying to make money out of her son's situation.\n\nAll content on the @KimberlyJones_38 account has now been deleted and a woman claiming to be Keaton's sister, Lakyn Jones, has insisted it is fake.\n\nOn Twitter she said: \"We haven't received any money and don't plan on it. The gofundme's [sic] aren't by any of us.\"\n\nShe also denied allegations the family was racist, saying: \"Those who know me and my family know we aren't racist.\n\n\"My brother doesn't say the \"N\" word. Please leave it alone.\"\n\nRihanna and Chris Brown have deleted their original posts supporting Keaton. Rihanna put up a different anti-bullying message.\n\nOthers have reinforced the need to support Keaton despite what his family's views may or may not be.\n\nFind us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat", "Five people are being questioned over the suspected murder of three children who died in a house fire in Salford.\n\nFourteen-year-old Demi Pearson died at the scene of the blaze which broke out in Jackson Street, Walkden, at about 05:00 GMT on Monday.\n\nEight-year-old Brandon and Lacie, aged seven, died in hospital, while three-year-old girl Lia is in a critical condition.\n\nTheir mother, Michelle Pearson, 35, is in a serious condition.\n\nThe blaze broke out at 05:00 GMT on Monday\n\nDemi Pearson, 14, was a pupil at Harrop Fold School in Salford\n\nMs Pearson has been heavily sedated and has not yet been told her children are dead, a Greater Manchester Police (GMP) spokeswoman said.\n\nOne other person was taken to hospital, while two 16-year-olds - Ms Pearson's son, Kyle, and a friend - who were in the house, freed themselves before fire crews arrived.\n\nMichelle Pearson is in a serious condition in hospital\n\nPolice confirmed there had been previous incidents at the family's home.\n\nThe case has been referred by GMP to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).\n\nIt is understood the voluntary referral was in response to police contact with the family less than 24 hours before the fire.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police were filmed leading one of the suspects away after his arrest\n\nTributes are being laid for the three children who died in the fire\n\nThis quiet residential street flanked by a large park on one side is still cordoned off.\n\nThere is a metal police cordon on one side and officers standing on the other.\n\nTributes to the three children who have died are growing on both sides of the barrier.\n\nRev Gill Page, associate rector from St John the Baptist Church, told me more than 200 people - many of them youngsters - attended a \"very moving and emotional\" service last night.\n\nShe said candles were lit and a book of condolence was opened in memory of the victims.\n\nDetectives are questioning three men, aged 18, 20 and 23, and a 20-year-old woman on suspicion of murder.\n\nA 24-year-old man is being held on suspicion of assisting an offender.\n\nDemi Pearson was a pupil at Harrop Fold School in Salford, which featured in the Channel 4 documentary Educating Greater Manchester.\n\nHead teacher Drew Povey said: \"We are devastated at the tragic loss of life today in our community. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family involved.\"\n\nJackson Street was cordoned off between Algernon Road and Alexandra Road\n\nCh Supt Wayne Miller said police were appealing for witnesses or those with information about the events leading up to the fire.\n\n\"In what is such a heartbreaking set of circumstances, we have been doing our very best to support the family in every way that we can and carry out our inquiries quickly and sensitively,\" he said.\n\nDamian O'Rourke, from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, said: \"Firefighters arrived within minutes and were faced with a very serious and well-developed fire involving the ground and first floor.\n\n\"Knowing there were people trapped inside, firefighters wearing breathing apparatus immediately went in and quickly rescued five people from the house but sadly three of those people died.\"\n\nSalford City Mayor Paul Dennett said: \"Our thoughts are with the friends and family of those killed and seriously injured in this horrific incident in our city.\"\n\nHe urged anyone with information to contact the police, adding: \"We'll continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with our communities.\"", "Ryanair passengers face disruption to their Christmas travel plans after pilots and crew announced industrial action in a bid to win union recognition and better conditions.\n\nIn Ireland, 79 pilots based in Dublin will strike for one day on 20 December.\n\nThe airline, which does not recognise unions, said they represented about 28% of its Dublin-based captains.\n\nMeanwhile, Ryanair pilots and cabin crew in Italy plan to strike for four hours on 15 December.\n\nThe airline said last week it would \"ignore\" the Italian move, claiming staff rarely heeded calls to walk out.\n\nPilots based in Portugal and Germany also plan industrial action.\n\nCockpit, the German pilots' union, said its Ryanair members would strike for better pay and conditions if the airline refused to begin talks, but vowed not to disrupt flights over Christmas.\n\nRyanair said it would \"not deal with or recognise\" the German union \"regardless of what action - if any - takes place\".\n\nUnions have long argued that their airline fails to offer pilots the same pay and conditions as its rivals.\n\nImpact, the Irish pilots' union, said the dispute was \"solely about winning independent representation for pilots in the company\", said official Ashley Connolly.\n\nThe union warned of further strikes if Ryanair failed to reach agreement with its members.\n\n\"Ryanair will deal with any such disruptions if, or when they arise, and we apologise sincerely to customers for any upset or worry this threatened action... may cause,\" the company said.\n\nIt said the Dublin staff who planned to strike were a \"small group of pilots who are working their notice and will shortly leave Ryanair, so they don't care how much upset they cause colleagues or customers\".\n\nAnalysts at Goodbody said although there were deep divisions between pilots and Ryanair management, the \"headlines are worse than the reality on the ground\" they wrote in a note.\n\nIn September Ryanair said more than 2,000 flights would be cancelled this winter after it rearranged pilots' rosters to comply with new aviation rules.\n\nLater that month it announced 18,000 further flights would be cancelled over the winter season, affecting more than 700,000 passengers.\n\nRyanair chief executive Michael O'Leary wrote to its 4,200 pilots to apologise for the changes to their rotas and urged them not to leave the airline.\n\nHowever, this week it warned Dublin pilots they would lose agreed benefits by striking.\n\nMany of the airline's pilots have joined unions following the cancellations, but Ryanair said it could legally decline to negotiate with them.", "Joshua Sutcliffe said he apologised after the student became angry\n\nA teacher who faced disciplinary action after he referred to a transgender pupil as a girl is taking his school to an employment tribunal.\n\nJoshua Sutcliffe, from Oxford, says he was investigated after he said \"well done girls\" to a group that included a student who identifies as a boy.\n\nThe 27-year-old Christian pastor is now suing the school for constructive dismissal and discrimination.\n\nThe secondary school previously said it would be \"inappropriate\" to comment.\n\nMr Sutcliffe, who teaches children aged between 11 and 18, said the incident took place on 2 November and he apologised after the pupil became angry.\n\nHe said a week-long investigation found he had \"misgendered\" the pupil and \"contravened the school's equality policy\".\n\nMr Sutcliffe claims the school has \"systematically and maliciously\" breached his rights and he had left his job as it had made it impossible for him to continue working there.\n\nIn a letter to the head teacher he wrote: \"As a Christian, I do not share your belief in the ideology of transgenderism.\n\n\"I do not believe that young children should be encouraged to self-select a 'gender' which may be different from their biological sex.\n\n\"Or that everyone at school should adjust their behaviour to accommodate such a 'transition'; or that people should be punished for lack of enthusiasm about it.\"\n\nThe maths teacher, who is also a pastor at the Christ Revelation church in Oxford, said he tried to balance his beliefs with the need to treat the pupil sensitively.\n\nHe claimed he did this by avoiding the use of gender-specific pronouns and by referring to the pupil by name.\n\nThe state academy school where he was employed said it has received indication Mr Sutcliffe proposes to take legal action against it.\n\nIt has not received formal confirmation that he has resigned, it added.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Paul McClelland was Tasered in July 2013 in a Brighton car park as he was being arrested\n\nA man suing Sussex Police after he was Tasered has told a court the incident left him anxious and suicidal.\n\nA Taser was used on Paul McClelland in July 2013 in a car park in Brighton as he was being arrested for shoplifting.\n\nA video of the arrest was passed to The Argus newspaper at the time.\n\nIn a civil case against the chief constable of Sussex, Mr McClelland is claiming the police used excessive force in carrying out the arrest. Sussex Police has rejected the claim.\n\nSophie Khan, Mr McClelland's solicitor advocate, said he was bringing the case against Chief Constable Giles York because he believed he was Tasered unreasonably when he was surrendering and moving backwards to be handcuffed.\n\nHe was arrested in Western Road, Brighton. An internal police investigation found the force had done everything correctly and there was no evidence of misconduct.\n\nMr McClelland, 42, pleaded guilty to obstructing a police officer, common assault and theft at Brighton Magistrates' Court two months later, and was given a community service order.\n\nOn Monday, His Honour Judge Simpkiss, sitting at the County Court at Brighton, was shown the video of what happened.\n\nThe court was shown the situation from three different angles, as recorded by council CCTV, a body-worn police camera, and a video filmed by a passer-by.\n\nMr McLelland admitted he had been sitting on the beach drinking strong lager before the incident.\n\nBefore he was Tasered he removed his shirt and adopted a boxing stance, shouting to police: \"Come on.\"\n\nHe agreed that he would not have behaved that way had he been sober, the court heard.\n\nHe said the pain of the electric shock was like \"death\".\n\n\"You can't breathe, it takes your breath away,\" he told the court.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "\"Words cannot describe\" how a family which has lost three children in a house fire are feeling, a senior police officer has said.\n\nCh Supt Wayne Miller told a press conference his \"heart breaks\" for the relatives of Demi Pearson, 14, Brandon, eight, and Lacie, seven, who died in a blaze in Walkden on Monday.\n\nThe children's mother Michelle, 35, and three-year-old sister Lia remain in hospital.\n\nHe added that officers had looked at CCTV footage and \"now believe this to be a targeted attack\".", "Peter has Huntington's disease and his siblings Sandy and Frank also have the gene\n\nThe defect that causes the neurodegenerative disease Huntington's has been corrected in patients for the first time, the BBC has learned.\n\nAn experimental drug, injected into spinal fluid, safely lowered levels of toxic proteins in the brain.\n\nThe research team, at University College London, say there is now hope the deadly disease can be stopped.\n\nExperts say it could be the biggest breakthrough in neurodegenerative diseases for 50 years.\n\nHuntington's is one of the most devastating diseases.\n\nSome patients described it as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and motor neurone disease rolled into one.\n\nPeter Allen, 51, is in the early stages of Huntington's and took part in the trial: \"You end up in almost a vegetative state, it's a horrible end.\"\n\nHuntington's blights families. Peter has seen his mum Stephanie, uncle Keith and grandmother Olive die from it.\n\nTests show his sister Sandy and brother Frank will develop the disease.\n\nThe three siblings have eight children - all young adults, each of whom has a 50-50 chance of developing the disease.\n\nThe unstoppable death of brain cells in Huntington's leaves patients in permanent decline, affecting their movement, behaviour, memory and ability to think clearly.\n\nPeter, from Essex, told me: \"It's so difficult to have that degenerative thing in you.\n\n\"You know the last day was better than the next one's going to be.\"\n\nHuntington's is caused by an error in a section of DNA called the huntingtin gene.\n\nNormally this contains the instructions for making a protein, called huntingtin, which is vital for brain development.\n\nBut a genetic error corrupts the protein and turns it into a killer of brain cells.\n\nThe treatment is designed to silence the gene.\n\nOn the trial, 46 patients had the drug injected into the fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord.\n\nThe procedure was carried out at the Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London.\n\nDoctors did not know what would happen. One fear was the injections could have caused fatal meningitis.\n\nBut the first in-human trial showed the drug was safe, well tolerated by patients and crucially reduced the levels of huntingtin in the brain.\n\nProf Sarah Tabrizi , from the UCL Institute of Neurology, led the trials.\n\nProf Sarah Tabrizi, the lead researcher and director of the Huntington's Disease Centre at UCL, told the BBC: \"I've been seeing patients in clinic for nearly 20 years, I've seen many of my patients over that time die.\n\n\"For the first time we have the potential, we have the hope, of a therapy that one day may slow or prevent Huntington's disease.\n\n\"This is of groundbreaking importance for patients and families.\"\n\nDoctors are not calling this a cure. They still need vital long-term data to show whether lowering levels of huntingtin will change the course of the disease.\n\nThe animal research suggests it would. Some motor function even recovered in those experiments.\n\nPeter, Sandy and Frank - as well as their partners Annie, Dermot and Hayley - have always promised their children they will not need to worry about Huntington's as there will be a treatment in time for them.\n\nPeter told the BBC: \"I'm the luckiest person in the world to be sitting here on the verge of having that.\n\n\"Hopefully that will be made available to everybody, to my brothers and sisters and fundamentally my children.\"\n\nHe, along with the other trial participants, can continue taking the drug as part of the next wave of trials.\n\nThey will set out to show whether the disease can be slowed, and ultimately prevented, by treating Huntington's disease carriers before they develop any symptoms.\n\nProf John Hardy, who was awarded the Breakthrough Prize for his work on Alzheimer's, told the BBC: \"I really think this is, potentially, the biggest breakthrough in neurodegenerative disease in the past 50 years.\n\n\"That sounds like hyperbole - in a year I might be embarrassed by saying that - but that's how I feel at the moment.\"\n\nThe UCL scientist, who was not involved in the research, says the same approach might be possible in other neurodegenerative diseases that feature the build-up of toxic proteins in the brain.\n\nThe protein synuclein is implicated in Parkinson's while amyloid and tau seem to have a role in dementias.\n\nOff the back of this research, trials are planned using gene-silencing to lower the levels of tau.\n\nProf Giovanna Mallucci, who discovered the first chemical to prevent the death of brain tissue in any neurodegenerative disease, said the trial was a \"tremendous step forward\" for patients and there was now \"real room for optimism\".\n\nBut Prof Mallucci, who is the associate director of UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, cautioned it was still a big leap to expect gene-silencing to work in other neurodegenerative diseases.\n\nShe told the BBC: \"The case for these is not as clear-cut as for Huntington's disease, they are more complex and less well understood.\n\n\"But the principle that a gene, any gene affecting disease progression and susceptibility, can be safely modified in this way in humans is very exciting and builds momentum and confidence in pursuing these avenues for potential treatments.\"\n\nThe full details of the trial will be presented to scientists and published next year.\n\nThe therapy was developed by Ionis Pharmaceuticals, which said the drug had \"substantially exceeded\" expectations, and the licence has now been sold to Roche.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jessica Leeds is calling on Congress to open an inquiry into President Trump\n\nThree women who accused President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct have demanded a congressional inquiry.\n\nAt a New York City news conference, the trio accused Mr Trump of groping, fondling, forcibly kissing, humiliating or harassing them.\n\nThree of them - Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey, and Rachel Crooks - detailed their allegations shortly beforehand live on television.\n\nThe White House said the women were making \"false claims\".\n\nMonday morning's press conference was organised by Brave New Films, which last month released a documentary, 16 Women and Donald Trump, about the claims made by multiple women.\n\nMs Leeds, Ms Holvey and Ms Crooks originally went public separately with their allegations a month before last year's US presidential election.\n\nThe claims have been given a new lease of life by the harassment scandals that have engulfed high-profile public figures since October's fall of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.\n\nOn NBC News on Monday, Ms Holvey said Mr Trump had ogled her and other competitors in 2006 at the Miss USA beauty pageant, which he owned.\n\nThe former Miss North Carolina, who was 20-years-old at the time, said \"he lined all of us up\" and was \"just looking me over like I was just a piece of meat\".\n\n\"It left me feeling very gross,\" Ms Holvey told NBC host Megyn Kelly.\n\nShe later told the reporters: \"They've investigated other Congress members, so I think it only stands fair that he [Mr Trump] is investigated as well\n\n\"This isn't a partisan issue, this is, how women are treated every day.\"\n\nMs Leeds, now in her 70s, says that when she was 38 she sat next to Mr Trump in the first-class cabin of a flight to New York and he sexually assaulted her.\n\nMs Leeds said: \"He jumped all over me.\"\n\nShe said she came forward because: \"I wanted people to know what kind of person Trump really is, and what a pervert he is.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Speaking in 2016, Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos accuses Donald Trump of 'thrusting his genitals' at her\n\nMs Crooks said she was kissed on the lips by Mr Trump outside a lift in Trump Tower when she was a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate company there.\n\n\"I was shocked,\" she said. \"Devastated.\"\n\nThe White House said on Monday: \"These false claims, totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts, were addressed at length during last year's campaign, and the American people voiced their judgment by delivering a decisive victory.\n\n\"The timing and absurdity of these false claims speaks volumes and the publicity tour that has begun only further confirms the political motives behind them.\"\n\nThe president rejected such allegations last year and vowed to sue the accusers, though no lawsuit has yet been filed.\n\nBut over the weekend Mr Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said his accusers \"should be heard\".\n\nSpeaking to CBS News, Mrs Haley said she was \"incredibly proud of the women who have come forward\".\n\nMeanwhile, three Democratic senators - Cory Booker of New Jersey, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York - called on Mr Trump to resign over the allegations.\n\nDuring his successful run for the presidency last year, Mr Trump was heard boasting of grabbing women's vaginas in a leaked videotape.", "Nearly all the possible trading relationships between Britain and the European Union following Brexit would be less favourable than staying in the European Union, according to an influential US think tank.\n\nThe Rand Corporation study said the worst option would be a \"no deal\".\n\nThat would leave the UK economy 4.9% poorer by 2029.\n\n\"No deal\" would also have a negative effect on the EU economy, but it would be \"relatively minor\".\n\nThe report said that even a \"soft Brexit\" involving staying in the free market would not be as positive economically as staying in the EU.\n\nRand plays a significant role in America, with half of its funding coming from the US government.\n\nIn Europe it has advised the UK government on policy issues such as mental health, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission.\n\nIts report argues that Brexit was likely to have a \"mostly negative effect\" on American interests in Europe, given the UK is a firm ally of the US in security matters and a supporter of free markets.\n\n\"An EU without the UK may be more willing to create barriers for non-EU companies, to the detriment of US companies and the American economy,\" the report says.\n\n\"In the development of EU defence policy, for example, the UK aim was often to ensure that EU measures did not undermine NATO and the strong transatlantic partnership.\"\n\nThat approach could change once Britain has left the EU.\n\nThe Rand report said that there was only one option that would leave the UK better off outside the European Union: a comprehensive three-way free trade deal between Britain, the US and the EU.\n\nBut the report admits that is an extremely unlikely scenario, given that the present trade negotiations between the US and the EU (the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) are not supported by President Donald Trump and are \"in a hiatus\".\n\n\"The analysis clearly shows that the UK will be economically worse-off outside of the EU under most trade scenarios - the key question for the UK is how much worse-off,\" said Charles Ries, a vice-president at Rand and the report's lead author.\n\n\"It is in the best interests of the UK, and to a lesser extent the EU, to achieve some sort of open trading and investment relationship post-Brexit.\"\n\nMr Ries is former US ambassador to Greece and was also principal deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs in the US between 2000 and 2004.\n\nAlthough the report says that a loss of growth caused by leaving the EU could in part be compensated for by free trade deals with other countries such as India and China, they would be difficult to execute.\n\n\"Since the EU has a political incentive to demonstrate that the UK is worse off as a result of leaving the EU (so as to discourage other departures), and some in the UK believe the costs of 'no deal' are low, there is a real risk that the parties - even while seeking to cooperate - will find themselves struggling to reach any agreement,\" the report says.\n\n\"Unfortunately for the UK, 'no deal' - or, indeed, any of the 'hard Brexit' scenarios - is the worst situation for the future, with significant losses in terms of economic growth.\"\n\nThe report says that many American companies invest in the UK because it offers open access to the EU.\n\nIt argues that foreign direct investment (FDI) has been boosted by 28% because of the UK's membership of the EU.\n\n\"Our research indicates that a fall back to World Trade Organisation rules would reduce EU FDI inflow into the UK by about $7.8bn (£5.8bn).\n\n\"If the UK signs a comprehensive FTA [free trade agreement] with the EU, investment from the EU would fall by $3.4bn - a reduction of about 9% from EU membership investment levels.\n\n\"Signing an FTA with the United States would add about $3.2bn in FDI inflows for the UK from our baseline scenario, making up about one-third of investment lost due to termination of EU membership. The best option would be to conclude a three-way UK-EU-US trade agreement.\"\n\nRand says that once free trade negotiations start, \"several fault lines\" could emerge among the remaining 27 members of the EU, which may put the UK in a stronger position.\n\n\"These include the diverging interests of the countries that use the euro currency and those that do not, as well as the diverging interests of those countries that are net contributors to the EU budget and those that are net recipients,\" the report says.\n\n\"Interests could also diverge on regional bases. Northern European countries may seek the maximum possible free movement of goods while trying to lure the financial industry from London to their countries.\n\n\"Southern European countries may focus on securing a high financial settlement from the UK and preserving agricultural and fisheries policies.\n\n\"And eastern European countries may seek strong protections for their citizens currently in the UK. These differing priorities may come into play as trade-offs are made.\"\n• None So, did 'soft Brexit' just win?", "A house fire which killed three children was a \"targeted attack\", police have said.\n\nDemi Pearson, 14, Brandon, eight, and Lacie, seven, died, while Lia, three, and mother Michelle, 35, remain in hospital.\n\nMs Pearson's son, Kyle, and a friend both escaped from the home, in Salford, before fire crews arrived.\n\nSix people have now been arrested, after a 25-year-old man was held on suspicion of murder.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"Words cannot describe\" how a family feels after losing three children, police say.\n\nMichelle Pearson is in a serious condition in hospital\n\nCh Supt Wayne Miller of Greater Manchester Police said detectives believe the attack was targeted after collecting CCTV from the area.\n\n\"We now have a much deeper understanding of the devastating events which lead to the tragic deaths,\" he said.\n\nCh Supt Miller said relatives of the family have been left \"completely devastated\".\n\n\"The loss of a child in any circumstance is unthinkable, to lose three in such deplorable circumstances words cannot describe.\n\n\"My heart breaks for them, it really does.\n\n\"We're doing all that we can to get them the answers they quite rightly deserve.\"\n\nTwo men, aged 19 and 20, arrested on suspicion of murder have been released on bail, as has a 24-year-old man arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.\n\nOfficers visited the house in Jackson Street, Walkden, a few hours before the blaze, which happened at about 05:00 GMT on Monday.\n\nPolice confirmed there had been previous incidents at the family's home.\n\nThe case has been referred by GMP to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which confirmed an investigation had started.\n\nIt feels it is \"necessary to independently investigate the circumstances of this incident in relation to the force's actions\".\n\nDemi Pearson, 14, was a pupil at Harrop Fold School in Salford\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police were filmed leading one of the suspects away after his arrest\n\nThe children's schools have paid tribute to them.\n\nDemi Pearson was a pupil at Harrop Fold School in Salford, which featured in the Channel 4 documentary Educating Greater Manchester.\n\nHead teacher Drew Povey said everyone at the school was \"truly devastated\".\n\n\"Team Harrop mourns alongside the relatives and friends of those whose lives were needlessly and mercilessly taken from them. The spirit of Salford cannot and will not be crushed. We will work together to comfort and rebuild those lives that have been forever changed,\" he said.\n\nEmma Henderson, head teacher at Bridgewater Primary school, said the school is consoling pupils and their families.\n\n\"Our school is very much part of this special community and understands the intense pain experienced at this senseless loss of precious life,\" she said.", "Anyone who arrives before Brexit day on 29 March 2019 will have the right to stay.\n\nIt will only take a couple of minutes for EU citizens to register online to stay in the UK after Brexit, Home Office minister Brandon Lewis has said.\n\nThere would, he said, be a \"presumption in favour\" of approving applications when the process begins late next year and people should hear in two weeks.\n\nRather than having to wade through 85 pages as in the past, he said there would be just six to eight questions.\n\nTheresa May has urged all three million EU nationals to stay after March 2019.\n\nA reciprocal deal on the rights of EU nationals in the UK and British expats on the continent is part of the stage-one agreement approved by the European Commission on Friday - which is expected to be rubber-stamped by all 28 EU members later this week.\n\nMr Lewis told the Lords EU Justice sub-committee that Friday's agreement meant EU nationals worried about their future \"can be confident they do not have to do anything immediately\".\n\nWhen the application process for what the government has described as \"settled status\" begins, he said the system would be far simpler than those applying for permanent residency in the past have had to deal with.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Citizens' rights, the Irish border and money are the three big negotiation points\n\n\"The way we are looking to develop this is using online processes where somebody spends literally a few minutes online and within a couple of weeks your settled status is dealt with and granted,\" Mr Lewis said.\n\nUnlike other applicants, existing permanent residents may not have to pay a fee to apply again nor have to supply evidence that they are living in the UK.\n\nFor those who don't already have indefinite leave to remain in the UK, charges will be capped at about £72.50 - the cost that Britons pay to renew their passports.\n\nThe immigration minister said the Home Office always had a duty to be rigorous when it came to considering applications for permanent residency - which people are eligible for after five continuous years in the UK.\n\nBut he admitted the current system was \"overly complicated and bureaucratic\" and the authorities' approach would have to change when it came to Brexit because of the sheer numbers of people affected.\n\n\"There is a presumption that they will be granted,\" he said.\n\n\"The only circumstance I can see someone not being granted settled status is if the criminal records check show they are a criminal, or if someone was trying to claim to be an EU citizen in the UK and they were not - a fraudulent application.\"\n\nMinisters hope the new system will be up and running in the second half of 2018 and have pledged that those given settled status would have \"broadly the same rights\" as British citizens.\n\nBut during the session Labour peer Lord Cashman called for all EU citizens who already qualify for permanent residence to be registered immediately under a fast-track process.\n\nAnd Lib Dem peer Baroness Ludford said a lot of existing EU citizens were experiencing a \"great deal of hassle\" and she questioned how the system would produce the \"nirvana of simplicity\" expected by ministers.\n\nCiting cases where EU citizens who had lived in the UK for decades had received letters asking them to leave, she claimed \"there was an attempt by the Home Office to create a hostile environment\".\n\nLabour's shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said existing rights enjoyed by EU nationals should be guaranteed. \"The government needs to give clarity on what it has agreed, and to stick to its word,\" she said.", "Firms in the UK's key services sector raised prices at the fastest pace for nearly a decade last month as they faced higher costs for food, fuel and salaries, according to a survey.\n\nThe Markit/CIPS purchasing managers' index (PMI) for services also said growth in the sector had slowed.\n\nGrowth in new orders cooled as consumers were hit by a \"double whammy\" of higher prices and weak wage growth.\n\nThe services sector accounts for nearly 80% of UK economic output.\n\nThe closely-watched PMI reading fell to 53.8 for the services sector in November, down from 55.6 the previous month. However, this was still above the 50 threshold for growth, which the sector has achieved for 16 consecutive months.\n\nThe report noted a \"sharp and accelerated rise in prices\" by firms.\n\nThe fall in the value of the pound has pushed up the price of imported goods for companies, and the sector has also been hit by changes to business rates and higher salaries after the launch of the National Living Wage.\n\nDuncan Brock, director of customer relationships at the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), said: \"November's data painted a disappointing portrait of a sector struggling against Brexit-related uncertainty and a weaker economic outlook.\n\n\"Businesses could no longer fight against the tide of higher prices for food, fuel and salaries as input cost inflation remained close to its strongest for six years, and businesses passed these increases on to consumers at the fastest rate since February 2008.\n\n\"The level of new order growth lost some momentum, as inflation also ate away at household incomes for a double whammy effect on the UK population reluctant to spend,\" he added.\n\nHowever, while the PMI service sector survey was weaker than expected, similar studies of the manufacturing and construction sectors have indicated a better performance last month, with activity in the manufacturing sector growing at the fastest pace for four years.\n\nChris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, said the surveys as a whole indicated the economy would see \"robust growth\" in the final three months of the year of about 0.45%.\n\nHoward Archer, chief economic adviser to the EY Item Club, also said the figures \"suggest that the economy is maintaining a modestly improved performance in the fourth quarter\".", "Akayed Ullah emigrated to the US with his family in 2011\n\nThe man who faces terror charges over Monday's bus terminal bombing in New York posted a warning to President Donald Trump just before the attack.\n\n\"Trump you failed to protect your nation,\" it read. The post by Akayed Ullah was revealed in charges filed by federal prosecutors on Tuesday.\n\nThey say the 27-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant carried out the bombing inspired by the Islamic State group.\n\nHe wounded himself and three others in Monday morning's attack.\n\nMr Ullah is accused of blowing up a crude device strapped to his body in an underpass at Manhattan's Port Authority Bus Terminal during the rush hour.\n\nThe New York Police Department (NYPD) tweeted that he was facing state charges including criminal possession of a weapon, supporting an act of terrorism and making a \"terroristic threat\".\n\nThe federal charges, announced later on Tuesday, include providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a public place.\n\nAccording to the federal complaint filed by prosecutors, Mr Ullah said after his arrest: \"I did it for the Islamic State.\"\n\nHe also told investigators he had been motivated by American air strikes on IS target, the document says.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe complaint says Mr Ullah used materials that included Christmas lights to make the device. It was affixed to his body with Velcro straps.\n\nA search of the suspect's home in the New York City borough of Brooklyn \"revealed metal pipes, pieces of wire and metal screws, which were consistent with the bomb materials recovered at the scene,\" prosecutor Joom Kim told reporters.\n\nHe said the suspect \"admitted that he began researching how to build bombs about a year ago, and had been planning this particular attack for several weeks\".\n\nHe selected the location and timing \"to maximise casualties\", Mr Kim added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The blast hit during New York's rush-hour - this is how events unfolded\n\nMr Ullah emigrated to the US on a family visa in 2011 from the Chittagong area of Bangladesh.\n\nThe Bangladeshi government says he had no criminal record in the country, which he last visited in September. The visit lasted about six weeks, his uncle told the Associated Press news agency.\n\nMr Ullah's wife did not join him in the US. She and other family members are now being questioned to try to understand how he was radicalised.\n\nUS President Donald Trump has said Monday's attack, which followed a terror attack in Manhattan in October that killed eight people, \"highlights the urgent need... to enact legislative reforms to protect the American people\".\n\n\"America must fix its lax immigration system, which allows far too many dangerous, inadequately vetted people to access our country,\" Mr Trump added.", "The Republican candidate arrived at an Alabama polling site on horseback - but had trouble leaving the same way.", "Fergal Keane reveals the crisis along a road in the Democratic Republic of Congo that threatens hundreds of thousands.\n\nNearly half a million severely malnourished children are at risk of starvation in the country's Kasai region.\n\nThe UN has just declared the crisis in DRC as the highest level of emergency - the same as Yemen, Syria and Iraq.", "A row has broken out over advice given to police in England and Wales telling them not to stop and search people only because they smell of cannabis.\n\nIt was first given to police last year and was reiterated by an Inspectorate of Constabulary report on Tuesday.\n\nThe advice says officers should look at other factors like behaviour as well.\n\nBut some officers, including the chief constable of Merseyside Police, said they disagreed. The College of Policing said it plans to review the guidance.\n\nPolice officers can use stop-and-search powers if they have \"reasonable grounds\" to suspect someone is carrying items such as drugs, weapons or stolen property.\n\nLast year, they were given new guidance by the College of Policing that the smell of cannabis on its own would not normally justify stopping and searching someone or their vehicle.\n\nBut the Inspectorate of Constabulary said many officers were unaware of the guidance and it is now urging forces to encourage officers to not rely on a smell alone.\n\nHowever, Chief Constable Andy Cooke, of Merseyside Police, said he would not be giving that advice to his teams.\n\nHe tweeted: \"I disagree. The guidance in my view is wrong and the law does not preclude it.\n\n\"Smell of cannabis is sufficient to stop search and I will continue to encourage my officers to use it particularly on those criminals who are engaged in serious and organised crime.\"\n\nMatt Locke, of Northumbria Police, described the guidance as \"inconsistent\", adding that it was \"a bit of a dog's dinner\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Matt Locke This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnother police officer, from North Yorkshire Police, tweeted: \"If I smell cannabis on someone or coming from a vehicle then I'll conduct a search. I don't think there's a cop in this land that wouldn't.\n\n\"Recently not only had that led to me seizing quantities of cannabis, but also arresting drivers showing with it in their system.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Josh Bourne This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMike Cunningham, HM Inspector of Constabulary, responded to questions on social media about the guidance by saying the smell of cannabis \"can be reasonable grounds\" to search but it will be \"for the officer to explain\".\n\nHe added that the advice \"encourages multiple grounds\" to merit a stop and search.\n\nThe row came after the Inspectorate of Constabulary analysed more than 8,500 stop and search records and found almost 600 were conducted solely because police could smell cannabis.\n\nSearches based on other grounds, such as the suspect's behaviour, result in more arrests, the report said.\n\nAt the heart of this row is an important question: are too many people being needlessly stopped and searched for drugs?\n\nThe Inspectorate report drops a heavy hint that they are.\n\nIt says police carried out 3,698 searches, 43% of the sample, because officers believed a suspect had drugs on them for their own use, even though drug possession offences may not be \"priority crimes\".\n\nThe watchdog is concerned about this, firstly, because drug possession searches are not necessarily the best use of police time; and secondly, because they appear to affect ethnic minority groups disproportionately.\n\nThat's one of the key reasons why the Inspectorate has reinforced the College of Policing guidance on stop and searches, including the advice about smelling cannabis - even though it's caused a stink.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Danny Shaw This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by College of Policing This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 4 by College of Policing\n\nThe report said it was \"troubling\" that black people were eight times more likely to be stopped than white people.\n\nAt the same time, black people were less likely to have illegal substances found on them than white people.\n\nThe National Police Chiefs' Council said it was looking at why young black men were disproportionately stopped.\n\nThe NPCC said stop-and-search powers were important \"with rising knife and gun crime\", as well as being a deterrent for people considering carrying out acid attacks.", "Last updated on .From the section Boxing\n\nBritain's Tyson Fury is free to resume his boxing career after accepting a backdated two-year doping ban.\n\nThe former world heavyweight champion tested positive for a banned steroid in February 2015, but blamed the result on eating uncastrated wild boar.\n\nHis victory over Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 was his last fight before beginning his legal battle with UK Anti-Doping (Ukad).\n\nFury, 29, said he was glad he could put the \"nightmare\" behind him.\n\nHe will be free to return to the ring once he regains his boxing licence from the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC), who Ukad say have accepted the outcome.\n\nHughie Fury, Tyson's cousin, has reached a similar agreement after he also tested positive in February 2015.\n\nBoth men were not charged until June 2016 and both continue to insist they have \"never knowingly or deliberately committed a violation\".\n\nLast month, BBC Sport reported Ukad feared it could be made insolvent or require a bailout over the dispute had Fury been cleared.\n\nHowever, Ukad chief executive Nicole Sapstead insisted there was \"absolutely no whitewash and nothing to be fearful or embarrassed about\" in the decision.\n\nShe said the anti-doping agency had been \"completely transparent\" and that the developments represented a \"good outcome\", given their conviction that a doping violation did take place.\n\nA Ukad statement read: \"In recognition of the retrospective counter-arguments and the risks inherent in the dispute resolution process, each side has accepted a compromise of its position.\"\n\nIn a statement Tyson Fury said he and Hughie were \"happy\" the issue had been settled and that they can \"move forward knowing they will not be labelled drug cheats\".\n\nBoth fighters' respective bouts in February 2015, including Tyson's victory over Christian Hammer, have been disqualified but results after that date, including the win over Klitschko, stand.\n\n\"I'm a fighting man through and through and I've never backed down from anyone in my life and I was certainly not going to back down from fighting this dispute,\" he said.\n\nFollowing the decision, Fury called out fellow Briton Anthony Joshua - the IBF and WBA heavyweight world champion - on social media, saying \"where you at boy? I'm coming for you punk\".\n\nJoshua defended his world titles in October, while the other two world belts are held by American Deontay Wilder and New Zealand's Joseph Parker.\n\nLast month, Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn said there was \"absolutely no question\" Joshua would face Wilder in a unification bout in 2018.\n\n\"Next year I will be back doing what I do best, better than ever and ready to reclaim the world titles which are rightfully mine,\" Fury said. \"It's time to get the party started.\"\n\nThere was no sign of Tyson Fury on Monday morning at the central London venue where his hearing with Ukad was due to take place. Now we know why. His lawyers were in deep discussion with the anti-doping authority, cutting a deal acceptable to all sides to this dispute.\n\nUkad insist that a threat of a loss of earnings lawsuit, if Fury won, played no part in their decision.\n\nNevertheless, the conclusion of this long-running saga will be hailed as a victory by all parties with Ukad getting an admission of guilt and Fury given clearance to resume his career.\n\nAs for the wild boar? He is sadly unavailable for comment.\n\nHow did we get here?\n\nFury secured the WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight belts by defeating Klitschko in Dusseldorf in November 2015, although he was forced to relinquish the IBF title soon afterwards after refusing to fight the organisation's mandatory challenger.\n\nA rematch with Klitschko was scheduled for summer 2016 but Fury was forced to postpone because of injury, before later withdrawing.\n\nUkad confirmed in June 2016 that he and cousin Hughie had tested positive for a banned substance - now confirmed to be banned anabolic steroid nandrolone.\n\nNandrolone acts similarly to the hormone testosterone and the Furys have relied on a defence that they ate uncastrated wild boar - which is naturally high in testosterone - as the reason for failing the tests.\n\nThe pair were charged by Ukad but provisional suspensions were lifted in August 2016 after appeals.\n\nTwo months later, Fury gave up his world titles to focus on mental health problems and the BBBofC suspended his licence \"pending further investigation into anti-doping and medical issues\".", "The airman was seen on CCTV pictures walking through Bury St Edmunds after a night out\n\nThe search of a landfill site for missing RAF airman Corrie Mckeague, who vanished during a night out in September 2016, has ended.\n\nPolice believe Mr Mckeague climbed into a waste bin in Bury St Edmunds and was taken away by a bin lorry.\n\nThe search of a site at Milton, Cambridgeshire, restarted in October after a search there ended earlier in the year.\n\nSuffolk Police said \"no trace\" of the airman had been found.\n\nThe force said it was \"content\" he was not in the landfill areas that had been searched and the investigation into his disappearance would continue.\n\nMr Mckeague's mother, Nicola Urquhart, said by searching the waste site the police had given her \"immeasurable peace of mind\".\n\nHis father Martin said they had a \"lifelong debt of gratitude\" to all those involved in searching for his son.\n\nThe latest landfill search focused on an area next to the original excavation site\n\nMr Mckeague, who was 23 at the time he went missing, was last seen at 03:25 BST on 24 September 2016.\n\nHe was captured on CCTV entering a bin loading bay known as the Horseshoe and his phone was tracked as taking the same route as a bin lorry.\n\nPolice started a 20-week search of the landfill site in March before ending it in July.\n\nThe latest excavation has been focused on an area next to the site of the original search.\n\nDet Supt Katie Elliott said there were \"a number of theories\" about what happened to Mr Mckeague and they were \"continuing to test the evidence\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Veteran TV presenter Keith Chegwin has died aged 60 after a long illness, his family has said.\n\nThey said he had endured a \"long-term battle with a progressive lung condition\" which \"rapidly worsened towards the end of this year\".\n\nHe died at home on Monday with his family by his side, who said they were \"heartbroken\".\n\nTributes have been paid from the world of entertainment for the \"true telly legend\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Noel Edmonds pays a tearful tribute to his \"first telly chum\" Keith Chegwin\n\nChegwin was perhaps best known for hosting programmes including children's game show Cheggers Plays Pop, Swap Shop and Saturday Superstore.\n\nThe Liverpool-born star began his career as a child actor, starring in films such as Roman Polanski's Macbeth and TV shows including The Liver Birds, The Adventures of Black Beauty and Z-Cars.\n\nHe went on to appear in reality TV shows including Celebrity Big Brother.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe larger-than-life character, described by his family as \"a loving husband, father, son, brother, uncle and friend\", leaves his wife Maria and two children.\n\nChegwin had been cared for at a hospice in recent weeks.\n\nHis last tweet was posted on 28 September.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Keith Chegwin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nChegwin was previously married to fellow TV presenter Maggie Philbin, whom he had met on Swap Shop.\n\nPhilbin paid tribute to her former husband, saying: \"It is incredibly sad. Keith was a one-off. Full of life, generous and with a focus on things that mattered - his family.\n\n\"I saw him two months ago at his sister Janice's wedding, where he was still attempting to be life and soul of the party despite being on portable oxygen and made sure he knew how much he meant to us all.\n\n\"Our daughter Rose flew home from San Francisco to be with him over the last few weeks and I know he was surrounded by so much love from his second wife Maria, their son Ted, his sister Janice, his twin brother Jeff and his father Colin.\"\n\nFellow Swap Shop presenter Noel Edmonds said in a statement: \"I've lost my first real telly chum and I'm certain I'm not alone in shedding tears for a true telly legend.\n\n\"The greatest achievement for any TV performer is for the viewers to regard you as a friend and today millions will be grateful for Keith's contribution to their childhood memories and like me they will mourn the passing of a friend.\"\n\nRicky Gervais, who created the series Extras which Chegwin starred in, described him as a \"national treasure\".\n\nGaby Roslin, who worked with Chegwin on The Big Breakfast, described him as \"so generous and kind\" and a \"happy and joyous man\".\n\nChegwin had two children, including a daughter with his first wife Maggie Philbin\n\nJohn Craven, who worked with Chegwin on Swap Shop told BBC News that his colleague \"never lost his cool. I never saw Keith when he wasn't happy. He was a great, great character.\"\n\nHe added: \"We were great friends for many years, but we lost touch a bit and [his death] came as a huge shock for me.\"\n\nPresenter Chris Evans, who worked with Chegwin on the Big Breakfast, tweeted: \"Very sad and shocked to hear of the passing of Keith Chegwin. The king of outside broadcast.\"\n\nBobby Davro said Chegwin was \"one of the nicest guys\" in showbiz.\n\nAnd Tony Blackburn said he was \"devastated\" at the loss of his friend.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Tony Blackburn This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBlackburn told BBC News that Chegwin was \"exactly the same (off air) as he was on television\" and that he never saw him with a script.\n\n\"He was the most lovely person I've ever met and I'm so sad he's no longer with us,\" he added.\n\nBreakfast presenter Lorraine Kelly said he was \"a kind, funny, brave man\".\n\nAnd Fiona Phillips, who also worked with him on breakfast TV, also paid tribute to her friend.\n\nPhillip Schofield, who presented Saturday morning show Going Live, described Chegwin as \"one of my many original Saturday morning heroes\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Phillip Schofield This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nChegwin also had a hit single with I Wanna Be A Winner in 1981. The novelty hit, which was recorded by Chegwin and his Swap Shop co-hosts under the name Brown Sauce, reached number 15 in the charts.\n\nHis career fell away in the 80s and 90s and he had a well-documented struggle with alcoholism for many years. But it was revived by a stint on the Big Breakfast.\n\nHe went on to make infamous Channel 5 nudist gameshow Naked Jungle, appearing naked except for a hat - which he later described as the \"worst career move\" of his \"entire life\".\n\nChegwin - known affectionately by the nickname Cheggers - also appeared in Celebrity Big Brother, Bargain Hunt Famous Finds and Dancing on Ice.\n\nHe was due to appear in the 2012 Dancing on Ice series but had to pull out after breaking his ribs during the first day of rehearsal. He returned as a contestant the following year.\n\nHe also took part in Pointless Celebrities and Masterchef.\n\nThe disease Chegwin had is called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which causes scarring of the lungs.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Facebook is to overhaul its tax structure so that it pays tax in the country where profits are earned, instead of using an Irish subsidiary.\n\nThe online advertising giant is to make the change in every country outside the US where it has an office.\n\nIn 2016, Facebook said it would stop routing UK sales through Ireland for tax purposes.\n\nThe change comes after pressure on large firms over their tax affairs from governments and the public.\n\nFacebook chief financial officer Dave Wehner said: \"We believe that moving to a local selling structure will provide more transparency to governments and policy makers around the world who have called for greater visibility over the revenue associated with locally-supported sales in their countries.\"\n\nThe move will affect how Facebook pays taxes in 30 countries including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Poland, and Sweden.\n\nIn the UK, there was public outrage after it emerged that Facebook had paid just £4,327 in tax in 2014.\n\nIn April 2016, the company began booking more advertising income through its UK office, instead of Ireland.\n\nThat significantly boosted revenue and profits for its UK business, and has meant that so far it has paid higher taxes.\n\nFacebook paid £5.1m in tax in the UK last year, up from £4.2m in 2015, on revenues of £842m.\n\nHowever, that does not necessarily mean it will start paying more tax in other countries as a result of the overhaul, Professor Prem Sikka of the universities of Sheffield and Essex told the BBC.\n\nTaxes are paid on profits, and \"the huge difficulty with large companies is trying to determine exactly what the profit is,\" he said.\n\nThere are a number of ways firms can muddy the waters, including charging intra-group management fees, royalty fees, and profit-sharing, he said.\n\nProfessor Sikka added that the Facebook move \"may well be appeasing public opinion, while at the same time it takes a very small hit on its profits, if any.\"\n\nEU authorities are pursuing big technology companies over what they see as avoidance of tax by routing business through lower tax jurisdictions.\n\nIn 2015, the UK government introduced a \"diverted profits\" tax, a higher rate of corporation tax aimed at companies that move profits out of the country.", "The cost of Christmas: Some seasonal favourites have gone up in price since last year\n\nFrom boxes of chocolates to mince pies and even Brussels sprouts, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a table piled high with food.\n\nBut the price of the festive grocery shop has spiralled this year, thanks to growing food inflation.\n\nFood and soft drink prices rose by 4.1% in the year to October - the biggest growth in four years and a move that's hit some perennial Christmas favourites particularly hard.\n\nThe average price of smoked salmon shot up by 22.9% between November 2015 and November 2016, according to Kantar Worldpanel.\n\nBrussels sprouts are up 8.4%, while Christmas puddings are 7.7% more expensive, according to the figures.\n\nIn September and October, consumer price inflation hit 3% compared with a year earlier - the highest level in five years and 0.9% above the rate of wage growth.\n\nBut some of the key components of Christmas - including popular presents such as smartphones and clothes - have seen average prices rise by far more than that.\n\nSo what's behind the increases? And are we tightening our belts this Christmas as a result?\n\nThe pound has fallen by as much as 20% relative to other currencies following the Brexit vote in 2016, meaning that retailers who rely on imports have seen significant price rises.\n\nThe UK brings in about 50% of the food we eat from overseas, so supermarkets have been under particular pressure.\n\nPaul Martin, head of retail at KPMG, says that consumers are particularly sensitive to food price changes.\n\n\"Before 2017, grocery prices were falling off the back of the supermarket price war,\" he says.\n\n\"We have gone quickly from a position where people are used to their weekly shop getting cheaper to getting more expensive.\"\n\nMr Martin points out that the effect is psychological, with people paying more attention to rising prices than falling ones.\n\n\"Some sectors are hit particularly hard. For example, the price of smoked salmon has gone up markedly and that is an important part of Christmas for many people,\" he adds.\n\nAlthough some foods have become more expensive, we are buying it in increasing quantities. Over the three months to November, total food sales increased 4%, according to the British Retail Consortium and KPMG.\n\nAnd it seems we are still keen to treat ourselves as Christmas approaches, but are being more innovative in how we shop.\n\nOne in three shoppers say the cost of Christmas is a growing concern compared with last year, says grocery research firm IGD.\n\nAbout 45% of shoppers told the IGD they would start Christmas shopping early to spread the cost, compared with 35% who said the same last year.\n\nAnd 43% are planning to spread the bulk of their food shopping across a range of stores - twice as many as were planning to do a big Christmas shop in one place.\n\nThe rising price of phones means users are holding on to their handsets for longer, according to some reports\n\nMany tech enthusiasts will be hoping for an iPhone X in their Christmas stocking. But they could be left disappointed if the price hikes seen on smartphones make them an unappealing purchase.\n\nThe cost of premium smartphones has been rising steadily each year. Average prices increased by 10.2% in 2015, 16.7% last year and 6.7% in 2017, according to technology analysts Gartner.\n\nPC price hikes have been even more pronounced, with the average selling price rising by 23% in 2016 and 14% in 2017 - after an average fall of 29% in 2014.\n\nTechnology prices largely fell by 3-5% every year until 2012, but now things are different, says Ranjit Atwal, a research director at Gartner.\n\n\"On the PC side, a lot of people started to buy better models that were higher spec, so started to move up the price curve,\" he says.\n\n\"Then there are issues around exchange rates. When the pound fell in 2016 we saw quite a big increase in pricing. The cost of the components has been increasing too.\"\n\nWill this strike tech gifts off Christmas lists? Phone users are typically holding on to their handsets for four or five months longer, as prices have become more expensive, Dixons Carphone's chief executive Seb James warned back in August.\n\nBut Mr Atwal says shoppers aren't overly bothered by price hikes.\n\n\"Smartphones are much more pervasive - everybody has one,\" he says.\n\n\"People don't buy them all in one go, so they don't really realise. Groceries are a frequent purchase: if the price of milk goes up 5p, you notice that.\"\n\nAverage clothing prices have risen 11.5% since last year, after retailers timed the winter wather better\n\nPrices have gone up 11.5% in the UK online clothing, shoes and accessories market from November 2016 to November 2017 on a like-for-like retailer basis, says data analytics platform WGSN Instock.\n\nWGSN's Nivindya Sharma notes that retailers have had to grapple with increased sourcing costs as the pound lost value after the Brexit referendum.\n\nIncorporating this year's trends such as ruffles, embellishments and embroidery in designs has also pushed prices up, while the fashion for upmarket trainers has given retailers a boost.\n\n\"There is an increasing propensity among shoppers to buy less, buy better,\" she says.\n\n\"As a reaction to this, retailers have invested in expanding or introducing their premium collections and price points. There is also a greater volume of premium wool products such as merino and cashmere now available on the High Street.\n\n\"Shoppers are increasingly concerned about value for money, so retailers have had to really justify their price points through initiatives such as design innovation, quality, premium fabric or high-profile collaborations.\"\n\nShops have also learnt from last year's mistake of discounting clothing too early.\n\nThe mild winter weather of last year meant shops had to slash the price of coats and jackets. This year, they waited until the temperature started to drop significantly, making shoppers more willing to pay full price.\n\nAs a result, women's coat prices online have gone up 6.8% year on year, while women's jacket prices have gone up 9.9%.", "What is the point of capitalism?\n\nThat might seem like a pretty big question, but one answer could be \"to provide people the opportunity through work to become richer\".\n\nWhat, though, if the economy fails in that endeavour?\n\nIf the system leaves you - despite all your efforts - worse off in December than you were the previous January?\n\nOr worse off now than you were a decade ago?\n\nIt was Lord Adair Turner, the former head of the Low Pay Commission, who put it succinctly.\n\n\"The UK over the last 10 years has created a lot of jobs, but today real wages are below where they were in 2007,\" he told me earlier this year.\n\n\"That is not the capitalist system delivering its promise that over a decade or so it will raise all boats, and it is a very fundamental issue.\"\n\nYesterday the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) announced an aggressive downgrade of both its growth and productivity forecasts.\n\nThose big, macro-economic announcements have a significant effect on all of us as well as on the state of the public finances.\n\nIt means the economy is forecast to be weaker at producing wealth for every hour that we work.\n\nWhich makes the chances of a pay rise for everyone recede.\n\nToday, two pieces of chunky analysis of the OBR's judgements reveal why those downgrades are so important.\n\nThe social justice think tank, the Resolution Foundation, said that \"lower productivity feeds directly through to pay, which is now forecast to be £1,000 a year lower on average than the OBR thought back in March\".\n\nThe Foundation says that the fall in real incomes people are experiencing could now become the longest since records began.\n\nAnd that wages will not recover to their pre-financial crisis levels until 2025 - that's 17 years during which people have been experiencing an incomes squeeze.\n\nThe tax and economy think tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, agrees.\n\n\"Real earnings are falling this year as inflation has risen to 3%,\" Paul Johnson, the Institute's director, said.\n\n\"The nascent recovery in earnings, which were growing through 2014 to the first half of 2016, has been choked off.\n\n\"That they even might still be below their 2008 level in 2022 as the OBR forecasts is truly astonishing. Let's hope this forecast turns out to be too pessimistic.\"\n\nGovernment ministers will be similarly keeping their fingers crossed.\n\nAnd hoping that with strong employment levels and plans to boost investment in the type of infrastructure that boosts productivity - transport, scientific and technology research - the real incomes squeeze can be alleviated.\n\nBecause if a system does not deliver increasing wealth - even if it is a modest increase - then people, quite naturally, begin to wonder what is the point.\n• None What the Budget means for you", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May: “What we are looking for is a deal that is right for the United Kingdom\"\n\nAn agreement to move on to the next phase of Brexit talks is \"good news\" for both Leave and Remain voters, Theresa May has told MPs.\n\nShe told Parliament it should reassure those who feared the UK would get \"bogged down\" in endless negotiations or \"crash out\" without a deal.\n\nShe said the UK did not want a trade arrangement based on any other country but \"a deal that is right for the UK\".\n\nLabour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Mrs May had only just \"scraped through\".\n\nThe negotiations so far, he said, had been \"punctuated by posturing and delays\", with confusion about how legally watertight the agreements were.\n\nUpdating Parliament on the terms of Friday's phase one agreement - which is expected to be approved by the other 27 EU leaders later this week - the PM said it would see the UK pay a \"fair\" divorce bill, avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and see the rights of UK and EU expat citizens \"enshrined in UK law and enforced by British courts\".\n\nBut she said that if the UK was not able to agree a withdrawal deal with the EU prior to its scheduled exit in March 2019, \"this deal is off the table\".\n\nEarlier, the EU said that although the agreement was not strictly legally binding, the two sides had \"shaken hands\" on it with a \"gentleman's agreement\" between David Davis and Michel Barnier.\n\nOn Sunday the Brexit Secretary David Davis said guarantees on the Northern Ireland border were not legally binding unless the two sides reached a final deal.\n\nBut he told LBC Radio on Monday they would be honoured whatever happened.\n\nThe BBC's assistant political editor Norman Smith said the Brexit Secretary's clarification - in which he insisted one of the government's key aims was to ensure that the Northern Ireland peace process was not harmed - came after concerns in Dublin about the enforceability of Friday's phase one agreement.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Davis: \"No deal means we won't be paying the money\"\n\nMr Davis said he had been taken out of context when he appeared to tell the BBC's Andrew Marr that guarantees designed to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland were a \"statement of intent\".\n\n\"What I actually said yesterday in terms was, we want to protect the peace process, want to protect Ireland from the impact of Brexit for them,\" he said.\n\n\"I said this was a statement of intent which was much more than just legally enforceable. Of course it's legally enforceable under the withdrawal agreement but even if that didn't happen for some reason, if something went wrong, we would still be seeking to provide a frictionless invisible border with Ireland.\"\n\nA European Commission spokesman said the first-phase deal on the Northern Ireland border, the divorce bill and citizens' rights did not strictly have the force of law.\n\n\"But we see the joint report of Michel Barnier and David Davis as a deal between gentlemen and it is the clear understanding that it is fully backed and endorsed by the UK government.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Citizens' rights, the Irish border and money are the three big negotiation points\n\nShe added: \"President Juncker had a meeting with Prime Minister May last Friday morning to ascertain that this is precisely the case. They shook hands.\"\n\nIn her statement to Parliament, Theresa May said she expected EU leaders to agree immediately to start talks about a two-year transition deal immediately, paving the way for continued access to the single market for a time-limited period.\n\n\"This is good news for the people who voted Leave, who were worried that we were so bogged down in the negotiations, tortuous negotiations it was never going to happen,\" she said.\n\n\"It is good news for people who voted Remain, who were worried we were going to crash out without a deal. We are going to leave but we are going to do so in a smooth and orderly way.\"\n\nThe prime minister, who also written an open letter to EU nationals in the UK, was praised by leading figures from both wings of the Tory party.\n\nOn the pro-EU side, Anna Soubry said there was \"complete unanimity\" within the party that Friday's agreement was a \"major step forward\" while Nicky Morgan said it was an \"early Christmas present\".\n\nWhile commending the PM, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, who had urged her to walk away from the talks if there was no progress, sought reassurances the transition period would be used to \"implement things that have been achieved\" and \"not carry on with no change\".\n\nIn response, the PM said firms needed time to adjust and avoid the danger of a \"double cliff-edge\" change in rules - but she also said there would be changes such as EU citizens arriving in the UK having to register.\n\nFor Labour, Mr Corbyn said the government's \"shambolic\" approach was continuing with ministers \"contradicting themselves\" over whether the UK would pay a financial settlement if there was no trade deal.\n\nLib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday that the EU was unlikely to offer the UK a bespoke trade deal modelled on the one it has with Canada, but with financial services included.\n\n\"The EU has effectively ruled that option out,\" he said. \"The EU has also said if you want a Canadian-style approach you have to link it to all kind of conditions to do with state aid, environmental rules and employment rights which effectively rules out the government's philosophy of taking back control\".\n\nHis party has tabled an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill - to be considered on Tuesday - which would see \"the Norway option\" of remaining in the single market kept open as long as possible.\n\nUrging Labour MPs and \"pragmatic\" Tories to support this approach, he said it was \"inferior to where we are but it is better than the alternative of not having a close relationship with the EU\".", "A worker at a recycling centre had a shock when a marine flare went off in his hands as he picked it up from a conveyor belt.\n\nIt happened at Amey's plant in Waterbeach, near Cambridge, in November.\n\nThe footage has been released by the firm to remind people to consider what they are recycling this Christmas.", "The victim was hit on a pedestrian crossing on the South Circular Road near Norwood Road\n\nA woman killed in a hit-and-run in south London was \"just left to die\".\n\nThe 29-year-old from Wandsworth was hit by four vehicles on a pedestrian crossing on South Circular Road at 06:48 GMT on Monday. None of the drivers stopped, police said.\n\nNavin Bagan, 37, who works at the nearby Tulse Hill cafe, added the drivers were \"heartless\".\n\nOne resident said the road layout \"encourages dangerous driving\" and has written to an MP to urge for change.\n\nThe woman was hit by two lorries and two cars. Her next of kin have been informed.\n\nIn the letter shared on social media to Chuka Umunna MP, Ross Runs wrote: \"As both a pedestrian and a driver, the junction at Tulse Hill encourages some of the most aggressive driving I have seen in London.\n\n\"If there is an opposite to 'traffic calming' then this is it.\"\n\nHe said the current design encouraged speeding and the road had become \"a racetrack of sorts\".\n\n\"I hope that nobody else has to needlessly lose their life due to poor urban planning on a road that encourages excessive speed and dangerous driving,\" he added.\n\nMr Umunna is the local MP for Streatham, not Dulwich & West Norwood where the crash happened.\n\nHowever, he and Helen Hayes, who represents the neighbouring constituency, said in a joint statement their thoughts were with the victim's family and friends.\n\n\"Lambeth Council is working closely with Transport for London on urgently needed changes to the Tulse Hill gyratory which will make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists,\" the statement said.\n\n\"We are pushing for these works to be delivered as soon as possible, and for any lessons which emerge from the investigation into this appalling incident to be acted upon immediately.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Olivia Cook This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Richard Cann This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Alice Lamb This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPolice have appealed for any witnesses to the crash and for the drivers to get in contact.\n\n\"This road is sometimes very busy in the mornings, but that's not an excuse for a car to hit a lady and run off,\" Ms Bagan said.\n\n\"I'm sure they will find them - it's a busy road, there are lots of security cameras.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nDrivers and other travellers are facing difficult journeys as icy conditions persist across much of the UK.\n\nThe Met Office has a yellow warning for ice until Wednesday 11:00 GMT, with the worst affected areas likely to be Scotland and the north of England.\n\nA \"flash freeze\" caused disruption at Glasgow Airport, with some flights cancelled or diverted to other Scottish airports after the runway froze.\n\nHundreds of schools were closed for a second day.\n\nTemperatures in central and southern England remained only a few degrees above freezing throughout Tuesday.\n\nThe Met Office's warning covers Wales, parts of Scotland and much of England - including the Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber, London, the South East, East, South West, the North East and North West.\n\nIt said the chance of ice was highest across parts of Scotland and northern England where rain might fall onto frozen surfaces. Those areas were also likely to see a few centimetres of fresh snow on high ground.\n\n\"There will probably be icy stretches on untreated roads, pavements and cycle paths with some injuries possible from slips and falls,\" the Met Office added.\n\nAt Glasgow Airport sub-zero temperatures and heavy rain caused a rapid formation of ice on the runway and taxiways as well as roads around the airport.\n\nAs a result, seven flights were forced to land at Edinburgh and Prestwick airports and four flights to and from London City Airport were cancelled.\n\nOperations were suspended at Glasgow for 45 minutes. It is back in operation but travellers are being advised to contact their airline before leaving for the airport.\n\nTravel may be disrupted over coming days as rain meets freezing temperatures and turns to ice on roads and pavements, said BBC Weather's Darren Bett.\n\nThere remains a risk of snow in Scotland overnight on Tuesday, with a risk of light showers over high ground in northern England.\n\nWinds will strengthen over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, but temperatures will be higher than in recent days.\n\nEdmund King, AA president, said the service had rescued more than 140 people from snow and ice by lunchtime.\n\nHe urged other drivers to slow down and leave more space between vehicles, and warned that opportunist thieves were stealing cars left defrosting on driveways and by the roadside.\n\n\"Give yourself extra time and don't leave the car running unattended to warm up,\" he advised.\n\nMore than 350 schools in the West Midlands, some 200 in Shropshire and more than 300 schools in Wales remained shut for a second day.\n\nOn Monday, more than 1,000 schools were closed - about 600 of which were in Wales.\n\nMore snow and ice is forecast for the north of England and Scotland\n\nHorses were put through their paces at Newmarket racecourse despite the low temperatures\n\nBoats on the frozen Shropshire Union Canal at Market Drayton were going nowhere\n\nAn estimated 190 homes were still without a power supply supply in the West Midlands on Tuesday evening.\n\nHeathrow Airport in west London said the \"majority\" of departures and arrivals would run as scheduled but advised passengers to check before travelling because of bad weather in Europe.\n\nTrain travellers faced delays on their homeward journeys, with Great Western Railway, Greater Anglia and London Northwestern Railway all reporting major delays into the evening rush hour.\n\nSome Arriva Trains Wales lines were not running on Tuesday evening and the company expects delays to last until the early hours of Wednesday.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Met Office This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by BBC Sussex This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Derbyshire FRS This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEurotunnel also said services were running with delays, with four-hour waits for passengers departing from Calais and Folkestone. It recommended customers cancelled or changed their travel plans.\n\nP&O ferries across the Channel are delayed by up to three hours because of the weather. Travellers are being told to check in and will be put on the first available sailing.\n\nThe TUC called on employers not to force staff to make dangerous journeys \"for the sake of presenteeism\" and to give staff advice on what to do if the weather or lack of public transport kept them away.", "In this series BBC Stories will be talking to British families and exploring the differences between first and second generation immigrants. It will delve into the cultural nuances that shape their relationships.\n\nIn the first episode we meet a Ghanaian father who has only recently come to terms with his son's criminal past.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nPep Guardiola said Kevin de Bruyne is helping Manchester City become \"a better institution\" after the playmaker put in an inspired performance to help his side outclass Tottenham for a 16th successive Premier League victory that stretched their lead to 14 points.\n\nIlkay Gundogan, in for the absent David Silva, headed City in front from a corner after 14 minutes and the only surprise was that it took until 20 minutes before time until man-of-the-match De Bruyne's powerful shot extended their advantage.\n\nGabriel Jesus struck the post with a penalty after Jan Vertonghen fouled De Bruyne but Raheem Sterling crowned a sweeping move with a simple finish to put the game well and truly out of Spurs' reach.\n\nSterling then took advantage of Eric Dier's mistake to walk in the fourth for his 15th goal of the season before Spurs - for whom Harry Kane and Dele Alli were lucky not to get red cards from referee Craig Pawson for challenges on Sterling and De Bruyne respectively - pulled one back in stoppage time through Christian Eriksen.\n\nBoss Guardiola singled out De Bruyne for praise as he highlighted the Belgium international's work without the ball, calling it \"a good example for the young players, for our academy\".\n\n\"They know how good Kevin De Bruyne is and when they see how he runs and fights without the ball, that is the best example,\" added Guardiola.\n\n\"He helps us to be a better club, a better institution for the future, because that is what we want to do. His performance, I have no words to describe what he has done with the ball.\n\n\"And overall, without the ball, he is able to make pressure from 40 metres to the goalkeeper. And when that happens, the people who are behind him think 'if that guy runs like this, I have to run as well'.\"\n\nHow can anyone stop Manchester City?\n\nIt is the question being asked on a weekly basis - and no-one is any nearer finding the answer after another imperious performance from a City side who are surely now too far ahead to be caught in the Premier League title race.\n\nJose Mourinho went for a cautious approach with Manchester United in Sunday's derby at Old Trafford and was unpicked by the magic of David Silva as City won 2-1.\n\nSilva was absent here and Mauricio Pochettino's Tottenham adopted a more positive outlook - but this time the brilliant De Bruyne was the inspiration as another method was tried and failed against Guardiola's almost flawless side.\n\nCity swarmed all over Spurs, with goalkeeper Hugo Lloris often put under pressure in possession and in the end it was quite simply all too much for Pochettino's side, as it has been for pretty much everyone this season.\n\nOnly Everton have taken a point against City this season with a 1-1 draw in the second league game of the season at Etihad Stadium - and it is difficult to see how this winning run can be stopped as they play with such threat and variety.\n\nEven when City are threatened, Guardiola has successfully solved a problem which dogged his first season at the club with the acquisition of an excellent goalkeeper in Brazilian Ederson.\n\nWhen Spurs looked dangerous for a brief period at the start of the second half, Ederson made a superb flying save to his right from Harry Kane.\n\nIf there is a weakness in this City side no-one has yet found it.\n\nSilva may have been missing but this Manchester City side has more than enough brilliance to rely on one player - and it was De Bruyne who orchestrated the destruction of Spurs.\n\nThe Belgian had simply too much in his armoury, even shrugging off Dele Alli's crude challenge which left the England midfielder fortunate only to get a yellow card from referee Pawson.\n\nIndeed, De Bruyne turned his anger on Spurs, scoring City's second shortly after with a shot that was too fierce for keeper Lloris, drawing a foul from countryman Jan Vertonghen to earn the penalty that Jesus missed and playing a part in setting up the third for Sterling.\n\nSpurs, like many before them, found that if they closed down one option, Manchester City found another.\n\nAnd at the heart of it all was De Bruyne, now a world-class talent in a truly outstanding team.\n\nGuardiola added: \"The performance of Kevin de Bruyne, you cannot imagine how good he plays with the ball, but he runs like a player in the Conference league - it is easier for the manager and the club.\"\n\n'His feet are like paintbrushes'\n\nFormer Arsenal defender Martin Keown on Match of the Day:\n\nKevin de Bruyne's feet are like paintbrushes, he's an artist. He's a thinking footballer, so creative, he creates chances for everyone and he'll take his own when he gets them.\n\nHe'll work hard for you as well. Young kids watching this, he's not admiring passes. He wants to get after things, there's an energy and desire in his football.\n\nHe wants to work hard, he's giving his manager everything, he's on fire - the world is his oyster at the moment. He's taking people out of their seats. The calibre of football he's playing is outstanding.\n\nSpurs disappoint again - Alli most of all\n\nSpurs were yet again found wanting on their travels against a team they had hoped to be challenging for the Premier League title.\n\nAs at Manchester United and Arsenal this season, Spurs never looked like securing the sort of statement victory that suggests they could bridge the gap from Premier League runners-up last season to champions this term.\n\nSince they won 2-1 here in February 2016, they have not won in 10 away games against other teams in the so-called \"big six\", losing six and drawing four.\n\nIt is a telling statistic - although Pochettino is unlikely to believe it is because his players are struggling to climb a psychological barrier.\n\nOne of the most disappointing aspects of this defeat was the lack of impact from Alli, whose main contribution was that spiteful tackle on De Bruyne.\n\nHe was a peripheral figure and was roundly booed by City's fans when he was unsurprisingly substituted late on.\n\n'Thanks to the club for these amazing players'\n\nManchester City boss Pep Guardiola: \"They have good quality, but we played really good to beat one of the strongest teams in the Premier League.\n\n\"Without the ball we are a humble team.\"\n\nOn City's record winning run: \"Since August we are so happy and I admire the most the way we play without the ball - thank you to the club to provide me with these amazing players.\n\n\"We are on a good streak, but in three days we have another one.\"\n\nTottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino: \"I think it was a good experience for the team, when you win and play well you maybe don't learn, so you must learn this type of game. We have a lot of positive things, because we played a team in very good form with very good momentum.\n\n\"It wasn't bad at the start, but the way we conceded from a corner was a big mistake and a massive present for them. When you play a team in very good form, you cannot give away these gifts.\n\n\"When you're playing a team with good quality, if we take risks, we give them the possibility of making chances. We tried to play, but they were better, we have to congratulate them. So far, they are the best team in England.\"\n\nCity prove again to be Lloris' bogey side\n• None Guardiola is still three victories away from his best-ever winning streak in league football as a manager - 19 consecutive wins with Bayern Munich between October 2013 and March 2014.\n• None Since taking over at White Hart Lane in August 2014, Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino has enjoyed just one victory in his 18 Premier League games away to the 'big six' (W1 D6 L11).\n• None Tottenham's first shot on target came in the 55th minute, the longest they've had to wait in a Premier League game this season.\n• None Tottenham directed just two shots on target in the game, compared to Manchester City's 11, the biggest negative difference for the Lilywhites in a Premier League game since December 2013 against Liverpool (-10).\n• None Sane has been directly involved in 11 goals in eight Premier League home games this season (five goals, six assists), more than any other player.\n• None De Bruyne has been directly involved in 14 goals in his 15 Premier League appearances since the start of September (six goals, eight assists).\n• None Gundogan's opener was the 200th Premier League goal Lloris has conceded (203 in total now); 25 of them have come against Manchester City.\n\nCity are at Leicester on Tuesday in the Carabao Cup quarter-final (19:45 GMT) and then host Bournemouth in the league next Saturday at 15:00. Tottenham are at Burnley next Saturday (17:30).\n• None Relive the action from the Etihad Stadium\n• None Goal! Manchester City 4, Tottenham Hotspur 1. Christian Eriksen (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from outside the box to the bottom right corner.\n• None Goal! Manchester City 4, Tottenham Hotspur 0. Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal.\n• None Attempt saved. Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Kevin De Bruyne.\n• None Attempt saved. Bernardo Silva (Manchester City) left footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Raheem Sterling.\n• None Goal! Manchester City 3, Tottenham Hotspur 0. Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) right footed shot from very close range to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Leroy Sané. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The children's aunt Claire Pearson shared her memories of them\n\nThe aunt of four children who died in a house fire in Salford says the family is trying to cope with their grief but \"nothing will ever break us\".\n\nDemi Pearson, 15, and siblings Brandon, eight, and Lacie, seven, died in the blaze in Walkden on Monday. Lia, three, died in hospital on Wednesday.\n\nClaire Pearson said: \"What's happened is tragic but it won't separate this family. We are all very close.\"\n\nHer sister and the children's mother, Michelle, 35, is in hospital in a coma.\n\nTwo men and a woman appeared in court earlier charged with murdering the siblings. They were remanded in custody until 9 March for a plea and trial preparation hearing.\n\nMs Pearson says her sister is \"an amazing woman\" and the house on Jackson Street \"was like a youth club with the amount of kids\" who would visit.\n\n\"She was such a mother to everybody else's kids as well as her own,\" she said.\n\n\"When it was family time they'd all cuddle up on the couch together, they were so close.\n\n\"Lacie was a little diva, she didn't stop dancing. Lia was obsessed with Peppa Pig. Brandon and Lacie were so close.\"\n\nThe family said they were \"dreading the day\" they have to tell Michelle \"the awful news about her babies\".\n\nLia, Demi, Brandon and Lacie died following Monday's fire, while their mum Michelle is still in a coma\n\nSpeaking of how the family feels, she said: \"You can't feel pain, you can't feel grief, you can't feel anything, you're so numb inside, it's too much to take in.\"\n\nMike Pearson, Michelle's father, said: \"The kids were just like any other kids. They were very supportive, very independent, but very tightly-knit.\n\n\"Demi was a little star. She'd been a diabetic and had problems in and out of hospital with that but nothing phased her, she was a beautiful girl.\n\n\"Brandon was quite funny, he was more like a school teacher, he was so intelligent.\"\n\nMike Pearson said Michelle Pearson is expected to be in a medically-induced coma for the next three or four weeks\n\nHe described Michelle, who they said was in critical but stable condition, as \"fiercely independent\".\n\n\"Michelle would do things her way. She loved her kids to pieces, she'd look after anyone. She was a friend to everyone,\" he said.\n\n\"She didn't have a bad word to say about anyone. She had a heart of gold, but she was nobody's fool, she'd stand her corner.\"\n\nHe said the family has recently been to church to pray for her recovery.\n\n\"She's so badly burned, she's bandaged from head to foot, she looks like a mummy and she's going to be in the medically-induced coma for the next three or four weeks,\" he said.\n\n\"It's going to be a long road but hopefully she'll pull through. Whether she'll have the fight, I don't know. I'm hoping she'll get the strength from somewhere but she's lost all her babies and that's the heartbreaking thing.\n\n\"We've got to focus on Michelle and try and be there for her.\"\n\nClaire Pearson said the house on Jackson Street \"was like a youth club with the amount of kids\" who visited\n\nHe added he was \"gobsmacked\" at the support the family has received from the local community.\n\n\"The outpouring of love and support, it's been overwhelming. People have come from miles to leave flowers and teddy bears and messages of support,\" he said.\n\n\"They've been absolutely outstanding. We thank everyone for the messages and the love.\"", "Unilever has agreed to sell its margarine and spreads business, which include Flora and ProActiv, to private equity giant KKR for €6.8bn ($8bn; £6bn).\n\nThe move follows a wide-ranging review of its business which was prompted by a takeover attempt by rival Kraft.\n\nUnilever said it would look for a buyer of the spreads business in April.\n\nAt the time, it said the firm would step up its cost-cutting, aiming for a 20% margin by 2020.\n\nIt said the margarine business was a \"declining segment\" that could be \"better managed by others\".\n\nAs well as Flora and ProActiv, it also owns I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and Bertolli.\n\nPaul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, said: \"The announcement today marks a further step in reshaping and sharpening our portfolio for long term growth.\n\n\"I am confident that under KKR's ownership, the spreads business, with its iconic brands, will be able to fulfil its full potential as well as societal responsibilities.\"\n\nIt operates across more than 190 countries.\n\nThe deal is expected to be completed in the middle of next year, and is subject to regulator approval in certain jurisdictions.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, revealed details of the final bill to reporters\n\nUS Republicans from both houses of Congress have revealed their joint bill for the biggest overhaul of the country's tax system in 30 years.\n\nThe plan brings the US corporate tax rate down to 21% from the current 35%.\n\nThe top individual income tax drops to 37% from 39.6%.\n\nPresident Donald Trump campaigned on a pledge to cut taxes, and passing the legislation marks a significant victory. He has said he wants the bill signed into law before Christmas.\n\nDemocrats have argued that the tax cuts will favour only the rich and offer little to the middle class. The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation said on Friday the measures would add as much as $1.4tn (£1tn) to the $20tn national debt over 10 years.\n\nThe Senate and the House of Representatives - which both have Republican majorities - are due to vote on the measures next week.\n\nFriday's agreement came after hours of talks in which the bill's supporters sought to win over wavering Republicans.\n\nSenator Marco Rubio added his support following changes to child tax credit, reports said. Fellow Senator Bob Corker, who had opposed the original bill, also said he would back the draft bill despite reservations.\n\nKevin Brady, Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he was \"very excited about this moment\".\n\n\"It's been 31 years in the making and took a lot of hard work,\" he told reporters.\n\nThe pieces are falling in place for Donald Trump's tax bill, which now seems almost guaranteed to become law.\n\nThis will certainly satisfy critics within the Republican Party, particularly the big-business donors, who were lamenting Congress's inability to enact even modest parts of their party's legislative agenda. The question, however, is whether the success here will do anything to reverse the president's low poll numbers and dispel the growing consensus that Republicans are in for a rough ride in next year's mid-term congressional elections.\n\nAt the very least this will make it easier for the party incumbents to survive primary challenges from anti-establishment outsiders who otherwise would have railed against a do-nothing Congress.\n\nThe tax bill's overall unpopularity according to recent polls, however, may do little to improve the party's standings in the eyes of the general public. Cutting corporate tax rates, whether or not it is in the long-term interest of the nation, is unlikely to capture the imagination of the average American.\n\nRepublicans are now in a position to fully take credit for a booming economy, however - and they have 11 months to make the case to voters that they deserve to stay in power.\n\nThe proposed new measures ran into opposition from a senior UN official on Friday, who said they could worsen social inequality in the US.\n\nPhilip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty who has been on a two-week fact-finding visit to US States, said the tax bill threatened to \"blow apart\" social welfare provision.\n\n\"The US Congress is trying desperately to pass a tax bill that, if adopted, would represent the single most dramatic increase in inequality that could be imagined,\" he said.", "Ian Fordyce died on Friday when his bus crashed into a lorry\n\nPolice have named the bus driver who died in a school bus crash on the outskirts of Aberdeen.\n\nIan Fordyce was killed when the bus he was driving collided with a lorry and a car on the B979 South Deeside Road, near Maryculter Bridge, on Friday morning.\n\nThe 68-year-old from Dundee had driven coaches for more than 40 years.\n\nIn a statement, his family said he would be \"a sorely missed brother, father, grandfather and friend\".\n\nThe crash happened at about 07:45 on Friday and involved a red Audi A5 car, a white DAF lorry and the bus.\n\nMr Fordyce's family statement also said: \"Ian, affectionately known as 'Fingers' to most of his friends was very well known and popular with everyone he met.''\n\nThe school bus collided with a car and a truck.\n\n\"He drove coaches for 40 years and loved every minute of it. He will be a sorely missed brother, father, grandfather and friend.''\n\nSgt Rob Warnock, of Police Scotland, said: \"This was a tragic incident which has resulted in a 68-year-old man losing his life.\n\n\"Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.\"\n\nThe drivers of the car and lorry involved were taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary with non-life threatening injuries.\n\nThe bus involved was carrying pupils, of primary and secondary age, from Lathallan private school in Johnshaven.\n\nNone of the 13 children on the bus at the time suffered serious injury.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Honey and Barry Sherman were renowned for their charity fundraising\n\nA Canadian billionaire and his wife have been found dead at their home in Toronto in circumstances that police described as \"suspicious\".\n\nThe bodies of Barry Sherman and his wife Honey were found in the basement by an estate agent, reports said.\n\nMr Sherman was the founder and chairman of pharmaceutical giant Apotex, which sells generic medicines around the world.\n\nHe was one of Canada's richest men and a prominent philanthropist.\n\nThere was no sign of forced entry to the property, police said in a statement Friday evening. Local media reported that investigators were not searching for a suspect at this time.\n\nDetective Brandon Price told Canadian broadcaster CBC that investigators were still trying to determine if there was foul play involved.\n\nPolice gave few details and did not confirm the identities of the deceased. However, they were named locally by friends and by officials who reacted with shock at the news.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Justin Trudeau This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"I am beyond words right now,\" Ontario's Health Minister Eric Hoskins said on Twitter.\n\n\"My dear friends Barry and Honey Sherman have been found dead. Wonderful human beings, incredible philanthropists, great leaders in health care.\"\n\nSenator Linda Frum presented the couple with a Canadian 150th anniversary medal in late November, awarded to Canadians for \"generosity, dedication, volunteerism and hard work\".\n\n\"Today I am gutted by the loss of Honey and Barry Sherman. Our community is steeped in grief. I am heartbroken,\" she said.\n\nPrime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted his condolences to the couple's family and friends.\n\nThe bodies, covered in blankets, were removed from the house in north-east Toronto\n\nThe house was on sale for C$7m ($5.4m; £4m)\n\nA police spokesman said emergency services were called to the house just before noon on Friday.\n\n\"The circumstances of their death appear suspicious and we are treating it that way,\" said Constable David Hopkinson.\n\nThe couple had recently put their luxury home up for sale and their bodies were found by an estate agent who was at the property to prepare it for an open-house viewing, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported, citing a family member.\n\nApotex said in a statement: \"All of us at Apotex are deeply shocked and saddened by this news and our thoughts and prayers are with the family at this time.\"\n\nThe couple had four children.\n\nMr Sherman founded Apotex Inc in 1974 and the firm says it is now the seventh biggest generic drug maker in the world.", "As prime minister, David Cameron said the UK and China were in a \"golden era\" of trade relations\n\nDavid Cameron is to take on a new role leading a UK government-backed investment initiative between Britain and China.\n\nThe former prime minister will take charge of a £750m ($1bn) fund to improve ports, roads and rail networks between China and its trading partners.\n\nThe government said working with China's Belt and Road Initiative would create jobs and boost trade links.\n\nIt comes after Chancellor Philip Hammond's two-day trip to China.\n\nThe Belt and Road Initiative was first unveiled in 2013, but this year China's President Xi Jinping pledged £96bn ($124bn) for the scheme.\n\nThe Chinese government said it would invest tens of billions of dollars as part of an ambitious economic plan to rebuild ports, roads and rail networks linking China and its trading partners.\n\nPresident Xi intends on developing ancient trade routes through China and Europe to make it easier for the world to trade with China.\n\nChina hopes that by improving and creating trade links with other countries - by sea and rail - will help boost its economic growth of the Asian superpower, which has slowed in recent years.\n\nA statement from the Treasury also detailed progress on allowing British banks and insurers to access the Asian superpower's bond and insurance markets.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What China's One Belt, One Road really means\n\nDavid Cameron has adopted a fairly low profile since he left Downing Street last year.\n\nHe's campaigned for more research into dementia and stuck by the national citizen service he set up in office.\n\nNow he'll be involved in investing hundreds of millions of pounds in projects linked to China's awkwardly named Belt and Road Initiative.\n\nThe private fund will be supported by the British government but won't involve any taxpayer's money.\n\nIt will focus on projects in the UK and China and countries that China assists in central Asia and Europe.\n\nChina's plan is not without controversy though as some critics see it as a global push to increase Beijing's political influence and presence.\n\nMr Cameron championed a drive to increase trade ties with China while he was prime minister, marking what both sides now call a \"golden era\".\n\nReuters news agency said the UK and China had agreed to accelerate preparations for a London-Shanghai stock connect programme.\n\nBut the BBC understand plans to link the London Stock Exchange with its counterparts in Shanghai and Shenzhen remain at the \"research stage\".", "The number of people out shopping in the UK in the first two weeks of December fell \"significantly\" compared to last year, retail researchers say.\n\nAnalysis firm Springboard found a 4.9% decrease in footfall at shopping centres, retail parks and high streets.\n\nBad weather and rise in online shopping were both factors in the decline, according to Diane Wehrle.\n\nThe figures come as a retail analyst said it expected shops to make big discounts in the week before Christmas.\n\nConsultancy firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) said it was anticipating more retailers to be discounting in the week leading up to Christmas than during the Black Friday weekend.\n\nSpringboard's analysis for this month - up to 14 December - showed that the number of people visiting shops compared to the same period last year fell by 4.9% - almost three times the 1.7% decrease in 2016.\n\nMs Wehrle said last week's snow had a \"clear impact\" on footfall, but was just one of a number of factors.\n\nShe said: \"The reasons are associated with budgetary constraints, due to inflation and the recent interest rate rise, but also due to the heavy discounting in November.\n\n\"Black Friday pulled spending forward, thereby impacting on customer activity in December. And of course all of this is set against a backdrop of a continuing rise in online spending.\"\n\nShe added that while online spending accounts for about 15% of total retail spending, it is rising approximately 10% year on year.\n\nMeanwhile, PwC said it expected retailers to make big discounts in the final week before Christmas to convince shoppers to keep spending throughout the festive period.\n\nThe firm has analysed the number of promotions advertised in shops and online during November and December for the past seven years.\n\nIt found that many of the retailers offering promotions during the Black Friday weekend in late November returned to full price sales by the beginning of December, before relaunching discounts in the lead up to Christmas.\n\nLisa Hooker, consumer markets leader at PwC, said: \"As we rapidly approach Christmas itself, we are already seeing an uptick in promotional activity as retailers try to attract customers through their doors and clear festive stock.\"\n\nEarlier this week it was revealed that Black Friday helped retail sales to grow by 1.1% last month - despite average prices rising faster than average wages.\n\nThe six weeks from the end of November to the start of January account for up to half of any major retailer's annual profits.\n\nHave a bad Christmas, and you'll have a bad year.\n\nAdd in falling real incomes because inflation is high and wage growth is modest, and retailers are especially nervous this year.\n\nSo that's why some of them are offering decent discounts in the very fortnight before Christmas that they need to maximise their margins (profits). And the reason? Competition.\n\nThe rivalry on - and offline - between retailers is intense. No flash sale by a large company, will go unmatched by its rivals.\n\nAnd consumers, thanks to the internet, are now increasingly aware of sudden discounting. So bargains don't go a-begging.", "Stormy the cow kept Philadelphia law enforcement busy one morning with her repeated escapes from a live nativity scene.", "Bottled water is being distributed from a supermarket car park in Tewkesbury\n\nSome 10,000 homes and businesses have been left without water due to a burst main.\n\nThirteen schools have also been closed in Tewkesbury, north Gloucestershire, as engineers work to repair the burst.\n\nSevern Trent Water used a helicopter and drones to locate the problem.\n\nIt apologised and confirmed \"water is gradually returning to normal for customers in Tewkesbury\" and added it \"aims to have everyone restored tonight as quickly as possible\".\n\nTens of thousands of litres of bottled water are currently being distributed across three water handout sites.\n\nThe firm said it was using tankers to inject water directly into pipes to help customers.\n\nA spokesperson said: \"As it's a wide area that's been affected, it's a complicated job to get the system back to normal and it will take a while for the pipes to refill, so please bear with us.\n\n\"There may be some intermittent supplies or poor pressure overnight while we get everything sorted.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Severn Trent This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMany local supermarkets quickly sold out of bottled water as news of the outage spread.\n\nQueues quickly built up for bottled water as supermarket shelves were stripped\n\nIt is the second major leak to hit the utility in recent months.\n\nIn October more than 7,000 households had no water in Churchdown, Cheltenham, after a 24in (60cm) main ruptured.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "What is in the US tax plan?\n\nUS lawmakers have unveiled the final draft of a bill set to be the most significant overhaul of the US tax code in a generation.\n\nAfter weeks of politicking, lobbying and vote-trading, the Republican-controlled Congress is set to vote on the plan.\n\nIf it passes it will give President Donald Trump an early Christmas present - his first major piece of legislation since taking office.\n\nRepublicans say the tax cuts for businesses and families will unleash investment, spending and growth.\n\nBut critics say it will result in a huge transfer of wealth from poor to rich, and future generations will have to pay for it.\n\nSo what are the key points in the plan?\n\nIt's being described as the biggest single drop in corporation tax in US history.\n\nUnder current law, businesses face a range of tax rates, starting at 15% and rising to 35% on taxable income over $10m.\n\nThe new plan creates a single 21% corporate rate, effective in 2018.\n\nThat is low, but not quite as low as the 20% rate included in earlier versions of the plan.\n\nThat mandate is eliminated in the new code, a provision that the Joint Committee on Taxation projects could raise $318bn, since it is expected to lead to 13 million fewer people with insurance coverage.\n\nThe tax bill has aroused opposition, since many of the benefits go to the wealthy and large corporations\n\nThe US currently has seven tax brackets ranging from 10% to a top rate of 39.6%, which applies to income above about $418,000 for individuals and $471,00 for couples.\n\nUnder the new plan, some of those rates fall, including the top rate, which would be 37%, applicable to income over $500,000 for individuals and $600,000 for couples.\n\nUnder current law, inheritances worth more than about $5.5m for individuals and roughly $11m for couples are subject to a 40% tax.\n\nThe new plan roughly doubles the amount of inheritance exempt from tax.\n\nUnder current law, taxpayers can either claim a standard deduction or opt to deduct specific items.\n\nThe new plan roughly doubles the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for married couples.\n\nIn exchange for that boost - which expires after 2025 and is intended to make the itemising option less attractive - the plan eliminates a slew of targeted benefits, such as deductions for moving expenses and tax preparation costs.\n\nSpeaker of the House Paul Ryan has championed the tax efforts. He says he wants families to be able file their taxes on a post card.\n\nRepublicans in the Senate attached a measure that will open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. That made it into the final version.\n\nHouse Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) addresses questions from reporters during the final negotiations\n\nThe Republican plan eliminates the personal exemption, which was worth roughly $4,000 and could be claimed for each member of a family.\n\nTo offset that move, the plan expands a tax credit for children.\n\nThat is currently worth $1,000 per child for families who make less than a certain amount. Under the new plan, it would be worth $2,000 and available to more families.\n\nDebate over how much the child tax credit would be worth almost killed the bill, after Senator Marco Rubio, Republican from Florida, said he wanted the provision structured to be more generous for low income families.\n\nMultinational companies currently pay US taxes on income earned abroad.\n\nThe new plan changes the code to a so-called territorial system, making companies responsible for income earned in the US.\n\nIt also creates new rules to prevent companies from unfairly taking advantage of the shift.\n\nThe plan also imposes one-time, ultra-low tax rates for corporate profits currently being held offshore, charged at 15.5% on liquid assets and 8% for illiquid assets.\n\nUS President Donald Trump has rallied support for tax changes, which he says will boost economic growth\n\nUnder current law, owners of businesses organised as so-called pass through entities pay taxes on profits based on the personal rate (since the profits \"pass through\" to the owners).\n\nThe new bill allows for 20% of that income to be deducted for households making less than $315,00. After that, the perk is only available to some businesses.\n\nRepublicans had threatened to eliminate a number of industry specific benefits. But the final version is less aggressive than earlier proposals.\n\nFor example, the bill preserves tax perks for wind energy.\n\nThe plan caps the deduction for state and local taxes at $10,000. Preserving some kind of deduction was important to Republicans from high-cost states such as California, New Jersey and New York.\n\nIt also retains the mortgage interest deduction, a priority of the powerful property lobby, while lowering the cap on what new mortgages are eligible for the perk from $1m to $750,000.\n\nThe bill does not subject graduate school tuition waivers to taxes, as had been proposed.\n\nThe plan also maintains, and temporarily expands, deductions for certain medical expenses.", "The European Council has said that Brexit talks can enter the second phase following last week's agreement.\n\nAs a result it has published its guidelines for the next stage of talks.\n\nHere are some of the key phrases from that document.\n\nDon't forget that there are plenty of crucial details that still need to be resolved before negotiations on a withdrawal agreement come to an end.\n\nThat means the financial settlement, citizens' rights and of course, the Irish border.\n\nSufficient progress is not the end of the story, but the text also makes it clear that there will be a concerted effort to lock in what has been agreed so far - and that if the EU detects any reluctance or backsliding from the UK then that will have a negative effect on discussions about the future.\n\nTheresa May has already agreed that a transition of about two years will take place under existing EU rules and regulations, but the EU's text makes crystal clear what it believes that means.\n\nThe UK will have to accept all EU law (that's what the acquis means) including new laws passed during the transition itself.\n\nBut it will no longer have a seat at the table when those laws are made. To put it brutally - the UK will, for a while, become a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker.\n\nBoth sides talk of a strictly time-limited transition period, so there doesn't appear to be much appetite at the moment for extending it.\n\nQuite what happens if a future trade deal isn't ready by the end of the transition, a scenario many experts think is quite possible, will have to be debated in the future.\n\nDuring the transition, the UK will have to accept the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and all four freedoms - including the freedom of movement of people.\n\nThe EU says the UK will remain in the single market and the customs union during a transition, while the UK insists that it will leave both on Brexit day.\n\nThis could become a semantic argument, because by accepting all rules and regulations - in other words, the status quo - the UK will remain in the single market and the customs union whether it likes it or not.\n\nThe British government has suggested that some things - like dispute resolution mechanisms - could change during the transition as agreement is made on future co-operation. But there's little appetite in the EU for that - in its view, you're either in or you're out.\n\nThe EU 27 stress that they want a close partnership with the UK in the future, but here they are setting out the limits of what they could mean.\n\nThe further away the UK wants to be from the rules and regulations of the single market the less access it will have - there is no such thing as partial membership.\n\nThis gets us back to the unresolved debate about what \"full alignment\" at the Irish border really means in practice.\n\nThe phrase \"preserve a level playing field\" is important too. The EU is anxious to ensure that the UK doesn't try to undercut the EU in any way by having looser regulations in certain key areas, and, if it does, then there will be consequences.\n\nEU negotiators won't have the authority to start discussions with the UK on future relations (including trade and also things like security and foreign policy) until another set of guidelines is adopted in March 2018.\n\nThat gives the two sides not much more than six months to agree the text of a broad political declaration on the outlines of the future relationship.\n\nThe EU hopes to get that finalised by October 2018, but it emphasises that formal trade negotiations can only begin after the UK has left the EU.\n\nInformal contacts on what the future might look like are probably taking place already, but the EU is still waiting for greater clarity from London about what exactly the UK government hopes to achieve in the long term.\n\nThe UK is trying to be as ambitious as possible about what can be done before Brexit actually happens. The EU, though, emphasises that trade talks will have to continue long after the UK has left.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Matthew Petersen may have trained as a lawyer, but judging by his confirmation hearing he's clearly out of practice.\n\nPresident Trump's nominee for federal judge in the District of Columbia was asked a series of basic legal questions by a Republican senator. It did not go well.", "A 95-year-old Middlesbrough man spent six hours in agony waiting for an ambulance after breaking his hip.", "It looks simple - a pretty blue cornflower - but this plant is causing controversy in Austria. It's the chosen flower of the far-right Freedom Party, even though it was once associated with the Nazis.\n\nDieter Dorner takes a long sip of his Gemischtes, a mix of dark beer and lager, and smiles.\n\nWe are sitting in an inn in Untersiebenbrunn, a little town east of Vienna, where he is a councillor for the far-right Freedom Party. Over a meal of sausage, chips and locally grown white asparagus, he tells me about a planned dance.\n\nIn true Austrian fashion, it's to be a ball - the local Freedom party's first Cornflower Ball, Der Kornblumenball.\n\n\"We've never had a Freedom Party Ball in Untersiebenbrunn before,\" he explains. \"So we said to ourselves, let's do something, let's have a ball. The band will play dance music. My favourite is the slow waltz.\"\n\nThe ball was arranged last September, but the timing is felicitous, because these days the Freedom Party in Untersiebenbrunn has a lot to celebrate. In the first round of voting in Austria's presidential election in April, 53% of people here voted for the Freedom Party candidate, Norbert Hofer.\n\nDotted through the town's leafy streets are the blue Freedom Party campaign placards and posters for the Kornblumenball, featuring a silhouette of a dancing couple in evening dress.\n\n\"Hasn't there been some controversy about the blue cornflower?\" I ask. \"Something to do with the Nazis?\" Dieter shakes his head. \"The cornflower is simply the Freedom Party flower and we like it,\" he says.\n\n\"To discuss what happened 80 years ago, or what didn't happen or perhaps happened doesn't bring us forward. There is certainly nothing deliberately nasty about it.\"\n\nBut other Austrians are not so sure.\n\n\"The cornflower is a complicated symbol,\" Vienna historian, Bernhard Weidinger, tells me. \"It was the German Kaiser Wilhelm's favourite flower, and was used by pan-German nationalists in the 19th Century.\n\n\"Then between 1934 and 1938, when the Nazis were a banned party in Austria, it was the secret symbol they used to wear in order to recognise each other.\"\n\nNowadays, it's traditional for Austrian MPs to wear a flower in their buttonholes at the opening of parliament, he explains. The colour of the Freedom Party is blue, so they wear a cornflower.\n\n\"You are not a neo-Nazi if you wear a cornflower,\" he continues. \"But it is fair to say that the Freedom Party cultivates a certain ambivalence when it comes to the past.\"\n\nTheir presidential hopeful, Norbert Hofer, continues to face sharp criticism about his occasional choice of floral decoration. In response to a question last week, he declared that he wanted nothing to do with the Nazis, and wouldn't let them take away things like the cornflower.\n\nThe Freedom Party has moved on a long way from the heyday of its firebrand leader, Joerg Haider, who died in a car crash in 2008. Back in the 1980s and 90s, Haider openly praised aspects of the Third Reich. These days, Freedom Party members who veer in that direction are quickly silenced or removed from their posts.\n\nA day or so later I fall into conversation with a young man called Michael, in a park in Vienna.\n\nIt's a balmy spring evening, the chestnut trees are in bloom, and in the distance a jazz band is playing a free concert on an open-air podium. \"What do you think about the Freedom Party and the cornflower?\" I ask.\n\n\"I hate those people,\" he replies. \"And the cornflower isn't great. But you know, I'm not quite as worried about their attitude towards the past as I am about their attitude to what's going on now. Their barely-concealed racism, their rhetoric against Muslims and refugees is really wrong.\"\n\nA demonstrator at an anti-Hofer rally in Vienna holds up an image of the cornflower\n\nHe looks around at a family playing with their well-groomed dogs. \"And the other thing that bothers me,\" he says, \"is that they are working on people's fears and encouraging our worst instincts. Like Donald Trump does. Austria is better off than most countries in the world. It's safe - and in general life is pretty good here. But to hear the Freedom Party talk, you'd think we were living in some desperately difficult country.\" He shrugs.\n\nI think back to my conversation with Dieter in the comfortable little town of Untersiebenbrunn. I had asked him if the Freedom Party was deliberately stirring up fears to gain votes.\n\n\"We don't create people's concerns, we express them,\" he had said. \"We're worried about our future. When you have a lot, you also have a lot to lose.\"\n\nSubscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox", "Firefighters are dropping red flame retardant to try to quench the flames\n\nAuthorities in California have issued new evacuation orders as a huge wildfire flares up again in Santa Barbara County.\n\nMeteorologists said fresh northerly winds were likely to drive the flames from the fire - named Thomas - towards the Pacific coast.\n\nThe blaze, the state's third largest on record, has now burnt almost 1,000 sq km (405 sq miles) since 4 December.\n\nTwo people are reported to have died as a result of the fire.\n\nFire apparatus engineer Cory Iverson was killed tackling the blaze last week, along with a woman, Virginia Rae Pesola, who was in a car crash as she evacuated.\n\nThe resurgence of strong \"sundowner\" winds combined with low humidity forecast for Sunday could fuel the flames and has prompted new mandatory evacuation orders for several Santa Barbara communities, including hillside homes in Montecito and Summerland.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by SBCountyOEM This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe fire has crossed the San Ysidro canyon, dashing firefighters' hope that it could be contained.\n\nMore than 8,000 firefighters are now tackling the blaze, which has destroyed about 1,000 structures including some 750 homes. The cost of the operation is now $104m (£78m), said Reuters news agency.\n\nUsing helicopters and planes to drop fire retardant on the flames, firefighters have managed to contain 40% of the blaze.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Drew Tuma This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Republicans are hurrying to pass tax reform - leaving uncertainty about some provisions in the bill\n\nRepublicans are rushing to pass the biggest revamp of the US tax code in decades.\n\nAnd despite promises to simplify the code and eliminate special interest loopholes, the bill is packed with targeted goodies.\n\nWhat makes it into a final compromise between the House bill and the Senate bill remains to be seen.\n\nIn the meantime, here are some provisions you may have missed as lawmakers rush to finalise a plan.\n\nSenator Lisa Murkowski attached a piece of legislation to the tax plan that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, located in her home state of Alaska.\n\nA man holds a sign during a 2005 rally to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from drilling\n\nSecuring Senator Murkowski's support for the bill was critical after she broke with Republicans earlier this year on a healthcare repeal effort.\n\nThe House and Senate bills allow families to save money for education in tax-privileged accounts for children \"at any stage of development\" - including those carried in the womb.\n\nThat's a provision designed to appeal to pro-life members of Congress.\n\nThe bills would do away with a range of privileges enjoyed by sports teams, such as the tax-free status given to professional football leagues.\n\nThe House bill also strikes at tax-privileged financing for sports stadiums and a perk related to purchases of college athletics tickets.\n\nUnder current law, nonprofits - including churches and schools - cannot participate in political campaigns and retain their tax-free status.\n\nSome groups, including evangelical churches, have chafed at that rule.\n\nThe House bill moves to reduce that risk, allowing nonprofits to make political statements, assuming they incur minimal expense and are made \"in the ordinary course of the organisation's business\".\n\nThe Senate bill widens the range of wine producers eligible for tax credits, among other special rules for the beer and wine industry.\n\nProduction of kombucha - fermented tea that contains small amounts of alcohol - gets a special call-out for exemption from certain taxes, thanks to an amendment introduced by a Colorado senator.\n\nThe Senate bill would exempt firms that manage private jets from having to pay federal excise tax - one of the fees charged on ticket sales of commercial flights.\n\nThe Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2012 said private jet services were subject to the tax, but it has since been re-examining how to treat those payments.\n\nThe Senate bill allows firms to expense \"certain costs\" of replanting citrus plants - a win for growers in states such as Florida, where crops have been marred by disease.\n\nThe citrus industry has been hurt by a disease that affects the trees\n\nFlorida lawmakers tried to secure this kind of perk in 2016 as a standalone measure.\n\nCurrent law limits how big a stake private foundations can hold in for-profit companies to discourage the creation of fake foundations.\n\nThe Senate bill removes those limits, provided the business meets certain requirements such as donating all profits to charity.\n\nPolitico reported the perk was a priority for Newman's Own, which sells food items including pasta sauce and salad dressing. It is just one example of the pet projects in the bill.\n\nUnder the Senate proposal, teachers can deduct up to $500 in classroom purchases - at least through 2025.\n\nThe perk was introduced in 2002 by Republican Senator Susan Collins, who holds a key vote in passing the bill. It was extended - and doubled - after its elimination in the House proposal.\n\nDuring his campaign for president, Donald Trump pledged to eliminate this controversial benefit, which provides managers of companies - including private equity firms - a lower tax rate on money received for overseeing investments.\n\nBut the perk stands, although the House bill would require that the investment be held for at least three years to qualify for the lower rate, which was intended to encourage \"long-term\" capital investments.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ian's family were told he was dying\n\nThe failure to offer a learning disabled young man cancer treatment has been described as a shocking example of health inequalities by charities.\n\nIan Shaw was sent home to die, but a doctor queried that decision after seeing his story on the BBC.\n\nIan, 35, who has since been given chemotherapy, is now doing well.\n\nThe hospital involved has said his learning disabilities had not been a factor in the decision to put him on end-of-life care.\n\nIn December 2016, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.\n\nHis parents say they were told by doctors nothing more could be done for him as the cancer had spread too far.\n\nIn February, he arrived home for what his family believed would be his final few months.\n\nIan, whose behaviour could at times be challenging, spent nearly a decade in secure units, moving between three different places.\n\nHis family believe in the units he was over-medicated and his health neglected.\n\nThey had to fight to get him moved to a supported home in the community, it was a few months after the move that the cancer was detected.\n\nHis parents believe it could have been found the year before when he was treated for a testicular swelling, if there had been a thorough investigation.\n\nIn July of this year, the BBC reported on Ian's case after it led to a call for the prime minister to appoint a commissioner to champion the rights of people with learning disabilities.\n\nSir Stephen Bubb, who had written two reports for NHS England on secure units, described Ian's case as \"all too typical\" of the continuing failures vulnerable people faced.\n\nDr Justin Wilson was watching the report on the BBC News at Six and Ten.\n\nHe is a psychiatrist who has also studied treatment of cancer in people with learning disabilities. He asked to be put in touch with the family.\n\nHe says: \"Knowing that testicular cancer is one of the most treatable cancers that there is, I was surprised that the decision had been made not to provide treatment and I wanted to understand what that was about.\"\n\nAs a result, a second opinion was sought about Ian's treatment.\n\n\"My concern was that perhaps judgements were made about the quality of life that he has because of his severe learning disabilities and because of the physical impact of how the cancer has spread,\" says Dr Wilson.\n\n\"I'm also clearly aware that providing cancer treatment for someone with the problems that Ian has is a real challenge.\n\n\"It is really difficult to give the best possible treatment to somebody in that situation, but my view is those challenges can be overcome.\"\n\nIan is now undergoing chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital - and he is doing well.\n\nA scan at the end of November showed after four rounds of chemotherapy the tumour, which had spread to his stomach, had shrunk.\n\nIan's mother, Jan, says: \"Especially when I thought there was no treatment and no cure, it was just a waiting game, but now there is hope.\"\n\nIan was a patient at Luton and Dunstable Hospital when his family were told last February that he was terminally ill and could not be treated.\n\nIn a statement, the University Hospital Trust said a course of chemotherapy had been planned but Ian's condition had then worsened.\n\nA range of experts had been consulted and it had been decided he had been too ill to undergo treatment.\n\nIt added: \"The decision was therefore taken, in consultation with his family, to start palliative care.\n\n\"The trust can confirm that Mr Shaw's learning difficulties were not a factor in the decision to move to a palliative care pathway.\"\n\nIan's family were told he was dying\n\nNHS England says it is working to reduce the health inequalities faced by people with learning disabilities. But neither it nor the Department of Health wanted to comment on Ian's case.\n\nNHS policy is that reasonable adjustments should be made to ensure that people with learning disabilities get the medical help they need.\n\nIn Ian's case, he is put under an anaesthetic for a short time while he is given the chemotherapy.\n\nThe tumour has affected Ian's spine so he is unable to walk, but after 10 months in bed, in November he was moved into a wheelchair.\n\nIn a joint statement, the charities Mencap and Challenging Behaviour Foundation said: \"We know 1,200 people with a learning disability die every year when their lives could have been saved had they had access to good quality healthcare at the right time.\n\n\"Failures to train healthcare professionals on how to support patients with a learning disability and the refusal to involve families in key decisions about their loved one's health continue to contribute to this scandal of unequal health treatment.\"", "Water collection points have been set up around the town\n\nMost of the 10,000 homes and businesses cut off from water for a second day following a burst main have been reconnected.\n\nSevern Trent said it had been repairing a broken pipe in Tewkesbury but the process was \"ongoing\" and would \"continue steadily\".\n\nWater was earlier moved from other parts of the network, a spokesman said.\n\nThe firm has urged people to \"be good neighbours\" and consider their water usage.\n\nThe supply went off in the early hours of Friday but Severn Trent Water tweeted that most customers who were cut off have now been reconnected.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Severn Trent This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"There is still a lot of work to do, and the system is very complicated and so will take a few hours to refill, so please bear with us,\" a Severn Trent spokesman said.\n\n\"The burst has happened on a 36-inch pipe, which is one of the biggest pipes we have in our network, and it's located in a flooded field which is making the repair work extremely difficult and trickier than usual.\n\n\"Overnight conditions were tricky, the river flooded, and so it's making it incredibly difficult to see what we're dealing with.\n\nEngineers said the burst pipe was in a flooded field, making it difficult to repair\n\n\"Our priority has been to get supplies back on, before fixing the burst, so we're continuing to try and move water around the network in different ways and we're using a fleet of 20 tankers to inject water directly into our pipes to help get the water back on as quickly as we can.\"\n\nThousands of people have been without a water supply in their homes for more than 24 hours\n\nMore than 296,000 litres of bottled water has been handed out, the company said.\n\nTwo bottled water collection points have been set up at Morrisons in Barton Road and at Tewkesbury School in Ashchurch Road.\n\nA third collection point that was in Gloucester Road car and coach park has been closed and will be moved to a new location.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg tells Newsnight the EU's terms for a transition period are unacceptable.\n\nA leading Brexiteer has said the UK cannot become a \"colony\" of the EU during the two year transition period after Britain's withdrawal in 2019.\n\nEU leaders have agreed Brexit talks can move on, with the UK staying in the customs union, single market and under the European Court of Justice's jurisdiction during the transition.\n\nConservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said that would be unacceptable.\n\nBut Tory remainer Ken Clarke said the UK must not \"go off a cliff edge\".\n\nThe former chancellor told BBC Newsnight that during the transition the UK would continue economically under the current terms, but would have left the union politically.\n\nOtherwise, he said it would be a \"disaster\" if come March 2019 negotiations were not finished and the UK would have to resort to tariff and customs barriers.\n\n\"I doubt we'd get the planning permission for the lorry parks in time,\" he said.\n\nHowever, Mr Rees-Mogg said leaving under these terms would be \"a ridiculous position to be in\".\n\n\"The transition which the EU is offering means that we're still effectively in the European Union for the following two years,\" he told Newsnight.\n\nOn Friday, Prime Minister Theresa May hailed an \"important step\" as Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, announced that all 27 EU leaders were happy to move on to the next phase of negotiations.\n\nThe first issue to be discussed, early next year, will be the details of the expected two-year transition period after the UK's exit.\n\nThe EU has published its guidelines which say: \"As the UK will continue to participate in the customs union and the single market during the transition, it will have to continue to comply with EU trade policy.\"\n\nThe three-page document says the UK will remain under the jurisdiction of the ECJ and be required to permit freedom of movement during any transition period.\n\nBut Mr Rees-Mogg said such a situation would make the UK \"a vassal\" - or subordinate - state of the EU, having to accept laws \"without any say-so\" from the British people.\n\nMrs May suffered her first Commons Brexit defeat earlier this week when MPs voted to give Parliament a legal guarantee of a vote on the final Brexit deal struck with Brussels.\n\nFormer cabinet minister Sir Oliver Letwin told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the defeat was a \"fuss about nothing\".\n\nSir Oliver, who is backing an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill designed to avoid another rebellion over the timing of Brexit, told Today that he did not believe the vote earlier in the week \"has much of an effect at all.\"\n\nAmong the Tories who rebelled in the vote was Mr Clarke, who told Newsnight his actions had in no way undermined the government's negotiating position.\n\nHe said he had since received a death threat, although he added it was not his first.\n• None Brexit talks to move to next stage - EU", "Adm Srur (right) is seen here with President Macri last month\n\nThe head of the Argentine navy has been sacked following the loss of a submarine and its crew in the South Atlantic last month.\n\nThe defence minister placed Adm Marcelo Srur in retirement on Friday night, it has emerged.\n\nThe ARA San Juan disappeared with 44 crew on board after reporting an electrical problem off the coast of Patagonia.\n\nAn international search operation has failed to locate the vessel.\n\nSome ships are still searching in an area where a loud noise was recorded in the hours following the disappearance - possible evidence that the submarine imploded.\n\nPresident Mauricio Macri has created a special independent commission to investigate the disappearance of the submarine, following criticism about the handling of the operation.\n\nThe commission will comprise three submariners - one the father of one of the disappeared crew.\n\nDefence Minister Oscar Aguad has promised the investigation will be \"transparent\" and will have an unlimited budget.\n\nThe crew of the ARA San Juan comprises 43 men and one woman\n\n\"We ask that they always tell us the truth, that they keep us informed about what's happening,\" said Jorge Villareal, father of missing crew member Fernando, according to Efe news agency.\n\n\"We just find things out through the media.\"\n\nAdm Srur, 60, was appointed by President Macri in January 2016.", "Mr Zuma said his ANC party was at a \"crossroads\"\n\nSouth Africa's President Jacob Zuma has called on the African National Congress (ANC) to stop infighting as it decides who will next lead the party.\n\nMr Zuma warned the future of the ANC was under threat, with South Africans \"not happy\" with it.\n\nThe main contenders to succeed him are the deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and former cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, President Zuma's ex-wife.\n\nWhoever wins is likely to succeed Mr Zuma as South African president.\n\nBut their bitter leadership battle has raised fears that the ANC could split before national elections in 2019.\n\nPresident Zuma can remain head of state until those elections. He has been in office since 2009 and South Africa limits the presidency to two five-year terms.\n\nThe leadership contest is expected to be a close one, with legal challenges a possibility.\n\nAddressing delegates at the beginning of a gathering to decide the next ANC leader, Mr Zuma said their movement was at a \"crossroads\".\n\n\"Petty squabbling that takes us nowhere needs to take back seat, our people are frustrated when we spend more time fighting among ourselves instead of solving the daily challenges they experience,\" he said.\n\nLast year's disappointing results for the ANC in local elections, Mr Zuma said, \"were a stark reminder that our people are not happy with the state of the ANC\".\n\nThe leading candidates are Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa\n\nPresident Zuma, 75, has been the focus of much controversy and has survived several votes of no confidence in parliament.\n\nHe faces numerous corruption allegations but denies any wrongdoing.\n\nIn his final speech as ANC president, he asserted that \"theft and corruption\" were as prominent in the private sector as they are in government. He added that \"being black and successful is being made synonymous to being corrupt\".\n\nHe lashed out at the media, which he said was not \"impartial and fair\". He also targeted the judiciary, arguing that the courts should have no role in deciding internal party matters.\n\nFor the leadership, President Zuma is backing his 68-year-old former wife, Ms Dlamini-Zuma, a veteran politician in her own right who has been critical of the enduring power of white-owned businesses.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What advice should South Africa's ruling party take on board?\n\nMr Ramaphosa, 65, has spoken out strongly against state corruption and has the backing of the business community.\n\nRecent news that he had a modest lead in the polls was quickly reflected by a rise in the financial markets.\n\nJacob Zuma came out fighting in his speech, hitting out at his critics both inside and outside the party.\n\nIt seemed like no one was spared - from ANC members who voted with the opposition to try and remove him, alliance partners who have booed him and called on him to stand down, to \"counter-revolutionary forces\" he said were intent on reversing the progress made since 1994, when apartheid was brought to an end.\n\nIndeed, that idea of malevolent forces working to bring down both him and the ANC was a thread that ran right through his speech. Mr Zuma placed his fight against his opponents within the wider framework of the fight against apartheid.\n\nHe ended his speech by saying \"I tried my best\", and of those who tried to bring him down \"I bear no grudges\". He then led the room in song.\n\nThis was Jacob Zuma in his element: a rousing speaker, a fierce opponent, delivering cutting rebukes with charm and charisma.\n\nMore than 5,000 delegates are taking part in the four-day ANC elective conference at the Expo Centre in Johannesburg.\n\nA vote on the new leader is expected on Sunday.\n\nThe first major engagement for the new leader will be the party's anniversary celebrations on 8 January.\n\nThe ANC has governed South Africa since the first democratic election more than 20 years ago.\n\nThe BBC's Andrew Harding says a question remains whether the ANC is in terminal decline, and what that might mean for South Africa's stability and its future.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The ANC was the party of Nelson Mandela but have people lost faith under Jacob Zuma?", "Third Ashes Test, Waca (day three of five)\n\nAustralia captain Steve Smith struck a magnificent double century and Mitchell Marsh a huge hundred of his own to demoralise England on the third day of the third Ashes Test in Perth.\n\nThe fifth-wicket pair shared a stand of 301 as Australia racked up 549-4 at the Waca, a lead of 146.\n\nSmith - who made 141 not out in his side's first-Test win in Brisbane - batted throughout the day, moving from his overnight 92 to an unbeaten 229, his highest Test score.\n\nMarsh, on his return to the side, compiled his maiden Test ton on his home ground and was 181 not out at the close.\n\nEngland managed only one wicket all day - their attack wholehearted but lacking the tools to be incisive on a flat pitch and under scorching sunshine.\n\nAustralia's remorselessness - they added 346 to their overnight 203-3 - highlighted the tourists' profligacy on the second day, when they lost six wickets for 35 runs to slip from 368-4 to 403 all out.\n\nAt 2-0 down, England must avoid defeat on a ground where they have not won since 1978 if they are to avoid surrendering the Ashes at the earliest possible opportunity.\n\nWith the chance of victory now looking slim, it is likely they will have to bat for much of the fourth and fifth days in order to save the game.\n\nThe pitch is only showing occasional signs of wear and there is rain forecast for Sunday and Monday - but they are only small crumbs of comfort for an England side who will have to face the fierce Australia attack after the best part of two days in the field.\n• None 'Guts and determination' needed to keep Ashes alive\n• None Reaction and analysis to third day's play\n• None Podcast - Is Smith the best since Bradman?\n\nSuch was Smith's comfort, calmness and composure, a massive score seemed inevitable both when he arrived at the crease on Friday and again when he resumed on Saturday.\n\nIt was chanceless and ruthless from the skipper, who moved his batting average to 62.89, second to only the great Donald Bradman on the all-time list.\n\nHe reached his 22nd Test century in the fifth over of the day by clipping James Anderson through mid-wicket and, even then, there was the sense he was just getting started.\n\nTwice Anderson asked for a review, once when the ball was missing leg stump and again after what was revealed to be a no-ball - and it would not have been given out in any case.\n\nAs on the second day, the off-side scoring was a feature of Smith's play as he became the first captain for 24 years to score a double hundred in an Ashes Test.\n\nHis celebrations on reaching 200 were animated and, by the close, he had 416 runs in the series at an average of 208.\n• None How good is Smith and how do you get him out?\n\nMarsh had played 21 previous Tests and averaged only 21 with the bat before being recalled to replace the out-of-form Peter Handscomb and give Australia an all-round option.\n\nHe entered after brother Shaun edged the off-spin of Moeen Ali to slip with the hosts still 155 behind and the second new ball looming.\n\nThe closest he came to offering an opportunity was an uppish drive towards mid-on off Craig Overton when he was on only one.\n\nPatient and powerful, Marsh played drives down the ground and on both sides, as well some scything cut shots.\n\nHis century was reached with a square drive off Stuart Broad, his celebration an emotional run towards the dressing room.\n\nAs Smith was becalmed in the evening, Marsh accelerated and will be eyeing a double century when play gets back under way at 02:30 GMT on Sunday.\n\nEngland did not bowl badly. At times they looked short of inspiration and their ground fielding was sometimes ragged - but that can be expected in such circumstances.\n\nIt was a day that further highlighted the limitations of their attack. Though Anderson and Broad have more than 900 Test wickets between them, England do not have the pace or quality spin to make openings when the conditions are hot and flat.\n\nIn eight consecutive away Tests - here and in India - the lowest first-innings total England have conceded is 328. On every other occasion the opposition have gone past 400.\n\nThe tourists went through numerous plans. Over and round the wicket, sometimes with as many as six men on the leg side. If anything, they did not spend enough time settled on a traditional line and length.\n\nThere was no lack of effort, though. Overton even bowled with a hairline crack of the rib, suffered when he was hit while batting in the second Test and aggravated when diving on Friday.\n\nSmith and Marsh were simply immovable - and England had no answers.\n\n'We need to stand up and fight' - reaction & analysis\n\nEngland assistant coach Paul Farbrace on BT Sport: \"Everybody has got to get stuck in, stand up and fight and scrap in the second innings.\n\n\"Until the Test match finishes, we have to believe you can get something out of it.\n\n\"It's going to be hard, but it is Test cricket. The best teams find a way to compete when their backs are against the wall. Now we need to show we have got character, we have got guts.\"\n\nMitchell Marsh, speaking to ABC about his maiden century: \"It's taken me 22 Tests. I wasn't really nervous. I felt calm and that kept me going. I wasn't thinking about too much. Anything wide, I was just going to slash at.\n\n\"You aspire to do that every game you play for Australia. To have to wait this long, it's very sweet. It's why we play - we play to win and play to make big runs. It means a lot for me to make a 100 in front of my grandparents. They've watched every game in the past eight years.\n\n\"It's reward for all the hard work. I'm ecstatic. I'm a bit lost at the moment. I'll be having a cold beer tonight.\"\n\nFormer England captain Michael Vaughan: \"Australia were ruthless today. You can achieve ruthlessness when you face an attack you're not fearful of and can't take you out of your bubble.\n\n\"It's nothing we should be surprised by. This has happened too consistently in Australia in the 21st century.\"", "Several fraternity members are still facing charges related to the death of Tim Piazza (centre)\n\nA committee probing the Pennsylvania State University's response to drinking in fraternities has issued a blistering report following a student's death.\n\nA grand jury found on Friday that administrators displayed a \"shocking apathy\" to dangerous levels of drinking and hazing in university social clubs.\n\nThe report claims officials knew of the dangers but did nothing.\n\nThe report says Tim Piazza, a 19 year old who died last February after binge drinking, \"did not have to die\".\n\nPenn State officials have yet to comment on the damning report.\n\nThe findings say officials \"were aware of the excessive and dangerous alcohol abuse indulged by fraternities, such that it was only a matter of time before a death would occur during a hazing event\".\n\n\"The university bears the ultimate responsibility for the failure to supervise the safety of its students involved in the fraternity system,\" the report says, adding that although the university's actions were not themselves illegal, their \"inaction set the table to allow these criminal acts to occur\", which caused Piazza's death.\n\nTim Piazza, from New Jersey, was left unconscious for hours and suffered internal injuries after falling down steps during an initiation ritual. He later died in hospital.\n\nOther members of the fraternity waited nearly 12 hours to call an ambulance, and were charged with manslaughter, although the most serious charges were later dropped.\n\nOfficials say he was fed 18 drinks in a period of one hour and 22 minutes, and that he never obtained the drinks on his own.\n\nHazing at the school, the report found, is \"rampant and pervasive\" and encourages \"sadistic\" rituals that reach \"peaks of depravity\".\n\nThe jury calls for \"profound changes on college campuses and communities in Pennsylvania\", and for universities to ensure protections for younger students wishing to join fraternities, and sororities - which together are known as campus Greek social life.\n\nOther US universities have taken measures recently to protect students who are seeking to join social clubs.\n\nOn Thursday, a University of Houston fraternity in Texas was indicted for hazing, with officials charging that students were deprived of adequate food, water and sleep during a three-day initiation event.\n\nThe president of Florida State University told the Associated Press on Thursday that there is currently no timeline for reinstating campus Greek activities there, after they were suspended in November following a student's death.", "Four siblings died as a result of the fire and their mother is in a coma in hospital\n\nThe uncle of four children who died in a house fire wants them to be \"buried together side-by-side\" and hopes they get the \"funeral they deserve\".\n\nDemi Pearson, 14, Brandon, eight, Lacie, seven, and three-year-old Lia died following the blaze in Walkden, Salford on Monday.\n\nMatt Pearson, who is the brother of Ms Pearson, has started a fundraising appeal to help with funeral costs.\n\nHe said: \"I want to give these kids the best funeral they deserve with customized coffins for them.\"\n\nHe added Lia loved Peppa Pig and \"it would be nice to get her this coffin\" as well as a horse and carriage to take the siblings to the cemetery.\n\nMr Pearson added: \"They will all be buried together side-by-side.\"\n\nThe appeal has already raised more than £11,500.\n\nTwo men and a woman appeared in court on Friday charged with murdering the siblings.\n\nDavid Worrall, 25, of no fixed address, has been charged with four murders, arson with intent to endanger life and attempted murder.\n\nZak Bolland, 23, and Courtney Brierley, 20, both of Worsley, also face the same charges.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Peter Jackson said he was \"fed false information\" about \"talented women\"\n\nActress Mira Sorvino said she is \"heartsick\" after learning she may have lost out on major roles because of Harvey Weinstein.\n\nLord of the Rings director Peter Jackson said both Sorvino and Ashley Judd were \"blacklisted\" following conversations with Weinstein's company.\n\nBoth actresses have claimed the media mogul sexually harassed them.\n\nWeinstein has denied allegations of misconduct, and of blacklisting the actresses.\n\nThe Lord of the Rings trilogy was initially in development with Weinstein's Miramax company, before being passed to New Line Cinema.\n\nIn an interview with Stuff.co.nz this week, Jackson said he was interested in casting both women in the blockbuster franchise.\n\n\"I recall Miramax telling us they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs. This was probably in 1998,\" he told the site.\n\n\"At the time, we had no reason to question what these guys were telling us.\"\n\n\"I now suspect we were fed false information about both of these talented women - and as a direct result their names were removed from our casting list.\"\n\n\"In hindsight, I realise that this was very likely the Miramax smear campaign in full swing,\" Jackson said.\n\nSorvino said in a tweet: \"Just seeing this after I awoke, I burst out crying.\"\n\n\"There it is, confirmation that Harvey Weinstein derailed my career, something I suspected but was unsure. Thank you Peter Jackson for being honest. I'm just heartsick.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mira Sorvino This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nJudd, meanwhile, recalled how her involvement progressed far enough to be invited by Jackson to see preparation work for the blockbuster trilogy.\n\n\"I remember this well,\" she tweeted.\n\n\"They asked which if the two roles I preferred, and then I abruptly never heard from them again. I appreciate the truth coming out,\" she said.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by ashley judd This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a statement through a publicist, Weinstein denied the allegations that he was involved in blacklisting Sorvino and Judd, saying that the casting for Lord of the Rings was carried out by New Line Cinema - not Miramax.\n\nThe statement said that Judd was cast in two other films by Mr Weinstein, and that \"Sorvino was always considered for other films as well.\"\n\n\"In the 18 months we developed the Lord of the Rings at Miramax, we had many casting conversations with Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein and their executives,\" Jackson wrote.\n\n\"The movies changed hands from Miramax to New Line before casting actually got underway - but because we had been warned off Ashley and Mira by Miramax, and we were naive enough to assume we'd been told the truth, [we] did not raise their names in New Line casting conversations.\"\n\nSorvino made her allegation in October, prompting a wave of further accusations from others\n\nWeinstein is the central figure of the Hollywood sexual harassment scandal, in which dozens of actresses have accused him of misconduct.\n\nSorvino and Judd were among the first women to publicly share her experiences of sexual harassment from Weinstein back in October.\n\nThe Hollywood film producer has \"unequivocally denied\" any allegations of non-consensual sex.", "Schoolboy John Robertson relaxing at home following his ordeal last week\n\nA four-year-old boy tried to walk home from a bus depot after being left on his school bus.\n\nJohn Robertson was travelling home to North Kessock from Munlochy Primary School on the Black Isle last Friday.\n\nBut he did not get off at his stop and ended up, unnoticed, in the bus in D&E Coaches' Inverness Longman depot, about three miles and across the A9's Kessock Bridge from where he lives.\n\nThe boy was spotted close to Inverness Caledonian Thistle's stadium.\n\nHe told his parents he had waited onboard the mini bus after it stopped at the depot, expecting the driver to come and find him.\n\nAfter a time, still on his own inside the bus unnoticed, he managed to open the door and set out to find his way home.\n\nD&E Coaches said it was \"extremely disappointed\" by the circumstances of the incident. It has dismissed the driver for gross misconduct.\n\nHighland Council, which contracts D&E Coaches as a provider of its school transport, and Police Scotland have begun investigations into the incident.\n\nJohn's parents, Nikki and John, had thought he was late home because the school bus had been delayed by bad weather, which included snow showers.\n\nHis father was waiting for John at home where the boy should have been dropped off.\n\nJohn Robertson snr had expected his son to be dropped off at home\n\nJohn tried to make his way home after being left on a bus in a coach depot\n\nIt was the boy's fifth time taking the school bus, which takes about eight children to and from Munlochy Primary. John's parents usually take him to and from school by car, but the car had broken down.\n\nOn the previous four days, John was dropped off near the door of his home. But the bus did not appear near the flats that Friday.\n\nJohn's father initially believed this may have been because of the snow and that John had been dropped off a short distance away.\n\nWhen John still had not come home, his family called the bus company and were told that John had been dropped off. In a follow up call they were told that he had not got on the bus.\n\nJohn's parents began calling friends, family and police in an effort to find him.\n\nFamily and friends also made searches of North Kessock and Munlochy for the youngster.\n\nMr Robertson told BBC Radio Scotland's John Beattie programme he was half way through a call to police when officers received information that John had been found and was being taken to a police station.\n\nJohn told his parents that he had sat on the bus in the depot for a time thinking the bus driver would come back and find him.\n\nMr Robertson said: \"It was a mini bus, so he was able to open the door.\n\n\"He decided to get to the Kessock Bridge to get home. He said he crossed a couple of roads. Luckily two teachers found him.\n\n\"They said he was shaken up, cold and after some persuasion, because we've taught him not to talk to strangers, they managed to get him into their warm car.\"\n\nMr Robertson said he was proud of his son's actions. John has been getting a lift to and from school from a family friend since the incident.\n\nThe four-year-old thought the driver would come to find him\n\nA spokeswoman for Highland Council said: \"We are extremely concerned about this incident and we are carrying out a full investigation into the circumstances with our contracted school transport provider.\n\n\"The incident is also the subject of an ongoing police investigation.\"\n\nEarlier Black Isle councillor Gordon Adam told BBC Alba it was a concerning incident.\n\nHe said he thought the boy had fallen asleep and woke up at the depot and was not seen by the driver.\n\n\"Somehow he got himself to the stadium, which in itself is very worrying as it would have involved crossing a main road,\" he added.\n\nD&E Coaches said it had carried out its own investigation of the incident.\n\nA spokesman said: \"We are extremely disappointed at the circumstances in which a child was left on one of our minibuses going from Munlochy Primary School to North Kessock last Friday when it was parked in a yard in Inverness.\n\n\"A full internal investigation has been conducted and the driver concerned has been dismissed for gross misconduct.\n\n\"Relying on an assurance from another pupil that this child was not on the bus is unacceptable.\n\n\"All drivers are expected to check their buses at the end of the journey but this clearly did not occur in this instance.\"\n\nJohn ended up in the D&E Coaches' Inverness Longman depot\n\nIn a response to the incident, the company has introduced a new course on Driver Awareness in School Contracts as part of the accreditation process for a driver licence.\n\nLong-term employees were being given refresher courses.\n\nThe spokesman added: \"We wish to express our sincere apologies to the family of the child for the distress caused and we are extremely relieved that the child was safe and sound.\n\n\"D&E Coaches have been running school contracts for over 20 years and currently have 58 school contracts conveying 3,000 children a day to and from school.\n\n\"This is the first time anything of this nature has occurred to mar our excellent record and the new measures will enhance driver vigilance to try to ensure there is never a repeat.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brexit: Theresa May says agreement is \"important step\" on the road to Brexit\n\nEU leaders have agreed to move Brexit talks on to the second phase but called for \"further clarity\" from the UK about the future relationship it wants.\n\nThe first issue to be discussed, early next year, will be the details of an expected two-year transition period after the UK's exit in March 2019.\n\nTalks on trade and security co-operation are set to follow in March.\n\nTheresa May hailed an \"important step\" on the road but Germany's Angela Merkel said it would get \"even tougher\".\n\nDonald Tusk, the president of the European Council, broke the news that the 27 EU leaders were happy to move on to phase two after they met in Brussels.\n\nHe congratulated Mrs May on reaching this stage and said the EU would begin internal preparations for the next phase right now as well as \"exploratory contacts with the UK to get more clarity on their vision\".\n\nWhile securing a deal in time for the UK's exit in March 2019 was realistic, he suggested that the next phase would be \"more challenging and more demanding\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Donald Tusk This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Theresa May This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 2 by Theresa May\n\nMrs May said the two sides would begin discussions on future relations straight away and hoped for \"rapid progress\" on a transitional phase to \"give certainty\" to business.\n\n\"This is an important step on the road to delivering the smooth and orderly Brexit that people voted for in June 2016,\" she said.\n\n\"The UK and EU have shown what can be achieved with commitment and perseverance on both sides.\"\n\nLabour's international trade spokesman, Barry Gardiner, welcomed the move forward, but said it would be a \"real problem\" for business if the EU didn't start talking trade for a further three months.\n\nHe also said his party would not put a time limit on a post-Brexit transition phase, as the expected two-year period would be \"extremely tight\".\n\nEmmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel held a joint news conference at the end of the summit\n\nThe EU has published its guidelines for phase two of the negotiations, with discussions on future economic co-operation not likely to begin until March.\n\nThe three-page document says the UK will remain under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and be required to permit freedom of movement during any transition period.\n\nAnd agreements on the Irish border, the so-called divorce bill and the rights of EU and UK citizens, agreed by Mrs May last Friday, must be \"respected in full and translated faithfully into legal terms as quickly as possible\".\n\nThe document says: \"As the UK will continue to participate in the customs union and the single market during the transition, it will have to continue to comply with EU trade policy.\"\n\nWhile the EU is willing to engage in \"preliminary and preparatory discussions\" on trade as part of building a \"close partnership\" after the UK's departure, this means any formal agreement \"can only be finalised and concluded once the UK has become a third country\".\n\nAfter the six months she has had, Theresa May might be entitled to breathe a sigh of relief, as the European Council officially declared that the first phase of our long goodbye from the European Union is over.\n\nStand back from the daily dramas and perhaps it was always bound to happen.\n\nBoth sides are committed to getting an agreement.\n\nThe EU and the UK both want a deal to be done, and while there has, inevitably, been grumpiness on both sides, they have, in the main, dealt with each other in good faith.\n\nThe document \"calls on the UK to provide further clarity on its position on the framework for the future relationship\".\n\nBut in a passage added during the past week, it invites the EU's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier to \"continue internal preparatory discussions\" on future relations rather than having to wait until March to do so.\n\nSources have told the BBC that the government is highly likely to accept an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill next week to see off another potential Commons defeat for Theresa May.\n\nConservative rebels have been concerned about plans to put the Brexit date and time - 11pm on 29 March 2019 - into law.\n\nBackbenchers, including former minister Oliver Letwin, have tabled an amendment, suggesting a change to the legislation.\n\nMinisters are likely to accept their plan, which is a change that some of the potential rebels have been asking for, the BBC understands.\n\nSenior sources are confident they can see off a defeat, after No 10 said there were no plans to take the date out of the bill.\n\nResponding to the reports, Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer wrote on Twitter: \"After a car-crash defeat on Brexit vote, rumours that PM will now U-turn on gimmick exit day amendment: forced to get a Tory MP to amend her own amendment before its put to the vote!\"\n\nEuropean Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU's initial priority was to \"formalise the agreement\" that had already been reached before moving forward, adding \"the second phase will be significantly harder and the first was very difficult\".\n\nPraising Mrs May as a \"tough, smart and polite\" negotiator, he said he was \"entirely convinced\" that the final agreement reached would be approved by the UK and European Parliaments.\n\nGiving his response, French President Emmanuel Macron said that in moving forward the EU had maintained its unity, protected the integrity of the single market and ensured \"compliance with our own rules\".\n\nMrs May is set to discuss her vision of the \"end state\" for the UK outside the EU at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, having suffered her first Commons Brexit defeat earlier this week.\n• None Relief for May but a hard road ahead", "Phew. After the six months she has had, Theresa May might be entitled to breathe a sigh of relief, as the European Council officially declared that the first phase of our long goodbye from the European Union is over.\n\nStand back from the daily dramas and perhaps it was always bound to happen.\n\nBoth sides are committed to getting an agreement.\n\nThe EU and the UK both want a deal to be done, and while there has, inevitably, been grumpiness on both sides, they have, in the main, dealt with each other in good faith.\n\nBut the fragility of the government, and the complexities of some of the issues, have meant that, on some occasions, it has felt like the prime minister might not get there. Had she not been able to get this far, there genuinely could have been questions about her future.\n\nThe conventional wisdom is that the next phase will be more complicated, even more fraught.\n\nThere are some optimists in government who believe it doesn't have to be that way - because the UK and the EU are already partners, it's a question of unpicking an existing relationship, rather than putting one together from scratch.\n\nBut there are significant contradictions to iron out, contrasting motivations, conflicting views inside the Conservative Party as well as among the EU 27.\n\nThe experience of the past few months suggests, in fact, that the way ahead will be extremely fraught and the prime minister's goal of a full agreement by March 2019 is hopeful, rather than grounded in reality.\n\nBut for today, at least, Mrs May's team can be satisfied, if only for a moment or two, that they have managed even to come this far.\n• None Brexit talks to move to next stage - EU", "Sebastian Kurz has promised a pro-EU government with the Eurosceptic Heinz-Christian Strache\n\nAustria's president has approved a coalition government between the conservative People's Party and the far-right Freedom Party.\n\nThe deal will make Austria the only Western European state with a governing far-right party, which is opposed to migration and the European Union.\n\nThe parties previously governed the country together between 2000 and 2005.\n\nBut at just 31, the People's Party's Sebastian Kurz is set to become the world's youngest head of government.\n\nNo details have been given about the government's programme, but several important ministerial roles are expected to be handed to the smaller Freedom Party as part of the deal.\n\nPresident Alexander Van der Bellen gave the green light to the deal on Saturday morning.\n\nHe said the new government had assured him of both a pro-EU stance and a continued commitment to the European convention on human rights.\n\nThe election on 15 October failed to yield a conclusive result.\n\nThe campaign was dominated by Europe's migration crisis, something the anti-immigration Freedom Party has long campaigned about.\n\nOn the campaign trail, Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache labelled Sebastian Kurz an \"imposter\"\n\nMr Kurz appealed to conservative and right-wing voters with pledges to shut down migrant routes to Europe, cap benefit payments to refugees, and bar immigrants from receiving benefits until they have lived in Austria for five years.\n\nBut he has promised to form a pro-EU government, despite his coalition partner's traditional Euroscepticism.\n\nUnlike most of Europe's populist parties, the Freedom Party has managed to translate its success at the ballot box into real political power.\n\nIt has been a major player in Austrian politics for decades. In recent years, the party has toned down some of its more extreme rhetoric.\n\nBut many analysts believe that, in or out of government, it has helped set a right-wing agenda, not just in Austria - but in other countries across Europe as well.\n\nIts stance against immigration is becoming more mainstream, along with its populist tone.\n\nThe Freedom Party accused Mr Kurz of stealing their policies. Their candidate, Heinz-Christian Strache, branded him an \"imposter\".\n\nWhen the far-right Freedom Party last entered a coalition in Austria in 2000, its fellow EU member states froze bilateral diplomatic relations in response.\n\nThose diplomatic sanctions were lifted months later, after the move failed to force the Freedom Party out of government and amid fears that continued sanctions could further increase nationalist tensions.\n\nThat is unlikely to happen again, as resurgent right-wing populist groups have been promoting anti-immigration and Eurosceptic agendas across much of the EU.\n\nBut unlike the Freedom Party, they have struggled to convert electoral success into real power.\n\nEarlier this year, Marine Le Pen's far-right National Front party lost the French presidential election comprehensively. Ms Le Pen was defeated by Emmanuel Macron, a liberal centrist and strong supporter of the European Union.\n\nElsewhere, the Dutch anti-immigration Freedom Party of Geert Wilders was defeated by liberal leader Mark Rutte.\n\nIn Germany, the nationalist and populist right of Alternative for Germany (AfD) gained seats in the national parliament, where it is now third biggest party, but it is not in the frame for coalition talks.\n• None The beautiful flower with an ugly past", "Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (c) and Cyril Ramaphosa (r) are the top candidates in the race to take over from Jacob Zuma (l)\n\nSouth Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC) is set to elect a new leader at a conference starting on Saturday following a fierce contest between seven candidates.\n\nThe scandal-hit President Jacob Zuma will step down as party leader, opening the way for his successor to spearhead the ANC's campaign for the 2019 general election.\n\nThe ANC has governed South Africa since the first democratic election more than 20 years ago, so there is a strong chance that whoever the party picks as its leader will also succeed Mr Zuma as president when his two terms end in 2019.\n\nBut under Mr Zuma the ANC has become wracked by infighting and allegations of corruption, raising, for the first time, the possibility that it could lose its majority.\n\nSo the incoming ANC leader will be expected to knock the party into shape, and regain the trust of voters.\n\nWhile there are seven candidates, only two, Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, have a realistic chance of winning.\n\nCurrently the deputy president, Mr Ramaphosa is said to have long had his eye on the top job in South African politics.\n\nHe worked closely with anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela to negotiate an end to minority rule, and to give black people the right to vote for a government of their choice.\n\nCyril Ramaphosa is said to have long held ambitions to be president\n\nThe legend goes that he was so upset about not being chosen by Mr Mandela as his deputy following South Africa's first democratic election in 1994, that he did not attend the presidential inauguration, and refused to take up a post in government.\n\nHe stepped out of the political limelight and went into business.\n\nThe former trade unionist is now one of the richest politicians in South Africa.\n\nMr Ramaphosa's track record in the private sector has helped him win the backing of the business community.\n\nHe supports the ANC policy of Radical Economic Transformation - putting more of the economy and land in black hands, in an effort to address the legacy of apartheid.\n\nBut Mr Ramaphosa has also sought to reassure the business sector, acknowledging the need to \"improve investor confidence\", and stressing the need for \"partnership\".\n\nThe ANC has battled to fulfil its promise to curb unemployment\n\nThis is important because South Africa's economy has been in something of a tail-spin in recent years, with several credit-rating downgrades.\n\nMore than a quarter of the population is unemployed, and more than half live in poverty.\n\nThe country is one of the most unequal in the world.\n\nMr Ramaphosa has positioned himself as the man who can turn this around.\n\nHe has also spoken out against corruption and so-called \"state capture\", saying \"If corruption holds our economy back, we must solve the problem of corruption. If state capture holds our economy, we must solve the problem of state capture.\"\n\nAnd he is promising to unify the party, which has been torn apart by bitter rivalry over who should take over from Jacob Zuma as its leader.\n\nWhat he cannot seem to shake off though, is the shadow of Marikana.\n\nHe is tainted by allegations that he pushed for police action against striking miners at the Lonmin mine in 2012.\n\nThirty-four miners were killed, in what was the worst police shooting since the end of apartheid.\n\nAt the time Mr Ramaphosa was a director at Lonmin.\n\nEmails emerged showing he had called for \"concomitant action\" to be taken against the striking miners, who had been taking part in a violent, wildcat strike.\n\nFamilies of those killed in the Marikana massacre are demanding justice\n\nThe leader of the opposition EFF party, Julius Malema, has repeatedly blamed Mr Ramaphosa for the killings, calling him a \"murderer\" and vowing not to let the matter rest.\n\nAlthough Mr Ramaphosa was cleared of any responsibility for the tragedy by a judicial commission, going into an election with the opposition continuing to bring these allegations up is far from ideal.\n\nHe is also considered by some to be less in touch with ordinary people than his main rival Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, with a support base that is more affluent.\n\nAnd Mr Ramaphosa's critics say the events at Marikana show he does not care about poor people.\n\nThe choice then for ANC delegates as they prepare to vote, is whether the candidate who seems more likely to steady the markets and rescue the country's troubled economy, is worth the risk of alienating its core support base.\n\nShe is a medical doctor, and has served in the cabinets of all four of South Africa's post-apartheid presidents.\n\nAfter serving as Minister of Health, Foreign Affairs, and Home Affairs, she went on to become the chair of the African Union Commission - the first woman to lead the organisation.\n\nMs Dlamini-Zuma was born in KwaZulu-Natal, the second most populous province in the country, and which will have a big bearing on the outcome of any general election.\n\nWhoever leads the ANC needs to bring votes from this province to guarantee victory.\n\nAlthough it has been said that Ms Dlamini-Zuma lacks charisma, she is considered by many within the ANC to be someone who gets the job done.\n\nShe is credited with having turned around the performance of the Department of Home Affairs.\n\nAnd the fact that she spent almost two decades in key positions at the heart of government, speaks to her political ability.\n\nWomen will make up 50% of delegates at the ANC conference\n\nMs Dlamini-Zuma has complained bitterly about being referred to as Mr Zuma's ex-wife, pointing out that she was a politician in her own right.\n\nThe national broadcaster, SABC, has apologised for doing so, admitting it was \"sexist and demeaning\".\n\nHer relationship with Mr Zuma is one of her greatest strengths in this race, and her biggest weakness.\n\nHer former husband is a formidable force who can mobilise support for her, particularly at grassroots.\n\nAnd like him she is considered to be down to earth and more able to connect with voters than some of the other candidates.\n\nBut her detractors argue that Mr Zuma has cut a deal with his ex-wife, backing her candidature to avoid being prosecuted for alleged corruption once he steps down.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nKinder critics say that as the mother of four of his children, she would find it difficult to make sure he stands trial, even if she wanted to.\n\nFor those within the ANC who are tired of being hit by one corruption scandal after another, the elevation of Ms Dlamini-Zuma to the top job would be a perpetuation of the status quo.\n\nAnd, they fear, that might be an election loser in 2019.", "Corrie Mckeague's mother said all they have is \"theories\" but \"no evidence\"\n\nA reward offered to find missing airman Corrie Mckeague has been doubled to £100,000.\n\nMr Mckeague, who was 23 when he disappeared, vanished during a night out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in September 2016.\n\nOn Monday, police said they had stopped searching a landfill site after finding no trace of Mr Mckeague.\n\nHis mother Nicola Urquhart has begged people with information to come forward.\n\nShe said all the family have is \"theories\" but \"no evidence\".\n\n\"I plead to anybody involved that's spoken to us in the past, spoken to the police, to please get back in touch with us again,\" Mrs Urquhart added.\n\nCorrie Mckeague was last seen at 03:25 BST on 24 September 2016\n\nThe reward has been offered by local businessman Colin Davey.\n\nThe search of the waste site at Milton, Cambridgeshire, restarted in October after a 20-week excavation ended earlier in the year.\n\nSuffolk Police said it was \"content\" Mr Mckeague was not in the landfill areas that had been searched and the investigation into his disappearance would continue.\n\nPolice have stopped searching the landfill site after finding no trace of Mr Mckeague\n\nMr Mckeague, from Dunfermline, Fife, was on a night out with colleagues from his base RAF Honington when he went missing.\n\nHe was last seen at 03:25 BST on 24 September 2016 when he was captured on CCTV entering a bin loading bay known as the Horseshoe.\n\nHis phone was tracked as taking the same route as a bin lorry, which led police to believe he had climbed in a bin and been taken to the landfill site.\n\nA £50,000 reward was first offered in December 2016.\n\nIt was later withdrawn because it had not led to any new information, but was reinstated in August.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Earlier this month Australia's marriage equality law came into effect.\n\nThe first weddings were expected in the new year to allow for a 30 day notice period, but this couple was given an exemption allowing them to legally wed.", "North Korea's ambassador to the UN, Ja Song Nam, said Pyongyang posed no threat as long as its interests were not infringed upon\n\nUS Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said North Korea must \"earn its way back to the table\" for negotiations between the two countries to restart.\n\nMr Tillerson said Pyongyang had to carry out a \"sustained cessation\" of weapons testing before any talks.\n\nIt is a U-turn from comments made earlier this week, when Mr Tillerson said the US was \"ready to talk any time time North Korea would like to talk\".\n\nThat remark was swiftly contradicted by the White House.\n\nNorth Korea has carried out repeated nuclear and ballistic missile tests this year, in defiance of global condemnation and increasingly heavy international sanctions.\n\nEarlier this week Mr Tillerson said: \"Let's just meet and let's talk about the weather if you want and talk about whether it's going to be a square table or a round table if that's what you're excited about.\n\n\"Then we can begin to lay out a map, a road map, of what we might be willing to work towards.\"\n\nThere are reports that Mr Tillerson had planned to repeat his offer of talks without preconditions\n\nBut his remarks, welcomed by China and Russia, were promptly greeted with a rebuttal from the White House and a reiteration that North Korea must admit to abandoning its nuclear weapons before talks resume.\n\nWithin just a few hours press secretary Sarah Saunders released a statement to reporters saying Mr Trump's views \"have not changed\".\n\n\"North Korea is acting in an unsafe way not only toward Japan, China, and South Korea, but the entire world,\" she said.\n\nOn Friday, Mr Tillerson also urged Russia and China to put more pressure on Pyongyang by taking action beyond mere compliance with UN Security Council resolutions. Both countries rejected this.\n\nHe told the UN Security Council that diplomatic options remained open, but that the US would not bow to North Korean conditions for negotiations.\n\n\"We do not accept any relaxing of the sanctions regime as a precondition of talks,\" he said.\n\n\"We do not accept the resumption of humanitarian assistance as a precondition of talks. So we are not going to accept preconditions for these talks.\"\n\nAlso on Friday at the Security Council:", "Austria was a major imperial power in Central Europe for centuries in various state guises, until the fall of its Habsburg dynasty after World War One.\n\nBut its position at the geographical heart of Europe, and its neutral status during the Cold War between Nato and the Soviet bloc, maintained the much-reduced country's strategic significance.\n\nAustria is now a member of the European Union, though not Nato, and an enduring legacy of its decades of post-war neutrality can be seen in the large number of international organisations that call its capital Vienna their home.\n\nThese include the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Opec, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.\n\nFor much of the post-war period, so-called \"grand coalition\" governments of left and right wing parties have ruled Austria, although the Social Democrats led by Bruno Kreisky ruled alone in the 1970s.\n\nMore recently, the centre-right People's Party ruled in coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, but this coalition collapsed in May 2019 after a scandal involving the leader of the Freedom Party.\n\nAlexander Van der Bellen was first elected as president in the December 2016 re-run of a highly polarised election earlier that year, defeating Norbert Hofer of the far-right Freedom Party.\n\nVan der Bellen - a Green Party politician running as an independent - had won a extremely narrow victory in the initial run-off vote against Hofer in May, but the result was annulled because of vote-counting irregularities.\n\nIn October 2022, Van der Bellen was re-elected president, taking 57% of the vote in the first round. Freedom Party candidate Walter Rosenkranz came second with 18% of the votes, far short of what Hofer received in 2016.\n\nInterior Minister Nehammer took over on as chancellor and leader of the conservative People's Party in December 2021, following months of turmoil after the resignation of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.\n\nMr Kurz's departure was a condition for the Green Party to remain in the governing coalition, pending a corruption investigation. Foreign Minister Alexander von Schallenberg was chancellor in the interim, but resigned to make way for Mr Nehammer when the later assumed the post of People's Party leader in December.\n\nAustria's public broadcaster, Oesterreichischer Rundfunk (ORF), has long-dominated the airwaves. It faces competition from private TV and radio broadcasters.\n\nCable or satellite TV is available in most Austrian homes and is often used to watch German stations, some of which tailor their output for local viewers.\n\nA daily newspaper is a must for many Austrians. National and regional titles contest fiercely for readers.\n\nFor much of the post-war period, so-called \"grand coalition\" governments of left and right wing parties have ruled Austria\n\n1278 - The Habsburg Rudolf I of Germany acquires the duchies of Austria and Styria after defeating his rival, King Ottokar II of Bohemia, at the Battle on the Marchfeld.\n\n14th and 15th Centuries - Habsburgs acquire other provinces neighbouring the Duchy of Austria.\n\n1526 - After the Battle of Mohács, Bohemia and the part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans comesunder Austrian rule.\n\n16th and 17th Centuries - Ottoman expansion into Hungary sees frequent conflicts between the two empires.\n\n1529 - Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent launches the first siege of Vienna. The besieging Turkish army retreats amid the snowfalls of an early winter.\n\n1683 - Second siege of Vienna. The city is freed after two months when the forces of the Holy Roman Empire and those of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under King John III Sobieski decisively defeat the Turkish army.\n\n1699 - The Treaty of Karlowitz, which ends the Great Turkish War (1683-1699) results in most of Hungary coming under Austrian control.\n\n1713 - The Pragmatic Sanction. Edict issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI to ensure the Habsburg lands - the archduchy of Austria, kingdom of Hungary, kingdom of Croatia, kingdom of Bohemia, duchy of Milan, kingdom of Naples, kingdom of Sardinia and Austrian Netherlands - could be inherited undivided by his daughter, Maria Theresa.\n\n1792-1815 - Austria engages in war with revolutionary and them Napoleonic France.\n\n1804 - The Empire of Austria is proclaimed, replacing the Holy Roman Empire which is dissolved two years later.\n\n1815 - Austria emerges from the Congress of Vienna as one of Europe's great powers.\n\n1848-49 - Hungarian revolution. This is eventually defeated with the aid of Russian forces, but leads to a constitutional government being founded in Hungary, which is now in a personal union with the Austrian emperor.\n\n1867 - The defeat leads to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, establishing the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, a military and diplomatic alliance of two sovereign states.\n\nIn the latter half of the 19th Century, ruling Austria-Hungary becomes increasingly difficult in an age of emerging nationalist movements in Europe.\n\n1908 - Following the Young Turk revolution in Turkey, Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, nominally part of the Ottoman Empire. The move provokes strong resentment in Serbian pan-Slav circles.\n\n1914 - The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip triggers the outbreak of World War One.\n\n1914-18 - Over one million Austro-Hungarian soldiers die in the war, which leads to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the end of Hapsburg rule.\n\n1933 - End of the republic, Chancellor Dollfuss suspends parliament and sets up autocratic regime\n\n1934 - Government crushes Socialist uprising, backed by the army. All political parties abolished except the Fatherland Front.\n\nImprisonment of Nazi conspirators leads to attempted Nazi coup. Dollfuss assassinated, succeeded by Kurt von Schuschnigg.\n\n1938 - The Anschluss (union): Austria incorporated into Germany by Hitler. Austria now called the Ostmark (Eastern March).\n\n1945 - Soviet troops liberate Vienna. Austria occupied and partitioned into four occupation zones by Soviet, British, US and French forces. Vienna is also divided between the four occupying powers.\n\n1955 - Treaty signed by Britain, France, US and Soviet Union establishes an independent but neutral Austria - a convenient buffer between the West and the Soviet bloc. The four powers withdraw their troops. Austria joins the United Nations.\n\n1986 - Ex-UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim elected president, despite controversy over his role in the German army in World War Two.\n\n1999 - Far-right Freedom Party led by Joerg Haider wins 27% of vote in national elections.\n\n2000 - International outcry as People's Party forms coalition government with Freedom Party. EU imposes diplomatic sanctions before ending it seven months later on grounds it is counter-productive.\n\n2011 - Otto von Habsburg - the last crown prince of Austria - is buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna amid much of the pomp associated with the days of the empire.\n\n2013 - Austrians vote to keep compulsory military service in a referendum.\n\n2017 - Government agrees to ban Islamic full-face veils in courts, schools and other public spaces.\n\nMozart's home town of Salzburg. Austria is seen by many as the birthplace of classical music\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The couple announced their engagement in November\n\nPrince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding will be held on Saturday 19 May 2018, Kensington Palace has announced.\n\nThe pair confirmed their engagement in November and said the service would be at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.\n\nThe date breaks with tradition as royal weddings usually take place on a weekday - the Queen wed on a Thursday and the Duke of Cambridge on a Friday.\n\nThe wedding will be on the same day as the FA Cup Final, which Prince William normally attends as FA president.\n\nThe time of the match has yet to be confirmed, but in recent years it has taken place at 17:30 GMT.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kensington Palace This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe Royal Family will pay for the wedding, including the service, music, flowers and reception.\n\nThe event will take place just a month after the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expected to welcome their third child to the family.\n\nMs Markle will be baptised into the Church of England and confirmed before the wedding.\n\nEarlier this week, Kensington Palace announced the couple will be spending Christmas together at Sandringham with the Queen.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe prince and the American actor, 36, carried out their first official engagement in Nottingham on 1 December.\n\nPrince Harry made a public appearance at Sandhurst earlier on Friday - 11 years after he graduated from the military academy - for the Sovereign's Parade.\n\nBBC Royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell said the Saturday date was \"unusual, but not unprecedented\" and would give people the opportunity to go to Windsor for the celebrations.\n\nHe added: \"Downing Street clearly hasn't been persuaded [into giving a Bank Holiday]… these things are so ruled by precedent.\"\n\nPrince Harry and Ms Markle on their first official engagement in Nottingham\n\nReacting to the clash with the cup match, an FA spokesman said the organisation was \"delighted\" for Prince Harry and Ms Markle.\n\nHe added: \"Saturday 19 May promises to be a wonderful day with such a special royal occasion being followed by English football's showpiece event, the Emirates FA Cup Final.\n\n\"With millions coming together to watch both events at home and around the world, it will be a day to celebrate.\"\n\nThe couple visited a gallery and school in Nottingham\n\nThe prince designed her engagement ring, which features two diamonds that belonged to Princess Diana", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Liam Allan talks about what it is like being falsely accused of rape\n\nA man whose rape trial collapsed after detectives failed to disclose vital evidence to the defence said he felt \"betrayed\" by police and the CPS.\n\nLiam Allan was charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault but his trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.\n\nThe 22-year-old student said his life had been \"flipped upside down\" and he wanted lessons to be learned.\n\nThe Met Police said it was \"urgently reviewing this investigation\".\n\nThe case against Mr Allan at Croydon Crown Court was dropped after three days when the evidence on a computer disk containing 40,000 messages revealed the alleged victim pestered him for \"casual sex\".\n\nHe told the BBC his life had been \"torn away\" by the process, which included being on bail for two years.\n\n\"You just think the worst case scenario... People have to start planning for life without you,\" he said.\n\nMr Allan faced a possible jail term of 12 years and being put on the sex offenders register for life had he been found guilty.\n\nHe said he felt \"pure fear\" when he learned he had been accused of rape but would never be able to understand why the accusations were made.\n\nThe 22-year-old student had been charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault\n\n\"There was no possible real gain from it other than destroying somebody else's life... It's something I will never be able to forgive or forget.\"\n\nBut he said he wanted to use his experience \"to change the system\".\n\n\"This wasn't a case of people trying to prove my innocence, it was a case of people trying to prove I was guilty,\" Mr Allan said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIt is understood police had looked at thousands of phone messages when reviewing evidence in the case, but had failed to disclose to the prosecution and defence teams messages between the complainant and her friends which cast doubt on the allegations against Mr Allan.\n\nProsecution barrister Jerry Hayes accused police of \"sheer incompetence\" over the case.\n\nBefore the trial the defence team had repeatedly asked for the phone messages to be disclosed but was told there was nothing to disclose.\n\nMr Hayes, who demanded the messages to be passed to the defence, said he believed the trial had come about because \"everyone is under pressure\".\n\n\"This is a criminal justice system which is not just creaking, it's about to croak,\" he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's legal correspondent Clive Coleman gives his analysis of the case\n\nMr Allan's lawyer Simone Meerabux said it had been \"a very traumatic experience\" for her client.\n\nShe said it was \"amazing\" the case had got to the stage it did \"but it's not uncommon\" because of problems with disclosure.\n\nA Met spokesman said the force was \"urgently reviewing this investigation and will be working with the Crown Prosecution Service to understand exactly what has happened in this case.\n\n\"The Met understands the concerns that have been raised as a result of this case being dismissed from court and the ongoing review will seek to address those,\" he said.\n\nA spokesman for the CPS said: \"In November 2017, the police provided more material in the case of Liam Allan. Upon a review of that material, it was decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.\n\n\"We will now be conducting a management review together with the Metropolitan Police to examine the way in which this case was handled.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe German-born inventor and professor, famed for hosting BBC Two's long-running science show The Great Egg Race, died of heart failure on 15 December, his family said.\n\nA former advisor to the European Space Agency, he became emeritus professor at London's Brunel University, working on projects linked to ageing populations.\n\nHis son Laurence paid tribute to his humour, curiosity, and enthusiasm.\n\nSpeaking to BBC News, Laurence Wolff said his father had \"touched so many people through his ingenuity in terms of his inventing... and his great belief in educating about science and technology\".\n\nHe had a \"natural sense of fun and he knew that was also a way of engaging people... People would stop him in the street... and they would say, 'you got me into science'\".\n\nA Jewish refugee, Wolff moved to the UK from Berlin at the age of 11 on the day World War Two broke out in September 1939.\n\nAfter attending school in Oxford, he worked in haematology at the city's Radcliffe Infirmary, where he invented a machine for counting patients' blood cells.\n\nHe later went on to graduate from University College London with a first-class honours degree in physiology and physics.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Laurence Wolff says his father had a sense of humour, curiosity and enthusiasm\n\nWolff moved into television in 1966, first appearing on the BBC's Panorama programme with Richard Dimbleby, where he produced a pill that could measure pressure, temperature and acidity.\n\nHowever, he was best known for hosting BBC Two's The Great Egg Race from 1977 until 1986 - instantly recognisable for his trademark bow tie and eccentric hairstyle.\n\nThe show challenged contestants to invent useful objects with limited resources.\n\nFriends and colleagues also recalled his love of practical jokes, particularly one instance when he arrived at his 80th birthday party on a scooter propelled by fire extinguishers.\n\nWolff was an emeritus professor at Brunel University\n\nProfessor Julia Buckingham, vice-chancellor and president of Brunel University, said: \"Heinz's remarkable intellect, ideas and enthusiasm combined to make him the sparkling scientist we will so fondly remember.\n\n\"He was a wonderful friend and supporter to staff and to students - and an inspiration to all of us.\"\n\nBrunel colleague Professor Ian Sutherland added: \"There was nothing he loved more than having a team of people around him, devising completely new ways of doing things.\"\n\nAlongside his television appearances, Wolff continued in his efforts to advance human progress through his scientific work.\n\nHe was made an honorary member of the European Space Agency in 1975, and his work into how humans could survive hostile space environments led to Dr Helen Sharman becoming the first British astronaut and the 15th woman in space in 1991.\n\nWolff balanced his mischievous curiosity with serious scientific research\n\nLaurence Wolff said this space work - known as Project Jupiter - had been greatly valued by his father, who wished to \"inspire young people\" and use science to \"entertain as well as educate\".\n\nHe also described how Heinz Wolff's early interest in science had been stoked by his own father, who had him taking part in chemistry experiments at the age of four.\n\nHe added: \"The person that people saw when they met him was the person we knew at home. His sense of humour, his curiosity, his enthusiasm. That was our father.\"\n\nWolff was also a strong supporter of local charities throughout his life, including spending more than 25 years as a trustee, and then Life President, of the Hillingdon Partnership Trust.\n\nHe was married to his wife Joan until her death in 2014, and is survived by two sons and four grandchildren.", "Britvic co-owns the site with Unilever, which owns Colman's Mustard\n\nBritvic has confirmed it will leave its Norwich site, with the loss of hundreds of jobs in the city, in 2019.\n\nThe drinks manufacturer, which co-owns Carrow Works with Unilever, said it would transfer production of Robinsons and Fruit Shoot to its other sites.\n\nIt said it would offer employees redeployment and \"help to find alternative employment\".\n\nThe Unite union said the announcement just before Christmas was a bid to \"bury bad news\".\n\nBritvic said it currently employed 249 people at the site, which it shares with Colman's Mustard.\n\nManufacturing will instead take place at Rugby, east London and Leeds.\n\n\"Transferring production will improve efficiency and productivity and reduce our environmental impact,\" the company said.\n\nThe decision follows a consultation with employee representatives, including the GMB and Unite unions.\n\nBritvic said it would transfer production of Robinsons and Fruit Shoot to other factories\n\nChief executive Simon Litherland said: \"This was not a proposal that we made lightly and we understand that the outcome of the collective consultation process will be upsetting for our colleagues in Norwich.\n\n\"It is a sad and difficult time.\n\n\"I want to thank everyone at Norwich, past and present, for their dedication, hard work and commitment, and I would like to say again that this decision is in no way a reflection of their performance.\"\n\nThe Unite union criticised the timing of the announcement and described the closure as \"a hammer blow for the workers and the economy of Norwich in the run up Christmas\".\n\nIts national officer for the food and drink sector, Julia Long, branded the announcement as \"a classic case of trying to bury bad news\".\n\nThe move by Britvic has been mooted for several months, with fears expressed for the future of Colman's Mustard, which has been manufactured at the site since 1860.\n\nUnilever, which owns Colman's, has previously said it could shut the site if Britvic closed operations.\n\nIt is conducting its own review and is looking at three sites in the city, including staying at Carrow Works.\n\nUnilever has been approached for comment.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The government looks likely to avoid another potential Commons defeat on Brexit, the BBC understands.\n\nTory rebels have been concerned about plans to put the Brexit date and time - 11pm on 29 March 2019 - into law.\n\nBut backbenchers have tabled an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill allowing some flexibility.\n\nMinisters are highly likely to accept the amendment in a vote next week, BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg said.\n\nIt comes as EU leaders agreed to move to the next phase of Brexit talks.\n\nTheresa May suffered her first Commons defeat as prime minister on Wednesday, as Tory rebels joined forces with Labour and the SNP to vote for a plan to give MPs a bigger say in any Brexit deal.\n\nMinisters feared they might be heading for a further defeat on Wednesday, when MPs vote on a plan to enshrine the Brexit date in law.\n\nA number of Conservative MPs had echoed Labour concerns the move could box Britain into a corner if negotiations with the EU go to the wire.\n\nSeveral Conservative MPs, including former Cabinet minister Oliver Letwin, have now tabled an amendment to the bill that would give the government more flexibility over the exit day.\n\nThe new amendment seeks to allow the government to change the \"exit day\" through further legislation, if the negotiations are continuing.\n\nMinisters are likely to accept their plan, which is a change that some of the potential rebels have been asking for, the BBC understands.\n\nSenior sources are confident they can see off a defeat, after No 10 said there were no plans to take the date out of the bill.\n\nConservative MP Dominic Grieve, who led Wednesday's rebellion, told BBC Three Counties Radio: \"I am aware that the government has, I think, this afternoon tabled a further amendment for next Wednesday, which very sensibly looks like it will resolve the issue that was troubling some of us.\n\n\"If that is the case, and I am fairly confident it is, then that issue will be satisfactorily resolved.\"\n\nBernard Jenkin, a leading Tory Brexiteer, said: \"The purpose of this amendment is to avoid needless division over matters of detail when we should be supporting the PM.\n\n\"Nothing that has occurred alters the determination of the government to achieved the kind of Brexit that the PM set out in her Lancaster House speech - which takes back control of our borders, our money and our laws and our our ability to do meaningful trade deals.\"\n• None Relief for May but a hard road ahead", "An \"upside down volcano\" (L) and an \"upside down rocket\" (R)\n\nWhat do volcanoes and rockets have in common?\n\n\"Volcanoes have a nozzle aimed at the sky, and rockets have a nozzle aimed at the ground,\" explains Steve McNutt, a geosciences professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa.\n\nIt explains why he and colleague Dr Glenn Thompson have installed the tools normally used to study eruptions at the famous Kennedy Space Center.\n\nComparing the different types of rumblings could yield new insights.\n\nIn the case of rockets, the team thinks their seismometers and infrasound (low-frequency acoustic waves) detectors might potentially be used by the space companies as a different type of diagnostic tool, to better understand the performance of their vehicles; or perhaps as a way to identify missiles in flight.\n\nIn the case of volcanoes, the idea is to take the lessons learned at Kennedy and fine-tune the algorithms used to interpret what is happening in an eruption.\n\nIt might even be possible to develop systems that give early warnings of some of the dangerous debris flows associated with volcanoes.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Glenn Thompson and Steve McNutt: \"Kennedy has strong signals to test equipment \"\n\n\"It all started really as a way to test and calibrate our equipment,\" says Glenn.\n\n\"We don't have any volcanoes in South Florida - obviously. But Kennedy provided some strong sources, and it also gave our students the opportunity to learn how to deploy stations and work with the data.\"\n\nThe team has now recorded the seismic and acoustic signals emanating from about a dozen rockets.\n\nMost have been associated with launches; a few have been related to what are called static fire tests, in which the engines on a clamped vehicle are briefly ignited to check they are flight-ready.\n\nBut perhaps the most fascinating event captured so far was the SpaceX pad explosion in September 2016.\n\nThis saw a Falcon 9 rocket suffer a catastrophic failure as it was being fuelled.\n\nMany people will have seen the video of the spectacular fireball. But Glenn's and Steve's equipment caught information not apparent in that film.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nFor example, they detected more than 150 separate sub-events in the infrasound over the course of 26 minutes.\n\nThese were likely individual tanks, pipes or other components bursting into flames.\n\nOf course, the SpaceX explosion was an unusual occurrence, and it is the more routine activity that most interests the team. And some clear patterns are starting to emerge in their study of \"upside down volcanoes\".\n\n\"As the rocket gets higher and higher and accelerates, we see a decrease in the frequency in the infrasound - that's basically a Doppler shift because the source is moving away from us,\" says Steve.\n\n\"And then you get a coupling of the signal in the air into the ground and this produces seismic waves recorded on the seismometer.\n\n\"So, we get some common features between the infrasound and the seismometer, but then there's a little separation of the energy between the two.\"\n\nA deadly pyroclastic flow heads down the flanks of the Soufrière Hills volcano in Montserrat\n\nThere is a lot still to learn, but the pair think they can distinguish the different types of rockets - to tell a Falcon from an Atlas from a Delta.\n\nThere are subtle but significant divergences in their spectral signatures, which almost certainly reflect their distinct designs and modes of operation.\n\nWhere in particular the rockets could have instruction for volcano monitoring is in describing moving sources.\n\nA rocket is a very well understood physical process. Its properties and parameters - such as the size of the nozzle orifice, the thrust, the trajectory and the distance - are all precisely known.\n\nThe related seismic and acoustic signals should therefore serve as templates to help decipher some of the features of eruptions that share similar behaviours.\n\nGood examples of rapid movement in the volcano setting are the big mass surges like pyroclastic flows (descending clouds of hot ash/rock) and lahars (mud/ash avalanches).\n\nAn objective of the team is to improve seismometer and infrasound systems' characterisation of these dangerous phenomena.\n\nThis could lead to useful alerts being sent to people who live around volcanoes.\n\n\"Assuming you can find a few safe places to put your instruments that are reasonably close, you'd get your advance warning,\" said Steve.\n\n\"What you'd be doing then is getting the time and the strength of the signal and then watching it evolve to figure out which direction it's going.\n\n\"If you can do that successfully then you can forecast with a couple of minutes in advance things like lahars and pyroclastic flows downstream.\"\n\nGlenn added: \"I worked on [the Caribbean island of] Montserrat during the crisis from 1995 to 2011, and we did have a rudimentary system even then for tracking the pyroclastic density currents coming down the slopes of the volcano.\n\n\"It wasn't quite a real-time application, but we hope with this kind of work that we can improve those algorithms and make them more of an automated alarm system.\"\n\nThe equipment at Kennedy has been temporary, but the team is looking for a permanent installation.\n\nLike everyone, Glenn and Steve are particularly looking forward to the launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy vehicle in the New Year.\n\nThe Heavy should produce nearly 23 meganewtons of thrust at lift-off, more than any rocket in operation today.\n\nIt is sure to make for some interesting seismic and infrasound signals.\n\nGlenn Thompson and Steve McNutt detailed their work here at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union.\n\nJonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A state funeral has being held for King Michael, who helped end fascist rule during World War II. More than 20,000 Romanians lined the streets of Bucharest to pay their respects", "The letter emerged during Uber's legal battle with Waymo\n\nUber set up a covert unit tasked with stealing competitors' secrets and engaging in undercover surveillance, a letter published by a US court on Friday has alleged.\n\nIt is critical evidence in Uber's legal battle with Waymo, the self-driving car company that accuses the ride-sharing firm of stealing its technology.\n\nThe letter, sent by lawyers representing a former Uber employee, sparked an internal investigation when it was sent to Uber in May, but has not been made public until now.\n\nIn a statement, Uber said: \"While we haven’t substantiated all the claims in this letter - and, importantly, any related to Waymo - our new leadership has made clear that going forward we will compete honestly and fairly, on the strength of our ideas and technology.\"\n\nThe allegations in the letter were made by Richard Jacobs, who worked at Uber until February this year. He left after an incident in which he felt he was unfairly demoted. Shortly afterwards, he sent the letter alleging the misconduct.\n\n\"These tactics were employed clandestinely through a distributed architecture of anonymous servers, telecommunications architecture, and non-attributable hardware and software,\" the letter read.\n\nMr Jacobs settled with Uber for $4.5m (£3.4m), and he has since said some of what he wrote was in fact not true, specifically the remarks about Waymo's trade secrets.\n\nHowever, several other details in the letter have already been confirmed, including an incident in which Uber accessed the medical records of a woman who accused an Uber driver of rape.\n\nOther allegations include Uber employees posing as protesters in order to gain access to private online chat groups.\n\nIn one particularly bizarre example, Mr Jacobs alleged that an Uber \"surveillance team\" was deployed to a hotel in order to record and observe conversations between executives at a rival company - the name of which has been redacted from the version of the letter made public.\n\nSpecifically, those agents wanted to monitor the competitors' reaction to the news that Uber had secured a large amount of funding from a Saudi investor.\n\nThe emergence of the \"Jacobs letter\" has been a dramatic turn of events in the Uber v Waymo trial, which had been due to start earlier this month but has now been delayed until February.\n\nPresiding Judge William Alsup was made aware of the letter's existence by the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, which is currently investigating Uber on a range of other matters.\n\nIn court last month, Judge Alsup chastised Uber's legal team, accusing them of withholding evidence.\n\n\"I can no longer trust the words of the lawyers for Uber in this case,\" he said.\n\n\"We’re going to have to put the trial off because if even half of what’s in that letter is true it would be a huge injustice to force Waymo to go to trial.\"\n\nInternally, Uber is going to great lengths to reassure employees that the old ways of working, under ousted chief executive Travis Kalanick, no longer exist at the firm.\n\n\"There is no place for such practices or that kind of behaviour at Uber,\" wrote Tony West, Uber's general counsel, in a note to employees.\n\n\"We don’t need to be following folks around in order to gain some competitive advantage. We’re better than that. We will compete and we will win because our technology is better, our ideas are better, and our people are better. Period.\"", "Samantha Robinson and James Atherton are in the cast of Rita, Sue and Bob Too\n\nLondon's Royal Court theatre has reversed its decision to cancel a production of Rita, Sue and Bob Too.\n\nThe theatre had said it was axing the play after allegations that its co-director Max Stafford-Clark made inappropriate sexual comments to staff.\n\nBut artistic director Vicky Featherstone said she had been \"rocked to the core by accusations of censorship\" and it would now go ahead.\n\nStafford-Clark apologised in October for \"any inappropriate behaviour\".\n\nThe Guardian reported in October how he had left his theatre company Out Of Joint after a staff member had made a formal complaint about his lewd comments.\n\nBefore starting Out Of Joint, he was artistic director at the Royal Court from 1979 to 1993.\n\nEarlier this week, the theatre said the play had \"themes of grooming and abuses of power on young women\" that were not appropriate.\n\nBut in a statement Ms Featherstone said she had reinstated the production, which had been due to run for two-and-a-half weeks in January before it was cancelled.\n\nShe said the theatre was \"nothing without the voices and trust of our writers\".\n\n\"This is the guiding principle on which the theatre was founded and on which it continues to be run,\" she said.\n\n\"I have therefore been rocked to the core by accusations of censorship and the banning of a working-class female voice.\n\n\"For that reason, I have invited the current Out of Joint production of Rita, Sue and Bob Too back to the Royal Court for its run.\n\n\"As a result of this helpful public debate we are now confident that the context with which Andrea Dunbar's play will be viewed will be an invitation for new conversations.\"\n\nPerformance dates and times will remain the same, the theatre said.\n\nThe play, which has toured the UK, opened in September at the Octagon theatre in Bolton, which was also a partner in the co-production with the Royal Court.\n\nIn recent months, the Royal Court has been at the forefront of tackling sexual harassment and abuse in the theatre world.\n\nEarlier this year, it staged a \"day of action\", which led to a code of conduct.\n\nIn October, a spokesperson for Stafford-Clark told The Guardian the director had suffered from pseudobulbar palsy and \"occasional disinhibition\" since a stroke and brain injury in 2006.\n\nA statement said: \"Mr Stafford-Clark's occasional loss of the ability to inhibit urges results in him displaying disinhibited and compulsive behaviour and his usual (at times provocative) behaviour being magnified, often causing inappropriate social behaviour.\n\n\"Whilst this is an explanation it isn't an attempt to dismiss his behaviour and he apologises for any offence caused.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The victim was hit on a pedestrian crossing on the South Circular Road\n\nFive drivers who may have been involved in a hit-and-run which killed a woman in south London have all been traced.\n\nThe 29-year-old Polish national was hit by a lorry on a pedestrian crossing on Norwood Road, Tulse Hill, on Monday.\n\nIt is thought she was then struck by another lorry and up to three cars. None of the drivers stopped at the crash site, the Met said.\n\nThe identity of the victim, who was staying in Wandsworth, has not yet been released.\n\nA post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as multiple injuries.\n\nThe 49-year-old driver of the first lorry was interviewed under caution earlier in the week.\n\nThe driver of the second car - a 52-year-old man - was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of causing death by careless driving and released under investigation.\n\nPolice said the drivers of the first car and second lorry have now been spoken to, as has the driver of a third car which officers believe may also have struck the woman.\n\nNone of the three have been arrested.\n\nThe force is appealing for witnesses to the crash, which happened at about 06:50 GMT and when the lights were on green.\n\nActing Det Sgt Alastair Middleton, said: \"Even though we have traced all the vehicles that we believe were involved, I continue to appeal for anyone who witnessed the collision and the moments afterwards to contact us immediately.\n\n\"We are particularly interested in any dashcam footage that may have captured some of the incident before or after the collision.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A London cafe offers customers the chance to have a picture of their face on their coffee.", "The Met Police is to hold an \"urgent\" review of a rape case after being accused of failing to disclose vital evidence.\n\nLiam Allan, 22, was charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault but his trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.\n\nThe BBC's Legal Correspondent Clive Coleman gives his analysis on the issues surrounding the case.", "The UK is the country where the character Ebenezer Scrooge was invented, the man who would scoff \"bah humbug\" at any Christmas revellers. But Brits are no Scrooges, according to Google.\n\nThe search engine claims people in Britain make more Christmas searches than anywhere else in the world.\n\nWhether it's searching mince pie recipes, or hunting down the perfect tree decorations, the UK seems to be Christmas obsessed.\n\nFor the past four years the UK has had the highest search interest in Christmas topics, taking over from Ireland, which was top in 2012 and 2013.\n\nAnd in November and December of every year since 2010, UK search interest in Christmas topics has increased.\n\n\"Based on experiences I have, there's no question that we are the most Christmas obsessed,\" says shop owner Robert Newman.\n\nThe 69-year-old is well-versed in this field, because he runs a Christmas shop in Stratford-upon-Avon that is open all year round.\n\nHe says he will have returning customers come to the shop up to seven times in a year.\n\n\"It's just such a magical time for everyone, it's a time for family and celebration.\"\n\nConsumer and retail analyst Kate Hardcastle is not surprised by the number of Christmas searches coming from the UK.\n\nShe believes that the negative national mood over hard-hitting news events means people are going to try and make Christmas extra special this year.\n\n\"Life is really tough right now and emotionally, therefore everyone is aiming towards a celebration.\"\n\nSorry, your browser cannot display this map\n\nThe Lincolnshire village of Keelby is at the top of the table when it comes to Christmas-related searches in the UK.\n\nGoogle's data shows the proportion of searches that relate to Christmas as a percentage of all searches in the given area and time period. A score of 100 shows the highest percentage of Christmas searches, and every other score is calculated in relation to that.\n\nIn November people in Keelby, home to just over 2,000 people, made the highest proportion of searches for Christmas out of all the searches in the area. That gave it a score of 100, a fair way ahead of Rhos-on-Sea in North Wales, which came in second place with a score of 89.\n\nBurnham, on the outskirts of London, had the lowest Christmas search score of five.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. People in Keelby, Lincolnshire, explain why they are crazy for Christmas\n\nIn 2017, UK search interest has been over a third higher than in the US, the data shows.\n\nMs Hardcastle says because the USA has the added holiday of Thanksgiving in November, people in Britain are more focussed on a single holiday than those across the pond.\n\nOur interest in the festive period is also beginning earlier in the year, as search engine results have more than doubled in the last seven years between September and October.\n\nBut what role does advertising have to play in Britons searching for Christmas earlier in the year?\n\nRetailers, supermarkets and brands began releasing their adverts in November, in an attempt to entice shoppers to spend more before December arrives.\n\nBrands are expected to spend a record £6bn on Christmas advertising this year, and Ms Hardcastle believes this is down to the relatively new UK phenomenon of Black Friday.\n\n\"The retailers have to push early with their Christmas messages because they know that they're not going to be able to get more spend out of some people,\" she says.\n\n\"But they're trying to secure the spend with them through Christmas adverts.\"\n\nJohn Lewis is thought to have spent £7m on developing its Moz the Monster Christmas campaign\n\nAccording to the survey, \"November is fast becoming the key month for Christmas purchases for UK shoppers.\"\n\n\"Over 50% of consumers plan to do the majority of their Christmas shopping before December,\" it added.\n\nOn top of being organised by shopping for goods early, the survey shows \"UK consumers are by far the most active online spenders in Europe, and are planning to spend 142% more on gifts and 207% more on food and drink online than the European average\".\n\nThe UK has surpassed America's interest in Christmas online\n\nMatt Cooke, the head of Google News Labs says: \"When you look at what people have been searching for online over the past decade, you can see the UK's interest in all things relating to Christmas is greater than any other country, and we start looking for festive information earlier each year too.\n\nIn 2016 more people used Google search to find information relating to Christmas than ever before - and search interest begins increasing as early as 1 July.\"", "Tonka and Pacman have since been put down\n\nPolice in rural Virginia have released disturbing details about a woman who they say was killed by her two dogs while taking them for a walk last week.\n\nFour days after Bethany Stephens, 22, was found, police held a second press conference to describe her death and refute rumours of foul play.\n\nWhen deputies found the dogs on Friday they were guarding what police at first thought was an animal carcass.\n\nBut the body was Stephens's, and police say the pit bulls were eating her.\n\nWarning: Some people may find the details below upsetting\n\n\"I observed, as well as four other deputy sheriffs observed,\" Goochland County Sheriff Jim Agnew said, \"the dogs eating the rib cage on the body\".\n\n\"The first traumatic injury to her was to her throat and face,\" he said.\n\n\"It appears she was taken to the ground, lost consciousness, and the dogs then mauled her to death,\" he added, pausing several times.\n\nSheriff Agnew said in Monday's press conference that he did not want to initially release the graphic detail, out of concern for the victim's family.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kristin Smith This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut after rumours began to swirl in the small town 30 miles (48km) outside Richmond, Virginia - and the sheriff was inundated with calls from concerned citizens - he chose to release the information in order to assure the public that there was not a killer on the loose.\n\nFriends had questioned what would have led the pit bulls to kill their owner who had raised them since they were puppies.\n\nOne friend told local media that the dogs were gentle. \"They'd kill you with kisses,\" Barbara Norris told WWBT News.\n\nThe two dogs - who have since been put down with the family's permission - together weighed twice as much as Stephens, who authorities described as \"petite\" and weighing 100lbs (45kg).\n\nThe dogs, named Tonka and Pacman, were found by Stephens's father after he went looking for her in a wooded area on Friday, one day after she disappeared.\n\n\"Ms Stephens was terribly, terribly injured, but it was very apparent to us that she had been dead for quite some time,\" Sheriff Agnew told reporters, adding that her bloody clothes were scattered around her corpse.\n\nHe added that her body was so badly mauled, and her injuries were \"so extensive that there was nothing left to compare bite marks to\".\n\nAuthorities say the bite marks on her head match those of the dogs, and that they were not consistent with any other type of wild animal such as a bear.\n\nThe dogs' bodies have been preserved for a post-mortem examination.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAbout 30 rape cases due to go to trial and \"scores\" more investigations are to be reviewed after the collapse of two cases in a week.\n\nOn Tuesday, prosecutors dropped a case against a man charged with raping a child under 16 due to police providing \"relevant\" evidence in recent days.\n\nLast week, student Liam Allan's trial collapsed because of the late disclosure of evidence.\n\nThe Met said the same officer worked on both cases and remains on full duty.\n\nThe force has not referred the officer involved to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), a Met spokesman said.\n\nThe IPCC told the BBC it was \"monitoring the situation\".\n\nIn the most recent case of Isaac Itiary, the Crown Prosecution Service said \"new material\" provided by Scotland Yard meant the case could not proceed.\n\nIsaac Itiary was charged with raping a child in July but the case collapsed\n\nThe Met review is aimed at ensuring all digital evidence in other sex crime cases has been disclosed to the CPS.\n\nConservative MP Nigel Evans, who was cleared of rape and sexual assault charges in 2014, said there was a \"systemic\" problem, which could leave innocent people in jail.\n\nPrime Minister Theresa May said the attorney general had already started a review into the disclosure of evidence, telling PMQs: \"It is important that we look at this again so we make sure we are truly providing justice.\"\n\nLiam Allan, 22, was charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault but his trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records crucial to the case.\n\nA computer disk containing 40,000 messages revealed the alleged victim had pestered him for \"casual sex\".\n\nMr Allan, who spent almost two years on bail, has said he intends to sue the Met.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nJerry Hayes, the barrister prosecuting the case against Mr Allan, agreed with Mr Evans' assertion that the problem was \"systemic\" within the police, telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"You speak to any barrister they will tell you stories that this happens every single day and it has got to stop.\"\n\nHe said anyone about to go to trial should seek a letter from the police force to say all evidence has been disclosed, and for those convicted, \"they will have to be looked at again\".\n\nThe cases of Liam Allan and Isaac Itiary are very different.\n\nAs far as Mr Allan is concerned, the Met has accepted the case \"clearly went wrong\".\n\nCrucial information was disclosed to defence barristers so late that the trial was already well under way.\n\nIn Mr Itiary's case, procedures appear to have been followed, though it's possible police could have acted more quickly.\n\nWhat the cases have done is shine a light on the importance of following disclosure rules.\n\nUndoubtedly the squeeze on resources, with cuts in the Crown Prosecution Service and policing and a national shortage of detectives, together with the increased caseload for sexual offences units, have played their part.\n\nAn inspection report this year also pinpointed inadequacies in training and supervision.\n\nSome see the problems as a direct result of a misplaced culture of \"believing\" the victim, where police don't look for or withhold contradictory evidence - but that's an assertion for the attorney general's inquiry to examine.\n\nCommander Richard Smith, who oversees the Met's rape investigations, said he understood the failure of the latest case would raise further concerns.\n\nHe added: \"The Met is completely committed to understanding what went wrong in the case of Mr Allan and is carrying out a joint review with the CPS, the findings of which will be published.\"\n\nBut Nigel Evans said the late disclosure of evidence was \"common\" in investigations.\n\nMr Evans was cleared in 2014 of charges of raping a student\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, he said: \"It seems to be in too many cases that police are cherry-picking the evidence that is there in order to get a prosecution. \"\n\nMr Evans called for a \"proper review\" involving police forces across the country, not just the Met.\n\nDame Elish Angiolini led a review in 2015 into how the Met and the CPS deal with rape cases.\n\nShe said she was \"concerned about the impact of excessive workloads on the effectiveness of both police and prosecutors\".\n\nIn response to her review, the Met said it had carried out \"significant work\", with an extra 196 officers allocated to the relevant units and additional lawyers for the CPS.\n\nFormer Met detective chief inspector Peter Kirkham told the Victoria Derbyshire programme it was a resources issue.\n\n\"Since 2010, we have reduced the number of police officers around the country by about 20,000 - that's about 15%,\" he said.\n\nHe warned that officers were \"stressed\" and \"haven't got time to do their jobs properly\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe number of adults reporting rape in England and Wales has more than doubled from 10,160 in 2011-12 to 23,851 in 2015-16, according to figures from the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary's rape monitoring group.\n\nA Home Office study suggests only 4% of cases of sexual violence reported to police are thought to be false.\n\nAnd statistics from Rape Crisis indicate only 5.7% of reported rape cases end in a conviction.", "GCHQ can detect the work of hackers around the globe\n\nThe UK has substantially increased its hacking capabilities in recent years, an official report says.\n\nThis includes the ability to attack other country's communications, weapons systems and even infrastructure.\n\nThe details were revealed in the annual report of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which oversees the work of intelligence agencies.\n\nIt said GCHQ had \"over-achieved\", creating double the number of new offensive cyber-capabilities expected.\n\nThe report said GCHQ's allocation of effort to develop hacks had increased \"very substantially\" from 2014.\n\nThe programme of developing the capabilities is divided into three tranches and GCHQ said that it had just finished the first. \"We… actually over-achieved and delivered [almost double the number of] capabilities [we were aiming for,\" an official from the agency told the committee.\n\nThe details of the successes are classified in the public version of the report.\n\nSuch capabilities could, in theory, be used to retaliate against others' cyber-attacks. The report comes a day after the Foreign Office publicly blamed North Korea for the Wannacry attack, which hit the NHS in May 2017.\n\nNot all the projects at GCHQ have been as successful. One - codenamed Foxtrot - was designed to deal with the spread of encryption.\n\nIt is described as an \"equipment interference programme to increase GCHQ's ability to operate in an environment of ubiquitous encryption\" and is considered critical to the agency's work.\n\nHowever, it was reported to have suffered a number of delays.\n\n\"The task has become more complex, the skills shortage has become more apparent,\" GCHQ told the committee.\n\n\"It is our number one priority and our number one worry.\"\n\nAnother priority was Project Golf - an effort to enhance its supercomputing capacity. GCHQ said this project was also critical but on track to be operational early next year.\n\nFor years the intelligence community, like much of government, has struggled with IT projects designed to facilitate the sharing of information.\n\nMI5's Alfa programme, described as crucial to the core business of managing information, is said by the committee to have faced major problems. It added that \"significant risks\" remained to its successful delivery.", "Arthur Collins had denied knowing the substance he threw was acid\n\nA man who threw acid across a packed London nightclub injuring 22 people has been jailed for 20 years.\n\nArthur Collins, the ex-boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne McCann, threw the corrosive substance at revellers in Mangle E8 in Dalston on 17 April.\n\nThe 25-year-old admitted throwing the liquid but had claimed he believed it was a date rape drug.\n\nHe was sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court to 20 years in prison with an extra five years on licence.\n\nLast month he was found guilty of five counts of GBH with intent and nine counts of ABH.\n\nSentencing Collins, of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, Judge Noel Lucas QC described the crime as a \"despicable act\".\n\nJudge Lucas said: \"His defence from first to last was carefully researched and choreographed in order to explain away the evidence against him.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV of the acid attack in London club\n\nCollins, he added, threw the acid \"irrespective of the persons on whom it landed\" and that \"his motivations for such a vicious course of conduct was nothing more than a perceived personal slight\".\n\nAddressing Collins, he said: \"You knew precisely what strong acid would do to human skin.\n\n\"Having thrown the acid over the club you slunk away and hid in the rear and pretended to be nothing to do with the mayhem you had caused.\n\n\"It was deliberate and calculated and you were intent on causing really serious harm to your victims.\"\n\nThe judge labelled him an \"accomplished liar\" and someone who has \"not the slightest remorse for his actions.\"\n\nCollins was in the dock wearing a suit and showed no reaction as his sentence was read out.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Club acid attack victim: \"I'm not the Lauren who walked into Mangle\"\n\nA total of 22 people were injured as a result of the attack, 16 of whom suffered serious burns.\n\nOne man suffered third-degree chemical burns to the left side of the face and required a skin graft. Others had eye injuries.\n\nOne of his victims Sophie Hall, from Poole, Dorset, said she had hoped for a life sentence, but felt justice had been served.\n\nShe said after the sentencing: \"Arthur showed no signs of remorse in court. I have to live with my scars for life.\"\n\nJudge Lucas said that security at Mangle E8 was \"poor\", adding that had it been better, the injuries and offences \"might not have happened\".\n\nThe BBC has contacted the club for comment.\n\nThe attack happened in Mangle E8 in Dalston on 17 April\n\nCollins had six previous convictions including using threatening words, possession of cocaine, drink-driving and assault, the court heard.\n\nHe was given a six-month sentence suspended for 12 months at Woolwich Crown Court for punching a man in a nightclub on 28 December 2015, and was still subject to the suspended sentence when he carried out the attack at Mangle E8.\n\nThe court also heard how he had made acid attack threats to the mother of an ex-girlfriend.\n\nThe father of Ms McCann's child referred to the attack as a \"stupid little mistake\" during Tuesday's hearing.\n\nVictims who read impact statements to the court spoke of feeling \"scared\", \"traumatised\" and \"suicidal\" as a result of the attack.\n\nThroughout the victims' statements, Collins showed little emotion.\n\nTwenty two people were injured when acid was thrown in the Mangle E8 nightclub\n\nCollins had claimed in court he had taken the bottle from a group of men with whom he had got into an argument.\n\nHe said he snatched it thinking it was a date rape drug.\n\n\"I wanted to show them the drug was gone; show them there was nothing left in the bottle.\"\n\nCCTV from inside the club shows Collins throwing acid at the men.\n\nSeemingly unaware of the mayhem caused, Collins returned to the dancefloor \"drinking, dancing, Snapchatting and having a good time\", the court heard.\n\nAt a preliminary hearing at magistrates court, the prosecutor said the incident bore \"the hallmarks of both drug-related activity and gang-related activity\".\n\nHowever, Collins and his legal team have always denied any kind of gang-related activity, insisting that there was \"not a shred of evidence\" to support the theory.", "Thousands of women in the UK cannot afford to buy sanitary products.\n\nResearch by the charity Plan International suggests that one in 10 girls and women - aged between 14 and 21 - in the UK has been affected at some point.\n\nA Scottish government pilot project is providing towels and tampons to those who need them through an Aberdeen food bank.\n\nTwo women tell the BBC's Scotland Editor Sarah Smith about their experiences.", "Legislation banning the use of wild animals in travelling circuses in Scotland has been passed.\n\nThe bill, which bans the use of non-domesticated animals for performance or exhibition in travelling shows, does not apply to static circuses.\n\nMSPs unanimously signed off the ban, the first of its kind in the UK.\n\nEnvironment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said the move would send a message to the world that Scotland does not condone the misuse of wild animals.\n\nThere are not currently any travelling circuses based in Scotland which use wild animals.\n\nHowever, a Scottish government survey found that more than 95% of respondents were in favour of a ban, and legislation was introduced at Holyrood on \"ethical\" grounds.\n\nThe ban does not apply to static circuses, but a circus leader warned MSPs during committee consideration that a law on such grounds \"will eventually close your zoos\".\n\nMs Cunningham conceded that such travelling circuses \"rarely\" visit Scotland, but called it \"a preventative measure based on ethical concerns\".\n\nShe said: \"This is an important act that will not only prevent travelling circuses ever showing wild animals in Scotland in the future, but will demonstrate to the wider world that we are one of the growing number of countries that no longer condones the use of wild animals in this way.\"\n\nShe said travelling circuses which do not feature wild animals \"will always be welcome in Scotland\".\n\nRoseanna Cunningham said the bill was a \"preventative measure\"\n\nScottish Conservative MSP Donald Cameron said the legislation meant \"we will finally and at last truly be able to say Nelly the Elephant has packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus\".\n\nLabour's Claudia Beamish also spoke in favour, and said she hoped static circuses would be subject to a similar ban in future.\n\nGreen MSP Mark Ruskell said it was \"unethical\" to make animals live in circuses their whole lives, while Lib Dem Liam McArthur also strongly backed the bill.\n\nMSPs had raised concerns earlier in the legislative process about a lack of definitions in the bill, including a definition of a travelling circus.\n\nThis was added at committee stage, which also featured a lengthy debate about what constitutes a wild animal - including references to alpacas, wallabies, raccoon dogs and even rabbits.\n\nWith members reassured by the amendments, the bill passed its final vote unanimously.\n\nA ban on wild animals in all circuses in the Republic of Ireland is to come into force from 1 January 2018.\n\nA total of 18 other EU countries have banned or restricted the use of wild animals in travelling circuses, in addition to 14 other countries, but a 2007 review by the UK government found insufficient evidence to support a science-based ban on welfare grounds.", "Liam Allan said he was \"disappointed\" he had not yet received an apology from the Met Police\n\nA man wrongly accused of rape says he will sue the Metropolitan Police over its failure to disclose vital evidence that led to the collapse of the trial.\n\nLiam Allan was charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault but his trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.\n\nThe 22-year-old student said he was \"disappointed\" he had not yet received an apology.\n\nThe Met Police said it was \"urgently reviewing the investigation\".\n\nThe case against Mr Allan at Croydon Crown Court was dropped after three days when the evidence on a computer disk containing 40,000 messages revealed the alleged victim pestered him for \"casual sex\".\n\nTalking to the Victoria Derbyshire programme, Mr Allan said: \"University is meant to be the best years of your life and the last two years have been spent worrying and not concentrating on anything.\n\n\"It has completely ripped apart my normal personal life.\"\n\nThe 22-year-old student had been charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault\n\nHe added he had not yet received any contact or an apology from the Met and found that \"disappointing\".\n\n\"I feel relief on one side, that the case is over, but now there's the stress of getting compensation and the process of suing - so it's not over completely\", he said.\n\nMr Allan faced a possible jail term of 12 years and being put on the sex offenders register for life had he been found guilty.\n\nHe said he felt \"pure fear\" when he learned he had been accused of rape but would never be able to understand why the accusations were made.\n\nIt is understood police had looked at thousands of phone messages when reviewing evidence in the case, but had failed to disclose to the prosecution and defence teams messages between the complainant and her friends which cast doubt on the allegations against Mr Allan.\n\nA Met spokesman said the force was \"urgently reviewing this investigation and will be working with the Crown Prosecution Service to understand exactly what has happened in this case.\n\n\"The Met understands the concerns that have been raised as a result of this case being dismissed from court and the ongoing review will seek to address those,\" he said.\n\nA spokesman for the CPS said: \"In November 2017, the police provided more material in the case of Liam Allan. Upon a review of that material, it was decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.\n\n\"We will now be conducting a management review together with the Metropolitan Police to examine the way in which this case was handled.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Athletics\n\nBirmingham is set to be officially announced as the host of the 2022 Commonwealth Games on Thursday.\n\nIt was the only interested city to submit a bid before the original 30 September deadline but was deemed \"not fully compliant\" by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF).\n\nThe CGF then gave rivals until 30 November to apply.\n\nEarlier this month the CGF reiterated it needed \"further clarification on issues\" before choosing a host city.\n\nBut the BBC understands Birmingham has now finally prevailed in its attempt to stage the £750m showpiece, the most expensive sports event in Britain since the London 2012 Olympics.\n\nThe bidding process has been beset with problems, with the South African city of Durban originally awarded the Games in 2015 before being stripped of the event in March because it did not meet the CGF criteria.\n\nBirmingham beat Liverpool in September to be Britain's candidate city and the bid subsequently received government backing.\n\nAs part of its bid, Birmingham has proposed to create the UK's largest permanent athletics stadium, supplemented by four indoor arenas.\n\nBirmingham is securing its first global sports event and will become the third British city since 2000 to host the Commonwealth Games.\n\nOther than Liverpool, it never faced a proper rival and was made to wait by the CGF, but none of that will bother a bid team that was always confident of victory.\n\nThe fact there was only one official bidder is another reminder of the image problem facing big sports events. But the CGF has a new strategy designed to help support host cities, and believes its partnership with Birmingham can help find a solution to the challenge facing sports federations.\n\nMeanwhile, a bitter five-month long bin dispute has finally been resolved but amid further budget cuts, West Midlands local authorities will need to raise 25% of the overall cost of staging the Games.\n\nOrganisers insist essential services will not be affected, and that the event will prove great value for the West Midlands, showcasing a diverse and youthful community, and leaving a sporting and economic legacy.\n\nBut after the fiasco of the London Olympic Stadium's finances, there will be significant scrutiny of the costs and legacy benefits.\n\nHowever, after London 2012, Glasgow 2014, the start of the Tour de France and recent world championships in rugby, women's cricket and athletics, Britain is now set to organise yet another major sports event.\n\nIt is a reminder of the importance the government now places on hosting sport as a platform for trade and tourism as the country prepares for Brexit.", "After seeing a news article about some girls in Leeds who missed school because they couldn't afford menstrual products, one teenager took it upon herself to change things.\n\n\"I'm still at school and to imagine what it would be like to miss a week of school every month is what really got to me,\" says 18-year-old Amika George.\n\n\"So I started a petition and called it #FreePeriods.\n\n\"The idea is that everyone on free school meals would get free menstrual products.\n\nAmika George is calling for free menstrual products for those on free school meals\n\n\"I think some people will say they are really cheap, but it's easy to forget that you need to meet those costs every single month for several years in your life.\n\n\"So in the long run it adds up.\"\n\nAmika organised a protest opposite Downing Street where celeb speakers - including Adwoa Aboah, Aisling Bea and Daisy Lowe - called on Theresa May to provide free menstruation products for those already on free school meals.\n\nShe says the government has been \"dismissive of period poverty\" because it says schools have discretion over how they use the money in their budget.\n\n\"We all know schools are incredibly stretched for money and budgets are being cut,\" says Amika.\n\n\"But also there's still a lot of taboo around periods.\n\n\"It's something that doesn't make any sense to me as to why a completely natural process that half the world's population goes through is unspeakable and scary and disgusting.\n\n\"And that is something that really needs to change.\"\n\nIf given the chance to talk to the prime minister, Amika would say: \"There are girls missing school for up to a week every month and that's damaging the economy because it means those girls are less likely to get amazing jobs.\n\n\"There are people who are suffering from extreme poverty in the UK and it's awful she's not done enough to combat that.\n\n\"I'd say my solution of providing free menstrual products to all girls on free meals would work.\"\n\nThe government says it's invested more than £11bn since 2011 to help schools support their most disadvantaged pupils.\n\nIn a statement, it told Newsbeat: \"Current guidance to schools on relationship and sex education encourages schools to make adequate and sensitive arrangements to help girls cope with menstruation.\"\n\nFind us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat", "Homes and businesses will have a legal right to demand faster broadband speed by 2020, the government has said, after rejecting a voluntary offer from BT.\n\nIt has promised that the whole of the UK will have access to speeds of at least 10 Mbps by 2020.\n\nBT, which is responsible for the infrastructure, had previously offered to carry out improvements according to its own timetable.\n\nBut the company said it accepted the government's decision.\n\nUnder the plan, broadband providers will face a legal requirement to provide this minimum standard to anyone requesting it, subject to a cost threshold.\n\nThe UK lags behind many countries in terms of speed and reliability.\n\nBT customer Lee Wootton-Rowley, who lives in Wakefield, contacted the BBC to say: \"I get 5 Mbps and an upload speed of 0.9 in 2017.\n\n\"I lived in Malta for four years where I was getting 60 Mbps and 20 upload speed.\"\n\nMike Simatos, from Rotherhithe in south-east London, said his broadband supply speed was no faster than 4 Mbps.\n\nHe described the service as \"appalling\".\n\nRegulator Ofcom said that 4% of UK premises, or about 1.1 million, could not access broadband speeds of at least 10 Mbps.\n\nIt said poor connections were a particular concern for small businesses, with almost 230,000 unable to get a decent service.\n\nOfcom defines superfast broadband as a download speed of 30 Mbps or more.\n\nMatt Hancock, minister of state for digital said on the BBC's Today programme: \"Access means you can phone up somebody, ask for it and then someone has the legal duty to deliver on that promise.\n\n\"It is about having the right to demand it, so it will be an on-demand programme.\n\n\"So if you don't go on the internet, aren't interested, then you won't phone up and demand this.\"\n\nIn response to the announcement, BT said: \"BT and Openreach want to get on with the job of making decent broadband available to everyone in the UK, so we'll continue to explore the commercial options for bringing faster speeds to those parts of the country which are hardest to reach.\"\n\nIn one sense, there is little new in today's announcement - people in remote places were promised a legal right to a minimum 10Mbps broadband service by 2020 and now they are going to get it.\n\nBut in rejecting BT's plan for a voluntary agreement to fill in most of the remaining parts of the country with a decent service, the government is taking quite a risk.\n\nThe plan, opposed as anti-competitive by BT's rivals, would at least have given some certainty.\n\nBut now it is far from clear who will provide this Universal Service Obligation - the government hopes new providers will come in alongside BT's Openreach - or what technology will be employed.\n\nNew fast fibre firms are now competing in the cities, but the 1.1 million homes and offices Ofcom says still cannot get a 10Mbps service are mainly in rural areas, and it is not clear they will be keen to lay cables along every lane.\n\nNow it is the regulator's job to make sure this all works.\n\nThere are now two years to push through new legislation, work out how to police it, and determine what is a reasonable cost threshold for hooking up really remote homes.\n\nShould be a doddle, shouldn't it?\n\nRival firms, which had talked of legal action if the government accepted BT's offer, welcomed the decision.\n\nBoth TalkTalk and Sky said the government had made the right decision.\n\nTristia Harrison, TalkTalk chief executive, said: \"By opting for formal regulation rather than weaker promises, ministers are guaranteeing consumers will get the minimum speeds they need at a price they can afford,\" she said.\n\n\"The whole industry now needs to work together to ensure customers see the benefits as quickly as possible.\"\n\nStephen van Rooyen, Sky's UK and Ireland chief executive, said: \"Government have made the right decision by choosing a fair and transparent approach that maintains competition, keeps prices fair and gives consumers a legal right to request broadband.\"\n\nFollowing the introduction of secondary legislation early next year, it is thought it will take another two years before the right is enforced by Ofcom.\n\nUnder BT's offer, which the company had said would cost up to £600m, 98.5% of premises would have had access to a fixed broadband service in 2020.\n\nAnother 0.7% would have access to a service delivered by a combination of fixed and wireless connections.\n\nThe remaining 0.8% in the most difficult-to-reach areas would have been guided toward satellite or on-demand fibre solutions.", "Damian Green, one of Theresa May's closest allies, has been sacked from the cabinet after an inquiry found he had breached the ministerial code.\n\nHe was \"asked to quit\" after he was found to have made \"inaccurate and misleading\" statements over what he knew about claims pornography was found on his office computer in 2008.\n\nHe also apologised for making writer Kate Maltby feel uncomfortable in 2015.\n\nLaura Kuenssberg said the PM \"had little choice but to ask him to go\".\n\nThe BBC's political editor said the departure of a close friend left Mrs May a \"lonelier figure\".\n\nMr Green, 61, who as first secretary of state was effectively the PM's deputy, is the third cabinet minister to resign in the space of two months - Sir Michael Fallon and Priti Patel both quit in November.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May \"will miss his advice, will miss his support\" - Laura Kuenssberg on Damian Green sacking\n\nIn her written response, Mrs May expressed \"deep regret\" at Mr Green's departure but said his actions \"fell short\" of the conduct expected of a cabinet minister.\n\nLike Mrs May, Mr Green campaigned for Remain in last year's EU referendum and had been a leading voice in Cabinet for a \"softer\" Brexit.\n\nHe had been under investigation regarding allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards journalist and Tory activist Ms Maltby. He denied suggestions that he made unwanted advances towards her in 2015.\n\nHe also denied that he had either downloaded or viewed pornography on a computer removed from his Commons office in 2008 and said police had \"never suggested to me that improper material was found\".\n\nIn his resignation letter, Mr Green said statements he made about what he knew about the pornography could have been \"clearer\", conceding that his lawyers had been informed by Met Police lawyers about their initial discovery in 2008 and the police had also raised the matter with him in a phone call in 2013.\n\n\"I apologise that my statements were misleading on this point,\" he said.\n\nHealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt told BBC Radio 4's Today programme Mr Green had \"lied\" about \"a particular incident\" and that was why he had to go but it was a \"sad moment\".\n\nAsked if his departure left Theresa May more isolated, he said \"leadership is lonely\" but she had shown \"extraordinary resilience in very challenging circumstances\" and was someone \"who is capable of taking very difficult decisions\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"I was shocked\": Former detective constable Neil Lewis speaks to the BBC\n\nAn official report by the Cabinet Office found that public statements he made relating to what he knew about the claims were \"inaccurate and misleading\" and constituted a breach of the ministerial code.\n\nThe report also found that although there were \"competing and contradictory accounts of what were private meetings\" between himself and Ms Maltby, the investigation found her account \"to be plausible\".\n\nHer parents, Colin and Victoria Maltby, said in a statement they were not surprised to find that the inquiry found Mr Green to have been \"untruthful as a minister, nor that they found our daughter to be a plausible witness\".\n\nThey praised their 31-year-old daughter for her courage in speaking out about the \"abuse of authority\".\n\nMs Maltby is not commenting on Mr Green's resignation until she receives more details from the Cabinet Office.\n\nDamian Green was a confidant of the prime minister for many years\n\nDamian Green has never been a politician with a huge public persona, or even a hugely well-known character.\n\nBut he was an extremely important ally of Theresa May. Not just a political friend but a genuine one, close to her for decades.\n\nThe government, so the joke in Westminster goes, has become \"weak and stable\", with number 10 taking back some control of the agenda in recent weeks.\n\nSo it is not likely that Mr Green's exit will suddenly unleash another bout of turmoil.\n\nBut the prime minister clearly took this decision very seriously.\n\nShe is a politician who guards her views, her own persona very closely. To lose one of the few who understood her, who she trusts, leaves her a lonelier figure.\n\nIn her reply, the PM said while the report had found his conduct to have been \"professional and proper\" in general, it was right that he had apologised for making Ms Maltby \"feel uncomfortable\".\n\nAddressing breaches of the ministerial code, she added: \"While I can understand the considerable distress caused to you by some of the allegations made in the past few weeks, I know that you share my commitment to maintaining the high standards that the public demands of ministers of the crown.\n\n\"It is therefore with deep regret that I asked you to resign from the government and have accepted your resignation.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Helen Catt This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Helen Catt This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Green's political future has been in question since Ms Maltby claimed in an article in the Times that the minister \"fleetingly\" touched her knee in a pub in 2015 and in 2016 sent her a \"suggestive\" text message which left her feeling \"awkward, embarrassed and professionally compromised\".\n\nMr Green, an acquaintance of the journalist's parents, said the claims were \"hurtful\" and \"completely false\".\n\nKate Maltby's account was found to be plausible, the report says\n\nBut they were referred for investigation by top civil servant Sue Gray - who is examining other claims that emerged during a swirl of allegations about harassment and other misconduct at Westminster.\n\nThe inquiry was subsequently expanded to consider claims that legal pornography was found on a computer removed from Mr Green's office in the House of Commons in 2008.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIt was one of a number of possessions seized by the police during a controversial inquiry into the leaking of official documents by a civil servant to Mr Green, at the time a shadow Home Office minister under David Cameron.\n\nMrs May, who has known Mr Green since they were contemporaries at Oxford, brought him into the cabinet after she became PM in 2016 and promoted him to first secretary of state in July.\n\nSince then, he has played a substantial role behind the scenes chairing key cabinet committees and has also deputised for Mrs May at Prime Minister's Questions.\n\nIt is not clear who will replace him in those roles but unconfirmed reports have suggested there will be no announcement until the New Year, with Parliament due to go on recess on Thursday.\n• None Theresa May loses one of the few who understood her", "Michael Gove has hit back at claims the price of cheddar cheese will go up by 40% if Britain leaves the EU without a trade deal.\n\nThe environment secretary said that would not happen if consumers started buying more British cheddar.\n\n\"I am deeply concerned about your unpatriotic attitude towards cheese,\" he joked to the Labour MP quizzing him.\n\nHe said his department was \"very pro UK cheddar\" - and Britain's dairy farmers would respond to what the market wants.\n\nHis attempts to show off his knowledge of cheddar, by naming varieties such as \"Montgomery or Lincolnshire Poacher\", were cut short by environment committee chairman Neil Parish.\n\nBritain currently imports \"lots of cheddar\" from Ireland, the Commons environment committee was told, but if it leaves the EU without a trade deal and goes to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules it will face tariffs on that product of 40%.\n\nThat meant prices in British shops would go up by 40%, Labour's Angela Smith claimed.\n\nMr Gove said it would be important to have these WTO tariffs if Britain left without a deal to prevent British farmers being undercut by cheap food imports - but he insisted the price of cheddar would not rise by 40%.\n\nMr Gove has criticised standards in US chicken farms\n\nAgriculture minister George Eustice told the environment committee: \"What would probably happen, if everybody put up such a tariff wall, is that we would consume more of the cheese we produce, rather than send it to Ireland, and Ireland would be selling us less cheese.\"\n\nThe UK currently exports £320m of cheddar to Ireland every year and imports £389m of cheddar, he told the committee (Ireland accounts for about 80% of all cheddar imports, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board).\n\nMr Gove suggested going to WTO rules was as likely as \"a tsunami hitting the South West of England\" and the government did not want to do it - but he told the MPs that his department was planning for such an eventuality.\n\nHe said that if it happened it would lead to higher food prices in the shops, but also more export opportunities for farmers. Mr Eustice quoted research by the Resolution Foundation that under WTO rules retail prices might rise by 4.3%.\n\nMr Gove also suggested he could block a post-Brexit trade deal with the US if it included allowing the import of chlorine-washed chickens.\n\nHe said it was a matter of animal welfare rather than food safety - saying American chicken farmers were \"less respectful of the birds\" - and Britain would need to be \"assertive\" in trade talks.\n\nHe claimed his department \"punches above its weight\" and has \"extra muscle\" in Whitehall so it would be able to insist on keeping its chicken and other food standards.\n\n\"The Cabinet is agreed that there should be no compromise on high animal welfare and environmental standards,\" he said.\n\nIn response to Mr Gove's comments the pro-Remain Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, of the Open Britain group, said Mr Gove's comments meant \"a trade deal with Trump's America won't be happening anytime soon\".", "Chief EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said British banks will lose their 'passporting rights', which allow them to serve clients across the EU without the need for licences in individual countries, when the UK leaves the EU.\n\nDaily Politics reporter Emma Vardy looks at whether banks may move their headquarters out of London, and whether the city could remain the financial centre of Europe after Brexit.", "Stock image: Capita is appealing against a ruling that it failed to give a new father full paternity leave rights\n\nA case that could determine whether firms have to pay fathers on maternity leave the same as women is being heard by the Employment Appeal Tribunal.\n\nThe support services firm Capita is appealing against a ruling in June that it failed to give a new father full paternity leave rights.\n\nMadasar Ali, whose wife had post-natal depression, was offered two weeks' pay, whereas a woman is paid for 14 weeks.\n\nA tribunal ruled Mr Ali, a call centre worker, had been discriminated against.\n\nThe BBC's legal correspondent Clive Coleman says the outcome of the appeal will be binding for similar cases in the future.\n\nIn 2015, new rules around shared parental leave came into force to give fathers (or the other parent or partner) the opportunity to stay at home caring for the baby.\n\nFor the first two weeks after birth, mothers must still take the time off but the rest of the leave, up to 50 weeks, can be shared between the parents if they meet certain criteria.\n\nThe government said about 285,000 working couples would be eligible under the rules.\n\nFigures obtained by BBC Wales from HMRC showed 6,100 fathers and 542,850 mothers in England, and 250 fathers and 27,650 mothers in Wales, received a statutory payment to take time off work with their children in 2016/17.\n\nEmployment lawyer Lindsey Bell told BBC Breakfast that companies were giving \"enhanced maternity leave over and above\" what they have to for women - but not for men.\n\nShe said in Mr Ali's case, his wife was being encouraged to go back to work because of her post-natal depression, so he had to take on the childcare - but he was not being paid the same as female colleagues.\n\nShe said in that situation \"that does seem to be discriminatory\".\n\nJohn Adams, from Dad Blog UK, is the main carer for his two children. He told BBC Breakfast that the leave offered for men and women was \"inconsistent\".\n\n\"It's small [the number of men taking up shared parental leave] but then this is the crux of the issue,\" he said.\n\n\"If men aren't getting the same rights as women, they can't actually get involved in family life, they can't afford to take the time off, so they don't, so from the earliest days they are basically discriminated against.\"\n\nTom Higham said he wants equal rights for paternity pay\n\nTom Higham, who has a one-year-old son Jack, told the BBC Victoria Derbyshire programme: \"We are not advocating for lower pay for mothers.\n\n\"What we are advocating for is equal rights to pay and compensation for men who take paternity leave, because if you want a balanced family, a balanced economy and all of the positives that ensue for the child and for the family, and for the workplace, then you have to make an effort to make pay more equal.\"\n\nJosh Lawson, who got 22 weeks' full paternity leave to look after five-month-old son Isaac, told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme it was \"absolutely critical to get that time to bond\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Labour veteran MP Paul Flynn has accused Michael Gove of a \"lie... a deception\" over the Vote Leave campaign slogan which claimed Brexit could free up £350m a week for the UK.\n\nMr Flynn, MP for Newport West, brought the controversial figure up during an evidence session of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on the impact of Brexit on trade in food.\n\nMr Gove, who was one of the leaders of the Vote Leave campaign, said that if Mr Flynn was going to suggest to his constituents that they \"were too stupid to understand the arguments... then good luck at the next election\".", "The children all lived in Grenfell Tower\n\nFive children who survived the Grenfell Tower fire will deliver this year's alternative Christmas message.\n\nThe message, broadcast on Channel 4 on Christmas Day, will urge people to \"love and cherish\" their families.\n\nThe children, aged between seven and 12, will also speak about the importance of having a home and their experiences on the night of the fire.\n\nChildren who survived the tragedy also took part in a service at St Paul's to mark six months since the fire.\n\nLast year, the alternative Christmas message was given by Brendan Cox, the widower of the MP Jo Cox, who was murdered during the EU referendum campaign.\n\nIn this year's message, 10-year-old Hayam Atmani, who lived on the 15th floor of the tower, will say: \"My message for everyone at Christmas is to stay as a family, and don't suffer about anything.\n\n\"I know this has been a really hard time for everyone, but everyone went through and everyone helped as a family. So I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.\"\n\nShe will describe the family's life in a hotel, where she will also spend her birthday on 27 December, as \"not that much fun\".\n\nSisters Megan and Luana Gomes, 10 and 12, who were both put into induced comas after the fire, to be treated for smoke inhalation, will also take part in the broadcast.\n\nHaving spent five months in a hotel before moving into a temporary flat, they will both speak of the importance of having a home.\n\nMegan will say: \"My Christmas message is that I think all families, children and parents should have a nice warm cosy home.\n\n\"I just want everyone in the world to have a house at least.\"\n\nLuana will add: \"My Christmas message is that everybody should love and respect each other because you never know what tomorrow will be like. And it is important to love and cherish your family.\"\n\nThe children will also recount their memories of the night of the fire.\n\nBrothers Amiel and Danel Miller, 10 and seven, who lived on the 17th floor, will describe hearing screaming and their mother telling them to get their clothes on and run down the stairs.\n\nDanel will say: \"We got outside and then we saw stuff falling down from the tower and grass on fire.\"\n\nBut the children will also talk of happier things, including memories of their former homes and their favourite aspects of Christmas.\n\nHayam will describe how her friends admired her former home. \"Everyone came. They were just saying, 'Oh that's so cool! I wish I lived here.' You could see the whole area; parks and stuff,\" she will say.\n\nMegan will describe how her family always got a real Christmas tree to gather around.\n\nAnd Danel will bring a smile to viewers' faces, telling them that his Christmas message is to \"share food!\".\n\nPrevious alternative Christmas messengers have included whistle-blower Edward Snowden and the parents of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.\n\nChannel 4 has broadcast the series since 1993. This year's will air at 3pm.\n• None Grenfell Tower fire: Who were the victims?", "The report says 120,000 children are homeless and living in temporary accommodation\n\nHomelessness in England is a \"national crisis\" and the government's attitude to tackling it is \"unacceptably complacent\", a committee of MPs say.\n\nA Public Accounts Committee report found there were more than 9,000 rough sleepers and some 78,000 families living in temporary accommodation.\n\nThe cross-party research said there was a shortage of housing options for homeless people and those at risk.\n\nThe government says it is investing more than £1 billion on the problem.\n\nThe definition of homelessness under law includes rough sleepers, single people in hostels and those in temporary accommodation.\n\nSince 2011, the number of people sleeping on the streets has increased by 134 per cent, the report says.\n\nMeanwhile, those living in temporary accommodation has risen by about two-thirds in the last seven years.\n\nSome 120,000 children are among those without permanent housing, the report says.\n\nLabour MP Meg Hillier, who chairs the committee, says the government's approach to tackling the problem of homelessness has been an \"abject failure\".\n\n\"The government must do more to understand and measure the real world costs and causes of homelessness and put in place the joined-up strategy that is so desperately needed.\n\n\"That means properly addressing the shortage of realistic housing options for those at risk of homelessness or already in temporary accommodation.\n\n\"More fundamentally, it means getting a grip on the market's failure to provide genuinely affordable homes, both to rent and to buy.\"\n\nMs Hillier suggests action such as providing financial support to local authorities with acute shortages of suitable housing.", "Fourteen states backed a similar motion on Jerusalem at the UN Security Council on Monday\n\nThe US says it \"will be taking names\" during a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution criticising its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.\n\nPermanent representative Nikki Haley warned member states that President Donald Trump had asked her to report on \"who voted against us\" on Thursday.\n\nThe draft resolution does not mention the US, but says any decisions on Jerusalem should be cancelled.\n\nMr Trump later threatened to cut off financial aid to those who backed it.\n\n\"They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us. Well, we're watching those votes,\" he told reporters at the White House. \"Let them vote against us. We'll save a lot. We don't care.\"\n\nThe status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians.\n\nIsrael occupied the east of the city, previously occupied by Jordan, in the 1967 Middle East war and regards the entire city as its indivisible capital.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why the ancient city of Jerusalem is so important\n\nThe Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state and its final status is meant to be discussed in the latter stages of peace talks.\n\nIsraeli sovereignty over Jerusalem has never been recognised internationally, and all countries currently maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv. However, President Trump has told the US state department to start work on moving the US embassy.\n\nThe 193-member UN General Assembly will hold a rare emergency special session on Thursday at the request of Arab and Muslim states, who condemned Mr Trump's decision to reverse decades of US policy earlier this month.\n\nThe Palestinians called for the meeting after the US vetoed a Security Council resolution, which affirmed that any decisions on the status of Jerusalem were \"null and void and must be rescinded\", and urged all states to \"refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the holy city\".\n\nThe other 14 members of the Security Council voted in favour of the draft, but Ms Haley described it as an \"insult\".\n\nThe non-binding resolution put forward by Turkey and Yemen for the General Assembly vote mirrors the vetoed Security Council draft.\n\nThe Palestinian permanent observer at the UN, Riyad Mansour, said he hoped there would be \"overwhelming support\" for the resolution.\n\nBut on Tuesday, Ms Haley warned in a letter to dozens of member states that encouraged them to \"know that the president and the US take this vote personally\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nikki Haley This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those countries who voted against us. We will take note of each and every vote on this issue,\" she wrote, according to journalists who were shown the letter.\n\n\"The president's announcement does not affect final status negotiations in any way, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem,\" she added. \"The president also made sure to support the status quo of Jerusalem's holy sites.\"\n\nMs Haley echoed the warning on Twitter, writing: \"The US will be taking names.\"\n\nPalestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki and his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, accused the US of intimidation.\n\n\"We see that the United States, which was left alone, is now resorting to threats. No honourable, dignified country would bow down to this pressure,\" Mr Cavusoglu told a joint news conference in Ankara on Wednesday before travelling to New York.", "Damian Green has been a confidant of the prime minister for many years\n\nDamian Green was one of the prime minister's closest allies in government. A university friend, he entered Parliament at the same time as Theresa May.\n\nBut now he has been sacked from the cabinet after an investigation found he breached the ministerial code.\n\nMr Green was a leading Conservative figure for 20 years and had been a friend of the prime minister since they were at Oxford university together in the 1970s.\n\nThey entered Parliament together in 1997.\n\nLater, he served in the Home Office during the coalition government.\n\nAfter she became Tory leader in June 2016, Mrs May brought the 61-year old into her cabinet and a year later named him as her effective deputy by giving him the title of first secretary of state.\n\nSince then, the former journalist, who campaigned for Remain in the EU referendum, has been a vital cog in a government beset by divisions and infighting over Brexit.\n\nHe has played a substantial role behind the scenes chairing key cabinet committees and, more publicly, deputised for Mrs May at Prime Minister's Questions as recently as last week.\n\nHe spent much of his early political career in the backroom, but the MP for Ashford in Kent has twice hit the headlines in a big way over the past decade.\n\nHis political future has been in question since journalist and Conservative activist Kate Maltby suggested, in an article in November for the Times, he had behaved inappropriately towards her.\n\nThe 31-year old claimed the minister \"fleetingly\" touched her knee in a pub in 2015 and in 2016 sent her a \"suggestive\" text message which left her feeling \"awkward, embarrassed and professionally compromised\".\n\nMr Green, who is an acquaintance of the journalist's parents, said the claims were \"hurtful\" and \"completely false\".\n\nBut they were referred to the Cabinet Office for investigation by a top civil servant amid a swirl of allegations about harassment and other misconduct at Westminster.\n\nIn his resignation letter, Mr Green apologised to Ms Maltby for making her feel \"uncomfortable\".\n\nThe civil servant's inquiry also considered claims that legal pornography was found on a computer removed from Mr Green's office in the House of Commons in 2008.\n\nDamian Green and his wife, Alicia Collinson, have two daughters\n\nMr Green, shadow immigration minister at the time, was arrested in November 2008 and was held for nine hours as part of a Scotland Yard inquiry into a Home Office leak.\n\nThe arrest was described as disproportionate and flawed by two inquiries in 2009 and no charges were brought against him.\n\nMr Green, who is married to barrister Alicia Collinson and has two grown-up daughters, has always strenuously denied that he either viewed or downloaded any pornographic material on his Commons computer.\n\nBut, in his resignation letter, he said he should have been clear that police lawyers talked to his lawyers in 2008 about the pornography, and the police raised the matter again in a phone call in 2013.\n\nAlthough it took Mr Green a comparatively long while to make it to the cabinet table, he is no stranger to being close to the centre of power - giving up a successful career in newspapers and broadcasting to work as an official in John Major's Downing Street in the early 1990s.\n\nThe Welsh-born politician was on the Tories' pro-European wing, having refused to rule out the UK one day joining the euro, long after many of his colleagues had done so.\n\nBut unlike EU diehards such as Ken Clarke and Lord Heseltine, who also campaigned on the remain side in the 2016 referendum, he has been on something of a journey and has taken a more pragmatic approach to Brexit.", "Police and the bomb disposal unit were seen outside a property in Chesterfield, Derbyshire\n\nAction has been taken against an alleged Islamist terror plot in the UK that could have happened at Christmas, counter terrorism sources say.\n\nFour men were arrested early on Tuesday in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire.\n\nAn Army bomb disposal team cordoned off a street in Chesterfield where a 31-year-old man was arrested. Nearby homes were evacuated.\n\nThree other men aged 22, 36 and 41 were arrested in the Burngreave and Meersbrook areas of Sheffield.\n\nAll four suspects were detained on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.\n\nThey have been taken to a police station in West Yorkshire for questioning. The cordon in Chesterfield was later lifted.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Elizabeth Fogarty lives on the street where a raid by police took place this morning\n\nThe cordon around one of the properties - the Fatima community centre on Brunswick Road in Burngreave - was extended on Tuesday afternoon and the bomb disposal unit attended.\n\nA large number of police vehicles and officers were outside the two-storey building. The main door appeared to be broken on the ground.\n\nFive raids at houses took place on Tuesday at:\n\nFour men were arrested - all at their home addresses.\n\nAt 21:30 GMT, police said searches had been stood down for the evening but would resume at the scenes in Burngreave and Chesterfield in the morning.\n\nA neighbour in Shirebrook Road, Sheffield, reported hearing \"an enormous bang\" as one of the raids took place at 05:30.\n\nCarol Perry, who lives two doors from the scene, said: \"I was asleep and then I was woken suddenly... and the house shook.\n\n\"My immediate thought was that it was an earthquake.\"\n\nA large police presence could be seen outside the Fatima community centre in Sheffield\n\nA spokeswoman from Counter Terrorism Policing North East said: \"The public may have heard a loud bang at the time as police entered one of the properties, but it was not an explosion.\n\n\"[We] would like to reassure them that it was part of the method to gain entry to the property.\"\n\nRetired Joan Miller, 63, who lives opposite the run-down house, said she looked out of her window to see many plain-clothed armed officers in the street.\n\nMs Miller said: \"[There] was very loud bang. It shook the house.\n\n\"I pulled the curtains and saw lots of armed men in the street, so I kept watching because that was quite extraordinary.\"\n\nPolice and Army activity is continuing in Chesterfield\n\nShe said the officers shouted \"very abruptly\" for people to stay in their homes.\n\nElizabeth Fogarty, who lives across the road from the house in Meersbrook, said: \"I've only recently moved up from London.\n\n\"One of the reasons we moved up north to Sheffield is because we felt quite nervous living in London with all the terrorist attacks taking place.\"\n\nThere are two types of terrorism raids in the UK. Many occur very quietly as detectives knock on the door and take the suspect into custody under normal police powers.\n\nThen there are the full-on raids where doors or windows have to be knocked in, cordons set up and the bomb squad called.\n\nSuch operations are only ever mounted because secret intelligence - perhaps from an intercepted communication and often only fragmentary - suggests there is something at a property they need to get to the bottom of.\n\nNone of which is proof that any of those who have been arrested have committed an offence - but officers now have up to 14 days, subject to court oversight, to build a case.\n\nOne of their priorities is likely to be forensically examining phones. All recent major terrorism investigations have turned on not just what officers found during searches, but what they uncovered from online lives.\n\nSupt Una Jennings of South Yorkshire Police said: \"I understand our local communities will have concerns about this morning's police activity but I want to offer my reassurance that we will continue to serve and protect the public of South Yorkshire.\"\n\nDerbyshire's Assistant Chief Constable Bill McWilliam said: \"We of course understand that police activity of this nature can be unsettling.\n\n\"However, please be reassured, the arrest we wanted to make has been made.\n\n\"Our advice remains to be vigilant, which is not different to our day-to-day advice in the current climate, but continue to go about your business as usual.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Angela Merkel visits the scene soon after the 2016 attack in Berlin\n\nGermany has admitted that mistakes were made in the aftermath of last year's attack on a Christmas market in Berlin that left 12 dead.\n\n\"Everything humanly possible\" was being done to help those affected and improve security, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on the first anniversary of the attack.\n\nMrs Merkel has come under fire for her government's response.\n\nFamilies have said they were not given timely information and that they were sent bills for the costs of autopsies.\n\nAfter a private ceremony for the bereaved and emergency workers, Mrs Merkel said it was time to work to \"correct the things that went wrong\".\n\n\"Not only to guarantee security, but to give those whose lives were destroyed or impacted, the chance to return to their lives as well as possible,\" she added.\n\nThe chancellor also attended an event that unveiled a memorial for the victims at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz, the site of the Christmas market.\n\nSeveral family members had accused Mrs Merkel of \"inaction\", saying that she had failed to reach out to them. She met victims' relatives for the first time on Monday, and described the conversation as \"brutally honest\".\n\nLast year's attack in Berlin also left dozens injured\n\nEarlier, in an article in the Tagesspiegel newspaper (in German), Justice Minister Heiko Maas acknowledged the country was not \"sufficiently prepared\" for the consequences of such an attack, saying: \"For this we can only apologise to the victims and surviving relatives\".\n\nHe proposed the creation of a government co-ordination office to improve communication with victims of future attacks and called for a change in the law so that all victims could be treated and compensated equally, regardless of their nationalities or the circumstances of the attack.\n\nTributes are paid to the victims of the attack at the market in Berlin\n\nA report commissioned by the government and released last week cited a number of failures in the response to the attack, including delays in confirming the identities of the victims to their relatives.\n\nA separate report in October revealed \"gross mistakes\" by German police and security services.\n\nAnis Amri, a Tunisian asylum seeker who drove a lorry into the crowded market, was shot and killed in Italy four days after the attack.", "Uber is officially a transport company and not a digital service, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.\n\nThe ride-hailing firm argued it was an information society service - helping people to make contact with each other electronically - and not a cab firm.\n\nThe case arose after Uber was told to obey local taxi rules in Barcelona.\n\nUber said the verdict would make little difference to the way it operated in Europe, but experts say the case could have implications for the gig economy.\n\nAn Uber spokesperson said: \"This ruling will not change things in most EU countries where we already operate under transportation law.\n\n\"However, millions of Europeans are still prevented from using apps like ours. As our new CEO has said, it is appropriate to regulate services such as Uber and so we will continue the dialogue with cities across Europe. This is the approach we'll take to ensure everyone can get a reliable ride at the tap of a button.\"\n\nIn its ruling, the ECJ said that a service whose purpose was \"to connect, by means of a smartphone application and for remuneration, non-professional drivers using their own vehicle with persons who wish to make urban journeys\" must be classified as \"a service in the field of transport\" in EU law.\n\nIt added: \"As EU law currently stands, it is for the member states to regulate the conditions under which such services are to be provided in conformity with the general rules of the treaty on the functioning of the EU.\"\n\nThis ruling is another example of how the courts and regulators are struggling to make sense of the phenomenon known as the gig economy.\n\nSince Uber was first launched less than a decade ago, it has repeatedly fallen foul of regulators in different countries - and has frequently been forced to change its business model as a result.\n\nThis ruling sets out clearly that Uber is, in legal terms at least, a transport company. Uber itself insists that there won't be a huge immediate impact on its business, but it could still affect how it operates in future and how it liaises with national governments.\n\nUber itself has previously said this will undermine the reform of what it calls outdated laws.\n\nOn a wider basis, it could have implications for other gig economy businesses that try to portray themselves as little more than an app on a phone, connecting providers with customers; it appears the courts, so far, are taking a different view.\n\nThat could ultimately have an impact, not just on ride-hailing services, but on other gig economy services - such as couriers and accommodation providers - who operate a similar model.\n\nTUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said the verdict meant Uber must \"play by the same rules as everybody else\".\n\nShe added: \"Their drivers are not commodities. They deserve at the very least the minimum wage and holiday pay.\n\n\"Advances in technology should be used to make work better, not to return to the type of working practices we thought we'd seen the back of decades ago.\"\n\nThe verdict comes after Uber was told last month that the appeal to renew its licence in London could take years, according to Mayor Sadiq Khan.\n\nUber's presence around the world has often been controversial, with protests staged against it in various cities.\n\nHowever, Rohan Silva, a tech entrepreneur and former adviser to David Cameron, says the firm has made competitors up their game.\n\n\"Millions of people use these ride-hailing apps every day - not just Uber, but dozens of others too. They have brought real benefits, making it cheaper, easier and more convenient to get around the city,\" he told Radio 4's Today programme.\n\n\"There has also been a benefit in incumbent London taxi cabs, which are now taking credit cards, which they resisted for years. That is a response to competition.\"\n\nHe added that similar services could soon face regulation as a result of the ECJ ruling.\n\n\"There could be big implications for a sharing economy service like Airbnb, which will probably be regulated by the EU,\" he said.\n\n\"What is fascinating about this right now is that different countries are taking very different views. Portugal has legalised Uber and Airbnb, whereas France is clamping down.\"\n\nProf Andre Spicer, from the Cass Business School, welcomed the ruling. He told Today: \"Many people see the EU is actually leading the way in pushing back the almost unlimited power of tech firms and beginning to provide some limits around that.\n\n\"We also claim this fosters competition, but what Uber's model is based on is pricing, so much that they basically drove everyone else out of the market.\n\n\"This judgement will allow normal competition, so what we will see is lots of other smaller apps appearing around Europe.\"", "Charlie Dunn was pulled from the Blue Lagoon children's pool at Bosworth Water Park\n\nThe stepfather of a five-year-old boy who drowned at a water park has been jailed for seven-and-a-half years.\n\nPaul Smith pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence over the death of Charlie Dunn.\n\nCharlie, who could not swim, was found in a pool at Bosworth Water Park in Leicestershire on 23 July 2016.\n\nSmith, 36, of Tamworth, denied letting the boy wander off alone for more than two hours but changed his plea during a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.\n\nPaul Smith and Lynsey Dunn from Tamworth, Staffordshire, were sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court\n\nThe boy's mother, Lynsey Dunn, 28, also of Tamworth, Staffordshire, had a charge of manslaughter dropped.\n\nShe was given an eight-month suspended sentence after she admitted neglecting Charlie in a separate incident in 2015, when a neighbour prevented him driving a toy car onto a main road.\n\nThe court was told Smith was heard swearing and blaming others after Charlie - who was placed on the child protection register in 2012 - went missing while unsupervised.\n\nCharlie was left to \"fend for himself\" in a pool which had signs warning that children must be supervised.\n\nOne father who was in the pool had to explain to another parent that Charlie was not his son, Mrs Justice Jefford recounted.\n\nThe court heard Smith has 10 previous convictions for 28 crimes and was a \"person of interest\" to Staffordshire social services.\n\nThey had become involved with Charlie when he was 14 months old and put a child protection plan in place for him.\n\nMary Prior QC, prosecuting, said Smith \"had a status of being a risk to children\", but there was no evidence of Charlie having come to harm when the plan became effective.\n\nStaffordshire County Council is now conducting a serious case review into Charlie's death.\n\nIn sentencing, Mrs Justice Jefford said she did not doubt the defendants \"had genuine love and affection for Charlie\", but said Smith was \"completely indifferent\" to the boy's \"whereabouts and safety\".\n\n\"This was not a case in which there was an isolated and momentary lapse in care and supervision,\" she said.\n\nThe judge also praised three boys, aged 10, 11 and 12, who pulled Charlie from the pool, saying it \"must have been a horrific experience for them\".\n\nSmith was sentenced to five years and two months for manslaughter, with a consecutive two-year term handed down for threatening to petrol-bomb the home of a witness.\n\nHe was also given a further four months for driving while disqualified.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, has suggested holding another referendum on Brexit.\n\nMr Blankfein tweeted: \"Here in UK, lots of hand-wringing from CEOs over #Brexit... So much at stake, why not make sure consensus still there?\"\n\nThe firm, which is known to have taken office space in Frankfurt, employs about 6,000 people in London.\n\nBanks are particularly worried the UK will fail to strike an EU trade deal.\n\nThe banks fear that after Britain leaves the EU their businesses will lose \"passporting rights\", which allows them to sell financial services across borders.\n\nMr Blankfein's tweet went on to say: \"Better sense of the tough and risky road ahead. Reluctant to say, but many wish for a confirming vote on a decision so monumental and irreversible.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Lloyd Blankfein This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Blankfein's twitter account was barely used until recently.\n\nDespite him signing up to the microblogging service in 2011 he only sent his first tweet in June - and since then has shared his thoughts in that way just 26 times.\n\nNevertheless, he has attracted 69,000 followers.\n\nHis previously most noticeable tweet - sent last month - was also Brexit-related: \"Just left Frankfurt. Great meetings, great weather, really enjoyed it. Good, because I'll be spending a lot more time there. #Brexit\".\n\nThat was seen as a hint that Frankfurt would become a key European base for the Wall Street giant post-Brexit.\n\nLast month, the Wall Street bank said it had agreed to lease office space at a new building in Frankfurt giving it space for up to 1,000 staff.\n\nThat would be five times the current staff of 200 and see the Wall Street giant bolstering activities including trading, investment banking and asset management.\n\nThe bank is also thought to be looking at expanding its operation in Paris.\n\nA spokesman for Goldman Sachs said the bank had nothing further to add to Mr Blankfein's comments.", "The Post Office network is to get £370m in new funding, the government has announced.\n\nAbout £160m of the money will be used to protect village community branches, Business Secretary Greg Clark said.\n\nThe three-year funding deal, running from next April, comes as the Post Office announced it had moved into profit for the first time in 16 years.\n\nUnions dismissed claims the investment would save the network, arguing that it was just \"managing decline\".\n\nIn addition to the money for village branches, some £210m will be used to modernise services and technology.\n\nThe government said it had invested more than £2bn since 2010, leaving a network of around 11,600 branches, extended opening hours and thousands of branches open on a Sunday.\n\nMr Clark said the Post Office, run by an independent board, was \"at the heart of communities across the UK, with millions of customers and small businesses relying on their local branch every day to access a wide range of important services\".\n\nHe said: \"With the network at its most stable in decades, this £370m of government funding will ensure it can continue to modernise and bring further benefits to customers across the UK.\"\n\nAlongside the announcement, the Post Office revealed that it made £13m in the last financial year.\n\nPaula Vennells, its chief executive, described this as \"a major milestone in the Post Office's journey to a sustainable and successful business\".\n\nShe added that \"we are better placed than ever to embrace the future\".\n\nBut a spokesman for the Communication Workers Union said the government \"was dressing up\" the announcement as good news.\n\nIn reality, the network was facing a funding cut, and the turnaround in profits was achieved from branch closures and thousands of job cuts, the CWU said.\n\nBrian Scott, of the Unite union, said the Post Office lacked a \"coherent strategy for the future\" and said that profits were being achieved through a \"slash-and-burn approach\".\n• None How does Christmas post get delivered?", "Carol Grayson's husband, Peter, died after contracting hepatitis C and HIV from infected blood products\n\nGovernment officials have apologised for using a discredited report into the contaminated blood products scandal that left thousands of NHS patients infected with viruses including HIV.\n\nDespite assurances that the \"inadequate\" document would be ditched, a health minister has referred to it this year, the BBC can reveal.\n\nThe government admits that the document was used for too long.\n\nThis week it will announce who will run its official inquiry into the scandal.\n\nCritics say the whole process has taken far too long and have accused the government of a \"whitewash\".\n\nCampaigners have always said that the 2006 report - originally billed by the government as an official account of how the scandal unfolded - was misleading and incomplete because original documents had been destroyed.\n\nIt has been called the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.\n\nAt least 2,400 people died after they were given blood products that were infected with hepatitis C and HIV during the 70s and 80s.\n\nThousands of NHS patients with an inherited bleeding disorder called haemophilia were given the plasma products, which came from abroad, including the US.\n\nMuch of the plasma used to make the clotting treatment Factor VIII came from donors like prison inmates in the US, who sold their blood.\n\nCarol Grayson's husband, Peter, was one of the victims who died.\n\nShe says campaigners have challenged the Department of Health over its investigations for more than a decade.\n\nShe told BBC News: \"I had to give my career up to care for my husband for many years and I didn't have my own children because at the time I wanted to conceive, I was told I might infect the child and the advice at the time was, don't have children. So there are huge implications for families. It doesn't just impact on one person, it impacts on the whole family.\n\n\"I go from being absolutely furious and thinking everything I was brought up to believe in, you know about democracy, about justice is a lie.\"\n\nIn July, the prime minister ordered the Cabinet Office to oversee the independent investigation into how the scandal happened, after family members warned that the involvement of the Department of Health would mean it would be, in effect, investigating itself.\n\nThe BBC has now seen a series of letters from ministers and civil servants, accepting that the 2006 report (Self-Sufficiency in Blood Products in England and Wales) previously seen within Whitehall as a \"definitive account\", was inadequate.\n\nSir Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department of Health, wrote to Liberal Democrat peer Lady Featherstone in August assuring her that the document \"has not been used by officials in recent years… and it will not be used in the future\".\n\nBut the BBC has also seen a letter written by health minister Lord O'Shaughnessy to another MP in January this year, which referenced the report and its conclusions.\n\nWhen this was brought to Sir Chris's attention, he apologised, and said there were \"some instances in recent years where the department had referred to the document\" and reiterated the assurance that the document would be taken out of use.\n\nLady Featherstone told the BBC that civil servants promised to make clear online that the document had been discredited, but this was not yet apparent.\n\nThe peer, whose own nephew died from an infection from contaminated blood products, said: \"That document is full of holes, and lies, and mistruths, and lines to take, and I went to the Department of Health to challenge the use of this document.\n\n\"I think the permanent secretary was quite genuine in his desire - he saw that the evidence proved that they couldn't use the document - and he wrote to me to assure me that this document was not being used any longer, had not been used in recent years and would never be used again in the future.\n\n\"It indicated to me that they knew it was wrong, that they must have acknowledged it was telling untruths.\"\n\nA Department of Health spokesperson said: \"The 2006 document, Self-Sufficiency in Blood Products in England and Wales: A Chronology from 1973 to 1991, remained in use by the department for too long. It is no longer used.\n\n\"The infected blood scandal of the 1970s and 80s is an appalling tragedy and the government has announced an independent statutory inquiry to ensure that victims and their families finally get the answers they have spent decades waiting for.\"", "As Theresa May was just ending her year in a better place than her team could have imagined, her deputy has been forced to depart from government, despite his continued insistence that he has done nothing wrong.\n\nDamian Green has never been a politician with a huge public persona, or even a hugely well-known character.\n\nBut he was an extremely important ally of Theresa May. Not just a political friend but a genuine one, close to her for decades.\n\nThe government, so the joke in Westminster goes, has become \"weak and stable\", with number 10 taking back some control of the agenda in recent weeks.\n\nSo it is not likely that Mr Green's exit will suddenly unleash another bout of turmoil.\n\nBut the prime minister clearly took this decision very seriously.\n\nHis friends in government had believed that he would have been cleared, with one minister telling me today, \"he'll be fine\".\n\nAfter the prime minister received the initial report on Monday from the Cabinet Office official Sue Grey, who found flaws in his account, Mrs May asked for further advice, calling in her independent adviser, Sir Alex Allan.\n\nHe then, in turn, concluded that there had been breaches of the rules. With that, Mrs May had little choice but to ask him to go.\n\nBut just as Damian Green's friends say it is a disappointment for him, still insisting that he has done nothing wrong, so too it is a political blow for the prime minister.\n\nShe is a politician who guards her views, her own persona very closely. To lose one of the few who understood her, who she trusts, leaves her a lonelier figure tonight.", "The brother of a suicide bomber killed in Iraq has been jailed for 10 years for terror offences.\n\nDentistry student Mohammed Awan, from Huddersfield, was sentenced after being found guilty of preparing for terrorist acts and possessing material likely to be useful to a terrorist.\n\nThe 24-year-old was jailed for 10 years and ordered to serve three years extended licence on his release.\n\nAwan's brother Rizwan Awan killed 30 people in a bomb blast in Iraq in 2016.\n\nJudge Paul Watson QC said he believed Awan was \"to a very large extent radicalised by the actions\" of his elder brother.\n\nAnti-terror police said Awan had downloaded information on how to use ball bearings in attacks\n\nPassing sentence at Sheffield Crown Court, Judge Watson said: \"I am completely satisfied that you had intentionally adopted an outwardly innocent and respectable persona with the clear intention that, at some future point, you would be able to perpetrate a terrorist act without being detected.\"\n\nAwan, a fourth-year dentistry student at the University of Sheffield, was arrested by anti-terror police in June after purchasing 500 ball bearings online.\n\nDuring raids on his family home in Rudding Street, Huddersfield, and a flat in Dun Street, Sheffield, officers recovered a \"significant volume\" of extremist material, including advice on how to be a \"sleeper cell\" in the West.\n\nPolice also seized 11 mobile phones, 16 USB memory sticks and seven computers.\n\nOne memory stick contained a 36-minute video of a senior al Qaida leader calling on young Muslims to join so-called Islamic State (IS) and featured graphic footage of how to kill and kidnap victims.\n\nOn a mobile phone, officers found images of the Boston Marathon bombing and a man wearing an orange jumpsuit about to be executed.\n\nAnti-terror police carried out a raid at the family home in Huddersfield\n\nAwan had claimed he had bought the ball bearings and a catapult to use for hunting.\n\nDet Supt Simon Atkinson, head of investigations at Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said: \"Whilst we do not know the full details of Awan's intentions, officers intervened swiftly before Awan could put any plans into practice.\"\n\nJudge Watson added: \"The ideology to which you had so clearly wedded yourself is, to all right-thinking, peaceful, tolerant and inclusive Muslims living in harmony in this country, utterly abhorrent.\n\n\"Your romanticised notions of a jihadi struggle involving violence and destruction are far removed from the Islamic faith.\n\n\"You are, in my view, someone who is even now in the grip of idealistic extremism.\"\n\nRizwan Awan detonated a bomb in Iraq in 2016 killing himself and dozens of people\n\nDuring his trial, jurors heard Awan's brother Rizwan had travelled from Manchester to Istanbul on 17 May, 2015 where he appeared to have joined IS.\n\nThe court heard that the brothers remained in contact until Rizwan launched an attack on an Iraqi military convoy.\n\nAwan said he will appeal against his conviction and sentence.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Police and the bomb disposal unit were seen outside a property in Chesterfield, Derbyshire\n\nCounter-terror police are carrying out searches of two properties after they foiled an alleged Islamist terror plot that may have happened at Christmas.\n\nArmed officers and an Army bomb disposal squad were involved in raids on five properties in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire on Tuesday.\n\nFour men arrested under the Terrorism Act remain in custody.\n\nSearches at scenes in Burngreave, Sheffield, and at a house in Chesterfield are under way.\n\nA 31-year-old man was arrested after the bomb squad cordoned off a street in Chesterfield.\n\nThree other men aged 22, 36 and 41 were arrested in the Burngreave and Meersbrook areas of Sheffield.\n\nA door was destroyed at the Fatima Community Centre on Tuesday\n\nA clothing bank was searched outside the Fatima Community Centre\n\nThe cordon around one of the properties - the Fatima Community Centre on Brunswick Road in Burngreave - was extended on Tuesday afternoon and the bomb disposal unit was brought in.\n\nAll four suspects were detained on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.\n\nFour men were arrested - all at their home addresses.\n\nPolice and army activity is continuing in King Street North, Chesterfield\n\nSimon Atkinson, head of investigations at Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said: \"We're working around the clock to keep people safe and to stop people who want to affect our way of life.\n\n\"It's really important that we continue to work with the public, so if anybody has any concerns report them to the police and be vigilant.\"\n\nThe Fatima Community Centre said it was \"temporarily closed\", with trustees told arrests had been made \"in the flats adjacent to the centre and in the surrounding area\".\n\nIn a statement, it said: \"Our primary concern is to ensure the safety of all community members.\n\n\"Fatima Centre activities form an integral part of the lives of many local residents who are understandably concerned. Community users can rest assured that it will re-open as soon as this matter is resolved.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Tourists and locals have described it as \"mangy\", \"sickly\" and \"plucked\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Zelda Perkins: \"Everyone sees [Harvey] as this repulsive monster... he was also an extremely exciting person to be around.\"\n\nA former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, who accused him of attempting to rape a colleague 19 years ago, has called for a change to UK law on gagging orders.\n\nZelda Perkins worked for Weinstein's Miramax Films in the UK in the 1990s. She left after a co-worker said he'd tried to rape her, which he denied.\n\nMs Perkins told BBC Newsnight she tried to expose his behaviour, but was told by lawyers she \"didn't have a chance\".\n\nShe signed a non-disclosure agreement but said the process was \"immoral\".\n\nMs Perkins was 24 when she signed the confidentiality agreement in 1998, which prevented her from speaking to anyone about the alleged sexual assault.\n\nShe's now broken her 19 years of silence by speaking publicly about the movie mogul's mistreatment of women.\n\nIn her first broadcast interview, she told Newsnight's Emily Maitlis she wanted UK law on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) reformed to dismantle a legal system which she says enables the rich and powerful to cover up sexual assault and harassment.\n\n\"The last 19 years have been distressing, where I've not been allowed to speak, where I've not been allowed to be myself,\" she told the BBC Two programme.\n\n\"It's not just distressing for me, but for lots of women who have not been able to own their past, and for many of them, their trauma. Although the process I went through was legal, it was immoral.\"\n\nShe said she was \"emotionally and psychologically\" threatened by Weinstein during her three years working for him, but was never physically threatened.\n\nWhen, on a trip abroad, a younger colleague came to her in a distressed state to say that Weinstein had attempted to rape her, Ms Perkins felt it was her duty to act.\n\n\"She was shaking, very distressed, and clearly in shock,\" she said. \"She didn't want anybody to know and was absolutely terrified of the consequences. I spoke with her and tried to calm her down before confronting Harvey face to face.\"\n\nWeinstein denied the attempted rape. The women were advised to take legal advice, but were shocked by what they were told.\n\n\"The lawyers made it very clear that we didn't have very many options,\" she said. \"We had no physical evidence because we hadn't gone to the police when we were abroad, and ultimately, it would be two young women's words against Harvey Weinstein.\n\n\"In hindsight, my lawyers were giving me the advice they thought was best.\n\n\"However, they were saying, 'You will get dragged backwards, forwards and sideways through the courts. As will your family, as will your friends, as will anybody who knows anything about you. You haven't got a chance. You will be destroyed.'\"\n\nThey were advised that their best option was to take legal action against Weinstein. What followed eventually led to the signing of an agreement so shrouded in secrecy that Ms Perkins herself is not permitted to own a copy of the document, but can look at it under supervision.\n\nShe fought to get terms included, including Weinstein's commitment to attend therapy. The document is so closely guarded because it's \"a smoking gun\", she said.\n\n\"If you have an agreement that somebody has signed, that says that he will go to therapy, that he will be dismissed from his own company if anybody else makes a claim in the ensuing period, that an HR policy for sexual harassment has to be brought into the company, it's pretty clear that something's wrong.\"\n\nShe received £125,000 as part of the settlement - which she now views as a payment for her silence. But she says she regrets that the agreement meant that money changed hands.\n\nShe said the experience left her \"pretty broken and exhausted and so disillusioned\" and she doesn't know whether the conditions regarding therapy were carried out.\n\nShe said: \"I didn't have the energy to go on fighting. It was not my obligation to follow up on his obligation.\n\n\"What's extraordinary looking back is you'd imagine that Miramax Films would have been bending over backwards to make sure all of those obligations were fulfilled. But they weren't. I really couldn't stay in the industry at that point.\"\n\nNow, Ms Perkins says her motives for breaking the terms of her agreement by speaking publicly are as much about shedding light on the gagging orders that can protect the rich and powerful as they are about exposing Harvey Weinstein's alleged abusive behaviour.\n\nNDAs are widely used in the business world to share confidential information and keep trade secrets, but their usage in sexual harassment cases is more controversial.\n\nThe allegations against Harvey Weinstein have caused some law-makers in the US to readdress the use of NDAs in these instances. Senators in New York, New Jersey and California have drafted legislation aimed at banning them in such circumstances.\n\nMs Perkins now wants the UK Parliament to follow suit and debate the issue.\n\nGeoffrey Roberston QC said NDAs could be very useful, especially in employment law, and a blanket ban was \"not the way to go\".\n\nBut he added: \"There is, however, an entirely legitimate case for the UK Parliament to pass an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act, making it a crime to offer money to employees to silence them in relation to criminal offences that they know about.\n\n\"This is also a question of legal ethics - the Weinstein story has highlighted an area in the law that can cover up sexual crime.\"\n\nMs Perkins said: \"I understand that non-disclosure agreements have a place in society, and for both sides. But it's really important that legislation is changed around how these agreements are regulated.\"\n\nThe BBC asked Mr Weinstein for a response to the allegations. His lawyers said Mr Weinstein categorically denied engaging in any non-consensual conduct or alleged threatening behaviour. Miramax had no comment.\n\nThe lawyers representing Zelda Perkins at the time that the NDA was signed said it was inappropriate for them to comment, given the terms of the NDA.\n\nWatch the full interview on Newsnight on BBC Two at 22:30 GMT.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The IMF has cut its UK economic growth forecast, blaming Brexit uncertainty.\n\nThe Fund expects growth of 1.6% this year, down slightly from its previous forecast of 1.7%. It expects growth to slow further next year, to 1.5%.\n\nIMF chief Christine Lagarde said uncertainty over the Brexit deal was causing UK firms to delay investment plans.\n\nShe also said rising inflation, caused by the fall in the pound, and stagnant wages were squeezing spending power.\n\nMs Lagarde said that the government had made \"significant progress\" in reducing the deficit.\n\nBut she added that relative to growth in the rest of the world, \"the UK is losing out as a result of higher inflation, pressure on wages and incomes and delayed investment\".\n\n\"If you look at investment alone, with 2.1% of GDP in investment, with the global economy as it is, and the space the UK economy has in that global economy, it should be rolling at 6%.\"\n\nI asked Christine Lagarde at the launch of the IMF report how she responded to critics who said the IMF had been too gloomy before the referendum.\n\nIt's worth reproducing her answer in full.\n\n\"The numbers that we are seeing the economy deliver today are actually proving the point we made a year and a half ago when people said, you are too gloomy,\" she said.\n\n\"We were not too gloomy, we were pretty much on the mark, I mean within 0.1% or so - our forecast actually turned out to be the reality of the economy.\n\n\"Sterling has depreciated, inflation has gone up, wages have been squeezed as a result, and investments have been slowed down and are certainly lower than where we would expect them to be.\"\n\nYes, there are many positives in this report on record high employment and praise for progress on those Brexit talks.\n\nBut the big takeaway is this.\n\nIn a world of strong global growth, the IMF stands by its analysis that the UK economy has suffered since the referendum.\n\nMs Lagarde said that increased productivity was key to increasing living standards and that a new trade deal could help restore productivity levels in the UK.\n\nShe said: \"The shape of the new agreement with the EU will affect productivity performance through its implications for trade, investment and migration.\n\n\"The higher are any new barriers to the cross-border flow of services, goods and workers, the more negative the impact would be.\"\n\nHowever, Ms Lagarde also said: \"Brexit has the potential to reshape the structure of the UK economy. The impact will depend on the nature of the final agreement and may take many years to fully materialise.\"\n\nBrexit supporter and economist Ruth Lea said that while the fall in value of the pound had squeezed incomes, it had also helped exports.\n\nMs Lea, who is economic adviser to the Arbuthnot Banking Group, also said that inflation was likely to fall, which would help company and household finances.\n\nThe IMF has made dramatic changes to its growth forecasts for the UK since the Brexit referendum. Immediately after the vote in June 2016, it slashed its forecast for 2017 from 2.2% to 1.3%.\n\nIt then revised it sharply upwards at the start of this year, but since July has been steadily cutting it again.\n\nLabour's shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said: \"The IMF has today played the role of the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future to remind the chancellor that the last seven years of Tory economic failure is undermining our economy.\n\n\"As the IMF rightly points out, despite strong global growth, UK economic growth is revised down, and business growth is down despite Tory tax giveaways to big business; while working households this Christmas are struggling with rising prices and lagging wages.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Lottery millionaire to work at Slough care home on Christmas Day\n\nA care home worker who won £1 million on the lottery says she will still do her 12-hour Christmas Day shift.\n\nPatricia Aldridge, 55, a care assistant from Wexham, near Slough, won the money after the Lotto draw on 9 December.\n\nShe was announced as a new millionaire on Tuesday, along with her husband Robert, 57, who described the winnings as \"life-changing\".\n\nMrs Aldridge said: \"You hear people say 'if I won a lot of money I'd give up work', but I love what I do.\"\n\nShe discovered her new riches after checking an app on her phone.\n\n\"I rang Robert, and I said 'how many zeros are there in a million? I think I've won a million pounds,' said Mrs Aldridge.\n\nShe will continue to work at the elderly people's care home in Slough despite her millionaire raffle win, where she will do her 08:00 GMT to 20:00 GMT shift on 25 December.\n\nMr Aldridge, a site manager at a school, will also not be giving up work.\n\nHe said: \"We'll still be the same people. I'm not giving up work, I'll still go out with my friends, I'll still do my crib night.\n\n\"It just makes us more secure knowing that we can help the children buy a house and that sort of thing.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'We're preparing for the worst', says Standard Chartered boss Bill Winters\n\nThe UK's ability to attract talent is already suffering, following the vote to leave the EU, according to the boss of the UK's fifth-largest bank.\n\nStandard Chartered is \"preparing for the worst\" from Brexit, chief executive Bill Winters told the BBC.\n\nThe UK-headquartered bank is in the process of turning its Frankfurt branch into a subsidiary requiring additional capital, licences and staff.\n\nHe said this was \"inconvenient and expensive\" and will damage London.\n\n\"London will take hits in the context of Brexit… I think big parts of the euro-denominated corporate banking business will be forced into Europe.\n\n\"It's possible that through the Brexit negotiations that there is some sort of extended passporting rule [ability of banks to sell services across Europe from a UK base] but none of us are expecting that quite frankly, or preparing for that.\n\n\"We have to prepare for the worst… let's hope for the best, but we're prepared for the worst.\"\n\nMr Winters said he would be happy to take the tens of millions of pounds he has spent on Brexit contingency planning and \"flush it down the toilet\" if it meant he could carry on as before and maintain the bank's current structure.\n\nThe mood music from the UK has already affected the bank's ability to attract the best and brightest talent according to Mr Winters.\n\n\"We have already had some setbacks for the talent pool in London through the restriction on student visas. That's already a problem.\n\n\"Some of the best talent that we can have in the UK marketplace is coming from students that have chosen to study here and then stayed for some extended period afterwards… We've noticed that's been impacted already.\n\n\"More through a sense from non-UK [people] that this might not be such a hospitable place any longer - it's more psychological than contractual.\"\n\nOfficial numbers bear this out. After a decade of uninterrupted growth, applications from EU students for places at UK universities dropped by more than 7% last year, according to UCAS, even though their right to stay on and work is, as yet, unaffected.\n\nA Department for Education spokesperson said it was taking action to provide certainty for students.\n\n\"We have confirmed that EU students starting their courses in the academic year 18/19 or before will continue to be eligible for student loans and home fee status and will have a right to remain in the UK to complete their course,\" they added.\n\nBill Winters says US President Donald Trump is wrong to allow China to grow its economic influence\n\nStandard Chartered is not a High Street bank here in the UK.\n\nIt is probably best known here as Liverpool FC's shirt sponsor but it is a well-known financial brand in Asia, the Middle East and Africa and has a front row seat when it comes to financing global trade and investment.\n\nIt provides advice and cash to grease the wheels of commerce within and between some of the world's fastest-growing markets.\n\nFormer Wall Street banker Mr Winters is convinced the US under Donald Trump is making a big mistake in allowing China to grow its global economic influence in areas from which the US is retreating - as demonstrated when it dropped out of a trade mega deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership.\n\n\"They're creating effectively a multi-regional trading bloc creating these markets in much the same way that the US and UK created markets in Europe after the Second World War during a period of so much devastation.\n\n\"They are creating markets where they will be less dependent on Europe…the US is taking itself out of some of the key discussions for them and then actual trade agreements where the US could continue to have an extremely benevolent influence that it has had for decades. I think we have got to be extremely careful about that - and the UK does as well.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Winters understands risk. He was part of a major report into the stability of the UK financial system commissioned by the government after the financial crisis. He believes the banks are much more secure than they were a decade ago but that has presented another type of risk.\n\nA lot of banks have seen their profitability, their earning power reduced.\n\nThey have been forced to hold more shock-absorbing money in reserve and that has meant their earning power per pound of the capital they set aside has diminished.\n\nMeanwhile, technology companies are coming along and doing lots of the things banks like to charge for - like foreign exchange and making payments - and doing them more cheaply and conveniently.\n\nMany experts think banking's next crisis is the competition from nimble tech firms that don't have all the expense associated with being a bank.\n\nThis is one reason why many banks' shares (including Standard Chartered) - are trading at roughly half the price they appear to be worth on paper.\n\nThe idea that banks can't make enough money may seem perverse but any business that can't earn a sufficient return on the capital provided by investors is ultimately doomed as investors will take their capital away.\n\nMr Winters, however, is confident that banks are here to stay.\n\n\"For my thirty five years in banking I've started every year with people saying there is some enormous competitive threat looming - and they are right - there always is. But if you serve your customers as best you can you will stay relevant\"", "Sesame Street will be used to rebuild trust among millions of displaced children from Syria\n\nCharacters from the children's television programme Sesame Street are going to be used to help teach children displaced by war in Syria.\n\nThe Sesame Workshop and the International Rescue Committee have won a $100m (£75m) grant to help with the \"toxic stress\" on child refugees.\n\nIt will help children in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria\n\nJeffrey Dunn, head of Sesame Workshop, said Syria's refugee crisis was the \"humanitarian issue of our time\".\n\n\"This may be our most important initiative ever,\" he said.\n\nThe award has been made by the Chicago-based John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, which wants to make \"big bets\" on influencing major challenges.\n\nSesame Street is going to be used as a way of helping teach traumatised youngsters about relationships\n\nIt's one of the biggest single philanthropic donations to such an education project - and will fund efforts to provide early years education and tackle the trauma of millions of young refugees created by Syria's conflict.\n\nIt will produce a customised version of Sesame Street for the young Syrian refugees, available on mobile phones, which will support literacy and numeracy, help to teach about relationships and encourage respect for others.\n\nThis is being claimed as the biggest such humanitarian intervention for early years learning\n\nThere will also be child development centres created, where parents will be able to bring children, and where advice, resources and information will be available.\n\nJulia Stasch, president of the foundation, said this would be \"the largest early childhood intervention program ever created in a humanitarian setting\".\n\n\"Less than 2% of the global humanitarian aid budget is dedicated to education, and only a sliver of all education assistance benefits young children.\n\nMillions of young refugees are living in countries such as Lebanon and Jordan\n\n\"The longer-term goal is to change the system of humanitarian aid to focus more on helping to ensure the future of young children through education.\"\n\nDavid Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, said the funding would \"bring hope and opportunity to a generation of refugee children\".\n\n\"At a time when governments are in retreat, [non-governmental organisations] and philanthropists need to step up, and that is what we are seeing here - and in a big way.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Footage shows the scale of the derailment\n\nTechnology that forces trains to adhere to speed limits was being installed on the express that crashed in the US state of Washington on Monday but was not yet operational, investigators say.\n\nThree people died when the train derailed at 80mph (130km/h) on a bend with a speed limit of 30mph.\n\nOfficials say the train's emergency brakes had been deployed automatically and not by the driver.\n\nA conductor undergoing training was in the cab at the time with the driver.\n\nBella Dinh-Zarr, of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told reporters that positive train control (PTC) - a safety system that automatically slows or stops trains that are going too fast - was not operational on the train.\n\n\"The locomotive was in the process of getting a system of PTC installed but it was not yet functional,\" she said.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Amtrak This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nShe added that the board had long recommended that PTC be installed across all US rail systems.\n\nBut, she added, Congress had extended the deadline for implementation of the legislation from the end of 2015 until the end of 2018, a delay she described as \"unfortunate\".\n\nThe cost of implementing the system fully on all tracks and vehicles is reported to be more than $22bn (£16.4bn).\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A 45-second look at how Positive Train Control works\n\nMs Dinh-Zarr said investigators were waiting to question the train's crew once they had recovered from their injuries.\n\nShe said they would want to know, among other things, whether the driver had been distracted in the cab.\n\n\"Distraction is one of our most-wanted-list priorities,\" she said, adding that there was a \"conductor-in training\" also present in the cab who \"was getting experience and familiarising himself with the territory\".\n\nThe spokeswoman added that the driver did not use the emergency brake, saying it \"was automatically activated after - when the accident was occurring rather being initiated by the engineer\".\n\nTrain drivers are called engineers in the US.\n\nThe 12-carriage train crashed shortly after leaving a new station on its inaugural run between Olympia and Tacoma on Amtrak's Cascades line.\n\nThere were 86 people on board, including 77 passengers and seven Amtrak crew members, as well as a train technician.\n\nPassengers say the train rocked and creaked as it took the bend fast before plummeting off a bridge on to a busy motorway.\n\nSeven vehicles, two of them lorries, were hit on the I-5 highway. Several people were injured in their vehicles but none died.\n\nSeveral drivers, including US soldiers, rushed from their cars to help rescue trapped rail passengers.\n\nAuthorities have removed all but one carriage, a 270,000lb (122,000 kg) engine, and they say repairs will need to be done to the highway before it can be re-opened.\n\nTwo friends who were railway enthusiasts were identified as among the fatalities on Tuesday.\n\nRail aficionado Zack Willhoite, 35, was identified by his employer Pierce Transit, who said the IT specialist \"played an important role in our agency\".\n\nThe National Association of Railroad Passengers identified board member Jim Hamre as another victim.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe collapse of two rape cases in one week was an \"appalling failure\" of the criminal justice system, Attorney General Jeremy Wright has said.\n\nTwo young men were cleared when it emerged that Met Police officers had failed to disclose crucial evidence.\n\nAround 30 rape cases about to go to trial are to be reviewed immediately and \"scores\" more will be looked at.\n\nMetropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick admitted that police and prosecutors had made mistakes.\n\nShe said the 30 cases would not be reinvestigated, but would be reviewed to make sure everything that should have been disclosed had been.\n\nThe police have a duty to disclose any material to the defence that might support their case. If disclosure fails, innocent people go to jail, says the BBC's legal correspondent Clive Coleman.\n\n\"We need to learn lessons,\" Ms Dick told BBC Radio London, and insisted her officers were professional and fair with a \"very complex job\" to do.\n\nIsaac Itiary was charged with raping a child in July but the case collapsed\n\nThe trial of student Liam Allan, 22, was thrown out at Croydon Crown Court last week.\n\nThe case collapsed three days into the trial when the police were ordered to hand over phone records showing the alleged victim had pestered Mr Allan for casual sex.\n\nDays later, another prosecution case collapsed against Isaac Itiary, who was facing trial at Inner London Crown Court, accused of raping a child.\n\nHe was charged in July but police only disclosed \"relevant material\" in response to his defence case statement as his trial was about to start.\n\nThe same Met Police officer had worked on both men's cases. He remains on full duty.\n\nThe Met said it would review both these cases separately, as well as carrying out the wider review of other live rape cases.\n\nJustice minister Dominic Raab said it was \"absolutely right\" for the Met to carry out the review, adding: \"The basic principle of British justice is at stake.\"\n\n\"The proper disclosure obligations in these two cases have not been discharged, and that is deeply worrying,\" he told BBC Radio 5 live.\n\n\"This is not a new thing. It should be made easy by technology,\" he added.\n\nThe cases of Liam Allan and Isaac Itiary are very different.\n\nAs far as Mr Allan is concerned, the Met has accepted the case \"clearly went wrong\".\n\nCrucial information was disclosed to defence barristers so late that the trial was already well under way.\n\nIn Mr Itiary's case, procedures appear to have been followed, though it's possible police could have acted more quickly.\n\nWhat the cases have done is shine a light on the importance of following disclosure rules.\n\nUndoubtedly the squeeze on resources, with cuts in the Crown Prosecution Service and policing and a national shortage of detectives, together with the increased caseload for sexual offences units, have played their part.\n\nAn inspection report this year also pinpointed inadequacies in training and supervision.\n\nSome see the problems as a direct result of a misplaced culture of \"believing\" the victim, where police don't look for or withhold contradictory evidence - but that's an assertion for the attorney general's inquiry to examine.\n\nLast week, Attorney General of England and Wales Jeremy Wright ordered a review to look at disclosure processes - including codes of practice, guidelines and legislation relating to sex offences and other crimes - which is expected to report back next year.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, Mr Wright said the two cases of the young men were \"obviously appalling failures of the criminal justice system\".\n\n\"We need to understand and understand urgently what went wrong in those cases,\" he said.\n\nHe added that there were already concerns about the disclosure system due to the large amounts of digital information that needed filtering and sifting to find evidence that ought to be disclosed.", "A couple in Germany who divorced in a Sharia court in Syria cannot have their divorce validated under EU law, Europe's top court has ruled.\n\nThe European Court of Justice said member states must decide for themselves whether to recognise \"private divorces\", such as those performed in Sharia courts.\n\nEU law is not applicable, it said.\n\nIslamic law allows a man to divorce his wife instantly by saying \"talaq\" (divorce) three times.\n\nIt is the ECJ's first ruling on the subject.\n\nThe couple married in 1999 in the Syrian city of Homs before eventually moving to Germany. They hold both Syrian and German nationality.\n\nIn 2013, the husband ended the marriage in a Sharia court in the Syrian city of Latakia by having a representative repeating \"talaq\" (divorce) three times.\n\nThe ECJ calls the measure \"private divorce\", as a state authority is not involved.\n\nThe wife acknowledged the divorce in writing, but contested it after the former husband applied for its recognition in a court in the German city of Munich.\n\nThe court then referred the case to the ECJ, asking for clarifications over the interpretation of the EU divorce law pact, known as the Rome III Regulation.\n\nThe ECJ said the regulation \"does not apply, by itself, to the recognition of a divorce decision delivered in a third country\".\n\nIt added that a unilateral declaration of divorce before a religious court does not fall under the scope of the regulation, and said the case must be resolved under German law.\n\nThe ECJ does not decide the dispute itself, and the court in Munich will take a final decision on the issue.\n\nTriple talaq divorce has no mention in Islamic law or the Koran, even though the practice has existed for decades.\n\nIslamic scholars say the Koran clearly spells out how to issue a divorce - it has to be spread over three months, allowing a couple time for reflection and reconciliation.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nWhy must \"talaq\" be said three times? Under some interpretations of Islamic law, a man can divorce his wife and get back together with her - but only twice. After the third divorce, the marriage is completely over and cannot be started again without an intervening marriage to someone else.\n\nMost Islamic countries have now banned triple talaq.", "Catt Sadler has worked at the network for more than a decade\n\nUS TV news presenter Catt Sadler has quit her role with E! News after learning that she earned about half of what her male co-host does.\n\nSadler, who has worked at the network since 2006, said an executive had made her aware of the pay gap.\n\nIn a statement, she said she subsequently asked for \"what I know I deserve and [was] denied repeatedly\".\n\nShe made her final appearance on the network on Tuesday, fronting daytime programme Daily Pop and later E! News.\n\nSadler said in a post on her website: \"There was a massive disparity in pay between my similarly situated male co-host and myself. He was making close to double my salary for the past several years.\"\n\n\"How can I remain silent when my rights under the law have been violated? How can we make it better for the next generation of girls if we do not stand for what is fair and just today?\" she added.\n\nShe added that she had wanted to stay in her job but \"the decision was made for me and I must go\".\n\nIn a tweet, Sadler said it had been a \"difficult day\" but thanked her fans for sending supportive messages.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by catt sadler This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a statement to the BBC, an E! spokesperson said: \"E! compensates employees fairly and appropriately based on their roles, regardless of gender. We appreciate Catt Sadler's many contributions at E! News and wish her all the best following her decision to leave the network.\"\n\nEarlier this year, the female presenter of one of Australia's most prestigious TV news shows moved to a rival channel amid reports that she had been denied pay parity with her male co-presenter.\n\nLisa Wilkinson, 57, announced that she was joining Channel Ten's The Project because the Nine Network had been \"unable to meet her expectations\".", "Former Met Police Det Insp Hamish Brown says the force \"fell short\" in the two collapsed sex cases of Liam Allan and Isaac Itiary.\n\nHowever, he says with 10,000 officers cut from the organisation, \"there has to be some give somewhere\".", "Workers at six train operators will walk out in January\n\nTrain strikes are looming in the new year as rail workers plan a series of 24-hour walkouts in the long-running row over the role of guards.\n\nRMT members at five operators will walk out on 8, 10 and 12 January. Workers at Southern will strike on 8 January.\n\nThe five involved are South Western Railway (SWR), Greater Anglia, Merseyrail, Northern and the Isle of Wight's Island Line run by SWR.\n\nNorthern rail said it would work to keep customers on the move.\n\nGreater Anglia said it would run a full service on all the strike days.\n\nGovia Thameslink (GTR), Southern's parent company, said the RMT was striking on the same day the operator had invited the union to talks.\n\nThe union said it received the letter inviting them to negotiations on Wednesday - after the decision had been made to stage industrial action.\n\nGTR's HR director, Andy Bindon, said: \"We ask them to call off the strike and come to the negotiating table as we have suggested on many occasions.\"\n\nAndy Heath, managing director of Merseyrail said: \"I would like to make our passengers aware that we want to make every effort to reach an agreement with the RMT and have offered to meet with them with no preconditions in an effort to resolve this dispute - something they are unwilling to do.\"\n\nThe RMT said it was prepared to meet for \"genuine\" talks and that Merseyrail's claim that the union would not meet the operator was \"rubbish\".\n\nThe operator SWR has not yet commented to the BBC.\n\nThe union said it had tried to resolve the bitter row over driver-only operation (DOO) of trains and has insisted the dispute is about safety.\n\nThe RMT has insisted the dispute is about safety\n\nGeneral secretary Mick Cash said: \"Every single effort that RMT has made to reach negotiated settlements in these separate disputes with the different train operating companies over safe operation and safe staffing has been kicked back in our faces.\n\n\"We are left with no option but to confirm a further phase of industrial action in the new year.\"\n\nHe added: \"It is frankly ludicrous that we have been able to negotiate long-term arrangements in Scotland and Wales that protect the guards and passenger safety but we are being denied the same opportunities with rail companies in England.\"\n\nHe said the RMT stood \"ready for talks\" in each of the disputes.\n\nThe RMT said the issue was not jobs but a second safety critical member of staff on trains\n\nBoth Northern and Great Arriva said they had guaranteed conductors' jobs until the end of their franchises in 2025.\n\nRichard Dean, Greater Anglia trains service delivery director said: \"We are keeping our conductors on our trains. In fact we will be recruiting more.\"\n\nRichard Allan, deputy managing director of Northern, added that the government last week had written to the union guaranteeing employment for conductors beyond 2025 if the RMT ended its dispute.\n\nHowever, the RMT has said the guarantee of jobs is not the issue. A union member told the BBC: \"The issue is about the role of the guard and the guarantee of a second safety critical member of staff, and the push to DOO on more trains.\"\n\nA spokesman for the Department for Transport confirmed the offer had been made and said: \"It is total nonsense to suggest these strikes are about jobs or safety - employees have been guaranteed jobs and salaries.\n\n\"In fact at Southern rail, where these changes have already been introduced, there are now more staff on trains.\n\n\"And the independent rail regulator has said driver-controlled trains, which have been used in this country for more than 30 years, are safe.\"\n\nHe added: \"Not content with attempting to stop people getting home for Christmas, the RMT's version of a happy new year is to continue dragging paying customers into its futile and backward-looking industrial action.\n\n\"Despite this, rail companies will be working hard to keep people moving on RMT strike days.\"\n\nThe union said it was open to \"genuine\" talks\n\nPaul Plummer, chief executive of the Rail Delivery Group, said: \"No-one wins from RMT strike action.\"\n\nHe said: \"Working together, we've got to find a way through this dispute so that we can get on with the business.\"", "The couple will donate their unborn daughter's heart valves\n\nA mother who has been told her unborn baby girl will not survive at birth is carrying her to full term so she can donate heart tissue to help others.\n\nHayley Martin was told at her 20-week scan that her child has a rare genetic disorder meaning she will die during labour or within minutes of being born.\n\nSpeaking on ITV's This Morning show, Mrs Martin, 30, said they would be able to donate her daughter's heart valves.\n\nExplaining her decision, she added: \"I wouldn't have it any other way.\"\n\nAlready a mother-of-three, Mrs Martin and her husband Scott, from Hull, discovered their baby had bilateral renal agenesis at the five-month scan.\n\nMrs Martin said she had a feeling early on in the pregnancy and that things were not right\n\nThe condition is fatal and means the baby has no kidneys and is not surrounded by enough amniotic fluid, causing malformed lungs.\n\nAfter speaking to specialist doctors, the couple were given the weekend to consider terminating the pregnancy but Mrs Martin told This Morning her reaction was \"automatically, I don't want to let her go just yet\".\n\nThe couple said they had taken the decision to give birth to their daughter, who they have already named Ava-Joy, to help others in need of a transplant.\n\nIt is likely that their baby's heart valves will be used to help other seriously-ill children.\n\n\"With the heart valves they can store them up to ten years,\" Mrs Martin told the show.\n\n\"Anything is better than nothing. I know she can't donate proper organs but tissue is just as valuable.\"\n\nAngie Scales, a NHS organ donation and transplantation nurse, said around 10 to 15 families a year ask about the possibility of donation in relation to their unborn child.\n\nShe said: \"However, proceeding to actual donation in these cases is extremely rare due to the complexities of the processes that are required.\"\n\nThree people a day, including children, die waiting for a transplant, she added.\n\nThe couple said their other children would grow up knowing about their younger sister\n\nThe couple said the support they had received through a specialist charity in Leeds had helped them bond with their unborn daughter.\n\nThe charity funded a blood test to enable them to find out the sex of the baby so they were able to give her a name and buy clothes to dress her once she is born.\n\nThe Martins said they were starting a charity project in Ava-Joy's memory to help other families who decided to carry to term, despite a fatal diagnosis.\n\n\"It was not an easy decision but it was the right decision and it has helped me cope with the heartbreak,\" said Mrs Martin.\n\n\"A part of her will live on, she won't be completely gone. She will be alive in somebody else.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "North was the second actress to lend her voice to Daphne (second from right)\n\nHeather North, the US actress who was the voice of Daphne in Scooby-Doo for many years, has died at the age of 71.\n\nAccording to reports, she died at her Los Angeles home on 30 November after a long illness.\n\nNorth was the second actress to voice the \"danger-prone\" Daphne Blake in the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! TV series, making her debut in 1970.\n\nThe California native continued voicing the role in various iterations of the property until 2003.\n\nThey included The New Scooby-Doo Movies of the early 1970s, the short-lived Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo series and The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries that aired in 1984.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Twitter Moments This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nNorth's other roles included Kurt Russell's girlfriend in Disney's The Barefoot Executive and Sandy Horton in Days of Our Lives.\n\nIt was that job that led to her meeting producer Wes Kenney, to whom she was married from 1971 up to his death in 2015.\n\nStefanianna Christopherson was the first actress to lend her voice to Daphne, the role Sarah Michelle Gellar played in the 2002 live-action film.\n\nNorth's death was initially confirmed by the Hollywood Reporter.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Hollywood Reporter This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Harvey Weinstein’s former personal assistant has told the BBC how she was silenced after alleging sexual assault against her boss.\n\nZelda Perkins says she thought her only option was to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which stopped her from speaking out.\n\nLaywers for Mr Weinstein told the BBC he \"categorically denies engaging in any non-consensual conduct or alleged threatening behaviour\".\n\nMs Perkins told BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis that while the film maker is now seen as a “repulsive monster”, at the time he was “an extremely exciting person to be around”.\n\nUK viewers can watch the full BBC Newsnight interview here.", "Experts analysed thousands of photographs and sightings of bottlenose dolphins\n\nThe first resident pod of bottlenose dolphins has been discovered off the south-west coast of England.\n\nExperts used thousands of sightings and photos to identify a group of 28 individuals living year-round off the coasts of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset.\n\nThey were identified using their dorsal fins, which are as unique to dolphins as fingerprints are to humans.\n\nPlymouth University researchers studied 3,843 records to identify 98 dolphins and among them the resident population.\n\nThe sightings, recorded between 2007 and 2016, established the group was present in shallow coastal waters, mainly off Cornwall and particularly near St Ives Bay and Mount's Bay.\n\nRuth Williams, marine conservation manager at the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, said: \"Further work is needed but this is a huge step forward and I am proud of what our partnership between Cornwall Wildlife Trust, scientists and boat operators has achieved.\n\n\"We need to make sure the few we currently have in the south west are given the protection not just to survive, but to thrive.\"\n\nEvery bottlenose dolphin has a unique dorsal fin, similar to a human fingerprint\n\nRebecca Dudley, of the University of Plymouth, gathered data from a large number of collaborators who had studied the dolphins' social structure and distribution.\n\nShe said her findings will raise questions about conservation of the environment the pod inhabits.\n\n\"This shows that if anything happens to their habitat in this area, it is really going to affect the population, because they do spend all their time around the south west region.\"\n\nThe UK's two other resident bottlenose dolphin populations - in Cardigan, Wales and Moray Firth, Scotland - both have protection.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The parents of a premature baby who spent last Christmas in hospital are trying to spread some festive cheer with gifts for mums and dads in the same situation this year.\n\nWhen Arlo Watson, from Broseley in Shropshire, was born at 25 weeks doctors said he had a 50% chance of surviving until his first birthday, but he is now out of hospital and will be spending this Christmas at home.", "One-off drama The Boy with the Topknot looked at generational differences in a Sikh family\n\nThe BBC has pledged to \"raise our game\" on religion by increasing the portrayal of all faiths in mainstream shows.\n\nThe corporation said it would \"enhance\" the representation of religion on TV and radio dramas and documentaries.\n\nIt said it would also create a new global religious affairs team, headed by a religion editor, in BBC News.\n\nThe BBC will also keep Thought For The Day on Radio 4's Today programme - despite presenter John Humphrys saying it's often \"deeply, deeply boring\".\n\nThe corporation has just published the conclusions of a review into its coverage of religion and ethics.\n\nDirector general Tony Hall said audiences of all faiths and none have said they want to learn more about those topics.\n\n\"They recognise that, if we truly want to make sense of the world, we need to understand the systems of belief that underpin it,\" he said.\n\nHe added that he wants the corporation \"to do more about Christianity and other beliefs as well\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. O Come All Ye Faithful through the years\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "\"It was all going so well,\" Deputy Leader of the House Michael Ellis says, until the \"last part\", referring to Karin Smyth saying she hopes that next year will bring a Labour government for the UK.\n\nResponding to Sir Paul Beresford, he says that in the UK, there is much more work to be done on the issue of cancer treatments, but 7,000 more people are alive today than there would have been thanks to new treatments.\n\nHe tells Jamie Stone that the Scottish government has had the funding for broadband in rural Scotland since 2014, but the Scottish government haven't used it yet.\n\nReferring to Lyn Brown's points, he says a consultation has been launched by the government on fixed odds betting terminals.\n\nHe says to Nigel Huddleston that most members \"get on very well across this House,\" and can disagree professionally, but have a chat otherwise.\n\nHe invites Deirdre Brock to declare anything more she knows about Scottish and NI funding in the Leave campaign to the House, for it to be discussed further.\n\nHe tells Siobhain McDonagh that the government is putting in £1bn into tackling homelessness and rough sleeping.\n\nHe wraps up by thanking the whole House for their work and their protection of the Houses of Parliament, as well as thanking the Armed Forces.", "Last updated on .From the section Man City\n\nA convicted football hooligan has been jailed for a racist and \"unprovoked\" attack on Manchester City and England winger Raheem Sterling.\n\nKarl Anderson, 29, pleaded guilty to racially aggravated common assault after Sterling was attacked outside City's training ground on Saturday.\n\nThe court heard Anderson already has 25 convictions for 37 offences, including football-related violence.\n\nHe has been jailed for 16 weeks and must pay £100 in compensation.\n\nAnderson, who kicked Sterling four times during the assault, said he \"lost his temper\" and was sorry for his actions.\n\nHe abused the City player using racist language, as well as telling Sterling he wanted his mother and child to die.\n\nIn a victim impact statement read out to the court, Sterling, 23, said he \"did not think this kind of behaviour happened in this country in this day and age\".\n\nCCTV footage of the attack outside City's training complex was played to the court, which showed Anderson pulling up in his van alongside Sterling.\n\nIn sentencing him, magistrate Diana Webb-Hobson called it an \"entirely unprovoked attack\" and described Anderson's previous record as \"appalling\".\n\nAnderson, of Woodward Street in Manchester, smiled as he was taken from the dock.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUS President Donald Trump has threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that back a United Nations resolution opposing the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.\n\nEarlier this month, Mr Trump took that step amid international criticism.\n\n\"They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us,\" he told reporters at the White House.\n\n\"Let them vote against us. We'll save a lot. We don't care.\"\n\nHis comments come ahead of a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution opposing any recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.\n\nThe draft resolution does not mention the US, but says any decisions on Jerusalem should be cancelled.\n\nFourteen states backed a similar motion on Jerusalem at the UN Security Council on Monday\n\nEarlier, US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley warned member states that President Trump had asked her to report on \"who voted against us\" on Thursday.\n\nPresident Trump and Ambassador Haley are trying to use American muscle rather than diplomacy to convince countries to vote their way. From Washington's perspective, recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital and deciding to move its embassy there is its sovereign right.\n\nBut that's not how the majority of countries at the United Nations see it.\n\nThe strongest repudiation came, unsurprisingly, from Washington's critics.\n\nMeanwhile, many US allies are brushing off the tough rhetoric as an empty threat.\n\nA senior diplomat told me it was clear that the Trump administration was determined to take a stand for Israel at the UN, but he doubted that Washington would cut aid to, say, Egypt - which sponsored the failed Security Council measure on which the General Assembly draft resolution is based.\n\nWhat is certain is that the US will be isolated in the General Assembly on Thursday as the rest of the world once again tells President Trump that it does not agree with his decision on Jerusalem.\n\nThe status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.\n\nIsrael occupied the east of the city, previously occupied by Jordan, in the 1967 Middle East war and regards the entire city as its indivisible capital.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why the ancient city of Jerusalem is so important\n\nThe Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state and its final status is meant to be discussed in the latter stages of peace talks.\n\nIsraeli sovereignty over Jerusalem has never been recognised internationally, and all countries currently maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv. However, President Trump has told the US state department to start work on moving the US embassy.\n\nThe 193-member UN General Assembly will hold a rare emergency special session on Thursday at the request of Arab and Muslim states, who condemned Mr Trump's decision to reverse decades of US policy earlier this month.\n\nThe Palestinians called for the meeting after the US vetoed a Security Council resolution, which affirmed that any decisions on the status of Jerusalem were \"null and void and must be rescinded\", and urged all states to \"refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the holy city\".\n\nThe other 14 members of the Security Council voted in favour of the draft, but Ms Haley described it as an \"insult\".\n\nThe non-binding resolution put forward by Turkey and Yemen for the General Assembly vote mirrors the vetoed Security Council draft.\n\nThe Palestinian permanent observer at the UN, Riyad Mansour, said he hoped there would be \"overwhelming support\" for the resolution.\n\nBut on Tuesday, Ms Haley warned in a letter to dozens of member states that encouraged them to \"know that the president and the US take this vote personally\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nikki Haley This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those countries who voted against us. We will take note of each and every vote on this issue,\" she wrote, according to journalists who were shown the letter.\n\n\"The president's announcement does not affect final status negotiations in any way, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem,\" she added. \"The president also made sure to support the status quo of Jerusalem's holy sites.\"\n\nMs Haley echoed the warning on Twitter, writing: \"The US will be taking names.\"\n\nPalestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki and his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, accused the US of intimidation.\n\n\"We see that the United States, which was left alone, is now resorting to threats. No honourable, dignified country would bow down to this pressure,\" Mr Cavusoglu told a joint news conference in Ankara on Wednesday before travelling to New York.", "With rope wrapped around its neck, this loggerhead sea turtle became part of a US Coast Guard rescue effort in the Pacific Ocean.", "The Bank of England is to unveil plans allowing European banks to operate in the UK as normal post-Brexit.\n\nThe BBC has learned that banks offering wholesale finance - money and services provided to businesses and each other - would operate under existing rules.\n\nIt means EU banks operating through branches can continue without creating subsidiaries - an expensive process.\n\nBranches offer an easy way for banks to move money around their international operations.\n\nBut they present the risk that, in the event of a financial crisis, funds are quickly repatriated to the foreign bank's headquarters - leaving customers of the UK branch out of pocket.\n\nSubsidiaries are forced to hold their own shock-absorbing capital which can't cut and run - they essentially become UK companies.\n\nChanging from a branch to a subsidiary could cost billions for a bank like Deutsche Bank, for example, which employs 9,000 people in the UK.\n\nCurrently, banks based anywhere in the EU can sell services to anywhere else in the EU thanks to an instrument known as a financial services passport.\n\nOn Monday, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier was talking tough on UK-based financial services access to the European single market after Brexit.\n\n\"There is no place (for financial services). There is not a single trade agreement that is open to financial services. It doesn't exist. In leaving the single market, they lose the financial services passport,\" he said.\n\nWhich begs the question - if they are playing hard ball - why are we being so nice in rolling out the red carpet?\n\nMiles Celic, head of the lobbying group TheCityUK, said offering continuity to EU banks was an act of goodwill, but it was also one of enlightened self interest.\n\n\"Encouraging EU banks to continue to operate in the UK will help preserve financial stability for the UK and the EU and will help defend London's position as an open global financial centre,\" he said.\n\nThe Bank of England's announcement has the blessing of the government\n\nForcing EU bank branches in the UK to become separately capitalised subsidiaries may well have encouraged European banks to pull out of London - gradually eroding its pre-eminence as a financial centre.\n\nBut on the other hand, London acts as the wholesale bank to the EU and access to its expertise and capital is highly prized. Some may see this decision as surrendering a trump card that should have been held back for the tough negotiations ahead.\n\nSo, why are we allowing the EU access to this valuable resource while the EU threatens to create barriers the other way?\n\nGovernment sources said there are three reasons.\n\nFirst, there are the jobs. Tens of thousands of highly paid people work in the London branches of big EU banks. That also creates knock on jobs in other professions like accountancy and law.\n\nSecond, those people pay a lot of tax to the exchequer.\n\nAnd third, there is another important economic point. Services sold by the UK branch of a French or German bank to a third country like the US, for example, count as UK exports - something the government is keen to maximise.\n\nIn a speech back in October, Sam Woods, the head of the Prudential Regulation Authority (the bit of the Bank of England that supervises banks) said the reason the European financial markets work so well is not just due to the \"passport\" that Michel Barnier insists will be revoked.\n\nHe said he hoped \"for a strong, co-operative relationship in which wholesale banks can continue to operate across the UK and EU27 in branches... We have embedded a sophisticated framework of supervisory co-operation... There is every reason to think these will continue into the future\"\n\nThis sentiment echoes what a senior banker told me six months ago - \"if the regulators were in charge, and not the politicians, this would all be sorted out in a fortnight.\"\n\nThey are not in charge. But I understand the bank has the blessing of the government in offering this \"no new post-Brexit strings attached\" access to the world's largest financial centre.", "It was spotted off the coast of Sanremo and moved inland as a tornado, causing damage in the city.", "It was more gripping than any box set we could get our hands on.\n\nOver two years, the investigations into Russian interference in the US election, and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin, delivered daily developments and drama worthy of anything seen in House of Cards.\n\nIn the end, 35 people and three companies were charged by Robert Mueller, the special counsel who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.\n\nHere's our guide to the main characters in the four seasons of the only political drama that mattered.\n\nThis was the season in which Donald Trump, the reality TV star, took centre stage in his own political drama by launching a presidential campaign. He was supported by his family and got the attention of the Russians. The season ended with a cliffhanger - could Trump the outsider actually win?!\n\nIt's been a while since all of this happened, so let's remind you of the key players in this season.\n\nWho was he? Donald Trump, the billionaire candidate (who by Season Three is the 45th president of the United States). If you really need a refresher, here's his life story.\n\nKey plot line As Donald Trump was busy traversing the country canvassing for votes in Season One, Russia hacked into the emails of his Democratic rivals, investigators later said.\n\nThe question is why? Was the Kremlin trying to alter the outcome of the election, and what did Trump and his campaign know?\n\nSkip forward to the end of Season Four and Mr Trump stood triumphant before reporters in a Florida airport, celebrating what he called \"a complete and total exoneration\".\n\nBut in between, there was no shortage of drama or tension.\n\nWho was he? He was Trump's campaign chairman before being forced to quit over his ties to Russian oligarchs and Ukraine.\n\nKey plot line He was one of the biggest dominoes to fall. When he ended up being arrested, it was a big season-ending shocker.\n\nManafort hung around a bit in Season One, but then disappeared from view for a while.\n\nHe quit the campaign after being accused of having links to pro-Russian groups in Ukraine. He also sat in on a crucial meeting with a Russian lawyer who may have been trying to feed the Trump team classified information (more on that later).\n\nAfter an FBI raid on his home in Season Three, Manafort was found guilty on eight charges of tax fraud, bank fraud, and failing to disclose foreign banks accounts and is sentenced to 47 months in prison.\n\nIn Season Four, he agreed to co-operate with a special counsel inquiry in exchange for a reduced prison term. But then, in a twist - prosecutors claimed he breached his plea bargain by repeatedly lying to the FBI.\n\nRead more: The man who helped Trump win\n\nWho was he? The president's eldest child, who it emerged met some questionable Russians.\n\nKey plot line Donald Trump Jr's role in this unfolding saga all came down to a meeting he had with a Russian lawyer, which was set up by a music publicist (the full details of which come out in Season Three). If it sounds random, then in many ways it is.\n\nThe publicist, Rob Goldstone, offered Trump Jr a meeting with lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, promising him dirt on Hillary Clinton.\n\nThis meeting was the key to much of our plot line because it raised several key questions. Did this amount to the campaign colluding with a foreign government? Why did he agree to the meeting?\n\nWhat happened at the meeting was the scene investigators played over and over again as they tried to work out if there was any impropriety. In the end, no collusion charges were brought.\n\nDonald Trump confounded his critics by winning the presidency. But the transition was as gripping as the season before it as Trump picked his cabinet, introducing key characters to the mix.\n\nThe season ended with Trump taking the oath of office on a cold January morning - but there were more twists to come.\n\nWho was he? The granite-faced former general who later became the shortest-serving member of Donald Trump's cabinet. He resigned after not being honest about his contact with a Russian official - and was later charged with making false statements to the FBI.\n\nKey plot line Flynn was appointed national security adviser just days after the election, against the advice of then-President Obama, who warned Trump not to hire him. Flynn's starring role came in December 2016, just before Trump was sworn in, when he spoke to the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak.\n\nThe Washington Post and New York Times said the men discussed Russian sanctions, and that Flynn later lied to the Vice President Mike Pence about the conversation (Mr Kislyak says the men discussed only \"simple things\").\n\nThe substance of those talks eventually led to Flynn being prosecuted as part of the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller.\n\nAt the end of Season Three, in December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to making \"false, fictitious and fraudulent statements\" to the FBI about what he and Kislyak discussed.\n\nWith that, the investigation reached Trump's inner circle.\n\nRead more: Out after 23 days - who is Michael Flynn?\n\nWho was he? Many roads in this drama led back to Sergei Kislyak, the jolly and charismatic figure, who up until July 2017 was the Russian ambassador to Washington.\n\nKey plot line Kislyak's role in this drama remained unclear up to the end - but many of the players in this drama had meetings with him, and that put them in awkward spots.\n\nThe key questions for investigators were: why were they drawn to him, and what was said? The Russian ambassador spoke to both Flynn and Attorney-General Jeff Sessions - meetings which both Trump officials didn't initially acknowledge took place.\n\nAnything else we should know? Well, Russia fiercely fought back against claims on CNN that Kislyak was a \"top spy and recruiter of spies\".\n\nWho was he? Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III hovered in the background during Season One, when he was an Alabama senator and a trusted Trump adviser, but we really got to know him during Season Two, when he became Trump's nominee for attorney general, a job he kept for almost two years.\n\nKey plot line Sessions was one of several Trump aides to meet Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, and question marks emerged over the nature of those meetings.\n\nWhen the FBI investigation focused on the Trump campaign, Sessions stood down from the inquiry, much to Trump's irritation.\n\nThat decision to step down dogged him to the end, and he was written out of the series close to the end of Season Four, when Trump forced him to resign.\n\nThat move put control of the Mueller investigation into the hands of a Trump loyalist.\n\nRead more: An attorney general dogged by scandal\n\nThis was where the drama really picked up and all the plot lines came together. A lot of the background characters we saw in Season One came back with a vengeance and the infighting got nasty - and this is when the police started circling.\n\nWho was she? A Russian lawyer with a fearsome reputation who fought against US restrictions on Russia. But was she a Kremlin stooge?\n\nDespite earlier denials, she admitted in April 2018 to being an \"informant\" for Russia's prosecutor general.\n\nKey plot line Hers was a small but crucial role - she's the one who Manafort, Trump Jr and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner met in June 2016, the details of which begin trickling out a year later in a flashback sequence.\n\nShe said the meeting was to discuss adoptions - but those who helped set it up said she was offering dirt on the Democrats and Hillary Clinton's campaign.\n\nWhile the meeting became a central plot point, whatever happened inside never actually led to any charges.\n\nThat meeting would never have happened without...\n\nWho were they? Emin Agalarov is Azerbaijan's biggest pop star, of course. Have you not heard Love is a Deadly Game? Emin helped bring Donald Trump's Miss Universe competition to Russia and the two are close enough to send each other birthday messages. His dad, Aras, is a billionaire who mixes in the highest circles of influence in Moscow.\n\nKey plot line Again in a flashback scene, we met Emin as he set the wheels in motion on that Trump Jr meeting.\n\nAn email sent to Trump Jr suggested Emin was offering information on the Democrats (Emin said he wasn't). The email also said Aras Agalarov had apparently met the \"crown prosecutor\" of Russia - a role that weirdly didn't exist - and got information on Hillary Clinton.\n\nWho was he? He became deputy attorney general under Jeff Sessions. In the TV drama of the Russia scandal, this is the sort of role that would go to a solid Broadway actor you recognise but can't put a name to.\n\nKey plot line When Sessions stood down from leading the main investigation into the Trump-Russia ties, it fell to Rosenstein to do that job. In a major plot development, he appointed a special investigator - not a popular move with the White House.\n\nRead more: Who is Rod Rosenstein?\n\nWho was he? Married to Trump's daughter, Ivanka, Kushner was the character who was seen but very rarely heard.\n\nKey plot line Amid cries of nepotism, he was given a plum White House job as senior adviser to the president with a wide-ranging portfolio. It was his contacts with the Russians during the election campaign and beyond that led investigators to circle him.\n\nIn June 2016, Kushner attended THAT meeting with Donald Trump Jr and the Russian lawyer. He said he was so bored he messaged his assistant to call him so he could leave.\n\nKushner was also another character who had repeated contact with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak - contact that he initially failed to disclose.\n\nRead more: The son-in-law with Trump's ear\n\nWho was he? A British former tabloid journalist, with a penchant for selfies in silly hats, was perhaps an unlikely addition to the cast, but in most good dramas there's always room for the slightly out-of-place eccentric.\n\nKey plot line Rob Goldstone found his way into Donald Trump's circle of trust thanks to his connections with Russian pop star Emin Agalarov.\n\nGoldstone managed the pop star, and it was he who contacted Donald Trump Jr on behalf of his client to set up that now-infamous meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016. Goldstone sent an email to Trump Jr promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.\n\nRead more: The Music Man with a love for hats\n\nWho was he? At 6ft 8in, James Comey was a towering figure, the character who gave little away about himself personally but had a huge role in this story.\n\nKey plot line He first entered this drama in Season One, when as head of the FBI he reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails - just weeks before the election. Democrats blamed him for her loss, Republicans hailed him a hero. That, we thought, was the last we'd seen of him.\n\nJump ahead to Season Three, when months into the Trump presidency, Comey was fired by the new president. In true television drama style, he learned of his sacking as he was watching TV news during a trip to LA. Up to then, Comey was heading up an investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.\n\nEven by the end of the series, whether this amounted to obstruction of justice by the president remained an unresolved plot point.\n\nComey's testimony to the Senate was one of the most set-pieces in the series up to this point, as - under oath - he told politicians he was asked to pledge loyalty to the president, but refused.\n\nRead more: The FBI director who took centre stage\n\nWho was he? A former election adviser to Trump, although you'd be forgiven if you didn't remember the face. He was in only a few scenes in Season Two, but he had a massive role to play in Season Three, becoming the first person to plead guilty as part of the investigation.\n\nKey plot line In late October 2017, court documents emerged showing Papadopoulos had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the timing of meetings with alleged go-betweens for Russia.\n\nAfter lying to the FBI, he deleted an incriminating Facebook account and destroyed a phone.\n\nHis guilty plea and co-operation with the investigation had the potential to damage the US leader because it related directly to his campaign - but in the end, it didn't do so.\n\nWho was he? The man who held the fate of the Trump presidency in his hands.\n\nKey plot line Some characters wielded a lot of power, but didn't have a starring role, such as Robert Mueller, the tall chiselled figure who was appointed as \"special counsel\" to take over the Russia investigation after the dismissal of James Comey. Mueller came from the same stock as Comey - both were former heads of the FBI.\n\nThere were no showboating scenes and powerhouses speeches from Mueller in this series - we only ever saw him studiously working in his office.\n\nThere were reports that the president considered firing Mueller at one point - but Mueller stayed in the background doing his job until the very end of the series.\n\nAfter Season Three ended with the first charges being laid down by Robert Mueller, things really sped up in Season Four. The president's fury with the special counsel investigation increased and he fired his Attorney-General. But the series ended with no charges laid against the president and a sense of victory in the White House. Might we see a spin-off series...?\n\nWho was he? OK, he wasn't Putin's chef by this point, but he once was. In Season Four, he was the man accused of spearheading Russia's attempts to interfere in the 2016 election.\n\nKey plot line A little out of the blue, Mueller announced charges against Prigozhin and 12 other Russians, accusing them of tampering with the US election by (among other things) organising and promoting political rallies in the US.\n\nIn one surreal flashback sequence, we even see the Russians trying to buy a cage large enough to hold an actress dressed as Hillary Clinton in a prison costume.\n\nRead more: Seven key takeaways from indictment\n\nWho was he? The man who once said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump - but who instead turned against him.\n\nKey plot line Cohen, as Trump's long-time personal lawyer, lingered around the edges of the plot for the first three seasons, but became the big player of the fourth.\n\nWhen Mueller's team began looking into Cohen's finances, they passed on their concerns to investigators in New York.\n\nThen the plot took an unexpected new turn: Cohen, a long-time Trump loyalist, flipped and began co-operating with investigators. Not only that, but he ended up giving them a lot of help in exchange for a lighter sentence.\n\nCohen ended up admitting violating campaign finance laws, committing tax evasion and lying to Congress.\n\nThe last shot of the entire series was a mournful Cohen being locked into his jail cell.\n\nWho was he? A long-time Washington political operative who acted as an informal adviser to the Trump campaign. He called himself an agent provocateur, and once defended his actions by saying: \"One man's dirty trick is another man's political, civic action.\"\n\nKey plot line Stone was one of those memorable bit-part characters in Seasons One and Two - a colourful character known for his fiery tongue, sharp suits and the Richard Nixon tattoo spread across his back.\n\nTowards the end of Season One, he appeared to let the cat out of the bag, hinting on Twitter that there was damaging information coming out on Hillary Clinton. Soon after, that information (that we later learned was found by Russia) was made public.\n\nAfter a bit of a lull in the middle of Season Four, investigators indicted Stone on seven counts of witness tampering, obstruction and false statements, although he wasn't charged with co-ordinating with Russia.\n\nAll the way through, he denied any wrongdoing. He, like the president, called the investigation a \"witch-hunt\" and once said the accusations of collusion with Russia were \"a steaming plate of bull\".\n\nText by Rajini Vaidyanathan and Roland Hughes; illustrations by Gerry Fletcher", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland were frustrated for much of the first day of the second Ashes Test after asking Australia to bat in Adelaide.\n\nJoe Root became the first captain in 25 years to win the toss and field at the Adelaide Oval - and first in day-night Tests - then saw his side manage to take only four wickets.\n\nEngland did succeed in controlling the home scoring, with Australia closing on 209-4.\n\nBut, on a grey, chilly day that was interrupted three times by rain, England's bowlers did not find the assistance they may have expected.\n\nThey were met by patient Australian resistance as Usman Khawaja (53), David Warner (47) and Steve Smith (40) all made runs without kicking on.\n\nBut every time Australia looked set to take control, they were pegged back, most importantly when captain Smith was bowled to give England debutant Craig Overton his first Test wicket.\n\nSmith had batted for 326 balls and 512 minutes in the hosts' first innings in the first Test, to lay the foundations for his side's 10-wicket victory.\n\nPeter Handscomb (36 not out) and Shaun Marsh (20 not out) will resume when play begins at 03:00 GMT on Sunday, half an hour early in order to make up for the nine overs lost to the weather.\n• None Read more: Smith said my bowling was slow - Overton\n• None Did Root get it wrong? Have England found Smith's weakness? - Ashes analysis\n• None Listen: TMS highlights from day one in Adelaide\n\nRoot's big call on historic day for the Ashes\n\nGiven the overcast conditions and expectation the pink ball may misbehave, Root's decision at the toss was not a total surprise, even if it was unusual.\n\nHowever, his side's performance with the new ball left Root in danger of joining Nasser Hussain at Brisbane in 2002-03 and Ricky Ponting at Edgbaston in 2005 as captains who have made a big mistake in opting to field first.\n\nJames Anderson in particular was guilty of bowling too short and Australia were allowed to settle.\n\nOnly after the second, 75-minute, rain delay were England energised as Chris Woakes' direct hit accounted for Cameron Bancroft.\n\nFrom then on, the first day of Ashes cricket under lights and with a pink ball was attritional stuff on a two-paced surface that does not look conducive to free-scoring.\n\nIt was played out in front of a crowd of 55,317, the largest for any cricket match at the Adelaide Oval.\n\nThe ground looked resplendent under the lights, England fans sung under the iconic old scoreboard and the members socialised at the back of the Sir Donald Bradman Pavilion.\n\nEngland improve - but could have done better\n\nIt was to England's credit that they recovered after such a poor start, but they may be left wondering what might have been had they used the new ball properly.\n\nIf there was early movement on offer, the tourists did not bowl in the right areas often enough to find it.\n\nThey needed an Australian error to force the first wicket, Warner first calling for a run and then sending Bancroft back, allowing mid-off fielder Woakes to steady himself and hit direct at the non-striker's end.\n\nStuart Broad led a steady improvement of England's bowlers, but it was the appearance of home captain Smith that really galvanised the tourists.\n\nIn the build-up, Root said England would use Smith's laughter at the end of the Brisbane Test as motivation, while Smith called Anderson one of the biggest sledgers in the game.\n\nBoth Broad and Anderson engaged Smith in conversation, with umpire Aleem Dar forced to step in on more than one occasion.\n\nIt may have had an effect on Smith, who was less fluent and more loose than the unbeaten 141 he made at the Gabba.\n\nStill, it came as a surprise when Overton, who replaced Jake Ball, got the ball on to off stump via Smith's front pad, sparking joyous celebrations.\n\nAfter England's attempts to frustrate Australia in Brisbane, here the hosts were ready to have their scoring curbed by the visitors' plans.\n\nWarner only occasionally broke his patience outside off stump to lace the ball through the covers.\n\nThe left-hander was livid when the control left him and he poked Woakes into the gloves of Jonny Bairstow.\n\nKhawaja, perceived to have a problem against off-spin, punished Moeen Ali whenever he dropped short.\n\nKhawaja was dropped at long leg by Mark Stoneman off a top-edged Woakes bouncer, but had added only nine more runs when he sliced Anderson to gully.\n\nSmith almost drove back to Overton on only nine, yet found an ally in Handscomb with similarities in obduracy and unorthodoxy.\n\nBatting deep in the crease, Handscomb was joined by Marsh for an unbroken stand of 48 and it is they who will face a second new ball that is only an over old at the beginning of the second day.\n• None Get Ashes alerts sent to your phone", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The siren has a different tone from a natural disaster warning siren\n\nThe US state of Hawaii has tested a nuclear attack warning siren for the first time since the end of the Cold War.\n\nThe resumption of the monthly tests comes amid a growing threat from North Korea's missile and nuclear programme.\n\nPyongyang has tested a series of ballistic missiles and in September carried out its sixth nuclear test.\n\nHawaii, in the Pacific, already has a monthly test of sirens warning of natural disasters, including tsunamis.\n\nThe nuclear attack signal uses a different, wavering tone, warning residents and tourists to stay indoors and await further instructions.\n\nThe last time a nuclear attack warning siren was tested in the state was in the 1980s in the final years of the Cold War.\n\nBut it sounded again on Friday morning and will be repeated on the first business day of every month.\n\nVern Miyagi, who heads the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said it was \"critically important\" for the public to understand what the different tones mean, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.\n\nA missile launched from North Korea could strike Hawaii within 20 minutes of launch, the paper added.\n\nHawaii hosts the US military headquarters for the Asia-Pacific region.\n\nNorth Korea recently tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile which it claims can hit anywhere on the mainland United States.\n\nExperts say the Hwasong-15 appears capable of transporting a nuclear warhead, although it is unclear if Pyongyang is yet capable of making a weapon small enough to be fitted on to a missile.", "The British government has issued a fresh warning about the security risks of using Russian anti-virus software.\n\nThe National Cyber Security Centre is to write to all government departments warning against using the products for systems related to national security.\n\nThe UK cyber-security agency will say the software could be exploited by the Russian government.\n\nSecurity firm Kaspersky Labs, accused in the US of being used by the Russian state for espionage, denied wrongdoing.\n\nKaspersky Labs is widely used by consumers and businesses across the globe, although they are not being advised to stop using the software, as well as by some parts of the UK government.\n\nOfficials stress they are not recommending members of the public or companies stop using Kaspersky products, which are used by about 400 million people globally.\n\nBarclays has stopped offering free Kaspersky software to customers as a \"precautionary decision\".\n\nOn Saturday, the UK bank emailed 290,000 online banking customers who had downloaded Kaspersky over the past decade - but advised those with the software already installed to take no action.\n\nA Barclays spokesman said: \"Even though this new guidance isn't directed at members of the public, we have taken the decision to withdraw the offer.\"\n\nFor it to work, anti-virus software like that sold by Kaspersky Labs requires extensive access to files on computers and networks to scan for malicious code.\n\nIt also requires the ability to communicate back to the company in order to receive updates and share data on what it finds.\n\nHowever, the concern is that this could be used by the Russian state for espionage.\n\nOfficials say the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)'s decision is based on a risk analysis, rather than evidence that such espionage has already taken place.\n\nIn the new government guidance, Ian Levy, NCSC's technical director, said: \"Given we assess the Russians do cyber-attacks against the UK for reasons of state, we believe some UK government and critical national systems are at increased risk.\"\n\nThe NCSC is understood to have been in dialogue with Kaspersky Labs and says it will explore ways of mitigating the risks to see if a system can be developed to independently verify the security of its products.\n\nIt comes amid heightened concern about Russian activity against the UK.\n\nLast month, Prime Minister Theresa May warned the Russian state was acting against the UK's national interest in cyberspace.\n\nFollowing her warning, Ciaran Martin, chief executive of the NCSC, said Russia had targeted British infrastructure, including power and telecoms.\n\n\"Beyond this relatively small number of systems, we see no compelling case at present to extend that advice to the wider public sector, more general enterprises, or individuals,\" Mr Levy said.\n\n\"Whatever you do, don't panic.\n\n\"For example, we really don't want people doing things like ripping out Kaspersky software at large as it makes little sense.\"\n\nKaspersky has faced a series of accusations in the US press in recent months.\n\nIt responded to one claim, that it downloaded classified US material from a home computer in the US, by presenting a detailed explanation of what took place.\n\nIt has always said there is no truth to the claims.\n\nEarlier this week, Eugene Kaspersky, chief executive and co-founder of the company, told me: \"We don't do anything wrong. We would never do that. It's simply not possible.\"\n\nHe denied claims the Russian state could use the company.\n\n\"It's not true that the Russian state has access to the data. There are no facts about that,\" he added.\n\nMr Kaspersky said that if he was ever asked by the Russian state to hand over data he would move his company out of the country.", "The world's major fishing nations have agreed a moratorium on commercial fishing in the Arctic Ocean, before it has even become established.\n\nMuch of the Arctic was once permanently frozen but global warming means its waters are becoming more accessible.\n\nThe deal is expected to last for 16 years while research is carried out into the existing marine ecosystem.\n\nThe moratorium was agreed by Canada, Russia, China, the US, the EU, Japan, Iceland, Denmark and South Korea.\n\nIt covers an area of about 2.8m sq km (1m sq miles) - roughly the size of the Mediterranean Sea. No commercial fisheries exist in Arctic waters yet.\n\n\"This is one of the rare times when a group of governments actually solved a problem before it happened,\" said David Balton, US ambassador for oceans and fisheries.\n\n\"In the future if fish stocks are plentiful enough to support a commercial fishery there, they will be part of the management system and presumably their vessels will have the opportunity to fish for those stocks.\"\n\nTrevor Taylor, of the Canadian group Oceans North, said fish and marine mammals that many Arctic communities relied upon would now be protected.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during their 2017 visit to Nottingham\n\nMeghan Markle has had a taste of royal life, as she joined her fiance Prince Harry on their first joint official public engagement in Nottingham.\n\nExcited crowds cheered as the couple greeted well-wishers ahead of a visit to a World Aids Day charity fair hosted by the Terrence Higgins Trust.\n\nThey split up to talk to people lining both sides of their route and were given cards, flowers and chocolate.\n\nAfter the charity fair, they met head teachers at a nearby school.\n\nWell-wishers gathered in the city ahead of the visit to catch a glimpse of the couple, including Helena Bottomley, Zoe Scott and Carole Bingham, from East and West Bridgford.\n\nMs Scott said: \"We love the royals. We are genuinely happy for Harry.\"\n\n\"We all had our children at the same time as Diana [Princess of Wales] so we feel a real allegiance. She would be so thrilled,\" said Ms Bottomley.\n\nThe couple announced their engagement on Monday and are due to marry at Windsor Castle in May.\n\nOne of the people Prince Harry stopped to speak to was Julie Ball, 51, of Netherfield, who said the prince had commented on her Santa gloves.\n\n\"He said 'great gloves' and pulled one down over my fingers,\" she said. \"I said they're from Primark for £3.\n\n\"When Meghan walked past she said the same thing. She said, 'We have the same taste.'\"\n\nAnother member of the public shouted to Prince Harry: \"How does it feel being a ginger with Meghan?\"\n\n\"It's great isn't it?\" The prince replied.\n\nDickie Arbiter, former royal spokesman, told the BBC the couple took their time to talk to as many people as possible on their 30-minute walkabout.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A card designed especially for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has been given to them\n\nThe couple's engagement was announced on Monday\n\nUniversity of Nottingham students Raushana Nurzhubalina, from Kazakhstan, and Jenn Galandy, from Canada, set their alarms for 06:00 GMT to get a prime spot to try to see Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.\n\n\"It is such an honour to see the royals,\" Ms Nurzhubalina said.\n\n\"I'm also a fan of Suits, so it is a chance to see a star of that too.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Kensington Palace This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRoyal fan Irene Hardman had a goody bag ready to hand over to the couple, including copies of the local paper and two fridge magnets \"so they don't fight over it\".\n\nSpeaking afterwards, the 81-year-old said: \"I cried - she's wonderful, and it's fantastic. They're so genuine.\"\n\nThey are due to marry at Windsor Castle in May\n\nBy the time the royal couple arrived, the pavements in the Lace Market were packed.\n\nPrince Harry and Meghan spent around half an hour meeting the people of Nottingham who had come out in force despite the cold.\n\nMeghan appeared very relaxed and perfectly at ease. This was her first official royal engagement with Harry and if she was nervous at all it did not show.\n\nShe smiled, she chatted, at one point she even picked up someone's glove and handed it back to them.\n\nThis was a confident first public appearance. The couple split up at points to cover both parts of the pavement and meet the maximum number of people. Meghan was happy to shake hands with the crowd and as she wasn't wearing gloves, the ring was on show.\n\nTactile with her fiancée and the crowd - it's fair to say the response from the people was overwhelmingly positive.\n\nAfter the walkabout, Prince Harry and Ms Markle went to the Nottingham Contemporary Exhibition Centre for an event to mark World Aids Day.\n\nDominic Edwards, from the Terrence Higgins Trust, told the BBC the charity was \"thrilled\" the couple had chosen to visit Nottingham, and said: \"I think it really underlines his great support for HIV as a cause.\"\n\nRoyal commentator Richard FitzWilliams, said this visit represented a link with the legacy of Princess Diana's influential work on HIV 30 years ago and was \"no coincidence\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Kensington Palace This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPrince Harry has spent time in Nottingham both publicly and privately since he first met young people there in 2013, when he was exploring issues around youth violence.\n\nA year later, he established the Full Effect programme, which aims to stop youth violence in the city.\n\nAt Nottingham Academy, the couple will watch a \"hip hopera\" and meet students.\n\nThe handbag Ms Markle chose to carry on her Nottingham visit has already sold out.\n\nThe bag was made by the Scottish label, Strathberry, which said \"it was a fantastic surprise\" to see the bride-to-be carrying one of its designs.\n\nMs Markle was wrapped up in a long navy coat by Mackage - a brand also favoured by actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Halle Berry, Eva Mendes and Blake Lively.\n\nShe wore the coat over a beige cotton, full midi skirt from British-based fashion label Joseph, priced at £595, which also sold out on the brand's website.\n\nOn Tuesday, the couple's spokesman said Ms Markle would not be continuing her work on gender with the United Nations or with other organisations and instead would start new charity work as a full-time royal.\n\nMr Knauf said she planned to focus her attention on the UK and Commonwealth.\n\n\"This is the country that's going to be her home now and that means travelling around, getting to know the towns and cities and smaller communities,\" he said.\n\nShe will also become the fourth patron of the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.\n\nThe foundation is behind Prince Harry's Invictus Games - the Paralympic-style competition for injured servicemen and women and veterans - and also the mental health charity Heads Together.\n\nIt has also been announced that Ms Markle intends to become a British citizen and will work towards it in the coming years.", "David Cameron has said his government was unable to solve the \"huge\" challenge of funding social care for the UK's ageing population.\n\nMr Cameron told the Financial Times that a way now had to be found to meet \"catastrophic\" dementia care costs.\n\n\"We didn't solve that problem,\" the former prime minister, now president of Alzheimer's Research UK, said.\n\nWhile in office, he pledged to set a cap on lifetime care costs at £72,000, starting from age 65, by 2020.\n\nBut Theresa May has since said the level of a potential cap would be subject to consultation.\n\nMr Cameron, who was appointed to Alzheimer's Research UK in January, resigned as prime minister in 2016 after the Brexit vote result and stepped down as an MP later last year.\n\nHis plans were put on hold in July 2015 after insurers proved reluctant to introduce policies so that people could insure against their care costs, up to a £72,000 limit.\n\n\"The disappointment I had was I was hoping that a combination of the cap on care costs would help to deliver an insurer's model, where a market would grow up where everyone could insure themselves against the cost of long-term care,\" he said.\n\n\"We just haven't cracked that yet.\"\n\nMr Cameron described dementia as a \"world of darkness\" - and recalled visiting people in care homes in his Oxfordshire constituency while still an MP.\n\n\"They were completely disconnected from their surroundings, their relatives, their friends and their lives,\" he said.", "The vice-chancellor of Southampton University was awarded a pay package of £424,000 last year - £72,000 more than he earned the previous year.\n\nAccounts show Sir Christopher Snowden was paid £352,000 in 2015-16, during which he was in post for 10 months.\n\nThe university said the extra reflected a full year's salary and the national higher education pay award of 1.1%.\n\nBut Sally Hunt, of the University and College Union, criticised his decision to accept the pay rise.\n\nMs Hunt, the union's general secretary, said the rise demonstrated \"once again how out of touch university vice-chancellors can be\".\n\nShe said that Sir Christopher was \"already one of the best-paid vice-chancellors in the UK, on a salary that had been publicly questioned by the universities minister\".\n\nAnd she added: \"To accept this kind of pay rise, while saying he must axe 75 academic jobs because money is tight, beggars belief.\"\n\nA statement from the university said the 1.1% pay rise was the only increase in Sir Christopher's remuneration since his appointment, and that he had declined a similar increment for 2017-18.\n\n\"The lower salary figure published for 2015-16 reflected only 10 months of his first year spent in office,\" it said.\n\n\"The vice-chancellor's salary was set and is regularly reviewed and agreed by the university's independently-chaired remuneration committee, which reports to the University Council.\n\n\"The vice-chancellor is not a member of the remuneration committee and only attends by invitation to discuss other business.\"\n\nThe university also paid £9,000 into a pension scheme from which he had opted out.\n\nThe university drew criticism from Universities Minister Jo Johnson in the summer.\n\nHe said in a speech: \"There is one institution on the south coast that has seen vice-chancellor pay rise from £227,000 in 2009-10 to £350,000 to 2015-16, which is really quite a sharp increase.\"\n\nIt comes two days after the UK's highest paid vice-chancellor Dame Prof Glynis Breakwell stepped down.\n\nThe University of Bath boss had become the focus of criticism for her £468,000 salary.\n\nLecturers had complained that her pay had risen much more rapidly than the salaries of university staff.\n\nDr Gill Rider, chair of the University Council, said: \"The University of Southampton is a world-renowned teaching and research institution with over 24,000 students, 6,500 members of staff and a turnover of £590 million per annum, less than a quarter of which comes from EU/home tuition fees.\n\n\"We recruited Sir Christopher to Southampton two years ago because we wanted an outstanding leader for the university.\n\n\"He is a hugely respected academic, knighted for his services to engineering and higher education.\n\n\"He is one of the most experienced vice-chancellors in the sector with a track record of delivering long-term exceptional results, and he is a former president of Universities UK.\n\n\"He has held international leadership roles in the private sector, including as a plc chief executive, and he has served on the prime minister's Council for Science and Technology.\n\n\"Sir Christopher brings breadth and depth of experience that is critical to Southampton's long-term success.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The US state of Hawaii has tested its nuclear warning siren for the first time since the end of the Cold War.\n\nThe resumption of the monthly tests comes amid a growing threat from North Korea's missile and nuclear programme.\n\nPyongyang has tested a series of ballistic missiles and in September carried out its sixth nuclear test.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Maria Martinez, a supporter of Salvador Nasralla, said protesters were \"defending the rights of the people\"\n\nHonduras has given its army and police more powers to contain unrest following violent protests over last Sunday's disputed presidential election.\n\nGovernment official Ebal Diaz said \"constitutional guarantees\" had been suspended and a curfew imposed.\n\nEarlier, the publication of election results was delayed when the main opposition candidate demanded more than 5,000 ballot boxes be recounted.\n\nSalvador Nasralla says he has evidence of electoral fraud.\n\nViolent demonstrations since the election have left one person dead and 20 injured.\n\nRiot police fired tear gas at angry opposition supporters in the capital Tegucigalpa on Friday, near the centre where the results were due to be announced.\n\nOpposition supporters claim President Hernández is trying to steal the election\n\n\"The suspension of constitutional guarantees was approved so that the armed forces and the national police can contain this wave of violence that has engulfed the country,\" Mr Diaz said on national television.\n\nHe said a curfew would be in place between 18:00 and 06:00 for the next 10 days.\n\nAfter a day of street protests that spilled over into violence, a senior government official confirmed on Honduran TV that certain constitutional powers were being suspended and a curfew would be in place.\n\nIt came after what was supposed to be the announcement of the official result of the presidential election. Instead, the opposition alliance that is crying foul - alleging fraud by the electoral authorities - boycotted a hand count of around 1,000 ballot boxes.\n\nThey are demanding a full recount in three disputed regions, amounting to more like 5,000 boxes.\n\nSupporters of main opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla say they have evidence of vote tampering and are refusing to end their protests until the electoral court listens to their demands.\n\nMeanwhile, the sitting President, Juan Orlando Hernández, has a narrow lead and his centre-right National Party is confident of eventually sealing his re-election.\n\nAt this stage, neither side looks willing to work with the other and an already volatile situation in Honduras is now in serious danger of running out of control.\n\nAt the beginning of the week Mr Nasralla, whose supporters are deeply suspicious of the tribunal that counts the ballots, had established a lead of five percentage points.\n\nBut with more than 90% of ballots reportedly counted, incumbent President Juan Orlando Hernández moved ahead of his rival.\n\nMr Nasralla accused the authorities of manipulating the results.\n\nTensions eased temporarily on Wednesday when both candidates signed a document vowing to respect the final result after every disputed vote had been scrutinised.\n\nBut another pause in counting - attributed by the electoral tribunal to a computer glitch - led to Mr Nasralla saying a few hours later that the document \"had no validity\".\n\nDistrust over the count is partly due to the fact that the tribunal is appointed by Congress, which is controlled by Mr Hernández's National Party, and partly due to the sudden reversal of Mr Nasralla's initial lead.\n\nThere has also been criticism of the slow pace of the count, which came to a 36-hour halt after the first partial results were released on Monday.\n\nSalvador Nasralla (left) is challenging Juan Orlando Hernández for the presidency", "Parents who have a different surname to their children have felt \"humiliated\" at British ports by \"over-zealous\" border officials, MPs have heard.\n\nLabour's Tulip Siddiq said she faced an \"air of suspicion\" after a holiday, as her daughter has her father's name.\n\nShe said if Brexit was to bring new passports, it would be a good time to \"iron out\" difficulties and include parents' names on children's passports.\n\nThe government said it would \"actively consider\" how to tackle the issue.\n\nBut Home Office minister Nick Hurd warned there were \"formidable difficulties\" with what was being proposed.\n\nMs Siddiq, MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, said a \"growing number of parents in the UK\" found holidays being \"blighted by confrontations that are both unnecessary and entirely avoidable\".\n\nIn a Commons debate on Friday, she described being stopped at the UK border before boarding Eurostar, after a trip to France, having been separated from her husband.\n\nPushing her 18-month-old daughter in a pram, she found herself being questioned about her identity.\n\n\"To my shock, the situation became quite tense. The official kept asking me for more and more documentation which I did not have and I explained over and over again that the child had my husband's last name, not my last name.\n\n\"My daughter was saying 'mama, mama' and crying because the unfortunate incident took so long, but even that didn't seem to convince the border official.\n\n\"My problem was that there was a real air of suspicion and I was made to feel like I was doing something wrong when I had just gone on holiday with my daughter and husband.\"\n\nShe said it was not only women travelling with their children but foster parents and \"numerous LGBT couples\" travelling with adopted children who had contacted her having been \"questioned mercilessly\" at borders.\n\nShe said she did not want to compromise the efforts of Border Force to tackle child trafficking, but \"thousands of British parents\" had been \"unduly harassed and interrogated by officials at the UK border\".\n\nOne constituent returned to Gatwick from a holiday with her eldest daughter from a previous marriage who had special needs. The girl was asked \"is this your mother?\".\n\nShe told Ms Siddiq it had been a \"painful\" experience \"genuinely thinking that our re-entry to the UK depended on my daughter, who has minimal cognitive ability\".\n\nAnother had been left \"humiliated\" at Stansted when border officials \"refused to believe\" her 12-year-old was her daughter.\n\n\"These stories are the tip of the iceberg,\" said Ms Siddiq. \"Children's passports were introduced in the 1990s and list the child's name, and date and place of birth only. It is high time that they were updated to reflect the changing circumstances of British families.\"\n\nShe said both parents' names could be included on children's passports which would save \"time, confusion and ultimately money at border control\".\n\nChildren should be able to grow up knowing their identity was one of their choosing and \"does not leave them treated by over-zealous border officials as criminals\", she added.\n\nMr Hurd, a father of six, said he understood the challenge of travelling with small children and that the border system should not be doing anything to exacerbate parents' \"stress\".\n\nHe said it was \"not in doubt\" that many people felt a grievance about the issue, but there were occasions where children were taken across borders which \"gave rise to safeguarding concerns\", and \"reasonable steps\" were needed to avoid putting children at risk. Questioning by Border Force officials was done \"with the best of motives\".\n\nEven if children's passports contained parents' names \"it would not provide conclusive evidence to a border officer that the person accompanying the child had the right to do so or was acting in the best interest of the child\".\n\nBut Mr Hurd said: \"Having spoken to the immigration minister, I know that he does understand the present situation is causing difficulties, particularly in cases where children have different surnames to a parent.\n\n\"Therefore I am happy to give her the commitment on his behalf that he is going to actively consider how we can take this forward.\"\n\nThe Home Office's advice on the subject says it would help single parents with a different surname to their child to have a marriage or divorce certificate with them.", "The children's commissioner told BBC Scotland he cannot rule out legal action on the issue\n\nScotland's children's commissioner has said he may consider legal action over the Universal Credit rollout if it further disadvantages young people.\n\nBruce Adamson said poverty was the biggest human rights issue facing children in Scotland.\n\nHe told the BBC reforms to the benefits systems could be resulting in some children going without basics like a warm home and hot meals.\n\nThe UK government said Universal Credit was helping people improve their lives.\n\nA spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the system was \"working\" and that as a result of Universal Credit people were \"moving into work faster and staying in work longer than under the old system\".\n\nThe controversial measure, which is being rolled out across the UK, brings six existing benefit payments into one.\n\nIt faced criticism over claims some people had to wait six weeks for their first payment, contributing to a rise in debt, rent arrears and evictions.\n\nChancellor Philip Hammond announced changes aimed at speeding up claim times in his autumn budget last month.\n\nMr Adamson said he was engaging with ministers, from the both the UK and Scottish governments, about the impact the benefit changes were having on the human rights of children and young people.\n\nHe called for \"political leadership\" on the issue, but said he could not rule of the possibility of legal action in the future.\n\nIn an extended interview broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland on Sunday, the children's commissioner said: \"Poverty is the biggest human rights issue facing children in Scotland at the moment.\n\n\"And there's a number of issues around the way in which Universal Credit is calculated and how it is paid. But this leads to a much, much deeper issue. We are talking about the rights of children and the right to benefit from social security.\n\n\"We are talking about things like having a warm and secure place to live, having regular hot, nutritious meals and also the ability to access things like transport to get to school and to enjoy social and cultural activities that we know are so important to their development.\"\n\nAsked if there was any prospect of legal redress in Scotland, Mr Adamson said: \"While we don't have the Convention on the Rights of the Child within our domestic law yet, we do have the Humans Rights Act which brings in the European Convention on Human Rights and the courts look very closely if a state falls below that minimum standard required, where the state fails to provide those basics of life.\n\n\"So certainly if children in Scotland aren't getting those basic things then legal action may be the way to take this forward. But it's not the best way.\"\n\nHe added: \"We really need political leadership here and we need to make sure that we are never in a situation where children are going without the basics that they need.\"\n\nThe Unite union organised a day of action on Universal Credit on Saturday, with demonstrations held around Scotland\n\nThe DWP spokesman said no-one who needed support had to wait six weeks.\n\nHe added: \"In December, claimants can request an advance of up to 50% of their first payment and a further 50% in January if they need it, repayable over 12 months.\n\n\"Universal Credit lies at the heart of our commitment to help people improve their lives and raise their incomes. It provides additional, tailored support to help people move into work and stop claiming benefits altogether.\"\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Sunday Politics Scotland programme, Brexit Minister Mike Russell said he thought the Scottish government would be \"very sympathetic\" to potential legal action against Universal Credit if it infringed the human rights of children.\n\nHe said: \"The approach of the UK government on social security and welfare is truly appalling. It is impoverishing people. It is leading to despair.\n\n\"I think anybody who is standing up against that and arguing for a practical resolution, to what are awful, ideological problems being brought by the Tories, I think deserves all the support he can get.\"\n\nOn Saturday, a day of action, organised by the Unite union, saw demonstrations staged at various locations around Scotland protesting against changes to the benefits system.\n\nYou can listen again to the extended interview with Children's Commissioner Bruce Adamson on the BBC iplayer.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Rugby League\n\nAustralia edged out England in a tight and nervy Rugby League World Cup final to retain the trophy at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.\n\nEngland produced a dogged and resilient performance in their first final for 22 years, but the Kangaroos held on to win an 11th world title.\n\nBoyd Cordner smashed through for the only try of the game as England restricted Australia to six points.\n\nThey had chances of their own, but could not breach the hosts' defence.\n\nThere was no moment that summed this up more than a desperate but brilliant ankle tap by Josh Dugan on Kallum Watkins in the second half after the England centre had broken through.\n• None Analysis - sometimes the narrow defeats hurt the most\n\nIt was a monumental effort from England against a team who came into the game as overwhelming favourites.\n\nHaving lost to Australia 18-4 in their opening game, Wayne Bennett's side both improved and impressed during the World Cup, holding off Tonga 20-18 for a memorable semi-final win before this thrilling final.\n\nAustralia's victory, though, completed a World Cup double for the country, with the women's team having beaten New Zealand 23-16 earlier.\n\nEngland were forced to soak up wave after wave of Australian attacks in the first half as the Kangaroos built relentless pressure, completing 23 of 25 sets before the break.\n\nOnly a five-minute spell of indiscipline cost Bennett's side, a high tackle from Luke Gale starting a spell in which Australia enjoyed four straight sets.\n\nWatkins fumbled a Cooper Cronk kick over his own line and Ryan Hall caught another as England were forced into back-to-back in-goal dropouts, before James Roby was pulled up for another penalty.\n\nFrom there, Australia made them pay. Aaron Woods drew in several tacklers but managed to get an offload away and the Kangaroos capitalised as back-rower Cordner hit the line at speed to crash over.\n\nMichael Morgan thought he had added to Australia's lead after the interval when Dugan caught Gale's cross-field kick beyond his own touchline and broke clear to set the field position, before Jordan McLean put Morgan over.\n\nBut referee Gerard Sutton called it back for an obstruction by Cameron Smith, and from then on England looked the more likely to cross.\n\nJermaine McGillvary was superb on England's right but the dangerous Huddersfield winger could not find the gaps to add to his seven tries in the tournament, while the Watkins ankle tap was arguably the game's most dramatic moment.\n\nEngland assistant coach Denis Betts said in the build-up to the game that \"nobody ever remembers the losers\" - but the man who captained the team in their last World Cup final defeat may change his mind after a mammoth effort.\n\nThe bookmakers had the Kangaroos as 1-7 favourites, but there was certainly not that margin between the teams as England produced a solid defensive display and Australia looked to be out on their feet come the final whistle.\n\nMany did not expect England to reach this stage - but, having reached the final, Bennett's team gave a great account of themselves.\n\nGareth Widdop caused problems as he joined the line from full-back, as well as reading Australia's kicking game and positioning himself superbly in defence, while captain Sam Burgess, along with James Graham, led a ferocious forward pack in the absence of experienced skipper Sean O'Loughlin.\n\nIt may have been a different story but for that Dugan ankle tap on Watkins, and had England's execution been better at key moments, McGillvary spilling in a good position in the first half and Gale passing behind John Bateman in the second.\n\nEngland international Sam Tomkins, not selected for the tournament, said it was \"a missed opportunity\" for the team.\n\n\"We could have won that with just a matter of minutes left,\" the Wigan Warriors full-back told BBC One.\n\n\"I don't think we have played them in the last five or six years and got that close, one ankle tap, one moment, but we are making strides.\"\n\nEnd of an era for Australian greats?\n\nIt might not be an Australia side to rival some of their greatest over the years, but there can be no arguing the Kangaroos are deserved world champions having won six games from six and conceded just 16 points.\n\nIt is also a side that has witnessed legends such as Cronk, Smith and Billy Slater, the latter two of whom played in the side stunned by New Zealand in the 2008 final in Brisbane.\n\nKangaroos captain Smith, who won the 2017 NRL Grand Final and State of Origin for Queensland alongside Slater and Cronk, said this was \"one of the toughest games I have played in my career\".\n\n\"The three of us have had a remarkable year for club, state and country. If this is the last time we get to play together what a special memory to have,\" the 34-year-old added.\n\nFull-back Slater has come back from multiple shoulder operations to return, but said at the final whistle he \"will probably retire\" at the end of next season and may have played his last game for his country.\n\nAs for Cronk, the 33-year-old playmaker was at his creative best against a resilient England defence and his game management proved key to shutting down the game late on.\n\nHe later confirmed it would his last appearance in green and gold.\n\n\"I've had a fair ride,\" said Cronk. \"This is the best-case scenario for me and the team moving forward.\"\n\nWhat next for England and Bennett?\n\nBennett said before the game that reaching the final was his target when he took charge two years ago.\n\nThe Australian's contract with the Rugby Football League is effectively now up, and he is yet to commit to a new deal.\n\nThe veteran Brisbane Broncos boss helped engineer a New Zealand upset against Australia in the 2008 final, and came close to shocking his home nation again nine years later in England's narrow loss.\n\nAsked about his future following the defeat, Bennett said: \"I'm not talking about that tonight, I'm not in a good state to talk about those things.\"\n\nEngland, with or without Bennett, will take confidence from their best performance at a World Cup in 22 years as they head into a three-match Test series with the Kiwis next autumn.\n\nIt will be a series you can follow live on BBC TV, radio and the BBC Sport website.", "Coverage: Watch live coverage and highlights on BBC One, Connected TV, online & the BBC Sport app; live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live; live text commentary on the BBC Sport website & app\n\nEngland will attempt to become world champions for the first time when they take on reigning champions Australia in the World Cup final on Saturday at 09:00 GMT.\n\nIt is live on BBC One with coverage starting at 08:30 GMT, while there is also commentary on Radio 5 live. Both can be accessed via the BBC Sport website, which will have live text coverage of the match.\n\nIt is England's first appearance in a World Cup final for 22 years, with the 1995 encounter ending in a 16-8 defeat by Australia at Wembley.\n\nThe last time a team from Britain won the tournament was in 1972 when a combined Great Britain team secured their third world title.\n\nEngland captain Sean O'Loughlin has been ruled out after picking up a quad injury in their semi-final victory over Tonga, so Sam Burgess will skipper the side at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium.\n\n\"We've got an unbelievable opportunity to do something pretty special,\" said Burgess, 28, who will move to loose forward in O'Loughlin's absence.\n• None Wayne Bennett unsure over his future with England\n\nEngland are also without Josh Hodgson, leaving James Roby as the only hooker in the 17-man squad, with Ben Currie starting in the second row and full-back Jonny Lomax coming on to the bench.\n\nHead coach Wayne Bennett says his side are finally back where they belong, with his aim having always been to help England reach a first final since 1995.\n\n\"I wanted England to be hopefully more competitive,\" said Bennett, the most successful coach in Australian rugby league history with seven Grand Final wins.\n\nThe 67-year-old, whose contract with England ends after the tournament, became their first Australian boss when he was appointed in February 2016.\n\n\"I thought it would add a great deal of interest to it all if we could get England back to that place where they should be and hopefully they can stay there,\" he added.\n\nAustralia coach Mal Meninga, who beat Bennett to the Kangaroos job two years ago, has accused the former Brisbane Broncos boss of mind games before the final.\n\n\"Mind games are about 20 years old. We don't want to make it about me and Wayne, it's about the two teams,\" he said.\n\nAssistant coach Denis Betts was the last man to captain England in a World Cup final, the 16-8 loss to Australia in 1995, and says reaching the final itself is not enough because \"nobody ever remembers the losers\".\n\nBetts said the decision for O'Loughlin not to play in the final was taken by the Wigan player himself.\n\n\"He pushed himself as hard as he possibly could,\" said Betts. \"He knows his body, he knows when he's ready to play in this kind of game.\"\n\nBurgess, who captained England in O'Loughlin's absence in the 2016 Four Nations Series, says England's injury problems give St Helens hooker Roby and Warrington forward Currie a chance to impress.\n\n\"We've been extremely consistent in our training. Players have been in and out of different positions so not a lot changes genuinely for our team,\" he said.\n\nNot according to the bookmakers, who have the Kangaroos as overwhelming 1-7 favourites.\n\nEngland have a powerful forward pack that is comfortably the equal of any in the competition and have been strong in defence all the way through, while their attacking combinations have improved week on week.\n\nBrian Noble was the last man to coach a side from the northern hemisphere to victory over Australia in a rugby league match - presiding over Great Britain's 23-12 victory in Sydney in 2006.\n\nHe will be in the commentary box alongside Dave Woods on Saturday as the game is broadcast live on BBC One, with coverage starting at 08:30 GMT.\n\nAnd the 56-year-old believes there are plenty of reasons why England fans can be optimistic of pulling off a major upset. Here are his five reasons:\n• Sam Burgess. He's a big-game, big-pressure player. He's the leader of the pack and has a healthy disrespect for the Australians. A Clive Churchill in the NRL says it all. He's a player the Aussies have to fear.\n• The back three. Full-back Gareth Widdop and wingers Ryan Hall and Jermaine McGillvary have been outstanding and collectively are better than their counterparts on the other side of the fence. Bennett's decision to move Widdop to full-back after the injury to Jonny Lomax was a stroke of genius. It has created the link with McGillvary, the winger of the tournament. And Hall has also got the pedigree to produce some big moments.\n• No fear-factor. This Australian line-up is not as fearful as ones I've seen in the past. I'll give you two names who've not been available - Greg Inglis and Johnathan Thurston. They've still got brilliant individuals. Billy Slater will be voted the best full-back they've ever had when he retires, Cameron Smith is definitely the best number nine they've ever had and Cooper Cronk is up there. So the spine of their team are going to have to be rocked and knocked around a bit. But apart from those three, the supporting cast is not as good has it has been, especially in the pack.\n• England fans can lift the team. They have been superb from when they started arriving in such numbers in Perth and have travelled with the team since. They've put in a phenomenal effort on matchdays with their support.\n• It feels like it's our time. It's been a heck of a long time since we beat them in a final. But this group is energised and excited. Nobody is expecting us to win it, but they can do it and I believe they will do it.\n\nAustralia are without the likes of injured stars Thurston and Inglis but they still have quality all over the park and remain unbeaten since Mal Meninga took over as coach at the end of 2015.\n\nArguably their three key players are hooker and captain Cameron Smith, half-back Cronk and full-back Slater.\n\nThe trio occupy three of the key decision-making positions in league and as well as playing together for the Kangaroos, are Queensland and, until the end of the 2017 NRL season, Melbourne Storm team-mates.\n\nSmith lifted the World Cup in Manchester back in 2013 after they demolished New Zealand 34-2 in the final and has just been named the world's best player for the second time.\n\nTrampling over all before them\n\nAustralia are unbeaten at the World Cup and have won their past 12 matches against England.\n\nThat includes an 18-4 victory in the opening game of this tournament but England were a match for the Kangaroos for large periods.\n\nThe Kangaroos' other results are 52-6, 34-0, 46-0 and 54-6. You could argue they have been under no real pressure since the opening game, but that's because they have been so far superior to everyone they've played.\n\nEngland have not had it quite so easy and are yet to put together an 80-minute performance.\n\nThe result was never really in doubt against Lebanon (29-10), France (36-6) and Papua New Guinea (36-6) but they survived an almighty scare against Tonga, leading 20-0 with seven minutes left before scraping home 20-18 in the semi-final.\n\nDo you remember the last time?\n\nYou have to go back to 1972 for the last time a northern hemisphere team were world champions.\n\nThat match between GB and the Kangaroos was played in front of just 4,231 fans at the Stade de Gerland in Lyon, France. It finished 10-10 and GB became champions because they had previously defeated the Aussies in a bloody and bruising group match.\n\nSteve Nash, the team's scrum-half that day, describes GB's World Cup triumph as \"the best-kept secret in rugby league\".\n\n\"I like to surprise people. Even now I will drop it in a conversation: 'Yeah I've won a World Cup, I'll go fetch my medal',\" he told BBC Sport.\n\nWhat about Saturday's other final?\n\nTwo World Cups come to a conclusion in Brisbane on Saturday.\n\nThe women's final will be between holders Australia and New Zealand, who hammered England 52-4 in Sunday's semi-final.\n\nEngland did not have the best of tournaments. They defeated Papua New Guinea in their opening match before losing to Australia, the Cook Islands and the Kiwi Ferns.", "Barclays has stopped offering free Kaspersky anti-virus products to new customers following an official warning about Russian security software.\n\nThe bank emailed 290,000 online banking customers on Saturday to say the move was a \"precautionary decision\".\n\nUK cyber-security chiefs are warning government departments not to use software from Russian companies for systems relating to national security.\n\nBarclays said it treated the security of its customers \"very seriously\".\n\nA spokesman for Kaspersky said it was \"disappointed\" that Barclays had discontinued its offer to new customers.\n\nThe National Cyber Security Centre - the UK's authority on cyber security and part of GCHQ - is writing to all government departments telling them Russian security software could be exploited by the Kremlin.\n\nBut officials stressed they were not saying members of the public or companies should stop using Kaspersky products, which are used by about 400 million people globally.\n\nBarclays told customers it would no longer offer free Kaspersky software \"following the information that's been shared in the news\" - but advised people with the software already installed that they did not need to take any action.\n\nIt wrote: \"The UK government has been advised... to remove any Russian products from all highly sensitive systems classified as secret or above.\n\n\"We've made the precautionary decision to no longer offer Kaspersky software to new users.\n\n\"However, there's nothing to suggest that customers need to stop using Kaspersky.\"\n\nIt went on: \"At this stage there is no action for you to take. It's important that you continue to protect yourself with anti-virus software.\"\n\nThe 290,000 people who received emails from Barclays are all online banking customers, who had downloaded Kaspersky in the past decade as part of a 12-month free trial offered by the bank.\n\nMany of these customers, who could include individuals employed by the government, could have ended their subscription once the free trial ended.\n\nIan Levy, the NCSC's technical director, said there was no evidence the guidance to government departments should apply to the wider public.\n\n\"For example, we really don't want people doing things like ripping out Kaspersky software at large as it makes little sense,\" he said.\n\nA spokesman for Barclays said: \"Even though this new guidance isn't directed at members of the public, we have taken the decision to withdraw the offer of Kaspersky software from our customer website.\"", "Battery cages for chickens were banned in the EU in 2012\n\nSome cages for hens provide a \"necessary defence\" against bird flu, the government's chief vet has said.\n\nIn a tweet, Nigel Gibbens said the larger pens, which replaced so-called battery cages in 2012, have welfare benefits and offer more space.\n\nIt comes after 10 leading British vets, who believe caging hens is unethical, said his \"brazen endorsement\" was \"extremely disappointing\".\n\nThey said the restricted space was \"seriously detrimental to welfare\".\n\nBattery cages for chickens were banned in the EU in 2012. The ruling said that if laying hens were to be held they must be in enriched - also known as colony - cages instead.\n\nThe enriched cages provided extra space to nest, scratch and roost and the guidance from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), is that each bird in an enriched cage must have at least 750 square centimetres of space.\n\nThe minimum for battery cages was 550 square centimetres.\n\nDespite the banning of battery cages, a number of leading retailers have announced that they are moving towards selling free-range eggs only.\n\nBut at the Egg and Poultry Industry Conference in October, Mr Gibbens called this a \"regrettable move\" and said cages \"have a lot going for them\".\n\nCriticising him in a group letter to the Times, 10 vets said overcrowding and restricted space were \"seriously detrimental to welfare\".\n\n\"Hens in cages cannot carry out fundamental species-specific behaviours\", they added.\n\nThe group dismissed his claims about protection against bird flu saying there are other options to manage the threat and urged the chief vet to take a \"more progressive position\".\n\nMr Gibbens later defended his view on Twitter and said: \"Free range risks disease that is really bad for welfare.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by NigelGibbensChiefVet This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA Defra spokeswoman said: \"Enriched cages offer less exposure to the threat of bird flu during an outbreak than free range systems, and provide more floor space and more height than battery cages.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe youngest patient on the UK transplant waiting list, an eight-week old baby, has received a new heart.\n\nA Europe-wide appeal to help Charlie Douthwaite, who was born with half a heart, was launched last month.\n\nThe youngster, who suffers from hypoplastic left heart syndrome, underwent a nine-hour operation at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital.\n\nHis mother, Tracie Wright, thanked the donor family for giving Charlie \"a second chance at life\".\n\n\"They've given my baby a second chance at life and for that I'll be forever grateful,\" she said.\n\n\"His skin colour is amazing - he was so blue all the time to being so peachy and pink. Perfect.\n\nBy the age of five weeks, Charlie had undergone 11 operations.\n\n\"It hasn't quite sunk in that out there somewhere an amazing family gave us that amazing priceless most precious gift that could ever be given, in their darkest time they still thought of someone else.\n\n\"Thank you just doesn't seem like a big enough word to say to them.\n\n\"He's done well so far we couldn't be any more proud of him he's a real life hero, our little warrior.\"\n\nCharlie had to have open heart surgery when he was three days old after being born weighing just 6lbs 5oz at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.\n\nDr Zdenka Reinhardt, a cardiologist at the Freeman Hospital, said he had been \"extremely lucky considering his condition and his size\".\n\nDoctors hope he will be well enough to leave hospital in the new year.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "MPs are demanding to know why the white goods manufacturer Whirlpool ended a product replacement scheme for dangerous tumble dryers.\n\nThe Commons business committee says one million of the defective machines remain in UK homes.\n\nLast week, a coroner blamed a fault in a Whirlpool dryer for a 2014 fire that killed two men in north Wales.\n\nThe firm says it is still offering free repairs, but ended a £50 offer for a replacement machine after demand fell.\n\nThe affected machines include dryers manufactured under the Hotpoint, Indesit, Creda, Swan or Proline brands between April 2004 and October 2015.\n\nAfter problems with the machines first emerged, Whirlpool initially told customers that the dryers were safe to use but should not be left unattended, but later said the machines should be unplugged until they could be repaired.\n\nWith growing waiting lists for a repair, the company then said it would allow customers to purchase a replacement dryer for the reduced price of £50.\n\nThe Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee has written to Whirlpool, asking why it has now chosen to end this replacement scheme.\n\nCommittee chairwoman Rachel Reeves accused the US manufacturer of \"falling significantly short of their responsibilities\" and asked why boss Ian Moverly failed to mention the end of the replacement scheme when he gave evidence to her committee in October.\n\nWhirlpool said anyone with an affected dryer was still eligible for a free repair, and should contact them immediately to arrange it.\n\nIt said in a statement: \"After two years of extensive measures to raise awareness, the number of consumers coming forward has fallen sharply.\n\n\"This suggests that few affected appliances remain in service.\"\n\nIt told customers who still owned one of the appliances it was \"never too late\" to get in touch.\n\nDoug McTavish and Bernard Hender died in the fire at the flat in Llanrwst\n\nIt continued: \"Previously, consumers who wished to upgrade their products to a newer model were offered the additional option of a brand-new dryer in exchange for a small contribution to the total cost.\n\n\"The scheme has now ended due to a fall in demand.\"\n\nThe coroner from the inquests into the deaths of Doug McTavish and Bernard Hender in Llanrwst, north Wales, told Whirlpool that it had to \"take action\".\n\nHe said the fire was caused \"on the balance of probabilities\" by an electrical fault with the door switch on the dryer.\n\nHe described evidence presented at the inquest by Whirlpool as \"defensive and dismissive\" and said the company's approach was an \"obstacle\" to finding steps to prevent future fires.\n\nHis final report has been sent to the company, which has until 26 December to respond.\n\nConsumer group Which? criticised both Whirlpool and the government, which it called on to step in.\n\nThe company's managing director of home products and services, Alex Neill, said: 'It is completely unacceptable that Whirlpool has shut down its replacement scheme for these dangerous tumble dryers.\n\n\"It is irresponsible that despite one million households potentially still using an affected machine, Whirlpool seems unwilling to do everything possible to deal with this issue.\n\n\"The government must step in and force Whirlpool to fully recall the remaining tumble dryers.\"", "Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina is behind the Saatchi Gallery’s latest exhibition.\n\nIt features work by artists who supported the feminist Russian punk band when they were arrested, detained and sent to prison following a protest in 2012.", "Ben Hopkins is heading for a US university\n\nOn the steps of Downing Street, Theresa May pledged to promote social mobility, to make Britain a country that works for everyone.\n\nShe pointed out that a white working-class boy is currently less likely than anyone else to go to university, and that the privately educated dominated the \"top professions\".\n\nHer cabinet has the highest proportion of state-educated ministers since Clement Attlee was prime minister in 1945.\n\nJustine Greening is the first education secretary to have been wholly educated at a comprehensive school.\n\nHowever, promising social mobility and delivering it are different things, as previous governments have learned.\n\nFor decades now, the charity the Sutton Trust has been the standard-bearer for social mobility in Britain, developing schemes to help pupils from less advantaged backgrounds gain access to elite universities, and helping them into the professions.\n\nThe trust's chief executive, Lee Elliot Major, said the Brexit vote underlines the need for a broader policy now, as it exposed a divided country.\n\nMany areas which voted Leave are those same areas where opportunities are fewest.\n\nMr Elliot Major said: \"The political vote that we saw was a direct consequence of social immobility.\"\n\nOne of the Sutton Trust's newest schemes, in partnership with the Fulbright Commission, helps teenagers to apply to American universities and win scholarships to pay the fees.\n\nIt is very competitive. There are 10 applicants for every place.\n\nJust 61 British students are going to the US on the scheme this year.\n\nBen Hopkins, aged 18, from the village of Wheaton Aston in Staffordshire, will soon be heading for Bowdoin in Maine, where he has won a scholarship. It is one of the most highly rated liberal arts colleges in the US, with fees of $62,000 (£48,000) a year.\n\nBen Hopkins worried whether he would fit in at Oxford\n\nBen does not come from a privileged background. His father is a machinist, his mother a teaching assistant.\n\nNeither went to university. The family live in a modest, though immaculate, home, on the outskirts of the village.\n\nSouth Staffordshire is one of the more affluent parts of the Midlands, with a lower rate of unemployment than the national average.\n\nIt is a Conservative area. Nearly 65% voted Leave on 23 June. Those I spoke to cited fears over immigration.\n\nBen's mother, Tracy, told me he had always been very committed to his schoolwork, and he perseveres until he gets something right: \"He's a perfectionist.\"\n\nShe said she wasn't a \"tiger mother\". Ben had always set his own pace. Both parents are very supportive of their son and proud of his achievement.\n\nBen told me his teachers had helped him greatly. Some gave up their own free time to give him extra lessons.\n\nHe was a pupil at the local comprehensive, Wolgarston High, in the nearby market town of Penkridge. It is rated \"good\" by Ofsted, and improving. It currently gets some of the best A-level results in South Staffordshire.\n\nEvery year, some pupils go to Russell Group universities, and sometimes students go to Oxford or Cambridge.\n\nHowever, Ben told me that when he visited Oxford he wondered whether he would fit in, as so many students seemed to have gone to private school.\n\nHeadteacher Philip Tapp says there is very little in the local area to inspire and raise aspirations\n\nAdam Simmonds, head of sixth form at Wolgarston High, said others occasionally felt the same, as there is a strong sense of community in this part of South Staffordshire, and some 18-year-olds do not want to leave.\n\n\"Sometimes it's a powerful draw, their experiences in this locality, and they don't want to give that up to go to, well any university, actually,\" he said.\n\n\"We've had students with three As at A-level who've decided to stay at home because they like staying at home.\"\n\nThough Stafford is just over an hour from London by train, Ben had only visited the capital once before he went for the Sutton Trust assessment.\n\nThe school headteacher, Philip Tapp, said he was working to arrange more trips for all students. He said there was very little in the local area to inspire and raise aspirations.\n\nSo what made Ben such an exception? His family, his teachers and ultimately, himself. No-one told him about the Sutton Trust: he discovered it online.\n\nAdam Simmonds described Ben, outgoing head boy, as an \"elder statesman\" of the school whom everyone respected and felt they could talk to.\n\nLee Elliot Major, chief executive of the Sutton Trust, urged the new government to consider how to extend social mobility to help more people.\n\nHe said; \"We can pick talent and then catapult it into opportunity, as with our US programme where you have amazing young people who are going to the Ivy League and other leading universities.\n\n\"But what about those areas that are left behind? What about the children who don't go on those programmes? And I think no-one at the moment has got the answer to that.\"\n\nThe new government is considering reversing the ban on new grammar schools, as a way of promoting social mobility. But that's controversial - many argue it will not work.\n\nDavid Skelton, of the conservative think tank Renewal, said he thought a more sophisticated and complex approach was needed now. He said: \"1950s England should not be our model.\"\n\nHe suggested more streaming in schools could be effective, and he endorsed the comments of the new minister for skills, Robert Halfon, who has said apprenticeships should be more highly valued and more could be done to improve vocational and technical training, such as that provided by university technical colleges.", "PC Willis said he held onto the van to stop it toppling over a bridge\n\nA police officer held on to a van to stop it falling as it teetered on the edge of a motorway bridge.\n\nThe driver was trapped inside when PC Martin Willis arrived at the scene on the A1(M) in Yorkshire.\n\nWriting on Twitter, he said he grabbed on to the vehicle to stop it \"swaying in the wind\".\n\nPC Willis, known as Motorway Martin to his followers, said he couldn't \"begin to describe [his] relief\" when firefighters arrived.\n\nA view from below the bridge shows the van's precarious position\n\nThe van ended up in the precarious position when it came off the road near the border between North and West Yorkshire.\n\nPosting on Twitter, PC Willis described how he tried to stabilise the vehicle with the driver still trapped inside.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Motorway Martin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nPC Willis was praised by colleagues for his swift action.\n\n\"Your superman cape isn't in this photo though! Must have come off in the fracas!,\" PC Adam Pace‏ tweeted.\n\nPC Willis he said he was relieved to see West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue arrive at the scene", "While meeting a group of Muslim Rohingya refugees, Pope Francis referred to them by name for the first time on his Asian visit.", "A couple who have been engaged for 30 years can finally marry after a £1m lottery win.\n\nTony Pearce, 66, and Deb Gellatly, 58, from Southend, have never been able to afford the cost of a wedding.\n\nThe Lotto raffle prize means they can clear their debts and finally get married.", "Last updated on .From the section World Cup\n\nEngland have been drawn with Belgium, Panama and Tunisia in Group G at next year's Fifa World Cup in Russia.\n\nGareth Southgate's men will begin their tournament against Tunisia on Monday, 18 June (19:00 BST) in Volgograd.\n\nThey will then face World Cup debutants Panama in Nizhny Novgorod on 24 June (13:00 BST) before playing top seeds Belgium four days later in Kaliningrad (19:00 BST).\n\nRussia play Saudi Arabia in the opening game in Moscow on 14 June (16:00 BST).\n\nHolders Germany are in Group F with Mexico, Sweden and South Korea while five-times winners Brazil are in Group E alongside Switzerland, Costa Rica and Serbia.\n\nThe 2018 tournament takes place in 12 stadiums across Russia between 14 June and 15 July.\n• None All the groups and fixtures\n• None 'If England don't qualify from the group, it's time to pack it in'\n• None A guide to the grounds hosting games in Russia\n• None Find out more about the 32 teams who qualified\n\n\"We need to find out more about Tunisia and Panama as we haven't been tracking them,\" Southgate told BBC Radio 5 live.\n\n\"We know everything about Belgium. I think that will capture the imagination back home as they have so many players in our league. They have probably the best group of players they've ever had.\n\n\"My experience of tournaments is you need to get a result in all three matches. In the past we've assumed we'll be in certain rounds but we need to make sure we get out of our group.\"\n\nWho got the hardest draw?\n\nThere is not one group that obviously stands above the rest as being the toughest.\n\nIn terms of ranking positions, Group B looks the most difficult.\n\nEuropean champions Portugal, ranked third in the world, have been drawn with 2010 World Cup winners Spain as well as Iran - who went unbeaten in 10 Asian qualifying matches - and Morocco, who topped an African group that featured Ivory Coast.\n\nGroup F also looks tricky for the reigning champions. Germany, who beat Argentina 1-0 in the 2014 final in Brazil, will likely face three robust examinations against Mexico, Sweden and South Korea as they try to retain the title for the first time since Brazil did so in 1962.\n\nResurgent Brazil - thrashed 7-1 in the 2014 semi-final in Belo Horizonte - have also been handed what looks like a quietly exacting group.\n\nAlongside Neymar's Brazil in Group E are Switzerland, Costa Rica and Serbia while Lionel Messi and his Argentina team-mates play debutants Iceland - who reached the quarter-finals of Euro 2016 - Croatia and Nigeria.\n\nEngland will know all about Belgium, given the large number of their squad who play in the Premier League. Chelsea's Eden Hazard and Kevin de Bruyne of Manchester City are both enjoying superb seasons so far while Manchester United striker Romelu Lukaku recently became the country's leading all-time top scorer.\n\nEngland have not lost to Belgium in their past 11 meetings - and their only defeat against them in 21 games was in 1936.\n\nThe Three Lions have met Tunisia twice before, drawing a friendly in 1990 and beating the North Africans in their opening game of the 1998 World Cup in France, a match Southgate remembers well.\n\n\"It was a fantastic day as a player to play in a brilliant occasion, our fans made an incredible atmosphere that day,\" the former defender said of the game in Marseille that England won 2-0.\n\n\"It's nice to be able to relive that.\"\n\nTunisia coach Nabil Maaloul says he \"knows all about\" England's players and when asked about whether he was happy to be in the same group as them, he said: \"Yes, and we will win.\"\n\nEngland have never met Central America country Panama and won't be familiar with their players with only three of their current squad playing in Europe.\n\nThe Panamanians sealed their place at a first World Cup at the expense of the USA when they controversially defeated Costa Rica 2-1, with Gabriel Torres' header for their first goal not appearing to cross the line.\n\nPick the order teams will finish in England's group\n\nEngland's possible route to the final\n\nIn summary, reaching the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on 15 July is not going to be easy.\n\nIf England top their group, their path to the final could see them come up against Colombia, Brazil, France and then Germany.\n\nIf Southgate's side finish second then it could be Poland, Germany, Spain and then Brazil in the final.\n\nIf you are viewing this page on the BBC News app please click here to vote.\n\nBBC Sport's chief football writer Phil McNulty: England can have no excuses if there is a repeat of the embarrassment of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, when they failed to progress from the group phase.\n\nManager Gareth Southgate will understandably publicly exercise caution about the group with Belgium, Tunisia and Panama - but privately he and the Football Association will surely regard this as a highly satisfactory outcome.\n\nThere was certainly no need for FA chairman Greg Clarke to repeat the cut-throat gesture predecessor Greg Dyke delivered when England were drawn against Italy, Uruguay and Costa Rica before the last World Cup in Brazil.\n\nBarring surprises, the final group game against Belgium in Kaliningrad is likely to decide the group winners - and this will clearly be the toughest assignment for Southgate and his team.\n\nBelgium coach Roberto Martinez has an intimate knowledge of the Premier League from his time at Wigan Athletic and Everton, while their outstanding generation of players has a heavy top-flight influence, including two performers of undoubted world class in Manchester City's Kevin de Bruyne and Chelsea's Eden Hazard.\n\nTunisia, England's opponents in their opening game in Volgograd on Monday 18 June, are ranked 27th in the Fifa rankings, and will be heavy underdogs while a meeting with Panama, ranked 56th and at their first World Cup, should hold no fear.\n\nEngland's immediate fate appears to hang on that meeting with Belgium but Southgate will surely be confident of qualifying from Group G.\n\nHow far will England travel during the group stage?\n\nEngland will be based in the village of Repino, which is about 30 miles from St Petersburg (number 8, above). From there they will travel 930 miles to and from Volgograd (10) to play Tunisia at Volgograd Arena and then 600 miles to Nizhny Novgorod (3) for their game against Panama.\n\nFinally, it's a 500-mile trip to Kaliningrad (9) for their final Group G game against Belgium.\n\n\"Travel wise, the way tournaments are now, you've got to be adaptable, but our kick-off times are decent as well,\" added Southgate.\n\nIn total, England's players will travel approximately 4,000 miles during the group stage, compared to the 4,400 they covered in Brazil.", "The claim: US President Donald Trump will not benefit from a Republican tax plan that has been passed by the US senate - and he might even have to pay more.\n\nReality Check verdict: It is difficult to see how the president would have to pay more under the proposed tax plan.\n\nMr Trump has pushed hard for the tax cuts, saying it is a \"once-in-a-generation chance\" for the nation.\n\nAt the same time, he has said that for him - personally - the new tax plan is not good news.\n\n\"This is going to cost me a fortune, this thing, believe me,\" he told his supporters in St Charles, Missouri, on Wednesday. \"Believe me, this is not good for me.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Donald J. Trump This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHe is the first president in more than four decades not to publicly release his tax returns while running for office.\n\nBut from what we know about the structure of his businesses, Mr Trump actually stands to benefit from his party's tax plan.\n\nDaniel Shaviro, a taxation professor at NYU's Law School, points to aspects of the Senate tax bill that would help the president.\n\nFirst, there are changes in the estate tax and lowering the so-called \"pass-through\" rates on businesses.\n\nThe \"pass-through\" tax rates affect income derived from partnerships and companies that are known as limited liability.\n\nThe president owns hundreds of these kinds of businesses and would benefit from a redesign of this tax code.\n\nThe repeal of the alternative minimum tax would also be hugely beneficial to Mr Trump, say analysts.\n\nIn the end, said Mr Shaviro, the president would find himself in a dramatically different situation, one that many other US taxpayers would envy.\n\nMr Shaviro said the president would come out better than many people in the US.\n\n\"A 28-year-old associate with a New York City law firm will pay taxes at a higher rate than he will,\" said Mr Shaviro.\n\nOne area where Mr Trump could find himself out of pocket is the Republican proposal to eliminate a federal income tax deduction for state and local taxes.\n\nBut it may be a small price for him to pay in light of the other goodies in the tax plan.", "Republicans are hurrying to pass tax reform - leaving uncertainty about some provisions in the bill\n\nRepublicans are rushing to pass the biggest revamp of the US tax code in decades.\n\nAnd despite promises to simplify the code and eliminate special interest loopholes, the bill is packed with targeted goodies.\n\nWhat makes it into a final compromise between the House bill and the Senate bill remains to be seen.\n\nIn the meantime, here are some provisions you may have missed as lawmakers rush to finalise a plan.\n\nSenator Lisa Murkowski attached a piece of legislation to the tax plan that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, located in her home state of Alaska.\n\nA man holds a sign during a 2005 rally to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from drilling\n\nSecuring Senator Murkowski's support for the bill was critical after she broke with Republicans earlier this year on a healthcare repeal effort.\n\nThe House and Senate bills allow families to save money for education in tax-privileged accounts for children \"at any stage of development\" - including those carried in the womb.\n\nThat's a provision designed to appeal to pro-life members of Congress.\n\nThe bills would do away with a range of privileges enjoyed by sports teams, such as the tax-free status given to professional football leagues.\n\nThe House bill also strikes at tax-privileged financing for sports stadiums and a perk related to purchases of college athletics tickets.\n\nUnder current law, nonprofits - including churches and schools - cannot participate in political campaigns and retain their tax-free status.\n\nSome groups, including evangelical churches, have chafed at that rule.\n\nThe House bill moves to reduce that risk, allowing nonprofits to make political statements, assuming they incur minimal expense and are made \"in the ordinary course of the organisation's business\".\n\nThe Senate bill widens the range of wine producers eligible for tax credits, among other special rules for the beer and wine industry.\n\nProduction of kombucha - fermented tea that contains small amounts of alcohol - gets a special call-out for exemption from certain taxes, thanks to an amendment introduced by a Colorado senator.\n\nThe Senate bill would exempt firms that manage private jets from having to pay federal excise tax - one of the fees charged on ticket sales of commercial flights.\n\nThe Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2012 said private jet services were subject to the tax, but it has since been re-examining how to treat those payments.\n\nThe Senate bill allows firms to expense \"certain costs\" of replanting citrus plants - a win for growers in states such as Florida, where crops have been marred by disease.\n\nThe citrus industry has been hurt by a disease that affects the trees\n\nFlorida lawmakers tried to secure this kind of perk in 2016 as a standalone measure.\n\nCurrent law limits how big a stake private foundations can hold in for-profit companies to discourage the creation of fake foundations.\n\nThe Senate bill removes those limits, provided the business meets certain requirements such as donating all profits to charity.\n\nPolitico reported the perk was a priority for Newman's Own, which sells food items including pasta sauce and salad dressing. It is just one example of the pet projects in the bill.\n\nUnder the Senate proposal, teachers can deduct up to $500 in classroom purchases - at least through 2025.\n\nThe perk was introduced in 2002 by Republican Senator Susan Collins, who holds a key vote in passing the bill. It was extended - and doubled - after its elimination in the House proposal.\n\nDuring his campaign for president, Donald Trump pledged to eliminate this controversial benefit, which provides managers of companies - including private equity firms - a lower tax rate on money received for overseeing investments.\n\nBut the perk stands, although the House bill would require that the investment be held for at least three years to qualify for the lower rate, which was intended to encourage \"long-term\" capital investments.", "Police were confronted by a crowd on Kingsland High Street in Dalston\n\nEight police officers were injured after being confronted by a crowd in Dalston, east London, on Friday evening.\n\nIt came after a bus passenger was found not to have a valid ticket by police officers supporting TfL inspectors.\n\nThe officers sustained facial injuries including cuts and bruises and two were taken to hospital with concussion.\n\nTwo teenage girls and an 18-year-old man were arrested over the incident on Kingsland High Street.\n\nA 15-year-old girl was arrested on suspicion of fare evasion and assault on a police officer.\n\nThe man and a 16-year-old girl were held on suspicion of assaulting a police officer.\n\nThe officers taken to hospital have since been discharged.", "Rhythmical Mike is a successful performer - but says his schooldays were \"a nightmare\"\n\n\"You've got this - the whirlwind that you're in - is the beginning of something wonderfully new - for you.\"\n\nRhythmical Mike, a 24-year-old East Midlands poet, performs his work to pupils at Lovers' Lane Primary school in Newark, Nottinghamshire.\n\nIt's an area where many children face big challenges and, according to a new State of the Nation report from the Social Mobility Commission, their educational and career prospects are too often limited from the outset.\n\nIt ranks all 324 local authorities in England in terms of the life chances of someone born into a disadvantaged background and it debunks the notion of a simple North-South divide.\n\nInstead, it says, there is a \"postcode lottery\" with \"hotspots\" (shown in orange on the map below) and \"cold spots\" (shown in blue) found in all regions.\n\nThe report highlights a \"self-reinforcing spiral of ever growing division\", with children in some areas getting a poor start in life from which they can never recover.\n\nSorry, your browser cannot display this map\n\nMap created with Carto. If you can't see the map, tap here.\n\nWest Somerset sits at the bottom of the league table, with average wages less than half those in the best performing parts of London.\n\nThere are some surprises, with wealthy areas such as West Berkshire, Cotswold and Crawley performing badly for their most vulnerable residents.\n\nThe report explains that wealthy areas can see high levels of low pay, with poorer young people at risk of being \"somewhat neglected\", particularly if they are scattered around isolated rural schools\n\nConversely, some of the most deprived areas are \"hotspots\", providing good education, employment opportunities and housing for their most disadvantaged residents.\n\nThese include London boroughs with big deprived populations such as Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham.\n\nIn Kensington and Chelsea half of disadvantaged teenagers make it to university, but the figure for the same group in Barnsley, Hastings and Eastbourne is just 10%.\n\n\"London and its hinterland are increasingly looking like a different country from the rest of Britain,\" says Alan Milburn, who chairs the Social Mobility Commission.\n\n\"It is moving ahead, as are many of our country's great cities.\n\n\"But too many rural and coastal areas and towns of Britain's old industrial heartlands are being left behind economically and hollowed out socially.\"\n\nLarge variations were also found within Scotland and Wales, although the data is not directly comparable with that for England, says the report.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"Not many opportunities\": People in the town of Newark share their experiences\n\nThe East Midlands is the English region with the worst outcomes for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, says the report - and within the East Midlands, Newark and Sherwood is the worst performing local authority.\n\nIn Newark, only 43% of children are ready for school when they start Reception, compared with 52% nationally, the research finds.\n\nAnd by adulthood only 21% are in professional or managerial roles, compared with 51% in Oxford.\n\nMike, real name Mike Markham, has been a poet for about six years, running his own company and playing at festivals, supporting stars like Rizzle Kicks and Russell Brand.\n\nFor him, school was a really negative experience. He feels he failed there.\n\n\"It was a nightmare,\" he says, but believes overcoming his early difficulties helped him succeed later in life.\n\n\"Anybody can achieve anything,\" is his message to the children.\n\nHe believes that, despite class structures, the world is changing.\n\n\"I think you've just got to be driven, you've got to be inspired you've got to be inspiring.\"\n\nEfforts to improve social mobility need to start early, says the report\n\nThe children themselves have big ambitions.\n\n\"I want to be a boxer. I want to get to the highest level and be a professional,\" says one boy.\n\n\"I want to be a heart surgeon and to do that I am going to have to get into the best universities there are and I've just got to try and pass all my exams,\" says a girl.\n\nBut head teacher Jenny Hodgkinson says too many parents are caught between low pay and rising living costs and are working so hard simply to put food on the table, that they often lack time and energy to focus on their children's schooling.\n\n\"There's a lot of challenges facing families at the moment,\" she says.\n\n\"In terms of working more than one job, people with low income aren't time rich.\n\n\"They want to do the best for their children and they work ever so hard but they don't always have the resources to do what they need to.\"\n\n\"It can be difficult trying to earn a living in this town,\" says parent Sian Mclachlan.\n\nIn the town centre, one young woman complained of few opportunities for young people.\n\n\"If there's a good job going it will be gone within a week or so,\" she adds.\n\n\"I've got job security,\" says one young man. \"But I could be doing a lot more. I took better money where I should have gone to college - but you're not really pushed in this area.\"\n\nThe school is making great efforts to improve children's mental health, resilience and self-esteem, along with extra reading support and individual mentoring.\n\nIt is working to draw in families, with classes to improve parents' basic skills which can help improve attitudes to education and boost their children's attendance.\n\nMs Mclachlan says workshops on CV writing, job interviews and money management are also on offer.\n\nBut the report warns of \"mind-blowing inconsistency\" in efforts to improve social mobility.\n\n\"Tinkering around the edges will not do the trick,\" says Mr Milburn.\n\n\"The analysis in this report substantiates the sense of political alienation and social resentment that so many parts of Britain feel.\"\n\nHe wants \"a new level of effort to tackle the phenomenon of left-behind Britain\" and urges the government to increase spending on regions that most need it.\n\nFor example, estimates suggest that the North of England is £6bn underfunded compared with London.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Alan Milburn: \"Your chances of getting on really depend on where you're born and where you live\"\n\nEducation Secretary Justine Greening said the findings underlined \"the importance of focusing our efforts in more disadvantaged areas where we can make the biggest difference\".\n\n\"We are making progress. There are now 1.8 million more children in good or outstanding schools than in 2010. Disadvantaged young people are entering universities at record rates and the attainment gap between them and their peers has narrowed.\n\n\"We are also boosting salaries through the introduction of the National Living Wage, creating more full-time, permanent jobs and investing £9bn in affordable housing. Taken together, this won't just change individual lives, it will help transform our country into a fairer society.\"", "Rusty, a one-year-old cat, was deliberately mutilated and left on the doorstep of its owner's home\n\nThe so-called Croydon cat killer is now believed to be responsible for killing and mutilating five cats in the Northampton area after two more deaths emerged.\n\nPolice released details of three cat deaths between August and last weekend, but have confirmed two further cases.\n\nThe unnamed cats were found in Duston.\n\nPolice said the five deaths were now being treated as part of a Metropolitan Police investigation looking into hundreds of killings across England.\n\nThe Met and animal charity Snarl (South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty) believe more than 400 animals have been killed in the same manner since 2015.\n\nThe five Northampton cats were all dismembered in a similar way - with their heads cut off - leading police and the charity to believe they are the work of one person.\n\nThe animals were then left for the owners or members of the public to find.\n\nThe latest cat death has prompted Northamptonshire Police to issue advice to owners, which includes keeping all cats and rabbits indoors at night.\n\nThe Met began investigating a series of \"gruesome\" killings, which initially began in the Croydon area in 2015, after Snarl raised concerns.\n\nThe suspect initially became known as the \"Croydon cat killer\".\n\nThe death of Taz, whose body was found in his owner's Hertfordshire garden, is one of many linked to the same killer\n\nTony Jenkins, co-founder of Snarl, believes the same person has now claimed the lives of hundreds of cats and rabbits across England, and may well travel as part of his or her work.\n\nThe Met launched Operation Takahe to investigate the links between animal deaths and in September experts at a new forensic lab in Surrey began re-examining some of the corpses for new evidence.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Trump's former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has admitted lying to the FBI about his dealings with Russia.", "An Egyptian lawyer has been sentenced to three years in prison for saying that women who wear ripped jeans should be raped in punishment.\n\nThe lawyer made the remarks on a TV panel show in October, during a debate on a draft law on prostitution.\n\n\"Are you happy when you see a girl walking down the street with half of her behind showing?\" he said.\n\nHe added: \"I say that when a girl walks about like that, it is a patriotic duty to sexually harass her and a national duty to rape her.\"\n\nMr Wahsh said that women who wore revealing clothing were \"inviting men to harass them\", and said \"protecting morals is more important than protecting borders\".\n\nThe prosecutor brought charges against Mr Wahsh after a public outcry.\n\nThe National Council for Women's Rights condemned the remarks, saying they were a \"flagrant call\" for rape, in violation of \"everything in the Egyptian constitution\".\n\nThe council has now filed a complaint about the statement to the Supreme Council for Media Regulation about the broadcast which aired on 19 October.\n\nMr Wahsh has previously called the Holocaust \"imaginary\" and declared himself a proud anti-Semite.\n\n\"If I see any Israeli, I will kill him,\" he said during a separate TV panel show.\n\nIn October last year, Mr Wahsh was involved in a TV studio brawl with a cleric, after the cleric suggested women should not necessarily have to wear a headscarf.", "Israel launched surface-to-surface missiles at a military installation outside the Syrian capital Damascus overnight, Syrian state TV reports.\n\nThe attack caused damage but two missiles were intercepted, it added.\n\nThe Israeli military has not confirmed it carried out the strike.\n\nUK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights earlier reported explosions near Damascus, which it said were caused by a suspected Israeli missile attack.\n\nThe extent of the damage is not yet clear although the TV report spoke of \"material losses\" at the base.\n\nHead of the Syrian Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, told the AFP news agency the strike destroyed an arms depot - but his group did not know who it belonged to.\n\nIsrael has hit weapons sites before, in a bid to prevent arms being transferred to Syria's Lebanese ally Hezbollah. Arms convoys in particular have been singled out by the Israeli air force.\n\nAccording to the Syrian Observatory the attack took place near El-Kiswah, a few miles south of Damascus.\n\nLast month the BBC revealed a claim that Iran was building a permanent military base near the town.\n\nA series of satellite images showed construction at the location of the alleged base, which was made known to the BBC by a western intelligence source.\n\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously warned that Israel would not allow Iran to establish any military presence in Syria.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mr Milburn said Brexit meant ministers were unlikely to have the energy to tackle \"one of the biggest challenges\" facing the UK\n\nAll four members of the board of the government's Social Mobility Commission have stood down in protest at the lack of progress towards a \"fairer Britain\".\n\nEx-Labour minister Alan Milburn, who chairs the commission, said he had \"little hope\" the current government could make the \"necessary\" progress.\n\nThe government was too focused on Brexit to deal with the issue, he said.\n\nThe government said Mr Milburn's term had come to an end and it had already decided to get some \"fresh blood\" in.\n\nThe commission is charged with monitoring the government's progress in \"freeing children from poverty and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential\".\n\nIn his resignation letter to Theresa May, published in The Observer, Mr Milburn said he did not doubt her \"personal belief\" in social justice, but he saw \"little evidence of that being translated into meaningful action\".\n\nHe said individual ministers, such as the education secretary, had shown a deep commitment to social mobility.\n\nBut it had \"become obvious that the government as a whole is unable to commit the same level of support\".\n\nNeither, according to the former Labour minister and his colleagues on the board who include a former Conservative education secretary.\n\nTheir frustration demonstrates the extent to which Brexit is all-consuming for the government.\n\nLeaving the EU is taking up so much time, energy and effort that there is little capacity for anything else to get done.\n\nEven on an issue which is a personal priority for the prime minister.\n\nMr Milburn, a former health secretary, took up his role at the commission in July 2012, under the coalition government led by David Cameron and Nick Clegg.\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, he said divisions in Britain were becoming wider - pointing to the ongoing squeeze on wages.\n\nThe government lacked the \"bandwidth\" to tackle social division while also dealing with Brexit, he said, describing his task as being like \"pushing water uphill\".\n\nMr Milburn said Education Secretary Justine Greening had been a \"champion for the cause\" and had wanted him to stay in post - which Ms Greening, who also appeared on the show, would not be drawn on.\n\n\"He has done a fantastic job, but his term had come to an end and I think it was about getting some fresh blood into the commission,\" she said.\n\nShe denied the government lacked the will to tackle inequality, but admitted more needed to be done.\n\nIn a report published last week, the commission said economic, social and local divisions laid bare by the Brexit vote needed to be addressed to prevent a rise in far right or hard left extremism.\n\nIt said London and its commuter belt appeared to be a \"different country\" to coastal, rural and former industrial areas, with young people there facing lower pay and fewer top jobs.\n\nThe resignations come as Mrs May, who entered Downing Street in July 2016 promising to tackle the \"burning injustices\" that hold back poorer people, faces questions over the future of senior minister Damian Green - who is effectively her second in command - and is under pressure as Brexit talks continue.\n\nIn an interview in the Sunday Times, Mr Milburn said: \"There has been indecision, dysfunctionality and a lack of leadership.\"\n\nTheresa May pledged to \"make Britain a country that works for everyone\" when she became PM\n\nThe government said it was making \"good progress\" on social mobility and focusing on disadvantaged areas.\n\nIt said it had already told Mr Milburn it planned to appoint a new chair and would hold an open application process for the role.\n\nIt said it was committed to fighting injustice \"and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to go as far as their talents will take them\".\n\nIt highlighted its increase of the national living wage, cuts in income tax for the lowest paid and doubling of free childcare in England.\n\nThe process of appointing a new chairperson and commissioners would begin as soon as possible, it added.\n\nThe other board members standing down include deputy chair of the commission and Tory former education secretary Baroness Shephard.\n\nPaul Gregg, a professor of economic and social policy at the University of Bath, and David Johnston, the chief executive of the Social Mobility Foundation charity, are also leaving.\n\nShadow cabinet office minister Jon Trickett said the resignations came as \"no surprise\".\n\n\"As inequality has grown under the Tories, social mobility has totally stalled,\" he said.\n\n\"How well people do in life is still based on class background rather than on talent or effort.\"\n\nMr Milburn said he would be setting up a new social mobility institute, independent of the government.", "It's a jungle out there - especially in the world of finance, where it helps to tell your bear markets from bull markets and narwhals from unicorns.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mobile phone footage shows the scene after the crash\n\nFive men were hit by a car after an \"altercation\" between two groups of people in the early hours, police have said.\n\nOccupants of the vehicle argued with a number of people in Stockwell Road, Brixton, shortly before several pedestrians were hit, the Met said.\n\nThe injured men, aged between 23 and 42 years, were taken to hospital.\n\nNone were in a critical condition, Scotland Yard said, as it appealed for witnesses to come forward.\n\nThe crash is not being treated as terror-related.\n\nEmergency Services were called to Stockwell Road at about 03:00 BST, police said\n\nVideos released on social media show the aftermath of the incident.\n\nAn abandoned Volkswagen Golf was found near the scene, and a number of occupants made off on foot, police said.\n\nThe car remained at the scene on Saturday morning\n\nEmergency services were called to Stockwell Road, near the junction of Sidney Road, at 03:00 BST.\n\nNo arrests have been made and Stockwell Road remains closed between Brixton and Stockwell.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Five demonstrations were planned to coincide with the AfD convention on Saturday in Hanover, said reports\n\nSeveral people have been hurt in clashes between police and anti-fascist demonstrators in the city of Hannover.\n\nProtesters were trying to blockade the far-right Alternative for Germany's first conference since it entered parliament after September's elections.\n\nOnce the delayed conference began, delegates elected Alexander Gauland as co-leader along with Jörg Meuthen.\n\nBoth hardliners, their election suggests the party is continuing its march further to the right.\n\nGeorg Pazderski, the party's regional head in Berlin and a relative moderate, failed to get delegates' backing for the leadership.\n\nAfD won 12.6% of the vote in Germany's federal elections in September, becoming the third biggest force in the Bundestag after the centre-right and social democrat SPD.\n\nThey had never entered the federal parliament before but are now eyeing a real chance of becoming Germany's main opposition party.\n\nIf Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat alliance agrees a coalition deal with Martin Schulz's social democrats, AfD with 94 MPs would become the biggest non-government party.\n\nWith temperatures near freezing, Hanover police used water cannon, batons and pepper spray to clear a path for the 600 delegates.\n\nOne demonstrator's leg was broken after he chained himself to a barricade, while an officer was hit on the hand by a flying bottle.\n\nTen protesters were taken into custody.\n\nA total of five demonstrations were scheduled in the northern city on Saturday. Some 6,000 people joined a pro-immigration rally in the city centre and another rally called by trade unions was expected to draw thousands later.\n\nWhen the conference got under way an hour late, Mr Meuthen hailed delegates for helping the party achieve national success within five years of being founded.\n\nHe said the party was attracting support from voters put off by the other parties' \"pathetic childish games\" amid an ongoing struggle to form a coalition government.\n\nThe party has veered to the right since its inception as an anti-euro force, promoting anti-immigration and anti-Islam policies in its election campaign.\n\nBut this sharp turn has created tension within its own ranks, with former co-leader Frauke Petry quitting within days of the election.\n\nThe delegates on Saturday confirmed the AfD's rightward trajectory, backing Mr Gauland, the leader of the parliamentary party, for the co-leadership.\n\nMr Gauland, who has pledged to stop \"the invasion of foreigners\" into Germany, said he had \"allowed my friends to convince me to step in\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Post-war politics of Germany: A history of division and unity\n\nDelegates defeated a motion to install Mr Meuthen as the AfD's only president,\n\nThey are also due to elect a new executive board to decide the ideological direction of the party and debate policy motions.", "Tenants typically spend more than a quarter of their monthly salary before tax on rent, official figures show, but there are wide regional variations.\n\nThey paid an average of 27% of their gross salary to their landlord in England in 2016, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows.\n\nThe picture varies across the country. In London, tenants spent nearly half (49%) of their salary on rent.\n\nIn northern England, this falls to just under a quarter of salary (23%).\n\nGiven the proportion of salary being spent on rent, a campaign is aiming to ensure regular rent payments are included in tenants' credit records.\n\nTenants in the South East of England, East of England and the South West all paid more of their salary on rent than the average across England.\n\nIn areas of Wales, the proportion of salary spent on rent ranged from 18% to 29%, according to the ONS data, which does not cover Scotland and Northern Ireland.\n\nTenants are more likely to be young and at a greater threat of getting into debt that they struggle to repay than many homeowners.\n\nWhile the cost of servicing a mortgage has fallen since the financial crisis, the cost of renting in some parts of the country has risen sharply.\n\nA campaign is being conducted aiming at ensuring credit rating agencies take regular rent payments into account on an individual's credit profile, given that such a large proportion of salary is being spent on rent.\n\nThis is being led in the House of Lords by Lord Bird, the founder of the Big Issue magazine, which is sold on the streets by homeless people.\n\nHe said it was unfair that mortgage applicants were unable to rely on rent payment history as proof that they would be safe to lend to when buying a home.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, he said that the situation was another example of how many people on lower incomes faced higher costs than the better off.\n\nLord Bird is the founder of the Big Issue\n\nHe said that there was a chance that those with a chequered payment history could be excluded from products or even a place to live, and solutions needed to be found for that problem.\n\nThere was also no clear-cut examples across the world of such a system of rent being considered by credit reference agencies working well.\n\nThe government has argued that new technology should allow rental payment history to eventually be used as evidence to lenders of a good record of repayments.\n\nHowever, Lord Bird said: \"Many people in the rented sector may not have the skills or the digital profile to do this. Something needs to be done for the mass of people.\"\n\nHe told the BBC that it was a \"terrible situation\" that so much of the UK's wealth was tied up in property, rather than businesses.\n\nWhere can you afford to live? Try our housing calculator to see where you could rent or buy This interactive content requires an internet connection and a modern browser. Do you want to buy or rent? Use the buttons to increase or decrease the number of bedrooms: minimum one, maximum four. Alternatively, enter a number into the text input How much is your deposit? Enter your deposit below or adjust the deposit amount using the slider Return to 'How much is your deposit?' This calculator assumes you need a deposit of at least 5% of the value of the property to get a mortgage. The average deposit for UK first-time buyers is . How much can you pay monthly? Enter your monthly payment below or adjust the payment amount using the slider Return to 'How much can you pay monthly?' Your monthly payments are what you can afford to pay each month. Think about your monthly income and take off bills, council tax and living expenses. The average rent figure is for England and Wales. Amount of the that has housing you can Explore the map in detail below Search the UK for more details about a local area What does affordable mean? You have a big enough deposit and your monthly payments are high enough. The prices are based on the local market. If there are 100 properties of the right size in an area and they are placed in price order with the cheapest first, the “low-end” of the market will be the 25th property, \"mid-priced\" is the 50th and \"high-end” will be the 75th.", "William Kerr was spotted in Ipswich town centre following a media appeal\n\nA murderer who absconded from an open prison has been arrested.\n\nWilliam Kerr, 56, an inmate at HMP Hollesley Bay, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, went missing at about 15:00 GMT on Friday.\n\nSuffolk Police launched a manhunt after he failed to return to a rendezvous point in Ipswich where he had been released for a few hours.\n\nKerr, also known as Billy, was jailed for life in 1998 for the murder of Maureen Comfort in Leeds.\n\nShe was found strangled to death in a cupboard at her flat.\n\nMaureen Comfort was found strangled to death in 1996\n\nSuffolk Police, which had advised members of the public not to approach Kerr, said he was apprehended after a member of public spotted him in the centre of Ipswich.\n\n\"Officers attended immediately and he was taken to Martlesham Police Investigation Centre pending his transfer back to the prison system,\" the force said.\n\n\"Suffolk Police would like to thank everybody who reported potential sightings of him during his absence.\"\n\nIn April 2015, Kerr absconded from a bail hostel in Hull, sparking a major police hunt and an appeal on BBC Crimewatch.\n\nHe was arrested in the Waterloo area of London at the end of April 2015.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Bryan Singer has been filming Bohemian Rhapsody in the UK\n\nProduction on the new Freddie Mercury biopic has been suspended so director Bryan Singer can deal with \"a personal health matter\".\n\nThe film, titled Bohemian Rhapsody, will tell the story of the late Queen frontman's life.\n\nTwentieth Century Fox told the BBC work had been temporarily halted \"due to the unexpected unavailability\" of Singer.\n\nThe director's representative said it was \"a personal health matter concerning Bryan and his family\".\n\nA statement added: \"Bryan hopes to get back to work on the film soon after the holidays.\"\n\nBrian May, pictured with Freddie Mercury in 1984, is among the film's producers\n\nBoth Singer and a family member are believed to be suffering from health problems. There's no information about the nature of his illness.\n\nA spokesman for the film studio said: \"Twentieth Century Fox Film has temporarily halted production on Bohemian Rhapsody due to the unexpected unavailability of Bryan Singer.\"\n\nFilming has been taking place in the UK, with Mr Robot actor Rami Malek in the lead role.\n\nThe movie is still expected to be released in December 2018 as planned.\n\nAs well as directing, Singer is listed as a co-producer, alongside Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor, among others.\n\nSinger's past directing credits include The Usual Suspects, four X-Men movies and Superman Returns.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. After Flynn's guilty plea, what next for the Russia investigation?\n\nSpecial Counsel Robert Mueller just dropped the hammer. Again.\n\nOn Friday it was Michael Flynn's turn \"in the barrel\", to borrow a line from Trump confidant Roger Stone. The former national security adviser pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about December 2016 conversations he had with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak and pledged to \"fully co-operate\" with Mr Mueller's ongoing investigations.\n\nMr Flynn has admitted he misled the FBI about his discussions regarding new sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration following evidence of alleged meddling in the 2016 election.\n\nThere had been hints this was coming, after word last week that Mr Flynn's defence lawyers had stopped co-operating with the Trump legal team. The president's own scattershot behaviour on Twitter this week could also have been a key tell, like a trick knee acting up before a big storm.\n\nSo why is this being billed as a major development in the ongoing investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to Russia? Let us count the ways.\n\n1) Trump's inner circle has been breached\n\nIt is difficult to overstate the significance of this felony plea deal. Mr Flynn was a close adviser and confidant of Mr Trump throughout the 2016 presidential race. He was a surrogate for the candidate on television and enjoyed a prominent speaking role at the July Republican National Convention. He had a pivotal role in Mr Trump's presidential transition.\n\nThe role of national security adviser in the White House, which Mr Flynn assumed upon Mr Trump's inauguration, is one of the most senior positions in any administration, responsible for being the key conduit between the sprawling US military and intelligence bureaucracies and the president. It is a post that has been held by the likes of Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.\n\nMr Trump was so partial to Mr Flynn that he was praising him as a \"wonderful man\" who had been \"treated very, very unfairly by the media\" just days after firing him.\n\nNow Mr Flynn could be going to jail - and, more importantly, could be sharing damaging information about the Trump inner circle he inhabited for so long.\n\nAccording to the \"Statement of the Offense\" filed by the special counsel's office, Mr Flynn is testifying that he had contact with Trump transition team officials before and after his fateful December 2016 conversation with Ambassador Kislyak. \"Members of the transition team,\" the document relates, \"did not want Russia to escalate the situation after the Obama administration imposed new sanctions on the Russian government\".\n\nThese conversations came more than a month after Mr Trump had won the presidency. Mr Flynn had already been announced as the national security adviser in the incoming White House - a top post in the president's inner circle.\n\nThe next big question is who exactly were the unnamed senior members of the presidential transition team. Some US news outlets are naming Jared Kushner and former Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland. Others seem to indicate it was Mr Trump himself. Eventually, Mr Flynn - and Mr Mueller - will have to lay their cards on the table.\n\nMr Flynn's assertions about his conversations with the transition team run directly counter to statements made by Mr Trump in a February press conference in which he said Mr Flynn was acting against orders when he reached out to Mr Kislyak.\n\nIn fact the White House said at the time that the president dismissed Mr Flynn as national security adviser because he lied to Vice-President Mike Pence about his Russian contacts. The true nature of Mr Flynn's conversations with Mr Kislyak first came out thanks to leaks to the press of information gleaned from government surveillance of Mr Kislyak.\n\nIf Mr Flynn has evidence corroborating his account of December contacts with the Trump transition team - which was headed by Mr Pence himself - the White House's explanation for its handling of the Flynn situation, denials of knowledge and all, starts to crumble.\n\nMr Flynn appeared in court in front of Judge Rudolph Contreras\n\nAnyone in the president's inner circle who told the FBI or Mr Mueller's investigators that they weren't privy to Mr Flynn's activities, when there is evidence that they knew, would be open to another round of charges of lying to the FBI.\n\nThe White House response, at least so far, seems to be that Mr Flynn is a lying liar who lies.\n\n\"The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year,\" White House lawyer Ty Cobb wrote in a press statement. \"Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr Flynn.\"\n\n4) Mr Mueller could be building an obstruction of justice case\n\nDust off that old political saw that \"it's not the crime, it's the cover-up\". While Mr Flynn's contact with the Russian ambassador is questionable, given that he was undercutting Obama administration policy efforts, it is probably not illegal.\n\nWhat is illegal, however, is obstruction of justice. Former FBI Director James Comey has testified that on 14 February - the day after Mr Flynn was sacked - Mr Trump urged the director to back off his investigation into Mr Flynn during a private Oval Office meeting.\n\nIf the president knew that the ongoing law-enforcement inquiry would discover Mr Flynn had been acting under orders - either by the president or a member of his transition team - that could be the kind of motive that would help support an obstruction of justice charge.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. How Michael Flynn became entangled in Russia probe\n\n5) Only the tip of the iceberg?\n\nThere were a lot of rumours and allegations floating around about Mr Flynn before Friday's plea deal news. The special counsel's office was reportedly looking into Mr Flynn's Obama-era work as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was scrutinising his 2015 trip to Russia, paid for by the Kremlin-backed RT network, and his undisclosed lobbying on behalf of Turkish government interests.\n\nThe charge brought against him, however, was solely related to his December 2016 phone conversations with Mr Kislyak. Although it comes with a possible five-year prison sentence, Mr Mueller hardly threw the book at the former national security adviser. Is this all there is?\n\nMr Mueller is primarily tasked with investigating possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Mr Flynn was a senior adviser to and advocate for Mr Trump's presidential bid. Does the relative modesty of the charges against Mr Flynn indicate he may be offering information directly relevant to this inquiry?\n\nMr Flynn's plea deal is just one piece of a much larger puzzle the special counsel office is trying to solve.\n\nIn October Mr Mueller indicted former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, a top aide with White House ties, on money laundering charges predating their involvement with the Trump campaign.\n\nHe also struck a plea deal with former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who told prosecutors he lied about his own contacts with Russians.\n\nEach move is distinct and not directly related - at least not yet. A some point we are going to learn whether Mr Mueller is building a larger case against the Trump campaign out of these legal moves - or that the sum total of his efforts is nibbling around the edges.\n\nAs the president likes to say, stay tuned.", "The family of a teenager who died after he was hit by a car on a motorway said they are \"completely heartbroken\".\n\nSamuel Berkley, 14, was found on the hard shoulder of the M67 in Hyde, Greater Manchester, in a critical condition at about 17:25 GMT on Friday.\n\nHe had been struck by a BMW and later died in hospital. The driver stopped at the scene and spoke with police.\n\nSamuel's family said he was a \"fun, outgoing and friendly boy\" and a \"talented footballer\".\n\nHe lived at home with his parents in Denton and was described as having \"many friends\" at Audenshaw School, where he studied.\n\nThe teenager had started playing for Hattersley FC and recently became an uncle to his brother's new daughter.\n\nPolice had to shut the motorway for several hours\n\nThe motorway was shut for several hours on Friday while officers carried out investigations.\n\nSgt Lee Westhead, from Greater Manchester Police, said officers were working to \"uncover how this happened and piece together the moments before the collision\".\n\nHe appealed for witnesses to come forward.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "David Dearlove claimed Paul Booth was injured when he fell out of bed\n\nA man who swung his toddler stepson by the ankles and smashed his head into a fireplace has been been jailed for a minimum of 13 years.\n\nDavid Dearlove, 71, murdered 19-month-old Paul Booth at their home in Stockton-on-Tees in October 1968.\n\nPaul's brother Peter, who was three years old when he witnessed the attack after he crept downstairs for a drink, went to police in 2015.\n\nDavid Dearlove was convicted of murder and three child cruelty charges\n\nThe inquest into Paul's death in 1968 recorded an open verdict.\n\nBut in 2015, Peter went to the police after seeing a photo on Facebook of his little brother sitting on Dearlove's knee.\n\nHe said as a three-year-old he had seen Dearlove, now of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, swinging Paul round their living room and witnessed the boy's head striking the fireplace.\n\nPaul Booth was 19 months old when he died\n\nDuring the trial, Dearlove insisted Paul suffered the fatal head injury when he fell out of bed onto a concrete floor, although he told police when he was arrested in 2015 that the toddler collapsed in the living room.\n\nHe claimed he changed his story because he had forgotten the events of 1968.\n\nThe court heard Dearlove had been violent towards Peter and Paul as well as their sister Stephanie Marron who also accused him of cruelty, saying he punched her and pulled her down the stairs.\n\nPaul Booth had suffered bruising less than a month before his death\n\nA mannequin was used to show jurors how Paul Booth's injuries were inflicted\n\nHome Office pathologist Mark Egan demonstrated how the toddler could have died by swinging a doll by the ankles and banging its head on the surface of the witness box, causing some of the 10 men and two women of the jury to weep.\n\nHe also said he believed it would have taken separate blows to cause the \"z-shaped\" skull fracture on the side of Paul's head.\n\nDearlove was also convicted of three child cruelty charges.\n\nSentencing, Mr Justice Males told him: \"You were a young and no doubt immature man.\n\n\"You were also a cruel man and you made the lives of those three young children a misery.\"\n\nDearlove swung Paul Booth by his ankles, smashing the toddler's head against the living room fireplace\n\nThe Crown Prosecution Service said it had not been able to exhume Paul's body as burial records had been lost, with the case relying on the documents prepared for his inquest at the time.\n\nIn a statement after the verdict, the Booth family said Dearlove's actions \"not only physically killed Paul but also destroyed his memory\".\n\n\"He was buried into an unmarked grave the location of which remains unknown and he was not spoken about for many years.\"\n\nDet Insp Mark Dimelow, from Cleveland Police, said the murder investigation had been \"challenging due to its historic nature\".\n\n\"I want to pay tribute to Paul's family and other witnesses who provided such an emotive testimony and I praise their bravery in having to relive events from 50 years ago,\" he added.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester United ruthlessly punished defensive errors to become the first side to win a league game at Arsenal since January in one of the matches of the season so far.\n\nJose Mourinho's side were reduced to 10 men late on when Paul Pogba was sent off for a dangerous tackle and they were aided by a stunning goalkeeping display by David de Gea throughout.\n\nBut they did telling damage early on when Antonio Valencia pounced on a loose Laurent Koscielny pass to drill the opener, before Jesse Lingard side-footed a second after robbing Shkodran Mustafi to link smartly with Romelu Lukaku and Anthony Martial.\n\nThe strikes meant United had scored as many goals in 11 minutes as they had in eight away fixtures against the Premier League's so-called 'big six' clubs.\n• None What happened in the Premier League on Saturday?\n• None Watch: Pogba hopes injuries will cause Man City to slip up\n\nAn end-to-end first-half, which delivered 20 shots on goal, saw Arsenal hit the woodwork through Alexandre Lacazette and Granit Xhaka during a frenetic goalmouth scramble, before De Gea denied Hector Bellerin, Sead Kolasinac, and spectacularly prevented a Lukaku own goal.\n\nThe Spaniard could do nothing about Lacazette's simple finish on 48 minutes but after Lingard had hit the post in a breathless start to the second half, De Gea produced an unbelievable double save from Lacazette and Alexis Sanchez.\n\nHis heroics maintained the advantage during an opening 15 minutes to the second half which saw United have just 26% of possession, but Lingard was on hand to tap in a third on 63 minutes after good work by Pogba.\n\nPogba was dismissed when he mistimed a tackle to effectively stamp on the back of Bellerin's leg, and the Frenchman will now miss the Manchester derby next Sunday.\n\nBut his moment of woe felt merely a footnote in a riveting encounter which moved second-placed United to within five points of their city rivals.\n\nMourinho has garnered a reputation for defensive set-ups on trips to the league's traditional big clubs but his side went after their hosts early on, hounding possession high up the pitch to great effect.\n\nTheir opening two goals owed much to slack use of possession by the home side but needed clinical finishes, notably when Martial cleverly flicked into the path of Lingard for the second.\n\nThe reward for their adventure secured a first win for Mourinho in his past 12 away fixtures against the 'big six'.\n\nHe could be forgiven for not enjoying seeing Arsenal fire 33 shots at goal and said he later told De Gea - who equalled the league record for saves in a match - he had witnessed the \"best from a goalkeeper in the world\".\n\nArsene Wenger also labelled De Gea \"absolutely outstanding\" but while his brilliance points to United riding their luck at times, they were impressive in offering a balance between defence and attack.\n\nNemanja Matic was consistently well placed, never more so than when blocking a goal-bound Aaron Ramsey shot with the score at 2-0.\n\nAnd the presence of the defensive midfielder once again freed Pogba, who in bursting into the box to lay on Lingard's second now has five assists this season, surpassing his four in the previous campaign.\n\nWhether Mourinho will choose to live so dangerously against Manchester City next week remains to be seen, but those watching from a neutral stance would be fortunate to see a game as good as this one again.\n\nWenger spoke of a \"good performance\" and \"impeccable attitude\" from his players but he will be familiar with this feeling.\n\nOnly twice in 18 meetings with Mourinho has he got the upper hand and the charitable way in which his side gave away goals will not sit well.\n\nKoscielny's cross-field pass and Mustafi's indecision ultimately left a mountain to climb if Arsenal were to record a 12th straight home win in the league.\n\nThe ease with which Pogba sauntered into the area to create a third just as Arsenal were seeking to build on Lacazette's goal also smacked of weakness.\n\nArsenal can justifiably feel aggrieved by a penalty shout that was turned down late on when Danny Welbeck was caught by Matteo Darmian but by that point, the 10 men of United had finally managed to calm a frantic affair.\n\nWenger's side drop out of the Champions League qualification places into fifth. They were superb going forward at times and will scratch their heads as to how they only found the net once but, not for the first time, it was at the other end where their shortcomings showed up.\n\nIt was a magnificent game of football. We have talked about Manchester City going forward but what we saw at times from Manchester United was equally as good.\n\nThey were just breaking, too quick and too sharp with their pace and their power. They went after Arsenal, put them under pressure and wanted to get behind their defence, and Arsenal could not cope with their one- or two-touch football.\n\nIt was great to watch, and Manchester United were too good and too clever for Arsenal. Superb.\n\nI think De Gea is the best goalkeeper in the world. He was brilliant.\n\nI think it is a red card. It looks terrible. It was dangerous and he was endangering his opponent.\n\nArsenal manager Arsene Wenger said: \"David de Gea was man of the match by a clear mile.\n\n\"We played well but there is nothing more frustrating when you have that quality of performance and nothing to show for it at the end. The attitude was impeccable until the end. But you cannot make the mistakes we made at the beginning.\"\n\nManchester United manager Jose Mourinho said: \"I loved the way my team played and fought. Arsenal played in some period amazing attacking football - creating difficulties for us.\n\n\"But I have to say that my players deserve all the great words. I don't know so many in English but amazing, phenomenal, fantastic. They deserved three points.\"\n• None Arsenal suffered their first home league defeat since losing 2-1 to Watford in January.\n• None Manchester United have won more Premier League away games at Arsenal than any other side (8).\n• None David de Gea made 14 saves in the game, the joint-most in a Premier League game since 2003-04, when Opta started collecting this data. Vito Mannone and Tim Krul have also made 14 saves in a fixture.\n• None Paul Pogba has scored four goals and assisted six more in his past nine Premier League appearances.\n• None Alexandre Lacazette has scored more home goals in the Premier League this season than any other player (six).\n• None Paul Pogba received his first red card in league competition since May 2013 for Juventus v Palermo\n\nArsenal will follow Thursday's Europa League home game against BATE Borisov (20:05 GMT) by visiting Southampton on Sunday, 10 December (13:30). Manchester United need a point at home against CSKA Moscow to progress in the Champions League on Tuesday (19:45) and then host Manchester City on Sunday, 10 December (16:30).\n• None Offside, Arsenal. Alexandre Lacazette tries a through ball, but Nacho Monreal is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Aaron Ramsey (Arsenal) right footed shot from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Mesut Özil.\n• None Attempt saved. Nacho Monreal (Arsenal) header from the centre of the box is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Mesut Özil with a cross.\n• None Laurent Koscielny (Arsenal) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt blocked. Alexandre Lacazette (Arsenal) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Mesut Özil.\n• None Attempt blocked. Alex Iwobi (Arsenal) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Nacho Monreal.\n• None Attempt blocked. Alexis Sánchez (Arsenal) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Aaron Ramsey.\n• None Attempt missed. Danny Welbeck (Arsenal) header from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Aaron Ramsey. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Donald Tusk was speaking after talks with the Irish prime minister in Dublin\n\nThe UK's offer on Brexit must be acceptable to the Republic of Ireland before the negotiations can move on, the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, has said.\n\nMr Tusk was speaking after talks with the Irish prime minister in Dublin on Friday.\n\nHe said: \"The UK's future lies - in some ways - in Dublin\".\n\nThe European Union has said \"sufficient progress\" must be made on the Irish border before negotiations can move on.\n\n\"The Irish request is the EU's request,\" Mr Tusk said.\n\n\"I realise that for some British politicians this may be hard to understand.\n\n\"But such is the logic behind the fact that Ireland is the EU member while the UK is leaving.\n\nThe Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) said the EU was 'a family which sticks together'\n\n\"This is why the key to the UK's future lies - in some ways - in Dublin, at least as long as Brexit negotiations continue.\"\n\nIn a press conference with Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Leo Varadkar, Mr Tusk said that the UK's decision to leave the EU had created \"uncertainty for millions of people\".\n\n\"The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is no longer a symbol of division, it is a symbol of cooperation and we cannot allow Brexit to destroy this achievement of the Good Friday Agreement,\" he said.\n\nThere is a lively debate about whether the Irish government has a veto over the decision - to be taken at the summit of EU leaders on 14 and 15 December - about whether Brexit talks can move to the next phase.\n\nCall it what you like, but now Donald Tusk has told us for sure that the rest of the EU will do what Ireland decides.\n\nThere was a put-down for British politicians who may find it \"hard to understand\" why this is important.\n\nBut there was some comfort for the British government: Donald Tusk shares their view that the issue of the border can only be solved when there is more clarity about the UK's future relationship with the EU.\n\nAnd Mr Tusk ended by saying \"the key to the UK's future lies - in some ways - in Dublin.\" Is this a hint that the Irish government's suggestion that Northern Ireland remain in the EU's single market and customs union is the answer for the whole of the UK?\n\nOr is it just a reminder that Dublin is first among equals among the remaining 27 members of the EU?\n\n\"The UK started Brexit and now it is their responsibility to propose a credible commitment to do what is necessary to avoid a hard border.\n\n\"As you know, I asked Prime Minister May to put a final offer on the table by the 4th of December so that we can assess whether sufficient progress can be made at the upcoming European Council.\n\n\"Let me say very clearly. If the UK offer is unacceptable for Ireland, it will also be unacceptable for the EU.\"\n\nThe taoiseach thanked Mr Tusk for the solidarity demonstrated by all EU partners and called the EU \"a family which sticks together\".\n\nHe said he was optimistic that a deal could be achieved by Monday.\n\nHowever, he said any UK offer must indicate how a hard border can be avoided and avoid the risk of regulatory divergence.\n\nOn Thursday, the DUP's Sammy Wilson said any attempt to \"placate Dublin and the EU\" could mean a withdrawal of DUP support at Westminster.\n\nHe was responding to reports of a possible strategy to deal with the Irish border after Brexit.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Any attempt to 'placate Dublin and the EU' could jeopardise DUP support for Tories\n\nThe story suggested that British and EU officials could be about to seek separate customs measures for Northern Ireland after the UK leaves the European Union.\n\nThe DUP struck a deal with Prime Minister Theresa May's government in June, agreeing to support Tory policies at Westminster, in return for an extra £1bn in government spending for Northern Ireland."], "link": ["http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42446865", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42438750", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42437530", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-42443604", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42441362", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42432516", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42425960", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/commonwealth-games/42437441", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42435886", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-42425343", 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\ No newline at end of file